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Jan. 3, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

55:25

So Long, Soleimani! | Ep. 924

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	The United States military takes out Iran's leading terrorist.
	Democrats lament the escalation.
	And Bernie Sanders prepares his final political assault on Joe Biden.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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	Alrighty, so, yesterday, Was probably the most consequential day for Trump foreign policy in the history of his administration.
	It's not close, actually.
	I won't say probably.
	It is clearly the most consequential day for Trump's foreign policy in the history of his administration.
	President Trump made the decision to go ahead with an attack at the Baghdad airport on General Qasem Soleimani, who is the leading terrorist probably on planet Earth.
	Certainly inside Iran.
	He also happened to be the leader of the Iranian military.
	He was the head of Iran's elite Quds Force, which was sort of the terrorist wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
	He was widely considered the number two in Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
	He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in Iraq.
	He was really leading the Iranian terror against American troops during the Iraq War.
	He was responsible for, by State Department estimates, 17% of all Americans killed in Iraq.
	He was responsible for the arming of Hezbollah in Lebanon with tens of thousands of rockets, which is a situation that will cascade into war sometime in the next three to four years.
	That is all his work.
	He's responsible for the war in Yemen.
	He has armed the Houthis in Yemen and led to their rebellion against a Saudi-sponsored regime in Yemen.
	He's responsible for the building of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, which is the terror group that is responsible for firing rockets.
	He's responsible, probably, for the Bashar al-Assad regime still running Syria.
	It was Iranians Coordination with the Bashar al-Assad regime that allowed the Assad regime to stand.
	He's responsible for the attacks on the American embassy that happened over the last week.
	He's been responsible for terror attacks abroad like a bevy of them.
	This was one of the worst people on planet Earth.
	He was a vicious terrorist who was extremely effective at what he did.
	Commentators have been describing him as something... In Iran, the situation at the top of the Iranian government is somewhat top-heavy, meaning that there are a few very key players who hold a wide portfolio.
	Soleimani was maybe the most indispensable man in Iran.
	People have been comparing his death to, like, let's say that there were a coordinated strike against the United States in which the defense secretary, head of the CIA, and head of the FBI were killed simultaneously.
	And maybe the VP, because Soleimani was widely considered a possible heir apparent to Ali Khamenei, should Khamenei have died or something.
	And now he is in a thousand pieces.
	According to the Associated Press, the United States killed Iran's top general and the architect of Tehran's proxy wars in the Middle East in an airstrike at Baghdad's international airport early on Friday, an attack that threatens to dramatically ratchet up tensions in the region.
	Now there are three different responses that we've been seeing to Soleimani's death.
	Response number one is just bat bleep lunacy.
	Response number one is that we are sad he's dead.
	That the United States did something wrong in killing Khamenei.
	I mean, in killing Soleimani, rather.
	That's absolute insanity.
	This is one of the worst people on the planet.
	The world is much better off with him not breathing the same air as the rest of us.
	This is a person who richly deserved to die.
	He'd been in American crosshairs at least a couple of times back in 2007.
	He was in America's crosshairs.
	He was also in America's crosshairs back in, I believe, 2014, or he was in Israeli crosshairs back in 2014, 2015, and the Obama administration basically told the Israelis not to kill him.
	So he has been under the gun several times.
	He's not been taken out, obviously, until yesterday.
	At that point, he was taken out.
	Did he deserve to die?
	You bet your ass he deserved to die.
	Just for the killing of American soldiers, he deserved to die.
	For the spread of Iran's terrorism around the world.
	So, response number one, which you're seeing from people like Rose McGowan, the actress, is just insanity.
	The idea that the United States did something morally wrong in taking out one of the leading terrorists on planet Earth, probably the leading terrorist on planet Earth.
	Rose McGowan, who is a crazy person, tweeted out, Dear Iran, the USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people.
	52% of us humbly apologize.
	We want peace with your nation.
	We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime.
	We do not know how to escape.
	Please do not kill us.
	Hashtag Soleimani.
	That tweet beggars description.
	There are no words for how evil and vile and traitorous that tweet is.
	It may be the worst tweet ever written.
	First of all, the Iranian people are not in line with Soleimani or with the Ayatollahs.
	If they had their way, this regime would not be in power.
	Second of all, the idea that we are being held enthralled to a terrorist regime and you're apologizing for the death of a ter- I mean, we don't have to take Rose McGowan that seriously, but there is that sort of roiling undercurrent in the commentariat today that somehow Trump did something wrong in killing Soleimani.
	So that's narrative number one.
	Narrative number two is that this amounts to some sort of assassination.
	That it's an assassination of a foreign official in violation of American law.
	That's a lie.
	Okay, this is not a violation of American law.
	There are only two laws that would theoretically be implicated here.
	One is whether the United States was authorized to take action, whether Congress had authorized that action.
	Well, under the authorization for use of military force, the United States has, the President of the United States has authority to act inside Iraq.
	Not only that, the Iraqi government has invited the United States into Iraq.
	Soleimani was not killed inside Iran.
	He was killed in Iraq.
	He was a foreign terrorist in Iraq, and the United States had every ability and, on a moral level, every moral obligation to kill Soleimani.
	As far as the idea that this was some sort of assassination in violation of the Reagan-era executive order against assassinations, again, this man was a terrorist.
	He was not just an Iranian official.
	He was a terrorist, and he was in a foreign country, so that makes a difference.
	So this notion that this was some sort of assassination is nonsense.
	And then there's the narrative that this is an escalation.
	In order for you to believe that this was a tremendous escalation or that Trump is responsible for the escalation, you have to believe that nothing has been happening over the last couple of years, which is just a lie.
	We've covered it on the show.
	Over and over, the Iranians have been attacking shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, including internationally flagged ships.
