“You Bombed SIX Countries!” Israel Continues Strikes in Lebanon | Middle East Conflict With Mehdi Hasan & Doron Spielman

22:50We have destroyed Iran's nuclear production capabilities. It's launching timers. It's hard fuel. All of the many things that go in in order to take that bomb, put it on a warhead and shoot it, have been destroyed. Their ballistic missile program has been weakened. How do we know?

23:08Piers Morgan:Because last summer... Just one second, their leadership and the fighting mechanism has been destroyed. Doran, with respect, last summer, after the 12-day war, we were assured that the whole nuclear capability of Iran had been put back decades. It was done, flattened. It was over. Eight months later, a massive war was launched against Iran because it turned out that was all baloney. It wasn't baloney, but I'll tell you what happened. What many people will say is exactly the same rhetorical baloney again. It is not, I'll tell you why. You're also conceding that if the enriched uranium remains in Iran, this war's a failure.

23:46Piers Morgan:And I don't see how you get it. No, I said it isn't a failure because you'll set back a terror regime that operates with ballistic missiles, operates as... But the regime remains in place. Hamas, you'll have taken, again... The supreme leader's son is the new Ayatollah, right? Piers. Yeah? Say this again, I'm sorry. The Ayatollah, the supreme leader who was killed, his son is his replacement. The IRGC regime remains in place. There's been no protests from the people of Iran. And the Straits of Hormuz have become a massive weapon for the Iranians to use economically, as they also simultaneously attack all their Gulf state neighbours.

24:23Piers Morgan:So the idea that you... My point is the idea that at the end of this, Iran keeps its enriched uranium, you would have to admit in that eventuality the war's a failure just no because a war pierce it's very rare that you get a victory what's called you know unconditional surrender of any enemy i don't think it's happened since world war ii what you get in wars are cumulative gains again this is not fast food you know it's like a mcdonald's drive-through the woman says what do you want you say i want you know then the iranian regime this is a process that began a number of months ago with the 12-day war.

24:56And what Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence saw is as soon as that war ended, Iran went right back to building a nuclear program, developing the nuclear sites, digging forward the uranium that was there. They refurbished their ballistic missile sites and were expanding it from 2 ,500 to 7 ,000. And like you said, that now that we see Ali Khamenei has been killed, what do we see happen? They have not reformed. They put in another member of the exact same family, meaning this regime is evil and has to stop now. So you have done this. Hold on. Can I actually say that? Let Mady respond now.

25:29To stop them, Piers, it's the idea of good standing against evil.

25:33Piers Morgan:Okay, Mady's response, please. So what both of you are missing, to an extent, is it's not really about what uranium is left in the country. It's about intent. You have left the Israelis and the American government have left the Iranian government, not just in place. There hasn't been the regime change that Netanyahu lied to Trump and said would be easy in that situation we're meeting. They've not just left the Iranian regime in place, but they've left the Iranian government with the clear intent to want to have to defend itself, to use Doron and the Israelis' favourite phrase, their right to self-defence.

26:03If you were in the Iranian government today, would you not want to get nuclear weapons? Would you not think I'd been attacked two years running by people I was in the middle of negotiations with? Every time I'm in a negotiation with them, they kill our negotiators, they kill our top foreign diplomats, they threaten to kill more of us. Every time we're doing a deal, whether it's in Geneva or Vienna or Oman, they attack us, which is what the Israelis did last year. Why would you not want to get nuclear weapons? Why would you not look at North Korea and say, no one dares touch North Korea because they have nukes?

26:31Why would you not listen to Doron speaking on Piers Morgan saying, well, we didn't sign the NPT, so we don't have any obligations not to have nukes? Why wouldn't Iran say, well, we're going to pull out of the NPT. We're going to do what North Korea did. And we're going to do it because the world saw us get illegally attacked two years running. Doron asked me, do I want Iran to have nuclear weapons? No, I'm anti-nuclear weapons. I'm not like you. I don't support nukes and have a secret nuclear weapons program. I supported the JCPOA, which in the very first paragraph, Iran affirmed never to build nuclear weapons, which said that Iran could only enrich to 3.67%, which got rid of a lot of their highly enriched uranium.

