B (2:35)

Yeah, well, I know we were supposed to record this earlier today, but you said, Thomas, my flat is flooded. Honestly, Eamon, when it rains, it pours in the Middle east, you know, so if there was a storm like this two years ago, then I suppose this stor isn't divine intervention. But for those of us watching from afar, it does seem like God has interesting plans for the Middle East. How should we interpret this freak typhoon tornado that has suddenly descended upon the vast area that Iran has been attacking?

C (3:03)

Well, it's a respite because we need to replenish our interceptors, especially in Bahrain and Kuwait. Furthermore, that was enough time for some interesting deployment by the US military, especially when it comes to the 82nd Airborne and, you know, the submarine corps coming with the USS Tripoli and other inner Marine amphibious assault ships, which are now very much on their way in order to execute so many things.

B (3:37)

We're going to talk all about that. Dear listeners, this episode is mainly going to focus on the Lebanon front of the Iran war, but Eamonn is going to bring us up to date with things more generally. But before we go to the main deal, you know, before the at the the free title music finishes, I just want to say, Eamon, this rainstorm in the Middle east has made me think eschatological dreams, especially when I heard that today there was an earthquake on Mount Athos, the place with the monasteries where I spent a few years in my youth. So I'm thinking the end of times have arrived. I'm having eschatological visions. Eamon, we'll talk about not just mine, but other people's eschat. Eschatological visions in this episode of Conflicted. We're going to talk about Hezbollah, we're going to talk about the Lebanese government. Is there even a Lebanese state at this point? We're going to talk about Iran, Donald Trump, confusing signals from both sides, 15 point plans, five point plans, the whole shebang. Let's get right into it. Okay, Eamonn, first of all, what the flying duck is up with Donald Trump's absolutely batshit crazy confusing messaging of late? I mean, were Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in talks with the Iranians? Was J.D. vance sent to Pakistan to have some talks with the Iranians there? The threat last weekend to destroy Iranian power stations if they didn't open the Strait of Hormuz in two days, and then that being postponed by five days because the Iranians were playing. They were going to make a deal, but then they said they're not going to make a deal. But then Trump said, no, we have our eye on someone to take over. And that guy said, no, I'm not going to take over. And then was it market manipulation? Was it, what the hell is going on?

C (5:35)

I know that for an outsider or someone who is not steeped into modern warfare, all of this look like a crazy shit show.

B (5:47)

Yeah, it seems chaotic, like there's no plan. That's what people are saying. Trump and the Americans have no plan. They're making it up as they go along.

C (5:55)

Look, can we always forget about Trump? You know, Trump is the chairman of the board, but the real CEO that is executing the conflict are the combined might of the Israeli American military. That's it. So these are the people that we care about. Whatever Trump says, he is the equivalent of the McDonald's mascot.

B (6:26)

Wait a second. Amen. But he still has the power. Right now, if he wanted to put it into this war, he could say, I put a stop to it. I am the commander in chief. It's over.

C (6:35)

Theoretically, yes. Practically, he cannot. Practically he cannot. He just cannot. It's like, look, theoretically he could point a gun to his head and says, well, I could easily pull the trigger, but his self preservation will not allow him to do that.

B (6:52)

Okay, so you're saying that we shouldn't pay attention to Trump's messaging at all? Or is Trump's messaging some part of the 4D chess that the real Trumpians, the ones who think that he's the greatest genius that ever lived, are saying that this is all 4D chess. He does this on purpose in a very calculated and strategic way to confuse the enemy. Is that at all possible? Or is it like there's a whole other thing going on, a kind of carnival show where Trump on his own just does what he likes while behind the scenes, the real decision makers are calmly and carefully doing what they can? I mean, obviously in an environment where nobody knows all the factors at play, nobody knew how the Iranians would respond, so the Americans and the Israelis are having to react to that. But is that what you're saying, that Trump is really just a carnival barker on the side and shouldn't be listened to at all?

C (7:42)

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is this is all madness, but there is a logical method to this madness. And once you crack the code, then suddenly everything becomes clearer. So what Trump is doing is that he is relying so much on the advice of his military and intelligence advisors. Of course, they don't tell him how to say it. How colorful. He should like in the mix, the languages, but they give him the guidelines that, Mr. President, this is exactly what we are going to do. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We need to mislead the enemy. We need to string them along for a day or two or three. There are always discussions. He will bring in his economic advisors, including Scott Besant, who is the Treasury Secretary. He will bring him in. He will bring Marco Rubio, Pete Hexeth and everyone else else.

B (8:40)

Secretary of state, Secretary of war.

C (8:42)

Exactly. And everyone else, guys, look, how do we come. The energy market. So his energy secretary will say, well, Mr. President, how about. I mean, we just tell the market what they want to hear because it's all about perception. And then Hexith will say, ah, perfect. We really need 2, 3, 4 days in order to replenish our antiseptics in Bahrain and Kuwait. And we are four or five days away from being ready for an amphibious assault on one of the islands. Or two. And then you have Scott Besant saying, oh, yeah, but while we are at it to come, our own stock markets and everything, like we should say, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And then Rubio comes in and say, ah. And we need to confuse the enemy. So this is how you should frame your argument. So suddenly you have all of this crazy stuff that Trump writes is the amalgamation of a lot of the advice that he's been given in order, like to put it together and put it out there in a language that is, you know, provocative, insulting, confusing, you know, sometimes incoherent. And I understand people, I understand, you know, that, you know, sometimes it makes no sense. But also, don't forget that in front of the international audience, you, between now and then, after you have exhausted your enemies and you toyed with them so much, you come to them and you say, look, you know what, I'm having some mercy on you. It's the equivalence of an orca, a killer whale in the ocean toying with the seal that they just, you know, caught. And they are playing like in a. Literally, like if you see an orca pod before playing like football, really, like basically with a seal, they play with their prey, unfortunately. And the same with a cat playing with a mouse. As simple as that. So what they do is that, look, I'm having mercy on you. I'm going to give you again my terms. These are my terms. 15 point plan, including no more highly enriched uranium. You give it to us. No more centrifuges. You give them to us. And we want you to stop supplying weapons and funding to your proxies. You should never be hostile towards Israel, you should de escalate in the region, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all of these 15 points. And then you invent the story that the Pakistanis are doing it. And oh, and by the way, JD Vance is on his way to Pakistan in order to talk. Why? Because that would really signal to the markets, especially the oil markets, that he desperately need to calm down, that there is a serious consideration for an end to the conflict. And you make it really sound so credible and so believable and you get the Pakistanis to play along for real. And so you end up in a situation where, okay, the Pakistanis pass on the message. Then of course, by end of the week, which is now, we are approaching end of the week, after the markets have calmed down a little bit. Because why, if you don't have the cyclical coming down of the market right now, the Brent is about $101. It went to 94, it went to 90, near 90. Like I mean, just on Monday and Tuesday with all of this plan of, oh, we have a plan, we have a peace plan. Because why, if Donald Trump did not engage in these cyclical deception operations? So what happened is we will now see the Brent around 135, 140. So what happened is he depressed the price. So when it rises again upon escalation, it rises from a lower base rather than from the higher base that it was at the previous week. That's why it is much needed. It's always much needed, you know, coming of the market. It's like, you know, when you, when your kids in the car are telling you, are we there yet? Five minutes. And then 10 minutes later, are we there yet? Five minutes.

