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Horton Destroys Wurmser

Part Of The Problem

Wed Dec 24 2025

Summary

Part Of The Problem | “Horton Destroys Wurmser”

Host: Dave Smith, GaS Digital Network
Guest: Scott Horton
Date: December 24, 2025

Episode Overview

This Christmas edition of “Part of the Problem” reunites host Dave Smith and foreign policy expert Scott Horton for a deep-dive response to neoconservative figure David Wurmser. Wurmser, co-author of the infamous “Clean Break” memo, recently gave an interview aimed at refuting the claims made by Smith and Horton about neoconservative influence on U.S. foreign policy—specifically regarding the Iraq War and the U.S.-Israel relationship. The discussion unpacks Wurmser’s attempted rebuttals, the neocon playbook, and the consequences of interventionism, with specific focus on what “Hortonian” foreign policy critique reveals about the drivers of endless war.

Main Themes

Debunking David Wurmser’s efforts to distance neoconservatives from the Iraq War’s failures.
Tracing neoconservative motivations—particularly the U.S.-Israel alliance, Zionism, and the real aims of the “Clean Break” strategy.
Reflecting on the rise of “Hortonian” antiwar analysis and its impact on policy discourse.
Highlighting the historical continuity, emotional drivers, and disastrous consequences of neoconservative intervention in the Middle East.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Dissident Voices Destabilize Establishment Narratives

Dave Smith opens by contextualizing the episode:

The show’s audience has grown significantly, and so has the influence of both Smith and Horton within the antiwar libertarian sphere.
Smith explains that neoconservatism and its push for Middle East intervention was a defining factor for his political consciousness after 9/11.
The episode is framed around a peculiar reversal: one-time government policy architects like Wurmser now feel compelled to respond to outside critics whose influence has surpassed theirs within certain circles.

“There’s just something surreal about the situation…where David Wurmser himself is sitting down to respond to us—and nobody cares.” —Dave Smith, [07:10]

2. Why Focus on War and Peace?

Smith and Horton emphasize that opposition to war is central to their libertarian worldview:

War is both the most destructive government program (robbing life, liberty, property) and the primary enabler of state power.
They are “the heirs of Rothbard and Raimondo”—with personal and philosophical vendettas against the architects of war:

“[Libertarians] are the heirs of Murray Rothbard and Justin Raimondo … We hate these people and they should be destroyed.” —Scott Horton, [08:21]

3. Wurmser Responds: The Deflections and Myths of the Neocons

The Israel Lobby & American Interests

Wurmser claims neocons aren’t “unconditionally committed to Israel,” but rather to “advancing American interests”—and that supporting Israel is in America’s interest because Israel is “the cradle of Western civilization.”

“Israel represents values. So it’s not another country. It’s the cradle of Western civilization … You can't uphold the foundations…if you remove those pillars, then you become sort of without guardrails.” —David Wurmser, [13:16]

Smith and Horton lampoon this evasive rhetoric:

Smith ridicules the conflation of U.S. and Israeli interests, comparing it to claiming devotion to a spouse while rationalizing infidelity.

“Dude, you’re saying the same thing, man…You are saying the exact same thing!” —Dave Smith, [15:10]
They note the empty religiosity and mythic justifications that avoid material realities or specific policy arguments.

“The empty religiosity, nothingness of all of this…” —Dave Smith, [15:24]

Avoiding the Central Question

Wurmser repeatedly wanders into philosophical and theological territory—the Torah, Dostoevsky, etc.—to sidestep direct questions about the Israel lobby and concrete policy outcomes.

“Sir, the question was: Are you a part of the Israel lobby who lied us into war?” —Dave Smith, [19:31]

“Or are you just avoiding the question?” —Scott Horton, [21:03]

4. The Clean Break Memo: Origins and Delusions

Horton’s Primer

“Clean Break” (1996)—written for Benjamin Netanyahu upon becoming Israeli PM—recommended breaking from the Oslo peace process, focusing on removing regional threats (Iraq, Syria), and leveraging exiles like Ahmed Chalabi.
The memo rested on the farcical “Hashemite option”—the theory that installing a pro-western Hashemite ruler in Iraq would make the Shiite majority friendly to Israel and the US.
Chalabi (the Iraqi exile) fed false promises to neocons—claims debunked by experience and even at the time by informed observers.

