“BRAZEN Aggression!” Norman Finkelstein vs Jonathan Conricus On Israel-Lebanon Operation + Iran War
Israel has launched a ground operation in Lebanon, opening a major second front in its war against Iran and its proxies - raising the stakes in an already volatile region. While the risks of escalation are enormous, some argue the potential strategic gains for Israel are just as significant: reduced threats from hostile neighbors, stronger ties with Gulf states, and an even more dominant position in the region militarily and politically. As the conflict intensifies, questions are mounting over the role of the United States. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise of peace, now faces criticism for backing a costly and controversial war - one that could carry serious political consequences at home. At the same time, divisions are growing across political and media circles, with prominent voices fiercely debating the motivations behind the war and the extent to which U.S. interests align with Israel’s objectives. Piers Morgan is joined by political scientist Professor John Mearsheimer for his analysis on the conflict. Piers then speaks to activist Norman Finkelstein and retired lieutenant colonel and IDF international spokesman Jonathan Conricus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Miscalculated Victory00:15:11
The United States and Israel thought we could win a quick and decisive victory.
We're now in a long war, a war of attrition.
And that's a war that the Iranians are in an excellent position to prevail in.
They have the ability to tank the international economy.
I really look forward to seeing their doomsday prophecies shattered at the face of reality.
We want them to stop dreaming about wiping Israel off the map by the year 2040, which was an official Iranian goal and policy.
Israel are guilty of the supreme international crime of aggression under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Now let's turn to Mr. Carnicus.
Conrad is the anti-Chief.
Whatever your name is.
I don't understand why you want one rule for Israel and another rule for everybody else has got them.
Israel's begun a grand operation in Lebanon as it continues to escalate a major second front in its war in Iran and Iran's proxies.
The risks obviously are enormous, but for Israel, so too are the potential rewards.
Israel would be a much safer place without constant attacks from a country that vowed repeatedly to wipe it from the map.
Israel would be a lone rock of stability in a neighborhood of countries hobbled by a power vacuum.
Israel would benefit immediately from trade ties with the rich Gulf states who've long cited Iran's menacing as a reason for not taking sides.
Israel would cement its place as the region's only nuclear armed nation with the most advanced military and the deepest intelligence network.
It would in effect be a superpower with no break on whatever ambitions it has.
Now putting aside the many ways this war could go horribly wrong, and it's no surprise that Netanyahu says he's dreamed of it for 40 years.
It's no surprise that Israel has pressed successive US presidents to join the war, often as Anthony Blinken revealed by threatening to strike first if necessary.
It's no surprise that Israelis support the war overwhelmingly.
But what is missing in all of this is a clear and consistent case for why any of these benefits are of equal interest to Israel's partner in this war, the United States.
President Trump has renewed on his pro-peace pledges and talked some of his closest supporters to launch an unpopular and expensive war on the eve of elections which could condemn him to lame-duck irrelevance.
And his most prominent cheerleaders, from Ben Shapiro and Ted Cruz to Mark Levine and Lindsey Graham, are the most avowedly pro-Israel commentators who have all called themselves never Trumpers in the past.
It's not necessarily conspiratorial to make this war all about Israel.
The war's supporters have made it literally all about Israel.
And this week, Mark Levine said his critics are just as evil as Nazis.
It's giving aid and comfort, propaganda to the enemy, as are individuals who I call the woke-right neo-fascists, who are stirring the anti-Semitism pot, who are stirring the trash Christian pot.
They are no different than the same voices we heard in the 1930s and just as disgusting, evil, and reprehensible.
Pretty ridiculous to compare the right-wing commentators right now to Nazis.
Joe Kent, who resigned as Trump's counter-terrorism chief over a war he said was at the behest of Israeli lobby, has been condemned as a neo-Nazi Jew hating Israel basher.
Well, I've personally been accused of attacking or hating Israel or Israelis for pointing out that this very right-wing administration currently running Israel has itself said that Israel is the reason the US is at war.
So before we debate all of this, here's a definitive guide to why everyone is talking about Israel.
I think if we didn't do it first, they would have done it to Israel and give us a shot if that was possible.
That if Israel fired upon Iran and took action against Iran to take out the missiles, then they would have immediately retaliated against U.S. personnel and assets.
