Ana Kasparian: Iran War - Israel's Goals NOT U.S. Goals

The U.S. Iran War Day 19, we are no closer to getting to an end than we were when we started.

As a matter of fact, I think you can argue we are further away from any kind of a reasonable

end and increasing the likelihood that this war escalates and deepens in severity.

All of those things we're going to talk about today, we're also going to talk about how

the American public is being intentionally, willfully lied to about how this war started

and where it's going, do not miss this.

And we have nobody better to talk to about this today.

We are absolutely thrilled today to have Annika Sparionaut, who is an executive producer and

host of the fearless online show The Young Turks, which goes live weekdays at 6 p.m.

Easter and Forbes named Anna as one of their 30 under 30 most amazing people.

I think is the category there due to her unfiltered and amazing reporting and analysis.

And also now we consider her a friend of our show and a welcome to our show.

Glad to have you here.

It's a real honor.

I've been watching your program every single day, everything you put out and had it not been

for your program, for Judge Napolitano's program, for wonderful people like Jeffrey Sachs

and John Meersheimer, speaking the truth, I would be in the dark like most Americans on this issue.

Well, there's a lot of darkness being spread around here and one of the reasons we're thrilled

to have you on because you cut right through all that and bring the light to the lot of the

darkness here. And that's what we're going to be looking to do here. I want to talk about some

information that's kind of breaking things that are happening today, which could send us in a very

bad direction. We're going to get into some more about what Israel may be doing that's again

harming American interest here. But this one here in particular, there was an attack, sorry,

there was an attack on the parse south parse gas field in the Persian Gulf here by Israel overnight.

And this this affects both Iran, Iraq and Qatar. Iraq's in fact, energy ministry said on

Wednesday that Iranian gas flows have stopped taking about 3,100 megawatts of power offline. So

having a significant effect on Iraq itself and the disruption disruption came after Iranian media

reported that several facilities linked to the south parse gas field were targeted by Israel

Wednesday with a missile attack. It is the world's largest gas field and it is shared with

Qatar where it is known as the north field and Qatar did not hesitate in responding back by saying

the Israeli targeting facilities linked to the Iran's parse field is an extension of Qatar's

north field is a dangerous and irresponsible step amid the current escalating military escalation

in the region targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security as well

as to the peoples of the region. And let me just ask you just right off the bat here, what military

significance and utility is it going to be not to go after you know trying to assassinate everybody which

Israel said is now they're basically unrestricted warfare on on anyone in Iran is in a leadership

to go on after their infrastructure to go on after their police their the IRGC everything that

holds the state together and now then to hit this field which they of course know affects Iraq and

Qatar maybe even more than Iran and it is also going to affect the global supply of gas to the

world. Why would they do something like that? Israel seems to have more of an interest in escalating

this war because they have incentives to keep this war going. It's important to remember that

the United States and Israel have two different objectives here and to be clear unfortunately with

leader like Donald Trump he kind of speaks from both sides of his mouth and on any given day he'll

say one thing or something entirely different but it does seem that a consistent through line with

some of Trump's messaging is that he wants to get out and he wants to get out with the help of

some of our NATO leaders in securing some of the securing the state of Hormuz for instance our

NATO allies have said this is not our war we're not doing this in fact you've been incredibly hostile

toward us why would we get involved in this? So I do think that Trump wants to find an exit route

at the same time the Israelis will not be satisfied until they get one of two things either a

complete failed state in Iran they'll be happy to see Iran turn into the next Syria or the next

Libya or have some sort of puppet leader put in place that'll be very you know differential to the

desires of the Israelis unless Netanyahu gets one of those two things he's going to sabotage any

effort that the United States engages in in order to exit this war that's my read of it.

