Iran CLOSES Strait of Hormuz, Hits US BASES as Full-Scale War ERUPTS | KJ Noh & Rachel Blevins

Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. It's your host Danny Hiong. As you can see, I am joined by two uh friends of the show, independent journalist Rachel Blevins and geocitical commentator and analyst uh KJ No. Thank you guys for coming on today in this uh very wild time. [snorts] >> Yeah, thank you so much for having us. >> Good to be with you, Danny. >> Yeah. Well, let's get started. Well, the I think the big news of course is that uh Israel and the US launched their war of aggression on Iran overnight or in the early morning hours of the last day of February. Now, Iran is saying that over 200 people have been killed by these strikes, including a horrific massacre at a school of young girls in Iran, in a small city in Iran. Now I wanted to uh ask first KJ because uh the big news coming out now in terms of Iran's retaliation is that there are reports that the straight of Hormuz has been reportedly closed by Iran and I'll just pull up that it's reported by Reuters although I can't get past the payw wall anymore but here is a summary of it. Iran has been telling vessels that they are closing the straight of Hermuz where 20% of the oil supply is potentially coming to a halt. This comes as the retaliation from Iran has uh saw has seen at least 200 plus missiles, a lot of them older models, drones be launched into Israel and all essentially all the US bases causing pretty significant damage. And Iran says it has a lot more on the table. KJ, what's your response to all this? What's your reaction? We see a full-scale war essentially be declared by the United States and Israel and Iran has rapidly responding just within a within less than a day getting to this point of closing the street. >> Well, you know, US uh war strategy which is known as air sea battle, airland battle is traditionally shock or is traditionally a decapitation strategy. You go in there, you try and suppress uh enemy air defense, and then you rapidly decapitate command and control. And the Iranian leadership has said, you know, you haven't done anything. All you've done is kill civilians. You've killed 85 school children. I mean, if that's your idea of decapitating the leadership, you know, something's not right. Uh but uh Iran is retaliating rapidly. It has 17 types of missiles of which eight can reach Israel but it's rapidly hitting all the US bases. Uh you know the US has attacked 24 provinces including key cities Tabris, Thran, Quam, Mispahan, Shiraz and of course uh Minab. But uh is um Iran is hitting back hard uh and you see attacks on Kuwait uh uh and Bahrain and uh the UAE and I think that you know the US bases are looking to be highly vulnerable. We're seeing you know uh explosions, we're seeing uh missiles landing uh of course the straight of Hormuz and of course their other targets. Tel Aviv has also been hit. So I think that this is exactly as they promised. The US wanted a rapid decapitation. What they didn't understand is that uh Iran has the capacity to retaliate. It ducked and now it's swinging back. Uh and I think that there are going to be unended consequences, unforeseen results. >> Yeah, Rachel. And I'll put that list up again. This is from Visgrad, which is no friend of Iran, certainly a Zionist entity here in the media. And uh this list is pretty stunning. And we're talking about a response that comes after the United States, after Israel has attacked. And now the straight of four moves is in uh question. And there are reports that Donald Trump is not happy with what has transpired just in the last 12 or so hours here. What's your uh what's your reaction to all of this? Yeah, I don't blame Trump for not being happy because he came out with that grand eight minute video at the start of all of this. And you would think from that video that Iran was about to fall, that whoever was in Trump's ear and telling him how things were going to be, that they were telling him, "Look, we're going to carry out these decapitation strikes. We're going to take out Iran's top leader, the Ayatollah. We're going to take out the Iranian president, and then we're just going to call on the people of Iran to fill the streets." Because that's what Trump said. He said he was doing what no US president had ever done. So I would expect a little bit of frustration from him as we get to this point, right? Several hours in and maybe he's on social media, maybe he's not, but he's looking around. He's going, "Okay, we don't have confirmation that these top Iranian leaders have been killed. If anything, we've heard the opposite of that. We've heard statements saying that everyone's safe except for a couple of lower level commanders and Iran has been retaliating, which goes to show you that their military is still very much intact. So, whoever gave Trump the the okay, the go-ahad, the we've got this for the US military did so I think a little bit too soon and with too much gravitas, thinking that they could just go in completely wipe out the Iranian government. And now we're starting to see that Reuters report come out and say that Trump was warned ahead of time that even if they killed Comey that, well, Iran would just replace him with someone else who was even more of a hardliner. that the Iranian government as a whole would not fall. And obviously from everything we've seen, obviously we've seen a lot of protest in recent months, we've also seen a lot of rallies, a lot of demonstrations coming from Iranians on the ground who are standing for their government and their constitution. So this magical idea that you know you just overthrow the