Professor Jiang, Gordon Chang, and Robert Pape debate the US-Iran conflict, analyzing how Red Sea threats block Chinese shipping and risk $200 billion in infrastructure. While Chang argues 460kg of enriched uranium justifies war to prevent nuclear capability, Pape warns ground invasion risks a Vietnam-style quagmire amidst Trump's erratic "genocide" rhetoric. Guests critique the strategy's failure to topple the IRGC despite decapitation strikes, noting digital propaganda backfires and predicting China-Russia alignment will reshape the Middle East without immediate regime change. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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China's Diplomatic Savior Role00:14:59
China's very happy that I'm permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz.
When you threaten a ship that's flagged by China, this is effectively an act of war on China.
China's got 600 nuclear weapons here.
Is there a concern that President Xi starts looking like the real adult in the room?
I can see a situation in which the Europeans see China as a diplomatic savior.
The question is how long can President Trump keep this up?
What is this?
Pope Leo has a plus 35.
For popularity rating in the United States.
Trump has a negative 12.
It's weird to take a fight like that.
We sent them a lot of guns.
We sent them through the Kurds, and the president says he thinks the Kurds kept them.
Did you steal them?
A lot of people stolen.
Can't speak for the other side.
Keep on protesting, the U.S. president told the Iranian people in January.
Help is on its way.
Well, many Iranians in the diaspora held pictures and banners of Trump as they protested in London, Washington, D.C., and even L.A. Others appeared frequently in the media, including on this show.
To make the case for war.
The people in Iran are suffering, they said.
The time to act is now.
After more than six weeks of war and with the president scrambling for an escape route, it's fair to ask whether acting now helped the Iranian people at all.
The faces and some of the names have changed, but the regime has not.
A lot of its military power has been destroyed, but none of the power it used to beat down its own people.
It's safe to assume that many of the Iranians who chanted for Reza Pahlavi are now dead, either at the hands of security services or the bombing campaign.
Netanyahu and the Israelis sold Trump on a revolution, even as many of us kept asking.
How that was even possible without armed resistance.
Last week, Trump told Fox News that the US did try to arm protesters by sending weapons via the Kurds, who, according to the president, stole them.
And they will respond to that claim later on this show.
We'll begin with a simple question Who exactly has been helped by this war?
Well, joining me now is Robert Pape, international affairs scholar and author of Escalation Trap on Substate.
Welcome back to Uncensored, Robert.
Last time you were on, I asked you who was winning this war.
You said the US could be facing strategic defeat.
Because of the new significance of the Strait of Hormuz.
What is your view as you sit here today?
It's gotten worse.
So what you are seeing, and thank you, by the way, for bringing me back, what you are seeing is we are not on a path of peace.
We're also not on a path of victory.
We're on a path of escalation.
And what you were going to see unfold now, not likely over just the next few days, but now probably over the coming weeks and months is a much longer war.
So remember, this started, was supposed to be just a few day air campaign, backup air plan for if it had to go longer, four weeks.
Well, we're way blown past four weeks.
And what are we doing?
We're escalating.
We're actually moving more forces into the region this morning.
And Iran is now counter-threatening just this morning.
So what you are seeing with this blockade is an escalation path.
And it is now crossing three thresholds.
Number one, it's widening the war within the region.
So, of course, it's targeting Iran.
But Iran is saying, If this goes forward, we're going to knock out or try to knock out the Red Sea choke point.
Well, they've got some credibility there with the Houthis.
Number two, the blockade, the U.S. blockade is now going to be crossing thresholds with China.
And we need to understand that when you threaten a ship that's flagged by China or going to China, this is effectively an act of war on China.
China's got 600 nuclear weapons here.
So this is not a small thing that is occurring here.
And then number three, as I was indicating before, this is now moving to a much longer war scenario than is even currently being discussed.
And what that means is lock-in of those economic effects of the blockade of the 20% oil, 30% fertilizer, et cetera, et cetera, possibly now the Red Sea for the world economy.
So you're locking in that, not just for a day, but for probably weeks and months for sure.
I don't know why the markets don't want to price this in, but markets have been wrong before.
But this is what's actually the reality of what's occurring.
And how significant is the fact that it appears that Lebanon was initially supposed to have been included in the ceasefire agreement, but then Israel said absolutely not and has carried on bombarding Lebanon as they go after Hezbollah?
How significant has that been as part of all this?
Yeah.
So, what Israel has done, in my view, is played the role of spoiler all the way through.
So, every time You see this going back to last May, for example, before we bombed Fordeaux, before the 12-day war.
Every time we get close to something that looks like a workable negotiation, I mean, not even like a deal, but just workable, you see Israel acting in ways that are militarily a spoiler, threatening the deal.
In May, Israel started the 12-day war by literally bombing to death the negotiators we were supposed to meet with, and they knew the time and place of where they would be.
because of the negotiation.
So we gave them essentially the targeting information.
And now that's just one of many instances that have happened since.
So Israel is clearly spoiling the negotiation track.
And it's now becoming even, I think, beyond Israel spoiling.
I mean, if you're in Iran's shoes, the idea you're really going to rely on the negotiation track, this is just, I think, we're long past that moment.
And in relation to China, they declared on Monday that the US blockade of Iranian oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz was dangerous and irresponsible.
Trump has posted on True Social, China is very happy that I'm permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz.
I'm doing it for them also and the world.
This situation will never happen again.
They've agreed not to send weapons to Iran.
President Xi will give me a big fat hug when I get there in a few weeks.
We're working together smartly and very well.
Doesn't that beat fighting?
But remember, we are very good at fighting if we have to, far better than everybody else, President Trump.
You know, he is due to go and see President Xi.
That's been delayed, obviously, by this war.
You know, there are people out there that think that this is a much bigger picture play by Trump and the Americans, which is not about their own oil, because obviously America's pretty well self sufficient when it comes to energy, but about controlling the global supply, because obviously China relies so much on oil from places like Iran that actually.
That's always been the big picture here, as we saw with Venezuela, as why Trump wants Greenland, why he wants to have some control of the Strait of Hormuz, whatever it may be.
That there's a sort of bigger thing going on here, which is about the control of global energy.
Do you buy into that?
Well, last June, when we were bombing Fordow, I was spending two weeks in China visiting its advanced industries, the Xiaomi, that's electric vehicle, BYD, Alibaba.
And having dinners with all of these executives, and also the power, some of the power players here in China as uh, and what they were quite clear was they may lose a few percentage points of gdp if the United States gets sucked into a quagmire in the Middle East, but they gain enormous power here relative to the United States.
So they were absolutely not wanting to get in their arrival's way of sticking their nose into this deeper and deeper and the idea that we've got this leverage over them.
Well, 80 of their um Needs don't come from energy, needs don't come from oil at all.
And in fact, they're moving even more aggressively into solar power, not because they're liberals, but because this is their growth plan for the future.
So I saw all that up close and personal for two solid weeks, 18 hours a day, the shop floor, all the plans.
And so this is just not real.
I mean, we're strengthening, we're hastening the day when China will flip and become number one.
We're not reducing that.
We're not making that slower, Pierce.
What's happening is all of these so-called talking points here.
For example, you say, well, President Trump just posted, she will be thrilled with this.
Fine.
Then all the White House has to do is get that post endorsed by the Chinese foreign ministry today.
We don't need to wait weeks and weeks for a meeting.
I'm in Chicago.
You're in London.
We can do this in the next 30 minutes at the longest.
That's all that would take there.
Otherwise, this is just more hot breath.
Coming out of President Trump.
And he's had a lot of that that just simply doesn't matter.
Robert Pape, great to have you back.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So the big question is is China the real and potentially the only big winner?
Joining me to debate this is Zhang Shei Quin, a game theorist, better known as Professor Zhang, and Gordon Chang, author of Plan Red China's project to destroy America.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Well, welcome back to Uncensored, Zhang Shei Quin.
What is your view?
I mean, there is a view that's mounting that China, by not being directly involved, has been the biggest beneficiary.
Do you share that?
I actually don't share that view, Piers.
I think that China could suffer many consequences if this war continues for too long.
So, China has already invested $200 billion into the Middle East.
All this infrastructure investment could be destroyed.
So, Iran is a very important part of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
And the Israelis and the Americans are targeting railways built with Chinese financing.
