Fourth Reich Archaeology - #091 - Contra Iran Part 3

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

The mad emperor has lost his damn mind. The AmerIsraeli war machine has openly embraced international criminality to a degree unseen in our lifetimes as Trump rails on about his threats and plans to destroy civilian infrastructure, murder innocents, and destroy Iranian civilization by bombing the people of Iran “back to the stone age, where they belong.” This third installment of our Contra Iran series is really just a quick check-in on the situation - paying special attention to the spectacle of it all - before the situation changes yet again as it undoubtedly will this very week.We start out by deconstructing the web of lies woven by the sicko spiders in Trump’s imperial cabinet. We are sure to point out that many of these lies, which enable further lies to be built up around them, are bipartisan lies that have been pushed upon the American people for decades. Lies like the notion that Iran will stop at nothing to develop a nuclear weapon for the purpose of wiping Israel off the map. We then consider whether in fact there are any checks on Trump’s insanity. Unfortunately, he has removed a lot of the would-be roadblocks in his path, surrounded himself with equally venal yes-men and women, and enriched a psychopathic ruling class that sees even a disastrous and illegal war against Iran as a win for “Western Civilization.” If this is civilization, we want no part in it. Finally, we once again wade into the blame game and discuss who’s at fault for this epochal debacle: Is it Israel? Is it Trump? Is it the military industrial complex? And as always, we wind up eschewing the “pick-one” nature of this type of framing. It is one big power structure, representing the transnational ruling class, and acting in an utterly irrational, unhinged way.God help us all, and especially the people of Iran, who find themselves in the crosshairs of a power as stupid and insane as it is evil.The Iranian music here featured comes from the great artist Pari Zanganeh.

Thanks to the progress we've made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change. has occurred, has occurred. Regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders' death.

They're all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable. Yet if during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding.

But we could hit it, and it would be gone. We're giving them till tomorrow, 8 o'clock Eastern Time, and after that, they're going to have no bridges, they're going to have no power plants. Stone ages, yeah? Deliberate attack. Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges, unhelpful, no, no, no, no. Imperialism, as the slave system of the West is called,

is not something that's just confined to England or France or the United States. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. So it's one huge complex or combine. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. And this international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources. We found conspiracy, foreign or domestic, the Warren Commission of the science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America, ever.

I don't care what the facts are. In 1945, we began to acquire information. which showed that there were two wars going. His job, he said, was to protect the Western way of life. Primitive simplicity of their minds vendors the more easy victims of a big lie than a small one. For example, we're the CIA. Now, he has a mile. He knows so long as it's a die.

Freedom can never be secure. It usually takes a national crisis. Freedom can never be secure. Pro Harbor. A lot of killers. You get a lot of killers. Why you think our country's so innocent? This is Fourth Reich Archaeology.

I'm Dick. And I'm Don. Welcome back, listener. Thank you so much for joining us. And as you will have seen when you clicked on that play button, we are back for another installment of our Contra-Iran series, which is just a placeholder for our coverage of the Iran-Whoran. war, or rather the illegal invasion of Iran by the United States and Israel.

Welcome to the show. As always, we want to thank you. We want to express our deep, deep gratitude and appreciation for you listening to the pod, liking, subscribing, rating, and reviewing the pod. Remember, all that stuff helps us to reach more ears. And, we urge you to use your word of mouth because that is our only real method of advertisement absent any corporate entanglements. The other thing we would like to invite you to do before jumping into the substance is to reach out to us by email, forthrightepod at gmail.com, Twitter and Instagram at forthrighteckpod.

And finally, if you are willing, if you are able, if you are able to be. and if you feel so inclined, please come on over to patreon.com slash forthright archaeology and consider giving us a little bit of cash so that we can expand this operation as we are so eager to do. Thank you so much to all of those who support us, whether financially or merely spiritually. We feel it. We understand it and we are grateful for it every single day. And we love to bring you whatever little piece of truth and clarity that we are able to in the sea of bullshit in which we all swim, in fact, in which we're all being drowned. Let's just be honest, every single day that we log on to the internet, turn on the TV, turn on the radio, whatever. It's tough to keep the thread, folks,

and we recognize that. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. That's right. We're doing it from sea to shining sea of bullshit. I would just like to say to all of that, ditto, I echo Don sentiment. Thank you so much, folks. We are gobsmacked by the response this program has gotten. This week, we are returning to our series Contra Iran. And before we get into today's episode, let's do a quick little recap. First of all, let's talk about the title of the series Contra Iran. It's maybe a little confusing, but no, we're not talking about Iran-Contra.

