Speaker 1: Leaning a light. Man like this man letting butterfly flapping
Speaker 1: his wing. Dig down in a forest.
Speaker 2: Man, it gonna cause the tree fall, letting five thousand
Speaker 2: miles away.
Speaker 1: Man, nobody seen nobody else. You don't need no man
Speaker 1: like you fall story and you got back like that.
Speaker 1: Man got black and dang on the panel.
Speaker 2: Man, Man, you don't matter.
Speaker 1: Man, I know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, All right, Hunger the die merchant, walk back to
Speaker 2: the J. Burton Show.
Speaker 1: How you doing, man, I'm doing good. Man. It's been
Speaker 1: it's been a while since we've talked online or even
Speaker 1: in person.
Speaker 2: It's been a while, I know, I know, an unfortunately
Speaker 2: long amount of time. Uh, you are one of my boys.
Speaker 2: Anytime we're at a party together, we're always having a
Speaker 2: grand old time. Maybe it's just the like the xenophilic Anglo,
Speaker 2: but I've been unreasonably proud that you handed me my
Speaker 2: med card. But in all seriousness, right, you have, shall
Speaker 2: we say, some experience with Lebanon and Lebanese culture, and
Speaker 2: obviously that has become much more relevant due to the
Speaker 2: ongoing war in Iran, so or war with Iran, I guess.
Speaker 2: So before we get into the kind of history of this,
Speaker 2: if you could. Could you just explain what is going
Speaker 2: on in Lebanon right now, right why has this become
Speaker 2: a front of a war, extensibly with Iran, which you know, look,
Speaker 2: I'm an American, I'm not great at geography. But Iran
Speaker 2: and Lebanon are you know they're different countries right?
Speaker 1: No. Absolutely, And just just for the sake of the audience,
Speaker 1: you know, my name's Hunger. I am a member of
Speaker 1: the Old Glory Club. I am the unofficial Hummus correspondent,
Speaker 1: so I get brought on whenever Middle Eastern Shenanigans start happening.
Speaker 1: I am also now the discount fear Assmodad because I
Speaker 1: love that guy. We're mutuals on Twitter, but he is
Speaker 1: he is just like wicked smart. And I'm the son
Speaker 1: of Lebanese immigrants. I am American citizen, but I've have
Speaker 1: a lot of experience in the Middle East. I've lived
Speaker 1: in the Middle East for quite a number of years,
Speaker 1: so I'm coming to this from that kind of background
Speaker 1: of I am ethnically Lebanese. I have been in America
Speaker 1: for a very very long time. I am American citizen
Speaker 1: and I still go back. I still visit and I've
Speaker 1: been there many many times. I used to live there
Speaker 1: for quite some time. But the situation that's going on
Speaker 1: right now is seriously not good, not good in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. Like Lebanon has been in a downward
Speaker 1: spiral pretty much since COVID and probably a little bit
Speaker 1: before COVID. Pretty much since twenty nineteen. Lebanon has been
Speaker 1: in like a real downward spiral, and like nothing hasn't
Speaker 1: gotten better. The rate of inflation is absolutely insane. The
Speaker 1: currency hyper inflated. This is this is what's funny. The
Speaker 1: currency hyper inflated in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one to
Speaker 1: the point where, like it wasn't Germany, you know, barrels
Speaker 1: I mean like wheel barrels of dollars, but it might
Speaker 1: as well have happened that way. Ninety percent of the
Speaker 1: population lost almost all their savings, almost like literally almost
Speaker 1: all their savings the banks. There was a run on
Speaker 1: the banks, no one could get their money out, there
Speaker 1: were capital controls. It was just really fucked up the
Speaker 1: way the economics have played out, and how the banking
Speaker 1: system collapsed after COVID, I mean before COVID and continuing
Speaker 1: through COVID. So it was Lebanon was already not in
Speaker 1: a good place. Lebanon is a very diverse country, not ethnically,
Speaker 1: but diverse religiously. It's a third Christian, well, actually probably
Speaker 1: at this point it's like twenty five thirty percent Christian.
Speaker 1: It used to be a third. It's probably it's probably
Speaker 1: less than that. It's probably twenty five percent right now.
Speaker 1: It is a third Shia Muslim, which is the same
Speaker 1: religion as Iran. It's also a third Sunny Muslim, which
Speaker 1: is the same as you know, the rest of the
Speaker 1: Arab world, like Saudi Arabia. And it's like ten percent Drews.
Speaker 1: And nobody knows what the Jews are. I mean they're
Speaker 1: they're important, but like they're for the for the sake
Speaker 1: of this conversation, they're not irrelevant esoteric ethno secretary and
Speaker 1: religious sect.
Speaker 2: The Drews are to religion what like the Thinns are
Speaker 2: to Europe. I will not explain on that.
Speaker 1: Yes, you probably know more than most on that. It's
Speaker 1: it's a weird I don't know. Yeah, it's like no
Speaker 1: one really, no one really knows what they are. No
Speaker 1: one really knows what they believe. I mean they if
Speaker 1: you ask a drewis person, Like what is Jruism. They
Speaker 1: don't even know themselves, Like the religion is like very
Speaker 1: very very well kept secret of like what they actually
Speaker 1: believe in. I don't know if like anyone has ever
Speaker 1: actually deep dived into it. But that's just some like
Speaker 1: esoteric lore. It's not it's not relevant to the purpose
Speaker 1: of this conversation. So, yeah, Lebanon has not been in
Speaker 1: a good place. It's a very divided country religiously, and
Speaker 1: this has caused a lot of problems. There is basically
Speaker 1: an enormous sectarian oligar key. Every religion in the country Christian, Sunni,
Speaker 1: Shia Drews has their own faction and everything that this
Speaker 1: how do I say? This results in the government basically
Speaker 1: being non functional. It's basically a failed state and all
Speaker 1: but name, like nothing works. The country doesn't have twenty
Speaker 1: four hour electricity, like people have own private generators to
Speaker 1: meet like a half of their electricity demands. There's they
Speaker 1: don't have twenty four hour running water. They have private
Speaker 1: water companies that supply half of the water in the
Speaker 1: entire country. Because the state might as well not exist.
Speaker 1: It's literally a failed state and all but name beautiful country,
Speaker 1: an incredible society. Like this is like I say all this,
Speaker 1: but like it's not Somalia, like it's people do have capital,
Speaker 1: people do have wealth. It's more like Brazil in that sense.
Speaker 2: So what is currently happening as far as this war
Speaker 2: in Lebanon? Right? Who is fighting there? You know, what
Speaker 2: are the teams so to speak? And you know what
Speaker 2: is that like for I'm obviously that's a vague question,
Speaker 2: but like what are the conditions like on the ground.
Speaker 1: No, for sure. So why Lebanon is important and why
Speaker 1: Lebanon keeps coming up and all of these and all
Speaker 1: of these discussions about the Middle East and Iran is
Speaker 1: for two reasons. That one, it has a border with Israel.
