In effect, Israel s offensive against Iran achieved what years of Gaza fighting could not: a broad realignment of Western support behind Israel. Why did Israel attack Iran? And what was the collateral damage from the attack? Simone and Nir discuss.
00:00:19.220What you see, too, is Iran's reaction is extremely old school.
00:00:22.920It's we will send our missiles from our war chest and it's.
00:00:27.120We will get our regional players to attack you, even though they have no technology or real power.
00:00:32.460And I also say here that to me, the biggest thing that this changes, that the Ukraine situation didn't change, is Iran was operating off of Cold War logic.
00:00:42.840It was build up less economically, less technologically developed regional allies.
00:00:49.260And if you have enough of these, that they will be able to assist you when you go to war.
00:01:04.020Today we are going to be asking the question, why did Israel decide to attack Iran right now?
00:01:13.180We are going to be looking at this within a few interesting contexts.
00:01:16.960One is, is when they did this attack, I was certain because of how negative all the Western countries have been on them for the Gaza situation, that they've been generally almost unanimously positive about them, at least at the government level.
00:01:32.220The woke are going to screech no matter what.
00:01:33.680But at the government level, it's been a really surprising degree of like, yeah, just do your thing.
00:01:40.120We're not going to interrupt, you know, whatever.
00:01:42.080Especially when the, you know, inciting event was maybe less direct and less visceral.
00:01:49.920If you're talking about reaching the public.
00:01:51.940Now, when you're talking about reaching the government and what all their secret services know, they had reason to be like, okay, maybe somebody else needs to handle this.
00:01:58.480The other thing that we're going to be talking about is what exactly they accomplished with this.
00:02:04.000We're going to be talking about who they took out, how they took them out, and what was the collateral damage of all this.
00:02:09.640Because I'm beginning to realize about this channel is that nobody else ever covers things as deeply as we do.
00:02:56.600And then after that, the Israeli, like, I don't know, one of their, their talking voices for like the government came up and they said, we don't know who is under consideration next.
00:03:09.280With a very, like, the guy next to them gave us like a smile after that, like, because you'd be dead if we did.
00:03:14.920This sounds like the beginning of one of your izakai fiction books.
00:03:27.320And then they go, we would advise them not to take the job.
00:03:32.240If they do, we advise them to be extremely cautious.
00:03:37.500Well, I can only imagine that Mossad knows in general enough to know who would be the logical next pick for a couple rungs down the ladder.
00:04:26.800A hacker group took out Iran's major bank's primary archives.
00:04:31.040And they've said that there are some operations that will be revealed Thursday and Friday that are going to make the quote-unquote beeper operation look simple.
00:04:41.500And the beeper operation is one of the most complicated operations in spy history by a dramatic margin.
00:04:51.640Israel's surprise offensive wiped out a significant portion of Iran's military high command.
00:04:55.860In the early hours of June 13th, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion.
00:05:01.760Over 200 Israeli jets struck at least 100 targets across Iran in five waves.
00:05:08.080Among those killed were Major General Mohammed Bagari, the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, and General Hassemi Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC.
00:05:21.100This is like their core other – it'd be like if they killed the head of the Navy and the head of the army and the head of the, you know, Marines all in one day is what the equivalent is here.
00:05:33.520These two were Iran's most senior military officers.
00:05:37.480Bagari, effectively the second most powerful figure in Iran's military hierarchy, and Salami, the head of the elite IRGC.
00:05:45.440The strikes also eliminated other top commanders, General Ghulami Rashad, deputy of the armed forces commander, General Amar Ali Hazajah Deh, head of the IRGC Aerospace Force, and at least four additional senior IRGC leaders.
00:06:03.460In total, Israeli attacks killed at least 20 Iranian military commanders, a quote-unquote stunning decapitation of Iran's defense leadership.
00:06:12.300By the way, that stunning decapitation came from routers, which is otherwise a fairly progressive outlet.
00:06:21.620Even a close advisor to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Shaka Manani, was reportedly caught in a strike on Tehran's apartment block and gravely injured.
00:06:32.100The coordinated assassination campaign effectively gutted Iran's military leadership, mirroring Israelis' previous elimination of Hezbollah's top command in Lebanon the year prior.
00:06:42.960Tehran swiftly appointed replacements.
00:06:45.020For example, IRGC General Adevahadi was named the successor to Salami.
00:06:51.160But the loss of so many seasoned leaders was a severe blow, and even since then, many of the successors have been killed.
00:06:57.160So, the degree of, like, you can't imagine, like, imagine if in the United States, like, every top leader across every top department was gone, right?
00:08:17.160So, I would say, like, Iran is a very, if you want to understand what the country is actually like, it's an interesting situation where it's almost as if you have a pseudo-democracy that is under the control of a theocratic Islamic government with a moderate population.
00:08:32.060But if you want to get an understanding of how moderate that population might be, you can look at our episode called, I think it's something like, Iran, the secular theocracy, where we talk about how common secular beliefs are was in Iran and how common anti-even Islamic beliefs are was in Iran.
00:08:50.460That was a while ago, but it was good.
00:08:52.060Yeah, and this is why I'm saying, like, I, I, the funny thing about all this is, is that the Jews may save the Iranian people from a fascist dictatorship.
00:09:04.380That, that would be effing wild if that happened.
00:09:07.200Well, and it does seem, I mean, even when you just look at their inability to improve birth rates, the Iranian government is failing its people systematically.
