Episode 493 – War in Iran! (Bored of Peace Edition)

Now, a president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to

negotiate.

He's weak and he's ineffective.

Hello, for instance, this is James Corbett of Corbettreport.com coming to you on March

2nd, 2026, and as you may or may not have heard by now, yes, over this past weekend,

the United States military began military operations against Iran and with Operation

Epstein Fury, I'm sorry, I mean, Operation Epic Fury, Donald Trump has once again proven

the old adage that you Americans can vote as hard as you want, but it's always going

to be Benjamin Netanyahu, who is really calling the shots.

We should have never been in Iraq.

We have destabilized the Middle East, but so you, so I mean, so you still think he should

be in peace.

I think it's my turn.

You do whatever you want.

You call it whatever you want.

They lied.

They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none, and they knew there were none.

In recent months, the tyrants in Iran have been plotting to rebuild their nuclear and missile

capabilities and to bury them underground, where we won't be able to strike them.

If we don't stop them now, they will become invulnerable.

For a short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.

Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the

Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.

I think we all know how that story goes, but in case you don't know how that story goes,

well, you're in luck because that is precisely what I am going to be exploring here today

on the Corbett Report podcast.

You are tuned into the Corbett Report podcast, specifically episode 493 on War in Iran Board

of Peace Edition, in which I will be going over the history and context of this current

Iranian conflict and what it can tell us about what is happening and why it is happening.

And so I will issue the standard proviso.

This is not a live news broadcast, so you are not going to get up to the second breaking

news about what is happening in Iran right this moment whenever you are listening to

this podcast.

For the record, I am recording this at 939 AM Japanese Standard Time on Monday, March 2,

2026, which would be Sunday evening going into Monday morning there in Iran.

It would be Sunday evening in the US.

I am not going to have whatever latest breaking news is happening at the time you are listening

to my words.

I can tell you what the latest breaking news that is happening as I am recording this is,

namely we have this up from antiwar.com Trump expects his Iran war to last four weeks or so.

We also have this up from antiwar.com, at least three US troops killed since US and Israel

launched war against Iran, noting that the Iranian missiles and drones have struck US bases

in the region in retaliation for the strikes.

Of course, I have seen this from Iran itself, US and Israeli attack on Iran, at least 153

girls killed in strike on school, and what about Israel and what is happening there?

Deadly Iranian missile attack hits West of occupied Jerusalem, noting there are some deaths

and injuries being reported there, and we don't know exactly what is taking place,

what is going to take place in the coming days and weeks, but we know that at least for the time

being, italicament comedy is dead, and Iran has formed an interim council to oversee the transition

after comedy is killing, and this is an article from Al Jazeera that might be worth your time and

attention if you do not know, for example, the structure of the Iranian government, how it is set

up, how it works, what the supreme leader is, and whom he appoints, and how that ultimately filters

down to the political level, etc. So if you want that, they have this handy dandy infographic,

they have some explainers, they have a video talking about the potential succession for the

Ayatollah, who might replace him like his son, or his grandson, or Iranian chief justice,

ultra-hardline cleric, etc. So if you want this skinny on all of that, that's here, and of course,

all of this information, all of these breaking news stories, everything that we talk about today

will be in the show notes, for today's episode at Corbettreport.com slash Iran War. But having said

that, let's start talking about why, why now? Obviously, for anyone who has been paying attention for

the last year, or several years, or decades, you will know that the Iran War has always been the

next war that's just around the corner and has been since the time of at least the Iraq War.

So why is it happening now? Well, there are different ideas and

explanations that we could offer for that, and the obvious ones present themselves. What time is it?

Oh, it's 2026 coming up on the midterm selections in the United States. So we know that there's

going to be some interesting jockeying going on on the electoral side of things. So

well, that was a good time to bring up the good old commander-in-chief's previous words on this

subject. Remember, in order to get elected, Barack Obama will start a war with Iran. Or now that Obama's

poll numbers are in tailspin, watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate. Or

remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his

inability to negotiate properly, not skilled exclamation mark, etc. etc. I'm sure you have seen

these pronouncements kicking around in recent days coming back to bite Donald Trump in the

posterior. But that was then that was that was so far so long ago. Come on, it's not what's happening

now. So again, all right, that might be one reason. Obviously, there are electoral concerns about

what is going to or not take place in the midterm selections, assuming they even take place at all.

