‘Trump Needs to APOLOGIZE!’ Will Iran Claim Victory Over America? | Plus Professor Jiang Interview

As the father of four daughters and hearing a missile hit a school if it's true Everyone should apologize like well, we could figure out who did it later This is a result of our conflict

Are you confident that you'll be proven right and Iran ultimately will prevail in this war once the United States sends in ground forces

There's no turning back. It's all in there'll be another Vietnam

We're gonna kill all the bad guys and we're gonna replace them with the good guys It's like a foreign policy, you know made up by elementary school students another Vietnam. We're going to kill all the bad guys and we're going to replace them with the good guys. It's like a foreign policy made up by elementary school students. It's embarrassing.

Is Israel a more secure place? Is the United States stronger today than two weeks ago? Is the world a better place today than two weeks ago, for God's sake?

I feel good about where we're going as a nation. We're killing all

the right people and we're cutting your taxes. I haven't held the excitement that Senator Graham has. He's never met a war that he doesn't love and he just gets giddy, excited like a guy who's going to make a bunch of money when you bomb a bunch of people because that's what he does.

President Bush famously landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare mission accomplished in the Iraq war just weeks after the invasion began. As we all now know, that war lasted another eight years. Bush had won a second term and eventually retired by the time the last troops returned to the US. Few believe the mission was ever accomplished and the whole war on terror became a cautionary tale about Middle Eastern quagmires and a cornerstone of the Maghreb revulsion to war. Supporters of this war think it's time to move on from the ghosts of Iraq and that it has no lessons for the current conflict, a position summed up emphatically last night by President Trump.

And as we take decisive action to stop the threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran with Operation Epic Fury. Is that a great name? Well it's only good if you win you know you can only do and we've won let me say we've won. You know you never like to say too early you won we won.

Well if the war was won in the first hour the substance of the victory is yet to become clear. The IDF says Israel is under Iranian fire as we speak. Cargo ships and oil containers are under attack across the region sending oil prices into orbit again. The new Ayatollah has doubled down with a message of vengeance in his first public statement albeit nobody's actually seen him yet and there are claims he's incapacitated.

Amid all of this the fact is that victory for Iran is quite simple. If the regime survives with its autonomy, Iran will claim victory. Victory for the United States and Israel is a lot more complicated. Many roads do seem to lead to a new Iran which is a lot like the old Iran, but even more aggressive. It could be subdued, possibly for months or even years, but with a greater incentive than ever to arm itself and attack. That's why people are legitimately worried about a long and deadly conflict. And that's why people

like Senator Lindsey Graham, who was threatened everywhere from Lebanon to Spain in the last week, are working overtime to sell the benefits of war.

We're going to blow the hell out of these people. This regime is in a death row now. It is going to be on its knees. It's going to fall. And when it falls, we're going to have peace like no other time. We're going to have prosperity unlike anyone

could ever imagine. Well, the problem with this kind of gleeful rhetoric about blowing the hell out of these people is that many of these people are innocent civilians. US media is reporting today that US military investigators believe American forces were responsible for the deadly strike on an Iranian primary school that's believed to have killed over 100 children.

It looks a lot like a tragic accident on an enormous scale. If President Trump and his administration want to build public support for this war, they should very quickly face up to it and apologize. And they should very quickly tell Lindsey Graham to respectively keep his mouth shut. Well, to debate this, I'm joined by Rob O'Neill, the former US Navy SEAL, Gideon Levy, the Israeli author, journalist and commentator at Haaretz, Republican Corey Mills, the Florida Florida Congressman and US Army veteran,

and Ryan Grim, Breaking Point's co-host and investigative journalist with the Drop Sight News. Well, welcome to all of you. Rob O'Neill, welcome back again to Uncensored. A few people have had more experience of combat in the Middle East than you,

and of course you killed Osama bin Laden. So I just want to ask you from a pure military perspective, it seems to me that the American military might, coupled with the Israeli military might, has proved pretty overwhelming from a pure military perspective against Iran's military. But the way that Iran is conducting its tactical war in terms of going after economic damage may be much more difficult to defeat.

Would that be your reading? It's going to be difficult to defeat that, yes. And thanks for having me back, Piers. We're going to defeat them militarily, and we've proven that everywhere we go militarily. And that's just what we do. We've got a very strong group of men and women

that can do that. I-I, you know, I was there for the invasion, 2003. I remember the buildup. I remember I was excited at the time, because it's just right after 9-11, and as a young Navy S-uh, young Navy SEAL,

especially a SEAL Team 6, I'll... I want to invade anywhere. I haven't held the excitement that Senator Graham has. He's never met a war that he doesn't love, and he just gets giddy, excited, like a guy who's gonna make a bunch of money when we bomb a bunch of people, because, well, that's what he does.

And they get amped about that, but for me, it's like, yes, we can beat him, but what do we do next? I know Donald Trump doesn't want to go in there happen if boots on the ground means taking inspectors in with guys with guns. So be it. We do have guys at the tier one level with the designation to take out military sites and inspect them maybe.

But again, like your previous guest was saying, you get boots on the ground. That's what the I hate the word quagmire. But I mean, if it if the shoe fits right, we don't want to get back in that the Iranian people. Yeah, they wanted us. the Iraqi people, so does everybody, but eventually, regardless of your intentions, if you spend time there, you're an occupier, and people, even if they're on your side, the longer you

bomb them, the less they're going to like you. And I think, I've never been hit with an American bomb, but I think the most terrifying thing possible is being in a building that's hit. The best thing that could happen is you die right away, but you'll probably just be under rubble, burning for a long, long time, suffocating, maybe horrible stuff. This is not something to cheer.

