“Trump has FAILED!” Victor Davis-Hanson vs Professor Roy Casagranda On Iran | With Mohammed Marandi

The United States has gone rogue.We're actually in war crime land, and we completely failed to do the only thing that was reasonable to take out the Islamic Republic.

We have this schizophrenia in the United States that on Monday, if Donald Trump says, I want to negotiate, they call him a taco.He's sold out.On Tuesday, he says, I have to force them to negotiate.He's Hitler.

He failed.He lost the war.I asked you to read that book going to Tehran by Flint and Hillary Levin.I'm sure you didn't bother to do so.

I know that you think you can just bark out your instructions to me as if somehow I'm beholden to the Iranian regime.But I don't really feel that burning desire to read books just because Professor Morandi, the chief propagandist for the Iranian regime, tells me to.Operation Epic Fury is over, the US says.The Iran war project is now Project Freedom.Although at the time of recording, that's on pause too.So far, the $25 billion war has caused a lot of epic fury, mostly among US voters and not a lot of freedom, especially for Iranian dissidents and ships in the Hormuz Strait.

Today, President Trump said the US operation to free stricken vessels in the Strait is on hold because of positive steps towards a lasting peace deal.If no deal can be agreed, he says, bombing will return at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.It feels a lot more like Operation Groundhog Day.And with that in mind, we're going to do things a bit differently on the show today and tackle the big questions.Is Iran weaker than before the war began?Is the U .

S.weaker than before the war began?Will history view this as the latest Middle Eastern misadventure by a blundering American empire?Or is the U .S.president intended a legacy -defining blow in a battle between good and evil?

My first two guests are both eminent U .S.historians but have very different answers to those questions.commentator Professor Victor Davis Hanson says the ripples from the war have reinforced American greatness while weakening the Iranian regime.Dr. Roy Casagrande, Professor of Political Science.So to put it mildly, welcome to both of you.

You two gentlemen have a different view.about all this.Victor, let me start with you.Well, first of all, welcome back to Uncensored.You had a pretty serious health issue, which I'm very pleased to see you've come through, and it's great to have you back.So thank you very much indeed for returning.

Victor, I've been a little bit mystified about this war from the very start.I thought there was a failure to communicate clear goals from day one.The goals then began to change, it seemed to me, depending on the time of day and the mood of the president.And it seemed to me there was an asymmetric element to this war where you had the military battle, which the Americans and Israelis were winning overwhelmingly and causing enormous damage to Iran's military and the process.But Iran quickly worked out that they could fight a different war by closing the Australia 4 moose and effectively holding the global energy market to ransom and, simultaneously, attacking their neighbouring Gulf states in a way which caused enormous damage to their business models of inviting people to come and enjoy safety and sunshine and tourism and sport and entertainment and so on.So, that's been my take on this.

And as it's gone on longer and longer, I've just failed to see how any of this makes great sense to President Trump politically, economically, and in particular with the backdrop of the midterm elections.So, but persuade me why I haven't quite got this.

When you say longer, we have to have some comparisons.Barack Obama bombed for seven months without congressional authority, but do we use targets?Bill Clinton bombed for 72 days in Serbia.He dismantled the entire grid for days on end.He bombed every bridge in the Danube.Donald Trump hasn't wanted to do that because he has confidence at some point there'll be a resistance and he didn't want to destroy their infrastructure.

That might have accelerated things.That being said, the second thing is there's a lot of known unknowns.We don't know exactly because this isn't a ground war.Given the misadventures of the U .S.in Afghanistan and Iraq, from the outset, there were going to be no ground troops.

That meant no embedded reporters, no actual diagnosis of the damage inflicted.

Yeah.Yes.I mean, that is true.But it seems most people I've been watching today talking about this from a military perspective.are curious what the win would look like for the United States.If, for example, the regime remains intact, albeit with different people at the head, the IRGC remain in control, the Iranian people haven't risen up as was expected, and if the Iranians maintain any control over the Strait of Hormuz coming out of this war, and if they keep and retain their highly enriched uranium, where's the win for the US?

Well, we have to see that the negotiations, if they agree to them, they won't have complete control or even partial control.It will be an international waterway and they will have to surrender or at least account for with its embedded and unrecoverable.That's part of the negotiations.I'm not confident that they'll abide by that.They have no history of doing it, but that's what Donald Trump said.The other thing is they don't have a military capability.

It's a political question right now on both sides are trying to, they're up against eachdeadlines, but deadlines nonetheless.But they don't have a military capability.So if any time a single carrier group is in the region, not this massive armada, the United States can resume the damage that they've done, and they don't have an alternative to that.They may have more missiles than we think, but that's a, that's a finite finite amount of missiles, given the damage.And more importantly, this represents a half century, almost a half a trillion dollar investment in a military, nuclear, industrial complex.

It's been severely weakened, and they're going to be in the position, whichever of these four entities are, whether it's the theocracy, the elected officials, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or the regular army, they're in competition.And if they were to say to the Iranian people, and they won't say it, they'll just do it, we're going to now spend our finite resources on rebuilding this arsenal and funding Arab terrorists in Hamas, Houthis, and Hezbollah billions of dollars a year, I don't think that's a sustainable proposition.And remember when we knocked down, the Wall Walk knocked down, Soviet Union imploded two years later.Warsaw Pact some weeks later, but most of them were months later.So this is going to be an ongoing process.The United States has military resources that it can resume at a much higher rate the bombing if they don't follow the tenets of the negotiations, which I think will include the original proposition that you wanted to secure its nuclear resources, not allow it to control the straits or have a missile capability to harm the Gulf states.

And as far as the midterms, one last thing very quickly.We've got six months.I don't think anybody in America today knows what the headlines were in October of 2025.That's about six months from now, back.So there's a sign that the economy is recovering very rapidly, and I think in six months it will be due pretty well.Whether he can avert the historical phenomenon that the incumbent president loses the midterms, I don't know.

