"I RESENT That!" Scott Horton HEATED Debate On Iran War & Donald Trump | With John Bolton

21:02I'm just saying that because that is his technique, we never know. When he says, I have a one-page deal, it could all be over tomorrow, or by the time I go to China in between... I just don't... Well, I don't know if we can believe him, and I don't know if we can't. And whether or not it's a good thing that he operates that way or not...

21:15Piers Morgan:I think in this one... If he does carry out 50 % of his threats on X or Truth Social and not the other 50%, the only benefit of that strategy is nobody, ally or adversary, knows ever if this one this time is real. But that's the boy that cried wolf problem. Colonel Stewart, great to see you. Looking a fine fettle, if I may say so. Thank you. I'm very envious of your jacket. Militarily first, if Trump wants to prevent and have it be seen to be that he's prevented Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, then he has to, it seems to me, get either Iran to provably destroy their enriched uranium or to get in there and get it himself with the US forces, which would mean a substantial ground invasion.

22:04Piers Morgan:Am I missing something, or is that the only way that this can actually represent stopping them? Two options. I mean, if you have any questions, the Iranian regime voluntarily gets rid of its nuclear intentions and proves it, or if you really want to get rid of that, you've got to do some sort of invasion. Now, invasion... People think Iran's a huge country. What do you invade? I mean, you... We have no idea where this uranium is. Yeah, quite. Right. So I personally agree. To start with, the aims were not clear. I hoped that a bash on the nose at the start of the war would actually bring everyone out on the streets again and actually topple the regime.

22:56But frankly, they're terrified. The Iranian people are terrified because as soon as they put their head above the parapet,

23:05Piers Morgan:the Revolutionary Guard will murder them. But they're terrified because the IRGC remains in firm control. Exactly. So all these claims, they've been destroyed and wiped out and the leaders have all gone, none of that can actually be true. If the people on the ground, 90 million of them, if none of them are coming out, it means they must be seeing with their own eyes in the streets evidence that the IRGC remains in tight control. And it does. Otherwise they'd be doing it. And it does. And that's the problem. I mean, how do you get rid of the IRGC? That is actually... 250 ,000 heavily armed, very well-trained, ruthless revolutionary guards.

23:44Who benefit from the present regime.

23:47Piers Morgan:Of course. And that's the problem. These people benefit from keeping the Ayatollahs in charge. And actually, that is the problem. So what would you do if you're Trump now? Well, I know... If he has quietly thought to himself, I've got to get out of this, and I think he should, even if it means he has to, you know, eat crow and just take a hit on it, I think the longer-term damage of not doing that now is incalculable. So if you're Trump, what do you do? Well, he's going to... He's actually going to try and get out of the whole situation. Yeah. That's what he's going to do. I mean, you could see it beginning to occur.

24:23I mean, the fact of the matter is, they want to have the Strait of Hummers open. That's key now. But it was open before the war. It was open. And we want to go back. The whole situation is quite absurd. It has gone wrong for the United States big time. And I think Trump now wants to get out of the situation. If he can call it victory, he will. He will call it victory, regardless of whether it is or not. But actually, the situation will not be resolved and the situation will remain as it is now. The Iranian government will remain in power and the poor people of Iran, the long-suffering poor people of Iran, will continue to be absolutely dominated by the IRGC.

25:15Now, that's what's likely to happen. Yeah. And I cannot see... The idea of invading a country like Iran is militarily mad.

25:24Piers Morgan:But I think also, never mind militarily, politically disastrous for Trump. If you suddenly had a load of Marines getting killed, right, and they didn't get their hands on the enriched uranium, it's over for him. I mean, I said at the start of this, Scott, I thought this was the biggest risk I've ever seen Donald Trump take. I always thought, interestingly, his foreign policy, certainly compared to people like George Bush and others, was actually reasonably measured. I mean, Trump was a guy that believed in taking out Soleimani and then getting out of there, right? Maduro was a classic Trump foreign policy move.

25:57Piers Morgan:People may not agree with it, but actually as a military operation, in and out, snatch the leader, put a more mullient number two in place and maybe you can, you know, it's fine. There's no sort of casualty list. This one, from the moment he did it, I was like, wow. This is... You're staking everything here. And I still believe that. And I think I sense, knowing him very well, that he's now wrestling with a massive dilemma. How do I get out of this without losing face and without America losing face? Right. Well, yes, first of all, as Mr. Bolton said, they've always known what the potential consequences of this could be.

26:38Piers Morgan:I thought that was interesting. Yeah. Because any attempt by any of them to try and say, well, we didn't realize they might do. Bolton was saying they had the open conversations about it. I found an article that I wrote in August of 2005 for antiwar.com saying that this is what could happen. Iran can close the whole gate, the Strait of Hormuz. Out of interest, why have they never done it before? Because we hadn't attacked them. No, but why wouldn't they have done it as a strategic thing to cause economic mayhem? Well, that would have provoked a war that they were trying to avoid this whole time too.

27:08And, you know, the Bush administration, everybody but W. Bush, including John Bolton, pushed him very hard to do this. And it was the military that talked him out of it. In January, 2007, the chiefs told W. Bush, we don't want to do this. We'll triple the Iraq war, but we don't want to go to Iran. And the reason why is because they can hit back in ways that we can't control. We don't want to fight anyone unless we know we control every single stage of the conflict.