00:09:17.680Yeah, like, a regime change, which kind of is the major upside of this, if, like, Israel gets its, its, its reach goal, you know, like, that would be good for them, too.
00:09:27.460I think that they should probably revert back to the old monarchy, and the old, you know, the, the rightful king right now has been talking a lot on this.
00:09:34.680He said that the Ayatollah ran to his caves like a rat.
00:09:38.560People need to come up and retake their, their, you know, country.
00:09:44.860Well, no, I mean, I think that within different regions, with different cultural proclivities, in some regions, monarchies work better, or in some regions, democracies work better.
00:09:53.460Well, and also, I think when, when you're in a region experiencing crisis, sometimes going from crisis to democracy doesn't work out that well.
00:10:03.000But we'll, we'll get into the monarchy and all this history and everything as well, because a lot, one mistake that I've heard from a lot of people that just has a complete ignorance of the situation is, is this for actually from Hasmogold, and we'll get into this a lot later.
00:10:13.780He says that he didn't think that Iran would still hate America, if America wasn't allied with Israel.
00:10:19.780And I'm like, actually, buddy, based on the evidence we have, Iran hates Israel because Israel is allied with America, and America is allied with Saudi Arabia, and that they have repeatedly shown openness to normalizing relationships with Israel.
00:10:35.760If only America would turn against Saudi Arabia, but we'll get to, I don't know, I was talking to an AI about this, and he goes, well, you've got to remember that they're a theocratic government.
00:10:43.620And I'm like, yeah, but their form of Islam is not as conservative as Wahhabism, and apparently the Saudis can find a way to normalize things with Israel, and it's like, actually, that's a really good point.
00:10:53.620Probably not for theological reasons, but we'll get into the geopolitics of the region in a bit later.
00:11:12.640Extensive strikes on nuclear and military sites.
00:11:16.300Beyond personnel, Israel's strikes aimed to cripple Iran's strategic capabilities.
00:11:21.040The raids targeted key nuclear facilities, most notably the Natanz uranium enrichment complex, Iran's largest nuclear site.
00:11:28.140Multiple explosions rocketed Natanz, and satellite imagery confirmed heavy damage to critical infrastructure.
00:11:35.600The electrical power substation was destroyed, and an above-ground centrifuge was blasted.
00:11:41.000The UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Ghazi, informed the UN Security Council that Natanz's above-ground pilot enrichment plant had been, quote-unquote, destroyed.
00:11:52.300Though Iran's underground enrichment halls remained intact.
00:11:56.240Israel also struck the deep underground Farderwo enrichment facility, causing limited damage as Israel lacks the bunker busters to crack the mountain.
00:12:14.300In addition, Israeli missiles hit Iran's ballistic missile infrastructure.
00:12:19.340For example, an underground missile depot in Kerminashan, near the Iraq border, was bombed.
00:12:26.800Missile production and launch sites, such as Bid-Kahani complex and air defense batteries, were also targeted.
00:12:33.720So a lot of the missiles you're seeing now come out of Iran.
00:12:36.280Prematurely, a lot of these were taken out, so you're already seeing a fairly limited capacity.
00:12:39.840And one of the things we're going to look at is, why did Iran's missile output decline so quickly?
00:12:46.280So in other words, what you're saying is, not only is Israel like, okay, we're going to end this progress toward nukes, which has just hit this point of...
00:12:54.980We're going to kill anyone involved in this, anyone involved in your military, yes.
00:12:58.260Well, and also, we're going to anticipate retaliatory attacks and try to undermine the infrastructure associated with that.
00:13:06.500In Tehran itself, dozens of sites were struck, including military installations and even the defense military headquarters.
00:13:16.080By the third day of operations, Israeli claimed over 80 targets in Tehran alone had been hit, from nuclear weapons project labs to fuel depots, triggering massive fireballs at fuel storage facility in Sharam district.
00:13:28.900These widespread strikes across Iran's geography demonstrated Israel's intent to dismantle Iran's nuclear program and missile arsenal comprehensively, not just deliver a symbolic blow.
00:13:38.920And I think that this is really important.
00:13:40.360What's happening here is, they are like, we are going to cut your balls off.
00:13:44.700We are going to completely neuter you so you can't do anything for 20 years.
00:14:01.740Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the campaign would continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat, framing it as essential to Israel's survival.
00:14:11.980A note here that wasn't mentioned here, another way that Israel has done us attacks is actually very similar to what Ukraine did with the drones.
00:14:20.360Right, like moving things in piecemeal, like in suitcases and in trucks.
00:14:26.400I think hundreds or thousands of drones moved in piecemeal into Iran in suitcases, in parts that have been reconstructed within the country and have been used in these attacks to keep things very targeted.
00:14:37.520Now, I should note, Israel doesn't do targeted in the way the U.S. does targeted.
00:14:41.980When the U.S. says targeted, they mean we're going to try to not kill any civilians.
00:14:45.160When Israel does targeted, it means we don't really care that much about killing civilians, but we won't kill any unnecessary people in terms of killing the exact people we want to kill.
00:14:55.240But like if they're at their apartment, you know, that apartment's gone.
00:14:58.800You know, if they're at a whatever, that's gone.
00:15:02.660And I actually think that in the long run, this will lead to lower civilian casualties because if you look at, you know, what things like Hamas has ended up doing is, you know, putting babies, putting daycares, putting kids right next to sites because they think that they can use that to deter Israel.
