I believe that we are already at the

early stages if not in World War II. It

just doesn't look like the wars of the

past.

And people should understand what is at

stake, which is we are one

misunderstanding, one miscalculation

away,

or even one AI generated viral video

from nuclear annihilation.

Is there anything at all you're doing to

prepare? I'm leaving the United States

by 2026.

But is there anywhere on this map that

is safe in a war?

So my understanding is that there's

actually three safe zones.

You are right.

There's Hawaii. No, because there are so

many targets in Hawaii

and same with all of Europe, but there's

one tiny little place right there. So,

where do we find ourselves in terms of

conflict and warfare? Now,

it's getting worse. And in the past, it

was whoever had the strongest military.

Now, you can destabilize a government or

a society using a server farm and 20

people sitting in a room thousands of

miles away. And another real problem we

have right now is that the different

political parties inside the United

States are so intent on taking down the

other side. They do it at the national

security peril.

So now Russia or China can play people

off against one another and cause

division.

Angie, what do you think happens next?

Well, I think World War II is going to

be shaped by what we call proxy war,

where a wealthy nation state funds,

trains, and arms conflict in a less

wealthy state to decrease the capability

of your primary target. They're using

that nation to do the work for them.

Exactly. Right. That's already

happening.

Then what's the probability of nuclear

war?

So here's a terrifying detail that the

public does not know. So

wow.

Listen to my regular listeners. I know

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[Music]

I invited you all here today because I

intuitively feel like the world is

changing before our eyes. And I think so

many of us if we're on social media or

reading newspapers can feel a sort of

tension growing in society that is hard

to understand if you're not an expert or

you're not connected to these subjects

in some way.

I looked at some stats before this

conversation that kind of support this

feeling that I've intuitively had and it

shows that conflict zones across the

world have increased by 66% in the last

3 years. In December 2024, the American

think tank Atlantic Council asked about

400 global strategists about their

thoughts about what's going on in the

world. And 65% think that China will

evade invade Taiwan by force within 10

years. About 40% think there'll be a

world war in the next 10 years. About

50% think nuclear weapons will be used

in the next 10 years. And about 45%

think Russia and NATO will fight

directly. When we look at sort of

spending and what's happening there,

there's been a huge jump in military

spending. There's now 300,000 NATO

troops around the world that are on

30-day high alert readiness. 59 states

um have erupted in war since 2023, which

is the greatest number logged in any

year since 1946.

And world military spending is up by

about 10% year-over-year, which is the

highest sum ever recorded by SIPAR,

making it a full decade of uninterrupted

growth in military spending. Things feel

tense, and every time I turn on the

news, I have a mild sense of anxiety.

So, I've gathered you three here today

to help me as a muggle, as a normal

person that doesn't have an

understanding, pass through what's going

on and hopefully what we can do about

this. Benjamin, to start with you,

introductions. What's your context and

what's the perspective experience you

bring to this conversation? I

was born in Iran in 1977. I came to the

United States as a refugee under a

program that President Carter allowed

for Iranians fleeing religious and

political persecution. and my family

came here on that basis. And I basically

spent the next 40 some odd years trying

to understand why I come from a part of

the world that seems to be in sort of

continuous conflict and turmoil and

exactly what can be understood about the

forces that brought me here. I'm

incredibly grateful to be here and what

can be done to basically change or at

least better understand it to pave a way

for change and progress in the future.

What age did you leave Iran and what was

the environment like when you left? I

was just under three years old and it

was a few months after so the sha had

left in December of 79 and then um we we

left a few months after that around

March. Humeni had just arrived from

Paris on a flight in in February,

basically taking control. And there was

still a lot of anarchy and chaos as to

exactly what the new regime would look

like, what the government would look

like. But we began, my parents began to

see that there were some, you know,

there were there were definitely mass

arrests. There were protests. There were

things that were happening that look

like those who were loyal to the

monarchy would be targeted, which is my

family was a monarchist.

Annie, same question to you. What what

is the experience context that you bring

to this conversation?

I am an author uh a journalist and I

write about war and weapons, US national

security and secrets and I'm interested

in looking at the very sort of minutia

of weapons and weapons systems and the

people who use them. I've written seven

books and all of them deal with war and

weapons and all of them deal with the

Pentagon and the CIA specifically. So

all of my sources come from those

organizations, the military and the

intelligence community.

And your last book we talked about last

time you came on to this show. What is

your last book about? And what what sort

of journey did you go on to gather the

information for that?

So my most recent book is called Nuclear

War, a scenario. And in that book, I

take the reader from nuclear launch to

nuclear winter, which happens in a

period of 72 minutes.

And I interview presidential adviserss,

secretaries of defense, nuclear subforce

commander, etc., etc. People who are

very close to the chain of command,

people who have rehearsed making these

decisions

if they need to be made. And what I

learned terrified me. And from what I

the book has been out for over a year

now, still in hardback. People are

reading it in 28 countries around the

world.

This is a serious edge of peril topic

and I think we're here to talk about

that because

no no time in my life I think have we

been closer to thinking about this

reality than right now.

Andrew, there's a few subjects and words

that Annie mentioned there that also

cross over in your story. One of them

being

nuclear war uh and nuclear weapons. what

is your context and how do you what is

the sort of experience and perspective

you bring to this? What's your

experience?

Yeah, I am a former clandestine CIA

intelligence officer. Uh also a uh

decorated wartime veteran from the

United States Air Force during our wars

in Iraq and Afghanistan. Um I've lived

in this world that uh that we're talking

about, this world of conflict, the world

of nuclear threats, the world of

developing nations and uh political and

military force as a tool to shape

democracy, to shape diplomacy. Um, and

I'm very excited to get into this topic

because I think there are certain areas

here that are misunderstood, areas that

are overdramatized, and then areas that

are not being spoken about that are very

relevant and very compelling.

Wasn't there a period of your life where

you were underground and part of that

sort of nuclear chain of command that

Annie described?

Absolutely. That's where my career

started actually was with the uh ICBM,

the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

Forces of the United States Air Force.

Uh overseeing Minute Man 3 missiles in

Montana uh armed with 10 nuclear

warheads each uh understanding the

military doctrine, the strategies, the

policies for how to execute.

So you were you were underground with a

physical nuclear key,

correct? Around around my neck.

And there are uh even as we have this

conversation now, there are hundreds of

US soldiers, hundreds of of Russian

soldiers that are in very similar

positions. And they're not they're not

much older than uh than a high school

graduate right now.

Many people think we're on the cusp of

World War II, but I think you've said in

the past that you actually think World

War II has already begun in some

context.

Yeah, correct. I believe that we are

already at the early stages, if not in

World War II. The problem is that people

seem to think that World War II is going

to emulate World War II. The deployment

of nuclear technology and nuclear

weapons now would look completely

different than the deployment of nuclear

weapons looked than World War II, if

only because we have nine nuclear

capable countries right now. Not to

mention the fact that we have a

completely different information

landscape. We have a completely

different political landscape. We have a

whole different uh landscape for

alliances and for treaties. The world is

very, very different than it was when

World War II broke out. So, you think

we're in World War II now or the early

innings of that?

