Experts Warn the Iran War Could Get Much Worse

Hello everybody. Good afternoon from Washington DC, where I am. We are here for another Zateo live town hall. This time, it's a big one because it's a big topic. We're talking about the ongoing war in Iran and in Lebanon, the US-Israeli war, uh, on those countries. Uh, who better to break it down with than this panel? This is not the kind of panel you get on shitty cable news. This is a Zateo panel.

Is Jeremy Scill, founder of Dropsite News, investigative journalist, author. Ruler Gabriel, author, foreign policy analyst, Palestinian Italian journalist. And of course, Vali Nassa, who was on my show recently, uh, scholar, academic, author of *The Shia Revival*, former adviser to the US State Department, Iranian name. Thank you all for joining me. We've got hundreds of people joining the chat as we speak. If you do have questions, stick them in the Zoom chat. I will try and get to them. Obviously, there are hundreds of you. I won't be able to get to all the questions, but I'll try my best. Uh, I get the prerogative of asking first our experts today. Uh, Jeremy, I'm going to kick off with you because I've been seeing a lot of, uh, excellent work you've been doing at Drop Site News. I've seen some of the interviews you've been doing. One thing we don't hear on American or British mainstream media are the voices of our opponents, our adversaries. Uh, we don't want to hear from them. They're seen as just irredeemably evil and not worth talking to. You've actually been speaking to people in the Iranian government. I saw your interview with the deputy foreign minister. You've got a piece out this week, uh, talking to sources in the Iranian government. So, let's just start from an Iranian perspective. What does the Iranian government think is going on right now? What is their strategy, if they have one, right now in terms of defending themselves against two of the strongest countries in the world?

>> Well, they definitely have a strategy. And in fact, you know, as Donald Trump and his administration are sort of fumbling to come up with a retroactive rationale and justification for launching this war, uh, we had been hearing from sources, uh, really over the course of the period between last June, uh, when Israel and the United States launched what they called the 12-day war against Iran, and right up to the eve of the February 28th assassination strike on Ayatollah Khamenei that kicked off this US-Israeli war, that the Iranians were not going to operate in the same way that they have at other times when the US and Israel have attacked them. Uh, in the past, as you well know, Medie, you've talked about this, the Iranians have choreographed their response to Israeli and American air strikes through back channels. And they did that because they didn't want to risk a wider war or a regional war. And so, typically what would happen is that the Iranians, through intermediaries, would speak to the United States and say, you know, here's the places that we're going to target. And then that, that ensured that there weren't going to be, for instance, large numbers of American soldiers being killed or civilians being killed. Um, this time though, they said that they knew if another war was launched, that it was going to be an attempt to decapitate the leadership of the government and it was going to be an existential war. And so the Iranians created or implemented what they called the mosaic defense. They understood that probably the supreme leader and senior figures within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were going to be assassinated in the opening moments of this war. So they delegated command authority further down the chain and they gave pre-authorization to hit, uh, swiftly, a bank of targets in both the Persian Gulf and in Israel. And that's why you saw a very, very quick response where the Iranians rained missiles down, uh, on Israel and also began a series of attacks against US military installations throughout the Persian Gulf. What I understand from sources though, Medie, is after that first 72-hour period or so, as the Iranian state institutions and leadership began to sort of delegate authority to new leaders and people stepped in in the command authority, there started to be a more central strategizing that took place. And, and for, what the last thing I'll say is that the Iranians that I'm talking to right now see the position as this. They understand it's an asymmetric war. They understand that the United States is an overwhelmingly stronger military power. They don't see themselves as having to defeat the United States militarily. What they want to do is inflict enough pain, cause enough problems economically for the United States, but also regionally for the United States among its allies, including all these Gulf countries that cut business deals with Trump, that Jared Kushner's businesses are all wrapped up in. And that their view is they're not going to sign a ceasefire on what they call Trump's terms. So, as he looks for an off-ramp right now, it seems the Iranians are saying, our conditions are not the same as yours, and you don't decide when this war ends. Wars of attrition benefit the less powerful side. And even though the Iranians are taking a massive, massive pounding right now, 1300 plus civilians killed, certainly conventional military assets wiped out, they believe that they have Trump painting himself into a corner. Time will tell if that's true.

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So on that note, with time is limited, so I'm going to jump around in this conversation. Uh, Vali, let me bring you in and ask you this. You and I spoke before, uh, the war kicked out. You came into the studio. We talked about what it might look like. Uh, let me ask you this about Mushtaba Bahrami, uh, the new supreme leader, son of Ayatollah. The regime change was so successful that we replaced Ayatollah with Ayatollah Khamenei. But let me ask you this, what is his goal right now? We're told that obviously he's someone who's lost his wife, his parents, uh, multiple members of his family, he's injured. Obviously, you know, whether he's a hardliner or harder than his father, all these phrases we hear in the media. Clearly, he's not someone who probably wants to roll over right now for the United States government. What do you think someone like Ayatollah Mushtaba Khamenei is defining as victory for the Islamic Republic? Obviously, Jeremy mentioned reestablishing strategic deterrent, making sure that they don't get attacked again if, slash when, this war is over. What do you think the Iranians right now are defining victory as?