Speaker 1: It is on the northern border of Israel. It's next
Speaker 1: to Syria as well. Syria and Lebanon share the northern
Speaker 1: border with our favorite democracy. This is one of these
Speaker 1: seven fronts that the Iranians have been activating, you know,
Speaker 1: ever since this showdown has happened, like ever since the
Speaker 1: show then happened over the past many years. You know,
Speaker 1: Lebanon was being bombed by Israel in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: Lebanon was being bombed by Israel during the Twelve Day War.
Speaker 1: So that's a very big reason. The other big reason
Speaker 1: is because a third of the Lebanese population is Shia Muslim,
Speaker 1: which is the same religion as i Ran. I should
Speaker 1: probably explain why that's the case, Like the Iranians view
Speaker 1: the Shia Lebanese the same way as the Americans view
Speaker 1: the Israelis. In some in some sense, there is actually
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory among the secular liberal Iranians that, like
Speaker 1: the Iranian government is controlled by the Lebanese mafia or
Speaker 1: the Lebanese lobby, you know, in all and all but name,
Speaker 1: this is a similar relationship that America has to Israel
Speaker 1: that Iran has to Lebanon and particularly the Shia. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Iranians don't care about the Sundays, the Aaranians don't
Speaker 1: care about the Christians for better, for better or worse,
Speaker 1: but they absolutely care about the leban Asia the same
Speaker 1: way that Americans care about the Israelis. And the reason
Speaker 1: for that is actually it's actually it goes much deeper
Speaker 1: into the history then you probably think that in the
Speaker 1: sixteenth century, you know, all the way back then, Shia
Speaker 1: Muslims in Lebanon and Iraq were imported to Iran. I
Speaker 1: mean Iran was already Iran was already Shia. But the
Speaker 1: ideology of these Lebanese and Iraqi clerics was used by
Speaker 1: the Safavid Empire. The Safavid Empire was the was like
Speaker 1: one of the great Persian empires, like we we remember
Speaker 1: ancient Persia, like the a Kaemenids, the Sasanians, we remember those.
Speaker 1: But after the Muslim conquests, like Iran was occupied. Iran
Speaker 1: was occupied and conquered for centuries, and the nation the
Speaker 1: great Persian empire that sprung out and like reconquered all
Speaker 1: that land and like liberated the Persians more or less,
Speaker 1: was a Shiite Islamic empire known as the Safavids and
Speaker 1: the Saphavid government, and the emperor is Maiel. Yeah, I believe.
Speaker 1: I believe it's emperor is May. He imported these Lebanese
Speaker 1: and Iraqi clerics and they taught the state ideology of Islam.
Speaker 1: And the two pillars of you know, the Safavid Empire
Speaker 1: were the emperor, the Shaw as we know it today,
Speaker 1: the Shaw is the emperor. The two pillars of the
Speaker 1: state were the Shaw and the clerics, the Mullahs. So
Speaker 1: this relationship between the Lebanese and the Iraqis and the Persians,
Speaker 1: even though they're different, they're ethnically different. Like Persians are
Speaker 1: not Arabs. Any Persian will tell you that if you
Speaker 1: just asked them, Persians are not Arabs. But the Lebanese
Speaker 1: in the Iraqi Shia literally intermarried so thoroughly into the
Speaker 1: clerical class, the Mola class, that they're basically indistinguishable at
Speaker 1: this point, and that class of Mola's is what's running
Speaker 1: Iran today. And this is why it's important to Iran.
Speaker 1: This is a This is the special relationship that the
Speaker 1: Lebanese and the Iranians have, the Shia Lebanese and the
Speaker 1: Iranians have, so.
Speaker 2: Obviously that explains the kind of cultural ties. But as
Speaker 2: regards this kind of current war, I guess, just because
Speaker 2: I haven't been following this your day to day, at
Speaker 2: what point did Lebanon become a theater in this war?
Speaker 2: Was it immediately? Was it something that was slowly walked
Speaker 2: into because I think, like a lot of people, I
Speaker 2: primarily became aware of it once it became a sort
Speaker 2: of contentious part of the negotiations for this sort of
Speaker 2: like abortive forty eight hour cease fire whatever we're technically in.
Speaker 2: It's a very bizarre situation on that front. But when
Speaker 2: did violence pick back up in Lebanon?
Speaker 1: So, for I guess the best way to address that
Speaker 1: is over the past fifty years, pretty much since yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say pretty much since nineteen seventy nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: Lebanon has been a front against Israel for many people.
Speaker 1: Before I ran, it was a front for the Syrians.
Speaker 1: Before the Syrians, it was a front for the Palestinians
Speaker 1: because many Palestinians escaped Palestine into Lebanon. They crossed the
Speaker 1: northern border and they set up molist Are groups to
Speaker 1: fight the Israelis, you know, in southern Lebanon. So Lebanon
Speaker 1: has always been a front against Israel, willingly or unwillingly
Speaker 1: at many times, many many times. But the particular Iranian
Speaker 1: element came into existence after the Islamic Revolution in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, when the Iranians you know, overthrew the Shaw,
Speaker 1: the pro Western Shaw. The Mola class was you know, elevated.
Speaker 1: The Mola class was running the entire, the entire show,
Speaker 1: and Ayatola Holmeni and all of these other clerics that
Speaker 1: had intermarried with the Shia, Lebanese started sending money and
Speaker 1: weapons to local Shiites in the region and in particularly Lebanon.
Speaker 1: This led in the early eighties to the creation of
Speaker 1: the group we know today as Hesbela. Hezbelah was born
Speaker 1: basically born in nineteen eighty two as a reaction to
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty two Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Israel invades
Speaker 1: Lebanon in nineteen eighty two. There are many reasons why
Speaker 1: they invaded. It's a very, very long story. I am
Speaker 1: not going to go into the huge topic of the
Speaker 1: Lebanese Civil War. That's just a huge topic in and
Speaker 1: of itself. But Israel invades Lebanon in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: and occupies half the country. Half of that half of
Speaker 1: that country is where all the sites of Lebanon lived.
Speaker 1: So the Lebanese sites were living under the oppression of
Speaker 1: the Israelis and the Iranians who had intermarried with them.
Speaker 1: And I mean like Hassan Nosrolla, who was the most
Speaker 1: recent leader of Hezbolah before he was assassinated two years ago.
Speaker 1: I believe a son is married to the daughter of Ayatodahamani.
Speaker 1: So like this interimarriage has existed for a very very
Speaker 1: long time, like these people intermarry each other all the time,
Speaker 1: because this is the clerical class, and the clerics in Iran,
Speaker 1: you know, are very religious extremists, and so are the Shiahs.
Speaker 1: So Israel invades Lebanon in nineteen eighty two, it is
Speaker 1: a very brutal and bloody invasion. It is a very
Speaker 1: brutal and bloody occupation. Israel occupies southern Lebanon for twenty
Speaker 1: years from nineteen seventy eight. There was an early invasion
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy eight. Again many, many such reasons. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to get into the whole Lebanese Civil war.
