All right, we need to talk about Iran and particularly the threats of the United States government under President Trump to become militarily involved in what are unfolding protests by the citizenry.
Specifically, Trump has threatened to bomb Iran, has threatened to otherwise intervene.
We know for certain.
Because the Israeli media is talking about it, that the Mossad and other Israeli agencies are fully on the ground and fueling these protests, which doesn't mean that there are no real protests in Iran.
I'm sure Iranians, like most people, have a lot of grievances and hostility toward their government.
I'm sure that there are a lot of organic protests there, but clearly none of this is going to work, meaning the downfall of the Iranian government, which has been the longtime dream of both neocons in the United States as well Direct involvement of Israel in the United States, and Donald Trump is now threatening to directly involve the U.S. military.
Of course, Donald Trump bombed Iran in June of last year, and the excuse was, well, there were nuclear facilities there.
They were headed toward nuclear weapons, even though his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said that intelligence showed they had not restarted their nuclear program.
But it was a one night bombing program with Israel.
And the argument was this posed a direct threat to the United States.
In this case, there is no such pretense.
There is no such argument.
These protests obviously pose no threat, whatever the Iranian government is doing to these protesters.
That is something that is a type of oppression inside countries.
There are dozens of countries all over the world, some of whom are America's closest allies, that routinely repress their citizenry, that kill protesters, that imprison dissidents.
And one of the promises of the Trump movement was we're going to stop intervening in all these countries.
We're going to stop doing regime change in the name of fixing these countries or helping these countries because we have to focus on our own country, but also because our regime change interventions don't work.
They usually leave the country and the people in it far worse off.
Now, anybody who reports on and pays great attention to American Understand that there are some very common propagandistic narratives that are often rolled out, and despite how brazenly false and transparently manipulative they are, huge numbers of people believe them.
Propaganda is very effective.
It's a science developed over many years.
I've talked about this before, that it's targeted to our most visceral tribalistic instincts.
We want to believe that we're benevolent and noble in the world, that we're going to free people from the repression of monsters.
This is what Marvel films are made of.
You have these evil forces and the good heroes have to go and kill them in order to free people, liberate them from their oppression.
This is a very common and a very potent propagandistic tool.
And there are a lot of those propagandistic narratives, but honestly, the one that I can't stand the most, the one that leaves me most frustrated and angry, the one I genuinely There are still people left who are willing to believe this?
Is it that the United States fights wars or bombs other countries or intervenes in them militarily or otherwise destabilizes them with the goal of changing the government?
Because the United States government cares so deeply about bringing freedom and democracy to the world's repressed peoples.
We just want to liberate and help.
And if we see a dictatorship, We're oppressing its people.
As a government, as a country, we don't tolerate that.
We go and we intervene.
We change that government, especially if they get too rough with their people.
There's so many reasons why I say I can't believe that there are still people who believe this, given all the words that have been sold in the name of this.
We're going to liberate the Viennese people.
We're going to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam's rule.
We're going to liberate the Libyan people from Gaddafi's repression.
We're going to liberate the Afghans from the Taliban.
We're going to liberate the Venezuelans from the repressive regime of the communists, even though we just took out Maduro and left the communists there.
It's blatantly not why we go and fight wars.
And that's particularly Many of the United States' most important and closest allies in the world, and this has been true for decades since the end of the Cold War.
It's at least as true, if not more so now.
Many of the United States' closest allies are the most repressive, savage, and brutal tyrants on the planet.
And it's not as if we just find them there as repressive tyrants and decide we're going to We send money to them.
We send intelligence to them.
We arm them.
We prop them up.
We want them to be in place, these repressive tyrants.
United States has done far more in sending its military to overthrow democratically elected governments and install tyrants than it has the other way around, namely that we've gone somewhere to overthrow a tyrant and install democracy.
Far more.
Far more.
A staple of American foreign policy has been to put dictators in place in countries where we know if there were elections, they would elect a leader that we dislike.
And so this idea that we somehow dislike dictatorships, we're willing to go bomb places in order to free people and protect and safeguard their rights?