>> Uh, I, I think first of all, I don't think his ascent to the position of supreme leader would change Iran's strategy. The strategy that they're following was decided on before as a consensus of the leadership and the IRGC. And as Jeremy said, it is being implemented, uh, uh, uh, very successfully. They're very happy with the way they're implementing it. He's not coming in to change anything. His imprint on, on Iran will actually show itself after the war. And I think the, the, his selection was, was largely a signal to the outside that, that Iran is remains defiant, that it's going to pursue resistance. But also they chose somebody to lead, not to be led. They chose somebody who is already well integrated into this strategy and therefore actually strengthens this mosaic defense. And also, I would call it mosaic government because Iran is also running the entire government on this decentralized manner. And I have to say, you know, the, the, the killings that Israel and the United States have done essentially has brought to the fore the second generation of the revolution, perforce. In other words, even Mushtaba is really belongs to the second generation of the revolution. And then all the commanders that are in charge of IRGC are the second generation. These are not veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. These are veterans of Syria and Iraq. They have sharpened their teeth fighting against the United States in an attrition war. Uh, they are very, their understanding of his strategy is exactly as Jeremy put it, that you, you confront a much more superior force but through asymmetric warfare. And, and they, from the very beginning, have been very closely tied to Mushtaba. Mushtaba basically was very instrumental in shaping IRGC in the past 30 years. Every promotion, every commander that went up the chain essentially went through channels that he created in IRGC. So I see the regime tightening much more as a result.

>> Vali, just a quick follow-up on that. You mentioned the second generation. I've seen a lot of people making this point that, you know, the younger, the younger guard rather than the older guard are more likely to be, uh, you know, up for a fight, less lean to negotiate. The older folks have been around for a while, have been looking for a way to kind of get some kind of détente with America. There was the JCPOA, etc. Um, I just wonder, uh, if this Iranian government survives, um, are they going to think, you know what, now we need to build those nukes we didn't actually build? I've seen a lot of people saying one of the one of the worst decisions Ayatollah probably made, the late Ayatollah, was a fatwa saying no nukes because Kim Jong-un is sitting pretty right now.

>> Well, first of all, his fatwa is now vacated. Shia don't follow the Ayatollahs. So the fatwa is no longer binding. Exactly. And also this group that is coming up after the 12-day war started indirectly criticizing him for a failed nuclear policy, nuclear doctrine that Iran should have gone for the bomb back in 2003 for better or for worse. And this policy that Khamenei followed of having an open nuclear program and trying to convince the world that Iran doesn't mean to build the bomb actually has backfired. It has brought both war and sanctions on Iran. And this is also untenable. And, and, and unless the world is willing to give Iran something really big for it to not build a bomb, I think that's where Iran will head.

Ruler, let me bring you in and broaden the conversation a bit. Unfortunately, uh, for the young folks watching, all four of us are old enough to remember the Iraq war, 2003, uh, 23 years ago, catastrophic, illegal invasion. Uh, where does Iran and this current conflict? Obviously, we're only a couple of weeks in, and it's very hard to kind of do predictions in the Middle East, especially. But where do you think, as someone who's covered Iraq and covered Syria and covered some of these horrific wars in the Middle East, this isn't the first of the 21st century, where do you think this will rank in terms of impact, in terms of consequence?

>> I think this will make the Iraq war look like a walk in the park. I mean, Iran is five times the size of Iraq. It's like the population, 92 million people compared to Iraq. I, I mean, I remember the invasion of Iraq. I was there. Uh, the first time we had any serious retaliation, it was five months within the war. Here, it's immediately. But I think it's very important to mention something that just tied to what Vali just said in the negotiation with the, with North Korea about the nuclear weapon. Every time they would talk to Kim Jong-un about giving up his weapon, he would, he was mentioning Libya, the case of Libya. I mean, I think the whole strategy of NATO and Trump that this somehow will curtail or prevent the region from having nukes. I think everybody in the region will think, if we want to stop these two bullies with, with nukes who are armed with nukes, we have to access nukes immediately because nobody is safe. I mean, if you watch the Israeli television every night, like I do, and you speak Hebrew and understand Hebrew, for the first time, they are literally bragging about trying to dominate the region, mil, literally, submit a region of 400 million people. We didn't have that with the Iraq war. We, I mean, I don't remember during the Iraq war those kind of rhetoric and conversation. I mean, in the Iraq war, you have, you, yes, you have incompetent people in the White House, but the Israeli, yes, yes, Netanyahu lobbied for this war, but this war is driven by the Israeli greater Israel agenda, by these people who blatantly and openly in Israel on television, on air, talk about annexing Lebanon, annexing the West Bank, but also they are talking about an Iran. They want an Iran to be not only a war against the regime, decapitation of the regime. They want an implosion of the Iranian state. They have no problem to bomb hospitals, schools. They have no problem, you know, bombing even, uh, oil facilities. Zero problem. And they want that because in their brain, this is one step further for them dominating the region. And I mean, we have two, uh, former prime minister and actual prime minister in Israel who are competing for the next election, uh, Khali Bennett and, and Netanyahu, who openly talk about the next war, and they're saying Turkey is the new threat. Turkey is the new Iran. I mean, this is they want forever wars. I don't think we had this with the Iraq war somehow. Yes, we, we saw some kind of, you know, some people who are delusional to think that they can dominate through Iraq the region. But in this case, the genocidal plan that they carried in Gaza, they really want to implement that genocidal plan in Iran.

Well, you could argue that the failure of Iraq, the catastrophe in Iraq, is what prevented Bush and Cheney from moving on to Iran. In this case, as you say, they're insatiable. They're already talking about the next war while the first one's not yet won. I just want to remind people, there's about 300 of you watching live. If you've got questions, stick them in the Q&A on in your Zoom screen. I'll try and get to them shortly. Jeremy, Ruler mentioned Iraq being, uh, Iran being, uh, Iraq being a walk in the park compared to Iran, if, uh, we carry on down this path. Um, there's been talk of ground troops. Um, the Israelis haven't ruled out ground troops. The Americans haven't ruled out ground troops. In fact, Caroline Levitt insanely suggested Donald Trump is keeping the draft on the table when she went on Maria Bartiromo's Fox show on Sunday. A ground invasion of Iran. Is that something that you think is possible? And what might that look like?