	Over and over, the Iranians have been pursuing terrorism against American interests and American allies.
	They've been firing rockets on Americans in Iraq, The Iranians have been responsible for the downing of the American drone, and then over the weekend, obviously, they attacked an American embassy.
	Because that was done with Soleimani's go-ahead.
	And that's what the Defense Department suggested today.
	The Defense Department put out a statement explaining exactly why they had just done what they did.
	The Pentagon said, quote, At the direction of the President, the U.S.
	military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S.
	personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
	General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.
	General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.
	He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months, including the attack on December 27th, culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.
	General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S.
	Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.
	This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.
	The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.
	Well, this is a ballsy move by Trump.
	It's a ballsy move by Trump.
	The reason it's a ballsy move by Trump is because it throws the Iranian regime into chaos, which means that there will be short-term lashing out.
	Everybody knows it, okay?
	This is going to happen.
	The Iranian regime, in order to save face, are obviously going to attempt some sort of terror attack.
	In all likelihood, that will come against Saudi targets.
	You might see them try terror attacks inside the United States.
	You might see them try terror attacks in South America, where they've tried terror attacks before.
	Massive terror attacks, actually.
	You might see them activate Hezbollah in Lebanon to fire on Israel.
	Things could get fairly hot fairly quickly, particularly for American allies.
	As far as the sort of projection of widespread attack on Americans, One thing is now clear that the death of Soleimani shows that if things get too hot, Ali Khamenei will not be connected with his head in very short order.
	And the fact is that what Trump was doing yesterday was a restorance of American deterrence that had been lost during the Obama administration.
	And yes, in the early years of the Trump administration.
	The fact is that the Obama administration tried a strategy of outright bribery of the world's worst terror regime.
	They lied to the American people in the process.
	The Iran nuclear deal was a disaster for the United States.
	It was a disaster for the world.
	It was an attempt to pay off a terror regime, a radical Islamic terror regime, hell-bent on regional domination and indeed on world terrorism.
	And the Obama administration lied to you and they lied to me and they lied to the American people.
	Ben Rhodes leading the way, the national security aide.
	He was going out there and lying and saying that there was this tiny window in which the moderates could take control of Iran if only we paid them billions of dollars.
	Hundreds of billions of dollars and allowed hundreds of billions of dollars to flow into the Iranian economy and made them part of the family of nations.
	Then all would be well.
	That did not happen.
	The Iranians took that money.
	They immediately started developing their ballistic missile program.
	They immediately started pushing terrorism around the region.
	John Kerry, the Secretary of State under Obama, admitted as much.
	And the Trump administration came in and they said, OK, we're not going to sponsor this stuff.
	We are not going to allow dollars to flow into a terror regime.
	And Iran, with its economy sagging, decided to lash out and increasingly lash out.
	Now, if you're on the left, you say, well, the lashing out is Trump's fault.
	Okay, that's like suggesting that the lashing out by your child, when you punish them for hitting a sibling, and they're in their room screaming, you say, the screaming is your fault for punishing the kid.
	Well, actually, the screaming is the kid's fault for hitting their sibling.
	Iran, anytime it wants, anytime Iran wants, Iran can be a part of the family of nations.
	Anytime Iran wants, it can be integrated into the world economy.
	Anytime Iran wants, Iran can be a well-respected member of the world community.
	All they have to do is stop being terrorists, radical Islamists, that's it.
	That's all they have to do.
	But they're not going to do that.
	Because they are running a repressive, oppressive, terror regime in Tehran.
	And the fact that the Trump administration acknowledged that reality, and the Obama administration sought to back-massage the mullahs, was the initiating event that led to all of this.
	So Trump said, he came out and said, this deal is no good, he tore it up.
	And then the Iranians started lashing out.
	And then after lashing out and lashing out and lashing out for years, after lashing out for literally years, and the Trump administration taking very light action, right, they restored some of the sanctions, but after an American drone was shot down, there was talk that the jets were on their way, the American military was on its way to hit targets in Iran, and Trump called that off at the last moment.
	That after attacks on shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, the United States was basically doing nothing.
	We saw repeated violations of international law by the Iranians under Obama.
	They actually took a boat full of Americans and held them at gunpoint.
	And then they built a statue of it in Tehran.
	After all of that, this is the first sign that the United States is going to restore its deterrent capacity.
	Which is, if you screw with us, you're going to die.
	If you screw with us, the people at the top of your regime are going to be the ones who pay the price.
	This is a terror regime, and your terror leader just got killed.
	Not just your terror leader, your heir apparent, the head of your military strategy, the head of your terror strategy.
	That guy's dead.
	This was Trump's attempt to restore deterrence.
	Now, there are folks on the left who are suggesting that deterrence itself is a bad thing.
	You can't deter this regime, you have to bribe them.
	That's called appeasement.
	Okay, appeasement typically has not worked all that well.
	You're gonna have to name the regime that was appeased into relative safety.
	It has yet to happen in world history that an evil regime acts evilly, gets paid for it, and then acts less evilly.
	That is not something that happens in the real world.
	So you're seeing the Democrats today saying, well, Trump just ratcheted this thing up.
	No, Iran ratcheted it up.
	Trump responded to the ratcheting by suggesting that if they ratchet this thing too far, some of them are going to die.
	Trying to reestablish deterrence is necessary.
	Now, that has to be not a one-off.
	That has to be a consistent strategy.
	There were those of us who were enraged that Barack Obama drew a red line in Syria over chemical weapons use and then promptly proceeded to blow right through the red line and hand over power to the country, to the Russians.
	Which ended in disaster and it's amusing today to watch all of the Obama officials trotting out there proclaiming their expertise after completely wrecking the Middle East.
