“Trump has FAILED!” Victor Davis-Hanson vs Professor Roy Casagranda On Iran | With Mohammed Marandi

0:00 The United States has gone rogue.

0:02 We're actually in war crime land.

0:04 And we completely failed to do the only thing

0:07 that was reasonable to take out the Islamic Republic.

0:10 We have this schizophrenia in the United

0:12 States that on Monday if Donald Trump says,

0:15 "I want to negotiate." they call him a taco, he sold out.

0:18 And on Tuesday he says, "I have to force them to negotiate." he's Hitler.

0:22 He failed.

0:23 He lost the war.

0:24 I ask you to read that book Going to Tehran by Flint and Hillary Leverett.

0:27 And I'm sure you didn't bother to do so.

0:29 I know that you think you can just bark out your instructions

0:32 to me as if somehow I'm beholden to the Iranian regime.

0:36 But I don't really feel that burning

0:37 desire to read books just because Professor Marandi,

0:41 the chief propagandist for the Iranian regime, tells me to.

0:46 Operation Epic Fury is over, the US says.

0:50 The Iran war project is now Project Freedom.

0:53 Although at the time of recording that's on pause, too.

0:55 So far the $25 billion war has caused a lot of epic fury,

1:00 mostly among US voters and not a lot of freedom,

1:02 especially for Iranian dissidents and ships in the Hormuz Strait.

1:06 Today President Trump said the US operation

1:08 to free stricken vessels in the Strait

1:10 is on hold because of positive steps towards a lasting peace deal.

1:14 If no deal can be agreed, he says,

1:16 "Bombing will return at a much higher level and intensity than

1:19 it was before." It feels a lot more like Operation Groundhog Day.

1:23 With that in mind, we're going to do things a little

1:24 bit differently on the show today and tackle the big questions.

1:27 Is Iran weaker than before the war began?

1:30 Is the US weaker than before the war began?

1:33 Will history view this as the latest

1:35 Middle Eastern misadventure by a blundering American empire

1:38 or is the US president intended a legacy-defining

1:41 blow in a battle between good and evil?

1:44 My first two guests are both eminent US

1:46 historians but have very different answers to those questions.

1:49 Military historian and commentator Professor

1:51 Victor Davis Hanson says the ripples from the war have reinforced American

1:55 greatness while weakening the Iranian regime.

1:57 Dr.

1:58 Roy Casagrande, professor of political science at the UAE University, disagrees.

2:03 He says it's another chapter in the US's imperial decline.

2:07 So, to put it mildly, welcome to both of you.

2:10 You two gentlemen have a different view about all this.

2:13 Victor, let me start with you.

2:14 Well, first of all, welcome back to Uncensored.

2:17 You had a pretty serious health issue which I'm very pleased

2:21 to see you've come through and it's great to have you back.

2:24 So, thank you very much indeed for returning.

2:26 Thank you.

2:28 Victor, I've been a little bit mystified about this war from the very start.

2:33 I thought there was a failure to communicate clear goals from day one.

2:39 The goals then began to change, it seemed to me,

2:42 depending on the time of day and the mood of the president.

2:45 And it seemed to me there was an asymmetric

2:47 element to this war where you had the military

2:50 battle which the Americans and Israelis were winning overwhelmingly

2:55 and causing enormous damage to Iran's military in the process.

2:59 But the Iran quickly worked out that they

3:03 could fight a different war by closing the Strait

3:06 of Hormuz and effectively holding the global energy

3:09 market to ransom and simultaneously attacking their neighboring

3:14 Gulf states in a way which caused enormous

3:17 damage to their business models of inviting people

3:20 to come and enjoy safety and sunshine

3:22 and tourism and sport and entertainment and so on.

3:25 So, it's that that's been my take on this and as it's gone on longer and longer,

3:31 I just fail to see how any

3:33 of this makes great sense to President Trump politically,

3:37 economically, and in particular with the backdrop of the midterm elections.

3:42 So, but persuade me why I haven't quite got this.

3:47 When you say longer, I we have to have some comparisons.

3:50 Barack Obama bombed for 7 months without congressional authority,

3:54 but do we use targets?

3:55 Bill Clinton bombed for 72 days in Serbia.

3:58 Do He put He uh d- dismantled the entire grid for days on end.

4:03 He bombed every bridge in the Danube.

4:06 Donald Trump hasn't wanted to do that because he

4:08 has confidence at some point there'll be a resistance,

4:13 and he didn't want to destroy their infrastructure.

4:15 That might have accelerated things.

4:17 Uh that being said, the second thing is there's a lot of known unknowns.

4:21 We don't know exactly cuz this isn't a ground war.

4:24 Given the misadventures of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq,

4:29 on the outset there were going to be no ground troops.

4:32 That meant no embedded reporters, no actual diagnosis of the damage inflicted.

4:39 Yeah.

4:39 Yes.

4:40 I mean, that is true, but but it seems most people I've been

4:44 watching today talking about this from a military

4:47 perspective are curious what the win would look like for the United States.

4:52 If, for example, the regime remains intact,

4:56 albeit with different people at the head,

4:58 the IRGC remain in control, the Iranian people haven't risen up as was expected.

5:04 Yeah.

5:04 Uh and and if the Iranians maintain any control

5:08 over the Strait of Hormuz coming out of this war,

5:11 and it and if they make they keep and retain their highly enriched uranium,

5:17 where's the win for the US?

5:19 Well, we have to see the the negotiations.

5:21 If they did agree to them,

5:22 they won't have complete control or even partial control.

5:25 It'll be an international waterway, and they'll will have to surrender uh

5:29 or at least account for with it's embedded and unrecoverable.

5:33 The nuc- That's part of the negotiations.

5:35 I'm not confident that they'll abide by that.

5:37 They have no history of doing it, but that's what Donald Trump said.

5:41 The other thing is they don't have a military capability.

5:46 It's a political question right now,

5:47 and both sides are trying to they're up against different deadlines,

5:51 but deadlines nonetheless.

5:52 But, they don't have a military capability.

5:55 So, if anytime a single carrier group is in the region, not this massive armada,

6:01 the United States can resume the damage that they've done,

6:03 and they don't have an alternative to that.

6:05 They may have more missiles than we think,

6:07 but that's a that's a finite um finite amount of missiles given the damage.

6:13 And more importantly, this is this represents a half-century,

6:17 almost a half a trillion-dollar investment

6:19 in a military nuclear military industrial complex.

6:23 It's been severely weakened, and they're going to be in the position,

6:26 whoever whichever ever these four entities are,

6:30 whether it's the theocracy, the elected officials,

6:33 the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,

6:35 or the regular army, they're all they're in competition.

6:38 And if they were to say to the Iranian people,

6:41 and they won't say it, they'll just do it,

6:43 we're going to now spend our finite resources on rebuilding

6:46 this arsenal and funding Arab terrorists um in Hamas,

6:52 Houthis, and Hezbollah [clears throat] at billions of dollars a year.

6:56 I don't think that's a sustainable proposition.

6:59 And remember when we knocked down the the wall up knocked down,

7:02 Soviet Union imploded two years later.

7:06 Warsaw Pact some weeks later, but most of them were months later.

7:10 So, this is going to be an ongoing process.

7:12 The United States has military resources that it can resume at a much

7:16 higher rate the bombing if they don't follow the tenets of the negotiations,

7:20 which I think will include the original proposition

7:24 that you wanted to secure its nuclear resources,

7:27 not allow it to control the straits,

7:29 or have a missile capability to harm the Gulf States.

7:33 And as far as the midterms, one last thing here quickly, um we've got 6 months.

7:39 I don't think anybody in America today knows

7:41 what the headlines were in October of 2025.

7:45 That's about 6 months from now back.

7:48 So, there's the signs that the economy is recovering very rapidly

7:53 and I think in 6 months it will be doing pretty well.

7:55 Whether he can avert the historical phenomenon

7:58 that the that the incumbent president loses the midterms, I don't know,

8:02 but I don't think this is going to necessarily harm

8:05 him and if there is a resolution, it might help him.