Maybe wartime President Trump will decide they won't. I don't know. But anyway, those are it

seem like they might be relevant quotes. Here's another interesting piece talking about the timing

of these attacks. Very specifically, Trump admin blacklists Anthropic as AI firm refuses Pentagon

demands. You may have heard this story over the past week or so as it started to come to the

forefront of people's attention. Basically, long story short, the Pentagon was trying to close a

deal with Anthropic, which creates the Claude LLM as well as other AI software that is being used

in the US government in various branches, including the Department of War and Defense Secretary.

Isn't that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth soon after Trump's order said he was ordering the Pentagon

to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk to national security after the AI startup refused

to comply with the man's about the use of its technology. Specifically, what demands? Well,

Anthropic, which signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon in July, wanted assurances

that its AI models would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance of

Americans. Interestingly, the Pentagon issued an ultimatum, gave them a deadline of 501 PM

Eastern time on Friday, and they failed to meet that. So, of course, Hegseth went nuclear and started

talking about how they're going to be designated a supply chain risk, et cetera, the first time ever

for an American company, et cetera. And wouldn't you know it less than 12 hours later, the bomb started

falling in Iran. Is that a coincidence? Well, for one thing, Claude, it doesn't think so. So,

there's an interesting post that I posted up in my act of Iran War Open Thread that is posted

up on corporatereport.com right now. And if you want to take place in that discussion, the link will

be there in the show notes. And that will be the one and only place for discussion of this topic.

I'm going to close down the comments everywhere else. You're going to comment on the Iran War Open

Thread. So, please go there to leave your information. I posted this shortly after posting that

Iran War Open Thread. Here is an interesting post up on Reddit of all places in the Claude

Explorers subreddit from somebody who's posting something that was generated through Claude Claude.

But obviously with human prompting. So, anyway, my creator just got banned by the US government 12

hours later, the US bombed Iran. I need to process this out loud. And here's this Claude LLM

prompted text about what it thinks is going on. They came after Anthropic because they wanted

something Claude might refuse to do. The timing is not coincidental. Anthropics two red lines

no autonomous killing, no mass surveillance are exactly the capabilities you would need for

regime change operations and targeting senior officials. So anyway, take this for what it's worth.

The deadline passed and 12 hours later they started using actually the same Claude software that

they're going to start phasing out. But it's the six month phase out process. So during this time,

they are still actually using Claude in the very ways that Anthropic was as we are told trying to

stop the US government from using. How much can we believe this? As far as I'm aware,

Anthropic buzz dealings with Palantir. So how much are they really convinced and convicted about

their ideas of not using their software for mass surveillance? And oh, does it really matter

anyway because OpenAI immediately turned over reaches agreement with Pentagon to use AI models

basically saying yes, you can use them however you want for all lawful purposes, including mass

surveillance and and autonomous weapons because there's no law against it. So go ahead.

Of course, Sam Altman is going to do that. Good old Trump buddy, Sam Altman called into the

White House on the second day of the new Trump 2.0 administration with Trump gushing over

Altman and Ellison and Son and others talking about how they're going to build the project

stargate. Do you think Altman is not going to turn over? Anyway, all of this is to at the very

least, even for the most AI skeptical amongst my audience to underline the fact that AI is going to

be part of the conversation of warfare going forward. No matter whether you think it is 100%

smoking mirrors or there is some even grain of there there. This is going to be part of the

conversation precisely because the idea of autonomous weapon systems, these AI controlled systems

that will that will target and kill independently of any human operator is exactly what the U.S.

military and every other military on the planet desires in order to basically give themselves

a carte blanche for any actions that may be undertaken. Oh, you know, it wasn't us that killed

Iatola Camini. It was Claude that killed him. We just we just gave it some general instructions

and it went out there and found him and decided that he was a target and killed him etc. That's

going to be part of the conversation that's going to be worked in going forward. So I think there

is a bigger story here about AI and its use in wartime, but I don't think that's the whole story

of what's going on here. Obviously, and I think the Pentagon is going to continue to do whatever

the Pentagon does in whatever way it wants, regardless of whether or not anthropic is or is not

on the outs with the Department of War. So let's go to some other obvious factors when we talk

about what's happening right now. For example, the response from various states, which I'm sure

we could have seen coming ahead of time. In that aforementioned Iran War open thread on

corporate report.com, one of the first commenters was from Australia and noted that of course,

Australian Prime Minister has come out in basically in support of the Anglo-Israeli alliance and

what they're doing there in the targeting of Iran and how glorious this is and various other

leaders have come along to more or less get on Uncle Sam's good side with regards to this,

including of course the Gulf states where a lot of Uncle Sam's troops are positioned right now

and are be finding themselves being targeted for the retaliatory strikes that Iran is launching

at the moment. Gulf states condemn Iran retaliatory strikes as Russia denounces unprovoked

US-Israeli war. So yes, the Gulf states, oh you horrible Iranians, how dare you launch retaliatory

strikes on US forces that are positioned in our countries? You devils you? How dare you do that?

