The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1392
Aired: 2026-04-08
Duration: 01:31:44


=== Peace Day Optimism (04:56) ===

[00:00:00]  Hello, and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters.
[00:00:03]  It is episode 1392.
[00:00:05]  It is the 8th of April, year of our Lord, 2026, and I'm joined by Carl and Faraz.
[00:00:11]  Hello, hello.
[00:00:12]  It's Peace Day.
[00:00:13]  Peace has broken out.
[00:00:15]  It will last for a thousand years.
[00:00:17]  Ah.
[00:00:20]  Yeah, about that.
[00:00:22]  No?
[00:00:24]  Am I being too optimistic?
[00:00:25]  Yeah, I mean, it didn't last until the beginning of the podcast.
[00:00:30]  We spent the morning preparing.
[00:00:31]  Oh, good, peace in it.
[00:00:32]  No.
[00:00:33]  No.
[00:00:34]  Okay.
[00:00:37]  It's complicated.
[00:00:38]  Right.
[00:00:39]  It's complicated.
[00:00:40]  Why don't you tell us about it?
[00:00:41]  Well, if I have to, but just a bit of framing here because we've been getting some anger from our MAGA friends.
[00:00:50]  And I want to say a couple of things.
[00:00:54]  I personally grew up in American schools and was educated at the American University of Beirut.
[00:01:00]  And I've always been pro American given the alternatives around me.
[00:01:04]  I mean, it's not hard when your other options are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey.
[00:01:09]  Yeah, I'll take the Americans any day of the week.
[00:01:12]  It's really not that difficult.
[00:01:15]  And I think I'm quite anti Iran in general because I'm kind of anti Islam in general.
[00:01:22]  I mean, I think it's wrong.
[00:01:24]  I disagree with all false religions.
[00:01:26]  That's sort of my standing point here.
[00:01:28]  And Iran spent a lot of money spreading Islam in the Middle East, right?
[00:01:32]  Shia Islam, particularly.
[00:01:33]  Well, not just that.
[00:01:34]  The Shia Muslims of Lebanon used to be the backbone of the Lebanese Communist Party.
[00:01:39]  Oh, actually.
[00:01:40]  Brilliant.
[00:01:41]  And then.
[00:01:41]  Just like in Britain.
[00:01:43]  And then Iranian influence turned them into the militant religious zealots, but that wasn't actually the norm.
[00:01:49]  Right.
[00:01:51]  So I have some, you know, problem with that.
[00:01:55]  And the reason I and others, I think, or speaking only for myself, have been quite critical of Trump in this war is because anybody who wants the European right to succeed and the American right to succeed wants Trump to succeed and not waste his political capital.
[00:02:12]  In another Middle Eastern adventure, essentially.
[00:02:16]  Because I think everybody here knows that if the United States ends up with a democratic president in 2028, the restrictions on free speech in Europe will double down and triple down.
[00:02:30]  Everything will become considerably worse.
[00:02:33]  This will be used to sort of discredit any rise of the right throughout the West, and it will be a disaster.
[00:02:40]  Well, they're going to conduct war trials, exactly.
[00:02:43]  War crime trials.
[00:02:43]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:44]  As well as all the sexual madness with the conflict.
[00:02:46]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:47]  As well as all of the degeneracy and everything else that comes with the left rising, et cetera.
[00:02:51]  So, nothing I say comes out of a particular love for Iran.
[00:02:56]  I mean, to be fair, as a Catholic, I have a bit of a soft spot for the Shia rather than the Sunnis, but not that much, really.
[00:03:04]  So, I just wanted to give that framing for people to understand where we're coming from, really.
[00:03:11]  I think it's also worth noting that for the rest of us, like we're obviously Anglos, so we're naturally well disposed to our cousins across the pond.
[00:03:18]  Yes.
[00:03:19]  And we were massive, we are massive sports of Trump when he is a nativist.
[00:03:24]  Because what we view America First and MAGA as being is the movement for the Americans themselves against the deep state, against foreign interests, against boondoggle invasions of the Middle East.
[00:03:37]  Done by some random country over there.
[00:03:40]  We view MAGA as being against that kind of thing.
[00:03:43]  Trump seems to have been the person who campaigned on no foreign wars, no boondoggle elections.
[00:03:49]  I vocally supported Donald Trump in all three of the elections.
[00:03:52]  Same here.
[00:03:52]  I mean, we were massive chillies for him because he represented what we wished we would get over here, which thankfully we succeeded.
[00:03:58]  But what we were supporting was the agenda that you ran on, which was no Middle Eastern wars and taking all that political capital and focusing it primarily.
[00:04:07]  On deportations.
[00:04:08]  Now, there have been some deportations, but the political capital was obviously spent elsewhere because the deportations have been nothing like what Biden let in.
[00:04:16]  Correct.
[00:04:17]  So, for us, we're criticizing from a position of love and disappointment.
[00:04:22]  Yes.
[00:04:23]  We wished better for you guys from this.
[00:04:27]  That's our position.
[00:04:29]  Yes.
[00:04:30]  But before I continue, I should mention that we are having a live event on Saturday, the 11th at 7.
[00:04:38]  At the Mecca in Swindon.
[00:04:40]  That's correct.
[00:04:41]  So please do come and join us.
[00:04:43]  All three of us are going to be there, right?
[00:04:44]  Yep.
[00:04:45]  Yep.
[00:04:46]  It's going to be good fun.
[00:04:47]  It is.
[00:04:48]  We're going to be debating Star Wars, and there will be a protest.
[00:04:52]  Isn't that lovely?
[00:04:53]  I kind of want to do both.
[00:04:54]  It's sad that I have to pick.

=== Live Event Announcement (15:19) ===

[00:04:56]  Some people really hate the prequels.
[00:04:59]  Anyway.
[00:05:00]  Anyway, so let's go through a timeline of what's been going on.
[00:05:06]  Trump at some point threatened Iran with the end of its civilization.
[00:05:11]  If they don't comply with what he asked them to do.
[00:05:14]  And he had been demanding a total and complete surrender from Iran, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:05:20]  But when he threatened to erase Iranian civilization, the Iranians said that they had closed all diplomatic contact.
[00:05:28]  Turned out that this wasn't true.
[00:05:31]  It turns out that actually what had happened was that there were some communications with the Pakistanis.
[00:05:44]  And you could see from the Pakistani Prime Minister's Twitter account, X account, that he was sent a text saying, Draft Pakistan PM's message on X, asking Trump and the Iranians to de escalate a little bit.
[00:06:03]  How can we see his draft messages?
[00:06:05]  You could look.
[00:06:05]  Because they were stupid enough to just post the entire thing on Twitter and then edit it.
[00:06:10]  And then they copy pasted it and then edited it.
[00:06:12]  And if you look at the tweet itself and say, Show edit history, it'll show you.
[00:06:17]  What did it say?
[00:06:18]  Oh, but sorry.
[00:06:19]  Okay, so this is really interesting because there's no way someone within the Pakistani administration writes Pakistani PM's message on X.
[00:06:30]  Yeah, that's an external message.
[00:06:31]  Yes, and there's no way it came from the Iranians either.
[00:06:36]  So, this is going to have been sent to them by the Americans.
[00:06:39]  Yes.
[00:06:40]  Please post this.
[00:06:41]  And so he posts this asking Trump for some de escalation.
[00:06:48]  And lo and behold, Trump obliges and says that there are going to be talks based on this.
[00:06:56]  And the talks will be centered on Iran's 10 point proposal.
[00:07:03]  Right.
[00:07:04]  Which is extraordinarily true because those, I mean, for the 10 points were drafted by Iran, I mean, they're all.
[00:07:09]  The Iran wish list.
[00:07:11]  They are a complete wish list for Iran that they won't be attacked again, permanent end of the war, end of Israeli strikes in Lebanon, lifting all sanctions.
[00:07:21]  I mean, that is massive.
[00:07:23]  So basically, end the war completely on the current lines, which obviously favors Iran.
[00:07:30]  And Iran would impose fees on transiting Hormuz, split with Oman.
[00:07:36]  The Omanis are saying that they're not going to do that.
[00:07:40]  We will see.
[00:07:41]  Well, I guess Iran have lost if they can't get that point over the line.
[00:07:45]  They have to keep all the fees themselves.
[00:07:47]  I suppose.
[00:07:49]  I suppose.
[00:07:50]  We tried.
[00:07:51]  Yeah.
[00:07:52]  And the fees will finance Iranian reconstruction.
[00:07:55]  Iran to provide the rules for safe passage.
[00:07:57]  So basically, Iran gets total sovereignty over Hormuz.
[00:08:00]  We get to charge people for the privilege.
[00:08:02]  Which is kind of how Turkey operates with the, I think, the Montreux Convention over the Straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
[00:08:12]  Yeah.
[00:08:12]  The Turks technically could charge fees, but they don't.
[00:08:15]  But they have the right to say, you're not allowed to pass.
[00:08:18]  And if it's a time of war, they won't allow any military vessels to pass.
[00:08:23]  And they will apply that across the board.
[00:08:25]  So that's what the Iranians asked for.
[00:08:27]  And Trump said that this will be the basis of the negotiations.
[00:08:31]  But there is some difference.
[00:08:35]  Apparently, according to Trump, this is a statement from Iran, from the Iranian foreign minister, acknowledging the 15 points asked for by Trump.
[00:08:45]  Right.
[00:08:45]  And what are Trump's 15 points?
[00:08:47]  Trump's 15 points are essentially no nuclear enrichment, end of the ballistic missile program or heavy restrictions on it, full opening of the Strait of Hormuz without any restrictions, pretty much the antithesis of what's here.
[00:09:00]  Right.
[00:09:00]  So they have the diametrically opposite.
[00:09:04]  Yes.
[00:09:05]  And Trump's like, yeah, so we can begin negotiating with their points.
[00:09:09]  Yes.
[00:09:09]  Have Iran said, yes, we can begin negotiating with America's points?
[00:09:12]  No.
[00:09:13]  They acknowledged that they were there.
[00:09:15]  Well, great.
[00:09:17]  So it says, considering the request for the US by negotiations based on its 15 points, as well as announcement by POTUS about acceptance of the general framework of Iran's 10 point proposal.
[00:09:30]  Right.
[00:09:30]  So the language here says, yeah, we heard you ask for your 15 points as a basis for ceasefire negotiations, but it's going to be based on our 10 points.
[00:09:40]  I love that Iran also tweets like Donald Trump if attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces.
[00:09:48]  Will cease their defensive operations.
[00:09:50]  I'm literally expecting a thank you for your attention to this matter at the end.
[00:09:54]  Yeah, and importantly, safe passage through Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces.
[00:10:01]  So if you don't talk to the Iranians, you don't get to pass.
[00:10:03]  And the Wall Street Journal is saying that the Iranians are threatening ships to blow them up if they try to go through the strait without Iran's approval.
[00:10:11]  Do we have any other source for this Iranian statement other than Donald Trump?
[00:10:15]  I think this is actually an official statement from the Iranians.