B (13:07)

But surely these oil market traders are sophisticated enough to see through this ruse. I mean, how many times can you do this?

C (13:15)

No, no, trust me, trust me. I've been with market traders before and trust me, basically they are, you know, they are really dumb. I mean, basically geopolitically dumb. And I'm being generous here, seriously. Like, I mean, I know some of them are conflicted fans. I'm sorry.

B (13:33)

Yeah, I'm sorry. Dear listeners, this is Eamon's words, not mine. Don't, you know, don't blame me.

C (13:37)

Exactly. Like, I'm sorry, but guys, you're dumb. Oh, okay. So you know, they don't know how to factor risk because many of them were texting me on the 27th of February, telling me, Eamon, we don't see the market pricing your Alarmist forecast. We all think, like, basically you're wrong. Myself, my colleagues, whatever. From what? From reputable big, like some of the biggest oil companies in the world, their trading desks are telling me this.

B (14:08)

Well, my friend, I have friends in finance and things. And they texting me like crazy over the last three days especially, you know, really kind of getting angry with me. We listened to conflicted. Eamonn said this, Eamonn said that, and now it's not true, it's not going to happen, he's going to taco, there's going to be a deal, etc. And I was thinking, I don't know, I still trust Eamon, but maybe I don't know exactly.

C (14:28)

And so at the end of the day, just like you did, just like you received all of these texts, I was receiving all of these texts and messages, you know, my partner Paul, basically like my business partner and other, you know, a few colleagues of mine were receiving. This is like telling us, guys, just shut, shut it. You know, just shut the f up. I mean, you really don't know what you're talking about. And we keep telling them, listen, pals, I mean, we know what we're talking about. You don't. But they keep telling us the market did not, you know, price your predictions. And then Saturday morning, you know, myself, my business partners, we were sending, you know, the alerts to them specifically, we put them in a WhatsApp group together just to send them basically like in the tongue in cheek, like in a basically emoji and just to tell them like in a. Basically who got it right. So at the end of the day, the problem is. Yes, Thomas, I have to repeat this. Market analysts, especially energy market analysts and traders are dumb, dumb to believe what Trump is saying. And trust me, they fell for it for the third week. They fell for it for the third time and they will keep falling for it time and time and time again.

B (15:42)

Okay, let's talk about this amphibious assault plan. So last Friday it was announced, at least it was reported that thousands of U.S. marines and sailors were being redeployed to the Middle East. And it seems that they have arrived, or at least some of them have arrived, including the 82nd Airborne unit, a very formidable force. Do you think this is true? I mean, are we talking thousands of America's top Marines, Navy commandos, Delta IV squad, all that sort of thing being put into place?

C (16:15)

Yes, absolutely.

B (16:16)

So if that's the case, then, Eamonn, what, from what you understand is going to happen in terms of any kind of American Ground troop invasion of Iran.

C (16:26)

There isn't going to be an invasion of Iran mainland. Let me be absolutely clear. There will be an invasion of the islands.

B (16:38)

There will be several islands, Abu Musa, Kharg, et cetera. All those islands.

C (16:42)

Kushim Siri. And I think there would be a lot of confusion when American paratroopers and Marines land on Syria because basically, like, I mean, hey, we are in Syria. And then all of their phones are light up saying, like, basically what?

B (17:00)

Okay, so this is more or less what you told us like 10 days ago that is going to happen. You're still pretty positive about that.

C (17:06)

Oh, yes.

B (17:07)

What about this thing that I hear about the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, MbS Prince Mohammed bin Salman calling Trump, urging him to see the war to the end. I mean, this has been all across the media. That crown prince is saying, trump, you've got to see it to the end. We cannot have this regime in place at all at the end of these hostilities. Do you think that's true?

C (17:29)

Yes. He's not the only one, though. The president of the uae, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, hold the same view. The Emir of Kuwait, the King of Bahrain, and most importantly, his Majesty, the King of Jordan, who's always been viewed as the more smiled and easygoing. But he is also saying, look, regardless of whatever reservations we might have had before the war, now that the war have started, we cannot coexist with the current leadership in Iran post this conflict. They need to go. And the problem here, Thomas, is the fact that the American psyche don't understand or still traumatized by a phrase like regime change. No one wants a regime change. The invasions of the islands are not to execute regime change. The objective is regime destruction, not a regime change. Let us be honest and clear about it.

B (18:26)

Well, that sounds more dramatic than change destruction.

C (18:29)

No, no, it's not dramatic at all. I mean, at the end of the day, regime change, it means basically that you have to own the place, you have to invade it, you have to administrate it, you have to do lots of things. Redeem. Destruction is you destroy the redeem and then you walk away. And whoever is in there, let them pick up the pieces, which is the Iranian people. I understand many people would be skeptical, but the problem is why is it a regime destruction? Because there can be no change in the regime behavior. Again, go back and listen to all the back, you know, episodes of this podcast from early 2019 and you will understand why this isn't a regime that is normal, that pursuing normative politics.

B (19:19)

Well, speaking of non normal regimes. I need to talk about the Houthis. Everyone wonders if they're going to join the war on the side of Iran or when they will. Today, Eamonn, this very day, the 26th of March, is the 11th anniversary of the launch of Decisive Storm, the Saudi led air campaign that was trying to counter the Houthis and push them back up into Saada, out of Sana', A, where they'd taken over the government. Now we know 11 years later, they're still there, sitting pretty. And today Abdul Melek Al Houthi, the leader of the Houthis, gave a big speech officially commemorating the 11th anniversary of decisive Storm, commemorating the survival of his government. But everyone knew or expected that he might say something about his intentions of joining the war or not. What happened?

