Larry,

in the past few hours, it appears that

Hezbollah and Israel have agreed to a

ceasefire. This would be the umpteenth

agreement, and no one expects it to

last,

but pressure from the White House?

>> Well, a combination of pressure from the

White House, and from Qatar, and from

Iran, and from Pakistan, and from China.

Uh, there were a lot of messages that

China was passing

with Pakistan. Uh,

I would even call them threats

uh, that uh, making it clear to Israel

that uh,

uh, it's going to be in the cross if it

wants to go this way, it's going to be

in the crosshairs. Uh, Iran was being

very careful

to not be the one who was seen as

breaking the MOU. And as Ray correctly

noted, the the most critical sentence in

that first, you know, the the first item

in the memorandum of understanding was

the stipulation that Iran and the United

States were responsible

for the territorial integrity and

sovereignty of Lebanon.

That is a remarkable

assertion, right? But what that means is

Iran, and who violates the territorial

integrity of Lebanon? Israel.

And that whose job is it to to protect

that integrity? Iran. And the United

States agreed to that. So, when it comes

time, if if Israel does not withdraw,

and if Israel does not stop the attacks,

the Iranians have the right, according

to this MOU, to attack Israel to push

them out along with Hezbollah.

>> You have told us several times, Larry,

that [clears throat] in your opinion, if

Iran and Israel go at it against each

other without US military involvement,

Israel cannot survive a week.

>> That's No, that's Yeah, a week

two day, you know, two weeks. You we saw

in the 12 day war they were begging the

United States for help and you know

what's really interesting now US the US

military is standing down.

It started at the start of this week.

You know, we had those 20 24/7 operation

centers running. They've they've now

they're they're taken down. They're not

up and running 24/7 at all and the air

combatant command is working now on how

the hell do we get all this aircraft

back to the United States because

they've got to they've got to figure out

where the tankers need to be spaced

along the way because

you know an F-35 jet it's going to fly

but it can then you know flying without

combat load it can go about 600 miles.

So every 600 miles it's going to have to

get refueled to get all the way back to

their bases in the United States. But

that's what's underway and what that

means is as that as those military

forces are withdrawn

Israel's losing a security blanket right

away because then if the conflict with

Iran re reignites and those forces are

gone

they can't just get back there in an

instant. You know, they don't have a

Star Trek transporter to move in there

instantaneously.

>> Ray, does it other than personality and

temperament

does it matter who the prime minister of

Israel is? Aren't the Israelis

overwhelmingly

in favor of this slaughter in Lebanon?

>> Uh 70%

I think fits the adjective of or the

adverb overwhelmingly.

Yeah, I mean that's the fly in the

ointment. Um

Netanyahu has a personal problem. So

he's going to end up in jail if he's not

prime minister anymore, right?

Uh now here's a guy who's responsible

for genocide force starvation.

Would he

would he rather than go to jail uh

fire a couple of nukes

uh

in extremis.

Um my prediction would be probably yes.

Maybe 50 52% but probably yes. So,

people are on tenterhooks now and

there's no no prospect in Israel of the

domestic situation making it any easier

for them to be reasonable and to say,

"Okay, well, look, why don't we have a

ceasefire with Lebanon?" Uh that's the

only way out of this and if the if the

Israelis keep attacking Lebanon, I am

convinced that

Iran will attack Israel and what the US

will do under those circumstances

something that Israel should be really

really worried about.