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- [00:00]
Scott Horton
My name is Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yaoi, a gift shop from the lens of artists and handmade objects. I chose Shopify because when I was testing other platforms, it was definitely one of the most user friendly. It was important to me to think about where we would be in the future. All of the tools for reading your sales, like planning inventory, they're just right there on your dashboard. For anyone starting a small business, the biggest thing I can tell you is it doesn't have to be perfect. Shopify can help you build upon it. Start your free trial on shopify.com this podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. Last year I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself. When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere. Living a busy life, navigating a long distance relationship, becoming a first stepfather, Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office. I could speak of my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone. Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com send save $80 with code space80@talkspace.com.
- [01:36]
Dave Smith
What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. We got a good one for you today. Let me just get a couple pieces of business out of the way up Front. This weekend, July 9th, 10th and 11th, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein will of course be in Houston, Texas at the Punchline. So come on out and see us. We got five shows this weekend. Looking forward to it. Following weekend, Huntsville, Alabama July 16th and then July 17th, 18th, 19th is Nashville is Nashville, Tennessee. Then I will be speaking at the Young Americans for Liberty event on July 28th in Cincinnati, Ohio. Then July 30th and 31st we at two shows, me and Rob, two theater shows down there in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Then it's Appleton, Wisconsin. And then the final stop for the summer, which again I do want to make a special point on promoting this now is August 28th, 29th and 30th. I will be at the comedy mothership in Austin, Texas. Now, some of you may already be pausing and saying, dave, you're going to Houston, Fort Lauderdale and Austin in the middle of summer. Why does your booking agent hate you? But this. Anyway, I want to mention the mothership gig because every single year, I think this is my fourth year now of doing it. This is Joe Rogan's club. These tickets all sell out. Okay. As of right now, there are still tickets available. They're gonna go very soon. Grab them now if you want to come. Every year I'm there, I get bombarded with people at the last minute who are like, how can I get a ticket? Or something? And I can only accommodate so many people. So if you want to come, please grab them now. Comic Dave Smith.com for all of those tickets. Okay, let's get into our show today. Of course, we have back with us the legend Scott Horton, who of course has been on the show more than any other guest. We're not a very guest heavy show, but we always got to check in with Scott. Scott, of course, is the author of the phenomenal books. Of course, everybody knows enough already. The book on the terror wars and provoked the book on the history of. Of the new cold war and the war in Ukraine. But by the way, it's a little bit of a sleeper. In there is fool's errand, which was the first book Scott wrote on Afghanistan, which really is, you know, the war. That war is over, but it's the war in American history and there's just no better complete history of the whole thing than. Than Fool's errand. I highly recommend people read that if they haven't already. And of course, because Scott never stops working, this year he launched the Scott Horton academy. And they've got a new course that's just out right now, plus some more stuff coming. So let's talk about that for a few minutes. I'm sorry if I'm rambling too long. How are you, Scott? Let's start there and then we can talk about the academy a little bit.
- [04:15]
Scott Horton
Yeah, I'm good. Dave, how are you, man?
- [04:17]
Dave Smith
Good, very good.
- [04:19]
Scott Horton
Yeah. Oh, the academy. Yeah, step right up, man. It's the elixir to solve all of your problems. The Scott Horton academy@scott hortonacademy.com Whatever's wrong in your life, the solution is there. No, not really. What it is though is, look, the thought behind it basically was what if we had an army of yous and me's out there who know enough about this stuff that we can you know, you and I can retire and many more people can do the same job. And because there's so many people, especially new people, who are sort of awakening to our non interventionist point of view on all of this. I was just looking at an email I got this morning from a guy who told me, God dang, when I think back on the MSNBC person I used to be and compared to what I've learned now from your books and the things and all the things. And he's taken the academy courses and so basically the point is though is for him to get all the way caught up. In fact, that's what he was saying is it's working when he's talking with his friends and his family, whatever, he knows the answer to the follow up questions from, you know, the conventional wisdom that they spout that they picked up from tv. And then he goes, no, that's actually not right. And he's getting it from me. So that's the whole point of the Scott Horton Academy is to turn all the fans into peers so that everybody knows this stuff. And it's basically everything I know, all the Middle east war stuff and all the Cold War with Russia. I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about China policy stuff, but certainly the Middle east stuff and all the East Asia stuff. And then plus I have all these other great professors, if you want to call them that, teachers of these courses as well for everything else. So the new course that you mentioned is the second half, actually the final piece of my Cold War course with Ukraine which is based on provoked and. But then coming up very soon, as in like, well, if today's Monday, then it'll be, you know, definitely this week. Within the next couple of days we'll be posting a new course by the great Grant F. Smith on the history of the foundation of aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee by Isaiah Kennan and all these Israeli agents who set the thing up. And it's an in depth course on the history of the Israel Lobby in America by a guy who. I don't know how wide of a shot we got here, but on my shelf here I got seven or nine books or something that Grant has written about the Israel Lobby and their variation and again including stealing weapons grade uranium and everything big Israel is, as I
- [06:50]
Dave Smith
told you on the phone before, I'm personally very excited to take that course. But I would just, I would say it like this too. I think that, well, first of all, one of the things that I think kind of unites us all and When I say that, I mean you and me and the people, the type of people who listen to this show, the type people who listen to your show is there's a basic, just like wanting to know stuff, wanting to understand this. And I think a lot of people, very rightfully so and understandably, are outraged by so many of the, you know, blatant crimes committed by the cabal in D.C. in our name. But also everyone knows, you know, there's nothing kind of worse for the cause. Like, if you're, if you're motivated to get out there and explain this stuff to other people and argue with people and try to persuade people to our cause, then you really do got to know your stuff. Stuff. Because we've all seen examples of that where like some kid is who's on the right side of the issue is like kind of trying to argue with someone or defend it, but they're just not armed with the knowledge, you know, and then they get a follow up question and they're kind of deer in the headlights. And even though there is a good answer and oh, if he was just armed with this, he could have hit that guy back with it. Well, I think the idea here is that, listen, man, there's no way you take these courses. Nobody's going to land a blow on you, man. You're going to have, you're going to have escalation, dominance in, in every argument you get in. Going forward.
- [08:09]
Scott Horton
Yeah, it really is like that. And they're very broad. You know, my. When I wrote enough already, I had this figurative sort of sword hanging over my neck from Tom woods that said hard limit, 300 pages. That's it. So I just had to pare it down and pare it down and sum it up. But I'm provoked. I blew past 300 so fast. Keep writing until I'm done. So in the midst.
- [08:35]
Dave Smith
I think your forward was 600 pages. I'm sorry, I think the forward was 600 pages.
