The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Gregg Roman-Executive Director, Middle East Forum- Iran, Israel, & Immigration (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_953)

00:00:00.000 I'm delighted to report that I have joined, as a scholar, the Declaration of Independence Center

00:00:06.120 for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi.

00:00:10.800 The center offers educational opportunities, speakers, internship, and reading groups for

00:00:17.020 the University of Mississippi community. It is named in honor of the United States founding

00:00:22.720 document, which constitutes the nation as a political community and expresses fundamental

00:00:28.820 principles of American freedom, including in the recognition of the importance of Judeo-Christian

00:00:34.960 values in shaping American exceptionalism. Dedicated to the academic and open-minded exploration of

00:00:42.040 these principles, the center exists to encourage exploration into the many facets of freedom.

00:00:49.120 It will sponsor a speaker series and an interdisciplinary faculty research team.

00:00:54.700 If you'd like to learn more about the center, please visit Ole Miss, that's O-L-E-M-I-S-S dot 0.95

00:01:02.300 E-D-U slash independence slash.

00:01:05.820 Hi, everybody. This is Scott Saad, inaugural guest for 2026, so that's a big honor. Make sure

00:01:11.200 to put that on your CV. We've got Greg Roman, Executive Director of the Middle East Forum.

00:01:18.240 How are you doing, Greg?

00:01:19.520 I'm great. Thanks for having me today, and Happy New Year.

00:01:21.800 Happy New Year to you as well. Okay, well, let's start with the Middle East Forum. Tell us about

00:01:27.040 it. But before you do, I actually, I think I met once, no, I'm sure I met once Daniel Pipes,

00:01:35.440 who is the founder of the Middle East Forum. I think he founded it in 1994. He had come to Montreal

00:01:41.900 to speak at some event, and I spoke to him very, very briefly. And I think I might have mentioned

00:01:47.720 the fact that coming up with a distinction between Islam and Islamism and radical Islam was not a good

00:01:55.700 idea. So maybe we could talk about that later, but tell us about the Middle East Forum.

00:01:59.940 Sure. Daniel Pipes is the OG of fighting Islamism, and he's the guy who's been involved with this 1.00

00:02:06.140 since 1972, when he got his doctorate from Harvard University. The thing that you have to understand

00:02:12.460 about the way in which we fight wars is sort of the familial history of Daniel Pipes and the heritage

00:02:18.480 that he comes from. His father, Richard Pipes, was the head of the Eastern Europe Bureau in the first

00:02:25.740 Reagan administration. He's the guy who wrote the Evil Empire speech where Reagan architected the

00:02:31.320 downfall of the Soviet Union. Wars don't end when one side declares victory. Wars end when one side

00:02:37.940 admits defeat. And that's been our mantra for the past 31 years since the forum's founding. Actually,

00:02:43.200 it's 32 years now, January of 1994. Focus on three things. The first is research. This is the academia

00:02:50.920 which goes against the corrupt academe that's in American universities, specifically Middle East

00:02:56.180 studies and Islamic studies programs, where a lot of these ethnic fights come from, a lot of this

00:03:01.120 politicization of Middle Eastern diatribes. And if you think about the campus,

00:03:06.780 the students who are parts of Students for Justice in Palestine, the Antifa movements,

00:03:11.780 the different far-left organizations that come and go, they're there for four years. Maybe they're

00:03:16.840 doing a master's or a doctoral student study, and they're there for 10 years, 12 years. But the

00:03:21.680 professors who get tenure are the individuals who inject the virus into the hive mind of these students

00:03:27.500 who then leave, but the professors stay and their vitriol continues. So we try to fight in terms of

00:03:33.280 producing good research, good investigations, and we're budding and also having proactive academe

00:03:38.700 pushback against a lot of the messages which are corrupting the next generation of American

00:03:43.100 students. Secondarily, we have an operations arm. We engage in long-form writing, but also long-form

00:03:49.240 research. Our scholars are in Syria. They're in Yemen, meeting with the South Transition Council.

00:03:54.280 They're in Lebanon. They go to Iraq. They meet with the Kurds, the Yazidis. We even had a case last year

00:03:58.960 where there was a Yazidi woman who was taken slave by members of Hamas, who started off as ISIS

00:04:05.540 members in Syria, made their way to Turkey, Egypt, and then imprisoned this woman for 10 years

00:04:10.240 in hostile captivity in Khan Yunus in Gaza. And as part of our operations, we identified her,

00:04:17.440 spoke to her family, and arranged an extraction operation by the IDF. That's a small little example

00:04:23.300 of an operational arm, but we're not just thinking, we're doing. And lastly, we engage ourselves in

00:04:29.180 what I would call maybe statecraft or policy advisory. We work with Republicans, Democrats,

00:04:33.960 members of Likud, members of Naftali Bennett's party, lawmakers across Europe and throughout the

00:04:39.680 Middle East are trying to give the best policy prescriptions to make sure that American interests

00:04:44.120 in the Middle East are promoted, but also that Western civilization is defended from Middle Eastern 0.99

00:04:48.320 threats. So across research, operations, and this policy advice we give, we've been doing it for

00:04:53.620 about 32 years. Great, great synopsis. Thank you. Of these three, you know, driving raison d'etre of your

00:05:01.740 think tank, is there one that is uniquely more difficult than the other two, or is there one

00:05:09.920 where you've been distinctly more successful than the other two? Tell us about if we pit these three

00:05:15.280 objectives against one another, give us a sense of how difficult each is.

00:05:20.240 I think our added value to responsible Middle East policymaking is our operational arm.

00:05:25.340 We really have sort of a frontline advisory in terms of the way in which we procure information

00:05:29.620 and then base recommendations off of what's coming from the field, not what's coming from an armchair

00:05:34.260 analyst sitting in Washington, D.C., London, or Jerusalem. We're there when the events are happening.

00:05:40.160 We're speaking with people on the ground, for instance, with the Iranian revolution,

00:05:43.320 which is going on right now, or the counter-revolution. We have people on the ground

00:05:46.740 monitoring what's happening inside the country. We've sent over 470 Starlink terminals to Iran

00:05:52.780 over the past three years, and they're communicating directly to us, even if there's an internet blackout

00:05:57.980 going on, like you just saw what happened in Kerman Shah and Tehran and Shiraz and Isfahan.

00:06:02.520 They get us the information, ask us for advice on how to organize protests, sit-ins, boycotts,

00:06:08.380 how to use non-violent action, because if you advocate anything that's kinetic, it's a violation of U.S. law.

00:06:13.320 But getting these people organized and then giving them advice in the real time of how to make the next

00:06:17.860 step forward. And I think that that combination is something that, beyond your traditional think

00:06:23.580 tank model, which is really reacting to what's going on on the ground, we try to help them set

00:06:28.280 the facts to make sure that Western interests are protected there.

