An American Christian's Understanding of the Israel-Iran War

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Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. Hope everyone's doing well out there. It's been a little while.

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Well, I guess I was on the American Churchman last night, but before that, it's been a little while. I took a little trip for,

00:12

I guess it was two full days with travel, four days, right? You know, get there and get back to the

00:17

White Mountains in New Hampshire. We were actually staying in Maine, in Lovell, Maine, which is, it's actually a quite nice little town.

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There aren't hotels or really any corporate anything there. That's one of the things I liked about it.

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It had that small town feel, that quaint New England feel. My wife found this

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Airbnb cabin, and so we just stayed there for, I guess it would have been three nights, and had a wonderful time just driving around, checking out little towns around there, going hiking.

00:52

We went up, what do they call that, Mount Washington? I've been up there. I actually hiked it a few years ago.

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Now it's like 10 years ago. I don't like to think about how long things are now, but it was a while ago now that I think about it.

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Okay, so it wasn't a few years, but I did hike it. This is the first time I actually drove up, and that's a bucket list thing, right?

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A lot of people, especially if you're on the East Coast, going up Mount Washington is a big deal.

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You get a little bumper sticker that says, my car went up Mount Washington, which I'm not going to put on my car, but I've driven in Alaska.

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I've driven in Colorado. I've driven in California. I don't really, I don't know. It's not the biggest feat

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I've ever been through, I suppose, but it's still, for the

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Northeast, that's kind of a big deal. Anyway, I was away, and while I was away, I guess the world ended, or at least it was supposed to end.

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Some people said it was going to be World War III, and of course, I did not want missiles to be sent when

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I heard, oh no, Trump's thinking of missiles. I think it went through all our minds. We're like, oh no, no, please don't do this.

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Don't escalate this, which was the concern, but I saw a number of folks in the limited time

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I had to check social media out saying honestly kind of crazy stuff,

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I thought, at least. I mean, I guess if we're going to have a nuclear war, maybe it's not that crazy, but I just thought, this is a little bit panicky, saying things like,

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I regret voting for Trump. I'm basically repenting of it. I should never have told any of you to vote for Trump, as if Kamala Harris would have been better.

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Dave Smith was one. Candace Owens was one. Nick Fuentes, not that I follow him, but of course, this is like go time for those guys, right?

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They're like, oh man, this is our opportunity. This is our narrative. This is go time. Of course, it wasn't go time.

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I'm actually very happy with the way things turned out compared to what could have happened.

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What could have happened obviously scared a lot of us. This prompted me.

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I thought, when I get back, I don't know if I'll cover this. I'm not sure. It was still a little bit of an ongoing thing, but the more

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I thought about it, the more I thought, you know, there's not a lot of great resources out there to explain and give a historical background to what actually led to all this.

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You could spend a series of podcasts talking about all this, but I thought, I have some requests to talk about it.

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I'll do it. I'll probably give you a perspective that you likely aren't hearing in other places as much.

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That's because it's driven by a more historical long view. I think that's really important. I value that.

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Obviously, I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast value that. Even my critiques of social justice are very driven by historical research and understanding what led to the point that we're at now.

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Then, what are the historical patterns? What could happen given what has happened?

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This is not going to be any different. I will confess though, if it's Eastern or even

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Middle Eastern history, it's not my strongest point. I'm thinking back.

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I had an undergraduate course in Middle Eastern history. There's a number of things

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I learned in that obviously that I think pertain. It was actually that background from like now 16 years ago or more that I was tapping into that made me realize, wow, a lot of the takes out there, especially on X, are just really awful.

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These people, a lot of them don't seem to understand the dynamics geopolitically.

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I'm no expert, but hey, I know they're wrong, but they're very sure of themselves. That just prompted me to say, you know what?

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I may not know. I may not have all the answers. If you ask a question in this live chat, I may have to get back to you. I'm thinking of possibly doing a follow -up and in the follow -up talking more about Zionism and that kind of stuff.

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I think that's important to this, but that's being covered,

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I think maybe over -covered and probably overplayed by a lot of folks. It's not my first instinct to cover that, but I may do another episode on that if people are interested.

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I want to focus on Iran, Israel, and the United States though. Geopolitically, what just happened?

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Why did that happen? Why did Trump feel compelled to throw some rockets over there?

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Israel, of course, starting this off in a way, it really is one of those things where you get into parental disputes or arguments between kids and the parent has to come in and it's like, he hit me first.

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Oh yeah, but he said this. Oh yeah, but it's one of those things. You can't, yes, Israel did shoot some rockets that kicked this off, but there's a long history here.

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That's what's important to understand and that's what we're going to get into. I don't represent all Christians here, but I am a

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Christian and I am going to see things in hopefully a Christian way, meaning just war theory, meaning

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I am American first, meaning the Order of Amoris means something to me. I care about my country and I don't want us getting tangled up into wars that aren't ours or don't serve our interests, especially when we have a problem with our own border and our own debt and all kinds of other things.

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That's going to play into this obviously as well. I also have sympathy and compassion for both

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Iran and Israel and people in general. I don't look at things just ideologically. There's real people in these places that are getting hurt.

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I don't know what the casualty levels are now. I think they were estimated to be around 500 or 600 last

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I checked. I don't know. That's what I read at least. I haven't looked into that deeply, but 500 or 600 for the

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Iran, Iranian people and then for Israel, it was, I don't know, 15, 20, something like that.

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With Iran especially, we probably aren't going to know for a little while if ever exactly how many, but these are people.

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These are real people and this has real world ramifications. That's why it does matter to an extent.

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At the same time though, and I do need to say this before we get into all of it, I don't want and I don't like the obsession with foreign conflicts and issues.

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There definitely has been, and I think it's the right word, an obsession with Israel's conflicts, both coming from a neoconservative hegemony that's been in place for 25 years at least in DC and a very pro -Israel lobby there, but also a rising kind of Islamic sympathy coming from those who, and you see this on American university campus, obviously from those who are pro -Palestinian quote unquote, and really

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I think what it is more than anything is an anti -Israel kind of zeitgeist. Now this is on both the post -liberal left and the post -liberal right, not obviously every iteration of post -liberalism, but you definitely see these things taking shape and form.

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And maybe if we have some time, I'll explain why I think that's happening and what that actually is, because I think that's often misdiagnosed, but that does lend itself to a hyper fixation on these things as well.

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And I think if you're a Washington guy, you want a Washingtonian foreign policy, you want to as much as possible scale back foreign involvement, get back to an

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America first kind of agenda. Some people call this naive, it would take steps to do it.

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But if that's what you are interested in, which I would say, I am someone who is interested in this kind of thing, to do it responsibly, knowing that it takes steps to do it, then there needs to be a focus on our problems that is much greater than a focus on the problems of other countries.

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And so I'm doing this as carefully as I possibly can, knowing, hey, we just launched some rockets, this affects us, so we do need to talk about it.

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But at the same time, realizing the goal now should be, okay, now we need to start the deportations guys, right?

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That's what we're going to do because we've temporarily at the very least staved off this issue.

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You might say we kicked the can down the road, but we've managed it, haven't solved it, but we've managed it, which is probably the best you can hope for in this situation.

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Let's get some stuff done here. That's kind of my push here. But given all the takes

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I saw that so many of them are so egregious, I thought, you know what, let's walk down Middle Eastern memory lane here.

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And history is interesting, right? No matter what, it's interesting. So let's just talk about it. That's my thing. So that's what we're going to do.

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And I will try to get to questions and comments as we go through the podcast as much as I can, but I have a slideshow prepared, the infamous slideshow.

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I also want to just make two announcements real quick though, before we get into all of this. And one is what we do have a men's retreat coming up, the music and masculinity retreat, musicandmasculinity .com.

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And this is going to fill up, I think pretty quick. I'm telling you now, you're going to want to sign up now.

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I'm just telling you that because I think that this will fill up. So if you want to check out more about it, go to musicandmasculinity .com.

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And also I need to let you know, this is very important. The church reform initiative is putting out the third installment and the last installment in the saga of Summit Church pastored by JD Greer and Faith Baptist of Knightdale, North Carolina.

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This is incredible what has happened. We already have over about 260 ,000 views on YouTube alone of episode one.

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Episode two has about almost a hundred thousand views. And then episode three is coming out tonight.

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This is powerful. You will be, if you watch all three of these, you will be almost in tears at the end and has a happy ending.

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Not many of the stories that I talk about do. This one does. And I was very proud to be part of the team and really arranging this, helping, doing the interviews and just being part of it.

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It has been a wonderful thing. And I really would love to see larger media outlets see this as important because it is.

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This is actually, if you watch this documentary and then you read my article that I did for American Reformer, I had a shorter one at the

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Federalist. I do give you the template. I give you the formula used to sabotage these more conservative or if you want, you know, traditional churches and conform them to a more modernistic kind of progressive template.

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And this is something you can actually do something about.

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So many of the things I talk about, you're sitting there, you're like, well, I don't know what I can do. I'm just a person in the pew.

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This is something you can do something about. When it comes to your church, if it hasn't already, you can actually see the signs and you can put a foot down and say no more before things really get going.

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So I would love to see broader coverage of this. It's probably one of the most important things I think I've done in my podcast career, if you want to call it that.

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And so if there are those of you who have connections, I don't know if, you know, you have media connections to podcasters who have large audiences like, you know,

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Tucker Carlson's and even the Tim Pool's of the world might be interested in this.

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I don't know. It's not just a Christian audience that would be interested, but I think that there's a lot of opportunity here for those who see it.

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And of course, when we launched the first few, it was right before this war. And so of course all heads turned towards the war.

