Piers Morgan and Danny Danon clash over Israel's preemptive strikes on Iran, with Danon citing IAEA data on enriched uranium to justify actions against an existential nuclear threat while Morgan disputes intelligence accuracy. The debate intensifies regarding October 7th failures, war crime accusations in Gaza, and the legitimacy of banning foreign journalists. A subsequent confrontation with Professor Mirandi highlights the danger of interviewing targets under bombing threats, as panelists further dissect the legality of Israel's attacks versus Iran's 60% enrichment levels and the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal. Ultimately, the episode exposes deep fractures in global consensus on Middle East security, questioning whether military intervention or diplomacy can prevent regional escalation. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Preemptive Strike Against Iran00:10:34
We showed our capabilities.
We showed the amount of intelligence we have and we will decide, you know, what we will do next.
I think you forgot.
You're an American, not an Israeli.
Do they or do they not support and fund Hamas and Hezbollah?
Seek?
Like, you cannot be this stuff.
Israel attacked Iran.
Stop lying.
Stop lying.
Everything you just said, with all due respect, is absolute propaganda for the terrorists.
Ten years ago today, Donald Trump comes down the golden escalator.
And what did he say?
No more foreign, endless wars.
Your friends, your Zionist allies, they have bombed buildings belonging to the Iranian television.
I'm in one of those buildings.
The guard right now is standing outside the door telling me to leave.
I was yelling at him, telling him to go.
I'm going to finish this interview.
What we saw on Thursday night from Israel was not a preemptive strike.
It was a preventive strike, which is illegal under international law.
I don't know why you're believing them on this.
If the UN's experts are correct, then Iran is or was three days away from enriching enough uranium to build an atomic bomb.
That would support Prime Minister Netanyahu's claim that Iran is months, not years, from developing nuclear weapons.
A nuclear Iran would be a serious threat to Israel and frankly to all of us.
Now, we know this because the ruling mullahs are not subtle about their intentions.
Let's suppose to believe that chanting death to Israel, death to Britain, and death to America is just excitable rhetoric like globalize the intifada.
There's a lot that we don't know for sure about this crisis.
Frankly, the foreign policy experts don't have a stellar record on weapons of mass destruction in Middle Eastern dictatorships.
Today, the IAEA, whose evidence is the basis of a lot of this, said the IDF is exaggerating the damage it's done to Iran's nuclear facilities.
As recently as March, a U.S. Director of National Intelligence said this.
The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.
The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.
Well, Netanyahu has been talking about the imminent threat of a nuclear weapon in Tehran for at least 33 years, and his core message has always been that Europe, and most importantly, America, should be very afraid about it.
Here he was making that point to me in 2013.
If President Rouhani picked the telephone up and called you, would you take that call?
Yeah, we're not averse to calling.
It's a question.
I'll tell you what, I'll tell them.
You want the sanctions lifted?
Stop your nuclear program.
Why do you need underground bunkers?
Why do you need ICBMs?
The sole purpose of ICBM's intercontinental ballistic missiles is to carry nuclear payloads.
By the way, not to Israel, to Europe and to the United States.
They already have missiles that reach Israel.
Why do you need to enrich uranium?
Well, most of the allies who are furious with Israel's increasingly brutal war in Gaza are in lockstep with Netanyahu on Iran, but that doesn't mean there is any public support for being dragged into a full-scale war.
And Mission Creep is Netanyahu's speciality.
If Israel has neutralized Iran's nuclear threat, then I support that.
But I think I speak for most when I say I don't support mass civilian suffering in a prolonged war was contingent on support from everybody else.
In a moment, we'll debate all this with my panel, the columnist of Sunday Times, Matthew Saeed, host and founder of the Young Turks, Check Yuga, Ben Ferguson, who's the co-host of the verdict with Ted Cruz, and Jack Pasobic, the senior editor at Human Events.
But first, I'm joined by Danny Danon.
He's the Israeli ambassador to United Nations.
Mr. Danon, thank you very much indeed for coming back on Uncensored.
First of all, can you just explain to me where you believe Israel currently is in this operation?
Thank you for having me again, Pius.
So we are pushing back Iran.
You know, it's going to be a long process.
You know, for years, Iran built those capabilities.
And we know Iran is a big country, and they have a lot of capabilities.
And when I speak about capabilities, it's not only the nuclear program that everybody speaks about, it's also the ballistic missile industry.
You know, we found out the intentions of Iran to build a massive force of ballistic missiles that can actually compete with the U.S. and Russia.
And by the way, unfortunately, we are paying the price almost every night because you see the damage of those ballistic missiles.
So you can just imagine if they had thousands of those missiles at the same time targeting Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, it would be devastating.
So we are targeting the nuclear facilities, we are targeting the ballistic missile infrastructure.
And overall, we know about the extermination plan of Iran against Israel.
So we are pushing them back.
There are certain sites which you have been unable to get to because you don't have enough weaponry.
America has that weaponry.
Would you like America to help you, to give you the weaponry you need to get into where you believe a lot of this nuclear stuff is being hidden?
Well, that would be a U.S. decision.
You know, when we look at what's happening in Iran, they are threatening not only Israel but the U.S.
They are burning American flags.
They try to assassinate President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
So I think the American people understand that we are fighting their fight, but it will be their decision to decide if they want to get involved and how to get involved.
But in the past, you know, it's not for the first time.
We were the ones who took the initiatives.
You know, when we attacked the reactor in Iraq in 1982, we did it ourselves.
Same was the case when we attacked the reactor in Syria.
It's not the same.
We are talking about a much, much bigger task this time, you know, a strong country.
And when you look at the numbers, Israel is a tiny country.
You know, 9 million people compared to 90 million people in Iran.
You look at the size of Israel.
You know, Iran is 70 times bigger than Israel.
So it is a challenge for us, but we decided not to wait anymore.
There are many people who say that Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular has spent three decades talking about the imminent danger of Iran developing nuclear weapons and enriching uranium.
Why should we believe now that it is any nearer to being done than in those 30 odd years?
Well, first you need to listen to the IAEA.
You know, if you don't want to believe us or our intelligence, they said themselves that they have enough enriched uranium, that it's enough for multiple bombs.
And then you look at the intentions, and I tend to believe the Iranians.
When they say they want to destroy Israel, I believe them.
When they say that they will use those weapons and they have a sign that actually with a clock in the square in the middle of Tehran, I believe them.
So we don't take any chances anymore.
And after October 7th, you know, we saw the evil of our enemies.
So we cannot wait and decide to wait more whether Iran will have the bomb and will use it or not.
We are not going to be in that situation.
That's why we took the preemptive attack.
And you know, when you have the intention and you have the ballistic missiles and you have enriched uranium, so until when should we wait?
Until they actually send the bomb to Tel Aviv?
We will not do that.
Your defense minister Katz this morning posted on X, the arrogant dictator from Tehran has become a cowardly murderer who fires targeted shots at the civilian home front in Israel to deter the IDF from continuing the attack which is collapsing its capabilities.
The residents of Tehran will pay the price and soon.
This was seen by many people, including myself.
I responded to that to say that this seemed to be a direct threat against the civilian population of Tehran.
He later said, I would like to clarify the obvious, even though it clearly wasn't obvious.
There is no intention to physically harm the residents of Tehran, as the murderous dictator does against residents of Israel.
And they carried on the clarification.
But it was a very stupid thing of him to post, wasn't it?
To even infer, albeit in a way that he says came out wrong, that the civilian population, the residents of Tehran, would become targets of Israeli strikes.
Well, as you said, Piers, the Minister, clarified his statement, but I would say more than that.
Not only we care for the people of Iran, we pray for them.
And if they are watching us now, I want to tell them we feel their fears and we have nothing against them.
