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US-Russia Citizen’s Summit
US-Russia Citizen’s Summit
Join us today for the US-Russia Citizens Summit.
(https://scottritter.substack.com/p/us-russia-citizens-summit?triedRedirect=true)
Jun 18, 2025
The program runs from 2-5 pm Eastern Standard Time, and will stream live on YouTube click here.
Thanks for reading Real Scott Ritter! This post is public so feel free to share it.
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U.S. is ALREADY AT WAR with Iran –Scott Ritter, by @RachBlevins
U.S. is ALREADY AT WAR with Iran –Scott Ritter
(https://rachelblevins.substack.com/p/us-war-iran-scott-ritter?r=1vhv3f)
and
Jun 17, 2025
President Trump is demanding Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” in his latest rant on social media, one day after he posted that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” (a city of around 10 million people)
This, as the Pentagon expands the U.S. Military presence in the Middle East, sending more war planes and an aircraft carrier to the region, amid reports that Trump is considering joining Israel in direct strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Scott Ritter, a former UN Weapons Inspector and U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Officer, noted that the U.S. is already at war with Iran, and Trump has said as much, as he brags about the support the U.S. is giving Israel.
Trump’s response when asked about the testimony from his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was, “I don’t care what she said” – raising questions about who he is taking advice from, as he goes directly against his campaign promise of “no new wars.”
Follow Scott Ritter on X, and check out his page on Substack
SOURCE LINKS:
- 17 June 2025 – Trump on Truth Social: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
- 16 June 2025 – Trump on Truth Social: “Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”
- 17 June 2025 – Trump: ‘I don’t care’ that Tulsi Gabbard said Iran wasn’t close to having nuclear weapon
- 3 Aug. 2024 – WikiLeaks on X: “Former General of the US Army Wesley Clark on the military strategy after 9/11 attacks: ‘We are going to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing it off with Iran’ [2007]”
- 16 June 2024 – Pentagon expands Middle East response as Israel, Iran trade strikes
- 17 June 2024 – US Intelligence: Iran Was Not Pursuing Nuclear Bomb Before Israel’s Attack
Transkripzioa:
It is June 17th, 2025, and the President of the United States has taken to social media and declared to the world that a city of 10 million people, Tehran, needs to evacuate immediately. With a warning like that, I do not even want to know what the U.S. or what Israel wants. may think that they have in store.
But this also comes as you have Trump openly telling reporters that he doesn’t care what his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had to say, which he testified before Congress back in March and said that the U.S. has no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon or intends to do so.
So what does that mean for the state of direct U.S. involvement in this war? as the U.S. is actively increasing its military presence in the Middle East as we speak. Well, we got into all of the latest with a special guest earlier, so let’s take a listen to that conversation now.
Joining me now to discuss is Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector and U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer. Scott, thanks so much for taking the time to join me.
Now, I want to get your take on the latest here, and I want to start with the Trump administration’s handling of this war, because when you have a U.S. president that gets on social media and declares that everyone should immediately evacuate a city of Texas, 10 million people. That’s a little bit concerning,
not even to mention what Trump said after that, when he literally told reporters that he does not care about the testimony from his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who said that the U.S. has no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.
What does that tell you about where Trump stands and what are your concerns for how soon the U.S. is going to get even more directly, officially involved in this war on Iran?
As far as I’m concerned, we’re already directly, officially involved. Remember the president, bragging about setting Iran up, lulling them into a false sense of complacency. There were going to be negotiations on Sunday, this past Sunday. These were the serious negotiations. This was it. Time to get it out. And the Iranians were preparing for it.
Their lead negotiator, Sham Khan, he actually had done an interview with in the lead up to this saying, we’re ready. We are ready right now to sign a treaty that says no nuclear weapons. We are ready to subject ourselves to inspections to cap our enrichment levels at 3.75% needed for the nuclear fuel.
We’re ready to do this right now. That’s what they were ready to put on the table on Sunday. And Trump greenlit an Israeli surprise attack and then bragged about it. Bragged about The Iranians who were negotiators were now dead, dead. This isn’t a game. This isn’t an academic exercise.
The Iranian negotiator who was taking everything we were saying at face value, working with his government to come up with a solution to avoid war, was assassinated by the Israelis with the approval of Donald Trump, who then bragged about it. So we’re already at war. This is our war. We’re just using Israel as a proxy.
The problem for Donald Trump is the war is not going well. We are now looking at a situation where Israel is losing this war. and will lose this war. And they desperately need the United States to intervene, to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, so to speak, for them.
It is deeply disturbing that the director of national intelligence, who is responsible for providing the presidential daily brief, remember that Tulsi Gabbard is responsible for briefing the president on the intelligence situation that exists in the world today. She testified for Congress as part of the, you know, national threat assessment that Iran, uh,
had not made a political decision regarding nuclear weapons. It was still the Iranian decision was they do not want nuclear weapons, they’re not seeking nuclear weapons, and that the data supports that, that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program. This is the official assessment of the United States intelligence community.
It just happens to go against the overly politicized intelligence coming out of Israel. I want to remind people that Israel, you know, helped create the fiction of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When I was working with the United Nations, Israel was, you know, trying to create the perception of an ongoing Iraqi nuclear weapons program, manufacturing data.
You know, I I had in my possession, you know, their assessment. The FBI seized it when they came in my house. But the assessment that’s basically proved that they just make stuff up. And that’s happening today. And the president of the United States, when he says, I don’t care what Tulsi says,
what he’s saying is I don’t care what the U.S. intelligence community says. So where is he getting his intelligence? Who’s briefing the president? Israel. So we have been, you know, the president has totally subordinated the most critical decision-making aspects of the chief executive, the commander-in-chief, to a foreign nation. So this is disturbing.
I don’t know if we’re going to go to war. The president also has been briefed by the Pentagon about the consequences of war. But he is giving Israel all the support they need to fight. do what is necessary for Israel to prevail in this conflict, but it’s not going to be enough.
I mean, look at the president, how angry he is. See, he was told that ballistic missile defense worked. That’s why he had his big Golden Dome ceremony. And that was sort of premised on, you know, the notion that Iron Dome And Israel is a functioning, viable missile defense system. No, it’s not. It’s an embarrassment. It’s a joke.
It’s a waste of money. And this is what’s going to result in an Israeli defeat because they cannot defend themselves. Yesterday, Iran proved that they can just fire missiles and hit the most sensitive sites in Israel with absolute accuracy. This wasn’t a barrage of missiles. These were surgical strikes.
Iran can do this day after day after day after day after day. And Israel’s running out of missiles. And even if they have the missiles, the missiles don’t work. Neither do the U.S. missiles. Remember, this isn’t just an Israeli Iron Dome. It’s backed up by U.S. Aegis ships offshore that are tied into the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
satellite network that are using their SM-3s and SM-6 interceptor missiles. This is tied into the THAAD missile defense system, which is deployed to Israel. And we are expending our arsenal In defense of Israel, it’s not working and we’re running out of missiles and Israel’s running out of missiles. And that’s the problem.
Trump knows the math that they will run out of interceptor missiles, which don’t work. But even if they did, they’re going to run out of them. And Iran’s not going to run out of missiles. And that’s the end of Israel. You know, Israel won’t allow the citizens to leave right now.
If Israel opened the gates, you’d see millions of Israelis flee. And that’s the end of Israel. I’ve always said, if you want to see the Israeli state disappear, it happens when you get a demographic shift that’s derived from millions of Israelis fleeing. Right now, if you open up the border, 2 million, 3 million Israelis would leave.
That’s a third of their population. That’s the end of Israel. And the Israeli government knows it. So they closed the borders. They’re keeping their people in this prison now that has no defenses and is going to be pummeled by the Iranians going forward. And the president doesn’t know what to do about it.
that certainly seems to be the case. And it’s been interesting to kind of watch Trump’s response exactly as you were noting there, him coming out and taking credit for this. And it does kind of seem like Trump thought that, oh, Israel will carry out this initial attack and Iran will just fold and agree to whatever deal.
But exactly as you were also pointing out, you know, you’ve got Iran carrying out these surgical strikes. I mean, they shut down the oil refinery in Haifa with strikes on Monday. How do you view Iran’s response to this and kind of the way that they’re taking it, not hitting everything in Israel all at once,
taking it really kind of day by day and making it clear that, hey, they’re ready to continue to go on into a long war if that’s what Israel and the U.S. want?
Yeah, I mean, it’s tough to get into the minds of the Iranian decision makers. First of all, many of their senior decision makers, especially on the military side, are dead. So what we’re seeing, though, is the reality that Iran is a modern nation state. See, all too often in the West,
we have this perception of Iran as being a theocratic dictatorship, where all the power is held you know, in the top echelons. And if you just decapitate that, the rest of the system will collapse. We don’t respect the fact that the Iranian system is resilient and it’s grounded in a nation that actually supports what’s going.
Yes, there’s dissent. We know there’s dissent. We know there’s an opposition. We know there’s external forces trying to do harm to Iran. Um, But the vast majority of the Iranian people support the government as it is. It’s an Iranian government. And the more you attack Iran, the more concentrated the support becomes, the stronger it becomes.
So the hope by decapitating Iranian leadership and shock and awe in the first day of the strike, they hope that this would somehow cause a collapse on the part of the Iranian people and the surviving Iranian government. It’s a misplaced hope. The Iranians have resilience. Their planning has been going on for a long time,
and there are many, many people who are privy to the plan and support the plan. So when you take out the top, they just replace it, and they execute the plan. The plan can’t be killed. Of course, no plan survives initial contact with the enemy, and we don’t know to what extent Israel has been able to
destroy stockpiles of missiles, destroy launchers, destroy facilities. We don’t know. We know they’ve been targeting them. But the other thing we know is that the Iranians were fully aware of what the Israelis were capable of doing, and the United States. Iran has been preparing for 20 years now for this very war.
This very war is what they have been preparing for. So the idea that knowing about U.S. intelligence and Israeli intelligence capabilities, knowing about the nature of our weaponry and the destructive capacity of our weaponry, that Iran would somehow leave itself vulnerable to interdiction is absurd. And I think it’s playing out.
I think the Iranians have built a system that is able to ride out this storm. Remember, part of this system was built to survive an American invasion. which implied certain parts of Iran would be occupied while the resistance continued. The Iranians, I believe, operate with the same mindset as the Iraqis did.
I remember being told by a very senior Iraqi after the desert storm and then later on in other interdictions, he said, you know, we’re really good at pouring concrete. So if you just want to go and blow up buildings… We can rebuild the buildings. But understand, we’re also good at relocating things.
And I learned this as a weapons inspector. And I was involved in Desert Storm and the targeting. And I know what we dropped bombs on. And I know why we dropped bombs on them. And I know what we wanted to achieve. And I was involved in battle damage assessment.
So I would look at a building that had the, you know, the requisite holes punched into it by bombs and things blown out. And I looked at, you know, the criteria to determine destruction. I’d go, destroyed. Mission accomplished. Check that one off the list.
Then I’d go there as a weapons inspector only to find out that the building was empty. That the Iraqis had evacuated all the good stuff to other facilities, which we didn’t bomb. And now they poured new concrete, rebuilt the buildings, brought the stuff back in, and they’re back. We didn’t do anything.
If you don’t think the Iranians operate the same way, then I think we’re sadly misinformed. I think the Iranians are very good at pouring concrete. The Iranians know full well what our capacity for destruction is. And the Iranians, let’s take Firdos, for example, the Firdos Underground Enrichment Facility. Originally, it was designed to be an evacuation place.
The Iranians had dug this and many others like it throughout history. Iran. And the purpose of this facility was, if they were going to be attacked, sensitive equipment would be evacuated to this site to be protected. The Iranians decided that they were going to convert it to protect their centrifuges because Natanz was vulnerable.
But there are many Ferdos-like locations throughout Iran that have already been built, already been constructed, that are not being bombed. I can guarantee you this. There’s a lot of destruction taking place. But if you think the most sensitive equipment, for instance, Israel struck the Isfahan metallurgy facility. And, you know,
I’m sure there’s big ticket items in there that couldn’t be evacuated that have been destroyed. But much of the technology… the basic equipment, I don’t believe is there. Why would it be? There have been noises being made about a bombing campaign for some time.
Why would any of this equipment still be at the location where we think it is? So Israel’s blowing up sites, assuming certain outcomes. But the reality is they’re not destroying what they think they’re destroying. And Iran is preserving much of their… industrial capacity. And when this is all over, they just got to pour new concrete. That’s it.