27:02You, the Israeli government, Netanyahu, stopped the JCPOA, wrecked the JCPOA. You helped Iran enrich to 20 and then 60. You brought us to this situation, the Israeli government and the Donald Trump administration. So don't lecture the rest of us about nukes when you have nukes and you've now incentivized Iran to get nukes. Every year, the U.N. General Assembly appears that they had 20 % of reach during already in 2014. Let me just finish my point. You and Peer spoke for a very long time. Let me finish my point. You said you don't like interruptions. I'll finish in a moment. The U.N. General Assembly votes every year to have a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East.

27:37Iran votes for that resolution. Everyone in the world votes for that resolution. Two countries don't vote for that resolution. That is the U.S. and Israel because Israel wants to be the only power Well, Iran doesn't have nukes, and you do. You are so naive, Mehdi. It's unbelievable. I'm listening to you. You can't even tell. You can't even tell. Doran, you can't even tell the viewers today whether Israel has nukes. You're defending Iran. You realize, Mehdi, you're defending Iran. Doran, why should anyone believe anything you say? You say you don't have a hidden nuclear program. No, I'm not, actually.

28:06The hidden nuclear program is Iran. It's Ali Khamenei. That's your leader. No, the U.S. disagree with you. I mean, which one are you? because you're defending, you sound like Mehdi Khamenei. We're a nice program. We vote against nuclear weapons. Of course, of course. We just want to full stop. Go for racist insults. That's all you have left. We already had 20 % enriched uranium. I mean, who are you speaking as? As an American citizen? And yet, hold on, hold on. You're going back to 2014, Doron? 2014. Who are you speaking as? You're speaking as an Israeli military... And it was reported before the JCPOA.

28:40Exactly. When did the JCPOA get signed, Doron? Do you know what year? 2015 do you know what year the jcpo was signed 2015 exactly the year later so why are you going back to 2014 it was resolved in 2015 and then you and trump came along and wrecked it no the trump administration vouched and said iran was complying with the jcpoa so when you keep saying why do you trust iran iran did what it had to do it according to the iaea let's unpack the jcpoa they follow the deal no no no no tell us the conditions of the jcpoa i'm gonna tell you what happened under the jcp no tell me about what does the jcpoa say you know tell us seven the truth i do know and i'm i'm telling you now the jcpoa allowed iran to enrich at 3.67 percent when did they start enriching to 20 percent when you and your friends in the israeli government and donald trump tore up the jcpoa jim mattis a general in the american military who was defense secretary not under the jcpoa no they did not as every ian inspector by the way by the way by the way by the Wait, Doron, what enriched uranium does Israel have?

29:43Because the IAEA aren't allowed into Israel. So why don't you tell us? You say we're naive. Everyone watching knows that you can't tell the truth about your own country's nuclear weapons. Yes, I am. I'm comparing the country that has attacked six countries. Why? You're worse. You're morally worse than Iran. Israel's not funding proxies throughout the movies. You bombed six countries. Israel doesn't target Marines. You bombed six countries. Israel does not target Marines or have Hezbollah or Hamas or kill its own people in the streets, even though you think it does. You just murdered children in Lebanon last week.

30:14Doron, your military just killed 300 people in a single 10-minute span last week. You blew up children in strollers. You killed a one-year-old at a funeral. You killed 300 people in Lebanon in one day last week. Who laid that battlefield, Mady? You filled up the hospitals. Mady, who laid out that battlefield? Who created that battlefield? You did. You violated the ceasefire with Hezbollah 15 ,000 times. Yes, you violated the ceasefire. Was there anyone over there? Was there anyone called Hezbollah? that was embedded in the population. I know you don't like facts, right? But you haven't brought a single fact to this discussion.

