Scott Horton (3:01)

Well, first of all, as far as everybody being so credulous and saying, oh no, we have to go protect the foreign people from their own government like Bill Clinton in Kosovo and Barack Obama in Libya and this kind of pretext for war is completely absurd to see so called America first nationalists and patriot, you know, right wing types going for this type of Obama bot responsibility to protect doctrine and all of this crap as an excuse to intervene. I don't know how anyone could take that as sincere at all. It's obviously completely ridiculous. All, all of these people are always at their most humanitarian when they're trying to start a war and then no matter how many people die in that, it's for a good cause because they're sure it's going to turn out great in the end. And you still find people like Eli Lake, Jonathan Chait and John Bolton and a few others who, they still stand by the Iraq war because nobody ever like really made them lose the argument about it other than people just got tired of the thing or whatever, but they never had an honest argument about who's backing who over there, what the real consequences were. So some people still support that. Oh well, the Iraqi people are way better off now. I mean, you know, minus the million or so dead ones and all the orphans and widows and traumatized victims of the war, all the amputees and all the absolute chaos, the cleansed Christians and Yazidis and everybody else. Right. Other than that though, Iraq is doing great right now. And that's just one example. But you know, when they never really have to come clean about the results of their last interventions, then it makes it easier to say, yeah, this is another one of those where we have to go and help the people. And you know, when I was on the Piers Morgan show last June, there was this lady and she literally was one of the ones who took the $7,000 to spend for Israel. Emily Austin was on there and she said, well, look after the regime change, what's next after that is, well, The Iranian people are just going to have to rise up and create a better new situation. And then that would be the best case scenario that, oh yes, they're going to create a new bicameral legislature and adopt an American style constitution and Bill of Rights and it's just going to be perfect. Or possibly there will be a civil war over control of the state. And you have all different kinds of factions in Iran that of course, as a representative of the War Party, she knows absolutely nothing about. There's a guy named Michael Duran who's a big hawk at the think tanks, I think at the foundation for Defense and Democracy and a few others who was tweeting out yesterday showing the President marching in a pro government rally. And he says, see, wow, look, the President is marching in one of the anti government rallies, trying to triangulate between the people in the Ayatollah. And it's like, no, dude, you actually have no idea what you're talking about, War party man, which is how these things tend to go. And so, you know, I was complaining about Reason magazine's morning email is here's just all coverage of various protests around Iran. Will the people be able to overthrow the terrible tyranny? Asks the Reason Magazine morning email. No coverage whatsoever of violence, of people killed and arson fires and, you know, actual violent uprisings anywhere. No coverage of that. Not the slightest hint of the possibility of foreign intervention in any of these things, which we do have, you know, positive proof of or pretty close. I'll get back to that in just one second. And no mention whatsoever of the giant rallies in favor of the regime by the conservative right in the country, which they also did turn out. And so how completely one sided and biased can you be to frame the whole thing is? Oh yeah, the liberals of the suburbs of Tehran just want to be free and they are up against the forces of darkness. This is in Reason magazine. These are libertarians who still haven't learned after supporting Iraq War two, supporting Iraq War three. Remember that Ed Karowski wrote about how we have to go save the Yazidis on the mountain when it was Obama who put him in that situation in the first place. And that was enough to start the war against the Islamic state back in 2014. And when Al Qaeda actually overthrew Damascus In December of 2024, the reason morning email was Damascus liberated, right? Assad regime overthrown by the freedom seeking people of Syria. And you know what Liz Wolf wrote in there? She says, well, you know, America and Israel have got to get in there and make friends with this new government before Iran does. This is a bin Laden night regime that just overthrew Assad because he was friends with Iran, with support of Turkey and Israel and America this whole time because he's friends with Iran. Iran has absolutely zero juice with Al Qaeda in Syria. But this is what. I'm sorry, I'm off on a tangent. Just I got some friends at Reason magazine. I really respect Jesse Walker and a couple of those other guys, but man, the people versus the regime, everyone. And even though we're Americans and America is the world empire and America has a vendetta against Iran in alliance with Israel and America has a CIA and an NED, and we got MI6 and Mossad working with us on all these things. Never mind that the entire frame of reference is liberty versus tyranny, and never mind the cruelty and the guilt of the American regime here. And so if libertarians can fall for it and repeatedly, then I guess anybody can. You know, especially if it's your dear leader who's leading this parade. We'd be a lot better off if it was Barack Obama demanding this intervention right now, Tom. Then we could say, see, this is exactly the same kind of thing he would do. I saw people say, nuh, Obama sucked up to Iran. It's like, same difference. This is exactly how he started the war in Libya. Pick your country on the list of countries Israel wants America to overthrow. Dude, it's on there. Same difference either way. And then as far as the protests, the Times of Israel says that Mossad is on the ground there and that Mossad openly boasts that they are on the ground there helping the riots, helping the protesters. So I don't know to what degree, but I don't think I need to know exactly to what degree to know they're openly boasting that they're involved. Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director, also was taunting the Iranians that, you know, we salute the Mossad agents involved here, including on the ground in Iran. And so now, by the way, look, and of course, the way that they would always frame this, all the idiots on Twitter and at Reason magazine or whatever would always frame this. Oh, when look at you on the side of the foreign bad guy, but the US Government is the domestic bad guy. That is my primary concern. And despite the fact that I spent a career debunking lies about Iran, primarily about their nuclear program. But on other questions, too, I don't give a damn for the Ayatollah. I'm from Texas and my only tribe is like Northwest Austin skateboarders. And I might have aged out of that. So what do I care about Shiite Islam or the rule of the Ayatollah Khamenei or any of his men or any of that? No connection to Iran whatsoever. I don't care about them except in the most abstract sense. But the thing of it is, almost every time we do this, US Government intervenes in this way, things go very badly, including in Iran. You might remember we had a very successful coup in 1953 and 26 years of peaceful rule under the iron grip of the Shah Reza Pahlavi, until it led to the violent revolution that installed the Ayatollah in 1979. And we've been dealing with that blowback ever since. As I know, you know, Tom, it was a CIA historian named Donald Wilbur who coined the phrase blowback in his After Action report about the coup in 53 and, and said, when we do things like this, agents need to be aware or officers need to be aware of the danger of blowback coming down the line from these types of interventions. And here we've been messing with Iran ever since then as blowback from 53. So the idea that, oh, no, but what we need, Tom, is just one more clean regime change over there and then everything will be fine, I think is absolutely naive at best. And worse, it's partisanship just totally infecting the minds of Americans who will themselves to believe to somehow get on the side of the politicians that they favor. And I'm happy to report, by the way, I see a lot of people very upset about this, very betrayed. You know, Donald Trump is so hyperbolic. He can't just say, yeah, I'm anti war. He says really great anti war stuff. He condemns the military industrial complex to hell. He says that intervening in the Middle east is the worst thing we ever did. It's the worst choice any president ever made was when W. Bush went over there. He talks that way, and then people take him at his word like that. This is a lot bigger than Bush climbing down from a more humble foreign policy or Obama climbing down from my promise to get us out of Iraq someday, but not Afghanistan. I mean, Donald Trump has at times made himself sound very much like Ron Paul and like the age of American interventionism overseas is over. He has only one priority, which is concluding peace deals and getting back to business. That's what he ran on, especially this last time. And people feel really betrayed like that, and they should. And it's the Achilles heel of him, just as it was pushed before him. It's Zionism. That's what it is. You have to move to accommodate Israel. You, every other thing in America. First becomes second.