Wurmser’s Spin

Wurmser claims:

The memo was not a plot for the US to fight Israel’s wars!
The plan was to have Iraqis (with some western assistance) liberate Iraq themselves.
Acknowledges reliance on Chalabi but calls him “complex.”

Smith and Horton deconstruct this as a semantic dodge:

“Is the whole battle here semantics? ... then the group, what you just said, David Wurmser. That's who I'm blaming. Those people.” —Dave Smith, [17:29]

Exposing the Farce

Scott cites contemporary accounts (e.g., Mark Zell, John Desard) admitting Chalabi was using neocons, selling them fantasies in exchange for influence.

“So that's how stupid David Wurmser is—he got screwed by [Chalabi] right in the face.” —Scott Horton, [42:03]

Wurmser still, after two decades of carnage, defends these original premises without acknowledging catastrophe or error.

5. Emotional Drivers, Denial, and the Neoconservative Mindset

Smith draws a parallel to communist true believers who cling to discredited theories in the face of overwhelming evidence of harm:

“The profound sickness in believing in a theory, putting it into practice, watching utter disaster… and your takeaway… ‘No, the theory was still right.’” —Dave Smith, [64:48]

Even as a million people die and tens of millions are displaced, Wurmser confesses no error—he simply suggests the method was flawed, not the core idea.

6. The Bigger Neocon Network

Horton details the neocon apparatus in the Bush administration—Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Feith, Abrams, etc.—and their network in think tanks, media, and lobbying arms like AIPAC.
He points to hard evidence: misleading intelligence, war propaganda pipelines, the “separate government” described by Colin Powell, and ongoing influence campaigns.

“…neoconservatives completely controlled the National Review, the Weekly Standard, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post…” —Scott Horton, [85:09]

7. Wurmser’s Accidental Confession

Most revealing is Wurmser’s passing remark about why conquering Iraq mattered:

“We were afraid that if you let this [Arab nationalist] genie back out of the bottle. It undoes the Cold war in the Middle East … Also, in terms of Israel, we wanted Yasser Arafat not to have the cavalry over the horizon in the form of Saddam, to use whatever he was to wage war.” —David Wurmser, [88:26]

Smith and Horton seize on this as a blanket admission:

“That’s the whole argument right there… you literally just admitted that a major consideration for why you, the neoconservatives wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein was that the Israel-Palestine conflict…might be helped from our point of view, by it.” —Dave Smith, [90:12]

8. Memorable Quotes & Moments

[08:21] Scott Horton:
“We are the heirs of Murray Rothbard and Justin Raimondo. And so that's why we do what we do because we hate these people and they should be destroyed.”
[13:16] David Wurmser:
“Israel represents values … it is the cradle of Western civilization.”
[15:10] Dave Smith:
“Dude, you’re saying the same thing, man.”
[44:41] Dave Smith:
“You wrote the Clean Break to Benjamin Netanyahu … You care about this because of Israeli goals. Like, that's the whole point here.”
[42:03] Scott Horton:
“So that's how stupid David Wormser is—he got screwed by [Chalabi] right in the face.”
[64:48] Dave Smith:
“The profound sickness in believing in a theory, putting it into practice, watching utter disaster … ‘No, the theory was still right.’”
[88:26] David Wurmser:
“We were afraid that… if you let this genie back out of the bottle, … Also, in terms of Israel, we wanted… not to have the cavalry over the horizon in the form of Saddam…”
[90:12] Dave Smith:
“That's the whole argument right there. You literally just admitted it.”

Important Timestamps

[07:10] — Smith reflects on the reversal of dissident vs. establishment influence.
[13:16] — Wurmser’s defense of neoconservatism as pro-Western values.
[21:03] — Horton calls out Wurmser for evading substantive questions.
[33:50] — Horton summarizes the Clean Break’s core, and its fatal flaws.
[42:03] — Horton on Chalabi deceiving the neocons.
[64:48] — Smith on the neocon “communist” mindset: clinging to theory over evidence.
[85:09] — Horton details neocon control of media and think tanks.
[88:26] — Wurmser’s accidental admission re: Israel’s motivation for toppling Saddam.
[90:12] — Smith underscores Wurmser conceding the entire critique.

