3/19/26 Joe Kent on How the Israelis Drove Trump Towards an Unnecessary War with Iran

This is the Scott Horton Show, Libertarian Foreign Policy, mostly when the President

doesn't. That means that it is not only. We're going to take out seven countries. They don't know what the

fuck they're doing. Negotiate now and this war. And now here's your host, Scott Horton.

All right, you guys. Introducing Joe Kent, formerly of the 75th Rangers, and then

CIA Special Activities Division, or Special Activity Center, I guess they renamed it paramilitary,

fought in the terror wars. And then most recently he was the head of the Counterterrorism Center,

and famously resigned from the Trump administration over principle objection to the war in Iran.

Welcome back to the show. How are you doing, sir?

Doing great, Scott. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Happy to have you here. And I'm sorry to do this to you, but we might as well,

because it is obviously crucial that since we're apparently living in the 1930s, we need your

opinion on the rise of national socialism in Germany and the avowed anti-semitism of the new

furor over there. And whether you think we should take the Soviet Union side against them,

and whether you agree with their stance on Jews and things like that, please.

I'd prefer to keep to what I know, the war in Iran, but yeah, you're, you're just,

it was not lost. I mean, it does feel like we're living in those times once again.

Yeah. Well, look, I know your oath was to the US Constitution, and yeah,

more closely resemble the kind of guys who fought against Nazi Germany in the second world war,

but they're Samarian, yes. So I figured I'd give you a chance at least to

crack a smile, if not defend yourself from the onslaught here.

All right. So I also am not an anti-semit. So apparently, have other motives for your criticisms

of American policy, even so badly that you would resign over them other than a hatred of some

religious ethnic type group. So why don't you explain what it was as so important,

so objectionable about this war with Iran that you really thought it was worth resigning over?

Yeah. So look, my bottom line is that I believe that this war, especially the timing of it,

was largely driven by the Israeli's agenda and the Israeli's timeline, and we were forced to

react, plunging us into this conflict. Now, there's not a lot of debate over whether there was an

imminent threat or not. However, Secretary of State Mark Rubio, the President, Speaker of the House,

they've all come out and said that we launched this attack because we knew that the Israelis were

going to attack as well. And so I think that tells you pretty much most of what you need to know,

that the Israelis were the ones in the driver's seat, and I just think that is completely

an irresponsible way for us to conduct ourselves as far as foreign policy goes. We provide Israel

everything that they need, or I would say the majority of what they need to defend themselves,

but also to go on the offense. And so if we're going to provide them with this level of support,

then they need to adhere to our timelines, and they adhere to our strategic objectives,

or they need to be comfortable with going it alone. And an attack is imminent because of an

action of so-called ally is taking. And I think we really need to reassess what that relationship

truly is. In my time at NCTC in the White House of this capacity, I just saw an ecosystem that was

created around President Trump between influential members of the media, such as Mark Lovane,

Dubuits, think tanks like FDD, Wall Street Journal, editorial pages, etc., but then also

high-ranking Israeli officials, and then some advocates, donors, etc., that created an ecosystem

around President Trump that told him that, you know, you said that you, President Trump said that

Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, but if they can enrich uranium, then they're going to be

able to have a nuclear weapon. All President Trump had ever said was Iran can't have a nuclear weapon,

and I think most people agree with that. I agree with it. And actually, before I had told

him, before he was killed, he agreed with that too, and strictly enforced a red line with his

own government and his own military, that they weren't allowed to actually enrich and develop

a nuclear weapon. They couldn't enrich, but they couldn't develop a nuclear weapon.

So these rallies came in using their official back channels, their own official channels,

and then also the media to create an artificial red line and say that there could be no

enrichment, and that was basically wandered into official U.S. policy that took away the President's

decision making space. And so my issue was that accurate information wasn't being given to the

President. The Israelis were largely in the driver's seat of driving our policies, and I think this

is a disservice, not just to the American people, but also the President Trump. President Trump

is a fantastic negotiator. I think if given the space, it could come up with a deal. I didn't,

I don't believe that war was his first option. So for all those reasons, I tried from the inside

for as long as I could to advocate and slow these things down to give the President more time

to make a decision, until essentially we were boxed out myself and others who were advocating

for a more pragmatic approach were boxed out. And I felt like, number one, I couldn't be a part of

this as someone who said that I would not allow the next generation to go off into war.

I was a pledge I made to myself, probably on my third or fourth deployment overseas, but then also,

I felt that this was probably one of the better ways to be able to communicate to the President,

that he doesn't have to continue down this path. Sorry, I know, that was a long answer.

No, that's good. Long answers are good. Okay, so the headline is Blaine's Israel lobby,

and here you're saying specifically what you mean by that is they're reframing the question

of Iran's nuclear program in such a way in Trump's mind as him as their primary audience here

to essentially drive all the nuance out of what a uranium enrichment program is for and can be

used for and essentially get him to adopt the Israeli line that for them to have enrichment at all

is the same thing as them having a nuclear weapons program and even a very advanced one that

must be stopped right now. And it was that framing being successful essentially over him is really

what you're referring to when you say that he was pushed into this by the Israel lobby. Is that correct?