	I mean really, making it much worse than it was when Barack Obama entered office.
	When Barack Obama entered office, the Middle East was a much more stable place than it is right now.
	When Barack Obama exited, Iran was a regional rising power.
	Many of the American allies were in trouble.
	Donald Trump entered and he has attempted to mitigate the effects of the horrible Obama presidency.
	And what we are watching is the attempt to restore deterrence.
	In order for that to happen, The Trump administration has to do more than a one-off.
	That means that if Iran strikes again, then the United States is going to have to take action against Iran in different ways.
	Now, none of this has to lead to full-scale war.
	Everyone keeps suggesting this is going to lead to a full-on, all-out war between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the U.S.
	military.
	It is not.
	The reason that it is not is because the Ayatollahs know better than anybody that if this thing goes to war, within three weeks they will all be dead.
	That doesn't mean that this would be an easy war.
	It would not.
	There would be American losses.
	No one wants a war.
	No one.
	Let me repeat.
	No one wants a war.
	Trump, you think Trump wants a war?
	Trump is by nature more of an isolationist.
	He doesn't want a war.
	What he wants is deterrence.
	And he understands, just like Ronald Reagan understood, that deterrence can only be achieved with the credible use of force.
	And with the credible threat of force.
	When you are non-credible, there is no deterrence.
	And thus, the Iranians have no interest.
	In pulling back on their terrorist objectives.
	Re-establishing deterrence is the goal here.
	We'll see how it works out, but I don't think that it's going to be a one-off, right?
	I mean, this is going to result in the Iranians getting more militants in the short term.
	But the United States, and under President Trump, if they stay the course, then this will simmer down.
	Because there's one thing the Iranians want even less than the United States, and that is a full-on war with the most powerful military force in the history of planet Earth.
	Okay, we'll get to more of this in just one second.
	We'll get to the Democratic response, which has been predictably awful.
	We'll get to all of that in just a moment.
	Listen, being nervous about what comes next, perfectly understandable.
	Suggesting that this is quote-unquote Trump's fault, and that what comes next is quote-unquote on Trump, or that the escalation is on Trump, or that this is an assassination, that something morally wrong was done.
	That's just a bunch of horse crap.
	It's a bunch of horse crap.
	It'd be the same if you killed Osama bin Laden and people were like, well, you just escalated with Al-Qaeda.
	I don't know.
	Is that a good move or not?
	Soleimani was one of the worst people on the planet.
	Responsible, again, for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans.
	Responsible for a vast amount of turmoil and death in the Middle East.
	In the short term, when you punish your kid, your kid screams in their room.
	They make a lot of trouble.
	It's real bad.
	But if you want re-established deterrence, you must, must establish a credible threat of force.
	And that's what Trump did yesterday.
	We'll get to more of this.
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	Alright, so according to the Associated Press, The Defense Department said it killed Soleimani because he was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.
	Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that a harsh retaliation is waiting for the United States.
	Iranian state TV also carried a statement by Khamenei also calling Soleimani the international face of resistance, and he declared three days of public mourning for the general's death.
	An advisor to Iran's President Hassan Rouhani warned President Trump of retaliation from Tehran.
	He said Trump, through his gamble, has dragged the U.S. into the most dangerous situation in the region.
	This is according to Hesse Medin Ashena.
	Whoever put his foot beyond the red line should be ready to face its consequences.
	Iranian state television called Trump's order to kill Soleimani the biggest miscalculation by the United States in the years since World War II.
	The people of the region will no longer allow Americans to stay.
	Well, let's be real about this.
	The people of the region are not fond of Iran.
	The people of the region do not like Iran.
	Iran has turned Lebanon, which was once a blooming place in the Middle East, into an absolute hellhole, a horror scape.
	They've helped turn Syria into a horror scape.
	They've turned Iraq into more of a horror scape.
	Here's video from Iraq of people in the streets cheering the death of Soleimani.
	So let's not pretend that this is just like the Americans and the Saudis and the Israelis and the Jordanians who are happy today.
	The Iraqis are happy today, too.
	This is people cheering in the streets, marching and cheering in the streets at the news that Soleimani is dead.
	You can hear it.
	I mean, this is a good thing.
	It's a very good thing.
	The airport strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.
	That was the group that was directly responsible for the attacks on the U.S.
	Embassy over the past week.
	Five others were also killed.
	President Trump had only one quick response that he sent out on Twitter immediately following the attack, and it is just a graphic of an American flag, which of course drove the left to distraction for some odd reason.
	Why that is controversial?
	that it is a good thing that the United States is responsible for taking down the leading terrorist on the planet.
	I don't know why that should be controversial.
	That seems like a good thing to me.
	The Democrat responses to all of this are just beyond loony.
	They are really, really amazing.
	Republicans have responded appropriately.
	A bunch of senators responded.
	You saw, for example, Senator Ben Sasse respond and suggest that this is a strong move by the Trump administration.
	He said, this is very simple.
	General Soleimani is dead because he was an evil bastard who murdered Americans.
	The president made the brave and right call and Americans should be proud of our service members who got the job done.
	By the way, American military do not F with the American military.
	Tehran is on edge.
	The Mullahs have already slaughtered at least a thousand innocent Iranians.
	By the way, the media don't cover that.
	They never cover the protests that have been rolling across Iran for now about a year.
	And before they lash out further, they should know that the U.S.
	military can bring any and all of these IRGC butchers to their knees.
	Ben Sasse hitting the nail on the head right there.
	Meanwhile, the Democratic leaders are responding in the worst possible way.
	Of course, Nancy Pelosi tweeted out, So it's disproportionate to kill the leader of a terror group.
	Disproportionate?
	lives and interests, but we cannot put the lives of American service members, diplomats and others further at risk by engaging in provocative and disproportionate actions.
