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- [00:00]
Houman Majd
Sam. Sa. Sa. Sam I'm Jeremy Scahill from DropSiteNews.
- [04:16]
Jeremy Scahill
DropSiteNews.com this is a special live stream. We're also streaming with our friends at Breaking points. It is February 28th and this morning at 9:40am local time in Iran, President Donald Trump launched what he bluntly characterized as a regime change war aimed at eliminating the Iranian leadership, destroying the country's missile system and its naval forces. And he issued a call for Iranians to rise up and seize control of the government. In the aftermath of what he described will be massive US Bombings. He said bombs are going to be dropping everywhere. And we ended up in this position as part of what has become a signature component of Donald Trump's approach to Iran, where the United States constructed, erected a fake veneer of negotiation with Iran. There was supposed to be technical discussions in Vienna, Austria on Monday as part of the negotiations that were ostensibly about Iran's nuclear enrichment. Marco Rubio said that he was going to be going to Israel on Monday. The Omani foreign minister was just in Washington meeting with J.D. vance and other U.S. officials and came out and said that he still was optimistic that an agreement could be reached. What has happened today is that the US And Israel have launched a massive bombing campaign across Iran. They say that they are targeting senior political and military leaders in Iran. There have already been several incidents where the United States or Israel have struck clearly civilian sites. In one case, they bombed a girl's school. The last death toll confirmed that I saw was 85 people. We're also hearing reports of other large scale attacks against civilian infrastructure. The Iranians, unlike previous rounds where the United States and Israel have launched strikes against it, responded almost immediately to these attacks. And they launched their own missile strikes at U.S. bases and facilities across the Gulf, hitting targets in Bahrain, in the United Arab Emirates, in Kuwait, in Qatar, in Jordan. And of course, there has been very heavy Iranian bombardment inside of Israel itself. Today on this special live stream, we're going to be joined by two guests, Ali Abunama, who is one of the founders of Electronic Intifada, a really great independent journalist. And we're also going to be joined by Human Majid, an Iranian American political analyst and author. But first, I want to bring on my colleague from Dropsite News, Ryan Grimm. Ryan, we're going to get into a lot of what has been happening here. But first, as you watch this unfolding and we see this massive bombardment and Trump ranting this morning, sort of throwing out a hodgepodge of rationale for why, why he believes that this is necessary. What are some thoughts you have right now?
- [07:51]
Ryan Grim
One thing you're seeing so many Democrats and Republicans either voice voicing, you know, full on support for this war or hedging their, hedging their comments as they wait to see how it unfolds. But almost all of them lead their comments with Iran's nuclear program. And it's one of the more to me jarring moments that, that we've had because all of us were alive and sentient beings in June of this last year when Donald Trump launched this with Israel, launched a 12 day war and has said ever since then, up to and including this past week that he entirely obliterated Iran's nuclear program. And it's, it's this, you know, Orwellian is overused in our politics. But it's not even appropriate here because there's, they're not even bothering to like finesse the gap between Trump claiming for many months that he has completely obliterated the nuclear program and now the entire political apparatus in the United States saying that they've launched this new war because of this nuclear program. There isn't even an attempt to stitch together any rationale other than you'll get some backbench senator like Tim Scott saying that Iran made the mistake of trying to restart the program with just evidence free allegations that, that make no sense in the face of Trump's previous assertions that the program was set back, you know, years or a generation, that crazy making element of it. There's also the fact that we all saw the Omani foreign minister go on American television because I believe he sensed that the Trump administration was going to do this imminently and he wanted, this is my read, you tell me because you're better plugged into the, the negotiations here. As a mediator, I think he, I think Oman wanted the world and wanted the American people to know that Iran had basically offered everything in order to stave off this war even though it was being offered very little under the terms that the United States was proposing. There wouldn't even be significant sanctions relief. It just would have been we're not going to bomb you this weekend. And still the Iranian government was willing to put forward all of these unprecedented concessions. So we all saw this. Anybody following this saw the Omani foreign minister go on television and say this is what's on offer. It's a, it reminds me of the days right before the Iraq war was launched when the U. S put forward an ultimatum that Saddam Hussein had to meet when it came to weapons inspections. And so on and so forth, or else there would be an attack in. Saddam Hussein said, okay, that works for us. We, we agree. Bring the inspectors in. And the US Said, well, I'll. Never mind, you know, we're doing the war anyway.
- [10:51]
Ali Abunimah
Yeah, go ahead.
- [10:53]
Jeremy Scahill
No, I mean, I've been talking to Iranian officials over the course of this process playing out with these, you know, supposed negotiations. And I think there's a real question here of if there ever was even a scintilla of intent on the part of the Trump administration to negotiate on this issue. It's, it is quite clear that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the entire notion that the United States was engaged in negotiating was all a lie. And part of it, and you and I have reported on this, part of it was that Trump was hearing from military advisors, some things he didn't like to hear about the capacity of Iran to respond to this several weeks ago, the actual strength and reach of their ballistic missiles. And we heard from sources also, including people that are informal advisors to the Trump White House, that they were concerned about getting more Thaad missile systems, interceptors in place, refueling tankers in place, other, quote, unquote, defensive mechanisms to defend Israel in the event of Iranian retaliation, to protect their bases dotted all throughout the region, the tens of thousands of American troops that are there. So it's entirely plausible that this entire negotiation was, was a farce from the beginning. But if you take it on its surface, as you're indicating, what the Iranians said to us was, we are making almost unbelievable concessions in these, in this process that go far beyond the scope of the 2015 JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement, one and a half percent enrichment, all kinds of terms that they would never have agreed to before. And they also indicated that they had directly told the American negotiators that they were open to continuing negotiations on other issues they wanted to put on the table, letting in American oil and gas companies. Rob Malley, who was on that negotiating team in 2015, said Trump could have just declared victory then and there. You know, Europeans would have been shocked. He could have danced around the world saying, I got something better than Obama. Obama was never able to do it. But, but it seems like that wasn't the intent from the beginning. And I, I want to go directly now to the region to join our friend and colleague Ali Abunama, who is a founder of one of the founders of Electronic Intifada and a really great independent journalist. Ali is in Amman, Jordan right now. Amman has also been deeply involved with this Whole scenario that's played out over the past couple years of the US And Israel attacks on Iran, Iran attacking Jordan right in the epicenter of it there. Ali, first from Jordan, maybe talk about how you've seen this day play out because you've also been witnessing the missile strikes that have happened and give us your thoughts about the overarching situation.