8:09 Okay.

8:10 Uh Professor Casa Grande, welcome to Uncensored.

8:13 Um coincidentally, Victor has just published an essay

8:16 called The Global Ripples of the Iran

8:18 War and we'll come to more of that a little later with Victor,

8:22 but he concludes for all the global abuse and cheap left-wing attacks,

8:26 America is emerging from the war perhaps

8:29 stronger than any point since the post-war era.

8:32 What is your response to that?

8:34 Yeah, I I see it very differently.

8:36 Um you know, like if let's say he gets

8:39 a deal on on nuclear Iran's nuclear weapons program,

8:44 uh then we'll be back to where we were

8:46 before he tore up the JCPOA in his first term.

8:50 So, that's not a win, right?

8:52 Because you're just putting the clock back to 2018.

8:55 If he gets the straight open,

8:57 we're just back to where we were before he started bombing.

8:59 So, that's not a win, right?

9:01 He's created a problem and then he solves it, so that's not a win.

9:04 Um he's wrecked [clears throat] the United

9:06 States' relationships with the Gulf states.

9:09 Uh Saudi Arabia has actually said that the United States

9:12 is interested in the Saudi Arabia's interests are no longer aligned,

9:15 which is a catastrophe for the United States.

9:16 We've had a stable alliance with them since 1945.

9:20 Um [clears throat] he's he's wrecked the economy of the Gulf states.

9:25 So, you know, we we're now starting

9:26 to see serious pushback from states in the Gulf.

9:31 Some are hinting at switching uh oil sales to the yuan from the dollar.

9:37 Um [clears throat] and then of course, the United States' credibility is

9:40 ruined because he conducted a series of war crimes.

9:44 Uh, we bombed Iranian infrastructure.

9:47 We we attacked their their civilian targets.

9:51 So, we're actually in war crime land.

9:54 And we completely failed to do the only

9:57 thing that was reasonable in this war cuz

9:59 the only the only reason to do this war was to take out the Islamic Republic.

10:03 Which would have been amazing.

10:04 I like in the first few days, I was hopeful.

10:07 I didn't think it would happen because I

10:09 didn't have any confidence in the Trump administration,

10:12 but I was really hopeful that he would somehow pull this off.

10:15 And of course, he he failed.

10:16 What he did was [clears throat] in in two steps, two foolish steps, he took uh,

10:24 the possibility of an Iranian uprising off the table.

10:27 The first one was in January when he told the protesters

10:29 to go into the streets United States had their back.

10:32 They went into the streets.

10:33 The government began slaughtering the protesters by the thousands.

10:36 We don't know if it was 3,000 or 13,000 or 23,000,

10:39 but it was a it was a big number.

10:41 And the United States did absolutely nothing.

10:43 And then on February 28th, we began this bombing campaign.

10:46 Well, in the beginning,

10:48 there were Iranians who were cheering and saying, "Yeah, this is amazing.

10:51 Let's bring down the regime." But as the bombing campaign continued

10:56 and it began to target Iranian infrastructure and it began to, you know,

11:00 they began to see their relatives dying,

11:03 that Iranian support for the for the war quickly evaporated

11:06 and it reversed and it became Iranian support for the regime.

11:10 And this is this shouldn't have been a surprise

11:11 to anybody because that happens in every single war.

11:15 In Nazi Germany, 1/3 of the population actively resisted the Nazis.

11:20 1/3.

11:22 Until we started bombing Germany in 1943.

11:24 When we did, that resistance e- evaporated because in that moment,

11:29 the German people started going, "Wait a minute.

11:31 Genocide's on the table and we're the receivers of this you know,

11:35 maybe we have to back the regime.

11:37 And and so the fact that the government that the US

11:40 government didn't know that was what was going to happen

11:42 with the Iranian people is just shows how clueless they are

11:45 about how the world works and how the Middle East works.

11:48 Okay, Victor, in your new essay uh specifically want to reply very quickly.

11:54 Yeah, I wanted just to read I wanted just to read you Victor,

11:56 I just wanted to read you something you write you write in your essay and then

11:58 and then reply cuz I think it's relevant to what was what we just heard.

12:02 You say, the result is a more realistic,

12:04 less ideological Gulf Council that's beginning to accept

12:07 the fact that in the Middle East Israel alone

12:10 has the combat aircraft expertise and experience to strike

12:12 Iran and deter it from attacking moderate Arab governments.

12:16 This raises the specter of a new de facto alliance

12:19 of mutual advantage between Israel and much of the Arab world.

12:23 As the previous catalyst for the Abraham Accords detente was American pressure,

12:27 it may soon become Arab self-interest.

12:30 Uh which is a very interesting take on it.

12:32 Obviously differs from uh Professor Casagrande.

12:36 So what what is your response to to what he said?

12:39 I mean just to reply to that, Israel

12:42 didn't send 5,000 drones and missiles into the Gulf.

12:45 A fellow another Islamic country did and that's a real that's just a fact

12:49 and people will have to deal with that fact and I think they will.

12:54 Very quickly, World I wrote a book on World War II quarter

12:58 million words and there was no active civilian resistance before the bombing.

13:03 There was resistance in the military and it it

13:05 ended with a failed coup to kill Adolf Hitler

13:09 but there was no demonstrable active resistance that the regime

13:13 ever felt was endangered in in any small part.

13:16 There were even the French resistance was not

13:19 effective until 1944 after the invasion of D-Day.

13:24 If you look at the past interventions

13:26 of the United States and you look at civilian targeting,

13:29 whether it's Libya, whether it's Yugoslavia,

13:34 whether it's Vietnam, whether This is a different war.

13:38 There are no ground troops involved.

13:40 There is no direct uh attacks on transportation, on dual-use,

13:46 even this the communication, the TV stations are still there.

13:50 The bridges for except for one egregious case where it

13:53 was a obviously used to transport missiles aimed at the Gulf.

13:56 They're all there.

13:58 The water is there.

13:59 The sewage is there.

14:00 The refineries are there.

14:01 The chief source of revenue for Iran at Kharg Island is intact.

14:06 The pipelines underneath are intact.

14:09 Even the the communication cables under the sea are intact.

14:13 They can be eliminated within three or four days

14:15 and that was a deliberate effort to aid the resistance.

14:19 And by the way, no one ever said at the beginning

14:22 Donald Trump said Trump's help is on the way,

14:24 but given our dubious record of regime change,

14:28 it was a conscientious decision that the only

14:31 way you could ensure immediate resistance and successful

14:35 regime change was to put boots on the ground and they're never going to do that.

14:39 If you look at his March 20th statement,

14:41 there was never a a statement that we are

14:44 going in here to change the government of Iran.

14:47 They had about four or five things and they were fluid,

14:50 but at various times they said we're going to militarily disarm

14:55 them so they're not a threat to our allies and ourself.

14:58 This is a retaliation for 47 years of terrorist attacks on our embassies,

15:03 on our barracks, on assassination attempts

15:06 that they tried against the Secretary of State,

15:09 uh President of the United States, and we're going to cut off the subsidies

15:13 to their terrorist appendages in the Arab world.

15:16 And there was never I If you can find any official document

15:20 that says we're going in here to change the regime and replace it.

15:24 That was a added dividend and everybody hopes it

15:27 will happen and there's still a great deal of uncertainty,

15:30 but there's a lot of people and I I tend to agree that it will happen.

15:34 Maybe not immediately,

15:35 but within the next few months because we don't know this the actual damage,

15:40 but people have said it's a multi-multi-billion

15:42 dollar damage to their military-industrial-nuclear complex.

15:47 And they're going to have to be build that if they're

15:49 going to be having a deterrent effect on the Arab nations.

15:52 And if they start to build that, they're going to be absolutely broke.

15:56 They don't have the resources to do that.

15:58 It took them a half century to do that.

16:01 And they don't they don't have any resource and they're not going to be able

16:04 to subsidize these groups in um the Arab world to the same degree they were.

16:10 And more importantly, they have no defenses.

16:13 So, anytime the United States feels that it didn't fulfill the the objectives,

16:18 probably after they can repeat it again.

