Pod Save the World - Breaking: Israel Strikes Back at Iran

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

In a bonus episode, Tommy and Ben talk about the reports that Israel launched a retaliatory strike deep inside Iran, why Iranian leaders are downplaying what happened, why the logic of deterrence is stupid, and the Biden administration’s muted response. They also talk about supplemental funding bills for Israel and Ukraine that the House will vote on this weekend, the messaging incoherence of the US calling for a ceasefire in Gaza while sending Israel more weapons, the US vetoing a UN resolution on Palestinian statehood, and then they take audience questions from the Discord. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Bitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. We are doing a bonus episode because you guys might have seen the news that the Israelis responded to the Iranian response to their previous response. They attacked them last night and we're going to talk about it. Some of you might be wondering, why are you guys doing a bonus for this? Not Iran's massive strike on Israel from over the weekend. And the reason is because we're human beings with small children. So leave us alone.

Okay. But we are going to talk about the latest and the seemingly endless tit for tat in the attacks between Iran and Israel. This time with Israel hitting targets in Iran, we're going to talk about the insane logic of deterrence and escalation that you hear about constantly in D.C. It seems to be driving all of this. We'll talk about what the White House knew about what's happening. Their response so far. We'll also touch on movement on efforts to deliver more military assistance to Israel and Ukraine, by the way, in the House of Representatives that might happen this weekend. There's some more sanctions on Iran.

There's sanctions from the White House on right-wing extremist settlers in the West Bank. And we'll talk about what it all means for the Palestinians and the war in Gaza. And then we'll take some questions from the Padsave the World Discord. You guys had some great ones, as you always do, discorders. Always, always. All right, Ben, so should we just start with what happened last night? Why not? So here's what we know.

Well, what we think we know. So Israel launched some kind of strike deep inside Iran on Thursday night. hit targets in the city of Isfahan. The Israelis reportedly targeted a military base there. Iranian officials told the New York Times that the attack was carried out by small drones, these like quadcopter drones, and they were launched from somewhere inside Iranian territory. On Thursday night, you know, this was all very confusing because on Thursday night, U.S. officials were telling Western media that it was a missile strike. Iran seems to be denying and downplaying what happened and saying, no, it was these quadcopter drones. But I did talk to someone

in the U.S. government who told me that the attack was more than just quadcopter drones, although this person would not elaborate. So we'll probably find out in the coming days. Isfahan is where Iran does a lot of missile production and research and development. It's home to an Iranian airbase where they store F-14 Tomcats. They bought from the United States back in the day, Ben, before the Iranian Revolution in 1979. There's four small nuclear research facilities in Isfahan, which were not targeted or hit, according to Iranian state media. Iranian state media also said they shot down some additional small drones in another part of the country that's about 500 miles from Isfahan. So it was a very tense night because the president of

Iran, Ibrahim Reisi, had recently said that, quote, the tiniest act of aggression, and quote, on Iranian soil would draw a response. The Iranian foreign minister, I think, was on CNN just hours before the Israeli attack happened, saying, quote, the next response from us will be immediate and at maximum level. So scary stuff. So, Ben, I think that's all that we know so far. Please correct me if I missed anything or added anything. And just generally, what did you make of Israel deciding to launch this strike deep into the Iranian territory? Well, the other thing that we don't know right is exactly what, if anything, happened in other countries?

Because there was some reporting last night about potential strikes in Syria and Iraq, but we haven't got a lot of fidelity on that either. But look, when I saw that there was an attack inside of Iran and Isfahan, your first reaction is, okay, well, that's a pretty significant action by Israel because in the same way that we haven't seen Iran launch direct attacks into Israel, we haven't really seen Israel launch kind of standoff strike attacks inside of Iran. We've seen, you know, Israel do some other things, you know, in a more unattributed basis inside of Iran. Iran over the years. Blow up scientists. Yeah, or, you know, cyber and things like that. Or that also did that pretty daring raid where they raided like a warehouse full of old IRGC documents that included a lot of information about Iran's nuclear program before 2003.

That's right. So they've done kind of, you know, lower key things. But then, you know, the more that information came out over the night, it was pretty clear that this was not a very significant military action. In other words, given that, you know, in the same way we talked about how Iran had, despite launching a barrage of things at Israel, you know, Iran left some things in reserves, you know, say the Hezbollah rockets in southern Lebanon. Obviously, Israel could have launched a much bigger strike inside of Iran. And so it felt like they did the kind of minimal amount that they needed to do to feel like they hit a target inside of Iran without trying to escalate this further. So in a strange way, they were trying to answer the mail on, you know, yes, we're willing to strike Iran, even though the United States told us not to, but we're going to do it in a relatively minimalist way that is designed to avoid further escalation.

So it seems like we're still in this, you know, both sides trying to save face and indicate that they're willing to do something they haven't done before, but trying to calibrate it in a way that manages escalation. So that seems to be like where we are. Yeah. And so to add to that, I mean, President Reisi of Iran gave a speech on Friday. He didn't actually reference the Israeli strike at all. He talked about what they had done over last weekend and about how was the sign of the power of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian foreign minister said, quote, the Zionist regime's media supporters in a desperate effort tried to make victory out of their defeat, while the downed many drones have not caused any damage or casualties. So that's according to Iranian state media.

