Schrödinger's War w/ Hunger the Dye Merchant: Ep. 464

med card. But in all seriousness, right, you have, shall we say, some experience with Lebanon and Lebanese culture, and obviously that has become much more relevant due to the ongoing war in Iran, so or war with Iran, I guess. So before we get into the kind of history of this, if you could. Could you just explain what is going on in Lebanon right now, right why has this become a front of a war, extensibly with Iran, which you know, look,

I'm an American, I'm not great at geography. But Iran and Lebanon are you know they're different countries right?

a lot of experience in the Middle East. I've lived in the Middle East for quite a number of years, so I'm coming to this from that kind of background of I am ethnically Lebanese. I have been in America for a very very long time. I am American citizen and I still go back. I still visit and I've been there many many times. I used to live there for quite some time. But the situation that's going on right now is seriously not good, not good in any way,

shape or form. Like Lebanon has been in a downward spiral pretty much since COVID and probably a little bit before COVID. Pretty much since twenty nineteen. Lebanon has been in like a real downward spiral, and like nothing hasn't gotten better. The rate of inflation is absolutely insane. The

currency hyper inflated. This is this is what's funny. The currency hyper inflated in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one to the point where, like it wasn't Germany, you know, barrels I mean like wheel barrels of dollars, but it might as well have happened that way. Ninety percent of the population lost almost all their savings, almost like literally almost all their savings the banks. There was a run on the banks, no one could get their money out, there

were capital controls. It was just really fucked up the way the economics have played out, and how the banking system collapsed after COVID, I mean before COVID and continuing through COVID. So it was Lebanon was already not in a good place. Lebanon is a very diverse country, not ethnically, but diverse religiously. It's a third Christian, well, actually probably at this point it's like twenty five thirty percent Christian. It used to be a third. It's probably it's probably

less than that. It's probably twenty five percent right now. It is a third Shia Muslim, which is the same religion as Iran. It's also a third Sunny Muslim, which is the same as you know, the rest of the Arab world, like Saudi Arabia. And it's like ten percent Drews. And nobody knows what the Jews are. I mean they're they're important, but like they're for the for the sake of this conversation, they're not irrelevant esoteric ethno secretary and religious sect.

esoteric lore. It's not it's not relevant to the purpose of this conversation. So, yeah, Lebanon has not been in a good place. It's a very divided country religiously, and this has caused a lot of problems. There is basically an enormous sectarian oligar key. Every religion in the country Christian, Sunni, Shia Drews has their own faction and everything that this how do I say? This results in the government basically being non functional. It's basically a failed state and all

but name, like nothing works. The country doesn't have twenty four hour electricity, like people have own private generators to meet like a half of their electricity demands. There's they don't have twenty four hour running water. They have private water companies that supply half of the water in the entire country. Because the state might as well not exist. It's literally a failed state and all but name beautiful country,

an incredible society. Like this is like I say all this, but like it's not Somalia, like it's people do have capital, people do have wealth. It's more like Brazil in that sense.

show then happened over the past many years. You know, Lebanon was being bombed by Israel in twenty twenty four, Lebanon was being bombed by Israel during the Twelve Day War. So that's a very big reason. The other big reason is because a third of the Lebanese population is Shia Muslim, which is the same religion as i Ran. I should probably explain why that's the case, Like the Iranians view the Shia Lebanese the same way as the Americans view

the Israelis. In some in some sense, there is actually a conspiracy theory among the secular liberal Iranians that, like the Iranian government is controlled by the Lebanese mafia or the Lebanese lobby, you know, in all and all but name, this is a similar relationship that America has to Israel

that Iran has to Lebanon and particularly the Shia. I mean, the Iranians don't care about the Sundays, the Aaranians don't care about the Christians for better, for better or worse, but they absolutely care about the leban Asia the same way that Americans care about the Israelis. And the reason for that is actually it's actually it goes much deeper into the history then you probably think that in the sixteenth century, you know, all the way back then, Shia

Muslims in Lebanon and Iraq were imported to Iran. I mean Iran was already Iran was already Shia. But the ideology of these Lebanese and Iraqi clerics was used by the Safavid Empire. The Safavid Empire was the was like one of the great Persian empires, like we we remember ancient Persia, like the a Kaemenids, the Sasanians, we remember those.