Tom Woods (12:57)

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Scott Horton (14:52)

I doubt it because it's so stupid. I mean, it's possible that that's why to believe it is because it's so stupid that they really think that they could get away with that. I mean, obviously you do have the monarchist and you have the mujahideeni cult, commie terror cult that, you know, their cult leader. I don't know what else to call her. My room, Rajavi. Is it my room? I think so, yeah. They're in competition for trying to inherit the power, I don't think. You know, I'm just speculating here. I don't have any good information about this, but I'm trying to figure, like, what they could be briefing Donald Trump about this. And I can see it being along the lines of, look, we kill the ayatollah and the ruling council of mullahs, and then we step back and see what happens. I don't believe that anybody be crazy enough to propose putting boots on the ground to try to control Tehran and to just parachute the son of the last monarch in there, you know, the grandson of the old shah, to just parachute him in and then hope he doesn't get killed and that somehow he's able to just take over the country. That seems a huge risk that they're not going to be willing to take. That could be an embarrassment. I don't know if you saw where. When Trump was referring to the capture of Maduro in Venezuela, I think in the New York Times interview, he went on and on and on about the danger that he could have looked like Jimmy Carter if it had not gone well. Remember Operation Eagle Claw when they tried to rescue the hostages in Iran in 1980? I think it was in 80, and the helicopters crashed into the planes out in the desert and whatever, and the whole thing was botched. Trump's very wary of anything, you know, they. He made Delta and all those boys rehearse this thing very well before they did. He's very wary of something that's going to look bad, blow up in his face. It's got to be quick and easy. And I guess my real worry. I'm glad you brought up Maduro in the capture there, because my concern is, and it's obvious, right, is just what Ben Shapiro said, that by capturing Maduro, Donald Trump has defeated Iraq War syndrome, just as Iraq War I defeated Vietnam syndrome. So then the idea is if capturing Maduro is so easy, if our Delta Force boys are that good, that they can night raid ahead of state like he was just some posh tun farmer out in Paktika Province somewhere, then maybe snatching the ayatollah or dropping a bomb on his head wouldn't Be that hard. And in fact, maybe forget John F. Kennedy's stupid old promise. Nobody remembers anymore anyway. Maybe we could go in there and do a surgical removal of the government of Cuba. I'm not proposing this, you understand, I'm paraphrasing the thinking in the White House now that I fear that. That they might be, you know, going through. Because this is what happened after Panama was, Man, you know what this is? In 1989, everybody, George H.W. bush went in there and overthrew his old guy, Manuel Noriega, and replaced him with the next guy. And they went, well, you know, that was easy. Let's go to Iraq. Then we can do Iraq, right? Look at how effective we were in Panama now. The Soviet Union is not there to stop us. And so this will be a true exercise of American power to prove to the American people that war can be easy and fun again. And so I'm worried that even though that. That hasn't really seemed to be the message for the American people overall, I'm worried that that's the message in the White house that, see, Mr. President, why should we suffer the existence of the commies in Cuba? The Castros are dead. Whoever's left hanging on there, we're cutting off their Venezuelan oil and like, how dare they still be the commies there? Let's go ahead and do it. And I'm worried that in his mind, the answer is, yeah, why not go ahead and do it? And same thing for the ayatollah, Tom. I mean, the fact of the matter is, if you put eyeballs on the ayatollah, you can put a bomb on his head and the American Air Force can deliver, if that's what they decide to do. Yes, they could put firepower on target. Doesn't mean they can control outcomes, but they can destroy essentially any target on Earth that they seek to strike. And, you know, outside of Russia and China, for whatever sake of argument, but. So that's what I'm worried about is that now this all seems fun and easy after Venezuela and it'll be, you know, maybe we'll go ahead and take an extra chance and go further on Iran, which, by the way, you know, a year ago, or, pardon me, last June, they said we have to do this because of their nuclear program, which they just pretended was a nuclear weapons program, even though they have made no real advance toward nuclear weapons production capability. And people say they bring up the 60% enriched uranium. It's totally red herring. Why wouldn't it? 90% weapons grade. Because they stopped at 60, because they're jerking your chain because it was all part of the negotiation. They enriched up to 60% so they could negotiate it away again. It's just a card to play. It had no use separate from that. It's certainly not in any weapon. So that was the pretext for war, was we're afraid the Ayatollah is going to make a nuke and use it on us or our friends, Tom. Then we went to Netanyahu, says, well, they've got two stage missiles that can hit Israel. And then he lies that they could hit America soon. And then we're supposed to go. Trump adopted that and said, yeah, Ayatollah won't give up his missiles. We'll have to go to war with Iran over their missiles. And then he says, yeah, they kill their protesters. And he tweeted out, you know, it's true, social thing, help is on its way if, you know, on the pretext of just some protesters being killed. So it really sounds to me, Tom, like he has bought the premises of his National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his other advisor. Fact. According to the Wall Street Journal, on Tuesday evening, Trump is to have this extensive briefing on his various options for violent conflict in Iran. And like I told you last summer, they didn't really solve anything. They called it the 12 day war, but they did not solve the problem of Iran still having a nuclear program and being determined to operate it and enrich uranium, even though they were severely set back and they have not changed the regime. So they painted themselves into the corner now that essentially they have to, even if in stages, they have to complete what they started. You know, if you ask them again, I'm not accepting that premise, but I'm just saying from their point of view, they left the problem undone. It's all the people, you know, crowing, mission accomplished last June. Well, here we are and they're talking about going back to war here in January.

