The Attack 20 Years in the Making

Summary

Summary of "The Attack 20 Years in the Making" Episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Introduction

In the episode titled "The Attack 20 Years in the Making," released on June 13, 2025, The Commentary Magazine Podcast delves into a groundbreaking and epochal event: Israel's unprecedented military strike on Iran. Hosted by John Pothorz, the podcast features insightful discussions with executive editor Abe Greenwald, senior editor Seth Mandel, Washington columnist Matthew Continetti, and social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. This summary captures the key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions drawn by the panelists.

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1. The Genesis of the Attack

Timestamp: [01:20]

The episode opens with Abe Greenwald introducing the monumental event: Israel's successful attack on Iran. Christine Rosen questions the gravitas of the event, prompting Seth Mandel to clarify, "Alex who?" highlighting the overshadowing of US political figures by Israel's decisive action.

Key Points:

• Israel's military raid on Iran marked as possibly the most dramatic in history.
• Details are still emerging, with the mission expected to span several days.
• Targets included top Iranian generals and nuclear scientists, potentially crippling Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Notable Quote: Abe Greenwald emphasizes the precision and audacity of the operation: "The list of things that Israel accomplished in this raid... is science fictional and astounding."

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2. Strategic Execution and Technological Prowess

Timestamp: [04:13]

Christine Rosen elaborates on the sophisticated battle plan executed by Israel, involving domestically produced drones capable of precise strikes within enemy territory.

Key Points:

• The drones, including quadcopters with explosive capabilities, were launched from covert locations within Iran.
• Israel's intelligence infrastructure allowed for unprecedented penetration of Iranian defenses.
• The attack targeted multiple sites, including ballistic missile facilities and key infrastructure like Natanz.

Notable Quote: Christine Rosen remarks on Israel's innovation: "They [drones] have all this. They hit their target. There's no way to figure out where they came from... and Israel."

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3. Political Context and US Administration's Role

Timestamp: [07:04]

Matthew Continetti draws parallels between past US policies and the current scenario, critiquing the Obama administration's handling of Iran and the subsequent empowerment of adversarial forces.

Key Points:

• Obama's diplomatic efforts and the JCPOA inadvertently strengthened Iran's regional influence.
• Trump's administration is portrayed as taking decisive action where predecessors hesitated.
• Mixed signals from the US during the lead-up to the attack left Iran vulnerable.

Notable Quote: Christine Rosen critiques Trump's approach: "Trump was willing to go to almost ridiculous lengths to get a deal. But the threat of force was credible. That's the only way it works."

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4. Execution of the Attack and Immediate Aftermath

Timestamp: [14:35]

The panel discusses the technical aspects of the attack, including the destruction of Iran's air defenses and strategic targets, and the limited immediate retaliation from Iran.

Key Points:

• Israel launched dual strikes in the early morning and daylight, exploiting weakened Iranian defenses.
• Iran's preliminary retaliation via drones has been largely ineffective.
• The operation reflects two decades of meticulous planning and intelligence gathering by Israel.

Notable Quote: Abe Greenwald highlights the scope of Israel's preparedness: "This is a strategic plan that was spent months in the making... and it's a 20-year plan that was executed last night."

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5. Historical Comparisons and Lessons in Warfare

Timestamp: [34:58]

Christine Rosen references Victor Davis Hanson’s "Carnage and Culture" to underscore the disparity between despotic regimes and democratic societies in warfare, drawing parallels to past conflicts like Pearl Harbor and World War II.

Key Points:

• Democracies leverage technological superiority and societal resilience to prevail over despotic adversaries.
• Historical instances where underestimated adversaries faced significant setbacks.
• Emphasis on the importance of decisive action in preventing existential threats.

Notable Quote: Christine Rosen connects current events to historical lessons: "The despotisms always underestimate the capacity of the democracies... Why don't we talk about victory anymore?"

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6. Implications for Regional Stability and Global Security

Timestamp: [43:17]

The discussion shifts to the broader implications of the attack on Middle Eastern geopolitics and global security dynamics, including alliances and potential for further conflict.

Key Points:

• Destruction of Iran’s nuclear program significantly alters the balance of power in the Middle East.
• Potential weakening or collapse of the Iranian regime.
• Impact on regional proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas, diminishing their threat levels.
• The role of US support and the possibility of further involvement in the region.

Notable Quote: Christine Rosen reflects on the strategic outcomes: "If America joins with Israel, it is quite possibly the end of the Iranian revolutionary regime... the greatest move toward peace in the world that any American president has done in decades."

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7. Future Outlook and Concluding Insights

Timestamp: [73:49]

As the episode winds down, the panelists contemplate the long-term consequences of Israel's actions, the necessity of cultural and political shifts within the US, and the potential for new alliances shaping global power structures.

Key Points:

• The necessity of shifting American foreign policy to support decisive actions against existential threats.
• The enduring conflict with radical Islam and its global manifestations.
• The importance of public opinion aligning with strategic military actions to sustain democratic resilience.
• Potential reconfiguration of alliances to bolster global security.

Notable Quote: Abe Greenwald concludes with a visionary outlook: "What we want to do is be allied and aligned with nations that are willing to do what is necessary to defend themselves... the virtues that will flow from that for American and world security are incalculable."

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Conclusion

"The Attack 20 Years in the Making" offers a comprehensive analysis of a pivotal moment in Middle Eastern and global politics. Through expert insights, the podcast elucidates the intricate planning behind Israel's strike on Iran, the historical and political contexts that shaped this decision, and the far-reaching implications for regional stability and international alliances. The panel underscores the importance of decisive military action in safeguarding democratic ideals and preventing the proliferation of existential threats.

Transcript

[John Pothorz]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time, with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music, and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more. Expect the worst.

[Abe Greenwald]

Some free champagne.

[Christine Rosen]

Some diapers.

[John Pothorz]

No way of knowing which way it's going.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hope for the best.

[John Pothorz]

Expect a waste.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, June 13, 2025. I am John Pothorz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[Abe Greenwald]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi, John.

[Abe Greenwald]

Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[Abe Greenwald]

And social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Hi, John.

[Abe Greenwald]

So Alex Padilla, the senator from California, was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, Last night, Israel hit Iran.

[Christine Rosen]

Who?

[Seth Mandel]

Alex.