I mean, this would be the mother of all fool's errands if the United States, uh, elected to send ground troops in. I mean, look, look at the reality. This is not Syria. It's not Libya. And it's certainly not Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This is really the first modern, uh, nation that the United States has gone to war against in terms of its capacity and its state institutions, um, since, you know, World War II or Korea. And, and what we're, what we would see if the United States did try to, uh, launch an invasion is they would, what they put together a ragtag bunch of thousands of Kurds. Uh, that, that seems to be the, the plan that they've been putting on the table. There is no, uh, organized armed Iranian outside militia to speak of. Uh, they presumably would be assuming they would get mass defections. And I think they are dramatically underestimating what the IRGC is and also the fabric of Iranian society. See, when you start to believe your own delusions, when you start to imply that every single Iranian is a prisoner to a dictatorship of a mullah, you know, the, the, the rhetoric that these guys use at the Pentagon and, and at the White House on down, and you start to believe, you know, get high on your own supply, then you start to say, "Oh, well, if we come in with ground troops and Netanyahu is telling us that the people are going to rise up," you end up on an utter catastrophe where it's not just a quagmire, but you're going to have masses of American soldiers coming home in body bags. You know, I, I followed the reporting on Zateo on this. I know it's a real discussion that's happening in this administration right now, and I just want to be clear. If the United States does contemplate putting ground troops in, I think it's going to be an utter bloodbath. And I think that there's a reason why Abasarachi, who is a PhD, British educated man who is the foreign minister of Iran, when he was asked on NBC about the possibility of ground troops, he said, "We're looking forward to it." I don't think this was just him dunking on that host. I think that there is a sense in Iran, among the IRGC, but also among the political echelons and broad parts of the population that if this is going to be an existential war, then fight fair. Don't launch your missiles from, uh, you know, from ships. Don't come in with your bigger bombers. Send in your troops. Send in your crusaders and let's have this war. I think it's real. I think it's real.

>> Mahi, can I add something? At the height of the Iraq war, they had 100 attacks in Baghdad a day. Hundreds. They actually had to ask the Iranians for help at a certain point because they were so desperate, the Americans. The only way that the level of violence was reduced in Iraq, it's because they actually offered a political solution. It was the Sahwa, the awakening, that political plan. There's the Iraq war somehow ended or like they they tried to shift into reducing simply because they had to consult with the Iranians and have to to have agreement with the Sunni and the Shia, but also it was led by diplomats. It was not led by generals.

>> Also, Ruler, they, they justify this war by saying that Iranians killed lots of American troops in Iraq with IEDs, which if you think about the logic of that, you killed our troops in Iraq, so we're going to let you kill them in Iran, kind of makes no sense.

Uh, Vali, let me bring you back in because Jeremy mentioned the idea of the Israelis telling the Americans that people are going to rise up. There was a bizarre moment on CNN this week where Jake Tapper asked a former Israeli intelligence asset, "What are your Iranian friends telling you?" And she said, "They're ready to rise up." Bizarre, bizarre moment. Speaks volumes about our mainstream media. But NYAK did a poll, the National Iranian-American Council did a poll of Iranian-Americans. You're of Iranian descent living in the US, of course. Um, and it showed that there isn't surprise, the community is not a monolith. People are split on whether they support US military intervention in Iran, uh, or whether they oppose it. And we know many Iranians diaspora do support it and many oppose. What about on the ground in Iran? Dick Cheney famously said on Meet the Press, "We will be greeted as liberators," if memory serves me correctly. Right? And, and, and they were not in Iraq, obviously. What happens in Iran? And if Saraf, one of our subscribers, I'm going to start getting some of our questions. Lots in the chat. Ifar asks, "What percentage of the Iranian population actually fully support the present Iranian government?" Mainstream media here in the UK seems to suggest only 20%. Do we know?

>> Well, I mean, first of all, just to add one other layer to what was said, geography also matters here. I mean, Iran is not a flat country. Its capital city is about 2,000 kilometers and, and, and two mountain ranges away from the closest port. You know, the number of American troops that are required to, to sustain logistical lines until you get to Tehran, let alone control a city of 10 million, is probably two to three times the number of soldiers that they, they put in in Iraq. Uh, and therefore, I actually don't take this seriously. I think it's bombast that, that Iranians also read through it. I mean, uh, Pete Hegseth may say these things, but I think serious, uh, you know, military people would think twice about putting that, that on the table.

>> You know the reason >> Unfortunately, Vali, the US is not led by a serious man. But please do continue.

>> Um, well, look, you know, the 20% number comes from the dedicated polling of presidential parliamentary elections. There, there is, there is that segment of the, of the Iranian population which is very attached to the Islamic Republic for varieties of reasons. So that's a die-hard, if you would, uh, uh, base. Even if the majority of Iranians, even if we concede that the majority of Iranians totally dislike this regime, they rose up in rebellion in January, uh, in order to to throw the yoke off in the middle of the war. They're not going to rise up for the reason that there's no organization to rise up. And also because Israel and the United States, when they killed that first night, you could say they went after the regime. But since then, they have gone after Iran. The Iranian, it's not, it's not the regime that is under threat for most Iranians. It is Iran that's under threat. When you bomb, uh, infrastructure of the country, when you bomb, uh, you know, 17th-century cultural heritage of the country in, in, in Israel, in, in Tehran, and when you be openly say that we're going to arm separatists, and the president says, I don't think Iran's borders will remain the same at the end of this war. I, I think it, it, even if there was a unified anti-regime, uh, coalition in Iran, of people that breaks between people who are anti-regime versus those who are anti-war, where those who think that that the protection of the country should come first. And so they, so Iranians are, are divided. And inside Iran, I think the preoccupation is with survival. People who are facing survival, who are who are worried about their own future and the future of the country are not at that point in time ready to, uh, you know, go to the streets and, and, and create a regime change from inside. So I think President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu assume that the Iranian people are the Achilles' heel of the regime. They can be instrumentalized and weaponized during the war, as, as was also somewhat the case in January. But I think the way they've conducted this war has taken that off the table.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of buyer's remorse from some folks in the diaspora saying, "Well, I didn't expect them to hit oil depots. This is not right." Bit late now. Uh, Jeremy, Jamal Shaw asks in the, in the Q&A, "In the West, we're not being shown that much war damage in Israel. How much damage has Iran actually inflicted?"

