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[00:00:01] Hello and welcome to State of Play on
[00:00:04] Mint Press News. I'm your host, Greg
[00:00:06] Stoker, and I'm coming to you from
[00:00:07] Chicago where I'm hosting a Palestine
[00:00:10] benefit show tomorrow on the 4th of July
[00:00:12] called Antif. So, I'm forced to record
[00:00:15] from one of my buddies rehearsal
[00:00:16] studios. And so, we've got some
[00:00:19] decorations going on, which Mint Press
[00:00:22] News does not in any capacity endorse.
[00:00:25] But the news cycle has been racing along
[00:00:28] with its customary insanity uh from
[00:00:30] Trump's big beautiful bill uh which will
[00:00:34] turn ICE
[00:00:36] into one of the most wellunded
[00:00:37] militaries on the planet. So that's fun
[00:00:39] to this Gaza ceasefire smoke and mirrors
[00:00:42] deal. And that is what we are going to
[00:00:44] be focusing on in this episode.
[00:00:45] Palestine and other developments within
[00:00:48] the region. And to that end, we are
[00:00:50] joined by Robert Inlakesh, a political
[00:00:52] analyst, journalist, and documentary
[00:00:54] filmmaker. He has reported from and
[00:00:56] lived in the occupied Palestinian
[00:00:57] territories and has worked for RT,
[00:00:59] Middle East, Eye, the New Arab, Memo,
[00:01:02] Mint Press News, Al-Mayaden, English,
[00:01:04] TRT World, and various other media
[00:01:06] outlets. Currently a staff writer at
[00:01:08] Mint Press News. Thanks so much for
[00:01:10] coming on to just do the do the regional
[00:01:12] roundt. Thanks for having me. Yeah, the
[00:01:15] the news cycle is kind of insane. It's
[00:01:17] hard to keep up with it uh both
[00:01:19] domestically and in terms of foreign
[00:01:21] policy as the uh Iran drama continues to
[00:01:25] play out. And boy, do we have some
[00:01:26] things to discuss. We are apparently
[00:01:30] maybe going to send Israel its own set
[00:01:33] of B2 bombers to strike Iran on our
[00:01:36] behalf. But anyways, so I guess we
[00:01:39] should begin this episode by addressing
[00:01:41] the bombshell associated press expose
[00:01:44] from yesterday about American military
[00:01:47] contractors, aka mercenaries. Uh that's
[00:01:50] just the uh diluted language we use.
[00:01:52] They're mercenaries uh firing upon
[00:01:54] Palestinians that at aid distribution
[00:01:57] centers. If you're not tracking what's
[00:01:59] happening with the Gaza Humanitarian
[00:02:01] Foundation, here's a brief Al Jazer
[00:02:03] primer for what is going on, just to
[00:02:06] catch you guys up to speed.
[00:02:09] The AP says the first of its kind video
[00:02:12] was leaked by two US contractors working
[00:02:15] at GHF sites. They say they've been
[00:02:18] disturbed by the dangerous and
[00:02:20] irresponsible practices they've seen.
[00:02:24] The contractors say bullets, stun
[00:02:26] grenades, and pepper spray were used at
[00:02:28] nearly every distribution, even if there
[00:02:31] was no threat.
[00:02:35] One contractor said bullets were fired
[00:02:37] in all directions, at times towards
[00:02:39] hungry and desperate Palestinians. They
[00:02:42] also said security staff hired to work
[00:02:44] at the sites were often unqualified,
[00:02:47] unvetted, heavily armed, and appear to
[00:02:49] have an open license to do as they wish.
[00:02:53] Gotfloor.
[00:02:55] One of the videos obtained by the AP
[00:02:57] shows what appear to be heavily armed
[00:03:00] security guards discussing how to clear
[00:03:04] Palestinians. I think you hit one.
[00:03:11] At least 15 gunshots can be heard. One
[00:03:14] contractor AP spoke to said security
[00:03:17] staff fired in the direction of
[00:03:18] Palestinians walking away from the aid
[00:03:21] distribution site.
[00:03:24] The AP says audio analysis of this video
[00:03:27] indicates the machine gunfire came from
[00:03:30] within 150 m of the camera and the
[00:03:33] Palestinians who had come there
[00:03:35] desperate for food. And of course the
[00:03:38] IDF positions were further away than 150
[00:03:41] m from the aid distribution sites. So
[00:03:43] kind of insane. I talked about like this
[00:03:45] was this was bound to happen. It
[00:03:46] attracts a certain type of people. Uh,
[00:03:48] and just uh before I get your take on
[00:03:50] this, Robert, I just wanted to give some
[00:03:52] context. The Gaza Humanitarian
[00:03:54] Foundation, GHF, is an American
[00:03:57] organization based in Delaware,
[00:03:59] established in February of this year to
[00:04:02] distribute humanitarian aid during the
[00:04:05] ongoing genocide. Uh, formerly led by
[00:04:09] executive director Jake Wood until his
[00:04:11] re resignation on the 25th of May. It
[00:04:14] has been it has the backing of the Trump
[00:04:16] administration and the Israeli
[00:04:18] government. It has been criticized by
[00:04:19] the United Nations and humanitarian
[00:04:21] groups for politicizing aid distribution
[00:04:24] obviously with wellestablished
[00:04:26] humanitarian groups saying the GHF is
[00:04:28] giving cover for Israel to pursue its
[00:04:30] aims to depopulate Palestinians from the
[00:04:33] Gaza Strip. and its former head, the guy
[00:04:36] Jake Woods, a former uh Marine sniper,
[00:04:40] resigned um questioning the group's
[00:04:44] impartiality and neut uh neutrality upon
[00:04:47] his resignation. And it's now run by
[00:04:49] Johnny Moore, an American evangelical
[00:04:52] leader and businessman who founded the
[00:04:54] Chyros Company, a public relations firm.
[00:04:56] He's a commissioner for the United
[00:04:58] States Commission on International
[00:04:59] Religious Freedom and co-founder and
[00:05:01] president of the Congress of Christian
[00:05:03] Leaders. In June 2025, he was appointed
[00:05:05] the executive chairman of the Gaza
[00:05:07] Humanitarian Foundation. And yes, he has
[00:05:10] attended prayer meetings in the White
[00:05:12] House, of course. Uh before we expand to
[00:05:14] the wider region, I I like in your
[00:05:17] estimation, what and we've talked about
[00:05:19] this before on the show, what is the
[00:05:21] purpose of US contractors on the ground
[00:05:23] in Gaza? Well, them personally, they're
[00:05:26] obviously making a buck out of it, and
[00:05:29] it's something for them to do. Um so the
[00:05:32] private military contractors themselves
[00:05:33] are motivated by money and perhaps maybe
[00:05:36] some of them bloodlust as well uh as
[00:05:38] we've seen demonstrated in that video.
[00:05:41] Uh but the organization itself was an
[00:05:43] Israeli project. It's been admitted
[00:05:45] admitted as such um in the Israeli
[00:05:48] Knesset. Um and Lieberman and others
[00:05:52] have uh openly said that this is a
[00:05:54] project that was funded by the Israelis
[00:05:57] to begin with. Um and of course the
[00:06:00] whole point of this was to collapse
[00:06:02] UNROA which is the uh UN agency for
[00:06:06] dealing with Palestinian refugees which
[00:06:09] also happens to register Palestinian
[00:06:11] refugees. The Israelis banned it. They
[00:06:13] released this uh fraudulent document
[00:06:17] with various claims about UNROA and then
[00:06:20] have made other claims since which
[00:06:22] they've never proven. Um and when these
[00:06:24] documents were assessed uh by the media
[00:06:28] ultimately they were uh shown to be uh
[00:06:33] presenting information with no uh proof
[00:06:35] for their claims. So they wanted to
[00:06:37] destroy UNWA which registers Palestinian
[00:06:40] refugees. So on one hand you get out of
[00:06:43] the whole uh right of return because if
[00:06:46] you can disband UNRA then there's nobody
[00:06:48] registering the refugees. So you don't
[00:06:50] have a refugee pro population anymore.
[00:06:52] Uh and then uh of course they wanted to
[00:06:55] control the influx of aid into the Gaza
[00:06:58] Strip both for the Israeli domestic
[00:07:00] audience that opposes uh a vast portion
[00:07:03] of the Israeli population which opposes
[00:07:06] allowing such aid into the Gaza Strip
[00:07:08] and then also as well for the wider
[00:07:10] plans of uh their genocide, their war,
[00:07:14] which ultimately is ethnically cleansing
[00:07:16] the population, of course, which they've
[00:07:18] proven incapable of doing so far. uh but
[00:07:20] by eliminating uh hundreds and thousands
[00:07:23] of different aid points and and sites
[00:07:26] and the distribution methods uh which
[00:07:28] were carried out by humanity genuine
[00:07:31] humanitarian organizations uh they've
[00:07:34] essentially controlled it and then on
[00:07:36] top of that as well another thing that
[00:07:38] it's opened the door for is this militia
[00:07:41] group which is led by uh a man named
[00:07:44] Yaser Abu Shabbab. This militia group
[00:07:47] has links to ISIS. This is something
[00:07:49] that has been openly admitted by the
[00:07:51] Israelis. Uh again, even Netanyahu
[00:07:54] acknowledged this uh where these thugs,
[00:07:58] criminals, drug traffickers
[00:08:01] uh and hardline salifists who have links
[00:08:03] to not only ISIS but al-Qaeda, the
[00:08:06] al-Qaeda affiliates which Hamas was
[00:08:09] fighting uh during its rule in the Gaza
[00:08:12] Strip and were looting aid before are
[00:08:16] now equipped with Israeli weapons,
[00:08:18] tactical vests, helmets, and are
[00:08:22] presented as a grassroots resistance to
[00:08:24] Hamas essentially so that they can do
[00:08:26] the dirty work of the Israeli military
[00:08:28] that doesn't want to go and uh do
[00:08:31] certain operations on the ground because
[00:08:33] of how costly it is to their soldiers.
[00:08:35] And then of course as well they're
[00:08:36] they've participated in securing the aid
[00:08:39] transfers. Um so it all ties into this
[00:08:43] this is a dirty game. Um it's making
[00:08:46] revenue for these contractors at the
[00:08:48] very least. um privatizing uh food
[00:08:52] distribution during a genocide. Um and
[00:08:55] over 600 people have been killed by
[00:08:57] Israeli forces and I suspect some of
[00:08:59] them by the Gaza Humanitarian
[00:09:00] Foundation's private military
[00:09:02] contractors as well. Um so this is a
[00:09:05] very very dirty tactic. Um and there's a
[00:09:09] reason why the United Nations would
[00:09:11] never get behind it. why uh around 160
[00:09:15] NOS's have condemned it because it's a
[00:09:19] death trap. Uh just the other day uh a
[00:09:22] member of uh my wife's family uh went to
[00:09:26] go and collect aid uh and he was shot
[00:09:28] dead uh by the Israelis. Uh at least we
[00:09:32] think the bullets came from uh the
[00:09:33] Israelis. Uh so this is happening every
[00:09:36] single day. The Israelis are luring uh
[00:09:39] Palestinians towards small amounts of
[00:09:42] food that they can collect uh so that
[00:09:44] they can essentially pick them off and
[00:09:46] shoot them and kill them uh like it's a
[00:09:48] sport shooting fish in a barrel.