[Abe Greenwald]

Alex who? People said, alex who? Right before he did his ridiculous stunt. And they're going to say alex who for the rest of their lives. Because this one moment when he had a chance to make himself a little famous, on comes little Israel, 9 million people strong, a country that was until 1967, smaller then Rhode island, staging what may have been the most dramatic military raid in world history. We don't really know the details, all the details yet, and of course, information at the beginning of such a mission, which is now going to take at least several days, so we are told by the Israelis, and so we were told this morning by Donald Trump speaking to Jonathan Karl. Nonetheless, the list of things that Israel accomplished in this raid beginning last night is science fictional and, and, and astounding. Just our friend Dan Senor did a podcast in the middle of the night last night with Ronan Bergman, the New York Times and yet Akronaud correspondent who made the key point that I believe even Matt said this on our chat. It's like, wait, what are they doing? They're hitting Tehran first. I thought they were going after the nuclear sites. Well, according to Ron and Bergman, which makes sense if you're going to go after the leadership in Iran as part of your mission. And it turns out this mission is very broad and very, very, very directed at destroying the Iranian government, that you have to hit the people first because the minute you hit any of the sites, they go into the bunker and are unavailable. So three leading generals, 10 or 12 leading Iranian nuclear scientists, and we don't even know if others in Tehran or elsewhere were targeted, like the malaccracy, we just, we don't, we don't know yet. But they were hit. Ballistic missile sites were hit. Natanz, one of the two major facilities, seems to have been destroyed. Nuclear facilities. The other Fordo, which is buried in a mountain, will be a tougher go. They're hitting sites all over Tehran. We don't even quite know what those sites are. And here I'll stop. But Ronan Bergman pointed out that we had a weird dry run of what happened here with the astonishing Ukrainian attack on Russia two weeks ago, where they took out a third of Russia's ballistic missile capacity or some astonishing number like that.

[Christine Rosen]

Strategic bomber.

[Abe Greenwald]

Strategic bombers. I'm sorry, because they used drones. And apparently, as we have been talking about just before we came on the air, so sophisticated, so masterful, so staggeringly inventive, was the Israeli battle plan here executed after two decades of consideration of how to stop the Iranian nuclear program, the threat to Israel, that those drones were launched because they were built inside Iran by Israel at a drone factory set up by Israel inside Iran. Therefore, they could be driven out of the factory on the back of a truck or in a, you know, in a cargo van or whatever. Take it out. Some of them are called quadcopters. They have four rotors and they can pack a lot of explosive on them. You launch them from a street, you drive the truck away, they're targeted. They have, you know, geolocation, they have all this. They hit their target. There's no way to figure out where they came from, who hit them or to defend against them and Israel.

[Matthew Continetti]

Can I just say something over overarching before we get into the details of this? Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the, at a, a pre opening walkthrough of the Nova exhibition, which is the, you know, the exhibition on the Nova festival with survivors and artifacts and all that stuff. It'll be opening in D.C. it's going from city to city and opening D.C. tom I walk through and again I went into rooms with piles of shoes and burnt singed hats, all that stuff, the kind of stuff that, you know, you've only really also seen at concentration camp exhibits. And the feeling is, you know, you leave there like shoulders hunched while I'm on my way home. Israeli jet planes are in the air on their way to destroy large parts of Iran's nuclear program and take out major Iranian officials. And all of this and the contrast, this was just something that was hard to avoid for me to go from the low to the high this way. But it just. The difference this time, the difference now, you know, it was just hard to avoid the feeling of living in an era where there is a Jewish state that will have planes in the air to make sure the thing you're seeing at a, at a museum exhibition doesn't happen again.

[Christine Rosen]

And Prime Minister Netanyahu made exactly that point in his seven minute English language address to the world, which everyone listening or watching the podcast should view if, if they haven't already. They probably already have. If you're a commentary fan, I want to start with the timing. I think the timing is fascinating here. You know, about 60 days ago, Donald Trump sent a letter to the Ayatollah saying that he wanted to begin negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. Someone pointed out online in the early hours of the attack that we're now in day 61. And the lead up in just the past week, I think, was confusing to a lot of people, especially the Iranians. You had word from Trump that the Iranians were being difficult in negotiations. You had the first evacuation of non essential personnel from our diplomatic facilities in the region, then civilian personnel from our military facilities in the region. Throughout it all, though, Trump was saying that he wanted a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis and that envoy, Steve Wyckoff, was planning to attend the next round of talks this set for this weekend in Oman. I think these mixed signals not only made many American observers scratch their heads saying, well, what is happening here? Is this just posturing ahead of the next round of negotiations or is it something more serious? It also left the Iranians extraordinarily vulnerable. When you consider that it seems Israel was able to wipe out most of the, if not all, depending on the report you hear. Iranian general staff as they slept and many of the top nuclear scientists. I think that the Iranian regime believed that Trump was going to stop Iran from, stop Israel from attacking Iran, when in fact, we don't know what the internal conversations were. There have been leaks and everything. What we do know is that Trump's public statements since the attack began are overwhelmingly supportive of Israel's actions, leading one to believe that he knew this was coming and he didn't stop it.

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh, that. That's only the most modest guy.

[Christine Rosen]

I'm a modest guy.

[Abe Greenwald]

What Trump might have done, the first thing that happened, the first statement by the US government came out about 20 minutes after we got news of what was going on in Iran. And it was from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And it was very disappointing to supporters of Israel and partisans because it said we didn't have anything to do with this. All we care about is American assets. And it said nothing about good luck to Israel, we are on Israel's side, anything like that. So in this fight that we've been having for six months over what kind of foreign policy is this administration going to pursue? Are the restrainers around, around. J.D. vance, are who seem to be opposed to all, you know, aggressive military action, are they going to have the upper hand here? Did this indicate that they were, that American policy was going to be to try to keep their hands off this and say we had nothing whatsoever to do with it? When I say, you know, there was all this concern, I mean, this is what happens in the modern era where everything happens in five minutes. And it was an hour and a half later that Trump went on with Bret Baier and said, if Iran retaliates, and did not say if Iran retaliates against us, which is what will Iran retaliates against us and Israel, we will respond. Trump threw in his hand with Israel the minute that he began talking about this statements through the night. And this morning, not only supportive of Israel, but kind of admiring of the audacity and the apparent success of Israel's two sorties. And one thing to mention before I let everybody else talk for five seconds because I'm very giddy and sleep deprived. Israel has Iran so wired that and the destruction of Iran's air defenses last year seems to have been so thoroughgoing and Iran has done so little to repair them that they had two waves of strikes last yesterday. One in the middle of the night around three in the morning, and one in broad daylight at around 7:30 in the morning. You do not, if there are air defenses, do a mission in broad daylight because it's very easy to shoot planes down and stuff like that with the sun out.

[Christine Rosen]

Another seems to be going on now.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right, because the Iranians are undefended and the Iranians have no capacity to strike back. We heard seven hours ago that Iran had launched drones toward Israel and that the drones would take seven hours to get there. As we are speaking right now, we are taping this at 7:30 in the morning Eastern time on Friday. And so far, whatever Iranian countermeasure was taken has not had the slightest effect. Israel seems to have a complete freedom of motion. Whatever it wants to do in this gigantic, geographically very large country 1,000 miles away from Jerusalem, with no one on the, with Mossad agents and operatives on the ground doing individual targeted strikes against people. And then people Driving around and using these drones inside and the Iranian military.