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But I think now that things are hopefully settling down, I would love to get a focus on this.

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And yeah, so if you have any of those connections, feel free to reach out to me on social media and hey, wherever the

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Lord takes it, I'll be satisfied with that. It's obviously it's his mission. So let's get into the topic for today.

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I already see that there are comments coming in. Hey, you're not black and white. That's right, Isaiah. I'm not black and white today.

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The camera works and please, please pray for me because this computer was not working earlier today. I'm in the market for a new computer.

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I reset it and everything, but I'm, you know, so let's try to get through this podcast. So just pray for that.

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But anyway, Ryan says, let's see, American hegemony. We didn't choose to be in the position we're in, but we're in it nevertheless.

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There's some truth to this. And there's a very, there is a naive way of looking at foreign policy where it's like without any steps, you can just pull back from everything.

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That's not true. You can't at least do that responsibly. And there's, you know, there's a lot of things even domestically that I'd love to pull back on.

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You can't just do it in one shot without there being massive consequences. You have to consider those. So anyway, let's see, the

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USA has already pulling back from global order. We created a post -World War II, but we're still involved and we'll never get out of involvement completely.

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I think that's true, says Ryan. I hope you're correct, says Jimmy Starfish. Okay. Well, let's start with some history here.

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We're going to, oh, that's not it. Here we go. Here's my fancy slide show for you.

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Let's see. And if you're not, if you're listening, I know I'm going to try my best. There's a few pictures. I'll explain them. But if, if you're viewing, it's a better experience,

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I think, especially with a slide show. If you are a patron, patreon .com forward slash conversations that matter podcast, no wait,

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John Harris podcast. I think that's what it is. Let me just make sure here. I think the link is in the info or the title section there.

14:48

Let's see here. Yes, it's John Harris podcast. You will get access to this particular slide show so you can have it for yourself.

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But this is what I prepared to service us as we talk about this.

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So I want to start really early. Let's start with ancient Iran. And it is pronounced Iran. And one of the first major figures, and this is still a figure revered by Iranians today is

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Cyrus the great. He founded the Achaemenid empire and he

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United Persian tribes and established a vast empire known for its administrative innovations and tolerance of local cultures.

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And we know about this as Christians, because the Bible talks about this. Ezra chapter one talks about how the Lord stirred up the spirit of the

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Cyrus, the King of Persia. And he set out a proclamation that the Lord, the God of heaven has given to me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

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So there is an ancient tie actually between the Persians, modern

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Iranians, and the Israelis, modern Jews. And some of you, I realize some of you think,

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I don't know exactly where this started, but some people think, well, you know, the modern Jews aren't really

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Jews and all this. And there's a theological argument for this. There's also a genetic argument for this. I'll just say this and I could probably go into more detail if people want me to a little bit, but I will say this.

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If that's true, then Persians aren't Persians either because Persians, as you will see, went through a lot of changes over the years, including religious changes, including changes in intermarrying with other cultures at times and that kind of thing.

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I think one of three Persians today or Iranians can trace, they have some trace of Turkish ancestry actually.

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So are they not Persians? They think they are, right? And there is obviously a strong connection and cultural inheritance they have that they've had for years.

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It's not as strong as maybe Jewish people, but it is, it is nonetheless there. Persians today, they would,

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Iranians, Iranians would view themselves as Persians. And then, so you have Darius, the first expands and organizes this empire.

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Ezra talks about Darius too, right? He issues a decree to do the same thing.

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He finds out what Cyrus said and he says, Hey, concerning the houses of God in Jerusalem, let the temple be rebuilt.

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And then you have Alexander the Great that comes in. Alexander the Great conquers Persia, defeats Darius the third, and he ends the rule of that particular house and he ushers in the

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Hellenistic influence. Now Daniel 11 talks about this. And as a mighty King will arise, he will rule with great authority and do as he pleases.

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But as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom will be broken up and parceled out for the four points of the compass because Alexander the

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Great's army was divided into four points. And this is one of the amazing things about biblical prophecy is Daniel knew about this before it actually happened.

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And if you're watching, that's Darius the first in a carving. In 250

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BC to 224 AD, the Parthian empire revives Persian identity by restoring

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Zoroastrianism. So during the Hellenistic period, Zoroastrianism starts to fade. You have

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Hellenistic influence and then it comes back. So there's, there's a rejuvenation of Zoroastrianism.

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This is also the time you had Kings from the East coming, right? And they visit the

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Messiah. And some think that those are Zoroastrians potentially. And they expel the

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Seleucid successors of Alexander, the Parthian empire does. They resist Roman expansion, notably repelling

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Mark Antony's invasion circa 36 BC. And after his alliance with Jewish factions against Parthian interests.

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So there, there you have Jewish people siding with Mark Antony against the

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Parthians and the Parthians win the, and these are Persians. So then we have a switch though.

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We go from Zoroastrianism to Islam, right? So Zoroastrianism still has an impact.

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There actually are practicing Zoroastrians today in Iran, but it's no influence there.

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It's a cultural relic apparently. So 224 to 651, the

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Sasanian empire rises with the Zoroastrian priest Kartir, organizing the

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Zoroastrian Magi, formalizing religious authority. And this strengthens Persian culture. So there, there's this thing called

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Persian culture, but then 602 to 628, Khosrau II seeks alliances with the

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Byzantine empire to counter nomadic invasion. So there's, there's invaders coming in and there's, they, we need to have an alliance to protect from these people, but the invaders end up winning because 636 to 651

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Arab Muslim armies come in, led by generals like Khalid Ibn al -Walid, and they defeat the

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Sasanian forces, ending Persian rule and introducing Islam. And though Persians resist cultural assimilation, there still is this infusion and Islam becomes kind of the order of the day.

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And it looks like my slide is a little cut off and I don't know why that it does that. So let me see if I can open up a, an alternative version here that I can look at.

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So I can read for you everything I had here, but we have the Farsi emerging as a distinct language.

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Farsi is what they speak today in Iran, blending Persian and Islamic influences, and it fosters a unique cultural identity.

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So the identity that Persians or Iranians have today is a fusion. It's a fusion of Islam and the

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Persian culture that had been there before. And this means that they actually also have their own unique strain of Islam, which puts them at odds with the

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Saudis. They are the, they are Shiites and the

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Saudis are Sunnis. And this is something that actually comes, is an important point to make for the current situation that exists there and why we did what we did last week.

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Then you have the Seljuk Turks beginning their conquest of Persia in early 11th century with significant control established by 1037.

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So the Turkish empire comes in and you have Genghis Khan coming in later than that.

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And then you have a Turkish migration into Iran. So now they're blending with, so they have Hellenistic influence and they have a

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Turkish influence and there's basically Iran gets reduced or Persia gets reduced to this nomadic empire during this time.

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And you have the white sheep Turkmen against the black sheep Turkmen. And so it's not this cohesive empire, it's more fractured, it's wanderers, it's sheep herders and this kind of thing.

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It's kind of a clannish setup. And then at 501, 1501 rather, so we're talking the middle ages now,

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Ismail I founds the Safavid dynasty and declares

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Shi 'ism the state religion. So now Shi 'ism, the Islamic form that took root there becomes the dominating force distinguishing

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Iran from Sunni majority neighbors and embedding the 12th Shi 'ism's belief in the return of the 12th

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Imam. So the turn of the 12th Imam is this belief that there's a messianic figure coming and this factors right into Iran's foreign policy today.

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And there's a spiritual and political kind of dimension where Iran needs to set up a favorable condition for the return of this 12th

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Imam. And part of this is they're seeking global hegemony.

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And you could say, they're not doing that yet. Right, obviously. But they want

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Middle Eastern hegemony to some extent. They are at odds with some of the countries around them, which

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I'll get into, but Israel obviously being one of the major enemies. So this 12th

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Imam belief becomes pervasive. 1501 to 1736, the

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Safavid rule sees corruption with harem enticements undermining the shahs. So the shahs become corrupt in the harem and there's drug use and there's obviously sexual perversion and so forth.

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And this creates a disjointment between the shahs, who are the kings, shah just means king or ruler, and those who they govern.

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So the nomadic tribal peoples have a tension with the imperial wing and this leads to centuries of instability.

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Then in 1800, the Ayatollahs surpassed the corrupt shahs in influence, legitimizing rulers and issuing legal rulings, laying the groundwork for theocratic power.

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The Ayatollahs are just the religious scholars, essentially. And this is what

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Iran is now ruled by, is Ayatollahs. Okay, this is, you hear about the Ayatollah Khamenei.

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You're hearing about a cleric, a Muslim cleric, a

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Farsi -speaking, Shiite -believing cleric that dominates a theocracy, which is

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Iran today, right? So this is where the roots of all of this come from. Then you have

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Western influence starting in the late 1800s through obviously the 20th century, and it starts economically, okay?

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So 1890 to 1892, you have British tobacco concessions fueling what became the tobacco protest.

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There was even a jihad called against the British, and this is the beginning of suspicions of foreign or Western influence, which also affects us today.

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The British are trying to take advantage of us, that kind of thing, right? And then in 1905 to 1906, the

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Constitutional Revolution establishes a parliament and constitutional monarchy, introducing a democratic ideals amid resistance to foreign control.

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So you have the infusion of some of these foreign structures, these Western or modern structures, you could even say liberal kind of structures.

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And at the same time, though, there's resistance in Iran to some of these things. You can see, by the way, a lot of parallels with Turkey.

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If you ever study the history of Turkey and the young Turks and that kind of thing, there's a lot of parallels here.

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1907, Britain and Russia divide Iran into spheres of influence via the Anglo -Russian convention, undermining national sovereignty.

