Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an extraordinary show for everybody today. We're largely going to be focusing with the conflict of Israel and Iran our involvement. We've got a lot of guests here in the show.
So what do we have today?
Go Yeah, We're going to look at this from every angle. We're going to break down for you the very latest. There was some significant strikes inside of Israel yesterday. We'll show you some of that damage and what we can say about where we are with regard to the conflict. Very late latest in terms of statements from Trump. We're also going to have Dave Smith join us for a couple of blocks to talk about the possibility that this is not just about Iran's nuclear program, that this is
in out and out regime change program. You've got a number of members of Congress, Republican members of Congress calling for precisely fat We're also going to look at the likelihood or potential that the US, which is already supporting Israel in attacking Iran, is going to get even more directly involved. So we'll try to evaluate exactly where we are with that. With Dave Smith, We're also going to be very fortunate to be joined by Dan Caldwell. Now,
Dan was previously at the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth. He was pushed down under extraordinary circumstances, but he is a true insider, you know, would have a lot of insight into the conversations that were happening behind the scenes about negotiations with Iran. I want to talk to him about you know, we now have reporting that at least some of that diplomacy was effectively a ruse. How long has that been a ruse? Were they serious? About it at all,
So there's a lot we want to get to. I also want to ask him about some of that internal termoi oil as much as he can tell us, while you know, he's got legal limits of what exactly he can say, but extraordinary to get to speak with him, and we're looking forward to that. We're going to take a look at some of the MAGA infighting and reaction and also have a great clip from Tim Dillan a little bit of levity.
Yeah yeah, here, yeah, levity.
But you know, one of the important things about pop culture in the year two thousand and three is that, by and large, you know, save for like the punk community, most of the American media was on the side, including pop culture, of the US War in Iraq, and it
took several years for it to turn against that. So as we are on the brink of possibly our own interval, I mean we're already you know, intervening in some respects, but full on offensive interact involvement, it's important to check in with pop culture taste makers and others and get a lay of the land in this new media environment. Be like, okay, like who people are listening to, how
do they feel about it? Because that's vitally important, especially because Tim, by his own admission, was an Iraq war supporter. Although I think you wes, I didn't realize, he said. I think he is like high on percocet and selling cars or something at the time. But yeah, that's Kyle's story.
The two of them, Kim bond over that he was anti Iraq wars, but the high on perkset and the car.
Dealership, so before we it might have been mortgages. I forget exactly before we get to that. Thank you everybody. I know that during conflict with a lot of influx, which is deeply appreciate it. So many, you know, thousands of you signed up at Breakingpoints dot com for our monthly free trial. That free trial is over. You can still join to support our show. It's what enabled you know,
all of our weekend coverage and more. Team has been working literally around the clock ever since the outbreak of conflict. I anticipate that will probably be the case now for some weeks, months, years, unfortunately. So let's go ahead and update everybody on what has happened in the last seventy two hours.
Yeah, one quick update before we jump in. One other small piece of good news. They found the suspect in Minnesota killing an attack of killing of one lawmaker attack on another lawmaker. After a multi day manhunt, they were able to apprehend him pretty close to his home. Residents saw him on a trail camera and so they were able to send in drones and locate him and apprehend him. So a little bit of good news before we jump into the war here.
All right.
That being said, let's go ahead and put some of these images up on the screen. This is some of the fallout from attacks lobby at Israel from Iran. So these are images from inside of Israel.
You can see some direct strikes here.
Obviously they have iron dome and dome and other ways of intercepting some of the missile barrage, but quite a number we're able still to get through. You know, we're somewhat limited in being able to assess specifically the damage within Israel. They try to keep under wraps some of the extent of the damage. Will give you an example of that in just a moment. But while the hits inflicted on Iran appear to be much more significant, Israel has taken damage. Let's go ahead and put the next
images up on the screen. These are coming from Iran specifically, a number of these are from Tehran. Over the past several days, as this war has been ongoing, Israel of course launching an aggressive, illegal, unprovoked series of strikes on Iran to kick off this war with the support of the US. Here you can see an apartment building that
was targeted. We know that there were a number of assassinations both of military political leaders in Iran as well as some nuclear scientists, and you can see, you know, some of the catastrophic damage that we have quite a number of civilians who've been killed in Iran. At this point, let's go ahead and go to the next piece. As I said, the damage in Iran appears to be much more significant, both in terms of the death toll and the you know, the the damage they've been.
Able to exact.
However, there have been some significant strikes within Israel. Let's go ahead and take a look at Trey Ynks, the Fox News reporter, has been doing a great job on the ground there trying to cover exactly what is unfolding. Talking about one of the early strikes that hit the equivalent of Israel's Pentagon, and you'll see that there's a quick intervention from Israeli there on the scene to try to block this information from getting out.
Let's take a look at that.
The Iranians have responded with three waves of ballistic missiles. This is Israel's version of the Pentagon, the Kuria, and the building on this compound was.
Just hit back go back base.
You can understand here it's very tense at this specific location because the Iranians are now targeting the defense establishment of Israel. And so I'm gonna have my caravan pan up here to this building just across the street from Securio.
And so so clearly Simon I'm not too happy about him recording there. And he's taken a lot of heat online just for being a journalist, and.
They've hated him for years now, especially since October seventh, because he had the audacity to humanize some people in Gaza and speak out for Palacindi journalists. Now as usual, all he was doing was his job. When you're a wartime correspondent, what do you do? You go where we're
ballistic missile falls and then you report it. But unfortunately, the Israeli government and many of its apperatics on social media have been attacking him, saying that he is providing battle damage assessments, and there has been an intense censorship regime inside of Israel for the location of those strikes. It's extraordinary just to see these images Tel Aviv, and I mean basically all of Israel has never received this
level of Bob Barden from a foreign actor. I mean, even in the breakout of the sixty seven or the seventy three wars like that was obviously a very high level of conflict, but this is not something that they were seeing in the individual streets of Tel Aviv. I mean, for example, for the Pentagon their version to be hit, which is literally in a downtown civilian area, that's extraordinary
to watch. You're also watching something what I think dispelled a lot of the myths around Iron Dome or David Sling or any of these other programs that they have. Keep in mind, we have seen missiles rain down now on Israel multiple times. You know, I can't even keep counting the number of barrages. And this is with the
massive assistance of the United States military. I've tried to highlight here that if it weren't for us, they would be getting it even way more on the Chin, and I'm still uncertain as to whether they actually underestimated Iran's capability. The propaganda machine from Israel is that they've achieved total dominance over Iranian skies. This seems to largely be true.