We know that they are being oppressed and we pray for the day that they will be able to live normal life and we can go back to where we were 46 years ago before the revolution.
You know, we had daily flights between Tel Aviv to Tehran.
You know, we had real bond with the Iranian people and I believe one day it will be the same.
So we pray for the Iranian people and we hope that they will not be oppressed in the future.
And for us, you know, we do everything we can to minimize civilian casualties.
You know, even today, we announced that we are going to attack a certain area in Tehran in order to minimize civilian casualties.
And they are doing exactly the opposite.
Every night they are targeting cities, neighborhoods in Israel.
And unfortunately, every night we have casualties, families, kids that are being killed from those missiles.
You've been very successful in taking out a lot of the senior military commanders in Iran and a number of nuclear scientists.
This is according to obviously what you have put out.
But the Ayatollah remains alive.
It's been reported that President Trump has vetoed any attempt to assassinate the Ayatollah.
But I mean, out of interest, if you're going to target all the top people of the regime, why would you not target the Ayatollah?
Pierce, I will not go into detail, but I will tell you that.
You know, we showed our capabilities.
We showed the amount of intelligence we have about the whereabouts of the leadership of Iran and the IRJC.
We showed our capability to fly everywhere, not only above Tehran, everywhere in Iran, which is a huge country.
So we have those capabilities and we will decide, you know, what we will do next.
Journalists Inside The Operation00:09:33
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Just explain something to me, which is that this has clearly been a very well-planned operation.
There are reports of Mossad agents being all over Iran, planning all sorts of stuff involving drones and targeting sites and targeting people and so on.
So from a military perspective, a highly successful operation so far, as indeed was the operation against Hezbollah, where 3,000 terrorists were targeted with the pager devices.
Again, very successful, very precise, very targeted.
Mossad's fingerprints all over it.
Which does beg the question, and it's one that I've asked, I've not really had a satisfactory answer to.
But why is it that with Mossad, one of the world's foremost intelligence agencies, being clearly at the forefront of going after terrorism with Hezbollah and with now Iran, why was it completely incapable of knowing that right on the doorstep of Israel, Hamas, who were given government or elected governors,
given free reign when Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, that they were able to spend 20 years building a highly sophisticated, very deep tunnel network and were then able to plan one of the world's worst terror attacks in modern times.
And even after doing all that, the only way that Israel's been able to go after Hamas has been to basically flatten as much of Gaza as it can and in the process kill 50, 60, maybe 70,000 or more people, including maybe three quarters of that being civilians.
People seem sort of non-plussed why Mossad seems to drop the ball so badly in Gaza and with Hamas and yet been so successful in other parts of the region.
So first I agree with you that we have to give credit for the Mossad for the operations in Lebanon and in Tehran.
You know, we have no border with Iran.
We have no dispute with them.
It's 1,000 miles away from Israel and still we developed very impressive capabilities in Iran.
Regarding to your question, you know, it's important to understand that Mossad is not in charge of Gaza or acquiring intelligence in Gaza.
In our government, in our system, we have to do that.
But why not?
You don't mind me interrupting.
Why not?
I mean, they've been right in the heart of Tehran.
They've been in the heart of Lebanon.
Why not in Gaza?
Doesn't make any sense.
So I will explain my point that, you know, Mossad is dealing with external threats.
And the Shabak, the Internal Security Agency, deals with the threat within Israel, which includes Gaza and Judea and Samaria.
So yes, I agree with you that we failed on October 7th and we're going to have to inquire exactly what happened.
You know, I was deputy minister of defense 10 years ago and I sat in many important intelligence committees.
I think one of the reasons for our mistake was that we focused too much on Lebanon and Hezbollah.
We always thought that Hezbollah is the imminent threat and they will be the one who will actually invade Israel.
They will be the one who will attack Israel.
We put a lot of resources, a lot of energy looking north.
We should have looked south.
And that was a huge mistake.
We paid a heavy price for that.
But I agree with you.
You know, we're going to have to look into what happened in Gaza and why it was neglected.
There's a very long and detailed and very damning report that's come out today in New York magazine, extremely thorough and detailed and well researched, which concludes that Israel has almost certainly been perpetrating a lot of war crimes in Gaza.
This is something which your own former prime ministers have been saying now as well.
Obviously, Israel's government has emphatically denied this, but at the same time persists in having a ban on any international journalists coming into Gaza to verify what is actually happening on the ground.
Surely the best way to establish whether you have or haven't been acting within the law is to allow international journalists in to do their job, isn't it?
Well, first I have to disagree with this language.
I deal with that at the UN every day when people spread lies so easily, blood libels, you know.
Well, these are former prime ministers of Israel, with all due respect.
I mean, they're not exactly people who you would normally expect to accuse Israel of war crimes.
He was prime minister 20 years ago, and he's bitter, and he doesn't like the current government, but not only from the inside.
You know, Tom Fletcher, a senior diplomat here at the UN, claimed that 14,000 babies will die within 48 hours.
Yeah, he made them a lot of people.
That was a stupid thing to say, and he made a terrible mistake for which he's apologized.
Yeah, but he didn't apologize for claiming there is a genocide in Gaza.
So people, you know, spread those lies, and then sometimes they retract it, sometimes they don't.
And we have to deal with the consequences, with the incitement.
So yes, I agree with you.
There is suffering in Gaza.
I agree with you.
It is painful for Israelis and Palestinians.
But let's stick to international law.
Let's look at the facts.
We are doing our best.
Even now, when we are in the middle of a war with Iran, today the centers in Gaza were operated.
The humanitarian fund and four centers delivered tens of thousands of packages to Palestinians.
So I think we should look at the facts and to understand that we still have hostages in Gaza.
And this conflict will end with the hostages coming home and Hamas getting out of Gaza.
Maybe they will be deported like what happened in Lebanon in the 80s with the PLO.
Maybe they will surrender.
But I think that will be the end of this conflict.
And why haven't you let the journalists in?
Well, you know, first of all, today you have access, you have Wi-Fi, you can see everything that happens in Gaza.
You have reporters inside Gaza for all agencies that support.
You know, for us to take responsibility for people coming in and out in a war zone, it's something we don't feel comfortable with.
All I know is, with all due respect, Ambassador, is that very soon after October the 7th, Israel's government instructed the IDF to take the world's journalists to the scene of the appalling crimes of terrorism that were committed in Israel.
But when it comes to what is going on in Gaza, there's been an almost total ban on any international journalists.
And with all due respect, it's not your concern whether international journalists will be at risk or not.
That's the risk assessment of their own companies who employ them, as it is in any war zone.
You should allow them in, and then this whole question of whether Israel is operating within the law or not can actually be established by independent journalists coming from around the world.
And until you do that, it's going to raise the obvious suspicion that you are doing things you don't want the world to know.
Well, it's a legitimate debate, but you know, just imagine what would happen.
God forbid, you know, one of the journalists will die.
Well, nearly 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed.
So it's not unusual for journalists to be dying.
You know, I have to beg with you also.
You know, I don't buy those numbers.
You know, also when you...
Well, you don't buy any of the numbers.
That's the problem.
Again, all due respect, Ambassador.
Israel can now just say that you don't buy any of the numbers because they're all supplied by the Palestinian.
When it comes from previous...
It comes from Hamas, I don't buy it.
Right, but historically, in this conflict, going back decades, actually the Palestinian Health Authority numbers for casualties have turned out to be broadly accurate after the event.
So it's only in this particular flare-up, this particular war, as part of the ongoing conflict, that suddenly Israel's government is saying you can't believe any of the numbers.
To which, again, I simply say there's a very easy way to verify this stuff.
Let in the journalists.
No, you know, we saw that those numbers that were exaggerated from the beginning, they were used by Hamas for propaganda.
And I agree with you, it's hard to find out the exact numbers, you know, but when you read those numbers, you ask yourself, so where are the Hamas terrorists?
