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Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
We have two absolute giants booked to join us in this show. So I am extremely excited to speak with Scott Horton about the reality of the Iranian nuclear ambitions.
He can do some debunking.
For us there, so very excited to speak with him, and we are also going to be talking to Professor John Meerscheimer about the geostrategic implications of all of this and how we got to this place in the first place that really super psyched to talk to them. Before we get into that, we're going to break down all of the latest news with regard to our war in Israel's war with Iran. Trump has now gone from saying, you know, we destroyed all the nuclear sites.
To now the indications are we aren't.
And all the administration officials went out on the Sunday shows and said there's no regime change here, and then Trump goes ahead and tweets on maybe we are going to do a regime change. So there is a whole lot to get into, a lot of moving parts. Also, as we watch what Iran's potential retaliation could be, We're also going to spend some time taking a hard look at all of the intense media propaganda, wild wild stuff going on, especially on Fox News and CNN, so that
is where we are going to focus. We're also going to take a look at the oftentimes utterly pathetic democratic reaction and what is going on with the quote unquote opposition party, and then later today for premium subscriber, Soccer and I will be doing that AMA Live. So if you want to be able to participate in those, make sure you sign up at Breakingpoints dot Com. Thank you
so much to everyone who's been supporting the show. One cool thing that we are going to get to do this week, Sager is Griffin and Ryan are going to New York. We're going to be doing a live stream Tuesday night. That New York City Democratic primary mayoral race with the top two being Andrew Cuomo versus Zoron Mamdanni, is going down this Tuesday, so we are going to be covering that live and Newpole actually just came out this morning that has this from Emerson that has Zoron leading.
After you go through all the right choice rounds and whatever, fifty two, forty eight and now the polymarket betting odds which were wildly Inquoma's favor yesterday I have now completely flipped in favor of Zoron. So it's going to be a nail bider. Very interesting to see how this race goes down as sort of a canary in the coal mine of where the Democratic face is now.
That's right, but thank you to our premium describers. That's where we're able to afward. We have them both on the ground, They're going to be there in New York City. Hopefully we're able to get some interviews with soor On Mamdani as well as possibly Mahmoud Khalil, you know.
Maybe working on that media. We're working on the stor.
More accurately, Ryan is working.
Ryan is working because Ryan.
Knows someone who knows someone.
Always he's the goat. What can we say? He is the greatest to ever do it.
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Immediately after the strikes that happened on around Just text it to a friend if somebody's asking, hey, what is actually going on here? And hopefully we can help people sort throughout all. So with that could transition to what the hell is going on? Right?
Yeah?
Well, I have a feeling with Scott Horden and Meerscheimer in the show today Today might be one of those favorite shows. That's one I'm certainly really excited to hear from both of those individuals. So let's go ahead and put a one up on the screen here, guys, you just can't make the shit up. This is Donald Trump
on True Social yesterday. It's not politically correct to use the term regime change, But if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?
Question?
Question? Question?
And then he says, myga, make Iran great again instead of naga.
You get that.
That's sure, that's my that's my great, my best gas here, So saga before I even play all of the administration students who were sent out to say, oh, there's no regime change here, before Trump completely undercuts them.
I mean, how quickly have they moved the goalposts?
Yes?
Right, it's it's just extraordinary. Like first, oh, we're doing diplomacy, No way, we don't want war, we just want diplomacy. Then oh, this is great, that Israel striking, and oh we were not involved at all. And then the next day after Trump sees the Fox News coverage and how glowing it is.
Oh, of course it was all us. We were totally involved.
But then we actually, what we really want is diplomatic negotiation. So you know, it's great Israel's doing their thing with us, but we really want diplomacy. And then you know, very quickly that diplomacy obviously because some of the lead negotiators were murdered, falls apart. And then it's off to the races. So now we've gone from oh, we're just going to drop a bomb on four Toho two. Well, actually, you
can't destroy the nuclear program just with bombing. So looky, looky, I guess we're going to have to do regime change. And your two hosts here called.
It all along.
I would have loved to be wrong, but that's where we are.
I wanted to be wrong, I really did, you know.
I wanted to see something that really challenge all of my priors about US intervention in the Middle East. But cynicism is ultimately the only thing that can be rewarded.
Here.
We started with Israel has got it. All America has.
To do is give them the bombs, and then we're like, no, no, no, no, we just got to do one strike on these three facilities and then it's over. And now as we're going to get into for the rest of the show, actually turns out, yes, the strikes were quote successful possibly in knocking out some of those facilities, but oh, the nuclear material itself is not there. It's going to go through a lot with Scott, which means what, oh, maybe we're going to have to go back and continue this this morning.
The IDF has removed all pretenses of this being about the nuclear program. They're bombing regime targets, including you know, political prisons or whatever from the Iranians or apparently Iran had some doomsday clock about when Israel was going to be destroyed and they bombed that just in case you're all aware of like what this is all really about.
But with Trump, I mean, this really is a massive indictment of a lot of these MAGA influencers, because the MAGA line for the last week has been trust President Trump. He's got this, He's not going to do regime change.
He tweeted it out. He just tweeted it out.
Not only did he just tweet it out, he actually humiliated all three of his major you know, national security officials who went on television all day to assure the American public and the Iranians listen, we are not trying to do regime change here, and we look if you want the evidence, I'm talking hours beforehand. Vice President jad Vance, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sectef, Pete Hexeth.
They all said it over and over again, this is not about regime change, even though Trump literally said it is about regime change.
Let's take a listen.
Our view has been very clear that we don't want a regime change. We do not want to protract this or build this out anymore than it's already been built out. We want to end their nuclear program, and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a long term settlement here.