China receives 50 to 60% of its energy needs from the Middle East for the trade of Hormuz.
And so, right now, China is using its strategic reserves to fuel its economy.
But if this work continues for too long, then the Chinese economy may suffer.
So, that's very interesting because I've been reading a lot of reports increasingly saying, no, no, China, they're going to benefit.
And yet, you come back all the time, in my head anyway, to the fact that China is pretty reliant on the Strait of Hormuz in particular being open.
It's the biggest beneficiary of that strait being open.
And so, even though Some of their oil has been getting through, it's not been all of it, has it?
Right.
So remember that this weekend there were the peace talks in Istanbul.
And these peace talks would not have happened without China pressuring the Iranians to seek a ceasefire as soon as possible.
Iranians are not interested in a ceasefire because they see themselves as winning this war.
And they believe the Americans don't have any credibility.
They've had peace talks before and it's gone nowhere.
In fact, the Israelis and Americans have used the pretext of peace talks to attack the Iranians.
So, I think without Chinese diplomatic efforts, these peace talks would not have occurred in Islamabad.
And then you have to ask yourself why are the Chinese so invested in peace in the Middle East?
And the reason why is they have too much invested in energy from the Middle East.
Okay, Gordon Chang, I have been really struggling, I'll be honest with you.
I've known Donald Trump 20 years.
The reasons for this war seem to have changed on an hourly basis for the last six weeks.
He seems to be deliberately antagonizing everyone he can think of.
I mean, today he's been antagonizing every Christian.
He's been antagonizing, obviously, everyone in NATO, everyone in Europe.
He doesn't seem to care.
And yet, most of the concerns from the people that he's going after are shared by all of them, which is this war was ill conceived, has been poorly executed, has no apparent endgame, and is being driven predominantly by the interests of Benjamin Netanyahu and his Israeli government.
What is your view?
I think that the war certainly was necessary.
And I don't, I agree with you.
I don't think President Trump has made the case.
So, for instance, when he talked to the American people about 10 days ago, he only used conclusory statements.
And I don't think that they were that convincing.
So, for instance, he said, well, you know, the Iranians will soon have a missile that'll hit the United States.
Well, they very well could have that missile right now, peers, because we know that since 2016, the US Treasury has been sanctioning North Korea and Iran.
Because North Korea has transferred all the components for a Wasong 15.
A Wasong 15 has a range of 8,100 miles, and if fired from Iranian territory, it can hit any part of the United States.
We know that Iran has all the pieces.
The only thing we don't know is whether Iran has been able to put those pieces together.
And President Trump did not make the case on Iran's possession of highly enriched uranium, which he could have done.
He just said, well, they want a nuclear weapon.
But it was a much more convincing case he could have made.
And I think that eventually he will make that.
I think eventually the American people will understand that.
And I think that they will support the war.
But of course, the question is, as you point out, whether Trump will make that case to publics, American and the world.
Well, I don't see how he can successfully sell us the premise that this was always about preventing them from building a nuclear weapon when the enriched uranium, which is quite a long way advanced on that path, remains.
Massively underground, heavily protected, and the Americans and Israelis haven't got a single tiny dot of it.
So, as long as it remains there, and obviously getting it out of the ground would be incredibly hazardous, particularly if they deploy ground troops.
I don't know how you can say that you've destroyed their chances of making a nuclear weapon.
He said all that after the 12 day war last summer.
And then within nine months, we were back again on the same pretext.
None of this makes sense to me.
Maritime Choke Point Strategy00:12:31
Well, if you're talking about President Trump's statements, I certainly agree with you.
But there's certain things that we need to point out.
And one of them is that we don't know where that 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium is.
And if it's not buried underground, and if the Iranians have access to it, then they could very well turn that into 90% enriched uranium.
And by the way, we know that it's 60% only because they told us.
So it could very well be 90%.
So, yes, there is an imminent threat or a near imminent threat.
And I think President Trump did not make that case.
But if you look at the facts, I do believe that they bear out the clear and present danger assessment that the American government has, in fact, made.
And in terms of China itself, you got into a little bit of a spat with Donald Trump on air, actually, at Fox the other day.
Let's take a look.
I have a very good relationship with President Xi of China.
We work together very well.
They're paying us substantial money, as you know.
We've never got money before.
You know, I listen to this Gordon Chang.
He has no idea what he's talking about.
We have been very tough on China, tough but fair.
And, you know, it's an amazing place.
But I have a very good relationship with China, and they've been doing my thing.
You know, I put tremendous tariffs.
I put 100% tariff on all Chinese cars coming in, and that's destroying Europe.
So, Gordon, you have no idea what you're talking about.
I think we can add you to the list of 1,000 people he has trashed in the last six weeks.
So don't take it personally.
But in relation to that, you know, earlier.
We just heard Professor Chang saying that China has not benefited from this war.
Do you agree with that?
And do you think that Trump has been too soft on China?
Yeah, first of all, I don't think this war is in China's interest.
And I agree with Professor John for a lot of reasons.
You know, we've seen the spike in oil, but more important, the spike in diesel prices in China.
Now, the National Development and Reform Commission has been trying to moderate those.
Yes, China does have the world's largest strategic petroleum reserve, but at most it's 140, 150 days of import cover.
The real problem for China, though, is that China is now extraordinarily trade dependent.
And that's because Xi Jinping, Has turned his back on consumption as the basis of the Chinese economy, which means that China's only hope for growth is trade, exports.
But in a deglobalizing world, and it's deglobalizing because of conflict around the world, some of which China is responsible for, by the way, we're seeing countries pull back, and that's not good for a trade dependent country.
So in a deglobalizing world, China could very well be the biggest victim of the trends.
Professor Zhang, Donald Trump's deadline for imposing a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Is sort of upon us.
No one's quite sure how he's going to implement this.
What do you think about this idea of a kind of revenge blockade driven by the United States?
Right.
So there's a lot of concern that a naval blockade is not feasible because if you try to blockade the Turkish Homoose, then you're within range of Iranian drones as well as ballistic missiles.
But if you step back and you think about the larger strategy at work here, I think that Gordon is right in that China is very much an export dependent economy, and it's very reliant on free access to maritime choke points, such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca.
So, if Iran can impose tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, there's actually no reason why the American military cannot impose tariffs and tolls on the Strait of Malacca.
And so that would raise tremendous costs for China.
And so, maybe the overall strategy is not really directed at Iran.
But really, at strangling the Chinese economy.
And you can do that by actually restraining China's access in certain key maritime choke points.
But China could, of course, as it did in the tariff war, it could hit back very strongly if it chose to.
I mean, I've stood in Shanghai port, which I think is the biggest port in the world, and watched everything going out of there to the West predominantly.
If China was to flex its muscles in restricting access of its goods to the world, it might suffer, of course, itself.
Short term economic harm, but it would cause a lot of damage to the global economy elsewhere.
So it's not like they're powerless, right?
Well, as Gordon pointed out, China is an export-dependent economy.
So China benefits more from trading with the world than the world benefits from trading with China.
So it makes no sense for China to impose an embargo on the world.
It can't really do that.
The major question is, does China have a blue-water navy to challenge American hegemony over the seas?
And the answer is it doesn't.
And the problem is that if China were to start challenging America in the seas, especially the Shiro Malacca, then that would activate the Japanese military.
And Japan has actually the best blue water navy in East Asia.
Okay, Gordon Chang, you know, roughly 90% of Iran's crude oil exports go to China.
That oil revenue supplies around a quarter of Iran's budget, a huge portion of which is then spent on its military.
Without China, the regime wouldn't be able to pay its security forces.
Couldn't subsidize basic goods and would soon face internal collapse.
That is the theory that is, I think, guiding some of President Trump's decision making over a potential blockade and so on, because Iran has become in itself utterly dependent on China.
Do you understand the rationale for the blockade based on that?
Yes.
And by the way, on Saturday, two Arleigh Burks, American destroyers, transited the Strait of Hormuz twice, and they did so without arrangement with Iran.
So, I think that if you parked a couple Arlie Burks in just outside the strait, you could close it.
And that's what President Trump has talked about.
He said that, look, we're going to seize any ship that has paid Iran's tolls.
This cuts off all of its oil revenue.
So, really, what we have is a strategy to starve the regime.
