The US & Israel’s War on Iran

0:00Welcome to Navara at Life, I'm Michael Walker, and I'm joined by Keirin Andrew, very big show tonight. An almost show, and it seems fitting, Michael, this is our first IRL show. Even more news. Even more news. Of course, our big story tonight, we're going to spend the whole hour and more discussing the US-Israeli war on Iran, got a couple of great experts on the way. On Saturday morning, the US alongside Israel launched a devastating attack on Iran, one that continued across the weekend and into today. US Central Command has said that FAA-18 and F-35 fighter jets were launched from two aircraft carriers in the attack, codenamed Operation Epic Fury. This is really a war run by large children. That's what the Americans are calling it. The Israelis are calling it lion's roar. Guided missile destroyers were also deployed to the region in advance of the attack and B-2 stealth bombers were used in the aerosolp over Iran alongside drone swarms.

1:05The destructive impact of that weaponry has been evident with political and military sites across the capital Tehran, having been destroyed. Israel has also been busy releasing this footage of what they say was a strike on a target linked to the Iranian regime and guided by army intelligence. Those attacks continued into Monday today with billowing smoke scene rising across the city's skyline as further parts of the city came under US and Israeli attacks. A fresh wave of strikes have hit Tehran this evening. US President Donald Trump has called the Operation a major combat against the Iranian regime, while Israel has said its aim is to remove an existential threat. The attack, of course, hasn't been restricted to Tehran with air strikes hitting towns and cities. The length and breadth of the country, including in large centres like Kham and Shiraz, as well as strategic sites like Isfahar. It's home to at least one of Iran's nuclear development sites. Tehran, though appears to have been a central focus, so far major targets have included the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the home of the former President

2:07of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the compound of the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Hamanay. On their own terms, US and Israel have had, of course, some immediate success. So the strike on Hamanay's Tehran compound killed the 86 year old cleric who has led the country since 1989, dying with him with his daughter son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and grandchild. News of the Ayatollah's death broke on Saturday night, but was only confirmed by Iran's authorities on Sunday morning, when 40 days of morning were announced, and thousands gathered in Tehran's revolutionary square to take up that call with the country's supreme national security council, saying Hamanay's killing would mark a great uprising against the tyrants of the world. And they were further protest across the Muslim world, including in Pakistan, where 23 protestors were killed by police. Ten were shot after they stormed the US consulate and set it on fire. There were also celebrations in various parts of Iran, in Kharaj city near Tehran, a large group of Iranians, took to the street to dance as news of Hamanay's death, emerged, and

3:12diaspora Iranians around the world also celebrated the Ayatollah's killing. But not all of the more than 550 people so far killed across Iran have been political targets. In the town of Minab, in the country's south, a girl's school was struck by what is thought to be an Israeli missile on Saturday, over 150 people, and now reported to have been killed in that assault, most of them girls, under the age of 13. Neither the US nor Israel have yet taken responsibility for that strike on the school, which was located near to a naval base, belonging to the IRGC that was later struck. As well, Iran, sorry, has called the strike on the school a war crime. Despite losing its head of state and according to the US 48 other senior figures, Iran has been still able to undertake a widespread military retaliation in the region. It has fired salvos of rockets, missiles, and drones into countries across the Gulf, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's oil refineries have also been targeted, and Cyprus, home to British bases, was struck by a drone this

4:17morning. The rationale behind the Iranian attacks appears to be to inflict as much economic and political damage as possible on those countries it sees as housing US military installations or supporting the US and Israeli attack on Iran. It has led to some very striking scenes, so in Dubai at least one luxury hotel was set at a light after it was hit by a drone on Saturday evening. Several other explosions were reported in the area, Dubai International Airport was also reportedly hit by a missile forcing the terminal to be evacuated. In Bahrain, an Iranian Shahed Kamikaze drone appears to have flown straight into the side of a high-rise building, meanwhile, in Qatar, the sky was lit up by US air defense systems trying to bring down Iranian missiles aimed at an American airbase located just outside the capital Doha. Energy infrastructure appears to be a target, so in Saudi Arabia at least one oil refinery has been struck today, belonging to the country's state oil company Aramco.

5:18The refinery on the country's Gulf Coast was closed following the fire, and it has a capacity of almost or just over, actually half a million barrels per day, and is a critical export terminal for Saudi crude. Iran has also hit oil tankers with drones in the strait of Hormuz, and Iran has also threatened to mine the strait, a crucial passage for oil exports from the Gulf. The financial times reports that the flow has already come to a standstill. Qatar has also now paused its production of liquid natural gas following Iran strikes on the country, and oil prices have risen sharply today, climbing by around 4.5% in response to fears over supply issues in the strait of Hormuz, but it's Israel that's taken the biggest hits from Iran so far. Obviously we used to seeing Israelis watching bombs land in Gaza, their own bombs, now they're

6:28seeing some rockets land in their own country. That was, of course, the moment, an Iranian missile made it through Israel's iron domed defenses to hit West Jerusalem. CCTV footage captured another strike on the town of Bishaba in southern Israel's Negev desert. At least nine people were killed in some 20 injured with an Iranian missile struck bait Shamesh outside Jerusalem. So far, 10 people have been killed in Israel with hundreds reported injured, but Iran has also claimed U.S. service people's lives with free kill during a strike on a U.S. base in Q8 on Sunday night. A fourth has been reported killed today with U.S. Central Command saying they were seriously injured during Iran's initial attacks. More killing is, of course, inevitable, and the war widened even further. On Sunday, with Israel bombing Lebanese capital Beirut in response to a Hezbollah attack on Israel earlier in the day, in Q8, free U.S. fighter jets appeared to have been mistakenly shot down by the country's air defenses today. So all six crew members are reported to have been ejected safely parachuting to the

7:29ground. I assume all of this, and we still don't really know what it's for. It's certainly not clear that U.S. President Donald Trump does either. He's addressed the nation and will he address the nation last night. An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American. We cannot allow a nation that raises terrorist armies to possess such weapons that would allow them to extort the world to their evil will. Not going to let it happen. We're not happening to us, and we're not going to let it happen to others. The United States says the strongest military the world has ever seen. I rebuilt our military in my first term. There's never been a military like we possess. And frankly, there's nobody even close, but we are now using that military for good. We want to have it for good purpose.

8:32We're undertaking this massive operation not merely to ensure security for our own time in place, but for our children and their children just as our ancestors have done for us many, many years ago. This is the duty and the burden of a free people. These actions are right and they are necessary to ensure that Americans will never have to face a radical bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats. Donald Trump's justification for the war has shifted many times. What does seem certain is that there's no legal basis for the US-Israel joint attack on Iran. In a speech today, Trump listed many other objectives including destroying Iran's missile capabilities annihilating their navy, stopping them from ever-arming, funding and or saying they've been funding and directing terrorist armies outside their borders. Of course, a reference to Hamas Hezbollah and the Houthis amongst others.