So this mission was a very precise mission. It had three objectives, three nuclear sites. It was not attack on Iran. It was not an attack on the Iranian people. This wasn't a regime change move. This was designed to degrade and or destroy three nuclear sites related to their nuclear weaponization ambitions.
So is regime change off the table, mister Secretary. And to the chairman, you know you said the battle damage assessment is still ongoing, But do you believe that some nuclear capability in Iran remains.
This mission was not has not been about regime change.
It's not about regime change. Not doing regime change, don't worry about it. And the reason why is because they're like, maybe we can come to some agreement with the Iranians. So the Iranians now have look whether it's true or not. At this point, the narrative is diplomacy was a ruse, and then it was listen, we have nothing to do with this.
This was only Israel.
Now, actually we did bomb you, but this is just about the nuclear sites. It's not about anything else. To now Trump is saying, so, why would you want to negotiate with like at this point, let's put yourself in the strategic empathy. Okay, you don't have to like Iran, you don't have to like the regime. Put yourself in their shoes.
What would you do? What would you do? And will continue?
You know, with these statements from US policymakers, it's just preposterous. And also I mean, I know we're going to get to this, but I want to preview this. The Trump speech is one of the most It will live in history as one of the most extraordinary speeches in the US Israel relationship of all time. I mean he literally
taught the United States of America and Israel together. He thanked Prime Minister net and Yahoo before he thanked the US Air Force service members who dropped the bombs on Iran. He said, God bless Israel, before God bless America. This is the game is up in terms of what this is all about. I mean, this is Israel's war, this is America's war. Donald Trump, our president, has chosen to fuse those two things together, and he is betting his entire presidency on this. You know, will it work out
for him? I mean, he's got better political instincts than me, but at the very least, like for a lot of other people out there, if you deluded yourself, you know, into thinking that there was some independence or whatever, maybe that was true at one point. I do not believe it to be true at all anymore. Donald Trump has made his choice to die is absolutely cast.
You know, Socger I was thinking about this, and.
I have especially for people who you know, we're looking at the genocide and Gosam were like, I can't vote for a ticket that was part of this, and so they wanted to believe that maybe Trump would be different. And one of the analyzes that was offered is Biden is a die the Wolf Zionist, like he's actually ideologically
committed to the project, whereas Trump is purely transactional. But you know what, that should have been a red flag for us, because no one's going to play the transactional game better than the Israel lobby, right, And.
That's you know, that's a very insightful thing. And that's actually really one day we'll do like a full retrospective on how we got here. And there's a big, big reason why this is all happening.
It's a big part of that.
Yeah, because if you actually have some sort of principle, even if your principle is like I love Israel and I want what's best for Israel, this is not in the long run going to be best for Israel. I mean, people around the world hate this country now, right. You cannot bomb your way to safety and security. So there is even if you have any sort of ideological principle you're willing to stick to, you there is some sort of limits that you may eventually put. As we've seen
with other American presidents. By the way, who have it the end of the day said, you know what, it's too far, it's too much. We're done here. But with Trump, because he's just for sale of eye is better. Then you don't have any sort of a limiting principle, and that's how you end up.
You know, this is John McCain's fondest wish. Like people are sharing this meme of him.
This former advisors are saying that I'm not joking. His son in law Ben Dominic literally is like this is history. I mean, look, yeah, I take it from his family.
All right, listen, absolutely true.
Yeah, Lindsay Graham's the John McCain's, the John Boltons. They
are getting the Bill crystals. Yes, they are getting their fondest wish right now through this president who dared both in twenty sixteen, in twenty twenty four, who dared to posture as being anti war, and is now already like put us into a regime change war in the Middle East, the exact thing that he would have had us believe he would never do, even as he spoke down to both sides of his mouth like he'd say that, and then he'd also say we should bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities.
So you know, people heard what they wanted to hear ultimately, and the record spoke for itself from the first term where he was extremely hawkish and also risked direct hot war with the Run after assassinating costm sool of money. But we're going to spend some more time tomorrow, probably on all of the MAGA influencer cope, because you could spend a long time talking about the way that these people have shifted and the mental gymnastics that are going
on here. But let me just give you one example, because it fits with what Zager was saying about the evolution here of their talking points and the evolution here of what the administration has been trying to sell us. So Charlie Kirk originally starts off with like, we shouldn't be in war with Iran, and then once it's clear that we are, then it's what we shouldn't directly bomb a Run, and then once it's once we do that, then it's what we shouldn't do regime change and have
boots in the ground. Now once Trump comes out and says, hey, why not regime change, Let's make a Run great again. Now we get this from Charlie Kirk parsing of the different varieties of regime change. A bottom up revolution rises from the will of the people, a top down regime change is engineered by elites and the intel community. One is organic, the other is orchestrated and forced. The line is very thin, and we must proceed extremely carefully before
you know what we could be. In a situation like Libya, President Trump is talking about an organic uprising?
Oh is he as.
He's bombing Iran? He's talking about this is all just organic. America cannot get involved in a forceful decapitation effort in Persia. So the number of times he has already shifted the goalposts here to now we're parsing the nuances of which type of regime change he thinks Trump ultimately means is just absolutely incredible to see this speech from Trump. Honestly, I was shocked because I thought he would be on his game with regard to this messaging. It's not hard
to convince them. Sadly, it's not hard to convince the American people to bomb someplace that they've never been to. Okay, that's just the sad fact of the matter, based on my entire life experience. So if you say Iran has nuke. We had to go in there and stop it. We dropped the bombs. It's done, it's over. God bless America.