Whether it will bring down the regime, I don't know.
This regime is extremely resilient.
But after a while, when you have no money at all coming in, Then really, you don't have a war effort on the part of the Iranians.
So I think that eventually this will work.
And the question is, how long can President Trump keep this up?
I think he can keep it up a lot longer than most people believe.
So there is the makings of a strategy.
And I think that it probably will work.
Professor Zhang, I mean, there's a lot of chatter about what China's view of all this has been.
And you've articulated it very well, I think, why it's actually more of a concern than a benefit.
It's obviously the war has exposed the fragility of the global economy when it comes to who controls the Strait of Hormuz.
That is obvious.
And Iran now knows that.
And of course, other actors around the world now know that if you control a waterway through which a lot of the world's goods or energy flow, then you can cause paralysis around the world.
So that won't have gone unnoticed, I'm sure, to people like Vladimir Putin.
But you have also, conversely, had a revelation here that.
You can paralyze to a degree China in terms of its energy flow coming out of places like Iran.
And that may be what Donald Trump has belatedly picked up on.
Some people think that this was always his intention.
I don't think it was.
But I think he's now realized actually this kind of use of the waterways as an economic battering ram could work both ways, hence the blockade.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Donald Trump is first and foremost concerned with using American military power to benefit America first.
And right now, America has about $39 trillion in debt.
And we've seen these past few years that many nations in Europe and East Asia are shifting away from US treasuries and purchasing more gold.
If the trend continues, then America could face a seven debt crisis.
And so the way to elevate this crisis is by forcing Europe and East Asia to depend more on.
North American resources, right?
So LNG from America.
And you can do that by sabotaging the economies of the GCC, by imposing a naval blockade in the Middle East.
And so maybe there's a grand plan here.
Gordon Chang, what does this all mean for Taiwan?
You know, America gets bogged down in Iran, its military credibility is damaged.
Has the decision to do this given China, if it wishes, a green light?
To go and take Taiwan?
In other words, has it removed the West's high moral ground and ability to complain if they now go and do the same thing to Taiwan, which Trump has done in Iran?
Or it's obviously not exactly the same thing, but in terms of attacking.
It's very different because Iran was clearly violating their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
They attacked Israel savagely on October 7th.
Iran's president in December said that there was a state of war between the United States and Iran.
So, you know, it's very different.
The thing about Taiwan, and yes, the US has drawn down its stocks, they use them in Iran, and this does create a vulnerability.
But Xi Jinping has decimated the top of the Chinese military with his continual purges.
And from what we can tell, there have been people who have been Xi Jinping's loyalists who have been purged by Xi Jinping's adversaries.
So there is turmoil at the top of the Chinese military.
Now, to invade Taiwan, or at least the main island of Taiwan, You have to have a combined air, land, sea operation, which means you need coordination at the top of the Chinese military.
And just one detail the Communist Party Central Military Commission, which controls the military, normally had seven members on it a couple months ago.
Now it has only two, Xi Jinping and a political commissar.
There are no operational officers left on the Central Military Commission, which means an invasion of Taiwan, at least for this moment, is off the table.
Do you agree with that, Professor Zhang?
I think another consideration are the Japanese.
The Japanese Prime Minister has stated that Taiwan is part of Japan's national strategic interests.
And if China were to take over Taiwan, then China can impose a naval blockade on Japan.
It could basically shut off the shirt of Malacca to Japanese trade.
And so this would present an existential crisis to Japan.
So if there's any intention on part of China to Take over Taiwan, the Japanese would intervene.
So I do not believe that in the next five to ten years there's any consideration of an invasion of Taiwan.
But it's interesting the way you described what China could potentially do because, of course, if you're China and you're looking at what's happened with the Strait of Hormuz, that idea that you just proposed, as possibly in their thinking, becomes a lot more effective, right?
I mean, if they wanted to cause real economic damage to Japan and others. they could just do a similar thing over there.
But China is an export dependent economy.
So if global trade stops, then it hurts itself more than other people.
Pragmatic Chinese Economic Reality00:02:38
Simple as that.
Simple as that.
And the other thing, Piers, is that yes, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan get an enormous percentage, you know, 90% of their energy through the Strait of Hormuz.
Right now, we have these very large crude carriers in the Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America because they're picking up American energy from Texas and Louisiana.
So that energy trade will redirect.
Of course, it will cause severe disruptions in East Asia for a little while, but America has the energy to sell.
Professor Zhang, is there a concern, do you think?
I don't know who the concern would predominantly be with, but Donald Trump has been behaving very erratically on the global stage and been deliberately attacking a lot of his allies, from the UK to France to Spain to Germany and others, NATO.
Is there a concern that President Xi?
Starts looking like the real adult in the room, and that the United States loses that role in perception globally?
The Chinese are first and foremost pragmatic, and the Chinese believe in mutual trade.
And so I can see a situation in which the Europeans, the Russians, the Iranians see China as possibly a diplomatic savior in the situation.
Certainly, the Chinese were instrumental in organizing these weekend talks in Islamabad.
So, these talks were not effective and there were no results.
But we can assume that these talks will become a regular thing, even as this war progresses.
Gordon Chang, what do you think?
I mean, President Xi's been pretty quiet, not saying too much, letting this all play out.
Donald Trump's been the complete opposite, rampaging around, looking increasingly like someone who's not quite sure how to get out of this mess.
But if he blames enough people, eventually somebody might accept the blame.
You know, is President Xi winning the kind of diplomatic war here, if nothing else?
I think he's certainly winning the propaganda war because he does look stable.
There's no question about that.
And that's backed up by all sorts of anecdotal evidence and surveys.
But, Piers, something had to be done about NATO.
And, you know, as Mark Rute, the NATO Secretary General, said, Trump has been great for NATO because he's gotten countries, except for Canada, to agree to that 5% GDP spending limit or floor.
Ground Forces and Regime Survival00:09:27
So, really, these are things that had to be done.
Now, yes, you're right.
Trump should not have threatened war against Denmark over Greenland, shouldn't have been making those threats against Canada, and those are not helpful.
But a lot of what Trump has been saying and doing was really important because previous presidents, previous American presidents, have just kicked the can down the road and let NATO erode.
They let Iran develop nuclear weapons.
They let this and they let that.
But Trump, I think, gets credit for doing things which are politically unpopular, but I believe are necessary for the national security of the United States.
But also for the safety and security of the international system as a whole.
It's not just America first.
This is America actually guaranteeing or creating the conditions for enduring peace in the coming decades.
I mean, that's assuming any of this works.
You know, I would say the problem with that argument is I can see why this is all in Netanyahu and Israel's interests, because they just want to do as much damage in Iran as they can possibly do.
And they found a president that will help them do it and smash it all up.
But in terms of the American national interest here, If ultimately this gets resolved with Iran retaining its enriched uranium, with the regime still in place, albeit with different members of it at the top, with the people not rising up in the way that the Israelis had assured the Americans would happen if you decapitated the Ayatollah and the leadership, you know, if all these things, if that's how this plays out,
and the Iranians have learned that they can strangle the global economy at any moment through the Strait of Hormuz if they want to.
How is that not a terrible, terrible outcome for the United States?
That's a possible outcome, but it's not the only outcome.
And we've got to remember that the war effort is supported not only by Israel, which is a combatant, but it's also supported by Saudi Arabia and many of the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
So they do not want Iran to prevail, and they've been helping the United States and they've been backing us.
So it's not just Israel, it's, I think, the region, which has come to the conclusion that.
That Iran is a danger that can no longer be sloughed off into the future.
So, yeah, you have a scenario which is perfectly possible, but there are many other ones as well which are much brighter.
Yeah, I mean, Professor Chang, there's no doubt that what the Iranians have done by attacking its neighboring Gulf states has massively antagonized the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others.
They've gone after them in their most vulnerable areas, really, which are hitting the oil refineries.
And hitting tourist areas.
There's been a 10% reduction in people defecting, not defecting, but leaving some of these Gulf states because they fear it's not safe anymore.
If that was to continue that trend or they stayed away irrevocably, you can see the whole business model of moving from reliance on oil, which is running out, to an economy through the Gulf states based on tourism, sport, entertainment, and so on.
It becomes very difficult to sustain that if you don't have the people.