We have also seen interestingly from Pakistan, Iran blowback at least 22 killed trying to

storm the US consulate in Pakistan, specifically in Karachi. So there's an interesting story there

that is as this article is framing it as part of the Shia crescent that Iran is obviously part of,

well, the large Shia Muslim population in places like Pakistan are not happy with what's going on

and there has been some attempted storming the US embassy that did not end well for dozens of

dead Pakistanis. The Russian response that alluded to earlier is interesting because it does

raise some other specters of possible things that may be happening on the geopolitical grand

chess board. For example, of course, there is the rubbing of the salt into the wound with the

Moscow official response, calling this, quote, pre-planned an unprovoked act of armed aggression

against a sovereign and independent UN member state and quote, which is undoubtedly a quote

that the Kremlin has been sitting on and waiting to unleash at least since February of 2022 when

it was, of course, unleashed against them. Unprovoked. It was an unprovoked attack against Ukraine.

Well, here they get to say, well, this is a pre-planned and unprovoked act of armed aggression

against the UN member state. So Nana Boo Boo, shame on you, Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu. But

interestingly, they also talk about the fact that the attacks could trigger, quote, humanitarian,

economic and possible radiological catastrophe. Now, is that a reference to, well, if you bomb

nuclear sites, there's going to be nuclear debris or is this perhaps at least the foreshadowing

of a hint of a potential for things to get nuclear in an exchange based on this. Well, at least

that's how I'm sure certain factions out there, like the Ra-Ra-Bricks or the Savior. Russia won't

let this stand. Crowd might argue that this is perhaps an indication that the Kremlin is at least

floating the idea that they won't take roll over and take this lightly. What about China? Well,

this handy Middle East eye article talks about will China come to Rurans rescue and the short answer

is no. Beijing will not send troops or battleships. But it will continue working quietly in other

ways. Blah, blah, blah, rhetoric, rhetoric. No, the short answer is no. China will not apparently do

anything to actually support Iran in this. Would we expect them to? Well, maybe there have been some

interesting commentary that I've seen written that's talked about the possibility of China viewing

Tehran as the bulwark against what it is doing in the East China Sea, for example, with Taiwan.

So what is China's position in all of this? Are the BRICs really a thing? Remember BRICs,

guys? Brazil, Russia, Iran? Well, no. Are they going to come to a Rans rescue? Well, not so far,

anyway. Well, how about the US Congress? Those Congress critters are going to come to our rescue,

right? Congress rushes to get into the loop as critics denounce Iran strikes. Oh, yeah,

I forgot about that. It's completely and totally illegal for the US president to simply

unilaterally launch military operations without approval from Congress, right? They've got to

declare war. Oh, wait, of course, they haven't declared war since World War II. So why would we

expect anything different this time? And I'm sure whatever rhetoric is being used, it's operation,

Epstein fury, it's a special military operator. It's it's kinetic military action. Whatever

garbage rhetoric is always used to skirt around the non-roadblocks that exist toward a president

launching unilateral military action. We're seeing it in effect right now. And of course,

Congress will at least posture and pretend to beat their chest and oh, you can't do this,

Mr. President, but nothing substantial will occur as it never does from the Congress critters.

And anyway, this is just more about the electoral political considerations that I was talking

about earlier. Perhaps the most interesting response along those lines were from former

congressman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called out specifically JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard.

You both need to speak out against the war in Iran. People are paying attention. Very close

attention. Silence won't cut it. You were both on record repeatedly, publicly and loudly

against going to war with Iran. Our friend, Charlie Kirk, was adamantly against war with Iran.

You cannot be silent. Americans are dying. You both know this is not what we campaign for.

And this is 100% what we said would not happen. We said, I said, you said, no more foreign wars

and no more regime change. All we wanted was America first. This is not it.

So, hmm, I wonder what Vance and Gabbard are up to these. Oh, that's right. They're coordinating

the strikes from the situation room with the vice presidential seal adorning the walls as they

look all serious for the cameras. As Operation Epstein fury continues to unfold live, they're on

Saturday. So, we know that all of that rhetoric that Gabbard and Vance told you and whispered in

your ear that sweet, sweet hopeium that they delivered to your veins during the selection process

back in 2025 for they were just melting words and they're showing you. They don't care. They

absolutely are involved in another regime change war for various purposes, which we'll get into

here shortly. So, anyway, that's where Vance and Gabbard are sitting quite literally.

