After yesterday's off-again, on-again back and forth, it appears that representatives of the US and Iranian government will be meeting in Oman tomorrow. What are the main points of discussion? Can a war be averted? Will the neocons around Trump win out?
After yesterday's off-again, on-again back and forth, it appears that representatives of the US and Iranian government will be meeting in Oman tomorrow. What are the main points of discussion? Can a war be averted? Will the neocons around Trump win out?
After yesterday's off-again, on-again back and forth, it appears that representatives of the US and Iranian government will be meeting in Oman tomorrow. What are the main points of discussion? Can a war be averted? Will the neocons around Trump win out?
After yesterday's off-again, on-again back and forth, it appears that representatives of the US and Iranian government will be meeting in Oman tomorrow. What are the main points of discussion? Can a war be averted? Will the neocons around Trump win out?
After yesterday's off-again, on-again back and forth, it appears that representatives of the US and Iranian government will be meeting in Oman tomorrow. What are the main points of discussion? Can a war be averted? Will the neocons around Trump win out?
This is the Ron Paul Liberty Report with Ron Paul, Daniel McAdams, and Chris Rossini.
We're all ambassadors of the Ron Paul doctrine.
And it's so simple.
Just tell the truth.
An idea that the time has come.
Everybody and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Very good.
I'm doing better than the market.
The market's a mess.
So before we get into our very interesting foreign policy discussion, we're going to talk about Iran and all the pretenses going on there, but at least there's somebody talking.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
But I do want to mention that there's a bit of adjustments going on in the marketplace.
Yukahai came in.
It even made all the news services because a lot of people lost a lot of money today, at least on the paper.
And I was just mentioning to Daniel that sometimes it's interesting when they have these bad days that I get overwhelmed and but interested in.
I wonder how many dollars changed today, how many dollars were lost.
It used to be quite a few million, quite a few billion.
Now somebody's going to come up.
He says, you know, I lost a trillion dollars today.
But that will be probably temporary.
I think this is an opening salvo of the correction that has to come because things were really booming.
And that is expected.
That was a predictable thing.
The timing of it on how long the boom would last and how it ends and what evolves depends on so many other factors.
But the size of the market, whether it was gold or silver or crypto or whatever, things were out of whack because that's the way human nature is.
And sometimes they do that on the opposite.
Sometimes they get frightened and then they sell too fast.
But I think people should concentrate and think about how did things like this happen?
And just to summarize it, one, it has something to do with the constant debt that we run up in Washington.
And that debt being monetized by the Federal Reserve policy.
And then the artificial setting of interest rates is a menace to the marketplace.
And that causes people to invest and do things that they otherwise wouldn't if they had to depend on savings, which would give you an honest interest rate.
So to solve this malinvestment and debt, I unfortunately, as far as promising wonderful days and everything in the near future, I think that stuff has to be liquidated.
And I think this is a whisper.
And there's been a lot of liquidation today, but I really don't think that is going to settle.
I think it's sort of an opening salvo, and this is going to go on for a while.
And we're going to talk about some talks going on between Iran and the United States.
We wished it was really good news, but buried in that is part of what I just was talking about because We're involved over there and we're about to continue bombs over the world and all the mischief that we get involved in.
Talks and Trouble00:13:36
So, Daniel, do you are you a little bit more optimistic than I am?
Well, no, not completely.
But, you know, yesterday I was sort of at the edge of my seat.
I was looking at things all day.
I was expecting, I was almost expecting an attack because we had the talks between the U.S. and Iran were scheduled for Istanbul, Turkey tomorrow.
And then there was a push.
I mean, I really think, Dr. Paul, there is a war going on around Donald Trump, President Trump.
And for all our criticisms of him, I honestly don't think he wants to go to war with Iran.
And it's not because he's a saint or he's a peacenak.
It's because he likes to bluster, but he also is no dummy.
He understands that if he attacks Iran and it blows up in his face, it's going to be really damaging to him.
And people are going to look at him as a loser.
He doesn't like that more than anything else.
He doesn't like that.
The problem is that he has neocons all around him.
Whenever he takes a step in the direction of backing down, of looking for a way out of the problem, sometimes most of the time he's created these problems for himself.
But whenever he does that, the neocons around him come screeching toward him, trying to literally trying to undermine him as he's trying to work.
The people who work for him, not unlike the John Boltons and the Mike Pompeos of his first administration.
So nevertheless, these talks were scheduled for tomorrow in Turkey.
The Iranians have indicated that they do not want to combine talks on nuclear enrichment with the other two talking points, which have to do with the ballistic missiles that Iran has and Iran's choice of allies in the region.