[00:09:52] Yeah. Um so just just to highlight
[00:09:55] definitely say like yes uh the US
[00:09:57] employs contractors heavily especially
[00:09:59] for security operations. So like uh
[00:10:02] during the global war on terror in Iraq
[00:10:04] and Afghanistan, a lot of the base
[00:10:06] security was actually not done by
[00:10:08] soldiers and marines. It was done by
[00:10:10] private military contractors. Uh it
[00:10:14] there's a lot of reasons for it. One of
[00:10:16] the one of the biggest reasons under the
[00:10:18] capitalist economic system is it makes a
[00:10:21] few people a lot of money and it's
[00:10:24] inextricably tied to the Israeli
[00:10:25] government and it's inextricably tied to
[00:10:28] the evangelical corps within the United
[00:10:31] States and the White House. Uh so yeah,
[00:10:34] and of course Trump has been talking
[00:10:36] about and this this was happening under
[00:10:38] the Biden administration too with
[00:10:40] Democratic officials as well talking
[00:10:41] about privatizing security operations
[00:10:44] and aid distributions within the Gaza
[00:10:46] Strip as you pointed out to uh undercut
[00:10:49] ENRA which not only deals with uh
[00:10:52] Palestinians in Palestine but also
[00:10:54] within the it's a connective tissue with
[00:10:56] the actual diaspora outside of Palestine
[00:11:00] as well. So they they've been wanting to
[00:11:01] get rid of that forever. So if they can
[00:11:03] privatize aid, all the better. Um, yeah.
[00:11:06] So I think
[00:11:08] after this like ground groundbreaking
[00:11:11] expose, do you think it's going to
[00:11:14] change anything? No, I unfortunately I
[00:11:17] don't. We've had so many of these
[00:11:18] groundbreaking exposees
[00:11:21] uh on everything you could imagine uh
[00:11:23] from Israel's uh rape dungeons, it's a
[00:11:26] teamman detention facility. Uh, of
[00:11:29] course we know that there was a infamous
[00:11:32] case of gang rape and even there were
[00:11:34] portions of the Israeli right-wing which
[00:11:36] protested uh in favor of the right to
[00:11:40] gang rape Palestinian prisoners who are
[00:11:42] taken without a charge. By the way, they
[00:11:44] they call them Hamas terrorists, but
[00:11:46] these people are taken from Gaza without
[00:11:48] a charge and they are put into these
[00:11:51] detention facilities and there is mass
[00:11:53] sexual uh abuse uh not just to the males
[00:11:57] population in those detention facilities
[00:11:59] but also the women. Um so I I think that
[00:12:02] after everything we've seen,
[00:12:03] unfortunately, I don't think it's going
[00:12:05] to impact what Israel's policy is or
[00:12:09] United States policy. Um you know there
[00:12:13] I anticipate them expanding the GHF
[00:12:16] program uh potentially or or if it
[00:12:18] becomes too toxic like politically like
[00:12:21] Blackwater, they'll just rebrand. You
[00:12:23] know, Blackwater became Z, which then
[00:12:25] had to had another scandal in Africa.
[00:12:28] So, they had to rebrand to Academy. And
[00:12:31] Academy actually is what is are the
[00:12:33] contractors who approached me after I
[00:12:35] was getting out of special operations.
[00:12:37] Uh $300,000 to do sketchy stuff in the
[00:12:40] global south. I went to college instead,
[00:12:42] but I do know some people within the
[00:12:44] defense contracting world. And one of my
[00:12:46] friends, um, who's on the pro Palestine
[00:12:49] spectrum, although complicated politics
[00:12:52] being a defense contractor in that, uh,
[00:12:54] yeah, he applied for a GHF just to see
[00:12:56] what happened, what would happen. And he
[00:12:58] was a former Marine infantryman, but he
[00:13:01] said didn't have the qualifications
[00:13:03] because he wasn't like in special
[00:13:05] operations when he was in the service.
[00:13:08] It's like, well, okay, I was in special
[00:13:09] operations. We have zero zero experience
[00:13:12] in any sort of humanitarian missions. So
[00:13:15] this is basically just thuggery goon
[00:13:17] squad terrorism that's privatized uh in
[00:13:21] my opinion and within more enlight
[00:13:24] politically enlightened people within
[00:13:26] the defense circles as well. Uh yeah no
[00:13:28] it won't change anything. It's it's
[00:13:31] obviously driven largely by ideology.
[00:13:34] you know, we've we've got the Israeli
[00:13:36] backing alongside the Christian
[00:13:38] evangelical court. So, that's just going
[00:13:41] to uh continue. Just wanted to call that
[00:13:43] out and uh basically discuss what the
[00:13:46] purpose behind those contractors were.
[00:13:48] Now, moving on, we have another promise,
[00:13:52] potential promise of a ceasefire in
[00:13:56] Gaza. Could you lay out where that where
[00:13:59] that stands right now? Trump has said,
[00:14:01] you know, he wants a ceasefire before
[00:14:03] Netanyahu, who is scheduled to come to
[00:14:06] Washington DC next week to have a 60-day
[00:14:09] ceasefire.
[00:14:11] Well, I I'm always hesitant to comment
[00:14:14] one way or another about all of these
[00:14:15] ceasefire efforts. We've heard this for
[00:14:17] the past 21 months now that there's a
[00:14:20] ceasefire on Christmas. There's going to
[00:14:22] be a ceasefire within the next week.
[00:14:24] There's going to be a ceasefire for
[00:14:26] Ramadan. There's going to be a ceasefire
[00:14:27] for Easter. there's going to we always
[00:14:29] hear this stuff. I think it boils down
[00:14:32] to what's the strategic benefit for the
[00:14:34] United States and the Israelis. Um and
[00:14:36] then you have to look to the wider
[00:14:37] region in my opinion. Um perhaps you
[00:14:41] know the war is getting quite costly for
[00:14:43] the Israelis in terms of the public
[00:14:44] opinion after uh the 12-day war with
[00:14:47] Iran. Although the Israeli uh polls
[00:14:50] suggested that Netanyahu's stock had
[00:14:52] gone up and his popularity had
[00:14:54] increased, the desire for the war to end
[00:14:58] in Gaza increased massively. Um and this
[00:15:01] was also combined with a series of
[00:15:05] operations by the Gasam brigades of
[00:15:08] Hamas uh that killed quite a
[00:15:12] considerable by the Israeli standards a
[00:15:14] number of their soldiers. And so the
[00:15:16] pressure poured in, the Israeli
[00:15:18] population overwhelmingly favors a
[00:15:20] ceasefire. And they also overwhelmingly
[00:15:22] fa favor most of all a prisoner exchange
[00:15:25] so they can continue to get the
[00:15:27] remaining uh Israeli prisoners that are
[00:15:29] held inside Gaza out. So there is that
[00:15:32] element. So there has to be at least
[00:15:34] theater on the uh Netanyahu government
[00:15:38] side to sort of quench the first of the
[00:15:41] Israeli population for that. Um, but at
[00:15:44] the same time, uh, it nothing is
[00:15:47] guaranteed here. If it's going to be a
[00:15:49] 60-day ceasefire, well, we have this
[00:15:51] before. We had this phased ceasefire
[00:15:53] approach and then Israel just broke it
[00:15:56] unilaterally. They just said, well, one
[00:15:59] day, no, we're just going to start
[00:16:00] bombing Gaza again and it all fell to
[00:16:04] the floor. There was nothing to show for
[00:16:06] it. So the the whole idea that this
[00:16:10] could hold, I don't know how there is
[00:16:14] anyone to safeguard it. What do we trust
[00:16:16] to enforce it? The Trump administration
[00:16:18] that told Iran uh that it was in
[00:16:22] discussions with them uh over the
[00:16:24] nuclear file and then green lit an
[00:16:26] Israeli attack on Iran. uh the same
[00:16:29] Trump administration that said that
[00:16:31] there was a ceasefire when he came into
[00:16:33] office um and then just let it fall
[00:16:35] through and allowed the Israelis uh he
[00:16:39] went Trump has gone further than Biden.
[00:16:41] Uh Biden at least allowed trickles of
[00:16:43] aid to come in. Uh Trump allowed them to
[00:16:46] do a full blockade on all food and
[00:16:50] humanitarian goods for around three
[00:16:53] months. So, uh it's it's something that
[00:16:57] uh to try and predict whether this will
[00:17:00] work or not is very difficult.
[00:17:02] Obviously, the people of Gaza long for
[00:17:04] it. Um the Israeli population now is in
[00:17:07] favor of it. Um but whether it will
[00:17:10] happen is another thing. And then you've
[00:17:12] got the these obstacles in the way like
[00:17:15] Issamar Bengavir and Bizmatri.
[00:17:17] So even if theoretically
[00:17:21] uh the uh the Israeli government
[00:17:23] Netanyahu wants this and he goes ahead
[00:17:26] with it uh and for the next 5 months at
[00:17:30] least he can't have a vote of no
[00:17:32] confidence against him because one just
[00:17:34] failed prior to the war on Iran, he will
[00:17:38] still have to face elections eventually.
[00:17:40] And if he loses his coalition partners,
[00:17:43] then uh it's going to be very difficult
[00:17:45] for him to form a coalition. And then
[00:17:47] obviously he's got his corruption trial
[00:17:49] ongoing as well, which was postponed. Um
[00:17:54] a lot of analysts think under pressure
[00:17:56] from the Trump administration. You know,
[00:17:58] uh conducting foreign policy via Truth
[00:18:01] Social demanded that the uh the Israeli
[00:18:04] government stop his witch its witch hunt
[00:18:06] against Benjamin Netanyahu.
[00:18:07] That's a really important consideration
[00:18:09] seeing that he gets a lot of his power
[00:18:11] base from these far-right ministers that
[00:18:14] he's beholden to. And yeah, I did see
[00:18:15] the headline yesterday that uh Smootrich
[00:18:17] and Ben Gabir might um dynamo dynamic
[00:18:21] duo their way into finding a way to stop
[00:18:23] the hostage uh deal because they they
[00:18:26] don't want a ceasefire. They don't even
[00:18:27] want the hostages back. Like from their
[00:18:29] perspective, they've been the biggest
[00:18:30] political liability over the past uh two
[00:18:34] years. So uh yeah also um well we we can
[00:18:38] talk about ceasefires in general. Uh I I
[00:18:40] think it's very clear that the Iran US
[00:18:45] uh or Israel ceasefire happened mostly
[00:18:48] because u Israel was running out of uh
[00:18:52] interception munitions and they don't
[00:18:54] have a very high tolerance threshold. uh
[00:18:57] they don't the country itself doesn't
[00:18:59] have a lot of strategic depth uh in
[00:19:01] terms of like uh tactically like
[00:19:04] standoff distance between front line
[00:19:06] their front lines and their industrial
[00:19:08] centers uh their one I I don't know uh
[00:19:13] securing element was this promise that
[00:19:16] the Iron Dome and that this integrated
[00:19:18] air defense system would be able to
[00:19:20] protect them and when we talk about
[00:19:21] integrated air defense systems like we
[00:19:23] talking about like US naval destroyers
[00:19:27] intercepting Iranian rockets in the
[00:19:30] Persian around the Persian Gulf. Then
[00:19:32] over Iraqi airspace, then the Jordanian
[00:19:35] batteries and fighters doing it as well.
