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That is why now, Netanyahu and Trump decided they had to go to war · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:04
  In this political Coliseum, we slay the rising beast with the fateful sword of truth that transcends hypocrisy and censorship.
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  It's time to unleash yourself from the tyrants of media propaganda on the America Out Loud Talk Radio Dev.
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  This is unleashed the political news hour.
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  Welcome everyone.
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  You are listening to Unleash the Political News Hour here on America Out Louds.
• 0:40
  And today's guest is Claire Lopez.
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  Claire is somebody who I consider to be just a leading expert on all things Middle East.
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  And I think that today the world that we live in.
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  Why is the United States involved?
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  What is the connection to Israel?
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  And before I bring her in, I am Mayor Deb.
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  I want to do a quick intro on Claire and who she is.
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  She is the founder and president of Lopez Liberty LLC, which has a mission to alert Americans to the national security threats, both international and from the Islamic Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their Marxist collaborators in this country.
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  She is supported by former acting ICE Director Tom Holman and Tom Trento at Defend the Border, the United West.
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  She was the formerly serving as the VP of the Intelligence Summit with a career operations officer with the CIA, professor at Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, executive director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005 to 2006.
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  And she has served as a consultant, instructor, an analyst, a researcher for a variety of defense firms.
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  Currently, she is also writing a blog on Newsmax, which has several articles relating to what is going on over in Iran.
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  And Claire, I know there's so much more about you.
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  You have an extensive bio.
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  You, you know, I ask myself why somebody like you isn't in Trump's cabinet at this point in history.
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  Maybe you can give us uh clues in as to to why you're not.
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  But uh what else do you want to tell us before we get into this discussion about your background?
• 3:05
  Well, I mean, first, thank you, Deb.
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  Uh, really appreciate uh the chance to uh talk with you and your audience again.
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  Uh no uh time more timely about Iran and the Middle East than now, of course.
• 3:18
  Um yes, I I have been uh involved in uh uh all kinds of teaching, training, writing, uh speaking uh about the Middle East and in particular about Iran for quite a long time, as you you point out there.
• 3:35
  Um why am I not uh is somewhere in the Trump administration?
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  I don't think they know I exist.
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  Um that might be part of it.
• 3:45
  Um, but uh I would uh certainly welcome a chance to support the Trump administration in any way that I possibly could.
• 3:54
  Um but uh in any case, we'll start here today with you and the uh the broadcast in your audience.
• 4:00
  Yeah, I love that.
• 4:01
  Well, you know, I um, you know, I think in this day and age, uh, you know, what I would be doing if I were uh president of the United States is I would be scouring coast to coast, and I would be getting the best and brightest people around me.
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  And uh unfortunately, I feel as though we've fallen a little short with that.
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  I think we've picked a lot of media personalities, uh show hosts, et cetera, to uh plug into these leadership positions.
• 4:33
  And uh, you know, that's just uh that's just the way it is right now.
• 4:38
  But uh you know so much more uh than anyone I've heard speak on the affairs of what is happening as uh most people know there was a war that began on February 28th uh between Iran and the United States.
• 4:56
  Uh we have an issue with the Strait of Hormuz, which is a uh big uh throughway for tankers that carry oil uh and hence affect gasoline prices throughout the country.
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  So I want to start there because I think most Americans drive uh unless they you know have uh an EV.
• 5:20
  Uh they're you know looking, uh they're getting hit at the gas pump.
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  Last I checked here in New York State.
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  Prices are continuing to increase.
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  What uh what explain the significance of that strait?
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  Because many of us don't know or maybe have never heard of the Strait of Home Moose before uh the show.
• 5:41
  Sure, thank you.
• 5:42
  So uh the first thing I would do is to um offer a word of support for some of the outstanding members of the Trump administration.
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  I would name uh Marco Rubio uh at the State Department, Secretary of State, uh also leading the way uh now uh with uh Cuba, as he did before with Venezuela.
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  I don't know how many hats he's wearing at the moment, but it's uh he's doing a very good job, I think.
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  I would also give a shout out to our uh Secretary of War, a former talk show host, indeed, yes, uh Pete Hegseth.
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  I think that back in June of 25 uh with Operation Midnight Hammer in in cooperation with the Israelis.
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  Uh, then that one was Operation Rising Lion.
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  I think Secretary of War, Pete Hexeth has done an outstanding job.
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  And the third talk show host that I'll mention, who I think is also doing a wonderful job, uh, is Sean Duffy at the Department of Transportation.
• 6:43
  But to our topic for the day.
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  Um there's so much to get to here.
• 6:51
  It's hard to know where to start.
