June 25, 2025 • 21 mins
WAR HISTORIAN PAUL RAHE ON TODAY To talk about how Israel being at war with Iran is the natural conclusion to the attacks of October 7th, and why it is in our best interest that Israel win. He joins me at 1pm to discuss. Find out more about Paul at https://www.hillsdale.edu/faculty/paul-rahe/ or http://www.paularahe.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I guess I'm very excited to talk about. He is
a historian at the glorious Hillsdale University and Paul Ray works.
I don't want to put words in your mouth, Paul,
but you are a war historian.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
So you're one of.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Those people that deeply gets into war and its effects
and its outcomes and all of that good stuff. And
today let's talk about a war whose history hasn't been written.
Of course, the President has tried to name it the
twelve day Iran Israeli War, but is it really a
twelve day war?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Paul Ray, welcome to the show. First of all, pleasure
to be with you.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Now, it's a forty six year war. It begins with
the takeover of Iran, the flight of the Shaw, take
of Iran by the heretic Sheeite Muslims following homony, and
(00:59):
then they set out on a path that has led
to continual conflict.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
It starts with the hostage crisis involving.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
The United States, and they were calling us the great Satan,
and they were calling Israel the little Satan way back then. Now,
this is when the crisis, which has existed for a.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Very long time, comes to.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
A head and you know, we think of it perhaps
as a battle between Iran and Israel that we are
involved in. The larger battle is between Iran and the
Sunni Muslim powers, and quietly, those people are welcoming what's
happened in the last twelve days because it means a
(01:46):
significant reduction in the threat to them. You know, just
a couple of years ago there were Iranian attacks on
Saudi Arabia on their oil fields. They're involved too, and
I don't happen to believe it's over.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
You know, I don't either.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And Paul and I were talking off the air about
the conversations that I've had with my nephew in Israel,
and he says, the Israeli people, and of course there's
so much robust discussion happening every day in Israel about
how to prosecute this war and why haven't the hostages
come home? And you know, so many people are saying,
we just want peace. But there's a larger faction in
(02:28):
his view of Israelis who say, look, this is never
going to end until we deal with the Iranian regime.
None of these proxy wars. Hamas and Hezballah and the
hoot these they're just they're just little tentacles of the
Iranian regime, and this is their best opportunity, don't you
think to perhaps bring some kind of finality to this battle?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Yes, no, I agree with that entirely.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Let me say, we may have just destroyed their nuclear
weapons production. I say may because it's not absolutely certain,
and they may have sent for refuges elsewhere, and you know,
warehouses and so forth operating quietly that we don't know about.
(03:21):
But it seems to me that if there, if the
ceasefire turns into a kind of settlement, it just means
they'll be back in.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
A few years.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
The crucial issue is the regime.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
And though I do not favor America going in taking
over Iran and trying to run things, I do think
it the only way that this will be over is
if the radical heretic Shiite regime that was founded by
Honuani forty six years ago is overthrown.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
What do you mean by heretics?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So I would be hitting their political leaders.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What do you mean by heretic?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Decapitate that and the Revolutionary Guard? Because they're an awful
lot of people in Iran who hate that regime.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So what do you mean by heretic is she regime?
What is that phrase specifically mean.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Historically within Sunni Islam, there has been no difference between
what we call church and what we call state.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
They were very closely tied to one another.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Islam is a religion of holy law, so it is
by its very nature a political religion that the law.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Requires enforcement.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
And the you know, in originally within Sunni Islam, the
caliph was what we would call a secular ruler.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
And a really just ruler at the same time.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And what I'm trying to say is that distinction between
sacred and secular doesn't exist right there among the Shehites,
it did exist, and the site clergy of the Molas
have never before been involved in ruling. There was always
a secular ruler, and then there was a sort of
(05:23):
secreate Shite establishment. Homani breaks with that and is regarded
as a heretic by many Shehites, both outside Iran and
inside Iran. So this is this is a sort of
revolutionary movement, something rather new within Sheism, and there will
(05:46):
be people, including religious leaders in Iran, who'd like to
see it come to an end.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
There I saw an interesting video on x a few
days ago, and it was the Sun of the Chavran.
