With the greatest humility, I am pleased to announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.
I warmly welcome the sagacious gesture and extend deepest gratitude to the leadership of both the countries and invite their delegations to Islamabad on Friday, 10th April 2026, to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to settle all disputes.
Both parties have displayed remarkable wisdom and understanding and have remained constructively engaged in furthering the cause of peace and stability. We earnestly hope, that the ‘Islamabad Talks’ succeed in achieving sustainable peace and wish to share more good news in coming days!
Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Professor Pape: IRAN WAR NOT OVER, Trump TRAPPED Breaking Points Apr 8, 2026 Breaking Points
Ryan and Emily are joined Professor Pape on the latest on Iran.
Transcript
University of Chicago professor Robert Pape has been warning that the United States, Israel, and Iran are trapped in an escalation trap. That's also the name of his Substack. He'll be having a live briefing over at his Substack at 7 p.m. uh tomorrow now with a tenuous ceasefire uh taking hold. Uh Professor Pape joins us um to walk through, you know, how trapped they still are and what the way out of this is. Uh, Professor Pape, thank you so much for joining us here again. Uh, thank you very much for having me. Um, and I really think we need to understand that yes, this is all fragile, but big things are here in front of us. There's really three issues to discuss. Number one, the trap. Why the trap is not over and in fact maybe uh even tightening. Uh number two, the change in the world balance of power right in front of us as evidenced by the nature of the ceasefire agreement itself. Uh and then um uh number three, the statement uh by Donald Trump, the president of the United States um to end the civilization in Iran. Those that will endure that's not going to be forgotten. So the trap maybe I could just let's start with the trap. Yeah, let's start with the trap. So, um, are they out of the trap or are they is the trap not over yet? Uh, no, the trap is is is not over. In fact, we may be coming to an extremely dangerous phase of the trap. Um, and the reason is this. Number one, uh, US military forces are poised uh on a razor's edge in the region to strike. So, um, we the trap uh will start to unwind when President Trump literally removes the all the carrier battle groups, removes all the fighters, uh, removes the Marines, just literally pulls it back geographically. Uh, number two, Pete Hegsth, Secretary Hegsth, just before we came on, uh, vocally and publicly said, "We're going to get that enriched uranium. We're going to get it." Well, we know that that has been a big part of this whole issue. Iran has enough enriched uranium for between um, 10 and 16 nuclear weapons. they are now maximally incentivized to have those nuclear weapons. Uh they know if they just d go into those caves where the drones are and the missiles are, we can't get we can't stop them from building that nuclear those nuclear weapons. Um and so you can expect over the next six months or the next year uh nuclear tests, not just simply now uh weapons and secret, but this is going to be um uh incredibly um uh dangerous for this trap because of course um Iran is going to show I think very little sign they're going to just give up the nuclear weapons now um that Donald Trump has threatened to kill 92 million uh Iranians and probably All 92 million will help build those nuclear weapons. All of them, including the pro-democracy movement. And you've obviously studied this for a long time. How viable is it that Iran would be able to reconstitute its missile supply, launchers, and even nuclear potentially nuclear weapons uh just in the next I mean we had midnight hammer last June and found ourselves back in the same place February 28th. So what does the immediate future look like of Iran's ability to rebuild uh its military? Uh yes, they are building uh not just uh dozens but something like 50 to 100 missiles every single month. Uh that is what happened after Midnight Hammer. They went back to rebuilding, reconstituting or you could say reloading their guns. um and that h has been happening on a steady basis and also producing the drones on a steady basis. In fact, they were still shipping drones um to Russia for Ukraine last fall. So, they're producing them, they're shipping them, they're developing them. And so, this is um uh we we will have weakened this some uh but the um without the bombs continuing to fall, even that weakness will will disappear. And Iran is making 75 to hundred billion dollars a year in R&B in Chinese banks that they will be able to use um uh to um for all of these purposes. Uh so they will have the money, they will have the space, they will have the materials. Uh and this is uh this is why all this destruction of these launchers uh this was just not meaningful. It was always at most a temporary stop gap. And we will see within a year this will be ba fast and furious. Uh because now keep keep in mind before the bombing started on Feb 28 you had something like 16 or 20% of the population supporting the regime. Now I'm not saying they like the regime's ideology but you now have 92 million people. Where is their best security coming from? Not from Donald Trump. He just threatened to murder each and every one of them. So what are they going to do? they're going to the vast majority of them are going to help in these programs because they don't want to die. So this is really quite an extraordinary set of events that have been triggered and the effects of this are going forward and we will see it. Secretary Hegsth, he sees right away that there's been no disincentive here and he's saying we're gonna take the material. Well, Iran, I think, is not just going to hand it over. This is how are they going to stop the next nuclear threat by Donald Trump. There's only one way now, which is nuclear weapons with a nuclear test and probably several nuclear tests to just rub it into America's face. You nuke us, we're coming back. And so, you mentioned that Trump saying that, you know, tonight a great civilization is going to die. uh that that is going to leave a permanent or at least a very long-term mark on our geopolitics. Can you explain how you mean that? Yeah. So, we need to understand that no president in the history of the United States has made a statement uh threatening to erase, destroy, kill an entire civilization. Point number one, that is the evidence of genocidal intent that's required in the Geneva Accords to convict for genocide. We need to understand that the genocide uh accords that we have um they're about the intent to commit genocide. Usually, that's the hardest thing to find. It's not the killing of people, it's the intent. Well, President Trump, I don't think there could be a clearer evidence of genocidal intent than you just saw. Number two, President Trump is one of only a handful of people on the planet with enough nuclear weapons that he would be able to actually execute that threat. So, um, with we have 500 Minutemen missiles, uh, and they have warheads with 300,000 kilotons on them. Hiroshima Nagasaki was only 10 12 to 22 kilotons. So, these are much much more powerful than Hiroshima Nagasaki. and we have 500 of them and within their gyroscopes can be reoriented to Iran. after that all that uh those all of those 500 can land on Iran. So I I'm sorry to be so blunt but we need to really understand that what Donald Trump has done here is it's uh 8 minutesit's immoral. It it is very likely I'm not a lawyer very likely uh contradict the Geneva Accords. Uh but it's also dangerous because now every American is marked here and this will be wherever we travel in the world. Um about to maybe get on a plane to go to London here. This is uh this is not trivial. And so what you're seeing is now 92 million uh Iranians, not just these tiny number of, you know, supreme leaders, uh they're pretty maximally, uh incentivized to show that there's uh some payback that can come. So this is really an enormously uh consequential move by uh President Trump and it will do no good that he will somehow maybe take it back or his supporters will say it's just Trump being Trump. No, I'm sorry. Um, not everybody not everybody who's a drunk at a bar has their finger on thousands of nuclear weapons that can be 9 minutesdelivered within a matter of an hour or less as I'm explaining in detail. This is way too consequential and this will have tremendous ripple effects across the world. Our allies, the idea our allies will in Europe will let us even uh run NATO. NATO we need to understand it is a military organization where when the American general runs the operation of a NATO military operation it's the American general who controls the nuclear weapons of Britain. Do you think Britain is going to go for that at this? I mean, my Yeah, you can see right away n so the the rip the consequences here are way beyond um what's and and then in the straight of Hormuz the consequences are there's a new hierarchy of power. Donald Trump just cowtowed to Iran essentially. There's a new hierarchy and everybody in the Middle East will see that. NBS will know there's no Donald Trump cavalry coming to save him. So that's Saudi Arabia. So you're seeing these these gigantic consequences of what's happened are consequences uh for all Americans. They're consequences for the world balance of power. Iran is becoming the fourth center of world power. And I want to steal this analysis a bit by bringing in the perspective of people who think this is a a a massive loss for Iran. This is Noah Rothman writing in National Review this morning, saying, "Iran's central nervous system has been severed as indicated by the Islamic Republic's field commanders attacks on Gulf targets long after the ceasefire was announced. Its command and control, intelligence, and domestic security apparatuses have been severely degraded. Its navy and air force are gone. Its air defense network and nuclear weapons programs are in ruins. Its petrochemical and steel industries have been badly damaged, truncating two major sources of foreign revenue that sustained the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Keep going here. The Gulf States uh are now 11 minutesinconstant Washington's orbit. America's adversaries in Beijing and Moscow did not much alter the balance in Iran's favor. Thrron's defense industrial base is a smoldering wreck. And uh it goes on to say its stores of long and short range missiles, drones, and the launchers to use them are dramatically depleted. What's your response to that, Professor? Uh my response is this is just not on planet earth. Um so this is not even just victory rhetoric and so forth. But we need to understand um that uh what has just happened is Donald Trump has just agreed that yes ships can pass through the straight of Hormuz but only if the Iranian military gives that permission. And that is enormously consequential here. And if it was the case that all of this was going in the other direction, you would not need the any ceasefire from Iran. You would not need any deal from Pakistan. The United States would just simply be the power in the region. What's happening is the 12 minutescomplete opposite of that. And it's um uh people can just say whatever they want, of course, but nobody's going to pay that any meaningful attention. meaning they won't actually act on that assumption. They're going to act on the realities that have just been demonstrated by war. War is often clarifying for the realities of power. Before war, we have a lot of talk. We have a lot of bolster. We have basically talking smack. Okay? But once you get into war, the realities start to actually take shape. And what you're seeing here is that the reality is um that before the war, President Trump and the United States was guaranteeing safe passage through the Straits of Hormuz. Effectively, it had military bases in the region to protect the Gulf States from being attacked and smashed. During the war itself, none of that was protecting the Gulf States. None of it was moving their oil. Uh and the only thing that is actually now protecting the Gulf States are is Iran deciding not to attack. So, if you want your country protected, who are you going to go to? The United States or are you going to go to Iran? Right now, it's pretty clear you've got to go to Iran. And yes, maybe you got to hope Iran will not attack you because if Iran decides to attack you, the United there's nothing the United States going to do to protect you. This is power politics of the First Order. The balance of power in the world and in the region is changing. In the region, it is now Iran at the top of the hierarchy, not the United States. In the world, Iran is becoming the fourth center of world power. It's not yet as powerful as the United States. I'm not trying to say. And it's emerging as the fourth center as well. The new once they they actually acquire the nuclear weapons and do the test, which I'm saying is likely in six months or a year. how how would you stop it at this point without ground conquering all of Iran? Um uh it will become unmistakably the fourth power center in the world. So I'm not quite saying they're there yet, but they are emerging in all of the ways that we will credit this uh here going forward. This debate on what's happening will become clarified because the war is clarifying power. And to be clear, your point is that the only way to stop them from within six months to a year acquiring the nucle acquiring the nuclear weapons reconstituting is boots on the ground. Uh yes, but it's not just a few boots on the ground. This isn't going to stop with 10 or 20,000 uh Americans. And even if we uh devoted all 1 2 million uh troops here, this would not be enough. So this is why this was a dilemma. Uh this is why it was an escalation trap. We don't have these hidden secret options. If only we would use them. And then you saw what was the hidden secret option? Nuclear destruction of every living person in Iran. That's where Donald Trump had to go because he doesn't have all these other weapons at his all these other uh success strategies here. And you see what that has brought. So what you are facing we're facing here is a true escalation trap and the uh off uh ramp to stage three which is the ground war is Iran's world power. That's what I've been explaining on my on my Substack is there is a branch here and either it's Iran as a new emerging world power or it's the ground war and you can see these are the real tensions literally the ceasefire has clarified what I've been saying on my substack just literally in the last week in the in the briefings etc. And so how does uh Israel's strategic calculus factor in here when as they went into the war this you know the strait was open Iran was isolated and sanctioned if you listen to Israeli leader Benj Netanyahu privately he was saying they're many years away from uh a nuclear weapon. Um now the you know they're not not isolated as you said they're you know re regional and growing power. uh sanctions are currently off basically and are likely to come off as a result of these negotiations permanently and you know I think it's it's debatable whether or not they can secretly race for a bomb like but let's let's let's I think stipulate that they're more likely they're they're in a better position and people inside Iran are now and this is the thing people don't understand um before the war the people in power in the Iranian government were opposed to seeking a nuclear weapon um for both ideological and political reasons. Those people were killed and people who uh support seeking a nuclear weapon are empowered. Not that they are in power completely, but they have been empowered. Uh their faction has been empowered. So how does Israel respond to this? Because the you know the US has its own power center, but Israel has its own interests that sometimes are aligned with the United States and sometimes are are distinct. So how how do you see them moving forward in this new uh arrangement? So so we need to understand that before the war 40 days ago there was a balance of power in the region and if anything Israel was the emerging hegeimon with the hierarchy with the Abraham Accords counterbalancing against Iran. Um uh Iran as you said the supreme leader but the one we killed didn't really want the nuclear weapons he had fought was against it but now you're seeing this shift where even Israel so Israel was the only country in the region with nuclear weapons. Well now what you're going to get is you're getting this shift and as I'm saying you you're you've maximally incentivized not just the regime but all 92 million Iranians for nuclear weapons here. Um, and so it's it's going to it's it's it's extremely uh likely, maybe over 90% likely, maybe not a h 100red, that they will have that nuclear capability. And what that's going to do is it's going to put Israel down on the hierarchy. Now, Israel remains 7 million Jews. It is surrounded by 500 million Muslims. As that hierarchy shifts, this is going to be a dramatic shift against Israel in the region. And so you're going to you are going to end up with Israel, you know, has often said, "Well, they all hate us anyway." Well, yes, but only a few hundred thousand at most were ever mobilized to attack Israel. You could now have a much larger pool uh mobilized. And it's because, again, go back to President Trump's nuclear threat. These these these threats are clearly explaining that the uh for the West and possibly Israel, they're glad to kill them all. this is not going to work to Israel's uh security. It's going to go in the opposite direction and their nuclear uh weapons here will not provide that much security because what it's going to do is even if they use the nuclear weapon, it will only further incentivize not just Iran but every state in the region to want a nuclear weapon. uh here that we're moving to a world that is going to be dramatically worse for Israel's security. This is one of the things I've been trying to explain uh uh to the Israelis. This is this this strategy is not just about well we just have to do uh this for our security. No, it's their own this is self-defeating for their security. And I think this will also start to become manifest within just a year or two. Not I don't think you'll have to wait five or 10 years. This will come pretty quickly because of the change in the balance of power and there are only 7 million Jews. Unless there are going to be a rush of another 10 million Jews to go live in Israel. Now imagine that you're probably going to lose seven of of the Jews in Israel, you're going to lose more than you're going to gain in the next year. And it's precisely because of the growing insecurity of Israel. And can you respond to the claim that the response from uh ter the response from Moscow and Beijing proves that Iran tan is increasingly isolated and didn't have its allies rallying around it. Uh what do you I mean Donald Trump posted this morning that anybody who supplies u weapons to Iran is going to be sanctioned. So potentially I suppose that could include China. Can he sanction China to the extent where Iran can't rebuild? What do you make of the international response from? Well, first of all, Iran is building its own weapons. So, Iran was an exporter of drones to Russia, not the other way around. So, we need to really understand here. Iran is not Grenada. Iran is not a small state. It's not even Venezuela. I mean, Iran is um already a a major country here. This is already it was over 1% of world GDP. it now it may be growing that Russia is only 2% of world GDP we need to put this in some perspective here so um Iran doesn't really need the weapons uh it will make the weapons themselves what it will benefit from is probably uh the trade and the oil and all the money there and also there may be growing technology transfers here say between uh China which has a lot of AI and Iran and this will be uh one of the things that I would imagine could easily happen in the future. So, as I explained in the New York Times piece, there are if with with Iran as the fourth center of world power, you have the United States, but uh Russia and China and Iran are not at each other's odds. They're against the United States. You don't need a formal NATO among Russia, China, and Iran. They've just structurally incentivized to cooperate in a myriad number of ways. All of which lowering America's power in the world. And uh this Trump is just trying to, you know, do a magician's trick. Uh slight of hand. Nothing to see here. Uh we're all good. Well, no. Um the realities here are coming for all to see. And this will just simply be um powerful over time. Uh and it will also work to President Trump's uh domestic political detriment here in probably in the very near future. I mean thi this is you're now asking all those uh Congress people who are running for office to hook their wagon in the midterms to somebody who's threatened the genocidal destruction of an entire civilization led to the rise of Iran as a fourth center of world power. Uh so yes there may be you know 20% here that will or 25 that will stick and ride and die with with Trump but the bottom line is there's not going to be very me every politician will know th this is a really really bad horse to be hooked uh to and I think you're going to see the GOP itself is going to have some real question it's not the Democrat the Democrats are going to want to keep Trump around for political reasons maybe not for security reasons. So, that's where I would draw the line. But politically, Trump is like the perfect thing to keep around for the Democrats. It's the GOP who's going to have the biggest problems here. I wanted to get your reaction to this new quote from Donald Trump, which I think you're going to appreciate. It's Jonathan Carl. He says, "I asked President Trump if he's okay with the Iranians charging a toll for all ships that go through the Straight of Hormuz. He told me there may be a joint US Iran venture to charge tolls." quote, uh, we're thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it, also securing it from lots of other people. It's a beautiful thing. What do you make of that? Well, again, another statement not on planet Earth. And by the way, there is some jointness to the tolls has just emerged. Iran has agreed to share some of it with Oman. Why would they do that? Iran is becoming the uh the high the the dominant power in the region. they can dole out some goodies here to get everybody in line with the new hierarchy. Uh I don't see everybody cottoning up to Donald Trump to do it that way. So So again, this is just more evidence that it's just not on planet Earth. So you will get statements and they can say what they want, but this the countries are going to go for their security. the idea that they are going to give up their their security and their wealth to somehow um you know give Donald Trump a photo op. I think this is not happening. I think this is just way too consequential what has occurred and will occur. It's not over what and will occur. Also, I was just curious. So, if people haven't read it yet, they got to go go read your uh piece that you had in the New York Times. It was about Iran emerging as a you know new power. That was a point that you made here last week on the show. I was curious when did the times reach out to you and say, "Hey, saw you on breaking points or like how?" I'm just telling you guys have been the best in in terms of allowing me to come on and also space to really explain and you know we're doing it regularly. You got it first. I actually started that piece several weeks ago. People kept asking me what was the longer term future and I wouldn't really I didn't want to let it let tell them yet because we're still going through the middle parts of the stage one stage two stage three but then when I came on with you I had the piece ready to go and before I ent it to the New York Times I decided I'm going to do and know so I didn't announce all that on your show and say oh you know there's no I mean that's still just professor paper right I wanted to give you the first exclusive scoop poop. Okay. And I didn't um and and it was really quite a pleasure. It was like an inside pleasure for me because I I really appreciate uh the relationship here and how much this has really I think I get so many emails by the way. Uh the breaking point, the things for breaking points are just the dominant thing in my inbox. Um and so it's really just been a pleasure. And um uh and so um uh no, I I'm the one who's pushed it forward uh here. Uh but they could see right away that that was and it's got like an enormous number of reactions and comments here and so forth and so on on their on theirs and and this is and now you're seeing that just in a few days after I published the piece clear evidence that Iran is in the catbird seat as I was saying and we need to understand they don't just have money and they're not just talking about ships this is power politics of the first order that is changing Uh, and you're seeing evidence of it right now, which is Donald Trump is essentially having to give, you know, sort of fantasy posts here that nobody I'm not even sure he does he even believe. Who knows? But this is that far removed from reality on his side. And I I think with our audience, for most people, it actually undermines their credibility if they appear in the New York Times. But I think in your case, we're going to allow an exception. So, well, look, I I am just uh pleased and honored to to be able to do this and I I I definitely take your point. I'll I'll be careful in the future that I don't get sucked into uh into the legacy back. Speaking of legacy media, the escalation trap of the legacy media. Well, Robert Pav is a professor at the University of Chicago. He is doing uh more live streams. Go check out his Substack, The Escalation Trap. Follow him on social media. Thank you so much for your time, Professor Pave. Absolutely. We'll see you soon. Okay, bye-bye. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people. And if you'd like to get the full show, ad free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at breakingpoints.com. That's right. Get the full show. Help support the future of independent media at breakingpoints.com.