They seem to have targeted in some pretty extraordinary both assassination operations with building drone facilities inside of Iran to target their ballistic missile stocks. And look, it's only been a couple of days, so it's very possible that Iran could exhaust all of its stocks very soon than Israel would achieve like total dominance. But you know, they have been able to punch back, I think in a way that we have literally never seen before on the streets
of Israel, and that's expanding the war. I mean, let's put a four police up on the screen. This just shows some of the locations of all of these strikes, so you can see on the Israeli front, you know, you both have attacks on the natan's main nuclear Richmond facility that was attacked on Friday. You've seen huge attacks all across of Tehran, both targeted assassination strikes. That's what a lot of those apartment building ones were from what we can tell, is hitting the penthouse suites of a
lot of the top IRGC officials. Famously, they also hit a bunker where there were all of these IRGC top intelligence officials and commanders that were there. Many of those deaths have been confirmed by the Iranian authorities. The Tabriz nuclear facility has also been hit as of Friday, and I believe there have been strikes in the Foidoh facility as well. Another thing that everybody needs to keep in mind here the battle damage assessments and the battle damage
denials by the Iranians and the Israelis. Neither are two believed. We have no actual really idea about the facilities that have been hit in their capabilities. We have a little bit in terms of what the IAEA has been able to report to us, but of course, you know, they don't have the same view that the Iranians and or
the Israelis would have. So I really want to caution everyone because initially, in the opening hours of the war they were like, oh my god, this is total Israeli victory, and then all of a sudden, you see Tel Aviv. You have tel Aviv's civilians literally hiding in a bunker watching downtown Tel Aviv taking strikes. I mean, can people imagine I live only a few miles from the Pentagon. If the area in between my house and there is taking ballistic missiles to the street, sure not that many
people are dying. Cars are getting blown up, people's houses, They're getting dug out of the rubble. I mean, this is insanity if you are living in Israel. Ye.
And I mean where we are right now, is this a few miles literally?
Yeah, I mean right here as well. Yeah, I mean we're probably going to the US capital. So similarly, as we've seen multiple Israeli strikes on the top echelons of
the government. And that's the final myth that I would like to dispel, is that while yes, there have been strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a huge portion of Israeli kinetic activity has been targeted at the top echelons of the Iranian regime, at the IRGC command center, but also many of the political leaders, including the top negotiator who was negotiating with the United States on some sort of
Iranian deal. And we're going to talk with Dave about how regime change is the real goal of this war, which is something that we see consistently now in Israeli messaging, in Israeli action. But these are just the opening strikes, and we really can begin to get a site of where we are going. This is going to be a long campaign. By the Israeli's own admission, they have said that this is going to take weeks, you know, in terms of their operation, they're claiming that they expected to
take actually much more damage than this. Again, I'm not quite sure if I believe them in terms of the casualty count. We were trying to reconcile it this morning, Crystal, but we're not one hundred percent sure exactly where things are right now.
Yeah.
So this is the latest numbers for the New York Times. Best we know this more. They say Israeli strikes have killed at least two hundred and twenty four people in Iran. According to the iranians are predominantly civilians. The number I saw was ninety percent civilians injured more than fourteen hundred people.
In Israel.
At least twenty four people identified as civilians have been killed in retaliatory barrages, with roughly six hundred injured. So you see much higher death toll being taken on the Iranian side. But to Sagar's point, you know, the images of destruction in central Israel, in Tel Aviv are extraordinary, And did the Israelis expect the Iranians to be able
to exact this sort of price? I have no idea, but I mean, we do know that Natan yahoo and the successive Israeli governments have been willing to sacrifice their own citizens behalf of whatever larger or self interested goal that they are pursuing. So it is entirely possible that they did expect Iran to be able to respond.
You know, this goes back to you guys.
Will recall we covered it extensively here, the Iranian provocations previously, including an assassination directly on uh Iranian soil, and the Iranian retaliation, which by all accounts was telegraphed to the US.
We assisted in defending Israel because we that's what we do, we always do, and they you know, there was some minimal damage that was exacted during that those retaliatory strikes, and so I don't know if there was an assessment made of basically like, oh, well, this is all they've got, But our analysis at the time was very much that this was a sort of you know, a demonstration, almost performative, because they didn't want to spark a broader conflict or
a wider conflict. I mean strategically that may have been an error. Iran has taken a number of blows, especially not only in that exchange, but also you know, with the the destruction of Hezbola, then you know, intense attacks on has and some of their other proxies. That has been a blow to Iran. And now Israel talks about this octopus strategy. Now they're quote unquote going after the head.
What I've been reading is that the Israelis are under no illusion that they alone without the US getting directly involved. And again I really want to be clear, we are already involved, have been involved. We're involved in the sutterfuge campaign, the deception to enable this entire attack. It is our missiles that are being sent here. We are providing extensive defense and we'll talk more about that. But the question now, so the question isn't are we involved. We're involved, right,
we are involved. The Iranian cs is being involved. Everybody sees US as being involved. Trump acknowledges that were involved, et cetera. Question now is do we become even more directly involved. The Israeli seem to know they can't number one, destroy the nuclear program within our direct involvement. I do think the nuclear program, I mean this is a bit of like a cover. It's a bit of an excuse, a protextual excuse for effectuating what.
They really want, which is regime change.