But I don't think this is going to necessarily harm him.And if there is a resolution, it might help him.

OK, Professor Casagrande, welcome to Uncensored.Coincidentally, Victor has just published an essay called The Global Ripples of the Iran War, and we'll come to more of that a little later with Victor, but he concludes, for all the global abuse and cheap left -wing attacks, America is emerging from the war perhaps stronger than at any point since the post -war era.What is your response to that?

Yeah, I see it very differently.You know, like, let's say he gets a deal on Iran's nuclear weapons program, then we'll be back to where we were before he tore up the JCPOA in his first term.So that's not a win, right?Because you're just putting the clock back to 2018.If he gets the straight open, we're just back to where we were before he started bombing.So that's not a win, right?

He's created a problem and then he solves it.So that's not a win.He's wrecked the United States' relationships with the Gulf states.Saudi Arabia has actually said that the United States' interests and Saudi Arabia's interests are no longer aligned, which is a catastrophe for the United States.We've had a stable alliance with them since 1945.He's wrecked the economy of the Gulf states.

So, you know, we're now starting to see serious pushback from states in the Gulf.Some are hinting at switching oil sales to the yuan from the dollar.And then, of course, the United States' credibility.is ruined because he conducted a series of war crimes.We bombed Iranian infrastructure.We attacked their civilian targets.

So we're actually in war crime land.And we completely failed to do the only thing that was reasonable in this war, because the only reason to do this war was to take out the Islamic Republic, which would have been amazing.In the first few days, I was hopeful.I didn't think it would happen because I didn't have any confidence in the Trump administration, but I was really hopeful that he would somehow pull this off.And of course, he failed.What he did was, in two steps, two foolish steps, he took the possibility of an Iranian uprising off the table.

The first one was in January when he told the protesters to go into the streets.The United States had their back.They went into the streets.The government began slaughtering the protesters by the thousands.We don't know if it was 3 ,000 or 13 ,000 or 23 ,000, but it was a big number.And the United States did absolutely nothing.

On February 28, we began this bombing campaign.Well, in the beginning, there were Iranians who were cheering and saying, yeah, this is amazing.Let's bring down the regime.But as the bombing campaign continued, and it began to target Iranian infrastructure, and they began to see their relatives dying, that Iranian support for the war quickly evaporated, and it reversed, and it became Iranian support for the regime.And this shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody because that happens in every single war.In Nazi Germany, one third of the population actively resisted the Nazis.

One third, until we started bombing Germany in 1943.When we did, that resistance evaporated because in that moment the German people started going, wait a minute, genocide's on the table and we're the receivers of this, you know,maybe we have to back the regime.And so the fact that the government, the US government, didn't know that was what was going to happen with the Iranian people just shows how clueless they are about how the world works and how the Middle East works.

OK, Victor, in your new essay...

I just want to reply very quickly.

Yeah, I wanted just to read you something you write in your essay and then reply, because I think it's relevant to what we just heard.You say the result is a more realistic, less ideological Gulf Council.that's beginning to accept the fact that in the Middle East, Israel alone has the combat aircraft expertise and experience to strike Iran and deter it from attacking moderate Arab governments.This raises the spectre of a new de facto alliance of mutual advantage between Israel and much of the Arab world.As a previous catalyst for the Abraham Accords' détente with American pressure, it may soon become Arab self -interest, which is a very interesting take on it.Obviously, it differs from the Arab world Professor Casagrande.

So what is your response to what he said?

I mean, just to reply to that, Israel didn't send 5 ,000 drones and missiles into the Gulf.A fellow, another Islamic country did, and that's a real, that's just a fact, and people will have to deal with that fact, and I think they will.Very quickly, I wrote a book on World War II, A Quarter Million Words, and there was no active civilian resistance before the bombing.There was resistance in the military and it ended with a failed coup to kill Adolf Hitler, but there was no demonstrable active resistance that the regime ever felt was endangered in any small part.Even the French resistance was not effective until 1944 after the invasion of D -Day.If you look at the past interventions of the United States and you look at civilian targeting, whether it's

Libya, whether it's Yugoslavia, whether it's Vietnam, this is a different war.There are no ground troops involved.There is no direct attacks on transportation, on dual use.Even the communication, the TV stations are still there.The bridges, except for one egregious case where it was obviously used to transport missiles aimed at the Gulf, they're all there.The water is there.

The sewage is there.The refineries are there.The chief source of revenue for Iran at Karg Island is intact.The pipelines underneath are intact.the communication cables under the sea are intact.They can be eliminated within three or four days.

And that was a deliberate F to aid the resistance.And by the way, no one ever said at the beginning, Donald Trump said, help is on the way.But given our dubious record of regime change, it was a conscientious decision that the only way you could ensure immediate resistance and successful regime change was to put boots on the ground, and they were never going to do that.If you look at his March 20th statement, there was never a statement that we are going in here to change the government of Iran.They had about four or five things, and they were fluid, but at various times they said we're going to militarily disarm them so they're not a threat to our allies and ourself.This is a retaliation for 47 years of terrorist attacks on our embassies, on our barracks, on assassination attempts that they tried against the Secretary of State, President of the United States, and were going to cut off the subsidies to their terrorist appendages in the Arab world.

And there was never, if you can find any official document that says, we're going in here to change the regime and replace it, that was a,dividend and everybody hopes it will happen and there's still a great deal of uncertainty but there's a lot of people and I tend to agree that it will happen.maybe not immediately, but within the next few months.Because we don't know the actual damage, but people have said it's a multi, multi -billion dollar damage to their military, industrial, nuclear complex.And they're going to have to rebuild that if they're going to be having a deterrent effect on the Arab nations.And if they start to build that, they're going to be absolutely broke.