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So you had not just the English, but the Russians are also in Iran. At this point, it's primarily oil that they're after, and they divide

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Iran up economically. So you already have divisions happening in Iran. This time, though, it's not divisions socially, this is economic divisions.

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1919 to 1921, post -World War I, Britain attempts to dominate Iran through the Anglo -Persian agreement, rebellions against the

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Russians, influence persists. And then 1925, Reza Shah Pahlavi, inspired by Ataturk, who's the leader in Turkey, his secular reforms in Turkey, deposes the dynasty, enforcing secular laws, and suppresses tribal structures to modernize

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Iran. And so these factions have existed, by the way, going back as far as the beginning of Western influence.

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The same factions that exist in Iran today have a start back then. You have pro -Western, pro -modern forces, and you have those who want the 12th

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Imam, who want Islamic domination, Sharia law, all of that. That is where Iran is at today, and that's been a struggle for a while.

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And if you don't understand that, you will not understand why we did what we did. You won't understand our foreign policy.

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You have to understand there is an internal instability in Iran. Just like there's an internal instability, it's not as unstable, perhaps, but there's an internal instability in Israel.

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Israel has religious Jews, and it has those who are very secular forming a government together.

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And it's kind of held together by a mutual enemies list and mutual survival, but they are very at odds with each other.

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Iran has a similar issue with modern influence in Islam. Turkey does, too.

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A lot of these countries do. So you have, in 1946, Shah Gavain rebels in a bloodbath against the

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Kurds. So the Kurds are a minority faction with different beliefs here, and I probably didn't need to mention this, but it's part of their history.

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After, I guess you could say, the representative arm passes laws rejecting foreign concessions following Soviet withdrawal from Iran post -World

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War II, this is all post -World War II, the protections for the Kurds aren't there. So the Kurds have a protection from the

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Soviets, it's removed, and then there's a bloodbath against the Kurds. 1949.

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So now we are in the time of Israel is ascending as, beginning its ascension as a country.

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1949, there's a planning organization set up, the Sazimen, if I can pronounce this,

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Sazimene Barnameh, and it's established to drive economic and social modernization.

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And this will, this spirit will basically impact Iran for the next few decades.

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You have, then the timeline kind of diverges, and we have US and Iran, and then

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I have Israel and Iran and their relationships. So we'll talk about this. And there's a picture of Richard Nixon with the

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Shah of Iran. It doesn't look very Muslim, right? It doesn't look, I mean,

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Presbyterians had already sent missionaries in who established 31 schools in Iran. They set up hospitals as well.

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1941 to 1945, FDR provides aid via Lend -Lease. And by 1953, the

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US had provided $1 billion in aid, eclipsing Britain and Russian influences,

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Iran's primarily foreign partner. So the US becomes very influential in Iran. Now this is history you may not know.

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It's also important for understanding why we're at where we are today. But Iran and the US haven't always been this opposed to each other.

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1946 though, Allen Dulles persuades the Shah to remove the prime minister over fears of communist influence, aligning

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Iran with US Cold War policies. So this is partially driven by the

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Cold War. Now let me make a big point here, and you'll see this a little bit, but our involvement with Iran does not start with Israel.

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Okay? Our concern over Iran and Iran's policies do not start with Israel. Our concern with Iran starts with the

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Cold War. And our involvement starts even before that a little bit, but our official government state directed foreign policy starts with concerns over the

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Cold War primarily. Okay? Obviously, yes, there was some oil interests and those kinds of things, but we do not want the

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Russians who have been involved in Iran before and have a history there to use

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Iran for their own benefit as a colonial state underneath them, which they very well could easily have done.

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So this, as Britain kind of exits the world stage, we enter, we fill that void during the

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Cold War to counter the Soviet Union. This is where we actually start to get tangled up. And like I said, if you want to go back, and I want to go back to a more humble foreign policy, you have to undo some of these wires.

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And it's a very difficult thing when you have a history now being involved in a country. So we get involved in Iran.

30:56

And so the Shah visits the US cementing anti -communist ties.

31:02

By 1950, the US relies heavily on Iranian oil by night and to fuel its post -war economy.

31:08

And in 1953, this is a big, big thing here too. This is another big point

31:14

I have to make. But in 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrate a coup to oust

31:21

Prime Minister Mohammad, I think it's Mosaddegh, after his nationalization attempt of the

31:28

Anglo -Iranian oil company, AIOC. This is the company that England had in Iran to manage its oil.

31:39

So you have the Prime Minister, who's not, this is not the Shah, this is the Prime Minister in this sort of liberal republic form.

31:45

He says, you know what, we're getting a bad broad deal from Great Britain. Let's nationalize this.

31:51

Let's take the oil for ourselves. And the CIA and the British and the

31:57

Americans say, you know what, no. And we don't like that.

32:04

Gary Sick notes that this coup abruptly and permanently ended Americans' political innocence with respect to Iran, and the

32:12

Shah then becomes Iran. So what basically happens in all this is Iran develops, from this point forward, a severe mistrust of the

32:22

United States with a certain class. It doesn't mean the United States influence ceases.

32:28

It doesn't mean there's not still friendly cooperation with the Shah on some level. But there is a deep mistrust that's formed at this point.

32:36

Now, some say this is overblown. And a lot of it is shrouded in some mystery. But it does seem we were involved in a political influence, at the very least, that now the

32:48

Iranian people view as a coup. And they do not like the

32:54

United States for this. And so I want to emphasize something here. Yes, Iran does not like us for our support of Israel.

33:01

But Iran's distaste for America started long before anything related to Israel. So that's another important point for me to make.

33:09

And that's something that I think people ought to understand in this whole conflict. So then we have from 1970 to 79, the

33:17

U .S. grants a $200 ,000 loan with stipulations deepening economic ties but reinforcing

33:22

Iran's dependency. So when I say the Shah, Iran becomes the Shah, the Shah becomes

33:27

Iran. Getting rid of the prime minister means the Shah now is our, we have economic deals with the

33:34

Shah. We have advisory roles with the Shah. We don't want the going under communist influence. So we have a relationship with the

33:41

Shah. We fund things in Iran. We tell the Shah that he needs to do what we want him to do if we're going to give him money and that kind of thing.

33:52

Henry Kissinger was all over this. And the Shah becomes kind of the figurative head here for Iran, more than figurative.

34:00

He's the actual head of Iran, the governmental head. But this doesn't mean all of Iran feels the way the

34:06

Shah feels. But we have a generally decent relationship. Even during this time, the

34:12

Shah had a nuclear program from 1970 to 79 that employed 500 people, his regime, human rights abuses.

34:21

Let's see. Let's see. Okay. During this period, there are human rights abuses.

34:26

There's imprisonments. There's all these issues, but we don't really get involved in these things.

34:33

Then what happens is the Iranian revolution. This is a big, big event. This is something that has to be understood to understand what just happened.

34:44

The Iranian revolution is led by a religious and populist forces. They overthrow the Shah. That's our lifeline.

34:50

Remember, that's our connection. And the revolutionary guard forms at this point. And 5 ,000 officers are executed in purges, consolidating the

34:57

Islamic Republic. The US embassy then has a hostage crisis that lasts 444 days.

35:04

There's an interesting story here, by the way. Brian McClanahan did a podcast on this. I thought it was interesting.

35:11

So Reagan's election team, essentially, there's some thought that they, and it seems like there's evidence, they actually cut a deal with Iran to release the hostages after the election, so that it would benefit

35:28

Ronald Reagan and not Jimmy Carter. Whether Reagan knew about this, I don't know. But this probably cost

35:34

Carter the election, the fact that we had these hostages, and he just seemed unable to do anything about it. So you have now the wing that is very mistrustful of us taking control of Iran.

35:45

1979 to 2015, and this colors the rest of our foreign policy. The US imposes sanctions on Iran for 36 years, targeting its nuclear program and economy, aiming to isolate the

35:55

Islamic Republic there. 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is elected.

36:02

This is fueled by economic discontent that bolsters Iran's defiance of US policies. 2006, 2007, there's an intensified sanctioning under President Bush and Obama, then aims for regime change, escalating tensions.

36:17

2012, sanctions trigger 50 % inflation, crippling Iran's educated middle class and deepening economic hardship.

36:24

So you can see that there's some resentment the common people of Iran have towards the United States. The sanctions are hurting them, and they're hurting the common people.

36:32

And there's a hatred. Whether Israel's involved or not, there's a hatred there.

36:39

Israel does get very involved, though, and I'm going to show you that in a minute. 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action forms.

36:46

That's Obama's nuclear deal, which limits Iran's uranium enrichment and lifts sanctions. Netanyahu makes a speech in 2015, calls it a mistake.

36:56

This strains our ties with Israel. And then Iran violates this program in 2018 because they start enriching uranium up to 60%.

37:07

And the reason we know about that is because of the Mossad, because of Israeli intelligence, which

37:12

I'll show you. That's an amazing story I'll share with you in a moment. So Biden seeks the JCPOA revival when he gets into office.

37:21

So Trump gets into office, pulls us out. Biden wants to revive this.

37:27

And one of the things he's willing to concede is he's going to make the Revolutionary Guard not designated as a terror group because we designate them as a terror group.

37:35

And for good reason. Iran is funding much of the terrorism in the Middle East, including in the rockets that went into Israel on October 7th.

37:46

This is one of the problems that we've had. And so we listed the Revolutionary Guard as they're a terrorist organization.

37:54

Well, Biden said, let's take that off the table. Let's get back into this deal. But it doesn't pan out because Trump had already withdrawn in 2018 after there was evidence from the

38:04

Mossad, from their espionage that showed that Iran was lying about their capabilities.