Who could possibly believe this after everything we've seen?
Now, one of the things that I do think Donald Trump has succeeded in doing, whether intentionally or not, is he's undercut and subverted this narrative because he really doesn't even pretend that he believes in it or cares about it.
Prior presidents also haven't believed in it or cared about it, but they pretended they have.
Trump doesn't really pretend.
Occasionally, he may give lip service to it if it helps him, but for the most part, he's very explicit.
What we just did in Venezuela is a perfect test case.
When the United States abducted Maduro, everybody assumed that Trump was then going to take out the whole regime in a regime change war and install Edmundo Gonzalez or Maria Machado, the kind of oppositional figures that the United States and the West have long wanted in Venezuela.
And Trump very clearly said, I'm not doing that.
Maria Machado, these opposition figures don't have the respect necessary to run Venezuela.
I'm not going to dismantle the army and the police.
We're going to make the Venezuelan government cooperate with us and give us what we want.
We're not going to force them to hold democratic elections or give civil liberties because we're not interested in that.
That's not why we're there.
Despite all these celebrations, oh, Venezuela has been freed, the Venezuelans, thank you, U.S. government, how are they freed?
The Maduro regime is still in place just without Maduro.
The whole communist edifice that has governed the country since Hugo Chavez.
In 2009, it's still all there.
Actually, way before 2009.
Trump, in 2025, at the end of 2025, issued a national security strategy, which is a yearly thing the government does, to set forth the principles that are going to guide U.S. foreign policy. And one of the points that the Trump administration emphasized was that we were no longer going to pretend That we are demanding that other countries,
especially our allies who are oppressive, become more democratic. That we just don't care about that. I mean, you look at this document and it says it, which is why it's so amazing to watch people believe that we're going to free the Iranian people or free the Venezuelan people when Trump's own documents explicitly say that's not what our foreign policy is about. We don't care about that. We're not pursuing that. Here's part of the national security strategy released at the end of 2025. And it says this,
quote, Middle East partners are demonstrating their commitment to combating radicalism, a trendline American policy should continue to encourage. But doing so will require America dropping, will require dropping America's misguided experiment with hectoring these nations, especially the Gulf monarchies, into abandon their traditions and historic forms of government, meaning their traditions,
even though they're not really that. Long standing. But what we're talking about there are repressive monarchies, oligarchies that don't permit dissent of any kind, that use their internal police to crush dissidents and prison journalists, not permit any kind of protest. Trump's saying, the Trump strategy is saying, we're done hectoring them. We have to respect their right to have the kind of government they want, even if it's totally tyrannical and repressive. It then goes on, quote,
we should encourage an applaud reform when and where it emerges organically without trying to impose it from without. The key to successful relations with the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nation as they are working together on areas of common interest. How much clearer that can be? Can that be? Our U.S. foreign policy is not about Hectoring other countries, pressuring countries, acting from without to make them freer,
to stop the tyranny that prevails within them. In fact, we're going to accept that tyranny and repression, Trump's document says. He's saying that's not what our foreign policy is about. In fact, not only is it about that,
we're not going to do that. Here's another passage that's quite similar, where the document says this. It's called flexible realism. U.S. policy will be realistic about what is possible and desirable to seek in its dealings with other nations. We seek good relations,
the peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world, without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions in history. We recognize and affirm there is nothing inconsistent or hypocritical in acting according to such a realistic assessment or in maintaining good relations with countries whose government systems and society Differ from ours,
even as we push like-minded friends to uphold our shared norms, furthering our interests as we do. And that has always been one of the core hypocrisies of American propaganda that has always driven me insane, as I said. You can watch your leaders go and pay homage to the vital importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, or go to the United Arab Emirates and watch Trump heap praise on them,
make commitments to keep them in power. Welcome, General Sisi of Egypt, into the White House, a regime that we pay $3 billion a year to. These are the most repressive, brutal regimes on the planet, at least as brutal as whatever Iran does, and I would argue far more so, which is why there are protests in Iran, but not in those countries. They gun them down. They don't tolerate any of it. And there has been always that hypocrisy of saying,
