Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
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 Thursday. Have an amazing show for a buddy today. What do we Crystal?
Indeed we do.
The MLU with Iran has been signed in Versailles, and Trump gave a wild press conference that we want to spend some time with some some very very interesting things. That is part of why we are in day whatever. I don't know at this point of the complete Zio meltdown, but they have decided to train their ire on one man. That man is not Donald Trump. It is Jade Vance. So that is an interesting political dynamic that we want to take into. We're also really excited to be joined
by the editor of Omwadge Media. They have had a number of really significant scoops over the course of the Iran War, and so we're going to dig into the details of this memo of understanding what it says, what it doesn't say, what it means in terms of the possibilities of war and peace going forward.
So very much looking forward to that.
Trump's new FED chair has been part of the decision to keep rates the same in a significant announcement yesterday. Of course, Trump has been agitating aggressively for rights to be cut, so we'll see what he had to say on the matter. And the membership list of Peter Thiel's Secret Society has been leaked as well as an eye brazing, eyebrow racing, eye brathing eyebrow agenda for their next confabs.
So a lot of very influential, powerful names on both sides of the aisle that have been revealed as part of that exclusive club set.
Certainly, and maybe they'll meet next in Argentina where he currently was. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing to the show. Breakingpoints at dot Com to support us. Seriously, we deeply appreciate we've had so many new viewers who've been coming in and probably enjoying the zion Is meltdown with the rest of us. If we want to keep that up, Breakingpoints dot Com support our work over here. If you're watching this on YouTube, please hit subscribe to
our channel and listening to the podcast. Please share an episode with the friend or rate us five stars help other people find the show. But let's go ahead and start, like you said, with the Memorandum of Understanding that has now been signed in Versa Ell. Here it is in all of its pomp and circumstance, Donald Trump. They're signing the Memorandum of Understanding in the hall. Yes, I think each's some Farsi some new English translation there as well.
Everybody is clapping, surrounded by world leaders. The Secretary of State right behind him, and Macron leads two rounds of applause and cries of bravo as the document is signed. You know, I'll hold some of my historical commentary here on Versa I here for a moment. But it is
nonetheless extraordinary. One of the reasons why it is being signed electronically and being transmitted between both sides is because they want immediate resumption of the passage of traffic through the Strait of Horror Moods, which as of this morning, three Saudi tankers appear to be making their way through the Strait of hornor Moves. So it does show us that,
you know, some traffic is beginning to resume. And on the other side, the Iranians know that the moment it's actually signed considered official, that they get the release of some of their funds, which Trump of course address. But as you said, we had a wild Trump press conference which preceded all of this. It's like somebody injected truth serum into him and all of a sudden, you know, the gaff is when a politician tells the truth, and there were a lot of gaffes I think throughout this
entire one. First and foremost is Trump here on nuclear enrichment, being like, yeah, maybe we won't let them enrich a little bit. Let's take a listen.
We've been pretty tough in that.
You know.
It's also it is a little hard though, when you say that somebody wants to other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It's always a little tough. You have to use a little common SENSI please.
Yeah, I agree, got to use common sense.
Agreed, Yeah, yeah, I mean.
Restauraw is their right to enrich for civilian purposes. But pre up to this moment, you know, if you said that, you were mostly like, you know, a fringe lefty, usually radical, and now here you have the president like, well, you know, I mean, let's be reasonable a lot about this. Why would we ban them from riching a little bit for civilian purposes?
You were previously surrender monkey if you said, hey, you know, they said that we won't get a nuclear weapon. They even agreed not to enrich past a certain point for civilian purposes. So I used my common sense before the war, and I was like, what's the problem with that? And yet Trump consistently said that the Iranians would not commit to zero enrichment, as in zero enrichment and uranium whatsoever or any nuclear material, including for civilian or for medical purposes,
and used that as a pretext. Remember, he would consistently say Iran won't remember the magic words, they won't say the magic words zero nuclear weapons, which he would define as zero enrichment. Anybody watching the show over one hundred days ago, I guess now is very familiar. And now Trump has come full circle back to this show.
So much of it with him too is like whoever he last spoke with one hundred percent?
So I don't know who what. Maybe it was JD.
Van's last and his year, but somebody gave him some new thoughts on the matter. Because previously, and not just during this war, but leading up to it, in the Twelve Day War and throughout the negotiations, which you know, I mean they had a pretty reasonable deal on the table before they started bombing Ran the first time around. But in any case, you know, they he kept having his red line shifted by Israel and made more and more extreme. So it became not just no nuclear weapons,
not just no nuclear Richmond whatsoever. But also we're going to we have to deal with the pallistic missile program, which is another area that he gets to here. And now he says, well, how does that make any sense? If everybody else is allowed to have weapons and defend themselves, doesn't Iran have a right to defend itself to and have some sort of a military presence and have their mollistic missile program.
Let's sake, go listen to that.
So we'll be working on a parallel effort with the Gulf nations to address non nuclear issues, such as the conventional ballistic missiles, which we'll be talking about and support. I mean, they have to have some because other people have some. You've got to have some. Somebody said you shouldn't give them one, but I have guys. I like some of these guys, but I don't think this, don't think they're smart. Sure, you shouldn't let them have any missile. I said, well what am I going to do? Am
I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles? But they can't have them?
Yes, sir, can't.
Does it work that way? You know, it doesn't work that way. And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles or they heard a little lowkey, but it don't blow up the planet.
Just yeah, absolutely, part true, Yeah, accurate. What you're gonna let everybody else and there you're gonna let Israel have whatever they want from ours dot files, but you're not gonna let her on have any missile.
As he said, in other words, Iran has a right to defend itself. Right, that's that's.
What it a right to exp does it have a.
Right to Iran has a right to exist and a right to defend itself. Right, Yeah, he's right, you know, I mean, part of this just belies the basic fact. Yes, when you lose a war, there are two things that have to happen. Number one, you don't get everything that you want, and too, you have to pay them a lot of reparations. This is Lindy, It's a tale as
old as time. You don't conquer the place. Thus you've got to take some gold out of the treasury and you know, haul it on over and sign a memorandum and as if that doesn't hold, then you go back to war. This is what happens people. Sorry, I mean, be about faith in one hundred days, it's kind of what's yeah, so's talking about it. But at a basic level, yeah, it's true. But that's why these by uttering these truths for the first time. Look from Trump, he can reverse you know, at anything, he.
Can say something different today.
Yeah, you can say something different today. But there is power in the truth, and there is power in what we have been trying to emphasize here for quite some time. How is it that you can allow Israel, a rogue state, to have a secret nuclear weapons program, to have missiles to bomb seven of its neighbors, to conquer and annexed parts of Syria, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Gaza, and then in a straight face say you're not allowed to have any even civilian nuclear in Richmond. You're not allowed
to have any ballistic missile threat. You cannot do that, or you can. You have to take over the entire country, right And so that's why by saying yes, they have a right right to defend itself and sure, oh a civilian nuclear we can't say that. And they're like, oh, but you're going to pay them. It's like, yeah, we have to pay them, otherwise they're going to continue to keep the straightformance and even paying, as Trump soon addresses,
is not even really paying them. We're paying them with their own money like Obama did this so called palettes.
