Uncensored - Piers Morgan - “You Bombed SIX Countries!” Israel Continues Strikes in Lebanon | Middle East Conflict With Mehdi Hasan & Doron Spielman
Aired: 2026-04-14
Duration: 46:21


=== Stop The Nuclear Threat Now (02:36) ===

[00:00:00]  What are we talking about?
[00:00:01]  Wake up.
[00:00:02]  This is the face of terror with the bomb that's being stopped.
[00:00:05]  President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and it should be the entire Western world, has an opportunity to stop this before it happens.
[00:00:11]  I'm hearing him talk about monsters in charge of governments, the face of terror, nuclear weapons.
[00:00:17]  Who are we talking about here, Iran or Israel?
[00:00:19]  Which country in the Middle East attacked six countries in the Middle East last year?
[00:00:23]  Six.
[00:00:24]  It wasn't Iran, it was Israel.
[00:00:26]  You're in absolute denial, and so was Candace Owens, and so was Tucker Carlson.
[00:00:32]  I'm not here to speak for.
[00:00:32]  Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens, who I've been very critical of.
[00:00:35]  I'm not here to speak for Iran, who I've been very critical of.
[00:00:37]  I'm here to talk about facts.
[00:00:39]  You're defending.
[00:00:40]  You sound like Mehdi Khamenei.
[00:00:42]  Of course.
[00:00:43]  Go for racist insults.
[00:00:45]  That's all you have left.
[00:00:46]  We murdered 300 terrorists last week, and I think those are your people.
[00:00:50]  Wow.
[00:00:53]  The people of Lebanon were supposed to be enjoying a badly needed break from the bombing.
[00:00:56]  President Trump had announced a two week ceasefire.
[00:00:59]  The U.S. and the Pakistanis were clear initially that it included the Israeli war against Hezbollah.
[00:01:04]  Instead, Israel launched a blitz.
[00:01:06]  Hundreds were killed and thousands wounded by an IDF bombardment under the chilling codename Operation Eternal Darkness.
[00:01:13]  The death toll in Lebanon is now more than 2,000, according to the Health Ministry.
[00:01:17]  As I said on this show three weeks ago, for all debate about whether Israel forced Trump to start the war, it will soon be a question of whether Israel is the barrier to ending it.
[00:01:26]  While many Israelis believe the war is righteous and necessary, the damage to Israel's global standing could be devastating.
[00:01:32]  Spain is openly calling Netanyahu a war criminal.
[00:01:35]  This weekend, Turkey compared him to Hitler.
[00:01:37]  And record numbers now look unfavorably on Israel and the United States, where plenty of people think, with an increasing body of evidence, that Netanyahu forced Trump into a disaster.
[00:01:47]  Well, joining me to debate this is Mehdi Hassan, founder of Zateo News, and Doran Spielman, the reservist IDF spokesman and author of When the Stones Speak.
[00:01:56]  Right, well, welcome to both of you.
[00:02:00]  Doran Spielman, welcome back to Uncensored.
[00:02:02]  The New York Times piece that came out several days ago.
[00:02:06]  Painted a pretty extraordinary picture of the Prime Minister of Israel sitting in the Situation Room at the White House with the head of Mossad appearing on a large screen and painting a picture of what would happen if the United States joined Israel in taking out the Supreme Leader of Iran and his top people who were all going to be congregating.
[00:02:27]  That inevitably, what would happen is the IRGC, the sort of ruling regime underneath the Supreme Leader, would collapse.

=== Israel's Aggressive Nuclear Strategy (14:27) ===

[00:02:36]  The people of Iran.
[00:02:38]  Would rise up and that nobody would care or notice the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:02:42]  That would be an irrelevance to all this.
[00:02:44]  And all that's happened is that, and a lot of people in the room on the American side thought this was fantasy land.
[00:02:52]  And all that's happened is the first part happened.
[00:02:55]  The Ayatollah and his top people were taken out in a successful strike.
[00:02:59]  But the IRGC remain in place.
[00:03:02]  The people haven't risen up.
[00:03:04]  And the Iranians have worked out the Strait of Hormuz can be used as an economic weapon.
[00:03:09]  To rival anything that people can do against them militarily and cause enormous global economic damage.
[00:03:17]  Do you accept that the Americans were sold a pup here?
[00:03:25]  Pierce, thank you for having me.
[00:03:26]  I think actually, Pierce, we're going to look back at this as a war that was as consequential as perhaps if the West had information in 1936 to act against Nazi Germany.
[00:03:39]  We have to put this in perspective.
[00:03:40]  Wars take time.
[00:03:42]  Iran has had 40 years to embed.
[00:03:45]  There's not been a single US president, starting with Ronald Reagan, who I greatly respect, going all the way through Clinton and Obama and Biden, who's been willing to pay the political capital.
[00:03:56]  To stop the Iranian terror regime, the largest regime in the world, from developing a nuclear weapon.
[00:04:02]  And why?
[00:04:03]  Because it requires a preemptive strike.
[00:04:05]  You have to preemptively stop Iran.
[00:04:07]  If you don't preemptively stop Iran from having a bomb, the alternative is you're only going to stop it when that bomb lands in your soil.
[00:04:13]  And we don't want to have a 9 11 where instead of two passenger planes, we're dealing with an atomic weapon.
[00:04:20]  And I think President Trump has been incredibly consistent from the very beginning.
[00:04:24]  And here, obviously, he shares a value with Israel.
[00:04:27]  Which is that Iran cannot be a nuclear regime.
[00:04:29]  It's very, very simple.
[00:04:30]  You cannot have an Iranian terror regime that instead of blocking the Straits of Hormuz with ballistic missiles, they can block the Straits of Hormuz with a nuclear weapon.
[00:04:41]  You can't have a regime that when they shoot at Israel, which we've had more than 6,000 of their weapons, both from Hezbollah and Iran, we've had over 1,000 over the last 12 months, any one of them loaded with a nuclear weapon.
[00:04:54]  And we have to take a step back here.
[00:04:55]  We see the face of the regime.
[00:04:57]  They're an evil monster, they're hitting their own allies.
[00:04:59]  How could we even conceive?
[00:05:01]  That we would not take the opportunity to eliminate this before it grows.
[00:05:05]  And the shock, Pierce, is that I have people like Mehdi, who's going to join us shortly, and people all over this liberal fantasy land that you can transplant what you hear in the Oxford corridors if you just act nice and you kind of reason with them.
[00:05:21]  Well, maybe they want a bomb, but they're not really going to use it.
[00:05:24]  It's only for civilian energy.
[00:05:26]  What are we talking about?
[00:05:27]  Wake up.
[00:05:27]  This is the face of terror with a bomb that's being stopped.
[00:05:31]  And therefore, I think President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and it should be the entire Western world.
[00:05:36]  Is now has an opportunity to stop this before it happens.
[00:05:39]  And I think, if anything, it's praiseworthy, Pierce.
[00:05:43]  Okay, Mehdi Hassan, it's praiseworthy.
[00:05:48]  Well, it's not praiseworthy.
