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June 26, 2025 - Lionel Nation
15:42
Iran “Hit” Was All Optics—Here’s the Dirty Truth They Won’t Tell You
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Okay, my friends, everybody's going to be opining today.
They're going to be coming out of the woodwork and they still are as to what's going on, what the Iranian bombing meant, and a lot of newcomers are going to be here on X. You're going to be people always saying, USS Liberty.
This is all they know.
USS Liberty.
Don't forget the Liberty.
What about the Liberty?
I don't know.
They feel this obligatory reference to making Liberty references because they kind of sort of know that something had to do with the false flag with Israel.
Anyway, or they quote, Sun Tzu, notice how I say that.
Versus General So, and they say things like, deception is the, you know, whatever.
And because they don't really know what they're doing.
But let me play a what-if for you.
What if President Trump now turns to AIPAC and listen?
Can we please stop pretending that there is not an Israeli lobby?
Can we just humor me?
I'm not saying it's wrong.
I'm not saying it's illegal.
Hell, look at Ted Cruz.
That was...
I mean, if ever there was something...
First of all, that there is no APAC influence, which Ted just destroyed.
And also, excuse me, that Israel doesn't have a nuclear weapons.
Come on.
I mean, they honestly, they say whatever you say.
No matter how crazy it sounds, just look at it.
Okay, fine.
So anyway, what if Trump now turns to AIPAC and says plainly, look, we delivered.
That's it.
A deal is a deal.
The promise action has been taken.
The box checked.
The debt settled.
No more.
Thank you.
We are done.
And with one strike or three, kind of unconfirmed, because we're not really sure exactly what was...
But we'll go no further.
The delivery's been made.
No sequel, no entanglement.
That's it.
You wanted us to bomb it?
Phoebe?
That's it.
We did it.
A deal's a deal.
Now, we're going to move on now.
You're on your own.
Oh, and no more weapons, no more nothing.
That's it.
There's no round two to this.
And because Iran's going to be saying, they never bombed this, or they're going to claim, you know, during that two-week period of time we had time to move, or two-week, two-month, whatever this particular interstitial moment was, we had plenty of time to move this.
Anyway, Netanyahu now may be coming to terms with the reality that whatever problems he hoped to solve with an American military strike remain unsolved.
Because he's thinking, okay, now what?
Now we're going to turn back to Gaza, which nobody wants.
Now, I'm rotating here.
The munitions may have dropped.
The bomb, the Moab, or the bunker buster may have dropped.
The headlines may scream of victory.
But the threat he saw on the horizon persists because never before have you ever seen Iran this united in this.
Iran, cunning as ever, cunning as ever, may have relocated assets.
They only knew this was coming for how many decades?
They might have hardened defensive, launched its own PR war, basically knew this was coming, because you see, for some reason, in America, and especially Fox News, who, by the way, should, I think, I think it was Steve Bannon who said, might consider or might be eligible for FARA type of registration by virtue of not only are,
put it this way, they're sometimes more BB than BB.
You know what I mean?
They're almost like, they're more, I don't want to say APAC all the time because people take the wrong impression, but they might be acting as agents of other countries because they sure as hell, I mean, are jumping up and down and so excitedly for reasons I don't know.
But anyway, here's what's going to happen.
Iran is going to be saying the attack was ineffective.
Sorry.
It bolstered our resolve.
It made us more involved.
And the aftermath is smoke and flash and mirrors with little substance.
And the real battleground, Gaza, refuses to go quietly.
If anything, the strikes have simply redirected global scrutiny, global scrutiny now, to a conflict Israel can no longer control through narrative manipulation alone.
They're back to square one.
This could be Trump's ultimate genius.
I don't want to say 4D chess and all that, but it's true.
Now imagine the footage being released.
Satellite videos, shaky cam drone footage, heavily edited montages and clips and the like with no time stamp, no verified location.
Iran releases its own clips, some from old war games or others dramatized for a propaganda effect, whatever it is.
But it's going to be a battle of authenticity and authentication.
And the truth becomes irrelevant, and each side narrates its own version of events, each conveniently selective, each declaring victory.
And the left is going to scream, what, that this is Trump's Gulf of Tonkin.
The right fractured begins to devour itself.
Then we get the woke right.
But the neocons, foaming for war, just they clash with isolationist America first base.
And in the meantime, in the middle, Trump, poised, strategically ambiguous.
I think, who was it?
Did J.D. Van say that?
No, no.
I mean, Hexett.
he perhaps, even more disinterested, moves on.
Having already declared the mission accomplished.
Mission accomplished, success.
That's it.
Move on, end of discussion.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
We're done.
Okay, BB.
Nice knowing you.
All debts are paid.
That's it.
Nobody's going to be primarily during midterms.
No, no, no.
Everything's fine.
They're going to say, wait a minute.
And Trump's going to, no, no, no, I told you.
You want to meet the bomb Iran?
I did it.
Yeah, but I did it.
That's as good as it gets.
Take it or leave it.
I did it.
Kind of going like that.
I noticed America to show you how little people, you know, AOC and Elan, I mean, Rashida Tlaib, they issued these statements.
This is wrong because you never declared war.
Oh, we've been saying that since Bush.
Look, it's also worth considering that the entire confrontation was coordinated performance.
Performative baby awkward.
Strategic choreography.
Agreed upon in whispers.