these are our closest allies. These are the governments we keep in power. Brutal regime. And then when we want to start a new world, we say, oh, we're doing this to free people. We're opposed to democracy. We want to bring freedom and democracy to people. And Trump's saying,
no more hypocrisy there because we're not pretending any longer that we want freedom and democracy. We understand some countries have tyranny. Some countries have repression. It's part of who they are. It's part of their tradition. And we have to stop This was all obvious before Trump said it in his national security strategy. As I said,
our close allies, the ones we prop up, the ones we often install, are savage dictators. But at least national security strategy is now laying it out as clearly and overtly as it can, which ought to prevent people from believing, ooh, we're going to war because this is a dictatorial regime and we don't like dictators and we want to free the peoples of this country. The United States does not fight wars for that reason. It can be the pretext for wars,
but that's never the motive. And motive matters because if the United States is intervening in a country and we're not interested in freedom and democracy, we're not going to work toward getting that. We just want a better dictator. It could be more repressive even. We just want one that serves American interests or does what we say. And yet,
here you have Donald Trump watching these protests in Iran. And obviously, Iran is the number one enemy of Israel, has been for many years. The wet dream of Israel and neocons in the United States, their loyalists in the United States, has been to have the United States government go in, change the regime of Iran. That has been what Netanyahu has wanted more than anything. And Donald Trump is now threatening, more or less,
to do exactly that. Here he was on True Social. This was on the first of the year. So we celebrated New Year's Eve by warning Iran as follows. Quote, if Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald Trump. So the whole thing about America first, we're going to prioritize the interests of the forgotten men and women. Trump's now saying, no,
we're going to prioritize Iranians. We're going to help them. We're going to secure freedom for them. Even though the regime we want to put in place is the savage, repressive, brutal, murderous one of the Shah of Iran, whose son we want to lead Iran. Even if that worked, what Trump is saying, it would actually be more repression, or at least as much. And yet, I can't tell you how many people are walking around saying,
we're going to free the Iranian people. If the Iranian people want to take down their government. They have every right to do so. I've always said if Ukraine wants to fight Russia,
I'm not against that. I understand why they would want that. I just don't want the United States financing it and arming it. If the Venezuelans want to take out Maduro, I have no problem with that. It's when the United States goes and sends its military to interfere in Venezuela and try and control it and change its government,
that's when I have a problem. Same with Iran. I'm not an Iranian. I'm not sitting up at night deciding who should govern Iran and who shouldn't. Talking about the United States and what it's doing and what it's threatening to do. Here is the New York Times, and there are multiple media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, all reporting the same thing. They're clearly leaking this on purpose. Trump is briefed on options for striking Iran as protests continue. The president has said he will be, quote,
hitting them very hard if Iranian leaders kill protesters in widespread demonstrations calling for wholesale changes in the country. So this is clearly something that is actively being considered. Trump is publicly threatening it. Trump takes pride in publicly threatening things and then carrying through. That's how he got heralded by Marco Rubio and all these other cabinet officials who are required to go to these cabinet meetings and praise him like the emperor. When Donald Trump says something,
he means it. They're provoking him and luring him into these kinds of conflicts. Now, if you have any doubts that it's the Shah of Iran's son, or some version of the horrifically repressive tyranny that ruled Iran, remember, in 1954, we overthrew, the CIA did,
the democratically elected government of Iran. They had democracy in Iran. We didn't like that government. We overthrew it, and we put in the Shah of Iran. And that's why there's animosity toward the United States. People don't like it when you come and overthrow their democratically elected government and impose a horrific dictator on them who then proceeds to rule the country for 25 years until the 1979 revolution that ushered in the current form of government. And not for nothing,
when the revolution began to work, that was when the revolutionaries went to the U.S. embassy and took several hundred Americans Who had this gigantic embassy in Iran because Iran was our puppet state, and they took them hostage because they understood, they blamed the United States for the tyranny under which they were living. Because we were the ones who imposed it, and that's why there's so much anti-American sentiment in so many parts of the world where we did the same thing,