Concluding Challenge and Call to Debate

Smith and Horton end with a direct challenge:

“Why don’t we set it up…Scott Horton vs. David Wurmser debate on this and you can bring all your stuff about how Israel’s the cradle of Western civilization…and we’ll see how that does up against some pushback.” —Dave Smith, [97:09]

Horton proposes the Soho Forum as an appropriate setting for such a debate.

Closing Tone

The conversation is candid, biting, and occasionally irreverent. Smith and Horton’s deep exasperation with neocon persistence fuels both humor and righteous anger.
The episode is rich with historical anecdotes, first-hand knowledge, and a sense that “the dissidents have inherited the narrative, if not the power.”
Ultimately, the show argues that emotional, tribal attachment to Israel—not sober calculation—drove would-be empire builders into disaster, and that the record stands as a warning for the future.

For listeners seeking a clear, unapologetic breakdown of the neocon legacy, this episode offers both the summary judgment and the receipts.

Further Reading/Citations Mentioned:

“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” (1996 Memo)
Mearsheimer & Walt, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”
James Bamford, “A Pretext for War”
Robert Dreyfus, “More Missing Intelligence” (The Nation)
John Desard, Financial Times/Salon article on Chalabi

Scott Horton Academy: scotthortonacademy.com
Dave Smith: partoftheproblem.com

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Transcript

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A (0:36)

Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas, everybody. Welcome to a very special episode of Part of the Problem. Thank you so much for joining. I do. We are, of course. Well, what is it? Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. So many of you might listen to this over Christmas or you're probably getting ready for it right now. Oh, hope everybody has a great Christmas. This is. We're doing something a little bit different for this episode, of course. I have the great Scott Horton here with me. This will be our last podcast of. Of 2025, and we've had some good ones. Another good year of podcasting. Well, I assume, I guess it's possible that some emergency happens in the next few days and we jump on another podcast together, but probably this will be our last one for the year. And we've got something here that me and Scott had been talking about doing this episode for a few weeks. It's a little bit of a strange situation. It's a little surreal. I know it's weird these days being Scott Horton. It's weird these days being me. But so let me just. I'm gonna try real quick just to set this up because probably most people in the audience kind of know at least who the players here are and what the background is, but we also got like a bunch of new people who listen to the show over the last year and it's grown. And so just for those people who don't know, I just kind of want to catch you up here. So as. As a lot of you know, I don't want to bore you guys who do know. But like, so I've been a libertarian now for almost 20 years. I was first introduced to libertarianism in 2007, I guess I would really. I started reading about it and obsessing over it that year. I think it was like 2008, I was converted. And then maybe a few years after that, maybe 2011, 2012, I think I found Scott Horton from the. The Tom woods show was my first introduction. And then I found antiwar.com and, you know, got into that whole scene and, and basically, you know, from that point on I've been like, yo, this Scott Horton guy is the most incredible foreign policy guy in the country. I've been an evangelical of Hortonian since then and that me and Scott became friends about 10 years ago, something like that, rent 2016 or something. And then, you know, over the last 10 years both of our shows have, have grown and our names have grown and Scott's of course now coming off of a huge year, but it just put out Provoked, which is his most successful book to date. And he's done big shows with Tucker Carlson and Lex Friedman and Tim Pool. And so anyway, somehow over these years, Scott has kind of taken off in popularity. I have somehow in, through weird circumstance found myself as like America's leading Hortonian or something like that, the leading face of, of spreading Hortonian foreign policy. And so anyway, one of the things that from the very beginning, you know, when I first became a libertarian, I was very motivated by the anti war cause. I was already anti war before I was a libertarian. I just wasn't that good at it. I just got better over time. And you know, but part of this is my age, 9, 11 and the terror wars were like my coming of age story. This was the big thing that was happening as I was a young boy becoming a man. And the more I got interested in libertarianism, the more I just understood why war and peace is always the most important issue in any society. And it's not for, for very obvious libertarian reasons, but just to name the, the two big ones real quick. And the reason why I focus so much on war, the reason why Scott focuses so much on war is because. Well, basically there's two reasons. Number one, first and foremost, objectively, it's the most evil thing that governments do. There's, there's, you know, libertarians don't much like government programs, but there is no government program that robs people of life and liberty and property and just basic human decency and creates more horror scenarios than mass murder campaigns backed up by governments with taxing power and money printing power. And you know, so just the, the sheer humanitarian, you know, cost of the whole thing. And then number two, as Murray Rothbard had written in the 1950s, that the more you study libertarianism, the more you realize that war and peace is the central question of this libertarian business is that war is the health of the state. And nothing is a bigger indicator than of our own citizens relationship with our government and the nature of our government than war. Now war is by its very definition in Emergency, where government gains emergency powers. There's never been one war in the history of the world where government didn't also say, we're going to need some more power than we previously had in order to fight this war. And the examples of this are endless. So anyway, I was. I had been against the neocons and the Bush administration before I became a libertarian, but I had never really understood it until I found guys like Ron Paul, Scott Horton, Tom Woods, Justin Raimondo and you know, people in the anti war libertarian kind of camp. Now, one of the guys who me and you have really been pointing to for many years is a guy named David Worms. Are. He's the author of the Clean Break Memo and Coping with Crumbling States. He was very influential. Neoconservative. This is somebody who you've talked about a lot. Who I've talked about a lot. And recently, just a few weeks ago, he sat down for an interview essentially to respond to us. It was framed as like responding to me, but again, I'm a Hortonian here, so it's responding to both of us. And. Okay, anyway, I just want to give all this background because the first thing I got to say about this, and I'm sorry, I'll shut up and let you talk here, Scott, but there's just something surreal about the situation just on a personal human level. It's very weird from where we were 20 years ago to even think that we'd be in an environment here where David Worms are himself is sitting down to respond to us and nobody cares. Nobody cares. I think the interview has like a few thousand views. It has not made. I don't think I got like maybe three tweets came my way about this. No one. So me and you were talking on the phone here and we're like, well, dude, like we could almost just big dog this and ignore it. No one cares. No one's demanding. This isn't like the Christmas episode I'm doing because I want to get big numbers. I could just do an episode talking about Candace Owens or something like that and do way better numbers than. Than this because it's so inside baseball. But then at the same time we're like, well, God, I mean, we can't not respond to this. So I guess at some point, and it seemed like a good Christmas episode for kind of our people in our camp to like, this will be fun for you guys. But so what we're going to do here is we got a whole bunch of David Worms are talking, responding to us and we're going to sit here and go through this. But I guess the first thing I would say, Scott, is isn't it just a little bit surreal to even be in this situation where, where David Worms are? You know, if you went back 20 years ago or 20 plus years ago, here's a guy who like really had control over serious levers of government power. Me and you are just nobody dissidents out here. And now we're in the situation where we are actually platforming him in a sense. So I don't know, I just find this to be very amusing.