• 6:52
  Let's start with with the why part of this.
• 6:55
  Why now?
• 6:56
  Um, last June and in 2025, the United States and Israel combined um to uh strike in particular, specifically Iran's nuclear weapons sites.
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  That would be Natans, Isfahan, and Fardo.
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  Uh Natans and Fardo, of course, uh places where centrifuges spun up uh uranium uh to uh higher levels of purification and their way to weapons grade.
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  Those uh are enrichment sites.
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  Isfahan more so of a um a conversion site uh that uh takes the uh the the iron ore, not the iron, the the uranium ore uh in in uh mined form and through chemical processes transforms it into a gas uh hydrogen uh uh uh what is it called?
• 7:52
  Um uh hydr um oh you'll have to cut this part.
• 7:58
  Um in any case, transforms it into a gas uh that is sent onwards to Natans and to uh Fardo to be spun up in the centrifuges and uh to reach purifications level suitable to make a nuclear weapon.
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  So those sites were all hit last uh June in 25.
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  And it it uh has been thought uh that severe enough damage was done to those that Iran no longer could um claim uh a nuclear weapons development program.
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  Uh although uh from satellite imagery and reporting on the ground.
• 8:40
  Um they had been trying to resurrect that, both uh at those sites on those sites trying to dig down, I guess, into whatever might be left underground, but also at other sites, like for example, Pickaxe Mountain.
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  Um, the other reason now uh is not just that Iran was trying to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, which it obviously was, is perhaps even still now.
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  Uh, but it's ballistic missile program.
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  The ballistic missiles, of course, are designed to carry the payload of a nuclear warhead when uh they get to that point.
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  There were sites, and you'll see these um reported on in my newsmax blog site in defense of liberty.
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  Uh, several times I wrote there last year in 2025 about how the Iranian regime was working on adapting nuclear warheads, not yet finished, developed, you know, armed nuclear warheads, but adapting them to the nose cones of their ballistic missiles uh at sites out way in the east of Iran, uh province called Semnan Province, at a number of uh ballistic missile sites and
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  Jaryan, uh, Ivanaki, uh, Shahrood, uh, that uh were very active in trying to adapt the last steps of a warhead to the nose cones of missiles.
• 10:12
  I think the combination of these things, um, in addition to uh the way the Iranian regime uh slaughtered tens and tens of thousands of its own people when they rose up and took to the streets this year, January 26th, those things combined, uh, but especially uh the nuclear, the ballistic missiles, one more note about nuclear, um and and Steve Whitkoff, uh envoy uh to every one of places, uh, spoke to a uh media outlet uh just uh a couple of weeks ago, maybe a bit more, and and told uh announced on on that media outlet that uh also as Raphael Grossi, the uh the director general of the IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency also has spoken out publicly and announced, reported, um, that uh there were over 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, 60 percent, probably more, but they're admitting to 60 percent enrichment, uh hop skip and a jump from there to nuclear um uh you know, warhead weapons grade uh over 90 percent announced that that 400 plus kilos was missing, that nobody, at least in the open public, you know, source arena knew where it was.
• 11:40
  So put all of those things together, and I think that's why um together uh Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and President Trump United States decided they could not wait any longer, um knowing that those 400 plus kilos were out there of HEU and could be uh if the capability were still in an undisclosed place, could be spun up to weapons grade enough to make uh what was it, 10, 11 nuclear warheads in the space of just a couple weeks.
• 12:18
  That is why now that is why I think they decided end of February, overnight, February 28th into Saturday, March 1st, they had they had to go.
• 12:29
  Yeah, and see, this is why I say early when I started this show, I I question why you are not in that cabinet, because you just so concisely explained within you know less than five minutes, a better explanation than anyone I've heard uh in the media explain why we are at war right now with Iran.
• 12:50
  And on that note, I hope listeners stay tuned because you and I are going to be getting into a lot more concerning this and all things Middle East after this short break.
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• 15:03
  All right, Claire Lopez.
• 15:06
  Um just gave uh outstanding definition, I'll call it, of why we, the United States have gone to war now with Iran.
• 15:17
  And I just want to take it back to when I first started off.
• 15:20
  Um, and I want to put it to the Strait of Hormuz, uh, the oil tankers, what affects Americans are seeing and perhaps will be seeing going forward as long as this war continues.
• 15:37
  Sure.
• 15:37
  So to continue sort of the chronology of how we got to where we are today now, I would say that the Trump administration, together with Netanyahu's government in Israel, umperation epic fury on the US side, Operation Roaring Lion on the Israeli side, it's been very methodical uh and sequenced in order of the operations ongoing now.
