[00:00] My entire life I've heard this refrain that Iran is only weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. That we have to bomb that country preemptively to stop them. But our own intel agencies say Iran's nuclear program was shut down in 2003 and isn't being restarted. That's what they said last month. Um so if Iran poses no real threat to the US, why are we constantly told that it does? Which country is Iran actually a threat to? And if we went to war with Iran,
[00:30] whose interests would that war really serve? Israel. You know, it was my experience when I was in government that literally every single time Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States, literally every single time, he asked whomever it was that happened to be in the Oval Office to bomb Iran and to do Israel's dirty work. If Iran is an existential threat to Israel, okay, that's Israel's problem.
[01:00] There's no reason why the United States should bomb Iran. Now, every president, I mean George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton and and George W. Bush and Barack Obama and even uh Donald Trump and Joe Biden have told Netanyahu over the years to go fly a kite. We're not going to bomb Iran. Uh Benjamin Netanyahu came here a couple of weeks ago. It was on a Saturday. Saturday visits are unusual. But he came here because there was some
[01:31] sort of crisis, some emergency. Uh there probably wasn't. He just wanted us to think that there was. And he comes here and he says Israel has intelligence that Iran is going to begin bombing Israel imminently and we need to bomb Iran to stop them from bombing Israel. Okay, we don't have such intelligence. There's no indication that that there's there's going to be a war between Israel and Iran. And indeed, the Iranians would get nothing out of that. Nothing. They don't They don't accomplish
[02:03] anything by just arbitrarily attacking Israel. Knowing that the Israelis have as many as 200 nuclear weapons. What do the Iranians get out of it? Now, on the other hand, we used to say in the '70s that only Nixon could go to China. And what that meant was the only way there was going to be peace between the United States and China, or even just a normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, was if Richard Nixon, who was the
[02:33] most anti-communist president in history, the most anti-Chinese president in history, reached out to the Chinese and made that peace. And that's exactly what happened. Now, if the Democrats had done it, they would have been accused of being soft on communism. They would have been called pinkos. It They They would have been accused of weakening the United States. But Nixon Nixon was so anti-communist, he would be the last person that you could accuse of being soft on communism. He went to
[03:03] China and established diplomatic relations. Well, I would posit that only only Trump could go to Tehran. Not necessarily literally, but if anybody's going to make peace with Iran, wouldn't it stand to reason that it would be the most anti-Iran person? So, what happened? Two Saturdays ago, Benjamin Netanyahu um comes to the United States, emergency visit, straight to the White House, "Please bomb Iran." And they come out of
[03:35] the meeting and Donald Trump announces talks with the Iranians. Talks! The Iranians for months have been planning for some sort of an attack either by Israel or by the United States. But again, what does the US get out of attacking Iran? Nothing. We get we accomplish nothing by attacking Iran. And so there were talks, mostly indirect talks in Muscat. The Iranians were in one room, the Americans were in another
[04:06] room, and the Omani foreign minister shuttled between the two rooms. At the end of it, there was a photo opportunity where the two sides came together just for a few minutes, and they spoke just for a few minutes, but that is direct contact. Both sides lauded the fact that these were serious talks. And they scheduled a second round of talks in Rome that took place this past Saturday. Now, the Omani foreign minister also flew to Rome, shuttled between the two rooms, and then that
[04:37] shuttling was followed by direct talks. The Iranian foreign minister made a statement afterwards. I think that was far more important than what the American uh uh special envoy uh uh would came out and said. Well, yeah, thank you. Um the Iranian foreign minister said that the Iranian delegation had been treated with respect. And that the Americans had never raised uh the Israeli position.
[05:09] So, it's not like the Israelis were looking over our shoulder in those negotiations. And now both sides said that they're looking forward to the next round of talks. Well, you made an important point, too. The Iranians don't have a nuclear weapons program, despite what you've heard from the Israelis. There have been repeated national intelligence intelligence estimates and special national intel- intelligence estimates coming out of the intelligence community going back to 2003
[05:39] in which the conclusion of all 18 members of the US intelligence community, not just the CIA, all 18 members, has been that the Iranians are not pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon. They're just not. And besides, even if they were, they don't have a delivery system. And so, somebody's been lying. I think it's clear that all these years it's been Benjamin Netanyahu. And I think that war with Iran is not only not imminent,
[06:11] I think that for the first time in 46 years, we may actually see a breakthrough in diplomatic relations. There's kind of a tug-of-war, as you mentioned, within the Trump administration regarding Iran. There's these people like Steve Whitcoff, mainly, who are making steps to engage in actual diplomacy, talking with Iran, and trying to solve these issues. And then, there is another large faction of Iran hawks, mostly Israel lobbyists, and they're pushing for what they call the Libya model, which is the complete dissolution
[06:42] of Iranian nuclear facilities in exchange for not being bombed by the United States. But, isn't the Libya model exactly why Iran would want nuclear weapons? Gaddafi gave up his In 2002, and I'm not 2002, 2003, uh Steve Kappes, who was the Deputy Director of the CIA, um actually, at the time he was the Deputy He was the Associate Deputy Director for Operations of the CIA, made a secret trip to Libya.
