#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East

27:08Oh, we know it never was. There never was any reprocessing of weapons fuel but there was concrete. I'm happy that there's no indication for your viewers are interested in not to plug my own podcast like so I apologize, but it is a very good podcast. I just recently had David Albright on my podcast, who is actually a physicist and a weapons inspector and goes into a lot of detail about the Iranian nuclear program. Please listen to the podcast. It won't break down, by the way. It's done. Yeah. And David's the president of the Institute for Science and National Security. I'm by the way, spend decades on this.

27:39And to his credit, he was one of the deep skeptics of the Bush administration's roster war with Iraq and that's not true. He vouched for claims that there were chemical weapons in Iraq and later said he was sorry for it. Again, I mentioned the Bush administration's roster war based on their claims that Saddam was building nuclear weapons. He did debunk the aluminum tubes though. He debunked it and it was a deep skeptic again of the of the roster war in Iraq. You know, the argument today, like, so I think is the more interesting argument because there are very few people left today who don't believe that the Iranians were building the nuclear weapons capability that gave them the option to build nuclear weapons.

28:18I already said that. We can debate. We can debate whether they had decided to and I'm interested to hear Scott's opinion on this, but the recent intelligence that has come out that the Iranian nuclear weapon scientists have begun preliminary work on building a warhead came out from where this intelligence that came out who put that into is really claims not verified by the U .S. in the Wall Street Journal anyway, right? Let's talk kind of about. Let's talk about all of my list of refutations to all your false claims, but can you can't do it? The Wall Street Journal did verify this law of Lawrence Norman to refute.

28:53Lawrence Norman actually wrote a piece that this was during the Biden administration because the Biden DNI had actually come out and for the first time in their annual threat assessment had removed a line that said Iran is not working currently working on developing any capabilities that would put it in the position to actually deliver a nuclear warhead. And what became the Lawrence Norman piece in the Wall Street Journal was that there actually was initial work done on metallurgy and on computer modeling. And so those actually were defined terms in section T of the 2015 JCPOA which defined weaponization in that section and metallurgy and computer modeling were some of the initial steps so that the DNI was very concerned under Biden that these initial steps meant that either Hamanay had given the green lights or nuclear weapon scientists in order to get ahead of the boss so they could be in a position if he decided to move forward on this were in a position and their timelines were therefore expedited.

29:57So it's interesting I mean again you've got the DNI under Biden you've got the CIA director John Ratcliffe you've got Israeli intelligence you've got the Wall Street Journal and you've got the IAEA asking questions of Iran on its past weaponization activities why are you denying us? The dog that didn't bark there the current director of national intelligence who issued her threat assessment Trump's director of national intelligence Tulsi Gavard who issued her threat assessment in February that repeated the exact same language that from the national intelligence estimate of 2007 and that the CIA and the NIE the National Intelligence Council have reaffirmed repeatedly ever since then which is that Supreme Leader has not decided to pursue nuclear weapons he has not made the political decision to pursue nuclear weapons she testified in fact in in under oath in front of the Senate in March and then according to CNN and the New York Times there was a brand new that assessment that was put together the week before the attack was launched reaffirming the same thing and at least in history if you read it in Haaretz Mossad agreed with the CIA I'd like to just sort of quote CIA director John Ratcliffe because Scott brought up the CIA and the intelligence committee I think Ratcliffe had a good way of looking at this is and that he said is you know when you're in the 99 -yard line as a football team you have the intention of score a goal quote unquote and what what he was what he was actually point into is let's not talk about this debate about whether Khamenei had given the order and not given the order because Khamenei knows that if he gives an order the U .S.

31:30and Israeli intelligence community will pick up on that order and that will be the trigger for strikes what what Ratcliffe is saying is that Khamenei had built the nuclear weapons capability he's at the 99 -yard line and both the CIA and European leaders the European intelligence community has said for years that if Iran has that capability and they're on the 99 -yard line at that point it's going to be too late to stop them once that decision is made to to assemble the final warhead which by the way is the final piece of what you need for a deliverable nuclear weapon that's not true at all right they have to resort to a crude analogy about football yard lines because they can't say the truth which is that they had zero weapons grade uranium they were not producing it they were trying to the United States back in the deal that they are still officially within the JCPOA with the rest of the UN Security Council we're in they shipped all of their enriched uranium stockpile out of the country to France to be transferred to fuel rods their insistence was on their continued ability to enrich uranium and so this goes to one of the things that he at least sort of brought up that deserves addressing when Trump came into power in 2017 he decided on this Israeli influence maximum pressure campaign and he said the JCPOA was the worst deal in the history of any time any two men ever shook hands and all these kinds of things in his hyperbolic way which of course made it very difficult for him to figure out a way to stay in the thing or to to compromise along its lines but the fact of the matter is if he had just played it straight and said listen iatola we don't have to be friends but we do have a deal here which my predecessor struck with you but i don't like these sunset provisions and i want to send my guys over there and see if we can figure out a way to convince you that we really wish you'd shut down calm altogether or this or that or the other thing and try to approach them in good faith we talk about yard lines and things we had a JCPOA okay so toward peace we were passed the 50 yard line Donald Trump could have gone to Tehran and shook hands with the iatola as Dick Cheney complained that we had cold relations with Iran back in 1998 when he was the head of aliburton i said we can do business with these guys um Donald Trump could have gone right over there and done business and instead he gave into Netanyahu's lies in this ridiculous hoax that they had uncovered all these Iranian nuclear documents which he's pretends this legit where all they did was recycle the fake israeli forged smoking laptop of 2005 which they lied and pretended was the laptop of an Iranian scientist that was smuggled out of Iran by his wife and had all this proof of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program on it but every bit of that was refuted including the thing about the warhead he said was refuted by David Albright and his friend David Sanger in the New York Times that all those sketches of the warhead for the missile were wrong because when Masaud forged the documents they were making a good educated guess but they didn't know that Iran had completely redesigned the nose cone of their mid -range missiles and had an entirely different nose cone that would require an entirely different warhead than that described in the documents and why would they have been designing a warhead to fit in a nose cone that they were abandoning and so that was refuted David Albright completely discredited your claims there pal and then they later admitted that it was a CIA laptop there was no laptop and they later admitted Ali Hainan admitted who was a very hawkish one of the not director but high -level executive at the International Atomic Energy Agency admitted that intelligence was brought into the stream by the Mujahideen e -calk communist terrorist cult that used to work for the Ayatollah during the revolution then turned on him and he turned on them and kicked them out then they went to work for Saddam Hussein where they helped crush the Shiite and Kurdish insurrection of 1991 and then they became America, Donald Rumsfelds and Ariel Sharone's sock puppets and later Ahud Al -Murt's sock puppets when the United States invaded Iraq and took possession of them they're now under American protection in Albania and these are the same kooks who just a few weeks ago you might remember say look new satellite pictures of a whole new nuclear facility in Iran in it funny how no one ever brought that up again didn't bomb it it was nothing it was fake just like before when they said hey look here's a picture of a vault door and behind that is where the secret nuclear weapons program is except turn out that vault door was a stock photo from a vault company it meant nothing and they had repeatedly you know made claims that were totally refuted just like I'm about to review his claim that they ever were the ones who revealed for example Natans he was implying that Natans and calm were both buried and hidden until revealed I think you said by dissident groups that is the Mek sock puppets of the Israelis but it was your friend David Albright not the Israeli massage through the Mek who revealed Natans facility ask him he'll fist fight you over it he claims credit he was first and said this is a facility however they were not in violation of their safeguards agreement with the ia ea they were still six months away from introducing any nuclear material to that facility and so when it was revealed they weren't in violation of anything and and then on calm we had a huge fight about this at the time the party line came down in from all the government officials in the media that they had just exposed the facility there calm is for the same thing when in fact that wasn't true the ia the the Iranians had announced to the ia ea that we have built a new facility here and we are going to introduce nuclear material into it within six months so here's your official notification and then a few days later they just pretended to expose it when it was the Iranians themselves who had admitted to it in in going along with their obligations under their safeguards agreement so it's just completely wrong why did they bury and they buried them for protection because clearly the Israelis have indicated since the 1990s that they consider any nuclear program in Iran to be the same thing as an advanced nuclear weapons program you're hearing that today for them to have a nuclear facility at all is a is equivalent to them going ahead and breaking out and making a nuclear weapon and so of course they know that they have to have it buried to protect it from Israel that doesn't mean that they are trying to get nukes it does mean as i already said that they wanted to prove to the world that they know how to enrich uranium and that they have facilities very deeply enough where if we attack them that would incentivize them to making nukes and then we would might be unable to stop them without going all the way toward a regime change which they're bluffing basically betting that we won't go that far considering how gigantic their country is and how mountainous and populist it is compared to iraq next door now here's some more things that he said that weren't true so he said Iran has been killing Americans all this time well that's almost always a reference to Beirut 1983 which you can read in the book by way of deception by Victor Astrosky the former Mossad officer that the Israelis knew that they were building that truck bomb to bomb the Marines with and withheld that information from the United States and said that's what they get for sticking their big noses in and that is in the book by way of deception by Victor Astrosky and by the way the Israelis were friends with them at with Iran at the time in all through the 1980s and it was just a couple of years later when Ronald Reagan sold Iran missiles and using the Israelis as cutouts to do so when he switched sides temporarily in the Iran Iraq war and so that's just and that was in 1983 if Ronald Reagan if Ronald Reagan can sell a missiles a year or two years after that three years after that then surely the United States and the Ayatollah can bury the hatchet from that and no one's ever even I don't believe ever really proven that Tehran ordered that it was a Shiite militia backed by Iran that sort of proto has bala that did that attack that killed those Marines and if there's some responsibility for them damn them like if there's direct responsibility for that not just their support for the group then damn them for that but that's still no reason in the world to say that we can't get along with them now when that was in the same year return of the Jedi came out okay and then the other one and this is always referred to you'll see this on TV news today anyone watching this turn on TV news and you'll hear them say Iran killed 600 Americans in the rock war two but that's a lie there was a gigantic propaganda campaign by Dick Cheney and his co -conspirators David Petraeus and Michael Gordon of the New York Times now at the Wall Street Journal where they lied and lied like the devil for about five six months in early 2007 that every time a Shiite set off a roadside bomb these new improved copper cord enhanced uh uh they're called EFPs explosively formed penetrators now anytime that happened Iran did it which is what George Bush called shorthanding it yeah in other words just implying the lie what they're saying is Iran backed mottata al -sadir and america attacked mottata al -sadir who actually they were fighting the whole war for him he remains a powerful kingmaker in that country this day he's part of the united Iraqi alliance and in fact as long as we're taking a long form here he was the least Iran tide of the three major factions in the united Iraqi alliance in a rock war two the other two major factions were dawa and the supreme Islamic council and they had been living in Iran for the last 20 years they're the ones who came and took over Baghdad mottata al -sadir was a Shiite and close to Iran but he's also an Iraqi nationalist and at times he lied with the Sunnis and tried to in tried to limit American and Iranian influence in the country was more of a Arab and an Iraqi nationalist and the americans decided they hated him the most not because he was the most Iran tide but because he was willing to tell us and them to to get the hell out and america was betting that if we back the same parties that Iran backed in a rock war two that they would eventually end up needing our money and guns more than they would need their Iranian friends and co -religionists and sponsors next door which of course did not work out in america's had minimal influence in super majority Shiite Iraq ever since the end of a rock war too and we can get back later in the show to how Israel helped lie us into that horrific war as well but the fact of the matter is it was not Iranians setting off those bombs and it was not even Iranians making those bombs and I show in my book enough already I have a solid dozen sources enough already thank you I have a solid dozen sources including uh Michael Gordon's own colleague Alyssa Rubin at the New York Times and many others where they found these bomb factories in Shiite Iraq they were being made by Shiite Arab Iraqis and when they David Patreas was going to have a big press conference and they laid out all the components all the reporters gathered around they started noticing that the components said made in UAE made in Haditha that is Iraq in other words there was no evidence whatsoever that these came from Iran and then they called off the press conference and Stephen Hadley George Bush's second secret to national security advisor admitted that yeah we didn't have the evidence that we needed to present that and I also quote to one marine and one high level army intelligence officer in there who were deeply involved in a rock war reconfirming that that there was never any evidence that these bombs were coming across from Iran or especially that then even if they were that that was at the direction of the Kudz force or the Ayatollah this was all just a propaganda campaign because Dick Cheney and David Patreas were trying to give George Bush a reason to hit IRGC bases and start the war in 2007 and this sounds crazy but there's like four major confirming sources for it.

43:44Dick Cheney's national security advisor David Wormser who was the author of the Clean Break strategy which we're going to talk about today. David Wormser in 2007 was saying we want to work with the Israelis to start the war with Iran to force George Bush to do an end run around George Bush and force him into the war and that was reported originally by Stephen Clemens in the Washington note but it was later confirmed in the New York Times and by the Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman in his book Angler on Dick Cheney that there was this huge this was the end that they were going for was they were trying so hard to force a war in 2007 and it was the commander of CENTCOM Admiral Fallon who said over my dead body we are not doing this and in a few months later the National Intelligence Council put out their NIE saying that there is no nuclear weapons program at all and W Bush complained in his memoir legs that in his story it's the Saudi king his royal highness Abdullah rather than Ahud al -Murt but he's saying I'm sorry your highness majesty I can't attack Iran's nuclear program because my own intelligence agency says they don't have a military program so how am I supposed to start a war with him when my own intelligence agencies say that this was Donald Trump just it started anyway had his main ruby of say well screw the intelligence on okay what it says we can just do this if we want to so first let me say on the cover of enough already devastating Daniel Osberg outstanding Daniel Al -Davis essential Ron Paul you are respected by a very large number of people you have decades of experience in this same thing with Mark extremely respected by a very large number of people experts there's a lot of disagreements here and we're going to unfortunately leave a lot of the disagreements on the table for the aforementioned nuclear scientists to deconstruct later so let's not like try to every single claim does not have to be perfectly refuted as just leave it on the table the statements as they stand and let's try to also find things we kind of agree on and try I know this might be difficult but to steal man the other side there's nothing I would love to ask you maybe give market a chance to speak a little bit but to try to for both of you to try to steal man the other side so people who are concerned about Iran developing a nuclear program can you steal man that case and the same but I think I did in my opening statement quite frankly I'm I don't care any brief for the Ayatollah I'm a Texan I'm going to damn about what some Shiite theocrat says about nothing right my interest is the people of this country and its future and what's true and so I don't mind telling you even though the Iranians never said we're building a latent nuclear weapons capability that's clearly what they're doing is showing that they can make a nuke so don't make me make a nuke that has been their position their position has not been I'm making a nuke so I can wipe Israel off the map their position has been look if you guys don't attack us we could just keep this civilian program the way it is and again there's always the implication that they're just building up this uranium stockpile but no they're not that's in reaction to one Donald Trump leaving the deal in 2018 to the assassination in December 2020 of the Iranian nuclear scientist Far Khazada however you say that and then in April of 21 the sabotage at Natanz and there's a Reuters story that says right after they sabotage Natanz that's when the Ayatollah decided let's enrich up to 60 % which why stopped 30 % short of 90 % to 35 it's because they're not even making a threat they're built they're making like the most latent of threat a bargaining chip to negotiate away they're trying to put pressure on the United States to come back to the table that's not the same as racing to the bomb that's why Marco Rubio says never mind the intelligence because the intelligence says what I just said yeah point made let's try let's try if possible to keep it to like a minute and two of back of force except you know the problem is we're talking about nuclear stuff which is all very complicated and most people don't know much about it which is what the war parties were lying on that people just hear nuclear afraid and mushroom cloud and and give the benefit of the doubt to the hawks and so we got to get into the details of this stuff details 100 % but I like the tension between two people with different perspectives exploring those details and the more we can go back and forth the better and there's a lot of disagreement on the table I personally enjoy learning from the disagreement I think that was a very long list of claims that he made though where I felt like I had to go down the list as much as I could because it's a lot I think you address like maybe one or two claims and it took 15 minutes so that's why I'm just commenting on okay let's do one at a time I like the tension of the debate of back and forth that's that's all Mark do you want to do you want to comment on stuff a little bit here which would pick whichever topic you want to go with here yeah there's a lot there so just a couple of things I think that are worth your viewers knowing because Scott's right I mean the nuclear physics is complicated and it's also important so the radians have assembled about we say about 15 to 17 bombs worth of 60 % enriched uranium and I think it's always important for your listeners to understand what does this all mean enriched to 3 .67 % to 20 % to 60 % and then to 90 % weapons grade uranium like what what does this actual process mean first of all obviously enriched uranium is a key capability to develop a nuclear weapon it can also be used for other purposes civilian purposes and research purposes you can use it a power nuclear submarine so let's just if you know mine if I could just break it down that's fascinating yes yeah just just I think it's again important just to understand the the sort of basics before we jump into the allegations and claims and counter claims so if you're going to enrich to 3 .67 % enriched uranium that's for civilian nuclear power right but when you do that you basically 70 % of what you need to get to weapons grade right so you've done all the steps 70 % of the steps in order to get to weapons grade uranium if you're enriched to 20 % you are now at 90 % of what you need to get to weapons grade uranium now why would you need 20 % you may need it for something like a research reactor right and circle isotopes Iran has correct Iran has a Tehran research reactor for medical isotopes now you can by the way you can buy those isotopes and abroad or you can or you can produce them at home if you're going to enrich to 60 % right then you've done 99 % of what you need to get to weapons grade uranium and then 90 % is quote weapons grade uranium by the way you can use 60 % to actually deliver a crude nuclear device that that has been done in the past but you want to get to quote 90 % that's that's weapons grade uranium as Scott's defining it but just again clarify the these huge stockpiles of 60 % that Iran is accumulated right this 16 17 bombs worth of 60 % is 99 % of what they need for weapons grade so I I just wanted to explain that yeah but when you say you're saying if you include the mining the refining of the ore into yellow cake the transformation of that into uranium hexafluoride gas the driving of it in a truck over to the centrifuge and then spinning it this is where we get this 90 % number from right in in place of 90 % in rich uranium or or 80 % in rich uranium is 90 % of the way on some chart that includes picking up a shovel and beginning to mine right like so again just to clarify I just think it's important to understand the definition of terms to get what once you have 60 % in rich uranium you've done 99 % of all the steps including some of the steps that Scott's talking about you've done 99 % of what you need to have weapons grade just meaningless why is that meaningless well as I've already established numerous times here under the jcpo8 they shipped out every bit of their enriched uranium stockpile the french turned it in a fuel rods and then shipped it back that's the deal they're trying to get the us back into and we're obviously clearly willing to do and again the only reason they're enriching up to 60 % was to put the pressure on the Americans to go ahead and get back into the deal and bad bad it gave them an excuse to bomb based on the idea that people are going to listen to him pretend that somehow that's 99 % of the way to the bomb when you're including driving to the mine and mining it and converting it to yellow cake and all these other things I mean you don't have a deliverable nuclear weapon so you need the weapons grade uranium and just to repeat they have multiple bombs worth of the 60 % in rich uranium which again is 99 % of the steps you need to take for weapons grade so they're very close to weapons grade it's that's 1 % more that they need to do to enrich to weapons grade the second aspect of a deliverable nuclear weapon is obviously the delivery vehicle and those are the missiles and according to the DNI and other incredible sources Iran has got the largest missile inventory in the middle east 3000 missiles before the war began and at least the ballistic missiles 2000 capable of reaching Israel so there's no doubt that Iran has the ability once they have the weapons grade uranium and the warhead to fix that to a missile and deliver that certainly to hit Israel hit our golf neighbors hit southern Europe they also have a active intercontinental ballistic missile program an ICBM program which ultimately is designed not to hit the Israelis or the Gulfis but to hit deeper into Europe and ultimately to target the United States so that this just understand the missile program I think it's an important part of it the third leg of the cylinder and Scott is already alluded to this and we've had some debate on this and I think we should talk about it what it really means in detail is you've got to develop a warhead or a crude nuclear device and according to estimates from both US government sources and nuclear experts it would take about four to six months for Iran to develop a crude nuclear device like this is something that you wouldn't use a missile to deliver but you'd use a plane or a ship and it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of about a year and a half to deliver or to develop a warhead and that's to a fix to the missile so it's sort of the three legs of the nuclear stool right the weapons grade uranium the missiles to deliver it and the and the warhead so I just want to sort of define terms so that when we're having this big debate your listeners kind of understand you know what we're talking about if I can jump in here on this point too and I'll turn it back over to you but I actually have a bit of a correction to make for anyone who's seen me on Pierce Morgan or Saga and Crystal I actually oversimplified and made a mistake I've been off of the things and and so I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify and I'm going to try to clarify with them on their shows too was I have an old friend of mine used to make nuclear bombs Gordon Prey there and I only just found out that he died two years ago unfortunately he used to write for us at anti -war .com and a brilliant nuclear physicist and H bomb developer and he'd really taught me all about this stuff and so I'm not correcting anything you said what what he said essentially is right I maybe add a little more detail the easiest kind of nuke to make out of uranium is a simple gun type nuke like they dropped on Hiroshima was little boy it's essentially a shotgun firing a uranium slug into a uranium target and that's enough they didn't even test it they knew it work so easy to do to do the Hiroshima bomb the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium implosion bomb it's virtually always plutonium that's used in implosion bombs and and in miniatureized nuclear warheads that can be married to missiles right as opposed to a bomb you can drop out of the belly of a plane that's he was saying right so gun type nuke you can't put that on a missile that is by far the easiest kind of nuclear weapon for Iran to make if they broke out and made one right but it essentially be useless to them right whether you do drive it to Israel in a flat bed truck right they got no way to deliver that yeah they could drop it as a beacon yeah they could test it in the desert and beat their chest but essentially that's all they could do or you could drop it from a plane like we did as Scott said in yeah with Hiroshima Nagasaki yeah well burstling chance of Iranian heavy bombers getting through Israeli airspace but anyway but to make an implosion bomb they would have to do years with the experiments unless the Chinese of the Russians just gave them the software or gave them the finished blueprints or something which is no indication of that whatsoever the only people gave them blueprints for a nuclear bomb was the CIA remember Operation Merlin where they just changed one little thing and gave them nuclear bomb blueprints but the Iranians didn't take the bay the blueprints were given just just to clarify it's just interesting just in the terms of the history of proliferation um so Iran's initial nuclear program right which is built on centrifuges of Scott and I've been talking about um that was actually given to the designs that were given to them by AQ Khan who was really the father of the Pakistani nuclear program um and he actually stole those designs from the Dutch and handed it to the Iranians he also handed it to the North Koreans and the Libyans and others so they were able to elicitly acquire this technology or at least the blueprints for this technology from the father of the Pakistani bomb so I think that's an interesting point but if you but if you don't mind as I said earlier because Bill Clinton clamped down on the Chinese and wouldn't let them sell or anyone else wouldn't let them sell them light water reactors so then they went to AQ Khan and bought the stuff on the black mark yeah and they obviously bought heavy water reactors from the Russians which they've been using for electricity um I want to just get to the the second thing I think it's just important for listeners to know and then I want to get to JCPOA I was in the middle of saying though when you're trying to make a uranium implosion bomb or a plutonium implosion bomb it's a much more difficult task than putting together a gun type nuke takes an extraordinary amount of testing and that's why he repeated probably unknowingly some false propaganda about Iran having this advanced testing facility I think he was implying correct me if I'm wrong he was pretty sure you're implying at Parchin that they were testing these implosion systems but that's completely debunked it's completely false but they were testing what they're doing at Parchin with that implosion chamber was making nano diamonds and the scientists in charge of it was Ukrainian who had studied in the Soviet Union at this military university where they said oh see they study nuclear stuff there but that wasn't his speciality his name is Dana Lenko and he was a specialist in making nano diamonds and that facility was vouched by Robert Kelly in the Christian science monitor told Scott Peterson of the Christian science monitor that that stuff was nonsense that that facility that implosion chamber could not be used for in testing for testing an implosion system for nuclear weapons and I know from Dr.