And make no doubt about it when you look at the targets of these strikes and the way that they are going about this today. Now they're going more aggressively after the overall energy infrastructure, the oil and gas infrastructure, so attempting to cripple the entire economy. They've taken out significant political and military leadership. This is driving at regime change, and I think they have an understanding there too that that also will not occur without getting the US fully
fully involved. And so no secret to anyone who watches this show or has their eyes open and are paying attention that that is exactly what BB NAT Yahoo ultimately wants. Here to the point of the fact that we've got more energy infrastructure being hit at this point, we've got another Tree Yanks report about where we are and what the Israelis are planning as best we know to do next.
What we are seeing today Israel has never faced in Israeli officials tell us they are fighting for their survival. You raise an important point. This is a shared gas field. It's the largest field in the world, and on the Iranian side. It starts near to the city of bandar Abas in the south, but it goes over and the Qataris and the Americans are invested in the other side of the gas field.
And I spoke with.
A source who described the Israelis strike against that as a dangerous escalation because there is concern that if ultimately that gas field is targeted and the Iranians start to respond in the region, that American interests and assets could be hit or affected, and it could lead to an increase in energy prices. It could lead to American forces or embassies in the region coming under attack. And so there are certainly officials in this part of the world
that are concerned about the location of these strikes. But the bottom line here is that the Israelis understand the next step up on the escalation ladder for them is going after the energy infrastructure in Iran.
And we're already seeing some of that energy infrastructure targeted oil bribe and checked this morning, but oil prices are already shooting out. Prepare for that to be another story. That's important to take it. Pay a lot, take a look at Yeah, that's.
Right, you can. You can blame Donald Trump and bb net and Yahoo for that one whenever you're paying more at the gas pump. Already just this morning from the Israeli Ministry of Defense, this is breaking as of this morning. Quote, the residents of Tehran will pay the price and soon because the arrogant dictator from Tehran has become a cowardly murderer who fires targetedge shots at the civilian home front in Israel to deter the idea from continuing the attack
that is collapsing its capabilities. I will say, look, I don't celebrate the attacks on any civilians. I have friends who live in Tel Aviv in Israel I literally am I'm so worried about them. But it's a little, you know, it's a little on the nose to be talking about civilian attacks and civilian infrastructure hits from the head of the Israeli military. However, look, what we do know, as you said, is that the damage on Iran. I don't want anyone to take away from this at Israel has
taken more damage. No, they've taken more damage than most people expected for a massively militarized Western nation with the full support of the Western Empire. But you know, Iran has been taking an absolute beating here. They have hundreds of civilians and or military leaders that have been killed.
Of course it's always difficult to know which, but you know the idea that, especially with their air defense, as to where it is right now, they're trying and they have some capability, but they have not you know, the Israelis are claiming total air superiority. If they want to start leveling massive you know, neighborhoods in Tehran, it's gonna happen,
and it will, unfortunately very happen, likely very quickly. Last thing, also, just to show everybody the level of penetration the Israelis have inside of Tehran, can we go ahead and play a eight please and show people this. This is flagged by friend of our show, Trita Parsi. Do you actually have car bombs that were being set off around downtown Tehran? Treta Parsi says, this is quote literally the definition of terrorism.
A lot of it are targeted assassinations. There's been stories of this probably for the last decade or so, right of his real Iranian nuclear scientists getting into their car only for it to explode. But the level of penetration, obviously that Mosad had in the IRGC is unbelievable. I mean, at just from a fear like craft perspective, They're able to build a drone facility and all in there, and this was a lot of this was being pumped out into the sphere in the immediate times of the war.
But that's part of why I found the strikes on Tel Aviv so amazing just to the eye, because the way they had been talking, it was like, oh, they wiped out their entire ballistic missile capability, and then I don't know, hours later, downtown tel Aviv Pentagon is taking a hit by a ballistic missile. I mean, I just think that's absolutely crazy. They continue these really strikes on a lot of Iranian capability to defend itself with these
ballistic missiles. Will continue to see. Iran still has quite a bit stockpile, a couple thousand. I was just last flag year in terms of the United States, the US THAD batteries, these missile defense batteries have been pounding Iranian missiles just so everybody knows we can. We produced here in the United States about twelve to fifteen a year. That's about how long it takes.
So yeah, yeah, not unlimited supply.
Oh, it's actually the opposite. Y, it's the ultimate limited supply. So hope some shit doesn't happen somewhere else. That's actually pretty important to the United States. But we'll talk about that in a little bit later.
Yeah, I mean, listen, Iran is a giant country, the population of Israel, and this is an existential fight. I mean, I don't think there's any I don't think they have any illusions about the goals here being complete regime change, turning them into you know, a failed state a La Syria or you know, or Libya or one of the other you know places where we had our foreign adventures in the Middle East before. And it just seems like
we ever freaking learn, Like we never learn. I see the same level of triumphalism of like this is going to be so easy. Yep, you might as well put up the freaking mission accomplished banner like the the I am getting so many flashbacks to the run up and
the build up to the Iraq War. And one of the crazy things to me here is that they didn't even like, really do a full sale propaganda pitch before just going all in and expecting, you know, expecting us, the American people to be down for another forever war against a country that has vastly more size and capabilities than Iraq ever did. So, you know, that's that's where we are. And I think there's a lot of you know,
a lot of uncertainty about where things go. So next, Trump of course, has been all over the map in terms of what he has been saying. Actually, let's go ahead real quick before we bring Dave Smith and go back to A six, and we can put some of the Trump comments up on the screen, because I think this is important. You know, First, he was very triumphant like triumphalists, saying, two months ago I gave Iran a sixty day ultimatum to make a deal. They should have
done it. Today is day sixty one. I told them what to do. They just couldn't get there. Now they have perhaps a second chance. Another commentary, he was saying that, you know, the people, he was bragging about the fact that the people they were negotiating with are now dead, so taking absolute credit being delighted by the outcome year and making it quite clear how involved we were in the strikes. And then we have other comments from him as well as put the next one up on the screen.
Here.