[Christine Rosen]

In chaos, as we now know that General Salami is dead, no more.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Well, and one of the things that will likely emerge as this, the story of this incredible attack is told in the history books is the urgency of it. Because very clearly there was some, there was a certain amount of intelligence gathering that suggested that imminence of nuclear weapons or some other form of extremely powerful weapon was in the hands of the Iranians. And also, also that they, and we know this already, that they had been building areas that would resist bunker busting bombs, you know, the only thing that actually could destroy them. So there was clearly a timing choice here with regard to the power they were accruing. And I think on the, on the domestic side of this, the political side of this, it will be interesting to see whether those fissures within the MAGA movement, we've seen little hints of it on social media already this morning, but the message out of the Trump administration, as you say, John, has been consistent. The usual suspects, the worst people. Elizabeth Warren, Ben Rhodes, you know, what's his name, from Connecticut.

[Abe Greenwald]

Chris Murphy.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah, Chris Murphy. Thank you.

[Abe Greenwald]

Jeff Reed, Jack Reed of Rhode island, whom I did not know was somebody to be loathed and despised when it came to matters like this because he's a West Point graduate and has been relatively, you know, sort of solid as I would consider it on American military action, delivered a disgraceful statement. I mean, this is one of these moments when you're really going to see who is who in the American political system. Well, and you look at what they're.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Saying in their statements. It's, this is terrible. Not because Iran might have been very close to having a nuclear weapon and was just stopped. It's terrible because we should have just kept negotiating. We should. Which, which negotiations, which by the way, they had previously criticized in terms of how Trump was managing them. So I think it, all of that suggests, you know, strong statement from Fetterman and a few others and the, and from the Senate leadership and House leadership on the Republican side, absolute consistency. And that's nice to see, you know.

[Seth Mandel]

But everyone wants to be part of a success. So if this, God willing, continues this way, it'll be interesting to see who says, I didn't, I didn't say Israel shouldn't strike Iran. Or, you know, I was, you know, just doing this or that. Yeah, that's all I had to say about it.

[Abe Greenwald]

So when I was switching around last night on cable, which is sort of silly because like, who watches Cable.

[Christine Rosen]

You do?

[Abe Greenwald]

No, I mean, you know, five people.

[Matthew Continetti]

Watch people in a hospital.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, I am old, so, you know, I have the advantage of being in demographic.

[Christine Rosen]

A lot of good people watch Special Report with Brett Bear.

[Abe Greenwald]

But I mean, you know what I mean? Like, it's a, if you, if you're actually following a news event in real time, it's actually worse to watch television than to follow Twitter because they're way behind Twitter. Like, it's, you know, it's kind of ridiculous.

[Christine Rosen]

It's a huge change. When you consider 20 years ago with the second Iraq war, I mean, everything was on cable.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Christine Rosen]

Now, of course, you're right, it's. And it's not even Twitter. It's these group chats now that are.

[Abe Greenwald]

For chats and, you know, and telegram and stuff like that. And then people moving stuff from the group chats into social media. So you see what's been going, going on on the group chats. But thing I was going to say is that watching cnn, which was trying to be relatively serious about this, and then flicking over to msnbc, where Jen Psaki had on Ben Rhodes. Ben Rhodes was the Obama official in charge of selling the Iran deal to the American people. In the famous piece by David Samuels in the New York Times Magazine about this Ben Rhodes selling the Iran deal effort to a gullible Washington press corps whom he called the echo chamber and basically said, I can. You know, I like Albert Brooks and Broadcast news. I say it here, it comes out of their mouths over there. Ben Rhodes is like, this is just so unnecessary. And you could see Jen Psaki visibly uncomfortably, because she wanted to talk about the aforementioned Alex Padilla. Their entire weekend was set up to talk about Alex Padilla getting attacked by Kristi Noem's shock troopers. And it was like, can I go back to my zone of safety? But they couldn't because the world changed last night and everything that they care about doesn't matter right now. And they, you know, and having to sort of switch hats and talk about what the military strategy is of the Israelis, how we're responding, all of that was so deeply uncomfortable. Let's talk about thrilling. Was thrilling to watch.

[Christine Rosen]

Let's talk about Obama for a second. Because what has happened in the last 12 hours is the final stake through the heart of Obama's foreign policy vision. There was a chance for Israel to attack the Iranian nuclear program over a decade ago in 2012, and there Netanyahu and the Security Council did not go, mainly because of pressure from Obama, who at that point wanted to begin a diplomatic process to somehow resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiations. And the fruit of that was not just the jcpoa, the Iran nuclear deal, which was a agreement between Obama and the Ayatollah, which was not submitted to the Senate as a treaty as it should have been, but it was also the empowerment of Iran through the relief sanctions, relief through cash transfer, through a general attitude in the second Obama administration that Iran is a power we can work with in order to stabilize the Middle East. And the result of that was the ring of fire that encircled Israel and set the ground for the October 7th attacks. Now, what's happened since October 7th? Hezbollah is destroyed.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hezbollah, it's an Iranian proxy, right?

[Christine Rosen]

That's Iran's proxy in Lebanon is not in this fight. Hamas is on its last legs, not just because of the campaign that Israel initiated after October 7, but also because this change in strategy of delivering food directly to the Palestinian population in safe zones, thereby separating the population from the last remnants of Hamas political control. Lost amidst all this news, so I think Seth covered this very well, was the fact that Hamas is now killing Palestinians trying to get food or deliver food to the Gaza population. So that's another Iranian proxy that is in the midst of destruction. The Houthis are still active. The Houthis are, as Trump might say, tough hombres. Tough, tough bunch. But they were no doubt damaged by the American military's campaign against them earlier in the spring. And then you have the weakened Iran itself because of Israel's strike in October and a Iran that just seems helpless on the international stage as this is going on. No command and control. A initial retaliation of drones being launched, many of which are being intercepted by Israel, some of which apparently are being intercepted by Jordan, which is worthy of note.

