USA Enters the War -- What Next? Why Iran? | Yaron Brook Show
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The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Yaron Brook Show. Hey guys, welcome to Yaron Brook Show on this Sunday, June 22nd. Does this sound good? I'm getting some noise on my end. Just wondering what you guys are hearing. Okay.

Sound, sound, sound is good. Okay, cool. All right. Hey, everybody. Yeah, I didn't do the hello, everybody, just because the sound on my end was a little weird, so it kind of held me back. Okay. Yeah, I'm back, at least for a little while, for a week before I go to Ocon in Boston, the Objectives Conference in Boston, and then I'll go dark for another week. But thanks for hanging in there, and...

We are here. A lot has happened in the last 24 hours. Really? A ton happening in 24 hours. I was yesterday. I was basically on a plane flying out of Arizona and just, you know, I do Wi-Fi on the plane. And I was I think I started watching a movie. And then I looked over at Twitter and

Twitter was exploding with the American attack on the nuclear facility at Fordow and Natanz and Isfahan. And actually, the guy next to me, I looked over to the guy next to me, and he's looking at his iPhone, and he's watching Israeli television. Yeah.

So we ended up talking a little bit in Hebrew. He was watching Israeli television and seeing the breaking news as well. So that was interesting. Anyway, so it happened. Trump actually did it. Hard to believe, but he actually did it. He ordered the B-2s to drop the mother of all bombs,

uh, the bunker busting bomb on, uh, on four door. And actually they also dropped them on, uh, to finish off, uh, the nuclear program in, uh, Natanz, Natanz. And, um,

You know, we'll talk about whether what's being achieved or anything, but let's just talk about the decision to actually do it, which I think is important. So, yeah, first, you won't hear me do this often, but I will say MOP, not Moab. This is not the mother of all bombs. This is the mother MOP, whatever that stands for. Okay.

I'm being told. Anyway, the the the you won't hear me say this often, but good for Trump. Good. Good for Trump doing this. Good for him. Finally, living up to everything to a lot of what he said, although what he said has often been ambiguous.

You know, it's a little weird how it was all done. We'll talk about that. But the reality is, yeah, we dropped the bomb, the bunker-busting bomb. Actually dropped 12 of them on Fodor and two of them on Antantz. I think Antantz is finished. Istafar maybe. And Fodor, we're waiting for further verification. But it looks like, you know, dramatic significant damage was done, whether it's completely...

knocked the place out or not is hard to tell. So let's talk a little bit about, I mean, this was obviously planned well in advance, surprisingly, and I don't quite understand why this was. It would be interesting to get the opinion of a military expert on this. But they flew the B-2s all the way from the United States in order to do this. I thought they had B-2s in Diagoma Garcia. Maybe they didn't have enough of them.

Maybe they didn't have enough B-2s and they wanted to do this all in one time. So they needed to have seven, I guess, each B-2 carries two of the bunker-busting bombs. They needed seven of these planes. And for that, they had to fly them all the way from the United States with these tankers who refueled them along the way.

I think back and forth, it was almost 40 hours. So these pilots, wow. I mean, flying for 40 hours, not simple, not simple at all. I don't know if you've seen pictures of the B-2s. The B-2s look like science fiction-like planes. They're kind of crazy. It's a uni-wing design and quite impressive.

I mean, the amazing planes and the stealth, completely stealth. So the decision was made. It must have been made if they bombed on Saturday night. It must have been made on Friday. It took them half a day to get this. They had to leave Saturday morning to get this Saturday night. It's...

You know, he basically, I think, had made up his mind. I think that there were different voices within the cabinet, different voices among his advisers pulling in different directions. But I think if you look around, the majority of people around him supported this. And at the end of the day, he could use this idea that he has always said Iran should not be allowed to have a bomb.

as justification for this. As you can imagine, there's a lot of people in MAGA that are very, very unhappy today. You know, Trump thinks and hopes, I think, that this is it, that the Iranians will somehow fold and the Iranians will not strike back. We will see what actually happened.

Surprisingly, they had the Israelis go in there before the bombing actually happened and eliminate the remnants of whatever was left of the Iranian air defense system. So it kind of softened up the target and made it easier for them to get there. But all of that is kind of weird to me because...

I mean, also they sent decoys, right? They sent decoys from the West. So there were a lot of stories about B-2s flying towards Guam. And that supposedly never happened. It was a decoy. It was supposed to distract. But I don't get any of that. I don't get any of that. Because the reality is one B-2, a stealth. The Iranians probably couldn't see them no matter what. So I'm not sure exactly why...

I'm not sure why all the decoys and all the issues surrounding getting rid of the air defense systems and everything. And second, almost no air defense systems in that area at all. I mean, the fact is Israeli fighters are flying in and out of there constantly. Israel hasn't lost a plane. Trump really, really, really wanted to make sure, you know, that that.

This went across without a hitch, and it basically being without any casualties and without any planes coming down. I mean, they were so cautious. And think about how long they waited, right? They waited until Israel was basically eviscerated. I mean, Iran has no defense systems. Iran has no air force. There's nothing Iran can do. I mean, this is the thing. Iran is in the situation where

Israel and now the United States, if it so chooses, completely control their space so they can do they can do, you know, whatever. So, yeah, in this case, Trump's I don't know, what do you want to call it?

Trump's commitment to kind of doing what he told is what he said on the campaign trail. Trump's kind of macho. Let's drop some big bombs and show them who we are. Attitude paid off. It paid off in the fact that he did what I think was necessary. He did what I think will promote democracy.

ultimately promote long-term peace in the Middle East, long-term stability in the Middle East, and will go a long way to what I think should be and really must be the ultimate goal of this campaign –

which is regime change in Iran. But to do that, you had to take out the nuclear program because you had to basically take out this regime's...

What do you call it? A kind of claim to legitimacy. We're going to defend Iran with nuclear weapons. We're going to defend it from all its enemies. Iranians are going to be poor and you're going to stay poor because of all the sanctions and everything else. But we're building this amazing thing that will protect us and it's going to launch Iran into superpower status. And that's gone. And the regime has no excuse for the poverty. It has no excuse for

for the oppression. It has no excuse for the failure at this point. So fantastic that they took it out. I mean, and this was clearly a much easier decision

cleaner, simpler, less risky way to do it than having Israel have to put ground troops, you know, special forces on the ground and go into those tunnels and blow it up from the inside. Maybe that would have been a more thorough job, but it would have been a very, very, very, very, you know, risky job. So,

Good for Trump. Good for Trump doing this. I don't think it wipes out any of his other sins. This doesn't make me support Trump like Trump in any kind of way. But you have to recognize when they do something good once in a while that that is good. And then just a few minutes ago, I think it's just a few minutes ago, he tweeted another tweet that, you know, is is really great. And if if he lives up to it.

I'll have to say more nice things about Trump, which is going to be tough for me, as you know. But I will do it. In his latest tweet, Trump says, it's not politically correct to use the term regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change? M-I-G-A, make Iran great again. Look, the thing that I'll... I mean, the...

The purpose of all of this should be regime change in Iran. I mean, Israel and the United States are so close. They're probably never going to be this close. They'll never have so much leverage over Iran. They'll never be this close to actually getting it done. To walk away right now from Iran without actually getting the regime changed is

I think would be horrific. It would be horrific. I mean, I'm not saying that they should get the regime changed for a particular regime. I'm just saying this regime should be wiped out. And that means killing Khamenei. It means killing the judicial council or whatever they call it, the Supreme Council that nominates and approves the supreme leader. Get rid of the mullahs. Wipe them out.

And then let the Iranians figure it out. And if that means a civil war, fine, then I don't mean a civil war. But let the Iranians figure out what their future will be. Make it really, really, really easy for them in a sense of saying to them, this, this kind of, you know, aggressive theocracy that threatens the world, that is militant and constantly trying to, you know, use violence. This is unacceptable.

We will not tolerate this. We just showed you what can happen. But you choose anything else, any other variation we're good with. I mean, that should be the goal. Sadly, Israel keeps saying, no, no, no, we're not about regime change. And there are reports that Israel is ready within a week, probably.

to stop the campaign bombing in Iran. They're basically willing to, you know, they're taking out the targets. They've achieved their goal, supposedly, and that's good enough. That's good enough for them. Other than this tweet by Trump, I don't think anybody's really talking about regime change in Iran. But the reality is that it's what needs to be done. Otherwise, if this regime is allowed to continue,

Maybe they push back nuclear weapons decades, but they will find ways to support terrorism. Notice that neither the United States or Israel have destroyed the economic engine that is Iran. They have not destroyed their oil fields. They've not destroyed their ability to export oil. I think that's primarily to appease the Chinese. But they have...

They've kept Iran in a position where they can generate large sums of money. Now, maybe those large sums of money will not go into building nuclear weapons again. Who knows? Maybe they're going to buying one. Maybe they're going to just funding, continuing to fund terrorism around the world. It is so close, so close. Israel should not stop until they've killed Khamenei, until they've killed whoever's going to replace him. They should not stop until

until they flatten the regime institutions that are holding back the Iranian people from taking to the streets. And to do anything else is, again, in a different way, to kick the can down the road again. To kick the can down the road again, which Israel is very good at and supposedly learnt not to do anymore. So I'm hopeful that

That in spite of them saying we're not about regime change, we're not about regime change, we're not about regime change, that they really are. That that's really what they want. And they're going to stick with it until they get what they want. Because, you know, that was supposed to be the lesson of October 7th. No more kicking down the can down the road.

Indeed, you know, they're using this opportunity of the attacks in Iran to take care of some of the remnants of Hezbollah because they realize you have to. This is an opportunity. It's probably never going to it's probably going to take decades before it comes back again. Get rid of your enemies. Eliminate them. Send such an unquestioning message that nobody will dare touch you again. And they're so close because they've done such a phenomenal job, as I've said before,

What Israel has done is truly phenomenal, truly phenomenal. I mean, the ability to control the airspace, their ability to kill the people they want to kill, the intelligence that they have, just stunning. It's one of the great military achievements of all time.

Now finish the job and maybe the Americans will help you. You know, I'm seeing stories right now that Iran is getting ready to attack American bases in Iraq and possibly in Syria in retaliation for the strike yesterday.

If that happens, that'll give Trump kind of the excuse he needs, if you will, to go after them and actually bring about regime change. So let us hope that that is where we are actually heading. One second, let's see...