A (11:04)

Go ahead. But yes, that's right, we should mention that, that Scott is going in fresh here. I have watched this. Scott is not. I, I found this, this opening part to just be just really fun. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is my Pat Supply, a great company keeping Americans prepared. We're only a few weeks into winter and it is already brutally cold, at least in my part of the country. We've had a few big snowstorms. And this is when people start worrying about what if the power goes out when it's really cold? Do you have a way to keep yourself and your family warm? Obviously, this is a real problem if you're caught in that situation. And that's why so many Americans are getting a Vesta off grid heater from my Patriot Supply. It's a space heater that doesn't use electricity or propane. It runs on something called canned heat, which is an indoor safe fuel. With a Vesta stashed in your closet, you know you can keep warm no matter what. It even doubles as a stove to cook your food, which is pretty cool. And the best part is that right now you can get the Vesta and a bunch of other preparedness gear as free gifts. When you order the winter survival kit from my Patriot supply, just go to my patriotsupply.com problem to see everything included. This offer is not going to last long, so definitely check it out. My Patriot supply, slash, problem, problem. All right, let's get back into the show. Okay, so just to set this up here, they basically, they play a clip of me making arguments that I'm sure you're all very familiar with. And essentially the argument that I'm making is that the. That John Mearsheimer is correct to consider the neocons a core constituency of the Israel Lobby. That's the most reasonable way to. To the lens to view them. And that the neoconservatives were a necessary part of the war effort in order for the war to happen. That this was a largely neoconservative project, the war in Iraq, that there were other people who wanted to fight it, too. But it doesn't get fought without the neoconservatives. This is essentially my argument. And here is David Worms or himself, responding directly to the idea that he is a part of the Israel Lobby, and that is what got us into the war in Iraq. Here's David Warren.