C (20:06)

Well, he said that we are going to join the war when it is militarily necessary for us to join it. And so he is keeping his cards close to his chest. He still of course, blamed Saudi Arabia for all the ills of the Middle East. Every bad thing happened in the Middle east since sliced bread is the fault of the Saudis. That was the gist of his argument. So he's preparing his audience, who are mostly like in a basically brain addled, illiterate people, that there could be a conflict with the Saudis forthcoming. But he did not yet declare anything decisive in that regard. And the reason is because the Iranians are still keeping the Houthis as the last intact front of resistance. As far as they are concerned, they will bring them in as a reserve.

B (21:09)

So you think then Abdul Malik Al Houthi's speech, where he said we'll enter the war when it's militarily beneficial to us, is a talking point that the IRGC gave him. The IRGC want the Houthis to stand back for a little bit longer. Or is Abdul Malakl Houthi maybe forging his own strategy now?

C (21:28)

No, he's not bright enough to forge

B (21:31)

his own strategy or his decision makers. Then the team around him.

C (21:35)

Exactly. Which is mostly irgc.

B (21:38)

I see.

C (21:38)

Okay, yeah, exactly. And I tell you why. Because at the end of the day, without the IRGC operating the ballistic missiles and the drones that he is possessing, basically he's a nobody and his entire army is nothing. So if he betrays the irgc, if he betrays Iran and decide to go independent, who will operate the vast arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones and cruise missiles that he possess? These are all Iranian made and Iranian operated, and so he desperately needs them. That's one thing. The second thing is the IRGC already said that should any square inch of Iranian territory be invaded by land, what they mean the islands, of course, then there will be an intervention by the Houthis.

B (22:33)

Right, that makes sense. So that's why they're holding the Houthis back. It's one of their, Remember the old Mexican standoff? So they're trying to resurrect their dead Mexicans, put a couple of guns back in their hands.

C (22:44)

Yeah, I can picture now Abdel Malik Al Houthi in the next speech wearing a sombre sombrero.

B (22:49)

And I also suppose that behind closed doors the Abdelm Alhua Houthi and the Houthis in general are trying to extort probably the Saudis for as much money as they can. In the meantime, that's their normal M.O. okay, Eamon, at the end of this episode, I'm going to ask you a couple more questions about the war in general. But we've got to talk now about what this episode is supposed to be about. The Lebanon front. And not just the Lebanon front in this war, but really Lebanon as a state and as the slow, inexorable crumbling of its sovereignty really for decades and decades. And so first, if you'll allow me, I just want to remind the listener or inform the listener about that long story and I want to start that story, and this may surprise some people in 1969 when the Lebanese army signed an agreement in Cairo. So it was obviously brokered by friend of the show, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. So the Lebanese army signed an agreement in Cairo with Yasser Arafat, head of the plo, head of Fatah, which allowed the PLO to function as an armed guerrilla movement inside the Palestinian camps in the south of Lebanon. So that was 1969. Nasser somehow managed to convince the Lebanese army and through the army, the Lebanese government to allow the PLO to be an armed guerrilla movement in the south of the country. That's really where this story starts because from that point onwards, Lebanese sovereignty, traditionally understood as possessing a monopoly of violence in a territory, began to be undermined. Because from the PLO to Hezbollah, the south of Lebanon especially. But Lebanon as a whole has been sadly struck by the virus of non state actors, Hezbollah most powerfully. And the Cairo agreement, this arrangement led inexorably to the Lebanese civil war, which was so horrible and lasted 17 years. It was a war that led to outside intervention, first from Syria. Syrian troops forced the PLO and other armed groups into the south and from there the PLO launched attacks into Israel, prompting Israeli invasion first in 1978 and then permanently in 1982. So again, that decision to allow an armed group to operate freely in the country led to the same kind of dynamics that we're seeing right now because Israel has invaded Lebanon again now. Eventually the Cairo agreement was annulled by the Lebanese government in 1987, but the damage had been done. The PLO had left Lebanon a few years before. That was part of the outcome of Israel's invasion in 1982. But in the meantime, Hezbollah had emerged as a major militant, non state actor in Lebanon. It was founded in secret by the IRGC in 1982 and then formally came out of the shadows in 1985 as Hezbollah, the Party of God. Now Eamon, you're half Lebanese. Just this part of the story from 1969 to, let's say, the ta' if agreement in 1990, your country, your mother's country, went through hell and that what those foundations were laid for the hell that it's going through now?

C (26:22)

Well, of course, I mean at the end of the day, I think in 1990, the Iranians lobbied hard all the parties involved in mediating the Altayf agreement in order to end the civil war for Hezbollah to retain their weapons as part of the resistance against Israel. And at the time Hezbollah was a pygmy in comparison to today. They were looked at as just a mere guerrilla, you know, army, and they posed no threat whatsoever to the Lebanese army proper. And so they were allowed to keep their weapons as part of a resistance, a token resistance. Everyone was deceived. No one expected the amount of investment, training, funding, equipment and the over militarization that was done by Iran and the IRGC in favor of Hezbollah.

B (27:29)

Well, when the Ta' if agreement was signed, of course Israel was occupying southern Lebanon. And so in Hezbollah's mind it had a reason to continue the resistance. And that, that reason, that rationale at least, was sort of seen as legitimate enough by the signatories to the TAAF agreement to allow Hezbollah, I think uniquely of all the militant groups to retain its weapons after the civil war ended. But it wasn't just Israel that was occupying Lebanon. And this is often overlooked because we all, you know, the sort of Hezbollah story, the Lebanon story is often framed in the context of Israeli intervention in Lebanon. But as I said before, Syria was the first country to invade and occupy Lebanon and it stayed there longer than Israel. Israel withdrew in 2000, Syria not until 2005 and a few months after Syria first invaded Lebanon in 1976, the Arab League, who often. Eamonn. Honestly, I'm not sure how useful the Arab League has been to the Middle east really, but the Arab League agreed to send an Arab peacekeeping force to Lebanon. So this is a few months after Syria invaded. The idea was that this force would help end the fighting there. But effectively this Arab League force became permanently Syrian commanded and was like a way in which Syria to remain sort of in Lebanon legally. Yeah, legally. So a really stupid system. But because this story is not just about Israel's interventions in Lebanon or Hezbollah's fighting Israel, but also about the slow degradation, decomposition of the Lebanese state, that long period between 1976 and 2005, when Hafez Al Assad and then Bashar Al Assad was occupying Lebanon, influencing Lebanese politics, getting in the way of other Arab countries in the Gulf of America, of France, of all these countries, trying to solve the problem, getting in the way of a real solution for Lebanon. That legacy, the Syrian Ba' Athist intervention in Lebanon, I would say arguably is as important as the Israeli Hezbollah dynamic in Lebanon for the undermining of the Lebanese state.