9:32He also mentioned Iran's nuclear program again. The very same one he told the world the US had destroyed last year. Of course, Saturday's attack came just hours after Oman's foreign minister who had been mediating the US Iran negotiations over Iran's nuclear ambitions said that peace was within reach as Iran had agreed not to stockpile nuclear material. It's likely in that case that the US-Israel attacks on Iran were illegal in international law. A fact apparently confirmed in Washington today the Pentagon has today told Congress that there was no sign that Iran was going to attack the US surprise surprise. An imminent attack is a legal requirement for a preemptive strike on another state according to international law. Of course, many suspected regime change is Trump's ultimate aim because he said so many times. But for that, you would probably need boots on the ground. Today the Pentagon denied that this was a regime change war. But speaking to the New York Post, Trump said he wouldn't rule out US troops on the ground in Iran and describe the war as progressing way ahead of schedule.

10:34And to discuss this all, I'm delighted to be joined now by Anal Shaline, research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute. Anal is also a former US State Department staffer who resigned over Joe Biden's Gaza policy. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for your time. I suppose let's go back to the beginning. What's your understanding of why Trump and Netanyahu took this very extreme action right now? It's a great question. As you said, the justification for this that Trump has given has shifted several times. I think my understanding is that this was something that Trump had decided to do ahead of time. And there was some waffling back and forth. Obviously, this idea that perhaps the negotiations were going to go somewhere. But to my understanding, it had been decided. And this is partly reflects the fact that Netanyahu has visited the White House or Mar-a-Lago seven times since Trump returned to office.

11:36And this is what Netanyahu has pushed for since the 1990s. And so the decision had been made that they were going to attack Iran. And it was just a question of when that was going to happen, although when it ended up happening was, as you pointed out, right at the same time that the Iranians had in fact agreed to a nuclear deal that went farther than what Obama had achieved under the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, the Iranians were still permitted to enrich, I believe, 300 kilos of uranium for civilian purposes under, which is legal, under the non-proliferation treaty. They have that right. But this new deal that the Omani foreign minister, very unusually, went on American television to try to convey to the American people that there's a deal here for zero uranium. Zero enriched uranium is what the Iranians had agreed to. So Trump could have declared victory.

12:36He could have said, I got a better deal than Obama. You know, this is why this is what I promised. This is what I promised in my first term, is that I would get a better deal than what Obama got. But instead of that, he proceeded with this open-ended war where the objectives are unclear or have been, there are different objectives and it's unclear what the actual objective is. The Trump and Israel, Trump and Netanyahu, do they have the same interests here? Because I suppose one analysis would be that Trump wants to kind of quick Venezuela-style thing where he gets to take out the big guy and seem very powerful, but ultimately it won't be that complicated. Things won't change that much. Maybe someone else in the Iranian regime can take over and Trump can declare victory even they're not much has changed. That might be what he wants. That's probably not what Netanyahu wants. My assessment is he wants my assessment, so that's a bit arrogant, but my judgment, my initial sort of stab in the dark would be that he'd prefer state collapse.

13:39He wants the Islamic Republic to collapse. Do you think that there is a division between what they both want out of this? Yes, absolutely. I think you're absolutely right that Trump is on a sugar high from the invasion of Venezuela, may have thought that it would be possible to take out the Iranian leadership and that power could have shifted. We know that the Trump administration had called for the IRGC to take over, which is, first of all, extremely unlikely that they would be exhibit disloyalty to the regime, which is the source of their power, but also if the IRGC were in control, that's not really a better outcome from Trump's perspective. We know also that Trump has called for the Iranian people to rise up and take over. That's also looking extremely unlikely, but Trump probably was hoping that this could

14:44have been over in the matter of the weekend, and so by today, Monday, things could have been over, the markets would be okay. Real prices wouldn't have been affected, and he could declare victory the same way he did with Venezuela. Whereas, as you pointed out, Netanyahu is very interested in total regime collapse, and not necessarily regime change, which obviously would require boots on the ground. There has been no instance of successful regime change conducted from the air. It does require an invasion, which, as you pointed out, apparently the Pentagon is now considering, despite the fact that that had previously been a very clear red line, stated by Vice President Vance in the past, stated by Trump that this would not become some kind of regime change boots on the ground operation. But Netanyahu wants regime collapse, despite the fact that this would be hugely destabilizing

15:44for the entire region, and as you pointed out in the opening, also very destabilizing for U.S. partners in the Gulf, who are being hit very hard. So although Trump may have envisioned this as something quick and easy, and a chance to parade around as he did after Venezuela, it's looking more likely that they're extending the timeline, and perhaps this is going to look more like what Netanyahu has long wanted, which is a full-blown U.S. war to destroy the entire government and society of Iran. Let's talk about the Iranian response, because some people have said, you know, the, well, I don't want to use the word indiscriminate, because they're targeting states that have U.S. bases on them. But the fact that their retaliation has been so broad, I suppose, so many of their neighbors are being targeted. Some people are saying that might be isolating them more than they need to be isolated,

16:48because now all of these Gulf states are going to say, okay, fine, yeah, maybe we do need regime change if they're willing to fire rockets at us. Talk us through what your understanding of the rationale is behind striking these Gulf states. Certainly. So I think sort of what we observed during the so-called 12-day war last year was that the Iranians were interested in getting to a ceasefire. They saw this as, you know, they were going to do these limited strikes. There was the one strike that they conducted on the al-Udde air force base outside of Doha Qadar, but that had been signaled in advance, the base had already been evacuated. They were not looking to escalate. Whereas this time, they see this as an existential struggle, and indeed that is based on what the behavior of the United States and Israel has demonstrated, is that Trump and Netanyahu are trying to take out the regime in Tehran.

17:49And so they're throwing everything they have at it in hopes that America's partners in the GCC, people like Mohamed bin Salaman and Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Zaid and the UAE, other Gulf leaders will pressure Trump. Although to be clear, these leaders had already tried to dissuade Trump from launching this war. This is not in their interests. This undermines the efforts of these countries, especially a country like Saudi Arabia, which is engaged in a large-scale effort to transform their economy under Vision 2030, as it's called, the footage you showed of the attack on Dubai, I mean, the UAE has portrayed itself successfully as a bastion of stability for tourism, for indirect investment, for as a financial hub, a air transit hub, and now, you know, that image has been shattered. And this is true sort of across the entire Gulf. So this is a huge impact to their image, to their economies, to their ability to rebound

18:56from this will really be undermined. Iran knows that. And so my understanding is that they are focusing attacks on U.S. bases in the region and on oil infrastructure in order to raise the cost, not only to our America's Gulf partners, but also to Americans, to raise the cost of oil and gas to increase inflation. We already only have one in five Americans supporting this, and that number is likely to go down as prices go up, and as more and more American service members are killed as a result. So do you think that that means that the Americans probably can't continue this war for that long, because potentially the Iranians are being quite successful at raising the costs of this war of choice, essentially? I think it's, I don't know, you know, as while I very much hope that Trump will be paying

