Emergency Episode: Israel Strikes Iran — with Dan Senor

26:15and that also that we're generally, I think until recently, perceived as the good guys, which makes them more likely to want to do business with us and they're best and brightest universities here and more likely to alert the American embassy if they hear about a terrorist cell trying to infiltrate U.S. interests. And I think soft power brand, if you will, and I was thinking the Israeli brand was this peanut butter and chocolate of, it's strange, the world, and you said this, is comfortable with a dead Jew. And that is, I remember my first, exposure to Israel and Judaism was in 72. We were watching the Olympics.

26:51And I remember for the first time registering that my parents were really upset and concerned. And they were staring at the TV of this guy in an apartment complex on the balcony with a ski mask on and asking what was going on. And that was, you know, the Munich Olympics and the slaughter of the Israeli athletes. And then, so it was like, okay, they're a victim. And that, I think, really benefited Israel to be seen as the, as you said, as the David, constantly that anti-Semitism is a light sleeper and obviously the Holocaust. And then the second part was, I remember in, I think I was in the seventh grade, us spending an entire class talking about the Operation Entebbe and the rescue.

27:35and just how, quite frankly, how badass that was. And you're a 12-year-old boy. You think, wow, Israel, right? And it strikes me that the brand most recently is more the latter than the former. And then I think that's a good thing. I think basically Israel has said, look, if you get comfortable with dead Jews, you got to start getting comfortable with fighting Jews. And I actually think that is a more advantageous position that we're going to go on the offense, we are not to be fucked with, and we are very good at what we do. And our men and women in uniform are not only incredibly brave, they're incredibly well-resourced.

28:11And the people on the ground are very good at what they do. So my sense is this is, I see this, and I'm curious to get your tape, I see this as the most important Israel's actions around cutting off the hands of all of these proxies of Iran, whether it's the Houthis or Hezbollah or Hamas and now Iran, that similar to what Ukraine has done fighting back against Russia, that they have defanged what was seen as the superpower in the Gulf. And now I would argue that the superpower in the Gulf, hands down, is Israel. The only thing they have that Saudi Arabia has is they don't have oil. But it looks as if in an information economy, you'd rather have an entrepreneurial culture.

28:54And you wrote a book on this called startup nation. But is this, could this potentially be a real unlock, if you will, around, I mean, I'm trying to look at the glasses half empty here, that they come to some sort of agreement with Iran that Saudi Arabia steps up and says, all right, it sucks to be a grownup. They're the power in the region. And we might, this might result in something resembling a sustainable peace. I think this is what we've just witnessed over the last few days. And really, I think over the past year is the biggest transformation in the Middle East and the biggest transformation in terms of Israel's geopolitical position in the Middle East since the Six-Day War, 1967, which obviously sent a message to the region and to the world that Israel, let's just say, to bring it back to what you were just saying, it was a dramatic brand enhancement for Israel, the winning the six-day war.

29:47And I think Israel's experiencing something like, there's no precedent for it. I asked, for a recent speech I gave, I asked two British historians of military history and geopolitical history, world affairs. I asked Andrew Roberts, Lord Andrew Roberts from the UK, and I asked Neil Ferguson, who I know you've had on your podcast. I asked them both separately, is there any precedent for a country under the kind of threat it was under, which was existential from guerrilla commando types like Hamas to 200 ,000 rockets staring down its country like it had from Hezbollah, not to mention over 100 ,000 fighters to a country right by its border that wants to build a nuclear weapon that it's – say it's openly pointing at Israel.

30:34Is there any precedent for a country that has had these kinds of threats arrayed against them? And in a matter of a year and a half to two years, so dramatically transformed its situation towards each one of them and to the region. And they both said you have to go back like a couple hundred years. I mean, you know, Robert said like – you know, looked at France and I forget like something like 200 years ago. I mean there's not – the bottom line is these are two guys I trust. And they said there's just no precedent for this. And so I don't want to say permanent peace because who the hell knows the world is complicated and fluid.

