Transcription
Hello everyone. Sending you all wishes of safety and care wherever you are today. Thank you all for joining us in another Zateo town hall.
Today, the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, setting off a series of events that are still unfolding as we speak. One such attack by the Israeli and US governments killed over 80 students reportedly at a girl school. Iran's retaliation included attacks on US bases in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and so forth. Debris has endangered civilians in these countries, and now Israeli officials are claiming that they say that the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead. History, as we see, is being written, and it's not yet clear who's going to be left holding the pen.
We will be live for the next hour. Please feel free to share questions with us wherever you happen to be watching. We'll try to get to as many as we can. Later, I will be joined by Nagar Mortazavi and Trita Parsi. But first, I will be joined by my colleagues Medhi Hassan and Swinburne Suba saying, "My, how are you reacting to things? I know things are changing by the second, but when you first saw the strike and now, what are you thinking about?"
"Yeah, I saw the strikes last night. I was in a hotel room in Atlanta heading here to Texas for an event, and I wasn't sure what it was, right, Prem? Because a lot of the reporting, including from Swin, who's going to give us his take in a moment, was, 'Is this going to be a smaller strike first, and then they do a big strike later? Is this Trump's way of bringing the quote unquote regime to the table?' Even though they were in the middle of negotiations, even though hours before these strikes, the Omani foreign minister, the Omanis, for those of you who don't know, don't tend to talk very much in public. The foreign minister of Oman went on American TV and said, 'You know what? The Iranians have pretty much agreed to everything the Americans want. They've gone beyond what Barack Obama got from the Iran deal.' And yet, they still attacked, which everyone should keep in mind when they hear American officials saying this was about the nuclear program. A complete load of..."
"Um, this is a huge attack. Trump called it a massive wave of attacks last night. And Tom Cotton, Senator Tom Cotton, the very hawkish Republican chair of the Intel Committee, has said today, 'This is an attack that won't end in days. It's going to last weeks.' So, we are looking at a major attack. I've always worried that a war with Iran would make the war with Iraq look like a walk in the park. I hope I'm proven wrong."
"Something you said, Prem, stuck out to me, which is, you know, history's being written, but we don't know how it's going to be written. The problem we have, and I would urge all Zateo subscribers to keep this in mind who are watching right now, is the media are going to tell you all sorts of things about who's up, who's down, who's won, who's lost. It's meaningless. This is the first few hours of a major, major war. Remember what happened after Iraq? Remember George Bush standing on a ship saying, 'Mission accomplished.' Remember the people who mocked some of us saying, 'See, it all worked out amazingly. We took over the country. We got Saddam.' And Iraq was the disaster it was. Same with Afghanistan. Same with Libya. Um, this early basking of triumph doesn't always last. Um, and let's see what happens with American soldiers. Trump has talked about American soldiers, uh, losing their lives possibly. And I know my colleague Swin, I want to hand over to him, has just been reporting on that."
"Okay. So when Trump announced this in the middle of the night in his stupid hat, and he's now running a major regional bloodbath from the opulence of Mar-a-Lago, his private >> wedding venue >> club in Florida. Um, in the months-long lead-up to this moment, he was briefed by intelligence officials and senior administration appointees repeatedly about the array of potential options and war-gaming and gaming out of scenarios that the highest levels of the intelligence community, the Pentagon, and Trump's administration had done about, like, okay, if we go this route, if we go this route, if we take this military option or military option B, these are the ways that are setting aside everything else for these all the different ways that there could be American casualties if you go ahead with any of these, like, arrays of options in a war with Iran, in a new war with Iran. Um, the range and the gamut ran from, uh, a smaller number of potential US casualties, military personnel and otherwise in the region, if this was going to be a days-long conflict, a week's-long conflict, or if things spiraled and this became a protracted engagement, obviously the US casualty numbers start to creep higher in these different estimates, in these different classified briefings."
"After all of that, the supposed peace president, the supposed endless-ending wars president, all we've known that since 2015, uh, looked at all that and said, >> 'Yeah, let's go ahead with it. It's okay. These American lives, which may very well be lost in these varying degrees of estimated numbers, are going to be totally worth it, so I can feel like a big man on the global stage with my latest horrifying air war above the Islamic Republic.' And, um, Donald Trump kind of acknowledged this after months of being briefed on these options and these potential American death tolls in his stupid middle-of-the-night speech where he said, 'Uh, yes, our brave soldiers, some of them might die from this, but you know what? This is a noble mission, and we need to do it, and we're doing this for the future, not the present.' The Trump-Vance administration is trying to front-run possibly inevitable stories about caskets coming home of dead American soldiers and trying to front-run all these stories about grieving widows and grieving families because Donald Trump wanted to feel like a big man. I am even a little bit surprised that the president of the United States just came out and said that in his inaugural speech on this so-called mission that, 'Oh, yeah, sure, that could happen.' I, I, I don't think I hear presidents usually talking in that way when they plunge us into regional bloodbaths."
"But, >> I'm curious, you know, if, if you have a sense from your sources and folks that you've talked to, to your point, this is something that generally would be something that would come out in a shocking leaked tape that the New York Times would report on in the midst of, of the beginning of, of an assault campaign like this. He went out and said it in his USA hat, mind you, at his, you know, Mar-a-Lago in prepared remarks, right? And prepared remarks, and I might add also just added the symbolism a week and a half after the Israelis, who he's working on behalf of, at the behest of, killed another American. So I'm curious, like, did your sources have this sense of, of whether they thought that was strategic, um, that they were just going to be so explicit in saying Americans will possibly die from this?"
"Well, yes, in part because, um, look, they knew they would have to grapple with this publicly in one form or another, especially over the coming days, in the coming weeks, largely because they have seen all of the same polling that the three of us have, and that I think our, uh, viewers have, which is overwhelmingly the American public do not want this war. They do not want it. Every single poll shows that a supermajority either are strongly or moderately opposed to it or just do not support what Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the rest of this gang has just unleashed. So, look, Donald Trump's approval rating is hovering in disaster territory right now, right around the, the mid-30s. The Republican party knows that they could get dragged down by this guy's approval numbers in the upcoming 2026 midterms. And they also know how unpopular military action against Iran right now is with American voters. And everybody knows how disastrously unpopular in an election year it can be if you're going about, uh, shambling about the Middle East or any other region and viral images of, uh, bodies of American military personnel are being flown home to crying children and crying families."