00:06:31.660 Now, you, offline, but I suggested that we discuss it online, you mentioned that the way that you got into

00:06:39.540 this whole, you know, ecosystem was related to my reality being in Montreal. Can you tell us a bit

00:06:49.060 about that?

00:06:50.180 Sure. So when I was six years old, my dad had the great idea of putting me into a singlet and starting

00:06:56.700 a wrestling career. And I'm not your typical, you know, Philadelphia Jew. I did three varsity sports.

00:07:02.300 I was collegiate wrestler in a division one program, and I had no interest in Israel, 1.00

00:07:07.280 the Middle East or anything whatsoever. But in my first match of my career, which was at a tournament,

00:07:12.820 I end up hurting my knee. There goes the wrestling career. I'm looking for something to do

00:07:18.080 at American University in Washington, D.C. So after wrestling for 15 years and trying to find

00:07:24.000 something else, the mentality of a wrestler is it's you and the other guy and that's it.

00:07:27.500 Now, if I'm a student and I'm sitting in a classroom, it's me and the professor. If I disagree

00:07:32.220 with him, he might fail me. On a much more exaggerated example, if I'm a student activist

00:07:37.880 and I'm inviting someone like what happened at your university at Concordia, which was prime

00:07:42.960 minister Netanyahu at that time in 2003, then he was finance minister Netanyahu, or may have even

00:07:47.860 been a private citizen between his time in government. I saw this video called Concordia

00:07:52.440 Unbecoming, which was produced by the Clarion Project. And before that was an organization

00:07:57.480 called Hasbro Fellowships, which started in New York, and then now it's in Jerusalem over

00:08:01.300 the States, Canada. And I saw these individuals taking these barriers and throwing them through

00:08:07.000 the windows of the Concordia University Student Center or wherever he was giving a speech.

00:08:12.500 And they quite literally used the violence to suppress his ability to speak. This is something

00:08:16.720 not from last year or from the BLM riots or from Antifa or Occupy Wall Street. This is 24 years

00:08:23.300 ago. And this is what would set the tone and the pace for the anti-Western movements going on in

00:08:28.420 college campuses and quite frankly, in society for the past generation, which I saw. And his response

00:08:35.760 was a certain level of magnetism, but also the film sort of gave a prescription for what would be

00:08:41.700 happening up until this day. The students got together, they filmed what was going on, they organized

00:08:46.720 public protests, they went to the administration, fell on deaf ears, but then they eventually turned that

00:08:51.880 one incident into a movie which inspired a generation of pro-Western activists to come out and to fight

00:08:56.960 back. So that led me on a path where I would eventually move to Israel, join the army, serve in the

00:09:04.060 foreign ministry, work for the prime minister's office in the defense ministry, and 10 years ago come to be

00:09:08.700 the executive director of this organization.

00:09:10.960 Wow. Well, it's good that, well, it feels right that something good came of this otherwise tragic

00:09:19.160 reality that is unfolding at Concordia. Look, I have many wonderful things to say about my home

00:09:25.520 university. I'm currently, as we discussed offline, I'm going to leave and I'm at Old Miss at the

00:09:31.080 Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom. But, you know, Concordia has given

00:09:36.440 me all sorts of latitude in terms of the freedom to do the kinds of research that I want to do. You know,

00:09:44.200 in the business school, it typically was not something that evolutionary psychologists would

00:09:50.000 be applying evolutionary theory to study, you know, consumer behavior or economic decision-making.

00:09:55.740 It was viewed with some suspicion, yet they were perfectly happy to let me do so, as long as, of

00:10:01.220 course, I was productive, I was publishing in top journals. So there are many wonderful elements to

00:10:05.980 Concordia. But to your point, there is a ecosystem of Jew hatred that has existed at Concordia.

00:10:14.200 But much, much longer, to your point, than, you know, the October 7th reality. Now, October 7th

00:10:19.840 came along, you've got me a, you know, pretty public Jewish professor who doesn't hide his sentiments

00:10:27.600 about some of the dynamics in the Middle East, and suddenly it becomes impossible for me to be there.

00:10:33.640 But I'm glad that that's what served as a catalyst for you. All right, let's talk about, we could take

00:10:38.040 any of the, I thought, I mentioned earlier that we talk about Iran, Israel, immigration, Islam.

00:10:44.580 You talked a bit about Iran, maybe let's continue with Iran, and then we'll go to some of the other

00:10:48.940 eyes. How are you, what are your thoughts? Do you think that this counter-revolution will be the one

00:10:54.940 that topples the Islamic regime?

00:10:56.480 Well, I think you have to understand two parts of history to first understand what's happening

00:11:01.340 today in Iran. The first is the 120-year history of Iranian merchants being the barometer for where

00:11:09.420 the regime or whatever governing authority will eventually take place in the Islamic Republic.

00:11:15.200 1905, the bazaar goes on fire. In 1906, you get their first constitution. In 1952, 1953,

00:11:22.260 Mossadegh is brought to power. The CIA eventually ends that. But you find a situation where because

00:11:28.480 of the economic doldrums of Iran, after World War II, after the split between the Brits and the

00:11:33.640 Soviets and the eventual withdrawal, you see that the economy dictates who takes control.

00:11:38.500 1979, same thing. The Shah overspends on oil, isn't able to deliver what should be a pretty good way of 0.71

00:11:45.660 life. In Iran, you have 400-plus people killed in a movie fire. Then the bazaar goes on strike.

00:11:51.280 The Ayatollah comes in. That's the history over the last 120 years. Now, move to the last 20. 0.86

00:11:57.860 2009, Green Movement, it's not about the economy. It's about Ahmadinejad being put in power, even

00:12:03.500 though it was pretty clear that the election didn't go his way. 2019, now we start seeing the effects of

00:12:10.640 the sanctions after Trump reinstates maximum pressure by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal,

00:12:15.760 and the economy starts teetering. 2022, again, not about the economy. The Women's Life Freedom

00:12:22.460 protests comes forward because of the death of Masa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was killed

00:12:27.860 because she wasn't wearing her hijab the right way by the morality police. Again, millions of people 0.79

00:12:32.300 come out onto the street, but unfortunately, the West didn't give the necessary support to turn that

00:12:36.940 into a true counter-revolution. But now, you have three instances over the past six months.

00:12:42.440 First, before the Iran-Israel war, the 12-day war in Operation Midnight Hammer, every Iranian truck 0.92

00:12:48.500 driver goes on strike because of rising petrol prices and the price of gasoline, and they literally

00:12:56.400 park their trucks on the side of every Iranian highway. Commerce stops. That's not the bazaar, 1.00

00:13:02.700 but it is the way in which the logistics and supply chain go forward. That's interrupted

00:13:06.760 by the 12-day war. Iran's capabilities on missiles, on proxies, and on the nuclear program,

00:13:13.620 the three things which pose an existential threat also to Israel, but largely a strategic threat to

00:13:19.280 the West, are decapitated or creating a situation insofar that their ability to strike back is severely

00:13:26.160 brought down. And then you have December 27th, the all-time low of the Iranian riyal to the dollar.

