TRIGGERnometry - DEBATE: Has Trump Surrendered To Iran? - Melanie Phillips

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

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Trump is giving Iran the ability to become again the great threat to the region and to the world. You don't negotiate with people who believe they are put on earth by God to destroy America. This is an Islamist war against the West. cannot be lost. If it's lost, the West is lost. They're not building intercontinental ballistic missiles that they want to hit Israel. They're doing it for America. So what would you have Trump do? If you go to war, you have to do it properly. When you say properly, it's a euphemism for putting boots on the ground. Yeah. You effectively want what happened to Nazi Germany and World War II, or what happened to Japan, because there's no other way to do that.

There has to be boots on the ground, but the boots need to be the Iranian people. This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College. Right after this episode, go check out the incredible online courses, which are absolutely free at hillsdale.edu slash trigger. Melanie Phillips, welcome back to Trigonometry. Delightful to be here again. Well, it's wonderful to have you on. We want to talk about the Middle East, the war with Iran, the potential deal or not deal that may be happening. But right as we sit here recording this, it's only a day since Kirstama, the British Prime Minister, has announced that he's voluntarily, entirely voluntarily leaving office, almost certainly handing over to Andy Burnham.

And before we get into the Middle East stuff, we just wanted to get your perspective on what's happening here in Britain. Well, as you say, Mr. Burnham looks like he's going to become the Prime Minister. I think among the British public, the niceties of the British Constitution aside, they are furious that they elected somebody that they thought was going to be in power for five years, Sarkia Stama. And now they find some other bloke is going to be prime minister. And they didn't vote for him.

And they feel a bit shortchanged. So I think that's quite dangerous for Andy Burnham. If he's going to, I think he's got a bit of a dilemma. If he's going to continue with the manifesto commitments laid out by Kiyah Stama and enacted by the Kier Stama's government, he's going to find. himself in exactly the same position of total unpopularity and manifest incompetence and worse that Kirstama found himself in. If he decides that he wants to junk all that and do something very different, then he's got a problem because he has no standing to do so, because that's not

the agenda on which the Labour government, or it's the Labour Party, won its stonking great majority. So he, in all honour, he would need to call a general election very fast. And for what I read, he doesn't want to do that. So it looks like he is, I think, probably going to fall between the two, and he's going to tough it out. He's going to become, you know, crowned as prime minister. And he's going to, I would imagine, change the agenda in certain respects from what Kirstarmer was doing, for which he will have no mandate. And I think that's going to get him starting off on the wrong. as far as the public is concerned.

Do you have an explanation in your head for, I mean, Kirstama by metrics is literally one of the least popular prime ministers, I think the least popular prime minister in British history, which even as someone who was never a huge fan of his, I actually find quite difficult to understand in terms of his own performance. I get the sense and correct me or just disagree with me if you disagree, his deep unpopularity is a product of the reality of the country and where it's at, and the fact that to change that, you have to drastically change direction, which we're not doing.

And I extrapolate from that that going forward, whoever replaces him will inevitably end up in the same position, or likely worse. Yes, I mean, I think people really, really don't like being taken for mugs and being treated with contempt. And I think that's what they thought he was doing, because, you know, in answer to all kinds of questions at different times about why is this or that going wrong and what you're going to do about it, he, you know, he was slippery. He wouldn't answer. He refused to answer. He changed the question. He changed the premise. And people can see this. And they can't stand that. They really can't do with that. Plus, he has a very unattractive public persona. He is very wooden and robotic. His main problem is he's not a politician.

He's a lawyer, and he's not a public performer. Now, you look at Andy Burnham. He's all performance. I mean, that's what he does, you know. I mean, you know, the black bomber jacket and the black t-shirt, and I'm so hip, and, you know, here am I fluttering long eyelashes. I mean, and everyone loves it. I mean, I think it's pathetic, but everyone loves it.

And there you have Kirstama who's like, oh, and everyone thinks, what a complete idiot. But he's not an idiot at all. But he doesn't have the politician's skill at being fly. He's not flying. He's not flying. To certainly that's to his credit. The real problem is, you compare it with, I mean, I think, Kemi Badenoch is doing tremendously well. She's saddled, unfortunately, with the entire Conservative Party for whom nobody in their right mind would vote. So, okay, fine. So that's her problem. But when you look at what she is doing, She's cutting through now with the public, as far as I can see, who are really warming to her because they find her refreshingly direct, honest, straightforward.

She doesn't dissemble. She doesn't pretend that she hasn't understood the question. She doesn't change the subject. She's very direct. If necessary, you know, she will give you, you know, wallop you between the eyes if you ask a question that she thinks is really bad. And people warm to that. They want politicians who actually are people of integrity.

and they don't find it. So you have a situation in which, you know, they will vote for these parties led by people that they despise or don't much like, and they will like somebody whose party they despise. So you have a bit of a mismatch at the moment to add to Britain's other woes.

If you look at since Brexit, I think we've had six prime ministers, we're going to be on to a seventh pretty soon. That, to me, is a political crisis, isn't it, Melanie? Well, Britain is an ongoing political. crisis. Britain is an ongoing crisis. Britain is a society which is basically going down fast. And it's been going down for many years, which I've been charting for many years, because I've been around for a while. You know, it's been going down because it's been knocking

out the bedrock institutions of the society, particularly, I would say, it's education system, if your education system, which is all about transmitting a culture between, from one generation to the next, that's how you continue the culture. If you decided, as I recall, back in the, whenever it was, the 80s, the 70s, whenever it was, you decided that you can't do that because your culture really stinks. And it's racist to do that because you can't, you can't have a hierarchy of values, you can't say your culture is better than any other, and so on. If you're, if you turn your education system into a de-education system, and then you've had it, because, you know, you're going to produce what we've ended up with, which is young people who are now middle-aged

people who know nothing and can't think for themselves. Plus the fact that, you know, there was an onslaught on the traditional family and an onslaught on the very idea of the nation itself, so nobody, you know, everyone thinks it's a big joker, the idea of fighting for it and so on. this is all a society in decline. And then you have this tremendous allied issue of mass immigration. You know, you have a society that's hollowed itself out, and it's then, you know, easy meat for a culture to come in and say, actually, you know, we've actually now got an opportunity to take this over,

which is basically radical Islam. And so you have this building. building issue, this erosion on one hand of a society that won't defend itself, won't promote itself, creates a kind of vacuum, into which is marching Islamic radicalism. Okay, many, many Muslims in Britain are absolutely fine. They've signed up to the whole Western thing, but we know that there's a very large number who are not doing, who do not want to do that, and want Britain to adapt to Islam rather than the other way around. But they see their opportunity. And they are marching in, demanding more and more that Britain should adapt to Islam.

And the British people can see that all the arms of the state, the government, politicians across parties, and the whole cultural elite are not only refusing to draw red lines, cultural red lines, but are coming down like a ton of bricks on anyone who stands up and calls attention to this, and defame them as being, you know, Islamophobic, racist, fascist, and so on. And so the people are a boiling point. We can see it, you know, in various things that have happened on the streets. And this is a very dangerous situation. And you have virtually an entire political class, which is saying, we're not going to go there,

which is making it far worse. So this is what Mr. Burnham is going to inherit. And he is going to be the head of a party, which, among other things, no longer knows what it is. the Labour Party came into being as the political arm of the trade union movement, as the political arm of the working people of Britain. It then had a kind of transmogrification and has become the party of the intellectual elites of the intelligency of the university educated people. And consequently, you know, non-educated to high-level people have been left high and dry because

the agenda of the intellectual elites is to despise the nation's state, to despise the West, to despise Britain, and to want liberal universalism, transnationalism, and so on. So that's Labour, having abandoned the people. And then you have the Conservative Party, which never was very good at thinking about anything at all, being composed traditionally of extremely stupid people. And then, you know, it just saw this great sort of cultural change coming at it, and it decided to throw in the towel. It said it couldn't stand up against it, nobody could stand up against it,

you couldn't stand up against cultural change, and they brought into it over successive conservative prime ministers, successive conservative administrations. So the people were literally abandoned. This is what Mr. Burnham, if he comes prime minister, is going to inherit. Now, this would test anybody Does one have confidence that Mr. Burnham is such a statesman that he is going to stand back and meet these challenges?