Israel would have been wiped out.
They would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks after.
There absolutely was an imminent threat.
And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us.
And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.
Israel faced an existential risk, and they were prepared to strike Iran alone.
If that happened, Iran was very likely to target our troops.
We did it because we have some good allies there.
We have some great Middle Eastern countries there, Israel there.
Well, Jonathan Conricks and Norman Finkelstein will be joining us in a few minutes for a fascinating debate.
But we'll begin today's coverage with Professor John Mearsheimer, a regular visitor to Uncensored.
He's written and spoken about all of this for decades.
Professor Mearshaim, welcome back to Uncensored.
I'm glad to be here, Piers, and I'm glad to see that you've recovered from your fall.
Thank you.
Nearly there.
Nearly there.
Back in the studio, down to one crutch, and life goes on, thankfully.
Let me just ask you straight off the top.
A lot of people on the sort of vehemently pro-Israeli side tend to say, why do you keep making this about Israel?
Why do you keep talking about Israel?
When they themselves constantly talk about Israel and from my perspective, often try and silence legitimate debate about Netanyahu's government and what they're up to by branding people who criticize it in any way anti-Semitic and so on.
You can't escape the Israeli influence, not least in this war in Iran, right?
I think that Israeli influence and the Israel lobby's influence in leading the United States into this war is quite obvious.
There's just an abundance of evidence that Israel pushed us into this war and that the lobby helped.
And of course, whenever that happens and somebody points it out, that person is accused of being an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.
But this is ridiculous.
The question is whether the evidence supports the claim or not.
And the debate should be fought over the evidence, not devolved to name-calling, which of course exactly is what happening here, is happening here.
But the fact is, Piers, there's overwhelming evidence that the lobby and Israel itself helped in a major way to push the United States into this war.
Well, we just have to take Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, at his own word before he was persuaded that he hadn't said what he'd said, because he said it on camera.
And he said that when asked why did America have to preemptively strike at Iran, he said because America had been notified by another country, clearly Israel, that they were going to attack Iran, and that the inevitable consequence would be that Iran would respond against American interests, including military bases in the Gulf and so on.
And therefore, America had to get in first and preemptively go in with the Israelis.
It seemed at the time very convoluted, but very revealing, too, because as we now know from Anthony Blinken, I've talked about this many times on the show since he said it, because it's so relevant, I think.
Netanyahu had tried to do this with both Presidents Obama and Biden.
He'd said, look, I'm going to attack Iran.
Are you with me or not?
And they both said no.
And then he didn't attack Iran.
And so there are many who do believe that Netanyahu, we saw Trump, I think, eight times in the run-up to this war, that he basically bamboozled, maybe not bamboozled, but forcefully persuaded Trump that he was A, going to do this, and B, America had to be with the Israelis.
Yeah, I think it's not only Secretary of State Rubio who said that, but the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said it.
And furthermore, Lindsey Graham, who is a super supporter of Israel, has said that he worked hard with President, excuse me, with Prime Minister Netanyahu to give Netanyahu advice on how to convince President Trump to attack Iran.
So you see all sorts of evidence of Netanyahu's fingerprints on this war.
We're now at a stage in this war where thousands of Marines have now been dispatched to the conflict zone.
The Iranians, who must know they can't compete with the Americans and Israelis with their combined military firepower in the air or at sea or anywhere else, frankly, militarily, but they can compete in this strategic economic way.
Do you agree with that?
Sure.
I mean, I think what's going on here, Piers, is that the United States and Israel thought that we could win a quick and decisive victory, either by decapitating the regime or some form of shock and awe campaign for the first few days of the war.
And the Iranians would then throw up their hands and they would submit to our demands.
And in fact, President Trump has said that he was told that there was a good chance that the Iranians would close down the Strait of Hormuz, but he ignored that warning because he thought we would win a victory before that became a viable option for the Iranians.
But what's happened here is that we did not achieve a quick and decisive victory, and we're now in a long war, a war of attrition.
And that's a war that the Iranians prepared for, and that's a war that the Iranians are in an excellent position to prevail in.
If you think about the various steps up the escalation ladder that we can take, what you see is that the Iranians can match us at every point, and they can cause not only enormous damage for the countries in the region and for the United States military forces that are located there, but maybe even more importantly for the international economy.
