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March 14, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show

49:17

Putin’s Escalation Continues | Ep. 1452

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Time	Text
	Vladimir Putin unleashes a strike against a Ukrainian base along the Polish border.
	Iran fires missiles at the U.S.
	consulate in Erbil, Iraq.
	And China generously offers to mediate between Russia and Ukraine.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
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	Alrighty, so Russia continues to ratchet up the pressure in this war on Ukraine.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest that a Russian airstrike on a Ukrainian military training center close to the Polish border threw into sharp relief the hazards of the Western push to deliver arms support to Kiev while avoiding direct conflict with a nuclear adversary.
	The airstrike killed 35 people at the facility in Yavoriv, about 10 miles from the Polish border, early on Sunday, far to the west of where the conflict has been concentrated.
	If you look at the map, you can see that Kiev is sort of two-thirds of the way west of the eastern boundary of Ukraine.
	And this particular facility is right on the border.
	It's one day after Moscow warned the West it would consider arms deliveries to Ukraine as legitimate targets.
	A large portion of the military aid from the West passes through Poland into western Ukraine.
	Part of the fine line, the US and NATO are walking between aiding Ukraine militarily while steering clear of providing troops or enforcing a no-fly zone that Ukraine has called The expansion of Russia's aggression to a target close to Poland also increases the risk of war encroaching on NATO territory, which the United States has already warned would be treated as an attack on the alliance.
	Any strike on Poland would bring the full force of the NATO alliance to bear in responding to it, according to Jake Sullivan, the U.S.
	National Security Advisor.
	So right now the question is, what exactly are the Russians doing?
	And the answer, of course, is that the Russians are ratcheting things up.
	They are attempting to pressure the West into cracking.
	They see cracks in the Western alliance as far as how far the West is willing to go.
	They see vulnerabilities and they are currently seeking to exploit those vulnerabilities.
	What they understand is that if they pressure the West enough into not giving Ukraine the kind of support it needs, the high likelihood at that point is that Zelensky makes the sorts of concessions the West doesn't like, but that do preserve Zelensky in power in Ukraine while limiting what he can actually do on behalf of Ukraine.
	What Russia is asking for right now, demanding, not asking for since they have 200,000 troops in country, what they are demanding is that Ukraine recognize as independent the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk over in the eastern part of Ukraine, that they recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, which has been a longstanding Russian demand because the majority of Crimea are Russian speaking people.
	They held a plenum In 2014, it was an election that wasn't particularly clean, in which the people of Crimea supposedly voted to join Russia.
	In all likelihood, the reality is that if you held a clean election, it's possible, maybe probable, that Crimea votes to join Russia anyway, although in the aftermath of this particular attack, it's possible that that goes the other way.
	In any case, what Russia is demanding is that those breakaway regions Which were essentially seeded by Vladimir Putin by putting his so-called little green men inside to start some sort of insurrectionary war against the Ukrainian government and then create breakaway provinces that would join with Russia in foreign policy that Ukraine recognized that it does not have any control over those regions.
	They also want Ukraine to say that it will never join NATO or join the EU.
	Those are the big things.
	Those are the big asks and demands from the Russian government.
	And the longer this war goes on and the more weakness the West shows, the more likely Zelensky is going to say to the West, listen, you guys are more than happy to see this war go on with Ukrainian bodies in the streets, but you're not willing to give us the kind of support that would be actually necessary to beat the Russians back to Russia.
	All you really want to see is us continue to resist, but not strongly enough that it would trigger a larger war.
	And so you know what?
	I'm not up for that.
	I'm going to give them what the reality on the ground already is.
	Then I'm going to say that we won because we preserved Ukraine's independence from Russia, even if we had to make some concessions.
	But the truth is, you weren't letting us into the EU anyway.
	That's true.
	You weren't letting us into NATO anyway.
	That is also true.
	So what exactly do I have to lose by cutting a deal here?
	The longer this goes on, in other words, the more it looks like Putin's gamble, which is that the West was going to chicken out, that the West was essentially going to back down to him.
	It looks like that gamble was not entirely misplaced.
	So a few things can be true at once.
	One, this was a miscalculation by Putin because he thought it would, number one, be a cakewalk.
	And number two, the West wouldn't respond at all.
	And number two, Putin's basic premise, which is that the longer he holds out and the more damage he does, the more likely that the West is going to cave to his demands.
	That can still be true.
	Because, as it turns out, folks in the West, leaders in the West, are still highly dependent on Russian oil and natural gas in Europe, for example.
	And as we will see, the Biden administration is still counting on the Russians to cut a crappy Iran nuclear deal.
	So Putin is just figuring if I ratchet up the tension, if I kill enough people, then Zelensky is going to cave to me.
	He'll claim some sort of victory.
	I'll claim some sort of victory.
	I'll get most of what I wanted.
	Sure, it won't have been what I really wanted, which is to kill Zelensky and take over the entire country.
	But the reality is that the guerrilla war that has essentially started inside Ukraine And the Ukrainian military fending off the Russian military is a suggestion to Putin that a long-term occupation is a really, really bad idea there.
	So maybe the best thing that Putin can hope to get out of this is Zelensky in power, but essentially conceding the major points that Putin wants in Ukraine in the first place.