Tom Woods (21:03)

The US Regime has wanted this for a very long time under Bush 2, after Iraq, for years after there was belligerence toward Iran. And then what happened was In December of 2007, we got the intelligence agencies releasing this report saying there's just no evidence that Iran is actually pursuing a nuclear program. And at that time, Scott, when the intelligence agencies would say something like that, which was the opposite of what the politicos wanted to hear, that made it hard for George W. Bush to do it. I mean, that basically they were all dejected and they said, I guess we're not going to be doing it. That doesn't matter anymore. Like that objection would not stop the people now, but for a long time they've wanted to do it.

Scott Horton (21:44)

And let me just clarify real quick that it was a nuclear weapons program is what they don't have and a nuclear program is what they do.

Tom Woods (21:51)

That's what I meant. I beg your pardon? I meant to say, I just want

Scott Horton (21:54)

to make sure and clarify for that.

Tom Woods (21:55)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no. Nuclear energy is a different matter. But the thing is, the impression that I had was that the thing that had held it off even before that report came out was that reasonably cool. Heads of the military were saying, are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what would be involved if you were to ask us to do this? Not to mention who would be installed and how would we keep them in? And what if there's a revolt? I mean, you got the sense that they were held in check by a military that just said, you have to be crazy to be proposing this. Does that not hold back Donald Trump? I mean, I assume the military also gets that now.

Scott Horton (22:32)