"So this is almost like a murder-suicide pact that the entire upper echelons of the Donald Trump administration are in with right now, where they know how sideways, politically speaking, not even talking militarily, but politically speaking, this can go for them very quickly, but they still are just going to do it because the god king, Emperor Trump feels like doing it, is going ahead with it. And, yeah, there's just even from the people in the administration like the Tulsi Gabbards of the world who are supposed to be opposed to this stuff, they're kind of shruggy-emoji-ing it off. Donald Trump, the big strong man, he's got it with his sidekick JD Vance. And to go back to something you were saying earlier, Prem, you were saying at the behest of the Israelis. Okay. Yeah, there, there is kind of elements of where you can argue Netanyahu is trying to take the American government for a ride on all these kinds of different regime change actions. But at the end of the day, this is an inherently American mission. It has been in the neoconservative and particularly American Republican party bloodstream for years, if not decades, to try to force a regime change war in Iran. And they finally got their man to help them do it. A mentally desiccated, elderly, racist game show host. Congratulations, Republican party."
"Yeah, Maddie. Uh, there's a few questions that that crop from that. Firstly, um, you know, we talk about the question of public will. Mandep K on Substack, uh, asks a good question here, which is, 'What evidence does a country have to show that an attack was imminent? It feels like USA and Israel quote say that an attack is imminent to back up their illegal attacks often, as we've seen before.' So let's talk about the language of preemption and preventative strikes."
"Yeah, it's a good question. We just ran a piece at Zateo. If you're a Zateo subscriber, it's in your inbox from Alonzo Gamandi, who's a, uh, law professor in the UK, making the point that this war is inherently completely illegal, just as the bombing last year was illegal under international law, under the UN Charter, which only allows the use of force in a case of self-defense or if it's been approved by the Security Council. Neither of those count here. It's illegal under the US Constitution, which gives Congress the power to declare war. Think about this, Prem. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney went to Congress to get approval to attack Iraq. Trump has gone even beyond Bush-Cheney and the neocons in terms of his unilateral aggression. This is a man who spoke in front of Congress three days ago, right? Three days ago, he stands at the State of the Union and he gives an epically long and boring speech that you and I covered in real time, 1 hour 48 minutes. And he didn't mention he was about to attack Iran. He didn't mention there was a threat to Americans from Iran. So, he had a chance to tell people there's a war of self-defense coming. It wasn't a war of self-defense. Reuters are reporting today, uh, that this decision was made weeks ago, that they were going to do this. And if you plan to attack someone weeks in advance, by definition, they're not posing an imminent threat to you, and it's not self-defense. And all these people in the mainstream media have been using the phrase, um, 'preemptive war,' using Israeli language. It is not a preemptive war. Preemptive war means someone's about to attack you, so you attack them first. There is zero evidence that Iran was about to attack anyone. That Iran has the kind of missiles that would allow it to attack the US. That it even has a nuclear weapons program. It doesn't. It always had a civil nuclear program, which the IAEA never said became a weapons program. Trump then bragged that he obliterated that program. It still says so on the White House website. So, what nuclear threat were they trying to stop?"
"I do want to pick up on something Swin said, uh, about, you know, this being an American operation. Couple of things. Every Republican president does this, right? Every Republican president comes to office, cuts, uh, benefits for the poor, cuts taxes for the rich, raises prices, and then bombs a Middle East country. Ronald Reagan did it. George Bush Senior did it. George Bush Jr. did it, and Donald Trump has done it. Now, this is where it gets interesting. Donald Trump is not just alone in that pack in the sense, as Swin put it, 'mentally desiccated game show star.' It's not just that it wasn't George Bush and Dick Cheney that attacked Iran. It was the guy from Home Alone 2. It's also the fact that he ran as the anti-war president, the anti-war candidate, the 'no more forever wars,' the 'no regime change wars.' Again, sorry to plug our excellent Zateo content today, but we just put out a piece at Zateo listing out all the times Donald Trump and JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. and Stephen Miller and David Sachs, all of these Trump people said, 'Vote Trump. He's the guy who won't take us into any more Middle East wars. Kamala Harris will send your boys to fight and die.' Steven Miller said, 'Not us.' Donald Trump said, 'There'll be no new war on my watch.' He bombed seven countries in 2024. He started 2020, sorry, 2025. He started 2026 attacking Venezuela. And now here we are with this major conflict in Iran. We don't know where it's going to go. And it was all a lie. I'm sorry. I've got to say this. Swin said, you know, we all knew, well, many of us knew, but we also had a bunch of people on the right, and sadly on the left, too, who bought into this line that Donald Trump would be an anti-war candidate. He would be a candidate of restraint, of isolationism. Donald the Dove. It was The people who fell for it, but the people who fell for it should apologize today or hang their heads in shame because what Trump has done, as I say, in many ways is worse than even what Bush did. Bush at least turned up to Congress. Saddam Hussein at least had once had a weapons program that people were worried about. With Iran, it's completely illegal and unprovoked."
"Yeah. Yeah. Swin, I know you have to duck out soon. There's a question here from De Knighter on Substack. A few questions but broadly they're wondering, and I, I'm curious to ask you about this because I'm curious if, if your sources have given any good sense of this, of process, within, of logistics. Um, De Knighter asks, 'Do we have a clear and attainable objective? Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? Have there been other non-violent policy means that have been pursued? Is there a plausible exit strategy? Have any of these questions of actual genuine care for how this happens been at least entertained, even by, even good faith people within the administration or good faith people, I should say?' What, what's your barometer on that?"
"The look on my face answers every single question that that, uh, user reviewer asked. But look, I will say this, um, in the run-up to this, and we did reporting.com on this over the past couple of weeks, it was very hard to get senior administration personnel or even Donald Trump himself, when other officials were talking to him about it behind closed doors, to say what the mission would be. >> Is it going to be regime change? Is it going to be pseudo-regime change? Is it about the weapons programs and other military, uh, capabilities? Uh, what is the end game here? There was barely even an effort to coalesce around a single message, either publicly or privately, among the Trump-Vance brass about what the endgame and end goal looks like here. How long do we want to go? What kind of war or mission is here? What one person, uh, one Trump advisor I was talking to for some reporting we were doing days ago, when I just straight up asked, 'Okay, what is the mission here? What would it be?' Their response was, and I quote, 'What mission?' It's, it's, it's so vibes-based and so amorphous about like, okay, this is about projecting American power, according to them. Okay, fine. But beyond that, why are you doing this? Besides trying to show how allegedly tough a guy Donald Trump is and about how you shouldn't mess with him? Like, all of these, we were comparing, uh, this, >> and we've been doing plenty of comparing this to the atrocities and scandals and abuses of the Bush era. And I am not by any means handing it to the Bushes or the Donald Rumsfelds or the Dick Cheneys of the world, but they pretended, at least they at least put a patina of like respect to process or democratic value or spreading democracy as a neoconservative administration. Things that sounded pretty at the time, but I think a lot of the people on this, uh, chat right now could see through at the time that it was just a lie, that the words were nice, but look at the actions. Look at the bloodbath. Here you have the bloodbath, the rampant MAGA imperialism, and a degree of lawlessness both at home and abroad that you did not have with the Bushes and Cheneys, as atrocious as they were. And mixed into that, and obviously the Bushes and the Cheneys were plenty lawless, and mixed into that, you have this just jettisoning of even pretending to care about norms or spreading democracy or any of this that American imperialists are supposed to pretend to care about on live TV. So, some, uh, hardened leftists might want to be cute with their argument about how, oh, well, isn't that better? It's unvarnished. The American Empire is no longer pretending to care about you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would argue, and I will leave this to you guys to discuss since I have to jump in just a moment, I would argue no, in every single metric, it is worse, both substantively and rhetorically."