And they seem to be going I mean I'm really just going down the line here to still tell you what

you just said I don't know if you saw this this morning the Israeli defense minister cats

said that he expects significant surprises today across all fronts that will escalate the war

to a new level and they have authorized the IDF to eliminate any Iranian official once a targeting

circle has been closing on them without need for additional approval. So this just sounds like

that they are saying and you know what everybody is a target we'll kill everybody all kinds of

leaders civilian military political there doesn't appear to be anything off limits and I have

studied history of war for most of my adult life I've been deployed four times into combat I've

never seen a situation to where another country said everybody is on the target list and we'll

just assassinate everybody I've never seen anything like this have you. I haven't in fact this is

pretty unusual you know I laugh at anyone who brings up the notion of international law at this

point because beginning under the Biden administration I mean he aided and abetted the dismantling

of the whole notion of international law by allowing Israel to carry out the complete nutter

destruction of Gaza mass slaughter in Gaza so that essentially paves the way for what Israel likes

to refer to as you know decapitation strikes where they'll literally go in and take out leaders of

countries and they think that that's okay but that does set the stage for the type of world that I

don't think most people in the international community want to live in also what the Israelis

fail to realize is that all of their actions whether we're talking about what has transpired in Gaza

what is currently transpiring in Lebanon by the way the invasion of Lebanon by the Israelis in the

1980s led to the formation of Hezbollah Hezbollah didn't just come out of nowhere but everything Israel

does essentially multiplies extremism in this region of the world so if they think that they can

just kill a bunch of people and an idea is gone that's not how it works if anything I believe

that Israel's actions will lead to more extremism and probably a lot more hostility toward the

United States which I'm very concerned about because what we've noticed in this war against Iran

is that the United States and its military might is not as mighty as most people were led to

believe at least that's my read of it the fact that we have the president of the United States

begging European countries NATO allies to join this fight he goes from saying that we've obliterated

Iran to making you know statements essentially pleading for help that is not something that makes

Americans feel safe I certainly question our national security at this moment especially given

that it's absolutely true Biden lost control of the border during his administration so there

are all these talks of sleeper cells and things like that it feels like a mess if anything Americans

feel less safe today than they did before this war against Iran and more and more Americans have

woken up to the fact that this war against Iran isn't really about nuclear weapons or ballistic

missiles or an imminent threat to the United States this is really something that Trump unfortunately

was convinced to do by the Israelis I mean I don't want to rob him of his agency but he's the kind

of guy who's very boastful and he felt really good about what he did in Venezuela and I think he

was under the impression thanks to the intel he was getting from the Israelis that this operation

in Iran would be quick and easy clearly that's not the case and things have only escalated

and you know and I'm concerned that now then let's hope he does have agency because

if President Trump and I think in addition to what Joe Kent released in his in his resignation letter

yesterday you can just look and see I mean Marco Rubio really is the one that spilled the beans on

that when he made that statement that Israel was going to attack and we were left just kind of

standing behind we had to go attack etc but now then the question is what is President Trump going

to do now because clearly whatever he was told didn't happen it didn't end up fast it wasn't easy

it wasn't clean and now there is no identifiable military objective that's going to get you out

anytime soon without having to pay some price on on giving in some terms that the Iranians are

now in a position for the first time to actually leverage over him now the issue right now for Trump

of course is the price of oil the price of gas and all the things that go along with that because

that all has blowback on this side and now here's this attack by the Israeli side against something

that's going to put a more fundamental problem in that that's going to make it even harder to get

the price back down etc do you think that at some point the president Trump may say not only

no but hell no get back in your box you're going to be on your own do you think that's even possible

for him to do of course it's possible for him to do but that would mean pushing back against

these rallies and so far I haven't really seen much of that from president Trump in fact the

Iranians have already responded with their game plan what they plan to do in retaliation of that

strike on oil fields they have put out a list of oil and gas infrastructure in Gulf countries

and they're stating that's what we're going to come after next you strike us we're going to

retaliate with gas and oil infrastructure among you know your Gulf allies and so that's going to

be pretty disastrous if the situation is only escalating the only way to deescalate is if the united

states and its leadership understands for the first time in literally decades that we are a sovereign

country we are not joined at the hip with Israel Israel does not govern us they don't get to dictate

our foreign policy and our leadership needs to do what is right for the American people

and engaging in an escalating war or with turning into a regional war potentially you know a third

world war does not benefit the American people at all and in fact will make it much more difficult

for Trump to follow through on one of his major campaign promises which was dealing with affordability

inflation was one of the main reasons why many lifelong democratic voters turned on the party and

decided to cast their ballots for Trump independent voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of Trump

that's how he was able to secure the popular vote and it was because he promised no new wars

and that he would tackle inflation he has reneged on both of those promises and as we approach the

midterms if he cares about this or the consequences of this politically at all he would find a way out

now and it's not going to be easy it's not going to be perfect and I imagine that it will lead to

some bad blood with the Israelis but I think it's about time that we have some bad blood with the