I have to say, and I may be being very uncharitable, but I'm not holding my breath. He likes Oasis. Well, I suppose that's all that matters, really. I actually think it's a good point to move on to the Middle East. Melanie, thank you for that. There's one thing that I wanted to mention, because... One other bands does he like? Yeah, Stone Roses, but let's not focus on that.

But there was one thing that you were talking about, no political party wants to go there. I would put it to you, Melley, that there is one political party who wants to go there, and they're called Restore, and they've got 7% in Makerfield. Yes, this is true. When I say no political party, I meant no respectable political party. I meant no mainstream political party.

It's true. What I described to you just now has produced, an insurrectionist tendency, which once was Nigel Farage, and then he stopped being the insurrectionist, because he's now got his own insurrection, which is restore. And that's another story why Nigel Farage is no longer the kind of go-to person for people who want to, who say the entire political establishment has failed us.

Why do you think that Nigel Farage has that insurrection on his hands? Because I hear people saying Nigel Farage has become the establishment. establishment. And I mean, I pay fairly close attention to political discourse in this country. He doesn't appear to me to have massively changed any of his opinions as far as I can tell. You clearly disagree, but I guess perhaps challenge me on this too. My sense is the general election is far away. People are desperate for change. And so the longer there is no change, the more extreme the rhetoric needs to be to satisfy the urge is kind of perspective on it. You clearly feel different. Well, I don't know. I think there is a very ugly mood that's building in the public and I think that Restore is meeting that ugly mood with

ugly rhetoric of its own, which I think is whipping it out. But why is it building? Because people are getting so furious. Well, then, but then I think we probably agree then. Yeah, but Nigel Farage, you know, he is the most consequential politician since Mrs. Thatcher. you know, arguably even more so than her in some respects. And he was, you know, and to a large extent still is, the go-to guy for standing up against the political mainstream and saying, I am in tune with the public of thinking.

And to a very large extent, that is true. But I think people have picked up that two things. first of all, on a couple of issues, and I can't now recall which ones, but they were certainly, I think one of them at least was a welfare issue, he changed his position. And he changed it, it would appear in order to appeal to a section of the population that he hadn't been appealing to. That's death, because this is a guy who was supposed never to do that. And people, I could hear it, people immediately said, oh, he's just like the others, isn't he?

You can't do that. you know, the Nigel Farage's unique selling point is, that's what I think, and I'm not changing it for anybody. That's why people like that. I know what you're talking about, because I think the issue is essentially Nigel Farage is a Thetari. He wants a small government, and he's won a lot of people in the red wall who want big government.

Just putting it very generalized and bluntly. Right, right. And I guess what you are pointing to is a lot of people see that as a typical politician move. Exactly, exactly. And the second. point is this, that on this tremendously important issue of Islamization, which is so neurologic and so dangerous for any politician to get into, I think, and I've thought this for a long time,

he's flinched. He is flinched because I can feel he's, I mean, I saw him once saying, you know, there's a lot of Muslims in the world. We've got to work out how to how to write this. And I thought, oh, dear, I mean, it's very difficult how to write this because you'll be very careful. You know, you've got a lot of Muslims in the country who are fine, but an awful lot who are not fine. And it seems to me pretty obvious there are certain red lines you lay down. And, you know, every minority in the country has to basically live within those red lines, and every minority has done, except for this section of the Muslim world. And so you have to lay down those red lines.

Now, he hasn't done that, as far as I know. And that's what he needed to do. So people are listening for him to say this, and he's not said it. Along comes Restore, and it's saying, I think, really terrible things. You know, it's, it's, you know, it's raising a question. Are they talking about throwing out not just foreign nationals who are doing terrible things? Are they talking about throwing out British citizens? So, no, of course we're not, but they've talked about dual.

nationals. Well, to me, that is throwing out British citizens. So this is extreme stuff, but the people who are looking to Nigel to say, here is the red line, are not hearing that, they're hearing Restore saying, we're going to throw them all out. And because of the mood in the country, they're saying, yeah, he's now our guy. I think this is fantastically dangerous. Because I think that the people that Restore has accrued to itself, not necessarily its leader, about whom I don't have a very strong view. I know he fell out. badly with Nigel Farage. But the party has attracted some extremely unsavory individuals. So has reform, actually, and it hasn't really got to grips yet with weeding everybody out

as much as it should. But restore is, you know, there are many more who are more objectionable. But unfortunately, because the rhetoric is more akin to what people want to hear, because they're not hearing it. Even from Nigel Farage, they've been gravitating towards restore. I think Nigel Farage can pull that back by laying down red lines. My final point, however, is

I'm not sure whether that's really how he thinks. You say he's a kind of unreconstructive Thatcherite. And that's really how I've always thought to him as an unreconstructive Thatcherite who has a thing about mass immigration and stopping the boats. But unreconstructed Thatcherite doesn't feel me with a great deal of enthusiasm, quite frankly,

because unconstructed Thatcherites think in terms of economics. They think in terms of the market, the free market. I mean, no, that's partly why we are where we are, because people have forgotten what it takes to make a society in which we look after each other. And again, I don't hear that from Nigel Farage. I may be doing him a great disservice. But people are listening for this. They're listening.

and they're not getting it. So I think that's partly why the shine has kind of come off him. I think he can put the shine back on, but it requires some really kind of strategic thinking or strategic rethink about why he's kind of losing ground. I think he can make up that ground because he has to stand on ground, which is basically decent and responsible and proportionate.

And I think he can do that, but it's a narrow line that he has to tread. I have people in my life who depend on me. Most of you listening do too. And if you're honest with yourself, you've probably had that moment where you think, what happens to them if I'm not around tomorrow? It's not a fun question,

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moving on, we're going to talk about the Middle East. So you have been a very, well, at the start of the war of Iran, you were very in favour of it. And you thought at the beginning, reading your sub-sab, which is excellent, that actually the Americans and the Israelis, there was some massive wins, let's just put it like that. And then as it's progressed, you become more and more critical. Why is that, Melanie? Well, because America, i.e., President Trump, turned on a dime and went the other way. He basically gave up. As far as I can see, he's the only American president ever to have gone to war against the Iranian regime, which I think is good. It's taken America 47 years to do so. Forty-seven years ago, the Iranian regime came to part.

and declare war in America. And in the intervening decades, has killed hundreds, if not more than hundreds of Americans and injured many more, attacked endlessly American interests. And at every stage, America and the West have said, nothing to see here, move along. And some of us said over many, many years, the Iranian regime will never stop a will never resile from its aim to, first of all, destroy the state of Israel as a precursor to destroying America and the West. It will never resile from that. It is already waging war. The longer it goes on, the worse the eventual war will be for all of us. Scroll on, we get to President Trump amazingly going to war against the regime with Israel.

and, as you say, achieving these amazing successes. But then, to his obvious horror, the Iranian regime, having taken this tremendous punishment, it lost its air force, it lost all its air defences, its navy was at the bottom of the sea, it, numerous nuclear scientists were killed, much of its nuclear program, was reduced to rubble and buried underground by bombing. It lost large numbers of its ruling IRGC people and others who were killed. By any conventional standards, it was on the ropes. It should have said, okay, that's it.

But it didn't. It said, we are continuing, and here we are, we have now taken the straight of Hormuz. And everybody went, oh, where did that come from? I mean, how stupid is that? But anyway, so President Trump looked at that and said various things. He said, we're going to take the Strait of Hormuz, we're going to bomb Hague Island, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. It's like King Lear, isn't it?

You know, I will do such things on the blasted heath. And, of course, he didn't do any of them because presumably his generals came along and said, Sir, we can take Hague Island, but it's going to take boots on the ground and blood in the water. and he said, I'm not doing that. He wanted a war done in three or four weeks. The Israelis, I have to say, as a caveat, I don't know whether this is absolutely true because I only know what I'm reading

and what I'm hearing. I'm trying to form a conclusion based on reading very widely, listening to a lot of people. What I'm reading, what I've read, is that the Israelis said to him right at the beginning, in our view, the only way to neutralize the Iranian regime is to take them out. And we can only do that with a war that lasts a year. And which Trump said, you've got to be kidding me.

No way. Three weeks, four weeks, max. And the Israelis said, well, then you can't do this. But we will adapt to whatever you want to do. And so they did what they did. So along comes, you know, they've done what they've done, they've made these amazing gains, the Iranians still have a Khag Island and they have America by the throat. Now what do you do?

If you're Trump, you say, oh, we've won. That's it. That's it. Let's have a negotiation now about the terms of winning. Excuse me? He had said, you know, they have absolutely surrendered. They are begging for a deal. Well, which is it?

Which is it? Have they surrendered? Is it? Or if they've surrendered, it's not a deal. If they've surrendered, why is there a negotiation? What is there to negotiate if it's an absolute surrender? None of it made any sense. It was all total rubbish.

The bottom line was, it was quite clear, he wanted out. He wanted an end to it. and he wanted to be able to say, we've won. And consequently, they're now giving them everything in this famous memorandum of understanding, which is not a deal. It ushers in 60 days of negotiation. What is that to negotiate? You don't negotiate with people who believe they are put on earth by God to destroy America.

America doesn't negotiate with those people. It's non-negotiable. So you have this ludicrous situation. And he has to find a scapegoat, and his scapegoat is Israel, because there is this complication in Lebanon. Now, people in Britain have very little idea about the relationship of Lebanon to all of this. They have very little idea because the media never tells them anything that is important to know about this whole Iranian war. But Lebanon is very important because Lebanon houses the Hezbollah, which is the proxy army of Iran, Hezbollah is an unwanted guest in Lebanon, but nevertheless has established itself of such a powerful force it can't be easily dislodged.

From Lebanon, the Hezbollah has, over many, many years, been firing missiles into northern Israel, potentially causing northern Israel to become depopulated. So scroll on and we get to a ceasefire in Lebanon a couple of weeks ago, was it, something like that? And the Chesbola behave as Iran and the Chesbola always behave when they sign or when they agree to a ceasefire. They ignore it. They ignore it. A ceasefire is merely a means of weakening the other side and they just ignore it. So they continue to fire missiles at Israel in the last couple of weeks,

and they continue to attack Israeli troops, and they kill five Israeli soldiers. I think it was last week. None of this is reported in Britain. Instead, Israel says, we've got to fight back. And President Trump says, you're not going to fight back, because if you fight back, the Iranians are telling me that in order for my deal to be done,

you've got to come out of Lebanon, and the Israelis say, sorry, we can't do that. In the British media, this is Israel breaking the ceasefire and being aggressive. Now, this is wicked, wicked stuff, in my view, and greatly adds to the fact that, for an unpleasant number of British people, they really do believe Israel is the aggressor in the region. And that's another issue, but it's related. they just don't know what's going on. So you have a situation where President Trump is using the Israelis as the scapegoat to explain why Iran is not cooperating.

Otherwise, it would be, they would just be all friends together. This is ludicrous, and it's tremendously dangerous because everybody with half a brain and some knowledge of what's going on, including the Gulf states who are inclined to be the great allies of the West against Iran are looking on in absolute horror. They know exactly what's happening here, that Iran is being allowed by America to reconstitute itself as a power in the region and in the world.

And they are absolutely in the firing line, because Iran has been chucking the ballistic missiles at them as well. So they are horrified. They can see what's happening. They can see that Trump is giving Iran the ability to become again the great threat to the region and to the world. And it is beyond tragic and infuriating that so many people in Britain can't see this. Melanie, hold on a second. I mean, let me give a wide perspective of where we come on this issue from and how we've covered this over time. Because I think we may find that we very rarely, but we disagree profoundly on this issue for reasons I'll articulate and then we'll get into it. So when the 12-day war happened, bombing Iranian nuclear facility is wonderful.

Francis and I were completely in favor of this. Iran shouldn't get a nuclear weapon. Wonderful. When this conflict started, we were in the US and we were talking to all kinds of people on the show, people who were for it, people who were against it and hearing the explanations. And we were also talking to people off the air, people who work in administration, people who know how these decisions were made. And at that point, Francis and I, I think is fair to say, shifted our perspective on this whole issue. and for one reason, which was that we were persuaded by arguments that were made by people like Robert Pape on our show, who explained that basically this situation that we currently find ourselves in was inevitable.

And it was inevitable because of what he calls the escalation trap, which is essentially that no matter how much the United States raises the stakes, the Iranians have an ability to inflict more damage that the U.S. cares about more than they care about the damage that's been inflicted on them. In other words, if you put boots on the ground on Kag Island, then you lose 300 Marines.

Well, that's bad enough for an American audience, for an American public that's very tired of war, let's be honest, after Iraq and Afghanistan. But then the Iranians will retaliate by destroying desalination plants in the Middle East and doing other things that are much more damaging.

and of course keeping the straight closed. And so Robert Pape's argument, and we were persuaded by, you know, people talk about audience capture. Like our audience didn't like us having that conversation, but we just look at the logic of people's arguments, and his argument made more sense. And interestingly, Batio Ungasagan, who we love and respect that we had on the show, she came on saying how we're all wrong, Robert Paper's wrong.

She's now done a Mayor Kulp on her show saying, actually, you guys were right about this. She was messaging me about this other day. Sorry that it's taken a lot. long time. What I'm trying to lay out to you is this. What would you have Trump do? What's he supposed to escalate further, put boots on the ground? Okay, fine. Let's say we do that. Robert Pape's argument is the moment you do that, it becomes for Iran not just a war of survival of the regime, but a war of survival. Right. In which case, they go harder, they do more damage. And now,

final point, the global economy has pretended to absorb the shock when it comes to oil, fertilize, and all these other things quite well, mainly because we've run down our stockpiles of these things. This goes on any longer. The global economy is really gonna suffer. And final, final, final point, the midterms. When we had Ted Cruz on our show during that America trip, he said, look, if we're still talking about this

when the midterms come around, we have failed very badly. And that timeline, and I thought at the time, if the Iranians know that you worry about the midterms, they will hold out until the midterms and then you're screwed and then you can't do anything. Absolutely. So what would you have Trump do? Okay. So the bottom line is this.

If you follow the Robert Pape argument and many make a similar kind of argument, you're basically saying there is nothing that can be done against Iran because it will always have the upper hand. And so what follows from that? You have to negotiate? No, no, no, no, no. There's no negotiation with Iran. They will always win. They will always win in negotiation for the same reason.

Sure. We all know they will take pain and we won't. So they'll win. So what the Robert Papers are saying is that's it. We just have to put up with it. So it'll become a nuclear power. Well, okay, okay. We have to deal with it.

His argument is slightly more nuanced than that, Melanie, which is his argument is you have to give them things that they want, so they take a very long time, but who knows if they'll eventually get nuclear weapons? You have to manage it over time, and it's a chronic problem instead of an acute problem. It's been managed over 47 years. And they don't have a nuclear weapon? Only because the Israelis put it back, but they were very nearly at it, and they were very nearly at producing so many ballistic missiles that nobody could have challenged them as they marched to the bomb.

That was the dual thing. But it's a chancel of complete despair. It's the siren song of appeasement. It was exactly the same in the run-up to the Second World War. People said we cannot take on the Nazi war machine. It is too strong. And that's why the Second World War was as terrible as it was. Now, Iran is weak, and it's been weakened by all the things that we've been talking about.