Of cap Let me just react to what you just said, because I think you made an important point about the power of truth and the power of reality, and I think that that has overwhelmed the propaganda efforts, which were very minimal, by the way, for this war and pretty
pathetic and poorly organized and changing day by day. But the ability of the American people to see through some of that propaganda has really overwhelmed this war effort, and American foreign policy is increasingly built on propaganda and lies, whether it's things like, oh, Israel's the most moral army on the planet and there are great allies, and it's really great for our interests eventually, especially, I mean in
part because of social media. Because you have a much more diverse media ecosystem, you're not able to just keep people in the mainstream press, where these propaganda efforts are you know, come with very few holes in them, are very cohesive. Since you have that access, people are just not buying this fantasy world. And the fantasy world is becoming more and more preposterous by the day. I told
you a while ago, I was shocked by this. I was talking to my mom, who is not like particularly political. She most of her life has been an independent. Now she hates Trump, so she's definitely votes for Democrats by and large, but she was talking about Iran and she was like, I don't really get it, Like we're allowed to have nuclear weapons, so they are She's like, that doesn't seem fair to me. I was like, wow, lom okay,
I was pretty shocked that she said that. But people are seeing through a lot of these lies and these propaganda that has been built up over years and years and years. So look, Trump, one danger with him always is that people hear on one day something that they want to hear from Trump, just as the you know, the Zionists who wanted this war. We're hearing a lot of things from him that they wanted to hear over a lot of days.
And now he's saying something.
Different and doing something different at least for the moment, and so they, oh, my god, he betrayed us.
He's shocked.
I mean, this man will turn on a dime at any moment. There is no person he is loyal to, There is no country is loyal to outside of himself. So, you know, it's remarkable to hear him say these things that of course if Fabama said, if Biden said it, it would be and we would still be hearing about it on Fox News, et cetera. It is remarkable to hear him say those things, but of course it doesn't mean that this is his fixed, locked in position. Doesn't mean that we won't go back to war tomorrow. I
mean Israel is still bombing, they root. All of this is very tenuous and unstable. But the reason to talk about it is not because Trump is a reliable or good actor here. The reason to talk about it is because I think you're right. I think there is power and truth, and I think these are a lot of things that the American people have intuitive, which is why they have been so opposed to this war from the beginning in a way that is truly unprecedented in I think, in American history.
Let's just stick again, you know, and I know some of this is repetitive for long time viewers. I'm sorry, but like, let's just think about you know, let's go back to Biden logic. We have to arm Ukraine because they're being invaded. Israel invades. Israel invades Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon annexes their territory in violation of international law, and we enable it and we ship them weapons. Hold on, what a second Bucah's a genocide Gaza?
Oh?
That no, that's a what is it? A self defense action? Horrific civilian casualties except one is orders of magnitude bigger than the other. That doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, does it.
Even the framing of Iran as like the singular evening.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, people watched.
Us in Israel commit a genocide in Gaza for years and then we go out and try to do our moral preening in the world. Oh, the Islamic terrorist regime. But they're shooting protesters in the street. It's not that Americans are looking this and go oh yeah, Ron, They're actually the good guys. They're just going like, well, who are we really at this point to go out and
lecture the world on moral values? And do we really believe that Donald Trump is so deeply concerned about the rights of protesters in the street in Tehran?
Of course, it's preposterous.
And so the the fantasy world has become so divorce from reality that people did not buy it. They have access to information they didn't used to have. And now you have an American president who is acknowledging things that you know, and I've gotten this can change in a moment, But who is acknowledging obvious logical things that many Americans into it did and it is hard to put that understanding back in the bottle.
Absolutely, yeah, same with Iraq. I mean, oh, we were greeted as liberators. We're going to bring them democracy and for it. We all lived through that. We all know this is bullshit from day one. It's only the same people who pushed the war are the very same people who are parroting those truths. Which is ironic because in most cases actually the exact same people who are defending and who were pushing it. There is immense power in
the truth. Here is the next one from Donald Trump about Iran's money and how can we just keep it? That would undermine faith in the dollar. Let's go and put a three and let's.
Listen explained though, what the difference is between giving a rack and US dollars and unfreezing US dollars for.
Well, the unfreezing it's an easy one to answer. We have taken a lot of their money, and we have their money. We have taken them. It's not our money, it's their money, and we froze it. At a certain point in time, I guess we're going to have to give it back. You know, if we didn't give it back, nobody would ever invest in the dollar again if you took their money. Because I thought about it, you know, I'm not the post perfect person. I said to Scott Scott,
what do we keep their money? What the hell are we giving it back to them? But you know, people from lots of nations, some nations we don't agree with, they have their money with the dollars become very strong under me, and they don't want to have a little conflict with somebody and end up having the United States just take their money. So if you do that, you really don't have a system.
Your rights are absolutely You're absolutely right. And yet again, you know, this is a neocon worldview, is that the United States can be the world's reserve currency in bank that just declares when somebody who's spooky and bad doesn't get to have access to their money, like we did with Russia. You know, I'm coming back to Russia. We just said, oh no, actually, all of your money, it's ours.
And as we said at the time, we're like, hey, we're going to blow up the integrity of the entire international banking system and create an alternative, you know, cycle of crypto and of the Chinese wand that will be used to circumvent the US Bank, which actually makes us weaker. That's exactly what happened. And then how did Iran actually facilitate some of those two million And we know at least some people paid the toll. How did they pay either in wand or they paid in crypto? Well, guess what.
You laid the ground for that again with what happened after Ukraine. So you are watching the reckoning and we're actually going to talk about this later. People are now bullish back on the dollar after a result of this, because they're like, oh, hey, actually, you know, we could go back to the world's reserve. Says it's bad for the States, especially in an emerging multipolar system where people who are quote enemies or bad or for a president can at any time just turn his back and say
all of your money is ours. To be able to keep it. You know, this reminds me of the whole Palace of cash situation, which I'll be honest at the time I fell for it because I didn't do enough research. But going back treat to PARSI outlined all of this on the Tucker Carlson Show and laid it out extremely well. He's like, look, he had a certain amount of money was paid by the SHAW to the United States for arms.
We didn't send the arms, we kept the money. The Iranian regime took the US to court at the Hague, and the Hague was going to rule against us, so we had to send back the money with interest because that's the rule. And we sent back what was their money.
Well, and when they were sanctioned from using any of the traditional banking systems, so how else are you going to get them the money then sending them sending them pallets of cash? And that is the piece where it's This one is the hardest for me to stomach from Trump because he has demagogued like so much against the JCPOA and the provisions in there and the palettes of cash.
I mean, he did the whole thing all in on those talking wow we go Obama with how terrible deal it was and how we sent them these palettes of cash to fund their terrorist activities, blah blah blah. So it is a little bit hard for me to stomach him now acknowledging the truth when it comes to him and his deal of Hey, this is actually their money and at some point we probably should give it back.