00:13:35.080 I think it's like 1.44 million riyals to $1. And then you have the bazaars say, you know what,

00:13:40.400 we've had enough. 50% inflation, an expected tax increase in the middle of January announced by

00:13:46.520 the Majils, the Iranian parliament. 42% of the economy being owned by the Revolutionary Guard.

00:13:52.580 And story after story coming out about Iranian corruption within the regime, not those individuals

00:14:00.340 who are outside making money off of it. And all this comes to a head Sunday, December 27th,

00:14:06.520 the bazaar, the 27th, 28th, regardless, we're on day 12 right now. You have the bazaar go on strike,

00:14:13.180 and then you start seeing the dominoes fall. It's not the students who rose up. It's not protesting

00:14:18.940 about women's rights or the rights of minorities groups. This started with the same group that

00:14:24.680 brought down the Shah in 1979. And now what you see is the reverse effect from all those other 0.98

00:14:29.900 protests from 2009. The Kurds announced yesterday that they go on strike. If you go through the

00:14:36.220 Kurdish towns, and there's videos of this available on Telegram, Twitter, wherever else, every shop is

00:14:41.160 closed down. You even have protesters in a town about 45 minutes outside of Tehran going through the

00:14:48.360 streets. And then the IRGC, the besiege, which is sort of like their paramilitary secret police,

00:14:53.980 which represses revolts and protests when they come up, are on the rooftops with sniper rifles,

00:14:59.780 pointed out this crowd. They say, we give up. They go down from the street, from the roofs to the

00:15:04.900 streets, and they march with the protesters. So this isn't just the bazaar merchants. This isn't just

00:15:10.840 minority groups. This isn't just Iranian youth. These are members of the regime security forces who are

00:15:16.520 now joining the protest against their bosses. This is the most significant uprising against the

00:15:23.000 ayatollahs and the mullahs control since they came into power in 79. But there's a lot of things that

00:15:28.700 have to happen the right way over the next, not days, but weeks, months, even years, for this to

00:15:34.240 turn into a way that the regime falls and doesn't just become a zombie regime, which is my biggest fear.

00:15:39.040 Now, I've actually been in contact for several years with the folks of the crown prince, the son of

00:15:48.480 the late Shah of Iran, to come on the show. It's never worked out. I think I recently heard that

00:15:56.700 something like one third of Iranians would support him. Does that sound right? Is that number right? 0.63

00:16:02.520 I think you really have to get a better idea of how the Iranian, what's called global population,

00:16:08.120 between the diaspora and people in the country. Think about the crown prince and the way in which

00:16:14.300 he might have an effect as a unifying force rather than a dividing force in the country. And you have

00:16:19.680 to understand Iranian demographics a little bit before you get into that analysis. About 53 to 54 percent

00:16:26.500 of Iran is Persian, ethnically Persian. The other minorities are dozens of different groups,

00:16:33.140 which may constitute a majority in one of Iran's 31 provinces, but as a whole nationwide are a

00:16:39.700 minority. So you have the Avazis, the Iranian Arabs. You have the Baluchis, the Sistanis, the

00:16:46.440 Azeris in the north, the Kurbs, the Lourdes, the Gurbs, the Turkmen. And they all constitute, 0.93

00:16:51.820 Armenians even, they all constitute different areas where they have a certain amount of pull. Now,

00:16:56.660 the Shah back in the day was Persian. And there was a certain amount of animus between Pahlavi and

00:17:05.520 then some of the other groups which were around here. And there was Iranian separatists and minority

00:17:09.340 separatists. Fast forward now 47 years after the revolution, and you're in a situation that you see

00:17:18.020 these separatist groups, which fragmented amongst themselves. There's nine different Iranian Kurdish

00:17:24.180 political parties that can't even agree on things within their own demographics. If you think Jewish

00:17:28.880 politics is one way, look at Iranian politics and you'll see there's some competitors for who can 0.99

00:17:34.060 have the most amount of disagreement in the same house. But what was significant about this Kurdish

00:17:40.220 worker strike yesterday, it was seven of those nine parties putting out a joint statement saying,

00:17:45.440 we will join together as Iranian Kurds. We will join our Iranian Persian brethren in Tehran

00:17:51.740 coming together and we'll all strike as one. As our main enemy is the regime. Now, when I speak

00:17:59.460 about regime change, in general about this subject, I'm not focused on the day after, which some people

00:18:05.840 might say is a mistake. I'm focused first on the downfall of the regime, and then let the Iranian 1.00

00:18:11.600 people figure out what happens the day after, rather than having a coalition provisional authority with

00:18:17.540 Iyad Alawi and Ahmed Shalabi, like we had in Iraq back in March of 2003, where the Lulia Jirga and the

00:18:24.020 eventual Santaf Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. The Iranian people need to have an organic, controlled implosion of 1.00

00:18:31.280 the regime in the country, and then let them decide whether it's Reza Pahlavi who unifies, whether it's, there's a

00:18:38.740 whole group, by the way, of Iranian intellectuals and wrestlers and Olympic heroes and people who are in the country now,

00:18:44.220 who are leading the protests, they might have more so-called street cred being part of a transition.

00:18:50.580 You might even have a situation where the regime itself fragments, because while there is the Islamic 1.00

00:18:58.560 revolution and the guardians of that revolution in the Ayatollah's office, in the IRGC, the Bastij,

00:19:04.900 there's a parallel state that exists within Iran of the government, the parliament, who are all approved

00:19:10.720 by the Ayatollah. But you have mid-level bureaucrats like your dog catcher or your traffic police or the

00:19:19.080 guy who's collecting taxes or approving building plans, and they, I think, will be more key to what

00:19:26.460 happens in the day-after scenario, whether or not the crown prince is leading that, or I think more

00:19:32.900 likely is part of a much larger national dialogue. And what's important here is that the minority groups

00:19:39.660 feel like they're part of that process, and it's not just someone who was anointed by birth to be

00:19:46.800 a replacement figure, and that there's a national dialogue that goes on about this, not happening

00:19:51.860 in Washington, not happening in Paris, which are sort of the two main centers of political

00:19:57.180 representation of the Iranian diaspora, but it's happening in Shiraz, in Tabriz, in Shadur,

00:20:02.860 in Isfahan, in Tehran. And if there's a way for that to happen, and I don't really know

00:20:09.620 where we're going right now with this, because maybe it's a voluntary departure like Assad,

00:20:14.960 a middle of the night flight to Moscow with the Ayatollah, maybe the people go to the Ayatollah's

00:20:20.200 offices and his residence and forcefully remove him. But there's a lot of things that have to

00:20:25.020 happen in the future. The crown prince is part of that, but I don't think he's the only way in

00:20:30.280 which the Iranian people become free. Now, from my own personal interactions with

00:20:36.920 Iranian students, there are many such students at Concordia, and most of them were incredibly 0.98

00:20:43.100 studious and serious and brilliant. I got the sense from them that there isn't this fervor

00:20:50.740 for religion in Iran the way you otherwise see it, because it's imposed by the Islamic regime.