27:32Piers Morgan:What do you think on the Gulf states? I've had lots of different views about this. I've spent a lot of time in the Middle East in the last two years in Saudi, in Qatar, in UAE. It's been a very vibrant, dynamic place to be. They've been pouring money into a new business model of opening up tourism, sport, sunshine, safety, and it's all designed to replace the dwindling oil supplies. And now you see their worst nightmare unfurling as a region because, actually, what Iran has done, you know, from a tactical point of view, pretty skillfully, is they've targeted the vulnerable spot of the whole region, which is if you can stop people going there, you're wrecking their business model going forward.

28:19Piers Morgan:That applies huge pressure. Well, and they've completely called America's conventional military. What do you think the Gulf states are really thinking about Trump and America in this? Are they, as some people argue, it's drawn them closer to America because of what Iran has done to them? Or do you think that they're blaming America for the whole mess unfurling in the first place? Well, I don't know about the blame. I mean, I could see, you know, part of the motive for them to want to get closer. But then again, our bluff has been called. The Iranians have just proven, due to Trump's unforced error here, that America's conventional dominance of the Gulf was always a bluff.

28:57They closed down all of our bases. They kicked us out of the region. And, you know, our aircraft carriers, our Star Destroyers are now parked in orbit way off, hundreds of miles away in the Arabian Sea. can't even get anywhere near it, have to fire their missiles from standoff ranges. So it seems to me like every, especially all those smaller states, they're probably going to have to take a stance closer to Qatar's where they split the difference and try to get along with Iran now. As Justin Logan said, what good is a military base if you can't fight a war from it? So America's entire conventional posture in the region is over now, I think.

29:31Jonathan, you're shaking your head. Well, I think what you said about the Gulf states is important because I think...

29:37Piers Morgan:I don't actually know the answer. I've not spoken to many of their leaders. I don't think anyone knows the answer. I think the UAE and Saudi Arabia may be very much against capitulation, but you might find that Qatar and Oman are less averse to it. But that's one element of it. I would say that one thing we haven't discussed, because it seems unlikely, is that actually this so-called deal that Trump maybe is striking actually gets a lot of what he wanted. There was an interview that he did on PBS over the phone where he was asked... there is a rumour that the nuclear material will be transferred out of Iran, maybe to the US.

30:11He said not maybe to the US, definitely to the US. Now, if that's part of an agreement that the Iranians will transfer it, that avoids your scenario of troops on the ground. But I will say this, that any deal made with the Iranian regime is a bad deal, because to make a deal with the barbarians of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to make any deal with them when their technique has always been to use negotiations, to drag things on as long as possible, to wear people out, to use time to their favour rather than to that of the US. And they've done that even without the knowledge now,

30:38Piers Morgan:they have this tremendous leverage of what they can do with the Strait of Hormuz. But that's what I mean. With the Strait of Hormuz, this is what's so perplexing about what Trump is doing now, because there is no reason not to have carried on what he had just started. I absolutely agree with that. If he can strangle their economy just keep doing it. Well, that's a big question. Can I ask a question? What is the evidence that they cannot bear the economic pain of having the blockade on the street. The exchange rate is now way worse than it was when the uprising started because it was bad. Okay, but America supported Saddam Hussein in a brutal war against him for eight years, and they were able to withstand that.

31:13There is a fair amount of evidence, which is that they can't really afford to do anything. They are now having to subsidize things in the lives of their nation, who they don't really care about their citizens that much. There is a lot of evidence that if you carry on strangling them, their hopeful pivot towards China has not really worked out the way they'd hoped economically either. There is an enormous amount of pressure on the Islamic Republic regime. Certainly they can withstand a lot of that pressure because they are ruthless, horrible people who will let their own population suffer. But eventually what Trump was doing was a non-violent method of continuing this war.

31:45He had moved out of the kinetic stage of airstrikes and all that we saw there into this stage of playing them at their own game with the Strait of Hormuz and trying to open it up to release the pressure on the rest of the world. Not doing too well on that yet, but starting and also managing to choke them off, to suffocate them, to gradually economically... But the problem here, Jonathan, is going to be... Well, hang on, hang on one second.

32:08Piers Morgan:You're a very pro-Israeli commentator. You'd accept that. I think I'm a fair commentator. OK. I mean, in all your columns you've written for this better data, how many have been critical of Israel? I often have criticisms of Israel. Oh, there's a headline on the column. I don't write the headlines. Have you ever had a critical headline on one of your columns about Israel? From the subs? I'd have to go back and check. I can tell you, I checked. OK, have I? You haven't. OK. So you've never written a column... I think I did once, actually. I think I wrote one about something... It was pre-October 7th about...

32:35Oh, OK.

32:36Piers Morgan:..a forest issue in the West Bank or something. I only checked since October 7th. But you would accept that you're a partisan commentator? I don't think I'm partisan, no. But you've never written a column that's been critical of Israel? Plenty of my columns have criticisms of Israeli policy in them. But not in the last three years? No, no, within the last three years. Go and read them. What was the... Did you read them or did ChatGPT read them or did your researchers read them? I went and checked everyone... You read them all? I checked every headline of every column. Headlines? I didn't write the headlines.

33:02My point being...

33:02Piers Morgan:I don't know why you're complaining about being perceived as a pro-Israeli government. No, no, many of the things I say do defend positions of Israel because I think Israel... There's a reason I'm asking this. ..in this war has been... No, I get there's a reason you're asking. No, no, the reason I'm asking... But you didn't ask me if I have sympathy for Israel's actions during the last two years of this war. You asked me if I consider myself a partisan... Yes. ..or somehow, I think your words in your Spectator column about me, slavishly pro-Israel. Yes. I'm not slavishly anything. I look at the facts and I look at what I see is going on in the region and I try to analyse it from a perspective, which does very often come down in this scenario in favour of the Israeli actions.