So the stakes are pretty high here, aren't they?
It is possible that GCC does not survive this war.
As you point out, the GCC is heavily dependent on expatriates, on international financing, and on global trade.
And this war has shown that the GCC is really a mirage, created under the illusion that they will be protected by the American empire.
In fact, we have the petrodollar system because the GCC had an agreement with America where the GCC would sell its oil in US dollars and recycle back.
Into the US economy in exchange for American military protection.
So, not only did America start this war without their consent, but when this war started, the Americans abandoned their military bases and sought shelter in hotels.
And that's why they were targeted by Iranian drones.
So, this was a very bad deal for the GCC.
And I think it's very hard for them to survive this war.
And that's why I think there's so much anxiety and pressure to launch a ground invasion against Iran.
When we spoke the last time you appeared on Uncensored, you were predicting that America would have to commit ground troops.
Let's take a look.
Iran is putting a lot of pressure on the GCC.
And I think at the end of the day, the United States will be compelled to send ground forces.
Once the United States sends in ground forces, there's no turning back.
It's all in.
The sun cost fallacy kicks in.
It'll be another Vietnam for the United States because Iran is a mountain fortress.
And the United States right now doesn't have the manpower, the manufactured capacity, and the political will to fight a long war of attrition on the ground in Iran.
Now, you previously predicted correctly that Trump would win the election.
You predicted the war with Iran.
You also said that the United States would lose that war ultimately, and that remains to be seen.
But on that specific prediction about the United States eventually having to commit troops, was that predicated on having to get the enriched uranium or?
In trying to effect a regime change?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a ladder where it is impossible to effect regime change from the ear.
And it's not sustainable in the long term.
We're already seeing American F 15s, F 35s being downed by the Iranians because, first of all, it's hard to maintain these expensive $100 million planes in a long war.
And second of all, the Iranians are developing creative air defense strategies against the Americans.
So eventually, if you want to continue this war, you're going to have to send in ground troops because it's too expensive to maintain an air war.
But the cost on human life from a ground invasion could be catastrophic, not just for the people who get killed, but also for the massive political fallout that would head Donald Trump's way.
And of course, he has got the backdrop of the United States midterm elections in November.
If you go in the attitude that one American soldier is worth more than $100 million, F 15 or F 35, you're going to lose this war.
Right.
So, what should the attitude be?
Well, first of all, America should not be in this war.
America should have negotiated a peace treaty with Iran.
America should have lifted all trade sanctions against Iran and allowed for civilian Iranian enrichment.
And this would have brought global prosperity to the world.
The Iranians were perfectly happy to abide by a nuclear treaty that they signed under Obama, and that treaty was going very, very well.
So, first of all, this war should not have started.
Now that this war has started, I think it's imperative that the Americans recognize that this war is lost.
It cannot be won and refuse to commit ground troops.
Because once it commits ground troops, then this war becomes a Sankar Solace Mission Creep.
It'll be like another Vietnam.
So right now, it's a turning point.
I implore the Americans do not send in ground troops.
Once you send in ground troops, you're stuck there for 10 years.
Yeah, I think that's almost certainly true.
I mean, Gordon Chang, that paints a pretty rosy picture of the Iranian regime towing the line on the global stage.
They've shown very little evidence they would.
Do that.
And in fact, of course, the whole point of the war from the Israeli point of view is that they've been the octopus providing the tentacles of terrorism to the Houthis, to Hezbollah, to Hamas, to terrorize Israel for several decades now.
And that is why Israel wanted to neutralize that threat.
And that is why Netanyahu worked so hard to persuade Donald Trump to bring America into it.
I mean, do you think that the picture there that Professor Zhang paints of Iran being a reliable actor, perhaps, if we'd done things differently, is that a likely scenario?
Yeah, I don't share it.
So, for instance, with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the JCPOA that President Obama negotiated, we know that the Iranians violated it.
And President Trump, when he pulled out, said he couldn't certify compliance.
And we know that the Iranians were stalling and preventing inspections, which were part Of that plan.
And that was a direct contravention of its obligations.
So, no, I don't think Iran can be trusted.
I'd like to think that they could, but at least on that one, and that's the most direct precedent that we have, we have seen that they violated it.
And by the way, they have 60% enriched uranium, which they admitted to.
And so that's clearly a violation as well.
You just go through the list of this, Pierce, and I just don't think that Iran could be trusted.
Aligning with Nation State Interests00:03:26
It's unfortunate.
But that's the nature of the regime.
It wanted a nuclear weapon, absolutely determined to get it, and it would lie and cheat and steal, which it did.
What is your prediction, Gordon Chang, for how this plays out?
Well, how it plays out is determined by one individual, President Trump.
And I don't know.
You're absolutely right when you say he's unpredictable.
Now, we know what he says.
I think that he is as good as his word on these issues for various reasons.
He's been consistent about Iran not getting a nuclear weapon.
He started this war, which he knew was going to be unpopular.
So he's obviously determined to see it through.
But, you know, as I said, it's up to one individual, and we're just going to have to see.
As I said, I think he's going to be as good as his word.
Finally, Professor Zhang, I couldn't let you go without mentioning an encounter you had with Mehdi Hassan, who's a regular on Uncensored, in which he said, You're misleading people because you're not actually a professor.
And secondly, he called you China's useful idiot.
Here is your chance to respond to these two charges.
What would you like to say?
First of all, he's absolutely right.
I am not a professor.
I am not a credentialed professor.
I'm a high school teacher with a pretty popular YouTube following.
And it's the internet that has called me professor.
In China, it's a sign of respect to call someone a professor, regardless of his credentials.
So it's entirely up to you whether or not to call me a professor.
And the second point that I'm a useful idiot look, it is entirely possible that an algorithm is popping me up because I'm saying certain things that align with the interests of certain nation states.
And I don't dispute that.
My rise in the internet has been meteoric.
It's surprised me.
But I'm committed to education.
I'm committed to free debate.
I'm committed to free discussion.
I am perfectly happy to engage with people on both the left and the right.
And I think the path forward is open and free debate.
Yeah, I completely agree.
Gordon Chang, what is your view of Professor Chang?
Are you happy to call him a professor?
And do you think he's China's useful idiot?
You know, everything that Professor Zhang Zha said, I can certainly agree with him.
So I understand that that title is something that people have given him, and that's fine with me.
You know, he has views.
Some of them align with what the Communist Party of China believes, some of them do not, as we just heard.
So he has his views, and I wouldn't characterize him with that useless idiot term.
I think he just has views that both do align and don't align.
With the powers in China.
Yeah, which from where I sit is actually a pretty good place to be.
I have the same about my own country and my own government.
I agree with them about some things, I disagree with them about others.
Last time I checked is actually a pretty good place for most people to find themselves.
But anyway, I'm quite happy to call you Professor Zhang.
I think you are an internet sensation.
It's great having you on uncensored regularly now.
And please come back soon.
Thank you both very much.
Thank you.
Thanks, guys.
Blaming the United States for Hostage Iran00:15:11
Well, joining me now are two members of the Iranian diaspora with very different views about the war and what happens next.
Sam Azghari, he's the Iranian American actor, and Sarab Amari, he's the Iranian American journalist and US editor of Unheard.
Well, welcome to both of you.
You know, both Iranians have very strong views about this.
And I'm very aware, having spoken to a lot of Iranians myself in the last six weeks, that opinions have evolved, they've fluctuated, people have changed their minds completely as it's gone on.
Because obviously, Those who wanted regime change have seen the supreme leader taken down and many of his top people taken down, but the regime itself still appears to be intact.
So, has there been regime change?
Many think that hasn't happened.
Has there been a popular uprising by the people?
Not so far.
Have the Iranian regime found a way to strangle the global economy through the Strait of Hormuz in a way that may have even surprised them?
Yes.
So, there are lots of complexities.
To this, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise.
But Sam, let me start with you.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
What was your view at the start of the war on day one, and what is your view now?
My view from the start of the war till now is the same.
I mean, nobody wants war.
Nobody wants innocent people dying.
Nobody wants the American soldiers being sent overboard, you know, that caused any sort of casualty to the innocent people between these two governments.
And that's been the same.
I mean, we never want war to start, but we figured that this is going to be the only way that this regime is going to get weakened.
