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Language: en
If we want to avoid wars, we have to
have serious deterrence because our
enemies need to understand we will use
selective, focused, overwhelming
military power when we are facing
threats like an Iranian nuclear weapon.
I'm not seeing the peace through
strength. I'm saying permanent
militarism and permanent war through
strength. Do you ever ever hold our
adversaries responsible or do you just
don't think we have any adversaries? The
easiest kind of nuke to make out of
uranium is a simple gun type nuke. Are
you saying that Mossad fabricated it?
That's what you're claiming. Here's the
offer. Take it or leave it. Zero
enrichment. Full dismantlement. The
Iranians told the IAEA, "You can inspect
any five out of 10 facilities here. Cart
Blanch, go ahead." And they did and
found nothing. Experts in in Iran's
nuclear program, including David
Albbright, who actually saw the archive,
went in there, wrote a whole book on it,
and there's a lot of detail about how
Iran had an active nuclear weapons
program called the Mad to build five
nuclear weapons. I have to refute
virtually everything he just said, which
is completely false. I mean, really
everything. There was There was not one
thing I said that was true. Just one
thing. I mean, Iran is a nation over
there somewhere. You got that part
right. 22 years of working on Iran, and
I got that right. But do you know the
population of 92 million? Okay, give me
a pound, dude. There we go. Agreement.
The following is a debate between Scott
Horton and Mark Dubowitz on the topic of
Iran and Israel.
Scott Horton is author and editorial
director of anti-war.com, host of the
Scott Horton Show, and for the past
three decades, a staunch critic of US
foreign policy and military
interventionism.
Mark Dubitz is a chief executive of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies,
host of the Iran Breakdown podcast, and
he has been a leading expert on Iran and
its nuclear program for over 20 years.
This is the Lex Freedman podcast. To
support it, please check out our
sponsors in the description and consider
subscribing to this channel. If you do,
I promise to work extremely hard to
always bring you nuanced, long- form
conversations with a very wide range of
interesting people from all walks of
life. And now, dear friends, here's
Scott Horton and Mark Dubitz.
Gentlemen. All right. It's great to have
you here. Uh let's try to have a nuanced
discussion slashdebate and uh maybe even
steel man opposing perspectives as much
as possible. All right. As it stands
now, there's a barely stable ceasefire
between Iran and Israel. Let's uh maybe
rewind a little bit. Uh can we first lay
out the context for this Iran Israel war
and try to describe the key events that
happened over the past two weeks? maybe
even the uh a bit of the deep roots of
the conflict. Sure. Like first of all,
thanks so much for having me on. Great
to be on with Scott. I know he and I
don't agree on a lot, but I certainly
admire the passion and and the
dedication to stopping wars. So that's
that's something we want to talk about.
So let's talk about how we got to this
war. So, President Trump comes into
office and immediately lays out that his
Iran strategy is maximum pressure on the
regime and he will not allow Iran have a
nuclear weapon and he and he makes that
clear consistently. I think made it very
clear during his first term made a clear
throughout his career and thus beguns
this process with the Iranians which has
kind of multiple tracks but the one that
Trump sees most interested in at the
time is the diplomatic track and he
makes it very clear from the beginning
in a sort of Oval Office remark. He says
the Iranians can either blow up their
nuclear program under US supervision or
someone's going to blow it up for them.
And even though, you know, at the time
we think Netanyahu is really trying to
push the president into a military
campaign, well, I'm sure we'll talk
about that throughout the podcast, the
president authorizes his lead negotiator
and close friend Steve Witkoff to begin
outreach to the Iranians and and thus
begun the Oman round. And it's Oman
round because it's taking place in Oman
with mediation efforts by the Omanis.
There are five rounds of negotiations
with the Iranians. And through the
course of those negotiations, the US
finally puts on the table an offer for
Iran. We'll talk about the details of
that. The Iranians reject that offer and
we're now into the sixth round which is
supposed to take place on a Sunday. Uh
on the Thursday before the Sunday, the
Israelis strike and they go after in a
rather devastating campaign over a
matter of now 12 days. They go over and
go after Iran's nuclear program, the key
nuclear sites. Um, going after weapon
scientists who are responsible for
building Iran's nuclear weapons program,
and also go after top IRGC, Islamic
Revolutionary Guard commanders as well
as top military commanders.
And yet, there's still this one site
that is the most fortified site. It's
called Foraux. It's an enrichment
facility. It's buried under a mountain,
goes about 80 m deep. It's encased in
concrete. It has advanced centrifuges
and highly enriched uranium. The
Israelis can do damage to it, but it's
clear it's going to take the United
States and our military power in order
to severely
degrade this facility. And Trump orders
the United States Air Force to fly B2
bombers and drop 12 massive Ordinance
penetrators, which are these 30,000
pound bombs on Fordo in order to, as he
said, obliterate it more realistically,
to severely degrade it. So that happens.
Um, and then he offers the Iranians, as
he's been offering all the way through,
you have an option. You can go back to
Oman. I told you Oman and you decided to
force me to go to Fordo but now we can
go back for negotiations
and he forces a ceasefire on the
Iranians gets the Israelis to agree and
that's where we are today like we're at
a as you say a tentative ceasefire that
just came into effect and we'll see now
if the Iranians decide to take President
Trump on his repeated offers join him in
Aman for another round of negotiations.
Scott, is there some stuff you want to
add to that? Sure. Well, he started with
uh January, right? Trump's second term
here and the maximum pressure campaign.
Essentially, as should be clear to
everyone now, all these negotiations
were just a pretext for war. Trump and
his entire cabinet must have known that
the Ayatollah is not going to give up
all enrichment. That is their latent
nuclear deterrent. Their posture has
been heavily implied. don't attack us
and we won't make a nuke. While
America's position was if you make a
nuke, if you start to, we'll attack you.
So, it was the perfect standoff. But
what happened was, and you might
remember a few weeks ago, there was some
talk about, well, maybe we could find a
way to compromise on some enrichment.
Maybe they could do a consortium with
the Saudis. Maybe there's some way that
we And then, nope, the pressure came
down. No enrichment. Zero enrichment.
But that's a red line. Everyone knows
that there's and even now uh it's
probably less likely than ever that
they're going to give up enrichment.
Sure, they bombed Porto, but they didn't
destroy every last centrifuge in that
place. And the Iranians are already
announcing that they're already begun
construction on another facility under a
taller mountain buried even deeper. And
you know, they figured out how to enrich
uranium hexaflloride gas, you know, what
20 years ago now. And uh they will
always be able to. And this is the
slippery slope that we're on with these
wars is in fact um I saw our friend here
on TV the other day as he almost pretty
much just implied there saying well now
Trump has to go in. You know we were
told it's just Israel doing it. Don't
worry. But then no Trump has to hit
Fordo or else now they'll break out
toward a nuclear weapon. So, in for a
penny, in for a pound, in for a ton, and
now once we bomb Fordo again and Natans
again and the new facility again, then
it'll be decided that no, as Benjamin
Netanyahu said the other day, you know
what would really solve this problem? If
we just kill the Ayatollah, then
everything will be fine. Then we'll have
a regime change. And then what? Then
we'll have a civil war with bin Laden
again in the catbird seat just like
George Bush put them in Iraq and Barack
Obama put them in Libya and in Syria and
we'll have Azeris and Belooki suicide
bombers and Shiite uh you know
revolutionaries and whoever all vying
for power in the new absolute chaos
stand. If you listen to the
administration and Mr. to do was they're
essentially just implying that like, oh
yeah, mission accomplished. We did it.
Their nuclear program is destroyed. Now
we don't have to worry about that
anymore. But that's not true. Now it
there's every reason to believe and we
don't know for sure. There's every
reason to believe that at least is much
more likely now that the Ayatollah will
change his mind about God changing his
mind and we'll say that actually maybe
we do need a nuclear deterrent. That's
really what it's been for this whole
time is a bluff. We have bullets in one
pocket, revolver in another. Let's not
you and me fight and escalate this
thing. It's the same position, by the
way, as Japan and Germany and Brazil.
Two of the three of those are under
America's nuclear umbrella, I admit. But
still, where they've proven they've
mastered the fuel cycle and they can
make nuclear weapons. But hey, since
nobody's directly threatening them now,
why escalate things and go ahead and
make atom bombs? That has been their
position the whole time because after
all, they could not break out and make a
nuke without everyone in the world
knowing about it. And that's why, Lex,
and I'm sure you can vouch for me on
this, if you've been watching TV over
the past few weeks, you'll hear Marco
Rubio and all the government officials
and all the Warhawks say, "Oh yeah, 60%,
60%. What do you think they need with
that 60%." Implying that, oh yeah, see,
they're racing toward a bomb. But you
see how they always just imply that.
They They won't come right out and say
that cuz it's a ridiculous lie. They've
been they could have enriched up to 90
plus% uranium 235 this whole time. The
reason they were enriching up to 60% was
in reaction to Israeli sabotage. First
of all, assassinating their nuclear
scientists and then their sabotage at
Natans. They started enriching up to 60%
just like they did in the Obama years to
have a bargaining chip to negotiate
away. Under the JCPOA, they shipped out
every bit of their enriched uranium to
France to be turned into fuel rods and
then shipped back into the country to be
used in their reactors. And so, they're
just trying to get us back in that deal.
It is an illusion. It is. And I don't
know exactly what's in this man's mind,
but it's just not true that they're
making nuclear weapons. And it has been
a lie of Benjamin Netanyahu and his lood
party regime and for that matter the
Kadima regime of Ahudmer before him that
this is a threat that has to be
preempted when in fact it never was
anything more than a latent nuclear
deterrent. Maybe a good question to ask
here is what is the goal for the United
States in Iran in relation to the
nuclear
uh Iran's nuclear program? What is the
red line here? Does Iran have this uh
need for a latent nuclear deterrent and
what what is the thing that's acceptable
to the United States and to the rest of
the world? What should be acceptable?
Yeah, L. So, there was a lot to unpack
there. So let's sort of just back up a
little bit. Let's talk about first of
all the regime itself. Islamic Republic
of Iran came into power in 1979. Um it
has been declared a leading state
sponsor of terrorism by multiple
administrations dating back to the
Clinton administration um by Obama, by
Biden, by Trump and it is a regime that
has killed and maimed thousands of
Americans, not not to mention obviously
uh hundreds of thousands of Middle
Easterners. Um it is a regime that has
lied about its nuclear program. It never
actually disclosed its nuclear sites.
All these sites were discovered by um
Iranian opposition groups, by western
intelligence agencies. And the
International Atomic Energy Agency,
which is the UN agency responsible for
preventing proliferation, has come out
again and again over many, many years in
reports, very detailed reports
describing Iran's nuclear weapons
program. Um, there have been multiple
attempts at diplomacy with with Iran.
I'm sure we're going to talk about it.
Scott mentioned the JCPOA, so we should
certainly talk about the JCPOA, which
was the 2015 deal that Barack Obama
reached with Iran. Um, but multiple
attempts to to actually get the Iranians
to negotiate away their nuclear weapons
program. I mean, it's worth mentioning
that if Iran wanted to have civilian
nuclear energy, there are 23 countries
in the world that have it, but they
don't have enrichment and they don't
have reprocessing. uh we we sign these
deals called the gold standard with the
South Koreans, with the Amiradis, with
others and we say if you want civilian
energy, you can have power plants, you
can buy your fuel rods from abroad, but
there's no reason to have enrichment or
plutonium reprocessing because those are
the key capabilities you need to develop
nuclear weapons. Now the five countries
that have those capabilities and don't
have nuclear weapons are Argentina,
Brazil, Holland, Germany, and Japan. And
I think it's the view of many
administrations over many years,
including many European leaders, that
that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
very different from those aforementioned
countries, because that it is been
dedicated to terrorism. It's been
killing Americans and other Westerners
and other Middle Easterners, and it is a
dangerous regime. You don't want to have
that dangerous regime retaining the key
capabilities and needs to develop
nuclear weapons. But I but I want to
kind of get back more to the present
mentioned this was around negotiations
out of Oman. Scott saying that President
Trump had said here's the offer. Take
her to leave it. Zero enrichment full
dismantlement. Well, in fact, that
wasn't the offer that was presented to
the Iranians at Oman. The offer was a
one-page offer and it said you can
temporarily enrich above ground. You've
got to render your below ground
facilities quote nonoperational and then
at some time in the future three four
years as Scott said there'll be a
consortium that'll be built not on
Iranian territory. It'll be a
partnership with the Saudis and the
Amiradis. It'll be under IAEA
supervision and that enrichment facility
will create fuel rods for your nuclear
reactors. So that was the offer
presented to Iran and that offer would
come with significant sanctions relief.
Billions of dollars that would go to the
regime. Obviously the economy there has
been suffering. The regime is has not
had the resources that it's had in the
past to fund its its what I call its
axis of misery, its proxy terror armies
around the world. And it was a good
offer. And I was shocked that Kame
rejected it. Um he did reject it. And I
think he rejected it because I think he
believed that he could continue to do to
President Trump what he had done to
President Obama, which is just continue
to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the
Americans at the table in order to
ensure that he could keep all these
nuclear facilities, all these nuclear
capabilities so that at a time of his
choosing when President Trump is gone,
he can develop nuclear weapons. Now, it
it is a bit interesting to say that Iran
has no intention to develop nuclear
weapons. and let let's examine the
nuclear program and and ask, does this
sound like a regime that's not
interested in building nuclear weapons?
So, they they built deeply buried
underground enrichment facilities that
they hid from the international
community and they didn't disclose.
They had an active nuclear warhead
program called Ahmad, which ended in
2003 formally when the United States
invaded Iraq. And we know that because
not only has that been detailed by the
IAEA, but actually Mossad in a daring
operation in Thran took out a nuclear
archive and brought it back to the West.
And then the IAEA, the United States and
the intelligence communities went after
this detailed archive went into it and
discovered that this supreme leader
Ayatoll
had an active program to build five
atomic warheads and was a very detailed
program with blueprints and designs all
of which was designed under Ahmad to
build a nuclear weapons program. So
again, it's it's interesting to say that
he doesn't have the intention to build
nuclear weapons when he actually had an
active nuclear weapons program. U and we
can talk about what happened to that
program after 2003 and there's a lot of
interesting details. So when you when
you combine the fact that he has an
active nuclear weapons program, he has
sites that are buried deep underground.
He has weapon scientists who whose who
come out of the Ahmad program and
continued to work on the initial uh
metallergy work and computer modeling
designed to actually begin that process
of building a warhead. And all of this
has been hidden from the international
community. He has spent estimates of a
half a trillion dollars on his nuclear
program uh in direct costs and in
sanctions costs. And one has to ask and
I think it's an interesting question to
compare the UAE and Iran, right? The UAE
signed the gold standard. They said
we'll have no enrichment capability or
reprocessing. They spent about $20
billion on that and it supplies 25% of
their electrical generation. Kame spent
a half a trillion and that program
supplies maybe 3% of their electrical
needs. In fact, they have a reactor that
they b they bought from the Russians
called Bucher. And there that reactor,
it's exactly what you'd want in a
proliferation proof reactor. They buy
fuel rods from the Russians. They use it
and they send the spent fuel back to
Russia so it cannot be reprocessed into
plutonium. So, I just think it's
important for your listeners to
understand just some of the technical
nuclear history here in order to unpack
this question of did Kam want nuclear
weapons? What was his goal here? And
then we can talk about was this the
right operation in order to for the
United States to order the B2 bombers to
strike these facilities in what again
was a limited operation as President
Trump has said and in order to drive the
Iranians back to the negotiating table
and finally do the deal that President
Trump has asked them to do since he came
into office in January. Yeah, that is
one of the fascinating questions whether
this operation midnight hammer increased
or decreased the chance that uh the Iran
will develop a nuclear uh weapon. Before
you ask any more questions, I have to
refute virtually everything he just
said, which is completely false. I mean,
really everything. There was there was
not one thing I said that was true. Just
one thing. I mean, Iran is a nation over
there somewhere. You got that part
right. All right. 22 years of working on
Iran and I got that right. But do you
know the population of Iran? 92 million.
Okay. So, first of all, they were trying
to buy a lightwater reactor from the
Europeans or the Chinese in the 1990s,
and Bill Clinton wouldn't let them. And
put tremendous pressure on China to
prevent them from selling them a
lightwater reactor, a turnkey reactor
that produces waste that's so polluted
with impurities that you can't make
nuclear weapons fuel out of it. By the
way, they never have to this day had a
reprocessing facility for reprocessing
plutonium, even their current plutonium
waste for their he from their heavy
water reactor at Bucher to make weapons
fuel out of that. They have no plutonium
route to the bomb under the JCPOA. Iraq,
not Bucher. There's a difference between
Iraq. Iraq is a Iraq is where they pour
concrete into the reactor and shut it
down. And the reason they poured
concrete under the JCPOA, not they, but
the Obama administration, he's right,
under the JCPOA poured concrete into
Kindria in order to prevent them from
using that reactor to reprocess
plutonium. So there's a distinction
between Iraq and Bucher. Scott's exactly
right. Busher is a reactor, a heavy
water reactor provided by the Russians,
as I described, for the generation of
electricity. It's proliferation proof.
Iraq has is the opposite. It's a heavy
water reactor that was built for a
plutonium pathway to nuclear weapons,
which is exactly why under the JCPOA,
they literally had to pour concrete into
the into the middle of it to prevent it
from reprocessing plutonia. I think
we're going to need uh a scientist to
come in here and split the difference.
Or maybe we need to uh go and look up
some IAEA documents cuz I don't believe
that Iraq ever had a reprocessing
facility for their plutonium waste. And
the deal under the JCPOA, the Russians
would come and get all their plutonium
waste, which the waste comes out all
polluted and not useful. You need the
reprocessing facility to get all of the
impurities to clarify. It could be that
I'm wrong about that, but I don't
believe that they ever had a
reprocessing facility at Iraq that they
could use to remove all those impurities
and then have weapons plutonium fuel as
the North Koreans do. So the Obama
administration was very clear under the
JCPOA, we are going to pour concrete
into the into the Iraq facility as as
Scott acknowledged because we are
concerned that Iraq can be used for
reprocessing plutonium for plutonium
pathway to a nuclear weapon can be used
but we don't know if it was used. Oh, we
know it never was. There never was any
reprocessing of weapons fuel there. But
there was concrete. I'm I'm happy to
there's no indication for your viewers
who are interested and not to plug my
own podcast so I apologize but it is a
very good podcast. I just recently had
David Albbright on my podcast who is
actually a physicist and a weapons
inspector and goes into a lot of detail
about the Iranian nuclear program.
Please listen to the podcast. Iran
breakdown by the way is the name of the
podcast. Yeah. And David's the president
of the Institute for Science and
International Security, by the way,
spent decades on this. And to his
credit, he was one of the deep skeptics
of the Bush administration's rush to war
with Iraq. And that's not true. He
vouched for claims that there were
chemical weapons in Iraq and later said
he was sorry for it. Again, I mentioned
the Bush administration's rush to war
based on their claims that Saddam was
building nuclear weapons. He did debunk
the aluminum tubes, though. He he he
debunked it and he was a deep skeptic
again of the of the Russia war in Iraq.
You know the argument today, Lex, which
I think is the more interesting argument
because there are very few people left
today who don't believe that the
Iranians were building the nuclear
weapons capability that gave them the
option to build nuclear weapons. I
already said that we we can debate we
can debate whether they had decided to
and and we I'm interested to hear
Scott's opinion on this, but the recent
intelligence that has come out that the
Iranian nuclear weapons scientists have
begun preliminary work on building a
warhead came out from where this
intelligence that came out who put that
int Israeli claims not verified by the
US and the Wall Street Journal anywhere
right let's talk about let's talk about
all of my list of reputations of all
your false claims can the Wall Street
Journal did verify this Lawrence Norman
to refute one time. Lawrence Norman
actually wrote a piece. This was during
the Biden administration. Um because the
Biden uh DNI had actually come out and
for the first time in their annual
threat assessment had removed a line
that said Iran is not working currently
working on developing any capabilities
that would put it in a position to to
actually deliver um a nuclear warhead.
And what be what became the Lawrence
Norman piece in the Wall Street Journal
was that there actually was initial work
done on metallurgy and on computer
modeling. And so those actually were
defined terms in section T of the 2015
JCPOA which defined weaponization in
that section. And metallergy and
computer modeling were some of the
initial steps. So that the DNI was very
concerned under Biden that these initial
steps meant that either Kame had given
the green lights or nuclear weapons
scientists in order to get ahead of the
boss so they could be in a position if
he decided to move forward on this were
in a position and their timelines were
therefore expedited. So it's
interesting. I mean, again, you've got
the DNI under Biden, you've got the CIA
director, John Ratcliffe, you've got
Israeli intelligence, you've got the
Wall Street Journal, and you've got the
IAEA asking questions of Iran on its
past weaponization activities. Why are
you denying us? Who's the dog that
didn't bark there? the current director
of national intelligence who issued her
threat assessment, Trump's director of
national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,
who issued her threat assessment in
February, that repeated the exact same
language that from the national
intelligence estimate of 2007 and that
the CIA and the NIE, the National
Intelligence Council have reaffirmed
repeatedly ever since then, which is
that Supreme Leader has not decided to
pursue nuclear weapons. He has not made
the political decision to pursue nuclear
weapons. She testified uh in fact in in
under oath in front of the Senate in
March. And then according to CNN and the
New York Times, there was a brand new
that uh uh assessment that was uh put
together the week before the attack uh
was launched reaffirming the same thing.
And at least in history, if you read it
in Harets, MSAD agreed with the CIA. I'd
like to just sort of quote CIA director
John Radcliffe because Scott brought
brought up the CIA and the intelligence
community. I think Radcliffe had a good
way of looking at this is and that he
said is, you know, when you're in the 99
yard line as a football team, you have
the intention to score a goal, quote
unquote. And what what he was what he
was actually pointing to is let's not
talk about this debate about whether
Kame had given the order or not given
the order because Kame knows that if he
gives an order, the US and Israeli
intelligence community will pick up on
that order and that will be the trigger
for strikes. What what Rackcliffe is
saying is that Kame had built the
nuclear weapons capability, he's at the
99 yard line and both the CIA and
European leaders, European intelligence
community has said for years that if
Iran has that capability and they're on
the 99 yard line, at that point it's
going to be too late to stop them once
that decision is made to to assemble the
final warhead, which by the way is the
final piece of what you need for a
deliverable nuclear weapon. That's not
true at all. Right. They have to resort
to a crude analogy about football yard
lines because they can't say the truth,
which is that they had zero weapons
grade uranium. They were not producing
it. They were trying to get the United
States back in the deal that they are
still officially within the JCPOA with
the rest of the UN Security Council
wherein they shipped all of their
enriched uranium stockpile out of the
country to France to be transferred to
fuel rods. their insistence was on their
continued ability to enrich uranium. And
so this goes to one of the things that
uh he at least sort of brought up that
deserves addressing. When Trump came
into power in 2017,
he decided on this Israeli influence
maximum pressure campaign and he said
the JCPOA was the worst deal in the
history of any time any two men ever
shook hands and all these kinds of
things in his hyperbolic way, which of
course made it very difficult for him to
figure out a way to stay in the thing or
to to compromise along its lines. Uh but
the fact of the matter is if he had just
played it straight and said, "Listen,
Ayatollah, we don't have to be friends,
but we do have a deal here, which my
predecessor struck with you, but I don't
like these sunset provisions, and I want
to send my guys over there and see if we
can figure out a way to convince you
that we really wish you'd shut down
commto together or this or that or the
other thing." And tried to approach them
in good faith. We talk about yard lines
and things. We had a JCPOA.
Okay. So toward peace, we were past the
50yard line. Donald Trump could have
gone to Tyrron and shook hands with the
Ayatollah. As Dick Cheney complained
that we had cold relations with Iran
back in 1998 when he was the head of
Allebertton and said, "We can do
business with these guys." Um, Donald
Trump could have gone right over there
and done business and instead he gave
into Netanyahu's lies in this ridiculous
hoax that they had uncovered all these
Iranian nuclear documents, which he
pretends is legit, where all they did
was recycle the fake Israeli forged
smoking laptop of 2005, which they lied
and pretended was the laptop of an
Iranian scientist that was smuggled out
of Iran by his wife and had all this
proof of a secret Iranian nuclear
weapons program on it. But every bit of
that was refuted, including the thing
about the warhead, he said, was refuted
by David Albbright and his friend David
Sanger in the New York Times that all
those sketches of the uh warhead for the
missile were wrong because when MSAD
forged the documents, they were making a
good educated guess, but they didn't
know that Iran had completely redesigned
the nose cone of their mid-range
missiles and had an entirely different
nose cone that would require an entirely
different warhead than that described in
the documents. and why would they have
been designing a warhead to fit in a
nose cone that they were abandoning? And
so that was refuted. David Albbright
completely discredited your claims
there, pal. And then uh they later
admitted that it was a CIA laptop. There
was no laptop. And they later admitted
Ali Hinonin admitted uh who was a very
hawkish uh uh one of the not director
but a high level executive at the
international atomic energy agency
admitted that that intelligence was
brought into the stream by the mujaheden
eculk communist terrorist cult that used
to work for the Ayatollah during the
revolution then turned on him and he
turned on them and kicked them out. Then
they went to work for Saddam Hussein
where they helped crush the Shiite and
Kurdish insurrection of 1991 and then
they became America. Donald Rumsfeld's
and Ariel Chiron's sock puppets and
later Ahoud Almer sock puppets when the
United States uh invaded Iraq and took
possession of them. They're now under
American protection in Albania. And
these are the same cooks who just a few
weeks ago, you might remember said,
"Look, new satellite pictures of a whole
new uh nuclear facility in Iran." Isn't
it funny how no one ever brought that up
again? Didn't bomb it. It was nothing.
It was fake. Just like before when they
said, "Hey, look, here's a picture of a
vault door." And behind that is where
the secret nuclear weapons program is.
Except turned out that vault door was a
stock photo from a vault company. It
meant nothing. And they had repeatedly
uh you know made claims that were
totally refuted. Just like I'm about to
refute his claim that they ever were the
ones who revealed for example Natants.
He was implying that Natans and K were
both buried and hidden until revealed I
think you said by dissident groups. That
is the mek sock puppets of the Israelis.