Well, see, even back then the argument was the Air Force and the Navy were saying, let us do it, we can do it. And the army and the Special Operations Command were saying no, because we got to send our guys in there with laser designators to take out all the anti aircraft. And at that time we have 50,000 troops in Afghanistan and 100 and something thousand in Iraq. And they were all embedded with Shiite forces throughout Iraq and at the height of the Civil war, so you had essentially Americans embedded with the Bada Brigade and the Mahdi army of Muktad Al Sadr. And they had openly threatened that if America attacks Iran, our guys in Iraq are, it's open season, right? Like order 66. They get shot in the back by their own guys that they're leading into battle. And so that was what made that completely untenable. Less so in Afghanistan. We had a lot of guys within missile range in Afghanistan. And I think in retrospect, even with those troops that George Bush put in that hostage situation himself, I think the war last June shows that very much unlike in the propaganda or even the fears of anti war folk like me who like to debunk a lot of these lies, that the Ayatollah Khamenee is actually, you know, essentially an extremely patient victim of American power here because he knows he's overmatched and what is he going to do about it anyway? And look what he did do last June. They made arrangements apparently. I don't know if this is 100%, but the way they did it was America dropped 14 bombs on the Fordo facility and then The Ayatollah fired 14 missiles at an empty corner of our base in Qatar and called beforehand, you might remember Donald Trump said thank you Ayatollah for calling beforehand and warning us that you were about to shoot these missiles so we could shoot them down. He literally did that publicly thank the Ayatollah for the heads up before he attacked. So in other words, this was nothing but the least sort of symbolic strike. Did he decide, oh no, America crossed my red line. Now I'm going to launch every missile I have at American army bases in Kuwait and Al Ulid base in Qatar and all of our 5th Fleet naval base in Bahrain and all of our economic targets in Saudi. Absolutely did not do that. Now I'm not saying they never would. I mean, you're a better theorist on this stuff than me, Tom. I mean, what does the state do when they're very existence is threatened? And usually they probably launch everything they got rather than just give up. I mean, maybe not, but that's still a danger that, you know, they do have enough missiles where if they really targeted everything they have at American interests in the Gulf, they could do a hell of a lot of damage. But on the other hand. Yeah, then what? I mean, seriously, if you're the Ayatollah. I'm sorry, I've repeated this phrase so many times in my life. If you're the Ayatollah, what are you gonna do with a problem like the usa? You're going to abide as best you can, man, because America can nuke you and kill all you. That's the deal. If the Ayatollah unleashed everything he had at our Navy base in Bahrain and our air base in Qatar and our army base in Kuwait, never mind what Trump would do. What do you think the Iranians would fear Trump would might do if they did that? Because we're still way over here in North America and we can launch bombers from Missouri, vaporize your entire population, send every last one of them to the afterlife and then fly home without having to stop to refuel because they can just refuel midair. That's where our nuclear bombers are. You know, our first wave B2s are stationed in Missouri and in other words, way out of range of Iran. So what are you going to do, in other words? I think the answer is they suffer as much as they can possibly tolerate because they don't have much choice, you know. Same for the Russians. Look at the position that we put Vladimir Putin in. If he was one tenth the psychopath that they say he is, we'd all be dead by now. They just do nothing but humiliate him all day, over and over again, helping the Ukrainians strike deep inside Russian territory, making him look like an absolute chump in front of all of his national security establishment. How long are we supposed to put up with this? They all say to him every day and he has to be the coolest head in the room. But I don't know. Like, we've seen his patients run out before and it's not pretty. So I don't know what they think they're doing. Maybe they don't think too much about it. They just do.

Tom Woods (27:15)

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Scott Horton (29:33)

Well, that may be the end in itself. Right. Is to turn Iran into what Syria was in the Obama years, just absolute hellscape of civil war and infighting between multiple armed factions. You know, and by the way, let me get right back to that in one second. But to rewind a step, I meant to mention this earlier about why. Sure. I think I was trying to say squeeze in there somewhere about like, I'm sure there's plenty of reason for local Iranians to dislike their regime, but the problem is all the foreign intervention and all of that kind of thing here. Well, one of the major problems that they're suffering, Tom, is the kind of thing that, as you know, to local people living in their world looks like a very local problem, even though it is very much caused by the United States of America. And they may understand this to a great degree too, but. And the purpose is to get them to blame their own government, but that is the destruction of their currency. And obviously the regime over there, just like every government in the world, they know how to do nothing but print money all day. But with the American economic war, the crippling sanctions as they call them, that Trump put on them, remember when Biden came in, he didn't undo any of that and go back to the Obama deal. He kept the Trump policy on Iran the entire four years he was in there and so handed that policy right back to Trump where it was. So we've been waging this severe economic war against them and, and they've had 40% price inflation in the last year, I think it was, which is, in other words, anybody who had their savings denominated in their local currency has been completely wiped out. Right. This has been an absolute disaster. And as we know in the United States, the people at the bottom of the so called economic ladder who work for like hourly wages and lower level salaries, those people are the last ones to get a cost of living increase. When the cost of living goes up, I mean, 40% in a year is a lot. It may even be higher than that. I don't know. It looks like you're reading some stats, so correct me if I'm off the story there, but. So this is the kind of thing that causes severe stress. Isn't this what caused the defeat of Joe Biden? And isn't this a huge part of what's undermining Donald Trump's rule right now? That what is up with these prices on the shelves? They're never going down and in fact they still keep going up. And yet people's wages aren't. And in fact, that's why they always let in all the illegal immigrants is to try to relieve some of that upward pressure on wages caused by the debasing of the currency. So this is something that if this can cause a crisis of confidence in Joe Biden and Donald Trump's rule with much less inflation, much lower rate of inflation than what's hitting in Iran, well, this could do a lot to destabilize and destroy the rule of the regime over there. Like, I don't care what sect you're from or whose authority, which God's authority you claim to invoke, the rent is too damn high. You know what I mean? As they say, those basic cost of living issues are absolutely the kinds of things that destabilize and lead to overthrown governments and then, yes, who's to come next? And there's no reason in the world to assume that they'll all just get their act together and build a great new democratic system that everybody assents to and what have you to replace the current regime? And they have a republic now, an extremely flawed one, Tom, but look who's talking. And so could they keep their same regime only without the ayatollahs as like the ruling council or whatever? Potentially. But again, look at the push to put the monarchists in there. You know, I think we were joking about this last summer that Trump went to. I think it was in Doha, right, where he gave that big speech where he said, forget the neocons, we don't believe in spreading democracy anymore. That's stupid. And it was like, oh, okay, that kind of sounds good. And then the next week, it was like, you know, we really like the Shah Reza Pahlavi iii. I was like, wait a minute. Is that what you mean by you don't believe in democracy anymore? Because we're going to install a monarchy, not even a military junta or an El Presidente, but an actual your majesty, royal Highness to rule over these people. Is that what we're going to do?

