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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to another emergency edition of the Commentary magazine daily podcast. This is Sunday, March 1st, 2026. We're recording this at 4:00pm Eastern Time and we're just going to talk about the last day or so in the war with the Iranian regime. Joining me as always, executive Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:27]
B
Hi, John.
- [00:28]
A
I think I said Ebiter, but editor and another editor, senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:37]
C
Hi, John.
- [00:38]
A
And of course, Commentary contributing editor and host of the Breaking History podcast and columnist and writer at the Free Press, Eli Lake. Hi, Eli.
- [00:48]
D
Hey, John. Thanks for having me.
- [00:50]
A
Okay, so important details, a lot of different things going on. Iran has now apparently fired on 10 countries, not just Israel, which of course is a direct combatant and is itself, you know, dropping lots of ordinance and doing all kinds of things in Iran, but apparently is hit all around the Gulf now targeting Cyprus and others, the purpose of which seems to be to say we're going to be mean to you until you put pressure on the Americans to stop this war. And it seems to be having, based on public statements, the entirely the opposite effect that the Saudis have now basically agreed to go all in. Even Britain, which yesterday issued an incredibly pusillanimous statement because apparently a base somewhere other the British got involved in some fashion, are now sending typhoons. France has, has spoken and is somehow joining the fight. And various Gulf nations are saying, are expressing outrage. Qatar has closed its embassy in Tehran, gutter of course being like the kind of catamite of Tehran. So whatever the Iranians are up to, they seem to be very discombobulated and have, are adopting a strategy that is backfiring on them unless somebody can, can tell me otherwise.
- [02:28]
D
I mean, add to that that there was an interim supreme leader who was appointed. He even had a Twitter account in English and apparently he's been eliminated 11 hours into his tenure.
- [02:42]
B
Is this confirmed?
- [02:45]
A
I mean it's all, it's not like been confirmed and the ultimate confirmed say, but like all of the Israel, all Israeli media, right, from what I can tell, have reported that he, he has been eliminated. He's been eliminated faster than we can learn his name, right? So we don't know his name. If we could look it up right now, but doesn't matter what his name is because he's dead. So I think this is an important moment because it does create the conditions under which the supreme leadership of Iran becomes the drummer from Spinal Tap. It is the job grand opening, grand closing, right, that you die the minute that you get it. And by the way, that's a joke, but it's not really a joke if you create the circumstances in which the idea is, if you pop up to become a leading figure in the regime, post everything that's happened this weekend, and you get, you know, this is a way of saying to everybody, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't try to be the Ayatollah now. Don't try to be the Supreme Leader now. Don't try to be the head of the IRGC now. Don't try to be the head of anything. Don't pop your head up from outside of your rabbit hole, because you're gonna get killed. That is a very important step on the way to making sure that the regime cannot reconstitute itself under these circumstances.
- [04:08]
C
I haven't heard Way, way, way, way back. I think it was during the intifada. This is a funny sentence, but way way back during the intifada, when the Daily show was funny, they had.
- [04:19]
A
But. Okay, go ahead.
- [04:20]
C
This sketch where, you know, Jon Stewart was at the desk, and it was probably Stephen Colbert out in the field. I don't remember, but, you know, it was. It was. The field was Israel, Gaza. And, you know, he was saying, Hamas. Hamas guy has been. Hamas leader has been eliminated. You know, And John Seward says, they have any idea who, you know, will take his place? And he says, yeah, I'm just getting word. It's so and so. And. And then he goes, okay, thank you. And then he interrupts. Johnny. John, we're just getting word that so and so has been killed. Well, is there any indication of who might take his play? And they did this went on for, like, four or five people. But that's what it reminds you of. It reminds you of the targeted assassination strategy that is unusual to see anywhere else. It was confined to the Arab. Israeli conflict, for the most part.
- [05:12]
A
Happened in Lebanon with Hezbollah during the bombing of the. Of the headquarters. And then the pager operation is that. I mean, it literally would happen that they would say they have a new director of, you know, military operations, and then three hours later, Israel would say, we killed him. Or, you know, six or seven different times. And then, of course, there's the famous deck of cards, which we sort of began. I think that was in Iraq war. Yeah, right. In the Gulf War, but with Iraq. But the deck of cards of the Hamas leadership. And then it happened with the Hamas leadership as well. But I mean, tactically speaking, this mission seems to be a. We are going at these sites, the military sites, and the leadership decapitating the leadership. And then what is important is the war doesn't end. So the idea is if you're going to mow down and decapitate the first wave or the first set of leaders of the regime, you wait until the second one comes like a surf set and then you eliminate them and so on until either there was no one left or there is a little guy like in a cartoon with a little white flag waving the little white flag out of the hole, which Trump has already indicated. He's gotten little bits of emanation. Yeah. That new. New leadership, possible new leadership is indicating it wants to talk. Lifelock.
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C
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A
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C
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C
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B
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C
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A
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- [07:15]
B
I have a technical question here. Maybe Eli, you could help him with this a little bit.
- [07:19]
A
Yeah.
- [07:20]
B
So there, there has been this contingency plan in place. As one would expect among the Iranian leadership. In the event of a sort of decapitation strike, this council of experts convenes and does something, waves the wand over someone and they become that. Now, now my question is have the casualty, not the casualty. Have the losses that the Iranian leadership suffered so far been such that the people in the regime who are supposed to constitute and enact this contingency, are they also gone? So is it sort of catch as catch can or.
- [08:14]
D
Or is.
- [08:15]
A
I don't know the answer.
- [08:16]
D
There was a revealing interview on Al Jazeera with Iran's Foreign Minister Arachi, who just kind of casually said that he didn't. He kind of acknowledged that there is no command and control at this point with various units. Now, I don't know if that applies to everything. They're certainly firing things off, but it does seem that there's that we're looking at an implosion.