This is, war should be the very end of a political means. I've been to war a lot. I'm not pro-war. I think there should be other ways to do it. I'm watching cautiously, and I'm hoping, you know, I don't ever consider myself the smartest man in the room. I'm hoping the smartest man in the room or men and women do show up. I'm willing to listen, I'm willing to learn.

And what we've done in the past has worked and it hasn't worked. So it doesn't matter why we're here, we just are. So hopefully level heads can prevail, right?

And Rob, how do you feel given all your experience? How do you feel about some of the more inflammatory rhetoric that we're hearing from people like Pete Heggseth in particular, coupled with the way that the official White House social media accounts are pumping out kind of movie style promos about this war, almost like this is not real. This is like a movie we're watching. I've got to say, as somebody who's had a lot of family myself, who've gone to combat in war, I don't like it.

It's like, it's not how most military people talk about it. I don't like it. War is a lot different than what a lot of the public sees in video games and TV shows. You do not respond, respond, excuse me. And when bullets fly this way, there's a moment of pause

because they only need to be right once. And when something blows up, if you die, you're just dead. I mean, you do need propaganda to build up morale, but movie stuff like that, I don't like it. However, now with Pete Hexeth, I was advocating for a mid-grade officer with combat experience to take the Pentagon, and he did.

And I'm all in with Pete Hexeth. This is what we needed. I like the way he does it. I like the way he works out with the troops and has a morale high. The media doesn't like him. I mean, most of the media, that says he's doing a good job generally, because let's be honest, they don't want him to succeed.

I like what he's doing. I don't like a lot of the rhetoric, but some of it has to happen, the course, mission frontside focus, and after you hit them, if possible, get out.

Okay, let's go to Congressman Mills. First of all, I want to talk about this attack on the girls' school, which now looks increasingly likely, according to the New York Times and other reports, that this was an American missile strike that had gone wrong. Some suggestion that there was intelligence from the Israelis, which turned out to be false. It was, of course, next to a Revolutionary Guard base and used to be part of the base and then was moved.

And it may be this was just a horrific accident, but it had enormous consequences. Would it not be the right thing, the morally right thing, if it was the United States? And they must know by now, if it was one of their planes or one of their missiles, that if it was the United States, they just hold their hands up and say, we made a terrible mistake, and we're terribly sorry.

Well, I think the biggest thing, and thanks for having me on, Piers, it's great to be on this panel. I've rather got a tremendous amount of respect for. He's a true decorated hero and I'm grateful to be on this panel. But, you know, I want to say that one of the things you don't do, whether it's in politics or the military, is get out ahead of intel. You know, we want to make sure that we get the actual post-blast analysis. We want to look at what the actual trajectory of whatever that Tomahawk or was not. And then if we do determine that it is something that is a US strike or a US missile or whatever the case may be, then we look at what was the actual cautionary reasons of why it occurred.

So, you know, until I get into the actual skiff, I'm going to tell a brief on this, you know, I sit on the Armed Services Committee, I sit on the subcommittee of military personnel on military readiness and the intelligence special operations. I'm the subcommittee chair of the oversight and intelligence for a foreign affairs committee. So until I can actually get in there, I'm not going to get over my skis and start making comments but I can tell you that if and when this is determined, if the United States is responsible in any way, it'll take its accountability.

It'll do its after actual review. We did this in Iraq, we did this in Afghanistan in every conflict. And as Rob and others will tell you in any operation, no matter how great it is, you always do an AAR to determine how we can get better.

And in terms of the mission itself, we've heard now myriad different explanations for what the mission is and what victory looks like. What is your understanding of what victory looks like? Because as I said to Rob, there's no doubt that in terms of military firepower, the United States and Israeli combined firepower is clearly causing enormous damage to Iran's military. But it's also true that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, pretty well completely closed, if that goes on for much longer, the enormous damage that is causing to the global economy, coupled with the attacks they've been making on all the neighboring Gulf states, trying to clearly

intimidate tourists from going there, which is the new business model for many of those states. This could be incredibly damaging and makes the word victory look a little bit more complex.

Well, war is always complex, especially when you talk about geopolitical analytics. I mean, look at the fact that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, this axis of evil have been geopolitically aligned for a while. Their goal from the very beginning,

whether you talk about the Belt and Road Initiative, whether you talk about the funding of Iranian proxy militias, was always to eliminate the US dollar's global currency, not to mention the fact that China had a lot at stake on this. What they wanted to do with the Belt and Road Initiative was have Russia start the war in Ukraine to expand the Eurasian border, take over Oceania, take the 15 of 16 rarest mineral mines of Africa, which now cuts off the Horn of Africa, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Black Sea. This is now an actual isolation move while in the Western Hemisphere, utilizing

economic coercion on Panama and Honduras to control tax tariffs and transit to guarantee that while they're buying up our farmlands, while they're buying up insular translations, as people in the Navy will tell you, how long can a nuclear submarine stay underwater? Until it runs out of food. That was the intent from the beginning was always economic warfare by China. We've been in a war with China and Russia for 20 plus years. It's just that we kept calling them a great super power resurgence. When it comes to the designation of this conflict or this hostility let's go back to the 2011 Obama days where

Libya was actually utilizing the Department of Justice's U.N UN regulations to quantify it as being able to go in and do these things if it was in the needs of saving innocent civilians. Well, I can tell you, 40,000 plus innocent Iranians were dying in the streets. There was human rights atrocities like never before. We also had imminent threat with regards to knowing that the Esfahan, the Fordham, and the Natanz facilities, they were destroyed.