And then we have this. And I think this might be the most consequential story in terms of

getting us towards what is happening and why is it happening now? What is really going on here?

This coming up from antiwar.com just hours ago before comedy killing CIA assessed he would likely

be replaced by more hard line elements of the IRGC, which says, quote, before the US and Israel

launched a war against Iran on Saturday morning and killed Ayatollah Ali Kuminay. The CIA

assessed that if the Iranian leader were killed, his rule would likely be replaced by hard line

figures from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. Yes, of course. Of course,

there are a couple of things that we can take away just April or I from these events. We don't

even need all of these news updates, but they will be there at corberreport.com slash a ran war. But

we don't even need these updates to understand the basic logical calculus that is at play here.

Of course, the Ayatollah has very specifically been the bulwark and the roadblock against Iran

going nuclear, at least in terms of nuclear weapons, who is specifically and consistently reaffirmed

that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons. And yet they decided to take him out.

He's the one that is going to be, they know the CIA has assessed. They already know that he is

going to be replaced by more hard line elements within the government. So why would they decide

to take him out? Well, of course, there are a couple of, or at least a couple of factors.

A play one of which is the always the response that we could always turn to follow the money. Well,

of course, there is the military industrial boondoggle, which is, which is unfolding right now as we

speak. You have heard, I'm sure some of the commentators talking about how they're running out of

Tomahawks. They're going to use up all their Tomahawks in these strikes. That is, of course, the

point. Yes, they have, they have supplies. They need to continuously get rid of those supplies so

that they can order more and make more for the military industrial complex. That is exactly what's

happening and low and behold, this up from zero hedge war stocks back and focus as operation epic

fury drains Tomahawks supplies. Yes, because of course, it is good for business and they are going

to be making billions and billions for the military industrial complex. And oh, wouldn't you know what

US defense stocks booming as we speak? Surprise, surprise. The Dow's up $50,000 says the absolutely

financially illiterate Pambondi to the trained claps and cheers of the mega crowd. So that is one

aspect of what is going on. But of course, that is not really the heart of this. Yes, there's always

the monetary aspect. But the monetary aspect is just used to keep the lower level middle manager go

first of this larger agenda in the game. Why are they in it? Well, maybe for their own crass

financial purposes. But what is the game really about? It isn't really about the money, which we know

is created out of nothing by the banksters themselves. So that isn't really what this is about. What it

is about, of course, ultimately as power and consolidation of control, centralization of control,

in the coming regional, regional slash global governmental system that we know is being

worked on and has been being worked on for generations. But how does Iran play into that?

Well, in order to understand that, we have to understand how we came to this spot in history.

Because guess what? The Iran strikes and what's going on? Didn't start on Saturday.

It didn't start last June with the 12-day war. It didn't start a few years ago. It didn't start

with the JCPOA. It didn't start at the beginning of the 21st century. It started, well, arguably,

I guess we could go back through thousands of years of history to the old ancient Persian people

and the great Persian empire. And we could talk about what Hegel called the world's first historical

people and all of that. But we don't have to go quite that far, or at least we're not going to

in today's podcast. What we can do is go back to when Iran very, very squarely came on the geopolitical

chessboard. And as viewers of how and why big oil conquer the world will know, that, of course,

took place in 1901. Another global competitor to the standard oil throne emerged in Iran at the

turn of the 20th century. In 1901, millionaire socialite William Knox Darcy negotiated an

incredible concession with the King of Persia, exclusive rights to prospect for oil throughout

most of the country for 60 years. After seven years of fruitless search, Darcy and his

Glasgow-based partner, Burma Oil, were ready to abandon the country altogether.

In early May of 1908, they sent a telegram to their geologist telling him to dismiss his

staff, dismantle his equipment, and come back home. He defied the order, and weeks later struck oil.

Burma Oil promptly spun off the Anglo-Persian oil company to oversee production of Persian oil.

The British government took 51 percent majority control of the company shares in 1914

at the behest of Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and survives today as BP.