	Now, the reason I say all of this is because the West is showing signs of cracking.
	The West, when this first happened, they said we're going to ship as much weaponry as we could possibly want into there.
	There was an open talk just last week by the Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, on national television about how we were going to help ship old MiGs into Ukraine so that they could make sure that Russia couldn't create a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
	And there's two possibilities.
	One, NATO creating a no-fly zone.
	That was off the table because we didn't want to go to direct war with the Russians in the air.
	But the second was, don't let Russia have a no-fly zone.
	Make sure that Ukraine can still fend them off in the air, and that would have meant shipping MiGs, old Soviet MiGs, into Ukraine.
	Now, by the way, the reason you ship MiGs into Ukraine as opposed to, say, F-22s or F-35s is because the Ukrainian pilots don't actually know how to fly F-22s or F-35s.
	They know how to fly old Soviet MiGs because that's what their air force is at this point.
	But the problem is, every time Putin pushes, the West seems to crack just a little bit.
	So, for example, This whole debate over sending MiGs into Ukraine, it started off last week with the Secretary of State saying, let's do it.
	And by the end of the week, the United States was saying, we absolutely are not going to do it.
	And as it turns out, that was a call directly from the top.
	That was a Joe Biden call.
	According to Politico, that was no one else.
	That was Joe Biden who stepped in and said, we are not going to actually allow the shipping of MiGs into Ukraine via our airbase.
	Over at Ramstein in Germany.
	We're not going to do that.
	And we're also going to be pretty cautious about allowing the Poles to do that as well.
	Here was Joe Biden over the weekend saying that he thinks that if we had sent planes into Ukraine over the border via Ukrainian pilots, that this would have been World War III.
	But we're already sending all sorts of anti-air batteries.
	We're already sending Javelin missiles in there.
	We're sending Stingers.
	We're sending all sorts of weaponry over the border.
	Why exactly would this be any different?
	And if the idea is, well, you know, it's because Vladimir Putin is going to get pissed, Vladimir Putin has already declared that economic warfare is a form of warfare.
	He's already threatened nuclear war here.
	So do you really believe that Vladimir Putin is going to launch a nuclear war if you send a few MiGs over the border?
	Not to fight the Russians directly, by the way, to just land at Ukrainian air bases that the Ukrainian military can fight the Russians.
	We've already been rearming.
	It's not a mystery here.
	There's no deniability.
	Here's Joe Biden basically caving under pressure from Vladimir Putin.
	The idea that we're going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews.
	Just understand, and don't kid yourself, no matter what you all say, that's called World War III.
	Okay, so now he's just parroting whatever Putin is saying.
	First of all, we weren't talking about sending American pilots and American planes over the border.
	We were talking about sending old Soviet planes over the border without American pilots, like Ukrainian pilots.
	It's not the same thing at all.
	And when he says, well, you know, if we send offensive weapons, what do you think guns are?
	Seriously, what is it?
	Please explain to me the difference between sending Javelin missiles And anti-aircraft missiles that are going to take down planes and sending in planes that are going to take down planes.
	You're gonna have to explain the logical differentiation between those two things.
	Nobody's talking about sending in Soviet MiGs.
	They can attack Russian bases in Russia.
	The hell is he talking about?
	So Vladimir Putin looks at this crazy old man.
	He's like, well, I feel like I can just keep going here.
	And the longer I go, the better chance they are going to back down.
	And it's kind of an amazing thing, because right now you have a second-rate world power, which is what the Russians are.
	They are a nuclear arm, but they are a second-rate world power.
	They are a gas station with a nuclear arsenal, dictating terms to the United States, the most powerful country on planet Earth, with a military significantly more powerful than any in the history of mankind.
	And Wendy Sherman over at the State Department, she's saying the same thing.
	The Pentagon says that, you know, if we move jets to Ukraine, it could get very complicated.
	So in other words, when Putin threatens you guys enough, you back down.
	So why would you think that Putin... That's why Putin is ratcheting things up.
	As it turns out, every time you show weakness to the bear, the bear attacks.
	The Pentagon, however, made an assessment that trying to move these planes was very complicated, that backfilling them was virtually impossible, that what Ukrainians really needed were anti-aircraft, anti-tank and anti-armor weapons, which is what we are supplying them in great measure and coordinating with other countries to do the same.
	Well, it seems like they were directly asking for those jets.
	So, no.
	Now, when John Kirby from the Pentagon, he says it's the same thing, you know, well, you know, it's really not in their interest for the United States and Russia to get into an air... Who's talking about an air war?
	What are you talking about?
	You're talking about the Ukrainians flying old Soviet MiGs across the border into Ukraine.
	That's what we're talking about right now.
	We're not talking about the United States getting... No one wants an air war with Russia.
	Nobody wants a war with Russia.
	And Putin is using that.
	He's using the fact that the West doesn't want a war with him in order to get pretty much everything that he craves.
	Here's John Kirby from the Pentagon.
	Wow.
	If you put American planes, American pilots in that, you're basically going to war with Russia.
	I, as a young officer on an aircraft carrier, participated from the ship in a no-fly zone effort over northern Iraq.
	It is combat.
	There's no way you can do that without being willing to shoot and be shot at.