So he's clearly trying to de-escalate as well. in Israel you got the far right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir. He posted a message on social media with one word saying lame. So extremist voices in Israel are pushing for more too. So Ben, you know, we talked about this a bit in the last episode, but we just wanted to again touch on how stupid the logic of deterrence is. So as I read the news this morning, the same people who were saying that Israel had to respond to the Iranian strikes to restore deterrence. seem to be praising them for responding in a way that appears to have had absolutely zero military value. So basically the strategy is, let's have Iran and Israel repeatedly fire drones and missiles at each other and hope that they miss. That's the plan. And every time, I guess we're just one miscalculation, one failed missile defense system away from some sort of massive war. And, you know, we also know for a fact that if Iran's attack over the last weekend had killed a bunch of Israelis, the Israeli response would have been massive because they're telling the media that. So basically, Iran was reckless and lucky.

We also know that the Israelis drastically miscalculated how Iran would respond to the Israeli military's strike in Damascus in early April that killed a bunch of top Iranian generals. The New York Times reported that Israel thought the Iranian response would be, quote, fairly limited, including small-scale attacks by proxies and a small-scale attack from Iran. Given the stakes involved, how do you think the logic here has gotten so broken? Yeah, that's a great question. And you're right to note, by the way, the Iranian response was clearly to downplay this. I mean, I sent you some things last night. The IRGC was putting out pictures of kind of tiny little drones that fit in your hand. They're trolling each other. But they're trolling each other, but I mean, it's a good thing, I guess, that they're downplaying it because it suggests that, you know, they're not looking to escalate.

And so in a way, it's good that both sides are trying to act like they're moving on. It seems like neither Israel or Iran wants to escalate this further in terms of direct exchanges of fire for now. But in terms of your question, I don't, the logic of deterrence makes no sense here. because, first of all, both sides don't look stronger for the actions they took. So Iran doesn't look stronger for having fired a bunch of missiles and drones at Israel and had them all shot down. Right. And now I don't think – and actually, Israel could have taken the win, as Joe Biden apparently told them to do. But instead, now I'm not sure they look super strong by launching a kind of pretty minimal strike at Isfahan.

So what deterrence has been achieved or restored here? And I think if we're honest about this, this feels a lot like some kind of, a lot less like some kind of, you know, genius military strategy around deterrence. And more about domestic politics in both countries. Totally. And let's just name that and be honest about it. It's like the Iranians felt embarrassed that their embassy compound was hit in Syria felt like they need to do something. There's some interesting reporting that's come out, too, Tommy, that suggested some of the Iranian proxy groups were like, hey, like we keep, you know, being in the crosshairs of Israel, we keep launching attacks. Where are you? And maybe the Iranians felt like they needed to kind of maintain some credibility with their own proxies to show that, okay, we're willing to fire some things at Israel, too. Whatever their logic was, it felt like it was more about domestic political consumption or regional consumption by their proxies than it was about some deterrence theory. Yeah.

And then the same thing. Israel got out over at skis and announcing that they had to respond. So they kind of box themselves in by saying that they were going to do something. And so therefore they chose to do something designed to not escalate things. And so I guess the one thing that was achieved militarily by both sides is that they both demonstrated that they're willing to take shots at each other. But I don't think it created some deterrence dome by doing it. And to your point, it just shows the kind of irrationality of where we are in the Middle East, particularly and maybe even generally, that you feel the need to risk starting World War III, you know, to just what? Safe face. So that some deterrence analysts can mouth talking points about restoring deterrence when this whole thing has just been a cycle of escalation.

Yeah. I reached out to someone very smart, who I respect, who said, well, he thought the goal of the strike was for Israel to kind of show what they could do, their capabilities to do these quadcopter attacks in the city where there's real military infrastructure. But Israel has done exactly these kinds of quadcopter drone attacks before in Iran several times. So I'm not sure I totally buy that. But more broadly bent, I mean, again, diplomacy is about putting yourself in the other guy's shoes and trying to see the world like they do. And people in Washington are just incapable of doing that with Iran. Like last episode we played a clip with Senator Tom Cotton saying, imagine if the U.S. was Israel and we had 300 drones and missiles fired at us like they did. You know, like they had to respond. But you never hear Tom Cotton say, imagine if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was assassinated while visiting a U.S. embassy abroad. Because basically, that's what happened to Iran in Syria. Cotton never tries to put himself in Iran's shoes because in his mind they're the bad guy. And again, for the thousandth time, no one is saying Iran is, has good leaders or good actors. They are not. But you do have to try to understand their perspective.