Obviously he was thrown out of the country during the
revolution in the late seventies, and he's essentially saying, look,
we're ready to step in. We're not going to allow
Ron to fall into a failed nation state. We're ready
(06:14):
to provide structure and government that can lead. And I
don't know if he said free elections. I'm not sure
if he went that far, but essentially saying to the
Iranian people, we have an alternative. How realistic is that
for the Shaw's Sun or anyone connected to that prior regime,
which was very US friendly, to be able to come
back to power after fifty years of indoctrination of death
(06:35):
to the Great Satan.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
It's conceivable.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
But my guess is if he went back and tried
to rally people, he'd be assassinated. In other words, there
are going to be people on the side of the regime,
right there are many people against the regime.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I'll give example.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
In two thousand and one, nine to eleven and stretching
into two thousand and two, there were spontaneous demonstrations at
soccer games in Iran. Spontaneous pro American demonstrations. I was
in Istanbul.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I lived in.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Istanbul for some years, so I know that part of
the world a bit. And I was at a party
of journalists and I ended up in a corner with
an Iranian journalist who was assigned to cover Turkey, and
I asked him if the regime was going to go under,
if these demonstrations were the beginning of the end for
(07:37):
the regime, and he said no.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
The people who run this country right.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Now were educated in Eastern Europe and the communist period.
They know how to control the population. And then he
paused and he said, there's one thing they don't know
how to control their own children.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And a lot of you know, regimes like this, think
of the Soviet Union, tend to come apart when the
generation that made the revolution has departed from the scene.
So Garbatschoff was the first Soviet leader who was not,
even as a very young person, a witness of the
(08:15):
revolution of the Russian Revolution. And we may not be
at that stage in Iran yet, but after forty six years,
we're approaching it because the people who are really present
for that are in their sixties at the youngest, and
(08:36):
most of the people who led that revolution are older,
so it's possible that this is the moment when they
depart from the scene and other people in Iran assert themselves.
This would have to come from within the armed forces.
It probably will not come from within the Revolutionary Guard,
(08:58):
but it might come from within.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
The regular army.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
So things could happen, and it would be a very
good thing, because this obsession with taking over the entire
Middle East, to which we are an obstacle. The Israelis
are an obstacle, the Saudis are an obstacle. Egypt is
an obstacle. That might come to an end, and you
(09:22):
could have a reconciliation between Iran and the Sunni Arab
States and Iran and Israel, but it won't happen as
long as the heirs of Homany are running Iran. I
don't think it's over yet.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Trump came out the other day and said, well, we'll
call this the twelve day Israel Iran War. And really,
I do believe that Donald Trump, for all of his
many foibles and faults, is probably the most anti war
president we've ever had.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
He's not interested.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I think he've used war as a waste of blood
and treasure and capital and you know, a man power
that could otherwise be devoted to building something economically, and
you know that would be productive. I really think that's
his worldview. But is he being realistic? Is this over?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's it's not over, but our direct involvement may be
coming to an end. Hard to be certain of. That
depends on what the Iranians do, right. You know, they
could start by launching an attack on American basis all
(10:36):
over that region and not one that's been forecast, and
knowing that we can shoot everything down, but something big
in West case it will erupt again because Donald Trump
will not tolerate that.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
He's made that clear.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Do you think the way that they gave Katara heads
up about the attacks. I mean, they've essentially warned everybody, Hey,
we're going to fire some missiles. The only reason I
could think they would do that is because they don't
actually want to hit anything. They don't want to hurt anybody,
because they don't want a larger entanglement with the United
States of America. But whereas when we were at the
(11:14):
Cold War with the Soviets, we had mutually assured destruction
on our side. I don't feel like the Iranian regime
of Mulla's has that same sense.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I mean, we've heard all of these stories.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
About how suicide bombers are going to get their seventy
two virgins. Do they have the same sense of self
preservation that ensured that mutually assured destruction would be a deterrent?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
It's hard to know.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That's comforting.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Religious zelotry comes into the picture. There may be decisions
made on the basis of calculations that you and I
would not recognize as rational. They think are rational. So
I'm hesitant in that regard. Donald Trump's position has been
(12:06):
They're not going to get nuclear weapons.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I think that's pretty smart.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yeah, And our interests are deeply involved in They're not
getting nuclear weapons. Our interests may not be so deeply
involved in other matters.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Can Israel go it alone and pull this off? I mean,
I have a lot of respect for the Israeli military.