- [13:57]
Ali Abunimah
Hi, Jeremy. Hi, Ryan. Thank you. Well, it was mid morning and I was working on an article which I published today. I was going to write about whether the total lack of support for a war in the United States and the collapse in support for Israel among Americans would affect policymakers. And when I saw the news flash across my screen that the war had started and I went up to the roof of where I am here in Amman and very quickly we could see Iran, Iran's missiles beginning to reach towards Israel. And it happened very quickly compared with the war in June where I was here as well, where it took something like a day or so for Iran to respond. And what happened throughout the day is that it was just a constant, you could say low intensity volleys of missiles from Iran and just every half hour there would be missiles. And I think from what I saw, that the strategy might be just to try to exhaust Israel psychologically and militarily, to exhaust the air defenses. Because each time you see a single Iranian missile come down, you hear many, many booms of interceptors going up. So they must be expending a lot of interceptors to counter this. And also that the Israelis have to keep running up and down into the shelter. And this has gone all day. Even a short time ago, I was outside and I could see, well, I'd say about an hour ago was the last time I saw missiles coming down. I expect we'll see more. And in terms of the bigger picture, you know, it, I can't say that that I'm surprised or anyone here is surprised. It very much seemed like a question of when, not if. There was always a hope that they could find some way to avoid a war which risks being catastrophic for many, many people. And already we've seen horrific images from Iran of dozens of schoolgirls of innocent people being killed in the Israeli and American attacks. And that is likely only to get worse. But what is particularly troubling, I would say, or bizarre is that Iran has responded in exactly the way it said it would respond against American assets and interests across the region. I don't mean that that is troubling or bizarre. That's what you would expect Iran to do. And Iran is saying, and I think with a lot of rationality and reason, that this is self defense. The country has been attacked. This was an unprovoked aggression by the United States and Israel in the context of ongoing negotiations which as the Omani foreign minister had said, were making progress and were expected to resume within days. And they launched a surprise attack. What has been very strange, let's say, is the complete lack of, of condemnation from almost every country in the region except for Oman, which was one of the mediators of those negotiations. But what we've seen from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco, other countries in the region and in Europe is statements absolutely failing to condemn the, the US And Israeli aggression, but vigorously condemning Iran for responding. And what Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Harakchi said just a short time ago on Twitter X and I believe on NBC News as well, was that, look, we don't want to attack what he called brotherly neighbors and friendly countries, but these countries are allowing their territory to be used by the United States to launch a war of aggression against us. And we are responding against the American bases. And we wish we didn't have to do that, but we do. And you know, it's just odd to see these countries acting as if Iran responded in a total vacuum without,
- [19:05]
Jeremy Scahill
without
- [19:06]
Ali Abunimah
acknowledging the US Israeli aggression. And interestingly, we've seen almost verbatim responses from European countries, from France, from Germany, from Britain and others. An exception is Spain, which did criticize the US And Israel while also criticizing Iran's response. And what is, I guess, not too surprising, but notable is that Canada, Mark Carney went even further, actually giving positive support to the U.S. aggression, saying Canada stands with the United States in trying to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, signaling support for the aggression. And this is extraordinary. Just weeks after Mark Carney made that speech at Davos where he was supposedly standing up to American bullying. And it's even more extraordinary that he would talk about that he would support this war of aggression when Canada itself has been the subject of threats of aggression and annexation by the United States. And similarly, Australia has gone beyond some of the other Western pro American states by positively endorsing the American Israeli attack. So that's where we are. And it's hard to see where this is all going to lead except to a lot of bloodshed and further chaos and disaster for all those countries who've chosen to be involved.
- [20:48]
Ryan Grim
Now the, the Israeli media is claiming that the Ayatollah Khamenei and President Massoud Peschkian were both struck, were targeted and Struck in a meeting this morning. Iranians are denying that this happened. They're claiming the Israelis are also claiming to have killed the Defense Minister. Seems like it's a repeat of the strategy that they have, you know, unfolded for decades. You know, if, if they are successful in decapitating some elements of the Iranian leadership, what does that look like for the government's response and ability to continue functioning as, as, as the governing body in Iran?
- [21:33]
Ali Abunimah
Well, this is always the American and Israeli strategy. It was the same with the Palestinians for decades as well as in the last two plus years. In the context of the genocide, murdering Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the, the head of the politburo of Hamas, murdering Sayyid Hassan Nasala, the head of Hezbollah, and believing that dqap that, you know, they have this. I don't know if they sincerely believe it. If they do, it shows that they're not very sophisticated, that all the people of the region are just sheep who follow after these charism and that if you kill the charismatic leader, the whole movement or the whole country falls apart. That's not the way this works. Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, these are movements or countries where people are deeply committed to the cause of defending themselves, defending their struggle, defending their rights. And they don't stop believing in that cause because their leader has been murdered by their enemy. On the contrary, they. That would tend to strengthen their belief and their commitment to the cause. And the Israelis and the Americans have been openly threatening and trying to murder the leaders of Iran as well as having succeeded in killing some senior commanders in the June war, that Iran was undoubtedly prepared for this. And even in June, when Iran was taken by surprise, it was not ready in the way it clearly is ready this time. Iran was able to replace the senior commanders who were killed or injured, and it was able to mount a very sophisticated and successful counterattack. So much so that Israel had to basically beg for a ceasefire because its air defenses were exhausted and the Iranian missiles were causing unprecedented devastation in Israel. There's no reason to believe it would be different in any way now. So it's a strategy that is based the most generous way I can put it on a misconception, but really on this sort of Orientalist racism, that people can't think for themselves and are not committed to a cause that because they believe in it and rationally see it in their interests.
- [24:13]
Jeremy Scahill
I want to bring in Hooman Majd to this discussion. He's a political analyst, NBC contributor. He's an Iranian American and he's an author. He also served as an Advisor to the former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami. Human it's great to see you. I wish it was under circumstances where we weren't seeing your homeland bombed right now. I want to begin, though, by tapping into some of your expertise on the bigger geopolitical question and the internal question. Right now, Iranian officials that I've been speaking to are saying that Iran is a society that has built horizontal institutions over the course of decades, since the 1979 revolution. And that particularly after the June strikes that Ali was just speaking of, they created an updated infrastructure to handle leadership strikes, to handle higher level assassinations. And they are pretty defiantly saying that they can absorb this, that they believe that they are going to be able to inflict actual consequence on US Personnel and facilities in the region, and that while they do understand it is viewed as an existential war, that they feel that they can handle this attack even if Trump intends to continue on for a sustained period of time. Give us your sense of that right now.