Speaker 1: Israel invade southern Lebanon nineteen seventy eight, They occupy half
Speaker 1: the country in nineteen eighty two, and they occupy southern
Speaker 1: Lebanon for twenty two years. Under that time, a large
Speaker 1: percentage of the Lebanese sites were living under Israeli occupation.
Speaker 1: And this was the well that has blood drew upon.
Speaker 1: With Iranian funding, Iranian you know, secret services, Iranian special forces,
Speaker 1: Iranian training, Iranian technology, all of these things were transferred
Speaker 1: to their cousins in Lebanon to fight this war and
Speaker 1: to resist the occupation. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in the
Speaker 1: year two thousand. You know, was that a good decision
Speaker 1: on their part? I don't know. But Israel withdrew from
Speaker 1: Lebanon in the year two thousand, but the struggle of
Speaker 1: the resistance was kept alive. Because Lebanon is a failed state.
Speaker 1: The army is not big. The national army, I should say, then,
Speaker 1: national Army of Lebanon. We do have a national army
Speaker 1: that is separate from HESBLA. These are not the same,
Speaker 1: These are not the same thing at all. Is incredibly weak,
Speaker 1: incredibly outdated. We do have some really cool, some really
Speaker 1: really good special forces that have trained with like US
Speaker 1: Marines and Green Berets. But this is not a This
Speaker 1: is not a real national army. It is a militarized
Speaker 1: police force. This is not a real conventional army. There's
Speaker 1: nothing the Lebanese army could do to stop the Israelis
Speaker 1: or fight the Israelis. It's just like, this is just
Speaker 1: the reality. So Hesbelah not being a national army, not
Speaker 1: being bound by the laws of states, being a militia
Speaker 1: group could use asymmetric war to defend Lebanon, but also
Speaker 1: more importantly to advance the interests of Iran visa the Israel.
Speaker 1: There was another war between Hesbela and Israel in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. There have been clashes. I mean, Israel
Speaker 1: again again invaded Lebanon in twenty twenty four. It bombed
Speaker 1: Lebanon in twenty twenty five during the Twelve Day War.
Speaker 1: It is currently invading and bombing Lebanon now in the
Speaker 1: all of this war, and it is Hezbolah versus Israel,
Speaker 1: this militant Shia group that was founded by extremist Chia
Speaker 1: Muslims to drive the Israelis out of occupied Lebanon and
Speaker 1: gets all of its funding and weapons and and tech
Speaker 1: and you know intel from Mother Iran. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say this is still going on to this day
Speaker 1: and Israel is still invading Lebanon. It's the ceasefire after
Speaker 1: you know, after Israel broke the ceasefire, it literally bombed
Speaker 1: the entire country, especially Bari was hit particularly hard. You know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of people died, I mean like over like a
Speaker 1: couple thousand people were injured and needed like blood donations.
Speaker 1: It was it was just terrible. But after that you know,
Speaker 1: after that bombing run Israel kind of Israel basically promised
Speaker 1: the Americans like, Okay, we're going to stop bombing Beiruts,
Speaker 1: you know, the capital city, but we're not going to
Speaker 1: stop our invasion. The invasion is still happening right now,
Speaker 1: and the only people resisting the invasion right now are Hesbela.
Speaker 2: So one of the claims you see made by shall
Speaker 2: we say, motivated partisans in this sort of discourse is
Speaker 2: you will hear people say things like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 2: the the Israeli actions in Lebanon are working. They're making
Speaker 2: Hesbelah less and less popular. Right, people on the ground
Speaker 2: are blaming Hesbela for these Israeli strikes, and soon they
Speaker 2: will basically have had enough and say, you know what, Hesbela,
Speaker 2: you have to leave. We have nothing else in common
Speaker 2: with the Rand now we like Israel. Now. Of course,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm saying that in sort of a deliberately
Speaker 2: absurd way, but it's not far off from Indian al sis.
Speaker 2: You'll read. So do you think there's anything to that? Right?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Is there a building anger towards Hesbola?
Speaker 1: Yes, it depends who you talk to, but that is
Speaker 1: a one hundred percent the case with many people, not all. Again,
Speaker 1: that's all Lebanon is in such a really shitty situation
Speaker 1: that the economy is so bad, the government is so
Speaker 1: dysfunctional that adding war on top of that, it just
Speaker 1: it just wrecks people. It just blackmails people, like I
Speaker 1: talk to family members, I talk to friends who still
Speaker 1: live there, and it's just like it's incredibly depressing. It
Speaker 1: is so incredibly depressing that it drives people to emigrant.
Speaker 1: It really really drives people to leave and give up
Speaker 1: because the situation is so hopeless and there is no solution. Shit,
Speaker 1: even before the war, like, even before this war started,
Speaker 1: the situation was hope and there was no solution. No
Speaker 1: one believed Lebanon was gonna like turn around and fix itself.
Speaker 1: Like in many ways, it's much off. It's much worse
Speaker 1: off than Brazil in many many ways. The political problems
Speaker 1: are so intractable that like it literally just causes you know,
Speaker 1: people to blackpill get into gambling, do reckless things and
Speaker 1: just I don't know, like deaths of despair and just
Speaker 1: just emigrate. Just emigrate. There's a reason my parents emigrated.
Speaker 1: There's a reason millions of Lebanese have emigrated because the
Speaker 1: situation there is absolutely it's just an absolute shit show
Speaker 1: there is I really, I know that's I know you're
Speaker 1: trying to how do I say? I'm going to give
Speaker 1: them the benefit of the doubt. But those detractors are
Speaker 1: not wrong. The sunny Muslims of Lebanon despise Hesbla and
Speaker 1: despise the sites for many legitimate and also some illegitimate reasons.
Speaker 1: This is totally justified in their mind. They would rather
Speaker 1: side with Israel temporarily temporarily to defeat Hesbula than fight
Speaker 1: alongside Shia heretics. They are heretics in their opinion against Israel.
Speaker 1: This is like, there are groups in Lebanon trying to
Speaker 1: use this war with Israel to weaken Hesbelah because Hesbela
Speaker 1: is the top dog in the Lebanese political system. It
Speaker 1: is the only group in Lebanon allowed to basically maintain
Speaker 1: its own militia. It is basically the only only group
Speaker 1: in Lebanon that is like has access to I don't know,
Speaker 1: like continental ballistic missiles. I mean not continental ballistic missiles,
Speaker 1: but I mean high tech high tech weaponry, like high
Speaker 1: tech anti ship missiles. They do have anti ship missiles,
Speaker 1: high tech drones, high tech any kind of missile you
Speaker 1: want under the sun, like Hesbela has access to this,
Speaker 1: but no other faction of you know, the very religiously
Speaker 1: diverse Lebanon does. They are the only They're the only
Speaker 1: one that has the real monopoly on force and no
Speaker 1: one else does. And this causes huge disincentives because the
Speaker 1: country is such a shit show. I really hate talking
Speaker 1: about this, but there are groups in Lebanon. The Christians
Speaker 1: are split. There are some Christians that support has Belah.