government in a few hours and then you parachute in Reza Palevi to be the new dictator, it's not working out quite how the Washington architects seem to have thought that it would. I'm sure Netanyahu is getting a little bit frustrated too as well because instead what we have is we have Iran in this position where not only are they not saying our leadership has completely fallen and you've destroyed us all, but they're pointing to the fact that, you know, we have these horrific massacres like the massacre at the school with all of these dozens of young girls being killed. the fact that the US and Israel chose to carry out the attack today, which while yes, the stock markets are closed here in the US, this is the start of Iran's work week. So, these young girls are going to be in school, they're not going to be at home with their families. The fact that they chose to carry out an attack on a day like today and that they targeted all of the civilians that they did, well, that starts to create blowback coming back at the Trump administration because now you get on social media and you see all of these horrific images and videos. And you look at it and you're like, "Oh yeah, that's kind of similar to what we saw in Gaza with these horrific attacks being carried out." And the US and Iran are behind it all. And so even though we have some of these Gulf monarchies standing up and acting as though they're really going to stand up to Iran, I look at this and I go, from a public relations standpoint, it looks very, very bad for the US right now. >> Yeah. Well, KJ, I want to ask maybe a followup on what it means for the Straight of Hormuz to now be a target. Now, Iran has certainly signaled it could be closing the straight. Uh, of course we're going to see how that transpires over time, but uh, what does it mean for Iran to already have this in mind? It seems like there was a real plan in place to rapidly move in retaliation to this strike, which means they knew the strike was coming. Um, and uh, so I'm curious on what your thoughts about that are. >> Well, what it is is it's it's a near fatal move. I mean, if I give, you know, kind of a combat analogy, the United States was headh hunting, was trying to hit Iran rapidly, you know, and knock them out by hitting them to the head. And Iran has the potential to, you know, duck that blow. It looks like it's ducked the worst of it, and now it's going to go around and choke it. And the straight of Hormuz is one of the world's most important choke points. as you say between 20 you know 20 plus% of petroleum and natural gas is shipped natural gas and petroleum goes through the straight of Hormu. So it's a vital artery for the entire global economic system. If that gets shut down, we're going to see cascading economic effects all across the board including you know the cost of oil rising to perhaps 150 200 perhaps even further uh per barrel. So that is going to have massive ripple effects all across the economy. And you know as Iran has said they had they had said this is what is going to happen. They had given very very clear signals that US bases would be attacked, that Israel would be retaliated against and the strait of Hormuz would be shut down. And of course, Ansur Allah has also said that they're planning to shut down the Babel Mand Mandeb. And so we are seeing this cascade in ways that I think that Trump really did not uh anticipate. I think that he was engaging in magical thinking. I think he was deceived by, you know, the Bolton proteges that he brought on. And he was also misguided because Iran up to this point has been very very um very very diplomatic and even when they were attacked, they only engaged in symbolic tit responses uh previously until you know the 12- day war. And so that I think gave them uh gave the administration the illusion that this was again going to be a cakewalk and that Iran would collapse or it would be uh you know uh compliant and obliging. Uh and that certainly is not the case. Iran is a completely different animal uh to you know the weaker states that the US has knocked over like bowling pins. Yeah. Well, uh let's take a look at this uh Rachel and get your reaction. You know, as Iran moves on that, uh economic front, we also of course have the strikes. And what I find interesting, similar to what happened during the 12-day war back in June, is that what you see is rather than the US and Israel having legitimacy in the region to do this and you know there are you know there's all the talks about people dancing in the streets and everyone's so happy about this in Iran but uh how about people in the region here is in Bahrain uh there have been massive strikes. I mean, these are ongoing missile strikes by Iran, hitting the fifth uh fleet base there and other sites in that very tiny country. But look at how people have reacted to them. UP. >> I mean, uh, not necessarily. There's some celebrations going on across the region, similar to what we saw during the 12- day war in places like Jordan where you had people cheering on Iran's ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles going over uh their heads uh through air defenses. So uh your reaction to this especially the legitimacy part because uh uh there across the board it seems like other than the compliant leaders in the region there's a lot of anger about this. >> Oh absolutely and yeah it's been interesting to watch and I know that a lot of people look at Iran and they say oh well it's a paper tiger it's not really going to respond. Well today Iran did respond and it responded in a way that was unprecedented. I mean, never before have we seen this wide ranging of an attack targeting