And to your point about domestic politics, they have extremists and they have moderates in their government like any other government, right? They have politics. They have to worry about external threats like any other country. And let's be honest, they're relatively weak in the region when compared to their neighbors. Israel has nukes. The Saudis and the Emirates have U.S. weapons and bases that are a lot more modern than the F-14 Tomcats that they bought in, you know, 19, 75 or whatever when Tom Cruise was flying him around in the previous top gun. So, you know, this is the frustration like Iran supports these proxy groups in the region because that's their version of NATO. That's their security blanket, right? It's these shitty little, you know, proxy forces in Iraq and

Syria and Hezbollah and Hamas, which that's not to say they're not lethal, but I mean, that's sort of where they're coming from. I just, you know, you never hear anyone think that way or try to understand where an Ibrahim Reisi might be coming from in terms of his political future. Yeah, and there are a couple other points to this, which is the real deterrence is different. The deterrence at Israel, I totally, I mean, not to impugn the person you spoke to, but like, Israel's deterrence, Iran knows what Israel's capabilities are. You know, Israel has significant standoff strike capabilities, you know, air capabilities. Israel has nuclear weapons, right?

That's a lot of deterrence. The reason that Hezbollah has not been fully activated in terms of firing thousands of rockets at Iran is because if Israel used all of those capabilities, they could essentially kind of carpet bomb Hezbollah and launch pretty significant strikes into Iran. That's deterrence, not like a pinprick strike in Isfahan, you know? Yeah.

On the other side, Iran's deterrence is not necessarily, you know, its own capabilities inside of Iran, its deterrence is actually more Hizbala. It's the fact that they have this significant force with thousands of rockets that could really rain down significant chaos on Israel and ways that are harder for missile defense technologies to deal with. And so neither side has actually utilized the thing that is their maximum deterrent in this situation. It's more this kind of performative exchange and showing that we're willing to cross new lines. You know, we're willing to push the envelope, which to me feel. more dangerous than it feels deterrent. The other thing to be concerned about, and this is what

like a Tom Cotton has consistently failed to see, to your point about domestic politics is, ultimately, Iran's bigger play to deterrence is to try to get a nuclear weapon. This is why we had a nuclear deal that shipped out all of their enriched uranium that had inspections. I know we've harped on this, but the point is all of the things that have happened, I think make it more likely that Iran is calculating right now, we better, whether on a covert or overt basis, probably a covert basis, we better, you know, double down on the idea that we need a nuclear deterrent, because if not, Iran can kind of, Israel can kind of do these kinds of things with impunity. The last thing I'd say is we don't really know what happened yet. There are these contradictory reports about missiles

going into Iran versus, as you said, drones inside the country. You know, there's an intelligence cost, and we'll never know the true answer to this, but if Israel utilized, you know, kind of intelligence networks it has inside of Iran to kind of launch something from within Iran. Well, that's a burnt asset too. That's something that they probably can't turn back to that. So that's another piece of this. Yeah. The real deterrence is the friends we made along the way, Ben.

So, okay, when Israel hit that IRGC target in Damascus in early April, killing the top IRGC generals, they reportedly gave the U.S. almost no warning. It was kind of like real-time warning. This time with this latest response, there's a bunch of reporting that says the U.S. was told on Thursday that Israel planned to retaliate against Iran in 20 to 48 hours. So they had some sort of heads up. The White House has been today very conspicuous in terms of saying nothing. Like I reached out to some folks who are like, look at me responding to you by saying nothing, which I totally get. Right? They're trying to like de-escalate kind of take the air out of this thing if they can. But as a former press guy, you know, what this will probably mostly do is. get a bunch of reporters really mad as everyone else in the government leaks would happen. But regardless, Ben, Secretary of State Tony Blinking, he's in Italy right now meeting with the G7 leaders to coordinate new sanctions on Iran. Basically every leader in the G7, including President Biden, asked Netanyahu not to retaliate. The Biden line, as you said earlier, was take the win, but it seems like he refused to save face.

Ben, how long does Netanyahu get to tell every other Western democracy to fuck off while expecting total support from them? I mean, literally a couple days ago, the U.S. and the U.K. were shooting down drones fired at Israel. Then they asked him to take the win, both Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden, and he just declined. He said, thanks, thanks, but no thanks. I'm good. I'm going to do my own thing. Yeah.

I mean, it felt like he tried to split the difference, right? Yeah. Because on the one hand, Netanyahu didn't take the win. He felt like he had to do something. On the other hand, what he did was kind of calibrated to, you know, not have a massive escalation. It's kind of like you used the school yard analogy last time, Tommy, that like there's a big, we're the big brother to Israel and, you know, they kind of fight with us standing behind them. This is kind of like, they were walking back towards our side of the school yard

and we were like, come here, come here. And then they just kind of ran back and kicked a Ron in the shins one more time. And then, you know, like, but, but to me, like, it is just notable. sure, we had an influence, I think, in moderating this response. And yet how many times can we read news cycles of the U.S. publicly saying, don't do something, and then Nanyahu just does it? I mean, there's still clearly this, I mean, that's not normal, you know? And at some point, U.S. policymakers are going to have to absorb the reality that Deng Xiao is not, you know, listening. Yeah. Although I guess it's more normal than you think of you include. like settlement construction.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's been going on for a very long time. That's true. Yeah, so the administration, the United States and the G7, I think, have put forward a bunch of new sanctions on Iran. I don't know the specifics of them. I have zero confidence that they'll matter. I mean, yeah, I'm just going to, like, oh, that's going to be the thing that does it, you know, I mean, there's something so performative and rudinized about these sanctions announcements and there's no evidence that they work. And actually, I'm going to say, like, There's a recent, just the last few days, I saw like a report out that Iran has sold more oil to China in the last five years than ever before, essentially.