We preserved our American interests. You know what, I'm sorry to say, there's a large amount of American set at least that the jump would be like you know what, I get it, Okay, we had to tell there was a dangerous situation. They were going to bomb Zuri or New York was gonna be next to whatever the hell they had been sold on Fox News primarily in CNN
as well. That's really not what he said, and he also threatened more belicosity and really made it clear this wasn't really about our interests, about Israel's interest I mean, he really didn't even try to hide that in this speech. The other piece, optically is he's got Rubio, Hegseth and JD. Vance behind him, you know, which was a way of sort of projecting that he's brought the you know.
JD.
Vance was supposedly the highest level like non interventionist in the administration. Heg Seth was also supposedly had learned his lesson blah blah blah. Rubio has always been a Neocon, but we had also been sold some like, oh, maybe he's changed his ways here too. By having them there behind him while he's announcing this, it's basically a way of sort of like publicly humiliating and demonstrating that they've
all been brought to heal. In any case, let's go ahead and take a listen to a sampling of what he had to say in that speech.
A short time ago, the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime for Doe, Natanz, and Esfahan. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear and Richmond facilities have been completely and totally obliterated around the bully of the Middle East must now make peace. If they do not, future
attacks would be far greater and a lot easier. I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister bb netn Yahoo. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done with all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy. For I ran far greater than we have witnessed over the last
eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.
So he threatens additional action, and he says something there Soger. He says Iran's key nuclear facilities were completely and totally obliterated. That is not the case. The administration is no longer even claiming that that is the case. You can put this next satellite images up here on the screen. This is beh I mean, you can see certainly damage which
has occurred here. But the big question too was Fodeau, which is the nuclear facility buried under the mountain that there was a lot of discussion of prior to this bombings. Put the next one up on the screen and you can see the before and the after here. You know, it's actually a little bit difficult to tell exactly where the bombs dropped and what happened. But all the indications that we're getting from the Israelis and from the Americans at this point is yes, there was significant damage, but
these nuclear facilities are not completely and totally obliterated. As he said, not to mention. Now we're getting these pieces of like, oh and there, but did you know there's other really even more important nuclear facilities and oh, by
the way, and here's natons. You can see the before and after there and oh, by the way, they because there was so much projection of like we're going to do this, or maybe we're going to do this, or maybe we're not going to do this, the Iranians moved their stockpile of enriched uranium to some secret site that you know, I don't think we have awareness of. Maybe
we have awareness of where it is. But the you know, ostensible goal here of making it impossible for them, at least in the medium term to race towards a bomb has been a failure. Now, reminder, our intelligence community and the IAEA say they were not trying to develop a nuclear weapon, that that wasn't something that they had in mind. That if they didn't decide to it would take years for them to develop not only that weapon, but the
capability to deliver it. But you know, now we've changed the calculus where because of the aggressive actions of the Israelis and of now ourselves as well, there is a lot of logic and well, I'm sure talk to Mehershima about this later. There's a lot of logic in place for Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon.
So that's where we are.
The Trump administration is defining terms in complete stupidity because they're like, the sites have been obliterated, and it's like, okay, well, it's not really about the sites, right, It's about the ability to weaponize a nuclear bomb, right, And that means it's about the uranium stockpile. Let's go and put the next punt up there on the screen. And there's also some further stuff that gets into it. It says the Iranian photo site looks to be severely damaged, but not destroyed.
But furthermore, this is the most important thing.
Basically, US officials now concede they do not know the fate of the Iranian uranium stockpile, and that the current assessment is that almost all of it, and especially according to the Uranians, was moved out of these places before.
In fact, there is an arms control expert who I religiously followed I have for ten years on the North Korea nuclear program and more, and his current analysis is that not only does Iran not have access to this uranium stockpile, but there are several other facilities which are more recently built, of which the IAA has not ever
been inspected. They don't even know where they are secret facilities and more where they fully have the capacity to take this sixty percent uranium and enrich it to ninety percent if they wish to do so. As you just said, and we'll talk to Meerscheimer about, there has never been more strategic logic to have that happen. And in fact, there's already satellite imagery showing trucks and other Iranian facilities that were going there before the strikes, maybe two or three days beforehand.
And moving it out of there. Now, you may ask why.
The world's most moral, incredible military, Israel, while they're bombing doomsday clocks, doesn't have the capacity apparently to bomb those trucks or to say, hey, why are these big trucks capable of using nuclear material there? Yeah, you may want to question that, including with the United States. This is the problem is that now the stage is set for what more strikes, because like, oh, well, we didn't get it here, so actually we got to go back and
we got to go get this quote nuclear material. And look, it's going to be the same logic. Israel doesn't have the bunker busters, they don't have the capacity. They actually hit fourdough again this morning, similarly trying to take out other things on the side, and again begs the questions like, well, if we destroyed it, then why do they have to go back and hit it again. Look to the actions, not to the words, and because the actions tell us
the entire story, and the story is clear. Also, I would show why the Iran that made the quote Miga tweet is so damaging.
What did JD say in there? He said, we're not at war with Iran? Bullsh whatever. All right, let's move past that.
We're not at war with Iraq, not war with your we're at war with their nuclear program.
Then we want to come to an agreement.
Now that agreement would be about this uranium stockpile, but we don't even know where that is. This is I'm telling you this is leak US intelligence officials, other officials. Iaea, they're saying, we have no clue, we don't know where it all went. Well, how do you get that? This is basically like the same Iraq playbook. The whole reason why boots on the ground and all that had to happen, not just for a regime change. It was sold to the American public as we have to go and secure it ourselves.
What Israel's going to go and secure it? The great geniuses and the IDF.
Yeah, I'm sure that you know some nineteen year old reservists who have now spent two years just like happy shooting around named Gaza are very proficient at being able to No. Of course, it's be only the US military, and we haven't even gotten into Iranian retaliation. But I actually realized we hadn't even played that JD thing. So just so you guys can take a listen and to show how damaging the Make Iran Great Again Regime change
declaration was from Donald Trump. It directly undermines his alleged policy and actually makes it clear what the real policy is.
