Emergency Broadcast: US-Israeli War on Iran w/ Séamus Malekafzali

Summary

Empire Files: Emergency Broadcast – US-Israeli War on Iran w/ Séamus Malekafzali

Date: June 13, 2025
Host: Abby Martin & Empire Files Team
Guest: Séamus Malekafzali, Iranian American journalist

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Overview

This emergency episode of Empire Files dissects the unprecedented escalation between Israel, the United States, and Iran following an aggressive, multi-pronged Israeli attack on Tehran. With high-level military meetings happening in both the White House and Iran, and activists protesting in Washington, D.C., the hosts and guest Séamus Malekafzali provide real-time analysis, contextual background, and unfiltered reactions to this explosive new phase in Middle Eastern conflict.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Details of the Israeli Attack on Iran

[00:47-06:31]

• Israel launched a highly coordinated and devastating attack on Tehran, resulting in around 100 casualties, including numerous children.
• Key military leaders were assassinated:
  • Chief of Staff Mohammed Bagheri
  • Aerospace Force Chief Hajizadeh
  • IRGC Commander Hossein Salami
  • Numerous top nuclear physicists, notably Feridun Abbasi and Mohammad Tehranqi
• Israeli strikes combined missile attacks with in situ Mossad operations, involving sabotage and further assassinations.
• Israel exploited Jordanian and Syrian airspace to carry out the strike; retaliatory Iranian drones were mostly shot down in these third countries’ airspace.

"Even during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, nothing was this targeted or succeeded in decapitating Iran’s military command so thoroughly." – Séamus Malekafzali [01:17]

2. Regional Implications & Unprecedented Escalation

[06:31-11:42]

• The operation's scale is compared to the most severe Mossad infiltrations in history, but surpasses them by striking Iran’s “official government military wing.”
• Discussion of Israel’s potential objectives:
  • Short-term: ensure Iran’s military is never a threat, regardless of regime
  • Long-term: ideally, regime change
• The elimination of top brass and simultaneous attacks on nuclear reactors (including Natanz and Fordo) signals an attempt to paralyze Iran’s defense capability.
• Environmental and humanitarian concerns over repeated attacks on nuclear infrastructure:

"Horrifying environmentally…deliberately, repeatedly striking nuclear reactors. What are they doing—another Fukushima?" – Abby Martin [09:45]

3. Shifting Attitudes Within Iran and The End of Restraint

[11:42-13:25]

• Internal Iranian frustration grows over continual “symbolic responses” to Israeli and US actions.
• Parliamentarians are publicly demanding authorization to build nuclear weapons—something previously taboo.
• Iranian population largely supports acquiring nuclear weapons, especially in face of existential threat.
• Guest Séamus emphasizes the gravity of this moment, describing a sense of “deer in headlights” from Iranian officials, facing a scenario they’ve prepared for but are now unable to respond to adequately.

4. US and Israeli Narratives; Alignment in Policy

[13:25-17:12]

• Mainstream Western media frames the strike as “preemptive,” absolving the US of complicity and painting Netanyahu as a rogue actor.
• In reality, both US parties (Trump, Biden, Harris, et al.) remain ideologically aligned with Israel’s military posture.
• Little meaningful opposition from US political establishment; Democrats who once criticized military adventurism are now silent or supportive.

"This train is barreling down the tracks and I don’t know from what sector of power, what opposition could [stop it]." – Séamus Malekafzali [16:54]

5. The Iran Nuclear Reality: Myth vs. Fact

[17:27-23:22]

• Israel and the US have claimed for decades that Iran is always “five years from a nuke”; evidence is still lacking.
• Iran’s nuclear program is focused on civilian energy; technical capability for weaponization exists but is blocked by the Supreme Leader’s fatwa.
• Growing public, political, and scientific frustration within Iran as the West continually breaks agreements like the JCPOA.

"We can make a nuclear weapon very easily...but we were never given the order to do that." – Séamus Malekafzali, citing assassinated nuclear scientist Feridun Abbasi [18:37]

• The panel delves into the rationale for why Iranians now support weaponization: a matter of survival in the face of overwhelming aggression from a “rogue nuclear army next door.”

6. Humanitarianism, Rhetoric, and the End of Pretense

[23:22-27:07]

• Israeli and Western rhetoric dehumanizes Iranians and Arabs; attacks are no longer cloaked in any “regime change/humanitarian” pretense but are openly destructive.
• Return to a “medieval barbarism” and sadism; the soft power façade eliminated.

"This is a return to the old colonial ways…The total destruction of American soft power, no need for USAID, no need…to portray to the world America wants friendship." – Séamus Malekafzali [26:44]

7. Negotiations, Plausible Deniability, and the Roles of the US and Israel

[27:07-32:35]

• Allegations that Israel acted unilaterally are dismissed; the US retains plausible deniability but is fundamentally complicit.
• Diplomatic overtures offered to Iran are described as a “surrender deal”—no enrichment, no sanctions relief, no compromise.
• Regardless of Iran’s actions, US-Israeli policy would continue to find justification for aggression.