And it has already become weakened, and it sort of Looks like there's a lot of chaos that's happening within the leaders that are left.
So, my views are standing the same.
But again, we haven't really seen anything coming out of Iran because the internet shutdown and the total blackout that they had.
So, it's very hard to see what's really happening within the people inside of Iran.
But nobody wants really to be bombed and nobody wants to be under that much pressure, especially when they were already under economic pressure to begin with.
And so, we just figure.
To wait and see what really happens within the next few weeks in Iran to really figure out what's going to be the future.
Okay, Sarah, welcome to Uncensored.
What was your view on day one and what is your view now?
My view on day one was driven mainly by my status as an American, not someone who happens to be born in Iran, which is this was a war that the president more or less explicitly said he wouldn't do during his campaign, that it was unpopular.
And that it would not serve U.S. national security interests.
And my view today remains the same.
It's surveying the field, it's completely unclear whether this war has achieved anything.
The regime has hardened.
There are lots of signs of the rally around the flag, which I and many others like me predicted.
Ideologically, a lot of the people who would have made a deal potentially with the West are dead, as the president himself said early on at some point in an interview in the war.
The people who are left are younger Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps members who are more radical and who are, in a way, chafing under the restraint imposed on them by the previous Supreme Leader, and now they feel unrestrained.
It's come down to whether or not the Strait of Hormuz stays open or closed.
In other words, it's come down to restoring a status quo ante that wouldn't have been disrupted but for the war.
And I'll say this look, the reason I'm speaking to you from New York rather than Tehran is because my family and I are no fans of the Iranian regime.
There's no question about that.
It's a theocracy.
It's been repressive.
However, you have to think about whether or not the experiences of the post 9 11 years when the US tried these kinds of wars in the Middle East have served the US well.
And they didn't.
They created vast swaths of stateless and chaotic territory in places like Libya that's still feeding migrants into Europe.
Syria went through a brutal civil war and then ended up under the leadership of essentially an Al Qaeda warlord.
Afghanistan, after 20 years of blood and treasure expended, is back in the hands of the Taliban.
And Iraq is this mess that's kind of an Iranian satrapy.
So, with all that in mind, you have to wonder what's going to be achieved.
Now, there is a way to do regime change in Iran, but it's not this kind of warfare.
You'd have to deploy estimates that range from half a million to a million troops.
And no one in the United States has an appetite for that.
So, I think if I'm in the Iranian leadership, I'm actually feeling pretty good right now having revealed.
My ability to squeeze the global economy.
And essentially, I now realize as an Iranian leader, if I'm sitting at Iran, I have a nuclear weapon called the Strait of Hormuz.
It's been an enormous waste and potentially a costly strategic blow to the United States.
And that pains me as an American.
Yeah, this is how I feel about it.
Sam, bringing you back in, one of my big problems with President Trump in all this is the constant mixed messaging and changing of messaging.
The launch of what he called Epic Fury.
On February 28th, an address to the world.
He said, Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight, the hour of your freedom is at hand.
When we are finished, take over your government, it will be yours to take.
And we know from the New York Times reporting several days ago that Benjamin Netanyahu, in the White House Situation Room in the build up to this war, one of his persuasive arguments to Trump was that if you decapitate the leadership, then there will be an uprising.
And he even went further than Netanyahu and said that there'll be no attention paid to the Strait of Hormuz because all the attention will be on the IRGC dismantling and the people taking over and so on.
Well, none of the rest of that has happened.
We've seen the Ayatollah taken out but replaced by his son.
We don't know the condition of the son, but he's apparently still alive and is the new supreme leader.
There are 250,000 members of the IRGC, many of them are still there.
Underneath them is nearly half a million paramilitaries, heavily armed, loyal to the regime.
And below that, there's the standing army.
Of nearly a million people.
So there's an enormous armed force there.
And as Sarab said, if you're actually going to try and get rid of the regime, you've got to have enough troops on the ground to take on a force like that.
And there's no appetite whatsoever for anyone to do that.
So that isn't going to happen.
So, you know, my problem has been that after Trump posted that, he then posted only last week a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.
I don't want that to happen, but it probably will, which is the most explicit.
Sort of espousing of potential genocide, I've ever heard an American president come out with.
He's basically saying, We're going to kill every Iranian.
How that sits with this is your hour of freedom at hand to the Iranian people is completely baffling to me.
So, you know, as an Iranian, are you not finding that as problematic as everybody else?
I mean, do you not think that that's an extraordinary double messaging coming out of the White House?
As an American, I feel that that's not very presidential to speak when it comes to tweeting or whatever social media that you use, especially if this war or this operation ever started because of humanity.
Remember, the whole point was that Iranian people were in need of help, and that was the whole campaign behind it.
So, that's something that I absolutely, as an American, I don't agree with, as a person, I don't agree with, and as an Iranian born, I don't agree with.
But I think what The president was trying to do here is negotiate with the Iranians the way that they speak.
He was speaking their language and he sort of was doing that.
So, but that's something that you don't usually do when it comes to political aspects for the other people to see.
I mean, I see private messages between them and the president of the United States.
That's one thing, but putting it out on the social media and to sort of play that role, it doesn't really play for American people, for the Iranian people.
So, it's absolutely not the way to speak.
But again, he has been really trying to talk to these lunatics like a lunatic.
Yeah, but you see, I just don't think that is the correct way to do it.
You know, it's like, yeah, you can behave exactly like your enemy.
But if your argument is that this enemy is a bunch of appalling genocidal lunatics, you should rise above them.
You should maintain, in public at least, a high moral ground, I think.
And I think, you know, the problem.
With saying a whole civilization will die tonight, is that when they don't, you become the boy that cried wolf, you become the emperor with no clothes.
Your whole standing of issuing these sort of apocalyptic threats and then not carrying anything out is that if you're the Iranian regime, you're like, well, he blinked.
You know, however Trump tries to spin it, he blinked.
And once you blink, and you're the president of the United States, you know, I think as Sarab said, then you're inviting the regime to feel that, well, we have an existential threat to our existence and it's not happened.
So in effect we have won.
It's just a question of the terms now.
Yeah, I mean, I think the.
I would harp on the actually the strategic mistake.
Set aside the moral dimension, which of course horrified lots of people, not least the Holy Father, Pope Leo.
I happen to be a Catholic.
Yeah, me too.
But setting that aside, it just, you know, you remember those hours.
He said, I will essentially, I will rain fire upon you and destroy your civilization.
Especially talk of civilization is so sensitive for Iranians because they justly take pride in a very old civilization.
Yeah.
2,500 years old.
And then, you know, in a matter of hours to say, yes, I've accepted the Iranian framework for as a 10 point sort of opening for negotiations, which included Iranians charging a toll for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
I mean, that looks ridiculous.
And again, American prestige is some of it rests on this possibility that the United States is this power that has several thousand strategic weapons and could truly end a nation if it wanted to.
But It was never said explicitly, and to have said it explicitly and then to go back to a position of, well, maybe the Iranian 10 point plan is a good basis for negotiations is farcical.
That's bad for American power.
And again, that's what pains me, more so even maybe than the moral dimensions of the bluster.
Yeah, I mean, Sam, none of the 10 point, 15 point plans, none of them actually articulate regime change as something to be negotiated, even.
So it seems like that's not even on the table.
At the moment.
But again, I come back to the goalposts have changed so often here.
If I was Iranian, especially if I was living in Iran, I'd be like, I just don't understand what is happening here.
Are we going to get to a situation where, because of the Strait of Hormuz being closed in the way that it's been so effectively by the regime, because of the way they've tactically attacked their Gulf state neighbors in a very damaging way to the business model going forward for all of those Gulf states?
And I've been to them a lot in the last couple of years.
And if you're in Saudi Arabia or Qatar or UAE, You know, your business model you're selling to the world that's been very successful to date has been come here, it's safe, it's sunny, it's going to be entertainment, great for tourism, great for sport, and so on.
And that right now that's all on hold, which is devastating to them.
So there's been a double pronged economic war being waged by the regime, whilst the Americans and the Israelis have been waging a predominantly military war, saying we've got overwhelming power, we're going to destroy you.
But, you know, this asymmetric double war.
I don't think it has worked for America in particular.
I don't think the Israelis care, but I think Trump does, and he's seeing the political damage now in the polling.