We are talking about how these days it seems like everyone, one is contra Iran, as in against Iran. That's the sort of genesis of the title. And obviously, there's a play on Iran-Contra there using that, I think it's Latin term, contra. Of course, in Iran-Contra, they were referring to the Contra's Nicaragua. We are referring to the meaning of that word, which means against. Yes. A brief recap of what we have covered so far. In part one of this series, we discussed how you really can't talk about what's happening today in the region without going back and covering the modern historical landscape. And we decided to do that by starting in the late 19th century, early 20th century, in the waning days of the Qajar dynasty. and we covered the history of the origin of the dawn, basically, of the modern Iranian state

and this 100 plus year longing of the Iranian people for self-determination, for representative democracy, and for a chance to build a nation state that was able to sit at the table, at the international table, and truly be a member of the international community based on the will of the people as opposed to one Shah or a monarch or a dictator. After we did that historical reckoning in episode one, we moved on in part two, which was part two was released after the so-called Iran War had launched,

by the way, Congress still has not approved the war, has not declared war, and so in the news you might hear the term, the Iran war, it's an illegal war, even by our own metrics. And part two of our series, which was released after the war, it explored the balance of responsibility for the criminal invasion between Israel and the United States. and sort of explored this obstructionist resource-grabbing behavior that the United States has been engaging in, and we sort of did a little bit of analysis, a little bit of comparison to what happened in Venezuela, and we did a little bit of analysis by comparing sort of the United States' goals and Israel's goals and how sometimes those goals are aligned and somehow sometimes they are not. That brings us to this week's episode. Yeah, and here we are now six weeks into this war as of this recording.

It's Monday, April 6th when we are setting this down. And there's no real signs of anything slowing down. And to the contrary, in fact, all signs point to, escalation. Of course, it's very hard to make any sense, make heads or tails of what the objectives are of this administration, because as we'll discuss, everything that comes out of their mouth is basically a lie. It's a calculated lie to misdirect, to confuse, to distract. I mean, the sea of bullshit, it's not really even a metaphor at this point. So, you know, of course, some days we're on the verge of a ceasefire, and other days we're on the verge of a ground invasion.

What's really going to happen is anybody's guess, but just based on, as we'll get into, the hard stance that the Iranian government and the Iranian people have maintained against capitulation to imperialist. demands from the United States and Israel, any ceasefire, any end to the conflict is going to require two sides. And one side that has been woefully aggrieved by this illegal action, well, they're not that likely to roll over by the looks of it. So in this episode, you know, this is, as always, not going to be a war monitor. type of program because as much as we try our best to pay attention to what's going on, that's not our area of expertise. Rather, what we are going to discuss is the spectacle.

The spectacle as is our want, right? Because we're living in a world where you have a literal gulf between the rhetoric, both from the administration and from the opposition, the Democrats, and from the media. Everybody has their own line to toe, their own sort of acts to grind over this war. And as a result, the distortion is not just limited to the belligerence here. that's really coming from every single direction, and that's what we're going to jump into and try to make a little bit of sense. So we're going to try to unpack some of these lies.

We're going to try and understand the dynamics, especially the dynamics between what are largely written about and spoken about as quote-unquote national. interests, a slippery concept, if ever there was one, and the ruling class interests, which know no national borders. And we're also going to rely on our good host, Diaspora Dick, to give us an update on what's going on with the Iranians, both the right-wing Iranian diaspora, who was so enthusiastically celebrating the invasion of their home country and the Iranians on the ground who have supplied us with all kinds of propaganda of a very worthwhile sort. You know, some of it really got to take

your hat off for some of the shitposting skills that we have been seeing out of the Iranian regime and its allies, or rather the Iranian government, don't want to fall into the of using the pejorative regime to further dehumanize the perceived enemies of the United States. So there's a lot on our plate here, and we're going to try to keep this one tight to the point, concise, and get right into it. So, without any further ado, let's get digging. It is vile on every level. Whoever it is, I wish they cut it out quick, but whether it will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it.

Three exclamation points. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch all caps. Praise be to Allah, President Donald J. Trump. Open the effing straight. How dare you speak that way on Easter morning to the country? Who do you think you are? If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal,

they would have had a, don't forget, that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this. He chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country and how you can vote for a Democrat is unbelievable because He chose you know who else didn't help us South Korea didn't help us you know who else didn't help us Australia didn't help us you know who else didn't help us Japan we've got 50,000 soldiers in Japan to protect them from North Korea we have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea we have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea

Korea to protect us from Kim Jong-un, who I get along with very well, as you know. You notice he said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person, okay? So don't tell me about your stuff. Don't tell me about your stuff. Saudi Arabia has been excellent, guitar has been excellent, UAE has been excellent. Bahrain, Kuwait. I mean Kuwait did shoot around three of our planes.

Friendly fire, they call it. I call it unfriendly fire. They unfortunately didn't know how to use our great patriots. The pilots said, what kind of a missile's coming at us? Patriot. Boom, they got out because they know a patriot never misses. So they had beautiful patriots. All righty.