It’s interesting to see how much of this also plays into the propaganda war, right? With Israel claiming, oh, we hit this, we hit that. We have aerial superiority acting as if that is going to win them this war. And when it comes to the U.S.
and the position that they’re in, I mean, it’s no secret that the U.S. establishment has wanted war with Iran for a long time. I mean, I think of General Wesley Clark’s now viral comments on it saying that the post 9-11 strategy was we’re going to take out seven countries in five years.
That was supposed to start with Iraq and end with Iran. And now you have the Pentagon rerouting assets to the Middle East, increasing the US military presence in the region. And I look at this and I go, okay, but the US is already losing a proxy war against Russia.
We know that they want to get their hands on war with China in some form. How do you view the position that the US is in going into this knowing that they are not going to win a war against Iran.
And to take that further, if Iran moves to close the Strait of Hormuz or moves to target U.S. military bases in the region, this could become very costly for the U.S. as a whole and specifically for Mr. Donald Trump.
Yeah, I think we are looking at the end of the Trump presidency in terms of credibility. Much of his base voted for him because of his contention that he was a peace president. I mean, the hypocrisy of this man, just the bald-faced hypocrisy of a man who posts, you know,
getting in a war in the Middle East is the worst mistake. Trillions of dollars wasted, thousands alive. Obama’s a horrible man contemplating war with Iran, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I mean, he just, he made that his thing. It turns out he, he, he lusts for war with Iran and he has always lusted for war with Iran,
that everything he said was an absolute lie. Um, in the past we had people, uh, who were willing to stand up to this man and tell him the truth about the consequences of war. Um, but if you remember in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, um, The way that George W.
Bush got around this, the way that Dick Cheney got around this was to create their own units, their own intelligence units, their own little circle of people who cherry picked data, shaped it to fit what they wanted it to be, not what the truth was, and then use that to justify going to war.
It appears that Trump has done this because Tulsi Gabbard has been locked out. She couldn’t go to Camp David to brief the president about all this. That means that within the Pentagon, this is the same thing that happened in the Cheney world, within the Pentagon, Rumsfeld created under Douglas Feith,
his own little intelligence unit that just made stuff up, cherry picked stuff up to tell the president what he wanted to hear and that this helped drive the war. I believe that Hegseth, this mental midget who’s now our Secretary of Defense, I mean, he was never more than a battalion ops officer.
And now he’s the Secretary of Defense. He has no maturity. He has no knowledge. He has no nothing, no depth, no experience. And he’s just a yes man to this president. He gave him a damn parade on his birthday. That’s embarrassment. And I believe that Hegseth has probably created another one of these Douglas Feith
type intelligence units that just telling the president what he wants to hear. We have a secretary of state who double hats as the national security advisor. No more checks and balances and no more congressional ability to intervene. Normally, if a secretary of state goes off the rails,
he can be summoned before Congress and have to be held accountable to Congress. but not so the National Security Advisor. He’s the president’s man. So Rubio’s out there and we know he’s been just basically shilling for Israel for years and posturing Iran as a target. So there’s no pushback from the Secretary of State slash National Security Advisor.
The president has ordered that this situation, that the National Security Council convene in the Situation Room of the White House. That means that Rubio is putting together this team in the White House. It’s working with Hegs’ little intelligence unit to spoon feed Israeli crap to the president. And the president seems to be acting on it.
This isn’t the way this country is supposed to operate. And I’m concerned that this president has been fed certain lies. One of the lies are that our, I mean, it’s so easy to deceive this president. You saw it with Golden Dome. Oh, this is beautiful. This is going to work. Best technology in the world.
Ready in three years. Only 175 billion. This is beautiful, big and beautiful and wonderful and glorious. No, it’s not. It’s none of that. And I think this president was fed a whole bunch of lies about how things work, how good we are, what we can do without being told, Mr. President,
we just tried to knock the hootie off the map and they beat us. We’re the ones who retreated, not them. And they are just sort of like… you know, pop Warner football to the NFL that is Iran. This president’s not getting the right information. People aren’t briefing him properly.
And I just think that he is inclined to, you know, prefer a military outcome. Right now he has been told Israel should be able to do this, but you see his increasing anger and frustration as he’s confronted with the reality that Israel’s losing this war, that Iran has the better technology. I mean, better than our technology.
And that is the ultimate insult to this president, that the big and beautiful American technology ain’t what it seems to be, and that Iran actually has the technological solution because the Iranian scientists have been doing their job. Yeah.
It’s very telling the position that the U.S. has put itself in and that it continues to pursue a lot at stake here all around. But I really appreciate you taking the time to join me today to break down all of the latest here. Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector and U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer.
If anything in this video resonated with you, be sure to like it, share it with your friends, leave a comment. And as always, don’t forget to subscribe. And if you want to keep up with all of my work, make sure that you’re subscribed to my page on Substack. That’s rachelblovens.substack.com.
That’s where you’ll find ad-free videos and new weekly episodes of my exclusive series for paid subscribers called Sanctioned. You can also check out Sanctioned over on my page on Patreon. That’s patreon.com slash Rachel Blevins. As always, thank you all so much for all of your support, and I’ll see you next time.
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Ritter’s Rant Ep. 9: Where’s the Beef?
Ritter’s Rant Ep. 9: Where’s the Beef?
President Trump just sent the most sophisticated weapons in the US arsenal to bomb three empty sites in Iran. Why?
Bideoa: https://scottritter.substack.com/p/ritters-rant-009-wheres-the-beef?r=1vhv3f&triedRedirect=true
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My latest with the Judge:
Aipamena
Judge Andrew Napolitano@JudgingFreedom
16 h
[SPECIAL] TRUMP BOMBS IRAN! w/ Scott Ritter and Judge Napolitano https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1BRKjmqQZWwxw (32: 11m)
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US BOMBS IRAN. WHAT NEXT? Interview for Consortium News Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern Watch on YouTube:
youtube.com
SCOTT RITTER: US Bombs Iran. What Next?
SCOTT RITTER / RAY McGOVERN: US Bombs Iran. What Next?
Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter joined CN Live! on Sunday morning to discuss the U.S. bombing of Iran, its impact and what might follow.
Transkripzioa:
0:02
[Music]
0:25
[Music]
0:54
get out your notebook there’s more
1:01
[Music]
1:13
welcome to CNN Live season 7 episode 2 the US bombs Iran and what’s next i’m
1:19
Joe Lauri editor-inchief of Consortium News well the US has finally done it on
1:26
Saturday night US time Sunday morning early in Iran uh US B2 bombers dropped a
1:32
number of 30,000 pound bombs and submarines fired cruise missiles on two
1:39
other nuclear installations the B2 bombers dropped them on Fodor the one
1:44
buried in a mountain but we really don’t know at this point what the damage was
1:50
done donald Trump says everything was obliterated he’s known for hyperbole
1:55
obviously the big question of course then after we discuss what exactly happened last night is how uh Iran will
2:03
react to this and we want to thank our guests Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter for extremely short notice to join us on
2:09
this extremely important occasion as I said Trump said that the um he I’m
2:15
quoting him it was a spectacular military success iran’s quote key nuclear enrichment facilities have been
2:22
completely and totally obliterated well the photos that we’ve seen doesn’t
2:27
doesn’t seem to show that it looks like the entrances may have been blocked and the IAEA says there’s no leaks
2:34
apparently Russia also says from their assessment there wasn’t severe damage we
2:39
haven’t really heard from Iran yet at least I haven’t so far so Trump seems like he wants to end this right now and
2:46
will it let’s have Ray McGovern come in what is your assessment right now uh of
2:53
what the damage was done and then we’ll move on to uh the question of how Iran should respond and also political
2:59
questions are surrounding what the US has done well thanks Joe uh what I would say is
3:06
that the emphasis that Trump and others have put on this issue has all to do
3:12
with uranian enrichment it has nothing to do with constructing a nuclear bomb
3:19
Okay that’s really important okay the reason that’s important is because
3:25
people don’t know the people who read the New York Times they don’t know that in 2007
3:32
the intelligence community unanimously and with high confidence declared that
3:37
Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003
3:43
and had not resumed work on a nuclear weapon to my delight
3:49
to my gratitude my old friends there in the CIA stood
3:54
firm on that up until March of this year when Tulsi Gabard the new national
4:00
intelligence director said precisely the same thing
4:05
if you need bipartisan on this uh check out what uh Bill Burns the CIA director
4:13
under Biden said i don’t know maybe it was a quam of conscience for all the
4:18
lies he told you know about about Pin having lost in Ukraine two years ago
4:24
this kind of thing but what he said was “Look before I go out and this was two weeks before he left office before I go
4:31
remember Iran is not working on nuclear weapon.” And what I said in October
4:38
still applies namely that were they to start working on a nuclear weapon we
4:44
would find out exactly very very quickly and so don’t worry
4:50
about it we got all these cameras working in these places we have all these satellite f not just photos
4:58
infrared radar multi we got we got it all and we’re going to know right away
5:04
so what is this all about it’s not about uranian enrichment it’s about regime change now they can
5:12
destroy photo i don’t think they have i mean as you point out Trump does
5:18
exaggerate my god uh but doesn’t really matter the Russian the Ukrainians are
5:25
not My god I have to wake up here the Iranians are not going to change their
5:32
regime because of what happened early this morning so if that’s the objective
5:38
it’s ipso facto going to fail and the worst of course is that the Russians and
5:43
the Chinese well let’s just put it this way the the old way we used to say it is they cannot sit idly by nor can the rest
5:52
of the world because of the danger that that straight of Hormuz could be sealed
5:58
and the world economy go kapla well the proof of that for Israel this
6:05
has always been about regime change is that the nuclear deal the JCPOA actually
6:10
contained Iran’s enrichment to 3.67% six seven% it was working there’s nothing problem with it why was Israel so upset
6:17
with it couldn’t stop Obama from going through with it and then finally uh Netanyahu talked Trump into scrapping or
6:24
getting the US out of it why because it didn’t overthrow the government we made them stronger more secure actually the
6:30
JCPOA let me move to Scott he says it was totally obliterated what do you know
6:36
about what damage was done from what you’ve seen and and what sources have you looked at to uh tell you that
6:43
well I mean there’s some Maxar imagery out there but I don’t know the veracity
6:48
of that um we have anecdotal information coming out
6:54
of Iran but three sites were hit the Flo site six B2 bombers each carrying two
7:04
30,000 lb massive ordinance penetrators um
7:09
according to the Iranians succeeded in damaging one entrance and one exit in a
7:15
facility that has five entrances and exits um moreover they struck an empty
7:21
facility there is again satellite imagery of unknown veracity which
7:26
appears to show that the Iranians evacuated the totality of anything valuable from Feros on June 18th and
7:35
19th um so no matter what we hit we hit
7:40
an empty shell people need to understand that i keep saying fearos that’s just because I’m an ignorant American early
7:46
in the morning on a Sunday foro is the appropriate pronunciation i’ve been educated on that one so um but foro if
7:54
you study the history of it and when the Iranians made its initial declaration there was um a lot of controversy how
8:01
dare the Iranians dig and build this site without telling the IAEA and the Iranians said “You guys don’t understand
8:08
this site was already dug and built.” Uh it was done as part of a different project um you know how to safeguard all
8:15
of our other material from bombing but we decided that we’re going to take this facility and convert it to an
8:21
underground enrichment facility to protect it because of the threats made by the United States and others the
8:27
reason why I bring that up is you need to understand that Iran is full of feros
8:32
foro literally the entire country is one big giant uh underground storage facility
8:40
and the totality of Iran’s uh critical
8:46
uh infrastructure has been removed from the physicality of locations
8:52
and stuffed away in different heights so if the goal was to stop enrichment they
8:58
stopped nothing nothing they may have delayed it um they may have you know
9:06
complicated things uh but if the goal was to deny Iran the ability to enrich
9:12
uranium first of all all of the uranium enriched by Iran has been removed from
9:17
these sites Natans Foro and others and hidden in these other places that we don’t know anything about we don’t know
9:23
where they are so we haven’t eliminated any of the enriched material so the threat that allegedly exists from the
9:30
60% enriched uranium that uh everybody said you know one more enrichment cycle
9:37
gives you the 90% necessary for a bomb all that exists none of that has been
9:43
destroyed none of it has been destroyed moreover we don’t know if there’s additional
9:51
centuge facilities that could be stood up we do know that the Iranians stopped