But at what levels are we guaranteeing this? We knew they had the Shaheed 136s, which are a very effective drone that's being utilized today that we now have our own Lucas system, which is about a $35,000 program for Operation Scorpion Strike. But it was all about eliminating the IRGC's capabilities of imminent strike with the ICBMs. And guess what else we found out? We found out they had working hypersonic ballistic missiles. These are ballistic missiles that travel at over 15,000 plus miles per hour and have the ability to hit mock levels that we can't actually be 100% effective on. So there's a lot of things that came into this.

One, it was guaranteeing that innocent civilians weren't continuing to be killed. Two, stopping imminent threat of actual nuclear capabilities because we know that under the JCPOA under Resolution 2231 that both Bong Kim Moon and Gutierrez who are the General Secretary of the U.N. said that the U.N. Iran was in direct violation sending mid-range long-range ballistic missiles to the Houthis and others and enriching well past the 70 percent mark. Now I want to be clear 70 percent is over the threshold, but to get from 70 to nuclear grade, it's a flip of the switch. That's how easy it actually is. So denigrate the IRGC, eliminate the head of the snake, which is the Ayatollah,

which we know there's multiple heads. Rob and I can tell you that you eliminate one terrorist organization, let's say it's Qasem Soleimani. You get Ismail Ghani. You eliminate one terrorist, they get another. But my point is, is that we are moving in the right direction of military coordinated strikes, guaranteeing that imminent threats are gone, guaranteeing that regional securities are provided, then usher in someone

like Reza Pahlavi, who can actually be a transitional governor who doesn't want to stay in power. He wants to be voted at the ballot box. And now we actually have a transitional plan. This is not Iraq. This is not Afghanistan.

OK, I want to bring in the other the other panelists. I don't want to cut you off, Congressman. I do want to bring in

the other... It's very complex, I guess. Sorry? I said it's just very complex, Pierce, to get into a 30-second segment.

No, no, I listen. I totally respect that. But we have got obviously got four panelists. I want to bring in Ryan Grim, because I could see you reacting to some of the things you were hearing there. I mean, the congressman makes it sound relatively straightforward. The mission is going very well. The stuff that they wanted to achieve is being achieved, and it won't be long before Reva Pahlavi is in the middle of Tehran,

leading the brave new world. What do you think of that?

It's just completely absurd. It's like we're going to kill all the bad guys and we're going to replace them with the good guys. It's like a foreign policy made up by elementary school students, when in fact it is a foreign policy student that is targeting and killing elementary school students. That's what it's doing in the real world.

In this fantasy land, you're like, oh, get this bad guy, get this bad guy, get this bad guy. And oh, Reza over here who lives in Potomac, Maryland, we're gonna like ship him over to Iran and he's gonna be the new king of Iran. Like, it's embarrassing.

And what about the mission itself in terms of the changing positions? And I thought, and I'll come to Gideon about this in a moment, but it was very telling to me that it looked like the mask slightly slipped when Marco Rubio said, well, the need to attack preemptively from the United States was because they had been told somebody else, clearly Israel, was about to attack Iran, and that Iran would

then respond likely against American bases, and that because would then respond, likely against American bases, and that because of that America had to get in first. And then of course they tried to wind that back. I don't think Marco Rubio misspoke, I just think they didn't appreciate quite how that was going to play out. Right, and because

we haven't gotten a rationale that they have stuck to, initially it was the nuclear program, then it was regime change, we've now been told that neither of those are actually objectives of the war anymore. Dropsite put out a poll into the field over the last weekend asking the American public, why do you think the U.S. went into this war? Fifty percent of the country believes now that Donald Trump,

at least in part, went to war against Iran in order to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. So by a 50 to 41 margin, that's what the American public believes, likely voters. We also asked about the influence of Israel. Nearly 50%, I think 46% of likely voters

said that they believed that Trump was more responsive when it came to the war in Iran to Benjamin Netanyahu than he was to the American public. I think 47% said he was more responsive to the American people than to Benjamin Netanyahu. So as almost 50% of that, he ran as America first.

Not even 50% of the country believes that he went to war for the United States. We have never had a president in the history of the United States who went to a war of any sort, let alone a war of this scale, and had nearly half the country believing, whether it's true or not, believing that he did it for a different

country. Or actually, Gideon Levy, there hasn't been a war that I can remember in modern times where there hasn't been a majority support from the American people once it started, and there isn't for this. It's an unpopular war.

The majority of Americans do not want America to be waging this war. They're particularly concerned because they've already got, still got inflation, still got rising costs. They've seen prices at the gas pump now rocketing in the last two weeks.

This is the biggest turmoil for oil prices in history that has already happened in the first two weeks and could get a hell of a lot worse. So purely from that perspective, I think Donald Trump politically has taken an enormous gamble here. But in relation to the role of Israel,

you know, there is a theory that Trump has been sort of barreled into doing this by Benjamin Netanyahu sort of wearing him down and saying, look, we've got a window, the Ayatollah is with all his top people right now, we can take them all out and it'll be a bit like Venezuela, where you take out the head and the rest follows.