Let's talk about the nuts and bolts of this military aggression, this unchecked aggression. You know, again, we're going to flip through talking about this thing and we're going to be saying the Iran war. It is purely shorthand that we're doing so. It's one of my biggest grievances with what's coming out of the press, what's coming out of the government today is everyone is referring to it as a war. This is not something that Congress has declared as a war. so it would be incorrect to call this a war. This is an illegal act of aggression that's happening purely out of the executive. Of course, Congress doesn't have a, you know, their hands are not clean of what's going on,

but it is not something that has been approved as an act of war. And so everything we talk about is, in my view, completely illegal. but let's just get to the let's just get to the nuts and bolts so perhaps the defining characteristics of this war is really the level of dishonesty that's happening in open mendacity of its planners of our leaders

and I think that's one of the defining characteristics I think there's another defining characteristic is like the sheer craziness and absurdity of this war and like how ill planned everything is is maybe even so much more so than Iraq and Afghanistan. Like this is really just flying by the seat of their pants, folks. But on the point of dishonesty, it's literally gotten to the point now where anything

our president says, literally any sentence coming out of his mouth, you can just assume the direct opposite is true. And I think case and point, a good case and point of this is the talk he gave, he addressed the American people. It must have been now four days ago, five days ago, that he had an address to the American people about the war because he had given us this timeline of four to six weeks. And I think the six weeks is just coming up. And he, in a 20 minutes or so address, basically told us a couple of things, first of which was, that the Iranian military has been completely destroyed. The Navy is no more.

They have absolutely no military prowess. Well, that's not exactly true, is it? Literally the day or the just maybe even hours after he gave that presser, an F-15 was shot down that led to the events of the last couple of days where you had two American service members behind, quote, enemy lines. And so big old lie right there, right, that Iran has been defanged or declawed or whatever metaphor you want to use. So whenever you hear that, that's, you know, alarm bells should be ringing because they very much have shown that they do not only have the military

power to continue to defend themselves, but also the will to do so. Yeah. And this is a lie that encompasses many smaller lies but it's one that they've doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on. In fact, just now I was listening to Trump's press conference of today of April 6th. And in that, he, once again, it's just the most transparent cope imaginable. Because he'll say, we, it's a victory like nobody's ever seen it before. this air war it's the most successful it's unbelievable really the people all the past presidents they're all saying privately that we should have done this when i was president they're all looking up to donald trump the number one most tough most active president we've had a lot of weakness

over the last 49 years 47 years and now finally we've taken out all of their military powers. Yeah, they were able to take down the F-15, but that's the first aircraft that they've hit, and they did it using a improvised shoulder, carried weapon, a missile like off of your shoulder. It's unbelievable what they did, but this was not a military that took down our plane. So... Yeah, he just sort of talks himself into a knot, and it's pretty nuts, because it's like, to your point, right, they'll say something, the administration will say something, like we've obliterated their missile depots that are buried deep underground. And they'll completely leave out the fact that the Iranian government is able,

the Iranian military is able to so quickly get those rockets out of those depots after these attacks. They're having virtually no trouble at all recovering the rockets that are being, you know, the depots that are being blasted. Or they'll say things like the U.S. administration will say things like, We've destroyed their Navy and their Air Force or whatever and leave out the fact that the Iranian military relies heavily on these unmanned aircraft, these drones of which they still have over a thousand, maybe thousands, ready to go and are ready to use them and are ready to and are developing a stockpile of these drones.

and they're able to, with these sort of low cost of entry weapons, they're able to take down billion-dollar machinery, hundreds of, you know, a jet that may cost many, many, many millions of dollars. For sure. And again, it's like he's right that it's unlike anything anyone's ever seen before, but in the opposite direction. Because in the Iraq War, for example, or in Afghanistan, the quote-unquote enemy forces that the U.S. was attacking in those wars

were not able, as Iran has been able, to challenge and basically evacuate U.S. military bases in the region that are necessary for staging the invasion, right? All of these bases that the U.S. had built to surround and completely encircle Iran have been either threatened or attacked or made vulnerable by the Iranians through what you might call broadly speaking counterinsurgency or anti-imperial warfare including cyber attacks and the like and that is a new phenomenon of this war that hasn't happened in the past. It's a new phenomenon that runs in the opposite direction. It is against the U.S.'s military predominance, and it's yet another example, as we've seen in all of these wars,

that the big, gigantic oaf of the U.S. empire, with all of its even trillions of dollars worth of military spending, once it goes into another theater to try and dominate people, the combination of the real desire for survival and for not to be dominated under the thumb of empire. Plus, as you mentioned, Dick, the ways in which the Iranian arsenal is particularly adaptable to withstand, and counterattack in innovative ways, that's something that I think goes against the U.S.'s claimed victory in a way that, you know, the defeated Bath military under Saddam, for example, in 2003 that was wiped out through the shock and all campaign was very much a different scenario where then you have the kind of armed insurgency iED small arms etc here iran is orchestrating

that sort of opposition in a much more sophisticated way than the iraqi state or the remnants of the iraqi state were able to do oh 23 years ago almost to this day i think in fact we're just a couple of days off of the anniversary of Shokkendah. It was early April as well. And this, you know, brings bringing us back to this dishonesty, to this mendaciousness of the administration. You know, of course, we don't mean to suggest that this is unprecedented because lying has been the modus operandi of the U.S. Empire. We lied our way into the Iraq War. Vietnam, of course, was premised on the false flag in the Gulf of Tonkin and the notion of the domino theory that was totally fabricated. Go back and listen to our Jerry World coverage on the massive, generational

effort that went into creating the propaganda for the Cold War military aggression and Afghanistan as well, which, you know, listening again to these liars at the New York Times referring to the Afghanistan war as a war of necessity as compared to the Iraq War, a war of choice. So the lies still continue to this day that brought us into these past wars. But here, the difference is really that there's just no effort to back up the lies with any sort of evidence. And that's why we hear different lies all the time. It's flooding the zone. and it makes me think about Trump's training as a liar received not only from his crook of a slum lord father,

but also from his ideological mentor, Roy Cohn. And alleged lover. Yeah, exactly. Right. So remember, Roy Cohn, his motto, attack, attack, never apologize, never surrender, never get defense. and that MO has accompanied Trump throughout his political career. And in a very terrifying way, we're seeing it play out with nuclear war on the line. Yeah.