33:36It doesn't mean I'm slavishly or... No, I resent that and I think, you know, afterwards, let's talk about it. I'll find you the criticisms I've put in some of those. You know what?

33:44Piers Morgan:The great thing is in the digital era, people can tap in your name to the Spectator website, they can check every column and they can see if any of them have a headline's critical visual. I don't like the headlines, Piers. That's the theme of the column. Well, sometimes I don't like the headlines they give me. Here's why I'm asking the question. Go for it. There's no point in disputing this much longer, but I'm not trying to play gotcha. The reason I'm asking is that there is a belief that Israel's operating on a different side to this whole thing, that they don't care if there's total chaos in Iran.

34:15Piers Morgan:They've got a much wider, bigger picture that they're going after here, and that actually if Trump does look like he's raining back too much here and that the Iranian regime may stay intact, and may have the enriched uranium and so on, that Netanyahu just won't accept it and that Israel could actually unilaterally go and attack again. Do you think that's likely? Well, I do think you're absolutely right that Israel and America don't have entirely the same aims in this war, and they never did, but they had a huge amount of overlap, and I think that's why it came together that this happened as a joint action.

34:50So from Israel's perspective, which, you know, I do write a lot about Israel, and I am very sympathetic to many of the actions Israel takes and has taken, especially during this war period. From Israel's perspective, it's interesting to consider what this will mean if Trump capitulates now. Will it be good for them or will it be bad for them? In some respects, if you think about October 7th and pre-October 7th and the end of the war, if we drew a line here, they are net up on that. If they were below zero on some kind of numerical scale on October 7th when that horror happened, on the 28th of October, when that war started in Gaza, they increased massively in that scale.

35:29Then with Lebanon and Hezbollah, with the 12-day war in Iran, they will have increased more. If he capitulates now, it will come down slightly. So they might have gone up to a 70 and now they'll come down to a 60 or 50. They're still up 50 from zero when they were below zero. But I do think that what it has done in some respects, whilst not conclusively, it has demolished a lot of the capability of the Shia axis that Iran leads in the region. The problem is it hasn't got rid of it, but it has stopped Syria being a corridor for Iran to funnel things towards Hezbollah. They are currently trying to deal with Hezbollah, but that's on pause because of this ceasefire that the Americans are controlling.

36:03OK, let me bring in Colonel... It swings them round about.

36:06Piers Morgan:Colonel Bob, I mean, you know, I saw one report which said that in Gaza, for example, because of the destruction of 70, 80 % of Gaza, because of the killing of 70, 80 ,000 people there, some of whom obviously were Hamas, We don't know the exact split of terrorists to civilians. But because of that, I read one report from American intelligence that for every Hamas terrorist who'd been killed, five more were now lining up with the same ideology because they were so enraged by what Israel had done. That's normal, Pierce. Right. It's normal. But my point being, though, how big a problem is Israel potentially creating for itself by what many perceive to be, and I would be one of them now, that the disproportionate response to what happened October 7th, just in terms of what they did to Gaza, that actually, if you look at...

36:57Piers Morgan:I mean, for example, I never thought I'd see a time when the majority of Americans had an anti-Israeli perspective in the polling. I didn't think that day would come. So clearly there's been a movement in public sentiment globally about what the Israeli government's been doing. And I... Look, to be crystal clear, this is not aimed at Israeli people, my criticism, or Jewish people, certainly. It is aimed specifically at this Israeli government that I think is very hardline right, driven by, in cases of Smodrich and Ben-Gavir in particular, absolute maniacs. I mean, when Ben-Gavir's wife, on his 50th birthday last week, gives him a birthday cake of a golden noose, you're dealing with psychopathic mentality.

37:42Piers Morgan:I'm sorry. Jonathan, you can respond to that in a moment. But I just feel like this has been part of the problem. I'm not a spokesman for Itamon Dengvier. I have to point out. No, no, sure. Israel has two objectives. One, get rid of the nuclear threat. Two, bring down the regime. Make the place safe. Make the Middle East safe. That's understandable. The United States had one objective to start with, definitely take out the nuclear facilities. And a more fuzzy one, when they did that, as they attacked, perhaps the regime would fall. We're now going to get to the situation where Trump may well maintain he's neutralised the nuclear situation and he can't change the regime and he's actually going to draw stumps and say, actually, we've won this war, when he hasn't, because all he will have done is delayed...

38:42Piers Morgan:Just for my American view, draw stumps is a cricket phrase, which means you basically end the game. Exactly. Yes. May I jump in? Quickly, yeah. Just to say, I think that Israel actually has undeniably come out of this war, though it may not have gone how they wanted or how the US wanted or to plan. There is no denying that its reputation has altered, but it's altered in both directions. So some of the Gulf states and many of the states in the Middle East now see Israel's deterrence as massively renewed after the day in which its deterrence was seen as massively compromised, October 7th. And now, if it's got this renewed deterrence, if it has managed to do so much in that two years from the low point of October 7th, if it also managed to do it in such tight collaboration and operational partnership with the US, albeit under this particular president, it has shown itself to be an extremely strong ally.

39:32It even gave an iron dome battery to one of its Arab neighbours to use during the Iranian attacks on them. And those countries have seen as well that Iran will not hold back from attacking them and their people. And that is something that has taught them a lesson about who their real allies are in the region. So I think Israel's reputation may be bad among some campuses in the West and even some Western and European parliaments. But if you look at the region that it exists in, many of the people in the region have understood that country as renewed in strength, renewed in alliance, a valuable partner to have.