00:15:20.100And it has led to a lot of these people dying.
00:16:36.640Al Jazeera is their mouse piece, okay?
00:16:39.400They are firmly allied with Iran, was in this, against the Saudi Arabian power structure in the UAE and everything like that.
00:16:47.000We'll get to all this in a little bit.
00:16:48.740The point being is a source that is basically Iranian state TV, Al Jazeera, mixed was the Iranian government, said only 80 civilians died on the first day.
00:17:33.540And Al Jazeera here argues that 20 of those killed were children, but again, this is Al Jazeera, which is basically, you know, Islamist state news.
00:17:43.100And not normal Islamist, the Iranian side.
00:17:46.380They wouldn't say anything mean about the Wahhabists that they want because they hate them.
00:17:49.640But we'll get into that little conflict in a second.
00:17:52.220In Tehran, some missiles struck residential areas while targeting regime figures.
00:17:55.920One strike leveled a high-rise apartment building in the Farah Hazad neighborhood, killing around 60 civilians in that single incident, according to Iranian claims.
00:18:05.820Well, that's more than a lot of the other things.
00:18:08.140So did almost everyone die in one incident?
00:18:10.780Over several days, as Israeli raids continued, the cumulative human costs mounted.
00:18:15.920By June 15th, the independent human rights org, activist news agency Harana, tallied at least 406 people killed in Iran and another 654 injured.
00:18:27.100Again, those are incredibly low numbers, given the scale of what's being accomplished here.
00:18:31.560These figures suggest that for each high-profile general or nuclear scientist eliminated, many Iranian civilians have been caught in the crossfire,
00:18:40.300whether from errant missiles, strikes, or dual-use infrastructure or secondary explosion.
00:18:44.800Iran's government has blasted Israel for what it calls deliberate attacks on civilian areas, though Israel insists any civilian harm was unintentional.
00:18:52.660Israel knows when they're bombing a civilian apartment complex where they know a scientist is, civilians are going to be harmed.
00:18:59.020But Iran, it's rich that they say this.
00:19:01.640Well, in response, they just send waves and waves of unguided dummy missiles.
00:19:06.740How dare you sometimes kill the people who live in the same apartment building as our nuclear scientist who wants to wipe your people off the planet?
00:19:15.200We will send wave after wave after dummy missile for this injustice.
00:19:25.380We'll be painting a picture of how far in a corner Iran is painted right now, and I really don't blame them for this.
00:19:32.140I just am a little annoyed with the hypocrisy.
00:19:33.820Still, scenes of rescuers pulling wounded families from collapsed homes in Tehran underscore the blistering attacks come at a painful price for Iranian society.
00:19:43.260Now, Iran's fragility before the onslaught.
00:19:46.720Ironically, Israel's hammer blow landed at a time when Iran was already weakened and in a fragile state.
00:19:52.720Both domestically and in its regional posture, economically, Iran had been reeling under renewed U.S. maximum pressure sanctions and internal mismanagement.
00:20:03.680By 2025, the country was mired in its worst economic crisis in 40 years with soaring inflation and fuel shortages.
00:20:12.340The economic pain had translated into public frustration and sporadic protests, threatening the regime's stability even before the first Israeli missile fell.
00:20:24.220International Atomic Agency, IAEA, reports of Iran's nuclear noncompliance had Iran facing the possibility of harsher sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
00:20:35.080Meanwhile, Iran's regional influence had been eroding.
00:20:38.120Over the past year, Tehran's network of proxy forces, its chief mechanism for projecting power, suffered devastating setbacks.
00:20:46.540In late 2024, Iran's ally in Damascus, the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, was overthrown, removing a cornerstone of Iran's axis of resistance.
00:20:56.720Around the same time, Israel waged major campaigns against Iran-aligned militants on Israel's borders.
00:21:03.460Hezbollah in Lebanon was decapitated with its longtime leader, Hassan Nazar Ali, reportedly assassinated, and its fighting capabilities shattered.
00:21:13.320And you can see our video on the Pager attack, which was just absolutely devastating.
00:21:18.200But we go over it as a strategy for applying to jobs.
00:21:21.320But the devastating nature of the attack and the brilliance of it really cannot be overstated.
00:21:25.920Because they basically took out all of Hezbollah, which is crazy.
00:21:32.880Hamas is not a useful ally to Iran anymore.
00:21:36.020And now the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is overthrown.
00:21:40.320Basically, Iran built out this network of allies in the region, which are all sort of like, if you play Command & Conquer, it's like the extended GLA network.
00:21:49.080It was the Muslims who just wanted to kill other people, not the ones who wanted like some sort of regional stability and ability to work with the outside world, which is what you see with the Saudi Arabia-aligned forces, right?
00:22:02.500Even though they're actually more conservative and more conservative Muslim, they're more like the resistance.
00:22:07.180And these guys are more like, well, we're more conservative, but we're going to, you know, go with the status quo, okay?
00:23:48.360But what I'm saying here is in terms of, like, global stability and everything like that, I get where they were going with this.
00:24:09.900But they sort of made themselves an enemy of everyone except for global adjutants at the same time.
00:24:15.200And with Russia tied down, and everyone else who was interested in global agitation, like North Korea, etc., tied down because Russia is tied down,
00:24:25.100Iran, you know, allowed its sort of agents, you know, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the Syrian guy, to sort of be left out on a limb.
00:24:36.260And Israel just took the opportunity to, like, well, I wouldn't even say Israel.