So Iran's, there was a famous, I should have brought and put it up because there was a famous discussion yesterday between the U.S. and the Iranian foreign minister Rogchi, and they said, and the U.S. said, the only way that we can avoid war is if we talk about both of these things.
And the Iranians said, then it's war, because we're not going to talk about them together.
So anyway, the smoke cleared.
Hopefully, I mean, Trump got to his senses, or someone did.
And so there's the announcement.
Sorry to make this a long one.
The announcement then came that the talks would indeed take place, but in Oman tomorrow, and that the discussion would only be about enrichment.
So for those of us who do not want this war, that's a good sign so far.
We should probably cross our fingers.
You know, you touch on the subject: who's responsible?
And I think you fairly described Trump's dilemma.
But he still, of course, has a lot of responsibility.
But people do look for this.
And sometimes, way after the fact, and after the damage is done, and after the wars are fought, and then the people tend to wake up when there's a lot of suffering.
So the people have to endorse this in a way.
It's when the people say no more war, it's coming.
There's more people saying that now.
But as long as the people are complacent about it and said, we like that, we need a strong president.
There's a dangerous world, but we still have to have somebody sending us bread and butter.
And of course, that leads to trouble.
And also, blame goes to those people who lobby to continue this process.
And there's a lot of people who still do or it would change.
And also, you know, the blame has to go along to Congress because we know of people running on certain conditions.
And I think Thomas Massey is an example of running on a position that would be more in the tune of the Constitution and working for peace.
And yet he's getting blasted.
So it's the way that Congress is handled and how this works.
So, you know, having motivations that are different than what happens, it still has to be worked out because I think you're right.
I don't think if Trump was half asleep and woke up, I think he'd tell us, no, I don't want these wars.
We've got to do this.
I've got to win the peace prize.
Something like that.
So it's a real shame.
But again, one thought that came to my mind with these negotiations, they're not quite the same.
But there was a time that I listened very carefully in 1962 during October with the missiles in Cuba.
And we had two people get together, but they were not low level people.
It was Kennedy and Khrushchev, you know, talk.
And that was a big event, but it doesn't seem like the things going on right now is of that character.
Yeah, at least not yet.
I mean, it could be.
The Iranians promised a regional war if the U.S. attacks.
And I think the question people might ask would be, why are the neocons going so nuts about this?
I mean, they are fullbore.
Everyone around President Trump, unfortunately, he hates people like Thomas Massey and Rand Paul and loves people like Lindsey Graham and Michael Rubio, which is a real problem.
But I really do think that the neocons are absolutely going nuts about this.
They cannot allow these talks to proceed.
They can't allow the separation of the enrichment, which probably can be settled on.
The Russians have already offered to take possession or at least to hold custody of the highly enriched uranium that the Iranians have, which would take a huge, would be a huge compromise for Iran, possibly a solution there.
So that could be solved.
The other two can't be solved.
Iran says absolutely not.
We will not.
We're not going to disarm ourselves at the demand of Israel because we've seen every other country in the region that has voluntarily disarmed continuously gets bombed.
Nobody would disarm in those circumstances.
But I think the neocons, Dr. Paul, are going crazy because they are seeing that Iran is reaching a level of deterrence.
People are hesitating to attack Iran now because we've seen what happened in the 12-day war.
We've seen how effective their missiles are, and they're only getting more effective.
They're receiving military equipment reportedly from China and Russia.
They're being more effective in their deterrence.
I think a lot of these people realize it's now or never with Iran.
If we don't attack them now, it's going to be, despite the rhetoric of they're at their weakest they've ever been, which is a Lindsey Graham argument, I think they realize that Iran right now is at the verge of being someone, even without nuclear weapons, you just don't want to mess with.
You know, I see that the neocons, they certainly are a big problem and they have a lot of influence and they have a lot of clout with the media and they get their message out and they galvanize a lot of people in opposing the kind of things that we talk about.
But it is blended in with a system that I think has gotten a lot worse than the last year, and that is the system of corporatism, where corporations are very much involved and in all kinds of ways, you know, subsidizing them, punishing them and threatening them and internationally as well, not only our own companies, but the countries around the world.
It's always an intimidation.
But this idea of corporatism, you know, fits in.
And the neocons need the association with the corporations because it's a military-industrial complex.
And that's a big problem, especially when they're getting support from the media that help to all galvanize the people who have real concerns and are worried about what's happening.
There's a lot of money to be made in war.
You know, there's no question about it.
The other thing about Iran, now, obviously, you know, Trump likes to say it, and people like to believe it, and it's true to a degree, but the U.S. has a massive military.