Israelis that's my take I know that that's a very offensive thing to say in America but I don't

really care I think that Israel has been a detriment to US foreign policy and again it's important

to remember that they have completely different goals from the United States I am also very worried

that everything that is playing out whether intended or unintended will lead to a severing of

alliances between the United States and these oil and gas rich countries and I think that's

something that Israel in the long run wanted anyway they want control of that region including

the incredibly important resources in that region of the world you know it's it's funny as I've

sit there listening it's almost like you're saying that we should have a I don't know I can't

think of a good phrase for it like I don't know America first foreign policy yeah we should actually

put our I'm kind of a big fan of that I'll just say in a strong advocate of everything you just said

there and and I really do hope that President Trump comes to that same recognition here I would say

before it's too late but I think in some regards and it's already too late because now then because

we have plunged into this there is no easy off-ramp see he can't do like he did with the Houthis

in the Red Sea and just say all right we declare victory and we're leaving and then it'll be over

with because now Iran actually has leverage over us and they can say yeah no we're not going to

just quit until we get something this time we'll just keep on attacking these countries and your

bases until you do something we want so Trump may not be able to just walk off of that now I'll tell

you there's one other thing that is really making his position a lot harder and that is a lot of

folks that are ostensibly inside his circle and his supporters which are actually undermining his

ability to do what's necessary right now and let me just tell you we are being flat out lied to

intentionally deceived the American people are being deceived by some of Trump's biggest supporters

to our own detriment to wit let me just show you a couple of them here first of all I want to show

you this is something from Lindsey Graham who says it's actually the American media is afraid to tell

the truth if you believe that I told him would use a nuclear weapon if he had it you're right to those

who have their heads in the sand don't believe that you're wrong to my friend Joe Kent who's a

decorated war veteran who lost his wife in Syria what are you doing you're giving aid and comfort

to a lie there was an imminent threat how much more evident could you be within two weeks having

enough material to make 10 bombs how close could you come not much now he's saying there what's

the operative part there is he's claiming that Steve Whitkopf and Gary do we have that video of

Whitkopf saying that I don't remember this is a nightmare for the American liberals and Americans

60% enriched uranium would take a week maybe 10 days at the outside to bring up to 90% weapons grade

so it was a clear threat they were boasting about having it there is no reason whatsoever

to be enriching past 20% unless you're going for a weapon a week and so that's from where

where Lindsey Graham had that that we were a week away from them having nuclear maybe two weeks

away and we just found this out he said as a result of this negotiations but Anna here's why that is

an absolute ball face lie last July of last year we had on our show Ted Postal who said this how

then do you get 10 nuclear bombs from 408 kilograms of 60% of uranium all you need is 37 and a half

kilograms of uranium hexafluoride to convert to metal divide 408 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride

to get a number like 10 or 11 that means you have enough uranium metal if you convert it for 10

nuclear bombs but how long would it take before the first one is produced and the first bomb might

take you 10 weeks because you want to manufacture the casing and the assembly system although you

may have done that already so there is no doubt this this is open source cannot I can only imagine

the classified information behind the scenes everybody knew that they had this stuff out there and

then it could go to a nuclear bomb if we gave them the incentive but he's lying and saying no

this was what was going on they we just discovered this was an imminent threat that's why that's

so important they're trying to build this case that there was an imminent threat and Trump had to

go in what do you say what I say is I definitely think that uh Whit cough and Jared Kushner in

particular sabotage the peace negotiations I this is my speculation and the speculation is also

based on what we just heard Steve Whit cough say and lie about in that interview but the bigger

issue here if you ask me is the way that this entire debate about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons

is framed so if you take a step back and you just kind of look at the larger regional picture and

you consider the belligerence of the Israelis what country in that region wouldn't want a nuclear

weapon as a deterrent because that's what nuclear weapons uh whether you agree with nuclear weapons

they do serve as a deterrent so when they enrich their uranium up to 60 percent again this is my

speculation but I believe that they did so both for leverage uh during their negotiations with

the United States but also to have a latent deterrent considering the fact that you have the

prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu for decades discussing demanding that the US and