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[Abe Greenwald]

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[Abe Greenwald]

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[Christine Rosen]

As was the case last year when many of our Arab allies assisted in Israel's defense by intercepting the ballistic missiles that Iran had fired at Israel earlier. But just to close the point on Obama there's no, there's no wonder that Ben Rhodes, whose nickname in the Obama White House was Hamas, as Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up, that was his nickname, would be so upset. This, the entire Obama project was to create space between the United States and Israel and realign the region on the basis of balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And now that is up in flames because Bibi Netanyahu, above all, understood the nature of the Iranian nuclear threat and reached the point, a point that I admit I sometimes doubted he would ever reach, of calling the shot and launching this very important campaign. And just one final note, I did pick up in the coverage this morning that, yes, Valerie Jarrett's birthplace of Shiraz, Iran, has been hit. Now, I don't know whether, you know, her house, where she was born, was collateral damage. All I know is that's one more strike against the Obama legacy right there.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, and the Trump administration can lay claim in both administrations, in both presidencies to cleaning up Obama era of messes.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, Trump is a messy guy. And so we talk a lot about what life will be like after Trump and how you clean up this and that. But when it comes to the Middle east, that has literally been the driving force of the Trump administration's two foreign policy so far. The first time, right before Trump took office, remember, the Obama administration enabled or engineered, depending on how, who you, who you want to, how much you want to believe the friends inside the Obama administration, a UN resolution against Israel, essentially claiming that the old city of Jerusalem and Jewish holy sites were, you know, under occupation. And the Trump policy of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the embassy was, in a lot of ways a response. There was a brief moment where America had come out against Israeli, you know, sovereignty in the Jews 3,000 year capital. And the Trump administration had just sort of, you know, set down a marker and said, no, it's just to be clear, Jerusalem is the capital. And whatever this was came right. You know, on the heels of it. You could argue also that all of this with Iran is the same sort of thing, because as we know, the Iran nuclear deal, whatever else you think of it, was not going, was not to, was not even designed to stop Iran's nuclear program from crossing the line. The entire point was, was to delay it. And each presidency had.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right, yes, we should talk about each presidency. Right, right.

[Matthew Continetti]

And each presidency had the incentive to kick the can a few more years down the road and make it somebody else's problem. But Obama had constructed the kicking the can down the road in that way. But eventually you run out of road and that's what happened.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[Seth Mandel]

You know, what's so fascinating to me is that the moment that Israel ran out of road when you couldn't kick the can down the road anymore, coincided perfectly with the moment that was most opportune for them in terms of the fact that Iran's air defenses are down, all its allies and proxies are hobbled or destroyed or on their way to being hobbled or destroyed. And so, you know, every time this would come up in the past, looks like maybe there's going to be a strike, maybe Israel's going to hit Iran. It's like, no, no, no, we don't want an escalation, a larger regional war, maybe a world war. But I'm actually legitimately struggling now to figure out how this could possibly ever turn into a larger regional war.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay, there is a larger regional war.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I just want to add one more data point to that, which is that we haven't discussed yet, which is that if this, because Israel has signaled that this will be, there is more attacks coming. Trump just said that himself this morning. This is a, this is not a one or two day thing. This is a strategic plan that spend months in the making. How destabilizing will that be for the regime in terms of the Iranian people? They've cut off the Internet this morning. There's a lot of opposition to this regime. And whether this plays out with them, with them ultimately weakening the power of the mullahs is also another factor in this. I think what you're laying out, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

So the idea that Israel should not strike Iran because it would trigger a regional war. Israel is the target of a regional war led by Iran. There is a regional war started on October 7. There are seven fronts in that war or there were seven fronts in that war. Right. There's Gaza, the Houthis, there was Lebanon, there was some of Syria, there was Iran itself. And there was the possibility of something going on on the west bank with the Palestinian population there getting radicalized. Seven fronts against Israel led by the Iranian empire and its proxies. Two things happened from the time of the JCPOA, the Obama's deal until October 7th. Two tracks. One track was that the Saudis and the Emirates and the Gulf states looked at Obama's policy, said he is tilting toward Iran for the reasons that Matt laid out. This idea of rebalancing the Middle east into some kind of, excuse me, you know, sort of like mad, you Know, it's like mutual assured destruction system where, where there wouldn't be trouble because everybody would be afraid of everybody else. That's the best interpretation, but nonetheless, and that they said, we're going to have to shuffle the deck here. We've been basically playing this game for 50 years or 70 years. We're going to destroy Israel and Israel should be extirpated and we're going to pay Palestinians to do whatever it is that they need to do. And we're going to do that. And you know what? This is not good for us. This is not healthy. Israel was helpful to Sisi in Egypt. Israel's been helpful to us in little ways. Say the Saudis rebalance ourselves and see what kind of alliances we can make to protect ourselves against the Shiite hordes. Because the United States seems to be going in the other direction. And that opened this colossal opportunity which became the Abraham Accords. And this entirely new alliance in the 21st century, possibly of the Jewish state with the very countries that were trying to destroy it for so long. That's one track. In other words, like desperation or a change in the American political atmosphere and attitudes created an opening for a genuinely innovative new approach to the 21st through the 21st century. And secondly, Israel fell asleep at the switch, worrying about Iran's nuclear program as it did to the exclusion of everything and being the focus of BBC. Netanyahu's primary obsession, as it has been since he began his second term turn as Prime Minister in 2009. Having been Prime Minister in the 1990s, they could not fathom the idea that Iran was going to use these proxies in Gaza and Hezbollah as they did, and Lebanon and particularly Gaza as they did, thought they had Hamas contained, thought therefore that the, you know, the sort of the effort to create a conventional alliance against Iran was the be all and end all of things and failed to protect Israel on October 7th. But just as everybody who has ever written about war says, wars begin as a result of, often as a result of a mistake, a misunderstanding of the balance of forces and the choice of the person who starts the war to start the war, not understanding the capabilities of the combatant that it has decided to engage. Iran had no idea what it was going to awaken when it awakened Israel on October 7. It thought it had Israel boxed in in its own way. Trump, Biden wouldn't go for an attack on Iran. Obama didn't, Trump didn't. In the 2017, Trump looked like a, maybe a paper tiger here and there.

[Christine Rosen]

Such an Important point. It's the point that Victor Davis Hanson made, gosh, 25 years ago in his book Carnage and Culture, which is that the despotisms always underestimate the capacity of the democracies. I mean, look at Russia, Ukraine. Putin expected to take Kiev and kill Zelensky within hours of launching his special military operation. Yet Ukraine is still fighting today in Iran, Israel, Hamas thought that the moment of surprise was there to launch the final blow against the Jewish state. Hamas, Sinawar, his brother, gone. Right? And now Iran, which funded and trained and coordinated with its proxies for so many years, is under incredible assault. And of course, the most famous lesson of this is Pearl harbor with the Japanese after struggling when an economic competition with us throughout the 30s and expanding its imperial dominance in the Pacific says, you know what? The Americans, they're preoccupied. They don't want to go to war. Let's strike them now. Sink the Pacific Fleet and we'll have free range within the East Asia Greater Prosperity Sphere. Right? But this lesson, I think, makes America's current reluctance to join with Israel and to help Ukraine to the fullest all the more bitter tasting. And while I understand that Trump supporting what Israel does, it is true that the administration does not want to become involved in this in any kinetic way. We are clearly helping Israel behind the scenes with intelligence. We are clearly providing resources to Israel, resources Israel might not have had if the election of 2024 went in the other direction. But the moment of testing will be will, will Trump act on his threat if Iran decides or if its proxies decide to kill Americans stationed in the Middle East? And I think that's where Fordow, which is the facility that is heavily underground and fortified in the mountains, that's where Fordow could come into play. Because so far it does not seem as though Israel has attacked it yet. And I happen to think that Mossad might have some things up its sleeve for Fordow as well. They need our help.