[00:10:18]  Okay.
[00:10:21]  So there seems to have been some confusion here.
[00:10:24]  Anyway, things aren't going very well.
[00:10:29]  Because it seems.
[00:10:30]  Did someone break the ceasefire, did they?
[00:10:33]  Yeah, two countries.
[00:10:34]  Oh, really?
[00:10:36]  Two countries.
[00:10:37]  It seems that the UAE attacked some oil facilities in Iran.
[00:10:42]  This is not confirmed yet.
[00:10:43]  Right.
[00:10:45]  And the Iranians responded by attacking oil facilities in the UAE and Kuwait.
[00:10:53]  Because Kuwait is where most American ground forces are located.
[00:10:57]  And the Iranians have been making a point of absolutely hammering.
[00:11:01]  In particular, Kuwait and the UAE.
[00:11:03]  Why would the UAE do that though?
[00:11:06]  Because if there is a ceasefire along the 10 points, that means that they have to pay the Iranians for every barrel of oil that they export.
[00:11:15]  That means that they've all been forced to accept that Iran is the new regional hegemon.
[00:11:22]  The UAE is deeply allied to the Israelis on every level.
[00:11:28]  And their view is that if that happens, they might cease to exist as an independent state.
[00:11:35]  Because either the Saudis or the Iranians will take them.
[00:11:38]  Right.
[00:11:39]  Yeah.
[00:11:39]  Okay.
[00:11:39]  Which is the big fear of all of the small states in the Gulf.
[00:11:42]  I was going to make a glib comment about them being basically fictional countries.
[00:11:47]  They know that.
[00:11:48]  Yeah.
[00:11:48]  Yeah.
[00:11:48]  They kind of are.
[00:11:49]  Yeah.
[00:11:49]  But, well, they are.
[00:11:50]  But, like, you know, you'd think Donald Trump, your protector, says, right, no more.
[00:11:57]  And then you start attacking.
[00:11:59]  Isn't that going to annoy that?
[00:12:01]  They're trying to keep Trump in the region because the 10 points include an American withdrawal from the region.
[00:12:07]  Yeah.
[00:12:08]  Now, Trump is saying that they're going to be hanging around the Middle East generally, but Iran wants it to happen.
[00:12:19]  He's saying that the United States will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:12:24]  The Iranians don't see it that way.
[00:12:26]  Yeah, no kidding.
[00:12:28]  Big money will be made.
[00:12:30]  Apparently, Trump told a journalist that they might split the toll fees with the Iranians.
[00:12:36]  That the United States might split the toll fees with the Iranians.
[00:12:39]  You can't stop Trump, the businessman, though, can you?
[00:12:41]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:43]  If Iran can charge a single dollar per ship, that is just an Iran win.
[00:12:48]  That's an insane amount of money.
[00:12:50]  Or even a dollar per ship, that is the principle conceded.
[00:12:53]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:54]  That's the thing.
[00:12:55]  But if it's two million per ship, which works out about a dollar per barrel, you can't spin that any other way than an Iranian win.
[00:13:03]  Yes.
[00:13:03]  We'll be loading up with supplies of all kinds and just hanging around in order to make sure everything goes well.
[00:13:09]  I mean, that really does.
[00:13:11]  I hate to say it, but that's the language of someone who has been kicked in the teeth and is just going to step back and let things take their.
[00:13:18]  That place.
[00:13:20]  And he's also saying that he's ready to resume the war if things don't go well.
[00:13:25]  Okay, so what actually counts as a ceasefire?
[00:13:27]  Because there are so many parties involved in this region.
[00:13:30]  Yes.
[00:13:31]  Is it a ceasefire if the US isn't shooting at Iran and Iran isn't shooting at US bases, but Iran is shooting at everybody else and everybody else is shooting at Iran?
[00:13:42]  Is that still a ceasefire?
[00:13:44]  That's a win for Iran because they would have taken out the biggest military.
[00:13:48]  It's a massive win for Iran.
[00:13:50]  And now they'll have time to just smack around everybody else.
[00:13:53]  Even if it's Iran and Israel and the UAE going at it.
[00:13:58]  You know, they don't.
[00:13:59]  That is a nightmare scenario.
[00:14:00]  Iran's 10 million population against Iran's 90 million.
[00:14:03]  Exactly.
[00:14:04]  Iran is going to win that easily, right?
[00:14:06]  I mean, the whole thing with Israel is always like, oh, we're going to bring in America, right?
[00:14:11]  And if America says, right, we're staying out of it, well, they're in their own trouble, aren't they?
[00:14:14]  They can't exactly fight a war of attrition.
[00:14:16]  And so the Pakistanis and the Iranians are saying that the ceasefire includes Lebanon.
[00:14:23]  Where the Israelis are waging a war against Hezbollah.
[00:14:27]  And we haven't posted this yet, but as we were speaking, the Israelis launched the biggest wave of airstrikes against Lebanon to make sure that there is no ceasefire.
[00:14:37]  Right.
[00:14:37]  So the Israelis are not honoring the ceasefire either.
[00:14:40]  Exactly.
[00:14:41]  So the Israelis and the Emiratis are both trying to make sure that the ceasefire doesn't happen.
[00:14:45]  Because it seems to be entirely favorable to Iran.
[00:14:48]  Because it is incredibly favorable to Iran.
[00:14:50]  Do we know if Iran has, since this apparent ceasefire has begun, fired missiles at Israel?
[00:14:58]  In the first hour after the ceasefire, yes, but not yet, but not since.
[00:15:03]  Okay.
[00:15:03]  And so that could be delayed communications, whatever.
[00:15:07]  My view is that because they're attacking Hezbollah this heavily, the Iranians are going to fire a big salvo at the Israelis at some point today or in the next couple of days.
[00:15:18]  And they will use that to say, well, either it's a full ceasefire or it isn't.
[00:15:23]  And if it isn't, then the Iranians will bring in the Houthi and shut down the Red Sea as well.
[00:15:29]  And so the amount of pressure, economically speaking, will go through the roof.
[00:15:34]  It's really weird how Star Wars is surprisingly apt as an analogy for all of this.
[00:15:38]  Go on.
[00:15:39]  Well, just this is literally the Sand People getting involved on behalf of the rebels against the Empire.
[00:15:47]  But anyway, so how is it that Iran still has so many missiles exactly?
[00:15:54]  Because they built these massive underground missile cities that are designed to take a bunch of blows from B 2s and B 52s.
[00:16:03]  And keep on functioning that have gaps and so on to make sure that a blow on one location doesn't collapse the whole thing.
[00:16:13]  And then the Americans try to shut the tunnels in and mine the area, but like aerial mining, you just drop a bomb that drops landmines.
[00:16:25]  But then the Iranians keep reopening the tunnel entrances and firing again.
[00:16:29]  And what are they going to be doing over the next two weeks?
[00:16:31]  They're going to be reopening all of the tunnel entrances so that if the war does resume, They can start with the same kind of massive salvo that they kicked the war off with.
[00:16:43]  Right.
[00:16:44]  Okay.
[00:16:44]  So the Iranians aren't going to run out of missiles anytime soon.
[00:16:48]  I don't think that that's going to happen.
[00:16:50]  And also, doesn't Iran have an open supply line to Turkmenistan?
[00:16:53]  Well, there's.
[00:16:54]  So Chinese and Russian drones can still get in?
[00:16:57]  So there are stories that they're making drones into Turkmenistan, that the Iranians are making drones into Turkmenistan, which is a kind of Russian Chinese protectorate.
[00:17:06]  Yeah.
[00:17:07]  And then the Belt and Road Initiative has a major terminus in Kazakhstan.
[00:17:11]  On the Caspian Sea, and then there is a connection between Iran and Russia, Volgograd, through the Caspian as well.
[00:17:20]  So the Iranians have an open supply line to China and Russia.
[00:17:23]  Well, the Americans literally can't intercede in.
[00:17:26]  Not really.
[00:17:28]  Not really.
[00:17:29]  Not unless they really want to prevent the Russians and risk a bigger Russian response.
[00:17:34]  And the land route can't be like it's a land route, you're not going to be.
[00:17:39]  It would be a hell of an air mission going in that deep.
[00:17:42]  Into Russian and Chinese air.
[00:17:44]  They've done it once.
[00:17:45]  They've attacked the Iranian ports on the Caspian once, but apparently they subsequently received a Russian warning saying, don't you dare do that again.
[00:17:54]  So, it doesn't look very good, shall we say.
[00:18:01]  And Hezbollah adhered to the ceasefire.
[00:18:04]  They've stopped firing.
[00:18:06]  But the Israelis are pummeling Lebanon more than they did since the war began.
[00:18:10]  But aren't there Israeli troops actually inside Lebanon?
[00:18:13]  Yes.
[00:18:14]  I've seen tanks.
[00:18:15]  Yes.
[00:18:16]  So, I mean, it's one thing having a ceasefire when you don't fire into another country.
[00:18:21]  Yes.
[00:18:22]  But, I mean, that's quite restrained if you're not firing at foreign troops that are actually inside your country.
[00:18:27]  And they're not doing that because they want to stick to the ceasefire and force the Israelis outside.
[00:18:32]  But yeah, but Israel do not want this peace to take hold.
[00:18:36]  Not in the least.
[00:18:37]  Because for them, it is the beginning of the full American exit from the Middle East.
[00:18:42]  Yes.
[00:18:43]  And that's what they're afraid of because then everybody around them is going to gang up against them.
[00:18:48]  And after seeing this war, if you're Egypt, if you're Turkey, even if you're Saudi Arabia, and obviously if you're Iran, you need to get nuclear weapons.
[00:18:57]  Well, I suppose that kind of answers my point then because.
[00:19:00]  Even though the Israeli troops are still inside Lebanon, Hezbollah can make a big statement oh, yeah, we are observing the ceasefire and actually observe it.
[00:19:10]  Safe in the knowledge that there's 100% chance the Israelis won't.
[00:19:14]  Yes.
[00:19:14]  And actually, it's just an intermission for the space of a few hours on Wednesday morning and then they can get straight back to it.
[00:19:21]  Pretty much.
[00:19:22]  What's interesting as well, I remember a couple of days ago the Israeli saber rattling about Turkey, in fact.
[00:19:26]  Yes.
[00:19:27]  You know, the usual sort of think pieces were published in various Israeli publications about, oh, Turkey's the next problem.
[00:19:34]  Thinking that they had Iran in the back.
[00:19:36]  Yes.
[00:19:37]  And now clearly they don't.
[00:19:38]  Yeah.
[00:19:39]  Turkey is definitely a winner out of this.
[00:19:41]  Yeah.
[00:19:42]  I think you're absolutely right.
[00:19:44]  The impetus to get nuclear weapons has just shot through.
[00:19:47]  Oh, yeah.
[00:19:48]  Yes.
[00:19:48]  If I was Erdogan, yeah, that would be top of my list.
[00:19:50]  What else are you doing?
[00:19:51]  And what was he doing two days ago?
[00:19:53]  He was showing off next to a ballistic missile with a 1,500 kilometer range.
[00:19:58]  Erdogan was.
[00:19:58]  Erdogan.
[00:19:59]  Right.
[00:20:01]  I think it's called Tufan or something like that.
[00:20:03]  And he's bragging about it.
[00:20:05]  And now it's in serial production.
[00:20:07]  Just like the Iranian ballistic missiles.
[00:20:09]  As regional powers go, isn't Turkey even bigger, stronger than Egypt?