58:42Prather telling me that when the Americans were doing this and the Russians too that they tested all their implosion systems outside and you have to do it over and over and over again with lead instead of uranium in the core and then you take all this high speed x -ray film of the thing and it's this huge and drawn out and incredibly complicated engineering process and this is probably why the week before the war the CIA said not only do we think that they're a year away from having enough nuclear material to make one bomb we think they're three years away from having a finished warhead that must have been assuming that they would try to make an implosion system that you could put on in other words miniaturize and put on a missile as opposed in in other words skipping a gun type nuke that would be useless so it's very important to understand then that if if they have a uranium route to the bomb if they withdraw from the treaty and kick out the IAEA inspectors and announce that now we're making nuclear bombs they can either one race to a gun type nuke that's essentially useless to them or they can take their ponderous as time trying to figure out how to make an implosion system work first on glad Scott knows about what's going on at parchment because the IAEA doesn't and they've been asked any raw news that's not true the Iranians told the IAEA you can inspect any five out of ten facilities here carte blanche go ahead and they did and found nothing then they made up the lies about the implosion chamber later and the IAEA again Robert Kelly is the American IAEA guy debunked that in the crisis science monitor all right so I want to just again just put it out there for your listeners they they should just google a mod AMAD program and they should learn about the AMAD program because it's it's detailed in US government documents experts and in Iran's nuclear program including David Albright who actually saw the archive went in there wrote a whole book on it and there's a lot of detail about how Iran had an active nuclear weapons program called the mod to build five nuclear weapons but I want to get to the JCPA because I actually think that's an interesting discussion for Scott and I to have because I think there's things that we agree on there and things that we disagree on right so this is a 2015 nuclear deal that Obama reaches it's negotiated painstakingly over two years between 2013 and 2015 and it follows the interim agreement that the United States negotiated with Iran and it's it's in that interim agreement at 2013 where the United States for the first time actually gives Iran the the right to enrich uranium there were five UN Security Council resolutions passed with a support of Russia and China that said Iran should have no enrichment capability and no plutonium reprocessing capability because of the fears that Iran return that into a nuclear weapons program but in 2013 they give they give that up 2015 we reach the JCPA and under the JCPA Iran is allowed to retain enrichment capability and reprocessing capability but over time so Scott mentioned the sunsets and just want you're listening to understand what the sunsets are essentially the restrictions that are placed on Iran's nuclear program and there's some really serious restrictions placed on it especially in the short -term it's got's right the enriched material it has to be shipped out not to the French but to the Russians and there's restrictions on Iran's ability to operate these facilities and atons and fordo they're not closed they're still remain open but there restrictions and what they can do with it there's also restrictions on Iran's ability to test and install advanced centrifuges now the reason you'd want an advanced centrifuge rather than the first generation centrifuge that AQCON the father Pakistan's nuclear bomb gave to the Iranians is you need a smaller number of these centrifuges to produce weapons grade uranium if it's smaller Lexus these are to hide right you can put it in clandestine facilities without this large enrichment centrifuge footprint so there's restrictions on these advanced centrifuge R &D and Iran gets significant sanctions relief as part of this but the whole assumption here from both an Iranian and American perspective is these restrictions are going to sunset they're going to disappear over time in fact 2025 is the year where some of the significant restrictions on Iran's capabilities begin to sunset and all of them are effectively gone by 2031 okay so in 2031 Iran can emerge with an industrial size enrichment capability they can they can emerge with advanced centrifuges that they can install in as many enrichment facilities as they want to build and Iran can enrich to higher and higher levels so they can go from 3 .67 to 20 percent they can go to 60 percent there's nothing in the JCPOA that actually prohibits them from going to 90 percent in risk uranium and I think at the time the Obama administration's theory of the case was yeah sure in 15 years time in 15 years time will be gone hopefully there'll be a different government in Iran and maybe we can renegotiate a different agreement with that government that will extend the sun sets so that that's the JCPOA the reason that critics of the JCPOA and I was one of them we objected to the deal is not because it didn't have some short -term temporary restrictions that were useful but that if you got it wrong and there was the shame regime in power in 15 years that regime could emerge with this huge nuclear program with the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons in these multiple hardened sites Iran we estimated would have a trillion dollars in sanctions relief of that 15 year period and if you got it wrong that it was the same regime in power as it'd been in power in 2015 then you had some difficulties okay I just wanted to lay out the case against the JCPO and now to steal man uh Scott's argument right I think there's a legitimate argument because I actually didn't support the withdrawal from the agreement uh President Trump withdrew in 2018 I did a similar version of what Scott was suggesting was I thought that the United States should negotiate with the Europeans the French the Germans in the UK who are part of the original deal extend the Sunsets as an agreement between the United States and Europe and then collectively go to the Iranians and say let's renegotiate this agreement to extend the Sunsets if you if you don't want a nuclear weapons program then you should agree that you would you don't need these capabilities and let's extend the Sunsets for another 15 20 30 years President Trump give me a screenshot of this give me a pound dude there we go agreement there we go that makes my hard feels and I think the guy is hola would have gone for it too well so I'm not sure if you would have but but let's just a little bit of history I think it's just useful for the viewers to know again the context especially when Scott and I agree yeah um so a process was begun I'm loving this by the Trump administration they uh Trump appointed uh Brian Hook or Secretary Pompeo actually appointed Brian Hook as the lead Iran envoy and he began a process of talking to the Europeans now the Europeans actually rejected this idea um and so at some point Trump said look if the Europeans aren't prepared to get on side then I'm out of the deal I'm out of the deal and if you're interested I can talk about why I thought we should have stayed in the deal because I thought you gave us some important restrictions on the short term certain leverage but Trump decides to withdraw from that agreement because he recognizes that the fatal flaw of the agreement but the fatal flaws of the agreement are one giving them any enrichment capability especially an industrial size within 15 years and two are these sunsets as Scott said which under which these restrictions are going to go away and Iran's going to end up with a massive nuclear program so I think that's just important we can talk about the JCPOA the process and everything else if you're interested I'd like to go ahead and quickly accuse the FBI and the CIA of framing Trump for treason with Russia and pushing the Russia gate hoax um trying to agree with my friend here because what it is is that that completely ruined Donald Trump's ability to engage in real diplomacy with Russia for his entire first term certainly for the first three years of it he was completely handcuffed it was it was it was it was it was terrible as I'm sure you're well aware for the future now our past and current history of Ukraine as well as for this deal too why couldn't Trump pick up the phone I don't know the details here but I'll take his word for it that the British and the French and the Germans weren't being nice to Trump they didn't like him they didn't want to do it why couldn't he pick the pick up the phone and say hey Putin I need you to call the Iatola for me and tell him hey you'd like to see him lift these sunsets too and this and that why because they framed him for treason so he was completely unable to engage in real diplomacy with Russia and I bet that he'd agree with me on that one too so next actually could I just say one thing interesting and again I think it's going to be a later topic and so it's going to be a provocative statement but I think let's put it on the table I absolutely agree with Scott I mean I think it was a travesty that the of the accusations against Donald Trump as a Russian agent I mean completely debunked but it did it I think it paralyzed his presidency for two two and a half years I I agree with Scott the idea that you would accuse the president of the United States of being a foreign agent for Vladimir Putin I think is unfounded and I thought at the time just graceful and I thought it was really important I think Scott did really good work in debunking that I would say that just a couple of days ago I was watching a podcast Scott was on and he accused Trump of being an agent for Netanyahu and the Israeli government so I think again the accusations of the president of the States as a foreign agent for some foreign government I think we should just put all of that aside in any discussion and just say president Trump makes his own decisions whether we agree with them or agree with them but he's not working for the FSB and he's not working for more side president Trump makes his own decisions based on American national security now I always make it a point that's hyperbole make it a point but he did in fact could you google this for me because I always forget exactly how many hundreds of millions of dollars that he took from Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson who are Americans by the way who are Americans who Sheldon Adelson said his only regret in life is that he served in the American army instead of the IDF and said America should nuke Iran in order to get them to give up their nuclear weapons he said I have one issue one Israel and they gave Trump hundreds of millions of dollars over three campaigns that's not just a jeez I really hope you'll think of me in the future Scott first of a couple things so one there's a lot of people that are friends with Trump and try to gain influence I believe that Trump is an American is making his own decisions let's for the purpose of this conversation just focus on that and see what are the right decisions and what are the wrong decisions and maybe I wonder what decisions I could get you to make if I gave you hundreds of millions of dollars well me personally you can give me it doesn't matter I couldn't even get you I can get you drop in on a ramp or another for a hundred million bucks nothing you cannot control my decisions with money it's the American system Lex that's how it works it's money right yeah we can go down that right it's the same if we were talking about archer Daniels middling company throwing hundreds of millions of dollars around they get policies based on their hundreds of millions of dollars the squeaky wheel gets the grease right all that so Lex I think you're right I mean I think you'll on my spend what four hundred million dollars to helping Trump get elected and obviously there are a number of philanthropists clearly his son don juniors had a lot of influence and who gets selected in these positions in the Pentagon and a sea and Tucker Carlson has had a lot of influence so I think as you say there's he surrounds himself with people who have certain ideas ideologies policies the president makes his own I just want to touch on just one thing because I don't want to leave this alone just out of respect for for the victims of Iran backed terrorism and hostage taking and assassinations since 1979 you know this is the regime that took our took hostages in 79 took our diplomats hostage Scott says you know 83 was really the only thing that happened and and throws out a lot of information certainly some some pretty breathtaking accusations that somehow the Israelis knew about this and didn't tell the Americans and some assault officers accusation yeah Victor he's his name yeah I know exactly who he is and and he's been widely discredited and having an axe to grind with with more side but anyway not only 83 but all through the 90s the 2000s 2010s 2020s there have been hundreds of attacks of assassinations of hostage taking there are thousands Americans who have been killed and maimed by the regime can you be specific what you're talking yeah I mean I can give you a whole list and sure literally I'm happy to pull it up legs I shared it with you it's a long list of attacks all through the 80s and I need this I mean I mean everything from the you know co bar towers the two bar towers was okay to can I that was a some have been London college shake moham's got let him lay it up all right let's hear yeah oh I got my pen in my hand go ahead and again according again according to U .S.