00:24:39.580It was more a massage to just cut those strings one by one by one.
00:24:44.680And once all those strings were cut, they targeted the thing that was funding all of that, which is first Iran, and they probably won't go after Qatar, if I'm going to be honest.
00:24:55.040But this is, I wonder if Qatar is going to rethink their situation because they've lost pretty much all of their supporters if Iran ends up undergoing any sort of political realignment.
00:25:06.260Although I don't think that that's a real story.
00:25:07.380Is Qatar's endgame different from that of Iran?
00:26:36.700Yeah, because we might be doing a thing there soon.
00:26:39.060Well, also, like, you know Doha's in Qatar.
00:26:41.900But I don't know any other cities, to be fair, but I don't know other cities, except from, like, major, major cities and capitals and other Middle Eastern countries either.
00:26:53.640And if I don't do work somewhere, this is how it is for most people, then I'm probably not going to remember what I at one point memorized.
00:27:01.960But, I mean, I guess the point I'm making is from Qatar's perspective, it's like all their minions were killed.
00:27:06.940They don't particularly, I don't know if they care that much.
00:27:10.820It's like, okay, well, that particular card hand didn't play out.
00:27:14.240Because they haven't actually burned Bridges with the West that much, for whatever reason.
00:27:18.220Well, no, and they're, well, they seem to be trying to invest in being a world player in various economic and cultural and intellectual spheres.
00:27:29.480Well, they might work, too, and with conventions, too.
00:27:32.140Like, I think that's, like, some anime stuff that's happened there.
00:27:34.380Yeah, they might be, this is, like, a useful cutting of the strings, then.
00:27:37.120They might be like, oh, this is fantastic.
00:27:38.600Now we don't need to appeal to those crazy people anymore.
00:27:41.540Yeah, I mean, yeah, part of it is, I just, and I'm speaking, of course, from immense ignorance about what's really going on in the area.
00:27:48.700But Iran seems like this really unstable mean girl who has, like, this troop of, like, she's a rich mean girl.
00:27:55.380Or at least a mean girl who, like, spends all of her family's money, so maybe they aren't actually that rich.
00:27:59.680But she, like, forces her parents to go into credit card debt for her.
00:28:03.280And she just spends all this money on her flunkies.
00:28:06.660And her flunkies cause a lot of problems and bully other people and are really unstable.
00:28:12.520And now she's being pistol whipped by someone else at school.
00:28:20.420Who already, like, beat up all her flunkies.
00:28:23.020Yeah, like, Cotter, who, like, kind of was nice to her or, like, sometimes helped out her flunkies, too.
00:28:30.640Maybe out of, like, protection or maybe out of, like, yeah, I mean, I also don't like the people that you're bullying that much.
00:28:35.840It may now just be like, oh, I'm not going to hitch myself to this losing.
00:28:39.900Yeah, no, that's sort of the impression I get is Cotter might be the person who walked into the room and is, like, the very wealthy aristocratic girl.
00:28:46.380And she sees this other girl who she saw as, like, her friend just absolutely being beaten with, like, the back of a gun.
00:28:54.320And she's like, whoa, I didn't know that could happen.
00:28:56.760I'm walking out of the room right now.
00:28:58.680Like, you guys have fun with that little game.
00:30:37.780The Daily Show did this piece where they show Netanyahu talking over and over again throughout history about how Iran is getting close to crossing the line.
00:30:44.520And he's like, you see, like, this is all fake.
00:30:46.400I was like, imagine if I showed him, like, environmentalist scientists saying over and over again how close we are.
00:30:52.360I'm like, oh, that's proof environmental issues aren't an issue.
00:30:55.240You know, global warming isn't an issue.
00:30:56.600You'd be like, whoa, whoa, it is an issue there.
00:31:00.340You know, they were just – and I'm like, no.
00:31:01.920So, actually, it isn't an issue there because we never actually made any big – they kept saying, well, if you do this and if you do this, then it won't be an issue and we can delay it.
00:31:11.080But we never accomplished any of those things the environmentalist advocates said.
00:31:14.220But Israel kept saying, well, you know, we can slow them down 10 years.
00:31:49.500So, absolutely brilliant, by the way, especially in terms of a no-death way to, you know, slow this down.
00:31:54.980But what we kept seeing was Israel is they kept slowing down Iran through things that we can, like, measure.
00:32:00.640Like, this is why they kept delaying the timeline.
00:32:03.220And they finally got to a point where I think, we'll get into a lot of this in a second, but I think they sort of got to the point of, like, nobody cares.
00:32:09.960You know, most of the Western powers right now at least want Iran out of the scene, especially with what's going on in Russia right now.
00:32:17.160And Iran's, you know, tacit alliance with Russia.
00:32:19.920You know, they don't want them to have nuclear weapons any more than we do.
00:32:22.600And we're already in this incredible negative public perception around Gaza right now.
00:32:28.760And, you know, Iran's in this incredibly weak position because we just took out every single one of their major surrogates.
00:32:35.440In an ironic way, it was the Gaza protesters that sort of led to this because they put Israel in a position where everyone who was going to turn against them for trying to protect themselves had already turned against them.
00:32:48.340And there was no one else who could possibly turn against them for that reason.
00:32:52.280And yet those was in Western positions of power who wanted them to take out a threat to also them because Gaza wasn't really that much of a threat to any of the Western players.