Yeah, exactly. That's right. I mean, President Trump said I really can't have a nuclear weapon.

I think most people agree with that. And again, the Iatola and the former Iatola,

anyways, at least agree with that. And so that was very dangerous for the Israelis because

that leveling of the playing field essentially brought both President Trump and the Iranians to

negotiate any table. The Israelis feared President Trump being able to get a deal which could lead

to some form of normalization with the Iranians. The Israelis have been very upfront. I really

frankly don't think the Israelis cared that much about Iran's nuclear weapons. What I think they

care about, or not necessarily nuclear weapons during enrichment, what I think the Israelis

care about is regime change. And so they wanted to push this more as fast as they could. And so they

came up with this talking point that zero enrichment was the starting point knowing that that was a

non-starter for the Iranians because the Iranians were smart. They knew if they completely got rid of

any kind of enrichment that they would end up like Kenapa and Lydia. And I knew if they had the BS and

say that they had a nuclear weapon, they'd end up like Saddam and Iraq. So they essentially have what

I call the Goldilocks methodology where they just said, hey, we could, we have enough material here

and the capability where we could develop a nuclear weapon, but we're not developing a nuclear weapon.

So therefore you can't just come push us around, but also you can't justify coming in because we

have an nuclear weapon. And again, the Israelis wanted to take away any ability for their immune

negotiation because they wanted this regime change more that they can't do on their own. They

need the might of the US military. And of course, Trump called that bluff against their latent

deterrent last June. And I think, you know, you can confirm this. I guess from your former

position here, but even from the open source material here, he very much did obliterate their program.

Took Natan St. Fordo and Isfahan virtually completely offline.

Maybe they have a secret enrichment program somewhere, but probably not.

Doesn't look like, you know, any of that. So he called their bluff on that latent deterrent.

So much good. It did them after all that time at least. But now, so let me ask you about the

statements by Marco Rubio and others that the Israelis were threatening. We're going to start this war

and we know that it's going to lead to Iranian attacks against American interests and drag you in.

So you might as well start the war with us this kind of thing. And in a way, in a word,

blackmailed America into launching the war. Is that your information as well?

I mean, Marco Rubio and again, Marco Rubio and the president and even Speaker Alice,

I think others have now come out and said, well, when you, the Israelis were going to go,

so we had to go. And so I think the question for every American, especially me and my former

position was like, well, who's in charge here? This is going to have massive consequences

for the United States of America. We knew what, what the Iranians were going to do. We knew

where their missiles were pointed. We basically knew what their contingency plans were. They were

going to target bases in the region. Many of us were advocating for years to limit our footprint

in the sink con region just for this very, for this very reason, because it gave the Iranians

more leverage. We also knew, and I think the US government has known for years that the Iranians

would try to shut down the Straits of Hormuz to impose economic costs. So my, my whole point was

that if we're going to do this war, we cannot let the Israelis drive our timeline. We can't have

our hands forced into this because the stakes are just so high. All right. This episode of

a Scott Horton show brought to you by the books I wrote. You can see them behind me there.

Enough already, fools errand and then enough already and provoked. And then of course,

one might have fallen down there, but I got Ron Paul, the great Ron Paul,

a Scott Horton show interviews. And hotter than the sun, see that one back there over there,

that way hotter than the sun, time to abolish nuclear weapons. That's all interviews I did,

all about nukes and really great stuff. And I bust my ass on these things and you know,

I've gotten a really great reception on all of them. They were all been endorsed by Ron Paul

and Daniel Ellsberg endorsed two of the three I wrote. He would have endorsed the third one I

know, but he died too soon, unfortunately. Tucker Carlson says that provoked is the definitive

account. In fact, that's a Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Mattay said about it too.

The definitive account of the new Cold War with Russia and the war in Ukraine. So maybe check that

out. So I'm interested in this and don't get me wrong because obviously I agree with you that

the Israelis definitely did browbeat Trump into doing this, but seems to me like they just got

agreement from him to do this is specifically Netanyahu, the prime minister himself. And

I don't know if you saw this, but there's this interesting article

at Politico. This is from the day before the war. On Thursday, it says the White House officials

believe the politics were a lot better of Israel strikes Iran first. And this was essentially

the idea was an agreement between the Americans and the Israelis. I have the Israel

hit Iran first in order to force Iran to hit America so that they could tell the American people

see, well, they hit us and gave us no choice, but to do this. And apparently they decided not to

do that. This is very reminiscent actually of the David Wormser plan in 2007, where he and

Cheney wanted to get the Ahood Olmert government to attack Iran and force Iran to hit American

interest in the Gulf as an end run around W. Bush to force him to do it. In this case, it's

Trump and his guys trying to do an end run around us apparently. Or at least that was the idea.

But my point being that even though they didn't implement this plan, it seems to put the

lie to the idea that Netanyahu is like the snorling pit bull that Trump could not hold on to his

leash rather than they bump fists and decided to do this together.

From my perspective, there was just a lot of bad information coming from the Israeli side,

particularly around that enrichment issue. Really just kind of convoluting the idea of zero

enrichment. And then Luke says I described. And then I think as the Israelis got more and more

nervous that President Trump may strike a deal again. He was deploying more diplomats.

