3/3/26: Rubio Admits War For Israel, US Embassies Burn, Tucker Claims Mossad Captured In Gulf Countries

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar — Episode Summary

Episode Date: March 3, 2026
Episode Title: Rubio Admits War For Israel, US Embassies Burn, Tucker Claims Mossad Captured In Gulf Countries
Hosts: Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti
Featured Guests: Dr. Trita Parsi (Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft)

Episode Overview

In this urgent and wide-ranging episode, Krystal and Saagar unpack the stunning admissions by US politicians Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson that the US war with Iran was precipitated at Israel's behest. The hosts analyze the implications of these revelations: the apparent subordination of US policy to Israeli interests, the spiraling regional chaos, US embassies under siege, and the reckoning with US military overextension. They also dissect widespread pro-war media propaganda, regime change objectives, collapsing Gulf security, and discuss explosive accusations of Mossad plots in Gulf countries, before speaking with Dr. Trita Parsi for historical perspective and analysis.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Stunning Admission: US Acts at Israel's Behest

[02:09–08:00]

• Krystal and Saagar react to statements by Sen. Marco Rubio and Speaker Mike Johnson, who publicly admit the US preemptively attacked Iran because Israel was going to strike first, and Iranian retaliation would endanger US troops—thus the US “had to” join in.
• Saagar calls this “the most extraordinary admission probably in modern history by the United States Secretary of State.”

  “We are not a sovereign... Israel was the threat.”
  (Saagar Enjeti, 07:53)

• Krystal presses why the US couldn’t simply restrain Israel, since Israel is entirely dependent on US support, calling the situation “humiliating and insane.”

2. Loss of US Sovereignty & Agency

[07:35–09:36]

• Saagar details how the US, allegedly the world’s superpower, is “a non-sovereign nation” when it cannot say “no” to Israel—a nation he calls “the size of New Jersey.”
• Israel’s actions (assassination, bombings) are dictating US policy and dragging the US into war.

3. Trump’s Reluctance & Possible Israel Lobby Influence

[10:03–11:54]

• Krystal notes that, despite Trump’s hawkishness, he seemed reluctant to start a full-scale war in the Middle East, but ultimately did so—raising questions about what pressures (Epstein files, donor money, lobbyist cash etc.) may be at play behind the scenes:

  “There is some piece of this that is missing... Maybe it is Epstein files, right? Is it just the money from Miriam Adelson?... There’s some piece of this that is missing that just does not add up.”
  (Krystal Ball, 10:39)

4. Comparison to Bush, Obama, and Past Wars

[11:54–12:37]

• Saagar wryly observes:

  “Think about this—George W. Bush had the wisdom not to do what Donald Trump is doing.”
  (Saagar Enjeti, 11:54)

• The hosts predict midterm consequences and possible economic fallout echoing past “unpopular wars.”

5. US Embassies Under Attack, Americans Trapped

[12:37–13:41, 21:19–33:05, 50:26–65:16]

• Embassies in the region are under siege; chaos is unfolding as commercial travel shuts down and Americans struggle to escape (“no way to get out of Dubai... busiest airport... all but closed down”).
• US Marines reportedly fired on civilian rioters at the US Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

6. Trump’s Handling of the War

[13:41–15:42]

• The hosts play a clip and note Trump’s checked-out tone at a Medal of Honor ceremony where he mechanically lists supposed “objectives”: destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilate the navy, and ensure no nuclear weapons—immediately veering off-topic to discuss the White House ballroom.

  “That was not an unfair cut. That literally happened... I watched the entire thing."
  (Saagar Enjeti, 15:42)

7. Israel’s Strategic Goals: Regime Collapse & Chaos

[17:29–18:41, 33:06–37:13, 50:26–54:16]

• Krystal and Saagar suggest Israel’s goal is not regime change per se, but total “regimental collapse”—chaos, civil war, and societal implosion in Iran and neighboring states.
• Double-tap missile strikes, attacks on hospitals, and deliberate targeting of internal security all point to a strategy designed to destroy social order, not just military targets.
• Saagar: “This is the recipe for quagmire, for disaster, for civil war, for collapse...”

---

In-Depth Interview: Dr. Trita Parsi

[21:19–42:22]

Key Takeaways:

• Public Admission: Parsi lauds Rubio’s candor as the point at which the “speculation is over"—this is explicitly “Israel's war.”

  “This is not, by any definition, America first. This is Israel first.”
  (Trita Parsi, 21:42)

• Strategic Miscalculation: He explains the Trump administration was led by Israel to believe a quick “decapitation” of Iran’s regime would end swift; instead, Iran is prepared for an existential fight, making US objectives—“regime change, annihilation, missile industry destruction”—utterly unrealistic.

  “The administration was led by the Israelis to believe that this was going to be a very simple operation. They thought that by Sunday evening, this would have been wrapped up, that the regime would have imploded... That obviously did not work.”
  (Parsi, 23:40)

• Iran’s Calculus: Iran now refuses ceasefires, fearing any quick end would allow the US and Israel to regroup then attack again—costly war is the only way to ensure future peace.
• US Has No Off-Ramp: The US is “throwing good money after bad,” without rational objectives or an end game.
• Armaments Crisis: Closing of the Strait of Hormuz, shut-down of oil production, and depleted interceptor stocks means the economic and military situation is spiraling unpredictably, even globally.

---

Media Propaganda and Manipulation

[37:13–42:17]

• Parsi and hosts critique Western media (citing BBC) for presenting the bombardment of Tehran as a “liberation war,” with a wildly selective and misleading presentation of Iranian public sentiment.

  “Given the viewers the impression that this is a liberation war... this is worse than the Iraq war propaganda that I’ve seen.”
  (Parsi, 37:13)

---

The Gulf in Flames & Mossad Accusations

[44:56–54:16]

1. Tucker Carlson’s Report of Arrested Mossad Agents

• Carlson claims Mossad was caught fomenting terror in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
• Saagar: “Extraordinary claim there by Tucker Carlson.”
• This highlights how Gulf states are now wary—questioning US and Israeli reliability.

2. Collapse of Gulf Security & US Influence

• Multiple video clips show chaos: missile intercepts over Gulf capitals, burning embassies, riots in Bahrain, and American/Western expats desperately trying to escape.
• Interceptor shortages are dire:

  “$4 million patriot against a $20,000 drone... might be done in a matter of a week, perhaps days...”
  (Saagar, 54:16)

3. Economic Fallout

• Oil and LNG exports halted, brands and high-end Gulf tourism in ruins; US global power projection is called into question.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Saagar:

  "We are not a sovereign. Israel was the threat." (07:53)
  “Think about this—George W. Bush had the wisdom not to do what Donald Trump is doing.” (11:54)

• Krystal:

  “There is some piece of this that is missing... Maybe it is Epstein files... Money from Miriam Adelson... Something just does not add up.” (10:39)
  "This is out of control... You've got embassies that are being attacked... [Americans] trying to get the heck out of Dubai and there's no way to get out." (12:37)

• Trita Parsi:

  “This is Israel first, not America first.” (21:42)
  “Trump has been led to believe Iran is much weaker than it is, and as a result, he’s gone down this path. Now we’re discovering it’s not that simple.” (34:52)

• On Depleted US Arsenal:

  “We fired 150 THAAD interceptors to protect Israel in the 12 Day War—that was 25% of the whole US stockpile... In the last 48 hours, probably several dozen... In 2025, how many new interceptors did we get? 10.”
  (Saagar, 56:48)

---

Regional Political Upheaval & Mass Panic

[62:00–66:19]

• Regional governments’ legitimacy is threatened: populations long restive over Palestine now outraged at overt US and Israeli aggression; Gulf monarchies' “social contract” (wealth in exchange for no rights) is fraying as oil revenues collapse.
• Evacuation chaos:

  "Half of Dubai is booking. Expats are driving to Oman and Saudi Arabia to try to find flights."
  (Krystal, 65:15)

---

Strategic and Humanitarian Disaster Unfolding

[66:19–69:39]

• Iranian strikes reveal unexpected intelligence capabilities, catching US and Israel “off-guard.”
• Attacks on civilian infrastructure by both sides have escalated beyond prior “red lines,” endangering thousands.
• Marine deaths in Iran were due to “sitting ducks” in unfortified trailers—not "fortified facilities."