00:33:28.480In Gaza, the Hamas militant faction backed by Iran was decimated during a two-year war following its October 2023 attack.
00:33:36.720So we're again talking about their various, you know, people who follow them.
00:33:40.320With Hezbollah and Hamas neutralized and the Syrian corridor disputed, Iran found itself strategically isolated, its deterrent reach blunted.
00:33:49.980Even Iran's attempts to retaliate indirectly, for example, via Yemen's Houthi rebels, have been constrained by prior U.S. and Israeli actions.
00:33:59.520In short, by June 2025, Iran was strategically and economically brittle.
00:34:05.300The fragility likely influenced Israel's timing, as Rand analysts note.
00:34:11.000Israel perceived a, quote-unquote, closing window of opportunity, having, quote, dealt significant blows to Iran's proxy network, end quote,
00:34:18.660and seeing Iran's regional position as its weakest.
00:34:22.620The Iranian regime, for its part, was aware of its precarious position.
00:34:26.640In May, Iran's secretary council, ironically chaired by General Beghari, who would soon be killed, met to harden defenses against a potential U.S. and Israeli strike.
00:34:36.640Yet those preparations proved inefficient to prevent Israel's onslaught.
00:34:40.000The confluence of internal economic stressors and external losses left Iran ill-prepared to absorb the massive attack that followed,
00:34:49.180adding to fears in Tehran that the regime's very survival could be at stake.
00:34:53.660Now we're going to talk about the weird phenomenon we've seen of Westerners supporting this.
00:35:00.540A striking aspect of this conflict is the largely supportive reaction of Western governments to Israel's attack on Iran.
00:35:07.180And this has even been noted in a New York Times piece I read today, where they're like,
00:35:10.840why are all the Western governments so supportive of this?
00:35:14.920A sharp contrast to the wary critical stance during Israel's war on Gaza.
00:35:20.800Within hours of the strikes, leaders in the U.K., France, Germany, and other Western nations
00:35:24.960openly affirmed Israel's right to self-defense against Iran's nuclear threat.
00:35:31.920France's president, Emmanuel Macron, even blamed Iran for destabilizing the region.
00:35:37.300Noting Tehran was enriching uranium to near weapons grade was no civilian rationale.
00:35:41.860And I note here, by the way, that Iran was in the middle of talks about this with Israel, right?
00:35:47.580So I'm not, just to take the other side of this, it wasn't like there weren't like ongoing talks.
00:35:52.200Within the next week, they were supposed to be finalizing things.
00:35:55.260And then all these attacks happened, and everyone who was a participant to those talks are like,
00:39:23.340Which I think says to people, you've got to ask yourself, what do these governments know that you don't, that despite their rabidly often anti-Israeli perspective, they feel this way about Iran?
00:39:36.640I didn't expect them to feel this way.
00:39:38.600And this was actually a shock to me where it revealed to me that intelligence services knew something about Iran that I didn't know.
00:39:44.160I didn't think that they were this potentially threatening to all of these countries.
00:39:49.020This unified Western stance is especially remarkable given that these same leaders had just weeks before been sharply critical of Israel's conduct in Gaza.
00:39:59.820During the Gaza campaign, European allies grew alarmed at the humanitarian toll on Palestinian civilians.
00:40:05.580In fact, in the lead up to the Iran strikes, Germany was considering an unprecedented weapons export ban on Israel.
00:40:11.640France has curtailed off an Israeli arms expo display and the UK suspended trade talks, all in protest of Israel's bombardment of Gaza and impediments to the humanitarian aid.
00:40:26.920Fundamentally, Western powers view of Iran's regime as a far more dangerous and unambiguous threat to global security than Hamas and Gaza.
00:40:34.060As one analysis put it, Gaza, by late 2024, looked like a mad act of collective punishment on an enfeebled population, eroding Western sympathy.
00:40:44.740Iran, by contrast, is a large, hostile state, a theocracy on the threshold of nuclear power that has openly sworn to destroy Israel.
00:40:53.820In other words, Western capitals see Iran as an existential menace, not just to Israel, but to regional stability.
00:41:02.600Well, also, like what we talked about with our discussion of the march on Gaza, in many cases, it's very difficult to help Palestinians because of what Iran continues to do in making Palestinians radicalized and violent and weaponized.
00:41:20.920Like, a lot of the reason why we're not able to help them more is because of Iran's ongoing use of them as a cudgel.
00:41:28.840No, and I think what we're seeing here is Israel wouldn't have felt comfortable going after Iran like this if it hadn't first handled this, if it hadn't first handled Hezbollah.
00:41:37.700And it can do this because if it did this while those two other factors were basically like Iran surrogates were still at play, then they'd just attack Israel, right?
00:41:48.940Like, it can go after this because it handled those.
00:41:51.240And the other major capitals and power players didn't see the wider logic at play here, especially given Iran's ballistic missiles and its military alliance with Russia, which is waging war with Ukraine.
00:42:04.600Moreover, just one day before Israel's attack, UN nuclear inspectors reported Iran was closer than ever to a bomb, violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a red line for Europe's Big Three, who are staunch defenders of the NPT regime.
00:42:18.160Now, I note here that this happened one day before they started to attack.
00:42:21.840I bet Israel knew all this, and they were just waiting for that report to come out or the inspectors to go through and then be like, okay, now we attack.
00:42:28.100Because Iran apparently didn't care about all the treaties.
00:42:31.860You know, the UN thought, oh, they care about these.
