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Kibbe on Liberty
Ep 374 | War with Iran Is Looming | Guest: Jon Hoffman
01:02:34
Matt Kibbe is joined by Cato Research fellow Jon Hoffman to discuss why the president has turned his back on his campaign promises not to start any new wars.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Kibbe on Liberty. I'm talking to John Hoffman, a research fellow at Cato, about the seemingly inevitable bombing of Iran and why that's a disaster for America and why it'll be a disaster for America. First, check it out. Welcome to kibbe on liberty, John. John, good to finally meet you in person.
- [00:51]
B
Nice to meet you too, Matt.
- [00:53]
A
So I want to start you've been writing a lot of very useful stuff@cato.org you can to give people an understanding of what's leading up to this latest attempt campaign by the Trump administration to bomb Iran. And I want to get into that, but there's some like hot topics just that have emerged over the last couple days. And for people watching this, this is Monday and you will see this in two days on Wednesday. And God knows what the Trump administration's going to do in the next 48 hours. But we'll, well, we'll speculate on that in a minute. But there was just, I want to start with this. I watched a lot of it, but I couldn't watch it all because it sort of hurt me and made me cringe. The interview with Tucker Carlson and the ambassador, U.S. ambassador to Israel, Micucabi, that's his title, right?
- [01:47]
B
Yes.
- [01:47]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And in the middle of that interview, after Tucker presses him and presses him, he basically advocates for what's known as a Greater Israel. There's an Israeli term for it, but he says it would be fine if they took it all referring essentially to the entire Middle east with a few exceptions. Kind of a diplomatic catastrophe.
- [02:17]
B
Yeah. No, to say the least, this idea of Aretz Israel, Greater Israel has been around for a while. And it's interesting that immediately after he said that and said these claims, there was a lot of what I would say are just pro Israeli influencers and so on that came out and said, hey, you know, this is a very niche idea that only some individuals hold. And I looked at that and kind of laughed because if you go and read the Likud founding charter from the 70s and Netanyahu is the leader of the Likud currently as the president, prime minister, it has a commitment to that idea in the founding charter. So this is not some obscure political niche here. This is people have different conceptualizations of what actually constitutes, quote, unquote, Greater Israel. But to portray it as something as obscure and just inside Mike Huckabee's head is wrong.
- [03:13]
A
Yeah. And there's been blowback on this, particularly from Saudi Arabia, that might in fact undermine US Aspirations in Iran.
- [03:26]
B
Yeah. I mean, if you are trying to piece together some sort of semblance of stability in the region, let's say, saying on camera that the particular country that you back the most, you would be fine with them essentially going to war with 5, 6, 7 countries probably isn't the way to achieve that.
- [03:47]
A
Yeah. To me, it seems like Trump himself and Trump's foreign policy instincts are pretty schizophrenic. On the one hand, he's actually trying to broker what he would believe would be peace in the Middle east. And he aspires to have reasonable relationships with a lot of these Middle Eastern countries, but at the same time seems to be driven by Israel's agenda, particularly Netanyahu, who has wanted the United States to attack Iran since 30 years ago. He's been talking about Iran's supposed nuclear capabilities for 30 years. So this is not a new campaign.
- [04:32]
B
No, absolutely. He's been saying that Iran, an Iranian nuclear weapon, is imminent now for three decades. Since before I was born, actually, which is interesting. But he, Trump, has what I would say are dual impulses. Inside his own head, inside the coalition that brought him to power, and inside the region at this point, inside his own head. I think you're right. I think he wants a deal, but also is drawn to this neocon, you know, Likud pressure, and it's proven successful that they were able to get him to support military action against Iran once. Then within the broader coalition, you have Marco Rubio doing his thing in the neocons, but then you have another, more, let's say maybe J.D. vancy, Bridge, Colby, a little more skeptical. And then in the region, it's the same thing. You have Israel, who is pushing for this hard, but you have the Gulf states like you just mentioned, who heard this comment about Greater Israel, who are really a lot of the ones who are trying to raise the alarm saying this is going to engulf the entire region if you, you do this.
- [05:35]
A
Yeah. So we'll get more into that. But there's also some comical and maybe tragic news about the USS Gerald R. Ford, which for those of you who don't know, this is our best tech. This is the best that the military defense contractors can produce, but it's a literal shit show because we have these super high tech toilets. It's not so much that there's not enough toilet for 4,600 sailors, but that they don't work, they don't flush. And this could be a major detriment to our foreign policy out there because the USS Ford is apparently approaching war position as we talk today, it reminds me a little bit of burn after reading, which is sort of comical and tragic that our military industrial complex still can't build a good toilet. And you would think there would be an incentive to build more toilets given the cost of a toilet seat.
- [06:38]
B
Nope. Agreed. But it's between the toilets and between the fact that they are now going on, I think it's 11 months or something, deployment, these soldiers. And there's some stories, I think the Wall Street Journal had a story about how some of these soldiers had missed funerals because of this extended deployment, you know, funerals of their family members. And between all of this, it just goes to show the strain that the warfare state has on American service members. And, you know, there's, you know, from the hawkish side, always this portrayal of if you don't support military action, you don't support the armed forces. But, you know, folks like you or myself, you know, would argue that the greatest way to respect the troops, it's not put them in harm's way needlessly to begin with. And things like this are very damning for a lot of families.
