Transcription
[Music] The question is, is Trump going to keep allowing Netanyahu to dogwalk him, or is he going to be a strong leader that avoids wasting American lives and American resources on a war that we shouldn't be fighting? That's the real question here.
Do you want to see Israel take action against Iran even if we are not taking—we don't have a role? What I want to see is Trump give an absolute warning. Say, within 30 days, if Iran doesn't dismantle all of its nuclear programs, enrichment of centrifuges, there will be an attack. I would hope Iran would back away and there wouldn't have to be an attack. But if there has to be an attack, let Israel do it. Uh, let the United States provide them bunker-busting bombs and B-52s.
Well, it looks like a war hawk like Alan Dershowitz is in luck because new intelligence shows that Israel is in fact preparing for a possible strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, even as the Trump administration pursues diplomatic means to get a new nuclear deal to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. But as was the case with the nuclear deal that President Barack Obama secured back in 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not interested in peace here. He wanted to torpedo the original nuclear deal. Unfortunately, he succeeded in doing that in Trump's first term. And now, as Trump tries to secure a second nuclear deal, you have Israel thinking, maybe we do a strike anyway. And then after we do a strike, what choice does the United States have? Of course, they're going to help us. So, let's get into the granular details here.
The intel comes from multiple US officials who are familiar, uh, with the latest intelligence, who caution it's not clear that Israeli leaders have made a final decision and that in fact there is deep disagreement within the US government about the likelihood that Israel will ultimately act. Whether and how Israel strikes will likely depend on what it thinks of the US negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. So there are multiple people who, uh, spoke to CNN for this story. And another person that's familiar with this intelligence that's been gathered by US officials on this issue says that the chance of an Israeli strike on an Iranian nuclear facility has gone up significantly in recent months, and the prospect of a Trump-negotiated US-Iran deal that doesn't remove all of Iran's uranium makes the chance of a strike more likely.
So, let's just talk about that briefly because it's important to understand how these negotiations are going. Now, the United States and Iran, uh, concluded their fourth round of negotiations, uh, over the weekend. They're going to continue talking. So, this pursuit of diplomacy, which we should give Trump some positive reinforcement for, continues, and that's a good thing. But right now, the real sticking point is the fact that the United States doesn't want Iran to enrich any uranium at all, which is a problem because Iran, especially under the original nuclear deal, was able to enrich some uranium for their energy needs.
Now, think about how things operate in Iran. Yes, it is an oil-producing country, but oil is really the heart of their economy. They export their oil, uh, in order to keep their economy going, and they want to enrich uranium—have like the, the, the minimal amount necessary to generate enough energy for their country. So it's not enough, uh, enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon, but it is enough for them to, you know, provide energy to, uh, the people of Iran. And so that's the sticking point. The Trump administration is like, "No, no, no uranium at all. No enriched uranium at all." And Iran's like, "Bro, we we need energy." So that's that's what they're negotiating right now.
Now, according to CNN, the heightened concerns about a strike come not only from the public and private messaging from senior Israeli officials, but also from intercepted Israeli communications and observations of Israeli military movements that could suggest that there will be an imminent strike. For example, Israel has reportedly moved some of their air munitions and has, uh, completed, uh, some military exercises—an air exercise, uh, to be specific.
Uh, thus far, Trump has stuck to the policy of diplomacy. And guys, regardless of what you think about Trump, he should be given kudos for that because the positive reinforcement might work, right? If he if he does something that we want—that we think is a good thing—cheering him on might encourage him to keep going in that direction. But we'll see. We'll see because Trump is easily swayed. He's very impressionable. He can turn on anyone at any given moment. Um, so far he has resisted a war with Iran, but let's not forget he is the one who ripped up the Iran nuclear deal in his first term. Trump is also the guy who decided to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, who was the top general, uh, in Iran's military, and that could have led to—I mean, a full-fledged war, a hot war between the United States and Iran at the time. Luckily, it didn't. But Trump was definitely playing with fire in his first term.
Going to war with Iran would be disastrous, and thousands of American soldiers would die if it gets to a point where we have boots on the ground. We must avoid war with Iran, especially considering the fact that we'd be getting dragged into a war with Iran by, by a foreign government. That would be insane. But let me give you some more details here.