But after the Muslim conquests, like Iran was occupied. Iran was occupied and conquered for centuries, and the nation the great Persian empire that sprung out and like reconquered all that land and like liberated the Persians more or less, was a Shiite Islamic empire known as the Safavids and the Saphavid government, and the emperor is Maiel. Yeah, I believe. I believe it's emperor is May. He imported these Lebanese and Iraqi clerics and they taught the state ideology of Islam.

And the two pillars of you know, the Safavid Empire were the emperor, the Shaw as we know it today, the Shaw is the emperor. The two pillars of the state were the Shaw and the clerics, the Mullahs. So this relationship between the Lebanese and the Iraqis and the Persians, even though they're different, they're ethnically different. Like Persians are not Arabs. Any Persian will tell you that if you

just asked them, Persians are not Arabs. But the Lebanese in the Iraqi Shia literally intermarried so thoroughly into the clerical class, the Mola class, that they're basically indistinguishable at this point, and that class of Mola's is what's running Iran today. And this is why it's important to Iran. This is a This is the special relationship that the Lebanese and the Iranians have, the Shia Lebanese and the Iranians have, so.

Was it immediately? Was it something that was slowly walked into because I think, like a lot of people, I primarily became aware of it once it became a sort of contentious part of the negotiations for this sort of like abortive forty eight hour cease fire whatever we're technically in. It's a very bizarre situation on that front. But when did violence pick back up in Lebanon?

fight the Israelis, you know, in southern Lebanon. So Lebanon has always been a front against Israel, willingly or unwillingly at many times, many many times. But the particular Iranian element came into existence after the Islamic Revolution in nineteen seventy nine, when the Iranians you know, overthrew the Shaw, the pro Western Shaw. The Mola class was you know, elevated.

The Mola class was running the entire, the entire show, and Ayatola Holmeni and all of these other clerics that had intermarried with the Shia, Lebanese started sending money and weapons to local Shiites in the region and in particularly Lebanon. This led in the early eighties to the creation of the group we know today as Hesbela. Hezbelah was born basically born in nineteen eighty two as a reaction to the nineteen eighty two Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Israel invades

Lebanon in nineteen eighty two. There are many reasons why they invaded. It's a very, very long story. I am not going to go into the huge topic of the Lebanese Civil War. That's just a huge topic in and of itself. But Israel invades Lebanon in nineteen eighty two and occupies half the country. Half of that half of that country is where all the sites of Lebanon lived. So the Lebanese sites were living under the oppression of the Israelis and the Iranians who had intermarried with them.

And I mean like Hassan Nosrolla, who was the most recent leader of Hezbolah before he was assassinated two years ago. I believe a son is married to the daughter of Ayatodahamani. So like this interimarriage has existed for a very very long time, like these people intermarry each other all the time, because this is the clerical class, and the clerics in Iran, you know, are very religious extremists, and so are the Shiahs. So Israel invades Lebanon in nineteen eighty two, it is

a very brutal and bloody invasion. It is a very brutal and bloody occupation. Israel occupies southern Lebanon for twenty years from nineteen seventy eight. There was an early invasion in nineteen seventy eight. Again many, many such reasons. I'm not going to get into the whole Lebanese Civil war. Israel invade southern Lebanon nineteen seventy eight, They occupy half the country in nineteen eighty two, and they occupy southern

Lebanon for twenty two years. Under that time, a large percentage of the Lebanese sites were living under Israeli occupation. And this was the well that has blood drew upon. With Iranian funding, Iranian you know, secret services, Iranian special forces, Iranian training, Iranian technology, all of these things were transferred to their cousins in Lebanon to fight this war and to resist the occupation. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in the year two thousand. You know, was that a good decision

on their part? I don't know. But Israel withdrew from Lebanon in the year two thousand, but the struggle of the resistance was kept alive. Because Lebanon is a failed state. The army is not big. The national army, I should say, then, national Army of Lebanon. We do have a national army that is separate from HESBLA. These are not the same, These are not the same thing at all. Is incredibly weak,

incredibly outdated. We do have some really cool, some really really good special forces that have trained with like US Marines and Green Berets. But this is not a This is not a real national army. It is a militarized police force. This is not a real conventional army. There's nothing the Lebanese army could do to stop the Israelis or fight the Israelis. It's just like, this is just

the reality. So Hesbelah not being a national army, not being bound by the laws of states, being a militia group could use asymmetric war to defend Lebanon, but also more importantly to advance the interests of Iran visa the Israel. There was another war between Hesbela and Israel in two thousand and six. There have been clashes. I mean, Israel again again invaded Lebanon in twenty twenty four. It bombed Lebanon in twenty twenty five during the Twelve Day War.