And before we move on, you know, you mentioned victory and how victory is so close. One thing that the administration has carefully not done is discussed what victory looks like. and as of now, it seems like victory for us would for the United States. It seems like victory for the United States would be reopening the Strait of Hormuz and disarming the Iranian regime, taking away their uranium, something like that. Okay. Good luck with either of those things, right? Because the way you're going to do either of those things is effectively like,

level the country. And that's never going to happen, right? And I like to think about, I like to think about what was, what does victory look like for the Iranians? And victory for the Iranians is very different and I think much more achievable. Because again, if you want victory as the United States, it's basically you're going to have to go in there and effectively carpet bomb and nuke the country out of existence. And as much as, you know, Donald Trump may want to do that, I don't think it will happen. But for the Iranians, all they have to do is create chaos in the region, right? That takes the shape of bombing their neighbors that are these hubs for the Western economies, right?

You're talking about Dubai and Abu Dhabi and talking about the Saudis, right? bombing data centers, bombing plants where these countries are relying on, for example, desalination of water. And then the other part is all they have to do is basically restrict tankers from getting through this, you know, straight of Hormuz, which at its most narrow point is like 25 miles. Not very hard to do for the country that effectively has control over the region. of the Persian Gulf. And so it's sort of like the monumental, the monumental task at hand for the United States is, is so large,

and the task at hand for the Iranian government is so minuscule in comparison. Because it's like, if you're Iran, there's definitely a future for you where you can see, you know, creating, wreaking havoc in the Persian Gulf. for the next year, for the next two years. It's like no sweat off your back because all it takes is like bombing one tanker every couple of weeks and no one's going to go through the straight of war moves.

Right. And remember, the war didn't even start with the military invasion. This is in the context of economic warfare, devastating and, you know, murderous economic warfare that has its own body count from the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran. for years now. 100%. And there's sanctions that the Iranian people

have been living with for decades at this point and are, it's like a way of life over there. And so, you know, what are, what is a few more years if I'm the Iranian government

and I'm thinking like, okay, this is my opportunity to bring the U.S. Empire to its knees. I'm going to hit, I'm going to hit it where it hurts, i.e., the economic nerve center, I will do that, right?

And it actually won't be that difficult because if you look at a map of the region, the lifeblood of this late capitalist hellscape oil, the lifeblood of this modern international economy that we have, it's

getting through basically the street of Hormuz and if that's blocked off, so too will be the lifeblood of of the global economy. Yeah. And I want to point out just how absurd the lie that Trump has repeatedly told about the U.S.

not needing the Strait of Hormuz and characterizing it as essentially a European-only problem that, you know, we have plenty of oil and gas in the U.S. and don't need the Strait of Hormuz for our economy. but the Europeans better get on board and join up in this war if they want to open up the strait. It's such a delusional fantasy. And what really is astounding is the degree to which even the mainstream media, which knows perfectly well how far from reality that narrative is, you know, they still say like, according to the Trump administration, this,

but they don't go that extra step and say, but it's a false statement. It's not true because, for example, the U.S. economy is interlaced with the rest of the world's economy, for inputs in the industrial process, for consumer markets, for U.S. manufactured goods, for dollar denomination of oil in the first fucking place, which, of course, the real,

bomb that could explode in the U.S.'s face is if all of this badgering, all of this browbeating of the Europeans over their alleged inaction and passivity to Iranian aggression to close the Strait of Hormuz, the Europeans are getting sick and tired of that and they're going to start transacting in euros for oil, maybe even with Iran. like the statements that have come out of the likes of Macron in France, especially, signal a much harder line against the U.S. than I can remember having seen in my lifetime. Absolutely.

And I think it goes to show, if you just look at the last couple of weeks, the control that the Iranians have over the Strait of Hormuz, over the Persian Gulf, they are letting ships through when they want to let ships through, right? Like there are tankers going through with their blessing. So it's not like it's completely close to everyone, right? And I think that's a critical fact for people to understand. It's not like the Iranians have lost control of the strait and have completely shut it off for everyone.

They are fully in control of that region. Yep. And so these are the lies. And these are the lies that we're being fed. And there are many more. One of my favorite ones, one of the ones that was a lie that was very loud. being spoken early on, and I am not hearing so much of it now, is the appetite for regime change in Iran, the appetite for regime change in the country.

Dude, I know you didn't listen to it yet, but I want to just say in that press conference that Trump gave today, he will put in the clip if I can find it, but he literally said, we're getting transmissions from inside Iran, keep bombing us. and these are people that the bombs are falling right next to their house and they're saying thank you please sir can i have another he literally said that it's so fucked that's disgusting and to think that there are people that believe this right please please please bomb us that that someone would think that and thank you know Donald Trump for doing that that is it's despicable it really is They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom.