  “Who did they die for? What did they die for?... We’re not going to let them do that to us because that’s how we lost thousands, tens of thousands who were maimed as well.”
  (Sagar, 68:52)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Episode Theme Intro / Overview: [02:09–03:16]
• Rubio & Johnson’s Admission & Analysis: [05:03–09:36]
• US Sovereignty, Trump’s Role, and Israeli Leverage: [07:53–11:54]
• Out-of-Control Escalation, Embassies Burning: [12:37–13:41]
• Trump’s Speech & Strategy: [13:41–15:42]
• Israel's Regime Collapse Strategy: [17:29–18:41]
• Full Interview – Dr. Trita Parsi: [21:19–42:22]
• Western Media Propaganda: [37:13–42:17]
• Tucker Carlson & Mossad Claims / Gulf Security Collapse: [44:56–54:16]
• Depleted US Missile Stocks Analysis: [56:48–58:29]
• American Evacuation Chaos & Regional Upheaval: [60:17–66:19]
• Human Cost & Military Losses: [66:19–69:39]

---

Tone and Takeaway

Krystal and Saagar maintain a tone of urgency and exasperation, with a recurring emphasis on the loss of US sovereignty, the recklessness of leadership, strategic amateurism, media complicity, and the catastrophic consequences for both civilian populations and US geopolitical power. Their conversation is punctuated by outrage, sardonic humor, and deeply skeptical questioning—“This is Israel's war. Israel was the threat. The US has lost control.”

This episode makes clear: the region is out of control, the “best-case” off-ramps are fading, and America’s military and political leaders are being dragged, unwilling but seemingly unable to resist, into a disaster they did not plan and cannot win.

---

For listeners:
This episode is an indispensable deep dive into the real-time unraveling in the Middle East, challenging official narratives and laying bare the consequences of policy subservience, military overreach, and failed restraint.

Transcript

[Wells Adams]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Krystal Ball]

Guaranteed Human. At VRBO, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support, so we've planned for the plot twists. Every booking is automatically backed by our VRBO Care guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start. Whenever you need help, it's ready before your stay, through the moments in between and after your trip. Because a great trip starts with peace of mind and maybe a good playlist. But we've got the peace of mind part covered.

[Wells Adams]

Hey, this is Wells Adams with By Order of the Faithfuls podcast alongside my fellow faithfuls and co hosts Tamara Judge and Dolores Catania. The three of us have been watching this season of the Traitors, and we've

[Sagar Enjeti]

been inside that castle, so we have insight.

[Wells Adams]

Unlike many others, this season of the Traitors may be the best we've ever seen. Listen to By Order the faithfuls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Traynor disappeared from a commune.

[Krystal Ball]

It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.

[Wells Adams]

So no, I am not your Uluru.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And back then I lied to everybody.

[Krystal Ball]

They have had this case for 30 years.

[Wells Adams]

I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Listen to the Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Sager and Krystal here.

[Krystal Ball]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist and anywhere else.

[Krystal Ball]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have a great show for everybody Today

[Krystal Ball]

we have crystal lot to get to. You will not be surprised to learn Marco Rubio claiming that the preemptive threat against the US Was actually from Israel. I. I'm not kidding. We will break. And not just him, Mike Johnson too. I mean, this is crazy stuff that they're saying this out loud. Break all of that down for you. Bibi was on Fox News last night celebrating, of course, the Gulf States are in chaos. Our embassies are being attacked. Trita Parsi is gonna join to break down what is going on. Scott Horton is also gonna join to break down his larger historical perspective of how we got to this place. Media is propagandizing, doing their pro war propaganda on overtime. We've got some lowlights for you there. And gonna, we're. And we're gonna take a little trip back in the very recent trip back down memory lane of all the lies that were told from J.D. vance and Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. And Stephen Miller and Donald Trump himself about how they did not want war with Iran. And yet here we are. Also, Ryan and I are gonna record an interview with Kat Abu Ghazala. You'll recall last week Ryan had some reporting about her foreign policy views. So we thought the best thing to do would be to have her on and just ask her directly what she thinks about various issues, including the Iran war, of course. So we will have that for you as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm interested to follow that. Been a lot of drama before the Iran war entirely broke out.

[Krystal Ball]

Now before Ryan's always starting some shit.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You know, we love Ryan. Ryan is and remains the goat, no matter what his detractors may say. Thank you to everybody who has been supporting our show for visibility to our audience. Yesterday was the single biggest day in the history of our show on all platforms, both on YouTube and on Spotify, podcasts, Apple, et cetera. So we do have an introductory free month trial for our premium subscription. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. You can go to breakingpoints.com and use the promo code BPFREE26 for a free of our service. You get the free show, you get the full show uncut ad free. You get to listen to it fully, which is really the way it's designed to be listened to. And you also get to of course participate in our ama, which we will be doing later today. So really, thank you. We have millions of people who have been joining the show literally just in the last 72 hours. Very glad to have you. And then you know, untold number as well who joined us for our Epstein coverage. So the show has significantly expanded literally just in the last month or so. We wanna say thank you and then we also wanna say thank you to our existing viewers on our pod listeners, our premium subscribers, of course, more than others who enable all of our work to be able to bring it to you as all of this crazy stuff happens live. So thank you deeply to all of you who support the show and if you can, we would really appreciate it. If you can't afford it, please no worries. Hit subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you're listening to this on a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. It really helps other people find the show. But with that, let's go ahead and kick it off with what Donald Trump and his administration are saying is the reason why that we are in this war in the first place. You if I said it three days ago, it would have been the anti Semitic conspiracy theory and now it is coming out of the mouth of the United States Secretary of State.

[Krystal Ball]

That's right. So not only Marco Rubio, but also Mike Johnson saying that the reason, cuz everyone's been saying why are we doing this? That the reason according to them is that Israel was going to strike Iran no matter what, that that would put our US Service members at risk. And so we calculated well we may as well be involved because maybe that will help us to be able to control the outcome here. Let's go ahead and take a listen to how they framed that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Why now?

[Wells Adams]

Well, there's two reasons why now. The first is it was abundantly clear

[Sagar Enjeti]

that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or

[Wells Adams]

anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The third is the assessment that was

[Sagar Enjeti]

made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before

[Wells Adams]

we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And so the President made the very wise decision.

[Wells Adams]

We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We knew that that would precipitate an

[Wells Adams]

attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched

[Sagar Enjeti]

those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties

[Wells Adams]

and perhaps even higher those killed.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act. They had to evaluate the threats to the US to our troops, to our installations, to our assets in the region and beyond. And they determined because of the exquisite intelligence that we had, that if Israel fired upon Iran and took action against Iran to take out the missiles, then they would have immediately retaliated against US Personnel and assets. The consequences of inaction on our part would have been could have been devastating. We don't know at what magnitude. But you can assume, because it is common sense, that if Iran had begun to fire all of their missile arsenal, short and mid range missiles at our personnel and our assets and our installations, we would have suffered staggering losses.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean Sagar, taken at face value, this is utterly humiliating and insane and obviously begs one really clear question, which is okay, if Israel striking Iran was going to create all of these problems and put our service members at risk, why don't we stop Israel from striking Iran? This is our client state. They can't function without our protection, our weaponry, our support, et cetera. So why did we just get coerced into this rather than going to our client vassal state and saying, no, you're not going to strike Iran because this is against our interests.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We need to. This is the most extraordinary admission probably in modern history by United States Secretary of State. They claim that this war was preemptive and it was preemptive in the sense that we had to preempt Iranian reaction to Israel's preemption. Are you here with me now? We are not a sovereign.

[Krystal Ball]

Israel was the threat.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's the bottom line.

[Krystal Ball]

Israel was the threat.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We have sacrificed our sovereignty. We are a non sovereign nation. If the world's superpower is subject to a country the size of New Jersey which basically makes nothing and is controlling our politicians, such that despite being the largest sing of military aid in the history of the United States, that we are not capable of telling them no. And it is now documented history from the New York Times. Now to the open mouth and comments of the US Secretary of State and the speaker of the House that this is Israel's war. Israel's war. Now Donald Trump has agency but he never once was able, apparently it even entered his mind to say, hey, you're not gonna do that. We're going to cut off weapons, we're going to make you a global pariah and good luck defending yourself without all of our missile def defense systems that never once entered their minds. And you know what else I was thinking about? You have to think even the Iranians, Iranian strategic calculus was, guys, they won't want to hit us or Israel's not going to want to hit us because we'll hit US bases. And the theory behind that was by threatening US bases it would mean that we would constrain or restrain Israel from striking them from their belligerent action. They never could have imagined the world where the client state is actually dictating and dragging policy of the United States and the global empire to actually enter the war on their very behalf. We are beyond screwed. Also, at a certain point, is it even useful to play comments here at this point from Donald Trump? Israel's in the driver's seat. They're the ones who killed Ayatollah Khamenei. We're the ones apparently who gave them the intelligence. They're the ones who do it. All of the strikes now so far are for regime collapse. The ingredients for civil war are happening.