- [08:48]
A
Well, by the way. So this afternoon a couple of different people have told me that the chatter in the world of people who hear chatter. So this is secondhand chatter. Is that this afternoon? It's not that the tide turned or anything because there isn't really the tide all seems to be flowing in one direction. Anyway, but that the sense of the discombobulation of the regime and everything that's going on there has in fact started to turn into a kind of degrading route is evident. And the real evidence is a slowdown rather than a speed up in the firing of the ballistic missiles. Like 6 or 700 were fired off yesterday. That number is maybe half or a third of what it was. And, you know, the worry is always that they're holding stuff back and then they're just gonna. When you least expect it, there'll be some second strike that comes out of nowhere and like, just, you know, does immense damage. But that seems illogical if you are under relentless, un, unimaginable bombardment as Iran is. The idea that. That you're. The thing that you would do is not throw everything you have at the enemy as you have it, just to get them to stop or to push them back a little or something. There's no strategy that says it's not like, rope a dope like here, fire all this stuff at us, and we'll just take it and then will come back. Because we're not limited. We have hundreds of ships and planes and, you know, thousands of military options at our disposal, which they must know. And so it's not like, okay, you ran out of your ammunition, now we're gonna fire at you and you can't do anything about it. Like, you know, the Hail Mary play is to. Is to go with everything at once now. And if they're not doing it, it may be that they can't.
- [11:10]
C
Well, the one thing we know, they can't match step for step. So which is why they're shooting at Bahrain and Qatar and anywhere that the US May have personnel and bases or anywhere that they think will, you know, as they say, pressure the US to make it stop. But that seems to be their Hail Mary plan play. They're not even. They're not even pretending they can go toe to toe, but they're trying to make it that this is the sort of thing that I think will backfire also, because if the US because again, we are not limited. If we start believing that Iran has to be leveled, its missiles have to be completely taken out, every inch of them, for us to be safe in our air bases in the region, then that's what we'll do. And so the normal reaction would be to hit them harder. But this. But that is their. That seems to be the Hail Mary, for whatever it's worth.
- [12:04]
D
Well, I mean, two points to think about. One is they managed Today to have public lots of people in Tehran, Esfahan and probably other cities mourning Khamenei, that does not freak me out. I think that there's a minority of kind of the brainwashed true believers in the country. So I don't even think necessarily to compel some of those people. But certainly the regime wanted to kind of put out a stow of public strength. So we saw those photographs. And then the other which we were talking about before we went on is we have this incident in El Paso. There's this developing situation as we're talking in Washington D.C. on the Beltway. Are there lone wolves that have been activated by Iran or were they here? And you know, this is the moment when they're going to be activated. We don't even know if, if any of them are connected to it. It could just be mentally ill people who have clung to the news and, you know, justified their wanton violence, you know, because of that. But there is a possibility. The Iranians are the leading state sponsor of terror. In many ways they were, I would argue they're kind of like the Henry Ford of modern Islamic terror. So maybe, maybe that's part of the response too. And then the other thing you hear is that US Officials are worried about possible cyber attacks on infrastructure. We haven't seen that yet, but that's another possibility of what we could see in terms of their response.
- [13:43]
A
So what you mentioned are these two incidents. The surprising thing was there was the shooting at a bar, at this bar in Austin at 2 in the morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning. And to hear suddenly that the authorities are concerned that there might be a, a terrorist aspect to it, which is now very clear because the clear photographic image of the, of the, of the shooter, who is born, born in Senegal and a naturalized US citizen, he was wearing a shirt that said Property of Islam on it. Somebody, interestingly, I don't know why I'm laughing. It's like embarrassing because it's obviously very evil. But you know, like somebody dug up an enraged tweet he sent at Laura Loomer, the far right wing, suddenly neo passionate Zionist after having converted to Christianity five or six years ago. Anyway, he sent this enraged tweet at her, which suggests an ideological framework to his actions. So there's a thing about is he just a mentally ill guy? Is he just a lone wolf who went and shooting somewhere or have they, have they pre positioned or pre planted weird terrorist actors around America? Yeah.
- [15:13]
B
Having had no professional experience in, you know, counterterrorism, this really, this profile doesn't so whatever we know of, it doesn't strike me at all as an activated Iranian cell member. You wouldn't be tweeting at Laura Loomer. Yeah, I don't think.
- [15:36]
A
Unless you tweet at Laura Loomer is what got him recruited. But, I mean, you know what I'm saying?
- [15:40]
B
Fair enough.
- [15:42]
A
And it would be a weird. Right? And it would also be a weird. Like, what's the purpose of that? You know, what do you. It's not. It's. It's not a big enough event. And if he doesn't leave a manifesto, if he's in there screaming, you know, this is. This is to avenge the murder of the ayatollah, I don't know what purpose it serves. And, yeah, I just want to say
- [16:08]
B
it's interesting to me because we get. We get to the. To the car crash, because 90% of the time, when we get a confirmed Islamist terrorist attack in this country and authorities say it's a lone wolf, I'm suspicious. And sometimes I'm proven correct in my suspicion, like, it's not really a lone wolf. There seems to have been something murky, some traveling plans, some associates, some. Something. And I have to say, this time it's almost the opposite, where I feel as if the way the law enforcement described the Austin shooter, indications of a nexus to terrorism, would make one think that he's involved in a sort of web. And look, I know nothing, but as I said, nothing about it really strikes me as anything other than an actual
- [17:17]
A
lone wolf, down to the shirt, down
- [17:20]
B
to the location, down to the time. Yes.
- [17:23]
A
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- [21:15]
B
But okay.
- [21:16]
C
Iran also has planned attacks on US Soil that We sort of know their style a bit already. We know that they tried to assassinate the Saudi official in Washington, D.C. in a cafe. Right? We know that. We know that through Hezbollah they do drug smuggling and things like that. We have a, we have a sort of picture at least of what Iranians. We know they tried to assassinate Masilinejad, as they've done, you know, in the, in German and French cafes for, for, you know, for a long time, assassinating dissidents or Iranians that annoy them. So we've had a couple of attacks that we've really actually investigated, you know, gotten all the facts out there and said, here is what the Islamic Republic of Iran was quite literally planning to do. And this, this isn't the sort of thing that they would do. And also, if they had something, it would, it would, this wouldn't be the top, like, this wouldn't be the thing that happens first. I don't, I can't know what's in their heads, but they have a certain style when they try to pull off attacks on US Soil and, and it doesn't fit it, but it is something we should be looking for because they have tried attacks on US Soil and they don't know what those look like. And those have, you know, global implications. As, you know, as concerns the Saudis.
