Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 5/19/26 Dave DeCamp on China, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Scott brings Dave DeCamp back on the show to run through some of the biggest foreign policy news. They start with Trump’s trip to meet with Xi in China which may have had some implications for US policy towards Taiwan. They then discuss whether Trump is really planning to bomb Iran again if talks continue to get nowhere. DeCamp then provides an update on the chaos and violence that has kicked off in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza as a result of Trump and Netanyahu’s decision to launch their regional war. Discussed on the show: “Trump Says He Decided To ‘Hold Off’ on Plans To Attack Iran on Tuesday Due To Request From Gulf Arab Allies” (Antiwar.com) “Israeli Strikes Kill Seven in Lebanon, Overall War Toll Passes 3,000 Killed” (Antiwar.com) “Israeli Strike on Gaza City Kills One Palestinian as Constant IDF Ceasefire Violations Continue” (Antiwar.com) Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com and the host of Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave  Audio cleaned up with the Podsworth app: https://podsworth.com Use code HORTON50 for 50% off your first order at Podsworth.com to clean up your voice recordings, sound like a pro, and also support the Scott Horton Show! For more on Scott's work: Check out The Libertarian Institute: https://www.libertarianinstitute.org Check out Scott's other show, Provoked, with Darryl Cooper https://youtube.com/@Provoked_Show Read Scott's books: Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine https://amzn.to/47jMtg7 (The audiobook of Provoked is being published in sections at https://scotthortonshow.com) Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism: https://amzn.to/3tgMCdw Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan https://amzn.to/3HRufs0 Follow Scott on X @scotthortonshow And check out Scott’s full interview archives: https://scotthorton.org/all-interviews This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Incorporated https://rrbi.co Moon Does Artisan Coffee https://scotthorton.org/coffee; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom https://www.libertyclassroom.com/dap/a/?a=1616 and Dissident Media https://dissidentmedia.com You can also support Scott’s work by making a one-time or recurring donation at https://scotthorton.org/donate/https://scotthortonshow.com or https://patreon.com/scotthortonshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen of the press have been less than honest. Reporting to the American people, what's going on in this country? Because the babies are making this. We're dealing with Hitler Revisited. This is the Scott Horton Show. Libertarian foreign policy, mostly. When the president visit, that means that it is not illegal. We're going to take out seven countries in five years.

They don't know what the fuck they're doing. Negotiate now. End this war. And now, here's your host, Scott Porton. All right, you guys, introducing the great Dave DeCant. Why, he's the news editor over at anti-war.com, and he's also the host of the podcast, Anti-War News,

which is available on Spotify and YouTube and all of your other RSS feed-type podcast catcher devices and software applications. Welcome back to the show. How you doing, Dave? I'm good Scott. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Good. Very happy to have you. Listen, I don't want to take up too much your time on too many topics, but I probably will. Can we start with China? Trump went and they had delayed the thing because of the war in Iran,

but then he finally went and had his big meeting with Chairman Xi. So what great deals were struck by the president on his big trip? Yeah, so certainly, you know, a big trip, you know, optics-wise, seeing Trump and she together and all the kind of elaborate ceremonies and the fact that Trump brought along, you know, his top-level officials, Marco Rubio, Pete Heggseth, and also a whole gang of CEOs. But as far as I could tell, there were not any major deals reached. There were some trade stuff, some commitment to purchase more goods from each other. but nothing too major. And when it came to Iran, it looked like nothing, you know,

there was some speculation that Trump might try to get China, some commitments out of China to work harder to open the straight of Hormuz, but what was interesting was that one of the days that Trump was having talks with Xi, the IRGC announced that they're letting a whole bunch of Chinese ships leave the straight of Hormuz. So there was kind of a situation where Xi could tell Trump, you know, not our problem right now. So I thought that was interesting. And then the other big thing that I kind of focused on more

with my coverage at anti-war.com was the Taiwan situation. A few months ago, in December 2025, the Trump administration approved $11 billion in weapon sales for Taiwan, which is a pretty big number. And that was more than was approved during Biden's entire four years. And despite what many people say, he was very hawkish on China in those four. years. And the Trump administration drew up another $14 billion arms package for Taiwan for him to approve,