China is not participating in sanctions. Right. And the more we use sanctions and overused sanctions, the more other countries, including China and India, just start to ignore them because they're so overused. And so other than a political messaging strategy in Washington to be able to say, we put some new sanctions on Iran, it has no impact in the real world that I can see. Yeah. I do think Tony Blankett is about to go to Beijing for meetings with his Chinese counterpart. So interesting that that's happening.

Hopefully there's no fucking spy balloon incident that blows it up on the way. So, Ben, let's broaden this to Gaza. Over in the House of Representatives, Speaker Johnson immediately put forward a resolution condemning Iran for its strike on Thursday. 13 Dems and one Republican Tom Massey voted against it. Johnson is also trying to pass supplemental funding bills for Israel and Ukraine and a bunch of other priorities this weekend. Shockingly, the House seems to be coming together in a bipartisan way to overcome objections from Marjorie Taylor Green and a bunch of far-right morons. So the Israel aid bill is up to $26.38 billion. Some of that money will go towards paying for U.S. military operations over the weekend, last weekend, to shoot.

down all those Iranian drones and missiles. That stuff costs a lot of money. But according to the times of Israel, $5.2 billion goes towards Israeli missile defense systems, 3.5 billion goes towards purchasing more advanced weapons systems. And then there's $1 billion for weapons production more broadly, and then a bunch of other stuff that's not worth getting into. So key point is this is not just funding for missile defense systems or defensive-only systems. Switching gears to Rafa, the Rafa invasion, New York Times reported that White House officials, led by Jake Sullivan, had a virtual meeting with their Israeli counterparts in Israel over their Rafa invasion plan. Remember, Rafa's that city in southern Gaza, or about a million people are seeking shelter,

living in tents, zero infrastructure. The U.S. side once again came away thinking that not enough planning was being done to protect civilians, so we'll see how that plays out. The CIA director, Bill Burns, publicly blamed Hamas for rejecting. the latest six-week ceasefire and hostage release proposal. The very sad sticking point seems to be that Hamas does not have 40 hostages in its control to release specifically women and civilians. It's not clear if that means those hostages are being held by other militant groups like Palestinian Islamic jihad or that just many of them have died, but very, very grim.

Here's a clip of Tony Blinken talking about those ceasefire talks from earlier to the The only thing, the only thing standing between the Ghazan people and a ceasefire is Hamas. It's rejected generous proposals from Israel. It seems more interested in a regional conflict than it is in a ceasefire that would immediately improve the lives of the Palestinian people. It continues to move the goalposts. And the world needs to know and needs to understand, again, that the only thing standing between a ceasefire and the Kausen people is Hamas. He's really hammering the blame Hamas messaging recently.

On Friday, the U.S. announced more sanctions on far-right extremist settlers, which is a good thing, including some close allies of Ittmar Ben-Kavir. And on Thursday, the U.S. vetoed an effort at the United Nations Security Council to recognize Palestine is a full member state at the U.N. So that's kind of the grab-bag stuff, Ben, of what's happening in Washington and New York. Yeah, I mean, a lot of different pieces of this. On Rafa, you know, you can sense the administration is really alarmed as they should be about the potential humanitarian catastrophe if the Rafa operation goes forward and, frankly, just the extent to which that would extend this war. You know, if they go into Rafa, that's potentially multiple, multiple weeks, months.

And people have to start to realize that I think everyone kind of assumed at some point this will just get to a ceasefire and there'll be kind of return to normalcy and a lot of aid will get in. There's a reality in which, you know, we're talking in a couple of months and it's much worse in terms of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Tens of thousands of more people have been killed. It's still open-ended. That's where, like, a maximalist rafa, or perhaps even any kind of significant Rafa operation could land. And, you know, you saw the administration at the G7, they put out a statement together with the other G7 countries, reiterating their opposition to a full-scale military operation Rafa and saying that it would have catastrophic consequences on the civilian population.

And so you can kind of sense the alarm. Now, that brings me to the aid package. It is, I really worry about this package. What message does it send to the world that we're simultaneously saying this will have a catastrophic consequence for the civilian population in Gaza that is already at the brink of famine? And then we are shoveling out the door. What's the number now, Tommy? $26 billion in military aid.

I would vote against this thing if I was in the house, you know, unless, you know, it was only defensive weapons, okay, well, we're going to restock the Aaron Dome. We're going to resupply air defense systems. But there's offensive weapons in this package that are being used in Gaza. Yep. And how can you simultaneously say that this Roth operation shouldn't go forward, be warning of, you got Sam Power out there saying famine is here. Like that's the USAI director saying that.