- [07:31]
A
Yeah. And this is relevant to the conversation I want to have. But politically, it sometimes surprises my neocon friends when I point out that a huge part of Ron Paul's base of political support when he was running both in 12 and 2008 was from former military or servicemen at the time who felt like they had been sold a bill of goods that they had been lied to about what they were supposed to accomplish, and they just felt like cannon fodder at that point.
- [08:06]
B
Yeah, no, I mean, as Trump likes to say, many such cases. We have. One of my colleagues, Brandon Buck, who's been on this show before, is a former veteran. And there's this feeling in a lot of the veteran community that, one, they were taken advantage of. Two, that I think the. The veil has been lifted on what a lot of this warmongering really is. And that's driven by elite interests in Washington, D.C. special interests like the military industrial complex, foreign actors, in this particular case, Israel. And I think a large segment of the American public is just sick of this.
- [08:45]
A
Yeah. So I want to go back. I just. We are releasing today, actually, the timing is beautiful because I just did. I had the opportunity to go speak with Ron Paul in his office in Lake Jackson. And, you know, the primary subject was about his intellectual influences and how he used presidential politics as a soapbox, a megaphone to turn people onto Austrian economics. But, of course, that breakout moment in a Lot of ways, when he realized he wasn't just speaking to the room anymore was his schooling of Rudy Giuliani in 2007. I think it was not 2008, but about blowback and specifically how the CIA in the United States was responsible for regime change in 1953, dropping in the Shah, which has in fact created the radicalism and the radical socialist theocracy that currently controls Iran with a brutal fist.
- [09:55]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the term blowback was first officially used to refer to the ramifications of operation Ajax in 1953 by the CIA. And it's funny because there's a quote from Jimmy Carter in 1979 when he was asked, they said, do you think maybe what we did in 1953 had anything to do with this? And he said, no, that's ancient history. And it just goes to show this hubris almost that dominates in the foreign policy establishment in elite circles here in Washington, that American actions have consequences. And no, I think 1953 and the reinstallment of the Shah is the perfect example of the United States cannot be the one to politically engineer some sort of status quo inside Iran, let alone try to enforce it and lead a transition, blah, blah, blah.
- [10:48]
A
So I want to try to convince Trump loyalists, conservatives, maga, America first, these are not the same thing. But it's this big ball of political energy that bombing Iran. And we can talk about the goals or the motives, or more importantly, the lack of goals and motives that get into why we would bomb Iran, which now seems imminent. But, and I like to talk about this because I think constitutional conservatives and America Firsters very much appreciate the libertarian critique of socialism and central planning. It doesn't work. They don't have the knowledge. They certainly don't have the incentives to not put themselves first. And you could just look at the lifestyle that Nicolas Maduro led for all those years to know that socialism is both corrupt and economically disastrous for people. You have to apply, if you agree with that critique, you have to apply it to neoconservative foreign policy.
- [12:06]
B
Absolutely.
- [12:07]
A
Because we go into a place like Iraq or Afghanistan or the list goes on and on, and we do regime change, we impose the Shah of Iran and somehow pretend that that's somehow democratic. But we know virtually nothing about the infinitely complex nature of what it would actually take to do regime change and restore democracy or create democracy from the top down. It's the same exact problem. It's the same hubris, it's the same lack of knowledge. And yet there's this blind spot with some conservatives where they think, oh, when it comes to foreign policy, we can just trust our leaders that they could have the ability to reimagine how Iranian society should function.
- [13:02]
B
No, it's I think part of a broader, broader pathology that dominates in the United States after World War II. And just this, this idea of the American warfare state, the national security state and like you said, it comes with this just unprecedented unchecked power at the executive level that oh, we're just going to trust him. You know, forget the fact that declaring war is a responsibility and right of the Congress. We're just going to trust the President as he essentially shoves us into another war. But the Constitution, like you were saying, is very clear in that it grants our government a ruling mandate that ends at the water's edge and it does not prescribe American empire, it does not prescribe regime change, wars. And I think the word hubris is a good word to describe what dominates in a lot of elite forms, foreign policy circles in D.C. because they think that they have the answers to politically engineer these, these countries 7,000 miles away that they often don't know anything about, but that everything's going to turn out hunky dory. And those who are on the front lines, like the service members who can't even find bathrooms to use, we're just going to forget about them.
- [14:17]
A
Yeah. Thank you for joining me today on
- [14:19]
C
Kibbe on Liberty and for being part of our fiercely independent audience. Every week my organization, Free the People, partners with BlazeTV to bring you this show. My guests bring smart perspectives on everything from current events to timeless philosophical debates. If you like what you hear, go to freethepeople.org kol and support Kibbe on Liberty so we can continue to produce these honest conversations with interesting people. Now let's get back to it.
- [14:49]
A
So let's talk about. We have a last ditch effort here to convince people and I'm going to talk a little bit later about the potential power of grassroots to stop the military industrial complex. Because you could get pretty black pilled and say no matter what we do, no matter what we say, no matter who we vote for, this machine just grinds on and on and on with destroying our soldiers and our treasure in the process. But there are some examples where grassroots pressure has actually rained in the military industrial complex. So we have an opportunity. I don't know when or if the United States is going to start bombing Iran. But why is it a bad idea?