"If Israel was really concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, they could easily make sure Iran didn’t have a nuke...But that’s clearly not their goal." – Abby Martin [31:14]

8. Deeper Motives and Narratives within the American and Israeli Societies

[32:35-36:18]

• Israeli doctrine: no amount of military capability outside its sphere of influence is tolerable, especially post-Assad in Syria.
• The existential threat is defined as “your existence, your breathing, your unwillingness to be subjugated.”
• US leaders and institutions, including those on the left, continue to evade the moral reckoning by localizing responsibility to figures like Netanyahu rather than systemic ideology.

"There has to be...an Israeli population that wants peace...Because the realization that you have backed to the hilt a Nazi state...is deeply shocking to the American fabric." – Séamus Malekafzali [36:18]

9. Escalation Risks, Prospects for Resistance, and Hope

[38:49-42:18]

• The only potential brake on escalation is massive domestic upheaval in the US—mass protest and direct action, not congressional or institutional checks.
• Trump’s “shock and awe” approach to policy, both domestic and foreign, leaves few avenues for institutional restraint.

"The only possible breaks on this...are a domestic crisis...grassroots struggle and mobilization...[like the protests] against ICE." – Empire Files [40:23]

• Final calls for solidarity and hope for international intervention or domestic upheaval to stop the march to total war.

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Memorable Quotes

• "Even during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, nothing was this targeted or succeeded in decapitating Iran’s military command so thoroughly." – Séamus Malekafzali [01:17]

• "No, these are like the lunatic, like this window of chance, right? This is a lunatic state...They want your country destroyed. They want it annihilated." – Séamus Malekafzali [09:56]

• "This is it. They’re treating it like this is it. This is the thing they’ve been talking about literally my entire life." – Séamus Malekafzali [11:42]

• "This train is barreling down the tracks and I don’t know from what sector of power, what opposition could [stop it]." – Séamus Malekafzali [16:54]

• "It is so insane...I just want to say the obvious fact that I think Iran should have a nuke...when you’re next to an insane rogue nuclear army that is constantly terrorizing you, I don’t understand why you shouldn’t have a nuke." – Abby Martin [18:01]

• "The abandonment of any pretense of humanitarianism. The mask has fully been removed. The hatred is very clear." – Empire Files [26:08]

• "If Israel was really concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, they could easily make sure Iran didn’t have a nuke...But that’s clearly not their goal." – Abby Martin [31:14]

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Timestamps by Topic

• [00:03] – Setting the scene: US protests, White House & Iran military meetings
• [00:47-06:31] – Details of Israel’s attack and assassinations
• [06:31-11:42] – Scale, implications, Israeli objectives
• [11:42-13:25] – Iranian frustration, public debate on nukes
• [13:25-17:12] – US/Israel narratives and political complicity
• [17:27-23:22] – The real state of Iran’s nuclear program
• [23:22-27:07] – Collapse of pretenses, humanitarian rhetoric gone
• [27:07-32:35] – Farcical negotiations, US role, plausible deniability
• [32:35-36:18] – Existential threat to Iran, American/Israeli self-justification
• [38:49-42:18] – Grassroots action as the only hope for de-escalation

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Conclusion

In this urgent and unfiltered discussion, Abby Martin and Séamus Malekafzali lay bare the catastrophic consequences of the US and Israel’s war against Iran, the geopolitical machinations enabling it, and the chilling end of any pretense of Western humanitarianism. The episode ends with a sober call for massive grassroots resistance as the only barrier left against total war.

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Follow-up:

• Read Séamus Malekafzali’s Substack for further analysis
• Get involved with grassroots movements pushing for de-escalation and accountability

Transcript

[A]

FOREIGN

[B]

it's the morning of Friday, June 13, and as activists are descending on Washington, D.C. to protest Trump's military parade and as American troops are being illegally deployed against the righteous uprising against lawlessness from ice, there are also two high level military meetings taking place today, both in the White House and in Iran, planning the next stages set in motion by Israel's aggressive strikes on Tehran, the first confirmed fatality of which being a child. Where could all this go? We're here to talk about it in this emergency broadcast. Joining us to break it down is Seamus Malikoff Salih, Iranian American journalist writing extensively at Substack, which we will link to in the description as well as other outlets. Thanks for joining us, Seamus, on such short notice.

[A]

It's all right. Thank you for having me.

[C]

Seamus. Let's just start by talking about what exactly Israel did yesterday in Iran. Who did they target? Who do you know has died so far? Because it's pretty alarming waking up to see that the casualties have been, you know, it's about 100 people nearly including many children. It seems pretty unprecedented, even though we know Israel has been assassinating scientists and engineers inside of Iran for decades. But it seems like the scale of this hasn't been seen for quite a bit.