The New Balance of Power After the Ceasefire. How the United States lost control—and Iran gained it Prof Robert Pape Apr 08, 2026 https://substack.com/home/post/p-193566716
I. A Strategic Outcome, Not a Temporary Pause
The two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran is being described as a pause in hostilities. That description is misleading. What has occurred is not simply a halt in bombing. It is the clearest indication yet of a shift in power.
By the core standard of international politics—who can shape the behavior of others—the outcome is unmistakable. Iran has demonstrated the ability to impose costs on the global system and force adjustment across multiple actors. The United States, despite overwhelming military superiority, has accepted a halt under conditions it cannot fully dictate.
This is not equilibrium.
It is a reversal.
Over the past forty days, Washington escalated step by step—expanding targets, increasing tempo, raising threats. At each stage, the expectation was that additional force would produce compliance. It did not. Instead, each escalation generated counterpressure—on energy markets, on allies, and ultimately on U.S. decision-making itself.
This is the pattern of strategic failure.
Not a single misstep, but a sequence in which more force produces less control.
II. Iran’s Gains: From Disruption to Global Power
Iran’s gains are not measured in battlefield victories. They are measured in the structure of the system it has revealed—and now partially shapes.
First, Iran retains its nuclear infrastructure and its stockpile of enriched uranium. That preserves a compressed timeline to a nuclear capability—measured in months, not years—should it choose to act. Whether or not it crosses that threshold immediately, the existence of that option alters every strategic calculation in the region.
Second, Iran has demonstrated credible capacity to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supply moves. It has not needed to close the strait. It has shown that it can make its operation uncertain—and that uncertainty alone is enough to move markets, alter shipping behavior, and trigger world political response in Iran’s favor for years going forward.
This is the critical shift, with a new geostrategic equation: Control is no longer required. Vulnerability is enough.
In a tightly interconnected global economy, the ability to impose persistent uncertainty becomes a form of power. States do not wait for full disruption. They adapt in advance—hedging risk, adjusting policy, and incorporating the preferences of the actor that can generate that risk.
This is how limited disruption becomes structural influence.
Iran has crossed that threshold.
III. American Losses: The Erosion of System Control
The United States has not lost capability. It has lost control over outcomes that once defined its power.
For decades, a central pillar of American global leadership has been the ability to guarantee the stability of critical economic flows—especially energy. That guarantee underwrote alliances, anchored markets, and reinforced U.S. credibility.
That guarantee is now in question.
Despite sustained air operations and overwhelming force, the United States has not been able to ensure reliable transit through the most important energy chokepoint in the world under conditions of asymmetric threat. The result is not a temporary disruption. It is a loss of confidence in a core function of U.S. power.
Allies respond to outcomes, not assurances.
In Europe, in Asia, and across the Gulf, governments are already adjusting—quietly hedging, diversifying relationships, and reducing reliance on a system that appears less certain than it once did. These are not dramatic shifts. They are incremental.
But incremental adjustments accumulate.
They are the mechanism of relative decline.
At the same time, the rhetoric of escalation has compounded the strategic problem. Threats to destroy critical infrastructure essential to civilian life have raised the perceived risks of U.S. strategy—not just for adversaries, but for partners. That does not enhance leverage. It narrows it.
The result is a paradox: more force, less influence.
IV. Domestic Consequences: The Politics of Strategic Failure
Strategic failure abroad rarely produces immediate collapse at home. It produces erosion.
The ceasefire freezes a conflict that escalated without delivering clear gains. That alone creates a problem. But the deeper issue is what it signals: that the application of force has not achieved its intended political objectives.
This is where foreign policy begins to shape domestic vulnerability.
Political opponents do not need to construct a narrative. The sequence of events provides one. Allies hedge. adversaries endure. objectives remain unmet. Each development reinforces the perception of miscalculation.
That perception does not peak.
It lingers.
For the current administration, the risk is not a single defining break, but a prolonged period of strategic doubt—one that weakens political standing, complicates coalition management, and shapes the environment heading into electoral cycles.
History is clear on this point: when wars fail to produce results, they do not remain foreign policy problems.
They become political ones.
V. The Most Dangerous Phase May Be Ahead
The ceasefire is fragile because the underlying logic of the conflict has not changed.
Capabilities remain intact. Incentives to demonstrate resolve persist. And not all actors are equally bound by the current arrangement. The probability that the ceasefire breaks—whether through deliberate escalation or miscalculation—is significant.
If it does, the next phase will not resemble the last.
It will occur in a system where the key dynamics are now understood: where disruption can generate systemic effects, where escalation produces counterpressure, and where the costs of instability are rapidly transmitted across the global economy.
That knowledge changes behavior.
It raises stakes.
And it makes each subsequent move more dangerous.
This is the final implication of the past forty days.
The ceasefire does not end the war.
It reveals a new structure of power—one in which the United States can no longer assume control, and in which even limited disruption can reshape the behavior of the system.
That is not a temporary condition.
It is the beginning of a different kind of conflict.
Iran reimposes blockade of Strait of Hormuz over Lebanon; Araghchi shows proof | Janta Ka Reporter Janta Ka Reporter Apr 8, 2026
Iran on Wednesday reacted furiously over indiscriminate strikes on Lebanon, calling it a violation of the two-week ceasefire. In response, the Islamic Republic closed the Strait of Hormuz once again. The White House said Lebanon was not included in the ceasefire arrangement, but Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi presented Pakistani PM's tweet as evidence to show that it was a part of the deal. Rifat Jawaid brings the global response to what could derail the entire peace process.
Transcript
So Iran has rightly reimposed the blockade of the state of Hormos after Israeli terrorist launched their most barbaric campaign against the Lebanese people today. Yes, they dropped 100 bombs. Let that sink in. 100 bombs in just to cause widespread carnage. The videos of Israeli barbarism is so graphic that I can't even share them here. You can watch it on our Telegram channel. Details on the screen and also in the description of this video. But how did the rogue Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, also known as the BBC, reported this latest act of Israeli evil? Watch it for yourself. Well, more now on Lebanon, where Israel says it's hit more than 100 command centers and military sites in . This is the filth and garbage that British taxpayers fund through their license fee. Anyway, coming back to the Israeli barbarity in Lebanon, Iran was quick to term it a violation of the ceasefire and it quickly reimposed its chokeold on the state of Formos. Oil tankers that had begun to move had to turn back as the Iranians issued fresh warnings. Harris, good morning. We start with breaking news. State media reports that Iran has halted the passage of oil tankers through the straight of Hormuz after Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Earlier today, we know two vessels were able to go through this passageway, but again, state media is reporting that the Iranians are choking off the straight. White House spokesperson Caroline Levit told reporters that Lebanon was not a part of the ceasefire deal. You know there've been increased Israeli uh strikes on Lebanon today with do dozens of casualties there. Sure. Uh Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire that has been relayed to all parties involved in the ceasefire. Iranian foreign minister Sayyad Basarakshi took to Twitter to point out the American dishonesty. He shared the tweet of Pakistani Prime Minister Shahabas Sharif who as a mediator had made it abundantly clear that the ceasefire included Lebanon as well. Arachi wrote and I quote, "The Iran US ceasefire terms are clear and explicit. The US must choose ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both. The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments." End quote. Not just the Iranian foreign minister. Even Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez took to Twitter to lash out at war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu for not resisting his natural urge to commit genocide. This time against the innocent people of Lebanon. Sanchez wrote and I quote, "Just today Netanyahu launches his harshest attack against Lebanon since the offensive began. His contempt for life." This is very important. Pay attention to his choice of word. His contempt for life and international law is intolerable. It's time to speak clearly. Lebanon must be included in the ceasefire. The international community must condemn this new violation of international law. The European Union must suspend its association agreement with Israel and there must be no impunity for these criminal acts. End quote. You don't expect anything better from terrorist Nathan Yam. Killing people for fun is part of who he is. He's a human devil for a reason. Don't forget he bombed a synagogue in Iran yesterday. This filthy human is a depraved genocidal maniac who can't live in peace even for a second without killing innocent people for fun. It doesn't matter whether his victims are Muslims, Arabs, Christians, or even Jews. Today he precided over the murder of another journalist in Gaza. This is prompting many Americans to ask Trump about his compulsions to follow this dreaded terrorist. Trump's former director of counterterrorism Joe Kent wrote this and I quote, "Simple question. What's more important to our nation? opening the state of Hormuz and bringing a stability to the Gulf or funding Israel's offensive in Lebanon. Israel is the junior partner in this relationship, but won't act like it until we restrict military aid to them. End quote. Former American presidential candidate Jill Stin demanded Israel's expulsion from the United Nations as she wrote and I quote, "Expel Israel from the United Nations." and more important expel Israel from Congress and the White House. End quote. Former British ambassador to the US, Sir Peter West MOT, exposes terrorist Netanyahu by highlighting his devious plans on Iran and in the region. Watch this clip from Sky News. Do you think the president has control over what Israel does in Lebanon? It's a great question. I think he could have, but he has shown over the years that he is vulnerable to the persuasive arguments that the prime minister of Israel deploys. For 40 odd years, uh not quite that long, but for a very long time, the prime minister of Israel has been trying to persuade American presidents to go to war with Iran. All the rest of them are told him to get lost pretty much. This one went along with it against the advice or the professional judgment of of some of his colleagues. Uh so now we're in that position. Uh, Israel says, "We're not going to include a ceasefire and South Lebanon." If America wants to include Lebanon in the ceasefire terms, if that turns out to be a real sticking point for a deal with Iran that America can live with, he is going to have to say to the prime minister of Israel, "Knock it off. Stop bombing and destroying all those houses and people in southern Lebanon." Is he prepared to do it? He hasn't done so far, but I think you ask a very good question. Do you think he could be? Could if he wants to, he could. He's he's got a huge huge clout, huge influence. I mean, he is the one who enabled the prime minister of Israel to get what he wanted in Iran. So, and he is of course the one who controls the flow of a lot of money and a lot of weapons to Israel. If he wishes to make that stand, he could. Even CNN's Israeli contributor Barak Ravid, who has direct contact with Netanyahu's office, said that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire deal. Watch this. CNN broadcast where he also highlights the Israeli barbarity in today's carpet bombing. Well, first because I think the ceasefire uh was negotiated in a relatively short uh time frame uh and therefore a lot of the issues uh were not really defined and there were a lot of loose ends that still need to be um to be managed and I think one of the reasons that the mediators wanted the parties to meet face to face uh to negotiate this Friday is to start closing all the loose ends. Um because the main issue with the ceasefire was first to stop everything, put more time on the clock. The mediators wanted 45 days. It it ended up with two weeks, but they wanted to put more time on the clock and they managed to do it. Now, there are a lot of issues that are still open and need to be clarified. By the way, the main issue in my opinion at the moment, okay, is not the the big issues in the Iranian 10point plan. It's the situation in Lebanon that could collapse the whole ceasefire if it continues to escalate. Say more about that. Can you explain uh explain that because that's certainly as you heard how we opened the show that the Iranians are saying that they thought part of the ceasefire deal was that the bombardment of husband would stop and Israel is saying nope that wasn't part of our understanding. Yeah. Well, I think it's not only the Iranians. problem is that the Pakistani prime minister when he announced the ceasefire he made it clear that Lebanon was part of the deal uh which raises the question of what happened there in the negotiations if the main mediator says that Lebanon is part of the deal. Uh the I I know that the Egyptian mediators and the Turkish mediators see it the same way that Lebanon is part of this deal. Um yesterday uh shortly before Trump announced a ceasefire he called Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who sort of lost control of the process and was very nervous about this ceasefire and during that call when Trump told him listen I'm going to agree to a ceasefire with Iran Netanyahu told him but what about Lebanon we want to continue fighting and Trump told Netanyahu no problem you can continue fighting Lebanon is not part of this deal so this was something that was agreed upon Before the announcement of the ceasefire, it was agreed upon between Israel and the US. I heard it from both Israeli officials and US officials. And US officials told me today. Go ahead. Go ahead, Barack. And US officials told me today that they're not concerned about this those Iranian threats to withdraw from the negotiations or to uh close again the straight of because of the situation in Lebanon. think it will be solved and and it's not going to be a reason for the agreement to collapse. But I think it is still the biggest challenge to this very very very fragile ceasefire. We are less than since it's been announced. And I think when you look at the results of the Israeli strikes, uh, according to the Lebanese Red Cross, we're talking around 90 people killed, more than close to 300, maybe more than 300 people wounded. Uh, that's a very serious uh thing, especially that we don't know yet. How many of them are and how many of them are innocent civilians? There's no denying the truth that Trump is desperate to make a quick exit. But Netanyahu doesn't want him to end this conflict ever. That's because even Western experts are now calling it an Iranian victory. Listen to General Sir Richard Shir, former NATO deputy Supreme Allied Commander on Times Radio. The leadership of America is completely underestimated and you now see uh the the global superpower humbled by a you know by a tinpot theocratic dictatorship. This is America's sue moment. What do you think the US has achieved? Well, I think you said it. It's a masterclass in futility. Um yes, the US and Israel have decimated the Iranian leadership. They've written down the uh Iranian military capabilities substantially. But the fact is that so long as Iran held the straight of Hormuz, America is losing. Trump is losing. Um and the very fact that Trump is now accepting the Iranian 10point proposals as a as a workable basis on which to negotiate says to me that he he's blinked. He's backed off. Uh this is this is yet another example of of Trump always chickening out. What fascinates Trump is money. Now that he sees the Iranians making millions and even potentially billions of dollars from toll tax in the state of Hormos, he has told an ABC reporter that he wouldn't mind making this toll collection as a joint US Iranian venture. This is the most stunning reversal that I think we have ever seen in American politics. In about , the president goes from threatening the annihilation of Iranian civilization to saying he's got an agreement that will bring about a golden age of peace in the Middle East. Uh but but look, his the the threat not only activated the Iranians to do something, it more importantly got the Pakistanis and the Chinese to in turn pressure the Iranians to agree to do something that they weren't willing to do uh before. But massive questions, massive questions ahead. This is classic Trump negotiating technique. Uh the question is can you get from this deal that he's now done uh to something lasting and will the deal sustain and and Rebecca pointed out so much of this is about the straits of foreign moves and whether or not Iran is going to be in control, the United States is going to be in control, who's going to pay, whether it's really going to be open. Yeah, look, this is the big question and I did speak to the president just a short while ago. First of all, he believes that his threat is the only thing that made this happen. I asked him, "Are you going to be willing to allow the Iranians to charge a toll?" They're talking about a $2 million for ship toll through the straight of Hermuz. And he said to me, "Well, maybe it will be a joint venture." I will leave you with this clip of Pete Hexed, who today told the truth about America's Gulf allies. Iran has for long accused the Arab monarchies of providing a base to launch attacks on Iran since 28th of February. Today, Hexath confirmed that Iran was right. all along. Mr. Secretary, will your forces stay in the region and continue to defend and protect your allies and take the responsibility for their security? For the question, the chairman mentioned the UAE and Bahrain and Qatar, Saudi Arabia, uh Kuwait, uh who have who have fought shoulder-to-shoulder with us, especially in defense of our facilities, of our people, of of their facilities, and we appreciate that. So that coordination of course will continue. That's it from me. Thank you very much for your support of this platform and our journalism. If you haven't subscribe to my channel, please do so because that's one of the many ways you can support independent journalism. God bless you all.