=== South Korea Army Concerns (16:06) ===

[00:20:15]  They have, I believe, a million men in total.
[00:20:19]  Yeah.
[00:20:20]  And they are the second largest army in NATO after only the United States.
[00:20:24]  Oh, okay, right.
[00:20:25]  So, yeah, I mean, they are.
[00:20:26]  They have a decent navy, unlike the Egyptians.
[00:20:28]  Yeah.
[00:20:29]  And they have a good military manufacturing sector.
[00:20:37]  So, they have a lot of.
[00:20:38]  I mean, you can see why Israel wants to take them out.
[00:20:40]  Yes.
[00:20:40]  But I mean, it's.
[00:20:41]  I mean, we've all seen the articles in the Jerusalem Post, you know, Turkey's next, and all the politicians saying is Turkey's next.
[00:20:47]  I mean, but I mean, that is just a complete non starter now.
[00:20:51]  Now it's a complete non starter.
[00:20:52]  It's also a very mountainous country as well, isn't it?
[00:20:54]  So it's a very mountainous country.
[00:20:56]  So Anatolia and Persia are built like fortresses.
[00:20:59]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:00]  So, like, it's historic.
[00:21:01]  That's why the wars between them happen in Syria and Iraq.
[00:21:03]  Yes.
[00:21:04]  Because you can.
[00:21:04]  Yeah, it's a low level.
[00:21:06]  You can walk across it.
[00:21:07]  Yes.
[00:21:07]  Yeah.
[00:21:08]  So can we talk about.
[00:21:12]  The infamous tweet quickly.
[00:21:14]  Because, of course, I logged on to Twitter yesterday and I saw this and I decided, you know, I'm not monitoring this situation.
[00:21:19]  I just closed Twitter and logged off.
[00:21:22]  Because I saw people freaking out on the left and right, to be honest.
[00:21:27]  And by the infamous tweet, you mean the whole civilization burned.
[00:21:31]  Samson, can you get that one up?
[00:21:32]  That'd be a good one too.
[00:21:34]  As soon as I saw it, I was just, okay.
[00:21:37]  This is Donald Trump.
[00:21:38]  This is the sort of thing Trump says when he's not getting his way.
[00:21:43]  Trump ramps up the rhetoric to ridiculous degrees when he's not getting what he wants out of negotiations.
[00:21:51]  Whatever his stated goals are.
[00:21:53]  And for some reason, a lot of people are still taking this literally, but not seriously.
[00:21:59]  So obviously, I didn't think that literally Donald Trump.
[00:22:02]  I mean, a lot of people say, oh, see, Donald Trump didn't nuke Iran.
[00:22:05]  It's like, yeah, but nobody thought he was actually going to nuke Iran, right?
[00:22:08]  Yep.
[00:22:09]  Here's the tweet A whole civilization will die tonight, probably never be brought back again.
[00:22:14]  I don't want it to happen, but probably will.
[00:22:16]  However, now that we have complete and total regime change where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.
[00:22:25]  Who knows?
[00:22:26]  We will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world.
[00:22:30]  47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end.
[00:22:33]  God bless the great people of Iran.
[00:22:34]  Now, this is such typical Trumpian rhetoric about trying to manifest rhetorically a new reality.
[00:22:44]  Yes.
[00:22:45]  To show people, no, look, like there's the stick.
[00:22:48]  But there's also the carrot.
[00:22:50]  And, you know, here's an off ramp.
[00:22:52]  So the stick doesn't come.
[00:22:53]  But it's like, okay, the problem is everyone's calling you taco because they always know you're going to back out at the last minute because this is a persuasion tactic and not actually a serious commitment of what you want.
[00:23:06]  Well, I will give them credit for this.
[00:23:07]  I mean, you know, some people are saying, does this mean nukes?
[00:23:10]  Because if you read the first sentence, you know, a whole civilization will die tonight, that strongly implies nukes.
[00:23:15]  Yes.
[00:23:15]  But then as you go on and read the rest of it, I mean, what this really is, it is a kind of a masterful bit of.
[00:23:21]  Ambiguity.
[00:23:22]  This tweet taken in its entirety could mean anything.
[00:23:25]  It could mean nukes.
[00:23:26]  It could mean negotiation.
[00:23:27]  It could mean an off ramp.
[00:23:29]  I mean, who the hell knows what it means?
[00:23:30]  Yeah, he could come out and say, Yeah, what I was talking about is the civilization of the Mullahs and the Ayatollahs regime will die tonight, never to be brought back, but a free Iran will spring out from it.
[00:23:38]  He could literally manipulate it into anything, which is why I was just like, I saw it and everyone was freaking out.
[00:23:43]  I was like, No, not today.
[00:23:45]  I'm sorry.
[00:23:46]  I've got things I need to do around the house.
[00:23:48]  The kids are whining.
[00:23:50]  I was on the freaking out camp because the reason.
[00:23:54]  This happened.
[00:23:54]  No, but the reason this happened was because he.
[00:24:01]  We had reached a point in the escalation where the energy infrastructure of the entire Gulf, including Iran, was going to get erased.
[00:24:10]  And so we got very close to the point of no return, whereby now, okay, in six months, something like that, you might return to some normalcy with some stuff taking another couple of years.
[00:24:25]  Had this continued down this path, it would have been the destruction of the main facilities that allow any oil to be extracted, meaning that this energy gets shut in for five, 10 years.
[00:24:41]  Which would have been, and you're talking there about the reciprocation effect as well.
[00:24:44]  Exactly.
[00:24:45]  They would have destroyed their energy infrastructure, they would have destroyed the rest of the energy infrastructure and also the desalination plant.
[00:24:52]  So not only do you get a permanent reduction in global energy capacity, you also get an enormous refugee crisis in the Middle East.
[00:24:59]  Yes.
[00:25:00]  And so he got it to that point of escalation.
[00:25:04]  But because the Iranians were able to keep retaliating in kind, he climbed down.
[00:25:11]  But the thing is, what I read in this is the climb down.
[00:25:15]  Yes.
[00:25:15]  Everyone got really fixated on the first sentence.
[00:25:18]  Right.
[00:25:19]  But I was paying attention to the who knows in block capital.
[00:25:23]  The reason why my response is primarily about the first sentence is because, yes, it's more likely that it's going to be the second part.
[00:25:31]  Yeah.
[00:25:31]  But I am asymmetrically concerned.
[00:25:33]  With the first part.
[00:25:34]  Yes.
[00:25:34]  Even though it's low, let's say the nuke thing is a 2% possibility and the rest of it is a 98% possibility.
[00:25:41]  Well, I'm still going to put my energy into saying, yeah, but don't do that thing.
[00:25:45]  Yeah, but I. Sorry, John.
[00:25:47]  One more point.
[00:25:48]  The more you play that kind of game, the more you encourage the other side to be stubborn and not take you seriously.
[00:25:54]  Yes.
[00:25:54]  And the more you encourage everybody in the world to just get as many nuclear weapons as they can.
[00:26:00]  So there are second order effects to playing this game.
[00:26:03]  I completely agree.
[00:26:03]  Because, I mean, what this is.
[00:26:04]  Which are just.
[00:26:05]  Yeah, no, no, I completely agree.
[00:26:06]  Because what this essentially is the kind of like madman theory that Trump's been playing, right?
[00:26:11]  But there are limits to it.
[00:26:12]  Sure, I totally agree.
[00:26:14]  But that's, and Trump has discovered the limits in Iran's 10 demands.
[00:26:19]  Yes.
[00:26:19]  As in, no, no, we know you're bluffing.
[00:26:21]  Yes.
[00:26:22]  And we are maniacs ourselves.
[00:26:24]  Yes.
[00:26:25]  Like we are legitimately, we think every single one of us goes straight to heaven the second you bomb us, right?
[00:26:30]  So we're going to do, we actually can hold the line here.
[00:26:34]  We've got our stocks.
[00:26:36]  We're able to strike your infrastructure.
[00:26:38]  We're able to cause you massive cascading problems.
[00:26:41]  Yes.
[00:26:42]  And all you can do is bluster on Truth Social, right?
[00:26:46]  That's basically what I read from this.
[00:26:47]  And the war ended because the Iranians demonstrated that they have escalation dominance.
[00:26:52]  Yes.
[00:26:53]  Because they can cause far more damage to the world economy and are willing to take the damage that is meted out to them.
[00:27:01]  Because they are actually lunatics.
[00:27:04]  Yes.
[00:27:05]  They gave Trump everything on the nuclear issue before the war started.
[00:27:10]  Then the war happened anyway.
[00:27:11]  It was hard to see why they.
[00:27:12]  So they switched from reasonable mode to lunatic mode.
[00:27:15]  Yes.
[00:27:15]  I mean, genuinely, it was hard to see what the point of this war was in the first place.
[00:27:19]  I mean, we'll get to it in the second segment because now we actually know.
[00:27:22]  Yes.
[00:27:23]  Spoiler, it's Israel.
[00:27:27]  And for some reason, Trump's marriage to promoting their interest.
[00:27:32]  But from an American point of view, this was completely unnecessary.
[00:27:36]  And.
[00:27:37]  hasn't done Trump any favours and has just entrenched the opposition.
[00:27:40]  Well, this comes back to your first point about the schism with the American right.
[00:27:44]  And actually, I don't think it's quite as clear as that.
[00:27:47]  Lots of the American right have been against the wall all the way through.
[00:27:50]  Yeah, there are lots of good people.
[00:27:51]  But the reason we're against it is not because we're backing Iran, it's because we think it's bad for America.
[00:27:57]  Yeah.
[00:27:58]  Now, don't get me wrong, right?
[00:27:59]  If.
[00:28:00]  And not just this is bad for America, it's pretty poorly organised as well.
[00:28:04]  Yes, right.
[00:28:05]  There was no plan.
[00:28:06]  There was no plan.
[00:28:06]  They believed that Danielle was BS.
[00:28:09]  There was an Israeli plan which was.
[00:28:12]  Which was to drag America into a 30 year conflict.
[00:28:14]  Yeah.
[00:28:14]  But the thing is, like, if America had built a coalition, if it had actually prepared like 100,000 men as a ground force or something like this, and actually just been like, no, no, if we're going to do this, we have to do it properly.
[00:28:26]  Yeah.
[00:28:27]  Because, you know, I don't think Iran is an impossible conquest or anything.
[00:28:31]  It's just you thought the Iranians would crack under the pressure.
[00:28:35]  Well, there'd be internal regime change.
[00:28:37]  Exactly.
[00:28:38]  Either the regime would just be like, okay, yeah, no, we don't want to get bummed to death.
[00:28:42]  Actually, they don't care about that, or that there would be a massive uprising from below.
[00:28:46]  No, it seems that actually, when the missiles are raining down, that isn't when people feel like overthrowing their government.
[00:28:51]  They rallied to the government.
[00:28:52]  Yeah, of course they did because the country's under attack.
[00:28:55]  Yes.
[00:28:56]  Exactly.
[00:28:56]  Like, don't get me wrong, I hate Keir Starmer as much as the next man.
[00:29:00]  But if a French attack.
[00:29:01]  If German bombs start raining down on London, I'm not siding with the French.
[00:29:06]  If day one, a girls' school goes up in smoke.
[00:29:08]  Yeah.
[00:29:08]  Yeah, I'm.
[00:29:10]  Sorry, I'm for my country, you know, even if I hate my government.
[00:29:14]  You know, and so you've got to, you know, this whole thing was really poorly thought out.
[00:29:18]  Yes.
[00:29:19]  But it was obviously not Trump's actual idea to do this.
[00:29:23]  Look, he went for it.
[00:29:24]  Yeah.
[00:29:26]  He went for it.
[00:29:27]  And he went for it for one reason.
[00:29:29]  Yeah.
[00:29:30]  The brain blob that sat on the side of his bloody head.
[00:29:32]  Yeah, pretty much.
[00:29:34]  And from that, you know, he's now, for all the Gulf states, they're in an impossible position.
[00:29:44]  Because the order that exists and the borders that exist in the Gulf only exist because the British Empire handed the baton to the under Western hegemony.
[00:29:56]  Exactly.
[00:29:56]  And this is the thing about like paddling in the Rubicon.
[00:29:59]  It's like, no, if you're going to do something, okay, fair enough.
[00:30:01]  Do it seriously.
[00:30:02]  Exactly.
[00:30:02]  Like, don't take half measures.
[00:30:04]  I mean, the guy in South Korea who's now in jail for half staging a coup.
[00:30:09]  Exactly.
[00:30:09]  Like, you know, like it's all the same thing.
[00:30:11]  Don't skinny dip in the Rubicon.
[00:30:13]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:14]  If you want to overthrow the Iranian regime, I don't.
[00:30:16]  Don't care.
[00:30:17]  I don't care about the Iranian regime.
[00:30:19]  Just if you mess it up, what you do is break the myth of American supremacy.
[00:30:26]  Yes.
[00:30:27]  That's what the Americans have to understand here.
[00:30:29]  And so now I suppose it's a good time to discuss this because throughout history, you get people of remarkable military power all throughout history and they win and they win and they win.
[00:30:42]  And what this does in the minds of their opponents, they look at the overawing might.
[00:30:47]  Of this conquering army with this amazing general, and they think, Right, we can't beat that, so we don't fight.
[00:30:52]  Yeah, yes, and what that does is lead to more victories.
[00:30:55]  And so, the myth of invincibility builds around this general and his army until one day they do lose.
[00:31:02]  Well, it's important that your enemy believe it, but that you don't, exactly, exactly, right?
[00:31:07]  It that precisely you don't believe the myth of your own invincibility because then you get complacent.
[00:31:12]  And all it takes is one small reverse, not a catastrophic defeat, not the main army gets crushed by an enemy army.
[00:31:18]  No, no, no, what it is is like you know, 5,000 man detachment.
[00:31:22]  Gets routed and has to run back.
[00:31:24]  And then suddenly everyone's like, oh, right, no, they can be beaten.
[00:31:27]  Yes.
[00:31:28]  Right, okay, right.
[00:31:29]  Now we realize that resistance is possible.
[00:31:32]  And as soon as the myth of invincibility shatters, then the whole thing starts collapsing.
[00:31:36]  I was worried that Biden's disastrous retreat from Afghanistan was going to be that.
[00:31:40]  But I think they kind of got a pass on it because Biden was so befuddled that you could say, okay, well, it's not really America's defeat.
[00:31:48]  It wasn't a military defeat at all.
[00:31:49]  Like the Taliban weren't like taking cities or something.
[00:31:52]  The Taliban, the Americans are leaving.
[00:31:54]  Oh, right.
[00:31:55]  Should we go in?
[00:31:56]  Oh, I think now's the time, guys.
[00:31:58]  And the Afghan army dissolved.
[00:32:00]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:32:01]  It wasn't.
[00:32:01]  It just sort of disappeared, you know?
[00:32:02]  It wasn't American weakness that caused.
[00:32:04]  It wasn't pitched battles.
[00:32:05]  Whereas here, what's different is that the Iranians were able to extract an enormous price.
[00:32:12]  But they were able to.
[00:32:13]  Not from the Americans themselves, exactly.
[00:32:15]  Not from the Americans themselves by inflicting mass casualties on the Americans, but from what matters to the United States, which is the world economy.
[00:32:23]  Yes.
[00:32:23]  And the Americans there reveal the limits of their own power.
[00:32:27]  The Achilles heel, the vulnerability they have.
[00:32:29]  As the global hegemon, they have to be concerned about the nature of the global economic system because it's the American global economic system.
[00:32:37]  After this, it's entirely possible the Iranians will be trading oil in one or whatever it is.
[00:32:42]  So that's not good.
[00:32:44]  That's really not good for me.
[00:32:45]  And I'll just say for any haters in the comment, of course, we recognize that the US is the strongest, most powerful military in the world.
[00:32:52]  Yeah, but it's not invulnerable and it's not unlimited.
[00:32:55]  No.
[00:32:56]  And that's the thing that the Americans, I think, have in their heads.
[00:32:58]  And also, the military itself is propped up by, as you said, the economy.
[00:33:01]  Yes.
[00:33:01]  And if the economy is being hurt and the dollar system is being hurt, well, that's just a delayed effect impact on the military.
[00:33:07]  And as Farah said, if someone has escalation dominance, as in, no, we can ruin everything for you, even if you eventually.
[00:33:15]  Break us, then that's where, as you can see, Donald Trump has pulled back and gone, okay, okay, we'll come to the negotiating table.
[00:33:22]  There you have exposed a weakness.
[00:33:24]  Yes.
[00:33:25]  And like the point of the use of force is to achieve a political outcome.
[00:33:29]  Yes.
[00:33:30]  If you can't achieve.
[00:33:31]  File Switch 101.
[00:33:32]  Exactly.
[00:33:33]  If you can't achieve that political outcome, then you can drop as many bombs as you like, but it doesn't change the fact that you're trying to achieve something in particular.
[00:33:43]  And especially as the Iranians are the worst target to.
[00:33:47]  Approach with that attitude because they have a sort of messianic martyrdom complex.
[00:33:53]  Exactly.
[00:33:53]  And the Shia religion itself is built on a martyrdom complex.
[00:33:59]  They couldn't have played into their hands better, frankly.
[00:34:02]  And the fact that Khamenei, the father, stayed in his office on the third floor was not accidental.
[00:34:11]  What was he, 86, cancer ridden?
[00:34:14]  He would have turned to 87 on the 19th of April, I think.
[00:34:19]  Couldn't have a better time, as you pointed out earlier, couldn't be a better time to be a martyr.
[00:34:23]  Oh, if I decided I wanted to become a martyr, I'd be like, yeah, 86 amid cancer.
[00:34:28]  That's a good moment.
[00:34:29]  Yeah.
[00:34:29]  Yeah.
[00:34:30]  But just this, as one of the sort of military history nerds, I'm just looking at this with genuine concern because the thing is, it's not that this means America is beaten, right?
[00:34:42]  No.
[00:34:43]  Or anything like that.
[00:34:44]  But what this means is America faces much more stiff resistance when it wants to do something else somewhere else.
[00:34:50]  And that means Some Marxist group in Latin America, some bunch of gangsters in Mexico, some other insurgency is going to realize if we impose a heavy enough political price, we can get what we want politically without winning a single battle.
[00:35:07]  Yes.
[00:35:08]  And that's how the Vietnamese won.
[00:35:10]  They didn't win a single military engagement against the United States.
[00:35:14]  They won the war.
[00:35:15]  So it's this inability to see the other guy's perspective that is at heart here.
[00:35:22]  What this also does is make the next thing the American military have to do so much harder.
[00:35:28]  Because, yes, you will meet much more confident and organized resistance.
[00:35:34]  You will beat it, but you'll have to put a lot more into it.
[00:35:37]  And so, where you could have achieved it with a sort of like 20% energy expenditure, now you've got to put a 40% energy expenditure in.
[00:35:44]  And your energy is not unlimited.
[00:35:46]  So now that's energy you've had to direct from somewhere else.
[00:35:49]  I mean, didn't they have to take troops from like the China Sea and like South Korea?
[00:35:53]  Yeah, take air defense systems from South Korea.
[00:35:55]  Right.
[00:35:56]  Which was a huge political problem for the South Koreans.
[00:35:59]  Of course it was, because the North Koreans are just like, oh, what's happening here?
[00:36:02]  Now, the South Koreans can build their own air defenses and they're good.
[00:36:05]  But taking away the American ones.
[00:36:08]  But the point is that you now have to start.
[00:36:11]  This will happen in other places, right?
[00:36:13]  The next time some trouble comes up, you're going to have to redevert more energy than you thought you would have had to have done.
[00:36:19]  And this is why the myth of invincibility is very useful.