[A]

Something like this hasn't been seen on this scale since the war with Iraq, Iran in the 1980s. I mean, during that period there were many different ballistic missile attacks on the capital as well as other areas of Iran. But even then, nothing this targeted nothing with this level of success in, in decapitating major military commanders. I mean, right now it seems like the entire top brass of the Iranian military has been assassinated. The chief of staff, the chief of staff of the armed forces, Mohammed Bogheri, has been killed. The chief of the aerospace force of the irgc, Hajizadeh has been killed. Commander chief of the irgc, Hossein Salami has been killed, as well as the deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, numerous nuclear physicists who were active in the program at one point or another. I don't have all the names in front of me, but I know that the two major targets were Feridun Abbasi and Mohammad Tehran. She these people weren't in the nuclear program now, but they were major figures in it. At one point in the past, Abbasi mostly did media interviews and Tehran Qi was president of a university here in Teflon. Now they've been able to appoint replacements almost immediately for all of these figures. There is, there is still the command and control is still intact, including at the university itself. But I mean, the attacks have been the most widespread that has ever been attempted inside Iran, and they are still ongoing. Um, I mean, I went to sleep when the initial Iranian retaliation was being reported. About 100 some drones. And when I woke up, I had found out that most of it had been shot down. Out. Almost, almost the entirety of it had been shot down outside of Israeli borders through Jordan.

[C]

Which is crazy because. Because didn't Israel cross Jordan's airspace in order to do this?

[A]

Almost certainly. Almost certainly the utilized Jordanian airspace, but also they. It was shot down over Jordanian air, but also Syrian airspace. Because now Israel has much more freedom to operate inside Syrian airspace after Bashar Al Assad was overthrown.

[C]

I mean, it's just so crazy to think that, that these states are actually letting them, letting Israel use their airspace, but then shooting down anything that's retaliatory. It's just, it's just unbelievable.

[A]

No, the argument, the argument is that, well, we don't want our airspace to be utilized for wars between countries. But of course, Israeli jets, Israeli drones, Israeli missiles are never shut down.

[B]

And was the entirety of the Israeli attack, was it. What did Israel do? Were they firing missiles that struck all these people? Or were there Mossad agents that carried out simultaneous assassinations? Like, what do we know about the complexity of the Israeli attack?

[A]

I'm unclear as to how much was one thing, but I know it was a combination of missiles and also clandestine Mossad operations. The most severe of which, and I'm, I'm astonished that this was able to happen, was there was video release that showed Mossad operatives taking down the ability for Iran to retaliate. Like when the retaliation was happening, the Mossad agents were on the ground sabotaging it. Right. This is the like well known for years, the Mossad has infiltrated Iran, its nuclear program, its military. In a very vast and wide degree, this is undeniable. And Iran would freely admit this, but the extent to which it has infiltrated, the extent to which it struck the locations of everyone it seemed to have known, has shocked a lot of people. I mean, I have never seen so many people bewildered, confused as to how this could possibly happen. I can only speak for myself in that while all of this talk was occurring about a potential Israeli attack, I assumed, worst case scenario, in this opening salvo, they would do coordinated strike on all these different nuclear reactors, like they're doing, like they did yesterday at Natanz. And what they're doing right now, as we speak in Fordham, to go after the entire Iranian military apparatus at once that shows the world we're living in now, one that we're still adjusting to. And we don't. We still, I don't think, have processed yet. Not even the Iranian military itself, which has been at the forefront of all of this.

[C]

Well, it's such an escalation because, I mean, you can compare it to the pager attacks in terms of the widespread infiltration by the Mossad, the kind of unprecedented nature of how successful that operation was, how devastating and paralyzing and decapitating that was. But then here it's. It's so much more pervasive and scary because this is the actual established military wing of the official government. This is insane. This is a horrific attack that is totally unprecedented that has wiped out the entire top brass.

[B]

Yeah. And you, you know, you have to. It's like, what are we seeing from Israel right now in terms of where they want this to go? Because you would imagine that something of this scale. And I said this at the beginning, you know, right when the, when October 7th happened, I think our first show we did about it, I said my biggest worry here is that Israel sees this as their last, best chance to go for all of their goals now as public opinion is going to quickly deteriorate, this is their moment. And of course, overthrowing the Iranian government is one of those main goals. And so the stuff coming from Israel, Netanyahu. Does it seem like Netanyahu said this is going to keep going until, you know, they're safe or whatever? But it would seem both the US and the Israeli government thinking, especially with a scale like this. Right. Like, we could, we could pursue this until the regime falls. And then if that is the case, then, you know, I think throughout the duration of Israeli and US Attacks on Iran, the responses from Iran have always been like, extreme restraint. Like, we have to do something because we can't just let our people be killed and attacks on our soil, but we want to do the most minimal thing possible to say we did something and to it to the point where maybe it's sometimes frustrating. It's like, oh, that you're just doing these symbolic attacks. But now it's, it's like existential for them. I mean, so I think the danger is so heightened because if the US And Israel are deciding, hey, we can push this till, till the end, that must, that has to weigh into the calculations for Iran's retaliation.