>> Yeah, I mean, in fact, I was just talking to a colleague in a, uh, bomb shelter, uh, earlier in the evening in Tel Aviv. We were, we were texting and the, you know, the, there's been these rumors tonight that there's going to be a much more intense, uh, barrage of missiles and attack by Hezbollah. And I think Hezbollah really has been the wild card, uh, for the Israelis right now, uh, because Israeli society had been told that Hezbollah had been almost entirely decimated. And so, and Hezbollah also geographically holds the high ground in many locations. So this presents a different kind of a problem. Um, but the censorship is widespread. And many Israelis are, have been saying, "Why is it Israeli journalists are saying, why can't we report things that we're reading on prominent Israeli Telegram channels that are clearly getting leaks from the Israeli government?" Journalists are prohibited from filming large portions of what's happening inside of Israel. The extent of the damage that the Iranians have done to military infrastructure has been entirely suppressed. And in a way, Medie, that's also true. In fact, not just in a way, it's true throughout the Persian Gulf. These Gulf countries are now going after people in Bahrain. There's talk of giving the death penalty to people who are filming unauthorized, uh, aftermath of some of these strikes or in sensitive areas. Um, there's been arrests throughout Persian Gulf, uh, countries of people for filming or in some cases celebrating, um, you know, attacks. And so I don't think that there is an accurate picture being given to the public of the extent to which the Iranians have done serious damage. You know, in Jordan, I itself, which is not in the Gulf, but in Jordan, the Iranians managed to totally destroy and incapacitate an advanced radar system that is one of the arteries of the entire early warning system that the US has in the Middle East. They destroyed another one of those in, in one of the Gulf countries. They've hit multiple bases. The number of troops, US troops that have been wounded is far higher than anything the public has been informed of. Now, you know, on March 2nd, Medie, just a few days after this began, we were hearing via witnesses in Kuwait that civilian hospitals in Kuwait were treating dozens of wounded American soldiers. I asked CENTCOM about this report. They refused to get back to me. Just tonight, Jennifer Jacobs of CBS News reports that the number of American troops who were wounded in that initial drone strike in Kuwait was much higher. They were then medevaced from Kuwait to Germany and elsewhere. The lies that are being told, the lack of transparency is a disservice also to the American public because we're not being told just how much damage Iran has managed to do because we're just being told, "Oh my god, look at this cool video of us blowing up ships. Oh my god, this is the worst bombing anyone's ever done."

>> Well, I would, I would add to that that you have a double whammy with this administration. On the one hand, they lie about everything. On the other hand, Donald Trump's a sociopath who doesn't actually care about Americans being killed. He's made that very clear. You know, his response is very blasé. He turned up to coffins returning with a baseball cap from his merch store. So, I think there's not going to be much sympathy there.

Ruler, let me bring you back in and say, bring some questions in from the audience. An anonymous attendee asks, "What is the likelihood of the Gulf countries of GCC states entering the war, fighting Iran directly?" Which is something Lindsey Graham has been calling for, of course. And I'll just add to that, Oz Hack asks Ruler, "Can it be prevented from escalating further globally? For example, will Saudi Arabia force Pakistan to enter?"

>> Well, to Lindsey Graham, I, I mean, I think we're wasting our time even, even talking about this guy. I have no idea what, is he compromised by Israel, whether he's really an insane warmonger that, believe in all the, I mean, he talked about a religious war. Yes. I, I don't know if he connects his tongue to his brain. I mean, we're in the middle of Ramadan. You're telling two billion people around the world, it's a religious war, and then you brag about going back and forth to Israel, serving the Israeli interest, you know, more than the people who voted for you. Just, it's just incredible. Um, just a note, I mean, I, I met Lindsey Graham. I, I moderated a debate between him and, and Hillary Clinton, 2019. He smelled like whiskey. He, he was not sober. He smelled like he was only...

>> We don't need to smell it. We only need to listen to him, Ruler. But on the wider, on the wider point of the Gulf countries, you, wider countries, I don't think I, I mean, look, in the beginning of the war, the region, especially the region, has been, uh, warning that what's happening in Gaza will not be limited to Gaza. For the last three years, they tried to, to convince the president of the United States that his interests are not the interests of Bibi Netanyahu. They lost that battle. They tried to give him planes, they tried to give him golf courses, money, endear his people, and then they realized they've been betrayed by this president. And also they realized, I mean, when I saw the Omani foreign minister flying just to convey the truth about those negotiations, because basically Jared Kushner and Whitkov, who are Netanyahu's lackeys, they have no basic understanding of the negotiation or technicality of negotiating an Iran nuclear deal. There's like no clue. But also, I believe that they, they hold Israel's interests above, above others. The region understands that. Let me exclude for the region the Emiratis, who I think are the proxies for Israel, the Israelis. The rest of the region have been, have been telling Netanyahu, have been telling the president of the United States that he needs to rein in Israel. They were upset about the 12-day war. They were upset about the bombing of Doha when, when they were trying to negotiate a ceasefire between them, between Hamas and Israel. And they've been warning that this, this basically war will become regional and probably global. Yesterday, Aramco, um, the oil company from Saudi Arabia, said basically that there will be not only a regional problem for the oil prices, but there will be a global crisis, because of the Strait of Hormuz, and not only because only of the oils, fertilizers, and other things pass through the Strait of Hormuz. What I'm, what I'm hearing from people in the region, yes, they're upset that Iran is hitting them, but they're furious that Trump sold them down the drain. They're basically promised them somehow that he's going to contain, and then basically betrayed them.