=== Iron Dome Transfer Issues (13:17) ===

[00:36:22]  And frivolously squandering it like this on behalf of Israel is not good.
[00:36:30]  For the Americans in the audience, I'm speaking for your advice, for your good here.
[00:36:35]  This was a strategic mistake in the long run for your republic.
[00:36:39]  Because for the Israelis, it wasn't just the nuclear program that they're afraid of.
[00:36:43]  They know that Iran can be deterred.
[00:36:45]  The issue was the ballistic missile program and the drone program, which was spreading throughout the region.
[00:36:52]  Firing from so many locations that it would overwhelm air defenses and getting to a point where Israel can be conventionally beaten or beaten back, rather.
[00:37:02]  That's a great point because I mean, one thing.
[00:37:04]  And contained.
[00:37:04]  One thing that's not.
[00:37:06]  Sorry, what the Israelis don't want.
[00:37:08]  Is to be contained because they are deeply committed to the Greater Israel Project.
[00:37:12]  And they're in the process of trying to expel the Palestinians of the West Bank, trying to expand their borders in Lebanon.
[00:37:18]  They've already expanded them in Syria, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:37:21]  And they've actually published pieces saying that Egypt should be next.
[00:37:25]  Oh, have they?
[00:37:26]  I mean, yes.
[00:37:26]  Right.
[00:37:27]  Or and Turkey.
[00:37:28]  And Turkey.
[00:37:28]  Turkey, yeah.
[00:37:29]  I mean, why not?
[00:37:30]  So they were getting to a stage of such unhinged hubris.
[00:37:35]  Yeah.
[00:37:36]  And the thing is, as well, didn't the Iron Dome basically fail?
[00:37:39]  Like, I heard so many things.
[00:37:41]  There's five or six layers to the Israeli missile defense system.
[00:37:45]  They ran out of the best interceptors, the lowest quality interceptors they still have, and they ran out of some of the mid level interceptors, or not fully ran out.
[00:37:55]  They had to become selective in what they intercepted because they were getting close to running out.
[00:38:01]  But also, isn't Iron Dome downstream of a whole bunch of US radar installations destroyed very early on?
[00:38:08]  Patriot, Arrow, David's Sling.
[00:38:12]  And then Iron Dome.
[00:38:13]  Iron Dome is actually the lowest one.
[00:38:15]  I see.
[00:38:16]  But the point is, it wasn't the complete protection that I think had been built up.
[00:38:21]  Yeah, it's not invulnerability.
[00:38:23]  Yeah, of the people in anticipation for this war.
[00:38:25]  And I think obviously people didn't expect the continual barrage Iran was going to be able to actually put out.
[00:38:31]  I mean, I was surprised, frankly.
[00:38:32]  Exactly.
[00:38:33]  You know, like, I honestly thought that, okay, a couple of weeks maybe, but like, they're still doing it.
[00:38:38]  So, you know, Iran wasn't a paper tiger.
[00:38:41]  Right.
[00:38:42]  The regime deeply entrapped.
[00:38:44]  And America has wasted a huge amount of reputational damage on what seems to just be a boondoggle here, which was done with very, very poor planning.
[00:38:56]  Because, I mean, if there's one thing that you want in war, it's a really good plan.
[00:39:01]  It won't survive contact with the enemy, but you'll have contingencies, have genuine sort of like another thing is what were Trump's war aims here?
[00:39:11]  Yes.
[00:39:12]  What were his war aims?
[00:39:13]  Bomb the Iranian leadership and get them to capitulate.
[00:39:15]  Yeah, but they weren't going to do that.
[00:39:17]  Yeah.
[00:39:17]  They've been fighting this war.
[00:39:18]  Well, we're starting to get some details on this on the New York Times article that we come to.
[00:39:22]  Yeah, yeah, but the Iranians have been fighting this war on their heads for the last 50 years.
[00:39:25]  Yes.
[00:39:26]  They know exactly what they're doing.
[00:39:27]  And so, anyway, just, I'm like, this was not wise.
[00:39:33]  And now the United States will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive regime change.
[00:39:40]  It hasn't.
[00:39:41]  Yeah.
[00:39:42]  Well, no, it did.
[00:39:43]  It went from Ayatollah Khomeini to Ayatollah Khomeini.
[00:39:46]  Yes.
[00:39:46]  To his son.
[00:39:47]  There will be no enrichment of uranium.
[00:39:49]  The Iranian Supreme National Security Council is saying that they're going to continue enriching uranium.
[00:39:55]  Yeah.
[00:39:56]  There's going to be limits on the ballistic missile.
[00:39:59]  No, not going to happen.
[00:40:01]  We are and we will be taking tariffs and sanctions, really talking tariff and sanctions relief with Iran.
[00:40:07]  Actually, he can't because Congress will make sure that there is no sanctions relief for Iran.
[00:40:12]  But even if they were somehow like, yeah, do whatever you want, Mr. Trump, how is sanctions relief on Iran not just a pure Iranian win?
[00:40:20]  How many decades has Iran been sanctioned by America?
[00:40:23]  40 years now.
[00:40:24]  There we go.
[00:40:24]  Right.
[00:40:25]  So, Like, that's 40 years of American, like, rock solid American foreign policy to contain a hostile regime.
[00:40:31]  Undone?
[00:40:32]  Yes.
[00:40:33]  And so, like, this is definitely an L, unfortunately.
[00:40:37]  It is a strategic loss for the Americans because now Iran is the new regional hegemon.
[00:40:44]  If this ceasefire is implemented at anything close to the 10 points, Iran is the new regional hegemon.
[00:40:52]  Even if they only get, like, one or two of those points through, that's, I mean, Iran.
[00:40:57]  I've seen Iran's.
[00:40:58]  Twitter feeds, you know, the Iranian media and all the state organs.
[00:41:02]  First thing, AI videos of Trump with a white flag and stuff like this.
[00:41:05]  And to be honest with you, from their perspective, you can see why they're beating their chest.
[00:41:09]  Yes.
[00:41:09]  Yeah, they're literally going to go around to everyone in the region and say, We beat America.
[00:41:13]  Don't test us.
[00:41:14]  We're in charge now.
[00:41:16]  And the thing is.
[00:41:17]  And now you have to pay reparations because you allowed your territory to be used against us, which is technically under the United Nations aggression.
[00:41:25]  What's the UAE going to say about that?
[00:41:27]  Like, good point.
[00:41:28]  Which is why they're trying to extend the war.
[00:41:30]  Yeah, they're trying to.
[00:41:32]  The UAE and Israel are trying to extend the war because they realize that this is an L.
[00:41:38]  They need to force an American victory.
[00:41:39]  And if that's not coming, they're all in trouble.
[00:41:43]  Well, they're going to get swallowed by Saudi, aren't they?
[00:41:46]  Yep.
[00:41:47]  Someone's getting swallowed by someone.
[00:41:48]  The thing is, just.
[00:41:49]  The borders are not going to stay the same.
[00:41:51]  No.
[00:41:52]  The borders are not going to last five or ten years.
[00:41:54]  The borders of the region are going to be redrawn.
[00:41:57]  How is the question?
[00:41:58]  Yeah.
[00:41:58]  I mean, just to be clear, this is actually historically incredibly normal.
[00:42:02]  Yes.
[00:42:03]  Like, yes.
[00:42:05]  Historically, for literally like the last 2,000 years, Iran, being the Persian Empire under various dynasties, just controlled essentially from Syria all the way over to Pakistan, Afghanistan.
[00:42:20]  That was just there.
[00:42:21]  And big chunks of the Gulf are different.
[00:42:23]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:25]  It's called the Persian Gulf for a reason.
[00:42:26]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:27]  The boundaries in that are fuzzy.
[00:42:28]  Sometimes it's higher or lower, but that's roughly the region from like the edge of Syria.
[00:42:34]  Over to there.
[00:42:35]  That was normal for the Persians to have that as their state.
[00:42:37]  Yes.
[00:42:38]  So this current situation is artificial, basically.
[00:42:44]  Exactly.
[00:42:44]  And it's ending.
[00:42:46]  If the ceasefire is implemented, it's ending.
[00:42:48]  Yeah.
[00:42:50]  Should we go through some super chats?
[00:42:51]  Yes.
[00:42:52]  People have some opinions on this.
[00:42:55]  Sigilstone says, such a defeat, Iran must have really smashed the US mainland and sunk many US ships.
[00:43:00]  That's not, Sigilstone, the only measure of defeat.
[00:43:03]  That's the problem, right?
[00:43:04]  This is what I'm saying about the loss for America here the loss of the aura of invincibility.
[00:43:12]  This is an argument I often see put forward, which is to say, well, we killed more of them and therefore we won.
[00:43:17]  Well, are you sure you want to make that the standard?
[00:43:20]  Because if that is the standard, The British won in 1776.
[00:43:24]  Well, yeah.
[00:43:27]  And Germany would have won World War II.
[00:43:29]  Yes.
[00:43:30]  The thing is, Sidgestone, you're not fighting a gargantuan land war against a fairly equally matched power in Europe.
[00:43:42]  That's what happens when the French take Germany or the Germany take France.
[00:43:46]  That's not what's happening here.
[00:43:47]  What you're trying to do is essentially create a new settlement in the extremities of your empire, and you've just failed to do that.
[00:43:57]  You were trying to achieve a political aim.
[00:43:59]  Yes.
[00:44:00]  Previously, the threat was if you don't give us what we want, this is what we will do to you militarily and it will work.
[00:44:07]  Now, actually, the military option won't work.
[00:44:12]  Therefore, you will be challenged more often on political questions, leading to more military escalation.
[00:44:18]  That's what happened.
[00:44:19]  Can I quickly address a point in the chat?
[00:44:21]  I mean, Jill Bug says, you know, yes, for us cheering against us again.
[00:44:25]  I'm going to assume you're American.
[00:44:27]  All three of us have been very clear we are not.
[00:44:30]  Cheering for Iran.
[00:44:31]  We actually all very much support the United States.
[00:44:35]  We think that getting into this left you only with bad options.
[00:44:39]  And it almost certainly has got to the point where you're going to have to take a bad option.
[00:44:43]  That is not cheering against you.
[00:44:45]  That is cheering for not getting into this situation in the first place.
[00:44:48]  And we're also trying to help you understand why this has happened and how you can make the best of it as well.
[00:44:56]  Unfortunately, this sort of argument that we're cheering against you, no, that's you trying to protect your own ego.
[00:45:03]  From what has really happened here, right?
[00:45:05]  And unfortunately, we're going to have to force you to look it in the face because this wasn't just the unvarnished win that you'd like it to be.
[00:45:12]  You've got to be realistic about that.
[00:45:14]  Take it from a post hegemonic power, a minor power that barely has a navy.
[00:45:20]  You get here in these sort of small steps, but eventually you arrive at that point.
[00:45:29]  Axis Eternal says, guys, Iran does not have escalation dominance.
[00:45:33]  The US just won't actually use its escalation options.
[00:45:36]  Well, I don't actually agree with that.
[00:45:38]  If you were to nuke them, as you are suggesting, every other power, mid sized power, will build nuclear weapons.
[00:45:47]  Yes.
[00:45:48]  The Turks, the Egyptians, and the Saudis, and the Algerians, and a bunch of others will go to Pakistan and say, here's a billion dollars, give us nukes.
[00:45:57]  Yeah.
[00:45:58]  It's just not on the table, right?
[00:46:00]  You're not nuking anyone.
[00:46:01]  That's not going to happen.
[00:46:04]  So I don't agree with that.
[00:46:06]  But also, okay, let's assume you did nuke Iran.
[00:46:08]  Well, the Iranians would still ruin the global economy and cause 50 years of misery for everyone.
[00:46:14]  So it's, you know, I don't know, you know.
[00:46:17]  Okay, that'd be bad for Iran, but Iran would make it bad for the entire world.
[00:46:21]  So I can't see how that.
[00:46:25]  Sigilstone says they expected Iran to crack.
[00:46:27]  So what Carl is saying is they're not like you and you don't understand them.
[00:46:29]  Yeah.
[00:46:30]  Exactly.
[00:46:30]  And I've been saying that a lot about a lot of stuff, haven't I?
[00:46:33]  You know, like a lot.
[00:46:35]  Ochidor says, in my opinion, this whole affair should have been at most a two day bombing that said, this is for attacking our people, your people.
[00:46:42]  Yeah.
[00:46:42]  And that would have been.
[00:46:43]  That could have actually had the intended effect.
[00:46:45]  Well, it did.
[00:46:46]  It did back when he dropped the bunker buster.
[00:46:48]  Exactly.
[00:46:49]  That shut them up.
[00:46:50]  Exactly.
[00:46:51]  Like Israel and Iran exchanging missiles, and Trump's like, no, bam, big bomb.
[00:46:55]  I'm not.
[00:46:55]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:46:56]  I'm here.
[00:46:57]  I'm literally going to be here as the mediator.
[00:46:58]  At that point, the regime lost all of its main narratives.
[00:47:01]  Yes.
[00:47:01]  And if it had been left in that state, it would have been creaking.
[00:47:05]  And what's.
[00:47:05]  You got them to rally to the regime.
[00:47:08]  Yeah.
[00:47:08]  And what's really frustrating is that up until this point, I've had nothing but glowing praise for Trump's foreign interventions.
[00:47:16]  Yes.
[00:47:17]  Because they've actually always been really good.
[00:47:18]  Yes.
[00:47:19]  I mean, the difference between that last, that bunker buster bomb, is that what it was doing is it was dismantling the Israeli narrative.
[00:47:25]  Yeah.
[00:47:26]  Because he came out immediately after that and said 100% of Iran's nuclear capacity has been destroyed.
[00:47:31]  Therefore, Israel can do that.
[00:47:31]  And therefore, Israel will get back in your box.
[00:47:34]  Exactly.
[00:47:34]  And like with the Syrian, back in 2018, we struck the Syrian airfields over the chemical weapons.
[00:47:41]  Because everyone was just like, oh, right, he is prepared to use hard force.
[00:47:44]  Yeah, he is, actually.
[00:47:46]  But whose interest was it in?
[00:47:49]  It was the interest for the hegemony of the United States.
[00:47:51]  It was about the credibility of the United States over that issue.
[00:47:56]  Yep.
[00:47:56]  When he said, when you go too far, you sometimes lose credibility.
[00:48:00]  Exactly.
[00:48:01]  Because then you have to say, we're going to talk about their 10 points.
[00:48:04]  Not my 15 points.
[00:48:05]  Exactly.
[00:48:06]  And so this not being done for the purposes of the United States, but for the purposes of Israel, has shown that that's a massive Achilles heel in American foreign policy.
[00:48:18]  But if it helps, there is a sort of silver lining to all this that we're going to come into in a minute, which is actually America First has kind of come out of this better than you might think.
[00:48:30]  But I just want to read through a couple more of these.
[00:48:32]  It's infuriating to see the grifters on both sides of the aisle.
[00:48:35]  If any infuriation, When Trump strikes Iran and also when he shows restraint by not striking Iran, we can't have it both ways here.
[00:48:42]  Which is why the first attack was received well.
[00:48:47]  It was brilliant.
[00:48:47]  And the second, much longer campaign wasn't because we're not grifting guys.
[00:48:52]  Yeah.
[00:48:53]  We're just telling you what works and what doesn't.
[00:48:56]  This is why I was actually in favor of the black bagging Madeira.
[00:48:59]  So, yeah, that advances American interest.
[00:49:01]  Get on with it.
[00:49:02]  That actually helps you.
[00:49:04]  This doesn't.
[00:49:05]  My fellow Americans who can't see that we're being dragged into this war by a certain country against our interest are now seeing the consequences and really disappointing me.
[00:49:11]  And honestly, I agree.
[00:49:16]  I've watched a lot of what I thought were quite credible American commentators on Twitter kind of soil themselves over this.
[00:49:24]  And it's just like, look, guys, this wasn't a thing for the American empire.
[00:49:29]  When he was bunker busting Iran, blackbagging Maduro, that was all for the American empire and totally fine.
[00:49:36]  We supported it.
[00:49:37]  And this war essentially confirmed multipolarity.

