June 19, 2025 • 51 mins
Is Israel justifying its goal of regime change in Iran with a supposed ‘denuclearization’ mission? To what extent should the U.S. be involved? Should the U.S. support Israel in taking out Iran’s Leadership? Director of Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer, faces off against “Part of the Problem Podcast” host Dave Smith in this ZeroHedge Debate.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Now it's time for The Anchorman Podcast with Matt Yates
and Dan Ball.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good evening, and welcome to the Anchorman Podcast, powered by
One American News. I'm Matt Gates, host of The Matt
Gates Show, where every weeknight, nine Eastern, sixth Pacific, and
today we're doing something a little bit different. We've partnered
with zero Hedge, a great website for their Zero Hedge Debates.
Zero Hedge Debates bring smart folks together to challenge conventional
wisdom and discuss the major policy questions of the day
(00:37):
on digital platforms. Tonight we ask this question, should the
US support Israel in taking out Iran's leadership? Taking the
affirmative in this debate is Robert Spencer, director of Jahadwatch.
Taking the negative is Dave Smith, host of Part of
the Problem podcast. I'm former Congressman Matt Gates. I'll be
your moderator the Zero Hedge Debates. And now each side
(01:01):
has afforded a fore minute opening statement, and we begin
with Robert Spencer.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thanks Matt. You know, obviously nobody wants to go to
war with Iran. The problem is, in all of these
discussions that I'm seeing about this issue, nobody is actually
talking about the fact that not just one side gets
to decide whether the war will begin or not. And
it may well be that Iran will attack the United
(01:29):
States and it won't be up to anyone whether we
go in to fight Iran or not. At the same time,
nobody is envisioning the kind of quagmire that we had
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody is talking about boots on
the ground. There is talk about regime change, but that's
(01:51):
become a very charged term. It doesn't necessarily mean some
sort of wrongheaded, misguided, unfocused project to bring a political
system to a people that doesn't want it or understand it.
And so what we have in this situation is quite different.
(02:14):
The President, as a matter of fact, just today said
that he was talking to Tucker Carlson and he said,
are you okay with nuclear weapons being in the hands
of Iran? And Trump went on to say, and he
sort of didn't like that, And of course nobody really
likes that. And Trump said, if that's okay with you,
(02:35):
you and I have a difference. It's not just Israel
that has said that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
working on nuclear weapons. This is something that has been
abundantly established by investigations of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which is of course an arm of the UN, works
(02:56):
closely with several UN agencies, and the UN is no
friend of Israel. The UN, as a matter of fact,
as a standing item, the UN Human Rights Council has
an Item seven on its agenda every time it meets
to condemn alleged human rights abuses of Israel. So the IAEA,
(03:17):
working closely with the UN, is not likely to exaggerate
an Iranian nuclear threat. But the IAEA says that the
Iranians are enriching uranium at a rate that is far
beyond peaceful purposes, and that this is indeed an imminent threat.
And so I hope that the President doesn't have to
(03:38):
strike in Iran. I hope that it doesn't come to that.
He's talking today about bringing Iranians to Washington to talk
with him at the White House, and he's the great
deal maker. Maybe he can do it again. At the
same time, it may become, unfortunately necessary for the real
peace of the world to strike Iran's nuclear program in
(04:02):
tandem with Israel and to take it out so that
this regime cannot endanger the life of the world as
it has thus far in numerous ways. Now, this doesn't
necessarily mean regime change, but if it did come about,
the first people who would welcome it would be the
Iranians themselves, who have made it abundantly clear that they
(04:26):
hate this regime in Afghanistan. They loved the Taliban in Iraq,
they turn to establish sharia in Iran. It's different.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Thank you, Thank you very much, mister Spencer. Dave Smith,
take it away.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I just I'm honestly almost just in disbelief almost over
this entire debate. I can't even believe that we're here,
in twenty twenty five, after just electing Donald Trump winning
every swing state and the popular vote, that we're actually
having two thousand and three all over again, with all
of the same characteristics, just blatant lies, complete misrepresentation of
the evidence, a bunch of different fabricated justifications for the
(05:03):
war that aren't even coherent. The truth is that the
many people, no one wants war with Iran are the
first words we hear. No one wants war with Iran.
You sure about that? Iran has been on America's list
of countries to overthrow since at least two thousand and one.
We have a four star general on the record who
(05:24):
told us that he saw these plans.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
George W.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Bush put Iran on the axis of evil after nine
to eleven, even though they had absolutely nothing to do
with nine to eleven. He then invaded the two countries
that touch it and destroyed the two countries. And you're
gonna sit here and say, no one desires war in Iran.
Is anybody who knows anything about DC knows that there
are very powerful force Not a single honest Trumper Maga
(05:49):
person in America would say that there aren't powerful forces
that have wanted war with Iran for years. And the
fact of the matter is that Iran does not have
nuclear weapons. Director of National Intelligence released her annual Threat
Assessment two months ago. She reaffirmed it very recently. There's
just no evidence of it. And even as you quote
the IAE, they came out and said that Iran is
(06:13):
not developing nuclear weapons, they have a latent nuclear deterrent.
It was in no way something that justified a first
strike from Israel. And the idea that this regime change
is going to be different, well, why does it feel
so similar already? It's based on a lie of a
nuclear threat. We're talking about liberating the people. I mean,
I guess maybe one of the differences I spot, Matt,
(06:35):
I bet you would find this kind of funny. But
the Israelis are posting pictures with the son of the Shaw,
So I guess we're making the world safe for monarchy now,
I guess we're in the business of spreading monarchy to
the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Well, I don't.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
See any indication that that's going to work out any
better than spreading democracy worked. And either way, it's not
America's business. We have to appreciate. Look, as you even
mentioned there in your opening, it's like you lay out
the rum.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
Now we don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Look, America, the Israelis will sit here and say that
Iran attacked them on October seventh because it was their
proxy that came and attacked them. Well, by that same logic,
is Israel not our proxy? I mean, but that's exactly
the relationship. But we certainly found and armed them. We're
giving them intelligence cover. Evidently Trump was negotiating to distract
(07:27):
them from this attack coming in, and yet we don't know.
Now we have at least as of two thousand and seven,
the Pentagon told George W. Bush that we do not
have escalation dominance in a war with Iran, meaning they
can hit so many of our bases and our embassies
in the region.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Is a huge risk. And what's going to happen?
Speaker 6 (07:43):
Then?
Speaker 5 (07:43):
You know, it's easy. They all start off, Oh, there.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Won't be troops on the ground, it won't be one
of the bad regime changes, It'll be a good one.
What happens when a few Americans get killed in this?
You think Donald Trump's going to take that and not
start bombing the hell out of this country. This is
so incredibly risky. And just to be clear here and all,
I'll end on this. I just can't overstate this when
I say this is so incredibly risky. What we're risking
(08:05):
is the United States of America. And I don't just
mean like because a ram could beat us in a conflict,
But honestly, ask yourself, Let's say you're wrong. You know,
I don't know where you stood on all these last
regime change wars, but I know that almost everybody who's
trying to sell this one was catastrophically wrong about all
the last ones. What's the chance you're wrong here. When
I say you're wrong, I mean that regime change doesn't
(08:26):
work out well, that actually it becomes a disaster. That actually,
even though the people didn't like the government, I don't
know this radical government that has ruled since nineteen seventy nine,
which all of the most powerful governments, Okay, I'll wrap
up real quick. With all of the most powerful governments
in the world trying to overthrow them, they've still hung on.
Who's to say that another radical group doesn't go out there?
And we're not in the position we were in two
(08:47):
thousand and three. We're thirty seven trillion dollars in debt.
Our country is completely divided in a way we haven't
been before we have.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Donald Trump needs all.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
The political capital he can right now to get his
immigration issues through.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
And that's all.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So, mister Spencer, I want to pin you down on
precisely the position you're taking here. Do you believe that
there is a basis right now? In your opening statement
you made a lot of the characterizations about what could
happen and predictions about potential developments in the conflict, But
right now, do you believe the United States should support
(09:21):
Israel in taking out Iran's leadership. And can you give
me just a quick answer to that question.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Well, it depends on what you mean by support. You know,
in World War Two, Franklin Roosevelt did not get the
United States involved in the war until after Pearl Harbor,
But he did everything he could to help the British
before that. That was the len Lease program, that was
the propaganda war. There were all kinds of ways in
which he was aiding the side of freedom against the
(09:50):
Nazis before Pearl Harbor, but he didn't get involved until
Pearl Harbor. I think that's perfectly so.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Is that where you think the US should beat it down?
I just want to understand that for clarity the sake
of your position. Are you saying we should be in
a lend lease provide weapons to Israel? Or do you
believe the United States should directly be involved in striking
assets in Iteraran?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Exactly what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
The idea that this is some sort of betrayal of Maga,
as Dave was suggesting, is ignorant of the fact that
Trump and his Escalator speech, his first political speech announcing
he was going to run for president in twenty fifteen,
he says, I'm not going to allow Iran to get
nuclear weapons. Now, I don't know what people thought he
(10:36):
meant by that. He reiterated that many times over the years,
and now he's saying the same thing. And you've got
a regime that routine that actually has ordered its people
every Friday in the mosques all over Iran they have
to chant death to America as well as death to Israel.
And it's important to note this is not just braggadocio
(10:58):
or sloganeering. The Ayatola Kamena actually said not long ago
that the situation between America and Iran is this, this
is November one, twenty twenty three. When you chant death
to America, it's not just a slogan. It's a policy.
And it's a long standing policy in fact, because it
goes back to nineteen seventy nine, to the seizure of
(11:21):
the embassy, the taking of the hostages, the taking of
the CIA agent William F. Buckley, not the National Review guy,
another one.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Who was a yeah, well, you probably got a point there,
but in any case, he was brutally tortured and murdered
by the Iranian regime.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
In the eighties. His Bala is a wholly owned and
operated subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran created by
the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Nineteen eighty three, they killed
two hundred and forty one Marines in the barracks in Beirut.