- [08:42]
Scott Horton
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Just the section. I was gonna say we got a section on the Boston bombing in there. That's 600 pages of the book. No, but I did, I did not know what to leave out, so I put it all in. And then it's the same thing with the course where we just go over everything. So you have, you know, under the broad subject of America's new Cold War with Russia, you have, of course, all the promises about NATO expansion, you have shock therapy, economic policy, you have the wars in the Balkans, you have, you know, all of, of course, Bush's blunders and NATO expansion and the Bucharest declaration and then in Obama and of course all the color coded revolutions are in there. You have the Boston bombing as part of the politics of America, Russia relations in the Obama years and then of course the Maidan revolution and the outbreak of the civil War, so called in 2014 and all of that leading up to the war in 2022. Like it's basically all there and all encompassing for you. So that's the reason the book's so long. I didn't know what to leave out. So it's all in there. 8,000 citations, 6,700 footnotes. And that's essentially what the course is, is me taking you through what I learned already, what I already knew and what I learned right in that book about our policy toward Russia and all that. So yeah, if you want to know it, this is where to go. Scott Horton Academy.com in fact, I forgot, is it SL Dave or SL P or what?
- [10:08]
Dave Smith
It's SL PotP is, is the one, I believe.
- [10:12]
Scott Horton
Yeah, there you go. So Dave gets a big kickback and you guys get a discount. I think it's 20% off for lifers and. Or what? 10 for 10 for annual subscribers at 20% off for lifetime subscribers at the Academy if you use the promo code potp. So.
- [10:27]
Dave Smith
All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is my Patriot Supply. I love this company. I'm a big believer preparedness and so always been thrilled to have them on board. Just a few years ago, if you told someone you were stocking up on emergency food, they would have probably thought you were a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. Not so much anymore. We've all seen supply chain chaos, devastating natural disasters, inflation, war, civil unrest. And preparedness has gone mainstream. That's why we're so excited to be partners with my Patriot Supply, America's original Patriot preparedness company. Right now they're celebrating America's 250th birthday with one of the best deals they've ever offered. $250 off their bestselling six month emergency food supply, available now at preparelike Dave.com this is the same stuff that I keep in my house. They deliver 2,000 calories a day. The food lasts up to 25 years without refrigeration and it contains no GMOs or artificial colors or flavors. And you can count on it to keep your family fed no matter what happens, even at full price. I think this is a great decision to make. But with the $250 discount, it's a no brainer. Go to preparelike Dave.com to get your emergency kit today. That's preparelike Dave.com. all right, let's get back on the show.
- [11:42]
Scott Horton
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [11:43]
Dave Smith
And I really, as I always say, but obviously can't recommend this stuff highly enough. This is really, this look, I mean, this, the Hortonianism is right at the core of what this show is, is all about. So if you want to learn about this stuff, there's no better place to do it than here. Let's. Here, let's talk a little bit. Because, you know, sometimes Polly and by the way, no, none of that. Not on this show. This. I, I define who you are on this one. But I want to talk to you because sometimes I, you know, I, you know, me and you, Me and you talk a lot. Like we're good buddies, so we talk a lot off the podcast. But then I do feel like sometimes I forget that, you know, we've already had this conversation a few times together, but maybe we haven't had it on the podcast. And I do, we do have like an obligation in a sense to our camp for me and you. This is really the first time me and you have talked since the beginning of this war. We did a podcast. I don't know, it was, at least I think it was two months ago. The last time we did a show together. It was in the beginning of the thing. And whatever we are, obviously, I don't mean I've been guilty a little bit of this. I don't mean to be just talking about this as if it's a certainty that the thing is over or anything because this is a very, you know, unstable place we're in right now. But I know I've been thinking kind of really zooming out, just the topic being this war in Iran. It is. I know you've been at this longer than me and I know one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot over the last few months and really over the last year, because we're, I think we're right about a year since the, the twelfth Day War or a little over a year. Right? It was June, they launched it. Right. So little over a year. And, and it's. There is something, at least from my perspective, and I know you've been at this longer than me. There's something where, I mean, I remember, like I got into this in the Ron Paul, you know, debates and stuff, and that's almost 20 years ago now. But the topic in so many of those Ron Paul VI moments in the debate was war with Iran, because that was on the table in 2007, you know, and even before that. I mean, you, you know, in 2001, David from coined the axis of evil and put a rayon on it. So anyway, the point is that like guys like you have literally, literally been arguing against this war that we're in for a quarter of a century. It's a strange thing to live through that. Like now I don't quite got a quarter of a century. You got more time than me. But like just having done it for almost two decades now, it's a weird thing to be arguing against this thing, have this devastating argument and then we win. I mean, I'm not saying just me and you individually, like, but I just mean like kind of the people against this war, they win the argument with the American people. It's total consensus. The last thing we need is another stupid war we can't win for no reason. And they launch the thing anyway and they go and fucking lose it right in front of all of us. And it's just, I don't know, man, there's something, it's maddening. It's a little bit, you know, you have a human reaction of like, huh, see, but I don't know where. Just as you see that it's all but been, I think, ratified at this point that we admit we lost this thing without it being official. What are your thoughts?
- [14:56]
Scott Horton
Well, I mean, personally, I'm more stuck on the. Our failure and my failure to really do anything to stop it. You know what I mean? For all the pressure of the anti war movement and including a lot of former government officials who have come out against these policies and all these things over the time, it didn't matter, right? We've been joking around here about W. Bush in his memoir says, well, look, I explained to the Saudi king, oh, your royal highness, I'm sorry, I can't attack Iran because the CIA told everybody they're not making nukes. And how could I start a war if my own intelligence agencies say they don't have a military program? And of course the answer to that, obviously W. Bush is just lie and do it anyway. And that's what Donald Trump did. Didn't matter. For all the pressure for diplomacy, all the reasons spoken on the side of reason, this whole time amounted to nothing. Including even in his own cabinet meeting where people told him, hey man, you really shouldn't believe Israeli promises about how easy this is going to be. Iran ain't Venezuela. Etc. And I don't think anybody really tried to read him the riot act and they should have been willing to risk getting fired on the spot to really tell him no, you know, but it wasn't enough. I actually kind of flubbed this line on the Rogan show when I was on the road show. Everybody check out me on the road and show if you didn't see it, but I did. He kind of said, man, I don't think anybody in the White House is saying what you just said. And I said, yeah, I think you're right. But what I should have said was, actually, no, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard did tell him this, the same thing. This is the official position of the dni. I don't know if she explained, as you know as well as I did.
- [16:37]
Dave Smith
No, but Joe Kent has. Joe Kent has reaffirmed several times that there's no Donald Trump got this information. The idea that Donald Trump did not get the information to him that they would likely close the strait or that the Israeli plan would not work to topple the regime. This is just not true.
- [16:54]
Scott Horton
Well, I mean, the subject on the road show at that point was the part about how far away they are from a nuke and what it would take for them to get one and how easy it would be for America to know if they really did try and how much time we would have to stop and all of that. That was the part of it. But. But the thing is, no, that is what Tulsi Gabbard said. And there's every reason to believe, I guess I'm not sure if I know that she said this to. If this was in the wall, in the New York Times report that she. I don't think that she was in that meeting. Right. Do you remember?
- [17:23]
Dave Smith
No, no, she's not in it.