"Well, thank you for that. You have to duck out. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time."
"Peace."
"See you."
"Um, I'm just going to pick up there, Prem, on what Swin said there about the, >> I mean, I agree with Swin in the sense that the burning down of international law and norms is something that will be, uh, felt by the world for a long time to come, and I don't think we can overstate that. Israel in Gaza now, Trump in Iran. Um, you know, the, he mentioned the projection of power, wanting to look like a tough guy. There was a neoconservative writer, Michael Ledeen, he's since died, but he said around the Iraq War time, he had a quote attributed to him. And he said, 'Every few years, America should grab a small, crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to show the world we mean business.' And that, unfortunately, that is what a lot of American presidents, not just Republicans, but mainly Republicans, have done. And that is clearly what Donald Trump is doing here. I mean, we could talk about the, the goals. The goals are Trump wants to look strong and distract from his bad ratings. By the way, you know who said, uh, that a president will attack Iran because his ratings are low? Donald Trump did about Barack Obama in 2012. Check out our piece today where we have that tweet. Um, it is obviously to do with his low ratings and unpopularity. A foreign war is always a good distraction. It's also obviously in Israel's interest to be doing this. This is a war on behalf of Israel. American interests, Americans are not gaining from this war. Americans who are struggling at home with grocery prices, gas prices, lack of healthcare, they don't get anything out of this attack. Um, the Israelis clearly do. And of course, Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein is the elephant in this room. The idea that this isn't about distracting Epstein, I'm sorry. Uh, maybe that makes me sound conspiratorial these days, but I think everyone watching knows it's 100% true that Epstein is a factor in all this. This is a president who just 48 hours ago, there was a 24-hour media cycle about how the DOJ had covered up files, uh, in which a woman claimed that when she was a child, she was sexually abused by Donald Trump. Again, unverified allegations, but allegations that are in the DOJ files and that the DOJ covered up. So, at a time like this, he suddenly goes and attacks abroad. Let's not forget Bill Clinton attacked Iraq during the midst of the Monica Lewinsky saga. There is precedent here for American presidents using foreign policy, using the US military for distraction from problems at home. And I think sadly, we have to recognize that point."
"Uh, the other thing I'd say about, you know, strategies and exit strategies, these people are ignorant, Prem, just like George Bush was. Months before the Iraq War, a bunch of Kurdish leaders went into the Oval Office and they came out and they told Peter Galbraith, an American diplomat at the time, that they were shocked that talking to George W. Bush, he didn't know anything about Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds in Iraq. This is a few months before the invasion. Bush had no idea about what Iraq was demographically, ethnically. And the same with Iran. You had Senator Mark Wayne Mullin, Republican senator, go on CNN the other day and say that Ayatollah Khomeini is still alive. He thought the guy ruling Iran is the guy who came to power in 1979. Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in '79, died in '89. The guy they claim, the Israelis are claiming right now, and it hasn't been verified that they've killed the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He came to power in 1989, has been in charge for nearly 37 years. But this is a kind of ignorance. They don't have an exit plan. They don't understand the people there. They claim that a majority of Iranians want this. Well, let's see. Because they said the same thing about Iraq. And my worry is, what is the, what is the, what is the blowback from this? You know, Americans watching this right now here in the US. God forbid there are attacks inside the US, suicide attacks, bomb attacks, God forbid, because that's what happened in the UK and the US after Blair and Bush invaded Iraq. And Blair and Bush were responsible for those attacks. They knew. They were warned by their intelligence agencies. If you attack Iraq, the al-Qaeda threat will go up to your citizens. They were told that. I would like to know, was Donald Trump told that by the US intelligence community? Tulsi Gabbard's now in charge of that Intel Committee. She's someone who's been anti-war for years, but won't quit even after he attacks Venezuela, even after he attacks Iran. She shamelessly will not quit on principle. So, I don't know if we can trust anything coming out of the intelligence community right now."
"Yeah. Yeah. Swin had brought up as he was leaving this idea that, you know, at least the Bushes had this commitment to process, to procedure in some respect. Of course, there were other places they totally flouted it. There are a few questioners, including, uh, uh, Marian Prior on Substack, that bring up the Democratic response. And as we've, we've seen a range of responses from, uh, officials like Ro Khanna, who have actually been very, very clear and, uh, assertive in their stances in different ways. And then you've had, uh, individuals like Gavin Newsom, one of the Democratic leaders in the primary for 2028, that hedge much of their statements in these, uh, questions of process and, and more specifically by first stating, 'We believe it was right to do so or insinuating that, but this is not the way to do it.' I'm curious what your reaction has been to the Democratic responses, and if there have been some that you've been, um, fans of, and ones that you found to be troublesome."
"It's a good question because, look, we, I feel sometimes like we're living in a one-party state. Donald Trump and the Republican party control the House, the Senate, the White House, uh, the Supreme Court, uh, in some ways. And it does feel like that. But that we do actually have an opposition party, folks. It's called the Democratic Party, supposedly, but it's led by two men, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who in general are feckless, spineless, weak leaders. We know that, uh, 65% of the Democratic base want to replace, uh, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. They are useless people who write sternly worded letters when Trump does fascistic things at home. And on this issue in particular, they're useless because they actually agree with Trump. Let's not beat around the bush, Ibrah. They support Trump's war. Chuck Schumer was attacking Trump from the right a few months ago, saying, 'Taco Trump, when will he stand up to Iran?' So, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are very much behind this war, but they can't be seen to be behind this war. So, they say stuff like, 'When's he going to come to Congress? When's he going to brief us? What's the exit plan?' But they can't come out and say, 'What happened was wrong. It was illegal. It was against American values, against the Constitution, against the United Nations, uh, charter. Uh, it's a disaster, uh, for the region, another war in the Middle East.' They, they, they're not saying any of that, although other Democrats are."