31:06But I think we are on the path to doing two extremely important things. One, I think more Arab countries today are going to be interested and open to the idea of normalizing relations with Israel than they were, you know, a year and a half ago, a year ago, six months ago. Okay. So I think that's – so that – you know, I think we're on a path towards something big happening. And this was the necessary ingredient because all of the countries, the Sunni Arab countries in the Middle East are terrified of Iran. And Israel has just demonstrated that they're the only ones that can, you know, take them apart.

31:42So I think we're on that path. But there's another aspect here that I think is even bigger than the region. Iran was very close. There are debates between intelligence agencies about how close. But there's no debate about whether or not Iran was getting close to having a nuclear weapons capability. That is that the level at which it was enriching uranium, which was getting itself damn close to weapons grade enrichment, which no country needs for a civilian nuclear program. You only do that for one reason, one reason only. And then two, as Nadav Ayal said on my podcast, the weapons group, which is the group within Iran that's job it is to take the ingredients of a nuclear bomb like the enriched uranium and actually create the warhead that delivers it.

32:24and the weapons group had gotten extremely active in recent months and was acquiring a lot of things. So the concern about the speed with which the enrichment was happening and the speed with which the weapons group was moving and seemed to be active scared everyone, especially the Israelis, the IAEA had expressed concerns. So our hope of diplomatic nonproliferation, which was this, I think, a misguided and naive hope when you're dealing with a country like Iran that has made it so clear that having a nuclear weapon was like central to its raison d 'etre in world affairs and in regional affairs.

33:03The idea that through diplomatic maneuvers, you are going to be able to persuade them not to have – not to stop pursuing that I think was unrealistic. realistic there are four countries in the world today that pose a real threat to the united states and to the west china russia north korea and iran all four of those countries for different reasons pose a serious threat to the united states in the west three of those countries have a nuclear weapon china russia north korea and north korea as recently as 2006 is when they basically declared that they had a nuclear weapon. Iran was the only one that didn't.

33:42And the idea that the West was gonna be able to stop Iran from getting that nuclear weapon by diplomatic maneuverings, as I said, was not gonna happen. And so by Israel using force to prevent that, it has done a real service to the world and to the West because had Iran gone nuclear, that really would have sparked a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. And God knows what that would look like. So the kingdom didn't want no, nobody wanted to have a nuclear weapon. They also just as someone who thinks a lot about technology, what is really struck me is the technology. We're all talking about AI constantly.

34:22In my opinion, the more meaningful technology and maybe AI played a big, you know, AI is more like electricity now. It seems to be playing a role in everything. But both in Ukraine and this latest attack, which has happened inside of Russia in terms at taking out a large portion of their strategic bomber fleet. I'm just shocked at what an incredible role of what an innovation drones are playing. The asymmetric warfare. And it just, it seems to play so well to Israel's strengths of being innovative, agile, entrepreneurial, really good with technology. But my understanding is they snuck in kind of portable launch vehicles to launch these swarms of drones such that you didn't necessarily need to count on a$200 million F-15 with the refueling pressure and, right.

35:10All that. And those bombs are expensive. You know, those missiles can cost a couple million bucks or at least a couple hundred thousand. And then you take a$400 drone and you attach some C-4 to it. And I know, let's send out a thousand of them on one target and see if one gets through. It just strikes me that the technology of the year in terms of reshaping the geopolitical narrative is in fact asymmetric warfare through drones. But what I want to talk to you or get your impression of next is I'm hopeful that, and of course, as you know, Dan, I turn everything back to me. I grew up in Los Angeles and went to UCLA, and it's cliche to say it, but some of my best friends are Iranian.

35:56And David Asil, my close friend of the fraternity, I think L.A. has the greatest concentration of Iranians outside of Tehran. And it always struck me. These are kids who almost all of their parents came over the revolution, super into education, super entrepreneurial, love money. And I say that in a good way. Very capitalist. Love education. Ambitious. Ambitious. And I went on to have one of my mentors. His younger man was Hamid Moghadam, who's the CEO of Prologis. I have great friends, B-TAC, my friend Alex. I just love Iranians. And I always thought Iranians are more American than Americans.