You Call This a CeaseFire? /Fmr CIA Analyst Larry Johnson Daniel Davis / Deep Dive Apr 8, 2026
Transcript
There is a schedule meeting in Islamabad tomorrow between the United States and Isra at least alleged ceasefire into something more permanent that can get this war over with and the region back into at least on a path to get back to something whatever a new normaly is going to look like. We'll never go back to the way we were. But there are a hundred questions if we're even going to get to Islamabad, if this ceasefire is even going to survive today and where all this is going to go and what is the reality on the ground as we always like to do together. And we have back with us today to give us answers to all these questions because he knows everything is Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst at sonar21.com and a son of the new American Revolution on substack.com. Uh Larry, as always, welcome back to the show. Yeah, I come back as the blind squirrel. I'll eventually find a net, you know. Oh, man. I love that shirt, by the way. That's very bright and and just festive today. And I can use a little bit of brightness because of the nonsense that uh I've seen coming out of the of the White House, out of the Pentagon. Uh just a lot of things that are like totally disconnected from reality. You know, Gary sometimes shows those uh these videos that have been coming out of Iran for for at some frequency now about these Lego movies or whatever. Oh, they're fabulous. No, not sometimes. I think those things have more reality than what I'm seeing coming out of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of war, and the uh the the spokesman for the White House in Caroline Levit. Um, what do you think about I mean how what is what did you think when you heard first of all that there wasn't this you know obliteration of the culture of Iran last night but instead there was allegedly an announcement of a ceasefire. What was your thoughts last night? Well, as they say Trump all it was that was taco Tuesday. You know Trump always chickens out. Um the the euphoria the initial euphoria that surrounded the news. Oh, we got to cease fire. Oh, and I kept saying I I was talking with Mario Nefal yesterday and I said, "Hey, let's wait till we hear what Iran has to say." Uh, you know, I understand CNN saying the X, Y, and Z and the White House is saying something and but let's hear what Iran has to say. Well, when you listen to what Iran had to say, it was a completely different picture. Uh, they haven't I just saw that Gary found there actually is a Taco Tuesday video. Yeah. Yeah. Get these things out fast, man. Yeah. No, the Listen, Iran, if Russia needs to send its information operations personnel to Iran to be instructed on how to do this. I mean, the the the Iranians have an amazing, incredibly creative um uh team putting this stuff together and uh you know, just making complete complete joke. It's un it it would be, you know, total humor if there weren't for all the casualties and killing involved with this. And so I don't want to make light of that. But um you know, this is a sign that the United States has lost they've lost the war. In fact, uh, you know, it was the they did a video like this on Pete Hegsth the other day and, uh, I saw one comedian, he's he's actually a Palestinian, but he's an American, and he was saying, you know, you lost the war when when the anti- Pete Haggith video gets more more views is the most popular thing in in the United States. And it underscores that uh the the Trump administrations, they've lost this narrative. And so already today uh Iran basically has said ceasefire is off. If if Israel if Israel continues to attack in Lebanon, ceasefire is done. There is no ceasefire. We're not going to be meeting in Islamabad. Uh that's off. And and that's supposed to take place, I think, on Friday the 10th, not not Thursday. Um but and then then there have been air strikes just within the last hour inside Thran. So they're getting hit. So Iran's going to respond. Um and they're going to respond against United Arab Emirates and against Saudi Arabia and against uh they're going to retaliate against Israel and they will continue until Israel stops attacking Lebanon, which they're not going to. Uh so in other words, the ceasefire people thought was going to be last and they're going to talk about negotiate it. It's done. It's over. Well, let's look at that that issue because that that's a really big one there you just mentioned there about uh Israel and Lebanon. Now, that came out in the the Pakistani discussion about what happened. They said that this was a ceasefire across the board. That's one of the things apparently Iran uh required that it has to happen all across the region, not just between them and Israel and the United States, but it also had to include Lebanon, their their proxy support that they have down there. And originally, there was silence out of Israel. And then about four hours later, Netanyahu came back on and says, "Yeah, no, that's not included." There was silence from America at that point until today when Caroline Levit said, "Oh, yeah, actually that's not on the table either." even though it definitely was certainly in what Pakistanis had talked about. But now what in the world is going on with Lebanon? And there was this morning the at least what was reported as the single biggest air attack against Lebanon by Israel in all these wars they fought in the most concentrated period of time. What is going on in Lebanon and what is the obsession with Israel down there? Well, they're they're trying to destroy you remember they destroyed Hezbollah. So they're still trying to destroy Hezbollah. Okay. Israel's as bad as Donald Trump with lying and exaggerating. Um, so Hezbollah has got underground bunkers and they they don't stand out in the open and wait to get killed. They they take cover and then when they emerge from cover they ambushed the hell out of the Israelis and they have they pro they destroyed more than more than a hundred marava tanks destroyed or damaged and uh the casualties that Israel is reporting from this is around 400 just double that to 800 at least close to close to a thousand casualties after a 3-week operation. So the the Hezbollah is far more militarily capable and competent than is Hamas. And so what but what is the purpose here? What what is Israel trying to accomplish? Why are they so obsessive with massing this combat power? Are they literally just trying to say we're going to wipe out everything that's in the southern part of Lebanon as a buffer zone? I mean that in theory, but again it's it's what they say from the Latani River. They wanted to get complete control of Lebanon from the Latani River south, basically annex it, make it a new part of Israel. As a ostensible buffer zone, but as other analysts have pointed out, Hezbollah's missiles can still reach into the middle of of Israel. So that buffer zone really doesn't buy Israel any additional security. U so it's they're they're in a fight to try to take it and and keep it. But like I said, I I don't think they're going to be able to sustain that operation. Well, then that's uh Yeah. Now, here's here's the new spin. Yeah. Cross the ceasefire plan published by Iran was not the one approved by the US. Nonsense. It was it was given to the Pakistanis. The Pakistanis gave it to the United States and the United States initially signed off on it. But once uh once the Zionist crowd started reacting, you know, Mark Leven and his crocodile tears last night and I'm sure you got frantic phone calls from BB Netany and Yahoo and uh Mrs. Sheldon Adlesen was on the phone saying, you know, you better not damn do this or you owe me a quarter of a billion dollars. So, you know, Trump is uh Trump is that politician who's caught between the proverbial dog and the fireplug. Okay. Uh he's catching it from both ends. Well, now let me and Jerry thought this a little bit out of order here. Uh you talked about the line coming out of Washington. Uh man, one of the things this morning with Secretary Hegth when he went out to ex talk about the successes of this ceasefire. He gave a reason why it is. Um see how close to reality this is. Gary, if you can play the one that says, uh, he setth day one. The world's leading state sponsor of terrorism proved utterly incapable of defending itself, its people, or its territory. We untied just a fraction of our strength, and Iran suffered a devastating military defeat. Together with our Israeli partners, America's military achieved every single objective on plan, on schedule, exactly as laid out from day one. I mean, come on, man. I mean, nobody thinks I I mean, nobody actually thinks that. Yes. Everything that we planned, all of it has exactly happened according to plan, on schedule. Really? Did we schedule to lose two C130s and and four little birds and however many F-16s, F-35s, and everything else have been shot down. Was that part of the plan? I mean, what do you say to that? Well, yes, it was our plan all along. We we we felt that we couldn't just withdraw our forces from these military bases that are in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates. So, we came up with this masterful plan. We're going to attack Iran knowing that they're going to retaliate. And then they're gonna they're gonna basically destroy these bases for us so we don't have to worry about it anymore. And that way we got a good excuse to lose. Brilliant. My god. Colossalitz is sitting there going, "Oh, genius. Genius." Sun goes chess. That's been all along. Six chess because it's Trump. My excuse my sarcasm, but Hex Seth is a [ __ ] Really? He he went to Princeton. I wouldn't be too proud of that Princeton. I I'd re I'd re re-evaluate your entrance uh standards and between Saturday and Sunday or actually late Friday and then into uh Saturday I guess was the time the United States lost $480 million worth of airframes between as you said the two C130Js the the uh A10 the Wartthog Yeah. the F-15 Strike Eagle, four AH6 Little Birds, two Predators. When you total all of that up, that's the largest loss of aircraft in say a 24 since the Vietnam War. Okay, we we've never in the last uh you know 60 years, 50 58 years, we've never lost that many aircraft in any operation. And that includes the Gulf War, first Gulf War, second Gulf War in Iraq, in Afghanistan, across the board. So, man, if that's if that's winning, I don't know. I think Donald Trump's right. We're going to get tired of that kind of winning because Yeah, we actually are. Yeah. Uh want to touch on a couple of other things Seth said in there. Uh, one just wonders how much credibility if if people who are normal and sane can recognize the obvious fallacy and the just grotesque in truth of what he just said there that Iran was utterly powerless and could do nothing even though that that 36-hour time frame you 12 minutesjust described and that we achieved everything on schedule. I mean, it's obvious nonsense. Well, if that's your entry level thing, then what are you going to think when he says this? It's always been non-negotiable that they won't have nuclear capabilities. And so right now it's buried and we're watching it. We know exactly what they have. Uh and they know that. And they will either give it to us, which the president has laid out. We'll they'll give it to us voluntarily. We'll get it. We'll take it. We'll take it out. Uh or if we have to do something else ourselves like we did in Midnight Hammer or something like that, we we reserve that opportunity. But what's clear, what the Iranian, the new Iranian regime knows is they'll never have a nuclear weapon or the capability to get a path to one. Okay. They never had a nuclear weapon. So, how do they now know that they're not going to have a nuclear weapon? Let's just start there. Yeah. Well, and there's added video. Marco Rubio is out with a video too making that same claim that oh, you know, Iran's on the verge of getting a 13 minutesnuke and they were building up all these weapon systems, these ballistic missiles, these air defense that would prevent us um from being able to destroy their nuclear weapons. So, we had to we had to attack. Now, I mean that they're just making it up as they go along. And the the the reality, it's the economic reality that's going to turn this war uh around or force the United States to face its defeat. You know, right now we keep putting the lipstick on the pig, put a blonde wig on the pig, and then go out and tell everybody say, "Hey, here here's Marilyn Monroe, this beautiful woman, and it's still a four-legged pig." And you know they buties man but they do it with a straight face. I I just you know I was noticing there Hex Seth is starting to look more and more like Bob's Big Boy. You know have you ever seen that they got these restaurants in the United States up in the air. 14 minutesHamburger up in the air. But look at the the hair the plastic hair. Gary I know you're going to find that. I know you're going to find that. Find it. Put them side by side. And I think, you know, this may be either this is what Pete Hexth was doing before uh he went to Fox News or this may be his future job opening after he could be the live Bob's big boy uh going down. But, you know, again, when you've got this many lies being poured on the American people and they they accept it. That's what's shocking. They accept it uh without any push back and just not along. Wall Street accepted it and and the oil market futures, they accepted it. So, you know, the Dow shot up 1,400 points initially and now it's starting to inch down. And particularly as the news continues to come out, uh Iran said if if if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon, then there is no ceasefire. Period. And we're going to start launching attacks on Israel. So, it's the war the war is going to be back on. There he is. Yeah, I knew I could count it, Gary. Yeah, I don't know which is closer, this this one or the Lego Secretary of War, but uh yeah, they both seem more believable than than uh the one that we're that we were showing a second ago. I want to go down a different path uh that that he brought up though because that the whole issue about the the nuclear weapons, I mean, that was always instrumental in the reason for this, the justification that was given for this. You you talk about people believing anything, even just things that are self-evidently untrue. One wonders how many people are going to start getting this. President Trump uh in his one of his expos that he said since he's announced this, I'm going to get to that in just a second, was talking about the issue of the nuclear weapons. Now, he did not realize that in my view, I I don't think it ever even occurred to him, but he just threw himself under a big time bus, like a tour bus kind of thing. And I'm gonna show you what it is. First of all, uh let's take a look at this uh from what President Trump said on February 28th. This was the reason the imminent threat that we faced that forced his hand into war. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating eminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore. Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland. So, there you have it. By the word of the president himself, and you know, if he said it, you can trust it that there was an imminent threat that they had this nuclear material. it was going to be reprocessed. They had been rebuilding it. Take him at his word. Except then about two weeks ago in Senate testimony, Director Gabbard of the Office for Director of National Intelligence was asked that exact issue. Here is an exchange with Senator Osaf. So the assessment of the intelligence community is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated by last summer's air strikes. Yes. And the opening statement you submitted to the committee last night also stated, quote, "There has been no effort since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability." End quote. Correct. That's right. And that's the assessment of the intelligence community. Yes. Okay. So, that by itself directly contradicts what President Trump said in his justification. Well, that's you can say, well, that's just Tulsi Gabbard. He said whatever on his own mouth or on his own uh telephone when he texted this out he said the United States will work closely with Iran which we've undergone blah blah blah there will be no enrichment of uranium and the United States will working with Iran dig up and remove all of the deeply buried nuclear dust. It is now and has been under very exacting satellite surveillance. Nothing has been touched from the date of attack. Larry, he literally just called himself out. You said you took our country to war because of an imminent threat that they had been rebuilding their program. And now you tell us the same man that No, it's been I've known all along. It's still under rubble. Make that make sense to me. No, it doesn't. You can't you can't square this circle. uh and he has been all over the board as has his entire cabinet. Uh you know, you go from Marco Rubio, he just put out a video in the last couple of days where he's basically making the case, yeah, we we h we had to do this to stop the nuclear threat from uh to the original thing that he said in a moment of cander was, yeah, Israel was going to do it first, so we had to go we had to go along because of Israel. That you know, that's the real reason. But what is being exposed throughout this entire sad sorted affair are the limitations of US military power. Despite Trump's claims about how strong we are, how powerful we are, how uh superior we are to every country in the world, the reality is we can't let our navy get too close to Iran's shores because they're going to get sunk. They'll be attacked. We have to keep them offshore. were basically they're useless because the Navy the purpose of the Navy is to get close enough to land so you can put Marines on shore or you can fly airplanes on shore. You you can do any of that. Uh so uh and ground forces. Yeah, we we we have we can't assemble our ground forces in any kind of mass formation for fear that they'll get blown up and destroyed by drones and missiles. And anyway, we only got 450,000 in the US Army. Compare that to like during the height of Vietnam, we had uh we we had probably a 900,000 million man army back then. We were able to put 570,000 troops into Vietnam. We're nowhere near that. So So we're left with air power. And but the problem with air power is um the the production new production of F-35s is on hold. they can't get fully produced because they don't have the rare earth minerals for the magnets that are required for the radar that's in the nose cone of those planes. Uh there are other munitions were running out of tomahawks, jasms, patriot missiles, dads. We're out of those. I mean, those are now fully depleted. So, you know, the United States is living with an illusion of its capabilities that frankly have vanished. Well, and now then that that leads back to where we are now. This is just um about an hour ago, a little over an hour ago, President Trump has trout another one here. Uh and I think he's responding here to this claim that uh hang on, there's a 10-point plan that the Iranian regime that he said actually initially about ago was not sufficient. He wouldn't even talk about it. Then last night he said, "Yeah, the Iranian 10-point plan is actually a good basis from which we can talk." Well, now then he's saying here just a little over an hour ago, numerous agreements, lists, and letters are being sent out by people that have absolutely nothing to do with the USA Iran negotiations. In many cases, they are total fraudsters, charlatans in worse. I don't know if he's looking in a mirror when he said that. I was just wondering. Yeah, they will be rapidly exposed that our federal investigation is complete. there is only one group of meaningful points that are acceptable to the United States and we will be discussing those behind closed doors during these negotiations in the event that they take place. Uh these are the points that are the basis of which we agree to a ceasefire. Now maybe there's an element of truth in that is that the point that President Trump was thinking and the points that Iran and Pakistan and everybody else the Chinese who have been working on the other side they may have had a different set in mind. Do you think that or rather better question to what extent do you think maybe Iran's 10-point plans were never read by Trump? So when he just heard of a 10-point plan, he's like, "Yeah, sure. That's fine. We'll talk about that. That'll be a good basis." But didn't actually read them. Yeah. No, I think that's highly likely. Uh but the people that whoever's heading his negotiations, whether that is WhitF, which you know, apparently it's going to be JD Vance, right? But Vance, I'm not sure that Vance was reading this while he was off in Hungary. Maybe he was. Um, but uh they they did agree to it and the Iranians didn't vacillate. That was that was their basis for going forward. So Trump, you know, what Trump's trying to do is and I'm sorry, Gary, while he's talking, can you can you pull up that screenshot you had again about those 10 points? Yeah. So while while um Trump was trying to get the exit ramp of said okay yeah we the negotiations are going to start the blowback from the Zionist lobby from the Mark Levens from the Bill Aman's from the uh Miriam Adlesen's uh started it started last night I I I bet you Trump didn't get any sleep kept getting phone calls and you people yelling at him um and then Netanyahu so you know there's a wrong just look at this right here I mean let's just look through this If if you just I mean this isn't even the details if you read this and it would take about if you're slow. Uh complete secession of the war on Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, right? Complete and permanent cessation of the war on Iran. Uh ending all conflicts in the region. Reopening the straight. Establishing a protocol uh to ensure conditions and freedom of navigation in the straight. Full payment and compensation to Iran. Full commitment to lifting sanctions on Iran. releasing Iranian funds fully uh Iran fully commits to seeking to not seeking any nuclear weapons which they've said all along that's nothing new for them uh and immediate ceasefire talks take place like almost all of those the vast majority are big time in Iran's favor and completely contradictory to this so-called 15-point plan that we put out there that had very little basis at all but why would Trump say this is a good basis to have a ceasefire yeah well and note that last point 10 says that cease ceasefire takes effect upon approval of everything that preceded of those preceding nine things. So some people look at this as oh they were going to get together and they were going to go down that list and you know negotiate each and every one of those. No no those nine things are nonnegotiable by Iran. Okay. Iran is not saying, "Okay, okay, we'll agree to cessation of war on Iraq and Yemen, but you can continue bombing the hell out of Lebanon." No, no, no. It's got stop stop the attacks on Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. Period. That's not that's not up for discussion. That is a demand. And either you meet it or there's no ceasefire. and and and the same thing as you go down that list now because that's the big question if if if that's if that isn't if that wasn't the basis before and now here's Trump saying no we're going to be talking on our plans now I don't know what he's thinking his terms are because he said in his one of his true socials I wonder if I have that one even here handy let me see if that's this is the one uh nope that's not that one maybe it's that's not I don't have it handy sorry about that Um, one of the things he said, well, I don't apologize, he said, yeah, the the 10-point plan is a good basis from which to to have this ceasefire here, but if if that that isn't the 10-point plan that he's thinking about, then what is even going to be discussed in Istanbul, assuming that that happens on Friday? Yeah. Well, this will be uh Iran will bring those 10 points and that will be on the table and they won't accept anything else. those those are their demands and that that's what's going to be discussed. there's no there's no discussion about let's see if we can agree upon what we're going to talk about that was you know from the United States saying okay we see this as a basis for discussion good understand though how the Iranians are looking at it and um you know it's not clear I know that Trump is indicating that Witoff and Kushner will be involved uh I I I bet that Iran will not allow them in the room or anywhere you know if if they want to sit in a room with JD vans off to the side, that's fine. But if there is facetoface negotiations, they will not be allowed in the room. I'll make that bold prediction right now. Yeah. And why would they? Because remember after after this last round here where they had three rounds and then on on the third round on the 26th of February, the Iranian side made an enormous concession that they would have zero enrichment, that they would they could have American inspectors and everything that we would ever want that would be better than the Obama deal. And then you had Whitov go out on American television and lie about it and say that they presented us with this. They had s 400 and something kilograms of nuclear material. They could make 10 bombs and they bragged about it. They wouldn't do anything. Which is you I mean that's like total fiction. It's not even the opposite. That wasn't even on the menu. Why would they deal with that guy now? Yeah. Yeah. No, they won't. I'm I'm sure they're just going to say no. This is a non-starter. uh you know they'll talk to Vance but uh but again I don't I I frankly I don't think the talks are going to come off and and let me show you one of the things. So we were talking I just showed you the 10-point plan here. Uh these are part of the American 15point plan and and let's just take a look at some of those. did call for a 30-day ceasefire, not the two week that it were at least and conditionally agreed to, but I mean number right off the top, the dismantling of Iran's nuclear facilities uh in the tans, Isvahan and Fordo, permanent commitment to Iran never to develop. Okay, that's fine because they don't have a problem with that anyway. The handover of Iran's nuclear stockpile, limits on the range of missiles, ending Iran support for regional proxies. I mean, on and on. I mean, these are things that they're never going to agree to and those aren't even close to being they're not they're not compatible at all with that 10-point plan. So, again, the question is, if President Trump is thinking in that last truth social that this is something, you know, that no, y'all are all fake news. It's going to be our plan, then I I mean, I I truly Why would Iran even show up to negotiations if you're going to say that's the beginning point? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's again this is this is so reminiscent of how the so-called negotiations between the United States and Russia over Ukraine has gone as well where u the Russians uh go back to June of 2024 where Putin laid out what the Russian conditions were never deviated that from it once in the ensuing you know we're now almost a year and a half later uh or almost it's almost two years now and and yet the United States kept coming up with different interpretations and explanations. Well, we're doing the same thing here with Iran. It is uh the we're on two different planets. The the Trump administration is obsessed that they're going to prevent uh Iran from getting a nuke and they keep manufacturing lies to suggest that Iran was actually pursuing one. And now that we stopped them, uh uh Iran the one the one one thing that's different now from say uh even after the end of the 12-day war last June. Now Iran is directly tying what's happening in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. Directly tying that that they're they're re they're going to start protecting the other Shia that Larry break in here a second. We got some breaking news. Caroline Levit is talking about some of this stuff. Gary, go ahead and toss it in there and we'll we'll stick with it if they're talking about our topic here. We're going to be pulling that in there just a second. Uh really interested to hear because the only thing she said earlier today was that there was um an agreement that uh with Israel that Lebanon was not in it, which is contrary to it. So we'll that's what she said before. I'm sure that that some of this stuff will be hot and heavy. Let's hope that we can uh get that pulled up here in just a second. I think here it is tax cut last year uh which greatly reduced taxes on uh social security for our seniors. In fact, thanks to the working families tax cut, nearly 90% of seniors will no longer pay tax on their social security. That's a huge win for our seniors and also for our middle class and working families across the country with the no tax on tips provision and the no tax on overtime. Next week is tax week. Uh you'll hear a lot from the president about how his policies have benefited the American people. And I'm proud to report that the president will be traveling next week to the great states of Nevada and Arizona um to tout this historic accomplishment over the course of the next week. Thank you for being here. Shane Gabe, thank you. Caroline state media is saying that Iran has now closed off the straight of four moves today in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon. What's the White House response to that? And you just listed many military successes. I understand that. But strategically, how is the administration arguing that Iran does not have more economic leverage than now than it did before the start of the Sure. Well, with respect to the first reporting out of Iranian state media, the president was made aware of those reports uh before I came to the podium. Um that is completely unacceptable and again this is a case of what they're saying publicly is different privately. We have seen an uptick of traffic in the straight today. Uh and I will reiterate the president's expectation and demand that the strait of Hermuse is reopened uh immediately, quickly and safely. Um that is his expectation. It has been relayed to him privately um that that is what's taking place and these reports uh publicly are false. Caroline, the president yesterday threatened that a whole civilization would die if a ceasefire deal wasn't reached. understanding that Iranian leaders have previously said death to America, but why is it appropriate for the president of the United States to use that kind of language when talking about civilian targets? And was the president mocking Islam by signing off his true social post over the weekend? Praise be to all. 33 minutesI'll be interested in hearing this answer Muslim allies across the world. Well, I understand the questions about the president's rhetoric, but what the president cares most about is results. And in fact, his answer very tough rhetoric and his tough negotiating style is what has led to the result that you are all witnessing today. Iran publicly acknowledging last night that they have agreed or that they wanted this ceasefire with the United States because they no longer could tolerate being bombed by our very powerful and lethal military and that they have committed to the reopening of the Strait of Hermoose which the president will hold them accountable for and it's something the administration is closely monitoring in real time. J, should the world not take his word seriously? The world should take his word very seriously in understanding that the president is always most interested in results. Uh, and it was the Iranians who backed down, not President Trump. He said that they would face very you just laid out by the m deadline if they did not agree to reopening the street of Hermoose. And what did they do last night? They agreed to reopen the Straight of Hermoose. Danny, thanks. Um, would President Trump like to see Lebanon included in this peace deal? As you know, there's been increased Israeli uh strikes on Lebanon today with dozens of casualties there. Sure. Uh Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire that has been relayed. She said it straight up. As you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a statement last night in support of the ceasefire, in support of the United States's efforts, and he's also assured the president they'll continue to be a helpful partner throughout the course of the next two weeks. Yeah. Is there any thought though that the president might like to see Lebanon included in a future date um given that it seems to be um causing or potentially undermining the Iran ceasefire? Again, this will continue to be discussed, I am sure, between the president and prime minister Netanyahu, the United States and Israel and all of the parties involved. Um but at this point in time, they're not included in the ceasefire deal. Jeff, thank you. Caroline, will the US take part in talks with Iran in Islamabad on Friday? I can uh announce that the president is dispatching his negotiating team um led by the vice president of the United States JD Vance, special envoy WhitF and Mr. Kushner to Islamabad for talks this weekend. The first round of those talks will take place on Saturday morning local time. Uh and we know we look forward to those in-person meetings. What role does the president see for the US in monitoring or helping with this moves going forward? I think the president commented on that this morning. We're going to continue to monitor it very very closely. Uh we will be helpful in any way that we can, but we fully expect Iran to do this and the president has made that quite clear as well. Again, as his uh statement said last night, this ceasefire is subject to the safe reopening of the straight of Hermoose. Again, this was just determined last night. We understand things take time, but that's the president's expectation and he will hold everyone to it. Um sure. In the green blazer. Thank Thank you. Sure. And then in front of you. But Andrew, you can go ahead. All right. You're not wearing your green blazer. You can I am actually wearing a green. Looks a little brown to me, but go ahead. Fair enough. Um, so uh, regarding the president's rhetoric, when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, George W. Bush uh, said in a message to the Iraqi people that the military campaign was directed, quote, against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. Yesterday, the president threatened to destroy Iran's civilization, the entire civilization, not the Iranian government, but the Iranian civilization, the Iranian people. The US has been a moral leader for most of its history by fighting wars against other governments, not against civilizations. How can the president claim that America can ever have the moral high ground if he's threatening to destroy civilizations and not casting wars as fights against other governments? Andrew, I think you should take a look at the actions of this president over the course of the past six weeks and the actions of our brave men and women in our United States military uh who have taken out uh the mil essentially taken out the military of a rogue Islamic regime that has chanted death to America for 47 years that has killed and maimed thousands of American soldiers over the course of the last five decades. The president absolutely has the moral high ground over the Iranian terrorist regime. And for you to even suggest otherwise is frankly insulting. All due respect Caroline, that's good enough. That's we'll we'll we'll jump with that. Let's start with that last one there that the Americans have the moral high ground. Uh and don't worry about him talking about wiping out their civilization. That's insulting. What do you say to that? Yeah, it's a lie, you know, and we keep lying to ourselves. Uh and and ultimately this this will end badly. And just as you know the Soviet Union in its last days, they spent a lot of time lying to their people, lying about the reality of conditions and they imploded. Uh that happened to Saddam Hussein with Baghdad Bob and now uh you know Carolyn Levit's the new Baghdad Bob making you know trying to excuse the inexcusable. Uh this this just came out. Uh Abasarachi, the foreign minister of Iran, just said, "The Iran US ceasefire terms are clear and explicit. The US must choose ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both. The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court and the world's watching whether it will act on its commitments." pretty clear. Wow. So, uh, and she's been, you know, again, they got this happy talk that the straight of Hormuza is open. Ships are flowing. No, they're not. Uh, there were two that got through today so far. And they they paid the fee. They paid the toll to Iran with payment in Chinese yuan. And, you know, they got through, but now it's closed and it's going to remain closed until they stop attacking Lebanon. And you know, also within the last hour, Israel just murdered another Al Jazzer journalist. Oh man. Yeah. They blew him up in his car. You know, and they're they're clearly marked as journalists with, you know, markings on the top of the automobiles, etc. No, the Israel Israel is an uncivilized group of uh savages is probably the best way to describe it. They have Gary, keep that up there. Gary, if you can blow up that that Sharief U tweet inside there a little bit. I want to say something about that because that's something that Caroline Lev just mentioned. Uh she said that no, it does not include uh Lebanon that she was specifically asked and she said no, it doesn't matter what anybody says. We talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu um and no it's not going to include and they were ask her well what if what if it uh actually G if you can click on that so I can see all the letters that would be great on that that Shabbaz Sharif part. Yeah. And then if you can blow that up, I don't know if it will, but you can see this is the original uh comment. I think it was last night and he says expressly there he is highlighted along with their allies including Lebanon. That's what the ceasefire was supposed to include. So Sharief, the guy who negotiated this with the United States and Iran explicitly said that meaning that that's what the Americans agreed to. That's why he put that out. Apparently the uh the uh the Pakistanis have aren't happy about this already. But I mean she Caroline was just asked what if uh allowing Iran Israel to do what you what they're doing which is you know increasing their attacks into Lebanon what if that undermines the ceasefire and she just said yeah it won't. Uh anyway next question. What do you make of that? Yeah. Uh well also let's not forget who is behind Pakistan in this China. So this isn't just this isn't just a Pakistani initiative. This is a Chinese initiative probably with Russian support. And again they're they're trying to find a legitimate exit ramp for Trump who that could could be negotiated. But you know they they keep insisting that the sun rises in the west uh that the earth is flat. Uh you know you can't re you can't reason with those people. They're not. They are the the essence of the narcissistic personality. And here Karen Love has to reflect that narcissistic personality is it can never admit that it's wrong that it made a mistake that it's not properly informed because it knows all it sees all. It is the center of the universe. Uh so uh this this is uh this is going to 42 minutesperpetuate u it's going to further I guess reinforce for the Iranians the United States is not serious about these negotiations and I think some people were worried that Iran was falling for the hey I'm Lucy come Charlie Brown and kick the football trick. No they they they were very upfront about this this is what the agreement requires. So, so let me ask you something, Larry, because one thing I I I was surprised I'll I'll concede that that the Iranian side agreed to a ceasefire because they had been adamant in the three days prior to this and saying there will be no ceasefire. We're not interested in a ceasefire. We're interested in an end to this. Here is our 10-point plan. This is what we'll agree to. Then they agreed to a ceasefire. Now, what Caroline actually they didn't Okay, let's be honest. They didn't agree to a ceasefire. or what they agreed because if Israel continued to attack, they were going to retaliate. But after after Israel attacked them or the US attacked him yesterday, they retaliated then say, "Okay, we'll stop firing because as long and we'll and we'll sit down and negotiate for a ceasefire, but as long as you're going to not attack us, we're not going to attack you right now." So that's that's I I think it's a nuance, but uh that's what when you go back and look at that 10-point plan, number 10 was based upon these other nine things, then we'll negotiate a ceasefire. Right, D, if you can put that Roachi comment back up there you had a second ago, if you still have that handy, uh that would be good. One of the other things that that I I want to point out in regard to that also that Caroline Levid just said is that one of the questions that was asked of her was that you know Trump threatened to wipe out the civilization all that kind of stuff. Uh you know how do you how do you square that with the moral high ground etc. But she also said that's what led to this uh that that's what got because he cares about action. Remember she said uh and and Iran begged us to have this negotiation. That's what she said there. Mhm. Um and you see so so there's there's Iraqi said the US Iran ceasefire terms are clear and explicit. The US must choose ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both. So whether that's you know point number 10 or point number one at the side still I was a little bit surprised that they agreed to it. Um why do you suppose they would have and and what do you make of the claim that Caroline Levit and President Trump said that this is because of his threats? That's what got them to the table? Well, the who? There's no record or evidence whatsoever that Iran was going to Pakistan said, "Hey, we would you call the Americans up and see if they'd talk to us?" That never happened. The United It was the United States that was going around. It went to Egypt. It went to Turkey. It went to Oman. Went to Pakistan. I bet you they even went to China and said, "Hey, could uh could you lean on your Pakistani bubbas there? we we we got to we got to get this uh we got to talk to Iran. So finally uh the the US issued that 15-point plan. Iran looked at and said nope not doing that. They sent back their 10-point plan said this is this is our foundation. These are our demands and then this will be the foundation based upon meeting these demands. We can then negotiate an end to the fighting. And by and by the way, yesterday I think it's yesterday morning uh United States there was the the news out was that said Trump said that the ran proposal isn't enough to stop the attack. This is yesterday morning right? Uh he said yeah it's there's some interesting things but it's not good enough and his deadline Tuesday is still uh on schedule. He said Iran for its part rejected any proposal for a ceasefire again yesterday morning and then he said fine then we'll bomb him back into the stony. It almost looks like both sides, I don't know if you say blink a little bit, but it certainly changed because Trump didn't attack and then the the Iranian side did agree to the sessation of hostilities, however you want to describe it. Uh what do you think led to that? Well, again, understand they only agreed that they would not be initiating fire on Israel and fire on US military bases. they would be going forward responding only if they were attacked. So that that's how you get this de facto ceasefire. It requires the United States and Israel to stop attacking. If they stop, then Iran's not going to continue with its retaliatory strikes, but if they're hit, they're going to retaliate. they're still willing to sit down and go over those nine points or the 10 points in the plan uh to see if the United States is serious about that. Uh but when you look at the US 15-point plan and the Iranian 10-point plan, they're on different planets. I mean, there there's no common ground there. That that's why this this war is going to have to be fought and won militarily. It's not going to end through some diplomatic compromise in my in my opinion. Yeah. And so then the question is going to be what what's going to happen next because uh I mean she just said there the meetings are going to be on Saturday and it is going to be led by Vice President Vance but Witoff and Kushner are going to be there again and I I wouldn't be surprised as you said that the the Iranian said yeah they can sit in the little kids table over there. Big boys are going to talk right here. Why would they talk to them? We'll see if that happens. But there are some headwinds on on multiple sides here. Actually all sides. There are those in in in Iran that are from what I've been able to to piece together that are angry at that they even had a ceasefire. They said no we need to keep fighting because we're in the advantage and we should not do any ceasefire. There are definitely those in Israel I don't even need to talk about that. They're livid that there's a ceasefire but there are even those in the United States it's a ceasefire. You mentioned Mark Lemen a minute ago. Well here was uh brother Jack Keane uh voicing his displeasure today. I don't trust the Iranians at all. The president doesn't trust them either. He's negotiated with them time and time again. He knows they're liars and cheats. So, this comes down to the deal itself and what's in it and the verification for it. The Iranians are experts at at obfuscating and delaying deals and they lie and promise and don't deliver. So there's a lot wrapped up in the deal. My preference would have been to keep the war going as leverage to make that deal. It looks like the president is getting indications from the Iranians that they're willing to concede on all of those points. I don't dispute the fact that people are saying that. Whether they actually do it is another matter and that's my concern about this and the president and his team knows who they're dealing with. So we're gonna have to hold their feet to the fire and if this blows up in our face, we have to have the stomach to finish this militarily. Okay. So two things. Uh first of all, I I don't know what he's talking about that the Iranian side said they're willing to capitulate on the terms when you just told us that they said the opposite. They are very clear on those 10 points. nothing on the 15 points. But then the second point, and this is something you say a lot, but it's it bears bears reinforcing here. You talk about you can't trust the Iranians and that they have had agreements and they have lied to them when we're the ones that pulled out of the JCPOA. We're the ones that negotiated with them and then went to a war with him in 2025 and did the same thing again here. And now here we're asking them to trust us again. And it's them you want to talk about trust. Well, and and again, it goes back to the the claim that they're the number one sponsor of terrorism. They've been attacking us for 46 years, 47 years, ignoring the the role that the United States played in uh helping Saddam Hussein start the war the 1980 against Iran and and sustaining it by providing the the critical elements to produce chemical weapons and then providing US, you know, US top secret intelligence to the Iraqi general staff. You you look at look at how we had Americans reacting to the concept that Russia was providing Iran with intelligence to fight against us. Oh my god. That is okay. Terrible. Terrible. So let's use the same standard, folks. Same damn standard. Our involvement in that war in the 1980s led to the deaths of more than 300,000 Americans. And people may get tired of hearing me keep repeating this, but I got to repeat it and drive it home. That's 70,000 of those were civilians. That's why they chant death to America because we've killed their fathers, their brothers, their sons. We've done that. Not somebody else, not somebody from a mystical planet in the universe. We've done that. And we've continued to support terrorists to carry out attacks in Iran. So, it's quite understandable why they chant death to America. Yeah. Death to our system. Death to our corrupt evil system. That's what they're chanting death to, not to the American people. They they they like the American people. And do you realize that the largest Jewish population outside of Israel in West Asia lives in Iran? Iran. And we just And we just blew up their synagogue. Yeah. Uh so where does that leave us uh Larry? I mean I mean if you you have it on different planets about the justification. You have Jack Keane there saying he hopes we have the stomach to finish this war. You've definitely got people in Iran that are saying we definitely need to be ready to go back to conflict. And you got most people in Israel that don't appear to have any intention to have a ceasefire and are probably going into Lebanon hoping that that sabotages any kind of a ceasefire so that we can keep going on with there. What chance does peace have here? Zero. Zero. In fact, uh, you know, those who are playing the stock market, those with and doing dealing with uh, uh, you know, the side bets, uh, you know, because we saw when the good news came, oh, great pieces at hand. You know, we we liked everything, but uh, uh, Neville Chamberlain waving a white paper saying, "Oh, yeah, got the document right here." Um and and the and the price of the stock market shot up. Dow Jones way up. Price of oil started plummeting down below $90 or into the 90 range. Oh my god, what a relief. That's going to reverse. Price of oil is going to be back up at 150 if not 200 and the stock market's going to be crashing down, you know, around 2,000. So it's here's here's the drop right here when you see it's already it didn't it didn't go that far down. right at 95 just about right now. So, uh yeah, that that's uh that's people are not going to be fooled much longer and especially if the the bullets start flying again and the missiles start flying. Yeah, that'll that'll pop right back to 115 or so where it was, I think. Well, yeah. Once the news comes in that uh Iran is not is has closed the straight of Hormuz and it's uh it's going to reinitiate attacks on Israel, then you know that'll all break. Well, you know what's interesting, another person who's very smart, and I like them a lot, but they were saying that their proposal was, "Oh, what we got to do is if if Iran fires at one ship, then we just we need to pick a target in Iran and blow that up and just tell them, you keep doing that, we're going to keep blowing it up." And it's like, you know, we don't have enough bombs to do that, number one. And number two, Iran has made it very clear they're going to retaliate. and they have the wherewithal to retaliate. Uh that uh uh I think I think it was you you you sent around was it you or Doug that sent around uh that uh video of the underground missile cities and Yeah. And that Yeah, I sent that around to you and Doug. Yeah. So you when you watch that Yeah. You know, folks, these guys have been planning for this because of our actions. They didn't they didn't wake up one morning and say, "You know what? We're going to build these massive underground cities because we're going to we're going to carry out missile strikes. We're going to take over the world." No, they were minding their own damn business and we kept attacking them and finally say, "Okay, we've got to we have to take matters into our own hands." I mean, these things are just Yeah, these videos as Gary's showing it right now, they're unbelievable. And so, you know, when the confident predictions, oh, they only got, I think at the outset of this, Israel's Mossad was saying they only got like 3,000 missiles, maybe 2500. Now, they're saying, well, okay, maybe they have a a few more, like maybe 15,000. That's a big difference. And the reason we can't tell is they're they build them underground and they store them underground. Yeah. As a matter of fact, this uh I'll just show this on the screen here just before we let you go. Uh this is what uh General Kaine said today that 80% of Iran's air defenses have been destroyed. 450 ballistic missile facilities have been destroyed. 801 drone facilities and all this. He said, "Yeah, basically everything has been destroyed." Um and then one wonders then why do there continue to be all this missiles raining down? But I mean that stuff you shown the Lar Larry that's open- source stuff that's just out there. Anyone can see it. And we've shown that graphic of what the Yaz facility looks like. We've attacked it four times. I think I've seen at least. And we can't take it out of operation. And that's one of about 30. So why do we say stuff like that? Well, and if I mean if all that if what Kane is saying is true, why are we asking for a ceasefire? Screw the ceasefire, man. Let's finish them off. Yeah. I mean they're done. I mean, which is it that we've we've destroyed so much of it they can barely stand. So, why do you want to cease fire for I mean, have you ever heard somebody in a football game, you know, they're they're in the fourth quarter, they're up by 42-7, and they say, "Hey, let's let's call timeout so we don't run up the score anymore." Are you kidding me? What a load of horse manure. Yeah, I think that's where we are. Well, listen, I really appreciate you coming on today as always and giving us this uh colorful clarity as I'll say. Um the truth is what it is and uh you know, we're going to just continue to be unintimidated and uncompromised to bring people the truth even when it directly contradicts what the president of the United States says, what the Caroline Levit says, or what the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. If they're not telling the truth, we're going to highlight it and we appreciate you doing that today. Thank you. You're you're not you're not going to have anything to uh you won't be lacking for material. You'll be talking about a lot an up uptempo in the war. We we will and I I have a bad feeling that we're about to see a big spurge coming up soon and we'll see what President Trump does to that when his preference doesn't work if this if this meeting in this even happens on Saturday. We'll we'll see. I think it's maybe 5050 chance at best. Uh well, listen, we appreciate you guys today. And by the way, this isn't the only war going on. The the war in Russia continues. Uh, and we're going to have today, uh, back with us for the first time in many, many months, uh, Aiden from the former guy from, uh, UK who went to fight for Russia. You may remember him. Uh, well, he's on leave right now. He's been on the front lines for a long time. So, we're going to get an updated view on what is really going on on the on the Russian front lines here and what can we expect coming up this spring. Don't want to miss that. We will see you at 2:30 p.m. with Aiden Crew uh, at Daniel Davis deep. Don't forget to tell your friends, the ones that love to listen to podcasts, get them to add Daniel Davis Deep Dive to their podcast list. They need to know what you know. They can get it to where they already get their podcast. You just got to tell them.
War on Iran could go NUCLEAR - Nobel scientist explains | MEE Live Middle East Eye Apr 2, 2026
Our guest is a scientist whose work has been awarded multiple Nobel Prizes. Not for science– but for peace.
Firstly, as former President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; then as a founding member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
ICAN spearheads an international treaty - signed by 95 countries - that bans nuclear weapons in full.
Nuclear weapons are why the war on Iran is happening– if you are to believe US President Donald Trump.
Yet they remain an abstract idea in news coverage. We talk about nuclear programmes, nuclear capacity and nuclear weapons. We do not talk about nuclear war.
It’s natural not to dwell on devastation beyond comprehension, or a hell that we are helpless to.
But Dr Ira Helfand says we have to know what we are talking about when we talk about nuclear war.
Because in his view, the regional war could become one.
Editor's note: The title was changed to amend Dr Helfand's descriptor from 'physicist' to 'Nobel scientist'. Dr. Helfand is a physician, not physicist, and has had founding roles in multiple Nobel Peace Prize winning anti-nuclear scientist-led coalitions.