You've got just a couple of years ago, rom Cotton
asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, has Iran attacked any American
(12:06):
interests American bases in the last few couple of years,
and how, if so, how many times? And Austin says
eighty three times? And Cotton says, okay, how many times
did the US respond? And he said four, So that's
seventy nine unanswered attacks from a power that is chanting
(12:27):
death to America, saying it's a policy, not just a slogan,
and that projects weakness. If we're if you just let
that keep happening and never respond, then you are exactly
the same thing that Dave is saying is going to happen,
but not in the way he envisions. You're going to
lose the United States.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Dave Smith, your answer to Iran deserves it.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
We're gonna well, we're going to lose the United States
you're telling me that a militarily Iran is going to
take out the United States of America. The idea is
so preposterous.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
This is a country that does not have an air
force capable of delivering weapons to us. We're the most
powerful country in the history of the world. And this
is a puny third world country. Although compared to the
other puny third world countries we've been picking on, they're
much much tougher. But just think about this, man, everybody,
the war fever and the drums are beating. Let commer
heads prevailed for a second. I just told you that
(13:27):
after nine to eleven, the war hungry George W. Bush
put a Ran on the list of Access of evil
and then invaded and destroyed their two next door neighboring countries.
And your response was the kids yell some chance, therefore
they're threatening us. I mean, let's get real here, Gill.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I want to talk about that threat real quick, Dave Smith,
because we saw the House Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee say in an interview recently that however we confront
Iran today, it is at least fronting and Iran without
a nuclear weapon, and as messi and as bad as
all those rough outcomes you described. The argument just that
(14:08):
I'm presenting to you is, well, we eventually have to
confront Iran, so better to do it now than later.
Your response and then we'll go to mister Spencer.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
It's just absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
And like I said, all of the intelligence indicates that
they're not trying to get a nuclear weapon anyway, So
this is all like, it's all just begging the question.
It's like you have to you have to like demonstrate
that they are actually attempting to get a nuclear weapon
before you can just make that call. But you know,
as the great Scott Horton said the other day, you know,
Truman did not start a war with the Soviets because
(14:41):
they were developing a nuke. And Johnson didn't start a
war with the Chinese Communists because they were developing a nuke.
And this idea that therefore it's okay to just launch
a war of aggression because somebody else is developing a nuke.
And the wildest thing about it, Matt, as you know,
as everybody listening, I imagine, knows, there is one country
in the Middle East who has secretly developed nuclear weapons
(15:04):
and is not a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty
and that's Israel, I mean, the nerve of them to
launch a war on these grounds. Iran is in the
non Proliferation Treaty and is not developing nuclear weapons, doesn't
have nuclear weapons.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Israel does and lies to the world about it.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
And this is their justification for launching a war that
they want to drag America into.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I mean, wake up people, Robert.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Is it hypocritical for Israel to try to draw America
into a war over a secret nuclear weapons program? When
Israel has a secret nuclear weapons program?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
No, it certainly isn't. But the you got to cover
some other issues here, Dave. You know you're setting up
some very big straw men when I list several, but
not all, of the attacks by the Islamic Republic of
Iran on the United States, and you respond by saying,
and you say, because.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Some no, no, no, no, on the United.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
States, we should we should attack them.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I will, actually, I actually I want to get Dave's
answer to that, because that was an argument. Here's how
the argument is often presented. When has when is appeasement
ever worked at deterring Iran. Robert laid out a series
of aggressive actions from Iran. They're all accurate, by the way,
So so when has appeasement ever made them them more
conciliatory because we've tried appeasement a few times and those
(16:21):
events have occurred.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Nonetheless, Well yeah, but what events are we even talking
about here? Like, I'd highly encourage people to go through
and read enough already by Scott Horton where he goes
through in details with all the sources and footnotes there.
You can look through him for yourself as I have
that so many of the accusations of Iran developing those
roadside bombs during the insurgency in Iraq were complete nonsense.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
They were lies, just like all the other lies.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
What about the launches on our basis that Robert mentioned.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
The launch, what specific attack are you talking about in
northern Iraq?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
We had American we had an American contractor killed without
Americans wounded severely because.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Right right when so again though, it's like you frame
this as attacking the United States of America when in reality,
what you're talking about is the United States of America
illegally aggressively invading their neighboring country, handing half the country
to them and their influence huh.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean Iran also invaded Iraq, so they can't exactly
get it.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Say, no, the last Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein started that
war and the US back ten.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, no, it was I mean they were Look, that
was a war of great tragedy. I guess I'll allow
Robert to get in here. And you know, Robert, is
there a point you want to make about, you know,
these of these events being insufficiently linked to the decisions
of the of the Iranian regime.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm not sure I understand the question. What do you
mean these events being.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You list out all these things that you say Iran
was involved in, we know that that a lot of
those were carried out through Iranian proxy forces. I think
the point Dave is making is.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
That roxy forces no see. But this is the thing, Matt.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
They say, if any she with a rifle shoots anyone,
that counts as someone that Iran attacked America, and it's
just nonsense.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
We don't hold this standard. We don't hold this standard
with anybody else.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
We don't say that like if America sold weapons to
some group, that then there are proxy now and if
they attack someone else with those weapons, that's America attacking them.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Yes, we invaded.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Iraq and we overthrew the government, which was the minority
of the country. Right, there was a Sunni minority with
a Shiate majority. We overthrew the government and forced democracy
on them, and then a civil war broke out. And yes,
Sheiates with guns. We're shooting at our guys, Robert, your response,
this is not.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
A matter of some Schiite with a rifle, and we say, oh,
it's an Iranian proxy. Hamas is a Sunni group as
a matter of fact, but it's funded ninety three percent
of its funding, three hundred and fifty million dollars, comes
from the Islamic Republic of Iran. His balla was created
by the Islamic Republic of Iran, all for more than
twenty years. But Shah Alasad was a client who depended
(19:00):
upon the Shiite clergy in Iran to certify that the
Alo Whites were bonafide Muslims so that he could stay
in power in Syria. He was totally beholden as a
result of the Iranian regime. He was a client of
the Iranian regime. And you know, you also say, well,
the IAA said that they're not getting nuclear weapons. As
(19:20):
a matter of fact, in a May thirty first, twenty
twenty five report, which is what almost three weeks ago. Oh,
this must be outdated, the Iran has significantly increased production
and accumulation of highly enriched uranium, the only non nuclear
weapons state to produce such nuclear material. This is a
matter of serious concern. And the IAEA also said that
(19:41):
they've accumulated eight hundred and eighty one pounds of uranium
enriched to sixty percent, which far exceeds what is needed
for civilian energy production and is close to weapons grade material.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
So you've got da go read and now read the conclusion.
Now read the conclusion of the latest report.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Read it. Read the whole thing to read it right now,
the air let's read the conclusion.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Oh, the conclusion takes back that they're enriching uranium at
sixty percent.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Come on, no, no, no, see this this is how
they're selling this, lie, Matt. Yes, nobody's arguing that they're
enriching at sixty percent. They've gone up to the level
of having a latent nuclear deterrent. They are not the
first country who's ever done this. And yes that that
is true. It is higher than what they need for
their their civilian energy needs.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And well, do you believe, Dave, do you a bad's
agree ought to be deterred or allowed?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Listen, listen, I think again, these questions are I don't
like the spread of nuclear weapons at all, and I
don't sure should they be deterred. I think there would
be a great way to deter them by making a deal.
I think that would be very possible. I think the
Iranians have demonstrated that they want to make a deal.
Donald Trump seemed to be signaling he wanted to make
a deal. It's kind of unclear now what his true
(20:53):
intent was. But then they threw in the idea that
you have to get rid of all your centrifuges and
all your uranium, and the uranium weren't going to go
along with that, and so yeah, I think a reasonable
deal could be struck here where Aram doesn't get nuclear weapons.
But even if they had them, that doesn't mean we
should launch a regime change war there. Now, this is
just madness. There's no concrete plan. You have no plan
(21:14):
for who the new leader is going to be, you
have no plan. Had to avoid it.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
We're going to get to that. We're going to get
to this, but I want to stay on the nuclear
development real quick. Robert, you said in your opening statement,
I wrote down the words precisely that Iran was working
on nuclear weapons, and that struck me as a broad statement.
So I want to pin this down. How close does
a country have to be a hostile country to nuclear
(21:37):
weapons and their ambitions, or their hopes or their works
like to justify a regime change war.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well, look, Ali Akbar Hashmi roths and Johnny, president of
Iran from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety seven. December
two thousand and one, he says that if a day
comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with
the arms that Israel has in possession, which of course
was referred to a nuke, then the application of an
atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the
(22:07):
same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.
So Ross and Johnny was saying, we can destroy Israel
completely and retaliatory fire would only harm us to a
certain extent, but not completely. So he was obviously thinking
about an aggressive war of destruction of Israel. As kamen
(22:27):
A said on May seventeenth, a month ago, the Zionist regime,
which is the dangerous and lethal cancerous tumor of this
region must undoubtedly be removed, and it will be This
cancerous tumor language is a recurring theme in Iranian rhetoric.
It goes back to Colmania.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So is that rhetoric sufficient? Are you taking the position
in this debate that one's rhetoric can rise to a
point around destruction and nuclear annihilation to justify a regime
change war or do there have to be other actions
that bring out to.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
The other actions and there are. We have the enrichment
of uranium beyond the need for but beyond what is
needed for civilian purposes. So you already know that it
is that?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Is that the answer? Once a country starts enriching uranium
beyond civilian purposes, if they're a hostile country, that justifies
regime change.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Well, Matt, you didn't get my whole statement because I
didn't say we should go in. We should enable Israel
in any way that they need, and if a regime
change happens, we should support it the Crown Prince. This
is a very different situation from Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan,
it was a total mess from the beginning. It was
(23:39):
wrongly conceived, wrongly executed, wrongly concluded. I wrote a book
about it. Who lost Afghanistan? In Iran, it's a very
different situation because you've got people who remember growing up
in a secular, Western style republic. They remember life outside
an Islamic regime. I was seventeen when the Islamic Revolution happened.
(24:01):
There are plenty of people who are my age in
Iran and who have told their kids about what life
was like before the Islamic Revolution. And these people have
a leader. The Crown Prince is ready. He is offered
to come in and be a caretaker ruler and establish
a constitutional republic or whatever the Iranian people decide. There
(24:24):
was nobody like that.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
In it or what do you think the odds are
of a constitutional republic emerging in Iran? Do you think
they're better than fifty percent?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Robert? What was that?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah? And I'll go to Dave with the same question.
We're going to ask this question, what do you think
the percentage chances that a constitutional republic emerges out of
regime change in Iran? Give a number percentage to that.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Robert, Probably thirty or forty, Because.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I want Dave's response to you laid out the argument, David.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Smith's the opposite situation from Saddam Hussein in the toppling
of Saddan, because Saddam was already a secular ruler and
there were a lot of people who thought he is
an legitimate because he doesn't rule by Islamic law. And
when he was toppled, then they saw their chance and
they established Isis and implemented Islamic law in the sunny
(25:10):
regions and in Iran, it's just the opposite. Did you
know that there was a survey a couple of years
ago of the Iranian people who were supposed to be
ninety nine percent.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Okay, we're gonna get hold on. We're gonna get to
where the where the Iranian people are in hold on.