- [25:39]
Houman Majd
Well, yeah, thanks for having me on, Jeremy and Ryan. I think, yeah, I don't think there's any question that the Iranians prepared to handle this war, as it were, both by retaliating. And then we saw them retaliate within 2 hours versus 18 hours back in June. And the first retaliation was with very limited missiles, not a whole bunch of missiles. Everybody thinks now that Iran has something like 2,000 ballistic missiles that can hit Israel as far as Israel. And they haven't used those, all those missiles yet. They haven't had a barrage of missiles because they're well prepared for this war to be longer than just 24 hours. And so, yeah, I think that they are. I mean, you know, the regime, people call it a regime. It's 50 years old. It's almost 50 years old. It's been in place for 50 years. They built institutions, they have human capital, they have support of some percentage of the population. I won't say what that is because I don't know what that is. They certainly have a huge percentage of the population that is unhappy with the situation in Iran. We know that from the protests. We know that from people coming out in Iran. Forget about the people in the diaspora who are constantly, constantly saying, you know, please attack Iran, please attack my country. The people inside Iran are so frustrated and so unhappy with the mostly economic situation, but also political freedoms, social freedoms, that they are looking for change. What that change is, is not very clear because we don't know, depend, depends on who you talk to. Some people want, you know, a change within the system, some people want some of the people who are in jail to be brought out and take over. But this, the country is relatively stable, and the security forces and the army and the military, IRGC Basij, are at the present time loyal. And even if Khamenei has been injured or killed, I think Iran is well prepared for what comes next and how to handle the country and how to handle the military, if that is in fact the case, or if he's unable to communicate with his top generals. We know that Ali Larijani is someone who is perfectly capable of being in charge of the military. We know Kaliboff, who is the speaker in Parliament, These are both former IRGC men. We know that there's been some rumors that Ali Shamkhani has been killed, but he's also someone who's capable. There is a broad group of people who are capable and who have been preparing for this since June. And as we know just from the statements of the Iranian leadership, they have been ready to go to war. If that was going to happen, I won't say that they were prepared last night. I do think there was a little bit of an element of surprise, given that there was supposed to be this meeting on Monday. But they have been prepared ever since, especially since the June experience of in the middle of negotiations, being attacked. So right now, so far, it appears that their response is somewhat measured. We don't know if the base in Bahrain that was attacked by a missile, that where a missile hit the base in Iran, if any American soldiers, American troops, American sailors were killed. We don't know any of this. What we do know right now is that in Iran, people have been killed. We do know that this village in the south of Iran where a school had just started when the attack started, there's a girls school. According to Iranian media, some 40 to 50 children have been killed. And there's images of it. And it's hard to believe that that's fake, because Iran, if Iran wanted to fake something like that, they'd do it in Tehran. They wouldn't do it in some village far, far away from the capital. So it's likely that that is true and based on satellite images and that people have been able to investigate, that school in that village was hit. So we do know people are dying right now. So this is definitely a war, that Iran is going to take revenge on whomever they can, whether it's Israelis or Americans. And it should be expected. I mean, even Trump admitted that there are going to be American casualties likely to be American casualties. But it's too early to tell what's going to happen. What we do know is Iran is, as you pointed out, Jeremy, is. Is capable, has been preparing for this for months and months. And they have a, you know, their military leadership is quite deep in terms of both the regular army, the irgc, the Navy. They have an ability to, to sustain a war perhaps even longer than the US Wants to. There will come a point at which, you know, Trump may decide he wants. Trump is the one who wants the off ramp, not Iran.
- [30:40]
Ryan Grim
Well, whom on. Let me ask you about that because Trump is already signaling that he wants off ramps. So Axios is Barack Ravid just called him up. Trump answered the phone. Let me. I'll put this article that he just posted. The headline is exclusive. Trump floats off ramps after attacking Iran. One of his quotes here, Trump saying, quote, I can go long and take over the whole thing or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians, see you again in a few years. If you start rebuilding brackets your, your nuclear and missile programs. In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack. And so leading into this attack, Trump repeatedly signaled that he had this negotiating idea that he was going to attack Iran and then stop and go back to the negotiating table. And I think a lot of people didn't take that seriously because it sounds insane, but that's Trump. And so he does. It does seem like that strategy that he was forecasting is the one that he's now engaged in. So what is the, what is the response going to be from the Iranians getting this, these signals already for an off ramp claiming that he wants to go? It's almost as if, like, hey, see you Monday in Geneva. As if, yeah, he didn't. And Netanyahu was, by the way, update. Netanyahu is now saying that, you know, they believe that they did kill Ayatollah Kame. So, you know, now they're just gonna, you know, wash their hands of this and say, let's get back to the table. So how is, how is, how is, how do you expect the Iranian government to respond to these signals, you know, through Ravid and others that he's sending?
- [32:26]
Houman Majd
Well, I mean, I think that, yeah, I mean, fdd, the foundation for the Defensive Democracies, had been pushing that, you know, strike Iran first, then negotiate. And we know that they have some influence inside the White House and certainly the Israelis may have been pushing that to strike first and then worry about negotiating or the Iran is so weak that they'll have to capitulate then. Well, Iran's not going to capitulate. And in fact, it depends very much on what Iran does. If Iran retaliates with in a way that gives America a bloody nose, if that actually happens, and I think there is some capability of that, given that they haven't used their full missile barrages that they can use right now, if that happens, actually, it might put Iran in a more stronger position in negotiations than the US if the idea is that Iran's going to be so battered that they will capitulate to whatever Trump wants in the next, you know, discussion, next talks, the next negotiations, the opposite could happen as well. Again, it depends on what happens in the next, let's say 36 hours, 72 hours. But Iran could potentially be in a position where it has caused some real damage, has cost a huge amount of money, let's say. Because by closing, let's say if they do close, the streets of Hormuz are able to temporarily close it, a financial hit on America and Western Europe is something that nobody wants for a long period of time, I would imagine, certainly not Trump, a drop in the stock market, a drop in the US Dollar, the price of gold going through the roof, the price of oil going through the roof, none of that is beneficial to the U.S. so there's going to be an advantage for Trump to have that off ramp. But if he believes really that Iran is then going to come in and say, you know, enough, we, we give it, we give up, whatever you want will do, that's very unlikely. And in fact, the longer the war goes on, the more likely it is that when it does stop, it'll be more at the request of, of, of Trump who wants to stop it and get back to business, and Iran will then actually potentially be in a more stronger position than it is now.
- [34:36]
Jeremy Scahill
Ali, I wanted to bring you back into this and ask you about the Israel factor here. You know, Trump and his administration have offered a kind of scattershot series of rationales for what they're doing here, and they've zeroed in and focused on this nuclear thing. And we've seen a kind of junior varsity version of the Bush Cheney media complex push ahead of the invasion and occupation of Iraq with the mushroom cloud scenario, et cetera. They did a kind of truncated version of this. And as a sidebar, I just want to point out that for all of the protestation coming from the New York Times and the broader, quote, unquote, liberal media in the United States about the dangers of Trump, they sure have lined up to do their job serving the propaganda for this. You know, over the past few weeks, it's been astonishing to the point where the New York Times even does stories claiming that Al Qaeda and Iran are somehow in bed and could potentially be plotting, you know, attacks. But setting that aside, given the decades you've spent studying the Israeli regime, can you talk about what you see as the role Israel has played in getting to this moment, where twice in the past year you now have the United States directly attacking Iran? Walk us through how you see Israel's strategy here and the impact Israel has had on Trump in getting to this point.