From my vantage point, the Israelis just decided to really force our hands. They were going to

go do this. And you know, it's going to have an action going to be attacked. And to me,

that it's just that that was a red line for me. And I said, hey, I can't be a part of this.

Right now, I'm sorry to keep confronting you with like the silly stuff, but obviously you're a

senior official who's resigned over a war. I mean, it's a huge thing. The attacks against you

kind of are relentless. And you had mentioned, I believe it was in your resignation statement,

but definitely you addressed this a bit in your Tucker Carlson interview that there was an

important role played by the Israel lobby in getting us into the Iraq war and into Obama's war in

Syria as well, which obviously you have a lot of firsthand experience. I know I read that you

were deployed 11 times. I interviewed you a few years ago. Forgive me, I forget if you had gone to

Afghanistan as well. I know you spent a lot of time in Iraq and Syria, right? And so again,

they want to say, well, this is an anti-Semitic blood libel from the middle ages or something. And

so I just thought like, maybe you have an actual explanation for what you meant by that.

Certainly. I mean, the lead up to the 2002 declaration or basically that 2002 portion

while it was being publicly debated whether or not we should go to war or Iraq, well, they're

right forward being sold to the American people. The Israeli lobby led by Benjamin Netanyahu at

the time, who I believe, I'll talk to my head was there. Their finance manager was over here in

America, heavily campaigning for us to go after Stomach who's saying, saying that Stomach saying

had weapons of mass destruction. The Israeli lobby APEC had these talking points in all of their

different briefing books. So they are pressuring members of the House, members of the Senate

to support the war against Iraq. The Israelis had a lot of interest in Iraq. They obviously thought

Stomach was a threat, but they were also concerned with being able to get some of the Iraqi oil

for their own their own uses and their own interests. But also they viewed Iraq as a staging point

for Syria and moreover for Iran. I mean, the the Israelis have been very, very I think straightforward

on what they view as a threat and they basically view the vast majority of the countries that surround

them as a threat. Some more so than others, but Syria, Iraq, and Iran were top of their list for

quite some time. So they and then also of course they didn't do it alone. It wasn't it wasn't

just the Israeli lobby. They had a lot of, you know, fellow travelers with men over neo-conservative.

There's a lot of bleed over there, but the neo-conservative movement as as you know and I think

most of your viewers know, they help really self-war to the American people and ultimately to

the Bush administration that launched us into Iraq. We basically screwed up Iraq so much that we

we kind of handed the keys to the kingdom over to the Shia majority, but not just the Shia majority

in particular, the best organized guys were the border corps, the supreme council for Islamic

revolution in Iraq. But these guys had fought on the Iranian side of the Iraq Iran war. So they

were loyal to Taran because of our own ignorance and then a lot of other lobbying by outside groups.

These guys basically took power in Iraq. And so at the time we were leaving Iraq in 2011, it was

evident that we had basically handed over Baghdad to the Iranians. And so the Israeli lobby said,

hey, this is this is a major problem because now we basically have a Iranian super highway, a

land bridge that goes from Iran all the way into Syria through Iraq. This this directly supports

Hezbollah's efforts against Israel. So it was a major problem. And so we had basically

tipped the the balance of power in the region over to the Shiites. So then the dirty war in Syria

was launched because half of Assad and Bashiro al-Assad had always been long time friends with the

Iranian support of the Iranians helped support Hezbollah and Hamas from Syria. And so who who do we

rely on as our proxies inside of Syria? Well, it was by and large the Sunnis and the most radical

elements of the Sunnis. There was the free Syrian army and there were some so-called moderates,

but the guys who were out there and really aggressive against the Assad regime were members of al-Qaeda

and then eventually members of ISIS. ISIS got so out of control that we eventually had to go

back into Iraq, back into Syria, largely re-empower a lot of the same Shiite militias that we are

trying to take power away from in order to take out the ISIS caliphate. That's where I lost my

late wife was fighting the ISIS caliphate in 2018. But this is how really the the goals of the

Israeli government have driven a lot of our foreign policy in the Middle East. And so at the end

of the day, I really think it's time for Americans to reflect on what are our vital national

security interests in the region and truly is the relationship that we have right now with this

hyper-aggressive, lecude-driven government inside Israel. Is that worth it to us? Because now here we are

where we're diving headlong into another war and this may be the most consequential war

in the Middle East that we fought in quite some time. Is it truly worth it? And I think if these

facts are laid out to President Trump and we have the ability for an off ramp, we have the

ability for negotiations, I think President Trump can get us out of this. But I think it's time

for us to have these hard discussions, these hard conversations right now. It'll be truly objective

about what our relationship is with Israel and what the American interests in the region truly are.

A point in clarification here, I believe it was in Tucker Carlson interview.

I saw actually someone quote you critically here, but I thought maybe they misunderstood you,

but I wanted to get a little clarification. At one point recently, here you had said that you

had fought with uranium-backed groups in the region. I think it was a little vague. So then I

wondered, did that mean that you were part of the surge in 2007 against Saadar's forces

in Iraq War II or in the aftermath of Iraq War III against the caliphate? I know that they're

Iranian-backed militias that hit guys, but I think you were out of the service by then. But so I

was wondering if you could clarify that because I saw someone say, oh, this guy's saying that

Al-Qaeda and ISIS are backed by Iran, but I know you're not saying that.