A (31:10)

All right, so I did my best to. Because I don't really wish to engage with the host of this, but whatever. Okay. He made an appearance. But so this, this. Okay, so I want to almost like go out of my way to be as fair as I can here, as charitable as possible to David Worms are. Because there might be a kernel of truth to some one point that he made there. But I do I. Well, I wanna. I think there's. I was blown away. The part where he starts going into here, which we're about to play about Chalabi. Well, he's complicated. Like, whoa, oh, he still defends this crazy, which is wild. But I think, you know, I think in a way there, you kind of got ahead of this and almost gave part of this response just now when we were trying to find this timestamp. But so if David Worms are, if he's saying that, hey, look, I bring up, let's say when I go on Rogan or Tucker or a lot of these shows, when. And I'll bring up the Clean Break and I'll go, look, everybody can go read the Clean Break for themselves. And what was it all about? They were saying, well, here's the thing. We need a break from the peace process, from Oslo. As you can see here, he's blaming Oslo with all of the problems that are in the region as a result of it, which is not correct. But whatever. But so he's. But we got to get rid of Oslo. The whole idea of Oslo was this land for peace nonsense where you will give the Palestinians their land and then they'll promise to be peaceful with us, get away from that. And instead what we got to not give them land. And instead we got to focus on the surrounding states that are problems, that are problems for the, the Israelis because they back up the Palestinians or whatever. And now obviously, this as you just laid out, this whole plan that was sold to them by Chalab, that you could install a Hashemite and the Shiites of Iraq would have to listen to them, then they would tell the other sheds to knock it off and not be friends with Hezbollah or whatever. This whole plan, like, okay, it is maybe true that when I say it like that on those shows, what people might be inferring from that is like, oh, so you're saying that the plan was what it became in a sense that like, America would intervene and fight these wars or something. But like, okay, it's true what David Worms are saying, that like, that part wasn't written in the Clean break. That's not right. Okay, fair enough. But the point, Scott, is obviously that, like, yeah, but the war in Iraq ended up happening. And when it ended up happening, it was America who went in and fought it. It was our country who had to pay for it. And by. And it was led by the same guys under the same belief as the Clean break strategy. Like, this was the nugget of the whole thing. And it was the thinking in Washington.

C (33:50)

Yeah, look, and I urge people to, to read. They're both available@scott horton.org and you can find them other places, too. But you can read A Clean Break and Coping with crumbling states. And it's in coping, I believe, where he says maybe even, yeah, it's in coping where he recognizes that there be a contest for influence over the Iraqi Shia, and if the Iranians won it, it would be bad times, and that the Iraqi Sunnis are afraid that they would be subject to retribution after losing the power and being ethnic minority there and all that, or sectarian minority there and all of that. So he. They actually acknowledge the danger and then they go ahead and do it anyway. And the thing of it is, just like as you said in your introduction there, the Mearsheimer waltz case in the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is, yeah, of course, W. Bush was driving, but the thing is, Wolfowitz was in the back seat going, trust me, you're doing the right thing here, boss. Me and my friends, we all game this out, and we know that you're smart and this is what we want to do. So instead of saying, oh, you know, this whole thing about the Iraqi Shiite super majority is going to be under the command of Ayatollah Sistani in alliance with the Ayatollah Khamenei, this whole thing is going to blow up in our goddamn face. We should not do this. Instead, they were saying, no, no, no, trust us. Chalabi says that the Iraqi Shiites will be. They'll be allies with Israel. They're forced. They'll force Hezbollah to stop being friends with Iran. They will break the chain of Iranian arms to Hezbollah through Syria, which was already broken by Saddam. But anyway. And they believe this pile of lies, that was what it was. And so if they had been, if, if all of Cheney's eggheads had told W. Bush, you know, sir, we really want to do this, but remember how your father abandoned the shiite uprising in 1991 and let Saddam kill them all? Well, that' have taken over the country. See, and the same thing is true here. If we do this now, Iran is going to take Baghdad and you're going to be the aa, you know, partner in this crime.

