System Update - Glenn Greenwald - Trump Gives An Indefinite Cease-Fire to Iran. What is this War?
Aired: 2026-04-22
Duration: 26:26


=== Unconditional Surrender Demand (14:59) ===

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[00:00:48]  Ever since Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu launched a war of choice, a war of aggression against Iran in late February, there have been all sorts of questions, basic questions about this war to which we still don't have answers, leading with the question of what is the purpose of this war?
[00:01:05]  What is its goal?
[00:01:07]  What are its aims?
[00:01:08]  There's been this carousel of justifications from the US government about what we're supposedly doing in this war, what its goal is, and yet virtually none of it makes any sense.
[00:01:17]  Sometimes we're told that the purpose is to Destroy Iran's nuclear capability, even though eight months ago, when the United States attacked Iran last year with Israel and bombed their nuclear facilities, President Trump insisted, and you can see it on the website to this very day, that the United States, quote, totally and completely obliterated Iran's nuclear program.
[00:01:38]  And any suggestions to the contrary were, quote, fake news.
[00:01:41]  Reporters kept asking, hey, are you sure we destroyed it completely?
[00:01:44]  Are we going to be told in months we have to go back and have a war with them because we have to get rid of their nuclear ability?
[00:01:49]  Trump said, That's fake news.
[00:01:51]  How dare you impugn the courage and the competence of our fighter pilots?
[00:01:55]  They destroyed everything.
[00:01:56]  And any questions about, well, is there anything left?
[00:01:58]  Are we going to have to go fight again?
[00:02:00]  We're met with the scorn.
[00:02:01]  No, everything's destroyed.
[00:02:02]  And now here we are eight months later.
[00:02:04]  We have to start a brand new, huge, mega war in the Middle East, a new war that's extremely dangerous because we have to stop their nuclear program that we were told eight months ago had been totally and completely obliterated.
[00:02:15]  That makes no sense.
[00:02:17]  At times, President Trump said that the purpose of the war is to free the Iranian people, meaning to bring.
[00:02:24]  Regime change to them.
[00:02:25]  Here, in fact, is what Trump said on the very first day of the war.
[00:02:30]  He told the Washington Post, this is on February 28th, Trump says, quote, freedom for Iran is the goal of a, quote, major military operation.
[00:02:38]  And here's what the Washington Post wrote.
[00:02:40]  President Donald Trump told the Washington Post on Saturday that his main concern is, quote, freedom for the Iranian people as the U.S. launch military strikes in the country.
[00:02:49]  The military operations against Iran began around 1 a.m. Eastern Time.
[00:02:53]  The strikes are expected to last at least.
[00:02:55]  Through the weekend, a U.S. official said, All I want is freedom for the people, Trump said in a brief interview shortly after 4 a.m. when asked what he hopes his legacy will be as a result of the military action and a push for regime change.
[00:03:06]  So we were told it's a regime change war to free, bring freedom and democracy to the Iranian people.
[00:03:10]  Despite Trump's claim that, oh, we already brought regime change there because we killed a bunch of Iranian leaders, including their spiritual leader, on the first day.
[00:03:19]  That we already have regime change, a laughable claim given that the IRGC is still in charge of the country.
[00:03:25]  The Iranian government machinery is there.
[00:03:28]  If anything, we brought a more radicalized government into power.
[00:03:31]  The US hasn't achieved that goal, likely won't.
[00:03:34]  So, again, what is the purpose of this war?
[00:03:35]  Now, on Friday, President Trump, for like the eighth time since the war began, announced that the United States won the war.
[00:03:42]  The war is won.
[00:03:43]  And one of the patterns that he has is he waits until Friday when oil prices are skyrocketing and the stock market is dropping to announce that the war is basically over.
[00:03:51]  And then every time the oil market reacts, oil prices go back down, the stock market increases, people make bets mysteriously and magically right before the announcement that make them huge amounts of money as though they know it's going to happen in advance.
[00:04:04]  But this time last Friday, Trump made the most specific, concrete, definitive proclamation of war and victory yet.
[00:04:11]  He not only said that the U.S. won the war, he said Iran gave the United States essentially everything that Trump demanded in exchange for nothing.
[00:04:18]  The Iranians didn't say this, but Trump kept saying it on True Social and all day Friday, his war supporters and the MAGA movement.
[00:04:24]  We're had this war triumphalism, this intoxication.
[00:04:27]  Yeah, we kicked their ass, kicked Iranian ass.