but after this trip, Trump says that he's holding off on it. So it's just kind of interesting that him and Xi talked about it. And according to the Chinese readout of the meeting, you know, she gave him a very strong warning saying that, you know, Taiwan is the most important issue between the U.S. and China, something that they've been saying that they say consistently, but also warning that if it's mishandled, there could be conflicts and clashes over Taiwan. And I like to think that one result of this war with Iran is that at least there's some recognition now that the U.S. would not stand any kind of chance against China in a war right off of its coast. And Trump basically said that in one of the interviews he did. He's like, look, it's, you know, right out,

look how far it is from us. We can't really defend it. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see if he does approve this next huge military package. Because despite what, you know, Marco Rubio said during the trip, you know, they say that they're committed to the status quo over Taiwan. But what we saw over the past few years, especially with Joe Biden,

was a move away from the status quo and an increase in weapon sales, military aid for Taiwan. So, you know, we're still seeing that, you know, that is the policy that that's still happening despite kind of what Trump is saying. But we'll see if there's any change after this trip because I think

it seems like Trump, at least to some extent, got the message from she. But I kind of suspect that in a few months we'll probably just see them go ahead with the big weapons deal anyway. Yeah, quite possibly, although at least on this issue, he's talking more soberly about it

compared to crazy old Joe ranting that, oh, they got a war guarantee, all right, we don't care what they do. Go ahead and get us into a war type, hey, you call the shots around here. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but pretty close. But Trump is saying, no, I'm not telling you what I do going back to the ambiguity. And then I forgot how he phrased it, but he explicitly discouraged the Taiwanese from declaring independence

and maybe just said they're not doing that, which is just fine with me or, you know, this kind of thing. So, yeah, and then I don't know if there's any reporting about this or not, but it's fun to speculate about exactly whose language he's reflected. when he says that, you know, it really is very far away and we may not really have the ability to intervene in the case of Taiwan. I mean, that could just be what she had just told him. Like, wow, you're really handsome. By the way, Taiwan is a lot closer to us than it is to you, right?

Or is maybe that's General Kane speaking, right? The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reflecting the advice of the military that like, well, sir, honestly, if it really, came down to it, we're not in a very good position here or what, you know, I don't know. Do you know about that? Have they talked about that? No, not that I'm aware of, but I mean, I feel like I have heard that from kind of the military establishment. Like, you know, that's something that they talk about how China's built up this missile, you know, these missiles in, that are in China, in the mainland that would be used in this conflict. And one thing that we've seen the U.S. do is they're

deploying a new missile system, the Typhon missile system, to the Philippines. And this was developed after they quit the INF Treaty. And they actually just tested one and fired a Tomahawk missile in the Philippines, which is a pretty big provocation aimed at China. Clearly, that missile was meant to be a message to China. But at the same time, like when you talk about the missile capabilities of China and the U.S. on the first island chain or whatever you want to call it, I mean, it's very clear that China has the advantage there. So I'm sure that that's something that is being discussed on the U.S. side, that this is right off their coast and they have all these missiles.

Yeah, we have some missiles that we've sent over there, but it's really nothing compared to what China has. Yeah. So, I mean, to go back a couple of years, but just a couple, they had all these war games where they talked about. And Lyle Goldstein, who had been at the Naval War College there, you know, wrote all about this. and people can find his articles about it,

where in a real war where we really try to prevent China from taking Taiwan, we would lose hundreds of planes, thousands of sailors lose anyway. It would be, you know, their supersonic sea skimming anti-ship missiles have a longer range than our F-18s and their anti-aircraft missiles have enough of a range to neutralize our mid-air refueling.

and our submarines can only hold so many torpedoes before they got to, you know, limp back to Guam to rearm and turn around again and just the whole thing is cost prohibitive. And they talk about, I just read a thing the other day, I'm sorry, geez, I wish I knew where I, what the sorcerer was, but they were comparing, you know, the total number of Chinese ships to American ships,

and it's more. But now theirs are really not designed for patrolling the planet Earth the way ours are, they're just there for coastal defense and they got more than enough for what they call anti-access area denial, which is, again, just that's what the Americans call it. And it's saying, yes, their posture is defensive,

strongly defensive, but defensive against our intervention over there. Yeah, and I mean, it's similar to the situation in Iran when, you know, it's obvious the U.S. has a more powerful military than Iran, but Iran has been preparing for this specific fight, you know, for how many decades, you know, in the Persian Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz, you know, in that region. And that's what they developed all these missiles for, like specifically for that purpose. And on the, you know, with China, same thing, but it's also, it's China. You know, it's not Iran. It's a much bigger power.

