The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Should Canada Include Nuclear Weapons In Its Defence Strategy?

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Canada is about to spend billions of dollars on upgrading its defence capabilities. Has the discussion about what to do been broad enough? There's one for Dr. Janice Stein of the Munk School at the University of Toronto as she makes her regular Monday appearance on The Bridge. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. Should nuclear weapons be part of Canada's defense strategy? Whoa, there's a question for Janice Stein. Coming right up. And hello there, welcome to Monday. Welcome to another week on the bridge. And Monday's mean, of course, Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School of the University of Toronto. We look forward to talking to her. And we've got a big question. that's actually been put forward by some of you. We'll get to that in a minute.

But first, our regular Monday housekeeping duties, that means giving you the question of the week. After three weeks of Ask Me Anything, which were extremely successful, I can't believe, first of all, the onslaught of questions you had for me. and second, the fact that you really listened to some of the answers. Didn't agree with them all, but the audience numbers for those three shows were considerable.

Let me put it that way. And we learned a lesson about Ask Me Anything, and that is we should do it more regularly. So I think we'll do it once a month, something like that, maybe the last Thursday of each day. month we'll do and ask me anything but meanwhile we'll get back to the main purpose of Thursdays in your turn aside from the random renter is the opportunity for you to express your opinion on a current issue and let's face it there's never been a shortage of current issues here at the bridge there's so many things to be talking about and you like to talk about it so here's the idea. This is kind of a

lighter one at a time of some deep tensions in the country. But this one is timely in the sense that this Friday is the beginning of the Olympics, a couple of weeks of competition between the countries of the world over various winter sports. And that's what we want to talk about.

I want to know how connected you are to the Olympics this year. Quite often these things, in my experience, of covering many Olympics and being on site for opening ceremonies of Olympics that go back to, well, let's just say they go back a long way. My experience is being people don't really get into it until they start. And when they start, they really get into it. and you end up watching sporting events you never watched before or you haven't watched for four years.

And you hear about athletes that you hadn't heard of before or you hadn't heard of for four years. And that's all good. But I wanted to, you know, there's a lot of things on our minds these days. So I'd be interested to find out what your thoughts are, kind of generally on the Olympics. Do you watch them? Will you watch them this time? Why do you watch them? And what do you watch? You know, is men's hockey the be-all and end-all for you? Or is it all the sports? Men's hockey, women's hockey, curling, downhill skiing. You know, there are lots of

different winter sports. And historically, we've done not badly. at them. I don't think we'll ever hold a candle to the way we performed. Was it in Vancouver, 2010? Great performances by so many different Canadians. So that's the question this week. It's basically the Olympics. Are you into it?

Will you be into it? And why? And what do you watch? So let's focus your answers, right? Pick one of those questions and give me your thoughts on it. The normal rules apply. It's 75 words or fewer, and we're hard on that. That's a hard.

All these conditions are hard. You got to make them, okay? So 75 words or fewer. Have your answer in by 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. Include the name and the location you're writing from, your name and the location you're writing from. And where do you write? You write to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

The Manspridge Podcast at Gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing your answers over the next little while. We've got a great week ahead. Tomorrow it's, it is the Moore Butts conversation, the latest one, and it is a very good one. So look forward to that. It's also on YouTube.

as Good Talk is on Fridays, starting Tuesdays now will be on YouTube as well, whether it's the Moorbutts conversation or the Raj Russo report. They alternate on Tuesdays. Wednesday will be another NBits special. We get some great NBits this week. Thursday, your turn. And Friday, of course, Good Talk. Random Ranter on Thursday as well.

Okay, enough babbling from me. Let's get to it because this is, well, let's just say this is an interesting discussion. with Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School of the University of Toronto. So let's get at it right now. All right, Janice, something a little different this week. And it's based on the fact I've had a few emails about this. Not a lot, but a few. And I wouldn't say there anybody's advocating for this.