They didn't die in this conflict.
You know, they claimed they were all civilians, we were all children.
You know, we know it's exaggerated.
But you know what?
I agree with you that they're suffering in Gaza.
and there is casualties in Gaza.
But the blame is on Hamas, it's not on us.
Verifying The Attack Claims00:12:17
We can end this war tomorrow.
If they would release the hostages, lay down their weapons, maybe get out of Gaza, and then we can think about a future for the region.
It's interesting.
The sooner it will happen, the better it will be.
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Look, it's interesting to me that as somebody that supported Israel's right to defend itself after the appalling events of October the 7th, those terrible terror attacks, and it did so for many, many months.
But as I become increasingly critical of Israel's government strategy in Gaza, and so have many other people, including many of your allies, that at the same time, you've got a lot of broad support for what you're doing with Iran, because people understand that Iran has become this kind of fulcrum of terrorism in the Middle East.
We have to draw a close to our interview, but it does, again, beg the question, if the IDF had been more targeted in conjunction with Mossad in going after Hamas, rather than just leveling Gaza to the ground and killing tens of thousands of civilians as it went after Hamas, if it had been as targeted or as smart as it was with Hezbollah and now in Iran, you may have had a lot more support than you're currently getting for what you're doing in Gaza.
Probably you're right, but I want to add one point.
It's much harder to deal with a terrorist organization that hides among civilians and use them as a human shield.
That's why this war is very long, you know, 20 months.
You know, it's a very long war for us.
It's different.
You know, it's easier to fight a military or to fight another state than to fight a terror organization which is so involved with the civilians in Gaza.
So it's much more challenging.
But I hope that the people in Hamas understand that we are determined and hopefully in the next few days they will accept the framework that the US put on the table and we can move forward to see a ceasefire and the release of more hostages.
Ambassador Donald, I appreciate you coming back and on sensor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Well let's go to the panel.
Chenk, I could see you reacting pretty violently to what you were hearing there.
So what is your response to what you heard from the ambassador?
Yeah, when Israeli officials speak, it's like they're in fantasy land.
So they've leveled Gaza.
And the reason that they leveled Gaza is because they're going to take Gaza.
And that's not speculation anymore.
When those of us who were opposed to their war crimes and genocide said they were going to take Gaza, that it had nothing to do with self-defense.
It had to do with land acquisition, as all the wars that Israel starts has to do with.
They said, oh, that's anti-Semitic.
How dare you?
Now their cabinet has said, yeah, we're going to take Gaza.
It's a conquest.
So now they've started another offensive war in Iran.
They'll pretend to be the victims.
That's what they always do.
Oh my God, I had to start a war for self-defense.
Nonsense.
Garbage.
Just like you said, 33 years, they've been saying, any day now, Iran's going to have nukes.
It was a lie.
Nanya, who went on Fox News over the weekend, admitted they weren't even close to having it within a year.
Then they said, oh, it's because of ballistic missiles.
The ambassador there again referred to the ballistic missiles.
An incredible number of countries have ballistic missiles.
Is Israel going to attack all of them?
Is Israel going to invade all of them and then pretend that it's self-defense?
How many?
And then they talk about, oh, we try so hard to not have civilian deaths.
And then American media plays along.
No, they killed hundreds of civilians in Tehran.
They always kill civilians.
They always kill more civilians than their opponents while pretending that they care so much about civilians.
They're the ones starting all the wars.
We all have eyes and ears.
We just saw them start this war.
And every time American media plays along and pretends that there's a fantasy land where Israel's the victim and they, oh my God, they just had to attack yet another Middle Eastern neighbor.
They just had to take Gaza.
So almost when you hear an Israeli official speaking, they're lying.
They're lying almost 100% of the time.
I mean, I don't want America.
I'm going to come to Ben.
I'm going to come to Ben Ferguson to respond.
All I would say is, clearly, when you have the leader of Iran, the Ayatollah, who's gone on record as saying he wants to get rid of Israel, and when you have Hamas in Gaza, who are also wedded to getting rid of Israel, it's not completely irrational that they would feel that they are under threat.
Now, you and I have debated a lot the way they've gone about things in Gaza.
It's markedly different how they've gone about things in Iran and with Hezbollah.
But I don't think we can pretend that Israel is not under threat from either Iran or Hamas.
Ben Ferguson.
Yeah, what he just said admitted one massive aspect of the conversation.
There was an attack on Israel.
There was the kidnapping and the torturing and the raping and the murdering of innocent people that were gathering to have a fun weekend.
The idea that he is forgetting what happened on October 7th and acting like Israel just woke up on a random Tuesday and decided to start attacking Gaza is absolute anti-Semitic insanity.
We know what started this.
And the second part of this, he says, hey, are they going to attack everybody in the world that has ballistic missiles?
I lock my doors at my house every night for the people that might be right outside of my house.
And you have someone that is saying, we want to annihilate you from the river of the sea and chants death to Israel and says they want to murder you because you are Jewish and to act as if they don't have a right to defend themselves and to attack Gaza after you have a massive terrorist network, an underground tunnel system that allows for them to go after you every single night where you have to have an iron dome to protect and defend.
So everything you just said, with all due respect, is absolute propaganda for the terrorists because you admitted the fact that Israel was attacked first that started the whole damn thing.
Okay.
No.
Matthew Saeed.
No, that's the thing.
heard was propaganda for terrorists just now from Ben, the terrorist state of Israel, who's been occupying the country.
Who planned the attack and who supported the attack on October 7th?
Why don't you let them go?
Why don't you let a foreign people go?
How much do you want to oppress and humiliate and murder them?
Now you're going to murder Iran.
And by the way, Ben, I think you forgot.
You're an American, not an Israeli.
Act like an American.
Not an Israeli foreign agent.
Why are you working for a foreign government?
Why don't you care about Americanism?
I don't work for a foreign government.
We got no interest in this war.
All right.
I get it.
I have an interest in people being able to live a life without fear of bombs coming into their backyard, hitting their apartments, hitting their homes from a terrorist organization.
Iran is a part of that.
And all of the Middle Eastern neighbors of Israel, they live in fear of Israel, the terrorist state attacking.
Israel doesn't go on the office.
Whatever does is attack their neighbors and take their land.
All right.
Tommy.
Why did you admit the opportunity to do that?
I have one question here, Tom.
Singh, Singh, I've known you for a long time.
One question.
Why did you admit in your opening statement that Israel was attacked on October the 7th?
Why did you not mention it one time?
Because that is the fact that you cannot bring up because that is what started the catalyst of where we are today.
You know it, so you didn't mention it because you want to indict Israel.
They're attacking people.
It's bullshit.
All right, listen, I do want to let the other two panelists come in.
Check, you'll get a chance to come back.
It started on October 7th.
Let's not go back to the whole civilization.
You're still murdering Palestinians?
Still murdering Palestinians.
Gentlemen, there are four panelists.
Okay, you love genocide.
There are four panelists.
Guys, there are four panelists.
You can come back on in a second and have further thoughts.
Matthew Said, you wrote a great column at the weekend.
And you were talking, and I thought it was very striking to me, about the difference between Vladimir Putin rattling his nuclear saber, because, as you pointed out, he's an extremely materialistic guy who's amassed hundreds of billions of illicit gains at the expense of his people.
And he's the last person that would want to actually die for his country by pressing nuclear buttons, which would lead to his immediate vaporization.
I've been saying that for ages.
However, it is a different thing when it comes to Iran.
There will be people there with very fundamentalist ideals who might think if they're cornered, who might think if there's nothing else they think can get them through, who might think nothing of using a nuclear weapon if it came to it.
It was the same kind of nihilistic attitude that we saw from al-Qaeda, that we saw from ISIS and so on.