16:22 And I'm I'm not sure that all of the Gulf states are angry at the United States.

16:26 If they were going to be angry,

16:27 they might be angry at the European uh purchasers

16:31 of Arab oil who when let's say the UAE

16:34 with nobody in the Euro Europe or the NATO partners

16:37 said we want to help protect you from the Iranians.

16:41 In fact, most of the history of the European countries

16:44 is making stealthy deals with the Iranian government either to ask

16:50 wage the dangers of terrorism in their own countries or to get

16:53 free access to the Gulf where they wouldn't be harassed,

16:55 which Iran has done periodically prior to this.

16:59 And I just would finish that it it's a little bit

17:02 crazy to say that Iran is in this a superior position.

17:06 They're devastated.

17:07 They were the terror of the Middle East.

17:09 They were indomitable for 50 years.

17:10 When you talk to an American diplomat,

17:13 they said we might be able to do something

17:14 in Syria or Afghanistan or but we can't get near Iran.

17:19 They've got they've got 7,000 missiles.

17:22 They may have a nuclear component.

17:24 They're they're just a fanatic regime.

17:26 We just leave it alone.

17:27 And the West appeased that government for 47 years despite the fact

17:33 that they were killing Westerners

17:34 periodically and insidiously decade after decade.

17:39 Seven presidents said we have to remove this regime so it doesn't

17:42 have a nuclear weapon and none of them acted on that threat.

17:46 None.

17:48 Okay, Professor Casagrande.

17:51 I mean, it's interesting on the timeline of this.

17:53 Of course, you know, I'm basing my well, you know,

17:57 this is dragging on purely on President

17:59 Trump's own timeline that he's repeatedly laid down.

18:02 Originally two to three weeks, then six weeks.

18:05 And again, the goal posts on the timeline had changed as it's dragged on.

18:09 So, you know, how do you said at the start this may take a year or two years.

18:13 Okay, but he didn't.

18:14 He was very specific this will be quick,

18:16 in and out, and it's going to be over very quickly.

18:18 And it hasn't been.

18:20 And in relation to the Strait of Hormuz, you know,

18:23 the Iranians are indicating that they want to have a form

18:27 of control which involves them having a toll system and so on.

18:31 If they end up with that out of this, I I

18:34 and and they and they don't hand over their enriched uranium,

18:39 I I'm and they and the regime remains intact,

18:42 it's very hard to see how President

18:45 Trump can claim a legitimate victory, isn't it?

18:49 Well, that's one of the cool things about the Trump administration.

18:52 He doesn't actually have to have a victory.

18:54 He'll just claim it.

18:55 Right?

18:55 I mean, that's that's his MO.

18:57 It doesn't matter if he succeeds in doing something,

18:59 he'll say it was the best thing that ever happened.

19:00 It was the greatest, very special, there's never been anything like it.

19:04 And he'll go on and on and on like that and he'll

19:06 just move on to the next thing that that catches his interest,

19:09 which is apparently Cuba.

19:10 Um so, I'm [clears throat] assuming,

19:13 you know they're working out plans to fail miserably in Cuba next.

19:19 [clears throat] I want to push back on the one thing that Victor has said,

19:21 which is that the British and the French haven't done anything.

19:24 There are Dassault Rafales flying over our heads right now as I speak.

19:30 So, the French actually did go to the UAE

19:32 and the British went to I think it was Bahrain and have

19:34 actually been shooting down actively supporting the the UAE Air Force

19:38 and the Bahraini Air Force and shooting down drones and missiles.

19:42 So, we [clears throat] we were hit on Monday with another round.

19:45 So, you know, the ceasefire thing is obviously very flimsy.

19:48 There is no way that Iran will turn over its enriched uranium.

19:53 That's that's ridiculous.

19:55 One of the things that the Iranian state has to think about is well,

19:59 they got bombed 10 months ago and then they got bombed again.

20:03 And I think their assumption is that they will be

20:06 bombed again at some point in the future that you know,

20:08 either the United States will need a distraction

20:10 or there'll be some [clears throat] cynical force

20:13 pulling the United States in one direction

20:15 or the other and the next thing you know, Iran's getting bombed again.

20:18 So, what the Iranians are going to probably try to push back

20:21 on is try to figure out a mechanism to really hurt the world, right?

20:25 Because they're trying to hurt the global economy.

20:27 And the mechanism that they found was the closing the Strait of Hormuz.

20:30 So, they'll just keep doing that every time we bomb them.

20:33 And of course we're looking at long-term

20:36 consequences that might last months or years

20:39 just from what just from the short period of time that the Gulf was closed.

20:43 We're going to have shortages on fertilizer and shortages on oil.

20:46 So, Iran has obviously been an outlier in the region for a long time,

20:50 but nobody's a bigger outlier than Israel.

20:52 Israel is currently bombing Lebanon.

20:54 Israel is still genociding Gaza.

20:57 And so, the possibility [clears throat] of us returning

21:00 back to the Abraham Accords are completely off the table.

21:02 I think you know, maybe one or two Arab states would consider it,

21:06 but the reality is that Israel has made itself into a bigger pariah than Iran.

21:11 It's It's openly talking about creating an empire in the region.

21:15 It's carved off a chunk of Syria in addition to the Golan Heights.

21:19 And so the idea that somehow the GCC will go running to Israel,

21:23 Israel is the reason they're getting bombed.

21:25 I mean, one of the [clears throat] reasons

21:26 why the United States put bases in the GCC

21:29 was so that it could set up early warning

21:31 systems for Israel so that if Iran launched missiles,

21:34 those those missiles would be detected early.

21:37 So that's one of the first things Iran did was blow up the US military bases,

21:40 which by the way are in ruins.

21:42 And for the record, the United States has done

21:44 exactly zero to stop the missile strikes on the GCC.

21:49 So even though France and Great Britain have actually been

21:52 helping the GCC push back against the drone and missile strikes,

21:56 the United States did nothing.

21:58 It completely abandoned its allies.

22:00 It even abandoned its expats.

22:02 In the opening days of the war, the the expats who wanted to leave were like,

22:06 "What do we do?" And the the federal government's response was,

22:09 "You're on your own.

22:10 Good luck." And then when they finally did evacuate people,

22:13 they charged them money for it,

22:14 which was hilarious to me because it was like, "Wait a minute.

22:17 I thought you're supposed to take care of your citizens.

22:18 You didn't have a plan in place in the event you triggered a war that caused

22:22 Iran to retaliate." Iran said it was going

22:25 to do exactly what it did before this happened.

22:29 I even on my podcast,

22:31 I even said what was going to happen on I did the podcast on Monday,

22:35 but we we released it on Thursday,

22:37 and then on Saturday it happened because Iran had

22:40 told us they were going to bomb the GCC, they were going to bomb Israel,

22:43 and they were going to close the Strait of Hormuz.

22:45 And that's exactly what they did.

22:47 And so the fact that the Trump administration didn't

22:49 have a plan for the bombing of the GCC and didn't have a plan for closing

22:53 the strait shows they they didn't think this through.

22:56 They just blundered into this.

22:58 And And it it's bizarre cuz they They months to think about this.

23:01 I think they can close this They can close the straits tomorrow

23:04 if they want because there's no navy other than about 100 PT boats.

23:08 There's 800 800 Apaches and Warthogs

23:12 or in the skies that are capable at any time.

23:15 It's a political decision.

23:17 And why is it a political decision not to restart the war?

23:20 Because we have this schizophrenia in the United

23:23 States that on Monday if Donald Trump says,

23:25 "I want to negotiate with the Iranians," they call him a taco.

23:29 He sold out.

23:30 If on Tuesday he says, "I have to force them to negotiate,

23:33 so I'm going to have to be kinetic," then he's Hitler.

23:36 And he's he he's under pressure from the Republicans in the midterms,

23:41 and he is halted right now.

23:43 But no, make no mistake about it.

23:45 They You're blaming his flip-flopping and his constant changing his story.

23:49 No, I'm not.

23:50 I I'm not.