[Abe Greenwald]

I want to add on to your evocation of Victor Hansen's Carnage and Culture, which is one of the most important books published in my lifetime, because it's. It gives the lie to a lot of the way Americans seem to understand war fighting and where to go with these things. Victor's. It's a work of history. It's not a work of polemic. But what he essentially says is there are Pacific countries, and democracies tend to be Pacific countries. What they're interested in is making alliances to make the economies work smoothly. They don't want to interfere with their populations being a healthy workforce that's steady and pull them out and make them go to war and all of that, they. They are pacific in their nature. But when you threaten them and threaten them existentially, and you, you did not mention World War I, which is the other great example. It's like, okay, game's over. We're going to destroy you. We're destroying Japan. We're destroying. We're destroying Nazi Germany. We are going to destroy Imperial Germany. We don't, you know, the French, the French, the British, the United States in World War I, all of that. We tried. You. We tried to be civilized and responsible and sober. You guys are animals, and we are going to take you out forever. And that's, you know, they leave nothing. In prior generations, we left nothing on the field. We, you know, we went all in. We use the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We destroyed Germany to rubble. We reduced Germany to rubble. You know, we basically totally redrew the map, not, well, as it turned out, of the entirety of Europe after World War I, to put empiric to make sure that the imperial powers that caused World War I would never again resurface. That's the kind of thing that we did. And then something happened in the United States after World War II, where we stopped trying to win our wars and decided to settle them before we had crushed our enemy and just, you know, and torn his heart out and then allowed the rebuilding from the ground up.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Well, we also stopped talking about warfare as not an end in and of itself, but as a necessary tool in civilizational existential battles. And this is another example. This is not just about the Middle East. This is about a civilizational challenge of radical Islam which oppresses its people, women in particular, and doesn't allow them freedom and controls every aspect of civil society versus more free societies. And some of those are, I mean, Israel being the most predominant example and one of the only ones in the Middle East. But this is where I think that hesitation, that shrinking from a sense of loyalty to the vision of what Western civilization is supposed to be has. Is starting to change. And that's a good thing, because we should be able to call it our enemies, not just by their national expressions, such as Iran, but in what their motivations are more broadly. And who shares that vision.

[Christine Rosen]

I think that's such an important point. I was struck listening to Netanyahu last night by how similar he sounded to George W. Bush. He talked about how he would not let the world's most dangerous regime obtain the world's Most dangerous weapon, which is straight out of the Bush's 2002 State of the Union. Yeah, the Axis of Evil address. He talked about the lessons of Munich and about how we cannot wait to let the evildoers obtain their, to enact their plans. We have to strike first. He talked about how you have to believe dictators when they say what their plans are. And it just reminded me of how despite so many Americans trying to escape the war on terrorism paradigm, growing and understandably weary of this fight America has been engaged really since 1979, but most dramatically since the 911 attacks against the forces of radical Islam, you cannot escape. Bernard Lewis once talked about Islam's bloody borders. But in a globalized world, Islam has no borders. And so this violence appears in our country consistently. Three, you know, whether it, whether it's by actual radical Muslims or their allies on the radical left, it appears throughout Europe. It's in Israel, of course, in the war against Israel. And it also is part of the great Muslim civil war between Shia and Sunni. And so one lesson of what's going on right now is a quarter of a century into the post 911 era, the long war continues whether Americans like it or not.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right now let's talk about Bibi and the two tracks that I mentioned, right, the track that simultaneously led to the creative diplomacy of the Abraham Accords and the long planning. Remember, we are now basically a generation into the plan that was executed last night. It was in 2005 that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, elected president of Iran, not really the power, but sort of, you know, because the power was the mullahs, started indicating along with Ayahu Khamenei that his goal was to eliminate Israel, to wipe Israel off the map. That was the phrase being used and saying things like Israel will soon cease to exist. And Israel looked at this powerful rich country, you know, a thousand miles away and said we better get cracking. Better start making plans about how we are going to do something about this existential threat. This is Seth going to the Nova Festival. This is the reminders of Munich. This is Israel's existence after the Holocaust as the place where Jews can ingather. Not so they can become a solid target all in one place to be destroyed all at once. But to develop the means and ability to retard the effort to destroy the Jewish people. And they started working. And this is a 20 year plan that was executed last night, or you could say basically started to be executed with the beepers and the attack on the air defenses last year, 20 years burying agents, having Mossad agents, so, you know, interwoven into the life of Tehran, that they knew the direct apartment locations of these three leading figures who live. One of them lived on the 14th floor of an apartment building that was taken out. They knew everything. We know that because that's how they. That's how they took out the head of Hamas. Traveling to the. Traveling to the funeral in the fall. They know they have Iran bomb that.

[Matthew Continetti]

Didn'T injure the terrorist leader. The actual leader of a terrorist organization in Gaza was also staying next door to him. He was in the next department. Did not injure the terrorist leader of the other organization.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right, yeah. And, you know, stealing the entire paper trail of the Iranian nuclear program, driving it out of Iran in 2018, which led to Trump pulling out of the JCPOA, was the final stake in the coffin of the Iran deal, was the indications of how thoroughgoing the program was. This was an extraordinary penetration of an enemy country speaking in a different language. Right. Israelis trained for many, many years their intelligence capacities to penetrate Arab countries where Arabic was spoken. They taught kids Arabic in schools. They had a program to take kids when they went into the IDF and teach them Arabic so they could do listening in intelligence. And, you know, if they had to do secret missions, this meant you had to figure it all out in Farsi. You had to sort of understand customs in an entirely different realm of, of, of Islamic practice and all of that. 20 years to get to this point. It's an astonishing achievement, but it was at the cost, in some sense, emotionally, of Israel not being able to say, well, we need to be totally wired in Gaza, too. It was almost as though the burden was so much that they were like, no, no, we, we've got. We've got Hamas. We've got Hamas in a box. We got them. Iron Dome is working. They keep firing missiles at us, we keep shooting them down. We're getting the gutteries to give them money to, to become, you know, whatever. They're fine. We have nothing to worry about because. And they took their eye off that ball with the unbelievable consequences that were suffered. That will be the mark against Bibi's record, as you know, as a, as a, as a world historical leader and a leader of the Jewish people, because you can't do everything all at once. But Bibi did say in 2014, when the first major war against Hamas happened, he used the rhetoric that he did not follow through on, which is he said, we are going to win this war against Hamas. We are going to destroy Hamas and win this war. And he did not. And he said it again on October 7th, and this time he meant it. But this is the thing that we don't say. Fred Kagan said this at a commentary dinner 15 years ago. He said, where are the words that militaries use when they go into battle? Why don't we ever talk about victory? We never talk about victory. We're in Afghanistan. Why don't we talk about winning in Afghanistan? Why don't we talk about winning in a. We do not talk about victory anymore. And he was right in the sense, which is it means, as I think Matt indicated, that the American people don't know what we're fighting for, because we're fighting for what? To get to a better position at a negotiating table so that people can stop, start being nice and do nice things for their people.