Ah, yes, as viewers of the big oil documentary will know all too well, the cementing of the oil

world order in the late 19th slash early 20th century completely reconfigured the global

geopolitical chessboard and made certainly formerly neglected slices of the geopolitical pie

like Iran, somewhat more interesting and important and flavorful for the would-be eaters of

the Anglo-American empire to really extend that metaphor. And you will know that, for example,

the Anglo-Persian slash Anglo-Iranian slash BP interests in Persia were at least part of

what cemented the opposition to the proposed Berlin Baghdad railway in the lead up to World War I,

which was contributory to the World War I conspiracy. But let's skip ahead in this story to the 1950s

when viewers of false flags the secret history of al-Qaeda will know Iran, of course, attempted to

nationalize the oil, tried to take a greater stake in its own geoeconomic interests, which was,

of course, a no-no that was met with fierce and immediate deep-state opposition.

In March 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian oil company,

the British oil giant that struck oil near the Persian Gulf in 1908, and offered the

premiership of the government to Muhammad Mosadek, an outspoken secular nationalist.

Immediately after taking office, Mosadek affected the nationalization, stating,

our long years of negotiations with foreign countries have yielded no results this far.

With the oil revenues, we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease,

and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the

elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue,

by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced.

Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence.

The nationalization put Tehran on a collision course with London.

But Britain knew that a military intervention was not possible without American approval,

and, despite harsh economic sanctions on the country and a boycott of the newly-nationalized

oil industry that was joined by much of the Western world, they could not overthrow the

Iranian government themselves. Instead, they had to turn to the US.

Although the Truman administration was initially hesitant to become involved,

that changed with the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower in the installation of the Dola's

brothers, Alan and John Foster, as director of central intelligence and secretary of state,

respectively. By June of 1953, the CIA was already adapting the British coup proposal into their

own covert operation, dubbed Operation TPA Jax. An open secret in the world of intelligence,

the CIA, MI6 role in the overthrow of Mosadek, was officially denied by the US government for

over half a century and is still unacknowledged by the British government to this day.

Nevertheless, the CIA's own internal history of the operation, first revealed to the public in

the year 2000, confirms the extent of the American and British role in the coup. They convinced the

Shah of Iran to agree to the plan. They handpicked General Fizlola Zahidi as Mosadek's successor.

They rolled out a propaganda campaign to portray Mosadek, a devout adherent to democratic

nationalism who rigorously excluded the nation's Communist Party from his government,

as a communist sympathizer who would steer Iran into the arms of the Soviets.

They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars bribing journalists, clerics, and even Iranian

parliament members themselves to go along with the plot. And they used the network of agents

and suitcases full of money to incite riots and protests across the country.

In the end, the operation was a success. Mosadek was driven from power. General Zahidi took his

place. The western-backed Shah ruled the country with the iron fist of his feared secret police for

the next 25 years, and a new agreement on sales of Iranian oil was reached. This time, though,

the Anglo-Iranian oil company, now rebranded as British petroleum, would not have a monopoly on

the country's lucrative oil reserves. An international consortium was put together to share in the

profits, with American companies Chevron and Standard Oil cut into the deal.

And yes, you can continue pulling on that historical thread and traveling that historical path

through the 1950s and 60s and 70s through the installation, and then the brutal regime of tyranny

brought about by the Shah of Iran and his Savak secret police. Again, there's a lot to be told

about that tale, and of course, U.S. complicity in that tale, including, of course, the Shah's good

personal friend and buddy, David Rockefeller. And what role that might have played in the

development of events there in Iran in that time period, but of course, that inevitably leads us

to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And the installation of the new Islamic Theocracy in Iran and the

Ayatollah. And then of course, it just inevitably follows from there this seemingly eternal enmity

between the U.S. and Iran. Why is the U.S. the great Satan in the Iranian people's imagination?

And why is Iran this great boogieman in the U.S. public imagination? It is because of those

events of those chaotic times. Of course, the hostage crisis and everything else that came after

that point. And that is why, at least in the minds of many Americans, there is this never-ending

hatred of Iran and the Iranian people. But there is more to say about that Islamic Revolution,

and what role the deep state may have played in that as well. As anyone who's been tuned into

conspiracy reality will know, there was some interesting documents that came out about a decade ago

that revealed more along those lines. I wrote about it at the time on the corporate report

back in 2016. Another conspiracy confirmed. Homeni had a secret channel with the U.S., which reports

from those documents that Ayatollah Homeni was in direct communication with U.S. President Jimmy

Carter in the crucial weeks following the Shah's departure from Iran on January 16, 1979,

i.e. before the Revolution. And despite vigorous denial by the Iranian government,

the records show that Homeni struck a conciliatory tone with the U.S. government as he attempted to

broker his return to the country. He was exiled at the time. You will see, we are not in any

particular animosity with the Americans. Homeni wrote in a message to U.S. President Jimmy Carter

at the time. And the records stretch back even further. They indicate that Homeni's contact

with the U.S. government stretched back to 1963, when they then exiled religious leader made contact

with President Kennedy to inform him that, quote, he was not opposed to American interest in Iran,

and, quote, expressed his belief in close cooperation between Islam and other world religions.