- [22:30]
A
What they don't have and why we can look for a different signature is they don't, they aren't al Qaeda. They don't have the, we're going to send 20 people to do something colossal and gigantic. They look to assassinate individuals. And obviously they haven't had a lot of success on US Soil because they tried to kill John Bolton. They tried, they targeted Brian Hook, they targeted Trump. You know, they've done this and they haven't, from what we can tell. You know, unless the guy in Butler, Pennsylvania, whose motivations still remain completely opaque and bizarrely undefinable, you know, unless he was somehow an Iranian asset. They, they really, you know, this isn't their great success. They've had better success in Europe and elsewhere. And that's something, by the way, to watch in the next couple of days if they do things, because obviously their idea is we can't really get to the Americans and we're doing what we can to get to the Israelis. But that's why we're trying to scare everybody else into telling us to say uncle. Then there's this other story which is interesting, that the Saudis seem to be getting in on that. There seems to be a reason that the Saudis want to let it be known that Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, was a key actor in the past week in being like the Margaret Thatcher of this operation. Like, he's the one who was calling Trump saying, don't go wobbly. You gotta go and hit Iran and hit Iran hard. It's not just Netanyahu, which is striking, because we'd been hearing for, you know, six months that the Saudis were starting to play footsie with the Islamic Republic and were maybe trying to find a different way to deal with their own geopolitical problems relating to this Shia Sunni fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran, this historical fight, and that we were all alarmed by that. Right. Oh, my God. Are the Saudis giving up and trying to make a separate peace with Iran? Apparently, no. That is not what happened. And they really did want to let it be known, and the administration is happy to let it be known that it's not just Israel that is involved in the planning here, that Trump was getting pushed or urged to take the final step by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- [25:11]
C
Well, the Saudis are involved right now in negotiations over their own nuclear program with the US So it's probably. I would look there for first clues.
- [25:20]
D
Well, there's another reason why it's very important, and that is that the line from the woke, right, the Tucker Carlson side of MAGA has been, this is Israel's war, and that this is the last chance they're going to have with a president who would allow, you know, the Jewish state to pressure them into a war like this. And so they have to take advantage of it. And he has been saying that explicitly. Megan Kelly is saying that. And that is the line you're going to hear from the, you know, the. The MAGA isolationists, which is awful and not true. But if. If it looks like Muhammad bin Salman was played the Margaret Thatcher role, it puts the lie to that. I mean, by the way, it was a lie to begin with because it's ridiculous to think that Donald Trump was going to be pressured by anybody. But it further kind of collapses their narrative that they were putting out, which is that, all right, they're gonna do the war, and if it goes badly, it's, let's blame the Jews. And that's a real thing. I mean, I think they're immune to facts and empirical reality and logic at this point. So they're gonna probably say it anyway, though. You know, hopefully it, you know, some of this will.
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A
Will.
- [26:51]
D
Will maybe contain it, I guess, you know, to their information ghetto so there,
- [26:55]
A
there are two other points to be made here. One that I would, that goes to the actual fighting and this thing I, I've heard that, you know, the tide turned today has to do with the Iranian second strike capability. As Jonathan Schanzer said on yesterday's emergency podcast, the thing to fear are The Iranians have 4,000 or so ballistic missiles of different forms. Some of them are on mobile launchers, some of them are on, you know, in ground or in tunnels or whatever. And it's a double edged sword because obviously we don't want the Iranians to be firing off ballistic missiles and hitting Israel. One just hit Jerusalem. You know, there's this hit in Beit Shemesh that killed nine people and wounded 40. Like, you don't want that. But every time they fire, we know where the launcher is that was used to fire. And we or the Israelis can go and take out that launcher. And if those launchers are destroyed in the hundreds to thousands, the Iranians lose all capability. That's it. That's all they got. They don't have planes. We took out their air force. We are in the process of taking out their navy. Trump said that we have, I think, blown up nine ships or something like that. Took out a submarine. They do have drones. Huh?
- [28:35]
B
They have drones.
- [28:37]
A
They have drones. Okay, so. Right, they have drones. But, but the, but the, but their main capability is they do have a navy and they do have these missiles. So they are in a. Interesting box because what they need to do is fire the missiles if they're going to fight. But if they fire the missiles and they have a stationary launcher and we can take out that launcher, then they got no way to fire the next missile. And it's just sitting there on the ground. And not only that, but we also know where that tunnel is or where they've been hiding them. And then we can go and drop a bunker buster and blow up that tunnel. So the more they respond, the easier it is for us in Israel to take out their capabilities. That's the, that's the conundrum that even they may even be facing. And we don't even know if they, as I guess Eli say, you know, that they're, they can get in touch with, you know, the guy who's in the mountain over there and say, okay, you know, fire at Cyprus because their phones may not be working. The man, control and communications was taken out. Israel is so in control, or whoever's so in control that they just, they took over the Iranian state TV airwaves and Broadcast, start broadcasting a speech by Bibi telling them, you know, to stand, you know, to stand tall and be ready to take over their government. Israel is so confident that it sent out a message a couple of hours ago to the Iranian people saying, don't rise up yet because it's too dangerous in the streets. We're still going at these targets will let you know when it's safe for you to come out and start taking over the government, which is a, a pretty amazing. Just think about it.
- [30:29]
C
It's, it's the smart, it's the smart home. You know, appliances like the refrigerator is going to tell you when it's time to go out. Okay? When the refrigerator says go topple the regime, that's when you go.
- [30:42]
A
Right?