Having committed to that and talked about quick regime change, clearly that hasn't happened. In fact, the Ayatollah's own son is reported to be the new supreme leader, although we haven't seen him. Coupled with that, there's a sense that Israel has a different objective here, that Israel would be quite happy if this all plunges Iran into total anarchic chaos, a bit like happened in Syria, and that that would suit Israel's longer term needs and wants, which kind of just reduces it to anarchy.

Whereas that would not suit the United States. So there could be two different sort of missions here where Israel's quite happy if this just drags on and on and on and is a bit of a disaster. But the United States would find that very, very difficult to manage.

What are your thoughts on that. So first of all we are witnessing now the backlashes of the 7th of October 23. Ever since then Israel turned into the notion that everything can be solved and everything is legitimate to be solved by force and by a lot of force, by unlimited force. We will change the leadership of the Middle East. First we tried in Gaza. I must remind you, two and a half years, no regime change in Gaza, even though it was

a very clear goal, never achieved. Hamas is life and kicking, and don't compare Gaza to Iran, obviously. And now we went to this war again as the first option, as while totally ignoring, you know, in this discussion, Piers, and thank you for having me again, in this discussion we hardly spoke about other prices. We all spoke about the prices of oil and the economical price. There are millions of people who were displaced in the

last two years by Israel and now by the United States. Most of them have no place to go back. What about them? They are totally not in this formula of comparing utility and price. No. They must be remembered.

Now coming back to your question, Piers, Israel went to this war without having a very clear endgame. They saw an opportunity. There was, the stars showed that Trump and Netanyahu get along and would agree about such an adventure, such a dangerous adventure. And they went for it.

I don't know who convinced whom. It sounds more logical that Netanyahu convinced the American president, even though he's not someone to be so easily convinced. But in any case, look at the outcome. Is the world a better place today than two weeks ago, for God's sake? Is Israel a more secure today than two weeks ago, for God's sake? Is Israel a more secure place than two weeks ago?

Is the United States stronger today than two weeks ago? Those are the questions which are not asked. And one more word, Pierce, with your permission. We were speaking about the big criticism in American public opinion about this war. Surprise, surprise, 94% of the Israeli Jews support this war. Can you believe it?

Those are people who pay a price for this war. 94. Those are North Korean figures. Only North Korea you get on any issue 94% support. Let's think also about this. A state after two and a half terrible war in Gaza wants another war. What does it tell us about the Israeli

society?

Yeah, and of course, you know, Netanyahu was in deep political peril after October the 7th because people were blaming him for allowing it to happen on his watch. He was facing a corruption criminal trial that's been put on the back burner. He's seen his personal popularity rising at the same rate that he's been bombing places and he's probably doing the maths and working out quite cynically because he can be very cynical that the best way for his own political preservation is to carry on doing what he's doing, which is

settling all the scores. He made it clear that Iran was a 40-year project for him, which was finally happening. Robert Neal, I know you've got to leave us imminently. As an American, putting aside your amazing career in the military, but as an American, given the state of the economy, given the real-time effect on Americans at the pump, with food prices, there's still inflation, so they've carried on going up, given that Donald Trump campaigned so vociferously that he wasn't going to take America

into any more wars, particularly in the Middle East, and he was going to sort out the economy and sort out the cost of living, are you comfortable that he's now launched the biggest war in the Middle East imaginable and is having such a huge effect on the economy. He says this is all a price worth paying. Do you agree with that?

I do in theory agree with it, that if it does work out, the prices of everything will go down because it will positively affect oil prices. As we know, it affects everything. I'm not optimistic. I mean, yeah, I'm optimistic, but I don't like seeing this. I don't like going to war. I do, I do know President Trump, and I know he loves his legacy, and he cares about his family, and I think

given the intel that I'm not privy to, I'm not in the meetings either, that he's gotten to where he is, this knew what Hitler was doing in 1938. We didn't do anything. President Buchanan and Pierce had something to do. They weren't aggressive with the South at the time before they reminded me how the Civil War

a million people died. Preemptive strikes, though, 2003. I went to Iraq. Turns out it wasn't the way to go. I mean, I'm very, very cautious. As the father of four daughters, and hearing a missile hit a school, if it's true, everyone should apologize. Like, we can figure out who did it later.

This is a result of our conflict, usually because men in political power couldn't agree on something. That's what we should say. And that, unfortunately, with all the cheering aside and all the cool movies, that's the end result on the ground.

That's the difference between being there and seeing it on TV. So again, I'm gonna watch it. I would love to see every family in the world be successful and pay lower gas prices. And I really, like I said, I really do believe this administration is doing what they think is the right thing for the future,

not just of the country, but of the West. Don't like war, hate cheering for war, but I'm watching. And again, I'm trying to stay open-minded. I personally will do everything I can to help with world peace. I thought I did before, and here we are again.

Yeah. Congressman Mills, I mean, politically, it's a massive, stupendous roll of the dice by Donald Trump. The midterm elections are coming in November. Historically, a president in his position

would normally probably lose the House. That's expected to happen. But now there's lots of rumblings. This may cost in the Senate, which would basically leave him a completely lame duck for the last two years of his presidency. And right now, he can keep saying this is all over, we've won and so on. But the reality on the ground, which we can all see with our own eyes, is very different. Are you worried politically about this if it carries on much longer?