C (29:43)

Exactly. I mean, I visited Lebanon many times during that period. 94, 96, 98, 99, 2000, all the way to the run up of the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq al Hariri in 2005 on Valentine's Day, carried out

B (30:00)

by Hezbollah working with Bashar Al Assad.

C (30:03)

Exactly. So it's like how many times I lost count of how many dollars I have to pay at Syrian checkpoints, Syrian army checkpoints all across Lebanon, wherever I went, wherever, you know, from Sayyidoun in the south, this is how far south they were allowed to exist as a Syrian army all the way to the north. And Tripoli, Tripoli in particular, like when I used to visit friends there because it's a Sunni, it's like, I mean,

B (30:32)

kind of half Sunni, half Orthodox. It's like us.

C (30:34)

Exactly.

B (30:35)

We should go on holiday to Tripoli when all. When everything is peaceful.

C (30:38)

Exactly, Exactly. Exactly, my dear, exactly. So that's the whole idea is the fact that every time I wanted to go to Tripoli, I have to pay exuberant amounts at checkpoints manned by the Syrian military and Syrian intelligence in order to avoid being pulled aside and questioned. And so he will tell me, look, you know, what do you want? You want, like, I mean, the rough treatment you want, however, like in the. Basically the easy treatment, or do you want the VIP treatment? And I say, how much would the VIP treatment cost me? He said, well, give me 20 so $20 was enough. But then like, basically that's one checkpoint and then 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and they know. So you have to, in order to have a free movement in Lebanon, you, if you are staying there for a week, you should just get $300 in 20s. For the purpose of me carrying a foreign passport in Lebanon, not to be harassed and pulled aside and asked, who am I? What am I doing there? And who am I visiting? This is a notebook. Write the names of your friends, your aunties, your uncles, and your basically entire school classmates going back 17 years. Seriously, I mean, they can do that to you in order to pressure you to pay.

B (32:02)

Well, Eamon, that was the experience of one guy, half Lebanese, visiting the country. But at a structural level and at the highest sort of ranks of Lebanese politics, Syrian involvement was real and totally suffocating. Not just the political economy, but the economy of the country. Lebanon, which in the 60s had been an. A sort of jewel in the crown of the Levant, was slowly, slowly being suffocated. The capacity of the state was being drained out of it. Corruption was on the rise. And as a sign of all of this, after Syria withdrew in 2005, which was part of the fallout from the assassination of Rafik Al Hariri and the Cedar Revolution and all of this thing going on. And in the midst of which, there was a huge war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. But from 2006 onward, after the war, regular rounds of tripartite meetings between Israel, Lebanon and unifil, the United Nations Interim force in Lebanon, working obviously with the us, working with France, working with Gulf partners. So many rounds of tripartite meetings were held. And yet despite all that diplomacy, despite all the agreements signed, all the plans, et cetera, because Hezbollah remained there, a state within a state, the Lebanese state and armed forces continued to be compromised, weakened, corrupted. And the thing is, throughout all of this time, the US was playing an active diplomatic and military role, trying to solve the problem of Lebanon militarily, of course, you know, until 1983, following Hezbollah's notorious Marines barracks bombing. But diplomatically, ever since then, America is often perceived to be the bad guy in the story of the Middle East. And maybe on balance, it is, I don't know, the new US Embassy in Beirut is huge. And people who think that America and Israel are the main problems in the Middle east, they look at this big embassy and they see it as a symbol of America's evil imperial designs for the region. But I think when you look at the record, the State Department Working with other partners, tried for years and years to solve a problem. But the Lebanese state simply did not possess the capacity to do anything because Hezbollah was there.

C (34:37)

Yes, Hezbollah, in the end, on the back of their war with the Israelis in the south of the country from 1990 until the year 2000, and then after that, in the war of the 2006, the 33 days war, after that, Hezbollah ballooned into a state within a state. And when I say ballooned, I'm using this term precisely because, like a cancer, it ballooned because it became a cancer within the state. When people tell me why the Lebanese state looks so tired and feeble and incapable and incapacitated, and I say, because it's a cancer patient. There is a huge tumor inside that body. It's called Hezbollah. When people tell me, and I know, like in the. Many people will be shouting, you know, among some listeners saying, oh, hey, man, but you hate the resistance. You know, these are the people of the resistance. And I keep telling them, like, basically, just please just wake up and smell the Arabic coffee. Resistance against what exactly? The Israeli occupation left. Left the country entirely. And they were only like, you know, basically, like, I mean, square kilometer here or a square 500 meters there. That's it. You know, minor, minor, minor, minor issues that did not necessitate the existence of an army outside of the authority of the state, bigger than the army itself. Okay, let's say, let's say for argument's sake, it is an army outside because it needs to resist the Israelis, which was. There was no war. There was no intention of war at the time. Why does this army need a separate banking system, a separate financial system, a separate telecommunications system, a separate security system to run policing of their neighborhoods and areas? Why do they need their own intelligence service? Why do they need, in fact, their own hospitals, their own clinics, their own entire private network of electricity generators? I mean, they became a state within a state in a way that was sucking the economic life out of the state.