- [17:25]
Scott Horton
Vance was there, but she was not there. But she had told him previously that, look, it's our assessment that they haven't broken out toward a bomb, but there's no indication that he said, okay, tell me everything you know about it, lady. You know what I mean? So anyway, just kind of. Right, but yeah, so. And then, look, as far as being proven right, told you so, those things or whatever, like, whatever. I mean, I'm sure anyone familiar with me on this question knows that, you know what I warned about over the years about what could happen here, and I'm just a skateboarder from Texas, man. Everybody knows that, too. The only reason that I was able to warn of the consequences here is because so many other people, great journalists and again former government officials, you know, from the Bush years and whatever, military guys, all kinds of voices have been writing about this and talking about this and campaigning against this war all along. So it's true that I warned in 2005, you can find it in August or it was a July of, was it July or August of 2005 I wrote who's behind the coming war with Iran? And so 21 years ago. And I'd say in there, yeah, and they could close the Strait of Hormuz. That's why it's the Persian Gulf. It's a half of the coastline is their country, you know. But so I was just parroting other knowledgeable experts who were warning that same thing that was, you know, I, I'm an interview show host. That's how I know all this stuff. I did 6, 000 interviews over the years with people who actually know what they're talking about. So I just learned it from them. And so then. But yes, that was what they, and therefore I had warned was that Iran has a very powerful strategic position just based on their geography here and especially based on the fact that George W. Bush put their best friends in power in Baghdad that hugely increased their power and influence in the region. And it meant that during the war we can't fight them because our law, all our guys will get shot in the back. The Iran's friends are the ones we're fighting for. So it could be like Order 66 from Star Wars 3 over there where our, all our guys get killed. So we can't do that. And then even once that war was over.
- [19:35]
Dave Smith
Oh yeah. Just to be. I'm sorry, I'm sorry just to spell that for anybody who's not like, like following that there, just to be clear, it's like our units are embedded with like Iranian linked Shiite groups. And so you would have to think, and these are groups who clearly have demonstrated more loyalty to Iran than the US presence in Iraq. I mean there is no, you know what I mean? Like they may have sided with that for purposes or things that. But like, yeah, you could have had a situation where the, the guys who our boys were counting on were all turning on them over this other conflict could have been, man, what a blood bath. These, these. I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off there, continue your thought. But I just, I just for so many years watch these neocons like confidently sell every single one of these wars and then when they get into it it's always the same thing. They're always deer in headlights and none of their predictions come true and none of it's there. And just man, the bloodbath that they would have created had they gotten their way at that point is really just unbelievable to think about.
- [20:32]
Scott Horton
Yeah, absolutely right. And in fact, you know, Muktada Alsadar, the leader of the Mahdi army, and Abdulaziz Al Hakim, who is the head of the Supreme Islamic Council, which controlled the bottom brigade, they both had said. I forgot which was the direct quote, but it doesn't matter, paraphrase. Both of them said we would do our duty. When they were asked what would you do if America bombed Iran? We would fight for Iran against the American. So yes, and what I mean by order 66, that's when the Jedi are leading all the stormtroopers into battle and then the commander gives the order and the. And the clones all shoot the Jedi in the back and take over. You know, so that's basically what would have happened to our guys then. But even after the end of that war and the withdrawal of most of our forces, still the bases we still have there, which we got after Rock War 3, that we still have in Irbole and the Green Zone Embassy and all of that, they and all of our bases from Iraqi Kurdistan all the way to the tip of the Persian Gulf in Saudi and Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and UAE and Oman, all of them were at risk and as I would always say, a trillion or a bazillion dollars worth of economic targets as well all up and down the Gulf and they have this massive short and medium range missile force. Their entire military was essentially centered around it. Right. Their land army is not for projecting power. Their land army is just so you don't dare try it because they got a million men who could grab arms and fight. Their Air force was built by Nixon and Ford back in the 70s out of F4s and F14s and they were all just old junk with no spare parts and, and not fly. Well, I think they got one air strike off in the recent war and hit basic Kuwait, but other and killed some people. But otherwise their entire four. And their navy was just a showpiece Navy. What are they gonna do? Take on the US Navy on the high seas? Get out of here. They never even tried it. That when Trump brags about bombing their navy, they were at port just sitting there. So their whole military defense was centered around their short and medium range missile capability. That was it. And it was stated way back and. And you can find where I wrote this in@antiwar.com back in 05 and in 06 before the NIE came out, before the chiefs took Bush to the tank at the Pentagon, which was in January of 07, where they gave him his starkest warning. But I'd written about this a couple of years before that, that the military says they don't have escalation dominance, that if they start a war with Iran, they're confident that they can beat them ultimately, but only at great cost and they're afraid that they won't be able to control every stage of the fight and they don't want to fight anybody where they're not going to be able to control every stage of the fight. Like Paul Wolfowitz said about Iraq War two, Saddam or Iraq is doable. Well, Iran ain't doable. So you don't even get into that. You know, you just. Which in fact was part of the whole strategy about getting rid of Saddam Hussein in the clean Break, Dave was well, obviously we can't attack Iran. Obviously we can't do anything about that. So at least if we get rid of Saddam, maybe we'll be in control of Iraq then and we'll be able to use that to pressure against Iran and break Iran's alliance with Syria and Hezbollah, etc.
- [23:41]
Dave Smith
Yeah. Didn't it have something, didn't it say something like limited strikes on Iran or something like that? It was like I think they mentioned, I think they were like cause bring about regime change in Iraq and Syria and like limited strikes because even there certainly was even some acknowledgment there that like, you know, it almost, it reminds me a little bit about like in the early talks of NATO expansion, the acknowledgment of the exception of Ukraine. You know, like even back then there was some acknowledgment that like well this is a bigger piece to, to chew on here. So like maybe we'd handle this a little bit different, you know, even, even to the war.
- [24:16]
Scott Horton
Look what, what happened a year ago you mentioned the war. A year ago in the war a year ago, the Ayatollah took it on the chin and turned the other cheek, right? He, well almost he, he fired 14 missiles. But he called ahead of time and said I'm going to fire 14 symbolic missiles at an empty corner of your base. And Cutter, please shoot them down. Go ahead. And Trump thanked him for it in a tweet. Thank you Ayatollah for the warning about the missiles. And it was, he had dropped 14 bombs on Fordo and a taunts. So The Ayatollah fired 14 missiles. Now he had hit Israel, but completely restrained with the United States. As I said on your show at the time, like, clearly he's signaling here, I don't want to fight you, man, because as I did say also for 20 years, sorry, because I don't really make up new lines very often. If you're the Ayatollah, what are you going to do with a problem like the United States of America? You're going to have to deal. You can't race to a bomb, they're going to get you before you get one. So you're going to have to figure out a way to essentially hold them at bay with enough of a half assed deterrent to make you too prickly to want to fight, but without arming up so badly that you create the pretext for bringing it on. And the Ayatollah's position all along was, look, man, we don't want a problem with you guys because what the hell, get our block knocked off. So. But then, and it was clear that that was the lesson of Trump last year was, oh, that was easy. And then with Venezuela and the nabbing of Maduro, holy crap, that went down like a night raid. In a successful, on, you know, better than average night raid in the Marja province in Afghanistan to send the Navy SEALs in there to get ahead of State and his wife out of bed and nab him like that. It's just amazing that they were able to do that. And Trump, of course, was higher on that than anything. Mr. T Total was like, obviously, you know, totally drunk on the success of. Did I say seals? It was Delta, right? Or I'm sorry, I don't remember.