Well, let me just go ahead and touch on something. And Rob had talked about it, and it's been severed many times about oil and economics. What we have to understand is this. Just like I talked about with that geopolitical alignment that was after the U.S. dollars of global currency, it's not about the dollar, the baht, the yen, the ruble, the dinar. It's always been about energy. Energy is a global currency.

And what we knew is, is that you have the ability here to not only eliminate an evil regime and stop nuclear capabilities that could actually threaten the West as well as as for our allies and ourselves but also to help start getting a stability solution against all these Shia backed militias who are being funded by this type of illicit trade of oil to China. Now why does this always look as an individual thing. It's not.

If you look at the geopolitical ramifications of the elimination of Maduro that was 70 percent of the oil that went to China. Iran is another 20 percent that goes to China. That now potentially stops the unification of Taiwan or the threats across the Taiwanese strait even though they are building up the coastal defense conscripts etc. But the same thing for Russia. Russia's biggest supplier that they had actual defense goods to was actually Iran. So now you've actually got an economic loss there as well. So this is

doing a lot of things for the region not just eliminating eliminating this regime, but it will actually bounce back oil prices because we've always had issues with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. We've always had issues with the threats of trying to go after things like with the Houthis on Saudi Aramco that had an impact

on the actual oil production. So this is a momentary diversion, as Secretary of Energy Wright had said, that allows us to not only try and help to free innocent civilians who are dying, but not get boots on the ground. This is not Iraq and Afghanistan. We are not nation building.

We are not looking to try and put in an implementation of Democrats. We're not trying to do an article 76 of the O5 constitution to set forth sectarian democracy, which hasn't existed in pre-apartheid South Africa or Northern Ireland.

This is about literally just trying to go good versus evil, eliminate an evil threat, guarantee stability in the region, stop instant lives from being lost, stop a nuclear power from coming into there, and then also look at the economic properties that will benefit the US as well as from the globe.

Ryan Grim, your response to that?

Well, I mean, one of the economic companies that would benefit is the congressmen's. Congressman, correct me if I'm wrong, you're an arms trafficker. No

No, I'm not actually I don't actually own a company and I actually have divested on blind trust I'm also the only member of Congress who actually donates a hundred percent of my salary

Divested into a blind trust. That's those are those are contradictory terms. Dive it Do you own an arms trafficking company?

Look, I don't actually. That's the funniest part about this. Do you own an arms trafficking company? We actually train our law enforcement and military and our police on how to do less lethals and how to help the Federal Bureau of Prisons, how to help with our law enforcement departments and riot control in Minneapolis, New York, the blue cities around the state so. You know it's very interesting that that's the approach you take whenever. I actually have lost tremendous amounts of money

since I've been in Congress guess what that's okay. When I went to the military I had nothing as well. And I'm just proud to be able to go ahead and serve the American people.

And you can keep trying to play your- foreign policy economic elementary one on one. But the reality is that I, you can't dispute a single thing about what was actually benefiting China. You can't do anything about the Belt and Road Initiative expansion that I talked about. So let's talk on the facts as opposed to ad hominem attacks or some type of a slanderous

point. Did your company sell weapons to Ukraine while you were on the Foreign Relations Committee? No, it didn't actually. There's a lawsuit that claims that it did that this is.

This is not true.

You would have to talk to CEO. I can tell you that when I was there, the only thing that we did was we work the US government to help to defeat ISIS who was in Fallujah and Mosul who had held that for three

plus years raping and imprisoning young women subjugating women, and that I'm very proud of as well as for we supplied and even at donations to all the different law enforcement departments across New York, across Seattle, across Minneapolis, across New York City, across Baltimore, to stop from the riots that was going on, which everyone in the Democrat party

called the summer of love. So do you want to talk to your politics and about what's actually happening or go to ad hominem attacks?

I just wanted people to understand with a-

I also don't buy and sell trade out there, but I don't own a single stock just to show you now, unlike many of the others who actually benefit from Northrop Grumman, from GD and from others. Go look at quantitative analysis and see how many stocks I've traded since I've been in office. Go look at how much I own since I've been in office and before.

I don't own a single penny of stock. War doesn't benefit me. prefer not to have war, but the benefits of actually making sure that we understand how this looks at it economically and from a stability and safety and security perspective, I am for, especially as a member of the foreign affairs, especially as a proud US Army combat veteran.

Okay, let me ask Ryan just quickly, how do you think this war now plays out from where we are now?

I mean, who knows? I think that the President is desperate to find a way to end the war. You don't need to be an expert to see that this is a catastrophe for the United States. And it's a catastrophe for the people in Tehran who are seeing this indiscriminate bombing. There was just a residential building that was triple-tapped.

The people of Tehran are chanting Javid Shah. They're asking for the Shah to come back. You're telling me millions of people are wrong?

People in Lebanon, Israel issued an evacuation order to 700,000 people, some of whom went to the beach. They then bombed them on the beach. The entire situation is horrifying. When he's talking about geopolitics, China is sitting back watching the way

that the United States military, its Navy and its Air Force, engage with a conventional military. They're taking notes as we exhaust ourselves. I don't understand who benefits from this beyond Israel, who wants, as Gideon has said, to see the countries around it reduced in power and engaged in kind of sectarian civil war and collapse.