[00:05:49]  The entire war has been a disaster.
[00:05:50]  I think everyone agrees on that.
[00:05:51]  Even the Israeli opposition agrees it's been a disaster the way Netanyahu and Trump have handled it.
[00:05:56]  I think any objective person can look at the state of this war, even if you are pro the U.S. government, pro the Israeli government, and say it's been a success.
[00:06:03]  But let's put that to one side.
[00:06:04]  I want to take on board what Doran said across the board, because a lot of it was pure projection.
[00:06:09]  I mean, I'm hearing him talk about monsters in charge of governments, the face of terror, nuclear weapons.
[00:06:15]  Who are we talking about here, Iran or Israel?
[00:06:17]  Because I would ask a few questions.
[00:06:18]  For your viewers to consider today as they listen to Doron.
[00:06:21]  Which country in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?
[00:06:24]  It's not Iran, it's Israel.
[00:06:26]  Which country in the Middle East has not signed the NPT, the Non Proliferation Treaty?
[00:06:30]  It's not Iran, it's Israel.
[00:06:32]  Which country in the Middle East is defying a UN Security Council resolution calling for that country to open up its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspectors?
[00:06:40]  It's not Iran, it's Israel.
[00:06:42]  Which country in the Middle East attacked six countries in the Middle East last year?
[00:06:46]  Six!
[00:06:47]  It wasn't Iran, it was Israel.
[00:06:49]  So, Iran, for all its many sins and crimes, Is not the rogue nuclear state in the Middle East right now.
[00:06:55]  That country is Israel.
[00:06:56]  As you said, Piers, in your introduction, global public opinion has made it very clear that they see Israel as the threat to regional and international peace right now.
[00:07:04]  You pointed out, Piers, that it's Benjamin Netanyahu dragging American Republican presidents into wars of choice, Iraq in 2002 3, and now Iran in 2025 2026.
[00:07:16]  Yeah, I mean, Doris Spellman, the floor in your argument is just a bunch of woolly liberals who didn't want to.
[00:07:22]  This will happen.
[00:07:24]  If you look at actually the reaction from American conservatives, you know, you've got Tucker Carlson, Meghan Kelly, Candace Owens, Alex Jones.
[00:07:34]  You've got Trump supporters like Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughan, and others, the big podcasters who helped get him elected.
[00:07:41]  There's a massive cross section of very influential people, many of whom are conservative Trump supporters historically, who have condemned this war and want nothing to do with it.
[00:07:53]  So, I don't think you can just bat it away as, oh, it's just a bunch of liberals throwing their toys out of the pram.
[00:08:00]  It's not.
[00:08:01]  You know, I love the word projection because projection is used by people who don't live in the real world.
[00:08:08]  Because the alternative to a projection when it comes to a nuclear weapon, when does that projection end, Mehdi?
[00:08:14]  Does it end when Iran is trying to develop enriched uranium?
[00:08:19]  And already back before the JCPOA, they had already developed six times, and now they've developed almost 90% of enriched uranium, which is 20 times the amount you need for an atomic weapon.
[00:08:30]  Is that for civil?
[00:08:32]  For civil uses.
[00:08:32]  Is that still a projection, or is it when they actually press that little button and it lands in the U.S.?
[00:08:38]  Well, let me ask you.
[00:08:38]  Hold on, Pierce.
[00:08:39]  Hold on, hold on.
[00:08:40]  Hang on.
[00:08:40]  Hang on.
[00:08:41]  It's not a projection, Pierce.
[00:08:43]  Don't, don't.
[00:08:43]  On that point, giving you the best.
[00:08:45]  It's not a projection that 22 civilians have been killed by ballistic missiles, and we've had 600 warheads on Israel.
[00:08:50]  We've had warheads planned in the UAE.
[00:08:56]  We've had warheads planned in Lebanon and 3,000 people in Iraq.
[00:08:58]  And regarding, you know, regard, this is so funny, regarding Iran.
[00:09:02]  You know, you put them on the court bench.
[00:09:04]  Let's just call on someone for a character reference comparing Iran to Israel.
[00:09:08]  Who's Iran?
[00:09:09]  Well, they've developed a global terror regime that stretches from the Middle East through Latin America into Europe.
[00:09:18]  They have the Houthis who've stopped shipping and have fired missiles and weapons both at Israel and U.S. assets.
[00:09:25]  They created Hezbollah, the world's largest terror organization that is also one of the largest drug organizations.
[00:09:30]  You created Hezbollah by illegally invading Lebanon.
[00:09:33]  Who committed October 7th.
[00:09:35]  They just killed 30,000 of their people in the streets for protesting.
[00:09:39]  I mean, do we need such a projection?
[00:09:41]  I mean, only an idiot would actually say we need a projection to understand what Iran's intent is.
[00:09:47]  We don't even need to try.
[00:09:48]  You're shoving it in your face, Maddie.
[00:09:50]  You're in absolute denial.
[00:09:52]  And so is Candace Owens and so is Tucker Carlson.
[00:09:55]  And President Trump thinks he's not.
[00:09:57]  I'm not here to speak for.
[00:09:59]  I'm not here to speak for.
[00:10:00]  Hold on, hold on, hold on, Doris.
[00:10:02]  Let me respond.
[00:10:02]  You said a lot there.
[00:10:03]  I'm not here to speak for Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens, who I've been very critical of.
[00:10:06]  I'm not here to speak for Iran, who I've been.
[00:10:08]  very critical of.
[00:10:09]  I'm here to talk about facts.
[00:10:10]  You say projection.
[00:10:11]  Let's just deal with your little speech in two ways.
[00:10:13]  Number one, even if I were to accept your premise that Iran's nuclear program was a threat, even though the IEA and US intelligence say it wasn't, but let's accept your premise that it was a threat.
[00:10:22]  This is not the way you stop a nuclear program.
[00:10:25]  We had the JCPOA, which Israel opposed, Donald Trump opposed.
[00:10:29]  Iran was enriching at 3.67%, had no pathway to a bomb under the JCPOA, as every major disarmament and nuclear expert said at the time.
[00:10:38]  It was Israel, Netanyahu, Trump that opposed this, and now we have them at 60% enriched uranium.
[00:10:43]  because of the actions of Israel and Donald Trump.
[00:10:46]  So if you claim to want to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, you've done a very bad job of doing that.
[00:10:50]  In fact, if you're the Iranian leadership now, you probably want a bomb more now than ever before because you've been attacked by Israel two years running.
[00:10:57]  That's one point.
[00:10:58]  On the point about projection, the point I'm making is this, Doran, and you dodged it, so let me ask it again.
[00:11:03]  The only country in the Middle East right now that can put its finger on a button and fire a nuke is Israel.
[00:11:08]  The only country threatening to fire the nuke it has.
[00:11:11]  Ben Gavir smiled and nodded the other day when an Israeli journalist suggested nuking Iran is Israel.
[00:11:16]  Why is your country, Doron, you're a spokesman for the military, in violation of UN Resolution 487, which was unanimously passed, including by the Reagan administration in 1981, calling for Israel to open up its nuclear facilities to the IAEA?