23:50 I think I think He'll contradict himself three times.

23:53 You're blaming the pressure?

23:55 No, I'm not.

23:56 I'm saying that he is reacting to political pressure,

23:59 but it's not a It's not a military problem.

24:02 They don't have the military capability to shut down

24:05 the Strait of Hormuz if we say that they cannot.

24:08 We have the We We can destroy every We did because we are restrained right now.

24:14 They can destroy every people It's politically restrained.

24:18 Politically restrained.

24:20 a country that that had no means to attack the United States,

24:23 had was not threatening to attack the United States.

24:25 We still don't know why.

24:27 Yeah, what What was he wrong about?

24:29 It told the world It told the world had not enriched to 60%.

24:33 It told the world that had only had 17 to 1800 ranges on their missile.

24:38 Everything that regime has ever said has been false.

24:42 Everything it said.

24:43 Which can you say about the Trump administration?

24:45 They tried They tried to assassinate

24:47 the They tried to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.

24:52 They have had assassinate people arrested in the United States

24:55 for plotting to kill the president of the United States.

24:57 They funded all of these Arab groups that have committed 50 years of terrorism.

25:03 Everybody knows that.

25:04 It was just a question of is anybody going to call them to account?

25:08 And you can argue whether he did,

25:10 but there's no argument about the military ability to call him account.

25:14 When Bill Clinton went in to Serbia in 72 days,

25:18 they said at day 50, "He's not going to be able to do it.

25:22 He's not going to be able to do it because to do it you have to hit

25:26 the grid and you have to hit the bridges

25:28 on the Danube and isolate them." And he said, "That would be a dual-use target.

25:32 I won't do it." And then he did it in spades and the war was over in 72 days.

25:37 If you want the same thing with Libya.

25:38 That was a misadventure.

25:40 But Barack Obama never got congressional authorization, nor did Clinton.

25:45 He bombed for 7 months.

25:47 And finally he said,

25:48 "We're going to hit dual-use targets." He hit the the docks,

25:51 he hit cargo ships, he hit communications.

25:54 We haven't done that.

25:55 We haven't done that at all.

25:57 You say that we committed war crimes.

25:59 If if you think that that would what we've done is a war crime,

26:03 then you should think that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton should be

26:06 tried at the International Criminal Court compared to the damage they did.

26:10 How do we get that to happen?

26:12 I'm ready.

26:14 Well, you I mean, look at Libya today.

26:16 It's a complete disaster.

26:18 So, that was a dumb analogy.

26:19 opposed that.

26:20 I I have I was in Libya for I had a ruptured appendix and moved in Libya.

26:24 I know all about What about Iraq?

26:26 And Iraq was a complete disaster.

26:29 Uh Iraq was a misadventure in the sense that we decided uh to create a democracy

26:35 when we should have just removed the regime

26:37 and allowed a caretaker government to take it.

26:40 But the idea of nation-building in that part of the world was a mistake.

26:43 Victor, on this on this notion of regime change, you know,

26:46 the the history shows us that it's hardly ever been a successful

26:52 strategy to try and affect regime change in the Middle East.

26:56 And Trump himself seemed very aware of that and was like,

26:58 you know, I'm not going to do this.

26:59 We're not going to get into you know, endless wars in the Middle East,

27:03 very expensive on human life, on the economy and so on.

27:07 He was very adamant about this and people voted for him because of this.

27:10 I'm going to be America first, looking after our interests,

27:13 strong border, strong economy, good cost of living, bring inflation down.

27:18 Every part of this Iran war so far has flown

27:21 in the face of everything he campaigned on, hasn't it?

27:23 I mean, he's he's gone and chosen the biggest possible

27:26 Middle Eastern war he could have possibly got involved with.

27:29 He's been He's been He's been in the short Let me finish my question.

27:32 In the short term, it's been economically disastrous.

27:35 I mean, it's it's pretty much double price of of of gas at the pump.

27:40 It's It's going to inevitably lead to raging

27:44 inflation on food prices the longer it

27:46 goes on because of the issue of fertilizer

27:49 coming not coming through the Strait of Hormuz.

27:51 Uh and politically, like you say,

27:52 it's obviously very toxic politically uh to the extent that he can't

27:56 even militarily reopen the strait because he politically he can't do it.

28:02 So, I I'm just I'm I'm really struggling to see a coherent strategy here

28:07 that is consistent with what Trump promised

28:09 to do when he was campaigning to be reelected.

28:13 Well, he he said he was not going to have a war.

28:16 I think you it was an optional ground war in the Middle East.

28:19 He's done this before, Piers.

28:21 He killed Soleimani, he killed Baghdadi,

28:23 he had a sustained bombing a campaign that eliminated ISIS.

28:27 He was in Syria, the Wagner Group attacked him, he had a full-fledged war,

28:31 he killed more Russians in the first uh term than during the entire Cold War.

28:37 He removed the Maduro government.

28:39 So, he had done that and the the red line for him, apparently,

28:42 was you don't get in a protracted ground war anywhere,

28:46 especially in the Middle East.

28:48 We haven't done that yet.

28:49 And we haven't bought We haven't been there as long as we were in Serbia.

28:53 goal, Victor, if his goal, as he now says,

28:56 he's now sort of centered it down to one goal,

28:59 to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon,

29:02 do you concede that if at the end of these negotiations,

29:05 which we're told are happening and may lead to some kind of deal,

29:09 if that does not involve Iran handing over its enriched uranium,

29:14 then the goal has not been achieved

29:16 and the the the war will have failed, won't it?

29:21 If he If they do not hand over the nuclear or it's

29:24 not cemented or it's not on We don't know where it is.

29:27 It A lot of people have argued you could You couldn't get it anyway.

29:30 But if you If whatever the uh international uh adjudicators

29:35 can tell us where it is and how whether it's recoverable.

29:38 If it is recoverable and we didn't get it, then yes, that that was a failure,

29:44 but but the regime we keep talking about they can do

29:48 this and they can do that military What can they do military?

29:52 They have no military.

29:53 And that took them a half century to create it.

29:56 Maybe they can But they don't have to, do they?

29:58 Because they can just continue to use

30:00 the Strait of Hormuz as their most effective weapon.

30:03 And they can continue They've still got They've still got,

30:06 apparently, many hundreds, if not thousands, of ballistic missiles left.

30:09 So, they can still lob a load of those at their neighboring Gulf states.

30:12 know how many they have.

30:13 We don't know that.

30:14 it's believed they've still got up to a thousand of their Garrett.

30:17 And And look, we don't know for sure, obviously.

30:19 I don't That's the caveat.

30:20 Well, it's key The key thing is if he's going to negotiate

30:25 and not destroy the the ability for them to make, you know, Yeah.

30:30 close the strait.

30:31 That is, eliminate all the PT boats

30:33 and get rid of and eliminate uh the missiles.

30:37 I myself thought when they when they uh targeted the UAE and they saw it,

30:41 we could have replied.

30:42 We didn't have to go into full-fledged war, but we could have replied in a way

30:46 that that would have made a gave given up some deterrence.

30:49 Yes, that will be a mistake if he negotiates that.

30:53 But it will not it will but that you have to concede Piers that when this war is

30:58 over and people look and go in there

31:00 and they look at the military and what it was,

31:03 it's been a devastating loss to the and it's been very asymmetrical.

31:07 You can I mean Yeah, yeah, I I mean listen, like I said to you,

31:10 I think there's no doubt at all that the US and Israeli military have inflicted

31:16 massive damage on Iran's conventional military

31:20 It will I agree will be in it will it will be incomplete if

31:23 they don't if they can't certify

31:26 that the uranium is unusable for a nuclear weapon.

31:29 You asked me earlier very quickly about the global ripples,

31:33 but everybody says that there's these winners.

31:35 China has no ability to buy sanctioned oil at a discount from Iran now.

31:42 4 million It was buying 4 million barrels of sanctioned oil from Venezuela,

31:47 Iran and other places.

31:48 They can't do that now.

31:50 And I don't think after looking at the US Navy and Air Force,

31:53 it's going to be ready to go into Taiwan,

31:55 especially given what we see about drone warfare in Ukraine.