- [15:28]
B
I think it's a bad idea for many reasons. One is just there's no clear casus belli. No justification has been provided. There's no imminent threat that Iran poses to the United States. The justification for taking action against Iran over the past couple months has shifted from the nuclear program, which, you know, if some of us were alive last June to hear that, it was totally obliterated. But it shifted from that to the ballistic missiles program to protecting Iranian protesters, to curtailing Iran's support for different proxies. But there is. They're just throwing darts at a board trying to link justifications back to a predetermined course of action. And so that's the first reason is you don't go to war without clear and achievable political objectives. What is the use of force trying to accomplish? It can't be an end in and of itself. The second part that concerns me is those who are pushing the United States towards war. Neocons here in Washington, D.C. folks in Israel, they're not going to be satisfied with anything limited. They are going to push Trump to see this through. They're going to want to see Trump go all the way. They're going to want to see Trump manage an internal transition. They're not going to be happy with some sort of pinprick in and out. And the third reason why I think this is a horrible idea is the ramifications. Again, Iran doesn't pose a threat to the United States absent our presence in the Middle East. But that doesn't mean that they don't have the ability to hurt us, especially if we try to invade their country. There are more than 40,000 U.S. troops scattered across what some estimates say are 63 U.S. military bases, forward operating bases and other facilities in the region. And a lot of those are scarcely defended. And you could quickly be talking dead US Troops.
- [17:23]
A
The last time we bombed Iran at Israel's urging, the Iranian response was quite, quite performative. Yes, they shot some, lobbed some bombs near American troops, but purposefully, apparently purposefully, didn't hit anything. Why did they do that then?
- [17:46]
B
I think because they wanted to give Trump an off ramp and Trump seized it. I'll say. I guess credit where credit's due, if you're going to mess something up, at least take the off ramp. But they didn't want this to escalate further and they wanted this to be a quote, one and done type thing. So they did the performative response, hoping that Trump would back down. And he ultimately did. What concerns me this time is that since the 12 Day War and Midnight Hammer bombing, the nuclear Sites. You've heard this discourse emerge in Israel and in hawkish circles in D.C. about mowing the lawn in Iran, which is the Israeli strategy used in Gaza and Lebanon and elsewhere, which is essentially periodic military raids to keep your adversary weakened in a state of chaos. Iran will want to signal that they can't do that there, that this is not Hezbollah in Lebanon, this is not Hamas in Gaza. You're talking about a nation state of 93 million people. And they have an incentive to demonstrate, one, that the United States and Israel cannot bomb us at will. And two, there's every reason to think that given the recent bout of mass protests in Iran combined with significant military action, I mean, the buildup in the Middle east is the largest since Iraq 2003, there's every reason to think that Iran and its rulers will view this as existential, which will make them try to impose costs on the United States for keeping this action going in the the greatest way to impose such costs
- [19:20]
A
are dead Americans mowing the lawn. That's quite the Orwellian term. I had never heard that before.
- [19:26]
B
No. So that is the Israeli strategy that has been applied to, say, Hamas in Gaza, even before October 7, was this idea of periodic military raids to keep an adversary barely dangling along, but to degrade him over time. And this has been applied to Hamas in Gaza. This has been applied to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It seems to now be being applied to Syria to some extent. You know, after the fall of Bashar al Assad and now with Iran, it seems that Israel is intent on trying to maintain what it calls Israeli aerial superiority. I would put an asterisk next to that, because they can only do that because of us. But this leads to a state of perpetual war in the Middle East.
- [20:16]
A
Could Israel take such a bellicose position without American support?
- [20:21]
B
No, I do not think so. Because the way the special relationship operates and the way it has operated for decades is there's always a tacit, if not often explicit, guarantee of an American rescue behind every Israeli action. So what I've often said, and I've written about this a lot, is the special relationship insulates Israel from the cost of its own policies, allowing it to pursue actions that it probably otherwise wouldn't if it had to shoulder those costs.
- [20:55]
A
Some of my Israeli friends would argue privately that Netanyahu's aggression is a PR disaster that ultimately undermines the safety and sustainability of Israel itself.
- [21:12]
B
No, absolutely. I was in Israel late October, early November, and you heard this, especially among the security establishment folks. They said, hey, we recognize that a Lot of this is not in our long term security interests, but many of them were also very straightforward. And they said Netanyahu is in an election year. By law, he has to hold elections by October of 26. What I heard is that he will likely try to bring those elections up to late spring, maybe early summer, and ride escalation with Iran, you know, hopefully back into the premiership. So they recognize that, no, this is not good for the strategic interests of Israel or even the safety of the Israeli people. Because again, when I was there, a lot of them emphasize there was a media blackout around the damage that Iran did to Israel during the 12 Day War. And we were driving around suburbs of Tel Aviv and whole complexes were obliterated. So they did real damage and they will do real damage again if this goes to another war.
- [22:09]
A
So Netanyahu is quite a politically controversial figure in Israel and he's got these legal problems that continue on, which is bizarrely President Trump weighed in on. But is it the case? I mean, I know this is typically the case that saber rattling and the heat of war is good short term politics for politicians, but are Israelis down with a full open war with Iran? Do they want that?
- [22:41]
B
It's difficult to judge. And there have been some polls recently, I think one, one release, as early as yesterday, I saw it flash on the Times of Israel that almost 60% support Israel joining a US war against Iran. So I think there is political appetite within Israel for this. The question is, from Netanyahu's perspective, is this being done in order to, you know, advance say the safety, prosperity or freedom of the Israeli people? I don't think so. I think it's going back to what we were just talking about, the corruption charges that would land him in jail for the rest of his life. He doesn't want genuine investigations into the intelligence failures leading up to October 7th, because those are his failures. And he is very concerned about overall just losing his position of power within Israel. And he has historically run on a platform of being Israel's, you know, security guy, strongman, you know. So his image after October 7 and over the past two years has taken a big hit.