Speaker 1: There are many Christians that don't support Hasbelah. I don't
Speaker 1: go I don't choose a side one way of another.
Speaker 1: I am not I am not a big fan of Hesbela.
Speaker 1: But if you had to, if you put a gun
Speaker 1: to my head and ask me, like would you rather
Speaker 1: be occupied by Israel or occupied by the Sahites, like
Speaker 1: I choose the Sahites, okay, And it can't stand. That's
Speaker 1: just that's just my personal opinion. Many people in Lebanon
Speaker 1: have a different opinion. They want to use the Israelis
Speaker 1: as a battering ram against their domestic political opponents, which
Speaker 1: are hes below. So that that is completely true in
Speaker 1: the on that front hunger.
Speaker 2: When you and I were speaking earlier, you mentioned that
Speaker 2: you've been following this conflict closely for obvious reasons. Perhaps,
Speaker 2: So what do you make of this sort of bizarre
Speaker 2: situation where we have the Pakistanis ostensibly acting as some
Speaker 2: sort of negotiators for the ceasefire that simultaneously is and
Speaker 2: isn't happening. I'll admit I've sort of lost the plot
Speaker 2: on this point. I don't really know what is happening
Speaker 2: because very very early, of course, you have this bizarre
Speaker 2: situation where it seems as if there was either a
Speaker 2: miscommunication or just simple incompetence on behalf of the Pakistanis
Speaker 2: that led to a significant misunderstanding in what the terms
Speaker 2: of this ceasefire will really were and weren't. And while
Speaker 2: we're talking about things that are both true and not true,
Speaker 2: obviously se candarily there is the idea of well, is
Speaker 2: the strait of horror moves open or not? Right? It
Speaker 2: seems as if currently it's very unclear what is actually happening.
Speaker 1: No, that's a that's one hundred percent sure. The the
Speaker 1: media environment is so polluted that no one, nobody knows
Speaker 1: what the fuck is going on. Which is which is
Speaker 1: so hard to discuss this, which is why, and which
Speaker 1: is why there's so many competing narratives, and that that's
Speaker 1: a deliberate choice. There's obviously tons of misinformation out there,
Speaker 1: and you have to take every you know, official, I
Speaker 1: guess government statement with a enormous grain of salt. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not I'm I'm less interested in what's
Speaker 1: happening now like is like is like, this is Schrodinger's
Speaker 1: straight this is Schrodinger's cease fire, Like nobody fucking knows
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on. I'm much more interested
Speaker 1: in how this happened because from all the indications I
Speaker 1: can tell, was that Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff completely
Speaker 1: torpedoed the potential for a deal with Iran. I think
Speaker 1: there has I think there's plenty of evidence, plenty of
Speaker 1: evidence I've seen to suggest this. The Omanis who are mediating,
Speaker 1: who are mediating the talks before the Pakistanis, the British
Speaker 1: who were also there at the negotiations with the Omanis,
Speaker 1: between the Americans and the Iranians, just they all confirm
Speaker 1: that there was a deal on the table. We had
Speaker 1: a very workable framework and needed a little bit more time,
Speaker 1: but both sides basically agreed to like eighty to ninety
Speaker 1: percent on all the issues, and then Trump launched the
Speaker 1: war about you know a week later, you have you
Speaker 1: heard similar things, because that's what I've heard, and I
Speaker 1: think that is totally accurate with the facts.
Speaker 2: That is accurate to what I have heard. Now, I
Speaker 2: believe that there is it is in dispute even among
Speaker 2: the anti Iran war faction right as to why, right
Speaker 2: effect like why we went to war with Iran? You know,
Speaker 2: what was the internal narrative? You have some people as
Speaker 2: diverse as random Internet anti semites all the way up
Speaker 2: to I don't know, Marco Rubio, and at least Trump
Speaker 2: sort of intimating this that effectively, the Israelis strong armed
Speaker 2: us into it. You have others more cynically basically saying like, no,
Speaker 2: this all goes back to, you know, effectively, just Trump's
Speaker 2: slavish devotion to Israel. He wasn't forced at all. This
Speaker 2: is what he wanted to do. And again, speaking about
Speaker 2: the incredibly polluted media landscape on this, there's so much
Speaker 2: narrative lying around, even compared to the Ukraine War, which
Speaker 2: was another situation where it felt as if there was
Speaker 2: absolutely no ability to tell what was going on. It's
Speaker 2: it's very, very difficult to tell. But I mean that
Speaker 2: doesn't surprise me. I didn't know that, right, but I mean,
Speaker 2: just based off of what we have seen and our
Speaker 2: relative relationship to the state of Israel, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: not shocked by that.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, And how do I say this. I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I'm happy you mentioned Russia and Ukraine because this was
Speaker 1: that was another war I followed very very closely for
Speaker 1: a very long time. I mean until like Middle Eastern
Speaker 1: Shenetigan's got in the way and I gave up. I
Speaker 1: gave up following that conflict. But that was the big thing.
Speaker 1: That was the big thing that happened, you know, before
Speaker 1: October seventh. And like, I think the world has changed
Speaker 1: so much before October seventh, And like the way I
Speaker 1: see the way the things I see happening now in
Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf, in the military situation on the ground
Speaker 1: is that no one has learned anything from Russia Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Nobody has learned anything except the Iranians. The Iranians have
Speaker 1: learned a lot from Russia and Ukraine, but no one
Speaker 1: else has The Americans especially have not, The Gulf States
Speaker 1: have not. Israel definitely has not, and that is shown
Speaker 1: by their lack of success in dealing with Hesbela and Lebanon,
Speaker 1: like Hesbula is not. So this goes into something I
Speaker 1: really really really want to talk about, and it's the
Speaker 1: concept of like what is a win? Like what is
Speaker 1: a win? What is the purpose? Like what does a
Speaker 1: win look like? And people get really I see a
Speaker 1: lot of cope from people on the pro Iran side,
Speaker 1: and I have many friends who who don't oppose the war.
Speaker 1: I'll say, I'll say that diplomatically. I know many people
Speaker 1: in personal life that don't oppose the war and now
Speaker 1: support the president and support our military. I absolutely support
Speaker 1: our military. That's fine. But the argument of like what
Speaker 1: is like we're winning. The argument is we're winning because
Speaker 1: we're bombing this, we're bombing that, this thing blew up.
Speaker 1: Oh you know the like just et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and fill in the blank with whatever you want.