all of these US military bases and having an impact in a number of different ways. I mean, we went into this knowing that the US military was not prepared for this. I know Trump got a little mad earlier this week over the warning saying, "Look, if you go in and you attack Iran and this goes beyond, you know, four to seven days, we are going to be looking at a stockpile shortage." And that's not good when we're talking about helping out Ukraine over here and preparing for the eventual dream of war with China that, you know, the hawks in Washington still have. So, they want to be careful when it comes to how they're approaching Iran. Well, Iran has made it clear that not only are they legitimate, but that they do what they say they're going to do. And one of the things they've been saying with each version of True Promise 1 2 3 4 at this point is that every time they retaliate, it's going to keep getting harsher and harsher and it's going to come sooner and sooner. So instead of waiting around for two weeks and going, is Iran going to respond? We saw this response almost immediately. And I don't blame people in the region for getting excited. While yes, they know that there is going to be destruction, getting excited at the fact that Iran is responding because Iran is the main country standing for the Palestinian people, standing against an ongoing genocide, standing up against the West in a lot of ways. And that doesn't come without weighing its capabilities and its options. I mean, we're talking about a country of 92 million people. And while yes, there are moments where you look at them and you say, "Oh, they're standing up to the US." a war would still have an impact on Iran just like it would have an impact on the region and that's something that their government has had to take into account. I think the fact that they are being so quick to move on the straight of hormuz is a very telling sign because that's also unprecedented. I mean I've heard people say for years now oh Iran will never actually close the straight right they'll never take that step. Well, they're taking that step right now and they're making it clear that if they are going to suffer, if dozens of young school girls are going to be murdered, well, the rest of the region and the global economy is going to suffer as well. And so it puts the US and Israel in a very dangerous place because up until now they've been bargaining on this idea that Iran has no legitimacy, that the government would just fall, that you know, all of the the hawks in their situation rooms who are coming up with different ideas of how this should play out that they would know exactly how things would go. Well, they didn't seem to know how it would play out and we're not even 24 hours into this. So, I I think we still have a long ways to go, but I do think that Iran is making it very clear that they are going to do what they say they're going to do, and that has got to be terrifying to the US and Israel. >> Yeah. Well, Israel, uh, KJ has been talking a big game. They say that they are going to do this for at least four days. I don't know if you heard the fancy names that the US and Israel came up for their operations. I believe it's Epic Fury for the Trump administration. in the US and a roaring lion for Israel. But what you know those sound uh nice and tough and scary, but and of course there have been people who have been killed, but what has this moment so far revealed to you about uh uh the image of the United States and Israel as these uh dominant powers that uh are supposed to not ever be challenged in any kind of way, especially militarily. That's like the that's that's like the nogo for especially the United States. Well, I think that image has been tarnished more and more and it started certainly with the 12-day war when Iran showed that it could hit back and it could hit back hard and it was actually Israel which wanted to sue for peace and now they think they have you know reloaded and they're able they wanted to go in again and decapitate and once again I said that if the US does not have an early decapitation early suppression of enemy air defense uh early destruction of command and control uh things get much much more complicated and I think it shows that you know that the US uh does not have the power that it has. It doesn't have the kinetic force uh to push around Iran as it has done with many many other smaller countries like Panama, Grenada, Venezuela etc. It's a completely different ballgame. 90 plus thousand people uh a continent the size of Europe uh vast dispersed uh military capacities 17 different types of missiles, eight of which can very readily uh reach Israel. I think it breaks this notion of US impunity and invulnerability. We're still in early days. You know, things could shift rapidly. War is always unpredictable but the main thing that the US and Israel were counting on that is rapid decapitation seems to have failed. You've missed your you know your sucker punch and now uh things become much much more difficult and challenging for everybody including Israel including the US but certainly also for the Gulf uh cooperation states. These are the US vassels that are facilitating the war in particular you know uh Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, uh Saudi Arabia, all of them are are are currently uh soiling uh their underwear. And we also have to remember that they are weak illegitimate states that don't really even have the proper proper definition of statehood. Saudi uh excepting Saudi Arabia, the rest of them are populated 60 to 90% by migrants. They're essentially family monarchies that have sold themselves off to the