[07:12] And met with the Muammar uh Gaddafi. He told Gaddafi that um we were going to attack uh Iraq. This was in February of 2003. We were going to attack Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. And if Gaddafi didn't want to meet the same fate, he was going to have to turn over all of his weapons of mass destruction. And that's exactly what he did. And then we overthrew him anyway. So, you know, it's not like the rest of
[07:44] the world is blind to what the United States says versus what the United States does. The Iranians saw what happened in in Libya. They saw what happened to Gaddafi who was then lynched by his own people at the insistence of the United States. And so, you know, what what do you do to protect yourself? You you develop a an an a homegrown weapons industry. And then you forge the closest possible
[08:14] relations with Russia and China. And that's what the Iranians have done. Also, you know, these these Israel hawks don't have a real appreciation uh for well, for several things pertaining to Iran. One is the cohesion of Iranian society. Uh you know, the Iranians are are true believers in uniting against a single enemy. This notion, for example, that that we
[08:45] foolishly maintained in 2002 and early 2003 that when we crossed the border into Iraq, or the Iraqi people would throw flowers on us. It was so nonsensical as to be funny. But but people inside the administration believed it. Well, to believe today that as soon as we cross the border, as soon as we start bombing Iran, the Iranians are going to throw flowers at us and and get on their knees to thank us for liberating them from from their theocratic overlords, that's just simply not true.
[09:16] It's just not. They're going to unite against an invading army. And they're going to fight us like the Iranians did. I mean, like the Iraqis did, rather. They're going to fight us like the the Afghans did. They're going to fight us like the Vietnamese did. There's going not going to be any thanks for for the liberation because there's no liberation. Uh in the meantime, Iran is is huge. It's It's This isn't Afghanistan we're talking about or even Iraq. It's a gigantic country with with a lot of
[09:49] people. And we haven't taken that into consideration. And finally, we really don't know what the response would be to an American attack on Iran from the Russians and the Chinese. I for one don't think that they'll just sit by and uh and let it happen without there being some sort of a response. And that response could be catastrophic. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is a leading figure in Trump's cabinet pushing for this war with Iran. Drop Site News today revealed that his
[10:21] new director for Israel and Iran is Mairav Kahana from the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, but who more importantly was previously an employee at the Israeli Ministry of Defense. John, how like that get a security clearance? That seems highly unusual. It's It's highly unusual. Um and you know, it's not It's not unique to Donald Trump, although it's inexcusable. It's inexcusable no matter who the president is. But uh
[10:52] but Bill Clinton did the same thing. Uh where he named a he named a dual US-Israeli citizen to be ambassador to Israel, for heaven's sake. Um I I honestly don't know how something like this happens unless either the FBI is ignored or the FBI is told to ignore the fact that this person may have dual loyalties. I think it's very, very dangerous because the Israelis are rated for rated
[11:24] as critical threat for counterintelligence in the US intelligence community. They're They're rated at the same level as the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and the Cubans. And so, I wouldn't want anybody with ties to Israel anywhere near the National Security Council, let alone to be one of the deputy directors of the National Security Council. I don't know how this happens. I don't know why this person isn't already being, you know, investigated for for um espionage, or for some sort of violation
[11:56] of the Espionage Act. But, um this is the situation we find ourselves in. And I think people get away with it because there's no public outrage. To me, this is huge news. I saw this at DropSite as well. Where I didn't see it was in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal. And that's, I think, part of the problem. I want to ask you about another country that we're at war with right now, which is Somalia. We've been at war in Somalia for over two decades, yet most Americans
[12:29] know next to nothing about it. The New York Times recently reported that some in the State Department wanted to pull out of Mogadishu, but hawks like Sebastian Gorka are pushing to send more troops, escalate strikes, and install a friendly regime. The Atlantic Council says that withdrawal is too risky. But, haven't we heard this argument before? That if we just try a little harder, use more force, train more troops, peace will follow? Doesn't this feel like the same failed playbook we've seen over and over again with the surge, for instance,
[12:59] or Ukraine's counteroffensive, or with the war in Afghanistan? Oh, yeah. We did it throughout the Vietnam War. We did it in Afghanistan. We did it in Iraq, and it always, always fails. I I've been to Somalia. It's a failed state. There is no government in Somalia. Somalia would be relatively easily broken up because because uh two of the northern provinces, Somaliland and Puntland, want to uh be independent countries.
