Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of them at hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple iTunes and Hillsdale Graace America. Good Wednesday to you on Hewent Inside the Beltway on the Salem New Channel, Salem Radio Network. All of our great radio affiliates, welcome aboard.
We've talked to bottom with guests today, most talking about Iran, but I'm starting off with Mary Katherine Ham, co host of Getting Hammered, and there was a super duper normal getting Hermreed today with Kelly Mayer as our guest host as opposed to Vic Mattis. I found it very amusing, Mary Katherine. I don't know Kelly, what's the deal on? Kelly.
Kelly is a political operative out in Colorado, So she works in the Big Square States, formerly on getting Republicans elected, but the party out there doing so great these days, and that's one of the things that she comments on and observes and tries to correct to the best of her ability by getting normal people into the party, because once the party goes into a spiral in a state, it is hard to get back.
So that's what's going on out there.
But is she super duper not normal like your kids thought of you. She's played super duper not normal.
She's I mean, we all have our ways. All my galfriends, I would say, are a little too into politics to be actually normal, but they But she is a normy mom out there.
Not normal to get a wake off and say, I know, I'm going to go to auctioneer school. And I've never heard of auctioneer school.
You know.
When I would get a week off, I would go to like Saint John's College and read great books with a bunch of venture capitalists, that sort of. But the auctioneer school in Iowa in a blizzard, that's just not normal.
Hey, you know what, We're just opening up new areas of capitalism to understand and it's very powerful.
I have one more question before we get to the serious stuff. You have a star spangled banner renission. You can sing the star spangled banner.
I mean, I wouldn't say it's a treat, but I can hit the notes.
I can carry a tune.
Yes, okay, I my request wild I.
Mostly wielded as a weapon because if there's a rowdy crowd, I just start the anthem and then they hush, and then I say, ah, look you here's the real singer.
I have a request, which is, when Vick is in the house, that you get whatever kind of boombox you need and you warm up the pipes and you let us hear it, because you never know when you're going to use it. We were in the middle of Yosemite, somewhere way off in the middle of nowhere. Actually it was in the Canadian Rockies, and all of a sudden, the fetching missus Schwett thought, you know, there might be bears around here, and she broke into the Star Spangled Bears.
The bears, look, you don't want to you don't want to surprise them, and they're very patriotic, so very patriotic. It all works out when you use that as a tool.
All right, Let me come around to patriotism. Your assessment of our war with Iran.
Look, to me, the media seems to be almost not at all focusing on what looked like tactical and operational pretty tremendous victories along with alliances and open support from Arab states that you would not have suspected Gulf states that you would not have predicted several years ago. And so I don't want to miss that part of the story for the fact that everyone is reporting only on there are risks here.
Of course, there are risks here.
There are risks in any military action, but it seems to me that there's a lot of overlooking of the actual victories happening.
Now we're Americans. We don't like to hurt people, we really don't. But the way to win a war is to blow up the bridges and the roads, destroy the power plants, and decimate the refinery so they can't make any money afterwards. And I'll bet the people of Iran, the families of the thirty thousand plus people were murdered, would not mind if we told them what we were going to do and they could stay away from it. What do you think?
Yeah, Look, I think that the people of Iran have shown to the best that they can.
Obviously they're sort.
Of cut off from things that they are supportive of much of this and the clips that we have seen, but I'm not sure.
Exactly what that looks like moving forward.
Well, I'm afraid we won't take a kill shot because the President doesn't want to blow up the infrastructure that allows Iran to rebuild. We do dominate that you wouldn't know it from the media, but we have complete air supremacy. We can hit anything we want to hit any time we want. We can hit it three times between the
Israeli Asia and we've hit sixteen thousand targets. But the iergy, she keeps bringing people out of retirement and they're old killers, they're ruthless sobs, they're not going to be reformers.
Well yeah, and I think it's an open question what the American public will tolerate when it comes to length of a military action or how much you can employ a kill shot, because that, you know, our sort of military supremacy in the actual operational part is not really in question at this point, certainly coupled with Israeli intel,
which is amazing, and those two working together. But I do think there's a question about how much the public is willing to stomach, and sometimes that threshold can be quite low. So I think, and of course Trump is attuned to that.
To some degree.
Now, what did you pay for gas last, Mary Catherine?
I'm not sure I could tell you, but I'm in northern Virginia, so it's expensive.
Okay. My son is visiting California paid six and a half dollars a gas with a gallon of gas on his way to Disneyland today, and that's not unusual. We've been there before in California under Joe Biden, but it's not what we've been used to for a while. I don't think the American people will break and run on Trump if he brings the regime down. This is a world historical moment. It's a pivot moment. This regime has
been nothing but evil for my adult life. Do you think we've got three months of hardship in US?
I think some people are interested in the world shifting moment.
That this is.
I think he needs to make a case for it regularly. I think an Oval Office address on this and why it's important would be helpful. Because people are concerned about the gas prices. They are as concerned about their home lives and how things look there for what they can afford. And if it looks like he is too distracted by this and not making that case. It does run a risk of alienating people before the midterms.
Now I've got audition, I feel that's worth it. I've got August Flueger coming up. He runs a Republican Study Committee, and I'm going to make my plea to him. Please do a reconciliation. Please put your arm around the Pentagon supplemental double it fask for two hundred billion, given four hundred billion, Tell them to spend it on Golden Dome Fund DHS through the end of the term so that we don't go through this ridiculous stuff at the airports anymore.
And hang any other Christmas tree ornament. But do it in two weeks. It's not really complicated, Mary Catherine. You can do it with fifty one votes in the Senate, and you can do it with a majority. You can lose Massey who won't vote for it. But what do you think should they at least try?
Look, I do think it's probably important in the near term to do something domestically, to say that you're doing something and say, look, these are our priorities. We're making sure that these people can't mess with you in the future by pulling funding. By doing these shutdown stunts. I think they could have been better over the last bit about messaging that this is wholly a project of the Democrats that are proactively attempting to do this. The media
is not going to back you up on that. You've got to make that clear yourself from the beginning so that people standing in these TSA len lines know why. But yeah, profering an actual solution to that through legislation would probably be a good pitch for people.
Okay, last question about Northern Virginia. They shut the schools down in anticipation of thunderstorms that did not come. Now, yes, in Warren, Ohio, thunderstorms meant Tuesday. What is wrong with this.
State many things, But what's wrong with a lot of blue localities, particularly when the politicians are aligned with teachers' unions, is that they practiced closing schools for several years. They got really good at it. And the places that practiced closing schools continue to.
Do it at the drop of a hat. And places that practice being open.
Are better for students and will do it even through adversity. Pittsburgh, by the way, closing for the NFL Draft for three days while that happens I mean, that's Detroit didn't do that, and they had seven one hundred and seventy five thousand people in town for the draft. But this is what leadership and education does now in blue areas.
Wow, I didn't know that. I'm going to get Selena Zito on the case. Mary Catherine, I'm always good to see you. Follow her at MK hammer, Listen to her at Getting Hammered Along the podcast Very Funny podcast Today, Welcome Back in America. I'm Hugh Hewittt and no C. Rothman, senior writer for a National Review. Iran Warhawk. I'm just going to now use that as your lower third, Noah, because you're like me, you're an Iran warhawk. Do you think Donald Trump has it in him to finish the job?
I sure hope he does. I mean that is the biggest question mark, isn't it. I kind of think that we've been seeing over the course of this week could be any number of things. It could be everybody has been said, well, maybe he's just trying to manipulate a wheel markets, or maybe he's just trying to look for a diplomatic off ramp, or perhaps he's sowing dissension within the ranks in the IRGC and the clearsy. Everybody thinks that their brothers and arms are going to sell them out right.
Could be all of those things. It could be none of those things. We don't know.
But what we're seeing in the press seems to be an exploration of every possible downside of this war except the prospect of stopping too soon. That's the most dangerous of all the outcomes that are presented before us right now. And it seems to me that the press exploring all these outcomes leaves that one unexplored because it's the one they want.
Yeah, I think you're right now. I want to make it clear because I'll say this, if the war ends during this broadcast, we are much better off today than we were twenty five days ago because the face of the regime is revealed. Most of the regime has been shattered, and their military war making ability has been set back decade. But they would more than that, if they had one.
More than that.
You Yeah, I mean, I have a twenty seven hundred word piece on this on the website if you're interested in my thoughts in all.
Of their luggery.
Yeah, and the extent to which I can't contain them beyond the fact that we have defanged, for the most part, RAN's capacity to project power across its borders. We have also re ordered the geopolitical landscape in ways that are very beneficial to US. China and Russia have been exposed as fairweather friends. The strategic pac that they signed with Iran as recently as in January isn't worth the ink
that was spilled on it. Their radars and anti air systems have been exposed as insufficient to meet the threat posed by Western airpower, and the Gulf States seem rather completely arrayed against Iran, recognizing that Iran is the threat in their neighborhood, not Israel, not the United States, and the United States is the only power on Earth that has both the will and the capability to see to their defenses.