	So it's disproportionate to kill the leader of a terror group.
	Disproportionate to kill terrorists?
	So what exactly is the proper proportion?
	He's responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and terror attacks all over the globe and conflict in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, as well as the Gaza Strip.
	And this is disproportionate in some way.
	This is this is who is planning further terror attacks.
	This is disproportionate.
	The Democratic response is, I mean, you think that there are contrasts between the Democrats and the Republicans on foreign policy?
	When President Trump acts strongly, the contrasts are absolutely magnified.
	I mean, incredibly so.
	Ilhan Omar, of course, tweeted out the most asinine response.
	She has never met a terror regime she's not willing to defend.
	She tweeted out, What if Trump wants a war, knowing this leads to war and needs the distraction?
	Yes, I'm sure this is a wag the dog scenario where Trump is desperate for a war with Iran because nothing spells re-election quite like a war with a major regional power.
	I mean, as we know, nothing spells re-election quite like that.
	She says, real question is, will those with congressional authority step in and stop him?
	I know I will.
	Stop him from doing what exactly?
	Killing a terrorist on Iraqi soil where the United States has permission to be?
	Ilhan Omar again.
	This is the same lady who says we should not have sanctions on Iran.
	We shouldn't have sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, according to Ilhan Omar.
	We should have sanctions on Israel, according to Ilhan Omar.
	So, um, I'm gonna go with no on her hot takes on foreign policy.
	Meanwhile, you have members of the Obama administration who are emerging to defend their own crap foreign policy, which is what led to the rise of Iran regionally in the first place.
	Here is Obama's ambassador for the Iran deal, Wendy Sherman, explaining that this could have horrific consequences.
	Speaking of horrific consequences, how about, you know, like the handing of $150 billion in cash pallets, in cash on pallets, to the Iranian regime so they can explore ballistic missile testing and spread terror throughout the region.
	Was that a one-off that may have had some bad consequences?
	Here's Wendy Sherman being a complete fool.
	Qasem Soleimani had deputies.
	They know how to do what he did, even though he was this unbelievably unique counter-military strategist.
	But we are at a very, very escalatory moment here, which can lead us into a wider war.
	I hope we do not go there.
	I pray with all of my heart that the Trump administration has a plan and a strategy.
	But all I've seen to date in their around policy is one-off actions.
	And this one-off action can have unbelievably horrific consequences.
	Really?
	So like killing, handing the Iranians billions of dollars, billions, and opening their economy.
	That doesn't have any horrific actions except for all of the horrific actions that have happened for the past several years.
	Killing the terror leader, that's what's going to have the horrific actions.
	Now listen, in the short term, will the Iranians respond?
	Yes, they have to, right?
	I mean, they have to lash out because they have to demonstrate that the regime hasn't been crippled by Soleimani's death.
	And it is true that the United States, as I've already said, must have contingency strategies here.
	Like, what happens if the Iranians attack a US base?
	The reason, by the way, they're not going to attack an actual hard American target is because, at that point, things get real hot for the Iranians and that regime is in serious trouble, right?
	If they pursue a 9-11-style attack on US soil, That's when bleep gets real.
	If they attack a US base in the Middle East, the United States will bring all of its power to bear and mash whatever force is attacking them wherever that attack is occurring.
	But listening to people like Ben Rhodes lecture us all on American foreign policy is really sickening.
	We'll get to more of that in just one second.
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	So, Ben Rhodes, who is the architect of the Iran nuclear deal and a vast liar, a huge liar to the American people, He tweeted out, Congress has to assert itself and determine exactly what our Iran policy is.
	Did we mean to do this?
	Do we have any plan for what comes next?
	What is the legal basis for all this?
	This is a guy who pursued an Iran policy without congressional approval and then did not submit it to Congress as a treaty because he knew it would not get through.
	It's just, it's amazing to watch the Obama administration, which botched the Iran situation worse than any administration since Jimmy Carter.
	Running out there to proclaim that they now have the knowledge and the expertise to handle this thing.
	You got Ben Rhodes tweeting, Oh, is that what that was?
	Donald Trump is equipped to handle a complex, enduring international crisis that could play out in many countries and demand expertise, rigorous process and judicious decision making.
	Oh, is that what that was?
	When you guys, you know, launched a war in Libya without any sort of background and then proceeded to let the entire place fall into terrorist ruin and you allowed the embassy in Benghazi to be overrun.
	When you allowed a bunch of American allied regimes to fall in the so-called Arab Spring, necessitating the rise of El-Sisi in Egypt in order to stop the Muslim Brotherhood from taking over one of the most populous Muslim countries on planet Earth.
	When you were like bribing the Iranians, was that what that was?
	Was that the judicious decision-making that we came to expect from people like Ben Rhodes?
	It's just, it's just absurd.
	I mean, again, listening to these folks is just, it's just ridiculous.
	They have no credibility to speak on these topics.
	Joe Biden, who's been wrong on every single major foreign policy decision of the last 40 years.
	This is a guy who militated against the Bin Laden kill.
	I thought that was an easy call, going and killing Bin Laden.
	Apparently not Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden put out a statement.
	He said, President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a Tinder box.
	And he owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep safe our troops and embassy personnel, our people, and our interests.
	Remember, this guy, he, Trump owes an explanation on how to keep embassy personnel safe?
	You presided over Benghazi!
	Trump's response to Baghdad was to send in American troops, preventing any American death there, and then to kill their terror leader.
	Biden said, much remains unknown, but Iran will surely respond.
	We could be on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East.
	I hope the administration has thought through the second and third order consequences of the path they have chosen.
	So it's all on Trump.
	But I fear this administration has not demonstrated in any turn the discipline or long-term vision necessary and the stakes could not be higher.