Israel go in to topple the regime in Iran so 40 years of threats from Netanyahu on this

of course any country in that region is going to want some sort of deterrent now in the case of

the Iranians you know as we learned uh the former Ayatollah who was just killed uh did not agree with

building nuclear weapons well now he's gone and uh there are claims that hardliners are in place

and his son is very likely going to be far more of a hardliner because of the fact that

several of his own family members were killed by the Israelis in the United States recently

but I personally believe in something known as the nuclear peace theory i'm curious what you think

about it um it was popularized by Kenneth Walts a political scientist and the idea is that nation

states are rational actors and having a nuclear weapon knowing that the use of that nuclear weapon

would lead to you know nuclear armageddon right mutually assured destruction it would actually

keep the international community more safe we'd have less wars knowing that uh you know all these

different countries have nuclear capabilities if Iran had a nuclear weapon we wouldn't be having

this discussion today and I do not believe for a second that Iran would deploy nuclear weapons

yeah and that's that's actually the opposite of what people like Sean Hannity are saying that if

they had it uh they definitely would uh Jack Keen has said that Mike Pompeo has said that uh and in

fact last night also uh Sean Hannity again repeated one of the other lies which is that we had to do

this it was not only was it an imminent threat but we tried so hard with negotiations and with

cough and Jared Kushner and they absolutely refused he said this last night Hannity they absolutely

refused to have a negotiation on their nuclear program but then we had the day before all this

happened the Omani Foreign Minister who said this the single most important achievement

I believe is the agreement that Iran will never ever have a nuclear material that will

create a bomb this is I think a big achievement uh this is something that

is not in the old deal that was negotiated during President Obama's time this is something

completely new it really makes the enrichment argument less relevant because now we are talking

about zero stockpiling and that is very very important because if you cannot stockpile

material that is a rich then there is no way you can actually create a bomb and uh there was a golden

platter handed to Donald Trump a profound diplomatic achievement that he could have had on the 27th

February that was he could have said it was better than the Obama deal Iran was ready to play along

with that and said yes you can do this here's no enrichment no no ability to store anything at all

I mean he they even put long range missiles and support to their regional allies on the table

they were never on there before everything that he had in his hand to make sure that wouldn't

have to be any kind of war that wouldn't have had to been a shut down of the straight of Hormuz

and we wouldn't be facing this situation now and yet we punted on that why do you suppose with this

great victory in his hand he said no it's it's hard to know why he said no I mean I think that again

he was getting terrible advice from people around him he was under a great deal of pressure by

the Israelis who absolutely wanted this war and uh it wasn't just about the enriched uranium I mean

remember what the Israelis made sure to do is pivot from just pure discussion about nuclear weapons

to suddenly discussing ballistic missiles and so you have Israel constantly moving the goal post

because again their objective is not really about how unsafe they feel it's not really about

Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile capabilities it's really about weakening toppling or just

replacing a regime that has been um not so friendly to Israel's main goal ultimate objective

of expanding its borders and I think that's what a lot of Americans are not very aware of

that a lot of the foreign policy that we get dragged into on behalf of Israel isn't about

keeping Israel safe certainly isn't about keeping the United States safe we're incredibly lucky

geographically speaking because we're not close to any of this Iran did not have any capacity

to hit the United States or harm anyone in mainland US uh but keeping Iran in place makes it

difficult makes it clearly impossible for Israel to expand its borders and next more land

carry out the greater Israel project without a challenge in the region and the only real country

that was challenging Israel in the region was Iran yes Iran was funding proxy groups like Hezbollah

but again Hezbollah wasn't uh merely some terrorist group that popped up out of nowhere and randomly

attacks Israel they are defending Lebanon's borders and so had Israel avoided uh invading Lebanon in

the 1980s Hezbollah wouldn't even exist and so the root of the problem to me is the fact that it's

never enough for the Israelis they want to expand they want to expand they want Gaza they want the

