Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 2/28/26: IRAN WAR: Trump RISKS IT ALL For Israel

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2/28/26: IRAN WAR: Trump RISKS IT ALL For Israel · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: All right, guys, we're very lucky to be joined this
0:02
Speaker 1: morning for instant analysis from doctor Tree to Parsi, who,
0:05
Speaker 1: of course is alongside a great front of the show.
0:08
Speaker 1: He is with the Quincy Institute for Responsible state Craft.
0:11
Speaker 1: So great to see you, sir, Good to be with you.
0:14
Speaker 1: So just your first reaction to the launching of this
0:17
Speaker 1: joint Israeli US regime change war against the Iranian government.
0:23
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, this is absolutely terrible. It's a violation
0:26
Speaker 2: of international law. It's a violation of US law that
0:29
Speaker 2: there's not been a vote, there's not been a debate.
0:32
Speaker 2: In fact, there's a vote schedule for Tuesday. It appears
0:34
Speaker 2: as if he almost wanted to start it before the vote,
0:37
Speaker 2: so instead of that war powers vote becoming a turrent,
0:40
Speaker 2: that became a deadline for him. But also I think
0:43
Speaker 2: it's you know, I have to admit that I was wrong.
0:45
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember. I wrote that piece
0:47
Speaker 2: in August of last year predicting that these Raelis would
0:50
Speaker 2: start the war again, and I thought that it would
0:52
Speaker 2: happen sometime before the end of December of last year.
0:56
Speaker 2: Of all the scenarios that I considered, the one that
0:59
Speaker 2: I found to be the least likely is one in
1:01
Speaker 2: which the United States would be fully on board. I
1:04
Speaker 2: was more worried that these Ralis would start something and
1:06
Speaker 2: drag the US into it or something along those ways.
1:10
Speaker 2: But the fact that these radiers would be fully on board,
1:12
Speaker 2: the US would be fully on board and take the
1:14
Speaker 2: lead on it is something. I just thought that Trump
1:16
Speaker 2: would have enough of a care of the opinion in
1:20
Speaker 2: his own megabase to realize the political downside. It's not,
1:23
Speaker 2: as you know, talking about any type of a moral
1:26
Speaker 2: consideration on his end, obviously, but a political consideration. But
1:29
Speaker 2: even that seems to have been completely set aside in
1:32
Speaker 2: order for him to do this well.
1:35
Speaker 1: In fairness to you, you know, when you look at
1:37
Speaker 1: the landscape, you see the political people have to realize
1:41
Speaker 1: this is a disaster. The military people realize it's a disaster.
1:45
Speaker 1: Our allies in the region outside of Israel did not
1:48
Speaker 1: want this war. Our allies in Europe, I mean, they're all,
1:51
Speaker 1: you know, put issuing supportive statements now, but they also
1:54
Speaker 1: were not eager for this war. So what was the
1:59
Speaker 1: piece that we were all missing in terms of looking
2:02
Speaker 1: at this analysis in this landscape. I mean, I was
2:04
Speaker 1: obviously and I know you were too deeply concerned we
2:06
Speaker 1: would end up in this war with a run. But
2:09
Speaker 1: if you just look at it from a strategic perspective
2:12
Speaker 1: and all of these different pieces, there is something about
2:15
Speaker 1: it that seems to not add up.
2:18
Speaker 2: I think that. I mean, it's a great question, and
2:20
Speaker 2: I want to say that, you know, I don't think
2:21
Speaker 2: I have the full answer in any wayship or form,
2:24
Speaker 2: but I think there's a couple of things we can
2:25
Speaker 2: point to. First is the sugar High from Venezuela. The
2:30
Speaker 2: fact that that operation went as smoothly as it did,
2:34
Speaker 2: at least from a military standpoint, not a single American casualty,
2:37
Speaker 2: seems to really have cemented a view in Trump's mind
2:42
Speaker 2: that he is, you know, he's operating in a different
2:45
Speaker 2: dimension that everyone who's told him, you can't move the
2:49
Speaker 2: embassy to Jerusalem, you can't give Golan to the Israelis,
2:53
Speaker 2: you can't kill so lay MONI, you can't bomb for though,
2:56
Speaker 2: you can't do all of these things, that all of
2:58
Speaker 2: them have always been wrong. That he has managed to
3:01
Speaker 2: do it and there has not been any real repercussions,
3:03
Speaker 2: which of course is not entirely true, and that as
3:06
Speaker 2: a result he's just gotten some sort of a superhuman
3:09
Speaker 2: view over himself in which he has again taken the
3:14
Speaker 2: advice by others about the dangers of this with a
3:18
Speaker 2: tremendous amount of assault and skepticism. Because what we have
3:23
Speaker 2: in this situation is not one in which there were
3:26
Speaker 2: a lot of people in the White House pushing for this.