9:58
sharing centuge production data with the IAEA last year and that Iran has had the
10:04
ability to produce IR6 IR8 advanced centurfuges
10:10
um in numbers that nobody knows anything about unaccounted for and those aren’t
10:15
sitting in the tons waiting to be blown up they’ve been secreted away so
10:23
this this this strike is nonsensical nonsensical in terms of achieving uh the
10:29
stated objective of the strike um you know is this about regime change
10:36
well there’s no doubt that this is about regime change the Israeli preemptive attack the Pearl Harbor event
10:44
uh recognized that Israel would not be able to uh eliminate Iran’s nuclear
10:50
program the Israelis admitted this upfront we can’t do it without American
10:56
help so why did they attack unilaterally twofold one because they believed by
11:03
carrying out a decapitation strike which this was a decapitation strike uh there
11:09
was an attempt on um Ali Kam’s life that night their goal was to kill him and his
11:15
senior IRGC leadership leaving a weakened Chaston president and foreign
11:20
minister to fall on their knees and beg for let us live um then they did the
11:27
shock and awe where they blew up facilities without really blowing them up just a lot of smoke and flame etc
11:33
they had the MSAD fly drones around and and and do things uh and they thought
11:39
that that the whole combined effect would put Iran into a state of shock and they would capitulate and you saw that
11:44
with the the pathos of Netanyahu’s follow-on plea do nothing let us finish the destruction
11:52
of your nuclear facilities and we will learn to live in peace that was
11:57
literally what the Israelis said um the Iranians said something different like
12:03
stick it in your ear and here’s some missiles to say good morning um and they’ve been saying good morning with
12:08
missiles ever since so regime change fails so now Israel has to go into the next phase of this operation which is to
12:17
lure America into this um into this conflict and uh you know here they’ve
12:23
been very successful the proof is in the pudding um I I I will just say something
12:29
though this is Iran’s fault i know this is an unpopular thing to say and people
12:34
are like how dare you um but you know as you pointed out the JCPOA capped Iran’s
12:42
program at 3.75% why because that’s what made sense for a nuclear enrichment program now once the
12:48
JCPA was walked away from Iran expanded it to 20% why because Iran needed fuel
12:54
for their Thrron research reactor legitimate legitimate then Iran began to
13:00
enrich at 60% not legitimate not illegal but not
13:07
legitimate you know when people say when you have Burns and companies say Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program
13:13
that is a fallacy because what Iran did starting last year was to create a
13:19
nuclear threshold capability and this is not deniable people can say “No they
13:24
didn’t the Iranians admit they did the Iranians said yes we did this to have
13:30
leverage.” I said “No that’s stupid that’s waving a red flag in front of Israel and the United States and then
13:35
when the bull charges you get upset so this is Iran’s fault 100% Iran’s fault
13:42
had they not created this threshold capability then Netanyahu uh Trump and
13:49
everybody else couldn’t come up with they’re on the cusp of a nuclear weapon because as I wrote in your publication
13:55
last October Joe Iran was a nuclear power at that time no truer words have
14:02
ever been written by anybody who’s been published in your in your paper because Iran had at that time become a nuclear
14:09
power all they needed was the decision and the Iranians said we can flip that
14:15
decision in a moment in a moment if you do that you are a nuclear power now to
14:21
the credit of Iran this uh earlier this year they walked away from that in fact
14:27
if you listen to Ali Shamani before he was murdered by the Israelis one of the lead Iranian negotiators he said “We’re
14:34
ready to sign a treaty not a fatwa because nobody can trust the fatwa anymore i don’t trust the fatwa.” Why
14:41
don’t I trust the fatwa because the Iranians said we could flip it at a moment so the fatwa is meaningless it’s
14:47
non-binding the Iranians can do away with it instantaneously that’s why they were stupid to do what they did but now
14:53
they got common sense they talked to the Russians they said we’re ready for a binding treaty we will not have a
14:59
nuclear weapons program this will be written in law treaty etc and we will agree to a cap of 3.7
15:07
5% and we’ll agree to American inspectors and we will agree to many other things so the Iranians were
15:13
engaged in negotiations to undo the great mistake they made and we should have let these negotiations finish but
15:20
we instead allowed Israel to initiate attack uh premised on something that was
15:25
demonstrabably false no matter what justification Israel might have had to call Iran a threshold state the fact
15:30
that Iran was engaged in negotiations at the time of the strike means Iran wasn’t a threshold state anymore and that’s the
15:37
fallacy of the whole thing we didn’t destroy anything we dropped two bombs on a facility already destroyed natans we
15:44
fired 30 cruise missiles into the Isvahan complex the US government is already saying uh the warheads of the uh
15:50
cruise missiles weren’t sufficient to do u the damage we were hoping to achieve in Isvahan so that’s a restrike and you
15:57
know if you’re doing the whole battle damage thing that means well we got to bomb that again uh and then there’s Ford though which apparently we didn’t do a
16:03
damn thing to so that’s a restrike too with what because we already dropped six GBU 57s on it the restrike would be with
16:11
nuclear weapons this is a dangerous path that we’ve entered into a very dangerous path
16:17
before we move on why did Iran move to 60% what was their strategy there the
16:23
strategy was to create leverage to um to that’s literally the statement made by
16:29
Mirandi and other Iranian officials it’s to create leverage to say if you don’t
16:35
get back to the business of negotiating in good faith this potential exists but
16:41
the problem is all that did is give people an excuse to bomb and the proof is what happened last night
16:48
this was going to happen no matter what with an Iranian threshold
16:54
capability iran had no choice but to walk away from it yeah scott were Scott
17:01
were the Iranians within their rights to enrich higher than 3.75
17:07
was it uh was it okay for them to do that uh seems to me it was uh tell me
17:14
why it wasn’t because there’s no legitimacy attached to the to the 60% uranium is it illegal
17:22
and the Iranians then linked excuse me the Iranians then linked the 60% uranium
17:27
and let me finish Ray the uranian Iranians then link the 60% uranium to a threshold nuclear weapons capability
17:34
that is illegal so when you do something you can say I have the legal right to do it but then you say the reason why I’m
17:41
doing it is to break the law then that act becomes a facilitator of a crime the Iranians were wrong there is no
17:47
justification at all for what the Iranians did and they are to blame for this i’m not going to give them a free
17:54
pass they created the conditions under which the United States and Israel were able to manufacture a case for war and
18:02
there’s no way Congress can intervene you justify what happened last night because they went Oh hell no i condemn
18:09
it i condemn it when I wrote for you i condemned it ever since but I’m not going to give the Iranians a free pass
18:15
they created the conditions under which this manufactured case would could be
18:20
conceived as being legitimate there was no reason for them to have 60% in but at
18:26
the time that these negotiations with Trump again would were they still going at 60 or had they already stopped they
18:31
already they they even doubled down on 60 they began to produce more 60%
18:37
enriched uranium okay yeah sorry yeah let me just uh back up a little bit here
18:44
uh Miranda and others have said that this was to create some leverage my god
18:51
who can fault them for trying to get the you some leverage against the uh the US
18:57
um but Tulsi Gabbard and others have said that the US is not that the Iran’s
19:04
not working on a nuclear weapon would find out about it very quickly uh I
19:11
don’t know what your estimate Scott is uh what I’ve hear is it would take a year maybe three years to get a nuclear
19:18
weapon isn’t that what it’s all about the enrichment thing is diversion here
19:24
whether they’re within their rights or not uh yeah they attack the enrichment
19:30
facilities why didn’t they attack the nuclear weapons manufacturing system
19:35
facilities because there aren’t any doesn’t that matter no no Ray but there
19:40
are and the Iranian the Israelis did attack them i mean let’s let’s just walk
19:46
let me walk you through the Iranian bomb because I know this like the back of my hand all right you have 60% enriched
19:54
uranium now normally when we did the JCPOA some of the time factors we associated with was with the
20:00
inefficients IR1 centuge it’s very inefficient long lead a lot of waste
20:06
those are gone replaced by IR6 IR8 centrifuges orders of magnitude more
20:12
sophisticated and capable so it would take literally three days to convert
20:19
three days Ray not three years three days to convert 60% uranium into 90%
20:25
uranium sufficient for one bomb within a period of a week and a half they’d have five bombs that is a literal guarantee
20:32
five bombs worth of uranium hexaflloride now they have to convert that into metal
20:38
they have an isvahan facility that can do that they will have converted that into metal within a matter of days now
20:43
we’re talking about a week now they have at Parton they have warhead construction
20:49
which they have done and the Iranians bragged about it we have the warhead they said because it’s a gun design ray
20:56
it’s a gun design and you know that is the simplest design in the world there’s no sophistication in the gun design you
21:02
wrap it in a delivery package they already have the the ceramic warheads that can withstand the heat they already
21:08
have missiles tested to that payload ray this is something they would have a deployed missile in less than a month
21:15
that’s the reality when would we learn about it
21:21
when would we learn that they started doing this the moment they diverted the 60% enrichment okay well Bill Burns said
21:28
last October that the moment they started working on a nuclear weapon we would know about it we would know about
21:34
it very quickly said Bill Burns now he’s the head of the CIA he’s trying to cover
21:40
his conscience here by warning the American people look they’re not working on a nuclear weapon and that matters
21:46
because we’ll detect it right away bill Burton’s again
21:51
with all due respect to Mr burns he’s not a freaking inspector he’s a director of the CIA and a politicized one at that
21:57
he hasn’t spent any time on the ground now let me educate Mr burns as his people should have you know what the
22:03
delay is between IAEA verification of the 60% diversion days days meaning they
22:10
go in they do a check on it and then if the Iranians divert they won’t detect till the next time they check now that
22:16
could be three days they already have sufficient material for a bomb the Iranians have no excuse here and Bill
22:21
Burns is speaking out his ass i’m telling you that the diversion could have taken place and the Iranians should
22:27
never have allowed this to happen they should never produce 60% enriched uranium she they should have capped it
22:33
at 20% because now with 20% when you do that detection of diversion because the JCPOA was never meant to do detection of
22:40
60% of uranium it was meant to watch uraniums walk their way up from 3.75%
22:46
and that you can’t do without being detected to diversion but once you get to 60% uranium you can divert that’s the
22:53
danger the Iranians know this and they were stupid to allow this to happen and
22:58
Bill Burns knows it because if I were a member of Congress and he testified before me and he made that stupid
23:03
statement I would make him look like a freaking it because I know how the inspections work
23:09
i know what the timelines are attached to the inspections and Bill Burns is making a political statement here iran
23:15
is to blame for creating the conditions under which the United States could claim that Iran was on the cusp of
23:21
having a nuclear weapon yeah Scott you’re the expert on that but
23:28
if I take what you’re saying literally then ever since 2007
23:34
when that estimate came out unanimously and with high confidence that Iran was
23:40
not working on a nuclear weapon and hadn’t been since 2003
23:45
uh that was somehow not really to the point in other words they could uh they
23:51
could do this as you say in a couple of days now let me just add how much 60%
23:56
enriched uranium did they have in 2007 Ray none
24:02
well let me just just finish um are are you saying that um uh well Burns
24:11
was referring to of course all these satellites not only imagery but as you know radar multisspectral
24:18
uh uh infrared are you saying that these satellites that hover over Iran and also
24:26
drones and the multiplicity of cameras in many of these sites would not detect
24:34
such such a beginning of a nuclear weapons program very quickly as Bill
24:39
Burn said do you say that’s a lie or just a mistake
24:44
i’m guaranteeing it wouldn’t detect it okay first of all the hexafflloride is
24:50
in a container the container is attached to the centeruge
24:55
it then injects the hexaflloride into the centuge cascade and then they collect it in a container on the other
25:01
end those containers are moved around and stored none of those satellites can tell me what’s in that container they
25:06
can’t to tell me if that container has been moved the cameras that you’re talking about were turned off they were turned off because after the United
25:13
States withdrew from the JCPO you keep referring to 2007 2019 is your new benchmark Ry 2019 when the Iranians said
25:21
“We’re no longer going to comply with the uh JCPOA.” And they began walking away from it turning off the cameras
25:27
stopping the the the the repetitive uh uh visits by the inspe
25:34
denying access to inspectors as they were allowed to under because these were additional protocols i’m just saying
25:40
that whatever happened in 2007 that was a 3.75% capped program with IR1 centrifuges the Iranians walked away
25:47
from the so-called sunset clauses you know they were going to drag out their ability to deploy new centures for 20
25:54
years and as soon as they walked away those IR1s and the standard of centuge
25:59
capability attached to them went out the window that’s like going from a muzzle loader and calculating rate of fire of
26:06
an infantry battalion going to an infantry battalion equipped with M16 rifles all right suddenly your rate of