- [23:50]
A
Are you suggesting that politicians will start wars just to win re election?
- [23:54]
B
Crazy idea. I know, I know. We've never seen anything like it before, but no, I think there was wide recognition, even among Israelis, that one regarding Gaza. He's smart enough not to challenge Trump in public about, about the Board of Peace. He's just gonna let it collapse on its own. But with Iran, he's gonna be Very, very aggressive in Washington, pushing the United States towards this. And that's why he made his seventh trip to the United States since Trump took office the other month.
- [24:22]
A
It's remarkable. But I want to go back to you. You were in Israel in November, late October, early November. Okay. And this is interesting to me because Tucker Carlson, I don't remember the story exactly, but he was either entering. Oh, no, he's exiting Israel and supposedly got. He and his crew got pulled aside and grilled by Israeli authorities about what he talked to Huckabee about, as if they couldn't just wait 48 hours and watch the show. So it's a little bit mysterious, but what did you run into when you went to Israel?
- [24:58]
B
Sure. I mean, when I arrived, there were very clearly individuals waiting for me that wanted to know why I was there, what I was doing, and so on. My passport was rejected at the little scanner machine, despite hundreds of people in front of me, you know, just going through. It's very clear that they know who's coming in and. And who's leaving and who are critics. But the overall trip itself was.
- [25:25]
A
So they had read. They had read your stuff?
- [25:27]
B
Oh, absolutely. You know, and I joke around at Cato all the time. If I had a.
- [25:31]
A
Did they give you notes on how to make it better?
- [25:33]
B
No, no, no. I was expecting. I was like, maybe, like, you guys want to give me, like, feedback or something? But there were some individuals who we went and spoke with, and they were like, yeah, I read your stuff. I'm not a fan. And I'm like, okay, well, thank you. Just don't, you know, do anything to me. But there's. It was interesting because I felt even inside Israel at some points that I was more free among Israelis to criticize Israeli policy than back here in the United States, which is really saying something because there are some Israelis within the security sector who. And others who, behind closed doors, will say like, yeah, this. This doesn't make strategic sense, blah, blah, blah, and you can have these kind of conversations with them. But here in D.C. if you take that stance, it's not popular.
- [26:19]
A
Yeah, I've been to Israel, I think three or four times. I'd have to go back and count. And the first time was when I was still a Tea Party leader. And I think the timing is right that we had helped Thomas Massie orchestrate this massive grassroots campaign to stop Obama from bombing Syria in 2013. So in hindsight, the eyes on me were probably pretty keen, and I didn't really notice. And I was primarily with people that were pro Israel and we went to the west bank and we saw different things all through the lens of what they wanted me to see, of course. But I'm sure I had a handler somewhere in there, which is interesting in hindsight.
- [27:11]
B
Yeah. I mean, the biggest takeaway, I often get asked what was my biggest takeaway from the trip? The biggest takeaway for me was one going down to the border with Gaza and being able to see and across the whole thing. And it's all the images that you see online accurately reflect what it looks like. But I was able to interview several IDF soldiers who fought in Gaza after October 7th. And one of them in particular, it took them a while to warm up to me, understandably. But one of them in particular, I asked him, I said, if you could just summarize your experience in one sentence, what would it be? And he paused for a minute and he looked at me. He said, I don't know what to say other than all the rumors you've heard are true. And so that to me, was in the United States hearing it from somebody who fought in Gaza themselves. And then he, of course, broke it down from there, explaining, you know, more in depth, but hearing it from somebody who was there. And, you know, so many of us in Washington have highlighted, you know, what's going on there, but you get denounced as, you know, spreading fake news or whatever, but to hear it from somebody who had fought and then taking that back with me and saying, how are you going to dispute this? People still try to, but it was a very interesting trip.
- [28:33]
A
Break it down. Because anybody that's rational online has to take any post about what the body count is in Gaza or anything that controversial with a huge grain of salt, because everything is propaganda. Everything is what one side or the other wants you to hear. But you heard directly from, from an IDF soldier. Tell us what you can about what he said.
- [28:59]
B
Yeah, sure. And it wasn't just one individual, it was a couple. The individual that fought in Gaza, one of them, one of the most interesting ones was this individual who fought in Gaza. And then there was another one who fought in Lebanon after October 7, the one in Gaza broke it down. And we knew this from open source reporting, but he said the vast majority of the IDF during the war was not actively fighting Hamas. They were holding the no go zones, the kill zones. And he said, you know, and we encountered this in Iraq and Vietnam and other places. He said, Hamas would pay, you know, a kid, here's $100 to go scout out this Israeli position. You know, and report back to us. The difference is the United States went to painstaking in many cases, went to lengths not to harm and kill these kids. That was not the case here. And he said, you know, he said very plainly, he said, do you remember those like, couple weeks when there were the x ray images and MRI images of children with sniper bullets in their heads? He said that's what that was. And he said there was no accountability, nobody knew who was in charge. He said some days you just didn't know what your rules of engagement were. He said it was very much just chaos. And then the individual who fought in Lebanon said what made him really turn against the war was he was called up one day and his commander told him, all right, we're going to move into this village in southern Lebanon. And they were asking, okay, why, like, is there a Hezbollah base here or something like that? And he said, it's a Shia village. That was the justification. You know, so it's, I think this total lack of strategic objectives and it was just military action and force for the use of force. And we see that it didn't work. You know, many in Israel were very upfront saying, yes, Hamas still has about 20,000 fighters. Obviously they're not battle hardened and stuff. You know, there are people who have joined. But the, the two stated aims of the war were the total elimination of Hamas and the freeing of the hostages. Hamas is not eliminated. And on the hostage front, only eight hostages were rescued via military force. The rest were freed pursuant to negotiations with Hamas and more than three dozen died in captivity, some killed by Israeli airstrikes, some killed by Hamas. So that's a hard record for Netanyahu to, to run on.