	Again, as opposed to you bribing them.
	It is perfectly reasonable to be nervous about what comes next.
	It is perfectly reasonable to ask what the Trump administration's plans are.
	But I'm not going to hear it from Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden has no credibility to speak on this issue.
	He presided over the worst Iran policy since the initiation of the Iranian revolution in 1979.
	So no, he does not get to sound off on this.
	You know who else doesn't really get to sound off on this?
	Socialist Bernie Sanders, who's going around campaigning with anti-Semitic mouthpieces And he spends his days kowtowing to terror regimes.
	Bernie Sanders says Trump's dangerous escalation.
	Ah, it was Trump who escalated.
	So that whole thing, you know, you seem to remember it.
	I know in your own mind, you seem to remember that part where, like, our embassy was on fire two days ago.
	That was all in your mind, you see.
	Sanders tweeted out, Trump's dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars.
	How about the Americans who are dead because of the Iranians already?
	Trump promised to end endless wars but this action puts us on the path to another one.
	You know, it's an endless war trying to bribe your way out of terror regimes taking over the region.
	And I talked about this yesterday with regard to Iran and our response at the American embassy.
	I talked about the fact that politically speaking, it is nearly always easier to simply suggest that inaction is the best pathway because there's no cost to inaction in the near term.
	It is only when that manifests in terms of a vast crisis that everybody goes, oh, we should have done something about that.
	It was always easy for the Clinton administration to pass up the hit on bin Laden.
	It was always easy for the Clinton administration to cut the American military and then take a non-aggressive posture in the Middle East.
	And then 9-11 happens and everybody goes, oh, we should have done something about that.
	It's always easy to slash America's military to the bone, as we did during the 1930s.
	And then Pearl Harbor happens and we're like, oh, that was a bad idea, huh?
	In other words, aggressive action that is somewhat preemptive in nature Aggressive action that establishes deterrence always bears the immediate short-term risk of retaliation.
	But non-action bears the risk of a completely reshaped world map that has vastly more consequences over long-term than doing the things now that prevent that stuff from happening later.
	It's very easy for Bernie Sanders to sit there and decry war generally.
	No one is in favor of war.
	No one wants war.
	But the Iranians are making war more likely.
	Because the stronger they get, the more aggressive they get.
	That is the simple fact.
	This is the simple fact.
	It wasn't just Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, of course.
	He had a bunch of Democratic Congress people speaking out in idiotic fashion.
	Tom Udall of Colorado, he put out a statement.
	He said, President Trump is bringing our nation to the brink of an illegal war with Iran with no congressional approval.
	It is not illegal to kill a terror leader.
	It is not illegal.
	If we go to full-scale war with Iran, yes, that will need congressional approval, and it should.
	Senator Udall, passing our bipartisan amendment to prevent unconstitutional war with Iran is urgent.
	Congress needs to step in immediately.
	To do what?
	Stop him from killing a terrorist?
	I don't remember Congress stepping in to prevent a nuclear deal that basically gave Iran a clear pathway to a nuclear weapon in 10 years.
	And then of course you have Chris Murphy, dolt from Connecticut, whose Twitter account is just a repository of stupidity.
	He said, the justification for the assassination is to deter future Iranian attacks.
	Okay, first of all, it's not an assassination.
	An assassination implies that this person is not a terrorist and was a governmental official.
	He was not.
	He was a terrorist.
	He says, one reason we don't generally assassinate foreign political officials is the belief that such action will get more, not less, Americans killed.
	First of all, it's fewer.
	Second of all, you are terrible at this.
	That should be our real pressing and grave worry tonight.
	So, in other words, anytime you kill a terrorist, You have to worry that it'll get more Americans killed.
	I seem to remember everybody celebrating Bin Laden dying.
	I seem to remember that.
	Was that, again, was that just my imagination?
	Then you had Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Senator from Massachusetts, and he tweeted out, Trump's apparent assassination of Soleimani is a massive, deliberate, and dangerous escalation of conflict with Iran.
	Again, it's not an escalation.
	It is a recognition that the conflict is already upon us.
	They tried to burn down the American embassy two days ago!
	The president just put the lives of every person in the region, U.S.
	service members and civilians, at immediate risk.
	The president did?
	It's as though the world started spinning whenever Trump does something.
	It's incredible.
	Trump has deranged these people.
	It's as though action on planet Earth only begins when Trump says something about it.
	Trump is not God, and everybody treating him as though he is a unique figure in history, and that the world began spinning every time he farts?
	It's ridiculous.
	Ed Markey, who's an idiot, he says, we need de-escalation now.
	Oh, you mean paying them off?
	Congress is the only entity that can authorize military force.
	We cannot and must not get drawn into war with Iran.
	Again, you think Trump wants war with Iran?
	Deterrence is designed to avoid war.
	It's why it's called deterrence.
	What do you think you are deter-ing?
	You're deterring Iran from pursuing a more aggressive action across the region.
	If you believe that deterrence doesn't exist, if you believe that deterrence is always a bad idea, then sure, bribery seems like a great strategy.
	But guess what?
	Bribing evil nations historically has not worked out well.
	It has not.
	Because they just get more powerful and they get more aggressive over time.
	So yes, by all means, we should worry about what comes next.
	Yes, by all means, we should hope that the Trump administration has a strategy for dealing with the immediate.
	Yes, by all means, we should harden our targets in the Middle East.
	Yes, we should be on high alert.
	Yes, we should be aware that the Iranians are going to lash out.
	And yes, we should have contingency plans prepared for them lashing out.
	We should have a list of targets that we are going to hit.
	If they do X, Y, and Z, we have to keep reinforcing to the Iranians that if they continue to pursue this path, there will be consequences to that path.