[00:11:29]  Why wouldn't you allow IAEA inspectors to look at your illicit secret nuclear weapons program?
[00:11:34]  First of all, I think you and I both know that there are no binding United Nations resolutions against Israel.
[00:11:39]  Not in this sphere.
[00:11:40]  Yes, there is.
[00:11:40]  UN Security Council Resolution 487.
[00:11:42]  You're wrong, Doron.
[00:11:47]  You're wrong.
[00:11:47]  And there is a number of binding UN Resolutions 487.
[00:11:49]  You're lying.
[00:11:49]  Everyone can Google it right now.
[00:11:51]  UN Security Council Resolution 487.
[00:11:54]  People can Google it.
[00:11:55]  You can talk over me.
[00:11:57]  UN Security Council Resolution 487.
[00:12:02]  You can talk over me.
[00:12:02]  I'll wait and make my point again.
[00:12:04]  But let me just make one point and then I'll let you speak indefinitely.
[00:12:07]  UN Resolution 487.
[00:12:09]  487.
[00:12:09]  You can Google it right now.
[00:12:11]  People can watch it at home.
[00:12:12]  In 1981, the Reagan administration voted for it.
[00:12:15]  It calls on Israel to urgently open up its facilities to IAEA controls.
[00:12:21]  That is a UN Security Council resolution which is binding under international law.
[00:12:24]  Israel has been in violation of it for 45 years.
[00:12:27]  Why are you in violation of it?
[00:12:28]  And do you accept that Israel has nuclear weapons?
[00:12:31]  If you won't accept that, why should we take anything you say seriously on anything else?
[00:12:33]  It is not a binding resolution.
[00:12:36]  However, I want to get your point because I think you just answered it for me.
[00:12:39]  You said that this has been Israel, according to you.
[00:12:42]  Has been in violation for 40 years.
[00:12:43]  So, therefore, you're assuming Israel said a nuclear weapon for 40 years.
[00:12:47]  Can you tell me one time, Mehdi?
[00:12:49]  It has.
[00:12:49]  One single time.
[00:12:50]  Are you denying it?
[00:12:51]  Israel has threatened another country with nuclear weapons.
[00:12:55]  Can you tell me, Mehdi, one time when the Israeli Prime Minister, under an entire command center that would have the ability to threaten nuclear weapons with massive controls just once a year?
[00:13:06]  I answered your question.
[00:13:07]  That is the one to another country.
[00:13:10]  Hold on, Mehdi.
[00:13:11]  Another country, as you and I both know, That Iran, who you have projections about, the supreme leader, right?
[00:13:18]  Ali Khamenei, which I'm very curious why you defend him and his entire regime.
[00:13:23]  Ali Khamenei refers to Israel as the little Satan.
[00:13:27]  And we both know, wait, we both know how he refers to the United States, meaning the spiritual leader.
[00:13:32]  You've called him a spiritual leader.
[00:13:33]  But, Doran, you're not, let me jump in here.
[00:13:35]  Doran, you, Doran, let me jump in here.
[00:13:36]  The spiritual leader of the country calls America the great Satan.
[00:13:39]  Let me jump in here.
[00:13:39]  You want to give him a nuclear weapon?
[00:13:41]  No, I think Israel and us are fighting together against the regime.
[00:13:44]  Please stop talking.
[00:13:45]  I am here.
[00:13:46]  I am here.
[00:13:47]  And I am moderating this panel, much as you'd both like to just get off without me.
[00:13:53]  Mehdi raises a point I have raised with a number of pro Israeli guests in the last few weeks.
[00:13:59]  Why is it that Israel does not admit it has nuclear weapons, and are you prepared to do so now?
[00:14:08]  Israel, as we all know, is a state that, upon its very founding, faced an existential threat from seven countries that attacked it.
[00:14:17]  We also know that in 1967, Israel was attacked by three countries, followed by 1973, followed by the Gulf War in 1981, followed by Hezbollah and Hamas.
[00:14:27]  There's probably not been another country on earth that attacked as much as Israel and Hamas.
[00:14:34]  According to the Nonproliferation Treaty, which Israel has not signed and therefore is not bound by, Israel, if it maintains a nuclear arsenal, it has not used it.
[00:14:43]  And if it maintains it, it is because it's not used.
[00:14:46]  Why are you saying if you know what?
[00:14:47]  Hold on, hold on.
[00:14:48]  And since the Holocaust, which today is International Holocaust Day in Israel, it's Israeli Holocaust Day, and we are mourning tonight six million Jews that have died, Israel maintains the ability never to rely on anyone else.
[00:15:01]  And therefore, Israel is not bound by the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
[00:15:06]  It didn't sign on.
[00:15:07]  Who is bound?
[00:15:08]  The United States is bound and it has followed it.
[00:15:10]  But how can you demand.
[00:15:12]  How can you demand.
[00:15:13]  Pierce, my answer is not because of an existential threat.
[00:15:17]  I just want to say Iran has signed it and violated it already from 2002.
[00:15:23]  How can you, with a straight face, defend Israel's determination for full transparency by another country over its nuclear weapon ambitions when you have so far steadfastly ducked my very simple question as to whether Israel has?
[00:15:40]  Its own nuclear weapons.
[00:15:42]  I have not ducked your question.
[00:15:43]  Do you have to or not?
[00:15:44]  Do you have to?
[00:15:44]  I explained to you that while I do not have first hand knowledge of Israel's nuclear facilities like you, I've heard the foreign reports.
[00:15:51]  You don't know.
[00:15:52]  Hold on.
[00:15:53]  I'm answering.
[00:15:54]  As a reservist IDF, I would assume it's highly likely.
[00:15:56]  You don't know of Israel's news.
[00:15:58]  I would assume it is highly likely, as do you, that Israel has a nuclear program.
[00:16:04]  Israel never signed the NPT.
[00:16:06]  And the reason Israel never signed the NPT, I would assume, even though I wasn't in the room, is because Israel maintains its individual right to defend itself.
[00:16:13]  To compare that now, To Iran and a potential nuclear program in a regime that is the world's number one global terrorism, or they are not just terrorism, they engineered the idea of terrorism.
[00:16:28]  They represent terror that has killed 241 American Marines.
[00:16:32]  They have killed 85 Jews in Buenos Aires.
[00:16:36]  They have killed thousands of U.S. soldiers with roadside bombs.
[00:16:41]  They have carried out 22, according to MI5, mass casualty attempts in England since 2022.
[00:16:49]  They just killed 40,000 of the protesters.
[00:16:52]  Israel has a protest about cottage cheese.
[00:16:55]  Israel's protests every day.
[00:16:56]  How can you compare the idea that Israel would have a nuclear weapon and Iran with the potential of Hitler?
[00:17:02]  Let me wait and hear some more.

=== Ceasefire Violations And Incentives (15:47) ===

[00:17:04]  Let me respond.
[00:17:07]  I noticed that Doron said that Iran killed 30,000 of its people a few minutes ago.
