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BREAKING: Iran Launches Missiles at U.S. Military Bases | Does This Mean War?
00:13:17
Ben Shapiro reacts to news that Iran just launched a ballistic missile salvo at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, home to the U.S.’s largest Middle East command. The Iranian attack comes as a direct retaliation for recent U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities. Ben breaks down what triggered Iran’s self-described “mighty and successful” counterstrike and how the U.S. and its allies are responding. - - - Today’s Sponsor: Helix Sleep - Visit helixsleep.com/benreacts for this exclusive offer. - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy
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- [00:00]
Ben Shapiro
Welcome to Ben After Dark, the show where I say all the things I probably shouldn't. Welcome celebrity guests to play games and answer weird questions sent to us by weird people. I hate hot chicken. It's sarcasm. It's chaos. Not that big of a deal. It's the only show where I can destroy something, not because it's wrong, but just because it mildly annoys me. It's everything I've always wanted. The show airs on Friday night, 7:30pm Eastern. I know, not exactly late night, unless you're Joe Biden, in which case it's three hours past mandatory pudding. Only on Dailywire. Plus only for members. Ben After Dark all right, folks, a lot of breaking news. I want to start by thanking our sponsors who make this sort of stuff possible. I always assumed restless sleep was inevitable. Night after night of tossing and turning, waking up with an aching back, I'd convinced myself that's just how sleep was supposed to be. And I tried Helix Sleep and everything changed. Take the Sleep quiz. Helix will match you with the perfect mattress for your body and sleep style. Whether you're a side sleeper, back sleeper, or somewhere in between, they've got you covered. Once you switch, you'll wonder how you ever slept on anything else. I'm on the road right now. I got to tell you, I am not sleeping nearly as well because I'm away from my beloved Helix sleep mattress. Visit helixleep.com Ben reacts to get 27% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com Ben react for 27% off site wide, make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you again. Just visit helixsleep.com ben react for this exclusive offer. You'll be sleeping better because the mattress will be made just for you. Not going to go to some store and just pick out whatever you happen to lie on for 30 seconds. Instead, you're going to do what I say and go to helixleep.com ben reacts and get 27% off your personalized mattress today. Okay, so of course the big news of the day is that Iran has finally struck back. Their long awaited revenge. And it was a dud. It was a dud. And of course it was going to be a dud. Back in 2020, the United States hit Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the terrorist wing of the irgc, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, with a missile and they killed him. And the Iranians responded by essentially back channeling with the United States saying, you know, guys, we have to show Domestically that we haven't quite lost it completely. And so would you mind super a lot if we fired a couple of rockets at a base in Iraq doing very little damage, and then we all just kind of call it quits? And the United States said, you know what, all right, we get it. We get that you have to show your people that you're still in charge. We don't want to escalate this any further. We basically traded your top general for a rocket attack that did no damage. All right, fine. This is that. This is that. So here is how the timeline went today. This morning, the United States, the United States State Department told Americans in Qatar to shelter in place out of an abundance of caution. Hey, obviously there was back channel discussion as we'll discuss going on between the United States and Iran via Iran's cutout in Qatar. At about 11:30am Eastern Time, Qatar shut down into airspace. By 12:00pm Eastern Time, crude oil was already falling. So everybody expected that whatever Iran did here was going to be a symbolic action. Only. At 12:30pm Eastern time, Fox reported that the U.S. military was preparing for an imminent Iranian attack to Al Udaid airbase in Qatar. Now, again, remember, the Iranians were never going to go hard here. The reason the Iranians weren't going to go hard is because the United States and Israel have left Ayatollah Khamenei alive. If he were to go hard against the Americans, he would be dead. It is, in fact, that simple. That was something that was put forward just yesterday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said, you know, they could just choose the route of peace and if they don't, things are going to get very rough for them very quickly. Here was the Secretary of State just a couple of days ago.
- [03:37]
Marco Rubio
Yeah, well, we'll see what Iran decides to do. I think they should choose the route of peace. We have been, we've done everything, we have bent over backwards, okay, to create a deal with these people. Steve Woodcoff has traveled the world extensively, met with them. Well, not even met with them, met through the Omanis with them and discussed back and forth. We even put an offer to them that they wanted elements of it in writing and we offered it to them. Very generous offer, by the way. What happens next will now depend on what Iran chooses to do next. If they choose the path to diplomacy, we're ready. We can do a deal that's good for them, the Iranian people, and good for the world. If they choose another route, then there'll be consequences for that.