Otherwise this becomes in a way a problem for us, because if we are continually using and abusing our status is the world's reserve currency, our domination of the global financial system, then of course nations are going to figure out alternatives, and that is already happening in nascent form, and already our sanctions and the power of those sanctions they're still powerful, don't get me wrong, but already they're beginning to be diminished and less of a threat than
they used to be. Now, that's probably a good thing for the world, but if you're an American president and you're interested in preserving American empire, not such great there.
It's a disaster. And yeah, I mean ninety eight that makes a lot of sense. Sure where else are you going to go in twenty twenty six. Nope, there's a lot of different avenues that you can go through, and if you're willing to sit there and to suffer, which ultimately that's what happened. The Iranians were like, Okay, we're going to take a massive hit. People are going to starve, people are going to be poor, but at the end of the day, we're going to hold out for victory.
We're literally under consistent bombing and attack. This is an absolute war of survival. And as all regimes that are under that exact type of pressure, they did not buckle, They got stronger, they held out for potential terms, and we eventually had to bend the knee. This is how things were going to work out. As you said, by the way, I think this is a good thing. This
actually is a healthy dynamic. But this is why it is so intolerable for Israel, because if we treat Iran like a normal country, that erases their regional hegemony over the entire world. That erases the fact that we now have to balance these different interests. And you know, I made this point with doctor Parsi. Iran's GDP is only
one hundred billion less than the entire nation of Israel. Now, granted, Israel is a much higher GDP per capita, but there are plenty of small high GDP per capita nations which overall GDP don't make them particularly important to the rest
of the world. You have Iran here, which unsanctioned and reconstructed with that three hundred billion, if they're able to sell oil into the global market to export, you know, any of this and then use it to invest twenty five years from now, between the strait of hormones and the strength of their economy, this is going to be
a geopolitical not maybe not powerhouse, what regional power. Like Robert Pape has consistently said, and he really deserves you know, he's the first person who really gave me the vision of this framework. He's right, you know, between the power of geography and then their ability to export this amount of oil. Not to mention you know, look, they have, as the neocons always said, there's a lot of intellectual
capital that's locked up in Iran. If they have the ability over the next twenty five years to operate as a normal nation, there is no reason that they will not become massively more economically and strategically important to the world. And just to show the power of their bargaining chip. Finally, you know, everybody, I have. The number one chirp that annoys me is people say you said oil was going
to hit two hundred. I'm like, sorry, I didn't foresee that China would cut forty percent of all of its imports for the first time ever in human history. I apologize, Thank you. Also, you should be thinking, so you should be happy I was wrong, and you should thank China for having better evs and for a shit ton more oil reserve than we do. But we also kept pointing to one thing, the strategic petroleum reserve, and we're like, hey, all these oil executives say another month or two of
this is gonna be a real problem. And what did everybody say, Oh, you're wrong, it's not happening. Look at the delusional traders on Wall Street. Well, same power in the truth. Here's Trump saying we had four weeks until every strategic petroleum reserve ran dry. Let's take a listen.
Also, we run out of reserves in about four weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out, and there'll be a time when you wouldn't be able to get it. And you want to see.
Bedlam, bedlam, bedlam.
That's what we're at it towards I'll get you know, Chevron Ceo all Rory. I want to really, these people
deserve credit. They were not incorrect. All they did not foresee was China having one of the world's largest strategic petroleum reserves and massively cutting their energy imports, which I will just say nobody literally could have foreseen that except for the CCP, if China had continued to import oil, the current estimate is oil would have been over one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy dollars a
barrel now here. Whenever it comes to the strategic reserve, they have access to the ex because the data is all out there. We can all see, oh, you know, lowest level since nineteen ninety eight, next week, the lowest level since nineteen eighty four. Were like, well, it's not that much oil there, and then when they do, we know how much that we produce on a daily basis, We have no slack in the system. We know what
direction that's going to go. Same here from Trump, we would have run out of oil and it would have been bedlam. So the basic reality is that Iran's strategy was correct, and that fundamentally the weapon of the Strait of Hormoves will remain for all time a part of the Iranian playbook, and it should be from their perspective. We can either change that by occupying their nation and taking hundreds of thousands of casualties, or we can pay them and we can just live together. I choose the latter.
I think most people do too.
You know, it's it's very interesting to hear Trump say this to say the least, because I mean, this is what the Iranian bet was right. They bet that we could not take the economic pain that they could, and that it would hurt us more and it would force us to come to the table and give them the terms that they had long been seeking. This is confirmation that they were correct, that that bet ultimately paid off.
You know, all the propaganda of FDD and others who were saying, oh, if you just if we do a blockade, if they're blockade, they're going to completely collapse. Remember that they were saying, oh, their oil wells are going to explode and they're going to completely collapse in days. Obviously that did not happen. And so here you have Trump acknowledging the reason for the timing of this deal is
because we ran out of runway. We were weeks away from what he describes as bedlam, because we were running too low on the strategic petroleum reserve. We weren't the only ones the whole world's ability to absorb this extraordinarily truly historic level of an energy shock that was within days to weeks of coming to an end, and so that's why he was so intent on getting this deal now because we were out of time.
There was another very interesting colm.
We didn't pull it, but I think it was a lot of things he said were just like very revealing of what was going on in his head as he's watching all of this unfold. And we know how much he watches the stock market and how much market manipulation was a part of the entire strategy this whole time along, and he said, like, look, I observed that when there was talk of peace, the stock market went on, and when there was talk of war, the stock market went down.
And the markets are that they're more genius than any person on the entire planet. So the markets are wise and all knowing. So that sent me the message of hey, I better get to peace because that's what the stock market wants. I think that was genuinely an influential part of his thinking, was just this very simplistic, oh piece good war bad as judging by the response from the market.
So I thought that was very revealing as well. You know, all that being said, I just want to again sound a note of caution, you know, I'm just reading the headlines right now in Haretz. You've got Israel holding negotiations with the US as it seeks to continuous deployment of troops in southern Lebanon. One person was killed in an Israeli drone strike in a town in southern Lebanon's Navitia district, according to a local channel.
So you still have Israel agitating here.
Netnyahu's entire entire political career is truly on the line. Israel feels that this is existential. We're going to show you some of the continued freak count from their allies here, as well as some domestic you know, intense supporters of net Yahoo for example, who are just absolutely losing their minds. They will do whatever they can to undermine this. And
Trump is very sensitive. His ego is very sensitive. You know that he could wake up today, see news coverage she doesn't like, and go back to banging the drums of war.
None of this is stable.
The other thing I will just say on the politics of it is, you know, when Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, there's this It's not exactly the same, but it is a bit of a similar moment of acknowledging the reality of this as a failed war. We've been here for decades, we didn't accomplish anything. Now is the time to pull
the plug. What we're going to stay there forever. That was basically the reason for the Afghan withdrawal was there is not going to be a good time to do this, so we're just going to do this and acknowledge the reality that is in front of everybody's eyes. People leading up to the withdrawal supported it overwhelmingly. If you pulled the American people we looked at these polls, they would say, yes, we should.