- [30:42]
D
But, but there's another element of this that I think is perfect kind of for the commentary podcast to just get into. Here. We're watching. In some, it feels like the culmination of two and a half years of Israeli military brilliance and heroism. And it's remarkable. And of course, I'm very proud as a Jew. But in another way, it stands in such sharp relief to our diaspora community in America that just ran this fakta ad on the super bowl about the kid who gets called a dirty Jew and a black friend tells him to fuck up. And it's a really interesting moment in some ways because the early relationship between American Jews in Israel was that, you know, we lobbied for them, we gave them money, we bought the Israel bonds. We were using our community's success to help this plucky, against all odds country that, you know, had a barely functioning economy and was attacked by all its neighbors and they really needed us. And now it feels like we're the little brother, if that makes sense. And there is a kind of disconnect. And I wonder if whether some of that has, I think for us and the commentary community, we are very proud of Israel, obviously, and we're all Zionists. But I wonder if that can kind of form and weirdly, a kind of resentment among other diaspora Jews when they see that all this incredible success from Israel and that's why so many of the younger Jews might be susceptible to these libels about Israel's conduct in the Gaza war and so forth, and the various, you know, propaganda and BS from Peter Beinart.
- [32:44]
A
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- [35:00]
D
Hey Nora.
- [35:01]
A
Hi Nora. Anyway, so, so it's very, I think it's very hard for people who are marinated in this idea to look and see a country that says the only way for us to move forward is to use our aggressive, hostile capabilities that involve the use of deadly force on a massive scale. Along with the world's most powerful country. This is how we can build our future. Every we've been told as Americans, particularly liberal Americans and liberal American Jews since we were little children that this is not the way to go about things. You know, if you have a bully on the playground, you know, try to make friends with him, you know, as opposed to the there's a bully on the ground, go punch him in the mouth. See and then maybe if you punch him in the mouth, maybe he'll leave you alone or he'll have no respect for you, right? That's not how we, that's not how we in. In America think or we. That we're trained to think. I mean, that's the most. That's the most, like, banal version of this.
- [36:17]
D
Right? But that. I think there are a lot of liberal American Jews. I mean, I don't know what. It's a deeper question, and I don't know what surveys to necessarily go to, but there are a lot of liberal Americans used that view Israel as kind of a source of embarrassment at a dinner party. Oh, I have to defend, you know, the hilltop vigilantes on the west bank the next time, you know, I'm at some dinner party or something. And what we're really seeing is this incredible story of a country. I mean, it starts on October 7th, this horrible attack. And then people from all over, Israeli citizens from all over the world are volunteering. They have too many volunteers. This kind of military culture, this culture that we're gonna defend our country. And then let's credit Netanyahu, who has the vision to understand that it's not. He can't just think of it as a war against Hamas. It's a war against the entire network of proxies that are in Iran. And this is the last phase of it. And then add to that all of these episodes of just spectacular military brilliance that really feels like magic when you think about it. And that is all Israeli. And of course, the partnership with America makes a lot of it possible. But America's gaining a lot out of the. I mean, like, the fact you got two problems.
- [37:47]
A
You got two problems here. So, so it's, as I say, we've been marinated in this idea that, you know, civilized people and, you know, from, you know, come together and try to find common ground, whatever. Okay, so there's that. And that Israel gives a lie to that, which is. They tried. They tried. They kept trying. They kept trying. And then, then, then 5,000 people were killed and raped and injured in a single morning in October 2023. And they were like, okay, that's it. Goodbye, we're done. Seven countries. Seven. There are seven organizations or countries that are attacking us. We are systematically going to go after everyone and destroy them. And it's not just going to be Gaza, because Gaza, even though Gaza is the. The Hamas is the one who attacked us, they're all woven together. And we are. And we, We. We know that. And then they, You. They stage this astonishing, you know, victory dominoes toppling all over the place. You're saying, why is it that they. So that gives the lie to the we just need to be nice and everything will be fine. And then you have the second point, which is that they have to go to a dinner party and people say, well, Israel is so mean and aggressive and terrible, and they're mean to the Arabs and all of that. And they don't have the vocabulary to say, you know, sometimes if someone's mean, they're mean for a reason. And they're not mean. They're defending their children. And so I understand that you don't think anybody should have a gun and you don't think anybody should be able to defend themselves, and we shouldn't have cops and all of that, but you know what? That's not how the world works. They don't know how to say that. And then you have the secondary thing now, which is, of course, every liberal in America hates Donald Trump more than they have hated any figure in my lifetime. So the fact that this is a Trump war, Trump, you know, allied with Bibi and all of that, makes it incredibly difficult.
- [39:58]
B
And there is a further complication for American Jews, American liberal Jews at, well, liberal Jews generally and American liberals generally, which is that when Israel responded initially to, say, October 7, when it went into Hama, into Gaza, there weren't widespread videos of Gazans cheering and thanking Israelis. When they took out Hezbollah, you didn't see widespread videos of Lebanese cheering and thanking Israelis. When they took out Hezbollah leaders in Iran, you didn't see it. And so on. And it was. And. And even though during the Iraq war, when the US Went in, there were some Iraqis who actually did celebrate at the, at the start of the war, but they were only seen by the journalists who were on the ground there. Okay. Given that all of the post 10-7-political battle has been done online, there is now a flood of videos of Persians, of Iranians cheering Trump, Netanyahu thanking Israel, calling this not a mean, aggressive act of war, but an answered prayer, a liberation. And this is a new experience for the Trump hating, war hating, BB hating, liberal Jews. They have to reckon with this.
- [41:51]
A
I mean, I hope they do, because this could be all invisible to them. We don't know what their algorithms show them. We don't know what it is.
- [41:58]
B
I mean, it's.
- [41:59]
A
I hope you're right. Yeah, but. And of course, there's more to come, because if this scenario that Israel laid out tonight, which is, they're gonna. We're still fighting, so stay safe. Things are unstable and, you know, we, you know, what's going on now is the battle part, and you're not involved in it. Iranian civilians, you can keep, you can protect yourselves. And then we'll let you know when you can go out into the streets. And if they do and they go out in the streets and they say, we're happy the regime is over, we want, you know, by the millions, that will be undeniable. And that's the thing, of course, the dog that didn't bark in Gaza, that, that I think was important for the Israeli public. That is going to be a twist here because people kept saying, where are the, where are the Gazans? Celebrating the fact that they've been liberated from Hamas. And believe me, Israeli soldiers and troops were wondering the same thing. And in Israel, this was kind of like the final stake in the heart of the people who hoped against hope for the ability to make peace with the Palestinians that.