And then just give billions of dollars in offensive weapons. I just think we haven't absorbed what message that since the world about. And Ben, it gets worse. It gets worse. The Wall Street Journal reported that separate and apart from those aid bills that the Biden administration is considering sending more than a billion in weapons to Israel. I imagine it's from like previous funding. That tranche includes $700 million worth of tank ammo in 100. million dollars worth of mortar rounds. Now, I'm sure there's probably someone in the Pentagon

that's like, no, no, no, this is a long-term resupply that, you know, would be necessary to have in a stockpile in case there's a broader war with Hezbollah or a broader war with Iran. But, like, again, that I don't know if that context is accurate, but even if it is, it doesn't matter. The message it's sending not just to the world, but also to people within the Democratic Party who desperately want a Democratic president to end this war are just like getting the finger left and right by these weapons transfer processes. That's right. And on the blame Hamas part on the ceasefire, absolutely. I mean, if Hamas is, you know, become intransigent and won't say yes to any ceasefire deal, that's terrible and that deserves to be called out. However, I don't see why the logic of that

message is therefore that this Roth operation has to go forward. Because, number one, the hostages aren't being rescued in the military operation. They're dying. So they're dying in the military operation. And so if your logic is because Hamas won't agree to a ceasefire, it's somehow okay to have a famine in Gaza. It's somehow okay for this rafa. Like that's a dangerous logic. There should be a ceasefire because there should be a ceasefire because there should be a ceasefire.

Because there's a famine in Gaza. Because this military operation is not rescuing the hostages. because this military operation has killed over 15,000 Palestinian children. So ideally, yes, there's a negotiated ceasefire that secures religious of hostages, but I'm willing to stand behind the proposition that there should be a ceasefire in any case, morally, strategically, for all kinds of reasons, including for Israel, because I just don't think going forward with this Ropp operation and killing another 10,000 Palestinians, it's not going to destroy Hamas.

It's not going to cheat their military justice. It's not going to secure the hostages release. So I worry that the blame Hamas message, while totally necessary and right, if that's what's happened in the ceasefire negotiation, that it'll be used to suggest that therefore this kind of totally, I don't even know what to call this military operation anymore, Tommy. Like this, it's not okay because you don't like Hamas. Yeah, it's catastrophic. It's like, what are we doing here?

Yeah, look, I'm with you. Hamas is a terrorist organization. What they did on October 7th was evil and indefensible. You cannot ever justify massacring civilians. I just cannot ever think that's okay. Doesn't understand if you're a freedom fighter or an Israeli military, you know, tanker. Yeah. And just one other thing on this Tommy, if Hamas is obstructing a ceasefire negotiation, maybe it's because they want this operation to go forward. Maybe it's because they know that they're gaining support. Maybe it's because they know that Israel is being isolated international. These terrorist organizations tried to bait you into these actions. As well, Al-Qaeda wanted the United States to overreact to 9-11. So stop and think. Use your heads. Like the very fact that they are trying to be arsonist doesn't mean that you burn everything down. Yeah. Let's take some of these great discord questions because that will also let us come back around to this UN Security Council recognition question.

So Deb W. asks, Iran has air defense systems like the Iron Dome or way less sophisticated. To what extent do we have air defense systems that are not classified? Are our cities protected by deterrence while Iran's are protected by active anti-blitic missile systems? So, Deb, rest assured, we have lots of missile defense systems. We got interceptor sites in Alaska. We have interceptor sites in California.

There are missile defense systems on Navy ships. There are four deployed THAAD systems in Guam, South Korea. There's Patriot missile batteries in all sorts of NATO countries. Israel has additional systems like Iron Dome that are designed to intercept shorter range rocket fire, smaller projectiles. We don't need those unless some real shit goes down in Mexico and Canada, in which case, you know, we might have to rethink this one. I imagine, Ben, there's probably some, like, kind of Iron Dome-like system around the White House or something. You know, like really, you know, strategic locations. But we don't need blanket Iron Dome coverage here in the United States.

Thank God because of, well, oceans. I know. You're being pretty, you kind of sleep at the switch on the Canada. Yeah, I know. Well, listen. The one thing I'd say to kind of make Deb freak out a little bit, though, is that the one exception to this is that there's never been a clear demonstration that when we're dealing with. sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missiles from, say, Russia, that we have assurance that we could shoot those down.

Yeah, all of them down. So this is the Reagan. It goes all the way back to Star Wars. But so we have the best missile defense systems in the world, but there may be, you know, from our more sophisticated adversaries, you know, capacity to evade them. We just, we have not, thankfully, had to test that proposition, but in training runs, these things are not 100%, you know. Yeah, and look, that's why nuclear war is not worth testing.

That's not worth testing. Yeah, a lot of the sort of modern nuclear missiles have something called a Merv, which is basically they have separate payloads that can separate apart and separate reentry vehicles so one missile can hit a bunch of targets. So, yeah, to Ben's point, the more you learn about this stuff, the less you ever want it to come to fruition. That's just not just. Let's not mess around here.