31:59 Russia's still Russia's lost 2 million people in Ukraine dead and wounded and it

32:05 has no client anymore for the first time in 50 years in the Middle East.

32:11 It's lost its Syrian client, it's lost any influence with Iran now.

32:15 It's completely neutered in that aspect.

32:19 There is there's going to be a reappraisal of NATO

32:22 and I think it'll be a wake-up call that NATO powers,

32:25 if they don't want to use their airspace for the Americans to to do

32:30 something that is in the general interest

32:32 of them and the United States, that's fine.

32:35 And I don't think we should get out of NATO,

32:37 but there will be a realistic appraisal where

32:40 certain coalitions of the willing uh will be dominant,

32:44 and that'll be probably used Eastern European NATO members.

32:48 And I will say that if Britain were to ask the United States

32:51 for all the help we went on a unilateral expedition to the Falklands again,

32:56 something like that, or the French to Chad, or the French and British to say,

33:00 "Can you join the coalition of the willing in Serbia?"

33:03 Or our coalition of the willing that we planned for Libya,

33:06 they're going to say no.

33:08 Okay, Professor a big that's a difference.

33:10 Yeah, no, I agree.

33:11 I think there's been a big shift in sentiment there.

33:13 Uh Professor Casagrande, what's your response to to Victor there,

33:17 particularly about the, as we go forward, the changing geopolitics of all this?

33:22 Okay, so let me start with the the uranium.

33:27 We knew where the uranium was 10 months ago,

33:29 and we knew where the uranium was since the JCPOA.

33:33 When we bombed Iran 10 months ago

33:35 and completely obliterated and totally destroyed their stockpiles,

33:39 which of course we knew was nonsense at the time, they they they hid it.

33:44 They squirreled it away somewhere in deep inside some mountain, probably.

33:50 We don't know its condition now.

33:52 So, in other words, what Trump has done by tearing up the JCPOA and then

33:56 by bombing 10 months ago is he's made it so we don't know where the uranium is.

34:00 And so, the irony is is this current war,

34:02 if his goal is to get to the uranium there uranium,

34:05 there's no reason for the Iranians to hand it over.

34:08 Um so, I I I again, he's made the situation a disaster,

34:12 and now he's trying to figure out how to dig himself out of it.

34:15 As far as NATO goes, you know, I Trump has made it absolutely clear.

34:18 First in his first term when he refused

34:20 to acknowledge Article 5 of the NATO treaty,

34:23 no matter how many times NATO members asked him,

34:26 "Will if something happens to one of our members,

34:28 will Article 5 go into effect for the United States?" He would he refused.

34:32 He didn't either he didn't know what it was

34:35 or he was he's really just hates NATO's guts.

34:38 But then the whole Greenland thing,

34:40 I mean you you know you're in trouble when Mertz,

34:44 who's basically Trump's lapdog,

34:46 is saying I think Trump may have just killed NATO.

34:49 So it's true, there will be a complete

34:51 realignment inside NATO because what's happened is France

34:55 and and Germany have woken up and have realized

34:57 that the United States is no longer a player.

35:00 That the United States is no longer a partner.

35:02 That the United States has gone rogue and is

35:05 doing unjustified wars in in the Middle East.

35:08 It's uh and it's no longer playing ball with them, right?

35:12 Because look, the Iraq war was a was

35:15 a the 2003 war was a complete foolish disaster.

35:18 There was no reason on earth to do it to begin with and it and it,

35:22 you know, we we brought in Poland and Great Britain.

35:26 We had all the coalition of the willing countries

35:28 that we browbeat like Tonga in descending uh help.

35:32 Japan, we forced Japan to break their own constitution and send help.

35:36 Well, one of the [clears throat] things that Europe was

35:38 willing to do as turn a blind eye to this foolishness.

35:42 You know, Gerhard Schröder said, "Please don't do this.

35:44 We did this in 1939.

35:45 You're the United States.

35:46 You need we you have a higher standard

35:48 than the rest of the world." And you know,

35:50 Bush refused to talk to Gerhard Schröder until the end of his term and

35:56 [clears throat] the the result was Europe went, "We're okay with this.

36:00 We're going to let them genocide Arabs cuz well,

36:02 they're brown anyway, who cares?

36:04 And they're Muslim and we hate Muslims

36:06 because the United States is going to back

36:08 us no matter what happens if we get in trouble in Europe." And now

36:12 they know the United States is actually part of the problem and that the United

36:16 States isn't probably going to be there in case they get in trouble.

36:20 And so yeah, how could it be a shock that Great Britain

36:23 and France and Germany didn't want to back the United States in this war.

36:28 war?

36:29 very quickly.

36:30 Donald Trump told the Germans the the worst

36:32 thing you can do is a Nord Stream pipeline.

36:34 Why are you buying gas from Vladimir Putin and then

36:38 asking us to defend you when you're get you're profiting him.

36:41 They said when he came into office,

36:44 the Biden administration had stopped offensive weapon sales to Ukraine.

36:49 The Biden admin the Obama administration.

36:52 The irony is that he approved weapon sales offensive weapon

36:55 sales in a way that Biden or Obama did not do.

36:58 He told them not to buy gas.

37:01 He sanctioned the oligarchs.

37:03 He got out of an asymmetrical missile deal.

37:06 In fact, when he came in, people had said you're you better be very careful.

37:10 He's alienating the Russians beside the whole thing about Russian collusion.

37:14 And Russia was in a Russia invaded Ukraine during four administrations.

37:20 That's three admin two administrations and they invaded Ossetia,

37:24 Georgia during the Bush administration.

37:26 So, for four administrations,

37:27 they left their borders and attacked a quasi

37:31 European country and they did not do it during

37:33 the four years of Donald Trump and they did

37:35 not do it they haven't done it now again, a new administration.

37:39 There had to be a reason for that and the reason

37:41 was they felt that he had been unpredictable.

37:44 You can use the term whatever term you use,

37:46 but they couldn't count on him not doing anything like Joe Biden saying,

37:52 "My reaction will depend on whether it's a minor

37:54 or major invasion." Or going over to Putin and say,

37:57 "If you're going to hack US institutions,

37:59 please lay off humanitarian institution." Or so we have given Ukraine about 150

38:07 billion dollars and he did it over the loud objections of his MAGA base.

38:13 And the Biden administration did it.

38:15 He continued He's still helping them stealthily.

38:17 Still helping them.

38:19 And uh what he doesn't want to do is to give Ukraine a blank check.

38:25 And I think in the if this was a different type of situation,

38:30 the only way Ukraine really could recover all of its territory

38:34 would be to hit offensively offensively to hit targets in Russia.

38:38 But Russia has 6,500 nuclear weapons.

38:41 And we don't know what what the reaction would be.

38:43 So we've had restraints on them for that.

38:45 So with the Europeans.

38:47 And as far as the Europeans, they can say all they want,

38:50 but they have just barely met the 2% uh GDP investment.

38:55 And that only happened because Donald Trump harangued them.

38:58 He was obnoxious and everything.

39:00 That is true.

39:01 And and they're not going to get to 5%.

39:02 We our neighbor Canada spends 1.7.

39:05 It won't even build an icebreaker.

39:08 And they're completely under the nuclear shield.

39:11 United States, they can say all they want,

39:13 but when you talk about the French and the British,

39:16 Israel has twice the combat aircraft of any one of those three countries,

39:20 Germany, French, France, or Britain.

39:22 We have in the Gulf right now about 2,000 aircraft, 800 of them said.

39:29 that material because France, Great Britain, the United States,

39:33 and Germany provide them with that material.

39:35 They they wouldn't have that material if they were on their own.

39:38 And so at the end of the day they provided because unlike the country you're

39:41 you're speaking from, they're the only consensual

39:44 society that have regular open transparent elections

39:47 and free speech and full rights for women.

39:50 No, they're not.

39:51 I mean if you they murder on a regular basis.

39:54 How many Gazans have they just slaughtered?

