White House HUMILIATED By Israel In Ceasefire

Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. The ceasefire is on the verge of collapse this morning as Israel insists on continuing their mass murder in Lebanon, and Trump says go right ahead. Yanis Varoufakis is going to join us this morning to talk about the rise of Asia in the midst of this conflict and their role and give his overall thoughts on what is going

on here. We've also got the Strait of Hormuz closed again because of that breakdown in the ceasefire. We'll take a look at the impact of oil both today and also its role in the conflict. Israelis promise that the war is not over. We also have a major Zionist freakout that we're going to take a look at. I'm sure you guys will enjoy that one as we enjoyed putting the segment together.

And an Iranian-American scholar is gonna join us to talk about how this war fits in the long history of Iran and the likely reaction of the public to the way this has all gone down.

Right, an actual scholar, by the way, in Iran, not just some guy who owns a dry cleaning business in Los Angeles. All right, thank you to everybody who's been subscribing to the show. We deeply appreciate it. BreakingPoints.com if you're able to support us. We did a bro show AMA, so that's the type

of special content that you can get if you pay and you subscribe. Please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're already at 2.01 million subscribers. It's not as clean. What do you think, Crystal? Now I'm going for 2.22. All right? I like that.

It's a nice number, 2.22.

Let's shoot for the stars.

You just wanna keep, you want 3.0?

2.5.

Okay, 2.5. All right, 2.5. Modest goals here over at Breaking Point.

By the way, Ryan strong-armed us into making the whole Friday show free.

Yes, that's fine. All right, we're gonna do that for now. That's what Ryan does. Ryan calls the shots around here. And finally, if you're listening to this podcast, please share an episode with a friend. Really helps other people find the show. But with that, let's go ahead and start with the, can you call it a ceasefire?

If the fire hasn't actually ceased, but here is Caroline Levitt podium yesterday, you will recall that Donald Trump and the Pakistani Prime Minister both announced that the ceasefire was contingent on a workable solution, that workable solution being the so-called 10-point plan from Iran. That 10-point plan included the Iranian control of the Straits of Hormuz, their right to enrich uranium, their ability to have total sanctions relief, a ceasefire in Lebanon. While the White House now is saying actually that that 10 point plan is thrown into the garbage,

even though the ceasefire itself remains. Let's take a listen.

The Iranians originally put forward a 10 point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team. Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that plan as being acceptable to the United

States, and that is false. With the President's deadline fast approaching and the United States military completely decimating Iran with each passing hour, the regime acknowledged reality to the negotiating team. They put forward a more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the President and his team.

President Trump and the team determined the new modified plan was a workable basis on which to negotiate and to align it with our own 15-point proposal. The President's red lines, namely the end of Iranian enrichment in Iran, have not changed. And the idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wish list as a deal is completely absurd. The President will only make a deal that serves in the best interests of the United States

of America, and he and his negotiating team will focus on this effort over the next two weeks, so long as the Strait of Hormuz remains open, with no limitations or delays. These extraordinarily sensitive and complex negotiations will take place behind closed doors over the course of the next two weeks.

So you can see that we threw it into the trash. So then what exactly are we all negotiating about? I know Ryan and Emily went over some of the 10 point plan yesterday, but it is really worth saying, like, first of all, the White House is like,

well, the public 10 point plan, well, the public 10-point plan, that's not the real 10-point plan. But the real 10-point plan, we also threw in, so what are we negotiating about? I mean, the whole thing is totally preposterous. And we're gonna get to this in a second

from the Speaker of the Parliament, Golobov. Remember, he is the person who is going to be if these talks do happen on Saturday morning in Islamabad from the vice president of the United States. Well, he is pretty clearly saying these are parts of the 10-point plan. So there's been no cease, I mean, what did the J.D. call it?