But it was your friend David Albbright,
not the Israeli MSAD through the MEK who
revealed Natant's facility. Ask him,
he'll fist fight you over it. He claims
credit. He was first and said, "This is
a facility." However, they were not in
violation of their safeguards agreement
with the IAEA. They were still 6 months
away from introducing any nuclear
material to that facility. And so when
it was revealed, they weren't in
violation of anything. And uh and then
on comm we had a huge fight about this
at the time. The party line came down in
from all the government officials and
the media that they had just exposed the
facility there. Comm is foro same thing.
Uh when in fact that wasn't true. The IA
the the Iranians had announced to the
IAEA that we have built a new facility
here and we are going to introduce
nuclear material into it within six
months. So here's your official
notification. and then a few days later
they just pretended to expose it when it
was the Iranians themselves who had
admitted to it in in uh going along with
their uh uh obligations under their
safeguards agreement. So it's just
completely wrong. Why do they bury him?
They buried them for protection because
clearly the Israelis have indicated
since the 1990s that they consider any
nuclear program in Iran to be the same
thing as an advanced nuclear weapons
program. You're hearing that today. for
them to have a nuclear facility at all
is is equivalent to them going ahead and
breaking out and making a nuclear
weapon. And so, of course, they know
that they have to have it buried to
protect it from Israel. That doesn't
mean that they are trying to get nukes.
It does mean, as I already said, that
they wanted to prove to the world that
they know how to enrich uranium and that
they have facilities buried deeply
enough where if we attack them, that
would incentivize them to making nukes
and then we would might be unable to
stop them without going all the way
toward a regime change, which they're
bluffing, basically betting that we
won't go that far considering how
gigantic their country is and how
mountainous and populous it is compared
to Iraq next door. Now, here's some more
things that he said that weren't true.
So, he said, "Iran has been killing
Americans all this time." Well, that's
almost always a reference to Beirut
1983, which you can read in the book by
Way of Deception by Victor Ostroski, the
former MSAD officer, that the Israelis
knew that they were building that truck
bomb to bomb the Marines with and
withheld that information from the
United States and said that's what they
get for sticking their big noses in. And
uh that is in the book by way of
deception by Victor Ostroski. And by the
way, the Israelis were friends with them
at with Iran at the time in uh all
through the 1980s. And it was just a
couple of years later when Ronald Reagan
sold Iran missiles and using the
Israelis as cutouts to do so when he
switched sides temporarily in the Iran
Iraq war. And so that's just and that
was in 1983. If Ronald re if Ronald
Reagan can sell a missiles a year or two
years after that, three years after
that, then surely the United States and
the Ayatollah can bury the hatchet from
that. And no one's ever even, I don't
believe, ever really proven that Tyrron
ordered that. It was a Shiite militia
backed by Iran that sort of proto
Hezbala that did that attack that killed
those Marines. Um, and if there's some
responsibility for then damn them, like
if there's direct responsibility for
that, not just their support for the
group, then damn them for that. But
that's still no reason in the world to
say that we can't get along with them
now when that was in the same year
Return of the Jedi came out. Okay. And
then uh the other one, and this is
always referred to, you'll see this on
TV news today. Anyone watching this,
turn on TV news and you'll hear them say
Iran killed 600 Americans in Iraq War
II. But that's a lie. There was a
gigantic propaganda campaign by Dick
Cheney and his co-conspirators David
Petraeus and Michael Gordon of the New
York Times, now at the Wall Street
Journal, where they lied and lied like
the devil for about five six months in
early 2007, that every time a Shiite set
off a roadside bomb, these new improved
copper cord enhanced uh uh they're
called EFPs, explosively formed
penetrators. Now, anytime that happened,
Iran did it, which is what George Bush
called shorthanding it. Yeah. In other
words, just implying the lie. What
they're saying is Iran backed Mktata
also
also who actually they were fighting the
whole war for him. He remains a powerful
kingmaker in that country this day. He
was part of the United Iraqi alliance.
And in fact, as long as we're taking a
long form here, he was the least Iran
tide of the three major factions in the
United Iraqi alliance in Iraq War II.
The other two major factions were Dawa
and the Supreme Islamic Council and they
had been living in Iran for the last 20
years. They're the ones who came and
took over Baghdad. Muttad als Shiite and
close to Iran, but he's also an Iraqi
nationalist and at times he allied with
the Sunnis and tried to in tried to
limit American and Iranian influence in
the country was more of an Arab and an
Iraqi nationalist. And the Americans
decided they hated him the most, not
because he was the most Iran tied, but
because he was willing to tell us and
them to to get the hell out. And America
was betting that if we backed the same
parties that Iran backed in Iraq War,
that they would eventually end up
needing our money and guns more than
they would need their Iranian friends
and co-religionists and sponsors next
door, which of course did not work out.
And America's had minimal influence in
supermajority Shiite Iraq ever since the
end of Iraq War II. And we can get back
later in the show to how Israel helped
lie us into that horrific war as well.
But the fact of the matter is it was not
Iranians setting off those bombs. And it
was not even Iranians making those
bombs. And I show in my book enough
already. I have a solid dozen sources.
Enough already. Thank you. I have a
solid dozen sources including uh Michael
Gordon's own colleague Alyssa Rubin at
the New York Times and many others where
they found these bomb factories in
Shiite Iraq. They were being made by
Shiite Arab Iraqis. And when they David
Petraeus was going to have a big press
conference and they laid out all the
components, all the reporters gathered
around and they started noticing that
the components said made in UAE, made in
Haditha, that is Iraq. In other words,
there was no evidence whatsoever that
these came from Iran. And then they
called off the press conference and
Steven Hadley, George Bush's second
secret uh national security adviser,
admitted that yeah, we didn't have the
evidence that we needed to uh present
that. And I also quote two one Marine
and one highle army intelligence officer
in there uh who were deeply involved in
Iraq war uh reconfirming that that there
was never any evidence that these bombs
were coming across uh from Iran or
especially that then even if they were
that that was at the direction of the
goods force or the Ayatollah. This was
all just a propaganda campaign because
Dick Cheney and David Petraeus were
trying to give George Bush a reason to
hit IRGC bases and start the war in
2007. And this sounds crazy, but there's
like four major confirming sources for
it. Dick Cheny's national security
adviser, David Wormser, who was the
author of the clean break strategy,
which we're going to talk about today.
David Wormser in 2007 was saying, "We
want to work with the Israelis to start
the war with Iran to force George Bush
to do an end run around George Bush and
force him into the war." And that was
reported originally by Steven Clemens in
the Washington note, but it was later
confirmed in the New York Times and by
the Washington Post reporter Barton
Gelman in his book Angler on Dick Cheney
that there was this huge this was the
end that they were going for was they
were trying so hard to force a war in
2007. And it was the commander of
Sentcom, Admiral Fallon, who said over
my dead body, we are not doing this. And
then a few months later, the National
Intelligence Council put out their NIE
saying that there is no nuclear weapons
program at all. And W. Bush complained
in his memoir lect that in in his story,
it's the Saudi king, his royal highness
Abdullah rather than um Ahoud Dolmer,
but he's saying, "I'm sorry, your
highness majesty. I can't attack Iran's
nuclear program cuz my own intelligence
agency says they don't have a military
program. So, how am I supposed to start
a war with him when my own intelligence
agencies say that? This is what Donald
Trump just did. Start it anyway. Had his
man Rubio say, "Well, screw the
intelligence. I don't care what it says.
We can just do this if we want to." So,
first, let me say on the cover of Enough
Already, devastating. Daniel Ellburg,
outstanding. Daniel L. Davis, essential
Ron Paul, you are respected by a very
large number of people. You have decades
of experience in this. Same thing with
Mark, extremely respected by a very
large number of people, experts. There's
a lot of disagreements here. and we're
going to unfortunately leave a lot of
the disagreements on the table for the
uh aforementioned nuclear scientists to
to deconstruct later. So let's not like
try to every single claim does not have
to be perfectly refuted. Let's just
leave it on the table the statements as
they stand and let's try to also find
things we kind of agree on and try I
know this might be difficult but to
steel man the other side that's the
thing I would love to ask you uh maybe
give Mark a chance to speak a little bit
but to to try to for both of you to try
to steal man the other side so people
who are concerned about uh Iran
developing a nuclear program can you
steal man that case and the same the
people I did in my opening statement
quite frankly I I'm I don't carry any
brief for the Ayatollah. I'm a Texan. I
don't give a damn about what some Shiite
theocrat says about nothing. Right? My
interest is the people of this country
and its future and what's true. And so I
don't mind telling you, even though the
Iranians never said, "We're building a
latent nuclear weapons capability."
That's clearly what they're doing is
showing that they can make a nuke, so
don't make me make a nuke. That has been
their position. Their position has not
been, "I'm making a nuke so I can wipe
Israel off the map." Their position has
been, "Look, if you guys don't attack
us, we could just keep this civilian
program the way it is." And again,
there's always the implication that
they're just building up this uranium
stockpile, but no, they're not. That was
in reaction to one, Donald Trump leaving
the deal in 2018. Two, the assassination
in December of 2020 of the Iranian uh
nuclear scientist Far Cazada or however
you say that, and then in April of 21,
the sabotage at Natans. And there's a
Reuters story that says right after they
sabotaged Natans, that's when the
Ayatollah decided let's enrich up to
60%. Which why stop 30% short of 90%
235?
It's because they're not even making a
threat. They're built they're making
like the most laten up threat a
bargaining chip to negotiate away.
They're trying to put pressure on the
United States to come back to the table.
That's not the same as racing to the
bomb. That's why Marco Rubio says never
mind the intelligence cuz the
intelligence says what I just said.
Yeah. Point made. Let's try let's try if
possible to keep it to like a minute and
two of back and forth. except you know
the problem is we're talking about
nuclear stuff which is all very
complicated and most people don't know
much about it which is what the war
party is relying on that people just
hear nuclear afraid and mushroom cloud
and and give the benefit of the doubt to
the hawks and so we got to get into the
details of this stuff details 100% but I
like the tension between two people with
different perspectives exploring those
details and the more we can go back and
forth the better and there's a lot of
disagreement on the table I personally
enjoy learning from the disagreement I
think that was a very long list of
claims that he made though where I felt
like I had to go down the list as much
as I could cuz there was a lot. I think
you addressed like maybe one or two
claims and it took 15 minutes. So that's
what I'm just commenting on. Let's do
one at a time. I like the tension of the
debate of back and forth. That's that's
all. Mark, do you want to do you want to
comment on stuff a little bit here?
Which pick pick whichever topic you want
to go with here. Yeah, there's a lot
there. So um just a couple things I
think that are worth your viewers
knowing because Scott's right. I mean
the nuclear physics is complicated and
it's also important. Um so the Iranians
have assembled about they say about 15
to 17 bombs worth of 60% enriched
uranium. And I think it's always
important for your listeners to
understand what does this all mean
enriched to 3.67% to 20% to 60% and then
to 90% weapons grade uranium like what
what does this actual process mean? Um
first of all obviously enriched uranium
is a key capability to develop a nuclear
weapon. It can also be used for other
purposes, civilian purposes and research
purposes. You can use it to power a
nuclear submarine. So let let's just if
you don't mind if I could just break it
down. That's fascinating. Yes. Yeah.
Just just I think it's again important
just to understand the the sort of
basics before we jump into the the
allegations and claims and counter
claims. So if you're going to enrich to
3.67%
enrich uranium um that's for civilian
nuclear power, right? But when you do
that, you've basically 70% of what you
need to get to weapons grade. Right? So
you you've done all the steps, 70% of
the steps in order to get to weapons
grade uranium. If you enrich to 20%, you
are now at 90% of what you need to get
to weapons grade uranium. Now why would
you need 20%, you may need it for
something like a research reactor,
right? And so medical isotopes. Iran has
correct. Iran has uh a tan research
reactor for medical isotopes. Now you
can by the way you can buy those
isotopes from abroad or you can or you
can produce them at home. If you're
going to enrich to 60%
right then you've done 99% of what you
need to get to weapons grade uranium and
then n% is quote weapons grade uranium.
By the way you can use 60% to actually
deliver a crude nuclear device. Um that
that has been done in the past but you
want to get to quote 90% that's that's
weapons grade uranium as Scott's
defining it. But just again clarify the
these huge stock piles of 60% that Iran
has accumulated right this 1617 bombs
worth of 60% is 99% of what they need
for weapons grade. So I I just wanted to
explain that. Yeah. But when you say
you're saying if you include the mining,
the refining of the ore into yellow
cake, the transformation of that into
uranium hexaflloride gas, the driving of
it in a truck over to the uh centrifuge
and then spinning it. This is where we
get this 90% number from, right? In in
place of 90% enriched uranium or or 80%
enriched uranium, it's 90% of the way on
some chart that includes picking up a
shovel and beginning to mine, right?
Like so again, just to clarify, I I just
think it's important to understand the
definition of terms um to get what once
you have 60% enrich uranium, you've done
99% of all the steps, including some of
the steps that Scott's talking about.
You've done 99% of what you need to have
weapons grade uranium. That's just
meaningless. Why is that meaningless?
Well, as I've already established
numerous times here under the JCPOA,
they shipped out every bit of their
enriched uranium stockpile. The French
turned it into fuel rods and then
shipped it back. That's the deal they're
trying to get the US back into and were
obviously clearly willing to do. And
again, the only reason they were
enriching up to 60% was to put the
pressure on the Americans to go ahead
and get back into the deal. And bad bet.
It gave him an excuse to bomb based on
the idea that people are going to listen
to him. Pretend that somehow that's 99%
of the way to the bomb when you're
including Yeah. driving to the mine and
mining it and converting it to yellow
cake and all these other things. I you
have a deliverable nuclear weapon. So
you need the weapons grade uranium. And
just to repeat, they have multiple bombs
worth of the 60% enriched uranium, which
again is 99% of the steps you need to
take for weapons grade. So they're
they're very close to to weapons grade.
It's that's 1% more that they need to do
to enrich to weapons grade. The second
aspect of a deliverable nuclear weapon
is obviously the delivery vehicle and
those are the missiles. And according to
the DNI and and other credible sources,
Iran has got the largest missile
infantry in the Middle East. um 3,000
missiles before the war began and uh at
least the ballistic missiles 2,000
capable of reaching Israel. So there's
no doubt that Iran has the ability once
they have the weapons grade uranium and
the warhead to fix that to a missile and
deliver that uh certainly to hit Israel,
hit our Gulf neighbors, hit southern
Europe. They also have a active
intercontinental ballistic missile
program, an ICBM program which
ultimately is designed not to hit the
Israelis or the Gulfies, but to hit
deeper into Europe and ultimately to
target the United States. So, so let's
just understand the missile program. I
think it's an important part of it. The
third leg of the stool and and Scott has
already alluded to this and we've had
some debate on this and I think we
should talk about it what it really
means in detail is you've got to develop
a warhead right or a crude nuclear
device. And according to estimates from
both US government sources and uh
nuclear experts, it would take about
four to 6 months for Iran to develop a
crude nuclear device. Right? This is
something that you wouldn't use a
missile to deliver, but you would use a
plane or a ship. uh and it would take
somewhere in the neighborhood of about a
year and a half to deliver or to develop
a warhead. And that's to affix to the
missile. So sort of the three legs of
the nuclear stool, right? The weapons
grade uranium, the missiles to deliver
it, and the uh and the warhead. So I
just want to sort of define terms so
that when we're having this big debate,
your listeners kind of understand what
we're talking about. If I can jump in
here on this point too and I'll turn it
back over to you, but I actually have a
bit of a correction to make for anyone
who's seen me on Pierce Morgan or Sager
and Crystal. I actually oversimplified
and made a mistake. I've been off of the
Iran nuclear beat for a little while
doing other things and um and so I'd
like to take this opportunity to clarify
and I'm going to try to clarify with
them on their shows too was um I have an
old friend of mine used to make nuclear
bombs, Gordon Prather, and I only just
found out that he died two years ago. uh
unfortunately he used to write for us at
anti-war.com and a brilliant uh nuclear
physicist and hbomb developer uh and he
had really taught me all about this
stuff and um so I'm not correcting
anything you said what what he said
essentially is right I maybe add a
little more detail the easiest kind of
nuke to make out of uranium is a simple
gun type nuke like they dropped on
Hiroshima was a little boy it's
essentially a shotgun firing a uranium
slug into a uranium target and that's
enough they didn't even test it. They
knew it would work. Uh it was so easy to
do to do the Hiroshima bomb. The
Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium implosion
bomb. It's virtually always plutonium
that's used in implosion bombs. Um and
and in miniaturized nuclear warheads
that can be married to missiles, right?
As opposed to a bomb you can drop out of
the belly of a plane. That's what he was
saying, right? So gun type nuke, you
can't put that on a missile. That is by
far the easiest kind of nuclear weapon
for Iran to make if they broke out and
made one, right? But it' essentially be
useless to them, right? What are they
gonna do? Drive it to Israel in a
flatbed truck, right? They they got no
way to to deliver that. They could drop
it as a Yeah, they could test it in the
desert and beat their chest, but
essentially that's all they could do. Or
you could drop it from a plane like we
did as as Scott said in with Hiroshima
Nagasaki. Yeah. Well, very slim chance
of Iranian heavy bombers getting through
Israeli airspace. But anyway, um, but to
make an implosion bomb, they would have
to do years worth of experiments unless
the Chinese or the Russians just gave
them the software or gave them the
finished blueprints or something, which
there's no indication of that
whatsoever. The only people who gave
them blueprints for a nuclear bomb was
the CIA. Remember Operation Merlin where
they just changed one little thing and
gave them nuclear bomb blueprints, but
the Iranians didn't take the bait. The
blueprints were given just just to
clarify, it's just interesting just in
the terms of the history of
proliferation. Um so Iran's initial
nuclear program right which is built on
centrifuges as Scott and I have been
talking about um that was actually given
to the designs of that were given to
them by Akan who was really the father
of the Pakistani nuclear program. Um and
he actually stole those designs from the
Dutch and handed it to the Iranians. He
also handed it to the North Koreans and
the Libyans and others. So they were
able to illicitly acquire this
technology or at least the blueprints
for this technology from the father of
the Pakistani bomb. So I think that's an
interesting point. But if you but it was
as I said earlier because Bill Clinton
clamped down on the Chinese and wouldn't
let them sell or anyone else wouldn't
let them sell them lightwater reactors.
So then they went to AQCon and bought
the stuff on the black market. Yeah. And
and they obviously bought heavy water
reactors from the Russians which they've
been using for electricity. Um I want to
just get to the the second thing. I
think it's just important for listeners
to know and then I want to get to JCPOA.
I was in the middle of saying though
when you're trying to make a uranium
implosion bomb or a plutonium implosion
bomb. It's a much more difficult task
than putting together a gun type nuke
takes an extraordinary amount of
testing. And that's why he repeated
probably unknowingly some false
propaganda about Iran having this
advanced testing facility. I think he
was implying, correct me if I'm wrong,
he was I'm pretty sure you're implying
at Parchin that they were testing these
implosion systems, but that's completely
debunked. It's completely false. What
they were testing, what they were doing
at Partin with that implosion chamber uh
um was making nano diamonds and the
scientist in charge of it was a
Ukrainian who had studied in the Soviet
Union at this uh military university
where they said, "Oh, see they study
nuclear stuff there." But that wasn't
his specialtity. His name was Dan Leno
and he was a specialist in making nano
diamonds. And that facility was vouched
by Robert Kelly in the Christian Science
Monitor. told um Scott Peterson of the
Christian Science Monitor that that
stuff was nonsense that that that
facility that implosion chamber could
not be used for in testing uh for
testing an implosion system for nuclear
weapons. And I know from Dr. Pray
they're telling me that when the
Americans were doing this and the
Russians too that they test all their
implosion systems outside and you have
to do it over and over and over again
with lead instead of uranium in the core
and then you take all this high-speed
X-ray film of the thing and it's this
huge and drawn out and incredibly
complicated engineering process. And
this is probably why the week before the
war, the CIA said, "Not only do we think
that they're a year away from having
enough nuclear material to make one
bomb, we think they're three years away
from having a finished warhead." That
must have been assuming that they would
try to make an implosion system that you
could put on uh in other words
miniaturize and put on a missile as
opposed in in other words skipping a gun
type nuke that would be useless to them.
So it's very important to understand
then that if if they have a uranium
route to the bomb, if they withdraw from
the treaty and kick out the IAEA
inspectors and and announce that now
we're making nuclear bombs, they can
either one race to a gun type nuke
that's essentially useless to them or
they can take their ponderous as time
trying to figure out how to make an
implosion system work. First of all, I'm
glad Scott knows about what's going on
at Partridge because the IAEA doesn't
and they've been asking the Iranians
That's not true. The Iranians told the
IAEA, "You can inspect any five out of
10 facilities here, cart blanch, go
ahead." And they did and found nothing.
Then they made up the lies about the
implosion chamber later. And the IAEA,
again, Robert Kelly is the American IAEA
guy, debunked that in the Christian
Science Monitor. All right. So, uh, I I
want to just again just put it out there
for your listeners. They they should
just Google Ahmad A program and they
should learn about the Ahmad program
because it's it's detailed in US
government documents, experts in in
Iran's nuclear program, including David
Albbright, who actually saw the archive,
went in there, wrote a whole book on it,
and there's a lot of detail about how
Iran had an active nuclear weapons
program called the MOD to build five
nuclear weapons. But I want to get to
the JCPOA because I actually think
that's an interesting discussion for
Scott and I to have um because I think
there are things that we agree on there
and things that we disagree on. Right.
So this is the 2015 nuclear deal that
Obama reaches. Um it's negotiated
painstakingly over two years between
2013 and 2015. And it follows the
interimm agreement that United States
negotiated with Iran. And it's it's it's
in that interimm agreement in 2013 where
the United States for the first time
actually gives Iran the the right to
enrich uranium. There were five UN
Security Council resolutions passed with
the support of Russia and China that
said Iran should have no enrichment
capability and no plutonium reprocessing
capability because of the fears that
Iran would turn that into a nuclear
weapons program. But in 2013 they give
up they give that up. 2015 we reached
the JCPOA and under the JCPOA Iran is
allowed to retain enrichment capability
and reprocessing capability but over
time so Scott mentioned these sunsets
and just want your listeners to
understand what these sunsets are
essentially the restrictions that are
placed on Iran's nuclear program right
and there's some really serious
restrictions placed on it especially in
the short term and Scott's right the
enriched material has to be shipped out
not to the French but to the Russians um
and there's restrictions on Iran's
ability to operate these facilities at
ATANS and Foraux. They're not closed.
They're still remain open, but they're
restrictions on what they can do with
it. There's also restrictions on Iran's
ability to test and install advanced
centrifuges. Now, the reason you'd want
an advanced centrifuge rather than the
first generation centrifuge that Akan,
the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb,
gave to the Iranians is you need a
smaller number of these centrifuges to
produce weapons grade uranium. If it's
smaller less, it's easier to hide,
right? You can put it in clandestine
facilities without this large enrichment
centrifuge footprint. So there's
restrictions on these advanced
centrifuge R&D. And Iran gets
significant sanctions relief as part of
this. But the whole assumption here from
both an Iranian and American perspective
is these restrictions are going to
sunset. They're going to disappear over
time. In fact, 2025 is the year where
some of the significant restrictions on
Iran's capabilities begin to sunset and
all of them are effectively gone by
2031. Okay? So, in 2031, Iran can emerge
with an industrial size enrichment
capability. They can they can emerge
with advanced centrifuges that they can
install in as many enrichment facilities
as they want to build.
And Iran can enrich to higher and higher
levels. So, they can go from 3.67 six,
seven to 20%, they can go to 60%. Um,
there's nothing in the JCPOA that
actually prohibits them from going to
90% in Richmondia. And I think at the
time, the Obama administration's theory
of the case was, yeah, sure, in 15 years
time, but in 15 years time, we'll be
gone. Hopefully, there'll be a different
government in Iran and maybe we can
renegotiate a different agreement with
that government that will extend the
sunsets. So, that that's the JCPOA. The
reason that critics of the JCPOA, and I
was one of them, we objected to the
deal, is not because it didn't have some
short-term temporary restrictions that
were useful, but that if you got it
wrong and there was the same regime in
power in 15 years, that regime could
emerge with this huge nuclear program
with the capabilities to develop nuclear
weapons in these multiple hardened
sites. Iran, we estimated, would have a
trillion dollars in sanctions relief
over that 15-year period. And if you got
it wrong, that it was the same regime in
power as it been in power in 2015, then
you had some difficulties. Okay? I just
wanted to lay out the case against the
JCPO. Now, to steal man uh Scott's
argument, right, I think there's a
legitimate argument because I actually
didn't support the withdrawal from the
agreement. Uh President Trump withdrew
in 2018. I did a similar version of what
Scott was suggesting was I thought that
the United States should negotiate with
the Europeans, the French, the Germans,
and the UK who were part of the original
deal, extend the sunsets as an agreement
between the United States and Europe,
and then collectively go to the Iranians
and say, "Let's renegotiate this
agreement to extend the sunsets." If you
if you don't want a nuclear weapons
program, then you should agree that you
would you don't need these capabilities
and let's extend the sunsets for another
15 20 30 years. President, somebody give
me a screenshot of this. Give me a
pound, dude. There we go. Agreement.
There we go. That makes my heart feel so
And I think the hole would have gone for
it too. Well, so I'm not sure if he
would have, but but let's just a little
bit of history. I think it's just useful
for the viewers to know again the
context, especially when Scott and I
agree. Yeah. Um, so a process was begun,
I'm loving this by the Trump
administration. They, uh, Trump
appointed, uh, Brian Hook, or Secretary
Pompeo actually appointed Brian Hook,
who's the lead Iran envoy, and he began
a process of talking to the Europeans.
Now, the Europeans actually rejected
this idea. Um, and so at some point,
Trump said, "Look, if the Europeans
aren't prepared to get on side, then I'm
out of the deal. I'm out of the deal."
And if you're interested, I can talk
about why I thought we should have
stayed in the deal because I thought you
gave us some important restrictions in
the short term, certain leverage. But
Trump decides to withdraw from that
agreement because he recognizes that the
fatal flaw of the agreement, the fatal
flaws of the agreement are one, giving
them any enrichment capability,
especially at an industrial size within
15 years, right? and two are these
sunsets as Scott said which under which
these restrictions are going to go away
and Iran's going to end up with a
massive nuclear program. So I think
that's just important. We can talk about
the JCPOA the process and everything
else if you're interested. I'd like to
go ahead and quickly accuse the FBI and
the CIA of framing Trump for treason
with Russia and pushing the Russia gate
hoax. I'm trying to agree with my friend
here because what it is is that that
completely ruined Donald Trump's ability
to engage in real diplomacy with Russia
for his entire first term. Certainly for
the first three years of it, he was
completely handcuffed. It was it was it
was it was terrible as I'm sure you're
well aware for the future now our past
and current history of Ukraine as well
as for this deal too. Why couldn't Trump
pick up the phone? I don't know the
details here, but I'll take his word for
it. That the British and the French and
the Germans weren't being nice to Trump.