39:56 And they're they're taking over now I can tell you right now

40:00 by the minute as we're speaking.

40:01 going to sit here and tell me that Are you going to tell

40:05 me right now that a person who says If a person says in Israel,

40:09 I don't want to be an observant Jew, I want to be a Muslim and I want to have

40:13 a mosque and I want to be a Christian and have a church,

40:17 can you go to the UAE or any of the Gulf states and say,

40:19 "I don't want to be a Muslim, I want to be a Christian, or I want to be a Jew,

40:23 and I want to open a church or a synagogue?" No, you can't do that.

40:28 do with genocide?

40:29 So, you're conflating the inability to convert

40:32 from Islam to another religion with it's

40:34 okay to slaughter Arabs and who by the way a percentage of them

40:38 to argue I'm not going to argue

40:40 that that Israel is the only transparent It's the only

40:43 transparent I'm not going to get in an argument

40:48 because anybody who's empirical knows that Israel is transparent.

40:53 It has scheduled elections.

40:54 It has free speech.

40:55 It has full rights for women.

40:57 And you have a big army.

41:00 The point I was going to ask you, Victorious,

41:02 out of interest, I've had this debate quite a lot recently.

41:04 Why why is it that Israel is not compelled to be

41:08 transparent about its nuclear capacity in terms of having nuclear weapons?

41:14 It is.

41:14 It has 170 nuclear weapons.

41:16 It's It's never admitted any.

41:19 It doesn't It maybe never officially,

41:21 but everybody knows it's allowed people It discusses that all the time.

41:25 It has 175 nuclear weapon.

41:27 But what Why is it never admitted any of that?

41:30 Why is it never admitted?

41:32 Because I think most countries don't admit how many they have.

41:36 We don't admit exactly how many ready nuclear weapons we have.

41:39 When I say there's 6,500 Russian nuclear weapons,

41:42 that's because of intelligence estimates.

41:46 But the Israelis have never denied it.

41:47 If you say somebody to to even the Netanyahu government,

41:51 "You have 175 nuclear weapons," he'll say,

41:53 "No comment." And I think Donald Trump would say,

41:56 "No comment." But we know how many we have.

42:00 It's the official position of all these countries

42:02 not to talk about how many nuclear weapon.

42:04 Yeah, but I think my point is Israel Israel don't don't admit to having any.

42:08 They don't admit to having any nuclear uh weapons at all.

42:12 And I'm not sure why they are allowed to have the only

42:14 pass on that kind of transparency about whether a country has nuclear weapons.

42:19 We know nine countries do.

42:21 That list doesn't include Israel.

42:22 And I'm just I'm just bemused as to why.

42:25 Do what?

42:26 Well, officially nine countries in the in the world have nuclear weapons.

42:32 That list does not include, officially, Israel.

42:35 And I've never understood why, if they have 170 as you say,

42:39 why are they not part of that list?

42:41 Why are they not country number 10 and transparent about it?

42:44 You say how transparent they are.

42:45 Why are they not transparent about their nuclear capacity?

42:49 Is- Israel has 11 million people, and it's in a sea of 500 people,

42:55 500 million Islamic, Arab, and Persians,

42:59 and they're all in relative degrees hostile to it.

43:02 That's just a fact, whether you agree with it or not.

43:07 Why?

43:07 Because Yeah.

43:09 it is a Western democracy, is a free society.

43:14 What do you mean?

43:15 That's nonsensical.

43:16 Look, Yeah, it is.

43:18 It's nonsensical that anybody would hate Israel

43:21 just because it had a democratic elections.

43:24 The problem with Israel is it stole the land from the Palestinians,

43:27 it left them in a state of permanent refugee status, it does nothing to fix it,

43:32 and in fact, it's made the situation worse

43:34 by basically turning Gaza into a giant open-air concentration camp,

43:38 and then tearing the West Bank up into little pieces, and walling

43:41 Let me let me ask you a quick If if on October 7th,

43:45 if a if terrorists had come into your country and slaughtered, raped,

43:49 beheaded, tortured 1,200 people, and then they had taken 240 hostages back,

43:55 and then they had built had subverted UN and American and other European relief,

44:01 and built a billion-dollar subterranean complex

44:04 whose exits and entries were in schools,

44:07 mosque, and hospitals, and hid as human shields,

44:10 and then they said, when Israel said, we would like you to extradite the people

44:15 who were responsible for this, they said, no.

44:17 And when you had pictures of people cheering

44:19 in the streets and trying to hit the hostages,

44:23 and we know now that the hostages were tortured.

44:25 What would you do in response to that?

44:27 I mean, the Palestinians face the same exact question on a regular basis

44:31 because Israel does very similar things to the Palestinians and has since 1948.

44:37 The reality is is that Israel is

44:39 the attacker and the aggressor in this scenario.

44:42 And so, this idea that somehow they're a they're a Western democracy is Yeah,

44:47 I guess in the same way that the United States genocided the Native Americans.

44:51 No, I don't This is getting ridiculous, Piers.

44:54 I mean, this you have to be rational.

44:57 I mean, what does that have to genocide of the Native Americans?

45:03 I mean, we're talking about the Middle East in rational terms,

45:07 but when you bring in all of these other things, you just weaken your case.

45:11 Israel, I I was on the Stanford campus every day I walked across the campus,

45:15 I saw very affluent Middle Easterners for the first time in their lives,

45:19 many from where you are now, protesting, screaming, yelling at the government.

45:25 If they did that in any of these Gulf states,

45:27 they'd be arrested, and you know that.

45:29 there's no protest in the UAE.

45:31 I'm not I'm not going to If you said right now if you want to say right now,

45:35 if you said right now, I've had a change of heart about October 7th.

45:39 I just want to throw it out there.

45:41 I think it was a horrible act and I can see why Israel retaliated.

45:46 If you just said, I have a a change of attitude and I reassess my position,

45:51 I can see why Israel did it.

45:53 It's kind of an ambiguous question.

45:55 There's arguments You'd probably lose your position.

45:58 You know that.

45:59 think so.

46:00 No.

46:00 I think you would.

46:01 For the record, I think that what the Palestinians

46:03 did on October 7th was a horrible act.

46:05 It was murder, slaughter.

46:07 Who is Who's going to condone that?

46:10 But what Israel did in response was orders of magnitude worse.

46:14 Well, I'm just telling you that if you

46:18 you're talking from a country that if anybody

46:21 wanted to express free speech or exercise religious

46:26 liberty and choice as they do in Israel, and I've been to Israel many times.

46:31 They did.

46:32 I've been to the Arab countries and the Arab

46:34 population All I can unfortunately my point

46:37 is you think we I just want to say we we've run out of time unfortunately.

46:41 All I would say is I I've actually broadcast my show uncensored from all

46:45 over the Middle East in the last two years and talked about all these issues

46:49 and expressed very strong opinions and no one has tried to censor me You're not

46:54 you're not a you're not a citizen If you were a citizen of those countries,

46:58 you couldn't do that.

46:59 You know that.

47:00 You're you're a famous guest and so they accommodate you and your free speech,

47:04 but if you were a citizen if Have you ever

47:06 had a citizen of the UAE and Saudi when you

47:09 were critical of that government come on your show and attack

47:12 that government while they were resident residing in that country?

47:15 If you did, I I'd like to learn about it.

47:18 Yeah, I think that's probably fair.

47:20 I I don't think they would tolerate open

47:22 descent about their government in the way you're articulating.

47:25 That's probably fair.

47:27 We've got to leave it there, gentlemen.

47:28 A very interesting debate.

47:29 Thank you both very much indeed.

47:30 Thank you.

47:31 Thanks for having Well,

47:34 there are more mixed messages on the progress of the peace talks.

47:36 The president told PBS that a deal could

47:38 include Iran shipping its enriched uranium to the US.

47:41 Most reporting suggests the US may actually settle for reopening

47:44 the Strait of Hormuz and dealing with the so-called nuclear dust later.

47:48 With a view from Tehran,

47:49 I'm rejoined again by Professor Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University.

47:53 Professor Marandi, welcome back to Uncensored.