1:11:52intelligence findings it was actually his bala that worked with al -Qaeda trained al -Qaeda in that attack and the co bar towers they were they were kidnapping our diplomats in Beirut they were they launched attacks against our our soldiers while in Iraq the notion that's not to bunk that no I don't I don't think what you say you debunked you you just made your claim um but those were Iran -backed militias um backed by the cut by Qasim Soleimani who's got refer to who was the commander of the RGC coulds force who supplied them with those IEDs or those EFP's actually those explosive well okay again this has been all confirmed by why don't you search elissa rubin new york times EFP factory or you can look in the christian science monitor for operation eagle claw yeah where they found these things what you can it's it's easy to find in my book you can flip right to soda straws and EFP's and you see where I I have all my citations for the solid dozen American newspaper reporters who were embedded with American soldiers who found these factories in a rocky shea stand okay with Iraqi Arabs working the machines not Iran so I'd like your viewers to to google not just a couple of sources but actually google the u .s government reports they did a whole after action report on the Iraq war all the mistakes were made in the Iraq war and they're and there were legion of mistakes made um but it was very clear that Iran had actually provided the technology the training the funding for these Iran -back militias to kill Americans I mean I I could see Scott fact they let me steal method from Lebanese has bala that got it from the IRA they didn't even get the technique from the Iranians at all yeah so Lebanese has ballas as some sure all your listeners know has been trained finance it's true but they got it imported by Iran for copper core bombs and that design did not come from Persia yeah so again I think we all admit Scott admits as well that his bala was trained financed and supported by Iran his ball has been responsible for many of these terrorist acts bala come from the reaction to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon where they went after the PLO and horribly mistreated the poor local Iraqi Shiites until they rose up and created these militias to fight in self -defense that's where his bala comes from bala was actually created by the RGC before the Israeli invasion how this was a CSA has been lawden you like a shawyer says it was a psalm have been lawden and college shaykh Mohammed that did the co bar towers attack and who did they kill they killed 19 American airmen who were stationed there to bomb Iraq from basis of Saudi Arabia under the Israeli insisted upon dual containment policy what's amazing what's amazing that came from Yitzak Shamir who had who had sent his man Martin Indic to work for Bill Clinton and push the dual containment policy is where that comes from the first place the main reason al -Qaeda turned against the United States and the co bar towers attack was been lawden and he bragged about it himself to obdel bari atwan the reporter from al -Quds al -Arabi in London and spent days with him and bragged all about it and bless the martyrs and the rest of that and is widely discredited the claim that it was Iranian back shaykh has bala that did the co bar towers attack that was what the Saudi government told the US in fact there's a great documentary about John O 'Neil who was the head of FBI counterterrorism who told Louis free boss the Saudis are blowing smoke up your ass about this has bala thing it was al -Qaeda that did it and then Louis free got all upset because he used the a word he's a very conservative Catholic guy Louis free and then refused to listen to another word from John O 'Neil about it so what we know now from Scott because he's he's given certainly a lot of context to how he actually sees things is here's who lies to you and here's who doesn't US government lies to you Israeli government lies to you these rallies clearly lie to you mandatious bunch Saudis lie to you you know but you know who doesn't lie to you actually his bala doesn't lie to you al -Qaeda doesn't lie to you I didn't cite al -Qaeda and the atola or I saw him and the itola baron I decided I'm not sure you're the chief of the CIA's been lawdened you so no so make it clear here the Iranian state is crossing his bala the Iranian get that it's got straight up I hear you but you're interrupting and like please just honestly it's not about the content but like honestly how come you're not saying him in that weird that you just said he trusts has bala even though he didn't say anything about trusting has bala I'm not calling out the content I'm calling out the interruptions he hasn't dropped to you it's great I'm loving the back and forth it's great but just a little less talking over each other that's all yeah so I mean again the sort of view of the regime in Iran and and I think Scott wisely said at the beginning of this discussion like what did you say I don't have any love for the itola I'm a Texan I don't have any love for the itola in Iran and yet despite the fact Scott doesn't have love for the itola and I I agree with him and I think he's being sincere in every discussion that we've had on every topic it's always about everyone's lying except the itola in Iran he's not lying about having a nuclear weapons program he he didn't actually support all of these terrorist organizations that he founded finance and supported to kill Americans that it wasn't the itola in Iran he's he's not lying about his his deception campaign against the United States he's not lying about negotiations with the Americans that's the Americans fault all the time so he he's presented all the time in Scott's conception here as a sincere actor who doesn't want to develop nuclear weapons who doesn't actually want to kill Americans he's just always a victim of American in Israeli aggression I think it's an interesting conception I think let's talk about it and I mean I'm I'm fascinated by the conception because it's very contrary to mine obviously it's very contrary to I think decades of overwhelming evidence that the Islamic Republic has been worth in the United States since 1979 and you know I I don't take too much stock in what people say I take stock in what they do so you know death to America death to Israel could just be a slogan that could be just propaganda but when it's actually operationalized then you start to ask well maybe it's not just propaganda maybe it's intention operation a operationalized into capabilities you know we what we're forgetting here and again it's it's this calls a relationship it's we aggress against Iran and the Israelis aggressor against Iran and Iran is always reacting I mean let's give the Iranians their due because Khomeini made it very clear when he established the Islamic Republic that there will be a revolutionary and expansionist regime and they will expand their power through the Middle East and so he built and it to his credit was very successful until October 7th this axis of resistance as he calls it which are these teraproxy armies his Bala Hamas Palestinian Islamic jihad the Iraqi Shiite militias the Houthis and Yemen that and certainly supporting the Assad regime in Syria he built a very very impressive and deadly axis that he turned against the United States and against Israel which saw its culmination on October 7th I think after October 7th that was a huge miscalculation for a Khomeini and we've seen the results of what's happened to his axis of resistance through quite devastating Israeli military capabilities over the past number of months but he has an ideology and I think where I agree with Scott is I'm not sure if Khomeini would actually use a nuclear weapon against Israel the United States because I don't think Khomeini is suicidal but I think what Khomeini wants is he wants a nuclear weapon as a backstop for his conventional power right he it's very that it's very much the Kim Jong Un model of North Korea right I'm going to have nuclear weapons with ICBMs of threat in America but what I'm actually going to do is threaten South Korea with having massive conventional capabilities on the DMZ that I could take South Korea in a week I could destroy in a week so you the United States and South Korea have no military option that's Khomeini's view he can actually building up this massive ballistic missile arsenal that he's unleashed in the past 12 days that according to again the US and Israel was going to go from 2000 to 6000 to 20 ,000 and from Khomeini's perspective he didn't need to drop a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv what he needed to do was use the threat of nuclear escalation in order to use his conventional capabilities his missiles to destroy Tel Aviv and you've already seen the damage from just a few dozen ballistic missiles getting through the kind of damage that he's wrought on Tel Aviv already that is the conception that Khomeini has it's a revolutionary regime it aggresses and I do think it's interesting and I think we should talk about it actually that's a good cue let's think about the break okay we took a quick break and now Scott yeah okay so a few things there first of all on Ahmad the pre -2003 nuclear weapons research the CIA estimate in 2007 concluded that all research had stopped in 2003 and Seymour Hirsch reported that the reasoning behind that was mainly that America got rid of Saddam Hussein for them now in Gareth Porter's book manufactured crisis he shows that the major conclusion that the CIA had made that the Iranians were researching nuclear weapons was based on some invoices that they had intercepted for some dual use materials some specialty magnets and things that they thought boy this looks like this could be part of weaponization program a secret program here and you know Gareth Porter who's a really great critic of all of these policies and claims says hey this was a good faith misunderstanding by DIA they were doing their job but it turned out the IAEA later when America gave them that information the IAEA went and verified oh there's the magnet and there's this and there's that and all those dual use items actually were being used for civilian purposes and so then as Gareth writes in his book the only real reason that the IAEA said that they even had a program before 2003 was essentially because they didn't want to dispute their last mistaken conclusion so they said okay well that was right up until then but that was when that changed and then the other half of their reason for accepting that there ever was a nuclear weapons research program in the country before 2003 was the smoking laptop and I'm sorry I think I misspoke early when I said that the laptop was in 2005 that was just the Washington Post story that had a bunch of stuff about it that was in 2003 as well or 2004 possibly so this was why the but it was still all again forged by the Israelis and funneled through the MEK cult but was obsolete essentially and had nothing in it at least the accusations and it weren't past 03 and so there's really no reason believe that there was actually a nuclear weapons research program even before 03 which then again the National Intelligence Council says ended in 2003 and hasn't been restored to this question just not a comment by me but a question just your perspective so just so I understand this so the the nuclear archive this this massive archive that the Israelis were able to take out of Tehran bring to the United States bring to the IAEA which is very detailed blueprints it's just the alleged studies documents again it's the same stuff from the smoking laptop yeah so let me just ask you because it's it's it's huge and it's very detailed and it shows clearly that the Iran had an active nuclear weapons program certainly until 2003 and then we can have a discussion about what happened after that are you suggesting that that's all been forged by by Israel yes nothing in the smoking laptop held up not the not the laptop but this entire archive that they pulled out with this you're you're thinking of like blueprints the big photo op with all the all the documents behind them and I've seen it I've seen it I've seen many many of the documents there's thousands of pages I'm asking this is not what I'm claiming is that all forged by Israel is that not all about the uranium tetra fluoride and the warhead that David Albright debunked and all the same claims that were in the smoking laptop from the bush years David David Albright actually wrote an entire book it's a very detailed book your listeners should Google it's it's David Albright on the archive where he goes in he went in in detail and he confirms the information in that archive that Iran had an active program under something called a mod to develop five atomic weapons so again you and I can debate this all day now this would have been before Natanz was even dug and before central centrifuges spinning right I'm just making sure everybody understands assuming that was true we're talking about a piece of paper but you you it's not a piece of paper it's a massive archive I'm just asking the question you you believe Mossad fabricated all of this as a lie to deceive the United States the IAEA and international communities that's just my question my understanding is that there's nothing significant in the 2018 archive that was not already in the debunked claims from the laptop but my question is is not that it's debunked because we can argue about whether it's debunked or not but are you saying that Mossad fabricated it yeah that's where you're claiming yeah because the CIA admitted that there was no laptop and all he hindered and admitted that he got it from the Mek and where did the Mek get it the Mek got it from the Israelis got him I asked him at the laptop I'm asking about this huge archive that was sitting in an warehouse in Tehran full I don't know the truth behind those documents I don't believe Israeli claims of what they were and where they came from without for example reading Albright's book and seeing what he has to say about it all of that I don't take Netanyahu's claims and okay so what's so significant in there you say that there's a document as a plan to to make five bombs but isn't the rest of the proof the same green salt experiments and the warhead for the missile that David Albright showed was obviously fake because the warhead was purportedly being designed for a missile that was now going to have an entirely different nose cone on it now so David Albright again you know we should bring David Albright here David Albright is a prominent physicist nuclear proliferation expert known for his detailed research and publication of nuclear weapons yeah he has a bunch of books peddling peril Iran's perilous pursuit of nuclear weapons plutonium and highly enriched uranium 1996 and so on yeah so so folks should should read the book on the on the archive because David had full access to the archive all the all the detailed documents and blueprints and he writes a book that again the conclusion of which is Iran had an active nuclear weapons program no no the conclusion was they were researching it right before 2003 they had no nuclear material to introduce into a single machine right well they active programming now they had a better ready built a covert enrichment facility which was only they hadn't it was closed netons was empty by until the end of 2006 right they didn't even spinning such fuses and they were they gotten centrifuge for acucon they'd built a deeply buried underground facility at netons they were putting in place the component parts for a nuclear weapons capability and a mod showed conclusively unless you believe Mossad fabricated at all that they actually had the plan to build nuclear warhead again Seymour Hurst says that it was when Seymour Hurst was not a nuclear weapons expert David Albright has saw the archive your Hershey's sources said you're claiming America invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein for them that was when they gave up even considering the need for it remember the Iranians held a million man vigil for the Americans on September 11th the Iranians hated the Taliban in fact the Americans thought Iran might invade Afghanistan earlier in 2001 and they hated Saddam Hussein so they had every reason in the world to want to work with the United States that's a just September 11th and the American you it's a distraction my question is you let's not go to al -Qaeda the Taliban and 9 -11 and the Iranians and a million people vigil let's just stay on the top you're asking me would I already am you believe Mossad fabricated that entire already told you I don't take the word for anything and I had as far as I understand the accusations in there are the same ones from the laptop that are already discredited and I haven't read David Albright's book you're distracting from me refuting this giant list of false claims that you made previously let's all agree that's all the great going to read the book maybe lex you're going to read the book viewers you should read the book I think David Albright has done a meticulous job it's by the way just just warning it's a big book very detailed hundreds of pages and he goes through it in meticulous detail in analyzing this archive and showed again that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program designed to build five atomic warheads now we can talk about what happened after 2003 and did they make the decision to totally stop it yeah god changed this mind after the neo -conservatives lied America into war with the rock for aerial Sharon so it's just to clarify you mark it and David Albright believed that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon and you Scott are saying they were not before 2003 that's just just to summarize what we're just talking about well I could tell you that so garis book came out in 2014 which is before this archive was supposedly revealed in Tehran but in in garis book he shows that the CIA and national intelligence estimate of 2007 that said that there was a program before 2003 and was halted after America invaded Iraq was based on one the the DIA's mistaken but sincere interpretation of these invoices for these tool use technologies and then the smoking laptop which was completely fake and funneled into the stream by the mujah deen e cult communist terrorist cult the same people come off with you know 10 major hopes then CRI they just put out then CRI the national council for assistance in Iran that's the MEK they just put out a fake story what three four weeks ago about a big secret nuclear weapons site in Iran don't you remember and then nothing happened with that because it was another lie by the MEK happens all the time so Lex maybe we should talk about what happened after 2003 what about this 2007 NIE what does it mean did it mean Iran had now abandoned its nuclear weapons program or does something else never had a nuclear weapons program but let's talk about that they had interesting interesting according to the NIE they had a nuclear weapons research program that never made anything at all so you can try to conflate that if you want no that's what I think everybody can see what the 2007 NIE says what the 2007 NIE says is that and you are correct according to the 2007 NIE is Iran made the decision after the invasion of Iraq not to pursue an active nuclear weapons program anymore because we were putting their best friends in power in terror in Baghdad for them well because the United States they didn't worry no more and in a matter of a hundred days had taken down the Iraqi army and put in Abdul Aziz al -Hakim's faction that's fine that's fine for Islamic revolution in Iraq who've been living in Iran for 20 years that's why you and I did not publicly support the Iraq war did we I publicly opposed good for you I should have publicly opposed it rather than just working on Iran in 2003 but you're right it redounded to the benefit of Iran that invasion but but that's not actually what I'm talking about what I'm talking about is a hundred days the Iranian sea that the US military has taken down the Iraqi army that they had fought an eight year war with where almost a million people Scott as you know had been killed so they were they were afraid that the United States was going to march from Baghdad to Tehran so they make a decision to end their act of a mod program they make a decision to build up the key capabilities they need to retain an Iranian nuclear weapons option specifically the enrichment capabilities at Nathans and then Fordo and at Iraq given them the plutonium route and then what they do is they take the members of the Ahmad program the nuclear weapon scientists that have worked on this and they disperse them so they're now no longer in a formal weapons program they're put in a number of different research centers and universities and most in Fakhrizadeh who you mentioned earlier who's in some respects I wouldn't call them the Oppenheimer of the Iranian nuclear weapons program is more like is it was it who was in the Oppenheimer movie Leslie Grove the guy who was actually responsible for the organization and the training and the recruitment and the guy that actually ran the program as opposed to Oppenheimer that this sort of brilliant nuclear physicist this is Fakhrizadeh so Fakhrizadeh takes control of this program and now it is dispersed and it is unstructured in that sense because they recognize that if they continue with this the United States may march to Tehran and so the NIE says Iran is retaining the key capabilities the enrichment capabilities to give them an option for a nuclear weapon but we the NIE've decided or if we have concluded that they no longer have an active structure in nuclear weapons program however since then what have we seen we've seen them actually do what many suspected they would do which is build all the key capabilities that they need so that at a time of their choosing they can decide to develop a nuclear bomb whether it's a crude nuclear devices you described whether it's a nuclear warhead we've we've had that discussion so far but just sorry just to finish so just understand the the brilliance of Iranian nuclear deception right I just I think it's really interesting to get in the minds of the IITOLE and understand this because he doesn't want to provoke the United States he doesn't want to see another Iraq style invasion this time of his country he's building this capability on the enrichment side and on the reprocessing side he is framing this as I'm only a building a civilian nuclear program he's taken the weapon scientist who were building and part of an active nuclear weapons program and he's dispersing them putting them under the the guidance and direction of Fakhrizade and starting to build out these capabilities I mean he I admire I have to say I really admire the way he's played this three -dimensional nuclear chess game it's very very interesting and I think he made a tragic mistake about six weeks ago when he rejected the offer from Trump at Oman and then provoked both in Israeli and then an American strike but he was playing this game almost perfectly before then in building out these capabilities and I think what he should have done if I were him I would await it out Trump I would await three and a half years I would have taken the offer in Oman which gave him enrichment capability above ground this consortium that was going to be built in three and a half years would never be built and even if it was built you could just say I'm not interested anymore and challenge the next president whoever that is we're probably going to Democrat to do anything about it and I think the political calculation should have been the next president's not going to do anything about this I'll be able to then be able to complete my nuclear weapons program but he challenged Trump he thought Trump was a paper tiger he rejected that offer at Oman and we've seen what's happened over the past couple weeks two things one can you go and respond to certain things we heard and two can we generally move in the direction of the modern day and trying to see what is the right thing now our analysis of the situation now we've been kind of staying in this in the context of history which is really important but so we're moving in forward but yeah go ahead please unless you're how much time we have I kind of hoped let me talk about Israel's role in Iraq war two and for that matter in Barack Obama's dirty war in Syria that led to the rise of the bin Ladenites there it's all part of America's Israel policy so I don't want to I'd rather go back before we go forward but I also do I need to go back over so many claims that he's made here that I like I so I strongly prefer we go because there's so much history we're going to lose ourselves and there's not enough hours we should take certain moments in history that instruct the modern day but let's not get lost there if it's okay I sure this is such a fascinating conversation although we talked about you know the GCPOA and the time between then and now like quite a bit already too so we will be going back over some well no I mean I have modern day I don't know this week I mean like this week there a lot of stuff happened this week and a lot of stuff will happen tomorrow and the next week and we everyone is wants to know like what is going to happen what is the worst case what is the best case should we be freaking out what do we need to understand about today that's all all right so there's a lot of things to address here so first of all something that me and mr.

1:37:03Dubois agree about mark something that Mark and I agree about is that there actually is not a threat of an aggressive first strike by Iran I'm a little surprised to hear him say that but I'm grateful to hear him say it is honest I would you know advise you for it you may be unfamiliar with this but I can tell you anyone in America who drives for a living unless this is the AM radio have heard claims that Iran was making nuclear weapons probably 50 ,000 times in the last 25 years over and over and over again we hear this propaganda they they still don't have a single atom bomb the reason why they haven't been able to commode together an atom bomb in this 1940s technology is because they have not tried to okay so people can you know just essentially vlog this dead horse for 10 there's this threat oh he's gonna break out any day now but here's the thing about that as the ayatola well knows George W.

1:38:07Bush Barack Obama Donald Trump Joe Biden and now Trump again have all vowed with all sincerity that they would bomb Iran off the face of the earth if they attempted to break out and make a nuclear weapon Hillary Clinton when she rancid they be obliterated from the face of the Atlantic in 2012 called as president I don't bluff and essentially the interview is him begging Jeffrey Goldberg to explain to the Israelis that he really really really really means it that he's trying to negotiate but if the ayatola breaks out for a nuke all nuke them if I have no they never said that to he didn't say that but the implication was no no you as president I ever said they're gonna obliterate Iran you as president Hillary Clinton did all all options are on the table anyone can google her word she's never our president no I said she was running for president yeah but she was never our president but no yes president ever said they're to obliterate Iran nobody ever said they've got the implication the implication was clear under W.

1:39:07Bush Barack Obama Trump Biden and Trump again that they were trying to bronze nuclear for so if they broke out toward a nuclear weapon America would do whatever it took to prevent that from happening so strike their nucleus that was that was always the case there but please clarify just to be accurate and I'm almost talking about new king Iran no one's talking about bombing Iran to smithereens or obliterating or any other land that's really not true I mean you at rock president changed America's nuclear posture to say because it used to say we reserve the right to use a nuclear first strike against any country and he changed that to say no we we promise not to use a nuclear first strike against any non nuclear weapon state except maybe Iran okay that's true all right and so in fact that was the threat and and I got more here okay Netanyahu also did an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg back when A.

1:40:00Hood Barack was his defense ministers in I think this is also 2012 it might have been 2014 where the two of them explained that they agreed with what he said to that there the threat is not of a nuclear first strike unlike every AM radio audience has been led to believe that the IOTO as soon as he gets an atom bomb he will nuke Tel Aviv and he doesn't care if all a Persia is newt by Israel's 200 nukes in response he's trying to cause the end of the world by causing a nuclear war and all these things well Netanyahu himself admitted that that's not true yeah I think it's really I'm just agreeing with you so you don't have to stop but I'm agreeing with you I know but I'm agreeing with you so it's all right so Netanyahu told Jeffrey Goldberg that he was not concerned about a first strike that his only concern was that talented young Israelis would move to Miami that there would be a brain drain that was his words a brain drain from Israel and that also then has Bala as this is what he put it and I agree with this that conventional forces would have a bit more freedom of action in the region if Iran was sitting on an A bomb neither of them said that there was a threat of an offensive first strike against Israel and I would point out and I'm skipping ahead to Trump but I'm skipping back here again in a second because I got more things to refute but Trump just said the other day when he announced American air strikes there that this has neutralized a threat to Israel he did not even pretend that it was a threat to the United States that he had ended in doing so actually he said exactly that actually you can google the state he said President Trump has said that an Iranian nuclear weapon is a threat to the United States that's over and over and over and he announced his great victory in bombing which is what I just said right President Trump sends out so 20 truth post today so let's let's look at the many many many things about how I always believe has Bala and I always believe the Ayatollah when in fact I did not quote the Ayatollah and I did not quote has Bala on anything I did quote Osama bin Laden taking responsibility for the go bar towers attack which he shared that with Abdul Barri at one anyone can read it and he agrees with Michael Shorier the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit who also said that it was a hoax that it was Iranian back Saudi has Bala that did that attack and again who did they attack they killed 19 American airmen which was the number one complaint of al -Qaeda against the United States that we had air forces an army stationed in Saudi Arabia in order to bomb in blockade Iraq which again and this was the thing that you had asked about before was part of the dual containment policy in the 1990s Scott you're saying damn wait a second all right the fact is you're sitting here saying that oh I I trust them all so much well what do you think Lex what do you think Ronald Reagan meant by trust but verify he meant don't trust but be polite right that's what he meant verify means we we know with sensors and cameras and inspections what's going on no one can find a quote that I said here about how we can trust the Ayatollah because he promised this or that or the other thing I didn't say that right what I'm talking about is the process they sign agreements and then we have inspectors to verify their claims and as anyone can search at ia .org they have continued to verify the non -diversion of nuclear material in Iran to any military or other special person actually ia is now said that they actually can no longer do this because America withdrew for this war started so I mean they didn't the day let's just be let's just be factually accurate and the fact of the matter is anybody who knows anything about nuclear weapons program knows that we do not have 100 % certainty on anything I mean Scott is making claims here that the more side is fabricating the CIA is fabricating everybody's fabricating but he's also assuming that we have 100 % certainty about what Iran is doing inside a country more than two and a half times the size of Texas as as Scott rightly said mountainous incredibly difficult to monitor incredibly difficult to surveil they built underground facilities at Natanz and Fordo without our knowledge they didn't disclose it we we finally found out about it well how we're going to say we do the fact of matters they did it it's there we know the facilities are there and by the way you keep saying that I just say lies lies lies but I have explained exactly what I meant I've cited my sources and I haven't just sat here and say oh oh that's a lie because I don't like it I sat here and explained you exactly how I know who was building those EFP bombs in Iraq exactly how I know what the IAEA said about the state of inspections here or what Robert Kelly told the Christian science monitor about Parchin and the rest and on and on and on you know sit here like I'm just saying well that's not true because I don't like it when in fact I'm explaining exactly why your claims are not true which they're not just like saying that I said I trust Hezbollah when anyone can rewind that and and break their finger trying to find the part where I said that because I never did and now you brought up the DPRK well in 2002 when George W.

