TRIGGERnometry - Israel vs Iran - Matthew Syed

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

Matthew Syed is the author of Rebel Ideas, Columnist for The Times & The Sunday Times, as well as a presenter on BBC Radio 4's Sideways. | Follow Matthew on X: https://x.com/matthewsyed Footage from "The untold story of the Iran-Iraq war's frontline children - BBC World Service Documentaries": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHZRvpuW8QM The IAEA report - https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-24.pdf SPONSOR. Sponsored by Venice AI: Enjoy private, uncensored AI with our sponsor https://venice.ai/triggernometry - use code TRIGGERNOMETRY to get 20% off a pro plan SPONSOR. Try Evening Being by Verso. Get 15% with code TRIGGER at https://ver.so Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Introduction 06:39 Is This Just Like Iraq? 13:25 There Was Always Going To Be Conflict Between Iran and Israel 20:32 What Happens To Iran When You Get Rid Of The Regime? 24:36 Is There Potential For This To Start WW3? 30:07 How Many Young People Are Willing To Fight For The US And UK? 37:50 Is Israel Going Too Far In Gaza? 01:00:06 The Rabid Hate Of Jews Across The Arab World Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So why do I say that the regime in Tehran is not subject to that mutually assured destruction doctrine? The reason is because they're religious fanatics. And moreover, they glorify martyrdom. I was 10 years old when the Iraq-Iran war ignited. And a lot of people don't seem to know about the 20,000 child martyrs who are indoctrinated to walk and sometimes run into minefields. against machine gun fire to clear a path for the adult military coming in behind. How is flattening Gaza making Israel more safe when the funders are in Tehran hundreds of miles away?

The most important thing, I think, for Israel, is to isolate Iran, the head of the state. If they got a nuclear weapon, it is likely they would use it. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means that you. you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing.

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Please for the love of everything good, this world. Stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Matthew Saeed, welcome back to Trigonometry. You were on only a couple months ago. We had a great conversation, but you since wrote an article in which you talked about the fact that as a friend of Israel, you were becoming very concerned than what they were doing in Gaza

gone too far, effectively. We invited you on to talk about that, but in the meantime, Israel is also attacked Iran. And then you wrote an article saying, basically, this is the right thing for Israel to be doing, which I imagine is a fairly uncommon position. People seem to treat Israel and Palestine and other things, kind of like a football match. You know, their team can do no wrong, the other team can do no good. But you've actually got a new one's perspective on it. So it's great to have you back.

Welcome back. Thanks for having me. So break all of that down for us. You know, why did you write the first article? Why did you write the second one? We'll have a good discussion about it. Well, thanks for having me back. I really enjoyed the last one and was shocked at the number of people

who came up to me in the weeks after saying that they'd seen it and enjoyed it. So it's great to be back. Let's perhaps start with Iran, which I think it's worth saying is not a regime that is likely to be subject to the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction

is what prevents people with nuclear bombs from initiating a first strike because they worry that in the counter-strike they will be eliminated. So it's a very strong doctrine that even though there are nuclear weapons in the world, we have not yet, thankfully, be subject to a nuclear holocaust. And it's worth saying that even a relatively small nuclear conflict,

like between Pakistan and India, which almost flared up recently, would not be localized. It would lead to a nuclear winter that would affect farming around the world in could kill hundreds of millions. We don't think enough about that risk. So why do I say that the regime in Tehran is not subject to that mutually assured destruction doctrine.

The reason is because they're religious fanatics. They believe that they have absolute truth, many of them, in the regime, and that anyone who disagrees with them, by implication, are infidels, and, moreover, they glorify martyrdom. They believe that if they can take out infidels, they will go through a door into heaven and be blessed for eternity. I might have mentioned in the previous podcast that my father was born as a Shia Muslim.

Most of his family are moderates, as are many Muslims around the world, but there are a few that are fundamentalists and believed that my father was an apostate and that he deserved to die. I've looked people like this in the eyes, and I know that they are implacable. In those circumstances,

in fact, one other bit of context, if I may briefly, I was 10 years old when, the Iraq-Iran war ignited, and for obvious reasons I took quite a deep interest in that war. And a lot of people don't seem to know about the 20,000 child martyrs, who are indoctrinated by the fanatics and the clerics who took over after the 79 revolution, to believe that the greatest duty they could perform for Allah was to walk and sometimes run into minefields and up against machine gunfire, to clear a path for them. adult military coming in behind, and they died, their limbs strewn across battlefields, and they

were then glorified in government propaganda, held up as icons of the revolution. And young people, and I've got a 10 and 11 and 12 year old children, are so influenceable, impressionable. And the fact that the people who are supposed to protect them, indoctrinated them into what is effectively a death cult, seems to me very good evidence. In addition, to all the more contemporaneous stuff, the repression of women, the killing of people of homosexual, the funding of genocidal proxies that are committed to the elimination of Israel tells me that if they got a nuclear weapon, it is likely they would use it. Let's not forget Ahmadinejad said that Israel was a skirt that should be wiped from the pages of history.

The supreme leader called it a cancer. And I could envision an aging fanatical leader initiating a first strike and then looking at the radar screen and seeing the inevitable response in which that person would die in thinking I am closer to Allah. I don't think that that is true of Vladimir Putin. I don't think Putin is prepared to die

for his ideology. He's a venal corrupt leader of the old school. He's worth billions. He had a Black Sea palace. He's got a young girlfriend. He wants to live. I think the same is true of North Korea. the North Korean leader, with his Harim and his looted opulence, it is not true of religious fundamentalists who glorify martyrdom. That's a long first answer, but that is why I think,

even though I have severe reservations about what Israel has done in Gaza, very, very severe reservation, we can talk about it. We will. I do really want to say that when they operationalize against the regime in Iran, not the people of Iran, 70% of people in Iran, hate the regime. They've been emiserated. GD.D. Pupil capita is like $4,000 compared to $50,000 plus in Israel, a progressive capitalist, free society. I think right-minded people should support them, given what we know about uranium enrichment. Well, that's where I was going to go next, because I see a lot of people who haven't looked into this, or perhaps you have, making the argument that, look, this is just another regime-change war. We've heard all

these arguments before. This is just like Iraq. It's WMD. They, you know, they don't have a nuclear weapon. This is just Israel using the opportunity to go after somebody they've been wanting to go after for a long time. So what is, you know, lay out your concerns about the nuclear weapons program? It's categorically different. I opposed the war in Iraq. I thought Afghanistan was probably a mistake because I don't think we had a clear idea of what would happen to either of these places after an invasion. The CIA thought that Iraq would welcome democracy. It would become a Jeffersonian liberal state, not realizing the deep clan divisions in Iraq would almost certainly lead to civil war, notwithstanding the Sunni-Shear divisions. So I can understand