[Krystal Ball]

The they are already stoking them.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Bibi Netanyahu got Donald Trump, maybe got Donald Trump, made Donald Trump, I don't know, got Donald Trump on the phone with a bunch of Kurdish leaders in Iraq and they're like, hey, go on in there, let's stoke a little civil war.

[Krystal Ball]

This is a killed a bunch of border guards. They killed all that people could come in over the border.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Even the Israeli strikes, by their own admission, they're going after and blowing up all the police stations. You only do that to collapse the civil society and border in the country.

[Krystal Ball]

And they attacked nine different hospitals, obviously murdered those schoolgirls, et cetera. And, and here's the thing is I keep bringing up the Epstein files because you have to look at this and go, okay, this is insane. Trump clearly had reluctance to go into a full blown war with Iran. And yet nevertheless he did it. And it never occurred to him or it never seemed to be an option to him to go to Israel and say, no, we will cut you off. Here will be the repercussions. This is something that previous American presidents have been able to do. It's not like Israel's so out of control and they have so much autonomy that they're able to do all of these things on their own. No, they're fully and completely enabled by us. So why is that not an option on the table? Why? And you have, I mean, you can't help but ask yourself, maybe it is Epstein files, right? Is it just the money from Miriam Adelson? Like there's lots of people who give Trump money for his campaign. There's all sorts of interests that are, you know, flow filling his both campaign and personal coffers with cash. So that really it, it's just about the Israel lobby cash. There's some piece of this that is missing that just does not add up. Because listen, Donald Trump is extremely belligerent, right? He's bombed more countries in, you know, his presidency than like any other American president. He has no problem taking hawkish military action. But it did seem like the one thing that he was reluctant to do was get embroiled in a long, large scale war, particularly in the Middle East. And yet here we are and you've got the Secretary of State saying, well, Israel made us do it. It does not add up. It does not make sense. There is some piece of this that is missing. And so you cannot call people crazy when they look at the Epstein files, cover up and go, I don't know, maybe. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's what's going on here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. To quote Dave Smith, think about this. George W. Bush had the wisdom not to do what Donald Trump is doing. I mean, I said it before, you're gonna launch a so called war of choice, preemption, whatever you wanna call it now, admitting openly what, 10 months or whatever before the midterm elections in your first year. If we think back to the history of the Bush presidency, we're all on the right track. You've got an unpopular war in the Middle east, you're gonna have. What did W. Call the 2006 midterms? A thumping. Is that what he said? It's a thumping whenever the Democrats are lacking. And then, yeah, that was Obama's. I think Bush called it a thumping. Then we have a massive financial crash. So we're on track, okay? Oh, yeah, we're all on track.

[Krystal Ball]

This thing is out of control. I mean, we've got embassies that are being attacked. We're telling Americans now in 12 different countries in the region, like, oh, use commercial means and get out of the region. Well, there are no commercial means. The airlines are all shut down. The airports are all virtually shut down. You know, there was an article yesterday about how Americans, mostly wealthy Americans in the UAE were trying to get the heck out of Dubai and there's no way to get out of that area. The busiest airport in the entire world and it's all but closed down. So you've got this thing already completely spiraling out of control. And apparently they thought maybe if we take out the ayatollah and we hit them pretty hard in the front, maybe this whole thing will collapse and the IRGC will just hold a hand over their arms and we can declare mission accomplished. This is delusional. No, obviously. And now they realize this is delusional, which is why Donald Trump is not going out and talking to anybody. Yesterday he said, everybody go listen to Bibi Netanyahu on Fox News. Because apparently this is the person who's actually calling the shots.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Look, we'll get to that. But yeah, Trump is out to lunch, like completely. Let's take a listen to him yesterday at the White House during a Medal of Honor ceremony where he spent. I watched the entire thing. He began with maybe a four minute segment on Iran where he was extremely tired, he seemed distracted, his heart really didn't seem in it at all. And he immediately pivoted to start talking about the fucking ballroom. Let's take a listen.

[Wells Adams]

Our objectives are clear. First, we're destroying Iran's missile capabilities. And you see that happening on an hourly basis and their capacity to produce brand new ones and pretty good ones they make. Second, we're annihilating their navy. We've knocked out already 10 ships. They're at the bottom of the sea. Third, we're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Never going to have a nuclear weapon.

[Wells Adams]

We're already substantially ahead of our time projections. But whatever the time is, it's okay.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Whatever it takes, we will always. And we have.

[Wells Adams]

Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability

[Sagar Enjeti]

to go far longer than that.

[Wells Adams]

We'll do it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Whatever somebody said today, they said, oh,

[Wells Adams]

well, president wants to do it really quickly. After that, he'll get bored.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't get bored. There's nothing boring about this.

[Wells Adams]

See that nice drape?

[Sagar Enjeti]

When that comes down, right now you

[Wells Adams]

see a very, very deep hole.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But in about a year and a

[Wells Adams]

half from now, you're going to see a very, very beautiful building. And there's your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks so nice, I don't think I'll even.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think I'll save money on the

[Wells Adams]

doors because it can't get more beautiful than that. I picked those drapes in my first term.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I always like gold, but I think

[Wells Adams]

we can save a lot of money.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I just saved.

[Wells Adams]

I just saved curtains. But. And it will be. It'll be spectacular. Be the most beautiful ballroom.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I believe it's because I built many a ballroom. I believe it's going to be the most beautiful ballroom. That was not an unfair cut. That literally happened. I watched the entire thing. Not joking. They're like, we only spared you about two to three minutes in between Iran and all of that. In addition, by the way, Trump continues this thing where he'll take his. Answer his cell phone for anybody who calls. Let's put this up here on the screen from the New Post, where yesterday he refused to rule out sending US Troops to Iran if necessary, saying, quote, I don't have the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Like every president says there will be no boots. I don't say it. Trump said after launching strike Saturday to decapitate Iran's military and political leadership. I say probably don't need them or if they were necessary, so that is the situation as we currently have it. And Crystal, you know that civil war point that we made earlier at every time that we have to try and launch some insurgency to overthrow or destabilize a government, there are US Special forces that accompany them on the ground. And look, no hate to the Kurds, they've been screwed around by the United States now for probably decades. But we did a lot of work together in the counter ISIS campaign. So these forces know exactly how to work together. There's a base in Erbil, right where they are. And look, it's all ready to go. The weapons are there. They'll be the most well armed insurgents in history. That's all they need. A little bit of forward deployment from a couple special advisors. It's going to look like the special operations that went in in October 2001 with the Taliban or to defeat the Taliban, that's the theory at least. But that is the recipe for quagmire, for disaster, for civil war, for collapse. And that is, look, if we are to acknowledge this is Israel's war, it is almost irrelevant to what Donald Trump wants. Only he can pull the plug. At least he did in the 12 Day War. But of course, that was just a lead up to this entire thing.

[Krystal Ball]

It was a pause. Then we tried all of the internal, you know, let's collapse the currency, let's stoke the protests, you know, let's see if that'll work. And then when that failed, then we're back to a war. And yeah, I mean, you, and with all of them, obviously they all lie, you know, when, if they're breathing, they're lying. But you can look at what they're doing. And to your point, we see these reporting about, oh, let's, let's talk to the Kurds, let's kill the border guards and you know, open up that, that border so people can flood in. And then you also see in the targeting, they targeted Ahmadinejad, you know, previous president of Iran. They, they targeted a jailed opposition leader who was under house arrest. So they wanted to make sure that this actually wasn't a regime change, that there was no other person who had any sort of legitimate base of support who could come in and take the reins because Israel's goal is regimental collapse. They don't want a strong Iran. They want, they, they don't, I apparently don't believe they can really successfully install a puppet. So they just want it to be chaos, death, insanity, civil war, et cetera, so that they can, you know, extend their regional, regional hegemony with that being said, we've got a lot more to get to, and we've got Dr. Trita Parsi standing by, so let's go ahead and bring him in.

[Wells Adams]

Hey, this is Wells Adams with By Order of the Faithfuls podcast alongside my fellow faithfuls and co hosts Tamara Judge and Dolores Catania. The three of us have been watching this season of the Traitors, and we've

[Sagar Enjeti]

been inside that castle, so we have insight.