3:28
Speaker 2: The main person pushing for this was Trump, and the
3:31
Speaker 2: other people pushing for it were outside of the government,
3:34
Speaker 2: or at least of the administration. They were in the Senate,
3:37
Speaker 2: the pro Israeli crowd. It was the Israeli government, but
3:40
Speaker 2: it was not a lot of people inside the government
3:42
Speaker 2: that was doing this. All of these leaks that has
3:45
Speaker 2: come out almost on a daily basis in mainstream media,
3:49
Speaker 2: with military personnel declaring all the kind of challenges that
3:52
Speaker 2: they're faced with, this are all there to kind of
3:55
Speaker 2: push him back or at least win more time. And
3:58
Speaker 2: I think it reflects again on the difficulty from their
4:02
Speaker 2: standpoint to actually do this in a successful way with
4:04
Speaker 2: a degree of expectation that Trump now seems to have
4:07
Speaker 2: based on a couple of operations that went much better
4:10
Speaker 2: than most people had expected. I think that's one element
4:14
Speaker 2: of it. The other element is and I mentioned this
4:17
Speaker 2: on the show. Before the Israelis in the December twenty
4:20
Speaker 2: ninth meeting really managed to give Trump the impression that
4:24
Speaker 2: the Iranians are much weaker than they are and that
4:28
Speaker 2: he has this amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity to
4:33
Speaker 2: be able to get rid of this regime. We heard
4:35
Speaker 2: that in his speege talking about how this has been
4:37
Speaker 2: going on for forty seven years. You know that he
4:40
Speaker 2: is the person who has this opportunity that has never
4:42
Speaker 2: been a better opportunity than this, And we saw that
4:45
Speaker 2: and the way that Witcoff declared that, you know, Trump
4:48
Speaker 2: was frustrated that the Iranis had not surrendered yet because
4:51
Speaker 2: he had the wrong expectation that they were so much
4:54
Speaker 2: weaker than they actually are, and that surrender was in
4:56
Speaker 2: the cars. I think a fundamental misunder standing on Trump's
5:01
Speaker 2: end is that he thought the more aircraft carriers he
5:05
Speaker 2: brings to the Persian Gulf, for to the Indian Ocean,
5:08
Speaker 2: the scarier the Iranians will be and eventually they will cave,
5:11
Speaker 2: not understanding that what the Iranian theocracy fears far more
5:16
Speaker 2: than the aircraft carriers is capitulation and surrender they believe
5:21
Speaker 2: they can win, they can survive a war, and frankly,
5:24
Speaker 2: they may not be wrong about that, particularly if the
5:26
Speaker 2: US is not going in with ground troops. There's a
5:28
Speaker 2: highlightode that they will survive this. But they cannot survive
5:32
Speaker 2: a capitulation or a surrender because their support based inside
5:36
Speaker 2: of the country has already shrunk. The people that are
5:39
Speaker 2: left supporting this theocracy are even more important to the
5:43
Speaker 2: theocracy at this point because they have lost so much
5:45
Speaker 2: other support. And the people who are left tend to
5:49
Speaker 2: be the most hard line and they will never forgive
5:52
Speaker 2: a surrender. But they can definitely live with a war
5:56
Speaker 2: that is lost as long as it is fought. And
5:59
Speaker 2: this is that undamenttal psychological misunderstanding on Trump's side, in
6:03
Speaker 2: which he felt that he could just scare them into surrender.