[00:17:11]  Now he's saying 40,000.
[00:17:12]  By the end of this discussion, it'll be 100,000.
[00:17:13]  It's funny how they inflate the numbers of people killed in Iran, but never recognize the 100,000 people you killed in Gaza, that your military killed in Gaza, 100,000 people minimum.
[00:17:23]  Killed in Palestine, which are actually verified numbers by international organizations like the Lancet Medical Journal.
[00:17:28]  You deny those.
[00:17:29]  But let's put that to one side and deal with some of the stuff you've been saying.
[00:17:31]  Number one, just some fact checks.
[00:17:33]  A UN Security Council resolution is binding under international law.
[00:17:36]  The Reagan administration voted for it, and you've never followed it.
[00:17:39]  You proudly say you haven't signed the NPT.
[00:17:41]  People watching at home will laugh their heads off.
[00:17:43]  You're basically saying, because we didn't sign an international treaty, we don't have to follow international law.
[00:17:48]  So then why doesn't Iran just pull out of the NPT?
[00:17:50]  Why doesn't everyone just pull out of the NPT and do what Israel did?
[00:17:53]  You say Israel reserves the right to defend itself.
[00:17:55]  That old chestnut.
[00:17:56]  No other country in the Middle East is allowed to defend itself.
[00:17:59]  Israel is the country that bombed, count them, six countries in the Middle East last year.
[00:18:03]  I can't think of a single country on planet Earth, aside from the US and Israel, that bombed half a dozen countries in the calendar year 2025.
[00:18:11]  That is your country that you're defending, a rogue nation that bombs whoever it sees fit and then claims to be a victim.
[00:18:17]  You say that, for example, you mentioned in your comments, you said 1967 we were attacked.
[00:18:21]  Complete flat falsehood.
[00:18:23]  Israel attacked first in 1967.
[00:18:25]  Everyone knows that.
[00:18:25]  It's a documented fact.
[00:18:27]  You can call it a preemptive war, but you can't just lie on here and say you were attacked, you were not.
[00:18:31]  You said that Iran pioneered the use of terrorism in the Middle East.
[00:18:35]  Actually, that was the Zionist gangs.
[00:18:37]  That was the Stern gang and the Irgun who blew up British diplomats, bombed the King David Hotel, hung British sergeants, attacked British civilians and military and Arabs.
[00:18:46]  It was actually Jewish and Zionist terror gangs that pioneered terrorism in the Middle East 100 years ago.
[00:18:52]  So a lot of your facts are just completely wrong, and you're dodging Piers' central point, which is that you do have nukes.
[00:18:57]  You know you have nukes.
[00:18:58]  You're not allowed to say you have nukes, which makes this whole conversation so absurd.
[00:19:01]  But the idea that you would come on TV.
[00:19:04]  And go after someone else's civil nuclear program.
[00:19:06]  Remember, the US says Iran did not have a weapons program.
[00:19:09]  While you yourself have weapons.
[00:19:11]  That's the US intelligence community's view.
[00:19:14]  They said last year.
[00:19:16]  That is what the US said last year.
[00:19:17]  The US annual.
[00:19:19]  Let me read out the quote to you.
[00:19:26]  Let me read out the quote to you.
[00:19:27]  If you stop interrupting me.
[00:19:29]  I didn't interrupt you, Doran.
[00:19:30]  You spoke for a while.
[00:19:32]  In 2025, this is what the director of national intelligence said.
[00:19:36]  We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.
[00:19:44]  A country that doesn't have nukes is being lectured by you, a country that does have nukes.
[00:19:49]  It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic and you hadn't killed so many Iranian kids as part of your supposedly disarmament program.
[00:19:56]  Can I respond?
[00:19:58]  You can respond.
[00:20:02]  But let me ask you.
[00:20:03]  Let me ask you another question.
[00:20:04]  Israel wasn't attacked in 67.
[00:20:06]  Is basically decided to launch the 67 war.
[00:20:10]  That's a fact.
[00:20:11]  What Mehdi does is he tells a fantasy story.
[00:20:13]  It's a historical fact.
[00:20:14]  Roger Woke up one morning two years ago and said, You know what?
[00:20:17]  We're a country of nine million people.
[00:20:19]  Let's go attack six countries throughout the Middle East.
[00:20:22]  Not two years ago, Doro.
[00:20:24]  Not two years ago.
[00:20:26]  Because we just lost.
[00:20:27]  78 years ago, you've been bombing your neighbors.
[00:20:29]  By the way, 78 years ago, you've been bombing your neighbors.
[00:20:32]  From the very beginning.
[00:20:33]  A very, very, very long time.
[00:20:35]  And you interrupted me, Doro.
[00:20:37]  I assume that you want to hear my answer.
[00:20:39]  That's why we're here.
[00:20:40]  October 8th.
[00:20:41]  You interrupted me when I was trying to read out the threat assessment.
[00:20:43]  Remember October 8th, there was also a war.
[00:20:46]  That war began when Hezbollah saw Israel weakened on October 7th and launched a campaign of 6,000 rockets at Israel.
[00:20:53]  And then Israel responded.
[00:20:56]  Iran fired 500 ballistic missiles, which has been attacking Israel consistently.
[00:21:03]  And Israel decided back then with the United States that it is time to deal with the number one terror regime in the entire world.
[00:21:12]  And what I hear from you, Mehdi, is you make an incredibly compelling case, diverting the conversation away from stopping Iran's nuclear power by hyper focusing on the Israeli democracy that you yourself admit has had nuclear weapons for 40 years and never used them.
[00:21:27]  And you were essentially getting a get out of jail free card for Iran.
[00:21:31]  Mehdi, do you want, are you willing?
[00:21:33]  If there's a possibility in your projection, if you projected that Iran would have a nuclear weapon, would you be concerned?
[00:21:39]  All right, well, let me.
[00:21:40]  I want to ask a question based around that.
[00:21:42]  Sorry.
[00:21:43]  Hang on, hold on.
[00:21:44]  If I could just ask a question of Doran now, which is this if the whole purpose of this war was to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon, do you concede now that if you don't get the enriched uranium either voluntarily handed to you by Iran or by seizure, which would require the use of ground forces?
[00:22:07]  That the whole war will have been a failure.
[00:22:10]  Do you accept?
[00:22:10]  No, it wouldn't have all been a failure because obviously we will not get the most important thing, which is to remove the enriched uranium from Iran.
[00:22:18]  And that is the number one goal.
[00:22:20]  The number one goal would have been to get the uranium.
[00:22:23]  If we do not get the uranium, the number one goal of this war will not be fulfilled.
[00:22:28]  And it's going to put the war in a sense of stagnation, which I think will probably continue until that happens for one of two reasons.
[00:22:34]  Either Iran is going to develop a nuclear weapon and threaten the rest of the world, and the world will then try to stop them.
[00:22:40]  Probably too late, or at some point in the future, I don't know when either the U.S. or Israel will try to make that happen.
[00:22:47]  However, this war has been incredibly successful for a very simple reason.