B (36:52)

Well, we know why, frankly, Eamon. I mean, despite what partisans of the resistance think about things, the truth is more complicated. And the reason why that happened, why Hezbollah grew in that way, was because it became the biggest and most important plank and pillar in Iran's proxy network across the region. And as a force to project Iranian power and to hold up one of those Mexicans, you know, with his gun pointing at Israel. And we saw this happen in real time in a big way during the Syrian civil war, when Hezbollah, operating extremely closely with Qasem Soleimani and The Quds Force entered that war on behalf of Iran to prop up the Assad regime and were extremely brutal in Syria and, you know, really terrible. There's no love lost, I think, at all between Syrians generally, certainly Sunni Syrians, but Syrians generally and Hezbollah. It's leading probably to a generation's worth of tensions between Syria and Lebanon, just the memory of Hezbollah's intervention in the Syrian civil war. But anyone, I don't know, anyone who thinks, who doubts that Hezbollah is anything but an Iranian proxy, not really because it has anything like noble aims, but simply because Iran's own geostrategic kind of position requires them to have a force there. Those people are just smoking dope. But since 7 October onwards, we saw piece by piece, Hezbollah being degraded by Israel. Especially that amazing month in September of 2024 when Hezbollah's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated, when the incredible, you know, pager bombs went off in the pockets of lots and lots of assets.

C (38:40)

That was, that was on my birthday, 17th September 2024.

B (38:44)

It was a good birthday present for you, Eamon.

C (38:46)

Exactly. From Bibi Netanyahu. Thank you so much.

B (38:48)

So Israel did achieve in degrading Hezbollah in a big way during that, that phase of this now three years running kind of anti Iranian war in the fallout of October 7th. But when we get back from this break, we will first talk. Eamon, you will explain to us the degree to which Hezbollah in the meantime has managed to put itself back together, create a new command structure, working with Iran, working with the Quds Force, replace some weapons stocks that were destroyed by Israel, etc. And then we'll talk about what's going on on the ground in Lebanon right now. We'll be right back.

D (39:37)

You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet. Like the just one tapping ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today@shopify.com win.

B (40:14)

Hello, we're back. We're talking about Hezbollah. We're talking about Israel's new invasion of Lebanon. We're talking about all things Lebanese. Amen. Since the campaign against Hezbollah that Israel waged decapitating its leader Hassan Nasrallah and so on ended in November 2024, Hezbollah has, it seems, Quite clear. Slowly rebuilt at least some of its command structure. At least 100 IRGC agents perhaps on the ground have been helping that effort. Weapons have restocked, perhaps by pilfering Syrian weaponry. When the Assad regime fell during those 72 hours when Assad left and before the new government could, could stamp its authority as Israel was destroying everything, you know, it was kind of a crazy few days there in Syria. It seems like Hezbollah was able to grab some of that weaponry and take it back to Lebanon. I don't know. This is what I've read. I bet you know, what was Hezbollah's strength, let's say on the 28th of February of this year when the Iran war started. And how did it get there?

C (41:25)

I think they went from being at 30% of their strength when they lost 70% of their strength by November of 2024. By the end of it, they were absolutely down on their knees. However, I can say that they are now back to 70% of how they were.

B (41:48)

Well, that's pretty good. That's a pretty fast rebuilding. How did that happen?

C (41:52)

Well, first of all, you mentioned it already there were hundred IRGC officers who were dispatched to Lebanon to restart a training campaign and a purging of the ranks of suspected collaborators with the Israelis. But most importantly, a recruitment of a new generation who were not tainted by the old structure that was infiltrated by the Israelis.

B (42:17)

Right.

C (42:18)

So they recruited roughly about 17,000 new young people, which is a disaster. Some of the people been recruited as young as 15 even. And the idea is that these people are going to be not tainted by the old structure that was infiltrated by the Israelis, for example. This is why today, for example, today on Iranian official news outlets inside Iran, the Basij now has announced that they are lowering the age of volunteering to the Basij to 12.

B (42:53)

Wow.

C (42:54)

So if you are 12, you are allowed to join the Basij in Iran to defend the nation. Now someone will say, oh my God, child recruitment. And I say, yes, of course, child recruitment. But there is also a sinister reason for this. Because they are recruiting people who are not yet being tainted by infiltrations by the Mossad or the Americans or other nefarious powers as far as the Iranian structure is concerned. So the same thing Hezbollah did. Another thing is because of Hezbollah's control of the airport and also control also of the port in Beirut. They were able to continue to receive shipments of weapons through that means until the Israelis threatened to bomb the airport and the port if the Lebanese state do not take full authority of that they did. And also there was something called the retrieval of weapons from semi destroyed depots that the Israelis bombed. But they did not get the entirety of the ammunition. So they will go and salvage. They were salvaging what could be retrieved from all the depots that the Israelis bombed because the Israelis are not going to bomb a depot twice. That was a genius way of doing it. So they retrieved considerable amount of ammunitions from there and it was a successful operation. So by the end of it, they rebuilt themselves into 70% strength of what they were prior to engaging the Israelis in August of 2024.

B (44:30)

I have another question because in the meantime, so again, last 18 months or so, big efforts were undertaken, led by America and other powers to strengthen the resolve of the Lebanese state to really do something about Hezbollah. And you know, it seemed last year like maybe something was going to be done. It seemed like the Lebanese government had found a backbone, felt that they could move. Hezbollah had been. And yet once again nothing was done. What happened?

C (45:03)

Well, simple, because the Americans don't understand eschatology. They don't understand the ideology. They don't understand how powerful and invasive and intrusive the Shia12 fanaticism that runs within Lebanese Shia across the board. With the exception of maybe 20% of the Shia population there, 40% belong to Hezbollah, 40% belong to Nabih Birri, the speaker of the parliament and his movement Amal, which was founded by Musa Sadr. And we talked about Musa Sadr before in one of the episodes in season,

B (45:42)

I think three disappeared in Libya, probably killed by Colonel Gaddafi.

C (45:47)

Most likely. He's done the world a favor anyway. So in my opinion here, I mean, the Lebanese army and I have, and I have to reveal something here, I have a cousin who is in the Lebanese army itself in a certain function and position which I'm not going to reveal, but senior enough and he educated me enough about this. He said, look, Ayman, it's not as simple as you might think. The Lebanese army is 30% Shia. And that's we're talking about like in, I mean in Lebanese army of 100,000. So 30,000 Lebanese soldiers are Shia and 15,000 of them are belonging to Amal Nabiha's party, which is allied with Hezbollah anyway. And then you have of course 15,000 who are core Hezbollah militants, but they are actually in the army, right? Gosh, yes, as you know, basically a reward for a good service with Hezbollah itself and being Hezbollah's people inside the army army, goodness gracious, they moonlight as army soldiers. So if the Lebanese army were to move decisively against Hezbollah, you will have a mutiny by 30% of the army straight away. 30,000 soldiers are gonna mutiny straight away. And to break the army and then to start a civil war straight away, that is going to happen is inevitable. So when the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, and his prime minister, Nawaf Salam, and of course, the leader of the army, Rudolf Haeckel, by the way, Rudolph Haeckel, I will say it out loud here. You know, basically, I don't care if he sue me. You know, I, you know, I've heard, I know some credible, you know, rumors about him inside the army, that every month he is receiving $60,000, you know, appreciation money from Hezbollah.