- [31:33]
C
If you made it this far into the show, it means I must be doing something right. Key Beyond Liberty is just one of the amazing products we created. Free the People. We tell emotionally compelling stories and produce educational videos for the Liberty Curious. Our award winning documentaries personalize all things liberty, independence, creativity, hard work, integrity and perseverance. After the show, check out our work@freethepeople.org and if you like what you see, donate to support what we do. That's freethepeople.org now back to the show.
- [32:10]
A
We're told simultaneously to not worry about the innocent collateral damage in Gaza. While some of those same voices are telling us that we should be outraged about what the Islamic regime is doing to citizen protesters in Iran Square that circle, you can't.
- [32:35]
B
And that's the thing is two things on that. One, it's interesting because when the protests were going on in the real heat of the protest and you had Israel and the United States coming out talking about, you know, the very hawkish voices who were, you know, know, calling all of us conspiracy theorists or whatever, anti Semitic for, for bringing attention to what's happening in Gaza and elsewhere, these were the ones saying, okay, we need to fight for freedom. You know, they're slaughtering people in the streets and so on. On the one hand, what irked me the most as a nerd, as an academic, was the idea that Israel, the United States or the Gulf Arab states want democracy in Iran, when the totality of their policies throughout the region is predicated on preventing democratic rule is just. It strains credulity to the breaking point. So for me, that was the first thing. It was like, you think they genuinely care about democracy when the United States in particular has rooted its regional policies in support for ruthless dictators. So that was the first one. But on the second one, yes, the slaughtering of Iranian protesters is horrible. The regime is brutal and repressive. Nobody doubts that the Iranian people deserve to live free and determine their own future and so on. But the United States cannot be their armed vindicator, nor is there any evidence that it would succeed in trying to do so.
- [34:05]
A
I think it actually undermines the position of freedom fighting fighters in Iran.
- [34:09]
B
Yeah, and that was one of the positions that we took early on, was saying, hey, there is no surer way to undermine domestic opposition to the regime in Iran than trying to appropriate it for your own foreign military intervention and your own agenda inside Iran.
- [34:23]
A
I will reshare for people watching this. Free the people. We've produced a number of videos about those freedom fighters in Iran and the oppressive regime and all that. I've. I've been a little hesitant to reshare it because I don't want it to be misconstrued as saber rattling. Because I think it's an infinitely complex problem that is not solved with bombs. And I feel like many of those freedom fighters would in fact become the collateral damage. Should we actually start a hot war with Iran?
- [34:53]
B
No, I completely agree. And there's this again. There's this weird pathology that dominates in Washington D.C. that deals in just complete absolutes. It has to be one way or the other. You can't be simultaneously against slaughtering protesters and against military action. That's too nuanced of a take. But that's the take that I think is the most rational, is the future of the Iranian people is their own. It is a Brutal dictatorship, they deserve to live free, blah, blah, blah. But is the United States the one that should or can bring this about? That's where I think a heavy dose of skepticism has to come in. Because like we were going back earlier talking about the Constitution, the mandate given to our government ends at the water's edge. US Foreign policy needs to focus first and foremost on the safety, prosperity and freedom of the American people. And that is overwhelmingly undermined by the continuation of American empire and the warfare state.
- [35:52]
A
So what's the. Let's try to speculate as to what the end game is. So we're according to, you know, someone like Mark Levin who has taken to very long posts, all in capital letters, he wants regime change. He wants to snuff out the Iranian, the current Iranian regime, I guess, to install the Shah's son. Like, is that, is that the plan? Are we going to do the whole thing over again?
- [36:23]
B
I think there's even asking the question, what's the plan? Is difficult because nobody has really provided one. You have those, you have certain individuals who are pushing the Reza Pahlavi line, like reinstall the Shah's son. But then you have this other narrative which is actually increasingly coming out into the open. There was a Wall Street Journal article a couple weeks ago that said, hey, a fractured Iran wouldn't be that bad. And you're starting to see now this narrative come more to light saying, you know, Lindsey Graham, for example, he said, it's not my job to fix Iran or whatever. It's just my job to, you know, to remove the regime or whatever. So. But there's this idea that instead of removing the regime and then maybe going for, you know, installing another regime, they're fine with state collapse, which I think a lot of folks within Washington, D.C. and Israel would be fine with if Iran justif the military action led to the regime not being in power. And then you just had essentially an internal cave that caved in on itself. And I think there are many in Washington who would be fine with that outcome.
- [37:34]
A
Well, what happens then? What happens in that power vacuum? Does do things get better?