West Bank they want parts of Syria I mean you have some of Benjamin Netanyahu's political opponents if

you can call it that now talking about the need to go to war with Turkey this country's alliance

with the United States has been a liability and will continue to be a liability to every single

administration by the way a Donald Trump is not unique when you compare his administration with

previous administrations as it pertains to carrying out Israel's wishes there's only one difference

other administrations were unwilling to go to war with Iran they seem to be a lot more knowledgeable

about the risks associated with going to war with Iran I think Trump is under this illusion

that the Iranians are just I don't know backwards thinking like morons who don't have a strategy in

place don't know what they're doing they're unintelligent but as we've learned you know the Iranian

population is incredibly incredibly intelligent it's a sophisticated diverse

society and they've been preparing for this day for a long time because if you have one of your

neighbors or a country in the region that's been threatening you for 40 years straight obviously

you're going to be preparing for this day so that's why Trump really did step in it and I think

that he received terrible advice he shouldn't have his real estate guy and his son-in-law engaging in

alleged peace deals when you also have to consider the fact that they have their own personal

self-interest wrapped up in all of this and what can you tell us about their personal desires and

people talk about that but I'm not aware of the details sure so one perfect example as soon as the war

started there were reports indicating that Saudi Arabia was in talks with Kushner in order to

like egg on this war that Mohammed bin Salman actually wanted this war to take place now you have

to remember Jared Kushner's hedge fund received billions of dollars from the Saudis so he has all

sorts of business deals with the Saudis with Gulf countries I know that Steve Whitcoff and his

son also happen to have some business relationships and ties with these Gulf countries and so when you

consider the fact that there are some financial incentives at play with the very individuals who

are engaged in that region in order to forge peace deals well there's a huge conflict of interest

there obviously when you hear Steve Whitcoff lie to the American people about Iran's nuclear

capability that should be a huge red flag these are the people Trump trust the most and again I mean

I don't want to take agency away from the president of the United States but I do fear that he's

a little easy to manipulate I could be wrong about that but I am curious what you think do you

think that Trump is being manipulated here or do you think he's engaging in this because he genuinely

wants to oh I definitely think he's been big time manipulated and and I we've been watching this

this play out especially since he was inaugurated in the second term here I mean you've seen

everybody from Volodymyr Zelenski who understands the mistake he made in February of last year and

now then he just butters Trump up all the time uh Mark Ruta the NATO Secretary General just

calls him daddy and you know and everything he can he brags about Trump left and right to keep

him engaged in that war right there and nobody's better at it than Benjamin Netanyahu who every time

he talks about Trump talks about this great leader this wonderful the guy that's so smart and he's

so powerful and all this kind of stuff and we couldn't do it without him and we're following his

leader I mean he's everything that Trump wants to hear he's given it to him and just load it on

and then you see all of these visits like every other month nobody no other foreign leader has been

that far and then now we have significant or subsequent information this isn't those last few

meetings that they were coordinating their plans to execute all along and of course Netanyahu is

trying to claim that this was Trump's plan all along we just went along with it but I think it's

pretty clear where it came down to but the question is now what is this real God I want to take a

look at that tooth because if to me this is a militarily unsolvable problem that we have now

plunged ourselves into you're not going to kill your way out of it you're not going to kill enough

there's 93 million people were crying out loud you can't kill that many leaders you just don't have

enough ammunition weapons for that it would you just can't do it so now that you're going to have

an unsolvable thing here what is that going to look like for Israel let's go back to the Hamas war

so from 107 forward in 2023 they haven't gotten that war sold who these are still a viable entity the

Hezbollah they've now attacked again the Israelis have into southern Lebanon that's not solved that's

only now restarted again and then now you have the Iranian situation here and these were going on

and this ain't going to end well obviously it didn't end in 12 days this time because Iran is now

saying we stopped it last time because we thought maybe that would be a way to end the wars

now we realize it won't so they're not going to stop this time until they get something which

means Israel is now on all these fronts and it doesn't have the manpower or the ammunition or

anything else to staying power to win any of them so all that his body itself is extended and open

ended chaos and violence I mean that this whole expand Israel that's a theory but the physical

realities is there's limits to what they can do and now they've opened all these Pandora's boxes

and they can't close any of them yeah you are absolutely right about that I mean play stupid games

win stupid prizes and what I worry about is our soldiers in the region Trump sent 5,000 additional

soldiers to the region we've already lost 13 troops and I'm beyond enraged about it I was watching

a report detailing you know the biographies of some of the fallen soldiers and they're so young

that they have young children and it's infuriating and it's infuriating that you know the more

that we engage in this form of foreign policy the more we reproduce extremism in that region

the more we engage in this foreign policy the more we create refugee crisis scenarios that other

countries have no choice but to absorb and then they get very bitter and angry about it but for

the countries that are angry and bitter about it they tend to either remain silent or even aid

in a bet in some of this foreign policy and I just think all of the chaos that we're seeing is the

result of what's been carried out for many decades now foreign policy wise and there's been no

effort to recalibrate whatsoever you know what's really interesting is the different reporting that

we're getting in regard to which side is reaching out to who in whom in order to possibly re-engage

in peace deals so for instance drop-site news Jeremy Scayhill and Ryan Grimmer behind that

publication I trust that publication they do really good work you know they reported recently

that Steve Whitcough and you know the Americans have been secretly trying to get in touch with

the Iranians in order to restart some of these peace negotiations and find an end to the war