00:20:56.880 Is that a fair statement in that once, hopefully, Iran is sort of liberated from the shackles of 0.99

00:21:05.320 its theocracy, that it is true that there is an appetite amongst Iranians to be a lot more 0.97

00:21:11.700 secular, a lot more Western, a lot more modern? Is that a fair statement?

00:21:17.400 Yeah, I think what we're looking at here is the reverse Syria scenario, where you had a secular 0.95

00:21:21.800 autocrat rule Syria since the 70s with the Banffist Revolution, and then since you've had Iran ruled 0.95

00:21:29.360 by a theocratic autocrat since 1979, instead of seeing an Islamic republic like we're seeing rise 0.71

00:21:36.440 in Syria right now, you'll see a secular government come in place in Iran to replace it. But to

00:21:41.460 understand the origins of the Islamic republic, you got to go back to 1979. It wasn't just the Islamists

00:21:47.840 who were clamoring for the Shah to leave Tehran. It was people who were Republicans, anti-monarchists,

00:21:54.840 communists, socialists. There was a whole panoply of different political streams of thought that

00:22:01.680 were event that would on day one of the revolution, right? It wasn't just the Islamic revolution. It was

00:22:06.060 an Iranian revolution against the Shah. The Islamic revolution came later. And the reason for that 1.00

00:22:11.320 was because the Islamic elements under Ayatollah Khomeini were organized in such a way that they

00:22:18.660 had a date-after scenario planned where they had three member committees in every mosque across the

00:22:23.880 country. So when the Ayatollah lands, the Shah leaves, they're the ones who are in first place to be able 0.81

00:22:29.980 to create the infrastructure that would then lead to become the Islamic Republic. Reverse that now. 0.98

00:22:35.040 You have opposition groups which are pretty fragmented in the diaspora. They have some

00:22:40.940 representation in the country. But what you really have are the people who I think will be pulling

00:22:45.180 the levers of power are those who are the Iranian middle class. If the Bazaaris, those in the Bazaar, 0.98

00:22:52.040 are leading the uprising now, they'll be focused on improving the economy. If the universities right

00:22:57.660 now feel sort of under the thumb of the Islamic Republic, and they want to be able to have more

00:23:03.880 diversity of thought or just be able to think freely, they'll be part of that transition.

00:23:10.260 So inevitably, the same people who were responsible for the Islamic revolution back in 79, 0.97

00:23:16.020 they're in their 70s and 80s now. Those who are leading the uprising on the street didn't even know

00:23:22.400 what the Iran-Iraq war looked like. They didn't know what the departure of the Shah was like. And

00:23:27.120 that's a double-edged sword. Because on one hand, they don't want to see the Islamic Republic. 1.00

00:23:30.840 On the other hand, they don't remember the Shah being in charge. So there's a third way,

00:23:35.160 I think, that they'll find to see what kind of state this becomes.

00:23:39.060 Interesting. So in the Middle East, of course, we've got the Abraham Accords. So a lot of the 0.96

00:23:45.060 Gulf countries are becoming a lot friendlier, I mean, towards the West in general, and certainly

00:23:49.860 towards Israel. Now you could have potentially the toppling of the Iranian regime. Let's suppose

00:23:55.340 that these two dynamics were to fully happen. Would you become suddenly unbelievably optimistic

00:24:03.180 about the future in the Middle East? Or there is always this ideological strain that could always

00:24:12.280 come back the way we have the shingles virus? Do you follow what I mean?

00:24:15.280 The cousin of the ideological strain is already emerging. And we're in the Shia Islamic crescent, 0.57

00:24:25.080 from Iran, through Iraqi militias, with Qataiq al-Hezbollah in Iraq, to the Assad regime,

00:24:31.220 Alawis, but still part of that alliance, even though they were the secular variant of it,

00:24:36.020 to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And then also looking from the south with the Houthis, 0.52

00:24:40.000 and also some other elements in Africa, you had a very Shia-dominated effort, not just against Israel,

00:24:46.860 but against Western interests in the region. That, since the defeat of Hezbollah, even though

00:24:52.000 there's a certain amount of reconstitution going on now, the semi-defeat of Hamas, even though

00:24:57.020 they're still around, the withdrawal of Iraqi Shia militias in December of 2023, and the Houthis

00:25:04.260 losing half their cabinet in an Israeli airstrike, is being replaced by a Sunni Islamist scimitar, 0.98

00:25:11.620 which is emerging with the patronage of Qatar and Turkey. So that vacuum that the Iranian withdrawal

00:25:16.920 created is now being filled by Turkish Islamists, Turkish back to jihadis. So it's not as if though 0.98

00:25:24.120 there is the elimination of all dangers in the Middle East, there's a new danger which is emerging. 0.99

00:25:30.300 And I would even argue that it might be a little bit more dangerous than the Iranians, because the 1.00

00:25:33.860 Iranians knew what you were dealing with. They were openly anti-Western. They didn't try to be an 1.00

00:25:39.300 ally in NATO or to be a non-NATO major ally of the United States, like Turkey and Qatar, while at the

00:25:47.000 same time investing in strategic plans, which is meant at the end of the day to bring Russia back into 0.76

00:25:52.720 the region, to bring China into the region. That's going on now, and it's going on largely behind

00:25:57.900 Western backs. And that's something that I think all policymakers need to be on the lookout for and 1.00

00:26:05.980 aware of the specter of a Turkish-dominated Sunni scimitar, which is now coming in Syria and Lebanon.