[00:22:51]  We have destroyed Iran's nuclear production capabilities.
[00:22:55]  Its launching timers, its hard fuel, all of the many things that go in in order to take that bomb, put it on a warhead, and shoot it have been destroyed.
[00:23:05]  Their ballistic missile program has been weakened.
[00:23:07]  How do we know?
[00:23:08]  Because last summer, their leadership and the fighting mechanism have been destroyed.
[00:23:13]  Darren, with respect, last summer, after the 12 day war, we were assured that the whole nuclear capability of Iran had been put back decades.
[00:23:23]  It was done, flattened, it was over.
[00:23:26]  Eight months later, a massive war was launched against Iran because it turned out that was all baloney.
[00:23:32]  It wasn't baloney.
[00:23:34]  Now you're spewing what many people will say is exactly the same rhetorical baloney again.
[00:23:41]  But you're also conceding that if the enriched uranium remains in Iran, this war's a failure.
[00:23:45]  And I don't see how you can.
[00:23:46]  I said it isn't a failure because you'll have set back a terror regime that operates with ballistic missiles, operates as ballistic missiles, and Hamas will have taken, again, the supreme leader's son, the new Ayatollah, right?
[00:23:59]  Pierce.
[00:24:00]  Yeah?
[00:24:02]  Say this again, I'm sorry.
[00:24:03]  The Ayatollah, the supreme leader who was killed, his son is his replacement.
[00:24:07]  The IRGC regime remains in place.
[00:24:10]  There's been no protests from the people of Iran.
[00:24:14]  And the Straits of Hormuz have become a massive weapon for the Iranians to use economically, as they also simultaneously attack all their Gulf state neighbors.
[00:24:23]  So the idea that you.
[00:24:25]  My point is the idea that at the end of this, Iran keeps its enriched uranium, you would have to admit, in that eventuality, the wars are failing.
[00:24:34]  No, because a war, Pierce, it's very rare that you get a victory, what's called, you know, unconditional surrender of any enemy.
[00:24:42]  I don't think it's happened since World War II.
[00:24:44]  What you get in wars are cumulative gains.
[00:24:45]  Again, this is not fast food.
[00:24:46]  You know, it's like a McDonald's drive through.
[00:24:49]  The woman says, What do you want?
[00:24:50]  You say, I want, you know, then the Iranian regime.
[00:24:52]  This is a process that began a number of months ago with the 12 day war.
[00:24:56]  And what Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence saw is as soon as that war ended, Iran went right back to building a nuclear program, developing the nuclear sites, digging for the uranium that was there.
[00:25:07]  They've refurbished their ballistic missile sites and we're expanding it from 2,500 to 7,000.
[00:25:12]  And like you said, that now that we see Eli Khamenei has been killed, what do we see happen?
[00:25:18]  They have not reformed.
[00:25:19]  They put in another member of the exact same family, meaning this regime is.
[00:25:25]  So you have done this.
[00:25:26]  Hold on.
[00:25:27]  Can I actually say a little bit more?
[00:25:29]  It's not to stop them, Pierce.
[00:25:31]  It's the idea of this.
[00:25:31]  Okay, Mehdi's response, please.
[00:25:35]  So what both of you are missing to an extent is it's not really about what uranium is left in the country, it's about intent.
[00:25:42]  You have left the Israelis and the American government have left the Israeli left the Iranian government not just in place There hasn't been the regime change that Netanyahu lied to Trump and said would be easy in that situation from meeting They've not just left the Iranian regime in place But they've left the Iranian government with the with the clear intent to want to have to defend itself to use Doron and the Israeli's favorite phrase their right to self defense if you were in the Iranian government today Would you not want to get nuclear weapons?
[00:26:07]  Would you not think I'd been attacked two years running by people I was in the middle of negotiations with every time I'm in a negotiation with them They kill our negotiators.
[00:26:15]  They kill our top foreign diplomats.
[00:26:17]  They threaten to kill more of us.
[00:26:18]  Every time we're doing a deal, whether it's in Geneva or Vienna or Oman, they attack us, which is what the Israelis did last year.
[00:26:25]  Why would you not want to get nuclear weapons?
[00:26:27]  Why would you not look at North Korea and say, no one dares touch North Korea because they have nukes?
[00:26:31]  Why would you not listen to Doron speaking on Piers Morgan saying, well, we didn't sign the NPT, so we don't have any obligations not to have nukes?
[00:26:38]  Why wouldn't Iran say, well, we're going to pull out of the NPT, we're going to do what North Korea did, and we're going to do it because the world saw us get illegally attacked?
[00:26:44]  Two years running.
[00:26:45]  Doran asked me, Do I want Iran to have nuclear weapons?
[00:26:47]  No, I'm anti nuclear weapons.
[00:26:49]  I'm not like you.
[00:26:49]  I don't support nukes and have a secret nuclear weapons program.
[00:26:52]  I supported the JCPOA, which in the very first paragraph, Iran affirmed never to build nuclear weapons, which said that Iran could only enrich to 3.67%, which got rid of a lot of their highly enriched uranium.
[00:27:02]  You, the Israeli government, Netanyahu, stopped the JCPOA, wrecked the JCPOA.
[00:27:07]  You helped Iran enrich to 20% and then 60%.
[00:27:10]  You brought us to this situation, the Israeli government and the Donald Trump administration.
[00:27:14]  So don't lecture the rest of us about nukes when you have nukes and you've now incentivized Iran.
[00:27:19]  To get nukes.
[00:27:21]  Every year, the UN General Assembly votes.
[00:27:22]  Every year, there is a resolution.
[00:27:24]  Let me just finish my point.
[00:27:25]  Doron, you and Peirce spoke for a very long time.
[00:27:28]  Let me finish my point.
[00:27:29]  You said you don't like interruptions.
[00:27:30]  I'll finish in a moment.
[00:27:31]  The UN General Assembly votes every year to have a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East.
[00:27:37]  Iran votes for that resolution.
[00:27:39]  Everyone in the world votes for that resolution.
[00:27:41]  Two countries don't vote for that resolution.
[00:27:43]  That is the US and Israel.
[00:27:45]  Because Israel wants to be the only power.
[00:27:48]  Well, Iran doesn't have nukes, and you do.
[00:27:50]  You are so naive, Mehdi.
[00:27:51]  I don't believe you, Doran.
[00:27:53]  You can't even tell.
[00:27:54]  You can't even tell.
[00:27:56]  Doran, you can't even tell the viewers today whether Israel has nukes.
[00:28:00]  You can't even say what's the difference, Mehdi.
[00:28:01]  You're defending.
[00:28:02]  Doran, why should anyone believe anything that you say?
[00:28:05]  No, I'm not actually.
[00:28:06]  You.
[00:28:07]  It's Ali Khamenei.
[00:28:09]  That's your leader.
[00:28:10]  No, the U.S. disagree with you.
[00:28:12]  And the NAEA is.
[00:28:13]  I mean, there's no evidence.
[00:28:14]  Which one are you?
[00:28:15]  Because you're defending.