6:07
Speaker 1: I sort of hate to ask you about this because
6:09
Speaker 1: you're such a sophisticated and dignified person, But what about
6:13
Speaker 1: the Epstein files. You know, I mean, clearly, Trump, there
6:16
Speaker 1: are things in there that have been hidden from the
6:18
Speaker 1: American public. We know that they have not been forthcoming
6:20
Speaker 1: in following the law that Trump signed into law that
6:23
Speaker 1: requires the full sum release. We know he's moved Gallayne
6:26
Speaker 1: Maxwell to this club fed prison. We know that very
6:29
Speaker 1: likely whatever is contained in those files, Israel, you know,
6:31
Speaker 1: likely has access to and does have full knowledge of.
6:34
Speaker 1: And of course we know that Donald Trump himself had
6:36
Speaker 1: a close personal friendship with Jeffrey Epstein over the course
6:38
Speaker 1: of many years. I mean, could that be a potential
6:41
Speaker 1: factor at play here as well?
6:42
Speaker 2: It absolutely could be, because we don't have access to
6:46
Speaker 2: all of those filed and as you have reported on
6:48
Speaker 2: the show as well, a lot of the stuff that
6:50
Speaker 2: actually contains Trump's name was not released, so we don't
6:53
Speaker 2: know what exactly is in those files. So I think
6:56
Speaker 2: what we can say is that clearly there is some
6:58
Speaker 2: missing factors that would explain how we got to this point.
7:02
Speaker 2: Could Epstein be one of them? Absolutely, you cannot rule
7:05
Speaker 2: it out, and you cannot also assertively or conclusively say
7:09
Speaker 2: that it was the factor. But to completely dismiss the
7:12
Speaker 2: idea that this has something to do with it, I
7:14
Speaker 2: think would be problematic because there's no evidence to exclude it.
7:17
Speaker 2: There's also no smoking gun evidence at this point that
7:19
Speaker 2: says this is the reason why this is happening.
7:22
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about a few conflicting reports that
7:24
Speaker 1: we're getting, you know, understanding that as we're unfolds, there's
7:27
Speaker 1: all sorts of misinformation and lies and propaganda and things
7:30
Speaker 1: to sort through. So the Israelis are claiming that they
7:33
Speaker 1: believe they successfully assassinated Ietola company. He on the other hand,
7:40
Speaker 1: the Iranians are saying he's going to come out shortly
7:42
Speaker 1: and make a speech. So first let's just talk about,
7:46
Speaker 1: you know, the possibility that he certainly was targeted, the
7:49
Speaker 1: possibility that he could have been assassinated, how significant do
7:53
Speaker 1: you believe that would be, and what would be some
7:54
Speaker 1: of the fallout from that targeting.
7:57
Speaker 2: Undoubtedly would be tremendous significant if he were to be assassinated.
8:04
Speaker 2: What would follow, however, is actually a little bit more
8:07
Speaker 2: difficult to predict. First of all, there's a significant risk
8:11
Speaker 2: that the administration is well aware of that this will
8:13
Speaker 2: actually put a fire throughout the region because their Shia
8:17
Speaker 2: populations in Iraq, in Lebanon in Saudi and Bahrain in
8:22
Speaker 2: the UAE in Pakistan, who view Harmony as a religious
8:28
Speaker 2: figure and as a religious leader because he is a
8:30
Speaker 2: grand Diatola or imagine, have needs. So this is something
8:35
Speaker 2: that I know in the summer they were very concerned about.
8:37
Speaker 2: Whether they have now completely dismissed that or not remains
8:40
Speaker 2: to be seen. The Israeli argument has been that it
8:42
Speaker 2: is necessary to kill him to essentially kill an era,
8:46
Speaker 2: an era of the Islamic Republic. It's symbolic in its value.