They didn't like him. They didn't want
to do it. Why couldn't he pick up pick
up the phone and say, "Hey, Putin, I
need you to call the Ayatollah for me
and tell him, "Hey, you'd like to see
him lift these sunsets, too, and this
and that." Why? Because they framed him
for treason. So, he was completely
unable to engage in real diplomacy with
Russia. And I bet that he'd agree with
me on that one, too. So, next, actually,
could I just say one thing interesting?
And again, I think it's going to be a
later topic and so it it's going to be a
provocative statement, but I think let's
put it on the table. I absolutely agree
with Scott. I mean, I think it was a
travesty that the of the accusations
against Donald Trump as a Russian agent.
I mean, completely debunked, but it it
did it I think it paralyzed his
presidency for two two and a half years.
I I agree with Scott. The idea that you
would accuse the president of the United
States of being a foreign agent for
Vladimir Putin, I think is
unfounded and I I I thought at the time
disgraceful and I thought it was really
important. I think Scott did really good
work in in debunking that. I would say
that just a couple days ago I was
watching a podcast Scott was on and he
accused uh Trump of being an agent for
Netanyahu and the Israeli government. So
I think again the accusations that the
president of the United States is a
foreign agent for some foreign
government. I think we should just put
all of that aside in any discussion and
just say President Trump makes his own
decisions whether we agree with him or
agree with him. But he's not working for
the FSB and he's not working for Mossad.
President Trump makes his own decisions
based on American national security. Now
I was making a point. That's hyperbole
making a point. But he did. In fact,
could you Google this for me because I
always forget exactly how many hundreds
of millions of dollars that he took from
Sheldon add
who are Americans, by the way, who are
Americans who Sheldon Allison said his
only regret in life is that he served in
the American army instead of the IDF and
said America should nuke Iran in order
to get them to give up their nuclear
weapons. He said, "I have one issue, one
Israel." And they gave Trump hundreds of
millions of dollars over three
campaigns. That's not just a gez. I
really hope you'll think of me in the
future. Scott, first of all, a couple
things. So, one, there's a lot of people
that are friends with Trump and try to
gain influence. I believe that Trump as
an American is making his own decisions.
Let's for the purpose of this
conversation just focus on that and see
what are the right decisions and what
are the wrong decisions. And uh maybe I
wonder what decisions I could get you to
make if I gave you hundreds of millions
of dollars. Well, me personally, you
couldn't give me It doesn't matter. I
couldn't even get you I couldn't get you
to drop in on a vert ramp or nothing for
100 million bucks. Nothing. You cannot
control my decisions with money. It's
the American system, Lex. That's how it
works. It's money. They appreciate.
Yeah, we can we can go down that. It's
the same if we were talking about Archer
Daniels Midland Company throwing
hundreds of millions of dollars around.
They get policies based on their
hundreds of millions of dollars. The
squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?
All that. So, Lex, I think you're right.
I mean, I think Elon Mus spent what,
$400 million helping Trump get elected.
Um, and obviously there a number of
philanthropists. I think clearly his son
Don Junior has had a lot of influence in
who gets selected in these positions in
the Pentagon, the NC. I think Tucker
Coulson has had a lot of influence. So I
think as you say, he surrounds himself
with people who have certain ideas,
ideologies, policies. The president
makes his own decision. I just want to
touch on just one thing because I I I
don't want to leave this alone. Um just
out of respect for for the victims of
Iranbacked terrorism and hostage taking
and assassinations since 1979. Um, you
know, this is the regime that took our
took hostages in 79, took our diplomats
hostage. Um, Scott says, you know, 83
was really the only thing that happened
and and throws out a lot of information.
Certainly some some pretty breathtaking
accusations that somehow the Israelis
knew about this and didn't tell the
Americans and and it's an Assad
officer's accusation. Yeah, Victor
Ostroski is his name. Yeah, I know
exactly who he is and and he has been
widely discredited um and having an axe
to grind with with Mossad. But anyway,
um not only 83 but all through the 90s,
the 2000s, 2010s, 20120s,
um there have been hundreds of attacks,
of um assassinations, of hostage taking.
Um there are thousands of Americans who
have been killed and maimed by the
regime. Can you be specific what you're
talking Yeah, I mean I I can give you a
whole list and Sure. literally I'm happy
to pull it up. Lex, I shared it with
you. It's a long list of attacks all
through the 80s and 90s. Um I mean
everything from the you know Kobar
Towers Kobar towers was al Qaeda. That
was Osama bin Laden and Khali Shake
Muhammad. Let him lay it out. All right,
let's hear him. Oh, I got my pen in my
hand. Go ahead. Yeah. And again,
according again, according to US
intelligence findings, it was actually
Hzbala that worked with al-Qaeda,
trained al-Qaeda in that attack in the
Cobra Towers. Um they were they were
kidnapping our diplomats in Beirut. Um
they were they launched attacks against
our um our soldiers while in Iraq. The
notion that somehow you debunked that.
No, I don't I don't think Well, you you
say you debunked it. You just made your
claim. Um but those were Iranbacked
militias.
um backed by the by Kasum Solommani who
Scott referred to who was the commander
of the RGC goods force who supplied them
with those IEDs or those EFPs actually
those explosive well again this has been
all confirmed by why don't you search
Alyssa Rubin New York Times EFP factory
or you can look in the Christian Science
Monitor for Operation Eagleclaw where
they found these things you can it's
it's easy to find in my book you can
flip right to soda straws and EFPs. And
you see where I I have all my citations
for the solid dozen American newspaper
reporters who were embedded with
American soldiers who found these
factories in Iraqi Shiastan, okay? With
Iraqi Arabs working the machines, not
Iran. So I' I'd like your viewers to to
Google not just a couple of sources, but
actually Google the US government
reports. They did a whole afteraction
report on the Iraq war. all the mistakes
were made in the Iraq war and there and
there were legion of mistakes made. Um
but it was very clear that Iran had
actually provided the technology, the
training, the funding for these
Iranbacked militias to kill Americans. I
mean I I could see Scott method from
Lebanese Hezbala that got it from the
IRA. They didn't even get the technique
from the Iranians at all. Yeah. So
Lebanese asbal as I'm sure all your
listeners know has been trained financed
true but they got supported by Iran for
the copper core for many years and that
design did not come from Persia. Yeah.
So again I think we all admit Scott
admits as well that Hisbala was trained
financed and uh supported by Iran.
Hisbala has been responsible for many of
these terrorists. Where does Hisbala
come from? It's a reaction to the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon where they
went after the PLO and horribly
mistreated the poor local Iraqi Shiites
until they rose up and created these
militias to fight in self-defense.
That's where Hezbollah comes from.
Hisbala was actually created by the RGC
before the Israeli invasion. This was
the CIA's Bin Laden unit. Michael Shyer
says it was Osama bin Laden and
colleague Shake Muhammad that did the
Cobar Towers attack. And who did they
kill? They killed 19 American airmen who
were stationed there to bomb Iraq from
bases of Saudi Arabia under the Israeli
insisted upon dual containment policy.
Bill Clinton came from Yeetsak Shamir
who had who had uh sent his man Martin
Indic to work for Bill Clinton and push
the dual containment policy is where
that comes from in the first place. the
main reason al Qaeda turned against the
United States and the Kobar Towers
attack was bin Laden and he bragged
about it himself to um Abdel Bari Atwan
the uh reporter from Alud's Alarabi in
London and spent days with him and
bragged all about it and blessed the
martyrs and the rest of that and uh is
widely uh discredited the claim that it
was Iranianbacked Shiite Hezbala that
did the Kobar towers attack. That was
what the Saudi government told the US.
In fact, there's a great documentary
about John O'Neal, who was the head of
FBI counterterrorism, who told Louisie
Free, "Boss, the Saudis are blowing
smoke up your ass about this Hezbala
thing. It was Al Qaeda that did it." And
then Louis Free got all upset cuz he
used the a word. Um he was a very
conservative Catholic guy, Louis Free,
and then uh refused to listen to another
word from John O'Neal about it. So, what
we know now from Scott, because he's
he's given certainly a lot of context to
how he actually sees things, is um
here's who lies to you and here's who
doesn't. Um, US government lies to you.
Israeli government lies to you. Uh, the
Israelis clearly lie to you. Menacious
bunch. Saudis lie to you. Um, you know,
but you know who doesn't lie to you?
Actually, doesn't lie to you. Al-Qaeda
doesn't lie to you. I didn't cite al
Qaeda or I himself and the Iran. I cited
Michael Shawyer, the chief of the CIA's
Bin Laden unit, didn't make it clear
here. The Iranian trusting Hezbollah,
Scott, straight up, I hear you, but
you're interrupting. And like, please
just honestly, it's not about the
content, but like honestly, how come
you're not saying him? Isn't that weird
that you just said he trusts Hezbollah
even though he didn't say anything about
trusting Hezbollah? I'm not calling out
the content. I'm calling out the
interruptions. He hasn't interrupted
you. It's great. I'm loving the back and
forth. It's great, but just a little
less talking over each other, that's
all. Yeah. So I mean again the the sort
of view of the regime in Iran and and I
think Scott wisely said at the beginning
of this discussion like what did you
say? I I don't have any love for the
Ayatollah. I'm a Texan. I don't have any
love for the Ayatollah in Iran. And yet
despite the fact Scott doesn't have love
for the Ayatollah and I I agree with him
and I think he's being sincere in every
discussion that we've had on every
topic. It's always about everyone's
lying except the Ayatollah in Iran. He's
not lying about having a nuclear weapons
program.
He he didn't actually support all of
these terrorist organizations that he
founded, financed, and supported to kill
Americans. It wasn't the Ayatollah and
Iran. He's he's not lying about his um
his deception campaign against the
United States. He's not lying about
negotiations with the Americans. It's
Americans fault all the time. So he he's
presented all the time in Scott's
conception here as a sincere actor who
doesn't want to develop nuclear weapons,
who doesn't actually want to kill
Americans. He is just always a victim of
American and Israeli aggression. I I
think it's an interesting conception. I
think let's talk about it. And I I mean
I'm I'm fascinated by the conception
because it it's very contrary to mine.
Obviously, it's very contrary to, I
think, decades of overwhelming evidence
that the Islamic Republic has been war
with the United States since 1979. And,
you know, I I don't take too much stock
in what people say. I take stock in what
they do. So, you know, death to America,
death to Israel could just be a slogan.
It could be just propaganda. But when
it's actually operationalized,
then you start to ask, well, maybe it's
not just propaganda. Maybe it's
intention operation operationalized into
capabilities. You know, we what we're
forgetting here and again it's it's this
causal relationship. It's we aggress
against Iran and the Israelis aggress
against Iran and Iran is always
reacting. I mean, let's give the
Iranians their due because Comedy made
it very clear when he established the
Islamic Republic that there will be a
revolutionary and expansionist
regime and they will expand their power
through the Middle East. And so he built
and to his credit was very successful
until October 7th. This axis of
resistance as he calls it which are
these terror proxy armies, Hamas,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Iraqi
Shiite militias, the Houthis in Yemen
that and certainly supporting the Assad
regime in Syria. He built a very very
impressive and deadly axis that he
turned against the United States and
against Israel which saw its culmination
on October 7th. I think after October
7th that was a huge miscalculation for
Kame and we've seen the results of
what's happened to his axis of
resistance through quite devastating
Israeli military capabilities over the
past number of months but he has an
ideology and I think where I agree with
Scott is I'm not sure if Kam would
actually use a nuclear weapon against
Israel the United States because I don't
think Kame is suicidal but I think what
Kame wants is he wants a nuclear weapon
as a backs stop for his conventional
power. Right? He's it's very the it's
very much the Kim Jong-un model of North
Korea, right? I'm going to have nuclear
weapons with ICBMs to threaten America,
but what I'm actually going to do is
threaten South Korea with having massive
conventional capabilities on the DMZ
that I could take South Korea in a week.
I could destroy in a week. So, you the
United States and South Korea have no
military option. That's Kame's view. he
can actually building up this massive
ballistic missile arsenal that he's
unleashed in the past 12 days that
according to again the US and Israel was
going to go from 2,000 to 6,000 to
20,000 that from Kame's perspective he
didn't need to drop a nuclear bomb on
Tel Aviv. What he needed to do was use
the threat of nuclear escalation in
order to use his conventional
capabilities his missiles to destroy Tel
Aviv. And you've already seen the damage
from just uh a few dozen ballistic
missiles getting through the kind of
damage that he's wrought on Tel Aviv
already. That is the conception that
Kame has. It's a revolutionary regime.
It aggresses and I I do think it's
interesting and I think we should talk
about it. Actually, that's a good cue.
Take a bath. Let's take a bath.
Okay, we took a quick break and now uh
Scott. Yeah. Okay. So, a few things
there. First of all, uh on Ahmad, the
pre203
nuclear weapons research, um the CIA
estimate in 2007 concluded that all
research had stopped in 2003 and Seymour
Hirs reported that the reasoning behind
that was uh mainly that America had
gotten rid of Saddam Hussein for them.
Now, in Gareth Porter's book,
Manufactured Crisis, he shows that the
major conclusion that the uh DIA had
made, that the Iranians were researching
nuclear weapons was based on some
invoices that they had intercepted for
some dual use materials, some specialty
magnets and things that they thought,
boy, this looks like this could be part
of a weaponization program, a secret
program here. And you know, Gareth
Porter, who's a really great critic of
all of these policies and claims, says,
"Hey, this was a good faith
misunderstanding by DIA. They were doing
their job." But it turned out the IAEA
later when America gave them that
information, the IAEA went and verified,
oh, there's the magnet and there's this
and there's that and all those dual use
items actually were being used for
civilian purposes. And so then um as
Gareth writes in his book, the only real
reason um that the NIE said that they
even had a program before 2003 was
essentially because they didn't want to
dispute their last mistaken conclusion.
So they said, "Okay, well that was right
up until then." But that was when that
changed. And then the other half of
their reason for accepting that there
ever was a nuclear weapons research
program uh in the country before 2003
was the smoking laptop. And I'm sorry, I
think I misspoke earlier when I said
that the laptop was in 2005. That was
just the Washington Post story that had
a bunch of stuff about it. That was in
2003 as well or 2004 possibly. So this
was why the um but it was still all
again forged by the Israelis and
funneled through the MEK cult um but was
obsolete essentially and had nothing in
it. At least the accusations and it
weren't past 03. And so there's really
no reason to believe that there was
actually a nuclear weapons research
program even before 03 which then again
the National Intelligence Council says
ended in 2003 and hasn't been restored.
A question just not a comment by me but
a question just your perspective. So
just so I understand this. the the the
nuclear archive, this this massive
archive that the Israelis were able to
take out of Tyrron, bring to the United
States, bring to the IAEA, which is very
detailed blueprints. It's just the
alleged studies documents again. It's
the same stuff from the smoking laptop.
Yeah. So, let me just ask you because
it's it's it's huge and it's very
detailed and it shows clearly that the
Iran had an active nuclear weapons
program certainly until 2003 and then we
can have a discussion about what
happened after that. Are are you
suggesting that that's all been forged
by by Israel? Yes. Nothing in this
smoking lot held up. Not not the laptop,
but this entire archive that they pulled
out with this you're you're thinking of
like the big photo op with all the do
all the full documents behind I've seen
it. I've seen many many of the
documents. There's thousands of pages.
I'm asking this is not what I'm
claiming. Is that all forged by Israel?
Is that not all about the uranium
tetraflloride and the warhead that David
Albbright debunked and all the same
claims that were in the smoking laptop
from the Bush years? David David
Albbright actually wrote an entire book.
It's a very detailed book. Your
listeners should Google it's it's David
Albbright and the archive where he goes
in he went in in detail and he confirms
the information in that archive that
Iran had an active program under
something called Ahmad to develop five
atomic weapons. So again, you and I can
debate this all day, but now this would
have been before Natans was even dug and
before a single centrifuge, right? Got
all that. I'm just making sure everybody
understands assuming that was true. We
were talking about a piece of paper. But
you you it's not a piece of paper. It's
a massive archive. I'm just asking the
question. You you believe Mossad
fabricated all of this as a lie to
deceive the United States, the IAEA, and
the international community? That's just
my question. My understanding is that
there is nothing significant in the 2018
archive that was not already in the
debunked claims from the laptop. But my
question is is not that it's debunked
because we can argue about whether it
was debunked or not, but are you saying
that Mossad fabricated it? That's what
you're claiming. Yeah, because the CIA
admitted that there was no laptop and
Olli Heinan admitted that he got it from
the laptop. He got it from the MEK and
where did the MEK get it? The MEK got it
from the Israelis. Scott, I'm not asking
about the laptop. I'm asking about this
huge archive that was sitting in a
warehouse in Tyrron. Full I don't know
the truth behind those documents. I
don't believe Israeli claims of what
they were and where they came from
without, for example, reading Albright's
book and seeing what he has to say about
all of that. I don't take Netanyahu's uh
claims and and Okay. So, what's so
significant in there? You say that
there's a document that has a plan to to
make five bombs, but isn't the rest of
the proof the same green salt
experiments and the warhead for the
missile that David Albbright showed was
obviously fake because the warhead was
purportedly being designed for a missile
that was now going to have an entirely
different nose cone on it. No. So David
Albbright again, you know, we should
bring David Albbright here. David
Albbright is a prominent physicist,
nuclear proliferation expert known for
his detailed research and publications
on nuclear weapons. Yeah, he has a bunch
of books. Peddling Peril, Iran's
Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons,
Plutonium, and Highly Enriched Uranium,
1996, and so on. Yeah. So, so folks
should should read the book on the on
the archive because David had um full
access to the archive, all the all the
detailed documents and blueprints, and
he writes a book that again, the
conclusion of which is Iran had an
active nuclear weapons program. No, no,
no. The conclusion of which was they
were researching it right before 2003.
They had no nuclear material to
introduce into a single machine. Right.
Well, they they active program meaning
they had a piece. They had already built
a covert enrichment facility which was
only No, they hadn't. It was closed.
Natans was empty by till the end of
2006, right? They didn't even start
spinning centrifuges in gotten
centrifuge for AQ. They'd built a deeply
buried underground facility at Natans.
They were putting in place the component
parts for a nuclear weapons capability
and Ahmad showed conclusively unless you
believe Mossad fabricated it all that
they actually had the plan to build
nuclear warheads. Again, Seymour Hirs
says that it was when Seymour Hirs is
not a nuclear weapons expert. David
Albbright has you saw the archive
Hersh's sources said America invaded
Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein for
them. That was when they gave up even
considering the need for it. Remember,
the Iranians held a million man vigil
for the Americans on September 11th. The
Iranians hated the Taliban. In fact, the
Americans thought Iran might invade
Afghanistan earlier in 2001. And they
hated Saddam Hussein. So, they had every
reason in the world to want to work with
the United States September 11.
It's a distraction. My question is,
let's not go to al-Qaeda, the Taliban,
and 9/11, and the Iranians and a million
people. Let's just stay on the topic.
asking me what I already answered. You
believe Mossad fabricated that entire I
already told you I don't take their word
for anything and I' have as far as I
understand the accusations in there are
the same ones from the laptop that are
already discredited and I haven't read
David Albbright's book. You're
distracting from me refuting this giant
list of false claims that you made
previously that let's all agree you're
going to read the book. Maybe Lex,
you're going to read the book. Viewers,
you should read the book. I think David
Albbright has done a meticulous job.
It's a by the way just just warning it's
a big book. very detailed, hundreds of
pages, and he goes through it in
meticulous detail in analyzing this
archive and showed again that Iran had
an active nuclear weapons program
designed to build five atomic warheads.
Now, we can talk about what happened
after 2003 and did they make the
decision to totally stop it? Yeah, God
changed his mind after the
neoconservatives lied America into war
with Iraq for Ariel Chiron. So just to
clarify, you Mark and David Albbright uh
believe that Iran was developing a
nuclear weapon and you Scott are saying
they were not before 2003. That's just
just to summarize what we were just
talking about. Well, I I can tell you
that. So Gareth's book came out in 2014,
which is before this archive was
supposedly revealed in Tyrron. But in in
Garris book, he shows that the CIA and
national intelligence estimate of 2007
that said that there was a program
before 2003 and was halted after America
invaded Iraq was based on one the the
DIA's mistaken but sincere uh
interpretation of these invoices uh for
these dual use technologies and then the
smoking laptop which was completely fake
and funneled into the stream by the
Mujahaden cult, communist terrorist
cult. The same people who come off with,
you know, 10 major hoaxes. The NCRI,
they just put out the NCR, the National
Council for Resistance in Iran. That's
the MEK. They just put out a fake story,
what, three, four weeks ago about a big
secret nuclear weapons site in Iran.
Don't you remember? And then nothing
happened with that cuz it was another
lie by the MEK. It happens all the time.
So, Lex, maybe we should talk about what
happened after 2003. What about this
2007 NIE? What does it mean? Did it mean
Iran had now abandoned its nuclear
weapons program or does something else?
They never had a nuclear weapons
program. But let's talk about that.
Interesting. Interesting. According to
the NIE, they had a a nuclear weapons
research program that never made
anything at all. So, you can try to
conflate that if you want, but I think
everybody can see. That's not what the
2007 NIE says. What the 2007 NIE says is
that, and you are correct, according to
the 2007 NIE is Iran made the decision
after the invasion of Iraq not to pursue
an active nuclear weapons program
anymore because we were putting their
best friends in power in Tyrron in
Baghdad for them. Well, because the
United States had gone in worry no more
and in a matter of 100 days had taken
down the Iraqi army uh and put in Abdul
Aziz al-Hakim's faction, the Supreme
Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
who've been living in Iran for 20 years.
That's why you and I did not publicly
support the Iraq war. Did we? I publicly
opposed it as far as I possibly should
have publicly opposed it rather than
just working on Iran in 2003. But you're
right. It it redounded to the benefit of
Iran that invasion. But but that's not
actually what I'm talking about. What
I'm talking about is 100 days the
Iranian sea that the US military has
taken down the Iraqi army that they had
fought an 8-year war with where almost a
million people, Scott, as you know, had
been killed. So, they were they were
afraid that the United States was going
to march from Baghdad to Thran. So, they
make a decision to end their active
Ahmad program.
They make a decision to build up the key
capabilities they need to retain an
Iranian nuclear weapons option,
specifically the enrichment capabilities
at Natans and then Foraux and at Iraq,
giving them the plutonium route. Um, and
then what they do is they take the
members of the Ahmad program, the
nuclear weapons scientists that have
worked on this, and they disperse them.
So, they're now no longer in a formal
weapons program. They're put in a a
number of different research centers and
universities and Mosen Fakraad who you
mentioned uh earlier who's in some
respects I wouldn't call him the
Oenheimer of the Iranian nuclear weapons
program he's more like is it was it um
who was in the Oenheimer movie Lesie
Grove um the guy who was actually
responsible for the organization and the
training and the recruitment and the guy
that actually ran the program as opposed
to Oppenheimer the the sort of brilliant
nuclear physicist
Um this is Fakraad. So Fakrazada takes
control of this program and now it is
dispersed and it is um unstructured in
that sense because they recognize that
if they continue with this, the United
States may march to Thran. And so the
NIE says Iran is retaining the key
capabilities, the enrichment
capabilities to give them an option for
a nuclear weapon. But we, the NI decided
or we have concluded that they no longer
have an active structured nuclear
weapons program. However, since then,
what have we seen? We've seen them
actually do what many suspected they
would do, which is build all the key
capabilities that they need so that time
of their choosing, they can decide to
develop a nuclear bomb, whether it's a
crude nuclear device, as you described,
whether it's a nuclear warhead. We we've
had that discussion uh so far, but just
sorry just to finish. So just understand
the brilliance of Iranian nuclear
deception, right? I just I think it's
really interesting to get in the minds
of the Ayatollah and understand this
because he doesn't want to provoke the
United States. He doesn't want to see
another uh Iraq style invasion this time
of his country. He's building this
capability on the enrichment side and on
the reprocessing side. He is framing
this as I'm only building a civilian
nuclear program. He's taken the weapon
scientists who were building an part of
an active nuclear weapons program and
he's dispersing them, putting them under
the the guidance and direction of
Fakraad and starting to build out these
capabilities. I mean, he I I I admire I
have to say I really admire the way he's
played this three-dimensional nuclear
chess game. It's very very interesting
and I think he made a tragic mistake uh
about six weeks ago when he rejected the
offer from Trump at Oman and then
provoked both an Israeli and then an
American strike. But he was playing this
game almost perfectly before then in
building out these capabilities. And I
think what he should have done if I were
him, I would have waited out Trump. I
would have waited three and a half
years. I would have taken the offer in
Oman which gave him enrichment
capability above ground. This consortium
that was going to be built in three and
a half years would never be built and
even if it was built he could just say
I'm not interested anymore and challenge
the next president whoever that is
Republican or Democrat to do anything
about it. And I think the political
calculation should have been the next
president's not going to do anything
about this. I'll be able to then be able
to complete my nuclear weapons program.
But he challenged Trump. He thought
Trump was a paper t tiger. He rejected
that offer at Oman and and we've seen
what's happened over the past couple
weeks. Two things. One, can you go and
respond to certain things that you
heard? And two, can we generally move in
the direction of the modern day and
trying to see what is the right thing
now, our analysis of the situation now,
we've been kind of staying in this in in
the context of history, which is really
important, but sort of moving in
forward. But yeah, go ahead, please. I'm
not sure how much time we have. I I had
kind of hoped and let me talk about uh
Israel's role in Iraq War II and for
that matter in Barack Obama's dirty war
in Syria that led to the rise of the bin
Laden there. It's all part of America's
Israel policy. So I don't want to I
rather go back before we go forward. But
I I also do I need to go back over so
many claims that he's made here that I'd
like. So I strongly prefer we go because
there's so much history. We're going to
lose ourselves and there's not enough
hours. We should take certain moments in
history that instruct the modern day,
but let's not get lost there if it's
okay. I sure this is such a fascinating
conversation about you know the JCPOA
and the time between then and now like
quite a bit already too. So we we'll be
going back over some of that. Oh no, I
mean modern day I don't mean JC. I mean
like this week there a lot of stuff
happened this week and a lot of stuff
will happen tomorrow and the next week
and we everyone is wants to know like
what is going to happen? What is the
worst case? What is the best case?