36:35And to me, it always struck me that the biggest, one of the biggest unlocks and the most natural fits in terms of an alliance waiting to happen would be an alliance between America and Iran. that if that culture still resides there, and I think it does, and it's such an amazing society, that it will be like hand in glove should at some point we kiss and make up. And my understanding is that the IRGC has less than 30 % support of the population. Is there an opportunity here? I mean, is the big opportunity, and how realistic is it, that at some point America and Iran could be great allies? So to answer your question, yes.

37:16the, I mean, obviously the regime would have to, the Islamic regime would have to fall, but that was certainly the case. Many of those Iranians you grew up with, Scott, are people who came from an Iran and were raised in Iran, or at least their parents were, that did have close relations with the United States and had close relations, by the way, with Israel. Israel, before the late 70s, had a very close relationship with Iran and incredible cooperation. I mean, keep in mind, it's a young population. It is a very highly educated population. It's a large population. So I, in a world in which this regime is gone, I mean, it's not just an aggressive regime in terms of its use of violence.

38:03And it really is a theocratic messianic regime. So anyone that has the kind of motivational, ambitious Jews that you're describing, assuming they're secular or quasi-secular, do not want to live under that kind of, you know, that kind of regime. And so they either scatter, which are like the families of the ones you dealt with and got out, or they just hunker down and don't really contribute to society and mind their own business and, you know, pray that this regime will pass. And if this regime passes, and like I said, we're watching that happen. We just watched it happen in Syria, okay? The Assad regime was in powers, I said, for 53 years, there was a 13, 13 to 14 year civil war being fought.

38:49Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed. And then in 13 days, I mean, that's the thing people don't appreciate. I, you know, how the CIA, you know, there's always these questions. The CIA missed this revolution. They missed that revolution. They missed, they didn't anticipate the fall of the Berlin wall. They didn't, because these things are very hard. You never know what is actually going to tip it where people within the regime say enough and we're going to start taking on the regime. I think you have that potential now for the reasons I was saying earlier, where Iranians, even in the system, in the security system, are saying, what are we fighting for?

39:22What are we doing? This is Israel just humiliated this regime. And if the regime falls, I think the potential for what you're describing is extraordinary. And I just want to also pick up on something else you said a moment ago. I think you're seeing the future of warfare. There are two laboratories in the world today for the future of warfare. It's Ukraine, as you said, and it's Israel. And there's an organization I'm involved with in Israel that is called Startup Nation Central, which was founded sort of after my book came out. And they keep track of every Israeli startup in every sector. And about a year, a year and a half ago, there were something like 160, I looked, 160 startups in the defense tech space in Israel.

40:07And that was considered a lot, country of 10 million people. I recently cited that number on this other Israeli economic podcast I'm involved with called What's Your Number? I mentioned the 160 and the head of Startup Nation Central called me and said, hey, you're wrong. It's not 160. I said, what are you talking about? He says, it's now 330. And I said, but wait, I just got the 160 number a few months ago. He says, yeah, guess what? All these Israeli engineers and entrepreneurs who've been called up to fight in this war since October 7th are now coming back from their reserve duty. And they're like, I don't want to go like work on ad tech algorithms at Google, which is where I was working before the war.

40:44I want to go, I want to go build a defense tech company of the future. So all these guys and gals are now starting defense tech companies. And so you're seeing this boom, pardon the pun, of the defense tech sector in Israel. And so I think watching Israel, watching Ukraine, watching the exact things that you're pointing to in terms of the technology, the innovation, and the know-how, I think this sector is going to flourish in Israel and other spots over the next few years. And I think it's going to actually, I think a lot of people are going to economically benefit from the flourishing of the sector.

41:24And I think society is going to benefit because it's going to create technologies that enable countries like ours and others to fight in a very targeted and, dare I say, humanitarian way, minimizing civilian casualties with very targeted military pinprick, like surgical military operations. That's one of the things these capabilities give militaries the capacity to do. We'll be right back.