[00:19:37] And then they finally get to Israel
[00:19:40] who's is uh who's also getting air
[00:19:42] defense support from Cyprus and other
[00:19:45] naval assets in the m Mediterranean. And
[00:19:49] well, it didn't work. You know, it
[00:19:52] really it didn't work. And so uh I I
[00:19:54] think it was a bad PR stunt and I can't
[00:19:57] stress how devastating it is at least
[00:19:59] strategically for a country like Israel
[00:20:02] who uh you know basically
[00:20:05] is kept safe by this idea of their
[00:20:07] deterrence capacity you know u their
[00:20:10] ability to destroy defeat any military
[00:20:12] within the region. The MSAD knows what
[00:20:14] you had for breakfast. Well that was
[00:20:16] kind of shattered during this last
[00:20:17] distance conflict with Iran. Um, so
[00:20:20] that's why the ceasefire happened and we
[00:20:22] were thinking uh initially that we they
[00:20:25] would refocus on Gaza. Um, and this is
[00:20:29] why I I mistrust uh any like ceasefire
[00:20:33] predictions uh because based off of what
[00:20:37] we can uh take it like the ceasefire
[00:20:40] deal is basically just political
[00:20:41] theater. It strings people along in the
[00:20:44] same way the two-state solution strings
[00:20:46] people along like you know we're
[00:20:48] eventually going to like fix this
[00:20:50] situation and change is going to come.
[00:20:52] Meanwhile, they're conducting their
[00:20:53] purge of the Gaza Strip under the
[00:20:56] political cover of the promise the uh
[00:20:59] yeah the always elusive promise of a
[00:21:01] ceasefire. And and that's exactly it.
[00:21:04] This is it's political theater because
[00:21:06] you have to uh please the domestic
[00:21:09] Israeli audience if you're in the
[00:21:10] Israeli government. And then also
[00:21:12] there's an element of it in tricking the
[00:21:14] opposition. You want to try and uh trick
[00:21:18] uh Hamas or Hezblah or Iran. Uh and to
[00:21:23] that point recently the Washington
[00:21:25] Institute for Near East Policy um held a
[00:21:30] uh conference a press conference a u a
[00:21:33] panel where they hosted Michael Herzog
[00:21:37] who was the former Israeli ambassador to
[00:21:39] the United States. And something that I
[00:21:42] found very interesting about it, not
[00:21:44] only was uh there an admission from
[00:21:47] Herzog that the decision to strike Iran
[00:21:51] was actually taken back in November of
[00:21:54] last year. Uh which was when he was
[00:21:56] still in uh in office in in in the
[00:22:00] government. Um he's now since you know
[00:22:03] uh stepped down. Uh he's not the
[00:22:05] ambassador here anymore. But when he was
[00:22:08] in that position, he said that decision
[00:22:10] was made. And he also said something
[00:22:12] that was very important, I think, to
[00:22:14] this entire conversation. And I think it
[00:22:17] has a large element of truth to it. He
[00:22:20] said that Iran and Hezbollah
[00:22:23] misunderstood Israel entirely and their
[00:22:26] intentions entirely. He said post
[00:22:29] October 7, I'm paraphrasing him now, but
[00:22:31] this is pretty much what he said, post
[00:22:33] October 7, Israel is a totally different
[00:22:36] country. and they will and their goals
[00:22:39] after October 7 was to basically crush
[00:22:43] the entire of the entirety of the
[00:22:45] Iranian-led axis of resistance and he
[00:22:47] said this quite openly. He said the
[00:22:49] Iranians completely misread the
[00:22:51] situation and that's what led to what we
[00:22:53] saw. And in fact, I think what we saw on
[00:22:56] the ground and the actions from both
[00:22:58] Hispa and the Iranians indicated that
[00:23:01] there was some sort of misreading u
[00:23:03] because they were approaching it from
[00:23:06] the standpoint of wanting this, you
[00:23:09] know, uh a strategic escalation here and
[00:23:12] there and containing the situation.
[00:23:14] Whereas the Israelis viewed October 7 as
[00:23:18] an existential threat to their very
[00:23:20] existence. In fact, I've said this for a
[00:23:22] while that Israel, what was Israel
[00:23:25] before, October 7, no longer exists.
[00:23:28] There isn't an Israel today anymore.
[00:23:30] There is currently a an entity which is
[00:23:33] trying to def redefine itself that
[00:23:36] cannot even define its borders at this
[00:23:38] time. It it is seeking to expand in in a
[00:23:41] variety of ways. It is seeking uh to
[00:23:43] defeat all of its opposition in the
[00:23:46] entirety of the region and crush them.
[00:23:48] It's seeking to answer the Palestinian
[00:23:50] question both in the Gaza Strip and in
[00:23:52] the West Bank. Um and they wanted to
[00:23:55] find what sort of state they are. And
[00:23:57] this these were questions which were
[00:23:59] already there under the surface and were
[00:24:02] brewing before October 7 when Netanyahu
[00:24:04] came into office with the whole uh
[00:24:07] judicial overhaul uh question uh and the
[00:24:11] rise of these uh religious nationalists
[00:24:15] that wanted to according to the Israeli
[00:24:18] u many of the Israeli rights groups and
[00:24:21] people in the opposition to Judaize the
[00:24:23] Israeli government. So what we're
[00:24:26] dealing with now is an Israeli
[00:24:27] government that does want total victory.
[00:24:30] I don't think it's lying when it when
[00:24:31] Netanyahu says total victory on his
[00:24:34] sevenfront war. But the I think it was
[00:24:37] interpreted wrong that this war could
[00:24:39] close. And I think the ceasefire talks
[00:24:42] and the whole, you know, posturing and
[00:24:44] and throughout the Biden administration
[00:24:47] about, oh, there's going to be a
[00:24:48] ceasefire here. We're working to do
[00:24:50] this. We're working to do that. And
[00:24:51] there's guarantees. Was all a ruse. so
[00:24:54] that Iran would interpret this situation
[00:24:58] or continue to interpret the situation
[00:25:00] uh as something that could close that
[00:25:03] this could be an end to the round of
[00:25:04] hostilities. uh but that's not what we
[00:25:07] saw and in fact when uh the Israelis
[00:25:10] assassinated Fawad Shukr who was one of
[00:25:13] the heads of the Hisbala military wing
[00:25:15] and is
[00:25:18] in only hours later the response that
[00:25:21] came from his very very very
[00:25:25] uh limited and I think it in my own
[00:25:28] reading of it and I I'd said it at the
[00:25:30] time I think that was the moment when
[00:25:33] Israel decided okay it's safe now to go
[00:25:35] ahead had with the uh assassinations of
[00:25:39] senior leadership including say Hassan
[00:25:41] Masallah and the pager attack that they
[00:25:43] had there waiting uh to uh to to
[00:25:47] detonate on uh the Lebanese people. Um
[00:25:51] and now of course they view the
[00:25:53] situation as open season to attack Iran.
[00:25:56] Going back to WEUP, and I know I've sort
[00:25:57] of harveed this point a lot. Going back
[00:26:00] to WEUP, the Washington Institute for
[00:26:02] Near East Policy, if you read what
[00:26:03] they're now saying about Iran, it's very
[00:26:06] interesting. They're they're advocating,
[00:26:08] they're saying if if negotiations fail
[00:26:11] and the negotiations are set up to fail
[00:26:13] because the conditions are non-starters
[00:26:15] for Iran, then the US will have to use
[00:26:17] force again. That's what they're
[00:26:19] advocating for now. They're saying that
[00:26:20] there will have to be another round of
[00:26:22] strikes against Iran. And they're also
[00:26:25] saying Robert Satloff who's a senior uh
[00:26:29] uh like let's say official um at WEAP um
[00:26:34] he's one of the heads of WEAP. He said
[00:26:36] that the this the whole environment has
[00:26:39] changed now. It's basically the US and
[00:26:41] Israeli strikes open the way for future
[00:26:45] attacks on Iran. Um, and so when we're
[00:26:48] talking about the Gaza ceasefire, to
[00:26:49] just round this up, I believe that if
[00:26:52] there's going to be a Gaza ceasefire,
[00:26:54] the purpose of that will be taking the
[00:26:56] Gaza front out of this war, at least
[00:26:58] temporarily, to focus on Iran. Um, I
[00:27:02] personally don't see this war as closed.
[00:27:04] I don't think the Iranians see it as
[00:27:05] closed. The Israelis most certainly do
[00:27:08] not. Um, so the war with Iran is
[00:27:10] ongoing. We're just in a lull where
[00:27:12] there's some, you know, operations with
[00:27:14] drones and stuff like that inside of
[00:27:16] Iran now. Um, nothing major. Um, but I
[00:27:20] believe there'll be another round um in
[00:27:22] the future. There there absolutely will
[00:27:24] be another round in the future. Uh, I I
[00:27:26] don't think that anybody within the
[00:27:28] defense space thought that uh Iranian
[00:27:31] missiles would be able to
[00:27:34] achieve that amount of target
[00:27:35] devastation. Um, you know, we we did see
[00:27:39] kind of soft launches with Operation
[00:27:40] True Promise 2, them putting rounds on
[00:27:43] target into Natavam Air Force Base, but
[00:27:46] um, yeah, I think the Israelis uh,
[00:27:48] underestimated the Iranian uh, lack of
[00:27:51] restraint, we could call it that. Uh,
[00:27:54] obviously it was very measured. Uh, but
[00:27:56] they they hit some targets, defense
[00:27:58] targets, uh, some logistical targets. Uh
[00:28:02] and it basically just showed that you
[00:28:04] know if they really opened up this front
[00:28:06] uh they could start hitting water
[00:28:07] desalination facilities, power plants,
[00:28:10] make uh life unlivable for the Israeli
[00:28:12] citizens which they don't have any
[00:28:14] tolerance for austerity economies and
[00:28:16] lack of uh you know uh modern amenities
[00:28:20] unlike the Iranian people who have
[00:28:21] existed under sanctions since the
[00:28:23] revolution. Uh so yeah, that that was
[00:28:25] part of it. Also, um, we hadn't, we
[00:28:29] being the United States hadn't tested
[00:28:31] those massive ordinance penetrators out
[00:28:33] before on an actual live target, and I
[00:28:36] think they were waiting on an assessment
[00:28:38] to see like what that would look like
[00:28:41] going forward if they were to repeat
[00:28:42] these strikes and dismantle the Iranian
[00:28:46] nuclear program. But this this war is
[00:28:47] not over, okay? We need to we need to
[00:28:49] consider
[00:28:51] um in a larger the larger picture of
[00:28:54] United States regime change operations.
[00:28:58] You know, this war is not going to be
[00:28:59] over anytime soon because look at Libya.