West as imperial vassels and staging places for American bases. They have no legitimacy. They don't even have stable populations and they risk being tremendously destabilized uh as a result of this uh if this war continues and expands and that could change the entire picture uh of of West Asia, the Middle East uh if if things continue. >> Yeah. And I'm hearing uh uh you know, I just saw an article in Yahoo Finance, Rachel, that says that uh you know, crude could go up$10 to $20 per barrel. Uh uh up 20 $10 to $20 increase $10 to $20 per barrel up. that would bring things to 70 8090 which would rapidly cause an economic uh seismic wave uh in a title wave on the US economy and the world economy as a whole. Uh but your your any follow-up to what KJ was saying and uh the the larger consequences to this war. Yeah, I think he made a really good point about the place that these Gulf monarchies are in. And I did notice that the UAE in the statement that they put out after their American milit military base was targeted, they specifically were calling out what they referred to as Iranian escalation. And I'm looking at this and going, okay, you can call it that all you want, but the only reason that Iran was targeting you was because the US and Israel carried out attacks against Iran. And Iran has only been warning Six Ways to Sunday that it was going to target the US bases in the region if it was targeted with an attack. So cause effect, Iran carries out this attack and now suddenly the UAE is pointing the finger at Iran saying they're the ones who are responsible for this, right? They're the bad guy here. And so it's going to be very interesting to watch in the weeks to come, especially as you have and I saw that Fox News was already kind of capitalizing on this, saying, "Oh, the Gulf countries are turning on Iran." And I'm going, "They were never with Iran to begin with. They were always with the US. Exactly as KJ noted, they were made to be US vassal states in a lot of ways in the region. Made for those military bases and made for this moment of war against Iran. And Iran's well aware of that, right? They can see the map. They know all of the US military bases that are around them and they have been preparing for this war for a long time. And going back to the comment that you were making about the position that crude oil prices are in, I'm wondering how Trump is not taking that into account because he just gave his State of the Union address this past Tuesday and one of the really big pressures on him has been the affordability of the United States, right? Because the American people, they can bicker back and forth over Democrats and Republicans all day long, but they want to know about gas prices and food prices and housing prices. And a big impact on these gas prices is going to be where oil stands, how trade stands. If we see the straight of hormuz close for multiple days and we really see this war explode, it is going to be devastating for the global economy and therefore devastating for the US economy in a number of ways. And so the Trump administration, I think they thought that they were going to get in, get those decapitation strikes, get out, make it look easy, get Iran to quote unquote capitulate and give them whatever deal they wanted and then call it a day. That has not happened yet. And so as they start to really see fully what Iran is made of, right, what it has been preparing for for all of these years, as we start to see, if we start to see Iran use their hypersonic ballistic weapons, that's going to be a gamecher because the US and Israel are still facing the same stockpile problems that they have been this entire time. So, I would not be surprised to see them do a version of what they did in the 12-day war and say, "Okay, okay, we're done. Let's stop. Let's have some sort of a a truce, not necessarily a ceasefire, but an end to fighting. We'll stop shooting you if you'll stop retaliating against us." If it comes to that, the question is going to be what is Iran willing to do? Because we've also seen a version of this with the current war in Ukraine where Russia has made it very clear that they don't want to just sign on to any deal that is offered to them by the United States and then fight this same war three or four years down the road. They want it to be decided for good now. And so the fact that you had the IRGC coming out today and saying that they are seeking a decisive victory, that is very telling here about the position that they are in when they're talking about their operation being called the finale of the Alaka floods. That tells us that they are going all in here and I do not expect to see them be as quick to just sign on to whatever deal the US is offering. And I think that's why we've seen this back and forth with negotiations where even as we've had all of these rounds of indirect talks in Geneva, Iran has made it abundantly clear that they are not going to just sign on to whatever deal the US is trying to sell them. I mean, you had Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner, according to reports, trying to get Iran to agree to destroy its own nuclear sites, the same ones that Trump has spent the last several months bragging that the US destroyed when it went in and attacked Iran during the 12-day war. I don't know how much more ridiculous it gets or how much more obvious it gets that the US is not serious about a nuclear deal. And we also knew that even if Iran signed on to checking every single box that the US wanted, they would still find a way to sabotage things down the line. So I think the point that we're at was inevitable. It was inevitable to get to this