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  So they began by decapitating the leadership of the Iranian regime, particular Supreme Leader, uh Ali Khamini.
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  Um now supposedly his son, uh Moshtaba has been um selected to uh be his successor, but it's not at all certain whether he's even alive or in what condition if he uh is still alive.
• 16:37
  Um and also uh I should add very quickly here, uh, neither the father nor the son, Khomeney, uh has ever been authentically legitimately an Ayatollah.
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  So we don't call them Ayatollahs.
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  Uh the senior was uh the supreme leader chosen after the death of uh Ayatollah, he was an Ayatollah, Ruhalla Khomeini in 1989.
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  Um, but at the time he, uh Khomeni was the first, the father, uh, was not even an Ayatoli.
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  It was a middling rank, Hozatul Islam in clerical ranking, but they bumped him up automatically or artificially to be the supreme leader.
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  The very same thing has happened now with Moshtaba, he too does not have, or did not have uh the theological uh or scholarly credentials uh to be an Ayatollah uh in the ranking of Kom and the uh the clerical hierarchy.
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  He too uh was only Hoja Tolisla, middling rank.
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  So we don't know if they're alive, he is alive or not.
• 17:47
  So the leadership of also the IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, um uh eliminated, uh leadership of many other ranking um uh figures, up to several dozen now within the Iranian regime, uh within the IRGC in particular, it's intelligence unit, it's uh you know, the Air Force, the Navy, uh all of these top leadership eliminated, they're gone.
• 18:17
  Uh, there is no central command and control in Iran anymore right now.
• 18:22
  But what I would say is that the way that regime prepared itself for such an eventuality as this decapitation uh was to decentralize.
• 18:35
  Iran has 31 provinces, and in each of those are sub-units commanded by lower level, IRGC, Khuds Force, Basij, Basij are those street militias that suppress people, uh dissent, you know, in the streets.
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  Um, and of course, uh subunits uh in every one of those of the national police and also of the judiciary.
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  Um so that is how Iran is operating now down to the third fourth level.
• 19:10
  I don't even know what level they're at anymore, but way down, completely decentralized, and when these provincial uh leadership figures um seek guidance, command and control orders, there aren't any because there are no more command and control leadership figures.
• 19:28
  So, in a way, they're operating now on um autopilot um uh and and their own initiative, uh as they had been perhaps instructed to before all of this.
• 19:41
  Um, but what I'm getting at is that as we see the Iranian regime, whatever's left of it, retaliating um against uh neighboring countries, uh in particular around the Gulf, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, as far as.
• 20:00
  Turkey, if you can imagine, and more, um, they are operating uh those attacks uh from the local level.
• 20:12
  And when we come now to uh the uh Strait of Hormuz, which which I know you you've asked about here, um the the plan of the regime uh was to at least threaten shipping that tried to get through the Strait of Hormuz uh in an operation like Israel and the United States uh you know together are conducting against the regime.
• 20:39
  And so, in the face of even threats to shipping, the international uh shipping insurance companies halted that coverage.
• 20:53
  Lloyds of London comes to mind, there are others, but they stopped providing insurance coverage to shipping, trying to get through the Strait of Hormuz.
• 21:04
  Uh what that did is backed up shipping traffic on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz inside the Persian Gulf and outside of it trying to get in, trying to get in to load up, trying to get out with loads to carry to customers all over the world, in particular East Asia might mention China and others in Asia.
• 21:28
  So even though President Trump now has offered to provide risk insurance uh under the aegis of the United States government, uh, and also offered uh to provide um naval escorts, U.S.
• 21:48
  Navy escorts to ships trying to get in or out, pass through the the Strait of Hormuz.
• 21:55
  Um the traffic is still backed up.
• 21:58
  And uh all the elements perhaps that the United States Navy would bring to uh the the strait area, the Persian Gulf area, not quite there yet.
• 22:08
  Uh there is a um a marine uh USS amphibious ship coming in from East Asia now.
• 22:15
  It'll take some days, maybe a week or more to actually arrive uh in the Persian Gulf area, but that that ship is uh equipped uh to take on whatever might be left of the Iranian Navy.
• 22:31
  It's down to basically small boats and and and autonomous uh drones, ship little boat drones is what they have now.
• 22:41
  That very dangerous, but launched in a swarm can really cause harm to shipping.
• 22:47
  That's that's what it's down to now.
• 22:49
  That marine amphibious unit uh would be equipped to deal with that.
• 22:54
  Uh, we should also mention here carg island.
• 22:57
  Harg Island is this little teeny tiny island, it's like eight square miles uh off the uh coast uh of Iran in the sort of northern part of the Persian Gulf.