Take a listen.
Is the United States now at war with Iran?
No?
Kristen we're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. And let me just say Kristin that we're incredibly grateful and proud of the American Air Force pilots who did an incredible job last night. The operation was really extraordinary. I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after twenty five years of foreign entanglements in
the Middle East. I understand the concern. But the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long drawn out thing we've got in. We've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We're going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years. And that is what the President has set out to do.
You could see clear he said that's what the president. And also you know, oh, we had dumb presidents or whatever in the past. I mean, if that's the level of argumentation that we've been reduced to, it again comes back to trust Trump. You should not trust Trump, by the way, And this is the other thing. The neogons didn't trust Trump when when Steve wickcoff and it looked like negotiations and all of that would happened. What were they doing? They were like, he's a Katari trader, you
know all this. Mark Levin was on TV. He say, mister President, you got to abandon this policy. They didn't trust him. They were thorn in his side and they won. That's why because it was an overwhelming pressure campaign. Now look again, Trump's intentions will never truly know what all of this is. But at a certain point it really doesn't matter again because of the actions. So where things stand as of some what thirty six hours post strike are very clear is the four Dah facility. In others
they appear to be quote severely damaged. We do not yet know where the stockpile is. We do have current indications that the Israelis continue their regime change operations. We have Donald Trump himself who has declared regime change is a possibility that he'd be very okay with, if not
wanting to affect. And we have all of the all of the pieces in place to continue more air strikes on Iran, if not a call for some sort of US intervention and all of this is before the Uranians have even responded to the United States, which of course is an open possibility, a dangerous one, and looks all the more.
Likely right now.
Yeah, that's exactly right. So let's move to the indications there. We just got word this morning from Katar. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.
Guys.
This is from the State Department. They say, out of an abundance of caution, we recommend American citizens shelter in place until further notice. So some dire indications there are coming out of the State Department. Let's go and put this next piece up on the screen there. This is a seven guys coming out of the Times of Israel. So they're claiming Yahoo has some interesting intel on the whereabouts of iron sixty percent enriched uranium. What do you make of this piece, sager A, you buy this?
No, of course I don't buy it, because look, I mean, they can claim whatever they would like. It's clear that their military didn't actually be up to the job, and they knew it from the very beginning. They knew from day one they would never actually be able to destroy the nuclear program. And that's part of the reason why again, look at the actions, guys. This is all out in the open. They're openly striking regime targets and oil and gas facilities.
And by the way, have been from day one. Yes, that's why all the strikes in Tehran. Those are not nuclear facilities. So this has been and it's so important to emphasize the point Sager is making because they want to sell you this is about Iran's nuclear program, and that's the way they'll keep dragging. Oh, we actually didn't completely obliterate fourto Oh yeah, there's this new site. Oh they moved in rich uranium. Now we got to do more. Now we've got to do more, and now we got.
To do more.
And you just keep inching forward. And I mean Trump at this point is just like completely said, all right, well we need regime change, I guess. And that's the truth of the matter is even if you keep it at we have to make sure that they can't get a nuclear weapon, you can't ensure that. There's literally no
way to actually guarantee that. The best path they were on was the diplomatic one back with the JCPOA and the negotiations that are going on the beginning of this Trump administration where it's like, Okay, we're going to give you sanctions relief, and you're going to agree not to pursue a weapon, and we're going to have, you know, an inspection regime that can give us some sort of
comfort that that's not happening. But what the Hawks are going to say is, well, you really can't guarantee it until we have some sort of puppet regime in there that we can just control. So that's the way that this logic ultimately works.
Let's put AA please up on the screen. This is arguably the most important indication that's you come out of Iran. We'll contextualized for you. The Iranian parliament has reportedly backed closing the strace of our moves obviously, which could spike the price of oil where what is its thirty forty percent of the world's oil moves through, very very important for.
The Chinese economy.
Now again, just to explain here what the Iranian parliament did, and there are several different parts of the government. It's not exactly a parliamentary democracy, okay, there are many different bodies.
They all report up to the Ayatola.
Effectively, what they said is they have approved the closing of the straits of our moves if the Ayatola and the National Security Council of Iran decide to do so. So they're not saying that they're going to do it. It's effectively like a declaration of war from Congress saying, hey, if you want to declare war, you can and then it's up to the discretionary authority of the executive So in a way, they actually followed the process more than
our own president did whenever he launched a war. Kind of ironic conviously, but what it does tell you is that is the nightmare scenario. It's one that US officials have said would be suicidal. It almost certainly would. It would lead to the massive basically a massive involvement of the United States Navy. It would obviously shock the world's oil prices. It would be a devastating blow to the
Chinese economy. It would just be absolute mass chaos. It's something that they have the ability to do, to mine if they want to, and to close along with the who these as well, to try and put more pressure, you know, on US and other shipping assets that are all throughout the region. But the point really stands is that they have a lot of optionality right now.
They're looking all across the world.
By the way, another reason why that Qatar thing is so significant is it's not about US citizens, guitar. It's about the fact we have a massive air base in Qatar. Now reportedly a lot of the US assets were taken out of that at the beginning. But this was always a big nightmare is that that airbase is very strategic. It was a key staging point for US troops for logistics wise, during the war in Iraq. There's thousands of American service members that are not just there, but also
in the region Bahrain. You have the fifth Fleet and you have US two carrier strike groups that are there as well. Put that together, I mean with Iraq and with Syria, there are so many different vectors through which they could attack the United States, US assets, American citizens if they wanted to. That is the danger. Now are they going to decide to do that? You know, the Americans have basically said that's going to be suicidal. Again,
I asked for strategic empathy. If somebody said that diplomacy with you is a ruse, and if somebody said, will we strike your facilities?