Should we be freaking out? What do we
need to understand about today? That's
all. All right. So there's a lot of
things to address here. So first of all,
something that uh me and Mr. Duboitz
agree about Mark. Mark, something that
Mark and I agree about is that there
actually is not a threat of an
aggressive first strike by Iran. I'm a
little surprised to hear him say that,
but I'm grateful to hear him say it is
honest. I would,
you know, advise you for, you may be
unfamiliar with this, but I can tell you
anyone in America who drives for a
living and listens to AM radio have
heard claims that Iran was making
nuclear weapons probably 50,000 times in
the last 25 years.
Over and over and over again, we hear
this propaganda. They they still don't
have a single atom bomb. The reason why
they haven't been able to commold
together an atom bomb in this 1940s
technology is because they have not
tried to. Okay? So people can, you know,
just essentially fogg this dead horse,
pretend there's this threat. Oh, he's
going to break out any day now. But
here's the thing about that. As the
Ayatollah well knows,
George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald
Trump, Joe Biden, and now Trump again
have all vowed with all sincerity that
they would bomb Iran off the face of the
earth if they attempted to break out and
make a nuclear weapon. Hillary Clinton,
when she ran said they'd be obliterated
from the face of the earth. Barack Obama
did an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg
in the Atlantic in 2012 called As
President I don't bluff. And essentially
the interview is him begging Jeffrey
Goldberg to explain to the Israelis that
he really, really, really, really means
it. That he's trying to negotiate, but
if the Ayatollah breaks out for a nuke,
I'll nuke them if I have to. No, they
never said that. He didn't say that. But
the implication was, by the way, no, no
US president ever said they're going to
obliterate Iran. US president said,
Hillary Clinton did. All options are on
the table. Anyone can Google her word.
She was never our president. No, I said
she was running for president. Yeah, but
she was never our president, but no US
president ever said there'd obliterate
Iran. Nobody ever said they implication.
The implication was clear under W. Bush,
Barack Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump
again that they would strike Iran's
nuclear facility. If they broke out
toward a nuclear weapon, America would
do whatever it took to prevent that from
happening. So, strike their nuclear
facilities. That was always the case
there. Please clarify, just to be
accurate. And I'm almost talking about
nuking Iran. No one's talking about
bombing Iran to smitherines or
obliterating or any of that. I mean,
that's really not true. True. I mean,
Barack Obama changed America's nuclear
posture to say, cuz it used to say, "We
reserve the right to use a nuclear first
strike against any country." And he
changed that to say, "No, we we promise
not to use a nuclear first strike
against any non-uclear weapon state
except maybe Iran." Okay. Okay. That's
true. All right. And so, um, in fact,
that was the threat. And, and I I got
more here. Okay. Uh Netanyahu also did
an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg back
when Ahood Barack was his defense
minister uh in I think this is also
2012, it might have been 2014 where the
two of them explained that they agreed
with what he said too that there the
threat is not of a nuclear first strike
unlike every AM radio audience has been
led to believe that the Ayatoll as soon
as he gets an atom bomb he will nuke Tel
Aviv and he doesn't care if all of
Persia is nuked by Israel's 200 nukes in
response He's trying to cause the end of
the world by uh causing a nuclear war
and all these things. Well, Netanyahu
himself admitted that that's not true.
Yeah, I think it's really important. I
agree with I'm just agreeing with you,
so you don't have to stop me. But I'm
agreeing with you. I know, but I'm
agreeing with you, so it's all right. So
Netanyahu told Jeffrey Goldberg that he
was not concerned about a first strike,
that his only concern was that talented
young Israelis would move to Miami, that
there would be a brain drain. That was
his words, a brain drain from Israel.
And that also then Hezbala, as this is
what he put it, and I agree with this,
that conventional forces would have a
bit more freedom of action in the region
if Iran was sitting on an Abomb. Neither
of them said that there was a threat of
an offensive first strike against
Israel. And I would point out, and I'm
skipping ahead to Trump, but I'm
skipping back here again in a second
because I got more uh things to refute.
But Trump just said the other day when
he announced American air strikes there
that this has neutralized a threat to
Israel. He did not even pretend that it
was a threat to the United States that
he had ended in doing so. Actually, he
said exactly that. Well, actually, you
can Google the statement. He said
President Trump has said that an Iranian
nuclear weapon is a threat to the United
States. He said that over announced his
great victory in bombing he which is
what I just said, right? President Trump
sends out 20 truth posts a day. So let
let's look at the the many many this
whole thing about how I always believe
Hezbala and I always believe the
Ayatollah when in fact I did not quote
the Ayatollah and I did not quote
Hezbala on anything. I did quote Osama
bin Laden taking responsibility for the
Gopar Towers attack which he shared that
with Abdelari Awan anyone can read it
and he agrees with Michael Shyer the
former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit
who also said that it was a hoax that it
was Iranianbacked Saudi Hezbala that did
that attack and again who did they
attack they killed 19 American airmen
which was the number one complaint of al
Qaeda against the United States that we
had air forces
and army stationed in Saudi Arabia in
order to bomb and blockade Iraq, which
again, this was the thing that you had
asked about before, was part of the dual
containment policy in the 1990s. So,
Scott, you're saying no, wait a second.
The fact is you're sitting here saying
that, "Oh, I I trust them all so much."
Well, what do you think, Lex? What do
you think Ronald Reagan meant by trust
but verify? He meant don't trust, but be
polite, right? That's what he meant.
Verify means we we know with sensors and
cameras and inspections what's going on.
No one can find a quote that I said here
about how we can trust the Ayatollah
because he promised this or that or the
other thing. I didn't say that, right?
What I'm talking about is the process.
They sign agreements and then we have
inspectors to verify their claims. And
as anyone can search at IAEA.org, they
have continued to verify the
non-diversion of nuclear material in
Iran to any military or other special
purpose. IA has now said that they
actually can no longer do this before
because America withdrew from before
this war started. So I mean at the end
of the day let's just be let's just be
factually accurate and the fact of the
matter is anybody who knows anything
about nuclear weapons program knows that
we do not have 100% certainty on
anything. I mean, Scott is making claims
here that the Mossad is fabricating, the
CIA is fabricating, everybody's
fabricating, but he's also assuming that
we have 100% certainty about what we're
doing inside a country more than two and
a half times the size of Texas. As as
Scott rightly said, mountainous,
incredibly difficult to monitor,
incredibly difficult to surveil. They
built underground facilities at Natans
and Fordo without our knowledge. They
didn't disclose it. We we finally found
out about refuted that an hour ago.
anyone, but the fact of the matter is
they did it. It's there. Both the
facilities are there. And by the way,
you keep saying that I just say lies,
lies, lies. But I have explained exactly
what I meant. I've cited my sources and
I've I haven't just sat here and say,
"Uh-uh, that's a lie." Cuz I don't like
it. I sat here and explained to you
exactly how I know who was building
those EFP bombs in Iraq. Exactly how I
know what the IAEA said about the state
of inspections here or what uh Robert
Kelly told the Christian Science Monitor
about Parchin and the rest and on and on
and on. You sit here like I'm just
saying, "Well, that's not true cuz I
don't like it." When in fact, I'm
explaining exactly why your claims are
not true, which they're not. Uh just
like saying that I said I trust Hezbala
when anyone can rewind that and and
break their finger trying to find the
part where I said that cuz I never did.
Um and now uh you brought up the DPRK.
Well, in 2002 when George W. Bush said
that they were part of the Axis of evil.
They were part of the NPT and they had a
safeguards agreement with the IAEA. And
yes, they had bought centrifuge
equipment from AQN, but they had not
used it. It was John Bolton's lie that
they were enriching uranium to weapons
grade and violating the agreed
framework. John Bolton and George W.
Bush in the fall of O2 then cancelled
the agreed framework deal that Bill
Clinton had struck based on this
misinformation. They added new sanctions
and they launched what was called the
proliferation security initiative which
was an illegal and unilateral uh claim
of the authority to seize any North
Korean ship on the high seas if they
suspected it of proliferation. And then
they added them to the nuclear posture
review putting them on the short list
for a potential first strike. And it was
only then in 20ou in the end of 2002
after these what four or five major
things that the Bush government did to
antagonize them that that North Korea
then announced that they were going to
withdraw from the treaty and begin
making nuclear weapons which is what
they did. And then as we know from all
the scientists say every time that
they've tested a nuclear bomb it's been
a plutonium bomb. They never tested not
never once used a uranium bomb. There's
no evidence that John Bolton's claims
there that they were enriching uranium
were ever true. And they had, you know,
Sig Hecker, who's this important
American nuclear expert, went and toured
their facilities and all of these
things. And so we know uh quite a bit
about what they have. And it was simply
Bush pushed North Korea to nukes, as
Gordon Prather wrote in his last great
article for us at anti-war.com. And it
was through this exact kind of
belligerance when we already had a deal
that we could have
theme in your analysis. And again, I
just want to I want to look at it, maybe
steel man it, maybe challenge it. But
the constant theme is the United States
and Israel and the West. We constantly
aggress against North Korea, against
Iran, against Russia, against these
countries, and they respond to us. And
they respond to us in ways that they
they they
build nuclear weapons programs that
they're that are peaceful, but we force
them to de develop nuclear weapons. They
don't actually mean to kill us. Look,
it's not right that I'm saying
everything anyone does. You're saying
that everything I say is that everyone
anyone else does is a reaction. But
that's not true. The subject here is
what has America done to make things
worse rather than better. I'm citing I'm
citing provocations. That doesn't mean
I'm saying that everything that happens
in the world is only an equal and
opposite reaction to an American
provocation. And you can't find me
saying that. You can only somehow try to
paraphrase me claiming that somehow or
something like that. But that's what's
issue, right? Is as I said, for example,
there's the Reuters story that says that
after Israel did the sabotage, which
they bragged about at Natants in April
of 21, that was when they started
enriching up to 60%. Okay. So now I'm
saying that and I'm just denying the
agency of the Iranians or anything. I
said that no, I'm not. I'm just citing
the Reuters new news agency saying that
this proactive action by Israel caused a
negative reaction by your own lights. A
very negative reaction in their
beginning to again enrich up to 60%
uranium. So that means, oh, I'm just
spinning for the Ayatollah or I believe
that no one ever does anything except in
reaction to Israel and America, except
that I'm just citing specific examples
of where that's exactly the case. Donald
Trump withdrew from the deal. He could
have stayed in the deal and tried hard
to make it better. He didn't. America
has done America. The US government has
made numerous mistakes. If this podcast
is all about the American government and
the mistakes it's made, it's a huge
spend hours on it. Can we please get to
today? Uh talk about use everything we
just talked about and talk about today.
What is maybe Mark can you lay out what
is the best case and the worst case and
Scott then lay out the best case and the
worst case that can happen now. So, Lex,
I think the best case and something I've
advocated for, I've been working on this
for 22 years, is that the Iranians
return to negotiations at Oman, uh, sit
down with the United States and conclude
an agreement that peacefully and
permanently and fully dismantles their
nuclear program. They agree to that,
which means they they shut down any
remaining facilities. They give up all
the remaining centrifuges and enriched
material that they could use to develop
nuclear weapons. They let the IAEA in in
order to supervise this. They they
actually commit to not rebuilding this
nuclear program. And we commit as we've
done with 23 other countries to helping
them provide civilian nuclear energy
because it seems to me a little fanciful
that the Kam would build a civilian
nuclear program under 80 m of concrete
surrounded by rock uh and take all the
risks he's taken. And by the way, he
faces a risk to his regime. spent a half
a trillion dollars to do this when it it
makes no commercial sense. But let's
take him at his word that he wants
civilian nuclear energy. Let's build it
for him as long as there's no enrichment
or reprocessing that gives him the key
capabilities that he could if he decides
to build nuclear weapons. That seems to
me a thoughtful
approach. I think Scott would probably
agree with it. Proliferation proof he
can't build nuclear weapons and we can
do this all peacefully. That's my
preference. What can Trump do to help
make that happen? I think what he can do
is he can say to the Iranians, look, I
made you that offer last time. You
rejected it. Now that offer is no longer
on the table because that offer gave you
enrichment now temporarily, but I now
see the game that you would have played
when I left office to turn that
enrichedment and enrichment capability
into nuclear weapons. So that deal's off
the table. But here's the deal that's on
the table. It's a one-page deal. you
give up your nuclear capabilities, we
help you build civilian nuclear energy.
I think that's best case. All right. I
think worst case is that the Iranians do
what they've unfortunately been doing
over and over again and rejecting these
deals and holding firm that they want to
retain this enrichment capability. And
the only reason they want to retain
enrichment capability is the option to
develop nuclear weapons. Otherwise, they
can have civilian energy. tomorrow makes
much more commercial sense to do that
and the entire international community
would help them and pay for that. I I
worry that they're going to just remain
intrigent at the negotiating table. And
I think if they do that, then what I
worry that they're going to do is
whatever remaining capabilities they
have left, they'll b their time. They'll
wait for the opportunity. Maybe it's not
now, maybe it's when Trump's gone, and
they will rebuild this nuclear weapons
program, and they'll be then inviting
further strikes, further war, and
further suffering. And I worry that that
is the worst case. And by the way, as
part of that worst case in retaining the
capabilities,
the extra worst case is they take those
capabilities and they go for a nuclear
bomb. Now, if Scott's right and the
regime has never had any desire for a
nuclear bomb, we don't have to worry
about that because according to Scott,
all of this is been fabricated. All of
this has been result of US and Israeli
uh intelligence macity and we don't have
to worry about a nuclear weapon. I
personally worry about it knowing this
regime looking at two and a half decades
of of nuclear deception. I worry that
they want to retain those capabilities
and a time of their choosing
develop a nuclear bomb. So I think if
you're responsible and you're trying to
think through the various scenarios,
you've got to consider an Iranian
nuclear weapons breakout as a
possibility and you've got to try to
mitigate that. You can either mitigate
that at the negotiating table through a
full dismantlement deal or and that's
not it's the least
well it's it's the least good option for
sure is you're going to have to go back
in there either the Israelis andor the
United States and you're going to have
to continue to use both covert action
and air power to destroy those
capabilities. Can I just even uh dig in
further on the worst case? Do you think
it's possible to have where US gets
pulled into a feet on the ground full-on
war with Iran?
I think one must never dismiss
possibilities because as I said, you
you've got to plan against worst case
options. And I think that's what the
Israel lobby has in store for you guys.
American lives mean nothing to the
Israel firsters. They don't care that
Israel motivated September 11th and
killed 3,000 of our guys. You know, I
was at the airport yesterday. They had a
big American flag with all the red and
white stripes made out of the names of
the dead as September 11th who are
killed by people motivated by Israel's
crimes in Palestine and in Lebanon and
enforcing Bill Clinton's dual
containment policy from Saudi Arabia.
They don't care about that. They don't
care about the 4,500 Americans who died
in Iraq War II or the million something
people who died in Iraq war, the half a
million in Syria as long as the Shiite
crescent somehow is limited. They'll
even celebrate openly, I don't know
about him, but I know Ben Shapiro and
many other leaders of the Israel lobby
in America celebrated the overthrow of
Bashar al-Assad in Syria by Abu Muhammad
al- Galani, the leader of al Qaeda in
Iraq in Syria. Why? Because he's not a
Shiite. He's not an Alawite. Friends
with the Shiites and friends with Iran
and friends with Hezbala. And so that's
good for Israel even though it's the
worst thing that you could possibly
imagine for the people of the United
States of America. Those sworn loyal to
Osama bin Laden and I alsawahhiri ruling
Damascus now uh their own ISIS caliphate
in our era. And this is why they always
pretend they go, "Oh, you know, over
there the Muslims, the terrorists,
greatest state sponsors of terrorism."
It's al Qaeda that threatens the United
States of America. It wasn't Hezbollah
that knocked those towers down. And they
have us siding with our enemies against
their enemies. And as you just said,
well, I guess time will tell, Lex,
whether we're going to have to drop the
82nd Airborne in there, whether
Americans are going to have to do a
regime. I didn't actually change in I
wish you'd listened and and not put
words in my mouth. I heard what he said.
I forced him kind of to say what the
worst case possibility of a full-on
invasion as a thought experiment. And
you can let him finish that as opposed
to making the accusations. Let's just
minimize both ways accusations, please.
Let's just talk about the ideas. Let's
the most charitable interpretation of
his ideas. Uh, well, I'm from the United
States of America, unlike him, and I
care about the future of this country,
unlike him, who's here to serve a
foreign power and make their case at our
expense. Scott, and next you're going to
say that I'm an American cuz you're an
immigrant, too. Well, you're just
hosting the show. I don't know. Seems
like you're trying to be fair. No, it's
not. No, it's not about fair. He has an
agenda. He's from the FDD. Stop. It's
not about being fair. The implication
here is somebody's unamerican because
where they're from. I didn't say anyone
who's not from here. I'm talking about
him. Okay. I think that's a really
deeply disrespectful accusation. Can I
ask you does it bother you that when
Naftali Bennett bombed a UN shelter full
of 106 women and children in Kana
Lebanon in 1996 that that's what
motivated Muhammad Atani to join Ala and
attack our country 22 years ago? I
became a proud US citizen 10 years ago.
I'm proud to be an American and accusing
me or Lex or any immigrants to this
country of not being unamerican is
deeply offensive. So let me answer Lex's
question. Lex, let's get back to your
question because I think it's an
important question, right? What are the
chain of events that could lead 500,000
mechanized US troops to have to invade
Iran, which would be a disaster and
that's something we never want to see
again? That's one of the lessons of
Iraq. I think Scott has done a good job
over the years in demonstrating that we
don't want to do that again. So, is
there is there such a scenario? I think
one must never rule it out because there
is a scenario for example where the
regime collapses, okay, and the regime
collapses and there's chaos inside Iran.
Not suggesting that'll happen. There are
a whole bunch of scenarios maybe we
should talk about with respect to um the
the collapse of the regime. But you
could see a scenario where the United
States would have to go in there in
order to try to secure um military and
nuclear and missile assets so that it
doesn't end at the hands of waring
uh factional and ethnic groups that that
Scott referred to because again as he's
rightly pointed out Iran is not Persia.
Can't the IDF handle it? So, can I can I
just finish just who can handle it, who
cannot handle it. Um, I think that that
it's a potential scenario, which is why
I don't think every anybody should be
advocating for a US decapitation of the
regime in Iran. I I have long been on
record of supporting the Iranian people,
right? Providing support to the Iranian
people to at one point take back their
country and take back their flag. It's
very much sort of Reagan strategy that
Reagan ran in the in the cold war of
maximum pressure on the regime, maximum
support for antis-siet dissident. While
by the way, he was negotiating arms
control agreements with the Soviet Union
in order to try reduce the number of of
nuclear tipped ICBMs that both countries
had pointed at each other. So I think
the Reagan strategy of providing support
to the people is a far better strategy
for trying to get transition, leadership
transition, government transition inside
Iran. But I think the scenario of
decapitation strikes killing common
taking out the entire government could
potentially lead to that scenario and I
think we have to be conscious of that.
We have to guard against that. So I
think that's important. I think Scott's
right. I mean if if the scenario
happened like that Yeah. I mean I think
I think the Israelis have demonstrated
extraordinary capabilities and they
could go in there and they could secure
loose nuclear materials that you would
be worried could be
uh fashioned for nuclear weapons. I
mean, Scott doesn't seem to worry about
these materials. I worry about these
materials and capabilities in the hands
of of anybody because they're all
capabilities that just the physics of
it, you can produce nuclear weapons. So,
so best case scenario, negotiation, we
fully dismantle their program in Oman.
Worst case scenario, right, is having to
return for continued military strikes
that continue to escalate the situation.
worst worst situation is some kind of
decapitation strike that collapses the
regime and causes chaos. There are a
whole bunch of other scenarios we can
talk about that are embedded in that,
but I think if you're a responsible
person and a responsible analyst and
certainly if you're a responsible policy
maker, you got to be planning for all of
these scenarios and more. Scott, what do
you think is the best case and the worst
case here? Uh well, the best case
scenario is that we quit right now and
that we Trump figures out a way to
reorder some paragraphs and get back in
something like the JCPOA which was also
signed with the rest of the UN Security
Council power. Can I ask you like is
JCPOA is a pretty good approximation of
what would be a good deal? Pretty good.
It could have been better. As I said at
the beginning, Trump could have gone in
there and tried to negotiate uh a better
result with the sunset provisions on
some of those things. But um the the
concept that America is just going to
insist on zero enrichment, zero nuclear
program whatsoever when they have the
unalienable right quote unquote in the
nonproliferation treaty to civilian uh
nuclear material and and a civilian
program. Uh it's a poison pill. It's
meant to fail just like it was a poison
pill meant to destroy the talks here.
Good enough to start a war. Again, as I
quoted from uh earlier, uh he said on on
TV last week, well, America has to take
out Fordo now because now they're more
likely to break out towards a nuke. I
think that's exactly right. So, there
still is or there's there's strong
reason to be skeptical, including
Israeli and American officials told the
New York Times that they thought that
the damage was quite incomplete. Yeah,
the IAA just came out recently, just
just point of fact, sort of interesting.
We'll see on the battle damage
assessment, but they actually think the
facility was destroyed and that the
centrifuges the sensitive centrifuges
were destroyed. So just interesting for
the viewers
all the uranium sel all the uranium
mines all the aluminum smelters so that
they can't make any more centrifuges. Uh
they've already they know how to make
centrifuges. So at this point and you
know in for uh it's this is why
government doesn't work. They make
matters worse and create more work for
themselves and make things worse and
worse and worse. We can make the same
criticism about Russia's invasion of
Ukraine, making matters worse for
themselves and causing them to have to
escalate even further. Now America's in
the situation where the danger that Iran
will now break out to a nuke is so
heightened that now we're talking about
well maybe we'll have to do a full
regime change. And I appreciate you Mark
saying that we should not kill the
Ayatollah, but Benjamin Netanyahu says
we should. He said just the other day
that if we get rid of the Ayatollah that
will solve all the problems which is
just crazy to think that they have
Israeli officials have been tweeting out
pictures of them ping around with the
son of the sha talking about
reinstalling his royal majesty's
monarchy
sock puppet dictatorship that's taking
back Iran for the people of Iran giving
them over to a bunch of foreign backed
exiles try was that what Trump meant
when he gave that speech in cutter
saying we don't believe in neoonserv
vatism and spreading democracy anymore.
He's just setting up because we're going
to try to reinstall a monarch. Can you
go into the analysis of best case and
worst case? You laid out the best case.
What? So worst case would be worst case.
Did I hear what was the best case? I I
missed the best case is a deal. Yeah.
That that we quit deal basically. You
guys agree on the on the best case.
respect their right to a civilian
nuclear program and try to negotiate, as
I said, back into something like the
JCPOA, which again had them exporting
their entire stock of uranium out of the
country. He wants no nuclear program
whatsoever. No, no, that's not what I
said. That's not what I said. Be careful
what I said. Well, no enrichment
capabilities, entire dependence on other
countries to supply their fuel needs.
Can you teach me the difference when we
Yeah. So, so let me just step back from
this cuz we agree on some and we
disagree on a major issue and then we
both agree Iran deserves a civilian
nuclear program. See, Ayatollah is never
going to give in on enrichment. We know
that it's a premise for our whole
discussion here. Therefore, what he's
saying is we're going to have to keep
escalating the war until the mission is
accomplished. Not sure I said that,
Scott. I think it's again important the
distinction here, right? We both agree
that Iran deserves a civilian nuclear
program. 23 countries have civilian
nuclear programs and they don't have
enrichment and they don't have
reprocessing. Where we differ is I don't
think Iran should have the Iran
standard. I think that should Iran
should agree to the gold standard that
23 US allies have agreed to. So have
civilian nuclear program but you don't
get to keep the key enrichment and
reprocessing capabilities that you need
to develop nuclear weapons. Do you think
that Bill Clinton should have just let
the Chinese sell them the lightwater
reactor that they wanted to back in the
'90s? Yeah. And America of course
allowed Russia to sell them a heavy
water reactor for the same purpose. But
I agree with Scott that I think one of
the ways out of this is yes, whether
it's the Chinese or pref preferably as
an American, I'd prefer the Americans
actually sell uh reactors to the
Iranians. A great, you know, nuclear
industry in this country. Let's do that.
But if they can't, the South Koreans
can. The Russians can, the Chinese can.
I wouldn't want to have significant
Russian and Chinese influence in Iran.
So, better that it be a Western country
that does it. Nevertheless, provide
those reactors. They're proliferation
proof. There's no enrichment and no
reprocessing. You buy your fuel rods
from abroad. You put them in the
reactors. You power the Iranian
electrical grid, which is in terrible
shape because the Ayatollah has spent a
half a trillion dollars trying to build
nuclear weapons and not trying to
provide electricity for his people.
Let's help him. let's help his people
get electricity. But the key difference
in our argument and it's a fundamental
difference. God's right. Like the key
difference is I do not want to give this
regime enrichment or reprocessing cuz
they have shown over time for whatever
reason whether you believe it's they
intended to or we were lying about it or
we broke them. It doesn't matter. What
they have shown over the past number of
years is they have gone up from 3.67%
67% enrich uranium for civilian purpose
all the way up to 60% which is 99% of
what you need for weapons grade since
we've seen them do it before we don't
want to see them do it again so no
enrichment full dismantlement full deal
and then there's a peaceful resolution
to what I what I worry about is
positions that are taken that undermine
President Trump's negotiating leverage
in Oman because can I ask you you were
saying you supported the JC you wereos
Yeah, we're that's you opposed to
withdrawing from it. Don't you think
that Trump could have gone over there
and negotiated to make it better? And
would you agree that it was a huge
mistake to withdraw that because they
were, as we agreed, shipping out all of
their enriched uranium to only be
brought back in a form that they could
not use to make nukes. The scientists
had decided that if they kicked all the
inspectors out and beat their chest and
started making a nuke, it would take
them a full year to have enough weapons
grade uranium for a single gun type
nuke. under the JCPOA. Right. So, so can
I let me ask you a question because
you're right. I mean, I'm glad you've
pointed out because I I try to take a
nuanced position in during the JCPOA
debate and I got hammered by the left
and I got hammered by the right. Okay.