[A]

Yeah, I'm. In terms of what Israel wants at the end of this, I'm, I'm hesitant to talk about the desire for regime change immediately. I have no doubt that's what they actually want in the grand scheme of things. But I don't think that's in their immediate what they want to achieve right now. What they're just focused on is what they were focused on doing in Syria after Assad fall, making sure that no matter what government comes in, whether it's more radical than this one or less radical or whatever, it will never pose any sort of threat, even in an infinitesimal amount to Israel. Nothing can remain that can be utilized as a threat against it. So they're going to continue going after the new successors to the commanders who have been, who have been killed. I have no doubt about that. They're going to continue hitting Iranian military installations. They're going to continue hitting more nuclear reactors, nuclear enrichment facilities, even though those are deep underground. And I don't think there's many people who would really say that it could be stopped just by Eric Daxton alone,

[C]

which is also just horrifying environmentally, that they're just deliberately repeatedly striking nuclear reactors. Well, another Fukushima. Like, what the are they doing?

[A]

No, these are like the lunatic, like this window of chance, right? This is a lunatic state. These people want. They're demolishing apartment buildings. They're hitting nuclear facilities, nuclear reactors. They, they want. I, I have to, I have to sometimes restrain myself from this, like, being, being fruitful, like, no, there is no right dealing with people who think that Israel actually wants, like, a better future for Iran, whatever that could be. No, these people want you dead. They want your country destroyed. They want it annihilated. They want you subjugated. They want you pathetic. They want you to. Screaming for something to abate. That is what they want for you. They don't want you to have health or freedom or anything. They want you to be mutilated and mourning and constantly begging for God to take you. This isn't it. You can't reason with this. And this is what makes me so. In talking about what you were referring to, Mike, with the restraint, the want to do a symbolic strike, we're reaching, we already reached the end of that point last year, I think. But right now I keep seeing, like, responses from the president, Pezeshkian, you know, a couple of the vice presidents talking about the need for a strong retaliation or even going back to the negotiating table or like, we're still, we're still in this routine in which we can talk about, well, we'll, we'll, we'll hit them when they're not expecting it. Oh, and it's going to be so bad. It's going to be so great. No, like, this is it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're treating it. This really is. Treating it like this is it. This is the thing they've been talking about literally my entire life.

[C]

I'm young, right.

[A]

My. My entire life has been talk of a potential American and Israeli attack on Iran to target a super program that's been the entire animus of the Western military establishment for 20 some years now. They're doing it. There is no ramp higher than that. This is. This is it. If you are not treating it like that, then there is no. I don't, I don't know what to, what, what to, what to give advice for or do anything. Like, this is when. When there are parliamentarians on tv. It's just happened a couple hours ago, it's on state tv. This is something that almost never happens. Last time it happened in 2021, there was, there was immense controversy about it. When a parliamentarian is begging the supreme Leader to let them allow nuclear weapons to be constructed, demanding to know why on earth we're still doing these symbolic strikes that don't do anything. This is like people are demanding a huge retaliation to protect an industry that is overwhelmingly favored by these. By the Iranian population of nuclear. Of civilian nuclear energy. Mm. We've been, We've been supposed. The Iranian establishment has supposedly been preparing for this, their entire existence, for confrontation. And now that it's here, it's like deer in headlights, Right?

[B]

Yeah. Because what you're describing is war. When you, when you say what Israel plans to do, saying the bombings are ongoing, the targeting is ongoing, the assassin, like, that's war. You. What you are describing as Israel's plan is to continue to wage war on Iran, right?

[C]

Yeah. And I mean, I mean what you just said about the unadulterated nature of just kind of the fascist character of Israel, I think the, you know, before we get into the more granular detail of what you're talking about and the implications of this, I just think that the revelations of the genocide has been, Israel is a fat, full blown fascist society, fascist state, and all of the supporters of Israel are also just unadulterated fascists. And this is what fascism is. And they want anyone who's not them dead. And it's kind of been an insane thing to grapple with Seamus, because I, even in my 40 years, like through the Bush administration stuff, I've never seen it get to this fever pitch where everyone's just like, revealed themselves for who they are. So that aside, it is crazy to be warned about the war with Iran for the last 20 years as well. I mean, we saw Wesley Clark, we saw the writing on the wall. We've all been trying to prevent this, you know, yelling on the rooftops for the last 20 years. And here it is right here it is under the, under Donald Trump, who, you know, basically posited himself as the anti neocon, the anti war candidate through JD Vance. And here we are. And all of this bluster and fake news coming out about how the US Wasn't privy to this or how they sidestepped the US to destroy the negotiations. I mean, all of that is just

[B]

so phony coming from both sides. It's the right talking point. And even, like, you know, Democrats and stuff are saying, like, oh, like that Netanyahu is acting as a Roe actor and it's going to destroy Trump's presidency, like he destroyed Biden's presidency and stuff like that. You know, it's like as if Trump and, and, and Biden are not completely ideologically aligned with these military goals and stuff like that.