So I first deployed to Iraq in 2003. I missed the factual invasion. I was still in the Special

Forces Qualifications course. Got to Baghdad in the summer of 03. And then I was in the Special

Forces group as a green beret. And so basically every year from 03 until 2011, I would be in Iraq

for anywhere between six to eight months at a given time. So I fought against the uranium-backed

militias of all bearing stripes. Primarily at Saadar's militia, Sabahawk, Khatab al-Hazbullah,

beginning in really 2004 in Nijaw. And that's where we saw the Iranians come in, heavily

and support them. Members of the goods force fought in heavily in Saadar's city. I was there in the

surge. Yeah, pretty much throughout the country to spend my time divided between fighting and

hunting the Iranian-backed Shia militias, but then also the Al-Qaeda guys went back after the

the ISIS caliphate took over and fought between. I was in Baghdad for a little bit, but then

mostly up in Kirkuk, Mosul, that area, a little bit into Syria. So what I say, I fought with,

I guess you could take that either way at the time in the counter-ISIS, but we essentially were

acting as the the Air Force and our ground-shock troops were the Shia militias because at the time we

had a common enemy. As that fight wound down, I was out of the service, but then my wife was killed

in 2019. I left the CIA that I had transitioned to after I retired from the military in 18,

but that's when the Shia militias turned against our forces and President Trump ultimately decided

to retaliate by killing Cosmos Almonic. All right, so as I said, we've talked before, but it's been a

few years and I don't remember. We might have even had an argument about this or I don't,

I don't know, but I want to bring it up because it is crucial. A major talking point against Iran

is that they killed 600 of our guys in Iraq worked here. Now clearly, there was some Iranian

support for Sa'dar, but then again, as you already described, the Supreme Islamic Council and the

Dava Party were much closer to Iran even than Sa'dar was, and it was really America's attacks against

Sa'dar that drove him into Iran and drove him closer to Iran. But a huge part of this whole narrative

then, especially at the hands of David Petraeus and Dick Cheney and Michael Gordon, then of the New

York Times, not the Wall Street Journal, was that Iran was responsible for every copper core EFP

roadside bomb placed by any Shiite militiamen, especially in the first half of the year 2007.

And as I show in my book and actually have them all here, if you really want to squabble,

I have report after report after report after report of these machine shops being found by American

soldiers in Iraq and these bombs being made by Iraqi Shiites for use against the United States,

as opposed to the myth that every single one of these things somehow were all part of an Iranian

plot and really it was Petraeus who had attacked Sa'dar rather than the other way around in 2007.

Anyway, I wondered if you wanted to comment on that because it is a real crucial talking point

equivalent to essentially in the narrative equivalent to the favorite bombing of 1983

and the hostage crisis or one of these things that proves that Iran is America's eternal enemy.

I think I'll kind of eat halfway. So I was over there and I worked heavily on a small task force

going after the EFP threat. So the idea of an EFP, it's not incredibly advanced. The Iranian

just did a very, the goods force just did a very good job of finding ways to manufacture them and

employ them against our uparmory technology and to beat our jammers and then also to punch through

our armor. The goods force were kind of like my counterpart as a green beret. They were very good

at training, training, manning and equipping and then what we would say as green berets is work

yourself out of the job, train your proxy forces so that in short order they don't need you there

anymore and that's essentially what happened with the EFP. So the initial EFP is that we found

they were being constructed inside of Iran and I know exactly what you're talking about with

the copper plating because we did run ourselves in circles looking for like where the Iranians

were storing all this mythical copper and like when they slugged into copper across the border,

I think that was something of chasing ghosts because really what the goods force did was they

may have manufactured. I'm confident they manufactured the first run of the EFP's inside of Iran and

they probably tested them there as well but they they were able to take that technology because

it's pretty rudimentary and then show Iraqis how they could basically build them in Iraqi

machine shops, local machine shops in Sonarak in Saudi Arabia etc. But largely the TTP, the tactic

of the EFP did come from the Iranians as for the back and forth relationship that we have with

the Saudi. I think that if we would have been more deliberate about engaging with Saudi, especially

after I've drawn a blank on the Imam, I think the Imam Koei somebody can check me and it's been a

lot of success after he was killed when he returned from Iran. I think we could have made much more

progress and kind of making an alliance with the more nationalistic Iraqi she is, which is what

Saudi represented as opposed to like you said, the Syrian, the Dalab ranch that were much more

beholden to Iran. But yeah, but I do agree that Iran was responsible for, I'd say 600, I mean,

I'm not sure exactly where they got that number from, but they were responsible for hundreds of

casualties against the American forces. Now again, should we have been there in the first place?