Speaker 1: It's like, blowing things up is not victory, Like what
Speaker 1: is the like, what is the purpose of war? The
Speaker 1: purpose of wars to achieve victory? What is victory. Victory
Speaker 1: in war is when you compel the enemy to do
Speaker 1: your will. It's when you get the enemy to do
Speaker 1: things you want. This is why we have treaties, This
Speaker 1: is why we have unconditional surrender. This is why we
Speaker 1: have negotiations. We want you to do X, and we
Speaker 1: will do why if you If you do not do
Speaker 1: what we want, we will want you to. We want
Speaker 1: you to open the straight. If you don't open the straight,
Speaker 1: we will bomb your power plants. So if you cannot
Speaker 1: achieve getting the enemy to do what you want, you
Speaker 1: are not winning the war. This is extremely simple, and
Speaker 1: I just I don't I some people have a problem
Speaker 1: with this and have this simplified thinking of like we
Speaker 1: just blew up a lot of stuff, therefore we're winning well.
Speaker 2: And on that point, right, if you're going into negotiations
Speaker 2: asking for the status quoante, right, just how things were
Speaker 2: generically before. H Again, I'm not a military strategist, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't indicate that you were in a position of strength.
Speaker 2: Because if you started an aggressive war and now you're
Speaker 2: negotiating and your position is all right, fine, let's just
Speaker 2: go back to how it was. To me, that doesn't
Speaker 2: indicate that we're winning. It seems that if we were winning,
Speaker 2: we would be the ones arguing for more that we wanted,
Speaker 2: right instead of this situation before we started bombing you know,
Speaker 2: children's schools.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the status quo is you achieve nothing. The status
Speaker 1: quo is that you have literally achieved nothing. It is
Speaker 1: the status quo. Like maybe you cut your losses, maybe
Speaker 1: you could have started losing, but you know, salvaged it
Speaker 1: into a status quo, which is basically a stalemate. But whatever,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you can spin that like that's not victory, okay,
Speaker 1: like you didn't, you didn't. Wars have objectives. I can't
Speaker 1: believe I have to say this sometimes, but like wars
Speaker 1: have objectives. There are reasons we go to war, Like
Speaker 1: when the enemy stops fighting you, that is victory. When
Speaker 1: you cannot get the enemy to do something you want,
Speaker 1: that is a loss. Like this is very like this
Speaker 1: is very simple stuff like like' there's tons of books
Speaker 1: on military theory. I have only read some, but this
Speaker 1: is basic things like blowing things up in the Middle
Speaker 1: East and crashing the world economy needs to have a purpose,
Speaker 1: it needs to achieve something, and this is just what
Speaker 1: this is just what really upsets me. I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: getting I'm sorry to rant, but please please hop in.
Speaker 1: Oh no, not at all.
Speaker 2: And that's why I think it's interesting to cast our
Speaker 2: minds back to the earlier stages of this war, because well,
Speaker 2: what were the stated goals? Well, I mean kind of nothing, right,
Speaker 2: We got some some waffling about a nuclear program. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, Ron Dodson and I spoke about that at
Speaker 2: length a few weeks back. If you're interested in that
Speaker 2: more specifically, then, of course, now it seems as if
Speaker 2: focus has largely shifted towards the strait of horror moves
Speaker 2: for fairly obvious reasons. Now we're in this sort of
Speaker 2: bizarre situation where the US is blockading the straight of
Speaker 2: horror moves, uh, which is I'll be honest, it's not
Speaker 2: a good thing to happen, but it is kind of funny, like,
Speaker 2: how dare you blockade the straight I'll blockade it back.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly bizarre, and I think that that is what
Speaker 2: personally has really made me emotional. Right, Why I talk
Speaker 2: about this less than perhaps I could if I were
Speaker 2: looking to, you know, optimize for the algorithm, because at
Speaker 2: the point at which our own leaders seem to not
Speaker 2: be entirely sure why we are doing this. It becomes
Speaker 2: harder and harder to claim that we are the ones
Speaker 2: in charge, right, that we are the ones calling the shot,
Speaker 2: because you know, if this is something that we wanted
Speaker 2: to do, and we did it, even for an evil,
Speaker 2: bad reason, well we certainly could have come up with
Speaker 2: at least some fig leaf, right, at least some you know,
Speaker 2: reason why. And the fact that the reason why has
Speaker 2: come out, you know, several weeks into this, uh, it
Speaker 2: makes it very clear really why we are doing this.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't want to be characterized as
Speaker 2: a conspiracy theorist, but at the point where I don't
Speaker 2: know the Secretary of State is implying that we did
Speaker 2: this on behalf of a foreign power, I think that
Speaker 2: that is a reasonable conclusion to come to.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, and I'm going to jump off on that.
Speaker 1: It's that, you know, no one nobody in America knows
Speaker 1: what the strategy is. Nobody in America knows what the
Speaker 1: objectives are. The objectives change every week. The first I
Speaker 1: remember this, the first week of the war, the President
Speaker 1: Trump put on true social Iranians, this is your chance
Speaker 1: rise up, overthrow your government, like free, go, free yourselves.
Speaker 1: We are bombing the capital, We have killed the Ayatola.
Speaker 1: Now is your chance. This is what he said. In
Speaker 1: week one and week two there there was talk about
Speaker 1: arming the Kurds and starting a civil war in Iran.
Speaker 1: And week three after the missile strikes, then you know
Speaker 1: the shenanigans in the straight week three. In week four
Speaker 1: we get into the talk of the blockade, and we
Speaker 1: get into the talk of the street. After week one
Speaker 1: and two had field, you know, the Iranians didn't rise up.
Speaker 1: The Kurds were in no position to start a civil
Speaker 1: war or march on the government or do anything that.
Speaker 1: They were just no position to do that. So Ever,
Speaker 1: since then, we've been on the focus on the street
Speaker 1: because none of our our real objectives in this war
Speaker 1: are not American objectives. They are Israeli objectives. And everyone
Speaker 1: knows this. The strategy America is following is not an
Speaker 1: American strategy. It is an Israeli strategy, which is why
Speaker 1: Israel is fighting all of these wars because they have
Speaker 1: a strategy. Their strategy is not complicated, it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to understand. But us being a part of that strategy
Speaker 1: and not having our own reasons to do it is
Speaker 1: a huge I don't know, like it, where's the sovereignty
Speaker 1: Like It's like a nation that has sovereignty doesn't do this,
Speaker 1: a nation that has sovereignty doesn't follow the strategy of
Speaker 1: another state like that. That is just laiantly obvious. The
Speaker 1: Israeli strategy, it's pretty it's pretty simple. We all know it.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not complicated. It's that they want the
Speaker 1: Americans to overthrow the regime in Iran. How does this
Speaker 1: benefit America. That's up for debate. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get into I'm not going to get into that debate,
Speaker 1: but it definitely it definitely benefits the Israelis. Definitely benefits
Speaker 1: the Israelis because you're cutting off the head of the snake,
Speaker 1: which is how and Yahoo always speaks about Iran that
Speaker 1: all of these militia groups like the hu Thies, like Hasibulah,
Speaker 1: like Hummas, if you cut off Iran, all of these
Speaker 1: other groups will disintegrate. I don't believe that to be true,
Speaker 1: but there's at least that's at least that at least
Speaker 1: makes sense, that that makes a ton of strategic sense.