[Wells Adams]

Unlike many others, this season of the Traitors may be the best we've ever seen. Listen to By Order the faithfuls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts

[Krystal Ball]

on the Adventures of Curiosity Cove Podcast what if the Right Fit Isn't what everyone Expects? In the case of the Right Fit, Ella explores movement, confidence, and belonging and learns that not all strength looks the same. Tennis is powerful, fast, focused, and kind of fun. Strong swing, Ella this Women's History Month story introduces kids to women who change sports by trusting themselves and moving differently. A thoughtful episode about identity, courage, and helping kids discover where they truly belong. So it's okay if I'm not quite sure what my thing is yet? It's absolutely okay when and if you do find a sport you love, you may be the next Gertrude, Tony, or Venus at Curiosity. Listen to Adventures of Curiosity Cove every Monday from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Usually on this podcast Will Kill youl We talk about the diseases, infections, and biological threats that can make us really sick. But right now, we're doing something a little different. We're stepping back and looking at what the human body needs to keep going.

[Sagar Enjeti]

When you consider what we know about sleep in humans, there's one rule that

[Wells Adams]

comes out we are predictably unpredictable sleepers.

[Krystal Ball]

We're talking about why sleep works the way it does, why our bodies don't follow neat rules, and why modern life makes rest so hard to come by. The second half of our series takes us to the digestive system with a multi part series on what happens after we eat. Okay, I just have to say that all of my favorite words, apparently are digestive words. Sphincter, peristalsis, duodenum. It's fascinating, it's funny, and it matters so much more than you think. Episodes of our new series run from January 20 through February 17, with new episodes every Tuesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to this podcast will kill you as part of the Exactly Right Network. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, everyone. We are fortunate to be joined by a friend of the show, Dr. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Great to see you, sir.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Good to see you, sir.

[Wells Adams]

Good to be with you guys.

[Krystal Ball]

So we just played for the audience, Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson, both saying, no. The imminent threat came from the fact that we knew Israel was going to attack Iran. Regardless of whether we involved ourselves. We knew that would put our US Service members at risk. Therefore, we felt compelled to. To strike Iran first. Your reaction to those extraordinary revelations?

[Wells Adams]

I'm delighted that he has spelled it out that this is the reason that at the end of the day, the Israelis have been driving the boat on this one and that the United States has followed their lead and let them decide when the US Goes to war and when it doesn't. This is, at the end of the day, a decision they made. They made a decision to let the Israelis decide, and now they're trying to hide behind that as if that is some sort of a self defense. At this point, there's no speculation valid any longer as to whether Israel is the driving force behind this or not. It is coming out of the mouth of Rubio and it's coming out of the mouth of the speaker of the House as well. It is now clear this is what they decided. This is not, by any definition, America first. This is Israel first.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is probably the most consequential Kinsley gaffe in American history where they accidentally, you know, tell the truth. Tell the truth. And this is one where I really don't even know where to go from here. I do think it is worth noting that the administration has laid out the most maximalist goals and is now making a mockery of America first. Let's say, put a six, let's say up there on the screen. I really loved this exchange. So Matt Walsh over at the Daily Wire, he put out a tweet, he's like, I've got some questions about this whole operation. And Press Secretary Caroline Levitt released a statement and said, let me reiterate all of the objectives. We're gonna destroy the regime's missile, raise our missile industry to the ground. We're gonna annihilate the Navy. We're going to ensure the regime's terrorist proxies longer operate. We will stop them from making and using IEDs. And when, by the way, IED literally means improvised. So, okay, guarantee that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon, preventing the regime from threatening America, killing terrorists is good. And there's a long continued diatribe. I was like, you know, whenever she was meant to address concerns about regime change. This is a regime change manifesto. I don't see any way that there could be a realistic off ramp without effective surrender from the Trump administration. Curious for your view.

[Wells Adams]

So here's what I think has happened. I think, first of all, you're right. But here's, I think, how we got here. The administration was led by the Israelis to believe that this was going to be a very simple operation. They thought that by Sunday evening, this would have been wrapped up, that the regime would have imploded as a result of the assassination of the Supreme Leader. That obviously did not work twice, reportedly, perhaps even three times, Trump reached out and tried to see if he could get a ceasefire from the Iranians. The Iranians rejected it. And I can go into as to why the Iranians rejected it. So now they're stuck in a situation in which they understand that the Iranian game plan is to prolong this and expand this war and play to what their relative strength is, which is they can withstand this. Whereas Trump probably cannot. Not militarily, but politically, he cannot withstand this for a couple of weeks. So now the Trump administration is trying to essentially convince the Iranians that, no, no, no, no, the United States is more than ready to withstand this for a long time. He suddenly said four weeks, and that now, as a result of the Iranians refusing a ceasefire, he is going even more maximalist. So he is throwing good money after bad money, after his first completely unrealistic expectation was not met. And this is the very definition of losing control. We're not even two or three days into the war, and it's already clear they how they are grasping for straws, not just to find what objectives they should have, but also how to justify them. And in that effort, they have gone as far as to say that Iran is at war with civilization, to actually admitting that all of this was done because Israel decided it was time to go there.

[Krystal Ball]

So I want to go back to why Trump let himself be led around by the nose by Israel, because clearly there was some reluctance from the administration. You know, they were concerned. You had the top military brass here leaking to basically every newspaper they could get ahold of to say, this is a real problem. We are not ready. There's an interceptor issue. This is not going to go well. There's tremendous risks here. And yet, in spite of all of that, and in spite of all of the very clear campaign promises that, you know, we're going to play them later. He made J.D. vance, made Tulsi Gabbard, made RFK Jr. Made Stephen Miller, made like every top person in this administration said, oh, of course we're not gonna go to war with Iran. In spite of all of that, he still ends up making the decision to do Israel's bidding. Like, what can explain that? Is it just the power of the Israel? Is it that Miriam Adelson money. Like, how does this calculation get made when you have so many people, from the political people to the military people, warning that this is going to be a disaster?

[Wells Adams]

It's really difficult to explain. And I absolutely cannot claim to have an answer. I think a part of the answer. He has been lulled into this belief that everything he has done has been an absolutely amazing success. And everything he did was in contradiction to the conventional wisdom and their advice. They told him that he can't move the embassy. He did. Nothing happened. They told him that he couldn't recognize the Golan Heights. He did. Nothing happened. They told him, you can't kill Soleimani. He did. In his view, nothing happened. They told him that he can't take out Fordo. He did. In his view, nothing happened. And then, of course, he did. Venezuela, he's on this map. Massive sugar high, the mother of all sugar highs. And it made it easier for the Israelis under those circumstances to tell him, look, the Iranians are just so weak. All you need to do is push a little bit. You're going to be the hero. You're going to be the president that finally puts an end to this regime. Everyone said that you can't do it. That's precisely why you should do it, because only you can prove them wrong.

[Krystal Ball]

So what you mentioned, maybe they mocked up a newspaper cover like Zoran did.

[Wells Adams]

I mean, they play to his psychology. The Iranians did not.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right? Yeah, right. And we should say that as we should fault their negotiating team as well. But now we are where we are. And so, you know, what do you see? You said that the Iranians have rejected two, maybe three diplomatic overtures from the Trump administration. What is the internal logic inside of the regime right now? It seems pretty clear that they expected to take mass casualties at the top. They have decentralized military command. What is their internal assessment right now? From far as you can tell from how they're doing and for what they're

[Wells Adams]

planning, the first thing we have to say to truly understand how they're thinking is that they truly, unlike the Israelis, who oftentimes throw out and say oh, this is existential for them. This truly is existential. And this is why they're making the decisions the way they're making it. They believe that a premature ceasefire, one in which after the US has scored a major victory, if they were to accept it all, it would do, it would allow the US And Israel to regroup, remobilize, and then six months later, relaunch a war. If there's to be a ceasefire, it has to be a prolonged and durable one. The only way the ceasefire could be durable, they believe, is if this war ends up being tremendously costly to all sides, so that all sides believe it was a mistake to start it and as a result, believe that it would be a mistake to restart it. If they agree to a ceasefire too quickly without that cost actually being felt, they believe that it will only give the other side, the US And Israel, time to be able to regroup and then once again attack Iran. This is the conclusion they drew after agreeing to ceasefire in June. Many of them believe that it was premature. Many of them believed that the Israelis were in a very, very bad situation because they had run out of interceptors, and it was a mistake for the Iranians to agree to that ceasefire, and they're paying for that mistake now.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, that was another incredible moment from Rubio, is he also talked about that interceptor map. He admitted it. Yeah. He talked about, you know, they've got these drones, and they're very inexpensive, and meanwhile, we're shooting all these interceptors, or we can't. They can make the drones much more quickly than we can make the interceptors. It's like, okay, then why are we doing this? If that's math that you're aware of

[Wells Adams]

in this situation and you recognize that logic, which they should have recognized before it actually pushes them to go all out as well. And that is what I think we're gonna see in the next couple of days. Trump is gonna throw everything.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Tell me more about what you mean by that. And just to, you know, as a little preamble here, we can put a 9 up on the screen. We now know at least six Americans have been killed in action. At least 18 have been seriously wounded. You have US embassies that are being attacked in a number of countries, both by Iran and also by local people. We know now we have confirmation that U.S. marines were shooting at civilian rioters at the U.S. embassy in Karachi, in Pakistan. We can put a 11 up on the screen. So already, the Strait of Hormuz was sort of de facto closed because the Insurers pulled the plug on shipping traffic and said, basically, we're not going to insure you or we're going to jack up the price extraordinarily. Now, Reuters is reporting Iran is notifying vessels it is officially closing the Strait of Hormuz. If officially closed, 20 plus million barrels of oil per day will be impacted 20% of global supply. Qatar has cut off their LNG production. Gas prices in Europe have already skyrocketed some 50%. So when you say we're gonna throw everything that we have at it and we're gonna go big, you know, what does that actually, in effect look like?