Now he's saying Iran and Israel should make a deal and will make a deal, just like I got Indian Pakistan to make. I mean, if you think that is going to be easy, you're an absolute fool. At this point, let's put the next one up on the screen. You have him saying, now the US had nothing to do with the attack on Iran tonight, like you already said, oh, this was day sixty one and that's why this was happening. Now you already celebrated it, and now you want to
pretend like you had nothing to do with it. Okay, let's go ahead and the next take a look at the next thing.
He had a call with President Putin.
He said, he called this morning to very nicely wish me a happy birthday and more importantly talk about Iran. We talked at length. Much less time was spent talking about Russia Ukraine. That'll be for next week. He's doing the planned prisoner swaps. The call lasted an hour. He feels, as I do, this war in Israel and Iran should end, to which I explained his war should also and Sager before we get to to Dave Smith. I mean, it
looks like there are two possible outcomes here. One is Trump forces this to stop, which of course he has the capability to. Hey, we're not going to protect you. You're going to have to actually bear the consequences Israel if.
You're at I know, not only that, and we're not going to sell you the munition We're not going to see. By Trump's own admission, there are bombs, as he bragged about in his truth social posts, just so everybody knows exactly. They don't make any bad missile defense system in Israel. How's your David Sling working out for you? If it weren't for the full force of the US Empire, Tel Aviv would be freaking rocked way more than it is right now.
So he either makes this end or we're getting pulled in. I mean, those are the those are the two directions that we could go in. So With that being said, let's go ahead and bring in Dave Smith to get his reaction to the latest.
We're very excited now to be joined by friend of the show, Dave Smith. We're going to be talking about the fallout here from the US involvement in the war between Israel and Iran. But most importantly we want to get to the actual goal here of the Israeli military campaign. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu really giving the game away yesterday in an interview with Fox News where he calls for regime change with Iran. Let's take a listen.
So is regime change part of the effort here?
Could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak. I think it's basically left with two things. It's plans to have atomic bombs and ballistic missiles. That's basically what Iran has. They certainly don't have the peap eighty percent of the people will throw these theological thugs out. I mean they murder them, they oppress them for forty six years. They've yearned for freedom. I mean they shoot
women because their hair is uncovered, they shoot students. They just suck the oxygen from this brave and gifted people, the Iranian people.
I want to talk about the nuclear threat and I want to talk about President Trump. You just said Iron tried to assassinate President Trump twice. Do you have intel that the assassination attempts on President Trump were directly from Iran.
Through proxies, Yes, through their intel. Yes, they want to kill and look, he's enemy number one. He's a decisive leader. He never took the path that others took to try to bargain with them in a way that is weak, giving them, giving them basically a pathway to a rich uranium, which means a pathway to the bomb, patting it with billions and billions of dollars. He took up his fake agreement and basically tore it up. He killed the cast
suler money. He said, made it very clear, including now you cannot have a nuclear weapon, which means you cannot en which he's been very forceful. So for them, he's he's enemy number one. Yeah, look there who tried to kill me. But I'm his junior partner. You understand that President Trump is a great threat to Ron's plans to weaponize nuclear weapons and use them.
When did you tell President Trump you were going to launch these strikes.
Look, I've been in contents, in constant contact with President Trump. We've known each other for many years, and obviously we informed our American friends and President Trump, our great friend, ahead of time. Did he knew about it, of course.
I mean there were reports that President Trump kind of helped you achieve your strategic surprise by publica or urging you not to attack when he already knew you had decided to do it. So you were closely coordinating with the US throughout this process.
Look, we're fully coordinated. But understand that America under President Trump will make President Trump will make the decisions that are best for America. And that's the way it is. He understands that I, as the Prime Minister of Israel, the one and only Jewish state, must make the decisions that are important for the survival of my country, and he will do what is best for America. That is a relationship of mutual respect and mutual confidence.
I mean, there's so much going on there, Dave. There is regime change. There is the flattery and the lies potentially about this some so called Iranian plot to assassinate Trump. And then finally there there is the you know, really buttering it up, but calling Trump to join him in this war on regime, just broadly, we want to give you the floor both to react to that and to the entire situation here.
Yeah. Well, you know, it's just you.
You're allowed to throw as many lies at the wall as you want to when you're selling a war, so that you know there's there's a lot there to kind of unpack.
Number one, I would just say, first of the accusation.
That Iran was trying to assassinate Donald Trump just doesn't meet the most basic of smell tests. I like, so you're telling me that the Iranian regime essentially declared war on the United States of America, already tried to murder the sitting president, and yet his response was to try to negotiate with them for a couple months until finally we had Israel attack. Though, does that make sense to anybody?
They tried to murder Donald Trump and then he entered negotiations with the Come on, it's too ridiculous, and you know, you could go back. You know, the thing about Saddam Hussein that a lot of people kind of forget in history is that it is true that at one point Saddam Hussein did have what you could call weapons of mass destruction. He used chemical weapons in his nineteen eighty through nineteen eighty six war with Iran and was supported by the United States.
Of America while he did it.
He then got rid of those weapons programs and the neo cons and Benjamin Netanyahu himself you can read in his writing in the nineties when he was telling us that Iran was a few years away from a nuclear weapon, all the way back then, but he was also saying that they wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein for other reasons for their Clean Break strategy. You could read about this in the Project for a New American Century in the Clean Break Memo written by Richard Pearl and David Wormsar.
They talked about this over and over and over again, and then after nine to eleven they said, the issue here is weapons of mass destruction, but that was they always wanted the regime change, and so it's the same thing again. The goal here has been regime change in Iran. He's been open about this, he even admitted it a little bit there.
But let's just.
Take them Look, let's just really assess the situation where we are right now, Let's take them by their own logic. If as all the Hawks are bragging right now or saying that essentially Israel was already at war with Iran because Iran attacked first on October seventh, they are proxies attacked And.
What does that mean? You know?
It's like when they say Iran is the number one sponsor of terror? Do they ever have to back that up with data? Do they ever? Like have you ever heard one warhawk who makes the claim that Iran is the number one sponsor of terror?
Ever?