The the the left hammered me because I
criticized the JCPOA because its
fundamental flaw was twofold. One, it
gave Iran enrichment capability that
would expand over time as the
restrictions sunseted, right? And number
two, the restrict the sunsets were going
to kick in and Iran would emerge with
his industrialized program which we
would not be able to stop. Now the
nuance position which I got hammered on
by the right was I said go negotiate
with the Europeans, agree on a common
transatlantic position to approach the
Iranians and say look that deal that we
did back in 2015 we think it's flawed.
We want to extend that deal. We want to
get rid of the sunsets and we are going
to negotiate a deal. Now, does that mean
we have to give you more sanctions
relief? Yeah, probably. The Iranians are
not going to just agree without
sanctions relief. What happened is the
Trump administration tried to negotiate
with the Europeans. The Europeans were
opposed because they didn't want to
revisit the agreement. We knew from we
knew the Iranians were completely
opposed and there was no way they were
going to do this if the United States
and Europe were divided. And so, at that
just just a little bit of history, I
just think it's interesting history. It
was at that point that President Trump
decided to withdraw from the agreement.
But what I'm asking you is if say you
were the national security adviser under
the JCPOA where they are still shipping
all their enriched uranium out of the
country and all that which you're you
would be advising him to not leave in
the negotiations to improve the deal.
Would you have been willing to accept
some level of enrichment then as long as
we're still we have the restriction part
where they're shipping it all out of the
country or to you enrichment at all is
always a red line essentially equivalent
to them being 99% of the way to a
nuclear weapon. Look enrichment
capability is a red line. It has to be a
red line. And and even though you know
it's protected by the MPT, the right to
peaceful nuclear technology. call it a
loophole, but they have the right to
enrich uranium in as there's different
interpretations of everything, including
agreements. Um, there is a a a raging
debate about whether the NPT actually
gives you a right to enrich. In fact,
the Obama administration, even with the
JCPOA, was not willing to recognize
Iran's right to enrich, but they were
willing to recognize its de facto
reality that they were enriching. Can
you explain NPT? It's the
non-proliferation treaty. Iran is a
member of it and it is supposed to
promote civilian peaceful civilian
nuclear energy, right? And it's supposed
to prevent countries from developing
nuclear weapons. I think that's a a
basic summary of it and it mandates that
non-uclear weapons states have a
safeguards agreement with the IAEA
um and full of additional protocols and
whatever they have the right sign. Well,
no, they had an additional protocol that
they were abiding, not even enriching at
all while they were negotiating with the
E3. And then what the JCPOA really did
was add a bunch of additional protocols
and subsidiary arrangements and
agreements refused to ratify the
additional protocol. I just want to just
be clear on the facts. I mean it's
really important. At which point in time
did they refuse to ratify? Because they
did ratify the JCPOA which was full of
additional protocols and and subsidiary
arrangements and agreements. They're
called there's there's an important
additional protocol that Iran refused.
Which one was that? one where they
promised not to enrich at all, which
they actually did abide by while they
were negotiating with the E3 in the W.
Bush years before they even started
spinning. The important point you ask
me, you you asked me what I would advise
the national security adviser of the
United States or if I was the national
security adviser of the United States,
which I I guess I can't be because I'm a
foreigner, but the fact of the matter is
is I think you could still be national
security adviser. Zign Bzinski sure was.
I think he was taking a shot back at the
fact that you took a shot. You know
what, Lex? I think that you probably
would recognize that there are many
people who lobby for Israel's interests
in the United States who clearly don't
care that much about what happens to the
United States of America in as a
consequence because they care about
Israel which is a a different country
than America right it's not part of I
think an American an American citizen
cares primarily about America that is
fundamental belief for me to make an
accusation that they don't requires a
very large amount of proof for each
individual. I don't care. To pretend
that American and Israel's interests are
the same requires a tremendous amount of
cognitive dissonance by those who
support Israel's
sponsor of terror as though Iran has
anything to do with anti-American
terrorists. I don't know who is the they
that we're talking about, but I believe
American citizens
care about America first.
They may discuss other nations and the
interests in the Middle East or in in
Europe and and those interests might
align with their own worldview,
whatever. But when it comes at the end
of the day, if everybody starts a war
with everybody else, they're America
first. Like I I'm America first. If
there's a war that breaks out and we
have to pick up guns, I'm fighting for
America. I'll take them on a case by
case basis. I know immigrants I know
immigrants who are absolutely super
patriots who know American history and
love and care about America more than
their nextoor neighbors who are from
here. But that ain't universal. Okay.
And let's talk about case by case then.
That's fine. Well, I think I think I
think he's clearly accusing me. A worse
war with Iran. He was entertained the
possibility of putting ground troops in
there. Don't take personal catastrophe
of you. You've taken personal shots.
Let's not do it.
You guys are just having fun and I'm
having fun. Just on the idea, he said
that there's there's a threat to
missiles. There's a threat from Iranian
missiles to America's bases in the
Middle East. Yeah. Because of Israel and
because of this war. The first time Iran
ever fired missiles at an American base
over there was in response to Trump
bombing them. It's never fault. Is that
what everybody thinks? It was Iran who
started this. Let's bring it back. What
a joke. Scott, it's a remarkable
management. I want to reiterate this.
And then Iran shot missiles at Qatar and
Iraq. Scott, you're a patriotic
American. God bless you. God bless the
United States. Thank you for allowing me
to come to this country and become an
American. It's a great country. Um and
as a patriotic American, I assume that
the the United States government and the
United States intelligence community and
the United States military, okay, has
America's best interest at heart.
However, we have learned from the
history and Scott's done a very good job
of detailing this during the Iraq war
that the United States gets it wrong.
Okay, I don't think the United States
lied us into war, but the United States
got it wrong. So, I think Scott's right.
We must make sure that we learn the
lessons of Iraq, but not overarn the
lessons of Iraq. I would also say this,
there are many lobby organizations in
the United States. There's the China
lobby, there's the oil lobby, there's
the the pharmaceutical lobby, there's
the Qatar lobby. I live in Washington. I
see all these lobby organizations. Okay.
Fact of the matter is the pro-Israel
lobby which actually lobbies in support
of the USIsrael relationship is
comprised of tens of millions of
Christians and Jews and Hindus and yes
yes Muslims who believe strongly in a
strong USIsrael relationship. The reason
that relationship has been so strong
over so many years and that this quote
lobby has been so successful is they're
pushing through an open door with policy
makers, not because some nefarious money
influence, but because at the end of the
day, the interests align. We we we
counter terrorism together, we counter
nuclear proliferation together, and we
believe that the US-Israel relationship
is a strong relationship. and and these
accusations of dual loyalty and these
accusations of Israel firsters that
Scott's thrown around I think distract
us from the conversation which I think
we should return to right let's talk
about today we we've talked about best
case scenarios we talked about worst
case scenarios and we talked about
really worst case scenarios so I think
let's let's talk about the way forward
and I I'd be interested in hearing from
Scott where he thinks we're going and
I'm certainly I I don't crystal ball
these things it's always difficult to
predict but I I I think President
President Trump has done a really good
job. He has led this, right? He has not
been, you know, the uh at the beck and
call of BB Netanyahu or Muhammad bin
Salman of Saudi Arabia or anyone else.
He has led this effort. He has made
these decisions. This is a man who
throughout his entire career and not
just his political career, but many many
years before that believed that an
Iranian nuclear weapon was a threat to
the United States of America. not just
to our allies but to the United States
of America. And he's been very clear on
record. He led this campaign since he
started in January. He offered
negotiations. He got rebuffed by the
Iranians in Oman. He put pressure on the
regime economically. He continued to
offer negotiations. He offered a very
good something that I thought was
flawed. I mean, Lex, I got to tell you,
the the offer in Oman that he gave to
the Iranians, I thought it was flawed
because I think it allowed Iran to
retain this key enrichment capability.
The Iranians turned it down. And I think
Kame to his everlasting regret is going
to wonder why did I turn that down? I
could have got the enrichment capability
that Scott thinks they deserve. And yet
I rejected it. Why? Why did I reject it?
Cuz now look what's happened in the past
12 days. You know, I've lost mostly.
We'll see what happens on the BDA, the
battle damage assessment. I've certainly
lost Natans. I've uh lost my conversion
facility at Isfahan which converts
uranium hexafflloride into uh into well
converts yellow cake into uranium
hexafflloride to pump into centrifuges
and the most important thing I lost at
isvahan there's a conversion facility
that takes 90% enriched uranium and
turns it into uranium metal without
uranium metal they don't have any 90%
enriched uranium he just means
hypothetically if they did have some be
you know the 60% that's 99% of the to
90% enriched uranium. By the way, you
can make a a crude nuclear device with
60% enriched uranium. I just want to put
that on the record. But he lost that key
conversion facility that turns 90%
enriched uranium or even 60% enriched
uranium into uranium metal. You need
uranium metal to fashion a crude nuclear
device or a warhead that's been
destroyed. And I just when I was coming
in this morning, I just checked. I
thought it was interesting. been a whole
lot of discussion about the fact that
about 12 or 16 trucks showed up at
Foraux in the days before the the US
strikes and moved something out of
Foraux. Well, according to reports just
this morning, we'll we'll see if they're
verified. I I don't trust single
sourcing. I don't trust what some
reporter just says in their stories
because reporters got it wrong over and
over again, especially all the ones who
accuse President Trump of being a
Russian agent. But we'll see what
happens. We'll see if it's verified. But
according to the reports um most of the
material remained at Fordo because the
Iranians were calculating this was the
most heavily fortified facility. They
were also calculating that President
Trump was not going to strike it because
what they had been doing was listening
to lots of voices and we can name the
voices or we can just talk talk to them
about a collective who were who they
thought were telling Trump don't do it
and we're telling Trump don't do it and
Trump decided on his own to do it. So,
they kept the enriched material at
Foraux. And if that's the case, it may
be that much of it was destroyed. Again,
caveat, it's just one or two stories
right now, uh, one in NBC News, and
let's see what happens over the coming
days, but if that's the case, that
material may have been destroyed. One
other element that we haven't even
talked about at all today, which I think
your listeners should be aware of, we
talked a lot about nuclear weapons
development, warhead development. What
the Israelis did was they took out the
top 15 nuclear weapons scientists who
have been part of, you remember I talked
about that original Ahmad program and
the development of those five atomic
weapons. Well, some of them who are old
enough come from the Ahmad program which
was the early 2000s. Some of them are
new, but they've been or not new but
younger and they've been trained by the
veterans. The 15 top guys taken out.
That is akin to it's January or February
45 and the entire central team of
Oppenheimer gets eliminated three to
four months between the Trinity test
before the Trinity test where we explode
our first nuclear weapon. So I would say
significant damage to Iran's nuclear
weapons program suggests that we
potentially have rolled them back for
years. I don't know how many years and
all those technical assessments are
still to come but significant damage. So
the question, as I said, is have they
retained enough capabilities that
they've squirreled away, stored in
covert sites, put under deeply buried
tunnels to break out to nuclear weapons?
That's Scott's concern. It's my concern.
Like I'm sure it's your concern that
they could do that. Or have have they
set back the program so significantly
that Kame then has to decide will I be
inviting another Israeli and or US
attack if I try to break out? And if I
do, do I risk my regime? who thinks that
if they break out and try to start
making nukes now that any hawk
supporting this war will take
responsibility for driving them to it.
So the the suggestion you're making is
we're actually driving of course as
opposed to doing the opposite. We're
actually driving them to develop nuclear
weapons. That's right. Can you make the
case that? Yeah. Previously he said
let's take the Ayatollah at his word
that he only wants a civilian
electricity program. Well, let's not
take him at his word. Again, I never
said in this conversation, trust the
Ayatollah. He did. Now he's kind of But
you said that the Ayatollah doesn't want
nuclear weapons programs. Scott, you
were very clear about that. What I said
about nuclear weapons program, are you
going back on that now? Jesus Christ.
What I was very clear about from my very
first statement when we sat down was
that the Ayatollah was building himself
a latent nuclear deterrent putting Iran
as what they call a threshold nuclear
weapon state just like Brazil and
Germany and Japan so everyone knows they
have mastered the fuel cycle they could
enrich uranium up to 90% don't make me
do it that was his position
weapons program did you ever hear me say
anything about believing the Ayatollah
saying he only wanted an electricity
program. This is why enrichment is a red
line. It's because if all the enrichment
is done overseas somewhere, then it's
not a latent nuclear deterrent at all.
So, it's a red line for you as well as
for me. We agree, Scott. I'm saying it's
a red line for the Ayatollah that he's
clearly not going to give in on and it's
a poison pill by the Israelis in the
West. They know he's never going to give
up enrichment 100%. Um because that's
the whole point of it. So it's just
disingenuous to say, "Oh, let's believe
him that he wants an an electricity
program." He's not saying that. I don't
even think that's his official position.
Or if it is, it's with a strong
implication as everyone understands that
it's a latent nuclear weapons capability
and a potential actual nuclear weapons
capability. Do you a deal will have to
include enrichment? Yes, that is a red
line. He won't move off. Yes. And then
the thing is too, just like I was saying
before, if Trump had come in in 2017 and
said, "Screw this. I hate this deal."
And then got on a plane and flown
straight to Tyrron and said, or you
know, sent his guys and said, "Now
listen here, Ayatollah, I want to fix
this deal up better." I think that he
really could have. And I don't I already
said I don't know the details, but I
believe Mark when he says that the
Europeans were being intrigent on that.
And again, I criticize the CIA and FBI
for framing Trump for treason, for
preventing him from being able to work
with the Russians to see if maybe they
could put pressure on the Ayatollah to
deal with him. But I think that it's
clear when the Ayatollah was willing in
the JCPOA to well, first of all, to sign
the additional protocol back in the W.
Bush years for year for three years, he
didn't enrich anything under that deal
as long as he was negotiating with the
E3. And then under the JCPOA where he's
shipping out every bit of his declared
nuclear material, he's clearly keeping
the ability to enrich uh if necessary to
uh weapons grade if if a crisis breaks
out. And he feels like he has to make
nukes, but he has he had no stockpile to
enlist this whole thing about 99% of the
way there. He had no stockpile. So even
if you uh you know count drive gassing
up your truck on the way to the mine as
part of this long time scale of
percentages here they were much further
from a nuke under the deal which he
agrees we shouldn't have even gotten out
of. Can I just say technically just I
think again important for your listeners
to understand under the JCPOA
um Iran is allowed to keep a stockpile
of maximum of 300 kg as I remember of
3.67% enriched material. they're allowed
to continue to enrich as long as if they
go over the 300 kilogram, they have to
continue to send that out to Russian um
to to Russia to blend down. And so they
kept the enrichment capability, the
ability to enrich. They did keep a
stockpile. Scott's right. They weren't
able to they're not allowed in those
early years to go under 3.67%. they
would be allowed to go to 20% and 60%
and 90% as the restrictions sunseted,
but they were able to keep all of those
keep capabilities. So, I just want to
clarify just technically what the JCPOA
actually said and what it didn't say.
Yeah. Can you comment on the so-called
operation midnight hammer
now that we can look back at it? What
parts were successful or what parts were
a mistake? Was the whole operation a
mistake that accelerates the Iran
nuclear program, the incentives for it,
or is there some components that
actually is a disincentive, disincentive
for Iran to develop the program? And
then maybe you can comment on the same.
It'd be nice to get comment. I think we
really don't know, right? There's some
initial battle assessments and arguments
and all that about just how much was
destroyed and what and we don't know
exactly what their reaction is going to
be. Um the you know there were reports
of them saying hey we're already
starting up a new facility somewhere
else. Uh there were reports where they
said hey a lot of our centrifuges
survived and we're going to start
spinning them up right now and this kind
of thing. Um the potential is there. I
don't know what the ITL is going to do.
And I think this goes to the larger
argument about the apocalyptic threat of
the ayah which Mark has not made but
which Israel hawks often do that these
guys just can't wait to get into a war
and all this. In fact if you look at in
a war. But I what the argument I make is
we're not going to use a nuclear weapon.
You interrupt me every time. I try to
Scott. I just You're mischaracterizing
what I'm saying. I need to clarify when
you misar he's not interrupting you
every time, but sometimes interrupting.
Yes. Uh so try not to interrupt as much.
Uh go ahead, Scott. Don't take it
personally. Come on. Let's go. It seems
like a deliberate attempt to obfuscate
and and prevent me from just being able
to complete a point. You know, he does
it virtually every time. No, it's not.
As a listener, I'm enjoying this. Uh
well look on the face of it they blew up
a lot of stuff and they made them very
angry. So are they going to now give in
or they're now going to double down or
they're now going to hold still? We
don't really know. As I was trying to
explain
from the Ayatollah's position that he's
in. What are you going to do with a
problem like the United States of
America? Right? They can chant great
Satan this and that all they want. They
have no ability to really threaten this
country in any way. And they and and
they know that America absolutely does
have the ability to in fact even without
nuclear weapons essentially wipe their
civilization off the face of the earth
just with B-52s if we wanted to carpet
bomb their major cities. And they so
they know that the Ayatollahan knows
he's in a very difficult position. And
look at what he did when they
assassinated Solommani. He sent
essentially a symbolic strike at an
empty corner of an American base in
Iraq. It did cause some concussions and
head trauma, but it was he deliberately
did that to not cause casualties. And
then Trump let him have the last word.
And then also when they shot down the
drone, which I think Trump was
suspicious that the Pentagon had flown
that into Iranian airspace and they
demanded strikes and Trump said, "No,
it's just a drone. How many Iranians
will die at the base you want me to hit?
No, I don't want to kill them. I don't
want to do it." And again, he let the
Ayatollah get the last word. Same thing
happened again with yesterday's strikes.
Iran hit America's our central command
headquarters, the Aludid air base in
Qatar and also an American uh base I
think in Baghdad and I'm not sure about
in Iraqi Kurdistan. Zero casualties so
far. Zero casualties so far. So what is
going on there essentially is he's got
to do something. and he's doing like
these symbolic strikes essentially to
say like hey you can't do that to me but
then he's also telegraphing that hey
like I can't do anything about you and I
don't really want to fight and so in a
way he's like kind of backing down he's
doing and then what did Donald Trump say
Donald Trump again let him have the last
word and in fact like bragged and mocked
and said hey thanks Ayatollah for giving
us a warning that you were about to
shoot missiles at our base so we could
be ready to shoot them all down and this
kind of thing and he said now is the
time for peace In other words, Trump
again letting the Ayatollah get the last
word. Why? Because the Ayatollah,
he might be a horrible leader if you
live in Iran, but he is not perfectly
but essentially cautious in foreign
policy because what's he going to do?
He's going to decimate our naval base at
Bahrain. He's going to slaughter all our
troops in Kuwait. And then what's Trump
going to do? And so the Ayatollah knows.
So, it's the same people who who and I
don't include him in this, but you hear
a lot of the hawkish talk about just how
easy this has been. These same people
talking about what an absolutely
irrational uh religiously
uh motivatedly and motivated and
therefore you know crazy and irrational
uh group of people the mullazar and why
they can only be dealt with with force
when in fact what they're showing is
essential conservatism
trying to hold on to what they got
making a latent deterrent because they
know if they break out toward a bomb
that'll get them boned. So they were
hoping having the latent deterrent would
be enough to just keep them at the
status quo. That's why it's so
disingenuous just again with um uh Marco
Rubio, the Secretary of State, saying
forget the intelligence because 60% hey
it's 99% of the way there close enough
for us. So it doesn't matter if the
Ayatollah has decided to make a nuke or
not. They're just too close to one as it
is. Which is really silly because
they're not much closer than they've
been for 20 years since the W. Bush
administration, they proved they've
mastered the fuel cycle. That is one of
the fundamental disagreements in the
room that you're saying they don't have
they really don't have interest to
develop a nuclear uh weapon and they're
not quite well not exactly I mean I more
towards that direction than Mark is
saying more toward but they're saying
look at us we're a threshold state don't
push your luck and and force us to make
the bad decision they have now that's an
implication they have not said that
outright but clearly the implication is
that if we force them then they will go
ahead and make a nuclear weapon. What I
mean is if left on their own devices,
they would not develop. That's the case
you're making. Not just on their own
devices, but if we were to try to
negotiate with them in good faith and
try to have normal relations with them,
that would disincentivize a nuclear
weapon even further. Okay. Can you
comment on the mission operation and
general? Sure. A couple things I think
were interesting what Scott said and I
agree with with certainly with some of
it. Um I mean the first thing is I I do
believe President Trump has negotiated
in good faith. I mean, he sent Steve
Wickoff, he's chief negotiator for five
rounds of negotiations since he came in
office. Um, the second is, I mean, we
can keep going around in circles, but
the the fact of the matter is I do
believe that Iran and Iran backed
terrorist organizations have for since
uh killed and try to kill and maim
Americans and taken them hostage. I
think it's important for me again to put
that on the record. But where I agree
with with Scott is I and it's
interesting and I don't know if Kame has
changed in his you know he's 86 years
old he's been in power since 1989 and
there's a little bit of history that I
think is really interesting Lex it was
the it was 1988 and uh Iran and Iraq had
fought this brutal 8-year war million
people dead and um the United States
accidentally shot down a Iranian
passenger airline United States offered
to pay compensation and apologized. The
Iranians didn't believe it. They didn't
believe we could accidentally do that.
They thought we were going to be
intervening militarily on behalf of
Saddam. So, Kame who's not the supreme
leader at the time. He was the Iranian
president. He and Raf Sanjani, they go
to Kmeni and they say, "Mr. Ayatollah,
we got to sue for peace with the Iraqis
because the Americans are intervening
and and we cannot fight the Americans.
We fought this brutal war. We'll
continue with Saddam. We cannot fight
the United States of America." I think
Scott's right like that perception that
there's no way they can fight the United
States of America because that's regime
ending potentially even if we don't
intend to that could actually happen.
And there's a famous line where Kmeni
says, "All right, I agree. I will drink
the poison chalice. I'll drink the
poison chalice and I will agree to a
ceasefire on pretty tough terms for
Iran." It's interesting now 36 years
later or 37 years later Kame is now
going to decide to drink the poison
chalice. Does he agree to a negotiated
deal with the United States? Does he
agree to deal that President Trump and I
mean Scott criticizes me for it, but
that's President Trump's position is no
enrichment, full dismantlement. By the
way, that's backed up by 52 of 53
Republican senators and 177 House GOP
members and backed by everybody in his
administration, including JD Vance,
who's been emphatic about that. Does he
agree to that deal or does he decide I'm
not going to join the poison chalice and
I am going to I'm going to take other
options? Now, I agree with Scott like
going after US military bases except in
a symbolic way, suicidal. closing the
Straits of Hermuse. 40% of Chinese oil
goes through there. The Chinese have
been saying to the Iranians, don't you
dare. By the way, 100% of Iranian oil
goes from Iran in Carg Island through
the Straits of Hermuse. So economically
suicidal for the Iranians to do that. Um
terror attacks absolutely. I mean that
has been their modus operand for years.
So, I would be concerned about uh
terrorist attacks against US targets
against civilians
um potentially sleeper cells in the
United States. So, he's used terasels
around the world. He's engaged in a
decadesl long assassination campaign,
including on American soil, by the way,
sometimes successfully, sometimes not,
including most recently where he went
after an Iranian-American three times to
try to assassinate her in New York, a
woman named Masielad. And so he's got to
be calculating like what is my play? So
if I don't do a deal, how can I actually
squeeze the Americans? And Scott's
right. like he must be thinking to
himself, you know what? I was literally
on the 99 yard line with an entire
nuclear weapons capability. I should
have crossed the goal line. If I had had
a warhead, a nuclear warhead or multiple
nuclear warheads as they had been trying
to build since the Ahmad plan in early
2000s, there's no way Israel and the
United States would have hit me
militarily if I had nuclear weapons.
Then I would have had the ultimate
deterrence to prevent that. and then I
would be like Kim Jong-un with nuclear
weapons. I would then build ICBMs and
then I'd have the ultimate deterrent to
stop that. So he's got to be thinking
maybe now and I I can guarantee you the
revolutionary guards. Do you think that
that might have anything to do with the
fact that America attacked Iraq and
Libya when they did not have weapons of
mass destruction programs? Can I tell
you the Libya example? I think Scott is
the most interesting one for me. Right.
Because the Libya example, it was a big
mistake. By the way, Ukraine is another
good example of this. We went to the
Libyans and we said, "You must fully
dismantle your program." And Gaddafi
said, reluctantly, under huge American
pressure, "Okay, I'll do it." And the
Brits and the and the Americans went in
there and literally hauled out his
entire nuclear It wasn't really a
program. It was just a bunch of AQN's
junk sitting in crates in a warehouse.
They did not have the capability to make
a nuclear program at all in Libya. They
didn't have the the engineers, the
scientists, or anyone. So Gaddafi had
bought that junk just to trade it away.
Just to be clear, there never was a
nuclear weapons program or a nuclear
program of any kind in Libya, unlike
what you just heard. That wasn't my
point. Okay. My point is is he had a
nuclear program. We can debate about
again how we debating about whether
again it's always Gaddafi and Kame and
all these people. They don't really want
nuclear weapons. We just misunderstand
them. But but that's not the point. The
point is we did a deal with Gaddafi. We
pulled out his nuclear program and then
I don't know how many years later, but
it wasn't too many years later. Seven
years later, thank you, Scott. We
actually took took Gaddafi out and he
didn't have a nuclear program. So, we
took him out in in the Libya operation.
Now, Ukraine is another great example.
The Ukrainians after the fall of Soviet
Union, you know this, they had the
Soviet nuclear arsenal or or good parts
of it on their soil. So, we went to them
and we said, "All right, well, here's a
deal for you. give up the nuclear
arsenal right off your territory and we
we and the Russians and the French
guarantee your territorial integrity and
your sovereignty as a country. So the
Ukrainians said fair deal to me gave up
all the nuclear weapons and then Putin
has now invaded Ukraine. That's not what
Bucharest declaration says that we
promised their security. We promised to
respect it and the Russians promised to
and both sides broke that promise. But
there is nothing like a guarantee that
America would protect Ukraine's
sovereignty. They gave up those nukes
and they had no ability to use those
nukes anyway because they were Soviet
nukes with Soviet codes. They belong to
the Soviet military and the Ukrainians
would had no ability to use them or
deliver them. They were married to
missiles that were made to fly around
the world, not to Russia next door.