They have the ability, as you go up the escalation ladder, to tank the international economy.
This would be catastrophic.
So we are now in a situation, having failed to achieve a quick and decisive victory, where we could lose in a really serious way.
So if you were advising Donald Trump, which is, I have to say, at the unlikely end of the expectation ladder, but if you were, what advice would you give him?
He clearly, I think, wants to get out of this, but he doesn't seem to really know how he can do that, which doesn't look like a crushing defeat or retreat.
What would you advise him to do, which would be a skillful and achievable way of extricating America from this war?
I've thought long and hard about this, and I've talked to a number of very smart people, a number of my friends who are what I would call spinmeisters.
They can figure out almost always how to get out of a mess.
And I don't think anybody can come up with a good solution for solving this problem.
What most people say is that what President Trump should do is declare victory and get out.
I mean, he can do that, but it will be seen as a humiliating defeat for the United States.
And furthermore, you run into the problem that the Iranians themselves might not agree to end the war.
The United States can quit, but the Israelis and the Iranians may continue fighting.
And again, as I said, the Iranians have a lot of cards to play here.
They can do a lot of damage.
So even if we walk away, it's not clear that that solves the problem.
And then again, where I started, the United States will look like it suffered a humiliating defeat.
So I think that President Trump has got himself into a situation where there is really no good exit strategy.
Yeah, that's the way I see it.
And I'm still completely baffled by politically, never mind anything else, he thought this was a good time to take the biggest gamble he's ever taken because he's got the midterms coming.
You know, already he was looking like he might lose the House.
He could lose the Senate over this.
And then that's pretty much it.
You know, as a president, if you don't have any control of any part of Congress, there's not much you can do.
You can fly a few executive orders around, but otherwise you're extremely limited in your power.
And of course, the other irony of this is that Russia is already emerging as one of the big beneficiaries of what is going on because the sanctions have been lifted.
They're making enormous amounts of money from this, which could carry on the longer it goes on.
And you've got to look at it and say, how does a war you've launched against Iran that ends up with Russia benefiting with higher prices for its own stuff, degraded Western sanctions against it, and potential Chinese backing for new projects, how does any of that be a win for the United States?
Well, it's not.
But to get to your initial point as to how he could have possibly got himself into this mess, I think it's very important to understand that he thought that the Iranian regime was very vulnerable.
It was very weak.
And that the United States could cause it to topple with great ease.
You want to remember that before the war, when we moved the armada into the Middle East, Steve Witkoff has told us that President Trump was surprised that the Iranians did not throw up their hands and surrender before the war started.
In other words, President Trump expected the mere threat of force from this armada to cause Iran to surrender.
And of course, that didn't happen.
And then he went to war thinking just a little bit of military force on the first few days.
This wouldn't be a long war.
We would knock off the regime.
And I think that his success in Venezuela, where he was able to kidnap Maduro and put an end to that conflict very quickly, gave him additional confidence that he could, in a sense, float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
But the fact is that that didn't happen.
And again, once that doesn't happen, he's in a catastrophic situation.
The Long War Trap00:06:54
But I don't think he thought for one second that that would happen.
And again, that's why he could dismiss the Pentagon's warning that it was likely that the Iranians would shut down the strait.
And furthermore, the warning that the Iranians would engage in horizontal escalation.
They would not simply attack Israel.
They would attack American assets in the Gulf and they would attack the Gulf states themselves.
He just didn't see this coming.
But once it came, he was in a mess that I don't see how he gets out of.
Yeah, it's very difficult to see how he gets out of it easily, certainly.
Professor Mearsheimer, always good to have your analysis.
Thank you very much.
You're more than welcome, Piers.
Well, returning to Uncensored to debate this, I'm joined by the political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein, author of the new book, Gaza's Grave Diggers, an inquiry into corruption in high places, and the retired Lieutenant Colonel and IDF international spokesman, Jonathan Conricus.
Welcome to both of you.
Jonathan Konrickus, we've talked a lot about this.
You know, when I hear Professor Mearsheimer there, it could be incredibly difficult for Donald Trump and the Americans to extricate from something which may not be playing out how they anticipated or hoped.
But it may be at the same time that Israel has a completely different agenda here.