	That is the only way to prevent war.
	That's the only way to prevent war.
	If you want a big, bold war, all you're gonna need is for Iran to step across that border with Saudi Arabia, five years from now, with nuclear weapons.
	And then things get real hot.
	You want to talk about World War III?
	Imagine that the Trump administration left the Iranian nuclear deal in place, had allowed billions upon billions of dollars to flow into Iran, the ayatollahs to strengthen themselves, develop ballistic missiles, create nuclear weapons, and then proceed to launch actual overt wars with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, surrounding nations.
	Imagine that, because that's not far off in the imagination, but now they're armed with nuclear weapons and there's nothing you can do about it.
	That was the Obama administration's plan, and they basically admitted as much.
	So pretending that we don't exist in the course of a history, as though this is all tabula rasa, brand new, it's just, it's historically ignorant, and it is cynical politicking beyond pretty much all else.
	All right, we'll get to more of this in just one second.
	First, Let's talk about the fact that you're probably still receiving all those Christmas and Hanukkah gifts.
	People are sending out a lot of packages at the beginning of the year.
	You're getting all of your tax documents ready.
	Like, a lot of stuff is happening, and a lot of it's coming through the mail.
	Well, when people deliver your mail, you want to know that they are there.
	And a lot of thieves will actually ring your doorbell, make sure that you are not home, and then rob your place.
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	Okay.
	Before we go further here, and there is much more here.
	First, it is a glorious time of week.
	We're at the end of the first work week of the new year.
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	You are definitely going to have your hands full this year.
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	So Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, put out a statement.
	He said, I think the Iranian leadership understands President Trump will take action.
	We made very clear that these responses would be swift and decisive.
	We have now demonstrated that.
	I hope the Iranian leadership will see that and see American resolve, and that their decision will be to de-escalate and take actions consistent with what normal nations do.
	In the event they do not, and they go in the other direction, I know the President and the entire U.S.
	government is prepared to respond appropriately.
	Meanwhile, the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, promised early Friday to take revenge for this heinous crime.
	He also said that Iran would raise the flag of Soleimani.
	In all likelihood, what you're going to see is a spate of attacks, not, as I say, directly on America, but instead on American allies in the region, trying to separate off those allies from the United States with the help of the left in the United States and isolationists on the right.
	So the idea would be to attack Saudi targets, and then dare America to do something about it.
	Suggesting that then it's America escalating even more or attack Israel and then if Israel responds then suggest that it's that America was just doing Israel's dirty business here.
	By the way, that'd be the worst mistake they can make because right now let's say that they decide to activate Hezbollah in Lebanon and southern Lebanon against Israel.
	Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently under indictment and is sitting at the head of a government that does not exist.
	And he is currently seeking immunity from indictment.
	Like, the worst thing they could do is try to launch a war with Israel directly.
	Iran.
	Because if they do, Israel is not going to stand for it.
	They are not going to stand for it.
	So, I would guess they're going to attack Saudi targets.
	I would guess that they try terror attacks in different places around the world.
	Again, I doubt very much that they're going to try something in the United States directly.
	It would be a foolish move.
	If they are acting reasonably, instead what they would do is maybe make an attack in Europe, make attacks in South America, make attacks abroad, elsewhere, in the region, escalate things in Yemen.
	That's their likeliest path.
	And by the way, as far as the details on General Qasem Soleimani, the terror leader, He was apparently only identifiable by a large ring that he wore on his finger because he was so badly maimed in the strike that there was not much left of him.
	He had arrived at the airport on a plane from either Syria or Lebanon around 1230 a.m.
	when he was met on the tarmac by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was the deputy commander of the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
	That was the specific umbrella terror group that was responsible for the attacks on the embassies.
	Mohandas pulled up to the aircraft, steps in two cars, before Soleimani and Mohammed Rida Jabri, public relations chief for the PMF, climbed inside and then were promptly driven away.
	Moments later, as the cars passed through a cargo area headed for an access road leading out of the airport, this is according to the Daily Mail, the convoy was struck by four missiles fired by an MQ-4 Reaper drone.
	Both vehicles were instantly reduced to smoldering wrecks, killing Soleimani, Mohandas, Jabri, and two others who have yet to be identified.
	And he was only identified by this giant ring that he was wearing.
	The local militia commander, Abu Muntathir Al-Husseini, told Reuters, So that is the current situation.
	and Abu Mahdi saw Muhandis were riding in one vehicle and it was struck by two successive guided missiles launched from an American helicopter while they were on their way from the arrivals hall on the road that leads out of Baghdad airport.
	The second group was a bunch of bodyguards who are also dead at this point.
	So that is the current situation.
	And again, we sort of await what the response will be.
	The fact is that President Trump is now tweeting again.
	And so we are getting his general take on the situation.
	He suggested this morning, he said, the United States has paid Iraq billions of dollars a year for many years.
	That is on top of all else we've done for them.
	The people of Iraq don't want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, but ultimately that is their choice.
	Over the last 15 years, Iran has gained more and more control of Iraq.
	The people of Iraq are not happy with that.
	It will never end well.
	He said General Qasem Soleimani, ...has killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans over an extended period of time and was plotting to kill many more, but got caught.
	He was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including a recent large number of protesters killed in Iran itself.
	While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country.
	They're not nearly as saddened as the leaders who let the outside world believe he should have been taken out many years ago.
	And then he also tweeted, Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation.
	In other words, come to the table now, or we can continue killing all of your friends.
	So, by the way, if you speak to members of the American military today, many of whom have buddies who were killed by Soleimani's forces in Iraq, overwhelmingly the feeling is one of joy that Soleimani is dead.
	This does not mean that all questions are answered.
	All questions are not answered, obviously.
	We don't know what's going to happen from here.