30:44Iran wastes the people going on the streets and they kill them in cold blood. Israel tells the people of Saudi Lebanon, please move out of the way so that we can actually kill Hezbollah. And Pierce had on just last week, Then why did you kill 300 people in 10 minutes? Salah Makhnu was just fine. Why did you carry out Lebanon's October the 7th last week? You know what? It's not about you. It's not about you. Why did you carry out Lebanon's October the 7th last week? Salah Makhnu was on last week. Why did you kill 300 people? And I think you should listen to what he said. 300 people you killed. and he stopped the truth that the Lebanese people and Hezbollah are gone.

31:13In 10 minutes. How do you sleep at night? I'm sure it's true that many Lebanese people

31:19Piers Morgan:would like Hezbollah gone, but it's also true that many Lebanese people right now are running terrified for their lives because of the bombing raids over them. A million people displaced from their homes by Israel. And a million people have been displaced from their homes. There's a horrible, familiar past casting. The following is what happened in Gaza. Pierce, if we don't displace them, then I go on this show and were accused of killing civilians, right? And if we do displace them, then they're accused of displace them. You told them they can't come back. Don't lie, Doran. Don't gaslight us.

31:47You've told them they can't come back. That means it's ethnic cleansing. I have one question for you. Does Israel have a right to respond to Hezbollah after they shot 6 ,000 rockets at us, unprovoked, on October 8, 2023, one day after October 7? Do we have a right to respond? Any country has a right to defend itself. Of course it does. Does Lebanon have a right to defend itself from Israeli invasion? Hold on, hold on. Doran, you always start these timelines. You start these timelines in weird places. You say 2014, ignoring what happened in 2015. You say October 8th, 2023. You ignore what happened in 2024, Doran.

32:24Let me remind the viewers of Peers Uncensored. There was a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah since the end of 2024. According to the UN, according to UN peacekeepers, Israel keeps attacking. You keep attacking Irish and Nepalese and Indonesian peacekeepers. The UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon say Israel violated the ceasefire not a thousand times, not 5 ,000 times. They say you violated the ceasefire 15 ,000 times over the last 18 months. So please don't come and tell me about unprovoked rockets. I don't know about your numbers. You, Israel, violated that ceasefire. I have one question.

32:54You killed... Well, Google is your friend, okay? 400 people... Wait, there was one... There was one basic condition. Guys, we've run out of time. We've run out of time.

33:04Piers Morgan:I'm sorry, we've run out of time. You murdered 300 people last week, including a baby at a father's funeral. You murdered 300 terrorists last week, and I think those are your people. A one-year-old baby is a terrorist? I think that speaks volumes about your virus. I'm going to leave it there. The one-year-old baby was put in harm's way because his bullet created a funeral. I'm going to leave it there, gentlemen. At a funeral? I appreciate you joining me. We've run out of time. So thank you both very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Pierce. There's been a lot of talk, including from the White House, about a historic victory in the Iran war in response to many of the war's critics.

33:38Piers Morgan:It says the humiliating defeat, so which one is it? Is it really possible or meaningful to declare a military victory if the general narrative is that you've not achieved very much at all? Joining me to discuss this is a retired U.S. Army officer and a military intelligence expert, Major General James Spidermanx and Jim Hansen, U.S. Army Special Forces veteran and chief strategist for the Middle East Forum. Welcome to both of you. Major General Marks, is America with Israel? Are they winning this war? Or is, as some people are claiming, the asymmetrical war being waged by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz actually turning out to be more successful?

34:18Well, I see a lot of Vietnam wrapped up in this contest we're involved in right now. We're winning immensely on the battlefield. We We have crushed Iran's ability to exercise command and control. We've decimated their ability to exercise, I would think, the domestic requirements of a legitimate government. We don't know who's in charge. I don't think the Iranian people know who's in charge. And I doubt anybody's going to raise a hand and say, look, I want to take the mantle of the burden of leadership, knowing full well if they go outside for a smoke break, they're going to get shot in the head as well they should be.

34:54So my experience viewing this is that we are inflicting incredible damage. But from the perspective of who's got the longer horizon, time horizon of how much longer we can withstand pain, I think Iran has the ability to simply hang in there much longer than we do because we're dealing with political dynamics, which are really incredibly difficult for us to look at a warfare through the political spectrum. but that's what it's all about. But I think that's where it is. I've described this in many cases. Look, this is a lot like Monty Python, you know, and the Holy Grail in that it's tis but a scratch, you know, as their arms and legs are getting cut off, but they've got the ability to hang in there.