Get out of Afghanistan.
Then it happened, and it became the single most devastating blow to Biden's presidency, the reason being because there was such a united front across all media apparatus. There were very big again credit to ro Connie was one of the only ones who was willing to go out and defend Biden and his withdrawal from Afghanistan. There was such a blanket condemnation then, of course, like the horror of American service members being killed, the mess of all that
surely did not help anything. Although I don't know that there ever would have been a way that this could have gone completely smoothly. It really was like the death knell of his presidency. And so even though Trump here, if this goes through, if we get to peace, etc. I mean, the fact that he brought us into war to begin with was an utter and complete disaster. And the acknowledgment of the reality of our losing this war, which is what happened.
We lost the war.
And what that means, what we're going to have to give in exchange for acknowledging that reality would be a death now for Trump's presidency. The way that the Afghan removedstra was from Biden.
Yeah, because it's like ending a war which you shouldn't have been in the first That's why even navigating is just so difficult. Right you want to be like, wow, thank you for your strategic wisdom. It's like, well you got us into this damn message.
Yeah, you're the reason that the straight of hormans were closed in the first way.
Right, and yeah, what it is actually thank god gas just hit three ninety nine a gallon nationally.
Good.
You know, I'm happy it was to fifty. So okay, you know it's like, are we going to are we going to celebrate things. No, that's why instead of Trump, I'm just going to attack the people who are attacking the deal. That's going to be kind of my where I'm at. But yeah, you're not wrong. A lot of people are not going to forget because it's not like things were all peachy here in the US even before the US went to or with the run last thing.
Matt Stoler had a good tweet months ago where he said, I'll believe that a deal is real when Trump starts praising the Iranians in a vaguely homosexual manner and his nascent dude crush is We're very on display, not necessarily to the Iranians here, but to a lot of the Arab allies who helped cement this piece deal. Let's take a listen a six.
Yes, we're a.
Nice looking person.
Is he from your gun?
Is he from your gun? Absolutely?
No, he's got such.
A nice way about him. My people is they're so mean?
Look at.
He cared for No, I can't him.
I could put him in a movie right now, go ahead. He's a very tough Negotiator's one of the toughest act So you look at this man, I'll give you a lesson. He's the most beautiful looking man. He looks so nice. He's like an angel, but actually he's a tough He's a killer. I don't want to he's that killer. He's as tough as a couple, but he looks so good, so he gets you by surprise. So he was in a hotel and I met him, and we fell in love, deeply in love. And he didn't even want to.
The last person's talking about there as president of like one of the most brutal dictators.
He's like, I stayed longer as long as I was supposed to.
We fell in love.
So my theory of what happened here that really clinched the deal in the end, and you know, led to Trump's capitulation on some key concessions. As he saw the Iranian men's national soccer team and was like at these lit these big, strong guys and some better looking to Tom Cruise, and he was like, give them what they want. They want to do a little nuclear Richmond, why not? They want their money back? Who could blame them? Give them their money back. I think I think that's what's
really going on behind the scenes. There was there was a chart on Twitter that said, like, as Trump's dementia level rises, also his blatant bisexuality rises in tandem.
So that might be.
What's going on here, certainly something. All right, let's get to the vance situation. Turning now to this bizarre situuation in the Maga neocon world where all of these pathetic cowards do not have the balls to actually say Donald Trump, you made a bad deal. And so instead it's like the good czar and the bad boyars. They have to go and find who that bad boyar is. Here it is now the vice president who is manipulating and controlling things behind the scenes. Here is Ben Shapiro on Fox
News making this case. Let's take a listen.
I've said many times the President deciding to go into Iran and to hit nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer and then to go after Iron's ballistic missile facilities and nuclear facilities Army, Navy, and Air Force in this current operation was the signal act of political bravery, perhaps of my lifetime. With that said, this MoU appears to be just from the text, a disaster that does not achieve any of the actual signal goals that were set by
the administration at the beginning. There were effectively five goals that were set by the administration at the beginning when it was ending the nuclear program not just nuclear weapons, no nuclear Richmonds, Zeroon Richmond that is not in the deal.
Ballistic missiles ended.
That is not in the deal, and the President today suggested that ballistic missiles should actually continue to be held by the Iranians because the Saudis our allies also hold ballistic missiles. Then you have the support of terrorism that is not part of the deal. Anything that looks like an attempt to end terrorism, a permanent opening of the straight ofform moves toll free.
Not only is that not in the deal, the deal.
Appears to have a provision allowing Iran and Oman to attempt to toll the straits after sixty days, and then finally the idea that Iran would receive some sort of sanctions released after all of those things happen, we are already seeing from day one relief in their ability to ship oil out of Iran. In my opinion, the Vice President of the United States, the chief negotiator on this particular project, has not well served the president.
He has not well served the president he served. Maybe consider the possibility Trump who signed it, can read can we accept that possibility? Thus, maybe it's Donald Trump's deal and you don't have the stones to say, hey, Trump, you made a bad deal. About this is It's like he's like this infallible, Like literally, it's the czar is infallible.
Only the people around him who are bad. But the irony of all of this is is that when Talker and a few others remember when of the war breakout and they were like, well, Israel drug us into a war? They're like, Donald Trump is the wisest, most independent, most singular leader in to say he is controlled, manipulated, in fact preposterously discussing, insulting. Can anybody look at the mighty President Trump and say he is controlled? And now now he's just a weak is like he's not just being
all led by his advice. Let me give you my other personal favorite, Will Chamberlain. You know we've had him here on the show. You know him, and I you know, I used to like the guy. But the guy was a huge defender of this deal today says that we have the text, the deal is absolutely terrible. There's no getting around it. The text gives Iran his huge immediate financial benefits and in exchange the straight nothing else. There's
what he said on February eighteenth, twenty twenty six. You do not have more insight into what America should do visa vi irn than Donald Trump, jd Vance, Mark or Ruby and Pete Hegstath. You just don't let them cook. I agree, let them I agree, let them cook. Cross the plant? Am I right? You know that cross the plant? That sounds like pannican behavior.
Some people who are out there doing the trust the plan though, like some like they're trying to imagine some four D chess where you know, this all ends in and and look, it may be the case that we end up going back to it, but it.
Won't be forty chess. It'll just be as real.
Yes, exactly exactly, but no, I mean, this has been a consistent theme since the first Trump administration. Then I remember hearing all about how, oh it's Kushner's fall, that you know Trump is doing X or Y or Z that we don't want him to do. It reminds me too of so John Pedorance is in total melt atys human watermelon is and it's kind of it's very enjoyable because he's telling the truth about something like he's saying.
Things like, I don't know why we even went into this word.
It's like, yeah, me neither, why did we you know, at the urging of idiots like you. But in any case, he said this extraordinary thing about how he was like, look, what this all comes down to is the truth of the matter is Trump is corrupt. And when he was doing you know, the the Iran war and doing the bigging of Israel, that wasn't because of his corruption.