They don't have the resources to do that.It took them a half century to do that.and they don't have any resource, and they're not going to be able to subsidize these groups in the Arab world to the same degree they were.And more importantly, they have no defenses.So any time the United States feels that it didn't fulfill the objectives, probably after they can repeat it again.And I'm not sure that all of the Gulf states are angry at the United States.

If they were going to be angry, they might be angry at the European purchasers of Arab oil who wins, let's say, the UAE.Nobody in Europe or the NATO partners said, we want to help protect you from the Iranians.In fact, most of the history of the European countries is making stealthy deals with the Iranian government, either to assuage the dangers of terrorism in their own countries, or to get free access to the Gulf where they wouldn't be harassed, which Iran has done periodically prior to this.And I just would finish, it's a little bit crazy to say that Iran is in a superior position.They're devastated.They were the terror of the Middle East.

They were indomitable for 50 years.When you talk to an American diplomat, they said we might be able to do something in Syria or Afghanistan, but we can't get near Iran.They've got7 ,000 missiles.They may have a nuclear component.They're just a fanatic regime.

We just leave it alone.And the West appeased that government for 47 years, despite the fact that they were killing Westerners periodically and insidiously, decade after decade.Seven presidents said we have to remove this regime so it doesn't have a nuclear weapon, and none of them acted on that threat.None.

OK, Professor Casagrande, I mean, it's interesting, on the timeline of this, of course, you know, I'm basing my, well, You know, this is dragging on purely on President Trump's own timeline that he's repeatedly laid down, originally two to three weeks, then six weeks.And again, the goalposts on the timeline have changed as it's dragged on.So, you know, had he set up a start, this may take a year or two years.OK.But he didn't.He was very specific.

This will be quick, in and out, and it's going to be over very quickly.And it hasn't been.And in relation to the Strait of Hormuz, you know, the Iranians are indicating that they want to have a form of control, which involves them having a toll system, and so on.If they end up with that out of this, and they don't hand over their enriched uranium, and the regime remains intact, it's very hard to see how President Trump can claim a legitimate victory, isn't it?

Well, that's one of the cool things about the Trump administration.He doesn't actually have to have a victory.He'll just claim it, right?I mean, that's his M .O.It doesn't matter if he succeeds in doing something.

He'll say it was the best thing that ever happened.It was the greatest, very special.There's never been anything like it.And he'll go on and on and on like that.And he'll just move on to the next thing that catches his interest, which is apparently Cuba.So I'm assuming, you know, they're working out plans to

fail miserably in Cuba next.I want to push back on one thing that Victor has said, which is that the British and the French haven't done anything.There are Dassault Rafales flying over our heads right now as I speak.So the French actually did go to the UAE and the British went to, I think it was Bahrain, and have actually been shooting down, actively supporting the UAE Air Force and the Bahraini Air Force in shooting down drones and missiles.So we were hit on Monday.with another round.

So, you know, the ceasefire thing is obviously very flimsy.There is no way that Iran will turn over its enriched uranium.That's, that's ridiculous.One of the things that the Iranian state has to think about is, well, they got bombed 10 months ago, and then they got bombed again.And I think their assumption is that they will be bombed again at some point in the future, that the United States will need a distraction or there'll be some cynical force pulling the United States in one direction or the other.And the next thing you know, Iran's getting bombed again.

So what the Iranians are going to probably try to push back on is to figure out a mechanism to really hurt the world, because they're trying to hurt the global economy.And the mechanism that they found was closing the Strait of Hormuz, so they'll just keep doing that every time we bomb them.And of course, we're looking at long -term consequences that might last months or years.Just from the short period of time that the Gulf was closed, we're going to have shortages on fertilizer and shortages on oil.So Iran has obviously been at a pariah in the region for a long time, but nobody's a bigger pariah than Israel.Israel is currently bombing Lebanon.

Israel is still genociding Gaza.And so the possibility of us returning back to the Abraham Accords are completely off the table.I think, you know, maybe one or two Arab states would consider it.But the reality is that Israel has made itself into thebigger pariah than Iran.It's openly talking about creating an empire in the region.

It's carved off a chunk of Syria in addition to the Golan Heights.And so the idea that somehow the GCC will go running to Israel, Israel's the reason they're getting bombed.I mean, one of the reasons why the United States put bases in the GCC was so that it could set up early warning systems for Israel so that if Iran launched missiles, those missiles would be detected early.So that's one of the first things Iran did was blow up the US military bases, which by the way are in ruins.And for the record, the United States has done exactly zero to stop the missile strikes on the GCC.So even though France and Great Britain have actually been helping the GCC, pushed back against the drone and missile strikes, the United States did nothing.

It completely abandoned its allies.It even abandoned its expats.In the opening days of the war, the expats who wanted to leave were like, what do we do?And the federal government's response was, you're on your own, good luck.And then when they finally did evacuate people, they charged the money for it, which was hilarious to me because it was like, wait a minute, I thought you were supposed to take care of your citizens.You didn't have a plan in place in the event you triggered a war that caused Iran to retaliate.

Iran said it was going to do exactly what it did before this happened.I even, on my podcast, I even said what was going to happen I did the podcast on Monday, but we released it on Thursday.And then on Saturday, it happened because Iran had told us they were going to bomb the GCC, they were going to bomb Israel, and they were going to close the Strait of Hormuz.And that's exactly what they did.And so the fact that the Trump administration didn't have a plan for the bombing of the GCC and didn't have a plan for closing the Strait shows they They didn't think this through.They just blundered into this.

And it's bizarre, because they had months to think about this.

I think they can close the straits tomorrow.they want, because there's no Navy other than about 100 PT boats.There's 800 Apaches and Warthogs in the skies that are capable at any time.It's a political decision.And why is it a political decision not to restart the war?Because we have this schizophrenia in the United States that on Monday, if Donald Trump says, I want to negotiate with the Iranians, they call him a taco, he's sold out.

If on Tuesday, he says, I have to force them to negotiate, so I'm going to have to be kinetic, then he's Hitler.And he's He's under pressure from the Republicans in the midterms, and he is halted right now.But make no mistake about it.