So yeah, I'm hoping that this notion that the U.S. can stand any kind of chance in a war there has been, you know, dispelled quite a bit here. And then I know one thing, you know, if you know, Elbridge Colby, who's one of the, he's the Pentagon policy chief, you know, he's a big China hawk. And he wrote this book, I'm blanking on the name of it. But essentially the argument was, you know, we have to deny China the ability to take Taiwan and, you know, flood Taiwan with weapons. big thing that he's pushing is for Taiwan to increase its military spending. And we did just see Taiwan. They're adding $25 billion to their military budget just to buy U.S. weapons. But one thing that he's about is he's kind of against unnecessarily kind of stoking tensions by proclaiming things like, oh, yeah, we will defend Taiwan or supporting Taiwan independence. So that's why I kind of

think we're still going to see this push toward arming Taiwan and building up U.S. forces in the region. And Colby was also the one that essentially was responsible. I don't know if, you know, I wouldn't say he was the one solely responsible, but he's a reason why the Trump administration, the first Trump administration, pulled out of the INF Treaty, to develop those missiles that they could send over there. So I still think we're going to see, like, the weapons go there, the buildup continue.

But I think when it comes to like kind of unnecessarily stoking tensions, like Nancy Pelosi going over there, I don't think we're going to see big things like that on the diplomatic front. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm sure Taiwan's military systems are enough to, you know, certainly count in Beijing's calculations on whether to attack them or not. You know, that was another thing speaking of Lyle Goldstein, where he went there about a year ago and he was like,

there's nothing going on here. There's no coastal defense anywhere. The Chinese could all just sail right up and walk right ashore. And there's no one organized to stop them right now at all. So he was saying, you know, the posture of the Taiwanese government, was essentially not taking the threat seriously at all. And I mean, they already have a bunch of F-16s and whatever it is, enough to put up at least some kind of show of force,

show of defensive force in the event of a full-scale attack. But it seems like the Chinese would be stupid to do it that way. They could just encircle the place and sort of declare that you have been absorbed in a way that no one can really intervene and do it, you know, much more softly. but yeah and I think that's something that China has really shown you know I mentioned the Nancy Pelosi trip back in 2022 in response to that was the first time China did these like blockade drills around Taiwan and now they do them occasionally usually in response to something like they just did one recently after Trump approved the 11 billion dollars in weapon sales and I mean

they could you know say oh we're doing drills today and encircle Taiwan and then just say actually this is a blockade now so what are you going to do about it and I mean like what really what what would the U.S. and Taiwan be able to do? You know, and so I think that's also been a big wake-up call for people in D.C. Hey, I don't know about you guys, but I don't even have health insurance anymore. The system is so rigged and the prices are so high. Insurance for just my wife this year cost as much as it did for both of us last year, something like that, pretty close anyway.

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Get a great discount there at crowdhealth.com. Use the promo code Horton. And now, so Trump said, but I read that the Chinese did not say that, yeah, China agreed with me that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, which I'm inclined to just let him have it, right? Like it seems like he's trying to frame a thing where he accomplished something. He had a tweet. See there? Oh, and this is the top story.