They're going to be gradually there in eric in orbit as a result. Ambassador Yusef Alo Taiba, who is really one of the more influential and important ambassadors in Washington, DC's been here for a long time. Ambassador from the United Arab Emirates to the United States, has a peached in the Journal the UAE stands up to Iran. This war requires a conclusive outcome, one that addresses Tehran's full
range of threats. I think that's an appeal for the kill shot, and by that I mean blow up the highway, blow up the bridges, blow up the power plants, blow up the oil refineries, reduce the country to penury that people will take it from there. Do you agree with me?
Well, I don't know. The President doesn't share that outlook. As you said in the last segment, he wants to leave as much infrastructure in place for a successor regime to utilize and so the Iranian people can get a post Islamic republica ran off its feet as soon as possible. I'm not going to second guess that scenario. It's too soon to think about post war scenarios in the midst
of the conflict. But people accuse me of being pollyannish about this war merely because I don't emphasize the negatives or the theoretical negatives honestly possible downsides of which there are many and I'm willing to recognize and explore. But what they don't explore is the degree to which the tactics which are begetting the strategic of benefits that we're.
Going that we're enjoying now and will.
Enjoy as a result of this war are immensely successful. People brush them off as saying a da YadA, YadA, YadA. We never win the post war. But you get to the post war by the tactics. If you don't focus on the beat by beat and you talk about the day after, the audience has no idea honestly what you're talking about, and it's prime for pessimism. And that seems to me to be honestly sort of the ticket into
sophisticated circles. Now, if you're not really hopeless in dower and melancholy about this war.
Well you're just not a serious person, or you're.
Not crazy yourself knowing it's weird. I agree, but I am not. I think we are crushing them. I think the American.
Worlitaria, it's at a granular level.
Yeah, And the only thing that has bothered me happened yesterday. The IRGC is not bringing people out of the freezer. They're bringing out the sixty eighth to seventy year old generals who fought way back eighty to eighty eight against Saddam. They're hardened killers. They've got money in the bank and their four oh one k's are at risk, and they're gonna kill everyone they need to kill on the street.
So they're not going to a regime of moderates. They're bringing the old hardliners out of retirement to replace the ones we've killed. That tells me that we're gonna we're gonna be in the war for a one I don't know is that I got you go ahead?
No?
Can you can you talk?
You?
Can you hear me?
All right?
So yeah, sorry about.
That, That's okay. My point was yesterday they brought the old guard out of retirement, the IRGC guys who were killers for here. That's a bad sign. They're not going to make peace with Donald Trump. Do you agree?
No, they're not going to make peace.
Just about the entire idiot the regime, the IRGC and the Claresy, which are one and the same, are highly ideological, highly committed to the revolutionary creed inside Iran, and the old timers are going to be even more inclined towards that that outlook. But the post war environment that we want to create is one of internal fragmentation within the regime. Expose elite disagreement over how the best course of internal
survival is individual survival. Those disagreements will have to materialize after the war, and they involve the disintegration of patronage networks, institutions that break down the isolation that I Ran experiences on the world stage beginning to bite is well, including not just the Western world, but the anti American axis Russia, Beijing, Moscow, Beijing, North Korea, et cetera. And those old timers are going to be the people who expose those internal divisions.
They can't be in hiding.
They have to be visible, because those are the people who have to break at some point, either with the regime or with the people, and they have to compel a confrontation at some point with the internal mechanisms of this regime versus the conflict with the people in the streets.
And we can anticipate that another conflict with the Iranian people will material as it has pretty regularly over the course of this century two thousand and one, twenty nine, twenty seventeen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty two, and twenty twenty five. We're going to see another one soon, and we need to see the Iranian regime exposed so that it can it's its internal divisions can be visible by the publican by the wider world. So I'm not entirely horrified by
the prospect. In the near term, it will be horrible for the American people, difficult for us.
But in the last questions, who besides Noah Rothman and Hugh Hewittt are Iran warhawks?
Well, you know, it really does depend on who you ask. And I think the American people would be supportive of this project. As Mary Catherine said in the last segment, the President needs to enlist the American people in this national project. Sacrifices will be asked of them. They already are and the President needs to be forthright about that.
But within the Republican Party, the majority of them are supportive of this war, apprehensive about its outcomes, anxious about its conduct, but supportive of the war aims and its conducts so far. And that's a that's a bedrock that the President can build on. He should get to work on it because that apprehension is only growing and the American public want to know that their investment in this project is going to yield returns.
Not only yield return but that it's a world historical moment of the likes of which we have not seen since nineteen eighty nine. Rare when you realize that you're in the middle of a pivot. Everybody should know this is that right now, it's like nineteen eighty nine, and we have to topple this regime. We just have to no see Rothman, thank you. I'll be right back in America. Stay tuned. Morgan back in America. You do it here on the Salem New Channel, joined by Sarah C. Bedford to
The Washington Examiner follow on exit. Sarah C. Bedford, Sarah, do the Democrats know that they are losing the country over the TSA and Brouglio.
No, Actually, it seems like they don't at all.
In fact, it seems like they're taking the opposite lesson from this. Republicans have accused them, i think quite credibly, of moving the goalposts on what a DHS funding deal could look like. They don't seem to be acting in the situation is that they believe they're going to shoulder any political blame for the long lines we're seeing at airports and the other knock on effects of the dj shutdown.
If that's the case. Why is there an effort to basically do a seizure on the way to the forum to Chuck Schumer because Chris Murphy and the other people have lean and hungry looks in their eyes.
Well, it's a problem for Schumer because every time that he has ultimately accepted some sort of deal that leads to the reopening of government. Now, this is a partial government shutdown, but twice now we've seen Schumer do that. With full government shutdowns, He's faced an enormous amount of backlash from the Democratic base. There's already talk of challenges to his leadership should Democrats expand their minority or even an in a less likely scenario, take control of the Senate.
There's talk that.
Maybe Schumer isn't the man for the moment for Democrats. So he's worried about his leadership position as well. And again, you do have Democrats acting as if they don't think that they are going to pay a political price for this shutdown. And so there's not a ton of incentive or pressure on Schumer right now to accept what might be considered by the base a bad deal.
All right, let me go over to the others. I have criticisms of the GOP as well. Congressman Fluberry is coming along later. He runs the Republican Study Committee, and I'm going to press him on reconciliation. Is it going anywhere? Because the GOP is not going to get anything done unless they do it on reconciliation.
It's going to be an enormous challenge. You can only lose three senators if you're going to do that, and obviously the margins for Johnson maybe even smaller at this point, so it's really really hard to get all of.
The Republicans on board.
But you're right, reconciliation will be the only train leaving this this year realistically for a lot of priorities, and there are a bunch of things that Republicans want to get done. They want some extra Pentagon funding for the Iranmar. There's some talk of potentially trying to shoehorn parts of the Save Act electron integrity measures into a reconciliation bill.
And you could also put funding.
For ice removal and enforcement operations in a separate bucket and fund it through reconciliation and not have to hash out all of this immigration enforcement stuff with the DHS deal. So there are a lot of reasons for Republicans to do a reconciliation bill, but because it's a heavy lift. That's why you've seen reluctant so far this year from Republicans.
They could, I believe, fund DHS through the end of the Trump term so you don't have to worry about that again. They could take the Pentagon's floated two hundred billion, they could double it and add money for Golden Dome and the Golden Fleet, and they can. A lot of this stuff from say won't make it past the Senate part elementarian or a bird bath, but they're not going to get it through the talking filibuster either. They might as well take a run at it. And I just
don't understand doing nothing. Does anyone tell you why they're doing nothing.
I think there's fear for some of the vulnerable members. I mean, you have Susan Collins of Maine, for example, has said she doesn't love the idea of doing reconciliation. She's going to be in a very bitter reelection battle this year, So you do have some Republicans on the bubble who are nervous about voting for stuff that might come back to haunt them and You're right about parts of the Save Act not making it through the bird bath.
There's talk of potentially measures that might incentivize states to pass their own voter ID laws, but that certainly will not satisfy conservatives who say, this is an eighty twenty issue. It's so popular even most Democrats support it. Why can't a Republican trifecta in Washington.
Deliver this for us?
And that's a valid criticism from conservatives.
Well, it's not of a not in my eyes of criticism, because the bilibuster is the filibuster is the filibuster, and if we change it, it's gone forever. And I guess Republicans just have to be willing to stand up and say that, and Mike Lee will get mad. But Mike is a good guy, you know. The Republicans who understand this do not want to end the filibuster. Has anyone made the argument yet?
No.
I think you're right that there's not an appetite to end the filibuster. But there could be a way that Republicans could break out the most popular parts of the Save Act, and I'm talking primarily about voter ID and strip out the things like the proof of citizenship, to register to vote, and the stuff that Democrats have really
voiced more aggressive objections over. It would be hard for Democrats to oppose a voter ID only bill, And in fact, Schumer has sort of hinted that, look, we're not opposed to voter I D we know eighty percent of America wants it. It's all that other stuff. So Republicans could sort of strategize and not let perfect be the enemy of the good if they really want and voter ID.