Yeah, I mean, Iran is saying we're not going to surrender. We're not going to stop. We're going to go after you. You're going to pay for this. So whether that actually happens or not, we will see. But they're making all the noises that they're going to go after American bases in the Middle East. And yeah, let's if that happens, then then it's time to go after their leadership and destroy it. I guess The New York Times said.

is saying that it's being told by U.S. officials that Iranian proxy groups are preparing attack on U.S. bases in Iraq and in Syria. So they still have proxy groups. At some point, the regime has to fold and those proxy groups have to disappear. Otherwise, they will only strengthen over time and continue to be a hazard to the rest of the West. Now, let's see what they do. They might do something just symbolic, right?

to be able to tell their people we did something, or they might do something significant. They might launch the attack only from Iraq, using the proxy groups in Iraq, or they might actually launch missiles from Iran. Each one of those will probably generate a different kind of response for Trump. If you remember after Soleimani died,

They launched an attack on an American base. It was a significant attack. It wasn't a trivial attack. But Trump decided that it wasn't a big deal and basically backed off and let it go. It's going to be interesting to see what happens this time. He's definitely expressed more seriousness this time than he has in the past.

I mean, Vance today was pretty funny. I don't know if you saw this statement from Vance. You know, he was in an interview. He says, we're at war with, he says, we're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. I mean, that's the insanity. That's insanity that worries me, but that it's consistent with the idea that you can have a war on drugs.

and a war on poverty, and you can have a war with Iran, with a nuclear program. Not a country, not a government, not a people, but a war with a program. I mean, that's just dumb and silly. And again, you know, this attempt to appease MAGA. You can't have a war on terror. That's another good example of a stupid definition of a war. This is an attempt to appease MAGA.

It's an attempt to indicate that this is very limited. You know, we don't really want a war. We want it limited. If you're going to do it, do it. If you're going to do it, do it. Take him out. Don't play these games with Iran's nuclear program. There is some question about the nuclear program itself. How much damage was done with Fodor? We still don't know.

You can see the holes going down, and you can see the cement residue in the area photographs from satellites. You can see the cement residue, so it reached cement, which is deep down, and that cement came out through the shafts that the missiles—there was some—

Some indication that maybe the targets were the air vents to make it easier to drill through. I have seen no verification of that, but there was some idea there. But we don't know how much damage was actually done inside, and it might be a while before we actually know.

The other thing we don't know, and there's a bunch of stuff floating around about this, and it's hard to tell, and that is we don't know what the situation is with the nuclear material that was already refined to, what, 60%, I think, which is the material that can be easily made into nuclear weapon grade very quickly. Now, if the photo attack was successful and Nantats is out and Istafan is out,

then they don't have the centrifuges to take, even if they got some nuclear material, uranium, they don't have the centrifuges to turn it into a nuclear bomb. Nobody actually knows where the so many kilograms of uranium refined to 60% actually are. They don't know if they were in one of the bases that was blown up.

or whether it was taken somewhere else. Netanyahu today in a press conference was asked about that, and he said something like, I can't really say, although there's some interesting information about that, which is kind of ambiguous. At the U.S. press conference earlier, they were again ambiguous about whether they think they have destroyed that uranium or not.

Also, there are a lot of rumors online at Twitter. You'll find on Twitter that they'll show you aerial photographs of Fordo where people are saying, you know, this is all BS because everything that was in Fordo was moved out of there by trucks a few days ago. And they'll show you the aerial photograph with dozens of trucks leaving the Fordo site. Now, what's funny about that is

You know, given the level of the level we've seen from Israeli intelligence with regard to Iran, given the fact that Israel has complete control of the airspace in Iran and probably has a drone stationed above Ford or 24 seven, you think they would have missed that? You think they wouldn't have seen that? You think they would have let those trucks get away if that actually happened? So, again, a lot of.

you know, questionable, bogus misinformation online. Beware. It looks credible because they've got a satellite photo. But, you know, who knows when it's from and who knows if it's been doctored? Who knows whether AI didn't create it? So I think the attack was successful. I think my guess would be, given what I saw from the aerial photographs,

And given what I know about these bunker-busting bombs, they caused – they didn't wipe out the site. The site is really deep and pretty big. But they caused enough damage to make it inoperable, I think, for a long, long time. So setting back the Iranian nuclear program decades, decades, making it unfeasible probably in my lifetime. So it's a huge – and of course –

It all depends now on whether this regime is allowed to stay around or not. All right, let me see what else did I want to... Yeah, we'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah, all right, we'll put that over there. So what next? So Iran is, of course, New York Times is reporting, others are reporting that they're getting ready to attack American installations in the Middle East. But if it's only the proxies, if it's only the militias in Iraq...

it probably won't be that substantial an attack. The bigger issue is that Iranian parliament supposedly has approved the closing of the Straits of Hormuz. As I've told you before, 24% of all the oil and natural gas in the world passes through those straits. The big customer of the oil and natural gas that passes through there is China.

And, you know, nobody is going to be happy if that if the Straits of Hormuz are closed. The Saudis won't be happy. The UAE won't be happy. The Kuwait and Qatar, none of those guys, Iraq, all of them export oil through those. It is an incredibly busy sea lane.

I've seen pictures of where every boat is represented, every ship is represented by light. I mean, the place is all lit up. There's hundreds of boats in that area constantly. So, you know, you could imagine the Iranians could close that pretty easily. Look at what the Houthis did in closing off the Red Sea. This is easier. It's a narrower strait.

So they could mine it. They have a bit of a Navy. They could also use short range missiles to kind of shoot at boats, at ships that were traveling through it. I think Iran realizes that that would be the end of the regime, that if they did that, that would give the excuse to Israel and the United States to basically destroy whatever they have left.

I'm surprised that the Iranian Navy is still mostly attack. Israel has attacked, has only attacked, you know, once, has only attacked the...

The navy, the Iranian navy wants and so there hasn't been a huge amount of damage to the Iranian navy. It's still intact. You would have expected that to be one of the targets, again, to prevent things like the closing of the Straits of Hormuz. But I think if they do try to do that, that is definitely the end of the regime. They will be wiped out. They will be wiped out. And they know that. You know, Iran is militarily finished.

Militarily has no capabilities, zero, zilch, nada. Other than closing the Strait of Hormones and attacking American bases around the Middle East, they've got nothing. For 19 hours now, they haven't sent a missile into Israel. They are sending deadlier missiles into Israel. They're sending these kind of cluster bomb-like missiles.

These ballistic missiles that then break apart with multiple bombs, bomblets that do more damage overall, although they each one of the smaller bombs now have less explosive power. They cover a wider area because they're kind of distributed. So they're doing they're doing damage in Tel Aviv, not massive damage, but they're doing damage.

They really have not heard kind of the spirit of Israelis. It does, you know, I was seeing videos today of Israelis at the beach and hanging out. So they have nothing. They can continue to lob missiles every day. They can do fewer missiles. Israel's already taken out half of their ballistic missile launches. They take out more every day. They've also taken out a lot of their missiles. They've definitely destroyed the factories in which they make the missiles.

The factories which may make the engines, the places where they refine the oil in order to—the solid-state oil fuel that they use in the missiles. So Israel's basically crippled—is slowly destroying and completely crippling their capacity to send those missiles. But that's really all they have other than blocking the Straits of Homs. And Israel can continue flying over there and—

shooting anybody and, you know, destroying anything they want to destroy. They have complete control over the skies and therefore over, you know, they have oversight and control over what the Iranian military actually does. So, you know, this is an overwhelming victory for Israel and now for the United States. So what are the risks that

You know, you've got a lot of people online still talking about World War III. So here's the risk. And, you know, and it's articulated by Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia and, you know, Putin's number two guy, I guess. This is what he wrote today. He tweeted today. What have the Americans accomplished with a nighttime strike on three nuclear sites in Iran?

says, one, critical infrastructure of the nuclear fuel cycle appears to be unaffected or sustained only minor damage. And I think there he's lying. It's just not true, but par for the course for the Russian regime to lie. So, you know, that is number one. Two, the enrichment of nuclear material. And now we can say it outright. Notice, now we can say it outright. The future production of nuclear weapons will continue.

So this is the first time anybody on that side, on Iran's side, has actually acknowledged that their purpose was to create, build nuclear weapons. Now, he thinks because the damage is minor, they will continue to do so. The damage is not minor, the damage is major, so they won't be able to do so.

And then three, and this is the new item, other than his acknowledgement of the fact that they were building nuclear weapons. Three, a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads. So that's, I guess, the biggest fear people might have, right? North Korea, Pakistan, or Russia itself, or Russia itself could provide Iran with nuclear weapons.

Now, the chance that Russia does it, I think, is very, very small. If Russia wanted to do that, they could have done it a long time ago. I think Russia, at the end of the day, actually does not want a nuclear Iran. Russia has its own Islamist problems. The last thing it needs is another country, a Muslim country with a nuclear weapon. I don't think Russia has any incentive to grant them and to give them a nuclear weapon. And plus, this regime is weak.

We can see how weak it is. Does Russia really want to give Iran a nuclear weapon, not knowing who is ultimately going to rule over Iran? And then, you know, I don't know if you saw the Putin interview yesterday or the day before. Somebody asked Putin, why aren't you, why aren't you, you know, supporting the Iranians? Why aren't you defending the Iranians? Putin said, he said, you know how many Russians live in Israel?

He said there are two to three million Russians in Israel. I mean, Russian is almost official language in Israel. To him, that matters. I mean, it's Russians. What he didn't mention is a number of his oligarchs, a number of his supporters, billionaire oligarchs, a number of them have Israeli passports, live in Israel and, you know, have strong ties to Israel. And these are people he doesn't want to piss off, given the war in Ukraine.

And given his lack of popularity, he does not want to piss off his oligarchs, the ones he hasn't thrown out of windows yet. Those oligarchs, many of them are Jewish and many of them have residence in Israel. Many of them spend a lot of time in Israel. Many of them have family in Israel. Putin is not going to give the Iranians a nuclear bomb. Is Pakistan going to give them a bomb? Pakistan has a significant number of atomic bombs, mostly targeted at India.

not mostly, all targeted in India. India is their enemy, their threat, the threat that they perceive. Pakistan is Sunni. Iran is Shiite. Does Pakistan want to give a nuclear bomb to Iran? Probably not. They're afraid of what a Sunni regime would do with nuclear weapons. It's also true that Pakistan today gets most of its support. I mean, I don't think Pakistan could really survive from the United States.

A lot of support from the United States. The United States has played India, Pakistan. It's played both sides of that. Pakistan probably does not want to piss off the Americans right now. It's in a confrontation with Iran. Indeed, the Pakistani president or foreign minister the other day said that Trump should get a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve a ceasefire between Pakistan and India. They're sucking up to Trump completely.