And it's how where I come today is about he says he was about to attack him, but then the Gulf states talked him out of it because they have a deal they're working where Iran is going to agree to not make nuclear weapons, which is a huge mark of progress. compared to where we were before, I guess, Dave, but I'm willing to pretend that for the president's sake if it's enough to get him to call off the rest of the intervention here. But what do you make of what's going on? Yeah, when it comes to everything with Iran,

and you know, you mentioned with the China aspect, I mean, as far as I saw, because Trump and the White House, they made a few claims about what she agreed, you know, that, oh, the straight-of-war moves must not be militarized and that Iran shouldn't charge a toll and that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon. As far as I saw, the Chinese readouts and statements,

they didn't say anything about Taiwan or the Strait of Hormuz. But, yeah, even if they agreed that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon, it's like, what does that really mean at this point? But now, so the situation with Iran, I mean, I was basically of the belief that after this trip, Trump was probably going to start bombing Iran again. It seemed like everything was pointing in that direction, mainly just the lack of progress in the negotiations, which are just kind of indirectly sending messages

through Pakistan. And as far as I could tell, there still hasn't been any real progress there. And so what happened yesterday, you know, all the reporting was that Tuesday, Trump was going to convene his top national security officials to discuss the options, you know, against Iran.

And so yesterday, so today's Tuesday that we're recording this, yesterday Trump says, you know, that he's holding off because the Gulf Arab states asked him, you know, basically said, give more time for diplomacy. And now there's two possibilities here. One is that they really did request that. And then the other one is that he really,

he kind of just said that to save face because there was kind of a deadline. And this is just based on leaks to the media and stuff, but some of his own threats suggested that after this China trip, if there was no deal, he was going to bomb Iran. And, you know, he could just be trying to save face

by saying that the Gulf Arab states requested it. Though I do think that that is probably what they're telling, they've been telling the U.S. is that since the dust has settled after this bombing campaign, they don't want, they know if the U.S. and Israel start bombing Iran again,

what's Iran's options for escalation is really lighting up the oil infrastructure in these countries and potentially closing the Bob El Mandeb straight, shutting down the Red Sea, which is something that the Saudis desperately want to avoid because obviously they have a big red sea coast

and they can, you know, their oil exports and stuff has not been nearly as to, disrupted as the other countries just on the Persian Gulf. But, you know, so he delayed it for whatever reason, you know, did he actually have plans to attack on Tuesday? We don't really know. But I still think the same situation kind of exists where like there's no, what deal is there to be made here? Because, you know, we've seen some signs that the U.S. might be willing to allow some uranium enrichment in like 10 years or something.

But then is this Trump administration, the one that just put a FD guy on their negotiating, team, are they going to lift all the sanctions on Iran? Are they going to, you know, let them charge a toll for the Strait of Hormuz or give them reparations for the war? There's just so many other issues that, like, I just can't see a deal happening. So I'm still of the opinion, even though as kind of insane as it sounds, because we've seen a lot of leaks from the Pentagon that actually Iran still has most of their missiles and they have a lot of ways they can hit us if we restart this bombing campaign. I still think it's probably going to happen, you know, where. whether it's in days or weeks, I don't know.

All right. Now, so the thing about that is, you know, you do hear, for example, there's the clip of Lindsey Graham saying we just have to hit their electricity and their oil and stuff. We just have to hurt them more and then they'll give in. I forgot exactly what he said, but essentially, you know, the perils of dominance again. If we hit them and it didn't work and then we hit them again harder, eventually they'll have to give in because we're America and they're not. So like, what's the deal here?

Trump said something like that too maybe a week ago or so why won't they give up already? Why won't they you're supposed to surrender now, right? They're just intransigent those Iranians. They just don't want to do that. And so I get there thinking,

but at the same time, I mean, it must be the case, right? The ceasefires lasted this long, longer than the war itself so far, right? Which, with its exceptions, of course, but I mean, if not some general Trump's own head must have got through to him at some point, that hitting him hard didn't work. And real, if we restart the war, we're not going to be in any better position

at the end of another few weeks of airstrikes than we were, you know, yesterday. So he's got to know that. I mean, I know he's kind of full of his own narratives a lot and things like this. And he must be very frustrated that he can't get what he wants out of them. But he's got to know that. Geez, how many, what percent of their missiles and launchers did you say survived? Ah, hell, what's the point of this, right? 70, 75 percent?

All that we did only degraded their missiles force by a quarter. Hell, what's the point of trying to do this again? We killed the Ayatollah. We got his son. That didn't work. So, you know, I'm not saying he's the wisest leader or whatever, but he's got to have realized, even at the point that he called the C-Sysol. fire that he wasn't going to get better results through more escalation, right?