	And everybody is sort of bracing for what the Iranian response will be.
	But there's no question that a very good thing happened with Soleimani being dead.
	And the fact is that deterrence must be restored.
	If America is not seen as a power capable of deterring its enemies, then it has no power at all.
	The Trump derangement syndrome, by the way, is unbelievably strong out there right now.
	Max Boot, who was once a somewhat respected foreign policy thinker, Max Boot goes on CNN and he suggests that the Iran crisis is created by Trump.
	This is the same Max Boot who wrote a piece in July of 2015 called The Dawn of Iranian Empire talking about the evils of the Iran nuclear deal and why it was a mistake to try and bribe them.
	And now here he is on CNN just a few years later declaring that the best solution would be to presumably to bribe the Iranians or to never retaliate against their increasing and escalating aggression.
	This is a crisis that President Trump has really created between the U.S.
	and Iran, because although the U.S.
	and Iran have a long history of animosity dating back to 1979, relations had actually quieted down quite a bit since President Obama concluded the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015.
	And last year, even though the Iranians were complying with the Iranian nuclear deal, President Trump decided to blow up the deal, and then he imposed unilateral economic sanctions on Iran this year.
	Which have been a lot more effective than a lot of people, including me, expected.
	The way the Iranians view that is the U.S.
	is waging economic warfare on them, and they need to strike back.
	So there is Max Boot completely flipping his own position on the Iran nuclear deal, basically, because Donald Trump happens to be president.
	Again, if Barack Obama had done this exact same thing, and it's amazing to watch these people.
	Barack Obama droned American citizens overseas who were terrorists.
	And people on his side of the aisle were like, no problem, everything's great.
	Donald Trump orders the death of an Iranian terrorist in a foreign country, and everyone's like, assassination, illegality.
	Absolute sheer nonsense.
	Now, again, consistent foreign policy must be had going forward.
	We must see a consistent foreign policy going forward.
	Deterrence only works if you continue to deter.
	If you warn people, if you keep crying wolf about what exactly you're going to do when somebody harms you, then eventually people are going to stop taking you seriously.
	But with all of that said, Soleimani's death makes the world a better place.
	Now we just see what happens next.
	Meanwhile, the 2020 Democratic race is heating up, and the Democrats are racing to say the next stupid thing.
	Joe Biden came out yesterday and suggested that he wants a national bag ban.
	These are sort of serious times.
	Here's Joe Biden suggesting that it's time to ban plastic bags.
	In Kenya, we are trying to clean the environment, not plastic bags.
	You go with your own bags.
	To the market.
	I agree with you 100%.
	We should not be allowing plastic.
	And what we should do is phasing it out.
	And if you notice, we're running into a problem right now.
	The problem is we have a president who says there is no problem.
	Deeply important issues being taken on by the Biden campaign like plastic bags.
	By the way, if you want to understand why the left, why the Europeans are constantly attempting to pretend that George W. Bush was the aggressor in the Middle East, or Israel is the aggressor in the Middle East, or Saudi Arabia, or Jordan, depending on the situation, Egypt.
	These are all the aggressors in the Middle East.
	The bottom line is that anybody who is perceived as either American, European, or an American or European ally in the Middle East is perceived as the bad actor.
	And the reason is because the West is constantly seen as the source of all malignity, malignity and evil in the world.
	Joe Biden is the least like this in the Democratic Party.
	And even he does some of this.
	Yesterday, there was a big controversy because Biden said something that was taken out of context.
	There was a clip.
	of Biden appearing to suggest that America was built on European culture.
	And this was apparently extremely controversial and people were going crazy over it, except that's not what he was saying.
	What he was saying was actually extraordinarily stupid and horrible.
	What he was saying is that European culture is uniquely anti-woman.
	Here is Joe Biden explaining that European culture is uniquely anti-woman.
	If you're going to Penn or Harvard or Yale or Brown or whatever, and you have to publish how many times someone's been abused, it's like, well, I'm going to send my kid there.
	I'm serious.
	Think of the fight back.
	But we finally got a lot passed through with the Secretary of Education, who was a great guy that I work with and others, under Title IX.
	Then it came along, came Betsy DeVos.
	No, I'm serious.
	And ended it.
	Ended it.
	Folks, this is about changing the culture.
	Our culture.
	Our culture.
	It's not imported from some African nation or some Asian nation.
	It's our English jurisprudential culture.
	Our European culture.
	It says it's all right.
	Yeah, the same blame America first, blame Europe first mentality that leads to the bizarre notion that violence against women is a unique Western invention, which, by the way, look at the world.
	Like, it's a globe.
	There are lots of countries on that globe.
	If you're a woman, where would you prefer to be born on that globe?
	The answer, European countries, countries with European influence, America, Australia, Canada, Western countries, in other words, okay?
	You would not prefer to be born in Sub-Saharan Africa, in most parts of Asia.
	You would not prefer to be born in the Middle East.
	There are lots of places on planet Earth you would not prefer to be born if you're a woman and want to be treated with respect.
	But according to Joe Biden, America's culture of violence against women is purely European in origin, and then he cites bad history to push all of this.
	It's that mentality, the soft bigotry of low expectations when it comes to other countries, that leads to the idea that when America retaliates against terrorists that it's America's fault for escalating.
	Again.
	It is very easy for Iran to make all of this go away.
	Just stop acting like terrorist pieces of crap.
	That's it.
	Okay, that's all you have to do.
	All the Iranian government has to do to be welcomed in is to stop this.
	This has been true forever.
	There was no point at which this was not true.
	And yet they are not.
	And yet it is people in the West suggesting that it is Trump's fault or it was Bush's fault.
	Apparently the only possible solution to the intransigence of evil countries and evil aggressors is to bribe them.