00:43:24.000You go right on ahead and get rid of that Iranian problem we all have in the back of our necks.
00:43:29.780I think a lot of people see the writing on the wall of what happens when Iran continues with what they're obviously choosing to continue doing.
00:43:53.200In effect, Israel's offensive against Iran achieved what years of Gaza fighting could not, a broad realignment of Western support behind Israel, at least in the short term.
00:44:05.040Western leaders still verbally call for de-escalation to avoid a bigger war, but they have largely refrained from the harsh condemnations and sanctions threats that accompanied Gaza.
00:44:13.780The difference comes down to strategic self-interest, stopping nuclear proliferation, and checking a Russian-aligned adversary takes precedence for the rest, whereas Israel's punitive operations in Gaza raised uncomfortable moral and legal questions.
00:44:28.940And I note that I don't really see them as punitive myself.
00:44:31.360I see them as necessary to, for Israeli safety, but okay.
00:44:35.920I mean, maybe less necessary once Iran is taken out.
00:44:38.600Once Iran is taken out, you don't need these same types of operations in places like Gaza anymore, because they're not as much of a threat anymore.
00:44:46.600I'd also note the almost disgusting hypocrisy on display here, which is to say that Gaza was unique in that Gaza was really only a threat to the Israeli people.
00:44:56.160The UK, France, Germany didn't have to worry about Gazans kidnapping their people, breaking into their cities.
00:45:04.740And so when Israel was trying to defang Gaza, they were like, oh, you horrible, horrible Jews.
00:45:11.780But then the moment they came for a tiger that could attack them, they were like, oh, well, you know, in this case, in this case, what you're doing is necessary.
00:45:19.980It wasn't that Gaza was toothless, it's just that it was toothless against them, so they took the opportunity to score political points with their, you know, wokies who act like no one actually ever attacks anyone or is a threat to anyone else.
00:45:35.420Iran's counterattacks and their decline.
00:45:37.420So I want to talk about what happened with this as well.
00:45:39.180Iran's response to Israeli onset was swift, but ultimately limited in duration and effect.
00:45:45.720Within hours of being struck, Iran unleashed a barrage of missiles and drones aiming at Israeli cities and military targets.
00:45:52.660Iran's state media claimed hundreds of ballistic missiles were launched at Israel following the attack on Natazan and killing of its generals.
00:46:01.200For several nights, missile salvos rained down on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other areas.
00:46:07.000So many at times, Iran's nightly missile attacks overwhelmed Israel's anti-air defenses, penetrating the dome shield.
00:46:15.140Israeli officials reported intensive barrages, apartment blocks in Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan suffered direct hits, resulting in significant damage and fires.
00:46:23.540In Israel, air raid sirens became a nightly routine and citizens huddled in bomb shelters as interceptor rockets streaked overhead.
00:46:32.320Iranian missiles that evaded interception did cause casualties.
00:46:36.160At least 24 Israelis were killed in the first wave of retaliation and dozens more were injured.
00:46:41.320One long-range missile even reached the West Bank, landing in Hebron, a testament to Iran's ability to strike across the region.
00:46:49.180However, after the initial fury of the first few days, Iran's direct counterattacks noticeably tapered off.
00:46:57.080By middle of the conflict's first week, the volume of missile fire from Iran had diminished.
00:47:01.960Several factors explain why Iran's retaliation died down so much after the early salvos.
00:48:33.480The decapitation of Iran's military leadership likely caused chaos in Iran's defensive operations.
00:48:39.180With top generals and the IRGC commanders killed in the opening strike, Iran's response in the immediate afterness may have been uncoordinated.
00:48:46.760Except why is it decreasing more the more they get new people in positions?
00:48:51.060Could be trying to reserve ammunition, but I doubt it.
00:48:57.820Iran initially signaled that its regional proxies would join the fight.
00:49:01.160For instance, a missile was fired from Yemen by the Iran-allied Husi militia landing in the West Bank.
00:49:07.440But Iran's usual proxy options were largely unavailable or weakened.
00:49:11.660Hezbollah and Hamas, traditionally to Iran's frontline retaliatory tools, had been badly damaged and offered little firepower in this round.
00:49:20.060Some rockets from militias in Syria and Iraq may have been attempted, but with Assad gone and pro-Iranian militias scattered, these fronts were muted.
00:49:29.300The lack of a proxy second front meant Iran stood relatively alone, unable to sustain a multi-front assault on Israel.
00:49:36.400Without significant proxy attacks to complement its own missiles, Iran's offensive potential was more easily contained.
00:49:42.400I just can't imagine how bad that felt for Iran being like, okay, guys, we've been giving you missiles for years.
00:49:48.820You should have hundreds of thousands of stockpile.
00:49:51.480And Hezbollah's like, yeah, we have no leadership anymore.
00:49:53.700And Hamas is like, well, actually, we're completely under.
00:49:56.400And the Husis are like, actually, we were mostly destroyed and our stocks were seized.
00:50:03.000You got to almost feel bad for them at this point.
00:50:04.860Well, what stands out to me is that, one, this is really the solidification and confirmation of a clear trend, which is the nature of warfare is, you know, it's here.
00:50:31.760It's officially charged, you know, we, yes, we still have aircraft carriers, but now we have people taking suitcases and trucks into enemy territory and doing this sort of new form of guerrilla warfare, like Amazon Prime Delivery Warfare, like at Peacemail, Ikea Furniture Assembly Warfare.