00:26:14.620 You know, originally from Lebanon, the Turkish MIT, their intelligence agency, is backing Lebanese Sunni

00:26:21.320 militias now in Tir and Sidon. They're very active there. They have a presence with the DNET that's in

00:26:27.020 Jerusalem. They're trying to buy up property in East Jerusalem. They're the main backers of Hamas, if you 0.73

00:26:32.980 see where their political leadership is in Istanbul. Same thing with Doha and Qatar. And they're frankly

00:26:38.280 trying to invest more money with Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood elements. And forget about Arabia. The Turks are 0.99

00:26:45.820 present with 3,000 soldiers in Somalia. Their Blue Horizon effort to take advantage of Northern Cyprus. Their 0.63

00:26:51.540 investments in the Debeva family in Western Libya. All of Libya's weaponry, those who are Islamist, comes from the 0.91

00:26:59.060 Turkish military industrial complex. And they're even making inroads in Algeria, Tunisia, and in Morocco. So this is

00:27:05.740 something that I think, not just Israel, but if you think about sort of that Eastern Mediterranean angle, you know, you have

00:27:12.500 Greece, Cyprus, and Israel. That's the new front of this battle against Islamism, rather than just thinking, oh, Iran is 0.96

00:27:21.280 taken care of. Now, we can have peace in the region. The converse side of that, the upside of all of that, is that if Iran does 0.97

00:27:29.580 turn to a more secular republic, if they honor Persian history going back 2,500 years, 3,000 years, then you get to an angle which is

00:27:39.800 sort of like what David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel had, which is what he called an outside-in

00:27:45.960 strategy. On Israel's borders, you had Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia to a lesser extent, Lebanon to a very lesser

00:27:55.080 extent, except with the PLO in the 70s and 80s. And Ben-Gurion's strategy was to have countries which were abutting

00:28:02.340 those major threats to Israel that would then become Israeli allies. And I think what you're seeing now is what I would call a 0.93

00:28:08.940 strategy of Pax Israeliana. Israel won this war, and now instead of just retreating to its borders, it's making sure it has a

00:28:16.080 presence, albeit maybe air power or cyber power or information warfare, where the Druze and the Maronites and the Kurds and the 1.00

00:28:25.820 Yazidis and other groups, which have not really had a state sponsor before, can rely on Israel, and Israel can rely on them as an early

00:28:33.120 warning system against the Turks, against the Qataris and other groups. So there's a strategy which is unfolding

00:28:38.880 here that the Israelis are projecting power. And even so far, they're going to protect Christians as well. There's still 10 to 15 0.66

00:28:46.200 million Middle Eastern Christians that are left in Middle East Muslim-majority countries. And Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech that he

00:28:52.200 made in Florida when he was visiting President Trump last week said, we don't just have an obligation to defend the Jews of our

00:28:59.420 country and Israeli citizens. We have an obligation to defend Judeo-Christian values. And now you're seeing him 0.99

00:29:05.020 actualize that. So there's an upside to this, too.

00:29:08.140 It's interesting that you mentioned about, you know, the Israeli protection of some of the, you know, non-Jewish 0.98

00:29:14.340 minorities in the Middle East. I've often written hypothetical dialogues, but based on realities that I've had with

00:29:23.000 Christian friends who, you know, it goes something like this, do you, who killed your family in Lebanon? I'm speaking

00:29:31.720 this as to a Christian Lebanese. And they'll say, oh, it was Muslims. Okay, they're the ones who eradicated your family 1.00

00:29:38.780 in that village. Yes. And what are your thoughts about Israel? Oh, I can't stand those Zionist entities. And so from this 1.00

00:29:47.140 side of the mouth, I will readily admit that it was the Muslims. And in many cases, it's the PLO who killed 0.98

00:29:54.100 my family. I'm going back now to the Lebanese Civil War. And then from this side of the mouth, when it was 0.88

00:29:58.880 Israel that was helping, let's say, you know, Shma'il and the Kata'ib, you know, the Christian militia in

00:30:05.540 Lebanon, they suddenly lose all sense of logic. And they suddenly become rabid, certainly anti-Israeli,

00:30:14.840 but it almost borders on maybe being anti-Jew. Have you experienced something similar in some of

00:30:22.480 your interactions with Christian minorities in the Middle East? So I bring up this example of Israel

00:30:27.820 having its proxies, just like the Iranians had their proxies, the Turks have their proxies.

00:30:32.560 And the main counter-argument is, they say, look at Saab Haddad and the SLA, the Southern Lebanese army,

00:30:39.400 from 82 until 2000, Israel drew to the blue line, and thousands of Lebanese Christians,

00:30:44.580 were left overnight to forcefully evacuate their homes and come to Israel to seek refuge.

00:30:50.000 Bridget Gabriel, basically.

00:30:52.040 Yes. My point here is that Israel is not trying to use armed proxies to project its power to occupy

00:31:01.120 an area under Israeli influence. The idea here is that Israel acts as a backstop against forces,

00:31:08.580 mainly Islamist forces, which are trying to massacre and genocide and ethnically cleanse areas

00:31:13.760 where minorities live. So long as they know they have a force they can rely on in their most dire 1.00

00:31:18.980 hour, they have autonomy. They govern the areas where they live. They can preserve their cultural

00:31:23.380 heritage. You try to give them a level playing field in the countries they live in to be able to

00:31:28.640 have a certain amount of autonomy so they can be part of Lebanese politics without being identified

00:31:32.980 as a force of Israel. And I think if you do that, it's the same thing that President Trump and

00:31:38.600 Vice President Vance just did in Nigeria. ISIS and the Boko Haram outlets go to Christian schools,

00:31:46.820 kidnap Christian girls, are burning villages down. And the Nigerian government was largely helpless to

00:31:52.700 be able to try to assist them, in part because it's in Muslim-majority provinces and it's not 0.99

00:31:57.600 politically convenient. And frankly, they didn't have the capability to win battles against these ISIS

00:32:01.980 forces. The other side was just too good. So then comes a U.S. carrier group. You have strikes

00:32:08.600 against these ISIS camps. And what President Trump does is he resets the playing field in terms of

00:32:14.920 the Christians to be able to have their autonomy, their practice of religion, their freedom, because

00:32:19.660 the U.S. has their backs. You're not having 10,000 Marines to pull in Nigeria to guard Christian

00:32:25.040 villages. But there's always that afterthought in the mind of an Islamist. If I go too far, 1.00

00:32:30.080 uh-oh, a U.S. carrier is going to be off my shores and they're going to be doing something.

00:32:33.120 I would say to Christians that see Israel as an oppressive force, as suppressing Middle East

00:32:40.320 minority groups, as an ally. Imagine Israel having an office of protecting the covenant. 0.66

00:32:46.920 In Hebrew, we call it Lishkatabrit, where there's now parity between Israel offering protection for

00:32:52.920 Christians but not telling them how to live their lives. And I think that that example of realizing that

00:32:58.920 there is true Islamic supremacism, which is targeting these minority communities, they're 1.00

00:33:06.480 feeling it. In March, the Alawis had 1,000 killed. In June, the Druze had 1,000 killed. It's here. 0.99

00:33:13.200 The danger is here. And Israel is the only country that is willing to step up to protect them,

00:33:19.040 not because they were asked to, because they feel like they have a moral responsibility to do that.