They want money from America. They, you know, they want American support. They are not going to give the Iranians a nuclear bomb. So who's left? Well, North Korea. North Korea indeed is a wild card here. North Korea could indeed provide support.

the the Iranians with a nuke. It's unlikely. And I think ultimately the North Koreans do what the Russians and the Chinese tell them to do. So I doubt that they will actually do it for the same reasons I doubt Russia would do it. But he's enough of a crazy man. He's enough of he's insane enough to be able to want to do it. But how does he actually get them a bomb? How does he deliver it?

You can imagine that right now every intelligence agency in the world is focused on, you know, this delivery, potential delivery of a nuclear bomb from North Korea to Iran. And my guess is that Iran has been asking North Korea for nuclear weapons for a long time. So it's not simple. It's hard to get to. Everybody's watching. I don't think it's doable.

Iran is not going to get a nuke. It's just not. Medvedev, sorry pal, ain't happening. Iran should be toast. It just needs that push. Now, some of you might think, well, why aren't people in Iran out into the streets? And so far, we've seen no evidence that there are indeed out into the streets demanding a change in the regime. I think there are a number of reasons. One, I think they're waiting to see

they would rather go out into the streets with the regime significantly weaker. So they have every incentive to wait for a while, see how far Israel and potentially the United States go, how far this goes, where this gets. The more Israel weakens the revolutionary guard, the more likelihood that the army itself, the revolutionary guard, is committed to the Islamist regime. The army, maybe not so much.

So the more Israel weakens the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which it's doing, the more likelihood there is that the army might side with the Iranian people. Israel has taken out a few of the, you know, the intelligence agency, the police, a couple of police stations in Tehran. The more that is all weakened, the less resistance the Iranian people, if they go out in the street, will actually have. So one is the waiting to see.

Second is you have to realize how brutal the mullahs really are. In 2019, they killed over a thousand people and they arrested, you know, thousands and they beaten and maimed and tortured. Who knows how many? And during the girls revolution, how many girls were arrested, tortured, murdered, hung, blinded? So they're afraid.

They're afraid. So it is it's going to take time for the Iranian people to go out there. Also, as I've said before, there's no obvious leader for this revolution. There's a Shah's son who's in America, but he's here. He's not there. There's no local focal point. There's no somebody to rally the troops. And finally, the Internet is down. So communications are

is challenging right now in Iran to organize mass protests, you would have to have a means of communication. So I don't think it's going to happen while Israel continues to bomb. If the Iranians go out in the streets, they will wait until Israel's stopped or slowed down. And they will more eagerly do it. I mean, they will more eagerly do it if Khamenei is taken out.

if, you know, the mullahs, or at least the mullahs are weakened significantly at the top. Now, I know there were stories about Ilan giving them Starlink. He's giving them access, but you have to have equipment to access Starlink. How do you get that equipment? I'm sure lots of people are trying to smuggle it into Iran right now. And I'm sure,

They they are some of them are successfully smuggling them in right now, but it's going to take a while until they set up enough of these Starlink receivers all over Tehran or all over Iran to be able to connect to Starlink and actually provide Internet service in a significant way.

to a significant portion of the population so they can actually use it for communication. Actually, just making the satellites up there available for free doesn't help you unless you've got a receiver down here on Earth. You need something on Earth to be able to communicate with the Starlink. If you sign up for Starlink here in America, they'll send you a receiver, like the equivalent of a satellite dish, to be able to link up to the satellite.

All right. Let's see. I see the anti-war losers are here. That's good. Nobody wants. So let's let's a few of the things I want to do and then we'll get to that. Yeah. Important to note how we got here. Well, no, let's keep that for a minute. One other issue about the Trump's attack on Saturday.

Without a doubt, this attack was unconstitutional. A violation of the Constitution and a violation of the War Powers Act. This is the kind of thing that should have gone to Congress. It should have gone to Congress to get approval. This is, again, the job of Congress. Of course, a job Congress has defaulted on for decades now. Just like a lot of what the Trump administration is doing, which is a violation of the Constitution in terms of separation of powers,

This is another violation of the Constitution in terms of separation of powers. Now, Trump will tell you, and many of his supporters will tell you, everybody does that. Everybody does it. And that's true. You know, we've been violating the Constitution for a very, very long time. There was no emergency here in the sense of,

Iran was going to have a nuke in, you know, within a few days unless they bombed them now. The only reason they bombed them now is because Israel's there and it's weakened the Iranians enough to be able to go in safely and bomb them. No reason why you couldn't do this. Now, again, this is one violation of the Constitution, though, probably turn out well, right? Probably turn out well. And

So, you know, I'm sure legal scholars will quibble. There's certain provisions that allow for some one-time actions and so on. But no, the reality is

that this is inconsistent, that this required congressional action. It's sad that he didn't do it. My respect for him would be, you know, it wouldn't be Trump if he did it, right? Certainly, particularly given that nobody else has done it. Nobody else in the past has done it. We fought in Libya. We fought in, we've attacked many, many targets over the years without asking for a congressional approval.

So it's unfortunate that that is the case, but that is the case. That is the case. You know, and let's say people are worried that this would have leaked. First of all, he wouldn't have had to, you know, leak any plan. He would have said, I'm asking authorization.

to destroy Iran's nuclear program in and if and when necessary, and to engage in whatever other actions are necessary in order to defend American personnel in the Middle East. That's it. Without dates, without times, without locations, you know, the Constitution doesn't require that. Once Congress gives approval, the execution is up to the executive.

So he could have easily gone to Congress and asked for something broad like that. He could have done it weeks ago when Israel first launched this attack. But he didn't. Then you would say, well, but then Iran would have known he was going to do it. But again, I don't understand the secrecy. I don't understand the need for secrecy. I don't understand why anybody cared if this would leak.

Literally, let's say they had done it in broad daylight and let the Iranians know 48 hours in advance the exact time and location they were going to bomb. What? Please tell me, what could the Iranians have done about it? What? Nothing. They have no air defense systems. They have no air force. They couldn't do anything. So the whole...

secrecy and deception and all bogus, all unnecessary. There was no reason not to go to Congress, except the fact that he doesn't want to go to Congress. And he's consistent with years of this. Okay. I want to do a little segment here, somewhat standalone segment, on why Iran? Why are we going after Iran? Why do I want war with Iran? I definitely want war with Iran.

I've been wanting war with Iran for 20 years. I've been saying it, right? For 20 years, I've been saying the real enemy is Iran, right? 9 after 9-11. I helped put out a full-page ad in the New York Times and Washington Post written by Leonard Peikoff saying, it's Iran, stupid, and we should take them out. Why? Because Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979. It's been killing Americans since 1979. Let's start.

In 1979, the U.S. Embassy was taken. Sixty-six Americans were held hostage for 444 days by Iranian students backed by Ayatollah Khomeini, the predecessor of Khamenei. In 1983, the U.S. Embassy was bombed in Beirut. Seventeen Americans were killed. The bombing was done by Hezbollah, which was funded, supported, promoted by the Iranians.

Also in 1983, just a little bit after the U.S. embassy bombing, the Marine barracks, Ronald Reagan had sent Marines as peacekeepers to Beirut, was bombed. 241, 241 U.S. servicemen, primarily Marines, were killed with a car bomb. Again, backed by Hezbollah, backed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. So a lot of Americans have already died. We're only in 1983.

Iran's been at war with the United States. Now, the United States can bury its head in the sand and pretend it ain't so, but that's the reality. 1984, the U.S. Embassy annex is bombed in Beirut again. Two Americans are killed.

In 1996, by the way, in the 1980s, also the Hezbollah, with the guidance of the Iranians, kidnapped the CIA, the head of the CIA in Beirut, tortured him and killed him. They kidnapped several Americans, killing several of them. We'll skip ahead, though, to 1996. Koba Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.

which was done by Hezbollah al-Hijaz, again, backed by Iran with Iranian intelligence and Iranian support, killed 19 U.S. airmen in 1998. The U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya and Tanzania. Twelve Americans killed by al-Qaeda. Iran and Hezbollah provided tactical support. Why is it any of Iran's business why we have troops in Beirut? Why is it any of Iran's business why we have troops in Saudi Arabia?

We didn't have troops in Iran. Why is Iran killing Americans in Beirut? Why is Iran killing Americans in Saudi Arabia? They're killing Americans. Maybe at that point they didn't have reach to get to the United States, but their goal is to kill Americans. So, you know, why is Iran in Beirut? Why is Iran in Saudi Arabia? Why is Iran in Iraq? Why is Iran in Syria? Why are you not asking those questions?

Let's say it was an American mistake to send American troops to Beirut. That doesn't justify killing them. It just doesn't justify Iran killing them. I mean, if it was Lebanese, you could at least argue something. If the Koba Towers in Saudi Arabia was bombed by Saudis, OK, maybe. But why are the Iranians doing it?

In 1998, the U.S. Embassy, well, we did that. 2001 to 2020, the Iranians supported the killing of at least 30 or more U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, 2003 to 2011. The Iranians are responsible for the killing of hundreds of

hundreds of Americans in Iraq. Now you can say, we shouldn't have been there. Maybe, maybe we shouldn't have been in Iraq. Maybe we can have that debate another time. Why is Iran killing them? Because Iran's at war with America. And they're doing whatever they can, wherever they can, to kill Americans. We're not moving the goalposts. We're not moving anywhere. We're telling the story as it is. In 2007, in Kambala Province headquarters,

In Iraq, five American soldiers are killed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Kurds Force operatives. In 2019, a rocket attack on the K1 airbase in Iraq, one U.S. contractor killed by an Iran-based Hezbollah, right? Iran-backed Hezbollah. Ballistic missile attack on Al-Assad airbase in Iraq, 100-plus U.S. personnel are injured.

In 2011, a plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C. by the Iranian Revolutionary Corp. This is in D.C. was, you know, was discovered. In 2021, a plot to kidnap an Iranian here in New York City, an Iranian dissident in New York City. They're now in New York by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

was foiled. And then in 2024, there was a motive for higher plot targeting Donald Trump and others that was linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Now, that's just purely attacks on America. The fact is that Iran was developing and working on a ICBM, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile,

What do they need that for? Not to attack Israel. That a ballistic, regular ballistic missile is good enough. Why would they need an ICBM? Well, only because if they wanted to attack the United States and put a nuke on it. Well, hello, you shouldn't call yourself a libertarian if by libertarian you mean liberty. Because you're not for liberty. You're for, you know, failure, death and destruction by pacifism, by inaction. That's not liberty. Liberty is something you need to fight for.