00:50:52.240And I think that's really interesting.
00:50:55.360What you see, too, is Iran's reaction is extremely old school.
00:50:58.980It's we will send our missiles from our war chest and it's.
00:51:03.940We will get our regional players to attack you, even though they have no technology or real power.
00:51:09.280And I think, I mean, what you can see, I think Mossad is kind of the trendsetter.
00:51:13.360Also, like Ukraine to a great extent, too, out of necessity and creativity of what the future of warfare is going to look like, which is what where Mossad, I think, really represents what the future of warfare is going to be, especially with AI, is that it's going to be smart.
00:51:29.120And by the time you know it's happening, it will pretty much strategically be over.
00:51:36.540And I also say here that to me, the biggest thing that this changes, that the Ukraine situation didn't change, is Iran was operating off of Cold War logic.
00:51:46.720It was build up less economically, less technologically developed regional allies.
00:51:52.820And if you have enough of these, that they will be able to assist you when you go to war against one of the other big, you know, powers.
00:52:44.320And this is why I also say it's useful for the United States to invest in its relationship with Israel because of the technologically capable
00:52:52.540It is the only one with an above replacement fertility rate, which means it's one of the only ones that's going to matter, you know, intergenerationally speaking.
00:52:59.400Well, and again, I mean, I think that this could be a huge opportunity for Iran.
00:53:06.440Like if they experience a regime change, at least we get to roll the dice again for Iran, where I feel like we are at a point of multidimensional failure here.
00:53:16.620We're at a point of religious failure, as you covered.
00:53:18.700You know, they're not like they're having a crisis of faith.
00:53:21.220We're seeing huge detraction from from Islam in practice in Iran.
00:56:07.660Even as its conventional options narrowed, Tehran could turn to cyber attacks, convert sabotage, and global terrorism as a way to hit back.
00:56:15.620Iran or proxy hackers might try to disrupt Israeli infrastructure or Western financial systems.
00:56:20.880Iran operatives could attempt attacks on Israel or Jewish targets abroad.
00:56:25.380Past incidents like the 1990s Buenos Aires bombings linked to Hezbollah show Iran's willingness to use terror as a pressure tool.
00:56:32.880Already, there are concerns that Iranian agents could target Israeli embassies or soft targets in third countries in retaliation.
00:56:40.220Such shadowy responses don't win battles, but they keep Iran in the game by raising the cost for Israel and its supporters in a deniable way.
00:56:50.500Israel doesn't care about your dumb terrorist attacks.
00:56:53.780They're not like the U.S. where we panic because you blew up a bus.
00:56:58.120Israel's used to that stuff, and they're basically carrying this out on their own.
00:57:02.180You can try to attack U.S. and French buses, but that's just going to galvanize them more to be pro-Israel because they don't even see themselves as in this fight right now.
00:57:11.340Israel has done a really smart maneuver by not asking for help from other players because it just allows Iran to potentially try to do terrorism on them and then force them into Israel's hands.
00:57:23.540Iran could threaten the vital oil shipping lanes of the Persian Gulf, specifically the Strait of Hormuz, which is what we've heard about a lot recently, through which a large share of the world's oil transits.
00:57:36.740The IRGC Navy could harass or attack tankers or lay mines, creating a global economic shock.
00:57:44.160This oil weapon is a classic card Iran holds.
00:57:46.980Indeed, oil prices spiked after the war began on a fear Iran might widen the conflict to the Gulf.
00:57:52.740Though so far, no major incident at sea has occurred.
00:57:55.680Because again, Iran doesn't want to draw in other players.
00:58:10.560Well, I mean, if they choke Hormuz, the U.S. is going to get involved immediately, at least was in that context.
00:58:18.740And the problem is, and what they know now from what's happening in Russia, is their big battleships are basically pointless from the perspective of modern warfare.
00:58:27.400Russians were taken down by, you know, AI-controlled jet skis with bombs attached to them.
00:58:35.420When you look at the cost of these big, giant ships, you know, you buy a few hundred jet skis, you're talking like 0.00000001% to, like, strap them with bombs in an AI.
00:58:53.460You could sit on a whole swarm and there's nothing they can do.
00:59:14.500If Iran does try to blockade with these legacy weapons that they have, like these big old battlecruisers, it's like every weapons testing company right now is, like, drooling for them to do that.
00:59:25.580So they can use their weapons to show how awesome they are on basically a feckless and incompetent and witless enemy to be like, look, we can grow up a few battleships.
01:00:03.540For example, the Hussies have already signaled readiness to strike Israel or even shipping targets on Iran's behalf.
01:00:09.600In Iraq, Iran-linked militias could target U.S. bases, as they have occasionally done in the past, trying to complementate America's posture.
01:00:18.680No, that would just cause America to become involved.
01:00:23.000You don't want us to be more involved than we are, especially with Trump saying that, look, okay, so I should explain why America getting involved matters so much.
01:00:30.620Israel, as it is said, cannot hit the underground labs where nuclear weapons are being refined or developed right now.
01:01:12.680Russia is heavily involved in its own war right now, and China is right now looking to go to war with, like, you know, Taiwan.
01:01:23.880They do not want to waste a bunch of forces on your dumb, dumb, dumb instigation.
01:01:30.040They don't necessarily benefit from Iran going off, making things.
01:01:36.380No, but Russia and China are actually going to be put on a significant back foot because of this.