	It is combat.
	And I don't think it's in anybody's interest, certainly not Ukraine's interest, for the United States and Russia to be getting in a war in their airspace.
	Nobody is talking about that.
	Nobody wants that.
	But let's be real about this.
	We've been shipping millions of dollars in weaponry over that border consistently since the beginning of this war.
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	Now, one of the things that's happening here is that Putin is assuming Western weakness based on our signals.
	The reality is that Putin does not walk across the border in Ukraine unless he thought that the West was weak.
	And maybe one of the reasons he thought the West was weak is because the West was weak.
	Up until December, the White House was telling Vladimir Putin he better cut that out.
	Why doesn't he just get on board with the global Build Back Better plan?
	That worked out great.
	And now, according to Politico, in December 2021, senior U.S.
	military officials told lawmakers they wanted to send a few hundred additional special ops personnel to Ukraine to provide military advice and training on unconventional warfare.
	At the time, Russia had amassed roughly 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine.
	Concerns were growing in Washington and Europe about a broadening invasion.
	But the White House had concerns about the deployment.
	The troops were never sent.
	Apparently, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin planned to directly press Joe Biden to approve the mission, and Biden turned it down.
	A senior military official told House lawmakers the White House was concerned sending the troops would escalate the already tense situation with Russia.
	Yeah, I mean, good thing we didn't send those troops.
	Otherwise, the Russians might have crossed that border and invaded Ukraine or something.
	Which they did.
	A third congressional official told Politico, a Pentagon official briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee, that plans have been scrapped due to those concerns.
	The Biden administration hoped diplomacy might still work and feared an influx of U.S.
	troops could scuttle those efforts.
	Once again, these folks are operating in la-la land.
	They are operating in cloud cuckoo land.
	It's insane.
	They are operating from the perspective.
	That it is somehow America helping our allies defend themselves that causes our adversaries to get aggressive.
	It is precisely the opposite.
	Our adversaries get more aggressive when they believe we are weak.
	It is not that we get strong and so our adversaries challenge us.
	It is that we get weak and so our adversaries challenge us.
	This is the way that it works throughout life.
	I'm so confused by this notion.
	Like, just take it on a personal level.
	There's a guy, he's walking around your high school.
	He works out all the time, and it just so happens that he might be carrying a switchblade.
	Is that the guy you attack, or is the guy that you attack the one who looks vulnerable and who's carrying around a wallet full of lunch money?
	Who do you attack?
	Like, this is the stupidest thing in the world.
	Well, you know, if we look strong and we carry around the switchblade, that might make them feel more violent against us, and then they might attack Ukraine.
	Well, like really slow clap for the Biden administration, which said in December, we're not going to send special ops people over there for training because doing so might incentivize the Russians to attack because clearly you avoided that attack.
	You just did a great job.
	A White House spokesperson is now trying to deny this, saying no such plans for additional training were ever presented to the White House or the NSC.
	We have no idea what this is referring to, said the spokesperson.
	A Defense Department official said Biden and the White House, quote, did not cancel any planned training activities for Ukraine until U.S.
	forces were repositioned in February.
	Neither official would comment on the Capitol Hill briefings themselves or whether a mission was discussed with the White House informally that fell below the threshold of an official plan.
	So yeah, that means that that happened.
	That's precisely what happened there.
	So Russia is striking near the Polish border now.
	And by the way, they're now threatening.
	I should just point out here that when you have the Biden administration claiming that it's the shipment across the border of the jets that is really going to be the deciding factor as to whether a war begins.
	Let me just point out here that the Soviet foreign minister, Russian foreign minister Ryabkov, he came out yesterday and he said that if you ship in air defense systems, that will be an escalation.
	Not just jets, air defense systems.
	This is according to the Russian deputy foreign minister.
	So again, they keep just ratcheting up the rhetoric, knowing that the more they ratchet up the rhetoric, the more the Biden administration is going to back down.
	Which is also why they're attacking near the Polish border, because what they're saying is, do you want us to call your bluff?
	Are you interested in us calling your bluff?
	Is that really what you want?
	By the way, we actually have video of the aftermath of the strike on the base that was near the Polish border.
	You can see, this is a pretty major strike.
	That's a lot of stuff that's on fire over there.
	If you can't see this, basically it's a...
	This area, which is well out of the line of battle, is smoking rubble.
	It's a smoking heap of rubble.
	Giant crater right in the middle of the street.
	That is a Russian missile that is hitting about 10 miles from the Polish border.
	Now, the United States is warning that NATO would respond if Russia actually directly hits Poland.
	This is their response, that if you really do it, if you really do it, then we will respond to you.
	But it's and I think that Putin knows that that is likely true.
	But the whole point here is he's going to back you guys down.
	He's got me.
	All you guys do is you make threats and then you don't actually fulfill on on your threats.
	I mean, right now, at the moment, the French and the Germans, according to CNN, are pushing Zelensky for an immediate ceasefire.
	It is the people who are on the defensive side.
	It's NATO pushing for the ceasefire.
	It's NATO who's pushing Zelensky for some sort of concessions here.
	Because they're not willing to go full hog.
	And Putin knows that, which is why he's pushing harder.