=== Hegseth Leak Analysis (10:23) ===

[00:49:39]  Yes.
[00:49:40]  This war made multipolarity become a real and tangible thing as opposed to a talking point.
[00:49:47]  Well, so should we go for that, in fact?
[00:49:49]  Yeah.
[00:49:51]  So, I mean, this is.
[00:49:54]  How to raise this?
[00:49:56]  There's a very interesting article in the New York Times, and it is actually worth everybody taking the time to go and read it.
[00:50:03]  I mean, I wouldn't normally say this about the New York Times, but essentially, this is positioning from within.
[00:50:09]  The White House about who is carrying the bag for what's happened in Iran.
[00:50:14]  Now, there's a huge number of things to pull out from this, but it's clearly from an insider.
[00:50:19]  So it starts off talking about a whole series of high level meetings that were held in the White House between senior officials.
[00:50:27]  And one of the points that I would make from those meetings, I mean, it goes right down to the levels of who sat in what chair.
[00:50:34]  Can I actually bring it up and read some of it out?
[00:50:36]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:50:37]  It's actually kind of remarkable wherever the mouse is.
[00:50:39]  Well, the point I was going to make about.
[00:50:42]  You know, the level of details it goes into.
[00:50:45]  Yeah.
[00:50:45]  This is leaked from the inside.
[00:50:47]  Oh, 100%.
[00:50:47]  I mean, this is coming from a book that's going to be coming out about this.
[00:50:51]  So, whoever had written this was either in the room or got this information from someone who was in the room, right?
[00:50:56]  But look at how this begins.
[00:50:58]  A black SUV carrying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
[00:51:01]  So, the only person who's named on the very first line is Netanyahu, right?
[00:51:06]  Yes.
[00:51:07]  He'd been pressing for months for the United States to agree to a major assault on Iran.
[00:51:11]  Wist inside a little ceremony.
[00:51:13]  He's.
[00:51:14]  He's sat in the cabinet room, in the situation room, whatever they call it.
[00:51:18]  Trump sits down, but not in his usual position at the head of the room's mahogany conference table.
[00:51:22]  Instead, he took a seat on one side, facing large screens mounted opposite the wall.
[00:51:27]  Mr. Netanyahu sat on the other side, directly opposite the president.
[00:51:30]  Appearing on the screen behind Netanyahu was David Barnier, the director of Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, as well as Israeli military officials.
[00:51:40]  Arrayed visually behind Mr. Netanyahu, they created the image of a wartime leader surrounded by his team.
[00:51:45]  Well, yeah, but it also kind of creates the image of.
[00:51:48]  I'm here to tell you what you need to do.
[00:51:53]  We have all arrived, and they carry on about how they made their pitch.
[00:52:00]  And none of Trump's staff are actually very impressed by it.
[00:52:05]  This is the interesting thing.
[00:52:06]  They threw Hegseth under the bus as the guy being most enthusiastic about it.
[00:52:11]  Whereas Susie Wiles and Marco Rubio and JD Vance, especially, are placed on record as having been deeply opposed to this.
[00:52:22]  Yes.
[00:52:23]  And General Kane, as well, to an extent, and the CIA.
[00:52:26]  And the CIA.
[00:52:28]  And the thing is, if this was a success, everybody would be taking credit.
[00:52:33]  Yes.
[00:52:34]  Nobody is taking credit.
[00:52:36]  Instead, they're throwing Pete Hegseth under the bus and blaming Netanyahu, meaning that it was not a success.
[00:52:42]  If it was a political victory, they would have all been saying, It was my idea.
[00:52:47]  I did it.
[00:52:48]  I convinced him, and we got what we wanted.
[00:52:50]  I mean, why are people, you know, bigging up Rubio and Vance for having been cautious against it if it was a win?
[00:52:58]  I mean, clearly.
[00:53:00]  Israel, Bibi, and Hegseth get thrown under the bus in this article.
[00:53:05]  Completely.
[00:53:06]  I mean, look at that.
[00:53:07]  Like, you know, the presentation Netanyahu gives over the next hour would be pivotal in setting the United States and Israel on the path to a major armed conflict.
[00:53:14]  And Trump weighed his options and risk for giving the go ahead.
[00:53:18]  I can't remember where exactly it says here, but it says that Trump basically trusted his instincts.
[00:53:23]  Yes.
[00:53:24]  Whereas everyone else, Vance and Rubio in particular, were like, no, this is a terrible idea.
[00:53:30]  And Trump was like, no, I think I'm going to do it.
[00:53:32]  It's like.
[00:53:33]  I mean, that's something I've said.
[00:53:34]  And it's actually worked for Trump's favor for a long time, he is a gut guy, not a head guy.
[00:53:39]  This was a terrible call.
[00:53:40]  Yeah.
[00:53:41]  And just, I don't know, you know, how persuasive Netanyahu was about this.
[00:53:46]  People point out, well, he's wanted regime change in Iran for decades.
[00:53:49]  Yeah, he has.
[00:53:49]  And maybe that was what coloured his judgment on this one.
[00:53:53]  You know, the fact that he's like, yeah, no, I would like to be the guy who gets rid of the Iranian regime.
[00:53:57]  It's like, okay, but you need to spend a lot of time preparing for that and planning for that.
[00:54:01]  I mean, it probably helps with people like Witkoff and his son in law really help push this as well.
[00:54:06]  Doubtless.
[00:54:07]  Yep.
[00:54:08]  Doubtless.
[00:54:08]  But this whole thing, Was essentially orchestrated by the Israelis and signed off on by Trump.
[00:54:16]  That's the issue here.
[00:54:19]  I mean, I've got a relevant bit of text on that.
[00:54:21]  Yeah, you go ahead.
[00:54:22]  So, I mean, after this Israeli plan had been presented, then the Americans got together afterwards.
[00:54:28]  And this is what I mean about who's getting buried on here.
[00:54:30]  So, one extract reads When Mr. Trump joined the meeting, Mr. Radcliffe, CIA guy, briefed him on the assessment.
[00:54:37]  The CIA director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister's regime change plan farcical.
[00:54:44]  At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in.
[00:54:46]  In other words, it's bullshit, he said.
[00:54:50]  Then there's a whole bunch of other stuff.
[00:54:52]  Oh, then Vance re enters, and there's a whole bit about how Vance is just completely against this.
[00:55:00]  General Kane, the president said to General Kane, General, what do you think?
[00:55:04]  And he said, Sir, in my experience, a standard operating procedure for the Israelis, they oversell their plans, they're not well developed, they know they need us, and that's why they're hard selling.
[00:55:16]  And then Trump summed it up by saying, and this is the bit where it just goes with his gut, is like, okay, well, that's their problem.
[00:55:21]  And it was a bit unclear to the people in the room whether he meant it was the Israelis' problem or the Iranians' problem, the regime change.
[00:55:28]  But he was convinced okay, yeah, I can do the bombing of Ayatollah Khomeini.
[00:55:33]  We can do that bit.
[00:55:34]  So we're going to go to it.
[00:55:35]  And again, so, I mean, there's another bit further down where, again, this is backing up General Kane.
[00:55:39]  He's saying General Kane would constantly ask, and then what?
[00:55:41]  And Trump would often hear only what he wanted to hear.
[00:55:42]  Now, I mean, who comes out of his article well?
[00:55:44]  JD Vance comes out of his article very well.
[00:55:45]  Mm hmm.
[00:55:46]  Mm hmm.
[00:55:47]  Mm. hmm.
[00:55:54]  Mm.
[00:55:54]  Mm hmm.
[00:55:55]  Mm.
[00:55:55]  Mm hmm.
[00:55:56]  Mm Rubio comes out of it as very well.
[00:55:59]  He comes across as analytical and conditional.
[00:56:01]  You know, his support was always conditional.
[00:56:04]  It's always phrased as, you know, I don't think this would work, but if this is what you want to do, Mr. President, then I'll back you up on it.
[00:56:12]  So that's, you know, that makes him sound good.
[00:56:15]  John Ratcliffe from the CIA, he comes out well on this.
[00:56:19]  The military guy, General Kane, he comes out mostly well on it because his whole pitch in this is that he said it was a bad idea, but I'll do whatever you want, boss.
[00:56:28]  So again, that makes him look loyal, but.
[00:56:30]  But this is the key quote here.
[00:56:32]  This is standard operating procedure for the Israelis.
[00:56:35]  And it's completely true.
[00:56:36]  I mean, how many decades has Netanyahu been saying, Iran are two weeks away from a nuke?
[00:56:40]  That was back in the 90s, he was saying that.
[00:56:42]  And so, oh, by the way, they're two weeks away.
[00:56:44]  Yeah, okay, I've heard this before.
[00:56:45]  Yes.
[00:56:47]  They oversell and their plans are not always well developed.
[00:56:49]  Because as far as the Israelis are concerned, this will become America's problem.
[00:56:54]  Because the Israeli plan is to get America involved.
[00:56:56]  Exactly.
[00:56:56]  Let them go to the Israeli side.
[00:56:57]  They don't have to develop the rest of it.
[00:56:58]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:56:59]  No, America being in a long war is the point.
[00:57:01]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:57:02]  Because, yeah, and along with a powerful enemy, well, great, because we're going to have free reign in the region around us to do whatever we want, and no one's going to intervene because Iran's a bit busy at the moment.
[00:57:12]  Which is why they're escalating their attacks on the Palestinians and including Palestinian Christians and Lebanon.
[00:57:18]  I mean, the people who come out really badly from this series of leaks, I mean, I wouldn't say really badly.
[00:57:21]  Donald Trump comes across as being poorly advised more than anything.
[00:57:25]  Yeah, but even then, the advice was good, actually, from what we see.
[00:57:30]  It's weirdly his own predilection for Netanyahu.
[00:57:35]  It seems to be an issue.
[00:57:37]  This does not go after Trump nearly as hard as it could have done.
[00:57:41]  And would have done, say, 10 years ago.
[00:57:42]  Well, and the reason is because this is all based on insider leaks.
[00:57:46]  I mean, it makes the point really early on in the article.
[00:57:49]  The gathering had been kept deliberately small to guard against leaks.
[00:57:53]  So it was a very small selection of people.
[00:57:54]  So basically, somebody in there has given their blessing to this being leaked.
[00:57:58]  And there was a leak.
[00:57:59]  Yeah, well, it's not even a leak, is it, actually?
[00:58:01]  It's kind of a, well, I mean, you know, lead articles in the Times.
[00:58:05]  It's a tell all.
[00:58:05]  Yeah.
[00:58:06]  I mean, if I had to put my money on it, I would say that Vance and Rubio have given the nod to their underlings.
[00:58:14]  Yeah, you can have some very quiet conversations with some journalists and get this out.
[00:58:19]  They're basically trying to better position themselves for the 2028 election.
[00:58:23]  By saying we had nothing to do with this war.
[00:58:26]  But this is actually surprisingly good news for sort of MAGA and America First, actually.
[00:58:30]  Oh, yes.
[00:58:31]  Actually, yes.
[00:58:32]  Vance and Rubio, the two leading lights of Trump's administration, are not just Zio neocons.
[00:58:39]  I mean, I suppose it's not even completely impossible that Trump gave some mild blessing to this because he's not going to run again for election and maybe he's like, okay, fine, we'll boost up Rubio and Vance.
[00:58:50]  The only person I'm absolutely certain did not leak all of this detail is Peter Hegseff because he comes across as a bloody idiot in all of this.
[00:58:57]  So.
[00:58:57]  Well, he did in the, you saw the, was it the congressional thing where he was just sat there going, how many generals you fired?
[00:59:05]  I don't know.
[00:59:06]  It's like, what do you mean you don't know how many generals you fired?
[00:59:09]  It was eight, apparently.
[00:59:10]  And it's just like, come on, you should know that.
[00:59:11]  It's like, why did you fire them?
[00:59:12]  Well, they were serving at Trump's pleasure.
[00:59:14]  It's like, okay, but that doesn't explain why you fired them.
[00:59:16]  And the answer is they were obviously like, no, this would be crazy.
[00:59:19]  Yeah.
[00:59:21]  I mean, if you want to be in the room when hard hitting things are discussed, I suggest you buy a ticket for the Lotus Heaters live event, which is going to be taking place on Saturday.
[00:59:32]  And it's slightly less monumental than this.
[00:59:34]  Well, I don't know.
[00:59:35]  That's debatable.
[00:59:37]  Come and say hi to our protesters.
[00:59:39]  So, the statement from the press secretary, you know, claiming it as a win for the United States.
[00:59:44]  Okay, fair enough.
[00:59:45]  From the beginning of Operation APAC Fury, President Trump said it'd be a four to six week operation.
[00:59:51]  It's okay, fine.
[00:59:52]  You know, that's the ten point on it.
[00:59:55]  It is kind of embarrassing, though, where it's like, look, man, you know, we support Trump.
[01:00:02]  We support America.