1:45:04Bush said that they were part of the axis of evil they were part of the NPT and they had a safeguards agreement with the IAEA and yes they had bought centrifuge equipment from AQCon but they had not used it it was John Bolton's lie that they were enriching uranium to weapons grade and violating the agreed framework John Bolton and George W. Bush in the fall of O2 then canceled the agreed framework deal that Bill Clinton had struck based on this misinformation they added new sanctions and they launched what was called the proliferation security initiative which was illegal and unilateral claim of the authority to seize any North Korean ship on the high seas if they suspected it of proliferation and then they added them to the nuclear posture review putting them on the short list for a potential first strike and it was only then in 2002 after these what four or five major things that the Bush government did to antagonize them that North Korea then announced that they were going to withdraw from the treaty and begin making nuclear weapons which is what they did and then as we know from all the scientists say every time that they tested a nuclear bomb it's been a plutonium bomb and never tested not never once used a uranium bomb there's no evidence that John Bolton's claims there that they were enriching uranium were ever true and they had you know Sig Hecker who's this important American nuclear expert went and toured their facilities and all of these things and so we know quite a bit about what they have and it was simply bush pushed North Korea to nukes as Gordon Prader wrote in his last great article for us at anti -war .com and it was through this exact kind of belligerence when we already had a deal that we could have the constant theme in your analysis and again I just want to I want to look at it maybe steal man it maybe challenge it but the constant theme is the United States and Israel and the West we constantly aggress against North Korea against Iran against Russia against these countries and they respond to us and they respond to us in ways that they they they build nuclear weapons programs that they're that are peaceful but we force them to develop developed nuclear weapons they don't actually mean to kill us it's not right that I'm saying that and I think anyone does you're saying that everything I say is that everyone anyone else does is a reaction but that's not true the subject here is what has America done to make things worse rather than better I'm citing I'm citing provocations that doesn't mean I'm saying that everything that happens in the world is only an equal and opposite reaction to an American provocation and you can't find me saying that you can only somehow try to paraphrase me claiming that somehow or something like that but that's what's it issue right is as I said for example there's the Reuters story that says that after Israel did the sabotage which they bragged about at Natanz in April of 21 that was when they started enriching up to 60 % okay so now I'm saying that and I'm just denying the agency of the Iranians or anything I said that no I'm not I'm just citing the Reuters new day news agency saying that this proactive action by Israel caused a negative reaction by your own lights a very negative reaction in their beginning to again enrich up to 60 % uranium so that means all I'm just spinning for the Iatola or I believe that no one ever does anything except in reaction to Israel and America it's said that I'm just citing specific examples of where that's exactly the case Donald Trump would droop in the deal he could have stayed in the deal and tried hard to make it better he didn't well he has done America he to try west government has made numerous mistakes in many of these countries the American government and the mistakes that's made it's a huge part of it four hours on it can we please get to today uh talk about use everything we just talked about and talk about today what is maybe Mark can you lay out what is the best case in the worst case in Scotland laid out the best case in the worst case that can happen now so like I think the best case and something I've advocated for I've been working on this for 22 years is that the Iranians return to negotiations at Oman sit down in the United States and conclude an agreement that peacefully and permanently and fully dismantles their nuclear program they agree to that which means they they shut down any remaining facilities they give up all the remaining centrifuges and enriched material that they could use to develop nuclear weapons they let the IAEA in in order to supervise this they they actually commit to not rebuilding this nuclear program and we commit as we've done with 23 other countries to helping them provide civilian nuclear energy because it seems to me a little fanciful that the Khamenei would build a civilian nuclear program under 80 meters of concrete surrounded by rock and take all the risks he's taken and by the way he faces a risk to his regime spent a half a trillion dollars to do this when it makes no commercial sense but let's take him at his word that he wants civilian nuclear energy let's build it for him as long as there's no enrichment or reprocessing gives him the key capabilities that he could if he decides to build nuclear weapons that seems to me a thoughtful approach I think Scott would probably agree with it proliferation proof he can't build nuclear weapons and we can do this all peacefully that's my preference what can Trump do to help make that happen I think what he can do is he can say to the Iranians look I made you that offer last time you rejected it now that offers no longer in the table because that offer gave you enrichment now temporarily but I now see the game that you would have played when I left office to turn that enriched meant enrichment capability into nuclear weapons so that deals off the table but here's the deal that's on the table it's a one page deal you give up your nuclear capabilities we help you build civilian nuclear energy I think that's best case all right I think worst case is that the Iranians do what they've unfortunately been doing over and over again and rejecting these deals and holding firm that they want to retain this enrichment capability and the only reason they want to retain enrichment capability is the option to develop nuclear weapons otherwise they can have civilian energy tomorrow makes much more commercial sense to do that and the entire international community would help them and pay for that I worry that they're just remain intransigent at the negotiating table and I think if they do that then what I worry that they're going to do is whatever remaining capabilities they have left they'll buy their time they'll wait for the opportunity maybe it's not now maybe it's when Trump's gone and they will rebuild this nuclear weapons program and they'll be then inviting further strikes further war and further suffering and I worry that that is the worst case and by the way it's part of that worst case in retaining the capabilities the extra worst case is they take those capabilities and they go for a nuclear bomb now it's got's right and the regime has never had any desire for a nuclear bomb we don't have to worry about that because it's important it's got all of this has been fabricated all of this has been a result of US and Israeli intelligence, mendacity and we don't have to worry about a nuclear weapon I personally worry about it knowing this regime looking at two and a half decades of of nuclear deception I worry that they want to retain those capabilities and a time of their choosing developer nuclear bomb so I think if you're responsible and you're trying to think through the various scenarios you've got to consider an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout as a possibility and you've got to try to mitigate that you've got to mitigate that at the negotiating table through a full dismantlement deal or and that's not it's the least well it's it's the least good option for sure is you're going to have to go back in there either the Israelis and or the United States and you're going to have to continue to use both covert action and air power to destroy those capabilities can I just even dig in further on the worst case do you think it's possible to have where US gets pulled into a field on the ground full on war with Iran I think one must never dismiss possibilities because as I said you you've got to plan against worst case options and I think what the Israel lobby has in store for you guys American lives mean nothing to the Israel first to do they don't care that Israel motivated September 11th and kill three thousand of our guys you know that the airport yesterday had a big American flag with all the red and white stripes made out of the names of the data September 11th who were killed by people motivated by Israel's crimes in Palestine and in Lebanon and enforcing Bill Clinton's dual containment policy from Saudi Arabia they don't care about that they don't care about the 4 ,500 Americans who died in Iraq war two are the millions something people who died in Iraq war two the half a million in Syria as long as the Shiite crescent somehow is limited they'll even celebrate openly I don't know about him but I know Ben Shapiro many other leaders of the Israel lobby in America celebrated the overthrow of Bashar al -Assad in Syria by Abu Muhammad al -Jalani the leader of al -Qaeda in Iraq in Syria why because he's not a Shiite he's not a al -awight friends with the Shiites and friends with Iran and friends with Hezbollah and so that's good for Israel even though it's the worst thing that you could possibly imagine for the people of the United States of America those sworn loyal to Osama bin Laden and I'm in al -Sawahiri ruling Damascus now their own ISIS caliphate in our era and this is why they always pretend they go oh you know over there the Muslims the terrorists greatest state sponsors of terrorism it's al -Qaeda that threatens the United States of America it wasn't Hezbollah that knocked those towers down and they have us citing with our enemies against their enemies and as you just said well I guess time will tell lex whether we're going to have to drop the 82nd airborne in there whether americans are going to have to do a regime in the shade I wish you'd listen and and not put words at my mouth I heard what he said I forced them kind of to say what the worst case possibility of a fall on invasion as a thought experiment and you can let them finish that as opposed to making accusations let's just minimize both ways accusations please just talk about the ideas that's the most charitable interpretation of those ideas well I'm from the United States of America unlike him and I care about the future of this country unlike him who's here to serve a foreign power and make their case and our expense well Scott and next you're going to say that I'm an American because you're an immigrant too like you're just hosting the show I don't know seems like you're trying to be fair no but he has an agenda he's from the FDD stop it's not about being fair the implication here is somebody's un -American because we're there from I didn't say anyone who's not from here I'm talking about him okay I think that's a really deeply disrespectful accusation ask you does it bother you that when naftali Bennett bombed a UN shelter full of a hundred and six women and children and Connor living on in 1996 that that's what motivated I'll tell you about it all time right you know a lot of you to join out I can't just country 22 years ago I became a proud U .S.

1:56:47and 10 years ago I'm proud to be an American and accusing me or Lex or any immigrants to this country of not being un -American is deeply offensive so let me answer Lex's question like so let's get back to your question because I think it's an important question like what are the chain of events that could lead 500 ,000 mechanized U .S. troops to have to invade Iran which would be a disaster and that's something we never want to see again that's one of the lessons of Iraq and I think Scott has done a good job over the years in demonstrating that we don't want to do that again so is there is there such a scenario I think one must never rule it out because there is a scenario for example where the regime collapses okay and the regime collapses and there's chaos inside Iran not suggesting that'll happen there are a whole bunch of scenarios maybe we should talk about with respect to the the collapse of the regime but you could see a scenario where the United States would have to go in there in order to try to secure military and nuclear and missile assets so that it doesn't end up the hands of warring factional and ethnic groups that that's got referred to because again as he's rightly pointed out Iran is not Persia can't the IDF handle it so can I can I just finish who can handle it who cannot handle it um I think that that it's a potential scenario which is why I don't think every anybody should be advocating for a U .S.

1:58:12decapitation of the regime in Iran I I have long been on record is supporting the Iranian people all right providing support to the Iranian people to at one point take back their country and take back their flag it's very much sort of Reagan strategy that Reagan ran in the in the Cold War of maximum pressure on the regime maximum support for anti -Soviet dissidents while by the way he was negotiating arms control agreements with the Soviet Union in order to try reduce the number of of nuclear tip ICBMs that both countries had pointed at each other so I think the Reagan strategy of providing support to the people is a far better strategy for trying to get transition leadership transition government transition inside Iran but I think the scenario of decapitation strikes killing taking out the entire government could potentially lead to that scenario and I think we have to be conscious of that we have to guard against that so I think that's important I think Scott's right I mean if it's a scenario happen like that yeah I mean I think I think the Israelis have demonstrated extraordinary capabilities and they could go in there and they could secure loose nuclear materials that you would be worried could be uh fashion for nuclear weapons it's got doesn't seem to worry about these materials I worry about these materials and capabilities in the hands of of anybody because they're all capabilities that just the physics of it you can produce nuclear weapons so so best case scenario negotiation we fully dismantle their programming amount worst case scenario right is having to return for continued military strikes that continue to escalate the situation worst worst situation is some kind of decapitation strike that collapses the regime and causes chaos there are a whole bunch of other scenarios we can talk about that are embedded in that but I think if you're a responsible person and a responsible analyst and certainly your responsible policymaker you got to be planning for all these scenarios and more Scott what do you think is the best case in the worst case here uh well the best case scenario is that we quit right now and that we trump figures out a way to reorder some paragraphs and get back in something like the JCPOA which was also signed with the rest of the UN Security Council can ask you like is JCPOA is a pretty good approximation of what will be a good deal pretty good it could have been better as I said at the beginning trump could have gone in there and tried to negotiate uh better result with the sunset provisions on some of those things but um the the concept that america is just going to insist on zero enrichment zero nuclear program whatsoever when they have the unalienable right quote unquote in the nonfliferation treaty to civilian nuclear material and and a civilian program uh it's a poison pill it's meant to fail just like it was a poison pill meant to destroy the talks here good enough to start a war again as I quoted from uh earlier uh he said on on TV last week well america has to take out for it oh now because now they're more likely to break out towards a nuke i think that's exactly right so there still is or there's there's strong reason to be skeptical including israeli and american officials told the new york times that they thought that the damage was quite incomplete now the ia i just came out recently it just just point of fact sort of interesting we'll see on the battle damage assessment but they actually think the facility was destroyed and that the centrifuges the sensitive centrifuges were destroyed so i just interesting for the viewers and it may be it may be pre -modern all the uranium smell all the uranium mines all the aluminum smelters so that they can't make any more centrifuges uh they've already they know how to make the centrifuges so at this point and you know infer uh it's this why government doesn't work they make matters worse and create more work for themselves and make things worse and worse and worse we can make the same criticism about rushes invasion of Ukraine making matters worse for themselves and causing them to have to escalate even further now america's in the situation where the danger that iran will now break out to a nuke is so heightened that now we're talking about well well maybe we'll have to do a full regime change and i appreciate you mark saying that we should not kill the aiotola but Benjamin Netanyahu says we should he said just the other day that if we get rid of the aiotola that will solve all the problems which is just crazy to think that they have Israeli officials have been tweeting out pictures and piling around with the son of the shaw talking about reinstalling his royal majesty's monarchy sock puppet dictator ship that's taking back iran for the people of iran giving them over to a bunch of foreign backed exiles try was that what trump meant when he gave that speech and cutters saying we don't believe in neo conservatism and spreading democracy anymore he's just setting up because we're going to try to reinstall a monarch can you go into the analysis of best case and worst case you laid out the best case what so worst case would be the worst case is that what was the worst case i'm as best cases a deal yeah that we quit now the best you guys agree on the on the best yeah i mean we respect their right to a civilian nuclear program and tried to negotiate as i said back into something like the jcpoa which again had them exporting their entire style no so uranium out of the country he wants no nuclear program what so no that's not what i said there's no i said you'd be careful what i said well no enrichment capability i was quite tired dependence on other countries to supply their fuel and they can you teach me the difference yeah so so let me just step back from this because we agree on some and we disagree on a major issue and that if we both agree iran deserves a civilian nuclear program i told it is never going to give in on enrichment can i just we know that okay so premise for our whole discussion here okay therefore what he's saying is we're going to have to keep escalating the war until the mission is accomplished not sure i said that Scott i think it's again important the the distinction here right we both agree that iran deserves a civilian nuclear program 23 countries have civilian nuclear programs and they don't have enrichment and they don't have reprocessing where we differ is i don't think iran should have the iran standard i think that should iran should agree to the gold standard the 23 us allies have agreed to so have civilian nuclear program but you don't get to keep the key enrichment and reprocessing capabilities that you need to develop nuclear weapons do you think that Bill Clinton should have just let the Chinese sell them the light water reactor that they wanted to back in the 90s yeah and america of course allowed russia to sell them a heavy water reactor for the same purpose but i agree with Scott that i think one of the ways are out of this is yes whether it's the Chinese or preferably as an american i prefer the americans actually sell reactors to the iranians is great in a nuclear industry in this country let's do that but if they can't the south korean's can the russians can the chinese can i wouldn't want to have significant russian and chinese influence in Iran so better that it be a western country that does it nevertheless provide those reactors get their proliferation proof there's no enrichment and no reprocessing you buy your fuel rods from abroad you put them in the reactors you power the iranian electrical grid which is in terrible shape because the iatola has spent a half a trillion dollars trying to build nuclear weapons and not trying to provide electricity for his people let's help him let's help his people get electricity but the key difference in our arguments and it's a fundamental difference got's right like the key differences i do not want to give this regime enrichment or reprocessing because they have shown over time for whatever reason with you believe it's they intended to or we were lying about it or we broke them it doesn't matter what they have shown over the past number of years is they have gone up from three point six seven percent in rich uranium for civilian purpose all the way up to sixty percent which is ninety nine percent of what you need for weapons great since we've seen them do it before we don't want to see them do it again so no enrichment full this mantlement full deal and then there's a peaceful resolution to what i what i worry about is positions that are taken that under my present at rums negotiating leverage in a month because can i ask you you were saying you support the jc there you were i was opposed to just yeah yeah you were opposed to withdrawing from it yeah don't you think that trump could have gone over there and negotiate to make it better and would you agree that it was a huge mistake to withdraw that because they were as we agreed shipping out all of their enriched uranium to only be brought back in a form that they could not use to make nukes the scientists had decided that if they kicked all the inspectors out and beat their chest and started making a nuke it would take them a full year to have enough weapons great uranium for a single gun type nuke under the jc p o a right so can i let me answer your question yeah because you're right i mean i'm glad you've pointed out because i i try to take a nuance position in during the jc p o a debate and i got hammered by the left and i got hammered by the right okay the the the left hammered me because i criticized the jc p o a because it's fundamental flaw was twofold one it gave a wrong enrichment capability that would expand over time as the restriction sunset it and number two the restrict the sunsets we're going to kick in and Iran would emerge with this industrial size program which we would not be able to stop now the nuance position which i got hammered on by the right was i said go negotiate with the Europeans agree on a common transatlantic position to approach the iranians and say look that deal that we did back in 2015 we think it's flawed we want to extend that deal we want to get rid of the sunsets and we are going to negotiate a deal now does that mean we have to give you more sanctions relief yeah probably the reins are not going to just agree without sanctions relief what happened is the Trump administration tried to negotiate with the Europeans the Europeans were opposed because they didn't want to revisit the agreement we knew from the we knew the Iranians were completely opposed and there was no way they were going to do this if the United States and Europe were divided and so at that what's i'm just just a little bit of history i just just think it's interesting history it was at that point that president trump decided to withdraw from the agreement but what i'm asking you is if say you were the national security advisor under the jcpoa where they are still shipping all their enriched uranium out of the country and all that which you're you would be advising him to not leave in the negotiations to improve the deal would you have been willing to accept some level of enrichment then as long as we're still we have the restriction part where they're shipping it all out of the country or to you enrichment at all is always a red line essentially equivalent to them being 99 % of the way to a nuclear weapon they look enrichment capability is a red line it has to be a red line and and even though you know it's protected by the MPT the right to piece of nuclear technology they call it a loophole but well they have the right to enrich uranium as there's different interpretations of everything including agreements there is a a a raging debate about whether the NPT actually gives you a right to enrich in fact the Obama administration even with the jcpoa wasn't was not willing to recognize Iran's right to enrich but they were willing to recognize its de facto reality that they were enriching so it's the non -proliferation treaty Iran is a member of it and it is supposed to promote civilian peaceful civilian nuclear energy and it's supposed to prevent countries from developing nuclear weapons I think that's a basic summary of it and it mandates that non -nuclear weapons states have a safeguards agreement with the i .a.