00:33:23.740 And also, frankly, it's strategically sound. The next generation of evangelical Americans

00:33:29.120 that are coming up are largely thinking that wherein you have mainline Protestant theology,

00:33:36.820 which says that the church replaced Israel in terms of the role of the Jewish state or the land of

00:33:42.920 Israel in Christianity. Evangelicals are now saying, well, there's Christians that are in Judea,

00:33:48.760 Samaria, and Gaza who are being persecuted by the Jews, who are being persecuted by Israelis. 0.68

00:33:53.200 They're second-class Palestinian Christians. I think what's happening now is that Israel is 0.99

00:33:57.680 realizing that these individuals have to be protected. They must be able to have their

00:34:01.780 freedom to worship. But it goes beyond Israel's borders. It's all Christians in the Middle East, 0.67

00:34:05.720 all minorities in the Middle East that should be able to rely on Israel for protection if they call for it. 0.55

00:34:11.720 Got you. What do you think about the argument that some American isolationists, I mean, of course,

00:34:19.200 you've heard this incessantly, and I've seen some of my public figures who historically were quite allied

00:34:28.300 with some of my thinking. But since October 7th, there's been a bit of fissers who say, look,

00:34:35.000 in the same way that I don't want Americans to intervene in Ukraine by the exact same logical mechanism,

00:34:42.920 I don't think we get anything in funding Israel the way that we do. So to your best, I'm sure you've

00:34:50.980 been asked this before, give us your best laid out arguments for why the relationship between Israel

00:34:57.720 and the United States is actually not a parasitic one, but a reciprocal one.

00:35:02.200 Well, I think I would just start off by saying that individuals who call for an American aid to Israel

00:35:06.940 in terms of the three or four billion dollar aid package that it gives on an annual basis for

00:35:12.300 armaments are right. The aid has to end. And I'm a proponent of not keeping the relationship status

00:35:18.400 quo, but evolving the relationship into a true partnership, not one in which American taxpayers

00:35:24.300 feel like they're subsidizing Israel's defense industry. Frankly, 80, 90 percent of the money that

00:35:29.820 the U.S. gives to Israel is spent in the United States anyway. It's more of a defense subsidy than it is

00:35:35.680 just supplying Israeli arms industries to build their own weaponry. But Israel, after this seven 0.86

00:35:41.440 front war, has to evolve to be a true equal partner of the United States, one in which the

00:35:47.720 everyday American feels like they're getting as much, if not more, from Israel as the Israeli and

00:35:51.900 the Israeli defense forces, as Israeli politicians, Israeli businessmen feel like they're getting.

00:35:56.560 So in order to evolve that relationship, you see some pretty seminal steps forward that this

00:36:02.720 government in Israel has made to become arms independent. A hundred billion dollar, excuse me,

00:36:09.100 that's way too much, a 350 billion shekel investment, 10 billion dollars a year for the next 10 years

00:36:15.440 that this government in Israel has made, it promised to, to build its own domestic arms industry.

00:36:22.620 So it doesn't need bombs. It doesn't need missiles. It doesn't need basic ammunition to be able to fight

00:36:27.700 its wars. Secondarily, when you have projects that have been subsidized by American taxpayer dollars,

00:36:33.160 like Iron Dome, the Arrow 3 missile interceptor system, some of Israel's fighter helmets that are

00:36:40.620 used on the F-35. When Israel becomes a laboratory for using these armaments, America's ability to have 0.83

00:36:47.920 a qualitative military edge over its enemies in China and Russia and elsewhere improves because it's not

00:36:52.960 American fighter pilots who are flying those jets, bombing targets in Syria, in Gaza, elsewhere, in Iran.

00:37:01.160 It's Israelis who are battle testing that. And then all those results go back to the United States

00:37:05.940 to improve our own weapons systems. There was actually a seminar that took place about a month ago

00:37:11.120 where the IDF hosted over 30 military attaches from different Western countries and even South Korea and

00:37:18.640 Japan to give them a one-day seminar on how things that they learned over the last two years could be

00:37:25.220 implemented in Western militaries. And I think that that story really goes untold. Beyond the military

00:37:31.740 dimension, I can give you the Startup Nation example. I can give you all the technology. You know, we have

00:37:37.760 our cell phones that are developed with the technology in Israel. But Israel has to be an equal partner on

00:37:43.980 equal footing with the United States, being able to make its own decisions, but not relying on American

00:37:48.800 handouts to fight its wars. Now, you do get to a situation sometimes where a country of only 10

00:37:53.880 million people comes under an onslaught from seven armies. I don't know if Israel will always be able 0.99

00:37:59.840 to fight its wars to the extent where if a nuclear weapon was developed by the Iranians, or any force for

00:38:05.600 that matter, imagine if the Turks get a nuke. Would the U.S. be expected to sit it out? No. But the value of the 0.87

00:38:12.020 relationship must be such that the U.S. sees losing Israel as a strategic liability to American

00:38:18.500 national security interests, not just as doing a favor to another country. But do you think, for

00:38:23.320 example, the argument that the intelligence sharing that goes from Israel towards the United States

00:38:29.980 goes a long way in terms of creating that parity, or that's simply insufficient, and therefore that's

00:38:36.960 why you're talking about a lopsidedness in the relationship? The intelligence sharing is

00:38:41.240 very valuable, but I don't think that it's enough. I think that you have to have a much stronger

00:38:49.100 partnership on a geopolitical level, on a strategic level, of which intelligence is important, but it's

00:38:55.420 not the sole factor that people should be informed about or take when they're having the equation of

00:38:59.880 whether Israel is an equal ally and partner of the United States. It has to be bigger than that,

00:39:04.820 and I think Israel is moving in that direction. When you share those sentiments, are you typically

00:39:12.080 in the minority amongst, you know, fellow pro-Israel folks in that they're surprised by your position?

00:39:19.380 How dare you say that it is not fully reciprocal, or are they well in line and congruent with what

00:39:24.520 you're saying? They believe that evolution has to take place. They don't know how to chart the path

00:39:30.960 to be able to get there, and frankly, I think they're taking their cues from the Israeli government,

00:39:36.320 and the government has now moved in that direction. They're talking about weaning itself off of

00:39:41.700 American defense aid for the Israeli military, and if you look back at 1996, when Prime Minister Netanyahu

00:39:49.500 was first elected, he advocated for ending economic aid to Israel, right? The aid package wasn't just

00:39:56.000 all military all the time. Back when President Bush, H.W. Bush, was the president, there was billions

00:40:03.680 of dollars in loan guarantees given to the government of Israel to absorb a million Jews

00:40:08.240 from former Soviet Union countries. Prime Minister Netanyahu came in and said, we want to end economic

00:40:14.000 aid. We're a strong enough, you know, powerhouse technologically and with our economy. We don't

00:40:19.820 need economic aid. Let's transition at the military aid, and now I think with his call that he made a few

00:40:24.980 weeks ago by investing in the Israeli defense establishment, we're getting to the point where

00:40:30.000 the Prime Minister might say, all right, we probably need another 10 years of aid to be able to have a

00:40:35.000 transition period, but by 2036, we'll be in a position to do this ourselves. Got it. I mentioned

00:40:41.920 the several I's that we were going to discuss today, so let's move on to immigration. Now, of course,

00:40:49.020 you deal with realities that happen in the Middle East, and oftentimes many of the immigrants come 1.00

00:40:56.940 from those regions. Do you think that it is sustainable for certainly Europe and or Canada

00:41:04.140 and the United States, Australia, to maintain the current levels of immigration flows that we're

00:41:10.820 seeing from some of those countries? If yes, why? If not, why not?