26:13
fire goes up tremendously you can’t use 2007 calculations to calculate
26:20
the reality of Iran’s program in the fall of 2024 well of course it was repeated in March of 2025 let me ask you
26:28
this Scott um I’m Israel no it wasn’t though it wasn’t I I’ve read her words very carefully it wasn’t repeated March
26:34
25 what she said were two simple statements she said that the the Supreme Leader had not made a decision to
26:40
produce nuclear weapons that’s a truth and she said there’s no evidence that Iran has begun to produce nuclear weapons that’s the truth but then she
26:46
went on to say Iran’s in increased 60% enriched uranium and other things cause
26:51
concern that they could go in that direction right right but that’s enrichment i’m talking about nuclear
26:59
weapons now the gun design is the easiest design i’m sorry we didn’t test
27:05
it we didn’t test the gun design you know the whole Manhattan program we didn’t test it why it doesn’t need to be
27:11
tested it’s a guaranteed outcome now we know that Netanyahu is tuned into this
27:17
program right so he’s going to take away from this whoa damn
27:23
they have this highlyenriched uranium and they can get a weapon within three
27:29
days or four days or something like that if they want to my god is that the lesson that Netanyahu is
27:36
going to take from this discussion
27:43
what’s the implications of that what are the implications of that uh will he try something like a preemptive strike he
27:50
has some nuclear weapons too what will he do if he thinks that Iran is on the
27:56
cusp that it would be days or weeks not years or months before Iran can mount a
28:04
sufficient amount of highlyenriched uranium at 90% onto a delivery vehicle
28:10
that has a newly constructed warhead uh necessary to carry this into Israel
28:16
i don’t know what Israel will do but I’ll tell you what the United States will do okay and you know what the United States will do why are you asking
28:24
a rhetorical question what are they going to do you know the answer we will use We will use nuclear
28:30
weapons to eliminate that threat before it manifests itself oh we use nukes
28:37
of course we would we know you you know we would we’ve said we would no biden would obama would we will not allow Iran
28:45
to have a functional nuclear weapon that is a statement of American policy declared over and over again which is
28:51
why Iran was foolish to get to the cut having that weapon because all they were
28:57
doing is raving a red red flag in front of the United States and Israel israel isn’t going to nuke Iran israel doesn’t
29:03
need to nuke Iran because we have told the Israelis we will nuke Iran whoa so
29:09
what we’re talking about is not just US policy we’re talking about Israel’s
29:15
policy which is joined at the hip and there’s no flexibility on uh on Trump’s uh leverage over Israel
29:25
not to do this this is uh in other words we’re so automatically joined at the hip
29:31
with Israel that we said no worries uh in in final analysis if our bunk bunker
29:38
busters don’t work we’ll use nukes that’s your position it’s not my position it’s position of the White
29:43
House Ray you know the White House has said that if we can’t destroy Furdo and we believe FTO is operational and linked
29:49
to a weapon we will use a tactical nuke that statement was made late last week you know that I’m not making stuff up
29:56
Ray this is declaratory policy on the part of the United States of America this is why this is so damn dangerous
30:03
this isn’t a joke we are on the cusp of something horrible about to happen
30:13
well uh since you live in a country that’s ruled by maniacs i mean literally maniacs i’m not here condoning this i
30:20
condemn it but you know if I knew this about US policy and I’m not linked in
30:25
i’m It’s not like I’m revealing national secrets here this is all open source read the the the nuclear posture review
30:31
read you know the the nuclear employment guidance read all of this we know what we’re going to do and the Iranians had
30:38
had to know that too do they think we’re bluffing well if we are I don’t want to find out
30:44
i don’t want to take it to that level i mean maybe we are bluffing maybe we’re not going to use the nuclear weapon um
30:50
but you know what we have bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities and that was a red line for the Iranians
30:56
for escalation now hopefully the Iranians will be mature about this and responsible about this and adhere to
31:02
international law and not do it through anything precipitous but now we’ve put the future of the world into the
31:08
responsibility of the of the of the Ayatollas and I don’t like that i’d
31:13
prefer the future of the world be in the hands of responsible American leaders but we don’t have responsible American
31:18
leaders you know Scott I’m very angry not at you Ray i’m very angry at the situation
31:23
because this was an avoidable this was avoidable we would never have bombed
31:29
Iran had Iran not gone to threshold status we would never have bombed Iran iran didn’t get anything out of the
31:36
leverage that they sought it didn’t it didn’t bring about any of the of the changes they wanted um Iran could have
31:44
early on entered into negotiations with the United States using the the the the
31:49
four corners of the position that they had laid out by Ali Sham Khani two days before he was murdered if the Iranians
31:56
had come in say in 2019 and said we’re willing to sign a treaty
32:01
no nuclear weapons 3.75% cap etc um we
32:06
wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in today so this is why I blame Iran it takes two to tango when you have an
32:11
insane party when you have a bull in the ring don’t climb in the ring and wave
32:16
the red flag and then cry when the bull charges and the United States and Israel were the bull in the ring iran should
32:22
have stayed out of the ring well Scott if we’re going to blame Iran we have to
32:29
pretty much prove that Iran did something illegal do I understand you to
32:34
say that they enriching to a higher percentage of 60% was illegal or was it
32:41
legal ray we don’t have to prove they did something illegal and you know that to cite preemptive self-defense under
32:47
article 51 of the United Nations Charter using the Caroline clause as interpreted by the US Supreme Court all we have to
32:54
demonstrate is an imminent threat to our na to our to our national security in Iran enriching to 60% and then making
33:02
statements declaratory statements that they can reverse the fatwa in a moment’s notice that they have all the materials
33:07
ready for a bomb that can be delivered within weeks these are statements not from Burns or any American analyst these
33:13
are from the Iranians themselves that is an imminent threat worthy of preemptive strike i mean my god the Iranians
33:19
literally built the case a cognable a cognizable case for preemptive strike
33:25
under article 51 of the United Nations charter they built the case that’s why I blame them let me talk about Russia and
33:31
China now I think a lot is going to depend on how Puchini
33:37
react here they haven’t yet as far as I know but I just woke up maybe that’s clear um what
33:47
do you think Scott uh do you think that the Russians are going to still kind of hold out the notion that you can really
33:53
deal with the Trump regime uh I have been big on saying they they put a
33:59
priority on that especially with respect to Ukraine let’s just mention Ukraine
34:05
here uh I think that Russian policy on Ukraine will change now under the impact
34:12
of these strikes last night what do you think i I I share this i think the United
34:19
States has thrown away any opportunity to have a a negotiated outcome to this conflict if there ever was that
34:26
potential um because the distance between what the United States expectations are and Russia expectations
34:32
are are very wide um so even if we wanted to negotiate
34:38
Russia isn’t going to yield and so require us to bend but now it’s hopeless we can never be trusted again and let’s
34:45
bring in China and Taiwan if you think there was a chance for a negotiated outcome to Taiwan it’s over china
34:52
doesn’t care about us anymore and if we play stupid games with Taiwan like we
34:57
are want to do and we promote Chinese or Taiwanese independence and all this um
35:04
China will invade i also think that by carrying out this action we have taken away any pretext people will no longer
35:12
believe that if we just negotiate with America we can forstall something america can no longer be seen as a
35:17
nation that negotiates in good faith we are a nation that has committed pery
35:22
perity is a war crime we are a nation ruled by war criminals we have carried out an illegal act of aggression
35:30
and as you know Judge Jackson of the Supreme Court when he was the prosecutor at Nerburgg declared that illegal wars
35:37
of aggression are the highest war crime because from them all other war crimes are emanated we are governed by a
35:42
literal war criminal we are a nation defined by our war crimes and nobody will ever trust us again and this is the
35:49
long term if we manage to avoid nuclear annihilation in the coming weeks because of the stupidity that we’ve done with
35:56
Iran we’re going to live with the consequences of our actions going forward and I want to remind
36:02
people this is the time when we have to have negotiations because the last remaining arms control treaty expires in
36:08
February of next year and when it expires there will be a nuclear arms race like we’ve never experienced that
36:13
we can’t afford and it when we’re governed by this excuse me I thought I wouldn’t go down that path
36:18
when we’re governed by the current president of the United States um who is capable of making this the most
36:24
ludicrous decisions based upon the most uh shallow of uh of justification i mean
36:30
listen to his presentation this is not the presentation of a rational actor the words he uses are cartoonish in nature
36:38
they reflect the simplicity of his argument and his design and now this is a man who’s now going to be responsible
36:45
for a massive nuclear arms race trying to put in place a golden shield a golden dome that’s going to protect us from
36:51
anything and everything but we will protect us from nothing we are moving down a path as I wrote in my book
36:58
Highway to Hell we are literally on a highway to hell and Joe that’s another article that I wrote uh for consortium
37:05
news that deserves um more attention than it possibly got um but you know the
37:11
when I write these things it’s not meant to be superfluous there we go thank you
37:16
Ray highway to hell that’s it we are on a highway to hell
37:24
yeah i just want to kind of broaden this thing out um if there’s no nuclear
37:31
explosions or no nuclear strikes in Iran which I think the odds still favor uh
37:39
then there’s the the threat of uh closing the streets of Hormus
37:46
uh that would lead to a international economic crisis uh now Trump sort of
37:53
enjoys making international economic crisis uh but the Russians and the
38:00
Chinese and the Europeans you can call them brain dead which I do but they
38:06
depend on the Gulf of Homus as well so there are larger equities here and I
38:12
think uh to I think you agree with this Scott that the the most immediate
38:19
dilletterious effect of this what happened last night is that Puchin is
38:24
not going to be able to stave off his uh more excited people that Puchin said
38:31
himself two months ago you know a lot of people want me to go quicker want me to go faster in Ukraine but we’re doing
38:37
just fine well I think that the game is over in Ukraine as well because Putin is
38:42
not going to be able even if he wanted to to negotiate with a Trump that is so
38:48
not only unpredictable but so so emotional emotional overload is what
38:54
Putin’s uh Putin’s spokesperson said the Mei Piskoff to so I think we’re all a
39:01
little bit guilty of emotional oh Lord but my god uh what’s going to happen uh
39:06
when Ukraine falls apart is Trump going to do something even more stupid with
39:12
respect to Ukraine well the good news is that let’s go back
39:19
to Iran just for for a second because you mentioned the straight news the good news is that the Iranians have been
39:26
assiduous in um acting in accordance full accordance with international law
39:31
unlike the United States iran for instance when they were attacked they did what they required to do under the
39:38
United Nations charter and notify the security council and report to the security council and seek security
39:44
council intervention um with you know but because that didn’t come then Iran is fully permitted under international
39:52
law to carry out retaliation designed to remove the imminent nature of the threat posed to it and so long as Israel
39:57
continues to strike Iran that threat is literally imminent and ongoing so Iran’s
40:03
military actions against Israel are 100% in conformity with international law um
40:10
Iran now has done the same thing having been struck by the United States they’ve made a request for a security council
40:16
meeting which means they are again applying uh you know to to the letter of the law closing the straight or hormuz
40:23
would be a mistake by Iran because it would be a deviation away from their so far their strict
40:30
adherence to um to this because to to close the straight of Hormuz in effect
40:36
enacts a blockade which is an act of war and um they would have to link this act of war to an imminent threat um you know
40:43
what are what threat are they responding to and um and I think they’re going to talk with the Russians and I think that
40:50
um you hopefully the Russians will advise them um you know to that now is
40:55
not the time that you for instance if you’re going to block the straight hormuz the uh nations that are impacted
41:03
by it need to have played a role in an action against Iran and right now I
41:08
think the way the United States constructed this most recent attack the immediate neighbors of Iran are um
41:16
guiltfree uh and so shutting the straight to Hormuz um is is is
41:22
collective punishment something that’s impermissible under international law so I don’t know if they’re going to do that
41:28
i hear a lot of talk about it i wouldn’t be surprised if they did it because as you said sometimes leaders have to b you
41:34
know act in accordance with the pressures that they’re being placed under and there’s a tremendous amount of pressure within Iran the parliament just
41:41
passed a resolution recommending the closure of the straight of hormuz but the parliament did say that this has to
41:46
be agreed upon by the supreme national security council and that hasn’t been done yet and I don’t believe it will be done until um the foreign minister meets
41:54
with Vladimir Putin I believe tomorrow um or maybe later today depending on time changes so we we’ll see but as far
42:02
as Putin and and Ukraine go um I’ll push back just a little bit um I think