Absolutely not. What happens is the narrative is basically push where you're supposed to just

believe that every Iraqi Shiite militia man was an Iranian rather than an Iraqi Arab Shiite fighting

under an Iraqi Arab Shiite militia. As Gareth Porter showed and maybe I'll follow up with you

and show you this, Gareth Porter found where it was actually that they had learned it from and I

don't know exactly what you're referring to. Maybe you have effects on this that you could back

it up. But Gareth showed where they learned it from Lebanese Hasbala not from Iran and that

Lebanese Hasbala got it from the IRA not from Iran and that that was kind of the origin of the

technology of how again, they're pretty simple bomb, but it's you have to hear the idea somewhere

first to put the copper plate here and you know on the shape charge here kind of thing. And so

apparently that was where it came from according to Gareth's great journalism back then, but

and then I did kind of flash on the screen there a few different examples of these news stories.

In fact, I'll go ahead and show you this one because the the main ringleader in the media at the

time again was Michael Gordon. He was the same guy who was the byline on every Judith Miller

hoax story about the nuclear program and the New York Times and the run up to the war. Same guy

and yet here is his co journalist from the New York Times Alissa Rubin writing in the same paper

you see the day April 7th 2007 right during the same time frame and down here she talks about how

they found I should have had it all highlighted, but here they go they recovered an assembly area

for powerful roadside bombs known as explosively foreign penetrators. The statement said and

others the military told the New York Times that so then in other words when they weren't pushing

the Michael Gordon you know David Petraeus Dick Cheney narrative there they kept having to admit

that they kept stumbling across these machines shops. So you may be right that the idea came

from Persia, but it sure seemed like what they were doing was trying their very best to conflate

solder with the Iatola comedy in order to justify strikes inside Iran which Bush ultimately

refused to do. I agree with you on that yeah there there I mean the whole time I was in

Iraq that was that was especially I'd say the Sir Gears on it was that the Iranians were the

day for act and basically we needed to take the fight to them. So yeah that that that that that line

of thinking was very much at play and I think it's something that we always missed or we never

really factored in was that Iraq and Iran had fought a little bitter war against each other and

the majority of Iraq which he is so the majority of she has picked up a rifle whether they wanted

to or not and they fought against the Iranians and that was something that we never really wrapped

our heads fully around that there was a lot of nationalistic Iraqis who were not sympathetic with

the Iranians until they had a horrible experience with foreigners coming in and invaded their country

and us trying to impose our will on them. So again like we never should have been there in the

first place we we continued to get it wrong and again this is why I think a lot of our actions

right now are completely and totally counterproductive. If we ever wanted to stabilize Iraq after we

toppled Saddam we immediately should have been working with guys like Saadar we should have been

working with the nationalistic she is and not played into the hands of the Iranians the Iranian

Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iatolas much like right now if our goal is to get rid of the

Iatolas and the IRGC the last thing we should be doing is killing off the Iatola especially because

that was the Iatol that had a prohibition on developing a nuclear weapon but also because it's

creating a rally around the flag type of scenario now where you have Persian Iranians who may have

been out in the streets a month ago complaining about the cost of living and ready to overthrow their

government from the ground up and that might take a longer time but at least we're in an organic

whereas now now that we've killed off the supreme leader and we're starting to kill off all the

moderates the hardliners cases being vindicated and the Iranian people are now digging in because

they're prideful people like most people are like I would be like probably you would be and we're

moving even further away from anything that would resemble like an organic regime change inside

of Iran so really just basically eliminating any kind of option that we would have other than the

war option. Hey guys you know I have another podcast now right yeah me and the great American

historian Darryl Cooper that is martyr made he's my co-host and we host a show every Friday night

we might be switching to two days a week here sometimes in but for right now we're doing Friday

nights live at eight o'clock eastern time on the YouTube's checked out our Twitter handle provoked

show. Okay I have a couple of questions about that just how organic was that because it seemed like

there's a big protest but then all of a sudden you had armed teams of guys burning mosques and

sacking police stations and causing that fight and then I have a second question about that which is

that I wonder if you agree with this that it seems that the the purpose of embellishing the casualty

count on the part of the uprising whether protesters or armed fighters or whoever all it was exactly

which must have been apparently like three or four thousand something like that on both sides

including the cops and all that but then they embellished that up to 30 40 thousand I'd like to

know well you're opinion on that that's my assertion that they embellished it you know far beyond

reason and that obviously the purpose of that was as we're propaganda to get people to say this

is unacceptable is you know on an atrocity on the level of the end fall campaign or something we

have to go in there and do something about it but it then it also seems like it must have had a

perverse effect on Donald Trump because that story could be interpreted to mean that the

Iranian regime had to kill 30 to 50 thousand people to get the other hundreds of thousands of

them to finally quit and go home or else surely they would have been overthrown any minute when

that's just completely ridiculous and if it was only 3000 killed and they were the vanguard of

a protest movement that made up you know whatever a few tens of thousands of people then that would

not indicate that the Iranian regime is so brittle and is ready to fall but if you really believe

that they had to kill 30 to 50 thousand people in some like battle of the psalm sized massacre

in order to cling to power in January then you might have believed Netanyahu that you can just

you know give him a flick and they'll fall right over by the end of February.