- [36:06]
Ali Abunimah
Hmm. Well, just to comment, Jeremy, on the propaganda, the nuclear weapons, the mushroom clouds and all of that, it's. It clearly hasn't worked. The reason it's, it's truncated and half hearted is because they know it's not going to work. YouGov poll, as of four days ago, found that only 27% of Americans would support a war on Iran. So you can say 3/4 of Americans either oppose this or don't have an opinion, but there isn't support for it. And there's strong opposition even within Trump's base. So why are they doing. I don't like the, I'm not comfortable saying, you know, the United States controls Israel or making things that simple. But there is certainly a common ruling elite, let's say a transat transatlantic ruling elite, which includes Israel as a major factor that is fully on board with this regime change war. And the idea that Trump can simply launch a war on Saturday and go back to negotiations on Monday is just so bizarre and crazy. What Netanyahu said today was very clear that this is a regime change war and that the goal is to topple the Islamic Republic's government. And I think it's not to replace it with a government that is more to the liking of Israel. It's to destroy Iran. It's to make Iran fall apart, to bring about civil war, to bring about chaos, to do on an even larger scale what they've done in Syria, what they did in Libya before. It's to create chaos and collapse so that Israel and the United States, but particularly Israel, are the regional hegemons and can forever impose their will on the region through terror and force. And that seems to me Israel's strategy, and they're not going to let it go. And people have speculated that there was a time factor here because Israel is rapidly losing support in the United States. That's what I wrote about today. This latest Gallup poll which confirms that there's a collapse in public support for Israel and the United States. And for the first time, more Americans by 41%. 41% of Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians compared with 36% who sympathize more with Israelis. This is an historic reversal that is only accelerating across all age groups and even on the right. And so there was perhaps a feeling, as some commentators have said, that this was Israel's last best chance to get the United States to bring about a regime change. Because what we saw in June was that Israel isn't capable of doing it by itself. For decades, Netanyahu, literally for decades, even before he was prime minister, Netanyahu was saying, you know, Iran, they're within weeks of having a nuclear weapon. This has been the story for 30 years. And in June, Israel launched its war and it had to be rescued by the United States and then beg for a ceasefire. And this time they needed the United States to go in with them from the start. Even so, it's a big gamble. Just even if you leave aside the military aspect, which I don't claim to be an expert on, the economic disruption is going to be enormous if this continues for any length of time. There are already reports that the Straits of Hormuz, which is where, what is it, a fifth of the world's oil flows through this narrow waterway, only one and a half kilometers wide, that's actually deep enough to be navigable, is closed. You had the European Aviation Safety Agency today issue an advisory saying that it is unsafe for airlines to operate at any altitude in practically every country in the region, from Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, all of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia. So just think of a country like the United Arab Emirates, which has taken a very hostile role towards Iran. Their whole economy depends on tourism, depends on Emirates Airlines, people flying through Dubai, and how long can they withstand that? And then what are the long term consequences of this for them? When people see, you know, even when this war is over, however it ends, people see these are not safe places. They're not secure places to invest, to live, to buy property. And so I can't see how any rational thinking, US leadership, even an imperialist leadership, would see this as being in their best interest. Even an imperialist US Leadership would see more practical and sustainable ways to control the region or come to some agreement with Iran and advance its imperial interests that way. It's just, to me, a complete lack of logic. And you have a man who is clearly unbalanced in charge and can be influenced in these crazy ways.
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Ryan Grim
And I want to ask you about that, that exact element, the financial element, because when it comes to pure, raw military capacity, nobody disputes that the Americans and the Israelis outmatch, frankly, anybody on the planet, certainly, let alone a single country of Iran. But Trump also very much understands when money talks, Trump listens. And so what kind of mechanisms does Iran have to speak through the economy when it comes to things that Trump cares about here?
- [42:51]
Houman Majd
Well, I mean, I think first to Ali's point about the Emirates in Dubai. I mean, Dubai Emirates Airline, one of the biggest airlines in the world, is not flying. Dubai was hit by Iran, by missile. So Iran made a very clear statement there that we can cause pain to all these countries in the region, not just American bases, but we can cause pain to countries that are supporting of, are supportive of this kind of attack on Iran. And that pain is going to be felt for a very long time. If you're an American who wants to go and buy property in Dubai, if you're a European who wants to retire there, you're going to think twice now that you've seen images of missiles hitting Dubai. I don't know about American businesses, about the banks who want to be there or are there. So that's the first point, the pain that Iran can cause financially and I think the pain, financial pain on the Emirates is financial pain worldwide. It's not just on the Emirates, not just on that country. And certainly, as Ali pointed out, the Straits of Hormuz right now, whether they are officially closed by Iran by having mined them or not, we don't know yet. But we know that tankers are stopping. They don't want to go through right now in this period of uncertainty, or at least some of them are stopping. So that alone is going to cause some spikes in the market. And what Trump had been showing off and boasting for months about the fact that oil, sorry, the price of gas, which is important to his base, is under $2. It's $1.90. I don't know where he got from. It might have been possible in one of the states where the price of regular gas was down to 199. But generally speaking, yes, it's way down compared to during the Biden administration. But the base that has been saying that had voted for him and says that the economy is better because most of Americans, as we know, don't live in New York City or in San Francisco. They drive to work every day. And that's where they feel the pain. If you, if you have an F1, Ford F150, you know, it does 20 miles to the gallon. You're going to feel the pain when gas goes from $2.30 to $5 a gallon. And that's where Trump is going to start losing support because as Ali pointed out, the war is not support, is not popular. Israel is less and less popular in America among even the base, the MAGA base. And once the economy starts feeling that pain, when I say the pain, when the people start feeling the pain and gas is going to be the first one then and 401ks a lot of American has, have their retirement accounts if the market takes a dive. Trump is very big on the market. I mean he's always boasting about I got it to 50,000, the Dow to 50,000. What happens if the market drops on Monday, if the war is still going on, if there's American casualties, there's all sorts of pain that Iran can inflict on the US on regional countries. And you know, it's, it's something that they will use. They're not stupid. They have every ability to use that pain, to use that vehicle to cause pain. And they will. I mean again, as I said, Iran has been preparing for this ever since June certainly. But even before that they were, they had some idea that there could be war. When you had someone like Trump constantly throwing, threatening it and someone like Netanyahu was also constantly threatening it. I don't believe that they really believe it was going to happen this weekend, although all the signs were there. But the signs could have been bluffs to get Iran to next week agree to more that more of what Trump wants. Clearly the Omani foreign minister who flew to Washington from Geneva to try to persuade the US not to do anything and allow this process to continue for another week or so was unsuccessful. And then you have all the cheerleaders, the Lindsey Graham's of the world who obviously, you know, get excited whenever there's a war and people are dying. And that's really at the end of the day not going to be good for America. The image of people dying, I don't see how that can be helpful to Trump's. Trump, who wants a Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, the irony of the Board of Peace starting its first war within a week of, of, of instituting the Board of. Emmy, you can't write something like that. The Board of Peace's first war. I mean, how do you, how do you even begin to, to talk about that?
- [47:22]
Jeremy Scahill
Well, so go ahead, Ali. I see you wanting to. Yeah, just Wants to jump in there. Yeah.