- [37:39]
B
Not for the, you know, the freedom fighting, you know, Iranians who genuinely want a better future. No, you would have essentially lawlessness. There are a lot of separatist groups within Iran. The most organized and coherent body within Iran is the irgc, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. And you would quickly be talking about a situation of internal strife, if not civil war. War in a country of 93 million people, which would make Iraq look like nothing.
- [38:09]
A
Yeah, Compare Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of size and manpower and war power to Iran.
- [38:18]
B
Not even close. Population wise, it's multiple times larger. Area wise, again, I think three times larger than Iraq. And Iran is a mountain fortress. And Iran's pretty unique in that. In a lot of countries that are heavily mountainous, the population centers lie in the lowlands, but in Iran, the population centers are in the mountains. And the entire Iranian defense doctrine is structured around what's often called defense in depth. It's the idea that our adversaries have greater conventional capabilities than we do. In the event that we are invaded, we are going to retreat back into the mountains and essentially bleed them dry and turn this into a war of attrition. So that's the defense in depth doctrine combined with what is called their forward defense doctrine, which is the proxies, missiles and nuclear breakout threshold. Given the fact that those three on the forward defense have taken a big hit over the past couple years, that's why everybody is saying, hey, now is the time to strike. Now is the ripe opportunity to topple the regime. But they're totally neglecting the other half of this defense doctrine, which will impose huge costs on the United States.
- [39:38]
A
Are any advocates actually endorsing boots on the ground, US Boots on the ground in Iran?
- [39:45]
B
I haven't seen explicit support for saying, hey, we need to airlift 20, 30, 40, 50,000 troops inside Iran, because there seems to be this idea that the United States can accomplish this via air power alone. That is just not the case. There is no comparable example of regime change by aerial force. And going back to what I said earlier, that those who would view a limited strike as insufficient and who would immediately start pushing Trump for more when quick results prove elusive. That's where things get tricky, is because if Trump pursues limited action, there's no evidence that Iran will perceive this as limited. And then two, those same actors who are the ones behind this are not going to be satisfied. This push is not going to stop.
- [40:40]
A
So isn't it always true historically that the advocates of a regime change war always insist that there'll be no American casualties, that there'll be no boots on the ground? So it's a little bit of a bait and switch. Because once, as Colin Powell so famously said, once you break it, you own it. And, and if things get worse, then we escalate our involvement and it becomes even more complicated, even more dangerous, even more expensive, and inevitably Americans die.
- [41:18]
B
No. Yeah. And there seems to be this idea in Washington these days that instead of you break it, you buy it. That you can just break it and we're going to do away with the buying part in the nation building. Part, part. But again, this fundamentally misunderstands what US Military action is supposed to be for. It's supposed to be in the pursuit of clear, achievable and discreet political objectives. Nothing has been provided on why the United States should take military action against Iran right now. And we haven't even mentioned the fact that the United States is still near knee deep in Ukraine. We're now apparently running Venezuela. We're trying to deter China in the Indo Pacific. There are real trade offs here. We're $38 trillion in debt, running $2 trillion a year deficits. This is a recipe for disaster. And during the last 12 day war, just on the military front, the United States drained 25% of its missile interceptor stockpile defending Israel. That hinders American military readiness and capability capabilities in other critical theaters that are far more important than the Middle East.
- [42:28]
A
Yes, it drains our ability to defend ourselves. Yeah, let's go back to George Washington when he warned about entangling alliances. I love bringing this up because for Washington it wasn't so much a libertarian philosophical position, it was a practical position that this will bankrupt us if we get involved in everybody else's stuff. We can't afford it. And particularly as a young country, we would get in a financial position that would destroy us. I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he says. And it strikes me particularly at this point with trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars that we're spending that we don't have. And Trump has said that he wants, wants to grow the size of the defense budget by 50%. Is that what he said he wants?
- [43:23]
B
1.5 trillion.
- [43:24]
A
Yeah. What's another half a trillion in the process? And all of this money is being financed through debt and more and more through the printing presses, through the Federal Reserve. Surely somebody in Congress should say we can't afford this stuff. Is anyone speaking up?
- [43:54]
B
There's voices, you know, the typical voices that you would assume, like Tom Massey, who are trying to bring attention to this. He does a lot of work with Rohana on the war power stuff. But irks me the most, I think, is the silence, especially from the Democratic side, is deafening. And it just shows how this commitment or this obsession with American empire is really bipartisan. They may not, you know, be out, you know, rallying in favor of what Trump's doing. But behind closed doors, a lot of these individuals on, in both parties support the underlying framework of American primacy that has brought us to the current precipice with Iran. And it's totally backwards compared to what the founders had in mind. Washington saying no entangling alliances, no excessive partiality or dislike for any country. Thomas Jefferson saying peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none. Madison talking about the growth of the executive in the warfare state and how that undermines civil liberties. John Quincy Adams, you know, do not go in search of monsters to destroy. We can only be the champion and vindicator of our own. This is very against the Republican and liberal tradition that America was founded on. But this is where we find ourselves
- [45:27]
A
at Kibbe on Liberty.
- [45:28]
C
Freedom is a lifestyle 24 7, something you live and breathe and wear every day. If that describes you, you need the very best liberty swag in the market today. Just like this shirt I happen to be wearing. Go to freethepeople.org kol and check out our exciting merch. You too can love liberty and look cool.