This was already a war most Americans didn't approve of, and that has increased that disapproval.
So, I just my gut feeling is Donald Trump got into this because he believed that when Netanyahu said all these things will happen, he believed it.
And the reality is, most of it hasn't happened.
So, in that eventuality, how long do you want to see?
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to call you an Iranian.
I accept your.
How would you categorize yourself?
An Iranian American?
Is that.
How do you want to be called?
Are you talking to me, Pierre?
Yes, yeah.
Born in Iran, made in America.
So, what do you prefer to be, an Iranian American?
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Sure.
You know, America gave me everything, so I would consider myself American Iranian.
Got it.
But that's, you know, Iran is something that Iran, here's the problem with Iran.
We cannot sit here and blame anybody else besides the government of Iran.
Those are the main, that is the main.
Devil in the Middle East.
I mean, take a look at the Middle East.
Like you said, every single country that's out in the Middle East, even Turkey, that's being ran by a dictator, is also weighing in in the political field rather than sitting alone and then saying, we don't want any foreign companies, anything that has to do to come to this country.
And sort of, they are the ones to blame to hold this civilization back and hold this country away from the planet.
I mean, Iran is being sort of hostage.
From the planet and for that country to be free, it's going to only benefit not only the Middle East but also the entire world.
And we're sort of missing that.
So it's sort of hard to sit here and try to blame the United States.
No, no, I don't.
Just to be clear, I agree with you.
Look, I've got absolutely no truck for the Iranian regime whatsoever.
And I shed no tears when the Ayatollah was killed.
Let's be clear, they've waged a campaign of terrorism against their own people in Iran.
Miscalculation and Nationalist Figures00:09:31
And they've been the octopus with the tentacles of terrorism.
Throughout the Middle East and predominantly aimed at Israel, obviously through the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and so on.
So, you know, I think we're all agreed on that.
The question becomes, what do you do about it?
And I'm just sitting here looking at this war six weeks in and thinking, well, the enriched uranium remains buried away.
They've no idea where it is.
The regime in the negotiations at 21 hours they had the other day made it clear they were not going to surrender it, and nor were they going to agree to any extended ban on them developing a nuclear weapon.
Their argument being, well, Israel's got a load of them.
Why shouldn't we have one?
I'd imagine, which is actually not a bad argument.
The Israelis never like to even admit if they have a nuclear weapon, which I find baffling that the world just accepts that.
But putting that to one side, I just see a situation here where this either drags on interminably, as we saw with Iraq and all the problems that came out of that, or Trump just has to cut and run at some stage.
And I guess if the second thing happens, how would you feel about that?
When it comes to the whole brains and the whole mentality behind this whole thing ever started, was humanity for me and for the Iranian people.
And this situation, the Iranian people are sort of in between two blades of a scissor their own government and being bombed by another country that's supposedly being able to free them as far as other agendas in mind.
So, either or, my mentality behind this is a loser, and the Iranian people are going to.
Lose at the very extreme.
But it's gotten so bad that anything, the whole mentality was anything but this, anything but our government, and then we'd rather get bombed.
That mentality is still there.
You just don't see it because of the blackout.
But there are times where people did ask for something, but they don't realize how long it takes.
You know, this regime change usually takes a lot longer than, you know, 40 days of war.
I mean, even average war is what, three years or so.
So we are not taking into consideration.
The timing that it takes, you know, a few years.
Well, but here's the problem with that.
The amount of years that it takes.
Yeah, but Sam, here's the problem with that.
I think the reason is that the Americans and probably Israelis massively underestimated the ability of the regime in Iran to strangle the Strait of Hormuz in the way they have.
And I think that that has proved to be devastating, even in a short 40 day period.
It's already been the biggest seismic shock to the global energy market ever in recorded history.
So, I think that has been the thing that was, in my view, grotesquely underestimated and inexplicably underestimated because it's not difficult to predict they could do that.
But I think the fact the regime now knows it has that power, that gives them, as Sarab was saying, they don't really need a nuclear weapon if they can just shut down that straight when they see fit and cause economic mayhem.
And for Trump in particular, it causes enormous political damage in the run up to midterm elections.
Well, look, I mean, I think here is the real miscalculation, one source of the miscalculation.
And I've been saying this for years.
I started out as a Wall Street Journal editorial page, the comment pages of the journal, which are famously very hawkish.
And so, not maybe a decade ago, I was still where basically Sam is, right?
I was like, well, we can use American power to liberalize the world and so on.
But then I had to look at the outcome of those wars, as I said, and think that.
You know, for the most part, this kind of moralistic foreign policy doesn't really work.
But it was fed in the Iran case by essentially too many in Washington and probably in Jerusalem listening to only like people like Sam and me and not realizing.
And I started warning about this that, look, yes, 10, 20% of the population, urban, educated, is 100% opposed to the regime and probably did welcome the.
The bombing campaign early on, although as it wore on, you started to see the women who didn't wear the hijab and the state TV would put them on TV deliberately.
Women without hijab, with like manicured, French manicured nails, being like, we're standing with our supreme leader.
Some of that is propagandistic, but some of it is real sentiment.
But beyond that 10, 20%, there is like a core of the Iranian people who support the regime.
It's uncomfortable for us to acknowledge, but they have bled for the revolution.
They gave thousands, tens of hundreds of thousands of lives in the Iran Iraq war.
They get both material benefits and sort of spiritual and ideological sustenance from the regime.
And they're true believers and they're the sector of society that has a kind of incumbency.
They're the ones who are armed.
And then there is the poor middle, the mushy middle, the 40, 50% that can go now this way or now that way.
Now, after all these years, after all these events, I would bet that that mushy middle has actually been dragged to the poll that was pro regime, that was supportive of the regime, because no one likes to be bombed.
No one likes to see.
Like the attacks, like the one on the Minab school in Minab that killed 100 some schoolgirls.
So, you know, I think listening too much to this sector of the diaspora, which has a kind of rosy picture, many of them, like myself, that's why I try to be modest about my foreign policy predictions.
I haven't been to Iran in 25, 26 years.
I don't know the sorts of evolution that has taken place.
So, and I feel sort of bad for the followers of Reza Pahlavi.
I think, you know, monarchy is an ancient tradition in Iran in 2,500 years.
And there was a way I think that he could have won something like his crown.
And that was to say something like this I deplore what's happening to my people.
Even if some of it is the fault of the Iranian regime or much of it, I still will do all that's in my power to stop the West from inflicting further pain on Iran, standing up to these kind of anti civilizational rhetoric.
And then he would have become a kind of nationalist figure.
But to have said, basically, kind of become an apologist for the operation.
And barely raised the peep, if any, when the kind of horrors of the war unfolded.
I think he's now attained a status not unlike that of the Mujahideen Khal, the MEK, which was the opposition group which sided with Saddam Hussein.
The Iranians think you're with an enemy against the homeland, you are ostracized.
So now you have this enormous group of people in the diaspora who's going to be disillusioned.
Their Shah is never going to go back, they're never going to have a Pahlavi restoration.
You're going to have an IRGC stand, a militarized North Korea style.
Regime which is wounded in some ways, but all the more vicious for that.
Yeah, I mean, let's bring Sam back in.
I mean, following the ceasefire, Reza Pahlavi addressed supporters who were disheartened by the pause in US and Israeli strikes, urging them to see the truce as proof of regime weakness rather than defeat.
And he directly appealed to the Iranian armed forces to fulfill their patriotic oath by abandoning the regime and protecting the people from foreign mercenaries like Hezbollah and the PMF.
But obviously, there's not much sign of any of that happening.
And at the same time, we have a former UK House of Commons Speaker John Burko addressing an international conference in Paris yesterday where he said this.
Mr. Pahlavi cannot be accused of too much arduous work over the decades.
He was born into enormous wealth and privilege.
He scuttled off to the United States four and a half decades ago.
I'm not aware of anything useful he's done since, but apparently.
He goes to bed at night, my source tells me, eagerly entertaining the hope that the moment is nigh.
The prince over the water who will come to the rescue and achieve a position of leadership.
Well, I stopped believing in fairy tales before I became a teenager.
This guy's now in his mid-60s.
I have to say to him, just as our little secret between mr. Pahlavi and me, mate, you are deluded.