But before we get to the Iranian people, I want
to get to this notion of what the government looks like.
You've presented this concept that there is a crown prince
ready to come in and rule the country, and you
say thirty forty percent that would go well, Dave Smith,
I'm guessing you don't agree.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Yeah, I mean, look, let me just say I just
want to respond to a couple of things there, and
then I will answer that whatever percentage I would give it.
First of all, again just going to this, like the
idea that you're even gonna say the chance or the rhetoric.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
I mean, how many of.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
America, how many American politicians have said like the craziest things,
including John McCain and Hillary Clinton talking about wiping or
ran off the face of the map herself, right, I
forget her exact words.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
It was something like that.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
John McCain constantly saying that Donald Trump and tweets and
all types of bravado talk has made all types of
comments about violence like you've never seen before. But nobody
takes that as a serious policy, Like we really just
what you know, what I'm saying, Like, nobody takes that
as a serious policy until the other night when he
tweeted for everyone to evacuate Tehran. Now that's like a
real type threat. But for us to even be talking
(26:32):
about like they holler this or they chant that, it's
just completely beside the point. Again, this is weapons of
mass destruction all over again. All the intelligence says they
don't have a bomb that our own CIA said that
Since two thousand and seven, they've made the political decision
not to acquire a bomb. We just got that reaffirmed
with more intelligence. Last week there was another report that
(26:53):
said the same thing. So that's number one. After this, look,
I'll concede this. I don't know, by the way, exactly
what the percentage would be. I tent my gut instinct
as it's much much lower than that. And I do
find it to be such an unbelievable insult. I just
can't believe we're having this debate that we start the
terror war to get al Qaeda and then it turns
into spread democracy. And at this point in at Matt
(27:16):
twenty five years later, you understand, we got to support
the al Qaeda guy who just took over Syria, and
now we got to spread monarchy to Iran. It's just
such an insult, insult to the intelligence of the American people.
But I will say this, I'll grant you, I'll maybe
meet you in the middle here, and I think maybe
we could have some agreement on this area. I will
grant you that perhaps it is true what you're saying,
(27:37):
and some of the other Hawks say as well, that
Iran is a better candidate for regime change. Perhaps the
odds are a little higher that it would work out
than it would in Iraq. I'd probably put the odds
at like, say one percent in Iraq and like five
percent here. But whatever, let's say the odds are higher.
The flip side to that is that Iran is also tougher.
This is a country three times the size of Iraq.
(27:58):
This is a government who has maintained hower and much
more tight control over their country. They're a bigger economy,
they have a much more sophisticated military, they have an ability.
Look even what we've just seen in Israel already. See,
we're used to picking on real, puny, third world countries,
so we're not used to this. But they just hit
Israel back and killed some people there. Now I don't
know how much they have in the tank, but they
certainly at least have a little bit more than this,
(28:20):
and they can touch perhaps Us or Israel. And then
the other thing is the terrain there is much harder
to fight on. And then the other thing is that
if your percentage doesn't work out, and one of these
maniac sees is control of the government, and it's a
much worse situation than that, you've got to consider the
potential that we're getting dragged into something catastrophic here that's
going to cost another two trillion dollars and get another
(28:41):
five hundred thousand people killed. And so I don't know,
do you guys, after the last twenty five years, not
have any sense of concern about this of taking this rule?
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Well, let me let me let me chance. You made
it a forty percent chance.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, Hold on, Hold hold on, Dave, Dave, I want
to I want to push back on this because I've
heard this argument as well.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Well.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
US striking Iran doesn't really bring us to that level
of entanglement and involvement that mirrors a rock or Afghanistan
or even Libya. This can be more akin to the
Solomani strike. A lot of the people I like and
listen to, like Grand Paul, We're critical of the Solomoni strike,
but it didn't drag us into extended conflict with Iran.
(29:21):
It reset deterrens and everyone rolled on their way for
a few years. Do you think, Dave Smith, that there's
any validity to the argument that this can be a
kind of one and done, go strike some new glear facilities,
fly home, and then hope that it doesn't go beyond that.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Well, I certainly hope so, and I certainly hope Donald Trump,
President Trump comes to his senses and you know what
I mean, pulls back from this. I think that hopefully,
at this point he still could do that. I don't
see any signal that that is the case. And I
think that we should be honest with ourselves and make
no mistake about this, that this is a regime change
war already, and that that has been Israel's goal here
(30:00):
the entire time.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
They've admitted it in their own words over and over
and over again.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Netanyahu has testified before Congress and urged us to go
overthrow the government in Iran. This is their goal. They
know that they don't have nuclear weapons. This is all
the culmination of the clean Break strategy. General Wesley Clark
told us there were seven countries they wanted to take out,
and this is the seventh one. They're going in to
take this country out. Like, I don't know how anybody
can even argue with this at this point. And so
(30:27):
that's why the argument here is what are we getting
ourselves into? And how risky is another regime change war
for a country that poses absolutely no threat to us?
This is a country that again, there is no need
for us to do this. This is a complete and
obvious war of aggression by Israel with American assistance, and
a war of choice. We simply don't have to look.
(30:47):
Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling me since I was seven
years old that Iran is one to three years away. Hey, guys,
do you think he got it wrong when he said
that for the last thirty plus years, or was he
lying or was he lying so that America would go
overthrow the government he wants overthrown?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I think we have some of that. I'd like to
I'd like to get Robert's response to some of those
claims by the current Prime minister, who had been in
and out of Israel's government for quite some time. Let's
go out and play that clip.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in
a very short time.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
It could be a year, it could be within a
few months.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
They have the wherewithal, the stored up preserved knowledge to
make a bomb very quickly if they wanted.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
To do it.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
Iran is so dangerous weeks away from having the fiscile
material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
They're very close.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
They're six months away from being about ninety percent of
having the rich uranium for an Adam bomb. The Iran
is gearing up to have to produce twenty five bombs
atomic bombs a year, two hundred and fifty bombs in
a decade. Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out. Ran
will be capable of producing alone without importing anything, nuclear
(32:05):
bombs within three to five years.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
You're joining us in the zero hedge debates. We're here
with Robert Spencer, director of Jihadwatch and Dave Smith, host
of Part of the Problem. So the question to you, Robert,
does the Prime minister have any credibility?
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah? Absolutely, because the fact is that it's not just
either he's right and obviously he was wrong, or he's lying.
There's a third choice, and the third choice revolves around
the fact that there have been numerous strange, mysterious accidents
that befell Iranian nuclear scientists, computer follol ups in Iranian
nuclear facilities. A lot of this has been blamed on Massad.
(32:41):
Masad of course has not taken any explicit credit for it.
But it is altogether possible that the Iranian nuclear adventure
has been stemied at several points by the Israelis, and
that is why they not.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Just keep doing that.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Instead of a regime changed war. Why don't we just
keep doing those things? Those sound great, that would be great.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
If that it can be handled that way, then I'm
all for it.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
See, I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Because I'm not talking about both strang men. This is Yeah,
it's a strong man.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
To say, Okay, this is the most dishonest.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
This is Iran, because that is not what I'm arguing,
and that is not There is no reason I'm not
at this point.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, And I want to clarify your argument.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Robert.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
You're saying that you're not advocating the position that we
ought to deploy troops to the streets of Tehran today.
But are you Are you sensitive to the argument that
our involvement in Syria, where a lot of Americans were
mangled killed, that that began with forty military advisors. Do
you do you worry about America's history of slow walking
(33:57):
or sleepwalking into some of these wars.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, except for one thing, and that is that Trump
is aware of this. Trump, for all the rhetoric that's
been going on the last few days, is not George W.
Bush lessons have been learned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember
his devastating exchange with Jeb Bush back in twenty fifteen,
I guess it was. And the fact is that Trump
has been consistent all through these years of saying he's
(34:21):
not going to allow Iran to get nukes, while at
the same time rightly excoriating the Bush administration and Obama
as well for engaging in this pointless and fruitless mission
creep and nation building. And so why is it impossible
to believe that he intends to take out Iran's nuclear
(34:42):
program or is willing to do so if it comes
to that. But that does not mean that he's going
to go in with some Bushian adventure and try to
give democracy to the Iranians.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, Robert, how do we stop Israel from a decapitation
campaign if we're bombing nuclear facilities? But what's the leverage
we have over them at that point?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Well, okay, if Israel undertakes a decapitation campaign, you've also
got to reckon with the possibility that the Iranian people
might undertake a decapitation campaign. You know that it was
several years ago now, as a matter of fact, a
full soccer stadium looks like fifty seventy thousand people in
Iran was chanting long live Resis Shah, who was the
(35:25):
father of the deposed Shah of Iran. He was the
Shah in the nineteen thirties. And that kind of open
defiance of the Islamic regime and discussed with the Islamic
regime also combined with the fact that, as I was
trying to say before, that so many Iranians, where it's
officially ninety percent Shiite Muslim and ninety five to ninety
(35:45):
nine percent Muslim in general, and actually only forty percent
of Iranians now identify as Muslims, is an indication of
the deep disgust that the Iranian people themselves have for
this regime. There was nothing like that in a Rock
or Afghanistan, and both of those were wrongheaded and stupid
from the beginning. This is a very different situation with
(36:09):
a very different president and the idea that he's just
going to blunder into making all the same mistakes that
George W. Bush, who he knows was a fool and
has said was a fool, made. There's just no reason
to assume that.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I certainly hope so there is the argument that we've
heard in other campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq that we
would be greeted as liberators, and it seems Roberts making
that argument. Now, Dave Smith of do you see any
challenges with that?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Well, let me just I got to respond to a
bunch of this stuff. But yeah, of course there's a
million challenges with that. But number one, I wasn't straw
in any of your position. I didn't claim that your
position is to send boots on the ground. That's what
a straw man would be. What I said is that
your position has an unacceptable risk of being dragged into
a situation where we have boots on the ground.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
So it's not a straw man of your issue.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
But I just can't believe, like the hardest pivot I
ever saw in my life, from you watching that video
of net and Yahoo to basically saying a couple scientists
dropped dead, and so I could imagine a world where
they would have had nuclear weapons. He said, with certainty,
there's six months away from being at ninety percent just
bold face lies. And then, by the way, I mean,
(37:19):
just Matt, as basic human beings watching this here, you're
telling me that by the nineteenth time you've gotten it wrong.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
You don't go now. Granted I have been wrong about.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
This eighteen times in a row, but no, with certainty,
he says, there's six months away, and any every honest
human being knows he was lying to try to lure
America into a regime change that he wanted, and why
on earth should we do it on behalf of it?
