"Clearly A War For ISRAEL!" Iran Crisis Sparks ERUPTION On Piers Morgan Panel

21:26John Bolton:Maybe they can locate where the Ayatollah is and take him out. And maybe that does, unlike the situation in Venezuela, actually take out the regime. But there's every reason in the world to think that that would be the worst thing for the Iranian people. You look at examples like Libya or Syria, where we were able to orchestrate regime changes without massive numbers of troops on the ground. And it's a disaster for the people. Libya is a failed state to this day. And that is what Benjamin Netanyahu is quite happy to make Iran, because they see that as advantageous to them. And so, yeah, that's all a big part of this and why any sane American would want to support this policy.

22:04John Bolton:It makes no sense. As Cenk said, no one wants this war. None of the other states in the region want it. Europe doesn't want it. Your own country, Pierce, has been given pushback to the U.S. over the last 48 hours about it. the American people don't want it. The only people who want this war are Israel and the Israel lobby, essentially. That's not true.

22:22Piers Morgan:Elica, I can see you frowning there, Elica. What's your response to Dave Smith?

22:27John Bolton:First of all, you know, the idea that Israel wants this war and therefore that negates everything else in the universe just proves that this anti-Zionist ideology makes Israel the sun around which they orbit. And when they orbit Israel like the sun, nothing else exists to them anymore. It is perfectly possible for multiple people to align in a shared goal. Of course, Israel wants this war. Why would Israel not want to take out a regime that has been terrorizing them through their proxies, not just for the past two years, but for the past decades? Of course, it is in Israel's interest, as it should be, because why wouldn't you want a terrorist state that has an eschatological vision of eliminating you for justice to arrive on earth to be eliminated.

23:12John Bolton:Okay. Yes. We all understand it is Israel's goal and good for them that it's their goal. Okay. Second of all, the Iranian people also have their own sovereignty, their own national interests in mind, and those are aligned goals. Now it isn't just the Iranian people. It isn't just the Israeli people. If you do not eliminate the Islamic regime, you end up in a forever war that ultimately implicates the U S. And so if you don't want war, you take out this regime. You said you could do diplomacy with the regime all of these years. You tried to do the JCPOA. You tried to do this Obama-style diplomacy.

23:47John Bolton:And then what happened down the line? Their proxies just kept getting stronger. They continued to do their attacks all over the Middle East. They did October 7th. And what happened when October 7th happened was that Israel had to go to war with Hamas. And guess what? The U.S. had to be implicated to defend its ally. So if you don't want a forever war, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever, you have to eliminate the source of the forever war. You have to eliminate the people who make more inevitable. Israel has only ever responded to the acts of the regime and the Nazis. And to go even further, it was actually very popular at the time to say no to war with Germany, to say no to war with the Nazis.

24:31John Bolton:But guess what? All of those deaths that ensued, those were deaths that were made inevitable by the Nazis because they were relentless. You had the peace for our time, the Munich Agreement, where everyone was like, finally, we're going to have peace. Then they invaded Poland. And you can see these people who are ideological extremists will always inevitably pull the entire world into war. So if you are anti-war, fantastic. Let's eliminate this regime so there's no more wars and no more threats to the United States and the rest of the world.

25:00Piers Morgan:OK, let me just take a short break from the panel. I'll come back to you in a moment. I want to just move now because Dave Smith referenced the infamous list which held that Iran was always the aim in the Middle East. And we're now joined by the former NATO commander, General Wesley Clark. General Clark, great to have you back on Uncensored. Thank you. Tax Act is here anytime you want to easily file your taxes. Tax Act is here for the early birds who like to knock them out as soon as the season opens. And for the procrastinators who like to wait until the very last minute. Tax Act is also here for the middlers who file right in the middle of tax season.

25:39Piers Morgan:No one ever talks about the middlers, but Tax Act sees you and Tax Act respects you. Tax Act, let's get them over with. There was, of course, this famous Pentagon memo, which you saw shortly after 9-11. You said it described a plan to take out seven countries in five years, beginning with Iraq, ending with Iran. The other countries were Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan. You know, some will look at this and say, well, this is the fruition of the plan and Iran is the last one standing. Lebanon, of course, a bit more complicated, but the others have all gone through regime change. What would you say to people that think that?