I tend to believe that narrative however as soon as that report comes out Barack Ravid who worked

for Israeli intelligence under the IDF and is moonlighting as a journalist for Axios puts out the

complete opposite narrative alleging that the foreign minister of Iran Abbas Aragchi is the one

who's been texting Steve Whitcough and asking to restart peace negotiations well if that's the

case I mean Steve Whitcough could easily release the text messages right if the Iranians are

desperate and they want to end the war well then we should be able to see some evidence of that

but all the messaging that we've seen from Iran at this point is no we're not looking for a cease

fire for them this is a fight for survival you know for Trump this is not a fight for survival so

even when you think about the headspace the two parties are in it's night and day if one party is

looking to survive and the other party kind of got dragged and manipulated into this ridiculous war

and on top of that you know from what I've read from what I've heard our military capabilities

weren't up to par you know we had depleted missile interceptors and things like that I mean this war

started with the US at a huge disadvantage and what I'm terrified about is that Trump will make

the mistake of sending ground troops yeah I'm gonna get that I just wanted to put this up here

because this is what a foreign minister Abbas Araxia is saying we don't believe in a cease fire we

believe in an into the war and an into the war on all fronts he said they're willing to listen

but until Iran's conditions are met they're not going to go any further that's logical that's

rationally what would be illogical is for the guy who already complained correctly that we were

in the middle of negotiations on two separate times when less than 12 months and you went to war

with us on both camps the second time we handed you a gold platter that you couldn't even hardly

imagine and you said no to that too why in the world would they think now after we've already been

attacked we're gonna reach back out again that's illogical to me so I rather believe what Jeremy

Skahill his group is reporting because that's that's rational and and because of this war that we

started we we have handed leverage to Iran they never had before and now then we're gonna have

to figure this issue out with the with this straight up for moves so I agree with what you said

earlier in here I think that evidence shows Trump is aware of this stuff now wants to get out so

the question is what can he do now you mentioned the issue about ground forces we just sent 5,000

troops uh sent or deployed another 5,000 there's 31st marine expeditionary unit that's heading

into that direction and some people are thinking oh I know they're going to do something to try to

take cargo or something to force Iran to open up the island or maybe we can do boots on the ground

let me show you a graphic here uh this is of course Iran here and you see the green overlay

that is the country of Vietnam you may recall from history we had a little war with them in the past

and and I want to say it was 1969 I think we got to the height we had 550,000

American troops to fight a war in that small little piece of land and you see that's maybe a third

I'm sorry a fifth or a sixth the size of Iran so that tells you the scale of what would be needed

to even have the theoretical possibility and by the way militarily speaking going through jungles

is a really hard task that's nothing close to going through mountains that you see in Iran so

you can take that off the table that's not a possibility we don't even have that many troops by

the way on active duty in the usm Marine Corps it wouldn't work well then the idea is maybe they'll

take that cargo island well you can't get that too because let me just kind of show you that part

here just for everybody to understand why that's almost another impossibility this is cargo island

up here in the top this is the Persian Gulf horse to straight here in order to get to that you're

going to have to sail that ship and its escorts through the the this straight here all the way up

the shoreline here and this is hundreds of miles long it's a shooting gallery and you'll

want through the gauntlet you could never get there the best you could do is maybe have a helicopter

invasion force it's flown in from Kuwait potentially or from Saudi Arabia you could theoretically do

that but I don't know that what would you gain by doing it but there's no way you're going to get

that ship through here so you can forget about the 31st of you it's not going to go anywhere so

that tells you then that militarily they're really aren't any good answers for this that's not

something that's going to solve the problem then what is because the Iran that's why I say

Iran has the leverage here that they can say we're going to keep that straight shut until you do

something that we want and so I've got a couple of options here but I first of all I just what is

what is your opinion you talk about President Trump having agency against Israel what agency does

he have about doing something that would be seen as positive from the Iranian side?