47:56 Thank you very much for having me.

47:58 Where is this war now as far as Iran is concerned?

48:04 Well, the reports from Axios are nonsense and uh the belief here was

48:10 for market manipulation and some people probably made a huge amount of money,

48:16 people close to the White House.

48:18 Uh the Iranians are not going to send the so-called nuclear

48:26 to any world uh Iran's uh nuclear material will remain in Iran.

48:34 But uh what Iran expects is that the United States implement

48:40 the ceasefire agreement that we had uh when the fighting stopped.

48:45 On day 39 after that, the two sides

48:48 agreed that there would be a regional ceasefire.

48:52 And uh Netanyahu immediately started carpet bombing Lebanon,

48:57 the democratic state that your previous guest was talking about.

49:01 They carpet He carpet bombed Lebanon murdering

49:04 hundreds of people within a few minutes.

49:06 Many of them in neighborhoods that were not even sympathetic to the resistance.

49:11 Uh just so that he could block the ceasefire.

49:14 And then Trump went and said that Lebanon is not a part of the ceasefire.

49:19 And of course the Pakistani government had to come out

49:22 and say I actually it is indeed a part of the ceasefire.

49:24 So, there was supposed to be

49:26 a regional ceasefire including Lebanon, Gaza, elsewhere.

49:30 And uh then there were ships that belonged that were affiliated

49:35 to the five countries helping the United States in the war against Iran.

49:39 Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates.

49:43 They were supposed to be able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

49:48 Finally, when Netanyahu was forced to accept the ceasefire,

49:51 even though he again afterwards began the slaughter.

49:55 Uh then the United States refused to remove the siege on Iranian ports,

50:00 which is an act of war and a violation of the ceasefire, I add to.

50:02 So, basically uh the ships are not flowing

50:07 are not moving because of Netanyahu and then Trump.

50:10 And I should stress that the Strait of Hormuz is not closed.

50:14 Countries that did not engage in war with Iran, their ships go through.

50:19 Like Russia, like China, like Iraq.

50:22 Indian ships have gone through and others.

50:24 But to those that are affiliated

50:26 to these countries or of goods from these countries,

50:28 that they're the ones that the five countries that engaged in the war,

50:31 they're the ones who are limited or restricted.

50:34 So, how how does a deal look like from Tehran's perspective?

50:40 Donald Trump and his administration have been very

50:43 bullish about we're very near to getting a deal

50:46 and most of what the the Americans would like

50:48 out of this deal is going to be agreed.

50:51 We're just trying to work out who to talk to and so on.

50:53 But from Tehran's point of view, for example, on that issue of enriched uranium,

50:58 can you envisage any deal with the United

51:01 States which involves the voluntary handing

51:05 over of that enriched uranium or any verbal guarantee to do so on any timeline?

51:14 Well, I think it's pretty clear

51:16 that for the Iranians which who didn't start this war,

51:22 uh and the Iranians have been much more careful not to kill civilians,

51:27 uh even though Iran carried out huge devastation across the Persian Gulf,

51:31 I think less than 20 people in these five countries were killed.

51:35 Whereas 3,400 500 Iranians were murdered.

51:39 And the same is true with Israeli regime.

51:42 Uh very few people were killed there.

51:44 Iran didn't target synagogues,

51:46 unlike the synagogue in Tehran that the Israelis bombed.

51:49 Iran did not target schools,

51:51 unlike the Americans and the Israelis that did target schools, and so on.

51:55 But, the Iranians are saying that when the war started, when the invasion began,

52:01 Trump was demanding unconditional surrender,

52:04 like the 12-day war that he started months earlier.

52:09 And he failed.

52:10 And by day 39, Trump accepted the Iranian

52:15 10-point plan as the basis for negotiations.

52:19 Why?

52:20 Because he failed.

52:20 He lost the war.

52:22 It's obvious.

52:23 Otherwise, he wouldn't have accepted.

52:25 And so, based on that, Iran accepted a ceasefire.

52:28 So, obviously, first we have to have the ceasefire,

52:31 which the Americans and the and Netanyahu are violating,

52:34 and that's why the global economic crisis is getting worse by the hour,

52:40 because of the siege, which violates the ceasefire,

52:42 and the slaughter in Lebanon and in Gaza.

52:46 So, once there is a ceasefire, then, which can be implemented now,

52:51 Trump can right now say, "I lift the siege.

52:53 Netanyahu has to stop killing kids." And then,

52:56 the ships will go through the Strait of Hormuz.

52:58 It's as simple as that.

53:00 And then, we move on to the 10-point Iranian plan that has to be negotiated.

53:04 After all, war was carried out against our people.

53:08 In just one strike, the Americans murdered 168 little girls in a school.

53:13 So, there has to be compensation.

53:14 Someone has to pay.

53:16 The Americans think that since the the Trump thinks that since it's an empire,

53:21 we don't have negotiations.

53:23 They dictate terms.

53:24 Iran is not like other countries,

53:26 where the United States bullies and says you have to, you know,

53:30 abide by our tariffs.

53:33 That's not how Iran works, and I think Trump by now should have understood that.

53:37 When he imposed this attempt to starve

53:39 your ordinary Iranians with his siege, that failed, too.

53:43 That's why he was in such a rush

53:44 to carry out this new operation, which also failed.

53:47 And most probably Trump is going to launch another

53:50 attack on Iran with his brother net brother-in-arms Netanyahu,

53:55 and that will fail, too.

53:56 And it's only going to drag the world to an economic collapse,

54:00 to an economic depression.

54:02 I assure you, Piers,

54:04 the course that the United States is taking for the sake of the Israeli regime,

54:07 not for the American people, is all for the sake of Zionism,

54:11 is dragging the world to economic depression.

54:15 And this could be end This could have

54:17 ended This shouldn't have started in the first place.

54:20 But after the 39-day war, we could have If they had abided by the ceasefire,

54:27 the global economic situation would be infinitely different from what it is now.

54:31 I have had uh other guests who believe uh Victor Davis Hanson just

54:34 now who say it's been actually a clear victory for the United States militarily.

54:39 They've caused enormous damage to Iran's military, which I think is unarguable.

54:45 Uh and that if they wanted to militarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz,

54:49 they could do it in a heartbeat.

54:50 But political reasons, they're not taking that option at the moment.

54:55 Uh and that actually no one's quite sure who's running Iran.

54:59 The new supreme leader has not been seen in public.

55:03 And therefore, the assumption is that actually it's a rudderless ship.

55:08 And uh is far more damaging than Iran would ever care to admit.

55:13 So, my first question about that would be,

55:15 you know, where is your supreme leader?

55:16 No one's seen him.

55:17 Is he alive?

55:20 Oh, he is alive and well.

55:21 And you know, Piers, I don't think anyone who knows anything

55:26 about anything takes anything you say seriously.

55:29 Because if Iran has been defeated, and uh if they could take the strait easily,

55:35 and if Iran has no leaders and things

55:37 are falling apart and the and the insulting

55:40 language that you use about Iran if that was all correct, then it's over.

55:44 Then you don't have to have this conversation with me.

55:47 Go and do what you like to do.

55:49 That's not what's happening, isn't it?

55:51 The United States has been humiliated and it's and this Zionist

55:55 regime hasn't been exposed for the genocidal regime that it is.

55:58 Of course, last time we I asked you three times what

56:01 do you think about an ethno-supremacist regime and you refused to answer.

56:05 But the fact is that the United States is doing all

56:08 of this and destroying the global economy

56:10 for an ethno-supremacist regime to preserve that.

56:15 But if if they're really worried about the US economy and the world economy,

56:19 then why don't they just open the straight

56:21 and take out the oil and take the country

56:24 and we'll all be refugees like the Palestinians where

56:28 you kicked them out of their homes in 1948.

56:32 I mean, President Trump has indicated that's exactly

56:34 what he may do if there's no deal.

56:38 Well, that's because the West is led

56:39 by monsters and you are friends with those monsters.

56:43 Ethno-supremacists and Well, I want to be honest with you.

56:47 You know what?