It is currently invading and bombing Lebanon now in the all of this war, and it is Hezbolah versus Israel, this militant Shia group that was founded by extremist Chia Muslims to drive the Israelis out of occupied Lebanon and gets all of its funding and weapons and and tech and you know intel from Mother Iran. I guess you could say this is still going on to this day and Israel is still invading Lebanon. It's the ceasefire after you know, after Israel broke the ceasefire, it literally bombed

the entire country, especially Bari was hit particularly hard. You know, hundreds of people died, I mean like over like a couple thousand people were injured and needed like blood donations. It was it was just terrible. But after that you know, after that bombing run Israel kind of Israel basically promised the Americans like, Okay, we're going to stop bombing Beiruts, you know, the capital city, but we're not going to

stop our invasion. The invasion is still happening right now, and the only people resisting the invasion right now are Hesbela.

with the Rand now we like Israel. Now. Of course, you know, I'm saying that in sort of a deliberately absurd way, but it's not far off from Indian al sis. You'll read. So do you think there's anything to that? Right?

live there, and it's just like it's incredibly depressing. It is so incredibly depressing that it drives people to emigrant. It really really drives people to leave and give up because the situation is so hopeless and there is no solution. Shit, even before the war, like, even before this war started, the situation was hope and there was no solution. No one believed Lebanon was gonna like turn around and fix itself. Like in many ways, it's much off. It's much worse

off than Brazil in many many ways. The political problems are so intractable that like it literally just causes you know, people to blackpill get into gambling, do reckless things and just I don't know, like deaths of despair and just just emigrate. Just emigrate. There's a reason my parents emigrated. There's a reason millions of Lebanese have emigrated because the situation there is absolutely it's just an absolute shit show there is I really, I know that's I know you're

trying to how do I say? I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. But those detractors are not wrong. The sunny Muslims of Lebanon despise Hesbla and despise the sites for many legitimate and also some illegitimate reasons. This is totally justified in their mind. They would rather side with Israel temporarily temporarily to defeat Hesbula than fight alongside Shia heretics. They are heretics in their opinion against Israel.

This is like, there are groups in Lebanon trying to use this war with Israel to weaken Hesbelah because Hesbela is the top dog in the Lebanese political system. It is the only group in Lebanon allowed to basically maintain its own militia. It is basically the only only group in Lebanon that is like has access to I don't know, like continental ballistic missiles. I mean not continental ballistic missiles, but I mean high tech high tech weaponry, like high

tech anti ship missiles. They do have anti ship missiles, high tech drones, high tech any kind of missile you want under the sun, like Hesbela has access to this, but no other faction of you know, the very religiously diverse Lebanon does. They are the only They're the only one that has the real monopoly on force and no one else does. And this causes huge disincentives because the country is such a shit show. I really hate talking about this, but there are groups in Lebanon. The Christians

are split. There are some Christians that support has Belah. There are many Christians that don't support Hasbelah. I don't go I don't choose a side one way of another. I am not I am not a big fan of Hesbela. But if you had to, if you put a gun to my head and ask me, like would you rather be occupied by Israel or occupied by the Sahites, like I choose the Sahites, okay, And it can't stand. That's just that's just my personal opinion. Many people in Lebanon

have a different opinion. They want to use the Israelis as a battering ram against their domestic political opponents, which are hes below. So that that is completely true in the on that front hunger.

on this point. I don't really know what is happening because very very early, of course, you have this bizarre situation where it seems as if there was either a miscommunication or just simple incompetence on behalf of the Pakistanis that led to a significant misunderstanding in what the terms of this ceasefire will really were and weren't. And while we're talking about things that are both true and not true, obviously se candarily there is the idea of well, is

the strait of horror moves open or not? Right? It seems as if currently it's very unclear what is actually happening.