Iran, aware of the strike window, evacuated high-value assets.
The U.S., unwilling to launch a real war, issued advance warnings repeatedly, maybe through back channels.
The missiles flew, the headlines blazed, but the damage was de minimis.
Iran's response was theatrical.
As you can imagine, a few rockets into empty desert, no casualties, whatever.
Red lines uncrossed.
The Ayatollahs, the Mullahs, the whoever these folks are, they rally their base.
The Pentagon runs victory laps, and the world moves on.
And that's simple.
And that's what's happening.
This could be, because we don't know, and you'll never find out.
And that's not without precedent.
You know, the Cold War was full of this shadow boxing and pretending and taking a dive.
In 83, during Abel Archer, remember that one?
Both the U.S. and Russia danced dangerously close to nuclear war based on mutual misreading and scripted aggression.
And today's spectacle, many believe, is simply a reboot, a kind of unnecessary, again, performative confrontation to reestablish credibility.
The real victors of this, Iran.
Oh my God, they're making Iran great MIGA, I guess.
Carefully managed, carefully scripted, media perfect.
And today, the reactions are fantastic.
Because the group, the people that I listened to are not people you would be listening to.
But what both Iran, notice how I say that, and the U.S. need right now is stability, not war.
The theater of conflict, it's one thing, but it grants both sides domestic legitimacy.
The Ayatollahs, they say they stood their ground against the great Satan while Trump can have these 10 o'clock responses where he blesses God.
Do you see Marco Rubio standing there like, what am I doing?
Everybody else, J.D. Vance says, he's on the phone with Peter Thial Palantir.
How'd that do?
How'd I look?
Because Vance is thinking himself.
And Thiel, you know where that's.
We'll wait till that later.
Teal, by the way, Palantir is the Halliburton of our era.
Everybody just says Palantir every five minutes.
Anyway, Trump says he struck first, struck hard, were brilliant.
That's it.
Done.
Yet both claim victory.
And beneath this geopolitical dance, this choreography lies a political truth.
Trump needed this.
Not a war, not another Afghanistan, but a signature moment to reassert strength, to show that he means business.
As domestic problems are, as you can imagine, swirling about and going crazy, indictments mound and the media amplify.
The Iran strike offers a momentary kind of a reprieve because, believe it or not, America kind of coalesces against war.
It really does.
It's a chance to pivot the narrative, whether the strike was militarily significant, it doesn't really matter.
It was delivered politically, perfectly.
And it will dominate today's Sunday shows, if there are any Sunday shows.
It will bury the latest lead, the latest lead, whatever it is.
And most importantly, listen to this.
It allows Trump to return to the campaign trail, so to speak, as a wartime president without a war.
Israel, on the other hand, may have overplayed its hand.
By pressuring the U.S. into this kind of limited engagement, it exposed itself to global rebuke more than usual without resolving the core strategic threats.
The Gaza issue remains unsettled.
It's a powder keg.
The West Bank is simmering.
Hezbollah hasn't moved.
The Houthis.
Remember when we did that for that 30-day move against the Houthis?
We couldn't crack them.
See, we have this idea that an F-35 can take these people out.
No.
If Netanyahu hoped for some kind of an American umbrella to indefinitely protect Israel from regional adversaries, he made a mistake.
That umbrella may be broken and whatever.
It may have collapsed under the weight of some American disinterest, so to speak.
And the moment may signal a significant pivot, a significant reshifting, a recalibration for the conservative moment as well.
And the MAGA base, long wary of foreign entanglements, is watching carefully.
You know, they cheered when Trump tore up the JCPOA, but they didn't sign up for another Middle East quagmire.
So if the next chapter reads like Iraq or Libya.
In fact, recently Trump even referred to some reasons for his trepidation and hesitation.
He didn't want to do another Libya.
Anyway, but the movement fractures, MAGA is hurt.
But if Trump can sell this as a finite show of force, a surgical move, a reminder of American dominance without imperial consequence, he may just have pulled off the impossible.
A strike that satisfied Hawks and neocons, avoided war, reaffirmed sovereignty, and Iran saying, got it.
Now, of course, that depends on what comes next.
If Iran chooses retaliation and escalation against American forces, all bets are off.
If a U.S. service member is killed, if a tanker is sunk, if the Stratoform moves, if Hezbollah launches some missile barrage, then the calculus and the rules change drastically.
But if all parties, if all parties can maintain the kabuki, if the lines hold, then this may be remembered as a masterclass in strategic messaging.
Now, Trump, in that case, will not only have struck Iran's nuclear facilities, but also struck a blow against the globalist narrative that the U.S. must somehow deal with, and that we must forever bleed and sacrifice for distant lands.
This might be, I mean, I'm serious.
We are entering a new era of what you might call, not postmodern, but post-truth warfare, where power is projection.
Victory is a matter of who tells the best story.
And for now, Trump's story is winning.
And that, that, my friend, that, my dear friend, that perhaps is all that matters.
Maybe that's it.
Look, you're not going to hear Hannity say this because he's going to be saying things like, you know, Trump's a genius.
And okay, maybe.
But I say Trump might be a genius because Trump didn't do anything.
It was the best sleight of hand there ever was.
It was a work to use wrestling terms.
So what do you think?
What's your take?
Read it for me.
Read your thoughts.
Your aspects of this.
I'd love to hear it.
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