42:09
Putin’s immune to internal pressure because I think he’s in total control of the situation in Russia meaning that
42:16
they have a campaign right now um and remember we don’t know um the um we
42:22
don’t know the consultations that have taken place in shaping this campaign but you know the the the foot is not off the
42:30
gas pedal and you know Ukraine is being hit by a strategic air campaign that is literally taking it apart simultaneous
42:38
with constant pressure on the front i don’t think there’s anything more Putin
42:43
needs to do ukraine is collapsing already they are they they literally it’s it’s collapsing so he doesn’t need
42:50
to do something demonstrable he just needs to continue this uh this this this
42:56
campaign but now it will be continued without the possibility of being uh modified halted um you know curtailed by
43:04
negotiation uh I don’t think there’s any western ne this Putin again broadcast
43:11
this clearly in statements he made at the St petersburg International Economic Forum yesterday um I believe it was
43:17
yesterday uh he said Ukraine is Russia therefore we already own all of it it
43:22
belongs to us that’s a bold political statement that basically lays out the future of Ukraine um it’s it’s this is
43:30
beyond getting rid of Zillinsky replacing it with a compliant government russia has made the case and Putin seems
43:36
to have backed it up that this doesn’t end until Ukraine is returned to Russia so I think it’s the end of Ukraine and
43:42
that’s the price Ukraine pays for tying on to American and European cotails and
43:49
there’s nothing the United States or Europe can or would be willing to do to prevent this so I I think this is the
43:55
end of Ukraine no Scott I agree uh I would start worrying where I pooching uh
44:02
if my approval ratings went from 82% to 76%
44:10
i make a joke of course uh he is pretty much immune right but what is he going
44:16
to do now with this whole series of betrayals i mean you’re going to talk about you know the promise not to extend
44:23
NATO you’re going to talk about the uh the coup in Kiev you’re going to talk
44:28
about Minsk you’re going to talk about all kinds of betrayals okay and
44:34
betrayals in the real sense of the word it’s not the Russians claiming this it’s the US betraying now the US has betrayed
44:43
Russia again i’m sure that the that the US didn’t ask or tell Putin look we’re
44:50
going to do this and get a sort of a wink of the eye so I think that Russia
44:55
and China will be forced now to change their calculus about Trump he may be
45:01
willing to deal but he’s incredibly meatricious and untrustworthy
45:07
so I think they might even say “Look Mr trump uh we have agreements with Iran uh
45:15
they’re not mutual defense agreements but we’re going to defend Iran if it
45:20
comes to the use of nuclear weapons we’re in.” Then what’s Trump and his
45:27
crazy advisors going to do well you know that’s um
45:34
that’s the kind of existential um move that Russia has long avoided uh
45:41
Russia doesn’t have a history of get allowing the um existential status of
45:49
the Russian nation to be subordinated to an outside power so I don’t believe
45:55
Russia will attach a nuclear umbrella to Iran um
46:01
Russia’s a big fan of what they say we will uh asymmetrical responses that’s a
46:08
term Russia has used repeatedly throughout this Ukrainian conflict uh we will respond our response will be
46:14
decisive and asymmetrical um now Russia has put a marker down about regime change don’t try it but I
46:22
you know I don’t see um Russia extending the nuclear umbrella because Russia’s
46:28
not in the business first of all there’s no legal authority to do that putin can’t do that onone he would have to go
46:34
to the Duma and there would have to be a whole bunch of discussion and Russia like Iran is a nation that does believe
46:40
in um international law and and try
46:45
trying to promote it remember it was Putin and Xi that met in June uh January February 4th of 2022 where they put out
46:53
a 5,000word statement where they said we reject American um rules-based international order in favor of
47:00
law-based international order so I imagine whatever Russia does not only has to conform with domestic Russian law
47:07
but also international law um but I do I do agree Ray that Russia and China aren’t going to be idle on this one
47:13
first of all they can’t afford to lose you um Iran i mean but Russia has the north south economic corridor uh China
47:21
just opened up the new Silk Road iran is a member of bricks it’s the lynch pin of this Eurasian economic engine everybody
47:28
wants to you know build um and so to sit by idly and allow the United States and
47:34
Israel and Europe by extension to pluck Iran out of the bricks that would be the end of bricks uh bricks would no longer
47:41
be a viable uh entity so they will do something i don’t think it’s going to be
47:46
as extreme as that but I I do know this that Russian diplomats and Chinese diplomats are far more clever than I am
47:54
um they know the region u to a far degree infinite degree better than I do
48:00
and they will do they will find the appropriate pressure points to be placed it’ll be very interesting to see what
48:06
the results of of Iraqi i think it’s Iraqi i I I don’t know who’s flying to Moscow to meet with uh with the Russians
48:14
um and I believe it will be a meeting with Putin um very interesting to see what comes out of that and what you know
48:20
what decisions are made maybe Iran is is is ready to um to have a a a a defense
48:28
clause um you know maybe they’ll propose that and then Russia you know Putin would have to take it to parliament and
48:34
and all that stuff to get but I think Putin could make that happen given the circumstances but the bottom line is we
48:41
have entered into a game a complicated
48:46
game full of nuance uh with with hazards at every turn and we’re being guided by
48:53
a literal idiot and the Russians the Chinese and the Iranians are in the same game and they’re guided by people who
49:01
are mature rational knowledgeable capable um and most importantly
49:09
they believe in humanity so that whatever they decide
49:15
they’re doing it for the benefit of humanity as opposed to the orange-faced buffoon who is in the White House today
49:21
who cares not for humanity but only cares for himself sorry again i apologize because I said I
49:27
wasn’t going to go down that route of insulting the president but I’m beyond caring about this man anymore i don’t I
49:32
don’t know who you mean by this orange-haired buffoon um you know I I I call him a psych a sociopath
49:40
that’s worse than being a buffoon yeah but that’s that’s a lot of syllables and I’m a Marine and I can’t I can’t do that
49:46
so orange face buffoon you know that that’s within my sociopath a mercurial
49:52
here’s a mercury another big word mercurial sociopath now that’s what the
49:58
Russians now finally realize that they’re up against okay now what’s really interesting is that Putin
50:04
revealed three days ago openly in a major speech that that treaty that was
50:10
two and a half years in the making the treaty between Russia and Iran and was
50:16
not a mutual defense treaty like the one with North Korea because the Iranians
50:22
wouldn’t buy that the Iranians wanted to keep their flexibility because the US
50:27
seemed to be sincere in trying to work out a deal with them they were
50:33
negotiating and the last thing they wanted to do was do a treaty with with the arch rival the Gavniki the main
50:40
enemy Russia okay so Putin reveals all this he says you know in effect they
50:46
could have had the same kind of mutual defense treaty and you know they haven’t even asked us for any weapons or
50:53
anything like that very peculiar so what I’m saying here is that up until now the
51:00
Russians have been saying “Look you know we’re really interested but we’re not involved because the Iranians didn’t
51:05
want us to be involved.” Then whether they’re going to be involved now is is an open question now what else said but
51:13
just let me let me Putin said something very interesting yesterday he said that uh Israel is an extension of Russia
51:23
he said “Many Israelis speak Russian and so they are an extension of Russia.” And
51:30
now you know why Iran didn’t enter into a mutual defense treaty with Russia
51:35
because Iran knew the following if this war starts and they have a
51:40
mutual defense treaty with Russia and it becomes engaged with Israel Russia will immediately intervene diplomatically to
51:47
try and bring this conflict to an end and the whole purpose of Iranian independence is to have this ballistic
51:53
missile force that can break the back of Israel and reassert Iranian dominance on conventional deterrence by demonstrating
52:00
to Israel that you pay a disproportional price when you attack Iran that would not be able to be demonstrated if they
52:06
had a mutual that the Iranians are smarter than anybody realizes because
52:12
they knew they’ve known for some time now that these negotiations would fail that Israel would attack and they would
52:18
have to carry out a campaign to break Israel’s back which is what they’re doing right now they would not be
52:23
allowed to carry out this campaign if they had a mutual defense uh treaty with Russia because Russia would be
52:28
intervening because Israel is an extension of Russia and Russia cannot sit back idly while an extension of
52:35
Russia is being pounded by missiles right so so the point I’m trying to make is that the Iranians were naive
52:43
in thinking that they could talk to the Americans they too were obviously
52:49
betrayed okay just like the Russians have been traed boom boom boom all down
52:54
the line here so let’s broaden this out just a little bit more bricks I think
53:00
you’re absolutely right Scott bricks is the future and they can’t the other
53:06
bricks members can’t let Iran uh be decimated or regime changed if I can use
53:13
that word but even before the next bricks meeting I think it’s next month
53:20
we have the NATO summit in two days if my memory serves as early
53:25
in the morning my god what do you think’s going to happen there it’s in the Hague if if I recall correctly and
53:33
the uh the brain the coalition of the brain dead uh France Germany um uh
53:41
France Germany England and uh maybe Poland they’ll all be there will they be
53:46
rejoicing at this turn of events or or is there any is there any sense good
53:53
sense left in any of these European leaders that will put the brakes on what Trump might intend to do the other thing
54:01
of course is is this the final summit for NATO will Trump wreck the whole
54:06
thing and the implications of that are immense not just to mention article five
54:12
of the treaty my god what do you think’s going to happen in the HEG in just a couple days well we know
54:20
what’s not going to happen the uh Ukraine whatever they called it there’s a a special Ukraine meeting uh that
54:26
happens at every NATO meeting where Zillinsky is brought forward and everybody cowtows to him and hands him money and says great praises of him
54:33
that’s been cancelled not I because they NATO doesn’t want to irritate Trump uh
54:38
they say it’s because they want to give Trump latitude in his negotiations with Russia uh but the bottom line is um NATO
54:45
is dysfunctional right now when it comes to Ukraine um and and and that’s one of the realities two uh if they thought
54:53
that they were going to spend the NATO summit um praising Donald Trump and and
54:58
trying to appeal to his uh ego to get him to you know continue to support
55:04
their cause while putting pressure on Russia uh Trump’s not even talking Russia right now he’s singularly focused
55:10
on this Iran issue and you’re going to see Europe be a little bit split on this yes we have Starmer and Mertz and others
55:17
making absurd statements about you know the need to do this but I don’t think NATO’s unified on this so I think you’re
55:22
going to see a dysfunctional NATO a divided NATO and I think you’re you you
55:27
may be on to something because Trump is a narcissistic etogomaniac and if the world isn’t revolving around
55:33
Trump he walks away from the world and it’s very look what he did at the G7 he
55:39
came in there and Emanuel Mcronone dared mention the word ceasefire at a time when Donald Trump was committed to this
55:45
military action he had already made the decision to bomb Iran there was no debate the decision was made all they
55:51
were doing is playing games deception games and Mcronone said “What about the ceasefire?” And he said and he and he
55:58
walked away stormed out he will storm out of NATO there is no chance this NATO
56:03
summit is a success there’s every chance that it it devolves into fingerpointing shouting recrimination and uh from your
56:11
word lips to God’s ear would this be the last NATO summit ever i’ve said a long
56:18
time ago that NATO is a the death of NATO it’s over now we’re just waiting
56:24
nato’s in hospice and we’re just waiting for the the nurses to come and pull the plug um maybe they’ll hang on like uh
56:32
Saddam Hussein’s uncle uh Adnan Karilla did you know the Israelis were waiting for him to die so they could assassinate
56:38
Saddam and that son of a just kept staying in the hospital living living
56:43
until he finally died uh maybe that’ll be NATO just sitting there you know sitting there you know breathing air in
56:50
um but not thinking because they’ve never thought but it’s done nato’s in hospice the plug will be pulled it’s the
56:56
end of NATO and it’s the end of Europe as we currently know it the world is going to change Ray if we can survive if
57:02
we can survive and that’s big uh NATO is terminal okay now one
57:11
one thing the audience might not know is that u Trump came in swinging there at
57:17
that G7 used to be G8 in in Canada uh he
57:22
says “Hey you guys this should be G8 used to be G8 why did you kick the
57:28
Russians out for God’s sake?” You know that was stupid and you know the Chinese
57:33
would should be in here i mean that’s not a bad idea at all why’d you do that oh my god you know so he came in
57:39
swinging now what he was saying is that the G7 is not worth a damn without
57:45
Russia and China now translate that in an obverse way to to
57:53
Ukraine this summit just a couple days away is going to say “Well how about
57:59
Ukraine into NATO?” Um some people think it needs to be into NATO that the path
58:06
towards NATO is irresistible that’s the last the last NATO document
58:12
okay do we still feel that uh should should Ukraine be in NATO or not now um
58:20
this this similarity is a little little funny but here we have Russia China
58:25
should be in the G G8 G9 and Ukraine should it be in NATO i think the whole
58:32
NATO thing is going to fall apart in an obvious way just on Tuesday or Wednesday
58:37
if I have my dates right in the HEG and this is one key aspect of the
58:43
correlation of forces because Trump you know he’s pretty much alone out there he