It's just so crazy. I just couldn't believe that you
completely got away from that. It's like right there in
(37:51):
front of you that the lies are being told. It's
the same thing over and over again. I'm sorry, what
did you What question did you want me to answer?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Matt, Well, I think you got somewhere around there. I'm
gonna ask you this question. Some say that the modern
nature of warfare, Dave, is such that everyone kind of
has their proxy forces, right. A lot of the Sunni
monarchies had their proxy forces in Isis. We've heard Robert
talk about Iran's proxy forces, and so sometimes the neocons
make this argument, well, America needs a proxy force, and
(38:21):
we've been paying for Israel for so long. Why not
just use Israel to do America's dirty work and give
us plausible deniability, they get the return rockets instead of US.
Actually America first would mean giving Israel the weapons so
that they could execute this campaign with great effectiveness.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
Well, there's it's not a war that's in America's interests.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
So I don't see what. And I believe we've had
plenty of proxies. I mean, half the half the the
world is American sock puppets, all right, we prop up
Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and
Egypt and is and I mean, you know, yeah, okay,
it's the common theme amongst the countries that people are
(39:05):
always advocating regime change against is that they're the few
ones that aren't American sock puppets. So I don't even
know what people are talking about. Man, And this whole thing,
all this whole experiment of America being super involved in
the Middle East. It is Listen, It's like, I can't
even believe people can argue for this anymore.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
What is it brought us?
Speaker 4 (39:23):
It's bankrupted the country. We got thousands of our bravest
young boys who have been who have been killed, tens
of thousands of them who have been maimed and injured
tens more thousands who have blown their brains out in
the aftermath of these wars, and we're sitting here talking
about again whether we're gonna launch an illegal, aggressive war
(39:44):
of choice or help the Israelis launch an illegal, aggressive
war of choice.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
This is I don't know, this is absolute madness. There
is no we don't need to do this. And if
you want to look there.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
And say, look, you know the argument that, well, Donald
Trump said some good stuff about it back then, so
there it's like, yeah, Donald Trump just demanded a complete surrender.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Dude, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
It's not looking like he's pursuing that policy, and I
think we should be trying to do everything in our
power to urge him to get back to the you know,
his previous position. By the way, that was kind of
my point when I said that he was betraying Maga,
whatever maga means to you. The point is that he's
gotten away from that great stuff he was saying, and
now he's demanding a complete surrender. Sir, you demand complete
(40:25):
surrenders from nations you are at war with. What are
we doing here?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, I want to talk about the cost of that
war with Robert. One of the things that has given
a lot of millennials resentment over the regime change wars
in the Middle East of yesteryear is the cost. And
so I wondered if you'd given any thought to, like,
what's an amount of money that is worth it to
the American taxpayer to cause a regime change in a rock.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I'm sorry that this is a big thing that has
been not paid sufficient attention to. The fact is that
so Sama bin Laden actually launched the nine to eleven
attacks in order to cripple America economically, and that was
why he chose the target of the World Trade Center,
thinking that it was the center of the economic activity
(41:12):
of the United States. So there, and there's no doubt
that he had tremendous success with this, and the American
economy has suffered tremendously in all kinds of ways from
the war on Terror so called, which was wrongly conceived
and wrongly pursued from the beginning. But on the other hand,
(41:36):
you have to balance economic considerations against considerations of survival.
And Dave was saying, are we going to go to
war for Israel? Because Netanyahu wants us to go to
war even if net Yahoo and Israel didn't exist. You
have a regime that, as I showed earlier, has repeatedly
attacked the United States, is on a war footing with
(41:57):
the United States, has been since nineteen sev nine. It
has an incredibly hostile with stances toward American policies, has
kidnapped Americans, tortured Americans, killed Americans. Meanwhile, the rhetoric, yes,
is frankly about destroying America.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And this is something that the But how much money
Robert here? Is it worth of trillion.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Dollars assassinate Trump? And so we got it.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
We've heard, we've heard no, no, we've heard you wigh
out the list of criticisms. The question is what is
it worth financially to you?
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Well, survival is worth a lot to me.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah, do you think do you think the toppling the
Iranian regime is necessary for American survival?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
If they attack, if they have a nuclear weapon, and
they are attacking Americans.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
But just as you find them now, as you find
them today, however, that is, do you think it's worth
a trillion dollars in US spending to change the regime there?
Speaker 3 (42:57):
To change you mean, just like Willy Nilly out of
the blue with them just mining their own business. That's
not the situation that we're in.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
No, I didn't say that. I said in the situation
you find it now, not an idyllic situation or not
a catastrophic situation.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
I do not think that the United States should act
right now to either attack Iran or change the regime
in Iran. If Israel acts, we should support them with
how much money Iran could well attack, and if Iran attacks,
we should be prepared to defend ourselves.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Is there any limit on the amount of money, resources,
or material you would give Israel in this battle.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Well, you know, the money is very bad because the
people in Washington behave as if the money never runs out,
and so I'm not really in favor of giving out
money in general. But when you are coming to issues
of survival of the United States, then you're gonna have
(43:56):
to shell out. At the same time, we have tremendous
economic problems in the United States that I believe ought
to be addressed and foreign aid ought to be stopped.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
Sure so, so you actually making the argument that this
is a war of our survival, that we won't survive
if Israel doesn't overthrow the Iranian government.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
So how does the war of survival for US?
Speaker 4 (44:19):
They attack the.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
United States, It's a very different situation.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
Can you say when you say its attack the United
States States? I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, just
like a clarifying question. I just want to ask you
a clarifying question, because I just don't when you say
the United States of America, we might be talking about
different things, like I'm talking about the geographic area between
Mexico and Canada, like the middlesection of North America. When
you say they've attacked the United States of America, when
is a Ran attacked the United States of America.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Well, if you limit it to that, then you can
talk about the assassination attempt on masse Al Nijade, the
Iranian dissident in New York a few years back. You
can talk about the attack on the I believe it
was a Saudi diplomat in a restaurant in Washington a
few years before that. You can talk about it.
Speaker 5 (45:05):
They made claims, did they never even demonstrate that that
was around?
Speaker 3 (45:08):
What's that that is? Oh?
Speaker 4 (45:09):
That is such nonsense, dude. There is no proof that
a Ram was drying. You're telling me a Ran was
trying to assassinate Donald Trump. Matt Gates, you know the man. Okay,
you're telling me Donald Trump. They tried to assassinate him,
and Donald Trump's response was to negotiate. His response was
to negotiate.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
With the I'm gonna say this. Manhattan federal prosecutors in
November twenty four charged far Had Shakiri with plotting to
kill Trump before the election. At the behest of the
Iranian government in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, they ordered
an operative to assassinate Trump. His name is Farhoud Shakiri.
You can look him up. He's been charged. I don't
(45:48):
think Manhattan, Robert Robert absolutely no proof.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Did we did? We also have sort of a revenge
plot in the Iraq War on an assassination attempt. As
I recall, you know, there was this belief that an
individual had motivated an assassination attempt against George H. W. Bush,
and that that was something that inspired.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
His son Tom Right. So Dom was also done that
and so W wanted to do it. But this, you know,
because doesn't be similar to you that he's Trump once
again and so look, also there have been the fact
that the Iranian leadership has said that they want to
assassinate Trump, not Spencer, not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the Emir
(46:34):
Ali Hajizade who was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard's Corps Aerospace Force twenty twenty three, says a law
willing we're looking to kill Trump and Pompeia and military
commanders who issued the order to kill Solmani should be killed.
Awful Bite News Agency. January twenty third, twenty twenty one,
the Supreme Leader's website posted a photomontage of Trump playing
(46:58):
golf under the show of a drone, with also avenge
the death of Solomony.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Okay, sir, sir, how are you possibly not advocating that
we declare war on a round right now? How is
Donald Trump such a whimp that his response to this
they're trying to murder him and his response was to negotiate?
So how you should you should support America declaring war
on Iran right now?
Speaker 5 (47:22):
Everybody should to murder the president by it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Because the fact is that Trump is a man who
makes deals he sees He's for all the talk about
him being a narcissistic, egomaniac or whatever. He is actually extremely.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Pragmatic and all right, hold on, hold on.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
So he understands there are more important considerations at play here.
If he can pacify this situation with the deal, he's
willing to do it. But I saw the video of
Trump being killed by the drone that the Supreme Leader posted.
You can't tell me fabricated. It was there on his own.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
Okay, we are out of time.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
We are out of time, but I do want to
get a final word from each of you. I'm going
to give you each about a one minute closing statement.
Will begin with Dave Smith.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
Yeah, I mean again, as I was getting at there,
Iran has never attacked the United States of America. And
this is just like two thousand and three all over again,
all this war propaganda. I guess all these lies will
fade away. Every single war starts this way. You remember
at the beginning of the Ukraine War, when there was
the ghost of Kiev and the war was going to
be fought with sanctions alone, and that was going to
(48:36):
drive the Russians out. You remember how the Afghan army
was going to hold the country together. They told us
that for twenty years. You remember when the surge was
going to work in two thousand and seven and Dick
Cheney said the insurgencies and its final throws, and then
it just went on for years and years and years,
and hundreds of thousands of more people died. You remember
when they said mission accomplished. You remember when they said
(48:56):
they had weapons of mass destruction. It's all the same thing. Again,
is so naked right in front of all of us.
We are choosing to engage in another aggressive war of
choice to overthrow another regime in the Middle East. That's
what's going on right now, and it is absolute madness
for anybody to support. This is just the last thing
(49:17):
that the United States of America needs and all of
this hyperbole about how we will be finished is absurd.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Robert Spencer your final word, Yeah, once again, this is
a strong man, because this is not what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I'm not in favor of a war of choice for
regime change in the Middle East. I'm saying that Iran
poses a very real threat. It is a nuclear threat.
This is abundantly documented by the IAEA and others. The
Foreign Minister of France recently was talking about how Iran
poses an imminent threat. He doesn't have any reason to
be in the pocket of Israel. As a matter of fact,
(49:54):
the French government under mcron has been quite hostile to Israel,
and so the idea that this is some kind of
war for Israel and a repeat of two thousand and
three is completely out of focus. Trump, above all, has
learned the lessons of two thousand and three and the
drastic mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. We're not talking about
(50:15):
boots on the ground. If regime change does come in Iran,
it's most likely to come from the Iranian people themselves,
and we should be supporting them wholeheartedly in every way
that we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihadwatch. Dave Smith is
host of Part of the Problem podcast. Zero Hedge puts
on these debates as their Zero Hedge Debates on Macgate's,
host of the Mac Gates Show on One American News.