Well let me ask Gideon the same question.

Gideon, what do you think is going to happen here?

First of all, it's very hard to foresee because finally it depends mainly on Donald Trump. I still think that if he wishes to put an end to it, he still can, even though I agree to the other speakers who say that we are reaching very fast a point of no return. But he could have stopped it by now, and then Israel had to stop, even though by the time we are talking, the Israeli troops are on the way to Lebanon, starting another war, which might last much, much,

much, much longer. But Israel does not benefit out of it. You mentioned all those who lose this. Israel never benefit for any of its wars. If you go backwards, ever since 1948, no war brought any good things to Israel. They always brought either immediate losses or losses for the long run, like this fatal 1967 war, which stuck us with this horrible, damped occupation until this very moment.

Wars don't serve interests for the long run, and this war will not serve Israel. Maybe we can all now sell more weapons. No doubt that Israel will sell now much more weapons. We can be very proud on all kinds of James Bond operations, assassinations. That's a new hobby of Israel, assassinating half of the leadership of the Middle East in Hollywood systems.

Really fascinating. But by the end of the day, after this all glory will go away, we'll ask ourselves, what did we achieve? What did we achieve in 2 and a half years in Gaza? With 70,000 people killed and 1,000 babies killed? What did Israel achieve?

Is it today more secure? Is Gaza a more stable place? Is the danger of Gaza smaller or bigger for the long run? Same will be here. And I'm very sorry to say it, because they always say that I always spoil all those parties. No, it's not a party.

It is a war which gets more and more complicated and complicates itself with endless consequences. By the way, Israel is going also to pay enormous price in the United States. The Americans will never forget Israel, who they believe pushed the United States to this unnecessary war. And by the end of the day, we'll say, oh, this was a mistake. But the next war, then we'll make it, because we have to solve it once and for all.

And the only once and for all for Israel is the continuous of the occupation.

Gideon Levy and my panel, thank you all very much. I appreciate it. and for all for Israel is the continuous of the occupation.

Gideon Levy and my panel, thank you all very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Well, I'm joined now by Befal Talabani. He's the president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Mr Talabani, thank you very much indeed for joining me on Uncensored. I know you spoke to President Trump a few days ago. What is your overview about where we are with this war right now?

First of all, my pleasure to be here. Overview of where we are in the war so far is you could argue that many of the US military objectives have been achieved, severely depleted ability to strike, government to an extent weakened, and also I believe there's no real capability of any kind of nuclear weapon creation. Having said that, there's still a lot of bombing. The people of Kurdistan are certainly terrified.

Iraq is under a lot of pressure. You see what's happening in the Emirates and the Arabic countries. And the Iranian regime doesn't really show any signs of cracking. And also there's been no real, sorry, there's been no real uprising or demonstration or even hints thereof until now.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I've been looking for, which is, you know, where is the rising up of the people? You know, there was a belief that maybe the Kurds were going to lead the rebellion and so on. But of course, I'd imagine that many people, not just the Kurds, but everyone in the civilian population has memories of what happened in January when many thousands of protesters were killed. But secondly, there are bombs raining down all over the country.

And that makes even venturing onto the street an extremely dangerous, potentially life-threatening thing to be doing, never mind what the Revolutionary Guard or the other militia may do if they find you there. So it seems to me the double pronged threat to people if they do take to the streets is very pronounced right now. And the danger is very real.

I would agree with that. But I would add another prong. I think there's three prongs of concern. One of them is the zip code, the postcode, sorry, that Iran is in. Just look at the recent years, Iran is in the postcode of Afghanistan, Armenia, Syria, Turkmenistan and Iraq.

The Persians are a very well-educated, beautiful people, very old and ancient people, and it's difficult for them to see them going through what these countries around them have gone through. And this is also a real major concern. In fact, last time, a lot of the middle class and a lot of the professional class didn't get involved in any of the demonstrations, regardless of their political view, because

of this fear.

This fear has not been alleviated at all and it exists in Iraq. If, as at the moment seems more likely than not, the regime remains in place, Donald Trump did talk very early on that he wanted regime change, but he made it clear he wanted the people to lead that. If that doesn't happen, can the United States

legitimately claim victory? Judging by some of the statements that were made, the initial objectives militarily, I think some of them have been achieved. Victory for Mr Trump, I think you could argue it either way. My personal opinion is really the sooner the better. Don't underestimate the shock and the damage the assassination of the Supreme Leader has had on the psyche of the country as a whole.

I think that shouldn't be underestimated. We're in danger of this becoming like a wound from Excalibur, a wound that never heals. And I think that should be taken into account.

There have been reports that Kurdish armed groups, who of course have fought the Iranian regime for a very long time, operating from bases along the Iraqi border. There are reports that the CIA has been backing some of these groups to launch ground incursions inside Iran. Can you say

anything about that? I can. This is categorically not the case, at least in this side of Iraqi Kurdistan. Also, please remember the Kurds make up less than 10% of the Iranian population of 92 million. Of that 10% of Kurds, more than 60% of them are actually Shiite. A lot of them are in the administrations, they are in the government, etc., etc. Of that remaining percentage, how many of them are with these groups, and what would a Kurdish attack on Iran do?

For example, Turkey has made it very clear to us that this is completely unacceptable and they have their own legitimate concerns. Then you have the fear of a backlash from the Iranians themselves, who are a proud people and would fear separatism or a splitting of the country.