Tom Woods (33:37)

Holy crap. Couple things I want to make sure we get to before we wrap up here. But what's frustrating me is that I just. I cannot get over. I mean, I remember a lot of interventions, and when I was a kid, I cheered for them all because I was a kid, and it seemed like a cool video game I could watch on tv. And then I went off to college, and I kept on cheering for everything that I saw on my TV until it dawned on me how much death and devastation was taking place. And I started to think, I don't know that I can support that anymore. And it was, you know, I know that the neocons would laugh at that, how sentimental that is, you know, and how I should be nowhere near the levers of power, because I think that way. But I do think that way, because not only is all this life lost, but the stated goals anyway. Who knows what the real goals are, but the stated goals are never achieved. It's always either something as bad or worse. And now we have the pile of corpses, and it seems like with the cheering of half of the right wing, at least we could be marching into this thing again. And I don't. I don't even know how to compute this. I mean, it's the kind of thing that makes you want to just retire, you know, move to the countryside and say, to hell with the whole thing. But that's just not in my DNA, I guess.

Scott Horton (34:56)

Well, what's worse is when you recognize that we could have normalized relations with Iran a long time ago. The Israelis kept their relationship with Iran after the revolution until 1993. As everyone in this audience knows, Ronald Reagan sold the missiles through Israel during Iran Contra. Now, mostly America backed Saddam Hussein against Iran in the Iran Iraq War, except when they switched sides for a bit there and sold missiles to the Ayatollah side. If Ronald Reagan could sell the missiles in 1984 and 85, when they supported the militia that blew up the Beirut Marine Barracks in 1983, then how in the world are we even having this discussion at all in 2025? You know, in 1993? Think about this, when I mentioned Operation Eagle Claw, the humiliation of the hostage crisis and the failed rescue mission and everything under Jimmy Carter there, all that egg was on Zbigniew Brzezinski's face too. You know, they had helped to support the Ayatollah coming because the Shah was dying anyway, and they let the Ayatollah come back and inherit the revolution. And it blew up completely in their face with the hostage crisis 10 months later. So if anybody other than Jimmy Carter looked like a jerk for that, Zbigniew Brzezinski looked like a jerk for that. And yet by 1993, Brzezinski said, Ah, no hard feelings, who cares? He's a Rockefeller guy, after all. He says, let's stick these straws in the Caspian Basin and we'll build oil pipeline across Iran. Guess who agreed with him? Alexander Haig, another Rockefeller guy, Henry Kissinger's right hand man and Ronald Reagan's former Secretary of State. So Jimmy Carter's hawkish National Security Advisor and Ronald Reagan's hawkish Secretary of State said, ah, we can get along with the Ayatollah. What's the problem? We'll build a pipeline across there. You know who agreed with them tomorrow? Dick Cheney, the CEO of Halliburton, said numerous times in the 1990s, you know what, man? It turns out that God didn't see fit to put the oil under the ground of Western democracies and friends and allies of ours. But, oh well, what are you going to do? Got to do business with these guys. We can do business with these guys. I mean, think of it, Tom. If you're Dick Cheney, you could just as easily say, I ain't afraid of no Ayatollah. In fact, as USA personified, I ain't afraid of nobody and I'm willing to deal with anybody because I got everything to give and nothing to lose. Right? That was his attitude when he wasn't the Vice President. That was his attitude when he was the CEO of a company trying to make money. And he denounced Bill Clinton's sanctions for getting in his way. So if Brzezinski and Haig and Cheney himself urged normalization of relations and for the purposes of strategically bringing them, you know, for not just business purposes, but for the strategic reasons of bringing Iran in from the cold, of ending the Cold War against them. Since the revolution, it was part of it was, we will make money and we'll have this joint project with them and we'll begin this process of normalization with them. But you know what happened Everybody knows what happened. The Israelis vetoed it. That was who stopped it. It was Yitzhak Rabin's policy in the first year of Bill Clinton that actually I changed my mind. And instead of being friends with Iran, now I hate Iran. Now Israel is against Iran. And in the name of distracting people from, while he's willing to try to deal with the Palestinians and cut a deal with the closer Arab states like Jordan, which he eventually did in 1994. And so when the Israelis switched their policy to we hate IRAN now in 1993, that was when they insisted, the Israelis insisted on the policy of dual containment, which meant America had to stay in Saudi Arabia because America beat up on Iraq so bad in Iraq War one, they are no longer powerful enough to balance against Iran. So now America has to stay in Saudi to balance against them both. And as you know, that was the primary cause of the turning of the bin Ladenite revolutionary movement against the United States was keeping those bases in Saudi in order especially to bomb and blockade Iraq, but also to contain Iran and to continue the Cold War against Iran. So on top of all your frustration there, Tom, is it didn't have to be this way. It never had to be this way. Not for 35 years, not for 40. Ronald Reagan sold the missiles in 1985. 85. So never had to be like this at all. Oh, and by the way, let me mention this because I always forget to mention this. After W. Bush did then the gigantic favor of overthrowing the Taliban in 2001 and overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Ayatollah, same Ayatollah since 89. Now, the Minol Ayatollah Khomeini died in 89, and it's been Khamenei ever since. Then he proposed what's called the golden offer in 2003 and said, hey, look, as long as you're getting rid of Saddam and empowering the Shiites in Iraq, we'll work with you on that. Bush said, nope, I'll fight a war for you, but I won't talk with you about it. They said, hey, as long as you have all these MEK commi terror cultists, we have arrested some Al Qaeda guys. Maybe we could trade Cheney. And Bush said, nope, you keep those Al Qaeda guys, set them free years later, like Muhammad Atef and bin Laden's son Hamza were released years later when America could have traded MEK for them back in 2003. And this is before they ever even began to dig Natanz, before they spun a single Centrifuge. They said, we can negotiate with you on our nuclear program. We'll negotiate with you on our support for Hamas and Hezbollah, on everything. And George W. Bush's government told them to go to hell and in fact, even gave a big dressing down to the Swiss ambassador who had brought the deal to them. And so that was the end of the golden offer, but just another golden opportunity, completely wasted, where America could have made friends with Iran all along. And you just take Israel out of the equation, there's no reason in the world why we have to have this beef with them. Some grudge left over from 79 or from 1983. Yeah, right. Oh, one more, Tom, real quick. They lie and they say The Iranians killed 600Americans in Iraq War Two. But what they mean is Shiite Iraqis killed 500Americans in Iraq War Two, even though America fought that war for them. And 4,000 of our guys died fighting the Sunnis for the Shiites. 500 of them died when David Petraeus turned on them in 2007 in a conspiracy with Dick Cheney to try to start a war with Iran then and went after Muqtad Al Saudr's group, which was ironically, the least Iran tied of the Shiite factions that we were fighting at that time. And. But every time a Iraqi Shiite set off a roadside bomb or an American was killed by a roadside bomb that was set by a Shiite or in Shiite territory, they just lied and said that that was an Iranian bomb, that the Iranians did it. And as George W. Bush would say, well, I shorthanded it, meaning left out every detail that proves that what they're saying is not true. And in fact, as I show in my book. Enough already. Those bombs were made in Iraq by Iraqis. And I cite like 10 different sources for that, including firsthand military sources that I have who were, you know, high ranking officers who knew for a fact what a hope set was and verified it. And plus I just covered it at the time in 2007. So virtually all of these major kind of narratives about Iran and their threat to the United States are a bunch of crap and based on a bunch of lies, most of which are debunked in that book. Enough already.