They're just sort of kind of asking the question, why isn't Canada, why doesn't Canada have nuclear? your weapons. Okay, now that's a big question, and it will frighten some people that were even talking about it. But let's break it down a little bit. There's a history here, and we'll go through some of this history in a minute. But off the top of your head, should we be even thinking about, given the events that are going on around the world and here on our continent, should we be thinking about it?

I don't think we should, Peter. And for very practical reasons, nuclear weapons are not usable. And that's why they have never been used other than against Hiroshima and Nakasaki right at the beginning when they were first made operational. They're not usable because, to the best of our knowledge.

And like everything else, they're grand theories about why they're not usable. And then there's people who go and interview decision makers and say, why didn't you do it? What were you thinking about? And there are differences, depending on the personalities of leaders. But what comes out over and over again is the fear that nuclear weapons

generates in the people who have to push the button. It's a fear of how unpredictable it will be. Once you use them, where will it stop? What kind of escalation

will it lead to? And so we've had times when we've come close. 1962 in the Cuban missile crisis is one. My Khrushchev probably put it best. He said, don't pull on the thread of war too tightly because we don't know where we will end. And, you know, no leader has ever seriously contemplating using a nuclear weapon.

So for a country like Canada, this would be the most enormous expectations. It would divert us from building up the conventional capabilities that we really have to have. It's not clear to me that there would be any benefit. There's no doubt that we're, and one of the reasons this has come up is simply because we are spending a considerer, about to spend a considerable amount of money on beefing up our defense forces, all of them. Right. jet fighters for the Air Force, whether there's submarines for the Navy, whether it's better equipment for the ground forces. There's billions and billions of dollars about to be spent here.

Yeah. We have a history here. I mean, you can argue that, you know, the atomic weapon in 1945 wouldn't have been created if it wasn't for Canada. I mean, as part of the team that worked on it, as the supplier of what uranium coming out of the Northwest Territories for the project in New Mexico. All of these things had a Canadian element to them. We actually had nuclear weapons based in Canada for a considerable length of time. And up until the mid-80s, I think it was 1984, when Trudeau finally ordered them out, they were under American control, but they were on Canadian territory.

That's absolutely right. They were American nuclear weapons that were on Canadian territory. And we had more before that. Peter, as you know, because Devin Baker, when Devin Baker was prime minister, he was the one who came out and canceled. What would have been could have been a nuclear weapon saying that he saw no role for it in Canada. And that was, you know, how many decades ago, six decades ago when he did that. But I think the case for nuclear weapons weaker now than it was then when Defenbaker did that because we know much more now than we did that.

Okay, well, break that down for me. You explain that to me because, I mean, part of the whole idea of nuclear weapons is there, They're supposed to be a deterrent, right? If you have them, who's going to attack you, right? That's right. So the fundamental argument about nuclear weapons is if you have them, nobody will attack your homeland. And this is the best insurance.

One of the outstanding people who works in this field called it invasion insurance, that you are protecting your homeland against invasion. and look, I can understand where Canadians are so shocked by what's happening in the United States that all of a sudden they think about that possibility that American forces could cross our borders, either on the water or on land. And so that's why you're getting some of the mail that you're getting. but when I said we know more in the last five years really we actually have cases for the first time probably the best known are Indian Pakistan three wars three skirmishes in which and each of them has what's known as a second strike capability

Now, what does that mean? It means that if you're hit by somebody else's nuclear weapons, you have enough nuclear weapons, and they are dispersed, for instance, on submarines at sea. So if they will survive and you will hit the attacker back. That's what mad is mutual assured destruction. And you have to have that second strike capability. otherwise everybody would have an incentive just to go first. So that's the key building block in the argument.