Like, show you look, this is how much terrorists have gotten support from Saudi and this is how much more they've gotten from Iran. No, they never even feel the need to make this argument. Compare how much money the US has given to terrorist organizations, or Israel has given to terrorist organizations, or Israel has facilitated other countries given like,
there's no objective standard here. But if essentially the standard is because Iran has given Hamas some weapons in the past, therefore they're a proxy and therefore when they attack Israel on October seventh, Iran has attacked Israel, Well, then what is Israel attacking Iran other than the US proxy attacking Iran, right, if that's not I mean, and come.
On and look, this is proxy state.
Yeah, same with Ukraine and Russia. It's the sameanization.
So if you're but this one is so much more devastating because it's not just that we give Israel the weapons and the money and the intelligence.
But at the very least.
Here, I mean, we had people, We had evacuation orders twenty four to forty eight hours before the attack came. Donald Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Netanyahu here is clearly saying that Donald Trump knew this attack was coming. So imagine, imagine they had that on around with October seventh. They don't have anything close to that. So make no mistake about it. We are at war
with Around right now. The United States of America is Donald Trump has betrayed MAGA, betrayed America.
First.
He has made the most disastrous decision to lead America into another war. Now, if they want to say that, look there is an argument here. I suppose that perhaps Around is a better candidate for a regime change than Iraq or Libya was. This is the argument they're going to make. It seems a much more compelling argument that
we're staring at yet another disaster. And as you were pointing out, Crystal, you know, I heard a little bit of your segment as I was waiting here, as you were pointing out, which I think is really the most important point is that this is the celebrating. It's just like unbelievable. It's twenty four hours into it. They're all celebrating how easy this was.
Look. I remember I was a little kid at the time, but I.
Do vividly remember the celebrations after the Gulf War in nineteen ninety one, and they were like, look how easy that was, and we didn't take any losses. We went on to be bogged down in that country for thirty years following that war. We all remember the mission accomplishment. We all remember Hillary Clinton saying we came, we saw he's dead. A few years later, when she was running for president, she wouldn't dare bring up Libya because it
was so obviously a colossal failure. So the people celebrating this right now are just they've lost their minds.
And people get swept up in war.
Fever, the flashbacks, the WMD talk, the like celebratory mission accomplished, vibe the you know in that clip with Boebe. And I've heard so many others say this, they they're yearning for freedom. I mean, it's just like it makes me feel well, like as everybody just erased their memories of what happened here.
It's utterly insane to me.
And to your point about our involvement, let's put this next piece up on the screen. We now know that at least the re sent discussions about you know, diplomatic negotiations, and hey, we're going forward with these talks. This weekend was a ruse to provide cover and the element of surprise for the Israelis. So now you have this report.
A US official confirmed to me over the weekend Israel had an operational window to assassinate around Supreme Leader comedy, but President Trump made it clear he is against such a move. This was first reported by Steve Holland there is no reason for anyone US, the Iranians, anyone to believe these reports.
I mean, it does give me also remind.
Me of you know, during the Biden Oh, they're very upset with na Yahoo leaking to always Barock Revie.
They're very upset with him, etcetera. Etcetera.
Why would anyone ever believe a word that comes from Trump or Steve Wikoff or anyone else associated with this administration after they've gloated about the fact that they were using diplomatic negotiations as a tool to effectuate to help kick off this war. I mean, I'm stems, I'm curious
your thoughts about this, Dave. I've seen this analysis that Trump was persuayted this might be, that this might be true, was persuaded by Beebe that he would have a better hand going into negotiations with Iran if he let Israel start this war and participated, as we've indicated, in starting this war. That is the most that is the most idiotic, insane possible analysis I can imagine. I guess it's possible that he really is that absolutely idiotic. But you know,
what do you make of that? Is that really what happened here? And what do you make of this report that supposedly, oh, he was the cooler head and said you can't you can't take out the supreme leader.
Yeah, well, I'd say Trump might be that idiotic.
And you know he he has again we're kind of speculating here, but he has bragged in the past several times about how he's so smart for keeping these hawks around because then that puts all these pressure on people to come to the negotiating.
Table that he had John Bolton, Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
His example was John Bolton, who killed the deal with North Korea. Like that was his example of it being like such a stunning success or something like that. It's it reminds me of like when people brag about the Abraham Accords and what a success they were, and you're like, oh, yeah, they worked out so great. They led to this, Like how I don't even understand how you could You know, it would be one thing if peace swept the Middle East after the Abraham Accords and you go, oh, okay,
maybe they played a role. But it's been a nightmare all across, the worst fighting that we've had there in twenty years and so since our last disastrous invasions. But so, you know, look, I mean there, it seems to me like there's a there's a couple possibilities here.
None of them are good.
One of the possibility is that which I think is plausibly the case that Israel betrayed Donald Trump and and then this is just his best way to deal with it, Like, essentially, Donald Trump was trying to negotiate and then Israel just went ahead and launched the attack anyway, and then as a response to that, Donald Trump would rather look strong and go no, no, no.
I was in on it. It was our play all along.
Or the other possibility, which I think is more likely, is that he was never negotiating in good faith and it was a distraction and Donald Trump was in on it. Either way, were at the same place, you know. Either way, even if Donald Trump was betrayed by the Israelis and then just took their side in public, which has happened with different presidencies over the years. It's certainly happened with Bill Clinton after Camp David, So.
Maybe that's the case.
But then either way, then you're just so weak and pathetic that even after the Israel Israelis betray you, you'll still come out and catch their back and support them in this war. Well that's just as bad from the Iranian perspective and from any reasonable person's perspective.
So, you know, we don't know.
We'll probably find out more about this over time, but either way, in effect, it's the same thing, you know, like and then we're left in the position where you're supposed to sit here and justify a sneak, a sneak aggressive preemptive attack, like somehow you're supposed to feel like you're the good guys in an absolute war of choice against a country that does not have nuclear weapons.
Let's get real here.
The only country in the Middle East who secretly has nuclear weapons is Israel. Iran is a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty. Israel is not, and they have nuclear weapons is an unbelievabation.