why people are concerned, as am I, and probably you, about what might happen if the regime falls in Iran. However, the counterfactual here is nuclear weapons, potentially nine or 10 nuclear devices being held by a millinarian cult that is committed to the destruction of Israel and calls America the great Satan. Remember what I said earlier, a nuclear war of that kind, even if it occurred between Israel and Iran, would kill hundreds of millions of people around the world. It's why I find the American first doctrine, sensible doctrine in many ways, but you have intricate global supply chains around the world which furnishes America with all of the material wealth that they've grown accustomed to. They're not isolated from what will

happen there, neither are they from what's happening in Ukraine, but a nuclear war would be catastrophic. So in those circumstances, I do think that this is different. It's an order of magnitude, two orders of magnitude, different to either Iraq or Afghanistan. But what's the evidence is what people will say? Because, you know, if it's just Benjamin Netanyahu saying they're close to get nuclear weapons, that's not persuasive to a lot of people. Well, you will have read, I think, probably the International Atomic Agency. I'm just getting you to say it.

No, sure, sure. I can see, I'm doing it all the way. But this is, I did read it in full. it's a 20-odd page document and you will know that these are effectively civil servants who are paid to inspect and offer a point of view

and obviously they have incentives too do they not? They don't want to miss Iran's building of a nuclear weapon and then be blamed in the future for one of the great calamities to have befallen the earth. Neither do they want to be if we do invade and they haven't caught quite as close as we had thought with the WMD in Iraq. They don't want to be held

responsible for that. So I think you read it in full. think about what their incentives are and then try and get a sense of what they're really trying to say. And I invite anyone to read it because I think they'll come to the same conclusion that I did, which is that Iran, they say explicitly are in breach of their obligations and non-nuclear proliferation,

that they have been deceiving and dissembling for a very long time and that they can't account for some of the enriched uranium that they think Iran has made. I think what they're telling us is that Iran, this is a big, complex country with complex terrain. I think what they're saying is they can't discount the possibility

that they're reasonably close. How we define imminent is probably quite difficult. But in those circumstances, I can certainly see why Israel, with the air defences down, with what they've done, with Hezbollah, taking this opportunity to try and get rid of that threat once and for all. Matthew, there is a clip that is doing the rounds of Tulsi Gabbard, who's head of national security under the Trump administration,

on the 25th of March addressing the Senate saying that Iran did not have nuclear weapons. The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program. And there will be a lot of people going, well, that's somebody incredibly high, under the Trump administration saying that, what's going on there?

Yeah, I did see. I did see that, but the evidence may have changed between then and now. It's a very fast-moving situation. I suspect what has happened is that Israel say they have intelligence. I mean, viewers will say, well, they would say that. But remember, this is an independent group of people. And as I say, they have incentives. So they must be very difficult to write those reports because what I've noticed over the last 408 hours is those who don't want there to be conflict to take in out sentences and those who think

there should be a take it. I think read it as a whole and get a sense and then weigh that up against what it would mean if this fanatical group got hold of the weapons and then I think the logic of what Israel is doing makes perfect sense. Because I think another thing that people don't really understand is the Gaza situation

is obviously tragic and awful but it's a glorified proxy war That is a war between effectively Iran and Israel. It's just Iran are funding Hamas and they're funding Hezbollah as well in Lebanon in order to create this situation. So it could be argued that this is Israel just simply going to the source of the conflict. Exactly. I mean, this is one of the great ironies of the Middle East is that Iran has assembled the whole range of proxies. And its interest is in Israel fighting with them. because that diminishes Israel's strength.

It's very expensive, the Iron Dome. When they shoot down rockets, it costs tens of thousands, a rocket that's being fired in only a few hundred dollars. And so it's very asymmetric in terms of the financial ramifications for the two parties. And by outsourcing all of this to the proxies, they don't care about the lives being lost in these proxies. They don't care about innocent lives. And I feel to go to Constantine's very legitimate question

that Israel was playing into the hands of Iran after the October the 7th atrocity by flattening Gaza and alienating global public opinion in a way that has really shattered Israel's reputation into a million pieces. Do you mind if we park that and just stick with an arm for now? I really want to have that conversation, but fully rather.

So let's stick with Israel just for the moment. We'll come back to it, I promise you. So the question was always going to be this situation was fundamentally unsustainable. It's unsustainable to have Iran and Israel in close proximity because Iran was going to do whatever it could in order to destabilise Israel. And that was not going, that couldn't carry on long term.

So something was always going to happen if we're being brutally honest about the situation. That's right. That's right. And there were two ways. Well, three ways this could have been resolved. One, Naftali benefit, Bennett, forgive me, the former Israeli Prime Minister. I met a few former PMs whilst in Israel in February.

I think he was probably the most impressive of the lot. His doctrine was, you have to go after the, he called it the head of the octopus. You have all these tentacles around the Middle East and we're going after the tips of the tentacles. It's doing nothing. And the source of the problem is still in play. And he and Barak and Olmeh,

all of them looked at the possibility of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. But they're very deep underground. worried about the ramifications of Middle East and the relationship with America, which obviously is the ultimate guarantor of Israel's security. And they rejected it. Bennett argued that I don't think the analogy quite works, but I'll tell you what he said, that during the Cold War, there were a number of proxy conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States.

But the United States was very sophisticated and fermenting those elements in the Warsaw, pact countries that were anti the regime in Poland, in Czechoslovakia and beyond. And this gradually weakened the core of the Soviet Union. And he said that there are lots of covert things that could have been done to undermine the Iranian regime. So, for example, they turn the internet off when there are protests against the regime. And that obviously takes away a lot of the fuel for agitation. He said, we can go in there and get Starlink and get it.

it up so that people can do it. And he had a whole range of other mechanisms that could covertly and relatively inexpensively go after the regime and that it might then fall. The other way, of course, is what Netanyahu is doing, which is actually going after them with the full frontal assault. And the other

is a status quo where you hope that at the time, which the Iran nuclear deal would deter them from going to higher levels of enrichment. But you're right. You know, two of those are not optimal. In fact, all of them are suboptimal, but in the real world,

you have to take the best of the bad option. And before we move on, I guess... Well, I have some more about this as well, so you carry it. Before we move on, I think it's worth asking as well. How fragile is the Iranian regime? Because it always appears to the outside layman that these regimes are strong and powerful, and then literally overnight they tend to fall.