Through putting in troops. Whoever it was talked him out of it, if only himself talked him out of trying to put troops down in there to seize the uranium or to reopen the strait or any of that. I know there are theories about the attempted seizure of uranium being covered up with the shootdown story or whatever. I don't know about that. But overall, I mean, the idea was they were going to send in a huge force to try to seize all the uranium.

And they didn't do that. So he already, you know, chickened out, which not to mock him for it, he should have, thank goodness. You know what I mean? But like, when I was on the Joe Rogan show, he kept asking me, so what do you think is going to happen? I think he raised the possibility that he's going to restart the war because I guess I could have and should have covered that base or whatever. But I guess my thinking is just, whatever, it just makes no sense to do it. But it made no sense to start the damn war in the first place. So you got me there, Dave.

you know, I don't know. Yeah, no, honestly, and I think, and that's what I keep kind of going back to because there was so many good arguments for not starting this war in the first place, and then it happened. And I was still kind of, I mean, I still am in like this belief

that this actually happened. But so, you know, I'm thinking that if this does end, if it doesn't restart, you know, I think what's something that, you know, treat a Parsi has been saying as a possibility here that I was initially kind of skeptical of is just that it kind of ends, without any resolution, the U.S. pulls back, and, you know, they both kind of claim their victory.

And, you know, I don't think that's a situation for a long-term piece. But I do think maybe it's possible that something like that happens, you know, for the next few months or so. Because kind of this, what this state that we're in now, I don't think can last much longer, you know, with the U.S. enforcing this blockade, attacking these oil tankers occasionally. Some drones have been flying. you know, it's not exactly clear who's behind some of the recent drone attacks and things. But is there a possibility of Trump just kind of backing off without really saying it? I guess that's possible. But there are, you know, he, some of the people that he has in his ear, including you mentioned

Lindsey Graham, but also this guy, Mark Thiessen, who's apparently been talking to Trump a lot. He's saying, oh, you just need two weeks, bomb them, you know, two weeks, and you can take it all the targets, and then we win. and Trump referenced that and I forget exactly what he said but you can tell it's clearly coming from Thesson he said something about we just need two weeks

and I don't know if you saw By the way that guy he comes from I believe he was on the Bush NSC but then he made his big public profile writing for the Washington Post in favor of torture and defending the Bush torture regime that was his whole original persona

as he was Mark torture ain't that bad Theson or whatever you Yeah, and this is one of the people Trump is really listening to here. And he's also saying, you know, oh, because the kind of narrative from the Trump administration is like there's some, you know, there's the hardliners that don't want to deal, but then there are others who want to deal with us, which I don't really think is true. But Theson's saying, well, then kill the ones who don't want to deal. And Trump has like reposted him saying that. But I think, you know, when it comes to the, I think there is a possibility.

I don't know if you saw Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, his testimony, he seems like he's willing to do whatever Trump wants him to do. Now, Dan Cain, I'm sure, is telling him, you know, something at least closer to the truth. But so I think he, you know, and I think it's clear that people in the Pentagon are probably telling him, you know, we have no recourse here. You know, we can't just bomb them into submission. And I think that's clear from the leaks, you know, that we're getting. but at the same time, I'm sure there's people in there that are telling him,

you know, all we need is another few weeks, really hit him hard and that'll show him. I don't think Trump is going to, you know, this current situation that we have with the straits still effectively closed, I don't think he wants to be in this situation, though I think either one of two things are going to happen, him backing away or escalating.

Yeah. And he could completely back away, but the problem is that does not guarantee at all that the Iranians will. And in fact, they might really be dicks about it just to try to get some further concession out of the United States, like sanctions relief or whatever. So, yeah, I think they might see this as their opportunity to get those things.

All right, this episode of Scott Horton's show brought to you by the books I wrote. You can see them behind me there. Enough already. Fool's errand and then enough already and provoked. And then, of course, one might have fallen down there, but I got Ron Paul, the great Ron Paul, Scott Horton show interviews and hotter than the sun. You see that one back there over there that way. Hotted than the sun, time to abolish nuclear weapons. That's all interviews I did all about nukes and really great stuff.