Sam, what do you make of that?
You know, taking a look at a video of somebody else speaking on behalf of a lot of the Iranian people before this war started, now there may be a couple of percentage of people sort of getting away from regime change and Pahlavi dynasty going back and sort of siding with the regime.
Government Mentality Over Opposition Groups00:05:37
But I think it's sort of listening to that is ridiculous.
I did like his tie, I enjoyed his passion.
But I think sort of speaking on behalf of other people.
You know, it sort of gets ridiculous at times.
And sometimes we forget that the whole reason why the diaspora of the Iranian people that rose up and spoke on everything that was happening in Iran before this war and even now was to be the voice of the people of Iran.
And the misinformation and sort of, you know, saying what you wanted was sort of not very helpful.
And it was just to echo the voices of Iran.
And his, you know, he was the main opposition and he was being.
Called out by not only the people inside of Iran before this blackout, but also the diaspora as well.
And it's hard to say that, you know, it's.
If you take a look back at history, and let's say, you know, you can say, you can example countries like North Korea, but what about South Korea?
What about Germany?
What about, you know, Hungary?
What about some of the Scandinavian countries?
And what about the countries that, when it came to America helping out and America getting into war again, Wars never resolve anything, but in history it has freed countries and it has made countries great.
And if you take a look at the Iranian regime, the regime is stacked with layers on the way this regime was designed.
That's the main issue, not the opposition group, not the countries.
If you take a look at Israel, sure, Israel has done some, their own stuff in Palestine and in Iran, but the people of Iran are the ones that are being shut down.
And shut out by the internet.
So, we are that's that is the main issue.
The biggest issue is we are not really understanding the percentage of people.
I don't think it's 20 to 30 percent of the people, I think it's a lot more than that.
And it's not that we are getting bombed.
This whole thing started of how weird it was as an Iranian to say, I'm glad another country is coming in because how badly their own government was handling and managing the government.
This wasn't about you know wearing your hijab or covering, this was about just economic.
I mean, you got a country that's supposed to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and they don't have internet.
Is it better, though, San, on that point, to have an organic Overthrowing of a leader, as we saw in Syria recently with Assad, for example, where it's driven by people from within Syria.
Is that the best way to affect regime change?
In other words, it was interesting what Sarab said earlier because I think it was Sarab, where you touched on the fact that some people in Iran may well have rallied behind the regime against the bombing, not because they like the regime, but because they hate the bombing more.
And I talked last week on the show about a Kosovan who runs a cafe near me who said it reminded him he had had some Iranian customers come in who said they had done that exact thing.
You know, they were very anti the regime, but they were more pro their country than they were the country being bombed by outside forces.
And he said it reminded him of what happened in Kosovo when NATO attacked Milošević.
Is that quite a few Kosovans did, in the end, put their country ahead of their.
Hatred of Milosevic.
And, you know, that could explain why you're not seeing any uprisings at the moment, along with the obvious issue of there's bombing everywhere and so on, and the memory of what happened in January.
But what do you think to that argument?
I think the Iranian people don't have, like I said, they're cut in between two blades on the sharp end of the sword.
And they're sort of, they don't have anything but to sit and back and take.
The damage that's happening and the problem with the Iranian government is they've used that tactics for years.
I mean, they've used propaganda that was their most dangerous weapon that they used, but their second was brainwashing, and now that's gotten to an end.
I mean, it's been 50 years of that.
People have social media, people have internet, people see how even Saudi Arabia and Dubai have become such successful countries and they use and they're being managed by people that are using their brains.
So I think.
They've sort of lost that trust within their own government for years, but they've been abandoned.
I mean, these people are extremely bad for every single person that's inside of Iran because they don't have their own government.
They're totally on their own.
They don't have anything.
They don't have bank systems right now working.
They don't know what the future is.
They don't have basic internet, but it's the mentality of their own government.
They rather their own government being bombed.
But yes, Be careful what you wish for.
I mean, you never, if you've never, you know, been bombed before or never seen that, right?
Of course, you're going to be frightened, you know.
Of course, it's going to be a moment where you're going to realize this is so bad.
We're getting hit by every single angle of life.
Crude Rhetoric vs Nimble Propaganda00:03:10
Yeah.
Sarah, let me bring you back in because on this issue of propaganda, there's a meme that we have here of what they're talking about, which is the way the Iranian regime is kind of using.
Digital propaganda to get to people in the West in particular.
Let's take a look.
Keep that same energy.
You ain't nothing but a fraud.
You know what's interesting about that to me, I think, Sarab, is it's well made, it's very slick.
It was commissioned by the Iranian regime.
And not all the memes coming out of Iran are using humor.
This one was posted a few days ago by the Iran embassy in Tajikistan.
Mocking President Trump as Jesus after Trump obviously reposted that meme.
Let's take a look at this.
Your reckoning has come.
What is this?
So, you know, it's sort of effective use of modern social media tools to get their point over.
And I think it's undeniably been quite effective.
What do you think, Sarab?
Yeah, look, I mean, notice how much more nimble they are in terms of their messaging.
What they're trying to do is drive a wedge between Western, especially American domestic audiences that didn't vote for this war.
A lot of the people who rallied to Trump in 2024, young men, About a fifth of African American men, a half of Hispanic men, they thought they were getting the peace ticket, as the RNC called itself.
And it was one of the most appealing things about President Trump beginning in 2016 he ran as a critic of the neoconservative, hawkish establishment in both parties that had launched a bunch of point, what he called disastrous wars in that famous February 2016 debate with Senator, with Jeb Bush, Senator Cruz, and the others.
At the time, I was on the right and still in some ways of the right, but it was so taboo to point out that Iraq had been a disaster.
And Trump just came out and said it.
And he flipped the script totally on all of this stuff.
And that's what made him attractive.
And so then for him to launch wars gives the Iranians an opportunity in their propaganda to separate his supporters from the administration.
And again, it's nimble in the sense that the target is Trump or what the Iranians call the so called Epstein class, things like that.
Attacking the Pope and American Civilization00:02:46
They don't attack a whole American civilization.
By contrast, you have figures like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Trump using this very crude rhetoric, targeting a whole civilization or talking about driving Iran back to the Stone Age, having, as you pointed out, Pierce, launched the war on the promise of help is on the way.
And how did you feel, Sarab, about the attack on the Pope, Pope Leo, the first American Pope, obviously, which came in the same sort of 48 hour cycle as Trump reposting a meme of himself as Jesus, even though he now ridiculously pretends he thought he was a doctor.
But this sort of double pronged attack, both on sort of mocking Christianity in a way that offended even his most committed MAGA supporters, many of whom, of course, are very committed to Christianity, probably more intently than they are to Trump himself.
So, completely crazy thing to do, I thought, politically, never mind anything else.
But the attack in particular on the Pope.
Who, his only argument has been that he just wants the war to stop.
He thinks war is bad because it kills a lot of people.
What did you feel about that as a Catholic?
Well, look, I was offended.
As Catholics, we look to the Pope as a spiritual father.
He's the vicar of Christ, he's the successor of St. Peter.
In the book of Acts, there's a verse that says that when Peter came around, the people would bring their ill and disabled, and they would lay their disabled and sick people in the path of Peter so that his shadow might fall on them and heal them.
So that's the kind of level of authority you're talking about.
You know, there's something bizarre about that message of saying Pope Leo is weak on crime as though he's talking about like a local mayor.
And it really did go into dementia territory because I think Trump has like a grab bag of insults in his head.
It's like Barack Hussein Obama, weak on crime.
Leo, weak on crime.
And, you know, so, and look, the fact is that Pope Leo is also not only speaking from this deep tradition of the just war, Theory that the Catholic Church has developed, where war is seen as an evil and it doesn't say that you can never wage war, but it has to be under very strict conditions.
And he's not only speaking from within that tradition, but he's also just addressing where popular sentiment is in the United States.
Pope Leo has a plus 34 popularity rating in the United States.
Trump has a negative 12, depending on which poll you look, some are much worse, has a negative 12 spread, like a popularity or favorability spread.
Weakening Regime Ideology Through Politics00:05:45
It's bizarre to take, even politically speaking, again, set aside the morality of it, it's weird to pick a fight like that with the Pope and to pick a fight and treat him like any other politician rather than a global spiritual leader.