That Israel would be quite happy to carry on having an extended war against what they see as the great enemy.
You know, we've had Netanyahu talking about a 40-year, you know, sort of dream of this moment coming and now able to carry it through.
I've talked to him myself and I've interviewed him several times.
He's always been Iran is the big problem.
Iran is the one with all the tentacles.
Iran's the one we have to take out.
He's made no secret of this.
So it may be that you've got two big nations here with completely different wishes for how this plays out in the sense that now it is where it is.
Donald Trump is probably thinking, I think, wouldn't want to put words in his mouth, but he changes a lot of what he says all the time.
He's probably thinking, I need an off-ramp here.
And Netanyahu may be thinking the complete opposite.
Quite happy to have a very level ramp carrying on for months or as long as it takes.
What would you say to that?
Yeah, I'd say shalom from Israel.
Thanks for having me on again.
I'm happy, you know, this is recorded.
I'm happy that the video will be out in eternity.
That's the fun part about making assessments.
And I will really enjoy seeing all the doomsday experts and the instant military analysts and people who now claim to understand the Iranian regime, the Israel-Iran conflict, and understand the Middle East very well and maritime warfare and many other things.
And I really look forward to seeing their doomsday prophecies shatter at the face of reality when Israel and the U.S. will be able to not only reopen the Strait of Hormuz and force the Iranians back in positions,
when the US and Israel will help the Iranian people actually reclaim their freedom and get rid of this foreign oppression that has been governing the people of Iran for 47 years.
And I look forward to the time when Israel and Iran, a free Iran, free of Islamist oppression, will re-establish diplomatic ties and trade and prosperity.
I think, and I'm a realist.
I don't think a lot of people can blame me for being rosy-eyed or detached from reality.
I stand on pretty solid ground.
Most of the time, my analysis is usually based on my military experience and how I understand conflicts playing out.
And I think this time, the balance of power between Iran on one side, the regime on one side, and the US and Israel, and soon to be a few additional Gulf countries, it's not even a contest.
And I strongly dispute what the distinguished professor said before that Iran can escalate this horizontally and the US won't have anything to do in order to retaliate.
Frankly, respectfully, he doesn't have a clue.
There are so many things that both Israel and the US can do that can totally cripple the regime and can really reduce Iran's infrastructure, economy, ability to trade, ability to move, transport, import, export, and many other things that Israel and the U.S. can do if they want to.
And I think rightfully so.
Israel and the US have not done that up until now, and I hope it won't be necessary.
But I am contrary to many of the doomsday prophecies and many people who are trying to count Israeli interceptors and looking at the oil price and wishing it go to $200 and imagining that the Iranian regime has this tremendous unlimited power to conduct guerrilla warfare like the Finns did against the Soviets in the Second World War or something to the like.
I think they're wrong.
And I think that reality will show them to be wrong.
And I think that experts should have learned better by now not to think that they understand President Donald Trump and not to measure him by the yardsticks that other US presidents have been measured by because he isn't.
He is different.
And we can debate style and content.
And just last point about Israeli topics.
Here I agree.
Israel, as I think the president has said, we have real skin in the game.
We live here.
We are the ones who face Iranian attacks and we are the ones who have been facing these attacks for the better part of 30 odd years by the Iranian regime.
So yeah, definitely.
We want to get rid of the terror organization that Iran funds.
We want to get rid of their ballistic missiles.
We want whoever governs Iran to stop dreaming about developing nuclear weapons to wipe the Zionist entity off the map.
We want them to stop dreaming about wiping Israel off the map by the year 2040, which was an official Iranian goal and policy.
And we would love for there to be diplomatic relations and trade and prosperity.
So yeah, there are differences.
Okay.
Normal Figuring, welcome back to Ancensi.
Great to have you again.
What is your response there for having me?
What is your response to what Jonathan Komrich has just outlined?
I'm not a military person by training or by disposition.
Genocide and Aggression00:05:34
So I'm not going to make any prognostications about whether Israel will win the short term, in the medium term, or the long term.
And I believe that, in my opinion, is a separate question from what ought to be the right question to ask.
If you were to go to a program in Germany during World War II, and there are various persons on debating, should Germany have invaded Russia?
Was it smart to wage a two-front war?