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43:00We're back with more from Dan Cenoa. What struck me, and I want to go broader here, and then I'm going to let you go and get back to your family on your Saturday, is most of my friends, I grew up, I somehow ended up in a Jewish fraternity at UCLA as UBT. Most of my close friends from college, still really close, Jews. And I was the atheist Jew. Never, never, never had felt much affinity for Israel. Not, not, I'm a rabid atheist. And then October 7th happened and I become kind of, I call myself a raging Zionist, although I'm still an atheist. And I've always been pretty, you know, you're, I would describe you as a Romney Republican.

43:39I don't know if you like that title. I'm sort of a Clinton Republican or I don't know, a moderate, I'm sorry, moderate Democrat. And most of my friends voted for Trump. because they're sort of, they came and kind of became after October 7th, one issue voters and their issue is Israel. And they saw the Trump administration as being more, much more resolute. Whereas Biden, who I believe didn't get the credit he deserved deploying an aircraft carrier strike force, you know, didn't want to take credit and kept being kind of milling a lot of yeah, buts a lot of, I thought real, I thought they could not have handled that worse.

44:15On the ground, they were actually very supportive, in my view, but yet kept saying all this whataboutism. And I just thought they couldn't have handled it any worse and turned off a lot of my friends who wanted the more resolute Trump who said we full-throated support of Israel. And by the way, Biden in the early days did talk like that in the early days after October 7th. He flew to Israel. He deployed two carrier strike forces for 24 hours to tell everyone to tell Iran to sit the fuck down, right? Anyways, so I was, and I'm curious to get your reaction, I was really disappointed, and quite frankly, rubbing it a little bit in my friend's face, when Trump decided to go to the Middle East, to the Gulf, and of the five largest economies, skip the two that were democracies or near democracies, specifically Israel or Turkey, because in my view, they can't, nor will they give him a building or a golf course, and accepts a$400 million plane from what I see as the political mouthpiece and the financial sponsors of Hamas.

45:16And my view to my friends was, I just don't think this guy gives a fuck about Jews or Israel. And I was really disappointed to see the Trump administration take that plane and cozy up to Qatar because nothing's for free. and I said this is telling about where the current administration's heart really lies as it relates to defense of the Jewish people. I want to get your thoughts and your reaction to that. So I say a couple things. One, look, obviously I don't know what's in Donald Trump's head at any moment or heart in terms of, you know, what is his real personal connection to the Jewish people?

45:56I just don't. I get asked this question all the time. I know he has Jewish grandchildren. I know he, but I don't really know. I think I try to take a step back when I get questions like this and say, what do we know about the Republican base, about the conservative base in American politics? And it is deeply, deeply, deeply connected to Israel and feels a very strong connection to Jews. Now, I don't want to get into the, you know, we could spend a whole episode talking about why and the history of that, but it is a reality. And I think President Trump is very aware of that and very dialed into that.

46:30And certainly members of Congress, Republican members of Congress are. So I'll give you an example. About a month ago, there was a letter organized by Senators Cotton and Graham, Lindsey Graham, to President Trump telling Trump, no way can you tolerate enrichment of uranium in Iran in the context of any Iran deal. No way. And this is at a time when Steve Woodcoff and the administration appeared to be heading in a direction where they were going to be for allowing some kind of enrichment. And that was a red line for Israel. And here are a couple of Republican hawks, traditional kind of Republican internationalist hawks, telling Trump no way.

47:09That didn't surprise me that Graham and Cotton wrote that letter. What surprised me was that 52 of the 53 Republican senators in the Senate Republican conference signed the letter. The only one that didn't was Rand Paul, and that's for other reasons. So 52 senators. Now, when's the last time you saw 52 Republican senators and an equally proportionately like high number among House members sent their own letter? When's the last time you saw Republican members en masse sign a letter to the president of the United States pushing him publicly against what appeared to be a policy track he was on? I can't think of one.