guess government statement with a enormous grain of salt. But you know, I'm not I'm I'm less interested in what's happening now like is like is like, this is Schrodinger's straight this is Schrodinger's cease fire, Like nobody fucking knows what the hell is going on. I'm much more interested in how this happened because from all the indications I can tell, was that Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff completely

torpedoed the potential for a deal with Iran. I think there has I think there's plenty of evidence, plenty of evidence I've seen to suggest this. The Omanis who are mediating, who are mediating the talks before the Pakistanis, the British who were also there at the negotiations with the Omanis, between the Americans and the Iranians, just they all confirm

that there was a deal on the table. We had a very workable framework and needed a little bit more time, but both sides basically agreed to like eighty to ninety percent on all the issues, and then Trump launched the war about you know a week later, you have you heard similar things, because that's what I've heard, and I think that is totally accurate with the facts.

us into it. You have others more cynically basically saying like, no, this all goes back to, you know, effectively, just Trump's slavish devotion to Israel. He wasn't forced at all. This is what he wanted to do. And again, speaking about the incredibly polluted media landscape on this, there's so much narrative lying around, even compared to the Ukraine War, which was another situation where it felt as if there was absolutely no ability to tell what was going on. It's

it's very, very difficult to tell. But I mean that doesn't surprise me. I didn't know that, right, but I mean, just based off of what we have seen and our relative relationship to the state of Israel, I mean, I'm not shocked by that.

October seventh. And like, I think the world has changed so much before October seventh, And like the way I see the way the things I see happening now in the Persian Gulf, in the military situation on the ground is that no one has learned anything from Russia Ukraine. Nobody has learned anything except the Iranians. The Iranians have learned a lot from Russia and Ukraine, but no one else has The Americans especially have not, The Gulf States

have not. Israel definitely has not, and that is shown by their lack of success in dealing with Hesbela and Lebanon, like Hesbula is not. So this goes into something I really really really want to talk about, and it's the concept of like what is a win? Like what is a win? What is the purpose? Like what does a win look like? And people get really I see a lot of cope from people on the pro Iran side, and I have many friends who who don't oppose the war.

I'll say, I'll say that diplomatically. I know many people in personal life that don't oppose the war and now support the president and support our military. I absolutely support our military. That's fine. But the argument of like what is like we're winning. The argument is we're winning because we're bombing this, we're bombing that, this thing blew up. Oh you know the like just et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and fill in the blank with whatever you want.

It's like, blowing things up is not victory, Like what is the like, what is the purpose of war? The purpose of wars to achieve victory? What is victory. Victory in war is when you compel the enemy to do your will. It's when you get the enemy to do things you want. This is why we have treaties, This is why we have unconditional surrender. This is why we have negotiations. We want you to do X, and we will do why if you If you do not do what we want, we will want you to. We want

you to open the straight. If you don't open the straight, we will bomb your power plants. So if you cannot achieve getting the enemy to do what you want, you are not winning the war. This is extremely simple, and I just I don't I some people have a problem with this and have this simplified thinking of like we just blew up a lot of stuff, therefore we're winning well.

indicate that we're winning. It seems that if we were winning, we would be the ones arguing for more that we wanted, right instead of this situation before we started bombing you know, children's schools.

have objectives. There are reasons we go to war, Like when the enemy stops fighting you, that is victory. When you cannot get the enemy to do something you want, that is a loss. Like this is very like this is very simple stuff like like' there's tons of books on military theory. I have only read some, but this is basic things like blowing things up in the Middle East and crashing the world economy needs to have a purpose, it needs to achieve something, and this is just what

this is just what really upsets me. I'm sorry, I'm getting I'm sorry to rant, but please please hop in. Oh no, not at all.

for fairly obvious reasons. Now we're in this sort of bizarre situation where the US is blockading the straight of horror moves, uh, which is I'll be honest, it's not a good thing to happen, but it is kind of funny, like, how dare you blockade the straight I'll blockade it back. It's incredibly bizarre, and I think that that is what

personally has really made me emotional. Right, Why I talk about this less than perhaps I could if I were looking to, you know, optimize for the algorithm, because at the point at which our own leaders seem to not

be entirely sure why we are doing this. It becomes harder and harder to claim that we are the ones in charge, right, that we are the ones calling the shot, because you know, if this is something that we wanted to do, and we did it, even for an evil, bad reason, well we certainly could have come up with at least some fig leaf, right, at least some you know,

reason why. And the fact that the reason why has come out, you know, several weeks into this, uh, it makes it very clear really why we are doing this. And you know, I don't want to be characterized as a conspiracy theorist, but at the point where I don't know the Secretary of State is implying that we did this on behalf of a foreign power, I think that that is a reasonable conclusion to come to.