And yet it's so strong. It's so strong that President Trump is basically saying, have everything. How can this be? Because Iran is not strong. Iran is weak. But Iran's strength is because America is weak. Because America will not do what it takes. President Trump will not commit for, let's say, it's a year.

Let's say it's notionally. That's what the Israelis apparently said. He will not commit for a year. He will not commit boots on the ground. He's worried about the midterms. You can't fight a war like this. It's pathetic. It's Mickey Mouse time. So what should he do? What should he have done? Look, I'm not a military expert. You talk about desalination plants. I'm also seeing this.

I mean, I don't know what you do about that. I've obviously no idea. But there are certain things that President Trump could have done and could still do. Why is it that Iran is making such a business about Lebanon? Why is Iran making it almost a condition of our even taking part in these negotiations in Switzerland? It's a condition that Israel has to leave Lebanon. Why is it so important to them? Because it's so important that Hezbollah remains, because Hezbollah is vital to Iran. If you eliminate Hezbollah, then Iran is not just weakened.

It's like cut off at the knees. right? I'm not a military person. This is what I'm hearing. Now, Israel can do that. It's very difficult, but it can do it, but it can only do it if it has America's full-hearted support. The reason why Israel has never been able to win its wars ever anywhere in Lebanon, for example. It's called mowing the grass. All it's ever been able to do is to push it back in Gaza, mowing the lawn. All it's been able to do ever is push Hamas back. It's still, there, thanks to President Trump. It's still there, still firing, still attacking Israeli soldiers. Okay, it's much weaker, but it's still there because America said to Israel, stop, stop.

There's a bigger game here. We're playing, you're not going to get in our way. And it's saying so in Lebanon. Stop. So the ridiculous situation has been created by Trump, by his mess management of this, that the Hezbollah is being used by Iran. as leverage to separate America from Israel. And if Trump had any kind of mental wherewithal, he would understand that the Chesbullah is his leverage through Israel against Iran. He would be using, he would be backing to the hilt

what Israel is doing to Iran, to Chesbola in Lebanon. Not just because of Israel, And this is a terrible thing that's coming out from J.D. Vance and all those people, that this is war is only being fought for Israel. It's ludicrous, ludicrous. The war against Iran is a war for America and the West. Israel is its principal, well, not defender, but sort of a point of attack by which America can attack Iran. It's a resource, a military resource, a priceless military resource that America has. And instead, America has thrown it away and is blaming it and is stopping it. It's stopping it from hitting Hezbollah, which will hurt Iran, in order that Iran should stay in Switzerland and negotiate a deal which gives Iran everything. This is crazy. This is crazy. So, I mean, this war has to be fought properly. I don't know whether it would be able to succeed in a short space of time or whatever.

What I do know is that if you are stopping the ally on which you depend, let's not mince words, Israeli boys have been dying for America. Israeli boys and girls are risking their lives for America, for the war to defend America and the West. And yet Americans, like J.D. Vance, are suggesting that the Israelis are just so ungrateful for what we've done for them. Excuse me? This is a war for the West. This is an Islamist war against the West. It cannot be lost. If it's lost, the West is lost. And what Trump has done so far by appearing to give Iran so much, by descending from a great height on America's great

ally Israel instead of using it against Iran, what he's done, which is appalling, which is appalling, is to diminish America in the eyes of the entire world as a force for defending civilization. People have now rightly concluded there is nothing that America, there is nothing that can make America risk its own people to defend itself. And therefore, it's open season. It's open season for all bad people. You say quite rightly, there is this infernal, um, uh, calibration of pain. Iran will take infinite pain, and consequently will always be, that the West will always be at a disadvantage. That is absolutely right. And it's the same argument with the Islamists, beyond Iran. So, you know, Islamists will take, I mean, it's what they say. We love death, you love life, we win.

What are we supposed to say? The peeps, or what if his name is, would say, well, that's right. So what do we do? Well, we have to take pain. And because we, we collectively in the West, have so much, we are strong. I mean, America, you know, its firepower is infinitely greater. So, but if we're not prepared to take pain, they win. It's simple as that, and that's what's happening.

America is not prepared to take pain at all. The only pain is being suffered by the Israelis, losing boy. and girls. Okay, they don't care about that. But America's not prepared to take pain, so Iran wins. America, with its superior firepower, takes pain, is prepared to take pain in which I don't just mean losing its people. I mean investing in the time it takes. So if it takes a year, it takes 18 months, whatever. Okay, this is something that we have to win. We're in it for the long term. Forget the midterms. We probably lost, they probably lost the midterms anyway. Forget the midterms. We are defending civilization here. Brackets, they never made the case to the American people. He has never

made the case to the American people. I have no idea what this is about. Okay. So, long way of saying, long way around of saying, this, you know, if you're going to, if you're not going to fight the Islamist war against the West, if you're not going to defend the West, because you're going to say they have all the cards, then it's over. Then why are we even discussing this? Why are they even Why are they even going to Switzerland? Just, well, you know, let's all have a nice life and, you know, let's all, let's be happy that they are going to, to get the bomb. It'll be no different from like North Korea. We're all living with North Korea.

That went well as well. So, either you do that. But if you go to war, you have to do it properly. It's not been done properly. In my view, it can still be pulled back. It can still be pulled back. And maybe Trump will pull it back. I resisted creatine for years because I assumed it was for people who spent three hours a day in the gym

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Because... I don't know. Maybe, supposing America continued its blockade. Okay, I was reading, you know, it was causing Iran incredible angst because they were running out of everything, money, food, whatever. And that's why the pressure started coming on from Qatar and Pakistan. You must do the deal because those people, you know, Qatar and Pakistan or the proxies for Iran. So there was pain coming from Iran. They had to have movement. So if there's pain, increase the pain.

Increase the pain. Well, if there was pain of the type you described, then that would be reflected in the negotiations. But the negotiations reflect the reality, I would put it to you, which is the pain is disproportionately being felt by the West. Once you have negotiation, there is no pain that they have. Once you have negotiation, they've got you. What I'm saying is when in this negotiation,

you're seeing which side is actually winning the war. And it's not America. It's not Israel. I'm saying by definition, once America goes into negotiation, they've lost. Okay. So what, but here's the problem, though, what you're really advocating ultimately for is boots on the ground. The game theory of this is the moment you put boots on the ground, they up the level of violence. They start destroying your allies in the Middle East.

And if you then you need to put more boots on the ground on the actual Iranian coastline. You've got these giant mountains. and you're now in a massive war of exactly the type that Russia is stuck in in Ukraine where you've got a powerful country fighting against a smaller but also powerful country

and it's a giant bloodbath for years which by the way will still end in a negotiation that's what's going to happen in Ukraine there's not going to be Ukrainian flag flying over the Kremlin and I don't think there's going to be a Russian flag flying over the Kiev either Okay, but this is like J.D. Vance saying, as he heard last year, all wars end in the negotiation. That's not true. I mean, hello. But, Melanie, but what you're saying then is you effectively want what happened to Nazi Germany and World War II or what happened to Japan, because there's no other way to do this.

Yes. Okay. Correct. So you want Iran to be bombed into the ground? Not necessarily bombed. I'm neutralized. If it can be done through, you know, economic starvation. It can't. No, hang on. By itself, no, as we have constantly been told, in order to get rid of the regime, there has to be boots on the ground, but the boots need to be the Iranian people.

The Iranian people, despite the fact that Trump said, everybody on the streets, and that was terrible. What happened then? That was all. It was unforgivable. But they have to be armed, and the IRGC has to be very much more weakened, right? But basically, to get rid of the regime, you have to have an uprising from the people. You have some boots somewhere.