00:41:14.980 No, it's a death knell to Western civilization, if it keeps up at this pace. And as much as the

00:41:21.760 Middle East Forum has its mission statement promoting American interests, protecting American

00:41:26.260 interests in the Middle East, the second part of that is defending Western values from Middle 0.85

00:41:31.360 Eastern threats and the unchecked, unbridled immigration from Muslim-majority countries with 1.00

00:41:39.720 people who aren't vetted, aren't screened, come in because of quotas rather than because of

00:41:44.500 actually looking at their ideology and the kind of values that they bring to the West is something

00:41:48.560 that we deal with, too, through our Islamist Watch project. If you look at the work that we've done,

00:41:54.960 I'm going to cite Daniel Pipes here, who we spoke about at the beginning of the conversation,

00:41:58.620 of what he calls extreme vetting. This is what's needed for the West. You can't just have a test based

00:42:05.200 on race and ethnicity and religion and country of origin. That's all fine. You know, you can allow

00:42:13.480 Iraqis and Afghanis and Moroccans and whoever else. I'm for universal immigration. So long as these 0.99

00:42:21.220 individuals pass a test where they, when they come to the immigration officer, will be able to become

00:42:27.180 part of Western civilization. They can practice Islam in their own private community, but at the same

00:42:33.380 time, they better not try to impose the Sharia through democracy on secular institutions. As much 0.98

00:42:39.020 as I wouldn't want there to be Tanakhic, you know, expression inside of a public school or Christian 1.00

00:42:46.700 sermons being given as a homily, you know, homeroom class. Now, that makes me maybe more of an ardent

00:42:53.640 divider of secularism from the state and religion for your private place. And I think there's a role for

00:42:59.980 religion in the public, but it's more of the RFRA variety. If you know RFRA, the Religious Freedom

00:43:05.800 Restoration Act, which protects the practice of religion, but it doesn't protect the imposition

00:43:10.340 of religion on individuals who don't agree with that. And that's what's happening now. I mean,

00:43:15.280 when you have, and I hate to bring up the Somali example as Muslim migrants coming to Minnesota,

00:43:22.120 but when you have a massive population, which isn't asked about their adherence to constitutional

00:43:27.600 values, where they're not asked about how they would see themselves practicing their religion

00:43:33.500 within their own no-go zone of certain neighborhoods of Minneapolis, when they say one thing, when they

00:43:41.120 come in on their immigration forms, and then they do something else when they're here. And I don't

00:43:45.680 know if you've ever seen a U.S. Customs and Immigration Service form, or back then it was INS,

00:43:51.520 the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I went through that because my wife's Israeli.

00:43:55.760 We moved to the States from Israel back in 2012, and she had to go through every step of legal

00:44:02.880 immigration. First, you know, do you have a criminal history? No. Second, will you commit to work and be

00:44:08.640 a productive member of the American economy? Yes. And then you get to the point where you apply for

00:44:13.420 citizenship, which she did, and there's a hundred questions. Some of those questions involve, were you

00:44:18.640 ever a member of the Nazi Party? Were you ever a member of the Communist Party? Have you ever been part

00:44:23.680 of a fringe political group? No, no, no, no. Okay, you're good on that. Why can't we add to that,

00:44:29.460 do you believe in the First Amendment? Do you believe in the freedom of practice of religion?

00:44:34.240 Do you comport to what we consider to be regular Western values? Now, this isn't just, you know,

00:44:40.420 equality, liberty, and fraternity, or Napoleonic values, or whatever else you want to call it.

00:44:44.640 But if you say, yes, I believe in these basic fundamental rights of individuals in the West,

00:44:50.240 and specifically in the U.S., rights protected by the Bill of Rights, American law, the Constitution,

00:44:55.520 and you're found to have violated this after you become a citizen, you should be deported.

00:45:01.420 It's not like you get one test, and then you pass the bar, and you can do whatever you want.

00:45:05.100 That isn't even asked in immigration questionnaires. And we actually have a paper that we wrote on this

00:45:10.540 that's now in front of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Integration,

00:45:15.720 which should become part of American immigration law. It's not just testing whether you're a member

00:45:20.940 of an organization. You have to have the same values as Americans to be part of American society.

00:45:26.560 And I think that's the direction that this should go.

00:45:28.460 So let me perhaps, for the only time in this conversation, respectfully push back.

00:45:33.980 So I've spent 32 plus years as a professor, and certainly as a doctoral student,

00:45:43.200 living my whole life as a behavioral scientist. And so I know one or two things about all kinds

00:45:48.600 of psychometric tests that you develop to measure all sorts of things. I've even written about

00:45:54.240 functional magnetic resonance imaging, which actually literally maps the neural activity of

00:45:59.180 your brain. And what you're calling extreme vetting is what I call unicornia la la land. In other words,

00:46:08.280 it's not very difficult for me if I am highly committed to entering your country to very, very quickly learn

00:46:15.880 what I need to say. And as a matter of fact, I've probably designed some scales, psychological scales

00:46:21.740 that are astoundingly more complicated than anything that could come up in any extreme vetting situation.

00:46:28.360 So having said all that, the reality is that let's take the shingles virus. The shingles virus exists

00:46:36.280 within you. And if you're lucky when you're 50 or 60, it doesn't get activated. It stays dormant,

00:46:44.520 and you live out your life without the outbreak. Or there could be a catalyst that brings it back.

00:46:50.820 So, and I hope this doesn't make you squirm uncomfortably, but Islam is like a shingles 1.00

00:46:58.980 virus. It could be, I could actually, when I went through the extreme vetting, not even I am answering 0.97

00:47:05.920 duplicitous, in a duplicitous manner, I could answer it fully committed and honestly to what I'm saying.

00:47:12.940 But then on the 37th time that I attend the mosque where we play, Allah, Allah killed the Jews, 1.00

00:47:20.180 that might be when the shingles virus gets activated. So demography is destiny, couldn't be

00:47:27.780 a more veridical maxim. So what you're saying might hold true when we are 1% of the population.

00:47:36.340 When we become 9%, it becomes a lot more problematic. That's why we have Minneapolis.

00:47:42.720 That's why we have Patterson, New Jersey. That's why we have Dearborn. So does that mean that I'm

00:47:48.380 saying every single Muslim that's alive can't come to the West? Of course not. But what I'm saying,

00:47:54.220 it's a lot more than simply, simply improving the methodology of vetting. I will shut up now and

00:48:01.520 turn it to you. What do you think?

00:48:02.480 No, I agree with you. It's not just vetting, which has to be taken into consideration.