I mean in more of the first casualties always the truth and I'm always skeptical of like any kind

of numbers coming out of a complex down from my former vantage point it was hard to know which

number was accurate I share your skepticism in the larger numbers but what I do know from my past

experience and just pattern recognition anytime we launch a war even if it sounds like it's under

noble osmosis like we didn't Libya with the responsibility to protect doctrine that the

Clintons and some at the power were so fond of saying hey we have to go in with military force

to topple this regime to save the people it sounds noble but it always ends up in the same

catastrophe that regime change driven by the Americans results and so look I was very skeptical

at the time of we need to go in and save the protest movement I was always of the mindset that

look at this protest movement is going to be real and they're truly going to drive this current

regime from power they've got to do it on their own for it to actually have any for it to really

resonate and be a real lasting thing if we want to make sure that the protest movement fails as we

go in there and we say hey we're we're the Americans we're here to back the protesters against

the government that just does not work for us especially in the Middle East. Okay now can you tell us

what's your best assessment of the state of the negotiations before the war and whether they

really could have been successful? I think the most the biggest chance that we had was before

the until they were before midnight hammer I personally believe that you know seedwood cough

and the folks working with him and in the army his or any encounter parts I think they're

close to a deal that's just my opinion I wasn't involved in the deal making I don't want

for trade as that my opinion of that though was that those talks were going very well they're

continuing to meet the discussions on they're having real discussions on enrichment and again this

is where the idea that no enrichment was our red line that's where I saw the echo chamber that I

alluded to in my resignation letter that's where I really saw that go to work between members of media

and then Israeli officials coming in and basically saying no no but you said you know no no no no

enrichment which is complete until months and so I think there was a particular

for a deal there obviously the 12-day war minute hammer set back the potential of the deal but

the Iranians are very very calculated and when they retaliated for operation midnight hammer they

did in a very very calculated way they they shot back an equal number of missiles that we dropped

his bombs and so that signal to us that hey they were still interested in actually cutting a deal

and again this is what the Israelis feared because they knew that President Trump is negotiating

team probably could get a deal because you had the Iranians willing to go back to the table holding

their self-imposed prohibition on developing a nuclear weapon and just saying hey like we just want

to have a conversation about enrichment when when we were having a conversation about enrichment

I think there was a real potential for a deal there and that's why we have the Israelis come in

full core press with the echo chamber and say no no we have to go now they're going to

open to go up and they're developing ballistic missiles that reach America they were just throwing

anything at the wall of the sea will it stick and then of course our hand to say hey we're we're

going to go right now and we go they're going to hit you guys back so that that's where I saw a lot

of the negotiating space get taken away and and until any potential for a deal but start I think

right now there is a potential still for a deal and I think only Donald Trump can do it I think

he's got to address the Israeli issue first and foremost and and demand and force them to stop going

on the offense I know he sent out a true social last night saying just that to stop bombing

the energy sector my opinion my advice to him if you would take it is that look we we

have enough data on how the Israelis behave if you tell them that they're they need to stop

bombing this target of that target they might back off for a week or so but they're not going

to list you you have to take away their ability to do that you have to take away some feature of

their defense system to say hey look we're going to take away a feature of your defense system and

we're not going to support you while you're on the offense if you go completely back on the defense

we will support you but until we take something away from the Israelis they will not listen to

if President Trump addresses that first that will give him the space to reach a deal and we already

we already saw him today through his Commerce Secretary talking about lifting the sanctions

on some of the Iranian oil that's already on the water and so I think we I pray that we're

actually moving in that direction but I think the timing is crucial I think we have a lot of

potential right now to get that deal yeah I mean politically that would be a huge plundown

for him to have to overtly restrain the Israelis as part probably even an official

negotiation with Iran I mean I agree with you that he should seek peace at all most any cost

anyway but politically speaking what you're really saying is boy did he already jump into the

deep end of this ocean and you know where he cannot touch the bottom and how is he going to get

himself out of this thing without something like that where he's implicitly saying boy we just

shouldn't have done that or whatever call a victory now um but if Israel's still in a position

to force the war to continue on and they're willing to without him absolutely putting his foot down

then that really goes to show that the best he can do the best he is doing is calling time out

rather than actually achieving any kind of success much less victory like David Petrus would say

yeah I think that the fundamental issue is restraining Israel and until we do that we may be able to

buy some time but we'll be right back in the same situation all over again so that's why I say we

we have to actually be pretty personal with them and just say look we're paying for the majority

of your defense we will not pay for you to go on offense we have a different strategic goal than

than they do like right now we share some tactical objectives like we've said that we want to

take down their ballistics they got their navy etc the Iranians or the Israelis are on for but that

but beyond that that's where our our interests go in completely divergent paths the Israelis want

forward gene change and the Israelis have a very high tolerance for chaos like they're completely

okay destroying that whole system over there and having a chaotic situation where the

straight support moves is still in jeopardy where potentially there's mass migration where you

have different fractionalizations within inside of Iran that establishes the region but poses

less threat to Israel the Israelis are fine with that we are not that would be absolutely catastrophic

for us for our partners our allies in the the GCC states potentially even in Europe and

also for the world energy trade so the stakes are very very high from our strategic objective

standpoint and so to let the Israelis continue to essentially call the shots and drive the

ferocity and the strategic objectives of the battle that is not doing any service for the

American people and I think as soon as President Trump can can realize that and use his

force that only President Trump has to with strain to to restrain the Israelis what we're going to

continue to be at this this cycle now do you think that plan A was to parachute the monarch