That's right.
I mean, a couple of quick points.
Firstly, I like to think of myself as broadly pro-Israel, but I think, like you, feel that the destruction that has been visited upon Gaza is a moral, political, and strategic calamity.
When it comes to Iran, the reason I think that the logic of nuclear deterrence won't work is because they are, many of them in the regime, religious fanatics.
They believe they have absolute truth.
And the psychology of that is very interesting.
It means that anyone who doesn't subscribe to their truth is an infidel and that they are wrong.
And they glorify martyrdom and believe that if they can take down infidels, they will go through a door into paradise where they will be blessed forever.
And I grew up in the 1980s.
My father was born as a Shia Muslim.
And I followed the Iran-Iraq war extremely closely.
And viewers might be interested that the clerics, the fanatics who took over after the 79 revolution, indoctrinated young, innocent children that they were supposed to protect and asked them to walk and often run into minefields and blow themselves up.
And they were then depicted in government propaganda as heroes, their limbs strewn across battlefields that many of us have now forgotten about.
That to me is a death cult of great danger, not just to Israel, but to their own people.
Because if they acquire a nuclear weapon and they visit one upon Israel, as they have claimed they would do, Ahmad Dinejad said Israel must be wiped from the pages of history.
The supreme leader described it as a cancer.
Call me old-fashioned, but I take these people's words.
I take them at their word, if I can put it that way.
But also a danger to the Iranian people who would die in a counter-strike.
And by the way, my views of the regime in Iran are corroborated by 70% of the Iranian people, a fantastic people, an ancient civilization, most of whom have been immiserated by this regime that has also destabilized the wider region through proxies and the Hamas and Hezbollah.
And as you say, Hamas is genocidal too.
So one can have, I think, an approach of saying, yeah, Israel have got things wrong.
Confronting A Cowardly Regime00:17:22
Of course they have.
The person who was on before the ambassador doesn't seem to be able to admit that.
But my goodness, when Israel goes after the regime in Tehran, not the Iranian people, the regime, I think all right-minded people should support it wholeheartedly.
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Why is that absurd, Shank?
Because here we go again with the neocons, just like they did with the Iraq war.
We're going to liberate the Iranians by dropping a bomb on their heads.
And once we murder them, they'll love us and they'll want to get rid of their regime.
You can tell all these stories about the regime, and those are true.
They're fundamentalists.
They're not good guys at all.
Saddam was not a good guy.
That doesn't mean that we had to invade Iraq and cost ourselves several trillion dollars and over 50,000 Americans dead on behalf of Israel, who at the time called Iraq their number one enemy.
And who had a problem?
But that is not what's so important.
Iran did not attack Israel.
Israel attacked Iran.
Stop lying.
Stop lying.
Israel attacked Iran.
Iran did not attack Israel.
I'm perfectly happy to say Israel is the aggressor.
They did through their proxies, peers.
They did through their proxies.
Iran is a good idea.
I don't think they can do it.
When anyone tries to offend and fund Hamas and Hezbollah, I think, like, you cannot be this dumb.
I understand that you're a propagandist for the regime, but you and I both report Hamas.
But America first didn't want any multiple terrorist organizations.
They have no funding without Iran.
When I hear weaponry without Iran, they attack Israel every day.
You know that.
You're not that dumb.
You're a smart guy.
You're a propagandist, but you know that.
So when I hear you guys describing Israel's enemies, what you're actually doing is projection.
You're describing Israel, attacking all of their neighbors, killing civilians.
Sure, no.
Art aggressive military III.
Let me bring in an acquisition and wiping out their enemies.
All right, you know who said from the river to the sea?
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Who's actually doing from the river to the sea?
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Who started all the wars?
Benjamin Netanyahu.
America, get out of this war.
This has nothing to do with us.
These guys work for Israel.
Let me bring in Japan.
The idea that the Iranian people want to bring in Jack.
The idea that the Iranian people want to be invaded and bombed is insanity.
They do not want that.
No, but I do think a lot of people in Iran.
I do think a lot of people in Iran would probably much prefer to have a different kind of ruler than they currently have, who operates such a draconian and repressive region.
They do not want Israeli rulers.
Okay, well, that's a different question.
Let me come to Jack.
You've been waiting very patiently.
Jack, you know, Chenk mentioned America first and how this is incongruous with America first.
Well, at the moment, this appears to be an Israeli operation.
They've started this war with Iran.
Donald Trump appears to be taking a position of we don't want to get involved here, making it clear this is not being done with America's obvious physical help.
Albeit, I don't think he's too bothered about it happening and probably quite pleased if it does destabilize Iran.
But where does this all sit with Donald Trump's America first ideology?
Should America, if it comes to it, I mean, if Iran suddenly attacks some American base, for example, should America get involved in this war?
Well, Piers, this is not America's war.
This is a war that is confined to two parties in the Middle East.
This is a war where the United States faces, absolutely faces the threat of escalation.
And as you mentioned, this mission creep and spilling over into the wider footprint of American military that exists throughout the Middle East.
And I don't just mean Iraq and Syria.
I mean all of the American bases, which are clearly within range of, you mentioned the proxies, you mentioned all these other forces out there.
Of course, it spikes the danger of spilling over, not to mention the IRGC has the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and imagine what that would do to global shipping and oil prices.
By the way, they haven't done that.
And 10 years ago today, so 10 years ago today, Donald Trump comes down the golden escalator.
And what did he say?
No more foreign, endless wars.
And instead, why don't we focus on the problems at home?
He talked about, obviously, illegal aliens.
He talked about deportations, but he said millions and excuse me, trillions of dollars spent in Iraq, trillions spent in Afghanistan.
And what did it get for us?
Nothing.
Dead soldiers, wounded soldiers.
We got absolutely nothing out.
And you want to talk about destabilization?
Well, I think those wars, the massive wars on terror, wars that, by the way, when I was in the United States military, I did participate in, at least in an intelligence capacity.
But what did that do to the region?
It destabilized it.
Syria, completely destabilized right now.
Iraq, completely destabilized.
And Afghanistan, the Taliban is even in a better position than they were before we got involved because they have all the U.S. military equipment that we left there.
And so every time the U.S. gets involved in one of these things, it actually seems to make the situation much, much worse.
Okay, let's take a short break, panel.
I'll come back to you for your reaction to this next interview I'm about to do.
It's with the Iranian academic and former advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiating team, Mohamed Morandi.
Professor Morandi, thank you for coming back on uncensored.
This is a pretty terrible situation for Iran.
It looks like Israel has caught your military napping, caught your leaders napping.
They've been asleep, it seems quite literally in some cases, as Israel launched this surprise attack, which has been so far stunningly successful and had comparatively small retaliation from Iran, which suggests that maybe you don't have the capability to do much about what is happening to your country.
Well, first of all, I have to point out some nonsense that your guest said.
I fought in the Iran-Iraq war as a volunteer, and I was part of the war effort for six years, on and off.
I was wounded four times, and I survived two chemical attacks.
There was no children being pushed over minefields.
These are myths that Westerners, Western media, Western elites have been promoting for many years in order to demonize Iranians and to portray us as fanatic.
Right now, Pierce, your friends, your Zionist allies, they have bombed buildings belonging to the Iranian television.
I'm in one of those buildings.
And the guard right now is standing outside the door telling me to leave.
And I was yelling at him, telling him to go.
I'm going to finish this interview.
We are not intimidated by you, your government, the United States, or the Israeli regime.
This was a blatant act of aggression.
People were murdered in Irani radio and television just minutes ago.
And I tweeted it.
And your colleagues have seen it.
And this building is also a target.
Your allies target journalists.
Your allies have murdered over 200 journalists.
And you are complicit in this genocide.
Well, let me respond to that.
You repeated the lie.