But that's it no more.
And then the president, the chief decider, comes out and says, actually, it's about regime change.
What would you do?
And also, we're not dealing with the most rational actors here because the Ayatola is eighty six years old. I've been reading a lot about the Ayatola, and this is a guy who basically staked his entire security doctrine on nuclear ambitions as a deterrent that has collapsed literally around him. The country is more precarious today than at any point since nineteen seventy nine, and in his vision, at any points since than fifties during the restoration of the Shah.
So he doesn't have anything to live for anymore except for his own legacy. It's not that hard, even at a rational level, take religion and all this other stuff out of it, to say we're going to fight to the death. He's a decider, he's the person who makes these decisions, and they're all kinds of people inside the Iranian regime who want to fight.
At this point feel humiliated.
There has been a massive rally around the flag in Tehran and all across the country. And in fact, if there is a regime change, you know, he said and already designated his successor. But let's say the Mullas are thrown out of power. The most likely, from what I can tell and have read, it would not be democratic. It would be some secular nationalist IRGC type figure who would sprint towards a bomb to say, we will never let this happen to our country again. This is a
bad scenario. And of course they have access to chemical, biological weapons. They got the ballistic missiles program.
We don't know.
Israel claims to have destroyed half of it. We'll see, doesn't look like that from Tel Aviv, I can tell.
You that right now.
Yeah, but that's you know, this is why you know, the triumphalists are like, it's just about the strike.
They're like, how why are you guys bedwetting so much?
I mean, how have you not learned about the fortieth consequences at this point?
And it's not at the one.
Look, the US strikes on Libya were successful, right, It took seven months for that country to go to shit.
Gaddafi was killed in October.
We started seven months before that, and actually the country didn't really collapse until twenty fourteen. The Iraqi Civil War didn't start really hot until two thousand and five, two thousand and six Afghanistan, the Taliban didn't rise for two
to three years. Everybody had their mission accomplished moment. And it happens every time the West wins the opening because it's about sheer military strength, and then the strategic and the political question, which we never think about from the beginning, collapses and then what happens.
We have to get more involved.
Yeah, I mean, Iranians are fighting an existential battle for their country. Like that is a difficult Like we couldn't even defeat the Houfies, Like let's be.
From the air. We can do it on the ground. Yeah, if we want to want that, I don't know.
Yeah, So in any case, let's put this this as unbelievable. This next piece, but the sub one is screened from CNBC. So the US is apparently calling on China to prevent a run from closing the strait of hormones and disrupting global oil flows. So we're like, you know, have created this likely consequence or potential consequence, and now we're begging the Chinese to rescue us from the potential implications of
our own actions. You know, this is something I want to talk more to Meerscheimer about because Chinese get more a much larger percentage of their oil comes through the straight up hormoes than ours. However, there are some other possible ways to ship oil other than through the straight of war moves from Iran. So I'm just like, I'm
just very skeptical at this point. You know, we heard all these economic projections about how the sanctions on Russia would just be utterly devastating to their economy and they couldn't possibly survive, and that turned out not to be the case. So at this point, I'm just all of the like economic fallout predictions of how this will be
completely devastating to Chinese, the Chinese economy. I just want to learn more and I want to see more before I take people at their word that that would actually be the case. We also had the Foreign Minister of Iran making comments saying that the US has blown through every red line, which I think is a pretty reasonable thing frankly to say at this point, Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say.
In the wake of these strikes, the.
United States showed that they have no respect to United Nations Charter. They have no respect to international law. They have no respect to any international law regarding you know, managing the board and facing challenges of the bold. There is no red line that they have not crossed. And the last one and the most dangerous one, was happened only last night when they crossed a very big red line by attacking nuclear facilities. I don't know how much
room is left for diplomacy. We are now calculating the damages. And as I said, the damages are not only for our nuclear facilities. The damages are or the United Nations Charter. It was not only Iran's facilities which was bombed, It was also the United Nations Charter. It was also non prolifashion regime and NPT which was bombed last the Americans, And it was the rule of law and international law which was bombed.
That part about how we you know, figuratively bombed the Nonplar River Proliferation Treaty is actually really accurate because many countries, not just to run, many countries are going to look at our actions and be like, oh, well, they're not messing with North Korea. But I see what happened to Olivia. I see what happened to Iran. So what kind of logic does that create around the world. There's just no
doubt about that at this point. Put a thirteen up on the screen just in terms of, you know, potential retaliation that we're watching.
This was an Iranian.
State TV broadcaster who was showing on the map all the location of US bases throughout the region, of which there are many. And what sager is some fifty thousand US troops stationed throughout the region, all of them at risk, all of them in danger. Now they don't have an iron dome or David's Sling or an aerosystem to protect them on those bases in the nearby region. And lastly,
put a fourteen up on the screen. We're going to talk more about this, all this sleeper cell talk in the media block, but the US Environment of State issued an urgent warning to all American citizens to exercise caution due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran. And they really are pushing this idea here domestic lea sager that there's these you know, Iranian sleeper cells that may leap into action at any moment, and I would just be.
Highly skeptical, highly skeptical.
Of those claims because I mean, this is the way that they want to bring the war home and create some sort of a justification. So people feel like.
Oh, you know, maybe we don't want war, but we got to act.
There's these sleeper cells here, and I'm terrified that we're going to be next. So that's kind of where we are as we're waiting to see Ballaz and Aran's court of what they're going to do next.
Yeah, if you're old enough, you can remember the terror levels already. We're at security threat level red. So yeah, I feel like I'm twelve years old all over.