A (36:15)

All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Proton Drive. If you're tired of big Tech snooping through your files. Switch to Proton Drive. It's end to end encrypted cloud storage, trusted by over a hundred million people worldwide. So only you can access your photos, work and personal files. It's free to sign up and it supports our show when you do it. From photos to docs to creative projects, Proton Drive keeps everything safe with end to end encryption. No ads, no AI training, no data leaks. And the best part, as I mentioned, it's free to start and you can sign up using our link. Our link is Proton Me Dave Smith. That's Proton Me Dave Smith. All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, dude, like I say, one of the things that was really revealing to me, like I. That I learned about watching this David Worms or Interview, or at least I believe, you know, making guesses on what's really in someone's heart or something like that. But I remember and this was. Up until it. Up until after the first time I read Enough Already. It might have been like an advanced copy of Enough Already, but it was a physical copy. Not reading it on a PDF that you sent me. Like you had had the book out. And I remember, and I've had many conversations with you on the phone about this and probably on podcast too. It was the one Hortonian piece that always really like threw me for a loop was I was always like, Scott, you always write it as if these neocons really believed chalabe, but that can't be right. Like, it just could. It would just never made sense to me. I was always like, dude, obvious. Anyone would know that fucking Iran was gonna gain influence if you overthrew Saddam Hussein. No one could possibly have believed that. Like even what you're saying there, like in the. Even if he admitted in coping with crumbling states that like, well, there is a chance it could be this other. No one would even think that your thing is like a 1% at best chance. And the overwhel gods are just like, no, if you install the Shiite majority, they will be more friendly to their Shiite neighbors than the Sunnis who hated their guts would be. Like, it's. And I guess on some level I was always like, I think they were just looking for someone to say this and they found a guy who could say it and that was their justification for the war. And they figured we'd topple Iran next anyway, so it doesn't really matter anyway. And, But. And I guess it just took me a while to almost appreciate that. Like, no, I think David Wormser really did Believe him. And part of that is just maybe the human psychology of it. Like, you know, governments, you, you, they end up looking for somebody to tell them what they already want to hear. But that doesn't mean they can't be convinced by that person who's telling them what they wanted to hear.

A (44:52)

Yeah, but just imagine. I mean, dude, look, I'm sorry. It's just. It's hard to not keep ranting on this, but just to. So everybody's, like, clear on the point here. So what, Scott, the quote Scott's reading from. Yes. Those aren't quotes from David Worms are. They're quotes from the law partner of his close associate. All right, fine. Like, but at this point, like, the point is that that guy's just saying the quiet part out loud. That, like, yeah, the whole reason we wanted to buy what Chalabi was saying, the whole reason we wanted to believe in this whole thing is because then they do business with Israel. Then this would be. This is the Clean break strategy. Yes, that's the whole point. You wrote this shit down, motherfucker. It's not like I'm sitting here and arguing that you said something that you did. It's in your. You Published it. We can all read it. It's still on the Internet. You're talking about the document right now. You wanted, because you didn't want to have to do a two state solution as the entire world and the Israeli government had already capitulated to, at least verbally, that we got to give these Palestinians a state at some point. And you were like, no, we don't want to do that, but how the hell do you not do that? Well, the only way to not do that is to try to overthrow all of the regimes in the region who are a threat to Israel. And ultimately, when it came to fruition, that meant the US doing it, you know, like, like if they want, if they want to really argue on the point, which this is where I was saying, I think they have a kernel of truth too, that like, hey, Dave, we didn't explicitly say that the plan here was for the US to sacrifice their blood and treasure and for them to do all the heavy lifting. But at the same time, man, this just reminds me of like the 12 Day War all over again, where people go, well, what's the problem if Israel wanted to do this without America? Well, that's not the world we're living in, dude. They're not doing this without America because guess what? They can't. Because like if Israel tried to do the 12 day war without America, well, first off, they don't have those bunker busters, so they don't get to do those attacks. And second off, what are those rocket responses look like? What do those missile responses look like without America defending Israel? Oh, it's a whole different thing now, isn't it? And so like anyway, real quick that.

C (60:25)