Transcript
Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not begin to prepare us for what would happen if nuclear weapons are used today. Most of the weapons in the US and Russian arsenal are 6 to 50 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It's not going to be one bomb on one city. It's going to be many bombs on many cities. A war between the United States and Russia would probably kill two to 300 million people in the first afternoon and it would cause climate disruption uh that would trigger essentially a brief ice age which would trigger famine the death in the first two years after that war of 3/4 of the human race six billion people the United States or Israel could find themselves essentially cornered unable to bring this war to a successful conclusion and unwilling to accept defeat and make the very dangerous decision that the best way forward from their point of view is to use their nuclear arsenals. Our next guest is a physician whose work has been awarded multiple Nobel prizes not for science but for peace. Firstly, as former president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, then as a founding member of the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, ICAN spearheads an international treaty signed by 95 countries banning nuclear weapons in full. Nuclear weapons are why the war on Iran is happening if you are to believe US President Donald Trump. Yet, they remain an abstract idea in the news. We talk about nuclear programs, nuclear capacity, nuclear weapons. We do not talk about nuclear war. It's natural not to dwell on devastation beyond comprehension. But Dr. Ira Hund says we have to know what we are talking about when we talk about nuclear weapons. Why? Because in his view, the regional war could become a nuclear war. Let's find out how. Dr. Ira Hund, welcome to ME Live. What is the risk of nuclear war today and how does it compare to before the US and Israel bombed Iran? Well, you can't put an exact number on it, but the risk is very high. And it's important to remember that we started before the war in Iran with a very high risk. Back as far as 2018, US former US Secretary of Defense William Perry was saying we were closer to nuclear war than we'd been during the worst moments of the Cold War. And since then, all kinds of things have happened to increase that danger. The collapse of talks between the US and uh North Korea and the rapid progression of the North Korean nuclear arsenal, uh the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the deterioration of relations between the United States and China, the war between nuclear armed India and Pakistan last May. But now we've added this latest situation and it's it's very serious and there's a real possibility that this could escalate to nuclear war and we simply can't deny any longer as we have been doing since the end of the cold war that nuclear war could actually happen if we don't get rid of these weapons. Can you just walk us through that process? You said that there is a very real possibility that this war could escalate into nuclear war. What is the step stepby-step process that could see this regional war become a nuclear war? Well, I think there are a couple of scenarios or there are several, but basically a direct extension of the of the war in the Middle East to the use of nuclear weapons is the first. The United States or Israel could find themselves essentially cornered, unable to bring this war to a successful conclusion and unwilling to accept defeat and make the very dangerous decision that the best way forward from their point of view is to use their nuclear arsenals. We've seen something of that impulse clearly from Trump with his frequent threats to obliterate Iran. And you know, if he tries to obliterate Iran with conventional weapons, which is what he's been doing, and it's not working and he can't get the straight of Hormuz opened and he's facing a total political and geopolitical disaster, there's a possibility he would decide that the best way to try to convince the Iranians to back down is to use nuclear weapons. And you could see potentially the same kind of thinking in the part of the Israelis. I think it's I think it's much more likely uh that that danger would proceed from President Trump's approach to this war. And then there's also the possibility that this could just spread into a more widespread global conflict. You know, already we see Russia actively aiding Iran. Uh we see countries in Asia, including China, under increasing stress from the closure of of the Straits of Hormuz. And there are multiple pathways where you could imagine one or another of the other nuclear weapon states getting drawn into this expanding conflict. I've noticed in the wake of this war a couple of headlines about countries that seemingly have nothing to do with this war reducing their restrictions for nuclear non-prololiferation. For example, France or Finland. Ira, you're a lead member of the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons where you and your peers received the Nobel Peace Prize for a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. This international treaty has been signed by 95 countries. The bigger brother of this bill or the sort of watered down bigger brother, the treaty on the non-prololiferation of nuclear weapons has been signed by 191 nations. Are there examples of countries beyond the region stepping back from their non-prololiferation obligations in the wake of this regional war? Well, there certainly are major examples of countries outside of the region stepping back from their commitment to non-prololiferation. Although I think it is perhaps less related to the immediate conflict in the Middle East and more related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the failure of the United States and the United Kingdom to honor their obligations to Ukraine to defend it against foreign aggression. Uh that failure has prompted many countries to question whether the United States is a reliable partner, whether the so-called US nuclear umbrella really exists. And we see open discussion in South Korea, more private discussion in Japan, open discussion in Poland, some of the Scandinavian countries, Germany about the possible desiraability of acquiring their own nuclear weapons or in the case of European countries coming to some agreement with France uh to extend the French nuclear arsenal as a sort of umbrella over the rest of NATO if they can't trust the United States to provide protection. Let's talk and this is a very dangerous situation. Let's talk about Iran as well now. Was Iran developing a nuclear weapon? What was the consensus of that? And is it more likely or less likely to as a result of the attacks by America and Israel? I think there's some controversy over whether Iran was actually trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Um the consensus appears to be that it was not actually making progress towards doing that. But there's this very bizarre phenomenon of Iran's enriching uranium to 60% uh highlyenriched uranium. There is no civilian purpose for uranium enriched to that degree. And if the Iranians were not doing this in order to build a nuclear weapon, it was a very bizarre and unnecessarily provocative measure for them to take. As to their intentions at the moment, I'm certain that this war has absolutely solidified their notion that they should that they need to have nuclear weapons. Whether they will be able to build them or not is less clear, but certainly what we've been teaching them with this war is if you don't have nuclear weapons, this is what happens to you. And it's the same lesson that has been taught by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, by the US attack on Iraq and on Libya. And it's a terrible message to be sending to countries. It's a false message, by the way, if Iran had nuclear weapons. Uh, you know, this conflict would probably have gone nuclear and the destruction would have been even greater. But there's a very powerful draw to the argument that if I have nuclear weapons, I'll be safer. And we're reinforcing that. The that is to say, the nuclear weapons states are reinforcing that. By the way, they are using their nuclear arsenals as a shield to protect them as they commit aggression against non-uclear states. Yeah. You you point to what is a clear double standard there in how the world mandates the use of nuclear weapons or the development of nuclear weapons. Another clear example of that is of course Israel. While all this fallout is happening over or supposedly over allegations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, Israel is you know it's an open secret that Israel has nuclear weapons and this is tolerated. What is the impact of this potential double standard in terms of the efficacy of nuclear deterrence of nuclear peace? Well, you know, I think the non-uclear states have been very clear that they are not willing to accept this situation where they honor their obligations under the non-prololiferation treaty and refrain from developing nuclear weapons. While the nuclear armed states, especially the permanent members of the security council, who have all signed the MPT, failed to honor their obligations under article six of that treaty to disarm. And it's really an untenable and unsustainable position that the nuclear armed states take. Uh you know they it's terrible for you to have nuclear weapons but it's great for us to have them. It makes no sense and no one's willing to buy that. And if the nations which have nuclear weapons do not proceed to move to the elimination of those arsenals, I think it's just a matter of time before other countries say that they also are going to acquire them. After all, if you know, if these five countries, which are the most militarily powerful nations in the world, all say that it's essential for their security to have nuclear weapons, why doesn't that logic apply to everybody else? Ira, when we talk about nuclear warfare, I think in a lot of people's minds, it feels like a pretty abstract concept. We have a sort of vague collective memory of what happened in Hiroshima. We have these visuals of of mushroom clouds. But what would nuclear war today actually look like? Yeah, I think this is a big part of the problem we're dealing with because we can't really imagine what nuclear war would look like. It's that horrible. People tend to think, as you pointed out at Hiroshima Nagasaki last year during the 80th anniversary, there were a lot of images of the destruction of those cities that were circulating. They're horrifying. They're very powerful warnings of what nuclear weapons can do. But what we really need to understand is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not begin to prepare us for what would happen if nuclear weapons are used today. Most of the weapons in the US and Russian arsenal are six to 50 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. And in a major war between nuclear weapons states, it's not going to be one bomb on one city. It's going to be many bombs on many cities. A war between the United States and Russia would probably kill two to 300 million people in the first afternoon and it would cause climate disruption uh that would trigger essentially a brief ice age which would trigger famine and according to a study published in the summer of 2022 the death in the first two years after that war of three/arters of the human race, six billion people. Even a much more limited war as might take place between India and Pakistan could kill excuse me two billion people in the first two years because of the climate disruption and resulting famine. And it's very hard for us to get our arms around this horrible reality. But we have to make ourselves do that. We have to understand how enormous the danger is, how immediate the danger is. Because unless we do, we're not going to take the necessary steps to avoid that danger. And that necessary step is the elimination of these weapons once and for all. We cannot contain continue the current situation where we just hope day by day that we'll be lucky again and that this will current crisis will not escalate to nuclear war. So even if a nuclear war was a regional war between two nuclear states, the impact would not be regional. It would be by the sounds of things globally catastrophic. Absolutely. And when India and Pakistan went to war last May, had that escalated to a large-scale war between the two of them, not only would millions of people, tens of millions of people have died in South Asia if nuclear weapons were involved, but the entire world would have been affected. Up to a quarter of the human race would have died. And of course, modern civilization as we know it would have been completely destroyed. And when people think about nuclear weapons, they don't even think about this possibility at all. That has to change. Ira, I suppose proponents of nuclear armorament would say that the only way we've managed to avoid this fate at our enemy's hands so far is by developing our own weapons or allies nuclear weapons. That this is the era of nuclear peace or peace by deterrence. Is this true? Why hasn't nuclear war happened before? Uh, I think the judgment of former US defense secretary Robert Magnamera is is operative here. He said that nuclear war hasn't happened because, and I'm quoting him, we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. This idea that nuclear weapons possess this magical power that guarantees they'll never be used is an extraordinarily dangerous myth. We know of at least six occasions on which we have come within minutes of nuclear war, always in the context of a false alarm. sometimes a computer glitch, sometimes a human error. And on each of these occasions, we were minutes away from the total destruction of human civilization. This is a profoundly unstable uh situation that we have created and we cannot rely on it to prevent nuclear war. The only way we can guarantee that is to get rid of the weapons. If we continue to maintain these arsenals, it is not a question if there will be a nuclear war. It's only a question of when it will happen. Dr. Ira Halen, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your expertise with us here today. Thank you, Matilda.
ISRAEL IS FACING A SERIOUS PROBLEM NOW | Col. Larry Wilkerson Danny Haiphong Apr 8, 2026
Transcript
I think Iran has won for all intents and purposes and Iran could face this being totally obiated, even face the diplomacy being interrupted again by strike and still win. Uh I go back to that headline in the harets which I think was very very accurate. All Iran has to do to win is not lose. All America has to do to win. And Israel too now is spectacular victory. And this operation in Lebanon is another demonstration of Netanyahu. And I I'm not going to say the IDFs because they are performing it basically because he told them to. I don't think there's much heart in doing this in the IDF other than the bloodthirsty nature that they always display these days. What they're being given in Lebanon is their butt on a silver platter by a Hezbollah that was supposed to be roundly defeated. This is worse than July and surrounding time in 2006 when they got their rear end handed to them, too. It's even worse than 1982 when we ordered them out when Chiron was leading the minister of defense and they really ransacked a couple of camps and killed a whole bunch of people that they didn't need to kill. This is worse. So I don't think Netanyahu's hold on power is sacriic at all now and I don't think it's much longer to be endured. It's in question as to how he's going to be out outed, turned out or whatever. But I think he's walking on very perilous ground right now. And perhaps even the US intelligence community, what's left of them that tell the truth and are honest and seeking some policy guidance that might work, might have let the president know that BB is in trouble with his own people. And it's double-pronged trouble. You got Napali Bennett and others who are excoriating him for not finishing the job in Gaza. You still have all these Hamas fighters underground, armed, ready to go, and he has not eliminated them because his IDF has told him, "We're not going into those tunnels. We are not going into those tunnels. If you will lead, Mr. Prime Minister, we'll go in and we'll be 100 meters behind you." So, he's got real problems. Maybe that's a product of or a part of this new uh willingness of Trump to look at things. Plus, he's been exposed completely even in the New York Times and other sickopantic press in this country. He's been exposed, I think, accurately or fundamentally accurately as to how he made the decision to go into Iran and who gave him the principal advice, who gave him the deal breaking advice over his own counselors, BB Netanyahu. How many times has BB done that in the past, whether it's Iraq, Syria, Libya, or now Iran. So I think that's getting to be really a dicey business in Israel right now. I stick to my prediction that there will not be a Jewish state in the Levant past about 2030 if it makes it that far. There may be a state there, but it'll have to be democratic, really democratic, and it'll have to entertain all comers. So that's a changing ingredient in this that I think even Miriam Adlesen's and others billions of dollars is not going to change. And then looking at the other side of the thing, let's look at the technicalities of some of this too. I had to deal with OFAC and I had to deal with their sanctions team and I had to deal with the offices that essentially monitor sanctions compliance, apply sanctions, however they're applied through the banking system or through other means. Once I had an individual whom I had great faith in because he had been a part of working groups that I'd been a part of and I saw how competent he was. He said, "Do you know how long it would take us to unwind sanctions on just one country? Pick Iran. Weeks, months, and years." Because the the entanglement you get into the intricacies and so forth. So even if we said we were going to lift sanctions, even if the Europeans said they were going to lift sanctions, even if we said secondary sanctions, it'd probably be a year or two before we'd ever be able to affect it really for the Iranians, which was what worried me in many respects about the JCPOA, the one or two aspects of it that worried me because when you say you're going to lift sanctions, you're saying it and a year later maybe you haven't done it yet. So this is all full of technicalities that are problems, too. But I come back to the same thing that uh we were talking about earlier. I just don't trust this president and I don't trust this sort of 10 points, nine of which lead to Iran's success, spectacular success, uh, as being a sheet of paper over which anything is going to come out of that will in fact stop this war and discontinue our relationship with Israel, which is poisonous to hell right now and ruining everything we stand for in the world, if not already ruined. Um, and so I can't see how we get out of it with these points as the orchestration, if you will, of getting out of it and having anything to say that uh looks like Donald Trump would accept. So, where are we headed and how are we headed there? Yeah. Well, Dave, uh we're already getting reports of immediate like uh very direct uh violations even from Iranian media saying that the United States has begun violating the ceasefire, attacking Tran. Uh we're hearing that air defenses are already active in Iran for uh Israeli attacks. Um then that leads to the question then Dave uh that I'd like your opinion on like why then go through these kind of motions uh for the United States uh and Iran because you mentioned all the confusion about what uh Donald Trump was posting and the Trump administration the White House. Well, they did post this the official statement of Iran accordingly from Abasarachi. And in this statement, Dave, what really struck me was that uh it sounded like he was they weren't even negotiating with the United States at all. That actually they were uh doing a favor almost Iran was to uh Pakistan and uh the mediators and those who are urging uh for a little bit of relief and breathing room. But uh why then why do you think this is going on? Is it all just smoke and mirrors or is there something really significant uh that's happening here? Well, I think there's a few factors here and one thing that we've seen over the past few weeks is the Trump administration and particularly the president himself really scrambling to deal with the economic fallout of this and putting out just fake information to try to, you know, juke the markets and and bring the price of oil down. Um so I think that that could be part of this and as you mentioned there that that statement from the Iranian foreign minister. Um it does look like you know the US kind of concocted that these negotiations that they got Pakistan kind of to play the mediator and then they declared that they accepted this 10-point proposal as a basis and of course they're they're walking all sorts of things back. So I think why there was this kind of display it was uh so Trump could try to wind this thing down and also save face um and not just kind of make it clear that he was uh capitulating in a way here though as you mentioned there like it doesn't look like there's a real ceasefire. I mean, even overnight there's reports of attacks across the Gulf States, and I saw the IRGC released a statement about launching attacks overnight against US and Israeli interests in those countries. Um, so is it all, you know, from Iran's perspective, you if if the, you know, they see Trump saying that he wants to negotiate off that 10point proposal, if if they think there's a possibility of that, then then I would assume that they're going to try it. But they're also making clear that they're not, despite what Hegsath said this morning at his press briefing, you know, he's saying that they're begging for a ceasefire. He's claiming that they can't make drones and missiles anymore, even though they're still firing them uh across the region. Um, so I I I'm not surprised really that Iran uh, you know, is is trying this or or trying to see what what happens here. Um, but when it comes to the US, I mean, it it's hard to know. You know, this is kind of just what I suspect that this was all kind of created to to try to calm the markets and so Trump didn't have to look like he 9 minuteswas essentially surrendering. I mean, I think the one benefit, the one positive thing here so far is that Trump I mean, he was threatening to destroy the entire country of Iran and a civilization in a night. So, at least we didn't see those major air strikes on power plants that he was threatening, you know, to try to sink the country into darkness. But I'm worried that if this just completely falls apart and the attacks continue that that we might see that because the US and Israel are showing the only thing that they can do is try to just bomb the crap out of them. We're seeing that in in Lebanon. What one thing, you know, I was thinking I know Israel has a pattern of before a ceasefire, they really ramp up the bombing. And so I thought maybe that's what we were seeing in Lebanon. But again, all signs point to them, you know, the US not actually putting any pressure on Israel for the ceasefire there. But yeah, I mean, I just see this as, you know, again that that press briefing from from Hegsth and Colonel Wilkerson mentioned that article from the New York Times that revealed this briefing that Netanyahu gave where in it he made all these he guaranteed that you know the the regime change would happen. they wouldn't be able to close a straight of Hormuz, that their missiles and drones would be destroyed in a few weeks. And none of that happened. And what's interesting about that report is you see it's probably a a controlled leak from people within the administration because it puts just about all of Trump's senior adviserss, including Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe, on the record and saying, "I don't know about what Netanyahu is telling you. Not not sure that that it's really going to work." Except for one guy. There was one guy who the report said was was all in and that was Pete Hegath. So I think there is a chance that if this turns into that that Trump recognizes this for the disaster that it is and they might be getting ready um to have a fall guy and that could be Pete Hexath. Yeah, I think that's uh a really good point. And uh Colonel Wilkerson, I just want to play exactly the scenario that uh um Dave was just laying out there that Iran is still firing. I mean, Israel is essentially not part of this ceasefire at all because not only because it's violating uh the ceasefire terms with Lebanon on that front, but uh essentially Israel has given no reason for Iran to include in the ceasefire. And so here here's Fox News after this. Mhm. Danny, let let me just say one thing, a military viewpoint here. Yeah, sure. Having witnessed many a ceasefire, having been a part of forces in a ceasefire, having seen it throughout history, having seen BB Netanyahu, who I don't think understands what the word ceasefire means. Look anywhere, Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank, whatever. Ceasefires are really hard to implement when you have a country the size of Western Europe like Iran is and you have the IRGC spread everywhere and every Iranian and I have this on really good authority. Every Iranian was out in the street shooting or out in the desert shooting at those C130Js and those Blackhawks and everything else with everything they could muster. So, you got the entire Iranian people aroused now with the AK they have in their closet, with the shotgun they have in their front room. You are going to have a hell of a time starting a ceasefire. You It's going to take at least or longer for the word to get out, especially since we've blown up all Iran's communications and other things. So, it's going to take a while before it could impact in a way that a ceasefire should. And then again, as was just talked about, who the hell is going to honor the ceasefire? Is everyone going to honor it? And is it really going to be honored at the top except in the exception, if you will. So ceasefires are difficult, especially with people like BB Netanyahu and others who don't know what the word means. Yeah. And it appears Iran exactly is uh is very aware of this. Here here are a few reports. So Iran uh you know even as we speak is still uh striking uh Israel and also the Gulf region because uh uh there are reports that there was a a USI Israeli attack coming out of the UAE on an oil refinery in Iran. But here are here's a couple reports just a minute or so for each of them. Well, Jesse, as anticipated, the sirens are now wailing over Tel Aviv, uh, indicating that another missile is inbound. And it looks like those bright lights in the sky are the missiles. And it looks like you can see an interceptor that is in hot pursuit of the missiles. And uh, it's always quite dramatic when you see those interceptors going after it. And these ones might disappear behind our building here. we're going to lose sight of them, 14 minutesbut they're still quite lethal and coming into Tel Aviv. And I didn't see an interception in this case. So, there was that in scenario. Then, Fox, it's really Fox News has been the only one reporting on these things in in many cases because they're the ones who are panicking uh the most about this war. Dana, the president's announcement, but here is uh but here is uh the report on the Gulf. Well, Dana, the president's announcements have been addressing the ceasefire between Iran and the United States and in general peace here in the Middle East, but we can report today there is not peace here. In fact, the country we're in, the UAE, says it's been taking incoming fire from Iran, writing the UAE's air defenses are currently engaging with missile and drone attacks originating from Iran. The Ministry of Defense confirms that the sounds heard in various parts of the country are the result of the UAE air defense systems intercepting ballistic missiles. cruise missiles and drones. Also, Kuwait reporting the Kuwaiti air defenses have been dealing since 8 a.m. today and up to now with an intense wave of hostile Iranian criminal attacks where 28 drones were intercepted that targeted the state of Kuwait. So, uh you know there's the report and and we have uh Dave I definitely and then Colonel workers you can react to this. you know, we have now footage of of direct impact, especially on the UAE because, as I said, uh there was an oil refinery hit um in Iran, the Leavon Island oil refinery, and here's the UAE today uh just after this uh targeting uh an oil refinery there. So, uh Dave, how about you step in just uh ceasefires are hard