I feel so old watching this all unfold again, I feel so old.
Yeah, that's right.
All right, let's get to Scott Horton and he's standing by. We're very excited now to be joined by Scott Horton. He is the director of the Libertarian Institute, author of Provoked, a fantastic book, and a great friend of the show.
Scott, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Man.
Thank you both very much for having.
Me absolutely, I mean, such an expert. Here is particularly what we wanted to talk about with you, Scott is uranium enrichment the claims of the United States, where things stand now, in particular, where things may go, you know, with these US strikes on Iran, let's start here with JD. Vans asked specifically about the Iranian stockpile of uranium, effectively admitting that the stockpile itself was not hit and what that means for the future.
We're gonna play it. We're gonna get your reaction. Let's take a listen.
We feel very confident that the four Dau nuclear site was substantially set back, and that.
Was our goal.
The UN's Atomic Energy watchdog said that Iran had nine hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium.
What do we know what has become of that? Was it destroyed in this attack? Do we know.
That's a big star work in the coming weeks. Yeah, John, We're going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel, and that's one of the things that we're going to have conversations with the Uranians about. But what we know, John, is they no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium. That was really
the goal here. Uranium is not that difficult to come by, John, But enriching uranium up to the point of a nuclear weapon, that is what the President put a stop to last night.
Scott.
Can you just react to that, because now the claim is is that the stockpile itself was not destroyed, possibly for a further pretext of US involvement, but maybe even take the audience back a bit further as to what all of this enriched uranium stuff even means and why it really was a pretext and not a real reason for the US to strike them right.
Now, Yeah, well that's absolutely right.
So to start with the latest, they are more likely to break out toward a nuclear weapon now, which is what those of us on the anti warst side have been saying for twenty years. Here, what Iran has is a latent nuclear deterrent. They mastered the fuel cycle back in two thousand and five. That is, they proved that they knew how to enrich uranium to whatever percent. Now they need three point six percent for their electricity program, and they need a little bit of twenty percent for
their isotope reactors. But otherwise, the war Party is as a kernel of truth when they say, and you know, how they do it.
They always make it.
A rhetorical question, Well, what do they need with all that sixty percent enriched uranium.
Well there's a.
Real answer to that, other than they're on their way to making nuclear weapons. Of course, they could have enriched up to ninety plus percent all along. They enriched up to sixty percent as a bargaining chit to negotiate away in order to try to get the sanctions lifted and try to get the United States back in the deal.
It's the same thing they did in the Obama years, And of course it was in response to Israeli assassinations of their nuclear scientists and attacks on their personnel in Syria and things that caused them to go ahead after Trump withdrew from the deal in twenty eighteen, and go ahead and start enriching up to twenty again and then eventually up to sixty percent. Now you'll hear every hawk on every show say, oh my god, sixty percent uranium. And then what they're betting on is that the audience
doesn't know anything about it. What you're telling them is nuclear scary, be afraid, and we stop the thing. Brump was asked, but Tulca Gabbert says they weren't breaking out toward a nuclear weapon, and he said, well, I don't care what she said. They were getting close to one or something. He said, Kookie Tucker Carlson needs to understand that Iran can't have a bomb.
So what's implied there, heavily, of course, is.
That Iran was making a bomb and that we stop them from making a bomb.
But that's just not true at all.
And you know, I'm not trying to be you know, convince anyone that to be naive. As I said, it already was a latent nuclear weapons to turn in a sense. But what it also is is their civilian energy program. And you know, any economists could explain why it might make sense for Ron to burn their domestic supply of uranium and sell their oil on the world market if they can, And so this is, you know, the main
part of it. On the other hand, it also is just like Brazil and Germany and Japan, where they've proven they mastered the fuel cycle and they could make atomic bombs if pushed to it.
So it's sort of like saying.
I have a revolver in one pocket and some bullets in the other. Lets you and me not get into a fistfight, and then that way this thing won't escalate. That's essentially been their stance our whole twenty first century long.
Here to go back to w. Bush, he put them in the axis of evil.
Just think about what a cynical lie this is that the Ayatola, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and Kim Jong il are all in on it together, working against you right as absolute total hoax. Well Saddam said, my books are wide open, here's my twelve thousand page dossier.
I'm not doing anything.
And they just buffaloed right in there based on a bunch of lies and got it done anyway. The neo conservatives got it done in North Korea. Bush and Bolton bullied them out of the no obroliferation Treaty.
They went ahead and made nuclear weapons. Nobody's messed with them since.
But what the Supreme Leader did was the Supreme Leader in Iran, the Ayahtola, said here's what we're going to do. We're going to open our books. It's wide open. We're going to stay in the NPT. We have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and they can verify the non diversion of any nuclear material from our civilian program to
any military purpose, which is exactly what they've done. And the only reason Obama even needed to do the deal in twenty fifteen was because essentially, the world led by Israel, or the West led by Israel, we're essentially just pretending the MPT didn't exist, pretending that Iran didn't already have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and the Israelis were threatening an aggressive war then, and Obama felt it was necessary. And I'm not taking Obama's side for people who don't
know me. I hate the Democrats more than anyone hates the Democrats. If I'm just telling you, this is the true history of the world here is Obama made a deal where they would severely restrict their program, they would expand the inspections regime, and in exchange, we would lift sanctions and give them some of their own money back. That Palada cash was money that Jimmy Carter had stolen
from them during the revolution in nineteen seventy nine. John Carey has just given some of that back in exchange. They poured concrete into their rock. That's aarak a rock, heavy water reactor. They severely restricted the number of centrifuges spinning at the tense by I think two thirds. They converted the Florido facility to research only rather than uranium and enrich uranium production. And they expanded the inspections regime where America and our allies on the UN Security Council
we have the majority. It's America, Britain in France versus Russian China. Unlike a normal Security Council resolution, Russian China couldn't veto it.