You're blaming his flip -flopping and his constant changing his story.

No, I'm not.

He'll contradict himself three times.

You're blaming this on pressure?I'm not.I'm saying that he is reacting to political pressure, but it's not a military problem.They don't have the military capability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if we say that they cannot.But they did.We did because we are restrained right now.

How are you restrained?

Politically restrained.The United States attacked Iran, a country that had no means to attack the United States, was not threatening to attack the United States.We still don't know why.Are you serious?

It told the world it told the world had not enriched to 60 percent.It told the world that had only had 1 ,700 to 1 ,800 ranges on their missile.Everything that regime has ever said has been false.Everything is said.They tried to assassinate the They've tried to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.People are arrested in the United States for plotting to kill the president of the United States.

They funded all of these Arab groups.that have committed 50 years of terrorism.Everybody knows that.It was just a question of, is anybody going to call them to account?And you can argue whether he did, but there's no argument about the military ability to call him to account.When Bill Clinton went in to Serbia in 72 days, they said, at day 50, he's not going to be able to do it.

He's not going to be able to do it, because to do it, you have to hit the grid, and you have to hit the bridges on the Danube and isolate them.And he said that would be a dual -use target.I won't do it.And then he did it in spades, and the war was over in 72 days.The same thing with Libya.That was a misadventure.

But Barack Obama never got congressional authorization, nor did Clinton.He bombed for seven months.And finally, he said, we're going to hit dual -use targets.He hit the docks.He hit cargo ships.He hit communications.

We haven't done that.We haven't done that at all.You say that we've committed war crimes.If you think that what we've done is a war crime, then you should think that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton should be tried at the International Criminal Court compared to the damage they did.

How do we get that to happen?

I'm ready.I mean, look at Libya today.

It's a complete disaster.

So that was a dominant option.I oppose that.I was in Libya for, I had a ruptured appendix and moved in Libya.I know all about Libya.

And Iraq was a complete disaster.

Iraq was a misadventure in the sense that we decided to create a democracy when we should have just removed the regime and allowed a caretaker government to take it.But the idea of nation building in that part of the world was a mistake.

But Victor, on this notion of regime change, you know, the history shows us that it's hardly ever been a successful strategy to try and affect regime change in the Middle East.And Trump himself seemed very aware of that and was like, you know, I'm not going to do this.We're not going to get into, you know, endless wars in the Middle East, very expensive on human life, on the economy and so on.He was very adamant about this, and people voted for him because of that.He said, I'm going to be America first, looking after our interests, strong border, strong economy, good cost of living, bring inflation down.Every part of this Iran war so far has flown in the face of everything he campaigned on, hasn't it?

I mean, he's gone and chosen the biggest possible Middle Eastern war he could have possibly got involved with.In the short term, it's been economically disastrous.pretty much double price of gas at the pump.It's going to inevitably lead to raging inflation on food prices the longer it goes on because of the issue of fertilizer not coming through the Strait of Hormuz.And politically, like you say, it's obviously very toxic politically to the extent that he can't even militarily reopen the strait because politically he can't do it.So I'm really struggling to see a coherent strategy here that is consistent with what Trump promised to do when he was campaigning to be re -elected.

Well, he said he was not going to have a war.I think it was an optional ground war in the Middle East.He's done this before, Piers.He killed Soleimani.He killed Baghdadi.He had a sustained bombing campaign that eliminated ICE.

He was in Syria.The Wagner group attacked him.He had a full -fledged war.He killed more Russians in the first term than during the entire Cold War.He removed the Maduro government.So he had done that, and the red line for him apparently was, you don't get in a protracted ground war anywhere, especially in the Middle East.

We haven't done that yet.And we haven't been there as long as we were in Serbia.

But if his goal, Victor, if his goal, as he now says, he's now sort of centred it down to one goal, to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon, do you concede that if at the end of these negotiations, which we're told are happening and may lead to some kind of deal, if that does not involve Iran handing over its enriched uranium, then the goal has not been achieved, and the war will have failed, won't it?

If they do not hand over the nuclear, or it's not cemented, or it's not on, we don't know where it is.A lot of people have argued you couldn't get it anyway.But whatever the international adjudicators can tell us, where it is, and whether it's recoverable.If it is recoverable, and we didn't get it, then yes, that was a failure.The regime, we keep talking about, they can do this and they can do that militarily.What can they do militarily?

They have no military.And that took them a half century to create it.

But they don't have to do that because they can just continue to use the Strait of Hormuz as their most effective weapon.And they can continue.They've still got apparently many hundreds, if not thousands, of ballistic missiles left.So they can still lob a load of those at their neighbouring Gulf states.

We don't know how many they have.

Right.But it's believed they've still got up to a thousand until they go red.And look, we don't know for sure, obviously.That's the caveat.

Well, the key thing is if he's going to negotiate and not destroy the the ability for them to make you know yeah close the straight that is eliminate all the PT boats and get rid of it and eliminate the missiles I myself thought when they when they targeted the UAE and they started we could have replied we didn't have to go into full -fledged war but we could have repliedin a way that would have given up some deterrence.Yes, that will be a mistake if he negotiates that, but you have to concede, Piers, that when this war's over and people look and go in there and they look at the military and what it was, it's been a devastating loss to the, and it's been very asymmetrical.

You can I mean, I mean, listen, like I said to you, I think there's no doubt at all that the US and Israeli military have inflicted massive damage on Iran's conventional military.It will.I agree.

It will be incomplete if it will be incomplete if they don't if they can't certify that the uranium is unusable for a nuclear weapon.You asked me earlier very quickly about the global ripples, but everybody says that there's these winners.China has no ability to buy sanctioned oil.at a discount from Iran now.It was buying 4 million barrels of sanctioned oil from Venezuela, Iran, and other places.It can't do that now.