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  Um little bit of uh topography here.
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  Um the modern day um uh oil tankers, ships, uh need very deep water.
• 23:20
  Uh and as the topography, I guess, underwater, uh, the the seabed uh of the Persian Gulf up to the up to the mainland of of Iran, um it's it's kind of shallow, relatively speaking, and those big tanker ships cannot uh dock there.
• 23:42
  They cannot dock in that shallow of water.
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  We we don't know how exactly how many you know meters deep, but it's not deep enough for the great big tankers to uh harbor to anchor right up to uh the mainland of Iran.
• 23:58
  That's why Hard Island is important.
• 24:00
  Um it sits a little bit off the coast of Iran uh and uh around it the water is deep enough for uh these uh oil tanker ships uh to dock uh to either come in empty and load up, you know, or uh to uh to to get to that that island uh in the first place.
• 24:27
  And so that is why uh the United States uh attacked the military defenses on Card Island just a few days ago, took out all of its air defense, all of its IRGC presence, military bases, facilities on that island, but notably President Trump has said he did not and does not want to attack the actual infrastructure of the pipes that carry the oil uh you know from Iran's mainland to that island, Karg Island, uh the the harbor, the the the ports, the docking um facilities, did not, does not want to um destroy those because uh we would like to leave some uh capability uh for a future Iranian regime after this one goes down uh to be able to function, to operate, to fund itself.
• 25:28
  And Karg Island is extremely important.
• 25:30
  That is the financial hub uh of the Iranian um uh finance system.
• 25:37
  I mean, that that is where the majority of their income comes from.
• 25:42
  So as it's cut off right now, that will assist in bringing down the current regime.
• 25:48
  Uh, but hopefully, after this regime is gone, that the facilities on Karg Island uh will remain, uh, the infrastructure will remain uh for uh the future, for a future uh government uh of Iran of and by and for the people.
• 26:06
  But for the moment, uh that's the situation at Karg Island, the situation at the um uh the god the uh Straits of Hormuz.
• 26:15
  Yeah, and I like that you brought up Karg Island.
• 26:18
  I think uh most people haven't heard about it.
• 26:21
  I know what I know about it, it's also called the Forbidden Island, and it has a lot of archaeological sites of importance, uh Christian monasteries and um other things as well.
• 26:34
  So that's what I know about the island, but I I you know you have and it's K-H-A-R-G, I believe, is the spelling of it, correct?
• 26:44
  Yes.
• 26:45
  I've never heard that there was ever any kind of Christian presence on the island, but to look it up.
• 26:51
  Yeah, no, uh, yeah, according to uh my research, uh the island includes uh ruins of a Christian monastery dating from possibly as far back as the seventh century.
• 27:03
  Uh so just uh a little something if it viewers or listeners are interested in the history of that island, uh there's quite a bit of reading on it.
• 27:12
  Okay, yeah, it appears that there is uh one, there is uh there had been one, uh ruins of one Christian monastery, they're dating back centuries, I guess.
• 27:21
  Yeah.
• 27:22
  But you know, I that leads me to a question.
• 27:25
  So once this war is over and um Iran starts to rebuild its military, uh its government, are we going to see?
• 27:40
  Do you think in your opinion, will we see a better a better country evolve and better, I mean, as far as uh humanitarian.
• 27:53
  Uh, for example, Iran always refers to the United States as the Great Satan.
• 27:59
  And um there seems to be, you know, uh this back and forth that goes on.
• 28:05
  Um, and we're not the only country, obviously, Iran targets Israel as well.
• 28:10
  Do you think that once this war's over, we would see a better uh regime or type of government in place?
• 28:21
  Well, you know, even though uh President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu do not um allude to regime change as the objective of their two respective operations, um Roaring Line and uh Epic Fury, um, I have heard, for example, uh retired Army General Jack Keene, who's chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, uh speak numerous times as a as a guest um commentator uh on news programs, uh heard him say that the operations now that are taking down this regime and all of its military capability, including air defense gone.
• 29:07
  Uh as we talked about top leadership of the military uh of the IRGC of the intelligence uh ministry of intelligence, um, all of the top leadership gone.
• 29:20
  The the effect of that is to set the stage or set the conditions uh by which the Iranian people themselves can now step up, go back to the streets uh without the fear of being slaughtered by the tens of thousands as they were back in January.
• 29:42
  So the the uh messaging coming from Jerusalem and from Washington, DC is at the moment, hold on, wait, people of Iran, do not come to the streets just yet, but the strategic sequencing of the
• 30:00
  These operations has moved from the top echelons of the regime, again, their military capabilities, both offensive and now defensive, too, down further to the local levels.