35:41Piers Morgan:Yeah, Jim Hansen, I mean, it seems to me the goalposts have shifted significantly throughout this six-week war so far. We've gone from wanting regime change to total surrender to now the main theme is we've got to stop Iran getting a nuke and so on. And it's all been very confusing and very inconsistent. But ultimately, if at the centre of this is Donald Trump's claim that Iran must be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon, can this war be perceived to be successful if the enriched uranium, which Iran possesses, remains in Iran in their possession? Well, to extend the metaphor, I'd say that's the holy grail.

36:28You have to get that. And I don't think there has been a shifting of goalposts. The goal all along has been to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, being able to develop one, having the initiative to do it, having the ability, having the ballistic missile programs and other conventional arms that protect them and stop other people from going in and removing that capability. So from that perspective, all of those things have at least been put on hold or set back decades. Their defense industrial base is non-existent at this point. They're running out of missiles and drones and everything else.

37:03And I think at some point you have to look at what President Trump's decision was. He had to either take the fact that they had begun trying to develop their new program again, which has one purpose. Let's not pretend it's about nuclear power. It never has been. It's always been about the Islamic revolution's bomb. And he said, if we don't do something to stop that at this point, they're going to continue. And at some point, another president is going to see a mushroom cloud. He's not going to be the guy who kicked the can down the road again. And so he took massive political damage to do the right thing for America and the world.

37:40And I think he'll see it.

37:41Piers Morgan:But how is he going to get the enriched uranium without committing a significant number of ground forces with all the danger that goes with it? He's going to break the Islamic Republic's will to continue. The blockade hurts them more than us. They need to get oil revenue and they need to bring things in. If that stops and we have every capability to do that, it's already started, then they only have a couple weeks where they have enough cash reserves. And the other thing to look at is if they don't get their oil out, their fields are pumping, their storage capability is at 60 percent. That'll be filled up in less than two weeks.

38:21After that, they have to shut their wells down and that breaks the wells that ruins the ability to continue pumping. So they've got a two week window tops if we enforce this blockade. And that's where the maximum pressure comes from. You know, the kinetic stuff broke their dangerous toys. this breaks their ability to continue both internally and externally. Major General Marks, do you agree with that assessment? Well, I agree with Jim, absolutely, that what the United States, in concert in the campaign with Israel, has been able to defeat the capability of the Iranians to achieve nuclear capability, attrit their ballistic missile development, and put their proxies, either destroy their proxies or put their proxies on notice that they're not going to live much longer.

39:05And so I see this as we're in a period of transition and that we can go from what we've seen over the course of the last five weeks, which has been quite phenomenal and destructive in terms of what has been able to be achieved. And we can transition into a period where we could have sustainable engagement against those targets. The three red lines are proxies, missiles and nukes. And we could have a sustained engagement that doesn't necessarily put boots on the ground at all to secure the HEU, but to identify it as best we can. And look, I spent my life as an intel guy and I understand the challenges of getting it right.

39:44And I know the scar tissue of getting it wrong. But we can go after Esfahan, Natanz, and Fordow as a matter of routine and further degrade their ability and set back their ability to be a threat. Until we put boots on the ground and we start opening steel doors, there's never going to be a level of certainty that's going to satisfy everybody. All the pundits are going to say, what is it, 30 percent, 80 percent? Look, I don't know. But we can set this back so that they don't become a threat until such point as the Iranian And people say, look, we're tired of getting we're tired of being in a threat situation all the time.

40:18Our social contract shoved down our throat 50 years ago is we've got to listen to these lunatics in Tehran, this theocracy, which is hypocritic, incredibly hypocritical at its root. And at some point we give them the opportunity to rise up and say we want something different. That horizon may be years away, but the horizon for us is racing upon us because we have elections. We have a vocal electric, and we have challenges associated with that. And I don't disagree with Jim. I think every one of President Trump's predecessors is probably smoking a cigar and drinking a bourbon right now saying, you know, for God's sakes, I wish I'd done that.