[A]

But, yeah, yeah, I would say until we move it to the grand. You're talking about. There was a post by one of Kamala Harrison's advisors, one of her former advisors, taking the perspective that, like, Trump was selling out Israel by not promising them full support, by claiming that they didn't know what was going on. And there was something that the Kamala campaign said during the election season about how, like, Trump was not a good ally to Israel because after Iran retaliated for the assassination of Ghassem Soleimani, the US didn't hit back for when they hit Al Assad Air Base. What are we, what are we doing here? What, what isn't there supposed to be? I, I remember, I don't, like, I'm young, but I don't have a short memory. I remember distinctly when there were still Democrats very publicly, you know, going up against the, the president being very adamant that this was a mistake. That was America's across the barrel. This was something that they, that they were a party to these disasters that were happening all across the Middle East. And now, I mean, the, the people at the forefront of the party are doing nothing. Chuck Schumer hasn't said anything yet, but I'm sure loves what's happened here. Yeah, there's this, this train is barreling down the tracks, and I don't know from what sector of power, what opposition could he.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Because everyone has been primed for this in the American establishment. Well, that's for years and years.

[C]

Yeah, that's what's so weird is that we've been primed to think that this is like the worst possible scenario, like the worst case thing.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And so the, to, to not have that mirrored with the reaction is just like, very ominous.

[B]

Yeah, the number one, the number one reaction from American politicians was perhaps pray for Israel.

[C]

Pray for Israel. And like this was a preemptive strike. Like, like literally the New York Times is like, Israel does a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear program. That's literally, it's like that. Is that, is this really the framing that we're going with right now?

[B]

Yeah, maybe. You know what, it would be good to break down the, the nuclear reality in Iran. Right. They have a civil, they have a nuclear energy program. They also have some capacity to have certain steps to get to nuclear weapons, which, you know, they are constantly negotiating. And like, so what is, let's debunk some of the, the narrative from the US And Israel that the rationale of this was preemptive because Iran was close to a nuclear weapon and was refusing to negotiate and things like that.

[C]

And before you get into that, let's just mention that Israel has been saying this for 30 years.

[A]

Yeah, more.

[B]

Probably more like literally five years away from a nuke.

[C]

Like, I have been hearing this since I was born. Like, I literally just feel like this has always been in the backdrop of my life, like an imminent nuclear strike. And also. Yeah, so go, so go into the nuclear reality because I just want to say the obvious fact that I think Iran should have a nuke. I think that when you're next to an insane rogue nuclear army that has like a lot that is constantly terrorizing you, I don't understand why you shouldn't have a nuke. And also why shouldn't you have a peaceful nuclear energy program? Like, it is so insane and it's never been any evidence more than that. But I'm curious to hear your, your timeline on this.

[A]

And there are polls that show that something like a plurality or the majority of the Iranian population agrees with you on this fact. Now we had talked about this, I think the first time that I, I spoke with you guys back in 2020, 2021. But there have been developments in that, in that field since then. After the failure of the jcpoa, Iran decided, after years of sanctions, with nothing in return, they decided, okay, we're going to start wrapping up our nuclear enrichment. And people in power were very Clear at the time that this is a negotiating tactic. Right. We're going to. If you fear enrichment from Iran, then we're going to give you enrichment. And if you want this, Richard, to go down, then you have to come back and you have to, you have to give us a steal that we already are agreed to. Right. Like you are beholden to this deal. But the failure of that deal really empowered a lot of people, and correctly, I'm going back. Who said from the beginning that this deal was a violation of Iranian sovereignty and that America was never going to uphold this end of the deal, that it was fundamentally untrustworthy. So people, politicians like Saeed Jalili, previously failed presidential candidates, people who were known as, as total failures in the Iranian negotiating space because they refused to budge on nuclear issues. Suddenly they have a renewed popularity. They get to the second round of the elections because they're speaking to fundamental realities about what our relationship is with America, what Iran's relationship is with America. The Iranian population has really moved in the direction of wanting a nuclear weapon of something that was completely taboo to talk about in the media some years ago is now very freely talked about. And the key thing here is that even if nuclear enrichment is hovering around 60% right now, which is still 30% below 90% that you need for a nuclear weapon, the fundamental obstacle right here is not time or some nebulous breakout time that they're always talking about. It's the supreme leader who issued a fatwa many years ago saying that Iran would never make a nuclear weapon. And the best evidence to me that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon is because whenever Iranian nuclear scientists are interviewed, whatever parliamentarians go on TV and talk about this issue, you can hear the frustration in their voice being like, like Feyre Dun Abbasid, one of the nuclear scientists who was just assassinated yesterday. His last interview, the very last interview he ever did a couple weeks ago, you could hear it in his voice, like, talking about, like, you know, we can make a nuclear weapon very easily. We have all that technology, but we were never given the order to do that. And so we just sat for 15, 20 years doing civilian power. And then another interviews, talks about, yeah, we could have, we could have had nuclear submarines. We could have different radiopharmaceuticals. Yeah, but we wanted to.

[C]

Couldn't the, the detractors just be like, well, that's just like a religious verdict and that, you know, they're just like lying. Like, why would they really just follow that? Like, they could just be lying to us, You Know.

[A]

No. Like. Like why someone does not express it that way if this is clearly not the reality of the situation. Like. And, and we're at the point where the discourse is firmly in the, in the bank of like, all right, we have nothing to lose now. We have all this technology. We have the enrichment. We know that this thing is well insulated against military tech. It's the one thing we've insulated on all sides against military attack. Our capabilities spread all across the country. Why are we not making a nuclear weapon?