- [45:50]
A
I went back and re watched Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address on the military industrial complex. And by the way, this is a different obsession of mine that I won't get into here, but he also warns about scientific elites and in his mind these are probably quite similar. The military industrial complex and the science industrial complex. He doesn't call it that, but he warned about the business of the military. He wouldn't say it this way, but it strikes me that so much of this is driven by a very profitable business model that going around the world breaking things inevitably demands that we make more bombs and more expensive military grade toilets to ensure that when we break it and then it gets worse, then we have to re up and double up. And it strikes me that, you know, there's two things going on. The military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about is very much driving foreign policy. And the thing that's different between now and say when we successfully stopped Obama from bombing Syria seems to be the influence of Netanyahu and and Israel on particularly both parties. Most pronounced, I think in the Republican party. But I think the silence that you're talking about with Democrats, what is that? Is that the military bases and production facilities in their districts or is it the incredible influence that the Israel lobby has had?
- [47:32]
B
It's both. On the one hand there's this, we often refer to it as military Keynesianism that dominates in the United States that essentially subsidizes the military industrial complex. But subsidizing the military industrial complex at the expense of American interests is the epitome of strategic malpractice. It doesn't get any worse than that. And then on the other hand is what you mentioned is the Israel Lobby. And the Israel Lobby is incredibly influential in Washington on both sides of the aisle. And what I think is happening, what I would argue is happening, is Israel. And I heard this from several folks when I was in Israel as well, in the security sector, who are not liberals. You know, they're very hawkish. I think Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu right now recognizes the change that's happening in the United States that's primarily generational, but that's happening on the right and the left, and they see the writing on the wall. And while they are still in the position of being able to influence US Foreign policy to such a great extent, that is why they're going now full throttle for the realization of the rest of this agenda, because they know that long term, it's not, not sustainable. Because whether you have an AOC president or a Thomas Massie president, you know, the both wings here, whether it be on the left or the right, are challenging this openly. Now, a lot of US nerds have been challenging this, you know, in academic circles for a while, but it has never been so out in the open and discussed at the mainstream level as it is today. The damage has really broke. And I debate with a lot of other conservatives, you know, whether it's a irreversible trend or whether this is, you know, whether the ship is sailed. I'm more on the latter. But you can see that generational divide there too, because some of the older folks are like, yeah, no, no, they can fix this, you know, post Netanyahu come in, you know, re. Re. Reformulate the relationship. I don't think so. I think think Israel has, particularly on the left, become a litmus test for so many things, but it's increasingly becoming so on the right, whether it be free speech, foreign involvement in American politics. What is America first? Truly? You mentioned earlier in the podcast MAGA and America first being two separate things, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, that I think there's a broader America first base here in the United States that says, yeah, policy should work on behalf of the American people, whether they agree with Trumpism and stuff or not.
- [50:24]
A
So I've always sort of hoped that to the extent that we can't convince elected officials on a principled policy position, they might ultimately act in their own self interest. In the case of this neocon shift in the Trump administration, like, pretty pronounced Almost. Maybe I'm being naive, but it feels like it came out of nowhere where we went from America first to a fairly bellicose neoconservative agenda that John Bolton is now frothing over. And I always hope that whatever else Trump is, he would understand political self interest. And the Trump coalition, the Republican coalition is bleeding young people. And young people are not down with what's happening in Gaza. They're not interested in all these foreign wars. This would be an opportunity for America First Republicans. In fact, I had the last conversation I had with Charlie Kirk, I think it was maybe two months before he was murdered, was about this position and how the Trump, he's very pro Trump, right? 100%. But he saw this trend amongst young people objecting to just our blank check policy when it comes to Israel. And I don't know why they don't see that, but to me that's an opportunity for an actual America first candidate.
- [52:05]
B
No, absolutely. And I completely agree with you. I think the reason I think they certainly see it because months and months and months ago you even heard Trump alluding to some of it sometimes at some of these press conferences, like, know a lot of my followers or a lot of my constituents hate Israel now and stuff. He said, you know, very openly that he in recognizing that this dissent is starting to emerge. But it's so largely generational that the younger generation, my generation, doesn't have the political capital to actually actualize any of these policies. And that's why I think Netanyahu and others who hold this agenda are going full throttle before my generation and the one below me actually get to the point where we could dictate policy. But no, I completely agree with you that this is a moment for America First Republicans. And I think this is a broader moment here because those within the restraint community, you can get to it from. From to restraint from the nerdy academic realism, which how I get to it. Or you can get to it from the More America First Right or you can get to it from the progressive left. There may be difference among these three when it comes to say Ukraine or Taiwan, but in the Middle East, I think there's a case to be made for a unanimous approach that the grievances that all three have with an expansive American foreign policy complement one another in the Middle East.
- [53:44]
A
Yeah, and that seems like a good place to. So we're kind of blackpilling people right now because it just seems inevitable. But thinking about Thomas Massie and this is probably before your time, you're looking a Little bit younger than I AM. But in 2013, when Congressman Massie was a freshman. Hear this. All you, you Massie haters out there that say he's never been on your side. Thomas Massie pretty much led a House uprising against Barack Obama, who was looking for congressional authorization to bomb Syria. And I was, at the time, I was the head of a group called FreedomWorks, and we helped Thomas mobilize. I'd never seen anything like it in all my years of grassroots organizing. Huge grassroots opposition. Massie tapped into congressional Democrats as well. Not as many as you would hope, but it's a Democratic president, so I get the partisan nature of that. And we successfully, through public opinion, stopped progress, Barack Obama, from getting those war powers. Now, the hole in that story is presidents don't come to Congress anymore for permission to do anything. They just do. Didn't start with Donald Trump, but he doesn't seem particularly interested in what Congress has to say about this stuff. But the point of that story is that I think there is an opportunity to educate people, to mobilize people, to inform people, to create what many are calling an America first coalition. That's not particularly partisan. It's actually based on values and ideas, just like Ron Paul would talk about. I think there's an opportunity there. Do you think there is?