A fragile truce? That's probably the best descriptor. It's not a real ceasefire. If the firing has not actually ceased, we're seeing stuff blow up all across the globe. The White House is so desperate, I think Trump was, for the oil markets to come down, so he was successful,

and for the markets to rocket. But outside of that, nothing fundamental has been solved here. Absolutely nothing.

No, and it's very hard to see what happens next. So I'll just say, just to back up a second about how we got to this quote unquote ceasefire. I, look, this is speculation but you know there's a lot of intelligent people who have looked at the evidence of what exactly happened with this pilot capture and I am persuaded by the evidence that they were trying to do some sort of a grab the nukes the nuclear material option

obviously catastrophic failure and so then we saw Trump like lashing out with these insane posts close you, open the fucking straight. And then of course we had the genocidal threats. So what he had wanted to be his off ramp and his mission accomplished moment had completely fallen apart.

And that left him scrambling and desperate. And realizing also that any other of their sort of farcical plans to take this island or that island or try to do this sort of invasion or that sort of invasion were also likely to end in utter and complete catastrophe. So that left him with few options. You know, from the Iranian side, yes, the points have shifted a little bit over time,

but basically since the beginning of the war, they have said, these are our priorities. This is what we want to end this war. And we don't want a temporary ceasefire. We want a permanent end to hostilities and we need guarantees that both our deterrence is strong enough and also some international community guarantees that we're not going to end up back here again. So obviously Trump is lying when he's like, oh, these 10 points you guys are talking about has nothing to

do with it. He's just responding to the fact that people, when they looked, and I'm not just talking about like liberals, leftists, anti-war activists, whatever, when his supporters looked at what this basis for negotiation was, they said, this is a surrender. Like this is a complete and total defeat for the United States of America.

So everything since then is him trying to obfuscate and spin that this decisive defeat is what it would effectively be, is not as bad as it looks. And then with regard to this piece on Lebanon, it is as clear as it could possibly be that Lebanon was part of the deal.

That's what the Pakistani prime minister tweeted out in a tweet that was likely drafted by us in a certain-

No, not likely.

Confirm now. The New York Times reported it. It was confirmed that it was reviewed by us, yeah, and very likely drafted directly by us, that included the language about Lebanon being included. So they're just lying now that that was never contemplated or that it was ambiguous, and that's JD Vance's new line.

It's like, oh, I think it's just a misunderstanding. No, you all are trying to go back on your word. Why? apparently you never ever can stand up to Israel. And so now this whole thing hangs in the balance.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, and again, to zoom out, I think your theory is very plausible. I definitely do think something was up. I don't know if it was the full operation, it was maybe dual use just to see

if we could establish the base. But that alone, I mean, it would be a huge failure, right? If they had to blow it up, took artillery fire, that there was fire on target. All the Iranians in the area were firing. They had multiple aircraft that were shot down. But you're right, I mean, my only takeaway, I'm honestly sad looking at it. I'm like, wow, we have been utterly humiliated

by this country. How much money have we all paid in taxes for these Tomahawk missiles and these aircraft carriers and these C-130s and these E-3s and these THAAD radars and how, you know, we've all not had healthcare as a result and that was the trade. Europe gets to have healthcare, we get all the weapons, we get to guarantee the high

seas and commerce and the empire and then it all just comes crashing down. Like the truth is, is that this, if this were to hold and the 10 points were to remotely become true, it would be the biggest strategic defeat for the United States since Vietnam. Professor Pape said that, and I totally agree with it, because the full force of the US military went in and tried to accomplish regime change, the reopening of the Straits of Hormuz,

and also the destruction of Iran's ballistic missile capacity and as well as their drones. We did not accomplish any of that. They retained all of that. Now, has it been diminished? Sure. And clearly though, the Iranians,

the one change they made in their strategic calculus, and I'm still very curious as to how this all came about, they did agree ultimately to a temporary ceasefire. I don't know why. From what I have asked around, their belief was not that Trump ultimately

would destroy their power plants, et cetera, and that while that might be survivable, I think that what they fear the most is actually being nuked by Israel, is that ultimately the longer this would be going on. And so they said, well, let's at least try

to have some sort of a temporary ceasefire in the interim. By the way, aren't we always told that they're insane theocrats, suicidal, and all that? It's like, well, you know, if you ask me, you know, if you have somebody who's fooled you twice in the cover of diplomatic renegotiations, to me it's actually irrational to try and have a temporary ceasefire.