Now, Trump is also—has also publicly threatened military action against Iran if his administration's efforts to broker a new nuclear deal fail. So, I'm really concerned about that. Now, negotiations are ongoing; they have stalled recently because of that, uh, conflict in regard to enriched uranium. Iran's leader, uh, has called the, uh, the United States demand, um, for Iran to not enrich uranium, you know, a big mistake.
Now, Trump's reluctance thus far, uh, to greenlight an attack against Iran may be the only thing causing Israel to hesitate. Netanyahu wants to shut down any possible nuclear deal between the United States and Iran, but we shouldn't be surprised by that. I mean, he was railing against the original deal, uh, from the very beginning, but he also doesn't want to alienate Donald Trump. You know, he sees the American government as his puppet. He sees Trump as his dog that he takes for a walk now and then. The question is, is Trump gonna keep allowing Netanyahu to dogwalk him, or is he going to be a strong leader that avoids wasting American lives and American resources on a war that we shouldn't be fighting? That's the real question here.
Jonathan Panikov, who's a former senior intelligence official specializing in the region, says the following: "At the end of the day, the Israeli decision-making is going to be predicated on US policy determinations and actions, and what agreements President Trump does or does not come to with Iran." And according to CNN, um, Panikov added that he did not believe that Netanyahu would be willing to risk entirely fracturing, uh, the US relationship he has, uh, by launching a strike without at least tacit approval. I don't—I think he's giving Netanyahu way too much credit. I I I don't think that's the case. I think Netanyahu is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. I don't think he cares about any relationships. I, you know, so I would not, uh, rely on Netanyahu wanting to remain buddies with Trump as the only way to prevent this war from happening. I think Trump needs to show, uh, that he is a strong leader who is not going to back Israel up if they try to drag us into a hot war with Iran.
Now, one anonymous source argued that I think it's more likely they strike to try to get the deal to fall apart if they think Trump is going to settle for a bad deal. By the way, Netanyahu thinks any diplomatic deal is a bad deal. But, uh, this anonymous source, who I wish would come out publicly with his name or her name, uh, is right. I mean, I I I'm more inclined to believe this prediction or this analysis as it pertains to Benjamin Netanyahu and what is likely to happen. Uh, the Israelis have not been shy about signaling that to us both publicly and privately. Totally correct about that. It has consistently been the Israeli position that the military option is the only option to stopping Iran's military nuclear program, one US official noted. And look, if Netanyahu does move ahead with a strike, it looks like the US may fall in line anyway. And that's what I'm worried about. And you think Netanyahu doesn't know that? You think you think BB doesn't know that? You think the Israeli government doesn't know that the US government will effectively be pressured into following along—into providing the resources, the bombs, essentially whatever Israel needs to continue fighting Iran. It's just—and look, according to one official, the US has stepped up intelligence gathering to be ready—to be ready to aid Israel if its leaders decide to strike.
So, in other words, Israel might force Trump's hand. I mean, I don't necessarily think it needs to play out that way. If they decide to launch strikes in Iran, I think it's totally fine and in fact the sign of a good leader to say, "Oh, you're trying to drag us into a war with Iran when I said I wanted to pursue diplomatic means." All right, go fend for yourselves. That's what a strong leader would do. Now, would Trump actually do that? It depends who signed his last check. But let me continue.
Another source close to, uh, the Trump administration says the US is unlikely to help. So you get—you have sources saying two different things. Okay. So another source says no, no, no. The US is unlikely to help Israel carry out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites at this moment short of some major provocation by Iran. So, uh, there are some Democrats, by the way, uh, I want to focus on them just for a second because, uh, they're more concerned about the fact that this, uh, information leaked to the press. They're less concerned about the United States getting dragged into a war with Iran. And, uh, that individual is Democratic lawmaker Jared Moskowitz.
Let's take a look. "There was just a leak that is now national news that Israel is poised to strike Iran. Um, where did that leak come from in the administration? Do we know what department leaked that? Is that being looked into?" "Well, I I'm not aware of the leak that you're discussing. I'm obviously—um—I wouldn't discuss intelligence matters and even verify whether it's even true. I also don't think it's a mystery though—irrespective—I'm not talking about the leak. I'm talking about the news story that Israel has made clear that they retain the option of action to limit Iran from ever gaining a nuclear capability." "Listen, that's fair. Israel is free to do what it pleases. Israel is a foreign government. I'm not interested in influencing Israel. I'm not interested in our government dictating what the Israeli people do. I see Israel and the United States as two separate countries. So, if Israel wants to go to war, go right ahead, go to war."