58:50
doesn’t need these uh coalition of the brain dead but by the same token he’s
58:56
pretty alone who’s he got with him uh Papau and New Guinea and some of the you
59:02
and Israel of course i don’t know it’s going to be interesting at the UN as well so we have meetings coming up god
59:08
forbid we have nukes before those meetings those meetings may have an impact on decisions made in Moscow in
59:15
Beijing and in Washington yeah the isolation of the United States is real um
59:22
I don’t think MAGA has woken up to the impact i don’t think the American people
59:27
have woken up to the impact you know it’s not fair to blame it solely on Donald Trump america has been doing a
59:34
good job of alienating itself from the world for decades now uh but Trump has
59:40
you know he has delivered a master class in how to be um you know how to make yourself globally hated reviled um we’re
59:50
we’re not deemed as the the necessary nation or what what was the term that uh
59:56
Maline Albra like to say we are the um not the irreplaceable but the
1:00:01
indispensable indispensable yes we’re ind yeah we we are so dispensable right now it’s not even even funny um you know
1:00:09
Chinese can dispense with us as will the Russians think we’re a joke i mean the Russians were being kind saying “Yeah um
1:00:16
we could do business with you but did you hear Pescov speak the other day at the St petersburg International Economic Forum um all the people that think
1:00:22
they’re coming to Russia you’re not if you left you’re not coming back uh we have our partners and we’re going to
1:00:28
work with our partners but we’re not letting anybody else in we have a good
1:00:34
thing going on here and we’re you’re not welcome back russia doesn’t need the United States they don’t need Europe
1:00:40
they’ve they’ve built something better um and the United States continues to walk around as if the whole world needs
1:00:46
us china proved they don’t need us i mean the back down that Trump did on tariffs is proof positive that he has no
1:00:52
leverage over China the reverse is the true and China gave us mercy because out
1:00:57
of goodwill how much goodwill is going to be left in the world uh because of what the United States has done the
1:01:03
American people are going to learn some very harsh lessons very soon about the price of being irresponsible
1:01:10
yes yeah yeah well I I would just say that we have proven not to be
1:01:15
indispensable but we have proved ourselves to be
1:01:20
exceptional there’s no denying that’s true that’s true but not quite
1:01:27
the way that the world would give it any respect but that’s the third definition
1:01:32
in Webster’s dictionary we like to believe we’re we’re the first definition you know the word exceptional da da da
1:01:38
it means this but then you work your way down it says it also means you’re exceptionally bad um we’ve reached that
1:01:44
level we’re we’re the you know Yeah and that matters and that is something that
1:01:50
Vladimir Putin pointed out yeah i’ll just remember people remind people this
1:01:55
is when KG pretty smart guy right so back in the
1:02:02
day and I’m just going back to 2013 for god’s sake what’s that just 12 years ago
1:02:08
if math is right okay is that right okay pin pulled Obama’s
1:02:16
chestnuts out of the fire all these crazy neocons and you have to strike
1:02:22
You have to strike Syria because they did a they used chemical weapons outside
1:02:27
Damascus you got to do it obama goes up to St petersburg without John Kerry and
1:02:34
without his neocon advisors and Putin takes him by the shoulder and says “Look
1:02:40
you don’t want to make a war in Syria i applaud that i don’t want that either i got a way out here we have persuaded the
1:02:47
Syrians to destroy all what’s left of their chemical weapons how about that okay now long story short that prevented
1:02:56
a war obama bought it why could he not buy it okay it was destroyed under UN
1:03:01
supervision on a special ship outfitted to destroy chemical weapons what
1:03:07
happened on the 12th of September while all this was going down Puchin wrote an
1:03:14
op-ed in the New York Times now what he said was this and pay
1:03:20
attention because this was the Apple J of USRussian relations over the last
1:03:26
couple of decades he said “I really appreciate the trust that has grown not
1:03:31
between just our two nations but also between President Obama and me i think
1:03:38
we can build on that to create conditions for more peace.” But it’s
1:03:44
quite extraord This is the last paragraph but uh he said just last week
1:03:50
in a major speech that the US is exceptional i disagree with that says Puchin in this
1:03:58
last paragraph i think there are all kinds of nations the big ones small ones closer to democracy and but when the
1:04:05
good lord looks at all these nations he thinks them equal okay so right then at
1:04:13
the at the appe of their relationship when Putin had pulled those out of the
1:04:19
fire he’s warning look for God’s sake don’t screw it up what happened eight months later they screwed it up by
1:04:26
overturning the government deal and that wasn’t that was Obama’s uh sat traps
1:04:32
Victoria Nuland and all those crazy guys so from the apogee down to uh February
1:04:39
14 2014 February um whatever it was 2014
1:04:46
the uh the most blatant coup in history which it really was advertised on
1:04:51
YouTube two and a half weeks before okay and since then it’s been down until
1:04:59
Trump seemed to realize that wait a second we’re not going to win in Ukraine maybe we’ll do a deal even that in my
1:05:06
view is now off off the table uh he’s not going to be he’s not going to even
1:05:11
want to much less have the latitude pooching to deal with this guy who’s so murial and starts wars in wars of
1:05:19
aggression now this happens this means I mean this has meaning scott quoted what
1:05:26
a war of aggression is nerburgg said the war of aggression is the supreme
1:05:31
international crime differing from other war crimes only in as much as it
1:05:38
contains the accumulated evil of the whole think torture think all the other
1:05:46
things that are going not only on in in in the various wars but think genocide
1:05:53
for God’s sake so my god uh Scott has been in the forefront getting citizens
1:05:59
from both countries together Russians and Americans he’s been in the forefront of getting out against his earlier
1:06:06
inclinations that demonstrate to get out off our rear ends and do something about this and I’ll just repeat what who is it
1:06:14
i think it was uh Rabbi Hesshel said way back when um when evil happens in the
1:06:20
world we’re not all guilty but we are all responsible
1:06:26
um sitting around and being neutral in such
1:06:31
circumstances is to be on the side of the oppressor that’s why we have to get off our rear ends and get out there and
1:06:38
I applaud you Scott for doing more than rhetoric you do a hell of a lot more than rhetoric let’s all do a hell of a
1:06:44
lot more than rhetoric well I just want to add on what Ray said
1:06:50
there you know when you when when just real quick to emphasize you know Putin has admitted he’s had one failing
1:06:58
i mean he probably has admitted to several but he’s publicly admitted to one failing and it’s the failing of
1:07:04
Russia and that’s to be naive to be naive and believe that the United
1:07:09
States was a sincere partner the Russians always knew we were an imperfect partner the Russians always
1:07:15
knew that we were tainted by this concept of exceptionalism but Russia sought to work with us
1:07:21
believing that maybe we didn’t believe our own rhetoric we that we could be rational when the time came um but he
1:07:30
has been repeatedly disappointed in the United States and Russia has been if you meet with the
1:07:37
Russians there’s a deep sadness a deep sadness when they talk about the United States because they truly
1:07:44
wanted and want to live in peace and harmony with the United States as a
1:07:50
friend as an equal um but what they’re coming to the realization and I this is the realization that you have when you
1:07:56
have a a family member who has disappointed you um who maybe got in trouble with the law and you took them
1:08:03
to rehabilitation and you took them to drug uh you know drug rehabil whatever
1:08:09
that you know and and you gave them every opportunity and over and over again you find them in
1:08:15
the ditch or you bail them out of jail and you bring them home but at some point in time you come to the realization that while we love this
1:08:21
person there’s no salvation for this person this person is not going to
1:08:27
change that you know and the and they’re just a disappointment and I think Russia’s reached this point with the
1:08:33
United States because this isn’t just about Trump the mistake we make is
1:08:39
saying that all the ALS between Russia and the United States is about Trump it’s about us it’s about America it’s
1:08:47
about the people who have allowed themselves to be infected with russophobia it’s about academic institutions that sustain the
1:08:53
rustophobia it’s about a deep state that can only exist because of russophobia and the fear generating the policies put
1:09:00
on and I think the Russians have reached the point now where they have to let
1:09:07
the exceptional America go that they’re not going to be there to bail us out
1:09:14
they’re not going to walk around with their arms on our shoulders they’re not going to try and help find solutions
1:09:20
what their job is right now is to allow their lives to go on and not be dragged
1:09:25
down the pit by this this this this diseased individual known as America and
1:09:32
um and this is a sad state affair and I say that as an American who is desperately tried joe you were with me
1:09:37
uh just just Wednesday where we were trying to engage in a a citizen summit
1:09:44
and we did engage in a citizen summit it was a success but there were two things out of that one was the fact that just
1:09:50
days before we did this this summit was supposed to be complimentary to an overall policy of the United States
1:09:58
of diplomatic engagement with Russia trump pulled the plug on diplomatic engagement with Russia and so now we’re
1:10:04
what we did Wednesday is the only I mean this is sort of something we could be proud of although it’s very sad Joe what
1:10:09
we did on Wednesday is the only citizen to citizen contact of note being taken between the United States and Russia uh
1:10:15
today um you know so we can be proud of this but um the the the fact of the
1:10:22
matter is the Russians there said something very telling do you remember Joe where they said how can we trust you
1:10:30
how can we ever trust you again and then they put the challenge out that the onus isn’t on them to trust us the onus is on
1:10:38
us to take actions that can regain their trust and my god I I I just p published
1:10:45
something project 38 uh where I was you know I’m still going to do it but you know the idea is to go forward and
1:10:51
create the conditions in which we can engage the Russians responsibly on arms control but you have to rebuild trust
1:10:58
you have to you know create the conditions for trust and then Trump pulls this stunt in Iran that uh
1:11:04
destroys eliminates any potential of that i have never been more and and I
1:11:10
apologize earlier for Ray for raising my voice i’m just very frustrated very angry
1:11:16
um I am not somebody who o often gets overwhelmed with feelings of hopelessness you know me I’m a fighter
1:11:23
it doesn’t matter how bad the situation gets i wake up in the morning say “How can we what can we do how can we attack
1:11:29
close with and destroy the enemy how can we overcome it i am filled with despair right now um I know I’m going to get
1:11:35
over this uh because I always do um but I’ve what what what we have done in Iran
1:11:42
is just so mind mindboggling evil and bad and and stupid and the consequences
1:11:48
we don’t even understand what the consequences are and it destroys everything we were trying to do with
1:11:54
peace it it damages it not I can’t say destroy because I’m not giving up but the damage that Trump’s actions have
1:12:00
done to what we all Joe you me everybody have been working for this this this
1:12:06
trying to find a path towards peaceful coexistence this damage is real i’m not
1:12:11
yet willing to call it fatal but it hurts trump has hurt us he has hurt our
1:12:17
cause and um it it it has led me to despair so I apologize earlier for uh
1:12:22
getting emotional as you said what what was the sin that America has emotionalism
1:12:28
o overload yeah that’s what piss overload emotional overload emotional overload i’m guilty of that
1:12:35
no listen this is very serious stuff okay uh anger is a virtue
1:12:42
none other than Thomas Aquinus defined anger just enough anger py Pythagorean
1:12:50
sort of in the virtue is in the middle okay too much anger no good that’sundia
1:12:55
in Latin okay too little milk Mr milk Toast no anger is a virtue so you know
1:13:02
um Scott uh you are being virtuous okay and anger has a place now what do I talk
1:13:10
about also just just briefly is trust i talked about trust i mentioned that on
1:13:16
the 12th of September 2013 Putin himself talked about increasing trust between
1:13:22
our two countries and between our two presidents well that’s shattered now
1:13:28
okay but trust is important and I had a unique opportunity to consult with one
1:13:34
of Garbachov’s chief advisors when
1:13:40
Jim Baker came into uh Moscow and promised
1:13:46
the Russians Garbachov and Shvadi we won’t move NATO one inch to the east
1:13:53
i saw Kuvaldin one of his right-hand persons there an academic turned out I
1:14:00
was at a cocktail party about nine years ago in Moscow and I said “Mr kualdin
1:14:06
tell me uh why didn’t you get that thing written down that promise?” And he
1:14:13
looked at me now he said “Well Mr mcgovern uh I’ll give you the usual reasons uh
1:14:21
the Germans hadn’t bought in completely yet and and the War was pact for God’s sake still existed but here’s the real
1:14:28
reason Mr mcgovern we trusted you
1:14:33
bummer okay now is there any trust left well there’s not much trust left but
1:14:40
there is a a pretty cool common collected person in Moscow still Mr mr
1:14:47
puchin now what else i was there last last month and um when you travel with
1:14:56
someone like Oliver Stone you get to meet some very very important people uh
1:15:02
it was Oliver who ordered me to ask Scott to write a piece on arms control
1:15:10
which I delivered to well to to some very hype people okay but what I want to
1:15:17
say is that at dinner given by by the next to the highest official that
1:15:23
you can get okay he was given McGovern got to go because he was with Oliver
1:15:28
Stone right uh after a while this fellow looks at me and he says “Mr mcgovern
1:15:34
you’re a specialist on Russia you have been for decades you’re a Russian area
1:15:39
specialist you have degrees here how come you don’t hate Russia?”