[00:04:30]  They were on their knees begging.
[00:04:31]  They gave us everything they wanted.
[00:04:33]  They're getting nothing in return.
[00:04:34]  Like they're watching a different war, living in a completely parallel reality created for them by Sean Hannity and the rest of Fox News.
[00:04:40]  Here is what Trump said on Friday on True Social The USA will get all nuclear dust.
[00:04:47]  Everyone's like, What is nuclear dust?
[00:04:49]  It's not exactly a term of technical art.
[00:04:51]  It turns out Trump means the enriched uranium that is underground as a result of last year's bombing with Israel of Iran, where we blow up their nuclear facilities.
[00:04:59]  Totally and completely obliterated them, but there's enriched uranium.
[00:05:03]  The enriched uranium is still there underground that the Iranians could excavate.
[00:05:06]  Was that not anticipated last year when we totally and completely obliterated their nuclear program?
[00:05:11]  We're told the problem was resolved.
[00:05:12]  We didn't know that the enriched uranium would not be destroyed, it would be underground.
[00:05:15]  The Iranians could get it.
[00:05:16]  So Trump claimed the USA will get all nuclear dust created by our great B-2 bombers, and no money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form.
[00:05:24]  So they're getting nothing, presumably not even sanctioned relief, but they're not getting the billions of dollars in their assets that we stole by freezing it.
[00:05:30]  Their assets, meaning they sold their oil on the market and we stole their money.
[00:05:33]  Trump says they're not getting that.
[00:05:34]  They're not getting sanctions relief, but they still capitulated, basically surrendered.
[00:05:38]  He goes on to say the deal is in no way subject to Lebanon either, but the USA will separately work with Lebanon and deal with the Hezbollah situation in an appropriate manner.
[00:05:46]  Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer.
[00:05:49]  They are prohibited in all caps from doing so by the USA.
[00:05:52]  Enough is enough.
[00:05:53]  Thank you, President DJT.
[00:05:55]  So the oil markets reacted.
[00:05:57]  Oil prices plummeted.
[00:05:58]  Stock market exploded.
[00:05:59]  People made tons of money to magically bet correctly yet again about what was going to happen, as always happens on Friday.
[00:06:05]  And By the next day, the Iranians had closed the Strait of Hormuz in large part because the Israelis ignored Trump and said, I don't care what you prohibit.
[00:06:14]  You're not the boss of this relationship.
[00:06:15]  We are, as everyone knows.
[00:06:17]  They continue to bomb after they did that massacre in Beirut, southern Lebanon.
[00:06:21]  They continue to.
[00:06:21]  In fact, over the weekend, they got caught where two of the IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon took a sledgehammer to a Jesus Christ statue and smashed it to bits and pieces while six other IDF soldiers stood by.
[00:06:32]  This is according to the IDF because that is what Iran does, that's what Israel does.
[00:06:38]  And has been doing.
[00:06:39]  They just got caught this time.
[00:06:40]  So obviously, the Israelis did not stop bombing Iran.
[00:06:43]  None of this happened.
[00:06:44]  The Iranians didn't agree to give up their quote unquote nuclear dust, just hand over the enriched uranium to the U.S., open the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:06:52]  President Trump said they agreed to stop financing Hezbollah and Hamas.
[00:06:56]  It basically surrendered, unconditionally surrendered, which you might recall was another Trump announcement that he would only end the war with quote unconditional surrender, the term used for the Japanese after the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
[00:07:08]  He also said, on True Social, A great and brilliant day for the world, DJT, meaning the war is over.
[00:07:17]  Iran has been completely humiliated, completely defeated, and huge amounts of war supporters of the Baka movement went around saying, Yeah.
[00:07:27]  And it was so obvious for so many reasons that that didn't happen, beginning with the fact that Iran hadn't confirmed it, hadn't said it, but also the idea that Iran is on its knees, that they've been completely obliterated and defeated is laughable unless you get your news from Fox News.
[00:07:42]  Iran has been pummeling the Persian Gulf states and their energy infrastructure.
[00:07:46]  They have the Strait of Hormuz closed, they've been pummeling Israel.
[00:07:49]  They have huge amounts of ballistic missile launchers left and drones, and they have drone capability to manufacture more drones, to manufacture more missiles.
[00:07:56]  Yes, the U.S. has blown up a lot of things, killed a lot of their leaders, but none of this was true.