"Newsom, I think, will regret not taking a stronger line. If you're running for president in 2028, the Democratic base, I think only 9% of Democrats support attacking Iran. 9% according to a recent poll. So people like Ruben Gallego, who is not a lefty, pretty centrist, uh, senator from Arizona, border state, Iraq War veteran, served in the Marine Corps, he came out today with, I think, the perfect line, which is, 'Donald Trump ran on exposing pedophiles and ending wars. Right now, he's protecting pedophiles and starting wars.' That is the line. You have it there. You don't need to go get an expensive marketing firm to test out your strategy. That's the line you should be pushing from Senator Gallego in Arizona. And yes, Ro Khanna, who's also running for president, who's led the charge on, uh, you know, getting a vote in Congress to stop this stuff, the War Powers Act. Uh, Zoran Mandel, who of course sadly can't run for president, mayor of New York, put out a very strong statement on international law. Zoran actually was one of the few politicians also to point out that the Iranian community in the US right now, wherever you stand on Iran, whether you're pro-intervention or anti-intervention, the Iranian community in America is of course not a monolith, has many views within it. But regardless, they must be feeling worried right now, not just about family in Iran, but what if there's a backlash in the US? We know that when there are foreign wars, you get attacks from right-wing bigots and racists on minority communities here in the US. Mandel is one of the few politicians, I saw make that point. The Iranian community will be safe in New York. He will go out of his way. That's an important message for American politicians to give at home. But in general, the Democratic leadership have been a waste of space on this war, just as they were on the Iraq War."
"Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the Yojo 2011 on YouTube asks, 'Why is there no support of Iran from other nations in the Middle East? Fear of war, fear of economic isolation, or both?' And I'm curious, you know, especially as we see, uh, countries like the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain also potentially in the crossfire. How do you think they're sort of navigating the situation specifically?"
"Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the Middle East is a complicated place in general right now. Super complicated. Those of you following the Saudi-UAE split that's going on in the region. Obviously, Qatar played its own role. Israel and Gaza is ongoing. By the way, we should do a shout-out. We're very clear at Zateo that we won't ignore what's happening in Gaza. The Israelis are using this war to crack down on Gaza and aid going into Gaza, um, right now as we speak. Of course, they are. Um, I think Middle East countries is a very good question. First of all, they all have different agendas. There was a time when the Saudis wanted the US to attack Iran. There was a time when they were saying, 'Cut their head off, the snake.' Recently though, Saudi-Iran relations much improved. Qatar-Iran relations have always been strong. Even though Iran attacked Qatar last year in a kind of symbolic way after they were attacked during the 12-day war by the US, they attacked a kind of empty base. Um, I don't think it's helping the Iranians that their obviously strategy of hitting the US requires hitting US bases in Middle East countries. They've attacked Bahrain this morning. They've attacked, I believe, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi. So, that doesn't help them obviously win friends in the region. But I guess they would argue that's where American interests are and we have to hit back. Nobody wants a war. None of those countries want a war in the Middle East. If you know anything about Gulf rulers or any of the kings of Jordan and elsewhere, they want quote unquote stability, which means they stay in power. There's no popular uprisings. They don't want wars. They don't want foreign interventions. They opposed a lot of them, the Iraq War. And I don't think they want a prolonged conflict. I don't think Donald Trump wants a prolonged conflict. Prem, um, he likes this kind of performative, spectacular, 'go boom boom boom bang bang bang, I win.' That's what he did in Venezuela. I think Venezuela gave him this extra boost to do this. I think he's just, I think he just did an interview with, interview with Barak Ravid of Axios where he said, 'Look, I can take it over, or it can be over in a few days if they do what I want.' I think he sees it in a Venezuelan way, which is, you take out Maduro and the rest of the government, they just bow down to you, and that's fine. I'll keep them in office. I don't think Iran is the same as Venezuela. And I do think, God forbid it, you know, this could get much worse for everyone. If they have killed Khamenei, Ayatollah Khamenei, who, by the way, I just want to be clear here. This man is not just a political leader. He is a religious leader to millions of people in Iran and outside of Iran, many of whom fanatically follow him. You kill a religious leader. It's illegal to just kill heads of state, heads of government abroad. They're also trying to kill the president of Iran. But what kind of backlash is there going to be from that? Has anyone gamed this out? What's going to happen when they start attacking American troops and American civilians in response? Americans didn't sign up to get killed for Donald Trump's war."
"And to that point, I mean, and to Swin's point as well, it seems like we're almost gaming this out more than the administration has. There's SARS 3661 on YouTube and Anna Asp on Substack who are kind of asking similar questions, which is about what could potentially come next. Um, as in, who? Oh, sorry, not SARS 361. I'll get to your question later. Wash egg. Sorry. On on YouTube who asks essentially, indeed, indeed. >> What about who might come next, um, with regards to, you know, the western attention, um, and, and, and capture of Resipali, um, to potentially other possibilities like who do you think may rise to become the new leader if indeed the regime is overthrown? And, and also asks about just the heartless recklessness of this attack being coupled with this other task that some have of of freeing the Iranian people from, from what they see as a repressive, repressive regime."
"So I have to duck out in a moment, and your next two guests are going to be better answering that question, and Nigar. But let me just say this. I can barely predict who's going to be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028. The idea that any of us know who's going to take over Iran if and when this government, this regime falls, is absurd. Reza Pahlavi, uh, the, the young Shah's son, based in the US, uh, his supporters want him to come back. They claim that there's popular support for bringing back the monarchy that existed till 1979, that was backed by the US, a brutal monarchy which was replaced by another brutal Iranian government, a brutal theocracy. But who knows? My big concern is that there won't be one singular government. My always concern has been, yes, what's happening in Iran is bad. I'm not denying that there are human rights abuses in Iran. I'm not denying that people were killed recently, innocent people. But the idea that you just do regime change, you click your fingers, and everything becomes better is just defied by all of the experience of the last 25 years in the Middle East, from Iraq, uh, to Afghanistan, to Libya. Syria, in many ways, a prolonged civil war, and let's see what happens in Syria. Now, Iran is a very diverse place. Uh, it is a very historic civilization. But what if it turns into a civil war? That's maybe what the Israelis want. They want to be surrounded by weak states that are all internally fighting each other, leaving Israel to dominate the quote unquote greater Middle East. We saw what Mike Huckabee said recently. We saw what the Israeli opposition leader said recently. They're all fine with taking as much terrain and land in the region as they can get away with. So if they're surrounded by weak states that are plagued by civil war, like Iraq, a Lebanon, a Syria, and now at Iran, great for Israel, not so great for the Iranian people. And what bothers me so much, if you're going to say nuclear, then say nuclear. Don't pretend this is a humanitarian intervention. Donald Trump does not give a damn about the people of Iran. Donald Trump is happy to deport Iranians back to Iran to be tortured. So don't give me that crap."