2:09:31EA and full of additional protocols and whatever they have the right sign well no they had an additional protocol that they were biting not even enriching at all while they were negotiating with the e3 and then with the jcpoa really did was add a bunch of additional protocols and subsidiary arrangements and agreements through ratified additional protocol I just want to just be clear on the facts and it's really at which point in time did they refuse to ratify because they did ratify the jcpoa which was full of additional protocols and and subsidiary arrangements and agreements they're called there's there's an important additional protocol that Iran refused which one was that the one where they promised not to enrich at all which they actually did abide by while they were negotiating with the e3 in the w bush years before they even started spinning the important point you asked me you asked me what i would advise the national security adviser the united states or if i was the national security adviser the united states which i i guess i can't be because i'm a foreigner but the fact of the matter is is i think you could still be national security adviser so big new brisinski sure was i think he was taking a shot back at the back you took a shot you know what lex i think that you probably would recognize that there are many people who lobby for israel's interest in the united states who clearly don't care that much about what happens to the united states of america in it as a consequence because they care about israel which is a different country than america right it's not part of i think it's an american an american citizen cares primarily about america that is fundamentally for me to make an accusation that they don't requires a very large amount of proof for each individual i don't care in that american and israel's interests are the same requires a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance by those who support israel's interests they say they're not the sponsor of terror as though iran has anything to do with anti -american terrorists i don't know who is the they that we're talking about but i believe american citizens care about america first they may discuss other nations and the interests in the middle east or in in europe and and those interests might align with their own world view whatever but when it comes at the end of the day if everybody starts a war with everybody else their america first like i i'm america first if there's a war that breaks out and we have to pick up guns i'm fighting for america i'll take them on a case by case basis case by that's great i know immigrants who are absolutely super patriots who know american history and love and care about america more than their next door neighbors we're from here yeah but having universal okay sure let's talk about case by case then that's fine well i think i think i think he's i think clearly accusing me a worse war with iran he was he's entertained the possibility of putting ground troops in there don't take personal tasks just don't take this country either of you you've taken personal shots let's not do it yeah so you guys are just having fun and i'm having fun just on the idea here let me you said that there's a there's a red on the nation there's a threat from iran to miss a lot of two america's bases in the middle east yeah because of israel and because of this war the first time iran ever fired missiles at an american base over there was in response never a wrong to trump bombing them it's never a lot of fault is that what everybody thinks never his ball is wrong never wrong this let's bring it back got a joke Scott it's a remarkable the management i want to reiterate this and then iran shot missiles at cutter and iraq's got your patriotic american god bless you god bless the united states thank you for allowing me to come to this country and become an american it's a great country and as a patriotic american i assume that the the united states government and the united states intelligence community in the united states military okay has america's best interest at heart however we have learned from the history in scott's done a very good job of detailing this during the iraq war that the united states gets it wrong okay i don't think the united states lied us into war but the united states got it wrong so i think scott's right we must make sure that we learn the lessons of iraq but not over learned the lessons of iraq i would also say this there are many lobby organizations in the united states there's the china lobby there's the oil lobby there's the the pharmaceutical lobby there's the katar lobby i live in washington i see all these lobby organizations okay fact of the matter is the pro israel lobby which actually lobbies in support of the us israel relationship is comprised of tens of millions of christians and jews and hindus and yes yes muslims who believe strongly in a strong us israel relationships the reason that relationship has been so strong over so many years and that this quote lobby has been so successful is they're pushing through an open door with policy makers not because some nefarious money influence but because then of the day the interests align we we counter terrorism together we counter nuclear proliferation together and we believe that the us israel relationship is a strong relationship and these accusations of dual loyalty and these accusations of israel firsters that scott's thrown around i think distract us from the conversation which i think we should return to right let's talk about today we we've talked about best case scenarios we talked about worst case scenarios and we talked about really worst case scenario so i think let's let's talk about the way forward and i'd be interested in hearing from scott where he thinks we're going and i'm certainly i don't crystal ball these things it's always difficult to predict but i i i think president trump has done a really good job i think he has led this right he has not been you know the uh at the back can call of bb netanyah who or mahamid bin salman of Saudi Arabia or anyone else he has led this effort he has made these decisions this is a man who throughout his entire career and not just his political rear but many many years before that believe that an Iranian nuclear weapon was a threat to the united states of america not just to our allies but to united states of america he's been very clear on record he led this campaign since he started in january he offered negotiations he got rebuffed by the iranians in oman he put pressure on the regime economically he continued to offer negotiations he offered a very good something that i thought was flawed i mean i gotta tell you the the offer in oman that he gave to the iranians i thought it was flawed because i think it allowed a ron to retain this key enrichment capability the iranians turned it down and i think chaminay to his everlasting regret is gonna wonder why did i turn that down i could have got the enrichment capability that scot things they deserve and yet i rejected it why did i reject it because now look what's happened in the past 12 days you know i've lost for dough mostly we'll see what happens on the bda the battle damage assessment i've certainly lost in the tons i've lost my conversion facility at isfahan which converts uranium hexafluoride into into well converts yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride to pump into centrifuges and the most important thing i lost at isfahan there's a conversion facility that takes 90 % enriched uranium and turns it into uranium that metal without uranium metal they don't have any 90 % enriched uranium he just means hypothetically if they did have some yeah you know this be clear you know the 60 % that's 99 % of the weight and 90 % enriched uranium by the way you can make a crude nuclear device with 60 % enriched uranium i just want to put that on the record but he lost that key conversion facility that turns 90 % enriched uranium or even 60 % enriched uranium into uranium metal you need uranium metal to fashion a crude nuclear device or a warhead that's been destroyed and i just when i was coming in this morning i just checked i thought it was interesting been a whole lot of discussion about the fact that about 12 or 16 trucks showed up at for dough in the days before the the US strikes and moved something out of for dough well according to reports just this morning we'll we'll see if they're verified i i don't trust single sourcing i don't trust what some reporter just says in their stories because reporters got it wrong over and over again especially all the ones who accused present trump have been a russian agent but we'll see what happens we'll see if it's verified but according to the reports most of the material remained at for dough because the Iranians were calculating this was the most heavily fortified facility they were also calculated present trump was not going to strike it because what they had been doing was listening to lots of voices and we can name the voices or we can just talk talk to them about a collective who were who they thought were telling trump don't do it and we're telling trump don't do it and trump decided on his own to do it so they kept the enriched material at for dough and if that's the case it may be that much of it was destroyed again caveat it's just one or two stories right now one in NBC news and let's see what happens over the coming days but if that's the case that material may have been destroyed one other element that we haven't even talked about at all today which i think your listeners should be aware of we talked a lot about nuclear weapons development warhead development what the Israelis did was they took out the top 15 nuclear weapons scientists who have been part of remember i talked about that original a mod program and the development of those five atomic weapons well some of them who are old enough come from the a mod program which is the early 2000s some of them are new but they've been or not new but the younger and they've been trained by the veterans the 15 top guys taken out that is akin to its January of feb 45 and the entire central team of oppenheimer gets eliminated three to four months between the trinity tests before the trinity tests where we explode our first nuclear weapon so i would say significant damage to rons nuclear weapons program suggests that we potentially have rolled them back for years i don't know how many years and all those technical assessments are still to come but significant damage so the question as i said is have they retained enough capabilities that they've scrolled away stored in covert sites put on a deep rebarait tunnels to break out to nuclear weapons that's scots concern that's my concern like some sure it's your concern that they could do that or have have have they set back the program so significantly that haminae then has to decide will i be inviting another israeli android us attack if i try to break out and if i do do i risk my regime who thinks that if they break out and try to start making nukes now that any hawk supporting this war will take responsibility for driving them to it so the the suggestion you're making is we're actually driving of course to join the opposite we're actually driving them to develop nuclear weapons that's right can you make the case though yeah previously he said let's take the ayatola at his word that he only wants a civilian electricity program well let's not take him at his word again i never said in this conversation trust the ayatola he did now he's kind of yeah but you said that the ayatola doesn't want nuclear weapons programs got you were very clear about that what i said what i was very aware about nuclear weapons program are you going back on that now she's as christ what i was very clear about for my very first statement when we sat down was at the ayatola was building himself a latent nuclear deterrent putting iran as what they call a threshold nuclear weapon state just like brazil and germany and japan so everyone knows they have mastered the fuel cycle they could enrich uranium up to 90 % don't make me do it that was his position of those countries you ever hear me say anything about believing the ayatola saying he only wanted an electricity program this is why enrichment is a red line it's because if all the enrichment is done overseas somewhere then it's not a latent nuclear deterrent at all so it's a red line for you as well as for me we agree Scott i'm saying it's a red line for the ayatola that he's clearly not going to give in on and it's a poison pill by the Israelis and the west they know he's never going to give up enrichment 100 % because that's the whole point of it so it's just disingenuous say oh let's believe him that he wants an electricity program he's not saying that i think that's his official position or if it is it's with a strong implication as everyone understands that it's a latent nuclear weapons capability and a potential actual nuclear weapons capable to you a deal will have to include enrichment yes that is a red line he will move up yes and then the thing is too just like i was saying before if trump had come in in 2017 and said screw this i hate this deal and then god on a plane and flown straight to tae ron and said or you know sent his guys and said now listen here ayatola i want to fix this deal up better i think that he really could have and i don't i already said i don't know the details but i believe mark when he says that the europeans were being in transition on that and again i criticized the cia and fbi for framing trump for treason for preventing him for being able to work with the russians to see if maybe they could put pressure on the ayatola to deal with him but i think that it's clear when the ayatola was willing in the jcpoa to well first of all to sign the additional protocol back in the w bus years for year for three years he didn't enrich anything under that deal as long as he was negotiating with the e3 and then under the jcpoa where he's shipping out every bit of his declared nuclear material he's clearly keeping the ability to enrich if necessary to weapons great if if crisis breaks out and he feels like he has to make nukes but he has he had no stockpile to inverse this whole thing about 99 % of the way there he had no stockpile so even if you you know count dry gas and up your truck on the way to the mine as part of this long time scale of percentages here they were much further from a nuke under the deal which he agrees we shouldn't have even gotten out of can i just say technically i just i think again important for your listeners to understand under the jcpoa Iran is allowed to keep a stockpile of maximum of 300 kilograms as i remember of 3 .67 percent in rich material they're allowed to continue to enrich as long as if they go over the three to the kilogram they have to continue to send that out to russia to to russia to blend down and so they kept the enrichment capability the ability to enrich they did keep a stockpile Scott's right they weren't able to they're not allowed in those early years to go under 3 .67 percent they would be allowed to go to 20 percent and 60 percent and 90 percent as the restrictions sunset it but they were able to keep all of those keep capability so i just want to clarify just technically what the jcpoa actually said and what it didn't say yeah can you comment on the so -called operation midnight hammer now that we can look back at it what parts were successful were what parts were a mistake was the whole operation a mistake that accelerates that ran nuclear program of the incentives for it or is there some components that actually is a decent incentive for Iran to develop the program and then maybe you can comment on the same it'd be nice just to get commented i think we really don't know right there's some initial battle assessments and arguments and all that about just how much was destroyed and what and we don't know exactly what their reaction is going to be um the you know there were reports of them saying hey we're already starting up a new facility somewhere else uh there were reports where they said hey a lot of our centrifuges survived and we're going to start spending them up right now and this kind of thing um the potential is there i don't know what the i told is going to do and i think this goes to the larger argument about the apocalyptic threat of the i told which mark has not made but which israel hawks often do that these guys just can't wait to get into a war and all this in fact did he look at a while they're in a war but i think what the argument i make is not gonna use a new clear weapon he interrupt me every time i try to say any god i just your mischaracter i'm saying i need to clarify when you mischaracter he's not interrupting every time but sometimes interrupting yes uh so try not to drop does much uh go ahead sky don't take it personally come on let's go yeah it seems like a deliberate attempt to obfuscate and and prevent me from just being able to complete a point you know he does it virtually every time no it's not as a listener i'm enjoying this uh well look on the face of it they blew up a lot of stuff and they made them very angry so are they going to now give in or they're now going to double down or they're now going to hold still we don't really know as i was trying to explain from the ayatollah's position that he's in what are you going to do with the problem like the united states of america right they can chant great satan this and that all they want they have no ability to really threaten this country in any way and they and and they know that america absolutely does have the ability to in fact even without nuclear weapons essentially wipe their civilization off the face of the earth just with b 52s if we wanted to carpet bomb their major cities and they so they know that the ayatollah knows he's in a very difficult position and look at what he did when they assassinated soul amani he sent essentially a symbolic strike at an empty corner of an american base in iraq it did cause some concussions and head trauma but it was he deliberately did that to not cause casualties and then trump let him have the last word and then also when they shot down the drone which i think trump was suspicious that the pentagon had flown that into a rainy airspace and they demanded strikes and trump said no it's just a drone how many Iranians will die at the base you want me to hit no i don't want to kill them i don't want to do it and again he let the ayatollah get the last word same thing happened again with yesterday strikes iran hit america's our central command headquarters that all you did air base in cutter and also an american base i think in bagged ed and i'm not sure about in a reckey Kurdistan zero casualties so far zero casualties so far so what is going on there essentially is he's got to do something he's doing like these symbolic strikes essentially to say like hey you can't do that to me but then he's also telegraphing that hey like i can't do anything about you and i don't really want to fight and so in a way he's like kind of backing down he's doing and then what did all trump say donald trump again let him have the last word and in fact like bragged and mocked and said hey thanks ayatollah for giving us a warning that you were about to shoot missiles at our base so we could be ready to shoot them all down and this kind of thing and he said now is the time for peace in other words trump again letting the ayatollah get the last word why because the ayatollah he might be a horrible leader if you live in iran but he is not perfectly but essentially cautious in foreign policy because what's he going to do he's going to decimate our naval base at bar rain he's going to slaughter all our troops in Kuwait and then what's trump going to do and so the ayatollah knows so it's the same people who who i don't include him in this but you hear a lot of the hawkish talk about just how easy this has been these same people talking about what an absolutely irrational religiously motivatedly and motivated and therefore you know crazy and irrational group of people the mullahs are and why they can only be dealt with with force when in fact what they're showing is essential conservatism trying to hold on to what they got making a latent deterrent because they know if they break out toward a bond that'll get them bond so they were hoping having a latent deterrent would be enough to just keep them at the status quo that's why it's so disingenuous just again with um Marco Rubio the secretary states saying forget the intelligence because 60 % hey it's 99 % of the way there close enough for us so it doesn't matter if the ayatollahs decided to make or nuke or not they're just too close to one as it is which is really silly because they're not much closer than they've been for 20 years since the W Bush administration they proved they've mastered the fuel cycle that is one of the fundamental disagreements in the room that you're saying they don't have they really don't have interest to develop a nuclear weapon and they're not quite not exactly i mean i what i said more towards that direction than Marcus saying or toward but they're saying look at us we're a threshold state don't push your luck and and force us to make the bad decision they now that's an implication they have not said that outright but clearly the implication is that if we force them then they will go ahead and make a nuclear weapon what i mean is if left on their own devices they would not develop that's the case you're making not just on their own devices but if we were to try to negotiate with them in good faith and try to have normal relations with them that would disincentivize a nuclear weapon even further okay can you comment on the mission what operation and sure a couple things i think we're interested in what Scott said and i agree with certainly with some of it um i mean the first thing is i do believe President Trump is negotiating good faith i mean he sent Steve Whitcoff he's chief negotiator for five rounds some negotiations since he came in office um the second is i mean we can keep going around in circles but the fact matters i do believe that Iran and Iran back terrorist organizations have for since 1979 killed and tried to kill and maim americans and taken them hostage i think it's important for me again to put that on the record but where i agree with with Scott is i in it's interesting and i don't know if harmonay is changed in his you know he's 86 years old he's been in power since 1989 and there's a little bit of history that i think is really interesting like it was the it was 1988 and uh Iran and Iraq had fought this brutal eight -year war million people dead and um the United States accidentally shot down a Iranian passenger airline the United States offered to pay compensation and apologized and the Iranians didn't believe it they didn't believe we could accidentally do that they thought we were going to be intervening militarily on behalf of Saddam so harmonay who's not the supreme leader at the time he was the Iranian president he and Rafsanjani they go to komeini and they say Mr.

2:31:38Ayatollah we got a sufer peace with the Iraqis because the americans are intervening and we cannot fight the americans we fought this brutal war we'll continue with Saddam we cannot fight the United States for America i think Scott's right like that perception that there's no way they can fight the United States for America because that's regime ending potentially even if we don't intend to that could actually happen and there's a famous line where komeini says all right i agree i will drink the poison chalice i'll drink the poison chalice and i will agree to a cease -fire on pretty tough terms for Iran it's interesting now 36 years later or 37 years later harmonay is now got to decide to drink the poison chalice does he agree to a negotiated deal with the United States does he agree to deal that president trump and i mean Scott criticizes me for it but that's president trump's position is no enrichment for this manlement by the that's backed up by 52 of 53 Republican senators and 177 House GOP members and backed by everybody in his administration including jade vance has been emphatic about that does he agree to that deal or does he decide i'm not going to drink the poison chalice and i am going to i'm going to take other options now i agree with scott like going after a u .s military basis except in a symbolic way suicidal closing the streets of our mues 40 percent of chinese oil goes through there the chinese have been saying that iranians don't you dare by the way 100 percent of iranian oil goes from iran in carg island through the streets of our mues so economically suicidal for the iranians to do that terror attacks absolutely mean that has been their modus operandah for years so i would be concerned about terrorist attacks against u .s targets against civilians potentially sleeper cells in the united states so he's used terror cells around the world he's engaged in a decades -long assassination campaign including on american soil by the way sometimes successfully sometimes not including most recently where he went after an iranian american three times to try to assassinate her in new york a woman named masiel in a jade and so he's got to be calculating like what is my play so if i don't do a deal how can i actually squeeze the americans and scott's right like he must be thinking of himself you know what i was literally on the 99 yard line with an entire nuclear weapons capability i should have crossed the goal line if i had had a warhead a nuclear warhead or multiple nuclear warheads as they had been trying to build since the amad plan in early two thousands there's no way israel the united states would have hit me militarily if i had nuclear weapons then i would have had the ultimate deterrence to prevent that and then i would be like king john oon with nuclear weapons i would then build i cbms and then i'd have the ultimate deterrent to stop that so he's got to be thinking maybe now and i i can guarantee you the revolutionary guards do you think that might have anything to do with the fact that america attacked iraq and libya when they did not have weapons of mass destruction programs can i tell you the liby example i think scott is the most interesting one for me right because the liby example is a big mistake by the way you crane is another good example of this we went to the libyans and we said you must fully dismantle your program and cadaphi said reluctantly under huge american pressure okay i'll do it and the brits and the americans went in there and literally hauled out his entire nuclear it wasn't really a program it was just a bunch of acucons junk sitting in crates in a warehouse they did not have the capability to make a nuclear program at all in libya they didn't have the the engineers the scientists or anyone so cadaphi had bought that junk just to trade it away just to be clear there never was a nuclear weapons program or a nuclear program of any kind in libya unlike what you just that wasn't my point okay my point is is he had a nuclear program and certain we can debate about again how we had to debate about whether it's crazy again it's always cadaphi and humane and all these people they don't really want nuclear weapons we just misunderstand them but that's not the point the point is we did a deal with cadaphi we pulled out his nuclear program and then i don't know how many years later but wasn't too many years later seven years later thank you scott we actually took cadaphi out and he didn't have a nuclear program so we took him out in in the libya operation now Ukraine is another great example the Ukrainians after the fall Soviet Union you know this they had the Soviet nuclear arsenal or good parts of it on their soil so we went to them and we said all right well here's a deal for you give up the nuclear arsenal all right off your territory and we we and the Russians on the French guarantee your territorial integrity and your sovereignty as a country so the Ukrainian said fair deal to me gave up all the nuclear weapons and then Putin is now invaded you that's not what the rest declaration says that we promise their security we promise to respect it and the Russians promise to and both sides broke that promise but there's nothing like a guarantee that America would protect Ukraine's sovereignty no no no give up those nukes and they had no ability to use those nukes anyway because they were Soviet nukes with Soviet codes maybe along to the Soviet military and the Ukrainians would have no ability to use them or deliver them they were married to missiles that were made to fly around the world not to Russia next door let's got my point is and i think this you'll agree with this my point is if you're hominay and you've seen those two examples of libya you gave up your nuclear program cadaphi gets taken down your your Ukraine you gave up your nuclear weapons and the Russians invaded twice if you're hominay thinking to yourself the only thing that matters more to me than my nuclear weapons program is my regime survival and in 12 days of war the Israelis specifically because we hit fordo and is fahan and we the United States hit those sites we the United States hit those sites the gleeful they just got like stop take that out there's no place in this room with me the un -American bullshit don't do that the implication here man is that i me am un -American i'm an attack just like the russian hoax for being a Putin show i'm an American what when you talk about Ukraine's war with russia do you say we heard you say they i said we the United States we actually we added the United States but you would just describe israel strikes israel didn't strike for does god you talked about the us attack as you you're speaking to this other people that you've heard that somehow they do say we and they talk about i would say ridiculously as if i've even heard some people basically put israel above us and their american citizens yeah that's fucking ridiculous but none of those people are in this the the the the door demons under the bed i'm sure those people exist there's ridiculous people on the internet there's ridiculous people in congress we can criticize them make fun of them say they're fucking the foundation for defense of democracy has been the vanguard of the war party in this country for 25 years well that's a different criticism but yeah i was i was it's an important one yes yeah but no you just switched you just switched well you did did did did did did did did did did no no no no no no no no there's no un -American you just switched from the un -American discussion to criticizing policies that that particular to do fine criticizing policies do that what is the un -American bullshit lex not a near conservative movement is the vanguard of the israel lobby that's who they are that's what neoconservatism is about that's who the what he is conservative so i don't know what he's talking about but it's just it's not mixed up there there there is a massive israel lobby in america in washington that is inseparable here on the american war party yeah i've talked to john misham i respect him deeply he's one of the most brilliant people speaking on that topic great great okay let's just talk about today and the nuclear proliferation you guys have been brilliant on this i'm learning a lot let's continue yeah so i let's let's go back to where where how many may be i mean in a bunker 86 years old thinking he's going to drink the poison chalice and agree to a deal with fallen trump and oman or is he going to do all of the things that scott and i are concerned about and one of those in scott is pointed this out rightly so is he may decide now to to break out for the nuke or creep out for the nuke he may decide not to do it now he may decide to do it in three and a half years when president trump has gone right and i think that the the important thing is he's seen we the united states we took out fordo and the tons and is fahan in one operation with b two bombers and and twelve thirty thousand pound massive orange penetrators and tomahawk missile so if he doesn't think if he didn't think that the united states had serious military power before he now knows we do so to you that operation was geopolitically a success it sends a message of strength that if you try to build you're going to be punished for so i've i've set online in the past twelve days and even before that curb your enthusiasm curb your enthusiasm to all the people related to which top yeah just just this sort of idea that this has been like this unbelievable success and everything's great and everything's going to be amazing and we stopped the nuclear weapons program and this has been a resounding success i've just said kind of curb your enthusiasm humane remains very dangerous the regime reigns very dangerous a wounded animal is the most dangerous animal in the animal kingdom he retains key capabilities to build weapons you demanded unconditional surrender on twitter again last night right after trump said there's a ceasefire what is unconditional surrender means no enrichment full this manly yes exactly right it's exactly what president trump well i i can't regime change unconditional surrender in world or two meant the end of the nazi regime and the imperialist japanese regime entirely right but president that made it very clear president trot made it very clear in condition he made it clear i don't support regime change well except for that one it was a few hours earlier right i i actually i mean i'll explain that one because i thought it was real analyze it like a Shakespeare what is it yeah yeah and what what what do he also mean we have two countries they've been fighting so long it's all hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing what's that about he was angry that israel is still attacking after he promised they weren't he demanded they turn their planes around he felt that they were doing it in defiance of their agreement but he didn't say israel is the both different quote different quote he did say i demand i believe it was a tweet from true social i demand the israel turn those planes around right now was how upset he was about i guess i guess thonald trump doesn't listen to bebe all the time does he yeah i guess he's fine out they respect him about as much as they respect the palestinian well that's how he's just the help so that's world leaders are interested in their own nation that's right fuck you over good important lesson there everyone but i think what does israel care about israel every country every country then defend defences national interests i mean that's not unusual for israel or any other country but i think i understand we're supposed to pretend that hey whatever israel needs well we're here to serve their interests if those people exist they're on american if people put israel's interest by terrorism together well we that that we generate terrorism together what are you talking about but that doesn't mean you put israel's interest above americas if you do you're on american you how many american lives these israel intelligence community is saved and i asked people in the FBI and cia who were counterism how many is american lives these really sub say because of their intelligence capabilities how about enough tolly Bennett well again bomb that shelter full of women and children and caused the september 11th attack that's what happened in fact i don't know if you know the story but you could google to see like google and things it's on google books you can read perfect soldiers by tarry mcdermit or you could read the looming tower by lawrence right we're both of them explain how when shimon Perez launched operation grapes of wrath that ramsey bin al -sheeb and mohamad autah filled out their last will and testament which was like symbolically joining the army to fight against the infidels etc etc and when bin lawden put out his first declaration of war a couple of months later it began with a whole rant about the hundred and six women and children that noktali Bennett had killed with an artillery strike in a u -n shelter in in in kana in 1996 and and he said we'll never forget the severed arms and heads and legs of the little babies etc and it was then that mohamad autah and ramsey bin al -sheeb decided that they would join al -cada and that they these Egyptian engineering students studying in hamburger germany would volunteer for the soudi chic to kill three thousand americans to get revenge for what israel was doing to helpless women and children in lebanon as well as of course that's going north the history of how to which for years before that was worked on the united states and british out operations against the united states but executing them did you guys love pulling each other into history no no no they went out for America's what went out kada israel america and israel are terrorist terrorist states they were america's mercenaries that we use in afghanistan emboss nia all us vote in chechnia all us but they turned against that i mean america they turned against all us got anyone could read all our careers book the for the chief of the c .i .s and law and we're responsible for our enemy's attack real hubris and it's about how the number one reason they attacked us was american bases on soudi soil the bomber rock as part of israel's dual containment policy and the second reason was american support for israel in their merciless persecution of the palestinians and the lebanese that's a most articulate justification i've ever heard for al -qaeda in my life but let's let's not a justification i'm not saying that makes what they did right i'm saying that was how been lawden recruited his but soldiers to attack this country was by citing american foreign policies that were directly to the detriment of the people of the middle east and specifically our support for israel and i've never heard a pro in fact i take that back there's one guy a liberal from the nation magazine name erick alterman is the only pro israel guy i've ever heard say well that may be true but i still say we got to support israel anyway the others they'll just pretend that terri mcdermott never wrote that book that lawrence right never wrote that book that mohamid ahtah had no motive to turn on the united states except for mohamid made him do it when in fact what it was is it was the ultra violence of shimon pares and artillery officer naftali Bennett slaughtering women and children that turn america's mercenaries america backed the arab afghan army in afghanistan in bosnia in kosovo and in chechnya as i demonstrate in my book and yet as he correctly says they turned on us all through the nineteen nineties billquan was still backing them anyway after they were attacking us and including at co bar towers and they were doing that is this was a bin law night plot not has bala not the sheites this was the bin law nights getting revenge against us for support for israel and being too close to their local dictators that they wanted to overthrow namely the king of soudi and the ill president day of egypt yes that is the cause of the september 11th attack against the united states not the taliban hate freedom but the bin law denights hate american support for israel and america adopting policies israeli centric policies like martin indics dual containment policy in nineteen america i think i'll kind of hate some america's god i think you know what now i'll say what i'll let you spawn you know allys to fund the former fb i agent counterterrorism agent he wrote in his book the black banners that the bin law denights said to bin law den we don't understand why you're so angry at america they've been so good to us in afghanistan in bosnia in kosovo and now here in chechnya why do you want to attack them and not attack america i have a larger agenda that you don't understand i had a disagree between you is clear i've talked to gnome chomsky twice sky you focus on the criticism you should interview michael shoyer although he's gone pretty crazy lately i don't know maybe not anyway we're going into history we're learning a lot the perspectives differ strongly uh can we look into the maybe a ridiculous question but a nuclear proliferation you already started to speak to both of you uh if you look like ten twenty years out now does does the u .s attacking iran does that send a message even ten bs to other middle eastern nations that they need to start thinking about uh a nuclear weapon program it's specifically like do you think just in a numbers way does the number of nukes in the world go up in ten twenty thirty years so look i i think uh it's a great question would it be more nuclear weapons powers in the future or less as result of this decision by president trump so i actually think there'll be less um and i'll tell you uh it's succinctly as i can and that is that it's been very clear from the Saudis from the Turks um certainly from the um even the Algerians and others that if iran gets a nuclear weapon they too want a nuclear weapon in fact the Saudis have gone even further and said if if iran is allowed to retain the key enrichment capability that they have under jcpaoay that we want that to there's an Iran standard we want the Iran standard we don't want the gold standard in fact that's been the subject of intensive negotiations between the united states and Saudi Arabia for the past couple of years both under Biden and trump as part of the u .s.

