TRIGGERnometry - DEBATE： Has Trump Surrendered To Iran？ - Melanie Phillips

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00:01:00.000 Trump is giving Iran the ability to become again the great threat to the region and to the world. 0.56

00:01:10.580 You don't negotiate with people who believe they are put on earth by God to destroy America. 0.93

00:01:16.500 This is an Islamist war against the West. It cannot be lost. If it's lost, the West is lost. 0.97

00:01:22.740 They're not building intercontinental ballistic missiles because they want to hit Israel.

00:01:26.800 They're doing it for America.

00:01:28.980 So what would you have Trump do?

00:01:30.640 If you go to war, you have to do it properly.

00:01:32.480 When you say properly, it's a euphemism for putting boots on the ground.

00:01:36.900 Yeah. 0.57

00:01:37.180 You effectively want what happened to Nazi Germany in World War II or what happened to Japan, 0.80

00:01:41.640 because there's no other way to do that. 1.00

00:01:43.320 There has to be boots on the ground, but the boots need to be the Iranian people. 0.52

00:01:48.620 This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College. 1.00

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00:02:00.980 Melanie Phillips, welcome back to Triggernometry.

00:02:03.620 Delightful to be here again.

00:02:04.900 Well, it's wonderful to have you on.

00:02:06.560 We want to talk about the Middle East, the war with Iran,

00:02:10.160 the potential deal or not deal that may be happening.

00:02:13.220 But right as we sit here recording this,

00:02:15.900 it's only a day since Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister,

00:02:19.060 has announced that he's voluntarily, entirely voluntarily,

00:02:23.140 leaving office, almost certainly handing over to Andy Burnham. And before we get into the

00:02:28.440 Middle East stuff, we just wanted to get your perspective on what's happening here in Britain.

00:02:33.520 Well, as you say, Mr. Burnham looks like he's going to become the Prime Minister.

00:02:39.140 I think among the British public, the niceties of the British constitution aside, they are furious

00:02:45.660 that they elected somebody that they thought was going to be in power for five years,

00:02:49.880 Sir Keir Starmer, and now they find some other bloke is going to be Prime Minister,

00:02:54.220 and they didn't vote for him, and they feel a bit short-chained. So I think that's quite

00:02:57.520 dangerous for Andy Burnham. I think he's got a bit of a dilemma.

00:03:05.680 If he's going to continue with the manifesto commitments laid out by Keir Starmer and enacted

00:03:12.440 by Sir Keir Starmer's government, he's going to find himself in exactly the same position of

00:03:16.960 total unpopularity and manifest incompetence and worse that Keir Starmer found himself in.

00:03:24.120 If he decides that he wants to junk all that and do something very different,

00:03:31.120 then he's got a problem because he has no standing to do so, because that's not the agenda on which

00:03:37.320 the Labour government, or it's the Labour Party, won its stonking great majority. So he, in all

00:03:43.160 honour, he would need to call a general election very fast. And from what I read, he doesn't want

00:03:48.160 to do that. So it looks like he is, I think, probably going to fall between the two, and he's

00:03:54.760 going to tough it out. He's going to become, you know, crowned as Prime Minister, and he's going to,

00:04:01.160 I would imagine, change the agenda in certain respects from what Keir Starmer was doing,

00:04:06.640 for which he will have no mandate. And I think that's going to get him starting off on the wrong

00:04:12.100 foot as far as the public is concerned. Do you have an explanation in your head for, I mean,

00:04:17.560 Keir Starmer by metrics is literally one of the least popular prime ministers, I think the least

00:04:23.160 popular prime minister in British history, which even as someone who was never a huge fan of his,

00:04:27.920 I actually find quite difficult to understand in terms of his own performance. I get the sense

00:04:34.240 and correct me or just disagree with me if you disagree, his deep unpopularity is a product of

00:04:40.980 the reality of the country and where it's at. And the fact that to change that, you have to

00:04:46.340 drastically change direction, which we're not doing. And I extrapolate from that, that going

00:04:51.320 forward, whoever replaces him will inevitably end up in the same position or likely worse.

00:04:56.780 Yes. I mean, I think people really, really don't like being taken for mugs and being treated with

00:05:05.440 contempt. And I think that's what they thought he was doing because, you know, in answer to all

00:05:12.400 kinds of questions at different times about why is this or that going wrong and what you're going

00:05:16.920 to do about it, he, you know, he was slippery. He wouldn't answer. He refused to answer. He changed

00:05:23.200 the question. He changed the premise. And people can see this and they can't stand that. They

00:05:27.980 really can't do with that. Plus, he has a very unattractive public persona. He is very wooden.

00:05:35.440 um, and, uh, robotic. His main problem is he's not a politician. Uh, he's a lawyer. Uh, and,

00:05:43.240 um, he's not a public performer. Now, you look at Andy Burnham. He's all, he's all performance.

00:05:49.000 I mean, that's what he does, you know. I mean, you know, the, the black bomber jacket and the

00:05:53.340 black t-shirt and I'm so hip and, you know, here are my fluttering long eyelashes. I mean,

00:05:58.120 and everyone loves it. I mean, I think it's pathetic, but everyone, everyone loves it. 0.94

00:06:02.500 And there you have Keir Starmer, who's like, oh, and everyone thinks, what a complete idiot. 1.00

00:06:08.220 But he's not an idiot at all. 1.00

00:06:09.780 But he doesn't have the politician's skill at being fly. 0.99

00:06:15.000 He's not flying.

00:06:16.520 To a certain extent, that's to his credit.

00:06:18.020 The real problem is, you compare it with, I mean, I think Kimi Badenoch is doing tremendously well.

00:06:25.900 She's saddled, unfortunately, with the entire Conservative Party, for whom nobody in their right mind would vote.

00:06:30.460 So, OK, fine.

00:06:31.100 So that's her problem.

00:06:32.000 But when you look at what she is doing, she's cutting through now with the public, as far as I can see, who are really warming to her because they find her refreshingly direct, honest, straightforward.

00:06:44.440 She doesn't dissemble. She doesn't pretend that she hasn't understood the question.

00:06:49.400 She doesn't change the subject. She's very direct if necessary.

00:06:53.000 You know, she will give you, you know, wallop you between the eyes if you ask her a question that she thinks is really bad.

00:06:59.080 And people warm to that. They want politicians who actually are people of integrity and they don't find it. So you have a situation in which, you know, they will vote for these parties led by people that they despise or don't much like. And they will like somebody whose party they despise. So you have a bit of a mismatch at the moment to add to Britain's other woes.

00:07:22.360 If you look at since Brexit, I think we've had six prime ministers.

00:07:25.940 We're going to be on to a seventh pretty soon.

00:07:28.160 That, to me, is a political crisis, isn't it, Melanie?

00:07:32.240 Well, Britain is an ongoing political crisis.

00:07:34.860 Britain is an ongoing crisis.

00:07:36.880 Britain is a society which is basically going down fast.

00:07:41.500 And it's been going down for many years,

00:07:44.700 which I've been charting for many years because I've been around for a while.

00:07:47.860 you know it's been going down because it's been knocking out the bedrock institutions of the

00:07:55.860 society particularly I would say its education system if your education system which is all

00:08:02.540 about transmitting a culture between from one generation to the next that's how you continue

00:08:07.180 the culture if you decided as I recall back in the whenever it was the 80s the 70s whenever it was

00:08:14.080 you decided that you can't do that because your culture really stinks.

00:08:18.100 And it's racist to do that because you can't have a hierarchy of values.

00:08:24.020 You can't say your culture is better than any other and so on.

00:08:27.140 If you turn your education system into a de-education system, then you've had it.

00:08:31.660 Because, you know, you're going to produce what we've ended up with, 0.76

00:08:35.840 which is young people who are now middle-aged people who know nothing and can't think for themselves. 0.85

00:08:41.580 plus the fact that, you know, there was an onslaught on the traditional family and an

00:08:47.940 onslaught on the very idea of the nation itself. So, nobody, you know, everyone thinks it's a big

00:08:52.320 joke of the idea of fighting for it and so on. This is all a society in decline.

00:09:00.420 And then you have this tremendous allied issue of mass immigration. You know, you have a society

00:09:06.540 it's hollowed itself out, and it's then, you know, easy meat for a culture to come in and say,

00:09:13.940 actually, you know, we've actually now got an opportunity to take this over, 0.85

00:09:20.400 which is basically radical Islam. And so you have this building issue, this erosion on one hand,

00:09:28.560 of a society that won't defend itself, won't promote itself, creates a kind of vacuum, 0.93

00:09:32.660 into which is marching Islamic radicalism. Okay, many, many Muslims in Britain are absolutely fine. 0.92

00:09:41.500 They've signed up to the whole Western thing, but we know that there's a very large number 1.00

00:09:46.160 who are not doing, who do not want to do that and want Britain to adapt to Islam rather than 0.74

00:09:51.680 the other way around. But they see their opportunity and they are marching in, 0.91

00:09:56.060 demanding more and more that Britain should adapt to Islam. And the British people can see 0.99

00:10:03.560 that all the arms of the state, the government, politicians across parties, and the whole

00:10:10.780 cultural elite are not only refusing to draw red lines, cultural red lines, but are coming down

00:10:19.080 like a ton of bricks on anyone who stands up and calls attention to this and defames them as being 0.75

00:10:25.340 you know, Islamophobic, racist, fascist, and so on. And so the people are at boiling point. We can

00:10:30.060 see it, you know, in various things that have happened on the streets. And this is a very

00:10:35.280 dangerous situation. And you have virtually entire political class, which is saying,

00:10:40.280 we're not going to go there, which is making it far worse. So this is what Mr. Burnham is going

00:10:45.100 to inherit. And he is going to be the head of a party, which, among other things, no longer knows

00:10:53.080 what it is. You know, the Labour Party came into being as the political arm of the trade union

00:10:59.280 movement, as the political arm of the working people of Britain. It then had a kind of

00:11:05.380 transmogrification and has become the party of the intellectual elites, of the intelligentsia,

00:11:10.840 the university-educated people. And consequently, you know, non-educated to high-level people

00:11:18.420 have been left high and dry because the agenda of the intellectual elites is to despise the

00:11:26.340 nation-state, to despise the West, to despise Britain, and to want liberal universalism,

00:11:31.400 transnationalism, and so on. So that's Labour having abandoned the people. And then you have

00:11:36.840 the Conservative Party, which never was very good at thinking about anything at all, 1.00

00:11:42.560 being composed traditionally of extremely stupid people. 1.00

00:11:47.060 And then, you know, it just saw this great sort of cultural change coming at it. 1.00

00:11:52.460 And it decided to throw in the towel.

00:11:55.140 It said it couldn't stand up against it.

00:11:57.580 Nobody could stand up against it.

00:11:59.040 You couldn't stand up against cultural change.

00:12:01.640 And they bought into it over successive conservative prime ministers,

00:12:07.360 successive conservative administrations.

00:12:10.180 So the people were literally abandoned.

00:12:12.320 This is what Mr. Burnham, if he becomes Prime Minister, is going to inherit.

00:12:17.340 Now, this would test anybody.

00:12:21.200 Does one have confidence that Mr. Burnham is such a statesman

00:12:26.500 that he is going to stand back and meet these challenges?

00:12:30.500 I have to say, and I may be being very uncharitable,

00:12:34.400 but I'm not holding my breath.

00:12:36.320 He likes Oasis.

00:12:38.040 Well, I suppose that's all that matters, really.

00:12:41.780 I actually think it's a good point to move on to the Middle East.