I have a lot of respect for their technology. I
do think that they in doing the kind of targeted
strikes in Iran to take out leadership, to take out
very specific military positions that may maybe weren't supposed to
be known as military positions, they're definitely signaling to Iran
(12:48):
that they know way more than they've led on about
the Iranian activities. So can Israel pull this off if
we essentially say, look, we'll sell you weapons, but we're
not involved.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Other than that, can they pull this off?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I think so? You know.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I think they know who their political leaders are and
where they live. They certainly know a lot about the
Revolutionary Guard, which is the sort of guardian of the
regime and includes you know, true believers mainly.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I think they might well be able to pull this off,
but that would take a renewal of the war.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And they're sufficiently dependent upon US for weapons and so
forth for replenishing their stocks that they may not be
able to risk a renewal of the war if we
don't want it.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Hard to know, I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
One other possibility is that the remaining figures in the
Iranian regime.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Want out right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, they want out of the whole mess, uh, And
that would cause them to negotiate, and to negotiate seriously
an end to the nuclear threat and also an end
too their support for their proxies in Lebanon, in Yemen
(14:27):
and of course in Gozam.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
It's hard to know.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I'm talking with historian Paul Ray about war in general.
I want to ask you this question because it seems
like whatever ceasefires have been signed in the past or
eventually broken promises made. Even in the Iran deal that
was done with Obama, they did not follow through on
their responsibilities to allow inspectors into certain sites. Has there
(14:54):
ever been a negotiated peace that stuck when someone was
not brought to their knees first.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I can think of one.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
When I was living in Istanbul, I spent a fair
amount of time on both sides. In Cyprus, there was
a ceasefire in Cypress in nineteen seventy three. It's fifty
plus years later and they haven't gone back to war.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Now.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Part of the story is the Turk's got everything they
really wanted and the Greeks don't see any way to
overcome the disadvantage in which they live, right, and so
the two sides have cooperated. You know what, in Nicosia,
one side supplies the water pre and the other side
(15:49):
supplies the electricity pre.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Everybody's invested, and.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Neither side agrees to accept the status quo. Right, but
they have done anything about it in a very long time.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So let me ask this because I have watched documentaries,
I've seen countless news stories about the level of indoctrination
that has occurred in these Islamic regimes, whether you're talking
about in Gaza or you're talking about in Iran. So
in terms of being able to negotiate any kind of
(16:26):
real peace with Israel with that includes the agreement that
Israel simply has the right to exist, is that even
possible in a population that has been not just steeped
in hatred, but trained in hatred from birth. Often that's
the part that I feel like is really insurmountable.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
How does that work?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Well?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
You know, in a lot of these places, in Iran
in particular, there are people who hate the regime and
who would embrace it Israel for the simple reason that
the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And the
(17:13):
leadership in countries like Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia
and UAE have embraced Israel, and the reason is they're
afraid of Iran.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Now you remove revolutionary Iran.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
From the scene, what happens with the relations between the
Israelis and the Sunni world, I don't really know.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
But they won't go sour immediately.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
And I don't think they'll go very, very sour, and
that might change relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians,
which is to say, if there is no outside supporter
for radicalism among the Palestinians, there may be accommodations reached.