- [47:27]
Ali Abunimah
You know, one thing that strikes me, going back to Netanyahu, and I, I admit I didn't listen to the whole of Trump's statement, but I did listen to Netanyahu, where they're constantly calling. And I think Trump did the same thing. They're calling on Iranians to overthrow their government. And I think what that tells us is that they even they don't believe that they have the military means to overthrow the government of Iran. They can't do it by bombing. They can't do it with drones and missiles and Tomahawks. So they still need to do regime change from within. And, you know, they've been relying on sanctions to immiserate Iranians and to create unhappiness. And this is the tool that they've used in country after country In Iraq in the 1990s, Jeremy, that's where you and I first became acquainted with the work that we were doing at the time against Iran, the devastating sanctions against Iraq. And we saw the same playbook again in Palestine, against Gaza, in Syria, where the idea is you attack children, you attack elderly people, you attack sick people by denying them food, medicine, the ability to travel, basic needs, in the hope that they will become so unhappy, they will blame their own rulers instead of blaming those who are doing this to them. And so I don't know, but I just wanted to make the point that the fact that they're leaning so heavily into Iranians having to go out and overthrow their own government, and apparently I heard Al Jazeera saying today that Voice of America was broadcasting to Iranian speeches by Reza Pahlavi exhorting them to go out and overthrow the government. This also seems pretty desperate. I would love to hear what human thinks about that.
- [49:37]
Jeremy Scahill
We can put that to human, but I want to add one, because I am curious to hear human's thoughts on this. But just to add one layer to this, and it relates also human, to something you were saying earlier. Some Iranians that I spoke to today, both officials and people close to the ruling authorities, were saying that, you know, that this is. This is a pipe dream in terms of, like, the regime change aspect of it. But I do get a sense that people believe it's plausible that the US And Israel could assassinate the Supreme Leader and others. I mean, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, I think, caught a lot of people by surprise. As Ali mentioned earlier, Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas and its chief negotiator at the time, was assassinated in Tehran when he was attending the inauguration of the president, and he was killed in a guest house controlled by the irgc. So, you know, we have, and I'm very hesitant always to cite Barack Ravid, the former Israeli intelligence guy who works at Axios and CNN right now, but it's indicative of what's being pushed right now by the Israelis. And I, I just want to say, he's saying now that the Israeli ambassador to Washington has told U.S. officials that Iran's Supreme Leader has been killed in the Israeli strike on his compound. Now, the Israelis sometimes float these stories. They bullshit, they did this.
- [50:59]
Ryan Grim
Reuters and others are reporting the same thing.
- [51:02]
Jeremy Scahill
And so now we're starting to see. So it is, you know, it's possible that this did take place, that there has been a strike that has killed Iran's Supreme Leader. It's possible that part of what Trump did here was to say, if we can do that, if we can kill the Supreme Leader and we can do some massive attacking, and we then are hoping that something happens with the Pahlavi people. I'm sure the Israelis have sold them a bill of goods on the intelligence, you know, pretending that they have, you know, more power on the ground than they do. But it could be that that is Trump's so called off ramp at for a period because the Iranians, last time it was the US And Israel that asked for the ceasefire. It wasn't the Iranians in the June war. So putting together these pieces and the question that Ali was posing, if it does take place, that they kill the Supreme Leader and much of the political and military leadership of the country and the US Is sort of using Voice of America and the Israelis to urge people to rise up, and they're doing this. Where do you see the reality then?
- [52:05]
Ali Abunimah
Human.
- [52:05]
Jeremy Scahill
What are we looking at there?
- [52:07]
Houman Majd
Well, first of all, you don't have to like the Iranian government or the Iranian regime to know that they do have a constitution. You don't have to like the constitution, but there is a constitution that provides for the death of the supreme leader, whether it's by, you know, by poisoning, by assassination, or by natural causes. And in the event of his death, should that happen, you have, I think, I can't remember the exact makeup, but you have some, a cleric from the assembly of Experts, I believe you have the president, assuming that he's alive or, and, and some, somebody from the national security community who then take over this triumvirate, takes over the job of the Supreme Leader until a new supreme Leader is elected by the assembly of Experts. So there is A constitutional way for that to happen. Focusing solely on the Supreme Leader, who is, after all, going to be 87 years old this year, is probably the wrong way. I mean, it might give satisfaction to Benjamin Netanyahu, it might give satisfaction to Donald Trump that he killed the Supreme Leader of Iran. But I don't think that in and of itself is something that will bring about regime change. Now, I think Ali is totally right about what Israel's goal is here. And that's not regime change. It's regime collapse really, more than anything else. Because if its regime changed, well, who's going to replace the regime? The regime exists. There's a bureaucracy, there are technocrats, there are ministries. The country is being run. I'm not saying it's being run. Well, sanctions haven't helped. The economy is terrible. We know all that. But it is being run day to day. The country is being run and it's being run by people, by humans. And those people are crucial to the country being run. And then you've got the security and the military services. The crown prince, former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, claimed sometime after the June war that he had 50,000 people signed up from the military and security services to defect at the right time. Well, the right time was probably January 8th to 9th when the crackdown on the protesters happened. And nobody defected. Nobody said no to firing on, on whether it was protesters or rioters. Nobody came out publicly and said, enough, we're not going to do this. We're not going to kill our own people. It's like, no. They all banded together and said, this is existential. We're going to stop this. We're going to stop these protests. I think so far we're seeing the same thing. Nobody has stepped up. Even if it's true that the supreme leader has been killed, even if it's true, true that Pezeshkian, the president, has been killed, it doesn't matter that much, I should say. I'm not saying that. I don't want to be morbid about it, but it doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things. Trump, when he says regime change, I don't think he knows what regime change means. Usually with George Bush, at least he knew what regime change meant. He wanted to send in a pro consul to take over Iraq and with troops, and that's what we did. But we can't. We're not doing that now. There is no support for that. Troops aren't even in the region. If you wanted to, you know, land 50,000 troops to march up from the Persian Gulf and take over Tehran. We don't even have that. So the regime change is meaningless right now. As you know, the Foreign Minister of Iran was on NBC this morning live from Tehran. And when he was asked about that, he said it's mission impossible. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen because the regime is still together. And you can kill, as he pointed out, you can kill a couple of IRGC generals. There's plenty of them, plenty of officers. The officer corps is quite strong. There are a lot of young people. The Basij militia is almost a million men. When you add them to the regular IRGC of whatever it is, 150,000. So you got almost a million men who are armed. Regime change to replace the regime with what? And if it's Reza Pahlavi. Reza Pahlavi, sure, there's going to be people in Iran who do want to. I'm not going to deny that there are people who have said his name, people who do would prefer him. And again, it depends on how you ask a question in a poll. Would you like Reza Pahlavi or would you like a regime change or who would you like to replace the regime? You'll get different answers. But if you say, would you prefer Reza Pahlavi to the current regime? Some people would say yes, absolutely. But he has no organization, he has no support inside the Iran that are technocrats, military people ready to support him the minute he lands. But he has to be landed by someone. He's not getting on a plane. There is no Air France ready to take him and a bunch of other Iranian exiles to land in Tehran and then to be greeted by a million people at the airport like Khomeini was in 19, 1979. So yeah, that doesn't make sense.