00:12:47.200 Melanie, thank you for that.

00:12:48.720 There's one thing that I wanted to mention because...

00:12:50.880 What other bands does he like?

00:12:52.140 Yeah, Stone Roses, but let's not focus on that.

00:12:55.380 But there is one thing that you were talking about,

00:12:57.200 no political party wants to go there.

00:12:59.260 I would put it to you, Melanie,

00:13:00.320 that there is one political party who wants to go there

00:13:02.500 and they're called Restore and they've got 7% in Makerfield.

00:13:05.500 Yes, this is true.

00:13:07.220 When I say no political party,

00:13:09.440 I meant no respectable political party.

00:13:11.780 I'm at no mainstream political party.

00:13:14.100 It's true.

00:13:15.140 What I described to you just now

00:13:17.560 has produced an insurrectionist tendency,

00:13:21.480 which once was Nigel Farage.

00:13:24.420 And then he stopped being the insurrectionist

00:13:26.240 because he's now got his own insurrection,

00:13:27.940 which is Restore.

00:13:29.140 And that's another story

00:13:30.220 why Nigel Farage is no longer

00:13:33.060 the kind of go-to person

00:13:34.580 for people who say

00:13:37.220 the entire political establishment has failed us.

00:13:39.360 Why do you think that Nigel Farage has that insurrection on his hands?

00:13:43.320 Because I hear people saying Nigel Farage has become the establishment.

00:13:47.820 And I mean, I pay fairly close attention to political discourse in this country.

00:13:56.280 He doesn't appear to me to have massively changed any of his opinions, as far as I can tell.

00:14:01.480 You clearly disagree, but I guess perhaps challenge me on this too.

00:14:05.720 My sense is the general election is far away.

00:14:08.520 people are desperate for change. And so the longer there is no change, the more extreme

00:14:14.220 the rhetoric needs to be to satisfy the urge is kind of my perspective on it. You clearly feel

00:14:19.400 different. Well, I don't know. I think there is a very ugly mood that's building in the public.

00:14:27.100 And I think that Restore is meeting that ugly mood with ugly rhetoric of its own,

00:14:31.700 which I think is whipping it up. But why is it building?

00:14:35.260 Because people are getting so furious.

00:14:38.160 But then I think we probably agree then.

00:14:40.300 Yeah, but Nigel Farage,

00:14:42.380 he is the most consequential politician

00:14:44.380 since Mrs Thatcher.

00:14:49.020 Arguably even more so than her in some respects.

00:14:52.960 And he was, and to a large extent still is,

00:14:56.860 the go-to guy for standing up

00:14:59.820 against the political mainstream

00:15:02.000 and saying, I am in tune with the public of thinking.

00:15:06.220 And to a very large extent, that is true. But I think people have picked up two things. First of

00:15:14.640 all, on a couple of issues, and I can't now recall which ones, but they were certainly,

00:15:20.460 I think one of them at least was a welfare issue. He changed his position. And he changed it,

00:15:25.920 it would appear, in order to appeal to a section of the population that he hadn't been appealing

00:15:32.120 to. And that's death. Because this is a guy who was supposed never to do that. And people, I could

00:15:37.880 hear it, people immediately said, oh, he's just like the others, isn't he? You can't do that.

00:15:43.180 You know, Nigel Farage's unique selling point is, that's what I think, and I'm not changing it for

00:15:49.040 anybody. That's why people like him. I know what you're talking about, because I think the issue

00:15:52.940 is essentially, Nigel Farage is a thatterite. He wants a small government. And he's won a lot of

00:15:59.960 people in the red wall who want big government. Just putting it very generalized and bluntly.

00:16:05.100 Right, right.

00:16:05.620 And I guess what you are pointing to is a lot of people see that as a typical politician move.

00:16:10.820 Exactly, exactly. And the second point is this, that on this tremendously important issue of

00:16:15.860 Islamization, which is so neuralgic and so dangerous for any politician to get into, 0.60

00:16:22.200 I think, and I've thought this for a long time, he's flinched. He's flinched. Because I can feel 1.00

00:16:29.800 I mean, I saw him once saying, you know, there's a lot of Muslims in the world.

00:16:34.640 We've got to work out how to ride this.

00:16:37.060 And I thought, oh, dear.

00:16:38.720 I mean, it's very difficult how to ride this because you've got to be very careful. 1.00

00:16:43.000 You know, you've got a lot of Muslims in the country who are fine, but an awful lot who 1.00

00:16:47.820 are not fine. 1.00

00:16:48.780 And it seems to me pretty obvious.

00:16:50.420 There are certain red lines you lay down. 0.92

00:16:54.040 And, you know, every minority in the country has to basically live within those red lines. 1.00

00:16:59.220 and every minority has done, except for this section of the Muslim world. And so, you have 1.00

00:17:04.840 to lay down those red lines. Now, he hasn't done that, as far as I know. And that's what he needed

00:17:10.300 to do. So, people are listening for him to say this, and he's not said it. Along comes Restore,

00:17:18.580 and it's saying, I think, really terrible things. You know, it's raising a question. Are they

00:17:27.400 talking about throwing out not just foreign nationals who are doing terrible things? Are

00:17:34.380 they talking about throwing out British citizens? Answer, no, of course we're not, but they've

00:17:39.840 talked about dual nationals. Well, to me, that is throwing out British citizens. So this is extreme 0.99

00:17:45.460 stuff, but the people who are looking to Nigel to say, here's the red line, are not hearing that.

00:17:52.220 They're hearing Restore saying, we're going to throw them all out. And because of the mood in

00:17:56.340 the country. They're saying, yeah, he's now our guy. I think this is fantastically dangerous,

00:18:01.600 because I think that the people that Restore has accrued to itself, not necessarily its leader,

00:18:08.020 about whom I don't have a very strong view. I know he fell out badly with Nigel Farage,

00:18:13.120 but the party has attracted some extremely unsavory individuals. So has reform, actually,

00:18:21.680 and it hasn't really got to grips yet with weeding everybody out as much as it should.

00:18:27.440 But Restore is, you know, there are many more who are more objectionable.

00:18:33.680 But unfortunately, because the rhetoric is more akin to what people want to hear,

00:18:41.480 because they're not hearing it, even from Nigel Farage, they've been gravitating towards Restore.

00:18:46.800 I think Nigel Farage can pull that back by laying down red lines. My final point, however, is I'm not sure whether that's really how he thinks. You say he's a kind of unreconstructed Thatcherite, and that's really how I've always thought of him, as an unreconstructed Thatcherite who has a thing about mass immigration and stopping the boats.

00:19:09.760 But unreconstructed Thatcherite doesn't fill me with a great deal of enthusiasm, quite frankly,

00:19:14.060 because unreconstructed Thatcherites think in terms of economics. They think in terms of the

00:19:18.220 market, the free market. I mean, no, that's partly why we are where we are, because people have

00:19:23.900 forgotten what it takes to make a society in which we look after each other. And again, I don't hear

00:19:32.240 that from Nigel Farage. I may be doing him a great disservice. But people are listening for this.

00:19:37.580 they're listening, and they're not getting it. So, I think that's partly why the shine has

00:19:42.640 kind of come off him. I think he can put the shine back on, but it requires some really kind

00:19:48.560 of strategic thinking or strategic rethink about why he's kind of losing ground. I think he can

00:19:55.840 make up that ground because he has to stand on ground which is basically decent and responsible

00:20:03.420 and proportionate. And I think he can do that. But it's a narrow line that he has to tread.

00:20:12.900 I have people in my life who depend on me. Most of you listening do too. And if you're honest

00:20:17.900 with yourself, you've probably had that moment where you think, what happens to them if I'm not

00:20:22.520 around tomorrow? It's not a fun question, but ignoring it does not make it go away. This is

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00:21:03.860 Application times vary, rates may vary. And moving on, we're going to talk about

00:21:10.260 the Middle East. So you have been a very, well, at the start of the war with Iran,

00:21:15.600 you were very in favor of it. And you thought at the beginning, reading your subset, which is

00:21:20.640 excellent that actually the americans and the israelis they were there was some massive wins

00:21:28.960 let's just put it like that and then as it's progressed you become more and more critical

00:21:33.660 why is that melanie uh well um because america i.e president trump uh turned on a dime and went

00:21:43.600 the other way. He basically gave up. As far as I can see, he's the only American president ever

00:21:54.700 to have gone to war against the Iranian regime, which I think is good. It's taken America 47 0.93

00:22:01.080 years to do so. 47 years ago, the Iranian regime came to power and declared war on America. And 0.98

00:22:08.280 in the intervening decades has killed hundreds, if not more than hundreds, of Americans and

00:22:14.480 injured many more, attacked endlessly American interests. And at every stage, America and the

00:22:21.760 West have said, nothing to see here, move along. And some of us said over many, many years,

00:22:29.040 the Iranian regime will never stop, will never resile from its aim to, first of all, 0.94

00:22:40.240 destroy the state of Israel as a precursor to destroying America and the West. It will never 0.98

00:22:46.240 resile from that. It is already waging war. The longer it goes on, the worse the eventual war

00:22:53.900 will be for all of us. Scroll on, we get to President Trump amazingly going to war against

00:23:04.000 the regime with Israel. And as you say, achieving these amazing successes. But then to his obvious 0.78

00:23:13.200 horror, the Iranian regime having taken this tremendous punishment, it lost its air force,

00:23:20.180 It lost all its air defences. Its navy was at the bottom of the sea. Numerous nuclear scientists

00:23:32.380 were killed. Much of its nuclear program was reduced to rubble and buried underground by

00:23:39.060 bombing. It lost large numbers of its ruling IRGC people and others who were killed. By any

00:23:49.380 conventional standards. It was on the ropes. It should have said, okay, that's it. But it didn't.

00:23:55.560 It said, we are continuing. And here we are. We're going to, we have now taken the Strait of Hormuz.

00:24:00.920 And everybody went, oh, where did that come from? I mean, how stupid is that? But anyway. 1.00

00:24:06.700 So President Trump looked at that and said various things. He said, we're going to take

00:24:12.280 the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to bomb Haag Island. We're going to do this. We're going to 0.76

00:24:15.460 You know, that is like King Lear, isn't it? 0.80

00:24:17.080 You know, I will do such things on the blasted heath.

00:24:21.340 And of course, he didn't do any of them

00:24:22.840 because presumably his generals came along

00:24:25.080 and said, sir, we can take Kharg Island,

00:24:29.080 but it's going to take boots on the ground

00:24:31.220 and blood in the water.

00:24:33.240 And he said, I'm not doing that.

00:24:35.580 He wanted a war done in three or four weeks. 0.60

00:24:39.500 The Israelis, I have to say, as a caveat,

00:24:42.820 I don't know whether this is absolutely true because I only know what I'm reading and what

00:24:48.160 I'm hearing. I'm trying to form a conclusion based on reading very widely, listening to a lot of

00:24:54.040 people. What I'm reading, what I've read, is that the Israelis said to him right at the beginning,

00:25:00.340 in our view, the only way to neutralize the Iranian regime is to take them out.

00:25:06.820 And we can only do that with a war that lasts a year.

00:25:12.320 And which Trump said, you've got to be kidding me.

00:25:15.800 No way.

00:25:16.920 Three weeks, four weeks, max.

00:25:19.720 And the Israelis said, well, then you can't do this.

00:25:22.780 But we will adapt to whatever you want to do. 0.90

00:25:25.860 And so they did what they did.

00:25:27.600 So along comes, you know, they've done what they've done.