Well, Indian Pakistan both have second strike capability. India, much more so than Pakistan. And yet, they've each stacked the other territory. So what exactly did nuclear weapons deter? It's not at all clear. and when I was doing this research I said to some of it because there is an industry of people who will write scenarios

about how nuclear weapons will be used, literally in industry and for some almost there's never been enough and that's why we see the modernization of nuclear forces that's going on in the United States and by the way in China which is expanding its nuclear force this rapidly. And so when I showed them this paper, they said, oh yeah, but you know, we knew

if somebody attacked you first, the other conventionally, well, the other side would have attacked back. No, you never wrote that? No, once in 60 years, did you ever really talk about it? The other case, of course,

and we've seen this, is we have seen three rounds of missile exchanges between Iran and Israel. Well, Israel is an undeclared but widely known nuclear power. Iranians, especially in the last round in June of last year, launched, you know, just below a thousand drones and ballistic missiles. Why spread entry? 30,000 people to do. It's a thousand people displaced, that is not a pinprick, Peter, Israel's nuclear weapons did not deter them.

And why is the relationship between Iran and Israel been so terrible? Aside from the deep enmity that exists, you know, under the Ayatollahs toward Israel, the really driving factors that the Iranians are functionally a threshold nuclear power. So the very fast that you might become a nuclear power makes you a target by your nearest neighbors. So it's loose, loose. Okay. So we're going to get back to Iran here later in this program today because there's, you know, there's tension again there. But perhaps the best example of this deterrence issue, not being not being a deterrent is Ukraine.

Russia. Yeah. Ukraine, which used to have nuclear weapons, but then after the Berlin Wall, et cetera, they moved them all out under a joint international agreement. But anyway, they don't have them. Russia does have them. Ukraine has attacked Russia. Over and over, Peter, across the border.

When Russia first attacked Ukraine, you know, the Biden. You know, the Biden administration put all kinds of pressure on the Ukrainians. You can defend and attack Russian forces inside Ukraine, but don't attack across the border because they were so worried that the Russians would escalate. Well, the Ukrainians began to develop the capability on their own. And one of the things that people miss one of those attacks, which was really stunning, that famous drone attack. where the Ukrainians smuggled drones hidden in trucks

and then transported them 3,000 kilometers deep, deep, deep inside Russia. What the Ukrainians hit was part of the strategic air force of Russia that carries nuclear weapons. Talk about, yeah. So why didn't Russia use them? So why didn't Russia use them? Because the deterrent was the Americans. Yeah.

Well, you could argue that, right? So there was one really scary moment in October 22, about eight months after the war started. The Ukrainians launched a counteroffensive, and they were doing well. That was the only time the Russians, the Ukrainians were really on the offense and they were pushing Russian forces. Ukraine would claim about 20% of the territory that Russia had occupied at that time. And the CIA picked up conversation among senior Russian generals, including Gerasimov, who was that, the chief of the Russian general staff. And there was chatter.

What if the Ukrainians broke through their lines? and they pushed their way through to Crimea, there was a discussion that the Russians might use a tactical nuclear weapon. And the CIA put the likelihood of that happening at 50%. Now, you know, you could say that's random, but I'm telling you, 50%, or anybody likely to use even a tactical nuclear weapon is very hot. The American's gone on the phone. The two secretaries of defense got on the phone.

President Biden called Jiji Ping and Modi. And they spoke out the two of them saying, and they were important to Russia, saying any use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable, even the smallest one. And the Russians didn't do it. You know, he's bluffed several times since Putin. And if you bluff,

And you bluff and you bless and you don't do it. He's not a credible bluffer anymore. And so the Ukrainians do what they do. But it's unclear to me. What did their nuclear weapons buy them, Peter? The Russians. Yeah. Okay.

I hear you. I hear that argument. And it's a good one. Well, let me tell you. I'm going to argue against me now for one minute. Yeah. Okay. All right?

Because that's only fair. And you could say, Russian nuclear weapons deterred NATO from putting forces on the ground in Ukraine. True. And that's not nothing. No. No. No, that's not nothing.

Let me return it to the Canada question here. There was a time when the Americans were pushing us hard on the 60s. Deefin Baker Pearson to have nuclear weapons. Have our own nuclear weapons, boomerick missiles, and all that stuff. You're right. If we suddenly started this is the hypothetical.