"Nigel Farage, we should say a word about the UK, the vassal state that is my other country, the United Kingdom. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, came out today. Not a word of criticism for this breach of international law. Instead, he said, 'Oh, if Iranians only gave up their nuclear program, it'd be fine.' They've agreed. They've told the first of all, it's not a nuclear weapons program. I'll say that again and again. Second of all, they agreed with the Omanis that they will give up the enriched uranium. So, Keir Starmer is lying. But worse than that, you have Nigel Farage, the Trumpist leader in the UK, saying, 'Oh, we 100% support this war. Iranian refugees come to the UK, Farage will be the first person to kick them out.' Do not pretend that any of these right-wing leaders give a damn about ordinary Iranians. They do not. Donald Trump does not give a damn about the people of Iran. And I, you know, to Iranians in the diaspora who are cheering him on and saying, 'You're our savior,' I, I worry that you may come to regret that position. Donald Trump tends to disappoint and screw over everyone who's ever had faith in him. Uh, so let's not pretend. And by the way, my last word on this, you want to save people from a repressive dictator, best not to blow up schools full of children on the first day of your liberation war, which is what they've done today, outrageously and criminally."
"We'll leave it there, Maddie. Thank you so much for sharing your time. We appreciate it very much."
"Um, folks, Medhi and Swin, of course, will be providing the all-star coverage that you know them to provide. So, please continue to support and subscribe to Zateo. There's so much more to come. We're going to stay on this as much as we can. We'll be as diligent as you all deserve. Next, we have two experts joining us to keep talking about this ground-shaking news. Firstly, joining me is Nigar Mortazavi, editor and host of The Iran Podcast and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. And as well, we have Iranian-American relations expert Trita Parsi, who is also a co-founder and the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Trita, Nigar, thank you both for joining me. I appreciate it."
"Thank you."
"Thanks so much."
"So, Nigar, firstly, just to start out with on the basics, um, and, and before we begin, just a reminder, folks, who are just joining us, please, whether you're on YouTube or Substack, please feel free to share any questions you have. We'll try to get to as many as we can. We have these two for the next half hour. We'll try to get to everything that we can speak to. So, thank you so much for being here, Nigar. First of all, what was your reaction when you first became aware of the strikes earlier today?"
"Well, I actually heard sort of the rumor or the buzz last night as, um, I'm sure Trita was also hearing. I mean, we had been hearing about it, um, for a couple of weeks, or sort of the deadline, the ticking clock that was getting, uh, to this point. Two weeks after Geneva, the second time the Iranians and Americans met in Geneva. And then 10 days, the deadline that President Trump gave 10 days ago, uh, essentially would be the end of this month. And then right after the third and final round of negotiations in Geneva, where, uh, finally the Iranians submitted a proposal which the Omani mediator, um, described as a good proposal or as good concessions and with room for diplomacy to actually work. And then, uh, I guess that wasn't, uh, seen as desirable by the president, and then came the attack. So I heard about it last night. I wasn't quite sure if I could believe it because it kept being repeated also. But then eventually this morning, woke up to horrific images, um, of, you know, of just the ugliness of the war. And as, as it was mentioned, I think my, uh, was just mentioning for anyone who isn't clear-eyed about the civilian casualties on day one, the first moments, one of the targets is an elementary school, uh, a girl school with dozens of, uh, children killed, many more injured, and other, uh, sort of civilian targets and infrastructure. As we also saw in the June war, when the Israelis were launching a quote unquote targeted attack on Iran, on Iranian leaders, on their nuclear program, we saw over a thousand Iranians being killed, most of them civilians. So, it's horrific. It unfortunately was something that Iranians were anticipating, um, since the June war. It's something that the US and Israel had been talking about, and it finally happened. But at the same time, it's also unlawful. As we're hearing from members of Congress, Congress didn't get a vote on this. US has done regime change big wars in the Middle East in the past, and at least they had the support of the US Congress. They turned out to be absolute failures, but they had the support of the US Congress. The American people didn't weigh in on this. Every poll that we're seeing shows that the majority of the American people are actually opposed to another big regime change war in the region, and also the international community didn't have a say. This didn't go through the UN Security Council or, uh, US allies. In fact, US allies across the region have been pushing back against it. So happy to talk about any of these issues and, um, curious to hear what Trita thinks also."
"Thank you. Thank you, Trita. I, I have, I mean, a million questions for both of you. I'm curious, you know, initially when the strikes happened last night, it was framed as, uh, or this morning rather, depending on where you are, it was framed as an Israeli strike, uh, against Iran, and of course, the US quickly, uh, jostled to say this was a joint operation. Can you speak to exactly what Israel's motives are here, and the extent to which they are bringing the US into this versus the US pursuing this as their own policy as well, and it just happens to align with Israel's needs as well? Let's talk about that."