00:25:31.500 They've made these amazing gains. 0.97

00:25:33.840 the Iranians still have a Khag Island and they have America by the throat. 1.00

00:25:39.380 Now, what do you do? If you're Trump, you say, oh, we've won. That's it. That's it. Let's have 0.99

00:25:48.740 a negotiation now about the terms of winning. Excuse me? He had said, you know, they have

00:25:59.820 absolutely surrendered. They are begging for a deal. Well, which is it? Which is it? Have they

00:26:06.660 surrendered? Or if they've surrendered, it's not a deal. If they've surrendered, why is there a

00:26:12.140 negotiation? What is there to negotiate if it's an absolute surrender? None of it made any sense.

00:26:18.000 It was all total rubbish. The bottom line was, it's quite clear, he wanted out. He wanted an 0.98

00:26:25.500 into it. And he wanted to be able to say, we've won. And consequently, they're now giving them

00:26:31.500 everything in this famous memorandum of understanding, which is not a deal. It ushers

00:26:38.460 in 60 days of negotiation. What is there to negotiate? You don't negotiate with people who

00:26:43.920 believe they are put on earth by God to destroy America. America doesn't negotiate with those

00:26:49.460 people. It's non-negotiable. So, you have this ludicrous situation, and he has to find a

00:26:57.520 scapegoat, and his scapegoat is Israel, because there is this complication in Lebanon. Now,

00:27:04.300 people in Britain have very little idea about the relationship of Lebanon to all of this.

00:27:09.160 They have very little idea because the media never tells them anything that is important

00:27:14.360 to know about this whole Iranian war. But Lebanon is very important because Lebanon houses the

00:27:22.920 Hezbollah, which is the proxy army of Iran. Hezbollah is an unwanted guest in Lebanon, 0.84

00:27:30.580 but nevertheless has established itself as such a powerful force it can't be easily dislodged. 0.58

00:27:35.880 From Lebanon, the Hezbollah has, over many, many years, been firing missiles into northern Israel,

00:27:42.720 potentially causing northern Israel to become depopulated. So scroll on and we get to a cease

00:27:52.560 fire in Lebanon. A couple of weeks ago, was it? Something like that. And the Hezbollah behave as

00:28:01.800 Iran and the Hezbollah always behave when they sign or when they agree to a cease fire. They 0.96

00:28:06.840 ignore it. They ignore it. A ceasefire is merely a means of weakening the other side, and they just

00:28:13.000 ignore it. So they continue to fire missiles at Israel in the last couple of weeks, and they

00:28:19.920 continue to attack Israeli troops, and they kill five Israeli soldiers. I think it was last week.

00:28:27.460 None of this is reported in Britain. Instead, Israel says, we've got to fight back.

00:28:36.840 And President Trump says, you're not going to fight back, because if you fight back,

00:28:41.420 the Iranians are telling me that in order for my deal to be done, you've got to come out of Lebanon.

00:28:48.080 And the Israelis say, sorry, we can't do that.

00:28:50.280 In the British media, this is Israel breaking the ceasefire and being aggressive.

00:28:56.980 Now, this is wicked, wicked stuff, in my view, and greatly adds to the fact that

00:29:05.200 for an unpleasant number of British people, they really do believe Israel is the aggressor in the

00:29:11.880 region. And that's another issue, but it's related. They just don't know what's going on.

00:29:17.180 So you have a situation where President Trump is using the Israelis as the scapegoat to explain

00:29:23.980 why Iran is not cooperating. Otherwise, they would just be all friends together.

00:29:33.200 This is ludicrous and it's tremendously dangerous because everybody with half a brain and some 0.95

00:29:40.080 knowledge of what's going on, including the Gulf states who are inclined to be the great allies of 0.91

00:29:49.320 the West against Iran, are looking on in absolute horror. They know exactly what's happening here,

00:29:56.260 that Iran is being allowed by America to reconstitute itself as a power in the region 0.55

00:30:03.560 and in the world. And they are absolutely in the firing line because Iran has been 0.92

00:30:08.300 chucking the ballistic missiles at them as well. So they are horrified. They can see what's

00:30:14.460 happening. They can see that Trump is giving Iran the ability to become again the great threat to 0.89

00:30:23.560 the region and to the world. And it is beyond tragic and infuriating that so many people in

00:30:33.200 Britain can't see this. Melanie, hold on a second. I mean, let me give a wide perspective

00:30:41.640 of where we come on this issue from and how we've covered this over time. Because I think we may

00:30:47.920 find that we very rarely, but we disagree profoundly on this issue for reasons I'll

00:30:52.740 articulate and then we'll get into it. So when the 12-day war happened, bombing Iranian nuclear

00:30:58.600 facilities, wonderful. Francis and I were completely in favor of this. Iran shouldn't 1.00

00:31:02.480 get a nuclear weapon. Wonderful. When this conflict started, we were in the US and we were

00:31:09.000 talking to all kinds of people on the show, people who were for it, people who were against it,

00:31:13.400 and hearing the explanations. And we were also talking to people off the air, people who work

00:31:18.360 administration, people who know how these decisions were made. And at that point, Francis

00:31:25.060 and I, I think it's fair to say, shifted our perspective on this whole issue. And for one

00:31:29.980 reason, which was that we were persuaded by arguments that were made by people like Robert

00:31:36.780 Pape on our show, who explained that basically this situation that we currently find ourselves in

00:31:43.380 was inevitable. And it was inevitable because of what he calls the escalation trap.

00:31:48.360 which is essentially that no matter how much the United States raises the stakes, 1.00

00:31:54.360 the Iranians have an ability to inflict more damage that the US cares about more 0.87

00:32:01.520 than they care about the damage that's been inflicted on them. 0.99

00:32:04.380 In other words, if you put boots on the ground on Karg Island, then you lose 300 Marines.

00:32:09.540 Well, that's bad enough for an American audience, for an American public that's very tired of war,

00:32:15.900 let's be honest, after Iraq and Afghanistan. 0.89

00:32:18.000 but then the iranians will retaliate by destroying desalination plants in the middle east and doing

00:32:25.220 other things that are much more damaging um and of course keeping the strait closed and so robert

00:32:31.180 pape's argument and we were persuaded by you know people talk about audience capture like our

00:32:35.900 audience didn't like us having that conversation but we just look at the logic of people's arguments

00:32:40.400 and his argument made more sense and interestingly patia ungasag on who we love and respect that we

00:32:45.980 had on the show. She came on saying how we're all wrong. Robert Pape is wrong. She's now done a

00:32:50.720 mayor on her show saying, actually, you guys were right about this. She was messaging me about this

00:32:55.400 the other day. Sorry that it's taken a long time. What I'm trying to lay out to you is this.

00:33:00.020 What would you have Trump do? What's he supposed to do? Escalate further? Put boots on the ground?

00:33:04.700 OK, fine. Let's say we do that. Robert Pape's argument is the moment you do that, it becomes 0.97

00:33:09.260 for Iran not just a war of survival of the regime, but a war of survival. Right. In which case they

00:33:14.660 go harder. They do more damage. And now, final point, the global economy has pretended to absorb

00:33:23.680 the shock when it comes to oil, fertilizer, and all these other things quite well, mainly because

00:33:28.100 we've run down our stockpiles of these things. This goes on any longer. The global economy is

00:33:33.700 really going to suffer. And final, final, final point, the midterms. When we had Ted Cruz on our

00:33:39.080 show during that America trip, he said, look, if we're still talking about this when the midterms

00:33:43.760 come around, we have failed very badly. And that timeline, and I thought at the time,

00:33:51.940 if the Iranians know that you worry about the midterms, they will hold out until the midterms, 0.99

00:33:57.500 and then you're screwed, and then you can't do anything. So what would you have Trump do? 0.98

00:34:01.060 Okay, so the bottom line is this. If you follow the Robert Pape argument,

00:34:10.260 and many make a similar kind of argument,

00:34:14.540 you're basically saying there is nothing that can be done against Iran

00:34:20.320 because it will always have the upper hand. 0.99

00:34:24.100 And so what follows from that?

00:34:26.060 You have to negotiate.

00:34:27.620 No, no, no.

00:34:28.200 No, no, no. 0.57

00:34:28.820 There's no negotiation with Iran. 1.00

00:34:30.560 They will always win. 0.97

00:34:31.640 They will always win in negotiation for the same reason.

00:34:34.900 Sure.

00:34:35.800 We all know they will take pain and we won't.

00:34:40.260 So they'll win. So what the Robert Pape are saying is, that's it, we just have to put up

00:34:45.360 with it. So it'll become a nuclear power. Well, okay, okay, we'll have to deal with it.

00:34:50.060 His argument is slightly more nuanced than that, Melanie, which is his argument is,

00:34:53.900 you have to give them things that they want, so they take a very long time, but who knows if

00:34:59.040 they'll eventually get a nuclear weapon. You have to manage it over time, and it's a chronic problem

00:35:03.360 instead of an acute problem. It's been managed over 47 years.

00:35:07.040 And they don't have a nuclear weapon. 0.91

00:35:08.200 only because the Israelis put it back. But they were very nearly at it. And they were very nearly 0.98

00:35:15.560 at producing so many ballistic missiles that nobody could have challenged them as they marched

00:35:21.840 to the bomb. That was the dual thing. But it's a chancel of complete despair. It's the siren

00:35:30.200 song of appeasement. It was exactly the same in the run-up to the Second World War. People said, 0.65

00:35:36.460 we cannot take on the Nazi war machine. It is too strong. And that's why the Second World War

00:35:44.160 was as terrible as it was. Now, Iran is weak, and it's been weakened by all the things that

00:35:50.960 we've been talking about. And yet it's so strong. It's so strong that President Trump is basically

00:35:56.460 saying, have everything. How can this be? Because Iran is not strong. Iran is weak.

00:36:03.780 But Iran's strength is because America is weak, because America will not do what it takes. 0.91

00:36:09.720 President Trump will not commit for, let's say it's a year. Let's say it's a notion. That's 0.86

00:36:15.660 what the Israelis apparently said. He will not commit for a year. He will not commit boots on

00:36:19.900 the ground. He's worried about the midterms. You can't fight a war like this. It's pathetic.

00:36:24.580 It's Mickey Mouse time. So what should he do? What should he have done? Look, I'm not a military 0.99

00:36:29.700 expert. You talk about desalination plants. I'm also seeing this. I mean, I don't know what you

00:36:35.360 do about that. I've obviously no idea. But there are certain things that President Trump could

00:36:42.120 do, could have done, and could still do. Why is it that Iran is making such a business about 0.94

00:36:48.940 Lebanon? Why is Iran making it almost a condition of our even taking part in these negotiations

00:36:58.300 in Switzerland. It's a condition that Israel has to leave Lebanon. Why is it so important to them? 0.72

00:37:05.480 Because it's so important that Hezbollah remains, because Hezbollah is vital to Iran. If you

00:37:12.160 eliminate Hezbollah, then Iran is not just weakened, it's like cut off at the knees, 0.96

00:37:17.600 right? I'm not a military person, this is what I'm hearing. Now, Israel can do that.

00:37:22.820 It's very difficult, but it can do it.

00:37:25.080 But it can only do it if it has America's full-hearted support. 0.96

00:37:29.540 The reason why Israel has never been able to win its wars ever anywhere, 0.90

00:37:34.560 in Lebanon, for example, it's called mowing the grass. 0.85

00:37:38.040 All it's ever been able to do is to push it back. 0.86

00:37:40.540 In Gaza, mowing the lawn. 0.88

00:37:43.360 All it's been able to do ever is push Hamas back.