If we suddenly started talking about you know, maybe we should have our own nuclear weapons. What would this White House say? Look, what can I say about? Because nobody can predict, but but I can tell you that we've had some public discussion about acquiring a different

fighter aircraft not buying the F-35. We ordered 88. We've paid for 16. We've taken those. We will take those 16. But we paused. And the prime minister has made it very clear that we've paused. and there is a lot of discussion about buying a fighter aircraft called the Grypton from Sweden.

There has already been a furious reaction from a warehouse about that. And you saw that inaccurate comment that the president issued to tweet, that American aircraft would fly into Canadian airspace. if we do not go ahead with the F-35s. Well, first of all, American aircraft overfly Canadian airspace all the time.

You know, secondly, we're both together in NORAD and it has an American. The top commander is always American right below. The second in command is a Canadian. And those two senior officers work hand in hand. It's an

integrated defense of North American airspace. That's what we have right now. You know, there would have to be a reason why we were getting nuclear weapons all of a sudden. How would we explain it? We're worried about you?

We wanted deter you from invading our homeland. Well, we could explain it by saying as part of this whole beefing up our air defenses and being prepared for anything coming over the top from Russia, we should have a room.

Once again, I'm not advocating for this. I just find it an interesting discussion that clearly some people are having, not a lot of people. Have you ever heard it come? I mean, you attend a lot of meetings. Yes. You go to a lot of think tanks and security conferences and this, that and the other thing. Have you ever heard it discussed? Canada should get into this.

So I've never heard it discussed by any Canadian official, right? So no defense official, no political official. I've never heard it discussed. I have heard it discussed by journalists, by opinion writers, by all that writers. Sure, blame it all on the journals. No, you know, and one is, I don't know if he would want me to. say who he is, but he was deliberately pushing because he wanted to see what the logic was, right? And so, but again, you know, for me, I think, well, what are the scenarios where we might use it?

If the United States ran a disinformation campaign in Alberta, would we use nuclear weapons against the United States? not likely you know if they sailed a warship through the Northwest Passage and said

these are international waters and we don't need your permission we think you're you know it's bunk and we're just going to do it

would we use nuclear weapons okay it has to be more serious so what would be more serious invasion invasion

invasion That's right. They would have to be the only conceivable situation. They would have to launch a full-scale invasion of Canada. Why would they do that? Right. Whatever, frankly, and we could spend a whole story. They want our resources.

They want our water, which is a big thing for the United States because they have terrible. They want our critical minerals, right? They want our lobsters because they migrated from Maine up to Nova Scotia, which It's a rooster fan, which you are. That's, you know, if you're in Maine, you're not a happy camper about that.

But all of those problems, either they're solvable or they're not, but nuclear weapons. It's inconceivable. Unless they sent a full-scale land army. Yeah. Up across the border from Vermont. and Washington State

and it's just it could see what they would do it. So we would spend billions of dollars acquiring weapons that we will never use to deter something that is not going to

happen. And it wouldn't improve air defense actually. We need what Donald Trump is talking about, which is infuriating a lot of Canadians. We need anti-missile defenses, right? Which, and the version that Donald Trump is talking about, completely untested, unproven,

you know, there's no really valid specs for the system, for the integrated system that he's talking about. But it's an anti-missile system that he's talking about. It's non-nuclear. What if the Americans said, let's go back to where we were before 1984? and if we're going to properly defend this continent and Canada and the U.S. are going to figure out some joint way of doing this properly with the right equipment, et cetera, et cetera, you should base weapons there. You should let us come back and base weapons there.

That would be a real tough one, right? That would be a real tough one. Tough to say no to? Is that what you mean? Well, you know, look, he's out. asked for us to participate in the anti-missile system. And when negotiations were still ongoing, Mr. Carney did not say no.

But because the system is so undefined, he talked about $61 billion. It's so undefined and there's no specs to the system. It hasn't come up in it, again, really in a serious, sway for conversation. What would be the, you know, why do the Americans need nuclear weapons in Canada? It's really hard to argue that who would be the targets for that, only to Russia and China? And they have the capacity already to strike at both of those and to survive the attack.