- [26:13]
Dave Smith
Was it? Well, I forget. We could check.
- [26:16]
Scott Horton
That must have been the seals, because I would have made a Waco joke if it had been Delta.
- [26:22]
Dave Smith
Right. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Hexclad. I've been telling you about Hexclad for a while. If you want to level up your kitchen game, you gotta check out their stuff. And now introducing Hexclad's barbecue collection. Hexclad is bringing its hybrid technology outdoors with products specifically designed to make grilling easier, especially when you're cooking foods that normally don't cooperate on a traditional grill. The Hexclad barbecue grill plan combines the searing power of stainless steel, the durability of cast iron, and the convenience of non stick. All in one versatile grilling pan. They've also launched their new barbecue grill topper, which gives you even more control when cooking delicate foods, veggies, seafood, multiple portions at once. Those are the trickier things to do on the grill. I know I've been, it's, it's barbecue season here where I live in New Jersey, and I know I use hexclad for their pots and pans. Their knives are all really great, so definitely check them out. There's nothing better than being behind the grill during the summer, so don't make it harder than it needs to be. Stop losing food through the grates. Stop fighting. Cleanup and upgrade your backyard cooking setup with hexclad's barbecue collection. And for a limited time only, our listeners can get 10% off your order with our exclusive link hexclad.com problem just head over to hexclad.com problem and get your 10% off. Make sure to let them know that we sent you. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [27:54]
Scott Horton
Anyway, forgive me, audience, for brain farting on that one. But anyway, point being, it was Delta, wasn't it?
- [28:01]
Dave Smith
You know, I want to say it was Delta, but I'm actually, I'm not
- [28:04]
Scott Horton
sure you search it. Point is, Trump was so high on how easy it was to get Maduro on top of the war last June against Iran. Same target as this war, right? Is the ayatoll. Let him get it. But then we talked about this on, you know, on my shows, you know, on my interviews and also with Daryl Cooper. You know, I interviewed Larry Johnson, who's everywhere, you know, former CIA officer talking about this. I interviewed him the day of the war. It, it, they launched it that Friday night. And I interviewed him that morning, and he was like, Listen, I'm 90%. This is happening, like, today. It's on. And then we talked about, of course, Ayatollah doesn't want to fight. And of course, Ayatollah only does these limited symbolic strikes when he's able to do that. But if the war is a real regime change war and a real war to destroy the state in Iran, then there's every reason to believe that they're gonna fight like a pit bull. What are they gonna do, Give up? Virtually. This is Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard, straight out of Libertarianism 101. And this is true for virtually any state. There may be exceptions in history, I don't know. But unless it's just a total coup domain where, you know, the other force just rolls right in there's nothing that can happen to stop them. Essentially, any state will fight to their last citizen in order to protect themselves, because, geez, if it wasn't for us, you'd all be dead anyway. So, like, if we're going to consume every last bit of your lives and property to defend the country, then they'll do that. So there's no exception for the Ayatollah and the irgc, obviously. And then we talked about that same night on the show, we talked about, and obviously previously too, talked about with Daryl Cooper that like, yes, what would it look like if we really went after the regime? They're going to fight back really hard, and that's going to mean unleashing their missile forces at our bases, potentially at our Navy, and potentially closing the Strait of Hormuz and causing all of this problem. And then one week later, Daryl came back and said, listen, I got military sources and they're telling me the war is not going well. They are hitting our bases, like, way beyond our ability to defend, etc. Etc. And they all said that that was a lie. They said he was wrong. They said he didn't know what he was talking about. There are all kinds of critics that I remember.
- [30:22]
Dave Smith
Yeah, that's on Twitter. Yeah.
- [30:23]
Scott Horton
Yep. Completely proven out. Now, multiple reports by the Post, the Times, the Journal and everybody else, satellite photos and everything, show that the Iranians were able to reach out and touch every single one of our bases in the region. Jordan, Iraq, all the way down to the tip of oman. They got 20, depending on how you count them, 20, 24 bases. They completely. They call the. The Fifth Fleet station at Bahrain is now called the former Fifth Fleet station at Bahrain. Totally destroyed or, you know, rendered completely unusable. I don't know about the other bases. I don't. I don't think that they were, you know, they're hitting radar bases, radar domes and hitting tarmacs and things. They weren't trying to just rain total destruction down, but they proved that they were able to hit every single American base in the region and were able to do nothing about it. And that was why the, you know, Donald Trump called it quits on April 8 and said, okay, cease fire. If you go back and look at the propaganda at that time, or just go back and remember what was going on at that time. This is when he was threatening to end their civilization and all these things because it wasn't working. All the precision strikes didn't change the situation on the ground. So he was resorting to all this Hyperbole. And then the way they spun it when he called ceasefire instead was to say, well, we didn't see any more military options available, but it's okay, because we already hit everything we wanted to hit. We already destroyed everything we wanted to hit. We call it victory. But the point was, they weren't getting any closer to regime change. They weren't getting any closer to annihilating Iranian missile force. They weren't getting any closer to forcing them to forsake all their allies in Lebanon and Yemen or Iraq. They weren't getting any closer to any of their goals at all. And the strait was closed and getting worse as far, you know, and the economic consequences were bad and getting worse. So the American, The Washington side had to give up. They, you know, they launched this whole war, as the New York Times reported, I think totally credibly, they launched this war. Trump launched it, not Congress. The President, on his own authority, which he doesn't have, launched this war based on essentially a whim, based on a promise from Netanyahu that, trust me, dog, it's gonna work, man. It's gonna be cool. And. And once we get the Ayatollah, the whole regime's gonna crumble. Pro American forces are going to come to power, and it's going to be fine. You're going to prove all the naysayers wrong. And he just rolled the dice on it.
- [32:47]
Dave Smith
Yeah.
- [32:47]
Scott Horton
He must have realized within just a few days how well it was not working, you know?