Attacking six, like six of their neighbors as we speak, and are not part of the non Proliferation jack Yet we actually have cool with that.
We have a non compliant nuclear member of the NPT actually attacking a member of the NPT who is far more incompliance which said international treaty. Hey, whatever, what do I know? Right? You know what's even crazier to me, Dave, is just like the lead up to the war in Iraq, we already have our Auchmentoaloby. I actually can't believe it, but or our nineteen fifty three Operation Ajax. Let's go
and put B four please up on the screen. We actually have members of the Israeli government who are tweeting out pictures of the sun of the Shah of Iran, you know, basically insinuating that they are going to re implement the monarchy on the people of Iran. It's like nineteen fifty three all over again. And or just like this, you know, fascination with these Western figures who've lived here
what for their entire lives. Almost at this point we're like, oh, actually, these guys, because we're buddies and they agree with us, the people of Iran will totally take to that, and we're going to implement this new regime. They're not even being subtle about it. Like I said, there's are literally members of the Israeli government who are teasing basically the
restoration of the monarchy in Iran by force. It's it's like two thousand and three all over again, where we have this buddy buddy here, like you said, with the neo cons in Washington, and then this theory that we can just go in blow out the regime and then
we're going to implement this new style of government. I mean, this is as naked as it gets in my opinion on all of this, and I just I want you to just go through, perhaps because you're so well read on the history of these, you know, these attempts by the United States and others to install these types of figures, and it never ever works out. Whenn't we ever back the right horse in the Middle Ages?
Yeah, And of course, look, installing the Shaw to begin with in nineteen fifty three is a huge part of the reason why we have the current government in Aroan that we have, which is a horrible, repressive government that does not give their people liberty. And we should all you know, oppose that. But the thing is that war is so much worse. You know, it's like Saddam Hussein was a brutal, oppressive dictator also, but the worst thing that ever happened to the people of Iraq was George W.
Bush invading the country. And you know, the only examples that people look to, which are you know, rather remarkable examples of regime change are Germany and Japan and how they were brought back into the you know, liberal international
order after World War Two. But what was required in order to get to that point was was a clear war on the civilian population with you know, millions of casualties, and that like if your if your argument is we should bring that to Iran, that don't tell me one word about how you care about how the people of Iran are being oppressed, because that's a far worse, you know, level of oppression. And so you know, this is again, as you guys have touched on, this is always how
they talk at the beginning of these wars. It's always that democracy will sweep the region and that the people will greet us as liberators. It'll be easy, paid for an oil, all all this stuff. But you know you're going to sit here and tell me about how Washington d C. Or Tel Aviv can you know, reorchestrate another society can reconstruct it from the ground and choose its leaderships. I mean, just think about the hubris involved in that.
As the late great Harry Brown used to point out when he was talking about the war on drugs in the United States of America, the US federal government can't even keep drugs out of federal prisons.
Washington d C.
Can't even solve the violent crime problem in Washington, d C. But you're telling me we're going to install the new leader for the Iranians and the people will comply because what because the regime is so weak and the people want liberty so much. This regime has ruled since nineteen seventy nine, with the most powerful governments in the world opposing them, working on their unousting them the entire time, and they've still stayed in power. So you could tell
me a nice story. It's easy to write down a nice story. Oh yeah, I say, we intervene and then we put the Shaw's sun back in and then everything works out. Fine, Okay, let's see that happen. And you know the other thing that I'll add And I don't know, I mean, maybe things have changed to some degree. I certainly Israel was able to pull off that drone attack, which I don't think they would have been able to
pull off in years past. But it was in two thousand and seven that the Pentagon told George W. Bush that we cannot go to war with a rand because we do not have escalation dominance against them, essentially meaning that they can hit all of our bases and embassies in the region and we are very vulnerable to them.
And we've already.
Seen demonstrated since the Israeli attack that the Iranian the missiles that they send last year toward Israel. As many of US guests, that wasn't really their best. They were intentionally making an attack that wouldn't really hurt anybody, that wouldn't really lead to a war, which Iran has done over and over again. But now we've pushed them to the point where they probably don't feel that they have
the option not to respond. And Donald Trump telling him to come back to the negotiating table now as a joke. I mean, what an impotent leader to be sitting there talking about coming back to the negotiating table. It's like sitting after Pearl Harbor and telling FDR, now's the time to go negotiate with the Japanese. Negotiations are over now. The time for negotiations was before this. And so yeah, Donald Trump looks and man, I supported him this last year.
I apologized for doing so. It was a bad calculation. At the time, it seemed like the right one. But he should be impeached and removed for this one, and not on some like not on some ridiculous Nancy Pelosi. Of course, the Congress will never do it because they're all a bunch of you know, corrupt tacks.
This is the one thing they support.
Yeah, Donald Trump should be impeached and removed for this.
All of his supporters should turn on him.
It's the absolute betrayal of everything that he ran and campaigned on and everything that he stood for. And I will say, despite the fact that you know, Donald Trump supporters have been labeled like a cult following, and that certainly is true for a percentage of his supporters, he is going to lose.
His coalition over this. I know.
I don't just speak for myself when I say there are a lot of us who simply will not go along with this.
So it's just a devastating mistake. By the way. On top of that, he's.
Also going to lose the deportation fight because of this, because right now he needed all the political capital he could have.
To turn that.
You know, you got a majority support for deportations, but the minority is very mobilized and they're out and they're protesting all around the country. He needed all of his political capital for that move. So here's what we got. The neo cons win more war abroad at you know, bomb the world and invite the world. No matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain.
It is funny. You know, some of the small artists, evangelicals I know, say that the war in Iraq is actually what killed them. And they're like, we were winning, we were on top and oh four, you know, we were you know, defensive Marriage Act and all this. But it was Bush actually who killed our agenda and any ability you know, to do that, and then we lost
obviously the two thousand and eight election. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with it, but people who if you do care about some of the domestic stuff, let's say that Donald Trump did run on Well, you know you've got your answer as to the easiest way to destroy it.