That was his genuine view.
But now the corruption is taking hold, just completely ignoring the whole Miriam Addelson of the situation, or the way that you know, whit Coffin, Kushner and the Trump family are like completely invested in the entire region, et cetera. So but now now that he's doing something that Pudoritz does not want him to do, now it's the corruption that's really driving the train. It really is incredible to see.
But you know, the jd Vance thing is significant politically because in a sense, you know, I think that they are correct to politically correct to hone in on JD Vance avoid the direct criticism of Trump because you know howth and skinty is. And Trump himself said that, Hey, if this deal doesn't work out, you know, I'm going to blame I'm going to blame the vice president. I'm
going to say that it was all his fault. And like many things that he uttered yesterday, I think on that he was telling the truth.
Let's go ahead and take a listen.
Why not stick around for the signing ceremony with this Iran piece deal?
Might you might?
Yeah? I might, But I'd rather this is a memorandum of understanding. It's very important, but it might not be the kind of a document that I should be showing.
There's some element to this where you send the vice president. If it works out, great, you look like a genius for sending him, and if it doesn't work out, it's the vice president.
I like that idea.
Issue Well, this way, if it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming JD. You better be careful, JD. He should have turned his plane around and get the hell out of here.
Yeah.
I like that idea. I think it's a good idea.
It's very interesting to want to mark Rubus face throughout this entire press gouference, by the way, But no, I mean when it was war and Trump is threatening to kill the entire civilization and all these sorts of things, Marco Rubio was very much on the you know, he was on the upswing, and he was put out to the media and he was a lot of the public face.
Now that there's an attempt at this memo of understanding and negotiations towards a peace deal, jd Vance has been on like three thousand news programs.
I'm just briefing the press this morning.
Oh is he And I just got a notification on my phone that he did one.
With Russ Dalzad. He was on with the Ladies at the View, he was over Fox News.
I mean, he really is being made the face of this thing. And so I think there is some truth to Trump's quip there that you know, oh, if this doesn't go well, I'll just blame JD. Vance And I think you know that will that will allow the neo cons to attack the deal without getting into Trump's bad graces. Look, I mean it's a similar strategy to what Joe Kent employed. You know where he was, but he tried, you know, he went out of his way to be like, oh, the only person who could get us down of this
bind is the magnificent Donald Trump, you know. I mean he understood that Trump's ego is very very fragile, and so if you're going to, you know, continue to have any sort of standing with him, you have to protect the ego at all costs. And so they're doing their version of that of well, who can we identify that we can pick on who Also, by the way, you know, Ben Shapiro and JD. Vance have other ideological differences that Shapiro would you know, are happy, happy to go after JD.
Vance and make him the potential fall guy if this thing comes apart, which is very very well made.
This is part of the issue with Trump. He doesn't want to actually take credit for anything. I mean he literally says it out loud. So in some ways you could just say, you know, like he literally said, He's like, well, it doesn't worry. If it works out, I'll take credit. If it doesn't, then I'll blame JD. I mean, I think JD has made the calculation. He's like, look, I'm going to be the face of this thing. Nobody else will try to sell it. You know to the pre
ware you're gonna have rubios. Rubio went out and sold the war. How did that work out? It actually worked out well for me because he's the only person who told the truth. The day after the war. Remember, well, we had to attack Iran because Israel was going to attack them, and they were and there's nothing that we could have done to stop them. So we went into the war because of Israel. He literally said it.
So, look, did you hear Hillary Clinton's comments? This is which ones well there she said a lot, but she said she said this thing about how oh Israel tried to get us into war with the Ran many times, and she said that they would literally tell them like the planes are on the tarmac and they'd be like, don't care.
But because Trump.
Is such a rube and he's got a bunch of incompetent idiots around him, and because he ultimately wanted this war and wanted to be talked into this, and was very easily talked into it because of the idea of like, oh, sir, your legacy, you'll remake them middle least, you'll do what no one else had the courage to do, etcetera, etcetera. But in any case, when they did the whole like, oh, we're about to go, he was like, all right, well,
I guess we have to go. And that was the final thing that pushed him over the edge, is what it seems like happened.
Yeah, I look beyond all of you know, the stupidity of even getting into all of this in the first place. I do actually think this is very important. Let's go and put d B three up here on the screen. This was Everyone should read this. The Israeli ultra hawks who feel betrayed by Trump's Iran deal. Shimon Ricklin, an anchor on the country's right wing channel fourteen and a Natsa nyathu ally ally thinks America stabbed Israel in the back.
I really recommend everybody go and actually read this thing to get into the deranged minds of the Israeli right wing.
But the important line there, which has a deep historical parallel to the Versailles and the Memorandum of Understanding and the fourteen points, just like you know the fourteen points by Wilson the Peace Plan, is the phrase stabbed in the back, because what is playing out right now is the exact same situation as the Germans of nineteen nine team where the home front collapsed and they had to surrender at the Treaty of Versailles, and they decided to
concoct this theory where it was the German people who opposed the war from continuing because they were starving and going through like revolution, that it was their fault that the Great Armed Forces ended up having to surrender. This stab in the back theory obviously becomes intrinsic with Nazism. But in this case, the people who stabbed the Israelis in the back are us, the Americans, because we don't have the stomach for war, as they recently wrote. But
why is this so dangerous? Because for them they're going to construct this unhinged new reality which you can actually read in here. And he goes, well, you know, the blockade of the blockade was working, and if America had just allowed our Kurdish militias to enter, then it would have worked. He said, the IDF General staff told him that there was an eighty percent chance of regime change if we had just let these curve. I mean, this is the same durin shit that the Germans used to
say after the First World War. Oh if only we had done this one more military for.
The Vietnam vet endor. Yeah, they hit in the same shit all the days.
Then we could have it all could have worked out, you know, I mean, but why is that so dangerous? Because when you don't reckon with reality what happens? Oh well, we all know we're stabbed in the back when back under Germany. But like the parallels here are exactly the same. Where they cannot grapple with their own failure like they might. They can only be failed. It's like the whole Trump can't fail, it can only be failed. The Israelis can never fail. They can only be failed in this case
by America. Go ahead and look. Trump's approval rating now is minus twenty three in Israel. Three weeks ago it was plus sixteen. What does that tell you? Right, they want us to serve them, like that's the way that they look at it. You can actually even read throughout this entire.
Think about I mean, Trump has done everything everything they truly like, they basically annexed, you know, parts of Syria, invaded and annexed parts of Lebanon. They have now sixty to seventy percent of Gaza that they've annexed. You know, he supported their genocide for a long time before we got any sort of a deal there. The deal continues to be a disaster in the Israelis are still allowed
to kill with impunity Palestinians, the West Bank rampaging. Even the little bit of you know, settler sanctions that the Biden administration put on like four people.
The Trump ad.
Michael, Oh, we can't do that, you know, We've got to let the violent terror settlers rampage throughout and do whatever they want. He has done everything they want up to and including starting this war, which was something that the Israeli public and NETNAHUO wanted very dearly. And now they cannot handle the fact that this was a disaster.