And I don't think after looking at the U .S.Navy and Air Force, it's going to be ready to go into Taiwan, especially given what we see about drone warfare in Ukraine.Russia's lost 2 million people in Ukraine dead and wounded, and it has no client anymore for the first time in 50 years in the Middle East.It's lost its Syrian client.It's lost any influence with Iran now.

It's completely neutered in that respect.There's going to be a reappraisal of NATO, and I think it'll be a wake -up call that NATO powers, if they don't want to use their airspace for the Americans to do something that is in the general interest of them and the United States, that's fine.And I don't think we should get out of NATO, but there will be a realistic appraisalwhere certain coalitions of the willing will be dominant, and that will be probably Eastern European NATO members.If Britain were to ask the United States for all the help we went on a unilateral expedition to the Falklands again, something like that, or the French to Chad, or the French and British to say, can you join the coalition of the willing in Serbia, or our coalition of the willing that we've planned for Libya, they're going to say no.That's a difference.

I agree.I think there's been a big shift in sentiment there.Professor Casagrande, What's your response to Victor there, particularly about the, as we go forward, the changing geopolitics of all this?

Okay, so let me start with the uranium.We knew where the uranium was 10 months ago, and we knew where the uranium was since the JCPOA.When we bombed Iran 10 months ago and completely obliterated and totally destroyed their stockpiles, which of course we knew was nonsense at the time, they hit it.They squirreled it away somewhere, deep inside some mountain probably.We don't know its condition now.So in other words, what Trump has done, by tearing up the JCPOA and then by bombing 10 months ago, is he's made it so we don't know where the uranium is.

And so the irony is, is this current war, if his goal is to get to the uranium, there's no reason for the Iranians to hand it over.Again, he's made the situation a disaster, and now he's trying to figure out how to dig himself out of it.As far as NATO goes, Trump has made it absolutely clear, first in his first term, when he refused to acknowledge Article 5 of the NATO treaty, no matter how many times NATO members asked him, if something happens to one of our members, will Article 5 go into effect for the United States?He refused.Either he didn't know what it was,or he really just hates NATO's guts.

But then the whole Greenland thing, I mean, you know you're in trouble when Mertz, who's basically Trump's lapdog, is saying, I think Trump may have just killed NATO.So it's true, there will be a complete realignment inside NATO, because what's happened is France and Germany have woken up and have realized that the United States is no longer a player, that the United States is no longer a partner, that the United States has gone rogue and is doing unjustified wars in the Middle East, and it's no longer playing ball with them, right?Because Look, the Iraq war, the 2003 war, was a complete foolish disaster.There was no reason on earth to do it to begin with.And it, you know, we brought in Poland and Great Britain.We had all the coalition of the willing countries that we browbeat like Tonga into sending help, Japan.

We forced Japan to break their own constitution and send help.Well, one of the things that, Europe was willing to do was turn a blind eye to this foolishness.Gerhard Schroder said, please don't do this.We did this in 1939.You're the United States.You have a higher standard than the rest of the world.

And Bush refused to talk to Gerhard Schroder until the end of his term.And the result was Europe went we're okay with this.We're going to let them genocide Arabs because, well, they're brown anyway.Who cares?And they're Muslim and we hate Muslims because the United States is going to back us no matter what happens if we get in trouble in Europe.And now they know the United States is actually part of the problem and that the United States isn't probably going to be there in case they get in trouble.

And so, yeah, How could it be a shock that Germany didn't want to back the United States in this miracle war in Iraq?

Trump told the Germans, the worst thing you can do is the Nord Stream pipeline.Why are you buying gas from Vladimir Putin and then asking us to defend you when you're profiting him?They said, When he came into office, the Biden administration had stopped offensive weapons sales to Ukraine, the Obama administration.The irony is that he approved offensive weapons sales in a way that Biden or Obama did not do.He told them not to buy gas.He sanctioned the oligarchs.

He got out of an asymmetrical missile deal.In fact, when he came in, people had said, you better be very careful, he's alienating the Russians.But the whole thing about Russian collusion, and Russia invaded Ukraine during four administrations, two administrations, and they invaded Ossetia, Georgia, during the Bush administration.So for four administrations, they left their borders and attacked a Russian military base quasi -european country and they did not do it during the four years of Donald Trump and they did not do they haven't done it now again a new of nation there had to be a reason for that and the reason was they felt that he had been Unpredictable you can use the term whatever term you use, but they couldn't count on him not doing anything like Joe Biden saying, my reaction will depend on whether it's a minor or major invasion.Or going over to Putin and say, if you're going to hack US institutions, please lay off humanitarian institutions.So we have given Ukraine about $150 billion.

And he did it over the loud objections of his MAGA base.And the Biden administration did it.He continued.He's still helping them stealthily, still helping them.What he doesn't want to do is to give Ukraine a blank check.and I think if this was a different type of situation, the only way Ukraine really could recover all of its territory would to hit offensively to hit targets in Russia.

But Russia has 6 ,500 nuclear weapons, and we don't know what the reaction would be, so we've had restraints on them for that.So are the Europeans.And as far as the Europeans, they can say all they want, but they have just barely met the 2 % GDP investment.And that only happened because Donald Trump harangued them.He was obnoxious.That is true.

And they're not going to get to 5%.Our neighbor Canada spends 1 .7%.It won't even build an icebreaker.And they're completely under the nuclear shield.United States, they can say all they want.But when you talk about the French and the British, Israel has twice the combat aircraft of any one of those three countries, Germany, France, or Britain.

We have in the Gulf right now about 2 ,000.aircraft.800.

Israel has that materiel because France, Great Britain, the United States, and Germany provide them with that material.They wouldn't have that material if they were on their own.

And they provide it because unlike the country you're speaking from, they're the only consensual society that have regular, open, transparent elections and free speech.They're an apartheid state.