Well I mean if he genuinely has agency and isn't controlled by Israel's interests I mean he could

just say you know what we're done okay we're done we need to reengage in peace negotiations

let's see how we can end this war I mean even if Trump wanted to do that which I don't think

these rallies will let him because I don't think he actually has the agency that Americans believe

he does but even if he did the real question is will the Iranians even be receptive to that

because you're not going to win this militarily I agree with you and so we need to deescalate as

quickly as possible but Iran wants to ensure that the US and Israel isn't going to come back

after replenishing its weapons x number of months from now and attack again they want this to be over

for good and will Israel allow that to happen right the other question is is Israel going to attack

if the US withdraws which is a fantasy I don't think that's going to happen I don't think the US is

going to withdraw I don't think Trump is going to do that but even if he did there's some risk

that the Israelis will attack and if the Israelis attack and then there's retaliation for those

attacks is the US just going to sit by and allow it to happen so we're kind of in the middle of a

disastrous situation where our detrimental alliance with Israel plays a huge role in how this

war is playing out and on top of that the Iranians for good reason do not trust us so even if we

want to deescalate even if Trump wants to deescalate and engage in peace deals I don't know if Iran

will be receptive to it so I don't know but this is it feels like a trap feels like we're in a

trap right now yeah and and in the last few minutes here let me let me just kind of toss another

potential trap out because Trump loves the easy ways out and he loves quick solutions and he doesn't

want to do hard stuff I fear that he may give give into another tempting and luring possibility

that I have heard from certain certain sources I have shall we say that there is some consideration

to doing a kinetic operation to try and seize this 400 kilograms of reprocessed material inside

of Iran in which case then Trump the theory goes then he can say all right I got that that means

that no matter what all this other stuff happens I said they would never have a nuclear weapon now

we've got their stuff we've already obliterated their facilities so we can call it into this and

just be done with it that's an alluring thought but that runs into the teeth of number one is

Iran is not stupid so in my view there is like zero chance that they actually have all 400 kilograms

in one spot number one I'm sure they haven't set out so they don't have a single point of failure

number two they also have everywhere they may have it highly defended fully expecting something

like this and as a friend of mine just sent me here right before we came on you can never underestimate

the possibility that they may also knowing that we've tapped into their listening devices may also

have a trap set up somewhere so we go and think in something here and there's actually nothing but a

a trap waiting for us to be sprung and just kill a bunch of Americans to me this would have zero

chance of actually success and a probability of getting a lot of Americans killed for nothing and

make Trump's position profoundly worse if he tries this I really hope he does it but that's what I'm

hearing right now even if it went well which I agree with you I don't think it will go well especially

when you consider the mountainous nature of Iran like how would they invade where would they invade from

but putting that aside let's just engage in magical thinking and assume that it would go really well

perfectly Iran is dumb enough to keep all of its enriched uranium in one place it still leaves open

the question of the Israelis because the Israelis don't care about the enriched uranium they don't

care about the ballistic missiles they want Iran's regime toppled and unless they get that

they will insist that this war continue and so the real question at the end of the day is whether or

not the United States government for the first time is willing to push back against Israel and say no

you're not going to get your way and in fact if you keep pushing there will be you know some actual

repercussions no more you know yearly billions of dollars for your military aid no more weapons for

you no more replenishing the missiles for the iron dome stop it you either go with what we want to

do or we're done we sever these ties but you know there's a lot of talk of the so-called deep state

which I believe is real and I think that there are all sorts of unelected powerful people within our

federal government who do pull the strings that's my read of this because when you think about

the CIA when you think about certain operations that end up getting carried out and it doesn't seem

to make much sense who is pulling the strings doesn't seem like it's our elected lawmakers a

congress has ceded its power to the executive branch as it pertains to sparking new wars we're

in a really bad place and in order to change the trajectory of our country and our foreign policy

that deep state must be dismantled there's a reason why there's continuity from one

administration to another when it comes to foreign policy doesn't matter if it's a democratic

administration doesn't matter if it's a republican administration it always looks the same

when it comes to foreign policy and it's immoral at the end of the day what's happening is

immoral American soldiers are not cannon fodder for Israel's wars and luckily more and more

Americans are waking up to that and hopefully there will be enough backlash at some point

that we finally shed this country of this disastrous Israel first foreign policy you know what