[00:08:00]  And it was so obviously not true.
[00:08:02]  And by the next day, the Iranians said, We don't have a deal.
[00:08:04]  We never agreed to that.
[00:08:05]  The Strait of Hormuz is closed as long as President Trump's blockade that he announced, he was blockading the entire Strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran from selling oil.
[00:08:12]  As long as that was there, they weren't negotiating and they've been good on their word.
[00:08:16]  As a matter of fact, President Trump today, after announcing, first he announced that.
[00:08:20]  Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the lifelong Israel fanatical supporters, would go and again lead the negotiations with Iran.
[00:08:28]  He said JD Vance wasn't going.
[00:08:29]  Then it turned out JD Vance was going, except it turns out now that the Iranians are refusing even to negotiate.
[00:08:35]  So, from four days ago, five days ago, where we were told they were on their knees begging to surrender and giving Trump everything he wanted in exchange for nothing, now they won't even negotiate.
[00:08:44]  They're not going to Islamabad to negotiate, to meet with Witkoff and Jared Kushner and JD Vance.
[00:08:49]  And so, in response, Trump gave on Friday a deadline of Wednesday, which is tomorrow.
[00:08:54]  He said, if There's not an agreement by Wednesday.
[00:08:56]  We're going to go and obliterate Iran yet again.
[00:08:58]  Instead, he doesn't carry follow through on the threat.
[00:09:00]  This is what he announces.
[00:09:02]  He says, This is today, Trump today.
[00:09:06]  He says, Statement of President Donald J. Trump, based on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so, and upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.
[00:09:28]  I have therefore directed our military to continue the blockade and, in other respects, remain able and ready and able, and will therefore extend the ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted and discussions are concluded one way or the other.
[00:09:41]  Now, there are so many notable aspects of this huge shift from Friday.
[00:09:45]  We won the war, we got everything we wanted, to the Iranians refused to negotiate, and therefore we're extending the ceasefire.
[00:09:50]  Number one is he's not even claiming this time that the Iranians begged for, let alone even were even asked for a ceasefire.
[00:09:56]  He's saying Pakistan asked for it.
[00:09:58]  So he said yes.
[00:09:58]  And number two is there's no Time limit on this.
[00:10:00]  He's not saying we'll extend the ceasefire for five days, for 10 days.
[00:10:03]  After five days, we don't have a deal.
[00:10:04]  We're going to destroy Iran.
[00:10:05]  We're going to blow up their power plants and bridges.
[00:10:07]  He's saying it's indefinite.
[00:10:08]  We have a ceasefire until such time as they submit their proposal and we can agree on a deal.
[00:10:13]  And what it clearly seems like is we have one of two options either President Trump is going to just kind of keep the war in a ceasefire state where nothing is achieved, but we're also not bombing Iran.
[00:10:24]  Because President Trump's dilemma is that either He can end the war now, but he has no credible claim of victory.
[00:10:32]  The Iranian regime is not gone.
[00:10:33]  They're not going to hand over their nuclear dust.
[00:10:36]  They say that they're going to continue to charge tolls for the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:10:39]  But either way, they're not going to give up their ballistic missile capability.
[00:10:42]  They're not going to do any of that.
[00:10:43]  The one thing Trump might get is an opening of the Strait of Hormuz, meaning something that we already had before the war began.
[00:10:48]  So the only way he can end the war now is if it's clear that the US didn't win, which is humiliating for a mid sized power like Iran not to be able to defeat them along with Israel.
[00:10:57]  He can claim he won.
[00:10:59]  He will definitely say he won.
[00:11:00]  Like he did on Friday, but it won't be credible.
[00:11:03]  The problem is that Trump has to get out of this war.
[00:11:05]  It's causing serious economic harm around the world, massive death, more and more Americans will be killed, huge amounts of money wasted, more in debt the United States will be, US credibility being eroded and destroyed everywhere.
[00:11:17]  And politically, this is a huge albatross on Trump's neck, which he knows he's been saying for a decade we have to stay out of Middle East wars.
[00:11:23]  So that's one option he needs to end the war so badly he can't get Iran to surrender.
[00:11:28]  So we'll just sort of freeze it in this permanent ceasefire zone.
[00:11:31]  The US will be there.
[00:11:32]  Kind of in the Strait of Hormuz, blockading it.
[00:11:34]  But the Iranians are saying a naval blockade is an act of war, which it is.
[00:11:38]  It's obviously, if someone blockaded our country, we would consider that an act of war.