The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts, please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes, please keep bombing. Do it. And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, please come back, come back, come back. These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom.

They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing, even if it jeopardized because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. But to the contrary, I mean, everything that I am seeing and hearing, in terms of on the ground, is that this military action the last six weeks or so, if anything, it has made the people of Iran much more sympathetic to the Iranian Revolutionary

Guard, to the Iranian regime. And so it's almost having the exact opposite effect of what the administration is saying that it's doing. And certainly not something as absurd as having Iranians thanking President Trump for bombing them? Right. Yeah, the ones that have thanked him are living in L.A. for the most part, right? These are the diaspora, wealthy people. And there's even the case of one who made one of these stupid TikToks thanking President Trump whose family members were subsequently obliterated by an American.

bomb. This is just, again, yeah, it's sickening. It's actually disgusting to spread this sort of really devious dehumanizing rhetoric that is escalating in tone every day, right? Everybody saw the open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards tweet or truth social post that Trump made. and calling them animals and all this kind of thing, justifying. Yeah, bombing them to the Stone Age, right? This idea that, like, Trump is willing to obliterate the country, first of all, like, that would be nuts if that actually happened. I mean, maybe I'm a little too, maybe I'm a little too conservative on this,

but I don't think that's actually going to happen, the rhetoric that we're going to bomb the shit out of your country and all of that, that is nuts to square with the supposed, you know, Iranian citizen out there that is like openly welcoming that, especially when a lot of these bombs that are hitting the country, they're hitting historical sites. They're hitting sites that mean a lot to the Iranian people, historical sites, religious sites, things, civilian infrastructure, things that are needed and have absolutely,

not only do they not have any sort of military advantage, it's like purely a cultural heritage site, things like that that are, why would anyone be okay with that? Right. Remember, even in the genocidal Vietnam War, there was still a great deal of controversy over the mining of Haiphong Harbor, right?

That was beyond the pale. And the administration's subsequent, you know, successive administrations in the U.S. actually wavered back and forth a lot about whether or not they were going to take this escalatory step against civilian infrastructure. And here, you know, the Trump administration just bombed that. massive bridge right in Tehran destroying this massive piece of civilian infrastructure that's a main artery for transportation of goods throughout the country, connection with the capital to the north part of the country, and nobody even bats an eye about it. And of course, Trump has shown a willingness to fire any members of the military brass that are not in line

with this truly psychotic approach to the war. And one more lie, like, how do they get away with this? Well, one of the lies that I think has been parroted and has developed over generations, which has equally been promulgated by the Democrat side of the aisle, by the mainstream media, and just by a lot more mainstream voices that has paved the way for some,

of these other lies, is this lie about the Iranian government being irrational, being fanatical, and being hell-bent on not only pursuing a nuclear weapon illegally, you know, in contravention of the non-proliferation treaty, which, remember, Iran is a party to the non-proliferation treaty. Israel is not chew on that one. But beyond this myth of Iran relentlessly pursuing a nuclear weapon is the myth that it will immediately use a nuclear weapon to quote unquote wipe Israel off of the map, right? We've heard that for basically as long as I can remember, certainly at least as far as George W. Bush's axis of evil speech where he first put Iran into the crosshairs directly of U.S. imperial aggression. And all of that background and dehumanization and, you know, gives way

to thinking about Iran as a place and its inhabitants as people as less than equal to the lives of your friends, your neighbors, and your loved ones. And that is perhaps the original sin lie that gives rise to and kind of gives license to all of these other lies in succession. And again, in this press conference today, Trump once again repeated that lie. He called the Obama administration's JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. He called that a green light for Iranian nuclear weapons. and a selection of Iran over Israel in an existential battle,

which could not really be farther from the truth. We know perfectly well that the Obama administration was staffed with epic Zionist genocidal folks, the likes of Jake Sullivan, who came back for Biden and oversaw genocide. So it's such bullshit, and it goes back so deep. and to have now these psychotics in charge of policymaking, it's truly an dangerous situation. I in my life have never felt like there's a possibility for a nuclear war until now. And that prospect is just beyond terrifying,

because it really means that the world was never the, same after August 1945. And if there's another nuclear war, like all of the worst fantasies of the worst psychotics on Earth will be that much more likely to be realized because of just the irreversible effects of such a devastating disaster. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I just don't think that it will happen. And maybe I'm just being a little obtuse here, but I agree it's probably as close as we have gotten to in our lifetime to a nuclear war. It just, I don't know how to just leave it at that.

Babies connected to incubators die. People in hospitals die. Those are the first level effects. And then people begin to starve. And then you have refugee crises. People leave the cities looking for food. And yes, they move into other countries. Well, one, it makes you reassess the bombing of the girls' school attached to the IRGC naval base,

where the children of Iranian military officers were incinerated in a bombing, not one but two, a double tap. But after this, you have to kind of wonder, how did that happen? Well, there are a bunch of possible reasons, but the darkest of all is for the sake of doing it. For the sake of killing, for the sake of exercising the most obvious form of power, which is extinguishing life. That's why we're doing it. The thrill is in the killing. The power is in the killing, the exertion of force. He's the point.