to implement as Colonel Wilkerson said. Uh, in many cases it seems like we're just in another phase of this war. Yeah. And you know, I saw something. This was just like something I saw on X. I I don't know if this is confirmed at all, but there was uh the US and Israel denied that they bombed that oil facility in Iran. And there was some report that it could have been the UAE UAE fighter jet or something that bombed it, which again I don't know if that's confirmed, but there have been indications that the the UA the the Emiratis and Saudis have wanted this at this point want this war to continue. And I could also see Trump being like, well, why don't you guys do it? You guys start, you know, getting some hits in. Um and and then you know with this administration I mean it's so clownish and they they just brazenly lie so much that I can see them say like oh no the ceasefire is fine even though like both sides are firing missiles and bombing each other. Um you know I wouldn't put it past them to try to portray this as being a great success. That's something we saw with Trump with with the the ceasefire in in in Gaza. The media pretty much ignored the ceasefire so-called ceasefire in Lebanon. So he was never really asked about that but for more than a year Israel was bombing you know was was attacking Lebanon without facing a single attack from Hezbollah. Um and this you know this is another reason why it makes all this so difficult because how is Iran supposed to really believe anything they say especially after being bombed during the negotiations and then the the way that these ceasefires have gone down. And an important detail is that both the ceasefire in Lebanon and the one in Gaza, I mean, I shouldn't even call them ceasefires, the deescalation deals. The US is supposedly like monitoring them is like the oversight of these and and of course because the US is totally on on one side um that it it doesn't do anything when Israel constantly violates them. Um, so it just there's just no trust. You know, they have really uh uh just the way that they've carried themselves diplomatically. It's just, you know, there's going to need to be goodwill and trust for like a real deal to happen here. And it seems like that it's just hard to imagine of the US and Iran coming to terms like that. Yeah. Carl Walker step in here. I mean, they don't trust the US one bit in this scenario. So then why do it then? Yeah, if I were they, I wouldn't trust us either. And Dave is absolutely right. We track from EMN, we track the days of the ceasefire in both Lebanon and Gaza. There was not a single day that Israel didn't kill somebody. And then they always came up with some kind of excuse. They crossed the yellow line. Oh, they got close, you know, whatever. But there was not a single day. I got to asking the question, what in Hebrew is ceasefire? Ceasefire. Does Netanyahu not understand what it means? No, he doesn't understand what it means. He doesn't want to understand what it means. So, you have that, too. And it's an issue. It's a It's a big issue in my view. And in Lebanon, it's a particularly big issue because they have killed people every single day of the quote ceasefire unquote. Um, it it's just an additional ingredient in what may be to come and how Israel has the capacity to screw up whatever has to come. 19 minutesI think I don't put it past Trump though to be complicit with that. I was just going to say I think you know one big difference here with Iran. And I think a goal one of Israel's big goals both during the last war and this war was to get Iran to the point where they could bomb them uh you know at their will without having to worry about getting hit by their missiles and and you know turn them you know where they didn't have to worry about air defenses like Lebanon. They could just fly over them and bomb them. they haven't gotten anything close to that. Um, so, you know, we maybe could see different behavior out of them when it comes to this one. Yeah. And we we uh a group of us got the chart the other day. I think it's reliable, too. um on the missiles. Everything from David's sling to Goliath whatever the iron dome I iron dome components to things we were supplying like bad patriot one two and three and all of the the the different types of anti- air defense missiles and we saw 2 days 4 days 7 days 9 days 12 days that's remaining stocks so one reason you're not seeing as many Israeli missiles go up is because they don't have them And the ones they do have, they're husbanding because they want to shoot them at the Kuram Shaws and others that are coming in that really do extensive damage. So that's another element in this too is that Iran is actually I think if you want to say winning whatever the hell that means in a war like this winning the battle with Israel even though it's using primarily if not exclusively drones and ballistic missiles and other missiles in between uh with the krumshaws and the really fast missiles doing the most damage because there's really no defense against them which is a really powerful statement for Americans to be listening to in particular because that's what the Golden Dome is going to do for you. Think about the the huge territory of the United States. A trillion dollars to build this thing and it'll be about as effective as Israel's Iron Dome is now under relentless strikes. It will not work. In other words, I hope we're taking that lesson from this. I doubt it, but I hope we are. Yeah. I mean the news uh now Dave is that 154 at least or I think it was 254 let me get those numbers straight 254 now people in Lebanon have been killed this yeah killed now that's the latest I mean it keeps updating every minute it seems like um given you know and this feels like a um we heard all the panic from Mark Levan and you know Israeli officials saying this they don't they were informed late about this ceasefire. Obviously, it wasn't their idea to even go this direction rhetorically or anything of the sort. Uh so now it seems like they're lashing out. Um Iran has just said, Dave, that uh they're going to deliver an even heavier blow to Israel if they don't stop. And Trump must choose between a ceasefire or uh war uh with Iran uh via Israel. Uh your reactions? Yeah, I mean it seems like this issue is going to be forced. Like I said before, I could see them trying to claim that everything's going great, but with this, I mean, hundreds of people. I mean, Lebanon's such a small country. What's the population like? Five million, killing that many people in a in a single day. I mean, it's just horrific. Uh, and they're mo they're mostly civilians, too. They're not Hezbollah fighters. Yeah. Yeah. That's They have a hard time killing Hezbollah fighters. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only way they they know how to do things now is just kill a lot of civilians from from the sky. Um so yeah, I mean I think and and so far, you know, I haven't seen any indication from Trump that he's going to put pressure on Israel for them to stop in Lebanon. So if that doesn't happen, then there was just ceasefires off and there never really was a ceasefire. Um but so we'll see. I mean, I'm sure Trump is might be deliberating things. We might he might be authoring a new truth social post about this. Maybe he'll wait for the markets to close though. Yeah. Yeah. Carl Wilkerson, uh jump in. I mean, I think the one thing I hope people note is that uh while Iran is engaging in this ceasefire arrangement, whatever we want to call this right now, um they seem very determined to continue the war if they uh if they have to if these terms are not uh in good faith uh moved on. So, uh your your thoughts on this? You me or Yeah, you to you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got confused. Um I was just looking over these 10 points again. The whole idea of the five-point plan from China and Pakistan, which Ambassador Freeman elaborated on quite extensively. No one was listening much. And then and now this one. If you read them down and you look at them, they all make sense. They all make sense from not just an Iranian perspective, which of course was Iran's intent, but they make sense from a wall of land warfare, a wall law of warfare in general, international law, Nuremberg tribunal, Geneva Convention. They make sense from the perspective of things that the United States of America, however imperfectly, used to be the upholder of and the main enforcer of. always backsliding a bit here and a bit there, but nonetheless on a momentous postWorld War II move essentially to stop World War II, World War I, both the same war, different theaters, different time span, from ever happening again. In other words, to stop what we did to kill a 100 million people in the Second War. and maybe all told including influenza and other things introduced by the war half of that in the first world war to never have it happen again. That was the purpose of the United Nations. That was the purpose Dwight Eisenhower through his full military weight and then his presidential weight behind the United Nations. And that's the reason Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech not at the end of his eight years but at the very beginning essentially saying and this is a direct quote almost if I can get my mind to work. This is no way of life at all not in any true sense. It is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. And he was talking about what he foresaw happening if we didn't maintain the institutions, the policies, the relationships that were created out of this incredible angst over what had happened to the world in two world wars. Let's stop it, they said. And they had nuclear weapons to help stop it. If you think that's a helpmate, but they nonetheless put in place all manner of checks and balances and no go here, no go there. Came close in Cuba, even closer in Berlin in that hot summer of 1961. Far more serious crisis than Cuba was because Berlin was strategic for the Russians. The GDR was disappearing. It was strategic for them. Very serious. Cuba was just a gambit and they were willing to back up from that. That's not the way history has recorded it because Cuba was 13 days of drama. Berlin was long hot summer of terror. Especially for the people living in Germany. Ask any of them that are still alive. So we did all of that and look at what we've done since 911. We have destroyed all of that. We are the leading power in in the world for a president to stand up and say that he is going to commit war crime after war crime after war crime to decimate another country of 92 93 million people. A country with a history that just befuddled Donald Trump. Bomb him back to the stone age and back comes the speaker of the maj I think it was. Okay, here's a map of us in the stone age. We we encompass the Mediterranean basin, you know, bomb us back to the Stone Age. Thank you very much. I mean, this is absurdity, Danny. And yet, we're witnessing it. And we're witnessing witnessing it from Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and James Madison's republic. Yeah. Well, Dave, uh, and you know, even in the talks about this ceasefire gets more and more ridiculous, uh, and, you know, almost insulting from Donald Trump. You he go he takes the true social and he says all of these things and, and here just completely contradicting. You know, uh, generally when a deal is made, the both sides are are doing their best not to contradict each other. But every time Donald Trump engages and the United States engages in a so-called deal or so-called agreement, um, it always contradicts uh, the other side here. Uh, he's talking about how there's been a productive regime change in Iran. There will be no uranium enrichment. They're going to send B2 bombers uh, to remove all the nuclear dust, quote unquote. Um and uh there will be special surveillance uh uh basically the United States is in control here and and that's that's the messaging of course and it's it's a lot of words and bluster but it it completely contradicts everything that Iran has said and this is where we stand uh in this two weeks. Even the number two weeks is kind of a fixation it seems like of the of Donald Trump and the administration. Yeah. Yeah. That was his initial deadline I think. But he Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's just more signs that this this thing is is going to likely fall apart if it if it hasn't already. And I would expect, you know, one thing I wouldn't be surprised if we see later today is like, oh, if Iran doesn't get its act together, then power plant and bridge day is back on. I'm going to obliterate the country or um you know, unless he got enough because there was a lot of push back from that, especially his threat yesterday when he said an entire civilization will die tonight, right? I mean, it is. I don't know if it gets more barbaric. Um, couldn't have a better better declaration of genocide, couldn't you? Yeah. Maybe the one the thing he said the day earlier that the entire country I forget exactly what he said, but you know, it could take out the entire country in in a night. Um, but yeah, I mean, how how are you not supposed to take that as a nuclear threat, as a genocidal threat? Yeah. And to your point about, you know, the the postw World War II, you know, international law, Geneva Convention, you know, one of the favorite lines of the Zionist of the, you know, super pro-Israel people defending the destruction of Gaza is, "Oh, you guys did it during World War II. You dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Look at Dresden." Like, you really want to. They're pointing to these things to justify what they've done. And it was really interesting that Joe Biden when he was still president, I don't know if he really uh meant to say this publicly, but he said Benjamin Netanyahu said the same thing to him that in one of their talks during, you know, when it was full-scale genocide in Gaza and and when they were just taking out these huge apartment buildings full of women and children that apparently Netanyahu told Biden, "Well, you guys did it in World War II." And um apparently that was a real conversation that happened between the prime minister of Israel and the president of the US. And we've seen a lot of these people like Mark Levvin, I know Tucker Carlson had a a show about this, how Mark Levvin was essentially hinting at, oh, you know, see what happened in Japan after we dropped the nuclear bombs kind of hinting that maybe we should do that in Iran. Um and of course Israel has nuclear weapons, something that's never never talked about. So like these threats are real. You know when when he's saying we could destroy the country or take out all the power plants or whatever. I mean um you know if if this goes sideways which it appears to have already gone sideways and I I think we might see more of those threats and those potential escalations. Yeah. And uh Colonel Wilkerson Abbasarachi has just laid it out very clearly uh that these ceasefire terms are not ambiguous uh uh that the world sees the massacre in Lebanon. The balls in the US court and he directly cites this tweet which this tweet had some uh controversy around it because uh it appeared that there was a draft which seemed to have been handed to him um the prime minister of uh Pakistan. In it, this is what Abbasarachi is sharing. It says that the United States and and Iran have agreed and announced a ceasefire along with allies to include everywhere a ceasefire like such as Lebanon. So, this directly includes Lebanon effective immediately. So, it's right there. I mean, th those were the announced terms, at least what we know of what has been announced. And uh it seems like Donald Trump might have been lying again. Colonel workers in your thoughts. Well, I've always said that the real sore point in all of this, the lever point, if you will, is BB Netanyahu. And I think the ultimate leverage he holds is his own nuclear stockpile. And frankly, I have no doubt in my mind that he would use that stockpile if he felt he were personally and the state of Israel were statewise in existential danger. I have no doubt he would initiate a nuclear exchange. And I say exchange because as you know now and I think Ted Posal is right about this. The Iranians may well have something to send him back in the same regard. Um, I have no doubt that based on my work with the AU Khan network in the early 2000s and the breakup of that network and other things we learned about people participating in that network and in this case particularly North Korea and the Iranians and what they North Koreans taught them not so much nuclear lessons but underground lessons. how to work underground, how to even test a weapon underground without anyone detecting it, which we proved was the possibility that came true. We did not detect their first test. And the only reason we detected the second was because Geneva, the seismic center there, let us know that there was a seismic event in a certain place and we more or less surrounded that certain place, air and other atmospheric testing mechanisms and we detected the second test. So all to say that Iran could be a nuclear power right now or very close to it. all done underground in a very exquisite laboratory that they crafted down there and that is still very much in action and very much working fulltime. Will they take that enriched uranium and match it to a warhead and put it on a crumb shaw or whatever and send it if they have to? I am quite confident they will if BB shoots one or two. And I've said as a military professional, he would be insane to shoot just one or two. In a country the size of Iran with the target array that it presents in terms of underground facilities, you'd probably have to send 35 or 40 of the low kilotonage weapons that the Israelis have in order to do the kind of damage you would militarily be seeking to do. So we're still confronted with that and we're still confronted with this insane man. I think I think that's a fair characterization now in charge of Israel and in charge of these people who do not know what a ceasefire is who kill civilians ruthlessly and by the way kill them 70 80 90 years after we said this won't happen again and we will not allow it to happen again and we're going to build institutions and international laws to keep it from happening again and we're going to be the enforcer and ditto ditto ditto did ditto and now we've destroyed all that and we have in our possession and so do the Russians and the Chinese and six other nuclear weapon states the means to destroy ourselves and we've taken all the treaties down Americans wake up well I don't know I don't know if you guys have heard but there's a new international body that's going to bring peace to the world called the Board of Peace Oh, but that's been completely forgotten. Actually, the arch criminal Tony Blair in charge. Yeah, right. That was like two less than two weeks before he started this war. Trump held his first Board of Peace summit and he actually threatened to to attack Iran during his speech. Right. That was one of the most bizarre things I ever watched because he had all these leaders there like, "Oh, oh, there's diplomats from India and Pakistan. Stand up. You guys had a war. Now it's sol I I solved it." like and it's like making people clap for them. It's just it was so strange. And yeah, it's like it, you know, it's just like we're living through such insanity. Um yeah, and Trump, you know, that's one thing I thought after the the attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Maduro, um that was kind of a turning point after that and kind of Trump's base kind of pretty much lining up to support that. There were a few outliers, but a lot of people said, "Hey, you know, I guess that went well." Um, and then Trump did this interview with the New York Times. I mean, you talk about these uh these constraints on on warfare that were set and kind of just basic morality and they they asked him like, "Do you care about international law? What's stopping you? What's constraining you?" And Trump said, "My own morality is the only thing I have to worry about." We're in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. I remember reading that and like it was right after the the Venezuela thing. I was like, man, this this is not going to end well, this whole thing. Yeah. Well, uh your comments on this, uh there's also a report that as this is all going on, uh Iran is still asserting its control over the state of Hormuz to such a degree that it's even reporting by this is from the Financial Times that they're going to charge$1 US per uh barrel of oil that's on these tankers. So, I guess the average tanker is 2 million. So uh so so uh empty vessels can go through but if you're loaded up with oil then you have to pay that $1 toll or and to be paid through cryptocurrency. Now that's the report before it was Chinese UN uh Colonel War. I mean how this was the sticking point for the United States uh really was what impact Iran's control of the straight of horm of course uh US dominance. uh this doesn't seem like it's changing and so uh that begs the question as to what that will mean. Well, it's not anything new really if you look at it. The Panama Canal charges, the Suez Canal charges, the straight of moose would charge. I would love to go back and dig into the details of the law of the sea treaty which about twothirds if not more of the world has signed up to. Um, we adhere to it, but and our freedom of navigation exercises are based on it, but we've never put it before the Senate. We tried to, Secretary Powell tried to and got rebuffed by the Senate saying there's no way they get a twothirds vote. And this is all because of big companies, big corporations which want to mine the seafloor and want to go down and get oil out of the seafloor at enormous depths. think Deep Horizon for example. Um and so their lobbying power has kept us from even bringing it up in the Senate. But they deal very exquisitely with internal seas with fjords with straits in particular like the straits of Malaa like the straight of Hormuz like the Babel Manddev. So I'm wondering why have we grown so old that we don't remember what we did? No one has brought the sea law the sea treaty up and said what does it say about the straight of Hormuz? What does it say about the Babel Mandep? What does it say about other places? Does it does it allow territorial waters to overlap in the sense that you can charge for progress through those waters? Or does it say that it doesn't matter how narrow the straight is? It doesn't matter if the 12mi limit in the law of the sea treaty overlaps and doesn't accommodate the straight in other words depicts it as a territorial water of the country on either side. It says international water where ships fly that straight whether it's a mile or two miles or whatever international water. Now can you charge for that? All of this to say that we have the guidance we need to deal with all the straits in the world with all the internal seas and such territorial waters, economic zones, all these things we have carefully laid out and that we spend billions of dollars enforcing around the world with our freedom of navigation exercises and other things like that and that we throw in the face of the Chinese in the South China Sea. Where is it and who's talking about it? I'll tell you where it is. It's where all international law is. It's where the ICJ is, the IC. It's dead. And who killed it? Washington killed it. Yeah, Dave, please uh jump in. Yeah, I mean, I would say that uh point to me seems like a good compromise. I believe Iran's initial demand was reparations from the US for so they can rebuild for money for reconstruction and that the new point says uh that they'll charge this fee um split it with Oman so it wouldn't all go to Iran but then that money goes toward the the reconstruction of the country that was attacked you know in an illegal war. So it seems to me like it like it makes sense. Um and now would this be an indefinite arrangement? I mean that's that's when you know you know they would probably get into the details if there was a real deal about how long this fee would be implemented or or or not but uh to me I mean it seems like you know if if there's a real deal to be made I think this is something like that is going to be be included. Well, there just uh Carolyn Levis, spokesperson of the Trump administration uh just came up and uh said this. So, we can we can definitely uh I think uh conclude on on this because you know it just there seems to be nothing about the the Trump administration but really uh the entirety of the empire at this point that is can be taken seriously other than its brutality. Here is what Karen Lev had to say about the 10-point plan. Essentially, Iran's 10-point plan was thrown in the trash. Here she goes. Already, so let me be clear and correct the record. The Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team. Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that plan as being acceptable to the United States, and that is false. With the president's deadline fast approaching and the United States military completely decimating Iran with each passing hour, the regime acknowledged reality to the negotiating team. They put forward a more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the president and his team. President Trump and the team determined the new modified plan was a workable basis on which to negotiate and to align align it with our own 15-point proposal. The president's red lines, namely the end of Iranian enrichment in Iran, have not changed. And the idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wish list as a deal is completely absurd. So, uh, let's begin with not what Trump said. I just I do believe any of this because ultimately what we have it seems like is a ceasefire football. They're just uh it just they're just passing it around and and each one of them is saying something different even within the Trump administration. So, uh do you believe any of this? I I mean, of course, the United States being the so-called exceptional hegeimone, can't ever admit defeat, can't ever admit that things aren't going well. Um, uh, with talk like this, but is there any fact here, Colonel Wilkerson, and then to you? Well, I think I I think you have to go back if what we have those of us who've been sort of privy to some information from the inside with respect to the latest US military operations in Iran. You have to go back and see what a resounding defeat that was in terms of the C130JS, in terms of the Little Birds, in terms of the Blackhawks, in terms of what we're told is every Iranian in the vicinity came out with a shotgun, a rifle or whatever. And those are fairly prolific in Iran and took pot shots at them. and the disaster that occurred not just because of that. Think Eagleclaw, Jimmy Carter, and the attempt to rescue the hostages back in what was it 77 or 78 or so. And the disaster that was that was a disaster brought on by other factors. This was a disaster brought on by hubris, by particular hubris in secretary hegat and by particular hubris in Donald Trump which I think he has had dented a little bit now because of the casualties taken and we don't even know what the human casualties were yet. We know there were some, but we know that was a disaster. And that sort of portrays what would happen if we tried even a special operation. Even if we tried a large special operation, even if we tried Marines and others, more typical ground forces in Iran, they would be ultimately destroyed. Um, they'd be consumed by that vast country and that vast population. So that was a reality check I think for the Pentagon and a reinforcement of what I understand was even an Air Force chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff objections to what they were planning on doing. So take that for a moment as a kick in the butt, if you will, and then say, "What are we going to do from here? What's going to happen going forward?" Even if Carolyn Levit is right and she just contradicted her president almost every point and we are going into some kind of negotiations that will be ultimately fouled 47 minutesimmediately because we aren't anywhere near each other in terms of the points. What do we do? Where do we go? And then I haven't even brought about brought up Lebanon which Iran has said we're going to keep pounding you Israel until you stop in Lebanon and maybe we'll keep pounding you even then if we like to. So, I don't think we've solved much here. I really don't. Sync to video time
Escalation Trap, The Trap Trump Cannot Easily Escape. Why avoiding escalation now may still produce a historic strategic defeat—and what to watch next by Prof Robert Pape Apr 09, 2026 https://substack.com/home/post/p-193671046
Many people believe Donald Trump will avoid further escalation.