20:01attention to the fact that Americans are opposed to this, we have the upcoming war powers resolution votes in both the House and the Senate anticipated sometime this week. At the same time, who knows, you know, Trump is clearly, I think, has completely abandoned the pretense that he had held previously, that he was not going to start any new wars, that he was opposed to regime change. I mean, you think about just last May, when he went to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and was criticizing the previous, the track record of the Republicans that had, you know, people like George Bush going into these countries, invading, trying to regime change, and this was his whole brand, was tapping into Americans' frustration with these unnecessary, expensive, and ultimately futile wars of choice in the Middle East. And yet here we are again, and it's, it's noteworthy that Trump in the past, in his first years since returning to office, has bombed seven different countries, which is more than

21:05any other president, president in recent memory, including three countries that the US had never bombed before. Iran is one of them. The US had never, before June, had never bombed the territory of Iran, also Venezuela and Nigeria, where countries that the US had never previously launched military strikes at. So Trump has completely abandoned his, whatever commitment, I mean, again, not that Trump had commitments, but, but simply that his recognition that it played well to the American public and specifically to an America first voter that didn't want all of this endless money being spent on other countries. And instead for that money to stay in the United States, he's abandoned that. And my, my, I very much hope that we will actually see some spine from the Democrats. I mean, thus far we've seen these completely weak statements saying that Trump, you know, that basically he just, he didn't file the correct paperwork, you know, he, he needed

22:08to have asked Congress, but then we, you know, we would have said yes, which is nonsense. Because Americans do not support this war and it's already costing hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, already this massive military build up in the region to say nothing of the, the expenditures of the, the, the interceptors, the US is already running low on these interceptors to try to block Iranian missiles and drones. So it is a, as you said, it is a question of how long can the United States actually keep this up before it becomes too politically costly and too financially costly for an American public so exhausted by unnecessary wars? And finally, I just want to get your views on what a country like our own, the UK should be doing. So, you know, I don't, I don't think the UK is a particularly relevant player here. So I'm not sure how closely you've been following what they've been saying, but Keir Starmer, his position is essentially to say that he won't let UK military bases be used to attack

23:08Iran, but he will let UK bases, UK military bases be used defensively to hit Iranian missile sites, which of course are in Iran, but he says that that counts as a defensive action because those missile sites are now being used to fire missiles at UK bases and UK allies. Does that make sense? Is that a sort of compromise that sort of stands up in your mind? So the offense defense distinction is a question, you know, and perhaps he wants to make that argument, but no, I would argue that the UK's involvement here certainly puts the UK on a line for what is in a legal war, not only under U.S. law, because there was no imminent threat that would have granted the president of the legal authority to conduct this, but certainly under international law as well. This was a war of aggression, the highest crime under the articles of the United Nations.

24:14And so for the UK to try to sort of threat a needle saying we're not doing offense, but we're doing defense, but we are striking Iran. I obviously, I'm not surprised that many European countries are not standing up to the United States on this. It is quite disappointing. In contrast, you know, I look to Brazil, for example, that has spoken very strongly about the fact that this violates international law to their credit given the, you know, Brazil does have a pretty close relationship with the United States. And I, one additional point here, just, you know, there were many of us who during the on Israel's ongoing horrific genocide in Gaza, talked about the implications that this would have for international law, the fact that European countries in particular long seen as key, key proponents of international law, we're ignoring it when it came to what Israel

25:19was doing to Gaza. And saying that this will have further repercussions. And now here we're seeing this already. You see the US simply attacking Iran, assassinating their leaders, who knows how many Iranians, the United States and Israel will kill in the course of who knows how long this will last. And then the further implications for regional chaos, it's, it is, it's very disappointing. I think not to, obviously, my country is the country engaged in this active aggression. But I had had higher hopes for the Europeans and for the UK, which had previously talked a lot more about the importance of international law. And I very much hope that moving forward, the world will reaffirm its commitment to international law in order to avoid a situation where powerful countries simply do this, whether it's Russia attacking Ukraine, China going after Taiwan, like whatever it is, or who knows what attack,

26:22what attacks Trump is going to embark upon next. I think it's very, very important for the world to come together and to condemn this, to say that this is not acceptable and, and, and to impose consequences to the extent that that is possible. And now, Shaline, thank you so much for coming back on the show. I really, really appreciate your time. Thank you. We have over 5,000 of you watching, which is brilliant, of course, to cover a story of this scale. We've been working around the clock, sifting through propaganda, verifying information, working out what's going on, to make sure our reporting is honest and reliable. And this kind of work takes time and resources, and unlike the big outlets and corporations, we're doing this, and we're no big newsroom, and we're about hundreds of journalists working on it. As you know, this show of our brilliant researchers, editors, producers, co-hosts, it's only possible thanks to you, our supporters. So a big thank you. And if you haven't yet become a monthly supporter, please do consider it anything from £1,

27:27makes a huge difference. You can go to nivaramedi.com forward slash support. And of course, we'll continue to follow this story over the week. You can also check out the articles on our website. There's been some great reporting already on this story. If you'd like a selection of our best articles delivered to your inbox every Wednesday, sign up to our newsletter, the pic, you can head to nivaramedi.com. No, nivara.media forward slash the pic to get it in your inbox tomorrow, although tomorrow is Tuesday. So maybe on Wednesday, I'm not sure. Let's go to a couple of comments before we go to our next story. We're going to need nivara live at weekends, please. I kind of agree. If you want nivara live seven days a week, you know where to go nivaramedi.com forward slash support, although that is not quite yet a commitment because I do enjoy having sat in Sunday off. But we'll see how that goes. For big news, weekends, that would be great.

28:38After the United States and Israel recklessly assassinated a foreign head of state, our Prime Minister was quick to condemn the action. I condemn Iran's attacks today on partners across the region, many of which are not parties to this conflict. So Israel and America kill the leader of a sovereign nation. And you condemn the attack, you condemn the attacks by Iran. So they were the ones who were attacked. They then launched retaliatory attacks against Israel and other countries that house American air bases. I don't endorse or condemn those attacks, but it's not exactly surprising that if a state is attacked to the extent that their head of state is assassinated, that they might retaliate. Maybe condemn the thing that started this, right? And in terms of, you know, they're completely unrelated to these countries.

29:39How do we think the U.S. would respond if the Chinese had assassinated an American president from a base in Mexico, right? Would the Mexicans get off scot-free? I don't necessarily see that, right? That clip was from Saturday. This was Starmer on Sunday. Yesterday, Iran hit a military base in Bahrain, narrowly missing British personnel. The death of the Supreme Leader will not stop Iran from launching these strikes. Their approach has become an even more reckless, a more dangerous to civilians. The death of the Supreme Leader will not stop Iran from launching these strikes, right? It was the assassination of the Supreme Leader, which is why they're launching these strikes, right? The strikes were to stop Iran, retaliate like, that's why this is happening, right? They didn't just willy-nilly decide to bomb all their neighbors. He's also said, right? They bombed a military base, right?