Yeah, I agree.
Just finally, Sam, I was struck by the fact that the new Iranian president, Massoud Pazikian, backed the Pope, posting His Holiness, Pope Leo, I condemn the insult to your excellency on behalf of the great nation of Iran and declare the desecration of Jesus.
The prophet of peace and brotherhood is not acceptable to any free person.
I wish you glory by Allah.
A pretty extraordinary thing to see coming out of the mouth of the president of Iran.
Were you surprised to see that?
And what do you make of this whole row that Trump's having with the Pope?
Absolutely not.
I'm not surprised for the Iranian government to use any opportunity that they have to target and to try to be the good guys here.
I mean, that's what they've done the best.
That's what they've done to get power, and that's what they continue doing.
And the only people that are seeing through the lies are the people of Iran that are asking for some sort of a change, for a better future.
So, you know, watching growing up in a country like that and being brainwashed and sort of being told something that's not, and sort of having the whole politician.
Very, very bad politician that the Iranians are, sort of give me the understanding that politics was no longer the interest to me.
And, you know, when I look at these things online, I figure sometimes when things are being said, they could be the most anti American thing, even though you are trying to be very American.
So that's where my issues with politics come in.
And, you know, just being an Iranian born and seeing what that country turned into and the management part of it.
Made me just hate politics and then fall in love with humanity and then really try to pick up from the person and not just what they're saying.
So, you know, I cannot get good energy and good vibes if we want to put it into simple terms from the people, from the government of Iran.
Absolutely not.
So I don't care what they do, even if they tweet my picture and say, we love Sam, I don't care.
I don't want to get it.
And very quickly, Sam, because we run out of time, but.
Let's go forward six months.
Putting aside what you hope would happen, based on where we are today, what do you think will happen?
Eventually, within the six months range, I think it's a short amount of time to really determine what's going to happen.
But for the people of Iran, what I'm hearing from the inside is that this is only going to get better.
And I hope this war stops, and I hope there is a deal into a new future for the people of Iran, new management.
And I think it's more realistic to look down three to five years to see real change coming from that government.
And I think that that regime is going to get weakened, and they are not going to be as iron fist when it comes to their ideology as the previous leaders were.
And I think, you know, within the years, they're only going to be weakened, and we're going to have an opportunity to create a leader for that country by the people, from the people.
Okay, Saurabh, quickly, what do you think?
Look, I think that.
There's going to be a non agreement agreement where President Trump walks away and various countries strike bilateral deals to give some sort of toll to the Iranians, which will count as their reparation, as their consolation prize for this.
There's going to be kind of uneasiness, an uneasy relationship with Israel ongoing.
So Iran will almost certainly run to China and Russia and try to beef up its defenses for the next round.
But I don't see.
You know, regime change of any kind.
I think that this crew will continue to be in charge.
You can kill this guy, but there's layers and layers behind each one leader.
What you will see, though, I think Sam's right in one sense, which is they're going to let up on some of the sort of morality policing.
Honestly, the hijab thing had already been severely weakened.
It's still on the books, but they weren't really enforcing it after the 2022 uprising.
So you see right now, I mean, I watch state TV daily just to get a sense of what they're up to.
And you see women without hijab on state TV, like they show them protesting on the streets.
Some new, we call it, some new sort of pledge of allegiance will form between the regime and the society, which will take into account these changes that have taken place.
But in terms of Iran's strategic presence in the region and as a regime, I think it's all, again, I maintain it's only been strengthened by this war.
And that's why I wish the president had listened to people like Pope Leo who would invade against this kind of willy nilly war making.
Fascinating conversation.
Thank you both very much.
As I said at the top of the show, the president last week addressed the criticism that Iranian protesters never set a chance without weapons.
Well, speaking to Trey Yinkster, Fox News, he said the US did try to arm the Iranians by sending weapons to the Kurds who stole them.
Well, joining me to respond to that is Baffle Talibani.
He's the president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Thank you, Mr. Morgan.
Patience for Willy-Nilly War Making00:05:51
Did you steal them?
No, I didn't actually.
But, you know, Kurdistan is a tale of two cities.
We're kind of a country, but not a country.
We have a government that's not really a government.
I can guarantee you, on the Suleimaniya side, not a people stolen.
And I think you have enough friends in the administration to confirm that.
I can't speak for the other side.
So, what was your view of what President Trump said?
I mean, if that's the case, and I'm sure that those words didn't come out of nowhere, I think it's absolutely shameful.
I mean, if it's one thing to be.
To think that that tactic of using the Kurds as the bulwark of the assaults was a bad idea, but it's a completely other thing to steal from your allies.
Will there be any repercussions?
I wouldn't want to steal from Mr. Trump, would you?
Not particularly, no.
No, I presume there will be.
In terms of the wider war, what is your perspective on where we've reached here six weeks on?
Looking at it a bit differently, Mr. Morgan, I think that patience is required, is the number one thing.
But I think that instead of a small win, there could be the opportunity for a larger win if the Americans are thinking that way.
And Mr. Trump's book indicates some of that.
I think that if they concentrated on perhaps not just this immediate conflict, but all the things in the Middle East that contribute to this conflict and exasperate this conflict, perhaps there's an opportunity for a greater understanding and a bigger deal.
A deal regarding the Palestinians, a deal regarding what's happening now in Lebanon, for example.
I think if the American administration went for a bigger deal, absolutely it would take more time.
But the victory would be colossal and it would be a change in the Middle East.
It would be a real win.
And I think the numbers in the upcoming elections in the United States would be very favorable to the Republicans.
If they had the patience for that, sorry.
Sorry, sir, please.
Well, no, I'd say I think it would take a lot of patience.
I'm not entirely sure that Donald Trump has a lot of that generally.
And it would take a lot of commitment and money and so on.
In terms of this idea of regime change, there was a big piece in the New York Times a few days ago suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu painted a picture to Trump, which Trump clearly bought into, that if you decapitated the leadership of Iran and killed the Ayatollah, that it would lead to regime change, that the IRGC would.
Basically, fragment and then collapse, and the people would rise up, and you would have a change of regime.
Was that ever likely?
And is that even possible, do you think?
Honestly, Mr. Morgan, I don't believe so.
I think that the bombing campaigns have had the adverse effect.
You can speak to Iranians, we do.
Thousands of Kurds contact us.
They can even tell who's bombing from the targets, Mr. Morgan.
This may be something you haven't heard before.
Every time a school is destroyed, every time a university is destroyed, every time a hospital is destroyed, they know it's not the Americans.
I can't see how that's helpful.
And you can't bomb people into loving you.
I just don't believe it.
And I think the tactic is wrong.
And it's having the adverse effect.
We've seen people demonstrating who've been interviewed.
Madam, you were here six months ago demonstrating against the regime.
And they say, we're not demonstrating for the regime now.
We're demonstrating for our country, for our land, for our soil.
And that's understandable.
I think your Kosovo example was extremely astute.
Yeah, it was very, it was passed to me by Kosovan.
That's why I thought it had great credibility.
And I do, I do, I was trying to think what would happen with the UK, for example, right?
Exactly.
If we were bombed here, however unpopular the government at the time, I think you would see people rally behind the country.
I think it's an instinctive human reaction.
It's exactly that.
It's a human reaction.
I think one of the dangers is listening to the diaspora and to refugee communities.
When we were in the UK, we were so against Saddam, we would have said anything.
um and i think that maybe the the iranians in america are wonderful educated people May not be the right people to listen to.
I think that the United States has great intelligence.
They have very good friends that are very close to them.
And I think that that's who they should be listening to.
You know, I'm optimistic now that the Pakistanis are sending a team to Tehran very soon to continue the negotiations.
And I think one day where everything didn't go well shouldn't be the end of it.
There was progress made, Mr. Morgan, on many of the smaller issues.
I think a lot of progress was made.
I've heard this from both sides.
So I think, given the opportunity for things to continue and this.
Ceasefire deadline isn't written in stone.
It's very easy to extend things.
And my hope is that people will see sense and realize that this is one of those conflicts that violence will not resolve.
Baffle Talbani, thank you very much indeed.
You're always welcome in our sense that, not least because I think you're the only guest who regularly calls me Mr. Morgan, which I greatly appreciate.
So, Mr. Talbani, thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Morgan.
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