I mean, you compare it next to Iran, there's no comparison in terms of the resources that we have, the types of weapons.
The U.S. has a massive military on paper.
But the thing people don't understand is because this would be a war of aggression that the U.S. launches from 6,000 miles away, we can't bring all of our resources.
It's impossible because we have an empire, as you always say, and our empire is scattered around the world.
So if you have a massive military, but you've got it everywhere from Africa to Korea to Germany, you can't bring the entire force of that to bear on this conflict.
Whereas because Iran is in a defensive position and they don't have bases overseas, they don't have an empire, they can focus their entire relatively smaller military on one task, which is to defend the country against the U.S.
So when you look at it that way, the disparity isn't as great as a lot of people may think.
And, you know, they should learn a little bit from history, but they don't seem to.
And I think of the example of Vietnam.
Think of money.
You know, it was astounding how many bombs and weapons we used in Vietnam.
And we had the weaponry, you pointed out, we have the weapons now.
And here, nobody would ever have predicted.
And Johnson was aghast when he woke up one day.
He says, My God, we're losing this war.
And that's when he resigned.
That's when he finally got out.
He says, I don't want to be the president, first president to lose a war.
See, losing the war for political reasons is more important to them to seek peace and prosperity for everybody to get along.
It's always a political thing on how you handle it.
And am I going to be re-elected and what's going to happen to the Poles?
And they play these games.
And they don't talk a whole lot about the profiteering for this.
And that, of course, is big time behind our policies.
And sadly, Nixon fell into that trap too when he came in.
He wanted to get out.
He ran on getting out and he ended up expanding the war in many places.
Maybe a million more people died.
Right.
You know, and they had the rise of, yeah.
So, anyway, the Khmer Rouge and all that.
So let's look at a couple of actually, let's look at, I want to play a clip now.
This is Rubio.
And I just want to set it up before we play it because the president is the person who makes foreign policy in the country.
He's subject, obviously, to oversight of Congress.
He makes the foreign policy.
The Secretary of State answers to him or should.
But so here is the Trump administration deciding to take these two things apart and discuss it.
And you have the Secretary of State actively undermining U.S. foreign policy by saying, if you separate these two, these talks will not be meaningful.
Let's listen to what Rubio had to say on this topic.
This is very concerning, I think.
It is a short clip, but I think it says quite a bit here.
As far as the topic of those discussions and what the agenda needs to be, look, I think in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things.
And that includes the range of their ballistic missiles.
That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region.
That includes the nuclear program.
And that includes the treatment of their own people.
As far as the topics are trying to add things into what the agenda needs to be to make the Iranians say, no, we don't want to talk.
He doesn't want these talks to go forward.
And if you actually go to this on the actual clips, not the video, but just the clips from the article, go to the one Rubio's demands.
It's like three or four in, if you can.
sorry i'm messing everything around today but rubio's demands reflect the israeli position which is designed to sabotage any chance of of a deal to ensure there is a war president trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb iran in recent weeks and has repeatedly shifted the pretext He said in an interview on NBC News on Wednesday that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quote should be very worried about his threats and buildup in the region.
So that's where Rubio is coming from, Dr. Paul.
He wants to sabotage any chance of a deal.
And, you know, from the Israeli perspective, the Israeli government wants this war, but Iran has already said all of our bombs at first are going to go right toward Israel.
So the Israeli people are not going to benefit from this war.
And even if their air defense is better than we expect, better than it was in June, a lot of Israelis are going to die.
And the country is going to be pummeled for no reason whatsoever.
So Israelis themselves should also be furious about this.
You know, he would like, Mario, would like to stop the debates and the argument and the effort to stop this thing.
But if they can't, and I think they're assuming they might not be able to, but what you were describing very well is if you do come and you have this discussion, we are going to work very, very hard to stir up trouble that makes sure they fail.
Why Policy Creates Mess00:02:34
You know, and that's not very encouraging.
This is the reason, Daniel, this gets messy.
You know, it gets all emotional and political and financial.
This is the reason that the policy that we follow makes so much more sense.
Of course, it makes sense to us, but how about other people?
Because it's a whole thing that not being involved in all this, you know, just the thing.
And it's not just here.
There are a few other places that we continue to do the same thing.
I mean, where do you want to go?
Ukraine, Venezuela, and you can find everything.
Somalia, United States.
So it's a real mess because they accept the policy that we are the policemen of the world.
And yet George Bush, well, I thought with his good speeches when he was running for president, we are not the policeman of the world and we don't need to be doing this.
So his preliminary attitude about it was very good.
But, you know, it's notorious because if you look at Wilson and Roosevelt, and I will keep you out of war, you know, keep you out of, how long?