It was not only a dramatic disaster and miscalculation by Trump, it was a dramatic disaster and mixed calculation by them because all of their oh, it's going to regime is going to collapse, and they're so weak, blah blah blah. They were high on their own supply, the same way that Trump was high on his own supply. With regards to Venezuela, I want to read you this one section and Shatner I don't know why anyone ever agrees to an.
Interview with this guy.
Which guy's is really so he does, I guess, I don't know.
They're very savvy about American medias. I'm not sure about that. But unlike the domestic political context here where Shapiro and others are going out of their way not to blame Trump, he and the Israelis are very much putting the blame on Trump, as they should, I guess, and Channer kind of plays along with him in all of this and all of his delusions. So in any case, Channer says,
putting aside the merits of this war? Do you think people such as yourself and the Prime Minister misjudge Donald Trump? I know you said a joyful prayer on the air when he was elected in twenty twenty four. You must have had some sense of who this guy is, that he isn't loyal to anyone, that he had no real core values. The response, listen, I was really happy when he was elected.
I admit it.
I think it was good for Israel, and in the beginning it was. But today I don't know what to think. I am really in shock. Chattner goes on it's hard to fathom again playing along with him. I don't have a lot of moments like this. I don't remember someone in modern history who would go with you and do wonderful things and then suddenly disappear and go against you. So no, I'm the bad guy. I supported you, I was the good guy. How did I become the bad guy?
And Iatola is the good guy? And then Shanna replies, this is why I was wondering whether you had ever observed Donald Trump?
Did you know who you're dealing with here?
Like, the man has no loyalties to anyone anything except what serves him right then, in that moment, and five days from now, they may be cheering him again. You know, they're negotiating over whether they continue to occupy and bomb in Lebanon, and we'll see what happens with that.
We'll see what happens over.
The next sixty days, whether his ego can handle the damage that it's no doubt sustaining, as so many people come out and say, hey, this is actually really it's.
Not even that it's a bad deal. It is the necessary deal.
But clearly it acknowledges reality that we lost and they won.
Can he handle that. Can he sustain it?
So the same guy may be singing his praises again and thinking their besties again, you know, in a week's time. But pretty wild to see the level of delusion that they had about who and what they were dealing.
Oh it's look, they created in their own mythos and I think they really believed Neta Yahuu that he controlled Donald Trump or that he was you know, had the What did he say once behind closed door, He's like, I know exactly how to work the Americans. I mean, to his credit, he did. He actually did. I mean, you can't say that he didn't get almost ninety eight
percent of what he wanted. But as usual with these rampaging lunatics is that they get what they want and it's working, and it's working, and it's working, and then they go one dice, roll too many and oh seven
comes up on the table. And that's what happened here with Iran, is they actually got everything that they wanted, which is part of the why it's good because it shows you that we be absent a ground invasion, we threw everything we had at Iran and they still did not buckle in the way that they wanted, so they have nothing. That's why they need the stab in the
back theory. But again I really want I want to emphasize that, you know, considering where history went after the Treaty of Versailles, at Trump signing the Versailles Memorandum, after stab in the back, it can get very, very dangerous, by the way, you know, on JPod, I've been wanting to revisit this. Do you remember this from July four, twenty twenty five when Trump said the word shylock and
JPod said, Trump bombed Iran? He can say shylock one hundred times a day forever as far as I'm concerned. So I just want to know, JPod, does Trump still have your permission to say that is my most practiced shylock card of the day. Does he still have a shylock card?
So beyond here that is.
An open questionable to the human watermelon, JPod.
One last thing I want to add in here, just as we're thinking of how unhinged the Israelis are, how existential this is for Netanyahu's political career, which I genuinely think it is, and his political opponents are all challenging him from the right, all saying like you were not hawkish enough and you need to defy the Americans, that we can't accept this weak status, as their clients state, that's how they're all posturing. It's it's very popular with
the Israel public. So I do think he is in deep,
deep political trouble. So I mean, what would he and what would the state be willing to do in order to you know, resecure his standing in order to go back to war that he personally sees as being existential for his political career, and I think the nation of Israel sees as being existential to their you know, their construction as they are now their particular view of how you know, they can't possibly allow any rival, They can't have anyone who could even theoretically challenge them, whether or
not they have intent to do them harm or not. And in that vein, it was very unnerving to see Laura Lumer tweet that soon there will be a massive Islamic terror attack in America and the perpetrators will likely have financial ties to podcasters and those who are sowing discord for foreign nations in America. I predict there will
be many casualties. Only then will it may be set in that people have been conned into supporting a terrorist syop to distract you from the threat of Islam while the enemy plotted to destroy our country from within with bottled conspiracy theories. It will likely be ten times worse
than nine to eleven. Glenn Greenwald quote treated this and said, everyone understandably gets a bit nervous when an agent of Israel starts threatening, I mean predicting a major mass casualty terrorist attack in American soil just days after the American president announces a.
Deal that enrages all of Israel.
I wish that we could ignore the rantings of Laura Lumer, who was a genuinely mentally unwell person, but unfortunately she has influence, has been shown to have influence. You know, she's been targeting trade to Parsi, and next thing you know, you get this fruit Press article saying that he's under investigation and being threatened with deportation. So unfortunately, we cannot ignore the ravings of this lunatic, and we cannot ignore what a dangerous situation and phase we're in right now
because of the Israel. For the Israelis, there are no moral red lines because they are always inherently the good guys, and so anything they do in service of what they see as their sense is inherently moral and just because they are good people, no matter what they do, their actions have no bearing on the fact that they are the permanent victims and they are the permanent good guys.
So when you have a you know, bankrupts moral landscape or a non existent moral landscape such as that, there is nothing you can put off the table that they would not try to, you know, for net nyahuo to preserve as political status and for them to be able to preserve their ascendant dominance in the Middle East.
Yeah, and you know, look, I don't count these people out for a second. The lower lumor thing very dangerous. The level of anger inside of Israel. I mean, I don't know how much you should take like the musings of various you know, random Israelis, like that's always a
little bit dangerous. But if you take a look at some of their telegram channels and things like there's some unhinged stop I'm looking at one from this morning that said, this is an anonymous telegram channel of a bunch of Israelis, and they said we will join the Iranians chant of death to Americ right. I mean, two people have the means, the opportunity, the ability, and so maybe we should start worrying about sleeper cells, you know, in terms of sabage.
Here's another headline from this one from the Times of Israel, which is a more like right wing outlet nen Yahoo to lean on right wing pundits pro Israel senators to influence final Iran deal. This is PERCNN plans to use pro Israel senators, the right wing media personalities to influence the terms of the final agreement. Believes a final deal with Iran will be secured, but that Tehran will not
fulfill its obligations. Plans to use media figures like Fox News is Mark Levin and pro Israel politicians to get his message across to Trump. So as you were watching, you know Ted Cruz has been critical of the deal. Obviously Levin has been losing his mind as you're watching these people, just remember they may have literally gotten a call from net Nyahu telling them what to say, how to push, and how to try to manipulate the situation.