00:37:46.720 It's still there, thanks to President Trump. 0.61

00:37:48.900 It's still there, still firing, still attacking Israeli soldiers. Okay, it's much weaker,

00:37:55.020 but it's still there because America said to Israel, stop, stop. There's a bigger game here

00:38:00.700 we're playing. You're not going to get in our way. And it's saying so in Lebanon. Stop. So,

00:38:05.960 the ridiculous situation has been created by Trump, by his mismanagement of this, that

00:38:12.040 the Hezbollah is being used by Iran as leverage to separate America from Israel. 0.63

00:38:22.680 And if Trump had any kind of mental wherewithal, he would understand that the Hezbollah is his 0.57

00:38:31.640 leverage through Israel against Iran. He would be using, he would be backing to the hilt

00:38:38.900 what Israel is doing to Iran, to Hezbollah in Lebanon, not just because of Israel. And this

00:38:47.100 is a terrible thing that's coming out from J.D. Vance and all those people, that this war is

00:38:52.760 only being fought for Israel. It's ludicrous, ludicrous. The war against Iran is a war for 0.98

00:38:59.260 America and the West. Israel is its principal, well, not defender, but sort of point of attack. 0.76

00:39:07.340 by which America can attack Iran. It's a resource, a military resource, 0.80

00:39:15.740 a priceless military resource that America has. And instead, America's thrown it away

00:39:20.900 and is blaming it and is stopping it. It's stopping it from hitting Hezbollah, 0.93

00:39:26.500 which will hurt Iran, in order that Iran should stay in Switzerland and negotiate 0.82

00:39:32.640 a deal which gives Iran everything. This is crazy. This is crazy. So, I mean, this war has to be

00:39:40.780 fought properly. I don't know whether it would be able to succeed in a short space of time or

00:39:47.100 whatever. What I do know is that if you are stopping the ally on which you depend, I mean,

00:39:54.040 let's not mince words. Israeli boys have been dying for America. Israeli boys and girls are

00:40:01.520 risking their lives for America, for the war to defend America and the West.

00:40:07.960 And yet Americans like J.D. Vance are suggesting that the Israelis are just so ungrateful for what

00:40:15.680 we've done for them. Excuse me? This is a war for the West. This is an Islamist war against

00:40:21.660 the West. It cannot be lost. If it's lost, the West is lost. And what Trump has done so far by 1.00

00:40:29.700 appearing to give Iran so much, by descending from a great height on America's great ally Israel

00:40:38.700 instead of using it against Iran, what he's done, which is appalling, is to diminish America in the 0.54

00:40:48.820 eyes of the entire world as a force for defending civilization. People have now rightly concluded 0.96

00:40:56.980 there is nothing that America, there is nothing that can make America risk its own people to

00:41:03.960 defend itself and therefore it's open season. It's open season for all bad people. You say

00:41:09.900 quite rightly there is this infernal calibration of pain. Iran will take infinite pain and 1.00

00:41:22.040 consequently will always be that the West will always be at a disadvantage. That is absolutely 1.00

00:41:30.880 right. And it's the same argument with the Islamists beyond Iran. So, you know, Islamists 0.89

00:41:37.480 will take, I mean, this is what they say. We love death. You love life. We win. What are we supposed 1.00

00:41:44.220 to say, the peeps, or whatever his name is, would say, well, that's right. So what do we do? Well,

00:41:52.300 we have to take pain. And because we collectively in the West have so much, we are strong. I mean,

00:41:59.160 America, you know, its firepower is infinitely greater. But if we're not prepared to take pain,

00:42:04.880 they win. It's simple as that. And that's what's happening. America is not prepared to take pain

00:42:10.000 at all. The only pain is being suffered by the Israelis, losing boys and girls. Okay, 1.00

00:42:14.900 they don't care about that. But America's not prepared to take pain, so Iran wins. 0.99

00:42:18.960 America, with its superior firepower, takes pain, is prepared to take pain, in which I don't just 0.99

00:42:23.760 mean losing its people. I mean investing in the time it takes. So if it takes a year,

00:42:29.480 if it takes 18 months, whatever. Okay, this is something that we have to win. We're in it for

00:42:34.860 the long term. Forget the midterms. They probably lost the midterms anyway. Forget the midterms.

00:42:40.000 terms, we are defending civilization here. Brackets. They never made the case to the

00:42:45.320 American people. He has never made the case to the American people. I have no idea what this is

00:42:49.660 about. Okay. So, long way of saying, long way around of saying this, you know, if you're going

00:42:56.040 to, if you're not going to fight the Islamist war against the West, if you're not going to defend 0.90

00:43:02.380 the West because you're going to say they have all the cards, then it's over. Then why are we 0.85

00:43:07.660 even discussing this? Why are they even going to Switzerland? Well, you know, let's all have a nice

00:43:12.760 life and, you know, let's be happy that they are going to get the bomb. It'll be no different from

00:43:22.500 like North Korea. We're all living with North Korea. That went well as well. So either you do 0.99

00:43:30.140 that, but if you go to war, you have to do it properly. It's not been done properly. In my view,

00:43:35.200 it can still be pulled back. It can still be pulled back. And maybe Trump will pull it back.

00:43:41.280 I resisted creatine for years because I assumed it was for people who spend three hours a day in

00:43:46.820 the gym and refer to themselves in the third person. Turns out Francis Foster was wrong on

00:43:52.180 this one. The research on creatine has moved way beyond the gym. For years, it was a preserve of

00:43:57.320 bodybuilders and sprinters. But it turns out creatine is something your body makes naturally

00:44:02.680 and uses as fuel. Not just for your muscles, but for your brain, your energy levels, your mood,

00:44:08.240 your memory. The problem is that from your 40s onwards, your body produces less and less of it

00:44:14.080 and you feel it. The slower recovery, the afternoon fog, the sense that you're running on slightly

00:44:19.780 less than you used to. Talk to anyone who actually knows this stuff and they'll tell you the same

00:44:25.020 thing. Not all creatine is equal and most of it isn't doing what you think it is. The formula

00:44:31.180 matters specifically where it actually gets into your cells and activates once it's there that's

00:44:37.780 exactly what qualia creatine plus is built around two clinically studied forms of creatine combined

00:44:44.780 with electrolytes and sea salt designed to solve the whole problem not just half of it i've just

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00:44:57.340 this way sooner. Go to qualialife.com slash trig for 50% off and use the code trig for an extra

00:45:05.580 15% on top of that. That's Q-U-A-L-I-A-L-I-E.com slash trig, code trig. Thanks to Qualia for

00:45:17.900 sponsoring the show. But Mel, when you say properly, it's a euphemism for putting boots on

00:45:25.260 the ground. Yeah, it's necessary. But it is necessary at this point, right? Because...

00:45:30.620 I don't know. Maybe, supposing America continued its blockade, okay? I was reading,

00:45:39.200 you know, it was causing Iran incredible angst because they were running out of everything,

00:45:47.280 money, food, whatever. And that's why the pressure started coming on from Qatar and

00:45:53.500 Pakistan. You must do the deal. Because those people, Qatar and Pakistan are the proxies for 1.00

00:45:59.900 Iran. So there was pain coming from Iran. They had to have movement. So if there's pain, 0.62

00:46:06.000 increase the pain. Increase the pain. Well, if there was pain of the type you described,

00:46:11.260 then that would be reflected in the negotiations. But the negotiations reflect the reality,

00:46:16.520 I would put it to you, which is the pain is disproportionately being felt by the West.

00:46:21.320 Once you have negotiation, there is no pain that they have. Once you have negotiation,

00:46:27.200 they've got you. What I'm saying is, in this negotiation, you're seeing which side is actually

00:46:32.060 winning the war. And it's not America. It's not Israel. I'm saying, by definition, once America

00:46:37.160 goes into negotiation, they've lost. Okay. But here's the problem, though. What you're really

00:46:43.400 advocating ultimately for is boots on the ground. The game theory of this is, the moment you put

00:46:50.480 boots on the ground, they up the level of violence. They start destroying your allies in the Middle 1.00

00:46:56.780 East. And then you need to put more boots on the ground on the actual Iranian coastline. You've got 0.67

00:47:01.880 these giant mountains. And you're now in a massive war of exactly the type that Russia is stuck in 0.91

00:47:08.340 in Ukraine, where you've got a powerful country fighting against a smaller but also powerful

00:47:13.160 country. And it's a giant bloodbath for years, which, by the way, will still end in a negotiation.

00:47:20.480 That's what's going to happen in Ukraine.

00:47:25.180 There's not going to be a Ukrainian flag flying over the Kremlin,

00:47:27.660 and I don't think there's going to be a Russian flag flying over the Kiev either.

00:47:31.500 Okay, but this is like J.D. Vance saying, as he heard last year,

00:47:34.760 all wars end in negotiation.

00:47:36.440 That's not true.

00:47:37.180 I mean, hello.

00:47:37.940 But Melanie, but what you're saying then is you effectively want

00:47:41.860 what happened to Nazi Germany in World War II or what happened to Japan,

00:47:45.220 because there's no other way to do this. 0.77

00:47:46.660 Yes.

00:47:47.800 Okay.

00:47:48.240 Correct.

00:47:48.540 So you want Iran to be bombed into the ground?

00:47:51.700 Not necessarily bombed.

00:47:53.220 I'm neutralized.

00:47:54.720 If it can be done through, you know, economic starvation...

00:47:58.760 It can't.

00:47:59.600 No, hang on.

00:48:01.420 By itself, no.

00:48:03.120 As we have constantly been told,

00:48:06.820 in order to get rid of the regime,

00:48:08.440 there has to be boots on the ground. 0.99

00:48:09.800 The boots need to be the Iranian people.

00:48:12.000 The Iranian people, despite the fact that Trump said,

00:48:14.740 everybody on the streets, and that was terrible.

00:48:16.700 What happened then?

00:48:17.740 That was awful.

00:48:18.120 are unforgivable, but they have to be armed, and the IRGC has to be very much more weakened,

00:48:24.940 right? But basically, to get rid of the regime, you have to have an uprising from the people.

00:48:31.280 You have some boots somewhere. So, you may need some American boots on the ground,

00:48:36.340 but you have to use these things. Again, I'm not a military person. I don't know how much would

00:48:42.840 be, how much would necessitate boots on the ground? How much would be brought about by economic

00:48:48.980 leverage? How much would be brought about by bombing? I can't tell all those things.

00:48:56.580 All I know is that you have to have the appreciation of what is required, of what the

00:49:06.660 stakes are and what your aim is. And you have to follow that through in some way.

00:49:17.380 Which has not been done because President Trump's, who knows what's in this man's mind,

00:49:26.100 but as far as I can see, what was in his mind was something much faster that he thought,

00:49:31.340 you know, he thought he would bring Iran down, he'd bring the regime to its knees and so on,

00:49:36.980 because by conventional standards he did. Nobody in the administration seems to have the faintest

00:49:44.700 idea of what they're dealing with. They haven't got the faintest idea of the ideology that they're

00:49:50.320 dealing with. I mean, when I read these remarks by J.D. Vance, I mean, I can't believe that I'm

00:49:57.160 reading the Vice President of the United States saying something so stupid. He is saying, you 1.00

00:50:01.280 know, I'm, first of all, Trump is saying it's a different regime. The regime has changed. These

00:50:08.120 guys are really nice guys. Excuse me? I mean, this is ridiculous. J.D. Vance says, you know,

00:50:15.340 you know, we're, you know, if they come on board, we're going to give them money,

00:50:20.280 and then they're going to invest that money in American farmers. They're going to buy

00:50:26.880 American farm produce with the money we will release them. What? We wanted to make sure that

00:50:32.500 we set up a process where if, if we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that those, that

00:50:40.380 that money, that Iranian money goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism. So

00:50:45.860 Jared Kushner actually came up with a, with a very interesting solution with the Qataris,

00:50:51.160 where basically, again, if there is any frozen Iranian assets that are unfrozen,

00:50:58.440 then we have approval over that process.