"Thank you, and it's great to be with you and with Nigar. So I think first, we have to recognize that there are some significant deviations between the US interest and the Israeli interest, even the one that Trump is pursuing. I don't think the Trump administration actually wants to see complete chaos and, and civil war in Iran. Whereas from the Israeli perspective, a regime collapse, a state collapse that could lead to civil war, that could lead to separation, uh, secessionist movements taking over, actually have a lot of benefits from the Israeli standpoint. Not only would it completely take Iran off of the geopolitical chessboard for decades to come, but it would also create prolonged problems for other, uh, rising Israeli rivals or at least rivals in the Israeli view. I don't think that they themselves necessarily view themselves as rivals such as Turkey. So, for instance, if you have Kurdish separatists, um, breaking, um, out of the Iranian territory, etc., this will create massive problems for the Iraqis and for the Turks for time to come. Um, and this has been a longstanding policy of the Israelis. They've been very much supporting trying to create a Kurdistan, which they would view then becoming quite dependent on Israel and an ally of Israel, uh, in the region. I don't think that is where the administration wants to go. As I think Medhi mentioned in the previous segment, we saw that in Venezuela, they opted to actually keep much of the existing regime in place in order to make sure that there was a level of stability. Uh, and in the Venezuelan case, it's understandable because they would not want to do anything that would actually bring about more refugees, given how, uh, negative the administration is towards people coming to the United States. In the Iranian case, that's not an immediate concern, but it's a secondary concern because of the manner in which those refugee flows would be affecting regional states, GCC states that the US, at least to a certain extent, is sensitive to. So I think it's important to recognize that there is a significant deviation. Then take the, uh, potential assassination of Khamenei, that is illegal according to US law. So it's not surprising to hear that this is what the Israelis did. I'm sure the US was quite happy about it at the end of the day, but the US itself is not allowed to do something like that. I think Trump, at the end of the day, ended up accepting the premise and the red lines of the Israelis, and that trapped him into a trajectory in which increasingly he felt, um, that his only way out was to be able to get some sort of a humiliating surrender from the Iranians rather than a deal. There was a deal on the table. I think Nigar alluded to some of the details of it. Uh, it is actually a very, very attractive deal from the US standpoint, much stronger in some aspects, uh, than the JCPOA was. For instance, in the JCPOA, the Iranians would never be able to hold more than 300 kilos of low-enriched uranium on their own soil. You would need 1,200 kilos for a bomb, but they could not even have 300. They would have to ship it out immediately. In this specific deal, uh, the Iranians agreed to have zero. As soon as any enrichment had would taken place, they would immediately turn it into fuel pads. Without any enriched uranium on their soil in that format, they could never build a bomb. Moreover, something that the, um, Omani ambassador did not say in his very, very important interview yesterday, in which he laid out some of the details of the deal. Another detail of that deal that is very important is that the Iranians would only enrich uranium for a needs basis. The needs that were identified were one, uh, reactor that is not online for another seven years, and the second one is the TRR, the Tehran Research Reactor, which is a reactor that the United States gave Iran back in the 1960s. It's only used to produce medical isotopes for cancer patients. But here's the deal. It actually already has fuel pads that would last another five to seven years, which means that there would be zero enrichment on Iranian soil for the duration of the Trump administration and probably one or two years beyond that. So the zero objective that Trump wanted, insisted on, actually had in essence been achieved. He still rejected the deal, opted for this war because I think he has been trapped in this belief that he has to get this humiliating surrender, not realizing that from the Iranian theocracy's perspective, surrender is a far greater threat to their survival than war. They can survive a war, but they don't believe that they can survive a surrender."
"H. I know one aspect that Medhi had spoken to, you speak to as well, is that day one of this supposed liberatory war, or as both the US and Israel call it, regardless of their deviations and and motivations, they both call it a regime change. On day one of it, as you mentioned, part of the consequences..."
was the bombing of a of a girl school that killed at least 80 students. And yet still, there will be many Iranians today who are celebrating the idea that the regime will change. How do you contend with that?
Yes, indeed. We're seeing images coming from Iran of people struggling, people, some people celebrating on the street, or really, uh, showing joy and happiness in these kind of rights. We've we've heard sort of stories and anecdotes and, uh, uh, views of, uh, part of the Iranian society inside the country and also a big part in the diaspora, at least a big part in a diaspora that has an outside voice, um, uh, that they would welcome something like this. I would be careful as far as, uh, giving percentages or really describing this as the majority of the society. We're also hearing of people queuing up in drugstore lines. We're hearing of people queuing up in bread lines. We're hearing of people queuing up, uh, cars queuing up on roads getting out of Tehran. I've talked to family and friends who are trying to leave the city, the capital. Um, and, uh, it's just very difficult, as it was in June. A city of 10 million, especially after last time, President Trump ordered everyone to evacuate the city of 10 million, the capital. It was just very difficult to find gas for your car, hours and hours, uh, people had to queue up, and also to get out of the city.
So war is, is has a reality, and, uh, people deal with it differently. But at the same time, yes, I mean, no love lost for the status quo, for the way the state has been treating its own citizens time and again. Just recently, in December and January, uh, protests were met with a violent and deadly crackdown. Thousands were killed. Uh, many thousand more, thousands injured. Many more, uh, arrested. Uh, still unclear what their fate is going to be. And just essentially, this iron-fist approach that the state has, um, adopted in dealing with dissent and dealing with protest. There's very serious dissent and protest, and essentially a legitimacy, uh, crisis that the state is dealing with. And these protests get angrier and angrier in every round. So, um, yeah, I mean, a, a reaction for a certain part of the population is that they just want the system to be gone, to be done, at whatever cost. Doesn't necessarily mean they, um, metabolize what's going to come after. You know, this can potentially go down the route of Libya, the route of Syria, as in 10 years of civil war, Iraq, Afghanistan. I mean, we've seen these regime change wars, US military intervention in the region, these freedom bombs coming from the sky, the promise of nation-building, democracy, better governance, and it just wasn't delivered. So, I don't think the case of Iran is going to be very different. But some Iranians either don't think that far, or at least they're happy for this moment because of the very serious resentment of the, of the state.
And Trita, there are, of course, several countries in the area who are caught either in the crossfire or like Oman, where we're, um, expressing things that are perhaps different than what, uh, events have unfolded to show, um, or at least the, the US and Israeli governments have chosen to, to, uh, pursue. SARS 3661. Um, thank you for your contribution, SARS 3661. They ask, what does the Arabian Peninsula look like after all this, and the Islamic world in general? Um, of course, as we know, every country has their own motivations and concerns, but where do you think, or how do you think this operation will impact the surrounding area?
I think this is a significant turning point for the region as a whole. I think these GCC states, uh, are quite surprised. I think the US government probably is as well. There was always a realization that at some level, in this type of a war, the escalation ladder would reach a point in which the Iranians would strike at one or two of these GCC states that host American bases. These states had gone out of their way to avoid that by making sure that the US could not use their airspace, for instance. But that it would happen with all of the GCC states except Oman on the first day of the war, I think has taken a lot of them by surprise. Many of them have essentially made a significant living by being an oasis of peace and stability in an otherwise very turbulent region. That is now gone. So I think that in and of itself is a huge change.
Beyond that, you also have now have a situation in which for the last 10, 15 years, there's been a significant rush between Iran and the GCC states. The most important one between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This will undoubtedly complicate that, perhaps reverse that once this is over. It doesn't seem like the Iranians at this point are willing to even think about those days. They're fighting something that seems to suggest that they view it as existential in the moment. But there's also something else that might change as a result of this. These bases were ostensibly there to protect these states from Iran. It was supposed to be balancing against Iran, a much, much larger, more populous state than any of these GCC states. But now you have a situation in which these states were attacked not, um, uh, uh, in spite of the fact that they had these bases and these relations with the United States, but precisely because they did. And as a result, it's going to be interesting to see whether they, going forward, will view this as really, uh, a central piece of their security, or whether it actually will transform into something else. Because what is the point of having these bases there if it's actually causing you to be attacked, even when you're doing your utmost to stay out of this war?