[Christine Rosen]

I would just make a distinction between the people and our political elites, because.

[Abe Greenwald]

Fair enough. Okay.

[Christine Rosen]

Public opinion shows that Americans do support ending the Iranian nuclear program, including military action if necessary. And I think the Jacksonian reaction to Israel's strikes and campaign will be very positive. And you see that in Trump's comments over the last 12 or so hours, too, right? Representing that idea that we need to be strong. And the Iranians had their chance, but they blew it. They had the opportunity to deal with Trump. Pretty simple. End the enrichment. Trump was willing to go to, in my view, pretty silly links to allow them to even keep nuclear power in Iran. They didn't take it.

[Abe Greenwald]

Why?

[Christine Rosen]

Because having a nuclear weapon was essential to the longevity of the regime and to the longstanding goal of the ayatollah. They say it every week in the daily prayer. In the weekly prayers. Death to Israel. Death to America.

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[Matthew Continetti]

And what you're describing it also, Matt, is restraint, right? I mean, that's the other lesson here is that Trump was willing to, you know, have let the sort of let the dog off the leash, if you will, to the point where people had started. I mean, we saw countless stories, obviously, but also people in Trump's MAGA base, you know, were saying that Israel was working against Trump's vision of peace and undermining it, when in fact, you know, Trump really was willing to go to almost ridiculous lengths to get a deal. But the, the threat of force was credible. That's the only way it works. And then the other part of that, you know, John, as you were just describing, listing the events, planning for 20 years what Israel did to Hezbollah, again, I think that we ought to mention the restraint here in that when Israel took the opportunity to, to sell pagers, to make and sell pagers to Hezbollah and that opening came up and they took it and they planned it. They didn't plan on a certain on when to pull the trigger on that.

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh, very important. This is a very important because Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister, was on Dan Sienor's Call Me Back podcast four or five months ago talking about what happened after October 7th. And Gallant was one of the people in the Israeli government after October 7th who wanted the war to Begin in Lebanon. Right. Which seems nonsensical, basically. It isn't really because it was the same fight. They're both Iranian proxies. One's in the north, one's in the south. The reason he wanted to do it is that he knew, and he said this in the interview, not the pagers, but the walkie talkies. They had the walkie talkies wired and if you wanted to do something right away to say, the hell with you, we're killing you, all they had to do was trigger the walkie talkies and 5,000 walkie talkies would have blown up and they would have had this immediate victory. And Bibi and others said, we're not doing that now. That's taking our eye off the ball. We were attacked by Hamas and Gaza. We have to go after Hamas and Gaza. Keep your powder dry. This is in our arsenal, but we're not using it now. Restraint, same thing, tactical restraint. This is not the fight to have the week after Nova and the assault on the Gaza envelope. We have to have the fight that we're going to have and then we're going to turn to Hezbollah later when we have to. And we know that we can do it at a moment's notice. Similarly, we don't know when Israel's war plan here was operational. All we know is the line that's being proffered that Iran had gotten to within a week of being able to reach weapons grade material that could be put on a bomb.

[Christine Rosen]

And Iran announcing that they were going to create another, a third site, another secured site. And the iaea, the UN nuclear watchdog, pronounced for the first time that Iran was in violation of the non proliferation treaty after warning the IAEA that Iran's enrichment was growing to, you know, dangerous, dangerous levels. So you're exactly right. It does take time to build a drone factory in an enemy country that is thousands of miles away. Yeah, and they were clearly had this plan in, in place going on for some time even as Trump was giving the mullahs the opportunity to reach some sort of diplomatic accommodation with. Vis a vis these talks with.

[Abe Greenwald]

So I want to read Trump's truth that he issued this morning, the latest as it gets to everything that Seth and Matt, we were both talking about. I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them in the strongest of words to just do it. But no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done. I told them it would be much worse than anything they know anticipated or Were told that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the world by far, and that Israel has a lot of it with much more to come. And they know how to use it. Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn't know what was about to happen. They are all dead. Capital letters D, E, A, D now. And it will only get worse. There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter. With the next already planned attacks being even more brutal come to an end, Iran must make a deal before there is nothing left and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction. Just do it before it is too late. God bless you all. So why am I reading this? Because this is the two faces of war, right? This is, you want to die? We're going to stand here and watch you die or maybe even kill you along with the Israelis. Last chance. Got one more moment now, and we're gonna dictate the terms of your surrender.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, I mean, there is news coming across the wires now that the Iranians will not go. They've withdrawn to meet. But we should also note, would you.

[Abe Greenwald]

Trump, if you were they?

[Christine Rosen]

I don't know if they want to stop it. You know, I mean, that's what Trump says. He still. This is what's so fascinating about Trump. He never forecloses any possibility. He.

[Abe Greenwald]

What I mean is in a quantity state. Do you think. Yeah. You think that the person who's serving you the tea at the meeting isn't going to turn out to be Frank Drebin pulling off his mask and shooting everybody at the meeting.

[Matthew Continetti]

I just want to point is that it's safer for Iranian agents and members of the Iranian government to be in Oman or anywhere Trump's cabinet are also eating and drinking than they are in Toronto.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[Christine Rosen]

You want to be close to Wyckoff if you want to be safe. And just two things. The first, on Trump's language. You know, it's typical Trump, extremely visceral, very dramatic, making these bold pledges. But we should note Israel has restricted its targets to nuclear, military, and political pieces of the Iranian regime. It is not targeting civilians, unlike the terror masters who set their dogs against women and children and make no distinction between civilians and military personnel. Unlike Russia, which responds to Ukraine's military strikes with drone swarms and ballistic missiles fired at Ukrainian cities indiscriminately. And that's important. That distinction matters. And my second point is the question now is, will America join with Israel. If America joins with Israel, it was not only the end of the Iranian nuclear program, it is quite possibly the end of the Iranian revolutionary regime. And if Trump authorized that, it would be the greatest move toward peace in the world that any American president has done in decades.