[00:11:42]  And they're threatening to respond by attacking Persian Gulf energy infrastructure even more, something they've been very restrained, relatively speaking, in terms of their capacity thus far.
[00:11:52]  But President Trump has always had the option to just end the war with nothing really achieved or just symbolic achievement.
[00:11:58]  The other option is even worse, which is he can resume the war and end up in exactly the kind of protracted, deadly, massively expensive.
[00:12:06]  Dangerous spiraling war that in the Middle East, that he spent a decade promising not to involve the United States in, not care about the political costs, the economic costs, the price of gas, the increasing debt from the war, another war.
[00:12:18]  But President Trump knows that that is an extremely bad option for him as well.
[00:12:21]  So he's stuck in this dilemma.
[00:12:23]  We haven't won anything meaningful and can't extract any meaningful concessions because the Iranians believe, whether you agree or not, this is absolutely what they believe, that they're winning the war.
[00:12:31]  They have the upper hand, at least they have a lot of leverage left, or continue the war indefinitely and exactly and end up like Lyndon Maynard Johnson with the Vietnam War around his neck or George W. Bush with the Iraq war around his neck.
[00:12:42]  Now, let's just review how many times we've been told that the war has been won and also what we were told about this war from the start.
[00:12:49]  So, first of all, I showed you that on the first day of the war, Trump said the main goal, his main objective is freedom and democracy for the Iranian people.
[00:12:58]  But also, here's what he told the New York Times on the day following the start of the war President Trump said on Sunday that the U.S. military intends to sustain its assault on Iran for four to five weeks.
[00:13:11]  If necessary, insisting that, quote, it won't be difficult for Israel and the United States to maintain the intensity of the battle, even as he warned of the possibilities of more American casualties.
[00:13:19]  In a brief telephone interview with the New York Times, Mr. Trump offered several seemingly contradictory visions of how power might be transferred to a new government, or even whether the existing Iranian power structure would run that government or be overthrown.
[00:13:33]  We're now into our eighth full week of the war.
[00:13:35]  And unless we're just going to end the war, grab this indefinite ceasefire with none of the goals attained, the war is going to go on a lot longer than the four to five to six weeks.
[00:13:44]  Trump said the war would be expected to last.
[00:13:47]  Now, here's Trump on March 11, which is now six weeks ago, seven weeks ago.
[00:13:52]  This is like 10 days into the war.
[00:13:53]  Trump tells Axios there's, quote, practically nothing left to target in Iran.
[00:13:58]  President Trump told Axios in a brief telephone interview Wednesday that the war with Iran will, quote, end soon because there is, quote, practically nothing left to target.
[00:14:07]  A little bit of this and a little bit of that.
[00:14:08]  Anytime I want to end it, it will end, Trump said during the five minute call.
[00:14:12]  We've been told this continuously from the start that the United States has already won the war.
[00:14:17]  Here's Trump on March 24th, a little over three weeks into the war, basically a month ago now, announcing the US has won.
[00:14:24]  Won this.
[00:14:24]  This war has been won.
[00:14:27]  The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.
[00:14:29]  I mean, the New York Times, you read the New York Times, it's like we're not winning a war where they have no Navy and they have no Air Force and they have no nothing.
[00:14:37]  And we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country.
[00:14:44]  They can't do a thing about it.
[00:14:45]  Now, that part is true.
[00:14:47]  The U.S. has air supremacy in Iran, not complete, as we saw when the Iranians shot down a bunch of helicopters and planes, the one that led to the two airmen being stranded in Iran.
[00:14:57]  Then the rescue mission caused billions of dollars.

=== False Victory Claims (06:03) ===

[00:15:00]  And lost equipment because the Iranians shot it down.
[00:15:01]  But by and large, the U.S. has air supremacy in Iran.
[00:15:04]  They can fly around the country and bomb whatever they want without really any air defenses.
[00:15:07]  The U.S. had that in Vietnam as well.
[00:15:10]  Not air supremacy, but air superiority.
[00:15:12]  The U.S. didn't win the war in Vietnam.
[00:15:14]  The U.S. had even more air supremacy in Iraq.
[00:15:16]  The Iraqi military dispersed in a matter of days.
[00:15:19]  The U.S. killed a bunch of their leaders, obviously could fly around the country, had air supremacy, was bombing the crap out of that country when it wanted.