And I think World War II is going to be

shaped by what we call proxy war.

What is proxy warfare?

Proxy warfare is when a wealthy nation

state uh funds and trains and arms

conflict in a less wealthy state uh

where there's usually some sort of civil

disturbance or civil fight that's

already happening. Much of what we've

seen in the last 10 years is is proxy

warfare. Libya, Syria, Yemen, people

argue that what we saw even Afghanistan,

Iraq, where the US was involved was

proxy warfare. Israel and Iran is model

proxy warfare. Uh Russia and Ukraine are

also models for proxy warfare.

So there's someone else funding it and

they're using that nation to do the the

work for them essentially.

Exactly. Right. You use a intermediate

nation that's still developing to

decrease the capability of your primary

target while you yourself conserve your

own troops, your own weapons, and your

own civilians against harm. Benjamin,

what's your take on that in terms of us

being at the start of the precipice of a

of a world war and it looking like a

sort of a different um different set of

weapons, a different way that we'll

fight each other and the internet and

digital warfare being a part of that.

I don't think since the the beginning of

the Cold War, let's say let's go back to

1947 or 48, I don't think we've stopped

fighting. I just think we're fighting

wars of different kinds. I think this

idea of kinetic warfare is less frequent

especially among the major powers. So um

Israel and Iran as an example of one of

the last few gasps of kinetic warfare.

But if we look at the United States and

China, United States and Russia, the

European powers, NATO, it's less kinetic

than it is more through um use of

information, through technology, through

cyber warfare. What's

so kinetic is when I refer to kinetic I

mean using actual physical memes bombs

missiles tanks um soldiers that type of

thing and it's less now and it's more

now moving towards other forms where it

you can now destabilize a government or

a system of government or a society

using a server farm and 20 people

sitting in a room thousands of miles

away and you don't necessarily need

weapons to do that. um where information

becomes weaponized where digital tools

become weaponized and that's far

different than anything we saw in the

20th century. So I think that the rise

of the internet in the late you know

beginning late 1990s through the 2000s

we've seen now this become

industrialized at scale and I think the

threat comes now from the ability of reg

of countries and regimes to destabilize

and interfere with others in a way that

they simply couldn't do years ago and

now you don't even need to fund it

massively to do that. It's basically

warfare on the cheap.

Mhm. Before we started recording, I

expressed to you that there's a certain

tension in the world right now.

Yeah.

Where's where's that coming from and why

in your perspective?

One of the things that's been evident to

us, especially since the the 2016

elections here in the United States is

this idea that we live in a post-truth

society. And with so much information

available to everybody on every

platform, through every means and

channel, there is now no monopoly on

objective truth or fact. And so with

that comes the ability to distort, to

propagandize, to mislead, to misinform.

And people do this to aggregate power,

to bring power to themselves. And so

when we live in a world where everyone

thinks they know everything or they are

afraid that they don't know enough, you

have a constant state of tension and

anxiety and people are uncertain about

their place in society. There's a, you

know, a wealth gap comes into play. And

with that, you feel like there's threats

or perceived threats or conspiracies

around every corner. And this is why I

think lies and misinformation and

conspiracy theories take hold in times

like this when people are anxious,

frightened, uncertain about their place

in society, about what's coming next.

And that puts us in a very tense state

and very clever people can take

advantage of that and manipulate to

their benefit. So that I think explains

why we feel this tension that we do.

The tension is clearly resulting in real

changes because those stats I read out

at the start where there's more nations

in conflict now. there's more military

funding. Um, more people think we're on

the verge of of something pretty

catastrophic than any time in the last

couple of decades. That information that

which is causing attention is then

having a downstream impact which is

conflict is breaking out.

I'd say it's upstream. Um, you have

polarization happening within societies

especially in western societies where

there is no monopoly on the truth or

news or information. you have the

fragmentation of let's say major news

sources. Traditionally, you have a few

very respected trusted sources and

authorities or figureheads that people

would turn to. We don't have that

anymore. It's now been diluted to the

point that it is almost meaningless. And

so, you see the social media has

contributed to this. And so with that,

these these with these divisions, these

schisms in society have made major

industrial powers like the United

States, like let's say the Europeans

more vulnerable to manipulation than

ever before. So now if you're a

adversary like Russia or China, Iran,

North Korea, you can take advantage of

the ability to tap into this

polarization and play people off against

one another, cause division, and that

allow and that destabilizes democratic

societies. And then that in turn

enables these countries like Russia and

China and others to have more leverage

and more influence in the developing

world. In the past it was whoever had

the strongest military. Now you don't

necessarily need the strongest military

to do it. You just need to have the

strongest um information army and the

willingness to do the dirty things that

Western societies don't do anymore, but

they used to.

I want to interrupt because I think

there's an order of operations here that

we're getting at that isn't clear. I

would argue that that ignorance starts

the foundation for the polarization that

is then capitalized on through this

information warfare landscape. So I I

say that because I think it's important

for us to understand that your your

statistics are relevant and correct.

Those statistics don't come first, they

come after. The ignorance kind of comes

first. the the the willing blindness to

what's happening in the world, the

willingness to just focus in on what

your tasks are or what entertains you

and let the rest of the world kind of do

whatever it's going to do. It's that

choice first that then leads to other

countries finding an opportunity to

manipulate the masses that are no longer

informed as to what's happening outside

of their world. I don't want to speak

for you, but that's that's kind of how

CIA handles clandestine operations when

it comes to information security

operations is understanding we're not

trying to make an audience ignorant.

We're finding an ignorant audience and

then giving them messaging to get them

to take action.

The difference is, so I would maintain

we've always been ignorant. The

difference is now you can actually do

something with that ignorance and

manipulate it at scale that you couldn't

before. So ignorance has always been

with us, but before at least people knew

where they could go to find what they

perceived to be a trusted source. So now

that source is gone. That messaging is

gone.

That skill is gone.

I have I have a different take entirely

which and I focus on narrative. So I'm

really interested in who tells the story

and who gets to control the story. And

what I watch happening a lot is that the

story is controlled for a while and then

it gets hijacked over and it's someone

else's story. So, it's kind of it's like

the end of the spectrum of what you're

both saying and you have the agency

working really hard to grab it back.

You've got the White House saying we

need to get our stakeholder press, you

know, and it's this. So, you're running

essentially like a kinetic war, a proxy

war, and an information war at the same

time. And I think that the information

is what is what drives most of this

conflict, which is why it's so

interesting to me to speak to diplomats

the only people not at this table,

right? That are like because then that's

only where I see the hope of kind of

like take it down because there's an

ease that needs to happen when you can

move the people from trust to paranoia.