Spiffy asks, when governments are considering their response to an attack like this, Do they tend to measure the proportionality against the damage done by the attack or the scale of the damage it could have done? Is there an active law for this? Obviously, thinking about Israel, but a U.S. national security perspective would be interesting to hear too. So great question, spiffy. Proportionality drives a lot of the rules and restrictions in the law of war. So that is a key part of it. But to your point earlier, Ben, I mean, in this case, and frankly in Iran's case, I think that politics was driving.

This is about saving face. This is about showing tough. This is about appeasing the far right in both countries. But what do you think? I mean, yeah, I think you're right. To Spiffy's like a specific question about law, there is a proportionality kind of doctrine and international law that allows for a certain kind of response

that it's not disproportionate. But yeah, I agree with you, Tommy. Like if this was about politics, Iran. felt angered, embarrassed, exposed when their embassy got hit and their senior people got killed. So they did something. If they had killed a lot of people in Israel, if, say, some of those missile defense systems had failed, I think Israel would have felt compelled to blow up more stuff and kill people in Iran, less because of the laws of war and more just because of like public attitudes.

And again, that's, you know, nobody likes to act like politics comes into this. in my experience, politics is usually the number one factor in the decision-making by other countries, and in some cases by the U.S., in terms of what you do. I think the question is, how do these Israeli people feel about this response? Like, our voices like Ittmar Ben-Govir, the ones kind of driving the narrative because that's not good, or if they threaten to leave, you know, the Netanyahu coalition, if he doesn't know more, that's frightening. I mean, a lot of the coverage I saw this morning from,

sort of Western correspondence, you know, doing live shots out Tel Aviv or Jerusalem was sort of like, look at how life is carrying on and no one sort of seems to care about this and everybody is unfazed. Hopefully that's a pervasive sentiment and people are not demanding their government, do more to take out the Iranian threat. But I don't know. I'm nervous about it. Well, here's the problem, too, is that I saw a poll that selling like 52% of Israelis did not think that there should be a strike on Iran, which is good. except, as in this country, so this is not to single out Israel, the loudest voices are usually the most obnoxious in wanting a maximalist response, right? And so we dealt with this constantly

in the Obama years where the media narrative was constantly dominated by people calling us weak, you know, by Lindsey Graham, by Tom Cotton, by John Bolton's of the world, by the Brett Stevens's, and they weren't representative of public opinion, but they could kind of drive, they had a lot of political influence and they had a lot of megaphone in the media. And in Israel right now, Netanyahu's coalition depends upon the support of guys like Ben Gavir. And so even though Ben Gavir may not represent a majoritarian view, you know, he kind of has to be listened to. And that's kind of the dangerous dynamic. Yeah, it is all very, very frightening.

Okay, great question, spiffy. Travis asks, not that I want this, but at what point do things escalated enough for Biden to have no choice but to deploy troops, even if just in defensive operations? I got some bad news for you, Travis. We got troops there. There's troops in the region. We got a base in Bahrain. We got a big base in Qatar. There's U.S. troops in Kuwait, the U.A.E, Iraq, Syria, Jordan.

Remember that small base? We had a lot of troops. On top of that, there's additional air. aircraft carriers and naval assets constantly being sent to the region. There's all these reports, the U.S. Air Force flying additional sort of overflights over, you know, the Middle East more broadly. So there are tons of U.S. military assets and people in the Middle East that are in firing range of Iran if they wanted, if they decided that, you know what, like we're going all in and we're not just hitting the Israelis, but we're going to hit the Americans because they're supporting

the Israelis. So their risk is already there. Yeah, and one of the reasons why you mentioned before that the Israelis notified the U.S. in advance, that's a big reason why. I mean, part of it is to de-conflict, right? And so if we're doing something, they don't want us to see something that looks unusual in the sky and shoot it down or something. But I think also the U.S. probably takes what's called force protection measures after an Israeli strike on Iran. In other words, they may need to kind of alert their own air defense systems just to, in case Iran decided to say, you know what, you know, this crosses a line. Now we're going to take a shot at U.S. personnel or facilities in the region. So there's not only their troops there, but I think they're probably on relatively high alert. And the challenge is one of the reasons that Biden has tried to kind of de-escalate this circumstance is he doesn't want them to get drawn into a conflict, but they're there. Yeah. And one thing I think we all should be watching is, remember, when these Iranian proxy groups took a strike at that drone strike at the base in Jordan and killed

a couple of U.S. service members, the U.S. responded pretty heavily, but also it seemed like the Iranians, you know, called their buddies in these proxy groups and were like, please chill out, like stop doing this, don't go the Americans into getting more aggressive. You have to wonder, Ben, will they maintain that posture? Like, will the proxy groups, I mean, the Houthi rebels in Yemen Those guys, yeah. They're firing off shit like a drunk guy on July 4th. They're just firing missiles into the Red Sea all day every day. But, you know, these proxy forces in Syria and Iraq, and then, as you mentioned many times, like the Hezbollah as an arsenal, if they all decide to be like, okay, we're going to go after American bases now.