- [32:52]
Dave Smith
Yeah, I think so. And, you know, I. As you said, and maybe this is kind of like my background and having read a lot of Austrian economics or something like that, but I was. I remember I was on Piers Morgan's show. It was like the. Like a couple days after this latest war launched. And that this was also the first. The first takeaway that I had was it was. It was after Iran's first response after the first day, you know, and it was like, look, clearly, man, this is what you guys did. You tipped the incentive structure here. You know, it's no longer. It's not. At a certain point when you just don't want to fight. You know, I think the comparison I used was, like, if someone comes to your front door with a gun and they pull a gun on you and they go. They go. You know, at first you might be like, okay, hey, listen, what do you want? I got jewelry, I got money. Like, calm down, let's talk here. And then they go, give me one of your kids. And you go, okay, well, that I can't do like, like, now you've changed the incentive structure to be like, well, now I have to. Even you having a gun, I have to fight you with that gun. Like, I just got to take my chance because I can't let you. If that's what you're here for, then we get. And so once you come, like we're here to kill you and your whole family and destroy your country and overthrow your regime, well, now the calculation changes. And obviously, if you're looking for deterrence now, you got to land a black eye, you got to get a bloody nose on the bully here or something. And it's funny, I remember on that first day, all the Warhawks being giddy, they're so confident every single time. It's really unbelievable to be around me and your age and have watched this play out so many times now, so many times, these confident plans, these crazy predictions. And, you know, one of the things I've thought quite a bit about, I try, I'm not just bringing this up for like, the petty point of like, who was right. You, you got it right, or we were right about this. But it's important to understand that the people who saw this would be a disaster, saw that for reasons. And those reasons can help us in the future if we listen to that. And we ought to listen to the people who warned against what this would turn into rather than the ones who spun you some fantasy about how, how this would go and, you know, for whatever it was, was it seven months, seven or eight months in between the, the, the 12 day war and the launch of this war, the, the amount and like, people gave it to me, I don't really care about it. And honestly, I didn't really get over my skis much on the 12 day war, but the amount that people would rake, friends of ours, people who we admire a lot, like Tucker Carlson and John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs and guys like this, who, who we largely agree with on foreign policy, maybe not on a lot of other issues, but they would rake them over the coals for, like, not having qualified warnings about the 12 Day War. And if we're being completely fair, like, yeah, they did get a little out over their skis and like, say, like, they went, this will result in World War III if we start bombing Iran. Or they said, this will result in Iran destroying all of our bases and closing the Strait of Hormuz. And then after the 12 day war, the Hawks, man, they just could not have been smear them and play those clips and go where's that World War iii. You promised. And then I gotta say, obviously this didn't result in World War Three. But, dude, people used to. I remember literally there were commenters that would mock me and you on episodes we would do. We're talking about Iran years ago. And I remember people would go, I don't even need to watch the episode. Let me just. Let me guess. Escalation. Dominance. We don't have escalate because we would just always say this over and over, you know, and it's like they were making us for saying this, but it's like, no, that's the point, dude. This is the point. And so, yeah, like, it. It really is something to go like, oh, okay, you guys had so much fun with this little game of. Of mocking Tucker for not saying. Instead of saying, this action carries an unnecessary risk of triggering a world war, he just said this. This will trigger a world war. Which, like, okay, he should have qualified that statement a little bit more.
- [36:52]
Scott Horton
Yeah.
- [36:52]
Dave Smith
But let's go through all the Hawks. Let's go through all the Hawks and what they said about what would happen after the 12 day war versus what we said would happen after the 12 day war. How many times did me and you publicly say, we're at halftime after the 12 day war? How many? Count them up. How many of you. How many of you guys said it was done after the 12 day war and bragged about the fact that no Americans got killed? Oh, you're not bragging about that anymore. How many of you told me there was going to be regime change or that there was going to be no more support for Hezbollah that there, like, you know, go through the. Someone who's got more time on their hands than me and who knows how to do video editing. Go through it. Please. Go through. There's such a gold mine there of a compilation video to be made about those guys trashing Tucker and, And. And Meshimer and all them, and then give their predictions of this war? Because, man, looking back at it, those guys at least had an obvious point. Okay, maybe they should have qualified their statement. But still, the essence, the spirit of the point was like, look at the risks of this thing, man. And honestly, Scott, we still don't even know right now how much the damage is. How much the damage is and still will be. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsors for today's show, which is Ultra Pouches. I've been telling you about these guys for. For a while now. They're great. I'm a Big pouch guy. So if you like pouches but you want the guilt free pouch, you gotta go check out Ultra. They make the pouches, but they're just made with nootropics, things that are good for you. They're just good for energy and focus and things like that. And there's no nicotine, no caffeine, so it's a pouch you don't gotta feel about. And now they have their sleep pouches out. Everybody uses pouches for increased focus and energy but Ultra took that idea and they flipped it. Now they have pouches that help you wind down, fall asleep and stay asleep. They deliver better, deeper sleep. And they're all properly dosed and made from nothing but natural ingredients. New customers can use the promo code problem and get 15% off@take ultra.com. that's take ultra. And for 15% off use the promo code problem. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [39:00]
Scott Horton
Yeah, well, yeah, speaking of which, somebody should go back and do a thorough research project on YouTube and find from interviews of me by other people over the last 20 years how many times I warned about this stuff. Oh man, at least like 0507. Whatever, you know. But yeah, look, here's what's fun about this though is first of all Trump did call it off before it got too much worse. Instead of just tripling down, he went.
- [39:29]
Dave Smith
That's true.
- [39:32]
Scott Horton
And. But the loss is terrible for the empire. This is something that, it's funny, I see, whatever people are in their silos and they don't get to hear each other's ideas enough or whatever kind of thing, I guess. But it seems like even now the war party types who supported this thing don't seem to appreciate that America's entire conventional military power and ability to coerce has been called into question everywhere. And we'll see. And, and they could choose either way. But it's obviously still a short or medium term question to be revisited constantly, which is all the nations in the Gulf were not able to be defended by the United States when Iran came after them and they were able again to shut down our bases there. They had to evacuate our bases even before they launched the thing mostly. And then Cutter, I read, was spared a bit of this because they promised the Iranians they would not allow us to fly any sorties out of their, our main air base, the headquarters of Central Command at the Aludid Air base in Cutter. So Justin Logan from Cato, who's been absolutely great on this, Brandon Buck and John Hoffman and Cato's just been fantastic on all this stuff, including calling out the Israel lobby and everything. But Logan said, what good is a military base that you can't fight a war from? The whole thing is completely pointless.
- [40:59]
Dave Smith
So, and then I'm not sure if I misattributed. I think I misattributed that quote to Colonel Douglas McGregor, by the way. So I should make a correction from previous, but it is a great quote. What good is a military base if you can't launch a war from the thing? Well, that, that's kind of like Donald Trump's what's a country without Borders? You know, like, it does make you scratch your head a little bit and go, yeah, I guess that is the whole thing of it, isn't it?
- [41:21]
Scott Horton
In fact, this would be one that I used to say over and over over the last couple of decades, too, would be that meme whenever I've said this, ever since it first came out, at least that meme of Iran. And they say, well, if Iran doesn't want trouble with us, how come they put their country so close to all our military bases when that was along the lines of the order 66 in Iraq thing was in fact, our, our aggressive empire had put a giant break on its own ambitions in the region by putting all those bases there within missile range. And so that was why we could not fight a war there was because we had all those bases so close to Iran. And. But I guess Trump just didn't get the memo or didn't read it till the end and went ahead anyway. But that was one of the reasons that we couldn't fight that war is because we had all our bases so close. But so now Trump essentially called his own bluff. Right? Like he, you like these analogies. Here's one. A bully, say, like me, picking on a nerd who turns out has an older brother and upper body strength. And then I learned the lesson that, oh, actually, like I might be Mr. Cool Guy, but Mr. Dorco There is stronger than me. Or at least in his front yard he is.
- [42:40]
Dave Smith
Yeah.