No, they're not.They're subhuman that they murder on a regular basis.How many Gauls have they just slaughtered?I can tell you right now...

Are you going to sit here and tell me that...Are you going to tell me right now that if a person says in Israel, I don't want to be an observant Jew, I want to be a Muslim and I want to have a mosque and I want to be a Christian and have a church.Can you go to the UAE or any of the Gulf states and say, I don't want to be anMuslim, I want to be a Christian, or I want to be a Jew, and I want to open a church or a synagogue?No, you can't do that.

What does that have to do with genocide?It has to do with why— So you're hiding the inability to convert from Islam to another religion with, it's okay to slaughter Arabs, and who, by the way, a percentage of them are Christians— I'm not going to argue, I'm not going to argue that that Israel is the only transparent...

It's the only transparent...It's nonsensical.I'm not going to get in an argument, because anybody who's empirical knows that Israel is transparent, it has scheduled elections, it has free speech, it has full rights for women, and you have...It doesn't have free speech.

That's nonsensical.The point I was going to ask you, Victor, is, out of interest, I've had this debate quite a lot recently, why is it that Israel is not compelled to be transparent about its nuclear capacity?in terms of having nuclear weapons?

It is.It has 170 nuclear weapons.

It's never admitted any.

It may be never officially, but everybody knows it's allowed people...It discusses that all the time.It has 175 nuclear weapons.

But why has it never admitted any of that?

Why has it never admitted?Because I think most countries don't admit how many they have.We don't admit exactly how many ready nuclear weapons we have.When I say there's 6 ,500 Russian nuclear weapons, that's because of... intelligence estimates.But the Israelis have never denied it.If you say somebody to even the Netanyahu government, you have 175 nuclear weapons, he'll say no comment.

And I think Donald Trump would say no comment.But we know how many we have.It's the official position of all these countries not to talk about how many nuclear weapons.

Yeah, but I think my point is, Israel don't admit to having any.They don't admit to having any nuclear weapons at all.And I'm not sure why they are allowed to have the only pilot.on that kind of transparency about whether a country has nuclear weapons.We know nine countries do.That list doesn't include Israel.

Do what?Officially, nine countries in the world have nuclear weapons.That list does not include, officially, Israel.And I've never understood why, if they have 170, as you say, why are they not part of that list?Why are they not country number 10 and transparent about it?You say how transparent they are.

Why are they not transparent about their nuclear capacity?

Israel has 11 million people, and it's in a sea of 500 people, 500 million Islamic, Arab, and Persians.And they're all in relative degrees hostile to it.That's just a fact, whether you agree with it or not.

But why?

Why?Because it is a Western democracy, it is a free society.

What do you mean by that?That's nonsensical.Yeah, it is.It's nonsensical that anybody would hate Israel just because it had democratic elections.The problem with Israel is it stole the land from the Palestinians.It left them in a state of permanent refugee status.

It does nothing to fix it.And in fact, it's made the situation worse by basically turning Gaza into a giant open air concentration camp and then tearing the West Bank up into little pieces and walling off the Palestinians.

Let me ask you, if on October 7th, Terrorists had come into your country and slaughtered raped beheaded tortured 1 ,200 people and then they had taken 240 hostages back and then they had built had subverted UN and American and other European relief and built a billion -dollar subterranean complex whose exits and entries were in schools mosque and hospitals and hid as human shieldsAnd then they said, when Israel said, we would like you to extradite the people who were responsible for this, they said no.And when you had pictures of people cheering in the streets and trying to hit the hostages, and we know now that the hostages were tortured, what would you do in response to that?

I mean, the Palestinians face the same exact question on a regular basis, because Israel does very similar things to the Palestinians, and has since 1948.The reality is, is that Israel is the attacker and the aggressor in this scenario.And so there are Western democracy is, yeah, I guess, in the same way that the United States genocided the Native Americans.

I don't know, this is getting ridiculous, Piers.I mean, this, you have to be rational.I mean, what does that have to, genocide of the Native Americans?I mean, we're talking about the Middle East in rational terms, but when you bring in all of these other things, you just weaken your case.Israel, I was on the Stanford campus, every day I walked across the campus, I saw very affluent Middle Easterners for the first time in their lives, many from where you are now, protesting, screaming, yelling at the government.If they did that in any of these Gulf states, they'd be arrested.

And you knew that.It's true.There's no protest in the UAE.I'm not going to tell you otherwise.If you said right now, if you want to say right now, if you said right now, I've had a change of heart about October 7th, I just want to throw it out there.I think it was a horrible act, and I can see why Israel retaliated.

It was a horrible act.If you just said, I have a change of attitude and I reassess my position, I can see why Israel did it, it's kind of an ambiguous question, there's arguments, you'd probably lose your position.You know that.

I don't think so, no.

I think you would.

For the record, I think that what the Palestinians did on October 7th washorrible act.It was murder.It was slaughter.Try it.Who is going to condone that?

But what Israel did in response was orders of magnitude worse.

Well, I'm just telling you that if you're talking from a country that if anybody wanted to express free speech or exercise religious liberty and choice as they do in Israel, And I've been to Israel many times.They did.I've been to the Arab countries and the Arab population.

All I can say, we've run out of time, unfortunately.All I would say is I have actually broadcast my show, Uncensored, from all over the Middle East in the last two years and talked about all these issues and expressed very strong opinions.And no one has tried to censor me.

You're not a citizen.If you were a citizen of those countries, you couldn't do that.You know that.You're a famous guest, and so they accommodate you and your free speech.But if you were a citizen, have you ever had a citizen of the UAE and Saudi, when you were critical of that government, come on your show and attack that government, why they were residing in that country?If you did, I'd like to learn about it.

Yeah, I think that's probably fair.I don't think they would tolerate open dissent about the government in the way you're articulating.That's probably fair.We've got to leave it there, gentlemen.A very interesting debate.Thank you both very much indeed.

Thanks for having me.