- [57:12]
Ryan Grim
That, and that seems to be the big distinction between this effectively non existent domestic opposition and the governing institutions that remain in place. To add a layer to what you were saying in September during the UN General Assembly, I, I was among a group of 30 or 40, you know, reporters who, who met with possession when he was at the UN and he said, he said then that after the June 12 day war they had developed a six or seven layer deep succession plan. And he was talking and it was, it was, it was interesting to see him talking as if he were going to be killed. Like he understood in that moment that they were trying to kill him and that there was a very good chance that they would succeed in doing that in the not too distant future, which was A just a kind of startling kind of conversation to have with. With another human being. Yeah. Who is. Who doesn't have a terminal diagnosis.
- [58:13]
Houman Majd
Right.
- [58:15]
Ryan Grim
But so they. They were preparing for this. And in January, as we also reported, the possession devolved a lot of power in the event of a war to, you know, governors of governance around the region, so that, you know, in the event communications being cut off or whatever, that they don't need to go back to the central government and that they are, you know, that they are empowered to continue to operate. So. So you have that on the one hand. And Ali, I wanted to ask you about this. So let's say they do successfully assassinate Kamine and possession. The criticism from a lot of people of Kamine over the years that he was too conservative. That. That he was. That he held. That he held back frequently, that the hardliners would say, if you continue to display this kind of weakness, we are going to continue to get hit. Pizzashkin was very loyal to Common, was not going to push out a, you know, ahead of him, ever. So what could be. So the, you know, Lindsey Graham thinks the Shah is coming back. Setting that aside, what type of leadership might the Iranian government have, you know, if they did successfully assassinate the current leadership?
- [59:36]
Ali Abunimah
Well, I think we have to say what an enormous crime that would be, what an outrageous and horrific crime it would be to murder the leader of Iran, to murder Ali Khamenei, who is, no matter what I think of him or you think of him or anyone on this program thinks of him, is beloved by millions of Iranians and is seen as the legitimate leader of Iran. I acknowledge that there are Iranians who oppose the government, who oppose the system. That's their right to oppose the system. But it is not the right of the United States or Israel to murder the leader of Iran or to kidnap the leader of Venezuela or to murder the leaders of resistance movements and popular movements across the region. Israel murdered the prime minister of Yemen a few months ago, something nobody talks about. So the sheer criminality is something we have to stop and acknowledge. And who Iranians choose as their leader is their business. It's not up to me or anyone else to say who should come after that. But I suspect that if you murder the leader of a country, if you impose war and not just murder the leader, and of course, we're only hearing rumors about this. We have to be very clear. These could be Israeli psyops. There's absolutely no reason to believe any of the reports that, that we've heard up to this point, but we have seen that, that Israel and the United States have murdered dozens of children already. Is that going to make Iranians love the United States and love Israel and love Reza Pahlavi, who wants to come in as an agent of the powers that have launched this war of aggression against Iran and waged war in Iran for decades? I mean, Iran had a revolution in 1979 after decades of tyrannical US backed dictatorship. And it was their revolution. And it is not anyone else's business to determine the future of Iran. But Iran has faced, first of all, in 1980, Iran, soon after the revolution, as it was consolidating itself after overthrowing the Shah, Iraq invaded. But it wasn't just Iraq. Iraq was backed by the United States, backed by all of Europe, backed by Germany, which used its decades long expertise in making poison gases to provide Iraq with chemical weapons to gas Iranians with. And I remember when I was a teenager seeing the young Iranian soldiers who had been injured by nerve gas and chemical gas being brought to Europe for treatment in hospitals. And that's an image from the television that I still remember to this day. And they waged war. The Arab regimes, the same ones that now are supporting the US Israeli aggression on Iraq, supported the Iraqi. I mean, the Arab regimes that supporting the US Israeli aggression on Iran are the same Arab regimes that supported the Iraqi invasion of Iran. So Iran is a country that has been under relentless attack by the United States and its Arab neighbors and Israel for decades.
- [63:27]
Houman Majd
For what?
- [63:28]
Ali Abunimah
What has Iran done to deserve this relentless aggression? Iran has not attacked other countries and Iran has not launched wars against other countries. Iran has not developed nuclear weapons. Iran's missiles are clearly for defense use. Iran never launched missiles against any country until it was attacked. When the United states attacked in 2018 and killed General Soleimani, Iran responded by attacking American bases in Iraq. When Israel attacked in June, Iran responded by attacking Israel. Iran is not an aggressive country and it is a country that deserves to be left to develop by itself Iran's politics. You can't separate its internal politics from the constant external aggression, military aggression and aggression by sanctions which are calculated and targeted. Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary of the United States, was boasting recently that the sanctions created the economic crisis in Iran, the collapse of the rial and economic unhappiness. Hillary Clinton has bragged about that. Nancy Pelosi the other day was just saying about how we should use sanctions to create misery and to create suffering. This is the psychopathic hatred of Iran that exists not just in Israel, but All over the west for decade after decade. Iran never invaded these countries, never attacked them. It's time to leave Iran in peace. But what we see now is a US Israeli aggression that is backed by Iran's Arab neighbors. And all of Europe and Canada and Australia and even the, the African Union put out a statement against Iran. Who are these puppets of America all over the world that are behaving this way? It's just unbelievable human.
- [65:40]
Jeremy Scahill
You know, we only have a, a few minutes left. But picking up on some of what Ali said there. You know, there are Iranians that I've spoken to, including recently I met personally with a former senior Iranian official who was sort of describing some of the camps within the kind of ruling sectors of Iran and some of the debates. And this is an official that's been around for many, many years, a very well known Iranian diplomat. And he was saying that, you know, the conclusion that has sort of been reached in the inner circles is that it was in fact a grave mistake not to create a nuclear bomb. And that the message that has been sent is that this was a catastrophic error on Iran's part because it forever left them open to the very kinds of attacks Ali is describing, but in militarized form. And I'm wondering if you can talk about, if it's even relevant at this stage. But I think it's fascinating those strands within the Iran, Iranian ruling classes or structures or governing bodies of difference of political strategy, opinion, and the fact that it did win the day, that we should try to do this by negotiation, that we should publicly renounce the idea that we would ever build a nuclear bomb. And this sense on the part of some Iranian officials that it was a lethal mistake.