So on that note, in terms of betrayal, in terms of where this war goes next, um, we are being asked questions, a lot of questions in the chat about what happens next. And Vali, I want to bring you in here because a lot of people are asking in the chat about what are, there's one question here, "How would you, and you are obviously someone who worked at the State Department, you're someone who does international studies for a living, how would you assess the likely long-term geopolitical and economic consequences of this confrontation for Western interests in the Middle East beyond the immediate military exchanges?"

I think everything has changed now. I think Iran managed to change the region, regardless of the outcome, unless, unless the Islamic Republic disappears overnight and is replaced miraculously by another version of an America-loving, you know, regional government. I think there are some fundamental facts. First of all, the, the shadow of the risk that has been put on the Gulf is not going to be lifted, not easily. And I think that's one reason the Gulf countries will not join the fight because that will only extend the shadow of risk. I mean, unless there is a lasting peace in the Gulf, and that requires the United States to be serious about a lasting peace in the Gulf with Iran, uh, the tourists, the banks, the, the data centers are not going to go back. Amazon is not going to build a data center again, which might be bombed again six months from now, or a Standard Chartered Bank today asked all of its employees to leave the Gulf, or direct foreign investment will not go back to the Gulf. And therefore, uh, it takes a lot for the region to go back to where it was. The US cannot just have a reset to back before February, uh, when this war started. Secondly, the Gulf countries now have some serious thinking to do. You know, there, there's been for 47 years since the Islamic Republic came about, and President Carter issued the Carter Doctrine that the United States would defend the region against Iran. And then President Reagan started the process of military intervention to support the countries of the region against Iran. The US has built bases. It created this, uh, uh, uh, relationship with the Gulf countries which basically said, we will defend you against Iran. Now, two issues have come up. One is that if Iran disappears, and as Ruler said, Israel decides to hit these countries to get them to be, to do what Israel wants, it's very clear that the United States will not defend, uh, the Gulf countries, uh, uh, against Israel. So even if Iran collapsed in this region, the Gulf countries are going to ask, okay, what good are these bases here if Iran is gone and you won't defend us against Israel? Secondly, the US in this war has proven that it will not defend the Gulf countries.

>> Only country was prepared to defend was was Israel. It's not even supplying them with additional interceptors. The only thing American bases have invited to for the Gulf countries is risk and war. They're they're in the line of fire and their economies and the future that they were imagining is at risk because of these, because of the US bases. So when the war settles down, I think the, the serious questions between United States and, and, and the Gulf countries will only start, and that that will change, I think, the shape of the security in the region.

>> It's very true. Very fascinating.

>> Can I add one? Can I ask? Can I weigh in on this? Um, you know, I, I think that the, I agree with everything that that Vali just said, and I think that, you know, the dynamic here involving Iran has to be at the center of this. Iran is very clear that they are not going to end this war on Trump's terms. And they are, and, and they remind us that the 12-day war ended in a ceasefire that was requested by the United States and Israel, not by Iran. And what Iranian officials are saying today is that to end the war, their conditions are that they want, uh, reparations for all of the damage that has been done, and that they also want an international certification, uh, of Iran's sovereignty is going to be respected. Iran is not going to, and, and the problem we have, and you alluded to this, Medie, is that twice in one in one year, Donald Trump claimed to be negotiating with Iran and used that as a flimsy veneer to then conduct a strike, a, a surprise attack on Iran. Both times he did that.

>> And he was, he was running down the clock to get his fleet in place.

>> No. Right. And in fact, then they, they bring the Omani foreign minister over. He is telling the world, "We are on the verge of a deal. The Iranians," you know, Rob Malley, who was one of the lead negotiators on the 2015 JCPOA, told me that the terms the Iranians are talking about go beyond the Obama era terms. Trump could have just declared victory, said, "I got something that Barack Hussein Obama never got before." The whole point is it wasn't about that deal. The whole point is they knew this nonsense about Iran was was 10 days away from a bomb. That they went into the meetings bragging. This is complete nonsense, and everyone involved with the process knows it. But at the end of the day, I really think we have to take seriously the Iranians are not going to accept a ceasefire on Trump's terms. And they have sent a very serious message to those Gulf countries on how easy it is actually for Iran to knock down all those American toys and start hitting them very, very hard.

Jeremy, just to follow up, Ruler, just one second, I'll come back to Jeremy, just to follow up on that, there's reports today that the Iranians are saying they will hit corporate interests of the United States that they believe are allied to the US war machine, Palantir, Google, etc. And an interesting question from, where did it go? Judith Phillips, saying, "I've heard Hegseth repeatedly scoff at the very notion of rules of engagement. He called them stupid." Uh, can you talk about the extraordinary danger that puts on our armed forces? Presumably, if America recognizes no law, Iran is under no obligation to do so either, Jeremy.