Well, there are more mixed messages on the progress of the peace talks.The president told PBS that a deal could include Iran shipping its enriched uranium to the U .S.Most reporting suggests the U .S.may actually settle for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and dealing with the so -called nuclear dust later.

With a view from Tehran, I'm rejoined again by Professor Mohamed Morandi of Tehran University.Professor Morandi, welcome back to Uncensored.Thank you very much for having me.Where is this war now?as far as Iran is concerned?

Well, the reports from Axios are nonsense.And they believe here it was for market manipulation.And some people probably made a huge amount of money, people close to the White House.The Iranians are not going to send this so -called nuclear to Iraq.Iran's nuclear material will remain in Iran.But what Iran expects is that the United States implement the ceasefire agreement that we had when the fighting stopped on day 39.

After that, the two sides agreed that there would be a regional ceasefire.And Netanyahu immediately started carpet bombing Lebanon, the democratic state that your previous guest was talking about.He carpet bombed Lebanon, murdering hundreds of people within a few minutes.many of them in neighborhoods that were not even sympathetic to the resistance, just so that he could block the ceasefire.And then Trump went and said that Lebanon is not a part of the ceasefire.And of course, the Pakistani government had to come out and say, actually, it is indeed a part of the ceasefire.

So there was supposed to be a regional ceasefire, including Lebanon, Gaza, elsewhere.And then were ships that belonged, that were affiliated to the five countries helping the United States in the war against Iran.Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates, they were supposed to be able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.Finally, when Netanyahu was forced to accept the ceasefire, even though he again afterwards began the slaughter,Then the United States refused to remove the siege on Iranian ports, which is an act of war and a violation of the ceasefire, too.So basically, the ships are not flowing, are not moving because of Netanyahu and then Trump.

And I should stress that the Strait of Hormuz is not closed.Countries that did not engage in war with Iran, their ships go through.like Russia, like China, like Iraq, Indian ships have gone through and others.But those that are affiliated to these countries or have goods from these countries, that they're the ones that the five countries that engaged in the war, they are the ones who are limited or restricted.

So how does a deal look like from Tehran's perspective?Donald Trump and his administration have been very bullish about we're very near to getting a deal and most of what the Americans would like out of this deal is going to be agreed.We're just trying to work out who to talk to and so on.But from Tehran's point of view, for example, on that issue of enriched uranium, can you envisage any deal with the United States, which involves the voluntary handing over of enriched uranium, or any verbal guarantee to do so on any timeline?

Well, I think it's pretty clear that for the Iranians, who didn't start this war, and the Iranians have been much more careful not to kill civilians, Even though Iran carried out huge devastation across the Persian Gulf, I think less than 20 people in these five countries were killed, whereas 3 ,400, 500 Iranians were murdered.And the same is true with the Israeli regime.Very few people were killed there.Iran didn't target synagogues, unlike the synagogue in Tehran that the Israelis bombed.Iran did not target schools, unlike the Americans and Israelis that did target schools, and so on.But the Iranians are saying that when the war started, when the invasion began, Trump was demanding unconditional surrender, like the 12 -day war that he started months earlier.

And he failed.And by day 39, Trump accepted the Iranian 10 -point plan as the basis for negotiations.Why?Because he failed.He lost the war.It's obvious.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have accepted.And so based on that, Iran accepted a ceasefire.So obviously, first we have to have the ceasefire, which the Americans and Netanyahu are violating.And that's why the global economic crisis is getting worse by the hour, because of the siege, which violates the ceasefire, and the slaughter in Lebanon and in Gaza.So once there is a ceasefire, then which can be implemented now.Trump can right now say, I lift the siege, Netanyahu has to stop killing kids, and then the ships will go through the Strait of Hormuz.

It's as simple as that.And then we move on to the 10 -point Iranian plan that has to be negotiated.After all, war was carried out against our people.In just one strike, the Americans murdered 168 little girls in a school.So there has to be compensation.Someone has to pay.

The Americans think that since the Trump thinks that since it's an empire, We don't have negotiations.They dictate terms.Iran is not like other countries where the United States bullies and says you have to abide by our tariffs.That's not how Iran works.And I think Trump by now should have understood that when he imposed this attempt to starve ordinary Iranians with his siege.That failed too.

That's why he was in such a rush to carry out thenew operation, which also failed.And most probably, Trump is going to launch another attack on Iran with his brother in arms, Netanyahu, and that will fail too.And it's only going to drag the world to an economic collapse, to an economic depression.I assure you, Pierce, the course that the United States is taking for the sake of the Israeli regime, not for the American people, it's all for the sake of Zionism.is dragging the world to economic depression.

And this could be and this could have ended.This shouldn't have started in the first place.But after the 39 day war we could have if they had abided by the ceasefire the global economic situation would be infinitely different from what it is now.

I have had other guests, including Victor Davis Hanson just now, who say it's been actually a clear victory for the United States militarily.They've caused enormous damage to Iran's military, which I think is unarguable.And that if they wanted to militarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz, they could do it in a heartbeat, but for political reasons, they're not taking that option at the moment.And that actually, no -one's quite sure who's running Iran.the new supreme leader has not been seen in public and therefore the assumption is that actually it's a rudderless ship and it's far more damaged than Iran would ever care to admit.So my first question about that would be where is your supreme leader?

No one's seen him.Is he alive?

Oh he is alive and well and you know, Piers, I don't think anyone who knows anything about anything takes anything you say seriously, because if Iran has been defeated, and if they could take this straight easily, and if Iran has no leaders and things are falling apart, and then somelanguage that you use about Iran, if that was all correct, then it's over.Then you don't have to have this conversation with me.Go and do what you like to do.That's not what's happening, isn't it?The United States has been humiliated, and the Zionist regime hasn't been exposed for the genocidal regime that it is.