[00:29:03] Look at Syria. We bombed them, kept them
[00:29:05] under sanctions for like 14 years. And
[00:29:08] that is what a lot of people in these
[00:29:10] defense circles, these Iran hawk circles
[00:29:12] are thinking. you know, we're where even
[00:29:15] within Israel itself, within their own
[00:29:18] think tank apparatus, they're talking
[00:29:19] about partition, regime collapse, if you
[00:29:23] can't like change it to a pro- west,
[00:29:25] pro-NATO uh force, you know, you just
[00:29:28] collapse the entire country like Libya,
[00:29:30] have it uh you know uh interethnic civil
[00:29:33] wars, stuff like that. So, uh, and then
[00:29:35] Israel Catz, the defense minister, like
[00:29:38] last week said, "Yeah, we were, uh, we
[00:29:40] were trying to, uh, assassinate Kamani,
[00:29:42] the Supreme Leader, but we just couldn't
[00:29:44] get to him." And when I said that on TRT
[00:29:46] World, uh, right before the Israeli
[00:29:48] strikes, I was talking to the anchor and
[00:29:50] he was like shocked. He's like, "Wait,
[00:29:51] you mean to say that the US and Israel
[00:29:53] will try to take out the Supreme?" like
[00:29:55] yeah obviously they they they did a soft
[00:29:58] launch with Nasalla who was a civic
[00:30:00] leader and you know now they've kind of
[00:30:02] normalized it because they we've proven
[00:30:04] that whatever Israel does if you want to
[00:30:06] politically assassinate the leader of
[00:30:08] another country openly and claim credit
[00:30:10] for it well we can do that now and so
[00:30:12] there was an idea with the strikes that
[00:30:14] you know once once they hit a few
[00:30:17] targets killed a few leaders that the
[00:30:19] Iranian people would rise up you know
[00:30:22] and and of course like the CIA has has
[00:30:26] cultivated uh the Iranian monarchist
[00:30:29] diaspora for decades and so they they
[00:30:32] put out all their freaking thing uh
[00:30:35] propagandists uh mobilized them to talk
[00:30:38] about regime change but that's just
[00:30:39] there it kind of backfired and I
[00:30:42] absolutely understand the echochamber
[00:30:45] thinking because I existed in it u when
[00:30:47] I was doing like intelligence stuff and
[00:30:49] joined special operations command um
[00:30:51] when you only engage with people and
[00:30:54] ideas that reinforce what you want to
[00:30:56] believe that oh yes we can actually
[00:30:57] collapse Iran just like that then you'll
[00:31:00] go for it and so there was kind of an
[00:31:02] assessment I believe this is my own
[00:31:04] personal analysis that a a lot of these
[00:31:06] hawks who will not give up on regime
[00:31:09] collapse in Iran were kind of
[00:31:13] stunned that how unsuccessful this was
[00:31:18] and it like it shows because if you were
[00:31:21] to read what they were saying in the
[00:31:22] think tanks and this is why I would lean
[00:31:23] towards to your assessment here.
[00:31:25] Obviously, you know better from the
[00:31:26] inside um you know what the thinking is
[00:31:29] there in those uh echo chambers, but if
[00:31:32] you read what the think tanks were
[00:31:34] writing u prior to the leadup to the
[00:31:36] war, the Heritage Foundation, WEAP,
[00:31:38] Foundation for Defense of Democracies,
[00:31:40] even the Atlantic Council, um but
[00:31:42] obviously the Heritage Foundation, WEAP
[00:31:44] and FTD have higher more influence over
[00:31:46] Trump um uh than they did in the Biden
[00:31:51] days even um especially Heritage
[00:31:54] Foundation. They were all talking about
[00:31:55] Iran is on its last feet and it's a, you
[00:31:58] know, it's so weak and its allies are
[00:32:00] weak and Hzbalah is done and all the
[00:32:03] Iranian air defenses were wiped out in
[00:32:05] Israel's small attack late last year and
[00:32:08] they all repeat this propaganda and then
[00:32:11] when Israel launched its attack, I mean,
[00:32:13] a few things surprised me because I'd
[00:32:15] written about this and sort of predicted
[00:32:17] what Israel might try and do. I thought
[00:32:19] they might try and go after the IRGC
[00:32:21] leadership. I'd written about that for
[00:32:23] about a month that they would try and do
[00:32:25] that along with the nuclear sites. What
[00:32:26] I didn't predict was that they would so
[00:32:29] brazenly go after civilian areas because
[00:32:33] the Iranian public for one if you if the
[00:32:36] Iranian government was to launch a war
[00:32:38] against Israel that's one thing but when
[00:32:40] Iran is attacked there's a large
[00:32:43] appetite for retaliation even amongst
[00:32:45] the most hardline even sha supporters
[00:32:48] still inside you know the more
[00:32:50] prosperous areas of that exist even some
[00:32:53] of those types when they saw those
[00:32:55] images the Israeli first attack hit
[00:32:57] residential buildings. There were these
[00:32:59] photos and videos of like a toddler
[00:33:02] laying on the ground in covered in like
[00:33:04] rubble and um and like a a woman a
[00:33:07] mother trapped underneath rubble with
[00:33:09] her children. These images didn't go
[00:33:12] away. And what it did is it made the
[00:33:13] Iranian public instead of go well we're
[00:33:15] going to revolution now like the Sha's
[00:33:18] the deposed Sha's son says the Iranian
[00:33:21] regime is collapsing and apparently it
[00:33:22] collapses more and more every single
[00:33:24] day. he didn't trigger even a single
[00:33:26] protest with his calls to do a
[00:33:28] revolution. Um, and the reason for this
[00:33:30] is clear because they attack civilian
[00:33:32] areas and they I don't know how they
[00:33:34] believe it, but it must be these echo
[00:33:36] chambers that they think that if you
[00:33:39] kill civilians in central Tahan, um,
[00:33:42] that somehow the Iranian people are
[00:33:43] going to rise up in your favor and going
[00:33:45] to listen to Netanyahu now and because
[00:33:48] of like a portion a large portion of the
[00:33:50] diaspora, the Iranian diaspora, uh,
[00:33:52] hating the government and supporting the
[00:33:54] Sha and there's also MEK supporters and
[00:33:56] stuff that that somehow represents a
[00:33:58] population inside of Iran of like 92 93
[00:34:01] million people uh throughout the
[00:34:03] country. I mean it's just delusional. So
[00:34:06] then the surprise number one was the way
[00:34:08] the Israelis attacked which obviously
[00:34:10] triggered this outrage amongst the
[00:34:12] Iranian population whether they hated
[00:34:14] the government or they love the
[00:34:15] government and were willing to die for
[00:34:16] it. They all rallied around the flag in
[00:34:19] an unprecedented way. Then you had this
[00:34:22] the second big surprise because I was
[00:34:24] speaking to a lot of people at the time
[00:34:25] and they were like wait for two to five
[00:34:27] days Iran after this strike if if it was
[00:34:30] u if it was successful at taking out
[00:34:32] this decapitation strike taking out the
[00:34:34] IRGC leadership and what we see wait for
[00:34:36] a few days Iran's going to take a few
[00:34:38] days to get back on its feet in 15 hours
[00:34:41] they launched this this massive attack.
[00:34:43] I didn't expect them to hit central Tel
[00:34:46] Aviv and hit the Kirya and and go after
[00:34:48] these big targets in in central because
[00:34:51] they wanted to demonstrate power. So
[00:34:53] they went after strategic targets in
[00:34:55] central Tel Aviv where I remember
[00:34:57] watching it live on Elmead when it first
[00:34:59] happened and I was stunned because even
[00:35:02] like I didn't think the Iranians would
[00:35:04] go after those sort of targets. I
[00:35:06] thought maybe they hit air bases and and
[00:35:08] the likes and then maybe they'd
[00:35:10] escalated over a period of time uh to
[00:35:12] you know some infrastructure targets or
[00:35:14] something like that um depending upon
[00:35:17] what Israel does. But it shocked me like
[00:35:19] the ferocity with which Iran struck back
[00:35:22] and how quickly they struck back. Then
[00:35:24] they got their air defenses back online
[00:35:26] all within 15 hours and replaced all of
[00:35:28] their senior leadership all within 15
[00:35:31] hours which I like, you know, as
[00:35:34] somebody who was pushing back against
[00:35:36] the propaganda of Iran's air defense
[00:35:38] systems were destroyed and Iran is weak
[00:35:40] and it can't do anything and it doesn't
[00:35:42] have missiles left and all of the things
[00:35:43] that were said, I never imagined that
[00:35:46] they would hit back so hard so quickly
[00:35:48] um and change the the the course of the
[00:35:51] battle like that. Um and and I think it
[00:35:55] it it obviously came as a shock to the
[00:35:56] Israelis. I don't think they were
[00:35:58] expecting that sort of uh a retaliation
[00:36:01] so quickly. Uh but just before I finish
[00:36:04] that point at the start when Israel
[00:36:07] first carried out its uh series of
[00:36:09] assassination strikes, uh Israeli media
[00:36:11] were talking about citing military
[00:36:13] sources that we achieved in Iran in six
[00:36:16] minutes what it took us a week to
[00:36:18] achieve uh with Hezbollah in Lebanon. if
[00:36:21] the strike s succeeded. So evidently, if
[00:36:24] that is the thinking to assume that that
[00:36:26] those quotes were true from Israeli
[00:36:28] officials and that that was the
[00:36:30] thinking, they thought that Iran would
[00:36:33] sort of uh fall down in the way that
[00:36:36] Hezbollah did or at least adopt like a
[00:36:39] very very defensive uh posture um and
[00:36:42] would go to crisis mode and it didn't
[00:36:45] happen. Hezbollah is is an armed group,
[00:36:48] a political party. Iran is a massive
[00:36:51] country,
[00:36:53] right? And one thing about the Hezbollah
[00:36:55] uh issue about them securing a
[00:36:58] ceasefire, they literally assassinated
[00:37:00] one guy after another until they finally
[00:37:03] got encountered someone who would who
[00:37:05] would work with them. Uh you're not
[00:37:07] going to be able to do that in the same
[00:37:08] way with the Iranian government at all.
[00:37:11] And even Sorry, go ahead. No, no, no,
[00:37:15] please. I was going to say even with Nim
[00:37:18] Kasim who's now the secretary general of
[00:37:20] of
[00:37:22] uh of course under him they uh respected
[00:37:25] a ceasefire deal and they stopped
[00:37:27] fighting but you should see his rhetoric
[00:37:30] now his rhetoric has changed from the
[00:37:33] the rhetoric of say Hassanah was very
[00:37:35] much a strategic approach calculated
[00:37:38] pragmatic uh diplomatic
[00:37:42] naim now his language is the language of
[00:37:44] Hamas essentially
[00:37:46] it's a vic it's a jihad of victory or
[00:37:48] martyrdom. He's talking about uh openly
[00:37:52] that their religious convictions tell
[00:37:53] them to liberate Palestine. Um and like
[00:37:56] that rhetoric it shouldn't be ignored.
[00:37:59] And also Hezbollah had to absorb the
[00:38:02] hit. It was a massive hit. It was
[00:38:04] devastating and nobody can dispute that.
[00:38:07] But even though that they sat back now
[00:38:09] and like you said they assassinated uh
[00:38:12] two secretary generals um to get to Naim
[00:38:15] Kasum who is not prepared for the role
[00:38:18] even now is still it still holds its
[00:38:21] power. It can still fight the Israelis.
[00:38:24] It still managed to defeat them from
[00:38:26] reaching the Latani River on the ground.
[00:38:29] Um and it won't prepare for another
[00:38:31] attack. The population in southern
[00:38:33] Lebanon is distraught. The population in
[00:38:36] general obviously took a hit, but the
[00:38:38] supporters of Hzbalah now are in a
[00:38:41] completely different mind state. If you
[00:38:43] speak to the people in South Lebanon and
[00:38:45] the way that they've dealt with the
[00:38:46] martyrdom of Sassah,
[00:38:48] uh these people are not they're not they
[00:38:52] haven't gotten over it and they haven't
[00:38:53] gotten over the 3,000 people killed.
[00:38:55] They haven't got over the pager attacks.
[00:38:57] Um and they do want to fight and they
[00:39:00] will fight. And if the Israelis
[00:39:02] seriously believe that Hezbollah is
[00:39:05] done, uh, it's going to be a huge shock
[00:39:08] to them. It's going to be a huge shock
[00:39:10] to their system. Um, I mean, before
[00:39:12] October 7, they were saying Hamas was
[00:39:14] done. So, that shows you where their
[00:39:17] minds are at. This
[00:39:20] This is just all too familiar. Like, I
[00:39:22] I've been seeing this same thinking
[00:39:24] since I was a teenager, like 19 years
[00:39:27] old, in Afghanistan. And I just want to
[00:39:30] point this out to the audience like from
[00:39:32] the western perspective and of course or
[00:39:34] we can call it the NATO perspective.