8:50
Speaker 2: Now what would follow? I would presume that the Iranias
8:53
Speaker 2: already have decided the secession at this point. In fact,
8:56
Speaker 2: they've declared that they decided the secession for several key
8:59
Speaker 2: posts about five lines down, and that would be very
9:03
Speaker 2: odd if they were to do that. But not having
9:04
Speaker 2: done that with the Supreme Leader, could it erupt into
9:08
Speaker 2: protests on the streets in the sense that some people
9:10
Speaker 2: would think that this is an opportunity that absolutely also
9:13
Speaker 2: could happen. What we have seen so far, and I
9:15
Speaker 2: think this is an important point to keep in mind,
9:18
Speaker 2: we've not seen any such product. I spoke to someone
9:21
Speaker 2: in Tehran just before this show. No scenes yet of
9:23
Speaker 2: people celebrating this in a large or any significant number
9:27
Speaker 2: at all. In fact, one thing that has happened that
9:30
Speaker 2: probably will make it more difficult for that type of
9:33
Speaker 2: sentiment to grow is that you had this bombing of
9:37
Speaker 2: the school girl of this girls school in Hoemos, girlan
9:41
Speaker 2: province in Iran, in which about fifty or so children
9:44
Speaker 2: were killed now in a war. Unfortunately, these things do
9:48
Speaker 2: happen statistically. If this were to go on for a month,
9:51
Speaker 2: they would almost certainly have happened. The fact that it
9:54
Speaker 2: happened on the first day, I think is very significant.
9:58
Speaker 2: This is different if it had happened on one after
10:01
Speaker 2: a large number of leaders of the state apparatus had
10:05
Speaker 2: been assassinated, and then this happened, it would happen in
10:07
Speaker 2: a different context then. But this happened on the first day,
10:10
Speaker 2: before any of those other people of any significance had
10:13
Speaker 2: been killed. And I think that also puts an impression
10:17
Speaker 2: in the minds of most Devarniys what this actually is,
10:19
Speaker 2: what the cost of this is, That this is not
10:21
Speaker 2: some of these romanticized views of war that is now
10:25
Speaker 2: being spewed by some exiled pretenders to a throne or
10:29
Speaker 2: pretenders to power, who are portraying this as if this
10:32
Speaker 2: would be some sort of an honorable war while they're
10:34
Speaker 2: themselves sitting in Maryland and enjoying their daily lives. So
10:40
Speaker 2: I think that in themselves has had and will have
10:42
Speaker 2: a psychological impact on what the fallout will be if
10:46
Speaker 2: you start seeing that key people within the state apparatus
10:49
Speaker 2: are killed. The other thing that I think is also
10:52
Speaker 2: very important to keep in mind here is that by
10:56
Speaker 2: all accounts that I've spoken to, the Supreme Leader is
11:00
Speaker 2: seen by many as an obstacle. Inside of you are
11:03
Speaker 2: for those who actually want to strike back much harder,
11:06
Speaker 2: who believe that the Irani has committed a mistake by
11:09
Speaker 2: responding so politely to previous attacks to Israeli attacks waited
11:13
Speaker 2: for too long in the strategy called strategic patients, they
11:17
Speaker 2: view up how many, as an obstacle for what they
11:20
Speaker 2: would want to have done, which is strike back harder
11:22
Speaker 2: or even go for a nuclear weapon. And for those
11:25
Speaker 2: who wanted to have a much more aggressive diplomatic approach,
11:28
Speaker 2: we would have included direct negotiations with Trump himself, which
11:32
Speaker 2: I think could have made a difference in all of
11:34
Speaker 2: this that it had been done earlier. They also see
11:36
Speaker 2: him as an obstacle because he's been too adamant about
11:40
Speaker 2: not taking that step if he is taken out and
11:44
Speaker 2: there's a different leader or taking power, or if it's
11:48
Speaker 2: a council, etc. He also means that some of those
11:51
Speaker 2: questions will be revisited, and Iran may go in a
11:55
Speaker 2: very different direction, one that perhaps is not at all
11:57
Speaker 2: to the liking of the United States.
12:00
Speaker 1: I saw you engaging online with some potential reports that
12:04
Speaker 1: jailed dissidents, jailed dissident leaders in Iran had also been targeted.
12:09
Speaker 1: You know, what do you make of those potential reports
12:12
Speaker 1: and what can we say, you know, based on again
12:14
Speaker 1: early reporting about what has been hit and what was
12:16
Speaker 1: ultimately targeted, about what the goals of this war actually
12:21
Speaker 1: are from the US and Israeli perspective, based on where
12:24
Speaker 1: they are attempting to strike.