[Wells Adams]

Let me start off by just saying one other thing that I think is important. Just a couple of days, about three days before Trump decided to start this war, I was in a closed meeting with a bunch of former officials, analysts, military people. And the general view in the room was the Iranians would never do this. They would never close the straits, they would never attack the GCC states. It would be too costly for them. And I think it reflected the fact that this had not really dawned upon people. The manner in which Trump is doing this is making a clear signal to the Iranians this is an existential fight. And in an existential fight, they're not going to think about tomorrow. They're not going to think about what GCC Iran relations are going to be a year from now. They're going to think about how they survive this war as a result. Decisions that were perceived to be unthinkable, just empty threats from the Iranians, we are now seeing happening on a daily basis. As you pointed out, the closing of the straits. And again, I think it shows the profound miscalculation, although, of course, those people in the room were not the decision makers. I think it reflects what also decision makers have been thinking about this. I think what is happening now is that because of this essential, I wouldn't call it panic, but really scrambling to try to figure out a new plan, the emphasis is going to be to throw everything at the Iranians. I think we're going to see significant bombardment. We're going to see an effort to use the Kurds in order to launch attacks in the Kurdish areas in the absence of other ground troops, although I wouldn't be surprised if there may be some Israeli ground troops with the Kurds, although the Kurdish numbers are not very high. It's not so much that this actually would end up becoming like a real invasion, but something that would be further effort to try to cause Tehran to lose control. Of the larger situation. If the Iranians are trying to expand the theater of war into areas that the US Wasn't ready for, the US Is responding in kind. But bottom line is we're seeing that the original plans didn't even survive the first five seconds of reality.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, right. That's right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I mean, already this is a full blown regional conflict, which, as you said, and by the way, Trump admitted, you don't just have to listen. We were surprised that they attacked the Gulf countries. It has caused absolute chaos. The State Department saying this morning all citizens in the Gulf should leave. All of them. By the way, good luck leaving. All of the airports are closed. The US Ambassador, Mike Huckabee, is putting out guidance about how to get on a bus from Israel to the Sinai Peninsula and then hopefully be able to catch a flight from there to somewhere else before they can eventually get the hell out. There's over a million Americans who live in the region. I used to be one of them. But sticking with that, sir, let's put a 10 up here on the screen just so you can already see huge strikes in the middle of Tehran, in the middle of daylight. I mean, God only knows the number of people that have already been killed, but many of the reports coming out of Iran saying that the Israeli strikes are specifically targeting these police stations. As you said, the internal logic right now for the Gulf and for the United States is that this is already intolerable from a munitions depletion standpoint for interceptors, which means that they have to go all out, bombard the country as much as humanly possible, and try to basically erode their capacity to fight. This is the North Vietnam bombing strategic logic of many, many decades. Of course, it doesn't work if you have a population and a regime which is hardened in its belief that it is completely existential. So let's say we do get this massive bombardment an effective trying to collapse the state. Let's say they do take out the missile launchers. What's next from that point? Because the regime itself will still be intact and it's not like Trump and Israel can just declare victory again.

[Wells Adams]

I don't think there is much of a plan. The hope was that now they're targeting a lot of police stations, IRGC headquarters, Basij headquarters. The hope is that this eventually will lead to a regime implosion because the repressive capabilities of the state will be eroded and then magically people will rise up and take over. And there is some basis to believe that something like this could happen to Bet an entire war that it will happen is a completely different story. I go back to what I said on this show several times. I repeated it as often as I could in every interview. Trump has been led to believe that Iran is much weaker than it is. And as a result, he's gone down this path. And now we're discovering that it is not that simple. As you mentioned, the problems for people, for Americans to leave the GCC states, even leaving Israel at this point. I spoke to a friend who was traveling. He was in Dubai, can't get out. Had to take a cab all the way to Oman. The border to Oman between the UN Oman was just completely overloaded with people trying to escape Dubai and try to find a flight out of the Arabian Peninsula. Clearly no planning whatsoever from any side for this to be able to happen. Yet the writing was on the wall.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, we've been listening to Professor Robert Pape, who's an expert on warfare and air power in particular. In 100 years of trying this, there has never been a successful, a successful regime change just using air power. We also have the recent example of Gaza, which obviously is much stronger, smaller, and where the Israelis, with our assistance, bombed the hell of it out of it, reduced it all to rubble effectively, and had a ground invasion and still were not able to dislodge Hamas from power. So the, you know, the arrogance, the delusion here is just extraordinary to me as someone who was not expert on these things whatsoever. Last question I had for you is, you know, I was watching that bombardment of Tehran, looking at the fact that they've already targeted some nine hospitals, obviously little girls, massacred over 160 of them at a school, another school, I think a girl's volleyball team was killed. Are they, since the initial let's try to collapse the regime didn't work out, are they now going to pursue effectively the same strategy they pursued in Gaza?

[Wells Adams]

It appears that at least on a couple of occasions that has happened. We've seen evidence of double tap attacks. There's a video of an Iran Iranian woman who actually doesn't live in Iran. I don't know if she's Iranian American, who is crying and said that they struck this hotel. When people rushed in to try to help it, they struck again. So evidence of these double taps are now emerging. One thing I have to say, though, and I'm sorry to raise this, but I was on BBC last night and they aired tapes or reconstruction of tapes of three voices from Iran that they claim to have spoken to who all were praising These bombings, I mean, one of them were saying that, you know, we're applauding every time we hear a bomb. Without a doubt. I do believe that there is some level of support inside of Iran for this campaign. Certainly there's a degree of support, although I think it's exaggerated in the diaspora. But BBC aired three voices who all said the same thing. Given the viewers the impression that this is a liberation war, that the people inside of Iran are just yearning to be bombed. And I had to call them out on it. I said, this is worse than the Iraq war propaganda that I've seen. Because you know very well that there's a diversity of views inside the country, yet you only aired one type of a voice and give people the impression that everyone is welcoming this war, which is absolutely not the case.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's outrageous. And we've been watching this happen in our own country. There are 92 million people in Iran. 92 million. Did three? Maybe, maybe. What about the rest? How do we have any idea? And how have we not seen this story? I've seen plenty of videos. Yeah, I've seen plenty of videos. I'm sure you have too, of like secular looking people who are like, we will stand and fight to the death against the United States and against Israel in the streets of Tehran. Could be selective regime propaganda. I'm not gonna take that fully as the only voice. But of course that voice exists too. It's completely irresponsible to say that it doesn't. And at this point, I mean, the history of nationalism, even in countries which are being externally bombed with external pressure to be applied, many are not willing to just play ball with the imperial aggressor, even if they do disagree with the internal politics, which is quite literally the story of Iraq. I mean, I guess the final thing that we wanted to, I guess wanted to talk to you a little bit about here is with this logic along the escalation ladder, the consuming of the Gulf states, every story top Wall Street Journal Bloomberg is interceptors are running out in the Gulf. By the way, even these Gulf. I mean, I'm reading stories, they're shooting Patriot $4 million missiles at Shahed Drones which cost $20,000. They're gonna be out within a week, maybe a month. We don't exactly know the number. If that happens and we see a conflagration already, Saudi Aramco is under threat. They're saying that they're gonna avoid the Straits of Hormuz, move oil through the Red Sea via a pipeline. Qatar LNG has already shut down Iran, saying this morning they may even attack Europe. When we see a depletion of that and we see this actually globalize into a major war, what does that look like from a global perspective? And not only impact on the United States, but broadly for a regional and global picture for our geopolitics, we don't

[Wells Adams]

know because the planners didn't think this through. I mean, this is truly unprecedented. The Iranians have struck or tried to strike Cyprus, where the Brits have been using a base that was extremely active in the genocide against Gaza, but apparently also had played a role in some of the attacks on Iran. It may also be a retaliation for the Brits allowing Garcia to be used by the United States after first having resisted. The Iranians cannot reach that. So perhaps they struck the Cyprus base short of that. But we also see what's now happening between Europe and Russia. Europe is now putting pressure on the Ukrainians to allow Russian gas and oil to come into Europe. Europe, because now they're suffering from an astute fuel shortage that has been made much, much worse because of this war. I mean, life as a vassal is clearly not particularly easy since you have put your own destiny in the hands of someone else. But the Europeans chose to become vassals of the United States in this matter and not paying the price for it. Now, will this then eventually lead to a scenario in which the Russians and the Chinese, one way or another, are also dragged into it?