Go ahead, well say, look through all of American history, right, This is why it's so crazy for conservatives to not be anti war. When did they lose the culture the big time? When did they have the hippie sexual revolution? Is during the Vietnam War. And when did we see the rise in wokeism and progressive control of all these institutions. You think it was a coincidence that it was the administration after George W.
Bush. When you launch an immoral war of.
Aggression, you lose the moral high ground, period, so you can't lecture your society about but heard some of these right wing warhawks are going to lecture us about the about being pro life, about abortion being murder.
Get out of here.
And this is why the evangelicals lost their seat at the table for a generation, because they went all in on murdering a million people in Iraq for no reason. And so you know this was it was John Quincy Adams who said, if we go around the world looking for monsters to destroy, we will become the dicatrius of the world, but we will lose our own soul.
Well said one of our mess rights. Absolutely.
Well, you know, Dave, you may feel that way, but Bill Ackman feels very different.
I mean, it's this important point that put B.
Seven up on the screen, which is that I think you're right. There was a part of his coalition, including yourself and others, who thought Trump would be more you know, more of a peace candidate and more anti war than Kamala Harris as the alternative. But there was another part of the coalition that looks like this, that is all you know, thinks that we have not gone nearly far enough in terms of fighting a direct hot regime change war against Iran. And so You've got Bill Lackman here
saying Prade was great, our military is incredible. Now Israel needs are helped to destroy Iran's nuclear threat to the world.
They say that.
He says, Israel's military and air force have sufficiently degraded Iran's defenses such that this is now the lowest risk, highest probability moment to take out Iran's nuclear capability, grave threat to us all. We should not let this great opportunity Dave pass us by. But Israel does not have the equipment and armaments to complete the job we do, and it does not require boots on the ground. That war Israel has been fighting has been on behalf of
all of us. Let's help them finish the job. This is a powerful voice in the Republican Coalition, It's a powerful voice within the administration, it's a powerful voice nationally in terms of achieving the policy ends and goals that they want.
You know, it's like, we're never going to get the mass deportations, but can we at least deport all of these warhawks to announce Ealdadorian prisident?
Could we just They really just did not. I mean, I don't know, it's testing my.
Life Israel horseshoe between you and me.
Day Well, it's really it's testing my my belief in libertarianism because I just when I hear this, it's like these people do not have a right to speak. You shouldn't have a right to open your mouth the nerve, you know, It's like they could just say these things that are so objectively untrue, Like look, if you want to say, hey, look, I think this war in Iran isn't going to be a disaster like all the other
ones were. And I think we're finally right, even though we've been wrong nine times in a row, I think we're right about this one. Like, fine, make your argument, but to say this is the lowest risk, like that, this is the lowes This is by far the highest risk of any of the terror wars. Objectively, that's not like an opinion, that's just it might end up working out, but the downside is the riskiest by far. That is, any military expert would back that up, who's not lying
through their teeth would back that up. Anybody sit down and argue with me about potentially what Saddam Hussein could have done to us after we invaded, or potentially what Goadafi could have done to us verse what the Mullas can do to us. I'm sorry the risk is at the highest here. I hope that doesn't come true. I recognize we're already at war with this country. I know it won't look good for me, but I hope it does go well. I hope, I hope it's not the
disaster that it looks like it's going to be. But don't sit here and tell me that this is the least risky one. This is by far the riskiest of all the terror wars. You know, maybe maybe the you know, proxy war with Russia was riskier than this, but compared to Libya or Syria, or Somalia, or Afghanistan or Iraq, no comparison.
This one is by far the risk is.
There's a good transition here to US involvement. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. We have our friend Scott Horton. He is reporting here, you know, does echo some of your own comments, and he says sources the US will enter Israel's war with Iran, calling the White House and tell them that you do not want any part of this disastrous war. This is from sources to Scott Horton. You know, obviously Scott a very
very smart guy. He does, of course some people in the administration in a sense, though you know, it's really only a question of offensive capability or not. We already know, you know, the extent to which the United States has been involved now with defending Israel. We can put the next one, guys up C two please. You could see
Trump is obviously leaving that possibility open. He says, quote, it's possible the US could get involved, he means offensive leads, keeping the door there all signs do kind of point, you know in that direction. I at this point, Dave, I don't even yet know what a quote off ramp could look like, save for Trump flying to Tehran himself.
If you're the Iranians, why would you meet with Steve Witkoff again, why would you, you know, have any credit credibility at this point for a US negotiator, And by the way, you don't even have a negotiator's send because Israel killed him. So can we just talk here about the extent here of US involvement, of the defensive capability, and also of how much worse things can go, because as you said, of course we're already involved in this war.
We're effectively, you know, a primary actor. But you know, there's a big difference still, as we just talked about with Bill Ackman. There's B two bombers. That's like level one. Then there's US boots on our raids, you know, boots on the ground, and I think that's like level three. And then we have a prolonged occupation after the inevitable civil war and all that falls out, the strait CI war moves the risk and all of here to US forces. So the floor is yours.
Yeah, well, I mean the what the military was telling George W. Bush back in two thousand and seven that we wouldn't have escalation dominance, Like the idea of that is that we can't control their next move. And so you could sit here and say, like, let's say, right, like Axios was already reporting the other day that Israel is asking us to join in, because you know, they always talk a big game about how they can do it themselves, so they actually can't do anything themselves. They
can't even exist by themselves. That's why they always have to say, doesn't Israel have a right to exist? Meaning you got to help us exist? So they need they need these bunker busters that they don't have that they need from them. But look, even if the idea is that they're trying to sell us on, we can do this even as an air war, like even if America does get involved. But the problem is, and this is
where the escalation dominance thing comes in. He goes, okay, But then what happens when Iran hits one of our bases or one of our embassies and kills a couple hundred Americans? What's Donald Trump gonna do as a result to that? And if you just game the thing out, yeah, it's very likely ends in invasion. And then as you just like alluded to, and then once you do that, once you invade and.
Overthrow the regime, well, what are we gonna do? Now?