It was majority rules. Under this deal.
If we want to inspect even non nuclear sites, we can, as long as we have some plausible reason to do so, and submit the request in a reasonable amount of time and so forth. There's no way that they can have a secret nuclear weapons program and then smuggle it out the back door before inspectors arrive, or whatever this.
Kind of thing. So the.
Deal of twenty fifteen was engineered so that Iran, if they withdrew from the NPT, and if they kicked the inspectors out of the country and beat their chests and said now we're making nukes, it would take them a year to make one. And by the way, as long as you're let me ramble on here. Let me explain
real quick too, that you cannot miniatureize a uranium bomb. Yes, uranium bombs are virtually always a gun type nuke like fat Man that they dropped on Hiroshima, which is essentially a giant shotgun inside that bomb, firing a highly enriched weapons grade enriched uranium slug into a target of the same that causes the supercritical reaction. They didn't even test that bomb. It's nineteen forties technology, simple stuff. They didn't test that. The Trinity test was of the Nagasaki bomb,
which was a plutonium implosion bomb. That's the kind of bomb that can be miniaturized and married to a missile. However, Uranians have no plutonium root to the bomb because even though they still do have one heavy water reactor at Boucher and it produces plutonium waste, they do not have the facility required to reprocess that waste get the impurities out to make it possible to use for weapons fuel.
And under the JCPOA, which they're still in.
This part of it with the Russians is that every two or three years or so, this shut down the reactor and the Russians will come and get all the plutonium waste and take it away. So their plutonium route to the bomb did not exist at all, and their uranium route to the bomb was delayed for at least one year, and then as I say, at the end of that year, they would have had enough to make one bomb with, but then no way to deliver it other than slapping on the back of a flatbed truck
or something like that. Still would essentially be you know, the most base, the most minimum of nuclear deterrent. And it's you know, and I'll wrap up with this is that it's clear from all of the reporting here nothing changed. The only one in opposition that is Israeli intelligence claims that something changed, but American intelligence has not verified that
at all. The only thing that changed was Trump made up a sixty day deadline and then the Iranians went past it, and he was on this absolute redline, deal killer that they can have no enrichment in the country at all whatsoever. Back to what Jadie Vance was saying there, essentially equating them having the capability to enrich with progress toward a nuclear weapon and claiming that that was what
we stopped. But it's just it's no more sincere than Bill Clinton and Kosovo, or George Bush in a rock or Afghanistan, or Barack Obama in Libya or Syria or any of the US or Yemen, any of these things. It's always just hoax after hoax with these people and their worst.
Well, let's talk a little bit more about that, because they've got a little bit of a propaganda issue, given the fact that Tulca Gabbard was at the end of March came out saying very clearly, the American intelligence community does not believe that Iron is pursuing a weapon, and so now we're supposed to believe, just some months later that this has suddenly completely changed, and so much so that we need to get involved in what Trump is
now admitting maybe a regime change operation. Of course, we've all seen from the beginning that the nukes were pretexts and this was in fact a regime change operation. Let me get your reaction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, say, being pressed on this, you know this question of okay, well are they pursuing a nuclear bombs? Since that is your pretext, Let's go ahead and take a listen to how he.
Responds on a phrase you just word weaponization ambitions. Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization.
That's irrelevant. I think that question being asked in the media. That's an irrelevant question.
That is point in US intelligence assessment. You know that's not yes, it was, that's the political decision.
Well I know that better than you know that, and I know that that's not the case.
But whether the order was given.
And the people who say that it doesn't matter if the order was given, they have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury Why would you bury things in a mountain three hundred feet under the ground. Why would you bury six Why do they have sixty percent in enrich uranium? You need sixty percent and rich. You are the only countries in the world that have uranium at sixty percent? Are countries that have nuclear weapons because it can quickly make it ninety They have all
the elements they have. Why why do they have a space program? Is a ron going to go to the moon? No, they're trying to build an ICBM.
No, But that's a question.
That's a question, that's a question of intent. And you know in the intelligence assessment that it was that Iran wanted to.
Be a threshold.
See you use thos.
I'm talking on what the intelligence is, March assessment, and that's why I was asking you if you know something more from it.
That's also an inaccurate representation of it. That's inaccurate representation of it. That's not how intelligence is read. That's now how intelligence is used. Here's what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence, what the IAEA knows. They are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need.
For a for a for a civil nuclear program.
Scott, your your reaction to that propaganda effort, I.
Mean, anyone ought to be able to just see right through that the only countries that have sixty percent uranium are countries that have nuclear bombs. Really is he's saying you can make a bomb out of sixty percent uranium. Is he's saying that any nuclear weapons stay in the world as they're arsenal made out of uranium bombs rather than plutonium implosion bombs.
And he's simply bluffing.
And Marco Ruby, I'm glad he hired Marco Little Marco for the job actually, because you could see right through the guy.
He's just as transparent as could be.
He's got Miriam Adelson's hand right up his rear and moving his lips for him. He's not really a human man, right, He's like a corporate mascot, like Tony the Tiger or you know, Ronald McDonald or something.
He's sitting there.
His job is to lie to you so that you'll be confused and let him commit horrific sins on behalf of a foreign power.
Yeah, I mean, but then one of the things that really scott there is about what you said about the capability is confusing capability with intention, and that intention, again, according to US intelligence, did not exist. I can back you up as well. You know, I reported over the weekend.