And all along they were lying through their teeth because they were planning the wars and planning to get in.
Absolutely.
Well, you know, the other thing we want to talk about is related to that because it really is U.S. foreign policy in a nutshell.
And it's become so commonplace to bomb other countries, it doesn't even make the headlines.
In fact, I didn't even realize this until I turned to a good friend David Camp this morning on antiwar.com, which I do every morning.
And Gardena KlausetCon says it launched five strikes against ISIS in Syria within one week.
So in a week toward the end of January in early February, the U.S. bombed Syria again five more times.
As Dave writes, U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday that its forces conducted five strikes against ISIS in Syria from January 27th to February 2nd, while the U.S. is also backing the Syrian government, which is led by Hyatt Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot of al-Qaeda with a similar ideology to ISIS.
So we are backing ISIS essentially in a better-looking suit in the leadership of Syria, yet we're bombing ISIS forces in Syria.
So the bombmakers are the ones that always went out.
Inconsistent Solutions00:05:02
It sounds inconsistent.
It sounds inconsistent.
And what a mess.
What's it going to solve?
And once again, for me, it's much easier to look at it because it shouldn't be complicated.
It shouldn't be that you have an easy solution to the mess they create.
Because if you had a different position and worked with people and had a non-interventionist foreign policy where we weren't threatening people and we didn't bow to the military-industrial complex or the demands of Israel, I mean, the whole world would be different.
But we're not there yet.
We're not there yet.
But as you started the show about the markets, we're getting there, but we're going to have to make some hard decisions.
Well, I wanted to just do a quick follow-up to our show yesterday because we were talking about how President Trump was attacking Thomas Massey.
And I know we're beating this horse, but it's just so, it's just so depressing.
President Trump went to the national prayer breakfast.
And anyone who wants to look at some of the other crazy stuff he said, just go on X. There's a lot of ones.
He said something about he doesn't think that the part of the Bible where it says you need to have a humble heart applies to him.
That's one of the things he said.
It's sort of funny, but weird.
But this is sad.
I mean, we are at the National Prayer Breakfast.
And you might want, this is a video, so you're going to want to grab your earpiece.
And here's what he said about Thomas Massey: a person who votes with him 91% of the time.
Here's what he had to say about Thomas Massey.
If we cue that last video, let's listen to this one.
You might want to get that thing out of the top corner.
There we go.
He's an automatic no.
No matter what, if we did welfare reform, if we did the greatest thing in history for religion, no matter what we did, no matter how good it is, greatest tax cuts.
And we just did the greatest tax cuts in history.
He voted against.
He voted.
Now, no matter what we do, this moron, no matter what it is, we can put them all together.
I think, Mike, what would you say?
The top five things, name them.
We'll put them in one bill and we'll put them before we'll get 100% vote, except for this guy named Thomas Massey.
There's something wrong with him.
We call him Rand Paul Jr.
You know, it's like they just vote no.
They love voting now.
They think it's good politically.
The guy's polling at about 9%.
It's not good.
Well, Rand Paul Jr. I think it doesn't have the effect that he thinks it has, I don't think, because you're looking at Massey's numbers in the district and they're high.
He was doing this at the prayer breakfast.
Prayer breakfast.
That's his prayer.
That's his prayer.
It's unhinged.
Anyway, I don't want to believe these things.
This is so bad.
Yeah, the audience couldn't see you, but when he said that about that, I could see your face tense.
It's just awful.
Anyway, there's no way I can top that.
I want to thank everyone for watching the show.
I do want to do a shout-out, by the way, because there's a lot of good comments about our new background, and we're still tweaking things and everything.
But I really want to shout out to Dan Smotz.
He's the one who did our intro.
A lot of people talk about the intro being great.
I think it's great too.
He does great work too.
System is down, I think, is his podcast.
But anyway, thanks, Dan, for helping us out on this.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
And I too want to thank all our viewers for tuning in and the support we get because, you know, sometimes we run into roadblocks and sometimes people in high positions sort of turn against us unfairly and with fibbing, if that's what you want to be modestly calling it, distortion.
And all of a sudden, the credibility is lost.
So, but I still am optimistic that the people are smart enough if they pay attention, they know when they are being lied to, and that that way of operating just doesn't last.
And the whole thing is the bigger the government is and the more involved we are, the more it becomes bipartisan.
And the people go along with it, and the more they fib and lie to the people.
So the people have to be alerted to that.
We hope that we're able to participate in that alarming and allowing to people to realize what's going on.
But we do know that there's a lot of support out there, and we are going to do our best to keep putting, you know, keep promoting our message of liberty and peace.
And I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.