Tom Woods (42:27)

Hey, gang. It's not pretty out there. If you're like me, you've been watching the Fed inflate the dollar into oblivion while politicians bungle trade policy and rack up historic amounts of debt. You're wondering how to protect what you've worked so hard to build. And that's why I want to talk to you about monetary metals. A company doing something truly revolutionary with gold. We all know gold is a safe haven asset, but let's face it, most gold just sits there in a vault not doing much. It holds its value over time, but it doesn't grow. What if I told you there's a way to not only own physical gold but also earn a yield on it? Paid in gold every single month. That's exactly what I do with monetary metals. I lease my gold with them and earn an annual yield about 4% in gold, not in paper currency. I keep my ounces and every month I get more. Think about it. You still benefit from any price appreciation like what we saw in 2025 with gold pushing past all time highs. And you also get paid more ounces of gold along the way. And that's what makes this model so exciting. It's a genuine breakthrough. For the first time in decades, gold is functioning as a yield bearing asset. Just like in the classical gold standard days. The Fed can print dollars, they can't print gold. It's time to start growing your wealth in ounces, not just hoping for the best with Fiat. Go to monetary medals.comwoods to learn more and see how you can start earning a gold income too. That's monetary medals.comwoods I have something very important that I want to ask you. Before we do that, we should say all this stuff that Scott is talking about here is stuff that you would know. Absolutely. Inside and out, memorized, mastered, ready to go smash people with over at the Scott Horton Academy. So Scott, do we want to give them a little thing or what? A little deal. Maybe Iran should be the code.

Scott Horton (44:10)

Yeah. Or promo code woods if that's easier. Let's just do that. Okay.

Tom Woods (44:14)

Let's just do that. Promo code Woods. I mean everybody.

Scott Horton (44:16)

Yeah. And we'll just save 10% on an annual or a lifetime subscription there.

Tom Woods (44:20)

Yeah, yeah, sure. So yeah. Scott Horton Academy.com you see we have the hat. We don't have the website on the hat but the website is exactly what the hat would lead you to expect. Scott hortonacademy.com this is Scott teaching it to you like he's a professor. Except this is a professor whose classes you actually want to attend. And it's any time of day or night, it's on demand and it is the knowledge that everybody needs because it is the anti propaganda dashboard university. Scott hortonacademy.com use code woods. Get yourself a discount and it is the most urgently necessary purchase in your entire life right now. So here's the thing I want to ask you about has nothing to do with this topic we've been talking about with Iran. But as long as I have you, February 5th of this year, 2026 is an important date because that's when so called New Start, which is the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, expires. And that went into effect in 2011 for 10 years, then they extended it for another five. This is the last remaining bilateral treaty that constrains the nuclear forces of Russia and the US and given the current climate, without such an agreement, who knows what age we might be entering unless something new is done and who really knows? So what do you think about this, Scott?