I hope they do that. I didn't realize you what said. They should get what they can. The good must not be the perfect, must not be the enemy. They're good. Sarah C. Bedford on X from The Washington Examiner, good to talk to you. Thank you, Sarah. Don't go any America. Danny Pletka from ai AS next as we go back to the war, Stay tuned, Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Ewett, Danny Pleck, Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, co host with Mark Tison of What the Hell Is
Going On podcast. I saw Mark out for dinner on Virginia Danny, and I thought Danny's probably working. Mark's out here having drinks. That's not really fair, Danny. You ought to tell him he needs to be working more. I'm so glad you're here because I want to ask you is do you think the Trump administration has it in them to finish the job? And by that I mean bite down. It might mean high energy prices for three months, it might take three months to clear the straight of
horror moves, but bring this down? Do you think they've got it?
So that's a great question.
I think that the problem is the end of the sentence. Does the Trump administration have what it takes to fill in the blank if it's to open this trads of formus. I think there's no question they have what it takes. They have a plan. I think that they are executing on that plan. I think the President hasn't faltered. I think he recognizes that he can not allow the Iranians to at will close the straight. But if the question is does he have the will to see our campaign
from the air tople the regime? I think the answer to that increasingly is no.
Why do you think that? Because I'm betting unless they hit his fifteen points, which is effectively the dismantling of the regime, in the way that the South Africans gave up their nukes and the Libyans gave up their nukes. They're not the regime anymore, Harmonias, They're corrupt dictators at that point, Why do you think Trump will blink if they don't deal.
I don't think it's a question of blinking, Hugh. I think it's a question of defining his end game. And increasingly, what I hear in Washington, and frankly from the Israelis as well, although I'm hearing a lot, is that their aim is to create the circumstances under which the Iranian people can reclaim their country. It is not to bomb the regime into smithereens.
So there's nothing left.
And I will say this, if you and I think about this, and you have a lot of experience, you know, going back decades as well, if you think about this, there are very few campaigns from the air that execute a regime change, so you know, so I think those are the big caveats right now. And that's very much what I'm hearing, and that is what my co host Mark Tissen is hearing as well.
So what do you think happens if the we will stipulate. The Iranian people want to be rid of this regime and they would fight for it if they had weapons. What happens if Iran runs out of electricity and oil? I mean, if we really do shatter their infrastructure like the President threatened to do and then walked it back. Is that good for the Iranian people? It's bad, it would be make rebuilding harder. But in the short term, doesn't it make it easier to throw off the regime? Yes?
Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more. Look, you know, on the one hand, you want to preserve as much as is possible in order for a successor regime to take over. On the other hand, you need to recognize there are forty seven years here, and as you and I have discussed previously, this isn't a strong man government. This is a system. This is a dictatorship. The Islamic Republic is a giant infrastructure and it needs to be crushed.
And unfortunately there will be some baby thrown out with the bathwater here.
Well, what worried me this week is that they began to get old timers off the bench, people who fought in the eighty eighty eight war IRGC retired general. They're killers, They're not They're enjoying their lucre. They're enjoying their corruption, but they've been brought back to kill the next wave of that regime's not changing, Danny. Do you think there's any chance of it changing?
Not a chance, No, absolutely not. Look, they are inextricably tied to it. And I would add, there's so much money at stake. Even if you discount the ideology, and I don't discount the ideology. These people believe that they are God's chosen leaders.
They believe that they are.
The only people who can lead in wrong. And even if you set that aside and you think that's a bunch of you know, think tank clap trap. They have so much money that they've stolen and they if they are going to hold on to that money, they need to hold onto power.
I don't know if you know a Valley Naser, he's all right, JOHNS Hopkins, and he wrote the book Iran's Grand Strategy. When you read that or you listen to the Ready g they're never going it's a zombie regime. But it's pretty hard to kill a zombie. You agree with that assessment, it is.
Yeah, absolutely I mean, look, you know, I watch cable TV just like everybody else, and I know just.
How hard zombies are to kill.
And you know, of one of Iran's most loving analysts here in Washington, somebody who really always takes the side of the regime, said to me a couple of weeks ago. You know, he said, the regime says that thirty percent of the people are with them. Even if that's half true, we are talking about millions and millions of people. This is going to be a hard job. I think the Iranian people can do it. I think there's a tipping point.
I think we can help push it. But I worry that both the Israelis and the Americans are overconfident in our ability to put the Iranians in a position from which they can't come back.
They can always come back.
Are we too restrained? And by that I mean they do have power plants, they do have oil production facilities. They have command and control structures that will blinker the entire city and throw it into darkness. They have overpasses, they have roads and bridges. We did not spare that with the Allies in World War Two. We didn't spare it with Vietnam, and I'm not sure we should be sparing it now, should we?
No, you are completely right, and there are other mistakes we're making in terms of the assets we have. We should absolutely be hitting everything. We should be allowing the Israelis to hit what we're not hitting. And in addition, only fifty percent of Iran is Persian. There are Azari's that are Ba Loochs, there are Kurds. Everyone hates this regime. This regime has.
Murdered absolutely everybody.
And if they're bad to the Persians, you can only imagine what they're like to other minorities. Those people want to stand up and revolt. Those people want to march on towns in the north, in the south, and we should be letting them. So far, the president has not been willing to let them, in part because because Erduwan, the dictator in Turkey, does not want to see the Turks get the Kurds get any any liberty whatsoever, and so he's talking him out of it day on day out, and that's wrong.
I did not know that, and that is why we talked to Danny Plutka follower he Plukka at Ai and listen to what the hell is going on with Mark Tishan. Danny, don't let him go out and drink when you're working. I'm telling you I saw him out there at the bar. Thanks having a good time, I mean, with work on. Thank you, Danny. I'll be right back to America States in America. I'm Hugh Hewittt. Welcome to the second hour of today's program. I'm joined by Abe Greenwald. Abe is
the executive editor of Commentary magazine. He's also a frequent contributor, almost daily contributor to the Commentary podcast. Abe. I found today's podcast to be very interesting, especially towards the end when you raised the possibility that maybe persuasion is no longer possible in America. You want to expand on that.
Yeah, sadly, I think that's true, and actually I wrote a newsletter.
To that effect that was sent out just about half an hour ago. I think that Donald Trump should have laid out a lucid and convincing argument for going into Iran when he did in the way he did. But I think you should have done it because that's the job description. Do I think it would have weighted some vast number of Americans who are now doubting the war.
No, I don't.
And to whatever extent it would do so, I think I apologize my dog is growling. So whatever extent it would do so, it would I think that would be very fleeting. As the media anti war coverage, Walt's war, anti war coverage has just swallowed up what is really an ongoing string of remarkable successes in this war.
So the effort to talk.
Down this war, to discuss it as if it's some sort of travesty, is so overwhelming. I mean, I'm kind of reminded of the argument that people made about Israel post October seventh that, you know, if the Israelis just could explain better to people why they were doing what they were doing in response.
To October seventh, as if October seventh wasn't proof enough taped and filmed for everyone to see, wasn't the case enough for what the Israelis were doing?
And so similarly, if you look back on forty seven year history of the running regime, it's provocations, it's violence, it's killing, its weapons development, its terror supporting, and so on, and you don't see the case for war right now, You're not going to see.
It, you know, Hey, I am reminded of the movie Chariots of Fire. Did you ever see it? Yes? Okay, So the sprinter is the Jewish Kid nineteen twenty Olympics true story, and he asks a professional track coach make me faster. He says, you can't put in what God left out. God has left out of a lot of Americans basic knowledge about the evil nature of the regime in Iran. I mean, I don't think they understand it. So it's the equal the Chinese Communist Party, and they
are the equal of Putin on his worst day. These are the three worst regimes in the world. North Korea would be in that rank, except they've done about as much damage as they can do short of precipitating in nuclear war. Do you think Americans understand how evil Iran is and its ambitions?
No, I think they're doubtful. I think they don't quite believe it.
I think that's also because we suffer from still Vietnam syndrome, Iraq and Afghanistan syndrome. And then that's all complicated by Trump derangement syndrome.
And on the left you have.
These anti colonialist idelogus who believe that any action the US takes his prima facia a war crime, and on the right, a lot of what used to go under the banner of patriotism has been swallow up by nationalism, which looks at American national interests from the most narrow lens and would say, well, even if they are an evil regime, what does.
That have to do with us? So I think all told yes.
No now At twelve forty seven this afternoon East cost time, Ambassador Yusef Alotaiba, who is the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States and really one of the most talented people in the business inside of DC. I've had an opportunity to have dinner with him a few times. He worked very hard at making his country understood to
the Beltway press corps. He posted a piece over at the Wall Street Journal which I recommend to every listener, and it reminds people the UAE, which is forty miles away from Iran across the Strait of Hormos, has absorbed two thousand, one hundred and eighty missiles projectile drones. They're standing tall with us, and it finishes the tagline is that this war requires a conclusive outcome, one that addresses Tehran's full range of threats and the way that it ends.
The last three paragraphs. Iran's nuclear capabilities have been degraded, its proxies have been weakened. More needs to be done to remove the missile and drone threats, and we are ready to join an international initiative to reopen the strait and keep it open. We aren't asking the US to carry the full burden. We are defending our people, protecting regional stability and global prosperity, demonstrating that re alliances are
built on cooperation and contribution, not dependency. Finally, we want Iran as a normal neighbor. It can be reclusive and even unwelcoming, but it can't attack its neighbors, blockade international waters, or export extremism. Building a fence around the problem and wishing it goes away isn't the answer. It would simply defer the next crisis. That is blunt blunt can get that puts u AE in with US in Israel. Don't you think it's time that Trump just resolves to finish the job.