Exactly right. All right, We've got a great guest standing by.
Let's get to it.
So we now have the official terms in the Memo of Understanding, so to dig more into those terms and what they will mean going forward. We're very happy to be joined for the first time by Muhammad Ali Shabani. He is the editor of m Watch Media. We've relied on some of their reporting. They've had some fantastic scoops over the course of this entire conflict, of course before as well.
It's great to have you, sir.
Good to see you, sir.
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, no problem.
So let's go ahead, guys and put this first element up on the screen. This is some of your reporting of the Iranian released version of the Memo of Understanding. Here, just break down for us what you see as being some of the most significant points as we move into the sixty day negotiation period.
Well, I think first and foremost, the most important thing to keep in mind is basically that this is MU is a Memoran and of understanding.
This is a framework, This is a world map.
This is not a finalized deal that needs to be fully implemented for next ten years, right, So the most important provision I think within this MoU is that it provides for sixty days to come to a final deal, as it's referred to within this document, and that sixty
day period can be extended by mutual consent. However, there is a kind of deadline here, and the big ticket items such as how to resolve the future of the one nuclear program, those kinds of things have been mostly pushed back, and so it's going to be difficult next two months ahead, and we don't know. They may need more time, they may need less time, and they may also come to the conclusion that a deal isn't to be had. And already we're seeing a lot of people in Israel in particular.
You know, there are two camps.
One camp is very much outraged about this MoU and the other camp is very relaxed, saying essentially they're not going to have a final deal. So, if I were to outline anything that's very important about this MoU is the number one. It's not a final deal. In outlines sixty days for negotiations on things like the nuclear program. But apart from that, the provisions within the MoU which have starred a lot of I think contention, include things like the extent of the Iran USC squire. So this
is a document between Iran and the United States. There are no other signatories to this apart from Pakistan as the mediator, and it does say essentially that this truth or this secession of hostilities extends to their allies, their respective allies in this war. And that's very important because that means essentially Israel is a party to this document, even though Israel hasn't been in the negotiations. Israel didn't
signed this. And one of the provisions in paragraph one, for instance, is that Lebanon's territorial integrity and sovereignty must be ensured and that for instance, fighting extends to for
instance Lebanon as well. And this is going to be one big test I think for this for this MU one of the initial tests, which is is Israel is going to adhere to paragraph one right, it can argue that, for instance, that this still had nothing to do with this, Well, then sign this document and we're not going to put up with it. And that's going to be a big problem for Trump. I think how is he going to deal with that, especially with the domestic political firestorm it's
facing right for having agreed to someone. So that's just one of the many points that I would I would fate.
Very good point. By the way, this morning, you know Israeli media Netta Noa who says we are not bound by the agreement, So you know that doesn't exactly take a genius to see that one coming. Can we put to us C three where we have the draft compared to the final image up here on the screen, because there were a couple of interesting flags that we have here, our producers created this graphic where in the original draft they actually added an explicit pledge to protect Lebanese sovereignty.
In Article four, they said that the US will only begin removal at signing and will fully end the blockade at a thirty day deadline. In Article five they explicitly added a line where they said that free passage will resume only for sixty days under the memorandum of understanding, which open up the door to charging tolls through the
strait of horm moves between Iran and Oman. In article seven they write about sanctions, it adds a mutual pledge to quote immediately address the sanctions issue once talks start.
And then Article eight, perhaps the most important, they say a same reaffirmation, but now specifically a minimum method of on site down blending under IAEA supervision of enrichment talks added to what do you make of these concessions given obviously by the United States, you know, at the last minute in the final memorandum understanding compared to the draft which had been released some twenty four hours earlier.
So you know, we reported a couple of days ago on this provision and paragraph one that got to do with Lebanon specifically, it's about the again ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon, and the Aeian side kind of insisted that they had managed to get that language in there as a direct result of the Israeli a
tackle on Babe. So just as a kind of quick backdrop, IWON had put out a redline saying that an Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital would warrant a direct response from Iran against Israel, this kind of triangular pattern, and I think just when the US and Evan were on the cusp of signing this MoU the Israeli's launched this attack on Baby, probably calculating, probably knowing that IWON is going to hit back, and Iran that night was loading
its missiles the launchers were being loaded, and it was on that level apparently, and they managed through the direct interventional Trump a number of concessions by the United States come to an agreement and they did not fire anything at Israel that night. So that kind of gambit by Netanyah who seems to have backfired in the sense that some of these concessions that you outlined, including Lebanon specifically, appear to have been a direct result of this kind
of gambit by Nathania. We're trying to god One into attacking and then for him to then strike back at Evan obviously, get that dynamic going and kind of try to derail Evan US diplomatic That's the kind of essence of of the dynamic there. I think another thing he attempted with that operation by hitting Baby was to say, especially what he's doing now that hisbolizes for US a national security issue has got nothing to do with the United States, where anything he signed with he wants is
not going to apply to us. We're not going to pay attention to that. And you know, he has a right to do that, he's a leader of Israel in a leader of different country, But then he needs to also accept that there's going to be costs for that. You know, Israel's ability to fight this war realized a
lot in the United States. If he doesn't want the US involved in any kind of diplomacy to do with Israel or the region, then you know it'd be difficult for him to argue, then you need to give me all the possible support, political support, military support, having actual US forces stations inside Israel, operating missile defense, et cetera.
Things like that.
So it's putting him in an awkward position. And having said that, I think what we need to really keep in mind again, I hate to be repetitive that this is MoU It's not a final deal. There are a lot of negotiations ahead. There are a lot of heated reactions right now to a lot of the provisions in there. Well, we need to just try to keep in mind again, is that this story, this episode, about how this language
about Lebanon was inserted there. It holds an important lesson that maybe on the previous few US administrations, Israel was quite a depth playing the White House, frankly, to try to kind of threaten something and get something out of them, And now he Wan's kind of doing the opposite, right.
And it's interesting that just yesterday, i think the day before, Hillary Clinton went out and essentially said that the Israeli is doing her term as secretary, saying, you know, they used to do this kind of stuff all the time, saying that we're going to attack yourn we have planes on the tarmac, and she would just say, you know,
you guys, go ahead. And it'd be interesting if, you know, you know, if Trump would were to do the same thing now after this incident in Babut, if natanyaw is to say, no, I don't care what you guys gonna do. I'm gonna go ahead and bombay route. And what if Trump just says, go ahead.
Yeah, be our guest. Yeah, make sure you have some bad missiles too, to shoot down some missiles. Whenever the time comes. We wish you the.
Best of luck.
Lingering on Lebanon here for a moment, and the first provision where this language about quote ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon appears in the final draft. It didn't appear in the earlier draft that was leaked to American media outlets. Do the Iranians you think interpret that as a demand for the IDEF not only to stop bombing and attacking, but also to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon.
So we have.
Reports saying that as Bulla apparently has been informed by the audience that a final deals again keep in mind, is not the This is not the final deal, don or the final deal with the United States will entail Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
And that's where.