=== General Firing Reports (15:18) ===

[01:00:03]  We want America to do well.
[01:00:05]  But, like, This is sort of sounding a bit North Korean, you know?
[01:00:10]  Yeah.
[01:00:10]  It's like, you know, the success of our military created maximum leverage, allowing Trump and the team to engage in tough negotiations.
[01:00:17]  So it's not actually apparent.
[01:00:20]  Nope, it really isn't.
[01:00:23]  So, the Americans are debating amongst themselves as to whether this is a win or a loss.
[01:00:29]  And that debate is looking extremely lively at the moment with, you know, arguments on both sides.
[01:00:36]  And I think, you know, broadly, where we stand, we're probably more on the Tucker side of things.
[01:00:41]  And I mean, even, what was it, Alex Jones?
[01:00:45]  Alex Jones called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked for a Trump debate.
[01:00:48]  Yeah, I mean, even I don't go that far.
[01:00:50]  So, no, he went way harder than I think he should.
[01:00:53]  He was on, I think, the right side of the argument broadly.
[01:00:56]  Yeah.
[01:00:56]  So anyway, the Americans are arguing amongst themselves, and it's a question in that collective consciousness about whether this was a win or a loss.
[01:01:04]  I can tell you where there is no doubt that this is a loss.
[01:01:07]  No doubt whatsoever.
[01:01:08]  This is where the surprising win for America first comes out, right?
[01:01:11]  Yeah.
[01:01:13]  This is the former prime minister of Israel.
[01:01:16]  There's never been such a political disaster in all of our history.
[01:01:20]  Israel wasn't, I mean, there was that Roman bit, I guess, but.
[01:01:27]  I mean, there have been a few terrible disasters in Israeli history, actually.
[01:01:31]  Yeah.
[01:01:31]  So, I mean, okay.
[01:01:33]  So, the Babylonian bit before that, then the Assyrian bit before that, then the Egyptian bit before that.
[01:01:38]  So, I mean, like, it's not.
[01:01:40]  Yeah, actually, the Egyptian bit wasn't good either.
[01:01:42]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:01:42]  There have been a few bumps on the road, but I don't think this.
[01:01:46]  Yeah, but anyway, this.
[01:01:47]  Maybe he means since 1948.
[01:01:48]  Yeah.
[01:01:49]  Okay, so there has never been such a political disaster in all our history.
[01:01:52]  Israel wasn't even at the table when the decisions were made concerning the core of our national security.
[01:01:57]  I mean, he was right there.
[01:01:58]  What are you talking about?
[01:01:59]  Yes.
[01:02:00]  Well, for getting into the war, not getting out of the war.
[01:02:03]  I'm guessing Bibi was not invited back for the meeting where they decided to get out.
[01:02:08]  The military carried out everything asked of it.
[01:02:10]  Public demonstrated its amazing resilience, but Netanyahu publicly failed and strategically every goal that he set himself.
[01:02:16]  And I mean, it's not just that.
[01:02:18]  A former chief of staff, Netanyahu lied.
[01:02:21]  He promised a historic victory, security for generations, and in practice, we got one of the most severe strategic failures Israel has ever known.
[01:02:31]  I mean, there's lots.
[01:02:32]  And you might say, okay, well, those guys are opposition politicians in Israel, and therefore you can fully expect it.
[01:02:39]  We've been scrolling through Israeli Twitter this morning.
[01:02:44]  It's grim.
[01:02:46]  Oh, yeah.
[01:02:47]  Because the thing is, they can see the reality of the situation is yes, now Iran is the regional hegemon, and America's myth of invincibility is shattered.
[01:02:55]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:02:56]  This is bad news.
[01:02:57]  And if you want to know, if you're sat in like Oklahoma or something debating the pros and the cons, Well, yeah, you can do that because you're in a nice air conditioned room with no danger on either side.
[01:03:08]  But if you're in Israel right now, actually, this is very real and very much on the ground.
[01:03:13]  I mean, Nick Fluentes and Cat Turd can go in each other all day long.
[01:03:17]  You know, nothing is going to happen to them.
[01:03:18]  If you're in Tel Aviv, it's a somewhat different story.
[01:03:22]  Yes.
[01:03:23]  So, I mean, we take you through, you know, some of the Hebrew Twitter.
[01:03:30]  When it will look like Iran might get nuked.
[01:03:34]  Biblical times are going to happen at midnight.
[01:03:36]  Are you ready?
[01:03:37]  There was an element of excitement when it might be Iran getting used.
[01:03:40]  And the thing is, you can tell they got so high on their own supply here.
[01:03:43]  And I get the feeling that Netanyahu was as well, and the entire sort of Israeli government.
[01:03:49]  This is a complete rug pull as far as the Israelis are concerned.
[01:03:52]  Oh, yes.
[01:03:53]  The worst kind of rug pull.
[01:03:56]  Yeah.
[01:03:57]  Yeah.
[01:03:57]  But once the ceasefire had been announced, he's like, what?
[01:04:00]  The Straits of Hormuz was open even before the war.
[01:04:03]  I didn't sit in a shelter for 40 days or nights to open the Straits of Hormuz.
[01:04:07]  What did he do?
[01:04:07]  Well, yeah, it turns out you did.
[01:04:10]  But what if?
[01:04:10]  It turns out you did.
[01:04:11]  Yep.
[01:04:14]  Who is he complaining?
[01:04:15]  Oh, yeah, this is complaining about Netanyahu.
[01:04:17]  For 30 years, he's been messing with our heads about Iran.
[01:04:19]  Finally, there's a chance to do something about it and he fails.
[01:04:22]  For 20 years, he's been complaining that Hezbollah wasn't disarmed.
[01:04:25]  Finally, he has a chance to do something about it and he fails.
[01:04:27]  For 17 years, he'd been promising he'd dismantle Hamas.
[01:04:31]  Finally, there's a chance to do it and he fails.
[01:04:33]  So, this is, I mean, there are pages.
[01:04:36]  Yeah, Netanyahu's a loser.
[01:04:38]  Yeah.
[01:04:39]  The Israelis.
[01:04:41]  You know, they were hoping for the Stone Age stuff.
[01:04:43]  Yep.
[01:04:44]  They didn't get it.
[01:04:46]  Find out about a ceasefire from a missile alert, Simon.
[01:04:50]  Classic.
[01:04:53]  May Islam take Europe, the USA, and may the world burn already.
[01:04:57]  Thanks, David.
[01:04:58]  Yeah, I appreciate the sentiment.
[01:05:00]  Is it just me or does it feel like defeat?
[01:05:02]  No, it's not just you.
[01:05:05]  Everybody with this Israeli flag, I think, has expressed a similar sentiment.
[01:05:08]  May Islam take Europe, the USA?
[01:05:12]  Yeah.
[01:05:12]  Yeah.
[01:05:14]  Okay.
[01:05:15]  Ceasefire is a very bad idea for the future of the Iranian people.
[01:05:19]  And for Israel and the US.
[01:05:21]  Okay.
[01:05:22]  I don't like it at all.
[01:05:24]  This is a weak move and a wrong move.
[01:05:25]  Finish the job, terminate the regime.
[01:05:27]  Well, it's not as easy to do.
[01:05:30]  Yeah.
[01:05:31]  No.
[01:05:32]  Expressing lack of concern for the Straits of Hormuz, because it was never about that.
[01:05:36]  It was about crippling Iran.
[01:05:38]  Iran has not conceded anything.
[01:05:41]  You know, the time has come.
[01:05:42]  Eliminate the regime.
[01:05:45]  Lots of expressing of disappointment about this.
[01:05:48]  Dear Trump, what did you do all of this for?
[01:05:50]  That's the question, isn't it?
[01:05:51]  That really is the question.
[01:05:52]  That's the question underpinning it.
[01:05:53]  And from his perspective, you supposedly did it for him.
[01:05:57]  Yeah.
[01:05:57]  You know, Netanyahu asked you to do it for Israel.
[01:06:00]  And he thinks this is terrible.
[01:06:02]  Well, Trump basically didn't commit.
[01:06:05]  No.
[01:06:05]  Trump, like, I don't think maybe you didn't understand what the Israelis were actually asking for.
[01:06:10]  Yep.
[01:06:11]  Because what they were kind of asking for is a, like, million man ground invasion of Iran.
[01:06:15]  Yes.
[01:06:16]  To literally expunge, like, debathify Iran from the Mullahs' regime.
[01:06:22]  So this wouldn't be a regional power.
[01:06:25]  But you can see the Israeli logic.
[01:06:26]  The Israeli logic was we just need to get you to bomb the Ayatollah, get into a conflict, and that will inevitably drag you into a 30 year conflict.
[01:06:36]  Like it did with Iran and Afghanistan.
[01:06:37]  But what Trump heard.
[01:06:39]  Was what they actually said.
[01:06:41]  And what they actually said is, oh, yeah, this is easy.
[01:06:43]  It will be over in 48 hours.
[01:06:45]  So he was like, okay, cool.
[01:06:46]  You can just do it.
[01:06:47]  Because Netanyahu in the New York Times article did say you can bomb them and the people will rise up.
[01:06:51]  And Trump's like, oh, great.
[01:06:52]  There'll be an uprising, will there?
[01:06:54]  That'll be easy for us then.
[01:06:55]  Here's a few bombs.
[01:06:56]  Yeah.
[01:06:56]  Yep.
[01:06:57]  And Rubio and Vance from the New York Times article and General Kane and the CIA all sat there and saying, no, the Israelis are bullshitting us.
[01:07:05]  But Trump was like, no, no, I believe them.
[01:07:07]  And he went ahead.
[01:07:09]  And when he didn't get it, I mean, yeah, okay, it took a month instead of.
[01:07:12]  Yeah.
[01:07:13]  You know, instead of the two weeks, but, you know, he was like, yeah, okay, fine.
[01:07:17]  I'm out doing it.
[01:07:21]  Kosher says, I don't know how I feel about this.
[01:07:23]  But the next guy's like, well, this makes me sick.
[01:07:25]  And there's just pages and pages of this stuff.
[01:07:28]  This will be seen as weakness by the entire Middle East.
[01:07:31]  Trump just shared, I can't pronounce that.
[01:07:35]  That he accepted the regime's 10 point proposal.
[01:07:37]  Yeah, that's the thing.
[01:07:38]  I retweeted this, but like, Trump didn't concede to this, did he?
[01:07:41]  On Twitter.
[01:07:42]  Because I've been following it.
[01:07:43]  I logged on like 11 o'clock or something.
[01:07:45]  And I'm like, There's no way Trump has conceded this 10 point proposal because this is, it looks like total capitulation if he just accepts.
[01:07:53]  Now, at the time, I didn't realize that he was going to negotiate these things with Iran, but I mean, yeah, okay.
[01:07:58]  But like mental.
[01:08:00]  And yeah, you have that.
[01:08:01]  This, of course, will be seen as weakness by the entire Middle East.
[01:08:04]  That's because it is.
[01:08:05]  More than just the Middle East.
[01:08:07]  I'm so angry, dejected, and heartbroken.
[01:08:09]  Trump instantly went from hero to zero.
[01:08:11]  Are you disappointed with the ceasefire?
[01:08:13]  I'm disgusted.
[01:08:15]  We were in shelters, missiles over our head, while millions of innocent Iranians lost hope.
[01:08:20]  Oh, I think we've heard that one.
[01:08:22]  Sorry, it seems that the Iranians pulled for their own government.
[01:08:24]  I don't really accept this kind of, oh, we're annexing the freedom loving Iranians because we hate the mullahs.
[01:08:30]  I don't like the mullahs either, but the fact of the matter is they didn't try to overthrow their own government.
[01:08:34]  No, they didn't.
[01:08:37]  Interesting.
[01:08:37]  Terrifying comment, isn't it?
[01:08:39]  Yeah.
[01:08:40]  David Yearman says Whoever guesses in the comments when Turkey and Egypt conquer us, Iran drops an atomic bomb on us.
[01:08:47]  Because, I mean, that is the narrative, is that, you know, we do Iran and then we need to take on.
[01:08:52]  Turkey and Egypt.
[01:08:55]  And Noam Dances just says, well, we have got the Samsung Archon, which are Israel's secret nuclear weapons.
[01:09:04]  Aimed at nuking the whole world or the whole region when they feel threatened enough.
[01:09:10]  And so the idea being expressed here, we would rather burn the whole wide world than compromise with the people who live next to us.
[01:09:22]  I have heard reports, but it's just secondhand reports.
[01:09:26]  I've seen speculation that I think it was China and possibly Pakistan have communicated to the Israelis that if you nuke Tehran, we will nuke you.
[01:09:39]  I don't know if that's real or not, but.
[01:09:41]  I haven't seen that, but.
[01:09:43]  Okay.
[01:09:43]  That's interesting.
[01:09:46]  Since October the 7th, I haven't felt so humiliated as an Israeli as I do tonight.
[01:09:51]  This is loss, isn't an understatement, can't fall asleep.
[01:09:53]  So, yeah, I mean, you know, while the Americans are arguing about whether this is a win or a loss, Israelis are in absolutely no doubt that this is a loss.
[01:10:02]  So, overall, it might be a bit of a bloody nose for America, but actually, I don't think it's a terrible event for America first.
[01:10:09]  No, no, it's not.
[01:10:11]  The Zionists are completely routed.
[01:10:15]  Discredited.
[01:10:16]  Yes.
[01:10:17]  And discredited within the America First administration.
[01:10:20]  Well, the question is will the neoconservatives try everything that they can to bring Trump back into it?
[01:10:28]  And will Trump listen?
[01:10:29]  Yeah, I'm sure they will.
[01:10:31]  I'm sure they will.
[01:10:32]  Will he listen to them?
[01:10:34]  Because.
[01:10:36]  Congress can do all kinds of things to make sure that Trump can't actually fulfill an agreement, which is what they did with the Obama deal.
[01:10:45]  And so Lindsey Graham is now saying, well, we want any agreement to be ratified by Congress.
[01:10:50]  And given how many Congress members take AIPAC money, you know how they're going to vote.
[01:10:56]  And so they're going to either turn, either Trump goes back into the war or they turn on each other.
[01:11:04]  Yeah.
[01:11:05]  But if you're like an America First type person, This isn't the most disappointing result, actually.
[01:11:11]  No.
[01:11:11]  And in a way, it's kind of similar to our zero seats, where it's just, no, no, you have to flush out all of these people and give them a massive.
[01:11:19]  I mean, I'll jump ahead a bit because, I mean, when you think of American first, you often think of someone like Nick Fluentes.
[01:11:25]  I mean, I'll play, and actually, I don't agree with him here.
[01:11:27]  Let's just listen to a bit of this.
[01:11:29]  This is a complete and total U.S. defeat.
[01:11:33]  This is an absolute, there is no ambiguity here.
[01:11:37]  It's not debatable, it's not subject to interpretation.
[01:11:42]  We lost decisively.
[01:11:45]  It's like I said.
[01:11:46]  I mean, he's not wrong on that, but like the scale of the defeat for Israel is far greater than it is for America.
[01:11:54]  If I was Nick Fluentes, I would be very happy right now because the Israeli lobby has just been comprehensively crushed.
[01:12:02]  Crushed.
[01:12:02]  Yeah.
[01:12:03]  But the America First lobby is just standing there with a bloody nose saying, okay, I didn't really enjoy that.
[01:12:08]  Yep.
[01:12:08]  But I'm not down.
[01:12:10]  Like, you know, the America First guys in the Trump administration were like, no, I don't agree with this at all.
[01:12:14]  They're good.
[01:12:15]  They've still got a really solid reputation.
[01:12:17]  In fact, Vance's reputation comes out of this better because he was the most hardline against it.
[01:12:22]  So, like, I don't see this as.
[01:12:24]  I think Rubio survives it as well.
[01:12:25]  I agreed, yeah.
[01:12:26]  Pete Hegsev obviously doesn't, but, you know.
[01:12:29]  Maybe he can stay out of jail.
[01:12:30]  What was the guy in charge of the CIA as well?
[01:12:33]  Radcliffe?
[01:12:33]  Yeah, he came out of it all right as well.
[01:12:35]  And so it's just like, actually, this is not terrible for the movement that is America First at all.
[01:12:41]  And it could be a part of essentially flushing out the bad elements.
[01:12:45]  Who have got their tentacles in the American government?
[01:12:47]  The problem for the neocons now is that neither party wants them.
[01:12:50]  Exactly.
[01:12:51]  The Democrats can't be seen to side with the neocons, even though they wanted the war.
[01:12:55]  Oh, they love to, yeah.
[01:12:56]  Even though they wanted the war.
[01:12:57]  Not allowed.
[01:12:57]  And the Republicans can't side with the neocons.
[01:13:00]  And so now you're going to have this crazy dynamic of purges and counter purges, essentially, to see where they end up.
[01:13:11]  I mean, why would you want to hear from any of these sorts of people ever again?
[01:13:15]  Well, Well, because Trump was saying you should listen to Mark Levine.
[01:13:18]  Exactly.
[01:13:19]  Because he, and that's it, you can see it literally came down to Trump's sympathy for Netanyahu in Israel.
[01:13:25]  Exactly.
[01:13:25]  That's what this came down to.
[01:13:26]  Yes.
[01:13:27]  And if the next guy doesn't have that, that's it for them.
[01:13:30]  I'm expecting Whitcoff and Kushner to be out very soon.
[01:13:35]  Very soon.
[01:13:36]  They are supposedly the negotiations in Islamabad and Pakistan are going to happen with JD Vance.
[01:13:43]  Right.
[01:13:43]  Not with Whitcoff and Kushner.
[01:13:45]  Oh, really?
[01:13:45]  And Whitcoff and Kushner, I haven't confirmed this yet.
[01:13:48]  Right.
[01:13:48]  And Whitcoff and Kushner, when they went to negotiate with the Iranians over the nuclear issue, did not bring a technical team because they wanted the talks to fail.
[01:13:58]  And so the British brought a technical team to negotiate on behalf of the Americans.
[01:14:05]  So, what this means then is that the sort of Zionist slash neocon faction is just without any leverage whatsoever now.
[01:14:15]  They are fatherless.
[01:14:17]  Yes.
[01:14:17]  Completely adrift at this point.
[01:14:19]  Yep.
[01:14:20]  And they seem to be well aware of this.
[01:14:21]  I mean, this is Mark Levin.
[01:14:24]  That's my fear.
[01:14:25]  Sorry.
[01:14:25]  If we're going to have some kind of deal, Donald Trump won't be around forever to ensure that it's enforced.
[01:14:32]  That's number one.
[01:14:33]  So I trust him.
[01:14:34]  Number two, I don't trust the enemy.
[01:14:36]  I mean, I just took his hand.
[01:14:37]  Look at his hand.
[01:14:38]  Yeah.
[01:14:38]  The hand is shaking.
[01:14:39]  You can hear the voice tremble.
[01:14:41]  You can see the hand shaking.
[01:14:42]  I mean, this is a man who knows.
[01:14:43]  Look at his expression.
[01:14:44]  Just, oh my God.
[01:14:45]  Completely broken.
[01:14:46]  Yeah.
[01:14:46]  Completely.
[01:14:47]  And I tell you what, if there's one person I want to see taking a big fat L, it's someone like Mark Levin.
[01:14:51]  Yes.
[01:14:52]  We do cancel people.
[01:14:53]  Shut up.
[01:14:54]  I hate him.
[01:14:55]  I hate him.
[01:14:56]  Absolutely hate him.
[01:14:57]  But this is a man who knows.
[01:15:01]  He's not doing a cat turd.
[01:15:02]  He's not trying to say that this is a win.
[01:15:04]  He knows that he's lost.
[01:15:05]  Yes.
[01:15:07]  Um.
[01:15:09]  Of course, we should give an honorable mention to Jimmy.
[01:15:11]  They basically would rather destroy him than make him stop talking.
[01:15:16]  Jigsaw.
[01:15:18]  How does Laura Loomer take it?
[01:15:20]  Negotiation is a negative for our country.