Is that a possibility with the Iranian regime, or is there a stranglehold on power simply too strong? It's a very interesting question. One thing that has struck me about Western foreign policy in the post-war era, and we may have discussed this when we briefly debated the concept of diversity, is that the analysts were too monolithic. They were almost all white, middle class,

Ivy League and Oxford's graduates, trying to make sense of nations of which they really had no idea, particularly the tribal and clan dynamics. So Iran, forgive me, Iraq, a classic example, Afghanistan. They had no idea that you've got the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, have been fighting for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The animosity is absolutely vast there. The Taliban were effectively a Pashtun organization.

And that's why they recruited so many Pashtuns to what they were saying because they could go after the Uzbeks and the Tajiks. We didn't see any of that. We thought the Taliban would fall or all would be okay. With Iran, as it happens, I've spent the last 48 hours trying to drill down into the structure of Iranian society. I don't think there's enough evidence out there. I'm not heard enough. We do know about the – so this is the ethnic dimensions.

We know that there are ethnic minorities. I think it's about 70% Persian and there are other ethnic groups there. But the clan structures and some of the other things I think are worth thinking about. On the regime itself, polling – which is. I think is reasonably credible, says that 70% of the people disapprove. I think a lot of them absolutely detests the regime. Think about it. This is a resource-rich society with an ancient history, extraordinary civilization. And I think I mentioned earlier, GDP per capita is $4,000. That is shocking. And part of the reason for that, of course, is the sanctions. They'd much rather

have sanctions and continue going for nuclear enrichment because they're fanatics, these people. So I suspect it might be brittle. But there is a second-order question of what replaces the power vacuum. And we tend, I think, in the West to be optimistic that something will replace it that will be pluralistic and enlightened. And it hasn't always turned out that way. And I want to read much more deep. I would recommend you bring on somebody who is really deeply immersed in the social

and ethnic structure of Iranian society. That was what was missing in the Afghani and Iraqi invasions. Well, we had Ali Ansari on, who was very good on that very thing to talk about it when there was the potential for revolution in Iran a while back, if you might remember.

So people can go and watch that. If you're someone who values free inquiry and independent thinking, which let's be honest is why you're probably watching trigonometry, then our sponsor, Venice AI, is the tool for you. Here's a hot take. AI is exploding right now. But seriously, most of the tools out there are just clones with slightly different skins. Venice AI is different. It offers uncensored AI chat, images, and coding. Why should a team of programmers at these leading AI apps be the ones who get to decide what is and isn't okay for you to think?

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And now, back to the show. I certainly will not consider myself an expert on this issue or the region at all, but logically, as I'm hearing everything you're saying, it all makes perfect sense and what Francis is saying, etc. But that is the worry because you could say, well, look, the regime of fanatics, yes, they're enriching uranium, they've got 400 kilograms. of uranium at 60% and they're using 20% to make the 60%

that's very worrying and they've got an active ballistic missile program which is how you deliver the nuclear weapons if you ever build them. I get all that, they're fanatics, but what happens when you get rid of them? And this is where perhaps again, as you say, people who

know more about this would be able to weigh in, perhaps the difference is with previous conflicts that the Iranians had a period, an extent, period of time when actually it was free. It was fairly liberal, certainly by the standards of the region under the Shah, for 24, 26 years maybe, from, I think, 53 to 79. So Iranian women are so horrified by the impositions of the moral police on the now because they have known freedom.

But that is a worry because if you ask me, should we, should Israel or should we as the West destroy their nuclear weapons program, sounds pretty reasonable to me. But once you start getting into a regime change, then you're getting into second, third, fourth order consequences that I don't think we know a lot about. But it will be much less bad than both the nuclear war that could and probably would happen if they got nuclear weapons. But the other thing that's crucial,

and I should have mentioned earlier, is it would lead to instant proliferation. There is no way that Saudi Arabia would not build a nuclear. program. It would then proliferate across the Middle East and the wider world. It's difficult to exaggerate the existential risk to the whole species if that happens. I talked about a local nuclear war. If that widens, the nuclear winter could wipe us all out. We would not recover. And it's not just the billions of people who would die now that would be affected by that, but the future human beings, our children's, children's children,

going through future history who will not get a chance to experience the gift of life. We must be aware of existential risk and nuclear proliferation would almost certainly be a powder keg that we would never withstand.

Probably not for a decade. Look at the flow up between India and Pakistan. Imagine if that was all across the Middle East and going, because once that starts... Once that... I mean, look, Pakistan and India, they got there. Israel has got there. I regret that. It would have been better had the time.

technology not been invented in some ways. Because these are all dual use. Nuclear fission is fantastic as an energy source and we need it. And we're crazy not to have built more nuclear fission power stations. Fusion will be even more of a game changer if we ever get there. And I think probably we will. Energy is the source of all prosperity and life, of course. But it can be used for devastating effect too.

And the more countries that get it, the more jurisdictions, the more fingers on buttons, the more chances of misunderstandings. Cuba almost flared up. We know of examples where Boris Yeltsin was clutching a briefcase, looking at a screen where a blip is coming across. They think, is this a nuclear strike? It turned out to be a Norwegian rocket going up to the North Pole. But he was being urged.

We know about a submarine, a Russian submarine, where they were going to operationalise a nuclear weapon. These scope for misunderstandings, I asked one expert you put it about 0.5% per year risk of something happening that was an accident rather than purposeful nuclear war but over time that tends to 100%.

You have 20, 30 countries with nuclear weapons, it's over. So please don't think of this in the same terms as the Iraq war. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would not have done any... This is a systemic risk to the whole of humanity.

What do you say, look, as I say, everything you're saying makes sense but I'm stress testing the argument for myself and for our viewers. What do you say to people who I hear a lot of, like if you open Twitter, a lot of people are banging on about World War III.

I don't really know what they mean because Russia is pulled back from Iran. China doesn't seem to be particularly supportive. The Middle Eastern countries secretly all are very happy that this nuclear program is being destroyed in this way. But do you see the potential for like serious escalation out of what's happening?

Well, it's very interesting question. The most interesting of all, which is how this fits in to the major confrontation of our time and our children's time, which is American primacy being challenged by communist China. Now, China is at the absolute center of this axis of autocratic states with North Korea, Iran, and Russia. They've been sharing military technology, nuclear technology, drone production. China buys 97 percent of of Iranian oil, absolutely crucial for China still now, even though it's building a lot of nuclear

power stations. And I like you have been struck by Russia offering words that they will help to mediate and other things of that kind. But Iran really backed Russia in the Ukraine war with drone production and other things. And they cut them loose. Russia's basically cut them loose and said you're on your own, effectively. I wonder whether they've cut them loose. That's one possibility.