[13:29] Somaliland has declared independence. Nobody's recognized it yet. They've begged us to recognize it and we haven't. Uh but you know, you see here's another example where you've got the likes of Sebastian Gorka in charge of of of a policy like this. Sebastian Gorka is one of the Deputy National Security Advisors. And this is a guy who only lasted for 30 days in the first Trump administration because he couldn't get a security clearance. And the reason he couldn't get a security clearance is that he wears his father's Nazi Party lapel pin.
[14:02] Okay, not neo-Nazi, the actual Nazi Party that was in charge of Hungary during the Second World War. He wears his father's Nazi Party lapel pin. Um he's an unabashed supporter of Nazi ideology. And this is the guy that we've put in charge. So, you know, this is something I that I've never understood about about Donald Trump. On the one hand, he talks about
[14:33] um he talks about pulling out or ending pulling out of or ending these these endless wars, right? These endless troop commitments. And then on the other hand, he surrounds himself with the likes of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel and other swamp creatures and lovers of foreign interventions that he's been railing against. So, it's like, buddy, pick an ideology
[15:05] and stick with it. You can't say you're anti-war and then surround yourself with pro-war people like Marco Rubio, for example. You know why Marco Rubio is not carrying out these talks with the Iranians and Steve Witcoff is is because Rubio is one of the ones that wants to bomb Iran. So, I I just don't understand it. You know, if I were president, somebody having been a part of the Atlantic Council would be disqualifying for federal service. It wouldn't be, you know, a talent base
[15:37] that I would go to to staff my National Security Council. It would be disqualifying. But, Donald Trump just seems to not really stand for anything other than Donald Trump. I want to ask you now about the US-backed Israeli genocide of Gaza. Amazingly, there are still plenty of defenders, and I've seen a number of self-declared terrorism experts like Max Abrams or Douglas Murray explain why the war is not only justified, but an effective approach to counterterrorism.
[16:09] And it comes from this theory that if you follow a sledgehammer approach, if you drop enough bombs, that you're going to deter your enemies from attacking you. And you don't have to resolve any political problems or resolve any grievances that caused the terrorism in the first place. You just bomb everyone, and that's how you discourage terrorism. And actually, I don't think you have to be an expert at all in terrorism or counterterrorism uh to figure this out. I think it's pretty intuitive that if you bomb people and kill their families, they're going to hate you and want revenge. The first suicide bombers in
[16:40] Iraq, for instance, were Palestinians who suffered under Israeli repression and occupation. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing perpetrator, Ramzi Yousef, said that he was motivated to, quote, "Stop the killings of Arabs by Israeli troops." Bin Laden said similarly about his motivation for 9/11 in his letter to America, which was a document that was purged from the Guardian website last year and censored all over social media once people my age started to notice these connections between US support for Israel and terrorism. So, we've been told we have
[17:11] to bomb the Middle East and support Israel to stop terrorism, but is there anything that generates more terrorism than bombing the Middle East and supporting Israel? No. And you know what? I thought that was clear a generation ago. When when I was in Pakistan with the CIA, I was the uh I was the uh chief of counterterrorism operations there. And to a man, every single one of the of the ground-level Al-Qaeda fighters that
[17:42] we captured told exactly the same story. The bottom line being they had no real beef with the United States. They couldn't even find the United States on a map. The beef was with US foreign policy and support of Israel. The the beef really at the at the end of the day was was Israel. And many of them said that they didn't really care one way or the other about the United States until they saw news coverage of Israeli soldiers with their boots on
[18:13] the necks of Palestinian women. Right? Or news footage of dead Palestinian children thanks to Israeli attacks. And so it's that kind of behavior that creates terrorism, that motivates terrorists, that leads to more terrorism, not less terrorism. If you want less terrorism, respect civil rights and civil liberties, and implement economic development and education. It's as simple as that. But it takes time and it
[18:45] takes money. This notion of the of the sledgehammer being used as policy, it has never worked. Never. Besides being illegal. Right? It's it's a violation of of uh international law. It's a war crime, a crime against humanity to target civilian populations. And that's exactly what the Israelis have have doing. The Israelis don't even dispute, for example, the numbers of civilian casualties, and
[19:15] those numbers are coming from Hamas's Ministry of Health. And the Israelis say, "Yeah, yeah, we we have killed that many people. Yeah, they're almost all civilians." And so, why isn't the world doing something about it? But, you're right, this is just a recipe for failure. And when I say failure, I mean, at the end of the day, the Israelis are going to drag the United States down with them. And it's just going to lead to more attacks and more violence and more death all over the world.