Will Germany be able to prevail over Russia in the short or in the long term?
For most people, sane people, that is, that's an insane question.
Maybe Germany could have defeated Russia for all I know.
Or maybe it was an error, as it turned out to be.
The question is, was it just?
Was it right?
Who is in the right and who is in the wrong?
Bad people win wars.
That doesn't mean the war is right.
Good people lose wars.
That doesn't mean the good people are in the wrong.
So let's look at the situation here.
For two and a half years, Israel waged what's called the crime of crimes.
Israel waged a genocide in Gaza.
And then, before even the blink of an eye, Israel launched what was called at Nuremberg the supreme international crime, the crime of aggression.
So we have Israel and its chief enabler, the United States, guilty of the crime of crimes, the crime of genocide.
And then, before even the blink of an eye, Israel and its chief enabler, the United States, waging the supreme international crime of aggression.
In fact, on the latter point, the supreme international crime of aggression, there hasn't even been the attempt, the pretense, the pretext of a debate.
There is no dispute whatsoever, none, that Israel and its chief enabler, the United States, are guilty of the supreme international crime of aggression in violation of Article II of the UN Charter and for which it has no grounds whatsoever, zero grounds of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
That being the case, there can't be any dispute, none whatsoever, that Iran had the right and continues to have the right of self-defense against the supreme international crime of aggression.
Now, it is true that the whole international system, as has been commented on in the last few months, in particular by the Prime Minister of Canada, but by many others, the whole international system of law has collapsed.
The supreme international body for war and peace is the UN Security Council.
And the UN Security Council failed in its responsibility to stop the war of aggression.
That being the case, we have reverted from the state of law to the law of the jungle, or what's sometimes called the state of nature.
Now, under these circumstances, under these circumstances, where the state of law is gone, the Security Council failed in its responsibility in a case of blatant, brazen, flagrant aggression against the member state of the United Nations.
Then, if you look at the English philosopher John Locke, he says, Israel, the United States, they have turned into wild, savage beasts, guilty of the crime of crimes and the supreme international crime.
Corrupt Regime Reflections00:10:26
They have become dangerous to mankind.
And under those circumstances, says Locke, every man may restrain or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them.
And that's what these two states have become.
They have become noxious to humanity.
Destroying now Tehran, destroying Beirut, two Arab, in the case of Tehran, Muslim, a Muslim, and an Arab capital being destroyed.
Okay, but let me just...
It's not a war.
But Norman Finkelstein, let me just jump in and ask you one question on that before I go back to Jonathan, which is, would you categorize the Iranian regime since 1979 as a noxious entity?
Because to many people's eyes, whatever their view of the war, the general point of agreement is that this has been a pretty vile, repressive regime, which certainly lives up to the title of noxious.
Would you be happy to say that it's been a noxious regime?
I would say two things, and I'll say them in reverse order.
The Iranian regime has been guilty of actions within its sovereign state that cannot be justified and which properly should be classified as crimes, human rights, egregious, egregious human rights violations.
About that, I have no doubt.
However, number two, I want to establish priority.
Priorities number one, the first point, egregious human rights violations.
Number two, I don't believe the Iranian regime was ever given a chance to see how it would unfold between the crippling sanctions that were imposed on the Iranian government and then the huge amounts of money it had to subtract from civilian investment in order to counter.
from its inception, the military threat posed by Israel and the United States.
Okay, let me meant that huge, allow me, huge amounts of resources that might have gone to a better end were squandered because of the brutal sanctions and the threats of war.
Okay, Jonathan, just respond quickly to that point, to the two points there that which Norman Finkelstein said.
Then I want to just talk to you about Joe Kent after that.
So just respond to him on that.
Yeah, when I came on the show, I didn't know I was coming in for a lengthy, long-winded, long-syllable word academic lecture.
But I will be brief and I will say that I think it's absolutely ridiculous.
If we scale back to 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran is the aggressor.
Islamic Republic of Iran has been building ballistic missiles, has been arming terror organizations, has been calling and acting to try to destroy the state of Israel.
They have said so.
Numerous presidents, the current or the current not so much, but former Supreme Leader Hamin Ai and the previous one, the first one, have said so explicitly that it is their wish, their desire, their plan, their divine commitment to destroy what they call the Zionist entity.