Liberty is something you need to protect. Liberty is something you need to, you have to realize that there are bad guys out there in the world who want to destroy it. The Iranians want to destroy liberty in the U.S. And you, and many of you, want to just pretend. All is good in the world. Libertarians are generally very good at pretending, making stuff up and pretending. So no, the U.S. had lots of reasons, and I'm not even including him. The fatwa against Solomon Rushdie,

in, what is it, 1989, the firebombing of American bookstores inspired by the Iranians in 1989 and early 1990s. Ultimately, the attack on Salman Rushdie in the United States by somebody who was inspired by the fatwa, by the Iranian fatwa. And then I'm not talking about, you know, the proxy war that the Iranians have fought against Israel using Hamas and Hezbollah and

and uh and and their agents in you in syria and in iraq you know we're not talking about the fact that iran was responsible for the massacring thousands and thousands and thousands of people in iraq sorry in syria in syria because you know that's not america's interest who cares i get it but you should care about american lives you should care about threats to american lives and

You know, people say, oh, they've been claiming Iran wants nuclear weapons forever. Why was Iran refining uranium to 60% when for commercial purposes you need a lot less than that?

And once it's at 60%, to get it to the 95% that is used in a nuclear bomb is very easy and very quick to do. Why were they actually getting to 60%? Why were they doing it and accumulating uranium at 60% if they weren't intending ultimately to convert it into uranium they could put in a bomb and use? The only reason they would do that, only reason they would do that is if they wanted a bomb. And why would they want a bomb? Well, to gain strategic power in the Middle East.

to make them untouchable vis-a-vis the United States and Israel. You know, if they had the opportunity to use one of those bombs, certainly on Israel. I mean, the cowardice and the evasion and the blindness and the anti-Americanism, the anti-Western civilization that is implicit in the libertarian movement today is really horrific and disgusting.

So, you know, they are either ignorant, but they're not ignorant. They're evasive. They choose not to see what's right in front of their eyes. And they choose not to defend their own freedom and their own liberty. They choose not to identify what is a real threat. Because most libertarians are inspired by anarchists, by Rothbard and the like, who above all, ultimately, hate America, hate the West,

because we're actually pretty good. And the whole idea of vaticry is, no, no, no, the state is awful, the state of evil, the state is horrible. It's just, and we must hate any state, particularly the good ones. The bad ones confirm our theory. So, you know, we don't hate the Iranians. We don't hate the Soviets. We don't hate the Russians. We don't hate those because they're bad regimes. That's completely consistent. I'd say all of that,

And that is true of this is why Ron Paul, people like somebody like Ron Paul is so pro Venezuela of all places. Venezuela, a socialist hellhole. And he thinks the poverty and problems that Venezuela has are because of American sanctions. They would rather hate America than condemn some authoritarian hellhole.

Yeah, I mean, American intervention has been very factless, horrible over the last, you know, since World War II. We fought wars we shouldn't have fought, and we've not fought wars we should have fought. But the solution to bad foreign policy is not, you know, let's pretend there's no evil in the world and let's bury our head in the sand. And that's, you're saying there's been bad foreign policy. Absolutely, there's been horrible foreign policy. Let's fix it rather than pretending it's

that the world is nice and friendly and good, except for America and Israel. Those are the bad guys. America, Israel, Western Europe. Those are the evil people in the world. The good people in the world all live on the other side. They're the authoritarians. That's, that's modern libertarianism for you. I, you know, just go listen to them. Go, go listen to Dave Smith or, or watch, watch the chat here and you get a good, good sense of this. Um,

Whoops, I just had something pretty cool from an Iranian, a citizen of Tehran, but it's refreshed my screen and it's gone. All right, let me just see if I can find it. All right, let's see, what else did I want to say? We got, so we did that and we did, oh, one more thing I want to say.

I'll say about Fodor and the attack, and that is how we got here in a sense. I mean, the reality is that this is all a consequence of the fact that previous American presidents have been kicking the can down the road forever. You know, Bush had an opportunity. Israel wanted to go after the Iranian nuclear program.

back, you know, while Bush was president, and he wouldn't let Israel do it. Obama stopped Israel from doing it. This is before there was Fodor. So before there was anything dug so deep, you couldn't get it. And then when Obama was going to sign, was negotiating a deal with the Iranians, the nuclear deal, they were ultimately signed in 2015, I think, or, you know, he, the negotiations started out as,

As part of this deal, you have to get rid of FORDO. You have to eliminate FORDO. In December 2013, Obama actually said, quote, we know they don't need to have an underground fortified facility at FORDO in order to have a peaceful program. Right. This is this is a position that kept being repeated by the Obama negotiators. In other words, implying part of this deal, part of this deal.

is to, part of the deal is going to be for them to have to dismantle whatever they have in Fodor. And then ultimately by the time they actually did the deal in March of 2015, there was basically no, they basically completely folded under Fodor.

As as only son writes to get the Iranians to say yes. Team Obama had begun with day one concessions and keeping four door open and letting the Iranian regime slide on past nuclear weapon work alone.

A few days later, the Iranians would pull the bait and switch on how their stock call was calculated, which would cascade in diplomatic and technical ways through the rest of the talks. So when the deal was implemented the next year, they would ask for and get secret carve outs to keep enriched uranium beyond what the deal allowed. They were always cheating. Obama let them. Obama created a bad deal.

A deal that allowed the Iranians to cheat and allowed the Iranians to actually keep a program that was going to be used for nuclear programs. And it was only, you know, and Trump, one of the good things that he did in his first administration is get the U.S. out of the Iran deal. Out of it. But that was it. He got out and didn't do anything. And by doing so, you know, basically gave Iran carte blanche to continue working on the nuclear deal without delay.

Any change? So, you know, maybe already when Trump left the nuclear deal back in 2017, he had plans ultimately to go back and militarily rid the Iranians of their nuclear capabilities. I doubt that. I doubt that. That's how we got here. We got here because, you know, Obama didn't let the Israelis take out the nuclear program and then allowed the Iranians to keep Fodor. And then Trump got us out of the bad deal that Obama signed.

but didn't take care of business when he did that. Famous last words, give diplomacy a chance, right? Obama did diplomacy. Trump gave them 60 days to do diplomacy. There is no diplomacy. You can't do diplomacy with evil. You should have never met them. They should have never offered them. You should have never even suggested diplomacy. Only way you deal with evil is with force. You can't compromise with evil. There's nothing you gain by compromising with evil.

I mean, you'd think we would have learned that from history. Munich and a million other times we have made deals with the bad guys. And what has come out of the other side? Always, always we lose. All right. Let's see if there's anything else we want to cover here. Just checking Twitter to see if there's any breaking news. Yeah. So Iran has just launched missiles against Israel.

So there will be sirens in Israel any minute now. In the next few minutes, there will be sirens. It'll be interesting to see how many missiles were launched. But so far, there have been very few. But there have been these more destructive missiles that if they get past the defense systems are pretty nasty when they land. It was, I guess, ironic, you could say.

A few days ago, a missile was fired. Missiles were fired at Haifa. One of them got through and destroyed a mosque. It destroyed a mosque in Haifa.

Luckily, the people who were at the mosque at the time were in a safe room and they were fine. But the mosque was, from what I understand, destroyed. So that was on one of the days that I was in Arizona traveling and didn't do a show. So we're going to stay with the stream here to see what happens with this launch and what are the consequences of it. Let me just check my Telegram channels as well.

So we get a full array of information about what is going on. In the meantime, let me just say one thing and then I'll go to your questions. And remember, you can use the Super Chat to ask questions. Many of you have already, but happy to keep them coming. Happy to stay up until we finish and answer all the questions. Supposedly, whatever attack is on Israel right now is pretty small. Not many missiles. So a handful of missiles there.

But, you know, all it takes is one to get through and cause real damage or kill somebody. All right. Let's see. But yeah, you would think that after 19 hours, Iran would be preparing a major launch. But no, they're not. And of course, the big question is, will they launch against against the U.S.? OK, quickly, there was a terrorist attack today in Syria.

against a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus. An individual came in there, started shooting people, and ultimately blew himself up. I think killing nine, injuring a whole bunch of people. It is assumed that this person is a part of ISIS. Now remember, the guy who is now the president of Syria is a former ISIS commander who claims to have become more moderate in

and is now the ruler of Syria, and ISIS is trying to destabilize rule there. And generally ISIS wants to kill anybody who's not a Sunni Muslim, and therefore Christians going after Christians, going after Shiites, and going after Druze. But it is interesting, and it's also interesting to note that the media doesn't cover these kind of stories. Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson claim to care about Christians, care about Christians,

And yet they won't cover the story. The best thing to do with Syria is leave it alone. Not a threat to the United States. No, no threat to the United States. Potential threat long term to Israel. But Israel can take care of it. No threat to the United States.

There's plenty of countries in the Middle East that have not called the United States to go to Walworth. Indeed, there's only one country in the entire world that I have called the United States to go to Walworth for 20 years, 25 years. Leonard Peikoff actually called for this in 1989. And Ayn Rand actually said, after the United States did nothing after the hostage crisis, she said that we would pay for decades for

For the fact that we did not go after the Iranians when the hostages were taken. You know, she was absolutely right, as she often is, as she almost always is. We are paying for it to this day.

Yeah, Iran is the one country and really the only country. I didn't think we should go to war with Afghanistan. I didn't think we should go to war with Iraq. I thought we should destroy al-Qaeda. I thought we should destroy a lot of organizations that promoted Islamist views. I didn't think we should occupy Afghanistan. I never believed we should occupy Iraq. I did believe we should go to war with Iran and destroy that regime. And in that sense, it's finally happened. It's finally happened.

All right. Let's see if there's anything new about anything happening. Yeah, the whole of Tel Aviv, the whole of the center of Israel, all the way to Jerusalem is under sirens right now. And we have somebody in the chat saying there are sirens in Tel Aviv. I think those are sirens in Jerusalem. Paulo says he prefers Hayek and Mises to Rand. I'm not surprised.

I'm not surprised you do. And yet you're wasting your time here. Not sure exactly why. But no, Rand is far superior to Hayek and Mises is an economist, not a philosopher. So they're not competing. They're not in competition. Rand is a philosopher and in that sense has something to say about a lot more than just economics.