00:48:07.520 If you have quotas from countries, if you have more strict asylum programs, if you have the ability

00:48:13.740 to have somebody have a waiting period before they become a citizen, maybe this virus takes 10 years

00:48:19.340 to incubate, make it 10 years until you become a citizen, 20 years. And that's actually the standard

00:48:24.120 for employees of American missions overseas. If I work for the US embassy in Tel Aviv, I need 20 years

00:48:32.040 before I can apply for a green card. So there's other things we can do to meet in the middle

00:48:36.760 that I think incorporates vetting, but also takes into account more rigidity in terms of how you

00:48:44.100 become a citizen, how you become part of the country. But I think frankly, if you lie on your

00:48:48.840 immigration form and let's say your opinion evolves to then act as a point where you're negating

00:48:54.800 something that you were answering at that time, truthfully under oath, there has to be a mechanism

00:48:59.460 in place to send you back to where you came from. Right. So I think we're in violent agreement

00:49:04.500 on this. Also known as the Ilhan Omar Maxim. Do you think, do you think, Greg, that inshallah,

00:49:13.400 there will be a day when the noble, beautiful Ilhan Omar will be deported back to start a leering

00:49:21.600 center in Mogadishu? I'm going to offer something which might make you cringe, but I think having

00:49:28.940 her as an elected representative in Minnesota is the best thing to happen to the Republican Party 0.99

00:49:35.220 because the person that I'm afraid of is the imam in the basement mosque of a bodega talking to 15 1.00

00:49:43.140 adherents who are planning violent jihad against America. Fair enough. When you have an elected

00:49:47.860 representative who wears her hard on her sleeve and spews her nonsense from the House of 1.00

00:49:54.600 Representatives, I love that because it gives me so much more ammunition to use against those,

00:50:00.320 you know, I want to be careful with my words so I don't get into trouble here, but those who are

00:50:05.800 anti-American elected representatives in American government. And I'd rather have them out there 0.99

00:50:11.600 speaking loudly because I know at the end of the day, my arguments, my values, what I think is a

00:50:16.840 super majority of Americans detest that. And I'd rather have Father Coughlin at Madison Square Garden

00:50:22.580 than, you know, what's his name? Amr al-Maliki of the deserts of Yemen planning an expedites bombing 0.78

00:50:29.240 on my flight back to New York. Wow, it's been a while since I've heard that guy's name. That's the guy

00:50:34.800 who was taken out by a drone from noble prophet Barack Obama, yes? Yeah. Yes, yes, very good. All right,

00:50:42.020 tell us before I'm looking at the time, I want to be mindful of your time. Tell us about some existing

00:50:47.080 ongoing projects, whether it be at the personal level, oh, I'm working on the next book or whatever,

00:50:52.460 or some things that are happening at the Middle East Forum that you'd like to share with us.

00:50:56.660 Sure. So the first thing I like to talk about is a book I have coming out called The Carthage

00:51:02.060 Doctrine. The idea that when you have an attack on Israel, Israel's response should not just be

00:51:09.480 disproportionate, but should go to the ends of the earth to destroy any organization or state structure

00:51:15.420 that threatens stability to live, breathe, and be free. You know, and it should be within international

00:51:21.480 law, it should be within confining with whatever is considered to be at the bare ends of the Geneva

00:51:26.120 Convention. But Israel should not allow those who threaten it to use non-kinetic means to inhibit

00:51:33.500 its ability to conduct war. Just like the Romans during the Punic Wars assaulted Carthage, the same

00:51:40.800 thing should happen to Israel's enemies. Not to mean the civilian populations that those enemy groups

00:51:46.740 or enemy states govern, but you should have a leveling off a total decapitation and tailored deterrence

00:51:51.880 of anyone who threatens the Jewish state. And frankly, I think that should be American defense

00:51:56.100 strategy, too. And it largely is. Look at Maduro. Now, the second thing that I would want to talk

00:52:01.180 about is a study of Islamic schools in the United States that Middle East Forum is coming out with

00:52:05.980 soon. We've looked at every curricula, every textbook, every syllabus which is used, and in many cases

00:52:13.380 publicly funded Islamic charter schools. And if people knew what their taxpayers were subsidizing,

00:52:19.280 they would become livid with the fact that public government is funding this extremism.

00:52:26.100 The third thing that I would point individuals to is testimony that I gave before the House of

00:52:31.400 Representatives back in February before the House Oversight Committee, about the $144 million in U.S.

00:52:37.440 foreign aid that subsidized groups that are on the U.S. terrorism list. We're talking about during

00:52:43.180 the Obama administration, a check being cut to al-Qaeda in Sudan, signed off by the Obama administration.

00:52:52.080 And it happened under Biden. It happened under the last 20 years.

00:52:54.140 Is that because of, forgive me for interrupting you, is that because of ineptitude, or was it willful?

00:52:58.720 No. There was a waiver that was given by USAID to the nonprofit that was hiring a subcontractor that was a listed al-Qaeda

00:53:12.020 affiliate in Sudan. You have half a million dollars. You have money that went to Hezbollah, money that went to Somali pirates

00:53:19.560 and Mogadishu and al-Shabaab, money that went to underwrite Iraqi militias, money that goes to underwrite

00:53:24.800 the Taliban. And that has since that hearing been defunded in the U.S. state and foreign aid appropriations

00:53:33.840 bill from 26. But it's not enough to just cut the money off. These organizations must be debarred from receiving U.S.

00:53:44.200 taxpayer funds. You can have ostensibly another president come in in 2029 and a Congress that pulls back all of this

00:53:52.380 and says, you know what, we'll go on funding al-Qaeda again. Not saying that's going to happen, but there has to be a

00:53:56.840 permanent fix to that. And we're working on it in Washington to see. The last thing that I would ask people to be on the

00:54:02.340 lookout for is the coverage that Middle East Forum has on the protests in Iran. If you want to get a bird's eye view, if you want to

00:54:10.480 see what's going on on the ground, if you want to understand the larger implications for this, like we talked about

00:54:14.960 with Turkey replacing Iran as the main Middle East antagonist, go to meforum.org, daily content, podcasts.

00:54:22.920 We have a lot of information that's out there. And I think that your viewers, listeners and readers and followers

00:54:27.540 on social media would find that informing to help them make decisions about the way that American policy is being

00:54:33.160 carried out in the Middle East. Wonderful. What a substantive, informative conversation, unlike many of the 1.00

00:54:39.560 conversations that we are exposed to on, you know, rapid fire television. Thank you so much for coming

00:54:45.680 on the show, Greg. Stay on the line so we can say goodbye offline and come back perhaps when your book

00:54:51.420 is released. Thank you, Guy. Cheers.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - January 09, 2026

Gregg Roman-Executive Director, Middle East Forum- Iran, Israel, & Immigration (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_953)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript