Chapo Trap House - 943 - The Tehran Offensive feat. Séamus Malekafzali (6/16/25)

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Seamus joins us to discuss last week’s “preemptive” Israeli strike on Iran, the damage done to Iranian command and infrastructure, Iran’s retaliation, America’s potential involvement. We also look at Trump’s big birthday Parade, one of the most pathetic & hilarious spectacles of American Military prowess any of us have ever seen.  Read Seamus on the attacks in the Intercept: https://theintercept.com/staff/seamus-malekafzali/Read Seamsu go long on the Axes of Resistance for Parapraxis: https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/axes-of-resistanceSubscribe to Seamus’ Substack: https://www.seamus-malekafzali.com/ New merch for the summer up at https://chapotraphouse.store/

Hello, everybody. It's Monday, June 16th, and we've got some choppo for you. On today's episode, Felix and I are joined by our good friend Seamus Malikov Zeli, who was back. And Seamus, all I've got to say is it's been quite a weekend. And you were the first person we wanted to have on to talk about war with Iran. So I'd just like to start with Thursday evening right after we got done recording with Pentejo time. I checked the headlines and I was like, well, that episode was certainly timely. Let's just start with Thursday evening. Israel launched what they're calling a preemptive strike on Iran.

They targeted Tehran, a nuclear site. And Shemis, what can we say about the events of Thursday night? What is your assessment of what happened on Thursday and then like the aftermath? I mean, nothing has been seen on this. scale since the war with Saddam, since the war with Iraq. And even then nothing like this happened during that war. The idea that the entire top military brass could be taken out in just one go, I don't think was anticipated by many outside observers. Even I didn't anticipate that they would go all out in that opening salvo. I mean, they took out the chief of staff of the

armed forces, the deputy chief of staff, the commander chief of the IRGC, multiple different nuclear scientists, and then killed more nuclear scientists yesterday in car bomb attacks that were set off at the exact same time that there was a massive barrage of airstrikes against Tehran. I think everybody knew that the Mossad had penetrated Iran greatly, even more so than any other country. But to this extent, to the extent that there were, I mean, just as Suu, that the Mossad agents had

a whole three-story building in Tehran where they were making drones that they could fire and sabotage Iran and military operations with. It's immense. It's very difficult to properly explain how devastating of a first strike this was and

how uncertain things are at this current moment. Just as a follow up to that and I want to get to both the topic of Mossad penetration into Iran and other groups and as well as the

assassinations and the incredibly undercover car bombing story but I was curious about this because yeah it was a very devastating first strike but the conventional knowledge I saw both from like FDD types and more

people who were more officially aligned with Israel or just, you know, Israeli media sources. The conventional knowledge after that was, at least in public, that there will be, the Iranian response will be at most like the very telegraphed drone and intercepted missile strike we saw last year because, but by their reasoning, they said that anyone who would coordinate that response was killed. I don't really believe that that was. the Israeli calculation. But, I mean,

was there some expectation of that? Like, how much do you think they baked in the Iranian response in the following debt? I think outside observers, the kinds of people you're talking about, the people who really believe everything about what Israel says about itself.

I think the person you're describing is Brett McGirk, the guy who said that everyone would coordinate the Iranian response is dead. Now, obviously, that isn't the case. I mean, this is a devastating attack against the Iranian military, but they immediately appointed replacements who are very experienced. And obviously, they were able to coordinate a response very quickly. So that's not to be true.

But I don't think, like, Israeli military officers, I don't want to give them a whole lot of credit, but they do understand to a large degree what Iran's capabilities are. And Israel's leaders do as well. And if the intent, as it has been clearly shown, is to bring America into this war against Iran and make it the major force that is attacking that country, you can't do that with the kinds of Iranian responses that were received before. You have to invite a really devastating strike against their country and something that's sustained to the point where America has to intervene or else the suburbs of Tel Aviv are going to continue to have destruction visited. on it every night. They did anticipate this, though, to the degree that Iran has been, I don't know what the right word is, how much it's been able to successfully target certain Israeli facilities,

like the Haifa oil refinery, like the Ministry of Defense. I don't know if that part was as well predicted. That's my personal observation. Yeah. It's quite a notable inversion of the usual. conventional wisdom about both these countries, which, you know, if you have listened to like any Washington think tank or, you know, Israeli lobbying arm since after 9-11, the conventional wisdom is Iran and just Shia in general, it doesn't matter what branch, they just love dying.

And in fact, they'll sacrifice their people because it's their favorite thing to do. which in this case, I mean, willfully letting your people get maimed in support of some broader strategic goal, that is absolutely what Israel is doing. Oh, for sure. I mean, you can see from like the constant responses from people who were 100% cheerleading the destruction of homes in Gaza, the destruction of all. aspects of the society. Now they're talking about how, oh, God, we have to be in bomb shelters. Oh, my God. Can you believe that they're firing things at civilian areas? And this is the thing. When Israel Katz, the defense minister, when Netanyahu is talking about, and the president of Israel are all talking about how evil this was, this was always the intent, right? You can't just justify this war on the basis that they're attacking the ministry of defense or they're attacking

you know, IDF bases, like they did in the past, during past strikes, when they almost exclusively focused their strikes on air bases, which the attacks on Iranian assets have come from. They needed this. They needed the civilians who put in danger. They needed these stories of anguish among the population of Tel Aviv because otherwise, there wouldn't be a moral centering to justify this war with. I mean, it's also why they're trying to. instigate some sort of rebellion in Iran and nobody at the moment is biting because if this is solely against a nuclear program then this becomes about the initial stuff about Iraq the weapon of the mass structure which struck to be bunk but when that became about freeing the Iraqi people then it became ennobled and this is the same way hominy is evil the republic is a force of evil it endangers everybody but we can free these people we can protect

our people in Israel and we can secure a grand future for the people in Iran as long as America enters into this war. That stuff, I feel like the, you know, the Iranian people are cheering on the strikes, all that bullshit thing where they'll take like videos from like Persian New Year's celebration and be like, this is what people on the streets in Toronto were doing during the strikes. I think that is entirely for a Western audience. But I will get into it later. what like in Israel's ideal world, what, how this plays out. But like that switch up from this is about the nuclear program to like think, think how bad the molas are is very noticeable.

Seamus. So Thursday saw like the initial like strike on Tehran and other other targets. And I, funny, I noticed that like the way the Western media covers this is that Israel is hitting targets in Iran. And then Iran retaliates, responds to the wave of missile attacks on their country with a, you know, wave of missile attacks on Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel. And that is described as Iran is attacking Israel. They're not selecting and hitting targets. They're attacking Israel.

I mean, I mean, not exactly a false statement. But, like, it's hard to tell because of media censorship and whatnot. What do we know about the scope of Iran's retaliation to the wave of missiles that hit their country? because we've seen several ways of Iranian missiles targeting Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel. What can we say about the scope and scale of Iran's response and how effective it has been? They've been mostly focusing on strikes against Tel Aviv and Haifa for the moment. In Tel Aviv, most of them have been against the most major parts of it have been the Ministry of Defense, but also, I mean, just buildings in the area.

Mostly, I think the most of the damage was suffered in southern Tel Aviv, at least from the visits that Nanyahu and Isaac Herzog made to the area. In Haifa, though, there seems to be the most particular targets. The Haifa oil refinery, the power plant, the port itself. Haifa's port is the most important port in Israel. And striking it was the state of the Houthis who tried to impose a... a siege from the air over it, though they weren't very successful at that. They're trying to target the economic centers of Israel at the moment right now. Things that years and years ago, the weaknesses of Israel were pointed out by Iranian

military stretches as a fact that it's a very small country, area-wise. So strikes on, you know, one area or another have potential for really devastating effects in the rest of the country. The Port of Haifa is one of those Chalkyons. So focusing on that has the potential to really disrupt the Israeli economy. So that's why they're focusing on that. I saw

an evacuation warning published by State TV for the Israeli city of Benibraq, which is East of Tel Aviv, so they may focus on that tonight. And as well, there was a evacuation warning for Channel 12 and Channel 14 in Israel because the IDF just

bombed the studios of Iran's a national broadcaster today. Though to the degree in which they'd be able to hit that, I'm not sure. I have noticed, I mean, and you have to like kind of take everything that anyone who has, you know, open source intel in their bio with the fucking truckload of salt. But I've seen it from enough people who's the opinions and analysis on this. I respect that there seems to be a... an Iranian emphasis on SEAID

suppression of enemy air defenses. Basically what people are from as much as they can tell, Iran is using their older generations of short-range ballistic missiles

to hit you know, like fad batteries and iron-dum batteries and then sending the more or advanced missiles to hit actual targets. I mean, obviously, it just makes sense to do that, to take out things like that, batteries that are, A, incredibly expensive to replace, and B, in a year, America does not make enough of them to, you know,

replace Israel's entire stock, much less service the needs of our military and other paying clients. but does this suggest like a longer term strategy? Like is the hope with Iran that they can basically keep this up, that they can, that at a certain phase will be done with SEAID, and that they can hopefully inflict like a maximum amount of economic damage, as you alluded to, while still sort of not making it so that there, is like 9-11 type imagery that Israel could exploit. Because that's sort of, if I could evince any general strategy, it seems to be that.

I'm a little bit less informed on the specific strategy of what missiles they're using. I do know what you're referencing. There was a video of the Iranian missiles. One of the barrage is either last night or the night before, heating air defenses in Tel Aviv directly. The only direct evidence I know of someone stating that these strategies to use older missiles against those was from Professor Mohamed Madh, Andy, who said that they were using older missiles before they used the newer missiles. And there does seem to be much more powerful

missiles being used in these barrenches. I don't, I would advocate that any listening to this look up some of the videos from last night in particular. The shockwaves that you can see in the clouds, the size of the explosions. The warheads are very distinct from the ones that were being used in previous assaults. The only thing that I would say makes me a bit skeptical of the idea that they're intentionally being able to hit anti-aircraft batteries is because buildings like the Ministry of Defense, these are large enough that a ballistic missile can be fired at them. But the intentional targeting of anti-aircraft batteries was something that was really the purview of Hezbollah

when they were on the border and they were very targeted missiles with cameras on to on them and they could really do pinpoint strikes in that way. Ballistic missiles from that far away are a bit of a different thing. But as for the longer term strategy of what they want, I think that they may be going toward something more sustainable, something maybe lower intensity to where they can try to do consistently trigger alarms, force Israeli surveillance systems

into states of alert, while not needing to do hundreds of missiles at a time. They're already getting smaller with each barrage. I think a thing similar to what you're talking about is the fact that Iran keeps firing small amounts of drones at Israel that just keep moving around the country, forcing helicopters to go track them. And just keep doing that for like hour after hour, day after day, even if it's not accompanied by missiles.

That's an example of that sort of strategy. But in terms of a longer term one, I'm not sure. I don't speak about anything with that kind of certainty. Yeah, I mean, I think we talked in private about the nature of. of making predictions as you're saying. And I don't want to corner you into that. But yeah, it's, that is sort of the central question, right? Like how, to what extent can Iran, uh, how long can they make them pay, basically?

If it's going to continue to be this, if it's going to continue to be like short range ballistics fired at each other. I will say this. And, you know, Iran's ballistic missile arsenal is, is thousands of strong. This is something that's agreed upon by both the statements of the Iranian military, but also the IDF. That is an independent assessment. But this kind of large scale barrage that we've been seeing, they can't keep it up. And the issue then comes to, okay, if they do a low intensity thing, the IDF can run out of interceptor missiles.

It could have supply chain issues with getting new air defenses, getting more well. We've seen examples of this kind of choking, even when it comes to Gaza and some of this is, and that's a much smaller scope of things that they have to deal with. But they still have the United States to constantly resupply them. And they have no issues with giving them whatever they want. Iran doesn't have those kinds of relationships with different countries, Russia and China. They're able to get weapons abroad, but they don't have a benefactor. quite like America does.

It's its own domestic manufacturing base, and that's being disrupted right now by all this Israeli assaults. Right. I've seen people kind of wishcasting about China replenishing them in that way. But if America, like China, if America in kind, one third of Iran's trade was with America,

you know, I don't think we would, yeah, I don't think they would, you know, replenish Israel in kind. and that is unfortunately the case of China. It makes you really miss the USSR. Seamus, to the question of Israel's benefactor, obviously some sort of all-out war with Iran is something that Israel has been planning for

and hoping for for decades. But a key component of that is that they want America to lead it. They want America to get involved. And what do you make of the reaction of the Trump administration? because it's this very weird thing where they have this like this sense that like oh we we weren't consulted but we were like what do you make of this sort of the this weird contradiction in

the Trump administration's reaction to Israel's preemptive strike on Iran? I have to be honest, I haven't been able to quite quantify like the exact ways that Trump is thinking about this. I mean it does go back to the fact that Trump fundamentally is mentally declining. Like we shouldn't He is not doing as well as he was in his first term, which already he was not doing as well as he was in most of his adult life. I think to some degree he was aware of the deception that was being offered up by the Israelis.

He was a willing participant in that. I don't think he would have spoken in the way that he did about the attacks against Iran if he was not aware of that. But also, I just think he acquiesced to this, even if, he personally had objections to being a war with Iran president. I mean, he did head off the prospect of the war back in January

after Iraq retaliated for Soleimani, who he ordered assassinated. He has that impulse within his head that's been demonstrated publicly. But there's all this pressure on him from Israel, from likely other people in his administration who he has staffed, you know, these Iran hawks. I just

think he, there were Nenya who convinced him of the ability of Israel to do this, I'm sure, with the understanding that America probably wouldn't have to be involved. And now that the conversation is quickly going towards no America, you have to get involved. Trump has so little ability to remember things or to really put up much of a fight against suggestibility that this is what it's going toward, that there is going to be military movement in that way. Probably the best example of Trump's dotage on this issue comes courtesy of

Sorab Amari, who posted this over the weekend. He says, I spent an afternoon and early evening calling sources in and near the administration and also people on the other side, Dems, and their own sources on the inside. They all rejected the notion that this was some genius coordinated dance

between Trump and Israel. All I had heard that Trump was agitated all around and in a call with BB told him not to, but also maybe you can. One source describes it as a green light and a Are we ever going to have a non-brandin president? Yeah, it follows up.

It says one source described it as a green light and a red light and another called it a yellow light. The overall impression was something far more chaotic and accidental than the Iran hawk suggested. Numerous sources claim that Trump planned to disavow it if it went badly and to own it if it appeared successful. The latter is for now his assessment. So I don't know. Was this successful? Is he going to own it or distance himself from it? He 100% sees that I successful.

He is getting, I guarantee you he is only getting positive assessments whenever he calls Nanyahu, Nenjahou calls him or he speaks with American intelligence officials. Because I think like in a, in like a bare bones, like, I don't know if the right word is objective, but like if I tell you that Israel took out the, again, the top military brass of the Iranian military in one go and they're consistently airstriking Tehran, you would consider that a measure of good progress on Israel's part, towards its objectives. I mean, right now it's talking about achieving aerial superiority over Tehran, even though that's an over-exaggeration.

I'll just say that much. If you are getting these assessments and you're not thinking about what happens a week from now, like when Netanyahu says, I mean, justice said today that if they assassinate Khomeini, they're already talking about this, that it'll end the conflict. He's making that that sell to Trump when he says these things.

If we get the go-ahead to blow up Khomeini, or better yet, we get you to do it with your bunker busters, which you have, your B-2 bombers. Then this conflict could end.

Iran will surrender and American lives don't have to be sacrificed. But obviously, that is not the case. And Netanyahu's thinking, what would, like, what would American involvement in this war want? Like, what would be his, like, blue sky ask? Are we talking, like, an invasion of Iran with U.S. military, like, troops or, like, air support?

Like, to what extent do they want America to get involved in this war? And what would that look like? I was talking about something similar with this with Derek Davison, great friend of the show, on American prestige a little bit ago. And I go back and forth about whether Netanyahu, like, actually, wants regime change totally. But I think right now what it would want is something similar to the deal that was struck up about Yemen, in which Israel has been consistently attacked by Yemeni missiles. Its shipping was being blocked by the Yemeni Navy, but America did the vast majority of the strikes.

It took that burden off of the Israeli Air Force's hands and it allowed it to refocus on Gaza. that would be of a great benefit to Israel because America has better intelligence about these things. It has more access to weapons. It doesn't need to filter it into the Israeli military. It doesn't have to go through that supply chain. And it also leaves Israel to do the big stuff. Like, for example, in Yemen, destroying the airport of Sana'a, for example,

or bombing different ports along the coast. That would be the ideal, though the way that they're talking about, regime change right now, I do wonder if the intent is to make America invade Iran. And then the burden is overwhelmingly offloaded onto the United States to do everything in this respect for Israel, installing a new regime, finding a new opposition move to take power, fighting off Iranian military assets, doing whatever. In either case, the point is to not let Israel have to sacrifice very much in order to destroy the rest of the Middle East. Okay, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza, and now Iran. Like the list continues to grow here. Like, what do we make of this

ever-expanding horizon of countries that Israel is allowed to bomb with impunity? Like, what does that stay about the state of Israel as a political and military entity that, like, seemingly for their own security, or as they claim, and their broader goals, involved, this like endless list of other countries that have to be bombed and destabilized. And like regime change, I don't know. Like, I don't know if that's like if we can really bite that off. But the thing is, just with bombing, I think they can do a long way to just de-develop Iran and just make it a basket case like a wreck like they've done with Lebanon and Syria

and like certainly Gaza, they've completely destroyed. I think de-development is is the best word to describe the situation. I mean, even if Israel maybe on some days truly does want regime change or maybe the Shaw of Maryland goes back and takes power to Tehran. He, I mean, what they what they really want is more than anything is chaos. Yeah. In Lebanon, they can exploit the tensions between Christians and Shias. They can make that an ethno-religious conflict. And in Gaza, they're trying to, you know,

inspired divisions between people who, like the idea that Hamas are politically Iranian or politically Shia, because, you know, almost everyone in the strip is Sunni. But in Iran, I mean, that main cleavage is like people who are more irreligious and the religious governance. So they're playing on that. And you can see that now with the idea of issuing evacuation warnings for places that are near. Both weapons, manufacturing facilities, but also supportive institutions, which can mean fucking anything in terms of it's the state government. It's the entire state, essentially. That can be expanded out everywhere as it was with Gaza. I mean, right now, they've been bombing hospitals in Iran on the spurious accusations spread around by Twitter accounts that the IRGC has set up missile launches there. It's the same playbook being done over and over and over again, but with different steps here. I mean, all of these accusations against hospitals being Hamas based in Gaza was

adjusted for Lebanon that Hezbollah was hiding gold under hospitals in South Beirut, and now it's that IRGC are hiding ballistic missile launchers alongside hospitals in Iran. It's the same thing over and over again, and the intent is to make these places distrustworthy amongst themselves, amongst civilian populace, disdainful, of resistance, constantly afraid that they are near something that Israel would target because it's somewhat related to the IRGC or the Iranian army. It's a recipe for the reduction of these societies, these countries into states that are not only not just a threat to Israel, but don't function as countries in any way, shape, or form

and are fundamentally subjugated to the will of whatever Israel's intelligence chief decides that day. Yeah, that is a very stark aspect of not just Israel's campaign of genocide and Gaza, but just their overall strategy for, I think, especially like the last, you know, 20, 30 years. You know, people, people always, when they talk about, usually in line with people who talk about the Iraq War as America, you know, stumbling into conflict that we made an oops. the rejoinder to that is, and then we ended up giving, you know, we ended up giving Iran this great big regional ally. And, you know, that would of course mean that Netanyahu and a lot of other right-wing elements in Israel at the time who supported the Iraq war made this great strategic blunder. But that's not really the case. It's not that they never saw that coming. It was they let us. They let us.

the idea of Iraq becoming this basket case that would have to fight a low intensity civil war for maybe forever against aggrieved former empowered Sunnis and you

see it with every time there is a new enemy on the horizon for Israel. The first thing they do when they really get rolling is try to destroy any sense of a cohesive national identity

and to destroy any sense of community. In Gaza, what that looks like is these plant killings at aid sites, the killing of the families of doctors. And for Iran,

this is what it looks like. I mean, you can look to Syria to see what the results of this are. I mean, people ask now, like, what is the end game? Like, if they get everything

they want, And, you know, this great enemy is reduced to a Libya-like basket case where there's three different capitals and there's just no hope of it ever ameliorating. It would be like an entire region that is just like that. It's just a bunch of like city states and then all the Gulf hotels where endless treaties that result in nothing are negotiated. I should add on to that. I mean, we see this, we see this sort of talk in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria, and now in Iran, this talk is, again, rude his head about why can't we just make peace of this rule now? This isn't working. Let's make peace of this rule now.

We can end these conflicts and then we can become like Dubai. That's off on the common refraight or something along those lines. But let's let's take the step by step, right? In Gaza, what is the offer on the table if Hamas decides to give up its arms and surrender? Israel has openly talked about using the opportunity to expel the rest of the Palestinian population from the strip. That's the end goal. There is no either it's death or expulsion. That's not a deal.

That's not a peace deal being made for Gaza to become a better place. It's a deal for you to continue to lose everything. In Lebanon, the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. What has it eventually gotten in this ceasefire state? Waves of airstrikes still on South Beirut, continuous air strikes in the south of the country that prevent any sort of reconstructing place. There was an air strike just today,

an assassination strike on a Hezbollah member, a supposed to Hezbollah member. And that's been happening every single day since the ceasefire was achieved last year. Plains can no longer come from Tehran because Israel threatened to take down those planes if they came into Beirut airport. So the airport is not controlled by different.

country. And in Iran, do you really think that they're going to suddenly stop controlling Iranian affairs if they decide that they don't want the smoke or whatever the hell it is? No, they're going to use that opportunity to continue that subjectation, to continue using its influence, to make sure that Iran never gains any sort of military power whatsoever. Just on I-24 News, and Israeli channeled just before I got out here, they were talking about the fact that Israel should demand that Iran give up its missile-making capability, something that many sovereign states have,

to build missiles, period. Like, they're not demanding you give up your nuclear program. That's the root. They want the whole thing. They've always wanted the whole thing. Yeah, no, the end result always looks like Syria, where there is no way you can actually say that it's a sovereign state. That is it.

It's just the end of sovereignty for anyone else in the region. And then these Gulf modern venuses that are just hotels and nothing else. You know, I feel she brought it up a second ago. But I do want to mention that this new front in this war has opened up at like the exact same time that Israel has like basically blacked out all communications coming out of the Gaza Strip. And they have day after day massacred people at these quote, unquote humanitarian aid sites that are just firing squads 20, 30, 100 people day after day. And I guess like I bring this up just in the context of Israelis in bomb shelter as saying nobody deserves to live like this. This is inhuman. This is awful. And I guess like the scale of

this violence is so undescribable. And it just, it gets worse and worse and now expands into another country of 90 million people. And I guess like, I say this because is there the only hope to stop any of this is military action of some kind by these, by the states and peoples being destroyed by Israel right now. So, Seamus, like, what would a victory or a like, I don't know, effective response that could, that could stop this? Like, what would that look like? That I'm very unsure about.

And I have to be clearly honest. I will say this for Iran. They are treating it now like they should have been treating it months ago, if I can speak frankly, and that they are hitting Israel with all that they have. They are,

whenever Israel hits something of a certain sector in Iran, they hit Israel in that sector, but they're still in that reactive position that they were before. The only thing I can really say with some degree of certainty, not with complete certainty,

is that there was, I think, a path to stopping Israel last year. When Fulad Shukh was assassinated in South Beirut. And I was quickly followed up by the assassination of Ismail Haniyah in Tehran. There was a point, and we had discussed this on the show right after it happened, in which Yemeni strategists were talking about a combined response from the acts of resistance to overwhelm Israeli defense capabilities and show what would happen if war came, what were expanded,

that they would work as a unit and that they could make this a very difficult thing for Israel. It wouldn't be able to do what it has been able to do up until this point. And once Hezbollah and Iran decided to retaliate separately, they delayed and they delayed and they retaliated separately, that destroyed the entire deterrence capability of that group. And it was what led to the assassination of Nasrullah, and it has led to what has happened here, I think.

There is some level of that coordination being brought back up. When there were missile barrage as fired by Iran, I believe, two nights ago, Yemen announced there was a first barrage and then there was a second hypersonic missile fire just a few minutes after. And Yemen announced that it had coordinated that operation with the Iranian military. So this kind of coordination that it had wanted since the beginning was now finally happening, but after so much had already been lost, if they can repair these lines, if they can get Hezbollah back in that fight, even though that seems very impossible,

then maybe there is something. But as long as Iran fights alone in this matter, even if Yemen is with them 100%, that's, it's an uncertain fight ahead. Iran has more capability to defend itself than anyone else, but that's against Israel, against America. That's a very difficult thing. Well, I mean, another huge aspect to this is the nuclear angle. I mean, I know this is being justified based on the idea that Iran is like minutes away from having a nuclear arsenal. I mean, I'm astonished that they don't have one already. Oh my God, dude.

I'm going nuts. Forget Iran's like potential nuclear weapons program. Israel has an arsenal of several hundred nuclear weapons and second strike capability that is holding America and the entire region of the Middle East hostage essentially. Because like, I mean, they could use them. But like what is your assessment like now that Iran is now officially at war and under siege? what is your assessment like are they going to test or build a nuclear weapon soon? I don't think yeah. Because if they are, if they are, I've been enriching uranium in my apartment and I have a little bit that I can lend them.

Yeah, no, if I can take the fucking limitless pill and learn all the scary math you need to do to make a thermonuclear bomb, I would get on a fucking Skype call with them right now. I think, here's the thing. There was a major generally IRGC, Mohsen and Rezali that went on state TV yesterday and was like, no, we're not really thinking of doing that right now. President Pesesh Kian was in parliament today and said the same thing. As long as Khomeini is alive, that fatwa against Luka Reppens is going to remain in place, I think.

I don't think he's going to change it. I think that's very important to him and the rest of the Islamic Republic's establishment. as like a point of dignity, like a point of ideological firmness, that if they were to break on that, then it would, I don't know, it would unravel something, though that's something I'm not entirely clear about. But right now, I mean, nuclear scientists have been talking about the fact that they've had this kind of technology for years to make a nuclear weapon, but they've never been given the order to do so. So it's just been sort of sitting in this holding pattern, the stasis where they're kind of just simmering below the surface, but they're not saying this.

I was thinking of that video you posted of a woman on the streets of Tehran, just shouting, give us an atomic bomb. Where's our atom bomb? And then the whole crowd starts yelling with her. I love her. Where's our atom bomb? Like, you talked about it for years. You're going to jump out or what?

You know, people, I think, are very, like, after the failure of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear dude that Obama negotiated. There was an observable change in the public discourse about previously really not wanting to broach the idea of a nuclear weapon in public, in public. And now it's become a very regular topic of discussion. And post the war, like the strikes against Iran, it has never been at this kind of fever pitch before.

Right after the attacks happened, there was an Iranian MP who went on state TV. and was positively begging the Supreme Leader to, like, change the fatwa and start building a new weapon. And the hosts were trying to, like, steer him away from that and be like, no, well, hold on. This is a very serious issue. Like, no, this is a five. We don't like to do it. And he's like, well, then we did all these retaliations.

Then what, what were they for? What did they do? We need this. How, like, how long are we going to allow our commanders to be killed and our children to be killed without this battle? this is on the minds of many, many people. And the fact that they are discussing this at all, that they're not going to change it means that this pressure is, is continuing to build.

But again, I don't think as long as Harmony is alive, that is going to change. I mean, if it wasn't clear before, it should be clear to everyone now. If you're outside, like,

the NATO-EU ages, there is no sovereignty without nuclear weapons. It just, not there's just the two concepts they're not exactly separate way. Let's just look at the history of this here, right? Libya, when it gave up its nuclear program, what happened only several years later?

NATO intervened and now it's a complete failed state. Syria had a nuclear program, not necessarily nuclear weapons program, but just a nuclear program. Israel bombed it. They never pursued it again. And then several years later, it was able to be utilized as a playground for foreign powers.

like this continuously. We see examples of nuclear programs that were voluntarily given up or or are kept below a certain threshold or they were bombed out of existence and never reestablished. And the outcome of all of these options, of all of these, of all of these destinies has been complete failure. But look like, I hate to use this as an example because North Korea is not a favorite state by a lot of people, but you cannot deny that North Korea is not messed with. No one's

fucking with North Korea. It is not an option seriously discussed by anyone. They've talked about deluclearization, but only if America leaves the peninsula and America isn't leaving the peninsula. So guess what? They're keeping their nukes and nobody is talking about invading it. That's the point. They continue to exist because of those nuclear weapons. As long as Iran doesn't have them, they will remain under this threat no matter what the outcome of this specific war is. I believe that from it. I mean, especially in the case of Libyan Syria, those are crucial to bring up because also in addition to giving up their nuclear programs, both those countries cooperated with

the West during the global war on terror. Fat lot of fucking good it did them. When they've got the beam on you, there's nothing you can actually give. I've seen people go, oh, it's, you know, Iran and their obsession with Israel or Iran and their goddamn nuclear program. Like, they could do anything to stop this short of just declaring Iran is over as an entity. Come here and make fucking, you know, make the Mecca for sex offenders at all types of nightclubs. I will say this. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, even though I have been accused of who.

fetishism by many academics. I'll hold that bag, Seamus, for you if you want it. I got a hooty fetish. And I need more missiles. The Yemeni strategists, from the moment of the word go of this war, have consistently known what to do,

and they've consistently had, I think, the right approach to Western powers and their negotiators. they understand that like the time in which America or Israel could be negotiated with if they ever could be negotiated with is over. I mean negotiations, they were at the table on Sunday, you know? Yeah, no, it's not real. And now they're being asked to come back to the table.

The table's been blown up. What are you talking about? No. Yeah, these people are rabbit dogs. Negotiators are dead. Oh. There will be empty chairs at that table. because you killed the people that were to go,

like Jesus Christ, how could you even bring up that, it just insult it to even bring up that fucking concept? No, there is a reason why when Yemen, when they were approached for negotiations to separate the fronts, they were like, no, achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and we'll stop firing,

end of discussion. We're not doing indirect negotiations. We're not doing separate negotiations. You either do this or you don't. When it came to America coming to the table and saying we want to ceasefire, they said, okay, if you stop firing on us, we'll stop firing on you, but we're not stopping fire on Israel. That's the deal, end of discussion. And then they took it. That's the strategy that Iran

should be taken, quite frankly. And they're thankfully, they're understanding right now that these negotiations were always a fucking lie and a fucking charade, and they're not doing them anymore. But if they trust America again on this matter, if they're not firm, then I don't, I think the outcome is going to be very bad because there's nothing to indicate. that they're trustworthy in any way, shape, or form. Seamus, a well-repeated chorus from Hawks in D.C. and the foreign policy establishment in America and Europe that we've heard a lot over the last week or so, since the weekend, is we hear it over, is that the Iranian people yearn for freedom.

They want to overthrow the mullahs. Like, they are ready. We stand with you, people of Iran, like, as we're bombing you. And, like, there's this idea that, like, the Iranian people now is the time to rise up and like collapse the evil government of the, the Ayatollah. I mean, like, from what you can tell of people in Iran, which is, you know, a country of 90 million people with a lot of diversity of

opinion, very divided along social and political, cultural lines, much like the managed pseudo-democracy of the United States of America is. What is your best assessment of how the people in, let's say, Tehran and the rest of the country right now, are they directing their anger at their own government? Or like, what is the possibility? that they're going to rise up and overthrow because they're so happy to be bombed right now.

I think it's pretty low. I'm going to be honest with you. I've seen statements from like Israeli journalists saying they've received like messages stating that they're very in favor of it. Or there was that Washington Post article where they said that Felix was referencing about how people at Aila Ljadir,

they were secretly celebrating the Israeli attacks against their country. But I have not seen, there have been no protests, there have been no real expressions of support for Israel so far. The primary support for Israel that I've seen is from Iranians abroad. People who are already within the Iranian opposition access, like Reza Pahlavi or Masi Ali Najad, people who are like on the state departments either prioritize the list or people who are literally on the state. Department's payroll. This is not a popular movement. It was never a popular movement. There are

certainly people inside Iran who are supportive of Israel and hate Palestinians, but to the degree that they are a large section of the country that has never been proven by any poll. And even if the Islamic Republic, even if Islamic government, even if Islamic government is not as popular as it was at the beginning of the Islamic Republic, that doesn't mean that you're automatically in favor of a mass Dahlia Doctrid assault on your capital city. That's something that people are not going to support

in large numbers. Well, you know, the thing you have to consider here is that Persia is an ancient and proud people. And because of that, they don't like it when their cities are bombed by foreign countries. You know, we're only, America's only a couple hundred years old, so I'd be okay with it personally. Oh, God.

Yeah. The Israeli journalists who, I've seen this too. Just people say, my phone is blowing up with messages for Iranian celebrating. Anytime anyone tells you they're getting a bunch of supportive text messages for anything, you are talking to an insane person. Like, I'm used to seeing this move when someone,

like, posts, like, something insane on Twitter. So it's always someone who posts something like, I think we could solve the insult problem if we let them fuck dogs. And then, you know,

like, like everyone, everyone is like, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you insane? Like, stop saying this. And they go, I'm actually getting a lot of text messages from dog owners and insults and say, this is awesome. Actually, dogs are texting me.

And they never show. And even if they did, who gives a fuck? It is the second someone tells you they're receiving tons of supportive messages, stop listening to them. Felix, you know, you can say that. But my phone has actually has been blowing up with a lot of. lots of text messages and phone calls from all my friends in Israel. And they're all saying, please liberate us from the Netanyahu government.

We stand with the Islamic Republic. I'm just kidding, folks. I don't have any friends in Israel. All my Israeli friends are saying, we want to be free from the grip of the Council of Rabbis. I guess the turn to maybe the lighter side or perhaps a more humorous angle to our impending apocalypse here. Just from the domestic side of politics in this country, this is a question, not really a rhetorical question I've been sort of tossing around in my head this weekend.

Where does this all leave the America First movement in this country? Because as best I can compare it to, Maga America First is like the abundance movement for Republicans in so much as that they're like, they know all the things that they're planning to do and have always wanted to do. are deeply unpopular, but they're like, how can we rebrand this so that when we do the thing we always wanted to do, it seems like it's something different? I mean, you know, Hassan Nasrullah had a really clear-eyed assessment of the situation last year when he talked about the fact that Israel controlling America was something of conspiracy theory,

more of an excuse to do nothing, that America controls Israel, that Biden has the ability to control whatever Israel does. And to a certain extent, that's true. If Trump said tomorrow that Israel needs to stop doing this, I think Israel would have to acquiesce to that request. But the issue is that Trump is never going to do that in the near future. Because it's kind of this process of, I don't know of the right term is, I think it's a self-orientalization, right? It's the kind of thing that happened with Italian cuisine and tomatoes, right? Italian cuisine. It didn't, right, Italian cuisine, really, really sucky cuisine back in the medieval era.

But once they found tomatoes in the new world, that got brought back to them, and it became a central part of their identity. It's the same thing, to a certain extent, with Israel, in that America exists. without this country, but now that it's created this bulwark of Western civilization out there, now it's become this kind of central part of America's identity. It can't operate without the other. And because of that, now Israel's decision making becomes America's decision making, because of the nature of that relationship, to the point to even granular things. Like, did you guys see that video from the New York State Senator?

in the bomb shelter. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He was like, about how they can't. Vote for Zoran, Mondani. Hi, everyone. This is Sam Sutton,

sending you a video from the basement of the Inbal Hotel. This is the second time today. We've had to come to a shelter. And there'll probably be one in the middle of night like there has been for the last three nights. Please, I'm begging you. Make sure to vote in the primary this week. voting started today, Sunday, and early voting will go through next Sunday.

Do not make a mistake and forget the vote. And more importantly, make sure Governor Cuomo, who has been a great friend of the Jewish people, will be our next mayor and not a person that doesn't believe the Jewish state has a right to exist. We don't want to be in a situation like this in America. Thank you. It was like, my life is in danger right now. we're cowering in a bomb shelter as Iranian missiles rain down on us. Oh, and by the way, don't rank Zoran for mayor of

New York City. Could you imagine? We can't afford free buses in New York. Can you imagine this with anything? I want to move to like Joplin, Missouri, but I spend, I'm running for city council in Joplin, Missouri. I spend all my time in Azerbaijan. All my attack ads about my opponent are about how he's Armenian. He's never, he's never left.

Never left Missouri. Just some Scott's Irish guy. I'm in a bomb shelter in Baku. This is what we'll get if we elect Scott Kraft, the Armenian. Everything about this has gotten so disastrous and so, like, I think like an animating belief of the left in America before October 7th was the idea that at some point in the future, Israel will become so much of a burden on American policymakers that they will be forced to re-evaluate the relationship. But what October 7th showed and how earth-shattering of an assault on Western policy of the Western control over the world,

that meant that America was inextricably linked. It was essentially, I mean, one person compared it to an assault on Texas. like it was that central to the American fabric. It doesn't matter if it's America First, if it's, you know, whatever, whatever. It's treated as such. There isn't a difference between American Israel in those people's thinking. One more thing in light of America First, make America great again. I don't know if you guys got a chance to watch Trump's Military Birthday Parade over the weekend,

but it really was one of those events that like just put such a nice, I don't know, I want I shine on the events of a weekend that saw, like I said, continued massacres in a blacked-out Gaza, Democratic lawmakers being assassinated in Minnesota, paramilitary federal law enforcement, you know, rounding up people in Los Angeles from schools and parks, and then hundreds of thousands of other Americans protesting in the No Kings movement this weekend. And all of this was like taking place at the exact same time that Donald Trump chose to have his military birthday parade in Washington, D.C. And Seamus and Felix, I'm wondering

you got a chance to watch any of this military parade. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll put it this way. This was the type of affair that Ron Donald haters for. I expected to see Mr. Donald pop out at any moment. Like, I can see the party down

episode intro font now. Like the 250 annual Army birthday parade. I feel like the Ron Donald thing is so perfect because I was watching the live stream of this on PBS. And every time they would cut to the crowd, and by that I mean like the entire Trump administration sitting on the dance or just the people in the crowd watching tanks go by. All I could think about was, are we having fun yet? Yeah. Are we having fun yet?

because everybody looked miserable. And I got to say, the parade itself was one of the most underwhelming things I've ever seen as a display of U.S. Imperial military prowess and competence. If you showed this to the yippies, they would be like, oh my God, we did it. We levitated the Pentagon. It worked. This is what's left of the U.S. military. I have seen

there are longer lines for live podcast shows are live podcast shows they spend so much money on it and there was such a buildup for it I stupidly thought I don't know why I thought this oh they're going to hire

like you know 10,000 fucking extras or like they're going to find everyone who is ever in a Chris Brown music video because they'll at least have the coordination to march Felix they weren't even marching I couldn't believe it

How much of this, how much of this, the rhetoric around this was based upon the idea that like we were going to see like a Soviet style military parade that was going to, a Nazi goose stepping, uh, uh, atrocity. Clockwork precision. Clockwork precision. Tens of thousands of soldiers marching in like precision timing, uh, huge steps, saluting dear leader. This was like groups of like 10 or 15 guys. I would say not so much a march as a coordinated mozy and a wave past our dear leader of Trump. A fucking Marine died training for this. What?

What? What? They died during the training for this. They were mourned by Army High Command. Like, what did you? How did you die? Did you like, did a like an APC go off the ramp and you just like fell under it, Austin Power style? How did this happen to?