	Here is CNN reporting it yesterday.
	President Zelensky also spoke to the French President.
	He also had a phone conversation with the German Chancellor ahead of their phone call with the Russian President.
	And he urged them, when they spoke to Vladimir Putin, to press for that ceasefire.
	Now that is what the two leaders did.
	A source at the Elysee Palace says that President Macron and Chancellor Schultz Both pressed Vladimir Putin on that point, emphasizing the growing cost of the war to Russia and urging him, therefore, to change his calculation.
	Okay, so, I mean, they can push Putin as much as they want, but here is the point.
	The folks in Germany know 50% of their energy is coming from Russia.
	So what exactly are they going to do?
	Do they think this is a long term plan?
	I don't think it's a long term plan.
	Meanwhile, Joe Biden keeps making threats.
	But here's the thing.
	Every time he makes a threat, he then seems to back down from the threat other than economic sanctions and economic sanctions.
	It's easy to pull the trigger on those because those don't actually involve loss of life.
	They also don't achieve what you're seeking to achieve as a general rule, unless you're willing to do like a full-time war blockade on a country.
	Economic sanctions, they will squeeze, but they will not stop.
	Here was Joe Biden over the weekend threatening that if Russia uses chemical weapons, they would pay a severe price.
	Well, I remember another Democratic president who once proclaimed that if a country used chemical weapons, it would cross a red line.
	You know who benefited from that?
	Russia, because if you recall, that was Barack Obama in Syria saying that if Bashar Assad used a chemical weapon, the United States would do something.
	So Bashar Assad used a chemical weapon, and the United States' preferred policy under Barack Obama was, what if I just turn over Syria to Russia?
	And then Russia came in and leveled Aleppo.
	So great job, everyone.
	I'm sure this is very credible.
	All the military threats are very credible.
	When you have Joe Biden doing his, I'm going to clutch my binder routine.
	Whenever he starts clutching the binder, you can see the insecurity in the body language.
	It really is pathetic.
	Here's the president.
	Would the U.S.
	have a military response if Putin does launch a chemical weapons attack?
	I'm not going to speak about the intelligence, but Russia would pay a severe price if it used chemical weapons.
	Oh, really?
	Like what?
	What would that severe price be, precisely?
	Because you said they were going to pay a severe price for crossing the Ukrainian border, and now you won't ship MIGs in.
	And also, you seem afraid to ship more weaponry in of that type.
	And as it turns out, you are even afraid to call the Russians out when it comes to the Iran deal.
	We'll get to that in just a moment.
	By the way, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who's an ally with Putin, he's like, I'm glad this war started.
	I mean, he's full out saying it.
	He's like, I don't see us losing any face here.
	I think it'll be fine.
	We didn't start this war.
	Our consciousness is clear.
	I'm glad it started.
	Biological weapons, largest nuclear stations, all of this was ready to be exploded.
	Okay, so those are lies.
	I mean, the claim here is that the Ukrainians were going to use biological or nuclear weapons.
	That is not true.
	But the point here is that we're America's enemy's sea weakness.
	They push where there's mush.
	This has always been the plan.
	They push where there's mush.
	So the left likes to claim that the right is somehow pro-Putin.
	There may be a couple, but there are a bunch of people on the left who seem to be pro-Putin.
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	Now I'd be remiss if I did not note here that the media are playing a particular game where they pretend that there is widespread dissent on the right from the notion that we should stand up to Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.
	Now there is a percentage of the right that believes that basically Putin should be able to do what he wants with Ukraine.
	What business of it is it of ours?
	Why do we care?
	It shouldn't matter to us at all.
	But there is also a significant portion of the left that is on national television saying that we shouldn't care about Ukraine because it's a bunch of white people.
	I mean, MSNBC's Tiffany Cross, she came out over the weekend and she was like, you know, I find it ironic that Kamala Harris was in Poland because Poland is filled with white supremacists.
	Poland!
	Okay, we're not even talking about Ukraine at this point.
	Poland, which is a NATO member.
	It's not lost on me that she spoke in Poland as some people on the border of Poland were not welcoming to people of African and South Asian descent.
	The vice president herself is of African and South Asian descent.
	She didn't address this in her remarks, and we don't know if she addressed it privately or not, but I'm just curious your thoughts on the irony of that situation to see her where, you know, there is documented evidence of rampant white supremacy in Poland.
	Well, I mean, obviously that was top priority.
	I mean, you're in the middle of a war that may involve NATO soon, and Poland is the chief shipping mechanism into Ukraine.
	But, I mean, obviously if Kamala Harris didn't talk about white supremacy and immigration policy at the Polish border, well done MSNBC.
	Just really, really solid stuff from MSNBC.
	Meanwhile, Ilhan Omar is taking the perspective that all of the sanctions on Russian oil and gas, that has to stop.
	That has to stop.
	She's very upset about that.
	The reason, by the way, she's upset about that is because Russia is helping out her friends over in Iran and with regard to Hamas and all the rest.
	We have to think about what this means a year from now, what this means two years, three years from now.
	And I think ultimately this is not going to end well for the actual people of Russia and it's not going to end well for the people of Europe as well.
	Well, I mean, take it from the open anti-Semite in Congress, who openly despises many things about America.