30:40They bombed a military base, which was really close to our military base. By the way, why have we even got a military base? How dare they bomb a military base close to our military base? Oh, now we're going to have to attack them. These are bases which were used to kill their leader. Again, I'm not saying I support the retaliatory attacks. I certainly don't support the Ayatollah Hamanei, but this just seems like a completely bizarre way of talking about what happened over the weekend. There was two countries, the United States and Israel, which were negotiating with Iran. In the middle of negotiations, where by all accounts, the Iranians were willing to make some real concessions. In the middle of those negotiations, the Israelis and the Americans bombed the country they're negotiating with, killed their head of state. Now, the Iranians are retaliating against various American bases in the region and Israel, who just killed their head of state. And now suddenly we say, I condemn what Iran is doing. How irresponsible.

31:41Starma was reading from an auto queue there. Even when he's talking about war, I still feel like I might nod off when I'm listening. Foreign Secretary of that Cooper, though, freestyled on Monday morning. She sounded a bit more emotional and she was positively outraged, in fact, that Iran had dared to respond to being attacked. It has been just truly appalling the way in which the Iranian regime, the regime which we know has brutally killed tens of thousands of its own people and has now been targeting with these missiles and drones, countries that were not involved in striking Iran, but they haven't been targeted now by the Iranian regime. It is a significant sign of quite how dangerous this Iranian regime is. And we would continually urge the Iranian regime to stop these strikes on our partner countries in the region so that people who had nothing to do with any of this, British citizens, can be returned safely home. Nothing to do with it. How dare they attack our partner countries in the region?

32:44Well, your partner countries in the region have the US military bases that were used to attack their country. The idea that them retaliate, I think there are signs. You could easily find some signs that suggest that Iran might be dangerous in some ways. They do fund groups in different countries who do very controversial things. You might also say that the nuclear program is to some degree a threat. That's a reasonable thing to say. But to say that they're getting bombed and then they're doing some retaliatory drone strikes in response shows quite how dangerous they are. This is so, like any country in the world, if their head of state was taken out by sort of out of the blue military attack, they're going to respond. The fact that you've retaliated doesn't show that you're unreasonably extreme. That's just the most normal thing to do in the world for any state in the world. So that was the UK government refusing to call out the actual aggressor in the war on Iran,

33:46or the war by Iran, the war on Iran. Now, you might expect that, right? Keir Starmer, a vetkeeper, they've been fairly unwilling to stand up to Trump. But what about the guy we fought was the new leader of the free world, Canada's Mark Karney. Of course, it was Karney who spoke so powerfully at Davos about Trump ripping up the rules-based order. And these were the words he said in that speech. He said the middle power should, quote, build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states, right? Sovereignty, territorial integrity of states. So surely this is the kind of guy. You know, he wants a world where we're more honest. He wants a world where we respect nations borders, surely. He'd have something to say about Israel and the United States assassinating the head of state of a sovereign country. We reaffirm Israel's right to defend itself. Canada supports the United States, acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon

34:50and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security. Israel wasn't defending itself. Israel bombed the foreign country and took out their sovereign leader because they want a greater Israel. They don't want any sort of alternative power in the region who might be able to stop them having a greater Israel. Again, this is not to say the Islamic Republic of Iran is a brilliant place, right? This is not to say that all of their foreign policy decisions are brilliant. I don't think they're this sort of bastion of justice. But to pretend that bombing Iran was an act of self-defense, it's nonsense and he knows it's nonsense, right? So it turns out sovereignty, international law, only matter when it comes to Greenland. When Canada was going to have some not sanction, some tariffs imposed on it, suddenly we need a whole new world order. Now that the US and Israel have taken out a head of state in an act of aggression, oh, that seems fine, that seems cool, actually. None of this, though, was quite as blatant in terms of gaslighting.

35:54As US Secretary of War, they did rename the department... I suppose that's the only thing they've done, which isn't gaslighting. They have been quite honest about what used to be the Department of Defense. It's now the Department of War, which is what it is. This was Pete Hagsef speaking of the Pentagon today. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatollah and his death cult. Now there were two lies there because they did start the war, and they have no idea how to finish it. We didn't start it, but we're going to finish it. You started it. How are you going to finish it? Right, you've taken out a head of state. You have absolutely no plan what to do whatsoever. So you're lying about what you've done in the past. You're lying on mistaken about what you're going to do in the future. Like gaslighting on both levels. Someone who was, for once, a little more honest, didn't think I was ever going to say this, about what's going on was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

37:01They've been listening on the podcast. What Netanyahu said there is that having the U.S. on-side in the fight against Iran, is allowing him to do exactly what he's wanted to do for 40 years. So if you're listening to all of these other Western leaders, they're saying, oh, there's just very bad those. The Americans had no choice but to act because Iran is so irresponsible. They were really forced into this. Netanyahu saying, mate, I've wanted to do this for 40 years. I've just been waiting for an excuse to get the Americans on board. That's what's happening. Here, and I remember I was watching, obviously, live BBC News this weekend. And when the statement first, so you're watching it, you've just sort of got up in the morning. You've found out that they've assassinated Ayatollah Hamanei. And then the newsreader was reading out.

38:03He said, oh, we've got our first statement from the UK, France, and Germany, I think it was. She reads it out. So the UK, France and Germany say they condemn the attacks by Iran on, I don't know, who they'd bombed by then at that point, but some retaliatory strikes. I mean, it doesn't make you feel a little bit crazy watching it. It makes you feel completely insane. They're all of them speaking very fluently in tongues. It has no correlation with the real world for the reasons that you've outlined, Michael. I think that it, I'm trying to work out the most analytic way of saying this, but we really need to stop, based on the evidence, to stop thinking of Britain and Europe as having an independent foreign policy. It is so obvious that all of the leaders of Europe don't have foreign policy brains. And I don't just mean that in the sense that they don't have the training. It's that they don't see that the material conditions permit for them to do anything other than the Americans want them to do, and by extension, the Israelis want them to do. So their brains, foreign policy brains in the sense are in vats in Washington.

39:08And that's the extent of it. But there are many, I mean, even if you leave aside the legalistic and the moral sides of all of this, which we've talked about and they'll talk about, there are very good domestic self-interested reasons as to why this is completely absurd. And very dangerous. And it's not just military personnel being put in the line of fire. It's also that this war will quite possibly, has the potential at least create worst refugee crisis in human history. That's not hyperbole. Country of 92 million people. We don't know where this is going to end up. It's certainly going to endanger us more. It has the potential to increase domestic terrorism, possibly. And it's also going to have a probably going to have an impact on household bills. So you've got all these tribunes of the people, like Nigel Farage and Reformed and so on, you know, throwing their lot behind the war and cheerleading it on.