The other is that the military constraints of Russia are such that they are so required for the frontline in Ukraine that they don't have spare capacity to divert to Iran. That's another possibility. I did see a report last week that China had provided a very large batch of chemicals to Iran that helps to transport the ballistic missiles. The question is, to what extent, is Xi Jinping a gambler at this point? There are clearly two major confrontations happening in the world at the moment, in Europe and in the Middle East. And it is possible in the coming years, possibly even in the coming months, that Xi Jinping will think this is the opportunity to blockade Taiwan. Now, this is the fundamental nexus of, I think, what will determine the decision. geopolitics of our lifetime.

Taiwan, crucial, of course, in the production of advanced semiconductors. Much of the future is going to be determined by these technologies. You're probably aware that China are extremely close to America in this regard. It's fascinating. I just saw the nature index

of the top universities by production of high-quality output research. America is to dominate that list. Harvard is number one. Nine of the other top ten of Chinese universities. what's the AI LLM

that they did it's deep deep seek not far off chat GBT4 and some of the others that are coming out so I think this is a very fundamental question and for me and this is just widen in the aperture here because what I think is worrying some of the more sophisticated

America versus strategists is to the extent that America gets involved even more deeply involved in say hypothetically in New Ukraine and in the Middle East, do they have the capacity to fight on three fronts in three theatres? Remember, the Second World War was a number of different wars happening in parallel, and it became a world war. I do think that pattern could reemerge here. It's not, it's not to me impossible.

And the fundamental, this is probably the most important thing of all, I think, for us to understand. It's a real constraint on America and Europe. and the free world isn't, as people say it's our military capacity. We don't have enough munitions. We don't have enough warships.

We don't have enough. Although, to be fair, we don't. We don't. Yeah, but let's try and drill down. Why don't we? Why don't we? And the reason is we are not willing

to take a hit to our standard of living to invest sufficiently in defense. In fact, it's worse than that. What we are actually doing in order to invest in defence, and these are small amounts, you will have seen Kea Stama, some nondescript committal that 3% in the future, 2.3 to 2.5% is, it's woefully low.

Considering where we are in the world at the moment, the threats that we face, we're actually borrowing evermore and therefore pushing the problem to future generations to fund our current lifestyle because we're not prepared to do it ourselves. Now, that's been happening for many years. And Donald Trump is not a solution to this. I'm not a fan of Elon Musk in many ways. I don't like his support for some of the far-right parties to the right of me, certainly.

And I don't like the language that some of those parties use. But he was absolutely right to describe the big beautiful bill as a disgusting abomination, because it will add trillions to an already enormous debt. That is what is eating us alive and will make it difficult to win a war, which we want to win because we want to defend Western civilized values. And there's also another part of it that hasn't been addressed, which is how many young people in this country and America are going to go out and fight for their nation?

It's a very interesting question. Now, I think there are two ways to think about that. So I wonder if that's related to the debt. But let's let's let's say, park that for a second. The polling is not good for the West. And I think the reason for this is something that you're really interested in. And I think it's not that I've come to it late. I've written about it. it for years, but I hadn't realized how deep it was, just how anti-Western academic institutions have become, the march through the institutions, the extraordinary loathing for the history of America and the UK, you know, we're racist, we're colonialists, we only got rich by pressing other people. It is, in my view, a completely bizarre and grotesque distortion of what actually happened in history. You're not going to defend what you don't love.

Yeah, but however, however, did you notice in Ukraine a lot of people said they're not going to, they're not, this is a nation with massive corruption, which it has very high levels of corruption according to the index, transparency international index. There wasn't going to be a coherent. Putin didn't think that people would be prepared to fight, and then when the invasion happened, there was a huge mobilization, voluntary mobilization of people willing to fight. Just before the Second World War, I think there was a debate. Forgive me for interrupting again, that's a much better argument.

And the reason, what you're about, the one you're about to make, because Ukraine's very different. Ukraine doesn't have this history of self-flagellation about some past. Ukrainians love their country. And I know people who literally, when the war happened, they drove their wife and kids to the border, say goodbye and went back and signed up. But they haven't had that history of demoralization. The argument you're about to make, which is, you know, the Oxford Union voted that they wouldn't fight for King and Country just before the Second World War.

that's a much better argument. And it changed, didn't it? Yeah. On a six-pence, once I saw the existential threat. And I'm kind of an optimist at heart, but I don't want to sound kind of panglossi on or unrealistic. I think it is not impossible.

When it came to the crunch, people would suddenly wake up. I totally agree. To the extraordinary blessings we have in this country. You're both from immigrant families, as am I. And I do sometimes think, I often bump into the children of immigrants or immigrants

who absolutely love this country, because they have a much more visceral understanding of what it might be like to grow up in a country which is tribally divided, doesn't have a coherent national identity, doesn't have free speech, doesn't have the... We can sit here and criticise our government.

We can start businesses. The freedom is magnificent. I've had such a great life here. And my children have just an unbelievable life. You think about the history of our species and deaths and injuries and war and violence and disease. what we have now with extraordinary vaccinations and technology. Maybe we've got too sophisticated.

Maybe we're not capable of controlling the power we've unleashed. The great E.O. Wilson said the polymath, it was actually somebody who was a biologist by background, very interested in ants, which were a very interesting species, of course, because they're a social insect. And it has some very interesting, I think, metaphorical significance for humans, who are also very social. But he said we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, but godlike technology.

And it's reaching a point of crisis. At the moment, we're seeing some of these flare-ups. Who knows what AI will eventually do as a dual-use technology, even if it doesn't itself turn on us, which I think is not completely impossible. But we're now living at the noontide of history. And I do think, and I do hope that podcasts like this, It's an important part of the collateral that we have in this country to get across the young people that this is something worth fighting for. The blessings that we have.

The peace that we've enjoyed for so long. But we need to deter war. And we need to spend on our defence to do so. And if it does come in extremists, we need to be able to fight. And it means us changing our ideology because we've been very individualistic. It's been all about the self. What can I do? What is important for me?

And people criticize young people and you can point the finger, but why have they turned out the way they have? That is our fault collectively as a society. And it's going to take a hell of a reframe to get people to look at the world in another way. But you know, it's interesting then. I agree that perhaps individualism sort of shaded into hyper-individualism,

but you might be interested in this. Where do you think the highest rate of voluntary blood donations are in the world? The US? The West. Yeah. And do you know why? Because yes, there's individualism.

And in a way that's been a really positive thing that we individuals have rights and aspirations that are more important than what a Patriot might say or a clan member. Clans are so oppressive. You have to do what the Patriarch says, marry who they tell you to marry, marriages are arranged, there's no freedom. Individualism was breaking out of the constraints of tribal societies. But what it enables us to do is create true national identities, much bigger sense of solidarity.