47:44We saw some of it recently with the – some of the tax issues in the big, beautiful bill. But other than that, we've not seen it. And that tells me that these members of Congress and these senators are very aware of where their voters are, where their constituents are on this issue. And I think the president, I think Trump is dialed into that. So that's one thing. The second thing I would say is I was a little unnerved by some of the visuals you're describing from the president's trip to the Gulf. Now, I, in a sense, I understood and I talked to some officials in the administration why he did not go to Israel on that trip.

48:22One, there's no leader, the president, no single leader, the president has spent more time with since he was sworn in than Netanyahu. Right. Netanyahu has been to the U.S. several times to meet with the president. I mean, they're just in constant, you know, his top aides are constantly coming in. They meet with the president directly, as we now know, literally now over the last few days, there's been a lot going on. So there wasn't a behind-the-scenes operational relationship issue. Now, the question is, was there a symbolism issue? Was there a symbolism, as you said, of him showing up in Doha and Dubai or Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and not Israel?

48:59And what they were wrestling with at the time, and I don't want to get into the merits of it, but I'll just – what they were wrestling with at the time is that Gaza was still a mess. It was not clear if Idan Alexander, the last American hostage being held in Gaza, was going to get out. And the idea of the president showing up in Israel with no real endgame in Gaza, with an American citizen still being held in Gaza, it's like it just it would make the president look weak. Maybe, maybe not. We can debate that. But that was their argument. What worried me, though, more was what you're describing, which is, is this the future of American diplomacy?

49:35Is this checkbook diplomacy where you start showing up to these countries and it's like this country says, well, we're going to put a trillion dollars. We're going to put five trillion dollars into the American. I mean, in a world in which that happens, Israel can't compete. And I think what you saw over the last few days, Israel has its own way of competing. because what Israel is demonstrating is, yeah, we're not going to be the country that personally has sheikhs and emirs who can write checks for billions and trillions of dollars into the American economy, but we are the most capable ally in the world, and you, the United States, are going to get more out of this relationship than you give, and I think Israel could talk about it conceptually.

50:20I think what you saw over the last few days is Israel's own version of, you know, it's an alternative model to checkbook diplomacy. Yeah, and I've said for a while, I think the best ROI, I think of things in terms of through the lens of shareholder value is investments in our university around R &D, around healthcare and weapons, quite frankly. I think USAID showed us a tremendous return in terms of soft power, but maybe even about both those things is our recent investments and support in Ukraine and Israel. And I always like to remind people that Israel took out more terrorists from our most wanted list in six weeks than we had taken out in 20 years.

51:00It just feels like the ROI on military or financial support of Israel has been exponential, I would argue, for the United States and the West. Dan, I lied. I said that would be my last question. This will be my last question. You're closer to this than anyone I know. And one of the things I respect about you is I know, I think I do know your politics because I've gotten to know you a little bit better, but you're very measured such that you don't immediately prompt people's screens to not listen to you. I think you're more—you have figured out something, despite the fact you're much younger than me, that I still struggle with.

51:36And that is you understand the difference between being right and being effective, and you want to be effective. Based on everything you see, all the people you talk to, your assessment of the situation, what are you comfortable speculating about, both internally in Israel with respect to Netanyahu's future, the power shift in the region? what, if any, moons do you see lining up across the geopolitical relationship, relationships in the Gulf, in the Middle East, in Israel, the U.S.? What do you see forming? Recognizing no one has a crystal ball, but if you had to guess what the world, as it relates to Israel, looks like in the next 12, 24 months, what would you postulate?

52:23I think that Israel is going to have to go to elections Netanyahu is going to have to go to elections by no later than October 26th, October of 2026. And but he is he can choose when he does that between now and then. But according to Israeli law, he can call an election no later than October of 2026. And I think after events of the last few days, I would I would think he would be calling elections sooner rather than later. I mean, I don't mean immediately, but I mean, it's not I don't think he's going to wind the clock down to, you know, summer of, you know, spring of 2026 before he calls an election.