Listen, I've seen you, Professor.
All due respect, Professor.
You are complicit.
All due respect, Professor.
I've seen you doing this kind of shtick in the last few days on all sorts of shows.
And let me just respond.
The reason that I actually think that Israel has a right to do what it is doing with your regime is that your regime has been the fulcrum for terrorism in the Middle East now for decades.
Through Hezbollah, through the Houthis, through Hamas.
It has done whatever it can do to destabilize the region, to terrorize Israel and anyone else it doesn't like.
It's a draconian, oppressive, appalling regime, which is deeply unpopular with many Iranians.
And every time I've seen you appear in the last few days, you've had a big smirk grin on your face, as if somehow you know better than everybody else, and that somehow we are misinterpreting your rulers and your regime, and that you're all a bunch of really nice people who have nothing but good intentions for the rest of the world.
When in fact, it's the complete opposite.
And finally, Israel said enough, and they're coming after your nuclear capability because your own ruler, the Ayatollah, has made it clear that he would very much like to see Israel removed from this world.
And if you hear that and you're in Israel, then you're going to take action to stop that happening.
So that would be my response to you.
Well, if your rant is over, I would point out that you are a dishonest person and a dishonest so-called stuff as much as you like.
But you were too cowardly.
Be quiet for a moment.
Be quiet for a moment and let me speak.
Don't tell me if you're going to call me a coward.
If you're going to call me a coward, allow me to speak.
Then I won't be quiet on my own show.
Especially not from someone like you who spews disinformation.
I am the one in this building that has been evacuated and I'm only sitting here because of you.
So allow me to speak.
Well, keep the ad hominem attached to yourself then.
If you're going to call me a liar and a coward, I'm going to jump in and take you on.
You are.
So show some respect or don't believe.
You are a coward.
You are a coward.
You did not come to Iran when I invited you.
So you have no right to.
I wouldn't trust going to Iran.
Why on earth would I trust going to Iran?
As your guest guest said nonsense about as your guest in Iran, with your contacts with the Iranian regime.
I wouldn't trust that as far as I can know.
So don't comment about Iran if you don't come here.
Well, let me give you some facts about your country.
Let me give you some facts.
See where I'm wrong here.
Women face severe restrictions when it comes to marriage, divorce, inheritance, child custody, and so on.
Compulsory veiling, punishable by flogging and prison sentences.
Women punished for bad dressing, defined as exposing any body parts below the neck.
Women banned from certain professions.
They can't be judges.
They can't be in certain positions in government.
A ban on independent political parties.
Civil society organizations, trade unions, LGBT people suffer systematic discrimination and violence.
Closing shops that have so-called improperly veiled customers.
Authorities censor media, jam certain television channels, continue to block off filter mobile apps, social media platforms, executions, including those of children, torture and other ill-treatment are widespread and systematic.
State television can often air torture-tainted confessions, arresting and sentencing people who break fast during Ramadan.
Anyone who speaks out protests against the regime can be subjected to the death penalty, flogging, prison terms, and other severe penalties.
It doesn't sound like a great place for me to visit with all due respect, Professor Mirandi.
So you can tell me that I'm a coward and I'm a liar, and I can tell you that you prop up personally, you go on the airwaves and you disingenuously prop up and grotesquely defend a terrible regime, which is now getting, as many people see, its final comeuppance for constantly threatening Israel with getting a bomb and taking it out.
And that's what this is about.
You know it and I know it.
And you also know that your regime has propped up the Houthis and Hezbollah and Hamas.
It has been the octopus with its tentacles of terrorism spreading all over the Middle East.
So you can call me what you like, but what you can't do is deny what I've just said.
You are a coward.
So you keep saying.
So you keep saying.
You are a coward.
That's all you can say, isn't it?
That's all you've got.
It's all you've got.
Do one of your smart greens.
You help enable genocide in Gaza for two months.
You don't want to let me talk.
You don't want me to talk.
Oh, I do.
But if all you're going to do is call me a coward and a liar, then why should I keep listening to that?
Pointless.
It's what you've been doing on the airwaves for days.
Because you say nonsense.
Really?
What was nonsense about any of this?
What was nonsense about anything I said?
Everything, but you just rant on and you think this way you can convince your audience that you, while your allies are murdering Iranians, while your allies have murdered this.
Your regime has been responsible for mass murder.
Your regime has been responsible for mass murder.
Let me talk.
You are afraid.
You are afraid of letting me talk because you know that your narrative, your narrative is falling apart.
Your narrative is I'm a coward and a liar.
Have you got anything else in your tank?
Any other arguments?
I'll give a couple of tweets a couple of weeks ago.
You won't let me talk.
You're afraid of letting me talk.
You're afraid.
I'm not afraid of you, Professor Mirandi, but you look to me like you're afraid because you know now that the game is Iran's terrorism game.
I am in a building.
I am in IRM.
I am in IRM.
I am in the Iranian radio television building and it has been emptied because they say they're going to bomb this building.
And I stayed here for you.
And you are responsible for justifying these criminal acts.
And those colleagues of yours in Iran who are true journalists who died today, their blood is on your hand.
And you're not.
No, my asking is because I'm not part of the Israeli government.
You are too cowardly to let me talk.
You're just talking nonsense.
You're a coward.
You're talking nonsense.
You won't let me talk.
If I was a coward, I wouldn't have had you on.
I wouldn't have had you on if I was a coward.
But I knew what you would try and do.
You try and do this with all the journalists you talk to, and I'm afraid it doesn't work anymore.
Your stick doesn't work anymore.
You defend the indefensible.
You go ad hominem on every host you ever talked to.
You were at it yesterday with a Sky News presenter.
And I'm not going to take it from you.
Sorry.
Just not going to.
I don't care.
You're a genocide enabler.
That's what you are.
And you're a terrorism defender.
You're a terrorism defender.
Yeah.
You defend a terrorist regime.
That's what you do.
All the perfume of Arabia will never clean those hands with your fears.
Kill.
Keep on the killing.
Keep on justifying murder.
Keep on demonizing Iranians and Palestinians and Lebanese and keep on killing.
Keep on.
I demonize terrorists.
What I do is demonize terrorists.
And the main fulcrum.
The main fulcrum for terrorism.
You are angry, which has been incredibly damaging to the people, to Palestinians, to Lebanese, to Iranians.
You are the Iranian regime.
You are a coward and an enabler of terrorists.
You've nothing else to say.
Professor Mirandi regime took Lebanon.
Professor Miranda, it's good to end with one of your good to end with one of your good to end with one of your smirks because they really play well with an audience, I can tell you.
Playing A Dangerous Game00:15:31
When they see you smirking away, it really is a good look.
You're too cowardly to let me talk.
You're too cowardly talking because all you've got to say.
All you've got to say is to attack me.
All you care about is attacking me.
That's not talking.
You won't let me explain anything.
You don't want to explain.
You want to just call me a liar and a coward and a genocide?
We got anything after Israel Lebanon and captured the Yes, you are.
You are lying.
You are lying about it.
You're an idiot.
Professor Mirandi.
Thank you for the interview.
I wish you are safe there.
I do.
Genuinely.
Okay, thank you for joining us.
I appreciate it.
I'm going to go back to the panel now.
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I mean, Matthew said, I've talked to Professor Mirandi a few times, and I've watched him on the airways in the last few days getting increasingly angry watching him because he is just a ludicrous individual who comes out and constantly defends the indefensible when it comes to that Iranian regime and has very close contacts with the rulers of Iran.
But you know, it's an interesting thing that in between all the attacks he was spewing about me, the fact that he's sitting there now in a media building by the sound of it, which he's been told to evacuate.
This is getting very serious and very real, isn't it, for people in Iran?
Very serious.
And you reminded me a bit of, I don't know if a comical alley.