And I bust my ass on these things. And you know, I've gotten a really great reception on all of them. They all have been endorsed by Ron Paul and Daniel Ellsberg endorsed two of them. two of the three I wrote. He would have endorsed the third one I know, but he died too soon, unfortunately. Tucker Carlson says that provoked is the definitive account. In fact, that's what Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Matei said about it too. The definitive account of the new Cold War with Russia and the war in Ukraine.

So maybe check that up. All right, listen, so I know you got to go soon, but let me ask you real quick here just about, oh, geez, I want to ask you about Iraq first. Yeah, well, okay, we do, you know, a little bit of Lebanon and Gaza at the end, just sort of the current state of things real quickly. But if you could, I have read that there were something like 400 attacks by Iraqi forces against American troops stationed there. I don't know if they included this American attack on the poor Iraqis

who found the secret Israeli base there in the south and all that fighting or what. Apparently, it's, you know, the PMUs, the Bada Brigade and Iraqi Hezbollah and Khadib, whatever. All those guys have been attacking American forces there. So I wonder what's the extent of that as far as the damage, any casualties and responses. In fact, I know there was some targeting of the green zone as well as bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. I'm always worried about Iraq War IV breaking out or five. are we're on now. Yeah, yeah, and I mean, it was, it did basically break out during the, you know, when the U.S.

and Israel were bombing Iran. As far as I know, no Americans were killed by these drone attacks. There were a few Americans were killed when a C-130 went down in Iraq. Right. I don't really know what the cause of that was. But there were definitely American casualties. American troops were injured. There was a new story about those tankers this morning, and I think the times, I'm sorry,

I didn't read it. it was about the potential there that that was caused by anti-aircraft fire. Okay, I got to check that out. I haven't seen that. I'm sorry. I did get stuck reading that stupid damn newspaper this morning. Yeah, I mean, that's what I suspected at first, because at the time, I mean, there was so much happening in Iraq,

so many drone attacks. There were also missile and drone attacks from Iran and then lots of attacks from, you mentioned the PMU, like the Shiite militia factions, both, you know, the U.S. bases, embassy, US oil interests, you know, are coming under drone attack. 400 is a lot, man.

400 is a lot, yeah, but that, you know, I don't know the exact number, but that sounds, you know, again, considering all this stuff I saw. And then another thing that didn't really get much attention was the U.S. airstrikes against the PMF in response, which killed dozens of them, dozens of their guys, and also at least seven Iraqi soldiers from the regular military were killed by the U.S. airstrike.

And so, of course, this is inflaming, you know, the political situation in Iraq. Obviously, there's so many people who want the U.S. out of there and are really just infuriated by this whole situation where essentially the U.S. still maintains control the government because they control their oil revenue and their access to the dollar. Like, they could crush their economy, like very easily. And so, you know, if that's another thing, like if this full-scale war restarts, Iraq's going to blow up again, even more potentially. And I know the U.S., so one thing that happened kind of quietly during this is the U.S. pulled out of Syria completely. Unfortunately, we can never like celebrate these things because they left because the Al-Qaeda guys are now in charge.

But I know they're working about how the Kurds had to, withdraw from Raqa and turn it back over to al-Qaeda. And at least the locals they quoted were relieved that, well, at least it ain't ISIS and at least it ain't the Kurds, you know. Yeah, yeah, they're like integrating now with the new Syrian government, the Kurds. You'll see how that all works out. But and so the U.S. true presence in Iraq is pretty low now, I understand it. It's mainly in herbal in Iraqi Kurdistan.

And, like, I don't even think there's barely any troops in Baghdad, like in the green zone. So I think, you know, another result could be kind of getting, hurrying that withdrawal along even more. Did you see where Trump was, like, intervening pretty heavily in favor of picking this businessman instead of Mollocky and making sure that Mollocky was not renamed Prime Minister there? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was, yeah, they started that last year. They were like threatening these things that I mentioned, the oil revenue and all that. And, you know, that is how like they're able to,

you know, if you remember back in 2020 when Trump killed Soleimani, the Iraqi parliament voted to, you know, kick the U.S. out. And they essentially said, no, we're going to, you know, they can hold the country hostage with this economic power. It's interesting, man, I'm not sure all the different calculations. like if you go back to even the W. Bush years on Ibrahim Jafari and Nuryal Maliki back then, and also during Barack Obama on numerous occasions, America essentially compromised with Iran, then, okay, let's go ahead and keep Maliki, where they agreed?