point. And it was not surprising whatsoever to see the US and Israel go in guns blazing, acting as though they could carry out a series of attempted decapitation strikes, take out the Iranian leadership, and then call it a day. The question is going to be what they are prepared for after this because that is a major unknown right now. And if Trump is getting frustrated like I think he is, it could get bad before Well, it could get bad before it gets worse. Let's just say that much. >> Yeah. Yeah. Great points, Rachel. Now, uh you know, I wanted to show uh some of the damage, KJ. Uh and it's it's this is this is damage that's still relatively minor given the level of weapons uh that Iran is uh showing uh that they're beginning with. But I'll just pull up uh some of what has already happened today. This is one that people have made note of which is in uh Qatar. There was a billion-doll radar that was destroyed and a Iranian strike on the facilities in Qatar, US facilities uh destroyed this early warning radar system and there you see the before and after. Uh and here is the uh range of this early morning radar. So it is quite uh quite you know uh how should I say valuable [laughter] to um you know it's the reason why it cost a billion dollars. But uh then there's the reports of of course strikes on Israel which you know for use of old weapons still quite impressive. Here we have some scenes out of Hifa and just there's just reports of buildings being destroyed. U just massive warning signs to Israel about what's to come should this continue. So KJ uh any reaction you have to this? >> Well, what uh Iran is doing is what they did before during the 12-day war. They're firing their older, slower, less effective missiles as a kind of chaff. They just want to deplete the air defense and then once that is depleted and we know very clearly that the US and Israel have a magazine problem. David Sling, uh, Iron Dome, THAAD, Arrow, uh, Patriot, all of these things, SM3 and six, all of these things have limited magazines, and the US does not have the industrial capacity to sustain uh, prolonged and uh, protracted uh, defenses against Iran's attacks, which are uh, potentially uh, capable of completely overwhelming their systems. So, I think that that's the first thing to note is that I think they have just gotten started and they're just throwing in throwing out the junk. Uh, and once uh once the magazines they sense the magazines are depleted, then they're going to come in with much much harder stuff. Uh, and then the other thing to notice is on that radar dome, notice how precise that attack was. I mean this is one of these key major major radar systems that functions like a regional panopticon. It renders the entire region transparent and this is what the US lives and dies on. It wants that transparent battlefield where it can see everything that is going on. And once you start to blind that and once you start to knock out these different elements of what they refer to as the kill chain, it becomes much much harder. it becomes much much more of an uphill slog. This is the kind of stuff which is not supposed to happen according to US battle doctrine. But they always seem to forget that the adversary has a say. And here the adversary in Iran is speaking very clearly and loudly in forceful ways that the US I believe has not fully reckoned with. >> Yeah. Uh uh Rachel. >> Yeah. And I think that as we're watching this play out, it's also really notable the position that the entire region is in, and I know we've been watching for the last few years, right? Watching the war on Ukraine and kind of the impact that that has had on the multipolar world, watching as you've had an allout genocide targeting the Palestinians, watching the impact that that has had. Now we're moving into really this next phase of it with this war. And I know that in a lot of ways Trump has looked at war on Iran as one that he was going to achieve during this term, right? He brags all of the time about assassinating Iranian general Kasum Solommani during his first term, who notably the Trump administration at the time had lured to Iraq with the promise of talks. And so now we have in less than a year the second version of the US acting as though they want to make a nuclear deal with Iran, carrying out these negotiations and then in the middle of talks suddenly coming in and attacking Iran. And I know that the position that Iran is in, it is having to look at this and decide, okay, where do we go from here? the next time that the US comes around and magically says that they want talks, Iran may not be willing to come to the table in the same way, especially given the damage that the US has done, that it's attempted to do, and that it is likely to still attempt to do against Iran as we get further and further into this situation. And I think the fact that, you know, we had some reports, I know Axios and the Wall Street Journal were initially reporting earlier today that Trump was going to come out and address the nation. And at the time when I saw that, I thought, okay, did they get Iran's leader? Did they were they successful with the decapitation strikes because that would be a reason for Trump to address the nation? And then suddenly that was called off. reports of it was called maybe maybe the reports of it weren't accurate but the point is that did not happen at least earlier in the day on Saturday and so I think that Trump is in a position right now of trying to figure out how in the world to proceed but the US needs to wake up and realize the position that they have put the multipolar world in and I know that a lot of this is intentional right at the end