Are we just gonna let We're just gonna risk that the streets of Harmouse fall into whoever's hands. They do, of course not, then we're back to nation building. And this is how it happens every single time. And you know, it's it's unbelievable, like even you know, it's even the war Hawks when they look back at the other wars, they'll they'll be like, yeah, well, we got dragged in and then we got but there is also a reason why we got dragged in. Like that's how it happens.
Once you break it, you're in a different position now, aren't you. And you know, you could see like an example like in Libya where we didn't go in there in nation build you know which I I'm not saying it would have gone any better, but it was a complete disaster too. And so you know this, it's just we're playing with we're playing with fire here, we're playing with the destruction of the region. We're playing with the
destruction of the United States of America. I mean, who really thinks we're at a point let's just say, hypothetically that this would turn into another Iraq or Afghanistan. How many people think we can survive another one of those, like you think it's just a give it. Look at our country right now. Our country was in a much stronger position in two thousand and three when we first invaded Iraq, or in two thousand and one when we first invaded Afghanistan than we are today. We didn't have
the crushing debt that we have today. We didn't have the cultural and racial and political divides that.
We have today.
You know, we're in a much different situation, and we're risking that for nothing, just to get Benjamin Netanyahuo's seventh regime change that he wants so that Israel can get away with mistreating the Palestinians forever. That's the reason. Come telling you, there's no other reason. They don't have nuclear weapons. They weren't a threat to the United States of America. They were coming to the negotiating table over and over and over again. They went out of their way to
not want war again. I'm not saying the Iranians are a great regime.
They're not.
They mistreat their own people, they mistreat their women particularly, But like, Okay, we didn't need to go to war with them. And if we're gonna just start going to war with every regime around the world who mistreats its own people, well, I mean, we could start with the US and Israel if we wanted to do that, but or we could go to war with every regime in the country and in the world.
Yeah, so it's just madness.
No, that's exactly what puts the six up on the screen, guys, Because I thought this was a pretty good analysis from Haretz and gets to some of what you're saying here. It's the headline here from Amir Tibone, who we've had on the show, who's very thoughtful guy says, now, who's counting on Trump to finish what Israel started in Iran? Israel doesn't necessarily have the firepower to take out each and every element of Tehran's nuclear program unless Iran attacks
American targets. The next phase of the war is largely in Donald Trump's hands. And here's how this logic goes. Okay, Israel, with our full backing, picks this fight. Now they say, well, we can't actually do everything we needed to do without you, so we need you involved here. And oh, by the way, the Iranians aren't going to come back to the negotiating table, so you know, you've got to get involved because the
negotiations are dead and there's no other alternative. Okay, Now we're you know, helping the Israeli strike the Iranian nuclear sites. And by the way, let's be clear, it's not like all their targets.
Have been nuclear related.
This the targets have been had some nuclear related elements, nuclear scientists, et cetera. But this has been aimed at regime change. So let's say you get your wish and you destabilize the country. Let's say they take out the Supreme leader as they are projecting that they want to do. Now you're facing a potential failed state, and you're going
to just let that, you know, let that unfold. And like you said, the consequences with oil prices and the straits of our moves, consequences with how many millions of refugees would flood out of Iran, you know, to countries all around the world.
You're just gonna let that unfold.
But Israel isn't capable of handling that situation themselves, so again you would need your big brother, the US. And so that's how you get pulled in, step by step by step, where it's you know, at every step of the way, you create a mess that's impossible for Israel to manage themselves, that does directly then impact US interests
and drags us in further and further and further. Now that that diplomatic solution has been destroying us completely off the table, especially with the fact that the Trump administration is bragging about lying not only by the way to the Iranians, but to the American people about their intent to solve this through peaceful and diplomatic means.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, the thing to me that's really wild as I try to like zoom out and look at this in the big picture, is that you know, like for anybody really paying attention, you'd know how much the war in Iraq was about Israel. Yeah, this is just a fact. Like it's just it is the case. And you could look at like all of the neo conservatives and all of the Lakudniks in their own words, would admit that for years before the war in Iraq that like, this is why we want to overthrow Sadam
Hussein because we think it's in Israel's interest. But back in two thousand and two, in two thousand and three, when they were building up the when they were beating the war drums and building the propaganda for it, they still had a very controlled, you know media environment in the old legacy corporate media. And so what the American people were told was that Saddam Hussein was in on nine to eleven and he has weapons of mass destruction.
And look, in a post nine to eleven world, we just can't let that be you can't have an Arab leader with nukes who's friends with Osama ben Laden because he could give it to them and they could New Kansas And Okay, we all know looking back at that that that was all, you know, a mountain of lies. But at least you could see where that was like propaganda that could maybe get some soccer mom in Kansas.
To go, all right, I guess I support the war.
Now this is really the only one where it's just there is no propaganda around it. It's just I mean there is, but like it's nakedly, this is we're fighting a war for Israel here. And it's amazing that, you know, for all of the people who hyperventilate about the rise of anti Semitism and how awful it is that Jewish students feel unsafe at some college in America. I mean, like you, what do you think this is going to do to this country? Like, what do you think is going to happen with anti Semitism?
Now?
You see that going up or down when we nakedly enter an aggressive war of choice on behalf of this country that's already gotten us into six that's already had Like how many are we expected to enter to We've given them tens of billions of dollars, all of our intelligence, all of our weapons. We allow them to do whatever they want to their poor neighbors.
We want.
We literally watch on our phones as their neighbors babies scream, as they're crushed under buildings, dying the most gruesome deaths, and yet now we're required to enter another war for them. It's just I mean, it's such an outrage and man, it just seems so incredibly shortsighted and this it's just gonna lead to nothing good.
Nope, it is certainly not. But as usual, we always appreciate you, Dave a voice for many who feel voiceless at an a crazy moment.
Like yeah, Dave, appreciate you, know you being principled and your character is not easy to be like, hey, I was just wrong about this, so you know, really huge respect for that and always always great to talk to you and get your insights.
Good to see you man now.
Thanks guys. Always great to talk to you, guys. Appreciate you having me