B (47:41)

Wow. This is the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces.

C (47:45)

Yes, the head of the Lebanese armed forces. You know, so at the end of the day, you know, he himself in the pay of Hezbollah. I'm not saying it's a certainty, but there is no smoke without fire in Lebanon especially.

B (47:58)

And I suppose it's not unbelievable thing, you know, it's perfectly believable because that's kind of how politics are done.

C (48:06)

Exactly. And so he himself went to the US in order to. Because the us, you know, government invited him three months ago for the purpose of discussing equipping the Lebanese army. Because, you know, Lebanese army was supposed to use the year 2025 as the year for which they disarm Hezbollah. And they were doing some what later transpired to be just show operations. Oh, really, it was just purely for display because why, as soon as the war between Hezbollah and Israel erupted again after the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei late last month, the 28th of February, you know, just few days later, in early March, Hezbollah entered the conflict. They were firing from positions that were supposed to have been cleared, you know, by the Lebanese military, you know, months ago.

B (49:04)

That's very telling. God.

C (49:05)

The Lebanese, this Army commander, General Rudolf Haeckel, he went to meet with officials in D.C. and one of them was, unfortunately for the. For Rudolph Haeckel was Senator Lindsey Graham, who, as you know, we all know, like, basically, he doesn't mince his words. I mean, basically, like, I mean, the man is so he was telling him that, look, you know, you came here seeking like, you know, basically our help, you know, because, you know, disarming Hezboll is a priority for the United States because Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. However, the Lebanese army head, General Hail was a little bit, you know, kind of like, you know, basically abrupt in his rebuttal of Senator Lindsey Graham telling him, no, you know, Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization, at least within the Lebanese context. Wow, that was not wise. My dear friend Rudolf Haeckel, you know, basically like, that was not wise. I mean. And so Lindsey Graham kind of like, I mean, asked him, he said, what do you mean? Like, I mean, it's not a terrorist organization. It is a terrorist organization. You are tasked, you know, and we are giving you our own tax, you know, payer dollars for the purpose of disarming Hezbollah because it is a terrorist organization. And he repeated he his stance. I can't describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It is a national Lebanese force. And that's when Lindsey Graham stood up abruptly and said, meeting is over. So it's like, what's the point? What is there to talk about if you are refusing to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization? And then he left. So when he returned, Hezbollah was waiting for him at the airport to cheer him and to say, watai, a true national hero, you know, this general, is because he is defending the resistance against the enemies of Lebanon, the Israelis.

B (51:10)

Well, I guess we understand why it is that on 28 February, when the Americans and the Israelis launched the new Iran war, that Hezbollah was fighting fit. On the 2nd of March. So only two, three days later, Hezbollah, Hezbollah launched an attack on Israel in retaliation, they said, for the killing of Ali Khamenei, the old supreme leader. They launched 60 rockets and drones. Israel launched airstrikes, including on Beirut's Hezbollah dominated southern suburbs. Now, the next day, there was another barrage from Hezbollah, and on the next day yet another, but twice in strength. Israel responded with intense strikes. Even more intense reports emerged that Israeli troops had crossed the border and were moving north. Israel issues a wide evacuation order and all residents Israel says are to move north of the Latani river. Then on the 5th and 6th March, about 300,000 citizens did so. They were displaced and they fled north of the river. On 8 March, Israel strikes central Beirut. A targeted assassination is carried out of a senior Quds Force commander. Then back and forth, back and forth, day after day. On 11th March, for the 1st time ever, a missile barrage from Hezbollah was timed in conjunction with a missile barrage from Iran. That's a pretty interesting moment when really their mask is off and it's just clear we are coordinating our attacks. By 16 March, a major Israeli ground operation was underway. Now Israel has declared its intention to occupy the country as before, in order to create a security zone up to the Litany river and perhaps even beyond as of today, over a thousand people have been killed in Lebanon. Not a huge amount frankly, but a million have been displaced. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled. And from what I've seen, Eamonn, the city of Tyre on the coast, the ancient city of Tyre has basically been emptied out. Civilian infrastructure such as bridges have been destroyed. People, Lebanese people understandably wonder if those civilians will ever return to the south or if southern Lebanon will become another Gaza. And in fact Israel itself dropped leaflets on Beirut threatening Gaza scale devastation. At the same time, the Lebanese government, Amon has now announced that Hezbollah's military activities are banned and said that IRGC agents would be arrested and deported. And just two days ago, on the 24th of March, Lebanon declared Iran's ambassador Persona non grata. So that's just the blow by blow, that's what's happened the last three weeks, right? What's your insider view?

C (54:14)

Very precise timeline here. Thomas, thank you so much. You set the stage. You know very well. Now you said here that the Lebanese government declared the activities of Hezbollah illegal and banned. Yeah, good luck. Who will enforce it? Because the Lebanese army head again we come back to the man who I suspect is in the pay of Hezbollah to the tune of $60,000 I was told a month said he is not going to do anything about it. He is not going to confront Hezbollah or to stop Hezbollah militants or activities or anything. They arrested several Hezbollah militants who were transporting missiles between civilian areas in Beirut. And guess what? As soon as they took them into the military corps, the military corps release them on bail. Each one for $20 bail, that's it. Go, leave, do whatever you want. It's clearly the state cannot exercise its authority. And as soon as the foreign minister, backed up by the prime minister announced that the Iranian ambassador, who is himself a former IRGC commander, who's really a real IRGC commander, is just like in masquerading as a diplomat is a pursuing on grata no longer welcomed in Lebanon. He must pack up and leave. Within 48 hours he issued a statement from the embassy, from the comfort of his embassy in Beirut, saying we will treat this decision as it never happened. In other words, lucky. We will pretend that the Lebanese government

B (55:48)

doesn't exist because basically Eamon, it doesn't exist. The Lebanese state is a failed state. Is this what you're saying?