[00:15:27]  And yet, that didn't mean the U.S. won that war in Iraq either.
[00:15:30]  The big difference between Having air superiority, being able to bomb what you want, and actually winning a war.
[00:15:35]  Now, here is Trump on April 11th.
[00:15:39]  So, this is now more than two weeks ago.
[00:15:41]  Actually, about 10 days ago, 11 days ago, again announcing the U.S. won the war.
[00:15:45]  And there's so many of these that I'm not even showing you.
[00:15:47]  From the start, he's been saying this.
[00:15:49]  Straight.
[00:15:50]  In addition to that, we're negotiating whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me.
[00:15:58]  The reason is because we've won.
[00:16:00]  Whether you listen to the fake news or not, you know, it's amazing.
[00:16:04]  Their credibility is down to 30.
[00:16:06]  13%.
[00:16:07]  The media, credibility down to 13%.
[00:16:11]  Think of it.
[00:16:12]  We defeated their Navy.
[00:16:13]  We defeated their Air Force.
[00:16:15]  We defeated their anti aircraft.
[00:16:17]  We defeated their radar.
[00:16:19]  We defeated their leaders.
[00:16:20]  Their leaders are all dead.
[00:16:22]  And now all we do is we'll open up the strait even though we don't use it because we have a lot of other countries in the world that do use it that are either afraid.
[00:16:34]  Or weak or cheap.
[00:16:36]  I don't know what it is, but we were not helped by NATO.
[00:16:39]  That I can touch.
[00:16:40]  I mean, even that is so laughably contradictory and inconsistent.
[00:16:44]  The idea that we were going to open the Strait of Hormuz, it's our responsibility, even though we don't use it because other countries need it.
[00:16:50]  Is that America first?
[00:16:51]  We're going to go to war with Iran and open the Strait of Hormuz because other countries need it, even though we don't?
[00:16:56]  Plus, the Strait of Hormuz was open for years and decades before this war began.
[00:17:01]  And on Friday, that was a big claim.
[00:17:02]  Oh, look, Trump won the war because the Iranians agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz as though the Strait of Hormuz had never been open in history.
[00:17:08]  President had tried and failed.
[00:17:09]  And then Trump came along and finally got it open.
[00:17:11]  And yes, Trump is right that the media's disapprove ratings are quite high.
[00:17:16]  Their trust and faith in media has collapsed for justifiable reasons.
[00:17:19]  But Trump, too, is extremely unpopular now, more unpopular than he's ever been.
[00:17:23]  And this war is extremely unpopular and has been from the start and is getting more and more unpopular the more it goes on.
[00:17:29]  And US credibility is being continuously damaged.
[00:17:32]  You may remember that Trump said, if Iran doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz by March 27, we're going to obliterate their country.
[00:17:38]  And then on March 27, Trump announces, oh, We're giving them a 10 day ceasefire.
[00:17:43]  They asked for a seven day ceasefire, and we're giving them a 10 day ceasefire.
[00:17:46]  And Iran said, We didn't ask for shit.
[00:17:48]  We're not begging for a ceasefire.
[00:17:49]  So, this is multiple times now that Trump has given Iran deadlines, given them threats, including crossing all sorts of rhetorical lines like their civilization will die.
[00:17:59]  A civilization will die tonight, never to return.
[00:18:01]  We're going to blow up all their power plants and bridges, which would bring immense suffering for decades to the Iranian people, whom they're supposedly there to liberate and save.
[00:18:10]  And obviously, I prefer that he doesn't follow through on those.
[00:18:12]  Demented threats of war crimes.
[00:18:14]  But the fact that he keeps making threats and then never follows through with on them, and in fact, gives the Iranians a ceasefire deal that they didn't ask for, even though they're giving nothing in return that Trump said they had to, like opening the Strait of Hormuz, makes the U.S. look pathetic.
[00:18:26]  But the reality is that Iran believes it's winning the war and for good reason.
[00:18:30]  Their leaders aren't all dead.
[00:18:31]  They have huge amounts of ballistic missiles left, drones left, the capability to produce more drones, to produce more ballistic missiles.
[00:18:38]  U.S. intelligence said they use the ceasefire every time there's a ceasefire to dig up more.
[00:18:43]  Ballistic missiles that are underground because they've been exploded to get more launchers on the ground.
[00:18:48]  They've pummeled Israel.
[00:18:49]  They've pummeled the Persian Gulf states and their energy infrastructure and could do a huge amount more damage.