Sure, and I'm not I'm not certain that that he's
He doesn't feel the same way. You know, he's very hard to read, to put it very mildly, and part of my thinking here, my suspicion is that in his announcing these very positive talks, suppose it talks with Iran, is in sense some way of him demonstrating for the world going to that he's going to get an unreasonable response from the running regime that's going to reject diplomacy, and that he will then have made a stronger case for finishing the job after.
Now finishing the job. In my view, I don't think we're going to send ground troops and in any sort of maybe to secure this strait. I don't know. I'm a civilian, but I do think it means taking out their dual use power plants, taking out their oil refineries, taking out their bridges and roads that allow command and control the function. In other words, treating it like an enemy in World War two, but with the precision that can save civilian lives. Would you support that?
Oh?
Sure, I would support that. I mean I would probably go farther. I mean, I think we should retrieve fistle material. I think that would be a wise move.
And I think.
Then there's job finishing that goes beyond what America.
May be willing to put itself on the line.
For In other words, I'd be perfectly fine if we left under the conditions that you describe. I'm very doubtful that there wouldn't be some ongoing operations having to do with Israel and the Masade and their coordination with.
The run people to actually overthrow the regime.
And I also but that's if we took out the infrastructure and we said we had to do it. The regime is irredeemable. They're promoting by the way, they're getting old Irgc people off the bench. They're bringing it hardened killers who had, you know, walked through minefields in the Iraq Iran War. They're true believers, their fanatics. If we just said we had to do it, We're sorry, America. We spared as many lives. They will be bankrupt, they will be out of gas, they will have no friends.
Isn't that the way to bring it down?
I think that's that's that's where that's the road we're headed down. Yeah, and I think that that is exactly right.
Yeah, and should I think Republicans ought to just stand up and say we support this, we want to pass the Supplemental we are the party of Security and Defense, and go into the November elections and let the Democrats be in favor of leaving this evil regime in place.
Sure, I mean.
I have to admit I think part of the calculation here on the administration's part is that maybe the midterms are a lost cause anyway, So let's do what's necessary and then we'll let the chips fall where they may. If the war proceeds along the same lines that it's been going up till now, I think it's going to be the kind of situation where six months from now, polls will show a large chunk of Americans saying, oh, I was always for it.
I agree. But do you think President Trump understands this is the most important month of his presidency in history's terms. I think it is We're not going to go to war with China if we can avoid it. I think this is the month. Do you agree with that?
One hundred he's going all in on changing the world.
I think he's very cognizant of that, and I think it's reflected in.
His demeanor, his behavior, the way he speaks. He is not rattled.
He's unbelievably focused, and I think I think I think he's you know, there's a lot of discomfort with Trump's being murky about messaging and being contradictory about messaging, and I have to say I've grown quite comfortable with it because I think there's a good strategic reason for doing that, and he's using that well.
I heard you say that today. I just said I can't wait to talk to Ada. You're exactly right, Ed Greenwald follo him on exit a Greenwald. Sign up for the newsletter at commentary dot org and listen to the podcast every day. You'll be smarter for it. Thank you, a stay tuned, America. I'll be right back talking back, America. I'm cue Hewitt. Early visit this week from Matt Continetti. Matt is the head of Domestic Policy Studies at ai
SO also calumn is for the Wall Street Journal. He has an excellent column in Today Journal entitled I Got to get the title right. Get to the right page here. Voters lose in congressional WrestleMania, and my favorite line in it is Washington is too distracted by bitter infighting. It's too busy imitating professional wrestling to address voters economic concerns. Matt You're exactly right, you expect that's going to change anytime soon.
Unfortunately not you.
I mean, we can just see what's happening on Capitol Hill, where there seemed like there could be a deal to open up the Department of Homeland Security and address the pay lapses for TSA agents. But it seems like the
Democrats are getting cold feet. Why because they're so fearful of their far left base, which despises ICE so much that the Democrats are willing to impose costs on an entirely different set of federal employees, the TSA agents, the Coastguard, FEMA, all of whom are suffering because of this shutdown, while ICE ironically is fully funded for years thanks to the working Family's tax cut that was passed via reconciliation last year.
So this type of empty, gestural politics that we're witnessing on Capitol Hill doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
It's a pretty damning piece. I recommend everyone go and read it. But I also want to talk about the world historical event that's unfolding. This war has the possibility of taking off of the map the equal of any evil regime on the world's map and a thorn in the side of free people for forty seven years. First question, do you think Americans realize how evil Iran is the regime? I do?
I do.
I think that when you've looked at American public opinion prior to the launch of Operation Epic Fury, Americans have understood the Iranian regime for what it is. It's the world's largest sponsor of terrorism. It's killed Americans, it's held our people hostage, it's attacked our allies, it's oppressed its own people. Now, the public opinion currently is I think,
refracted through the lens of Donald Trump. And so when you see these polls saying that the public may be divided on what we're doing right now in Iran, I think you always have to read them with the view to, well, how does the public feel about Donald Trump? And we know that about half the country right now won't accept anything that Donald Trump does, even if he is addressing a longstanding threat to American national security, like he's doing with our Israeli allies in Iran right.
Now now about twelve forty seven today, the Journal posted an editorial by Ambassador Yusuf Alataiba from the United Arab Emirates of the United States, one of the true professionals in diplomacy inside the Beltway. In it, he basically the subtitle says it all this war requires a conclusive outcome, one that addresses Tehran's full range of threats. And I recommend I read part of it to Abe Greenwald in the last segment. And the bottom line is finish the
job Donald Trump. He doesn't say it explicitly, but that's the message. Do you think the President has it in him to finish the job? Oh?
I think he has it in him.
I think that he's hearing messages like Ambassador of Taibas from other partners, including the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia NBS, probably other Gulf states as well. We know that's the message he's hearing from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan Yahoo.
So President Trump wants to hold out.
The possibility of a diplomatic resolution, but when you actually look at what the Americans are asking of the Iranians, it's nothing that the Iranians will accept because it's the same thing that we've been offering earlier. And when you look at what the Iranians are counteroffering the Americans. It's nothing America would accept. I mean, it's absurd, but it would involve US recognizing Iran's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. It would involve US paying Iran reparations for the attack.
So I think while President Trump always holds out diplomacy is an option, he recognizes the need for force, and he also uses diplomacy sometimes as cover for putting our forces in place. So I think it's very interesting that the end of Trump's latest deadline for the Iranians to agree to the diplomatic proposal will coincide with the arrival of our marines and some of our components of the
eighty second Airborne into the region. So he may just be, like earlier, playing out the diplomatic channel while he's putting all of his forces in place for the next stage at the conflict.
So how would you react, Matt Continent, Given that we precision strike, we can blow up every bridge, we can blow up every power plant, we can blow up every refinery, bankrupt the regime so it cannot pay its forces. They are not promoting moderates into these positions that are vacant because of assassinations. They're pulling old IRGC people out of the off the retirement rolls, off the bench and their killers.
So they're not gonna blink, They're not gonna change. Shouldn't we reduce them to poverty before we throw ground trips in there and then wait and see what happens. Well, Hugh, I.
Think we need to reduce the regime to poverty. What I think that means is we need to take a real hard look at the sources of revenue to the regime, and that does mean their energy flows. And so that does mean that not only do we need to get the Strait of Harmuz open, create a channel for commercial traffic free of Iranian threats, but we should also look at stopping the Iranian ghost fleet, stopping their refining capacity.
I'd be reluctant to take measures that would affect the Iranian civilian population because we're going to rely on that civilian population to be the boots on the ground in overthrowing the regime.
Eventually.
When I listen to the military experts like General Frank Mackenzie or Admiral Mark Montgomery on your program, it seems to me that the military has a war plan in place, and one that they have been pursuing very effectively, and that probably has two to three more weeks left in
it before all of our military objectives are complete. I trust General Kin, I trust Admiral Cooper, I trust our US fighting men and women to pursue that plan, and I think at the end of it will have a very good outcome, so long as we don't abandon the effort before all of our objectives are complete.
Well, I would follow through on their target list, but before we called it a day and sailed away with a straight open and their ability to blackmail US reduced, I would darken the place because I think it would assist the Iranian people and frame themselves if the agents of repression don't have the internet or energy. Last word to you, Matt.
I agree, and I think that just points to the fact that even when the bombs stop dropping, Hugh America will still have a role to play. The people haven't taken to the streets yet, but when they do, they're going to need our support. That's why Trump sent help in the first place. So when they do go out on the streets, we need to be prepared to help them finally overthrow this regime.
Well said, By the way, if they do that, I believe that will make up a lot of ground in politics. But more importantly, from history's perspective, this is Donald Trump's big moment. Last do you agree with that, Matt. It's his big moment. It's his moment.
Like he told the Atlantic, this is his time to run the country in the world, and he's changing the world in extraordinary ways. You know, it's so funny, Hugh, quickly remember she Jenping said that the world was going to see things that hadn't seen in one hundred years. Well, he was half right, except it's Donald Trump that's making those things happen.