[00:39:36] Israel is part of that. It's always just
[00:39:38] look at the war in Ukraine. You know we
[00:39:40] can we can defeat Russia. We just need
[00:39:43] to send Patriot batteries to the
[00:39:46] Ukrainian National Army. Oh no wait that
[00:39:48] didn't work. Attack them. Uh no no wait.
[00:39:50] Now now they need F-16s. you know, we're
[00:39:53] just going to send this silver bullet
[00:39:55] and they'll be able to devastate the
[00:39:56] region, destroy our enemies, and we have
[00:40:00] another iteration of that delusional
[00:40:01] thinking.
[00:40:03] Release Gottheimr Lawler introduced
[00:40:06] bipartisan bunker buster act to equip
[00:40:09] Israel against Iran's continued nuclear
[00:40:12] threat and to strengthen US national
[00:40:14] security. So yesterday, a couple rep
[00:40:16] representatives uh introduced the bunker
[00:40:20] buster act. I hate I hate this. Um, it
[00:40:23] authorizes the president to support
[00:40:24] Israel's defense by providing massive
[00:40:26] ordinance penetrators or mops to uh or
[00:40:29] bunker buster bombs and the aircraft
[00:40:31] required to deploy it, which means B2
[00:40:34] Northrup Grumman stealth bombers. So,
[00:40:37] that stock is skyrocketing right now
[00:40:39] because we're going to need to make more
[00:40:40] of them. Those things cost a billion
[00:40:42] dollars. I think it's either 500 million
[00:40:44] or a billion dollars per aircraft. I saw
[00:40:46] two billion, but I might be wrong. Okay.
[00:40:49] Um well, you know, uh they're expensive
[00:40:52] because they don't show up on radar. So
[00:40:55] the air defenses are useless against the
[00:40:58] the spirit bombers. But to take out
[00:41:00] Iran's underground nuclear
[00:41:01] infrastructure, equipping Israel with
[00:41:03] its cap capability directly strengthens
[00:41:06] American national security by
[00:41:09] eliminating Iran's pathway to a nuclear
[00:41:11] weapon. Well, that's funny because today
[00:41:15] uh we're seeing headlines like Iran will
[00:41:17] not retaliate further for the United
[00:41:19] States punishing strikes on its nuclear
[00:41:21] program. Uh a senior government official
[00:41:24] told NBC News on Thursday today uh
[00:41:27] saying his country is open to
[00:41:28] negotiations with Washington, but Iran
[00:41:31] has no plans to stop uranium enrichment.
[00:41:34] Uh so obviously they wouldn't. I think
[00:41:37] uh after after Libya and Operation
[00:41:40] Midnight Hammer, I think you'd be a a
[00:41:42] fool to give up your nuclear program if
[00:41:44] you're a country in the global south
[00:41:46] that resists US imperialism. Uh it's
[00:41:49] kind of a suicide mission. So uh this is
[00:41:52] why the war will continue obviously uh
[00:41:54] that's where it's building to. So uh
[00:41:56] Iran has stepped away from the IAEA the
[00:41:59] uh international atomic energy agency
[00:42:02] which is like one of the most spyfilled
[00:42:04] and intelligencedriven agencies on the
[00:42:06] planet. uh there's assertions, I can't
[00:42:08] confirm it, that the IAEA gave targeting
[00:42:11] data to the US and Israel in order to
[00:42:15] you know target their nuclear program
[00:42:17] and nuclear scientists. Anyways, uh so
[00:42:20] basically the whole
[00:42:23] thing is is a trap. It's a trap for
[00:42:25] Iran. So Iran says, "No, we're not going
[00:42:27] to work with this agency anymore.
[00:42:29] Therefore, you can't have inspectors."
[00:42:30] And then the IAEA is going to turn
[00:42:32] around and say, "This is a rogue actor.
[00:42:34] It's a rogue nation." You know, it just
[00:42:36] feeds into the propaganda machine that
[00:42:38] we need to send Israel B2 spirit bombers
[00:42:40] and the US needs to get more directly
[00:42:42] involved and we're just going to see a
[00:42:44] ramp up of this multi-year sustained
[00:42:47] propaganda about the Iranian nuclear
[00:42:49] program and why they need regime change
[00:42:50] and regime collapse. So, this is not
[00:42:52] ending anytime soon. And and this has
[00:42:54] never been about Iran pursuing nuclear
[00:42:57] weapons because if they wanted to stop
[00:42:59] that, they had the JCPOA. And the IAEA
[00:43:03] said Iran was adhering to all of its
[00:43:06] commitments even after the Trump
[00:43:08] administration withdrew. So obviously
[00:43:11] now the IEA, it's another story to get
[00:43:14] into. Uh there's a different perspective
[00:43:16] and a different leadership. Um, but if
[00:43:19] we look at the course of the propaganda
[00:43:22] against Iran, it's very clear they don't
[00:43:24] just have a conversation about the
[00:43:26] nuclear program when they're talking
[00:43:27] about nukes. They talk about Iran's
[00:43:29] missile program, its drone program, and
[00:43:31] most of all its allies. So, Hamas,
[00:43:33] Palestinian, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP,
[00:43:36] etc. with the Palestinian groups
[00:43:39] and and if they really want to get
[00:43:40] crazy, they can expand it into Russia as
[00:43:42] well. Yeah. This is the thing. They're
[00:43:45] they are focused. They hate Iran because
[00:43:47] Iran, number one, it pursues its own
[00:43:50] independent policies, right? It's an
[00:43:52] independent country and it wants to
[00:43:54] clear the region from US imperialism. It
[00:43:56] wants to be outside that group. And
[00:43:57] number two, it supports the
[00:43:58] Palestinians. That's it. That's the
[00:44:00] reason why they hate them and they
[00:44:02] oppose them. Pakistan has a nuclear
[00:44:03] weapon.
[00:44:05] That its neighbors literally have a
[00:44:07] nuclear weapon and they're a Muslim
[00:44:08] country, right? Because they're like,
[00:44:10] "Oh, these Muslims can't have a nuclear
[00:44:11] weapon and all of that. their their
[00:44:13] propaganda because you know us as
[00:44:15] Muslims are so barbaric and not
[00:44:17] civilized we can't have a nuclear
[00:44:18] weapon. Um so they they say all this
[00:44:21] stuff about nuclear weapons. Ultimately
[00:44:22] it's not about that because if it was
[00:44:24] about nuclear weapons they wouldn't have
[00:44:25] done any of these strikes because all
[00:44:27] this does is encourages Iran further. If
[00:44:29] you're Iran right now, anyone rational,
[00:44:32] even a lot of people in the west who are
[00:44:34] looking at this, who don't even know too
[00:44:36] much about the situation, would they
[00:44:38] would understand why Iran now would want
[00:44:40] to achieve a nuclear weapon, especially
[00:44:42] as well with what the United States and
[00:44:44] Israel did with the collapse of the UN
[00:44:46] system and the collapse of international
[00:44:48] law with their strikes. Because
[00:44:49] obviously there's a buildup to this
[00:44:51] through the 21 months of genocide. But
[00:44:54] when Israel attacked and then afterwards
[00:44:57] the United States attacked Iran, it was
[00:44:59] a clear violation of the UN charter. But
[00:45:02] unlike Kofi Anan who in 2003 when the US
[00:45:06] invaded Iraq said that it uh the US
[00:45:10] violated the UN charter and there was a
[00:45:13] big debate and obviously this was
[00:45:15] something held up by the anti-war
[00:45:16] movement which was massive at the time.
[00:45:19] what they had this big debate over well
[00:45:21] we got one UN Security Council
[00:45:23] resolution condemning Iraq but there
[00:45:26] wasn't a follow-up security council
[00:45:28] resolution which endorsed military
[00:45:30] action so therefore there was this big
[00:45:32] discussion and there was a lot of
[00:45:34] condemnation about the war being illegal
[00:45:36] this time around what has Antonio
[00:45:38] Gutirez said about the violation of the
[00:45:40] UN charter by the Israelis or the
[00:45:42] Americans he condemned the Iranian
[00:45:45] retaliatory strike on Sentcom uh in with
[00:45:50] the same veracity as his uh with the
[00:45:53] same passion and the same rhetoric as he
[00:45:56] used to condemn so-called in a moderate
[00:45:59] way and express concern over the Israeli
[00:46:01] US attacks on Iran. So the whole UN
[00:46:04] system has collapsed and I mean this
[00:46:06] adds I mean it's the final nail in the
[00:46:08] coffin but this adds to the fact we were
[00:46:11] talking before and you mentioned how you
[00:46:13] were speaking on TRT about the
[00:46:15] assassination of Ayatah
[00:46:19] um and and you thought that that could
[00:46:20] happen well with say Hassan Nasallah
[00:46:23] just as an example when they
[00:46:25] assassinated him they killed 300
[00:46:26] civilians to kill him and they blew up a
[00:46:29] whole uh a whole block essentially if
[00:46:32] you f if you go back uh to the early
[00:46:35] 2000s when is and by the way Biden
[00:46:39] endorsed it, Biden celebrated it and the
[00:46:41] media celebrated it. If you go back to
[00:46:44] the early 2000s when Israel assassinated
[00:46:46] the head of Hamas uh one of the founders
[00:46:49] of Hamas Ahmed Yasin I believe they
[00:46:52] killed nine civilians when they killed
[00:46:53] him. Right. And Bush Bush actually made
[00:46:56] a statement and he was furious. He
[00:46:58] condemned it. He said that you can't do
[00:47:00] something like this. You can't just kill
[00:47:01] civilians in an area and strike
[00:47:02] somebody. You need to have a legal
[00:47:04] process. So, even the Bush
[00:47:06] administration, which committed an
[00:47:08] illegal invasion of Iraq, which back
[00:47:11] then the UN would condemn the US uh for
[00:47:14] violations of the UN charter, and even
[00:47:16] the United States government would care
[00:47:18] somewhat about, you know, going and
[00:47:20] trying to get those votes at the UN
[00:47:22] Security Council. They would care about,
[00:47:24] you know, oh, how this looks on the
[00:47:26] international stage if we kill a leader
[00:47:27] without any due process and we just
[00:47:29] carry out these sort of attacks. They
[00:47:31] don't care anymore. Look at the pager
[00:47:32] attack. Every single person that you see
[00:47:35] talk about this, the pager attack in
[00:47:36] Lebanon, you go, "Oh, it was a wonderful
[00:47:39] operation. What about like uh the
[00:47:42] security of global ch supply chains?
[00:47:44] What about the fact that the vast
[00:47:45] majority of people were killed that were
[00:47:47] injured were civilians? What about the
[00:47:50] fact that they killed women and
[00:47:51] children? This was an indiscriminate
[00:47:53] attack. It wasn't targeted. It was
[00:47:55] indiscriminate. But that doesn't matter
[00:47:58] anymore. None of it matters. Like the
[00:48:00] whole system has collapsed. They just do
[00:48:02] whatever they want in Gaza. The
[00:48:04] humanitarian international law, it's
[00:48:06] gone. All the human rights
[00:48:07] organizations, the ICGA, the ICC, every
[00:48:10] organ of the United Nations, all they do
[00:48:12] now is influence public opinion. Other
[00:48:15] than that, they don't hold any weight.