I'll tell you I know this is what I think there's the most likely outcome is that this

whoever it is deep state is just a category we can't really it's an amorphous kind of thing

it definitely exists you can see it's like gravity you can see the results of it even if you can't

see it so it's definitely there after you've written to get away it's going to have to burn itself

down by getting us into something that nobody can get themselves out of and I think this may be it

let me tell you why I think that because if Israel gets its way and let's say that whatever Trump

does or doesn't do to try to open this and get it done quickly and it doesn't succeed it does

succeed the Iranians have an agency and they apparently are going to have it and even if you've

got this iraim they're not going to open the straight and that's going to be a problem for the

international the global economy so if this then if Israel gets its way and Trump doesn't end it

that means that you have embarked upon a war of attrition now look at the Russia Ukraine war

they'll give you a good example of what somebody even when they're overwhelmingly on the lower

end of the power dynamic like Ukraine can continue to fight for a long time Iran is a massive country

and they have all kinds of resources than as you said at the outset they have planned for this

and they have a lot of resources I don't think we know that they have but they also have a strong will

and this can go on for months and months and probably into the years and we cannot afford it

whatever Israel thinks of us they can't win this war without us they can't even fight it without us

but also we are already running low of key weapons systems and ammunition and we can't do a war

of attrition we don't have the industrial capacity for it it will bankrupt us and it will sacrifice

our security everywhere else we have alliances and it could literally bring down the American empire

we have got to get out of this war I totally agree in fact you know there is some reporting that

suggests that Iran hasn't even used their big guns yet that they know that both Israel and the

United States are running low on interceptors and are waiting for the right moment to use far more

lethal weaponry and so this is bad for everybody obviously I mean even for the Israeli civilians

they should really rethink the kind of leadership they keep electing into office I don't know if

they're still overwhelmingly in favor of this war with Iran but it is not working out well for them

and they need to realize that and the other question that I actually have for you because I think

you'd know better than me do you believe that China and Russia will enter this war eventually

in a far more robust way we know that Russia is providing intel to the Iranians China is

selling some weaponry to Iran but do you think they'll go further than that I maybe a little further

than they have if things start going bad in order to keep us sucked in there I think that they might

do what we're doing with Ukraine and more overtly say it all right we're just going to give them

air defense weapons offensive missiles you know supplies and just say hey it works for you it's

going to finally work for us against your interest there how do you like that I don't think either

one of them will fight because I think both China prioritizes the Taiwan straight and South China

C area they want to keep all their powder dry if that ever happens anywhere Russia is definitely

focused on winning the war against Ukraine first they don't want to get stuck in anything else but

they all both have a lot of incentive to keep us sucked into this situation and see us just

drain away our resources so I can see them going down that path yeah it would it would have been

far better if Trump was willing to listen to Joe Kent or to people like Tucker Carlson I mean

Tucker Carlson has really put himself in a lot of risk by putting out the messages he's been

putting out in regard to this war and I don't think that he's doing it because he's you know

benefiting personally I think he's doing this because he's trying to save the country from

engaging in these disastrous wars but you know Trump seems to push these people out of his circle

and referring to Joe Kent as weak it was just that was not a good look it was very very sad to see that

it was indeed I found that personally offensive as a combat vet myself and I know Joe Kent almost

worked with him for a period of time and I can just tell you he is he is focused on exactly the

right things when it comes to this war here I can tell you that yeah well listen I couldn't tell

you how grateful we have to have had you on there of course everybody everybody knows who you are

you're from the young Turks there and you guys can go and find a month they've been on there for

what 13 years now I guess you guys have been patrol in the airwaves long time I've been working for

TYT for 19 years and uh it's yeah it's been around since 2005 yeah you guys have definitely been

the driver on this I mean we kind of uh are in your wake here a little bit we're just uh

neophytes practically but uh you guys are like the heavy hitters here and we're grateful to have you

come on to our show thank you so much thank you so grateful for your analysis keep kicking butt

love it we'll do it look forward to seeing you back again real soon and we appreciate you guys

and by the way in about 10 minutes we have another heavy hitter on today uh professor John Mirchimer

is going to be on with some uh new and information that he's got and some insights that only

somebody of his in international relations theorist expertise can bring you never want to miss

john see in about 10 minutes on the Daniel Davis deep dive you know I don't try to talk you into

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