- [67:16]
Houman Majd
Yeah, absolutely. But that's been the case, I think, going all the way back to the turn of the century, that there have always been people who've said having a nuclear weapon is going to be our protection inside the very top leadership. But it has been decided, partly because some of the diplomats and some of the ones who don't like the idea of having nuclear weapons which would go against what Khomeini, the previous supreme Leader, the founder of the Islamic Republic, said about nuclear weapons, is that they are haram, they're against the religion, that this would not be good for Iran's reputation, that there is a way to have nuclear energy, the potential to build weapons if we ever have to, according to the Iranians, but to not actually take that step. But yes, this debate's been going on for a long time and I think today you would probably find that it's now probably in the majority, people regretting that they didn't take the path that North Korea did. After all, you know, President Trump met with Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un, and he didn't get anything from it except for a photo op. And we haven't heard a word about North Korea or attacking North Korea because they're in danger. And they actually have missiles that can reach California. So ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, which Iran have neither that can reach the United States. But I think that, yeah, that's. That's a strong possibility that the Iranians will decide that. That the leadership will decide. Whatever the leadership is that comes out of this war will decide that. They have the knowledge, they have the ability to build nuclear weapons. Can they do it without being caught or being attacked? Again, that's a difficult question to answer. I don't know if they have facilities that are so far deep underground that no one can touch. I don't know. Or if they'll start building those, or if the US Will just keep bombing Iran, just mow the grass, as they say, or Israel will. I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say. But, yes, the person that you spoke to is absolutely correct. That debate has been ongoing for a long time. And I think there'll be a lot of pressure by people who are supportive of Iran and supportive of the Islamic Republic as it is, who say you absolutely have to build nuclear weapons. One very quick thing about. With respect to what Ryan was saying earlier, I don't want to suggest that there's no opposition inside Iran. There is opposition to the iri. There's opposition that. It comes in different forms. There's still the reformists who believe that it should be a gradual change in the leadership and gradual change in the form and perhaps even a referendum. As Mousavi, who's under house arrest, the former candidate and former prime minister, said, there are people in jail who. And not a single one of them, to my knowledge, has said, come bomb us. Not a single one has wanted Americans to bomb their country. The ones who are inside, the ones who have been saying, come and bomb us are the ones on the outside, like Reza Palavi. So I'm not suggesting there's no opposition, but there's no organized opposition. There's no one that can come in and just take over. Arguably, you could say that someone like Mousavi might be able to take over. His house was bombed today. Like, if you wanted regime change, why on earth would you bomb the One person who has been under house arrest for 15 years and who has talked about taking, you know, asking for a referendum on what the future of Iran should be. A guy who was a prime minister in Iran is actually a cousin of the supreme leader, but has been on a house arrest. Why would you bomb his house? Why would you want to kill him? If you wanted. If you were legitimately going back to what Ali said, if Israel legitimately wanted regime change that was going to be less hostile to Israel, Mousavi would be a candidate for sure. And then you go and bomb his house. It just almost proves that they don't want anybody who has any kind of legitimacy inside Iran to take over in. In case of a regime change. So. And, you know, I. It's just not. It's not believable right now. And what Trump is saying is not believable, that, you know, people come, go take over the government. How. How is someone supposed to take over the government? If somebody said that to Americans right now and we were being bombed in America, would we go out and take over the government? I don't know how we would. I don't know how I would, but maybe I'm just too old. Maybe young people would figure it out. I don't know. But I don't think the Iranians are prepared to do that. So we're just in this, like, you know, an illegal war, illegal under international law, against the UN Charter, illegal under US Law because he hasn't gone to Congress. There's no. I mean, you just basically declare it's a declaration of war on a third country without any authority under US Law. So, and with no idea of why we're doing it, it's not even clear why we're doing it, why the US has gone to war. It's clear why Israel wants to go to war. That's. They've made that very clear for years in terms of at least this government, the Netanyahu government.
- [72:25]
Ali Abunimah
One, just very briefly, I know that time is running. Time is running out. I mean, one geopolitical aspect here that should be at least mentioned is that, yes, Israel does want the destruction of Iran, but there is a US Interest in that, too. I mean, yes, of course, one can make a rational case that the United States could have good relations with Iran and benefit economically and see a more secure and stable region, if that's what the United States claims it wants. But the other element here is that Iran is geopolitically very important to both Russia and China, which the United States sees as major power arrivals, both for energy and because of its it gives Russia basically access to the sea for trade for perhaps even one day for military purposes. And also it's very, very crucial to China as a source of energy, economic cooperation and so on. So the destruction of Iran is also a severe blow to China and Russia. And so that may also be a major motivator for this US War of aggression as well.
- [73:52]
Jeremy Scahill
One of the founders of electronic intifada.net, and I want to just plug also we've been focused on Iran, of course, for obvious reasons on this stream. But I also want to just emphasize to people that Electronic Intifada for many, many years has been one of the premier sources of reporting by Palestinian journalists in Gaza, in the occupied west bank, in occupied Jerusalem. And I really encourage our viewers, our readers and others to support Electronic Intifada. They've been doing this, they do this work when no one is paying attention. And they have been some of the greatest promoters of the heroic work of Palestinian journalists, including Palestinian journalists who've been assassinated in this serial killer campaign against our colleagues in Palestine. So Ali, I want to just continue our gratitude for what you've built at Electronic Intifada and all the support you've shown for Palestinian journalists on the ground for so many years. Thank you for being with us.
- [74:50]
Ali Abunimah
Thank you so much Jeremy and Ryan
- [74:54]
Jeremy Scahill
and Houman and human majd, always someone that when I think that I really need to try to understand what is happening with us aggressive posture or attacks against Iran, I always turn to you, I always read you. I always appreciate your insights and your analysis. We'll link to both yours and Ali's work. Thank you so much for being with us.
- [75:17]
Houman Majd
Thanks so much to all of you. Ryan, Ali and Jeremy, thank you.
- [75:22]
Jeremy Scahill
And Ryan, you know just in the few minutes here before we wrap up because you cover DC on a day to day TikTok basis, I did want to just ask you about this issue of the timing of the non War Powers resolution. You know, you and I broke this story the other day about how Chuck Schumer and other Democrats going back to the June war have sort of cynically seen opportunity in this situation. On the one hand, many Democrats support a regime change war against Iran. They may not want to say it out loud but their careers and their and what they say in private that we've heard and we've reported on, it's clear that there are some powerful Democrats that are perfectly aligned with this policy. And then there's also a line of thinking by some of those people, but also maybe Democrats that are not so excited about an Iran war, but they see political opportunity in the idea that if Trump does this and it goes wrong, that it's because 70% of the American people right now by recent polls, maybe even higher than that, are against this, that this is going to benefit them in the midterms or in the long term politically. And it's pretty clear that Hakeem Jeffries and other Democrats made sure this war powers resolution didn't go forward. And they were part of the Gang of Eight being briefed by Marco Rubio. It's pretty clear they knew this was coming down the pipeline. They schedule, you know, the vote for after the strike is going to happen. They're deeply complicit in this situation. And they're also cynically and I think scandalously cheering this on in to an extent.
- [77:00]
Ryan Grim
Yes. And before we wrap the stream, I'll also add some, some new reporting that we'll be publishing, you know, very soon over at drop site regarding this, the strike on the girls school in southern Israel where it appears more than 85.
- [77:14]
Jeremy Scahill
Iran, Iran, Iran, not Israel.