So it's unclear to me why they would ask us to do that, Peter. Now, you know, a Canadian prime minister who was asked to do that might be very uncomfortable because this is how Ukraine had nuclear weapons, the case you brought up before. They were Soviet nuclear weapons under the control of Soviet soldiers in Soviet bases inside Ukraine. And the reason those weapons went back to Russia after the disappearance of the Soviet Union was everybody was worried about leaking markets for nuclear weapons, where they were, you know, leak onto black markets and rogue states or rogue organizations would get them. And so Ukraine got territorial guarantees, by the way, signed agreement from the United States,

from the United Kingdom and from Russia. Right. Right. Look without those words. Exactly. Yeah. So I just can't imagine. I can't see any functional purpose for which we would ever use them.

And they're so expensive. We actually need ice breakers. We need heavy ice breakers urgently in the Arctic. We need desperately a year-round port in the Arctic. If you ask me if I think there's scenarios, where the United States could say to this country, you don't have any real military assets now in the Arctic. And we're going to have a big sprawling base in Greenland.

And you're right in the middle. We want a big sprawling base in your Arctic because you haven't built it. Right. And as you said, and as I've said, and I've witnessed there because there have been times where it looked like we were about to build one. Yeah. There's a need for one. There is.

There also may well be a need. If you're going to do this properly in terms of icebreakers that can deal year-round in the Canadian Arctic. Heavy, heavy ones. Heavy, heavy ones. Nuclear-powered ones. Yes. Nuclear-powered is entirely different. It is, but Canadians have this sort of, oh, no, no, no.

No, no, no. That's, there's a really important distinction. Peter, I'm glad you brought it out. Nuclear power. needs. I choose a video circulating now, which if you, anybody watches this video, it's the latest generation of nuclear-powered Russian icebreakers. It's been, right, for wonky folks like me. So it's the size of two football fields, this icebreaker. Its engines are nuclear power. That's what that means. It doesn't fire any nuclear anything.

Its engines are powered by nuclear generated power, and it goes, it is year round that heavy icebreaker and can break up any ice. Do you know, the States doesn't have one like that? Now, when I mentioned to you a couple of months ago, nuclear-powered submarines, you undon. No, no, no, no, no. It's so expensive, right? We're going to buy 12 diesel submarines, which I am not a fan of. Because it's the last generation technology. And Peter, they stay under the ice for two and a half weeks.

Then they have to surface because the nuclear power submarines have, could be under the ice for months, at a time. They're totally different, but they cost, I can't remember what the latest, but they are prohibitively expensive. You can maybe buy one nuclear

submarine. There are six or eight diesel powered submarines. That's the ratio of cost. And one submarine alone is not valuable. You need a fleet. And you know, the Australians made that decision

And in August, we were not part of it because we would not even, we couldn't afford, frankly, a nuclear submarine. Well, production in the United States is so far behind. It's not clear after that huge initial investment that the Australians are going to get even their first nuclear submarine anytime soon. Okay. So we're going to, we're going to put the nuclear discussion. Russian aside for now, but I'm glad we had it. Because I think for no other reasons to remind us of our past and to try to understand what the present is with nuclear weapons and their impact.

We're going to take our quick break here and come back and talk about a more realistic, or a more present-day danger, a real and present-day danger, a real and present- danger, as they say. We'll be back with that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Monday episode of The Bridge. That means Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School, the University of Toronto. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform. Okay. Iran. We talked a little bit about Iran there. In that first section, the discussion around Iran right now is, are the Americans, is, President Trump, he certainly made enough threats to it,

on the verge of an attack on Iran. They're moving some of their, just as we witness all fall, moving some of their strategic options closer to Venezuela, which they eventually used. There appears to be a movement on certain aircraft carriers and some other things

into the area that would impact Iran what do we make of this? Why is it happening? And could it happen? So the United States now has deployed more force in the Gulf and around the Gulf and it had deployed to Venezuela. Just to put this in context, Peter, there is an aircraft carrier. There are four warships.

there are fighter aircraft that are deployed in Jordan and it's interesting that it's in Jordan and they are still now transferring those anti-aircraft missiles that we talked about, Patriots and others. So let's just talk about the deployment to Jordan for a moment because Ayatollahmani, and literally every Iranian spokesman has said, if the United States attacks Iran, they will fire back with all their firepower. As to previous rounds, they were restrained.