Well said Matt Connetty follow him on exit continent. He read his peaches in the Wall Street Journal and over Ady, I thank you, Matt, coming right back with Congressman Fluger. Don't go anywhere, America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Welcome back America. I'm he Hewett. I spend most of my time on the war, but once in a while I sneak in someone who does a little bit of policy, including Representative Andy Vlueger from Texas. He's the chairman of the Republican
Study Committee and August. Excuse me, I say, Andy, I'm sorry, August. And you gave a speech on X that I saw talking about the Democrats and the shutdown of Deehat. Do you think that issue is going to last Congressman through to the fall.
Well, I mean, my Democrat colleagues on the Homeland Committee said, well, let me tell you.
Why we got here. We got here.
Because ICE agents were taking illegal aliens out of the country. And you know, the narrative is just that they were very emotional about it, and I just had to refute that. I said, No, the reason we got here is because we're cleaning up a mess where ten million illegal aliens have come into this country under Joe Biden's presidency, which
was a complete disaster. And I said, not a single Democrat had any sympathy for Joscelyn nunger A's parents or for Lake and Riley's parents, who were both tragically murdered
by illegal aliens. That's the reason we're here. And now you're unwilling, even with an open border policy that was completely disastrous, you're unwilling to support TSA agents, Coast guardsmen, Border patrol or ICE to just do their job to keep our country safe, even though we heard testimony today saying the terror threat on our American airlines is still high.
So it's very shameful.
And it's try that we're in this situation.
And yes, I don't think that this issue is going to continue to be an issue that defines the Democrats of who they are.
I think Republicans have taken back the party of Defense and deterrence, and I think seriousness. How about a reconciliation bill, a second process that funds depending on supplemental times too, given whatever they want in times to, and then funds DHS through the end of the Trump term so we don't have to deal with this insanity. I mean, there are has been lots of leaper sells. I was in the government a long time ago. I know there are
a lot of bad guys. How about just using reconciliation to get the garment working again?
Well, Hugh, as you know, I chair the Republican Study Committee one hundred and ninety members. We've been pushing for reconciliation for months now, and we are certainly open to a defense supplemental in DHS funding, but I think it needs to be more than that. You know, Democrats have obstructed passing anything. If President Trump cured cancer, they would vote against it. And that's the trage nature of where we are.
So we have to.
Codify the rest of President Trump's agenda, and reconciliation is the mechanism by which we can do this. So, yes, we can certainly include defense supplemental and DHS funding, but I don't think that can be the sole focus of this.
When's it get started? What frustrates me because I don't want to lose the midterms. I don't think it's an inevitability. I certainly don't think losing the Senate's an inevitability. But you got to do something. What are we waiting for?
Well, you're speaking my language. This is exactly what we have been pushing through the RSC.
Let's go. We did such a good job through.
One big, beautiful bill of identifying so many of Joe Biden's errors and the things that he caused pain and suffering to every American family with. But there is more work to be done, you know, and our constituents want to know that we can unify even with a one seat majority. We can and we will unify. And this is why we have been moving with the sense of urgency. RSC with one hundred ninety members has come together and so we want to do this. I know the Speaker
is in favor of it. Let's put the items on the board that we think we can accomplish. That include housing affordability, healthcare affordability, energy affordability, but now probably also need to include national security and defense items.
So when does that decision get made? Congressman further, when does somebody say the starting gun goes off?
Well, I think the starting gun has gone off, and there are many of us who are working on this, and I know Chairman and Jody Arrington is extremely motivated as the Budget Committee chair to move this. So I think the starting gun has gone off, and we as a conference we'll be looking at a lot of the proposals and making those recommendations to Speaker Johnson asap.
Okay, So last question, how long does it take once the Budget Committee gets the work, gets a budget, gets it over to the Senate and they agree, and then you got to go to the authorizing committees and the Committee of Jurisdiction. How long until we could see that get through Because if that arrived in June or July, it could change the dynamic in the fall.
Well, certainly, and that's the goal I think you just nailed it is. This has to arrive no later than June July timeframe. This is a two minute drill. You know, the one Big Beautiful Bill was really more of the long game, and we had some time on our side to get that done by the July fourth date that we set last year. But this is a two minute drill. It's more compact and narrow. The focus will be narrower.
So you know, you just nailed it. I mean, we have to get this passed no later than July, and it will have an impact because those policies will come into play and American families will benefit from all of them, and our nation will be safer and more secure as a result of us continuing to work. We're not done and we're going to continue to fight every single day.
Well, bravo on your floor remarks, and we're floor remarks behind a podium with other members, and I thought, well done, August Bleuler, Thank you so much, Congressman. Keep pushing the RSC, to keep pushing the leadership, to keep pushing reconciliation because we need it. Don't go anywhere in America. I'm coming right back on the hu Human Show. Welcome Back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined now by Josh Krashauwer, editor in
chief of Jewish Insider. Josh from your thirty thousand foot perspective, how goes the war?
Well, look, it does seem like the Trump administration is trying to negotiate diplomatically with Iran and through back channels. Apparently it doesn't seem like Iran is receptive. From the looks of this fifteen point plan that was proposed, it looks like it's very similar to what was introduced to the Iranians before the war, and like was the case
before the war, Iran has rejected it. So, you know, I don't think I think there is some domestic political pressure that Trump has faced, especially when it comes to higher gas prices. But when it comes to the military uh landscape, Look, I think the US and Israel are accomplishing things ahead of schedule and are actually achieving, as we've talked about on this show, a lot of their
military objectives. The challenge though, is number one, the straight up wore moves and and and figuring out how to uh, you know, deal with that and clear clear up the shipping, and that may take uh, you know, more military action to do so, more more military assets, more UH personnel in the region. So that's a big, big, big wild
card going forward. And I also think, you know, we're still seeing Israel being being in the Goal Skulf States as well, facing UH military or sorry ballistic missile attacks day in, day out. And and the question is, you know, how many how much more of the launchers and the missiles does I Ran have and how long is there is there is there a the stockpile gonna last for.
Now, Josh. About three hours ago, Ambassador actually an hour and a half ago, Ambassador Yusef Alan Taiba from the United Arab Emirates to the United States posted published over at the Wall Street Journal a column the UAE stands up to Iran. This war requires a conclusive outcome, one that addresses to Tehran's full range of threats. Points out the UAE has been on the receiving end of twenty and eighty missiles, drones, rockets, you name it, and they've
had it. I think that is a sign that the Golf allies are going to go over from being merely on the defensive, but to the offensive, and that the endgame's got to be the regime's got to go.
What do you think, Well, yeah, not just usfl a little tibo who wrote that in the Wall Street Journal today, but we also saw the New York Times report you yesterday that the Saudis have urged Donald Trump and the administration to continue all to continue to fight militarily to
get rid of the noxious regime in Iran. And then and I think they are much more concerned, frankly, that that there could be some remnant left in place and would still pose a threat, an ongoing threat to the Gulf states, their economies, and and and and their way of life. The the you know, I think the the Amoradi ambassador to the US, I think, in that column put it put it pretty well. He said, building a frience around the problem and wishing it goes away isn't
the answer. It simply defers the next crisis. So if anything, and you know, you look at the where the UA in Saudi was before the war and where they are now. They're they're much more supportive of of the military action. They're not uh eager for it to end right now.
They want more, more accomplishments on the battlefield, and they really have actually said that they would like to see a different regime in Iran, and so that that's a very notable comment from two of the closest golf state allies of the of the US.
Now, I expect hutis are going to get involved here pretty soon, and the Iranians sort of suggested that today because the people that they're replacing the dead leadership with are veterans of the IRGC who had basically retired, but they're hard killers who are seventy years old, fought in the Iran I Rock War, part of the Revolutionary Guard. The original Solomani could force kind of harden those guys. They're never going to change, Josh, do you think that's
the correct assessment. They don't know how to be normal.
Yeah, I mean, I think that is the correct assessment. And intendidly like that's what a lot of the people who are a little more wary about the military operation had worried about, which is that you could get rid of some of the top leaders, as the US Israel operation has done, but you still have layers and layers of IERGC and besiege and other you know, you know, parts of the regime that are have every incentive to fight, fight till the death because otherwise, you know, they're they're
every every benefit they've had since the nineteen seventy nine
revolution is going to go away. So you know, this is you know, you've seen mixed reported on this, but you know, I think the initial notion that that you could easily with air strikes degrade and get rid of the regime is proving to be a little too optimistic, and it's probably gonna take you know, not only longer military action, but perhaps boots on the ground if they do want to achieve those ends, which I'm not sure if the US really wants to go that far, but there.
Are boots on the ground. Before we go to boots on the ground, though, we can destroy their oil production. The UAE can seize their money, so can Bahrain. The port facilities can be destroyed, and indeed the power plant in Tehran, bridges can be blown out. All sorts of stuff can be done that doesn't involve boots on the air. It hurts the Iranian population short term, but the regime can't. It's a zombie regime already. Take away their oil and got nothing. Should we do that?
Well, I think the Trump administration has shown that they are wary at least we've what we've seen in the last few days of actually destroying energy facilities that could actually hurt not just the people of Iran and then their ability to you know, the economy that totally and you know, in the economy of the regime so to speak,
but it could also affect the global oil market. And you see that the Trump administration has been very receptive and very you know, concerned about the domestic political pressures back home about rising gas prices. So you know, I think that was certainly an option that was that was floated. But that was also when when Israel hit an energy facility of about a week ago, and the US apparently was supportive.