00:51:01.120 The Qataris have approval over that process.

00:51:03.300 And then the money would actually go to buy American soy, American corn, and American wheat

00:51:10.260 for the benefit of the Iranian people.

00:51:12.460 And if Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, 0.69

00:51:15.660 they're going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed the Iranian people.

00:51:21.680 That's a very, very good and very classic Trump deal that's great for our people,

00:51:26.500 great for the people of Iran, and fundamentally, again, will contribute to this regional security

00:51:31.520 architecture that we've built and that we're going to work very hard to ensure that it endures.

00:51:37.160 What are they talking about? They seem to have no idea that what they're dealing with

00:51:42.040 is apocalyptic messianists who believe that if they bring about the apocalypse on earth,

00:51:50.100 they will bring into being the Shia messiah, the 12th imam. That's what they believe. 0.96

00:51:58.840 And they're negotiating with these people? What do they think they're negotiating?

00:52:03.920 The negotiation means, from the Iranian point of view, we're just using this as another tool. 0.63

00:52:11.240 So they have no idea what they're dealing with.

00:52:13.720 They seem to have no memory of the, to me, infamous JCPOA negotiations,

00:52:21.980 which led to the JCPOA, the nuclear deal brokered by Obama in 2015.

00:52:27.860 I remember those negotiations.

00:52:30.120 I remember what the West was saying.

00:52:31.680 I remember what the British Foreign Secretary at the time said to me.

00:52:35.500 We're stopping them getting the bomb.

00:52:37.240 And I said, but it's written in the sunset clause. They will get the bomb. You are giving them the

00:52:44.440 bomb. No, no, they're not going to get the bomb. It's like, whoa. I mean, there it is. They're

00:52:52.500 giving them the bomb after whatever it is, 12 years, 15 years. And we're being told they're

00:52:57.380 not going to get the bomb. I'm hearing the same thing with Trump. We've won. They've surrendered.

00:53:01.040 and so we're negotiating. It's ridiculous. So, yes, I do see it as like Nazi Germany and Japan. 0.89

00:53:10.420 I do see it like that. It has to be a proper defeat, which would be complicated, 0.95

00:53:20.380 difficult, costly, and take time. But if you don't have the mental, psychological,

00:53:31.160 political resilience to follow through, then it's worse and useless. Because what's happened, 0.50

00:53:39.540 when I say worse and useless, what's happened is America's advertised its impotence,

00:53:42.900 and has thus potentially emboldened all the bad guys in the world, 0.85

00:53:48.160 China, Russia, North Korea, and all the Islamists all lined up,

00:53:53.640 they can all see America is a paper tiger. 0.92

00:53:55.620 It's not going to do anything. 0.98

00:53:56.340 Even this crazy guy, Trump, who bombed Iran, 0.97

00:54:00.320 he's not going to follow through. 0.98

00:54:02.680 That's terribly, terribly dangerous for everybody in the West.

00:54:06.300 So the stakes have, in my view, got much, much higher.

00:54:10.160 The problem is as well, Melanie,

00:54:11.760 is we're talking about the American population

00:54:16.160 not wanting boots on the ground. 1.00

00:54:17.920 Correct.

00:54:18.560 And you said Trump didn't explain it to them.

00:54:21.080 I think the real issue is as well,

00:54:22.720 it's one of geography.

00:54:24.160 For Israel, geographically... 0.88

00:54:26.380 For sure.

00:54:27.380 Existential, for obvious reasons.

00:54:29.720 But, you know, when you're in America,

00:54:30.840 let's say you're in California

00:54:33.680 and you're on the Pacific Ocean.

00:54:35.580 Agreed.

00:54:36.200 It seems a very long way away.

00:54:38.120 Of course, and it always was the case.

00:54:40.140 In Britain, not so much now, but when I was, you know, when I was younger, I recall people, you know, a general view about America, which was very, very disobliging.

00:54:54.800 We remember, collectively, we remember how slow they were to come on board in the First World War and the Second World War.

00:55:04.280 And then they came on like conquering heroes in the Second World War and said, we won it.

00:55:09.500 and our boys and girls were dying. And they couldn't give us, they couldn't care less.

00:55:16.140 Because exactly as you're saying, there is this isolationist tendency. It's always been in America.

00:55:21.720 It's so enormous. They think they're invulnerable. They think they're a world

00:55:25.720 entire unto themselves. You can kind of understand it. And it's only when something

00:55:32.700 really cataclysmic happens to them, Pearl Harbor. Without Pearl Harbor, they wouldn't have got

00:55:38.340 involved at all. Europe would have been left to the tender mercies of. 9-11, they woke up and then

00:55:47.240 they went back to sleep again because of the apparent disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq,

00:55:55.700 the Iraq War. So you can understand why they retreated. But since then,

00:56:01.340 you know any responsible president would have told them you know if you're going to war

00:56:11.980 it's no small thing to put it mildly and you have to prepare your people you have to take

00:56:19.080 your people with you you have to tell them why this is America's war why is it America's war

00:56:24.800 Because Iran declared war on America in 1979 and has waged war ever since. It has killed 0.79

00:56:32.360 hundreds and hundreds of Americans. What more evidence does anybody need? It says death to

00:56:38.820 America. It means it. It is trying to build intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would

00:56:44.760 be tipped with, even if it's not tipped with nuclear weapons, which could reach America.

00:56:49.840 they already almost reached Diego Garcia, we saw. They're almost there. They're not building

00:56:57.180 intercontinental ballistic missiles because they want to hit Israel. They're doing it for America. 0.51

00:57:03.460 People don't believe that they think they can destroy America because they know that America

00:57:10.900 won't fight. That's why they think they can destroy it. But they're building the armory.

00:57:16.380 That's what, I mean, what more does America need?

00:57:19.960 But Americans have never been told this.

00:57:24.200 I mean, you know, Americans have lost hundreds and hundreds of their service people.

00:57:29.760 They've been totally humiliated.

00:57:31.280 You know, the taking of the Iranian hostages, Iran's taking of the hostages, which was the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency.

00:57:43.420 it's all there in their immediate past history. But a responsible president would have pulled

00:57:51.560 this together and said, because circumstances have now become as they are, we now think through

00:57:58.340 our intelligence and through our allies' intelligence, i.e. Israel, that they are

00:58:04.540 within spitting distance of getting a nuclear weapon. And even more important, they are about 0.95

00:58:10.800 to have the capacity through missile production,

00:58:14.520 which means that we could never stop them getting a nuclear weapon.

00:58:17.140 So we now judge this is the moment when we have to act.

00:58:22.920 Because they are not just a threat to us,

00:58:26.380 they have been at war with us for more than four decades.

00:58:31.220 That's what he should have said. 0.72

00:58:33.120 But isn't the problem, we go back 23 years to 2003 WMD, 0.70

00:58:39.520 where essentially the American public felt, and they were right, that they were light. 0.61

00:58:46.300 And once that happened, that has a dementing effect on politics, on public discourse.

00:58:52.840 Agreed. Agreed. I mean, I have a different view about the Iraq war. I'm probably the last person

00:58:59.200 on earth to think that it was a correct war to fight, and that if it hadn't been fought, 0.75

00:59:03.660 we'd have now Saddam Hussein as a nuclear power. But anyway, and also I believe that 0.85

00:59:09.460 there were WMD, and I believe that American incompetence lost them. It lost them, and it

00:59:15.200 couldn't admit it. But that's neither here nor there. What you're saying is correct. It was a

00:59:20.860 debacle. Americans believed that they had fought it for nothing, and that it was a terrible mistake.

00:59:29.300 It was hubris and nemesis. The hubris was to say, we'll bring democracy to the Middle East,

00:59:35.960 and then everything is going to be great.

00:59:37.540 I would argue, sorry to interrupt, Melanie,

00:59:38.880 that it's worse than that.

00:59:39.900 When you talk to a lot of Americans,

00:59:42.100 they go, we were lied to.

00:59:43.940 I know they believe they were lied to.

00:59:46.500 And Britain believes, you know, Blair lied, people died.

00:59:49.820 I know that's a belief.

00:59:51.360 It's absolutely corrosive.

00:59:52.920 Okay, so then what follows?

00:59:54.960 You know, so we'll never be involved

00:59:56.500 in the Middle East ever again. 1.00

00:59:57.800 That's really smart. 0.99

00:59:59.200 So then the Middle East says, 1.00

01:00:00.200 okay, we can take them out now. 0.99

01:00:02.200 I mean, what are they talking about?

01:00:04.440 I agree with you.

01:00:05.540 This is the problem. It requires political leadership. It requires statesmanship to say,

01:00:13.220 okay, now there is this problem that we have inherited from 2003, the debacle, but we are up 1.00

01:00:20.100 against an Islamist world which intends to conquer us because it understands our weaknesses and it 1.00

01:00:26.920 will not stop. It will not stop. It thinks it's on the cusp of winning against us and it's doing it 1.00

01:00:33.280 in all kinds of different ways, but this is one of the ways it's doing it. And so I, as the

01:00:39.640 President of America, I have to tell the people, this is what we're facing. This is statesmanship.

01:00:47.900 This is leadership. I mean, hello? Does nobody remember what this is anymore? Are people saying

01:00:56.500 that's simply impossible. In which case, cheerio, it's over.

01:01:05.720 I mean, I would argue that one of the problems is we don't have that caliber of politician.

01:01:12.340 Let's just be honest about it. That's no reason to say we shouldn't

01:01:16.080 have them. I mean, we should be demanding that we do have them.

01:01:20.900 You get the politicians you deserve, Melanie. We also need to take responsibility.

01:01:26.820 Both the British public and the American public.

01:01:29.300 You get the politicians you deserve.

01:01:30.980 Well, yes, but, you know, again, it's a council of despair.

01:01:34.220 OK, I agree with you.

01:01:35.480 We get the politicians we deserve.

01:01:37.640 The society is going to hell on a handcart. 1.00

01:01:39.740 We have rubbish politicians because it's a rubbish society. 1.00

01:01:42.540 Great. 1.00

01:01:43.100 What are we doing now, then?

01:01:44.120 Say, oh, let's go and have a beer?

01:01:47.360 What are you talking about?

01:01:48.920 We have to change it.

01:01:50.320 We have to protest.

01:01:51.200 We have to demand.

01:01:52.540 We have to say, wake up.

01:01:53.680 Most people's understanding of Western civilization comes filtered through other people's interpretations of it.

01:02:00.540 That is fine, up to a point, but it is not the same as going to the source.

01:02:05.360 And the source, as it turns out, is freely available.

01:02:08.900 Hillsdale College runs a free online course called Great Books 101 Ancient to Medieval.

01:02:13.940 It is taught by actual Hillsdale professors and it takes you through Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Augustine, Dante and Chaucer.

01:02:20.260 Not as a cultural tourism exercise, but as a genuine introduction to the arguments these works were written to make and why these arguments still hold.

01:02:29.180 You, the trigonometry audience, are not generally the type to accept the summary in place of the real thing.

01:02:34.840 The same logic applies to the books that built the West.