Yeah. So here's the thing about it. Yeah, he's completely wrong, of course, right? When. When the Hashemites, essentially, they're from the Arabian Peninsula, but the Al Saud family won out and the British installed them in Arabia, and then they put the Hashemites in Jordan and Iraq. And the Hashemites, you know, had power there for, you know, backed by British force for about 30 years, but they were overthrown mostly by the Shiites. And overall, the Iraqi Shiites had a religious edict, a fatwa against any cooperation with the Hashemite king. And in fact, Chalabi's family was one of the few Shiite families that violated that fatwa and worked with the Hashemites anyway. So you could see how he had a narrative to sell to David Worms or later. But just on the bold face of it, as anyone could tell you on an eighth grade level, the Hashemites are Sunnis. And there's nothing in the Shiite faith that says anyone who claims to have the blood of the Prophet, whether they went off with the founders of the Shiite faction back in the 1300s or whatever it was. That. That the. That the Sunni. That the Sunnis would be able to control them. Sorry, I lost my train on that. Anyway, that. That was never the case in history. And then, as you were trying to say there before I crudely interrupted you, was, well, how did it work out this time around? Right? They did the clean break. They invaded and toppled the country. Chalabi was a treacherous, spineless turncoat, according to their guys. And Jordan has no influence in Iraq and never had influence through all of Iraq War two. And look, when I say that he warned in coping about the dangers of pro Iranian Shiites taking power, he names the Hakeem family and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, he calls him, sorry, the supreme association or whatever. Same thing well, these are the guys who were the Ayatollah of Iran. The Ayatollah, Common Ease, cats, paws. They were the ones who had chosen Iran's side in the Iran Iraq war and had lived in Iran for 20 years. They were the ones who had come. Their bottom brigade were the ones who had begun to lead the shiite uprising of 91, causing Bush senior to betray it. And these are the guys who took power in the war. So here, this guy was Cheney's Middle east advisor through 2008. I don't think he, he left the government. Maybe he left in like 07 or something, but he was in the government. He was not. When some of the neocons were fired worms, there was nothing. Not. So he sat there and he watched the same Iraq War two that you and I watched, where it was scary. And Dawa. And in third place, Moktada Alsadar, who won? Not any Shiites loyal to the Hashemite royalty in Jordan. Has anyone listening to this or watching this ever heard of Jordan dominance in Iraq since 2003? Even in a remark by anyone ever in any context.

A (64:48)

Well, I know a lot of those older, the first generation guys were, were communists. When they were younger they were like Trotskyite guys. And I don't know about what the worms are but there is, there's something very interesting and I know I've talked about this for many years. I'm sure you, you've made the similar points that there is something like, about the communist mind that it's almost like, oh, you man, you could still really see a lot of traces of that in the neoconservatives, even after they're supposedly not communists anymore. But there is just something to me about listening to David Worms are here, where there's something, the profound sickness in believing in a theory, putting it into practice, watching utter disaster on like a biblical level unfold from it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, I don't know how to say it. You can't exaggerate it. I'm just looking for words powerful enough. You're talking about a million people getting slaughtered and 9 million people being displaced and tens of millions of people having lost loved ones and watched family members get horrifically injured. And like an ungodly level of human suffering was inflicted from your policy. And then your takeaway from that to be, no, the theory was still right. Let's run that again. Theory was still right. I've learned nothing then. That did not make me go, yeah, and. But to see that that level of disaster was inflicted and not go so. And by the way, just to be very clear here, because I know sometimes the theory bros get mad at me, I am not making a consequentialist argument when I say that I'm. That that's not. It's not a consequentialist argument. The point is that, you know, the same way that libertarians go, it's really stupid when, when liberals will say communism works well on paper, but it doesn't work well in real life because we all know, like, that's stupid. If it works on paper, then it would work in life. And that's what paper means, is that it works in real life. But the point is that if you build something and it's an utter disaster in real go, I got something wrong in the theory. The point isn't that that because the consequence you don't do it. The point is that obviously your theory is wrong and this theory is so obviously wrong. Like, it's just, it is wild that this. And, and then, by the way, imagine, you know, all of these people, the podcast that this is being hosted on and all of these Zionists all talking all day. You know, Ben Shapiro's speech the other day about how you must call out the offense of Candace Owens and, and Tucker Carlson platforms Nick. Nick Fuentes. And like, let's just say, let's stipulate for the record, let's say Candace is wrong about every conspiracy about Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes is a horrible, hateful, anti Semite bigot. Right. Like, all of. Let's say for the sake of argument, all of that's true. How is this what David Worms are doing right now, not infinitely more offensive than anything they've ever said? Like, the dude who has actually had power, implemented a policy which was a war that led to this level of human design and he's still saying he got the theory when it was completely disproven. Yeah, it's just insane.