I love that you mentioned diplomacy and

diplomats. So I I teach courses on

diplomacy and one of the things I've

seen emerge in the last few years is

this dichotomy between private

diplomacy, which is what we were used to

when we studied the Cold War and

postcold war conflicts and now we have

public diplomacy. almost all diplomacy

take take the um Iran Israel war the 12-

day war as as Trump calls it how much of

that war was conducted via social media

this is now so you have this public-f

facing diplomacy where you have during

wartime leaders their representatives

their proxies conveying messaging both

to their enemies to their allies and to

a supposedly neutral audience all

through social media right so it is not

no so much the nuclear age but the age

of the algorithm and how that amplifies

diplomacy in a way that never ever

existed. And so this is I think this

lends to that dilution uh that then

others can take advantage of because at

the end of the day if you want to

threaten a country or you want to garner

support, how you articulate that via

social media, whether you use all caps,

whether you use images, memes, all of

these things play into how effective

that is. And you see that most on Tik

Tok and when after the um October 2023

um uh Hamas attacks against Israel, the

information warfare between the two

sides and how it played out on college

campuses. I was at a, you know, a big

one where um a lot of that was taking

place at UCLA and how that played out on

social media and even among high school

kids who I talk to and their

understanding of conflict is now shaped

by what Tik Tok, which is partially

controlled by the um the Chinese

government feeds them and chooses to

feed them and amplify.

So, here's a specific example which

might be helpful to what you're saying

with the 12-day war recently. I think

the White House wanted that to just be a

bombing run. You can correct me if I'm

wrong. Just a bombing run. we're going

to go, you know, we're so power. It was

about power. It was about precision.

Take it out. And it was the press that

wrote, "America enters the war." Yeah.

And that is a major headline. And that

probably made the White House deeply

upset because they don't want to be they

don't want to be seen as entering into a

war. And so I think another real problem

we have right now with all of this

tension ratcheting up is how angry and

I'm just talking about America now. The

political sides are at one another that

to my eye because I'm an a-olitical

writer. No one has any idea what my

politics are. I write about war and

weapons neutrally. But I can observe and

it seems to me like the different waring

political parties inside the United

States are so intent on taking down the

other side. They do they do it from my

eye at the national security peril. In

other words, a a a headline against

Trump is better for them than US

national security or world security. I'm

curious what you Well, I think we're all

saying something that's that's uh

derivations of the same thing, versions

of the same thing, right? There's a

massive information warfare landscape

happening. And it is that fog of war

that we look through that gives us that

tension about what's actually happening

at the ground level. If you think about

conflict as being what what humans will

do to each other, there's layers on top

of that that create this this distortion

of what you can expect. And there's so

much activity in the information

landscape that it's very distorted what

could actually happen. We have a term at

CIA and when we talk about uh when we

talk about covert influence activities

to shape information, we talk about

volume and speed, which gets right back

to your point about Tik Tok and social

media. We've always engaged in

information warfare, but the volume and

the speed was much less and much slower

because you had to fly [ __ ] pamphlets

and drop them out of airplanes and hope

that the people reading it were reading

the right dialect of Arabic or Spanish.

You had to hope and then once there was

a rainstorm, all of your pamphlets are

done. And if you're trying to make it

look like they're not coming from

America, they're trying There's all

sorts of other layers to that. Well, now

an algorithm that you don't even control

Yes.

is contributing to that. And then you've

got creators, content creators all over

the place that have no no added value to

the content they're creating who are

just clipping, cutting and and putting

things together and then further being

amplified, right? So the volume of

information is massive and the speed at

which it disseminates is huge and the

algorithm can dictate whether you see it

or don't see it at all. So, while I

appreciate your point of view that

there's this tension and there's this

growing concern, I honestly think that

your your opinion on that is because

you're informed and intelligent and

there are huge groups of people who are

completely oblivious to where we

actually are on a a sliding scale of

approaching conflict.

Where are we?

I think that's what we're really here to

discuss. I would argue that we are not

entering a phase of less conflict. we

are going to enter a phase 5 to 10 years

of more conflict, increasing conflict, a

willingness to engage in more kinetic

conflict to use your term. I don't think

that we're showing the various uh global

power competitors of the world that it

will not be tolerated. I think we're

showing the global power competitors of

the world that violence, kinetic

attacks, cyber warfare, weapons

development is going to be accepted.

My wish is that America could overcome

her tribal anger, you know, to to that a

lot of Americans have toward one another

that are in different political parties

because I feel like America is a leader

in terms of security and safety or can

be and should be and that all of this

amplification of the rhetoric is is

deeply dividing.

The fancy word is divisive, but it's

just dividing. And that if there's any

place that one's enemies or adversaries

or call them what you will is can take

advantage of that it is right there.

Is that wishful thinking

for me to say uh I am a very wishful

thinking person. I mean I write about

the grimmst darkest subjects imaginable

you know with a smile on my face because

I just am naturally uh I'm naturally

optimistic. I'm the mother of two you

know collegeage boys. Of course I'm

going to be optimistic.

Andrew was just saying that he thinks

there's going to be more conflict going

forward. We have nine nations now that

have these nuclear weapons that some

might argue creates stability, but some

might argue that it only takes one

individual. And you said there's what,

six nations hosting those nuclear

weapons. I don't know. Sometimes I think

I think gosh, you only need one

miscommunication or one mistake from one

person who is, I don't know, not doing

too well mentally or having a bad day.

That's kind of how I think about it. And

I'm like probabilistically if you just

stretch it out some point that's going

to happen. Some point that's going to

happen. Well, you're absolutely right

and that is why I mean it'll be

interesting if we maybe talk about Iran

just from the you know specifics about

what happened and you know why that's is

or is not important because I just

having looked at nuclear weapons so

microscopically

recently I believe that that existential

threat the global catastrophic risk of a

nuclear you know of a flame that starts

that movement toward a nuclear nuclear

use is a sort of line that must never be

crossed. And so while all war is

terrible, there is always a solution on

the other side of the war. The war peace

can be made, but not with nuclear. And

so that, you know, I look at things

right now through that lens, which is

how I saw the most recent bombing.

You mentioned uh Andrew talked about

Israel and Iran being a proxy war. So

that kind of piqued my interest. Um I I

almost reflexively want to disagree, but

I want to hear more about why you think

so, so I can better understand proxy

conflict from that angle.

Yeah. Well, the way I see it, um Israel

is ratcheting up its aggression against

proxies that Iran has been using to to

threaten it for decades,

right?

But Israel is also dependent on American

weapons to do that. It's also dependent

on American intelligence to do that.

It's dependent on American support

financially and economically. So it

needs America to wage its conflict

moving forward. If America were to say,

"Israel, we don't support you," then

Israel would take a different approach

without a doubt. So the funding, the

support, the intelligence flow, the

economic support coming from the United

States is what empowers Israel to

prosecute its conflict. Without that

support, Israel would take a different

approach to the conflict.

But then proxy would imply that Israel

is acting as an agent or at the behest

of the United States. So the United

States rather than getting involved

directly with Iran up until last week

operates through another entity.

That's the misunderstanding about proxy

war. You're looking first for some sort

of conflict that already exists. The

conflict between Israel and Iran already

exists. The proxy then the the the proxy

relationship happens when an outsider, a

third party, comes in and exacerbates

the conflict by putting more fuel on an

existing fire. It's not that that Israel

is the agent of of the United States.