and we obviously haven't learned the lesson because we're still wanting to do it again in Iran. Fail son wanting to take control of Iran and believing that he's the one driving it. Here is his tweet. This is from Reza Pahlavi. He wrote this on Friday. Quote,
Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support, and action. Last night, you saw the millions of brave Iranians in the street facing down live bullets. Today, they are facing not just bullets, but a total communications blackout. No internet,
no landlines. Fearing the end of his criminal regime at the hands of the people and with the help of your powerful promise to support the protesters has threatened the people on the streets with a brutal crackdown. He wants to use this blackout to murder these young heroes. I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom. I have called as though he has any kind of weight or gravity or inspired leadership in Iran,
a country he hasn't been in for 50 years. I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers. Last night, they did that. Your threat to this criminal regime has also kept the regime's thugs at bay,
but time is of the essence. The people will be on the streets again in an hour. I am asking you to help. You have proven, and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word. Please be prepared to intervene and to help the people of Iran. So you can very much easily see how these people are,
they know how to speak to Trump to try and manipulate him into going to war in and intervening in their countries. You're a man of peace. Everyone's counting on you. You're the world leader that can save us. Plays on Trump's ego. But it's the Shah of Iran's son who wants to get back into power. He's actually saying,
I'm the one who is leading these protests. He's not. It's absurd. The Mossad is playing a much bigger role than he, to say nothing of whatever the CIA is doing in Iran. But he's clearly poised to, He wants to assume the leadership mantle of Iran.
He believes that it's his.
He's the heir to the Pahlavi dynasty.
This son of the Shah was on a podcast with Patrick Bette -David several years ago.
Patrick Bette -David comes from Iran.
He moved to the United States when he was nine.
And he asked him about whether he would be willing to go back to Iran and be the leader.
And a lot of these exiles talk like, oh, Iran obviously wants you.
The Iranians are calling for you.
The only question is, would you do it?
And here's what the Shah's son said in response to that, Whether or not I'm going to take my family back there, because in a way you are thinking whether or not you can take your family back there. We would all like to be able to go back home and be able to live there, if possible. And I see in a realistic sense that we can keep flowing and going back and forth. We don't have to be pinned in one place. We cannot divest because,
honestly, my life has been for the past 40 years here in America. My children live here. My friends live here. Everybody that I know is here. It's almost unfair to them. If I was to go back, what do I go back to? Yeah, exactly. If I were to go back, what do I go back to? I don't even know that country. I spent 45 years in the U.S. The U.S. is what I know. I don't have anything to do with Iran. But now, obviously, he has designs going back,
and a lot of people in the Israeli and U.S. government believe he's the only one who can legitimately claim The leadership of that country. By the way, when I was doing research and trying to report on all these things, I found the following clip of the Shavaron, his father, from 1976, three years before he was deposed. He was being interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. And out of nowhere,
The Shavarans sort of started talking about how extreme and excessive and destructive the Jewish lobby in the United States is.
The Israel lobby in the United States is how much they control, why they're able to control American presidents and Mike Wallace, who himself was Jewish, lifelong Zionist, was obviously shocked and offended.
But the Shah was very much adamant in making this point.
Listen to what he said.
You're not telling me that the Jewish lobby in the United United States pulls the strings of the presidency.
Not entirely, but I think even a little too much, even for Israel interests.
You think the Jewish lobby in the United States is too powerful for the interests of Israel?
I think so.
Sometimes they are deserving the interests of Israel because they're pushing around too many people.
Why would the President of the United States pay attention to that lobby?
They are strong.
Strong in what sense?
They are controlling many things.
Controlling what?
Newspapers, medias, banks, finances.
Finances, and I'm going to stop there. Well, now wait just a second. So, you can see that although the United States did love and support the Shah, He was an American puppet for all those years.
We uh, absolutely uh.
We're not inside our, our studio regularly uh, so this is still a little bit of experiment.
I think is the second or third one i'm doing like this, so excuse what'll be technical difficulties, maybe for a day or two.