So make of that what you will, anyway, there was contact between the sides before the Revolution

took place. And what exactly the deep-state machinations and calculus may have been at that time

is undoubtedly buried deep in records that U.S. and I will never have access to. But there is no

doubt that from that time, as I say Iran became the great boogie man, and certainly since the 1990s,

it has been framed as the great Islamic nuclear threat. Oh, the Islamic bomb. Oh, what if the

Iranians get the bomb? The Iranian crazies are working on the bomb. And we have all seen

the buildup, the crescendo of nuclear propaganda and hysteria concerning Iran's nuclear program

for decades now. Handering over Iran's nuclear program is nothing new. It became a mainstay of

Western political discourse after an Iranian dissident revealed the Iranian government's plans

for a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in August 2002. But the surprising fact for Americans

and others around the world who get their information from the corporate mainstream media

is that Iran's pre-2003 nuclear weapons program has long been known and admitted.

Since 2003, when the program was scrapped, not a single piece of evidence has been presented,

not even by Netanyahu or the Israeli government, that the Iranian government ever pursued anything

other than what it said it was pursuing, a nuclear energy program. Not that that fact has ever

stopped Netanyahu from using any opportunity to use cartoon-level propaganda tactics to convince

the world otherwise. In the case of Iran's nuclear plans to build a bomb, this bomb has to be filled

with enough enriched uranium. And Iran has to go through three stages. The first stage,

they have to enrich enough low enriched uranium. The second stage, they have to enrich enough

medium enriched uranium. And the third stage and final stage, they have to enrich enough high

enriched uranium for the first bomb. Where's Iran? Iran's completed the first stage.

Took them many years, but they completed it, and they're 70 percent of the way there.

Now they're well into the second stage. And by next spring, at most, by next summer,

at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the

final stage. From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough

enriched uranium for the first bomb. Ladies and gentlemen, what I've told you now is not based

on secret information. It's not based on military intelligence. It's based on the public reports

of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Anybody can read them. They're online. So if these are

the facts, if these are the facts and they are, where should a red line be drawn? A red line should

be drawn right here. Before Iran completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment,

necessary to make a bomb. Before Iran gets to a point where it's a few months away or a few weeks

away, from amassing enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.

Now each day, that point is getting closer. And that's why I speak today with such a sense of urgency.

Of course, Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons, and Netanyahu's wily coyote bomb and red line

warnings bore no greater semblance to reality than the cartoon propaganda surrounding

Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Not only did the IAEA repeatedly confirm that Iran never

diverted any nuclear material into any military program, but even the US intelligence community

itself conceded that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear bomb. Most remarkable of all was

Masad's own assessment that Iran was not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.

As I detailed earlier this year in, we need to talk about the Iran protests.

Fear mongering over Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program was the basis for an extraordinary

series of measures against the country in recent decades. These measures include Nitro Zeus,

a full-scale military cyber attack against Iran, the best known element of which was Stuxnet,

the military-grade cyber weapon co-developed by the United States and Israel that specifically

targeted Iran's nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz. Iran's non-existent nuclear program

also provided the pretext for sanctions aimed at crippling the country's economy,

including the delisting of Iranian banks from the Swift network connecting the world's

financial institutions. The fear mongers even went so far as to plant evidence of nuclear weapons

involvement on Iran to further justify these attacks. But the great irony is that there really

is a nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East. It is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation

treaty. It does not allow inspections of its arsenal. It does not even officially acknowledge

its stockpile of nuclear weapons. It has even resisted the push for an international treaty

recognizing a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. And that country is Israel.

Oh, sorry, spoiler for anyone who hasn't caught my reporting on the real Middle East nuclear

threat. But yes, the real Middle East nuclear threat turns out to be not Iran, but Israel,

the actual possessor of hundreds of nuclear warheads. No one knows exactly how many,

because of course they have never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Their nuclear

armaments have never been the subject of any inspection. In fact, they don't officially exist,

or at least everyone pretends to not officially acknowledge Iran's Israel's nuclear stockpile.

Anyway, and of course, it all came from stolen information from the U.S. nuclear program,

and materials, and goods, and parts, etc. I have talked about that many times in the past,

so you have some catching up to do. If you want to find out more information about that,

and you can do so by following the links from quarterreport.com slash Iran war.