- [04:12]
Ben Shapiro
And of course, that was reiterated by General Dan Raising Cain who said, listen, any retaliation by Iran would be a really, really bad decision.
- [04:20]
General Dan Raising Cain
Our forces remain on high alert and are fully postured to respond to any Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks, which would be an incredibly poor choice. We will defend ourselves. The safety of our service members and civilians remains our highest priority.
- [04:43]
Ben Shapiro
So what exactly happened? Well, at about 1pm Eastern time, 10 missiles were launched from Iran to Qatar. The air defenses intercepted them. It ended up being named being maybe 12 missiles. In the end, the Iranian National Security Council said that it launched as many missiles as the number of bombs used by the United States and in operation midnight hammer. Three minutes later, 1:15pm Eastern Time, the Qatar Ministry of Defense put out a statement saying that there were no deaths or injuries. And it quickly came out that again, the Iranians had pre coordinated all of this because they were deeply afraid that if they went too hard, they would set off a chain reaction that would end with Ayatollah Khamenei, his head no longer belonging to his body and him in pieces. The New York Times reported, quote, three Iranian officials familiar with the plan said Iran gave advance notice the attacks were coming as a way to minimize casualties. The officials said Iran symbolically needed to strike back at the United States, but at the same time carried out in a way that allowed all sides an exit ram. They described it as a similar strategy to 2020, when Iran gave Iraq heads up before firing ballistic missiles at an American base in Iraq following the assassination of its top general. Again, all of this is well within boundaries. This is what I had suggested would happen actually, is that there'd be some sort of symbolic act by Iran. But they certainly did not want to escalate because let's be simple about this, they did not want to end their regime. Any attack that killed Americans would end the Iranian regime. It would just be decapitated. That even that would not require, by the way, a full scale American invasion of Iran or a gigantic rebuilding project in Iran. The Ayatollah, his son probably just would have been dead. And they knew that, which is why they did this pathetic symbolic action. According to Axios, again, a total of 14 Iranian missiles were intercepted by Qatari air defenses. According to a source familiar with the matter. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei posted an image of a burning American flag on X, writing, quote, we will not surrender to anyone's aggression. This is the logic of the Iranian nation. Just pathetic signaling. That's all he can do is pathetic signaling. At this point, he has turned into the wizard of Oz hiding behind his curtain and projecting a giant green face out there. Who dares to disturb the great and powerful Oz? And then you remove the curtain and it's an 86 year old man who's been crapping his pants in a bunker somewhere for the last week and a half. Iran's Supreme National Security Council released a statement earlier claiming the number of missiles fired at Qatar was equal to the number of bombs the United States used in its strike on Saturday. Signaling a desire to de escalate. The statement said, quote, the base that was targeted in the attack by the powerful Iranian forces so powerful man so powerful was far from urban and urban facilities and residential areas in Qatar. By the way, this does show the difference between Hel, Iran is treating the United States and what it looks like when they pre coordinated attack and when they just decide they want to kill civilians. They've been shooting missiles every single day at Israel. They're aiming at residential areas trying to kill as many 95 year old Holocaust survivors as they can. They killed one the other day. When it comes to Qatar, they didn't want to kill anyone and so they obviously shot it. Generally around Al Ujayd Air Base with advance notice. Iran even put out a statement, quote, this action did not pose any threat to our friendly and brotherly country Qatar and its noble people. So first of all remember Qatar is aligned with Iran. They play both sides of the table. They like to portray themselves as the sort of intermediary, the honest broker between the United States and Iran. But of course they coordinate incredibly closely with Iran, are not in fact in favor of peace. They've been doing the work of Iran for years which is why they shuttled billions of dollars to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also released a statement claiming it had launched a devastating and powerful missile attack against Al Udaid. Again, I told you this was going to happen. I don't say I told you so because I told you so, even though it's true. The reason I say I told you so is because when you follow this stuff closely it is not all that unpredictable. This kind of notion that everything spirals out of control in wildly unpredictable fashion. Sometimes that can happen. Very unlikely in this scenario. We've been through all of these things before. The fact is that the Iranians have for the last week and a half been putting out statements every single night pledging fire, fury, historic power display, historic things happening. You'll never forget what we're going to do tonight to Tel Aviv and then something happens like one missile in Tel Aviv and I forgot it already. That's