• 30:15
  And so the operations being carried out now are striking at the provincial level, even at the uh, you know, the city level across Iran, uh, to the point of taking out besiege units as they are taking to the streets, uh taking out their uh their bases where all of those black motorcycles are are located, their their uh bases uh of operation at the besiege local level, take them out of the equation so that the people of Iran can take to the streets once more uh and and not be you know completely wiped out uh and or arrested, jailed, tortured, and then killed.
• 31:05
  Um so uh what I would say is that the next steps that may not necessarily be visible, but I would think going on behind the scenes would be in the next steps, in addition to whatever armaments the people of Iran can now take uh away from uh either units that themselves have been uh destroyed, uh, and or uh units that may be coming over to the side of the people, laying down their arms or giving over their arms to the people.
• 31:38
  But in addition to that, I would think this would be the opportunity to provide from the outside, maybe Mossad, maybe US, uh don't know.
• 31:48
  Again, this is not going to be public, but providing uh weapons to them, providing intelligence to them about the locations of these different, let's say besiege units, police units, um, providing means of communication.
• 32:03
  We know that the uh regime, such as whatever's left of it, um, has cut off communications, shut down the internet so that uh people in different parts of the country cannot communicate with each other to organize, uh, but provide to override that to get past that.
• 32:20
  Thank you, Elon Musk has provided uh Starlink that needs on the ground receivers, they need to be provided.
• 32:29
  Uh so I'm saying weapons, intelligence, uh communications uh to the people.
• 32:35
  I will also say that geographically around the periphery of Iran is where its minority populations are uh mostly located.
• 32:45
  So if if you're in the southeast up against the uh Pakistani border, that's the Baluchis.
• 32:51
  Actually, they're across the border on both sides.
• 32:53
  The Baluchis come to the north up by the Caspian Sea, the Azaris, right across from Azerbaijan, Azaris, Azerbaijan.
• 33:03
  They're the same people on opposite sides of the that border.
• 33:07
  Uh come around to the northwest, and you have very large Kurdish populations that span the border between Iran and Iraq.
• 33:17
  And we heard about a what, two, three weeks ago now, uh, that five factions of the Iranian Kurds, uh, which previously had squabbled interminably, uh, I mean, just uh always uh fighting among themselves, decided to come together and they uh they unified the five factions there.
• 33:38
  I think a six has joined them now, so call it six factions of Iranian Kurds uh now unified, and then finally come down to the southwestern border uh of Iran, and that is up against the Persian Gulf, and we're talking there about the Ahuaz Arabs, they're not Persian, they're Arabs, and they speak Arabic, and that is in the province of Husestan.
• 34:02
  So all of them have been armed, and because they're on the periphery, had better chance to smuggle in weapons and whatever for a long time now.
• 34:12
  Uh, but they are armed.
• 34:14
  And as the Kurds, we'll take them for the example, um, are rising up in their own provinces up there in the northwestern part of Iran.
• 34:24
  Um, they are first uh targeting their own provinces where their own you know ethnic uh centers of population are to free them from the central control of Tehran.
• 34:38
  So that's all happening.
• 34:39
  Uh and to your final question, I'm really getting to it.
• 34:42
  Can the next government of Iran be successful inside of Iran, not only just the ethnic periphery, inside of Iran for many years, 47 years actually, um, have been uh the uh resistance fighters of the Mujahide Nikalk.
• 35:00
  Yeah, there are others too, but I mentioned them because they're the oldest, best organized, best armed, um, and are part of uh uh an external Iranian plus external in the diaspora um political organization called the National Council of Resistance of Iran, led by its president elect Maryam Rajavy, headquarters uh outside of Paris in France, um, and another big concentration of the MEK located uh in Albania in uh a um they've built their own city really outside of the capital Tirana.
• 35:40
  Uh so I mentioned them because I think it's very likely that at least the Israeli Mossad has probably been working with uh the MEK on the inside of Iran for a long time because they're the ones that feed out, have fed out the information about Iran's nuclear weapons program, its ballistic missile program.
• 36:02
  Uh by the way, uh MEK, Mujahidini Kalk, um, in English that translates to uh the uh the people's fighters or the fighters of the people.
• 36:14
  And in English, you'll sometimes see that rendered as PMOI people's mujahedin of Iran.
• 36:22
  In other words, the fighters for the people.
• 36:25
  So uh there is uh at the political level, the NCRI level, an organization.