12:27
Speaker 2: I really try to wrap my head around that. We
12:29
Speaker 2: do know, for instance, that they did try to target
12:31
Speaker 2: the house, the empty house of the former president amadinajad
12:35
Speaker 2: He was not there and they did not hit that house,
12:37
Speaker 2: to hit a house about two blocks or two houses
12:40
Speaker 2: down the street. But they also appear to have tried
12:43
Speaker 2: to hit the house that the dissident politician mi Jose Musavi,
12:49
Speaker 2: who was the person who won the elections in two
12:51
Speaker 2: thousand and nine and would have been president, who was
12:53
Speaker 2: a reformist had it not been for the election fraud
12:55
Speaker 2: in which Amadinaja took power again. He's been in house
12:58
Speaker 2: arrest now since for about seventeen years. That house was
13:01
Speaker 2: also targeted. It seems to be an effort to eliminate
13:06
Speaker 2: all elements of this system, whether they are dissidents, whether
13:09
Speaker 2: they're reformists, whether they're in power right now, And that
13:12
Speaker 2: would be more in line with what I think these
13:15
Speaker 2: Raelis would want, which is to have a complete power
13:18
Speaker 2: vacuum at the top, which makes it far more likely
13:21
Speaker 2: that you will have a civil war or that you
13:23
Speaker 2: would have essentially a complete not just regime collapse and implosion,
13:26
Speaker 2: but state collapse. I'm not so sure if that really
13:30
Speaker 2: is what the administration wants. I certainly would believe that
13:33
Speaker 2: they would recognize that this is not in the interests
13:35
Speaker 2: of the United States to see that level of instability.
13:38
Speaker 2: And whether each and every target is coordinated between the
13:41
Speaker 2: two side I have no insight into, but I could
13:44
Speaker 2: definitely see if this was just an Israeli war, that
13:46
Speaker 2: they would do this. The US being involved in it
13:48
Speaker 2: raises some question marks in my head.
13:50
Speaker 1: And what do we know so far about the Iranian
13:53
Speaker 1: counter attacks which have been widespread US basis throughout the region,
13:58
Speaker 1: and of course directly targeting Israel as well. Obviously they
14:01
Speaker 1: also control those straits of Hormus, which are incredibly key
14:04
Speaker 1: for shipping in general, but specifically for oil shipping. What
14:09
Speaker 1: do you make so far of what we know about
14:11
Speaker 1: the counter attacks and what Iranian capabilities may be.
14:15
Speaker 2: What we see from the counter attacks is that they
14:17
Speaker 2: happen very fast, which is about two hours into it
14:21
Speaker 2: rather than twelve to eighteen hours last time. They were
14:23
Speaker 2: not taken by surprise. They're not at a very very
14:27
Speaker 2: robust level in terms of a large number. But it's
14:30
Speaker 2: also very important to understand the attacks so far by
14:32
Speaker 2: US and Israel is not at all at the same
14:35
Speaker 2: level as it was during the Israel War of June
14:37
Speaker 2: of last year. Tonight we may see something much much more,
14:41
Speaker 2: But what we seem so far has not at all
14:43
Speaker 2: been at the same intensity as we saw during the summer,
14:47
Speaker 2: and given the fact that the firepower is far far
14:49
Speaker 2: greater right now, I think that in and of itself is interesting.
14:54
Speaker 2: Whether that is because they wanted to slow start slowly,
14:56
Speaker 2: whether they thought that perhaps the initial wave of attempt
15:00
Speaker 2: a decapitation would be successful, it's difficult to tell. But
15:03
Speaker 2: the Iranian response has also in that sense been very widespread,
15:08
Speaker 2: very fast, but also not as robust as it was before.
15:12
Speaker 2: We're not seeing the same number of missiles being hit
15:15
Speaker 2: at Israel, for instance, but we are seeing that they're
15:17
Speaker 2: targeting almost all of the bases where at least almost
15:20
Speaker 2: all countries in the GCC Iraqi air bases operated by
15:24
Speaker 2: the US have been attacked. We saw that there was
15:26
Speaker 2: an attack that appeared to have gone towards the base
15:29
Speaker 2: in Kuwait, but the missile was deflected because of the
15:34
Speaker 2: air defense system and landed at the airport in Kuwait,
15:37
Speaker 2: and of Kuwait is of course a very small country.