It's that Israel's already wants to

prosecute some sort of conflict. We come

in and we're essentially the fuel to

help exacerbate that fight.

So, who's the proxy in this conflict?

Israel.

Okay.

Israel's the proxy for the United States

who wants to diminish Iran in the same

way that Israel wants to diminish Iran.

This specific conflict is so fascinating

because every [ __ ] buddy wants Israel

to degrade Iran. Saudi Arabia wants

that. The United States wants that. All

of the European Union wants that. Israel

wants that. Everybody wants to see a

degraded Iran. So, Israel, especially

after what it's been doing in Gaza and

the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,

Israel's desperate for anything it can

do to win back favor for the Abraham

Accords as a democratic country. You

name it, it's looking for an option. And

Iran is a very convenient option for

them to build back relationships that

they've killed along with the the

attacks in Gaza.

If the reasons are different, does that

still make one a proxy of the other? So

Iran's uh Israel's objections to Iran

and it's it's the reason it sees Iran as

a adversary might differ from the United

States and there's a ven diagram.

There's some overlap but there's also a

tremendous amount that doesn't overlap.

Same thing with the Saudis, the Gulf

States, other regional states that see

Iran as a threat. They see it for

different reasons. Does that still, and

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just

trying to understand, does that still

make them a proxy if their motives are

different?

I would say yes, because it's not about

the parts of the ven diagram that don't

overlap. It's about the parts that do.

It's about the convenience of Israeli

citizens dying, Israeli soldiers dying,

Israeli weapons being spent. That's the

benefit of a proxy conflict. It's not

American citizens who are at risk. It's

not American soldiers who are dying.

It's not American weapons that are being

spent. We get to build our surplus. And

if anything, we get to build extra and

sell it to Israel, which is benefiting

our economy. So this is the the

uncomfortable truth behind proxy war is

it it's all the benefits of a wartime

environment without any of the risks.

But then what also happens and you can

look at Vietnam as a great example is

the proxy wars that are supposed to be

low cost for the United States end up

blowing up into being a disaster for the

United States.

So I think of Vietnam I think classic

proxy war. Right. Right. Kruef gave that

speech I think 1963 whenever it was

about wars of national liberation and

that they would be fought in what was

then called the third world Vietnam

being a classic case there I see

absolutely right first you had the

French you know in French Indochina and

then the United States bailing the

French out arguably the French were

maybe a proxy for US interests they were

part of that firewall that were keeping

the dominoes from falling but again I'm

struggling to I'm trying to understand

the Israel United States proxy angle

here um and That's a unique definition

of proxy, I guess. Okay, so you butt in

with an example. You tell me if this is

right or wrong. Yeah. So, in a weird

way, the Iraq war was a proxy war

for the same reason.

The Iraq war the 2000 which the

George Bush and Dick Cheneyy's Iraq war,

right,

were trying to weaken Iran.

You think the Iraq war was an attempt to

weaken Iran?

I mean, you you pipe in here, but that's

how it started. That was the original

intention. And the deep tragic irony is

what we have now which is Iran is

running Iran.

Why does the United States want to

weaken Iran?

The Iran the United States the United

States

because what happened to your family in

197 but why but but why does what's the

beef the US has with Iran? I mean for

400 and something days in 1979 and we

will not let that go until that is you

know

how is that how what is what does

justice look like? I'm not saying that's

Yeah. No, but I'm saying why why are we

at war with Iran or not at war, but why

are we at conflict with Iran?

I mean, I think there's a lot of

different a lot of different valid

answers for that, but

where I would take this, especially to

keep it um really accessible to the lay

person, right, is that the United States

wants zero competition for

being this the single superpower in the

world. It wants no competition for that.

It wants to remain the single superpower

everywhere because being the single

superpower gives your civilians gives

your population uh security but it also

means that you have the lion's share of

all the resources in the world and basic

economics teaches us that all economics

is based on resources.

So Iran's goals to create a Shia state

to create a Shia crescent of power and

influence across the Middle East

is in stark contrast to what would

benefit the United States. What the

United States wants is to maintain a

Sunni majority because that's where the

oil is coming from is majority for

United States. Sunni wealthy collegi

states even though Iran's the second

largest

not for the United States.

Yeah. Not for the United States.

But it was right during the United

States greatest period of prosperity

there. It was a bipolar world. So

unipolarity is something we've had since

the you know since the '90s onward. And

yes there's been tremendous success but

arguably unipolarity has been

destabilizing.

What's unipolarity? where you have one

world power basically dominating which

has kind of been the case since the end

of the cold war and now we've seen a

rise of other sort of polls maybe with

China being one but you had during the

entirety of the cold war was a bipolar

structure you had the Soviets you had

the US and they were dictating

everything else on the chessboard that

was the globe right in front of us and

arguably since the end of the cold war

the unipolar system has not been very

stable you could say that I think the

stats you cited the number of conflicts

have almost increased

um since that time what is what what's

the take away from that from what do you

guys think

I mean this is where I think academics

and reality butt heads

okay

because academically I agree with you

okay

and on principle I agree with you the

world could be better

if it was multipolar

if we had a strong Europe and we had a

strong country in China and we had a

strong or a country in in Asia and we

had a strong United States and and if we

could find a way to cooperate

effectively and collaborate without

conflict. I mean, academically, all of

that sounds wonderful.

Well, I don't pretend that it's going to

be friendly or cooperative. I think you

can have multipolar where you still have

adversaries.

Yeah.

But the are the idea is that you're

saying that countries seek to be

unipolar. They seek to be global

hedgeimens because that gives them what?

No. No. Countries don't do that. Once

you are once you are a nearper

competitor, then you have no other

option in the reality of it except to be

the most powerful. This is why there's

only one Olympic gold winner for any

competition, for any specific Olympics.

You can't have a tie, right? It's the

reason why if there is a game that ends

in a tie, it goes into overtime because

you have to have a winner. That's like

it's it's human nature. I have to know

what my threat level is against you. So,

one of us has to be dominant and one of

us has to not be as it has to be second

to our dominance. And we can have

dominance in different areas, right?

That's why when I'm a guest in your

home, I follow your rules. when you're a

guest in my home, you follow my rules.

There's an element of that that's all

just built into our our DNA as human

beings. But what the United States has

is it has global hedgeimony. It has all

the benefits of the world's wealthiest

economy, the strongest currency, the the

lead on technology. We've diversified

our workforce so that we don't have to

rely on manufacturing. We have we

literally make money off of ideas in the

United States. Whereas a place like

China is doomed to try to have human

beings who do things with their fingers

to make money. So when you have that

level of power, you become very focused

on keeping that power. Talk to any

wealthy person out there and they'll

tell you the same thing.

But war is a zero- sum game. The

Olympics are a zero- sum game. Diplomacy

implies that others can win. Not

everyone can win equally, but multiple

winners can emerge or multiple losers

can emerge. We can all kind of share a

spot in the podium. two people can stand

in the gold section. You know, you can

split it. You can have a team sport,

right? Where everyone's getting gold on

that team if they win. Uh how is that is

that consistent with what culture? This

is where culture starts to lay in.