	Because in the end, we are the true evil, aren't we?
	In the end, it's America, it's Europe.
	Those are the places that are the cause of all evil in the world.
	That sort of self-loathing leads to some pretty awful consequences.
	And again, when it comes to Iran, things are going to get hot before they get cold.
	But if you want things to cool down, if you'd like a cold war with Iran rather than a hot war with Iran, you're going to need to stop arming the enemy and then suggesting that the regional aggression has no consequences whatsoever while handing them pallets of cash.
	This whole blowback for Trump for doing what is obviously a moral and right thing without Not even waiting to see what comes next is pretty astonishing.
	Okay, time for some things I like and then we'll do some things that I hate.
	So, things that I like over the break.
	I had the opportunity to watch some of the movies that have finally come out streaming.
	And finally, they brought out Joker.
	Now, I had to watch Joker streaming as opposed to in the theaters, specifically because I could not take my wife to see this movie.
	There are certain movies that I just, like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, also couldn't take my wife to see that one.
	Joker couldn't take my wife to see it.
	I was very eager to see it.
	I have some critiques.
	I have some thoughts.
	Here's a little bit of the preview, and then I will explain what's good about the movie and what's not so great about the movie.
	It's so awful, isn't it?
	For my whole life, I didn't know if I even really existed. - Please.
	But I do.
	And people are starting to notice.
	Okay, so the whole movie is based around Joaquin Phoenix's performance, which is indeed a terrific performance.
	What works about the film is his personal descent into evil, right?
	That all works.
	And there's a great scene with Robert De Niro near the end of the film in which he talks about his feeling of dispossession, of being mocked.
	Yeah, all of that stuff works.
	What doesn't work about the film for me is if you imagine that he's the counterpart to Batman.
	Right?
	So if you imagine that he's supposed to be so clever, that he's supposed to be such a villain, that Batman can never quite get his arms around him, then it doesn't work at all.
	Because basically, he is not a brilliant person.
	He is not a genius.
	He doesn't do anything in premeditated fashion.
	He doesn't have any plan.
	He doesn't have any forethought.
	And so the notion that Batman would have a tough time catching this guy is bizarre.
	Like, he gets caught three times, basically.
	And put in jail, and then released.
	And that, of course, is part of the Batman comics, because he's released on mental health recognizance, effectively.
	But, the idea that he is sort of the notorious counterpart to Batman, that part, like, if you imagined the Joker movie in the Batman universe, it doesn't work.
	On its own, it works perfectly fine as the descent of one person living in bad social circumstances into evil, and the self-justification that comes from it.
	That'll work.
	And of course, Joaquin Phoenix is probably the best living American actor on stage.
	He really is first rate.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
	So the New York Times is now making a big deal out of this homecoming video from the University of Wisconsin.
	The video is utterly non-controversial.
	Here's a little bit of the video, and then I'll explain what's controversial about this, because there really is nothing controversial about this.
	Where we can all harmonize as one.
	Just shows some people singing.
	Home is Wisconsin cheese curds.
	It's welcoming everyone into our home.
	Shows people walking through the campus and some of these young women going swimming.
	Some young women dancing and all this.
	Okay, so what was so controversial about this homecoming video, which is just like kind of a cute, nice video, and it was the homecoming committee that made the video?
	Too many white people.
	Really, this is the critique.
	The New York Times had a big piece about how in a homecoming video meant to unite campus, almost everyone was white.
	If you watch that video and your first reaction is, where are all the black people?
	I would suggest that you are a little bit too focused on race in the world.
	This was not meant to be a white pride video.
	There is literally nothing about this video that screams white pride.
	The fact that there aren't as many black faces in it as you would presumably like.
	Are you imputing racism to the campus?
	Are you imputing racism to the students who made it?
	Where exactly is the critique?
	It's an absurd, absurd thing.
	But this merited this huge, long New York Times article.
	The video was just two minutes long.
	A sunny montage of life at the University of Wisconsin's flagship campus in Madison.
	Here were hundreds of young men and women, cheering at a football game, dancing in unison, riding bicycles in a sleek line, throwing the W for the camera, singing a cappella, leaping into a lake.
	Home is where we grow together, a voiceover said.
	Days before homecoming week, the student homecoming committee, tasked with producing the video, posted it online.
	The outrage was almost instantaneous.
	Virtually every student in the video was white.
	Well, maybe that's because the vast majority of students at University of Wisconsin-Madison are white.
	There are 30,000 undergrads at UW-Madison.
	Fewer than 1,000 of them are black.
	So, maybe the statistical pool from which you are drawing is overwhelmingly white, and so the video is overwhelmingly white.
	Does that mean that this is like people... Well, we can't cast this black person in the homecoming video.
	None of that happened.
	None of that happened.
	But according to students of color, the homecoming video was a glimpse of what they experienced every day as they walked through campus.
	The video prompted a burst of student activism, an attempt by university officials to educate about diversity, and a reckoning over who feels at home at the University of Wisconsin.
	It's so tiresome.
	The faux outrage is so tiresome.
	Oh my god, there weren't enough black people in this homecoming video.
	How terrible!
	Well, I guess this means that we are five seconds away from the reinstitution of segregation.
	You know who else?
	I didn't see a lot of Orthodox Jews in that video.
	I didn't see a lot of Kippot in that video.
	Clearly, it's an anti-Semitic camp.
	It's like, what are we even talking about?
	The answer is we're talking about nothing.
	People are looking for a reason to be outraged, and we live in a stupid place right now.
	A very stupid time in a very stupid place.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here a little bit later today with two additional hours of content, all the new developments, plus If you don't want that, we'll be back here next week.
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	Go do that right now.
	Otherwise, have yourself a wonderful weekend.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
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