Mises has no position vis-à-vis Iran, although I suspect that Mises as an individual would have supported taking out the Iran regime. He was not a pacifist. He was not an anarchist. Rothbard was a horrible, awful scumbag and not a particularly good – a good economist and a terrible historian of economics who manipulated the data well.

in order to get the results he wanted. So you got to be very, very careful with Rothbard. All right, let's see. Anything new? Not really. Okay, let's start with questions. One second, let's just see. Yeah, they're not giving us any info really about what's going on. All right, questions. We have a bunch. We'll start with the $20 questions and please keep them coming. Evan, for $50. Thank you, Evan.

Finally, over the years, the Institute has produced an impressive arsenal of ammunition against Iran since 9-11. Really, think about it, Evan. We produced an arsenal since 1989, since the Fatwa on Salman Rushdie, which also resulted in a full-page ad in newspapers at the time, again calling the United States to take out the Iranian regime.

because of the fatwa. So it's been since 89, we've gone after them. And if again, you go back to Rand's comments in 1980, early 1980, it's been, you know, 40 plus years. But yes, we've produced a lot of content since 9-11. I'd like to think you've had some influence on the changes in policy framing, even if it took decades. I'd like to think so too, but I don't know that that's actually reality.

Maybe among the people who, you know, if you look at poll after poll after poll, people were saying that the president should do what he can to prevent Iran from getting a nuke. Maybe that we had an impact on. I don't know anybody around Trump that we might have had an impact on. I don't know. So hopefully it's it's one of those where it's where it's you can't.

You can't directly trace it because there's no one point of influence. Now, in a lot of things, for example, I can say Alex Epstein has been a real influence on a lot of things going on within Republican politics right now, and particularly issues. Alex did co-author with me the article on just war theory that talked about Iran in it. So who knows? Maybe he said the right thing at the right time for the right person. And maybe some of them have read my article. I don't know. I don't know. Hexeth...

In his better moments, not often, says things that sound as if he's read my article. He's definitely against just war theory. All right, let's see. Not your average algorithm. Thinking is required for peace to exist. Think is to reason. Crazy people cannot think. Western universities reject reason as a way to know truth.

Here we are, politicians using the Bible to justify going to war. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, without reason, you get war. And it's no accident that Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah and all, you know, guided by

a, you know, particular interpretation of Islam. They're all guided by theocratic ideas, by Sharia law, by imposing Islam on all of us. And, you know, it's no accident that that's where the enemy is. It's no accident that Russia is where it is. Russia is...

you know, is mystical. They're not religious, but they've abandoned reason. They believe in some kind of Russian spirit, Russian collectivistic thing. And the consequence of that is they go to war. So yes, when we abandon reason, when we embrace mysticism of any form, we embrace collectivism and reject individualism, and rejection of reason ultimately always leads to collectivism, then war is the consequence.

War is the consequence. And, yeah, peace will come when we embrace the ideas of the Enlightenment that Ayn Rand improved upon, the ideas of reason, individualism, and true political freedom. Not to have a juggle with them. Do people only sling hate and ugliness when they are beneath you? Really? I don't understand that. Do people only sling hate and ugliness when they are beneath you? Who's beneath whom? I'm not...

I don't really understand the question. I think people sling hate and ugliness in all directions. Bad people do that. I don't know if it's about being above and beneath. I think it's more about who you are and your character. It looks like this, you know, this attack from the Iranians on Israel was just a few missiles, maybe one or two. And it's done and nothing fell to the ground. So it looks like so pretty pathetic.

And after 19 hours, and it shows the extent to which Israel has destroyed and weakened the Iranian capability to launch anything, the Iranian capability to actually attack Israel in any kind of way. So, you know, again, kudos to the Israeli Air Force. It's stunning, stunning success.

Nathan, why did it work to impose a Western constitution on Japan when they didn't have the cultural philosophy to support that way of life? Could that work in Iran? Yeah, I mean, I think it could work in Iran. And it's not exactly true to say that about Japan. So Japan in the late 19th century started really opening up to the West. They embraced, you know, industrialization.

They embraced, for a while, Western democracy. They embraced, you know, to some extent, Western music, Western clothes. So Japan was westernizing as it became fascist and imperialist and all the horrible stuff that it did. It indeed couldn't have had

It couldn't have built the kind of military that it built. And look, Japan and Iran are very different places. Japan had a real military that stood up to the United States. Iran has nothing. Iran has nothing. I wouldn't even call it a paper tiger because there's no tiger. There's a lot of paper. No tiger. So Iran has a bunch of dumb missiles. That's all it has. Japan had aircraft carriers and advanced airplanes. And it had a real industry.

So it had westernized quite a bit before they really turned to fascism. But the reason you could impose a Western Constitution is because they'd been so thoroughly defeated. Now, I think Iran also could be open to a Western-style Constitution because Iran was westernizing, you know, from, I'd say, the beginning of the 20th century all the way until 1979. Iran was on a path of westernization.

throughout that period, indeed, you know, they elected a socialist, a secular socialist as prime minister. In the 1950s, the CIA was one of the parties involved in deposing him and ultimately imposing a shah. And the shah of Iran from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s was westernizing Iran. But Iran had already started westernizing well before that under primarily British influence. So,

You know, I don't see any problem with the Iranians today. And if you saw the Go Revolution of two years ago and what they were willing to do and what they were fighting for, I don't see any reason why the Iranians could not embrace a Western-style constitution. You know, something. I don't know how good it would be, but something that was more oriented around political and to some extent individual liberty.

I think they're ready for it, and I think they could embrace it. I speak. Who are some English-speaking Israeli voices to follow through all of this? Haviv Redingur seems good. As an aside, I really enjoyed your recent woke Iran joke. I don't even remember my woke Iran joke. Was there a woke Iran joke? When did I do that? Israeli voices in English are

I mean, some people I follow, but I don't want to endorse them completely. But Eyal Yacoby, A-Y-A-L-Y-A-K-O-B-Y, on Twitter posts a lot of stuff, and much of it is good. There's an Iranian-Israeli woman.

Let me see if I can find her name who writes in English, who is quite good. Let me just see. And just saying the IAEA has confirmed that all the nuclear sites were damaged significantly, but they can't confirm how bad it was in Fodo. Iranian regulating authorities, that there's no increase in off-site radiation levels at any of the sites. So...

There's no radiation. I'm not sure what exactly that means. It might mean that the uranium that was refined is not actually being released or not actually was not part of the attack or is buried under the concrete. I don't know. Who else? Amit Segal, who is a commentator in the Israeli news. Amit, A-M-I-T-S-E-G-A-L is also good. So those are two things.

You know, you can find others. If you get those two, you'll get the feed. We'll start presenting you with a few others and you can find more. I'm curious what the joke was. All right. Let's see. PB, it was a great pleasure to attend filming of your Peterson course on corporations. You were in top form and showing off your deep knowledge and expertise as a professor. It was fun to see you.

The great way and a great way to expose my son to YBS. Thank you. Really appreciate you being there. It was great. We had a live audience. PB was one of the people there. I thank you again for your advice when I had the shoulder surgery. I really appreciate that. So I was in Arizona the last few days doing a course on the corporation, kind of a business history course.

It was a lot of fun. It's a lot of work preparing for it, but it was a lot of fun. And I could have, you know, looking back, could have probably done, you know, there was an eight hour course, probably could have done 16 hours. I had so much material at the end of the day. I would have had to have a lot more prep time.

in order to get to that high. But they did say, Peterson did say that they would release it before the end of the year. So I do expect it to be out before the end of the year. I will be back in Arizona in July to take two more courses, one on trade and globalization and tariffs. That'll be fun.

Eight hours and including a deep history into into trade, which will be fun. And the second one on the history, meaning significance, whatever future of money of money. So money, one on money, one on trade.

And you guys, welcome to come and be in the audience live. So let me know if you'd like to come. We had 10 people there. They were, and that's all they're looking for is a small group. And they were all, I think everybody there was a listener of the Iran Book Show. So thank you all for coming. PB and everybody else who showed up. It was great to meet you. And, you know, I couldn't do it without a live audience. A live audience makes it so much more fun.

interesting and fun and dynamic. So money and trade, it'll be basically the last week in July. You can get the dates from me, write me at jiran at jiranbookshow.com. And maybe we'll have in the description below, we'll have links to where you can sign up to be there in person.

Michael, what is with these appellate court upholding all the unconstitutional activities Trump is engaging in? Law courts have thrown out his tariffs on National Guard deployment, and then the appellate court has reinstated them. They haven't completely reinstated them. They've just said, while we hear the case—

We are going to let the Trump administration pursue these. So they've lifted the stay, the hold on this, which is probably the appropriate thing for them to do. Let's hear the case and let's have a ruling. And there hasn't been they haven't other than they haven't really been rulings in this, certainly not at their pellet court level.

Ultimately, the appellate court will hear arguments. They will make a ruling one way or the other. And then this will be appealed to the Supreme Court on all these issues. So the courts are just saying, hold on, you can't stop implementing this. You can't stop the Trump administration from implementing it. We're going to let them implement it until we decide. But that's not necessarily in favor of the Trump administration.

It's how they rule in the end it is. All right, James, once you know yourself, do you know everyone else? No, of course not. We're all different. You know, I think it's pretty arrogant to think that if you know yourself, you know every other person. We all have our own values. We all shape our own souls or not. And we're different. And you've got to take, if you want to know somebody, you've got to take the time and effort to actually get to know them.

And it's not necessarily easy to get to know somebody else. Not easy at all. All right. Let's see. Merrick, here's to regime change in Iran. Thank you, Merrick. Appreciate it.

Mike, maybe the Kurds will be among the first to rise up. They've already suggested that they're willing to fight the Iranian regime, but they will fight up in the north and they will try to establish an autonomous area in the north for the Kurds. They're not going to go to Tehran and fight in Tehran. That would be very unlikely. But they have already indicated their interest and willingness to fight for their land.

Let's see. Michael, will you go on Destiny's show again after Ocon if you start doing events together with him like you did with Dave Rubin? It could easily grow your show. He's currently doing a live stream debating Trump supporters in New York City. Yes, I probably will do something with Destiny when I get back from Ocon.

When I get back from Ocon, my focus is going to be primarily in preparing the Peterson courses, but I'll definitely also be looking at opportunities to do something with Destiny. I don't know what his position on Iran is. Maybe we can do something on that.

Siberian. Hey, Iran. How would you compare the potential of the Russian and Iranian population to support pro-freedom reform, both the fundamentally Eastern with a more influence of the Western values, with some influence of the Western values? I think a greater potential right now is in Iran, partially because

The regime is more totalitarian in Iran, is more offensive if you hold even a little bit of Western values in Iran. I mean, the whole idea of covering women's hair, limiting what women, you know, covering their hair and telling them how to dress, that's a big deal. And it could push Iran much more towards the West. The whole idea of an explicit theocracy makes it much more offensive.