(18:16):
There's certainly accommodations in daily life.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well, I think it's easy to.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Embrace hatred when there's no cooperation with the person that
you're hating. And right now, with the leadership in the
Gaza Strip and to a certain extent, the leadership of
the West Bank, there's no incentive to be more collaborative
or to work with Israel. And I think that that
does allow those barriers to not only be raised, but
(18:43):
to be sort of fortified in terms of the way
people feel about Israel. And we were talking before the break,
and when I was in Israel, I talk to everybody.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
When I travel, I.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Talk to taxi drivers, and I talked to waiters, and
I talked to everyone. And I met several Arabs that
I just chatted with, and they all said, I live
in Israel because I want to live in a free society.
They don't want to live in the West Bank. They
don't want to live in Gaza because of the restrictive nature.
I would hope that once people in the West Bank
or people in Gaza got to understand that that freedom
(19:17):
would come their way if they simply embraced a more
open style and a better relationship with Israel. What are
your thoughts on that as an incentive.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I think it exists, but the obstacles are have proven
to be insuperabole. And the key thing is do the
irreconcilables have outside support? Ah Outside support is crucial. Look,
(19:54):
the Russians supported the PLO. The Russians actually put are
Afi in charge.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Of the PLO. He was their man. They supplied money.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Hamas received money from the United States, from Europe through
the United Nations Relief Works Administration, and quite a bit
of money from the Iranians. Earlier they received money from
Saudi Arabia, but that's over.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So it's hard to know. What I can tell you
is people.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
In that part of the world are extremely good at negotiation.
The negotiation. You know, if you go and do a
bizarre the price is very often negotiable. They're used to
negotiations and that could suddenly take over.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Let's hope Paul Ray Thank you so much for your
time today, fascinating conversation, and for everything. I wanted you
to give me a firm answer on You didn't, so
you didn't make me feel better, but you did educate me,
so I will accept that.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Thank you for your time today, Paul.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Pleasure to be with you, and pleasure to be in
Denver where I was once a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
and eighth grader.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I told Paul, it's changed a bit since then. Thanks
a lot, man. We'll talk again soon, I hope.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Okay, take care
I guess I'm very excited to talk about. He is
a historian at the glorious Hillsdale University and Paul Ray works.
I don't want to put words in your mouth, Paul,
but you are a war historian.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
So you're one of.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Those people that deeply gets into war and its effects
and its outcomes and all of that good stuff. And
today let's talk about a war whose history hasn't been written.
Of course, the President has tried to name it the
twelve day Iran Israeli War, but is it really a
twelve day war?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Paul Ray, welcome to the show. First of all, pleasure
to be with you.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Now, it's a forty six year war. It begins with
the takeover of Iran, the flight of the Shaw, take
of Iran by the heretic Sheeite Muslims following homony, and
(00:59):
then they set out on a path that has led
to continual conflict.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
It starts with the hostage crisis involving.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
The United States, and they were calling us the great Satan,
and they were calling Israel the little Satan way back then. Now,
this is when the crisis, which has existed for a.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Very long time, comes to.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
A head and you know, we think of it perhaps
as a battle between Iran and Israel that we are
involved in. The larger battle is between Iran and the
Sunni Muslim powers, and quietly, those people are welcoming what's
happened in the last twelve days because it means a
(01:46):
significant reduction in the threat to them. You know, just
a couple of years ago there were Iranian attacks on
Saudi Arabia on their oil fields. They're involved too, and
I don't happen to believe it's over.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
You know, I don't either.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And Paul and I were talking off the air about
the conversations that I've had with my nephew in Israel,
and he says, the Israeli people, and of course there's
so much robust discussion happening every day in Israel about
how to prosecute this war and why haven't the hostages
come home? And you know, so many people are saying,
we just want peace. But there's a larger faction in
(02:28):
his view of Israelis who say, look, this is never
going to end until we deal with the Iranian regime.