And in fact, when Iat Ali had the first opportunity to form a government in 2010, Vice President Biden picked up the phone and told them, forget it, pal, we're sticking with Mali. bought out, which is amazing that Ali was the guy who actually had the most votes, but he did. But America, that was essentially Iran's guy that America said, well, at least we know him or whatever, I guess. At this time, it seems like they're really trying to marginalize the Supreme Islamic Council, but I think this guy's tied to Dawa anyway. You know, they're trying to get like the least Dawa tied guy, but they're all Dawa guys.

Yeah, yeah, it seems like they're really trying to ramp up the pressure on them, especially after this whole, you know, everything blowing up like that. And then, I mean, the other big thing you mentioned it that we just learned about Iraq is apparently the Israelis set up some secret military bases there. The initial report said that they set one up before the war, but the New York Times just had a new report saying that they had a second base that they set up before the June 2025 war, the 12-day war. And that a shepherd who apparently found it was killed, which we assume.

doing by an Israeli air strike or something. And Iraqi troops went out to investigate, and they were also bombed. Oh, that was the one from last year. What's the story about the Shepard? Is that right? No, no, that was recent. That was the more recent one.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess that one, you know, because they're used to kind of seeing helicopters flying out around there, but I guess there is more military activity than usual, you know, that got people's attention. So that's another thing. I mean, you know, from the perspective of an Iraqi Shiite Muslim militia guy, you know, you learn that. I mean, they're going to, I think if the war restarts, you know, they're really going to, they might ramp everything up against the U.S. even more if, you know, if they have the ability to.

But we've been bombing Iraq for 35 years, dude. Yeah, that's how old I am. For anyone keeps a trap. Yeah, it's crazy. That's great. Yeah, so, you know, that's definitely an area to keep an eye on. And it didn't really get, it doesn't really get much attention, you know, like what happens inside Iraq. Because it always like, you know, when Gaza first, the, the, after October 7th, there was all these, you know, attacks on U.S. bases there and in Syria from these Iraqi militias.

So it's like always, you know, kind of those tensions are always brewing. Right. Okay, listen, man, I saw the headline magic number 3,000 dead Lebanese in the recent attacks here. I don't know what percentage of those are, Hezbollah fighters, but I'm willing to bet it's pretty low. And then on top of that, we've seen just the mass destruction of all of these towns and villages. in southern Lebanon. Are they just outright annexing everything up to the Latani River now, the Israelis? I mean, that's essentially what they said.

I mean, you know, you have like Smotrich, who kind of says things more explicitly and, you know, saying that, calling for annexation and settlement, basically. But, you know, what Israel cats, the defense minister has ordered is the occupation of all of South Lebanon, south of the Latani River. And, you know, they don't control all that territory, as I understand. understand, but they're continuing to move in. And we've seen, you see some drone footage from some of these villages in the south,

and it just looks like Gaza. I mean, they're just completely destroying the place. And they have no intention to stopping this. And this is another thing that, according to all the latest reports, Iran has consistently kept a ceasefire in Lebanon as a demand for a deal with the U.S., like a real ceasefire in Lebanon.

And it's clear this is something that's just not going to have. happen at this point. You know, like they still pretend like some media coverage of the situation in Lebanon, still act like there's some kind of ceasefire here. I mean, this isn't even like an Israeli style ceasefire where just Israel is bombing and the other people aren't. This is, you know, this is war that's continuing in southern Lebanon.

We've started to see a lot of Israeli military casualties from these Hezbollah drones that they're having trouble with that apparently use a fiber optic cable. so they're not vulnerable to the electronic jamming and stuff like that. But also just, you know, heavy Israeli air strikes both in South Lebanon, in Beirut, in eastern Lebanon, and they're continuing to order the evacuation of villages and things and moving on the ground.