Now is your chance. This is what he said. In week one and week two there there was talk about arming the Kurds and starting a civil war in Iran. And week three after the missile strikes, then you know the shenanigans in the straight week three. In week four we get into the talk of the blockade, and we get into the talk of the street. After week one and two had field, you know, the Iranians didn't rise up.

The Kurds were in no position to start a civil war or march on the government or do anything that. They were just no position to do that. So Ever, since then, we've been on the focus on the street because none of our our real objectives in this war are not American objectives. They are Israeli objectives. And everyone knows this. The strategy America is following is not an American strategy. It is an Israeli strategy, which is why Israel is fighting all of these wars because they have

a strategy. Their strategy is not complicated, it's pretty easy to understand. But us being a part of that strategy and not having our own reasons to do it is a huge I don't know, like it, where's the sovereignty Like It's like a nation that has sovereignty doesn't do this, a nation that has sovereignty doesn't follow the strategy of another state like that. That is just laiantly obvious. The Israeli strategy, it's pretty it's pretty simple. We all know it.

It's not it's not complicated. It's that they want the Americans to overthrow the regime in Iran. How does this benefit America. That's up for debate. I'm not going to get into I'm not going to get into that debate,

but it definitely it definitely benefits the Israelis. Definitely benefits the Israelis because you're cutting off the head of the snake, which is how and Yahoo always speaks about Iran that all of these militia groups like the hu Thies, like Hasibulah, like Hummas, if you cut off Iran, all of these other groups will disintegrate. I don't believe that to be true, but there's at least that's at least that at least makes sense, that that makes a ton of strategic sense.

And because Israel is so small and Iran is so are away they can't do it themselves, no matter how no matter how much how much air power Israel has, it's never gonna take Iran. It's never going to overthrow the government there. It's just not it just doesn't have the resources. It's not possible. It's too small, it's too far away. So the strategy that Israel is having is very clear, but that's not our strategy. That's not the American strategy. And that's why nothing here makes sense.

you know, accurate analysis. Well, if we're taking orders, if we're being strong armed, it's like, well, okay, clearly great. On a curve, America is more sovereign than you know, probably a nation like Trinidad and Tobago. You know, I don't want to insult the Trinidadians listening to this, but

I feel like I am safe in that assertion. But on another level, and I think this is particularly interesting because as a longtime observer of the sort of former liberals in the conservative world right who tend to be quite Zionist, it's interesting. Okay, yeah, I wasn't gonna say

his name, but that's who I meant. You know, there's some other people there too, Shapiro, I guess he was not a former liberal, but that wing right, the the neo neocons, if you will, Because one of the questions that drove those people into an apoplectic rage is the

question of well, who is an American right? Because obviously, if you have this idea of America first, you know, the idea that the purpose of a country is to exist as a home for those people, you know, like not quite nationalism, but at least you know, kind of kissing cousins, well, obviously the question becomes, well who counts right,

who's in the box and who isn't. And I think it's interesting that many of those same people, I mean, hell, A good example is, you know, Glenn Beck seemingly view the purpose of America not as a home for Americans, but it's sort of a booster rocket, right, a battery for this Middle Eastern democracy, quote unquote. And by the way, not everyone says that, but Glenn Beck quite literally did say that, right, that the purpose of America was to establish the state of Israel. And you know, my personal

opinions on Abrahamic religions aside, I don't think that's true. Right, Seemingly the purpose of well, my nation is to be a home for my people, and the consequences have been dramatic.

astonishingly unpopular. One. You have just the raw approval numbers, so Trump is underwater with white non college attending voters for the first time ever, right, it was something like a forty point slump since he started his presidency. But even across the board, if we're just looking at purely support for Israel again is creatoring absolutely crater. Right. So these numbers, I believe are ms Now's formerly MSNBC, So of course they're not likely to be kind to the president,

but you know, take it for what you will. So, for instance, the net favorability of Israel for Republicans under fifty now, I mentioned earlier talking about Shapiro that this number is even more dramatic for Republican men under fifty. But this is just the pure men and women both. So in twenty twenty two Israel plus twenty eight right now, for scant years later, it's negative sixteen. And this is

ostensibly in the core supporting demographic. Among all men under age fifty, it went from negative three to negative forty seven approval Moderate Democrats went from plus three to minus fifty five. Now, Americans overwhelmingly after the shall we say the Unpleasantness in October swung from plus twelve for Israelis to plus twelve for Palestinians or negative eleven for Israelis.