40:08But actually, in very real terms, what will this do? We should be asking, you know, the leaders ought to be asking, Stammer ought to be asking, what will the material impacts for people in this country be? And the material impacts for people in this country will be as I outlined. And yet because there is no foreign policy in Europe, because we've allowed ourselves to become a multi-state vassalage of the United States, it doesn't matter that it's detrimental to our own citizens that this play out. We are still willing to bend over or go against the interests of our own citizens and join the US and Israel in what has the potential to be an extremely catastrophic protracted war. And then they say, well, we have to do it because all of our interests in the Middle East are tied up with American bases, because all the UK bases and Ben Judah, who was a performer, and advisor to David Lamb, and he was foreign sector was talking about this on the weekend, who said, when you realize that all the military bases in the region are just appendages, you know, a little sign on American base, which says this is now British territory,

41:11it says you realize, you know, why we are kind of stuck with the Americans because all of our global reach is dependent on, you know, acquiescence to their leadership. But it's like, why do we need the base in Bahrain? Like, if it's going to create another refugee crisis, which is going to upend our politics, if it's going to make, you know, our energy much more expensive, maybe the base in Bahrain is not worth it. Yeah, maybe we'll just say, we don't want to be a part of this anymore. No, totally. And it's a path dependency, the overarching two things, Michael, I think, one, the fourth, the historic military relationship with the United States, and the sense that we need the United States, and two, the kind of institutional interests that build up around that once they once that that kind of that series of interests, you know, crystallizers, crystallizers, exactly. And so I think that the, but we, like you say, we would be

42:13much better advised to reverse on it. And I'm not saying that could happen immediately, but there are ways to slowly disentangle yourself from a military industrial complex, which, as you rightly say, involves having bases for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. To protect influencers in Dubai. Influences in Dubai, but I would, I mean, we're seeing people saying they're going to leave Dubai in their droves now, right? The whole region is under threat. Now, I don't care about Dubai, if I'm honest, I don't want anybody to get killed, obviously. I don't care about flight people move there so they didn't have to pay their taxes. Exactly. How could you be so callous? So I don't care about flight from Dubai or the Gulf states. Isabel Oakshort has made a whole life there. Well, she, she, she's welcomed stay there. Now, obviously, I, yeah, as you say, I, I, I feel sympathy for anyone who's found themselves in a war zone, right? I, I don't want anyone to get hurt, but the idea that, you know, the, the, the way Keir's tomatoes, we have, we have hundreds of thousands of people living in the region. Of course, we need to attack Iranian missile sides. Just, I don't get it.

43:18Before we go to our next story, I'm going to draw your attention to an upcoming event in this one off talk, Professor Koja Karam, author of Uncommon, Well Britain and the aftermath of Empire and our very own Dalia Gabrielle will be joined by a range of expert guests to explore how the 1% secret offshore billions are ruining Britain. They'll be asking what stopping our politicians from acting and would a wealth tax be enough to turn the tide. The event is to launch a new podcast investigation series, Deaf in Westminster, which I'm very much looking forward to listening to. I mean, it's coming to you in a via media this spring. That event will be at 730 on a first day of the 19th March at the Earth Theatre in Hackney. There are always such good events there. You meet such brilliant people, you know, beers afterwards, meet the speakers. I'm not probably some book signings. They're always very, very enjoyable. You can get your tickets in the description below. The assassination of the Ayatollah Hamanei was celebrated by many Iranians in

44:29the West. So in cities like London, Paris and Vancouver, Iranians gathered offered with pre-revolutionary Iranian flags. And in New York, a group of Iranians had this message for Donald Trump. There are also some celebrations inside Iran. So these were the scenes in the town, a suburb of Kharash. Now, obviously protest is brutally repressed in Iran. So these people were taking considerable risks. They have, though, also been much larger demonstrations to mourn the Ayatollah Hamanei inside Iran. So these were the scenes in Tehran's Engelab Square. So can we get any kind of reliable picture of what the majority of Iranians actually fought of the now deceased Ayatollah? And how should we understand the Ayatollah Hamanei's legacy? Well, I spoke earlier today to Askandar Sadegi, an academic at St Andrews University and author of Revolution and its discontents, political, fought and reform in Iran.

45:32Well, I mean, I think it's probably important to take a step back and kind of understand a bit about the man himself. So he was born in the Maldives of Iran, so a city, a major shrine city called Mashhad in the northeast of the country. And he was born into a clerical family. And he was amongst the younger generation of clerics who were politicized in the 50s and 60s. He went to form, which is the sort of major seminary city in Iran to study. And yeah, ultimately became a disciple of Ayatollah Hamanei, so Ayatollah Hormanei, rather. And became a sort of an activist, and his misactivist during that time, he was both imprisoned and exiled as much as as many as nine times before the Revolution. He was said to receive torture during this time. And ultimately,

46:34yeah, he went on to become one of the important figures around Ayatollah Hormanei and helping a sort of pen playing of role in the consolidation of the Islamic Republic following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. I mean, again, I don't want to get into a sort of a long sort of biography, but I think it's kind of important to understand how he was formed in the context of the Iran Iraq War very much. Obviously, seeing the West support Saddam Hussein and supplying chemical weapons to the Iraqis in the course of that war very much shaped in. He was president during that time. And then ultimately on the death, on the death of Ayatollah Hormanei, he was then elected by the assembly of experts at the time as sort of the next Supreme Leader, or the next Valley of Fakhi, sort of the the Guardian Jurist of the Islamic Revolution of the most senior, most sort of high ranking position and office in the Islamic Republic.

47:40Yeah, and his legacy, I guess, is twofold. I mean, on the one hand, he was seen as developing, sort of Iran's sort of foreign policy, so building up this asymmetric sort of capability. So one building alliances with various, I think popular sort of religious movements in the region. So his beloved, obviously, Hamas, Ansrola and Yemen, and so on, as well as sort of building up Iran's asymmetric burst in terms of missiles and drones and very much overseeing that. And of course, the Guardian Jurist is the commander in chief in Iran. And I mean, you know, part of the Revolution's legacy was about, I guess, guaranteeing the country's independence, particularly from against Western imperialism. And this obviously comes out of the sort of response to Iran's status as a client state in the battle of the era, right? So that's kind of part of his legacy, but obviously domestically, he was seen as close to, I mean, when he was a younger man,

48:46he was actually seen as somewhat of a rather avant-garde kind of cleric. And he actually fraternized in intellectual circles in Mashab, so actually, like well-known poets, like I have on the side less, it was a secular, like a really kind of renowned poet in Iran was sort of very much in the same intellectual circle. But then once he was in power, as I guess it's a familiar story for many revolutionaries, he then gravitated more to the conservative factions that in a sense were a more sort of a sturdier base of support, and he became increasingly rigid in terms of blocking kind of reforms in the country and kind of internal democratization. And I guess this stemmed in large part from his fundamental skepticism and hostility shaped as a result of the experience in the revolution, and then obviously in the Iran arc war on subsequently with respect to the United States. And very much he saw it in this binary of any kind of opening would be sort of used as a pretext to destabilize the country, and ultimately overthrow the Islamic Republic. And I guess he saw it as his duty, his