So it goes on. And Trump said at one point that Israel was prohibited from launching further strikes in Lebanon. And it was clear that either, you know, the Israelis didn't listen to him or that was just for an American audience to make it seem like he was trying to put his foot down when it came to Israel and Lebanon. Am I right?

I saw a report, at least on Twitter, that said that the Israelis had issued an evacuation order for the city of Tyre. I believe, yeah, I believe so, yeah. With the idea being that they're going to go in there with TNT and demolish the whole thing there too, just completely destroy this ancient city. another, you know, a pretty major one. Yeah.

I know you got to go to, but just talk to me about Gaza for one minute. Yeah, so Gaza, another place where there's no ceasefire. And I have made a point kind of to just cover the daily situation, the daily attacks in Gaza just because it gets no other media coverage. And basically the situation that we're in is since October 2025, you know, there's been a de-escalation, obviously. the Israelis pulled back to the so-called yellow line, which separates the IDF,

occupied side of Gaza from the rest of the territory where the civilians live and that Hamas controls. And we have seen basically since then, since all the hostages were released and all the bodies were recovered. I mean, during that time, Israel was continuing the attacks, but not to the level that they've been doing lately.

They kind of escalated the daily strikes and things. And they've also taken more, territory on the ground. And Netanyahu just admitted this. And this is a clear violation of the ceasefire deal. Now they control 60% of Gaza. It went from 53% to 60%. They've moved that yellow line further west. And a lot of the attacks that we've seen lately target the police force in Gaza because they're trying to just disrupt Hamas's control. And for a while, I thought that they were going to try to go for restart, you know, full-scale bombing campaign and ground operations. But now with everything else happening in Lebanon, I think that they kind of just want to keep this as a status

quo for the moment, just under Israeli occupation where they're free to do, you know, their attacks and they're not facing any real threat from Gaza. You know, a few IDF soldiers were killed in the first months of the ceasefire deal. On the Israeli occupied side, there were some Hamas fighters that were trapped and they had, there were some clashes there. But since then, I mean, there's been no attacks on them. Yeah, it's got to be the most miserable place on earth. I know people are just living in tents and living in rubble. I'm reading, you know, pretty regularly from the different human rights groups complaining about the massive rodent infestation there. A little kids can't sleep at night because the rats can chew right through their tents and haunt them. And just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really

horrible. We're the ones foot in the bill for this. That's why, you know, of all the miserable places on earth, this is the one that's our worst responsibility to. And that's something that Trump made the U.S. more complicit in this because he established this so-called Board of Peace and like this military base in southern Israel that's manned by U.S. troops who are supposedly overseeing the ceasefire. And, you know, it's U.S. and Israeli policy to not allow reconstruction

in the part of Gaza world. To keep it unlivable, to force them all to either just lay down and die or just go drown in the sea or somehow finally give in cry uncle and move to Egypt or something, which of course they're not going to do that part. They might just lay down and die, though. And just one important point on this is that, you know,

we see because the U.S. and Israel, they're saying that Hamas is violating the deal because they haven't disarmed. But it's just important to point out that they never signed a agreement saying that they would disarm. Both Hamas and Israel agreed to Trump's 20-point, you know, peace plan for Gaza as a framework

for negotiations. But the deal that they signed was just establishing a ceasefire and the hostage release and then they were going to negotiate the disarmament and the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza at a later date.

So there was two points there. Hamas didn't really want to disarm but Israel also didn't really want to leave Gaza. So it's just important for people to understand that Hamas never signed a deal saying that they would give up their weapons.

That's what they're blaming, you know, you see the U.S. and Israel. They're blaming everything on that. But it's the continued, you know, Israeli occupation, Israeli attacks that are like a real violation of the deal. All right. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate your time, man.

Thanks, Scott. Thanks for having me again. All right, you guys. That's Dave DeCamp. He's news editor at anti-war.com and check out his podcast every single day. It's anti-war news. The Scott Horton show is brought to you by the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom, Roberts and Roberts, Brokerage, Inc., Moondos Artisan Coffee,

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