Thank you all for joining us. Now a word about
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Now it's time for The Anchorman Podcast with Matt Yates
and Dan Ball.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good evening, and welcome to the Anchorman Podcast, powered by
One American News. I'm Matt Gates, host of The Matt
Gates Show, where every weeknight, nine Eastern, sixth Pacific, and
today we're doing something a little bit different. We've partnered
with zero Hedge, a great website for their Zero Hedge Debates.
Zero Hedge Debates bring smart folks together to challenge conventional
wisdom and discuss the major policy questions of the day
(00:37):
on digital platforms. Tonight we ask this question, should the
US support Israel in taking out Iran's leadership? Taking the
affirmative in this debate is Robert Spencer, director of Jahadwatch.
Taking the negative is Dave Smith, host of Part of
the Problem podcast. I'm former Congressman Matt Gates. I'll be
your moderator the Zero Hedge Debates. And now each side
(01:01):
has afforded a fore minute opening statement, and we begin
with Robert Spencer.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thanks Matt. You know, obviously nobody wants to go to
war with Iran. The problem is, in all of these
discussions that I'm seeing about this issue, nobody is actually
talking about the fact that not just one side gets
to decide whether the war will begin or not. And
it may well be that Iran will attack the United
(01:29):
States and it won't be up to anyone whether we
go in to fight Iran or not. At the same time,
nobody is envisioning the kind of quagmire that we had
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody is talking about boots on
the ground. There is talk about regime change, but that's
(01:51):
become a very charged term. It doesn't necessarily mean some
sort of wrongheaded, misguided, unfocused project to bring a political
system to a people that doesn't want it or understand it.
And so what we have in this situation is quite different.
(02:14):
The President, as a matter of fact, just today said
that he was talking to Tucker Carlson and he said,
are you okay with nuclear weapons being in the hands
of Iran? And Trump went on to say, and he
sort of didn't like that, And of course nobody really
likes that. And Trump said, if that's okay with you,
(02:35):
you and I have a difference. It's not just Israel
that has said that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
working on nuclear weapons. This is something that has been
abundantly established by investigations of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which is of course an arm of the UN, works
(02:56):
closely with several UN agencies, and the UN is no
friend of Israel. The UN, as a matter of fact,
as a standing item, the UN Human Rights Council has
an Item seven on its agenda every time it meets
to condemn alleged human rights abuses of Israel. So the IAEA,
(03:17):
working closely with the UN, is not likely to exaggerate
an Iranian nuclear threat. But the IAEA says that the
Iranians are enriching uranium at a rate that is far
beyond peaceful purposes, and that this is indeed an imminent threat.
And so I hope that the President doesn't have to
(03:38):
strike in Iran. I hope that it doesn't come to that.
He's talking today about bringing Iranians to Washington to talk
with him at the White House, and he's the great
deal maker. Maybe he can do it again. At the
same time, it may become, unfortunately necessary for the real
peace of the world to strike Iran's nuclear program in
(04:02):
tandem with Israel and to take it out so that
this regime cannot endanger the life of the world as
it has thus far in numerous ways. Now, this doesn't
necessarily mean regime change, but if it did come about,
the first people who would welcome it would be the
Iranians themselves, who have made it abundantly clear that they
(04:26):
hate this regime in Afghanistan. They loved the Taliban in Iraq,
they turn to establish sharia in Iran. It's different.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Thank you, Thank you very much, mister Spencer. Dave Smith,
take it away.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I just I'm honestly almost just in disbelief almost over
this entire debate. I can't even believe that we're here,
in twenty twenty five, after just electing Donald Trump winning
every swing state and the popular vote, that we're actually
having two thousand and three all over again, with all
of the same characteristics, just blatant lies, complete misrepresentation of
the evidence, a bunch of different fabricated justifications for the
(05:03):
war that aren't even coherent. The truth is that the
many people, no one wants war with Iran are the
first words we hear. No one wants war with Iran.
You sure about that? Iran has been on America's list
of countries to overthrow since at least two thousand and one.
We have a four star general on the record who
(05:24):
told us that he saw these plans.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
George W.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Bush put Iran on the axis of evil after nine
to eleven, even though they had absolutely nothing to do
with nine to eleven. He then invaded the two countries
that touch it and destroyed the two countries. And you're
gonna sit here and say, no one desires war in Iran.
Is anybody who knows anything about DC knows that there
are very powerful force Not a single honest Trumper Maga
(05:49):
person in America would say that there aren't powerful forces
that have wanted war with Iran for years. And the
fact of the matter is that Iran does not have
nuclear weapons. Director of National Intelligence released her annual Threat
Assessment two months ago. She reaffirmed it very recently. There's
just no evidence of it. And even as you quote
the IAE, they came out and said that Iran is
(06:13):
not developing nuclear weapons, they have a latent nuclear deterrent.
It was in no way something that justified a first
strike from Israel. And the idea that this regime change
is going to be different, well, why does it feel
so similar already? It's based on a lie of a
nuclear threat. We're talking about liberating the people. I mean,
I guess maybe one of the differences I spot, Matt,
(06:35):
I bet you would find this kind of funny. But
the Israelis are posting pictures with the son of the Shaw,
So I guess we're making the world safe for monarchy now,
I guess we're in the business of spreading monarchy to
the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Well, I don't.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
See any indication that that's going to work out any
better than spreading democracy worked. And either way, it's not
America's business. We have to appreciate. Look, as you even
mentioned there in your opening, it's like you lay out
the rum.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
Now we don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Look, America, the Israelis will sit here and say that
Iran attacked them on October seventh because it was their
proxy that came and attacked them. Well, by that same logic,
is Israel not our proxy? I mean, but that's exactly
the relationship. But we certainly found and armed them. We're
giving them intelligence cover. Evidently Trump was negotiating to distract
(07:27):
them from this attack coming in, and yet we don't know.
Now we have at least as of two thousand and seven,
the Pentagon told George W. Bush that we do not
have escalation dominance in a war with Iran, meaning they
can hit so many of our bases and our embassies
in the region.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Is a huge risk. And what's going to happen?
Speaker 6 (07:43):
Then?
Speaker 5 (07:43):
You know, it's easy. They all start off, Oh, there.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Won't be troops on the ground, it won't be one
of the bad regime changes, It'll be a good one.
What happens when a few Americans get killed in this?
You think Donald Trump's going to take that and not
start bombing the hell out of this country. This is
so incredibly risky. And just to be clear here and all,
I'll end on this. I just can't overstate this when
I say this is so incredibly risky. What we're risking
(08:05):
is the United States of America. And I don't just
mean like because a ram could beat us in a conflict,
But honestly, ask yourself, Let's say you're wrong. You know,
I don't know where you stood on all these last
regime change wars, but I know that almost everybody who's
trying to sell this one was catastrophically wrong about all
the last ones. What's the chance you're wrong here. When
I say you're wrong, I mean that regime change doesn't
(08:26):
work out well, that actually it becomes a disaster. That actually,
even though the people didn't like the government, I don't
know this radical government that has ruled since nineteen seventy nine,
which all of the most powerful governments, Okay, I'll wrap
up real quick. With all of the most powerful governments
in the world trying to overthrow them, they've still hung on.
Who's to say that another radical group doesn't go out there?
And we're not in the position we were in two
(08:47):
thousand and three. We're thirty seven trillion dollars in debt.
Our country is completely divided in a way we haven't
been before we have.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Donald Trump needs all.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
The political capital he can right now to get his
immigration issues through.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
And that's all.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So, mister Spencer, I want to pin you down on
precisely the position you're taking here. Do you believe that
there is a basis right now? In your opening statement
you made a lot of the characterizations about what could
happen and predictions about potential developments in the conflict, But
right now, do you believe the United States should support
(09:21):
Israel in taking out Iran's leadership. And can you give
me just a quick answer to that question.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Well, it depends on what you mean by support. You know,
in World War Two, Franklin Roosevelt did not get the
United States involved in the war until after Pearl Harbor,
But he did everything he could to help the British
before that. That was the len Lease program, that was
the propaganda war. There were all kinds of ways in
which he was aiding the side of freedom against the
(09:50):
Nazis before Pearl Harbor, but he didn't get involved until
Pearl Harbor. I think that's perfectly so.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Is that where you think the US should beat it down?
I just want to understand that for clarity the sake
of your position. Are you saying we should be in
a lend lease provide weapons to Israel? Or do you
believe the United States should directly be involved in striking
assets in Iteraran?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Exactly what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
The idea that this is some sort of betrayal of Maga,
as Dave was suggesting, is ignorant of the fact that
Trump and his Escalator speech, his first political speech announcing
he was going to run for president in twenty fifteen,
he says, I'm not going to allow Iran to get
nuclear weapons. Now, I don't know what people thought he
(10:36):
meant by that. He reiterated that many times over the years,
and now he's saying the same thing. And you've got
a regime that routine that actually has ordered its people
every Friday in the mosques all over Iran they have
to chant death to America as well as death to Israel.
And it's important to note this is not just braggadocio
(10:58):
or sloganeering. The Ayatola Kamena actually said not long ago
that the situation between America and Iran is this, this
is November one, twenty twenty three. When you chant death
to America, it's not just a slogan. It's a policy.
And it's a long standing policy in fact, because it
goes back to nineteen seventy nine, to the seizure of
(11:21):
the embassy, the taking of the hostages, the taking of
the CIA agent William F. Buckley, not the National Review guy,
another one.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Who was a yeah, well, you probably got a point there,
but in any case, he was brutally tortured and murdered
by the Iranian regime.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
In the eighties. His Bala is a wholly owned and
operated subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran created by
the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Nineteen eighty three, they killed
two hundred and forty one Marines in the barracks in Beirut.
You've got just a couple of years ago, rom Cotton
asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, has Iran attacked any American
(12:06):
interests American bases in the last few couple of years,
and how, if so, how many times? And Austin says
eighty three times? And Cotton says, okay, how many times
did the US respond? And he said four, So that's
seventy nine unanswered attacks from a power that is chanting
(12:27):
death to America, saying it's a policy, not just a slogan,
and that projects weakness. If we're if you just let
that keep happening and never respond, then you are exactly
the same thing that Dave is saying is going to happen,
but not in the way he envisions. You're going to
lose the United States.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Dave Smith, your answer to Iran deserves it.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
We're gonna well, we're going to lose the United States
you're telling me that a militarily Iran is going to
take out the United States of America. The idea is
so preposterous.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
This is a country that does not have an air
force capable of delivering weapons to us. We're the most
powerful country in the history of the world. And this
is a puny third world country. Although compared to the
other puny third world countries we've been picking on, they're
much much tougher. But just think about this, man, everybody,
the war fever and the drums are beating. Let commer
heads prevailed for a second. I just told you that
(13:27):
after nine to eleven, the war hungry George W. Bush
put a Ran on the list of Access of evil
and then invaded and destroyed their two next door neighboring countries.