- [55:43]
B
I certainly do. And Tom Massie is. I often say Tom Massie is doing God's work because he. He's trying. And you can see that he really is a force in this movement or this era, if you will, at this current moment, I really do believe that there is a moment here to capitalize on growing dissatisfaction with US Foreign policy that's emerging on the right and the left. And I often point to the Middle east because. And I often say, say, if we can't do it there, we can't do it anywhere else. If we cannot cooperate and realize the failures of US Middle east policy, then there's no chance that we can take a stab at the broader structural problems of US Foreign policy. But I think we are at a moment now where I, as a libertarian at Cato and in an academic, find myself, you know, preaching to the choir a lot when I'm talking to folks that are much farther left than me or folks that are much farther right than me. And this is really, I think, a turning point in which. In its generational, largely. But we are at a turning point in which the Post World War II, especially post Cold War consensus, is being challenged, not just in elite circles, but from the bottom up. And I think There is genuine room here to run for bipartisan cooperation.
- [57:16]
A
So we've been talking a lot specifically with Congressman Massie about his bipartisan effort to release the Epstein files. And I should know this. I meant to research it before I got on here, but maybe you know more than I do. I believe that he is talking about actually pushing some sort of bipartisan effort with Ro Khanna to get a congressional resolution opposing war with Iran. Is that a thing?
- [57:48]
B
Yes. I've heard rumors. What is it, one o' clock on Monday? I've heard rumors that the vote on the War Powers Resolution has been pushed to next week. I think it was supposed to be this week, but I've heard rumors that it was pushed. Push the next week. I haven't confirmed, but.
- [58:03]
A
No, of course it was.
- [58:04]
B
Of course it was. Yeah. Why wouldn't it be? Again, I think it goes to show that the political momentum among the establishment is not there yet. Obviously it's isolated to figures like Massey and Rohana, but it reflects a broader impulse among the American, American people that is there. I mean, polls coming out saying 70 plus percent oppose a war with Iran. You know, the idea that we were talking earlier before the podcast, you know, trying to, you know, look at possibly buying a house and then you look at all the costs. It's not as if I go home and I'm like, oh, okay, well, at least we're bombing Tehran tomorrow. Like, that'll, that'll, you know, that'll be good. No, the younger Americans.
- [58:52]
A
Are you saying the price of groceries matters more to people?
- [58:54]
B
Crazy thought. If you look at your receipt and you're like, at least we're doing regime change. I can get behind that, but I can't eat this week. But no, America's priorities are so misplaced at the current moment. And Trump used a lot of that rhetoric to get to office. But we see the disconnect between rhetoric and actual policy action. Whereas with somebody like Massie, I would say you see the rhetoric and the action and that's what we need at the current moment.
- [59:24]
A
You're saying that Thomas Massie actually is America First?
- [59:28]
B
I would say so. I think this, this rift between. And me and my colleague Brandon Buck talk about it all the time. This rift between MAGA as a, as a brand like MAGA Incorporated, and then actual America first is becoming more apparent by the day. And one is clearly very self interested, dedicated primarily around a single individual, and the other is more dedicated to these underlying principles of how does this, if American interests are to be broadly construed as the safety, prosperity and freedom of the American people, which I think that should be the common baseline. How does anything that we're doing get us to, to any of these? It actually undermines all of them and I think a lot of the American public is waking up to that.
- [60:16]
A
Well, in fairness, seven grand is a lot of money.
- [60:20]
B
Seven grand is a lot of money. Per tweet is crazy. It's not too late, I guess for me and you if we wanted to start tweeting out some very pro war stuff. But I think the $7,000 that's being at all offered per tweet is an example of just showing how unpopular these policies are that you have to buy somebody for $7,000 per tweet and it's become a meme, a joke now.
- [60:46]
A
Yeah. Okay. Tell us where to find more of your stuff and just talk about your portfolio Cato and what those resources are.
- [60:55]
B
Yeah, sure. I focus on US Middle east policy. As of late it's been opposing war with Iran and reforming the US Israel relationship. All of my work can be found on my Twitter handle. It's Hoffman H O F F M A N the number eight and then John J O N and then all of the work for the department writ large can be found on the website at Cato Defense and Foreign Policy. It's just on the main CATO website.
- [61:21]
A
And in your spare time you're a professor as well?
- [61:24]
B
Yes, in my spare time I teach adjunct at Mason US Middle School. East Policy and then just, you know, try to try to survive, I guess, you know, amid high prices and high housing prices. It's just tough time to be coming of age, I guess in this country. But we're pushing for change.
- [61:42]
A
A principled non interventionist is not the most lucrative position in Washington D.C. agreed. I can speak to this personally?
- [61:50]
B
Yes, as can I.
- [61:52]
A
All right. I really appreciate, appreciate it.
- [61:53]
B
Thanks for having me on. Matt.
- [61:55]
C
Thanks for watching. If you liked the conversation, make sure
- [61:59]
A
to like the video, subscribe and also
- [62:02]
C
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