15:41
Speaker 2: We've seen attacks similar things seems to have happened in
15:43
Speaker 2: Dubai in which the Palm neighborhood in Dubai was hit,
15:49
Speaker 2: and we've seen attacks in Kutar. We've seen attack in Bahrain.
15:52
Speaker 2: In Bahrain, and we saw some very strange images of
15:54
Speaker 2: Bahraini's cheering once they saw that the drone actually did
15:58
Speaker 2: hit the US base where the fifth Fleet is and
16:02
Speaker 2: what that was it was actually drowning. It was not
16:04
Speaker 2: a missileze one of the same rather slow moving drones
16:07
Speaker 2: that the Iranis have been selling the Russians that Russians
16:09
Speaker 2: have been using in Ukraine. And it's just very surprising
16:14
Speaker 2: that that drone would have been able to get through
16:16
Speaker 2: all the air defense systems at the US naval base
16:19
Speaker 2: in Bahrain. Whether that is because the air defense systems
16:23
Speaker 2: were overwhelmed or something else, I don't know, but it
16:25
Speaker 2: was actually very surprising to see that a drome would
16:28
Speaker 2: would make its way into the otherwise very fortified American
16:32
Speaker 2: base there.
16:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean also remarkable to hear the celebration, as
16:35
Speaker 1: you said, from the Bahrainians who were filming that. You know,
16:39
Speaker 1: what did you make of that? And obviously all of
16:41
Speaker 1: the US allies in the region have already put out
16:43
Speaker 1: supportive statements. We've seen Western Europe, you know, once again
16:46
Speaker 1: embarrassingly coming along and almost across the board supporting these aggressive,
16:52
Speaker 1: illegal strikes from the US and Israel. Mark Karney, who
16:56
Speaker 1: just gave you know, great speech about how we're turning
16:58
Speaker 1: the page blah blah blah. You know, he winds right
17:01
Speaker 1: up behind the US in this illegal war as well.
17:04
Speaker 1: But what is the sentiment among people in the region,
17:06
Speaker 1: do you suspect, you know, beyond the top leadership?
17:11
Speaker 2: Let me ask her, But I do want to I
17:13
Speaker 2: can't resist to comment on Carney and what he just said,
17:18
Speaker 2: mindful of the fact that he gave a speech that
17:20
Speaker 2: was widely celebrated at Davos in which he famously said
17:25
Speaker 2: that we're taking the sign down, mentioned very clearly that
17:29
Speaker 2: we knew that international law was invariably implemented based on
17:34
Speaker 2: the identity of the attacker and the identity of the victim,
17:39
Speaker 2: and here we have a perfect case of that in
17:41
Speaker 2: which this is, as you pointed out, a clear violation
17:44
Speaker 2: of international law. But Carney, the Finnish Prime Minister, who
17:48
Speaker 2: also wrote this article about values based realism, could not
17:52
Speaker 2: even get themselves to even get close to a condemnation
17:55
Speaker 2: or even actually using the term international law. So when
18:00
Speaker 2: Carne says that the rules based order essentially is overWe
18:04
Speaker 2: we're taking down the side. Many of us, perhaps a
18:08
Speaker 2: bit of a wishful thinking, believe that perhaps this would
18:12
Speaker 2: mean that he's going to do a re embrace of
18:14
Speaker 2: international law rather than a rules based system, because law
18:17
Speaker 2: is much firmer. Instead, we're seeing that he's not even
18:20
Speaker 2: using the word international law. At the first instance in
18:24
Speaker 2: which his new little thesis would have been tested, he
18:27
Speaker 2: utterly failed, and so did the vast majority of European leaders,
18:31
Speaker 2: save the exception of Ireland, Norway, Switzerland and Spain, the
18:35
Speaker 2: same group who incidentally also stood firmly on the side
18:38
Speaker 2: of international law when it came to the genocide in Gaza.
18:43
Speaker 2: Now when it comes to the regional states, this is
18:46
Speaker 2: part of the reason why they were so against this
18:48
Speaker 2: in the first place. They knew that they would be
18:51
Speaker 2: victimizing this. They have to, of course, from their standpoint,
18:55
Speaker 2: come up with very very strong condemnations. These are, at
18:57
Speaker 2: the end of the day, attacks on their soil. And
19:01
Speaker 2: the Iranian response is, this is not meant to attack you.