They gave advance warning and two of the three, they will not do this this time, and that it will quickly become a region-wide war. And so those aircraft that are in Jordan are to, or would be used to knock some of the missiles out that would be incoming from Iran, both to Jordan and to Israel, because that's the trajectory of the missiles. Why did the United States do this now? You know, there was probably the largest and most serious uprising

that we've ever seen in Iran. In 72 hours, the numbers are just terrific. We have 7,500 confirmed dead with names, and 17,000 more are being investigated now. So the number could be 25,000 civilians that were killed by the Revolutionary Guard. and the besiege, the guys on motorcycles that you saw. And you've seen the video, I'm sure,

where these forces are firing point blank into a crowd. And aiming at eyes, you know, there's a tremendous number of eye injuries and head injuries. So they were shooting point blank at people. I believe that this regime, frankly, has now lost any support. that it had in the public, aside from the security forces. So this started because Donald Trump said, we're going to hit that, we're going to hit unless you stop killing the civilians.

So it was just a general threat. And then it became, we will do it if you execute prisoners, remember? And the foreign minister sent a message and we're not intending to execute any. and wrong to hence purpose they haven't. Although their jails are overflowing, there are so many people that have been arrested and continue to be arrested inside around now that the prisoners are being housed in warehouses.

The jails cannot accommodate prisons. The number of people who are picked up off the street, their social media accounts are searched. So this is a regime in deep crisis. Donald Trump has switched the conversation, though. he moved as he did in Venezuela. He moved away from what the regime had done to its own citizens and switched it now to, you must, you have to give up enrichment permanently, which she said right from the beginning.

You have to give up your ballistic missile program, which is not connected to the nuclear program. And you have to give up support for your approach. proxies for Hisbalah, for Hamas, for the militias inside Iraq. Well, that's, you know, that is a total surrender on the part of the Iranian regime. It really is. And the decision maker here is Hamini, who is the most richest and the most ideological of any group inside Iran. And the least likely to concede

because she truly believes that if he dies a martyr for the revolution, that would be better than making these kinds of concessions. As we speak on Monday, there is frantic mediation going on to avert what looks at everybody

like an impending conflict because you don't move that level of forces, Peter. You just don't if you're not intending to use them. So first the Omani's and the Qataris and there are passing messages back and forth between foreign minister,

the president of Iran to Washington. They're nowhere near any kind of deal. And I don't think there's, I think there's almost no chance they will agree to all three terms. They could agree to give up the enriched uranium and move it out of the country because they've done that before. They could agree to inspections because they've done that before. And the difference would be from the original deal that it would be open-ended.

It wouldn't be that it would last 10 years, which was the Obama deal, that John Kerry did and then they could resume doing anything they want but they're not even at the starting point yet now it's Turkey

President Erdogan who's weighing in very heavily and areas you know the apprehension all through the reason so Saudis is very interesting there was a leak in the last 36 hours

because the Saudis in public have lined up with the Qataris and the Omani East and the Egyptians, pressing Donald Trump not to attack. But there was a private leak of some of the conversations when his friend brother was in Washington, in which he said to the president, if you fail to act now after all your threats, you will look weak. You don't want to say that to Trump. Imagine saying that to Donald Trump. So, you know, it's a very dangerous moment.

Is anybody telling Trump that I'm sure there are, I'm sure his military advisors are, but, you know, Iran isn't Venezuela. No, no. Iran is a huge country. 90 million people sitting astride the Gulf, you know, a country with mountains, difficult terrain. And so what do we know, right, from other, and even what do we know from the attack in June? The Iranians rallied around their government

when the attack came from outside, which is a fairly common pattern. It may be different this time because X is full of appeals now from Iranians who are able to get back on desperately pleading for outside help. And so that's a change. And, you know, there are streets now in the capital city called Trump Street

that people have renamed. This is a signal that they know they need external help. This would be about regime change, Peter. This is designed to overthrow. regime that faces its worst crisis. The Iranian currency, the real has dropped even further. There's rampant inflation. They can't move their oil because the Americans are now going after those shadow tankers.