Speaker 1: And because Israel is so small and Iran is so
Speaker 1: are away they can't do it themselves, no matter how
Speaker 1: no matter how much how much air power Israel has,
Speaker 1: it's never gonna take Iran. It's never going to overthrow
Speaker 1: the government there. It's just not it just doesn't have
Speaker 1: the resources. It's not possible. It's too small, it's too
Speaker 1: far away. So the strategy that Israel is having is
Speaker 1: very clear, but that's not our strategy. That's not the
Speaker 1: American strategy. And that's why nothing here makes sense.
Speaker 2: Well, and it comes down to a very very fundamental question,
Speaker 2: which is one who is sovereign right, because ultimately, you know,
Speaker 2: sobernity when we really comes down to it, it is
Speaker 2: do you have the ability to know to wage war
Speaker 2: right on your own terms? And so you know, we
Speaker 2: could look at a lot of European countries and say
Speaker 2: they're not sovereign, at least not fully sovereign, and that's
Speaker 2: you know, accurate analysis. Well, if we're taking orders, if
Speaker 2: we're being strong armed, it's like, well, okay, clearly great.
Speaker 2: On a curve, America is more sovereign than you know,
Speaker 2: probably a nation like Trinidad and Tobago. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to insult the Trinidadians listening to this, but
Speaker 2: I feel like I am safe in that assertion. But
Speaker 2: on another level, and I think this is particularly interesting
Speaker 2: because as a longtime observer of the sort of former
Speaker 2: liberals in the conservative world right who tend to be
Speaker 2: quite Zionist, it's interesting. Okay, yeah, I wasn't gonna say
Speaker 2: his name, but that's who I meant. You know, there's
Speaker 2: some other people there too, Shapiro, I guess he was
Speaker 2: not a former liberal, but that wing right, the the
Speaker 2: neo neocons, if you will, Because one of the questions
Speaker 2: that drove those people into an apoplectic rage is the
Speaker 2: question of well, who is an American right? Because obviously,
Speaker 2: if you have this idea of America first, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea that the purpose of a country is to
Speaker 2: exist as a home for those people, you know, like
Speaker 2: not quite nationalism, but at least you know, kind of
Speaker 2: kissing cousins, well, obviously the question becomes, well who counts right,
Speaker 2: who's in the box and who isn't. And I think
Speaker 2: it's interesting that many of those same people, I mean, hell,
Speaker 2: A good example is, you know, Glenn Beck seemingly view
Speaker 2: the purpose of America not as a home for Americans,
Speaker 2: but it's sort of a booster rocket, right, a battery
Speaker 2: for this Middle Eastern democracy, quote unquote. And by the way,
Speaker 2: not everyone says that, but Glenn Beck quite literally did
Speaker 2: say that, right, that the purpose of America was to
Speaker 2: establish the state of Israel. And you know, my personal
Speaker 2: opinions on Abrahamic religions aside, I don't think that's true. Right,
Speaker 2: Seemingly the purpose of well, my nation is to be
Speaker 2: a home for my people, and the consequences have been dramatic.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The polling on this is abysmal, the polling for and look,
Speaker 2: we understand, you know, polls are manipulated, but I'll put
Speaker 2: it this way. This matches up with what I am
Speaker 2: seeing anecdotally, with the things that my non political friends
Speaker 2: are saying and joking about. What you see in you know,
Speaker 2: kind of real life and then also in you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of meme space, even if it's non political,
Speaker 2: is that this war in our relationship to Israel is astonishingly,
Speaker 2: astonishingly unpopular. One. You have just the raw approval numbers,
Speaker 2: so Trump is underwater with white non college attending voters
Speaker 2: for the first time ever, right, it was something like
Speaker 2: a forty point slump since he started his presidency. But
Speaker 2: even across the board, if we're just looking at purely
Speaker 2: support for Israel again is creatoring absolutely crater. Right. So
Speaker 2: these numbers, I believe are ms Now's formerly MSNBC, So
Speaker 2: of course they're not likely to be kind to the president,
Speaker 2: but you know, take it for what you will. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, the net favorability of Israel for Republicans under
Speaker 2: fifty now, I mentioned earlier talking about Shapiro that this
Speaker 2: number is even more dramatic for Republican men under fifty.
Speaker 2: But this is just the pure men and women both.
Speaker 2: So in twenty twenty two Israel plus twenty eight right now,
Speaker 2: for scant years later, it's negative sixteen. And this is
Speaker 2: ostensibly in the core supporting demographic. Among all men under
Speaker 2: age fifty, it went from negative three to negative forty
Speaker 2: seven approval Moderate Democrats went from plus three to minus
Speaker 2: fifty five. Now, Americans overwhelmingly after the shall we say
Speaker 2: the Unpleasantness in October swung from plus twelve for Israelis
Speaker 2: to plus twelve for Palestinians or negative eleven for Israelis.
Speaker 2: Although I assume there's someone who in that conflict feels
Speaker 2: the worst for I don't know the Lebanese, but point is,
Speaker 2: in all seriousness, right, this is an apocalyptic explosion of
Speaker 2: domestic political capital. This is going very, very poorly. And look,
Speaker 2: I realize it, Hunger, You and I are in a bubble,
Speaker 2: a group of people who, compared to the average person,
Speaker 2: care much much more about foreign policy than the guy
Speaker 2: down the street. But you don't really have to know
Speaker 2: a lot about foreign policy to realize you're kind of
Speaker 2: getting screwed. To realize that they make America great again, well,
Speaker 2: it turns out that only really applied to you if
Speaker 2: you were a boomer guy with a tiny hat better
Speaker 2: even if you're a combination of both. And this divide,
Speaker 2: particularly in the conservative world, is raging. I'm sure, Hunger,
Speaker 2: you remember the big blow up at Heritage where the
Speaker 2: conclusion was basically, get rid of anyone under forty. They're
Speaker 2: probably a groper. You must be a groper because you
Speaker 2: wouldn't go to Shabbat dinner. Well, okay, that one blew up,
Speaker 2: that one got big, that one hit the press. The
Speaker 2: same thing is happening everywhere, the same thing is happening
Speaker 2: across conservative institutions and by and large culture writ large,
Speaker 2: and so one hundred percent right college Republicans, maybe the
Speaker 2: Young Republicans right, which it turns out I didn't realize
Speaker 2: this that Young Republicans is under forty, which you know,
Speaker 2: look like we're kind of stretching the definition there, But
Speaker 2: point is right. We see this fight over and over
Speaker 2: and over again. And look, this war would be unpopular
Speaker 2: even if we did it all on our own because
Speaker 2: it's hitting people at the gas pumps. It seems to
Speaker 2: be the Trump administration giving up on the domestic fight,
Speaker 2: giving up on the list of promises to break one right,
Speaker 2: four and mores. That would be bad enough. But when
Speaker 2: you throw in the fact that this war is tied
Speaker 2: at the hip to a country that, as I intimated earlier,
Speaker 2: is becoming less and less popular, well what do you
Speaker 2: think was gonna happen? And to your point earlier about