All 18 intelligence agencies agreed that the fatwa against actually making a nuclear weapon was holding, and the Iranians were not making a nuclear weapon. So what I watched the Israelis do over the course of the last year was use their government officials engaging with our government officials, but then also there's surrogates in the media, Mark Levin, who I'll talk to you tonight, mainstream media,

think tanks, foundation for defense of democracies, a lot of talking heads on Fox News, to move the red line. So Trump had said my red line is no nuclear weapons. Diatora said, great. I don't want nuclear weapons either. Let's talk. So they move the red line by saying enrichment. Iran can have no enrichment. Enrichment equals a nuclear weapon, which is just fundamentally not true. This is a mockery not just of Islam. It's a mockery of Christianity. To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians and then saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it, you are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians. Oh, I get it. That is evil. That is an intentional desecration of

beauty and truth, which is the definition of evil. Well, speaking of psychotics, maybe this is actually a good point to pivot at two. What are the checks and balances, if any, on the limits to which these psychopaths will go, right? And I don't know that we've given a proper attention to that basket case of a country that has played an outsized role in all of this is real, because the U.S. is psychotic, it's run by psychopaths. They're all to a man, insane people that trickles down from Trump and you really cannot say that Trump is just a screen at this point. But I think we could spend a little time now kind of unpacking what, if anything, is putting a check on the lengths to which the Amerisraeli Empire will go and kind of teasing out who within this coalition of the

insane is in the driver's seat. And I think the way that I see it, there's not really one person in the driver's seat. It's like a bunch of drunks. Yeah, it's not, yeah. I would say it's, the driving metaphor is not the best one. I'd like to think of it as open mic or improv night. And they're all on stage and it's like the worst possible fucking set of improv. The worst, the worst possible set of like yes and motherfuckers right like every single one of them's trying to one up the other and see who can do the crazier shit right yeah exactly and so one narrative that's emerged that we would be remiss to omit is this sort of joe kent narrative we'll just call it that for shorthand. Joe Kent, of course, was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center,

which presumably should be responsible for monitoring threats against the U.S., and he resigned with a lengthy letter. It's been a little while now. He's had plenty of time to make the media rounds and elaborate on his position, but in very brief, his line is that there was no, real threat. The pretext for the war was false and it was a case of Israel basically manipulating the US into doing its bidding, whether by blackmail or by something else, it was a war against the U.S. national interest and in favor of the Israeli national interest. And the reason for that, you know, could be whatever, right? And, He went on Tucker Carlson, and the two of them came to agreement, really on a lot of the broad strokes,

noting how Trump is surrounded by these hyper-Zionist neocons like Mark Levine and others inside the administration, Jared Kushner, Steve Whitkoff, all of these guys who exclude any dissenting voices from Trump's ear and push Trump to go full hog at Iran. Okay, well, that sounds like a bunch of bullshit, right? So let's take these in turn, but this idea that Trump is being blackmailed by the Israelis. Yeah, I think, frankly, Trump is blackmail proof. And I think we learned that with the Access Hollywood video. Yeah, exactly.

All this stuff. Like, of course he's a pedophile. Exactly. We're at a point where his own DOJ is saying we're not going to pursue the Epstein stuff anymore. Like, there is nothing. There's literally nothing out there that Trump has not been accused of in the public forum. And I don't think there is anything you could accuse him of that would make him place him under your thumb. Right.

Even and including a video of Trump raping a child, right? Like the most extreme possible thing. Exactly. He would say it's fake and his supporters would believe him. So it's like there is no blackmail material that could push Trump to do something that he wouldn't otherwise do. I just don't buy that at all. No, and it goes to the Roy Cohn School of Thought too, right? It's like deny, deny, deny, attack, attack, attack.

You can't get someone like that because no matter what you put out, they're just going to, to do some crazy wacko judo shit and change the subject and just move on. Right. Now, does that mean that there's not other ways that Trump is being influenced by Israel and by other forces who want this war? Absolutely not, right? Like, he's got business prospects the same than in Gaza, right? The Israelis told him, hey, Trump, if you, you know,

know, support our genocide, will clear this space, and you can develop it and make hundreds of billions of dollars. And the same for Iran. If you help us clear the place of people and get rid of this government, you know, there'll be a lot of economic opportunities and you'll get first dibs. We've already seen the Board of Peace established, really as a result of the Israeli genocide, which Trump is very openly and blatantly corruptly using to funnel taxpayer money to himself, once again, as is his want. And so that sort of venal self-interest certainly aligns Trump as an individual with Israel, with war mongers and genocides in general.

And so does his bloodlust. Like the guy just likes killing people. He likes to be able to do it. And he likes to win. Right. But to the first point, so we sort of covered this, right? So the black male angle doesn't seem to work, but the sort of economic interest angle,

I think that works. And it also sort of plays into our greater thesis, which is that this, ruling class, right? This international ruling class, it knows no borders. It's just a bunch of motherfuckers that are out there trying to get paid. And in this instance, you have someone like Trump acting not necessarily as the president of the United States, right? He's acting as a businessman who is thinking, okay, where can I, how can I use this to my business advantage? How can me and my cronies get richer than we already are.