I think, open and susceptible to something different. Iran is, I think also, at the end of the day, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think Iranian society, the secular part of Iranian society is more secular than the Russia, which has always been mystical and dark, even the non-Saharan

pretty much across all sectors. But, you know, I think either one of them, I mean, Ayn Rand was always very pessimistic about the possibility of Russia becoming a fully Western country because of the mysticism, the superstition, and the anti-reason mentality that so much of Russia had. And I assume she knew what she was talking about. She lived there for a long time. Now, things could have changed, but they don't seem to have changed.

They don't seem to have changed. By the way, one of the things I just say is one of the things I don't understand about all the people who don't want the United States to attack Iran and against what Trump did is what is the downside? What do they think the downside is? What can Iran actually do if we're willing to actually go after them?

There's no World War III. There won't be a World War III. That's complete fantasy and absurdness. So what is the downside? They'll attack American personnel in the Middle East. They do anyway. And most people who are against this don't want American personnel in the Middle East anyway. I don't want American personnel in the Middle East. I don't know what we're doing in Iraq and Syria. I don't think we need to be there. But what is it they're going to do?

And why, why did they can think in only one dimension, right? Ooh, it failed in Iraq. Therefore it must fail all the time, everywhere, no matter what we do. We changed the regime in Panama. Remember changing the regime in Panama? I can't remember which president we did that. And that worked. We changed the regime in Grenada. Remember Reagan changed the regime in Grenada? That worked. We changed the regime in Germany after World War II and in Japan. That worked really well. I mean, amazingly well.

Everybody's like obsessed with Iraq. Like we failed in Iraq, therefore we should never try again. Not let's learn. Let's learn from our experience and do it better next time. Let's learn from our experience which regime should be changed and which shouldn't be changed. Let's actually study what happened in Iraq so it never happens again. No, no, no. It failed once. It has to fail again. Always will fail again. That's what it is. It's just stunning how...

unthinking people can be. I see this on Twitter all the time. Oh, but Iraq, Iraq, it's the only thing they know. Now, I said at the time, and you can find this, by the way, you can find this in my talks 20 years ago. I said, Bush is doing such a pathetic, awful job in Iraq, such a pathetic, awful job in Iraq, that America will pay for this for generations because now they'll be afraid to go to war.

Because of how horrible this in Iraq and Afghanistan is. And I have been shown, again, to be 100% true. I predicted it completely. You know, the biggest damage Iraq did was that it created this skepticism about America's ability to defend itself, to actually wage war and make a difference in the world. And, you know, we'll see if last night makes any difference in

Overall, when it comes to that, Shazbat, the best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank. That's from Scotty in Star Trek. Thank you, Shazbat. Andrew, all the fretting, all the fretting of the talking heads about what happens next has an altruistic bend to it.

It's as if the nation defending itself has the moral responsibility for full plan of how Gaza, Iran should reorganize itself. Absolutely right. It's like, who cares what happens next? Destroy this regime, get rid of this regime and let the Iranians sort it out. Destroy Hamas. Now, Israel can't just let it sorted out. They're going to have to have a plan at some point. They are going to have to settle it because their self-defense depends on it. But with regard to Iran, America...

Other than don't be hostile to America, they don't care about what regime comes afterwards. Just don't be hostile to America. So I keep getting these two bombs confused. I keep getting corrected. You know, MOP is what was used. M-O-P was what was used on Fordow and Antaz. And the mother of all bombs is not a bunker buster. It's just a big bomb.

But they're two completely different things. All right, get it. I'll try not to make that mistake again. The mother of all bunker busting bombs. How about that? The mother of all bunker busting bombs.

Thank you, Andrew. Ali, what are your thoughts on reports that Trump allegedly threatened Elon Musk over potential support for the Democratic Party? Is that something a president should be allowed to do? No, it's not alleged. He actually did it. He did it publicly. I remember the tweet or whatever. I saw it.

No, he should not be allowed to do it. It's ridiculous. It's a violation of free speech. It's, yeah, I can't think of many things worse than that. This is why, in spite of the fact that Trump just did what I wanted him to do, he's still really, really, really, really, really bad. He's still not good for this country because he can get away with that. He can do that and get away with it. He basically told Elon Musk not to support democratic policies.

party. And the implicit threat was to government contracts as SpaceX has. He would destroy his business. Thank you, Ali. Anthony, there's no doubt that the West should deal with the nuclear threat from Iran and great that they have finally done it. To what extent should the West help the Iranians with a new political system leadership? I don't think they should, not militarily. Certainly, if Iran asks for help,

You know, ideologically, ask for help on how to do it, ask for help diplomatically. Sure. But I don't think I don't think the West needs to send troops into Iran in order to settle any issues and or to pick the winners or to pick the losers.

It needs to let Iran sort it out. And again, this is the thing about the Iran deal. We don't have to put boots on the ground. Nobody has ever thought boots on the ground are necessary for regime change. They're not. Not in Iran's case. And that's why I say these cowards, what are they afraid of exactly? What is going to happen? What they're really afraid of and what they really can't tolerate is

Is America actually winning and succeeding? That is what they really resent. So, no, I don't think the West needs to help other than diplomatically and ideologically. Benjamin just came in with $50. Thank you, Benjamin. Should the president have gotten congressional approval before bombing Iran? I support the bombing and am concerned about unilateral presidential action by Trump and others on many fronts.

I talked about this, Benjamin. You must have missed it. I talked about it a little earlier. But yes, absolutely, he should have gotten it. I highly encourage you to check out an essay by Ilya Somin, S-O-M-I-N, Ilya Somin, on the Volk Conspiracy.

Ilya has a you can find him also on Twitter. Ilya Somin, S-O-M-I-N, who has an excellent essay today about exactly that. This attack was illegal. It should have been. He should have asked for Congress. And yes, all the people are, you know, making all kinds of excuses, emergency, but no, there was actually no reason not to ask Congress for

uh, I support the bombing too, but it was an illegal bombing. And the reality is that no president is used as, as, as, as abided by the constitution in that sense. Bush got some approval for war and terrorism from Congress with regard to Afghanistan and so on. I don't think it included an endless war in both places, um, or it shouldn't have if it did, but, uh,

Presidents have way too often taken unilateral action, and there's no reason to. I think Congress would have approved, and I think you get a greater buy-in from the American people because they see the process working. So I'm not too upset about it because this is one of those things that he is not the first one to do it, right? Many presidents have done it before him, and so in that sense—

And he's not breaking ground like he is on things like tariffs and immigration, where he's using laws that were completely unintended for these purposes in a completely distorted way, not getting congressional approval and doing really bad stuff. Here he did a good thing, and it wasn't a precedent. The bad decision, the process was not a precedent.

Ali says, I subscribe to breaking points with Crystal and Sega expecting independent analysis, but it's become clear they're pushing an agenda. They even started featuring comedians as so-called experts on serious issues. I didn't know that. I didn't know that they had featured the comedian who is an expert on lots of issues. But yeah, I mean, they've got an agenda. They've always had an agenda.

And, you know, it's quite a kind of left-wing agenda, right? And so I'm not surprised that they had our favorite comedian on to talk about stuff he doesn't know anything about. It's Puff of the Coast. Mostly they talk about stuff they don't know anything about. But I really do not think you're going to get independent analysis from, you know, I know Seagal laughs, but from Crystal.

Sega, yeah, I don't know Sega that well. All right, let me remind you all that this show is sponsored by Alex Epstein. AlexEpstein.substack.com is his sub stack. You should all subscribe. You should also support him financially. Alex is brilliant. He is the best thinker out there on issues of energy, on issues of the grid, of electricity, of electricity.

of what's going on in their big, beautiful bill when it comes to subsidies for solar and wind. You will get incredible insights by reading him. You will become better communicators and better thinkers, and you will know more. You will know more. So subscribe. And let me see. There was something the Ironman Institute wanted me to promote this week. Let me just find what it was. Whoops. There it is.

All right. Let's see. The Ironman Institute is having a conference, OCON, from July 1st to 5th in Boston, Massachusetts. I think that the on-site passes are gone. You know, they're sold out in a sense, but virtual passes are still available. You can live stream all the talks. You can actually participate in the Q&A with live speakers, and there will be virtual mingling, virtual mingling.

with fellow attendees, all at a fraction of the in-person price.

And on top of that, you can get an extra 10% discount because you're a Your Own Book Show listener by putting on the following coupon code 25YBS10. 25YBS10. So go to einrand.org slash start here. einrand.org slash start here and sign up for a virtual pass and use your coupon. Don't forget to use your coupon. All right, Travis. Travis says, all ears.

Thank you, Travis. Doodle bunny. Israeli analysts said the U.S. told Iran they were coming so they could evacuate personnel. Apparently, the Iranians also removed the enriched uranium. Is that what we're celebrating? I wouldn't be surprised if they let them know about getting the personnel out. But again, if they let them know why the decoy, why the drama, why why all the you know, I don't know. So something doesn't add up here.

And it could very well be just, you know, Trump's dramatic flair rather than trying to deceive the Iranians who probably knew it was coming because they were told to evacuate. With regard to removing the enriched uranium, I don't think that happened, but I don't know. And we haven't got confirmation one way or the other from either Israeli or American authorities as to where that enriched uranium actually is. And

Is it now fair to say that he has a strategy, that he has had a strategy? No, I don't think he's had a strategy. As I've said from the beginning, I think he was – basically he came to the conclusion that Netanyahu was going to do it anyway, and he went along –

Because the strategy was, go along. If Israel fails, it's on Israel. I didn't have anything to do with it. If Israel succeeds, I can take credit for it. You remember that tweet where he said, we control the skies. Israel? No, no, no, we do. Israel controls the skies. And then once Israel really, you know, really succeeded and took out all their defense systems and everything was taken, then it was like, oh, okay, well, why not, right?

I think it took a lot of prodding from the Israelis and maybe from people like Rubio. But I don't think this was all planned out and strategized. And always at the back of the mind was the contingency of

If the Israelis don't succeed, I'm out of here. So that is my guess of what happened. I don't know. It will be interesting when the history of this is written about what actually happened behind closed doors, if anybody ever writes such a thing. Raymond, what is wrong with the unmoved mover theory? Well, I mean, basically, it's arbitrary. What is wrong with it is

You know, prove it. Give me evidence, any kind of evidence, any kind of suggested evidence, any kind of idea why this is. And, you know, and logically, it doesn't make any sense because if there's an unmoved, if there's a unmoved mover, who moved the unmoved mover? And if nobody moved the unmoved mover, then why can't the unmoved be, you know, reality? It's just a, it's a contradiction, right? Yeah.