And your response was the kids yell some chance, therefore
they're threatening us. I mean, let's get real here, Gill.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I want to talk about that threat real quick, Dave Smith,
because we saw the House Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee say in an interview recently that however we confront
Iran today, it is at least fronting and Iran without
a nuclear weapon, and as messi and as bad as
all those rough outcomes you described. The argument just that
(14:08):
I'm presenting to you is, well, we eventually have to
confront Iran, so better to do it now than later.
Your response and then we'll go to mister Spencer.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
It's just absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
And like I said, all of the intelligence indicates that
they're not trying to get a nuclear weapon anyway, So
this is all like, it's all just begging the question.
It's like you have to you have to like demonstrate
that they are actually attempting to get a nuclear weapon
before you can just make that call. But you know,
as the great Scott Horton said the other day, you know,
Truman did not start a war with the Soviets because
(14:41):
they were developing a nuke. And Johnson didn't start a
war with the Chinese Communists because they were developing a nuke.
And this idea that therefore it's okay to just launch
a war of aggression because somebody else is developing a nuke.
And the wildest thing about it, Matt, as you know,
as everybody listening, I imagine, knows, there is one country
in the Middle East who has secretly developed nuclear weapons
(15:04):
and is not a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty
and that's Israel, I mean, the nerve of them to
launch a war on these grounds. Iran is in the
non Proliferation Treaty and is not developing nuclear weapons, doesn't
have nuclear weapons.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Israel does and lies to the world about it.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
And this is their justification for launching a war that
they want to drag America into.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I mean, wake up people, Robert.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Is it hypocritical for Israel to try to draw America
into a war over a secret nuclear weapons program? When
Israel has a secret nuclear weapons program?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
No, it certainly isn't. But the you got to cover
some other issues here, Dave. You know you're setting up
some very big straw men when I list several, but
not all, of the attacks by the Islamic Republic of
Iran on the United States, and you respond by saying,
and you say, because.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Some no, no, no, no, on the United.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
States, we should we should attack them.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I will, actually, I actually I want to get Dave's
answer to that, because that was an argument. Here's how
the argument is often presented. When has when is appeasement
ever worked at deterring Iran. Robert laid out a series
of aggressive actions from Iran. They're all accurate, by the way,
So so when has appeasement ever made them them more
conciliatory because we've tried appeasement a few times and those
(16:21):
events have occurred.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Nonetheless, Well yeah, but what events are we even talking
about here? Like, I'd highly encourage people to go through
and read enough already by Scott Horton where he goes
through in details with all the sources and footnotes there.
You can look through him for yourself as I have
that so many of the accusations of Iran developing those
roadside bombs during the insurgency in Iraq were complete nonsense.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
They were lies, just like all the other lies.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
What about the launches on our basis that Robert mentioned.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
The launch, what specific attack are you talking about in
northern Iraq?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
We had American we had an American contractor killed without
Americans wounded severely because.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Right right when so again though, it's like you frame
this as attacking the United States of America when in reality,
what you're talking about is the United States of America
illegally aggressively invading their neighboring country, handing half the country
to them and their influence huh.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean Iran also invaded Iraq, so they can't exactly
get it.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Say, no, the last Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein started that
war and the US back ten.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, no, it was I mean they were Look, that
was a war of great tragedy. I guess I'll allow
Robert to get in here. And you know, Robert, is
there a point you want to make about, you know,
these of these events being insufficiently linked to the decisions
of the of the Iranian regime.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm not sure I understand the question. What do you
mean these events being.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You list out all these things that you say Iran
was involved in, we know that that a lot of
those were carried out through Iranian proxy forces. I think
the point Dave is making is.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
That roxy forces no see. But this is the thing, Matt.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
They say, if any she with a rifle shoots anyone,
that counts as someone that Iran attacked America, and it's
just nonsense.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
We don't hold this standard. We don't hold this standard
with anybody else.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
We don't say that like if America sold weapons to
some group, that then there are proxy now and if
they attack someone else with those weapons, that's America attacking them.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Yes, we invaded.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Iraq and we overthrew the government, which was the minority
of the country. Right, there was a Sunni minority with
a Shiate majority. We overthrew the government and forced democracy
on them, and then a civil war broke out. And yes,
Sheiates with guns. We're shooting at our guys, Robert, your response,
this is not.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
A matter of some Schiite with a rifle, and we say, oh,
it's an Iranian proxy. Hamas is a Sunni group as
a matter of fact, but it's funded ninety three percent
of its funding, three hundred and fifty million dollars, comes
from the Islamic Republic of Iran. His balla was created
by the Islamic Republic of Iran, all for more than
twenty years. But Shah Alasad was a client who depended
(19:00):
upon the Shiite clergy in Iran to certify that the
Alo Whites were bonafide Muslims so that he could stay
in power in Syria. He was totally beholden as a
result of the Iranian regime. He was a client of
the Iranian regime. And you know, you also say, well,
the IAA said that they're not getting nuclear weapons. As
(19:20):
a matter of fact, in a May thirty first, twenty
twenty five report, which is what almost three weeks ago. Oh,
this must be outdated, the Iran has significantly increased production
and accumulation of highly enriched uranium, the only non nuclear
weapons state to produce such nuclear material. This is a
matter of serious concern. And the IAEA also said that
(19:41):
they've accumulated eight hundred and eighty one pounds of uranium
enriched to sixty percent, which far exceeds what is needed
for civilian energy production and is close to weapons grade material.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
So you've got da go read and now read the conclusion.
Now read the conclusion of the latest report.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Read it. Read the whole thing to read it right now,
the air let's read the conclusion.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Oh, the conclusion takes back that they're enriching uranium at
sixty percent.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Come on, no, no, no, see this this is how
they're selling this, lie, Matt. Yes, nobody's arguing that they're
enriching at sixty percent. They've gone up to the level
of having a latent nuclear deterrent. They are not the
first country who's ever done this. And yes that that
is true. It is higher than what they need for
their their civilian energy needs.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And well, do you believe, Dave, do you a bad's
agree ought to be deterred or allowed?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Listen, listen, I think again, these questions are I don't
like the spread of nuclear weapons at all, and I
don't sure should they be deterred. I think there would
be a great way to deter them by making a deal.
I think that would be very possible. I think the
Iranians have demonstrated that they want to make a deal.
Donald Trump seemed to be signaling he wanted to make
a deal. It's kind of unclear now what his true
(20:53):
intent was. But then they threw in the idea that
you have to get rid of all your centrifuges and
all your uranium, and the uranium weren't going to go
along with that, and so yeah, I think a reasonable
deal could be struck here where Aram doesn't get nuclear weapons.
But even if they had them, that doesn't mean we
should launch a regime change war there. Now, this is
just madness. There's no concrete plan. You have no plan
(21:14):
for who the new leader is going to be, you
have no plan. Had to avoid it.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
We're going to get to that. We're going to get
to this, but I want to stay on the nuclear
development real quick. Robert, you said in your opening statement,
I wrote down the words precisely that Iran was working
on nuclear weapons, and that struck me as a broad statement.
So I want to pin this down. How close does
a country have to be a hostile country to nuclear
(21:37):
weapons and their ambitions, or their hopes or their works
like to justify a regime change war.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well, look, Ali Akbar Hashmi roths and Johnny, president of
Iran from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety seven. December
two thousand and one, he says that if a day
comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with
the arms that Israel has in possession, which of course
was referred to a nuke, then the application of an
atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the
(22:07):
same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.
So Ross and Johnny was saying, we can destroy Israel
completely and retaliatory fire would only harm us to a
certain extent, but not completely. So he was obviously thinking
about an aggressive war of destruction of Israel. As kamen
(22:27):
A said on May seventeenth, a month ago, the Zionist regime,
which is the dangerous and lethal cancerous tumor of this
region must undoubtedly be removed, and it will be This
cancerous tumor language is a recurring theme in Iranian rhetoric.
It goes back to Colmania.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So is that rhetoric sufficient? Are you taking the position
in this debate that one's rhetoric can rise to a
point around destruction and nuclear annihilation to justify a regime
change war or do there have to be other actions
that bring out to.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
The other actions and there are. We have the enrichment
of uranium beyond the need for but beyond what is
needed for civilian purposes. So you already know that it
is that?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Is that the answer? Once a country starts enriching uranium
beyond civilian purposes, if they're a hostile country, that justifies
regime change.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Well, Matt, you didn't get my whole statement because I
didn't say we should go in. We should enable Israel
in any way that they need, and if a regime
change happens, we should support it the Crown Prince. This
is a very different situation from Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan,
it was a total mess from the beginning. It was
(23:39):
wrongly conceived, wrongly executed, wrongly concluded. I wrote a book
about it. Who lost Afghanistan? In Iran, it's a very
different situation because you've got people who remember growing up
in a secular, Western style republic. They remember life outside
an Islamic regime. I was seventeen when the Islamic Revolution happened.
(24:01):
There are plenty of people who are my age in
Iran and who have told their kids about what life
was like before the Islamic Revolution. And these people have
a leader. The Crown Prince is ready. He is offered
to come in and be a caretaker ruler and establish
a constitutional republic or whatever the Iranian people decide. There
(24:24):
was nobody like that.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
In it or what do you think the odds are
of a constitutional republic emerging in Iran? Do you think
they're better than fifty percent?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Robert? What was that?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah? And I'll go to Dave with the same question.
We're going to ask this question, what do you think
the percentage chances that a constitutional republic emerges out of
regime change in Iran? Give a number percentage to that.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Robert, Probably thirty or forty, Because.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I want Dave's response to you laid out the argument, David.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Smith's the opposite situation from Saddam Hussein in the toppling
of Saddan, because Saddam was already a secular ruler and
there were a lot of people who thought he is
an legitimate because he doesn't rule by Islamic law. And
when he was toppled, then they saw their chance and
they established Isis and implemented Islamic law in the sunny
(25:10):
regions and in Iran, it's just the opposite. Did you
know that there was a survey a couple of years
ago of the Iranian people who were supposed to be
ninety nine percent.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Okay, we're gonna get hold on. We're gonna get to
where the where the Iranian people are in hold on.