Speaker 2: you know, the scenes from Beirut, Like, I'll be honest, man,
Speaker 2: like I am not. I am not Lebanese. I've never
Speaker 2: been to Lebanon. I will probably never go to Lebanon.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to pretend to be biased other
Speaker 2: than I like you. You know, we hang out every once
Speaker 2: in a while, but you know, I've met people from
Speaker 2: all across the world. But very fundamentally, the insult to injury,
Speaker 2: the fact that you know, people like me are being screwed,
Speaker 2: that you know, the economy is very very bad. Fact
Speaker 2: that we're fighting a war on behalf of other people
Speaker 2: is that we are not only fighting that war people
Speaker 2: like me are dying on behalf of I don't know
Speaker 2: someone else, but also the actual fighting in that war
Speaker 2: has been brutish and nasty, right, even by the standards
Speaker 2: of modern war. You you have an unarmed ship coming back
Speaker 2: from a naval exercise being blown up, the first submarine
Speaker 2: kill in decades. You have an accidental and I truly
Speaker 2: do hope and pray that it was accidental strike on
Speaker 2: the you know, Iranian girls school, which killed what one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty six You have you know, the strikes
Speaker 2: on be route right civilian centers, and then also at
Speaker 2: the same time, it seems as if the atrocities have
Speaker 2: ratcheted up back in Gaza, right, they're using this as
Speaker 2: air cover And sorry, Hunger, I realized this is supposed
Speaker 2: to be an interview show, and you've got me on
Speaker 2: like a twenty minute rant anyway, But I want to
Speaker 2: fit this point. And when you have allegedly American commentariat,
Speaker 2: you know, people like Alan Dershowitz, people like Ben Shapiro
Speaker 2: Prize at the end, if you can figure out what
Speaker 2: they have in common, well they'll tell you, Well, you're
Speaker 2: part of the grievance party. You're basically woke. You know,
Speaker 2: you're just like the blue haired feminist. If you think
Speaker 2: that there is something objectionable about living in a country
Speaker 2: with no sovereignty, you know people like you being blown
Speaker 2: up or blowing up other people who've never really done
Speaker 2: anything wrong to you. And I don't say this as
Speaker 2: a piece nick, I don't say this as someone who's
Speaker 2: opposed to war conceptually that understands that. You know, modern
Speaker 2: wars are dangerous things, they're nasty things. But when it's
Speaker 2: done on behalf of someone else, when it is being
Speaker 2: done instead of something that would actually affect you, that
Speaker 2: would make your life better, Well, forgive me if I
Speaker 2: don't find the claim that I am woke for objecting
Speaker 2: to that to be particularly strong.
Speaker 1: No, one hundred percent, I agree with basically everything you said.
Speaker 1: The question always goes back to what was this for?
Speaker 1: Like you can ask you can ask that question for
Speaker 1: any war, for any human conflict in history, what was
Speaker 1: it for? And there are good reasons to have war,
Speaker 1: There are many good reasons to have for. But what
Speaker 1: was this war for? Was it to advance? Was it
Speaker 1: to I don't know, advance American instruments interests in Central Asia? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a reason I can understand. That's a reason that
Speaker 1: makes sense. That's a reason that makes sense. But that's
Speaker 1: not what we're being told. There are some cope answers
Speaker 1: that this is to hurt China. I don't believe that
Speaker 1: for a second, but I China. Israel is very agnostic
Speaker 1: on China. I don't think that has anything to do
Speaker 1: with the situation. Like another thing that people say is that,
Speaker 1: you know, we've only lost what thirteen service members? Was it? Like?
Speaker 1: It might be a little more than that. I can't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know the exact number of
Speaker 1: American true we've lost, but I think the last number
Speaker 1: I saw was thirteen. So I'll just go with that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's so little. Oh we lost you know, we lost
Speaker 1: thousands of guys in Iraq, in Afghanistan, which which is
Speaker 1: totally true. Over twenty years, we lost was it six
Speaker 1: thousand troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over twenty years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like, okay, thirteen in a month, Like that's not good,
Speaker 1: but like that's nothing in comparison. But like I said,
Speaker 1: the only question of that matter's like, Okay, what was
Speaker 1: it for? Why did we lose those thirteen guys to achieve?
Speaker 1: To achieve what to achieve Schrodinger's blockade, to achieve Schrodinger's
Speaker 1: cease fire, to achieve the status quote. If a goal
Speaker 1: is to achieve the status quote, then those thirteen guys
Speaker 1: died in vain. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say that,
Speaker 1: And I really I love the American military. I know
Speaker 1: plenty of guys who served. We both know plenty of
Speaker 1: guys who've served or have served in the military. Like
Speaker 1: that is so depressing to think about.
Speaker 2: Well, and when we say died in being it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that those men didn't act valiantly. You know that
Speaker 2: they weren't doing something individually brave. From the sheer kind
Speaker 2: of balance, shee element of it, It's like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you are in any war sort of betting lives to
Speaker 2: achieve an objective, and well, if the scope has shifted
Speaker 2: to oh jeez, let's just get it back to how
Speaker 2: it was. Well, there's a much better way to keep
Speaker 2: things exactly as they are, and that is not to
Speaker 2: start a war in the first place. So what you've lost,
Speaker 2: those lives, you've lost, they are the sunk cost. You've
Speaker 2: already you know, ended those lives, and now you're going
Speaker 2: to end more to just sort of get back to
Speaker 2: where we started. And if it's a defensive war, fair enough, right,
Speaker 2: if you're trying to push someone back to a frontier
Speaker 2: they've invaded, then that's perhaps laudable and would would make sense.
Speaker 2: You know, they're sure a status quo ante in that sense.
Speaker 1: But it's Soviet Union, the Soviet and lost five million
Speaker 1: men under arms and fifteen million men, fifty million civilians
Speaker 1: and five million men in the military. What do they gain.
Speaker 1: They gained all of Eastern Europe, and they destroyed Nazi Germany,
Speaker 1: and they were the superpower of the world and like
Speaker 1: all of Asia. That's what they gained at the cost
Speaker 1: of twenty million lives. Like that is understandable. Like the
Speaker 1: number is tragic, the number is horrifying, But that makes sense,
Speaker 1: just in a purely amoral military calculation.
Speaker 2: Certainly, certainly. And the other thing that makes this just
Speaker 2: so irritating and difficult to talk about is just how
Speaker 2: much they lie, constantly, just flagrant lying. So for instance, right,
Speaker 2: we'll go back to the girls' school. What was the
Speaker 2: first narrative on the girls' school. Well, it was, oh,
Speaker 2: the dumb Iranians shot there in school. They don't know
Speaker 2: how rockets work. Then it was oh, we don't know
Speaker 2: where it happened, and then it was oh, I guess
Speaker 2: it was an accident. I'm sorry, And okay, I understand again, right,
Speaker 2: it was near a military base. That's a horrible accident.