None of these proxy wars. Hamas and Hezballah and the
hoot these they're just they're just little tentacles of the
Iranian regime, and this is their best opportunity, don't you
think to perhaps bring some kind of finality to this battle?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Yes, no, I agree with that entirely.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Let me say, we may have just destroyed their nuclear
weapons production. I say may because it's not absolutely certain,
and they may have sent for refuges elsewhere, and you know,
warehouses and so forth operating quietly that we don't know about.
(03:21):
But it seems to me that if there, if the
ceasefire turns into a kind of settlement, it just means
they'll be back in.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
A few years.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
The crucial issue is the regime.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
And though I do not favor America going in taking
over Iran and trying to run things, I do think
it the only way that this will be over is
if the radical heretic Shiite regime that was founded by
Honuani forty six years ago is overthrown.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
What do you mean by heretics?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
So I would be hitting their political leaders.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What do you mean by heretic?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Decapitate that and the Revolutionary Guard? Because they're an awful
lot of people in Iran who hate that regime.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So what do you mean by heretic is she regime?
What is that phrase specifically mean.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Historically within Sunni Islam, there has been no difference between
what we call church and what we call state.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
They were very closely tied to one another.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Islam is a religion of holy law, so it is
by its very nature a political religion that the law.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Requires enforcement.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
And the you know, in originally within Sunni Islam, the
caliph was what we would call a secular ruler.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
And a really just ruler at the same time.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And what I'm trying to say is that distinction between
sacred and secular doesn't exist right there among the Shehites,
it did exist, and the site clergy of the Molas
have never before been involved in ruling. There was always
a secular ruler, and then there was a sort of
(05:23):
secreate Shite establishment. Homani breaks with that and is regarded
as a heretic by many Shehites, both outside Iran and
inside Iran. So this is this is a sort of
revolutionary movement, something rather new within Sheism, and there will
(05:46):
be people, including religious leaders in Iran, who'd like to
see it come to an end.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
There I saw an interesting video on x a few
days ago, and it was the Sun of the Chavran.
Obviously he was thrown out of the country during the
revolution in the late seventies, and he's essentially saying, look,
we're ready to step in. We're not going to allow
Ron to fall into a failed nation state. We're ready
(06:14):
to provide structure and government that can lead. And I
don't know if he said free elections. I'm not sure
if he went that far, but essentially saying to the
Iranian people, we have an alternative. How realistic is that
for the Shaw's Sun or anyone connected to that prior regime,
which was very US friendly, to be able to come
back to power after fifty years of indoctrination of death
(06:35):
to the Great Satan.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
It's conceivable.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
But my guess is if he went back and tried
to rally people, he'd be assassinated. In other words, there
are going to be people on the side of the regime,
right there are many people against the regime.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I'll give example.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
In two thousand and one, nine to eleven and stretching
into two thousand and two, there were spontaneous demonstrations at
soccer games in Iran. Spontaneous pro American demonstrations. I was
in Istanbul.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I lived in.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Istanbul for some years, so I know that part of
the world a bit. And I was at a party
of journalists and I ended up in a corner with
an Iranian journalist who was assigned to cover Turkey, and
I asked him if the regime was going to go under,
if these demonstrations were the beginning of the end for
(07:37):
the regime, and he said no.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
The people who run this country right.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Now were educated in Eastern Europe and the communist period.
They know how to control the population. And then he
paused and he said, there's one thing they don't know
how to control their own children.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And a lot of you know, regimes like this, think
of the Soviet Union, tend to come apart when the
generation that made the revolution has departed from the scene.
So Garbatschoff was the first Soviet leader who was not,
even as a very young person, a witness of the
(08:15):
revolution of the Russian Revolution. And we may not be
at that stage in Iran yet, but after forty six years,
we're approaching it because the people who are really present
for that are in their sixties at the youngest, and
(08:36):
most of the people who led that revolution are older,
so it's possible that this is the moment when they
depart from the scene and other people in Iran assert themselves.