Well, listen to the rationalization from the Iranians for bombing some of the hotels that they've hit in Bahrain and elsewhere. Iranian officials have told me, and they've also said this to an extent publicly, that they had intelligence that there were Mossad operatives in some of these hotels, and of course, Mossad did evacuate some of its personnel. It seems pretty clear the Iranians had good intelligence. That the Americans had evacuated their military personnel from bases and put them in hotels. The Iranians seem to have good intelligence. So they hit those hotels and they say, "Well, those cease to be a civilian institution because the United States put combatants in them." Where have we heard that logic before? Human. So, so this answers the question from your, your viewer and your reader there, Medie, which is that the Iranians are turning this around and they're saying for two and a half years of your genocide against the Palestinians, you have used this idea that it's okay, it's acceptable to bomb a church, a church, a mosque, a clinic, a hospital because human shields. And so the Iranians are saying, you're putting your soldiers in a hotel in Manama, Bahrain. We can hit that hotel. The Mossad is operating in civilian business buildings undercover. We know that they're there. We can hit that. So that answers the question there. The US has set the rules of engagement, and Israel has set the rules of engagement, and they get outraged and start talking about international law in Israel when it's Iran that is doing the same tactics.

>> Yes. Even though they don't care about international law, and their head of state is under an indictment and an arrest warrant. That's a funny thing that Trump was was convinced to enter the war by an indicted war criminal and Jared Kushner and Whitkov, who who understand nothing about international diplomacy or international law. I mean, I hope the Iranians will join the ICC, the ICJ, uh, the Rome Statute and actually will start pursuing legally what happened to them. This war is illegal. This war is criminal. This war, they don't have even the authorization from Congress. I mean, one of the things that the region is now awakening to the fact that this is not about security, was never about security, was never about nuclear weapons, and was always about Israeli hegemony in the same region because they listen to Netanyahu, who maybe in English talks about liberating the Iranian women or about, I don't know what he's talking about, but when he, when they listen to him in Hebrew, and they actually they translate into Arabic every word that he says, he talks about Amalek, he cited the word Amalek, which is a biblical call to genocide against the Iranian people. I mean, that's why when his generals say, we don't care whether it's a civil war or the collapse of the state, they really truly are adamant that they want to destroy the Iranian state. And I think most Iranians, even the people who hated the regime, look at what is Israel's actions, words, and deeds, and they're unwilling to embrace that genocidal mantra.

Ruler, let me just ask you this as well. Um, you've thought and spoken about this for a while, and you and I have had conversations about the American far-right and the far-right globally. Lauren Costello asks, "How should we think about the influence of the Christian right? I'm hearing that preachers are imagining this will lead to the second coming of the Christ." Another, uh, questioner, anonymous attendee, asked, "What about these reports of 200 officers? There's been, I think, 200 complaints about officers saying that the Iran war will lead to an end-time scenario in the Middle East. These are serving commanding officers in the US military telling their troops that this is where the war will lead." When you hear that, Ruler, that must send a shiver down your spine.

>> Well, I'm not surprised. I've been listening to, you know, that there's a myth that Israel is a democracy, that there is a liberal, somehow that they care about keeping, they're they're fighting for the soul of a democracy. I mean, the people who are the pilots who are bombing Iran, who are bombing literally schools and hospitals in Gaza, in Iran, and in Lebanon, are liberals who their leader, Lapid, said this is a war that we, uh, endorsed. This war is unpopular here in America, but it's very popular in Israel. They want this war. They want the next war against Turkey. Their leaders said there's no coalition government and no opposition. Were united against the Iranian people. He talked about the Iranian people, not the Iranian regime. And we're seeing that the same liberals who said, no, no coup, I mean, we will stand up and defend, uh, you know, the judicial system in Israel, but we will do that when we'll finish the job in Gaza. The job in Gaza is genocide. So, there's no liberals in Israel. They actually believe, you know, many of them, they go to war and they have this, this patch on them, and it's the Greater Israel plan, the Greater Israel project, and the math, and they have this emblem on their arms. These are liberals. These are the same liberals that go and defend the settlers when they commit pogroms, and they have no problem actually bragging about, you know, the school girls in Iran, the 175 school girls who were slaughtered in Iran. You know, I was, I was reading some of those comments, the Israeli pilots' comments, and they said, "Better dead than with a burqa." People don't wear burqas even in Iran. They wear a veil. But for them,

>> It's better that they are dead because there's a Jewish supremacist ideology that even a minister of defense, former minister of defense of Israel, I alone, compared it to a Nazi ideology. We need to understand that there's a religious component, there's a supremacist component, that there is a racist component. And as we speak now in the Knesset, in the last two days, they were bragging about annexation, but also they're bragging about building the Third Temple. Something that Hagari himself in 2019 talked about. So the religious component is very important. I think we need to make maybe another, another show like this about that religious component that leads back to

>> Tahanism. You, you flagged the Lindsey Graham comment about this being a religious war, and yes, people in Israel haven't hidden that fact. Uh, Vali, let's bring some of your international relations expertise and again, by broadening the discussion to the West and to Europe. Helen Mongur asks, "One of the tragedies, most alarming aspects is the absence of international condemnation of the US-Israeli attack." I think she means Western condemnation. But yes, for example, she says the UK, and Mariam Ninevea asks, "Is it possible Western Europe will join the war against Iran?" I would add to those two questions from Mariam and Helen, Vali. Mark, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, goes to Davos, gives this rousing speech that everyone applauds about how international law was abused by the US, the selective use of the international rules, how they're all waking up to the double standards. And then suddenly, the moment he's asked to test that proposition, he comes out not just in favor of the war, he says Canada might join the war. In the UK, of course, Starmer has been all over the place. He was late to giving defensive bases or whatever he calls defensive action. And it's an offensive war. Um, where do you see the Western leaders, the European leaders, the Canadian leaders, who only a few months ago were worried about America taking Greenland, and yet they're happy to support Trump in this ridiculous, illegal war?