40:03And I think that Europe, as it's getting weaker and weaker... You know, Mertz said that this has humiliated Trump. Mertz would like Trump to capitulate, though he won't say so, because it will prove that Europe was right not to get involved, because if America can't do this, what could a depleted Europe have done? But the point is, Europe is depleted, sadly, and that means that Israel is far more concerned with how its neighbours see it, far more concerned with how the US and the US administration see it, than how Mertz and Europe sees it. And this is a problem for Israel, but also it is in a stronger position than it was on October 7th, without any doubt.

40:35Piers Morgan:Scott, could it be that Israel is more unpopular in the way that Jonathan articulated in those areas, but that actually is stronger as a result of all its actions, even if people don't agree with what they did? Yeah, there's a document from back in the 80s where they say, you know, all our support for Iran and the Iran-Iraq war, it could backfire and Iran could conquer Baghdad, which they didn't want that. They just wanted the war to continue. Then they said, you know what, if that happens, that's okay, though, because that'll just help drive all the Sunni kings closer to us because of their fear of the Shiites.

41:06So the fact that, and I'm sure you saw the Ynet story the other day about how the military and intelligence officials in Israel considered this war to be an absolute and complete unmitigated disaster. They didn't get the regime changed. They did not destroy the nuclear material. They did not end Iran's alliance with Hezbollah, the Iraqi PMUs, or the Ansar Allah in Yemen, or any other thing. They've accomplished absolutely none of their goals. And instead, they proved that America's conventional footprint in the Middle East is completely obsolete. So, yes, I'm sure all the people in the region are upset, although the kings and sultans and emirs and potentates and monarchs and el presidentes of the gcc may have been driven closer to israel in a way but i want to talk about american public opinion that you cited there we are propagandized so heavily in the united states of america that the only reason anyone would ever criticize israel is just because they hate jews and want to kill them all or something and for people to have gone from believing that to where they are now is due solely to two things.

42:18Israel's slaughter in the Gaza Strip, unremitting cruelty, which we all can see them deliberately killing children, etc., and then dragging us into another no-win war in the Middle East, just like with W. Bush. Netanyahu and his men promised it'll be easy. We'll just tell them that they're making nuclear weapons. We'll go in there. We'll get a regime change, and everything will be fine. And, you know, last time in Iraq War II, they put Iran's best friends in power from Dawah and the Supreme Islamic Council. They still rule Iraq to this day. They tried to support the bin Ladenites against Assad in Syria, which ended up driving Assad closer to Iran for 15 years, although they did finally get their victory when al-Qaeda seized Damascus at the end of 2024.

43:04And so Israel is definitely stronger there for having, you know, helped al-Qaeda. And Netanyahu bragged about it, by the way, that he helped al-Qaeda, so did Joe Biden, helped al-Qaeda seize Damascus. So that weakens Iran's ability to arm Hezbollah. But then again, they thought that Hezbollah had been severely weakened by the killing of their leader, by the Pager attack and the airstrikes. And then when the current war broke out and Hezbollah jumped in, all the Israeli intelligence officials said, oh my God, they're much more powerful than we thought. They had survived in a much stronger capacity than we thought before.

43:38So now we're right where John Bolton left off. None of this is going to work, Pierce, unless we drop an H-bomb on Tehran or we send in the entire conscript 10 million men and invade Persia and take over the place.

43:52Piers Morgan:You've actually just touched on what I was going to ask Jonathan. One of the interesting aspects of all this is that I've asked repeatedly Israeli guests, pro-Israeli guests, why is it that as we talk about Iran not being allowed to have a nuclear weapon, why is it that Israel is consistently allowed and given a pass to never say whether it has a nuclear weapon or not? You know, I interviewed an American commentator on a show yesterday, and he said that Israel obviously has 170 nuclear weapons. Everybody knows that. I see it, but they've never admitted it. I know the answer to that question. It's illegal for America to give aid to Israel if they're a nuclear weapons state that has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

44:41So they lie and they give the strategic ambiguity and pretend they don't know that Israel is a nuclear weapons state. Conspiracy, nothing. It's the Glenn Symington law. It's illegal to give them aid if they're a nuclear weapons state that does not sign the NPT. Is that right, Jonathan? So my answer to the question would be that Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity is what it's usually referred to. And you're quite right that most of the world assumes slash knows about Israel's nuclear bonds. has been, I think it was Shimon Peres who introduced the phrase, Israel will never introduce nuclear weapons into the region.

45:17It was this weird phrase that meant to say, well, we're not going to say we've got them, that would be to introduce them. The reason for it, you're right, because it's one of those sticky things that you might wonder, why should Israel have them and not Iran? But basically, the answer is kind of obvious. It's what it sounds like, because Israel got the nuclear weapons to protect itself from basically a region which, in every direction, wanted to annihilate it since it was born or reborn in 1948 and has never used those weapons to threaten the annihilation of another country, as Iran frequently does.

45:48For example, the Islamic Republic of Iran does to Israel. They have a countdown. Maybe even threaten Western countries. Why should Iran... Wait, wait. Why should Iran have to be... That's why Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

45:58Piers Morgan:But just to be clear, why should Iran have to be completely transparent about its own nuclear aspirations? Because it is a regime which wishes to kill us all. Well, OK, that's your opinion. It's their opinion. They say it. No, no, but there are other... Death to America. There are other countries... Death to Israel. OK. The great Satan, the little Satan. But there are other countries... But if you go to Russia or China or North Korea, vast swathes of the world don't agree with you, right? So the point being... But what do you mean they don't agree that those are facts, that Iran says death to Israel and death to America...

46:26No, I didn't say that.