So you may need some American boots on the ground, but you have to use these things. Again, I'm not a military person. I don't know how much would necessitate boots on the ground, how much would be brought about by economic leverage, how much are we brought about by bombing. I can't tell all those things. All I know is you have to have the,

the appreciation of what is required, of what the stakes are, and what you are, what your aim is, and you have to follow that through in some way, which has not been done because President Trump's, who knows what's in this man's mind, but as far as I can see, what was in his mind was something much faster that he thought he thought he would bring Iran down, he'd bring the regime to its knees and so on,

because by conventional standards he did, nobody in the administration seems to have the faintest idea of what they're dealing with. They have got the faintest idea of the ideology that they're dealing with. I mean, when I read these remarks by J.D. Vance, I mean, I can't believe that I'm reading the Vice President of the United States

saying something so stupid. He is saying, you know, I'm, I'm, first of all, Trump is saying, it's a different regime. The regime has changed. These guys are really nice guys. Excuse me? I mean, this is ridiculous. J.D. Vant says, you know, we're, you know, if they come on board, we're going to give them money, and then they're going to invest that money in American farmers.

They're going to buy American farm produce with the money we will release. What? We wanted to make sure that we set up a process where if, if we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that those, that that money, that Iranian money goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism. So Jared Kushner actually came up with a very interesting solution with the Qataris where basically, again, if there is any frozen Iranian assets that are unfrozen, then we have approval over that process. The Qataris have approval over that process. And then the money would

actually go to buy American soy, American corn, and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people. And if Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, they're going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed the Iranian people. That's a very, very good and very classic Trump deal. that's great for our people, great for the people of Iran, and fundamentally, again, will contribute to this regional security architecture that we've built and that we're going to work very hard to ensure that it endures. What are they talking about? They seem to have no idea that what they're dealing with is apocalyptic messianists who believe that if they bring about the apocalypse on earth, they will bring into being the sheer messianists.

the 12th Imam. That's what they believe. And they're negotiating with these people? What do they think they're negotiating? The negotiation means, from the Iranian point of view, we're just using this as another tool. So they have no idea what they're dealing with. They seem to have no memory of the, to me, infamous JCPOA negotiations, which led to the JCPOA, the nuclear deal brokered by Obama in 2015. I remember those negotiations. I remember what the West was saying. I remember what the British Foreign Secretary at the time said to me. We're stopping them getting the bomb. And I said, but it's written in the sunset clause. They will get the bomb. You are giving them the bomb. No, no, they're not going to get the bomb. It's like, whoa. I mean, there it is.

they're giving them the bomb after whatever it is 12 years, 15 years, and we're being told they're not going to get the bomb. I'm hearing the same thing with Trump. We've won. They've surrendered. And so we're negotiating. It's ridiculous. So, yes, I do see it as like Nazi Germany and Japan.

I do see it like that. It has to be a proper defeat, which would be complicated, difficult, costly, and take time. But if you don't have the mental, psychological, political resilience to follow through, then it's worse and useless. Because what's happened, when I say worse and useless, what's happened is America has advertised its impotence and has thus potentially emboldened

all the bad guys in the world, China, Russia, North Korea and all the Islamists all lined up, they can all see America's a paper tiger. It's not going to do anything. Even with this crazy guy Trump who bombed Iran, he's not going to follow through, have terribly, terribly dangerous for everybody in the West. So the stakes have in my view got much, much higher. The problem is as well, Melanie, is we're talking about America and the American population not wanting boots on the ground. Correct. And you said Trump didn't explain it to them. I think the real issue is, as well, it's one of geography. For Israel, geographically, for sure. Existential, for obvious reasons. But, you know, when you're in America,

let's say you're in California and you're on the Pacific Ocean. Agreed. It seems a very long way away. Of course, and it always was the case. In Britain, not so much now, but when I was, you know, when I was younger, I recall people, you know, the general view. about America, which was very disobliging, we remember, collectively, we remember how slow they were to come on board in the First World War and the Second World War. And then they came on, like, conquering heroes in the Second World War and said, we won it. And our boys and girls were dying. And they couldn't care less. Because exactly as you're saying, there is this Isolationist tendency has always been in America.

It's so enormous. They think they're invulnerable. They think they're a world entire unto themselves. You can kind of understand it. And it's only when something really cataclysmic happens to them, Pearl Harbor. Without Pearl Harbor, they wouldn't have got involved at all. Europe would have been left to the tender mercies of. 9-11, they woke up, and then they went back to sleep again,

because of the apparent disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iraq war. So you can understand why they retreated. But since then, you know, any responsible president would have told them, you know, if you're going to war, it's no small thing, to put it mildly. And you have to prepare your people. you have to take your people with you. You have to tell them why this is America's war. Why is it America's war?

Because Iran declared war on America in 1979 and has waged war ever since. It has killed hundreds and hundreds of Americans. What more evidence does anybody need? It says death to America. It means it. It is trying to build intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would be tipped with,

even if it's not tipped with nuclear weapons, could reach America. They already almost reached Diego Garcia, we saw. They're almost there. They're not building intercontinental ballistic missiles because they want to hit Israel. They're doing it for America. People don't believe that they think they can destroy America because they know that America won't fight. That's why they think they can destroy it, but they're building the armory. That's what, I mean, what more does America need? But Americans have never been told this. I mean, you know, Americans have lost hundreds and hundreds of their service people.

They've been totally humiliated, you know, the taking of the Iranian hostages, which, the Iran's taking of the hostages, which was the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency. It's all there in their immediate past history. But a response or president would have pulled this together and said, because circumstances have now become as they are, we now think through our intelligence and through our allies' intelligence, i.e. Israel, that they are within spitting distance of getting a nuclear weapon and even more important, they are about to have the capacity through

missile production, which means that we could never stop them getting a nuclear weapon. So we now judge this is the moment when we have to act. Because they are not just a threat to us, they have been at war with us for more than four decades. That's what he should have said. But isn't the problem, we go back 23 years to 2003 WMD, where essentially the American public, felt and they were right that they were light. And once that happened, that has a dementing effect on politics, on public discourse. Agreed. Agreed. I mean, I have a different view about the Iraq war.

I'm probably the last person on earth to think that it was a correct war to fight, and that if it hadn't been fought, we'd have now Saddam Hussein as a nuclear power. But anyway, and also I believe that there were WMD, and I believe that American incompetence lost them. It lost them and it couldn't admit it. But that's neither here nor there. What you're saying is correct. It was a debacle. Americans believed that they had fought it for nothing

and that it was a terrible mistake. It was hubris and nemesis. The hubris was to say, we'll bring democracy to the Middle East and then everything is going to be great. I would argue, sorry to interrupt, Melanie, that it's worse than that. When you talk to a lot of Americans,

they go, we were lied to. I know they believe they were lied to. And Britain believes, you know, Blair lied, people died. I know that's a belief. It's absolutely corrosive. Okay, so then what follows? So we'll never be involved in the Middle East ever again. That's really smart.

So then the Middle East says, okay, we can take them out now. I mean, what are they talking about? I agree with you. This is the problem. It requires political leadership. It requires statesmanship. to say, okay, now there is this problem that we have inherited from 2003, the debacle, but we are up against an Islamist world which intends to conquer us,

because it understands our weaknesses, and it will not stop. It will not stop. It thinks it's on the cusp of winning against us, and it's doing it in all kinds of different ways, but this is one of the ways it's doing it. And so we have, I, as the President of America, I have to tell people this is what we're facing. This is statesmanship. This is leadership. I mean, hello. Has nobody ever, does nobody remember what this is anymore?

Are people saying that's simply impossible? In which case, cheerio. It's over. I mean, I would argue that one of the problems is, we don't have that caliber of politician. and let's just be honest about it. That's no reason to say we shouldn't have them. I mean, we should be demanding that we do have them.

You get the politicians you deserve, Melanie. We also need to take responsibility, both the British public and the American public. You get the politicians you deserve. Well, yes, but, you know, again, it's a council of despair. Okay, I agree with you. We get the politicians we deserve. The society is going to hell on our handcart. We have rubbish politicians because it's a rubbish society.