So that, yeah, I'm prepared to give my blood to a stranger that I've never met. That doesn't happen in tribal societies. They will only give it to people within their own clan. They wouldn't want it from the blood of another clan. It comes back to our discussion of cousin marriage last time. That's what it's really about. To the extent that cousin marriage is a proxy for very small allegiances. So individualism, there's no individualism in these clan societies.

It's all about the clan, but they're willing to extort a bribe from you outside the clan to share with their group. They're willing to give jobs only to people in the group. Nepotism, corruption, all flares, don't volunteer blood. United Nations, it was interesting. Those countries that violate,

the diplomats get immunity from having to pay parking ticket fines. Those countries from clan societies just parked where they wanted, abused the society of their living, as they said, you know, why would I want to spend for anybody else? Can you see, I like to think, of individuals

as a breaking out of certain constraints that enable us to create a much larger sense of social solidarity that has benefited us enormously but perhaps went too far and also has been undermined by we ourselves trying to undermine our sense

of national pride. That to me is one of the great tragedies of my lifetime and I hadn't realised that's what I meant earlier, how insidious it's been. I mean, isn't it extraordinary? I got my daughters reading list for history from her school last week for the next academic year. The reason I did that, by the way, is because I haven't taken enough interest in what she's

learning at school. I suddenly thought, hang on. I said, what do you think? The main topic is next year, slavery and colonialism. And I want to be in, I want her to make her own mind up, but I want to at least give her the option of not thinking that we were uniquely slavers and to understand that it was a UK that really fought hard to. I've got a book you can get her. Go on. You've written on it. An immigrants love letter to the West by a certain constant thing. There's a whole chapter about slavery.

Okay, great. Excellent. Anyway, with that, like... What would it work for... She's 12? Yeah, it's written for someone... For young people. There's a lot of swearing in it, but apart from... It's good for 12 in it, but exactly the expertise. There's not a lot of swearing, but there's some...

Look, there's far too much agreement. We've kind of coalesced around stuff that we all agree on. Let's come back to the article I mentioned right at the beginning, which is Gaza, where I suspect we may, in stress testing what you're saying, there may be a bit more free son, so to speak. So make the case that Israel has gone too far, doing the wrong thing, et cetera. So there's no doubt

Israel had to respond to the October 7th atrocity. But I think that what Iran was seeking to achieve with that attack through its proxy Hamas and the crimes that they committed that were heinous,

and in a sense, I don't want to diminish it, provocative. They were trying to goad Israel into an overreaction. Therefore, to flatten Gaza to kill many thousands of innocent people because Hamas, of course, embed their infrastructure in civilian populations, and by implication to lose what is crucial for Israel, which is, if you like, again, I don't want to, make this sound superficial, but the brand of Israel, which is a liberal democracy in the Middle East that has grown and developed despite the genocidal ambitions of countries around

it, survived wars, Six-Day War, Yonkippur War, and that sits often unconsciously behind Western support. We talked about how there's a lot of anti-Semitism, right, in the universities, but the main body of Western opinions behind Israel has been for a long time. A caveat that amongst a certain group, amongst young people, you can see the polls for yourselves. They're very, very pro-Palestinian. I think he means pre-Path. But if you look at the post-October the 7th polling in America, all demographics except for the very young one was pro-Israel. But if you took the totality, it was extremely pro-Israel.

And that obviously influences American foreign policy. And Israel wouldn't exist without American support. And I think the Israeli, forgive me, the Iranian tactic worked. Because now you look at polling, and this isn't my opinion. It is objectively been shattered. And the image of Israel has been shattered. And I think part of this is because of what they have done in Gaza, and part of it, a slightly smaller part,

is a sense that the administration there, Netanyahu, is a right-wing, quite populist leader, who wants to cling on to power, and is kept in power by right-wing nationalist religious fanatics in Smotrich and Ben Gavir. And I think a lot of people who are pro-Israel suppress some of the doubts about Netanyahu and the coalition because of how awful it was in October the 7th,

and they supported understandably out a sense of national pride and now think, well, hang on a second, we are effectively legitimating war crimes. This may well come out in the future. Independent people will describe what's happening in Gaza as war crimes. What are you talking about when you say war crime specifically? What do you mean? Being sleep deprived messes with everything.

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That the use of starvation is a tactic of war. It's not indiscriminate bombing, but the bombing campaign that has taken place that has killed thousands of people. Not all of them innocent, many of these are terrorists. And I worry, as somebody who's instinctively pro-Israel, that the next generation of American leaders will grow up. mentioned how public opinion in that demographic, even after October the 7th and before the bombing campaign was already more pro-Israel, will grow up. And the images in their minds, when they think of Israel, will not be the Holocaust, as it is perhaps for our generation, who learned about the Second World War, will be emaciated Palestinian children, people

queuing up for food being gunned down. Israel of lied. I think it's fair to say from time to time. Don't ask me for the exact examples. I have to. Well, let me come back to... Not to catch you out, but just to substantiate... Of course. I mean, we're covering a lot of terrain here. Yeah, of course. I'm sure you have a very good reason for saying now, but I'd like to know what that is. Yeah, I'll come back to you.

Okay. Let me think. But even if one... So you're saying what would be... What would be the... The long-term effect of this, I think, is going to be very negative. I agree with you completely. But the question that instinctively you then have to ask is...

what do you think Israel should have done instead? I think so what I think Iran most feared is a Middle East where Israel had already signed the Abraham Accords. There was a growing rapproch more, a growing accord between Israel and the sunny world. Saudi Arabia at a rate of knots faster than I anticipated is modernizing. The leader there, MBS, is very keen on stability in the region. because he wants to see economic growth diversify from fossil fuels. And I think what Iran most feared was an accommodation of rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia,

leading to the very significant isolation of Iran. So let me invite you to consider a counterfactual. Let's say Israel had responded in a more limited fashion to the October 7th at the trustee. Meaning what? So let's say they, if we say what they have done so far, let's say 20%. So that most people in the world

will have said that was completely justified. So quite a few people who were responsible for October 7th would still be alive. Quite a few hostages would still be in the dungeons but there would be a lot less destruction than Gaza. Well, it wouldn't necessarily have had

more hostages. They may have been able to negotiate their release. That's quite straight. Quite claim. Well, they would have had to have released many more prisoners for me. the other side. Oh, I see. And of course, yes. So Israel released thousands of people. Most of the hostage families don't approve

of the attacks. I'm not arguing at this point. I'm just trying to map the picture that you're painting onto my head and everyone watching. So Israel does, a fifth of the destruction, exchanges thousands of the Palestinians that it holds in its jails, many of whom are accused of attacking