Yeah.

And I would say that the United States

is a zero sum culture.

I would say too.

Okay. I don't think it's pretty, man.

But I think it's the facts.

I also think it's interesting when I

hear you guys talk. It's like you can

imagine what it's like in the White

House. Imagine the president, he's

having some of his adviserss tell him

exactly this, like, you know, the the

kind of big we must dominate. And then

you have his military adviserss wanting

specifics having to do with what their

intentions are in their lane. And so I

think it's what's interesting for you

know the lay men which which I certainly

am on some level is that when you begin

the more information you get you know

this is like on the other side of that

information is actually a great thing

for all of us you can begin to

understand the context.

Okay wow that's you know Andrew said

that and that that makes sense now. So I

think then you start to see as an

individual the world makes more sense to

you. It's less threatening like what is

going on? Oh my god, World War III is

around the corner. But the president of

the United States lives in his own or,

you know, silo and has so much

incredible power. This just the longer I

report on all of this, the more I am

amazed at how powerful the president of

the United States is. And if we look at

the current president, how much more

power is being absorbed there.

And the the idea of them being in their

own silo. I mean,

no pun intended, but pun intended.

Absolutely. I mean traditional

traditional political focused

policydriven presidents they try to find

a way to reduce the silo effect. The

current president has done the opposite.

He's increased the insulation against

expertise from people who have forged

careers uh being becoming experts in

their field. Instead, he's surrounded

himself with voices that are that are

more interested in who knows media

intentions, future uh future political

benefits, but they're not necessarily

coming from an informed expertise like

what we've seen in previous presidents.

And that's where I think you use the

word context. Absolutely. I think that's

that's that's perfect to capture it.

It's the context. So, you know, content

is what the three of us are discussing

here. uh content context is what the

cameras are recording what editing is

done afterwards and then what gets

disseminated beyond there that is you

know in in in a broader uh scope that is

the algorithm that is social media that

is basically restricting the context to

whatever it the owners of that content

feel it needs to be and that I think

also contributes to this sort of

unipolar zero sum mindset and uh because

only one algorithm can win you can't

have competing algorithms we're trying

to have competing algorithms with with

with China and they're winning. Um I a

few um two years ago I designed a war

game simulation for a group of retired

military officials and we had some

prominent ex we had governors, senators,

national security staff uh role

playinging um White House situation room

and one of the things that was

interesting was my job I I designed this

game. It was meant to be what if a

second January 6th happened but this

time the insurrection comes from within

the military. you have defections from

the military,

National Guard bases, isolated bases,

right? Could the Pentagon be prepared

for something like that? What would that

look like?

And I had the White House was staffed

with this incredible social media team

that was meant to sort of signal to the

American people and to the the president

and to everyone else what's happening.

And I had four people playing the Red

Cell. The red cell consisted of

basically trolls, provocators who aren't

necessarily committed to overthrowing

but just wanted to, you know, to to just

wanted sort of the action.

It's like borrowing what what Heath

Ledger said is the Joker. Some people

just want to watch the world burn,

right? Or to He didn't say that, but it

was from Batman, right? And the havoc

that two or three people in a bar

were able to simulate or to create

versus an entire White House apparatus

staffed with experienced people. These

are people who who were on actual White

House comms teams who had the training.

We had military folks who had worked in

defense intelligence and you had two or

three trolls in their 20s who some were

veterans who were able to absolutely

cause havoc. And so that is the that

because the algorithm and I designed the

algorithm to amplify their stuff and it

and it and the White House could not

keep up.

That's fascinating. That's terrifying.

That is terrifying. That is where I

think the warfare and you know the idea

of World War II and conflict that is how

you get to zero sum that is how you get

to who emerges with the gold medal. I

think so to back to your point the

context who controls that silo who

controls the mic who controls the

aperture is going to matter more.

One of the things Donald Trump has shown

us is how much of an economy of

attention we really are in.

And just like having the most money

makes you wealthy in a fiscal economy,

having the most attention makes you very

wealthy in an attention economy. And

here's a man who even when he wasn't

president

was in the headlines every day. So it's

I think that the unpredictability of

what he's going to do moving forward

doesn't bring us closer to peace. It

doesn't bring us closer to uh proper

communications. It's I you mentioned you

know are we one miscommunication away.

If we are then we are in a very dire

place because there is a lot of

miscommunication happening. Well, I've

read the stories through history of

miscommunications nearly resulting in

nuclear war or some missile being

launched. I mean, Anna, you've studied

quite a few of those moments through

history. I was listening to one the

other day. I think it was a story of um

a Russian nuclear commander who who saw

something on the radar and he thought

the US was striking and for whatever

reason he decided to assume that it

wasn't and reported back to his his uh

sort of overlords that it wasn't a

nuclear strike and didn't press the

button. But everything on his radar told

him that the US had launched multiple

missiles. Are you familiar with that

particular story?

Y

what is that story?

He's called the man who stole the man

who saved the world. It was 1983 and he

was in a bunker in Russia. Their sort of

equivalent of we have a similar uh a

radar, you know, a system that's looking

at satellite tracking satellite

activity. And it was perceived that

America had launched missiles from the

Midwest, ICBMs,

and the, you know, you're absolutely

right. I mean, you told the story

perfectly. He decided not to raise the

the threat up the chain of command,

which would have put the entire Soviet

nuclear command and control on, you

know, massive alert. He just didn't do

it. And it was interesting because he,

you know, was sort of really bered later

by Russian command and control, but he

got the moniker, the man who saved the

world. There's a documentary about him

that's definitely worth watching. And

your point is what Secretary General of

the United Nations Antonio Gutirez said

recently, which is we are one

misunderstanding,

one miscalculation away from nuclear

annihilation

or even one AI generated viral video

that goes, you know, that the wrong

person gets the wrong idea from. Imagine

the Cuban missile crisis, how close we

came. And imagine if you had generative

AI content that made it look like the

Soviets had deployed or fired a missile

or anything to that effect. We saw

during this Iran Israel conflict, I

mean, how many videos on on X I saw that

showed devastation in Tel Aviv or

devastation in downtown Tan. I mean they

were obviously fabricated and AI

generated but the extent to which these

things were recirculated and spread and

that I saw sources who I would normally

trust sort of um amplified these not

knowing until someone else pointed out

wait a minute that's you know from a

video game or that's generative AI and

imagine if our decision makers didn't

have redundancies or self or fail safes

in place to be able to identify that

this is what that is and they acted on a

misread or something that they thought

was real. That's that's what concerns

me.

Are our intelligence forces more

sophisticated than that? Presumably,

they're not on Twitter or something

looking at videos.

Well, they are. They are there as well.

And that's that's a type of intelligence

called open source intelligence. Uh I

but the short answer is yes. Our

intelligence infrastructure is far more

sophisticated than that. The the

intelligence infrastructure for all of

the all of the for the majority of the

nine nuclear capable countries are very

very effective. France is very

effective. The UK is very effective. the

US is very effective. Even China's MSS

is very, very effective. So,

sophisticated intelligence services are

looking for corroborating evidence

before they make an intelligence

estimate. There is a challenge though,

and we're seeing it especially in the

United States where the the chief

executive just disagrees,

right,

independently, unilaterally, with what

his intelligence estimate is.