Yeah. Just me. I'm glad they did it, to be very clear. I'm very glad Trump did this.

Very glad the Iranians did this. collapsing in real time as we watch. I think we're going to learn more about the role of China in all of this, potentially on both sides. I mean, carrots to Iran and also, look, our entire industrial base hangs in the balance based on China's good graces of whether or not we're going to have access to their rare earth supply and all the supply lines that they have sort of like locked down, at least for the near term, because we haven't done the work that we need to do to make sure we have our own domestic capabilities with that regard.

So I think we'll learn more about China's role here. But according to Jeremy, and I listened to him obviously with great interest, by the way, shout out to DropSight. Anyone who's reading DropSight knows so much more of how this is gonna go and what the truth is

than I think anyone else in the world. But in any case, Jeremy says effectively, the Iranians have always said, yeah, we're willing to end the war. Here are our demands. And so when the US was like, okay, we accept your demands at least as a basis for negotiation, and you have China coming in, and they're genuinely taking a lot of heat and under pressure, et cetera, there was a sense of, okay, well, let's give it a shot and let's see.

But Lebanon, all of the fronts of war were very clearly included. Obviously, we know that Israel does not want to end this war. They're doing everything they can. Bibi has come out and said that the war is not over.

We want to go back and achieve our objectives. There's a huge revolt from the population of like, well, we, you know, Iran still exists and they're stronger than ever. So it was an utterly predictable that Israel would come in and do whatever they can to blow this thing up. And it happened even faster than I could have possibly expected that not only do they continue

their invasion and ethnic cleansing and bombing campaign in Lebanon, they dramatically, dramatically escalated it. I referenced before JD Vance talking about like, oh, I think this is just like a little misunderstanding, which again, total nonsense. This was very much clearly articulated and clearly contemplated in the agreement for the ceasefire while a larger end of the war is worked out. But let's go ahead and take a listen to him

claiming that this was just a misunderstanding.

There seems to be a disagreement about whether Lebanon was included in this proposal. And the speaker of the parliament, you're gonna sit across from the table from an Islamabad. It's just said that he thinks negotiations would be unreasonable while that war is ongoing.

So would you ask Israel to hold off strikes to allow some space for these talks?

Well, first of all, I know there's been some common conversations between the Israelis and the leadership of our country today. I haven't been involved in that because I've been busy doing stuff in Hungary. I'm actually supposed to get an update when I get on the plane. But let me say a couple of things. First of all, I actually think, and there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith propaganda going on. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't.

We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran, and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states. Now, that said, the Israelis, as I understand it, again, I'm supposed to get a fuller report

when I get on the plane, have actually offered to be, frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful. That's not because that is part of the ceasefire.

I think that's the Israelis trying to set us up for success, and we'll of course see how that unfolds in the next few days.

So, I mean, you can see the way the sort of choice race that's up here both for Iran and for the U.S. For Iran, they have to decide how committed are we to Lebanon. Based on what Trita Parsi has been saying, I think they are committed to Lebanon, not just because they see them as human beings who shouldn't be slaughtered and ethnically cleansed, but more important, they see the escalation into Lebanon and the attacks on Palestinians as a threat

to their own security, because that always means that the thing can expand and there can be a new conflagration. Exactly.