[Seth Mandel]

More important, I sort of don't see how that doesn't happen at this point. The only way it wouldn't happen would be, I think, is, is if Iran took Trump up on his offer, which would also mean the end of Iran's nuclear program. I mean, that's the choice. The choice really. He is here now for them. Your nuclear program is over. Do you want it to continue this way? You've got this one. We got, we still have four do standing. That's the thing that, that, that's the sort of what you're saying. Yes or no to my offer hinges on here. Do you want it to continue this way or do you want to just say, okay, we're done with, with, with nuclear, with our, our nuclear research and our nuclear building and all the rest of it? Because part of what Israel has done here is make it sort of smooth the way for American involvement by, by showing that they can do all this so effectively without America, that they have taken out all of Israel's air defenses. They're continuing to take out whatever missile launchers they have from inside Iran. So this is the best possible moment for Trump to say, okay, yeah, all we have to do now is just help them finish it off.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

But this is where I think a longer term challenge remains. And not to pick up a thread from what you said earlier, John, just to give a shout out to my favorite decade of the 1980s, but this is where the cultural battle, the hearts and minds battle, has actually happened. Got to happen here at home for that to occur. Because I remember that shift. Look, when I, in the 1980s, every, every cultural product, everything, you know, everybody would, would demonize Islamic extremism. Every terrorist in every action movie was a Muslim. And that shifted. I mean, some, some for the good. We sort of diversified our movie terrorists. But there was also this cult, you know, citizen of the world idea, this idea that we could all just negotiate our way around what are in fact existential conflicts. That's changing. But I'm not sure the cultural messaging coming out of a populist regime is not going to have to change now to revive that, some of that sense of urgency. Because right now I think a lot of people are still sort of trending isolationists in the Republican coalition, despite what it's these are excellent elected officials have responded to in the last 24 hours with this attack. And that, that takes time and that takes Trump actually calling out and shutting down some of the people in his own, on his own right flank, the Tucker Carlson's of the world, the others who, who are already decrying these attacks in the same way that he Republicans have about people on the left. And that's a longer term cultural battle. It's one we have to have but it'll take time.

[Abe Greenwald]

Matt's scenario which is by the way.

[Matthew Continetti]

A nice message to China I think too.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well that's, I think this is so.

[Matthew Continetti]

Important because I mean the Israeli drone factory within Iran and you know the Ukrainian drone, that surprise attack and all that there's a message that we have these little but powerful allies. We have the better team. This is, there's a message to China right? We are, there's a lot as we stop them bipolar global conflict in a lot of ways. And we can send you know, our guys these tiny countries. Ukraine vastly outnumbered Russia hasn't been able to beat them. What Israel has been able to do, you know, our guys are good at what we do.

[Abe Greenwald]

Dangerous. That gets us back to Victor Hanson because the reason that the democracies win when they go all in is that we're better than they are. And this is also the Dan Sinor point and startup nation. All this democratic armies of democracies built by free people using though not really the case in Israel entirely, but using even if it's a command structure, a capitalist economy that can ramp itself up the way no economy ever can. That was the World War II story. And with a citizenry that is self empowered is an awesome fighting force. You're not having people, you know the great line from Yates, an Irish airman for Caesar's death, those those I fight I do not hate. Those I guard I do not love. Because that was an Irish fighter in World War I fighting for the British Democratic soldiers particularly in an all volunteer army which is of course not what Israel has. What we have, what we have now are fighting for ideals, for causes, for things like that. They are individuals, they are resourceful, they are tough and the people who design the weaponry and do all that, they are a superior fighting force because they are free. I don't know how else to put it this way. They are not there on the battlefield like the Russians right now against the Ukrainians and because they have a bayonet in their back or because they're getting paid a lot more money, the Iranians are a better fighting force than the Russians because the Iranians are fighting for their country and the Russians are fighting for whatever reason, the Israelis. No, no, I'm talking about the Ukrainians and the Russians.

[Seth Mandel]

Oh, no, you said, you said Iranians.

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant the Ukrainians. I'm sorry.

[Seth Mandel]

Okay.

[Abe Greenwald]

The Ukrainians are fighting as a free people to protect their freedom and not as the shock troops of a dictator that they may or may not like, but who promises them nothing in terms of a future. And I think the key to understanding the challenge for the Trump people now is. Or for the Iranians, excuse me, is either way, they're probably screwed. If they go with Trump and say, okay, we're going to make a deal, they're hollow. The death to America chant has been discredited. Unlike 2015, they didn't put one over on America. They're coming with their tails within their legs to the table. We would basically say to them, okay, you want Israel to stop and you want this fighting to start. You're going to destroy your centrifuges, you're going to let us into Fordo and we're going to blow up Fordo. That's what you're going to get so that you can survive. And then ultimately, after a while, the regime won't survive or the regime is going to collapse as a result of this fight right now, which is what Netanyahu said last night. He said, we're not your enemy to the Iranian people. We want you to have a better future. We want your regime to go. And the one final thing is Matt said Israel is targeting military sites, intelligence sites, leadership, civilian leadership. As far as we know, they have not yet targeted the mullahs. But you're going to tell me they can't target the mullahs.

[Seth Mandel]

There's also something else, John, I want to.

[Abe Greenwald]

Now, maybe that's dangerous. That's martyrdom. And, and that's obviously why that's the last place you go, because now you're talking about involving, involving the 13D mom and all of that. I don't. You know, clearly that's not anything that anybody wants to do, but that is an arrow in the quiver. That is still something in somebody's pocket. Like, you think you're safe. Come in a. You may not be safe either.

[Seth Mandel]

I think, you know, if the regime is on its way to collapse from what's happening now, one thing to look at is the irgc. Like, if you were in the IRGC right now and your generals are Gone and they're, you're getting new ones and they'll probably be gone. And your, your, your missile launchers are out and your enrichment facilities are down and there seems to be a drone launch that's ineffective toward Israel. Are you going to keep, is the military going to turn against the regime and just say, I don't want to do this, this is stupid.

[Christine Rosen]

Or even the military proper. Right. The IRGC being the Special Branch.

[Abe Greenwald]

Fair enough.

[Christine Rosen]

That is committed to the ideals of.

[Abe Greenwald]

Revolution and army are regular. Yeah.

[Christine Rosen]

There are people in Iran.

[Seth Mandel]

Absolutely right.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, at some point the Egyptian army said to Mubarak, we're not, you know, we're not gunning down these protesters into your square.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right now they kind of regretted that. Two years later they said, okay, well.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, your time is up. You gotta, it's not going the way we want it.

[Seth Mandel]

Like if you take out, you know, like an Iranian fighter plane is going to go. It's just for, to be target practice for Israel now. I mean, you know, so.