And I know we had said earlier that the Israeli government and the US government may have their own divergent interests at play, but one common denominator, as I mentioned, is that they each want regime change. Um, however that might come about. And Drews are good. Thank you for your contributions as well. Uh, commenter, they ask whether Trump, as, as you were saying, is indeed betting on this being a quick regime change. And in any case, how does it play out if this war is prolonged, and the Hormuz Canal is shut down, and high gas prices do happen, and that comes back to bite Trump? There's all these possibilities, of course, but how do you think it plays out if, regardless of Trump's internal motivations, this thing does indeed play out longer?
Sorry, is that for me or for, >> you? Thank you. >> Oh, okay. Um, I think it's a very important question. I think the next 48 to 72 hours are going to be crucial. Uh, if we compare the intensity of bombardment of Iran in the last 24 hours to what happened during the 12-day war, uh, it's actually far less intense than it was during the 12-day war. And that's when only Israel was attacking. So now you have far more firepower, but you actually had less intense of an attack. Uh, I suspect that tonight, which means in the next couple hours, the United States is actually going to ramp it up quite dramatically, and so will the Iranians. Um, and what happens then in the next 48 to 72 hours is going to be crucial.
The US is betting on the regime collapsing or imploding from inside, and that that will then create a completely new scenario. They might be able to get defections from within the IRGC or from the military. Um, a lot of it is wishful thinking perhaps, or based on best-case scenarios. But that is what the intent is. The intent on the Iranian side is to inflict as much damage as possible on the US, on global markets in the next 72 hours, while retaining complete control and command, and despite the fact that they would lose critical people at the top of the system, that they would never actually, um, uh, cause that for them to lose, uh, command and control of their military, and as a result, continue to fight back. And by that, dispel the view on the American side that there is a quick victory to this, that this is going to drag out. It's going to be very costly. It's going to have a significant cost on the US, uh, on, on Trump himself internally, given, uh, inflation going up, markets collapsing, but also, uh, amass greater pressure on the US from GCC states and other actors that there needs to be an exit out of this. And then hope that Trump essentially backs down. There would not necessarily be a deal after that, but there would be a new status quo, perhaps not terribly different from the previous one. Um, but bottom line is that the Iranians would have repelled that attack and shown that they're not going to be bullied. And what whether they can translate that into a better situation remains to be seen. But that is, I think, their only pathway towards getting out of this, whereas the US is hoping that this could just be very, very quick. Um, obviously not as quick as Venezuela, but something that would not, um, reach the level in which it would have an impact on Trump's standing within the MAGA crowd and his, uh, the election, uh, in November in Congress.
I'm curious to Trita's point at the end there. Let's say there is some form of regime change that is carried out, um, that the US and Israel deem successful in some way. Do you foresee that being in some respects kind of in fashion, in certain respects, to to what happened with Venezuela, where Trump installs someone, for instance, if they're just looking to install a puppet, a stooge, someone who's friendly to the West, someone for whom there is no democratic input actually from the Iranian people? And what happens next? Or do you see any sort of other figureheads as well who might be able to rise up from sort of the democratic will of the Iranian people or something else? What do you think about in terms of what may come next? I know there's so question marks. But with regards to this possibility of a new leader that rises in Iran, or is installed in Iran, I should say, as well.
I would think, I mean, they're, they're obviously going for top leadership and, uh, senior leaders, the Israelis and the Americans, mostly the Israelis, as Trita pointed out. Um, but I think, and this is something we've heard from senior Iranian leaders. We heard it directly from the Iranian president at meetings at the, uh, UN, uh, last September, that they have at every level, for senior positions, they have a few levels below them ready to take the position if the top person is taken out. They essentially consider themselves walking martyrs that would be killed any moment or assassinated, and then they have the system. I mean, institutions, this is not a one-man show. This is a state with a lot of institutions in place, as we saw in June, um, where the top brass and many senior leaders were assassinated, and quickly they were replaced. And Iran was actually back then, the element of surprise was really there. This time it wasn't. But back then, they were really, really surprised because Iranian diplomats were packing their bags to go to Oman and negotiate with the US, and came the Israeli attacks, and it took them a couple of days to sort of gather themselves and regroup and attack back. But this time around, it wasn't like that. So they, they're sort of prepared. And I think the system will have, and they, I'm sure they do these contingency plans as far as, uh, the individuals and, and sort of how the system will take, um, or continue in, in case of various different scenarios of emergency. So I think this, this, there won't be, it would be a change in the leadership, but I don't think it would be sort of a US, if, if we also rule out boots on the ground, which the president has, the vice president has, I don't think there's any appetite for that kind of operation or even capacity. Um, I just don't see the mechanism or a scenario where the US can literally go and install a new regime or leadership into place. So it would probably likely just be within the system, people arriving, rising, or or movement in senior leadership. But I think we're still far away from that place. And like Tito was saying, Iran is playing the long game here, both in terms of the war, but also in terms of its engagement and interaction with the US and Israel. If you pay attention, their main talking point, their main essentially, uh, sort of the core of this policy is that they think we're weak because we have projected weakness, because we have shown restraint. And so the Iranian policy has changed from a, a path of restraint and deescalation in the face of attacks to escalation. And they're hoping that this will essentially, in the medium-term and the long-term, uh, project a sense that you can't just keep coming back for us with more attacks and more attacks. Now, they're willing to pay a very high, uh, price for that. I think they've been prepared. And, uh, at the same time, they've also very quickly expanded this or escalated it into a regional war, as they had promised and threatened to make sure that everyone in the neighborhood also feels the pain, and this doesn't just become a war, remain a war within Iran's borders. And they're hoping, I think, with that pain and the spillover, that the neighbors will also step up and help and move towards deescalation and a ceasefire.
There's a question from Khalil Raman on Substack, as well as from other users as well on both YouTube and Substack. You know, there's this been this euphemistic language that we saw so quickly right away in the media framing of describing the Israeli US strikes on Iran as preemptive. I'm curious for both of you, and we can start with you, Trita. How else have you seen the media fail to properly cover what's going on right now? Trita, can you hear me?