	Meanwhile, the Iranians, over the weekend, decided it would be a great idea to fling a missile at a U.S.
	consulate in Iraq.
	So, there is actual video of this explosion in Erbil, Iraq, which is in Kurdistan, the Kurdish part of Iraq.
	Iran is openly firing missiles into this area, and they are targeting places where American consulates are.
	Here is a little bit of the video.
	Aha!
	What?
	Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad!
	Okay, so that is pretty frightening.
	According to the Associated Press, Iran claimed responsibility Sunday for a missile barrage that struck near a sprawling U.S.
	consulate complex in northern Iraq, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guard earlier this week.
	So basically, Iran likes to lie that Mossad is all over the place and Mossad is in Iraq, and that's why they're attacking Iraq.
	So if only Iraq would join Iran in attacking Israel, then all of this would stop.
	Obviously, there's some pretty significant Shia versus Sunni interplay and violence in Iraq.
	Not to mention the situation with the Kurds, where both the Iranians and the Iraqis are sort of fighting over Kurdistan and all the rest.
	But here is the point.
	The point here is that Iran is ratcheting up the pressure at Russia's behest.
	That is what is happening here.
	It should strike no one as a coincidence that in the middle of these Iran nuclear negotiations, Iran is flinging missiles near the U.S.
	consulate complex in Erbil.
	The reason they are doing this is once again, when America's enemies see mush, they push.
	And right now, Russia believes that the United States has an interest in using Russia as the intermediary in order to get this Iran nuclear deal done.
	John Kerry has made this absolutely clear.
	The envoy, Robert Malley, has made this absolutely clear.
	Joe Biden and his team have made this absolutely clear.
	They keep saying over and over and over again, That they want to deal with Iran and they don't care that Iran is a terror sponsor.
	They do not care that Iran threatens American allies ranging from Israel to Saudi Arabia to the UAE.
	They don't care about any of that.
	They want their deal.
	They want it on a piece of paper.
	And they want it tomorrow.
	And they don't care what the terms of that deal are.
	We've been playing you audio over the last week of the Russian mediator in that deal who's basically, right now, because the United States has a sanctions regime against the Iranians, whatever negotiations are happening in Vienna, basically you have the Russian emissary who's going back and forth between the United States and Iran.
	He's running hotel to hotel to convey particular offers.
	The Americans, in other words, are using the Russians who they are fighting in Ukraine in order to mediate with the Iranians.
	And so right now, the Russians are basically trying to press their advantage.
	The Russians are saying to the United States, we would like an Iran deal where you exempt our oil and natural gas from any sort of sanction so we can sell to Iran and Iran will sell to the world and then they will funnel the money back to us.
	And also, if you don't do that, then maybe Iran will just ratchet up the tension.
	I mean, after all, don't you want Iran under control?
	Don't you want Iran to stop all of this stuff?
	We can help you make Iran stop all of this stuff.
	All you have to do is cave.
	That's all you have to do.
	To pretend that Russia isn't a part of what we saw when Iran is firing missiles at U.S.
	consulates in Iraq is, of course, very silly, because right now, Russia is using Iran as a proxy, as they have been for quite a while, right here.
	Iraq's foreign ministry on Sunday summoned Iran's ambassador to protest the attack, calling it a flagrant violation of the country's sovereignty.
	No injuries were reported in Sunday's attack in Erbil.
	It marked a significant escalation between the United States and Iran.
	Hostility between the longtime foes has often played out in Iraq, whose government is allied with both countries.
	The attack drew harsh condemnation from the Iraqi government, which called it a violation of international law and norms and demanded an explanation from Iranian leadership.
	The United States, for its part, condemned the strike, said it was an unjustified attack on a civilian residence.
	They said, we will support the government of Iraq in holding Iran accountable.
	We will support our partners throughout the Middle East in confronting similar threats from Iran.
	This is Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, said the United States of America stands behind the full sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Iraq.
	Will that in any way undermine the negotiations that are currently happening with Iran?
	Of course not.
	Wendy Sherman of the State Department, she comes out and she says, listen, we know that Iran is bad.
	We know that Iran is pursuing terrorism.
	But before we deal with the fact that they are a terrorist regime that is the great spreader of violence in the region, we have to sign a deal with them.
	We just have to.
	If Iran has a nuclear weapon, its ability to project power into the Middle East and to deter us, our allies and partners, is enormous.
	So President Biden believes very strongly, as does Secretary Blinken, as do I, that we need to make sure that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.
	And then we also need to deal with their malign behavior in the region.
	But first we've got to make sure that they cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.
	Just to get this straight, what she's actually saying is, yes, they're a terrorist state.
	What if we give them a bunch of money and they'll promise us not to develop a new?
	These idiots.
	It's all part of the same.
	It's the same regime.
	The same regime pursuing terrorism is the same regime developing a nuclear weapon.
	When you say, why don't we just give them a bunch of money?
	Do you really think that they are going to be honest?
	Has that been their history?
	That they've been super honest and open about this nuclear program, which they say is for civilian purposes?
	Why is it, if you, like, who has a stronger interest in the Middle East or anywhere on Earth in Iran not having a nuclear weapon?
	The United States or, say, Israel, which is under nuclear threat from Iran.