46:27Piers Morgan:..that Iran has launched? I mean they are supportive of the regime that you detest, right? So my point being that there are global... OK, but they're... Hang on, Jonathan, hang on. Hang on. This is your opinion, OK? That's fine. Well, that's what I'm here for. I'm saying they're... I'm censored. No, of course, of course. No, no, of course. My point being, a lot of the world has a different opinion about Iran. Sure they do. Right? But I'm explaining to you why should Israel have nuclear weapons? The point of my question... No, no. The point of my question, why should we be compelling Iran to be transparent about what it has?

46:55Piers Morgan:Because if they have a nuclear weapon... But why is Israel not compelled to be as transparent? Because Iran signed the NPT and Israel didn't. That's why. Iran is actually obligated. Iran is, that's correct. Iran is obligated and Israel is... Would it not be a powerful thing for Israel to say, in full transparency, we have 170 nukes? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. How do you claim to be a transparent democracy when you're not remotely transparent? I personally have not seen the nuclear weapons of Israel. I personally... It's not something that I have personal proof of. But do you think they have them?

47:31Yes, that seems to be the received opinion. However, if it were some giant bluff, than, you know, it would be a magnificent one they've pulled off. That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm telling you that the difference between the two states, why should Iran be transparent or stopped when they're not being transparent, it's because they are a threat to the West. They are a threat to civilization. Israel has threatened to nuke London and Paris and Berlin and Rome. It's called the Samson option. They said if the Western democracy... You say you're not a crackpot conspiracist. There's a book by Seymour Hersh called The Samson Option.

48:04Israel wants to nuke the West. I didn't say they want to. I said they have threatened that if the Western states abandon Israel to be overrun, that they'll nuke us too. And I'm not saying that's always been the permanent doctrine, but it's called the Samson option, and it was their doctrine at least in the 1970s. There's a book about it by Seymour Hersh. You can pretend like you've never heard of such a thing, but everyone else watching this can just Google up the Samson option and read it for themselves. There is no serious threat from the state of Israel. That's the second time you've tried to say conspiracy to me, There is no serious threat from the state of Israel to the West of it having nuclear weapons.

48:38That's been proven by the fact that it has never used them, it's never threatened to use them, it's not threatening the annihilation of any other country. At most, what it does is uses its military strength, shielded by a nuclear umbrella, to fight back people who try to eradicate Israel, who try to eradicate the Jewish people, who have a genocidal intent, who have united Shia militias in the entire region against Israel, who have attacked Americans for over 40 years, who have attacked Europeans, who bombed during this war a British base who tried to bomb Diego Garcia. This is a regime which cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, and there is no such similar threat.

49:16Israel and America started this war. This is one of the information.

49:20Piers Morgan:Let me bring in Colonel Bob. The constant refrain we hear from the IDF or people talking about the IDF is they are the most moral army in the world. You were a colonel in the British army, as my brother was. Is the IDF, from everything we've seen in the last few years, the most moral army in the world? No. I don't suppose any army is the most moral. There are always people that do things wrong. It tries to be, like all armies do, it tries to be, but sometimes, because human beings are involved, they get it wrong. That's not true. They deliberately target women and children. Sorry, I honestly don't believe that.

50:01I've got a number of friends in the IDF who actually are appalled if that was the case. I don't agree with you. A lot of them keep blowing their brains out because of the orders that they were made to follow.

50:13Piers Morgan:Could it be that actually the reality is that they have used, and they're doing the same with Hezbollah in Lebanon, I think, that the Israeli government has used the fact that undoubtedly Hamas and Hezbollah embed themselves in civilian areas. and that they have used that as the excuse to go and just obliterate these areas, knowing, full knowing, that in the process, a lot of civilians get killed, women, children who have nothing to do with this. And it's a sort of umbrella excuse. In other words, they could say, we don't deliberately target the women and children, but they know for a fact that if they blow up that whole...

50:56Piers Morgan:I mean, some of the scenes I've seen from Lebanon recently are very reminiscent of Gaza, where just obliteration has been the order of the day. They know this most moral army in the world, that when they attack in that way, a lot of civilians are going to get killed. So they can say we're not deliberately targeting the civilians, but they also know a lot of civilians are going to die. Now, the argument back at that, Bob, is World War II, Dresden, you know, the nuclear bombs... The Geneva Conventions were all written after all that. I know. And that's the argument I've put for, which is that's why we have the Geneva Convention.

51:32Piers Morgan:But as an army man, what do you feel about that? Well, when I was in Parliament, and that was nearly two years ago, I stopped being a member of Parliament. I would make speeches, and my view was that after October 7th, actually, Israel should not invade Gaza, but should use its special forces and lightning pinpoint raids with a target that can be identified to avoid civilian casualties. By putting mass troops into Gaza, inevitably things like you've just portrayed will happen and innocents will die more than necessary. It's always... You can't actually unleash the sword, as it were, and expect everyone...

52:17Piers Morgan:Is it morally defensible to target civilian areas where you know or you believe or you suspect terrorists are living and operating? Is that morally defensible? No, because the Geneva Convention say to soldiers like myself, you should not unleash weapons if there is a chance that civilians... So, Jonathan, why does the IDF just ride roughshod over that? Well, my understanding of how the IDF, from the people I speak to there, how it's operated, for example, in Lebanon, for an awfully long time, they didn't go into Lebanon on a grand operation or do the damage they've just done now. But after Hezbollah joined in on October 7th or 8th, whenever it was, and Israel evacuated, like, huge swathes of the north of Israel to create a buffer so that its population would be protected.