[00:28:16]  You sound like Mehdi Khamenei.
[00:28:18]  We're a nice program.
[00:28:19]  We vote against nuclear weapons.
[00:28:20]  Of course, go for racist insults.
[00:28:23]  That's all you have left.
[00:28:24]  We already had 20% enriched uranium.
[00:28:26]  I mean, who are you speaking to as an American citizen?
[00:28:29]  And yet, as a political citizen, you're going back to 2014, Doron?
[00:28:34]  2014.
[00:28:34]  Who are you speaking at?
[00:28:35]  You're speaking of the Israeli military.
[00:28:37]  It was reported before the JCPOA.
[00:28:41]  Exactly.
[00:28:41]  When did the JCPOA get signed, Doron?
[00:28:43]  Do you know what year?
[00:28:45]  2015.
[00:28:45]  Do you know what year the JCPOA was signed?
[00:28:47]  2015.
[00:28:47]  Exactly.
[00:28:48]  The year later.
[00:28:48]  So why are you going back to 2014?
[00:28:50]  It was resolved in 2015.
[00:28:51]  And then you and Trump came along and wrecked it.
[00:28:55]  No, the Trump administration vouched and said Iran was complying with the JCPOA.
[00:28:59]  So when you kidnap, why do you trust Iran?
[00:29:00]  Iran did what it had to do.
[00:29:02]  According to the IAEA, it was a very important deal.
[00:29:04]  Let's unpack the JCPOA first.
[00:29:05]  They talked about the deal.
[00:29:06]  No, no, no, no.
[00:29:08]  Tell us the conditions of the JCPOA.
[00:29:10]  I'm going to tell you what happened under the JCPOA.
[00:29:12]  No, tell me about what does the JCPOA say?
[00:29:14]  You know, tell us the truth.
[00:29:17]  I do know.
[00:29:17]  And I'm telling you now, the JCPOA allowed Iran to enrich at 3.67%.
[00:29:23]  When did they start enriching to 20%?
[00:29:25]  When you and your friends in the Israeli government and Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA.
[00:29:29]  Jim Mack is the general in the American military who was defense secretary, not under the JCPOA.
[00:29:35]  No, they did not, as every IAEA respected vassal did.
[00:29:38]  By the way, by the way, by the way, by the way, Doron, what enriched uranium does Israel have?
[00:29:43]  Because the IAEA aren't allowed into Israel.
[00:29:45]  So why don't you tell us?
[00:29:46]  You say we're naive.
[00:29:47]  Everyone watches us.
[00:29:48]  Again, you're comparing us with nuclear weapons.
[00:29:52]  Yes, I am.
[00:29:52]  I'm comparing the country that has attacked six countries.
[00:29:56]  Israel's not closing the streets of formation.
[00:29:57]  Why?
[00:29:57]  You're worse.
[00:29:59]  You're morally worse than Iran.
[00:30:00]  Israel's not funding projects in Iraq.
[00:30:01]  You're morally worse than Iran.
[00:30:02]  You bombed six countries.
[00:30:04]  You bombed six countries.
[00:30:05]  Israel does not target Marines.
[00:30:06]  or have Hezbollah or Hamas or kill its own people in the streets, even though you think it does.
[00:30:11]  You just murdered children in Lebanon last week.
[00:30:14]  Doran, your military just killed 300 people in a single 10-minute span last week.
[00:30:20]  You blew up children in strollers.
[00:30:22]  You killed a one-year-old at a funeral.
[00:30:24]  You killed 300 people in Lebanon in one day last week.
[00:30:27]  Who made that battlefield, Mehdi?
[00:30:27]  You filled up the hospitals.
[00:30:29]  You bombed an aid distribution center.
[00:30:31]  Who created that battlefield?
[00:30:31]  Who created that battlefield?
[00:30:32]  You did.
[00:30:33]  You violated the ceasefire with Hezbollah 15,000 times.
[00:30:36]  Yes, was there anyone over there who violated the ceasefire with Hezbollah?
[00:30:40]  Don't run.
[00:30:40]  I know you don't like facts, right?
[00:30:41]  But you haven't brought a single fact to the table.
[00:30:44]  Iran wastes the 15,000 people on the streets and they kill them in cold blood.
[00:30:48]  Why did you violate the peace process?
[00:30:50]  Please move out of the way so that we can actually kill Hezbollah.
[00:30:53]  And Pierce had on his show.
[00:30:54]  Then why did you kill 300 people in 10 minutes?
[00:30:57]  Why did you carry out Lebanon's October 7th last week?
[00:31:00]  You know what?
[00:31:00]  It's not about you.
[00:31:01]  It's not about you.
[00:31:01]  Why did you carry out Lebanon's October 7th last week?
[00:31:04]  Salah Maknouk was on his show.
[00:31:05]  Why did you kill 300 people?
[00:31:06]  And I think you should listen to what he said.
[00:31:08]  300 people, you told me.
[00:31:08]  He's on Pierce's show and he sports.
[00:31:10]  Do you not feel ashamed that your military massacred 300 people in 10 minutes?
[00:31:15]  I don't sleep at night.
[00:31:16]  I'm sure it is true.
[00:31:17]  I'm sure it's true of many Lebanese people with Hezbollah gone.
[00:31:21]  But it's also true that many Lebanese people right now are running terrified for their lives because of the bombings over them.
[00:31:28]  A million people.
[00:31:29]  And a million people have been displaced from their homes.
[00:31:31]  And there's a horrible, familiar precedent that follows what happened in Gaza.
[00:31:35]  Pierce, if we don't displace them, then I go on this show and we're accused of killing civilians, right?
[00:31:40]  And if we do displace them, you are killing civilians everywhere.
[00:31:43]  You told them they can't come back.
[00:31:45]  Don't lie, Doron.
[00:31:46]  Don't gaslight us.
[00:31:47]  You've told them they can't come back.
[00:31:49]  That means it's ethnic cleansing.
[00:31:51]  I have a question for you.
[00:31:52]  Does Israel have a right to respond?
[00:31:55]  To Hezbollah after they shot 6,000 rockets at us unprovoked on October 8th, 2023, one day after October 7th?
[00:32:04]  Do we have a right to respond?
[00:32:08]  Any country has a right to defend itself.
[00:32:10]  Of course it does.
[00:32:10]  Does Israel have a right to defend itself?
[00:32:11]  Does Lebanon have a right to defend itself from Israeli invasion?
[00:32:13]  How?
[00:32:13]  Hold on, hold on, hold on.
[00:32:14]  Doran, you always start these timelines.
[00:32:16]  You start these timelines in weird places.
[00:32:18]  You say 2014, ignoring what happened in 2015.
[00:32:20]  You say October 8th, 2023.
[00:32:22]  You ignore what happened in 2024, Doran.
[00:32:24]  Let me remind the viewers of Peers Uncensored.
[00:32:26]  There was a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
[00:32:29]  Since the end of 2024, according to the UN, according to UN peacekeepers, that Israel keeps attacking, you keep attacking Irish and Nepalese and Indonesian peacekeepers.