Yeah, I mean, exactly going to say that.
It's just completely ridiculous.
Completely deluded.
Deluded and clearly shilling for the regime.
And I just think of this incredible civilization that stretches back thousands of years with a GDP per capita of like $4,000.
Israel's is over $50,000, a freer society, one that wishes to develop and grow and be prosperous rather than to live in this medieval, religious, fanatical worldview.
As all the things that you said there, Piers, were completely true about the way they degrade women and repress free speech and all these other punitive measures that are just so awful to endure.
One thing I'll throw in, though, is I agreed with the previous speaker on the panel who said that the Afghanistan war was a mistake.
It would have been better not to have gone in.
I think that's a fair counterfactual analysis.
I actually was against the Iraq War II.
But I think we should confront something that I don't think was confronted by the America First lobby, which is that if one agrees that Iran would like a nuclear weapon, as the Nuclear Weapon Atomic Energy Authority has said, 60% enrichment, getting very, very close.
And if you also believe, as I do, that they would likely use it, then let's not pretend that America can stay out of this.
Even a relatively small nuclear war would lead to a nuclear winter that would have an effect around the world of catastrophic proportions.
It would affect farming all around the world.
It would lead to famine.
We can't allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
The idea that the counterfactual is staying out and allowing a nuclear, potentially a nuclear strike to occur would be catastrophic.
I think we need to face up to that truth.
All right, Cheng, I mean, you were shaking your head through all that.
I don't understand why you feel comfortable being such a defender of Iran.
I'm not.
No, no.
You see, that's total propaganda.
Okay, so let's break it down one by one.
Okay, so number one, when I see the Israeli ambassador earlier, he sounds like Baghdad Bob to me.
Like Iran is the aggressor.
No, Israel is clearly the aggressor.
We all saw them start the war.
Second of all, they say, oh my God, we're so worried about civilians.
Israel always kills more civilians than their opponents, and by an order of magnitude.
For example, Hamas, terrible.
They killed 36 kids on October 7th.
Awful, right?
Israel has killed 500 times as many kids.
So this guy pretending to be an Iranian expert is telling us about how much he's concerned about women.
Israel has killed 20,000 women in Gaza.
How about their rights?
How about the rights to those women to stay alive?
How about all the civilians?
Why are you avoiding criticizing?
So when I see you guys.
Hey, but check.
Why are you criticizing?
No, I'm not avoiding it at all.
I'm not avoiding it at all.
Let me explain.
Let me explain.
Why are you ducking saying criticism of Iran?
It's a simple question.
I'm not ducking it at all.
You ready?
Yeah.
You ready?
It's simple.
I don't like the Iranian regime at all.
Okay.
I'm an atheist now.
They would kill me first.
I got no interest in the Iranian regime.
But the Israeli regime would also murder me.
So I want you guys to be fair and balanced.
So don't tell me that the Iranian regime is super dangerous to its neighbors while Israel actually attacks all of its neighbors, including Iran.
So tell me about how dangerous the Israeli terrorist regime is as it attacks civilians again and again and again.
Except that you say, well, Muslim lives don't really matter.
That's why you guys don't count the Muslim civilians that Israel murders on a regular basis.
So look at that.
What would they murder you for?
The Iranian regime is bad, and it is.
And it is.
It's just like Saddam's regime.
Hold on, Ben.
Let me finish.
So the North Korean regime is terrible.
The Chinese regime runs concentration camps for Uighur Turks.
Those Turks are my people.
What are you for?
The Russians invaded Ukraine.
These are all terrible regimes.
That doesn't mean we have to start a war.
And it doesn't mean that America has to fight Israel's war for it.
Well, America isn't fighting it in the middle of the country.
At the moment, America fight your own war.
One dollar, not one true.
America is not involved in this war at the moment.
Ben Ferguson.
Yeah, it's amazing he just said that Israel would kill him.
I asked him seven, eight times.
That's not true.
What would they murder you for?
What would they murder you for?
And I said over and over again, you said that Israel killed him.
They murder journalists more than any other country.
They murdered more journalists than World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and Afghanistan combined.
Let me be clear.
They murder more journalists than all other conflicts in the world combined.
They murder Muslim Americans, 12 of them.
And America does not defend American citizens in the occupied territories.
All right, changes.
Leninist murders, Americans, all never defends us.
See, this is the problem.
When you say things that are this egregious, everyone watching around the world is going to look at this and say, this guy is an idiot because you didn't answer the question.
You said that Israel will murder you right now.
Chat GPT, look it up.
What would Israel murder your journalists than all other conflicts in the world combined?
You personally, you said they would murder you now.
I'm not going to let up on this.
What would they murder you for?
You're telling me right now that you think Israel wants to find you and kill you right now where you are?
No, no, no.
If I go to Israel, you go to Israel.
If I go to Israel, if I go to Israel, Israel would almost certainly murder.
IDF already wrote my name on a bomb.
It's not like they're hiding it.
And they murder journalists more than any other country.
In fact, all the other countries combined.
That's a literal fact.
And they murder Muslim Americans, 12 of them.
And American, they didn't object under Biden.
We don't object under Trump because you can murder American citizens only if you're Israel.
The terrorist state of Israel is allowed to kill Americans.
And what do we have to do?
We have to give them another $311 billion.
We have to start another war for them like Iraq has spent $2 trillion.
Why do the American people owe Israel hundreds of billions of dollars?
Why do we owe them more wars?
Let them respond to get American soldiers.
Let them respond anything.
Don't talk over Charles.
Give me the $300 billion back.
Let me render it.
Let Ben respond.
You owe us.
I don't owe you.
And Ben, you're supposed to be an American, not an Israeli.
Look at me and Jack.
Me and Jack won't agree on anything else, but we agree that we should serve America.
I say Americans first, not Israelis.
Stop the war.
Let me say this.
Look at Magdalene.
Here's Ben Spain.
Taylor Green.
Steve Bannon stop the war.
Don't ask for war.
Here's the Latvian state uniting saying we don't want war.
Number one, my foreign policy has changed drastically from after 9-11.
I don't think we should go into Iraq.
Afghanistan, if I could have a redo, I would change what I thought about that.
I've said that very clearly for years now.
Like, no, I said I've changed my foreign policy.
When you make mistakes and you see what happens, it's okay to change.
It's called growing up.
All right.
You learn from your mistakes.
I'm not in favor of invading America into Iran.
So let me say that first so you put words mouth.
Second thing, I've seen two hostage videos today.
One from the guy that's in Iran right now and you.
And I don't know why you act like there's a country that is running terrorism in the Middle East, Iran, who's chanting death to Israel.
By the way, death to America.
They chant death to America too.
Okay.
And why you act like they're not a threat to the Middle East and to American interests over there?
That's why Donald Trump said yesterday.
That's why Donald Trump is saying if you come after.
Yes, I do.
I do think Iran's a threat just because they helped kill American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They trained the damn terrorists.
No, I asked Jack.
I asked that I know personally, that I know personally, I know people that died serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I just went to Fort Bragg and went to where the agents were.
Yes, because you sent them to die on behalf of Israel.
I'm not screwing around with this.
Do not tell me this.
You sent them to die.
On behalf of America.
Ben, I had these debates with you on the Iraq war.
I had these debates with you on the Iraq war.
You were 100% wrong then.
You're 100% wrong now.
You sent American kids to die on the streets.
Did you set a radio threat to the United States?
And you want to send American kids to die on behalf of Israel?
Let me bring in Jack.
Jack, let me bring in Jack, please.
Let me bring in Jack.
Jack speak up here.
Let me bring in Jack.
Jack, final word to you.
Well, certainly they're a threat, but in the sense that they're a threat because the United States is currently sending the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier from the Asia Pacific, from Westpac, over to the Middle East.