A (91:45)

Well, look, I mean, I'll, I'll end almost on saying I'll, this will be my final comment and then you could get your final one and we'll, we'll wrap, wrap up. But there's, there's a lot of things that are kind of exposed here. Look, one of them. Just think about it in the present day, right? It, it would kind of, I could kind of understand where some people who are on the fence maybe haven't done all the deep reading and stuff. They go, I don't know, I mean, you guys were kind of making a big deal out of Israel and Israel's role in all of this. But like it's on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it's the U. S. Government. Israel's this tiny country, like, whatever, but like almost maybe you thought that about us for many years. Have you been paying attention the last two years? Have you noticed how like every single war hawk in this goddamn country, all the ones who supported Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen and Ukraine and all the ones who support all of the wars, they get a little weird when the topic of Israel is brought up, huh? It seems like it becomes the thing that they care about more than anything else. And that's pretty clear. Okay, well that's interesting. Interesting. And that's worth talking about and examining. And David Wormser is proving it for you guys right here. And, and look like the other thing that you notice is that in this very emotional. Because it's purely like, even when you say all that stuff about Israel being the cradle of civilization, like, even if you believe that about ancient Israeli society, that has nothing to do with the modern government. There's nothing to do with the modern conflict. This is a religious view. It's an emotional view. And one of the problems with being emotional is you, you get irrational. You tend to believe things that aren't true. Now look, it is insane to think that Saddam Hussein posed some legitimate threat to the state of Israel. It's insane to think that this was like, even the actual argument he's making, that Yasser Arafat would have felt some. Scott, I mean, we're talking about, we're not talking about 1979, we're talking about 2002. 2003, like the, the defeated, humiliated Saddam Hussein, who didn't even have control of his own country. Like Yasser Arafat was looking over at him going, yep, me and that guy, we could take out the Israelis and the Americans. It's just, it's totally ridiculous. But of course, it's not a logical belief. It's an emotional belief. But what is the emotion here? The emotion is to protect Israel. And that's everything else is like a rationalization given in an emotional, illogical way. One, but it's a rationalization to get back to that emotional starting point, which was we gotta protect Israel.

C (94:17)

Yeah, I mean, there's a great quote from Philip Zelikow again, Connolly's a Rice this guy more famous for being the principal author of the 911 Commission report. But he said, I'll tell you what this war is really about. And it's something that they don't really talk about very much, but it's Israel and. But they don't really focus on that because quite frankly, it's not a very popular cell hell. And so instead we made it about weapons of mass destruction and the rest. Paul Wolfowitz also gave a famous interview to Vanity Fair where he said, well, we settled on weapons of mass destruction for bureaucratic reasons when, you know, the reality is we want to do this for all these others in including Israel and including the absolute harebrained idiocy that, you know, how the, one of the main, really the top reason that Al Qaeda turned against the United States was our bases in Saudi Arabia that were used in a bomb and blockade or Iraq. Well, according to Wolf Witz, that's why we have to invade Iraq, so we can get those bases out of Saudi Arabia and move them to Iraq, and then it'll be fine. And of course, you know, we're having this conversation. 150,000 suicide bombings later, Dave. But mostly over there, right? If you don't count, you know, like I saw old. I patch McCain arguing with you on Twitter that he stopped any more. September eleven at set four, that underpants bombing over Detroit that almost brought the plane down over Detroit and except for Boston and San Bernardino in Orlando and, you know, all the other terrorist attacks, the Boston bombings, I say Boston. All the absolute horrific attacks that actually have happened in this country since then because of these wars and all based on these lies. And I'm really glad, you know, right after this. What time is it here? In just a few minutes. In, in 20 minutes, I'm going to interview Phil Turney, survivor of the USS Liberty attack again, who the Israelis tried to murder in 1967 along with they successfully killed 34 sailors and attempted to sink the USS Liberty. And that's back in the news because Ben Shapiro wants to fight about it. All right, then, let's fight about it. And as you said, boy, after looking at the last two years, looking at how Israel swoops in and buys Tik Tok and CBS and CNN and Paramount just so that they can cram all this Zionist crap down your throat and it couldn't be more obvious in broad daylight, they call the censor us all and all these things that like, ah, maybe it is a good time to revisit what is the neoconservative movement and why do they love the Likud so much and why did they lie us into Iraq War two and destroy the Middle east and get the entire, not just new decade and new century, but the entire third millennium off on the wrong foot. What is it about David Wormser and those neocons? And then that's the answer. Everybody knows it. You see it right in front of your face face greater Israel and their necessity of enslaving the American people to accomplish their goals for them that they can't possibly accomplish themselves. Simple.