That's why I firmly believe Kurds being tip of the spear is an absolute disaster. And in my communications with the different Kurdish groups, I think a lot of them understand this.

And have you made that clear to President Trump directly when you

spoke to him?

No, the phone call with Mr. Trump didn't really go there. Funnily enough, when I spoke to Mr. Trump, I thought of you, because you often mention the other side of him that people don't see. And I really did pick up on that. I picked up on a genuine caring. I think genuinely Mr. Trump isn't in favor of war.

He indicated that he was forced into this decision. And I think that this is true and he genuinely seemed to have caring for Iraq and for the Kurdish people and was obviously grateful to us for the years that we've cooperated militarily etc etc and the fight against ISIS and

the overthrow of Saddam Hussein etc. Well it's interesting you mentioned Saddam Hussein because he watched from his prison cell as your father, Jalal Talabani, became the first elected president of Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. What a remarkable moment in history that was. I was editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper in the UK, which took a very strong position against that war.

And for a very long time, I felt thoroughly vindicated. Somebody did say something interesting this week about Iraq now, that if you look at Iraq now, it is in a much better place now than it has been for a very long time. And you could argue that even though it's been a very tumultuous journey to get to where it is that it's been worth the pain.

What would you say to that?

I would agree with that actually, Piers. I think that that's an accurate description. When Saddam Hussein forgave everybody in Iraq at one point, except my father, and then when it came to sign his execution, my father wouldn't sign it. He said there's been enough blood spilled, but it's taken us 20 years of pitiless combat to get to today. And it's been a long time. The Middle East has suffered a lot.

Yeah, it has. And it's actually very sad to see it all flaring up in the way that it is now. And I hope common sense does prevail. Mr. Talabani, thank you very much indeed for joining me. I appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Professor Zhang is a game theorist, best known for his popular predictive history YouTube channel, where he applies his systems of analysis to the past in order to predict the future. Back in 2024, he predicted that Trump would win the presidency, that Trump would go to war with Iran, and that the US would lose that war. This has sparked a flurry of interest in both his work and his rather colourful adjacent opinions.

Professor Zhang joins me now. Professor Zhang, thank you very much indeed for joining me on Uncensored. Hi, Piers. Let me start with these three big predictions, because you've been proven, obviously, completely right about two of them. And the third one is now unfurling before our eyes. Are you confident that you'll be proven right with the third prediction, that Iran ultimately will prevail in this war?

Right. So right now, the United States and Iran are fighting a war of attrition. The United States is trying to degrade Iran's military capacity. And Iran is trying to strangle the world economy. And it turns out that Iran is putting a lot of pressure on the GCC. And I think at the end of the day, the United States will be compelled to send ground forces. Once the United States sends in ground forces, there's no turning back.

It's all in. The Sun Klaus fallacy kicks in. It'll be another Vietnam for the United States because Iran is a mountain fortress. And the United States right now doesn't have the manpower, the manufacturing capacity and the political will to fight a long war of attrition on the ground in Iran.

Right.

So I think because of what you've said at the end there, it's highly unlikely that Trump would commit ground forces, because he's always pledged not to. And I think he would see the inherent danger of that. So if he doesn't commit ground forces, how do you see this war playing

out? Well, right now, if Trump doesn't commit ground troops, he does have a variety of options. The first option is just to simply declare victory and call it a day. Unfortunately, the problem with that is that U.S. bases are still exposed. The GCC economies are still under pressure. The Sharm el-Houmous is still closed. And there are no signs that Iran is interested in peace negotiations.

Iran feels as though it has the upper hand because it has the political will and the resources to draw this war out. Now let's assume that Trump does withdraw from the Middle East. And what happens is that the GCC nations of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, now are forced to pay a ransom to Iran because they supply the world with their oil for the Sheriff Hummus. Twenty percent of the world's oil flows for the Sheriff Hummus.

But in return, they get food. So the GCC nations import anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of their food from overseas. And so basically the center of gravity shifts from the petrodollar to whatever financial system that Iran wants to focus on. And it could be brakes. It could be gold. It could be anything.

But remember, the problem with that is that the US economy is a Ponzi scheme. It's dependent on the GCC investing in AI, in tech stocks, in startups like Uber, in order to finance the US economy. If this financing stops, then the US economy could face collapse.

And this means that these young men could not afford their own defense anymore, and this could lead to a revolution in the streets. So the consequences for America would be dire if America were to retreat from the Middle

East. It seems that the key part of all this sort of economic strangulation, if you like, by Iran is the Strait of Hormuz. We've already seen in the last few hours today that the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, his son, has come out. Apparently, we haven't seen him or heard from him directly, but there's a statement in which

he talks about keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed indefinitely. If that was to happen, what would be the consequences for the global economy and how soon would we see those consequences?

Well, I mean, the consequence would be dire. Because cheap energy, cheap petroleum products are the very basis of the global modern economy. So it just wouldn't be jet fuel that would be affected. It would also be food. Because remember, food is produced by fertilizer, which comes from the GCC, as well as sulfuric acid, which helps the process of some semiconductor production.