What you mean? You saw two examples in

the last few weeks, right? First you saw

um Tulsi Gabbard who's the director of

national intelligence and a position

that didn't exist until the failure of

9/11. That DNI position was born from

the fact that we needed to have more

coordination across intelligence

services. And she came out and she gave

an estimate that Iran was not imminently

capable of creating a nuclear weapon, a

weaponized nuclear device. Right.

And how would she know?

Because she's the director of national

intelligence. All intelligence. Thank

you. I'm It's It's obvious to me. I

understand. It's not always obvious to

everyone else, but all of the

intelligence services feed up. They feed

up intelligence that's been vetted,

corroborated, validated up through a

reporting system that goes to the

director of national intelligence whose

job it is to advise the president on the

current status of of the most quality

intelligence that we have. the president

as the chief executive uh is the one

person who the intelligence services

work for at the pleasure of the

president but his primary mouthpiece for

current intelligence is supposed to be

the DNI. So when Tulsi Gabbard says we

have no reason to believe the Iran is

imminently ready to prepare to create a

nuclear weapon. The president is

supposed to say thank you DNI and then

that becomes the information that he

has. Instead he disagreed with her and

then he said that's not the tr that's

not really what's happening.

Not just disagreed. shut her out.

Correct. Shut her out. Out of Senate

briefings, intelligence briefings, she's

been marginalized

and then she changed her opinion and

came back and and I want to hear your

disagreement. But then the second

example I have is after the bombing raid

uh of the three sites in Iran, the uh

DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency,

which is charged with collecting

military intelligence from foreign

targets, came back and said that we we

may not have reached total obliteration,

Mr. President. And again, he disagreed.

and he's like, "That's completely wrong.

Total obliteration."

I have a a it's not a disagreement, but

it's more like a different POV on all of

this, which has to do with narrative,

which I'm very interested in of how

because the more people I interview at

all these different levels, I begin to

realize that we all are working from the

same set of human conditions, you know,

bias and and sort of like and really my

favorite one is the horse in the race.

you know, you have a horse in the race

of how you think and the way in which

you see the world. And I know as I get

older, what I try to do personally is I

try to notice where I am wrong and

instead of being defensive about it, be

like, I was wrong about that. That's

interesting because then you can kind of

evolve in your thinking and have a

bigger poo view. But I perceive

Tulsi Gabbert t making those decisions

from the lens in which she sees the

world and her platform is very specific.

You you could almost have discerned that

she was going to have that opinion. At

least in my opinion

she was a known commodity before she

became DNI. So this is the feeling. I

think what you're saying is we knew

yes

she was she she always saw the regimes

in that part of the world from a certain

framework

and her conclusion followed her

biases

biases her presuppos exactly

and they're just their pri priors is a

great word because because we all have

them there's nothing wrong with this per

se it's just that

because I would take a totally different

look at any of this if I was the DNI and

would be like

Mr. president. It's not as much about

these things that everyone's arguing

about did we because let's face it, no

one's going to know until time passes

the damage that was really done there.

Period. Full stop. You you know that and

we all know that. And so what you have

to say and again as a historian I would

say what's the best example of why we

should bomb this facility and the best

example would be North Korea because

Clinton all what so North Korea once

upon a time did not have 50 nuclear

warheads and the ICBMs to get them to

the United States to take out the United

States which is what I write there's my

bias my lens my point of view but I have

studied this and so it's interesting to

me that Clinton was going to bomb bomb

North Korea when they were in precisely

the same situation that Iran is now not

yet having a nuclear bomb and North

Korea promised that they wouldn't enrich

the uranium and this is in 1983 and

Clinton was preparing a military strike

and it was complex because a lot of

people in Seoul were going to die in

South Korea and then Jimmy Carter

stepped in and said I will go negotiate

the peace with the current dictator's

father and he did and everything was

honky dory Except for North Korea had

their hands behind their back and their

fingers crossed and they were lying

because that is what dictators do who

don't like America being the nuclear

superpower and being able to threaten

them. And if I was the DNI, I would say,

"Mr. President, this is the best example

of probably what is going on." That's my

bias rather than saying, you know, so

I'm but I'm interested in how the tribal

parts of America, which I find just as

dangerous as nuclear weapons. Not quite,

but um that's what I'm interested in.

And then everybody jumps on the story

that which is also true. The story you

tell is true. But what is your take on

North Korea, the bomb, Tulsi Gabbard? If

anything, North Korea is the I mean, I

never thought in my adult life I would

say this. It's the shining example of

why nuclear of why countries pursuing

nuclear capabilities will continue to

pursue nuclear capabilities because here

is a broken backwards poor [ __ ]

despicable regime that we don't touch.

No one will touch them

because they've got nuclear weapons.

They have nuclear weapons. And now they

and now that now that we have literally

bombed a sovereign nation as the United

States, we have sent in we we ran a

bombing raid of a country that was

sovereign

its own borders with no no

which is why Clinton wouldn't do it in

the because of my god that was unheard

of. You don't do that.

And now that we have done that to incur

and prevent a country from getting a

nuclear capability that's our stated

intent. Now, our state intent may be

celebrated in most parts of this map,

but to the Iranian people and to the

people who are trying to climb up the

social ladder through technology, the

message they got is our our borders are

not going to be respected unless we have

something like a weapon, a nuclear

weapon that will keep people away.

So, now they have even more incentive to

develop a nuclear weapon than they've

ever had.

Correct.

Or and or sorry to cut or they might go

a different direction. It might say,

"Look at what a 30-year policy pursuit

of funding a nuclear program brought

upon us. It brought upon us death and

ruin." North Korea is a shining example

of a failed state. The only reason that

it hasn't basically toppled is because

the oppressive nature of the regime

against its own people and against the

outside world. Who wants to be North

Korea? Iran does not want to be North

Korea. It is a priious state of all

priest states isolated beyond belief and

a miserable place by all um you know

senses to want to live and exist unless

you're part of the ruling hierarchy. So

I would argue the Iranian people will

look at this the people mind you not

people are very different than people

are different from the regime. The

regime is about survive so they're going

to emulate North Korea

except that 100%

except that all they're going to do is

sew the seeds to their own downfall

internally because yes nuclear weapons

will shield you from the outside world.

They will not protect you from within.

Iranians are not North Koreans. That is

where, you know, they have demonstrated

a willingness to to die for rebellion.

I'm not saying this generation is ready

to do that, but you know, the only

reason I'm in this country sitting here

is because there was thousands of people

that were willing to do that. They will

do that again presumably. So great,

build your walls, isolate yourself from

the world, protect yourself from the US,

but you're not going to protect yourself

from civil conflict and civil strife and

tribalism. that will persist and it will

amplify uh because you know oppression I

think this is one of the great lines

from the um andor show uh first season

right oppression requires constant

effort and that constant effort is bound

to break at some point it is a lot of

work to keep your domestic population

repressed

that is not sustainable in the long run

history has shown that you can keep

others out but you can't but

except for North Korea

North Korea is the the only exception

and the reason is because they've got

terrifying

they've got they've got a huge patron

willing to prop them up but for China

oh China

but for China and to a lesser extent

Russia where would North Korea be Iran

doesn't have a savior

hasn't had a savior

and it's not going to it's not going to

be Russia do that I don't know that

that's the case because right now

there's an incentive across the eastern

block

to support Iran right now China China

and Russia and North Korea

who were already become becoming

diplomatically and economically tied to

Iran before this have all the more

reason to do so now.

Except none of them stepped forward in

ways that mattered in the last 3 weeks

to to to do something

that we know of. Yeah.

Well, you did. Putin gave a very

disconcerting speech in St. Petersburg

on June 20th where he talked about the

Russian scientists helping out Iran and

that I found to be very an echo of a

kind of a threat along the lines.

Correct. Don't don't make the mistake of

thinking that there hasn't been support

given just because we don't know about

support given. There's quiet diplomatic

channels. There's secret intelligence

channels.

I don't disagree.

There's just foreign language channels.

I don't disagree. I just don't think

Iran is the hill that the Russians or

Chinese will die on.

No, for sure it's not.

That's that's what I'm saying. At the

end of the day, there is no NATO article

5 equivalent where any of these

countries in the Eastern block will come

to the defense of Iran's sovereignty.

They simply won't. And now we go back to

the conversation about proxy war because

Iran becomes a very convenient proxy for

Russia and for China.

But nothing is more important than Iran

not having a nuclear weapon. Muhammad

bin Salman himself said if Iran gets the

weapon, we will also we Saudi Arabia

will get a nuclear weapon. And that's a

huge I think that's a fantastic

a fantastic parallel to why the world

doesn't want Iran to be nuclear capable

because a nuclear capable Iran would

force the Sunni uh Khi states to develop

nuclear weapons as well.

And that's nuclear World War II right

there.

Or or you don't even need to be nuclear

capable. Just be nuclear threshold.

That's enough. That's what Iran what if

every country in the region became

nuclear threshold?

What does that mean?

They're on the verge of weaponization,

but they're not quite there. So in other

words um uranium enrichment. So when you

when you find uranium in the raw it's

it's very low enriched like 2 to 3% of

it is pure. You enrich it you put it in

centrifuges you separate the parts you

want from the parts you don't. You

purify it up to 20% can be used for

energy or for medical uses. That's what

the nuclear non-prololiferation treaty

allows every country except those who

didn't sign it and the the five great

powers. Right. everyone else. You can

have energy enrichment, uranium

enrichment up to that 20% threshold.

Iran went beyond that. Went up to 60%.

When you go beyond 20, you're entering

into weapons territory. Weapons

territory, you have to get to the 90%

range, right?

Clean weapons.

Clean weapons. But anything between 20

to 90 gets you a dirty bomb, a

radioactive dirty bomb. Um, and so Iran

went there and said, "Well, we're not

quite at the 90 weapon 90% weaponization

yet, but why?" But they exceeded 20.

Every other country could arguably do

the same thing. They could say, "We're

not going to build a bomb, but we're

going to come very close where if we

feel that we need to do it in a matter

of weeks, days, months, we could quickly

do it if we think there's a threat."

That's a threshold.

Do you think Trump was right to bomb

Iran?

Do I think he was right to bomb Iran?

Um, I think diplomacy with Iran has been

exhausted with this leadership.

Can you explain that to me from because

I'm really keen to just understand where

this conflict with Iran has originated

from.

So Iran up through 1979 it had a it had

various monarchies. The Pathi monarchy

that came into power in the 1920s was

was the last dominant one and it had

built at least through the cold war a

close relationship with the west

specifically the United States. Iran

served as one of the two pillars of US

power in the Middle East. The Saudis

being the other. This is before Israel

became important to the United States

national security uh system. And so Iran

and the Saudis represented really a

projection of US power in the Middle

East. With the revolution of 79 that

went away.

We supported the sha and

and the the you tell it.

Yeah. Absolutely. Right. So the United

States and the sha the king of Iran were

extremely close. I mean this peaked

under Richard Nixon and Kissinger's time

and um as a result uh the sha became

very very wealthy looked to rapidly

modernize the country but what he didn't

do Iran experienced tremendous economic

growth but not political growth to match

it. So what happens when a country

becomes wealthy and becomes more

modernized becomes more European which

is what the sha was trying to do the

people wanted other things that Europe

had. They wanted free elections. They

wanted free press. They wanted freedom

of assembly. Right? They they wanted

democracy to go with their dishwashers.

The thing is is the Shaw said, "I will

give you all of the trappings of

modernity, highrises, air conditioning,

indoor plumbing, dishwashers, electric

appliances. But this democracy that you

want, that's pushing it too far." So you

had this rapid economic growth, this

uneven political growth, and there the

seeds of revolution were planted. people

were unhappy and they said, "Wait a

minute. Why can't we have the other

things to go with this this this

growth?" So, the revolution happened.

There's a bunch of different forces

coming into play, not just the Islamist,

but the Islamists were the ones that

dominated at the end. And they cleared

everyone out. They killed them basically

marginalized them. And they have three

pillars they stand on, three like if you

want to call it their their mission

statement. Number one is independence

from the West. The this Iranian regime

believes no more dependence on the West

like the Sha did. Number two is the

destruction of Israel or hostility to

Israel. That is fundamental.

Why?

Because they see Israel as an outpost of

American power and arguably not

colonialism, but they see Israel as a

projection of US power. They also see in

their attempt to go to pillar number

three, which is exporting the revolution

to other Muslim Shia countries, they see

Israel as getting in the way because it

represents this non-Muslim

entity in an otherwise Islamic part of

the world. So it's inconsistent with

their their their goal of expanding the

Islamic revolution. You can't do that

when Israel is literally in the way. So

it has to go or it has to be diminished.

And they've said that.

Oh yeah. This is this is Humeni, the

founder of the republic. The these these

are his three his his three principles.

So you have these three principles. You

take any one of them away, the whole

edifice, the whole thing falls down.

It's like a tripod. Break one of its

legs, it's got it doesn't have enough to

stand on. So diplomacy with the US means

ending hostilities with the West and it

means acknowledging Israel in some way.

This government cannot do that.

Otherwise, it loses all credibility. It

it spent 40 plus years saying these are

the things we stand for. If they all of

a sudden abandon those principles,

they're going to have no credibility

with the public. Then why why why should

they still be in power?

It's not because the public wants

hostility with Iran and Israel. The

public wants relations. But this

government is saying, "We oppress you.

we terrorize you all because we're

keeping you safe and we're adhering to

these three principles.

And that's 40 years of brainwashing as

well.

Absolutely. Of indoctrination. So

diplomacy had reached its end. To answer

your question, a long answer to a good

question. Was Trump right to bomb it?