49:52obligation, his sole real duty is to preserve and say that system, preserve that system. So yeah, on the domestic front, obviously he's responsible for authoritarianism, clamping down on dissidents, imprisonment. I mean, lots of, very much, this is why his legacy is so profoundly polarized, because obviously a lot of people suffered a great deal during that period, and many people were driven into exile, and many people were killed. As a result, obviously the most recent repression of protests, obviously in January, is a testament to that. So he has this complex, I would say, conflicting kind of legacy to speak of. But I just to be, the other point I would just like to highlight is obviously the Islamic Republic is, he did exercise the kind of formal, personistic rule of sometimes, and there's no kind of micro-managing. But nevertheless, he also, because he didn't have the charismatic authority of an idol of Khomeini, he basically was a very kind of committed system builder. And he actually, despite sort of starting off in a rather weaker position in 1989, and actually

50:56really even him becoming leader was in large part due to the sort of the very kind of prominent role of his good, sort of long standing friend, Ahmed Hodjmi Radhas Sanjani, who had become the president after Khomeini's death. And really they initially ruled as a duo, but then over time, Isola Khomeini built up his kind of own base of support. And this is where we see the revolutionary guards becoming increasingly important, particularly in kind of reconstruction efforts following the Iran or Iraq war. And then they become increasingly kind of important. And ever since they played not only a kind of very important military function, security function, but also increasingly they've had a role in the political economy of the country in large. And is there any way of ascertaining what the majority of Iranians think? Obviously, we're seeing some scenes of the Iranian diaspora who are sort of in opposition to the Ayatollah, they're celebrating often they want the return to having a shower. We've seen small

51:59protests in Iran celebrating his death, but obviously we can't say because the protests are small, that means not many people are celebrating because you will get severely repressed, presumably if you go out and say, you know, what do you do? The supreme leader is dead. There have been much bigger protests, or bigger, I suppose, sort of demonstrations mourning in the Ayatollah, Hamine, difficult to know from the outside. You know, is that a genuine outburst of grief or do people feel pressured to go and sort of display their loyalty to the regime? What should we make of these, you know, various scenes that everyone will be seeing on their televisions? Right, I mean, I just think with any kind of revolutionary state, you know, it basically has to consolidate itself more often than not through kind of very violent means, right? And this thing, there are losers in this and there are winners. And it's a very kind of brutal, brutal kind of process in which many people, you know, are ultimately sort of driven outside the country or choose to leave. I mean, like my own family, who ultimately kind of left around after the revolution. So there are many people obviously who have suffered under that system.

53:05And they detested, right? So I think these are some of the people who might be celebrating. I mean, also people might not have particularly suffered, but they really just hate the regime and they want to basically restore, you know, the previous monarchical dictatorship because, you know, it's basically conforms more to the kind of vision they have for Iran. And the reality is that they're often very, very authoritarian themselves. And they're actually, you know, some of them are holding up sort of, you know, mannequins and things like this, people being hung and they're kind of promising retribution and mass killings once they get in power. So they're definitely not democrats by any kind of strictitude imagination. Within Iran itself, I don't necessarily feel people are pressured to go, but I do think that obviously in any kind of, like a really kind of identity revolutionary mobilized society and which, you know, this identity is profoundly kind of tied up with that. Then there are constituencies which are mobilized and there are people who genuinely, you know, believe in that system. I mean, they are. I mean, they're still. I mean, I would say that

54:10it says the goodwill and legitimate that system has been, you know, progressively corroded, both because of many missteps with the Islamic Republic, as well as, you know, the the siege and economic warfare pursued by the United States and American empire against Iran. But still, I would say that there are a significant number of people who do support the system. And the other point that should be made is that there are people who are ambivalent. I mean, many people could have had an issue with it on the common A and really kind of have fundamental problems with how he ran the country. But, you know, they might not be celebrating the fact that it's a genocidal war criminal such as Benjamin Netanyahu and the likes of Trump, you know, who's killing people on the streets of Minnesota is the person who's going to bring them liberation. Let alone actually kill the supreme leader of the country. I mean, the reality of it is, it's something I really think Trump just does not understand, is that a republic and does not understand Iran. I mean, Harmony was 86 years old. He was probably going to die very, very soon.

55:16And with killing him, they basically, in eyes of his supporters and many others, martyrdom. And it's not actually simply a religious question. I mean, Harmony now is really the only reader, the only leader in modern Iranian history who has been killed at the hands of, you foreign foes. And basically, he stayed in his date, in his household, in his headquarters, until the very end. So in a sense, they've immortalized him. And that's what happens actually in Islam. I mean, the martyrs live forever. So I actually think that in some senses, if he just died a natural death, in a sense, his legacy would have been seen as far more in tatters because obviously, domestically, there were really profound problems. And that's just an understating it, to be honest. And then, in the foreign policy domain, I mean, well, you could argue that it had functioned effectively after the Iran war. And when Iran was basically encircled by the United States

56:19in Afghanistan and Iraq and so on, you could say that with the means that Iran had at its disposal, this was an effective strategy. But obviously, following October 7th, 2023, then obviously, the decapitation of his follow, then obviously, the fall of Assad in Syria. I mean, this regional strategy, similarly, was also lying in tatters. I guess the one thing that is actually still function is obviously the missile capability and the drone capability. But then the question is, what cost? And it is obviously a huge, huge, huge, massive cost to the Iranians. But at the same time, one has to acknowledge that the Trump administration has now used negotiations twice as a ruse in order to attack this country. And really, I mean, it seems very much intent on just wreaking havoc. And actually, you know, creating a political vacuum ultimately, it seems that the aim here, so you'll have massively destabilized, potentially vulcanized state, which can't obviously pose any challenge whatsoever to, yeah, this sort of genocide or

57:22garrison state, which is in Israel. Let's talk about what will happen now. You've mentioned a sort of, they're trying to create a power vacuum. Obviously, they didn't just kill the supreme leader. I mean, he was in a meeting with military leaders, some people saying whether or not that was a wise thing to do. But the supreme leader, the head of the national defense council, the commander in chief of the IRGC, the defense minister, the head of Iran's advanced weapons programs. So it seems like the entire leadership of parts of the military and the supreme leader were killed over the weekend. Is there any way that the Islamic Republic can sort of survive that level of decapitation of their leadership? It's going to be a very significant challenge. But if you actually sort of recall, I mean, Iran, unlike the June war where Iran was generally caught by surprise, within hours Iran actually started basically firing back at various targets across the region. Ali Laredjani, who is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, has come out and very clearly said that Iran is not going to