[00:48:19] Yeah. I mean, we we were warning about
[00:48:22] this in in November 2023 when they
[00:48:25] started bombing hospitals as a state
[00:48:27] policy. It's like on once you open this
[00:48:29] can of worms, like
[00:48:32] this is yes, Pandora's box. This is the
[00:48:35] logical conclusion. And so, uh, one
[00:48:37] thing I did want to talk about that you
[00:48:38] brought up real quick was Pakistan. Um,
[00:48:42] and when we talk about political
[00:48:44] theater, I know there is some confusion
[00:48:46] over people wondering why Pakistan
[00:48:49] would
[00:48:51] submit Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace
[00:48:53] Prize like two days before he bombed
[00:48:56] Iran.
[00:48:57] Um, well, don't pay attention to the
[00:48:59] political theater, okay? We we've had
[00:49:02] Israeli military officials like
[00:49:04] messianic Zionists call for like hey
[00:49:07] after we get done with Iran's nuclear
[00:49:09] program Pakistan's next and we need to
[00:49:12] talk we can talk about the increasing
[00:49:13] security relationship between Zionist
[00:49:16] the Zionist entity and the Hindufascist
[00:49:19] uh government in India also with uh
[00:49:24] strong regional ambitions to collapse
[00:49:26] Pakistan's nuclear program preferably
[00:49:28] Pakistan itself. Um so yeah, Pakistan's
[00:49:31] going to get more involved. Obviously,
[00:49:33] uh Iran sources, uh China sources a lot
[00:49:37] of its energy consumption from Iran
[00:49:39] because it's under sanctions and they
[00:49:40] can buy cheaper oil uh from Iran. So
[00:49:43] they've basically pivoted in their
[00:49:45] global infrastructure plan from using
[00:49:47] the Iranian shadow fleet to ship uh fuel
[00:49:50] to China to an actual rail system from
[00:49:52] the Corusan into the Chinese heartland.
[00:49:55] Uh so that's continuing. Uh Russia, of
[00:49:58] course, just signed a 20-year uh
[00:50:00] security compact with Iran as well. So,
[00:50:04] they're trying to
[00:50:07] portray in in pro the propaganda space
[00:50:09] that this it's this completely isolated
[00:50:12] country. And while I'm I'm one of those
[00:50:13] people who doesn't really think that
[00:50:15] like bricks is ever really going to at
[00:50:18] least at its current iteration is ever
[00:50:20] really going to present a united front
[00:50:23] against, you know, western hegemony. I
[00:50:25] mean, these are still undeniable things.
[00:50:27] Like Iran's
[00:50:29] we've had this narrative that it's this
[00:50:30] post-revolutionary state about to
[00:50:32] collapse, but it's looking pretty pretty
[00:50:36] steadfast right now. Well, even a lot of
[00:50:39] people were trying to compare Iran to
[00:50:41] Syria. Um and the comparison is just
[00:50:44] like it's not even worth entertaining
[00:50:46] but just to you know summarize Iran like
[00:50:51] this the system in Iran is completely
[00:50:54] different from Syria. uh Syria basically
[00:50:57] because of the sanctions in large part
[00:50:59] and also a corruption it deteriorated to
[00:51:02] such a point uh where all the state
[00:51:05] institutions were weak uh the economic
[00:51:07] situation was uh atrocious um it didn't
[00:51:11] really have full sovereignty at that
[00:51:13] point as well like it was very difficult
[00:51:15] for it um a lot of the money that would
[00:51:18] come in was embezzled um and and it was
[00:51:20] weak on every single front and it was it
[00:51:23] just took a push and in the And what
[00:51:25] happened with the Syrian government is
[00:51:28] that there wasn't even a fight. You
[00:51:30] know, the groups in Idlib uh led by
[00:51:33] Hayatam
[00:51:35] simply just walted into Damascus
[00:51:37] essentially and the Russians uh
[00:51:39] airlifted Assad out. Obviously, I'm
[00:51:42] summarizing and there's a lot more that
[00:51:44] went into that. Uh but the Iranian
[00:51:46] situation is not like that. I mean, in
[00:51:48] Iran, we're talking about the IRGC, the
[00:51:51] Iranian army, the besiege, and then all
[00:51:54] the others that would join as well.
[00:51:56] There's a reason why during the Iran
[00:51:57] Iraq war, they could absorb a million
[00:52:00] casualties and continue fighting. They
[00:52:02] could absorb chemical weapons attacks
[00:52:04] and attacks on oil infrastructure. Um,
[00:52:06] and and they kept on fighting and they
[00:52:10] kept going. Um, you know, they're not
[00:52:12] easy to just collapse. And also Iran is
[00:52:14] a huge territory. Even if there's some,
[00:52:16] you know, um there's an invasion across
[00:52:19] the Iraqi border or something like this,
[00:52:21] there's rooms for them to make mistake.
[00:52:23] There's room for them to make mistakes
[00:52:24] on the ground. And also they've been
[00:52:26] carrying out these massive monthslong
[00:52:28] drills uh counterinsurgency drills
[00:52:32] um uh to and drills to combat hybrid
[00:52:35] warfare attacks. Um like just before all
[00:52:39] of this happened as well, which were
[00:52:41] coordinated between the IRGC and and the
[00:52:43] regular army. The idea that it's just
[00:52:46] going to collapse I think is is pretty
[00:52:48] ludicrous. Um even if they assassinate
[00:52:52] his uh I I can't see it happening. Um
[00:52:55] yeah, it will be a symbolic blow for
[00:52:57] sure. Uh but he'll be replaced. Um and
[00:53:00] then Iran will come with a vengeance and
[00:53:02] so will the entire Shia world uh come
[00:53:05] with a vengeance uh for what was done.
[00:53:07] Um and and this is a thing as well that
[00:53:09] in the calculations here with collapsing
[00:53:12] a nation like Iran. What what they did
[00:53:16] with say Hassan Allah will come back to
[00:53:19] bite them. It will. And they think oh
[00:53:21] it's wonderful we just took out this
[00:53:23] guy. He's not just a guy to the Lebanese
[00:53:26] population to especially the Shia. He's
[00:53:30] not just some leader. No, this man was
[00:53:34] what kept their their life going at
[00:53:37] different points. He is their very
[00:53:39] breath. Like when it's hard to uh put
[00:53:44] into words what Hassan Nasallah meant to
[00:53:47] the Shia population in South Lebanon and
[00:53:49] throughout Lebanon.
[00:53:52] You can't put it into words. And the and
[00:53:54] the idea that this is just going to go
[00:53:57] and there's going to be nothing in the
[00:53:58] future, no retaliation. is just going to
[00:54:00] sit back and it's just going to disarm
[00:54:01] because the US tells it to is ludicrous.
[00:54:04] And in Iran's case, it's not just the
[00:54:06] Shia population. It's not just the
[00:54:07] groups that it supports. It's not just
[00:54:09] its own military forces and power
[00:54:11] paramilitary forces in the country.
[00:54:13] We're talking about Russia is not going
[00:54:15] to allow Iran to collapse. That's a
[00:54:17] terrible idea to allow Iran to collapse.
[00:54:19] China doesn't want Iran to collapse.
[00:54:21] Pakistan cannot afford for Iran to
[00:54:24] collapse. As much as it it allies itself
[00:54:26] with the United States here, this is a
[00:54:29] death sentence to Pakistan if Iran was
[00:54:31] to collapse. Even mass instability uh if
[00:54:34] the whole country was uh destabilized,
[00:54:36] that is terrible, especially along its
[00:54:38] border area with these uh Baluchi
[00:54:41] nationalists uh there and these
[00:54:44] different militant groups, many of which
[00:54:46] of course are backed secretly by India
[00:54:49] in the United States. Um yeah and that's
[00:54:52] one thing I I did want to talk about
[00:54:54] like that about the
[00:54:56] decre degrading global security
[00:54:58] situation now because Pakistan remember
[00:55:01] its nuclear program was about one thing
[00:55:04] India the regional nuclear program but
[00:55:07] now after this you know we we've seen
[00:55:09] their foreign uh coming out of their
[00:55:10] foreign ministry that they're developing
[00:55:13] an ICBM delivery system so they could
[00:55:16] have deterrence against western nations
[00:55:18] because our foreign policy is so
[00:55:20] ideological and rabid right now they'd
[00:55:22] be insane not to especially in
[00:55:24] conjunction with statements coming out
[00:55:25] of Israel about how after Iran
[00:55:27] Pakistan's next. So you know of course
[00:55:30] there are different factions within
[00:55:31] Pakistan within the Pakistani uh
[00:55:33] military with the the Raul Pendi
[00:55:36] generals and the inner services
[00:55:37] intelligence uh directorate uh that some
[00:55:40] are more US some are like really anti-
[00:55:42] US but this is like bringing a lot of
[00:55:44] these things together because like
[00:55:47] national survival um after after Libya,
[00:55:51] Syria, what they want to do to Iran and
[00:55:52] then saying they're next. So yeah, um I
[00:55:56] think uh we're just going to see massive
[00:55:58] nuclear proliferation going forward. So
[00:56:01] that's fun. Welcome to 2025.
[00:56:04] And and that's a result of this. And
[00:56:06] there's no push back. There's no push
[00:56:08] back. I don't see the push back. Even
[00:56:10] the anti-war movement is not the same as
[00:56:12] it was in the buildup to the Iraq war.
[00:56:14] It was quite disheartening to a certain
[00:56:16] extent. Uh to see that the protests
[00:56:18] against the war with Iran were not
[00:56:20] actually that large. Um, obviously it
[00:56:22] wasn't the same buildup and and
[00:56:24] everything. The Palestine protests are
[00:56:26] quite large, but you know, it it speaks
[00:56:29] to the fact that it's just become
[00:56:32] normalized for you to go and attack
[00:56:34] another country without a justification.
[00:56:35] They say a preemptive strike. Okay, what
[00:56:37] justifies a preemptive strike? There was
[00:56:39] no information presented. This is even
[00:56:41] worse than the lies about the Iraq in
[00:56:44] the buildup to the Iraq war. Yeah, at
[00:56:46] least at least they had the decency to
[00:56:48] send [ __ ] Powell to lie to the UN
[00:56:50] Security Council and take that vial of
[00:56:53] yellow cake.
[00:56:55] But there's none of that. They don't
[00:56:56] even bother with it anymore. They don't
[00:56:58] bother with something like even the
[00:56:59] performative uh element of it. They just
[00:57:02] went ahead and did it. And that was the
[00:57:04] shocking thing. But I suppose after what
[00:57:06] they got away with in Gaza and they
[00:57:09] continue to get away with in Gaza, you
[00:57:11] know, anything that it's the the law of
[00:57:13] the jungle, you know, it it you just do
[00:57:15] whatever you want. And what I think uh
[00:57:18] is so horrifying about it is this UN
[00:57:21] system and and international law and all
[00:57:23] of this and human rights. This was all
[00:57:26] as a result of the atrocities committed
[00:57:29] most most of them by the Nazis but also
[00:57:32] by the United States and Britain and
[00:57:34] others during the Second World War. Uh
[00:57:37] it was a response to that and it was
[00:57:39] supposed to be to implement a system
[00:57:42] which would prevent these sort of things
[00:57:44] from happening again. So now we're in
[00:57:48] such a situation where all of it is
[00:57:50] happening in front of our eyes and these
[00:57:51] systems and institutions that have been
[00:57:54] built
[00:57:55] supposedly to safeguard the world from
[00:57:58] these sort of things happening or at
[00:58:00] least escalating and getting worse have
[00:58:02] failed and they're being ignored and
[00:58:05] undermined. So it's might makes right.