That would be very bad. And that would create enormous pressure on President Biden. Or the American, say, embassy in Baghdad. You know, like in the past when there have been ratcheted tensions between the U.S. and Iran, you know, the, you should be. those old enough to remember there's still a green zone. There's still a kind of security perimeter around where the U.S. embassy is. And that could be vulnerable too. So it's not just troops. In some cases, what's more vulnerable at times is these U.S. diplomatic facilities because they're not as hardened as, say, a basis. And so that enters into the equation, too. Yeah, that was something

we all learned the hard way during the Arab Spring and after the Benghazi attacks. There's a lot of A lot of Americans serving in dangerous places for deployed, and it's very hard to have eyes on all of them at all times. Ben, why Salami 1 asks, why would the U.S. veto the resolution for Palestinian UN membership? It seems to be in complete opposite to recent calls from the U.S. for a two-state solution. Great question, great observation. You want to start with this one? Yeah, before I do, though, not to undermine the seriousness of the question. Is it why salami?

It's Y the letter, capital S, alami, the number one. I see. So it's not like someone questioning whether you would eat salami. Oh, no. Okay, good, good, good. I just want to get as clear because I like salami, so I could have answered that question. I'm with you. Okay, so this is a perennial question.

In the Obama years, for instance, we were quite outspoken against settlement construction. And multiple times, I remember pretty clever countries at the UN taking direct language from Barack Obama's statements and making them UN resolutions and then forcing us to make a choice. And we, over my objections, vetoed those resolutions. We finally let, we finally abstained at the end of the Obama administration and had one of those resolutions go forward. I think that this is an important question because there's this kind of knee-jerk view in Washington that we. can't pursue any recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN. In the constant refrain, you'll hear, I'm sure it will be in the talking points. I'm sure it's in the talking points that they use to justify this veto. We believe that any resolution should be negotiated between the parties.

It's clearly not happening. There is no negotiation happening between the parties. The Israeli government, as currently constituted, is outwardly against the establishment of Palestinian state. And so I believe that recognition of a Palestinian state in international forums like the UN should be on the table for the United States. There should not be a de facto veto. And at a minimum, it's not unlike what we've been saying about military assistance. Why would you give away all of your leverage? Israel clearly doesn't want the United States to pursue any recognition. It could be through a General Assembly resolution that is less kind of binding or could be through a Security Council resolution like that.

this, but if the U.S. indicated that it was open to, you know, some form of international recognition of a Palestinian state, unless Israel, you know, did X and Y, I think Israel would be far more likely to do X and Y in terms of, so, like, this is one of those things where, like, it's somehow ingrained in U.S. policy to remove any of our leverage. And I think that doesn't make any sense. If you believe there should be a Palestinian state, you should be willing to stand behind that position in international for, like the UN. And if you believe that you want it to be negotiated, you should at a minimum use that as leverage to try to get Israel into a real negotiation. Yeah. It's, it's, look, it's at best an incoherent U.S. policy. And that's not a criticism

of President Biden. That's a criticism of us and everybody else going forward. I thought this was illogical when we were in government. Now, so like to take their argument at good faith, it is quite clear that the Biden administration thinks that the best path to achieving a two-state solution, to creation of a Palestinian state, will come through this process of trying to get the Saudi government and the Israelis to normalize relations. I think the idea is that in cutting this deal, where the U.S. would basically have to give the Saudi some sort of security guarantee, kind of a NATO-like Article 5 like guarantee, it sounds like maybe even a civilian nuclear infrastructure. imagine Mohammed bin Salman with nuclear infrastructure.

If that sounds like a good idea to you, we disagree. Some sort of weapons shipments probably. And the Israelis, they would have to give some sort of meaningful steps towards the creation of the Palestinian state. Now, I'm much less hopeful than Biden's team is that that could happen or that Netanyahu has the flexibility to take whatever steps would be required to get this normalization deal done. But that seemed to be what they think is the best path. and then talks between the two parties, Israelis, and the Palestinians.

I agree with you, Ben, that normalization at the UN should be on the table. The question I've always had, though, is kind of, okay, let's say either the United Nations General Assembly or the UN Security Council gives the Palestinian state, recognizes a Palestinian state. Then what? Right? It's not like you snap a finger and it magically creates a Palestinian state with a government and infrastructure and territory. Yeah.

There would then have to be a process of what, expelling all Israelis from certain parts of the West Bank or Jerusalem, right? So, like, it's for people who think this is a clean option, it is far from that. It's not. It's not. And you're right to flag that. But look, the realities, these resolutions do matter. The reason that the West Bank and Gaza are treated as and viewed as occupied territories is because of, you know, existing UN resolutions, right? it creates a basis, international law, creates a home base, a place to come back to.

Now, to your point, like, it's not like the U.S. would just, like, wake up yesterday and decide, you know what, we're going to, like, now all of a sudden support this resolution that is legally binding on the creation of Palestinian state. The question is twofold in my mind. One is, again, why not introduce this into the process? Let's just take the Obama years. Like, if when John Kerry was trying to negotiate two-state solution, and Bibi Nania was clearly, you know, in my view, never that serious about that.