38:14

And then Trump puts maximum pressure sanctions on Iran. So he punishes them big time for lying to us, for lying to the world.

38:24

And this is one of the things. In Islam, there is a doctrine that allows you to lie for a good reason, essentially.

38:34

And Iran lies. This is in keeping, I guess, with their foreign policy and religious beliefs.

38:43

And this becomes a pretext for us to be even harder on Iran. In 2020,

38:50

Trump orders the assassination of the Revolutionary Guard's Kasim Soleimani.

38:56

You may have heard that name before. This is also a very big deal. Kasim was a mastermind behind much of the terrorism that killed not just Israelis, but Americans and others.

39:07

2011 to 2025, that whole period, Trump says over 50 times that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

39:14

And I want to say that loud and clear for everyone to hear, because I saw people saying, I regret my vote for Trump. I never wanted this.

39:21

I thought he was going to pull us out and all of this. Trump has been, if there's anything Trump's been consistent on, it has been this.

39:27

He will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't know how much more clearly

39:33

I can say it. When the White House published a quote list that had just quote after quote after quote, starting in 2011, this has been a big deal for Trump.

39:43

So don't tell me, if you're Candace Owens or whoever, don't tell me you didn't know.

39:51

Dave Smith, I'm regretting my vote for Trump. This isn't what I voted for. You did vote for it. You voted for other things, too, that are good, but you did vote for it.

39:59

And I think Trump's instincts are very good generally, even on foreign policy. I do think it's beyond what

40:06

I'd like. He does see himself, I think, as the arch dealmaker, which

40:11

I think gives him a positivity. This is the art of the deal. He thinks he can go in there and he can talk to people.

40:20

He can work the boardroom into doing what he wants, because oftentimes he can't. And he thinks he can do that with these feuds that go back centuries in the

40:27

Middle East. And oftentimes, you cannot. You cannot reach a final agreement. You can manage a problem, perhaps, and that's what

40:35

I think he's managed to do. But you're not going to come up with the end -all arrangement, which he talks that way sometimes.

40:43

We've totally decimated their nuclear capabilities. It's the end for them. Well, we're going to be talking about this in the coming years.

40:51

It's a feud. You're not going to just solve it overnight like this. But Trump has a lot of positivity about his abilities to do that kind of thing.

41:01

And so this does probably create situations where we become more involved in global affairs than perhaps we should be, because we think we can solve these things.

41:12

And it's also good for Trump's political. He doesn't have to seek re -election, but still, it's good for his poll numbers.

41:18

I think his poll numbers are higher right now than they've been in a long time. J .D. Vance's poll numbers are high. I mean, he's looking really good.

41:25

Politically, what he did, what he was able to pull off was a brilliant move. Now, long -term, this just manages the issue, but I get it.

41:37

I put on X that it was a big Trump W. It's like, there's a big Trump W if he's able to pull this off.

41:42

And I have all these people screenshotting my tweet, and it's going to come back to haunt me or something.

41:49

And I'm not saying I agree. I'm not saying I would have even launched. I would have tried everything not to launch those missiles.

41:56

And I'll explain why, hopefully, at the end. But you can't say that this isn't a big political win for him.

42:03

This is a huge political win for him. So anyway, 2019,

42:09

Iranian -backed militias kill U .S. contractor in Iraq. And this prompts

42:14

U .S. and Israeli strikes on Revolutionary Guard -linked targets.

42:19

You may have remembered this from 2019. I remember that. And let's go through the same timeline now, and let's talk about Israel.

42:28

Okay? So that's the United States. I haven't even really talked about Israel much, right? And you're already getting a clear picture of why there's animosity, why there's a problem, why there's a history, without even mentioning

42:39

Israel. But if you want to get a full picture, you have to mention Israel, because Israel is a big part of why we were involved in what happened last week and why we're involved now.

42:49

So 1947 to 1979, Iran votes against the U .N.

42:54

Partition Plan for Palestine. Iran doesn't want Israel modern state forming because they're with all the other

43:02

Muslims. Now, this is something you have to understand about Middle Eastern foreign policy. There's two coalitions that I'm going to be sharing with you.

43:11

One coalition involved Israel and Iran and basically other

43:16

Middle Eastern countries against the Saudis, against the Arabian Peninsula. Another coalition involves

43:24

Israel and the Arabian Peninsula against, in the Saudis, against Iran.

43:30

And you might say that they're flipped, right? Israel's involved in both, but it's a different cast of characters, and that is true.

43:39

And we've gone from one arrangement to another arrangement. And in both arrangements, part of the dynamic has been that these

43:48

Muslim nations, whether Shiite or Sunni, cannot say anything against the

43:55

Palestinians without suffering backlash. They're afraid to do it. Their populations support the

44:01

Palestinians because they're Muslim. They're always going to support the Palestinians over a secular

44:07

Jewish state or a religious Jewish state. It's just the way it is. So, this is the dance they have to do.

44:14

If they're negotiating with Israel, if they want an economic deal, if they want a military deal, they have to sometimes even in secret make the deals without it getting out because it's going to look bad because they always have to look like they're supporting the

44:27

Palestinians. This is part of the dance of Middle Eastern geopolitics. So, you're going to see this with Iran.

44:34

So, they vote against the partition plan.

44:48

In 1948, Iran, however, is the second

44:55

Muslim -majority country to recognize Israel. So, how does that make sense? After it happens, they recognize

45:00

Israel. Yep, Israel, they're legitimate. Then in 1949, they vote against Israel's admission to the UN. So, you look at that and you're like, how does that make any sense?

45:09

That's how it makes sense. This is what I just explained. So, they fit into Prime Minister David Ben -Gurion's alliance of the periphery and trade with one another, including oil and joint military projects like Project Flower, which was a joint project, if you can believe it, between Iran and Israel to build missiles.

45:26

So, they have joint military initiatives between them. This alliance of the periphery is a loose alliance that Israel has with nations that are against Saudi.

45:38

Basically, I guess you could say Shiites versus Sunnis, which is flipped now.

45:46

In 1979, though, the Islamic Revolution happens and Iran adopts an anti -Israel stance, supports proxies,

45:52

Hezbollah, Hamas, and they become the number one source of funding terrorism in that region.

46:01

Israel decides not to pay Iran $250 million debt. That's a sore spot. In 1980 to 1988,

46:10

Israel supports Iran, though, despite all this happening in the Iran -Iraq war with arms and advisors.

46:16

That's an amazing thing. I think it is. They sold them missiles and guns and things so they can fight

46:23

Iraq. This is the constant geopolitical situation in the Middle East.

46:28

It's this constant reworking of alliances to go after the threat that looks the most scary.

46:34

In the 1990s, Israel then becomes alarmed, though, that Iran could really get a nuclear weapon.

46:41

Israel pursues, and this is a potential thing because it's shrouded in some mystery, but the

46:46

Samson option, which is Israel has nuclear weapons. They're not going to tell you how many.

46:53

If you attack them, they'll do a mutually assured destruction. The threat needs to be present so people decide not to attack them.

47:00

They have to be too dangerous to attack. You have to understand that the population of Israel is not 10 million.

47:07

The population of Iran is 90 million, something like that. You have to understand

47:13

Israel is surrounded by countries with more populations than them, with more of everything and that don't necessarily like Israel.

47:26

They favor the Palestinians over Israel. This makes them feel very threatened. They are also very threatened because of what they went through in the

47:33

Holocaust and their experience in Europe and other places. There's a fear.

47:39

That's the whole rudimentary issue with Zionism. That's why it formed. Zionism is this, let's give a place for Jewish people to live because it seems like they become persecuted in many of the countries that they live in.

47:53

There's those who are even anti -Semitic, quote unquote, or those who don't care for Jews, we'll say, who actually even become part of this because they say, yeah, give them a place so they'll leave us alone.

48:03

I'm not saying those guys drove it, but there is a sensitivity there. This forms all predispensational theology, by the way.

48:14

There's a number of covenant theologians. In fact, I'm not sure if it, I think it is the majority view.

48:21

Don't quote me on that yet because I haven't looked fully, but I know guys like many of the

48:27

Puritans, like Increase Mather, Jonathan Edwards, a few back further to the

48:32

Reformers, even guys like John Calvin, Samuel Rutherford. These guys all seem to signal that there was going to be an in -gathering of Jewish people that would happen in the future.

48:48

There's a bunch of covenantal people actually who make up the ranks of the early Zionists.

48:54

This comes together before there's a fully orbed dispensational theology. You can say there's echoes of dispensationalism.

49:02

In fact, there's a book on my desk. I've been doing a bunch of reading on, I just finished a book on covenant theology.

49:08

This is a book that I've been told I should read that has, I guess, dispensational. Some covenant guys say it's debunked, but it's got some dispensational beliefs,

49:16

I guess, that preceded Darby. But anyway, there's, before Darby, we'll say, there's this spirit of the

49:25

Jewish people need a homeland. This gets going until you get the Balfour Declaration in, what was that, 1910 or so.

49:34

It's this commitment of the British to find a place for the Jewish homeland. The Holocaust is what really justifies this more than anything else.

49:43

There are many proposals for where this could be. Israel was not, Palestine was not the only place, but that becomes one of the places because, hey, they have ancestral ties there.

49:52

There's already some Jewish people living in the area. This makes sense. It's under British rule. It was taken from the

49:57

Turks before that. You had the Crusader States and all going back, but this is kind of a homecoming and this is where they want to come.

50:06

There's a number of factors that went into this. But the return, if that's how the

50:14

Zionists would frame it, or you could say the settlement, that's how a non -Zionist might frame it, of these

50:20

Jewish people, mostly from Europe in the Middle East, becomes a sore point.