[00:58:08] Who has the power? And and that really
[00:58:10] comes down to if you want to look at the
[00:58:13] situation with uh Gaza with the regional
[00:58:15] war uh the Israelis versus Iran,
[00:58:20] you have to look at it. Well, this is
[00:58:21] leading to a military solution. There's
[00:58:24] there's what diplomatic solution is
[00:58:26] there? There's none there. I have not
[00:58:28] seen a diplomatic solution. Even if they
[00:58:31] quiet down different fronts at different
[00:58:32] times, which they've been doing, where's
[00:58:35] the diplomatic solution? There's no
[00:58:38] Well, there there there is none because
[00:58:39] you'd have to be a fool to trust US
[00:58:41] diplomacy at this point. Like the whole
[00:58:43] the whole farce of the Iranian nuclear
[00:58:45] talks going into the sixth round of
[00:58:47] negotiations was to lull their entire
[00:58:50] defense apparatus into a false sense of
[00:58:52] security so that Israel can conducted
[00:58:53] stupid little decapitation strikes. Same
[00:58:56] thing happened same thing happened with
[00:58:57] uh Nusella when the US special envoy uh
[00:59:01] to Lebanon was getting involved with the
[00:59:03] uh Israel Hezbollah ceasefire talks. uh
[00:59:07] diplomacy used as deception as a
[00:59:09] mechanism of assassination. Uh that's
[00:59:12] what anyone with a brain thinks now when
[00:59:14] it comes to US diplomacy especially in
[00:59:16] in the area of US central command which
[00:59:19] stretches from Egypt all the way to
[00:59:21] India. So um yeah um I I think also what
[00:59:28] is being passed in terms of policy
[00:59:30] underscores the fact that you know we're
[00:59:32] not really interested in negotiations.
[00:59:34] Why would uh a bill be put forth
[00:59:37] yesterday when the US is purportedly
[00:59:40] trying to get Iran back to the nuclear
[00:59:42] negotiating table? Do you have
[00:59:44] bipartisan senators uh passing a bill
[00:59:47] which will pass most likely to send B2
[00:59:50] spirit bombers so Iran could do it uh so
[00:59:53] Israel can do what we did to Iran
[00:59:55] directly?
[00:59:57] This is it like it's all in in the way
[00:59:59] of escalation. like again to try and
[01:00:02] find uh any route to a diplomatic
[01:00:06] solution doesn't make sense if you're
[01:00:07] the Iranians right now you're Hamas etc
[01:00:11] and they've adopted this view now
[01:00:13] because it's been forced upon them that
[01:00:16] this is an existential war this is a
[01:00:18] regional existential war and all these
[01:00:20] groups if you start talk if you talk to
[01:00:22] them before I have contacts I used to
[01:00:24] speak to them and they were like oh
[01:00:25] maybe there's going to be ceasefire this
[01:00:27] time and they would make these sort of
[01:00:28] comments when I'd interview um and now
[01:00:31] the rhetoric has shifted to this is an
[01:00:32] existential war. We won't accept uh a
[01:00:35] ceasefire which is capitulation um and
[01:00:38] this is going to go on for some time.
[01:00:39] That is the sort of thinking that they
[01:00:41] have right now. So it will end up in an
[01:00:45] escalation and like you said you know
[01:00:46] they talk about uh diplomacy but then
[01:00:49] something like sending B2 bombers to the
[01:00:51] Isra. It's only going to escalate the
[01:00:53] situation. The big question here is, do
[01:00:56] the Israelis believe that they can
[01:00:58] topple the Iranian government and
[01:01:02] survive? That's the big question mark
[01:01:04] for me. If you were to try and do that
[01:01:07] and you look like it looks like it's
[01:01:08] about to happen, are just going to sit
[01:01:11] there and then once enters from the
[01:01:13] north and you can't stop them, then what
[01:01:17] about Hamas? Because honestly on the
[01:01:20] ground, the Israelis are incapable of
[01:01:22] defending themselves. They have an air
[01:01:23] force. They have very sophisticated
[01:01:25] intelligence agencies, but on the
[01:01:26] ground, I mean, there's a reason October
[01:01:28] 7 was so successful. Um, and they cannot
[01:01:31] defend themselves. They can't. They're
[01:01:33] incapable. So, do they think that
[01:01:37] somehow that they can win if there's a
[01:01:39] multifront attack on them? I I
[01:01:43] Yeah. figure in uh factor in like the
[01:01:46] popular milit mobilization units in Iraq
[01:01:49] and then Yemen. Yeah. though I I think
[01:01:52] if Hezbollah and Hamas attacked at the
[01:01:54] same time and Iran had taken out, you
[01:01:56] know, uh a lot of the air bases or
[01:01:58] grounded the Israeli air force to a
[01:02:01] significant uh degree. I think they'd
[01:02:03] take Jerusalem and and I I know that's
[01:02:06] that seems very extreme and uh a lot of
[01:02:09] people would push back and oh it's not
[01:02:11] that easy. I I honestly I can't see how
[01:02:13] the Israelis would stop it. Hezbollah
[01:02:16] has a force of around 100,000 people. It
[01:02:18] can garner a lot more once it starts
[01:02:20] coming over the border. God knows what
[01:02:21] happens. But yeah, every every
[01:02:23] 18-year-old in the south of Lebanon is
[01:02:25] pissed off who lost family members is
[01:02:27] going to join up just like 18year-olds
[01:02:29] throughout history do. Yeah. And that's
[01:02:31] the thing. What like once you start
[01:02:33] something like that, how do you stop it?
[01:02:35] The only way I could see the Israelis
[01:02:37] surviving it is the Jordanian the
[01:02:39] Egyptian military coming in to literally
[01:02:42] physically stop it because well learned
[01:02:44] Hamas wouldn't attack them. they would
[01:02:47] be able to stop it and then get some
[01:02:48] diplomatic solution. But like this is
[01:02:51] the issue that they're playing with fire
[01:02:53] here and they keep escalating escalating
[01:02:55] and it's not even in the Israeli
[01:02:56] interest because the more you escalate
[01:02:59] the worse it gets for you and then what
[01:03:01] are you going to do? Use nuclear weapons
[01:03:02] against Iran. That's not going to save
[01:03:03] you from a Hezbollah offensive that's
[01:03:05] not going to save you. If even if
[01:03:07] certain groups in Syria saw that
[01:03:09] happening, there would be people just in
[01:03:11] D and other areas who would grab their
[01:03:13] rifles and head over into the Jalan that
[01:03:16] because that's the sort of thing that
[01:03:17] would happen in that scenario. And this
[01:03:19] is the thing with them. Maybe they want
[01:03:22] to try and close the Gaza front because
[01:03:23] they think, oh, okay, if there's going
[01:03:24] to be a big war and just Hezbollah and
[01:03:26] Iran, Hezbollah will be calculated and
[01:03:28] it won't do anything. But you're
[01:03:29] depending and you're you're making
[01:03:31] assumptions now and you're depending
[01:03:33] upon assumptions and everything they're
[01:03:36] doing including the attack on Iran was
[01:03:38] depending upon a a wide array of
[01:03:41] assumptions about Iran which you can't
[01:03:45] base you know such drastic actions which
[01:03:47] could lead to a nation killing event on
[01:03:51] on these assumptions. But they do
[01:03:53] because they believe their propaganda.
[01:03:56] And the the reality is now the people of
[01:03:59] the region despite the fact that you
[01:04:00] might not see you know significant
[01:04:02] action from Egyptians or Jordanians and
[01:04:05] the Syrian government is now in
[01:04:08] normalization talks with them. The
[01:04:10] people there hate Israel. The people
[01:04:13] there want to resist. The the Lebanese
[01:04:16] are not going to stop resisting. The
[01:04:17] Palestinians will never stop resisting.
[01:04:20] They've traumatized an entire
[01:04:21] generation. Gaza right now. What are
[01:04:24] those people going to do for the rest of
[01:04:25] their lives? Let's even assume, which I
[01:04:27] don't think will happen, that they can
[01:04:29] ethnically cleanse the whole population
[01:04:30] of Gaza into Sinai and into Jordan.
[01:04:33] Let's say that they they think they can
[01:04:35] get away with that. What are those
[01:04:37] traumatized young people going to do
[01:04:39] when they get there? It's obvious what
[01:04:42] they're going to do. What any human
[01:04:44] being would do after their whole
[01:04:46] families are wiped out. And I can tell
[01:04:48] you as somebody that's married to a
[01:04:50] Palestinian from Gaza
[01:04:52] like so I see the Palestinian community
[01:04:54] and of course I have a lot of colleagues
[01:04:56] there, a lot of friends. Um I've lost a
[01:04:58] lot of friends.
[01:05:01] Everyone you know has lost not one
[01:05:03] family member, not just a father, not
[01:05:05] just a brother, not just a child uh or
[01:05:07] cousins, they've lost 20, 30, 100
[01:05:10] members of their family and extended
[01:05:12] family like all of them. And the idea
[01:05:16] that you can just do this to a
[01:05:18] population and then you're somehow going
[01:05:21] to what? Expand your borders and expand
[01:05:23] your uh Abraham Accords with everyone
[01:05:25] and get away with it. It's obvious
[01:05:27] what's going to happen. People are going
[01:05:29] to resist. Even if the Israelis won
[01:05:32] total victory in their uh you know their
[01:05:34] sevenfront war which I don't believe
[01:05:36] will happen in the long term if they're
[01:05:39] still there and they're still behaving
[01:05:41] in the way they are if if they keep
[01:05:44] things as they are even if they have
[01:05:46] their full victory
[01:05:48] eventually what do you think is going to
[01:05:49] happen all of these groups like before
[01:05:52] in 1967 when Nasser and Arab nationalism
[01:05:56] was defeated and they fought they won
[01:05:57] against the Arabs and won against the
[01:05:59] resistance or when the PLO was kicked
[01:06:01] out of First Jordan and then they kicked
[01:06:04] them to Tunisia, they thought the PLO is
[01:06:07] done. They fought after uh Camp David
[01:06:10] that the Egyptians are out and the
[01:06:11] Syrians are never going to do anything
[01:06:13] to us again. Every single time they
[01:06:16] basically they make these assumptions.
[01:06:18] They think we won, we won, we won. But
[01:06:20] all you do is piss the people off more
[01:06:22] and more and more and give generation
[01:06:24] after generation more reason to fight
[01:06:26] you because you took everything from
[01:06:28] them. And then they destroyed the entire
[01:06:30] region along with the United States. Of
[01:06:32] course, they destroyed the entire
[01:06:34] region. These people don't have normal
[01:06:35] countries anymore. Syria, they say a lot
[01:06:38] of people are happy about Syria. Okay,
[01:06:40] Bashad is gone. They're not happy about
[01:06:42] the economic situation in Syria. They're
[01:06:43] not happy about the prospects in Syria.
[01:06:45] Syria is still a war torn country that
[01:06:49] is in the floor, controlled by a vast
[01:06:51] array of militia groups across the
[01:06:53] country. Lebanon, like look at what
[01:06:55] happened with it, civil war. Look at
[01:06:57] what happened to it economically today.
[01:07:00] The corruption, everything that's going
[01:07:01] on. The entire region is bleeding. We
[01:07:04] don't have to mention Iraq. We don't
[01:07:05] have to talk about Libya. We just have
[01:07:07] to talk about all of the surrounding.