C (55:56)

Exactly. That's why I'm saying, you know what stuff, all of Lebanon, all of it, basically, from top to bottom, including the army, including the government, including their airport and port and everything. If you can't bloody defend your own sovereignty against a parasitic ambassador and a parasitic militia. Then don't blame the Israelis when they blow up your airport and blow up every single civilian plane on that tarmac. Don't blame them when they blow up their airplane. Civilian infrastructure in order to make sure that Hezbollah doesn't have a free movement from any place in the country to any other place in the country to target Israel and Israeli civilian infrastructure, especially with ballistic missiles launching from Baalbek, landing in Ashkelon. That's 400 kilometers. That's a ballistic missile. And who gave that bloody ballistic missile to them except Iran? Basically, Iran turned Lebanon into a forward military base. And I swear to God, if anyone comes to me and says Hezbollah has legitimate reason to exist, I will tell him, how many relatives have you lost to Hezbollah's adventures? And if none, I will tell him to get out of my face straight away and out of my sight. Because at the end of the day, you do not hijack a country, a nation, and turn it into basically a forward military command post on behalf of an eschatologically mad ayatollah's regime.

B (57:28)

Well, Ayman, from what I understand, and I'm no expert on really anything, but certainly not international law. From what I understand, it is the responsibility of every state on earth to prevent terrorist groups from existing and certainly from attacking other states. So some people say that Israel has no right to invade Lebanon to do any of this that it's doing right now. And I understand that that is in fact not the case. And that because the Lebanese state has simply failed to prevent a massively funded and armed terrorist group on its border with Israel attack its neighbor Israel, Israel actually does have the right militarily to do something about it.

C (58:08)

Yes, because actually there is a similar situation where yesterday, just yesterday, the nations of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, six countries came together to declare that if Iraq, if Iraq cannot control the militias that are funded and established just like Hezbollah in Lebanon, by Iran, funded and directed by Iran from launching drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles from Iraqi territory into these six countries, which has been well documented and with all the ample radar signatures and evidence and electronic evidence that we need, then these six states reserve the right for self defense under international law. And even they named the exact articles of the United Nations Charter when it comes to self defense.

B (59:08)

This of course puts the whole Iran war, I think, in perspective. Because Iran, the Iranian regime, the IRGC and its Quds force has been propping up terrorist groups everywhere. So if Israel has the right to intervene in Lebanon because Hezbollah is attacking it and the Lebanese state's not doing anything about it. And if these states in the GCC and Jordan are saying we have the right to intervene militarily in Iraq, if those, Those militias fire upon us, and if the Iraqi state fails to do anything about it, then in a wider regional context, surely all of these states, and preeminently, the United States, the great hegemon of the world, has the right to intervene militarily in Iran because Iran is the one creating, funding, arming, training and supporting these terrorist groups. It just seems basic. And this is what I don't understand. People call this war illegal. Maybe, technically, it could be argued to be so in certain courts of law. And yet I just don't get it. Iran, the regime's influence has been so malign in so many places that surely eventually you can just say, well, get stuffed, we've got to do something about it, but to stick with Lebanon. Eamon, what's going to happen? You say, forget it all. The state, the army, the airports, whatever, forget it. But literally, what do you think is going to happen? We can't have a Gaza situation in Lebanon. That would be. I mean, we can't take another heartbreak like that. The world would be in serious trauma if that were to happen. And Israel, my goodness, its reputation is on a knife's edge already. And that wouldn't be good for anyone, surely.

C (60:54)

Do you remember, Thomas, that in the episode we did, you and I, many years ago, it feels like an age ago, after October 7th, after Hamas did what they did on October 7th in 2023, that episode, we say, you know, what was Hamas thinking? And I said, and I keep saying it, always to many friends and to many colleagues and to many detractors, even I say, the first rule of going on a suicide mission, just don't take your goddamn family with you. Go alone. And that's exactly the problem is the fact that. But Hezbollah, just like Hamas, is determined to take the family with them, the wider Lebanese family, just like Hamas took the wider big family in Gaza to a suicide mission, dragged them into it unwillingly. Hezbollah is dragging the entire country of Lebanon, unwillingly into a suicide mission. And as far as Israel is concerned, they don't want to keep fighting war after war after war. And this is where naive people in Europe in particular, like Macron of France, where he keeps saying, ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire. No, no. Even I will say no, Lebanon needs a chemotherapy. And if it means Israel, you know, going into a beast mode, in Lebanon to achieve it. Because many of my relatives in Lebanon are praying, God, please make it the last war. And I asked them, what do you mean by the last war? They say that Israel annihilates Hezbollah and its base completely so we don't have to relive this nightmare ever again.

B (62:43)

Well, Eamon, you are half Lebanese and in fact I'm feeling sad. I'm getting teary because I really love that country. I love the Levant, I love, love the Middle East. I am so sad. I am really weighed down by all of this wickedness around, all of this death and all of this war and all of this foolishness. It's really weighing me down. There are lots of things that I wanted to ask you about, Eamon. I wanted to ask you about Iranian sleeper cells and terrorist networks in Europe and in America and other places. I have a whole list here of attacks since the beginning of the war on 28th February that I wanted to ask you about. I wanted to ask you about Russia. The EU has accused Russia of providing intelligence to Iran. There are reports of Russia shipping drones to Iran. I wanted to ask you about that through the Caspian.

C (63:33)

Yes, indeed.

B (63:34)

We'll either do a special episode on that question or we'll save it for a Q and A. And therefore, dear listeners, you might have to take out a paid subscription and join the conflicted community to hear about, to hear Amen's answers to those questions. So I'll leave it, I'll leave this episode with this topic because I do want to talk about it now. I sent you this video yesterday over WhatsApp and you didn't reply to it because I imagine it pissed you off. But I want to ask you about it. So Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, speaking to the Economist the other day, said, quote, iran has the upper hand. And he stated with pain in his heart, he says, I do not like the Iranian regime. God knows I do not like the irgc. So he's not one of these like knee jerk resistance anti Americans? Far from it. The head of MI6, he states that the US Israeli strategy is fundamentally flawed and that Iran, which is definitely playing a weaker hand, is playing that hand masterfully and will win this war in the end. Now, Amen. He is just one of thousands and thousands of voices, not all of them just armchair strategists, some of them very elite people saying that the US is going to lose this war. And I think a lot of our listeners are also wondering if that could be the case because conflicted in general presents a more full throated defense, let's say of America's overall strategy and of the war aim of destroying the Iranian regime. But Eamonn, honestly, might the US lose this war?