[B]

And I think it's important to point out that why is public opinion in Iran and the frustration you're describing from nuclear scientists who want to develop a nuclear weapon, why is that? It's because they know that Israel wants to destroy their country and kill them. Right. It's not the, the Israeli and US Narrative is Iran is this extremist fundamentalist regime that wants a nuclear weapon so it can wipe out Israel in a, in a, in a, in an aggressive strike, in a war of aggression, when the only thing we've seen from Iran is a, a willingness to negotiate, to coexist and all of these things. And so the, the, the idea that, you know, there is a desire for a nuclear weapon in Iran, I would say it's pretty justified based on the reality, which is the reality that we're seeing play out now. You know, they do not have a nuclear weapon yet. They are coming under attack and civilians are being bombed in their capital.

[A]

Exactly. I mean, the main line about this has been this. Iran wants a referendum in Israel that all Palestinian refugees can vote in. Palestinians inside the country and outside can vote in, and they can decide what sort of system they want. That's been the solution that they've postulated for decades, that they've been proposing for decades. When they talk about the massive military results on Israel, it's always in the, it's almost always in the context of, okay, if Israel attacks us, then we're going to come at them with everything that we have. That's always been the fundamental thing about this. And just look at the ways, what you're talking about, Abby, the ways in which Israelis are speaking about this, about as soon as the missile started flying. I see so many comments on social media about the monkeys that are in power in Iran talking about how great it is, like Blake Fleet talking about how great it is to be gay in Tel Aviv now that they're flying missiles at the Islamic Republic, like, fundamentally, like no concern for who's dying, for who's being killed when Your fucking entire apartment building has been demolished. Excuse my language. Like, it's we. We've got like. I've been reading Richard Beck's book recently, Homeland. Great, great new book. Everybody should pick it up. And in that book he talks about the fundamental contradiction of the war and terror when it first began. The idea that we have such deep hatred for these Arabs, these Afghans, these Iranians, these. These baboons, these subhuman freaks. But also we really want to save them. We want to give them freedom. We love the people, aren't these. And also, you know, the sexual element. You know, their women are so beautiful.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Why. Why are they under wraps?

[C]

Take it off. After Afghanistan, they're like, why are you still wearing burgers circas.

[A]

When I posted a photo of a firefighter, a female firefighter in Tehran comforting an Iranian woman who was in. Who was in a niqab, who was in a. Sorry. So many comments about black garbage bags and demons being under. Under it. We've. The thing that I think has been most emphasized in the post October 7th world is the abandonment really of the idea that regime change should be the major goal of anything or that on some level we desire a better life for whatever population we're attacking.

[C]

Yeah. The abandonment of any pretense of humanitarianism. The mask has fully been removed. The hatred is very clear, Seamus. And I think it's alarming because of just. We've lived through so many decades of the. The rehabilitation of the CIA and the State Department, especially like after 9, 11 and the war on terror with Bush. So it's just, it's just crazy to go back to like a medieval type, like, like almost like on steroids. This barbarism and sadism, like, this is

[A]

a return to the old colonial ways of doing things. The total destruction of American soft power. No need for usaid, no need for any organs to portray to the world that America wants friendship or even if it's obviously a lie. But just there was an idea that at one point these things were important. Now it's all out the window.

[C]

Oh yeah.

[B]

I mean even look at, look at the, the Iraq War, which as there was that there. There was like, they had to go through this rigamarole of like, oh, well, you got to prove you don't have WMDs or we're going to attack. And like taking it to the un, presenting evidence, being like, they're not letting in inspectors. Even though all that was. Even though it was all filled with lies and bullshit, they had to put on this show like if we're going to do a preemptive strike, we really have to justify that. This is a, a legitimate preemptive strike. They just made up a bunch of shit to do it, which was, was a shocking and just dark time. But now it's. There isn't. They're just like, just trust us. They're. They're about to develop a nuke and this is a preemptive strike. We're going to get attacked by a nuke if we don't do this right now. And if that's, there's no. Who is keeping them in check, who's questioning it, what, what international body is, is, is holding them accountable for it. And as there's a negotiations like, about to happen, right. I mean, this is like in the middle of, like the, the willingness to, to talk about these things. Things. So I wanted you to maybe comment on that, like the kind of timing of this in relation to, and Iran's willingness to, to be at the negotiating table. But also, you know, we touched on it earlier, but we didn't never really talked about it, about this idea that like, Trump was like, blindsided like this. You know, Marco Rubio came out and said this was a unilateral strike. We had nothing to do with it and we're just going to protect our forces. And the idea that somehow Israel acted alone in this operation,

[A]