[Abe Greenwald]

One, I think maybe we should close on the fact that, you know, right now my great nephew, my great niece, along with my nephew alone are in a shelter in Israel where they have gone. Bibi announced last night that everybody in Israel should stay off the streets, needs to be near. If they don't have a safe room or a shelter in their home, they need to either be in a shelter or real, in real close proximity to a shelter to protect themselves. And they're protecting themselves against two things. And this is the danger, immediate danger to Israel and by the way, to the west and everybody going forward, which is they don't know what kind of capability, second strike capability, Iran may be hiding, meaning missile strikes and stuff like that that would come at Israel. But it's not just that. If people are being told to stay at home, the fear is, and Israel has sealed off the west bank, has sealed off Judea and Samaria, the fear is that maybe Iran could trigger an on the ground terror wave inside Israel, you know, activate operatives on the west bank to crash the gates or somehow get through and start, you know, doing it in intifada in the streets. And that's one possibility. And then of course there is the other possibility, which is that happening particularly in Western Europe and maybe here, that it's not just that, you know, they won't have capability to hit us with a ballistic missile. But, you know, we're already in a weird state where weird terrorist acts are taking place against Jews in the United, you know, shooting on the Streets, throwing of Molotov cocktails, all of that. Well, you know, maybe there are Iranian plans and sleeper agents here who are ready for being triggered to do stuff domestically in the United States. And that's the thing. That's where there is a real danger in the next week to two weeks of that kind of retaliation. Everybody should probably be aware of it. Not that there is anything you can't protect yourself from it. And as Abe would say, and you said last, he's not going to change his behavior and he's not going to do anything different. He's not going to give the terrorists that kind of where the anti Semites that kind of control over his behavior. But you know, nothing is without cost. And no successful military mission may not be without cost. And if this is all that Iran has left and it is the world's leading sponsor of terror, you know, it's just something to have in your head that, you know, we are, we are at a time of heightened danger in the United States as a result of what, of what has happened in the last, you know, 12 hours and 16 hours. And that's just the fact of it. Although I think Europe way worse.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Well, in the German leaders declaration very important, saying we support Israel and we will ramp up protection of all Jewish sites in Germany. I mean, more leaders need to do that in Europe to send that message very clearly.

[Abe Greenwald]

I know because the leaders of Europe, leaders of England and France and of course Canada have been so stalwart and forthright in their, in their decision to try to levy sanctions against Israel because they're for what? For, for trying to feed Gazans and try to win a war in Gaza so that the people of Gaza can be freed from Hamas and be fed and all of that. And yet they want to sanction Israel.

[Matthew Continetti]

So and also their refusal to, to really stop the Iranian nuclear program from developing to this point is also why Jews are endangered in their country. Like again, as we said, once Iran decided it was going to pursue a nuke with the intent to use on Israel, this moment was inevitable. And the west, had the west been able to divert them earlier, then you wouldn't have attacks on Iran, you wouldn't have Israeli airstrikes on Iran. And then the security issues that come with that, I mean, they need to be able to have a gut check at some point and say all the things we maybe could have avoided.

[Christine Rosen]

Can I just make one last point? Three Republican presidents, three Israeli preventive strikes against proliferation, Reagan and Osiraq. When Israel took out the Osiraq plant in Iraq. The United States voted against Israel in the United nations in protest. Jean Kirkpatrick cast that a tremendous supporter of Israel. She was furious. She had to do it. But she listened to her superiors in the administration, George W. Bush and the Syrian nuclear facility. Israel informed the US Administration of this growing threat of a nuclear facility in Syria. And the Bush administration said, we don't want you to do it. We're not going to participate. Israel did it anyway. And the danger of Syrian WMD was or at least nuclear WMD because of course Syria retained its chemical stockpiles. But the new possibility was foreclosed. And now we have this Trump and the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. And again, we don't know what has gone on in the administration over the past five months. Things in recent weeks take on a whole new dimension when you consider Tucker Carlson's egregious attack against Mark Levin for visiting the White House. When you consider Tulsi Gabbard's weird video that we've discussed previously on the podcast warning of nuclear annihilation. Who knows whether those, the campaign of leaks against Israel that we know were coming from parts of the White House and the Defense Department. Clearly all of this was part of some internal battle. Right. We're going to have to wait for someone to add Jeffrey Goldberg to a signal group chat in order to get all the details. But when push comes to shove, where is, where is Trump? He is letting Israel do the job. And if Iran makes the mistake of killing a single American in the coming days, that will be the end of the Iranian regime.

[Abe Greenwald]

I want to just clarify one point about the, about the three strikes and the George W. Bush the Syrian reactor, because we published an excerpt from Elliott Abrams Happens to be my, my Brother in law. His, his memoir of his time working on the Middle east during the Bush administration. And there was a fight inside the Bush administration. Dick Cheney wanted the United States, as part of his 1% doctrine, wanted the United States to take out the Syrian reactor. And Elliott and others in the administration said Israel should do it. Israel is actually the body that is under threat. It will create an important deterrent measure for a wider war in the Middle east. If the Syrians understand that Israel is willing to do this and take this action. And in fact, so you did have people inside the administration who did not want Israel to do anything. But there was this argument and this is, I think the ultimate argument for why, if this goes well, the pre planning, whatever happened could not have gone better. We don't know because we're not going to know until we know what the final outcome is. But if the world sees that Israel, 9 million strong, a nation that was poverty stricken for the first 40 years of its existence and then got kind of rich, that Israel is willing to spend 20 years to destroy a vastly larger, vastly more powerful, vastly richer foe to secure its future and to save the Jewish people and to recreate the, you know, the sort of, the map, the geopolitical map of the, of the Middle east, the deterrent effect of that on the danger posed to the Jewish people in the future is inestimable. And the idea that the United States can reconstitute its alliances on the grounds that what we want to do is be allied and ally, you know, aligned with nations that are willing to do what is necessary to defend themselves, defend their territory against bad actors who want to shut down shipping lanes and interfere with world commerce and be, you know, imperial aggressors and all of that, the advantages, the virtues that will flow from that for American and world security and the good working order of the planet in the 21st century are incalculable. So if we said Israel, go it alone and it is seen that Israel went it alone and was able to do this thing that until a week ago I was skeptical they would be able to pull off. And I'm, I've been following this as closely as anybody in this country for 20 years. If they, if this is an, you know, Israeli military victory over Iran, you know, success as Abe started, success has many fathers and failure as an orphan. But the effect of this, not only in securing the future of the Jewish people, but in securing a better future for what we think of as the west, even if the restrainers and people around Tucker Carlson and J.D. vance no longer think of as the west will be just for our children's sake, the world will be a better and safer place. So here is every prayer for everyone over the next till we meet again and hope for only good news and, you know, no tragedies. And we will convene on Monday to continue following this epochal event that may be the most important event on the planet Earth since 9 11. So for Matt, Seth, Christine and Abe, I'm John Pothoric. Keep the candle bur.

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