Scott, my point is, and I think this
you'll agree with this. My point is, if
you're Kam and you've seen those two
examples of Libya, you gave up your
nuclear program, Gaddafi gets taken
down. You're Ukraine, you gave up your
nuclear weapons and the Russians invaded
twice. If you're Kame thinking to
yourself, the only thing that matters
more to me than my nuclear weapons
program is my regime survival. And in 12
days of war, the Israelis specifically
because we hit Foraux and Isvahan and
Hans, we the United States hit those
sites. We the United States hit those
sites. The gleeful nature Scott like
stop. Take that out. There's no place
here in this room with me. The
unamerican bullshit.
Don't do that. The implication here,
man, is that I me
unAmerican. And I've been attacked just
like the Russian hoax for being a Putin
shill. I'm an American. Well, when you
talk about Ukraine's war with Russia, do
you say we or do you say they? I said we
the United States. We we actually Well,
you added the United States, but you
were just described Israel strikes.
Israel didn't strike for Scott. You
talked about the US attack on you.
You're you're speaking to this other
people that you've heard that somehow
they do say we and they talk about I
would say ridiculously as if uh I've
even heard some people basically put
Israel above us and they're American
citizens. Yeah, that's fucking
ridiculous. But none of those people are
in this room. The the the there are
demons under the bed. I'm sure those
people exist. There's ridiculous people
on the internet. There's ridiculous
people in Congress who can criticize
them, make fun of them, say they're
fucking The Foundation for Defense of
Democracy has been the vanguard of the
war party in this country for 25 years.
Well, that's a different criticism, but
I was I was It's an important one. Yeah.
Yeah. But no, you just switched. You
just switched.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's
no un You just switched from the
unamerican discussion to criticizing
policies that that particular institute.
Fine. and criticize the policies. Do
that unamerican bullshit. Lex, the
neoconservative movement is the vanguard
of the Israel lobby. That's who they
are. That's what neoonservatism is
about. I'm not a who the
neoconservative, so I don't know who
he's talking about, but I'm not. Let's
not mix stuff up. There there there is a
massive Israel lobby in America in
Washington that is inseparable from the
American war party. Yeah. Yeah. I've
talked to John Mir. I respect him
deeply. He is one of the most brilliant
uh people speaking on that topic. Great.
Great. Let's just talk about today and
the nuclear proliferation. You guys have
been brilliant on this. I'm learning a
lot. Let's continue. Yeah. So, let's
let's go back to where where Kame may
be. I mean, in a bunker, 86 years old,
thinking he's going to drink the poison
chalice and agree to a deal with Donald
Trump and Oman, or is he going to do all
of the things that Scott and I are
concerned about? And one of those, and
Scott has pointed this out rightly so,
is he may decide now to to break out for
the nuke or creep out for the nuke. He
may decide not to do it now. He may
decide to do it in three and a half
years when President Trump is gone.
Right? And I think that the the the
important thing is he's seen we the
United States we took out Fordo and
Natans and Isvahan in one operation with
B2 bombers and and 12 30,000 lb massive
orange penetrators and Tomahawk
missiles. So if he doesn't think if he
didn't think that the United States had
serious military power before, he now
knows we do. So to you that operation
was geopolitically a success. It sends a
message of strength that if you try to
build you're going to be punished for
it. So I' I've said online in the past
12 days and even before that curb your
enthusiasm. Curb your enthusiasm to all
the people related to which topic? Yeah.
Just just this sort of idea that this
has been like this unbelievable success
and everything's great and everything's
going to be amazing and we've stopped
the nuclear weapons program and this has
been a resounding success. I've just
said kind of curb your enthusiasm. Kame
remains very dangerous. The regime
remains very dangerous. A wounded animal
is the most dangerous animal in the
animal kingdom. He retains key
capabilities to build weapons. You
demanded unconditional surrender on
Twitter again last night. Right after
Trump said there's a ceasefire. What
does unconditional surrender mean? No
enrichment, full dismantlement. Yes.
Exactly right. It's exactly what
President Trump Well, I not regime
change. unconditional surrender in World
War II meant the end of the Nazi regime
and the imperialist Japanese regime
entirely. Right. But President Trump
made it very clear. President Trump made
it very clear. He he made it clear I
don't support regime change. Well,
except for that one
a few hours earlier, right? I I'll
actually I'll explain that one cuz I
thought it was analyze it like a
Shakespeare. What is that? Yeah. Yeah.
And what what what did he also mean? We
have two countries that have been
fighting so long and so hard that they
don't know what the fuck they're doing.
What's that about? He was angry that
Israel was still attacking after he
promised they weren't. He demanded they
turn their planes around. He felt that
they were doing it in defiance of their
agreement. But he didn't say Israel. He
says the both countries different quote
different quote. He did say I demand I
believe it was a tweet from True Social.
I demand that Israel turn those planes
around right now was how upset he was
about. I guess Donald Trump doesn't
listen to BB all the time, does he?
Yeah. I guess he's finding out they
respect him about as much as they
respect a Palestinian. Well, that's
called world leaders. Help. World
leaders are interested in their own
nation. That's right. They fuck you
over. Good important lesson there,
everyone. What does Israel care about?
Israel. Every country, every country
then defend defends its national
interest. I mean, that's not unusual for
Israel or any other country. But I think
to understand we're supposed to pretend
that hey, whatever Israel needs, we're
here to serve their interest. If those
people exist, they're unamerican. If
people put Israel's interest, we fight
terrorism together. Well, we do. Well,
we we generate terrorism together. What
are you talking about? But that doesn't
mean you put Israel's interest above
America's. If you do, you're unamerican.
You know how many American lives these
Israeli intelligence community has
saved? Um, and ask ask people in the FBI
and CIA who were counterterrorism, how
many American lives the Israelis have
saved because of their intelligence
capabilities. How about when enough
Bennett well again bomb that shelter
full of women and children and caused
the September 11th attack that's what
happened in fact I don't know if you
know the story but you could Google this
you like googling things it's on Google
books you can read perfect soldiers by
Terry McDermott or you could read the
looming tower by Lawrence Wright where
both of them explained how when Shimon
Perez launched operation grapes of wrath
that Ramsay bin Ali and Muhammad Ata
filled out their last will and testament
which was like symbolically joining the
army to fight against the infidels etc.
et, etc. And when Bin Laden put out his
first declaration of war a couple of
months later, it began with a whole rant
about the 106 women and children that
Nocttali Bennett had killed with an
artillery strike in a UN shelter in in
um in Kana in 1996. And and he said,
"We'll never forget the severed arms and
heads and legs of the little babies,
etc." And it was then that Muhammad Ata
and Ramsay bin Alshe decided that they
would join al Qaeda and that they these
Egyptian engineering students studying
in Hamburg, Germany would volunteer for
this Saudi chic to kill 3,000 Americans
to get revenge for what Israel was doing
to helpless women and children in
Lebanon. As well as of course of course
ignores the history of al-Qaeda which
for years before that was the United
States
operations against the United States but
executing them. You guys love pulling
each other into history. They went they
went out with al Qaeda. Just one second.
America's problems with Ala is Israel.
America and Israel are terrorist
terrorist states. They were America's
mercenaries that we used in Afghanistan
in Bosnia and Chetchna. When they turned
against I mean America they turned
against us. Anyone could read Michael's
book, the former chief of the CIA bin
Laden,
imperial hubris and it's about how the
number one reason they attacked us was
American bases on Saudi soil to bomb
Iraq as part of Israel's dual
containment policy. And the second
reason was American support for Israel
in their merciless persecution of the
Palestinians and the Lebanese. That's
the most articulate justification I've
ever heard for al-Qaeda in my life. But
let's it's not a justification.
I'm not saying that makes what they did
right. I'm saying that was how Bin Laden
recruited his foot soldiers to attack
this country was by citing American
foreign policies that were directly to
the detriment of the people of the
Middle East and specifically our support
for Israel. And I've never heard a pro,
in fact, I take that back. There's one
guy, a liberal from The Nation magazine
named Eric Alterman is the only
pro-Israel guy I've ever heard say,
"Well, that may be true, but I still say
we got to support Israel anyway." The
others, they'll just pretend that Terry
McDermott never wrote that book, that
Lawrence Wright never wrote that book,
that Muhammad Ata had no motive to turn
on the United States except for Muhammad
made him do it. when in fact what it was
is it was the ultraviolence of Shimone
Perez and artillery officer Naftali
Bennett slaughtering women and children
that turned America's mercenaries
America backed the Arab Afghan army in
Afghanistan in Bosnia in Kosovo and in
Cheschna as I demonstrate in my book and
yet as he correctly says they turned on
us all through the 1990s Bill Clinton
was still backing them anyway after they
were attacking us and including at Cobar
Towers and they were doing that is this
was a bin Laden plot notes Ezbala, not
the Shiites. This was the Bin Laden
getting revenge against us for support
for Israel and being too close to their
local dictators that they wanted to
overthrow, namely the king of Saudi and
the El Presidentede of Egypt. That is
the cause of the September 11th attack
against the United States. Not the
Taliban hate freedom, but the bin Laden
hate American support for Israel and
America adopting policies, Israeli
centric policies like Martin Indict's uh
dual containment policy in 193. I think
al-Qaeda hates America, Scott, I think.
Why? You know what? I'll tell you what,
Ali Sufan, you know, Ali Sufan, the
former FBI agent, counterterrorism
agent, he wrote in his book, The Black
Banners, that the Bin Laden said to Bin
Laden, "We don't understand why you're
so angry at America. They've been so
good to us in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in
Kosovo, and now here in Cheschna. Why do
you want to attack them?"
Said, "I have a larger agenda that you
don't understand." The disagreement
between you is clear. I've talked to Nam
Chsky twice. Scott, you focus on the
criticism. interview Michael Shyer.
Well, although he's gone pretty crazy
lately. I don't know, maybe not. Anyway,
we're going into history. We're learning
a lot. The perspectives differ strongly.
Uh can we look into the maybe a
ridiculous question, but a nuclear
proliferation? You already started to
speak to both of you. uh if you look
like 10 20 years out now, does does the
US attacking Iran does that send a
message
even to NBS to other Middle Eastern
nations that they need to start thinking
about u a nuclear weapon program
specifically like do you think just in a
numbers way does the number of nukes in
the world go up in 10 20 30 years? So
look I I think uh it's a great question.
Will there be more nuclear weapons
powers in the future or less as a result
of this decision by President Trump? So,
I actually think there'll be less um and
I'll tell you uh it's succinently as I
can and that is that it's been very
clear from the Saudis, from the Turks um
certainly from the um even the Algerians
and others that if Iran gets a nuclear
weapon, they too want a nuclear weapon.
In fact, the Saudis have gone even
further and said if if Iran is allowed
to retain the key enrichment capability
that they have under JCPOA that we want
that too. If there's an Iran standard,
we want the Iran standard. We don't want
the gold standard. In fact, that's been
the subject of intensive negotiations
between the United States and Saudi
Arabia for the past couple years, both
under Biden and Trump as part of the US
Saudi uh agreement, defense agreement
and economic agreement that that has
been underway. It is it's very clear
that there's going to be a proliferation
cascade in the Middle East if the
Iranians get a nuclear weapon and
certainly if they're allowed to retain
this enrichment capability. I also worry
about we haven't even talked about at
all this conversation. I mean the most
important area in the world, the United
States is not the Middle East, it's
China and the Indopacific. And I worry
that the South Koreans, the Taiwanese,
and the Japanese will say, "You know
what? We don't trust an any US
commitments to stop nuclear weapons. You
failed on Iran. We don't trust you. We
don't trust your nuclear umbrella. We
too want nuclear weapons in order to
guard our security against China." And
so what you would see I I hope it
doesn't happen but I worry about is this
kind of proliferation cascade in the
Middle East and in the Indo Pacific two
of the most important areas for American
national security which is why I think
it's very important that that be that
Iran's be stopped. Now whether this
attack is succeeds in stopping Iran's
nuclear weapon or accelerates it we we
disagree but I think neither of us know
yet. hard to predict. But what I think
is absolutely certain is that if Iran
develops that nuclear weapon and is
allowed to retain the key capabilities
to do so, you're going to see five, six
countries in the Middle East, at least
three, four countries in the Indo
Pacific asking for the same capability.
And then you're going to have a club of
nuclear weapons powers uh that will have
an additional five, six, seven over the
next 10 to 20 years. What if they don't?
What if they're prevented? Doesn't that
still send the same message to everybody
that they should build? Oh, I think it
sends the opposite message, Lex. I think
if they see what has happened and that
it's and that it's successful and it
stopped Iran from developing nuclear
weapons and in addition, Trump was able
to negotiate an agreement for zero
enrichment and full dismantlement. And
the message to all these other countries
is number one, you don't need it. And
number two, if you try to get it, then
the United States is going to use
American power. Now, I'm not suggesting
the United States is going to start
bombing the Saudis or the Turks or the
Amiradis. Clearly, not the Japanese. I
mean, these are many of them are allies.
But I think the United States retains
many tools, counterpril tools to prevent
these countries from developing nuclear
weapons, including, you know, sanctions
and export controls and many of the
things. And plus, I think those
countries, you know, understand that in
the Middle East, despite Scott's focus
on Israel, you know, when you talk to
Arab leaders, their biggest concern is
the threat from Iran. It's not the
threat from Israel. They're not
concerned with the threat from Israel.
That's why you had the Abraham Accords.
It, you know, this is why the UAE and
Bahrain and Morocco entered into this
peace agreement with Israel. The Saudis
will one day, and they'll bring many
other Arab and Muslim countries in it.
They don't say Israel is a threat. They
see Iran as a threat. And so if you
counter that threat, you eliminate
Iran's nuclear weapons proliferation and
expansion. Those countries now no longer
have to build nuclear weapons
capabilities to counter the Iranians.
Now, we've also restored our
credibility.
We don't bluff. We said Iran doesn't
develop nuclear weapons. They won't. And
now it's the Japanese who have, as Scott
rightly pointed out, they do have
reprocessing and plutonium capabilities.
Um, the Taiwanese who used to have a
military nuclear weapons program and
gave it up. And the South Koreans who
agreed to our gold standard of zero
enrichment, zero reprocessing, those
three countries can now say, "Okay, we
rely on the United States on your word,
on your power, and on your ability to to
actually turn words into action. we
don't need nuclear weapons. So I I say
if successful, big if, big if, if
successful, then it's going to be a
significant
um guard against the potential of
greater nuclear proliferation and we
will have less nuclear powers, nuclear
weapons powers than uh than we otherwise
would have. My favorite thing is when
you guys point out when you agree with
the other person. Anyway, uh Scott, what
do you think? What what do you think
everything that's just happened over the
past two weeks does to nuclear nuclear
proliferation over the next 5 10 20
years? Well, I mean, I really don't know
for sure, but I would think that um the
uh there's a very great danger that it's
going to reinforce the lessons of North
Korea, Iraq, and Libya, which is you
better get a nuke to keep America out
and you better hurry before it's too
late. Now, for the Saudis, they're not
going to do that cuz they're obviously a
very close American client state. So,
it's a different dynamic there. But, you
know, for any country that has trouble
with the United States or is worried
about the future of their ability to
maintain their national sovereignty,
obviously getting their hands on an A-
bomb as quickly as possible is uh has
been, you know, reincentivized to a
great degree. Also, I'm really worried
about the future of the
non-proliferation treaty with the
nuclear weapons states promise to
respect the right of non-uclear weapons
states to civilian nuclear energy and
where here you have a nonPT
signatory nuclear weapons state Israel
launch an aggressive war against an NPT
signatory that is was not attacking them
and was not making nuclear weapons and
with the assistance of the world empire
the United states. Another nuclear
weapons state signatory to the NPT. And
I don't really take this that seriously,
but it's worth at least listening to is
uh Madv, the uh once and probably future
president of Russia. He said, "Oh yeah,
well maybe we'll just give him a nuke or
kind of implied maybe get Pakistan too."
Now, for people familiar with like Key
and Peele, Madv is sort of angry Obama,
right, for Putin. You know that skit
where it's like Obama talks all calm and
translator. Peele goes off like an angry
black guy kind of character, right? He's
been going nuts on Twitter. Yeah. Vev,
he he goes way out, you know, above and
beyond. But I think he's probably acting
on instructions to talk that way. And it
is a real risk that the MPT could just
fall apart when it becomes when it's
treated uh so callously by the United
States who invented it and insisted that
the rest of the world adopt the thing to
such a great degree. Trump did say don't
use the nword. He he talked down to midv
around the end the nuclear word. Yeah.
Well and and I appreciate that. Good.
He's right. He's right in that not
Pakistanis could give a nuke to Iran who
are their friends. I think not the
tightest of allies. I'm not saying I
predict that, but there's a danger of
that. Um, now when it comes to, you
know, Eastern Asia, obviously there's a
concern about a Chinese threat to
Taiwan, but nobody thinks China's coming
for South Korea or Japan. The the
question of Taiwan is one that's very
different because, as the American
president agreed with Ma Tong 50 years
ago, Taiwan is part of China and
eventually will be reunited. although we
hope that's not by force. Since then,
they have essentially abandoned Marxism,
although it's still a one party
authoritarian state, but they've
essentially abandoned Marxism, adopted
markets, at least to the degree that
they've been able to afford to now build
up a a giant naval force that is capable
of retaking Taiwan. And so I think the
way to prevent that is not from making a
bunch of threats and setting examples in
other places about how tough we are, but
to negotiate with the Chinese and the
Taiwanese and figure out a way to
reunite the two in a peaceful way in
order to prevent that war from breaking
out. Because in fact, we don't really
have the naval and air capability to
defend Taiwan. We could lose a lot of
guys trying and probably kill a lot of
Chinese trying, but in the end, they'd
probably take Taiwan anyway, and we'd
have lost a bunch of ships and and
planes for nothing. So, we can negotiate
an end to that. And then even if America
just withdrew from the region, we could
still negotiate long-term agreements
between China, Japan, South Korea, and
whoever, there's no reason to think that
everyone would make a mad scramble to a
bomb to protect them uh if the moment
they are out from under America's
nuclear umbrella and so forth. And the
fact of the matter is that um
you know the greatest threat to the
status quo as far as the nuclear powers
go probably is what just happened.
America and Israel launching this war
against the non-uclear weapons state as
a member in good standing of this treaty
throws the the whole as they call it the
liberal rulesbased world order into
question. I mean, if these rules
repeatedly always apply to everyone
else, but very often not to us, then are
they really the law or this is just the
will of men in Washington DC? And how
long do we expect the rest of the world
to go ahead and abide by that? If you
know, a deal is a deal until we decide,
as Bill Clinton said, to wake up one
morning and decide that we don't like it
anymore and and change it. That was a
phrase from the founding act of 97. Huh?
Maybe we'll wake up one morning and
decide that we want to do something else
entirely. Is that your Bill Clinton
impression? No, I'll spare you. Okay,
that was pretty good. After the show
when we're not recording, I'll show Can
I Can I respond to a couple things here
just really quickly? I'll try to do it
quickly. Um, first of all, you know, the
notion that Iran is in full compliance
with the NPT um is is just not the case.
The International Atomic Energy Agency
has made it clear in report after report
after report that Iran is in violation
of its obligations under the um
protocols of the IAEA under the request
that the IAEA have made and under the
NPT. So they are a serial violator of
the NPT unlike all these other countries
we've been talking about that are our
allies. Second is this this quote um
Iran is not attacking Israel. That's
quite an amazing quote um which kind of
ignores I think uh 50 60 years of
Iranian attacks against Israel including
um suicide bombings and
missiles and drones and October 7th and
it it's indisputable that Iran has been
attacking Israel and they've been
they've been doing it for many years
through their terror proxies that they
fund and finance and and weaponize and
since uh October 7th, they directly
struck Israel with hundreds of ballistic
missiles in April and October of last
year. So this notion that before 12 days
ago, Iranians were just playing nice
with the Israelis and the Israelis just
came out out of the blue. Well, you said
quote unquote Iran is not is not
attacking Israel. So I mean it's just
not true. Yeah. They were not in a state
of war until Israel launched a state of
war. That's the fact that you go oh well
they backed a group that did a thing.
Yeah. Okay. that kill thousands and of
Israelis, ma thousands of Israelis, but
that was not ordered in Tyrron. The Wall
Street Journal says that US intelligence
does not believe that Tyrron ordered
that attack. They found out about
Journal says and what the US
intelligence says, and we can dispute
whether they directed it on October 7th.
Everybody knows indisputably that Iran
financed Hamas, provided Hamas weapons.
Just well, just a second. provided Hamas
with weapons that the IRGC and the Kuds
force were training Hamas. Hisbala
backed by Iran was training Hamas. There
were three meetings before October 7th,
one in Beirut, one in Damascus, and one
in Thran where the IRGC, Hzbalah, Hamas,
and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were
together. There was a meeting in Thran
that was attended by Kame, the Supreme
Leader. Now, at those three meetings
right before October 7th, you know,
maybe they're discussing the weather,
maybe they were discussing Persian
poetry, I don't know, but it is hard to
believe they weren't discussing
something. And the fact that they had
armed Hamas, financed Hamas, and
weaponized Hamas suggests to me that
there is pretty overwhelming evidence
that Iran has been at war with Israel
for decades. Critics of Israel will say
that Benjamin Netanyahu has also been
indirectly financing Hamas by allowing
the fund the funds going America backs
Israel, so anything Israel does is
America's responsibility, too, under
that same logic. Right. I I think you
started to make a a point disagreeing
with Scott about that. They're not a
good member of the NPT. That's all tiny
technical violations. None of that has
anything to do with weaponization. It's
always, oh yeah, how do you explain this
isotope? And they go, well, it must have
came with the Pakistani junk that we
bought from Acon. And then later that's
verified. And they go, yeah, well, we
want to inspect this. Let us. And they
go, no. Oh, and then they do a year
later and then they find nothing there.
Yeah, that's just not the case. Entire
history of Iran of the IAEA's objections
to Iran. So your listeners, I know
they're not going to do it because it's
a lot of technical, but just go out, go
out and read IAEA reports dating back at
least 20 years and you'll see the IA
meticulously, methodically,
dispassionately outlining all of the
violations that Iran has embarked on of
the NPT. Virtually all those are
resolved later. They won't answer this
and then later they do. They won't
answer that and then later they do. and
many open files are still a still there.
I mean, just again like I just I just
want your viewers to walk away from this
conversation thing, okay, that's
interesting. I I I didn't know that. And
that I'm gonna go fact check Mark and
fact check Scott and just kind of see
what this is all about, right? Because
otherwise it's just he says, she says,
or he says, he says. Um the fact of the
matter is is that Iran has been in
violations of its obligations under the
NPT under the additional protocol. It
never it never uh it never ratified
under its safeguards obligations under
the NPT. It suggests a pattern of
nuclear macity. They abided by the
additional protocol without having
ratified it. They abided about it for
three years and did not proceed with any
enrichment at all as long as they were
dealing in good faith with the EU until
W. Bush ruined those negotiations and
closed them down. Only then did they
began to install the centrifuges at
Natans. It's always the American screw
things up. complain they didn't ratify
the thing but they abided by it for
years. So that's an interesting they
were in violation of it. But I I think a
more pragmatic and important
disagreement that we already spoke to is
how do we decrease the incentive for
Iran to build nuclear programs not just
in the next couple years but in the next
10 20 years. What that's you're mocking
that there's a lot of people that will
there's neocons that say basically
invade everything let's make money off
of war but there's people that will say
that you know operation midnight hammer
is actually a focused hard demonstration
of strength a piece of strength that is
an effective way to do geopolitics I
mean there's cases to be made for all of
it if we're really lucky yeah so it's a
big risk is your case so here's some
practical recommendations that I think
the United States should follow I think
the first is, you know, get the Iranians
back to Oman, negotiate with them, and
do a deal. Again, the deal has to be no
enrichment, full dismantlement. I I I
think for the reasons we talked about
today, Scott and I passionately
disagree, but that's fine. We This is
This is a reasonable debate. Neither of
us is crazy. Neither of us is rational.
It is what would it take to get a deal
with Iran? I say I say this is the deal.
This has to be our red line. Scott
disagrees. That's fine. But we got to
get a deal. In that deal, we got to
provide them financial incentives,
right? We're going to have to lift a
certain number of sanctions because
they're going to have to get something
in return. Okay, we can argue about
exactly how much, but I think our
opening negotiating position is no
sanctions relief and then we'll get
negotiated down from that. Right? I
mean, like I think a lot of this is
about how do you position yourself for a
negotiation? How do you how do you come
in with leverage and then how do you
find areas of compromise where you you
satisfy your objectives? One is Oman.
Two is the credible threat of military
force needs to remain right needs to
understand that the United States of
America and Israel will use military
force to stop him from developing
nuclear weapons. If he didn't believe
that before 12 days ago, he now believes
that and I think that's the credibility
of that military force has to be
maintained in order to ensure that he
does not break out or sneak out to a
nuclear weapon. I I think that's
absolutely critical. Third is I think we
have to reach agreements with all the
other countries in the Middle East to
say, "Hey, listen. We're demanding zero
enrichment and full dismantlement from
the Iranians. You don't get enrichment
and you don't get a nuclear program that
is capable of developing nuclear
weapons. Our gold standard is the
American standard. Civilian nuclear
energy like 23 countries, no enrichment
and reprocess. We should be consistent.
We should be consistent not just with
American allies but also very clear with
American enemies. I think that's the
third important thing we do. Fourth is I
think it's really important that we find
some kind of accommodation between the
Israelis and the Palestinians. We can go
down many rabbit holes on that, but I
think that lays the predicate for a
Saudi Israeli normalization deal that
then brings in multiple Arab countries
and Muslim countries. And finally is we
talked about the Abraham Accords. I I
think we need to start thinking about
what did the Cyrus Accords look like,
right? Cyrus was the great Persian king,
right? Who by the way brought the you
know the Jews back from um from uh the
diaspora to Jerusalem and Cyrus accords
would be let's find an agreement between
the United States and Israel and Iran.
That would be a remarkable
transformation in the region if we could
actually do that. So imagine a Middle
East, and again, I know this sounds
fanciful, but I think this is what Trump
has in mind when he starts to talk about
the things you're seeing in these truth
posts, is actually a Middle East that
can be fundamentally transformed where
we actually do bring peace between
Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the rest
of these countries. I, by the way,
completely agree with you on Syria. The
idea that we are trusting a former
al-Qaeda ISIS jihadist uh to rule Syria,
I think is a big bet President Trump has
made. He's made it on the advice of NBS.