of the day they are going to go after the key pillars of the multipolar world their end goal is to get to China. But if they can't get to China and they know that they wouldn't be able to take on China in a war, they cannot remotely begin to compete with China when it comes to industrial production. And so because of that, they start going after the other pillars of the multipolar world like say Iran or Venezuela or at least an attempt at Russia. And I think that the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro gave the Trump administration almost kind of a false sense of confidence, right? This idea that they could just parachute into a country, kidnap the sitting president, and then act as though they own the government, act as though we are the ones in charge. Now, they looked at Venezuela and they said, "Oh, yeah, we can do a version of that in Iran. We'll just carry out decapitation strikes instead. Everything will go well. the CIA is giving us the thumbs up on the ground, but up until this point, that is not what has happened. And so I I think that the US really overplayed their hand here, and it is not looking good for them right now. >> Yeah. And KJ, it's not as if the US and Israel haven't done damage. They have killed a lot of people in a very short period of time. This is what they're known for. Uh there are a lot of videos, there's reports about how they did it. They're launching, they're firing from Iraqi airspace. They I hear I I was seeing Tomahawk missiles be uh fired over Kurdish airspace from Syrian territory. All kinds of reports about how this has happened. Not the same kind of I don't know if you remember during the 12-day war cage, a lot of talk about how Israel owned the airspace after that uh uh surprise attack that they did in June of 2020. uh 2025. Uh that is not the narrative now. Actually, it seems like the Trump administration is having a hard time coming up with the narrative about what's going on. And uh the media is not happy, honestly, with what's happening. And US allies, of course, this is a long-standing row, but I wanted to bring this up before getting your reaction, KJ, because I think it's really important. We've seen the Trump administration be very callous at least in how he presents himself to his European allies. But this is a material uh absolutely material issue that just happened where uh uh Italy, right, Italy has forces in the bases uh that uh the uh uh Iranians are hitting right now. And this has caused much consternation from the uh uh from the Italians where you have a military base that houses over 300 of their air force personnel. There was no orders, no uh warnings that the US was going to strike and they had no time to evacuate and now they're sitting ducks uh unable to leave uh what is a verifiable and now easily hitable target for Iran. Yeah. So, Italy needs to get out of there as fast as possible as should all the other countries. I mean, they are sitting ducks right now. Uh and you know, this does not should not come as a surprise. You know, uh you know, when the mafia dawn is ready to do what he wants to do, you know, there are no objectives, there are no obstacles. You know, uh people are expendable and so they should have known better. But Italy needs to get out of there. uh and of and same thing for the other countries. I mean there is chaos. There is a little bit of uh stress fracture happening between uh Europe and the United States. It's like the connective tissue has been damaged. Little bit of a political sprain if you will. But notice that the uh Germany, France, and the UK, the E3 came out and their statement was to condemn Iran. you know, absolute and complete nonsense. Condemning Iran, that's what they come out with against a war of aggression unprovoked, started under conditions of perity. That's the only thing they can come up with. Same thing with Mark Carney at Iran. Uh Mark Carney, uh same thing, you know, suggesting that Iran was the aggressor and Israel was defending itself. Absolute nonsense. So you still see the western ruling imperial colonial class still paring the same narrative but there are deep fractures inside that system and of course they're not happy and they're not happy with the risks that they're being forced to bear. I think the other thing which is worth noting is I've heard reports that American troops were moved out of their bases and into dispersed into hotels whereas it seems like the Italians were left as sitting ducks as you know tripwire or targets and I'm sure that the uh Italian uh population will be furious and they should uh demand the neck uh of of their leaders for putting their you know compatriots in risk in this completely useless unnecessary fashion. >> Yeah, Rachel too. >> Yeah, when you look at the current situation, I know that that's been another major concern as the US has ramped up its military assets in the region. now has two massive aircraft carriers nearby. And especially as we start to see the these retaliatory attacks carried out by Iran hitting some of the key major runways that the US would want to use on the bases of its allies. They're going to start really relying on those aircraft carriers. And then the question becomes, do you target the aircraft carriers, right? these major float essentially a floating city with 5,000 soldiers on it. Is that going to be a target that Iran is going to hit or you know anyone else in the region and anyone else who's part of the axis of resistance that they could then get on board with and are they going to cause major damage to it? And so for a lot of these allies, look, at the end of the day, Trump really isn't exactly, as you all have