Israeli soldiers, terrorism, etc. In exchange for getting more hostages out and but statistically speaking quite a lot of the people the Cinois and all of these other people some of them quite a lot of them are still alive that's right okay that's right so

that is obviously not optimal okay it's not a great situation to be in and as I said right at the beginning you often have to choose between very difficult bad options the most important thing I think for Israel is to isolate Iran

the head of the snake. So remember I wrote this column before the attack. Now, so think in your mind, they moved towards an accord with Saudi Arabia. I think this was, if not imminent, something that could have happened in a reasonable time frame. They already have the Abraham Accords. Iran is now ever more isolated. The Hezbollah attacks have been extraordinarily successful. There have been very limited civilian casualties. That could have taken place. Fantastic. But then they would have had, think of the psychology of the world today if the attack on Iran had happened without that terrible degradation

that has led moderate opinion, Middle England, middle America, to think about Israel in a fundamentally different way, I think the world would have been on side. It would have been easier for Europe and America to have come. come in behind Israel. It would have been much better if it had been a Israeli leader other than Netanyahu encouraging the Iranian people to rise up against the regime. I think that what has happened in Gaza, fairly or unfairly, you have to deal with reality, has undermined the image of Israel that is already affecting them and will affect them more in the years to come. And I think

that alternative would not have been ideal. You're right. Sinwa would have been there. More But the other thing, I've missed the most important thing of all. I've been told by very senior people that Hamas and other terrorist groups are replacing lost fighters at a rate of 5 to 1. They're being radicalised. Young people whose parents have been killed, whose siblings have been killed,

others around the Middle East, watching what's been visited upon Gaza, pictures daily images of starvation. and death and destruction, that is also going to lead and fuel terrorism, not for the next year or five years, for the next 50 years. Winning hearts and minds

is not an insignificant or soft approach in a situation like this. So doing something that had been less graphic, I think would have been better in so many different ways for Israel. Well, let me just see if we can stress test. that just for the sake of the fact that I'm not clear in my head what I think about it, genuinely. And a lot of people have a different perspective to the one you just laid out. And I just want to find

out if we can discuss it. So when I think about it, the first thing I see is that I think this is the first war of this kind, highly urban combat, very asymmetrical in that you have terrorists who don't wear uniforms. They don't identify. themselves as enemies, which an army is supposed to do under the laws of war, hiding under civilian buildings in tunnels, and you've got smartphones. So every time Israel tries to take somebody out, they're under a civilian building. Like this recent guy, he was also called Sinwa, I think, but he had a different first name. He was killed underneath a hospital, right?

So every time that happens, you've got smartphone footage. And that is, as you say, is causing lots and lots of people around the world to think that what's happening is terrible because, undeniably, at a human level, what is happening is terrible. There's just no way of describing it in any other way. But then I go, okay, let's think about this and contextualize it with previous conflicts. What did we do to Germany at the end of World War II? And why did we do it? Well, there was a Russian scientist and historian who did analysis. Basically, in conventional munitions, the Allies dropped the equivalent of Tujahorosha

was a week on Germany. Flattened, I think, over 80 cities, 600,000 civilians killed, I think, in the last year alone, something like that, don't quite me on it. If we'd had smartphones then, you would have exactly the same conversation. Let me test your argument. Hold on. No, I get it. I get it.

But I don't think it's, I think it's, if I may say so. Okay. Not relevant. Okay, tell me why. So let me ask you, how is flashing in Gaza making Israel more safe when the funders are in Tehran hundreds of miles away? Question one. Question two, if you agree with senior people,

and actually it's just obvious that the number of people who are going to turn to extremist movements are going to be high, given what's happening. How is that going to make Israel safer? Well, I think if you take the World War II example, what I think you could make the same argument. You could say, look, Germans seeing their cities flattened, they're being radicalized to continue fighting, which they were.

They absolutely were. And Hitler's propaganda made heavy use of this. They were saying, look, what they want is the end of Germany. And he was using this in order to cling on to power. But they're trying to beat Germany. Right. And Israel's trying to beat Hamas. They're trying to be extremist, anti-Zionist, Islamism.

Including Hamas, right? Sure, sure. But Hamas is a tiny... One of the reasons they've been able to attack Iran, people will say, again, we're just having this debate to understand the arguments. The reason Israel is taking the opportunity to take out the nuclear facilities is they've decapitated Hamas and decapitated Hezbollah. And prior to that, they couldn't attack Iran and feel that they wouldn't be attacked themselves.

I don't think that's true. I think that they were worried about Hezbollah, a truly formidable, we thought, fighting force. Right. with lots and lots of rockets. Hamas was not a deterrent for attacking Iran. So I don't see that taking out Hamas, besides, they haven't taken them all out, as we've agreed. And in Germany, they're trying to defeat a nation.

That was not an ideology. Nazism wasn't rising at all sorts of other people in other places around the world in sympathy with the people who had just committed to Holocaust. They believed correctly that they could beat Germany, and overcome the threat of Nazism. That is not at all like Islamic fundamentalism. Because?

Because it's an ideology that crosses national border. Did you really... I mean, fascism was rife across Europe. Yeah, but come on. I hope you'll acknowledge that it's completely different. German Nazism, which was explicitly an ideology for a new Reich based on German ethnic superiority, the Aryan race, that was not a growing trend in other parts of the world, nor was it supposed to be.

No, no, no, hold on a second. The entire, look, one of the divisions that was defending the Reichstag in the last day of the Reich was S. S. S. Shalamin, which was full of French Nazis. Nazi, fascism was widespread across Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Central Europe, and Western Europe at that time. They weren't even that. I mean, if you look at Italy, Germany and Japan, they were hardly in Axis. They loathed each other. They didn't coordinate a fact. If they had it done, they might have won the war. I mean, these religious fanatic, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, they're all interchangeable.

They all hate the West. They hate infidels. They believe that they'll go to heaven. They want to caliphate that crosses national. One of the reasons that, you know, a very famous fundamentalist doctrine was written a few years ago, that they wanted war in the Middle East so that it would leave a vacuum that could, as it were, create a cross-border caliphate. I think you're underestimating the fact that this is a virus that can travel very widely around the world, even into Western nations. And that to the extent that Israel has bombed Gaza to a pulp, it has made it much more like, I hate to say it, but mark my words, terrorism of that kind will grow over the course of our lifetimes.