And in this instance, their goals align with the ruling class that happens to live in Israel or the ruling class that happens to live in Saudi Arabia or the ruling class that happens to live in Europe or whatever. And so, you know, to say that this is a military action, this is an act of aggression that is being done at the behest of Israel. it's still short-sighted, right? I do like this theory that it is more of an action that is sort of in the interest of the global ruling class, and that's why they're all sort of on board, and their interests are aligned.

Yeah, on this point, which I think it's a very important point to make, and it's a very important point to understand. And I think that a lot of people don't understand it or misunderstand it, because in a lot of people's minds, the idea of the global ruling class of the capitalist elite of sort of capital personified by the CEOs and the C-suite executive class and their lawyers, they associate that with rationality and with rational behavior, which is ultimately a function of the propaganda, of the field of economics that tells students that economics is a rational science

and that economists and economic thinkers like financiers are behaving in rational ways as market actors. And if there's one big takeaway that I had from reading all that George Lukash and discussing it with Marcus in the Fourth Reich political theology series, it's that capital veers from rationality all the time. And it may create a smokescreen to couch or to mask its actions as rational, but that doesn't mean that it is rational. And in this case, in particular, if you look at the personalities and the psychological profile, of the most influential members of this capitalist ruling class,

you think about the tech industry. You think about people like Peter Thiel, people like Sam Altman, people like Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Karp of Palantir. Right. We've talked at length in many episodes of this podcast about how these fuckers are more insane than anybody. And so they have a commonality with Trump and his cabinet. in as much as they are likewise psychotics.

They are likewise sociopaths. And when your ruling class consists of sociopaths, its behavior will be psychotic. And that, you know, just wanted to add this point, adding this in post-production, because I think it's an important point to make that people sort of contrast the irrational, parochial, sort of self-interested and tribalistic

interests of quote unquote national interests like the U.S. and Israel, and they contrast that with the global, the long-term, the thoughtful interests of capital. And I think that that sort of binary actually misses the very, very important ways in which capital behaves irrationally. Remember, good old Gramshy, right? This is the time of monsters. And that is within the capitalist framework, to be sure. And it is something that we really oughtn't to lose sight of in this facile sort of one or the other framing that is ultimately super misleading. And I think in that respect, this nickname the Epstein class that has been deployed to refer to this group of people, this transnational group of people, is in some respects accurate, not because it uses a Jewish name.

And, you know, I think it's wrongheaded to consider the Epstein class as being primarily composed of Jews, although, of course, wealthy Zionist Jews do make up a disproportionate number among this sort of group that is pulling the strings at this moment. that that's not to be denied. Not to interrupt, just one quick note on the Epstein class thing. It's also important to note, definitely it's important to note that it's, you know, not just the Jewish peoples are Jewish brothers and sisters that are being targeted. And when you hear Epstein class, sometimes you'll hear it from the likes of like NPR and the New York Times and NBC or whatever, and they're referring to just Republicans, right?

And they're referring to just Donald Trump and his ilk. But you got to remember, the Epstein. Christine class it includes them Democrats too. I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. Whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that.

Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary? Well, there are different reasons that we should be thoughtful about each. Most recently, I think there's an obvious one in mind, which is Iran. And look, I mean, Iran has American blood on their hands. Yeah, and it includes the likes of Vladimir Zelensky. too, right? And not, again, not because he's Jewish, but because he's making fucking bank off of the suffering of his people by prolonging this war in Ukraine as well. It's just something that is amorphous, but what unites it and what kind of makes the Epstein moniker accurate

to form is the fact that the mentality is a rapist mentality. These are people that, as we've said on the pod before, they are anti-consent in whatever form. 100%. It's about might makes right. It's about taking what you have an entitlement to and believing that you have an entitlement to whatever you can take. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, a self-referential circle of vicious circle of power, creating more power and accumulating more and more power and disregarding the humanity of anyone else. And I think in that respect, it's important to note the Jo-Kent narrative that we set up,

it counterposes U.S. national interest and Israeli national interest as though the unit of geopolitical analysis is the nation-state. And I think, Our position on that is that the nation-state is simply obsolete as a unit of geopolitical analysis, right? The United States, I mean, it goes back to the old Ned Beatty speech from the movie Network. You know, this is not, the United States doesn't exist. It's Exxon. It's Chevron. It's General Electric.

It's General Motors. It's Boeing. It's now Palantier. right? Network. Is that a 70s movie? It sure is, Dick. Is it a 1975 movie?

Because that would be crazy. Oh, it came out in 76, but it was a... Close enough. Close enough. Man, 75. What a year. Shout out to Shee Harvey Oswald. But anyways, back to this point about national interest, right?