Hours do we have? Because if we're going to go over all of the different errors of the reporting by the media, the remaining five minutes here is not even going to be able to scratch the surface. The fact that the terminology preemptive strikes has been used so, uh, consistently by the media, just repeating what the administration says without actually scrutinizing it, shows again how little the media has learned since 2003. It's repeating the same mistakes, but in an even worse case, because at least back then, the the Bush administration made some significant efforts to, uh, lie to the American public. The administration so far has not even bothered to do that. Uh, I think is also part of the reason why they're doing this is because of the fact that there is or there was supposed to be a vote on Tuesday. I suspect it's going forward for war powers, and the administration clearly did not wait for that. Um, and I think that was deliberate. I fear that the war powers vote may actually have become a deadline rather than a deterrent for the administration.
And by calling this pre, a preemptive strike, they're essentially saying, "Oh, that vote was irrelevant because we were about to face an attack." And as a result, the United States president does have the authority to be able to strike back preemptively. Anticipatory self-defense, essentially, um, uh, in that type of a scenario. This is the same thing that they said when it came to the assassination of Soleimani, uh, a couple of years ago, in which they said that he was about to attack, and of course, ultimately, uh, there was never any, uh, evidence that was provided for that, whether publicly or to, uh, uh, the US Congress. So I think this was done to a certain extent because of, uh, the problems they will be facing or could be facing in Congress. But again, it's precisely why it's so easy to see through that, that it's so problematic that the media has just repeated it. The other thing that I think is absolutely essential, and I, I have to admit, I haven't watched a lot of news today because again, why should I? Um, uh, but the fact that the CBS interview, and the fact that the Omani foreign minister, the mediator, laid out what is, what was on the table, and what it meant, that should have been the news all day today, that there actually was a deal, and Trump chose to reject it and instead go for war. This was a war of choice, nothing to do with preemption or anything like that. And that again, I think, is a major, major, uh, error on the, uh, mainstream media, if they have not been talking about this at every, every, um, uh, news segment about what has happened in the last 24 hours.
Nar, what have you made of the media coverage?
Yeah, absolutely. Happy to add to that because I do pay attention to the media coverage, and unfortunately, it's just, I mean, talking about mainstream legacy media. I just saw, um, a question asked on an NBC interview with the Iranian foreign minister that Ryan Grimman drops out had pointed out. The anchor asked the foreign minister, "How can attacking US military bases abroad be justified?" I mean, this is the level, um, of sort of, um, I know, I know the media organizations understand themselves to be independent, not bothered by politics, really speaking truth to power, and that is the case when it comes to a lot of domestic issues. But when it comes to foreign policy, I've just observed a trend in the mainstream and legacy media industry that they just are very much influenced, sometimes without even knowing, by the foreign policy apparatus in Washington. And this also applies to media outlets in many of US allied organizations, you know, in Europe, across the Western world. And when you compare that to organization media outlets like yourself, more independent, but also, you know, for example, Middle Eastern outlets, I don't want to name names, but outlets that look at the issue with a professional lens, but from a very different perspective, you just see the stark difference, and sometimes even the contradiction, and in the questions that some of these, uh, reporters have been asking, asking the administration. I feel like we, I remember the lead-up to the Iraq war, and how the US media really played along along with that. But back then, I think there was more of a push for them to manufacture consent for for that war. And this time around, I feel like a lot of it happened without even that kind of push from the administration. You would get very pointed, somewhat even pro-war questions, for example, for figures in the administration that are not very much pro-war or seen as hawkish, uh, uh, or or the, uh, neocont type. So I think the media, the general media environment in the US, the mainstream media, the cable news, um, is just very skewed and biased when it comes to these foreign policy issues, and how they cover a, a US trend versus a US rival. You look at, for example, the war in Gaza, Israel, Gaza war is covered very differently. Russia, Ukraine, very differently. And then when it comes to Iran, it's also very, very different.
To both your points, in any case, the consent manufacturing machine is in full go, as people, you know, reel in the wake of this and and are confused, frustrated, scared. What do you think are ways that citizens and people can can advocate, can apply pressure, can express these emotions in some sort of constructive or productive way? And of course, we can just keep it very brief, but I'm curious to hear what you guys think about what people can be doing right now beyond just looking at their screens in bewilderment. Trita, we can start with you.
I think the immediate thing, of course, is to call their members of Congress about this vote. Uh, this vote is going to be held. Uh, I think it is going to be something that is going to be even more sensitive now since the war has started. In fact, I think the administration's calculation was that once the war has started, once they have started the war, it would be more difficult for Republicans to vote against an ongoing war. But I think it makes it all the more important, uh, for them to call their members of Congress and express very clearly that when 80% of the American public is opposed to this, or at least 20% are in favor, roughly 70 or so percent are against it, that this is not just an opinion, but this is actually an opinion that matters. And that only happens if they are actually calling their members of Congress and expressing it and demanding that their representatives vote against this war.
Thank you. Nagar, any thoughts?
I mean, I've heard from activist civil society advocates, there are protests going around, um, in various different cities, including here in Washington. As Rita said, also people calling their members of Congress, many of which actually, at least on the Democratic side, are opposed to this war, have been speaking up. Their war powers resolutions coming up on in both chambers. So, it's important. Um, and also again, pointing out the fact that the American people didn't have a say in this. Congress didn't have a say in this, and they just went at it the weekend before, um, the vote, the vote was even, uh, supposed to happen. And also the international community, the international community didn't have a say in this. We're hearing from, uh, US senior US UN, uh, leaders condemning this, calling it unlawful, and really, uh, pointing out to international law and humanitarian law, rule of war, etc. So, um, I guess these are, these are sort of the, at least bumps or the pushbacks that the, the US and Israel are getting.
Well, thank you both for those thoughts, and thank you both for joining me. As you both have said, there is a lot of media failings going around. We are trying our best, thanks to guests like yourself, thanks to all the work of my colleagues like Swin Supan, Andrew Perez, all of my colleagues who are helping make these, uh, town halls happen. We are trying to fill that gap, and that gap can be done best with all of your support. We're trying to be small but mighty. There's a lot of disgusting media coverage out there in the past day, in the past two years, in the past two decades that have over and over again been in favor of the war machine. We're trying to stand against that and to call it into question. This is, to Trita's point, what you all deserve. This is the kinds of media coverage that you are all asking for. So please continue to support Zate. We're going to try our best. We have a lot of forthcoming coverage on this, and so much more as well on Gaza, and how this is blowing back already, and Palestine as well. So please do continue to support us. Thank you again, Traa, and Nagar, so much for joining us. We appreciate so much.
Uh, I know these conversations will continue. And thank you everyone as well who who tuned in and for sharing your questions, your thoughts, your concerns. We know there's so many, and we share a lot of them too. So we'll keep trying to get to the bottom of them. Thank you all so much. Take care. Stay safe. Sending our best to you. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.