I mean, this is this is a repetition of the same problem they had with Gaza. In other words, the problem of double standards, uh, and, and also is going to come and bite them because also the other side of this, Medie, is that Iran's position, ironically, in the Global South, and particularly among the people and across the Muslim world, is extremely popular. I mean, yes, this regime may be very abhorrent to its own people, but to other people, it's seen as the only government who just won't accept, uh, Trump's bullying. Khamenei is the only leader in the Middle East, the only leader in the Muslim world who, who is not trying to ingratiate himself to the White House, even though that might have been an easier path to get a nuclear deal, and basically has stood tall. This is hugely popular. And in fact, that's one reason why countries like Pakistan, etc., might think twice before getting involved in this war. But I think it's making Europe and, and Canada, etc., far more isolated and irrelevant to the global order. First of all, them joining the war won't make any difference. It's not like Israel and the, and the United States are lacking offensive firepower. I mean, where Trump has got himself, uh, you know, locked in is, is this problem is created in the Gulf with global energy, etc. And if the Europeans want to enter in, you know, they're, they're going to become also targets, uh, their, their interests will become targets as well. And there is also an element here which is Israel very successfully has weaponized a segment of the Iranian diaspora which is pro-war, which goes to rallies with both flags of monarchy and Israel. This is used in Israel itself as a way of arguing that, you know, these people are our only friends and we should help them. But also the, the only thing this, this mobilized diaspora could do is to put pressure on governments where they are, uh, in order to take a very hard line against the.

Islamic Republic. Uh, and I think the European governments and Canada think that there is no cost in in condemning Iran because of its image in the West. Uh, and and and also it's a cheap way of saying to selling to the United States that they are supporting it at the time of war. But I think in the longer run, it's going to make them irrelevant to the Middle East. It's going to make them irrelevant to the future of Iran. They're not going to have a seat at the table, and it's going to further damage their standing in the global south.

>> And I should point out, >> can I say except Spain because Sanchez has been really excellent. >> That's true. We should remind in his speech, he always remembers something. He said that everybody that supported the Iraq war was hit. Even Madrid was hit with a Russian attack. Uh, the government was to have the election three days after the candidate that was in pole position, able to win, the conservative lost the election because of that attack. London was hit, Paris was hit. So everybody that participated in the Iraq war was hit. The public opinion in Europe is against the war. The governments seem to be totally delusional about Trump and Netanyahu's, you know, idea. What are the objectives on what they gain from this war? I, I honestly, I think it's tied also to the fact that there's, especially in this moment in Europe, there's this idea that if they upset Trump somehow, he will pull the tri, you know, the trigger from Ukraine. They're so terrified that he will abandon them. He is going to abandon them anyway.

>> He's going to, he's going to abandon them anyway and take Greenland. I want to go to Jeremy before I go to Jeremy Rule. You mentioned getting hit. Um, Amy Hasbrook asked, "What is the likelihood of attacks on North America by either Iranian agents or drones?" We know about terrorist blowback from Middle East wars. We've seen it. Uh, the idea that the Iranians won't hit back, especially after the United States killed their leader, not just a national leader, but a religious leader. I mean, I worry living in the US, as you do, Ruler, that there, God forbid, might be a terrorist attack in response to this. And rather than the people blaming the Trump administration for, you know, inciting that attack, it'll be used as an excuse by the Trump administration to crack down on Muslims even further. I think we need to distinguish between Sunni terrorism and Shia terrorism. I'm sorry. And I think, uh, maybe Vali can go in the deep. The Iranians are very smart, very savvy, very strategic. They're not thinking about attacks right now. But do I think there will be retaliation in the future? Yes. I don't know when, how, but I don't think it would be the kind of retaliation that ISIS or al-Qaeda did. It's going to be different. It's going to be much more strategic, much more thoughtful, and much more savvy. Probably they are going to hit first the region.

>> I would, I would just add to that. I mean, I'm not worried about Iranians doing it. I'm worried about the, the anger, the collective anger in the Muslim world from Gaza to Iran.

>> Yes.

>> It all adds up.

>> It all adds up. I mean, there, there's a sense in the region. You could go online and see there is now a wave of saying Shia and Sunnis are brothers, brothers that in this fight together, let's put aside the leaders in the Arab world, uh, who are, you know, may speak a different language, but people where there are people, you know, is in large countries and then across the Muslim world, this anger that started with, with, with what happened in Gaza, it's only building up. And I believe actually anger at some point has to manifest itself. It's just cannot be that you batter this regime and and and and do this kind of injustice to it. I'm worried about some kind of >> blow just in case. >> I'm worried about false flag attacks from Israel. Why do I say this? I say this, and I know it's a very tricky. I mean, when, when the Israelis understand that they are going to lose the political establishment. I mean, we saw them bombing their own embassy in London in 1994. We have the, the former head of the Mossad, Yosi Cohen, who wrote a book, and if you read his book, you can understand the kind of, you know, covert operation they're willing to do. They armed ISIS, they financed ISIS both in Gaza and in Syria. Do I suspect that at a certain point they will lose that as a leverage to basically submit also the political establishment? I wouldn't be surprised. It's unfortunate as both of you have given, I mean, Vali makes the point that there, there could be a terrorist attack from people who are angry and want to strike back. You make the point that there could be false flag attacks. I should point out the US intelligence is warning about an increased terrorist threat, but the Donald Trump administration is suppressing that intelligence. That's the Daily Mail reporting that Jeremy. Lots of questions in the chat. We're almost out of time. I'm going to try and take some questions in groups. A lot of people had questions about terrorist blowback. I think we've talked about that. The other big group of questions from Stevie Z and from Sebastian Pooh and from all, all lots of people, I'm Lee Block, Sha Tease, all asking the same question, Jeremy, uh, what are the odds that Israel or the US decides to use tactical nukes against Iran?