This would have to come from within the armed forces.
It probably will not come from within the Revolutionary Guard,
(08:58):
but it might come from within.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
The regular army.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
So things could happen, and it would be a very
good thing, because this obsession with taking over the entire
Middle East, to which we are an obstacle. The Israelis
are an obstacle, the Saudis are an obstacle. Egypt is
an obstacle. That might come to an end, and you
(09:22):
could have a reconciliation between Iran and the Sunni Arab
States and Iran and Israel, but it won't happen as
long as the heirs of Homany are running Iran. I
don't think it's over yet.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Trump came out the other day and said, well, we'll
call this the twelve day Israel Iran War. And really,
I do believe that Donald Trump, for all of his
many foibles and faults, is probably the most anti war
president we've ever had.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
He's not interested.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I think he've used war as a waste of blood
and treasure and capital and you know, a man power
that could otherwise be devoted to building something economically, and
you know that would be productive. I really think that's
his worldview. But is he being realistic? Is this over?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's it's not over, but our direct involvement may be
coming to an end. Hard to be certain of. That
depends on what the Iranians do, right. You know, they
could start by launching an attack on American basis all
(10:36):
over that region and not one that's been forecast, and
knowing that we can shoot everything down, but something big
in West case it will erupt again because Donald Trump
will not tolerate that.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
He's made that clear.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Do you think the way that they gave Katara heads
up about the attacks. I mean, they've essentially warned everybody, Hey,
we're going to fire some missiles. The only reason I
could think they would do that is because they don't
actually want to hit anything. They don't want to hurt anybody,
because they don't want a larger entanglement with the United
States of America. But whereas when we were at the
(11:14):
Cold War with the Soviets, we had mutually assured destruction
on our side. I don't feel like the Iranian regime
of Mulla's has that same sense.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I mean, we've heard all of these stories.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
About how suicide bombers are going to get their seventy
two virgins. Do they have the same sense of self
preservation that ensured that mutually assured destruction would be a deterrent?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
It's hard to know.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That's comforting.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Religious zelotry comes into the picture. There may be decisions
made on the basis of calculations that you and I
would not recognize as rational. They think are rational. So
I'm hesitant in that regard. Donald Trump's position has been
(12:06):
They're not going to get nuclear weapons.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I think that's pretty smart.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yeah, And our interests are deeply involved in They're not
getting nuclear weapons. Our interests may not be so deeply
involved in other matters.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Can Israel go it alone and pull this off? I mean,
I have a lot of respect for the Israeli military.
I have a lot of respect for their technology. I
do think that they in doing the kind of targeted
strikes in Iran to take out leadership, to take out
very specific military positions that may maybe weren't supposed to
be known as military positions, they're definitely signaling to Iran
(12:48):
that they know way more than they've led on about
the Iranian activities. So can Israel pull this off if
we essentially say, look, we'll sell you weapons, but we're
not involved.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Other than that, can they pull this off?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I think so? You know.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I think they know who their political leaders are and
where they live. They certainly know a lot about the
Revolutionary Guard, which is the sort of guardian of the
regime and includes you know, true believers mainly.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I think they might well be able to pull this off,
but that would take a renewal of the war.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And they're sufficiently dependent upon US for weapons and so
forth for replenishing their stocks that they may not be
able to risk a renewal of the war if we
don't want it.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Hard to know, I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
One other possibility is that the remaining figures in the
Iranian regime.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Want out right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, they want out of the whole mess, uh, And
that would cause them to negotiate, and to negotiate seriously
an end to the nuclear threat and also an end
too their support for their proxies in Lebanon, in Yemen
(14:27):
and of course in Gozam.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
It's hard to know.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I'm talking with historian Paul Ray about war in general.