50:26

It becomes a sore point, not just because they're Jewish, but also because you have to understand from an

50:32

Islamic perspective, they represent a colonial outpost. Before it was the

50:39

Byzantines versus the Muslims, and Europe versus the

50:44

Muslims, and you had Crusades, and it was Christianity versus Islam. Then it became liberalism.

50:51

A lot of these countries went liberal, and that's what we live in today. Israel is basically a liberal outpost.

50:58

You could say of Europe, because Europe is the one that drove the formation and the ability to,

51:05

I mean, it was England who had the land there, of Israel to have a body politic and a government there.

51:12

This becomes a European outpost, and at least there's a cooperation there in the

51:18

Middle East, a liberal democracy in a very illiberal area. This is going to come up later as I show you what

51:23

Richard Nixon said for why we support Israel. But from the Muslim perspective, they think in centuries.

51:31

They're still thinking back to, yeah, we're against the West, we're the iteration of that now.

51:38

It's Europe, it's Israel, but there's obviously also a special hatred for Jewish people that goes back even farther.

51:45

This is the complex matrix that we're living in. This would all be there without any dispensational theology.

51:55

People need to understand that. Maybe we'll do a podcast on that if that really becomes an issue people want to double down on.

52:02

But dispensational theology does become a way to kind of justify

52:08

American involvement for the simple reason that the land promises given to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant, this is the

52:14

Ted Cruz interview that he had with Tucker Carlson last week. Those land promises are interpreted in a dispensational framework as having a future fulfillment in a literal, physical

52:29

Jewish state. Now, here's the thing. Here's the secret. This does not actually obligate the

52:36

United States or any Christians to support the modern state of Israel. Even on a dispensational framework, it doesn't obligate anyone.

52:43

But if you frame the modern state of Israel as, if you sell that as these guys, this is the modern coming in, the ingathering.

52:54

And then you say, look at the way that they defeated their enemies in 1967.

52:59

And then again, in 1973, in a miraculous way, we weren't even really supportive of Israel in those early years.

53:07

And they could go it alone and defeat their enemies. It was incredible. It looks like miracles.

53:13

It looks like God intervening. I used to watch the

53:18

History Channel, their dogfight series on some of the things the IDF Air Force would do with two planes against a bunch of MIGs.

53:26

And you're like, there's no way the Israelis are going to win. And then they win. Stuff like that is crazy.

53:33

And that has been really during the 1980s, has been packaged and sold to American Christians, mostly of a dispensationalist persuasion to get them to make the connection between, look,

53:49

God's got a favor on Israel now. This is the ingathering that you've wanted. But there's nothing in dispensational framework that obligates you to necessarily support

53:58

Israel with American foreign policy. So that's my framework for working through this.

54:04

And I'm going to have, by the way, I'll just mention this. I am going to have a number of episodes next week on dispensationalism, on amillennialism and on postmillennialism, and possibly an episode on the connection between some religious right

54:20

Christians, Zionist Christians in the United States during the 80s and Israeli, conservative

54:27

Israeli forces wanting to create a stronger connection for security's sake. They want the

54:33

United States on their side. And this is a point that they can use to gain ascendance on the right. But that doesn't explain, obviously, why the

54:39

Democratic Party has been so supportive of Israel too for many years. It's the liberal order.

54:46

That's really the primary animating feature that has made us support Israel and the

54:53

Holocaust experience. So anyway, I figured I would just get that off my chest and we'll keep going with the history here.

55:02

So you have Israel having this alarm, though, that, hey, look, if Iran has a nuke, that's not good.

55:08

These guys want the 12th imam. They're not exactly our friends. They could use it on us.

55:14

And if they have that, once a country gets the nuke, it's like game over. Look at North Korea, right?

55:20

They got the nuke and it's like, oh, man, now we can't just... It makes our options limited.

55:27

It's dangerous. And so Israel wants to do everything they can to keep Iran from having a nuke.

55:33

And we want to do everything we can to keep Iran from having a nuke, not just because of the threat to Israel, but also the threat to our own interests in the

55:41

Middle East. And more than that, I mean, we do, I think, legitimately think that the people who are running

55:48

Iran now are theocratic radicals who would conform the whole world to their thinking if they could, if they had the opportunity.

55:59

And so this is what's on in the minds of people like Donald Trump. 2000s,

56:06

Qasem Soleimani, who I just mentioned was killed in 2019, but he had a ring of fire strategy to encircle

56:15

Israel with proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and then build tunnels for attacks and fund cyber attacks on Israel infrastructure.

56:22

2018, there's in the archive, the Cohen archive heist. This is an incredible story, by the way.

56:28

And there's some good books on it that I actually just read two books on this situation.

56:38

One of them though goes into this in detail and it is like a James Bond, it deserves a movie called

56:43

Target Tehran. You can go check that out, but there's this heist of these archives.

56:51

And so you have a group from Israel sneak into an Islamic warehouse.

56:57

Well, I mean, not Islamic, but a Iranian warehouse. They find these archives.

57:03

They had to go into this drum, I think it was, where they were keeping these archives and do this whole, we don't know exactly because some of it's secret, but they had to get around cameras and they had to drill into or burn into this box truck thing and then go into it, get the archives.

57:25

They had to first find out where the archives were and they bring them back to Israel and they're detected a few hours afterwards.

57:32

So it was too late for the Iranians to do anything. They were already on route back. And this gets into the hands of their

57:38

Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. And what it reveals is that Iran has been lying for years, for decades about their nuclear program and their ambitions.

57:47

Surprise, surprise. So the Mossad decides they're going to sit on this and they're going to wait for the opportune moment to introduce this to the world.

57:59

And they do. And that's when Trump decides, all right, we're pulling out of this agreement with Iran.

58:05

They've already broken it. What's the point? And we're going to put more sanctions on them to punish them. And I think

58:11

Trump's mindset is they only understand strength. So that's all we can do it. So there's peace through strength. So this reveals

58:18

Iran's secret Ahmad project, proving nuclear weapons intent. And Netanyahu uses evidence to expose their lies.

58:25

In 2020, we have the Abraham Accords. Now, I mentioned to you earlier, this

58:31

David Ben -Gurion's alliance of the periphery. This is like the flip side of that. This is like an opposite alliance.

58:39

This is the Abraham Accords are Trump's deal brokered with Israel, with the

58:45

United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. And there were also non -public deals with the

58:50

Saudis that Israel conducted. And these are all against Iran. So guess what? The Saudis don't want

58:56

Iran. They don't like Iran. The United Arab Emirates doesn't like Iran. They're all afraid of Iran.

59:02

And they're willing to side with the U .S. and Israel against Iran. That's what's happening right now.

59:07

But especially the Saudis have to be careful, because if they talk about this, then it might be perceived that they are not supportive of the

59:16

Palestinians. That becomes kind of the issue here. 2020 to 2021, you have the

59:23

Bennett -Barnett campaign, where Mossad sponsors sabotage, destroys centrifuges and assassinate scientists like Moshe Fakhrizadeh.

59:33

If I can say it right. And he's like the Oppenheimer, I guess, scientist of Iran. And so this is the story of Israel and Iran and Iran with nuclear weapons.

59:46

Mossad keeps spoiling the efforts of Iran to have a nuke. That's basically what keeps happening.

59:51

So you might wonder why. I saw a bunch of guys on X being like, hey, why is it that it's like we're always told every five years?

59:58

Sorry, I shouldn't do the dumb voice, right? That's like the dumb voice. Because it's a legitimate question. But so many people were saying this.

01:00:04

I was like, guys, why is it that we're always five years away from a bomb with Iran?

01:00:13

It's always like five years away. It never changes. And then it's like, we're a year away, potentially.

01:00:18

We don't know, but it's close. We've been told this for 30 years. We're sick of it. Well, the reason that you've been told that for 30 years, there's two options here, right?

01:00:28

One option is that the United States and Israel are just forming this

01:00:33

APAC, is forming an alliance to lie to you, right?

01:00:40

Or the other option is actually they have been close to nuclear weapons, as their own intelligence says.

01:00:47

And Mossad keeps spoiling their efforts. They keep assassinating people. They keep doing espionage.

01:00:54

And so Iran has been forced to go underground to these super secure areas that Israel rockets and so forth can't get to.

01:01:03

And this is the situation that we were in last week, where Israel was like, we can't take them out this time.

01:01:11

We need the U .S. to have bunker busting bombs because we can't do it. That's, I think, given all the evidence we have, that's probably the more accurate read.

01:01:20

There's the more conspiratorial read. And I'm not saying conspiracies are always inaccurate, but there really isn't, there aren't sources for it as much as you could probably find embellishments and so forth of people who are too afraid of Iran saying that they're more dangerous than they are.

01:01:37

But what we do know, let's focus on what we know. What we do know is, yes, they have been close many times and they keep getting foiled.

01:01:47

They keep getting setbacks. And that was part of the Bennett -Barnett campaign. 2021 to 2023 though,

01:01:54

Iran bars the IAEA inspectors. So remember we pulled out of that deal, but it doesn't mean the deal was ended.

01:02:01

There was other countries involved and Iran finally pulls out. They shut off the cameras, the cameras that are supposed to be monitoring their uranium enrichment.

01:02:10

And they start enriching uranium to near weapons grade, defying the, sorry, the

01:02:17

JCPOA, that's the deal they were in. So they defy the inspectors that are supposed to be looking into this kind of thing.

01:02:26

And that does sound similar, I will admit, to what Saddam Hussein did, right? So it's like the whole

01:02:32

WMD scare and all that. He's like, well, he's not letting inspectors in, so what's he doing? Then you have 2023.