• 36:31
  I've I've been in Paris, I've sat with them at their leadership council table, uh, completely organized around the 10-point plan of Mariam Rajavi published in 2006 first.
• 36:44
  Uh, and that 10-point plan lays out uh the the principles uh by which a future Iranian government could be uh organized.
• 36:54
  And it includes, first of all, um uh a democratic and secular um government, uh the separation of religion and state, uh universal suffrage, that means uh gender equality, uh a free market capitalist system of the economy, um uh minority protections, uh kind of autonomous uh concept for the ethnic minorities, um, an independent judiciary, freedom of speech, press assembly, and so forth, much like our very own uh bill of rights and our constitution, declaration of independence and our first thing print first things principles there.
• 37:38
  So, yes, there can be uh and our plans already for there to be uh a much um different uh government uh in um in Iran after this regime is gone.
• 37:52
  And the point here to make especially is that the people of Iran uh are already uh they're not opposed to these Western uh concepts and principles.
• 38:05
  They they embrace them, they embody them, they long for them.
• 38:10
  Um unlike uh you know, maybe let's take Afghanistan, for example.
• 38:15
  Uh the people there have no concept of Western uh you know principles, uh constitutional principles as we would uh see them.
• 38:24
  But the people of Iran do.
• 38:26
  And under the prior regime, uh yes, it was a monarchy, no, it wasn't free and independent, democratic, no.
• 38:34
  Uh, but they had already uh moved on the path towards um you know independence uh from uh you know a a theological kind of a theocratic kind of regime.
• 38:46
  They were modern, they were technologically advanced.
• 38:49
  They can go back to that, and that's that's what we hope to see.
• 38:53
  Okay, so it sounds like just a lot of moving parts over there right now, but I I hear from what you're saying the a glimmer of hope.
• 39:02
  Uh so we're gonna take a break and more to come from Claire Lopez after we return.
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• 40:07
  I'm back here talking to Claire Lopez, someone I've known for a while now, and I really consider her just an expert on all things Middle East.
• 40:17
  Claire, I want to now get into the United States.
• 40:31
  We're now seeing protests against Iran, people who are in favor of the Islamic regime, people who aren't.
• 40:39
  Help me and the listeners decipher what exactly is happening on U.S.
• 40:44
  soil.
• 40:44
  Well, it is confusing, no question.
• 40:46
  And I can understand that it's uh, you know, hard for people to figure out who's on which side.
• 40:52
  I think to break it down to it, it's absolute basic level, Trump derangement syndrome.
• 40:58
  Anything that this president, President Trump does, uh, and certainly in um cooperation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, uh automatically uh derangement syndrome, it's got to be bad.
• 41:15
  It doesn't matter, they don't even know how close the Iranian regime was to developing nuclear weapons or the ballistic missile means to deliver such weapons.
• 41:27
  They have no clue about any of that that we talked about.
• 41:31
  All they know uh is that they hate Donald Trump, uh, they hate Israel, uh, they hate Bibi Netanyahu.
• 41:39
  And so anything uh they are doing has got to be bad.
• 41:44
  And never mind that it's in defense uh of the survival and the national security of uh both Israel and the United States, as well as we're seeing now, of course, of the entire Middle East region as Iran in retaliation turns and attacks all of them.
• 42:00
  So I mean, what we're doing together, United States and Israel, uh is for the protection of our own national security, but as well uh of a much broader, you know, range across the Middle East region.
• 42:17
  Yeah, and and what you just said um is something that you know helps to clarify the point a little bit, certainly for me and hopefully for those who are listening.
• 42:27
  But I I do feel we've seen recent terror attacks.
• 42:31
  Um there was um, you know, that are striking at Jewish uh temples.
• 42:36
  And uh do you think that we're going to see more of a rise now in anti-Semitism than we have prior to the start of this war on February 28th?
• 42:50
  Yes, certainly, but we need to go back, I think, all the way to October 7 uh 2023, uh, with the horrific Shabbat massacre uh carried out by uh Hamas, uh, that is the Muslim Brotherhood's uh unit uh in uh branch uh in Gaza against Israel, with you know, uh over 1200 uh people slaughtered that day, uh unimaginable cruelty torture, um, and uh so the anti-Semitism that had existed already before that uh blossomed, if you will, into complete Jew hatred in America, across the world, certainly here at home on our at our college campuses, um, above all, and some of the elite uh Ivy League university campuses, um and uh I would say that the the reason uh for that then uh has a lot to do with uh the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood, closely aligned, by the way.
• 43:59
  Never mind Sunni Shiite, but Muslim Brotherhood has been working with uh Khomeinists, that is the prior Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruchallah, Khomeini, Khomeinists, since they began training together in the Baca Valley in the 1960s and 70s under the KGB, um Yevgeny Primakoff at that time.