And I think what Israel is guilty of isn't now taking action against the Iranian regime.
It isn't launching a strike on the Iranian regime's ability to fire ballistic missiles at Israel or at 10 or 11 other countries in the Middle East.
It is that it took us so long and that we didn't do it earlier.
And we could have saved thousands of Israelis, thousands of civilians that were murdered by Palestinians, by Syrians, by Lebanese, by other Arabs who were funded and armed by this very evil empire of terrorism, which was the Iranian regime.
And the only thing I regret is that, you know, only now are we doing it.
And I think we should have done it way sooner.
And as I said before, now I am optimistic that this will actually change and we'll find ourselves in a different trajectory.
But from my perspective, I have zero doubt who the aggressor is.
Iran is the aggressor.
We never aggressed against Iran until we were fired upon, until our civilians were murdered by their proxies, until they fired ballistic missiles at us.
It's a very clear situation and trying to turn it on its head, I think it's quite ridiculous and really unfounded.
Okay, but if you look at the resignation of Joe Kent, he was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a big supporter of Donald Trump until yesterday.
He resigned his position and included it in his letter.
He said, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.
It is clear we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
He went on to say this was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.
We cannot make this mistake again.
I mean, powerful words from a guy who until two days ago, if you'd asked anybody in the Trump administration, would have said, look, the guy's great.
He's our top national counter-terrorism guy.
Now, of course, they've all turned on him.
But what is your response to what he said?
I think President Trump responded quite masterfully by retweeting a tweet that the same guy tweeted a few years ago, where he directly urged and called on the president when he was in between his terms to actually take action against Iran and how Iran, the Iranian regime, is a threat to the U.S. and it must be checked.
And I think that's the best and shortest way.
I think this, you know, this person, I don't know him.
I've heard other people speak about him.
I haven't met the guy.
So I won't speak about his character and who he is.
And I frankly don't know enough about him.
But I know that previously he had different opinions.
And previously he said and thought different things about the Islamic Republic of Iran and the threat that it poses to the US.
And I think we should be truthful here and honest.
Yes, currently the Iranian regime did not possess ballistic missiles that were capable of reaching continental US.
So the Iranian regime could threaten US service members in the area.
They could threaten US posture.
They could threaten assets.
They could threaten US allies, but kill American civilians.
I mean, they tried by killing various Iranian dissidents or Jewish targets.
Reportedly, they tried to kill the president twice.
But in terms of ballistic missiles, yeah, I agree.
But then why wait?
Like, why wait for a crazy regime full of radical Islamists who dream of destroying other countries who chant death to America and say it continuously?
Why wait for them to develop the ballistic missiles that are capable of reaching not only Europe, but actually also continental US?
Like, why wait?
They're weak now because Israel has weakened them, because they've overstretched, because they are corrupt, because they have mishandled funds, and they've gone in this psychotic loophole of trying to destroy Israel by paying terrorists in the region.
And you've heard the Iranian people chant on the streets weeks and months ago: no to Gaza, no to Lebanon.
I want to live and die for Iran.
Why do they say that?
Are they enticed by Mossad agents?
No, they're saying it because they see that their regime is a corrupt one that prioritizes jihad against Israel over the future of their own country.
And it's this corruption, this management that eventually weakened the regime, made it exposed enough for Israel to finally take the opportunity.
And what we see now unfolding is the early first stages of this regime falling.
I think it will fall.
And I think it will fall at the hands of the brave Iranian people who will find the courage again, summon the courage again, take to the streets and reclaim their freedom once the war stops.
Okay, Norman Figustin, I mean, you said earlier that you feel strongly.
I would like to respond.
I would like to respond to that.
You can respond to that, but I just want to ask you a question first, which is based on something you said before, which was, you know, you believe strongly that Iran had a legal right to defend itself.
Do you not think that Israel has the same right to defend itself against Iran?
Okay.
One of the senior ballistics experts in the world is Professor Ted Postel at MIT.
And if I could put in a plug for him, although I don't know him personally, you ought to have him on your program.
He did an interview a couple of days ago, a few days ago.
He described the head of state of Israel, Mr. Netanyahu, as, quote, a homicidal maniac.