Although I assume there's someone who in that conflict feels the worst for I don't know the Lebanese, but point is, in all seriousness, right, this is an apocalyptic explosion of domestic political capital. This is going very, very poorly. And look, I realize it, Hunger, You and I are in a bubble, a group of people who, compared to the average person, care much much more about foreign policy than the guy

down the street. But you don't really have to know a lot about foreign policy to realize you're kind of getting screwed. To realize that they make America great again, well, it turns out that only really applied to you if you were a boomer guy with a tiny hat better even if you're a combination of both. And this divide, particularly in the conservative world, is raging. I'm sure, Hunger, you remember the big blow up at Heritage where the

conclusion was basically, get rid of anyone under forty. They're probably a groper. You must be a groper because you wouldn't go to Shabbat dinner. Well, okay, that one blew up,

that one got big, that one hit the press. The same thing is happening everywhere, the same thing is happening across conservative institutions and by and large culture writ large, and so one hundred percent right college Republicans, maybe the Young Republicans right, which it turns out I didn't realize this that Young Republicans is under forty, which you know, look like we're kind of stretching the definition there, But point is right. We see this fight over and over

and over again. And look, this war would be unpopular even if we did it all on our own because it's hitting people at the gas pumps. It seems to be the Trump administration giving up on the domestic fight, giving up on the list of promises to break one right, four and mores. That would be bad enough. But when you throw in the fact that this war is tied at the hip to a country that, as I intimated earlier, is becoming less and less popular, well what do you

think was gonna happen? And to your point earlier about you know, the scenes from Beirut, Like, I'll be honest, man, like I am not. I am not Lebanese. I've never been to Lebanon. I will probably never go to Lebanon. So I'm not going to pretend to be biased other than I like you. You know, we hang out every once in a while, but you know, I've met people from all across the world. But very fundamentally, the insult to injury, the fact that you know, people like me are being screwed,

that you know, the economy is very very bad. Fact that we're fighting a war on behalf of other people is that we are not only fighting that war people like me are dying on behalf of I don't know someone else, but also the actual fighting in that war has been brutish and nasty, right, even by the standards of modern war. You you have an unarmed ship coming back from a naval exercise being blown up, the first submarine

kill in decades. You have an accidental and I truly do hope and pray that it was accidental strike on the you know, Iranian girls school, which killed what one hundred and twenty six You have you know, the strikes on be route right civilian centers, and then also at the same time, it seems as if the atrocities have ratcheted up back in Gaza, right, they're using this as air cover And sorry, Hunger, I realized this is supposed to be an interview show, and you've got me on

like a twenty minute rant anyway, But I want to fit this point. And when you have allegedly American commentariat, you know, people like Alan Dershowitz, people like Ben Shapiro Prize at the end, if you can figure out what they have in common, well they'll tell you, Well, you're part of the grievance party. You're basically woke. You know,

you're just like the blue haired feminist. If you think that there is something objectionable about living in a country with no sovereignty, you know people like you being blown up or blowing up other people who've never really done anything wrong to you. And I don't say this as a piece nick, I don't say this as someone who's opposed to war conceptually that understands that. You know, modern

wars are dangerous things, they're nasty things. But when it's done on behalf of someone else, when it is being done instead of something that would actually affect you, that would make your life better, Well, forgive me if I don't find the claim that I am woke for objecting to that to be particularly strong.

makes sense. That's a reason that makes sense. But that's not what we're being told. There are some cope answers that this is to hurt China. I don't believe that for a second, but I China. Israel is very agnostic on China. I don't think that has anything to do with the situation. Like another thing that people say is that, you know, we've only lost what thirteen service members? Was it? Like? It might be a little more than that. I can't.