But they literally call themselves brothers, of course they've given them weapons. Also, Hezbollah put it all on the line for Iran, right? So, they decided to try and draw fire from Israel and get themselves bombed to try to deplete Israeli interceptors and expand. It was successful. They literally forced it, not forced, Israel decided to invade Lebanon, basically ethnically cleanse half of the country and probably annex it for some time in the future. But like that, you can't just abandon,

it'd be like if the United States was fighting with somebody else, and then we said, okay, well, we'll have a ceasefire bilaterally, but the person who launched a war on your behalf is that person we just leave them out to dry.

I mean, we would probably do that. But anyway, maybe the's not right now. And then for the US, you got to choose, do you want the straight-up Hormuz to be operable, or do you want to let Israel rampage? And that's the choice. And I would err on the side of thinking that Trump's going to allow Israel to rampage. It certainly seems the direction that they're leaning in right now.

But he also watches the market so closely. We know how much that drives his behavior, not just with regard to oil prices, but with regard to the bond markets, with regard to the stock markets. So these are two very powerful competing forces within the Trump presidency, which is why it's so hard to predict what's going to happen next.

Yeah, look, I have no idea, but we do know that the Iranians are sticking to their guns. Let's put A3 up there on the screen. This was an initial statement from the speaker, Ghalibaf. He said, a statement on the violation of three key clauses of the 10-point proposal before the start of negotiations. The deep historical trust that we hold towards the United States stems from its repeated violations of all forms of commitments, a pattern that has regrettably been repeated again. As the president of the United States has clearly stated in his truth,

the Islamic Republic of Iran's 10-point proposal is a workable basis on which to negotiate. However, three clauses have been violated. Number one, noncompliance with the first clause of the 10-point proposal regarding the ceasefire in Lebanon, a commitment that the prime minister has also explicitly referred to and declared as an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and other regions effective immediately. Number two, the entry of an intruding drone into Iranian airspace, which was destroyed in the city of Lar in Fars province in a clear violation of the clause prohibiting any further violation.

That, by the way, appears to have been an Israeli drone. Number three is denial of Iran's right to enrichment, which was included in the sixth clause of the framework. So look, I mean, we don't have the full 10 point proposal, whatever it is, but that's from Iran. That's what they're saying. And that is a total defeat for the United States

because it doesn't even just include the Straits of Hormuz. Now, Ghalibaf has followed that up early this morning. Let's go ahead and put this one up there on the screen, guys. He says, Lebanon and the entire resistance axis, as Iran's allies, form an inseparable part of the ceasefire. Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif publicly and clearly stressed the Lebanon issue.

There is no room for denial and backtracking. Ceasefire violations carry explicit costs and strong responses. Extinguish the fire immediately. So that is what he said. Now, to be very clear, he is correct about the Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif. Let's put a four, please, on the screen.

This is the original announcement of the ceasefire from Shabazz Sharif of Pakistan. With the greatest humility, I am pleased to announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere, effective immediately. This was the announcement from Pakistan, which was the interlocutor between the United States and Iran in these talks.

Lebanon is explicitly said there. So when the vice president and the president and the White House all say that this was some sort of confusion, there's no confusion. The confusion is on our end.

And it's very clear what happened is that we either didn't consult the Israelis, haphazardly agree to it, and they're like, oh, I'm not doing that. They're like, I'm not agreeing to that at all. And again, just further confirmation on that point,

here is the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations explicitly saying Lebanon is included. Let's take a listen.

Mr. President, we echo the secretary general's deep concern regarding the regional military escalation since 28th February, which has gravely undermined the November 2024 cessation of hostilities agreement. The situation in Lebanon cannot be viewed in isolation from this broader escalation across the Middle East. Heightened confrontation and unjustified attacks on several brotherly countries, which Pakistan

has condemned, have gravely aggravated regional security and stability. At this critical juncture, dialogue and diplomacy must prevail over confrontation. De-escalation, restraint, and renewed diplomatic engagement are urgently required to prevent further deterioration of the regional security environment.

Only through sustained political dialogue and respect for international law can the region move towards stability and peace.