Great, what are we doing now then? Say, oh, let's go and have a beer. What are you talking about? We have to change it. We have to protest. We have to demand. We have to say, wake up. Most people's understanding of Western civilization

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It's totally free. That's hillsdale.edu slash trigger. Look, Mel, you know how much I respect you. We've had on you on the show many times. But the, the, the, the, little flaw in everything that you're saying that I see, and I mean this with all sincerity and respect at the same time, is the moment I present to you the military reality as described by someone who is a military expert like Robert Pape, you say, well, I'm not a military expert, but ultimately what this comes down to is it's clear from this conflict, and it's clear from people like Robert Pape's analysis anyway prior to this conflict, which is why they were so against it at the beginning, is that the only way to win this war was always going to be the

Nazi Germany, the countries and ruins scenario. Okay. Because you can't remove the regime by bombing from the air. As you correctly say, and this is one of the things that, you know, I think President Trump has done some very, very good things for America and the world, actually. But on this issue, I'm horrified, telling Iranians to rise up and then the cavalry doesn't arrive. Terrible.

It's a terrible thing to have happened. Agreed. So, but the reason all of these things are happening, as I am most persuaded by, I can only give you my logic based on the conversations we've had at this time, is that there was no way of overthrowing the regime by bombing, the people rising up, and even if they were somewhat armed, also extremely unlikely. And so ultimately, you would end up putting boots on the ground, that escalates, and you are in a full-scale, 10-year war that ends inevitably like Vietnam, right? Now, the other factor here is we're not in the position even that we were in in 2003. The debt that our countries are all running is such that we basically can't afford the standards of living we currently have. And so in a democratic society, none of these things are sustainable. And therefore, I mean it again, with all respect, you strike me as being a bit utopian here,

which is very unlike the Melanie Phillips I know and love. Well, it was utopian to think we should have, you know, fought the Nazis. People said it was just ridiculous. You can't do it. But anyway, listen, the original war aims were not regime change. I mean, certainly as far as the Israelis were concerned, and certainly President Trump never said regime change. What were the goals?

The Israelis said it would be very nice if we weakened Iran to such an extent that the people then could do this. And we think we can. We think we can. But our immediate goal is to neutralize the nuclear threat completely and to neutralize the ballistic threat completely, right? Now, they got part of the way with both of those things. They didn't finish it. They didn't finish it.

And also the proxies, the proxies. People would argue they didn't finish it because you can't. You can't do it from there. I mean, the U.S. own assessment is the missile program is still largely intact because you can't do it from the air. And that's why you need boots on the ground, and that's why you get escalation, and that's why you get into a trap. Hence, look, the difference with Nazi Germany was that this was a regime that was aggressively expanding into our backyard. It was destroying our allies right here. Right. And Britain held out long enough for a, Hitler

to do something very stupid, which was invade the Soviet Union. There may be good reasons why he did it actually in terms of he was about to be invaded himself, and for the US to get involved in the war. And Britain's heroic stand during the Battle of Britain is what allowed the rest of the Western world to come together and defeat them. But the question always was, in this situation, do we have the appetite to do what we did in World War II in this instance? That's right.

And I don't think that it's just an equal comparison, because let's be honest, for all of us in the West, this is very, very far away. Oh, dear. It's not, of course, it's far away. That's, that's, that's the problem, isn't it? It's far away. There are Iranians in London, in Britain, who are threatening and making plots, which are security, which the British security service is busily trying to get on top of. They're here. They're in Britain. They're in America. They tried to kill President Trump twice. They tried to kill John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. They are waging war now.

They're not far away. And they're making sure through their ballistic missile program that, or trying to make sure, that they are not far away in terms of, in terms of military capacity. But, I mean, I have a different perspective. because I live mainly in Israel. And the Israelis have said throughout that they were, well, the impression that they have given me, certainly, is that with America behind them,

or at the very least, not stopping them, they could achieve this, not regime change. they could achieve the permanent defeat of Iran as a threat, a military threat, but they haven't finished a job. They've left it, you know, like half done or three-quarters done. You don't leave a war, three-quarters done. But the fact is they can achieve, they think, what they are doing. Now, you've talked to people on your show, and there is no shortage of people saying the kind of things that you've been talking about. But there's also no shortage of military people saying the opposite. Well, I'm not a military expert.

I can't tell. Well, I do know is that it's a counsel of despair to say, and to surefire defeat for Western civilization, to say this thing is just too big for us. Let me give you a counter argument, which is the Russians are basically doing all the exact same things in Britain. They're poisoning people on our streets, they're killing British citizens.

They've done all this. And we've been very cowardly about it. nonetheless. But no one is calling for us to, you know, bomb Russia into the ground, even though they've invaded Ukraine, right? Because we recognize the reality that Russia has a nuclear weapon, and that means that it... That's right. Like it, like it or not... It's a nuclear force. But the Strait of Amurz, effectively, has turned out to be Iran's nuclear weapon, that they have wielded against the West so powerfully that we don't have a counter that we're prepared to use. But we do. Which is what? It's on the ground, which leads to escalation. You blockade

the Iranian ports. But you're cutting off your own legs. You use their weapon against them. You use their weapon against them. But they're prepared to take the pen and we aren't. Well, they are and they aren't. They are in the sense that they're prepared ultimately, I believe, to sacrifice the entire country and themselves because they're bringing about whatever. Yep. But they also want to defeat America. And so they are, they, they want to be able to continue to, they want to be able to continue in order to continue, in order to continue to do that.

So the, the, the blockade weapon was having an effect. You know, they're not going to sort of going to say, well, you know, it's, it's our, it's our, it's our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our roll on this earth to all basically get exterminated, and so we don't care anymore. I mean, they are in the business of trying to destroy America in the West. That's what they intend to do. So I think that, you know, the American weapons of leverage

are not to be sneezed at. It all boils down to the will to do it, which isn't there. If the will to do it isn't there, then Iran wins. Coming back to the Israelis, they are always in the business of mowing the lawn, as I say. And the only reason they've done that is because the world has always stopped them from doing what they needed to do.

Always. After every single war, the world has made... Israel snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And that is just a fact. The pressure put on Israel by America through even friendly presidents is always more or less intense. But basically, Israel cannot be allowed to get in the way of America's perception of its own foreign policy interests or national interests. So that's, you know, I think, something to bear in mind.

But as I say, you know, living in Israel, you get a very, very different perspective because Israel is under permanent attack from Iran, this at the moment through Hezbollah in Lebanon. And, you know, the Israelis are, despite the catastrophe of October 7, where the entire political and military upper echelons of Israel got it so terribly, terribly wrong. Their analysis was so flawed. But that's another story. But nevertheless, you know, they are, to put it mildly, battle-hardened. And they have always been confident that they can literally bring Iran to its needs, the regime,

if they're allowed to do so. And instead of using that as the great weapon and the Israelis are prepared to lay down their lives for this and Americans are not, okay, Israelis will do that, but they have to be allowed to do it. And they're not. So this to me is, it's not just defeatism, it's more kind of suicidal. Well, you say that, Melanie, but isn't, I mean, look, what you say makes perfect sense from an Israeli perspective. makes perfect sense. And if I were Israeli or the Israeli Prime Minister, that's how I'd be thinking. But this is not a war for Israel. Well, hold on a second. This is a war for America and the West.

I know you say that, but what I'm trying to... It's true. Melody, let me just explain what I'm saying, because you've got to separate these things, right? You're saying the West doesn't allow Israel to... America doesn't allow Israel to do what it needs to do, which is true, objectively true, from an Israeli perspective. It doesn't allow Israel to do what Israel needs to do. But it's not random. It's not by accident. The reason that Trump in this instance is gone to negotiations is he was always on a clock. He's discovered that he put himself in an escalation trap in which America is not prepared to bear the pain that it would require to quote

you to let Israel do what Israel needs to do. And there are a lot of people in America who might say, well, we understand that Israel needs to do this, and we are happy for Israel to do what Israel wants to do, but we're not prepared to pay the cost of that, because on a rational calculation, it is not worth it to us. And I'll be honest with you, if I was sitting on a porch of my nice house in Ohio, I would struggle to be persuaded by your argument. I really would. And that's why I think America, a lot of Americans are... Because on your portion in Ohio, you would have no idea why it was important for America. You would have no idea this is actually a war for the free world.