three days later the Foreign Ministry of Qatar issued a statement saying Qatari air defenses thwarted the attack and successfully intercepted the Iranian missiles with no injuries or deaths reported. And that lengthy statement was published minutes after the attack and seemed to be prepared in advance. So again, all of this was prepared, all of it. And you can tell all of this is true because the oil markets responded by going meh, don't care. According to Axios, the modest oil market response in the wake of US Attacks against Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend is striking to at least one analyst. It's remarkable to have such a limited risk premium in the face of this uncertainty and potential for escalation, said oil scholar Ben Cahill of the University of Texas, Austin. Well, no, it's not because the markets understand something pretty clearly. This thing is not going to escalate into a full scale war between Iran and its neighbors. The war that Iran declared on Israel on October 7, 2023, but that had been ongoing underneath the surface for decades, is effectively coming to an end now. And everyone who's been watching this stuff knows that's the case. Iran does not have any allies that are coming to its coming to its defense. Imran doesn't have any friends that are stepping out of the woodwork in order to help it. Prices are not skyrocketing into orbit despite Iran's saber rattling about closing the Strait of Hormuz. Brent prices rose around 5% when trading opened last night, but then it quickly fell back. By mid afternoon on Monday, Brent prices had fallen sharply to under 70 a barrel. 70 a barrel because the markets are looking at this going, Iran doesn't have the capacity to launch a full scale war. Not just that, as I mentioned once again on the show, I told you again, if you listen to the show you will know more than if you did not listen to the show. China is calling for global efforts to diffuse tensions over the Strait of Hormuz. Remember I told you that an Iranian attempt to shut the Strait of Hormuz China hit hardest. So China was not going to stand for it? Well, it turns out that that's true. According to Euronews.com, chinese Foreign affairs spokesperson issued an appeal during a press briefing in Beijing following US Calls for China to intervene with Iran on the vital global waterway. China has called for greater international efforts to diffuse international tensions affecting the global economy amid jitters over Iranian threats to block the Strait of Hormuz. So no The Strait of Hormuz are likely not going to be blocked. In fact, here is one global energy expert explaining that the oil markets are not in fact panicking.
- [11:22]
General Dan Raising Cain
The markets are hardly panicking. As trading opened In Asia about 30 minutes ago, up $2, we spiked briefly above $80 a barrel. But look, oil traders have seen a lot of false alarms in recent years. When Iran was attacked the Saudi stabilization Plant and ABC in September 2019, we had a spike, it reversed. Russia invaded Ukraine, we had a spike, it reversed. And when Israel and Iran came to blows last year, oil prices spiked, but there was no disruption.
- [11:50]
Ben Shapiro
Again, all of this was likely to come to a natural terminus because Iran has been hammered beyond belief by the iaf. And not just Iran has been hammered beyond belief by the IAF. The United States sent B2 bombers to Fordo to destroy their nuclear capacity and the United States was successful in that. President Trump has responded as well. On Truth Social quote, I'd like to thank the highly respected Emir of Qatar for all that he has done in seeking peace for the region. Disagree on that. But regarding the attack today at the American base in Qatar, I am pleased to report that in addition to no Americans being killed or wounded, very importantly there have also been no Qataris killed or wounded. Thank you for your attention to this matter. That does not sound like the President of the United States is ready to up this thing into global thermonuclear World War three. It was never going that way. It just wasn't. President Trump is also just dunking on the Iranian regime at this point. He put out the following statement on truth and social. It's just very funny. I'm sorry, it is, quote, Iran has officially responded to our obliteration of their nuclear facilities with a very weak response to which we expected and have very effectively countered. There have been 14 missiles fired. Thirteen were knocked down. One was set free because it was headed in a non threatening direction. I am pleased to report that no Americans were harmed and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they've gotten it all out of their system and there will hopefully be no further hate. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice which made it possible for no lives to be lost and nobody to be injured. Perhaps Iran can now proceed to peace and harmony in the region and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump President of the United States of America so there goes your plausible deniability. Iran. President Trump just said the quiet part out loud, which is you called him and basically begged him, please just let us send a few missiles your way. You knock them down and then we'll call it a day. So, President Trump, just stripping off the mask as always. Just top notch, classic tier one Trump right there. Of course, there'll be much more about this on tomorrow's show. You're going to want to check it out.