- [43:13]
D
Well, hold on. Yeah, hold on.
- [43:16]
A
Okay.
- [43:17]
D
There was a moment. We know if you go back to like March, April, May, we were seeing lots of videos of regular Gazans telling Hamas to leave. And then there was the ceasefire and then Hamas started killing so called collaborators.
- [43:40]
A
Right.
- [43:41]
D
And that was enough violence to shut everybody up because they're still around.
- [43:45]
A
During the war.
- [43:47]
D
Oh sure, during the war.
- [43:48]
A
During the war, yeah.
- [43:50]
C
But also when they, when they rose up against like, when they, when they protested against Hamas, there was never a, like Palestinians and Israelis in Milan or something partying on a balcony together. Like there was no thank you Israel for doing it. There was no sentiment in London.
- [44:08]
A
We've seen it in LA and we've seen in D.C. right. This Iranian and of course the demented. Fascinating politics since we're talking about liberals in America, because what else are we going to do? That Ahmed, that Zora Mamdani.
- [44:28]
D
Oh, that was amazing. I can't believe that. Yeah.
- [44:31]
A
Expressed his support for the Iranian community in New York and you know, his sorrow that, you know, and understanding that, you know, they deserve protection from, you know, this incredibly unjust and illegitimate attack on their country. What do you think the percentage is of Iranians in the United States who support the overthrow of the Islamic Republic? Do you think it's 99.2%? Because that might be low now. There are people who are worried about their families. I'm sure there are. I mean there's 992% and Sohrab Omari and that's it. That's as far as. And Trita Parsi that, as far as I can tell though, Trita Parsi and Saurabha Mari are the only Iranians publicly who are saying that this is a Mistake. And just generally speaking, every Iranian in the United States is in the United States because they had to leave Iran or their families had to leave Iran because of the revolution. And they are centered in New York and D.C. and LA. And a lot of them are Jews, but they're not all Jews. And if there's one thing that binds them, it is hatred of the Islamic Republic, Republic of Iran, of a sort that, you know, like, makes the Cuban hatred of Castro look like, you know, like a, like mild, mild anger so that they're not.
- [46:03]
B
And they're not quiet about it.
- [46:04]
A
I mean, they are. They're at all.
- [46:06]
D
Right.
- [46:06]
A
And they're cheering.
- [46:08]
C
I saw Mamdani's tweet and I was like, he's never met a Persian in his life, right?
- [46:11]
A
No, but I mean that. Of course. Well, he has. Or you, you know, he met three Persians.
- [46:16]
C
He's met an.
- [46:17]
A
As a Persian.
- [46:17]
C
He's got an As a Persian on. On staff, maybe. Like, he's got the, you know.
- [46:21]
A
Right. Anyway, I'm just saying, like, when you read that and you see that, you understand that the, the world that, that people like him live in is not the same world that. That. That we live in. And therefore, that helps explain a little bit the one very troubling sign so far. And it's only, remember, it's only 36, 48 hours since all of this started. But you know that, that snap polling is showing very. I mean, there are a couple of polls that say it's fine, and there are a couple polls that say it's good that we took out the ayatollah, but not a lot of public support for the war. And these subsidiary questions like, does Trump use force too much? Is he too quick to use force? And like, 56 to 57% of Americans say he does in two different polls that came out this afternoon. You know, like, not that much support, 20 to 40%, depending on how you calculate it. And so the question is, I guess this goes to Eli's point. Oh, go ahead, Abe. I'm sorry.
- [47:33]
B
I just want to say this is before something we should get into. Obviously, the tragic news of the fact of the three U.S. service members have been killed so far in this.
- [47:46]
D
Right.
- [47:47]
B
And as that news becomes more widely known, settles in, and as the enemies of this operation use that as a cudgel, that the support could even get lower.
- [48:07]
A
I know, but I mean, look, three. Three American servicemen have died in the first 48 hours of a conflict. Granted, we are not used to Americans, by the way, bizarrely, look, in the first Gulf War in 1990, 100Americans died in the single most lopsided battlefield victory in the history of mankind. You know, it was like Agincourt times a billion. But, you know, if we're starting to get to the point at which the American people are going to say that the tragic loss of three servicemen in the Middle east means that the mission is morally illegitimate, then we have a lot worse problems in this country and its future than I even imagined that we have.
- [49:08]
B
I think we are at that point, and we do have those problems. I mean, this is what. This is what. This is why, you know, talk me down, I'm your man. This is why.
- [49:18]
D
I'm with John on this, by the way.
- [49:20]
B
Let me just make this point that this is why talks of boots on the ground has been anathema for years now. Because the idea is if one American life is going to, and I understand it is going to be put in jeopardy or lost for a war that I'm not clear or necessarily clear in my support of its aims, then a travesty has taken place here. And that is the tide that we are fighting against here. I think that is especially because you've got Trump, who has been, you know, railing against forever wars and boots on the ground and guaranteeing no boots on the ground and no boots on the ground, no boots on. There are no occupation and no drawn out. So I think that is where we are.
- [50:19]
A
Yeah.
- [50:20]
D
All right, so just a couple points on that. George w. Bush in 2000 campaigned on the idea, and Condi Rice said it at the convention, america will not be the world's 91 1, which, you know, has a weird number. A weird number in light of what happened.
- [50:37]
A
Have used. Yeah.
- [50:38]
D
And then he comes up, he. He becomes the most interventionist president, you know, since, you know, you could argue the 60s. And the other point to make is that it's too soon to tell. We're in the middle of this right now. So if there are more and single digits, but, you know, the result is a civil war in Iran and we don't know where the loose nukes, nuclear material is, and it becomes this huge problem.
- [51:09]
A
Yeah.
- [51:09]
D
Then this will look as another intervention failure. But if Trump can pull it off and Israel can pull it off, that you manage to affect a decent transition to something better than what we have now, which is the worst. And you see those scenes of Iranians in jubilation in the streets, and there is no more nuclear program, there is no missile program for Iran, and we did it without Boots on the ground, then that is a new paradigm for American national security.