01:02:37.540 If you want to understand what Homer actually argued or why Augustine's thinking still underpins half of Western political philosophy,

01:02:44.500 you should read them, not a listicle about them.

01:02:47.600 This course is the right place to start.

01:02:49.860 Worth knowing is that Hillsdale is releasing a full course on Homer's Odyssey this July.

01:02:55.260 Great Books 101 is a natural place to start before that lands.

01:02:59.320 Go to hillsdale.edu slash trigger to enroll.

01:03:02.920 It's totally free.

01:03:04.400 That's hillsdale.edu slash trigger.

01:03:08.020 Look, Mel, you know how much I respect you.

01:03:10.140 We've had you on the show many times.

01:03:12.160 But the flaw in everything that you're saying that I see,

01:03:15.980 and I mean this with all sincerity and respect at the same time,

01:03:18.560 is the moment I present to you the military reality as described by someone who is a military

01:03:25.680 expert like Robert Pape, you say, well, I'm not a military expert. But ultimately, what this comes

01:03:31.340 down to is it's clear from this conflict, and it's clear from people like Robert Pape's analysis

01:03:38.420 anyway, prior to this conflict, which is why they were so against it at the beginning,

01:03:42.880 is that the only way to win this war was always going to be the Nazi Germany,

01:03:46.840 the country's in ruins scenario. 0.74

01:03:49.360 Okay.

01:03:49.940 Because you can't remove the regime

01:03:51.520 by bombing from the air.

01:03:52.980 As you correctly said,

01:03:54.440 and this is one of the things that,

01:03:55.780 you know,

01:03:56.860 I think President Trump

01:03:57.860 has done some very, very good things

01:03:59.340 for America and the world, actually.

01:04:01.120 But on this issue,

01:04:02.400 I'm horrified. 1.00

01:04:04.160 Telling Iranians to rise up 0.92

01:04:06.100 and then the cavalry doesn't arrive.

01:04:08.500 I mean, it's a terrible thing to have happened.

01:04:10.940 Agreed.

01:04:11.700 So, but the reason

01:04:13.080 all of these things are happening

01:04:14.220 is I am most persuaded by.

01:04:16.340 I can only give you my logic based on the conversations we've had at this time, is that

01:04:21.920 there was no way of overthrowing the regime by bombing, the people rising up, and even if they

01:04:27.040 were somewhat armed, also extremely unlikely. And so ultimately, you would end up putting boots on

01:04:33.180 the ground, that escalates, and you are in a full-scale 10-year war that ends inevitably like 0.58

01:04:39.120 Vietnam, right? Now, the other factor here is we're not in the position even that we were in

01:04:46.040 in 2003. The debt that our countries are all running is such that we basically can't afford

01:04:52.580 the standards of living we currently have. And so in a democratic society, none of these things

01:04:58.140 are sustainable. And therefore, I mean it again, with all respect, you strike me as being a bit

01:05:05.280 utopian here, which is very unlike the Melanie Phillips I know and love.

01:05:10.120 Well, it was utopian to think we should have, you know, fought the Nazis. People said it was

01:05:14.620 just ridiculous. You can't do it. But anyway, listen, the original war aims were not regime 0.92

01:05:21.760 change. I mean, certainly as far as the Israelis were concerned, and certainly President Trump

01:05:28.720 never said regime change. What were the goals? The Israelis said it would be very nice

01:05:33.920 if we weakened Iran to such an extent 0.99

01:05:36.620 that the people then could do this. 1.00

01:05:39.480 And we think we can.

01:05:41.000 We think we can.

01:05:41.920 But our immediate goal is to neutralize

01:05:45.680 the nuclear threat completely

01:05:48.940 and to neutralize the ballistic threat completely.

01:05:52.700 Right?

01:05:53.220 Now, they got part of the way with both of those things.

01:05:55.220 They didn't finish it.

01:05:56.000 They didn't finish it.

01:05:57.800 And also the proxies.

01:06:00.000 The proxies.

01:06:00.540 People would argue they didn't finish it

01:06:01.960 because you can't.

01:06:03.540 You can't do it from there.

01:06:04.620 I mean, the US own assessment is the missile program is still largely intact because you

01:06:10.540 can't do it from the air.

01:06:12.500 And that's why you need boots on the ground.

01:06:14.560 And that's why you get escalation.

01:06:15.980 That's why you get into a trap.

01:06:17.580 Hence, look, the difference with Nazi Germany was that this was a regime that was aggressively 0.60

01:06:27.380 expanding into our backyard. 0.61

01:06:29.720 It was destroying our allies right here. 0.99

01:06:34.120 And Britain held out long enough for A, Hitler to do something very stupid, which was invade 0.99

01:06:39.840 the Soviet Union. 0.98

01:06:40.780 There may be good reasons why he did it actually in terms of he was about to be invaded himself

01:06:44.700 and for the US to get involved in the war.

01:06:47.920 And Britain's heroic stand during the Battle of Britain is what allowed the rest of the

01:06:52.840 Western world to come together and defeat them.

01:06:55.000 But the question always was, in this situation, do we have the appetite to do what we did in World War II in this instance? 0.77

01:07:05.180 That's right.

01:07:05.780 And I don't think that it's just an equal comparison because, let's be honest, for all of us in the West, this is very, very far away.

01:07:15.220 Oh, dear.

01:07:16.820 Of course, it's far away.

01:07:18.360 That's the problem, isn't it?

01:07:20.180 It's far away. 1.00

01:07:21.220 There are Iranians in London, in Britain, who are threatening and making plots, which the British Security Service is busily trying to get on top of. 1.00

01:07:34.520 They're here. They're in Britain. They're in America. They tried to kill President Trump twice. 1.00

01:07:39.940 They tried to kill John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

01:07:43.060 They are waging war now. They're not far away.

01:07:47.540 And they're making sure through their ballistic missile program that, or trying to make sure, that they are not far away in terms of military capacity.

01:08:01.620 But, I mean, I have a different perspective because I live mainly in Israel.

01:08:10.580 And the Israelis have said throughout that they were, well, the impression they have given me, certainly, is that with America behind them, or at the very least, not stopping them, they could achieve this.

01:08:36.560 not regime change they could achieve the uh permanent defeat of iran as a threat

01:08:45.680 a military threat but they haven't finished they haven't finished the job um they've left it you

01:08:51.640 know like half done or three quarters done you don't leave a war three quarters done but the

01:08:56.060 fact is they can achieve they think what they're doing now you you've talked to people in your on

01:09:02.420 your show, and there is no shortage of people saying the kind of things that you've been talking

01:09:06.960 about. There's also no shortage of military people saying the opposite. I'm not a military

01:09:12.180 expert. I can't tell. What I do know is that it's a council of despair to say, and a surefire defeat

01:09:22.780 for Western civilization, to say this thing is just too big for us. Let me give you a counter

01:09:28.260 argument, which is the Russians are basically doing all the exact same things in Britain. 0.93

01:09:32.520 They're poisoning people on our streets. They're killing British citizens. They've done all this. 0.95

01:09:35.900 And we've been very cowardly about it nonetheless. But no one is calling for us to bomb Russia into 0.61

01:09:41.820 the ground, even though they've invaded Ukraine. Right. Because we recognize the reality that 0.98

01:09:47.980 Russia has a nuclear weapon. And that means that it. That's right. Like it. Like it or not.

01:09:52.420 It's a nuclear force. 0.93

01:09:55.020 But the Strait of Hormuz effectively has turned out to be Iran's nuclear weapon. 0.97

01:10:00.600 That they have wielded against the West so powerfully 0.94

01:10:03.840 that we don't have a counter that we're prepared to use.

01:10:07.680 But we do.

01:10:08.540 Which is what?

01:10:09.580 Because it's on the ground, which leads to escalation.

01:10:12.140 You blockade the Iranian ports. 0.69

01:10:15.900 But you're cutting off your own legs. 0.96

01:10:17.540 You use their weapon against them. 0.94

01:10:18.460 You use their weapon against them.

01:10:19.880 But they're prepared to take the pen and we aren't.

01:10:21.800 Well, they are and they aren't.

01:10:24.200 They are in the sense that they're prepared ultimately, I believe,

01:10:29.300 to sacrifice the entire country and themselves

01:10:33.020 because they're bringing about whatever.

01:10:37.080 But they also want to defeat America.

01:10:40.720 And so they want to be able to continue in order to continue to do that.

01:10:49.520 So the blockade weapon was having an effect.

01:10:56.360 They're not going to say, well, it's our role on this earth to all basically get exterminated,

01:11:10.220 and so we don't care anymore.

01:11:11.720 I mean, they are in the business of trying to destroy America and the West.

01:11:15.980 That's what they intend to do. 0.84

01:11:18.520 So I think that the American weapons of leverage

01:11:25.980 are not to be sneezed at.

01:11:31.280 It all boils down to the will to do it,

01:11:35.740 which isn't there.

01:11:37.140 If the will to do it isn't there, 0.99

01:11:39.140 then Iran wins. 1.00

01:11:45.020 Coming back to the Israelis, 1.00

01:11:47.700 they are always in the business of mowing the lawn, as I say. 1.00

01:11:56.980 And the only reason they've done that

01:11:58.540 is because the world has always stopped them

01:12:00.520 from doing what they needed to do.

01:12:02.920 Always.

01:12:03.980 And in every single, after every single war, 0.90

01:12:07.560 the world has made Israel snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 0.94

01:12:13.840 And that is just a fact. 0.66

01:12:15.700 the pressure put on Israel by America through even friendly presidents is always more or less

01:12:26.400 intense. But basically, Israel cannot be allowed to get in the way of America's perception of its

01:12:33.780 own foreign policy interests or national interests. So that's, you know, I think something to bear in

01:12:45.100 mind. But as I say, you know, living in Israel, you get a very, very different perspective because

01:12:50.800 Israel is under permanent attack from Iran. This, at the moment, through Hezbollah in Lebanon.

01:13:00.760 And, you know, the Israelis are, despite the catastrophe of October 7, where the entire

01:13:06.180 political and military upper echelons of Israel got it so terribly, terribly wrong,

01:13:13.080 Their analysis was so flawed. But that's another story. But nevertheless, you know,

01:13:19.860 they are, to put it mildly, battle-hardened. And they have always been confident that they can

01:13:28.120 literally bring Iran to its knees, the regime, if they're allowed to do so. 0.83

01:13:35.120 And instead of using that as the great weapon, and the Israelis are prepared to lay down their 0.84

01:13:40.580 lives for this and Americans are not. Okay, Israelis will do that, but they have to be 0.95

01:13:45.620 allowed to do it. And they're not. So this to me is, it's not just defeatism, it's more kind of 1.00

01:13:55.780 suicidal. Well, you say that, Melanie, but isn't, I mean, look, what you say makes perfect sense

01:14:01.960 from an Israeli perspective. It makes perfect sense. And if I were Israeli or the Israeli 0.99

01:14:06.060 Prime Minister, that's how I'd be thinking. But this is not a war for Israel. Well, hold on a

01:14:11.260 second. This is a war for America and the West. I know you say that, but what I'm trying to... 0.55

01:14:14.960 It's true. Melody, let me just explain what I'm saying, because you've got to separate these

01:14:19.540 things, right? You're saying the West doesn't allow Israel to... America doesn't allow Israel

01:14:25.400 to do what it needs to do, which is true, objectively true, from an Israeli perspective. 0.83

01:14:31.220 It doesn't allow Israel to do what Israel needs to do, but it's not random. It's not by accident.