been saying, he's not too fond of his European allies, but they've got to be waking up here and realizing that they are on a sinking ship. If it wasn't, you know, cutting off Russia, their neighbor on the same continent, cutting off energy supplies that they were getting easy and cheap from Russia and then relying on basically whatever the US wanted to give them. If it wasn't that then, well then now all of a sudden they're turning around and realizing that the position that they're in with the troops that they do have in the Middle East that those could be in danger, that their soldiers could die. And Trump isn't going to pick up the phone and call them and tell them exactly what he's doing. No, he's talking to Netanyahu, right? He and Netanyahu are planning this all out, acting like they have everything under control when they really do not at the end of the day. And so it has to be extremely alarming when you also have the pressure on these European allies to cut off their reliance on China because the US has told them you have to be good little vassel states. Here's who you trade with and here's who you don't. And the only problem is that the US does not have anywhere near the resources of the countries that it's trying to get all of these European states to, you know, completely cut off their ties with. And so I think for a lot of those countries, they've got to be looking at Iran right now and realizing, okay, this is why Iran is where it is. Because the goal of the US was to cut Iran off from the rest of the world, trying to hurt them economically. I mean, we heard Treasury Secretary Scott Besset bragging about the fact that the US had intentionally manipulated the Iranian currency and that that was directly tied to the protest. The goal was to make the Iranian people so miserable that they would take to the streets and then they would start protesting in mass numbers and then all of a sudden Trump gets on social media and he tells the Iranian protesters, "We stand with you." Well, that has not worked. And I start to get more and more concerned, I will say, as I watch this play out because everything that the US has tried has failed so far. And it makes me worried that they are going to look at really whether it be ramping up strikes targeting civilians even more than they currently are right now or possibly turning to some sort of a nuclear option. That's incredibly concerning because when you have an empire or you have in the case of Israel a Zionist state backed into a corner then they start to get really dangerous. And so I think that could be a legitimate question that we could be asking here in the coming weeks, especially if this war does drag out. If it goes longer than just the four days that, you know, reports here in the US are saying, "Oh, it's only going to be four days." I'm looking at this and going, I don't know about that. And I'm worried for what happens if Iran is able to continue to inflict significant damage in Israel, especially if they start pulling out some hypersonic ballistic missiles and showing the world what they are capable of, right? Especially if they start targeting the satellites up above as they have made a mention of the fact that they are going for air, land, sea, and also space. That could put us in a very dire situation. and I'm worried for what the US and Israel may try to do. >> Yeah. Know, uh, great points. And I wanted to, uh, turn to Israel, KJ, because I don't know if you've seen the reports. Uh, there's of course been this was a, of course, this is a regime change operation. This is a regime change war an attempt to essentially eliminate the entirety of Iran's leadership in hopes that that will lead to the replacement of that leadership with uh compliant and uh uh you know forces willing to bow down to the US and Israel. But here is uh a report uh Benjamin Netanyahu is saying that there's increasing signs that Ayatollah Ali Khamei the supreme leader of Iran is no more. Israeli media has been circulating this uh AC all throughout the first day of this war saying that uh the uh uh supreme leader has been eliminated and that they were successful in this. Now uh uh this is being touted it seems as a huge victory although I think if this is true there would be huge repercussions. Iran has not yet confirmed and they've actually denied this in many respects. But um you also have Netanyahu leaving so he is not staying in Israel. Israel has been hit as we have shown before here uh so far in the first day of this war but uh it's obvious that they know that something is coming that's a lot bigger and so he is fleeing on his presidential jet to Europe. Uh KJ, uh maybe we can talk about Israel here because we heard reports that Israel was going to be the one to be pushed out in front so that it looked better politically for the United States to strike. And then when we looked at the reports and we saw the footage, uh it was it Israel did strike first at least in terms of the initial reports, but then we saw right away that the US Air Force was right there with them and that the entirety of the media called it a joint strike. So this is fundamentally different and Israel is definitely behaving differently than the 12-day war. What's your assessment of this? Well, I I think that, you know, at least we we don't have to deal with the pretense that Israel, you know, is, you know, somehow doing this by itself or that there's a difference of opinion. It's clear that they're both working together. They have the same agenda, which is to control uh West Asia uh and to attack and destroy Iran. Uh I think what is uh interesting to note as you point out is that you know, Israeli