01:01:41.460If Iran is dealt with as well as their entire, you know, axis of supporters, Russia and China have lost a major geopolitical ally in the region.
01:01:51.320And basically, it moves the entire Middle East, at least the parts of it that matter, into the United States' hands.
01:02:10.660I mean, they've got a reason, like, technically, but, like, not actually on – like, no one would decide it, even though they know they're going to lose a lot of power because of it.
01:02:18.940Like, the amount of power that they'll lose in the region is not worth the risk that they take on by getting involved?
01:02:30.860I mean, keep in mind if Russia cannot get involved, so it's really just a question of China.
01:02:36.500If China attempts to get involved, they will make a lifelong enemy of the Saudis.
01:02:41.280China does not want to make a lifelong enemy of the Saudis.
01:02:44.240They would prefer to stay neutral as all of this plays out.
01:02:47.120That is one thing the Chinese don't want to do at this point, and the Saudis have likely already communicated that to them.
01:02:52.760They're like, let it play out, I'm sure.
01:02:56.280And I'm pretty sure the Saudis, when you look at their diplomatic network, have a lot more people close to people in position of power in China than the Iranians do.
01:03:35.420In fact, some Iranians, even regime critics, may unify in the face of an external attack, at least temporarily, which could shore up the regime, as happened during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
01:03:49.320On the other hand, the regime's legitimacy is already eroding, and a humiliating military defeat could spark intense anger.
01:03:57.320The severe economic strain, coupled with public shock of seeing iconic generals killed and key sites in flames, might embolden opposition factions.
01:04:05.940If street protests were to explode again, as they did in 2022, the Revolutionary Guards may be too overstretched or demoralized to contain them.
01:04:14.260In a worst-case scenario for Tehran, the combination of military decapitation and popular uprising could threaten the country of the Islamic Republic.
01:04:22.020Now, I just wanted to go to the thing I talked about at the beginning here, because I think it's really important to go over, because I was so disappointed in ethical historical knowledge, where he's like, Iran calls America the great Satan, or at least calls it still the great Satan because of our alliance with Israel.
01:04:39.560If anything, it's hostile to Israel because of us.
01:04:41.600So, first, why did Iran start calling us the great Satan?
01:04:46.560It was because we led a coup to overthrow a democratic elected government and try to reinstate a monarch.
01:04:54.480And the 1953 CIA-backed coup that overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohamed Masahadai and reinstated the Shah is the core historical grievance that led to this anti-US ideology.
01:05:10.440The term great Satan was coined after the 1979 revolution, but it draws moral legitimacy from this particular event.
01:05:19.820Now, Iran has showed itself open, as I mentioned, Iran in the past has shown itself open to actually normalizing relationships with Israel and the United States.
01:05:30.200I pointed out that it cares much, much more about Saudi Arabia than it cares about us or Israel.
01:05:36.220We are distant afterthoughts in its mind compared to Saudi Arabia.
01:05:39.440Everything it does to Israel, it does to shore up support among its subordinates, and we'll get to why that's important to them.
01:05:48.000But Israel doesn't matter, and its subordinates don't matter if Saudi Arabia can be checked.
01:06:45.180In the same way that, like, they care a little bit in terms of how it makes them look as a regional power player.
01:06:49.940Same way that, like, you know, Saudi Arabia does or Egypt does.
01:06:53.340But at the end of the day, like, as we showed with the Gaza march, like, the Egyptian government cares so little about the public perception compared to, like, their own safety when it comes to Gaza.
01:07:02.560And they're just like, yeah, okay, like, maybe 96% of people support it.
01:08:52.540They shouldn't be trying to force their weird, you know, like, you know, colonist flag, which is what we call the progress flag values on you guys.
01:09:01.300Like, you guys, that's not your culture.
01:09:05.440But what's notable here is if you look at the Saudi coalition versus the Iranian coalition, they both built their coalition on different things.
01:09:14.820The Saudis built it on economics, religious similarities, and a sort of pragmatism.
01:09:24.860And I'm going to put a map on screen here so you can see it of the Iranian, the quote-unquote, axis of resistance.
01:09:29.960This is Hezbollah, Assad, and Iraqi militias, right?
01:09:33.640But then you've also got, obviously, the daddy war bucks of it all, which is Qatar, which to me has always seemed like the odd one out, but whatever.
01:09:40.900But on this map, you can see the dark red is Iran.
01:09:59.040And so I'll put them both on screen here so you can see them next to each other.
01:10:01.860But what you will see is, largely speaking, the Saudi Arabian allies have a high GDP per capita, and the Iranian allies have a low GDP per capita.
01:10:12.380Very, you know, you look at something like Saudi Arabia at $32,900 per year.
01:10:36.520Like, it's not going to, well, we've got to, hold on, we've got to.
01:10:38.560Well, this is, again, I just feel like there's this mean girl dynamic where, in many cases, Iran is preying upon populations that kind of can't say no to the money and the support.
01:10:50.060But then those populations are being further ruined, degraded, made dangerous and radicalized, and not more economically productive by this support.
01:11:15.560We gained nothing from grabbing territory in Iran.
01:11:19.140This isn't like historical battles that we've seen where it's like we want to occupy.
01:11:23.040Because after the success of McCarthyism, General McCarthy, right, and he rebuilt all the countries that we destroyed in the Second World War, whether it was Germany or Japan, et cetera.
01:11:32.800And everyone was like, oh, you could just rebuild countries.