56:47 You do this like we have a perfectly

56:50 civilized conversation and then you can't resist Hang on.

56:55 Hang on.

56:56 Hang on.

56:57 You can't resist and you can't What you

56:59 can't resist doing is putting your fake halo

57:02 on your head and pretending that you yourself

57:05 do not help prop up a monstrous regime.

57:09 You talk about you know, America has to be held accountable for killing people.

57:13 What about Iran's regime which for 47 years has killed so many people,

57:19 not least its own people as we saw in January.

57:21 Should they be held accountable for that?

57:23 Would you like to see your regime held accountable

57:27 for the thousands of protesters it killed in January,

57:30 for the Americans it's killed, for the Israelis it's killed.

57:33 For the way it's propped up Hamas has bolstered

57:35 the Houthis to cause endless terrorism all over the Middle East.

57:39 Would you like your regime to be held accountable for that monstrous activity?

57:46 You know, uh Piers, first of all, you used that word that I won't repeat.

57:51 And that's exactly how you like to frame things.

57:54 You started insulting Iran and I gave you a much more civilized

57:59 referring I'm sorry.

58:01 You said s h i t.

58:03 No, I didn't.

58:04 Uh that's not how I heard it.

58:06 If that's not what you said, then Sorry, just to be clear.

58:09 At no stage of this interview have I said that?

58:12 Okay, then I'm mistaken.

58:13 Then I'm mistaken.

58:14 I thought you said But first of all, I asked you to to come to Iran.

58:18 You could have seen what Iran is like.

58:20 I asked you to come here.

58:20 You haven't come either.

58:21 So, you know what?

58:23 Well, I I've lived there.

58:25 I've lived there, Piers.

58:26 I've lived there.

58:27 I've been there many times.

58:28 I did my PhD there.

58:30 Uh so, there's a bit of a difference.

58:31 Just just so you Just so you understand.

58:34 And I haven't come.

58:35 So, we're in the same boat.

58:36 I I I've been there.

58:38 I'm cuz I was in I was there on the anti I was actually in that protest that you

58:43 and I discussed about together in 2003 when you

58:45 were a somewhat different person than you are now.

58:47 a different person at all.

58:49 I was exactly the same person.

58:50 Let me Let me Let me respond.

58:51 Let me respond.

58:52 As a person Well, first of all,

58:55 I asked you to read that book Going to Tehran by Flint and Hillary Leverett.

58:59 And I'm sure you didn't bother to do so.

59:00 But uh as a person who survived two with you, Professor,

59:04 I I know that you think you can just bark out your instructions to me

59:08 as if somehow I'm beholden to the Iranian

59:11 regime over what books I should be reading.

59:13 But I don't really feel that burning

59:15 desire to read books just because Professor Marandi,

59:19 the chief propagandist for the Iranian regime, tells me to.

59:22 Call me naive.

59:23 Sure.

59:24 You do what you like.

59:25 Do what you like.

59:26 But uh a person who survived two chemical attacks

59:29 that uh your regime helped give to Saddam Hussein,

59:33 I don't think you or your government or the the the regime

59:38 against the Iraq war that my government waged in 2003, as you know.

59:43 No, that was That's not when they used chemical weapons, Pierce.

59:46 They used them in the 1980s, and your government gave it to Saddam Hussein.

59:50 Back then, he was your friend.

59:52 Back then, he was your ally.

59:54 You you forget that you know, you've waged three wars against my country.

59:58 We're the bad guys, of course,

1:00:00 but you you impose you carried out a a coup in 1953,

1:00:04 then during the revolution when people on the streets

1:00:07 you supported your regime supported the Shah gunning down people,

1:00:10 then after the revolution they encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade our country.

1:00:14 The uh the West gave him chemical weapons.

1:00:17 I survived both mustard gas and um um uh nerve agents in two separate attacks.

1:00:24 Many didn't survive,

1:00:26 uh but that didn't That wasn't important in the West back then.

1:00:29 Can I ask you one question before before before we finish?

1:00:31 Just one question.

1:00:32 I'm not responsible for what my government did

1:00:34 when I was a teenager, just to be clear.

1:00:36 But, just one question for you.

1:00:38 Um Of course, you are.

1:00:39 No, I've got a question.

1:00:40 Every human being No, I'm not.

1:00:42 I'm not.

1:00:43 I'm not.

1:00:43 Every human being who's politically aware is is responsible for

1:00:46 you a question, though.

1:00:47 I'm asking you a question.

1:00:48 And I am, too.

1:00:48 Okay, I'm asking you a question,

1:00:50 which is one that is put by a lot of my viewers.

1:00:51 I'm just curious of the answer.

1:00:52 I'm not being accusatory.

1:00:54 But, you always do these interviews with apparently a full internet signal

1:00:59 in a country where many people have had their internet turned off since January.

1:01:04 How are you doing that, and why is it one rule for you

1:01:06 and another for the for the large majority of the people of Iran?

1:01:12 Well, first of all, as I told you,

1:01:13 you already asked me this question before during the war,

1:01:17 uh the internet was never off.

1:01:19 It was off to international uh the international in internet

1:01:25 Iranian internet and Iranian websites and Iranian apps were used.

1:01:28 But back then during the war they were using the internet to find

1:01:33 targets in Iran and to murder people and to destroy Iranian infrastructure.

1:01:37 So they limited that.

1:01:39 Back then if you recall and as I explained, I was not using my own internet.

1:01:45 Now they've opened up the internet more.

1:01:47 They've helped to me to be able to use this.

1:01:50 But as we to use uh a better internet connection.

1:01:55 But as we speak I am using a VPN.

1:01:58 Like most other people.

1:02:00 But I think the best thing for you to do is to counter my arguments.

1:02:05 Uh your country bombed my country.

1:02:07 Your the United States slaughtered children.

1:02:10 And that's why we had internet restrictions.

1:02:13 Otherwise before the slaughter of our people, of our leaders,

1:02:17 of our scientists, of our academics, of schools, of bombing apartment blocks.

1:02:22 Before that they were we you And you know what?

1:02:24 You Your own regime Your own regime according to Your own regime according

1:02:29 to many reports slaughtered up to 30,000

1:02:33 of its own people including children in January.

1:02:36 But you will say to me You will say to me nothing to see here.

1:02:40 They were all heavily armed militants.

1:02:42 You believe that.

1:02:42 I actually I believe that over you.

1:02:45 Yeah.

1:02:46 Yeah.

1:02:46 You believe that.

1:02:47 You believe So you believe it.

1:02:49 I do.

1:02:49 Yeah.

1:02:50 I think many thousands of people Okay.

1:02:52 Well then that just shows that you are a your regime.

1:02:54 Yeah.

1:02:54 I do.

1:02:55 Your regime?

1:02:56 Because the evidence shows the Iranians gave

1:02:59 the names of all the people who are killed.

1:03:01 Every single one.

1:03:02 3,117.

1:03:05 Hundreds were police officers or officers of the law.

1:03:08 And 2,000 of them were people who were caught

1:03:10 in the crossfire by people who were armed by your government.

1:03:14 Of course.

1:03:15 Of course.

1:03:15 by your government?

1:03:16 They were all killed by the Channel 14 of Israel.

1:03:18 That's right.

1:03:19 Yeah.

1:03:19 Channel 14 of Israel.

1:03:22 Yeah.

1:03:21 Pompeo Forgive me, Professor Morandi, but we've run out of time.

1:03:25 But this doesn't show that your government killed my people.

1:03:29 You know, Professor Morandi,

1:03:30 it's always The reason I get you on, Professor Morandi,

1:03:33 is it's always interesting to hear a voice from Tehran talking,

1:03:37 and I appreciate you coming on.

1:03:39 I I take most of what you say with a massive pinch of salt, but I appreciate you

1:03:43 Oh, I take it with But that's fine.

1:03:45 kilos of salt that comes here.

1:03:46 And I appreciate you coming on the program

1:03:48 and to giving a perspective from Tehran.

1:03:50 Thank you very much.

1:03:52 Thank you.

1:03:55 Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent.

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