I don't know. I don't know the exact number of American true we've lost, but I think the last number I saw was thirteen. So I'll just go with that, like, oh, that's so little. Oh we lost you know, we lost thousands of guys in Iraq, in Afghanistan, which which is totally true. Over twenty years, we lost was it six thousand troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over twenty years. Yeah, so like, okay, thirteen in a month, Like that's not good,

but like that's nothing in comparison. But like I said, the only question of that matter's like, Okay, what was it for? Why did we lose those thirteen guys to achieve? To achieve what to achieve Schrodinger's blockade, to achieve Schrodinger's cease fire, to achieve the status quote. If a goal is to achieve the status quote, then those thirteen guys died in vain. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say that, And I really I love the American military. I know plenty of guys who served. We both know plenty of

guys who've served or have served in the military. Like that is so depressing to think about.

start a war in the first place. So what you've lost, those lives, you've lost, they are the sunk cost. You've already you know, ended those lives, and now you're going to end more to just sort of get back to where we started. And if it's a defensive war, fair enough, right, if you're trying to push someone back to a frontier they've invaded, then that's perhaps laudable and would would make sense. You know, they're sure a status quo ante in that sense.

of twenty million lives. Like that is understandable. Like the number is tragic, the number is horrifying, But that makes sense, just in a purely amoral military calculation.

it was an accident. I'm sorry, And okay, I understand again, right, it was near a military base. That's a horrible accident. I can understand that, and I even understand that there is in war there's a foggy element to it, and that there can't be perfect transparency. But when the lies get more and more completely outrageous, right where it's like, oh, uh, well the uh, I guess the the new Ayatola he's

he's gay. You're like, all right, guys, really like, I mean maybe, and I understand that that term has a different a different conception in that area of the world. I'm not trying to be rude about that. But you know, I mean, just look at I don't know Fuco. You know, he certainly had opinions on that. I believe it was Fuca, wasn't it with the Iranian Revolution? I don't know. Anyway, I'm not trying to impugne the Persians here, but yes, yes,

But to me, that's just like it's flagrant bs. We see that sort of lying constantly and when not only are we in this sort of bizarre subordinate position, but also our efforts at negotiating an end to this, at getting a deal are constantly being hampered by an erstwhile ally right lead Iranian negotiators being assassinated, you know, blown

up along with his wife in Pakistan. Well, even this whole ceasefire to begin with, where you know, we're like, all right, great, awesome, we did it, and then wait a minute, Israel starts effectively, you know, bombing civilian centers in other nations that you know, obviously Lebanon, like, wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be our greatest ally because seemingly we're you know, not on the same page.

We've decided to do something as on paper, the majority partner, right, the guy with all the stuff the guy who doesn't stop existing, you know, if they just pack up and go home.

they probably see it, and we're trapped. We are trapped. We are tied to the hip at the Israelis. They are going to keep us tied to the hip. And you see this in the media, you see this, how you see how Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin talk about this.

We are trapped in this terrible marriage with the Israelis and they're not gonna let us leave, no matter how much we want to exit the Iranian you know, conflict, how much we try to make a deal, Well, they are doing everything in their power to sabotage that from happening.

Israelis and we will accept. Iran is not winning this war in the sense that they are killing more of our guys than we are of theirs, but they are winning in the sense that they have they've got something new right control of the strait of horror moves, and we have lost something big, namely control of the state of horror moves. And as well, it seems as if we have also lost a massive amount of legitimacy. Okay, sure we didn't do a full on World War II

style mobilization. I'm glad of that, although who knows. Every time I check the mail and always you know, at least slightly relieved that there isn't a draft notice in it, But that matters. We've squandered social capital on the international stage as well, and because of that, there's understandably a desire to make that even you know, like, Okay, well maybe we got off to a bad start, but we really showed them in the end. We still got it. We're still top dog. So hunger. As we sort of

wrap this up, where do you see this going? Where do you see this developing? Right? Where does the war go from here?

is no stop, there's no breaks on that train. Literally all of the you know, capital of the APAC lobby and the State of Israel is being used to conduct this war like Israel has already. Israel has always been the most hated country on Earth for a very long time. Ever since the Cult War, I should say, ever since the end of the Cult War, I should say Israel's the most hated country on earth. They don't have capital

with anybody. The only thing they have left is the control of the institutions that matter, and that's diminishing as well. Because this situation is not sustainable, then that's what that's what changed. After October seventh, Evans reveal to all of us in the world that this situation is not sustainable, that something has to give, and the Israelis are willing to die by the sword to make that, to secure a future for their children, to use a famous phrase.

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