Around a half hour later, around a half hour later, Professor Postel again, after developing his argument, described Mr. Netanyahu as a homicidal maniac.
Nuclear Transparency Debate00:12:28
And that was only a partial truth.
The full truth is it's a nation of homicidal maniacs.
He is the reflection of his nation.
Now let's turn to Mr. Carnicus.
Mr. Carnicus asks the question.
Mr. Carnicus asks the question.
Why should we wait?
It's Conrad.
Why should we professor to pronounce the name?
The other guest.
That's too difficult.
The other guest says, why should we wait until Iran develops the missiles, the ballistic missiles, the delivery systems?
Why should we wait?
Really?
China has ballistic missiles.
It has nuclear-powered missiles, nuclear weapons delivery systems for them.
If you ask John Mearsheimer, who I count as a good friend, he will tell you that a conflict with China is inevitable.
It's inevitable.
Why should we wait?
Why shouldn't we launch nuclear weapons at China, that crazy communist regime, which poses some point in the future a real threat?
Why should we wait?
I'm old enough to remember in 1963 when China acquired nuclear weapons.
And the question was, why should we wait?
Communist China, Marxist-Leninists, crazy fundamentalist Marxists, why should we wait?
I wonder if Mr. your other guest, I wonder if he believes it would have been a good idea for the United States to nuke China in 1963.
Why should we wait?
The whole point of the UN Charter, the whole point of the UN Charter is to take the threat of war, of death and destruction, of murder and mayhem, to take it seriously and to make sure that all diplomatic options have been exhausted before you go to war.
So now let's quickly...
Answer to the question that Piers asked.
Brilliant.
Okay.
The Israel has the right to defend itself.
And you call Israel.
Can you please tell your other speaker?
Could you please tell your other speaker to let me speak?
Well, yeah, but I do think that's a question.
I did ask a question.
So now let's get to the question.
Let's get to the question, Piers.
Number one, there has always been an option to significantly diminish the threat to Israel.
There has always been an option.
It's to create a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East.
We have one in Latin America, a weapons of mass destruction free zone.
We have one in Africa.
We have one in the South Pacific.
What's the obstacle?
There is one obstacle to eliminating all nuclear weapons in the Middle East, all nuclear weapons in the Middle East, to significantly diminish the threat to Israel.
We have that option.
Who's blocked it?
Who has refused?
Iran has gone along with it.
All the other Middle Eastern states have gone along with it.
Only one state, the one who pretends to be for peace and for security, which has opposed the weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East.
That's Israel.
Iran is a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.
Is Israel a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty?
In fact, Pierce, is he going to answer questions of just free will all day long?
I mean, I answer your questions.
I don't sit here and just pontificate.
You ask me a question and I answer it.
Is this going to carry on all the way?
I do think, Norman, I did just ask a simple question.
Is Israel not entitled to defend itself from Iran?
Israel has the right to defend itself under Article 51 of the UN Charter if it faces an imminent, irreversible threat to its national sovereignty.
You can't invoke a future possibility sometime into the future as grounds for launching a war.
It is present and past.
It's not future.
It's present and past.
Really, I have to intervene here because you're saying so many things.
Mr. Cornicus, Mr. Cornicus.
Yeah, you're saying so many things.
We should be able to get people's names right.
So his name is Jonathan Conrickers.
Let's please use the right names.
Yeah, but I mean, listen.
Conrick is Jonathan, if it's too difficult, Mr. Professor Finkelstein.
Yeah.
Okay, Jonathan, you don't have the right.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, it's a really clear case, very basic situation.
From an Israeli perspective, we are under threat.
We are at the receiving end of Iranian ballistic missiles.
We're at the receiving end of Iranian-funded and armed terror organizations.
So if there ever was a justification for a sovereign country to defend itself and take military action against an aggressive, hostile state, nation-state, then it's Israel against Iran.
And sure, we can debate the US perspective on it, and we can debate how smart it is.
I actually think that it's very smart to take care of an enemy that says that he wants to destroy you, just doesn't have the real capability to do so yet.
I think it's exactly the right thing to do, to take care of that enemy and make sure that they don't have the means to fulfill their dreams of destroying or even threatening to destroy you.