[00:18:54]  And the Iranians are reacting the way that you would expect a country that believes they haven't been defeated to react.
[00:19:00]  Here is the response today of the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, arguably the most important and powerful person in Iran, certainly one of them.
[00:19:08]  Someone who the Trump administration regards as a moderate voice, Speaker Ghalibaaf, who says this today.
[00:19:17]  After Trump's announcement, Trump, by imposing a siege and violating the ceasefire, seeks to turn this negotiating table in his own imagination into a table of surrender or to justified renewed warmongering.
[00:19:29]  We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats.
[00:19:32]  And in the past two weeks, we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield.
[00:19:37]  They're saying we don't trust the Trump administration negotiations.
[00:19:40]  All they ever do is demand full surrender.
[00:19:42]  We're not giving them that.
[00:19:42]  We're not negotiating under the cloud of threats, under a military blockade of our oil.
[00:19:48]  That's an act of war.
[00:19:49]  We prefer to go back to war than to do that.
[00:19:51]  Here is one of the most influential national security advisors in Tehran, Mahdi Mohammadi, who said this today Trump's ceasefire extension means nothing.
[00:20:01]  The losing side cannot dictate terms.
[00:20:03]  The continuation of the siege is no different from bombardment and must be met with a military response.
[00:20:10]  Moreover, Trump's ceasefire extension is certainly a ploy to buy time for a surprise strike.
[00:20:15]  The time for Iran to take the initiative has come.
[00:20:17]  Now, I'm not at all suggesting that you should just instantly believe Iran's claims that they're winning the war, that the U.S. is losing.
[00:20:23]  The Iranians are doing many of the same things Trump is doing, which is issuing these bombastic claims of victory to keep the population satiated, to show that they're not afraid, they're not deterred.
[00:20:33]  But they're backing it up with action.
[00:20:34]  They know Trump needs to get out of this war desperately.
[00:20:37]  They know the economic cost and the political cost they've inflicted and will continue to inflict, and even more so if the war continues that Trump doesn't want.
[00:20:44]  If the regime feels they're existentially threatened, they're going to act with that kind of force to make sure that they stay in power.
[00:20:51]  And if you're choking off their economy and their money by blockading them from selling oil on the open market, they're also not going to sit idly by.
[00:20:59]  Again, this war has been a complete disaster in totally predictable ways.

=== Predicted Political Disaster (04:22) ===

[00:21:03]  I think the most shocking thing Trump said yesterday or today hey, we never thought they would attack the Persian Gulf states.
[00:21:09]  We knew they'd pummel Israel, but not the Emiratis and the Qataris and the Saudis and the Bahrainis, which everybody understood would happen.
[00:21:16]  Or was it a high risk of happening?
[00:21:17]  You go back and read years and decades worth of articles and analysis on the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran.
[00:21:22]  And obviously, one of the biggest risks that has always been discussed is that Iran has the capability to strike energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and inflict massive damage on the world economy.
[00:21:31]  Trump has also said, oh, we never imagined they would close the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:21:34]  Same thing.
[00:21:34]  Everybody understood that was a capability that the Iranians had because of the geography of the Strait and the narrowness of it and the ease of scaring boats out of passage.
[00:21:43]  But as we know, because Marco Rubio said, Trump started this war because Israel was going to start it.
[00:21:48]  And therefore, we had to because Israel wanted to.
[00:21:50]  Netanyahu came to Washington seven times throughout the last year in just the second term of the Trump administration, including the last time when they finally convinced Trump to start the war, when Trump sat across the table in the Situation Room in the White House from Benjamin Netanyahu, not with Trump at the center at the head of the table, but with him as equals with Netanyahu as the Mossad gave Trump a presentation about how easy it would be to have the people rise up to overthrow the government, to defeat Iran.
[00:22:17]  And then Trump said, Yeah, let's do it.
[00:22:18]  And the war is such a disaster that everybody in the Trump administration is trying to distance themselves from it, running to newspapers, including the New York Times, saying, I knew this was bullshit.
[00:22:27]  I didn't want to do this.
[00:22:27]  We told Trump.
[00:22:28]  And look at the cost and disaster of the war.
[00:22:30]  The first day we blew up an elementary school with 170 Iranian schoolgirls in it, the very girls we were told we were going to liberate.
[00:22:37]  And instead, we're liberating them from their lives.
[00:22:40]  American casualty numbers above 100 easily.