- [42:40]
Scott Horton
So that's the lesson that America has already learned. Here again, Trump called this thing off on April 8th. I declare that I already won, he said, or something like that, and called the thing off because the thing wasn't working. Bluff called. But so the consequences from there are this bully has lost his credibility across the entire junior high now, right now. I mean, imagine what the Chinese are thinking after this performance. And what would it take to hold off the US Navy? Not much. I mean, we weren't able to get our Star Destroyers anywhere near Iran's coast.
- [43:15]
Dave Smith
Imagine, imagine a conversation about Taiwan now, right? You want to have a conversation like not even saying like what you know, because there is something when you take the element of force away, we are having a completely different conversation. That's true with all human interactions. All human interactions, I mean like, like male to male, human. All human interactions are governed by the fact that there could be violence. Like you, you know, like this is a big part of the reason why you just don't go up to some random dude on the street and say whatever you feel like saying. Because like hey, you don't know what's going to happen or how strong he is or what weaponry he has on him. And, and in a similar sense even having the conversation over Taiwan, everything about the conversation completely changes. If you start from the starting point that well, we don't have any option of force. Like that is, that is not possibly something we can do. And that changes everything because right away you're like oh, all right, well then, well then we're just in negotiations. But yeah, imagine if we couldn't get, if we militarily can't open the Strait of Hormuz, but we're going to have a confrontation with China over there, right? I don't think so.
- [44:30]
Scott Horton
Hey, it only depends on how many tens of thousands of guys you're willing to lose in the thing or whether you're willing to break out nuclear weapons or not. But then Iran has not just a real nuclear deterrent, even a thermonuclear deterrent. And in fact they just tested a brand new submarine launched ICBM yesterday. The Chinese did so. But then, so this gets to my point actually sometimes I like to finally get to my point point. The point is that everybody knows we got H bombs and you can't mess with the United States of America, dude. I mean even our conventional force, we really were that angry. We could send our air force and decimate your capital city. Especially if we're willing to lose some planes doing it. We can beat yalls ass even with conventional power like if we're that mad about it. But basically as far as like our overall security umbrella around the world world, it's nukes or nothing. Nobody should look at what just happened in Iran and think that America could win a war in Ukraine or a war for that matter in the Baltics or Poland or anywhere in Asia, you know, in Korea or in Japan or whoever. And, and yet we have our nuclear deterrent. We can, I think it's a idiotic bluff to include all these other nations, including in our treaty alliances and, and spread our so called nuclear umbrella to them because it means we have essentially now no options but to use nukes to defend all of them. Our conventional military is exposed, is just completely bankrupt. So. But the good news is though is that if anyone wants to be rational about this, well, that we could just have a minimal, hopefully thermonuclear deterrent or, or atom bomb deterrent and just abandon the empire altogether. In fact, Dave, if we have this complete strategic defeat and humiliation in the Middle east, who cares? Why do we care about that? I don't own stock in Exxon and I don't give a damn what happens to Israel. End of the argument. The American people do nothing but get taxed and lose in order to dominate the Middle East. None of this is in our interest and it's in fool's air. Pardon me, in enough already. I have the quote from this guy from Princeton who's economic geographer or a geographic economist, I can't ever remember, but something like that. But anyway, his point was that. I hope I get the number right. I think it was that he said we spent $7 trillion between the 1970s and the end of the Clinton administration and then we spent another whatever 10 trillion over there since then to supposedly secure Middle Eastern oil when we spent not even a tenth of that on Middle Eastern oil. So what are we doing? We're lording it. Our military dominance over these oil supplies. Look at what's happened in this recent war. Who's dependent on Middle Eastern oil? Our allies in Asia, South Korea and Japan and our commercial adversary, hopefully not real state adversary, China. So we have to dominate the Middle east at the cost of unlimited infinite American inflated dollars in order to extort our friends. Yeah, and potentially be able to blackmail our enemies. Even though if it came to a real war with China, we could sink any ship on its way to China. You don't have to completely dominate every chic dom and you know, imirdom in the Middle east in order to do that. And what right does any American have to complain about Iranian dominance after America's the one who gave them Baghdad and then in fact re solidified Iraqi dependence on Iran in Iraq War III by building the caliphate. That was when they created all those Shiite militias or many more of those Shiite militias that are a huge Iranian proxy in Iraq now. Then kicked our own self in the teeth in this stupid war and demonstrated to the entire region that we can't protect you. And actually all we can do is get you in trouble. So who's fault is that? It's Washington's fault. And so they don't get to complain about the consequences. They shouldn't be able to just complain about the consequences and demand even more intervention to try to make up for it. They should in fact do like Trump is apparently doing now, which is say screw it it and sign up their dotted line. We actually have nothing to lose.
- [49:01]
Dave Smith
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- [53:24]
Scott Horton
I gotta highly recommend Larry Johnson, the former CIA officer. His website is called Sonar21. You can sign up for his email list and he sends out an article every morning and he is just swims in these stats. He loves it and he, you could tell he already has a deep base knowledge of these kinds of issues. So he talks about, you know, the hold up of helium and ammonia for fertilizer and all the different things and all the expected bottlenecks and ramifications and gluts and all the different things from the now release. Whatever. So just. I can't recommend him to your people here. Larry Johnson, sonar21.com But anyways.
- [53:58]
Dave Smith
Absolutely, absolutely. I'd love to interview him someday. He's great. But you know, so, so look though the, the point being essentially if I could crystallize all of, I think what both of us are saying here. This was perhaps the dumbest war in American history to launch. It was not as of now the humanitarian catastrophe that some of these other areas have been. I mean we really should point out that they're human toll. There really is no comparing how bad it got here to like the catastrophe in Iraq, the catastrophe in Libya, the catastrophe in Syria, the catastrophe in Yemen, catastrophe in Gaza, the catastrophe, you know, I mean, like Ukraine, I mean these are places where in Ukraine. I don't even know what the numbers are at this point, man. I mean it's something that, you know. But yeah, it's, it's really, really bad. And so the, But I mean it was, it was like supercharged. It was like they fit, fit 20 years of failure in Afghanistan into three months or something like that. I mean the amount of contradictions, the nonsense it was and, and it ended in disaster and it killed, maybe not in the numbers of those other realms, but it killed a lot of real people. There are real people alive today who have lost their little girl or their mother or their brother and it's a horrible thing to do. But we, it would be crazy of us to not acknowledge that we do seem to live in a moment where there are real opportunities that could arise out of this. And unfortunately, that is what happens in human history. Sometimes really bad things lead to some positive silver linings arising out of them.
- [55:29]
Scott Horton
And I will say, Emanuel, agree. Yeah.