01:02:41

This is another element you have to add to this, or else you can't understand fully the situation. China's also involved in this.

01:02:48

We are, however many fears we have of Iran, our fears of China and Russia to a lesser extent, but China are exceptionally more because both those countries have nuclear weapons.

01:03:00

And in some of our war simulations, China wins. And I know it's a paper tiger and all that. Yes, but they still have a pretty strong military and it was looking pretty bad under Biden.

01:03:13

So China has a, their colonial interests are all over the world and we don't want them, just like we didn't want the

01:03:20

Russians in Iran, we don't want them forming these close ties either. China though in 2023 brokers a deal between the

01:03:28

Saudis and Iran. There's a diplomatic restoration. Remember I told you that, hey, the Saudis and Israel are forming a relationship that's true against Iran.

01:03:37

Well, China's brokering deals to try to restore the Saudis with Iran. That goes contrary to our interests, to Israel's interests.

01:03:46

So this has become also something we're keeping our eye on. And then in 2024,

01:03:52

Israel, sorry, why did I put Israel there? I meant Iran. That's a typo on my part.

01:03:57

I'm sorry about that. I meant Iran there. 2024, Iran sells missiles to Russia.

01:04:04

So this was the fear of World War III was if we have a country that's got a connection to Russia and China, and they see this as an opportunity and we send missiles, is it going to spark a big war?

01:04:17

Is Russia going to come in and say, you know what, we're going to back Iran up. China going to come in and say, you know what, we're going to back

01:04:23

Iran up. And this is something we don't have all the information to, and this was something I was super afraid of to be, not super,

01:04:29

I shouldn't say super afraid, but this was something I was cautious of. And I think many of us were hesitant about it. It's like, is this going to create a pretext for backlash against us from these bigger countries?

01:04:42

And I think maybe an invasion of Taiwan would do that. There's part of me that wants to,

01:04:49

I still wouldn't have wanted to send those missiles. I would have tried anything I could to, if something like that's going to happen,

01:04:57

Israel should do it. If we want to sell Israel weapons, okay. Maybe we don't want them having certain technologies.

01:05:03

I don't know, but figure out a way for Israel to do it if possible. That would just, those are my instincts, but Trump also has instincts.

01:05:12

And even though I don't like the fact that he didn't go to Congress for support, even though I know that's like, we don't, that's not even a thing anymore,

01:05:18

I guess. There's part of me that's like willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and just trust his instincts on it.

01:05:27

Even though yes, I would not have done it in his situation. And looking back, I still don't like it and wouldn't have done it.

01:05:33

But I think I can understand what he might've been looking at and why he might've done it.

01:05:39

And I'm going to show you more evidence for why he probably thought it was a good move in just a moment. So let's see.

01:05:47

So we have in 2024, we have Israel, Israeli airstrikes target

01:05:53

Natanz and other nuclear sites with US supplied weapons in Iran. They kill

01:05:59

IR, Revolutionary Guard commanders, scientists, Iran retaliates with missiles. So that was just last year.

01:06:06

And then I want to wrap some of this together for you. So why the strikes?

01:06:11

Why did this happen last week? Well, let me give you the short -term answer here. The US and Israel struck

01:06:18

Iran's nuclear sites. And the reason was, is because this was high reward and low risk for them.

01:06:24

It was an operation that they could do, and it would likely delay Iran's nuclear program by a decade or more.

01:06:31

That's at least what they think. So this is management. People who expect, well, this didn't solve anything. It wasn't meant to.

01:06:37

It was meant to manage a problem. That's all they can hope for. And that's why

01:06:42

I was saying it's a win for Trump, even though people are like, this isn't a final solution to this problem. And I'm like, I know it's not, but you tell me what the solution is.

01:06:50

You got two countries that are dead set against each other. You have other countries in the area that mistrust this one country.

01:06:55

You have this country that wants, has ambitions beyond even Israel. What are you going to do? Yeah, regime change isn't a good idea.

01:07:05

So what are you going to do? Anyway, Iran's military doctrine collapses here.

01:07:10

They relied heavily on proxy forces like Hezbollah and the Houthis, but they're not strong anymore because Israel's been kicking tail.

01:07:18

So their proxies are weakened, especially after Assad's fall in Syria. So this dismantles Iran's regional deterrence.

01:07:25

So they had some alliance with Syria. They could move weapons into Syria and move it into that ring of fire area.

01:07:33

They can't do that anymore. So they're hampered in their ability to supply the enemies of Israel.

01:07:40

Iran's nuclear ambitions obviously are also, so this makes them more desperate too, right? So this is, if they're going to do anything, it's probably going to, nuclear is a better option.

01:07:49

So it's going to be rockets or it's going to be a nuclear bomb or something. So their uranium enrichment reaches 60%.

01:07:55

That's far exceeding civilian needs. It seems clear to us, to our intelligence that they're after a bomb.

01:08:01

And part of me doesn't blame them for this. And I'll just say, make a little aside here.

01:08:07

The reason I say that is because put yourself in their position too. They look at how North Korea is treated versus how

01:08:13

Iraq was treated. One has a nuclear bomb. If you have a nuclear bomb, people respect you. So you can understand from Iran's perspective why this wouldn't just be even an offensive thing.

01:08:23

This is also a defensive measure. Maybe our enemies will leave us alone if they know we have the bomb. So anyway, they pursue it, but they lie about it and all the rest.

01:08:32

And then Iran could, there's intelligence indicating apparently that Iran could soon produce multiple warheads using fortified underground facilities.

01:08:40

Only the US munitions are capable of penetrating these sites effectively. So you need the United States to do something.

01:08:47

There's a strategic timing element here. That's why this is high reward and low risk. There's open skies over Syria. There's degraded

01:08:53

Iranian air defenses. And this creates a rare opportunity that's been there since February. We could dismantle their proxy network further and reduce

01:09:01

Iran's capabilities to respond. This is part of a broader US strategic priority. Regime change isn't feasible or desirable.

01:09:10

And we have to focus on China because they're the big strategic threat and particularly regarding Taiwan.

01:09:17

So we can't get too invested, but we can do this. And this would put

01:09:23

Trump in a position, think of the payoff, right? This is the high reward part of this. It puts

01:09:28

Trump in a position where his poll numbers go up. He has more ability to do what he wants to do on the border.

01:09:35

He has more ability to get all his domestic arrangements achieved.

01:09:42

It gets him a stronger foreign policy position. It delays that issue so that he doesn't have to think about it.

01:09:50

And he can focus on other foreign policy concerns, including the situation in Ukraine.

01:09:55

There's so many wins in this. And it seems like Trump was able to pull it off, which is incredible to me.

01:10:02

So that's the long -term. Now let me give you the short -term or sorry, that's the short -term.

01:10:08

Let me give you the long -term of all this. The long -term is that here's some lessons to pull out.

01:10:14

There are nuclear tensions there. And the reason is Iran's uranium enrichment and resistance to inspections stem from mistrust and historical defiance, viewing the

01:10:23

United States as an imperialist power. Okay. That's what's going on here.

01:10:30

There's, like I said, I think there's a defensive element too here, but there's this tension is because there's, there is a mistrust that Iran does not trust the

01:10:39

United States. The United States does not trust Iran. That would be there whether Israel was there or not. But Israel, of course, that whole situation exacerbates it about 10 times.

01:10:48

You have proxy wars, support for Hezbollah or the Houthis in 2024 to 2025 reflect Shiite ideology and imperial ambitions framed as resistance to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

01:10:58

So you got the quest for dominance in the Middle East and the using proxy wars to do it from Iran.

01:11:09

So this is, this is something that you've seen develop over time and there's a religious reason for it.

01:11:15

Then you also have economic unrest, domestic protests and economic driven defiance push Iran to escalate regional, regionally to deflect internal criticism, mirroring, mirroring historical patterns, meaning that Iran has always had an instability within it.

01:11:30

In fact, I think in what was 2011 or something, there was some like potential, there was a revolution forming in Iran against the 1979 revolution.

01:11:39

And we could, I think it was called the green revolution and we could have done something, but Obama didn't do it.

01:11:44

We could have tried to help a regime change happen, but Obama didn't do it.

01:11:50

And maybe he made the right decision. Maybe he didn't. I would, my foreign policy instincts are no on those kinds of things.

01:11:59

Try to untangle yourself from that. But this was a possibility at that time.

01:12:07

And when Iran has a threat though, that is shared by everyone, because bombs are being dropped, it unites the country.

01:12:14

So that's another factor here. So that's the long view of all of this.

01:12:19

Now there's so much more to be said, but I want to play, and before I get to questions, I want to play for you a clip. This is from Richard Nixon and this later in his life.

01:12:28

So this must be the nineties. And I want you to hear why Richard Nixon says the United States supports

01:12:34

Israel. What's the reason behind it? Why does the United States do what they do here?

01:12:40

This is what I've been saying. If you've listened to this podcast, I've been saying this for a long time and I was,

01:12:45

I kind of was happy. It was vindicated to hear Richard Nixon say the same thing that I've been saying.

01:12:51

So here it is. You make the observation in your book and you say that you have said it many times when you were president of the

01:12:58

United States, that no president is ever going to desert Israel. Right? Correct. I put it more buntly.

01:13:05

I said, as I told congressional leaders during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, no

01:13:11

American president will let Israel go down the tube, Democrat or Republican. It's not an issue that is stated fairly categorically.

01:13:18

And yet in your book, you make it clear at the same time that Israel really is not of any enormous strategic value to the

01:13:26

United States anymore. That's correct. So why then would the United States continue to burden itself with huge loans, in some cases, outright grants to the

01:13:37

Israelis, jeopardize possibly a young American fighting men when there is no strategic value involved or little strategic?