	Or Saudi Arabia, which is under nuclear threat.
	Like, if all of those countries that are directly in the middle of that area, within the umbrella of the Iranian ballistic missile program, if all of them are saying this deal sucks, maybe you should listen to them.
	But this administration has no interest in listening to them.
	So what are the Russians doing?
	They know they have leverage points.
	So here are the leverage points the Russians have now activated.
	The Russians have now activated the leverage point of the Iran negotiations, and they ratcheted it up by having Iran fire this missile at Erbil.
	Because, again, the idea here is that if the Iranians demonstrate that they are full rogue, then the Biden administration will say, well, man, we really need to make a deal with them to stop all this.
	We need to stop all this.
	Maybe we should just let the Russians have their oil.
	So that's leverage point number one.
	Leverage point number two, the oil and natural gas in Western Europe.
	claim that peace in our time and it's all fine.
	So they're gonna use the leverage point in the Middle East with regard to Iran, because they know that Biden is obsessed with this idea that if he inks a deal with the Iranians, then he gets to be part of the history books, because he's a senile old dullard.
	Okay, so that's leverage point number one.
	Leverage point number two, the oil and natural gas in Western Europe.
	So the Russians are looking West, and they can see that Europe cannot indefinitely undergo the kinds of sacrifice that they're currently undergoing.
	They cannot continue to have energy be 100% more expensive than it was a month ago.
	And so they know there's going to be pressure on the Americans and on Zelensky to make a deal from that angle.
	Meanwhile, they're leveraging their own aggression with regard to Ukraine against the Americans.
	They're saying, listen, if you guys go any further, if you ship a single MIG in here, who knows?
	Who knows?
	We might nuke something.
	Who knows?
	We might just level a city.
	We might unleash a biological weapon.
	Who knows?
	So they're finding every leverage point they can because this is what Putin is good at.
	Putin is a cancer and he is finding every vulnerability that the West has and he is using those vulnerabilities against the West.
	So the normal solution to that is that the West should be less vulnerable.
	That is the solution.
	So what would that mean?
	I mean, one, opening up the production of oil and natural gas in the United States, such that we have more oil and natural gas to export to Europe to alleviate their energy problems and alleviate our own.
	It would mean two, making sure that we are not dissuaded by Vladimir Putin's empty threats, and that we give the Ukrainians MIGs if they want MIGs.
	Doesn't have to be a no-fly zone, doesn't mean we have to fly our planes in there to take down Russian jets.
	It does mean that we should be giving the Ukrainians more than is necessary in order to defend themselves if we wish them not to surrender all of these things, including future membership in the EU or NATO, over to the Russians and essentially align their foreign policy with Russia.
	Three, it would mean dropping this Iran deal and killing it outright and saying, listen, Iran obviously has ill intent.
	Iran is literally firing missiles at us while negotiating with us and using the Russians as a proxy.
	And the Russians, meanwhile, are attempting to exploit our own idiocy with regard to this Iran deal to evade the sanctions.
	It means doing all of those things.
	Are we going to do any of those things?
	Of course we're not going to do any of those things.
	We're going to continue to be weak.
	So why wouldn't Vladimir Putin continue to be strong?
	After all, he's so deep in this point.
	I don't know what people in the West think the endgame is here for Putin.
	Do they really think he's just going to give up and go home?
	He's so deep in at this point.
	Do they really think that Vladimir Putin, who is stationed around Kiev right now and shelling Kiev again, do they really think that he's just going to give up and say, all right, you know what?
	You win.
	I'm done now.
	Catch you later.
	That's not going to happen.
	It's not going to happen.
	The most likely scenario, by the way, if Putin completely stalls out here, is he brings Belarus into the war from the north.
	They have a bunch of troops as well.
	Now, the United States is lying, right?
	The United States right now, they're saying, according to the Wall Street Journal, that they will not negotiate exemptions to the Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia in order to save that 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and could try to strike a separate accord, excluding Moscow.
	But that seems extraordinarily unlikely.
	I think that that is very unlikely.
	I think the fact is the United States will do exactly what they did under Barack Obama and the administration will basically say we would never allow them to have cash.
	And then in the dead of night you see the pallets of cash go in.
	So they would secretly sign some sort of deal that sort of quasi excludes certain economic aspects of Russia's economy.
	Or an overall deal gets signed with Zelensky in Ukraine and Iran in Iran and everybody is hunky-dory and Putin gets most of what he wants.
	A U.S.
	official said, I don't see the scope for going beyond what is within the confines of the JCPOA.
	I think it's pretty safe to say there is no room for making exemptions beyond those.
	The Iranian attack is likely to create more regional resistance to American efforts to strike a new nuclear containment deal with Iran.
	American, Iraqi, and other world leaders condemned Sunday's missile strike as a destabilizing act as the U.S.
	military stepped up its defenses and U.S.
	officials considered how to respond.
	But again, do I trust that the Biden administration will not cave on this?
	Why would I?
	I mean, seriously, why would I?
	And you know who else doesn't trust that the United States isn't going to cave on this?
	China.
	We'll get to China in all of this because China's just licking its chops over here.
	China's just sitting over here.
	They're gobbling up Russian assets like nobody's business.