[Sagar Enjeti]

It.

[Wells Adams]

The conventional wisdom has always been that the Russians, at least the Chinese will do everything they can to stay out of this. The Russians are not going to jeopardize their prospects for a deal to end the Ukraine war in order to help the Iranians. But if this expands in an uncontrollable way, then we cannot say exactly what the response of some of these other countries will be. We're also seeing right now other things. We're seeing that in Bahrain there are riots taking place. There's some reports that the Saudis have stepped in into Bahrain again to clamp down on those protesters as they did in 2011. Bahrain, of course, used to be Iranian territory. It's majority Shia. So we're already seeing the kind of repercussions that most people thought would only happen in the worst case scenario. We're three days into it. We're already in the worst case scenario in that sense.

[Krystal Ball]

Unbelievable. Just absolutely unbelievable. Dr. Parsi, thank you as always.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Thank you, sir.

[Wells Adams]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Hey, this is Wells Adams with By

[Wells Adams]

Order of the Faithfuls podcast. Alongside my fellow faithfuls and co hosts Tamara Judge and Dolores Catania. The three of us have been watching this season of the Traitors. And we've been inside that castle so we have insight. Unlike many others, this season of the Traders may be the best we've ever seen. Listen to by Order the faithfuls on America's number one podcast network, Network iHeart followed by order the Faithfuls and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

[Krystal Ball]

Usually on this podcast Will Kill youl, we talk about the diseases, infections and biological threats that can make us really sick. But right now we're doing something a little different. We're stepping back and looking at what the human body needs to keep going.

[Sagar Enjeti]

When you consider what we know about sleep in humans, there's one rule that

[Wells Adams]

comes out we are predictably unpredictable sleepers.

[Krystal Ball]

We're talking about why sleep works the way it does, why our bodies don't follow neat rules, and why modern life makes rest so hard to come by. The second half of our series takes us to the digestive system with a multi part series on what happens after we eat. Okay, I just have to say that all of my favorite words, apparently are digestive words. Sphincter, peristalsis, duodenum. It's fascinating, it's funny, and it matters so much more than you think. Episodes of our new series run from January 20 through February 17, with new episodes every Tuesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to this podcast will kill you as part of the Exactly Right Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on the Adventures of Curiosity Cove podcast. What if the Right Fit isn't what everyone expects? In the case of the Right Fit, Ella explores movement, confidence and belonging and learn that not all strength looks the same. Tennis is powerful, fast, focused and kind of fun. Strong swing Ella this Women's History Month story introduces kids to women who change sports by trusting themselves and moving differently. A thoughtful episode about identity, courage and helping kids discover where they truly belong. So it's okay if I'm not quite sure what my thing is yet. It's absolutely okay. When and if you do find a sport you love, you may be the next Gertrude, Tony or Venus at Curiosity Cove. Listen to Adventures at Curiosity Cove every Monday from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Turning now to the Gulf situation, which we just Talked about with Dr. Trita Parsi, the entire region in flame and also deeply afraid of what it Means if they run out of. We did want to start, though, with this extraordinary accusation by Tucker Carlson reporting that there were Mossad plots and agents arrested by two different Gulf countries trying to foment terror and chaos in these countries. Let's take a listen.

[Wells Adams]

It really, really hurts these countries.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And Israel wanted to hurt these countries. That's the point. Wanted to hurt these countries, wanted to sow chaos and disorder because they are rivals of Israel. So it's probably not. Hasn't been reported, but it's a fact that last night in Qatar and Saudi

[Wells Adams]

Arabia, authorities arrested Mossad agents planning on

[Sagar Enjeti]

committing bombings in those countries. Now, that's weird. It doesn't make any sense. Why would the Israelis be committing bombings in two Gulf countries which are also

[Wells Adams]

being attacked by Iran?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Aren't they on the same side? No, no.

[Wells Adams]

Israel wants to hurt Iran and Qatar and UAE and Saudi and Bahrain and Oman and Kuwait.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Extraordinary claim there by Tucker Carlson. And obviously highlighting the bigger strategic picture that we kicked off our entire show is this is Israel's war. There's really not a whole lot in here for the United States. We've depleted our interceptor stockpile. We've now made a mockery of all of these Gulf countries. You know how many billions of dollars these Gulf countries have spent on us? I mean, it's probably hundreds of billions if you total all of it together, where they're like, look, we buy all your weapons. You get to keep your bases here to support the war in Iraq. We get to have a literal monarchy, and it's all cool. And we have a ton of oil, and you buy it. That's it. So it's security in exchange for monarchy. Everybody's kind of done a handshake deal around that. That's all being blown up, their entire vision before the world. Let's go ahead and put some of this VO that we have up here on the screen. In each of these cases, we're showing you the region is literally in flames. So you've got Tel Aviv in the middle of last night. This is all just from last night. You've got missiles that are flying around the screen. You can see some of the interceptors that come by. Multiple interceptors that they're having to fire. This one was in Doha, Qatar. I mean, this is genuinely shocking. Like, it's crazy. Look at the amount of interceptors and all that that are being fired up into the sky to intercept either drones or missiles that are coming in towards them. These people have never seen anything like this. This was video which was actually on the border of Saudi Arabia and of Bahrain, where as riots continue to break out in Bahrain, which has a large Shia population, which you can see in front of you, Saudi Arabia is having to dispatch some security forces potentially to try and crush those riots just like they did in the middle of the Arab Spring. So your foundation of their society is now in question. From Bahrain, which is the home of the fifth Fleet, tens of thousands of Americans, Kuwait, of course, their long security relationship with the U.S. iraq this morning, which somewhat allegedly was our protectorate or kind of was whenever we invaded and occupied it for, I don't know, like 20 years, just had to shut down their largest oil field, Saudi Arabia. This morning, the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia issuing a explicit notice that they have incoming missile and UAV attacks on Dharan. If you don't know what Dharan is, the home of the Saudi Aramco compound and of the largest oil facility in the world. In addition, we had the Saudi Embassy which was. Or the US Embassy in Riyadh was hit by a drone yesterday and apparently the roof was caved in. Three different drone attacks that hit the U.S. i mean, do you know how insane a single attack on a US Embassy is? An international story. The US Embassy in Rihat has now been hit. The US Embassy in Baghdad was basically under siege for two days straight. You've got now confirmed reports. We were careful. We talked about this yesterday. The United States military is now confirming via Reuters that Marines fired on people in Pakistan. I'm sure that's gonna go over well. That's gonna go over real well in Pakistan, isn't it? Pakistani protesters killed by American Marines in the middle of a consulate in a massive protest where people are shooting at each other. This is full blown chaos all over the entire world. And then bigger, what really belies all of this is this story. Story. Let's put B3 up here on the screen. The UAE and Qatar are urging allies to help or urge allies to help Trump find an off ramp. And largely interceptor stocks. Front page of the Wall Street Journal literally this morning is about the number of interceptors that these countries are firing. They're four. I mean, just think about the math here. $4 million patriot against a $20,000 drone. They say that they might be done in a matter of a week, perhaps days. And then what the hell is gonna happen to the Burj Khalifa or the Queen Elizabeth Hotel or in Doha, I mean the Ritz car, all of these famous hotels. What did Professor Zhang say yesterday? Water, desalination plants, the dams which are all over the country for water supply. What about Qatar? LNG is already done. Qatar LNG announced this morning they're shutting down all downstream production, not just LNG production of everything that's happening. The Iraq oil field is down. The Saudi Aramco is basically notifying its suppliers that they're gonna have to pick up from somewhere else to avoid the straits of the disruption across the Gulf. It will take them years to recover from this, you know, structurally, militarily.

[Krystal Ball]

Absolutely.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What are they gonna do? And then brand wise, oh my God, you've got probably a million plus, maybe 2 million Americans who are now stranded all across the entire Gulf. I mean these are like very rich people. Like oil. They used to live there. I'm telling you, like when in my, I went to the American school of Doha, every other kid is like, oh, my dad works at Exxon or whatever. Imagine you've been living there for a decade, you're drinking margaritas at the Intercontinental Hotel and the next day you are literally trying to get the hell out of the country. But you can't. You literally can't.