[00:22:42]  It's being obscured and hidden.
[00:22:44]  The U.S. caskets that come back of American service members are not allowed to be shown.
[00:22:48]  Lots of reporting about how the casualties are higher.
[00:22:50]  The, the, the, Attacks have been more severe on U.S. bases than we were told, to the point where we had to evacuate American soldiers and service members and put them in hotels, meaning civilian infrastructure, using civilians as human shields.
[00:23:03]  Trump wants $200 billion for the war, tens of billions already spent, massive equipment lost, huge loss of life in Iran, and a complete destruction of American credibility.
[00:23:12]  We threatened to destroy all of Iranian civilization, a sick and demented threat.
[00:23:16]  And it threatened to blow up their power plants and bridges to prevent their hospitals working and their incubators from working and their respirators from working, like Israel did in Gaza.
[00:23:25]  And so much of the world is disgusted with the United States, horrified by what the United States is doing.
[00:23:31]  China continues to rise in influence, even though they haven't fought a war.
[00:23:35]  In the last 48 years, the last war they fought was in 1979.
[00:23:38]  They're not rising in influence, despite the fact that they haven't fought wars.
[00:23:40]  In part, they're rising in influence because they don't.
[00:23:43]  And countries perceive the United States as this bully that just goes around attacking any countries as long as they don't have nuclear weapons whenever it wants.
[00:23:49]  Americans have been against this war from the start.
[00:23:51]  They understand they're being lied to when these wars happen.
[00:23:54]  They don't wake up worried about Tehran.
[00:23:56]  They know, or implicitly, they understand and sense that it's only Israel loyalist neocons and pro war foreign policy think tanks that want them to obsess on Iran.
[00:24:07]  Just like the Democrats wanted them to obsess on Russia, that's not what they wake up caring about.
[00:24:11]  And just look at the Trump administration in the second term.
[00:24:14]  First gets into office, starts bombing Yemen, the Houthis in Yemen, even though he criticized Biden for doing so.
[00:24:19]  Attacks Iran last year in conjunction with Israel, gives huge amounts of weapons to Israel in Israel, then goes to Venezuela, abducts its leader.
[00:24:26]  Now we're being told Cuba is next.
[00:24:28]  We're going to bring regime change to Cuba.
[00:24:30]  Focus on everything except the American people, except American communities, except the deindustrialized American heartland, the things that Trump said he was going to uniquely focus on.
[00:24:38]  It's America first movement.
[00:24:39]  We're going to focus on America.
[00:24:41]  And he's focusing on everything.
[00:24:42]  But Trump knows this war is in all ways terrible for him.
[00:24:45]  But he also can't get out of it because the Iranians aren't going to surrender and capitulate without a further destruction of an unimaginable kind.
[00:24:52]  So those are Trump's two options end the war with basically nothing attained other than the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:24:59]  Congratulations.
[00:24:59]  And the understanding worldwide, except in the Magha movement and places of Israel, that the U.S. lost the war, or get sucked back into an endless, protracted, extremely expensive, in all, All respects, long destructive war in Iran of the kind that President Trump spent a decade promising never to involve himself or the United States in because he knew how destructive it is.
[00:25:19]  All of this was so predicted, so predicted, in fact, so predictable and predicted.
[00:25:24]  But Israel got its way.

=== Israel Wins the War (01:00) ===

[00:25:25]  You could say they're the winners of the war and that the United States is bombing and blockading and inflicting damage on their primary enemy, their adversary, the counterweight to their power in the Middle East, but not to ours.
[00:25:37]  And Trump's just constant waking up and announcing things one day to the next, manipulating the markets.
[00:25:42]  Either by effect, certainly, or even by design.
[00:25:45]  It's just embarrassing.
[00:25:46]  This war has every aspect and characteristic of why wars are so sickening.
[00:25:50]  It's a war of choice and a war of aggression, but it also has so many additional ones due to Trump's very unique style, let's call it, of just not caring what the truth is, saying whatever he needs to say from one day to the next, knowing that at least his followers will believe it and believing that this war is popular.
[00:26:05]  He's repeatedly said he knows this war is popular.
[00:26:07]  They've convinced him of that.
[00:26:08]  It's still very dangerous and will be until it ends, but clearly the Iranians are not even remotely ready to.
[00:26:15]  Give up to Trump or the Israelis in the United States what they would have to give up in order for the United States to claim it won the war, and that is what is most dangerous about it.