	They're looking directly at Taiwan.
	They're watching what the world does here.
	And let us say they are not particularly intimidated by what they have seen thus far.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
	First, let's be clear.
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	You're just going to go to the auto parts store.
	There are a bajillion types of cars.
	The chance that they have the exact part you need is pretty low.
	You can get to the front of the line after waiting there for 20 minutes and the person at the front is going to tell you that they have to order the part online and then upcharge you.
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	Write Shapiro in their how-did-you-hear-about-us box so they know that we sent you.
	Okay, if you missed the premiere of the Hyperions, there is no need to fret.
	The film is now streaming at dailywire.com.
	We have so much good stuff behind the paywall at dailywire.com.
	If you're not a member yet, now is the time to join us.
	Plus, here is the biggest thing.
	If you join right now, you'll be entered to win the red carpet treatment with you and the cast and crew of Terror on the Prairie starring Gina Carano.
	If you win, you get flown out to the red carpet premiere of Terror on the Prairie.
	You'll meet and greet the DailyWire folks and the film's cast and crew.
	Two lucky members will each get two tickets.
	their hotel, flight, premiere car service, and exclusive merch. It is all on us.
	Head on over to dailywire.com slash red carpet. Sign up with code red carpet to be entered.
	Don't worry if you're already a member just head on over to dailywire.com slash red carpet to enter. Here is the trailer by the way for the Hyperions.
	Calling all Hyperions.
	My name is Vista Mandelbaum.
	I was just a little girl on a sunny day.
	My brother and I have taken four hostages.
	Everybody against the wall!
	We've come for one thing.
	Our Titan badges.
	Is this real?
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	It's the police.
	They want to talk to whoever's in charge.
	This Titan badge can grant an individual superhuman power.
	Perhaps it's time for someone else to take on the responsibility.
	Meet Apollo.
	I'd recommend next time using your power.
	Yeah, if you think so.
	Calling all Hyperions.
	On my way.
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	We've got a Hyperion en route.
	Not a good time to look stupid.
	Shots fired!
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	Now, I'm going to go ahead and get my phone.
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	You're going to love it.
	If you missed it on YouTube, you really shouldn't miss it now.
	Head on over.
	It's really kind of a PG-13 type film.
	I think if you're above the age of 13, you can watch it.
	Head on over to dailywire.com slash red carpet.
	Enter code red carpet so you don't miss a beat.
	Meanwhile, the media loves to tell one side of every story specifically.
	The regime approved story.
	That is why we have taken upon ourselves to start our own publishing wing.
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	One of the first books we will be publishing is 12 Seconds in the Dark by Sergeant Mattingly.
	The book is the true story of what really happened the night of the tragic Breonna Taylor shooting.
	Remember, this was used as point number one in the Black Lives Matter movement.
	The idea was she was shot for racist reasons.
	Mattingly, a 20-year police veteran, takes readers inside his department's response and debunks the lies that have been recklessly shared with the public.
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	All right, so meanwhile, China is just sitting over here and they are thinking to themselves, hey, maybe we can play broker.
	Maybe in the same way that Russia is attempting to use its leverage in order to create a deal with Iran and the United States that allows them to evade the sanctions and continue to put pressure on the Americans.
	China is now backing up Russia.
	So China is sitting over here and they are basically Backing Russia's play, and then proclaiming that they are in fact an honest broker.
	According to the Washington Post, Russia has turned to China for military equipment and aid in the weeks since it began its invasion of Ukraine.
	According to U.S.
	officials familiar with the matter, they told this to the Washington Post.
	The officials, who spoke on a condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, did not describe what kind of weaponry had been requested.
	Or whether they know how China responded.
	White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN the administration was communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for any Chinese efforts to assist Russia in evading sanctions.
	And again, China's like, sure, yeah, I believe you.
	Ukrainian officials said negotiations with Russia will continue on Monday.
	Presidential advisor Mikhailo Podolyak said Sunday Russia is starting to talk constructively and predicted some concrete results in a matter of days.
	Again, because the concrete results are likely to be Ukraine giving Russia most of what they want.
	Because after all, this can't carry on forever if you are Ukraine.
	Russia brought the fighting closer to members of the NATO alliance, as we mentioned, by striking that military facility that is close to Poland.
	But meanwhile, you have the Chinese who are like, what if we broker a deal?
	Just trust us.
	So they're now saying that the United States and the West should do with Putin in Ukraine what Putin did with Assad in Syria.
	What if you trust us to broker it?
	Just hand it off to us.
	We'll take care of it.
	It'll all be fine, says the Chinese communist tyranny.
	There's a piece in the New York Times by Wang Huiyou.
	And Wang Huiyou is the founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization, a non-governmental think tank based in Beijing.
	Okay, so let me just make something clear.
	There's no such thing as a non-governmental think tank based in Beijing.
	Okay, anything that is based in Beijing is run by the Chinese government or at least approved by the Chinese government.
	You don't see a lot of liberal-minded anti-Chinese think tanks in the middle of Beijing.
	So he has an entire piece in the New York Times talking about how China should really broker something.
	He says, quote, China has a significant economic interest in a quick resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian war.
	China enjoys strong ties with Russia and Ukraine and is both countries' largest single trading partner, though each trades more with the EU bloc than with China.