Why, you know, so everybody says, well, somebody had a, you know, somebody had started off the universe, had to start from something. Yeah, but what then started the thing that started the universe? And why can't you just say that the universe has always been here, always will be here, and it is just what it is? You don't need anybody to move it. It just doesn't make any sense. Everything moves. Yeah. So why is the unmoved moving, not moving? And yet moving other stuff. Anyway, yeah.

Now I'm just rambling. Is Microsoft laying off 6,000 employees a sign of recession? Also, Brian Wilson passed away. Did Israel ever have a free spirit type of beach culture? Is Microsoft laying off 6,000? Probably not. It's probably more restructuring, focusing AI. You know, the tech sector generally, big tech, has been laying off people for now three years.

significant layoffs in all the big tech companies. So I wouldn't read too much into Microsoft laying people off. Did Israel have a free spirit beach culture? Yeah, I think it did. In some ways it still does. I definitely think it did in the 60s and 70s. There was definitely that kind of, it was definitely a beach culture and there were definitely characters that personified that beach culture in that period. Justin says, hold on, can you give me a $20 rundown on Just War Theory?

Oh, God. I mean, the best thing is to read it. I mean, you read the essay. The essay is not that long and it's not that difficult. And if you're interested, you should really read it. That's my $20 worth of stuff. I just say this. Just war theory, qua just war theory is fundamentally altruistic in that it places the interests of your enemy above your own. It rejects the idea of victory and doing whatever is necessary for victory in the name of the interests of your enemy.

It rejects self-interest. It rejects, you know, pursuing rational self-interest. A proper war theory, a proper just war theory, a proper morality of war would focus on what do I need in order to protect myself? What do I need in order to eliminate the threat, to destroy the threat, to secure my life, to secure my liberty? And then what actions are necessary for me to do that? And morality should provide that.

should provide the basic sanction of doing what is necessary to defeat your enemy in a war on self-defense. As I said, just war theory is altruism and its attempt to, quote, civilize war. And war is uncivilized. And the idea of civilizing war for the sake of those who initiate it is a perversion.

Anyway, that's a $20 version. But I do encourage you to read it because it's really good. It's a really good essay. Okay. All right. What else? Let's see. Oh, let me just thank the stickers. Steven, thank you. I saw Wes with $50. Thank you, Wes. James, thank you. Ashley, thank you. These are all the stickers. There are quite a few Wes. I saw Wes again.

I don't know if I'm going to catch everybody. Esoteric Dichotomy, Gail, thank you. Mary Alene, thank you. All right. And whoops, who did I get there? Oh, we started off with Catherine. Catherine, thank you. Catherine did some Euros right off the bat. Mary, thank you. Rafael, thank you. So thank you guys for the stickers. Really appreciate it. Okay, Liam.

Mark Pellegrino said, quote, really pushes back against our plans, unquote. I don't understand what that means. Really? Reality. Oh, sorry. Reality pushes back against our plans. Is reality really pushing back against us the right way to conceptualize what happens when our plans don't go how we envision them? No. I mean, it's a common phrase, so I wouldn't make too much of it. But no, it's not the right way to conceptualize it. The reality is...

that our plans take into account the nature of reality. But reality is not, I think what you're trying to get to is the fact that reality is not, reality doesn't just give in to our plans. So wishing doesn't make it so, reality is not friendly to human life. Reality is not, you know, the nature is not friendly to us.

We have to really think about what we're doing and we have to really engage with the nature of reality and make sure our plans take into account the nature of reality fully. But reality, there's nobody there to push. And it's not that reality is set up against us. We are set up against reality when we ignore reality. But if we understand reality, then...

you know, our plans should be consistent with it. And when they're not, it's not that it's pushing back against it. It's that our plans weren't good. So I agree with you. Raymond, is corporate profits per capita a better measure of an economy? I realize GDP is far less impressive since scale does not mean productivity. No, I mean, corporate profits is not because, you know, the total corporate profits you could have, let's say,

Take Russia. Russian companies probably have very high profits because they are government-granted monopolies run by oligarchs who use force to maintain those monopolies. And therefore, they can charge very high prices and make a lot of money and have high corporate profits. So it's true that in a free market, corporate profits are

Represent innovation and progress and, you know, something positive. But it doesn't always because you could have an economy like Russia's where corporations are stealing, not producing. Jennifer.

Went to lunch with Ford co-workers to Ford's garage restaurant. Great food. Quote on the wall, quote, if I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Yeah, I use that quote a lot. I use that quote a lot. Henry Ford said that.

You know, and Steve Jobs never asked anybody what they wanted. Great producers, the great innovators, the great breakthrough producers, they don't ask their customers what they want. They teach them what they want. They educate them about what they want through their production, through the introduction of new innovative products. Liam, will the collapse of Iran be good for the stock market or will Europe be flooded with Persian immigrants demanding jihad?

I think it'd be good for the stock market. I don't think they'll be flooded with Persian immigrants demanding jihad. I think the whole demand for jihad is generally going to decline significantly. I think it's good for the markets. I think oil prices will come down. Iran's, if Iran can get a new regime, world oil markets will open up to them, which will increase the availability of oil in the world. And stock markets should benefit, you know, more.

One threat to the United States will be gone. A threat to Israel will be gone. And people will be much more focused on creating wealth. So it's overall Iran disappearing is good for the economy. The Iranian regime, sorry, disappearing is good for the economy. Isn't everyone a little narcissistic and insecure, even the most integrated objectivists? I don't see why that is the case. No, I don't think that's, I wouldn't make that statement.

uh statement at all uh and certainly it's quite possible not to be narcissistic and not to be insecure the fact that we're all raised by you know altruistic collectivistic mystical parents makes it a little harder but yeah there's no there's no reason to assume we're not we're not flawed qua man we're not flawed by our nature so no

Hopper Campbell, Israeli jets have been in Iran for over a week now. Where do they land to refuel? They don't land to refuel. They use refueling tankers. There are big airplanes full of jet fuel that refuel them in air on the way. In addition, Israel has...

re-engineered the F-35 to be able to fly to Iran and back without the need to refuel. So that is an Israeli innovation, basically, of the F-35. And I don't know about the F-16s and F-15s, but I do know Israel has fueling tankers that they use in order to refuel the planes on their way and on their way back.

Peter, so glad the IDF didn't send a fellowship on a three books long quest to Mount Fordo. Better to fly the giant eagles there directly to drop in the load. Yeah, I mean, Israel would have taken out Fordo one way or the other. It's just this was a much easier, much simpler, much cheaper and less risky way to do it. So I'm glad it was done, even though I wish Israel got more of the credit for it than it's getting.

Raymond, how does the S&P grow at 10%, 12% if it manages profits while GDP grows at 1% to 3%? Long term, all else being equal, isn't this not sustainable? No, because you have to remember the S&P are the best, most profitable, highest growth companies ever.

And I don't think they grow every year by 10%, 12%, although they've had a nice run recently. But over long periods of time, yeah, I guess 8% to 12% is not a bad idea. It's not a bad correlation. But, you know, they grow much, much faster than the economy. And most, a lot of other companies grow slower than the economy. Don't grow at all. A lot of businesses out there stagnate. Most small businesses in America stagnate. They don't grow. So...

Again, the GDP number is, in a sense, an average of the entire economy, not the 500 best companies, fastest growing companies, most productive companies. Joachim, great news. Have we heard anything about any regime change protests within Iran yet? Not really. Oh, I never said this earlier. I was meant to say this. Yeah, I did say it. I mean, the thugs are out. So one of the things I'm hearing about Iran is,

You know, the morality police, the people who suppress riots are all out in the streets, and the Iranian people are still afraid to go up. So not yet. Hopefully that'll happen. Harper, where did Nietzsche's resentment of altruism come from? How does he challenge altruism with such a strong Kantian epistemology? Well, I don't know, but at the end of the day, it comes from his mind. It didn't come from anywhere. It doesn't have a

preceding idea. I think he looked around and he saw, he read, he thought about Christianity, and he identified it as weak and as weakening and as destructive. I don't know, you know, the extent to which his epistemology was completely corrupted by Kant. There were obviously good parts of his epistemology that overcame that, just like Mises was Kantian, and yet he

overcame that Kantianism to still become the best economist ever. So you can have a bad explicit epistemology and still do some amazing work. And I think Nietzsche recognized it didn't come from anywhere. He just recognized it. He understood it. Michael, Tucker's interview with Ted Cruz had some implicit Ayn Rand references to

You can tell Cruz has red-ran. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously red-ran. I didn't see any of those references. I need to watch the interview as a whole. I mean, Tucker was just ridiculous in that interview. And Ted Cruz could have been better in terms of putting him in his place, but...

But I do need to watch the whole interview. And I'm curious now about what are the implicit iron references. But there's no question Ted Cruz read out of the Atlas Shrugged on the Senate floor for hours when he did his famous filibuster during the Obama administration. Raymond, can you talk about why you like The Fountainhead? I'm trying to get into it, but I feel like it would be better as a form of philosophy book than a novel. No, I mean, it's a great story.

I mean, you know, works and you can't get that. You can't get what she's doing just straight from philosophy. You know, works commitment to his values, his willingness to go to query rather than, you know, violate his artistic integrity. You can't get that in a philosophy essay.

You know, his relationship with Dominique, her evolution throughout the whole novel, and what it means philosophically, you'll never get that from an essay. What second-handed means, you can read all the essays in the world, but now you've got a Peter Keating as a model for what that is. And he's not an evil guy like Chewie is.

But he's a bad guy and he's self-destructive. And you can see that through the novel and you can see that in the story. It's a great story. And then even Toohey, you can write theoretically, but to see him in action. And then, of course, there's a whole element of getting absorbed into a universe, getting to know characters, which a novel has that philosophy cannot have. There's just

Amazing. It's astounding. So you need to learn how to read fiction. Fiction is incredibly valuable to human life. Michael, how come the Iranians only launch missiles at night? Israelis seem to be able to be out and about during the day. Primarily because it takes them a while to get the missile onto the launcher.

And that takes some scrambling and all of that. And during the day, they're very exposed. And Israeli drones and Israeli airplanes can just see them do that. At night, you know, it's much more difficult to spot them. So they feel and they are a little safer than they are during the day. But the fact that they can only do so few drones suggests that they're not feeling safe even at night.