Reza Palavi the the grandson in there or it was really the Israeli goal was just convinced Trump

to get it started and the plan is destroy Persia the Israelis were big fans of throwing everything

at the wall to see what would stick so I think at some point in time they probably brief like the

the monarch son or the Nek or the Kurds etc etc but really at the end of the day the Israeli

goal was to get in there and hammer the regime killed a supreme leader and killing the supreme

leader I think it was twofold I mean basically killed the guy that was restraining the nuclear

program and so now there's a more compelling case to make that hey look they if they have anything

that even resembles any kind of enrichment or any nuclear you know component they're going to

make a bomb because actually probably now they will because we killed the one restrainer actually

we killed several of the restrainers I say we I mean I mean between us and the Israelis we will

all be blamed for it but really the the entire Israeli goal was just to launch this to topple

the regime at any cost because they know the time is short they know that they're losing a lot of

support on both sides of the aisle in America and so for them timing was of the essence and they

basically work out the details later get us get us deeply entrenched in this thing as fast as they

can and after that they basically met their main strategic objective everything else is just

a matter of getting us to stay committed to the fight yeah hey guys got here for moon doves

artisan coffees it's the scot Wharton show flavored coffee breakfast blend it's part Ethiopian

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right now just go again to scotwharton.org slash coffee all right so I'm going to get back to

the state of the war over there in a minute but I have to tell you I've been thinking about you a

bit for the last year or so here knowing that you're up there running the counterterrorism center

at a time where I am completely paranoid to the point where I need to take pills or something

about the danger of bin Laden night glowback terrorism in this country and yes I know you know

we all know that bin Laden night factions overall these Wahhabi salafi factions most often work

for the United States Britain and Saudi Arabia going around being mercenaries killing people and

taking over Syria and and fighting in Bosnia and Chechnya and wherever Bill Clinton or Joe Biden

need them Republicans too but also these are the guys who kill Americans and when al-Qaeda turned

against the United States in the 1990s I know a lot of people think that that was all puppetry

and an inside job kind of thing but I don't think so I think Bill Clinton was back in them here while

they're backing them there while they're attacking us here and continue to do that and their primary

motivating factor for attacking the United States was support for Israel and Israel's mandated

policy of course of dual containment from the bases in Saudi Arabia but so then after the two

years of war plus in the Gaza Strip and the horrific slaughter of 70,000 plus people in that war

it seems like Americans must be you know greatly susceptible to this kind of terrorism and then now

add on top of that the Shiites who you know Trump and I guess Israel assassinated not just their

political leader but they're one of their highest ranking religious leaders in the world in the

Ayatollah comedy and I know Sistani so far has not issued a fatwa against us all but if people

think of like the fatwa against Salman Rushdie where they said kill this author well what did they

did not do then was do that to all of us there was just that one guy right but they could do that

Sistani could say all true believers fight and we would have a whole new fight on our hands so

can you please address don't get yourself thrown in prison for telling me secrets or anything

but tell me about how justified is my paranoia about bin Ladenite terrorism in this country

right now and then also please add on top of that the worries any worries about Shiite terrorism

in this country and you know they're kind of oftentimes in right wing media rumors about

his ballast sleeper cells and that kind of thing but that's not impossible so I don't know tell me

yeah I mean there's a lot there I would say you're right the bin Ladenite selfie well obvious

well obvious um unfortunately because we're so consumed right now with this war in Iran

there's several places where where they are predominantly I would say in Yemen also what's taking

place in Syria needs to be monitored but we're not paying as much attention to those areas as we

should be and we have active al-Qaeda cells active al-Qaeda organizations there that are very

threatening and they they exist solely especially in Yemen a QAQ exist solely to attack the

homeland and they don't do that by infiltrating covert cells anymore that to my knowledge what they

do is they reach out and they inspire I'm a little lucky as an inspire magazine but they're using

social media as a way to reach out and to inspire people the majority of the terror attacks that

we had last year they were they were not done by someone who had traveled overseas and then come

here to attack us in some sort of a sleeper cell they were inspired to action most of them

cited what was taking place in Gaza because a lot of the propaganda coming out of Gaza a lot of

the media coming out of Gaza was just so graphic and inspired people to action and they actually

cited that in their their manifestos or the last wills we're going to call them so that is

very concerning and that combined with the wide open border that we add under the previous

administration we frankly just don't know if we came into our country over the last four years

I publicly testified that we had identified a potential 18,000 known suspected terrorists who had

gained access to the country basically the further we dug into the books of what took place

with immigration over the last four years I realized like the less we knew there just wasn't any

active accurate data there was there was limited amounts I didn't say there was any but there's

limited amounts of accurate data but that wide open border just presents such a potential

for actual radicals to infiltrate our country and then at the time in place they're choosing

to carry out attacks but then in terms of blowback terrorism I think we've already started to

see it in the last two weeks we've had several terror attacks here at home that they appear right

now to have been inspired by what was taking place in Iran as you indicated we took out an Iranian