01:14:36.840 The reason that Trump in this instance is gone to negotiations is he was always on a clock.

01:14:43.320 He's discovered that he put himself in an escalation trap in which America is not prepared

01:14:50.180 to bear the pain that it would require to quote you to let Israel do what Israel needs to do.

01:14:56.200 And there are a lot of people in America who might say, well, we understand that Israel needs

01:15:01.100 to do this and we are happy for Israel to do what Israel wants to do, but we're not prepared

01:15:07.120 to pay the cost of that because on a rational calculation, it is not worth it to us. And

01:15:14.740 I'll be honest with you, if I was sitting on a porch of my nice house in Ohio,

01:15:20.360 I would struggle to be persuaded by your argument. I really would. And that's why I think

01:15:27.100 a lot of Americans are... Because on your portion in Ohio, you would have no idea why it was

01:15:34.160 important for America. You would have no idea this is actually a war for the free world.

01:15:37.660 You would think it was simply a war for Israel. I'm not saying it's a war for Israel at all. I'm

01:15:43.260 saying Israel is the great military resource for America. To achieve what? To achieve defense

01:15:49.460 against a regime that intends to take it out. But even if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it still 0.93

01:15:56.460 wouldn't be able to take out America. Well, okay. Okay. America, if Iran were to attack America, 0.99

01:16:03.920 America would destroy Iran in a day. Yeah. Okay. But does anyone really want that to happen? No. 0.81

01:16:12.080 Well, what I'm saying is from an American perspective, the calculation might be even

01:16:16.800 as unpleasant as it is, and I don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. 0.91

01:16:20.140 we'll tolerate Iran having nuclear weapons over having to flatten the entire country to get rid 0.95

01:16:28.880 of this regime. Well, if it's prepared to tolerate Iran having a nuclear weapon, it has no idea what 0.96

01:16:34.900 it's dealing with because it's not North Korea. It is not Russia. Bad as they are and paralyzing 0.74

01:16:42.740 as they are, as we can all see, because the world can't do anything. Neither of them is an

01:16:49.960 apocalyptic messianic regime, which will use these weapons to destroy the West.

01:16:59.360 Now, people in Britain, I can see your faces. You don't believe it. Believe it. Believe it.

01:17:05.100 That's what they are. And Americans do not understand that. The British certainly,

01:17:11.180 They have no idea about it.

01:17:13.140 I first said this on national television in 2013,

01:17:17.460 and there was uproar in the studio.

01:17:19.720 Nobody can believe it.

01:17:22.780 And that's why we are where we are.

01:17:24.860 People think, oh, you're having a negotiation,

01:17:27.260 and they give you a bit, and you give them a bit,

01:17:30.120 and then everybody goes home. 0.81

01:17:33.140 You're not dealing with Russia. 0.99

01:17:34.900 You're bad as it is.

01:17:35.980 You're not dealing with North Korea, terrible as it is. 0.92

01:17:38.400 You're not dealing with China, terrible as it is.

01:17:40.440 you're dealing with something different there'll be people watching this melanie and look i have

01:17:45.420 a lot of empathy for your position who say is the reason that you're saying this because you're

01:17:51.720 terrified of iran having a nuclear weapon because it threats that it presents to israel more directly

01:17:57.960 that's because i'm a jew and everybody will say and she lives in israel and so i mean this is the 0.97

01:18:02.880 jd vance uh this is the this is the groipers this is tucker carlson that the jews only behave 0.67

01:18:09.740 as they do in their own interests 0.99

01:18:12.020 and put the rest of us at risk.

01:18:14.040 I'm not saying you're saying that,

01:18:15.740 but this is the argument that's coming at us.

01:18:17.880 No, this is not fair.

01:18:20.360 No, it is fair.

01:18:21.300 No, it's not.

01:18:21.740 It's true.

01:18:22.260 This isn't fair.

01:18:22.920 We're talking about states, right? 0.93

01:18:25.000 It's perfectly rational for the state of Israel

01:18:27.180 to pursue a foreign and military policy

01:18:29.160 that benefits the state of Israel.

01:18:30.680 And it is.

01:18:31.260 And there's nothing wrong with that.

01:18:32.980 What people are saying is

01:18:34.440 it's not necessarily the case

01:18:37.520 that the interest of Israel

01:18:38.640 and the interests of other Western countries are always aligned.

01:18:41.520 Of course not.

01:18:42.260 And so what I think Francis is saying in this instance 0.80

01:18:46.720 is that the argument that an Israeli would see it...

01:18:53.140 You say yourself, I live in Israel, I see it from a different perspective.

01:18:56.900 Of course you do. 1.00

01:18:57.800 And that's perfectly rational for an Israeli to think. 0.53

01:19:00.220 But I think this alliance is being stressed

01:19:03.440 by the fact that the interests are not perfectly aligned.

01:19:07.440 And I think that's natural in any alliance. And sometimes you come to a point where the needs and preferences of the two countries are not the same. And so when Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, that hurts America and President Trump as an individual far more than it hurts Bibi Netanyahu and the state of Israel.

01:19:25.960 And so for America and President Trump to sustain that damage to their reputation, to their political prospects, to all sorts of other things in order to benefit Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel.

01:19:38.880 That's the problem. That's where you're falling into the trap. It's not to benefit Benjamin Netanyahu. The issue of the Strait of Hormuz is that it gives Iran a weapon against the West, which is what it's fighting.

01:19:57.360 You don't seem to appreciate that it is a war against America and the West in which Israel is a very crucial element for Iran and for America. 0.65

01:20:11.040 Iran perceives correctly that Israel is the greatest threat to it because it knows that Israel will use its massive firepower against it, given half the chance.

01:20:22.700 So it's very frightened of Israel, and it will not do anything to provoke Israel hitting it, okay? 0.65

01:20:29.860 And it is undoubtedly in Israel's interests, for obvious reasons, to defeat an enemy which

01:20:36.960 threatens to wipe it off the map. We're all in agreement about that. But my point is that as a

01:20:43.340 result of that, people can't see beyond the Israel thing, and they can't see that Israel is the 0.84

01:20:49.800 essential weapon for the defense of America and the free world against Iran. They can't see it

01:20:57.640 that way around. They get hung up on the fact that, you know, it's the benefit. The Strait of

01:21:01.600 Hormuz issue doesn't hurt Israel. It hurts America. Well, actually, it doesn't hurt America as much

01:21:07.140 as it hurts Europe, but put that perhaps to one side. So, it doesn't hurt Netanyahu. So,

01:21:13.540 So, of course, Israel is not bothered, but the Strait of Hormuz is a weapon by Iran against 0.99

01:21:21.880 the free world. It's not against Israel. It's against America. 0.93

01:21:26.460 But they're using that weapon because of a war that is being fought partly for Israel.

01:21:32.100 No, it's not being fought partly for Israel. It's being fought for Israel because if Israel

01:21:38.640 were to go down, America is next. America sees Israel as its indispensable forward salient, 0.64

01:21:48.120 its unsinkable aircraft carriers, how they describe it. Israel is essential to the defense

01:21:54.680 of America and the free world. That's why America is interested in saving Israel, 0.54

01:22:00.420 not because they love Jews. Many of them do not love Jews, as we are increasingly seeing.

01:22:07.160 It's in the American national interest that Israel remains in existence and able to fight,

01:22:16.280 because it's fighting for itself, of course. But if Israel were, heaven forbid, to be obliterated, 0.72

01:22:23.760 America is then undefended in the Middle East, and America is next. We have an Islamist war 1.00

01:22:30.700 being waged against the free world in very many non-kinetic ways, in terms of cultural, whatever, 0.98

01:22:39.600 fine, but also in kinetic ways. And Iran is the tip of that scimitar, as it were. 0.93

01:22:49.280 And it's just awful to me that people just get so hung up on this idea that it's all about Israel.

01:22:59.420 To a certain extent, it is all about Israel, because if Israel were not to be there,

01:23:04.100 America is next. America depends on Israel to defend itself. This war is being fought in 0.84

01:23:11.880 defense of Israel, for Israel's own purposes, of course, to prevent itself from being annihilated. 0.85

01:23:19.260 But if Israel were annihilated, America is next, and that's why America defends Israel. 0.73

01:23:24.540 That's the only reason America defends Israel. It's not quite true, because 0.91

01:23:27.680 evangelical Christians love Israel for biblical reasons, blah, blah, blah. But nevertheless,

01:23:32.700 it's perceived to be in America's national interest. It's essential that Israel continues 1.00

01:23:38.640 to exist. It's that way around. And so, you know, yes, of course, the interests of Israel don't 1.00

01:23:49.340 completely correspond to the interests of America. No one's interests completely correspond. I mean,

01:23:54.260 the Allies in the Second World War.

01:23:56.220 Very much not the same.

01:23:57.740 But they all basically had one interest,

01:24:00.660 which was to defeat Nazi Germany. 0.90

01:24:04.220 It's the same thing. 0.96

01:24:06.800 It should be the same thing.

01:24:08.980 I think the other challenge that Israel faces

01:24:11.740 is the public perception challenge,

01:24:13.680 particularly amongst young people,

01:24:14.980 particularly in America. 0.91

01:24:16.740 Absolutely right.

01:24:18.340 Absolutely right.

01:24:19.100 Well, this is, you know,

01:24:20.520 I mean, this is,

01:24:23.320 in large measure, there are many things contributing to that. But in large measure,

01:24:31.980 it's the way in which Israel has been framed, presented, I mean, by saying framed,

01:24:40.060 presented over the last several decades by the entire establishment that creates a cultural

01:24:50.080 consensus. And the opposing view has not been advanced. Why hasn't it been advanced?

01:24:59.040 A lot of that is to do with the truly pathetic nature of Israel in trying to put its case across. 0.94

01:25:06.260 It doesn't. It doesn't. For all kinds of reasons, it doesn't. And Jewish communities in the West 0.98

01:25:12.780 have not put it either, partly because they're frightened, they've always been frightened, 0.94

01:25:16.820 and partly because they themselves are ignorant or signed up to ideologies that hate Israel. 0.60

01:25:22.840 But basically, you have a whole apparatus, which is the apparatus which passes for conscience now 0.95

01:25:30.360 in the West. You know, this is basically, okay, America is religious still. But nevertheless,

01:25:35.620 in Europe, in particular, Britain and Europe, you know, these are post-religious societies. 0.59

01:25:41.760 and the nearest thing you have to morality and conscience

01:25:44.920 is the whole humanitarian, human rights establishment,

01:25:49.540 UN, United Nations,

01:25:51.660 which stands for peace and justice on Earth

01:25:53.920 and all its satellite bodies and its courts

01:25:57.580 and the International Criminal Court

01:25:59.520 and the International Court of Justice

01:26:00.900 and the European Court of Human Rights

01:26:03.220 and the whole human rights establishment

01:26:04.720 and the great NGOs who stand for compassion,

01:26:09.820 delivering aid to the oppressed, standing up for the oppressed,

01:26:14.720 amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Save the Children.

01:26:20.640 You know, it's a sort of, it's almost a sort of no-brainer.

01:26:25.060 It's axiomatic.

01:26:26.640 If you are, you know, the sort of middle-aged to elderly, 1.00

01:26:31.400 grey-haired lady who has been carted off

01:26:34.800 from Palestine action support demonstrations, 0.51

01:26:39.820 You can see it in their faces. They're upstanding, they're church wardens. This is conscience.