So artificial intelligence, food production, global travel, are all dependent on products from the GCC. It's only been two weeks that the Stratform has been closed for almost two weeks now, and already we're seeing high oil prices surpassing $100 a barrel. Iran says that they want to move it to $200 a barrel, which signals that they want the

Strip Home closed for months. Now remember, even if Iran were to open up the Strip Home, it would take weeks before oil production continues. So I think we've, for the global economy, I think we've reached the point of no return. And in the future, global economies have to commit to a bit of deindustrialization and even mercantilism in order to survive future shocks.

So if you go to Southeast Asia, Vietnam and Thailand have already ordered the government workers to work from home in order to save fuel.

You've pointed out that the Gulf Corporation Council monarchies, the GCC, as you've alluded to several times here are structurally unusual states because they're propped up by oil desalination. They don't have their own water supply naturally and American protection. You say correctly they were built in open desert with no food security, as you said,

80% imported, no water security, the desalination dependency, no defences, they're flat, exposed terrain, no demographic cohesion in places like Dubai, for example, 90% of the population are expats, and no independent security architecture reliant on the US, who have bases obviously in many of the states there. If you put all this together, is what's happening now in terms of the tactics that Iran are deploying, including the threats to desalination, but also targeting obviously, targeted hotels and airports and so on, going to the heart of what the states there would like to see as the future of their

economy, which is tourism, sport, entertainment, clearly designed to scare people away from that. Is this now representing an existential threat, do you think, to the business model of the GCC states going forward?

Right. So the most vulnerable city and often the most glamorous city in the GCC is Dubai. And for many years Dubai has been very successful in cultivating an image as the new city of London, as new Hong Kong of the Middle East. And thousands of these millionaires flock to Dubai for the glamorous lifestyle as well as the tax-free aspect of the city. But the reality is that this was all premised

on global peace, on Pax Americana, on the capacity of America to project power all around the world and provide security guarantees to the GCC. Now this aura of inevitability and invincibility of American empire has been shattered.

And once an illusion is shattered, there's actually no coming back from this. And that's what people don't really appreciate about this war. This war is not directed, not just directed at Israel. This war is not directed just at the GCC

and the illusion of American empire. This war is directed at American empire itself. And what people don't appreciate is the eschatological aspects of this war in that Iran sees a moral duty, a moral imperative from God to destroy the great Satan, which is the American empire. And the base of the American empire, of course, is the global economy.

Right. At the heart and the head of the American economy is the president of the United States. You've argued that Trump is not the most powerful person in America, and you've inferred that actually the real power base is Israel. Explain that.

Right, so actually don't say the real power base is Israel. What I say is that the real power base are a collection of secret societies that have an eschatological view of this war. And these secret societies include the Freemasons, which are now called the Rosicrucians and the Knights Templars. They include Jewish

organizations called the Separatists and Frankists who are embedded in religious movements called Shabbat Lubavitch and then you have the Jesuits. You have a collection of secret societies and they believe that a war in the Middle East would start a process that would culminate in the end times and return of Jesus, the arrival of the Jewish Messiah, the building of a one world government.

They have different eschatologies, but a lot of their timeframes do align. So where they converge is that there has to be a war in the Middle East to kick things off. This war in the Middle East will lead to the defeat of the American empire,

and this will lead to the culmination of the Greater Israel Project, where Israel is able to control the Middle East from the Nile to the Euphrates. Once the Greater Israel Project is in place, it will transform

into the Pax Judaica, which is an AI surveillance state. This will eventually lead to the war of Gog and Magog, the destruction of the Isaac Mosque and the building of the Third Temple, the return of the Jewish diaspora to Jerusalem, and the arrival of the Jewish Messiah or the Antichrist. So they have the script scripted out and unfortunately a lot of world events are

conforming to this script. Right I mean a lot of people say a lot of what you've just said is a load of fantastical baloney and driven by anti-Semitic tropes. What do you say to that?

Look, I completely sympathize with this argument. Five years ago, I would have said the same thing about this sort of argument and thinking. So what I do is predictive modeling, okay? Meaning that I'm gonna throw some theories out there. And then based on these theories,

I'm going to extrapolate into the future and see what the predictions are. If these predictions are correct, then my theories ought to have some legitimacy. Now, when I teach, I don't engage in historical analysis. I engage in speculative analysis.

And so in 2024, two years ago, I did say that this war in Iran would happen, and I provided a lot of my analysis. And a part of my analysis that's very important is the eschatological analysis, meaning that Christian Zionists

control the United States. There's a preacher called John Hagee, who runs an organization called Christians United for Israel, which has about seven million members. Christian Zionists are heavily embedded

in the national security apparatus and in the Pentagon. There's reporting that US commanders have told their troops that this is a war to bring back Jesus and to be not afraid. So that's my argument. I don't want to believe this, but because this war in Iran is happening, I'm forced to conclude that some of my speculative analysis has validity. Otherwise, it's going to be very hard.

To be honest, I think the word speculation doesn't quite do it justice. I mean, look, there's no doubt your predictions so far have been proven to be uncannily accurate in relation to Trump winning and then going to war with Iran. But I think the idea that this is all part of a plot to bring back Jesus Christ, there might be some people out there that carry such a phrase. I think it's highly unlikely, unless any evidence emerges to the contrary, that they are current

commanders in the United States military. But Professor Jang, you have a big following. Lots of people are interested in your predictive analysis. It's good to have you on Uncensored. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Piers.

Piers Morgan on Uncensored. Thank you very much. Thanks, Piers. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. and entertain. And we'll do it all for free.

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