Scott Horton (45:36)

Very well put. I mean, that's exactly the deal. Trump says, well, I want a better deal. I want to include China and I have this dream of this great new nuclear tripartite thingamajig. But look at the we're at the height of tensions with Russia right now. How is he going to do that when he's unable to end the war in Ukraine? He's going to be able to get the Russians to agree to a brand new treaty. The Russians are saying let's extend New Start, let's stay in New Start. As you said, this is the last treaty between the United States and Russia limiting overall deployments and stockpiles of thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems. It's all we got. The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty that kept short medium and intermediate range missiles out of Europe. Trump tore up in his last year in office, in his first term, in the end of 2019 or the beginning of 20, I guess. The end of 2019. Sorry, the end of 20. Yeah. And he also tore up the Open Skies Treaty, which is important. I mean, it sounds kind of silly, but it was Ike Eisenhower's idea that we let each other's military fly unarmed flights over each other's countries in order to reassure ourselves that the other side is not mobilizing for war. And you know, General, we have some concerns. Let's go fly a plane over their bases and see what's going on over there. And so because what's the alternative? Let them act based on their worst paranoid fears. And I think everybody has a pretty good imagination about the capability of American military satellites in space tomorrow. But the Russian satellites suck. They're nothing like ours. They're not anywhere near as good as ours. And so we can see what they're doing. And then I guess the idea is, heh heh heh. By Tearing up this treaty. Now they can't see what we're doing. Yeah, but that was the whole point. It's better to let them see what we're doing because we're not mobilizing for nuclear war. Right. So let's let them see that we're not so that they can reassure themselves that we're not. It's crucial and you know, absolutely, you know, gross negligence for them to have let that thing die. And then the INF treaty again was huge. This is Ronald Reagan's great achievement. In 1987 he had built up all those Pershing missiles, I forgot the name of the Russian mid range missiles that they had introduced in Eastern Europe. And then I think Carter started it. I forget, I'm sorry. And then. But Reagan matched them with these Pershings and then he negotiated them right away again and pull them right back out again. And so we do have nuclear bombs there, but they're all airdropped gravity bombs from planes stationed in Germany and the Netherlands and elsewhere England and Italy. But mid range missiles are gone. But now according to the treaty, they can be reintroduced there. And I get it that, you know, I published this book, Tom. As you know, it's called Hotter than the Sun, Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Because it's my third book and they're all like time to abolish something or time to stop a war somewhere. So I kind of went with that theme. The whole book is not about, oh, we got to just get rid of all the atom bombs. The whole book is all different aspects of nuclear weapons and all the different nuclear weapon states and their arsenals and Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all different things in there and whatever. But I know I got such a negative reaction from people because the subtitle says time to get rid of nuclear weapons. Time to abolish nuclear weapons. And people think that that just sounds like unilateral, unconditional surrender to the ChiComs. But the thing is like, that's not what I'm talking about. And when Ronald Reagan met with Gorbachev at Reykjavik in 1986 and proposed the full global abolition of nuclear weapons, that's not what he was talking about either. And I hasten to remind you, we're not talking about President Walter Mondale. We're talking about Ronald Reagan thought that he was on a mission from God like the Blues Brothers to get rid of nukes. And it was Richard Pearl, of course, the Prince of Darkness and his buddies convinced Reagan that no, you'll be betraying your promise because the Soviets insisted that we'd have to scrap the defensive missile systems, but hey, if we're negotiating away all the missiles, then who needs defensive missile systems anyway? And so. But they were just a hair away from negotiating full abolition. And this is in 86, this is three years before the wall came down, five years before the fall of the Soviet Union. And so they were just barely ending the Cold War. And even then Reagan was willing to do it. And the proposal, Tom, was not that we make a magic wish and all the nuclear weapons disappeared. The proposal was that America and the Soviet Union try to get down to parity with Britain, France, Israel and China, who all had about two or 300 each. And they said, we'll get down to where we also have two or 300, and then we'll enter a new round of talks and with our partners and allies and so forth and see if we can get down 2 from 3 to 2 to 100 or 150 or whatever from there, see if we can get down to 50 and work toward the ultimate abolition of nuclear weapons, because these machines are just too dangerous to be kept around. There's got to be a better way to keep security, you know, global security, besides this Mexican standoff with H bombs pointed at each other's capital cities and other cities. You know, it's a low probability, impossibly high consequence stance to take. I mean, just think if I put it to you like this, Tom. We're going to have mutually assured destruction with hydrogen bombs between 9 or 10 or 15 major nuclear weapon states on the planet to keep the peace for the next 250 years. That's the plan for the next 250 years. Mexican standoff with H bombs pointed at each other's head. Does that sound like that'll keep or eventually at some point that thing's going to break down and those things are going to start going off. There's gotta be a better way to do this. And here we are going 100 miles an hour in the other direction, like we're trying to undo all of the legacy, everything that Nixon and Reagan and Bush ever accomplished in getting these, I mean, Bush Senior ever accomplished in getting these treaties through and moving toward nuclear disarmament. We want to just go full scale back into brinksmanship, an arms race and go back to, you know, the Kennedy and Johnson era, where we're stacking these things up by the tens of thousands. It's the greatest betrayal of humanity. It's unbelievable that this is allowed to happen. But I guess, you know, people's priorities are all spread so thin. And again, you say anything about this, you sound like such a utopian hippie girl in a sundress nobody wants to listen to, like, oh, yeah, no nukes, man. But you know what? This is extremely dangerous. And there's a huge gray area between the direction we're going now and no nukes at all. And we should be absolutely. If the INF treaty and at that time SALT2 and those things were good enough for Ronald Reagan, then these things ought to be good enough for us. We should be getting back in New Start or even see if we can revive Start two, which had banned multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles. Although maybe that ship has sailed. But anyway, it sucks, Tom. And no, how's he going to replace the current deal with a brand new deal when America and Russia are absolutely at each other's throats and when the Russians can't believe a thing the Americans say about anything, when the Chinese have just really embarked on expanding their nuclear arsenal from three up to into the low thousands now it looks like are getting close there. And so I'm extremely pessimistic about it, you know, I mean, I'm not, I don't want to sound like I'm predicting nuclear war, but. But I don't think there's any question that they have increased the risk of nuclear war just since 2022 by some significant percent. The tension between NATO and the Russian Federation right now is worse than the Cuban Missile crisis probably, or tied with the Cuban Missile crisis for emergency here. If you especially listen to the European leaders talk about how they want to see the war in Ukraine go still. So, yeah, it ain't good. And for people who, and I'm very sympathetic, as I've always been very sympathetic to Trump. I rooted for him all three times. I absolutely understand and sympathize with everyone's contempt for the left as being worse and all that. But, you know, instead of being Obama bots, especially people who support Trump ought to oppose the things that he does wrong. That's what he needs to hear. The people who like you don't like this, you know what I mean? Instead of just lockstep and follow the leader, it's, we gotta be focused on doing the right thing.