2:49:16Saudi uh agreement defense agreement an economic agreement that that has been underway it is very it's very clear that there's going to be a proliferation cascade in the middle east if the iranians get a nuclear weapon and certainly if they're allowed to retain this enrichment capability i also worry about we haven't even talked about at all this conversation i mean the most important area in the world the united states is not the middle east it's china in the end of pacific and i worry that the south koreans the tywanese and the japanese will say you know we don't trust in any u .s. commitments to stop nuclear weapons you failed on a run we don't trust you we don't trust your nuclear umbrella we too want nuclear weapons in order to guard our security against china and so what you would see i hope it doesn't happen but i worry about is this kind of proliferation cascade in the middle east and in the end of pacific two of the most important areas for american national security which is why i think it's very important that that be that iranians be stopped now whether this attack is succeeds in stopping iran's nuclear weapon or accelerates it we we disagree but i think neither of us know yet hard to predict but what i think is absolutely certain is that of iran develops that nuclear weapon and is allowed to retain the key capabilities to do so you're going to seize five six countries in the middle east at least three four countries in the end of pacific asking for the same capability and then you're going to have a club of nuclear weapons powers uh that will have an additional five six seven over the next 10 to 20 years what if they don't what if they're prevented doesn't that still send the same message to everybody that they should build oh i think it sends the opposite message likes i think if they see what has happened and that it's and that it's successful and it stopped iran from developing nuclear weapons and in addition trump is able to negotiate an agreement for zero enrichment and full dismantlement then the message to all these other countries is number one you don't need it and number two if you try to get it then the united states is going to use american power now i'm not suggesting the united states is going to start bombing the Saudis or the Turks or the Emirates clearly not the japanese i mean these are many of them are allies but i think the united states retains many tools counter -proliferation tools to prevent these countries from developing nuclear weapons including you know sanctions and export controls and many of the things and plus i think those countries you know i understand that in the middle east despite scott's focus on israel you know when you talk to arab leaders their biggest concern is the threat from iran it's not the threat from israel they're not concerned with the threat from israel that's why adabra mccords it you know this is why the u .a .e.

2:52:05in bakhrain and moraco entered into this peace agreement with israel the Saudis will one day and they'll bring many other arab and muslim countries in it they don't say israel is a threat they see iran is a threat and so if you counter that threat you eliminate iran's nuclear weapons proliferation and expansion those countries now no longer have to build nuclear weapons capabilities to counter the iranians now we've also restored our credibility we don't bluff we said iran doesn't develop nuclear weapons they won't and now it's the Japanese who have as scott rightly pointed out they do have reprocessing and plutonium capabilities the Taiwanese who used to have a military nuclear weapons program and gave it up and the South Koreans who agree to our gold standard of zero enrichment zero reprocessing those three countries can now say okay we rely on the united states on your word on your power and on your ability to to actually turn words into action we don't need nuclear weapons so i i'd say if successful big f big f if successful then it's going to be a significant guard against the potential of greater nuclear proliferation and we will have less nuclear powers nuclear weapons powers than uh then we otherwise would have my favorite thing is when you guys point out when you agree with the other person anyway uh sky what do you think what what do you think everything that's just happened over the past two weeks does to nuclear nuclear proliferation over the next five ten twenty years oh i mean i really don't know for sure but i would think that the uh there's a very great danger that it's going to reinforce the lessons of north korea iraq and libya which is you better get a nuke to keep america out and you better hurry before it's too late now for the Saudis they're not going to do that because they're obviously a very close American client state so it's a different dynamic there but you know for any country that has trouble with the united states or is worried about the future of their ability to maintain their national sovereignty obviously getting their hands on an a bomb as quickly as possible is uh has been you know re incentivize to a great degree also i'm really worried about the future of the non -plaferation treaty with the nuclear weapons states promise to respect the right of non -nuclear weapons states to civilian nuclear energy and where here you have a non NPT signatory nuclear weapons state israel launch an aggressive war against an NPT signatory that is was not attacking them and was not making nuclear weapons and with the assistance of the world empire the united states another nuclear weapon state signatory to the NPT and i don't really take this that seriously but it's worth at least listening to is uh mead vetev the uh once and probably future president of russia he said oh yeah well maybe we'll just give him a nuke or kind of imply maybe get pakistan to now for people familiar with like he and peel mead vetev is sort of angry obama right for poop you know that skit where's like obama talks all calm anger translate appeal goes off like a angry black guy kind of characters and going nuts on twitter yeah vetev he he goes way out you know above and beyond but i think he's probably acting on instructions to talk that way and it is a real risk that the NPT could just fall apart when it becomes when it's treated uh so callously by the united states who invented it and insisted that the rest of the world adopt the thing to such a great degree trump did say don't use the n words he he talked down to me vetev that's right yeah he'll go around the and the new clear word yeah well and and i appreciate that good and i used to write he's writing that it's just not as serious and look the pakistanis could give a new to iran who are their friends i think not the tightest of allies i'm not saying i predict that but there's a danger that um now when it comes to you know eastern asia obviously there's a concern about a chinese threat to tywan then nobody thinks china's coming for south korea or japan the the question of tywan is one that's very different because as the american president agreed with mousetong fifty years ago tywan is part of china and eventually will be reunited although we hope that's not by since then they have essentially abandoned marxism although it's still a one -party authoritarian state but they've essentially abandoned marxism adopted markets at least to the degree that they've been able to afford to now build up a giant naval force that is capable of retaking tywan and so i think the way to prevent that is not for making a bunch of threats and setting examples and other places about how tough we are but to negotiate with the chinese and the tywanese and figure out a way to reunite the two in a peaceful way in order to prevent that war from breaking out because in fact we don't really have the naval and air capability to defend tywan we could lose a lot of guys trying and probably kill a lot of chinese trying but in the end they'd probably take tywan anyway we'd lost a bunch of ships and and planes for nothing so we can negotiate an end to that and then even if america just withdrew from the region we could still negotiate long -term agreements between china, japan, south korea and whoever there's no reason to think that everyone would make mad scramble to a bomb to protect them if the moment they are out from under america's nuclear umbrella and so forth and the fact of matter is that you know the greatest threat to the status quo as far as the nuclear powers go probably is what just happened america in israel launching this war against a non -nuclear weapon state as a member in good standing of this treaty throws the the whole as they call it the liberal rules based world order into question i mean if these rules repeatedly have always applied to everyone else but very often not to us then are they really the law or this is just the will of men in washington dc and how long do we expect the rest of the world to go ahead and abide by that if you know a deal is a deal until we decide as bill clinton said to wake up one morning and decide that we don't like it anymore and and change it that was a phrase from the founding act of 97 huh maybe we'll wake up one morning and decide that we don't want to do something else entirely is that your bill clinton pressure no i'll spare you okay i was pretty good after the show when we're not recording oh yeah and i can i respond to a couple of things here just really quickly i'll try to do it quickly um first of all you know the the notion that ron is in full compliance with the npt um is just not the case the international atomic energy agency has made it clear in report after report after report that ron is in violation of his obligations under the um protocols of the i a a under the request of the i a a have made and under the npt so they are a serial violator of the npt unlike all these other countries we've been talking about that are allies second is this this quote um ron is not attacking israel that's quite an amazing quote um which kind of ignores i think uh 50 60 years of uh Iranian attacks against israel including um suicide bombings and missiles and drones and October 7th and it's indisputable that ron has been attacking israel and they've been they've been doing it for many years through their teraproxies that they fund and finance and and weaponize and since uh october 7th they directly struck israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles in april and october of last year so this notion that before 12 days ago Iranians were just playing nice with israelis and the israelis just came out of the blue what you said quote and quote ron is not as not attacking israel so i mean it's just not true yeah they were not in a state of war until israel launched a state of war that's the fact yeah they were you know well they backed a group that did a thing yeah okay kill thousands of of israelis main thousands of israelis but that's not ordered in tae ron the Wall Street Journal says that us intelligence does not believe that tae ron ordered that attack like they found out about what the Wall Street Journal says and what the us intelligence says and we can dispute whether they directed it on october 7th everybody knows indisputably that ron financed them us provide a Hamas it is weapons just well just a second provided Hamas with weapons that the ir gc and the kud's force were training Hamas his balab backed by iran was training Hamas there were three meetings before october 7th one in bayroutes one in damascus and one in tae ron where the ir gc has bala Hamas and palestin islamic jihad were together there was a meeting in tae ron that was attended by hamaneh the supreme leader now at those three meetings right before october 7th you know maybe they're discussed on the weather maybe they were discussing Persian poetry i don't know but it is hard to believe they weren't discussing something and the fact that they had armed Hamas financed Hamas and weaponized Hamas suggests to me that there is pretty overwhelming evidence that a ron has been at war with israel for decades critics of israel will say that Benjamin Netanyahu has also been indirectly financing Hamas by allowing the fund the funds going to that america backs israel so anything israel doubts is america's responsibility to under that same logic right i think you started to make it a point disagreeing with scott about that they're not a good member of the amputee that's all tiny technical violations none of that has anything to do with weaponization it's always oh yeah how do you explain this isotope and they go well it must have came with the pack of standing junk that we bought from a qcon and then later that's verified and they go yeah well we want to inspect this let us and they go no and then they do a year later and then they find nothing yeah that's just a case that's just higher history of iran of the ia ea's objections to iran so you listeners i know they're not going to do it because it's a lot of technical rewhip weaponization but just go out go out and reversion of nuclear ia ea reports dating back at least 20 years and you'll see the ia meticulously methodically dispassionately outlining all of the violations that iran has embarked on of the amputee virtually all those are resolved later they won't answer this and then later they do they won't answer that and then later they do and many open files are still there still there i mean just again like i just i just want your viewers to walk away from this conversation thing okay that's interesting i i i didn't know that and then i'm going to go fact check mark and fact check scott and just kind of see what this is all about right because otherwise it's just he says she says or he says he says um the fact of the matter is is that iran has been in violations of its obligations under the amputee under the additional protocol it never never uh never ratified under its safeguards obligations under the amputee it suggests a pattern of nuclear mandacity they abide by the additional protocol without having ratified it they abide by it for three years and did not proceed with any enrichment at all as long as they were dealing in good faith with the EU until w bush ruined those negotiations and closed them down only then did they began to install the centrifuges at nautants it's always the american screw thing you complain they didn't ratify the thing but they abided by it for years so that's an interesting statement violation of it but i think a more pragmatic and important disagreement that we already spoke to is how do we decrease the incentive for iran to build nuclear programs not just the next couple of years but it's 10 to 20 years what that's you're mocking that there's a lot of people that will there's neocons that say basically invade everything let's make money off of war but there's people that will say that you know operation midnight hammer is actually a focused hard demonstration of strengths of piece of strength that is an effective way to do geopolitics i mean there's cases to be made for all of it if we're really lucky yeah so it's a big risk is your case so here's some practical recommendations that i think the united states should follow i think the first is you know get the iran ins back to a mon negotiate with them and do a deal again the deal has to be no enrichment full dismantlement i i i think for the reasons we talked about today scott and i passionately disagreed but that's fine we this is this is a reasonable debate neither us is crazy neither us is rational it is what would it take to get a deal with iran i say i say this is the deal this has to be our red line scott's degrees that's fine but we got to get a deal in that deal we got to provide them financial incentives right we're going to have to lift a certain number of sanctions because they're they're going to have to get something in return okay we can argue about exactly how much but i think our opening negotiating position is no sanctions relief and then we'll get negotiated down from that right i mean like i think a lot of this is about how do you position yourself for a negotiation how do you how do you come in with leverage and then how do you find areas of compromise where you you satisfy your objectives one is oman two is the credible threat of military force needs to remain right hominay needs to understand that the united states of america and israel will use military force to stop them from developing nuclear weapons if he didn't believe that before 12 days ago he now believes that and i think that's the credibility of that military force has to be maintained in order to ensure that he does not break out or sneak out to a nuclear weapon i i think that's absolutely critical third is i think we have to reach agreements with all the other countries in the middle east to say hey listen we're demanding zero enrichment and full this management from the iranians you don't get enrichment and you don't get a nuclear program that is capable of developing nuclear weapons our gold standard is the american standard civilian nuclear energy like 23 countries no enrichment in reprocess we should be consistent we should be consistent not just with american allies but also very clear with american enemies i think that's the third important thing we do fourth is i think it's really important that we find some kind of accommodation between the israelis and the Palestinians we can go down many rabbit holes on that but i think that lays the predicate for a Saudi israeli normalization deal that then brings in multiple era countries and Muslim countries and finally is we talked about the Abraham Accords i i think we need to start thinking about what do the Cyrus Accords look like right Cyrus was a great Persian king right who by the way brought the you know the Jews back from from the diaspora to Jerusalem and Cyrus Accords would be let's find an agreement between the united states and israel and a ron that would be a remarkable transformation in the region if we could actually do that so imagine a middle east and again i know this sounds fanciful but i think this is what trump has in mind when he starts to talk about the things you're seeing in his truthposts is actually a middle east that can be fundamentally transformed where we actually do bring peace between israel a ron Saudi Arabia and the rest of these countries i by the way completely agree with you on syria the idea that we are trusting a former al -Qaeda ISIS jihadist to rule syria i think is a big bet president trump has made he's made it on the advice of mbs we'll see how that transforms uh or transpires and see if syria is transformed but the notion that somehow we should just be rolling the dice lifting all the sanctions and taking this former al -Qaeda jihadist at his word is a big bet if we get the bet right that is actually a remarkable occurrence because now of a sudden syria and lebanon are brought into this Abraham Accords Cyrus Accords structure and then we actually have what i think the all three of us want is peace in the middle east stability in the middle east i don't think we need democracy in the middle east i think if the middle east looked like the u a e that'd be a pretty good middle east i think we'd all be pretty comfortable without if that kind of stability and prosperity and ultimately you could put these countries on a pathway to greater democracy the way that we did during the cold war where countries like tywan and south korea that were military dictatorships end up becoming pro -western democracies so that's kind of stepping back maybe a little bit partly hannish um but i think we should also always keep in mind what a potential vision for peace could look like so scott as many people know here in austin texas you're the director of the libertarian institute um let's zoom out a bit what are the key pillars of libertarianism and how that informs how you see the world well the very basis of libertarianism is the non -aggression principle but uh which essentially is the same thing as our our social rules for dealing with each other in private life no force no theft no fraud and keep your hands to yourself and we apply that same moral law to government and so you know some libertarians are anarcho capitalist summer so -called minarchists meaning we want the absolute minimum amount of government a night watchman type state uh in in other words just enough to enforce contracts and protect property rights and allow freedom in a free market to work there's also of course a natural rights theory Austrian school economics and a lot of revisionist history um and uh and it's something very uh key to uh libertarian theory was expressed by mary n Rothbard was that war is the key to the whole libertarian business because especially in the united states of america as long as we maintain a world empire makes it impossible for us to have a limited and decentralized government here at home as our constitution describes and so i was gonna crack a joke but neither of you have called me an isolationist yet but i was gonna joke that yes as as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the declaration of isolation um that the same guy a principal author of the declaration of isolation he said in his first inaugural address we seek peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations and entangling alliances with none and that's the true libertarian philosophy think dr.

3:10:32Ron Paul the great congressman uh for many years up there he was opposed to all sanctions all economic war on the rest of the world and the entire state of the united states as world empire and what's strange now is that anyone who wants just peace as the standard is considered an isolationist and people who are for world empire and a permanent state of conflict with the rest of world economic war coos and regime changes and even invasions those are considered normal people it's almost like people who want peace should be called cis foreign policy because now we got to we have to come up with a funny word to describe a normal state of being when no one calls mexico an isolationist state just to say mine their own business and is there any faction anywhere in america that calls himself isolationist even the paleo conservatives who favor much more like trade protectionism and that kind of thing than libertarians they don't call themselves isolationist they still want to have an open relationship with the world to some degree when isolation means like the hermit kingdom of north korea or some crazy thing like that no one wants that for the united states of america what we want is independence non interventionism and peace so to you isolationism is a kind of dirty word that's right the smear terms invented by interventionists and internationalists to attack anyone who didn't want to go along with their agenda the term itself is used essentially as a smear against anyone who doesn't want to go to war so can you actually just deeper describe what non interventionism means so how much sort of displayed military strength should be there do you think doctor paul said we could defend this country with a couple of good submarines which by the way for people who don't want american trident sub could essentially kill every city and military base in russia just one so he's absolutely right about that couple of good submarines are enough to defend our coast and deter anyone from messing with the united states of america and then i admit i'm a little bit idealistic about this that i think of that old william gennings brine speech beholder republic where unlike the empires of europe burned under the weight of militarism here we have a free country and where you know what we could do we could be the host of peace conferences everywhere there are frozen conflicts in the conflicts in the donbass in collining rod in transnistria in tywan in korea virtually all the borders of africa and eurasia were drawn by european powers to either divide and conquer their enemies or artificially group their enemies together in order to keep them internally divided and conquered in those ways so there are great many borders in the world that are in contention and that people might even want to fight about and i think that america could play a wonderful role in helping to negotiate and resolve those types of conflicts without resorting to for sir or even making any promises on the part of the u .s.

3:13:40government like we'll pay Egypt to pretend to be nice to israel or anything like that but just find ways to host conferences and find resolutions to these problems and i think quite sincerely that donald trump right now could get on a plane to tae ron he could then go to muskow to beijing and pyeongyang and he could come home and be trumped the great we in fact don't have to have the especially the american hyper power as the french called it the world empire we have everything to give and nothing to lose to go ahead and donald trump even talk like this you might remember when he first was sworn in this time he said you know what instead of pivoting from terrorism to great power competition with russian china i don't want to do that i just want to get along with both of them let's just move on and have the rest of the century be peace and prosperity and not fighting at all why should we have to pivot to china let's just pivot to capitalism and trade and freedom and peace that's america first yeah of a of christmas trump a lot but i think i may be just rhetoric but i think he talks about peace a lot even just recently the the number of times the word peace is mentioned and with seriousness not you get like a genuine desire for peace from him and that's just beautiful to see for the leader of of of this country and look man there used to be a time when a third of the planet was dominated by the communists right so like i'm not going to sit here and argue the first cold war with you my book's about the second one and i'm not as good on the first but since the end of the first cold war we have let the neo conservative policy of the defense planning guidance of 92 and rebuilding america's defenses and the rest of this american dominance centered policy control our entire direction in the world it's led to the war on terrorism in the middle east seven countries we've attacked it's led to the disaster in eastern europe and it's leading toward disaster in eastern asia when there's just no reason in the world that it has to be this way with the commies dead and gone and again i just stipulate here the chinese flag is still read it's still a one -party dictatorship but they have abandoned marxism i mean people were starving to death by the tens of millions there it's a huge it's probably the greatest improvement in the condition of mankind anywhere ever in the shortest amount of time when dang shelping in the right wing of the communist party took over in that country just one more thing you mentioned the two submarines what's the role of nuclear weapons well i would like for america to have an extremely minimal nuclear deterrent and work toward a world free of nuclear weapons and i know that that sounds utopian however i would remind your audience that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev came within a hair of achieving a deal just like that at rica vick iceland in nineteen eighty six and they were both of them dead serious about it complete and total nuclear disarmament and then Reagan was essentially bullied by Richard purle and others on his staff saying you promised the american people that you would build them a defensive anti missile system the star war system which was total pie in the sky technological fantasy of the nineteen eighties and if you're getting rid of all the icBMs then why the hell do you need a missile shield anyway is the world's probably greatest tragedy that ever took place that Ronald Reagan walked away from those negotiations they literally were within a hair and it wasn't magic and there was no trust in evil bad guys this is by the way two years before the wall came down this is when everybody still thought the USSR was gonna last and Reagan had the plan was that american the soviet union would dismantle our nuclear weapons until we were right around with parity with the other nuclear weapons states who all have right around two or three hundred nukes france britain at that time israel and china indian pakistan came later south Africa only had a few them that gave up whatever they had and the idea was we would get down to two or three hundred and then american the soviet union both together with lean hard on britain france and china let's all get down to one hundred let's all see if we can get down to fifty et cetera like that in stages again Ronald Reagan were talking about here trust but verify means do not trust at all it means be polite while you verify and in fact america did help dismantle upwards of sixty something thousand soviet nuclear missiles in the after the end of the cold war and so it is possible to live in a world where at the very least we have a situation where the major powers have a few nukes and potentially can even come to an arrangement to get rid of the rest we should also just say one more thing not to be agist but most of the major leaders with nukes and those with power in the world are in their seventies and eighties i don't know if that contributes to it but they kind of a ground in a different time that may i have a hope for the fresher younger leaders have to have a more optimistic view towards peace and to be able to reach towards peace and underlying so much of what we're talking about here is all this enmity right but if america could just work remember when china cut that pseudo sort of peace deal between Saudi and iran a couple years ago or last year was it we could try to double up on that we should we could try to come up with ways for Saudi and iran to exchange as much as possible you know i know you don't like all the going back too far in history but it's important it's in my book that in nineteen ninety three is a big number zinski who the revolution had happened on his watch operation equal claw the disaster of the rescue mission in seventy nine after the hostage crisis and everything all that egg was on z b space but in ninety three he said we should normalize relations we should build an oil pipeline across iran so they can make money we can make money and we can start to normalize and Ronald Reagan's secretary of state Alexander Hague who had been Kissinger's right hand man agreed they both were trying to push that but the Clinton administration went ahead with martin indick who had been yet sock shameers man and inaugurated the dual containment policy instead because these rallies were concerned that america had just beaten up on iraq so bad in iraq war one that now iraq wasn't powerful enough to balance against iran so america had to stay in saudi to balance against them both and that was the origin of the dual containment policy was martin indick who had been yet sock shameers man who pushed it on clinton and this was not the israelis it was the Kuwaitis who lied that there was a truck bomb attempt assassination against hw bush which was a total hoax it was debunked by sea more harsh by the end of the year it was just a whiskey smuggling ring and it was the same guy whose daughter had claimed to have seen the iraqy soldiers throw the babies out of the incubators he was the guy who two years later made up this hoax about sedom who's saying trying to murder bush senior but when he did that was when bill clinton finally gave in and adopted the dual containment policy because he had been interested in potentially reaching out to sedom and the itola both at that time but instead of having normalization with both we had to have permanent cold war through the end of the century with both and my argument is simply it just didn't have to be that way is the same thing with russia look at you know how determined the democrats especially are to have this conflict with russia where to donald trump nah not at all we could get along with them and so it's perfectly within reason it's a big nebrzinski says we can talk with iran and get along with iran and donald trump says we can get along with russia then the same thing for north korea the same thing for china and then and then who do we have left to fight just bala has bala's nothing without iran but it's that's god and i fighting that's that'll be the last remain that's the fun kind of fight that'll be fine fine peaceful you're the CEO of fdd the foundation for defense of democracies it's a dc based organization that focuses on national security and foreign policy what has been your approach to solving some of these problems of the world so okay i love the vision that scat painted and i agree with some of the libertarian instincts that he has but my view is that america is the indispensable power um scat mentioned earlier in the conversation about the rules based order that is so important on the npt and all these rules based agreements that are important to maintain well the rule rules based order has been maintained by the united states since world right there is no american prosperity to the degree that we have there's no recovery of europe there's no recovery of aja after the devastation of world were two without american power and the rules based order that america has led and backstopped and i think america first is about american power and deterrence i think if you want to avoid war i think you cannot just believe in some fantasy where all the world's leaders are going to get together in some place and are just going to agree to disarm all their nuclear weapons and we'll disarm our entire military and we'll have one submarine off our coast and some of all of that is going to lead to peace i mean i think what is led to peace in the past has been the american for deterrence of our military and i believe that our enemies think we will credibly use it i think if they believe will credibly use it then it's less likely they will challenge us and if they less likely to challenge us and challenge our allies it's less likely to be war so for me deterrence leads to peace and any kind of unilateral disarmament any kind of i think sort of fancivil notion that somehow their our enemies are going to respect the non -aggression principle that is the core fundamental underpinnings of libertarianism which i think in in a personal relationship i think is very important but remember these are aggressors they don't respect the non -aggression principle i think we can spend a lot of time we did over how many hours now has it been talking about the fact that in scots view of the world it's america that provokes it's america that provokes and then if not america provoking it's israel provoking and oh by the way america provokes because we're being seduced or paid or brow beaten by those those Israelis and you know those Jews in america i mean i think that whole notion that somehow we are we are the provocative force in global politics i think is is wrong i think the fact of the matter is we make mistakes we are an imperfect nation we have made some serious sometimes catastrophic mistakes but the there is a bad world out there there are evil men who want to do us harm and we have to prevent away prevent them from doing us harm and to do that we need an american military that is serious and well supported we don't need a military industrial complex that ultimately is going to pull us into wars we need thoughtful leaders like president trump who will resist that and we'll say at the end of the day i will use force when it is selective narrow overwhelming and deadly and that was trump's operation just a few days ago he went after three key facilities that were being used to develop the capability for nuclear weapons nuclear weapons are the greatest danger to humanity i totally agree with scott like i think a world without nuclear weapons the kind of world that that Reagan envisioned and others have envisioned since is really the only way we can eliminate the most devastating weapons that can end humankind but we have to make sure that those weapons don't end up in the hands of regimes that seek to do us harm and that have have done us harm over over many many decades so yeah i mean deterrence piece through strength rules based order the foundation for defense of democracies is not the foundation for promotion of democracy we don't believe in this important concept that we have to promote democracy around the world i'll speak for myself because we have many people at my think tank 105 people we have different views i don't personally believe that it is the role the united states to bring democracy to the middle east or democracy around the world i think to the extent we tried we failed i'm not sure the middle east is ready for democracy now or on is interesting because it's not an Arab country right it is it is a different country altogether culturally it's a very sophisticated country it has a long history it actually has a history where it has had democracy in the past it is a country that i think could incredible potential under the right leadership and under the right circumstances i don't know if the right circumstances are a constitutional monarchy with reza palavi as the as the crown prince or the Shah i don't know whether it's a secular democracy or not let let let iranians make that decision if i been pronouncing it wrong this whole time reza palavi you know the guy got met him yeah yeah palavi palavi what were you saying i thought it was palavi oh wow yeah no it's okay it's okay yet you know the only thing you've ever gotten wrong in pronouncing a problem no wrong that's not that pronouncing so many things correctly i think people will give you back can i ask you though like i mean all this militarization is led to a state of permanent war we've been bombing a rack for 34 years we launched we put a war against the Taliban who didn't attack us instead of al -Qaeda who did fought for 20 years in the Taliban won anyway we overthrew a launching aggressive war against the dom who's saying put the it's all his best friends in power we did launching aggressive war against libyal in this ridiculous hoax that qadafi was about to murder every last man woman and child in Benghazi imagine charlotte north carolina being wiped off the mat barakobama lied in order to start that war and completely destroyed libya it's now three pieces in a state of semi -permanent civil war including and this wasn't just back then this is to this day the re -legalization a re -institutionalization of chattel slavery of sub -saharan black Africans in libya to this day as a result the art intervention this was not a direct overt war but america israel soudie cutter and turkey all back the bin lawd knights in syria completely destroyed syria to the point where the caliphate grew up and then we had launched a rack worth three to destroy the caliphate again and so i'm i'm not seeing the peace through strength i'm saying permanent militarism and permanent war through strength point well made he's speaking to the the double edged sword of a strong military that what you mentioned that trump did seems like a very difficult thing to do which is keep it hit hard and keep it short we don't know how this ended yet but even the beginning part is not trivial to do like just hitting one mission and vocalizing except for one post no regime change like really pushing peace make a deal cease fire like that's that's an uncommon way to operate so i guess you said that we should resist the military industrial complex that's not easy to do that that that that's the double edged sword of a strong military let me say again i promised i'll stop can i almost have one thing and then i'll stop you made me point then i just i just want to add it's a really important point okay is grassroots effort there is no who the lobby in america okay it was grassroots efforts by libertarians quakers and leftists to get war powers resolutions introduced in trump's first term to stop the war in Yemen which was launched not for israel for Saudi Arabia and u a e by Barack Obama in 2015 that's not a first afghan war won about israel either okay but this Yemen war was i thought 9 -11 was about israel well it was in great part but the afgh the decision to sack Kabul and do a regime change and all that had nothing to do with the liqueur whatsoever other than well we got to keep the war going long enough to go to Baghdad okay so was Israel fault i was in the middle of saying about the war in Yemen that we got the war powers resolution through twice and trump vetoed it twice and his man pitnevaro explained to the new york times that this was just welfare for american industry a lot of industrialists were angry about the tariffs disrupting trade with china and somehow they substituted rathion for all american industry somehow and said industry will be happy if we funnel a lot of money to rathion that's pitnevaro talking to the new york times about why they continued the war in Yemen throughout trumps entire first term he had no interest in it all the whole thing was it was obama's fall the whole thing was essentially on autopilot and what was he doing is flying us al -Qaeda's air force against the houthis who originally if you go back to january of 2015 america was passing intelligence to the houthis to use to kill al -Qaeda you know a q a p the guys that tried to blow up the plane over Detroit with the underpants bomb on christmas day two thousand nine that did all those horrific masqueras in europe real aspen law night terrors the houthis were our allies against them before barak obama stabbed them in the back and why did trump keep that going when he inherited that horrific war from barak obama why do you do it according to his trade guy so that they could keep funneling american taxed and inflated dollars into the pocketbooks of stockholders of rathion incorporated right military industrial complex the point was made yeah maybe i could respond to that because i mean again it's always america's fault this is the corner scott you know i know but it's downy and ua asked barak obama for permission to start that war and for american help in processing it and he said yes and in help i'm gonna segue into an answer because i i think it deserves an answer a military industrial complex is a serious concern um because i think you're right it there you know the bigger and gets and the more weapons you have you think the more the greater the temptation to use it right i think that's sort of the the argument and then there's also self enrichment and how much money can be made and and all of that i think is of serious concern to people look i think trump is somebody who it's hard press to say that donald trump um is a great advocate of the military industrial complex or that he is he is in their pocket the same way that he's in the pocket of these railies and in the pocket of the Saudis and in the pocket of everybody i mean i think the one thing with trump is that trump has he has learned the lessons of american engagement over the past few decades and i think scott's done a good job of kind of laying out the mistakes have been made even though you know we can discuss about causal connections and who's responsible and you know i i lean on and we i want to well scott can i finish because you know your your causal connection is always it's america aggressing israel aggressing and all these poor people responding to us um but nonetheless i think trump has he's learned the lessons but he hasn't over learnt the lessons he he's not paralyzed by a rack or afghanistan or the mistakes made by his predecessors he understands at the end of the day we need serious american power we need lethal power we need four deterrence and he's been very careful and very selective about how he uses american power i mean we've talked about it throughout this call conversation trump used american power to kill cosmosolomani the one of the world's most dangerous terrorists he killed bugdadi the head of isis one of the world's most dangerous terrorists he he refrained from going after the iranian take down of our drone he refrained from when the iranians fired on saudi aramco and took off 20 % of our oil right he's been very very selective about the use of american power he did go after the houthis who are aron backed and we're using iranian missiles to go after our ship that's not true those are north korean missiles completely debunked by jane's defense partly nice try yeah nice try um anyway everybody knows that the iranians have been financing the houthis his ball has been training the houthis and iran has given capabilities to the houthis to develop their own indigenous missile capability the fact of matter is he he did in a way go after the houthis much more intensively than Biden did in order to prevent them from continuing to shut down red shee shipping on which both america and our allies depend as a trade route he actually did quite successfully because after a few days of pretty intensive bombing the houthis got the message and they cut a deal with Donald Trump they're not going to interfere with our ship anymore he got to deal with them they kept bomb in israel which is what got him involved in the first place he completely backed out sounds something like they won and he backed down well it sounds it sounds like he in terms of promoting american national security interests sounds like he did he did a pretty good job of sending a message to the houthis and the iranians don't worry best with the united states and that gets us to the contemporary reality he took a decision one day on one day to send our beetles and our subs in order to to severe damage to three nuclear facilities it was a one day campaign it was selective it was narrow it was overwhelming and i think it sends a message to hamine i think it sends a message to regimes around the world anti -american regimes around the world that Donald Trump has not overlearned the lessons of the past 20 years all right but that in fact he is not going to dismantle the u .s military and dismantle our nuclear program and fly around to all these cities and call peace conferences and hope that these dictators will just sit down with america and say you know what all is forgiven united states of america it's all your fault you did this all we we admit our responsibility and then we have we have peace and paradise on earth i think Trump is much more pragmatic and some respect cynical when he looks at the world and he realizes the world is a dangerous place i have to be very careful about how i use american military forces i am not going to send hundreds of thousands of people around the world by the way i mean you talk about israel i mean the israelis are one of the best allies we could possibly have they fight and they die in their own defense they fought multiple wars against american enemies they haven't asked for american troops on the ground there no boots on the ground in israel defending israel the best we've given them is we've given them a fad system to help them shoot down ballistic missiles that are aimed at aimed at them and our american pilots have been in the air recently with our israeli friends shooting down ballistic missiles but the israelis have had and a warrior ethos we will fight and we will die in our own defense i would just say if you're going to actually build out a model where you're going to minimize the risk to american troops let's find more allies like that right i worry about i'm like god i really worried about china tywan i really really worry about that because the tywanese are not capable of defending themselves without us assistance and the mayor and we may have to send american men and women to go to defend tywan and we can have a whole debate about the wisdom of that but again it would be very very helpful to have more israel in the world more countries that are capable of fighting against common enemies and against common threats without having to always put american boots on the ground in order to do that so you made a case for if it's okay if you you made a case for strength here just practically speaking why do you think trump has talked about peace a lot why do you think he hasn't been able to get to a ceasefire with ukraine and russia for example if you just move away from ron without getting to the history of the whole thing like why he's been talking peace peace peace peace peace he's been pushing it and pushing it what can we learn about that so far failure that's also instructive for ron look i'm not a russia expert i'm a ukraine expert i'm sending a front of two uh people who know a lot more about that conflict than i do i i you are we should say banned by poot i am i have been sanctioned by russia and by ron um i sanctioned yes yes banned sanctioned uh graduations thank you thank you well it's it causes some difficulties but anyway um i think the answer to that is that for putin he needs to understand that like chamanay he has two options here right option one which president trump has signaled over and over and over again is come sit down and negotiate a ceasefire with the Ukrainians okay i don't want to get into the details on the back and forth about who's responsible for the fact there's no ceasefire putin or zalanski i mean that's a whole other debate and i'm sure you guys have a lot of opinions on that um but path one is sit down and let's negotiate a ceasefire path two is united states will use american power in order to build our leverage so that Vladimir putin understands that he has to do a ceasefire now i'm not suggesting us troops absolutely not right what i am suggesting is there's a package right now of sanctions that have eighty eight co -sponsors in the senate across party lines and i think trump is using that and we'll use that as a sort of sort of damically hanging over putin in the russian economy to say look if Vladimir we either do a ceasefire or i'm gonna have no choice but to have to start imposing much more punishing sanctions on you and on the russian economy so i think there's an economic option i think there's a military option and i think the biggest mistake Biden made in this whole war and there's many mistakes uh in terms of signaling not having us credibility you know afghan debacle which signal to putin that he can invade without any kind of american response is he kind of went in and he tied ukrain's uh hands behind their back i mean he actually tied one hand behind their back while they were fighting with the other hand and he refused to give him the kinds of systems that early on in the war would have allowed the ukrainian military to be able to hit russian forces that were mobilizing on the russian ukrainian border and i think if you had done that i think this war would have ended sooner there'd be far less casualties and i think putin would then understand maybe i need to strike a deal i'm not a russia expert or ukrain expert i don't know what the deal looks like you keep the donbass to keep Crimea you keep you know larger chunks of eastern urcraine that's for smarter people in me on this issue to decide what the deal looks like but there's no doubt today putin things that he can just keep fighting keep killing your craniums keep driving forward eventually he's gonna wear down the ukrainians through a sheer war of attrition he'll throw hundreds of thousands of russians at this he doesn't care how many russians are gonna die that's the way that russians then the Soviets have fought wars for many many years just endless number of russian bodies being thrown into the meek rider and he thinks he can continue without any consequences and i worry that as a result of the fact that we are not showing putin then we've got leverage it's made more more likely it's made a war more brutal and it's gonna make a war more proactive but increasing military aid to your crane in the case that you described also has to be coupled with extreme pressure to make peace correct extreme pressure to make peace which trump hopefully is appears to be doing now in Iran i think trump is early i mean it's interesting you said that because he's early indicators again who knows where the ceasefire goes but i think it was important he he slapped chaminay but he also said to be be enough enough and it's like okay now we're going back to alman there's gonna be a temporary ceasefire now let's negotiate and i think that's important and i think it shows that Donald trump is leading not following it shows that Donald trump is his own man not on the payroll of the russians or the Iranians or the Israelis or all these other crazy accusations that have been made about this guy for many many years and he's gonna give you know as they say peace of chance and he's gonna give give a ceasefire chance he's gonna give negotiations a chance but i'll think he's sending the message to the Iranians and he needs to send it to putin is if you don't take me up on my offer all right i've already demonstrated that i am serious and i will use american power carefully and selectively in the way that i've done in the past at the risk of doing the thing i shouldn't do but just to test the ideas of libertarianism and the things we've been talking about can we for brief time unrelated to everything we've been talking about talk about world war two what was the right thing to do in 1938 1939 like what would you do okay to be clear world war two has nothing to do with current events in fact many of the horrible policies of the united states in my opinion have to have to do with projecting world war two onto every single conflict in the world okay i agree but overlearning overlearning but it isn't interesting extreme case just to clarify i'm just like philosophically talking about yeah at which point do you hit do you do military intervention that's a nice case maybe i've a better case study but that's such an extreme one yeah that it's interesting i was talking about germany of japan because germany said yeah so so Japan attacked us and germany declared war on us tough for them and that's what happens when you declare war on the united states to get hit but that was idiotic on the part of Hitler to declare war in the United States you know i never understood why he ever did that they always said it was just because he was crazy but what it was is he was trying to get the Japanese to invade the Soviet Union from the east and in order to divide Stalin's forces which failed and it didn't work and it was a huge blunder from his point of you i guess philosophically from an interventionism perspective you're saying united states should have stayed out from that war as long as possible until they're attacked yes i mean and look at how powerful they ended up being in the amount of damage that they were able to inflict on the Soviets better than than us what do you think look i see useful discussion that's interesting i mean i think it's interesting philosophically you know libertarianism or isolationism in practice i mean i think the thirties are more interesting to me than what happened between 39 and 45 i think the debate in america was very interesting in the thirties where there was really a strong isolationist movement you know with Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford and father Cochland and many jokingity yeah jokingity i mean they define themselves as sort of america firsters but it was very much an isolationist strain and i think you know we can talk about that history and Cochland was a new dealer not a right -winger anyway very much an isolationist talking about america having to stay out these entangling alliances this is not our war emotionally understandable right because you can you can also overlearn the lessons or world war one right and i think they overlearned the lessons or world war one i mean which was a brutal war and a devastating war mostly for europe but obviously for the united states we we lost thousands of american men and so the thirties was this big debate between the those who saw the gathering storm of what was happening with nasi germany and those who wanted to keep america out and i think in some respects it's like today with a contemporary reality with chaminé is that because these isolationist voices were so prominent and so vocal and in some cases quite persuasive to american leaders Hitler calculated that the united states would not enter the war and so he could do what scott says he could focus on the eastern front he could gather his forces and then he could do a kill shot on the western democracies in western europe and the united states would not intervene i mean you write that the big mistake he makes is declaring war in the united states after pull harbour but he believes all through the thirties and before poor harbour that the isolationist voices are keeping fdr from entering the war even while Churchill and the brits and the france and others are imploring the americans not only to just to provide provide them with material support with weapons so that they could hold hold on to the island and defend themselves and i think Hitler miscalculates in the same way i think chaminé miscalculates chaminé heard the debate over the past number of years he believed that the sort of isolationist wing of the republican party i represented i think in you know by tucker crawlsson and others who have been very anti -intervention with respect to aron i think he believed that that was the dominant voice within trams mage a coalition and that as a result the united states would not use military force so in the same way that Hitler miscalculated the influence of the isolationists on fdr chaminé misjudged the influence of the isolationists on trump and both ended up miscalculating to to their great regret so to me that's the sort of parallel between kind of world war two in the thirties in the prelude to world war two and what we're seeing in the in the current reality of the past few weeks to make clear you mentioned there's a parallel but mostly there's no parallel it's a fundamentally different absolutely there will never be a war like that and i have a real problem too because i always say everybody's Hitler all enemies are Hitler and to compromise with them at all is to appease Hitler and you can never do that i great and they do that to manwell noriega to david koresh to sedom who's saying to whoever they feel like demonizing and saying it was unique too crazy to negotiate with when let's get real and i think we're agreed about this probably that right in two thousand two double bush could have just sent colin pal the four star general former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff secretary state to read the riot act to sedom who's saying and tell him look man you help keep alkaida down and will let you live and everything would have been fine and and in fact just like sedom who's saying and there's a great article by james rison don't agree hang on hang on there's there's an article by james there's an article by james rison in the new york times and there's another one by c more harsh as well about how sedom who's saying offered to give in on everything he said you want to search for weapons of mass destruction you can send your army and FBI everywhere you want you want to switch sides in the israel palestine conflict will stop backing hamas you want us to hold elections will hold us will hold elections just give us a couple years if this is about the oil will sign over mineral rights this is james rison new york times they sent an emissary to meet with richard pearl in london that was who was the chair of the defense policy board and was a major ringleader of getting us into a rock war too and then they i don't know why this is a real mistake you want to talk about his arms mistakes why is he always sent his guys to meet with richard pearl because the there was a Saudi businessman pardon me eleven east business man i think that they tried to get to intervene as well who again offered virtually total capitulation and pearl told him tells sedom will see you in bag dad after he was attempting to essentially unconditionally surrender the same thing happened with Iran in two thousand three right after america invaded they issue what was called the golden offer which the bush administration buried and they castigated the swiss ambassador who had delivered but in the golden offer and you can find the pdf file of it online they talk about we're happy to negotiate with you our entire nuclear program which didn't even really exist yet but nuclearization we're to willing to negotiate with you about afghanistan and iraq because again they hate sedom who say and want to rid of him too so perfectly happy to work with us on afghanistan and iraq and they had captured a bunch of bin londonites and they were willing to trade them for the mck and that included one of bin london's sons and another guy named a tef both of whom the iranians held under house arrest for years and it was only in the i think late and they're living refuge al -Qaeda and the cia said this is a key facilitation pipeline between aron and al -Qaeda quote i'm going to negotiate the situation pipeline between these dangerous bin londonites in the mck and america refused to negotiate that and it was years later when the bin londonites abducted some iranian diplomats in pakistan that they then traded them away to get their diplomats back and a tef i think bin london's son ended up being killed not long after that hamza and a tef too but both of those dangerous terraces were released and were involved in terrorism between then them then and the time that they were later killed i think within a couple of years of that so the hawks always like to say oh yeah aron gives such aid and comfort to al -Qaeda and all that there's a great document at the counter -terrorism center at west point where they debunk all of that yeah there's a nine eleven report by the nine eleven commission there's a nine eleven commission report people can google it which talks about the cooperation between aron and al -Qaeda only in bosnia when they were doing a favor for bill clinton beyond that and cia released um thousands of pages of classified material that they declassified showing the relationship between aron and akhida the u .s.

3:50:52treasured apartment under obama and under trump actually designated a number of aronian individuals for facilitating al -Qaeda so anyway i mean these these are important facts but i actually you mentioned bagdaddy and solamani in the same breath a minute ago when they're deadly enemies and it was solamani's Shiite forces in a rock were three that helped the story of al -Qaeda is my friend with american flying air power for the the greatest era that we've made in the middle east is this notion not the greatest but one of the greatest is the sort of conceptual era that somehow sunnis and shiais don't work together and aron doesn't work without al -Qaeda i'm not saying you say that but but many people think that and of course they do work they hate each other but of course they work together because they hate us more but can i just say something like because i actually think just stepping back from like all of this detail the more we start to zoom out now the better yeah i'd like to zoom out a little bit i look i think the lessons for me um over 20 years i'm working on these issues is one must learn about the mistakes that we've made in a rack and in if gana stan in libya okay one must learn about the mistakes that we made in vietnam mistakes that we made in world war two so we can make them all over again in this time can i finish or go ahead are you good yeah i'm ready all right so i think that what what president trump is trying to do is learn but not over learn i think he understands the mistakes that have been made i think he's trying to rectify those mistakes and also understands that american power is important it is been a it is a force for good in the world even though we have made major mistakes i think there's a great danger amongst certain people to believe that no power should ever be exercised that all american power is a bad thing and a destructive thing and sometimes to confuse major tactical decisions all right that have been made whether it's been made by the brits in world were two or the americans or us or whoever it is in whatever war with the fact that there is a strategic reality that we always have to be conscious about and that we have enemies right this is not the garden of Eden yet i hope the libertarians create one i want to go live there when they do and scot and i will be neighbors believe it or not living living in that garden of Eden together but there are major threats in this world and we need to find the right balance between the overuse of military power and the underuse of military power if we want to avoid wars we have to serious deterrence because our enemies need to understand we will use selective and narrowly focused overwhelming military power when we are facing threats like an Iranian nuclear weapon that is a serious threat it's a serious threat to us it's a serious threat to to the region it's a serious threat with respect to proliferation around the world and i think with that respect i think president trump's decision to drop bombs on three key nuclear facilities was a selective targeted military action that i hope will drive the Iranians back to the negotiating table where they can negotiate finally the dismantlement of their nuclear weapons program i think there's a danger weapons program again again we've had a four -hour debate on this i'm sure if you want to rewind you can listen to all our arguments once again but the fact of the matter is is that the our unwillingness to use power if we're never going to use power all that's going to do is send a signal to our enemies that they can do whatever they want they can violate whatever agreements they want they can they can use aggression against anyone they want and i think that makes that puts american lives in danger and we've seen the results of that where we we delayed and delayed and delayed and we didn't move and we didn't move too early and we preempt and the and the threat grew and we ignored the gathering storm and so i think the lessons of you know a hundred years of american military involvement is if you have an opportunity early on as the storm is gathering to use all instruments of american power with the military one being the last one you use then deter when you can and strike when you must in order to prevent the kinds of escalation and wars that everybody at this table and i'm sure everybody listening in your audience is seeking to avoid on that topic the question from both you Scott if human civilization destroys itself in the next 75 years it probably most likely will be a world war three type of scenario maybe a nuclear war how do we avoid that we've been talking about Iran but there'll be new conflicts as you crane china cashmere cashmere um north korea no don't forget north korea yeah i mean there was a time when north korea was the biggest threat to human civilization according to we could have had a deal at sub jambolton ruin it so that's the bigger question not so much in the specifics oh i mean the second time he ruined the Clinton deal of 94 then he ruined the trump deal of 2018 or maybe maybe the korean dictator north korean dictator winded but again what one doesn't want to blame our enemies for their mistakes you know that at the second meeting trump sent john bolton to outer mongolia so that he couldn't sit at the table in ruin the deal but but what happened then the democrats had his lawyer testify against him while he was at the meeting and they had this huge propaganda campaign that kim jong un is going to walk all over trump it takes such advantage of him and they made it virtually impossible for him to walk away claiming a victory god do you ever blame the enemy ever do you ever blame the enemy north korea is not my enemy north korea is not your enemy no really they they they they build nuclear weapons i cbms the target America George bush and john bolton's fault already said well wherever fault it is the fact of the matter is do you ever ever blame an american adversary or is it always powerful in fact what happened is always our fault see all you can do is characterize but you want to talk about the details the details are that steven began who worked for uh for donald trump gave a speech and said you know what we can put normalization first and denuclearization later i know i'm very well then they brought donald they donald trump brought john bolton to the meeting and he prevented that from being the uh from being the uh the message of the meeting so it's always ruin the deal always because it's all yes yes that's right all john bolts fault because how reasonable the lobby is the sound ulex give up all your nuclear weapons first then we'll talk about every other issue is that sound like a poison pill or that sounds like a reasonable negotiation or give me a break sounds like a beginning of a negotiation but yeah well they got nowhere well because trump brought john bolton with him and help to ruin it and maybe they went nowhere because the north korean dictator at the end of the day is a dictator who wants to threaten the united states with i cbms and nuclear listen you're you're criticizing the sequential decisions made in negotiation i am asking you a serious question of hours of talking okay which i must say i've really enjoyed i've learned a lot i enjoyed it i think there's been areas of agreement obviously real disagreement but i the here's the question you're like really i mean do you ever ever hold our adversaries responsible or do you just don't think we have any adversaries this is ridiculous the the topic has been how many from from your point of view it's all the adversaries and all american israel trying to do is survive and fix the situation the best they can't have acknowledged american israel mistakes by bringing up all the things that america and israel have done to make matters worse i didn't ever say that i told us some great guy or that kim jong on is some hero or like any kind of think there a spin for their side are they a threat to america no of course not as the big new brazinski said in 1993 we could have perfectly normalized relations then you talk about Iranian support for al -Qaeda Iran supported al -Qaeda in Bosnia that's the bottom line in 1995 as a favor to bill clinton because they were trying to suck up to the united states is why they supported up your position your position yes your position is whatever you say it is not what i say no no i'm just talking i'm just summarized you know your last person told me i need to be where about overlearning the lessons of a rock it was Charlie savage from the new york times when on the subject was his absolute ridiculous hoax that russia was paying the taliban to murder american soldiers in afghanistan in twenty twenty which ruined trump's potential which he was floating troubles about withdrawing in the summer of twenty twenty which would have absolutely scott you said the joe by you and you said it and charlie savage who published these ridiculous lies scott that were later refuted by the general in charge of the afghan war the head of st.

3:59:29com the chairman of the joint she's like the director of the college details possible he told me you know what your problem is horton is you have overlearned the lessons of a rock war two but it turned out those lessons were perfectly apt for charlie savages hoax it wasn't true which charlie savage said you know what he resorted to he said well it's true that there was a rumor i was reporting on scott you made a very clear america has no adversaries that's called learning the lessons of iran overlearning all right so i guess the the answer to the question i asked about what the world war three three is the two of you becoming friends that's my my goal if we can try to find the light at the end of the tunnel one one last question what gives you hope to the degree of hope about the future what gives you hope about this great country Lars and humanity too yeah i mean look there are a million wonderful things about this country the land the people our culture and our resources and everything and the kind of society that we could build in and not with a controlled system but with just a pure free market capitalist system in this country where people are allowed to own their property in prove its value and exchange it on the market and build this country up we would be living in comparatively a paradise compared to what we have now and if you look at the opportunity costs just since the end of the cold war on on all that has been wasted on militarism in the middle east especially but also in eastern europe and in east asia all of that well put here could have gone much more to something like perfecting our society it's always an unfinished project so that then we really have something to point to the rest of the world and say this is how you're supposed to do it not like that i think it's crucial that for all of the problems that samalia syria libya iraq afghanistan have the worst thing about those countries is america's wars there it's what we have done to them as the worst thing about those places so we're not in much of a position to criticize you know whatever horrible and political practices you know cultural and and things about their societies that we would like to criticize when the worst chaos that's happened to them has been inflicted by our country against them virtually all in in worse of choice that were unnecessary from the get go well gives you what gives me hope i think first of all i have a lot of hope and confidence in the wisdom the american people um i think americans understand the end of the day that they need leaders who are about making america great again i think they elected donald trump who is flawed in many many ways but i think trump is wrestling with some of the questions that we have been wrestling with for the past five hours um i think that um we i think most americans know that we have adversaries uh and you know it's just overwhelming numbers of americans understand that they may disagree on exactly who is an adversary and how you rank them but they know we have adversaries i think the third thing is americans greatly admire the men and women in uniform i mean i think the institution with the greatest popularity in america still remains the u .s military well many of other institutions are are failing the american people and are reflected in the in the polling i think we've got to be very judicious about how we use this incredibly powerful military um and because most importantly it comes down to it's not about weapons and technology about the people it's about the men and women who it's sacrificed their lives um to serve our country but then of the day if we understand we have adversaries we're careful about we how we use our military we understand the importance of for deterrence in order to actually confront threats before they become so severe that we end up plunging ourselves in a war i agree totally with scat in terms of how we use our money and how judiciously we miss we have to guard it i agree with how we've we've run out these massive debts and we have to be actually if we're serious and conservatives are really serious they need to stock they need to tackle these massive budgets deficits um and and you know it would be really easy if it was just all about the military and we can just kind of get rid of the Pentagon and all of a sudden we'd be running balanced budgets it's not the case we have much deeper structural economics economic economic problems in this country and everybody knows that and so we got huge challenges as a country but i really believe as i believe since i was a little kid that america is the greatest force for good in the world and that we do we make mistakes sometimes tragic mistakes we make huge miscalculations and i think we will be much more clear in how to rectify those mistakes if we stop obsessing with these bogeymen that are out there the Israelis the Jews the Iranians well and we start focusing on our adversaries which are not the iranians because they 80 80 % of iranians despise this regime and and you know like i feel really bad the weight in five hours we actually haven't even talked about that in any detail many of my friends are iranian they're beautiful people and it's one of the great cultures on earth yeah and you know the only place they don't succeed in the world is inside the islamic republic and they come to america and canada and europe they're incredibly successful people and 80 % of iranians despise this regime and they long for a free and prosperous Iran and so it's a big question that they're ever going to get there and who knows the right way to get them there but at the end of the day i am convinced that the vast majority of iranians are our friends but there is a regime that has been trying to build nuclear weapons has been engaged in terrorism for decades has killed in main thousands of americans and our allies and it's a regime that has to be stopped and i think Donald Trump in the past couple of weeks i would argue in the past number of months has tried to try to play a strategy try to figure out a way to offer the iranians negotiations and a peaceful solution to this but use overwhelming military power recently against iran's nuclear sites in a very targeted way in order to send a message to the islamic republic of iran that they cannot continue to build nuclear weapons and threaten america and so i hope that things will work out well on this i i always said curb your enthusiasm because we have still a lot of of pieces that still need to fall into place and this is going to be a windy road as we try to figure this out i'm hoping for the best preparing for the worst and want to thank you very much for having me on the show scott was a real pleasure to meet you i enjoyed the debate very lively i admire your dedication to the issue and you're in your tension of detail and i think all of that speaks well of of you and your commitment and your passion for this i am thank you deeply grateful that you guys will come here uh this is really mind blowing also that you have it's silly maybe to say but the courage to sit down and talk through this through the tension i've learned a lot i think a lot of people are going to learn a lot a fan of both of your work and um it means a lot that you come here today and talk to a silicate like me so scott thank you so much brother thank you mark thanks likes appreciate it bam thanks scott thanks for listening to this debate between scott horden and mark juboots to support this podcast we check out our sponsors in the description and consider subscribing to this channel and now let me leave you with some sobering words on the cost of war from Dwight D izenhower for some context izenhower was the 34th president of the united states but before that during world war two he was the supreme commander of the allied expeditionary force orchestrating some of the most significant military operations at the war would leadership marked by strategic and tactical brilliance it is in this context that the following words carry even more power and wisdom spoken in 1953 every gun that is made every warship launched every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed those who are cold and are not clothed this world in arms is not spending money alone it is spending the sweat of its laborers the genius of a scientist the hopes of its children the cost of one modern heavy bombers this a modern brick school in more than 30 cities it is two electric power plants each serving a town of 60 ,000 population it is two fully equipped hospitals it is on 50 miles of concrete highway we pay for a single fighter playing with a half million bushels of wheat we pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8 ,000 people this is not a way of life at all in any true sense under the cloud of threatening war that is humanity hanging from a cost of iron and now allow me to add some additional brief excerpts in 1946 Eisenhower said I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can only as one who has seen its brutality its futility its stupidity in 1950 Eisenhower said possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they aduse but in my opinion there's no such things a preventative war although the suggestions repeatedly made none has yet explained how war prevents war worse than this no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that begot war and finally an excerpt from Eisenhower's farewell address in 1961 on the military industrial complex a vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment our arms must be mighty ready for instant action so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction American makers of plough shares could with time and as required make swords as well but now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications in the councils of government we must guard against an acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist thank you for listening and hope to see you next time