But before we get to the Iranian people, I want
to get to this notion of what the government looks like.
You've presented this concept that there is a crown prince
ready to come in and rule the country, and you
say thirty forty percent that would go well, Dave Smith,
I'm guessing you don't agree.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Yeah, I mean, look, let me just say I just
want to respond to a couple of things there, and
then I will answer that whatever percentage I would give it.
First of all, again just going to this, like the
idea that you're even gonna say the chance or the rhetoric.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
I mean, how many of.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
America, how many American politicians have said like the craziest things,
including John McCain and Hillary Clinton talking about wiping or
ran off the face of the map herself, right, I
forget her exact words.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
It was something like that.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
John McCain constantly saying that Donald Trump and tweets and
all types of bravado talk has made all types of
comments about violence like you've never seen before. But nobody
takes that as a serious policy, Like we really just
what you know, what I'm saying, Like, nobody takes that
as a serious policy until the other night when he
tweeted for everyone to evacuate Tehran. Now that's like a
real type threat. But for us to even be talking
(26:32):
about like they holler this or they chant that, it's
just completely beside the point. Again, this is weapons of
mass destruction all over again. All the intelligence says they
don't have a bomb that our own CIA said that
Since two thousand and seven, they've made the political decision
not to acquire a bomb. We just got that reaffirmed
with more intelligence. Last week there was another report that
(26:53):
said the same thing. So that's number one. After this, look,
I'll concede this. I don't know, by the way, exactly
what the percentage would be. I tent my gut instinct
as it's much much lower than that. And I do
find it to be such an unbelievable insult. I just
can't believe we're having this debate that we start the
terror war to get al Qaeda and then it turns
into spread democracy. And at this point in at Matt
(27:16):
twenty five years later, you understand, we got to support
the al Qaeda guy who just took over Syria, and
now we got to spread monarchy to Iran. It's just
such an insult, insult to the intelligence of the American people.
But I will say this, I'll grant you, I'll maybe
meet you in the middle here, and I think maybe
we could have some agreement on this area. I will
grant you that perhaps it is true what you're saying,
(27:37):
and some of the other Hawks say as well, that
Iran is a better candidate for regime change. Perhaps the
odds are a little higher that it would work out
than it would in Iraq. I'd probably put the odds
at like, say one percent in Iraq and like five
percent here. But whatever, let's say the odds are higher.
The flip side to that is that Iran is also tougher.
This is a country three times the size of Iraq.
(27:58):
This is a government who has maintained hower and much
more tight control over their country. They're a bigger economy,
they have a much more sophisticated military, they have an ability.
Look even what we've just seen in Israel already. See,
we're used to picking on real, puny, third world countries,
so we're not used to this. But they just hit
Israel back and killed some people there. Now I don't
know how much they have in the tank, but they
certainly at least have a little bit more than this,
(28:20):
and they can touch perhaps Us or Israel. And then
the other thing is the terrain there is much harder
to fight on. And then the other thing is that
if your percentage doesn't work out, and one of these
maniac sees is control of the government, and it's a
much worse situation than that, you've got to consider the
potential that we're getting dragged into something catastrophic here that's
going to cost another two trillion dollars and get another
(28:41):
five hundred thousand people killed. And so I don't know,
do you guys, after the last twenty five years, not
have any sense of concern about this of taking this rule?
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Well, let me let me let me chance. You made
it a forty percent chance.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, Hold on, Hold hold on, Dave, Dave, I want
to I want to push back on this because I've
heard this argument as well.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Well.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
US striking Iran doesn't really bring us to that level
of entanglement and involvement that mirrors a rock or Afghanistan
or even Libya. This can be more akin to the
Solomani strike. A lot of the people I like and
listen to, like Grand Paul, We're critical of the Solomoni strike,
but it didn't drag us into extended conflict with Iran.
(29:21):
It reset deterrens and everyone rolled on their way for
a few years. Do you think, Dave Smith, that there's
any validity to the argument that this can be a
kind of one and done, go strike some new glear facilities,
fly home, and then hope that it doesn't go beyond that.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Well, I certainly hope so, and I certainly hope Donald Trump,
President Trump comes to his senses and you know what
I mean, pulls back from this. I think that hopefully,
at this point he still could do that. I don't
see any signal that that is the case. And I
think that we should be honest with ourselves and make
no mistake about this, that this is a regime change
war already, and that that has been Israel's goal here
(30:00):
the entire time.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
They've admitted it in their own words over and over
and over again.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Netanyahu has testified before Congress and urged us to go
overthrow the government in Iran. This is their goal. They
know that they don't have nuclear weapons. This is all
the culmination of the clean Break strategy. General Wesley Clark
told us there were seven countries they wanted to take out,
and this is the seventh one. They're going in to
take this country out. Like, I don't know how anybody
can even argue with this at this point. And so
(30:27):
that's why the argument here is what are we getting
ourselves into? And how risky is another regime change war
for a country that poses absolutely no threat to us?
This is a country that again, there is no need
for us to do this. This is a complete and
obvious war of aggression by Israel with American assistance, and
a war of choice. We simply don't have to look.
(30:47):
Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling me since I was seven
years old that Iran is one to three years away. Hey, guys,
do you think he got it wrong when he said
that for the last thirty plus years, or was he
lying or was he lying so that America would go
overthrow the government he wants overthrown?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I think we have some of that. I'd like to
I'd like to get Robert's response to some of those
claims by the current Prime minister, who had been in
and out of Israel's government for quite some time. Let's
go out and play that clip.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in
a very short time.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
It could be a year, it could be within a
few months.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
They have the wherewithal, the stored up preserved knowledge to
make a bomb very quickly if they wanted.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
To do it.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
Iran is so dangerous weeks away from having the fiscile
material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
They're very close.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
They're six months away from being about ninety percent of
having the rich uranium for an Adam bomb. The Iran
is gearing up to have to produce twenty five bombs
atomic bombs a year, two hundred and fifty bombs in
a decade. Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out. Ran
will be capable of producing alone without importing anything, nuclear
(32:05):
bombs within three to five years.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
You're joining us in the zero hedge debates. We're here
with Robert Spencer, director of Jihadwatch and Dave Smith, host
of Part of the Problem. So the question to you, Robert,
does the Prime minister have any credibility?
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah? Absolutely, because the fact is that it's not just
either he's right and obviously he was wrong, or he's lying.
There's a third choice, and the third choice revolves around
the fact that there have been numerous strange, mysterious accidents
that befell Iranian nuclear scientists, computer follol ups in Iranian
nuclear facilities. A lot of this has been blamed on Massad.
(32:41):
Masad of course has not taken any explicit credit for it.
But it is altogether possible that the Iranian nuclear adventure
has been stemied at several points by the Israelis, and
that is why they not.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Just keep doing that.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Instead of a regime changed war. Why don't we just
keep doing those things? Those sound great, that would be great.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
If that it can be handled that way, then I'm
all for it.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
See, I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Because I'm not talking about both strang men. This is Yeah,
it's a strong man.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
To say, Okay, this is the most dishonest.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
This is Iran, because that is not what I'm arguing,
and that is not There is no reason I'm not
at this point.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, And I want to clarify your argument.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Robert.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
You're saying that you're not advocating the position that we
ought to deploy troops to the streets of Tehran today.
But are you Are you sensitive to the argument that
our involvement in Syria, where a lot of Americans were
mangled killed, that that began with forty military advisors. Do
you do you worry about America's history of slow walking
(33:57):
or sleepwalking into some of these wars.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, except for one thing, and that is that Trump
is aware of this. Trump, for all the rhetoric that's
been going on the last few days, is not George W.
Bush lessons have been learned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember
his devastating exchange with Jeb Bush back in twenty fifteen,
I guess it was. And the fact is that Trump
has been consistent all through these years of saying he's
(34:21):
not going to allow Iran to get nukes, while at
the same time rightly excoriating the Bush administration and Obama
as well for engaging in this pointless and fruitless mission
creep and nation building. And so why is it impossible
to believe that he intends to take out Iran's nuclear
(34:42):
program or is willing to do so if it comes
to that. But that does not mean that he's going
to go in with some Bushian adventure and try to
give democracy to the Iranians.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, Robert, how do we stop Israel from a decapitation
campaign if we're bombing nuclear facilities? But what's the leverage
we have over them at that point?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Well, okay, if Israel undertakes a decapitation campaign, you've also
got to reckon with the possibility that the Iranian people
might undertake a decapitation campaign. You know that it was
several years ago now, as a matter of fact, a
full soccer stadium looks like fifty seventy thousand people in
Iran was chanting long live Resis Shah, who was the
(35:25):
father of the deposed Shah of Iran. He was the
Shah in the nineteen thirties. And that kind of open
defiance of the Islamic regime and discussed with the Islamic
regime also combined with the fact that, as I was
trying to say before, that so many Iranians, where it's
officially ninety percent Shiite Muslim and ninety five to ninety
(35:45):
nine percent Muslim in general, and actually only forty percent
of Iranians now identify as Muslims, is an indication of
the deep disgust that the Iranian people themselves have for
this regime. There was nothing like that in a Rock
or Afghanistan, and both of those were wrongheaded and stupid
from the beginning. This is a very different situation with
(36:09):
a very different president and the idea that he's just
going to blunder into making all the same mistakes that
George W. Bush, who he knows was a fool and
has said was a fool, made. There's just no reason
to assume that.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I certainly hope so there is the argument that we've
heard in other campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq that we
would be greeted as liberators, and it seems Roberts making
that argument. Now, Dave Smith of do you see any
challenges with that?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Well, let me just I got to respond to a
bunch of this stuff. But yeah, of course there's a
million challenges with that. But number one, I wasn't straw
in any of your position. I didn't claim that your
position is to send boots on the ground. That's what
a straw man would be. What I said is that
your position has an unacceptable risk of being dragged into
a situation where we have boots on the ground.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
So it's not a straw man of your issue.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
But I just can't believe, like the hardest pivot I
ever saw in my life, from you watching that video
of net and Yahoo to basically saying a couple scientists
dropped dead, and so I could imagine a world where
they would have had nuclear weapons. He said, with certainty,
there's six months away from being at ninety percent just
bold face lies. And then, by the way, I mean,
(37:19):
just Matt, as basic human beings watching this here, you're
telling me that by the nineteenth time you've gotten it wrong.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
You don't go now. Granted I have been wrong about.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
This eighteen times in a row, but no, with certainty,
he says, there's six months away, and any every honest
human being knows he was lying to try to lure
America into a regime change that he wanted, and why
on earth should we do it on behalf of it?