I spoke with senior US intelligence official, people with the highest level who saw it, and they said, no, there has been no change whatsoever in the iatola or the Iranian higher commands decision making on whether to build a nuclear bomb or not. And so I really want to
just end on that note with you. Here is specifically about how the logic of nuclearization has never made more sense than today because what has happened is that Israel, with impunity, is allowed to just come in and bomb the shit out of your entire regime, basically target your oil and gas facilities. The United States has the ability to come in and to blow up all.
Your nuclear enrichment.
It has never made more sense for them to have a nuclear detern than right now instead of trying to pursue some sort of deal. When the President himself also says, actually, regime change, that's totally cool and fine with me.
Why would they want to do anything else?
I mean, and looka this very well could be the absolute death of the Non Proliferation Treaty.
The nuclear weapons.
States have never lived up to their promise to disarm signed in there, of course, although America and Russia did come way down from tens of thousands of nukes each, but still, and then here's you have a nuclear weapons state Israel that's not a member of the Nonpoliferation Treaty acting in concert with the United States the world Empire.
That's a total violation of it.
Attacking a non nuclear weapon state signatory to the NPT over their civilian program. That again, you hear Vanka Rubio ben and over backwards trying to figure out how to get you to conflate it with something scary that again was nothing but a latent program. At the time, we had the perfect basis for a standoff. I'm not saying
I endorsed this. I'm a total non interventionist here. But they were saying if you attack us, or they were heavily implying, if you attack us, we might just make a nuke, and our side was saying, don't make a nuke, or we'll attack you.
Okay, well great.
They could have just left it at that for Trump to have, you know, bowed down essentially to pressure. There were you might remember some wiggle words a couple few weeks ago about well, maybe we could allow some enrichment on some limited basis under some sort of compromise, maybe even do a consortium with the Saudi's and enriched together
some kind of thing. They were trying to be flexible for a minute there, and then the lobby came down hard and said no enrichment at all, which, of course the ayah Tola was never going to give into.
So they were just setting us up for this war.
But I'll encourage your audience to pay very close attention to people like Marco Rubio and for that matter, of the rest of the pundits and whatever out echoing the war party talking points. And you'll notice this distinct lack of clarity when it comes down to exactly what was going on here. There's a lot of implication that's essentially relying on people's ignorance that if they say nuclear this exactly.
You know, it was the focus groups that learned this in nineteen ninety.
People didn't really want to go liberate the weight and reinstall His Highness the King al Jaber to the throne there until they did. They got people at the mall and they sat them down in focus groups. As soon as they said nuclear, people said, okay, I guess we got to go. And then they use that same lesson for Rockward two. And of course they're doing the same thing here because they know that most people didn't study
hard sciences in college and stuff. We don't know about uranium this and that, and so they can try to just make it sound scary and say, listen, we can't wait. Remember this was the line Colly's, Rice, George Bush, and Colon Powell all three said, we can't wait for the proof to come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
So you and your Mama better just stay scared and let us do what we want.
Yeah.
No, that is all so absolutely correct, And I mean, in a way I appreciate Trump setting out that true socials saying like, eh, maybe it is regime change, so we can all drop the pretense here, because I've never seen polling that is so wildly apart depending on how you frame the question, because you're absolutely right. If you say to people like Iran's pursuing a nuclear weapon, should we, you know, go in surgical strike their nuclear facilities to
prevent them? Guess what you get a lot of people will say yeah, sure, because that also feels costless and limited, and like, oh, there's this big scary threat and we can just take it out easily if you're going too right. If you ask people, I know, one of the questions asked should we get involved in the war between Iran and Israel?
And people like, hell no, why would we do that?
And I've yet to even see the question asked should we get involved in a regime change war with Iran, which is of course what we are in at this point, But I have no doubt the polling on that would be absolutely abysmal, which is why to your point, Scott, it matters so much how you frame these questions and how you clarify for the American people what is actually happening here and what the President has actually put us into, which is a regime change war.
It is already underway. It is happening right now.
Agree, and look, even in regards to we don't know.
The secret councils of these people, but just on the most basic level, this is what Harry Brown said is government doesn't work. They fail upwards. The worst things are, the better it is for them. And so everything, by their logic is always escalation. Look, all we're gonna do is we're gonna take out a few nuclear sites. What you're saying now.
They're gonna break out toward a nuclear weapon? Oh boy, I best.
I guess we need to get the Americans in there, because only they can get the Fhoidos site.
Now, got America in there, and then.
No, they're saying, I saw a report today the Iranians are claiming they have a new secret base that they built under a bigger deeper.
On the screenwire talking, yeah, we have that report, like, oh, there's another one.
It's ei there it is I guess.
We're gonna have to send in the eighty second Airborne to go in there and destroy it by hand then this time, or we're gonna have to use nuclear weapons. Probably not, but they're talking about that might be what it would take. Or you know what, I guess we're just gonna have to go ahead and kill the Supreme Leader.
I saw Benjamin Etna who said that would solve everything if we just killed the ayah Toola comedy and can't get picture George W. Bud, I mean Donald Trump say to it's buying in to that one and and going along with that and then what now you got to kill every last cleric in the country to prevent one from claiming to be the Supreme Leader? Are you going to prop up the Azeries or the Blue Kye Binladenites in order to keep the she Hees out?
Or who's going to take charge? They're talking in the Shaw's Sun. Oh my god, how in the world.
Is according to Fox News?
You know what's also follow It's not it's his Imperial Highness. Just for those of us who care the shot shot, I'm just saying, if we want we want to be correct, let's be correct.
Should be calling him my lord.
She is.
Can't get over Scott.
I said to you, I'm sorry that your expertise still continues to be so incredibly relevant, but we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and help explain these things.
No one better, no one does it better than you do.
Thank you so much, both of you. Great to be with you.
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