[00:32:38]  The UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon say Israel violated the ceasefire not a thousand times, not 5,000 times.
[00:32:44]  They say you violated the ceasefire 15,000 times over the last 18 months.
[00:32:49]  So please don't come and tell me about unprovoked violence.

=== Defending Against Invasion Claims (06:47) ===

[00:32:51]  I don't know about you or your family.
[00:32:52]  You, Israel, violated that ceasefire.
[00:32:54]  You killed, well, you can Google as your friend, okay?
[00:32:57]  400 people.
[00:32:59]  There was one.
[00:32:59]  Hold on, hold on.
[00:33:00]  You can't just say, I don't know my numbers.
[00:33:02]  We've run out of time.
[00:33:04]  I'm sorry.
[00:33:05]  We've run out of time.
[00:33:06]  You murdered 300 people last week, including a baby at a father's funeral.
[00:33:10]  You murdered 300 terrorists last week, and I think those are your people.
[00:33:14]  Okay.
[00:33:14]  A one-year-old baby is a terrorist?
[00:33:16]  I think that speaks volumes about.
[00:33:17]  I'm going to leave it there.
[00:33:18]  The one-year-old baby was put in harm's way because his bullet was killed in the battlefield.
[00:33:22]  I'm going to leave it there, gentlemen.
[00:33:24]  I'm going to leave it there, gentlemen.
[00:33:25]  They will show you joining me.
[00:33:26]  We've run out of time.
[00:33:27]  So thank you both very much.
[00:33:28]  I appreciate it.
[00:33:30]  Thank you, Pierce.
[00:33:32]  There's been a lot of talk, including from the White House, about a historic victory in the Iran war.
[00:33:36]  In response, many of the war's critics say it's a humiliating defeat.
[00:33:39]  So, which one is it?
[00:33:40]  Is it really possible or meaningful to declare a military victory if the general narrative is that you've not achieved very much at all?
[00:33:47]  Joining me to discuss this are retired US Army officers and a military intelligence expert, Major General James Spider Marks and Jim Hansen, US Army Special Forces veteran and chief strategist for the Middle East Forum.
[00:33:59]  Welcome to both of you.
[00:34:02]  Major General Marks, is America.
[00:34:05]  With Israel, are they winning this war?
[00:34:07]  Or is, as some people are claiming, the asymmetrical war being waged by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz actually turning out to be more successful?
[00:34:18]  Well, I see a lot of Vietnam wrapped up in this contest we're involved in right now.
[00:34:23]  We're winning immensely on the battlefield.
[00:34:27]  We have crushed Iran's ability to exercise command and control.
[00:34:31]  We've decimated their ability to exercise, I would think, the domestic requirements of a legitimate government.
[00:34:40]  We don't know who's in charge.
[00:34:41]  I don't think the Iranian people know who's in charge.
[00:34:44]  And I doubt anybody's going to raise a hand and say, look, I want to take the mantle of the burden of leadership, knowing full well if they go outside for a smoke break, they're going to get shot in the head as well they should be.
[00:34:54]  So my experience viewing this is that we are inflicting incredible damage.
[00:35:01]  But from the perspective of who's got the longer horizon, time horizon, of how much longer we can withstand pain.
[00:35:09]  I think Iran has the ability to simply hang in there much longer than we do because we're dealing with political dynamics, which are really incredibly difficult for us to look at a warfare through the political spectrum, but that's what it's all about.
[00:35:26]  But I think that's where it is.
[00:35:29]  I've described this in many cases, look, this is a lot like Monty Python, you know, in the Holy Grail, in that it's but a scratch, you know, as their arms and legs are getting cut off, but they've got the ability to hang in there.
[00:35:41]  Yeah, Jim Hansen, I mean, it seems to me the goalposts have shifted significantly throughout this six week war so far.
[00:35:49]  We've gone from wanting regime change to total surrender to now the main theme is we've got to stop Iran getting a nuke and so on.
[00:36:01]  And it's all been very confusing and very inconsistent.
[00:36:04]  But ultimately, if at the center of this is Donald Trump's claim that Iran must be stopped, From developing a nuclear weapon.
[00:36:14]  Can this war be perceived to be successful if the enriched uranium which Iran possesses remains in Iran in their possession?
[00:36:25]  Well, to extend the metaphor, I'd say that's the holy grail.
[00:36:28]  You have to get that.
[00:36:29]  And I don't think there has been a shifting of goalposts.
[00:36:33]  The goal all along has been to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, being able to develop one, having the initiative to do it, having the ability, having the ballistic missile programs and other conventional arms that protect them and stop other people from going in and removing that capability.
[00:36:51]  So, from that perspective, all of those things have at least been put on hold or set back.
[00:36:56]  Decades.
[00:36:57]  Their defense industrial base is non existent at this point.
[00:37:00]  They're running out of missiles and drones and everything else.
[00:37:03]  And I think at some point you have to look at what President Trump's decision was.
[00:37:08]  He had to either take the fact that they had begun trying to develop their nuclear program again, which has one purpose.
[00:37:14]  Let's not pretend it's about nuclear power.
[00:37:16]  It never has been.
[00:37:17]  It's always been about the Islamic Revolution's bomb.
[00:37:21]  And he said, if we don't do something to stop that at this point, they're going to continue.
[00:37:26]  And at some point, another president.
[00:37:28]  Is going to see a mushroom cloud.
[00:37:30]  He's not going to be the guy who kicked the can down the road again.
[00:37:33]  And so he took massive political damage to do the right thing for America and the world.
[00:37:40]  And I think he'll see it.
[00:37:41]  But how is he going to get the enriched uranium without committing a significant number of ground forces with all the danger that goes with it?
[00:37:49]  He's going to break the Islamic Republic's will to continue.
[00:37:53]  The blockade hurts them more than us.
[00:37:56]  They need to get oil revenue and they need to bring things in.
[00:38:00]  If that stops, and we have every capability to do that, it's already started, then they only have a couple weeks where they have enough cash reserves.
[00:38:10]  And the other thing to look at is if they don't get their oil out, their fields are pumping, their storage capability is at 60%, that'll be filled up in less than two weeks.
[00:38:21]  After that, they have to shut their wells down, and that breaks the wells, that ruins the ability to continue pumping.
[00:38:27]  So they've got a two week window tops if we enforce this blockade.
[00:38:31]  And that's where the maximum pressure comes from.
[00:38:35]  You know, the kinetic stuff broke their dangerous toys.
[00:38:38]  This breaks their ability to continue, both internally and externally.
[00:38:42]  Major General Marks, do you agree with that assessment?
[00:38:45]  Well, I agree with Jim absolutely that what the United States in concert with the in the campaign with Israel has been able to defeat the capability of the Iranians to achieve nuclear capability, a trip their ballistic missile development and put their proxies either destroy their proxies or put their proxies on notice that they're not going to live much longer.
[00:39:06]  And so I see this as we're in a period of transition and that we can go from what we've seen over the course of the last five weeks, which has been quite phenomenal and destructive in terms of what has been able to be achieved.