We'll see how that transforms
uh or transpires and see if Syria is
transformed. But the notion that somehow
we should just be rolling the dice,
lifting all the sanctions, and taking
this former al-Qaeda jihadist at his
word is uh a big bet. If we got the bet
right, that is actually a remarkable
occurrence because now all of a sudden
Syria and Lebanon are brought into this
Abraham Accord, Cyrus Accords structure,
and then we actually have what I think
all three of us want is peace in the
Middle East, stability in the Middle
East. I don't think we need democracy in
the Middle East. I think if the Middle
East looked like the UAE, that'd be a
pretty good Middle East. I think we'd
all be pretty comfortable with that if
that kind of stability and prosperity.
And ultimately, you could put these
countries on a pathway to greater
democracy the way that we did during the
Cold War where countries like Taiwan and
South Korea that were military
dictatorships ended up becoming
pro-western democracy. So, that's kind
of stepping back maybe a little bit
polyianish. Um, but I think we should
also always keep in mind what a
potential vision for peace could look
like. So, Scott, as many people know
here in Austin, Texas, you're the
director of the Libertarian Institute.
Um, let's zoom out a bit. What are the
key pillars of libertarianism
and how that informs how you see the
world? Well, the very basis of
libertarianism
is the non-aggression principle, but uh
which essentially is the same thing as
our our social rules for dealing with
each other in private life. No force, no
theft, no fraud, and keep your hands to
yourself. And we apply that same moral
law to government. And so, you know,
some libertarians are anarcho
capitalists, some are uh so-called
minarchists, meaning we want the
absolute minimum amount of government, a
night watchman type state. Uh in in
other words, just enough to enforce
contracts and protect property rights
and allow freedom in a free market to
work. There's also of course natural
rights theory, Austrian school
economics, and a lot of revisionist
history. Um and uh and it something very
uh key to uh libertarian theory was is
expressed by Muran Rothbart was that war
is the key to the whole libertarian
business because especially in the
United States of America as long as we
maintain a world empire makes it
impossible for us to have a limited and
decentralized government here at home as
our constitution describes. And so I was
going to crack a joke, but neither of
you have called me an isolationist yet,
but I was going to joke. Yes. As as
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the
Declaration of Isolation, um that the
same guy, the principal author of the
Declaration of isolation, he said in his
first inaugural address, "We seek peace,
commerce, and honest friendship with all
nations and entangling alliances with
none." That's the true libertarian
philosophy. Think Dr. Ron Paul, the
great congressman, uh for many years up
there. He was opposed to all sanctions,
all economic war on the rest of the
world and the entire state of the United
States as world empire. And what's
strange now is that anyone who wants
just peace as the standard is considered
an isolationist. And people who are for
world empire and a permanent state of
conflict with the rest of the world,
economic war, coups and regime changes
and even invasions, those are considered
normal people. It's almost like people
who want peace should be called cis
foreign policy because now we gota we
have to come up with a funny word to
describe a normal state of being when no
one calls Mexico an isolationist state.
It's cuz they mind their own business.
And is there any faction anywhere in
America that calls themselves
isolationist? Even the
paleoconservatives who favor much more
like trade protectionism and that kind
of thing than libertarians, they don't
call themselves isolationists. They
still want to have an open relationship
with the world to some degree when
isolation means like the hermit kingdom
of North Korea or some crazy thing like
that. No one wants that for the United
States of America. What we want is
independence, non-interventionism and
peace. So to you isolationism is a kind
of dirty word term invented by
interventionists and internationalists
to attack anyone who didn't want to go
along with their agenda. The term itself
is used essentially as a smear against
anyone who doesn't want to go to war. So
can you actually just deeper describe
what non-interventionism
means? So how much sort of display of
military strength should be there do you
think? Dr. Paul said we could defend
this country with a couple of good
submarines which by the way for people
who don't know one American Trident sub
could essentially kill every city and
military base in Russia. Just one. So
he's absolutely right about that. Couple
of good submarines are enough to defend
our coast and deter anyone from messing
with the United States of America. And
then I admit I'm a little bit idealistic
about this that I think of that old
William Jennings Brian speech, behold a
republic where unlike the empires of
Europe burdened under the weight of
militarism, here we have a free country
and where you know what we could do? We
could be the host of peace conferences
everywhere. There are frozen conflicts
in the conflicts in the Donbass, in
Kinenrad, in Transnistria, in Taiwan, in
Korea. Um, virtually all the borders of
Africa and Eurasia were drawn by
European powers to either divide and
conquer their enemies or artificially
group their enemies together in order to
keep them internally divided and
conquered in those ways. There are great
many borders in the world that are in
contention and that people might even
want to fight about. And I think that
America could play a wonderful role in
helping to negotiate and resolve those
types of conflicts without resorting to
force or or even making any promises on
the part of the US government like we'll
pay Egypt to pretend to be nice to
Israel or anything like that. But just
find ways to host conferences and and
find resolutions to these problems. And
I think quite sincerely that Donald
Trump right now could get on a plane to
Tyrron. He could then go to Moscow to
Beijing and Pyongyang and he could come
home and be Trump the Great. We in fact
don't have to have the especially the
American hyper power as the French
called it the world empire. We have
everything to give and nothing to lose
to go ahead. And Donald Trump even
talked like this. You might remember
when he first was sworn in this time. He
said, "You know what? instead of
pivoting from terrorism to great power
competition with Russia and China. I
don't want to do that. I just want to
get along with both of them. Let's just
move on and have the rest of the century
be peace and prosperity and not fighting
at all. Why should we have to pivot to
China? Let's just pivot to capitalism
and trade and freedom and peace. That's
America first. Yeah, I've uh I've
criticized Trump a lot, but I think
maybe he's just rhetoric, but I think he
talks about peace a lot. Even just
recently the the number of times the
word peace is mentioned and with
seriousness not you get like a genuine
desire for peace from him
and that's just beautiful to see for the
leader of of this country and look man
there used to be a time when a third of
the planet was dominated by the
communists right so like I'm not going
to sit here and argue the first cold war
with you my book's about the second one
and I'm not as good on the first but
since the end of the first cold war we
have let the neoconservative
policy of the defense planning guidance
of 92 and rebuilding America's defenses
and the rest of this American uh
dominance centered policy uh control our
entire direction in the world. It's led
to the war on terrorism in the Middle
East. Seven countries we've attacked.
It's led to the disaster in Eastern
Europe and it's leading toward disaster
in Eastern Asia when there's just no
reason in the world that it has to be
this way with the commies dead and gone.
And again, I to stipulate here, the
Chinese flag is still red. It's still a
one party dictatorship, but they have
abandoned Marxism. I mean, people were
starving to death by the tens of
millions there. It's a huge It's a
probably the greatest improvement in the
condition of mankind anywhere ever in
the shortest amount of time when Deng
Xiaoping and the right-wing of the
Communist Party took over in that
country. Just one more thing. You
mentioned the two submarines. What's the
role of nuclear weapons? Well, I would
like for America to have an extremely
minimal nuclear deterrent and work
toward a world free of nuclear weapons.
And I know that that sounds utopian.
However, I would remind your audience
that Ronald Reagan and Mikall Gorbachev
came within a hair of achieving a deal
just like that at Reichovic, Iceland in
1986.
And they were both of them dead serious
about it, complete and total nuclear
disarmament. And then Reagan was
essentially bullied by Richard Pearl and
others on his staff saying, "You
promised the American people that you
would build them a defensive
anti-missile system, the Star Wars
system," which was total pie in the sky
technological fantasy of the 1980s. And
if you're getting rid of all the ICBMs,
then why the hell do you need a missile
shield anyway? It is the world's
probably greatest tragedy that ever took
place that Ronald Reagan walked away
from those negotiations. They literally
were within a hair. And it wasn't magic
and there was no trust in evil bad guys.
This is by the way two years before the
wall came down. This is when everybody
still thought the USSR was going to
last. And Reagan had the plan was that
America and the Soviet Union would
dismantle our nuclear weapons until we
were right around with parody with the
other nuclear weapon states who all have
right around two or 300 nukes. France,
Britain at that time, Israel and China.
India and Pakistan came later. South
Africa only had a few then that but gave
up whatever they had. And the idea was
we would get down to two or 300 and then
America and the Soviet Union both
together would lean hard on Britain,
France, and China. Let's all get down to
100. Let's all see if we can get down to
50, etc. Like that in stages. Again,
Ronald Reagan we're talking about here.
Trust but verify means do not trust at
all. It means be polite while you
verify. And in fact, America did help
dismantle upwards of 60s something
thousand Soviet nuclear missiles in the
after the end of the cold war. And so it
is possible to live in a world where at
the very least we have a situation where
the major powers have a few nukes
and potentially can even come to an
arrangement to get rid of the rest. We
should also just say one more thing, not
to be agist, but most of the major
leaders with nukes and those with power
in the world are in their 70s and 80s. I
don't know if that contributes to it,
but they kind of are grounded at a
different time that maybe I have a hope
for the fresher, younger leaders to have
a more optimistic view towards peace and
to be able to reach towards peace. And
underlying so much of what we're talking
about here is all this enmity, right?
But if America could just work, remember
when China cut that pseudo sort of peace
deal between Saudi and Iran a couple
years ago or last year was it? Well, we
could try to double up on that. We
should we could try to come up with ways
for Saudi and Iran to exchange as much
as possible. You know, um I know you
don't like all the going back too far in
history, but it's important. It's in my
book that in 1993 Zabign Brazinski who
the revolution had happened on his
watch. Operation Eagleclaw, the disaster
of the rescue mission in 79 after the
hostage crisis and everything. All that
egg was on ZB space. But in 93 he said
we should normalize relations. We should
build an oil pipeline across Iran so
they can make money. We can make money
and we can start to normalize. and
Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State,
Alexander Heg, who had been Kissinger's
right-hand man, agreed. They both were
trying to push that. But the Clinton
administration went ahead with Martin
Indic, who had been Yeetsak Shamir's
man, and inaugurated the dual
containment policy instead because the
Israelis were concerned that America had
just beaten up on Iraq so bad in Iraq
War I now wasn't powerful enough to
balance against Iran. So, America had to
stay in Saudi to balance against them
both. And that was the origin of the
dual containment policy. It was Martin
Indic, who had been Yets Shamir's man
who pushed it on Clinton. And this was
not the Israelis. It was the Kuwaitis
who lied that there was a truck bomb
attempt assassination against HW Bush,
which was a total hoax. It was debunked
by Seymour Hirs by the end of the year.
It was just a whiskey smuggling ring.
And it was the same guy whose daughter
had claimed to have seen the Iraqi
soldiers throw the babies out of the
incubators. He was the guy who two years
later uh made up this hoax about Saddam
Hussein trying to murder Bush Senior.
But when he did, that was when Bill
Clinton finally gave in and adopted the
dual containment policy because he had
been interested in potentially reaching
out to Saddam and the Ayatollah both at
that time. But instead of having
normalization with both, we had to have
permanent cold war through the end of
the century with both. And my argument
is simply it just didn't have to be that
way. Is the same thing with Russia. Look
at, you know, how determined the
Democrats especially are to have this
conflict with Russia where to Donald
Trump, nah, not at all. We could get
along with them. And so it's perfectly
within reason. If Zabnzinski says we can
talk with Iran and get along with Iran
and Donald Trump says we can get along
with Russia, then the same thing for
North Korea. The same thing for China.
And then and then who do we have left to
fight?
Hzbala is nothing without Iran. We'll
just have Scott and I fighting. That's
That'll be the last remaining fight.
That's the fun kind of fight. That'll be
fun. Fight peaceful. You're the CEO of
FDD, the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies.
It's a uh DCbased organization that
focuses on national security and foreign
policy. What has been your approach to
solving some of these problems of the
world? So, look, I I love the vision
that Scott painted. Um, and I I agree
with some of the libertarian instincts
that he has, but my view is that America
is the indispensable power. Um, Scott
mentioned earlier in the conversation
about the rules-based order that is so
important and the NPT and all these
rules-based agreements that are
important to maintain. Well, the rule
rules-based order has been maintained by
the United States since World War II,
right? There is no American prosperity
to the degree that we have. There's no
recovery of Europe. There's no recovery
of Asia after the devastation of World
War II without American power and the
rules-based order that America has led
and backstopped. And I think America
first is about American power and
deterrence. I think if you want to avoid
war, I think you cannot just believe in
some fantasy where all the world's
leaders are going to get together in
some place and are just going to agree
to disarm all their nuclear weapons and
we'll disarm our entire military and
we'll have one submarine off our coast
and some all of that is going to lead to
peace. I mean, I think what has led to
peace in the past has been the American
forward deterrence of our military and a
belief that our enemies think we will
credibly use it. I think if they believe
we'll credibly use it, then it's less
likely they will challenge us. And if
they less likely to challenge us and
challenge our allies, there's less
likely to be war. So for me, deterrence
leads to peace and any kind of
unilateral disarmament, any kind of I
think sort of fanciful notion that
somehow they're our enemies are going to
respect the non-aggression principle
that is the core fundamental
underpinnings of libertarianism, which I
think in in in a personal relationship,
I think is very important. But remember,
these are aggressors. They don't respect
the non-aggression principle. I think we
can spend a lot of time, we did over how
many hours now has it been talking about
the fact that in Scott's view of the
world, it's America that provokes. It's
America that provokes. And then it's not
America provoking, it's Israel
provoking. And oh, by the way, America
provokes because we're being seduced or
paid or browbeaten by those those
Israelis and you know, those Jews in
America. I mean I think that whole
notion that somehow we are we are the
provocative force in global politics I
think is is wrong. I think the fact of
the matter is we make mistakes. We are
an imperfect nation. We have made some
serious sometimes catastrophic mistakes
but the there is a bad world out there.
There are evil men who want to do us
harm and we have to prevent away prevent
them from doing us harm. To do that, we
need an American military that is
serious and well supported. We don't
need a military-industrial complex that
ultimately is going to pull us into
wars. We need thoughtful leaders like
President Trump who will resist that and
will say at the end of the day, I will
use force when it is selective, narrow,
overwhelming, and deadly. And that was
Trump's operation just a few days ago.
He he went after three key facilities
that were being used to develop the
capability for nuclear weapons. Nuclear
weapons are the greatest danger to
humanity. I totally agree with Scott.
Like I think a world without nuclear
weapons, the kind of world that that
Reagan envisioned and others have
envisioned since is really the only way
we can eliminate the most devastating
weapons that could end humankind. But we
have to make sure that those weapons
don't end up in the hands of regimes
that seek to do us harm and that have
have done us harm over over many many
decades. So yeah, I mean deterrence,
peace through strength, rules-based
order, the foundation for defense of
democracies is not the foundation for
promotion of democracy. We don't believe
in this important concept that we have
to promote democracy around the world.
I'll speak for myself because we have
many people in my think tank. We're 105
people. We have different views. I don't
personally believe that it is the role
of the United States to bring democracy
to the Middle East or democracy around
the world. I think to the extent we've
tried, we failed. I'm not sure the
Middle East is ready for democracy. Now,
Iran is interesting because it's not an
Arab country, right? It is a it is a
different country altogether.
Culturally, it's a very sophisticated
country. It has a long history. It
actually has a history where it has had
democracy in the past. It is a country
that I think could have incredible
potential under the right leadership and
under the right circumstances. I don't
know if the right circumstances are a
constitutional monarchy with Reza Palvi
as the as the as the crown prince or the
sha. I don't know whether it's a secular
democracy or not. Let let let Iranians
make that decision. Have I been
pronouncing it wrong this whole time?
Resp. You know the guy? I met him. Yeah.
Yeah. Palvi. Pali. What were you saying?
I thought it was Palavi. Oh wow. No,
it's okay. Okay. It's okay.
The only thing you've ever gotten wrong
is you're pronouncing a problem. That's
not bad. I've been pronouncing so many
things correctly. I think people will
give you a pass. Can I ask you though?
Like I I mean all this militarization
has led to a state of permanent war.
We've been bombing Iraq for 34 years. We
uh launched we put uh a war against the
Taliban who didn't attack us instead of
al-Qaeda who did. fought for 20 years
and the Taliban won anyway. We overthrew
a launch an aggressive war against
Saddam Hussein, put the Ayatollah's best
friends in power. We launched an
aggressive war against Libya and this
ridiculous hoax that Gaddafi was about
to murder every last man, woman, and
child in Benghazi. Imagine Charlotte,
North Carolina being wiped off the map.
Barack Obama lied in order to start that
war and completely destroyed Libya. It's
now three pieces in a state of
semi-permanent civil war, including, and
this wasn't just back then. This is to
this day the relegalization and
reinstitutionalization of chatt slavery
of subsaharan black Africans in Libya to
this day as a result the our
intervention this was not a direct overt
war but America Israel Saudiq and Turkey
all back the bin Laden in Syria
completely destroyed Syria to the point
where the caliphate grew up and then we
had to launch Iraq war II to destroy the
caliphate again and so I'm I'm not
seeing the peace through strength I'm
seeing permanent militarism and perman
permanent war through strength. Point
well made. He's speaking to the the
double-edged sword of a strong military.
That what you mentioned that Trump did
seems like a very difficult thing to do,
which is keep it hit hard and keep it
short. We don't know how this ended yet,
but even the beginning part is not
trivial to do like just hitting one
mission and vocalizing except for one
post. uh no regime change, like really
pushing peace, make a deal, ceasefire,
like that's that's an uncommon way to
operate. So, I guess you said that we
should resist the military-industrial
complex. That's not easy to do. That
that that's the double-edged sword of a
strong military. Yemen, let me say real
quick, and I promise I'll say one thing
and then I'll stop. You made a good
point. Let me I just I just want to add
this is a really important point, okay?
Is grassroots effort. There is no Houthy
lobby in America, okay? It was
grassroots efforts by libertarians,
Quakers, and leftists to get war powers
resolutions introduced in Trump's first
term to stop the war in Yemen, which was
launched not for Israel, for Saudi
Arabia and UAE by Barack Obama in 2015.
That's not a first. The Afghan war
wasn't about Israel either. Okay. But
this Yemen war was I thought 911 was
about Israel.
Well, it was in great part, but the af
the decision to sack Kbble and do a
regime change and all that had nothing
to do with the loot whatsoever other
than well, we got to keep the war going
long enough to go to Baghdad. Oh, okay.
So, it was Israel's fault. I was in the
middle of saying about the war in Yemen
that we got the war powers resolution
through twice and Trump vetoed it twice
and his man Pete Navaro explained to the
New York Times that this was just
welfare for American industry. A lot of
industrialists were angry about the
tariffs disrupting trade with China and
somehow they substituted Rathon for all
American industry somehow and said
industry will be happy if we funnel a
lot of money to Rathon. That's Pete
Navaro talking to the New York Times
about why they continued the war in
Yemen throughout Trump's entire first
term. He had no interest in it at all.
The whole thing was it was Obama's
fault. The whole thing was essentially
on autopilot. And what was he doing?
flying as al-Qaeda's air force against
the Houthis who originally, if you go
back to January of 2015, America was
passing intelligence to the Houthis to
use to kill al Qaeda. You know, AQAP,
the guys that tried to blow up the plane
over Detroit with the underpants bomb on
Christmas Day 2009 that did all those
horrific massacres in Europe, real ass
bin Laden terrorists. The Houthis were
our allies against them before Barack
Obama stabbed them in the back. And why
did Trump keep that going when he
inherited that horrific war from Barack
Obama? Why'd he do it? according to his
trade guy, so that they could keep
funneling American taxed and inflated
dollars into the pocketbooks of
stockholders of Rathon Incorporated,
right? Military industrial complex. The
point was made. Yeah, maybe I could
respond to that because I mean again,
it's always America's fault. According
to Scott, he's taking jab at. No, no,
but Saudi and UAE asked Barack Obama for
permission to start that war and for
American help in prosecuting it and he
said yes and then helped. I'm going to
segue into an answer cuz I I think it
deserves an answer. military-industrial
complex is a serious concern. Um because
I think you're right, it there, you
know, the bigger it gets um and the more
weapons you have, you think the more the
greater the temptation to use it, right?
I think that's sort of the the argument.
And then there's also self-enrichment
and how much money can be made and and
all of that I think is of serious
concern to people. Look, I think Trump
is somebody who it's hard pressed to say
that Donald Trump um is a great advocate
of the military-industrial complex or
that he is he is in their pocket the
same way that he's in the pocket of the
Israelis and in the pocket of the Saudis
and in the pocket of everybody. I mean,
I think the one thing with Trump is that
Trump has he has learned the lessons of
American engagement over the past few
decades. And I think Scott's done a good
job of kind of laying out the mistakes
that have been made even though, you
know, we can discuss about causal
connections and who's responsible. And,
you know, I I lean on Can we I want to
Well, Scott, can I finish because you
know, your your causal connection is
always it's America aggressing, Israel
aggressing, and all these poor people
responding to us. Um, but nonetheless, I
think Trump has he's learned the
lessons, but he hasn't overlearned the
lessons. He he's not paralyzed by Iraq
or Afghanistan or the mistakes made by
his predecessors. He understands that at
the end of the day, we need serious
American power. We need lethal power. We
need foreign deterrence. And he's been
very careful and very selective about
how he uses American power. I mean,
we've talked about it throughout this
whole conversation. Trump used American
power to kill Kasumsmani, one of the
world's most dangerous terrorists. He
killed Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, one
of the world's most dangerous
terrorists. He he refrained from going
after the Iranian takedown of our drone.
He refrained from when the Iranians
fired on Saudi Aramco and took off 20%
of our oil. Right. He's been very very
selective about the use of American
power. He did go after the Houthies who
are Iranbacked and were using Iranian
missiles to go after our ships. That's
not true. Those are North Korean
missiles. Completely debunked by Jane's
Defense Weekly. Nice try. Yeah, nice
try. Um anyway, everybody knows that the
Iranians have been financing the
Houthis. Hisbal has been training the
Houthis. And Iran has given capabilities
to the Houthis to develop their own
indigenous missile capability. The fact
of the matter is he he did in a way go
after the Houthis much more intensively
than Biden did in order to prevent them
from continuing to shut down Red Sea
shipping on which both America and our
allies depend as a trade route. He
actually did it quite successfully
because after a few days of pretty
intensive bombing, the Houthis got the
message and they cut a deal with Donald
Trump. They're not going to interfere
with our ships anymore. He cut a deal
with them. They kept bombing Israel,
which is what got him involved in the
first place, he completely backed out.
Sounds to me like they won and he backed
down. Well, it sounds it sounds like he
in terms of promoting American national
security interests. Sounds like he did
he did a pretty good job of sending a
message to the Houthies and the
Iranians. Don't we mess with the United
States? And that gets us to the
contemporary reality. He took a decision
one day on one day to send our B2s and
our subs in order to do severe damage to
three nuclear facilities. It was a
one-day campaign. It was selective. It
was narrow. It was overwhelming. And I
think it sends a message to Kam. I think
it sends a message to regimes around the
world, anti-American regimes around the
world, that Donald Trump has not
overlearned the lessons of the past 20
years, right? but that in fact he is not
going to dismantle the US military and
dismantle our nuclear program and fly
around to all these cities and call
peace conferences and hope that these
dictators will just sit down with
America and say you know what all is
forgiven the United States of America
it's all your fault you did this all we
we admit our responsibility and then we
have we have peace and paradise on earth
I think Trump is much more um pragmatic
and in some respects cynical when he
looks at the world and he realizes the
world is a dangerous place. I have to be
very careful about how I use American
military forces. I am not going to send
hundreds of thousands of people around
the world. By the way, I mean you all
talk about Israel. I mean the Israelis
are one of the best allies we could
possibly have. They fight and they die
in their own defense. They fought
multiple wars against American enemies.
They haven't asked for American troops
on the ground. There no boots on the
ground in Israel defending Israel. The
best we've given them is we've given
them a THAAD system to help them shoot
down ballistic missiles that have aimed
at aimed at them. And our American
pilots have been in the air recently
with our Israeli friends shooting down
ballistic missiles. But the Israelis
have had a a a warrior ethos. We will
fight and we will die in our own
defense. I would just say if you're
going to actually build out a model
where you're going to minimize the risk
to American troops, let's find more
allies like that. Right? I worry about
I'm like Scott. I really worry about
China, Taiwan. I really really worry
about that because the Taiwanese are not
capable of defending themselves without
US assistance and the and we may have to
send American men and women to go defend
Taiwan and we can have a whole debate
about the wisdom of that. But again, it
would be very very helpful to have more
Israels in the world, more countries
that are capable of fighting against
common enemies and against common
threats without having to always put
American boots on the ground in order to
do that. So you made a case for it's
okay if you made a case for strength
here. Just practically speaking, why do
you think Trump has talked about peace a
lot? Why do you think he hasn't been
able to uh
uh get to a ceasefire with Ukraine and
Russia, for example, if he just move
away from Iran without getting into the
history of the whole thing? Like why?
He's been talking peace, peace, peace,
peace, peace. He's been pushing it and
pushing it. What can we learn about that
so far? Failure that's also instructive
for Iran. Look, I'm not a Russia expert.
I'm not a Ukraine expert. I'm sitting in
front of two uh people who know a lot
more about that conflict than I do. I I
I You are we should say banned by Putin.
I am I have been sanctioned by Russia
and by Iran. Um sanctioned. Yes. Yes.
Banned. Sanctioned uh threat.
Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.
Well, it's it causes some difficulties.
But anyway, um I think the answer to
that is that for Putin, he needs to
understand that like Kam, he has two
options here, right? Option one, which
President Trump has signaled over and
over and over again, is come sit down
and negotiate a ceasefire with the
Ukrainians. I don't want to get into the
details and the back and forth about
who's responsible for the fact there's
no ceasefire, Putin or Zalinski. I mean,
that's a whole other debate, and I'm
sure you guys have a lot of opinions on
that. Um, but path one is sit down and
let's negotiate a ceasefire. Path two is
the United States will use
American power in order to build our
leverage. so that Vladimir Putin
understands that he has to do a
ceasefire. Now, I'm not suggesting US
troops. Absolutely not. Right. What I am
suggesting is there's a package right
now of sanctions that have 88
co-sponsors in the Senate across party
lines. And I think Trump is using that
and will use that as a sort of sword of
damicles hanging over Putin and the
Russian economy to say, "Look, if
Vladimir, we either do a ceasefire or
I'm going to have no choice but to have
to start imposing much more punishing
sanctions on you and on the Russian
economy." So, I think there's an
economic option. I think there's a
military option. I think the biggest
mistake Biden made in this whole war and
there's many mistakes uh in terms of
signaling not having US credibility you
know Afghan debacle which signal to
Putin that he could invade without any
kind of American response is he kind of
went in and he tied Ukraine's uh hands
behind their back. I mean, he actually
tied one hand behind their back while
they were fighting with the other hand.