53:07Indeed, that population's been under threat for some time with the UNIFIL forces, the UN peacekeeping forces, not keeping peace in the south of Lebanon below the Latani River. So, though Israel did tolerate that for an extraordinary amount of time, while its people were under fire for many years, which was very underreported in the West, they did then eventually, after October 7th, I believe, make a different calculation, which is to say, with warnings to evacuate civilians and an attempt to do those sorts of things, which, you're right, don't always work, and you end up often with civilian death counts, which will, you know, be hideous for people to see.

53:40But I think they made the evaluation that it's a tiny country, same with the Gaza Strip, which they now hold 50 % of in this weird stalemate ceasefire. And I think, just to finish that, just to say, I think they've decided the buffer zone should no longer be inside Israel. It should be inside the enemies that are threatening Israel. And so I do think they made your right, and it's up to anyone to decide whether they agree with it or not. I think most moral army in the world is a useless phrase that we should all avoid. Well, also, you know, my big problem...

54:07Piers Morgan:Do they believe the buffer should be within Lebanon or within Israel? My big problem, actually, with the claims made about, for example, what the IDF has done in Gaza, is that to this day, despite there being a supposed ceasefire, which seems to be constantly broken in some way, but despite that, the international media are still not allowed in to operate freely in Gaza. And they killed hundreds of reporters who were from there. Over 200. And they sort of framed all of them as they were all linked to Hamas, which is fine. If there are no international journalists on the ground to verify either way, you can make any claim you like, and it can't be challenged.

54:43Piers Morgan:And I've had people like Jonathan Conrachis and others say he totally agrees with me, that he's completely wrong. I mean, do you as a journalist agree with that? Look, I tried... I asked many, many times to go into the Gaza Strip. Eventually they let me in on an embed. But you're right, it's very limited what you can see. Again, I understand why they made that decision. It's less easy to understand it now there's the so-called... I think there's only one reason they're doing it. That's where you and I do disagree. They don't want people to see... I will say, that may be part of it, I would agree, but I'm not sure that's the only reason.

55:13but I think there is part of the reason. I think also the other part of the reason is that they believe that the war is still ongoing in a different status, and it sort of is, because both sides, as you said... Well, no, they shouldn't, but you're the one that said it. Both sides are constantly breaking. I know a lot of guys who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan who are absolutely outraged every time they hear the Israelis pretend that they follow the same battlefield procedures as our army guys do. And I don't know all the exact numbers, but it's like the most civilians that you can kill to get a medium-value target or a high-value target is 10 or 20, something like that.

55:46Obama's the last example I would use. That's my point. The U.S. killed many, many people in cases of drone strikes under Obama. It's not true that there's such a massive distinction. Each army evaluates its own... The drone strikes are 50-pound Hellfire missiles, is what Obama was doing with the drone strikes. He killed a lot of people in double-tap strikes. It's nothing like the 300-to-1-type ratio that the Israelis adopted. I know you covered it. When they bomb the tents, they claim they're going after one guy and they bomb the tent city. They killed 300 people claiming they're going after one guy when they're not even going after one guy.

56:20And then crucially, there's the Israeli journalistic outlet 972 Mag, who did the groundbreaking reports on the use of artificial intelligence, Lavender and Daddy's Home. And what the program, Daddy's Home, is it follows alleged Hamas fighters home and then kills them in front of their families and or with their families. And Lavender, they talked all about, in the program Lavender, they say, we've identified all the Hamas targets we can find. We killed them all already. So now what do we do? So what do they do? They turn the dial on the AI to now, figuratively, to now include far more people. Now it's just all fighting age males.

57:02Now they're all Hamas. And you don't even have IDF humans supervising this. You just trust the computer program to pick targets and go out there and kill people.

57:13Piers Morgan:And I do think I do think one of the reasons that the reputation of Israel globally has taken such a hit is because people can see the scenes on the ground. It's the cruelty. That's right. They can see the scenes in Lebanon and they just think it's massively disproportionate. It doesn't mean in my case, for example, I spent many months being pilloried by the pro-Palestinian side for defending Israel's right to defend itself. I fundamentally believe they had a right to defend themselves. And aggressively. Can we go back to what the colonel said about how easy it would be for the IDF, Shin Bet, Mossad to go in there and pinprick and get these guys?

57:52It's worse because by not doing that, you've massively invaded. You've killed a hell of a lot of people. and going back to a point you made earlier, by doing that, kill your brother turns you into a terrorist. I mean, the British Army learnt that in Northern Ireland. I would say... In the early 70s...

58:13Piers Morgan:And there are weird things, I've got to say, we've got to wrap this up a bit, but there are weird things here, which I think we'll find out more about over time, but how the Mossad, which is reputed to be the most brilliant intelligence agency in the world, so intelligent that he can blow up 3 ,000 Hezbollah terrorists in one moment with pages that they've infiltrated, so intelligent that he can track the movements of the Ayatollah of Iran with his people through traffic lights, reportedly, and so on and so on and so on. How that agency appeared to have no idea that the billions of dollars being funnelled into Gaza were being misused by Hamas to build this...

58:57Piers Morgan:Would you have supported an operation before October 7th? Because they did know. If they knew, would you have supported them in a military operation? No, no, I'm just saying. How did the Mossad not have any comprehension that anything on October 7th of that scale... Israeli intelligence had a lot of knowledge of what was going on in Gaza, but they thought, the misconception, as I understand it, is that they believed that, A, the world would not support them pre-emptively striking in the Gaza Strip. So what happened on October 7th was the pretext. But, B, they also had this massive preconception that non-violent means would be better.

59:29So a technological offence, it would never be possible to break through. But the question I was going to ask, Jonathan, was... That didn't work out.