01:13:46

Because the United States is concerned by more than strategic values. That's maybe a weakness, but it's the way we are.

01:13:54

And there are moral issues involved here. We don't have an alliance with Israel, as you know, they're not an ally of the

01:14:01

United States in the technical sense, but we have a bond to Israel that's much stronger.

01:14:06

It's a moral commitment, a moral commitment because of what happened during the

01:14:11

Holocaust and a moral commitment because it is a democracy, the only democracy in that area.

01:14:18

And under the circumstances, that is why American presidents and the American people in the future will support all out the survival of Israel if it's attacked.

01:14:27

You've always been a very tough, pragmatic man. And I just wonder if you were the president of Israel and you heard

01:14:34

Richard Nixon talking that way or for that matter, heard any sitting American president talk that way and say, but there's really no strategic value anymore.

01:14:43

How much faith would you place in that kind of a moral commitment if push really came to shove? If I were the president of Israel, I put a great deal of faith in it because of the track record of the

01:14:53

United States. And also because he would know that that is the way the

01:14:58

American people are. There is no doubt whatever of our commitment to Israel. There you have it.

01:15:05

That's, uh, I couldn't have said it better myself. There's Richard Nixon saying one of the things that you've heard me say over the years, the reason that we support

01:15:15

Israel, I'm saying we in an American diplomatic and governmental sense is because of the liberal order.

01:15:25

They're a democracy in the Middle East and because of their experience that happened during the

01:15:30

Holocaust. And that factored heavily into the justification for, um, the putting well making

01:15:37

Palestine, the area where they would go at the time they went there. So that's, and that may be coming unraveled now.

01:15:44

I think that that is very likely coming unraveled now. And, um, when you hear him say that we don't have a strategic interest, that is part of the reason perhaps for that.

01:15:54

I think there's other reasons too, but, um, what should the United States be doing?

01:15:59

I suppose is the greater question. And it is a complicated question. If you answer it the way that I answer it,

01:16:04

I think the United States should be looking for ways where they can pull back from foreign involvement and put the resources that we have, which are limited towards our own people and our own problems.

01:16:18

We have such a severe problem with what we've let happened at the border. We need to mobilize a force.

01:16:24

If we, if we can go send bombs into other countries, why can't we have a force that's capable of deporting the millions of people who are here illegally?

01:16:34

If we don't have a border, we don't have a country. And this is fundamental Israel. If you care about Israel and you think that that alliance is a strategically good thing, you should care about our own border first and foremost, because if we fall because of internal rot, uh, and internal, um, cultural, uh, just, uh, hot being hollowed out economically in another ways, then

01:16:58

Israel doesn't have any lifeline, right? They're on their own. And I, my, my instincts are that Israel has, maybe you're relying on miracles, but Israel has had a lot of those.

01:17:09

At least it looks that way. Okay. I'm saying from a military perspective, Israel has done some incredible things, whether, whether it's

01:17:16

God's providence or it's something else. Uh, my, my gut is that Israel can defend herself and we should be looking to unchain ourselves from that arrangement.

01:17:28

And one of the ways we can do that in a way that is mutually beneficial is by making Israel a trading partner.

01:17:34

We don't need to send them all the aid we send them. Uh, let's instead, let's weapons that they need, uh, to take care of the enemies that are around them.

01:17:44

They're not going to use them on us. You could say that they lobby us hard in these kinds of things. Um, although I'm like,

01:17:51

I was thinking about it this morning. I haven't had a chance to look into it deeply, but I don't know if you saw the mayor of New York right now is, uh, uh,

01:17:58

I guess this radical Muslim guy. And, uh, of course I live not far from there. So I'm, uh, I I'm somewhat aware because I saw advertisements and stuff, but I wasn't keeping close track on it.

01:18:07

I thought Cuomo was going to win because that was, those were the polls just a few weeks ago and cool.

01:18:13

So anyways, there's a bunch of, uh, I guess it was, it was young white people that put them over. That was another thing that surprised me.

01:18:19

I thought it was, it was third worlders who had come in, uh, in a coalition, ascent in a sense that had come to New York and had done this.

01:18:27

No, those guys were for Cuomo. Um, so th this radical Muslim guy, who's a Marxist.

01:18:32

And by the way, there's connections there talk to Trevor loud. And they're, they're fascinating. Uh, he is now going to be the mayor of New York and he got money from care and stuff.

01:18:41

So it's like, we have lobbying groups, if you want to call them that because what is care care?

01:18:48

I mean, it's not, is it on behalf of Iran? Is it on behalf of Saudi Arabia? It's, it's, uh, I haven't looked into it deeply.

01:18:54

It's, it's on behalf of the Muslim world though. And I mean, this is a group they're basically lobbying and they're getting, now they're getting powerful figures in, in our government.

01:19:03

Um, and you have Israel getting, they have powerful figures that are allegiance, have allegiance to them in our government.

01:19:09

And this is the problem is like, why do we have people in our government that are, um, so concerned about some of these things over there?

01:19:17

Well, one of, one of the reasons, uh, is there are incentives to be concerned with those things.

01:19:22

Um, but I think behind that are deeper moral commitments, uh, that Richard Nixon talked about there.

01:19:28

And we'll see what happens with the, with the post -liberal left, which is the woke left they're post -liberal.

01:19:35

And then sort of some elements of the, the post -liberal right, meaning, um, more of the, uh, and this is a broad group, so it's very hard to define, but some of the more, any, anything from the more

01:19:47

Nazi enthusiastic portions to just the kind of general, uh, people that are very heavily believe in a

01:19:55

Jewish conspiracy and see Israel at the center of this. Um, they are of course, uh, and then you also have even, you know, your libertarian foreign policy guys who are, uh, just for those reasons against, uh, this strong attachment, uh, those guys are gaining steam with their foreign policy in some respects.

01:20:13

And so we may be looking at a different situation in the future. I don't know. I don't know where this is all going to go. Uh, just because polling says one thing about young people now doesn't mean it's always going to say that either.

01:20:23

Sometimes people think they want something and then you start counting the cost of Iran having a nuke and you start thinking, maybe

01:20:29

I don't want that. Uh, so lots of things to balance, lots of things to discuss, but these are complex issues.

01:20:35

And, and, and so I guess I'd cap it off by saying, yes, my solution is to try to disentangle this, but to have strong economic partnerships, uh, where we can.

01:20:44

And I, and I know even that I'm like, I'm kind of squirrely about, but, um, I don't know that you can go back to completely to the world before mass travel and inter -ballistic missiles.

01:20:59

And some of the things that we have now, we have to look at, be inspired by the principles of the past and Washington's principles are certainly strong.

01:21:06

And we, and I would consider myself someone who doesn't want foreign entangling alliances, but we have to be

01:21:11

America first about it. We can't entangle ourselves. That's the key. We can't entangle ourselves in these things.

01:21:17

If these things work to our advantage as a country, then good. But if not that we need to pull back.

01:21:23

And so in the middle East, I would be in favor of pulling back. We just give Israel money and then yank their chain when they're about to do something.

01:21:30

And, um, and that even happened this time, right? They were, they were about to send more bombs in there. And Trump, by the way, proved to everyone, he's not a show for Israel because he, he told them where it was at and they stopped.

01:21:41

So this whole idea that Israel is controlled by Trump. Oh my goodness, guys, like it's more complicated than that.

01:21:47

Try to think clearly on these things. Uh, Trump has his own agenda and he wants to be friendly with Israel, but, uh, he's going to put them in their place if they get out of line.

01:21:57

But wouldn't it be better if we could get to an arrangement where, uh, we, we can let

01:22:03

Israel do what Israel needs to do with their enemies. We, maybe we can sell them weapons, uh, maybe to some extent,

01:22:09

I don't know, intelligent sharing, but we're not going to get directly involved. And we're going to try to keep ourselves out.

01:22:15

Those are my instincts. Um, I could probably do some more thinking about it to come up with specific policies, but those are my druthers.

01:22:23

And I think Trump shares a similar instinct, except for the fact that he does just seem to want to be the deal maker in these things.

01:22:29

And that does make him have this more imperialistic posture. Sometimes, you know, he wants to be America first, but he also wants to put his foot into these situations and talk like, you know, he can work them like a boardroom.

01:22:41

So, all right, I will take questions now and then we'll end the podcast. And, uh, hopefully that was enlightening and helpful for you.

01:22:48

And hopefully that was, if you, by the way, if you like this podcast, if this was helpful and, and, and I'm hoping for some of you, this, this was beyond, and, and more than many of the podcasts you've listened to on this subject.

01:22:58

I hope you've learned more from this than most of the podcasts where it's, I just see podcasts out there where people are just sitting around sharing their opinions and their opinions are like 10 years old, or if not 10 months old, sometimes on this.

01:23:10

Um, I hope this was helpful because you get the long view and that's, and my goal is to give you the information so you can make a correct informed decision.

01:23:18

And, and some things are gray. They're not all black and white. I don't want you just going and jumping into an ideology because it sounds good on paper and it sells you a utopian scheme of some kind.

01:23:27

It's not the real world. You got a deal in the real world guys. That's, that's my goal. So, uh, all right, let's get to some questions here.

01:23:37

Uh, Jesse Hughes says, I wish I had a class with professor Richie while this was going on. You know, I had him on, I thought about how to having him on again.

01:23:43

Maybe I will to talk about all this. Cause he's a military history guy and he's really good on these topics. If the ethnic

01:23:49

Jews today are different from ethnic Jews of yesterday, how come that tiny population is still so statistically significant in our current world?