The time difference is small. It's one or maximum two hours. James, do you fear death? Do I fear death? I mean, a little bit. I mean, mostly I fear death because I don't like the idea that this thing ends, that life ends.

I don't like leaving a novel in the middle. I don't like leaving the world in the middle. I'd like to see what happens. I'd like to see what comes next. I'd like to know what happens 100 years from now. I'm curious. I'm interested. And it's a little frustrating to know that I won't. I'd like to see how objectivism grows and what impact it has on the world in the future. And

And I know I won't. And that's, I don't know if it's fear, frustration. Yeah, I don't like the whole idea. I understand why it has to happen. Don't like it. Don't like it. James, has Ayn Rand been effective at reversing negative trends in foreign policy? I mean, maybe, maybe. I don't know. I mean, just the term America first is a very Ayn Rand term, right?

America first is a nine Rand terminology, which I think she even used. Now, I don't think the America first people know what America first means because they don't know what America means. There is a sense in which some of that terminology probably comes from like Rand and some of the influence affects the people around the president. If not, sure, it doesn't affect Trump, but it probably affects the people around him. Some of them. It's like somebody said,

Michael, I think, said, Cruz is very influenced by Rand. I think that's right. Ted Cruz is. I wish he was more consistent about it. Shazbat, fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge required to keep it. That's Atlas Shrugged. Yes. My focus is not on that. But I do have to say, I don't like the idea of death because of the idea of life. Life is so interesting.

Greg says the GBU-57 MOAB bomb, MOAB stands for Massive Ordnance Penetrator. So I need to remember that the P is penetrator. The GBU-43B Massive Ordnance Air Blast is the MOAB, the mother of all bombs. Thank you, Greg. I'm not going to remember the technical names, but one is MOAB and one is MOAB. And I'll try to remember which is which. All right.

Clark, did you get a chance to speak with Jordan Peterson in person when you were in Arizona? Any closer to getting on a show? No and no, as far as I can tell. Frank, Frederick Forsyth has died. Did you ever read his spine of thrillers? Also, in a scene in Jawhead, why is a soldier stopped from shooting an Iraqi officer?

I don't know. I didn't see that movie, so I don't know. Did you ever read The Spy Thieves of Freddy Forza? I did a long, long, long time ago. So this must have been in the 70s or 80s I read The Spy Thieves. I think I really enjoyed them. So that is my, but I don't have a clear recollection. Clark, the Iranian regime is gone. The YBS show is growing. What more could we ask for? Well, the Iranian regime is not quite gone yet.

but it's in the right direction. And YBS is growing, but not quite fast enough yet, but it's in the right direction. So Lynn, the YBS is the best source of real news. Thank you, Lynn. Really appreciate that. Molten Splendor. How long do you think Israel and the U.S. have worked together to plan this attack on Iran?

I think Israel has worked on planning attacking Iran for 20 years. I mean, they just continue. It's been a work in progress. I don't think I think America was involved to some extent, but not to a very deep extent. And again, I think that Trump kind of got kind of went along with this, but not in a strategic way, went along with this because there was no downside to him going along with it.

And then there was no downside, very little downside doing the bombing yesterday because Israel had done all the dirty work beforehand. But the actual achievements of those first few days of the war, when Israel took out the leadership and took out, you know, so much of the Iraqi people.

offensive capabilities, that was all Israel. And that has been years and years and years in the making. I mean, Israel's had Mossad agents there for decades. They've been accumulating intelligence, getting new sources, working all of that for a long, long time. And I'm sure the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have done some as well, but they can't match what the Mossad has done. The Mossad is, in Iran at least, you know, the...

you know, the number one intelligence agency and has much better sources than the CIA does. Neo, I'm losing many Arab friends I've known for a long time as they try to convince me that Hamas are good people. It's not easy making new friends at 35. Wow. I mean, that is horrible. But, you know, just think about it. If they think Hamas are good people, what else do they think?

These are not good people, and these are not people you want as friends. You need to find ways to enlarge your social network so you can find new friends at 35, as hard as that may be. Michael, did Netanyahu just secure his premiership for the next 15 years? You know, I'm not sure. No, I don't think he secured anything. I think in the end, the Israeli people are pretty tired of him.

I haven't, you know, we don't know how this particular, you know, this is all going to play out and how the Israeli public is going to view it in the future. I think a lot of Israelis think that if it's true that Iran was getting that close to a nuclear bomb, any Israeli prime minister would have done the same thing. So no, I don't think so. It's just old. So 15 years is a long time.

I think he's going to, he might win in the next election because of this, but I don't think it's guaranteed. And look, you have to wipe out from Israeli memory what happened on October 7th. And the responsibility, clearly, he shoulders and he's never taken. And I think Israelis ultimately will take that into account. As much as he's done brilliantly with Hezbollah and brilliantly with Iran,

I think it's hard to forgive him or to ignore the 25 years leading up to October 7th. Not your average algorithm. In an irrational society like we have today, is it often better to be a lone wolf than to attempt to integrate with people who will oftentimes end up being detrimental to your life and happiness?

I mean, I don't think it ever should be a goal to be a lone wolf. The goal should be to find good people. And they are good people. So I think it's a massive mistake to give up on the existence of good people. Come to Ocon. Find a lot of good people.

So, no, I think accepting being a lone wolf is accepting defeat, and there's no reason to accept defeat. The world is not that bad. People are not that irrational. There's enough rational people for you to be able to create relationships and have relationships and not be lonely. Certainly, stay away from anybody who's detrimental to your life and happiness. That is

You should cut off. You should completely disassociate yourself from anybody who that is the case. But don't assume everybody is like that. Brian, Picov said in the full page ad that ground troops would be needed to end the regime. Seems like it would be even easier these days, yet still no one is willing to do it. Yes, much easier. In those days, it seemed like you would need ground troops. I think today, because of the Iranian people's fatigue,

around of the regime, I think it would be quite possible to do it from the air. It's much easier today than it was when Leonard wrote that. Dave, what do you say to the argument that what Trump has done is unconstitutional? And do you agree that Congress

has to initiate this, not Trump. I've talked about that twice now on the show. Yes, I think it's unconstitutional. Yes, I think Congress should initiate it. I mean, Trump should go to Congress to get it initiated. But every other president has done the same thing. So I'm not going to hold this against Trump specifically. Justin, what is the moral argument to take land from which an enemy has attacked? Compensation for the fact that they attacked you?

defense to create a barrier that separates you further from the people who attacked you. But yeah, compensation, you know, they attacked you, they forfeit their right. Now, I don't think that is a requirement. And it's not moral always to do it depends on the circumstance, it depends on the context. So there was no reason for the United States to occupy Germany or occupy Japan.

Taking land from them and making it American wouldn't have made America more secure. And there was real possibility of establishing countries in those places that were friendly to you. So it's not the case that it's always appropriate to take land. So it would only be appropriate to take the land from

If a assuming you fought a war of self-defense, but if there was a real national security or this was a form of compensation. Mark, according to a news report, a Russian leader claims multiple countries are prepared to provide Iran nuclear weapons following U.S. strikes. Yes, that's Medvedev. I talked about that. I analyzed it. It's a lie.

The only country that is willing, I think, would be willing to do it would be North Korea. But it's very, very unlikely you could get a bomb from North Korea all the way to Iran without being observed by the Americans, the Israelis, even the Chinese, who I don't think would like Iran to have a nuclear bomb. So, no, I mean, Medvedev is just talking nonsense, which is not unusual. He usually does talk nonsense.

No, quote, this is a quote from my new ad from the Tom Snyder show. I will not die. The world will come to an end with me. Yeah, I get that. It's just sad to have the world come to an end. It saddens me that the world will come to an end because it's interesting and fascinating. Brian, it seems to me that the media still won't mention the Islamist part of the Iranian regime, let alone criticize Islamism.

Or have you seen a change in this? No, I think absolutely. You're right. It's not just the media. It's most intellectuals. It's our politicians. They don't identify it as a theocracy. They don't identify its fundamental essence in religion and in Islam. And they don't identify fundamentally the consequence of defeating it, of eliminating this ideology, is that you're defeating Islamism, which has consequences all over the world, including the United States.

Once, if Iran is defeated, Islamism goes into decline and the likelihood of terrorism in the future is going to be minimized. That's true. That is a benefit to the United States and American citizens, benefit to Europe, certainly to Europe. It's a benefit to everybody. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. They don't talk about it. They haven't talked about it since 9-11.

So Subkasky, the joke was that the Trump administration might not want to overthrow the mullahs because the new government might be woke and implement DEI programs. That's a pretty good joke. That is funny. I forgot that I meant that I said that. But yes, I mean, at least the mullahs, they don't like they don't like gays and they don't you know, they're not woke and none of this. At least that that's their virtue.

All right. Joachim, so you believe Iran is ready for a constitution like Japan after World War II? That's good. They're also ready to handle democracy or is there a better alternative for Iran? I mean, some kind of republicanism, a constitution would be fantastic.

I hope I'm right about this. I'm not certain, but I think there's a good chance that they are. There's certainly a certain segment of the population that's ready for a secular constitution that separates religion from state. And if you just did that, that would be such a huge move. That would be such a benefit to Iran and to the rest of the world. That would be the real defeat of Islamism.

So, yes, I think they could be very well ready for that. Just the problem is don't have the mullahs write it. You know, that's where the West can actually help them by helping them write such a constitution. And don't let Europeans write it for them. I'm not sure who's going to write it for them. We need General MacArthur back. James, how likely are the bombs to have fallen, failed? Do you think we will do it again? Look, we see the holes in the ground. There's six holes.

We assume 12 bombs went through those six holes, but there's six holes. Did they go all the way? Did they destroy everything? I just don't know. I think it's 60, 70% that they succeeded and maybe 30% they have to go again. But I think there's a good chance, higher than 50%, that this is it, that they're destroyed, they're done.

All right, everybody. Thank you. Thanks to all the super chatters. Thanks for being patient with me as I didn't do shows for a while. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. It doesn't cost you anything to like it. And it really, really, really helps the algorithm. So please like the show before you leave. You've been here for two and a half hours. You know, just press that like button. Andrew, thank you for the sticker. And I will see you guys tomorrow, probably at the regular time, 3 o'clock Eastern.

Eastern time, we will go at it again tomorrow. And we will be going the whole week. And then next Monday, I fly to Boston for Ocon. And I'll try to do some shows from Ocon from my room. There's not going to be any public YBS Ocon event, but I will try to do some shows from my room in Ocon, assuming the internet is good. But in any case, I will see you all tomorrow.

Bye, everybody. Have a great rest of your Sunday.