And weapons of mass destruction in the hands of religious zealots and ayatollahs and people who dream about a Muslim caliphate and who govern their own country by oppression, who murder people on the streets, who hang gay people from cranes and who oppress everybody who doesn't conform.
I mean, nuclear weapons are horrible everywhere.
They can be potentially horrible everywhere.
But in the hands of people who have zero morals, zero respect for human life, that's the worst place for them to be.
And frankly, sir, I don't think that the example of China is relevant.
It could have been relevant in the 50s, and maybe then that could have been a smart thing.
But I don't know, and I don't think it's really relevant today.
What is relevant today is that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons program, and they were trying to build bombs, and they were enriching uranium.
They were hiding their nuclear weapons program.
They were trying to deceive the International Atomic Agency.
And the world caught wind of it.
Israel exposed it.
The US exposed it.
Europeans, who are, I don't think you can blame them for being action prone or wanting to be belligerent, but they actually saw and understood the threat and they said, okay, let's deal with it in terms of sanctions.
And they applied sanctions on the Iranian regime in order to give it an opportunity to course corruption.
Jonathan, you're talking there about the need for Iran to be transparent and open and honest about its nuclear capability, about its nuclear aspirations.
And yet, of course, the one country in the world which resolutely refuses to be remotely transparent about its nuclear capability is Israel.
I've asked Netanyahu directly many times.
I asked Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister last week.
Nobody ever wants to give a straight answer.
So let me just ask you.
You said you answer my questions.
Does Israel have nuclear weapons?
Yes or no?
Listen, as far as I know, and as you know, not prime minister, not even close to it, way above my pay grade.
But as far as I understand, Israel does possess significant capabilities.
But officially, Israel says it maintains this policy of ambiguity.
Why?
I think at this, you know, I think at this stage, the organizations, enemies, and people who need to know, they know.
And I'm specifically focusing on our enemies.
Yeah, but you understand why people like me look at it and go, hang on a sec.
So you guys are all over Iran about their nuclear capability and you want to have full transparency.
You don't want anyone misleading anybody.
And yet when it comes to your own nuclear weapons, you know, you're about the first Israeli guest I've ever had, I think, who's openly said, yeah, we've got them.
But the idea that your government can just not answer that question and is the only country in the world that doesn't give an answer to that question.
Why does Israel get a pass?
I don't understand it.
Well, I think it's fundamentally different when you try to compare Iran and Israel.
We aren't the ones who are...
Well, let me compare you to the UK.
Why should the UK be open and transparent about its nuclear capability, but Israel get a pass?
I don't understand why you want one rule for Israel and another rule for everybody else has got them.
But even more substantially, Piers, why should anybody have nuclear weapons?
Why does the UK have them?
For what purpose?
What does it serve France?
What does it serve Russia, China?
Well, obviously they have them as a deterrent, as I assume Israel does.
But again, the French are open about it.
The British are open about it.
The Americans are open about it.
The only country that is is Israel.
Yeah, but I mean, what's more important, whether you have it or not, or whether you speak about it, I mean, I think it's something that, frankly, it's one of those Israeli policies that I actually don't understand myself.
I've questioned it a few times and sought answers to really understand the reason behind it.
The way I analyze it is that it was a policy that was policy or a principle that was formulated many, many years ago, maybe in the 60s.
And at the time, it served a purpose while capabilities were being generated.
And then it probably just carried on with inertia.
And maybe a future prime minister of Israel will say, you know what, world?
Yes, we have them.
We're armed with them.
And we can use them in order to defend ourselves against an existential.
I think that would be an excellent idea if Israel just was just.
And I personally would support it.
I personally would support it.
But I mean, would that change the situation, the calculus regarding a crazy religious?
No, no, I just think it does think if you're going to lecture other countries about being transparent about their nuclear capability and aspirations, you've got to be yourself.
Otherwise, you're a hypocrite.
No, I mean, my issue with Iran is that they tried to destroy the state of Israel.
They openly say that they're not.
No, no, no, you've made that point.
It's to annihilate that.
Yeah, I'm not quibbling that.
It's not so much about transparency.
I'm not questioning about the fact that they want to kill us all.
Supporting Israel's Defense00:00:31
I understand.
I understand.
But I've got to leave it there.
Thank you both very much indeed for the debate.
I appreciate it.
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