The language about territorial integrity and sovereignty come in. You can't have sovereignty with foreign forces on your soil. That's not sovereignty. Sovereignty literally is defined as monopoly on violence within your boundaries, your territorial boundaries. Right, So I think that's the that's the kind of long term gain, that's what they're looking at down the line. Again, we don't know how long these negotiations on the final deal are
going to continue. We know there's a sixty day period, but it says extendable by mutual consent, right, so we don't have a clear timeline. What we do know is that the endgame is Israel needs to leave Lebanon. And you know, frankly, I'm not sure whether that's against Israeli interests. Israel spent eighteen years in Lebanon until the early two thousands, you know, and I don't think they want to stay in there. There's not really much for them there. They're
just exposed right now. They're facing a lot of difficulties with things like these new drums that has Boloized firing at them on a daily basis.
It's not a good situation.
I think for Israel it's much more How can I put this advantageous to find Larnche air strikes, et cetera from behind the border? Right, they can do that, they can continue doing that, but having forces on underground puts them at great vulnerability, a lot of political risk and direct confrontation with.
The United States.
You're assuming they think rationally, well, it.
Gives them of your segre, It gives them kind of an excuse to retreat without it being labeled as such. All the Americans are forcing us into it. But to your point, they've been sustaining significant losses in Lebanon, much more so than what they were expecting.
Yeah, Mohammed, I do want to get your reaction to C four. We can put it up here on the screen. I'm curious from your perspective, whenever you're talking with international sources. Here in the United States, we are already watching a deep state effort to try in torpedo elements of the
memorandum understanding and an eventual deal. So recently, the State Department actually told Congress that Iran's oil exports are quote a primary revenue source for terrorism financing, which is hours after the US and Iran signed the memorandum that included
oil sanctions relief, and Trump is downplaying Iran's behavior. The reason why this matters is if by reporting that they actually are making themselves subject to congressional review if they want to try and take some sanctions off, and their significant domestic elements here in the US, specifically headed by Mark or Rubio here obviously, which could easily technically derail
the details. What I'm curious for you is how do the Iranians see the actual capability of getting across a finish line, as well as some of the other regional sources that you've spoken to.
So Iran, I think the way it approaches things like sanctions relief is that it will rely heavily on waivers or presidential waivers.
Okay, that's the way they look at things.
Ultimately they understand that Congress is going to be difficult, and then that prior to November, Trump can push things through, but after November it's going to be much more difficult.
And we're seeing one layer to that in the reactions to this MoU by the Democrats who have opposed this war, but now that there's an actual cessation of hostilities, now that there's actual document to find a way out of this conflict, they're among the loudest voices were opposed to this document, you know, screaming that Trump is handing over X and Y, et cetera. So that's kind of giving us a sense of Congressional action is going to be difficult,
and sooner you get it done, the better. But the first and foremost is reliance on presidential waivers to kind of get a lot of these sanctions really through. But I think zooming out further, the number one calculation I think on the part of you one is if we manage to get a deal that is implemented, that's a win. If we don't manage to get a deal because of subterfuge or what have you. On the part of the United States, that's also a win because we managed to make clear to our own.
People that we're not the problem here. Right, So in.
Case there is a resumption of hoscilities, then they're going to basically be able to count on popular support that they wouldn't if it became quite clear that they're not being rational they don't want a negotiated solution to do all of this, etc. So I think the way they're approaching sanctions relief is it's a win win. We get it, we win if we don't get it because of us inaction or what when domestic politics has also a win for us. It just shows we can make a deal with the United States.
What do you see as the most difficult sticking points over the next sixty days in terms of secure a final deal?
So, I mean there are some It's quite interesting. So on Trump's marks rest yesterday, he was quite honest for the first time. I think he was just saying things like, you know, you can't tell you onan not to have any kind of nuclear program and then its neighbors have it and missiles and these kinds of things.
I think there's going to be.
A lot of pushing pull about the details of things like the enrichment, the uranium enrichment. I think that can be solved. They had a solution prior to this war, which was basically for Youwan to engage in an international constortium on its soil with a bunch of its neighbors, to basically have a multinational operation going to make sure that there's maximum transparency there's going to be any kind of diversion of the nuclear program for weaponization. I think
there's a solution for that. I think when you look at things like terrorism financing, of course there's a domestic political element to it that has to do with sanctions really, but I think another element to it is an attempt to shape the framework of these negotiations. If you look at the MU, there are a couple of things in which stand out in terms of their missing.
Number one is missiles.
Number two is this kind of Ewan's region Alliance network.
How it's going to approach that.
So I think in these negotiations we're going to possibly see some attempts to put these things on a gender. But again, it's quite confusing because Trump is so openly now going out and saying that, you know, Iran has to be able to defend itself. We can't have a
situation with Ivan whereby he can't defend itself. And here we're going to see the influence and possibly even the limits of what Israel and it's kind of allies in Washington can achieve because we understand that prior to this war, there was a lot of talk about the nuclear program being an imminent threat. And as soon as the war had begun and things started going wrong, we saw it. Onao go out and say, well, hold on, it wasn't
the nuclear issue. In fact, it was the missiles that Evan had X amount of missiles that we're going to fight at uts, which would be the.
Equivalent of a nuclear bond. Right.
And now that Ewan has had this war and it's found that missiles are basically its only real means of determines and defense, they're not going to give them up.
So is that going to be the.
Achilles Heel of these kinds of negotiations.
We don't know. We're going to find out in the next sixty days or so.
Yeah, because the fact Trump says something today doesn't mean you won't say something different tomorrow. We've seen these Raelies in the past be successful at incerting new red lines into negotiations that end up being poison pills, So that certainly is a possibility. I'm curious. Just lastly for me, you mentioned that there's one camp of Israelis that are really freaking out. We've shared some of their commentary on this show, so our audience will be very familiar with
that viewpoint. You said, there's another faction that's kind of relaxed because they're like, heh, that's never going to be a deal, don't worry about it. We're going to be going back to war. It's going to be fine. What do you think is giving them that confidence?
I think, based on what I've read the people in the security circles and intelligence, they're essentially saying that their read of you want, their understanding of you want is that these bottom lines they have on things like the nuclear on things like the regional policies such as the also the missile program, they're not going to budge on them. Fundamentally, these are points that they've been quite stubborn on for
the past twenty years. They may be right, they may also be wrong because there's been one big change in you won because we've changed from one fomb and a to another. Right, there has been a regime change, just not the kind of regime change that the United States and Israel may have liked.
Right, So we don't.
Know what this new leadership, how pragmatic they may be on things like the nuclear issue, things like the regional alliance networks.
We have no idea. So I think this is a kind of a black box right now.
And again we're just going to have to wait and see and time will tell to what extent you want in the United States can be flexible in the relations. What we do know is that the former supreme leader of you want aye six year old Alifamina, he was quite stringent on certain things and now he's gone and we don't know how he wants.
Bottom line may have changed. Right, really really good point. Well, Mom and SOT sightful. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Thank you so much for having me