And the vast majority of their population is literally furious. Let nature take its course here. Don't intervene from the outside. I think what the military are telling Trump is this is going to be hard and it could be messy, but you'll never get another chance like this. Well, it's the hard and messy part that he, you know, at some point he's going to listen to because he's the guy who said, I won't do this elsewhere. But as I said, Iran's not Venezuela and Iran's not placed in the area where they have,

the Americans can't point to, well, we were successful in Afghanistan because they weren't. You can't say we were successful in Iraq because they weren't. Because they were not. Right. Yeah. So why did they think they would do better in Iran, which is tougher militarily, assuming the Revolutionary Guard does what their government wants them to do? Yeah.

I think what we're watching is the biggest game of chicken. that you can imagine, right? And that's why I don't think they're in a rush. Now, it is true, they're still moving military equipment, particularly those missiles. But they're hoping, again, that the Republican Guard are going to crack now. And that there will be enough defections,

that there will be a coup from inside against Chamini, who's very isolated now, he's in a bunker. And look, what would it take? hate to make that happen, Peter. The Republican Guard have never done that because they control the economy. And the worst the economy was, the better it was for them

because, you know, Iranians were not able to buy products from outside except on the black market, and that really worked for the Republican guards. Things are so bad now. They are so bad that there may be a core of officers.

that say the time is now let's avoid a horrible war that we're going to lose and the damage that will be done there are parts of cities inside a run now when we you know we have very limited video still because the internet

blackout is still going on but you see burnt out city centers that were set on fire by protesters there are depots you know buses that were burnt It's a very, very, very angry population, just literally infuriated by what they did.

And they hold how many personally accountable because he gave the order that Thursday night. Kill all these protesters by any meat, is what we said. All right. We're out of time. Clearly, we're going to be talking about this again. because if something's going to happen, it's not going to happen tomorrow,

but it could happen. It could happen soon. But as you say, there's frantic attempts at negotiation here. We'll see how those together. All right, Janice, that's quite an hour of discussion today. Thank you so much.

We'll talk again in a week. We will. Well, there you go. Dr. Janice Stein with another, another Monday that's got us thinking. You know, perhaps even more so than in past Mondays, that opening question about nuclear power, not nuclear power, nuclear weapons,

is a question that will shake the foundations of some homes across the country today as they listen to that. And they go, Peter, what are you talking about? Well, I think it's a good discussion to have, and I'm glad we had it. I'm glad some of you wrote in to suggest we'd have it. And once again, these weren't people who were saying, we've got to get nuclear weapons.

They wanted to understand what's the argument. And hopefully we at least shine a light on some of that argument today by talking to Dr. Stein. Okay, a reminder that tomorrow is our first YouTube edition, of the Moore-Buts conversation. So we look forward to that, and it's a good conversation. We'll deal with the Pollyev victory, I guess, is the way to proclaim it from last Friday night,

what it means for both him and for his party. And we'll also deal with what Moore and Butts think about the whole issue of Americans involving themselves in the Alberta referendum story. They got some pretty strong words on that. that I'm sure. So that's tomorrow, first YouTube edition of the Moore Butts Conversations. At Wednesday, we'll be, as I mentioned earlier, will be an end bit special.

You know, they've turned out to be extremely popular for what they are. They're just sort of end bits. They're kind of news you can use, news you can use stories. They're kind of floating out there that don't get any attention. So we'll give them a little attention. That's Wednesday's program. Thursday is your turn. You heard the questions about the Olympics.

Normal rules apply. If you need it again, dialed back to the beginning of this podcast. And you'll hear exactly what the rules are, as usual. And the Random Ranter will be by on Thursday as well on Friday. It is, as always, good talk with Bruce Anderson and Shuntelli Bear. Thanks so much for listening today. look forward to talking to you tomorrow and that comes up in well lost in 24 hours bye for now