[01:07:09] The Jordanians who normalize, the
[01:07:10] Egyptians are normalized. Their
[01:07:11] countries are going down economically,
[01:07:13] especially Egypt. So these people like
[01:07:17] what you have done to them by attacking
[01:07:20] and and and oh, they only understand the
[01:07:22] language of force. You've inspired
[01:07:24] generations and generations to want to
[01:07:26] fight you and they're not going to go
[01:07:28] away because they're indigenous to their
[01:07:30] countries. They're indigenous to the
[01:07:31] land. They're not they've got nowhere
[01:07:33] else to go. Some of them might go to
[01:07:34] another place and pursue, you know,
[01:07:36] higher education or whatever if they
[01:07:38] have the opportunity to do it um and get
[01:07:40] jobs elsewhere. But the vast majority
[01:07:41] are staying there and they're not going
[01:07:43] to go. And even if you achieve
[01:07:45] everything you think you can, they're
[01:07:47] still going to fight you. And even if
[01:07:48] you you you know, you kill the
[01:07:50] resistance for now. Let's say you
[01:07:51] completely defeated it. It will rise
[01:07:53] again in 5 to 10 years time and it will
[01:07:56] come back in another form with a
[01:07:58] different ideology perhaps and smash you
[01:08:00] again and it will just keep going until
[01:08:02] you are defeated if you keep that
[01:08:04] mentality. You cannot sustain that.
[01:08:07] Yeah. Uh I I had a controversial take
[01:08:09] that I got a lot of hate over over like
[01:08:13] two years ago uh when I made the
[01:08:15] comment. Look, if you're going to do
[01:08:17] this stuff and be an occupation, you're
[01:08:19] going to catch heat rounds until you
[01:08:20] literally either have an equitable
[01:08:23] society or you kill every last person
[01:08:26] that would could potentially resist. And
[01:08:29] obviously that can't be done. And what
[01:08:31] are the the striking things about the US
[01:08:35] torching the UN charter and the law of
[01:08:38] land warfare and all these international
[01:08:40] institutions that yes, we wanted to
[01:08:43] prevent the the atrocities of World War
[01:08:46] II for hap from ever happening again.
[01:08:48] Thanks. Thanks Canadian Air Force by the
[01:08:50] way. Uh but uh
[01:08:54] they're also crafted to project US
[01:08:57] hijgemony across the globe and we're
[01:09:01] we're slashing these institutions and so
[01:09:04] so dies our soft power and you know the
[01:09:08] power to co-opt rather than coersse and
[01:09:10] it's just we don't have the same power
[01:09:12] projection that we used to have and with
[01:09:15] the domestic front I mean one of the the
[01:09:18] the uh
[01:09:20] frustrating things is the US citizens
[01:09:24] capacity to just not care about foreign
[01:09:26] policy issues. Um that's why the Iran
[01:09:29] protests, counterprotests were um were
[01:09:32] so small. People would be like, "Oh,
[01:09:33] another foreign war. What are you going
[01:09:35] to do? It's the Middle East. These
[01:09:37] people have been killing each other for
[01:09:38] thousands of years." Not true, by the
[01:09:41] way. But um yeah, I I think one of the
[01:09:44] things that's going to really cut down
[01:09:46] on the ability the US abilities uh US's
[01:09:50] ability to wage imperial war is the
[01:09:53] degrading material conditions on the
[01:09:55] domestic front. If the big beautiful
[01:09:57] bill passes, it may have already passed
[01:09:59] by the time we're recording. ICE is
[01:10:01] going to be one of the largest
[01:10:02] militaries on the planet. Uh, and so
[01:10:04] when we say when we accuse Trump of
[01:10:06] being a fascism and an imperialist,
[01:10:08] well, fascism is imperialism turned in
[01:10:11] on itself. So, yeah, there's going to be
[01:10:12] a war on the home front, wars abroad,
[01:10:15] and the US empire, while it's dying,
[01:10:17] probably still has a lot of inertia
[01:10:19] left, and it's going to be very violent
[01:10:21] before the end. So I would expect Iran
[01:10:23] to kick off maybe a wider regional war.
[01:10:26] Definitely a war on our own population
[01:10:28] starting with uh migrants which is how
[01:10:31] it always starts and starts rolling its
[01:10:33] way up the privilege ladder until it
[01:10:35] gets to any sort of political
[01:10:36] dissidence. So yeah, uh more to follow,
[01:10:39] more insanity, more ide ideological
[01:10:43] uh decision-m a lot of people existing
[01:10:47] in wishful thinking defense hawk echo
[01:10:49] chambers. And yeah, uh it's only going
[01:10:51] to get worse. And and this is the thing
[01:10:54] people they don't connect foreign policy
[01:10:56] to their lives, but there's a reason why
[01:10:59] everyone is struggling economically now
[01:11:01] and people young people don't have a
[01:11:03] future anymore. And it's not immigrants,
[01:11:05] but that's what that's what they want
[01:11:07] you to think. Oh, well, there must be a
[01:11:09] correlation between all these people
[01:11:12] that look different to you coming into
[01:11:14] the country and your economic situation
[01:11:16] getting worse. And because, you know, a
[01:11:18] lot of people don't want to look into
[01:11:19] anything, they think, "Oh, yeah, that
[01:11:21] makes sense." So, they just buy that.
[01:11:23] But it's like, well, you're you're not
[01:11:26] looking into anything. Like if you think
[01:11:28] it's disconnected from what you're doing
[01:11:30] overseas,
[01:11:32] like it's it's directly correlated.
[01:11:34] Everything that's happening, all of the
[01:11:36] things they experiment with in terms of
[01:11:38] the technology over there as well that
[01:11:40] they're using even in Gaza, the same
[01:11:42] technology that's being used in Gaza is
[01:11:45] being used back home in the United
[01:11:46] States against US citizens. And you
[01:11:48] mentioned ISIS. The same companies are
[01:11:51] investing and they're testing it on
[01:11:53] Palestinians and then they're using it
[01:11:55] on YouTube, too. And sometimes they test
[01:11:58] it in foreign countries and then they
[01:12:00] bring it home to make money off of you.
[01:12:02] But ultimately to think that you're
[01:12:04] disconnected from families in Gaza in
[01:12:08] the way that people think they are, uh,
[01:12:10] is ludicrous. You're it's your taxpayer
[01:12:13] dollars that are funding it. It's your
[01:12:15] government that is doing it. It's your
[01:12:18] project and it's against you as well
[01:12:20] because if you want to speak up in the
[01:12:22] United States or in Britain or in
[01:12:24] Germany or France or wherever else you
[01:12:26] are, if you want to speak up and do
[01:12:28] something uh using your free speech
[01:12:31] rights, then you're going to be thrown
[01:12:34] in jail. You're going to be censored.
[01:12:36] You're going to be attacked. You're
[01:12:37] going to be ostracized from society. You
[01:12:39] can't get certain jobs anymore. Your
[01:12:41] life is going to be destroyed. If you're
[01:12:43] Palestine action, you want to spray some
[01:12:44] red paint on some weapons uh on some uh
[01:12:48] some weapons manufacturers. Terrorism,
[01:12:51] you're a terrorist. You're a terrorist
[01:12:53] for spraying red paint and smashing a
[01:12:55] window of companies that are supplying
[01:12:58] weapons to a genocide. And the idea that
[01:13:02] they just stop with that, they stop with
[01:13:03] Palestine action in the UK. They won't
[01:13:05] stop with prescribing Palestine action.
[01:13:08] And they will they will prescribe other
[01:13:10] groups, other uh or activist uh groups
[01:13:14] and organizations, climate activists.
[01:13:15] They might go to the right wing as well.
[01:13:17] They'll sanction they'll uh they'll ban
[01:13:19] them. And then this is right and left.
[01:13:22] If you do anything that the government
[01:13:23] is going to threaten you with, it's not
[01:13:25] about a right or left thing here.
[01:13:26] Anything that threatens them in any way,
[01:13:30] then you're going to get hit with this.
[01:13:31] And that's the that's the problem that I
[01:13:34] think people don't understand. And it's
[01:13:35] like Palunteer doesn't just operate, you
[01:13:37] know, in conjunction with the Israelis
[01:13:39] to uh create kill lists for
[01:13:42] Palestinians. It's targeting US
[01:13:45] citizens, too. So, the whole idea that
[01:13:47] you can separate the two, we don't live
[01:13:49] in that sort of world. Like this is a
[01:13:52] globalized system. like uh the idea that
[01:13:56] you're somehow disconnected from it and
[01:13:58] that your economic situation is
[01:14:00] disconnected from where the oil is at
[01:14:02] and your weapons companies and contract
[01:14:05] it doesn't make any sense but you know
[01:14:08] people still begin I think the younger
[01:14:11] generation in my opinion are more open
[01:14:14] to hearing this because of the fact that
[01:14:17] they don't have the same prospects as
[01:14:19] the generations before them. So they
[01:14:22] don't they know that you know their life
[01:14:24] is not going to be the same. The idea
[01:14:25] that you can just work a factory job now
[01:14:27] and you can have a nice big house and
[01:14:29] two cars and you know you can have two
[01:14:32] holidays or a nice holiday a year. You
[01:14:34] can have a family on that salary and all
[01:14:37] that's gone. That's not coming back. And
[01:14:40] they're not going to do anything for
[01:14:41] you. And that's not because of
[01:14:43] immigrants. That's not because of
[01:14:45] immigrants. That's because your
[01:14:47] government doesn't care about you and
[01:14:49] they're working with all of these tech
[01:14:52] firms and weapons manufacturers and big
[01:14:55] corporations
[01:14:56] uh not only to destroy the lives of
[01:14:59] people in Gaza or Iran, but also their
[01:15:02] own population. They would exploit you
[01:15:04] too. That's the system. This is the
[01:15:07] endstage capitalism. This is what
[01:15:09] they're seeking to do, you know, and
[01:15:12] this has always been the project. So,
[01:15:13] it's just Yeah. just just a just a
[01:15:16] plunder while things are still
[01:15:18] plunderable and come come hell or high
[01:15:20] water. So that's where we're at right
[01:15:23] now. So of course again we'll continue
[01:15:25] to monitor the Iran developments, the
[01:15:27] Gaza
[01:15:29] um genocide will continue in the
[01:15:32] meantime. Um
[01:15:34] we'll see if a ceasefire is put in
[01:15:36] place. I I suspect that, you know,
[01:15:39] there'll be a ceasefire, then they'll
[01:15:42] jin up some excuse why Hamas broke it or
[01:15:44] didn't accept it, even though even
[01:15:46] though the entire ceasefire deal is a
[01:15:48] poison pill, uh it's
[01:15:51] it's kind of a non-starter based off how
[01:15:53] it's sketched out right now. Uh just
[01:15:55] like u you know the Iranian nuclear
[01:15:58] negotiations. So the mask is off at this
[01:16:01] point. No soft power left. only force in
[01:16:04] the leveraging of US economic and
[01:16:06] military power. So that's what we're
[01:16:07] looking forward to guys and thanks so
[01:16:10] much for coming on. Robert Enllesh,
[01:16:12] staff writer here at Mint Press News to
[01:16:14] kind of do a I don't know, just a
[01:16:16] regional roundt for what's going on.
[01:16:18] Really appreciate you coming on. Thank
[01:16:20] you. Thanks for having me. Always a
[01:16:22] pleasure. All right, y'all. And if you
[01:16:23] are in Chicago, we are doing a Palestine
[01:16:26] benefit show at Beat Kitchen. All
[01:16:29] proceeds going to Palestine Children's
[01:16:31] Relief uh Children Relief Fund and for
[01:16:34] legal defense fees for some of the
[01:16:36] homies hit with uh charges trying to
[01:16:39] stop a genocide. So uh swing on by if
[01:16:42] you're in Chicago on Friday. It's 4th of
[01:16:44] July. So, uh, cheers y'all and we will
[01:16:46] see you next Monday
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