C (65:22)

God forbid they might, at the end of the day, not because it lacks the military power or might or the foresight or the ability to strategize. We will lose this war because of voices like this, because of defeatist mentality. Who tells you basically that you can't confront evil, you have to coexist with it. The problem is, what if evil doesn't want to coexist with you? I mean, sometimes I feel myself like, you know, basically as this lonely in an automated train operator in the operation room of this, this lovely train network. And I can see the glitch there, I can see the Iranian train basically getting that glitch and basically moving in fast speed towards other trains in the network. Basically cause a massive collision and derailment of several trains. And yet when you tell people accident about to happen and they say, oh no, don't worry, the system will correct itself. No, no, no, you don't understand, there is a glitch. No, no, no, the system is perfect. There will be no glitch. And that's exactly the argument I used to have with many of my former MI6 bosses is the fact that they have grown accustomed to believing that containment with Iran, because Iran is somehow a nation state and therefore no matter what containment worked with Syria for decades, it will work with Iran for decades to come. But there is a problem here. Iran recruited 700,000 young men in Iraq and Syria and Pakistan and Afghanistan and Lebanon and Gaza and Yemen. 700,000 men to be under arms, to rise up against their own nation states, to become states within the states. So when you have these voices come out and keep telling you you can't win, this is a shrewd, evil, calculated evil. But actually when you say that you are arguing against yourself, you are proving the point that it must be confronted. When you tell me that, oh, they prepared for this war for a very long time, they know what they're doing. Well, thank you. You just proved my point that we must confront them. Because if we keep kicking the can down the road, it will be our children who will fight a stronger, more vicious and more capable Iran.

B (68:10)

Eamon, you're reminding me of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings when he talks to Frodo saying, these are the dark times. But sometimes in a generation you're called upon to fight, fight the enemy I can't remember the exact quote fans of the Lord of the Rings will be shouting at me for getting it wrong. And of course, as we all know, and as post colonialist literary critics like to tell us, JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth is a kind of facsimile of our own world. And Mordor is definitely. I mean, if you look at the ring of mountains that makes Mordor, it is sort of like that the Zagros mountains in Persia. And Tolkien was working in this kind of inherited European worldview in which the great enemy is the eastern Persian forces, the Haradrim.

C (69:01)

Yes, exactly. Modeled on Persians.

B (69:03)

Yeah, exactly. So you're reminding me of the Lord of the Rings and what you're saying. And yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I see that case. It seems sensible to me. One sort of voice that I find increasingly frustrating on the Internet, on X and things, is the economists. Kind of. Not the Economist, the magazine. I mean, economists, the people, people who see the world solely through the prism of economics of trade. They seem to think that because this war is causing an increase in the oil price, the war shouldn't happen. As if there could ever be a war in the Middle east that didn't affect the oil price. I mean, I want to ask these economists, are you serious?

C (69:46)

Indeed.

B (69:46)

Don't you know that your markets, your precious markets, depend on political and therefore military activities that underlie them? You can't just have these markets that are sacrosanct and that, you know, I mean, really, the market, quote, unquote, leading these leading war efforts, leading politics, gets it completely backwards. But there are a lot of loud voices saying, oh, oh, clearly the American war is not going well because the price of oil is going up. And you think, are you serious? Don't you think the price of commodities went up during the First World War, during the Second World War, during every goddamn war since the beginning of mankind, in fact.

C (70:29)

There is so much hypocrisy. So much hypocrisy. Look, I supported Ukraine's right to self defense. I still do. I believe basically Russia's invasion of Ukraine is no different to Russia's as bullying invasion of Afghanistan or bullying of the caucuses. And I do believe basically Ukraine had the right to defend itself. I'm for the first one to say that many of the people who are criticizing the intervention against Iran are the same people who actually want to continue to see the war between Ukraine and Russia continue without any possibility of a ceasefire whatsoever, just for the sake of their fetishized love for seeing Russian soldiers die, basically. And Ukrainians die.

B (71:19)

But Eamon, these people see America as the Russia in the situation. They see America as invading, quote unquote, attacking Iran unprovoked in the same way that Russia invaded and attacked Ukraine. That's how they see the world.

C (71:34)

Except I tell them, my dear friends, my dear naive friends, I just said that Iran, over the course of three decades recruited, recruited 700,000 men into terror organizations and non state actors for the sake of expansionism. They took over countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. So how. And caused two civil wars in Syria and Yemen. 2 million dead, 25 million people displaced.

B (72:08)

I know, we don't need to litigate it again. It's just like there are people in the world who don't see that. They just don't see it. They can't see it somehow. What seems so obvious to you and me, especially to you, Eamon. I mean, you know it, you lived it. Yeah, but they just cannot see it. And partly it's because I guess they've absorbed a certain worldview. Anti American, whatever you want to call that, pro, pro resistance. I don't know. I mean these people often are quite wealthy. They're kind of often members of the beautiful people. They have properties and you know, they'll have a flat in Istanbul and a flat here and you know, and they, they kind of go to galleries and they're the, the smart set.

C (72:52)

Exactly.

B (72:52)

Sitting around and they just seem to think that Iran, because maybe in certain neighborhoods of Tehran there are some pretty swanky galleries and some nice cafes that therefore, you know, it's perfectly fine. I don't get it. I don't get it. But they're just living in a different universe for me.

C (73:09)

Well, there is a Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Like basically what's wrong with this? You know, I'm just saying that, look, at the end of the day, if Iran was a normative country with normative politics, I would say like you might have a case here. But it is a terror sponsoring nation where half of its armed forces are, which is the IRGC is designated terrorist organization by no less than 35 countries around the world.

B (73:42)

Yeah, well, I don't get it. Anyway, we should bring this to a close. Thank you, Eamon. I hope that the flood of, of Noah does not return to the Gulf. We talked about how maybe the Gulf is the site of Noah's flood.

C (73:55)

Indeed.

B (73:56)

And right on cue, five days later, Noah's flood returned. And I hope, you know, your poor flat dries out.

C (74:03)

Indeed.

B (74:04)

Dear listeners, thank you for listening to this episode of Conflicted. We will be back with you as ever, soon, soon, soon. Join the conflicted community. Otherwise, stay well.

C (74:12)

See everyone.

B (74:15)

Conflicted is a message heard. Production. Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.