59:35Piers Morgan:How did they not know that 3 ,000 Hamas terrorists were about to pour over the border, right? But what, so you think they were part of it? No, not at all. I don't buy into that conspiracy theory. I'm just saying there was a massive ball dropping here. Huge. And I still can't get my head right. This is on their doorstep. It appears it's easy. It's easy, OK? Netanyahu repeated this over and over again. If you wish to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state, you must support Hamas in the Gaza Stade. Well, I believe in him. That's why he said... I believe he was waiting divide and rule... We control the height of the flame.

1:00:13And he denied saying that when he had three sources said he sent it to a Likud meeting, but now we have him on tape saying it to the Shinbank under interrogation. There's no doubt.

1:00:21Piers Morgan:There's no doubt. But wait, wait, to answer your question... He was trying to play divide and rule with the Palestinian Authority in Hamas. That's right. That's right. We prevent a Palestinian state by keeping them divided and conquered. But then he said, we control the height of the flame, which means that, yeah, they're dangerous. They're just dangerous enough that we can tell the U.S. Congress, well, you don't expect us to negotiate with these terrorists, do you? But don't worry, they won't break out of their pen and do anything. But then that means that everyone down the chain of command knew that that was Netanyahu's policy.

1:00:50And so if anyone is reporting up the chain of command, I see suspicious movements at the fence. I see, you know, whatever dangerous things, those warnings don't go all the way up to the Prime Minister's office because Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel and Captain and whoever, they know that the boss doesn't want to hear that. And so they don't pass... None of it really makes much sense,

1:01:13Piers Morgan:and I hope we get to the bottom of it. Maybe if we let journalists into Gaza, we'll get some way to finding out. The prediction markets, polymarket, is asking US and Iran permanent peace deal buy $75 million currently in this market. May 15th, 16%. May 31st, 29%. June 30th, 51%. December 31st, 73%. Bob, let me just very quickly... I mean, peace is a very movable feast, obviously, but when do you think we may see the end of this war officially in terms of a declaration of it being over? The answer is no-one knows. Yeah. However, I hope within the next four weeks. OK. I really hope within the next four weeks that there's some sort of deal.

1:01:58Piers Morgan:Yeah. Trump will have to accept that he has not achieved everything, but he will declare it as a victory. Iran will actually say they've won, and that's it. And you know what? I'm comfortable with that, if it stops it. Jonathan, when do you think? I couldn't tell you when it will, but if you put those back, I'll have a look when I should put my money on and see what I can do. Hopefully, people in the Trump administration aren't putting money on it right now, knowing... It looks increasingly like some of them have. Yeah. So maybe we should watch what they've done and that will give us a guide to...

1:02:29That's probably not a bad idea. The truth, what history should ask is, what solution will end up with the least number of people dead?

1:02:41Piers Morgan:Yeah. That is actually what we've got to aim for. Yeah. And it's very difficult to say whether... I think we should factor in that calculation, though, in the numbers.

1:02:57I would say there is unfortunately a number of bad actors. Okay, you know what I'm saying? Guys, I would love to carry on a more extended debate.

1:03:09Piers Morgan:We haven't got time. Scott, quickly, when do you think we may see a deal? I really wish I could say Trump has got himself in such a tough position here where, as you're indicating, he can't quit without essentially admitting he's a good deal. he lost, or at least just lying and calling it a victory in the most absurd way. But I do encourage that. And quite frankly, I think the best case scenario really would be for America to just abandon our world empire and our Middle Eastern empire altogether. Tell the captain, fly home, Admiral, sail home, and completely disengage. And that shifts the entire burden onto Iran to deal with the rest of Eurasia, which is quite frankly, none of the United States of to a chance to promote your new book, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism, by Scott Horton, whether you love what Scott says, hate what he says, there is no denying you are a brilliant writer, and you immersed yourself in incredible amounts of detail and research for these books, and I always find them riveting to read, even if I don't agree with all of it.

1:04:09Piers Morgan:I don't think you would expect everyone to agree with all of it. Of course not. You sparked great debate, and it's great to have you in the studio and to meet you for the first time, so thank you very much. Jonathan, continue to whack me in your columns. I think it actually is quite brand-enhancing when you do it. Just the one. And it gives me a chance to whack you back. I know you do, that's the point. But it's good to see you two. You too. The point about unsensitive, I like having people in that don't agree with me. I'll agree with everything you say. I totally agree. And, Bob, great to see you again.

1:04:36Piers Morgan:You seem to be the Benjamin Button of military commentators. Younger every time I see you. Really? Yeah. How kind. I'm coming here again. Great to see you all. Thank you very much. Well, House Democrats this week wrote to the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, urging the White House to come clean about Israel's nuclear capability. They argue that it's untenable for the US to fight a war alongside a military with nuclear armed power whose nukes are never acknowledged in public. Joining me now to discuss this is Bianca Nobler, host of History Uncensored, who's been exploring why that is. Bianca, congrats on your channel.

1:05:10Piers Morgan:It's going great guns. Subscribers pouring in, views pouring in. This is a really interesting quandary because I keep asking people, including this panel we've just had, why is it that Israel gets this weird pass about being transparent about their nukes? And before you give me your more expert opinion, I just want to play a clip. This is from Naftali Bennett, who is the guy leading the polls at the moment to replace Netanyahu as Prime Minister. When I asked him this question, Why, if everyone else should be transparent about nuclear capability and is transparent about it, why does Israel get a pass?