I mean, in terms of the negotiations, I mean, obviously now it's been revealed that they were all kind of farce. But Iran has always been, always said, like, we are willing to go to the table to talk about civilian nuclear energy, which is what we've always wanted. That was the basis of the deal in 2015. That's what they were able to achieve. And that was able to happen because Obama actually wanted a deal. Like, he brought actual nuclear scientists, nuclear physicists, to talk with Iran's nuclear physicists about the technicalities. There was a serious intent on his part here. I mean, we were constantly hearing, I'm sure you saw headlines as well, about, oh, the successful rounds of negotiations proceeding as normal. We're going to a third, a fourth, a fifth round. Maybe something's actually going to happen. But the reality of the situation is that what was being proposed, no country would have acceded to none, absolutely none. What they were talking about is, okay, we're willing to drop our demands for you to cease your ballistic missile production or put that under severe restrictions, talking about conventional military arms and your basic ability to defend yourself, fine, we'll drop that. But you're still not allowed to enrich any uranium ever, for any reason. Okay, that's interesting. Do you want to elaborate on that? No, we're not. We're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna demand that you never enrich uranium or you're gonna dismantle all of your facilities. And then the President is also gonna talk about blowing up your facilities so that you can never use them ever again. And then when they reached, you know, Witkoff, Steve Witkoff, he's trying to be like, well, we'll recognize your right to enrich uranium, but we're still going to demand that you stop uranium enrichment altogether. And then it became, okay, we'll let you enrich uranium for a temporary period, but then you're going to have to enrich uranium outside the country. You're going to have to shut down all uranium enrichment facilities inside the country. You can't build centrifuges. And also, you can never do nuclear research. Wow. An entire academic field. You can never participate in it ever again. And you know what? They also were willing to give Iran in response. Do you want. Do you want to take a guess?

[C]

Yeah. What?

[B]

Nothing.

[A]

Nothing? No sanctions, relief, nothing. It's a surrender deal. This. It's not a diplomatic. Sounds like.

[C]

That sounds like the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

[A]

It's like.

[C]

It's like, we give you nothing, you give us everything thing.

[B]

Yeah. And it just proves that it's all. If Israel was really concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, they could easily make sure Iran didn't have a nuke. And the US for that matter. If the US And Israel was really concerned with Iran developing a nuke, there is a very easy way to ensure that. Which is simply making a deal, making the deal, and then, you know, which. Which can be upheld, which is a pretty normal way to conduct things. But that's not. That's clearly not their goal. They don't care whether or not they don't believe. They don't care where they're.

[C]

No, no, no, of course not. And remember, I mean, don't forget about stuxnet, too. Like, the whole Obama, like, you know, the. The computer worm to sabotage the nuclear stuff, too. It's like all of these different mechanisms that they've tried. And so, yeah, just going back to the whole, like, gloves off. It's like, let's just go for it, dude. Like. Like, basically Israel is just like. Like the fact that the US is just using Israel as its attack dog to just go after every country and just, like, have the plausible deniability, like, well, yeah, we're going to back Israel. Of course. Course. Because now it's our war. Right. But we have nothing to do with the initial attack. It's like, it's just so insane that this is the strategy.

[B]

Yeah. The nuclear program is just the, the doorway for them to go in and destabilize and, and up the country. Right. Because if Iran had completely no nuclear facilities at all, they would be finding something else to justify doing this kind of stuff over.

[A]

Exactly. The ballistic missiles were. Have always been a point of discussion. The idea that they would able to be conventionally able to attack Israel, which they've only done in the last year. Something that I said before that I really do need to emphasize for people who are maybe still in the thought processes that they had before October 7th. There is literally no amount of military power outside of Israel's sphere of influence that they will tolerate in Syria after Assad fell. Okay. You have concerns about Abu Muhammad Al Jawlani becoming the new president? I do too. That's great. Oh, so you're going to destroy 80% of the military power of the country. Oh, you're going to continue. You're going to invade the south. You're going to displace the entire population of the rest of the Golan Heights, which you haven't occupied. Oh, you're going to continue hitting wherever you see military equipment anywhere, anywhere that you feel like. Because they interrupted your freedom of navigation in their own ports. The justification is that it's interfering with the freedom of navigation of Israeli ships. Your existence is a fundamental threat to Israel. That is the, that is the thing that they are saying to Arabs and Iranians everywhere. Your existence, your unwillingness to be subjugated, your breathing, your unwillingness to become a fanatical ally. That is a threat. That's a threat to. As the ADL was saying, it's a threat to diaspora Jewry everywhere, whatever that means.

[C]

A nuclear armed Iran is a threat to diaspora Jewry.

[A]

It's a threat to the people I'm looking outside. It's a threat to the people in Manhattan somehow. And this is the thing about what you're talking about with the justifications. Like, like the, the, the lack of any sort of convincing evidence. I mean, I see, I get notifications on my phone whenever the idea tweets something because I hate myself deeply. And they're publishing these videos about how like. And the figures are all over the place being like, oh, they're just about to be a nuclear enriched at a weapons enrichment capability. No, they actually are at. There they have 15 weapons worth now. We had to go in. We have no other choice. We're fighting for your future. Don't you understand that? We're fighting for your future.