40:57Piers Morgan:Well, I'm not convinced by that. And the reason is I think there's also a credibility issue with President Trump, to be honest, which is that after the 12-day war last summer, he was out there saying very loudly, we have destroyed their nuclear capability, put it back decades, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yet within eight months, he felt the need to launch a full-fledged war against Iran for precisely the reasons that he said had just been neutralized eight months earlier. So there is a credibility issue there. And my question would be here, well, how do we know? Whose word do we take? if suddenly we get the same statements being made, oh, we've done it again.

41:36Piers Morgan:Eight months later, once again, we have neutralized the nuclear threat for another two decades. Well, how do we know what to believe? You know Donald Trump. Sorry, that was for Jim. Sorry, yeah. You know Donald Trump. You've talked to him. He loves hyperbolic rhetoric. He plays information warfare as well as any leader on the planet. And in as long as I can remember, back to probably Reagan was the last guy who did that style. And Reagan's was polished movie star. Trump's is bombastic New York real estate tycoon. And so he does that to throw the other side off balance. He claims things that he wants to be true to go ahead and assume the close.

42:19He uses every technique of the art of the deal to try and push what he wants to happen. Now, in this case, there was tremendous damage and their nuclear program was broken in the 12-day war. When we saw and noticed that they were doing things that said they're just going to continue to rebuild it, he had to recalculate and say, well, you know what? They didn't learn the lesson. We broke it. They couldn't make a bomb right now, but they're going to do it again. And these 12-er Shia Islam sect that Iran has believes that they need an Armageddon-like event to bring the return of the 12th imam to rule the world.

42:58So you can't trust guys like that, but you can say they're going to look at the long, long game. And if you want to go ahead and say, OK, during my presidency, I took care of the midterms and kept a Republican majority, great. You don't do the right thing. President Trump took the poison pill for all of us and went ahead and took him out of the game. And hopefully he's taken that regime out for the long term.

43:23Piers Morgan:OK, so quickly, Jim Hansen, just as we wrap up, just give me a prediction for what you think is going to happen. I think we will go ahead and blockade the straight and go ahead and stop them from gaining revenue for it and bringing stuff in. And that will break the regime enough that they will capitulate. They will give up the enriched uranium and figure they could make more later or cheat or buy one from somebody. And then what will happen is a longer, slow degradation of the entire Islamic Republic remnants until the people of Iran are feeling free enough to rise up with some help and go ahead and bring about a new government that serves their interests and needs and is not a menace to the region and the world.

44:10Okay. Major General Marx, your prediction? I think we have weeks. We're in a period of transition at the tactical level. We're going to have an increased presence of Marines, which gives the CENTCOM commander some options. If, in fact, there's an opportunity to do something with the highly enriched uranium, I think there will remain negotiations of a sort. I think we're going to have to get our hands around what the nuke discussion looks like, that's a non-negotiable. But I can't see a force, you know, a non-permissive engagement that allows us to go after highly enriched uranium, primarily because we don't know where it is in its entirety, and we don't know how much there is in its entirety.

44:51That becomes an incredibly difficult mission set. Iran has also figured out how to make oil like the Russians. It's very fungible. So conducting the blockade in the Straits of Hormuz will release pressure. It will increase pressure on the regime in Tehran. I don't think it's going to break it, but it's going to be sufficient in addition to what has already occurred that I think there will be a, we will have negotiations again moving forward and we'll have an opportunity to start to address that red line, which is give us access to the highly enriched uranium. We can dilute it. We can turn it into something that allows you to have commercial nuclear power, which they have.

45:30They've got it in Bushir right now. And that becomes an opportunity to stop what's happening to the regime right now. I think they would benefit greatly from that.

45:40Piers Morgan:I bow to both of you in terms of your vastly superior military expertise on this. I just don't quite share your confidence, but I do appreciate you joining me. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Good to be with you. 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.

46:26Thank you.