- [51:44]
C
Yes. And the capabilities that we have now to do that. Right.
- [51:48]
D
That's the other thing we have.
- [51:49]
C
We have the technological capabilities to take this and branch it out and make this the, you know, the central idea of a grand strategy where we didn't have the ability necessarily to do it before with people sitting so far from the battlefield, but we have this ability to, you know, to go into places and take these precision sort of acts and actions. But because we have the bases like the, you know, the woke.
- [52:17]
A
Right.
- [52:18]
C
And the people and isolationists, they complain, you know, why are we still here? Why are we still there, you know, all these years after World War II and stuff like that. Because they're not to drop off soldiers, but they are to be these bases from which we can fly jets and drones and missiles and things like that. But also, you know, they were able to take the time in the past month or whatever it's been few weeks to move missile defense into position. So missile defense, it is just a missile defense, you know, in around the region where the US has its, you know, has its own, has its own bases and stuff like that. So that's, that's a capability now that we can do, you know, wider and more often.
- [53:02]
B
I just want to add something to my point. I'm not saying that this public sentiment about combat deaths and boots on the ground is healthy or right or productive. And to that point, I want to note that the people who are going to make, who are going to try to turn this into a scandal are undoubtedly the same people who say it's good that we got out of Afghanistan because of, because it was a forever war and reasons and 13 U.S. service members were killed in that withdrawal itself.
- [53:46]
A
Yeah, yeah. Look, I think what you lay out, and this is crucially important, Trump spoke and said today and said he looks at this as a four week operation. So he's not necessarily putting a time limit on it, but at least he's not saying we'll be out by Thursday.
- [54:06]
B
Right.
- [54:07]
A
And the reason I say at least is not that I want this to continue forever, but particularly given the fact that he does not yet have the full support of the American people or even the partial support of the American and all this. He has made a huge gamble on this mission and he needs to see it through. Like he needs to not preemptively stop it or take some weird off ramp. He needs to get the result that will indicate what we are talking about here, that the regime has fallen, that the path forward is a better path that, that the pro American sentiment that we have been hearing for two generations is deep inside the hearts of the entire, of the, of what constitutes the Iranian middle class. That they are activated and that they are ready and willing to work with the United States to work with contractors who will help them rebuild. This is something that Jonathan Schanzer talked about again on yesterday's podcast, that there will be a lot of work to be done after, you know, cleanup and reconstruction of infrastructure and all of that. And if he can say, we did this, everything is on the right path. Tell me what, go ahead, tell me what I did wrong. Tell me what I did wrong. What did I. What, what, what, what bad happened here? And he, that every time we have been close in the last 30 years to achieving that victory, as Charlie Wilson said, we f up the end game. We end it too soon. We don't, we don't get the final result that we need to have. And that Charlie Wilson said that about Afghanistan, about the, about the, you know, the sort of the, the everything that happened that then led up to the, to 9, 11. And you know, we, after the Gulf War, George Bush listened to, George H.W. bush listened to Colin Powell and ended the war with, not only with Saddam and power, but allowing him to fly his helicopters around the south so that, so the Kurdish uprising could be, so that he could slaughter the Kurds. And you know, and we, we declared mission accomplished way too early in Iraq in 2003 and put our faith in an election strategy that was clearly too green to achieve the result that we wanted. So he, Looking at all of the dumb mistakes, having decided that the problem isn't that Americans fight wars, but that he wasn't the guy in charge of America when it fought the wars, needs to take a lesson from where things went wrong and do what Israel basically has done here in the last two and a half years and crush the enemy so that the enemy stays crushed and so that the enemy acknowledges that the enemy is crushed. Which is the World War II analogy. Right. It's that we needed the Nazis and the Japanese to know that they were dead and that there was no coming back and that they had. We had to break their spirits and crush their hopes and their ambitions.
- [57:58]
C
And there's, there's one more thing, word, maybe worth mentioning along that point is that usually anywhere there's an insurgency, it's a fun. It's funded by Iran.
- [58:10]
A
Right. So if Iran's not this thing, taking out Iran. Yeah.
- [58:15]
C
Will you Know, presumably affect the, the, the ability of, you know, that's one
- [58:20]
D
of the things I'm worried about, which is that they have guns and if they decide to go underground and head to the hills, they will have a great advantage in an insurgency because there won't be boots on the ground. Admit it. I agree, by the way. We shouldn't have boots on the ground because they're a magnet for the other jihadists and because we don't want our guys to be manning checkpoints points and training police and having a repeat of what it. And Trump is wise to avoid that. So it is a huge gamble. But I also think that there's some, there's reason to be optimistic. I have to believe that the Mossad and the CIA have something, you know, planned for the day after. I hope they do. So we'll see. And that's the big thing. But if he can pull this off, I think it's enormous for us, for the region in terms of, but you
- [59:22]
A
know, Seth makes a really important point as I reflect on what he said about the Iranians and the insurgencies. So the counter effort against the United States in Iraq was, was two sided, right? There were sort of two fronts. There was the, the, the Sunni government,
- [59:46]
D
Shia's supported by Iranians were coordinating both Sunni and Shia. But yes, you're right, it was coming from Syria too.
- [59:53]
A
Right, Right. So the Iranians not there for themselves. In other words, like there's no external organizing principle that they can, that they can use to sort of like interfere with their own country. They, they will, their, their leadership and the people who know how to do what they know how to do will have been crushed. Which then starts raising questions about what you do with the IRGC. With 125,000 people in the IRGC, do you give them amnesty? Do you, you know, remember the United States made what people now think to have been a terrible strategic blunder in firing the Iraqi army, right. Like, like basically letting the Iraqi, instead of paying them off or trying to transition them into some other force that, that they all, yeah, they, they all, they all took their guns and went. They had nothing left and all that. So I don't know how, how all of that that goes, but if a lot of this depends on the idea that, you know, Iran has proved itself over the last two years to be a much more, much more of a paper tiger than we ever expected that they would be, I don't think we anticipate or the Israelis anticipated the ease with which the Israeli and American operations against Iran would go from after October 7th. Like they just, they didn't know. The Iraqis both, you know, in, in the 90s and then the early 2000s were only 10 or 15 years divorced from the eight year war that they had fought against Iran, which they had basically won. So they were a seasoned military.