01:23:56

No other nation approaches it. I hear you. I hear you on that. Um, and yeah, and having traditions that go back and having this strong in group preference that does allow some proselytes to come in, but there's still a strong genetic connection.

01:24:09

There's still a strong traditional connections and there's still a strong religious connection that goes back.

01:24:15

Even if you want to say, well, the temple was destroyed. So now it's a different kind of Judaism or something like that. Um, okay.

01:24:21

You know, it's, it's out Talmudic. That's what they'll say. It's Talmudic Judaism. And that's, this is, it's very different, you know, okay.

01:24:28

But it's an extension of what the Pharisees had without a temple essentially. And there were times in Jewish history, they didn't have a temple.

01:24:35

So this is, uh, something that, you know, they still, they still have kept many of the same festivals, the same practices.

01:24:43

It, you have to say that today's Judaism does trace back. You have at least have to say that, right. Um, obviously the church, uh, being the

01:24:51

Israel of God and the, uh, spiritual Israel. Uh, so, uh, yeah, do without what you will.

01:24:59

Um, let's see the book of revelation prophesied the rise of Islam and revelation nine, fifth and sixth trumpets.

01:25:04

You know, I'm not convinced of that, but I understand people who go down that line. I actually was one of the few,

01:25:10

I was the only one that I know of. I challenged John MacArthur in 2011. I was at a chapel at the master seminary.

01:25:16

I got up and I said, Hey, cause John MacArthur was on that kick. I said, show me this from scripture. And it's really just looking at parallels of Islamic eschatology.

01:25:25

And then, uh, probably I think Sunni eschatology. And then looking at, uh, the, uh, well,

01:25:31

I don't know if it's Sunni or Shiite, I'm not sure. MacArthur read a book on it and he was like, it's a flipped eschatology therefore.

01:25:38

And I was like, I don't, I I'm careful of that, man. I don't, is it the Catholic church in a pre -millennial scheme?

01:25:43

Is it, uh, Muslims, is it this or that? I'm careful. I don't want to go beyond what scripture says, but it's, it's fun to speculate about those things.

01:25:51

And I get it. Uh, pray for the Persian people. Yes. Do you pray for them? Keep up the great work,

01:25:57

John. Uh, thanks, Eugene. Appreciate that. Uh, why isn't Jimmy Carter turning his back on the

01:26:02

Shaw, uh, for Khomeini 1979 ever? I I'm not sure

01:26:08

I understand the question. I'm sorry, Martha Carter, one of the worst presidents ever. And it's Christianity was wishy -washy too.

01:26:15

Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to admit something that will get me in trouble with everyone here, but I'm just going to admit it. And I know

01:26:20

Tom Rush is like in my ear now saying, John, don't do this. Cause I know he doesn't like Jimmy Carter. There is this little soft spot

01:26:27

I have for him. I'm going to admit, and I'm not saying I'd like his foreign policy. I'm just, there is, I don't know what it is.

01:26:33

Um, he, he just, he, he has, he had some like Southern agrarian instincts that just,

01:26:40

I don't think he was like, uh, he, he wasn't like a dirty politician, I guess. And, um, and that's maybe as far as my admiration goes, but there's on a personal level,

01:26:50

I think I would have loved to hang out with him. Actually, when he passed, I started to get fascinated a little bit with his family and I was just watching the funeral and I was like, wow, good old videos of his brother.

01:27:00

Uh, they're super interesting, but, um, but anyway, like he, he actually set the stage for some deregulation, especially in the travel agencies.

01:27:07

And so not everything he did was bad, but, um, of course, yeah, I mean, he, on a foreign policy, especially he's, uh, he's remembered very poorly and I understand why.

01:27:18

And then they became best pals with all these dictators and it's like, that was really bad, but you wonder whether or not the

01:27:24

Reagan campaign team was undercutting him with Iran. Uh, and yeah, I know, I know.

01:27:30

I understand. I love it. Look, I love Ronald Reagan. I mean, I probably shouldn't admit this. I'm admitting all my weaknesses, but that Reagan movie,

01:27:36

I actually cried at the end. He's, he's riding his horse on the Reagan ranch and it's right. I mean, I'm, I'm a

01:27:41

Californian by birth and I'm a Californian by heart still. And I've realized that over time, like being even in New York and raised primarily

01:27:50

New York and then living in North Carolina and Virginia and having a strong connection to Mississippi and all these things. Like I still,

01:27:57

I'm, I still have so many California instincts and I feel at home with people from there. It's just, it's very odd perhaps.

01:28:04

Uh, but I don't know. I, and it makes me love Reagan, Reagan. I'm proud of Reagan, but, um, he might've been undercutting

01:28:11

Carter. I'm just saying, uh, if that Tucker Cruz argument could have been easily cleaned, cleared up, we have to look at the morality of everything.

01:28:19

God, isn't saying to just blindly support everything, anything, the Jews and their government does. And you gotta understand, it's not just the

01:28:25

Jews and their government. You gotta make a separation between the Jews, whatever that is. Right. I mean, that's, that's a broad group.

01:28:32

Uh, and then Israel, the state of Israel has, like I said, competing factions in it.

01:28:37

It also has non -Jews in it. There's Muslims who are Israeli citizens, right there. It's, it's a secular government and you need to understand that.

01:28:45

And so supporting the modern state isn't even the same as supporting ethnic Jews. And so anyway, uh, glad to hear about your future podcast on different 10 times has infested many churches.

01:28:57

You may not like all my podcasts then. Um, you know, I don't really, I haven't gotten into pre mid and post trip.

01:29:04

Right. Um, I'm not, I'm more interested in the broad perspective of like covenantal dispensational.

01:29:10

Um, so I, so, so far I've only done, uh, and I'll do tomorrow post mill, but I've already done weeks ago.

01:29:17

I did a dispensationalism. And then yesterday today I did, um, and that was with Peter game in at shepherd's theological seminary.

01:29:25

Today I did with Dr. Russell Fuller on millennialism. And then tomorrow with doc, with, uh, pastor Joseph Spurgeon, I'm doing a post millennialism, which

01:29:33

I confess I probably know the least about, even though I know about all of them. Um, they're in, they're very complicated.

01:29:39

It's very complicated. So they might have, let's see here. What other questions do we have?

01:29:45

Okay. Countries are lining up, uh, to give nukes to Iran, Iran, Iran doesn't need to make nukes.

01:29:52

They will have nukes whether or not anyone doesn't like yet. I've seen that Russia supposedly made an offer.

01:29:59

There's a risk to doing that though. You make that offer and then you're becoming at war with the United States.

01:30:04

I think a lot of that is bluster to be honest with you. Uh, China got into the geo geopolitical game way too late to get one over on the

01:30:12

U S I think that's part of why Trump did what he did. It was like now or never we got the skies are clear.

01:30:17

Let's do it. Uh, let's see. During the cold war,

01:30:23

Israel was a bulwark against the Soviets. Yes. That Javier makes such a good point here. You've got to understand that connection we had with Israel was partially formed in cold war era, um, arrangements and, and people, you know, if you don't understand what the cold war was like and how scary that was for people, this, the fear of Iran getting a nuke, isn't going to make sense to you.

01:30:45

Have you looked into the USS Liberty? Uh, yes, it was years ago. I did. I don't know if I, I think

01:30:50

I did a paper on it actually, but that was like 20 ,008 or seven. Um, I did not take at the time

01:30:59

I did it and I would have to revisit the issue. Okay. At the time I did it though, I remember the conclusion

01:31:04

I had after looking at all the evidence. Um, cause there's two, there's two primary stories, right?

01:31:10

One is that this wasn't, this was a mistake. This was an accident. The other is that Israel just shot one of our boats, uh, to, um, in order to, um, somehow pull us into war and that kind of thing.

01:31:25

And that's the prevailing, I would say that's a prevailing view now online is I, I remember thinking that the first few made more sense.

01:31:32

Um, but that was a long time ago. I looked into it and, uh, I'm probably a better historian on handling sources now.

01:31:39

So maybe I'll revisit it. But to me, you know, speaking of the Navy, something I did not mention,

01:31:44

I don't know if you know this. Let me see if I can, let me see if I can pull a, a Joe Rogan here in real time and look it up for you.

01:31:50

One of the largest Naval battles was between the United States and Iran. And let's see if I can pull it up.

01:32:00

It's a operation praying mantis. I should have mentioned this. Why didn't I, I'll add it to the notes if you're a you can see it and it's, it's a,

01:32:10

I think it's, is it operation praying mantis? Is that one of, let's see, I'm seeing if I can.

01:32:18

Okay. So April, um, 1988 attack by the United States on Iranian Naval targets in the

01:32:24

Persian Gulf. So this was an oil, this was an oil war. Um, I should have mentioned this honestly, and my, my bad for not doing it.

01:32:33

Let's see if I can bring this up for all of you to see. Okay, here it is.

01:32:41

Um, so we actually in 1988, we, we attacked Iran in the

01:32:47

Persian Gulf in retaliation for the mining of us worship, uh, us worship four days earlier.

01:32:53

And this is a fascinating story too. You could check that's the Wikipedia page, or you could check out that whole story.

01:32:59

And we decimated half the Iranian Navy. So if you want to know why there's bad blood between the United States and Iran, it's not just Israel.

01:33:06

We, we kind of decimated half their Navy in 1988. So there you go. Kim Murphy says yesterday was a

01:33:12

Democrat primary one by a Democrat socialist. We talked about that. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm just realizing the time

01:33:18

I got to go. Um, I am going to be late if I don't get off the podcast. Now I'm leading a Bible study tonight on the book of James.