1:15:45
My god and I said to myself “Oh oh damn.”
1:15:50
uh and I had to explain I did all this studying in the 60s and even in the 50s
1:15:57
before academ went down the drain and was people by
1:16:03
people like Bjinski and Richard Pipes people who hated Russia and that they
1:16:08
they they drew aroushobia from their mother’s milk for God’s sake and I tried
1:16:14
to explain look area studies I learned Russian literature I learned Russian
1:16:20
history i learned the Russian language i taught the Russian so it was different with me and I’m feeling very privileged
1:16:26
to say I don’t hate Russia once you know about Russia you can’t hate Russia so
1:16:32
last thing I’ll say here neither could John F kennedy hate Russia and that was
1:16:40
months after he almost destroy tried to destroy Russia at the behest of his
1:16:46
military in the Cuban missile crisis okay that was October 1962
1:16:54
in June 1963 he made a major speech which you all know about but maybe the audience
1:17:00
doesn’t it was this peace speech and he said “Look we share much with Russia
1:17:07
there is never anything that has come really wedged between us we hope for the
1:17:13
same things for our children.” And listen almost unique in history our two
1:17:20
great power nations have never been at war one with the other
1:17:25
well that happens to be the fact matter of fact the Russians bailed us out
1:17:31
during the Civil War nobody knows about that they helped us during the Revolutionary War nobody knows about
1:17:37
that i know about that scott knows about that joe you know about that so what we
1:17:42
need to do is kind of try to educate our fellow American citizens as you and
1:17:48
Scott did just this week and say “Look it’s different than what they’re telling you we can get along with these people.”
1:17:55
And the worst of course is that it’s a uphill challenge but you’re not going to
1:18:01
stop right Scott and Joe you’re going to give us the vehicle to tell the truth that’s the hope here i’m not totally
1:18:10
desparing here i think we have to accent the policy as long as accented posit
1:18:16
positive and uh this little session this morning retired as I am uh was I think
1:18:23
very positive Joe i thank you and I thank you Scott and don’t worry about raising your voice sometimes I do that
1:18:29
myself i am Irish after all i hope Irish I have a few minutes a few seconds to
1:18:35
ask some more questions if you don’t mind first I wanted to mention that at the citizen summit I had a chance to
1:18:41
speak to the people in St petersburg and I mentioned the American University speech of Kennedy um
1:18:48
in which he was trying to end the coal board what I was saying that the first amendment is under threat here what I didn’t finish saying was that the that
1:18:55
article I wrote about Kennedy’s speech and the continuing humiliation that the subsequent presidents made of Russia was
1:19:02
cannot be posted on Facebook that’s just an example of the first amendment issue that we had here but
1:19:09
what I wanted to uh to ask is you mentioned that oped that Putin wrote at
1:19:14
that time uh it was 3 months before the Maidan overthrow of Yanukovich that the
1:19:20
JCPOA negotiations began November 2013 can you imagine today that included US
1:19:29
Britain France and Germany with China and Russia came together to make that nuclear deal could you imagine now uh
1:19:36
that kind of wise diplomacy being possible it’s not possible anymore but even though the Maidan coup took place
1:19:43
the the negotiations of the nuclear deal between the west and Russia and China continued well we have lost that ability
1:19:51
right now uh but I wanted to ask now uh Scott you talked about Israel wanting to
1:19:57
lure the US back into this war after this strike last night by the United
1:20:03
States it sounded like the tone and some of the things that Trump said was “This is it that’s he wants to end it here.”
1:20:10
Now my question to both of you is is it wise now for Iran not to strike back at the US to the many 40,000 US troops in
1:20:17
the region on those bases to let it end there to not dignify a response to what
1:20:24
the US did last night which as we discussed earlier really did no damage do you think that Iran will let it go uh
1:20:31
Scott well what I heard from the president because now we have learned not to trust
1:20:37
him um he didn’t say that it ends here he said that we’re done for the moment
1:20:45
but now Iran must surrender and if Iran doesn’t surrender then I will come back
1:20:50
in with even more terrible weapons so you know the the fact of the matter is
1:20:56
the United States um has left the door open for expanded
1:21:03
military action and we have resources deploying into the region um what should
1:21:08
Iran do i think it’s in Iran’s interest to
1:21:15
prevent direct American involvement beyond the scope and scale of what America has already done what America
1:21:21
did was a meaningless strike we bombed three empty sites we didn’t accomplish anything nothing of dam no damage was
1:21:27
done to Iran um the United States by undertaking this
1:21:32
action has created a tremendous amount of uncertainty globally as Rey and I had
1:21:38
discussed uh we don’t know what Russia and China are going to do but we know they’re going to do something we know
1:21:44
that the international community is going to do something we we anticipate a level of dysfunction in NATO because of
1:21:51
this strike um the United States will find itself increasingly isolated so
1:21:57
it’s important that Iran um try to define what the problem is
1:22:04
here um Iran should continue to strike Israel as hard as
1:22:10
possible israel must pay a price for the crime of perity for attacking um uh uh
1:22:17
uh Iran and so long as Israel continues to believe it it has a right to continue to strike Iran Iran must strike back uh
1:22:25
Iran must win this aspect of the fight on the nuclear side I think it’s
1:22:31
important for Iran to give the international community a chance to rally around the nuclear
1:22:37
non-prololiferation treaty uh it would be very important to have the IAEA uh
1:22:42
issue um very harshly worded condemnation of the United States for
1:22:47
its attack against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure it would be very important for Russia and China to
1:22:54
reinforce the importance of a of a viable nuclear non-prololiferation regime and there’s a couple reasons why
1:22:59
I believe this is important for Iran to do one uh Iran must not allow this
1:23:05
ongoing discussion to be solely focused on its enrichment um if it if it gets
1:23:11
into a you know we have to be allowed to enrich America says we don’t and that’s what this war is about I I I think
1:23:18
that’s problematic iran needs allies and those allies need to be talking about nuclear non-prololiferation
1:23:25
um in a way that leads the conversation to Israel’s nuclear arsenal and I really do believe that there’s an opportunity
1:23:31
now and the world will pick up on this you already hear hints from Midv that he
1:23:36
has you know condemned Israel’s nuclear arsenal and the inconsistencies of the application of the MPT there’s an
1:23:44
opportunity for Iran here if they do this properly to have the focus put on Israel not Iran um and Israel will if
1:23:53
they can keep America out of this Israel I believe will eventually break and say “We have to stop this.” Uh the Netanyahu
1:24:01
government will collapse and a new government will come in that says we we have to stop this this striking this
1:24:06
this attack um and if they do that they are you know now the conditions can be
1:24:13
put on by the world not Iran if the world starts to say “Yes but it’s your
1:24:19
nuclear program that’s the problem not Iran’s nuclear program we can get the world to focus on bringing Israeli
1:24:26
Israel into the fold.” This is possible because I for the first time ever in a
1:24:33
conflict of this nature um the United States while Trump may posture with his
1:24:38
rhetoric as some sort of magnificent leader the United States is actually operating from a position of extreme
1:24:44
weakness look at the statement that came out of Saudi Arabia saudi Arabia today that plays host to about 60% of
1:24:50
America’s strike potential in the region saudi Arabia said this is wrong you shouldn’t have done this and if you
1:24:56
think that Saudi Arabia is now going to allow its bases to be used to stage military strikes against uh Iran think
1:25:02
again so Iran needs to play to these
1:25:09
emotions that that have that have come in continue to adhere to the rule of international law and work with the
1:25:16
Russians and the Chinese to isolate Israel and to keep America from
1:25:22
re-engaging on this conflict i I just was scrolling i apologize because my wife always yells at me when I do this
1:25:28
so while I’m in the middle of a podcast uh to scroll the headlines but I feel I have to here um you know the the United
1:25:35
States is now formally engaged with China to get China to um convince the Iranians not to shut the straight or
1:25:42
Hormuz um at the same time uh Iran has increased its jamming of the GPS
1:25:48
navigation systems that are used to help guide ships through the straight of Hormus so you know we’re at a a very
1:25:55
critical decision point there um but what you know the question here is what leverage can China get from the United
1:26:02
States if China comes in and says “Okay we’re willing to do this but you got to
1:26:07
back down you have to back away you can’t re-engage.” So this is diplomacy
1:26:12
this is the kind of engagement that’s taking place the United States is waking up to the fact that Iran can destroy our
1:26:19
economy overnight i mean we are in an we are an economic basket case right now i’m not an
1:26:25
economist i have been buying uh you know some of the some of the books uh from people who are smarter than me to try
1:26:31
and figure out how to spell economics um and maybe even fake that I can talk
1:26:36
about it but I do know this i do know energy security and I do know that there is a cascading detrimental impact to the
1:26:44
economy of the United States when a the price of fuel goes up but more importantly and this is something we
1:26:50
experienced earlier if you remember during the pandemic when we had that energy crisis where actually it cost
1:26:56
people oil became not just worthless but expensive to hold on to meaning that if
1:27:02
you held on to oil you had to pay people money because nobody wanted the oil um diesel diesel is is the most important
1:27:10
factor here for the for the American economy and if we are denied access to
1:27:16
diesel our entire country shuts down i can’t go to Walmart anymore because
1:27:21
Walmart is empty i can’t buy food at Price Chopper anymore because the shelves are empty um
1:27:29
and that’s that is um that is a a threat I think that uh people are starting to
1:27:34
tell Trump about and so I think China has some leverage here to say we can prevent that outcome but you okay you
1:27:42
did your thing you did your big muscle flexing now you need to back off and let this thing play out so we’ll see i don’t
1:27:49
know ray how do you think respond now I agree with what Scott what he just
1:27:56
said um I just realizing that I I earlier meant to set my alarm for 8
1:28:02
o’clock this morning so I could hear what that new head of the joint chiefs of staff
1:28:08
raising Kane yeah raising Kane and Pete H said but
1:28:15
maybe it’s better that I got my anger down uh just to say that the
1:28:23
imbeciles that have been leading our military for the last couple of decades
1:28:30
I mean I don’t think they even went to basic infantry officer school where I learned basic things about you know what
1:28:37
you do and what you don’t do so that’s a fly in the ointment what kind of advice
1:28:44
is raising Kaine uh giving to the president now with respect to what you
1:28:51
asked about I agree with Scott um I think that uh it would be better for
1:28:57
Iran not to strike out at US bases in the immediate vicinity although they
1:29:04
could easily do that and they may not have control over uh Shia Muslim people
1:29:12
who will do that anyway without any permission from Iran so that’s a danger okay now what else um
1:29:20
uh if as I’m told reliably I think that Iran
1:29:27
has a plethora of hypersonic missiles that there is no defense against and is
1:29:35
shooting them or firing them at Israel to a fairly well israel can get
1:29:42
destroyed wow destroyed now not only that but the Patriot
1:29:49
missiles the the highars and all these very sophisticated air defense system
1:29:54
that the US has given Israel don’t work okay that’s a major factor so if as I’ve
1:30:02
been told Iran can pretty much attit uh Israel to to almost destroying it that’s
1:30:11
a big factor here uh what else um well I just want to to emphasize that uh
1:30:21
uh what Russia and China do right now is going to be key uh if there’s any sense
1:30:28
left in among uh Trump’s supporters or his advisors uh we can avoid the worst
1:30:37
but you know that’s the big question uh Telsey Gabbard some of us kind of
1:30:43
thought that well she knows at least which end is up will she act this way
1:30:49
she’s caved so who else is going to stand up to Trump and to raising Kane
1:30:55
and say this is really stupid i don’t know and neither do the Russians and
1:31:01