Of it, but.
They quickly backtracked when it turned out to affect the world market globally. So you know, I think a lot of sensitivities about the economy, and that's that's affecting the strategy here against Ran.
There is but last word to you, at some point, if the objective is to get this regime collapsed, if they haven't collapsed after pages one through fourteen, don't we up there. We can't leave them there? Do you agree with me about that? You cannot leave them in place?
Look at the very least, at least in me is really perspective.
There's they want to wipe out.
The missile launchers, the ballistic missiles, and I think the next most important thing is getting rid of the nuclear material. That may also require some special operation forces to do that. So there may need to be more more you know, more more assets or more you know, military personnel in the in the region to handle some of the operational goals. But I think you know, they've done a lot and the question is what is the timeline going forward?
I hope they do a lot more. Josh croush Houer, thank you. Follow them on Act Josh crash Hower. Read him at Jewish Insider. Stay tuned. I'm coming back and the Ready Gore next hour on the Huge Hewitt Show. Here on the Shale, you've heard me talk a lot about Consumer Cellular, how you can switch your carrier, save money with out the sacrifice. That's because Consumer Cellular uses the same towers as major carriers. Make the switch today and get twenty five dollars off at Consumer Cellular dot
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And thank you Lauren and Etangrace America. I'm Hugh Hewett has promised Aviv Reta Gore is back. He is the Middle East correspondent for The Free Press. He's also the host of Ask Kaviv Anything. And if you ever join a Patreon community, this is the Patreon community to join Heviv, thank you for joining with me today. I got a lot to talk to you about. But I'm sort of glad we missed a couple of times earlier this week because I got to hear the episode with Professor schufton today,
so that added to my list. Can you first tell people about the Patreon community and why they want to be a part of it?
Yeah, thanks you, I appreciate it very much. We have a podcast that's trying to teach this region, trying to teach the history of the region of Israelis and Palestinians, of the big ideas that drive the Iranian regime. For example, it's not just a bunch of crazy people. They're big and profound and serious ideas, and they're generations old. And when you really understand that, you begin to be able to really understand policy better, why they respond.
The way they respond, why they can take.
Catastrophic levels of damage and still hold out. Right, that was an episode I did before the war began. The bombs are are not going to fellow this regime, and if you understand why, you also begin to understand what will fill this regime, what kinds of narratives, what kinds of strategies will So that's what it's about. And the Patreon community was just a way to keep the lights on, you know. It's a way to pay five dollars a month and help us fund this thing. We are five
salaries at this point. We try and have fact checkers and things like that, and it turned into a real community. There are forums there, people are discussing, people are sharing studies they pull from all over the internet, and I have learned a lot and people ask questions that then guide our future episodes.
So it's a new world.
You know.
I grew up in print journalism and this is a whole new world, and it's kind of wonderful.
It is kind of wonderful, especially if you have a war going on and run up to a war and it will at war for two and a half years. The United States has been at war for one day and then now we're in day twenty six. Let me begin with the big broad question, how do you assess the war that began on ten to seven? How is that war going? That means all of it?
On ten seven, Israel went to war against an idea, not against a specific militia, even though that specific militia is absolutely our enemy. It wants to murder my children, it says so every day. You have to be a very particular kind of Western ideologue not to hear it when it's their fundamental idea.
We certainly went to war with Kamas, but.
We looked around them.
We said, wait a second, how could Kamas want this war in Gonza? What is the meaning of these tunnels? This the biggest tunnel system in the history of war, I mean, just the most comprehensive system that the only the means that the only way to get to Kamas is to go through Palestinian cities, is to blow up entire regions in order to blow up what is, by far I mean fivefold the next biggest military tunnel system.
It's the biggest thing Palestinians have ever built. And Hamas spent Gaza's entire economy for fifteen years on building it. And so this is the war, this war, this way that Gaza looks, This was what Kamas planned, This was what it would take to get Kamas out of those tunnels, and it wasn't enough to get Ramas out of those tunnels.
And critiques are all all you want.
I think it's really important to critique wars. And this was a war food in an urban environment with civilian dead in the many thousands, So this is not But my point is a strategic tactical on how will Tramas possibly want plan build a war in which the only possibility for the enemy coming for you? After you commit a massacre like that and announced many times since October seven, then you will commit it again and again and will never not commit it.
But the enemy is going to come for you.
And then you build this tunnel system. And then in two and a half years of war, after building what is basically the most common brandsive bomb shelter system in the history of war, not letting a single gusen child into it for two and a half years, what is that? How do you understand these things? Assume that Kamas isn't stupid or crazy. Assume that it's normative. Real thoughtful human beings live in a certain world and are responding to
how they see the world. And it turns out that the idea driving Khamas.
Is this particular idea.
It's called in Arabic the mukalama.
It translates into resistance in English, but that doesn't describe what the word means. What the word means in Arabic is something much much bigger. It's a kind of mass martyrdom ideology in which Muslim thinkers, over the last century and a half I've tried to explain why Islam is
so far behind the West. And one of the streams that come out of this conversation between theologians and political leaders has been this stream called the Muslim brothers, or the Solophists, or the basically Jihadi radicals, however you call them. Is this stream that says, we are very weak, but our weakness is a kind kind of purity. The Westerners are very powerful, but that makes them also arrogant. The we can humble or closer to God by definition, and
so God will intercede on our behalf. How do we get God to intercede on our behalf in the great civilization of war against the arrogant, powerful West. Martyrdom, sacrifice, mass martyrdom, and sacrifice that demonstrates our faith, that brings God into history in intertwo intervene and allows us to defeat the great powers of the West. This is the
animating idea behind the Iranian regime. Pomani, the founder of this regime, talked about the Musta the fiend, the humble, defeating the Musta Kamilian, the powerful, the arrogant, and explicitly explained that martyrdom was the path that closes that gap between weak and powerful. It's a way of thinking about the world and instead of looking at the West as a kind of successful best practice right democracies, it turns
out build better economies, stronger political systems, more stability. When you're switching out your leader every years, you tend to be a more stable political system than when you're just a bunch of tyrants who inherit from each other all of these best practices the West brought. Instead of that being the secret to the West's power and success and scientific advancement, it's a way of saying, actually, none of that is true. All we're all living through a kind
of mystical religious situation. And if we just are willing to die enough and to have our people die enough, and that's how you, then we win, and that's how you and the victory is a religious victory, and that's how you produce a ramas that plans the destruction of
Gaza as its foundational strategy and force multiplier. And we looked around the region and that on October eighth and we said, well, that's Risbalah Krasbela is absolutely willing to have leban Un destroyed in the Great War to defeat the arrogant Israeli power Western power, which is how they frame it, and that's Iran. Iran talks about us as the little Satan, and America is the big Satan. It's not that it hates America because America supports Israel. It hates Israel because it sees Israel.
As part of America. I know there's America is the thing it hates most and first.
And most profoundly.
And if people want to understand why, you.
Have to go to Ali Shariati.
That's the name to google, and.
You will discover a kind of Marxist theoretician who melded Shia eschatology with Marxist ideas in the nineteen sixties and seventies and was Folmani's great teacher on these issues. And so they see us as that and they're coming for us, and they're undeterrible because they believe that martyrdom is strength, and if you have an enemy that is literally willing to burn their own society to the ground on the altar of the destruction of you, because they believe God
has decreed it. There's no deterrence, it's literally undeterable, and there's no peace and there's no compromise.
You actually have to defeat this enemy, the Nazis.
And have to be defeated. Now, for twenty years, maybe seventeen, I've been telling people they need to read Lawrence Writes The Looming Tower to understand Sunni extremism and Katube and the Muslim Brotherhood. After you did episode ninety three, which is your two and a half hour extravaganza on resistance theology on the Shia side, then you followed it up with episode ninety nine, which is the one hour version.
I went and found a book entitled Iran's Grand Strategy of Political History by Valley Nasser, who's at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, and it's really good, and it's sort of a slower version for readers or listeners of what ninety three and ninety nine do, but I was able to understand it. Are you familiar with that book?
I haven't read it. I know of its existence. I really ought to read it.
It makes the same point, so you do about maybe in a little less judgmental, a little more academic approach, but yours is more entertaining, and it made this a lot more understandable when you have we have two enemies Sunny fundamentalism, Wahabist extremes, a mal Kaita and the Iranian regime, and they sometimes work together. And then you get a Asarkali who will sometimes try and just go right after the Shia throat. There is no alternative except to destroy the
Iranian regime. That's what John Fetterman said yesterday. Is there an alternative other than destroying the Iranian regime?
The idea has to die, it doesn't you know if you can't literally destroy the regime, Because if I'm saying, because for forty seven years, this regime has literally succeeded at nothing, built, nothing developed, nothing driven one of the wealthiest countries in the world naturally in terms of both human intelligence and in terms of hydrocarbon reserves, has driven its economy.
Into the ground.
So this is a regime that has done nothing but destroy every part of Iranian society. That could possibly have built out any kind of power center to.
Oppose the regime.