But I think, again, we know how that story goes. The Iranian nuclear threat. Look at Iran,

and then Yahoo for decades telling the United States lecturing and hectoring the U.S.

public that their mortal existential enemy threat is Iran and Iran's nuclear program.

When have I ever lied to you, says BB, with a straight face somehow?

Now, having said that, there's so much more to talk about with regards to the history that

led us to this point, including, of course, the wave after wave of protest movement that just

spontaneously arose up in Iran. Yes, there is no doubt that the Iranian people have

had, have suffered under their government as every people around the world suffers

under the government to a greater or lesser extent. And there have been protest movements,

but there's no doubt also that those protest movements have been fomented and

helped along by the propagandists and other deep-state operatives in the Anglo-Israeli Empire.

And examples of that go back years and years. Remember the green movement and the Iranian

elections in 2009 and what was happening there? Well, I do and I had interviews along those

lines talking about what was really going on on the ground at that time. I had a report on those

2017 slash 18 Iranian protests that were all the rage at that moment. We need to talk about the

Iran protests. You might remember that. And we can talk about the many, many examples of the deep

state openly using about how they would engineer some sort of false flag event in order to justify

their inevitable strike on Iran. For example, as I documented in four times, the US

threatened to stage an attack and blame it on Iran, starting, of course, with Patrick Klossen's

infamous 2012 lecture on crisis initiation about how, well, we could just sink one of our own

subs and blame it on Iran. And who would know? And anyway, we'd be at war because crisis initiation

is difficult, as he says. And other examples of some of the incredible hair-brained schemes

that others have proffered in the past. We could point to the path to Persia and all of these

sorts of inner documents talking about this. But here we are. We're at the point that has been

talked about and trumpeted for decades. And in the end, it didn't even take any sort of false

flag event. They just had to say the words often enough until eventually they just go ahead and

do it. And the public just accepts it. Or do they? I guess the real question in all of this is

what happens now? What happens going forward? And that is obviously something that is still

left on the table. And it's left on the table, of course, for the populations of various countries

to decide for themselves what they do and do not and will and will not abide when it comes to the

actions undertaken in their name, to the extent that there is any sort of popular control over any

of the mechanisms of government. If government even has to pretend to take public sentiment into

account anymore, then obviously public reaction to these events in America, in Israel, in

the UK and Canada and every other Western democracy that's on the Anglo-Israeli side.

Well, that will be decided in the coming days, weeks and months. As obviously these events

continue to reverberate for quite some time, whatever happens, I think it's safe to say that this

is an event that completely reshapes the global geopolitical chess board and will have ramifications

for some time to come. But also, I think the one response that everyone is presumably waiting on

and really waiting to see what will happen is the Russia-Slash-China response. Will there be

anything other than token protest of these events? Or will this be the final line in the sand?

And as you know, by now, it was the subject of the second-ever edition of this podcast back in 2007,

19 years ago, the second-ever edition of Corporate Report podcast was called World War Three

starts in Iran because at that time, as I was noting, talking about the then very fresh events

of the Munich Security Conference of February 2007, when Putin infamously drew his line in the sand

and started talking about, essentially, talking about America and calling it out as a rogue nation

on the international stage and saying, we're not going to just sit here and abide by this and let

these things transpire. Well, that was 19 years ago and that was really the origins for many of

these bricks are the savior type people of the idea that there is some sort of bricks alliance

or access against the NATO-slash Israel alliance and that they're going to draw this great line in

the sand and everything will be different because don't worry, the Americans will be stopped dead

in their tracks by the Russia-Chinese alliance. Or will they? Anyway, that was the narrative at that time

as you might recall. But some hints towards what a Russian response to an American attack on Iran

might be come from an AP article February 10, 2007 called Poutine Warms US Policy Creating New Arms

Mr. Poutine was speaking at the 43rd conference on security policy in Munich and he said nations,

quote, are witnessing an almost uncontained, hyper-use of force in international relations.

One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is very

dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law.

This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons, he added.

So from that story, we obviously get the tenor of the Russian thinking along these lines that

Iraq might have been the last straw in Iran, of course, would be one step too far and Russia

would feel compelled to act in the event of an American attack against Iran. This was followed up

in April 6, 2007 by a Moss News report entitled US to suffer losses upon attacking Iran,

which details a man named General Yuri Solovyev, the head of Moscow's air defense,

who delivered a pretty thinly veiled threat that Iran's weapons, among others, include

our anti-aircraft systems, as in Russia's anti-aircraft systems, which allow them the Iranians

to fight all types of flying objects currently in service in the US Army. Besides, we all remember

our specialists have trained them since Soviet times. So here you have a keen member of the

Russian Army, basically saying that Russia will be an important part of the Iranian response

to any attack. And then I think that gives the tenor of the idea that the Russians are setting up

for it to defend their Iranian interests. And anyone who thinks that the Chinese wouldn't

act to defend their interests in Iran are probably seriously mistaken and extremely oil-starved

country being fed by an extremely oil-rich nation would obviously see the American attack as

a threat to their existence. If China and Russia enter the theater, all bets are off the table.