[C]

I mean, I'm, it's so Orwellian. I'm just convinced now that all of the Western leaders and, and diplomats and all these people are just literally letting Netanyahu do everything that they want and then he's going to take the fall. They're going to wash their hands of all of this and, and whitewash their role. At this point, they, it's like, I, I see the writing on the wall, dude. I feel like Netanyahu is just going to, like, they're just going to let him be the attack dog, do as much damage as possible to utilize this political capital as they can. Let it go as far as they as, as he will before he, I don't know, before they drop a nuke. I mean, I, I still see like New York Times articles. Like, I could envision the justification for dropping a nuke at time same the point, like, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility. But it is interesting to just see what is their strategy with letting like basically pushing it to this extreme and this level. It's like. And again, all of it's couched in Netanyahu constantly, even, even with people like Bernie Sanders. I mean, we know that it's like, it's all couched. And this is Netanyahu's war.

[A]

There is, there has to be. This is the, this is the two opposing perspectives here. Me, I can't remember how things were before October 7th. Really, these people, they can only think about how things were before October 7th. There has to be an Israel that is on some level salvageable, that an Israeli population that wants peace in a sort of nebulous fashion. There has to be a democracy under that bedrock. Because the realization that you have back to the hilt a Nazi state, let's call it what it is, a Nazi state, that is something that is deeply shocking to the American fabric. It's. So many things in this country are based around our allyship with Israel. So many Jewish institutions are deeply interconnected with Israel. Obviously it's a Jewish state. This is a really deep set thing in the American imagination. Our relationship with Israel, the idea that America is a democracy and that it allies itself with democracies, the idea that America is at a core part of it, at its core is the cause of so much misery and that in its present state it can't be a force for good in any Sense, that's something that cannot be accepted. It has to be placed on a singular politician, whether that be Trump or be Netanyahu. And the next election, Israel 2026, they'll put in Gantz, who has also been bagging this Toyota. Maybe they'll put in but a year Galan, who has also been, who talked about how killing babies was bad, but also talks about destroying solar panels inside Gaza. Like maybe, maybe they'll be a more liberal person in Israel. And then when they continue doing all these horrible things, he'll talk about it in a less crazy way than Nahu does. He won't be as insane as Ben GVIR or Smith. But we can maybe ignore it in that. In that sense, we don't have to think about it too much. And then.

[C]

Yeah, well, they do have a liberal president who likes. Who likes to sign bombs too.

[B]

Look, I mean, I think.

[A]

Yeah, I hate that he's Irish.

[B]

I know, right. Well, you know, the reason we wanted to have you on like an emergency basis to put something out immediately about this, of course, you know, number one, is because of the real. A dire direction that this could go and how it could escalate into a major war, which the US Would play a major role in in some form or another. And I think what you're saying, it's clear that the will be no breaks on that from Israeli society or Israeli government at all. There will be no breaks on it from the international community, as it's called, which we've seen, which has allowed Israel to wage a genocide for all almost two years now with no ability to stop them. And we've seen from among the American political establishment, there's gonna be no opposition from them, including the opposition party, the Democratic Party, which, you know, as you mentioned, the line coming from them now is quite horrible and scary. And so the only possible breaks on this turning in to something extremely dark in the direction that it could go in is a domestic crisis in the United States for Donald Trump and for the US Government, support for Israel only a domestic crisis that is born from just grassroots struggle and mobilization of people all across the country, like we're seeing against ice, which is beginning. Could be the beginning of a downfall of Trump is the repudiation of this fascistic and lawless kidnapping of people at elementary schools and graduations and workplaces all across the country, denying them the right to due process, illegally mobilizing the military to scare or to repress protests, peaceful constitutional protests. All of this could lead to a downfall for Trump on the domestic side. And I think that the only possible breaks on the spiraling out internationally because Trump came in and he showed us his shock and odd domestic policy. I'm gonna do these insane special operator, masked up ice thug raids across the country. And I've been worried about what. What his shock and awe foreign policy will look like. And we may be headed there. And just like, the only brakes on the horrible fascistic immigration policy is going to be the only brakes on this escalating somewhere else with US Backing and green lighting is continued protests and uprising here in the United States.

[C]

No. Seamus, thank you so much for coming on. We will be following your substack really closely. I know that you wrote a pretty prescient article a couple days before this all happened. Just being like, do not trust the

[A]

US Literally, literally started deteriorating a few hours after I had published that. And it just. The next day, oh, God, I don't want to be right. I don't like. I don't like being right. Being right is very. Everything keeps bad. It keeps fucking happening.

[C]

Dude, we. We do hope that we are not right on this one, man. We hope that, I don't know, cooler heads prevail and there's like, military intervention. I mean, at this point, there has to be. That's. That's the only thing that can really stop this at this point. And the US has to be stopped. It's like I kind of just had this realization last night. Even though we all know this, I was just like, the u. It's like, let's boycott the U.S. like, why. Why are we all focused on Israel? The only reason this is happening is because of my country. We have to do a BDS on US Fuck. American culture's destroyed the world. We can't boycott US Yemen's nuts.

[A]

Yemen, they did a good thing when they banned American hamburger buns for coming into the country. They knew the stakes. They knew what could hit us at our core.

[B]

All right, Seamus, praying for the safety of your family in Iran. And thanks again for joining us. And we'll be continuing to watch closely your work on the topic.

[C]

Thanks so much today,

[A]

Sam.