01:26:45.500 They've been taught as a matter of conscience that Israel is diabolically evil. So, the support 0.93

01:26:55.100 of the destruction of Israel and the hatred of Israel and Israelis as diabolical, demonic,

01:27:02.180 is now what passes for conscience in the West. This is the terrible, terrible reality we're up

01:27:10.160 against. And there is nobody in public life, apart from heroic individuals or podcasts

01:27:17.840 putting the case, there is nobody actually to say, this is completely monstrous. This is

01:27:26.340 completely monstrous. This whole thing is based on a set of lies. You know, there's rampant

01:27:32.300 anti-Semitism, we can see. Jews are being murdered. Jews are being attacked in Britain, elsewhere. 0.99

01:27:40.460 There has not been a single politician to stand up and say, this whole thing that is gripping

01:27:47.520 the West against Israel and the Jews is based on a lie. And this is the lie. They won't say it. 0.74

01:27:57.160 Marco Rubio has come very close, actually.

01:27:59.020 He has come very close, but he's constrained by the fact he's, you know, he's, yes, but he has come close.

01:28:05.000 But, I mean, who in Britain thinks about Marco Rubio?

01:28:07.300 He's only, you know, a dreadful Trumpist, lickspittle, whatever. 0.80

01:28:12.400 He's part of the, you know, the axis of genocide, isn't he? 0.89

01:28:15.660 I mean, you know, but there's nobody in Britain saying it.

01:28:18.820 Yeah. 1.00

01:28:19.700 It's also Israel doesn't help itself. 1.00

01:28:22.040 Oh, it's disastrous. 0.99

01:28:23.760 having Ben Gavir

01:28:25.520 and some of the things

01:28:26.720 that he says

01:28:27.340 forget Ben Gavir

01:28:28.000 this goes back decades

01:28:29.660 they will not make the case

01:28:31.280 they will not make the case

01:28:33.500 but I'm saying

01:28:34.260 the likes of having Ben Gavir

01:28:35.440 it doesn't help

01:28:36.120 it doesn't help

01:28:37.080 because

01:28:37.440 people can just easily go

01:28:39.440 this is what he said

01:28:40.640 on a speech

01:28:41.200 how can you possibly

01:28:42.300 defend it

01:28:42.920 and then you read it

01:28:43.660 and you go

01:28:43.960 it is indefensible

01:28:44.820 well right

01:28:45.180 it's not that far

01:28:45.920 of what the Mullers are saying

01:28:46.860 right

01:28:47.240 in terms of the way

01:28:48.420 he says it

01:28:48.920 can you explain to people

01:28:50.500 when we had Netanyahu

01:28:52.220 on we challenged him

01:28:53.180 about this oh yeah and i'm aware that people like us who don't understand israeli politics very well

01:28:58.280 we try and compare british parliamentary democracy to israeli democracy so we don't quite understand

01:29:04.080 how people with very different views can be in the same cabinet etc but why do you have these like

01:29:10.340 genuinely odious people in netanyahu's cabinet because of course there are under i'm afraid

01:29:15.820 there are other genuinely odious people also who are in the cabinet because Israel is a

01:29:24.880 fundamentally politically, Israel is a political basket case. It is totally politically

01:29:32.260 dysfunctional. It depends on a system of proportional representation so extreme

01:29:39.520 that it produces major dysfunction in that it produces coalitions in which every prime minister

01:29:46.600 is absolutely dependent to gain power on awful people being with him, basically.

01:29:55.000 And what they need is political reform. But it means that Netanyahu is dependent on a whole,

01:30:03.440 forget Ben Gavir and Smotrich, although they are different from each other. They always class

01:30:08.740 together, but they are different. He's dependent on the ultra-religious, and this is another 0.99

01:30:15.980 discussion, but the ultra-religious have him over a barrel, because if they were to walk out,

01:30:22.280 he is finished. I'm not sure about Ben Gavir and Smotrishak. I mean, the whole thing is so 0.51

01:30:27.240 arcane in terms of numbers, but, you know, certainly the people that he always depends on

01:30:36.440 are the ultra-Orthodox, the ultra-religious. And to put it mildly, they do not appeal to the vast 0.98

01:30:46.100 majority of Israelis, not least because they refuse to allow their own boys to be drafted

01:30:51.980 into the army. And can you imagine? I mean, people are losing their sons and their daughters, 0.71

01:30:57.820 and these people are refusing to serve. And the Prime Minister refuses to act against them.

01:31:04.240 So, there are other examples that I could bring of a severe dysfunctionality in which

01:31:11.900 all kinds of people, people with all kinds of obnoxious agendas are in government. 0.61

01:31:18.040 Now, it is, well, you know, it's just like, you know, Israel is a scapegoat for the world. 0.61

01:31:28.240 So, you know, the Ben-Gavir's and Smotrich's are the scapegoat because they're not running 0.54

01:31:34.160 the policy. What people object to is, what people are objecting to is Jewish power. They object to 0.92

01:31:40.080 the fact that Israel is powerful. They don't think it should be powerful. I think there's

01:31:44.520 definitely some people who object to Israel being powerful, but there's also some people who just

01:31:48.440 look at a senior minister in a government saying these horrific things. But they don't know

01:31:53.720 anything else. That's all they see. Why is that all they see? Because that's what I'm afraid the

01:31:58.680 Israeli media bring out. I don't know if that's fair, Melanie. I mean, look, if someone in the

01:32:03.240 British cabinet were saying those same things, or in the American administration saying those things,

01:32:08.260 people would be horrified. And they would be rightly, I think, asking, how come this person

01:32:12.120 is there, still there, saying these things over and over? And, you know, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir,

01:32:17.840 I mean, they take a delight, clearly. Ben-Gavir does. Ben-Gavir takes a delight, at least,

01:32:23.980 in saying all these horrific things, taking these, you know, obnoxious photo opportunities,

01:32:29.760 etc. I agree. I think, you know, there's some very normal, sensible people who look at that

01:32:35.020 and are horrified without fearing Jewish power or Israeli power. But why do they use that to damn 0.95

01:32:38.660 the whole of Israel and the whole of the Israeli government and everything the Israeli government

01:32:42.480 is doing and Jews who support Israel? I'll tell you why, because... I mean, is that really rational? 0.84

01:32:47.340 There are some people who are just anti-Semitic, of course. There are some people who are anti-Israel,

01:32:51.380 of course, there are. But there's also some people who, like I said, if you're in the middle

01:32:54.740 of the Iraq war, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom stood up and said, we need to wipe

01:33:00.540 Iraqis out as a tribe or something like that. A lot of people who are not anti-British would be

01:33:05.920 like, what the fuck is going on here? Well, yes. But again, it's decontextualized. 0.99

01:33:13.900 I mean, Ben Gavir is, you know, he's a flamethrower. Terrible. But what people

01:33:20.180 always ignore is that the people he's talking about are determined to eradicate Israel.

01:33:28.340 Nobody ever mentions that. Nobody ever mentions that. If somebody in the British government

01:33:35.740 cabinet were to say, exterminate these people, everybody would say, how can they possibly have 0.75

01:33:44.640 that person in the cabinet. Okay, if somebody were to say, exterminate them, because they are 0.99

01:33:50.320 trying to exterminate us, everybody might say, well, that's, you know, that's terrible, that's

01:33:56.660 extreme, but you can see, you know, he's driven to say that by these circumstances. Nobody ever

01:34:04.160 puts this in context. Israel and its politicians are always, always presented in this country,

01:34:11.100 in Britain as aggressors, as people who don't care about human life, as people who will mow

01:34:20.860 down the innocent. And the whole of Israel is defamed by this. I think you make a good point

01:34:28.760 in that everybody in the West is sitting in the comfort of their own homes that are not being

01:34:32.960 bombarded by missiles, that are not experiencing invasions like October 7th, etc. But I do think

01:34:40.420 these far ultra-right people in the cabinet is, for reasonable people, is a separate issue,

01:34:48.840 which is, I fully appreciate, as much as anyone can without actually living through it,

01:34:54.460 that Israel is dealing with a horrific external threat. And I've said this before, 0.53

01:35:00.340 if I was the Prime Minister of Israel, I'd hope I'd be as restrained as Benjamin Netanyahu

01:35:05.120 October 7th. I don't know that I would be. Precisely. Precisely. But that does not explain

01:35:11.160 why you have these crazy people in the cabinet saying these things. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You're

01:35:16.440 right, but you're wrong. Okay. That'll be the title of the episode. I mean, I'm old enough to

01:35:25.480 remember, in 1982, Ben Gavir and Smotrich were nothing. They weren't around. And out of the

01:35:39.280 woodwork in Britain came the accusation that because the Israelis were trying to defend

01:35:44.780 themselves, probably, I can't remember now the details of that war in Lebanon. It's always a 1.00

01:35:48.900 war in Lebanon. But they were trying to defend themselves against being exterminated by these 0.99

01:35:54.120 people in Lebanon, or threatened with extermination, or attacked, blown up. Suddenly, out of the 0.51

01:36:00.640 woodwork, Israelis were called Nazis, interns. There was no spotterage. There was no Ben-Gavir.

01:36:07.860 They were Israelis. It doesn't matter who's in the Israeli cabinet. There is a strong swell of

01:36:15.760 feeling, which has been swelling and swelling and swelling in Britain and in the West, to defame

01:36:21.760 and to cast Israel as uniquely, a uniquely demonic force in the world. And that obtains as a view 0.73

01:36:34.080 and has swelled as a view, regardless of who is the prime minister, regardless of who is in the

01:36:40.460 cabinet, regardless of anything Israel is doing, if Israel tries to defend itself by killing the

01:36:46.180 enemy. That's it. They're Nazis. So, you know, don't tell me that it's because of Ben Gover and 0.82

01:36:54.080 Smotrich, loathsome as they may be. It's irrelevant. People in this country hate Israel

01:37:00.680 because they have been taught lies, defamatory lies, which have poisoned the entire atmosphere

01:37:09.580 and have basically made them lose their minds over the state of Israel. And that is a terribly

01:37:15.920 serious situation, not just because of what it means in terms of policy towards Israel or attitudes

01:37:22.760 towards Jews, but what it means about what's happened to the British mind. To the British

01:37:28.000 mind that it can no longer distinguish between truth and lies, and that its sense of morality,

01:37:33.140 its sense of conscience, has been linked to the extermination of a country for daring to defend

01:37:39.840 itself. That is a terrible thing. I'm sure you would agree. Absolutely. Of course you would.

01:37:46.680 Melanie, it's been a pleasure as always.

01:37:49.460 Thank you for coming on the show and for having, you know,

01:37:51.800 in modelling to the world, a disagreement done in good faith.

01:37:55.040 Final question is always the same.

01:37:56.360 What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:37:59.400 Oh, my goodness.

01:38:00.380 You didn't tell me that was coming.

01:38:02.500 What's the one thing we should be talking about that we're not?

01:38:04.280 You've been on the show about 74 times, Melanie.

01:38:05.980 I can't remember your trick questions.

01:38:10.460 What's the one thing we should be talking about we're not talking about?

01:38:12.900 Yes.

01:38:13.520 Okay, the need to get back to biblical religion.

01:38:15.920 how's that sounds good yep next next installment all right head on over to

01:38:22.220 triggerpod.co.uk where melanie is going to answer your questions

01:38:25.840 melanie can you please explain why prominent british journalists are so

01:38:31.200 openly ignoring the mounting evidence of the behavior of radical islam 0.78

01:38:35.300 We'll be right back. 0.98

TRIGGERnometry - June 27, 2026

DEBATE： Has Trump Surrendered To Iran？ - Melanie Phillips

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