26:26Piers Morgan:Well, I'd say that it's that was over 20 years ago that that memo was written. And the U.S. government doesn't really have plans that extend that far. So it wasn't really a plan. That was a concept that came out of the neocons. And maybe it was a plan that they thought they could eliminate all those regimes that might be hostile to the United States in the region. But it never really resolved itself into a plan, per se. It just happens. And when you are a country like the United States and you find opponents around the world, and particularly Iran calling us the great Satan and so forth, you know, Iran's been on the warpath against the United States from the very beginning.

27:15Piers Morgan:They targeted the Marine barracks in Lebanon, killed 283 people. with a truck-mounted bomb. It was a terrible tragedy. They went after the French embassy. We actually, in the United States, we held back the Shah in Iran. We sent a four-star general to Iran in 1978 to tell the Iranian generals, don't interfere with the emergence of real democracy in Iran. And so they blocked the Iranian military that was loyal to the Shah from keeping the Shah in power. We actually helped Khomeini get to power. Now, we didn't intend that. We thought a man named Shapur Bakhtiar was going to take the reins, but he was quickly overthrown by the fundamentalists like Khomeini.

28:10Piers Morgan:But the point is that the United States didn't begin this fight with Iran. Iran decided, Khomeini decided, to purify his regime, to have a moral purpose in life. And for the Iranian people, he wanted to go after enemies. And so he picked two enemies, Israel and the United States. So the fact that after 40-some-odd years, we're turning now to Iran and people are talking about regime change, yeah, it's sort of a natural course of events. General Clark, from a purely military perspective, the sheer size and scale of the American military build-up here around Iran is reminiscent of 2003 and the build-up before they went into Iraq.

28:59Piers Morgan:Is there a point where, as someone put it to me back in 2003, the American military train has left the station? In other words, it reaches the point when it has to do something. No, I don't think that's the case. These assets are deployable and they can be redeployed quite easily. Two aircraft carriers, they sail off. The aircraft squadrons redeploy. It can be done. It's not a use it or lose it kind of situation. Putting those forces there doesn't inevitably mean they'll be used, no.

29:36John Bolton:And in terms of...

29:38Piers Morgan:When people talk like that... The obvious question... Yeah, sorry. You had ground troops that were over there in 2003. You don't have any ground troops there. So you can sail off, fly off, no problem. And in terms of what an American attack might look like, it may even be by the time this post, America's done something. What is the most likely form of attack? It presumably won't be anything like we saw in Venezuela with a very quick surgical strike which removed Maduro and got him out. And presumably it won't be like the strikes we saw last summer on the Iranian nuclear facilities. So what would this one look like?

30:23Piers Morgan:I would suspect that it would be first. Of course, you've got to clear out the air defense radars and whatever residual air defense is there. So we have freedom of operations in the skies. And that includes going after aircraft that could be used to intercept you at air bases and so forth. But I don't think there's that much left. It seems to me that could be done very quickly. Maybe a few sorties during one night could handle most of what's there. And then you're going after the ballistic missile systems. Where they're stored, where they're produced, where the launchers are, where the underground storage is, that's a tougher problem.

31:08Piers Morgan:That might take several days, maybe weeks. And then you start on the headquarters of the IRGC. And finally, you go after the nuclear. So if you're going to do a limited strike, probably you take out any air defense radars and you start on the ballistic missiles. A night, maybe two days. But if your mission is to affect regime change, how would that come about? I don't think that's the mission at this point. I think the president is looking at a limited strike to try to get a negotiated settlement. But what the United States is asking for is something more than what we obtained in 2015 through President Obama's efforts.

31:59Piers Morgan:So we'd be looking at no nuclear enrichment or minimal nuclear activities at all. Maybe that would be a compromise. And then stop the ballistic missile program and get rid of that axis of resistance. And on these latter two points, Iran doesn't seem to be prepared to compromise. And so there may not be a compromise in this. But I think the president wants to go at this, hopefully, and get a diplomatic solution rather than pound away at Iran with air power. I spoke to Ambassador John Bolton earlier, who was saying that he believes the Iranian regime has never been weaker and therefore there's never been a better time to try and take it on.

32:46Piers Morgan:Would you agree with that? I think the regime is weaker in terms of public support, in terms of the economic structure. But actually, this regime has shown itself to be pretty well structured internally. As far as we know, we haven't really turned any major figures. There's no major disagreements within the regime. People in the regime have loyalty, plus they've been bought off. Sometimes their children are in Europe or even in the United States. They're relatively well off compared to the rest of the population. So they're living off the fat of the land, so to speak. And we haven't been able to turn them.

33:27Piers Morgan:If you're going to get regime change, you need to crack the wall of resistance of the IRGC. We need a general or two who says, you know, this is gone. This is crazy. Why would you have a government that 85, 90 million people hate, that kills tens of thousands of its own people. Why would you do that? So presumably there are responsible people somewhere in that Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps who can see past the ideology and the bribery that's going on, the corruption, and maybe look for the good of the Iranian people. And that's what we would be hoping for. Now, I wouldn't have access to those people being outside the chain of command right now, but hopefully we are in communications with people like that.

34:14Piers Morgan:And that's the way you would get regime change. And finally, before we go to the panel, and you're going to stay with the panel, thank you for that. There are several members of the panel who believe this is all being done purely at the behest of Israel, that it's not in America's national interest to be doing this, and that Netanyahu has railroaded Trump into potentially attacking Iran. Do you think there's merit to that argument? Well, not as much merit as you might think. The United States has continuously said that we're against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And Iran has really since the days of the Shah had a nuclear program and the Khomeini regime kept it going.

34:58Piers Morgan:There was a fake in 2007. They fooled American intelligence into issuing an estimate that said they had stopped it. But I don't think they stopped it. And so we know now they're very close to getting the materials to use a nuclear weapon. That's destabilizing the whole world, and especially the Middle East. So it's not just us. It's our friends and allies in the region that don't want it. And the Iranians themselves are working on longer and longer-range missiles. So we don't need another hostile state that has sworn its purpose is to destroy another state to have nuclear weapons. It's not just about Israel.

35:40Piers Morgan:It's about global stability. Okay, let's go back to the panel. Check you. I mean, there's your answer from a former commander of NATO forces, which is it's not just about Israel wanting this to happen. It is in America's strategic interest to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons.

36:03John Bolton:Nonsense. So, I mean, I really respect General Clark. I don't know what's happened to him. That letter was very clear. They did, the neocons and Israel First did execute it. They have knocked out six to seven of those countries, just like they said they would. They've gone to Iran at the end, just like they said they would. If we're talking about a country that is destabilizing the region and the world with endless wars, that country is Israel. I mean, look, this whole thing is topsy-turvy. The whole framing of the discussion is ludicrous. Israel has attacked seven of its neighbors, not Iran. Israel forced us into the Iraq war, and they said it would be easy, and it was a disaster.

36:45John Bolton:They said they were doing it for the Iranian people, and then we wound up killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. We lost thousands of our own men. The fake weapons of mass destruction evidence came from where? It came from Israel. They pushed us into the war with Libya. Now there's modern-day slavery back in Libya. Every war they have pushed us into has cost us trillions. Hold on, General Clark. Hold on. They have cost us trillions of dollars. And you know that. And they have cost us blood and treasure. And it's Israel doing it, General Clark. Be a patriot. Be a patriot. Santa for America, not for Israel.

37:21John Bolton:I'm not going to go to another war for Israel. We're not going to spend trillions more for Israel. We're not going to lose American soldiers for Israel. Israelis have bought 94 % of Congress. The Israelis have bought Donald Trump, and this is a fact.

37:35Piers Morgan:And you guys keep obfuscating these facts. All right, hang on. Can we have some respect for the general, please? I think it doesn't deserve to be screamed at. No, he's interrupting me.

37:43John Bolton:He should have respect for the American people, 85 % of whom do not want to go. General Clark, why are you pushing us into this war when 85 % of Americans don't want it? And you yourself know that the neocons have wanted this war for 20 years. Our interests? What interests? We said nuclear and then we got rid of their nuclear facilities. Then now all of a sudden ballistic missiles. General Clark, tell me with a straight face that we have a right to demand that any country and their ballistic missile program. Why don't you stop? Ballistic missiles. We'd have to get rid of the whole world for Israel if we're going to get rid of ballistic missiles.

38:18John Bolton:Let him speak of change.

38:20Piers Morgan:Let him respond. Let him respond. To other people. Now, you want to hear what I want to say? Listen. First of all, there is no they there. We've been through the Bush administration. There were neocons. We've been through the Obama administration. There were no neocons there. We've been through the Trump administration. He didn't want a war. We've been through the Biden administration. Now we're another Trump administration. When you say they, there's no they there. There's no secret plot behind this.

38:55John Bolton:Israeli lobby is the number one donor to every single person you mentioned. Biden, Trump, every one of them. The Israeli lobby has been here the whole time, General Clark.

39:05Piers Morgan:It's really hard to be on program when I don't get a chance to talk. Cenk, Cenk, please let General Clark finish his point. It's not going to be common courtesy. I agree. I agree. Cenk, let the general respond. And I'm going to say it not just to you, but to all the other panelists. So there's no they there. This is about national interests. And you can go through these states one by one. First of all, I was against the invasion of Iraq. I knew it was a mistake and it wasn't going to work out well. I was against it. But it's the men and women in uniform. Of course, you're not against your own soldiers fighting.

39:40Piers Morgan:You want them to succeed. But the mission was a bad mission, and I called it for that. Syria, there was a revolution there. President Obama said Bashar Assad shouldn't stay in charge. But unfortunately, he did until Turkey got rid of him. On Libya, I warned the United States not to intervene because there was no follow on for that and we've still got a mess in Libya. We've never been able to come to terms with Darfur, Sudan, and what's happening in the center of Africa. Now when you turn to Iran, Iran has been a continuous problem for the United States. They killed hundreds of our soldiers with the explosively formed penetrators when we were in Iraq.

40:27Piers Morgan:They started this thing back in the late 1970s, early 80s. They assassinated a bunch of Iranian generals because they'd been to school in the United States. So what's their beef with the United States? They want trouble from the United States. That's their raison d 'etre. That's what keeps the—you can shake your head, but I'm telling you, look at the propaganda. So is Israel concerned? Of course Israel should be concerned. As the Ayatollah has said and others, when they get nuclear weapons, they're going to use them. Now, I've been all through the Gulf leadership. Maybe you've talked to those leaders too, but I have, and they don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

41:13Piers Morgan:They can't do much about it, but they hope that we will. And unfortunately, the agreement that we thought we solved it with in 2015 was thrown out in 2018. And I agree that that agreement wasn't a great agreement. It didn't stop their ballistic missiles, and it didn't stop their axis of resistance. It didn't deal with Hezbollah, but it was an agreement. Now, we don't have anything. And so we're on the precipice of another set of military strikes in the region. Is that a good thing? No. No, it's not a good thing. It'd be a lot better if Iran would simply become a normal state, engage in trade, work with its neighbors, stop trying to take over the region, stop threatening Israel.

42:01Piers Morgan:But Iran doesn't seem under its present regime to want to do that. So that's where we're headed. Thank you, Pierce. Please, can I just ask this? Wait one second. I will come to everybody. But I want to get Dave Smith's response to that. Dave Smith.

42:21John Bolton:OK, well, I mean, if the general who is on the record, not just on that Amy Goodman interview, but here on this show, Pierce, who said the plans went back a decade before that and that they were resurrected in a study paid for by the Israelis. If he's walking away from that or saying, well, yeah, that happened, but there were four different administrations in there. so there's no they there. Well, as Cenk was pointing out there, Benjamin Netanyahu's been here pretty much the entire time. The Israel lobby has been here pretty much the entire time. And you'd certainly have to admit, sir, it's an awfully big coincidence that you saw that there was a plan to overthrow seven countries.

43:02John Bolton:And that since that time, now, obviously, none of us are arguing it didn't happen the way you said it was going to. It was supposed to happen in five years. And obviously the war in Iraq ended up being a quagmire that was unforeseen by most of the military establishment at the time. But Israel and or the United States of America have attacked all of those countries, maybe minus Sudan, which kind of collapsed without those attacks. That would seem to be a huge coincidence there, and it seems much more likely that those entrenched interests that were pushing for that continued to push for that over all of these years, especially when the fact is that we can look at who's been advocating for all of these policies over the years.

43:42John Bolton:And it's been Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Firsters and the Israel Lobby and all of them. I think it's kind of crazy to expect us to somehow get them out of any responsibility for this. And in terms of, you know, Pierce, just last summer, I was on this show. We were having a bunch of arguments. Everybody back then said it was about the 60 percent enriched uranium, that I was crazy for claiming that this was about a regime change operation. And here we are a few months later. President Trump has boasted that he obliterated their nuclear program, that it's no issue. And yet we still need to go back to war with Iran once again.

44:19John Bolton:The fact of the matter is here is that the impetus for the global war on terrorism to begin with was our beef with radical Sunni terrorist groups. There's no reason for the United States of America to be at war with the Shiites. And you can mention – by the way, I don't think the general is correct in saying that Iran was responsible for killing that many soldiers in Iraq. I think those – they were Iraqi Shiites, and I think most of those roadside bombs were made in Iraq. My friend Scott Horton has demonstrated this in his great book, Enough Already. But the bottom line is just that we are$38 trillion in debt – one second, General, and I won't interrupt you at all.

44:59John Bolton:Well, let me – okay, let me just finish my point. Okay. I don't think that's true. But regardless, OK, OK, anyway. OK, listen, we are I said 38. Is it 39 or 40? I can't keep track anymore. We're close to 40 trillion dollars in debt. We have major problems in our own country, including a drug overdose epidemic, a homelessness epidemic. We have tens of millions of people who are in our country illegally, and yet we're flirting with what is obviously, definitionally, a war of choice, a war of aggression. We're not responding to an attack from Iran. And to move all these goalposts, oh, they support proxies in the region.

45:40John Bolton:They have intercontinental ballistic missiles. Yeah, in other words, they're a government. Yes, in other words, they haven't just completely, as Whitcoff said the other day, that Trump was curious why they haven't capitulated. In other words, they haven't completely capitulated to us and said they're going to make themselves entirely defenseless against the Israelis who attacked them throughout the years with impunity. This is ridiculous. We have no need to fight this war. We're flirting with another catastrophe for no reason.

46:10Piers Morgan:OK, let me bring in the two ladies who've been waiting very patiently. Elika, I'll come to you in one moment, but let Goldie Gamari respond first and then Elika. Goldie first.

46:20John Bolton:Well, thank you so much, Pierce. First of all, I just want to thank the general for his service and thank all American military for everything they've done to defend democracy and freedom around the world. So thank you for your service, General. So the way that we have to frame this and the way that we have to look at it, Pierce, is that right now we are in a forever war with the Islamic regime. And what happened is back in 1979, it was Jimmy Carter and the Democrats that backed the Ayatollah. And that's what basically led to the Islamic coup d 'etat. And so right now, Iran is unfortunately a failed state.

47:00John Bolton:And so what Iranians are trying to do is, you know, we're trying to rectify the mistake. Is regime changed the goal? 100 percent. Absolutely. We Iranians, we have been trying to fix Jimmy Carter's mistake since 1979. And this is the first time since the Islamic regime took over that we actually have a United States president who is standing with the Iranian people, recognizing full well that U.S. and Iranian interests are aligned right now. And by Iranian, I mean the Iranian people. I don't mean the Islamic regime that's occupying us. Because, you know, as the general said, prior to 1979, Iran and the United States were allies.

47:44John Bolton:So right now, right now, the country is currently in that failed state situation. And I can say that, you know, Iranians in occupying Iran are incredibly grateful that the United States is coming to help liberate them. This is not a war, Pierce. This is not a war. This is a rescue mission. The United States is coming to help rescue 90 million Iranians who have been held hostage by a brutal and savage dictatorship. With respect to what Dave Smith was saying about the proxies, I'll leave that up to the general.

48:18Piers Morgan:Okay, Elika. Nonsense.

48:21John Bolton:So when there's these constant examples of where the US has failed in intervention, you have to wonder why is it that they keep repeating the worst case scenarios? Why don't they talk about the US intervention in Iraq, sorry, in Kuwait to stop Iraq's intervention, right? Which actually led to stability in Kuwait. Why don't we talk about Bosnia? Why don't we talk about Kosovo? Why don't we talk about the times where NATO and the U.S. have done tremendous work to bring stability with targeted strikes? OK, the reason that they keep mentioning this is because they want to constantly frame this in the worst case scenario for the U.S.

48:55John Bolton:so as to defend the terrorist regime, which makes you wonder why. Second of all, this claim that we don't want to intervene in Iran because it's going to be a failed state and it's going to kill hundreds of thousands of people. I'm sorry. You don't care now that it's a failed state. You don't care now how many people are being killed. You want to talk about Iraq? You want to say hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Iraq? How many people did Saddam Hussein kill? 180 ,000 Kurds alone. Chemical genocide against Kurds. The ethnic cleansing of Turks, of Kurds, of Shia Muslims. So you want to say that if we should have just left Saddam Hussein, and he's expanding his war in Kuwait, his war in Iran.

49:41John Bolton:And you want to say that what the U.S. did was so bad. Fine, it was bad. But before it was worse. And if it was left unchecked, how much worse would it be? So this isn't about what the facts are. This is about how you are looking at the facts. And this isn't, no, no, we don't interrupt. This is an intentional - I was just going to ask a question. You interrupted me before plenty of times. Ask me my question after. You can ask me my question after. You're not my teacher, so don't scold me. We're not looking at this through the lens of facts. We're looking at this through the lens of how can we look at this in the most negative way so we don't support attacks on the regime.

50:17John Bolton:Second of all, this constant thing about Israel is the one that wants this war. We have all conceded and acknowledged that Israel does for obvious reasons. You're talking about you take Israel and you take the IRGC, you take this terrorist regime that has enshrined an eschological vision to eliminate Israel in its charter and has repeatedly acted on that vision. Any sane country in the world, whether it was U.S. or Israel, would obviously want to protect itself. So you're talking about a liberal democracy that seeks safety and protection of its own people. And you're talking about a terrorist state that wants to eliminate that state.

50:54John Bolton:And so to even look at this in any other lens is just to be out of touch with reality. You talk about Israel doing these strikes on Hezbollah when Hezbollah is the one that is throwing its rockets into Israel. You talk about its strikes on the Houthis. Think about this. The regime created Hezbollah as a second IRGC to station it in the closest order to Israel for the sole purpose of eliminating Israel and creating a second Islamic Republic in Lebanon. Now, you want to say that in response to that, Israel should just bend over and do nothing? Of course, Israel wants this war. Oh, come on. How much more can Israel do?

51:34John Bolton:Endless goddamn war because of Israel. Can I respond to this utter rubbish, this garbage Israeli propaganda? Anti-Semitism is a mind virus, and you've lost your mind, okay? So just be quiet. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anti-Semitism, blah, blah, blah, blah. We've heard that garbage over and over to shield Israel from criticism. We're not going to take it anymore. You call the whole country anti-Semites. You think Israel is called all of America anti-Semites. 85 % of us don't want this war. And then you come in and go, you dirty anti-Semite Americans. You owe us more war. You owe us trillions of dollars.

52:11John Bolton:We are beloved Israel. We want endless wars. One question for you, Jake. Jake, one question for you. What percentage of Germans were anti-Semites? Oh. So what, how does that have to be with this? The real fascists are Israel. Do you want to ask me what percentage of Israel are fascists? Unfortunately, the percentage is over 50%. You know what the point is, Cenk? The point is that it is a mind virus. Can I actually answer any of this garbage that they're putting out? Can you stop interrupting her, please? You're very rude. Interrupting her. She's gone out for 10 minutes. How long do you think you meant, sir?

52:48John Bolton:Okay.

52:49Piers Morgan:Cenk, I'll give you a brief write-of-reply there, and then I want to go to the general.

52:57John Bolton:so guys this day this is a total illusion the country starting all the wars in the middle east is israel not iran the ones that have the religious ideology of taking over the middle east is israel they call it greater israel it's a patch on their uniform it's a map in their kinescent they're trying and they their cabinet members say we're going for greater israel greater israel is most of the middle east the reason why knocking out their nuclear so-called nuclear program wasn't enough for these warmongers is because they want every country in the Middle East defenseless so Israel can attack and take more land.

53:32John Bolton:And have they actually attacked and taken more land? Yes. They currently have 53 percent of Gaza. They say they're never going to give back Golan Heights. They keep talking about how Israel should exist. Israel already exists, already has nukes, and is super dangerous with those nukes. They already have Iron Dome. They already have the greatest military in the Middle East. It's the Palestinians who don't exist because the Israelis won't allow them. The Israelis are doing a fascist, a greater Israel project, and our press won't talk about it, even though the Israelis talk about it nonstop. We've shown video after video on the Young Turks of how they're going for greater Israel.

54:07John Bolton:And the idea that Iran is taking over their neighbors, they haven't taken over any neighbors. Israel keeps taking land while our press keeps lying to you and pretending that Israel is the victim when they are the aggressor and they don't do it with their own money and they don't do it with their own troops. They force America to spend trillions of dollars and lose American soldiers for Israel? 85 % of this country does not want it. When you hear this propagandist telling you, no, Israel wants it. And if Israel doesn't get what it wants, we're going to call all of you anti-Semites. All you Americans are anti-Semites unless you give Israel$330 billion, spend$8 trillion on the global war on terror, and we want another war and another war.

54:46John Bolton:And then they pretend Iran wants endless war. Israel is making us pay for their endless war. Don't listen to the liars. Stand up for the American people. Okay, you've made the point. Not the Israeli people. I'm looking at this propaganda. Now she's talking about how the Iraq war was a great idea. Okay, you made your point, Chang. And how we're going to be greeted as liberators. That's what they told us in Iraq. No, the Iranian people also do not want to be bombed. That is an Israeli lie. Chang, I need to...

55:09Piers Morgan:Okay, we're running out of time. I just want... You've actually reminded me. I want to come to Dave Smith quickly for this thing. Go to the general. Tucker Carlson interviewed the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, this week. And Mike Huckabee said something that managed to get condemnation from pretty much every other country in the region because he said this. This particular area that we're talking about now, Israel, is a land that God gave through Abraham to a people that he chose. It was a people, a place, and a purpose. We can look at it that way. Christian Zionism, I want to go back because that's where we started.

55:52John Bolton:I'm not going to let you off on this because you have said it three times that God gave this land to this people. What does that mean? Does Israel have the right to that land? Because you're appealing to Genesis. You're saying that's the original deed.

56:09Piers Morgan:It would be fine if they took it all. take it all dave was the u.s ambassador to israel oh yeah i'm so glad you uh you played that clip

56:21John Bolton:i'm about to do a whole uh a whole show on on breaking down that interview i think one of the things that's so i mean aside from the fact that it's just like the how insane and what a religious fundamentalist you have to be to believe that god gave iraq to netanyahu or something like that But what's really wild about this, as I'm sure the general can back up, that since at least the 1970s, the official U.S. position has been that we support 67 borders and that we ultimately want a Palestinian state. The U.S. is officially – not that we're going to do anything about any of that, but we're officially against the settlement expansions in the West Bank.

56:59John Bolton:And here you have the U.S. ambassador to Israel. I mean, it sure seems like he's the Israeli ambassador, if you ask me, but his title is he's the U.S. ambassador to Israel, just saying because of his religious beliefs that, no, he would be absolutely fine with Israel, not just taking the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights, as they have since 1967, but evidently, Pierce, taking huge swaths of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon. And for anybody who does not believe that God promised Iraq to Netanyahu, that is just insanity. And you do notice on this panel how a lot of people beat up on the mollas for being religious extremists and like, I got no beef with you on that.

57:47John Bolton:It certainly is true that they are. But as Cenk was pointing out, the level of extreme religious fanaticism that drives policy, both U.S. policy toward Israel and Israeli policy at the top of their government there, really is something to behold. We're not as secular as one might believe. And I just want to say, and then I'll shut up for the rest of the panel, but I do got to say, man, Pierce, as I know you've seen all the time, you know, this thing where like if we if we start arguing that we shouldn't have war in Iran, then the response that we get is like, oh, you must secretly love the Ayatollah or something like that.

58:29John Bolton:The only reason you're doing this is because you want to protect that regime. This is like the lowest IQ, most bad faith form of political argumentation. And, you know, people did say the same thing about people like you, Pierce, and evidently people like you, General Clark, which I was unaware of, who opposed the war in Iraq. You were protecting Saddam Hussein or spreading Saddam talking points. Over the last couple of years, Pierce, isn't it amazing just on your show? I'm a I love Vladimir Putin and I love Hamas. And I also love Iran. And I guess I love the Houthis. But actually, I'm just like a Jewish libertarian from Brooklyn who doesn't want to see more people get killed in my country, get bankrupted.