19:03
Speaker 2: This is meant to attack bases that are being used
19:06
Speaker 2: directly or indirectly to attack our soul. End result of
19:10
Speaker 2: all of this may very well end up being that
19:13
Speaker 2: rather than having American basis on your soul providing you
19:17
Speaker 2: with security, it actually may end up becoming the opposite,
19:20
Speaker 2: that the very principle is negated, that you're actually at
19:23
Speaker 2: a greater risk of being attacked precisely because you have
19:26
Speaker 2: these bases on your soul. And very importantly in this
19:29
Speaker 2: case as well as the case of the past summer,
19:31
Speaker 2: the United States have vacated all of those bases before
19:35
Speaker 2: it attacked. Both the personnel have been moved out and
19:38
Speaker 2: most of the equipment have been moved out, which then
19:40
Speaker 2: raises the question, what's the point of these basis If
19:43
Speaker 2: they were supposed to defend these regions, these states against Iran,
19:46
Speaker 2: and now when you're having a war, you're actually vacating them,
19:49
Speaker 2: what's in it for these states?
19:51
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, well, finally, you know, it's hard to see
19:57
Speaker 1: what the off ramp could be for the US, given
20:00
Speaker 1: that Trump just came out and said, hey, we're aiming
20:02
Speaker 1: for regime change here, and anything short of that, you know,
20:06
Speaker 1: based on his own metric of success, would be would
20:09
Speaker 1: be a failure. However, there are again some reports out
20:12
Speaker 1: that they reached out, the US reached out to Iran
20:16
Speaker 1: looking for already some sort of a negotiated seasfire. There
20:19
Speaker 1: are also reports that the Iranians have reached out and
20:22
Speaker 1: offered some sort of concessions in exchange for a ceasefire.
20:24
Speaker 1: I have no idea whether either of those reports are
20:26
Speaker 1: accurate at this point, But my question for you is,
20:29
Speaker 1: you know, do you see some potential near term off
20:34
Speaker 1: ramp that could you know, keep this it's already a
20:36
Speaker 1: regional war, but keep it from escalating into an even
20:40
Speaker 1: broader and lengthier disaster.
20:43
Speaker 2: I could let me first say I think the most
20:45
Speaker 2: likely scenarios is either that Trump continues this until he
20:48
Speaker 2: gets some sort of a regime implosion and need the
20:51
Speaker 2: clearest victory, but also washes his hands or whatever follows.
20:55
Speaker 2: And this has been very clear in the internal conversations
20:57
Speaker 2: that no one wants to take responsibility for what happens
20:59
Speaker 2: to you afterwards. And that's this is the big difference
21:02
Speaker 2: between regime change and regime collapse. In the regime change,
21:05
Speaker 2: you're actually actively trying to install a new government, and
21:08
Speaker 2: their track record becomes your track record. In regime collapse
21:12
Speaker 2: or implosion, all you're doing is getting rid of the
21:15
Speaker 2: existing one, and then you say that you have nothing
21:17
Speaker 2: to do with whatever comes afterwards. So I can see
21:20
Speaker 2: that scenario in the sense that if this goes on
21:23
Speaker 2: for a time and if they managed to kill a
21:25
Speaker 2: lot of the different leaders of the current system, that
21:29
Speaker 2: there would be some sort of an implosion and then
21:30
Speaker 2: he would declare victory, even though you know you would
21:33
Speaker 2: have instability, potentially civil war and all of these different
21:35
Speaker 2: kinds of things. The other scenario is that the Iranians
21:38
Speaker 2: continue to strike back the last the outlast Trump. This
21:41
Speaker 2: becomes very costly for the US. Casualty rates, inflation, global
21:46
Speaker 2: or markets are destabilized, all of these different things, and
21:50
Speaker 2: then the pressure on Trump internationally from the American public,
21:54
Speaker 2: from his own base starts to become so strong that
21:56
Speaker 2: he looks for an exit, and then he may actually
21:58
Speaker 2: take the deal that was on the tape, the deal
22:00
Speaker 2: that is way better than what Obama managed to secure
22:05
Speaker 2: and that Trump nevertheless rejected, and then he may take that,
22:08
Speaker 2: and then suddenly they cleared out of victory and say
22:10
Speaker 2: that thanks to my bombing campaign, we achieved this, even