And he refused to give him the kinds of
systems that early on in the war would
have allowed the Ukrainian military to
be able to hit Russian forces that were
mobilizing on the Russian Ukrainian
border. And I think if he had done that,
I think this war would have ended
sooner. There'd be far less casualties.
And I think Putin would then understand
maybe I need to strike a deal. I'm not a
Russia expert or a Ukraine expert. I
don't know what the deal looks like. You
keep the Donbass, you keep Crimea, you
keep, you know, larger chunks of eastern
Ukraine. That's for smarter people than
me on this issue to decide what the deal
looks like. But there's no doubt today
Putin thinks that he can just keep
fighting, keep killing Ukrainians, keep
driving forward. Eventually, he's going
to wear down the Ukrainians through a
sheer war of attrition. He'll throw
hundreds of thousands of Russians at
this. He doesn't care how many Russians
are going to die. That's the way the
Russians and the Soviets have fought
wars for many, many years. just endless
number of Russian bodies being thrown
into the meat rider and he thinks he can
continue without any consequences. And I
worry that as a result of the fact that
we are not showing Putin that we've got
leverage, it's made war more likely.
It's made a war more brutal and it's
going to make a war more protracted. But
increasing military aid to Ukraine in
the case that you've described also has
to be coupled with extreme pressure to
make peace. Correct. extreme pressure to
make peace, which Trump hopefully is
appears to be doing now in Iran. I think
Trump is early. I mean, it's interesting
you said that because he's early
indicators again. Who knows where the
ceasefire goes, but I think it was
important. It was he he slapped Kame,
but he also said to BB, "Enough,
enough." And it's like, "Okay, now we're
going back to Oman. There's going to be
a temporary ceasefire. Now, let's
negotiate." And I think that's
important. And I think it shows that
Donald Trump is leading, not following.
It shows that Donald Trump is his own
man, not on the payroll of the Russians
or the Iranians or the Israelis or all
these other crazy accusations that have
been made about this guy for many, many
years. Um, and he's going to give, you
know, as they say, peace a chance. And
he's going to give give a ceasefire a
chance and he's going to give
negotiations a chance. But I'll think
he's sending the message to the Iranians
and he needs to send it to Putin is if
you don't take me up on my offer, right?
I've already demonstrated that I am
serious and I will use American power
carefully and selectively in the way
that I've done in the past. At the risk
of doing the thing I shouldn't do. Uh
but just to test the ideas of
libertarianism
and uh the things we've been talking
about, can we for a brief time unrelated
to everything we've been talking about
talk about World War II? What was the
right thing to do in 1938, 1939? Like
what would you do?
Okay, to be clear, World War II has
nothing to do with the current events.
In fact, many of the horrible policies
of the United States, in my opinion,
have to have to do with projecting World
War II onto every single conflict in the
world. Okay, agree. But overarning,
overarning, overarning. But it is an
interesting extreme case. Just to
clarify, I'm just like philosophically
talking about. Yeah. At which point do
you hit do you do military intervention?
And that's a nice case. Maybe you have a
better case study, but that's such an
extreme one. Yeah. That it's
interesting. We're talking about Germany
or Japan. Germany said. Yeah. So, Japan
attacked us and Germany declared war on
us. Tough for them. And that's what
happens when you declare war on the
United States, you get hit. But that was
idiotic on the part of Hitler to declare
war on the United States. You know, I
never understood why he ever did that.
They always said it was just cuz he was
crazy. But what it was is he was trying
to get the Japanese to invade the Soviet
Union from the east and in order to
divide Stalin's forces, which failed.
and it didn't work and it was a huge
blunder from his point of view. I guess
philosophically from an
interventionalism perspective, you're
saying United States should have stayed
out from that war as long as possible
until they're attacked. Yes. I mean, and
look at how powerful they ended up being
and the amount of damage that they were
able to inflict on the Soviets. Better
them than us. What do you think? So,
look, I is this a useful discussion?
It's interesting. I mean I think it's
interesting of you know libertarianism
um or or isolationism in practice. I
mean I think the 30s are more
interesting to me than what happened
between 39 and 45. I think the debate in
America was very interesting in the 30s
um where there was really a strong uh
isolationist movement um you know with
Charles Lindberg and and Henry Ford and
Father Klin and many Joe Kennedy. Yeah.
Joe Kennedy. I mean, they defined
themselves as sort of America firsters.
Um, but it was very much an isolationist
strain. And I think, you know, we can
talk about that history. And Coughlin
was a New Dealer, not a right-winger.
Anyway, um, very much an isolationist
talking about America having to stay out
these entangling alliances. This is not
our war. Emotionally understandable,
right? Because you can you can also
overlearn the lessons of World War I,
right? And I think they overlearned the
lessons of World War I. I mean, which
was a brutal war and a devastating war
mostly for Europe, but obviously for the
United States. we we lost thousands of
American men and women. So the 30s was
this big debate between the um those who
saw the gathering storm of what was
happening uh with Nazi Germany and those
who wanted to keep America out. And I
think in some respects it's like today
with the contemporary reality with Kam
is that because these isolationist
voices were so prominent and so vocal um
and in some cases quite persuasive to
American leaders, Hitler calculated that
the United States would not enter the
war. And so he could do what Scott says.
He could focus on the Eastern Front. Um
he could gather his forces and then he
could do a kill shot on the Western
democracies. in Western Europe and the
United States would not intervene. I
mean, you're right, the the big mistake
he makes is declaring war in the United
States after Pearl Harbor. But he
believes all through the 30s and before
Pearl Harbor that the isolationist
voices are keeping FDR from entering the
war. Even while Churchill and the Brits
and the French and others are imploring
the Americans uh not only to just just
to provide provide them with material
support with weapons so that they could
hold hold on to the island and and
defend themselves and I think Hitler
miscalculates in the same way I think
Kame miscalculates. Kam heard the debate
over the past number of years. He
believed that this sort of isolationist
wing of the Republican party right
represented I think in you know by
Tucker Carlson and others who have been
very anti-intervention with respect to
Iran. I think he believed that that was
the dominant voice within Trump's MAGA
coalition and that as a result the
United States would not use military
force. So in the same way that Hitler
miscalculated the influence of the
isolationists on FDR, Kame misjudged the
influence of the isolationists on Trump
and both ended up miscalculating to uh
to their great regret. So to me that's
the sort of parallel between kind of
World War II in the 30s and the prelude
to World War II and what we're seeing in
the in the current reality over the past
few weeks. To make clear, you mentioned
there's a parallel, but mostly there's
no parallel. It's a fundamentally
different Absolutely. There will never
be a war like that. And I have It's a
real problem, too, because they always
say everybody's Hitler. All enemies are
Hitler. And to compromise with them at
all is to appease Hitler. And you can
never do that. Agreed. And they do that
to Manuel Noriega, to David Caresh, to
Saddam Hussein, to whoever they feel
like demonizing and saying, too crazy to
negotiate with when, let's get real, and
I think we're agreed about this probably
that right in 2002,
W. Bush could have just sent Coon
Powell, the four-star general, former
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Secretary of State, to read the riot act
to Saddam Hussein, and tell him, "Look,
man, you help keep al Qaeda down, and
we'll let you live." And everything
would have been fine. And and in fact,
just like Saddam Hussein, and there's a
great article by James Ryzen. Don't
agree. Hang on, hang on. Now, there's
there's an article by Surprisingly,
there's an article by James Ryzen in the
New York Times, and there's another one
by Seymour Hirs as well about how Saddam
Hussein offered to give in on
everything. He said, "You want us to
search for weapons of mass destruction,
you can send your army and FBI
everywhere you want. You want us to
switch sides in the Israel Palestine
conflict, we'll stop backing Hamas. You
want us to hold elections, we'll hold
us, we'll hold elections. Just give us a
couple years. If this is about the oil,
we'll sign over mineral rights." This is
James Ryzen, New York Times. They sent
an emissary to meet with Richard Pearl
in London. That was who was the chair of
the Defense Policy Board and was a major
ring leader of getting us into Iraq War
II. And then they I don't know why this
is a real mistake. You want to talk
about mistakes? Why does he always send
his guys to meet with Richard Burl?
Because the there was a Saudi
businessman, pardon me, a Lebanese
businessman I think that they tried to
get to intervene as well who again
offered virtually total capitulation and
Pearl told him, "Tell Saddam, we'll see
you in Baghdad after he was attempting
to essentially unconditionally
surrender." The same thing happened with
Iran in 2003. Right after America
invaded, they issued what was called the
golden offer, which the Bush
administration buried, and they
castigated the Swiss ambassador who had
delivered it. But in the golden offer,
and you can find the PDF file of it
online, they talk about we're happy to
negotiate with you our entire nuclear
program, which didn't even really exist
yet, but nuclearization. We're to
willing to negotiate with you about
Afghanistan and Iraq because again, they
hated Saddam Hussein and wanted rid of
him, too. So they're perfectly happy to
work with us on Afghanistan and Iraq.
And they had captured a bunch of Bin
Laden and they were willing to trade
them for the MEK. And that included one
of Bin Laden's sons and another guy
named Aff
Iranians held under house arrest for
years. And it was only in the I think
late and they're giving refuge to
al-Qaeda. And the CIA said this is a key
facilitation pipeline between Iran and
al-Qaeda. willing to negotiate
between these dangerous bin Laden and
the MEK and America refused to negotiate
that and it was years later when the bin
Laden abducted some Iranian diplomats in
Pakistan that they then traded them away
to get their diplomats back and ATV I
think Bin Laden's son ended up being
killed not long after that Hamza but and
and too but both of those dangerous
terrorists were released and were
involved in terrorism between then them
them then then and the time that They
were later killed I think within a
couple of years of that. So the hawks
always like to say, "Oh yeah, Iran gives
such aid and comfort to al Qaeda and all
that." There's a great document at the
counterterrorism center at West Point
where they debunk all of that. Yeah.
There's a 9/11 report by the 911
commission. There's a 911 commission
report, people can Google it, which
talks about the cooperation between Iran
and al-Qaeda only in Bosnia when they
were doing a favor for Bill Clinton.
beyond that and the CIA released um
thousands of pages of classified
material that they declassified showing
the relationship between Iran and
al-Qaeda. The US Treasury Department
under Obama and under Trump actually
designated a number of Iranian uh
individuals for facilitating al-Qaeda.
So anyway, I mean these these are
important facts, but I I actually you
mentioned Baghdaddy and Solommani in the
same breath a minute ago when they're
deadly enemies and it was Solommani's
Shiite forces in Iraq War II that helped
destroy the enemy of my enemy is my
friend with America flying air power for
them. The greatest era that we've made
in the Middle East is this notion, not
the greatest, but one of the greatest is
this sort of conceptual era that somehow
Sunnis and Shi don't work together and
Iran doesn't work with al-Qaeda. I'm not
saying you say that, but but many people
think that and of course they do work.
They hate each other, but of course they
work together because they hate us more.
But can I just say something, Lex?
Because I actually think just stepping
back from like all of this detail. The
more we start to zoom out now, the
better. Yeah, I'd like to zoom out a
little bit. I look, I think the lessons
for me um over 22 years on working on
these issues is one must learn about the
mistakes that we've made in Iraq and in
Afghanistan and Libya. Okay. One must
learn about the mistakes that we made in
Vietnam, mistakes that we made in World
War II, so we can make them all over
again in Iran this time. Can I finish or
go ahead? Are you good? Yeah, I'm I'm
ready. All right. So, um I think that
what what President Trump is trying to
do is learn but not overlearn, right? I
think he understands the mistakes that
have been made. I think he's trying to
rectify those mistakes and he also
understands that American power is
important. It is been a it is a force
for good in the world. Even though we
have made major mistakes, I think
there's a great danger amongst certain
people to believe that no power should
ever be exercised that all American
power is a bad thing and a destructive
thing. and sometimes to confuse major
tactical decisions, right, that have
been made, whether it's been made by the
Brits in World War II or the Americans
or us or whoever it is in whatever war
with the fact that there is a strategic
reality that we always have to be
conscious of and that we have enemies,
right? This is not the Garden of Eden
yet. I hope the libertarians create one.
I want to go live there when they do and
Scott and I will be neighbors, believe
it or not, living living in that uh
garden of Eden together. But there are
major threats in this world. And we need
to find the right balance between the
overuse of military power and the
underuse of military power. If we want
to avoid wars, we have to have serious
deterrence because our enemies need to
understand we will use selective and
narrowly focused overwhelming military
power. When we are facing threats like
an Iranian nuclear weapon, that is a
serious threat. It's a serious threat to
us. It's a serious threat to to to the
region. It's a serious threat with
respect to proliferation around the
world. And I think with that respect, I
think President Trump's decision to drop
bombs on three key nuclear facilities
was a selective targeted military action
that I hope will drive the Iranians back
to the negotiating table where they can
negotiate finally the dismantlement of
their nuclear weapons program. Right. I
think there's a nuclear weapons program.
Again, we've had a 4-hour debate on
this, so I'm sure if you want to rewind,
you can listen to all our arguments once
again. Um, but the fact of the matter is
is that the our unwillingness to use
power, if we're never going to use
power, all that's going to do is send a
signal to our enemies that they can do
whatever they want. They can violate
whatever agreements they want. They can
they can use aggression against anyone
they want. And I think that makes that
puts American lives in danger. And we've
seen the results of that where we we
delayed and delayed and delayed and we
didn't move and we didn't move too early
and we didn't preempt and the and the
threat grew and we ignored the gathering
storm. And so I think the lessons of you
know hundred years of American military
involvement is if you have an
opportunity early on as the storm is
gathering to use all instruments of
American power with the military one
being the last one you use. then deter
when you can and strike when you must in
order to prevent the kinds of escalation
and wars that everybody at this table
and I'm sure everybody listening in your
audience is is seeking to avoid on that
topic. Question for both of you, Scott.
If human civilization destroys itself in
the next 75 years, it probably most
likely will be a World War II type of
scenario, maybe a nuclear war. How do we
avoid that? We've been talking about
Iran, but there will be new conflicts.
There's Ukraine, China, Kashmir.
Kashmir. Um, North Korea. No. Yeah.
Don't forget North Korea. Yeah. I mean,
there was a time when North Korea was
the biggest threat to human
civilization. A according to we could
have had a deal except John Bolton
ruined it. So, that's the bigger
question. Not so much in the specifics.
Oh, I mean the second time he ruined the
Clinton deal of 94. Then he ruined the
Trump deal of 2018. May maybe the Korean
dictator, North Korean dictator ruined
it. But again, one doesn't want to blame
our enemies for their mistakes. Well,
you know that at the second meeting,
Trump sent John Bolton to outer Mongolia
so that he couldn't sit at the table and
ruin the deal. But but what happened
then? The Democrats had his lawyer
testify against him while he was at the
meeting. And they had this huge
propaganda campaign that Kim Jong-un is
going to walk all over Trump and take
such advantage of him. And they made it
virtually impossible for him to walk
away claiming a victory. Do you ever
blame the enemy ever?
Do you ever blame the enemy? North Korea
is not my enemy. North Korea is not your
enemy. No. Really? They they they they
build nuclear weapons, ICBMs that target
America. It's George Bush and John
Bolton's fault. I already said that.
Whatever fault it is, the fact of the
matter is, do you ever ever blame an
American adversary? Or is it always our
fault? In fact, what happened was always
our fault. See, all you can do is
characterize, but you don't want to talk
about the details. The details are that
Steven Began who worked for for Donald
Trump gave a speech and said, "You know
what? We can put normalization first and
denuclearization later. I know him very
well." And then they brought Donald
Trump brought John Bolton to the
meeting. And he prevented that from
being the uh from being the uh the
message of the meeting. Ruined the deal.
John Bolton's fault. Always John
Bolton's fault because how reasonable
does it sound to you, Lex? Give up all
your nuclear weapons first, then we'll
talk about every other issue. Does that
sound like a poison pill or that sounds
like a reasonable negotiation? Give me a
break. Sounds like a beginning of a
negotiation. Yeah. Well, they got
nowhere because Trump brought John
Bolton with him and helped to ruin it.
And maybe they went nowhere because the
North Korean dictator at the end of the
day is a dictator who wants to threaten
the United States with ICBMs and
nuclear. Listen, you're you're
criticizing the the sequential decisions
made in negotiation.
asking you a serious question after
hours of talking, which I must say I've
really enjoyed. I've learned a lot. I
enjoyed it. I think there's been areas
of agreement, obviously, real
disagreement, but here's the question to
you. Like really, I mean, do you ever
ever hold our adversaries responsible or
do you just don't think we have any
adversaries? This is ridiculous. the the
topic has been from from your point of
view, it's all the adversaries and all
America and Israel trying to do is
survive and fix the situation the best
they can. I'm refuting that by bringing
up all the things that America and
Israel have done to make matters worse.
I didn't ever say that the Ayatollah is
some great guy or that Kim Jong-un is
some hero or like any kind of spin for
their side. Are they a threat to
America? No, of course not. As a big
Brazinski said in 1993, we could have
perfectly normalized relations then. You
talk about Iranian support for al-Qaeda.
Iran supported al-Qaeda in Bosnia in
1995 as a favor to Bill Clinton because
they were trying to suck up to the
United States is why they supported Ala.
Your position Your position. My position
is whatever you say it is, not what I
say it. No, no. I'm just I'm trying to
summarize. You know who's the last
person who told me I need to beware
about overarning the lessons of Iraq? It
was Charlie Savage from the New York
Times when on the subject was his
absolute ridiculous hoax that Russia was
paying the Taliban to murder American
soldiers in Afghanistan in 2020 which
ruined Trump's potential which he was
floating balloons about withdrawing in
the summer of 2020 which would have
absolutely prevented the Joe Biden era
attack and Charlie Savage who published
these ridiculous lies that were later
refuted by the general in charge of the
Afghan war the head Sentcom the chairman
of the joint chiefs of staff and the
director as much detail as possible. He
told me, "You know what your problem is,
Horton, is you have overlearned the
lessons of Iraq War II." But it turned
out those lessons were perfectly apt for
Charlie Savage's hoax. It wasn't true
what Charlie Savage said. You know what
he resorted to? He said, "Well, it's
true that there was a rumor I was
reporting on." Scott, you made it very
clear America has no adversaries. That's
called learning the lessons of Iraq, not
overarning them. All right. So, I guess
the the answer to the question I asked
about avoiding World War three is the
two of you becoming friends. That's my
my goal. If you can try to find the
light at the end of the tunnel, one one
last question. What gives you hope to
the degree of hope about the future?
What gives you hope about this great
country of ours
and humanity too? Yeah. I mean, look,
there are a million wonderful things
about this country, the land, the
people, our culture, and our resources
and everything. And the kind of society
that we could build in a not with a
controlled system, but with just a pure
free market, capitalist system in this
country where people are allowed to own
their property, improve its value, and
exchange it on the market and build this
country up. we would be living in
comparatively a paradise compared to
what we have now. And if you look at the
opportunity costs just since the end of
the cold war on on all that has been
wasted on militarism in the Middle East
especially, but also in Eastern Europe
and in East Asia, all of that wealth put
here could have gone much more to
something like perfecting our society.
It's always an unfinished project. so
that then we really have something to
point to the rest of the world and say
this is how you're supposed to do it.
Not like that. I think it's crucial that
for all of the problems that Somalia,
Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan have,
the worst thing about those countries is
America's wars there. It's what we have
done to them as the worst thing about
those places. So, we're not in much of a
position to criticize, you know,
whatever horrible and political uh
practices uh you know, cultural and and
things about their societies that we
would like to criticize when the worst
chaos that's happened to them has been
inflicted by our country against them
virtually all in in wars of choice that
were unnecessary from the get-go. What
gives you hope? What gives me hope? I
think first of all, um I have a lot of
um hope and confidence in the wisdom of
the American people.
Um, I think Americans understand the end
of the day that they need leaders who
are about making America great again. I
think they elected Donald Trump who is
flawed in many many ways, but I think
Trump is wrestling with some of the
questions that we have been wrestling
with for the past 5 hours. Um, I think
that um we I think most Americans know
that we have adversaries. Uh, and you
know, it's just overwhelming numbers of
Americans understand that. They may
disagree on exactly who is an adversary
and how you rank them, but they know we
have adversaries. I think the third
thing is Americans greatly admire the
men and women in uniform. I mean, I
think the institution with the greatest
popularity in America still remains the
US military while many of other
institutions are are failing the
American people and are reflected in the
in the polling. I think we got to be
very judicious about how we use this
incredibly powerful military. Um and
because most importantly it comes down
to it's not about weapons and
technology. It's about the people. It's
about the men and women who have
sacrificed their lives um to serve our
country. At the end of the day, if we
understand we have adversaries, we're
careful about we how we use our
military, we understand the importance
of foreign deterrence in order to
actually confront threats before they
become so severe that we ended up
plunging ourselves in a war. I agree
totally with Scott in terms of how we
use our money and how judiciously we
must we have to guard it. I agree with
how we've we've run out these massive
debts and we have to be actually if
we're serious and conservatives are
really serious. They need to stop they
need to tackle these massive budgets
deficits. Um and and you know it would
be really easy if it was just all about
the military and we could just kind of
get rid of the Pentagon and all of a
sudden we'd be running balanced budgets.
It's not the case. we have much deeper
structural economics economic problems
in this country and everybody knows that
and so we got huge challenges as a
country. Um but I really believe uh as I
believe since I was a little kid that
America is the greatest force for good
in the world and that we do we make
mistakes sometimes tragic mistakes. We
make huge miscalculations and I think we
will be much more clear in how to
rectify those mistakes if we stop
obsessing with these boogeymen that are
out there, the Israelis, the Jews,
theians.
Well, and we start focusing on our
adversaries which are not the Iranians
because the 80 80% of Iranians despise
this regime. And you know, Lex, I feel
really bad that we in 5 hours we
actually haven't even talked about that
in any detail. Many of my friends are
Iranian. And they're beautiful people
and and as one of the great cultures on
earth. Yeah. And you know the only place
they don't succeed in the world is
inside the Islamic Republic. When they
come to America and Canada and Europe,
they're incredibly successful people.
And 80% of Iranians despise this regime
and they long for a free and prosperous
Iran. And so it's a big question that
they're ever going to get there. And who
knows the right way to get them there.
But at the end of the day, I am
convinced that the vast majority of
Iranians are our friends. But there is a
regime that has been trying to build
nuclear weapons, has been engaged in
terrorism for decades, has killed and
maimed thousands of Americans and our
allies. And it's a regime that has to be
stopped. And I think Donald Trump in the
past couple of weeks, I would argue in
the past number of months, has tried to
try to play a strategy, try to figure
out a way to offer the Iranians
negotiations and a peaceful solution to
this, but use overwhelming military
power recently against Iran's nuclear
sites in a very targeted way in order to
send a message to the Islamic Republic
of Iran that they cannot continue to
build nuclear weapons and threaten
America. And so I hope that things will
work out well on this. I I've always
said curb your enthusiasm because we
have still a lot of of pieces that still
need to fall into place. And this is
going to be a windy road as we try to
figure this out. I'm hoping for the
best, preparing for the worst, and want
to thank you very much for having me on
the show. Scott, it was a real pleasure
to meet you. I enjoyed the debate. Very
lively. I admire your dedication to the
issue and your and your attention to
detail and I think all of that speaks
well of of you and your commitment and
and your passion for this. So I am thank
you deeply grateful that you guys will
come here. Uh this was really
mind-blowing. Uh also that you have it's
silly maybe to say but the courage to
sit down and talk through this through
the tension. I've learned a lot. I think
a lot of people are going to learn a
lot. I'm a fan of both of your work.
And um it means a lot that you come here
today and talk to a silly kid like me.
So Scott, thank you so much brother.
Thank you. Thank you Mark. Thanks Lux.
Appreciate it. Bam. Thanks Scott.
Thanks for listening to this debate
between Scott Horton and Mark Dubitz. To
support this podcast, please check out
our sponsors in the description and
consider subscribing to this channel.
And now let me leave you with some
sobering words on the cost of war from
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
For some context, Eisenhower was the
34th president of the United States. But
before that, during World War II, he was
the supreme commander of the Allied
Expeditionary Force, orchestrating some
of the most significant military
operations of the war with leadership
marked by strategic and tactical
brilliance.
It is in this context that the following
words carry even more power and wisdom
spoken in 1953.
Every gun that is made, every warship
launched, every rocket fired signifies
in the final sense a theft from those
who hunger and are not fed, those who
are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money
alone.
It is spending the sweat of its
laborers, the genius of a scientist, the
hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is
this, a modern brick school in more than
30 cities. It is two electric power
plants, each serving a town of 60,000
population. It is two fully equipped
hospitals. It is on 50 mi of concrete
highway. We pay for a single fighter
plane with a half million bushels of
wheat. We pay for a single destroyer
with new homes that could have housed
more than 8,000 people.
This is not a way of life at all in any
true sense under the cloud of
threatening war that is humanity hanging
from a cross of iron.
And now allow me to add some additional
brief excerpts. In 1946, Eisenhower
said, "I hate war as only a soldier who
has lived it can. Only as one who has
seen its brutality, its futility, its
stupidity."
In 1950, Eisenhower said, "Possibly my
hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot
comprehend the arguments they aduce. But
in my opinion, there's no such thing as
a preventative war. Although the
suggestions repeatedly made, none has
yet explained how war prevents war.
Worse than this, no one has been able to
explain away the fact that war creates
the conditions that beget war.
And finally, an excerpt from
Eisenhower's farewell address in 1961 on
the military-industrial complex.
A vital element in keeping the peace is
our military establishment. Our arms
must be mighty, ready for instant action
so that no potential aggressor may be
tempted to risk his own destruction.
American makers of plowshares could with
time and as required make swords as
well. But now we can no longer risk
emergency improvisation of national
defense. We have been compelled to
create a permanent armament industry of
vast proportions.
This conjunction of an immense military
establishment and a large arms industry
is new in the American experience.
Yet we must not fail to comprehend its
grave implications.
In the councils of government, we must
guard against an acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the militaryindustrial
complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
Thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time.