	Russia and Ukraine are crucial components of the Belt and Road infrastructure program, as well as conduits for China's trade with Europe.
	China-Europe rail transports have experienced a hundredfold increase since the beginning of the 2010s.
	China is also uniquely positioned to act as a neutral mediator between a Western-supported Ukraine and Russia.
	Yes, Beijing and Moscow have a strong and growing relationship.
	China's demand for resources Russia has in abundance, food and energy, as well as a mutual dissatisfaction with the current state of the U.S.-led world order, have increasingly drawn the two countries together.
	This alliance was cemented when Putin and Xi met last month and issued a joint statement underscoring their deep ties and reaffirming a partnership with no forbidden zones.
	Which, by the way, sounds like a bad pornography movie.
	Russia may possess a mighty military, but its economy is in long-term structural decline, with a GDP not much larger than that of Spain.
	For all the talk of ties with Moscow, it's worth remembering China's economic interests with Russia are dwarfed by those it shares with the West.
	Even if China isn't joining the sanctions, it's possible Chinese businesses and banks will decrease involvement with Russia to avoid a backlash in other more important markets.
	No, not really.
	But he, this guy is just maintaining, you know, China wants this conflict and just trust us.
	Just trust us.
	At a time when China faces increasing global criticism for its human rights violations, mediating an end to this conflict could help improve the country's standing with the West.
	Beijing has long striven to convince political and business elites in Europe and America the rise of China does not present a threat.
	Support for Russian aggression, even perceived support, threatens to undermine that assertion.
	What form could mediation take?
	Any serious resolution would have to involve the U.S.
	and the EU as key actors.
	Beijing could help to broker an immediate ceasefire as a prelude to talks among Russia, Ukraine, the United States, EU, and China.
	Beijing's goal would be to find a solution that gives Putin sufficient security assurances that can be presented as a win to his domestic audience while protecting Ukraine's core sovereignty and NATO's open-door policy.
	Finding a landing zone for such an agreement is challenging, but not impossible.
	Securing a multilateral resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, says this founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization based in Beijing.
	It says, by the way, he advises the Chinese government in that capacity.
	So this is a government cutout.
	So securing a multilateral resolution to the crisis in Ukraine will be a tough and risky challenge, but there is no country better placed to do so than China.
	So what is the Biden administration going to do with all of this talk of China getting involved?
	Apparently, Sullivan, Jake Sullivan, the NSA, and officials from the National Security Council and State Department will be in Rome, where Jake Sullivan will meet with Chinese Communist Politburo member and Director of the Office of Foreign Affairs Commission, Yang Jiechi, to discuss the impact of Russia's war against Ukraine on regional and global security.
	So it looks very much as though the Biden administration is open to the possibility that China should broker an end to this.
	So China is the big winner, is how this may come out.
	Meanwhile, the State Department is trying to whistle past the graveyard right here.
	So Wendy Sherman, again on national television, making a fool of herself.
	She says yesterday, you know, people keep saying that Russia and China, you know, that their relationship has strengthened, but we don't, we don't really know that their relationship has strengthened in all of this.
	Yeah, I mean, maybe, maybe not.
	Maybe, maybe they're good.
	Here she is.
	Quickly, has the Russia-China relationship suffered or strengthened as a result of this invasion?
	I think that's an open question, yet, Brett, to be perfectly honest, we saw Russia and China come closer together, certainly before the Olympics, putting out a long manifesto about their partnership and how they were going to move forward together.
	And at the same time, we've seen China pretty uncomfortable with an invasion of a sovereign country.
	By the way, that's called buying Chinese propaganda.
	So what China is saying is, we're really on the West side on Ukraine, because after all, we would hate it if a sovereign country were invaded.
	Because like, if you guys interfered with Taiwan, that's part of sovereign China.
	This is their actual case.
	Meanwhile, Wendy Sherman's like, yeah, China's very, very against invading sovereign country.
	Also, by the way, we don't think that they should take Taiwan.
	Good luck to Wendy Sherman on this one.
	We understand and support a one-China policy.
	But we don't believe that China, PRC, ought to take Taiwan by force.
	And we will do everything we can to deter that effort by the PRC.
	Oh really?
	Will you then?
	Will you then?
	Or are you just going to have China try to broker an end to this Russian conflict?
	All the people who are in positions of power are untrustworthy when it comes to how this conflict ends, which is why it probably ends really, really badly.
	The likelihood that this ends with Vladimir Putin going down in flames, that he's cooed out, or that he ends up having to fight a guerrilla war for 10 to 20 years, that the West doesn't cave?
	The probability of that is very low, which is why, again, all of America's enemies are putting pressure on every leverage point they have, every single leverage point.
	It's a test of the West.
	At the beginning, the West was not failing.
	They failed in their deterrence.
	Then they didn't fail in their response.
	And now it's starting to look like that unified front that pushes back against Russian predation, and pushes back against Iran, and pushes back against China backing Russia.
	It seems like that unified front may have lasted for about three weeks or so.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.
	Coming up soon is The Matt Walsh Show.
	It airs at 1.30 p.m.
	Eastern.
	Be sure to check it out over at dailywire.com.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
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