So think about unpacking what is meant. by U.S. national interests and Israeli national interests, right? The bucket of Israeli national interests includes things like expanding its territory to greater Israel from the Tigris and Euphrates river in Iraq all the way down to the Mediterranean Sea and indeed all the way to the Nile River, I think, including some pieces of Egypt that are currently under Egyptian sovereignty. So, there's this notion of territorial expansion that has a biblical origin story and a modern geopolitical valence of the, you know, motivating the likes of Netanyahu and these other expansionist genocidal freaks. But it's not only that. It's not only this biblical goal of conquest and

territorial expansion because it's framed as the only way to provide geopolitical stability in the resource-rich and strategically essential Middle East. That goes way beyond the interests of some Bible-believing Jews that think that the Messiah will come back once this territory is settled. Or Christians. Or, yeah, or Christian Zionists. Right. But, you know, the promise of geopolitical stability, the promise of having this American and Western imperial attack dog that has considered itself and has presented itself as European, not for nothing, does Israel participate in Eurovision singing competition, right? is part of the Judeo-Christian Western civilization myth, which itself is tied to capital and capital expansion

and capitalist stability to make the most of the natural resources of the world for exploitation by the ruling class. So that, I think, is a way to disentangle this idea of parochial national interest. The same with the U.S., right? Like the U.S. national interest might be cheap gas at the pump. And I don't know. It's hard to tell what the U.S. national interest is because the population is so divided amongst itself with so little information or understanding of the world at large that, you know, you ask any person on the street what they think the U.S. national interest. is and you will get such a vast array of different answers. Well, it's the spread, yeah, I think at its root, just to maybe take a shot at this,

but at its core, it's this notion of spreading like Western liberal democracy, right, and making sure that idea prospers throughout the world, the fundamentals of truth and justice and a free society and all that bullshit, right? And this is the vehicle to do that. And once our boys are out there, once our men, are in these regions, it's like, okay, we're here. Let's make sure our side wins. I think that and oil, that's pretty much it. Right. Or from the perspective of, you know, the neo-isolationists like Tucker Carlson and I guess Joe Kent, U.S. national interest is our troops are safe and, you know,

the homeland is defended and we don't have a threat of foreign terrorism against, our people. And obviously those are the U.S. national interests which are undermined by this war, which puts our troops at risk, which invites terrorism against our people on our shores, because of our aggression abroad, et cetera, et cetera. And to be sure, you know, they're not wrong that all of those consequences of imperialism are bad for Americans, broadly speaking, The U.S. government as an institution is very disconnected from anything like U.S. national interest as they're framing it. If indeed U.S. national interest derived from the prosperity of the American people, the policy priorities that have come out of the government, you know, for successive generations going all the way back, you know,

gosh, when is the last time that a policy benefited the American people? You'd have to go back to like maybe Nixon's creation of the EPA. I don't fucking know. But it's few and far between that any policy passed by the bourgeois capitalist government of the United States is in the interests of the American people. So I guess the point that I'm coming to is that the concept of U.S. national interest is an empty signifier for any political block to use to advance itself. And I think that the Joe Kent Tucker band is exploiting this notion of U.S. national interest in a way to, perhaps for one good end, the end of, you know, drawing down imperialist aggression abroad,

but these guys all take it as, well, then we need to bring that money home and militarize ICE to conduct mass deportations, right? Or some other horrifically repressive and white supremacist policies that those guys support. And in a few logical steps down the road, you get to the Candice Owens' position that, oh, and by the way, we also need to do something about the Jews. You know, not to overplay the threat of anti-Semitism, which is, of course, weaponized to support Zionism. That's not what we're doing here. We're asking our listeners to exercise critical thinking skills to not necessarily say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and to think deeply and with some logical futurity to where their line of argumentation ends up.

And that's not to say that you should throw everything that they say out, but you should use what these right-winger anti-war voices are saying to be able to dialogue with their followers and bring them on to your side, to the side of truth, which is neither one nor the other, neither militarize the imperial forces for destruction of Iran nor militarize ICE for the brutalization of immigrants in the United States.

Rather, make policy for the people, for the working class, for the masses, bring people education, bring them health care, make reparations for the damage caused by imperialism, because if this planet is to sustain human survival and human thriving for the long term, It has got to be in an internationally collaborationist way, and that horizon is what we are looking towards, not a parochial horizon for the short-term betterment of the lives of certain groups of Americans that take precedence for the likes of Tucker fucking Carlson. Well, that seems like a pretty good place to stop this week's episode.

Join us next week when we will no doubt pick up on some other crazy and wild thread and try and detangle that. In the meantime, I am Dick. I'm Don saying farewell. And keep on a digging. When this ends, you never cleanse. All the blood from off your hands, it'll stain you off. all the way till you're born. You see you and all that you do

make the world a much worse place. It's a wonder you dare show your face. When this ends, you can't pretend that you stood for what was right. when you stood on the side of genocide. Thought that you could just conform to your twisted social norms, all built around belief that might makes right.

This has to end, but you'll never mend all the damage that you've wrought, not with every, Every dollar from every weapon ball From your paper tiger rasp Every empire must eventually Just go ahead and spin what you steal Don't you know there are some debts that can't be paid On consume spectacal

Empty plastic testicle Human sewer that you've made The york's gonna bend In a justice pointed Oh, that means you and those in power I have to pay Because when this ends We're not gonna let you get