Speaker 2: I can understand that, and I even understand that there
Speaker 2: is in war there's a foggy element to it, and
Speaker 2: that there can't be perfect transparency. But when the lies
Speaker 2: get more and more completely outrageous, right where it's like, oh, uh,
Speaker 2: well the uh, I guess the the new Ayatola he's
Speaker 2: he's gay. You're like, all right, guys, really like, I
Speaker 2: mean maybe, and I understand that that term has a
Speaker 2: different a different conception in that area of the world.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be rude about that. But you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, just look at I don't know Fuco. You know,
Speaker 2: he certainly had opinions on that. I believe it was Fuca,
Speaker 2: wasn't it with the Iranian Revolution? I don't know. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to impugne the Persians here, but yes, yes,
Speaker 2: But to me, that's just like it's flagrant bs. We
Speaker 2: see that sort of lying constantly and when not only
Speaker 2: are we in this sort of bizarre subordinate position, but
Speaker 2: also our efforts at negotiating an end to this, at
Speaker 2: getting a deal are constantly being hampered by an erstwhile
Speaker 2: ally right lead Iranian negotiators being assassinated, you know, blown
Speaker 2: up along with his wife in Pakistan. Well, even this
Speaker 2: whole ceasefire to begin with, where you know, we're like,
Speaker 2: all right, great, awesome, we did it, and then wait
Speaker 2: a minute, Israel starts effectively, you know, bombing civilian centers
Speaker 2: in other nations that you know, obviously Lebanon, like, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, aren't you supposed to be our greatest ally
Speaker 2: because seemingly we're you know, not on the same page.
Speaker 2: We've decided to do something as on paper, the majority partner, right,
Speaker 2: the guy with all the stuff the guy who doesn't
Speaker 2: stop existing, you know, if they just pack up and
Speaker 2: go home.
Speaker 1: But that's the problem, that's a problem. We're not the
Speaker 1: majority partner Israel. We are the minority partner. Israel is
Speaker 1: the majority partner every time we look for the exit
Speaker 1: because this is just what like, we don't have long
Speaker 1: term interest in that region. We just don't like like,
Speaker 1: we just don't. If it wasn't for the gi Wa
Speaker 1: and oil and Israel, we would need nothing from the
Speaker 1: Middle East. It would it literally would not matter what
Speaker 1: happens there. But israel strategy is playing out exactly as
Speaker 1: they probably see it, and we're trapped. We are trapped.
Speaker 1: We are tied to the hip at the Israelis. They
Speaker 1: are going to keep us tied to the hip. And
Speaker 1: you see this in the media, you see this, how
Speaker 1: you see how Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin talk about this.
Speaker 1: We are trapped in this terrible marriage with the Israelis
Speaker 1: and they're not gonna let us leave, no matter how
Speaker 1: much we want to exit the Iranian you know, conflict,
Speaker 1: how much we try to make a deal, Well, they
Speaker 1: are doing everything in their power to sabotage that from happening.
Speaker 2: It's as you can tell the gentle audience, this is
Speaker 2: an issue I have to be careful on because I
Speaker 2: will say unadvisable things because of how angry this situation
Speaker 2: makes me. And I think that the thing that is
Speaker 2: sort of worrying going forward is it seems as if
Speaker 2: there really isn't an easy off ramp that both the
Speaker 2: Israelis and we will accept. Iran is not winning this
Speaker 2: war in the sense that they are killing more of
Speaker 2: our guys than we are of theirs, but they are
Speaker 2: winning in the sense that they have they've got something
Speaker 2: new right control of the strait of horror moves, and
Speaker 2: we have lost something big, namely control of the state
Speaker 2: of horror moves. And as well, it seems as if
Speaker 2: we have also lost a massive amount of legitimacy. Okay,
Speaker 2: sure we didn't do a full on World War II
Speaker 2: style mobilization. I'm glad of that, although who knows. Every
Speaker 2: time I check the mail and always you know, at
Speaker 2: least slightly relieved that there isn't a draft notice in it,
Speaker 2: But that matters. We've squandered social capital on the international
Speaker 2: stage as well, and because of that, there's understandably a
Speaker 2: desire to make that even you know, like, Okay, well
Speaker 2: maybe we got off to a bad start, but we
Speaker 2: really showed them in the end. We still got it.
Speaker 2: We're still top dog. So hunger. As we sort of
Speaker 2: wrap this up, where do you see this going? Where
Speaker 2: do you see this developing? Right? Where does the war
Speaker 2: go from here?
Speaker 1: It's it's just incredibly hard to see. Again, we're living
Speaker 1: we're basically living in Schrodinger's war. Like there's Schrodinger's straight
Speaker 1: there's schrodinger cease fire, there's Schrodinger's blockade. The only things
Speaker 1: that the only things I see that makes sense is
Speaker 1: the Israelis are going to keep doing what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They are going to force or at least pressure us
Speaker 1: in with all of their leverage. Because the Israelis are
Speaker 1: using all their leverage, they are going all out. There
Speaker 1: is no stop, there's no breaks on that train. Literally
Speaker 1: all of the you know, capital of the APAC lobby
Speaker 1: and the State of Israel is being used to conduct
Speaker 1: this war like Israel has already. Israel has always been
Speaker 1: the most hated country on Earth for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Ever since the Cult War, I should say, ever since
Speaker 1: the end of the Cult War, I should say Israel's
Speaker 1: the most hated country on earth. They don't have capital
Speaker 1: with anybody. The only thing they have left is the
Speaker 1: control of the institutions that matter, and that's diminishing as well.
Speaker 1: Because this situation is not sustainable, then that's what that's
Speaker 1: what changed. After October seventh, Evans reveal to all of
Speaker 1: us in the world that this situation is not sustainable,
Speaker 1: that something has to give, and the Israelis are willing
Speaker 1: to die by the sword to make that, to secure
Speaker 1: a future for their children, to use a famous phrase.
Speaker 2: So Hunger, where can people find more of you and
Speaker 2: more of your work?
Speaker 1: You can just follow me at Twitter at Hunger Die
Speaker 1: d Ye. I'm a member of the Old Glory Club,
Speaker 1: so please follow the Old Glory Club as well.
Speaker 2: Well. Sure thing, I appreciate that, Hunger. As far as
Speaker 2: my stuff, you guys know where to find me, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,
Speaker 2: pretty much anywhere you can listen to podcasts. If you
Speaker 2: want to support me, you do that a couple of ways.
Speaker 2: One just by giving me money. Right, if you pay
Speaker 2: me five bucks a month, you get an episode or
Speaker 2: the episodes rather early in ed free. You can also
Speaker 2: check out our sponsor Axios Remote fitness coaching is good.
Speaker 2: At what he does, you can make you stronger and
Speaker 2: less fat. And also with your subscription, you get the
Speaker 2: ability to call me gay in a group chat every morning,
Speaker 2: and I've been told that's quite the value at anyway,
Speaker 2: guys appreciate it every and home. Keep your head up.
Speaker 2: I can't last forever. Good Night,