[00:39:18]  And we can transition into a period where we could have sustainable engagement against those targets.
[00:39:25]  The three red lines are proxies, missiles, and nukes.
[00:39:28]  And we could have a sustained engagement that doesn't necessarily put boots on the ground at all to secure the HEU, but to identify it as best we can.

=== Sustainable Engagement On Nukes (06:16) ===

[00:39:39]  And look, I spent my life as an Intel guy, and I understand the challenges of getting it right, and I know the scar tissue of getting it wrong.
[00:39:46]  But we can go after Esfahan, Natanz, and fordo as a matter of routine and further degrade their ability and set back their ability to be a threat.
[00:39:56]  Until we put boots on the ground and we start opening steel doors, there's never going to be a level of certainty that's going to satisfy everybody.
[00:40:03]  All the pundits are going to say, what is it, 30%, 80%?
[00:40:06]  Look, I don't know.
[00:40:07]  But we can set this back so that they don't become a threat until such point as the Iranian people say, look, we're tired of being in a threat situation all the time.
[00:40:19]  Our social contract.
[00:40:20]  Shoved down our throat 50 years ago, is we've got to listen to these lunatics in Tehran, this theocracy, which is hypocritic, incredibly hypocritical at its root.
[00:40:30]  And at some point, we give them the opportunity to rise up and say, we want something different.
[00:40:34]  That horizon may be years away, but the horizon for us is racing upon us because we have elections.
[00:40:42]  We have a vocal electorate, and we have challenges associated with that.
[00:40:47]  And I don't disagree with Jim.
[00:40:49]  I think every one of President Trump's Predecessors is probably smoking a cigar and drinking a bourbon right now, saying, You know, for God's sakes, I wish I'd done that.
[00:40:57]  Well, I'm not convinced by that.
[00:40:59]  And the reason is, I think there's also a credibility issue with President Trump, to be honest, which is that after the 12 day war last summer, he was out there saying very loudly, We have destroyed their nuclear capability, put it back decades, blah, And yet within eight months, he felt the need to launch a full fledged war against Iran for precisely the reasons that he said.
[00:41:22]  Had just been neutralized eight months earlier.
[00:41:24]  So there is a credibility issue there.
[00:41:27]  And my question would be here well, how do we know?
[00:41:30]  Whose word do we take?
[00:41:31]  If suddenly we get the same statements being made, oh, we've done it again, eight months later, once again, we have neutralized the nuclear threat for another two decades, well, how do we know what to believe?
[00:41:46]  Go ahead.
[00:41:46]  You know Donald Trump.
[00:41:48]  Sorry, that was for Jim.
[00:41:49]  Sorry.
[00:41:49]  Yeah.
[00:41:50]  Go ahead.
[00:41:50]  You know Donald Trump.
[00:41:51]  You've talked to him.
[00:41:52]  Yeah.
[00:41:53]  He loves hyperbolic rhetoric.
[00:41:55]  He plays information warfare as well as any leader on the planet.
[00:42:00]  And in as long as I can remember, back to probably Reagan was the last guy who did that style.
[00:42:05]  And Reagan's was a polished movie star.
[00:42:08]  Trump's is bombastic New York real estate tycoon.
[00:42:11]  And so he does that to throw the other side off balance.
[00:42:14]  He claims things that he wants to be true.
[00:42:17]  To go ahead and assume the clothes.
[00:42:19]  He uses every technique of the art of the deal to try and push what he wants to happen.
[00:42:24]  Now, in this case, there was tremendous damage, and their nuclear program was broken in the 12 day war.
[00:42:30]  When we saw and noticed that they were doing things that said they're just going to continue to rebuild it, he had to recalculate and say, well, you know what?
[00:42:39]  They didn't learn the lesson.
[00:42:41]  We broke it.
[00:42:42]  They couldn't make a bomb right now, but they're going to do it again.
[00:42:45]  And these 12 or Shia Islam.
[00:42:48]  You know, the sect that Iran has believes that they need an Armageddon like event to bring the return of the 12th Imam to rule the world.
[00:42:59]  So you can't trust guys like that, but you can say they're going to look at the long, long game.
[00:43:05]  And if you want to go ahead and say, okay, during my presidency, I took care of the midterms and kept a Republican majority, great.
[00:43:12]  You don't do the right thing.
[00:43:13]  President Trump took the poison pill for all of us and went ahead and took them out of the game.
[00:43:19]  And hopefully he's taken that regime out.
[00:43:22]  For the long term.
[00:43:23]  Okay, so you could say it's a great regime, James.
[00:43:26]  It is.
[00:43:27]  As we wrap up, just give me a prediction for what you think is going to happen.
[00:43:31]  I think we will go ahead and blockade the Strait and go ahead and stop them from gaining revenue for it and bringing stuff in.
[00:43:39]  And that will break the regime enough that they will capitulate, they will give up the enriched uranium and figure they could make more later or cheat or buy one from somebody.
[00:43:49]  And then what will happen is a longer, slow degradation.
[00:43:53]  Of the entire Islamic Republic remnants until the people of Iran are feeling free enough to rise up with some help and go ahead and bring about a new government that serves their interests and needs and is not a menace to the region and the world.
[00:44:10]  Okay, Major General Marks, your prediction.
[00:44:14]  I think we have weeks, we're in a period of transition at the tactical level.
[00:44:18]  We're going to have an increased presence of Marines, which gives the CENTCOM commander some options.
[00:44:23]  If in fact there's an opportunity to do something with the highly enriched uranium, I think there will remain negotiations of a sort.
[00:44:32]  I think we're going to have to get our hands around what the nuke discussion looks like.
[00:44:36]  That's a non-negotiable.
[00:44:38]  But I can't see a force, you know, a non-permissive engagement that allows us to go after highly enriched uranium primarily because we don't know where it is.
[00:44:48]  in its entirety, and we don't know how much there is in its entirety.
[00:44:51]  That becomes an incredibly difficult mission set.
[00:44:55]  Iran has also figured out how to make oil like the Russians.
[00:44:59]  It's very fungible.
[00:45:00]  So conducting the blockade in the Straits of Hormuz will release pressure.
[00:45:06]  It will increase pressure on the regime in Tehran.
[00:45:09]  I don't think it's going to break it, but it's going to be sufficient in addition to what has already occurred that I think we will have negotiations again moving forward.
[00:45:19]  And we'll have an opportunity to start to address that red line, which is give us access to the highly enriched uranium.
[00:45:26]  We can dilute it.
[00:45:27]  We can turn it into something that allows you to have commercial nuclear power, which they have.
[00:45:30]  They've got it in Bushir right now.
[00:45:33]  And that becomes an opportunity to stop what's happening to the regime right now.
[00:45:38]  I think they would benefit greatly from that.
[00:45:40]  I bow to both of you in terms of your vastly superior military expertise on this.
[00:45:49]  Confidence, but I do appreciate you joining me.
[00:45:52]  Thank you both very much.
[00:45:53]  Thank you.
[00:45:54]  Good to be with you.

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