In any event, you can see the shop around very adamant uh in saying things that I don't think uh, anyone really wanted him to say in terms of the United States.
But he was not only extremely uh, supported by, supported by the United States uh, but he was also a very close ally of Israel, despite the things he he was saying there.
And I just want to show you this uh article, because it's not just that he was a close ally of the United States and the Israel, he was also a savage dictator dictator, dictator.
gunned down protesters in the street, which is what we're hearing now that the Iranian government is doing. Kind of ironic that we have to get rid of the Iranian government currently because they're gunning down protesters in the street and replace them with a regime that was notorious for doing that for many decades. That's how they stayed in power. 7-2 plus that was from 2019,
the title of which was The Unwritten History of Israel's Alliance with the Shah's Dictatorship. For years, Israel maintained close political, economic, and security relations with the Shah of Iran. Newly declassified documents revealed that Israeli leaders were well aware of his murderous suppression of political opponents. And it goes on to detail it this way. Eight years later,
on September 9th, 1963, Director of the Middle East Department at Israel's Foreign Ministry, Nathaniel Lorch, wrote that the traditional religious process processions that took place that month had turned into mass demonstrations against the Shah's regime and that the government was, quote, surprised by the use of religious demonstrators for political protests.
The riots spread to a number of towns.
The government used great force to suppress the riots and officially announced that 86 of them were killed and 193 of them were wounded.
Now, this is what I mean by how ludicrous it is to suggest that the United States is somehow, or neocons are somehow interested in bringing freedom and democracy to Iran when the regime that is going to replace this government is at least as savage, if not more so, than anything that Iran has done.
Let me show you this amazing tweet from Trump's former CIA Director, Mike Pompeo.
because he's just states here something that is so clearly true but because it's coming from the former director of the cia a huge support of israel i think it ought to be particularly noteworthy Has a lot of credibility in this Regard.
This is what he wrote on January 2nd.
Quote, The Iranian regime is in trouble.
Bringing in mercenaries is his best last hope.
Riots in dozens of cities and the Mossad's under siege.
47 years of this regime.
Fort POTUS, 47.
Coincidence?
Happy New Year to every Iranian in the street.
Also to every Mossad agent walking besides them.
This is obviously something that the U .S. And Israel is helping to fuel.
Trump is threatening overtly to do so More.
It doesn't mean there are no Iranians protesting the government Organically.
It doesn't mean there are no Iranians with grievances against our Government.
Look how many Americans go out into the street to protest Trump.
What does that mean about the number of people who believe Trump is a fascist?
We had No King's rally in multiple cities a couple months Ago.
Millions of people poured out onto the street.
Does that mean they were representing all Americans?
Did it mean that they were representing most?
Did it mean that they were representing some?
This idea that, oh, we know the Netherlands think they're all against Maduro.
We know what Iran is.
There's a lot of hatred for the Shah of Iran, and it spilled over and still does into anti-Americanism because we imposed that regime.
And the idea that the same government, the United States, that has gone around the world imposing regimes like this, supporting them, propping them up, is now somehow going to pretend to the world and to its population that we're there to help the Iranian people be free is laughable.
I'm going to do a separate segment on this, but I just want to say, look at what is happening in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is arguably the most repressive regime on the planet.
You could say North Korea, Egypt is a competitor.