58:26capitulate. Mahmoud Bhagavali, the Speaker of the Parliament, said similarly, and that they're going to very much remain steadfast because they understand that basically engaging in a cease-fire at this point will just allow the Israelis and the Americas to regroup so they want to kind of race the cost so much that actually the notion of attacking Iran again after a brief reprieve can be kind of put to bed once and for all. So now, I mean, I do think it is a heavy blow, but I mean, the Islamic Republic does have, I mean, there's the Revolution Guard, which is a huge, huge behemoth of an organization, and as well as the military, as well as the passage, which is arguably in the millions, potentially. So we have a robust, multi-fastated, hydrated security apparatus and military apparatus, which is actually, in a sense, even now, between a strategy of decentralizing, it's sort of retaliation strikes so that it so that exactly can't be to capitated. If you basically

59:29hit one point, they will be able to basically continue to mount strikes from various other points. So I think they've prepared for this, actually, and I think they're well aware of the strategy. And I mean, what we're seeing really, I have to say, is really the Israel is a realisation of US policy in so far as, you know, they think that you just pursue mass assassinations, and this is basically goes back to the mandate period when Zionist militias thought this was the way to get things done. And if you can merely just pursue mass decapitation, and actually the system will break. And I mean, don't be right, I think it will put the system under considerable stress. But I mean, they've been preparing this for this for years and decades. So I think they've underestimated the resilience. Again, there is an infinite, but I think they have massively underestimated the resilience of the Zionist militia. I suppose, you know, I can't read anyone's mind that it's very difficult to decipher what Donald Trump actually wants. But I suppose if I'm looking at the strategic interests, it seems to me that the Americans probably want an outcome that's a bit like Venezuela. So someone else from the regime takes over,

1:00:33they can then sign a deal, which is probably similar to whatever deal they would assigned, you know, without having to have an A anyway, and claim victory. The Israelis, I think, would prefer just a failed state, so it doesn't provide any kind of counterweight in the region to their own sort of maneuvers, what they want to achieve, which is essentially a greater Israel. I suppose from a, first of all, I suppose you think that assessment makes sense, but also from internal perspective, looking at Iran as a country, what of those outcomes do you think would be most likely? Can you imagine a situation where someone else from the Revolutionary Guard sort of takes over and says, okay, you know, they'd presumably declare victory, because I say the Islamist Republic has survived, but then goes and signs some kind of deal with the Americans. Does that seem plausible to you? I think the way you lead it out is correct and so far as I do think Trump is looking for, it was looking. He did think that, you know, by killing harmony, elements within the system will quickly capitulate, and then offer him sort of unprecedented

1:01:33sort of bargain, I guess. And the Israelis, yes, have their own agenda of trying to, yeah, basically create a failed state of sorts. But yeah, I do think that this was sort of misplaced, I mean, I sort of harmony wasn't just a politically, but he's also seen. I mean, whether you like it or not, I mean, as a major tablet, like a sort of sort of sort of source of emulation, sort of grand diatola, and it's actually has many, many people who see him as a Supreme or religious authority, as well within within the system in Iran. So the idea that you could just kill him, and then this would be brushed under the carpet, and everyone would be say, okay, now we can do business. So I think was was pretty misplaced, actually. And also, I mean, you know, there aren't the same links between the US and Iran as they were in Venezuela. I mean, in within Iran itself and within the political discussion, there was a lot of speculation that someone like Hassan Rouhani, the previous president who was elected in 2013, might, and actually was the president who oversaw the JCPOA, might be such a figure. But I mean, the reality is,

1:02:38I mean, no figure who doesn't have the support of the major power centers in Iran, like particularly the revolutionary guards, is going to be able to broker that. And I don't think for the moment that that's going to happen simply because Trump made it very clear that, you know, this is a, this is a war, this is a war regime change. I mean, he said it as did Netanyahu. I mean, they've basically placed the Islamic Republic in an existential kind of war. I mean, this is obviously why the Islamic Republic has taken the drastic steps of regionalizing the conflict because they do see it very much as an existential war. And I don't think they're wrong there. I think, you know, it's just a matter of how much they're able to act as an obstacle really to Trump's designs. Because I don't think that he's going to give up that endgame simply because I think he's just too in hoc to his sort of his mega donors, many of them of which are very much close and aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu. And obviously, we know what the goals and ambitions

1:03:38are either. And I think, you know, a lot of the people in the road who don't do understand this, whereas, I mean, to be fair, there is some disagreement amongst the political elite and there were there was sort of this idea that you could perhaps pry the United States from Israel if you basically offered them enough economic inducements. But I think now, twice we've had, again, as I said, negotiations ongoing looking very much that they could be successful on the cusp of a deal better than the JCPA and basically Trump has decided to pursue mass executions of the leadership. So, I mean, they're not irrational for thinking that they can't trust this man in any which way or form. That was as Gandhastodegi speaking to me earlier today. Let's go through some of your comments. Jack 5 450 says it's easy to know from the inside how people are feeling. If you saw the protests in January and the months of Iranian people begging for help to get a democracy, very interesting. I definitely don't dismiss that idea. I mean, there clearly is a lot of opposition to the IITO, the Hamanai in Iran and lots of people were very violently repressed.

1:04:40I mean, as the scandals have there, there will be also lots of people in the middle who don't really like the Islamic Republic, but also don't want the head of state being taken out by the Americans in the Israelis. Camden Cabain has a very interesting point. They say, I wonder if any new Iranian democracy would be allowed to elect an anti-Zionist or socialist government. I'd rather a homegrown bureaucracy than a racist imperial satrapie, sort of colonial province. It's a very interesting point. I mean, it's difficult to know what you would prefer. I think I wouldn't really wouldn't want to live in a homegrown bureaucracy, but I do agree with you that I mean, they did elect, not quite a socialist, but they elected someone who was social democratic mass exec, and he was overthrown by the CIA. And I think one of the reasons why Israel, you know, Israel would much prefer a failed state than a functioning democracy, because anyway, you had a functioning democracy in the Middle East. It's not going to be pro-Israel, is it? A super chat from Patrick N. Michael Schaekelegg on this Navara weekend live round up, would you? God bless from North Carolina. You know what? I want us to just be able to like do really

1:05:46reactive weekend shows on big news weekends like this weekend. That does require a little bit more. Capacity in the organization. We do run a very tight ship. We don't have much slack. I mean, you need to slack when it comes to big news. If you want to support Navara Media, go to NavaraMedia.com forward slash support so we can do more emergency shows. A few super chats, but we have got a very interesting super chat from Lana Pierce with a five-year who says, stop sending super chats. That funds Google and that funds Israel. Only doing this so it gets noticed. Fun Navara directly through their website. Of course, Lana Pierce is correct. We do. We appreciate your super chats, of course, but the best way to fund NavaraMedia is to go to NavaraMedia.com forward slash support, because then Google doesn't take a massive cut, and it all goes to us. It all goes to building a new media for a different politics.