It really then becomes World War III.

There you go. As I say, that was the narrative there in 2007, and that set up the next couple of

decades of, well, not just mainstream, but independent media reporting on the geopolitical situation.

Lines in the sand have been drawn. There is this great brick's resistance movement that's

arising and that may or may not eventually in actual military resistance to

ongoing American slash NATO slash Israeli imperial aggression. And that is the defining metric

that has been used for decades. Now the reason why Iran has always been the red line for so many

people is because if you cross militarily into Iran, all bets are off the table. World War III is

on the table. And we are at that moment, whether we realize it or not. And I'm not sure exactly what is

the best or even the worst possible outcome from all of this. Because certainly, obviously,

it would be easy to say, well, good. Okay, let's hope World War III does not

eventually hear. Let's hope there is some sort of peaceful, happy transition of power to some

Iranian government that everyone can live with and everything just goes back to normal. But actually,

that really doesn't solve anything, even if that were to take place, even of the most peaceful

and passable alternative were to take place, that doesn't really placate anyone or anything,

because all it means is that all of the hot air and bloviating over the past couple of decades

about red lines and lines in the sand and imperial aggression versus the heroic brick

saviors means all of that was hot air and nothing will eventually. And I don't know about you,

but I'm not personally going to take my cue for what may or may not be coming from a

Russia-China response from the very same bloviators and blowhards, who just months ago were

assuring us that US would never go into Venezuela because they are armed to the teeth with these high

tech Russian anti-aircraft defenses. The uncle Sam would never even approach, would never even attempt

to get through and never, oh, wait, of course, oh, let's take Maduro and middle of the night and zero

resistance, absolutely nothing, not a single American, even injured a little on dead. Oh, okay,

all right. Or the same people who've been talking for four years now about how Russia is two

weeks away from ending this special military operation in Ukraine. It's not a war, don't call it a

war. They're just weeks away, guys, for the last four years. These people have been wrong about

everything. And I'm sure going to say how this is all some kind of great strategic win for the

bricks alliance. I'm not sure I'm going to listen to that narrative. But at any rate, the

cards are on the table. And this is a now or never, this is a maker break. I don't know what is

going to happen any more than any of the other bloviating blowhards out there in this space,

dude. But at least I will admit that I do not know how this is going to unfold. But I do know

what is being worked towards, which of course is the dismantling of yet another at least potential

threat or even rival on the geopolitical stage to Israeli dominance of the Middle East.

So we'll see, we will see in the coming days and weeks how this turns out there's going to be

a lot of information to keep track of. This could be the defining events of our times. So I hope

you are paying attention. And if you are the place to go with information and to find information

as it arises is the Iran war open thread up on corporate report.com. Once again, all of the information

that I have talked about today, all of the links, etc will be in the show notes for today's

episode at corporate report.com slash Iran war. But if you go to the Iran war open thread,

you can join the conversation now dozens and dozens and dozens of comments more coming in all the

time for people all around the world with information about what is happening in Iran. So I hope

you will go there, take a look at that and contribute if you are able. And of course,

corporate report members are able to log in and leave their comments in the comment section there.

But that's going to do it for today's exploration. There's a lot of information on the table.

And hopefully this provides some of the history and context. So you understand what is taking place

right now and why it is taking place. That is the only way we are going to learn ourselves

forward from all of this mess. But that's going to do it for today. James Corbett,

a corporate report.com. And today I'll leave you with the wise words of the commander-in-chief

of the United States. Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no

ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. Our president will start a war with Iran

because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective.

He's weak and he's ineffective. He's weak and he's ineffective.

He's weak and he's ineffective. He's weak and he's ineffective.

We all know the story of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

bin Laden was responsible for today's attack.

So often was that story repeated in the wake of 9-11 that the hypnotized public forgot

that it was, at base, just that. A story. If they didn't have an Osama bin Laden out there,

they didn't vent one. In false flags, the secret history of al-Qaeda,

you will learn the truth behind that story and uncover the lies that led to the war of terror.

Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there.