Rory O'Neill with an Israel/Iran update

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm John Mounts filling in for JT. And as the
drums of war continued to beat, Donald Trump is now
saying that he's agreeing on the plan not to attack,
but they plan to attack Iran. Here's what he said yesterday.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I may do it, I may not do it. I mean,
nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell
you this is that Iran's got a lot of trouble.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
And I don't like it when Donald Trump somebody's got trouble,
because there's going to be something that's going to happen.
We're now going to Rory O'Neil. Rory, what kind of
trouble could Iran be in?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, it's a question about how much US military involvement
could happen there in Iran. Of course, lots of talk
about a bunker buster trying to reach that underground nuclear
facility in Iran. Only the US has the weapon that's
capable of doing it. But it's not as if we
can drop one bomb and leave. It would probably be

(00:50):
a much more complex kind of operation, and then Iran
could retaliate in different ways, either directly attacking American assets
that are there in the Middle least or the closing
down the Strait of Horn Moves, which has about twenty
million barrels of oil going through it every day, and
suddenly we're all paying eight nine ten bucks a gallon

(01:10):
for gas.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I saw that that there is concern that already gas
prices are beginning to inch up, because anytime there's trouble
in the Middle East, even if nothing is changed with
the supply, there's concerns raised, and that gets them going
ahead and raising prices. And that's the reason why there's
a lot of concern about that rory. What are some
other world leaders saying, Are they also and obviously Israel's

(01:31):
on wants us to get involved. Are other countries backing
the United States.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well a little bit? And it's interesting to see how
quietly some of the other Arab countries are behaving at
this point, almost like they don't disagree with this idea.
We did learn though, that Iran's foreign minister will meet
with some European powers for talks on Friday in Geneva,
so maybe that's a step closer to avoiding US involvement here. Again,

(01:57):
it all seems to be changing hour by hour, especially
after an Iranian strike into Israel badly damaged a hospital
in southern Israel. It seems as if Israel is mounting
a significant response as a result of that strike. I
should note by the way, Iran says it was aiming
for a technology park next to the hospital, not the

(02:19):
hospital itself, is the claim.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
And of course that doesn't really you know, they don't
have the highest tech stuff in Iran, so I imagine
it's very possible they could have missed their target, but
they're probably not too sad about it. And to your
other point, I think you're right, you know, Iran. To me,
it's sort of like it's like that one neighbor in
your neighborhood that nobody particularly likes.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
They leave their garbage cans out, they let them along
get way too long, they turn their dogs loose, they
bark all night, and so when the police go over
to the house and they drag the guy off in cuffs,
no one is particularly sad about it, even if you
weren't the one who called him.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well right, and look, remember Iran has been operating these
proxyed terrorist organizations Hamas Hezbaala Yema, the Hutis and Yemen
for decades now, and disrupting the area, the whole region
really as some of these countries are trying to you know,
come out of this well to find more economic success.

(03:13):
Syria in particular trying to lean more democratic, even though
it's former guy with al Qaeda, But that's another old story.
But yeah, there's it seems that Iran is becoming more
and more isolated with their opinions.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
And rory if we because the stated goal is to
keep them from being able to enrich and use uranium
to make nuclear weapons. But beyond that, are we looking
for regime change? And if so, what would that look like?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, that's the other issue, and Israel has made no
bones about it there after regime change almost first and
nuclear second. So it's that really is their intent here?
That also calls into question of the timing, like really,
do we have to do this now? Why? Now? What's
happening now that's making Israel do this? You know tape
his surface that shows Prime Minister Yahoo saying Iran is

(04:01):
weeks away from getting a nuclear bomb and that was
a speech in twenty fifteen, you know, ten years ago,
So you know, why is this all happening now? Is
one of the questions, and one of the questions that
President Trump asked to address of you know, does the
US need to get involved now, because we've heard from
Tulca Gabbard others who said in the US intelligence community

(04:21):
said that Iran is a couple of years away from
getting a nuclear weapon. We didn't think they were getting
that close. President Trump, though, apparently agreeing with net and
Yahoo that Iran is close to getting a nuclear weapon.
So still a lot of uncertainty.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Ry O'Neil, thank you so much for joining us. This
is Alabama's Morning News. We'll continue to cover the situation
in Iran as it seems like it's changing every few
minutes in terms of what's what's happening over there.