This is the fucking army that's going to invade Iran? Like, what are you talking about? Had he not like walked anywhere in 12 years? It's crazy. I was watching, like I said, I was watching the live stream on PBS on my computer and I just, I kept taking screenshots. And each one was funnier than the next. And probably like Dana White looking like he just shit his pants. Marco Rubio yawning.

Steve Whitkov looking at his phone just like the dour miserable faces of people in the crowd like nobody could summon any enthusiasm for this bullshit it was it was to use Trump's language it was a disgrace it was a disgrace

there were there were like like you remember in 2018 when like you would see things on Twitter that were like yo everyone's school walkout to memorialize exe extantacion like all of those were like better organized and had better formations than this.

I will say this. I posted about this when the parade was happening and I rewatched the parade in full, almost in fall later on. There was a military parade in Pyongyang about two years ago. Similarly for another anniversary of the army. And you see the coordination they have, the lighting, the camera angles, the national anthem being said and all the soldiers know the words

and the singer is hitting these high notes the editing the fireworks it's like that's how it should be done. That was the thing from like the remnants of the Lincoln project but they said oh the scenes you're seeing art from North Korea and it's like yeah clear

yeah no shit. I wish I wish yeah it would actually be marking right We're going to smoke, man. Possibly like the most like crystal clear Paul Verhoeven movement in watching this

was when they like the announcer broke away to say like as a sort of a gaggle of like a dozen guys just sort of walked by in uniform. They were like we'd not like to take this opportunity to think our sponsors at Coinbase.

So like this is like our two, the 250 50th anniversary of the U.S. Army was sponsored by Coinbase and UFC. Oh, my God. Oh, wasn't Dana White in the audience? Yeah, no, Dana White was in the dais.

He was just sitting there. Oh, God. I've seen people, I've seen people more entertained by, like, their kids, like, music recital than him sitting there. Oh, God. We need, like, this is the thing about, there's no fascist, uh,

movement in waiting. It's just this. This pathetic individualism. Oh, God. Yeah. I remember we talked about it a few years ago how like the, the, um, rank and file like, um, backbone of these early fascist movements in Europe.

They were like these hardened World War I veterans who literally saw the world that they knew destroyed in front of them and, and came back dead-eyed and just ready to kill. Not, like, just throwing their bodies, everything into it because they did not care. Conversely, we have veterans of the Great Army Birthday Batch. And Operation Amazon Prime. After I saw that plane fall off the deck, I knew I didn't even care about my life anymore.

I didn't give a fuck. This is the one thing, I will finish with this. This is the one thing that gives me like some amount. of hope about how an American, like a war with Iran would engage in. Like, how they responded to the Houthis, how they went about the aid pier

in Gaza that also ended up killing people U.S. soldiers instead of it up. This is, it's a fucking basket case. This isn't an effective fighting force. This is embarrassing. This is humiliating. This is a national disgrace. Like if you're an American, if you're an American nationalist, if you're like an American fascist, like, how could you watch that bullshit and be like, hell yeah, I'm with this 100%.

This is what I voted for. This is the Fourth Reich. Hell yeah. Embarrassing. Humiliating. Will we ever have a non-brandin president? Because that was the other thing I was thinking. Like this is perfect.

Like Donald Trump ran on this idea that similar to Joe Biden before him, he was unique. uniquely qualified to negotiate peaceful ends to ameliorate every conflict currently going on in the world and that no one could make a deal like him because his experience and his swag

and fast forward to today his strategy with Russia and Ukraine is just to tweet please come on please come on come on you know me and a new war has broken out that, like,

I don't really know what to believe. I don't imagine we'll really find out exactly what happened on Trump's end for a couple years. But this idea that he was like, do it or don't do it, I don't know. It sounds very much like him. I mean, to take him at face value is him saying, oh, yeah, you can never trust anything that I will ever say if you're a foreign actor. which, who knows, but it just,

having such a public flop amidst all of this is just, it, I didn't think things could get more Brandon than Brandon. And then I saw Kear Starmer, who is at 1.5 mega brandons.

But this, this is like, we're breaking into two, two brandons now. Like, the potential, whoever comes after this, right,

whether it is, JD Vance or like Pete Buttigieg. I don't know who has the potential to be the biggest Brandon. I think maybe JD. JD has that hapless quality. But I just, we're never going to get out.

We're never going to, we're never going to leave behind the brandonness of it all. Hyper brandonization. We're Brandon. We're Brandon. That's who we are. We're remembering the good times and saying only, we're the only ones who can do this job. We take one

step our pants fall down. You see the shit streak on our underwear. A stork flies by and takes a shit on her head. Oh, I actually plan that. And to the fact that you're making fun of it shows us little you know about strategy. We are Brandon. We will never lead this curse because we will never stop being Brandon. Seamus, the last thing I want to ask you before we signed off for today.

Is it true that Nanyahu and his cabinet are in Greece right now in like a bunker? I hate to be a wet blanket. I really do. I really like the idea that he was in fucking Greece. But I think his Wings of Zion plane, which is the equivalent of Air Force one, got sent there for protection, which is what they've done a couple other times during your writing attacks. he was in Israel to

oversee the rescue efforts after the Iranian attack so unfortunately he was not in Greece I have to be the bear of bad news that's why I need to confirm I regret my previous reports that I had gotten from my sources that Netanyahu had gotten a UTI

getting fucked by a British tourist in mycanos that was that was wrong we backed that report if we're taking down the article. There are things that my journalistic ethics cannot allow me to laugh at. I'm not a strong man.

All right. Well, before we degrade their journalistic ethics and we further, let's wrap it up there for today's show. Seamus Milakoffselli, thanks so much for spending some time with us today. You got an article up at the Intercept right now about this. We'll link to the article in the show description. I also have something up at Parapraxis magazine just a few minutes ago, and you can find my writing at shamis-malic-f's-elite.com. Links in the show description. Seamus, thanks again so much.

Until next time, everybody. Bye-bye.