- [55:32]
Dave Smith
I mean, hey, listen, the bad guys. Well, look, they do have a point about it. Like, if they could exploit it for bad stuff, maybe they did exploit it for bad stuff, you know, but you go the. Look, look, and I know I heard you talk a little bit about this unprovoked, but I kind of want to get you to give your thoughts on it here a little bit. The. There's a lot of. There's a lot of speculation out there on what exactly it is that Israel has over us politicians. I mean, how exactly do the levers of power work? I mean, we know about APAC and we know about other members of the lobby, and we know about the Adelsons and we know about the Murdochs, and we kind of know about Christian Zionists like that. But then there's like, Epstein questions and then there's. There, there. There has been such. I think there. There has been such. There is such a weird religious, like, worship of Israel from so many political figures. And there is such a strange uniqueness to the US Israeli relationship where there is this unconditional support given to a tiny proxy by this huge empire which seems to punch enormously above its weight. And that's. Right. That's fertile ground for people to speculate on what's really going on here, here. But if we're really correct, which I kind of. I'd like to not get too conspiratorial, if we can't really prove that, you know, let's try to rock them Occam razors this thing as much as possible. But if we're correct that what Donald Trump was actually up against and what he was actually briefed on were like military and then economic realities, it's like, yo, there's no option here. You have to bail off of this. And it does seem like he got that memo because the pivot was quick, man. And all of a sudden. And of course, because Donald Trump only has one Speed, which is 10,000 now, he's using all of our best talking points to throw back at the hawks about how dumb the war is. And it's a weird moment, but if we're right, that really global economic collapse or true military depletion or something like that was on the horizon, and so we just don't have an option here and if it's anything less than the most conspiratorial version of how Israel actually has its control, like, is it really that they got tapes of Donald Trump to kids? Probably not. You know, that maybe, but I don't think so. Well, if it's anything short of that, then we might actually have a real opportunity for the crackup of the US Israeli relationship here. Now, I'm cautiously optimistic. I am not suggesting that this is coming, and I'm not suggesting that the total collapse of that is coming at all. I'm just suggesting that a pressure has been put on that relationship that might be different than any pressure we've seen before. And that is happening in a context where popular support has plummeted by, like, 50 points on approval for Israel. And, like, let's just not be doctrinaire about this. Like, history isn't already written. Stuff could happen. Hey, that's an interesting dynamic where there might be possibilities there. So you got the possibility of the fact that the. Essentially the paper tiger bluff has been called, that the US Empire can't actually protect these people. And why be in the business of being military bases if you can't launch a war from them? Why should other countries be in the business of hosting our military bases if we can't protect them from that? You know, like, the whole thing's been blown up. Up. There's more pressure on this relationship than ever. Public sentiment is more with us on foreign policy than it ever has been in the years that me and you have both been doing this, since before there were any grays in these two beards. I don't know. This seems to be like a very, very cautiously, maybe something positive could come out of this disaster. What do you think of all that?
- [59:03]
Scott Horton
Well, yeah, I mean, certainly public opinion has changed over the last couple of years, and the fact of them dragging us into this war with Iran is sort of like just the ultimate insult on top of the injury of forcing us to all pay for what they've done to the past couple of years. And so right when people were already sick to death of this stuff, then they lie us into another war. Same guy, Netanyahu promises that we, it'll be real easy. We just got to take care of the weapons of mass destruction and overthrow this dictator and everything will be fine line. And after Trump just bellowed, right, W. Bush mumbled something up, I don't know, humble foreign policy maybe or something.
- [59:50]
Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:51]
Scott Horton
King Kong on the Empire State Buildings, beating his chest, going, I am the greatest peacemaker in the history of dudes whoever ended conflicts, and he just did it over and over and over again in a way where his flip flop on this is just unforgivable. It just amounts to not just a broken promise, but the damnedest of lies of, you know, what he told people there. So I think people are really upset by that.
- [60:12]
Dave Smith
And now trying to flip back, I mean, it just seems like an impossible, you know, sorry again.
- [60:17]
Scott Horton
Like, hey, man, there's only one actual, like, you know, legitimate but also useful scapegoat here, and that's the government of Israel. That's who did this. That's who lied us into war. That's whose policy this was. And you know whose fault it is, is them. And that's what I want to hear from Trump is just the never ending scapegoating of Israel. And he doesn't have to lie. All he has to do is tell the truth about it and it'll hold up. Because the role that they played in our foreign policy over the last generation is just absolutely obscene. It's the worst thing in the world. It's the worst thing about our country bar by far. And so if he wants to make a break, he's got all the ammo in the world to do it. But I don't think he's gonna do because the problem is he's friends with Benjamin Netanyahu. I think they get along just fine,
- [61:07]
Dave Smith
you know, and I don't trust Barack Raviv on nothing. So. Yeah, I tend to think you might be right about that. Yeah.
- [61:14]
Scott Horton
And, you know, I'm not sure that what they're doing is all just professional wrestling because they're waiting to restart the war. I know some people think that.
- [61:21]
Dave Smith
I don't, I don't think that.
- [61:23]
Scott Horton
Yeah, I think the split between them is professional wrestling because they have to end the war. And so Netanyahu obviously has to make his complaints. Yes, it. And Donald Trump, well, you know, he, he shouldn't have made me do it in the first place, whatever. But I'm sure they arranged all that on the phone beforehand. There's no hard feelings there.
- [61:39]
Dave Smith
No, I agree. I completely agree, though.
- [61:42]
Scott Horton
Go ahead.
- [61:43]
Dave Smith
No, okay. So I completely agree with that. I just really wanted to emphasize that point because I think that's really important. The, you know, look, when, when J.D. vance is coming back and all of a sudden trash in Israel. It's like JD Vance has been tasked with something very specific. And there's a reason why they tapped J.D. vance and not Marco Rubio or not Pete. He, like, he's the one they think can get this. But what do you got? You got a crazy unpopular war that we were lured into by a crazy unpopular country. He's playing a PR game. Obviously his best PR game here is to go, ah, screw all this and screw those guys and say some stuff that sounds nice to the overwhelming majority of people who were against this whole thing to begin with. If he's trying to make. Get popular support for the memorandum of understanding, he almost has no other option than to use some of the language to st. But don't buy this for a second. He was just selling the war and talking about. What was he talking about? Nuke vests a couple months ago or something like that. He's as bad as any of them. But so, no, that doesn't, that doesn't demonstrate that there's a real split between Trump and Netanyahu or the administration Netanyahu. But it also doesn't demonstrate at all that this is all a ploy to try to restart the war, because it could just be what it is, an attempt to do PR on behalf of Bailin on this whole thing. And that seems more likely to me. No, Scott, I think the most likely scenario here, honestly, and I think I might get some pushback for this. This. I think ultimately that Donald Trump might bring Netanyahu to. Netanyahu to heel, at least to this extent. Like, at least to, like, okay, you got to slow down in Lebanon and you can't blow up my ceasefire here, but you still get everything else and we still keep the same relationship. I think that's probably the most likely scenario that it doesn't blow up the whole relationship. It does get the lobby real pissed off with Trump. I think it's going to be a rough little period for, for Trump in the lobby. But I guess I would say there is the X factor that Netanyahu is personally in a. He has painted into a very tight corner. And, and as you know, you make this point all the time, Scott, and you make it better than everyone that, you know, public choice theory is a real phenomenon and that means that it's not. It's even too collectivist to say the powerful are making in decisions on behalf of the powerful. And think about an example like Joe Biden, where he had to be forced to drop out of the nomination because he wasn't even making decisions based on what's best. The Democratic establishment. He's making decisions based on what's best for like, Hunter Biden or something, or Jill Biden or something like that, or himself. And so Again, you're just in a situation where Netanyahu has his own personal sense of incentives that are pretty. I mean, even when you see this thing coming out now with the Supreme Court over there in Israel, which I guess is not Netanyahu's scandal yet, but you're like, oh, man, this is. It almost seems like something out of a novel level, like the guy can't stop the war or he goes to jail or he, you know, and so who knows what he'll do here. I have, I think even you, somebody who's studied this for, for a very long time, it is shocking how, how provocative and blatant they will still be.