>> I, I don't think we can eliminate that possibility and it feels shocking to the soul to to say that. Um, but I do think that it's clear that Trump is in a bit of a panic about what to do here, and I think he is looking for an offramp. It's very interesting that this began with him talking about regime change and then more recently, he starts saying Venezuela model. Um, also the nuance of that is that he keeps bringing up the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. And he often says, you know, look what they did. They took out Saddam Hussein. They, they fired everybody, and what did we get? We got ISIS. So then he's saying we should get an internal leader. He keeps speaking disparagingly about the, the, the Shah's, uh, you know, son. And he, he's saying, "I want someone who's internal and eternal." Um, and and he could be a religious figure. I like religious people. So, what are we hearing here? See, so, but Trump, though, he's, he's already walked off the cliff in the eyes of the Iranians because of everything that that we've been talking about here. The Iranians aren't going to accept it this time around. So, what about blowback? Yes, blowback doesn't happen, you know, in two weeks or in a year. Um, these Gulf countries are propped up by US militarism, their interwoven connectedness to the American economy, in the case of Trump, to his Trump family businesses, and they effectively have a system of bribing their own citizens to keep them content and quiet. But their citizens have watched this genocide take place. They're watching now as their countries characterize Iran as the aggressor, and they say almost nothing whatsoever about the crimes being committed by Israel and the United States. We don't know. It's the butterfly effect, Medie. We don't know what the impact is going to be, and we may not know it for years, but the blowback will come.

>> 100% agree on the butterfly effect. Obviously, Iranians think in terms of decades, as do a lot of people in the Middle East. Americans think in terms of days and weeks. Um, there's an anonymous question in the chat, Jeremy. Why does the US keep making the same mistake again and again? Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. You have obviously covered a lot of wars in your adult life as a foreign correspondent. Why? What's the answer to that question?

It's it's imperial hubris and uh and and and you know, presidents, particularly Trump, they get enamored of their own power. You know, we, we spoke to people who, who were involved with some of the briefings before this war began, Medie, and uh, some sources told us that Trump was, that it had been planted in his head that he's going to go down as the president that forever changed the Iranian regime. He started to sort of feel his own greatness in a sense. I don't think Trump is really an ideological guy. He's a crook. He's a criminal. He's a liar. He's a megalomaniac. He's all those things, but he's not ideological. I think what's happened here is even worse than some of the imperial hubris because in this case, I think a big factor is that Mariam Adelson >> Yes. >> and and Netanyahu and Israel, they've purchased an entire wing of American foreign policy on an unprecedented level. They've always had the influence. But in this case, Trump's the main factor here is, I think this is a war for Israel's interest. And whether the Iranian government is overthrown or not, which I don't think is likely. Yeah. >> What has happened here is that Israel has wanted to remove the only actual nation state that has served as any real deterrent against it. And and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador, is talking about going all the way to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with the greater Israel project. That's real in the, in politics in the United States. That's real among the Zionist class. That's real what the agenda is. And so part of this too is to soften the battlefield for the rest of the war of annihilation. And we should never forget the Palestinians. They refused to wave the white flag. They didn't surrender to the Israelis. And all these Gulf countries stood by with just thoughts and prayers. Their populations are watching what's happening. Europeans are increasingly outraged at what their governments are doing. Particularly in places like Germany and the UK. You're seeing unprecedented opposition now. It took two and a half years for Germans to start opening their eyes, but they see it clearly now. So the, the implications of this, the consequences of this, Medi, are probably going to be multigenerational, both in terms of blowback, but in terms of the geography of power in the Middle East.

That is a fantastic answer about the long-term implications. Just so we end on the short term, Vali, in terms of what's coming next. Uh, Karen Ashishka, she picks up on what Jeremy said. Can Palestinian statehood be part of reparations that are demanded by Iran? Jeremy had mentioned reparations earlier. And Vali, something we didn't get to talk about in this hour, sadly, because the time ran away from us. We had so many questions. Is Lebanon and the ongoing horrific war in Lebanon where up to 100 kids have been killed, 600 civilians? Do you think the Iranians will make Lebanon part of any ceasefire deal, any end deal?

Yes, they are actually very explicitly talking about that, that there will be no ceasefire without without ceasefire in Lebanon, and also that Israel would withdraw back back to its own borders, and yes, that the Iranians will make demands about the Palestinians as well. Now, these might be maximalist goals that they're putting forward, uh, and maybe they won't get everything they want, but, but they are, they are putting these issues on the table. So, they're looking at at a ceasefire that is not just regional, and it's sorry, that it's not just about them, but it's actually regional.

Let's see if we actually get to that point. Um, unfortunately, I don't suspect we're anywhere close to that point. Now, if this keeps going on, I may have to invite you all back to give us some more of your excellent analysis. We appreciate you taking time out of all of your busy schedules, uh, to come talk to our Zato subscribers. There's about 300 of you in the chat. Those of you watching, make sure you tell your friends and your family to become paid subscribers to the table so they can have access to town halls like this one. This is not the kind of discussion you'll see on cable news tonight. I'm glad to say. I especially want to say, uh, thank you to Jeremy's organization, Dropsite News, which is an important independent media outlet. Don't just support Zateo, support other independent media outlets like Dropsite. And today, Zateo and Dropsite did our first joint venture. We put out an opinion poll that we commissioned together on the war in Iran and on American attitudes to war in Iran. And you'll be shocked to hear what Americans think about whether Donald Trump went to war for Jeffrey Epstein. Go check it out and see the results on that. Uh, for now, from me and our distinguished panel, goodbye. Did you like this video? Don't forget to subscribe to this YouTube channel and turn on notifications. For exclusive content and to support our independent, unfiltered journalism, head over to zateo.com. Your support matters.