[Krystal Ball]

All the people who go and vacation there, you know, again, very high end luxury. Like, do you think that they're gonna be rushing back for their Dubai vacation after seeing luxury hotels going up in flame? And this is what they, their whole economy and image is built around. So that's why it's so long term devastating to them. To your point, Sagar, about that Wall Street Journal front page article on the Interceptors math, which again, Marco Rubio himself came out and was talking about quite openly yesterday. Now Donald Trump put on a truth social post saying that we could do war forever and it wouldn't be a problem. I'll ask you to which version you'd believe. But in any case, they quote this expert who says the intensity of Interceptor usage that we have seen over the last couple of days cannot be maintained for more than another week, a week, probably a couple of days at most. And then they will feel the pain of interceptor shortage. That is from Fabian Hoffman, a missile expert at the University of Oslo. So that's where we're at. And the Iranians, number one, they have an asymmetric interest in this fight. So of course they're outmatched by the amount of firepower that we have in Israel and all of our allies, all the weapons we've sold them over the years, blah, blah, blah. But they have one thing going for them, which is that it's truly an existential struggle. This means so much more to them. I mean how much do you care about this? You just probably want us to end this war, right? They know that this is truly, truly existential for them. We couldn't defeat the fricking Houthis, right? Armed with much cruder arms and much lower level of supply because ultimately, at the end of the day, we didn't care enough to be able to, you know, when they saw the fight as more important. We spent 20 years in Afghanistan with all of our weaponry and a ground invasion. And at the end of those 20 years, when we left, guess who came back into power? The Taliban. Why? Because they cared much more than we did. I mean, that's what really has screwed us. That is the lesson that should have been learned over all these many years. When you are attacking people's lives, when you're attacking a government, when you're threatening its existence, they will fight to the death. And the American people are not bought in for this at all. They are not willing to accept any of this pain. Like the six service members who have already been killed in action is six too many. No one, virtually no one outside of this small area. And some people in the Iranian diaspora here are really excited and enthused and motivated to suffer in any sort of way for this. And yet we can already see, I mean, Dr. Parsi said it, it is already spiraled out of control. And to go back to Israel's motivation here with allegedly sending Mossad agents in to commit terror attacks, which is not confirmed, but I certainly don't put it past them. The logic of that is that not only do they have an interest in just sowing chaos everywhere, we're going to talk to Scott Horton about how they're now openly advertising like, yeah, Turkey's next after Iran, next threat is Turkey. But also they want to create these false flag attacks so that the Gulf states are fully bought into the war too, that they also want to fully engage. So that's what Israel's constantly pushing for us and for all of the GCC to be fully in to this war. That is what serves their interest. And so that is what they're trying to foment.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right, put C4 up there on the screen just to highlight again the problem and why this has really diminished. The United States. United States, this is from the Middle East Eye US is stonewalling requests by Gulf states to replenish interceptors. One Gulf state sought reassurances on US Commitment to air defense when discussing access to its bases. Again, by the way, Qatar and the UAE highly dispute that. Original Bloomberg report They're like, we're fine. We have plenty of interceptors. Apparently that's the new line. Donald Trump actually put out a truth social in the middle of the night. Let me read it to you. Cause this is actually one of the most unhinged, dangerous things things that he has said. Maybe we'll add this in post. The United States munition stockpiles have at the medium and upper grade. Never been higher or better. Not true. As we stated to me today, we have virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Not true. Wars can be fought forever. Very successfully, yes, but not with interceptors. Maybe with dummy bombs, JDAMs and some bullets, but in that scenario you're going to be taking a shit pot of casualties. Wars can be fought forever using just these supplies at the highest end. We have good supply, but we are not where we want to be. Much additional high grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries. That's the most dangerous part. Why? Because it means we have to go all in. We don't have that many of these interceptors if we want to go all in. Say goodbye to Taiwan, say goodbye to Ukraine, if you care about those places. Say goodbye to any place in the world which may matter more than this tiny little country the size of New Jersey which literally produces nothing called Israel. And we are done. That's it. It's over. In terms of US geopolitical projection, aren't

[Krystal Ball]

they already talking about pulling a Thaad battery from South Korea?

[Sagar Enjeti]

South Korean state media right now? Yeah. Anyone want to tell me what trading partner South Korea is compared to Israel in terms of its rank? South Korea is one of the most developed economies in the entire world. One of the most important trading partners. Ever heard of this little brand called Samsung or any of these other places or. Oh my God, I mean I could go on forever. Of its importance. Not that anybody and the US apparently even gives a shit, but yeah, Thaad battery out of that. Against. Let's compare threats. One state has one of the world's largest standing armies, a literal nuclear tipped ICBM capable of hitting the United States and frequently launches missiles against South Korea and Japan, two top trading partners which are vitally important to the security of the US that's called North Korea. The other one is called Iran. It has short range and medium range ballistic missiles. It doesn't have a nuclear weapons program and it can't hit the United States. And if we'd done a deal with them, pretty much wouldn't have mattered. Which do you think is more important

[Krystal Ball]

to defend against and has never Started

[Sagar Enjeti]

a war and has never started a war, or at least directly against the United States. So which do you think would you say is more important to defend? But we're gonna strip it from there. That's just one example. It's over. I mean, let me read you my interceptor math because people really do not appreciate how dire all of this is. I have the direct numbers. These are from CSIS. In the 12 day war, the US fired 150 THAAD interceptors to protect Israel. That was 25% of the whole US stockpile. In the last 48 hours we have fired, we don't really know, probably, you know, several dozen at the very least. In 2025, how many new interceptors do you think that we got?

[Krystal Ball]

10.

[Sagar Enjeti]

12 the year before. So 10 in the last two years. So we fired more than what, triple or, sorry, quintiple in a single in 12 days and we'd acquired in a two year period. It's over. You can't manufacture these things. Cost millions of dollars. The defense supply chain is screwed. And for all the $2 trillion that we spend on this. You know, it's funny, I was listening to the CSIS expert. They go, the NPR person is. But where does all the money go? And he's like, well, most of the money's on Tricare, which is like welfare for all of these services and health care programs and subsidies. It doesn't actually go to a lot of the critical weapons systems, despite the fact that people have been warning about this for years. By Trump's own admission. The Patriot missile battery, they say in there, the UAE and the Qatar, they were like, can we get more patriots? And they're like, oh, we gave them all the Ukraine. Sorry, they're all gone. We literally gave them all away. The Europeans, they can't give you anything. They shipped it all already for the eastern Donbas region. This is bad.

[Krystal Ball]

They're messing us up with those drones too. And I mean, that was one of the things Professor Zhang said yesterday, is that our military really was built for the Cold War.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, he's right.

[Krystal Ball]

It was built for flexing, it was built for performance of power. And it really has not been reimagined for modern warfare. And so look, the Iranians Learned from the 12 day war, okay? We're gonna shoot off our lower tech missiles and use these drones that can evade. Some of them will evade your interceptors, and we're gonna bet that we can outlast you. Now let me tell you the other side. The other side of that is that the U.S. look, they're bombing the hell out of Tehran right now. Their goal is to destroy all of the missiles, destroy all of the missile launchers so that Iran can never make it to that point. Iran is not capable of outlasting because their capabilities have been so severely degraded and destroyed. And that is certainly a possibility. That is the bet that they're making. But look, already, already what Iran has been able to do by saying basically, fuck it, we're throwing everything against the wall. We are putting all our chips on the table. We are all in the economic damage, the brand damage in the Gulf, the chaos, the attacks on the US embassies, the humiliation really, truly of the US Our fighter jets are flying or dropping out of the sky, which, by the way, there should still be a lot of questions about what the hell exactly happened there and whether that was truly fire or not. Because if it was, I mean, the whole. It's insane anyway, but the level of humiliation the US has already suffered here is truly incalculable. And, you know, and the Iranians are like, no, we're not going to negotiate with you. We need to exact some pain because otherwise you will never leave us alone. So we are going to do everything we can to make you suffer. And there is zero appetite for suffering on the US side.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Also, new update. Just while we were filming Donald Trump, their air defense, Air force, Navy, and leadership is gone. They want to talk. I said, too late.

[Wells Adams]

Late.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Great.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure we take his word for it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But no, I'm just like such a liar. Regardless of what is being. Maybe they probably said, no, we don't want to talk at all. But him saying, nope, we're not going to talk at all. We're going to go full on. So this is it.