It's just so crazy. I just couldn't believe that you
completely got away from that. It's like right there in
(37:51):
front of you that the lies are being told. It's
the same thing over and over again. I'm sorry, what
did you What question did you want me to answer?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Matt, Well, I think you got somewhere around there. I'm
gonna ask you this question. Some say that the modern
nature of warfare, Dave, is such that everyone kind of
has their proxy forces, right. A lot of the Sunni
monarchies had their proxy forces in Isis. We've heard Robert
talk about Iran's proxy forces, and so sometimes the neocons
make this argument, well, America needs a proxy force, and
(38:21):
we've been paying for Israel for so long. Why not
just use Israel to do America's dirty work and give
us plausible deniability, they get the return rockets instead of US.
Actually America first would mean giving Israel the weapons so
that they could execute this campaign with great effectiveness.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
Well, there's it's not a war that's in America's interests.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
So I don't see what. And I believe we've had
plenty of proxies. I mean, half the half the the
world is American sock puppets, all right, we prop up
Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and
Egypt and is and I mean, you know, yeah, okay,
it's the common theme amongst the countries that people are
(39:05):
always advocating regime change against is that they're the few
ones that aren't American sock puppets. So I don't even
know what people are talking about. Man, And this whole thing,
all this whole experiment of America being super involved in
the Middle East. It is Listen, It's like, I can't
even believe people can argue for this anymore.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
What is it brought us?
Speaker 4 (39:23):
It's bankrupted the country. We got thousands of our bravest
young boys who have been who have been killed, tens
of thousands of them who have been maimed and injured
tens more thousands who have blown their brains out in
the aftermath of these wars, and we're sitting here talking
about again whether we're gonna launch an illegal, aggressive war
(39:44):
of choice or help the Israelis launch an illegal, aggressive
war of choice.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
This is I don't know, this is absolute madness. There
is no we don't need to do this. And if
you want to look there.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
And say, look, you know the argument that, well, Donald
Trump said some good stuff about it back then, so
there it's like, yeah, Donald Trump just demanded a complete surrender.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Dude, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
It's not looking like he's pursuing that policy, and I
think we should be trying to do everything in our
power to urge him to get back to the you know,
his previous position. By the way, that was kind of
my point when I said that he was betraying Maga,
whatever maga means to you. The point is that he's
gotten away from that great stuff he was saying, and
now he's demanding a complete surrender. Sir, you demand complete
(40:25):
surrenders from nations you are at war with. What are
we doing here?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, I want to talk about the cost of that
war with Robert. One of the things that has given
a lot of millennials resentment over the regime change wars
in the Middle East of yesteryear is the cost. And
so I wondered if you'd given any thought to, like,
what's an amount of money that is worth it to
the American taxpayer to cause a regime change in a rock.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I'm sorry that this is a big thing that has
been not paid sufficient attention to. The fact is that
so Sama bin Laden actually launched the nine to eleven
attacks in order to cripple America economically, and that was
why he chose the target of the World Trade Center,
thinking that it was the center of the economic activity
(41:12):
of the United States. So there, and there's no doubt
that he had tremendous success with this, and the American
economy has suffered tremendously in all kinds of ways from
the war on Terror so called, which was wrongly conceived
and wrongly pursued from the beginning. But on the other hand,
(41:36):
you have to balance economic considerations against considerations of survival.
And Dave was saying, are we going to go to
war for Israel? Because Netanyahu wants us to go to
war even if net Yahoo and Israel didn't exist. You
have a regime that, as I showed earlier, has repeatedly
attacked the United States, is on a war footing with
(41:57):
the United States, has been since nineteen sev nine. It
has an incredibly hostile with stances toward American policies, has
kidnapped Americans, tortured Americans, killed Americans. Meanwhile, the rhetoric, yes,
is frankly about destroying America.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And this is something that the But how much money
Robert here? Is it worth of trillion.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Dollars assassinate Trump? And so we got it.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
We've heard, we've heard no, no, we've heard you wigh
out the list of criticisms. The question is what is
it worth financially to you?
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Well, survival is worth a lot to me.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah, do you think do you think the toppling the
Iranian regime is necessary for American survival?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
If they attack, if they have a nuclear weapon, and
they are attacking Americans.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
But just as you find them now, as you find
them today, however, that is, do you think it's worth
a trillion dollars in US spending to change the regime there?
Speaker 3 (42:57):
To change you mean, just like Willy Nilly out of
the blue with them just mining their own business. That's
not the situation that we're in.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
No, I didn't say that. I said in the situation
you find it now, not an idyllic situation or not
a catastrophic situation.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
I do not think that the United States should act
right now to either attack Iran or change the regime
in Iran. If Israel acts, we should support them with
how much money Iran could well attack, and if Iran attacks,
we should be prepared to defend ourselves.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Is there any limit on the amount of money, resources,
or material you would give Israel in this battle.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Well, you know, the money is very bad because the
people in Washington behave as if the money never runs out,
and so I'm not really in favor of giving out
money in general. But when you are coming to issues
of survival of the United States, then you're gonna have
(43:56):
to shell out. At the same time, we have tremendous
economic problems in the United States that I believe ought
to be addressed and foreign aid ought to be stopped.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
Sure so, so you actually making the argument that this
is a war of our survival, that we won't survive
if Israel doesn't overthrow the Iranian government.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
So how does the war of survival for US?
Speaker 4 (44:19):
They attack the.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
United States, It's a very different situation.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
Can you say when you say its attack the United
States States? I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, just
like a clarifying question. I just want to ask you
a clarifying question, because I just don't when you say
the United States of America, we might be talking about
different things, like I'm talking about the geographic area between
Mexico and Canada, like the middlesection of North America. When
you say they've attacked the United States of America, when
is a Ran attacked the United States of America.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Well, if you limit it to that, then you can
talk about the assassination attempt on masse Al Nijade, the
Iranian dissident in New York a few years back. You
can talk about the attack on the I believe it
was a Saudi diplomat in a restaurant in Washington a
few years before that. You can talk about it.
Speaker 5 (45:05):
They made claims, did they never even demonstrate that that
was around?
Speaker 3 (45:08):
What's that that is? Oh?
Speaker 4 (45:09):
That is such nonsense, dude. There is no proof that
a Ram was drying. You're telling me a Ran was
trying to assassinate Donald Trump. Matt Gates, you know the man. Okay,
you're telling me Donald Trump. They tried to assassinate him,
and Donald Trump's response was to negotiate. His response was
to negotiate.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
With the I'm gonna say this. Manhattan federal prosecutors in
November twenty four charged far Had Shakiri with plotting to
kill Trump before the election. At the behest of the
Iranian government in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, they ordered
an operative to assassinate Trump. His name is Farhoud Shakiri.
You can look him up. He's been charged. I don't
(45:48):
think Manhattan, Robert Robert absolutely no proof.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Did we did? We also have sort of a revenge
plot in the Iraq War on an assassination attempt. As
I recall, you know, there was this belief that an
individual had motivated an assassination attempt against George H. W. Bush,
and that that was something that inspired.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
His son Tom Right. So Dom was also done that
and so W wanted to do it. But this, you know,
because doesn't be similar to you that he's Trump once
again and so look, also there have been the fact
that the Iranian leadership has said that they want to
assassinate Trump, not Spencer, not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the Emir
(46:34):
Ali Hajizade who was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard's Corps Aerospace Force twenty twenty three, says a law
willing we're looking to kill Trump and Pompeia and military
commanders who issued the order to kill Solmani should be killed.
Awful Bite News Agency. January twenty third, twenty twenty one,
the Supreme Leader's website posted a photomontage of Trump playing
(46:58):
golf under the show of a drone, with also avenge
the death of Solomony.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Okay, sir, sir, how are you possibly not advocating that
we declare war on a round right now? How is
Donald Trump such a whimp that his response to this
they're trying to murder him and his response was to negotiate?
So how you should you should support America declaring war
on Iran right now?
Speaker 5 (47:22):
Everybody should to murder the president by it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Because the fact is that Trump is a man who
makes deals he sees He's for all the talk about
him being a narcissistic, egomaniac or whatever. He is actually extremely.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Pragmatic and all right, hold on, hold on.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
So he understands there are more important considerations at play here.
If he can pacify this situation with the deal, he's
willing to do it. But I saw the video of
Trump being killed by the drone that the Supreme Leader posted.
You can't tell me fabricated. It was there on his own.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
Okay, we are out of time.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
We are out of time, but I do want to
get a final word from each of you. I'm going
to give you each about a one minute closing statement.
Will begin with Dave Smith.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
Yeah, I mean again, as I was getting at there,
Iran has never attacked the United States of America. And
this is just like two thousand and three all over again,
all this war propaganda. I guess all these lies will
fade away. Every single war starts this way. You remember
at the beginning of the Ukraine War, when there was
the ghost of Kiev and the war was going to
be fought with sanctions alone, and that was going to
(48:36):
drive the Russians out. You remember how the Afghan army
was going to hold the country together. They told us
that for twenty years. You remember when the surge was
going to work in two thousand and seven and Dick
Cheney said the insurgencies and its final throws, and then
it just went on for years and years and years,
and hundreds of thousands of more people died. You remember
when they said mission accomplished. You remember when they said
(48:56):
they had weapons of mass destruction. It's all the same thing. Again,
is so naked right in front of all of us.
We are choosing to engage in another aggressive war of
choice to overthrow another regime in the Middle East. That's
what's going on right now, and it is absolute madness
for anybody to support. This is just the last thing
(49:17):
that the United States of America needs and all of
this hyperbole about how we will be finished is absurd.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Robert Spencer your final word, Yeah, once again, this is
a strong man, because this is not what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I'm not in favor of a war of choice for
regime change in the Middle East. I'm saying that Iran
poses a very real threat. It is a nuclear threat.
This is abundantly documented by the IAEA and others. The
Foreign Minister of France recently was talking about how Iran
poses an imminent threat. He doesn't have any reason to
be in the pocket of Israel. As a matter of fact,
(49:54):
the French government under mcron has been quite hostile to Israel,
and so the idea that this is some kind of
war for Israel and a repeat of two thousand and
three is completely out of focus. Trump, above all, has
learned the lessons of two thousand and three and the
drastic mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. We're not talking about
(50:15):
boots on the ground. If regime change does come in Iran,
it's most likely to come from the Iranian people themselves,
and we should be supporting them wholeheartedly in every way
that we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihadwatch. Dave Smith is
host of Part of the Problem podcast. Zero Hedge puts
on these debates as their Zero Hedge Debates on Macgate's,
host of the Mac Gates Show on One American News.
Thank you all for joining us. Now a word about
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