22:14
Speaker 2: though the Omani Foreign Minister made very clear that this
22:17
Speaker 2: is already on the table and you are rejecting it,
22:19
Speaker 2: you're going for a war of choice. There is that
22:22
Speaker 2: other scenario as well. I don't find it to be
22:24
Speaker 2: as likely, but it's very difficult to put any numbers
22:27
Speaker 2: on it, which is that after a couple of rounds,
22:30
Speaker 2: both sides feel that they can go back to the
22:33
Speaker 2: negotiating table with their faces having been saved, and they
22:37
Speaker 2: may actually be able to go back to the same
22:39
Speaker 2: agreement as existed before, the same offer on the table,
22:44
Speaker 2: but both of them can say that, you know, now
22:45
Speaker 2: we got it because of this exchange. Trump can claim
22:48
Speaker 2: that he bombed them, that he was very successful. Levonians
22:51
Speaker 2: can claim that they struck back, they were very successful,
22:54
Speaker 2: and then they come to some sort of agreement. The
22:56
Speaker 2: reason why I think that's going to be difficult, though,
22:59
Speaker 2: is that at this point we've always said that there's
23:02
Speaker 2: no trust between the US and Iran, but there's never
23:05
Speaker 2: ever been less trust than there is now. And as
23:09
Speaker 2: a result, even if they were to come to some
23:11
Speaker 2: form of agreement, it does seem to me extremely difficult
23:15
Speaker 2: that the deal actually would be implemented, that it would endure,
23:18
Speaker 2: that it would be anything more than essentially a cease
23:22
Speaker 2: fire with a pretense of having a deal beyond that.
23:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because Israel is certainly not going to be
23:28
Speaker 1: satisfied with that either.
23:30
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, very interesting. Is very different in all of this.
23:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to your point on the trust, once again
23:37
Speaker 1: we see the US using diplomacy as a ruse. The
23:41
Speaker 1: reports Israelis are bragging about how this has been in
23:43
Speaker 1: the works for months, that the date was set weeks ago.
23:46
Speaker 1: You know, CNN is now reporting about some biblical justification
23:50
Speaker 1: reason related to Amelek that they chose the state in particular, so,
23:54
Speaker 1: you know, hard to trust a country when they're constantly
23:57
Speaker 1: using negotiations and diplomacy as a ruse to launch new wars.
24:01
Speaker 2: If I said just one thing on that, yeah, I
24:04
Speaker 2: think they Israelis have an interest to really push that
24:07
Speaker 2: narrative that this was a ruse from the outset, that
24:10
Speaker 2: this will already plan because they do want to destroy
24:14
Speaker 2: America's credibility as a diplomatic force as a negotiator because
24:19
Speaker 2: they were against these negotiations in the first place. And
24:22
Speaker 2: the more you push the narrative that this was a
24:23
Speaker 2: lie from the outset, the more easily you can avoid
24:27
Speaker 2: any future negotiations. I'm not convinced that it really was.
24:30
Speaker 2: I think there were elements. I think there was some sincerity,
24:34
Speaker 2: but ultimately Trump felt for the type of pressure that
24:37
Speaker 2: he has proven himself to be far too susceptible towards.
24:41
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that this wasn't a ruse at some point.
24:43
Speaker 2: This doesn't mean that this is in any way, shape
24:45
Speaker 2: or form forgivable, or that it is not illegal. But
24:48
Speaker 2: I think we have to recognize nothing would serve the
24:51
Speaker 2: Israeli interest more then to completely destroy America's credibility as
24:55
Speaker 2: a negotiating partner, because that would avoid all of these
24:58
Speaker 2: headaches that these Raelis have had that at at various
25:01
Speaker 2: points in the United States have actually looked for diplomatic
25:04
Speaker 2: exit wrops.
25:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Trump is certainly making it easy for them.
25:08
Speaker 2: Too, certainly to make that case.
25:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, doctor Parci, thank you
25:13
Speaker 1: so much for your analysis, and I hope we'll get
25:16
Speaker 1: to speak again with you in the future because there
25:18
Speaker 1: certainly will be a lot to talk about.
25:20
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.