- [61:40]
D
Well, but they, they were, they put up no resistance from the initial invasion. No, but it was, it was the insurgency that they, that the Baathists and the, every dirtbag in the region joined the insurgents.
- [61:52]
A
Talking about. No, I'm talking about the Iran Iraq war.
- [61:54]
D
Yeah, I'm saying Iraq. When we went into Iraq.
- [61:58]
A
I'm not talking about.
- [61:59]
D
Oh, okay, I thought you were talking about that.
- [62:00]
A
No, no, I'm saying Iran when Iraq. I know, but when Iraq. When we went into Iraq in 2003.
- [62:09]
D
Right.
- [62:10]
A
And we obviously overwhelmed the. I mean, we won the war in six weeks or three weeks or something like that. But that was still an active military that had been involved in military activity constantly for 20 years. The Iranians have not been in active military for 20 years. They futz around in Iraq and do stuff like that, but they haven't. They're not seasoned and trained and like, they just weren't as good as we thought they were.
- [62:43]
D
Well, I would argue, no, I would say it a little differently. Their main Iranian military was their Revolutionary Guard Corps and their Quds Force. That was an irregular kind of insurgency building operation that involved in terrorism. And the IRGC has become the kind of mafia of the state. They own, I don't know, some very large percentage of the economy at this point.
- [63:09]
A
Yeah.
- [63:11]
D
And they were always like the A team.
- [63:15]
A
Right.
- [63:16]
D
And, and then the assumption was that they would have a competent air defense system and everything like that. The Israelis overwhelmed it. And I think you're right in the sense that they just never imagined they would be invaded or they would never be imagined they would be attacked like this.
- [63:34]
A
But their purpose was of course to quell domestic discontent.
- [63:40]
D
Well, no, the IRGC's purpose was to spread the Islamic revolution. And then the other, the BAS IGS and the MOI asked intelligence service was. But yes, there were several layers of all these regime security forces.
- [63:53]
A
Right.
- [63:54]
D
It's interesting.
- [63:55]
A
By the way, again, I don't mean to be Pollyannish, all I'm saying is we don't know. The circumstances here suggest that Trump can score and Bibi or Israel, whatever can score a kind of new kind of victory here. Right. And that will require the will to sustain and to not get thrown off track. And I think Trump benefits a little bit from this weird Mamdani, you know, this kind of bizarre tone deafness about how Americans and irate. Whatever. Think about this. On the one hand, on the other, this idea that the Democrats seem fixated on because there are jokes about it and now there are tweets about it, and there was a thing on SNL about it that Trump did this to distract from the Epstein files.
- [64:47]
D
Right?
- [64:48]
A
Now, if that's the level of attack that liberals and leftists and, like, actually want to sustain, if that's where their minds go, he really actually then comes out as the more serious person with more, you know, doing something that's purposeful and serious. And, you know, I, you know, I know it's like. It's like catnip for them. They can't resist it. They can't.
- [65:18]
D
They.
- [65:19]
A
They just can't avoid it.
- [65:22]
D
But the fascinating thing, by the way, is that the regime accounts on social media have adopted the line that it's a distraction about Epstein calling it Operation Epstein Fury.
- [65:32]
A
Fury, yeah.
- [65:33]
D
Which is like, I mean, you know, welcome to the 21st century and social media. But it's like, that's kind of interesting, too. But, I mean, that used to be the kind of thing that would make a Democrat feel a little uncomfortable, right? Like, well, it's not great that our attack ad is being repurposed by our mortal enemy in the middle of a war, but, I mean, who knows at this point? I mean, I also think it's interesting that I kind of going back to the casualties thing, right? I mean, it's still. I mean, to. There's. It's disgusting, in my view, to say that, you know, we launched a war, but, like, Israel and America killed those servicemen because they put them in harm's way. Which is a line we're already hearing from, like, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker. But there is, at a certain point, like, these people have. They. They're. Tucker gave this speech in December. We're the America first wing of maga, and they're all about America First. America First. America first. Careful, buddy. Watch it. Because you're gonna start sounding like you're kind of Iran first if you're gonna blame their violence on us. And I just think at a certain point, they're gonna be very vulnerable to that kind of thing. It's not there. They've had a. You know, he's had a pretty smooth ride up to now. And then the other big question is, he called this war disgusting. How many ticks away from Tucker just attacking Trump. And if he does that, then that opens up wonderful space with J.D. vance. J.D. vance can't stay with Tucker if he's attacking Trump.
- [67:15]
A
Right.
- [67:15]
D
J.D. vance can stay with Tucker if he's attacking Jews.
- [67:18]
A
Yeah.
- [67:18]
D
He's attacking other Republicans. That's fine. But if he goes after Trump, he's got to make a choice. And, and at that point, you know, does Tucker kind of get sent to Elba and, you know, okay, fine, you'll have a very popular podcast, just like Alex Jones did. Conspiracy theorists and kooks and nuts will tune in, but you will never have a home in the Republican Party again. You know, Baruch Hashem. We can hope.
- [67:43]
B
Well, something very interesting is happening with J.D. vance here, I think. We know that Nick Fuentes hated J.D. vance and said horrible things about his wife and his kids and him. But Vance's gamble was, in my mind, I can still not lose the Fuentes contingent, more largely speaking. And with this war, they are, they, they are out there talking about how he has failed them, how he is. Was always a closet need neocon or never cared about anything, and anyone who thought otherwise got suckered in. So he's getting the treatment that they all, you know, it's the no honor among thieves, no honor among groipers or.
- [68:38]
D
Right.
- [68:38]
B
Anti Semites. He's getting the full treatment now for all his footsie. It's, it's, it's falling apart because of this involvement.
- [68:51]
A
Because, I mean, it's worse than that.