=== Deep State Anti-Israeli Push (02:02) ===

[01:15:22]  I assume she needs Israel.
[01:15:24]  That's the thing you can't say.
[01:15:25]  I don't, yeah.
[01:15:27]  We didn't really get anything out of it, and the terrorists in Iran are celebrating.
[01:15:30]  Yeah.
[01:15:30]  I don't know why people are acting like this to win.
[01:15:32]  Agreed.
[01:15:33]  The Muslims, the woke Reich, and the Trump haters are using this negotiation to attack President Trump.
[01:15:37]  They praise the allies of Tucker Carlson and call for the 25th Amendment to be used against President Trump.
[01:15:41]  The thing is, like, the sort of.
[01:15:43]  You know, the Buchananites in the American right are vastly strengthened by this because they can say, Look, and that led us down the garden path, and look where it got us.
[01:15:53]  New York Times piece that literally puts Israel front and center it's Israel persuaded Trump to do this, and the actual sort of like the American authentic right embodied in Vance were completely against it.
[01:16:04]  Who was right?
[01:16:05]  Who was wrong?
[01:16:05]  Well, according to Laura Luma, the Buchananite right was right, as always, as they always have been.
[01:16:12]  Because I wish I'd figured out myself, and Academic agent is doing the quote tweeting here.
[01:16:18]  I mean, he's got this cope theory that the deep state is trying to expunge Israel, Israeli influence.
[01:16:25]  Maybe that's a strengthened theory, obviously.
[01:16:27]  And I mean, honestly, the way I see that is I'm sure there is a pro Israeli and an anti Israeli element within the deep state.
[01:16:33]  The anti Israeli element within the deep state has just got a massive shot in the arm.
[01:16:38]  Not just that, Israel has become a strategic liability.
[01:16:41]  Yes.
[01:16:41]  The issue for the Americans now, and really for the Israelis, is that now they know.
[01:16:47]  That they are an albatross hanging around America's neck, that they don't actually add strategic value, that all they do is extract, and that they are a massive strategic burden on the United States.
[01:17:02]  That's why they're reacting so badly.
[01:17:04]  And I'm just looking at what's going on.
[01:17:06]  They are bombing the shit out of Beirut.
[01:17:10]  They're going crazy because they want the ceasefire to fail, they want to force Trump back into the war.
[01:17:20]  I don't believe it is existential, but they believe it's existential.
[01:17:23]  They believe everything's existential.

=== Existential War Beliefs (02:23) ===

[01:17:24]  That's the problem.
[01:17:25]  Well, because they believe that.
[01:17:27]  And if they want to hit Turkey, they never compromise with anyone.
[01:17:30]  Therefore, eventually, it does become existential.
[01:17:32]  Yeah.
[01:17:33]  Well, I mean, if you force it to be existential, then yeah, I suppose it does become existential, but it doesn't have to be.
[01:17:39]  You know, it could just be Israel takes an L and just returns to the established borders that it had and it doesn't get territorial expansion.
[01:17:47]  It could be that.
[01:17:48]  That, for them, is a defeat.
[01:17:49]  Well, I mean, it would be a defeat, but it wouldn't be catastrophic.
[01:17:52]  They think.
[01:17:53]  Every defeat is going to be the last one.
[01:17:55]  I know, I know, I know.
[01:17:56]  I mean, as we've made the point throughout this whole podcast, you know, we're not anti American in this life.
[01:18:03]  We want the very best for America.
[01:18:04]  No, we're completely pro American.
[01:18:05]  But we can see that you've got a brain parasite sat on the top of your head, and the New York Times literally told us how it works.
[01:18:12]  However, no matter how much I want America to succeed, I cannot extend that to Lindsey Graham.
[01:18:23]  This is a turd that needs flushing.
[01:18:27]  Yeah.
[01:18:28]  Any day where Lindsey Graham doesn't manage to get one of his rare erections is a good day, to be honest.
[01:18:34]  I hate watching how excited he is to support Israel's Wars.
[01:18:38]  I hate it.
[01:18:40]  Did you see him in Disney with a children's toy?
[01:18:43]  No.
[01:18:44]  Why is he allowed near children?
[01:18:45]  Yeah.
[01:18:46]  Isn't he a confirmed bachelor?
[01:18:49]  Lindsey Graham was recently in, I think, Disney World, and he was walking around with a children's toy.
[01:18:58]  And I haven't seen anybody able to explain it.
[01:19:01]  I have not heard of that.
[01:19:03]  Yeah.
[01:19:03]  It's really weird.
[01:19:05]  There are photos and everything.
[01:19:06]  And the guy gives me the creeps.
[01:19:11]  Same here.
[01:19:12]  He looks disgusting.
[01:19:12]  Yes.
[01:19:13]  And I don't, you know, if I was going to, you know, anyway, I won't go down that road.
[01:19:19]  But we're not fans.
[01:19:21]  But look at this, like, you know, the complete humble pie Lindsey Graham is eating here.
[01:19:25]  Well, as I stated before, I prefer diplomacy, if at least the right outcome.
[01:19:29]  You mean you got.
[01:19:29]  You got bean.
[01:19:31]  This guy does not prefer diplomas.
[01:19:33]  No, he doesn't.
[01:19:35]  No, he doesn't.
[01:19:38]  Yeah.
[01:19:39]  So, this isn't Lindsey Graham eating humble pie, which is great.
[01:19:42]  Yep.
[01:19:43]  Again, if you're an American patriot, you should love to see it.
[01:19:45]  And I'm sure you will do, to be honest.