- [64:44]
Scott Horton
Yeah, well, so, okay, a few things there. So, first of all, I'm totally making this up based on, you know, pseudo educated guesses, speculation type thing. I don't know of any real good reporting about this, this. But just from the tea leaves thing, it looks to me, again, like Trump has to come to essentially, Iran's understanding of the deal and, and make a deal that includes letting them keep their civilian nuclear program and all these other things, because he doesn't really have a good choice to restart the war. It's either sending ground troops like World War II, which he ain't going to do, or drop atom bombs, which he ain't going to do, or go ahead and recognize Iranian sovereignty, which is, is the third and only other choice. So he's going to have to come to the table there. Now, my speculation is that he, you know, Vance and whoever, speaking for the Americans and, and the Iranians, they must have already said to each other that, like, hey, look, we know that Israel and Hezbollah are going to keep squabbling on a lower level in Lebanon throughout this process. Let's not let that, that ruin it. Let's go ahead and get this done. And at the end of the deal, we'll make them really ceasefire and call the thing off. Because it may just be too much to ask Netanyahu to go ahead and get all the way back behind the true southern border of Lebanon and all of that in an instant. And then it gives, you know, the Iranians and the Americans a little bit of cushion and then ability to declare victory, too, that they got the other side to do what they wanted. We got Iran to restrain Hezbollah and then they got us to restrain Israel and, you know, a little something to brag about there, because otherwise. Yes, that is, of course, the total wild card is Israel in Lebanon. Yep. They could destroy the deal. Now, he would have to be willing to just Completely give the middle finger to Donald Trump and say, you're not having a peace deal, dude. My priorities, Trump, you're staying at war and whatever. Sorry to use the. I didn't mean to make a point there, stupid name. But anyway, anyway. But then, yes, like you say, like, if there's one thing that could make Netanyahu. Because, look, you know, Netanyahu is willing to defy Bill Clinton or Barack Obama over this or that, but he wasn't willing to drag Obama into war, no matter how much he hated him. Right? He's not going to do that to Donald Trump. Right. But if there was one thing that could make him, just out of desperation, keep the war going, ruin the peace deal, bomb Tehran, do something to disrupt it and keep it going, going, it's the fact that he's going to jail. He's got a date with the warden over down at the pokey, and he's just busted, dude. And for anyone who's never seen the BB Files, you can watch it. Yeah, Carlson's site, or get the Pirate Bay and get you a VPN and watch the BB Files. And essentially the whole documentary is just video footage of police interrogations by the Shin Bet, which is their FBI, their national police force, interrogating Netanyahu and all of his cronies. So there's Miriam Adelson going, I had to buy his wife all these diamond bracelets and champagne bottles or whatever, because what am I gonna do? They're shaking me down, dude. I got all the money and they got the power. And so what? Right? Like, it's right there on video, just open. And Netanyahu, too, sitting at his own desk, being interrogated by the national police. They got him dead to rights. He's just guilty as hell. And it's all about his evil wife life demanding, you know, luxuries, burrs and champagne and jewelry and things. And this is just absolutely against the letter of the law in Israel. Felonies, basic, pure and simple. Just caught them, just busted.
- [68:21]
Dave Smith
Turns out the Hilarion mass murderer also has an unscrupulous wife who likes to shop. It's amazing.
- [68:28]
Scott Horton
Like a Ryan long bit, you know, maybe at the core of the whole damn problem, you know?
- [68:34]
Dave Smith
Know.
- [68:35]
Scott Horton
But then, yeah, so he might have already gone to jail, but remember, this is why and how he created the current coalition at the end of 2022 with Ben Gavir and Smotrich, who. And he had never allied with kooks that far to the right before, but he had to do was the only way he was get back in there. And he had to do that so he didn't go to the penitentiary. And so, yeah, you talk about public choice theory for a psycho like Netanyahu, I mean, this is the wildest of cards. And honestly, like, I don't think there's anything short of Trump absolutely putting his foot down in the most severe of manners that could really reign him in. Well, I don't know, it's possible that there's like some amount of respect there that he just knows not to push the line and anger Trump too much.
- [69:25]
Dave Smith
Much.
- [69:26]
Scott Horton
But I don't know, man. The guy's the walking definition of Huzpa, right? He's gonna go as far, spin out as far as he possibly can before he's railed back in, you know?
- [69:36]
Dave Smith
Yeah, that for that. That seems, that seems to be for sure. Hey, listen, man, I gotta, I gotta wrap up here. You know, I did plan on. And maybe we'll just do this next time, but I did want to, like, talk about a little bit like, economic stuff with you because despite the fact that Scott, um, you know, specialized in foreign policy, he's got great insights on, on economics and he's good on everything as well. But I will. And I just wanted to say that because I, I just posted this on Twitter, but Keith Knight from the Libertarian Institute just put out this video called 64 Arguments Against Democratic Socialism. That is just phenomenal, man. I mean, it's just so great. It's about four hours long. I'm only, I am about three hours and 10 minutes into it now, now. But it's just, I mean, so good. If you like this type of stuff, just take, just destroying the myths of, of socialism and statism and stuff like that. More important than ever these days, especially, especially since, you know, a lot of people who have economic views that we really don't agree with have been really great on these horrible wars. And so they've kind of rightfully fairly kind of been empowered by being right on such an important issue in the moment. Moment. And now those of us who are also right on that most important issue, but aren't so bad on the other one would like to point out to them that they're stupid. I say that with love. I love, I love you anti war leftists. You're, you're very smart on war, very stupid on economics. All right, Scott Horton, it's been phenomenal, as always talking with you. Remind people one more time if people really want to learn more about this stuff and understand. SCOTT Horton, Academy of Foreign Policy and freedom. Where can they what's the the site to sign up.
- [71:17]
Scott Horton
That's it. Scott Horton academy.com and use the promo code PT or PT where I don't know. P. Yeah, that I thought it was Dave or something. Anyway, you figure it out. You get a 10 discount or a 21 if you sign up for the lifetime subscription there. And also I have a show. I have two shows. The Scott Horton show is my interview show here on the YouTubes and Spotify and all those things. And then also provoked every Thursday night with Derek Cooper, Martyr Maid Scott. So check me out there too.
- [71:45]
Dave Smith
Well, and that is provoked and of course the Scott Horton Show. But these are, you know, my favorite podcast to listen to, so definitely go check them out. All right. And I'll see you guys this weekend out in Houston. Thanks for listening. Catch you next time. Peace.