- [77:16]
Ryan Grim
Did I say southern Israel, Southern Iran, where more than 85 people at this school. There were 170 students or so in there. And we'll get to that in a moment. But I think it's extremely important context for understanding the depth of the cynicism of this strategy because we're not talking about, we're not talking about just kind of meaningless horse race chatter here to, to pick up a couple extra seats in the midterms. We're talking about, you know, nine and ten year old little girls getting, getting ripped apart within moments of arriving at school who have nothing to do with anything. And so part of the reporting that we did was around this, this June, this moment that happened in June ahead of the, the last assault on Iran where Trump said he's going to, you know, he's going to attack Iran. And then he made some gestures towards, oh, maybe we'll have a diplomatic opening as, as he does. Like that's his, that's his pattern. And when he did that, Chuck Schumer put out a video mocking Trump as Taco Trump. You know, Trump always chickens out, you know, make making fun of Trump for moving from his belligerence, you know, back toward his back toward, you know, lying about a diplomatic resolution. And a group of more than two dozen kind of anti war organizations in, in Washington, D.C. sent Schumer a letter that said, what are you doing? Like, why are you trying to goad Trump into war, like there's no political benefit worth the cost of inhuman lives that will come from goading him into this war. You know, don't, don't, don't McFly this situation. And it led to a call then between one of the leaders of one of these organizations and somebody in a top foreign policy advisor in Schumer's office. The advisor said, listen, what you need to understand is that in the Democratic caucus, among the senators here, there is a strong, there is actually, you know, strong, quiet support for U. S. Attacks on Iran. But we also understand that doing so would be deeply politically unpopular. Nobody wants a new war in the Middle East. They like the policy. They would like to see the regime change in Iran, but they don't want to be the ones with their fingerprints on it. They would rather that Trump carries it out. And as a bonus, they believe that it will split the MAGA coalition, that it would be terrible politics for Trump to launch a war on Iran. So it's this political win, win for Democrats. It hurts Trump among his base. It hurts Trump among all voters. Independents, too, are deeply opposed to a unilateral or bilateral attack on Iran, but also their benefactors, and they themselves support the policy. So. So it's perfect for them. Now, the, the foreign policy aide added, Schumer doesn't believe that. It's not. Of course it's not. Schumer would never be so cynical. Schumer opposes war, but this is the, you know, this is the posture that he's dealing with among so many Senate Democrats. So that's something you need to understand as he's kind of navigating this, this political situation. So, yeah, so they, they were then briefed, you know, Rokana, Democrat of California, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Republican, put forward this war powers resolution. The gang of eight, which includes Jeffries and Schumer, were briefed by the intelligence community in Rubio about the plans. They come out of this briefing signaling that they've been told effectively that war is coming. And they do, and they do nothing to advance the vote on the war Powers resolution. They finally, under pressure, said, okay, we'll do it next week. The whole. You and I see, like, the whole world knew this was coming this weekend. They certainly must have known. And so now it'll still, it'll still come up for a vote. And look, depending on what happens between now and then, it's a good chance it loses. That's the other thing. Like, support for war in Washington is always pretty strong, but they, and just from a cynical political perspective, the actual politics would be to put Republicans on the record in support of this war, Democrats oppose it, and go back and, you know, align yourself with those exact cynical politics that Schumer's aide was outlining in June. But because the pro Israel lobby here in Washington would look askance at a vote against this war, they would, they would actually sacrifice that extra political benefit for themselves to do that favor for the pro Israel lobby. So because now you're going to have to have some Democrats who are going to be pressured. Voters want them to oppose this war. Their donors want them to support it. And so that's why you see all of these statements coming out of Jeffries and others that aren't even yet condemning the attack. They're saying, like, he needs to explain himself, Iran should not have a nuclear program. But Trump is recklessly putting, they also, they all know Trump is recklessly putting American troops, lives at risk. And that's because, you know, they understand that Americans could die in this, which would be a massive political benefit to Democrats and a, and a cost to Trump. And to not do everything in your power to stop that, to me reflects an extraordinary level of cynicism that even beyond what we're typically used to here in Washington. And nothing tells that story more than, you know, what happened to these girls at the elementary school this morning.
- [83:30]
Jeremy Scahill
Yeah. And it's, and, and our colleague Sharif Abdul Kadus is going to be, he's, he's finishing that story. And, and people can find that shortly. And again, just to recap. Massive. Yeah, go ahead.
- [83:43]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, just, just to read a little bit that Sharif, and Sharif had passed on. So Dropsite has a reporter who visited the school because initially there was some, there were some questions like, oh, is this fake? You know, is this, is this propaganda coming out of Iran? So we had a reporter who went to the school and interviewed parents. Now there are some, you know, claims coming out, oh, this is an Iranian missile misfire. Well, even if it was, it was, it only happened because the country was like attacked in broad daylight with, for no reason. And so the, the reporter talked to the parents, talked to the, the mother of Fatima Ali, who's a nine year old student. And, and the mom said, you know, when we arrived at the school, the place was in chaos. The school itself didn't know how to handle the situation. There was no accurate information about what was happening. Every time we asked someone, they said, be patient until we get the girls out from under the rubble. The family did not learn that Fatima had been killed until around 4pm local time when they, when they found her body there. A second parent, Mohammed Shari Tamadar, said, you know, quote, we are, we are talking about small children who knew nothing of politics or war, and yet they are the ones paying the highest price. The same parent said, I want the world to know that the children are the real victims. Every day that passes without a solution increases the pain and the suffering for the families and for the children alike. There were some 170 students inside this building attending morning classes when, when the missile struck and at least 85 were killed. And that's according to the Iranian judiciary. Most of them were schoolgirls between the ages of 7 and 12 year. 12 years old.
- [85:34]
Houman Majd
Yeah.
- [85:36]
Jeremy Scahill
Well, on, on, on that, that note, Ryan, it's a, it actually is a powerful way to end because at the end of the day we're talking about a nation of 90 million people here and this is a massive attack. It's in very clearly illegal war and it's a war of aggression. We're going to continue to report on all aspects of this at Dropsite News. I would also encourage people, regardless of what you think of X or Twitter, the feed that is put out by the remarkable team at Dropsite News is worth monitoring. We're basically running a 24.7news service and Herman Gill, who is the main social media coordinator for Dropsite News, often will. He pulls all nighters all the time, especially at moments like this and I want to just give him a shout out. And our colleague Jawa Ahmed also really just they all. And Sammy Vanderlip who is another one of the people that really just tirelessly works on that feed. Kamal, who people know as Halal Flow on Twitter, we're blessed with a remarkable team of people that do this because they care and they're dedicated and on that drop site news X feed it really, I think it's the best ongoing source of news that you can find anywhere on these issues. So, so please check it out. Thank you also to our, our friends at Breaking Points for this joint stream and, and, and gratitude also to the Breaking Points audience for your continued support of Dropsite News. On behalf of Ryan Grim and myself, the whole team at Dropsite News. If you can become a paid subscriber, it's one of the main ways that we fund our journalism. We don't put anything behind a paywall but we do include encourage you to support us if you can keep checking dropsitenews.com we have more breaking news reports coming up. Thank you so much for joining us.