There's simply no one organized any on an Iranian society. The Iranians made sure of it. Who could resist, who could organize against this regime. So maybe the regime can't fall. But we don't actually need the institutions to fall. What we need is the idea to die, the idea that says we must destroy Israel on the path to destroying America in all of the arrogant West in order for
Islam to be redeemed. And along the way, it's okay if the entire Iranian people chokes to death on our tyranny and on our incompetence, that.
Idea, and we found some prospects of the military of.
The wrong, but pause for a moment. Of that idea has to die. We'll come back. I don't know what happened when the music came up. You got modeled there, But we'll come back and fix that. Stay tuned in America. I'm here Hewett. You're watching the Here Hewitt Show on the Fail New Channel. Welcome back to America. My guess is a vive Rettick Gore. He is the host of Ask evive anything. It's also the Middle East. Corresponding for the Free Press. Follow him on ex Ataviv, redig Gore
and join his patroon. You'll think that's the best. And five dollars a month you spent Haviva before he went to break. You said the idea has to die. I hope it does. But in the meantime there are a two front war going on. The latest battle ten seven led to a battle in Gaza. There was a battle in Lebanon and Hesba Lah. Now there's a battle over the skies of Iran and there's a battle in southern Lebanon. How do you assess those two battles? Just like World
War Two had many fronts and many battles. Some were terrible Tarawa, some were the Marianas Turkey shoot, others were really risky Normandy. We've got two right now, Israel in southern Lebanon, and Israel and American maybe the UAE and maybe Saudi Arabia joining in over the skies of Iran. How do you assess both of those battles and their immediate objectives not against the idea but against the regime's power.
If you understand this war as a war against an ideological front, it's going astonishingly well. If you want to pick apart every single individual battle, it's going fairly astonishingly well in military terms. I don't know about political terms. Israel certainly hated among many parts of the world right now. Some of that is propaganda. Some of that is that there is this terrible war in Gaza, but you know, there was a worst war going on in Sudan nobody
talked about or saw. There's a lot of discourse, a lot of propaganda. The Israelis and the Palestinians and the Iranians are symbols to a whole lot.
Of ideologues all over the world.
Israel certainly has a huge problem in terms of its public persona public image on the world stage. Militarily, it is a victory every step of the way. People will then argue, you can't kill an idea. People will then argue still there. People will argue, the Iranian regime hasn't fallen yet, it can still burn things to the ground on its way out. Maybe that means it can never be felt because nobody's willing to literally remove twenty percent
of the oil supply for five years. Yeah, You could argue that, sure, but that would assume that Israel is thinking the way most Westerners think about this war, which is to say, we have a pinpoint problem, We're going to attack it with a pinpoint solution, and if it isn't all finished and within two weeks and we're all home drinking our eggnog, then then we've lost. That is not how the Israelis are thinking about it. The Israelis
are thinking about this in Middle Eastern terms. The idea will come for us in one form or another, no matter what we do in any one arena.
So it has to be.
All the arenas, and the idea itself has to die. On October eighth, I went on a podcast and I was asked this question what happens now? And one of my main arguments was, this is not.
Going to be about Goza.
This is going to be the beginning of a war that must go to Fisbella and a war that must go to Iran, and it might take five years. And I got some emails of people telling me, what, you're silly, not even you're a warmonger, You're just that's a silly thing to say.
Israel's not going to challenge Iran.
Israel's not going to take on the costs the two hundred thousand missiles and rockets hitting Tel Aviv that would be involved in attacking Fisbellah. And here we are two and a half years later, and actually it is exactly what has happened.
And so Israel is vastly.
More powerful than it was two and a half years ago. Its enemies are vastly weaker than they were two and a half years ago. And that has to continue, and it may have to continue for years more until the idea no longer makes any sense. And Hugh, I'm sorry to go on like this. Can I just one last point about this. It's happened before, our experience of this
has happened before. In the nineteen fifties and sixties. Israel, tiny little third world Israel that began its life rationing egg powder to children because they didn't have enough food to feed the children, tiny poor, impoverished Israel under a British and American arms embargo, faced Arab armies united behind this charismatic Nasser with brand new Soviet hardware coming at them to demolish and annihilate them. And this idea of
pan Arabism that Naser was selling, that unified Egypt and Syria. Briefly, that brought up Jordanians, and then the Iraqis all to attack us, all it once again and again and again. This idea was basically the argument that if the Arabs lost in forty eight because they were disunited, if they unite and remember their strength and remember their unity, the Jews stand no chance. How did that pan Arabist idea die?
We destroyed it in tank battles in the desert. So we've already been through this cycle and we have to go through it again. And by the way, if we can't kill this Mukawama idea, this terrorism self sacrificial mass martyrdom terrorism ideas, it already doesn't stop in the Middle East. It's going to be exported everywhere because it works. It had better not work, and we're going to make sure it doesn't work.
Now. You already named the price, although I thank you, you priced it too high. You said the world has to get along without twenty percent of its oil supply for five years. In fact, substitutionary effect will take place. People will find alternative forms of energy. Shouty's already opened up their pipeline that they haven't used for years. You can build a pipeline from Saudi Arabia through Israel to the Mediterranean. It can. You can get the oil. It takes a year and a half to get the oil.
And in the meantime, I think the world will produce more. America can produce more, and some costs will go. I think it's worth it whatever it takes, and I think Trump might think it's worth it. Do you think the Israeli Do you think UAE and Saudi Arabia have come around to the fact we cannot live across the Strait from this fanatical, medieval, theological, crazy regime.
Before you know, from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty four, Iran took out something like twenty tankers in the Persian Golf and in the Tanker War, in the Irani Rock War, there were four years where hundreds of tankers in the Persian Golf were hit by this Ragis team.
This idea that every time it's in danger.
It shoots up the global oil supply. You want to live under that shadow.
I'll say more than that, the energy prices can be spiked at Iran's will, because it can start blowing things up. That is its one strategy. By the way, has no strategy. It has no air force that can fly, it has no navy that can sail. All it has is the ability to blow up somebody else's tankers. A more productive society and government's tankers. That's not any word of bad word against Persians. The Persian people are amazing. This regime can only destroy and only ever has. But I'll say
another thing. Iran sits on something like the third largest hydrocarbon reserve in the world. We keep talking about, well, what will happen to the cost of energy if Iran blows up tankers in the strait of promos. Why don't we have this conversation about what happens to the cost of energy if the Iranian oil and the Iranian gas enters the global market. Actually doesn't have sanctions on It isn't the plaything of grand empires. They're not trying to
constantly demolish entire nations and the police. But this unbelievably vast oil reserve comes onto the market naturally and builds up Iran and makes everybody's oil much cheaper. On the other side of this regime lies a much, much lower price of oil for everybody. That's also part of this conversation. We can only see the bad side, there's also a good side, and it's massive. So you know, you want to live in the shadow of a bullied trying to get a nuke that has already done this again and
again and again, go for it. I think that I can't afford to. It's told me this won't end until I'm dead. So here I am responding to somebody who told me I have nothing to lose. I submit that the world has vastly more to gain from this regime falling than they have to lose from this regime being in its death thrones.
After they fired whatever they had at Diego Garcia. Everybody in Western Europe should have figured that out. When we come back, I'm going to ask again the follow up, does the golf get it? And in fact, if the Golf gets it, can the coalition do what has to be done? Because the Iranian people are done with this too. They have thirty five thousand of them murdered in January, and I have to think they're done with this too. So the idea might already be dead, but a zombie
regime is a zombie regime. I'll be right back with Aviv ready Gore once again. You can foll him on exit and Viv Ready Gore. You can join his Patreon and you can read him at the Free Press where he's their Middle East correspondent station. Welcome back, America. You hewit with Aviv Reddy Gore. We're in week four of the war, Aviv, that is the war with Iran, that American's condent. We're going actually the thirtieth months of the war,
which began on ten to seven. Do you think the world will wake up and do what has to be done? And by the way, you hew it, not anybody else. Nobody's told me that think you have to destroy the oil infrastructure of Iran. You have to impoverish the nation and impoverish the IRGC, because they just keep pulling old IRGC guys out of retirement to put him in charge
of a regime. When Israel United States kills them, they've probably got a limited supply somewhere, but not for a long time, and they got to run out of hardliners. You fought in the Iraq Iran war for ten years, thirty five year years ago. They got a lot of those crazy people. So do you think the world's ready to do what has to be done, which is to blow up their ability to sustain their regime.
I mean the Europeans, absolutely not. Europe has willfully made itself completely dependent on Russian energy and on Persian Gulf energy, something that is not true of the United States. And Europe has disarmed itself of militaries and the ability to project power. And Europe is now at the mercy of everyone else, of the whims of various Middle Eastern powers and the United States and everybody else. And so they're
really very nervous and very angry and very upset. We're hearing, we're hearing interesting things from the Italian leadership, from the German leadership, and from the Japanese leadership. Ironically, eighty years ago the Axis powers and they get the great danger represented by the ideology that Iran leads and isn't this sole purveyor of leads in the Middle East, And they don't want this war to end with the regime intact.
They might not have anything to contribute in terms of toppling it, but they certainly are on the side of the Gulf States. They're on the side of Israel in this war, even if some of them, like the Italians, don't say so. Ironically, it is the allies of Europe, the French, the British, who are utterly unwilling to see the actual challenge posed by these ideas and the destructiveness of them to Iran and to the region and to the oil infrastructure of the world and all of that.