The real question here, Rubio, is whether or not the American people are going to fight and fund that war on behalf of Israel as they did with Iraq in 2003. And some people get real touchy when that's mentioned, right? Because we're all supposed to believe that we did a preemptive war in Iraq in 2003 in response to 9/11. No. No. Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Was it for oil? No. Actually, maybe that was a little bit of a factor, but no, that wasn't the main reason. It really wasn't. Why did we go to war with Iraq? Let me take you back 22 years ago when all these pieces were being published right before we went to war with Iraq. Now, if you were paying close attention, you know, these stories weren't widespread, but if you were paying close attention, if you were addicted to politics, you saw the pressure coming from Israel to invade Iraq. And it's just incredible to go back and read these pieces.
Now, I'm going to go to, uh, this piece that was written in February 27th, 2003. So, um, weeks before we invaded Iraq with a preemptive strike. It's titled "Threats and Responses—the Middle East." Israel says war on Iraq would benefit the region. They really wanted that regime change in Iraq. That's interesting. Uh, with the Oslo agreement in tatters, the Israelis are now putting hopes in an American war on Iraq. Fascinating. Israel signaled its decision to put public pressure on President George Bush to go ahead with a military attack on Iraq, even though it believes Saddam Hussein may well retaliate by striking Israel. What's funny about that is that was what Israel was saying to the United States. Like, you know, it really puts us at risk. They might strike us, you know, considering the proximity, it could be dangerous. But there was other reporting showing that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, uh, did not feel that Iraq was actually going to strike them, that they didn't even have the capability to strike them if the United States decided to go to war with Iraq. And as we all know, uh, our soldiers did, uh, have their boots on the ground in that country—more than 4,000 of them died fighting that useless war.
Uh, in August of 2002, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's aid, Raanan Gissin, uh, argued that US officials, uh, not delay a military strike in Iraq, arguing that any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose. It will only give him—Saddam Hussein—more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction. By the way, at the time, Israeli intelligence shared with the United States that they believe that Iraq had, uh, chemical weapons, that they had bioweapons, and, uh, that wasn't the case either. Interesting. Okay. And how can we forget Benjamin Netanyahu himself even came to the United States in 2002 to pressure the United States to invade Iraq in a preemptive war. "If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, uh, and many others will say the time of such regimes—of such just bots—is gone. There is a new age. Something new is happening. The way to deal with terrorist regimes—well, with terror—was to deal with the terrorist regimes. And the way to deal with the terrorist regimes, among other things, was to, uh, apply military force against them. The application of power is the most important thing in winning the war on terrorism. If I had to say, what are the three principles of winning the war on terror? It's like, what are the three principles of real estate? The three L's—location, location, location. The three principles of winning the war on terror are the three W's—winning, winning, and winning. The more victories you amass, the easier the next victory becomes. The first victory in Afghanistan makes a second victory in Iraq that much easier." Was there a victor in Iraq?
By the way, uh, what's hilarious about this, and it's not hilarious at all, it's actually devastating, is the fact that while Israel was pressuring the United States at the time to invade Iraq, once the US made that decision, you think Israel was allied with us and joined in on that war? No. No. No, they didn't. They're like, "Go." Yes. Uh, risk the lives of the men and women in your military to fight our war for regime change in Iraq. Have fun. It's just so utterly disgusting.
So, look, I give you that history because the United States cannot be tricked into fighting another Middle Eastern war on behalf of a foreign country. I'm done with it. Everyone in this country should be done with it. The anti-war rhetoric that was uttered by Donald Trump during the election cycle was appealing to people because of the fact that they do not want to continue in these interventionist nonsense wars that just use up our resources and do nothing for the American people. So Trump loves to talk about what a disaster Iraq was. He should keep that in mind as he's being goaded into war with Iran. What does he want his legacy to be? Does he want it to be more bloodshed? Does he want it to be more war? And does he want to get dogwalked by a foreign country?
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