• 44:25
  So uh that collaboration, don't dismiss Sunni and Shiite.
• 44:30
  That collaboration is real and it dates back decades.
• 44:33
  You go to the macro level of Darl Islam versus Dar al Harb, and that's where you're at.
• 44:39
  So uh in any case, the Muslim Brotherhood presence on university campuses here in the United States, um, relies on groups like the Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine, uh, which itself, by the way, is uh the campus branch of the American Muslims for Palestine, a Muslim Brotherhood um uh group uh that was a founding member, as a matter of fact, of the Muslim Brotherhood uh overall political umbrella group in the United States called the um uh the United States um US CMO, the United United United States Council of Muslim Organizations, and AMP was a founding member of that.
• 45:28
  It's campus branch, students for justice in Palestine.
• 45:32
  So that's where a lot of this was incubated almost, if you will, among impressionable young college kids who don't know up from down.
• 45:41
  Um so that started after uh October the 7th, really horrific uh, you know, examples of support for Hamas for the murder and the torture, the rape, the burning of babies alive that that went on.
• 45:57
  Um that's after October 7th, 2023.
• 46:01
  Bring it up then now to the current uh launch of Operation uh Roaring Lion and uh Epic Fury, US and Israel together after uh February 28th, March 1st this year, 2026.
• 46:16
  And it's it's it's it's almost a continuation of the same uh phenomenon, if you will, um same groups, Muslim Brotherhood groups on campus, uh, but also excuse me, also um Muslim Brotherhood and uh Iran uh regime uh operations, information operations, psyops, cyber operations online, uh, together, um, you know, working uh to uh uh infiltrate all these avenues, you know, of information to the American public from anywhere from the university students on up, you know, through uh uh other ranks.
• 46:59
  Um, and then of course, you've got, you know, uh mayor of New York City uh recently elected, Zahran Mamdani, who himself is wait for it, a Shi'ite Islamic 12.
• 47:12
  That means a follower of the 12th Imam, just like the now uh decimated uh uh leadership ranks of the Iranian regime.
• 47:24
  So at every level that we're talking about um the infiltration of our institutions of society, academia certainly, government we're talking about at the local level there, uh media certainly, social media in particular, uh all of these institutions of our society have been methodically infiltrated by the forces of Islam, uh, and that being Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, that being Shiite out of the regime, uh, or whatever's left of it now, uh, out of out of Iran and its 12 or leadership.
• 48:00
  Okay, so let me ask you this.
• 48:01
  What would you say to someone who hears what everything you just said, and they say either, well, you're just referring to the radicalized Muslim movement, uh, you know, or they call you Islamophobic for bringing up those points.
• 48:21
  What would you say to those individuals?
• 48:24
  Well, first of all, uh to be um uh alarmed, to be fearful even uh of Islamic jihad, um and sharia, the application of Islamic law, Sharia is completely normal and natural.
• 48:42
  There's nothing phobic about it.
• 48:45
  Um, and after we saw what they did on October the 7th, after we saw what this Iranian regime did to its own people uh in January, a couple months ago it now was, uh slaughtering tens of thousands of them in the street, kids, young people especially.
• 49:02
  Um, I think there's plenty of good reason to be uh concerned, worried, alarmed, fearful um, of the application of Islamic law, Sharia.
• 49:14
  Uh that Iranian regime, if nothing else, was devout, faithful, obedient to Islamic law, the practice of it and the imposition of it by force on its own people.
• 49:29
  Um so, you know, that that makes uh Islamophobia kind of a very silly uh, you know, moniker to to to throw at people.
• 49:40
  Um, as for Islam itself, um, you know, people who may not be so familiar as I expect your your audience probably is, Deb, but those who may not be so familiar with uh again, Islamic doctrine, law, scripture, the application of that, as for an example under this.
• 50:00
  Uh, former, hopefully soon former regime in Iran, um may not realize that when the practitioners win a regime like Iran's, um, not only practices, but uh through jihad and force, forcibly imposes uh Islamic doctrine and law on people, or attempts to do that through jihad.
• 50:28
  Um that is absolutely straight up the middle, mainstream normative, orthodox Islamic doctrine, and has been for over a thousand years.
• 50:39
  Uh there's nothing radical, there's nothing extreme about it.
• 50:43
  That is absolutely straight up the middle Islam.
• 50:46
  Wow.
• 50:47
  Okay, and you know, and I want to point that question out because I think it's far too easy for everybody to throw around these labels.