That misunderstands the situation.
The real danger is not what he wants to do.
It is the structure of the choices now in front of him—exactly what I will discuss and the indicators to watch going forward at tonight’s live video briefing, 6pm CT (7pm ET).
1. He is already inside the trap
Trump is not deciding whether to escalate.
He has already climbed the ladder.
—Initial strikes failed to coerce.
—Iran absorbed the pressure and adapted.
Now the choice is no longer escalation versus restraint.
It is escalation versus visible defeat.
And each prior step makes that second option more costly.
2. The trap narrows over time
Escalation traps are not about intent.
They are about constraint.
Each failed move raises the stakes:
• politically • strategically • psychologically
So even if Trump prefers to stop, the cost of stopping keeps rising.
Not because he wants to escalate—
but because the alternative becomes harder to accept.
3. “He can just stop”
In theory, yes.
In practice, stopping means acknowledging that escalation achieved nothing.
It means deliberately absorbing permanent reputational damage after raising expectations.
For any leader—especially one who has publicly escalated—that is not neutral.
It is costly.
4. The real decision point is still ahead
The true break comes at Stage 3:
Ground operations.
That is the point where:
• airpower has failed • objectives remain unmet • deeper commitment becomes the only path to “success”
Crossing that threshold transforms the conflict into a protracted war of attrition.
5. The illusion of restraint
It is possible Trump stops short of ground war. But that would not mean he escaped the trap.
It would mean he accepted its outcome.
And that outcome is not static.
Over the coming months, Iran would consolidate its position:
• retaining nuclear material • advancing toward working weapons • leveraging its influence over global energy flows
The result would be the emergence of a fourth center of world power.
A nuclear-capable state with systemic influence over the global economy.
That is not restraint.
That is a structural shift.
And politically, it will be seen as a major strategic defeat—one that rivals or exceeds the long-term consequences of Vietnam or Afghanistan.
6. What happens next
The next phase will not be decided by statements.
It will be decided by signals.
Three in particular:
• Movement toward U.S. ground force positioning • Whether Hormuz operates under Iranian permission or disruption • Changes in Iran’s nuclear posture and rhetoric
These indicators will tell us—before headlines—whether the system is moving toward deeper escalation or the consolidation of Iranian power.
7. Why this matters now
We are not watching a moment.
We are watching decisions under pressure.
And the choices ahead are narrowing.
This is exactly what I’ll walk through in detail in tonight’s live briefing.
Not just what has happened—
but what to watch, and what it means, in real time.
Paid subscribers receive the live link 15 minutes before we begin.
*************************
The Escalation Trap Has Already Closed. Why avoiding escalation now may still produce a historic strategic defeat—and what to watch next by Prof Robert Pape Apr 09, 2026 https://substack.com/home/post/p-193670159
Many people believe Donald Trump will avoid further escalation.
That misunderstands the situation.
The real danger is not what he wants to do.
It is the structure of the choices now in front of him—exactly what I will discuss and the indicators for how to see this coming at today’s live video briefing, 6pm CT (7pm ET).
1. He is already inside the trap
Trump is not deciding whether to escalate.
He has already climbed the ladder.
—Initial strikes failed to coerce.
—Iran absorbed the pressure and adapted.
Now the choice is no longer escalation versus restraint.
It is escalation versus visible defeat.
And each prior step makes that second option more costly.
2. The trap narrows over time
Escalation traps are not about intent. They are about constraint.
Each failed move raises the stakes:
• politically • strategically • psychologically
So even if Trump prefers to stop, the cost of stopping keeps rising.
Not because he wants to escalate—
but because the alternative becomes harder to accept.
3. “He can just stop”
In theory, yes.
In practice, stopping means acknowledging that escalation achieved nothing.
It means deliberately absorbing permanent reputational damage after raising expectations.
For any leader—especially one who has publicly escalated—that is not neutral.
It is costly.
4. The real decision point is still ahead
The true break comes at Stage 3:
Ground operations. That is the point where:
• airpower has failed • objectives remain unmet • deeper commitment becomes the only path to “success”
Crossing that threshold transforms the conflict into a protracted war of attrition.
5. The illusion of restraint
It is possible Trump stops short of ground war. But that would not mean he escaped the trap.
It would mean he accepted its outcome. And that outcome is not static.
Over the coming months, Iran would consolidate its position:
• retaining nuclear material • advancing toward working weapons • leveraging its influence over global energy flows
The result would be the emergence of a fourth center of world power.
A nuclear-capable state with systemic influence over the global economy.
That is not restraint. That is a structural shift.
And politically, it will be seen as a major strategic defeat—one that rivals or exceeds the long-term consequences of Vietnam or Afghanistan.
6. What happens next
The next phase will not be decided by statements.
It will be decided by signals.
Three in particular:
• Movement toward U.S. ground force positioning • Whether Hormuz operates under Iranian permission or disruption • Changes in Iran’s nuclear posture and rhetoric
These indicators will tell us—before headlines—whether the system is moving toward deeper escalation or the consolidation of Iranian power.
7. Why this matters now
We are not watching a moment.
We are watching a system under pressure.
And the choices ahead are narrowing.
This is exactly what I’ll walk through in detail in tonight’s live briefing.
Not just what has happened—
but what to watch, and what it means, in real time.
Alex Krainer: Iran CLOSES Strait of Hormuz Again – Trump’s Lebanon Position SLAMMED Dialogue Works Streamed live 3 hours ago
Transcript
Hi everybody. Today's Thursday, April 9th, 2026 and our dear friend or brother Alex Trainer here with Welcome back, Alex. Good to be with you again, Nema. Warm greetings to everyone out there. Alex, I know that you follow what's going on with the case of the war between the United States and Iran. I I I don't mention any detail considering that. I want to know what is your understanding? What do you make of what has happened so far with the ceasefire and the details or the difficulties around the ceasefire? Well, it appears that it was the Trump administration that was asking for a ceasefire and uh initially there they were apparently asking for a 45day ceasefire and the Iranians were not interested in any kind of a ceasefire at all because they have been insisting since the beginning of this war that uh they want a permanent peace and they want to remove the the causes of the conflict. It's understandable also the that Iranians since they've been this this war has been forced on them that they want to uh take advantage now that their whole nation has kind of come together backing the government that they want to take advantage of this moment to remove all the causes of not not conflict but also you know we have to remember that Iran has been harassed by Western colonial powers for over 120 years now and this has prevented the Iranian society and their economy from developing to their full potential. It has also caused the it's distorted the political process also to the extent that you know if you're a if you're if your country is under siege constantly then the political power has to be um more repressive than it would like to be normally because you're constantly dealing with internal and external enemies with threats to your society, threats of terror, threats of sabotage, threats of overthrow and color revolutions and so forth. So it it it it requires a certain vigilance that ends up causing limitations to freedom and limitations to freedom ultimately end up being limitations to uh economic initiative, innovation, development, participation with uh in trade with other nations and so forth. because all of those all of those things end up being openings for a for a for for a for for a threat. And so this moment might be extremely extremely important to to the Iranian government which is why I think they cannot back back down and they cannot allow a return to the status quo. It's easy to imagine that, you know, a 45day uh ceasefire for the American and Israeli side would be a welcome breather. It would allow them to regroup and rearm and bring back more of their, you know, uh interceptor missiles and and and everything they need to refresh their attack on Iran. But this is this is not um this is not a good thing for Iran. So it's obvious why they would be reluctant and why the American side would be eager. Um, yesterday I I wrote about this in my in my report and kind of as I was writing my report and looking into particular issues of the situation, I came to the conclusion that there's very very little likelihood that this ceasefire is going to hold at all. And before I hit send on my on my report, I just went on X to to see the latest development. And already it was I think it was by about after the ceasefire was announced. Already we saw that it was unraveling that that the Israelis said, "No, we don't recognize the ceasefire." With regards to Lebanon, they launched a massive bombing campaign against against Beirut, um the Americans started um already kind of equivocating like, "No, it's not the Iranian 10 points, it's our 15 points." Uh no, nobody ever mentioned Lebanon. We don't know what the Iranians are talking about and so forth. Um so we'll see what happens but I think that uh this ceasefire is extremely fragile. Um we know that the Americans are largely agreement incapable that they will breach any commitment as soon as it becomes expedient for them to do so. Let's not even mention Israel. they, you know, they just do whatever they want to do. It doesn't matter uh who thinks what about this this to I think that we have to go back to the to the fundamentals. Uh right now, if you follow the day-to-day news, you might think that this conflict is about the Iranians nuclear program, that it's about their ballistic missiles, that it's about the repressive regimes of the of the fanatical uh clerics in Tehran and and about the freedom of women and girls in in Israel in in Iran and all these things. But it really is not. It's it's the these are all just simply pretexts. the the cause, the fundamental cause of the conflict is um it brings us back to the geopolitics 7 minutesof the empire and their imperative of dominating the Eurasian landmass and Iran is and has been for decades one of the main obstacles to the empire's hegemony over the western in Asia. And so they've been salivating over the prospect of regime changing it and installing a a similar puppet regime as they have in other Arab countries in Thran so that uh the wealth of Iran could become their collateral. And we have to remember that Iran is estimated to be the fifth or sixth wealthiest nation in the world in term of in terms of natural resources. Uh they have 92 plus million population which is not irrelevant because all those resources will not just extract themselves. You need to enslave a large population to do that. And you know when I say enslave of course you know in the west we we talk about bringing jobs but uh usually these are not very highpaying jobs and usually uh colonized countries are not prosperous and wealthy. Um and then Iran is a major major element of of uh um enabling uh to expand this hegemony to to other parts of the of the Eurasian landmass. This is the ultimate fundamental reason for Western desire to regime change Iran. And this will not change. It doesn't matter if the current government in in Iran gives up their nuclear program, gives up their missile program, uh allows all women in in Iran to open uh Only Fans accounts and wear miniskirts. Uh if if Iran conceded on all those points, it still wouldn't change the situation. they would still want the a a regime change or else they will want the government to completely succumb to the western dictat. And what does that mean? That means that for example uh if if Iran wanted to have a peaceful nuclear program for generating electricity that the government should award those contracts to like let's say Westinghouse and then Westinghouse would build them nuclear power plants. No problem except that every kilowatt hour of Westinghouse's um uh nuclear power would cost five times what a similar Chinesebuilt power plant would cost. This is a fact. But it doesn't matter. It's it's you know Westinghouse would pay for those for building those uh power plants with loans taking out from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Cityroup, similar you know financial institutions which would mean that the repayment of those loans would come out of ultimately out of the pockets of the Iranian people. So the price that they pay for electricity, nobody in the west cares about that, you know, whether it should be competitive or not competitive so long as the wealth of Iran uh is extracted westwards to the city of London or Wall Street. Uh this is the ultimate cause of war and it brings us back to the you know slogan that all all wars are bankers wars. This is literally the truth. This is literally the ultimate uh incentive for the wars that we see not just against Iran but also against Russia and in the near future probably if Iran falls against China. Yeah. Alex when it comes focusing a little bit on the details of what is happening with the ceasefire you mentioned there are various negative points right now in terms of the ceasefire. One of them is the case of Lebanon and you know first they said that Lebanon going to be part of the the deal then JD Vance even JD Vance yesterday he said that it was a misunderstanding on the part of you know Iranians and but the reality is you know as here you see New York Times reported the text that was you know posted by Pakistani 12 minutesprime minister it was written, it was managed, was shaped by pe by the people in Washington. And it's not just about looking at this and he mentioned that in that tweet that including Lebanon and elsewhere, not only Lebanon and look at this, right? You know, it says draft dash Pakistani prime minister message on X. you know, he just he copied and pasted the same message that he received from Washington. No, it's it's just unbelievable how you see JD Vans trying to I don't know what is his understanding of the negotiations with Iranians because they have they don't have a good history of negotiations. They attack Iran two times while negotiating with Iranians and he tries to do the same. And how do you see the way that they're trying to make their case before you know the negotiations happening in Pakistan? Well, if I wanted to be charitable to the Trump Trump administration, which you know I I I'm not so inclined since 28th February, but if I wanted to be charitable, I could say that they, you know, they have to spin this in a way that doesn't look like a strategic defeat. So they have to pretend that they are imposing terms that they're defining, you know, like the that that they're defining the framework for negotiations that the Iranians basically uh got this ceasefire because they were begging for it and and so forth because in the in if if what uh the Pakistani prime minister is saying were true. It it makes it obvious that it's the United that it's it's inverse that the United States is the supplicant and that the Iranians are dictating the terms. And so JD Vance obviously has to uh be in line with the administration's messaging and that unfortunately uh makes it quite obvious that they are uh that they're being deceptive about this that they're uh deceiving the public. Uh but in all I think it lowers everybody's expectations from these from these negotiations. Um, I think that the Iranians for the sake of history have to give every goodwill uh gesture that they will end the hostilities if that's possible. So you know that when when the history of this episode is written, nobody can say, "Well, no, the Iranians actually wanted war. They favored war. They they were completely shut off to every uh peace initiative. So they had to see the negotions through to the end. they have to come to the point where uh the other side um let's say that the responsibility for the outcome uh can be clearly attached to their to their adversaries and then the conflict continues and unfortunately I think that the conflict will continue because uh the west unfortunately will not give up uh their um dreams of hegemony over the over the region and they will do everything to uh to try to weaken, sabotage and take down the Iranian government. Yeah, I think Alex what has been yesterday we've learned that Iran going to attack in the aftermath of attacking that massive attack on Lebanon. They killed many civilians by the way, kids. And but Iran has decided to attack last night. Then at the final moment, they have decided not to go along with that plan to attack Israel because they they still want to see if they can get it through negotiations with the United States with JD Vance. Don't you think? I think JD Vance has everything to lose in this game. He's just he has a losing hand right now. He doesn't have the opportunity for the 2028. He can do something about it. He can change the course. He can change everything for his future. And how do you see JD Vance as a as the vice president of the United States? Are we going to see, as our friend John Helmer put it, are we going to see the Christian faction somehow, you know, showing something else, some sort of leverage over the Jewish faction in Washington? Well, I don't know. I don't have very high expectations. You know, JD Vance has been presented to us as uh as the good guy in the Trump administration. And you know he's made some really nice speeches particularly with regards to uh values like freedom of speech. U he has you know reprimanded European leaders about uh infringing on uh our you know civil rights and free speech and so forth. So that all looked very good. But you know we we have to appreciate that the United States is a Christian faction. The whole country is a fre Christian faction. But nevertheless, it has proven itself to be um completely beholden to the Zionist project. And there doesn't seem to be any political uh faction strong enough to um to really assert the principle of America first. And when push comes to shove, it's always Israel first. Uh I was, you know, I was quite shocked a few weeks ago. I was watching a clip on YouTube or, you know, one of the social media where some freelancer went into the into the US Congress and kind of walked through the halls and randomly asked congressman and staffers, uh, America first or Israel first. And not even a single one of them said America first. One of them actually said Israel first, but not a single one of them would say absolutely America first. I mean there's they're supposedly uh representatives of the American people. But it seems that there's such a fear of um of Israel and and and Apac and and and you know Israeli interests in on the capital that nobody dares even say America first. And then we see that when Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the US Congress and gives a speech, it doesn't even matter what he says. they all give him a hundred standing ovations, you know, it's it's it's it's actually quite surprising. And so I I don't think that uh JD Vance is in any ways exempted from from this. And I don't see how this Zionist project fails other than failing by force, failing by the force of arms, being uh destroyed by military force. And I think that the only military force that's capable of doing this is Iran. And uh you know, we're going to find out because I think that Iran hasn't played all its cards yet. Far from it. I think that the axis of resistance has been jolted back to life. I think that it's today stronger than it's been in the past. And I think that this wave is gathering strength. You know, I I we can't predict what's going to happen, but uh all of these atrocities that Israel is committing uh have their effect. You know, there's there's always a reaction to every action. And when you p push desperate people far enough into the corner, then they lash back. And I think that this is coming. Uh Israel is a very small country. Uh it's got what like 8 n million population of which only half are Jews and it's surrounded by hundreds of millions of of uh of Muslims. This this looks extremely bad. And then Israel is completely 100% dependent for its security for its Western allies like the United States and and and NATO and Great Britain. And we are seeing these powers prove themselves to be paper tigers. I mean the the future doesn't look good for Israel. It's it's uh it's I I don't see any light at the end of this tunnel other than, you know, an oncoming train and a massive train wreck coming Israel's way. Yeah, Alex, the problem is with the ceasefire, with the continuation of the war is that how Donald Trump and his administration going to manage the economy because the economy is under the pressure because of what's going on with Isra and this the reality is not going to change if they you know yesterday when the Israel attacked Lebanon Iran said the straight is closed again and that's not that is a huge leverage on the part of Iranian when it comes to put putting pressure on Donald Trump and these GCC countries and that's not going to be removed from the scene from the calculation and how is that going to work out for Donald Trump if he decides not to negotiate in a good faith but you know somehow deceiving the people or 23 minutestrying to drag on the conflict or continue the for uh it's not going to go well for sure. I I think there's a 100% probability that the United States, but also other Western countries are going to uh have a severe crisis of stagflation, meaning economic stagnation coupled with uh rising price inflation. And uh you know this this could become a very very severe crisis. Uh maybe the United States has a better maneuvering space uh to engineer maybe a softer landing, but for the economies of Europe uh and and Great Britain and Japan uh South Korea probably uh the crisis is going to be very severe and the inflation I think there's no way uh of avoiding this. I think that the closure of the straight of hormuz is uh just merely a catalyst that will accelerate these tendencies. But the actual causes uh is the the the cause of this inflation is the overhang of unpayable debts that all western economies are now sinking into. Uh so the United States has a a national debt, the public debt that that is approaching $40 trillion. Um that's just the public debt of the federal government. When you add state and local government debts, when you add private debts, you know, households, corporates, financials, uh it it it gets beyond $120 trillion. Uh this is this is an absurd amount of money. It's it's completely unpayable. So it it forces the government and the monetary authorities, the Federal Reserve, uh to backs stop the the bad debts because most of these debts are are never going to be paid. to backs stop them with uh money printed out of thin air. Meaning basically they have to monetize monetize the debt which means that you need to print more and more and more money uh to cover up all these holes. And uh with every dollar you print out of thin air, you're diluting the purchasing power of the dollars that are in in circulation. So over time uh you destroy the currency and you can you you can sense that the uh that the people in Trump administration are very well aware of this problem because Trump is already talking about having to completely change the the the monetary foundation of the economy that they need to switch to um cryptocurrencies uh that the dollar you know has to be taken out of circulation and so forth because they they understand that this is a massive vulnerability. So what's going to happen at some point is that the dollar is going to be uh withdrawn from circulation and that a different a new different currency is going to replace it and then probably uh a lot of investors, a lot of bond holders are going to be having to take a major haircut. uh meaning that they're going to lose uh a lot of their wealth and uh the game restarts from a blank slate. Meaning, you know, uh the new money might come into circulation either debtree or