59:10John Bolton:That's really the truth of this. And for all of you guys, for all you guys, your response is always, oh, excuse me, excuse me. No interrupting. No interrupting. with a girl and for all of you guys for all of you guys listen again this is my

59:25Piers Morgan:don't invite me on let me let me come to the general general before i come to you for the final word because you deserve the final you talked more than me general very that's a very funny i mean dave makes a very good point i i remember being called a saddam apologist because i thought the illegal war in iraq was an atrocity that should never have been waged and I've similarly been called an anti-Semite because I think that the Israeli government went way too far in Gaza. All of these things are preposterous and they're a deliberate attempt to stifle freedom of speech and genuine opinion. I think it's a great shame.

59:59Piers Morgan:I've known Chenk and Dave for quite a long time now. I've never heard a moment of anti-Semitism from either of them and to say that that is what motivates them is a hatred of Jewish people is completely preposterous. Well, hang on, Alagaz. I've got to... We've run out of time. I just want to say that...

1:00:15John Bolton:About Cenk, that's very disingenuous.

1:00:19Piers Morgan:No, it's not. He's not anti-Semitism. Cenk has a big problem with the Israeli government. Let's not get into it.

1:00:27John Bolton:Are we doing insults? Let General Clark talk.

1:00:30Piers Morgan:If somebody can... OK, for another show, but Elika, if you want to go away and find me evidence of Cenk Uygur saying anything which indicates a hatred of Jewish people, that's fine. If you want to find me evidence... Well, he says he hates Jewish people. You want to talk about an Israeli point of view? Show me evidence. My existence offends you.

1:00:48John Bolton:And I'm the person who's a bigot. You're the bigot. No, I didn't say that. Let General Clark go. I said your existence is the evidence. You literally said that.

1:00:55Piers Morgan:I'm going to wrap things up. I'm going to wrap things up. I'm coming to General Clark. So please give the general some respect. I can tell you that the money market, the poly market, says there's a 21 % chance of a US strike on Iran by March 1st, 57 % chance by March the 31st, 73 % chance by the end of the year. Over$370 million has been spent in this market. So the smart money going on an attack by the end of March. Would you agree with that, General? What I'd say is that when you start dropping bombs on nations, and it's easier to start a war, it's not easy to finish it. So we don't know what's going to happen when it gets going.

1:01:42Piers Morgan:So there's going to be a lot of judgment calls between now and then. And we're just going to have to see how they go. But I will say this, that there has been a continuum of American interest to see a peaceful Middle East. And that Iran has been the troublemaker in that Middle East since the overthrow of the Shah. And secondly, that in terms of Israel itself, I was there when Israel pulled back out of southern Lebanon. Some people said, you're making a mistake. Ehud Barak said, nope, we're going to do it. Sure enough, it led to trouble. I was there later when Israel pulled out of Gaza. And they said, no, let's let Gaza be there.

1:02:26Piers Morgan:I remember when Condoleezza Rice advocated for democracy. Let's have the Palestinians vote, and they voted in Hamas. So there have been many, many efforts to head this off, and yet Israel finds itself in a very, very unfriendly area. The Abraham Accords, that was a good step forward. But who's against the Abraham Accords? about Iran, of course. They don't want peace in the region. Now, in terms of what's happening inside Israel, I'm a believer in the two-state solution, the same solution that President Clinton tried to get implemented in 1999-2000 and was blocked by the PLO, Yasser Arafat, and probably by Iranian money.

1:03:18Piers Morgan:So we've had many, many efforts to solve this problem. But letting Iran have a nuclear weapon? No, that's not a way to solve the problem. So while the United States has the power and the influence, we should be doing what we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And that's the end of the story as far as I'm concerned. Thank you for giving me a chance. General Clark, it's always a great honor to have you on the program. You're one of the generals I most respect, and I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you all very much to my panel. It was a lively and fiery debate at times, but it's, you know, war is a fiery, lively business, so it should be.

1:04:01Piers Morgan:Thank you all very much.

1:04:03John Bolton:Thank you.

1:04:04Piers Morgan:Thanks, Piers. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate, and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. Independent, uncensored media has never been more critical, and we couldn't do it without you.

1:04:38John Bolton:Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rinse will take your laundry and hand-deliver it to your door expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and cueing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting Beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rinse. It's time to be great.