Of course, last time I asked you three times, What do you think about an ethno -supremacist regime?And you refuse to answer.But the fact is that the United States is doing all of this and destroying the global economy for an ethno -supremacist regime to preserve that.But if they're really worried about the U .S.economy and the world economy, then why don't they just open the strait and take out the oil and take the country and we'll all be refugees like the Palestinians where you kicked them out of their homes in 1948?

I mean, President Trump has indicated that's exactly what he may do if there's no deal.

Well, that's because the West is led by monsters.And you are friends with those monsters, ethnosupremacists and exceptionalists.

You know what?You do this.We have a perfectly civilized conversation.And then you can't resist.Hang on.Hang on.

You said S -H -I -T.You can't resist.You said S -H -I -T.And you can't resist doing.It's putting your fake halo on your head and pretending that you yourself do not help prop up a monstrous regime.You talk about America has to be held accountable for killing people.

What about Iran's regime, which for 47 years has killed millions of people?So many people, not least its own people, as we saw in January.Should they be held accountable for that?Would you like to see your regime held accountable for the thousands of protesters it killed in January, for the Americans it's killed, for the Israelis it's killed, for the way it's propped up Hamas and ISIS?the Houthis, to cause endless terrorism all over the Middle East.Would you like your regime to be held accountable for that monstrous activity?

You know, Piers, first of all, you used that word that I won't repeat, and that's exactly how you like to frame things.You started insulting Iran, and I gave you a much more civilized response.What is the word you're talking about?Sorry.You said S -H -I -T.No, I didn't.

That's how I heard it.No, I didn't.That's not what you said.

Sorry, just to be clear, at no stage of this interview have I said that.

OK, then I'm mistaken.Then I'm mistaken.I thought you said, but first of all, I asked you to come to Iran.You could have seen what Iran is like.

I've asked you to come here.You haven't come either.So you know what?

Well, I've lived there.I've lived there, Piers.I've lived there.I've been there many times.I did my PhD there.So there's a bit of a difference, just so you know.

But you haven't come.And I haven't come.So we're in the same boat.I've been there.I was actually in that protest that you and I discussed about together in 2003, when you were a somewhat different person than you are now.I wasn't a different person at all.

No, I was exactly the same person.

Let me respond.Let me respond.

As a person, well, first of all, I asked you to read that book, Going to Tehran, by Flint and Hillary Levin.And I'm sure you didn't bother to do so.As a person who survived...

To be honest with you, Professor, I know that you think you can just bark out your instructions to me as if somehow I'm beholden to the Iranian regime over what books I should be reading, but I don't really feel that burning desire to read books just because Professor Morandi, the chief propagandist for the Iranian regime, tells me to.Call me naive.

Sure, do what you like.Do what you like.But as a person who survived two chemical attacks,your regime helped give to Saddam Hussein, I don't think you or your government or the regime...

I led the campaign against the Iraq war that my government waged in 2003, as you know.

No, that's not when they used chemical weapons, Pierce.They used them in the 1980s and your government gave it to Saddam Hussein.Back then he was your friend.Back then he was your ally.You forget.that you've waged three wars against my country.

We're the bad guys, of course, but you carried out a coup in 1953.Then during the revolution, when people on the streets, your regime supported the Shah, gunning down people.Then after the revolution, they encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade our country.The West gave him chemical weapons.I survived both mustard gas and nerve agents in two separate attacks.Many didn't survive.

But that wasn't important in the West back then.

Can I ask you one question?Before we finish, just one question.I'm not responsible for what my government did when I was a teenager, just to be clear.Just one question for you.Of course you are.No, I've got a question.

Every human being who is politically aware is responsible for that.

I'm asking you a question though.I'm asking you a question.And I am too.Okay, I'm asking you a question which is one that is put by a lot of my viewers.I'm just curious of the answer.I'm not being accusatory.

But you always do these interviews with apparently a full internet signal in a country where many people have had their internet turned off since January.How are you doing that and why is it one rule for you and another for the for the large majority of the people of Iran?

off to the international internet, Iranian internet and Iranian websites and Iranian apps were used.But back then during the war, they were using the internet to find targets in Iran and to murder people and to destroy Iranian infrastructure.So they limited that.Back then, if you recall, and as I explained, I was not using my own internet.Now they've opened up the internet more.help to me to be able to use this but as we to use a better Internet connection.

But as we speak I am using a VPN like most other people.But I think the best thing for you to do is to counter my arguments.Your country bombed my country or the United States slaughtered children.And that's why we had Internet restrictions.Otherwise before the slaughter of our people, of our leaders, of our scientists, of our academics, of schools, of bombing apartment blocks.Before that, we...

And you know what?Your own regime...Your own regime, according to many reports, slaughtered up to 30 ,000 of its own people, including children, in January.But you will say to me...Really?

You will say to me, nothing to see here.They're all heavily armed militants.Do you believe that?I believe that over you, yeah.

You believe that?You believe it?So you believe it?I do, yeah.

I think many thousands of people were slaughtered by your regime.Yeah, I do.

Your regime?Because the evidence shows, the Iranians gave the names of all the people who were killed, every single one.3 ,117.Hundreds were police officers or officers of the law.And 2 ,000 of them were people who were caught in the crossfire by people who were armed by your government.Of course.

Who said they were armed by your government?They were all killed by the protesters.Channel 14 of Israel.That's right.Channel 14 of Israel.Israel.

Yeah.Pompeo, you know these people.Forgive me, Professor Morandi, we've run out of time.But this doesn't show your government killed my people.You know, Professor Morandi, it's always...Your government murdered 3 ,300 people.

The reason I get you on, Professor Morandi, is it's always interesting to hear a voice from Tehran talking, and I appreciate you coming on.I take most of what you say with a massive pinch of salt, but I appreciate you...Oh, I take it with...But that's fine.I appreciate you coming on the program and to giving a perspective from Tehran.Thank you very much.

Thank you.Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent.The only boss around here is me.If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing.Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain.

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