[Krystal Ball]

I mean, I mean, he's lying. They, they, I mean, based on other reporting, they rejected it. And so he's trying to, oh, you didn't fire me. I quit. You know, that's what he's doing. Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But regardless, the situation is the same. There's only one logic from here. If you know you're going to run out of Interceptors, then you got to bomb the, the shit out of the country. And to try and flatten and destroy it, collapse it into civil war. Well, okay, well, what comes next? What's gonna happen after that? Massive refugee crisis, huge civil war. It could bleed all into the rest of the Gulf. These drones aren't going anywhere. You've got hundreds of thousands of people with a bunch of guns and military training and we don't have a ground force there to do anything about it. So what do you think they're gonna do? You think just going to take it, sit and lie down? By the way, they just attacked the Iraqi Kurds this morning to try and preempt some sort of attack by them.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, wow.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So we're already going cross border.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, and here's the other thing, you know, bigger picture in terms of the. So we know public sentiment in the US Is against this war overwhelmingly. Look, the Republican base is going to go along with it, by and large, but the rest of the population is like, what the hell is going on here? Right. And you even hear Democrats. The Democratic rhetoric has already shifted from being so extremely lame at the, you know, especially at the top levels, to now after those Rubio comments. I am hearing Democrats like Mark Warner saying some things about Israel I never thought I would hear in my entire life. So that they are already reading the political writing on the wall here. But you also have to think about the populations in the region where, you know, to Sagar's point, these are. These are monarchies. Like, these are not representative democracies. And they've made some noise about, oh, the Palestinians, yes, we supported two states, but their populations, who, many of whom truly do support the Palestinian cause and truly are disgusted with the genocide in Palestine and the annexation of the west bank and all of that, they do not agree. They see the fecklessness. They see the game that their leaders are playing. So you also start this war at a moment of a low point in regional public opinion, both about the US and about Israel, which is why you see multiple of our embassies being attacked in Pakistan. The fact that US Marines were shooting civilians attacking the US Embassy in Karachi, I mean, this in and of itself is just. That one thing is an absolutely insane event. And then you've got mobs at the Baghdad Embassy as well. I mean, this is a moment when most of the population in the region, look, they're typically not too crazy about us. They hate our fricking guts and they hate the Israelis. And that's the moment when you're gonna ask them to bear the pain of their countries getting attacked, the luxury hotels next to them getting blown up, and their governments are on board with all of it. You're gonna have some. You're gonna have some local. And we're already seeing that in Bahrain, which is why the riots there are very significant development.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's gonna be the first one to fall because they have the Shia population, but the Rest of them, I mean, look, there's lot of a. There is a serious social contract, right? You have no rights, literally, whatsoever. But you're gonna be rich. But those riches come from oil, natural gas, being this global playground, right? All of these Indian laborers, I mean, how many of them are gonna stick around like, money's worth it up to a point before you think you're gonna die? And then if you have enough money. Do they have enough money to continue paying them? I think I mentioned earlier, the US Embassy in Riyadh is issuing this imminent threat of a missile attack over Dharan, which is the seat of Saudi Aramco. This is the lifeblood of these places. The money is the only thing that flattens out all of the tensions in these people's societies. If it dries up, if it dries up by even 30%, it's catastrophe for these economies.

[Krystal Ball]

Iraq has shut down oil production at the world's second largest oil field, which produces 1.5 million barrels of oil per day amid escalating military activity.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Krystal Ball]

And the American government is telling Americans in the region, you should get out. But we're not gonna help you. You're on your own. Good luck.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Imagine being stuck in Israel, and you're like, hey, how do I get out of here? And you have to go to the US Ambassador's Twitter feed where he's giving you these minute instructions about how to catch a bus to the Sinai. And then when you get to the Sinai, use this link, which you have to pay to cross the border. And then when you cross the border, let's hope that you can. I mean, look, I've only been once, but I'm pretty sure that it's not a very big airport in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula. Are they gonna be. You know, there's 700,000Americans who live in. Or at least 700,000American citizens who live in Israel. Are they all gonna be able to get out? And now imagine Dubai, Doha, what Trita Parsi said there. Do we have that story about.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, we. The Financial Times.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, let's put that one up there. C5 up there on the screen. Half of Dubai is booking. Expats are driving to Oman and Saudi Arabia to try to find flights. I said yesterday the going rate for a PJ out of Saudi Arabia right now is $350,000 for a single flight to be able to get out of the country. Trump's podcast advisor, Alex Brucewicz, from the campaign, he got stuck in the Gulf, and he apparently had to talk with a bunch of friends, including, like, TikTok influencers or whatever, to charter a PJ to Greece to be able to get. That's the only way out is you have to be able to get a private jet. That's it. And I bet you the premium is unbelievable. So unless you don't have that kind of money, you're stuck. You're stuck for a long time down there. And they're basically. Even the ambassador is saying openly he goes. Flights, even when they do reopen will be extremely limited and they will be disrupted for a significant period of time. It could be months, that these people are completely stuck with missiles flying all over their head.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's just put C7 up on the screen. This was some important reporting from Dropsite. We've got, you know, we saw Iranian drones, I think, mostly that attacked various hotels throughout the Gulf. And according to, you know, sources that drop site are in touch with, they say some of the buildings and hotels that were hit were specifically housing Israeli or US Personnel or intelligence operations. And that Iran pinpointed the locations has really caught the Americans and Israelis off guard, according to an Iranian official. So, you know, this. That level of intelligence penetration, too, was apparently shocking to the Americans and to the Israelis. And let me say something like, you know, the Iranians are obviously attacking civilian infrastructure. You know, they're attacking hotels, they're attacking. Attacking. Two data centers now have been taken out there. You know, yeah, they're. And they're attacking the. Some of the oil infrastructure. You know, they're claiming some of that is incidental or they didn't mean to or whatever, but there is no doubt they're attacking civilian infrastructure. Like, we have zero ground. I don't even hear anyone complaining about. Because we have zero ground to stand on. Zero. And that's the other thing. Like, you know, when you talk about the Pandora's box that was opened by Gaza and what is now on the table. Right. Is not just confined to us. We're not the only ones who are gonna take advantage of this new law of the jungle, where schools and mosques and hospitals and, you know, water saladinization plants and wastewater treatment plants, where that is all on the table, our adversaries are gonna take advantage of that as well. And that has already, already right now in this moment, that has put Americans at risk. And that's part of why they are being urged to flee the region immediately, being given no help. No help in order to do that. And those six Americans, you know, I think Hegseth had said, oh, they were in a fortified Facility.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, they weren't.

[Krystal Ball]

Bullshit. We just saw they were in a triple wide trailer. That's what they were in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They were in a triple wide trailer with concrete walls that were put in front of them because in their mind they're protecting against suicide car like they call VBIDs, like vehicle born IED. It's not 2005 anymore. The IED, it comes from the air with a $20,000 drone which crashed directly into. It's called a tactical operations center, also known as a tock. And they all got blown up. Imagine that. A temporary trailer. Totally unfortified, there's now an investigation as to why there weren't proper troops or there weren't proper air defenses or any of that put around them.

[Krystal Ball]

Sitting ducks.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, it's beyond comprehension. These are six guys, their family. I mean, what are you gonna tell their families? Who did they die for? What did they die? I hate to talk to that way, I really do. But I do think, you know, we have to say it viscerally in the middle of a conflict otherwise we're going to get caught up in this Iraq war Freedom isn't free level bullshit. And no, we're not doing that this time around. We're not going to let them do that to us because that's how we lost thousands, tens of thousands who were maimed as well. It really is just absolutely sickening. Okay, we've got Scott Horton standing by. Let's get to it. Foreign.

[Wells Adams]

Hey, this is Wells Adams with By Order of the Faithfuls podcast alongside my fellow faithfuls and co hosts Tamara Judge and Dolores Catania. The three of us have been watching this season of the Traitors. And we've been inside that castle.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So we have inside insight.

[Wells Adams]

Unlike many others, this season of the Traders may be the best we've ever seen. Listen to By Order the faithfuls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called the red weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was nature, trees and praying.

[Wells Adams]

I'm in drugs. So no, I am not your guru.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Back then I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years.

[Wells Adams]

I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Listen to the Red weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Wells Adams]

Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast. Here's the thing. I talked to composer Marc Shaiman.

[Krystal Ball]

It's about the hang it's the pleasure

[Sagar Enjeti]

of hanging out with the people that you're with. You know, Rob and I was always a great hang.

[Krystal Ball]

And journalist Chris Whipple, every White House staffer, they work in a bubble called the West Wing. And it's exponentially more so in the Trump White House.

[Wells Adams]

Listen to the new season of here's

[Krystal Ball]

the thing on the iHeartRadio app or

[Wells Adams]

wherever you get your podcasts.

[Krystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.