So I think the world understands. I'll put it really simple. If this regime survives this round of war.
That is okay.
That is okay.
I was asked in the twelve day war in June this exact same question. You bombed them for twelve days, you killed a bunch of generals, and here they are still picking.
Yeah, this is a long war. This is not the kind of war.
That is exactly catered to the schedule of your TikTok feed like. This is a long, serious confrontation between deep ideas and ways of life and ways of thinking about the world. And it will be decided in time. It will be decided in investment, in will, in a test of wills, and in sticking power.
And that remains true.
So we brought down this regime a few very large pegs, and the world might because of the energy prices pulled back. The United States might pull back. I don't ask Trump to lose the midterms for me. I don't think he's doing it for me. I think there are a thousand. But not living under the shadow of Iran's veto of shipping in the Strait of hor moves is reason enough to not have this regime rule for another twenty five years in that region. But nevertheless, he has given me
this great gift. It's a great gift to me, even if it wasn't specifically meant for me, and I don't have the right to ask for more.
But we will have another war. There's no other choice.
Iran will not stop fighting, will not stop demolishing nations, will not stop expanding.
Now, yesterday Israel called up four hundred thousand reservists. If I read my Israeli English line, which press correctly, what's that mean heavy, That's that's the whole shebang. That's everybody who can get called up.
Basically, it's uh, it's flexibility for the army. It's flexibility for the army, for Lebanon, for a longer term fight with Iran. It is Israel signaling a willingness to keep going at a very strong level and to escalate. One of the things that Professor Schiftan talks about is this idea of escalation dominance. You face an enemy, and the enemy he wants to escalate until you bow out, and
you want to escalate until they bow out. Well, whoever can escalate farthest wins, and so the ability to project the willingness to escalate is very much part of this more that's that's my sense of it. Four hundred thousand people were not called up. The army was given permission by the political echelon to begin to do that.
In terms of.
Logistics, which is which is mostly a signal.
Okay, it does it? Do you think it signals that the Lebanon south of Latani is going to be occupied on a more or less permanent basis thirty seconds to the break.
What we have heard from Israeli officials, it's a big question of how much of it is rhetoric and how much of it is actual policy. What we've heard from Israeli officials is we have to root out Chrisbelasbela.
Remains a threat. We will root it out until it is dead.
We can do this forever they claim they can, we can too, and we will hold south of the Litani until we have defeated them.
Instead of Hasbela.
Saying that about Israel back when Israel occupied southern Lebanon for eighteen years, like America's Afghanistan experience and then Israel left, now it's the opposite.
Chasbelah will never not.
Play the war against us, but we will hold that territory and hurt them until they are the ones wholieve.
One more segment with a vive ready gourd, don't go anywhere in America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewett. I want to thank you Vieve reddi Gore for a lot of time. I have a column coming out tomorrow. We have an ally in Israel that is really unique. We've never operated with an ally, even in World War Two, at this level of interoperability and command and control. So it's really an extraordinary point in military history.
And not many Americans know much about what the Israelis think of their point of view. And I list a few people and my Fox News call them tomorrow, including a viv about whom Americans ought to be aware and follow so they know what our ally is doing now, our allies politics matter a lot. The Khaki election. I don't know if you remember in nineteen hundred the English thought they'd won the Second World War. They hadn't, but they thought they'd won. So I think Lord Salisbury called
a snap election won more than four hundred seats. The poor Liberal Party got smashed. They were below two hundred seats because they have a really quick election in England. And you can do that when you think you've won a war. Can BB do that? I asked all this yesterday's no, no, no, it's going to be in October. What do you think.
We're going to find out very soon?
It depends on a very few people, and I don't like to predict what a very few people will do.
It's easier to.
Predict what one hundred million people will do. It's hard to predict what three people will do. The Knesset has to pass the budget by the end of the month, and they might pass an extension and give themselves a couple more weeks or something like that. But if they don't complete the budget process properly and all the different things, then the Kannesset is legally required to dissolve itself to snap elections, which happened ninety days later, so that would
be July. If they do pass that budget, then the elections will be at their regularly scheduled time in October. What's fascinating about that is that this would be one of the more hated governments or more divisive governments.
In the history of Israel, which.
Is, by the way, not unexpected after October seven. And it's also a much more polarized time than it was in many periods in Israel's passed. So I'm not even accusing of being somehow beyond the pale of although.
In some of the things they're doing, I'm extremely troubled.
But it would be even though it's one of the least liked governments, and even though it hasn't actually won in any poll that I know of since it was voted in in December twenty twenty two, it will be the first Israeli government in history to last its full term if they managed to pass a state budget.
Now, can they pass a state budget? I think so.
I think so because the ultra Orthodox are getting a lot of what they want, mainly a ton of money. The religious Zionist factions of the government are getting a lot of what they want again, mainly a ton of money, and everyone is getting enough that you know they're going to stick with it. As we get closer to election day, by the way, the various different right wing factions are all going to need to try to cannibalize each other's
voters because they have some overlapping constituencies. And that's a lot of the times leading up to Israeli elections, and this is true of many parliamentary systems where parties that are together in a coalition share many ias tend to then produce all kinds of artificial crises to have something to distinguish themselves to their bases as they enter the
election season. So it's not a big question whether the election is in July or August or October, but those are the kinds of structural things that we have to watch for to know.
It's the last question, and you've got three or four minutes on this one, so take your time. Natanyao has done a brilliant job in waging this long war. He got caught off by surprise, and he was wrong about a moss but he's done a great job waging this war, and he's got President Trump working with him. We're waging this war, and finally we've come to grips for the Iran over those guys that were run Finally. I'm seventy years old. I've been waiting for this for a long time.
I saw Ron fall into chaos on the couch with Richard Nixon and Zan Clementi as a writing member's staff in nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine and eighty, so I remember it very well. Do you think that matters to the average ars Israeli or are they just as likely to do what the English did in nineteen forty five and throw Churchill out after he was the only man who could have beaten the Nazis and dead, and nevertheless they threw him out because they were the English and they were tired of him.
I have to tell you a lot of Israelis who really appreciate it too on the war think that he has hurt them, betrayed them, and led them in bad directions on a host of domestic issues that have no saliens or residents that really are understood outside of Israel. For obvious reasons, how much does anyone else around the world understand America's healthcare debate?
Right, but elections can be about health and unemployment and.
Not about the big thing that the world cares about, like the Rock War twenty five years ago or whatever. So the answer, as the far as the polls tell us, is how does not his current coalition does not at this moment have a majority, It does not have a parliamentary victory, and it.
Hasn't any poll.
Now, somebody will find me one poll by right wing polster. I'll take that back. I'm not saying there literally isn't one, but I follow the polls very closely, and certainly none of the mainstream ones over time. Does that mean that the opposition has a victory. We don't see a clear path. We're talking about an election between you know, sixteen parties, of which eleven will make it in roughly give or take.
That's how it works.
So it's always a kind of chaos math to try and figure out that path. But a lot a lot of Israelis say things like, and it's now the.
Trigger on Iran.
That was terrifying, that was scary, that took guts.
We didn't know that Iran would not respond competently if it had responded much war come.
You didn't was, yeah, you didn't know that.
It could have been two thousand ballistic misses on Tel Aviv. It could Tel Aviv could have been on fire. And he knew the potential cost. He also knows the cost of letting Iran continue to develop, letting this regime produce the capabilities it wants to produce. The Chinese where literally they signed in agreement a month before the war to hand Iran it's supersonic missiles. You know what that would
have done to the strait of Hormones. An American aircraft carrier could have been taken easily by an Iranian gunboat. I mean, we're talking about an upgrading of their capabilities
that we have stopped. And so Nittagnell pulled the trigger and made that absolutely terrifying decision on every domestic policy issue that I care about, that my kids' lives depend on on this massive welfare state over in the ultra Orthodox community that is larger, they get more per capita, and they get incentivized not to work in a vast scale, something like fifty percent of their men don't work at all, and the ones who do work tend to be low
earners because their education system is a separate education system that doesn't teach math in English after fourth grade.
Now, Israel is not a hydrocarbon power.
Yeah, it has some natural gas reserves right now, but not compared to Middle Eastern levels.
And that's very recent.
All we have built we have built with human talent. We have built with the simple fact that the Israel invests more in R and D than any other nation on Earth per capita. It is the number one on earth. Is That is what we are. That is our strength, that is our power. Now, I'm a big fan of religious education. I'm the son of a rabbi. I have podcast episodes about holidays and diving into the Jewish religious bookshelf.
I'm a huge fan of religion.
Ditto Christianity.
I am a big thing.
You've got to work that doesn't need to get them not working, and movie tolate it. And if he has expanded that there was a law passed this week this week by this kind asset, when everybody else is hunkering down in bomb shelters, when people are losing jobs because businesses are closed, this kind of set passed. The law that expands the powers is a redemicult course.
I get it. Yeah, good on the war, bad on everything else. Have they writing Door, I will check back with you in a few weeks. I greatly appreciate your time today, very illuminating as always Episode ninety nine Friends. I asked to be of anything to me too,