Why didn't we give John Kerry the leverage to say, you know what? We're open to recognizing, you know, a UN resolution that has recognition of Palestinian state and takes positions on final status issues like borders of an Israeli and Palestinian state. All of a sudden, that's a lot more leverage for the U.S. mediator in that negotiation. So the first point is, again, like bring this into the conversation around Saudi normalization, like try to design a whole package that has, as a part of it, some kind of UN recognition. By the way, that also allows you to shape the UN resolution so that it takes into account

some of Israel's concerns. And then the second thing is, this would have, this seemed very dramatic, because we did debate this option in the Obama years, and it seemed incredibly dramatic to shift positions on UN recognition. However, that's because we were closer in time to peace efforts that almost got there. You know, Camp David in 2000, Annapolis in 2006, we had a couple of rounds. As this Israeli government drifts further and further and further away from a negotiated settlement, and as Israeli settlement construction just eats away at what might be a Palestinian state,

I think things like this at once seemed like, you know, far out options have to kind of become more and more normalizes, wait a second, unless we're willing to abandon a two-state solution forever, this has to be on the table is kind of one way to short-circuit the process and get some oxygen back into the concept of Palestinian state. Otherwise, by the way, what are we doing? We're looking at. We're looking at a one-state solution, you know, and everybody says that they don't want that because that either has the demographics of Israel being potentially a majority Palestinian with, you know, second-class citizenship or kind of mass expulsions of Palestinians. There's not another way. Yeah. There's not a better bath. Real quick, I was looking at

Haretz. Apparently, ABC News is reporting that Israeli aircraft fired three missiles at Iranian air defense radars near one of their nuclear facilities near Natanz, near the Natanz nuclear facility, which is their main facility. So I don't know, obviously we can't verify that report, but maybe that's why this U.S. government person was saying to me, no, it wasn't. just these quadcopter drones, there were more elements of this strike. So worth noting, but also good that despite that reality, it sounds like the Iranians are downplaying it. Before we go, we should just give President Biden some credit. They did put forward more sanctions on these prominent, far-right Israeli settler extremists.

This is based on, you know, an executive order that President Biden put together. He seems to be slowly ratcheting up the pressure. I'm with you, Ben, that, you know, I would love for that pressure to get to senior Israeli elected officials like Ittmar Ben Gavir or Smotrich, who are really the problem here. But it seems like they are sanctioning people closer and closer to the top. So that's good. Yeah, to give them credit on a few. I mean, I think Biden had an influence on this strike, you know, like we said earlier, like I think it was more minimalist and it probably started. I think that this is an innovative new tool of the U.S. at going after kind of extremist settlers.

I agree with you. The leadership, I mean, Smotrick is literally the leader of the West Bank settlers and he's in the government, right? So, you know, ultimately, I think he needs to be a part of this. But again, you see them turning the dial. The question is, like Rafa is the key point. This is what people should be watching is, well, two things. Is aid getting in? and it seems like it's kind of not really getting in like it should.

But whether, if Rafa goes forward, there's a real question on the table for, I mean, I just don't know how you can continue in the status quo in that scenario. But, but again, you know, saying you're against it and giving $24 billion in assistance. Challenging. A bit challenging. Tough messaging square to circle. You know, that's the main issue is, will our actions be aligned with our words? Yeah, always the challenge in this issue.

Okay, well, that's it for us today, unless, you know, Ben, I know you've spent the morning, you know, doing a deep dive to Taylor Swift's new album. Didn't know if you want to do a 30-second review for the people, or we just, you know, we're not ready yet. So I started, I was on this at midnight, Eastern time. So that's one of the good things about being West Coast when you got a midnight album drop. I could scout the album out for my daughter. There's some F-bombs in there. I made, that's fine. She hears him on this show.

Yeah, exactly. It's really, this is good, this is good content, Tommy. This is like closer to the dad rock of folklore. The Nationals deeply involved. The writing, I just got to say, like Taylor Swift is, is really jacking up her songwriting game here. Not just the disc tracks, like there's some good takedown of Kim Kardashian, but like, she's a good writer, I have to say. So people should check it out.

It's good. Yeah, the disc tracks are coming. It's very Drake, Jay Cole, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, that's it for us for this week. Pray to God, there's no other bonuses this weekend because, you know. Let's not have bonuses. Nothing good. Done with this bonus nonsense.

One thing, last thing we should say, Tommy, is a good thing if the UkraineAid gets out there. Yes. Everything you read about this is that they are literally, they just don't have ammunition on the front line. Yeah. And it's like the stat you always read is if the Russians have a 10 to one fires advantage, meaning they're firing 10 mortar shells for every one that comes back of them, they will be able to take all this territory back and it will be very, very bad. So keep an eye on that. I'm sure we'll talk about that for the show coming next Wednesday. So thanks again for listening. Talk to you soon. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content and more,

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