=== Lindsey Graham Humble Pie (11:13) ===

[01:19:47]  Yeah.
[01:19:47]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:19:48]  And, you know, as we keep saying, yeah.
[01:19:53]  This is going to be the narrative that comes out of it.
[01:19:55]  Weirdly, Vance being the sort of like figurehead of America first and the sort of like the truly nativist movement in America.
[01:20:02]  Vance has come out of this carrying you, absolutely carrying you as the credible alternative to all of this.
[01:20:09]  You know, because I mean, like, there's no way the Democrats can say, ah, well, we wouldn't have done that.
[01:20:13]  Because there are so many videos of Hillary Clinton being like, oh, God, Jay, if you were like me, I'm going to be bombing Iran instantly.
[01:20:17]  You know, it's going to be bam, bam, bam.
[01:20:19]  No one's going to stop us.
[01:20:20]  The only person who comes out of this with any kind of credibility is Vance.
[01:20:23]  Yeah.
[01:20:24]  I mean, there's that meme that we've seen a hundred times of the bullet going past Trump's head.
[01:20:28]  And one version is war with Iran.
[01:20:30]  And then he turns his head and the other version is war with Iran.
[01:20:33]  It is now, yeah.
[01:20:33]  Yeah.
[01:20:34]  But, I mean, he.
[01:20:36]  I mean, clearly, that whole leak exercise in the New York Times was a bid to push his chances.
[01:20:42]  Now, maybe it's artificial or whatever it is, but that is probably going to be the emergent narrative.
[01:20:47]  I don't know.
[01:20:48]  That might be something that comes just downstream of what the actual intention was.
[01:20:52]  Because I suspect the intention was really to kind of stitch up the Israelis.
[01:20:56]  Because when I read that last guy, I was just like.
[01:20:59]  That's what they're trying to do.
[01:21:00]  This person is not pro Israel who writes this.
[01:21:03]  No.
[01:21:04]  You are trying to sever the.
[01:21:06]  Israeli brain parasite from the American regime.
[01:21:09]  I mean, ultimately, I've got to give credit to Trump, not for getting into the situation in the first place, but everything after he was in, he preserved optionality the whole way through.
[01:21:23]  And I will give him this credit.
[01:21:25]  He had the bravery to take the smaller win, so the smaller loss now than I think 90% of past presidents.
[01:21:32]  You know, I saw someone tweet something to that, I think it was Collingwood on Twitter, who's just like, you know, I'm actually quite impressed by Trump for taking the L so quickly.
[01:21:40]  She could have dragged this out for years.
[01:21:42]  I think 90% of past US presidents would have basically just got stuck in this quagmire, would refuse to admit defeat, and it would be down to a predecessor to get them out of it.
[01:21:54]  And he did it within a bit more than a month.
[01:21:57]  So you've got to hand that to him, at least.
[01:22:01]  With that, shall we have a look at some comments?
[01:22:03]  Yeah, we've got words.
[01:22:06]  American here.
[01:22:07]  Do any of you believe that what is happening today will resemble the actual end of this conflict?
[01:22:11]  I don't know.
[01:22:11]  Oh, no, there's definitely.
[01:22:12]  Definitely more to play out.
[01:22:14]  Yeah.
[01:22:14]  I mean, yeah.
[01:22:16]  It really depends on Trump personally.
[01:22:18]  If he puts his foot down, he's handed the region over to Iran, but he's gotten out of the war.
[01:22:23]  But now what he's going to have to do is put his foot down on Israel, right?
[01:22:26]  So basically, he would have to intercede somehow with them, you know, ultra bombing Lebanon or whatever they're doing next.
[01:22:33]  And does he have the willpower to do that?
[01:22:35]  I mean, it seems that he's too sympathetic to Netanyahu.
[01:22:38]  I think what Trump would have to feel so personally slighted and embarrassed publicly by what Netanyahu's led him into.
[01:22:45]  That he is vengeful on it, but I just don't know.
[01:22:47]  I just don't see it.
[01:22:48]  Yep.
[01:22:51]  Bald Eagle says, a foreign country lying to another country, how easy a war is going to be?
[01:22:55]  Where have I seen this before?
[01:22:56]  All right, all throughout history.
[01:22:57]  Yeah, I know.
[01:22:57]  It's completely common.
[01:23:01]  Should we do the video comments tomorrow?
[01:23:03]  Just because.
[01:23:04]  Yeah, maybe.
[01:23:05]  This is a bit of a specific subject.
[01:23:07]  Sure.
[01:23:07]  It's worth keeping on the proper comments.
[01:23:11]  Sorry.
[01:23:12]  Yeah, we read your first post.
[01:23:13]  The Tea Party won a long war in the GOP.
[01:23:16]  The real war is between the people trying to extend the old national money energy control system and the people who want the new supernational.
[01:23:21]  Credit control, Iran has won such battle in that war.
[01:23:24]  I think that is one aspect to it.
[01:23:26]  You're right.
[01:23:28]  Sigilstone, I can't read that out.
[01:23:33]  But yes.
[01:23:35]  It's probably best not to read that one, yeah.
[01:23:37]  Seeing Americans mindlessly support this Suez tier entanglement and throwing venom at Europeans is a very bad form.
[01:23:42]  Yeah, it's been disappointing.
[01:23:44]  I think so.
[01:23:46]  A part of that is real, and I suspect a part of it has been bot farms as well.
[01:23:50]  Agreed.
[01:23:50]  And a lot of it is Americans, honestly, trying to protect their egos.
[01:23:53]  Yeah.
[01:23:53]  I imagine losing that sense of invincibility isn't pleasant.
[01:23:57]  I mean, I haven't had it within my lifetime, so I don't know.
[01:23:59]  But I can well imagine if I was alive during the Dardanelles or the Suez crisis, I probably would have been the same.
[01:24:05]  So I can't blame them.
[01:24:06]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:24:09]  In his credit, recognizing when your intervention failed and avoiding another 30 years in the sandbox is an accomplishment, too.
[01:24:13]  Yeah, it is.
[01:24:14]  It is.
[01:24:15]  Yeah, Trump stuck in the bubble.
[01:24:17]  That's true.
[01:24:18]  It would have been better to have black bag Kamini like with Maduro, no matter the cost.
[01:24:21]  I mean, that's true, but it wouldn't.
[01:24:23]  Well, that wasn't going to happen.
[01:24:24]  I'll go through some of the comments on the website.
[01:24:29]  Baron von Mork says, Carl, the reason Iran has so many missiles is because Israel's been calling for war against them for 40 years.
[01:24:34]  Yeah, I know.
[01:24:35]  I'm aware that the Iranians have been preparing for this for a long time.
[01:24:38]  But I didn't know the extent of the infrastructure they'd built up, basically.
[01:24:45]  And so many generals resigning, anyone could have seen this unwinnable.
[01:24:49]  Well, I mean, honestly, you're about to launch a series of operations and you have loads of generals fired or resigning.
[01:24:56]  Not good.
[01:24:57]  Not good.
[01:24:58]  It looks good.
[01:24:59]  Yeah.
[01:24:59]  It looks good.
[01:25:00]  Not a good indication for how the thing goes.
[01:25:04]  Jimbo says, it's the campaigning on no more wars thing that gets me.
[01:25:09]  Looks like Netanyahu got his man in the end.
[01:25:11]  The question is, what do they have on Trump?
[01:25:13]  And will his ego allow him to back out of the plan?
[01:25:15]  Well, I don't know what they've got on Trump.
[01:25:17]  I think Trump, just like the boomer that he is, has his entire life had nothing but an unvarnished narrative about Israel.
[01:25:27]  Like the American evangelical boomers, like Trump's Protestant, well, you know, nominally.
[01:25:32]  Yeah, and he's of that era.
[01:25:35]  He comes from that culture where it's just, oh, yeah, Israel, nothing but good.
[01:25:39]  There are guys in the Middle East and evil Islam is around them.
[01:25:42]  It's like, yeah, okay.
[01:25:43]  But he watches Fox News.
[01:25:44]  Exactly, right?
[01:25:44]  I mean, don't get me wrong.
[01:25:45]  I'm not saying there's nothing to that narrative.
[01:25:47]  You know, no one here is going to accuse us of being sympathetic to Islam, but there is a lot more to it than that that obviously Trump just doesn't feel.
[01:25:58]  Michael says the US would have been better off continuing with the special forces working with the Iranian resistance.
[01:26:03]  Yeah.
[01:26:03]  Like, just literally anything other than what would essentially just be a full scale war against the country to rally the population to the regime.
[01:26:11]  Like, literally anything other than that would have been a good idea.
[01:26:14]  You know, like it was just such a strange decision.
[01:26:19]  Tristan says, as a moderate who voted Maghreb, I do not understand the desire Maghreb allegedly wants war with Iran to topple them.
[01:26:25]  Well, Maghreb doesn't.
[01:26:25]  That's the thing.
[01:26:26]  That's why it's been so weird watching a bunch of American accounts who, as far as I could tell, I thought were Maghreb being like, ah, yes, we're totally for Israel's war against Iran.
[01:26:35]  It's like, No, it's Israel's.
[01:26:37]  It's bizarre because he didn't only run against Middle East wars.
[01:26:41]  He ran against this Middle East war.
[01:26:43]  In particular?
[01:26:44]  Yeah.
[01:26:45]  Which is why it's so weird that when Netanyahu's like, right, I've got my guys behind me and here's my pitch, Trump's like, hmm, maybe I will do that.
[01:26:52]  I was like, what are you doing?
[01:26:53]  And for guys like us who listened to the Trump campaign and said, yeah, we agree with everything he's running on, to now get accused of having TDS because we support everything that he ran on.
[01:27:07]  Sorry, guys.
[01:27:07]  No, we were hardcore Trump supporters because we liked what he was selling.
[01:27:11]  This wasn't it.
[01:27:12]  It wasn't the hair.
[01:27:14]  I like the hair.
[01:27:15]  It was the generous.
[01:27:16]  I mean, a lot of people thought it was funny, but it's that New York Times article.
[01:27:20]  Like, sorry, it's very clear that Israel dragged you into this war.
[01:27:24]  You were not cheering an American war.
[01:27:26]  When America was fighting its own wars, we were cheering America.
[01:27:28]  Black bag Maduro, fucking bunker bomb the nuclear.
[01:27:33]  That's fine.
[01:27:34]  These are all America's goals.
[01:27:35]  But this wasn't America's goals.
[01:27:37]  So we're not for it.
[01:27:39]  We can see that you're being led by the nose.
[01:27:40]  And I genuinely feel bad for those sort of like excessively online people who've got to now be like, well, my country's going to war.
[01:27:47]  It's like, yeah, okay, but it's going to war for someone else's country.
[01:27:50]  It's not your interests.
[01:27:52]  Yeah.
[01:27:55]  A good day for America first, a bad day for MAGA.
[01:27:58]  You see, I didn't really see MAGA and America first having such distinctions.
[01:28:02]  I always thought that, you know, MAGA was kind of like, you know, a nativist.
[01:28:06]  Bro, it's supposed to be the same thing.
[01:28:08]  It was supposed to be, but clearly it's not.
[01:28:11]  I mean, one has got the hooks into it and the other one hasn't.
[01:28:14]  That's basically what it is.
[01:28:16]  And honestly, you know, Nick Fuentes was ahead of the game on that, whether you like him or not.
[01:28:21]  You know, he, but I agree with your take, though.
[01:28:23]  It's like he doesn't seem to understand that America First has won here, actually.
[01:28:26]  Yeah.
[01:28:27]  Oh, yeah.
[01:28:28]  It's amazing to see how many Americans see this as a win.
[01:28:31]  It's like as soon as their gas prices go up, they'll do anything to bring them down again.
[01:28:35]  Well, again, like there is a silver lining to it for the America First movement.
[01:28:40]  There really is.
[01:28:41]  It's going to be very difficult for, The Zionists must muster a moral argument in their own defense in the future.
[01:28:47]  Yes.
[01:28:48]  They're pretty done there, you know.
[01:28:51]  A lot of people are not happy with Israel, which is understandable.
[01:28:58]  Michael says One of the problems that has long been that the US keeps running a magic soil foreign policy run by academics.
[01:29:04]  No one seems to understand Western thought is unique to the West, and failure to comprehend that has cost us dear.
[01:29:08]  Well, this is why this didn't go as planned.
[01:29:12]  As planned, yeah.
[01:29:13]  Yeah, absolutely.
[01:29:13]  They went into martyrdom mode.
[01:29:15]  Yeah.
[01:29:15]  And.
[01:29:17]  You know, I don't, it kind of has worked for them, you know, whether you like them or not.
[01:29:22]  So, anyway, I mean, there are loads of comments about this, but like, I'd, a lot of them are a bit inflammatory, and I don't want to read out anything too inflammatory.
[01:29:33]  Yeah, some of those are.
[01:29:34]  That'd be nice.
[01:29:36]  So, anyway, someone online says, lads, I'm going to be honest with you, only idiots take Trump literally.
[01:29:40]  Well, this is what I was saying.
[01:29:41]  Like, he's not literally going to end the thing.
[01:29:43]  He's like an avatar of America and we use hyperbole as a community.
[01:29:46]  This is exactly why I wasn't panicked about that shit.
[01:29:48]  And I saw people, oh my God, he said this.
[01:29:51]  You know, why are you taking that seriously?
[01:29:53]  And block capitals underneath.
[01:29:55]  He's like, who knows?
[01:29:56]  This is not him giving an actual literal statement.
[01:29:59]  Because even a very small possibility of a nuke is still something to be concerned about.
[01:30:04]  It's not a possibility of a nuke.
[01:30:07]  Hector Rex says, Ferris, I've seen rumors that China had a hand in negotiations.
[01:30:11]  They did.
[01:30:12]  Are they actually hurting more than we've been led to believe after losing Venezuela in the Iran war?
[01:30:18]  They are definitely hurting economically, but they are the ones.
[01:30:23]  Relatively hurting the least of the big economies.
[01:30:26]  They don't want the region to be burned to the ground.
[01:30:29]  They have massive strategic interests there.
[01:30:31]  They're slowly consolidating over the Muslim world.
[01:30:34]  They'd rather continue with that process.
[01:30:38]  They're not hurting anywhere near as badly as the Europeans.
[01:30:42]  And the Pakistanis were coordinating everything with the Chinese.
[01:30:46]  And I think that the Chinese kind of pushed Iran a little bit to negotiate.
[01:30:52]  So, no, the Chinese were definitely involved.
[01:30:55]  Lance Muller makes a great point.
[01:30:56]  Remember when Israel first broke Trump's ceasefire and he said they don't know what the F they're doing?

=== Chinese Strategic Interests (00:42) ===

[01:31:01]  That's why this was such a surprise that somehow Netanyahu was so rolled a 20 on the charisma check.
[01:31:07]  And Trump was like, Yeah, I will invite.
[01:31:09]  But they've defied you and made you look silly in public multiple times.
[01:31:14]  And you're still like, Yeah, okay, I'm going to allow them to do it.
[01:31:16]  And they do that to every American president.
[01:31:18]  Of course.
[01:31:18]  And all I'm going to say is I just don't understand the boomer evangelical view on Israel.
[01:31:24]  I just don't get it.
[01:31:26]  I don't see it as being, you know.
[01:31:28]  I mean, I'm not a religious man, so I don't understand, but yeah.
[01:31:35]  So, yeah, good news for America first and I think America in general.
[01:31:39]  So, congratulations on your win in that respect, and see you in the next one.