• 50:55
  And I think that they really do it as a way of silencing any type of education or discussion like you and I are having on the topic right now, you know, just call them Islamophobic and you know, put a you know of uh a black strike on their face for even daring uh deigning to discuss that topic.
• 51:14
  Uh so I think that that's some place we don't ever want to be in this country where we're afraid of discussing something openly because we're afraid of being tagged uh in a negative manner or a perceived negative manner.
• 51:26
  So um so thank you for that answer.
• 51:28
  And I guess we have um a few minutes left.
• 51:32
  I want to get to where folks can reach you, but I before we get there, I just want to ask you how long do you think, and I know you know you're you're not a fortune teller, but how long do you think we're going to see this war going on between us and Iran?
• 51:52
  Well, going on the statements uh from President Trump from uh Secretary of War, Pete Heggseth, um their estimations and also uh the uh chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Kane, Dan Kane.
• 52:07
  Um they are talking about another couple of weeks.
• 52:11
  So looking to the end of March, beginning of April, perhaps, um, for this military part of it uh to be over for the Strait of Hormuz to be open uh for passage uh of uh you know tanker ships uh once again.
• 52:27
  Uh that's what they're saying.
• 52:29
  Uh they are talking about a timeline that they planned out very carefully ahead of time, absolutely realizing they would have to deal with threats to the passage through the Strait of Hormuz, uh knowing all of that and methodically dealing with each of these uh levels of of uh threat.
• 52:52
  Um and again, uh there are we can see uh them moving through those steps strategically, methodically.
• 53:00
  Um so I would take their word a couple weeks, two, three weeks to finish that part of it.
• 53:07
  But then, you know, as both President Trump and and also the people of Iran, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, uh, what they say is over to the people, over to the people of Iran.
• 53:20
  It must be up to them to decide what their next government will look like to take upon themselves and they want that responsibility, they look for that responsibility to shape to establish their own uh government uh and a new constitution um after this regime falls.
• 53:46
  So uh that that that's where I think this is going.
• 53:50
  Okay, great.
• 53:51
  Yeah, you know, I um I just want to throw out I just listened to something on Rumble on a channel called Wellversed World.
• 53:59
  And there was an Iranian woman on there, Maryam Rostinpoor Keller, and she talked about how she was imprisoned um in an Iranian prison for simply speaking about uh her faith in Jesus Christ.
• 54:14
  And evidently there is a huge under uh-ground church network of Christians who are afraid to speak openly about their faith for fear of persecution.
• 54:25
  And I just want to say that I do hope that they someday get to the point where people can openly uh practice the religion um without fear of persecution, because I I can't imagine living in a country where that would be the case.
• 54:40
  Um before we leave though, Claire, I do want to get uh where people can reach you.
• 54:46
  I know you're on a very social media outlets.
• 54:49
  So give us the rundown of whereful.
• 54:51
  Really quickly, what I would also say is that we are in the in the week now of what's called Shahar Shambe.
• 54:58
  Uh, it is the celebration of fire and of light in Iran, going back to Zoroastrian times.
• 55:04
  It it will be followed eventually by the uh celebration of no ruse, no rus, uh Zoroastrian.
• 55:12
  People in Iran, especially the young people are leaving Islam by the thousands.
• 55:17
  Some might be taking up another faith like Christianity, some just don't want anything to do with religion anymore, period.
• 55:24
  And that is part of the commitment of the NCRI to a government in which religion and state are completely separated.
• 55:33
  So, where people can reach me, thank you, Deb for uh for everything uh and for uh you know letting me uh talk to your audience.
• 55:41
  I'm on uh social media at Claire M Lopez on Twitter, X or whatever.
• 55:47
  Uh same thing, my name at Facebook.
• 55:49
  I'm at Claire Chow, C-L-A-R-E-C-H-O on Truth Social, and I'm at Lopez Liberty on Telegram.
• 55:59
  I also post up interviews like this and my written pieces from Newsmax and so forth uh at the Citizens Commission on National Security, also the United West, that's United West.org, the United West.org.
• 56:15
  Um, where else?
• 56:16
  The uh national, uh, I'm sorry, the Near East Center for Strategic Engagement is another place.
• 56:23
  Um, so look for me in all of those places.
• 56:25
  I try to post up and to keep up uh to uh keep up with uh the uh interviews and and writing at those different outlets.
• 56:33
  Thank you.
• 56:34
  Great.
• 56:34
  Well, Claire, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 56:37
  You are a wealth of knowledge, and I hope uh those listening at least learned something today about the affairs of the Middle East.
• 56:45
  And until next time, everyone, be good to each other and God bless.