I'm sorry to say, and it will make Israel less safe, even if they take out Iran. But taking out Iran is obviously the necessary step. Flaughting Gaza has nothing to do. do with it? How is that helping? Well, the argument, I think, from an Israeli perspective, would be you cannot leave the people who did October 7th in power over the border. Even if it means there's going to be like thousands more of these people coming after Israel in the years to come. As the security services of... Look, I'm not saying this is the right argument. I'm just trying to understand it. But I do think it's worth bearing in mind that in 20, 30 years time, the fundamentalists and

addicts are in a certain sense psychopaths, but they're also in a certain sense strategic. You can see that these are not. I think the Iranian regime have been playing quite a long game. I think they signed that deal. They were obviously deceiving the inspectors. And I think they want Israel to eventually be eliminated. And I think they want the image of Israel to be destroyed. I think the image of Israel has been

disastrously contaminated. I think it's a great country. But I talk to people who are like me, pro-Israel, and they just think this has been a complete disaster. And I think we have to reckon with that. I agree with that. That's certainly been the case. The question that I'm trying to answer in my head is, were there better options available?

And what you're saying is, well, you leave Hamas in power, you give away thousands of things. thousands of many of these people who are in Israeli jails are actual terrorists like the people who committed October 7th. Sinwa was released from an Israeli prison and then organized October 7th. Well, I mean there are some hostage, as I understand it, some hostage families said, no, we must not do deals because it will just mean future families. So there was obviously a tension in Israel's objectives here to win the war and to release the hostages. There is a slight problem there. But but I do I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I, I don't,

I think that counterfactual is an extraordinary one. That yes, it's a proportionate, proportionate's the wrong words. Maybe a more limited response going really powerfully for an accord with Saudi Arabia, the isolation of Iran, try and knock out Hezbollah, and either destabilize the regime, Naftali Bennett, or go after the regime directly, Netanyahu. I think that the whole picture of the Middle East and the wider world would have been different. I think the problem is, as well, it goes back to an,

earlier point that we, on the Israelis and the West, are fighting people who do not care if they live or die. And not only that, they would actually prefer to die. So you're fighting a war where they would prefer to die if it meant that they would win in 100 and 200 years time. That is a type of war that we're not accustomed to fighting. It's not like fighting the Russians. It's not like fighting practically any other enemy. And as a result, what do you do with that type of enemy? It's practically impossible to win. It's interesting, isn't it? It's difficult sometimes to get Westerners to under, we talked about this before we came on air, the fundamentalist mindset. This, one of the great virtues, I think, of the Enlightenment is the value, the beauty of

doubt, doubt, that we might be wrong. Your science, I think. as an institution is one, that comes up with bold theories that are testable and is willing to revise them in the light of new information. All scientific theories are provisional. Isn't that fantastic? Whereas with an ideology, I have the truth, and nothing will change my mind. Evidence won't change my mind.

You can't perform an experiment to show a fanatical, religious zealot that their ideology is wrong. And if that is linked, as I said right in the beginning to the glorification of martyrdom where the most valuable thing you can do is to die, that, as you say, is something that's difficult to get the Western mind to fully engage with. It's almost like the Enlightenment happened too long ago.

We find it difficult to understand that somebody could be that way. I think I have a bit of a tenuous sense of what it's like, partly because of the, largely because of the fundamentalists on my father's side of the family. And when you see people who are completely... I like the fact that, you know,

You tested my argument there. I think you're willing to revise your opinion if you think I've made a good point. I like these conversations because I think I would revise mine too. That isn't something that happens with... By the way, we should say, just in the interest of balance,

like I have people in my family, my family are Christian, and some of them are as intractable on certain things and would very happily die for their beliefs with a weapon in their hands. Orthodox Christians. That's interesting. So they believe 100% that they have truth.

Oh, of course. And they'll be willing to kill... They'd be willing to die themselves for their belief. Would they be willing to kill others for their belief? If the other person just didn't believe it, they would kill them. No, no, no, no. But if the other person was in conflict with them in some way over their beliefs. Told them that they weren't allowed to believe?

They would die for that. No, no. They wouldn't do that. No. But they would very happily sign up to fight in a religious war. if they felt that they were on the right side of that religious war. Yeah, well, I grew up in a kind of evangelical Christian tradition. They, I don't think that, so the people...

But it's not the same as fundamentalist Islam as well, let's be honest. Yeah, because it's that, that sense that you can, that it can be legitimate to kill infidels and a glorious thing, even if they're not threatening your religion. That's... There's also another element that we haven't looked at here. So my grandfather was Venezuelan, but he's originally from the Middle East. He was from Lebanon, but he was a Lebanese Christian.

and he was a historian. I remember my mother said to him, we're going to go and visit Israel. Sorry, just give me the chronology again. Just explain that. So my grandfather was, his family was originally from Lebanon. They were literally from Tripoli in Lebanon. It's why I look Jewish and I get loads of antisemitism online because I look exactly like my grandfather with white skin. Now, I remember, so he was a historian and I remember my mother saying to him, we're going to visit Israel. Would you like to come with us? And he said the words, as long as I live, I will never set foot in Israeli soil. I will never put money in an Israeli pocket.

And I will never, ever acknowledge the existence of that. And then it got a bit fruity, shall we just say? But underneath the joke, there is a very, very real sentiment, which, and I don't think people in the West understand this, the rabid hatred and anti-Semitism rampant through the Arab world, particularly the Muslim world. And by the way, my grandfather was a Lebanese Christian. And when people say Israel have overreacted, I don't think they also understand the existential threat that Israel is under day in, day out, 24-7 every minute of every hour.

Yeah, it's so true. I went to Gaza in the West Bank in February and the border of Gaza. I wasn't allowed to go inside. But what fascinated me about the West Bank is, because my name, Syed, it's an Islam. It's actually a holy Islamic name. And to get talking to people, I mean, it was a bit disingenuous and I was slightly uncomfortable. I didn't tell them I was a journalist, but I wanted to get unvarnished access to what they

truly thought, which is often might be difficult for a white journalist turning up. There might be a bit suspicious. Some of these people trying to find out if I'm a term. But whereas they've got this side, here's my driving licence, the problem would have been if they'd Googled my name and seen that I'd written some pieces that were sympathetic to Israel. That could have been quite

dangerous looking back on it. But I had conversation after conversation. And I would say that of the 20 deep conversations I had, 18 or 19 wanted Israel to be obliterated. And genocidal said, after one, so polite and lovely and conversational, when it turned to Israel, it got darker. But they assumed I'd go along with it.

And I'm kind of listening and trying to find out as much as I can about the way they think about it. And yes, it's virulent. And complete contempt for a two-state solution. They don't want a two-state solution. Utter contempt for the Palestinian Authority, which they think is too moderate and corrupt. Huge admiration, many of them for Hamas.