You would think it was simply a war for Israel. Or I'm saying it's a war for Israel at all. I'm saying Israel is the great military resource for America. To achieve what? To achieve defense against a regime that intends to take it out. But Iran will, even if Iran had a nuclear weapon, so wouldn't be able to. to take out America. Well, okay.

Okay, America, if Iran were to attack America, America would destroy Iran in a day. Yeah. Okay. But does anyone really want that to happen? No. Well, what I'm saying is from an American perspective, the calculation might be even as unpleasant as it is,

and I don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon, it's, we'll tolerate Iran having nuclear weapons over having to flatten the entire country to get rid of this regime? Well, if it's prepared to tolerate Iran having a nuclear weapon, it has no idea what it's dealing with, because it's not North Korea, it is not Russia, bad as they are, and paralyzing as they are, as we can all see, because the world can't do anything,

neither of them is an apocalyptic messianic regime which will use these weapons to destroy the West. Now, people in Britain, I can see your faces. You don't believe it. Believe it. Believe it. That's what they are.

And Americans do not understand that. The British, certainly. They have no idea about it. I first said this on national television in 2013, and there was uproar in the studio. Nobody can believe it. And that's where we are where we are. People think, oh, you have a negotiation, and they gives you a bit, and you give them a bit, and then everybody goes home.

You're not dealing with Russia. You're bad as it is. You're not dealing with North Korea, terrible as it is. You're not dealing with China, terrible as it is. You're dealing with something different. There'll be people watching this, Melanie, and look, I have a lot of empathy for your position who will say, is the reason that you're saying this because you're terrified of Iran having a nuclear weapon, because it threats that it presents to Israel more directly.

That's because I'm a Jew and everybody will say, and she lives in Israel. And so, I mean, this is the J.D. Vance, this is the, this is the Groypers, this is Tucker Carlson, that the Jews only behave as they do in their own interests and put the rest of us at risk. This is, I'm not saying you're saying that. But this is the argument that it's coming. No, this is not fair. People, no, it is fair. No, it's true.

This isn't fair. We're talking about states, right? It's perfectly rational for the state of Israel to pursue a foreign and military policy that benefits the state of Israel. And it is. And there's nothing wrong with that. What people are saying is it's not necessarily the case that the interest of Israel and the interest of other Western countries are always a lie. Of course not. And so what I think Francis is what I think Francis is saying in this instance is that the argument that an Israeli would see it.

You say yourself, I live in Israel, I see it from a different perspective. Of course you do. And that's perfectly rational for an Israeli to think. But I think this alliance is being stressed by the fact that the interests are not perfectly aligned. And I think that's natural in any alliance. And sometimes you come to a point whether the needs and preferences of the two countries are not the same. And so when Iran closes the straight-offermost, that hurts America and President Trump as an individual, far more than it hurts BB Netanyahu

on the state of Israel. And so for America and President Trump to sustain that damage to their reputation, to their political prospects, to all sorts of other things, in order to benefit Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel... That's the problem.

That's where you're falling into the trap. It's not to benefit Benjamin Netanyahu. It's to benefit... The issue of the Strait of Hormuz is that it's... that it gives Iran a weapon against the West, which is what it's fighting. You don't appreciate,

you don't seem to appreciate, that it is a war against America and the West in which Israel is a very crucial element for Iran and for America. Iran perceives correctly that Israel is the greatest threat to it because it knows that Israel will use its massive firepower against it, given half the chance. So it's very frightened of Israel, and it will not do anything to provoke Israel hitting it, okay? And it is undoubtedly in Israel's interests, for obvious reasons, to defeat an enemy which threatens to wipe it off the map. We're all in agreement about that. But my point is

that as a result of that, people can't see beyond the Israel thing, and they can't see that Israel is the essential weapon for the defense of America and the free world against Iran. They can't see it that way around. They get hung up on the fact that, you know, it's the benefit. The Strait of Hormuz issue doesn't hurt Israel. It hurts America. Well, actually, doesn't hurt America as much as it hurts Europe, but put that perhaps one side. Sure.

So it doesn't hurt Netanyahu. So, of course, Israel is not, you know, is not bothered. But the Strait of Hormuz is a weapon by Iran against the free world. It's not against Israel. It's against America. But they're using that weapon because of a war that is being fought partly for Israel. No. It's not being fought partly for Israel.

It's being fought for Israel because if Israel were to go down, America is next. America sees Israel as its indispensable, forward safety. its unsinkable aircraft carrier is how they describe it. Israel is essential to the defense of America and the free world. That's why America is interested in saving Israel, not because they love Jews. Many of them do not love Jews as we are increasingly seeing. It's in the American national interest that Israel remains in existence and able to fight, to fight, because it's fighting for itself, of course. But if Israel were heaven forbid to be obliterated,

America is then undefended in the Middle East, and America is next. We have an Islamist war being waged against the free world in very many non-kinetic ways in terms of cultural, whatever, fine. But also in kinetic ways. And Iran is the tip of that, of that, of that, Sinitar, as it were. And it's just awful to me that people just get so hung up on this idea that, you know, it's all about Israel. To a certain extent, it is all about Israel because if Israel were not to be there, America is next. America depends on Israel to defend itself. This war is being fought in defense of Israel for Israel's own purpose.

of course, to prevent itself from being annihilated. But if Israel were annihilated, America is next, and that's why America defends Israel. That's the only reason America defends Israel. It's not quite true because evangelical Christians love Israel for biblical reasons, blah, blah, blah. But nevertheless, it's perceived to be in America's national interest. It's essential that Israel continues to exist. It's that way around. And so, you know, yes, of course, the interests of Israel don't completely correspond to the interests of America.

No one's interests completely correspond. I mean, the Allies in the Second World War. Very much not the same. But they all basically had one interest, which was to defeat Nazi Germany. Right? It's the same thing. It should be the same thing. I think the other challenge that Israel faces is the public.

perception challenge, particularly amongst young people, particularly in America. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Well, this is, you know, I mean, this is, in large measure, there are many things contributing to that. But in large measure, it's the way in which Israel has been framed, presented, I mean, by being, by saying framed, presented over the last several decades, by the entire establishment that creates a cultural consensus. And the opposing view has not been advanced. Why hasn't it been advanced? A lot of that is to do with the truly pathetic nature of Israel

in trying to put its case across. It doesn't. It doesn't. For all kinds of reasons, it doesn't. And Jewish communities in the way, have not put it either, partly because they're frightened, they've always been frightened, and partly because they themselves are ignorant or signed up to ideologies that hate Israel. But basically, you have a whole apparatus which is the apparatus which passes for conscience now in the West.

You know, this is basically, okay, America is religious still. But nevertheless, in Europe, in particular, Britain and Europe, you know, these are post-religious societies. And the nearest thing you have to morality and conscience is the whole humanitarian, human rights establishment, UN, United Nations, which stands for peace and justice on earth, and all its satellite bodies and its courts, and the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights and the whole human rights establishment, and the great NGOs who stand for compassion, delivering aid to the oppressed, standing up for the oppressed amnesty, human rights watch, Oxfam, save the children. You know, it's almost a sort of no-brainer. It's axiomatic. If you are, you know, the sort of middle-aged,

elderly, gray-haired lady who has been carted off from Palestine action support demonstrations, you can see it in their faces. They're upstanding their church. their church wardens. This is conscience. They've been taught as a matter of conscience that Israel is diabolically evil. So the support of the destruction of Israel and the hatred of Israel and Israelis as diabolical, demonic, is now what passes for conscience in the West. This is the terrible, terrible reality we're up against. And there is nobody.

in public life, apart from heroic individuals or podcasts putting the case, there is nobody actually to say this is completely monstrous. This is completely monstrous. This whole thing is based on a set of lies.