1:05:50Piers Morgan:Why can't you just say, yeah, we have nuclear weapons and here's how many we've got? As I said, we're not going to be the first ones to introduce, but I will say that no other country... Does that mean you don't have any? So, I believe, Piers, you're a very intelligent guy and you can ask it in 20 different ways. And all I can say is there's no other country on earth that is so threatened by others. So, Bianca, apparently that's the reason. So we have this weird situation where Israel's gone to war with the United States against Iran because they don't believe them when they make statements about their own nuclear capabilities or intentions.

1:06:34Piers Morgan:And Iran is apparently obligated to be fully transparent about this. But Israel, who many people believe have up to several hundred nuclear weapons, have never publicly admitted this. You are history uncensored. Explain this to me. I'd call it Schrodinger's bomb. And the reason that it's been able to continue since approximately 1968. So that's when CIA officials said that President Lyndon Johnson was informed by the CIA director that Israel had nuclear capability. and where did that come from? Israel worked with France in the aftermath of the Suez crisis. France needed Israel's support against Egypt.

1:07:15It was kind of a quid pro quo, I'm oversimplifying, but France helped Israel build the nuclear program. It was masked in various ways, like they were building a textile plant, a manganese plant, doing other things, but essentially the consensus is they had them from then. So the reason this is allowed to continue is obviously if the US admitted that Israel had a bomb and their intelligence suggested that, that would break a decades-old taboo, which would be really problematic. Because as you're pointing out, that would hinder the US's argument to say that they are essentially fighting in aid of non-proliferation, that the US doesn't want more countries with nuclear weapons.

1:07:54They've said that since the end of the Cold War, along with Russia. So if you admit Israel has that, then you're kind of screwed argument-wise. And also there's this very valid strategic concern, which not just the US has, but also Russia, China, other nuclear states, that if Israel admits to having the bomb, then you have this regional cascade. Then Iran obviously wants one, so does Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and that's problematic for all of the nuclear powers for different reasons.

1:08:23Piers Morgan:So it's weird. I mean, there are nine countries who officially have nuclear weapons. The United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. I mean, we all know they have. How does it work? I mean, if you want to have a nuclear weapon, what is the process? You don't have an option now. So prior to 1967, you needed to test one. So that's the rule. The world is governed, allegedly, by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was inked in 1967, became official in 1968. So the countries that officially have the nuclear bomb, their nuclear weapons states, and that's just China, France, the UK, the US, and Russia.

1:09:08So they're official. After that, you're not allowed to have a nuclear weapon. No country is, according to this treaty. However, if you sign the treaty, and therein lies a big issue, you are entitled to have all access to civilian nuclear power. Now, this has been a problem from the very beginning and the elephant in the room, because it's dual use, essentially. So you could say, I won't build a nuclear bomb in Iran's case, but I do want civilian nuclear access. But the problem is, the resources, the infrastructure, the intelligence, the expertise, these can obviously be transferred to make a weapon.

1:09:48But in answer to your question, how do you go about it, you're not allowed, which is why when countries try to create their nuclear weapons like North Korea, the world will try and stop you until you build one and then the world has no options because of fear of catastrophic retaliation. So if you're in Iran's case and, let's say, hypothetically, you did want to build a nuclear bomb, you want to do that as quickly as possible strategically because then the world has no option other than to let you have it and sullenly accept it.

1:10:13Piers Morgan:There are 12 ,000 nuclear weapons, apparently, on planet Earth. How many of those are active, effective, usable? Because there is a theory that a lot of the Russian ones, for example, are not, but they still waive their kind of nuclear weaponry as a sort of saber-rattling thing to scare people off, when in fact it may be a lot of their nukes are not really usable. That is almost certainly true. However, in the last couple of years, China, Russia and the US have all poured more money into their nuclear weapons programs in terms of expanding their arsenals or modernization than they have done in previous decades.

1:10:55So most experts that watch this space closely say that we are moving towards a slow but steady renewed nuclear arms race. So while it might be true that a lot of these weapons would be redundant or not usable, there is an effort underway across all of the nuclear powers to make sure that that won't be the case imminently.

1:11:14Piers Morgan:Underpinning all this is, ironically, the word mad, which is mutually assured destruction, that the point of having a number of countries that have nuclear arsenals is that nobody would start a nuclear war because everyone gets vaporised. is the reason why people are so particularly agitated about Iran because they believe that it's in the mentality of this regime that they would take their own lives quite willingly for the greater good, the greater cause, and therefore present a different threat to countries with a different mindset. There are a couple of issues with mutually assured destruction, or MADD.

1:11:59The first one is it relies on everyone being a rational actor to work, which I think is what you're getting at. It's the notion that I'm not going to strike this country because they won't want to be struck and they'll strike me back. So mutual annihilation. Of course, that's the worry. And for people who would criticize Iran and say it is an irrational theocracy that could act in a certain way backed into a corner. I mean, we don't know that North Korea has had nuclear weapons since their first test, I think, in 2006. but that's one of the issues however there are plenty of people in this field that would say you can't actually say that the reason that the world has been more stable up until this point over the last decades is the fact that there are so many nuclear weapons pointing at one another it could be economic it could be the rules-based order which is obviously incomplete and hypocritical but it still does exist so nobody can really say for sure that this works which seems like a massive amount of jeopardy given what could happen.

1:12:54Piers Morgan:Bianca Nobolo, fascinating. You are the great explainer of these complex things. History Uncensored is up and running as a brilliant new YouTube channel for the Uncensored family, presented by Bianca, who will explain the inexplicable to the masses. I can't think of a more valuable public service. So please check it out, subscribe and join the growing army of Bianca fans. Bianca, lovely to talk to you. You too, Piers, thanks.

1:13:52Thank you.