Saudi Arabia, if there's a protest, they just gun those people down. They put journalists or bloggers routinely in prison. They still do. Who even mildly criticized the government. There's zero freedom, zero liberty in Saudi Arabia. And it's not just that the United States considers Saudi Arabia and has long considered Saudi Arabia one of its closest allies. We give massive amounts of aid to Saudi Arabia. One of the very first Snowden stories we did when we found the intercept was about how the NSA passes some of the most sophisticated surveillance technology to the Saudis,
which is what they use to surveil their country, locate pockets of dissidents that they then crush. We don't just deal with Saudi Arabia. We help prop them up. Same with the Emiratis. I think the most illustrative example is Egypt. And if you know anything about the recent history of Egypt,
know this history. I just urge you, you can say you think the United States should go around the world regime changing countries because we'll put in pro-American dictators and that helps us and therefore it's a good thing to do. I have a lot of arguments with But please stop saying that you think the United States government is going to free the Iranian people. And yes,
again, the motive matters. If the United States is going and bombing, if we're on the ground with CIA agents, if the Mossad is, and we don't actually, our goal is not to impose elections and democracy, but instead a better dictator from our perspective, that's going to be the outcome. It's not going to be freedom. It's going to be civil war, civil strife, chaos, which is how Israel wants Iran. And then at some point, a dictator that tries to unite it. But just look at what happened in Egypt. The United States,
Egypt had a vicious dictator, Hosni Mubarak, that the United States propped up with billions of dollars every year. No chance he would have been able to remain in charge of Egypt if we didn't keep that regime in. The reason we keep the Egyptian regime in under our control is because they're a very important neighbor to Israel,
and they agree to leave Israel alone in exchange for these billions of dollars we send to them. That enables the regime to stay in place. But during the Arab Spring, that was when Egyptian students went on to Tahir Square. Remember that? And all American media outlets,
all American politicians rose up in praise and defense of the Tahir Square demonstrators. Look at how brave they are. They're fighting for freedom. They want to get rid of their dictator. Somehow we thought we were on their side even though we were the ones who imposed their dictator,
Hassan Mubarak, and kept him in power and propped him up. But we're all cheering for them, like, yeah, get rid of that dictator that we imposed on you and that we send billions to every year. And that was one of the more successful Arab Spring revolutions. They actually won the right to have an election. The Egyptians did. The first Egyptian election in decades. But the Egyptians made a big mistake. They voted for a candidate that the United States and Israel hated,
Mohamed Morsi, who was part of the Muslim Brotherhood. And every time I mention this, Americans are like, yeah, of course we're not going to let them have that leader. He's part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Okay, then don't pretend you believe in freedom and democracy for other countries. You don't, which is what the US government policy is as well. And within a year, the United States helped the military junta in Egypt, led by General Sisi, overthrow the democratically elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, and replaced him with General Sisi, an absolute, vicious, violent,
bloodthirsty tyrant. Who gunned down enormous amounts of people in places where there were dissent, doesn't allow protest, imprisons anyone who even thinks about being a critic of his regime. And to this day,
we prop up that Egyptian government. We send them billions of dollars every year. The United States does not want democracy in the Middle East or in any other region where there's anti-American sentiment for the obvious reason that if you allow elections and democracy in places where there's a lot of anti-Americanism, They will elect a Leader.
We won't do the bidding of the United States.
So we don't want democracy in Elections.
Not like we don't care about it or we're Indifferent, We affirmatively don't want It.
We want dictators in these regions that'll repress popular sentiment and repress popular will, so that it can in any way impede what we want to do or threaten Israel.
That's what U .S. Foreign policy is actually About.
And any one of the things that the United States is interested in having elections in, say, Venezuela?
And letting the Venezuelan people pick their new leader, after they just watched the United States come and invade and abduct Maduro.
These people have been indoctrinated for decades that the U?
.S.
Is a capitalist enemy, an imperial enemy. Any leader who runs a populist campaign like Hugo Chavez did is going to be very popular. That's who's going to win. Same with Iran. You think if Iranians vote, they're going to elect some kind of Israeli and American puppet? We don't want elections. We mean the U.S. government or democracy or freedom in Iran. We want a new dictatorship. And again,
If you're willing, and if you're willing to be honest and say yes, that's what we're doing and and I think that's a good thing okay, I don't have a quibble with you about the honesty of it.
I can argue about the policy.
I actually think it's extremely harmful and detrimental to the United States to run around overthrowing governments and implanting dictatorships.
I don't know how many times we have to see the proof of that, but at least we can have a good faith argument because you're saying what you really believe.
Those of you are saying that you support this because the Iranian people are yearning to be free and they're going to be free and we're going to help them.
This is such an obvious fairy tale, contradicted by everything, the United States government.