And by the way, this is the first time that China now has more aircraft carriers in the Pacific than the United States.
The first time it's ever happened.
Now you're going to have those 5,000 sailors on that aircraft carrier plus the other 5,000 that are on the Carl Vinson sitting potentially sitting within range of everything that Iran has.
This is exactly what I've been talking about.
So the threat to American lives is, and I think it's right there.
I think it's what you're saying.
It's because America is getting involved in a war that's not ours.
Can I ask a question of Jack and Shank just quickly?
You say it's a war that isn't yours.
If you were convinced, let me ask you a hypothetical that Iran was close to getting.
You guys always do these things.
If Iran was close to getting a nuclear, what is?
As the UN inspectors say, let me ask you a direct question.
Do you then think if America was the only country that had the capability to degrade and destroy Iran's nuclear capacity, would it then be in American interests to intervene?
So should America go around and blow up all the nuclear sites that aren't American?
Should we attack China?
Should we attack Russia?
Should we attack France?
Should we attack the UK?
All of them?
Is that your contention?
So the one who's attacked America is a consistent position.
You would permit, you think it's in America's interests?
No, you asked me to do it.
You're playing this game.
You're trying to kafka-trap me right now.
No, we do.
You're trying to kafka-trap me and you're trying to say, well, if you agreed to this hypothetical that I asked you, then you must also.
No, I'm not playing that game.
I'm not playing that game right now.
You're saying in a hypothetical situation, should America attack someone?
To your point, they do not have weaponized nuclear capability or uranium that is at the point of weaponization at 90%, which they could use for an atomic bomb.
They do not have that.
They have 60%.
So, you're saying, even if they had 90%, which by the way, doesn't sit with the DNI Gabbert's assessment and the entire assessment of the intelligence agencies that Iran is not currently developing weapons of mass destruction.
They're only enriching uranium.
So, you're saying, oh, well, that's totally fine.
You've never even asked me what I think.
You're trying to play this game where you're playing that game.
I'm not trying to play any game.
I've been asking myself the question a lot over the last few days.
Because you're setting up the story.
Once I read you, once I read the report that Iran has been sending out, I'm the same as Matthew.
I read that report.
I read that report, and what was crystal clear from that report is that there have been constant lies and obfuscation from the Iranian regime in relation to the nuclear program.
From the Israeli state, clearly, they believed they were being lied to in their ability to report properly about what was going on.
They also believed that the uranium enrichment was now at a level where it was quite likely and possible that Iran could have a full nuclear bomb imminently, you know, weeks, months, whatever that period may be.
And in that circumstance, I took a view in a way that I'd be very critical of the Israeli government for what's going on in Gaza at the moment.
But I took a view that if you are Israel right now and you have Iran with the Atomic Agency saying they are getting perilously close to being able to create a nuclear bomb, that is a time, that is a time where you may decide that is a time to stop them.
And that appears to me.
But we gotta leave it there.
We've run out of time, guys.
I'm sorry.
No, I was asked the question.
This is the same lies that Israel fed us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
All right.
The same hypotheticals.
Oh, what if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction?
Oh, here's fake intelligence telling you that Iraq has a weapon destination.
This is not fake intelligence.
It's from the atomic agency.
Oh, what if the Palestinians say that we don't have a right to exist?
No, the Israeli cabinet has voted that Palestinians don't have a right to exist.
Okay.
All their hypotheticals are what Israel actually does.
Israel actually has a nuke.
Okay.
Israel is the most aggressive country and the most likely to use a nuclear weapon.
We have to get out of Israel's control.
I've got to leave it there.
I've got to leave it there, guys.
I've run out of time.
I've run out of time, guys.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to have to leave it there.
I appreciate you joining.
We've gone one true.
We've gone well over time, but I appreciate you all joining me.
Thank you very much.
Hey, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief podcast.
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Well, joining me now is Mehdi Assan, the editor-in-chief at Zataya News.
Mehdi, great to have you back on Uncensored.
Last time you came on recently, we reached agreement over what is going on in Gaza.
Running Out Of Time00:11:25
I concurred with your view that it was now crossing almost every line.
And wasn't just my view, the view of former Israeli prime ministers, of allies of Israel, and so on.
But we have a separate situation here.
And I'm just curious.
I've seen what you've been saying publicly about this Israel attack on Iran.
If you're Israel and you see that report from the atomic agency, which appears to suggest that Iran has been lying, obfuscating, covering up, not allowing proper inspections and so on, and now appears to have reached 60% enrichment of uranium, which is the next stage it can reach, where now it can be imminent, it can be within months that it could potentially get to nuclear power.
Can you at least, without agreeing with it, can you understand why Israel has felt threatened by that report?
So, Piers, thanks for having me back.
And I'm glad you started by asking about the IAE report, because I know you brought it up with your panel as well.
And I just want your viewers at home to be clear, because you described it accurately a moment ago, what the report says.
I've read the 22-page report came out May 31st, declassified.
But on Friday, I was disappointed to see you tweeting about, you said the report exposes an imminent nuclear threat from Iran, which could justify a preemptive strike.
What we saw on Thursday night from Israel was not a preemptive strike.
It was a preventive strike, which is illegal under international law.
It's what George Bush and the neocons claimed the Iraq war was against Saddam Hussein, which you and I opposed, rightly so.
And that IAA report does not expose an imminent nuclear threat.
It says what you just said it says.
It says that they haven't been cooperating very well.
It says their level of cooperation has been, quote, less than satisfactory.
It says some of their technical answers about their program have lacked credibility.
It says they've impeded some of the inspectors.
It says that they were working on some kind of military program pre-2003, which is what U.S. intelligence has also said.
Those are all bad things, Piers.
You and I can both agree.
Those are bad things, and Iran should not be doing those things.
And the IAA board voted to say they're in breach of their obligations.
But that's not an imminent nuclear threat.
The report does not say Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat.
Your tweet was wrong on Friday.
Well, well, I think it says I just said that.
When it says 60% enrichment of uranium, it's the next stage that somebody who wants to create a nuclear bomb, right?
So imminent, look, what do I mean by imminent?
As I said in the panel.
No, but it can be weeks, months, a year, whatever, but they've reached a stage of enrichment.
They're not, Piers.
But they have the capability to take it to another stage and create a bomb.
Yes.
So let's find more agreement between us.
I agree.
That is capability, right?
They have enough highly enriched uranium to build up to nine bombs, I believe.
They have 400 kilograms of nuclear.
So that is an imminent threat.
If it's in the wrong hands, right?
We can agree on that.
It's not.
No, it's totally.
But why not?
No, because unfortunately, because having a civil nuclear program is totally fine.
Having enriched uranium is fine.
The issue is if you weaponize it and have a weapons program.
And Tulsi Gabbard, no friend of radical Islam, Donald Trump's director of national intelligence said in March that the U.S. intelligence community's consensus view is that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, does not have a nuclear weapon, has not authorized a nuclear weapons program.
The IAEA peers in that report, you must have seen the line in their summary, says there are no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared, structured nuclear program.
Even the IAEA says there's no nuclear weapons program.
Their boss, the IAA chief, Piers, said last week, you cannot attack nuclear facilities in Iran.
So, no, it's not an imminent threat.
And under international law, Piers, this is the key point.
If a weapon is a year away, you cannot say we're under imminent threat.
That does not give you a right to self-defense.
Otherwise, everyone in the world would go around just bombing people.
You and I oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We agree on that, right?
Putin claimed that Ukraine would one day attack Russia with NATO support.
That's why I'm doing it.
That was a bullshit argument.
You and I rejected Putin's bullshit argument in Ukraine.
You and I have rejected the Israeli bullshit argument now in Gaza.
You don't believe what they're saying about Gaza.
I don't know why you're believing them on this when you were rightly calling out the bullshit from the UK and the US in 2003 over Iraq.
Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat.
And Iran was not an imminent threat.
And Israel attacked them illegally last week.
While there were nuclear negotiations going on, Piers, one last point.
If Israel cared about stopping a nuclear weapon, you would go back into a nuclear deal that prevents Iran from a weapon.
And guess who they killed on Thursday night?
Not just generals, Piers.
They killed Ali Shamkhani, the lead nuclear negotiator who was supposed to be in Oman yesterday with the Americans and who won an NBC a month ago and said, we're very close to a deal.
We're willing to give up highly enriched nuclear weapons.
But Trump did say, didn't he?
Trump did say...
Yeah, but hang on, on the deal, Trump said, look, you've got 60 days, right?
And Israel attacked on day 61.
In other words, they gave Iran the chance to negotiate.
Well, that is, but that is what Trump said.
Well, Trump's a liar.
Why were they meeting in Oman on Sunday then?
If there were only 60 days, why were the Americans supposed to be meeting yesterday?
All of a sudden, we don't have that.
It is a fact.
The sequence is...
No, hang on.
It's not a fact, though, is it?
It's not a fact.
It is a fact.
Trump said 60 days.
It is a fact.
He said that.
But that's a lie.
But that wasn't a 60 days, otherwise we bomb you.
That was Netanyahu.
By the way, let's be clear.
I agree.
I agree.
I'm just saying that Netanyahu did not.
He did wait till day 61.
No, he didn't.
60 days to get a deal done.
No, because why was there a nuclear negotiation scheduled on Sunday between the Americans and the Iranians, which is now not happening?
Who benefits from that?
Netanyahu.
The Hawks who want a war.
They don't want a deal.
Otherwise, you wouldn't kill them.
Unless you think that Trump tacitly wants this to happen, which he might well do.
Maybe.
I mean, I don't try and mind read Trump.
You can.
You know him better than me.
The man's a liar.
He's erratic.
He's unhinged.
Who knows?
I mean, he claims to be anti-war.
Remember all that bullshit?
I came on your show last year, Piers.
How many times did I hear people telling me bullshit about Trump being anti-war?
He went to Michigan and said, I won't get involved in a war in the Middle East.
And here we are now, several hundred people dead in Israel and Iran.
Completely preventable conflict, done with Trump's blessing.
And as I say, if you're worried about highly enriched uranium, blame Trump, right?
He tore up the nuclear deal in 2018, Piers.
In 2018, Iran was enriching uranium at what percentage?
3.67%.
And the IAA said, yep, we verify it.
We have no complaints.
We verify that Iran is in accordance with this deal.
And Trump tore it up.
And today, 60% highly enriched uranium, 400 kilograms.
That's on Donald Trump.
We had the JCPOA.
But aren't we?
But aren't you just there?
Aren't you just, if you don't mind me saying, aren't you just explaining very articulately why Israel has got so twitchy about this?
Gone from 3% to 60%, as you said.
That's not a small...
But who did that, right?
But the whole thing is...
Oh, you can blame property.
I don't know who you like, but the way you described that sounded to me like you were presenting a fast-moving imminent threat.
No.
Okay, it's a good question.
Let me answer it.
No, what I was presenting was that there was a deal that worked.
Trump and the Israelis tore up the deal that worked.
Now Iran is definitely, you and I have already agreed, that they have potential to be closer to a bomb today than they were in 2018.
So the solution is not then to go to war and increase the chances of Iran rushing for a bomb.
The solution is to go back into a deal, to negotiate an agreement.
Piers, just for your viewers, there are only two ways.
Every military expert agrees, every U.S. general agrees, there's only two ways to stop Iran from having a nuclear bomb.
Number one is to invade and occupy the country and destroy every facility yourself.
Number two is to have an agreement in which Iran agrees to stop enriching uranium at 60% or 90%, right?
Those are the two options.
I think that's why I don't agree with that.
I don't agree with foreign invasion.
There's actually a third option because the ground is...
Well, the third option is doing exactly what Israel's doing now, which is using air power, controlling the skies over Tehran, and using intelligence gathered by Mossad, apparently, reportedly, and using specific intelligence to target specific commanders, scientists, and nuclear sites.
I mean, that's the third option.
Well, that's not a third option because it doesn't stop the nuclear program.
All it does is delay it.
But have you spoken to any military people?
Be honest, Billy.
Have you spoken to any military?
I've got two former British Army colonels in my family.
I ran this past them earlier.
Both of them thought this was justified, right?
Who are the military commanders you've talked to who do not think this is justified?
Admiral Mike McMullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George W. Bush, said there's no way you can get rid of Iranian nuclear program without boots on the ground.
And by the way, you know who said on Friday?
That Israel's own national security advisor said on Friday, there is no kinetic solution to this.
Air power cannot do this, right?
Because some of their facilities are underground, because scientists who killed can be replaced, right?
cannot end is Iran's nuclear program via bombing.
And by the way, Israel tried this before in 1981.
They always hold it up as some great example.
They bombed Saddam's nuclear facility in Osirak.
Everyone who's studied that since nuclear scientists, weapons experts say that actually that didn't delay Saddam's bomb.
It accelerated Saddam's interest in nuclear weapons.
He actually launched a covert nuclear program at another site over the next nine years till of obviously the Iraq invasion of Kuwait.
Right?
So put yourself, Piers, you asked me a question at the beginning.
It was a great question.
Put yourself in Israel's shoes.
We should always have empathy for whoever it is, enemies, allies.
Let me ask the question back to you.
Put yourself in the shoes of an Iranian official sitting in Tehran today who looks at a map of the region and sees Israel with nukes, Russia with nukes, Pakistan with nukes, India with nukes, nuclear-armed America next door in Iraq.
Wouldn't you want nuclear weapons?
I'm against nukes.
Yeah, but if you're just a regime, if you look at the market, my response would be this.
You wouldn't dispute that Iran's tentacles have been fueling for a long period of time Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah.
And I presume you wouldn't also dispute that the tactical attack on Hezbollah through the pages, 3,000 of them targeted in a very precise way, that that has led to Hezbollah basically.
Well, it's led to Hezbollah basically throwing the towel in and saying we're not going to get engaged in this war with Iran, which is a very significant moment in this whole war, I would argue.
If your question is, has Israel degraded Iran's supports abroad, its proxies?
100%.
But that's irrelevant to the rightness or wrongness of this.
I'm asking you to put yourself in the middle of the middle.
But all those proxies want to kill the Iranian government.
Right?
So that's why they think that Israel.
Let's not get...
Well, as you've agreed, Israel's doing much of the killing right now.
But let me just ask you this.
Again, Ukraine gave up nukes, got invaded.
Saddam Hussein gave up nukes, got invaded and executed.
Gaddafi gave up chemical weapons, got invaded, raped and killed.
Again, if you're the Iranians, are you not looking at this thinking, this means we need nukes?
I would rather not give them an incentive to go get nuclear weapons.
I'm anti-nuclear weapons for anyone.
So I don't want Iran to have nukes.
But the best way for Iran not to have nukes is not to attack them.
That makes countries want to have nukes more.
It's just rational to go, oh, the countries who have nukes like North Korea, they don't get invaded.
So why give them an incentive to get more nukes?
Why not actually have a weapons of mass destruction free region?
You know which country does have nukes in the Middle East?
Israel, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
You know which country doesn't allow IAA inspectors into the country?
Israel.
You know which country hasn't signed the NPT unlike Iran?
Israel.
We should talk about Israel's nuclear weapons, which actually incentivize others in the regions, not just Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, to think about nuclear weapons of their own.
I'd rather not have more nukes in the Middle East with anyone.
Preventing Nuclear Proliferation00:00:30
Medi Assam, great to have you back on our censor.
Thank you very much.
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