Trump had reached the limits of

diplomacy. And with Iran being a nuclear

threshold state and with Israel after

the 2023 Hamas attacks realizing it

could no longer tolerate this degree of

a threshold Iran, the time to act, the

pressure was there. So I think um

and the opportunity of the way it had

weakened

the defense systems, the proxies,

their true proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas,

right? So I think there was a window of

opportunity and there's Iran simply was

not going to abandon its nuclear program

on its own. Diplomacy was not going to

get us there. They don't want to. It

gives them too much leverage

and it's never going to abandon its

nuclear program.

I've learned to not say never anymore in

in in

but with a regime change I think that's

a different story. But in the existing

regime they will the regime will keep

um itself in power that's my point about

nor you know that's the analogy to North

Korea. We can that you we all kind of

agree on is that you know their

perception is if we have a nuclear

weapon then the west really can't mess

with us. And and you mentioned something

else I liked. You said that you know you

I think when you were saying if in the

role of the DNI or the president you get

information you were wrong. Okay. You

have to reassess. Our leaders and this

goes back to sort of the topic of this

this book I'm working on. Our male

leaders especially suffer from cognitive

dissonance. Right. Cognitive dissonance

is when you have a set of beliefs and

you get information that is inconsistent

with how with your beliefs that makes

all humans incredibly uncomfortable. All

right. What do you do with that? Well,

there's multiple ways that we

psychologically try to neutralize that.

One of them is you change your view. You

say, "You know what? I was wrong." This

is the correct way to see things. Most

people won't do that. That's

embarrassing. Most men won't do that.

Most men in positions of power

absolutely won't do that. If they admit

that they're wrong, then what does that

what does that say? Right? So, instead,

they double down. They reinforce. They

become stubborn. And they end up then in

order to justify that have to act

aggressively. So we suffer from

basically men

I'm right problem I told you so exactly

so you have to reinforce your false

belief because if you don't it means you

were wrong

and if you're Donald Trump if you're

Kame if you're Benjamin Netanyahu and

you were wrong how bad does that look

you're you're out your credibility is

gone in this culture that we're in

right so that leads to the other problem

the cognitive dissonance that that these

world leaders can't seem to handle

you think we were right to strike like

Iran.

I think that we did the right thing at

the wrong time. And and I will say that

because the president of the United

States is the president of the United

States. He's he's earned the seat. We

wanted him there. We voted for it. He

gets to do whatever he wants. But

considering the politics between Israel

and Iran at the time, considering the at

least at the very least inconsistent

intelligence that we have about the

actual status of the weapons that Iran

was developing. And then uh the the

political position inside the United

States being where it was with failed

tariffs, being where it was with uh an

inability to negotiate peace in Gaza, an

inability to negotiate peace uh in

Ukraine, where it was, if it was the

right thing to do, we we certainly seem

to have done it prematurely along with

preemptively.

When would have been a better time? And

I'm not I'm not a proponent of war. I'm

just wondering, there is never a good

time. When would have been a better

time? I mean, if you want to if you want

to speak like a parent, then you're

right. There's never a good time, right?

But, um, first of all, I think a limited

bombing run,

that's that's not how you eradicate

that's not how you totally obliterate a

country's nuclear capability. You have

to commit to either multiple bombing

bombing runs, you have to coordinate

attacks. Um, and in this particular

instance, Israel made an offer to the

United States and said, "Hey, we would

like for you to come in and use your

bunker buster bomb, this technology that

only you have, but if you don't, we have

other options." I would have loved to

have been like, "Let's see those other

options. Let's see how far you can take

this on your own because you're the one,

Israel, that has an existential threat

from Iran. You're the one who's dealing

with and had phenomenal success with the

proxies in your area in your region. And

we are the country that currently can

continue to say that we don't violate

sovereign borders for now, right? We we

obviously invade Iraq. We invade

Afghanistan. We've had our history with

this and and we've had our history of

breaking international law and we we

always have the option to stop, you

know, bombing across borders. But

instead of waiting, instead of letting

Israel kind of exhaust all of their

options, we went in. And why? And did we

go in because it was in our best

interest or did we go in because it was

somebody else's ven diagram bigger

benefit and our ven diagram smaller

benefit?

I have a theory about that. But first, I

want to ask you a question about your

subject, you know, matter expertise,

which is when you said, "Let's see let's

see Israel play out some of the other

options because and I'm talking about

the covert action that they had planned

because boy was did you I mean the

leaked tapes that were on the Washington

Post, Israel's covert action teams, that

was pretty stunning to me." Absolutely.

And I think it's best if you explain

maybe what we're talking about because

the we're as close to your I'm as close

to you as the vein on your neck.

Absolutely. So, one of the things that

we're seeing in the headlines now and in

the near future for sure is going to

continue to be this this ousting this

collection of suspected spies within

Iran because now Iran Iran has been a

Swiss cheese of spies of MSAD agents uh

informants for MSAD inside of Iran for

MSAD. MSAD is the uh is the Israeli

external intelligence collection

service.

Their version of the CIA.

Okay. So, the Israeli CIA

Israeli CIA. Correct. One of the major

differences between MSAD and CIA is that

MSAD is essentially exclusively focused

on one major enemy to Israel and that's

Iran. So a 100 almost 100% of their

effort goes into protecting against this

one existential threat where the United

States CIA is collecting on everybody.

Right? So with that kind of intelligence

focus plus the budget that Israel has

plus its partnerships with the West and

the technology that it can collect from

the West, it it has a far superior

intelligence advantage over Iran. So

cutting in for a second here, these are

the trigger we're talking about what we

were talking about earlier with

groundbre. These are trigger pullers.

These are covert action operators that

go in and kill people.

We have multiple types of infiltrations

inside Israel or inside Iran. But to uh

to the point that she's making um the

the covert action arm of MSAD inside

Iran is massive. That's how they were

able to go in across borders and launch

drones. They're finding now thousands of

prefabricated drones inside Tan that

were being built by by assets of MSAD

that were being controlled by AI within

Thran. So that Israel could essentially

at a press of a button fly hundreds of

homemade drones built inside the capital

of Iran like fabricated inside Iran. So

this

by Iranians

by Iranians.

Yeah. So this

and the level of deception and sort of

paranoia that comes with all of this

territory is shocking and stunning and

correct and and Iran has suspected this

for a long time has known that it exists

but maybe never to what extent because

it wasn't a a imminent threat. it wasn't

an eminent concern and then it became it

became one with this run with this uh

series of activities against Iran.

I was reading about the pages the other

day and I had no idea. I'd kind of seen

something on my feed but I thought I'd

I'd research it and essentially Israel

had managed to get the Iranian forces to

wear pages that they had manufactured

with bombs inside them and then they

exploded exploded all the pages. I mean,

even more impressive than that, they

didn't get anybody to wear a pager. They

found the model and type of pager. They

found the supply chain. They found the

fabricator for that. And then they

infiltrated infiltrated the fabricator

to make sure that they input those

explosive devices into the same make and

model that was going to end up in the

hands of Hezbollah. And then