You know, there's rampant anti-Semitism, we can see. Jews are being murdered. Jews are being attacked. In Britain, elsewhere, there has not been a single politician to stand up and say, this whole thing that is gripping the West against Israel and the Jews is based on a lie. And this is the lie. They won't say it. Markerubia has come very

close, actually. He has come very close, but he's constrained by the fact he's, you know, he's, yes, but he has come close. But I mean, who in Britain thinks about Marco Rubio? He's only, you know, a dreadful Trumpist, Licksbittal, whatever, he's part of the axis of genocide, isn't he? I mean, you know, but there's nobody in Britain saying it. Yeah. It's also Israel doesn't help itself. Oh, and, you know, for instance, having Ben-Gavir and some of the things that he says...

Forget Ben-Govir. This goes back decades. They will not make the case. They will not make the case. But I'm saying the likes of having Ben-Gavir... It doesn't help. It doesn't help. Because people can just easily go, this is what he said on a speech, how can you possibly defend it? And then you read it and you go, it is in defense. Well, right, it's not that far of what the Muller's saying, right, in terms of the way he says it. Can you explain to people, when we had Netanyahu on, we challenged him about this?

Oh, yeah. And I'm aware that people like us who don't understand Israeli politics very well. We try and compare British parliamentary democracy to Israeli democracy, so we don't quite understand how people with very different views can be in the same cabinet. etc. But why do you have these like genuinely odious people in Netanyahu's cabinet? Because, I'm afraid, there are other genuinely odious people also who are in the cabinet because Israel is a fundamentally politically, Israel is a political basket case. It is totally politically dysfunctional. It depends on a system of of proportional representation so extreme that it produces major dysfunction in that it produces

coalitions in which every prime minister is absolutely dependent to gain power on awful people being with him, basically. And what they need is political reform. But it means that Netanyahu is dependent on a whole, forget Ben-Gavirin and Smotrich, although they are doing. different from each other. They always classed together, but they are different. He's dependent on the ultra-religious, and this is another discussion, but the ultra-religious have him over a barrel, because if they were to walk out, he is finished. I'm not sure about Ben-Govir and Smotritschak. I mean, the whole thing is so arcane in terms of numbers, but certainly the people that he always depends on, are the ultra-Orthodox, the ultra-religious. And to put it mildly,

they do not appeal to the vast majority of Israelis, not least because they refuse to allow their own boys to be drafted into the army. And can you imagine? People are losing their sons and their daughters, and these people are refusing to serve. And the Prime Minister refuses to act against them. So there are other examples that I could bring of a severe dysfunctionality in which all kinds of people, people with all kinds of noxious agendas are in government. Now, it is, well, you know, it's, it's, it's just like, you know, Israel is a scapegoat for the world. So, you know, the Benghavirs and Smotritches are the scapegoat because they're not, not, not, They're not running the policy.

What people object to is what people are objecting to is Jewish power. They object to the fact that Israel is powerful. They don't think it should be powerful. They just don't. I think there's definitely some people who object to Israel being powerful, but there's also some people who just look at a senior minister and a government saying these horrific things. But they don't know anything else.

That's all they see. Why is that they all they see? Because that's what I'm afraid the Israeli media bring out. I don't know if that's fair, Melanie. I mean, look, if someone in the British campus, were saying those same things or in the American administration saying those things, people would be horrified and they would be rightly, I think, asking how come this person is there, still there, saying these things over and over.

And, you know, Smotritsch and Ben-Givier, I mean, they take a delight, clearly. Ben-Givir does. Ben-Govir takes a delight at least in saying all these horrific things, taking these, you know, obnoxious photo opportunities, etc. I agree. I think, you know, there is some very normal things. sensible people who look at that and are horrified without fearing Jewish power or Israeli power. But why did they use that to damn the whole of Israel and the whole of the Israeli government

and everything the Israeli government is doing and Jews who support Israel? I'll tell you why. I mean, is that really rational? There are some people who are just anti-Semitic, of course. There are other some people who are anti-Israel, of course there are. But there's also some people who, like I said, if you're in the middle of the Iraq war, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom stood up and said, we need to wipe Iraqis out as a tribe or something like that.

A lot of people who are not anti-British, who would be like, what the fuck is going on here? Well, yes, but again, it's decontextualized. I mean, Ben-Gavir is, you know, he's a flamethrower. Terrible. But what people always ignore is that the people he's talking about are determined to eradicate Israel.

nobody ever mentions that. Nobody ever mentions that. If somebody in the British government cabinet were to say, exterminate these people, everybody would say, you know, how can they possibly have that person in the cabinet? Okay, if somebody were to say, exterminate them because they are trying to exterminate us,

everybody might say, well, that's, you know, that's terrible, that's extreme. But you can see, you know, he's driven to say that by these circumstances. Nobody ever puts this in context. Israel and its politicians are always, always presented in this country in Britain as aggressors, as people who don't care about human life, as people who will mow down the innocent. And the whole of Israel is defamed by this. I think you make a good point in that everybody in the West is sitting in the comfort of their own homes that are not being bombarded by missiles that are not experiencing invasions like October 7th, etc.

But I do think these far ultra-right people in the cabinet is for reasonable people is a separate issue, which is I fully appreciate as much as anyone can without actually living through it, that Israel is dealing with a horrific, external threat. And it's, and I've said this before. I was, you know, I hope if I was the Prime Minister of Israel, I'd hope I'd be as restrained as Benjamin Netanyahu to October 7th. I don't know that I would be. Precisely, precisely. But that does not explain why you have these crazy people in the cabinet saying these things. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You're right, but you're wrong. Okay. That'll be the title of the episode. I mean, I'm old enough to remember in 1982, Ben-Gavir and Smotrich were nothing. They weren't around.

And out of the woodwork in Britain came the accusation that because the Israelis were trying to defend themselves, probably I can't remember now the details of that war in Lebanon. It's always a war in Lebanon. But they were trying to defend themselves against being exterminated by these people in Lebanon, or threatened with extermination or attacked, blown up. Suddenly, out of the woodwork, Israelis were called Nazis, in terms. There was no Smotridge. There was no Bengavir.

They were Israelis. It doesn't matter who's in the Israeli cabinet. There is a strong swell of feeling, which has been swelling and swelling and swelling in Britain and in the West, to defame and to cast Israel. as uniquely, a uniquely demonic force in the world. And that obtains as a view and has swelled as a view, regardless of who is the prime minister, regardless of who is in the cabinet,

regardless of anything Israel is doing, if Israel tries to defend itself by killing the enemy, that's it, they're Nazis. So, you know, don't tell me that it's because of Benghavir and Smotridge. loathsome as they may be. It's irrelevant. People in this country hate Israel because they have been taught lies, defamatory lies, which have poisoned the entire atmosphere and have basically made them lose their minds over the state of Israel. And that is a terribly serious situation, not just because of what it means in terms of policy towards Israel or attitudes towards Jews, but what it means about

what's happened to the British mind, to the British mind that it can no longer distinguish in truth and lies, and that its sense of morality, its sense of conscience, has been linked to the extermination of a country for daring to defend itself. That is a terrible thing. I'm sure you would agree. Absolutely. Of course you would. Melanie, it's been a pleasure as always. Thank you for coming on the show and for having, you know, in modeling to the world a disagreement done in good faith. Final question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Oh my goodness. You didn't tell me that was coming. What's the one thing we should be talking about?

You've been on the show about 704 times. I can't remember your trick questions. What's the one thing we should be talking about we're not talking about? Okay, the need to get back to biblical religion. How's that? Sounds good. Yep. Next installment. All right. Head on over to Trigopod.com.com.uker, where Melanie is going to answer. your questions. Melanie, can you please explain why prominent British journalists are so openly ignoring the mounting

evidence of the behaviour of radical Islam?