So that's where things stand as of this morning. It's early here in the morning. Things could certainly change. Maybe these Israelis will back off Lebanon. I don't think so. I highly doubt it.

But the US and Iran are not on the same page. The US says that it's a 15-point plan, which is the basis for negotiations. Those 15 points were the ones that were reiterated by Steve Whitcoff from the very beginning of the war, which said you have no enrichment, you have no sanctions relief, you have to give up all your missiles,

you have to give up all your proxies, you have to reopen the Straits of Hormuz, all this different stuff. Iran is saying, we control the Straits of Hormuz, we give up all the, you give up all the sanctions, our missiles, we get to have a ceasefire in Lebanon. Which is it? I have no clue. And I mean right now, I don't know,

maybe this is all a disaster, but as long as people can sit across the table in Islamabad, I have some hope that something could come out of this. Of course, even if that were to happen, it's not like we haven't bombed them

on the cover of darkness. Or look, this is the problem here and the fragility of all of this and the fact that, by the way, reporting is that not a single part of this was written down anywhere. That's why everyone can claim this was agreed to

and that was agreed to. Let's think about it. Ceasefire, the United States forces a ceasefire in Gaza in the opening days of the administration. Great, but guess what happens? After 30 days, it collapses. Israel gets to do whatever it wants. The 12-day war, we bomb it, everybody declares victory.

What happens? Seven months later, we're back into a regime change war. Even if we do get into an agreement here, I mean, if you're Iran, if you're any of us, would you really bet against Israel's ability to either sabotage or to drag the United States

or convince Trump once again, they'll show him some BS images, like look, they're enriching uranium, it's all fake, but who knows, right? His own advisors will tell him it's fake, but maybe he will believe them. Like that's the cycle. We got three more years left of this.

I mean, it's just, how can you truly guarantee that this is gonna end?

You can't. Well, and here's the thing too, Trump has to be able to sell some kind of victory narrative at least to his base, right? The rest of the population is not going to buy it. But at least his base has to believe that this went well for us and we won and we got something out of it. And I don't know how you do that, given the state of affairs and what Iran is going to rightly demand.

I mean, even if you dramatically water down their 10-point proposal, you still have a clear U.S. defeat, which countries around the world are going to recognize, which even Fox News, you know, I watched them a bit. And at first they were very much doing, they're like, oh, Trump, art of the deal, and he made this threat and all the panic hands were freaking out. But look at how he was able to secure peace in the world, blah, blah, blah. By the next morning, when you had too much reporting

on what these 10, I mean, we've known about what the 10 points are more or less for quite a while now, thanks to the reporting of Ryan and Jeremy and others. But once the mainstream press started having to talk about, well, what are these 10 points? Even Fox News could no longer be like,

look at this marvelous victory, because we're talking about reparations, we're talking about complete sanctions relief, and we're talking about a new status quo in the Strait of Hormuz that amounts to tens of, at the least, tens of billions of dollars of revenue into Iran's coffers.

JPMorgan said it would be $92 billion a year if they just charged the $1 million a barrel fee. That would make them one of the richest countries in the entire Middle East. I mean, I would put a marker down. 25 years from now, if they get anything remotely close to this, either sanctions relief or some sort of oil, they will be as rich, if not richer, than the UAE. And these other places—

And this is already a middle-income country that has been dramatically hurt, certainly, by our sanctions. But this is a relatively well-developed, educated country. They have natural resources, not just oil. Obviously, very strategic positioning in the globe. That's why when Robert Pape says,

they have now emerged as a new fourth world power, I don't think that that is overstating the case whatsoever. And so that's what makes it so difficult to see how this is resolved and why obviously the decision to get into this disastrous war was such a horrific, catastrophic mistake from the interests of the US empire perspective. Because in order to bring it to a close, you are going to have to agree to something like

what those 10 points from the Iranians are. And I just, I don't know if even Donald Trump, who is perhaps the greatest bullshit artist in history, if even he can sell that as some sort of a victory to his base in this country.

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