with with much less debt debt attached to it. And then you get um then you get another another period where you can push new credit cycles and hopefully uh revamp the economy, repair the repair the infrastructure, reindustrial the economy and so forth. So I think that that that is the uh that is the agenda in broad brush strokes of the of the Trump administration. I can't tell you what the agenda is for European governments and for the British government because it seems to me that everything they do, they're making things worse and I think that their only plan is war. 28 minutesI I I I don't see them, you know, they talk about competitiveness. K Starmer every so often he he talks about putting more money into the pockets of the British people, but everything he does takes more money out of the pockets of the British people. And now, you know, you have more social pressures that are going to erupt, that are going to become social uprisings. And then you know if you if you listen to specialists uh they're saying that a civil war in Europe is inevitable at this point. How does that happen? I don't know. But these things tend to happen at unpredictable junctures for sometimes even reasons that nobody could have predicted. you know, um, some church gets burned down or, uh, some pupil dies in some school for some stupid reason and then, you know, the the discontent overflows and there's no taking it back, you know, like it it becomes like an avalanche and and nothing can stop it. So, we are, you know, unfortunately we're in uncharted waters, but what can be predicted today with certainty is stagflation. economic stagnation with with rising levels of inflation. And you know, you go go back to Lenin who said that there's no there's no more certain way of uh destroying the foundation of society than inflation. That's not an exact quote, but it's pretty much that. And and at least in this one thing, Lenin was was very correct. you you you have to if you go back to 1991 uh and uh how things played out in the Soviet Union or uh you go back to 1922 uh the German Vimemer Republic you can get a sense of the social collapse that is ahead of us and I don't think that uh there's any possibility of us avoiding that outcome. There there is a lot to be learned, Alex, in the conflict in Ukraine, in the war in Ukraine and in the war in the Middle East because anything the United States touches in terms of going militarily and fighting militarily, the enemy is turning to be a drastic, you know, sort of change and making new problems for the United States in a long run. the war in Ukraine was the same and it's a it's a huge problem I think for the United States right now and the war right now the war that is happening in the Middle East with Iran there was no problem with this rate of foremost before this war started right now everybody's talking about the straight of foremost this is the real issue right now who did this problem who made this problem it was the United States Iran wasn't talking about this trade foremost before this war happened. So this is the problem that the United States by itself is making is not the problem that Russia has made or Iran is trying to make. And one part of what is happening is how the United States sees itself as time goes by. And those people who voted for Donald Trump didn't want it. They didn't want a new Ukraine. That's why you see Tucker Carlson is talking about what about the American people? What about what's going on here in the United States? Here is what Tucker Carlson said, Alex. So any leader whose focus is outward rather than on his own country is going to be a bad leader. And this is the core problem with maintaining a global empire. You are never going to find a leader. You will never find an American president who is more interested in governing America than he is in governing the world. And honestly, would you be? What job would you rather have? King of the world. The world. King of the world. Colossus a stride. Here I am. I'm king of the world. I'm making all the decisions. I'm going to eliminate your civilization for breakfast. I'm going to overturn your economy for lunch. And tonight we may have operation eternal darkness. I mean, there's an appeal to the megalomaniac to all of them. It's not just this one. It's all of them. That is irresistible to leaders. I run the world. Now, running America, by contrast, is hard and messy. And you know, a lot of the people, you're going to make them mad. You go to war with the Houthies, people don't know what a Houthi is. They're never going to meet a Houthi. There's no cost to you whatsoever. Yeah. I think it shows that how the United States as an empire has reached to its limits. That was shown. We've seen that with the latest operation on Iranian soil which they were trying to make a new case that it was a huge su it it was a successful operation in Iran. It was you know to save one of the pilots of F-15E and we know that wasn't the case. it was something else and it shows how what are the limits of the American empire they cannot go beyond that yeah absolutely and I think that Tucker's uh commentary is is very good very succin succinct succinct uh about this I I couldn't agree more. You see the thing is that empires always have their limitations. 34 minutesWe have a long history of this always being the case and they always collapse. And the reason that they collapse is because the benefits of empire to its vested interests are always far outweighed by the costs of maintaining the empire to the whole society of the let's call it imperial power which in which those interests are based. Uh so this is this is a well-known thing and with respect to the uh quote unquote American empire today this was well understood by let's say sober competent people inside the United States government which is why you know we know from uh people like Wesley Clark that Iranian regime change was due within 2006. So the plan was to regime change Iran within uh the year 2006. Uh but nobody dared to do it because based on so many reports uh assessments um uh analysis of the of the situation in the Middle East. They understood that the likelihood of defeating Iran or regime changing it are very very low and would probably have catastrophic consequences. And in fact, knowing all that is why I was very convinced until almost the very end that Trump would never dare pull the trigger because it seemed so incredibly dumb. very little upside, very little potential for success and huge downside with consequences you couldn't even envision because they were they were certain to kind of acrue and and grow and compound. Nevertheless, he went and did it. And so given that all these things are known ahead of events and I mean even even you know General McKenzie who is the former commander of Sentcom he wrote a report I think just a few weeks or a few months before the war in Iran in which he's saying we are very very vulnerable the way we geographically spaced out our our military bases makes us extremely vulnerable to Iranian counterattacks. Do you think that the Iranians were not aware of this that they were not going to first thing they would do would take advantage of all of those vulnerabilities and punish their attackers which is exactly what happened. So all of this was predictable. All of it could have been predicted and and was predicted. But nevertheless, Trump went ahead and pulled the trigger. And if it wasn't Trump, it would have been Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, JD Vance, it doesn't matter whoever. And so what we have to ask ourselves is what are the incentives that make this imperial collapse almost inevitable? Meaning that the that the people who are closest to the levels of power in the empire will not hesitate to completely destroy their host nation in order to try to achieve their imperial goals even when they're extremely unlikely. And the only answer that I can offer is that those vested interests are uh the leading banking families who are doing it because their financial system is imploding on itself. And it will collapse unless they can win political control over new colonies in order to bring fresh money good collateral in order to reflow their fraudulent Ponzi scheme monetary system. And so, you know, they are wealthy enough, powerful enough to be able to buy all the politicians that ostensibly represent the people in in a democracy. They're able to buy up all the uh media companies. And we've just seen this happen in the very recent times with, you know, Larry Allison and other Zionist uh billionaires rushing out to buy uh Tik Tok and CBS News and and and I don't know what else in order to be able to craft the narrative, in order to be able to deceive the host nations into backing their agenda. And then the result ultimately, you know, if you if you succeed with Ukraine, uh, fine, move on to the next target. If you succeed with Russia, fine, move next next target. Uh, Iran, next target. China. Well, all of these military misadventures weaken the empire little by little. And then you have to rely on proxy forces. And the proxy forces are mercenaries. They they have no loyalty to you. somebody can pay them more, they'll turn against you just as easily. And so it eventually the imperial power breaks its teeth and then there's no going back from there. And so I think that the the current Western American Empire has reached that moment with Iran as have many empires in the past. Iran is known as the graveyard of empires. And I think that we are now watching this history unfold in real time. And I think that uh only a miracle could restore the United States to the influence in Western Asia that it had on 28th February. But I think that the ultimate outcome will be complete eviction of not only United States but also other western interests from West Asia. the decision on the part of the United States. I think Alex if we simplify that I it's it's it's a gigantic you know issue but if we simplify that it would be American empire the expansion of the American empire when it comes to the Eurasia when it comes to the west you know to to the Middle East to the west Asia and or dropping that sort of agenda dropping the agenda of expansion dropping the agenda of Israel as they want to you know dominate the hole they from the you know you know from the territory that day goes to the borders of Iran. It's it's a huge territory when you look at the agenda on the part of Israelis and I don't see Donald Trump or anybody in the United States being able to do anything about it. But after all, how do you see the decision on their part? Are they going to change the course? Are they going to change? Because the dollar, the dominance of dollar is just fading away. It's just not there anymore. And Donald Trump knows that and he tries to do everything to diminish the the outcome of these wars to influence the power of dollar and it if he wants to go there, he needs to understand you know the agenda. He needs to change the course. Do you see that happening? Uh no I don't unfortunately you know I think that in order for that to happen you would have to disenfranchise these very powerful interests that are ultimately determining the foreign policy of the United States and uh you know these are the same interests that have the whole US Congress you know cowering in fear of of the of the Zionists you know where they don't dare to say America first um somehow they have they enjoy complete impunity in the American society. They cannot be held accountable for anything. Uh we've seen that one of these bankers and you know he's just a he's just a managerial class banker Jess Stali was caught in the Epstein files with compromat should at the very least warrant an investigation against him. and you know like in a in a very very ligious society like the United States there should be a hail storm of of lawsuits against him but obviously he he's a free man he has nothing to worry about we've also seen in 2012 that HSBC got caught um laundering almost 900 you know proven almost $900 million for the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. Uh they got a parking ticket for it. You know, they got caught, it was proven, it was proven that part of that money was used to finance terrorist organizations in other parts of the world. They got a parking ticket which amounted to uh something between two and 5% of their 2012 revenues. Nobody went to prison. Even though according to American laws, I think about 30 top level executives of HSBC in the United States should have gone to prison. Nobody did. Uh the the bank got to dictate its own deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice under Obama, you know, Eric Holder. And the whole affair was forgotten. you know, they got a a five-year deferral during which, you know, they were supposed to not break any laws and then everything would be fine and uh everybody lives happily ever after. And this is exactly what happened. So they enjoy complete impunity. They can do whatever they want. They continue to do whatever they want. uh they are uh you know they they manage all manner of organized crime around the world not just you know Mexican cartels but uh basically all of them and this is the power that has the whole political class uh trembling in fear from them. you would have to disenfranchise them somehow. And to disenfranchise them, you would have to completely overhaul the monetary system to to change it so that they don't have a way to become the dominant force in society, which they are. And uh I was sincerely hopeful that Donald Trump and his government would be able to at least begin the process of disenfranchising them, start to bring white collar crime to justice. And then you know since the US dollar uh will fail that's a mathematical fact that they would take advantage of the opportunity uh to to change the system. You know this can be done it has been done but it requires a lot of political will and a lot of political capital and I don't see it in the United States. I don't see where that that should come from. Uh we had an example in in Russia uh when Vladimir Putin came to power. Russia was completely dominated by a group of seven bankers. It was called Sebanka. These were like the seven dominant oligarchs that ran the Russian society that practically destroyed Russia. you know um they they are you know they would be the dream custodians of a society of the western for for western interests you know if they could have that kind of oligarchy installed in power in Thran uh they would be they would be winning the game uh at the time you know when Vladimir Putin came to power the average salary in Russia was literally about $56 per month you know talk about enslaving the population But you know, uh, very early into his, uh, into his presidential mandate, Vladimir Putin lined up all these oligarchs, and he told them, "New rules of the game. Uh, you you folks get to keep your businesses. You can continue to run them, profit from them, but you have to pay your taxes correctly. You have to treat your employees correctly, and you have to stay out of politics." Meaning, uh, you're you take care of business, I take care of politics and then you know Putin is accountable to the people. Oligarchs are accountable to themselves. And so you know this was a this was a rough transition. Uh there were numerous court cases where these oligarchs tried to challenge the government. They all lost. One of them, Mikall Korovski, who was the representative of Rothschild's interests in in Russia, ended up in prison for 9 years. It wasn't the prison sentence wasn't over his actual crime, which included murder. The prison sentence was over tax evasion. But it doesn't matter, you know, uh, Al Capone was was imprisoned for tax evasion, but he was put away. And that was the signal to all the other oligarchs. Uh, look folks, we mean it. Take care of your business, enjoy life, but stay out of politics. And you know, after a while, these oligarchs had to make peace with the fact that they don't run the country. They're wealthy. They can enjoy life. They can do all kinds of things with their wealth, but they cannot run the country. So that kind of a transition is due for the United States, for the United Kingdom, for Western Europe. But I don't see where the political capital for that kind of a transition could could possibly come from. Again, you know, I was very hopeful about uh Trump's administration because he had this massive uh public support. He was making all the rounds right sounds in the beginning. You know, he even explicitly said in one of his uh campaign speeches, he called for the people to join him in the in the I mean, I don't remember the exact quote, but it was exactly what was due. He was saying, "Join me in the final battle against the financial oligarchy or something like that." It was exactly the correct message. And I thought, all right, uh, the fact that he said this tells me that he understands the source of the problem and that he will address it if he becomes president. But I think that with the attack on Iran, he has irreparably damaged himself. He has jeopardized everything else he might have changed and he made he made himself impeachable. He made himself impeachable in a way that his impeachment at this point would be a slam dunk. It's not one of those longshot things that they attempted between 2017 and and 2025. Now he's at law a war criminal. And it means that everything that he might have tried to do, even if he meant it sincerely, uh, is now jeopardized and probably out of reach. He's he's completely with an attack against Iran, with with this attack against Iran, he's completely squandered uh almost all of his political capital. Alex, where do you see Europe as time goes by with, you know, the outcome of what has happened in the Middle East is somehow showing that nuclear bombs are not game changer anymore. Russia shown that before with arnic missile, a conventional weapon that can be used without using you know massive casualty in any sort of you know battlefield against if something goes wrong with the case of Ukraine and Russia is not interested to expand the war with Europeans. Everybody knows that it doesn't matter how Europe is trying to picture Russia that they're going to march toward Berlin and you know and the same is happening in the Middle East. American bases didn't save you know these countries countries. This these are the facts on the ground. What is the outcome of what has happened so far for Europeans as time goes by? We've seen the prime minister of Spain is prime minister or president of Spain. He said he's prime minister. Prime Minister, yeah, he's making a good stance on his part when it comes to the Middle East. But we haven't seen that in the case of Ukraine. Europe rethink re they need to understand what would be the calculation on their part on as time goes by without the United States in my opinion. Yeah. I don't I don't think we should look at uh at Spain and think that they're somehow exempt to this whole uh western agenda. you know, he's Pedro Sanchez is making the right noises with regards to uh Israel and Iran and uh you know, western Asian region um which you know bolsters his popularity at home but at the same time you know he's uh you know his government has been very prolific at implementing all the all the you know sustainable goals agenda, the walkery, the uh on Ukraine, all the wrong sounds. So, it doesn't it doesn't really make sense. Uh I think that it's a it's an issue that's very important for the Spanish people as it is for most people everywhere in the world. So, it's let's say it's like lowhanging fruit for him to bolster his public support. I wouldn't trust him beyond that. uh as I wouldn't trust pretty much any of the European leaders whatsoever, including Victor Orban, you know, because Victor Orban, you know, he's he's successfully defended uh Hungary against the walkery, against uncontrolled immigration and and so forth. But at the same time, you know, he's been one of the strongest supporters of of Israel, which and he hasn't had very much to say about Israel's genocide in in Gaza. So again, you know, you ask yourself, well, why should that be? You know, how should that be? Why why why are you on the wrong side uh on the right side of the of the same fault line uh at this at this point, but you're on the wrong side of the exact same fault line on on some other issue. So I I I don't have a whole lot of faith but I think that uh European Union is inevitably headed for uh disintegration which I think is only a matter of time and in fact you know Hungary might be the the catalyst of that disintegration because um you know there's there's Hungarian elections coming up very soon and it looks like uh the European Union together with uh Ukrainian intelligence have done a lot to undermine the integrity of the of the Hungarian election process. on. So that's going to have its its its its implications and its effects. And uh more and more countries inside of Europe are deeply deeply uh unhappy with the the unaccountable power of Brussels over them. uh the the governance system is almost exactly the same as the one that uh was dominating Soviet Union uh before 1991 and I think that it will end as Soviet Union. Uh you have unelected bureaucrats who uh who are writing laws that is they're passing laws that are written by secret lobbyists for the most part. Lobbyists who are you know uh legal groups that we don't even know anything about. We we literally don't know who is writing laws for European Union. Uh the European Parliament is little more than a debating club where MEPs, you know, uh earn some money and make their YouTube videos and uh the people of Europe are more and more unhappy with the situation. And so this is obviously uh boosting support for sovereigntist political factions which you know they they they call them extreme right or far right parties like I've day like ras national in France and so forth but they're not they just want their nations nation sovereignties uh restored and so at some point this panuropean Ian faction uh will clash with the sovereigntist factions in Germany, in France, in Hungary, Poland and other countries. And I think that in the end, it's only a matter of time where the side that ordinary people support uh will ultimately prevail. I hope that it doesn't involve violence, that it doesn't involve revolutions and civil wars. But apparently that is also a a a very distinct possibility at this at this stage. Uh alternatively uh the future of Europe uh involves a war against Russia because that would be that would be the one way for Brussels uh and Strasburg, you know, NATO to make themselves relevant to kind of um unite all these countries against a common enemy. But I think that's a at this point at least that's a far shot because I don't see anybody in Europe very worried about Russia. I don't think that people are that people really believe that Russia is about to invade Europe. So all of these war preparations uh are running well ahead of the narrative that is the narrative is there but the people are not are not being moved by it. You know the the herds not moving in the right direction. Are they going to be able to uh move the herd in the right direction? They're trying very hard. They're bringing around uh heavy-handed censorship. They're punishing people very severely for presenting divergent views. But I don't know in the age of the internet and social media whether you know this genie can be pulled back into the bottle of their you know mechanisms of narrative control you know radio television newspapers. So I I I don't know what the future is. I I just don't know. I I just know that we're in for a transition period which might span some years. I can't I I don't I I have no idea how long. Uh but and that and that this transition period could be very very rough. But I do expect that when this transition period plays out that we're going to have a a much much better future and better prospects ahead of us. Yeah. Hope so. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Always a pleasure, Nema. Thank you for inviting me and until the next time. See you soon. Take care. Bye-bye.
Oh, this is unbelievable. The edit history on this tweet shows that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif originally copied and pasted everything he was sent, including:
"*Draft - Pakistan's PM Message on X*"
Now, obviously, Sharif's own staff don't call him "Pakistan's PM," they would just call him prime minister. The U.S. and Israel, of course, would call him "Pakistan's PM."
Would be funny if the fate of the world wasn't hanging in the balance.
Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future. To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture. We also urge all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war, in the interest of long-term peace and stability in the region.