Shia cleric that the Ayatollah for many he was the number one he was eventually he was essentially

their version of the Pope we took out that Israelis killed them um President Trump said that hey we

we're a part of doing that as well so I think there is a high potential for blowback terrorism and

again while most of our resources are focused right now on the fight in uh in the in the Persian

Gulf and against Iran and in that region we are kind of taking our eye off the ball on the threats

to the homeland that we should be focused on so there is a lot to be concerned with there I think

we've got our work cut out for us here at the homeland I think that's where our focus should be

not on picking new fights overseas and I think you're overall point I heard you make this many many

times I think it's very accurate just the amount of blowback terror that we receive because of our

support for the state of Israel that's not any address as well too and at the end of the day it's

not really about any love or affinity for anyone it's like is this relationship worth it at the end

of the day are we getting more than we're having to pay a cost for I think that's worth discussing

yeah on the first day of the war a terrorist went and killed three innocent people

drinking at the bar in my hometown Austin Texas wounded 15 more now and he just happened to pick

a spot where there's cops everywhere so they were able to corner him but you know you know better

than me as a former special operator and whatever but any man could tell you it'd be really easy

for any man to kill a lot of people if he's willing to die trying and there's this entire nation

from Bangor to Bangor is there is a lot of soft targets of innocent civilians standing around

everywhere the only way to protect us from terrorism is to not do this kind of thing over there

and not motivate and I'm not saying yes we should have open borders we certainly should not be

bringing these people into our country potential terrorists into our country the guy that attacked

the synagogue the other day they say that he was brothers with a Hezbollah guy I don't know if

that's really true but if that is true he should have never been allowed in the country in the first

place and they absolutely as as Ron Paul said if they ignore the danger then they're putting the

people of this country in peril they think they just go around do this stuff and that there won't

be consequences because they're absolutely will too and now I'm sorry I know you got to go and I'm

almost up at the time wall here too but I have to ask you really quick about these alleged

Iranian assassination attempts against Donald Trump and my friend Ken Silva is a great reporter

and he's already shown that these are complete nonsense but then again that was your job up there

so can you tell us whether it's really true a diet hole to put out a hit on Donald Trump leading up

to this war after President Trump killed Constantine the Iranians were pretty vocal that they wanted

to have vengeance for for President Trump killing Constantine so there was a legitimate threat now

in terms of how much resources the Iranians put behind it that's up for debate so far all we found

is the trial of Austin Merchant that Silva covered I think he did a great job of covering it

so Austin Merchant was recruited by the the Iranians came over to America we learned about it

ahead of time so at the time he even got into America the FBI basically put him under surveillance

and was able to add a confidential human source go befriend him and so as Merchant was planning

this assassination against President Trump kind of in a kind of clonish way but he still has to

take it seriously he was planning it under the FBI's control essentially I think that that should

be looked at that that trial is done Ken Silva's done a good job of covering it Merchant was arrested

just two days before the assassination attempt in Butler and according to the FBI the two events

aren't linked again as I discussed last night on Tucker show there's still a lot of unanswered

questions if we've done our due diligence to truly see if there was any linkage between what Merchant

had cooking and then also Thomas Crook sent everything that took place there the DHSIG has been blocked

from investigating what's taking place in Butler so I think there's still a lot more a lot more work

to do there a lot of unanswered questions but that was about the most serious threat against the

President's lack that I that I had seen but there was a very real the Iranians did threaten to kill

President Trump that was real the Iranians did seek to revenge costs and so many costs and so many

was a hero to the Iranian regime and also to a lot of the Iranian people so that that part was

real again the amount of resources they they dedicated to it is it's kind of unknown so far

we can put our fingers I always could put our finger on as Merchant and even the thread it was not

was it equivalent to like the fought well against Rusty I don't believe there was ever a fought

I don't have to go back and check I'm sure someone can research that but I to my knowledge there

was not a fought well there was lots of I had just kind of internet snack talking about they're

going to kill them but I mean they they did recruit a guy and send him over here so I think you

have to take the stress very seriously because the Iranians have tried to kill they tried to kill

the Saudi ambassador in Georgetown before and it was a pretty serious plot they had and that one

was fake too I think we all got to look real close at Ken Silva's first of all on the on the

recent story here on the timeline of who was recruited by who win and who started telling what

to which informants and all that we should be really skeptical and then now the one against the

ambassador in the Obama years that was fake the guy was the absent-minded car salesman from

Corpus Christi who couldn't find his car keys and was like caught on a phone call with his

ball of drug dealers and they just embellished it into this plot when that ambassador wouldn't

even a member of the royal family he was some kind of lackey there's no real point in them and

then suppose he this guy was going to blow up a restaurant or whatever I think the whole thing

fell apart once Gareth Porter started looking at it as many of these stories often do

yeah it's been a lot since I've looked at that once I'll take your word for it. It's been a minute

yeah all right well listen um thank you congratulations and thank you for doing the right thing

as standing on principle and resigning over this war I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to

to ask you about the choice to stay and make it less worse or go ahead and stand on prince

why not was a difficult one for you and you're gonna face a lot of heat even going forward here

but you obviously did the right thing and I really appreciate it appreciate your time in the show

Joe. Absolutely Scott thanks so much. The Scott Horton show is brought to you by the

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