- [68:52]
B
Yeah.
- [68:53]
A
As you would put it for Nick Fuentes and for Vance playing footsie with him. Because Nick Fuentes this morning said, everybody who's listening to me needs to vote for the Democrats. That is the thing you cannot say in Donald Trump's ear.
- [69:07]
D
That is the thing, by the way, for what? It's where he said it in 2024, too.
- [69:11]
A
Okay, well, this is where Donald Trump will sit. But right now, as he's looking at 2026 and everything like that, I mean, he will, he will send a bunker buster to drop on Nick Fuentes his head if Fuentes goes on like this.
- [69:26]
C
And he will be greeted as liberty.
- [69:28]
A
That's not a, that's not a fair fight for Nick Fuentes. So, you know, it's striking. My sister who was on yesterday and, you know, like they are, I talk to her all day and she's like, you know, there's another siren. I'm going in the shelter. I'm out of the shelter. I've got to go, go back into the shelter. I'm in, I'm out. I'M out, I'm in, I'm in. You know, there's an attack on Beit Shemesh. A building is blown up in Tel Aviv. There's an attack in Jerusalem. Again, 100% of people in Israel. I maybe not 100%, but, you know, an enormous, like the country is going in and out of shelters under ballistic missile attack from Iran. Cheerful and happy and thrilled with the future. You have the political system, you have Bibi's two chief rivals for possible premiership in, you know, in later this year backing this effort, saying, we have no, you know, we are not divided. This is an existential threat that we are dealing with in Israel that will make our life better. The, this nation of purpose knows what it's about. It's willing to go into the shelters. It's better than it was going to the shelters for the Gaza war, as, of course, there it was, you know, a war for survival, to destroy this enemy, you know, that had done this terrible thing. So every time you went into the shelters, you were sort of reminded that you were there, the hostages were in, were, were, were in Gaza. And, you know, it's like grim purpose, right? This is something else going on here. This is the fulfillment of a, of an understanding in Israel, two to four decades in length, that says we will never be safe with this regime in Tehran and we do not have the means or the ability to take it down. And the main continuing issue, two issues of the last 25 years in Israel have been, of course, like how to deal with Palestinian Hamas terrorism and that, and then how to deal with Iran, beginning with Ahmadinejad starting to announce when he became president in 2005 that the goal of the regime was the destruction of Israel and saying that Israel would not exist for very much longer. That is what he said, the civilian president, the one who was elected that
- [71:57]
D
too late for him.
- [71:59]
A
So, and that's why, by the way, that's what I wanted to end on this. It is really meaningful and important that Ahmadinejad was killed today or yesterday, even though he has not been president for what, 12 years, something like that, right? Because we have long memories, we Jews. And he made it clear that he was the vanguard of the idea that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth. And we have long memories and he's dead, and let's see who does it, let's see who does it next. And thinks that it's something that you can play and toy with, that you're a country, you're going to develop a nuclear weapon and you're going to take Israel out. Because even after you leave power, even when you're living as a weird academic former president, even though you were. You were arrested months ago for possibly planning a couple.
- [73:04]
D
Right.
- [73:05]
A
You're not safe.
- [73:06]
D
The one weird thing about it is that, like, the revolution has turned on so many of its own, that inside of, you know, Iranian politics for what it was, Ahmadinejad was somebody who was calling for significant reform, if not, you know, a new order, hence the arrest for the coup and everything like that. Now that does that do I think he's changed his stripes when it came to his hatred of Jews and denial of the Holocaust? I don't. But I'm just noting that it's interesting because the decision is not just knock off the top 10 people. It's going pretty deep, which is.
- [73:47]
C
No, I mean, at this point, I think the only people left at top command are Mossad, probably.
- [73:54]
A
But I am just saying let the world know.
- [73:59]
D
Yeah.
- [74:00]
A
That we have a long memory and let every. I mean, that is why this is meaningful. I mean, why we took out, remember
- [74:09]
C
during the course of the last, you know, in the past year. So we took out, you know, one of the, one of the planners of the Marine barracks bombing in 83. We.
- [74:19]
A
And, you know, and this people who had done terrible things decades ago, the Ayatollah, who. The new Ayatollah, the second. The second Spinal Tap drummer planned the Argentina, the, the, the. The killing of the 180 Jews in Argentina in 1994. So we have a long memory. Don't f. With us. That's. Israel is now in a position to say we, you know, we take care of family business. Right. I mean, it's, you know, the Munich. This started with the idea that the Munich terrorists all needed to be eliminated and they would, It'll take as long as it was necessary to eliminate them. And that now having. That you're just a member of Black September doesn't. You can be the head of an international criminal organization. You can be a former president of the country and no longer be in power. And we are not going to forget what you did. And this is a very serious thing about Ahmadinejad, because I was reflecting on the fact that we had not been talking about the need to deal with the Iranian nuclear program until Ahmadinejad started marching around going, we're going to get a nuclear bomb and destroy Israel.
- [75:40]
D
Right.
- [75:40]
A
Which shifted us into this 20 year, you know, like 20 year problem that has now reached its resolution. And so, you know, it's also the end of BB's.
- [75:56]
C
It's, it's, you know, for BB, it's is the culmination of his 30 year, his own sort of 30 year quest. This is, you know, he's, he's got this, he said 40, you know, he said,
- [76:09]
A
you know what? This is what my public life has been aiming toward for 40 years. And remember 42 years ago in Lebanon, in the barracks, the Iranian front group, Hezbollah killed 242 Marines. And the American response then was to pull out of Lebanon. And the American response today is to destroy regimes. What's the better response? I mean, granted, there are many people listening or maybe not listening, who would think that the better response isn't to go and destroy the regime. But they're wrong and we're right and we're going to end here. So.
- [76:54]
D
Yeah. Eli Lake, by the way, don't start none, won't be none.
- [76:57]
A
There you go. Eli Lake. Thank you.
- [77:00]
D
Thank you.
- [77:01]
A
We'll be back tomorrow and every day until we have to stop. For Abe and Seth, I'm John. Pod Horiz. Keep the candle burning.