1:06:48Reform and the Tories both claim they want to cut the number of refugees coming to Britain, but on a global level, well, they want more refugees. The US and Israel appear to want to turn Iran into the next Iraq or Libya. An all-nighter forage can say is that he'd love for us to join in. And this was forage on Saturday. He said, the Prime Minister needs to change his mind on the use of our military bases and back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran. Now, why this is a vital fight for us is not explained. An all-nighter forage was supposed to be someone who puts Britain first, and he's saying, I can see why this is a vital fight if you're Netanyahu. I can't really see why this is a vital fight if you're British. Can we bathe? No, there was also welcome Netanyahu and Trump's bombings, and the Shadow Foreign Secretary. And Pretty Patel was challenged on her party's position on the BBC. There were negotiations this week that it was reported, had made progress towards around giving up

1:07:52its nuclear weapon, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu dramatically up the ante before waiting for those negotiations to progress. Of course, it's nuclear ambition, not its nuclear weapon, but there were negotiations ongoing. So why act now? So I think first and foremost, let's just have some context here. You've mentioned the negotiations. We don't know what happened to those negotiations, and I don't think we can just speculate, say, it all was going well. The point about strife. I understand the record. He thought there was progress. I understand that, but clearly the Americans did not think that, and the Israelis did not think that either. I love what Pretty Patel's standard of evidence is. So you've got the Imani who was there, who's sort of brokering the negotiations, said that there was significant progress being made, that the Iranians were going to make big concessions. Pretty Patel says, oh, we don't have enough, that doesn't count as evidence for some reason. We don't know what went on in the meeting, but what does count as evidence is that the Americans and the Israelis, so Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu decided to kill the Iranian head of state. And for Pretty Patel,

1:08:56that means, well, they wouldn't have done it without a good reason. Would they? Can you imagine Donald Trump doing something without a good reason? Well, Benjamin Netanyahu doing something without a good reason? No, surely. This must be just otherwise. They wouldn't have done it. Now, that's not only unconvincing to your average and of our media viewer, that's incredibly unconvincing to your average person in Britain. We're a country that doesn't have much sympathy for Netanyahu or Donald Trump. And we're definitely not a country that trusts what Iifer of them say. As Pretty Patel said, well, why would they lie? Why would Donald Trump, that Donald Trump lying? That's completely unheard of. For us, for his part, doesn't think there's any contradiction between egging on wars in the Middle East and opposing refugees coming to Britain. If there are refugees leaving Iran, they will be housed in the Middle East. We can't take any more refugees from these conflicts. We simply can't. Nigel Farage, make more refugees, just not here. It's kind of like Nimbism. I'm in favor of more housing, but not in my backyard. I'm in favor of more refugees, as long as they don't come here. It doesn't work like that. If you

1:09:58bomb a country or support the bombing of a country and you dissolve the civilian infrastructure, the institutions, and you create a giant maelstrom in the middle of the country and chaos and Pandora's box, you cannot then expect to be able to control the flow or the outflow of people from that country. It's just patently absurd. And, you know, Michael, I was on, I can say, first hand, I was debating Nigel Farage not long ago on his show, and I said to him very specifically that Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, they all feature in the top six or seven countries producing people in the small boats, you know, the menacing small boats that they were always hearing about. And I said to him, look, if you're really serious about this, of course, it's not surprised to anybody that Nigel Farage is not good to his word. But I said, if you're really serious about this, you will commit now to not getting involved in any kind of military

1:11:01adventurism. Even if Donald Trump asks you, and you can find it, you can google it. He says, I won't be doing that in the hurry. I promise you, I will not be doing that in the hurry. Now, okay, Shotcora, Nigel Farage is full of shit. But it just goes to show that there are no sacred counts of these people. There are no covenants, and they're not even able to connect the evidence. I have to say, look, I don't want to get conspiratorial, but we also have to think that really if there is a massive outflow of refugees into this country, who benefits from that? Probably Nigel Farage, politically. I mean, it's interesting because this isn't a popular line that either of them are taking, like the Tories and Reform. I mean, I just saw a poll online. I don't have it up now, but I mean, basically a big majority of Britain's don't support this war. So you've got these two parties who are desperate for support, obviously, they want to form the next government. I mean, much more likely it'll be reformed than the Tories. And they've thrown their lot in with Donald Trump, very unpopular here. I suppose reform want to keep Trump on

1:12:06side, or they want to keep... They think that that will provide financial backing to them, or they want to keep the Israel lobby happy, or they just think that this is an excuse to call Starmer Week, even though I don't mean... You know, what's the political calculation here? Well, I think traditionally we would think of political actors acting in accordance with what they think domestic will is, right, or what their base wants, at least, what their electoral and social coalition wants. But you're quite right. That's the wrong lens through which to regard this and to analyse it. This isn't happening kind of in a linear vertical way between political party and voter coalition. It's actually a transnational thing that's going on, where reform feels more loyalty, as much loyalty, as much affinity, whatever, with mega, and with the beating heart of mega, i.e. Donald Trump, and by extension, Israel and the Israel lobby, than it feels an affinity with the people that might not just live in this country, but might vote for them

1:13:10at the next election. So that's why you're getting these strange misalignments between, not just reform, but the political class, Starmer, you know, Vondalaya, all the Europeans, who are saying things which poll of the poll of the poll shows us is deeply unpopular, but they're not thinking in a kind of vertical linear way, they're thinking across to, across the Atlantic, to the United States, to the will of Washington, to the desire of Donald Trump, and by extension, Benjamin Netanyahu. Yeah, I mean, the pop, I think Aaron was saying is over the weekend, like the position that's going to be very popular with the public is reduce immigration, don't get involved in foreign wars, and, you know, invest some stuff in the economy. It's like, I feel like, I don't, it's always confusing why reform don't just say that. Obviously, they don't believe it, but why don't they just say, well, what is it in it for them to, you know, throw all of this weight behind this wall that no one in the country really wants? Like, it seems like there has to be some other interest involved. I think they've been captured. I mean, they're not that they were ever free of it, probably, free of the net,

1:14:14but they're certainly in Hawk in some informal way. I'm not suggesting there are, you know, there's, although there probably are resource flows and investment in them and so on, but they're in Hawk to make a, they're in Hawk to Donald Trump, and so what he says goes, if Donald Trump came out tomorrow and said, I got it all wrong, it was a terrible mistake. I really regret killing him. We're pulling out immediately, and, you know, we hate Israel. Farage would, you know, he would gird himself, he'd get his briefing papers together, and three hours later, he would be on TV saying that Donald Trump is the fault of all wisdom for saying that. That's just the reality of where we are with things. These people are just derivative of what Donald Trump says and what his base, what Donald Trump's kind of, you know, political movement puts out there. That'd be quite the moment if Donald Trump says he regrets it all, and he's sorry, and he wishes he could just go back. Thank you, Kieran, for joining me tonight. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Thank you guys for watching, and we've had

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