53:05And I think whether or not, look, what Israel did over the last few days, politics in Israel is extremely divisive and extremely polarized right now. Like, it makes our politics seem like, you know, like copacetic, everything's fine. I mean, it's really things are really i don't i don't want to i don't want to um understate how how tense things are domestically and politically inside israel and and and you know it's a lot about the tension between the ultra-orthodox religious jews and the and the non-orthodox the non-haridim as they're called who the non-alternate jews who you know because the ultra-orthodox aren't serving in the army it's it's you know the wear and tear on the military the sense of the frustration that there's no what is the real end plan plan in gaza like where is going.

53:51So there's a lot of tension inside Israel. And I would say, Scott, on this issue of confronting an Iran, there's no disagreement. There's total consensus. And I mean, I speak to political leaders on my podcast elsewhere who are on the hard, hard left in Israel, who loathed Netanyahu for a whole range of reasons and will stand totally shoulder to shoulder with him on this issue. So I think Israel, Israeli society, even though it's going to be bumpy. I think over the next few days, I think, you know, we know of at least two Israelis who've been killed, you know, in Iran's response, I think, you know, and dozens more who've been injured.

54:31I think we're going to see more of that over the next few days, unfortunately. So I'm not saying it's all, you know, it's all smooth sailing. But even with that, Israeli leadership completely stands with Netanyahu and actually believes he, I don't want to say he's singularly talented to have pulled all this off, but his talents were put to work in a way that pulled all this off. And so does that mean he gets reelected? I don't know. But I think no matter who gets reelected or who gets elected as the next prime minister of Israel, I think the environment we're in right now, which is for the first time, a country that was on its way to a nuclear weapon that posed a threat to Israel, the Arab countries, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, that that has their nuclear program is basically being thwarted by, as we've talked about, extraordinary military force, extraordinary intelligence.

55:24I think that condition creates the perfect environment for whoever is the leader in Israel, whether it's, whether it's Netanyahu or Yair Lapid or Benny Gantz or Naftali Bennett, or maybe someone who's not even on our radar to capitalize on this moment and start to do things like we've been talking about here, which is start to accelerate normalization with Saudi Arabia and maybe some other countries too that are not on anyone's radar. So I think we will look back at this period, Scott, and say this was – this right now was the beginning of what will have been obvious to us a couple years from now of just the real normalization of relations in the region.

56:07It won't be, like I said, it won't all be kind of seamless, but it'll, we're going to see a level of functionality between countries in the Middle East that were probably unimaginable just a few years ago. Dan Sinor is a leading expert on Israel in the Middle East. He's the co-author of The Genius of Israel and Startup Nation. He's also the host of the Call Me Back podcast. Dan, this morning I got up and I'm like, I need to understand what's going on here. And I went to CNN, very measured. like I was just too fucking measured for me. It's like all this self-hate. And then I go to Fox and they're like, go Israel with like literally the nuance of an elephant on, you know, on, on Adderall or on hopped up on something.

56:50And I thought, where can I go? And I immediately pulled up your podcast, called me back. And you had this, this 60 minute tour de force of what is going on here. You are, I just love that you're, I think you're doing a real service to people who want to call balls and strikes around all things Israel. Also, I should point out that I met Dan. My sister betrayed my trust. I took her to D.C. as a big brother, thinking I was doing a nice thing when she was in college, and she betrayed me and went to work as an intern for some far-right fucking crazy congressperson, much to my horror. And I'm like, that's not why I took you to D.C.

57:29And I show up, and she's living with eight people, including this nice young kid named Dan Senor. And we connected like 25 years later. And I'm really, I really enjoy our kind of rekindled friendship here. Anyways. Can I rock your world? Given this story you just told, I don't want to say which son and I don't want to say for whom, but one of my sons this summer is going to intern in Washington. And I'm like, wow. You know, you write a lot about AOC. I hope it's AOC. If there's karma in the world, it's AOC. or Ilhan Omar. I would love it. I'm not commenting on for whom, but I will just... Have him call me.

58:11Have him call me. I'm going to freak you in camera out. I'm absolutely going to turn this case. I'm going to turn him back to the light. I see light in him. Anyways, my brother, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And have a great rest of the weekend. Take care.

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