neither do the Chinese and that spells danger well apparently the chairman of the
1:31:07
joint chiefs severely damaged the nuclear facilities so he seems to be
1:31:14
pushing that that line amazing kane um yeah no I I I’m sorry i’m tired too i
1:31:21
was getting ready to interject with perhaps the most wi wise thing I was going to say all day but it just escaped
1:31:27
my mind so I’m sorry i’m going to regroup no no it’s not your fault i’m We’ll bring you back uh but I think that
1:31:34
the point R’s making about this this war of attrition um the Wall Street Journal
1:31:39
reported last week that they’re running out of interceptor missiles israel uh their economy they they’re losing $200
1:31:45
million a day the airport is shut down the port in Hifer is shut down um I
1:31:50
don’t even know if you can get out by the Alen Bridge to Jordan the economy of Israel is going to collapse uh the long
1:31:58
Israel it seems from Iran’s point of view would be wise to continue what they’re doing right now and not mess
1:32:04
around striking back at the US and one of the lie I think that Trump repeated
1:32:10
in his speech last night is this idea that Netanyahu and the Israelis have been saying for a long time that Iran is
1:32:16
the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world now we know that the Sunni Arabs who are and it’s the US that are
1:32:23
allied with them but u if Israel if Iran continues what they’re doing now um and
1:32:31
they have as many missiles as people think they have and they could be getting more from China and Russia as well by the way that’s something that
1:32:37
could be going on without inter uh Russia getting directly involved of course that it looks like is the playing
1:32:44
the long game Iran might have the advantage here
1:32:50
Joe thought that am I on yeah okay
1:32:56
I thought that escaped Scott’s mind scott when you’re real old
1:33:02
like me they escape your mind all the time so not a lot going on
1:33:09
here’s my thought false flag
1:33:15
the conditions are incredibly ripe for a false flag attack sponsored by Israelis
1:33:23
and the blame being put on the Iranians against one of those three sitting ducks
1:33:30
i I call them sitting ducks that’s what they are they’re aircraft carriers they
1:33:35
belong to the last century for God’s sake they don’t have to sink them all you have to do is kill a bunch of sold
1:33:42
sailors on those ships you know we used to talk about it was a good thing you get your ducks in a row right well not
1:33:50
this time you get three sitting ducks in a row now they’re interspersed of course
1:33:55
they’re not together but what I fear is that chances are probably better than
1:34:02
even now that in extremists or even before Israel will sponsor a false flag
1:34:09
attack on a US base or a US carrier or US ship of some other kind and then
1:34:15
Trump will be will be deprived of any option to be sensible he’ll have to go
1:34:21
in again with more bunker busters and finish the job as if he could that’s
1:34:27
what worries me now my great thought was false flag i think it’s likely let me
1:34:34
just add one thing i said this a week ago i wrote a note to the skipper of the
1:34:40
USS Nimttz who had just been ordered to bring his aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf area and I said “Look if
1:34:48
you get a missile you get an attack please note the direction from which it comes and whether it might be a a false
1:34:55
flag.” And I got more than a half million hits on that tweet so
1:35:02
yeah more than half i don’t usually get that scott gets that all the time so anyhow
1:35:07
it’s not like Israel hasn’t done this before it’s not like Israel hadn’t done it
1:35:13
before liberty uh USS Liberty 2.0 we’re looking at perhaps
1:35:19
now I want to ask about regime change here because some people talking about the MEK being able to do this the US is
1:35:26
not going to send hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy and over to other government the Israelis seem to think
1:35:32
they’re playing chess here if you kill the the leader the game’s over well that’s not the case because every time
1:35:37
they assassinate someone they were being replaced how could there be a regime change in Iran if it were if there were
1:35:43
to be one well we’ve already executed that plan uh the summer of 2023
1:35:50
um I I had the the privilege of um being in a meeting with um President Rayi the
1:35:56
the Iranian president in September of 2023 and um you know he surprised me
1:36:03
when he started off with a uh a presentation about what had just transpired he said that in the if pe
1:36:12
just to refresh people’s memory uh Iran was on fire in the summer of 2023 because of a um it it began with the
1:36:20
tragic death of a Kurdish uh girl young lady uh who died in police custody um
1:36:26
the circumstances of the death are you know still
1:36:31
nebulous but it it was sufficient enough to get people into the street protesting
1:36:37
hijabi laws and things of that nature um and what he said is this was legitimate
1:36:43
protest it was interesting him to say that he said you know the you know the government um had made you know had
1:36:51
created conditions that were unacceptable to the people and the people were um demonstrating and this
1:36:57
was their legitimate right he said the problem came when foreign powers sought
1:37:02
to exploit this demonstration and pile on and uh the MEK did the the um the
1:37:09
Arabs in the Avaz region did the Azeris did the Kurds did the Beluch did uh the
1:37:14
the monarchists did basically every foreign funded opposition group rose up in a coordinated fashion to set Iran on
1:37:23
fire and to bring down the regime but then what he said because this was all known he said it almost worked he said
1:37:31
that uh our our government was under the greatest threat that it had experienced since the Iran Iraq war that this was a
1:37:39
very real threat a concerted threat um and it was a real danger to us he said
1:37:45
“But we beat it we gathered together we rallied the nation and we defeated it.”
1:37:50
Uh so we know what the regime change model is and that’s what they’re trying to replicate now they’re trying to
1:37:56
create a condition of societal collapse uh a disconnect between the people and
1:38:01
the government or to eliminate the government and leave the people wandering leaderless and then repeat
1:38:08
what they did this is why uh the Iranians yesterday I believe they’ve mobilized the basis um the the the the
1:38:15
the militia they’ve mobilized them they are now out there because they’re not
1:38:20
going to let this happen and the other mistake that’s been made is that the Iranian people rather than being afraid
1:38:25
or disconnected with the leader they are more united today than ever i mean it’s
1:38:31
anecdotal you never know what you’re seeing on the on the internet but you know the for a while there the Iranians
1:38:37
were putting out uh videos of women in Thran in northern Thran because I don’t think this takes place everywhere in
1:38:43
Iran but in northern Tyran the women had just discarded the hijab and they were walking around in the malls on the
1:38:49
streets um free of interference because the Iranian government doesn’t want a repeat of this and uh and yet you see
1:38:57
one of these women without the hijab surrounded by conservative women condemning Israel and praising the
1:39:03
government and saying how Iran is Iran and they will be there so any hope of of
1:39:08
you know creating the conditions for uh the collapse of this regime through societal collapse political dysfunction
1:39:15
etc is gone that doesn’t mean there isn’t a danger that they’re going to repeat trying to bring up all of these
1:39:21
different groups but remember it was just two years ago that these groups did rise up and they were crushed they were
1:39:28
crushed by the Iranian regime and so the idea that they’re going to suddenly be able to reconstitute in a in a uh
1:39:35
cohesive coherent fashion to bring a threat on is fantasy um I mean it
1:39:40
doesn’t mean that the CIA and MI6 and the Dutch because the Dutch are heavily involved um are are you know are going
1:39:47
to lose this fantasy um it just means that the the tools that they think they have no longer are there we we see the
1:39:53
monarchists they are you know the Palevy’s uh is it son uh out there
1:39:58
making fanciful notions about the return of the go you know the throne yeah um
1:40:07
yeah it’s never going to happen if he if he if he steps one foot into Iran he will be strung up by the neck until dead
1:40:12
uh there is no support at all other than CIA funded cells that do propaganda
1:40:18
things like go in and paint things on they get on roofs and they shout out and they make a video and put it out there
1:40:23
as if there’s opposition but the reality is the Iranian people have rallied around the theocracy so this is yet
1:40:29
another failure on the part of Israel and u and the anti- um regime i don’t
1:40:36
know did we lose Joe am I speaking in vacuum
1:40:41
no still here ray can hear me okay i just lost Joe’s video so um I Hi guys
1:40:48
it’s Kathy i’m back i’m back i’m back great anyway um it’s I wanted to thank
1:40:54
both of you guys unless you have any final remarks we could uh wrap up what has turned out to be an hour and 45
1:41:00
minutes wow my final I just want to say real quick to double on with Rey if you have
1:41:07
Russian area studies and real Russian area studies it’s impossible to learn to hate Russia that’s the beauty of
1:41:14
embracing um the reality of Russia because you will fall in love with Russia and that’s
1:41:20
why I continue to uh to to pursue that and I think it’s time that we apply that
1:41:26
same philosophy to Iran i have had the privilege of traveling in Iran and meeting the Iranian people um and they
1:41:34
are as cultured they are as educated a group of people as you’ll ever meet
1:41:39
their hearts are sincere warm open i remember walking through uh the streets
1:41:45
oh gosh there goes my brain again there’s an Iranian city near Natans um
1:41:50
an ancient city Ka Kashan I think it is um and I was there and they had the rose
1:41:57
festival and uh and I was walking there was a family there and I came up and and the f and everywhere you go they’re
1:42:03
offering you free food i mean there’s just such warm people um and there was a
1:42:09
family there and they looked the guy looked at me and he said you’re uh you’re Scott Ritter i said yes he goes
1:42:14
wow you’re in Kashan i said I said yes and he goes well I’m so and so and I
1:42:19
said well you know what do you do he goes my I work at Natons
1:42:25
i’m uh I’m not really supposed to be talking to you um but I just wanted to say hi and uh wish you the very best and
1:42:32
I wish you success at whatever it is you’re trying to do he introduced me to his family and once we started talking
1:42:39
the whole city seemed to converge around us not in hostility but in love so I I
1:42:46
honestly believe that if we learn to if we learn about Iran the real Iran and
1:42:51
not allowed like in Russophobia we allow certain anti-Russian elements that have uh created a diaspora in America to
1:42:57
define what Russia is as opposed to going to the source itself rather than allowing the Iranian diaspora to dictate
1:43:06
to us their vision of um you know pro-Shaw uh theory um if we get to know
1:43:13
the Iranian people i re I I I’m in contact with them consistently on on on
1:43:18
these are wonderful people and I just think that’s the key ray that you know we have Russian area studies but we need
1:43:24
to have Iranian area studies uh because I truly believe that if we do it right
1:43:31
we will fall in love with Iran and we’ll never want to engage in this stupidity that we’re engaging in again I don’t
1:43:37
know I just I I’m trying to end on a positive note thank you Joe for inviting me I really appreciate it over to you
1:43:47
Well final word my final word is simply thank you uh I learned a lot um
1:43:55
I respect Scott so much that uh when I
1:44:00
learn new things I assimilate them into what I thought I knew and uh I just want
1:44:06
to say that giving whoever is listening or watching or would watch later the
1:44:11
opportunity to hear this kind of thing well I just think that’s a unique contribution to our our ability to
1:44:19
figure out what’s going on uh so not all is lost uh the major media sinking
1:44:27
consortium news and others are rising let’s hope that there will come a day
1:44:32
when people will learn from such as such as us and uh uh my I just want to say uh
1:44:40
a sincere thanks well thank you again Ray and Scott for
1:44:45
coming on today to talk about this developing story so until next time when
1:44:52
we speak again about this or other issues this is Joel Laura for CN Live saying goodbye
1:45:03
get out your notebook there’s more if you are a consumer of independent
1:45:08
news and the first place you should be going to is consortium news and please do try to support them when you can it
1:45:14
doesn’t have its articles behind a payw wall it’s free for everyone it’s one of the best news sites out there and it’s been in the business of independent
1:45:20
journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades i hope that with the public’s continuing
1:45:26
support of Consortium News it will continue for a very long time to come thank you so much
oooooo