Tom Woods (53:56)

Yeah, yeah. If he doesn't get any pushback, then he just keeps down that road. Scott Horton, let me remind people two things. One, I didn't even mention this time. One of them is scotthortonacademy.comCode woods, what other code would it be? Scothortonacademy.com Code Woods I don't know how long that'll be there. Not very long. So go grab that, get yourself a discount or don't use the discount. Just give Scott the extra money because he deserves it. Scott Horton Academy, greatest thing in the world. Go check that out. But the second thing is Scott's going to be joining me on this year's cruise along with Clint Russell and my newborn baby Henry. That's going to be tremendous. So much fun. Best, best week of your life. I actually had somebody say it was one of the best weeks of his entire life. It is so much fun. And you will have access to Scott Horton almost 247 for that whole week. So enjoy that. And it's, this is probably one of the last one of these I'm going to do for a while because I, I have this newborn. I have all these plans and places I want to go. Just be one fewer thing on our plate. So if this is the kind of thing you've been thinking, maybe you'll do someday. Someday's got to be right now. So, Tom Woods Cruise.com come spend an incredibly enjoyable week with Scott and me, but Also Scott Horton academy.comCodeWoods Scott, final word.

Scott Horton (55:07)

Yeah, everybody just head to my Twitter account Scott HortonShow and I got all my links in my bio there. Scott Horton Academy at the top. And big thanks to you for all your help with that, Tom as well.

Tom Woods (55:19)

My pleasure. Thanks, Scott. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Make yourself and those you love less vulnerable to the regime, both mentally and physically.

Scott Horton (55:29)

Get more forbidden information@tomsfreebooks.com and be sure

Tom Woods (55:33)

to subscribe to the show wherever you listen.

Scott Horton (55:36)

See you next time.

Tom Woods (55:45)

Like the sound of the Tom woods show, my audio production is provided by Podsworth Media. Check them out@podsworth.com hey folks, as you may know, the team at Podsworth Media has worked with me for a long time producing this show. And a big part of that over the past couple years has been using the Podsworth app to make the audio sound clean, level and professional, even when the raw recordings were super sketchy. Like this one you're listening to right now. Believe it or not, this record recording that you're hearing now was that bad before. I ran it through the Podsworth app and you can hear the full before and after demo for yourself at the link in the description or on the show notes page. The app recently got a huge update and it's better than ever. So good, in fact, that it can take a truly atrocious voice recording and make it sound great. Here's how it works. It removes background noise, cuts down on plosives, which are like with the letter P. When you say the letter P into a microphone, it just goes with the letter P. When you say the letter P into a microphone, it just goes. Which is why you usually have a little screen in front of the mic. It fixes clipping when your gain is too high, removes clicks and pops, reduces reverb, improves tone and levels out the dialogue so you don't get crazy. Volume jumps like one guest is loud, another one is quiet, and this way everything's consistent. Using it is super simple. You just go to podsworth.com and click get started. Drag and drop your audio files or open them right from your smartphone's browser. Customize your settings if you want, but honestly, the default works great for most podcast recordings. Enter code WOODS50 to get 50% off your first order. No account needed, just your email and payment. You'll get a download link in your inbox with your cleaned up files. It's Perfect for podcasts, YouTube videos, sermons, audiobooks, you name it. If your recording sounds rough, the Podsworth app can make it not only listenable, but professional. Remember, when you use code WOODS50, you'll get half off your first order and you'll also be supporting this show.