I want to ask you this question because it seems
like whatever ceasefires have been signed in the past or
eventually broken promises made. Even in the Iran deal that
was done with Obama, they did not follow through on
their responsibilities to allow inspectors into certain sites. Has there
(14:54):
ever been a negotiated peace that stuck when someone was
not brought to their knees first.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I can think of one.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
When I was living in Istanbul, I spent a fair
amount of time on both sides. In Cyprus, there was
a ceasefire in Cypress in nineteen seventy three. It's fifty
plus years later and they haven't gone back to war.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Now.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Part of the story is the Turk's got everything they
really wanted and the Greeks don't see any way to
overcome the disadvantage in which they live, right, and so
the two sides have cooperated. You know what, in Nicosia,
one side supplies the water pre and the other side
(15:49):
supplies the electricity pre.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Everybody's invested, and.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Neither side agrees to accept the status quo. Right, but
they have done anything about it in a very long time.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So let me ask this because I have watched documentaries,
I've seen countless news stories about the level of indoctrination
that has occurred in these Islamic regimes, whether you're talking
about in Gaza or you're talking about in Iran. So
in terms of being able to negotiate any kind of
(16:26):
real peace with Israel with that includes the agreement that
Israel simply has the right to exist, is that even
possible in a population that has been not just steeped
in hatred, but trained in hatred from birth. Often that's
the part that I feel like is really insurmountable.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
How does that work?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Well?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
You know, in a lot of these places, in Iran
in particular, there are people who hate the regime and
who would embrace it Israel for the simple reason that
the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And the
(17:13):
leadership in countries like Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia
and UAE have embraced Israel, and the reason is they're
afraid of Iran.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Now you remove revolutionary Iran.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
From the scene, what happens with the relations between the
Israelis and the Sunni world, I don't really know.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
But they won't go sour immediately.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
And I don't think they'll go very, very sour, and
that might change relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians,
which is to say, if there is no outside supporter
for radicalism among the Palestinians, there may be accommodations reached.
(18:16):
There's certainly accommodations in daily life.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well, I think it's easy to.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Embrace hatred when there's no cooperation with the person that
you're hating. And right now, with the leadership in the
Gaza Strip and to a certain extent, the leadership of
the West Bank, there's no incentive to be more collaborative
or to work with Israel. And I think that that
does allow those barriers to not only be raised, but
(18:43):
to be sort of fortified in terms of the way
people feel about Israel. And we were talking before the break,
and when I was in Israel, I talk to everybody.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
When I travel, I.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Talk to taxi drivers, and I talked to waiters, and
I talked to everyone. And I met several Arabs that
I just chatted with, and they all said, I live
in Israel because I want to live in a free society.
They don't want to live in the West Bank. They
don't want to live in Gaza because of the restrictive nature.
I would hope that once people in the West Bank
or people in Gaza got to understand that that freedom
(19:17):
would come their way if they simply embraced a more
open style and a better relationship with Israel. What are
your thoughts on that as an incentive.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I think it exists, but the obstacles are have proven
to be insuperabole. And the key thing is do the
irreconcilables have outside support? Ah Outside support is crucial. Look,
(19:54):
the Russians supported the PLO. The Russians actually put are
Afi in charge.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Of the PLO. He was their man. They supplied money.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Hamas received money from the United States, from Europe through
the United Nations Relief Works Administration, and quite a bit
of money from the Iranians. Earlier they received money from
Saudi Arabia, but that's over.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So it's hard to know. What I can tell you
is people.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
In that part of the world are extremely good at negotiation.
The negotiation. You know, if you go and do a
bizarre the price is very often negotiable. They're used to
negotiations and that could suddenly take over.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Let's hope Paul Ray Thank you so much for your
time today, fascinating conversation, and for everything. I wanted you
to give me a firm answer on You didn't, so
you didn't make me feel better, but you did educate me,
so I will accept that.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Thank you for your time today, Paul.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Pleasure to be with you, and pleasure to be in
Denver where I was once a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
and eighth grader.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I told Paul, it's changed a bit since then. Thanks
a lot, man. We'll talk again soon, I hope.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Okay, take care
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