By the way, just to go back to our only one, support for Hamas and the West Bank has gone up and for terrorism. And this is leading to a horrible cycle of settler violence, which I think is going to be made much worse by what's happened in Gaza. One of the things as well to what Francis is saying is I remember in my former career as a translator,

I used to go to translator's conference and there was a lovely Egyptian man. Great guy. He'd always get up and see it at the end of all. He was a lovely, lovely man, genuinely lovely man. And then one day, and I was not talking about politics or anything at the time. And I remember him talking about,

and whenever the subject of the Middle East conflict or anything like that came up, he would always say, well, the Jews won this, the Jews want that, the Jews. And I remember saying, do you mean Jews or Israel? Oh, yeah, Israelis. I think the other thing that happens in the Middle East is there's very little distinction between those two concepts.

And so the hatred of Israel is really projected onto the hatred of Jews specifically. But don't you think that you've got a sort of strange, almost parallel phenomenon in many Western universities? Yes. Yes. Someone should write a book about it.

Anyway, is that in love letter? I talk about the fact that, you know, the West has been corrected. I'll have read that by the time and it's come on. Excellent. But could you read what would be a good book for you to read? BlackBots thinking. BlackBots thinking. Thank you.

I'll do that. So anyway, my point is that this is where I think a lot of the Israeli thinking on this comes from. It's like we're surrounded by people who want to do to us every day what they did on October 7th. And you want us to go easy on them. But remember, draw a distinction between the fanatics and the moderates. Very important in the Arab world. But you said yourself.

In the West Bank. In the West Bank. But look at, okay, street opinion in Saudi Arabia. But the regimes in the Arab... They are desperate to have peace with Israel and trade with Israel. And they're hoping that Arab street opinion will follow as the growth and the prosperity comes along. You distinguish between the moderate Arabs and the foreign.

fanatics. You want to isolate the fanatics, isolate Iran. And then I think it wasn't impossible that Israel could reach a situation where all these proxy terrorist groups were funded by Iran and to an extent Qatar. I take your point, Matthew, but, and we talk about what the West doesn't understand. I always remember my grandfather, incredibly intelligent, was a doctor. When he finished, he was a brilliant doctor. He then became an historian, wrote books, the award-winning books, all the rest of it. And I love them, dearly, one of the most, one of the most singular influences of my life. Especially his views about the Jews. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, having worked with one, mate, turns out he was right. But a rabid anti-Semite. Rabid, rabid, rabid, rabid,

and this isn't an ignorant person. This is a highly intelligent, highly educated man spoke quite four languages. And this is not a minority opinion in the Middle East. And it is a type of hatred that I don't think if you've lived in Western countries, you will understand. It is, it's something else, the fact that I haven't encountered. It's akin to the KKK's hatred of black people. That's what we're really talking about here. Yeah, it's horrific.

I agree with that. But I do think the context has changed. a way that I didn't envision over the last 20 years. Those accords were very significant in the Trump's first administration. The fact that MBS, I think, wanted to do a deal with Israel. That sense that modernisation requires trade and relationships with Israel that would lead to the benefit. The great thing about trade, Ridley would have told you this. Matt Ridley is wonderful book, The Rational Optimist.

It's a positive son. Yes. do something for each other and you both benefit. Israel could be such a force for good in the Middle East. And these Iranians, you know, they were ahead of the curve for so many hundreds of years and now just completely emiserated by this medieval regime which hits women for lifting the hijab that executes people, that represses free speech and free association,

that is subject to sanctions and has to go out to get their oil, I mean, that is not no way to live. Where do immigrants want to come in their millions? Do they want to go to Iran? No. Do they want to go to Russia? No. Do they want to go to North Korea?

No people in Africa aspire to go across water and risk their lives to go north. They want to come to the West. When people vote with their feet, they want to come here. The reason we have a fantastic life. And I think people in the Middle East, even those who have prejudices against Israel, and there were many of them.

Let's say Arab Street opinion rather than the fanatics, I think we're going in the direction. Well, that's a great hope here, isn't it? Because it's ironic for us to say having just praised the West, but because many of those Middle Eastern countries are not democracies,

what really fundamentally matters is what does MBS think, what does the leader of the UAE think, etc. And they're all very not keen on what Iran is doing. And despite the things that you were talking about, nonetheless would like to have some kind of peaceful settlement with Israel so that this can be all put to bed. And it's had to be sensitive, right,

sort of pushing away the clerics, getting as much as they can without inflaming that religious sentiment. And would you agree it's moved faster? I think so. I think so. And whether people like Donald Trump or no, that is very much to his credit, having seen those accords through.

So that, I think, is the hope. But it all fundamentally, I think, depends on what happens with Iran. because if that regime collapses, then you either have a new regime that's good, which is possible in Iran, or you have a new regime that's bad, which is also possible in Iran.

Or civil war. Or you have civil war, which is really, really, really bad. And that, I think, is where it's at. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And it might be just worth finishing with this idea, China. China is such an enigmatic player in this,

because a lot of people believed, I don't know if you believe this, that because they had some limits on political freedom, they wouldn't innovate in the way that we've seen in the West. And yet a lot of their growth under Deng Xiaoping was really catch-up growth. A lot of it was stealing of intellectual property. A lot of it was copy-cating.

But to my great surprise, they are now definitely on the frontier of technological progress. It says a lot about that country. able to do this with what is a repressive clique at the top of the country. But it's an ancient civilization. They had meritocratic entrance exams for their civil service thousands of years ago, not long after the chin unification. But what worries me the most, I think, is that if the West continues to increase the debt, continues to increase the amount of interest to service the debt,

struggles to invest in defense, loses its way, which I think it has been doing, to an extent. And China uses the sophisticated technology to become a surveillance state, which it already is becoming, so that they start to really be able to properly control how people think politically, even if they have freedom to think technologically and scientifically. That could be a vision of dystopia of a kind that I think not even all well envisioned. And to the extent that they start shaping the rest of the world in that image, that's a big risk for us. And so I think whenever I see a story of any kind, I think, think how is China reacting to that?

How are they reacting to Trump and Musk falling out? How are they reacting to, you know, whatever else is happening in the West? And often I think they're laughing and they're seeing us weaken. They think they could go. And I think it's not the Chinese people. I mean, I've been to China many times. I've many rivals in table tennis who are brilliant, brilliant people. Many of who've suffered terrible persecution during the Cultural Revolution.

But that clique at the top, if it managed to commandeer power, indefinitely, I think that would be a disaster for the whole world and for the future of civilization. So that's the wild card, I think, in all of this. And what I'm not sure about is what they truly think about what's happening in Iran. It's difficult to decode how they feel about it. Well, that's the perfect answer to our usual last question, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about? You've answered it. So head on over to a substack where we're going to ask Matthew your questions. Coming from a fundamentalist Christian family,

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