leader has hightailed it out of there. I think that tells I think that is significant. It tells you that there is tremendous fear in the Israeli leadership and they're afraid of what they attempted uh could now also befall them. Israel is a small country as I said you know there eight types of missiles it can readily uh reach Israel. uh it has no strategic depth and I think that initially they did think uh that the uh that the the great leader Ali Hamei had been knocked out. Clearly there were pictures of this compound you know which had been struck uh you know very with extreme force. Uh but I I don't think that that is the case. I think if it were the case we would hear more. I think that would also open a Pandora's box that I think the US and Israel have not thought through or thought about. uh and I think that uh still uh the advantage uh is to the country that has the endurance and that is most certainly Iran which is fighting for its survival on its home court and I believe that you know we are just seeing the early stages of what could be much much more dangerous much much more uh bloody in particular um Rachel mentioned and the aircraft carriers. You know, if there's one lesson that we have learned from the Ukraine war is that you do not concentrate your forces. You have to disperse your forces in this, you know, arena of standoff warfare. Never concentrate your forces. And an aircraft carrier is a concentration of 5,000 troops. It's essentially potentially a floating coffin. And I think the United States needs to take that into consideration. The other thing other point that Rachel made which I think is very important for us to consider is if they run out of options or if they face some significant defeat, how will Israel respond? And I believe they're perfectly capable, the US and Israel both are perfectly capable of moving up the escalation ladder. I was just recently, you know, going over the US doctrine for joint nuclear operations in 2005. This was uh a document that was leaked and they talked about the reasons or the conditions under which nuclear weapons can be used and they said for rapid and favorable war termination on US terms to ensure success of US and multinational operations to demonstrate US intent and capability uh and to counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces. Okay, that's >> boxes checked. >> That's a lot of boxes checked. But essentially, it means that if the US doesn't like the way things are going, they can use nuclear weapons. Now, they've said that, "Oh, we've disavowed this doctrine." But every time you listen to the pundits and the ruling elite talk, they are quoting directly from this uh paper. So, I would not be surprised if there's nuclear uh preparations being prepared as a potential backs stop. >> Yeah. I know that's certainly a terrifying proposition, but I think one that has to be taken very seriously and realistically uh given the fact that we already know, Rachel, that before Donald Trump authorized this or however it happened, I mean, we don't know the exact story just yet, but we do know that Trump green lit this thing. Uh uh we we already knew that the biggest fear from the Pentagon was running out of equipment, running out of ammo, running out of air defenses, running out of everything that they have put uh into place in the region to destroy Iran. Uh fearing that uh yeah, this is not an infinite number of resources. We saw that during the 12-day war, but uh this time if it's this is a prolonged and protracted war, uh there could be other things. Uh they they might not have anything left to fire at Iran. >> Yeah. And we could see it get to that point. And I do want to note there because I was looking on social media and seeing that I know there's been a lot of conversation about the Ayatollah all today. This question of is he still alive? It's interesting that Reuters is now reporting essentially that his body has been found, that he has died. Interesting that they're putting that out there, right? Because we still have not received any official confirmation. In fact, what we've heard from the Iranian government has been the exact opposite of that. So, we don't know either way. But as I'm looking at that and I'm remembering the other Reuters report that said that, okay, if you kill Iran's top leader, they're just going to replace him with somebody who is even more of a hardliner, right? Somebody who will continue the Iranian government or as they want to call it, the Iranian regime. That really stands out to me because I think that Netanyahu and Trump and their planning and scheming, they thought that all you have to do was just take out the Ayatollah and then take out Iran's president, maybe take out some other military leaders and that will be it. People will flood the streets and we'll call it a day and we will have official regime change. We have not seen evidence of that. And so while we don't have that official confirmation on who has or has not been assassinated, at the same time we do have the fact that Iran still at this point has a working government. They still have a working military that is still retaliating. And so, you know, when t bringing up the conversation of how the US and Israel have overplayed their hand, this idea that you make this one move, you kill this one guy, and then all of the rest of the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. That has not proved to be true. And so what is likely to happen is that the US and Israel are going to have to feel like they have to carry out more attacks and they have to quote unquote retaliate for Iran's retaliation as as they put it. And it's the question of how far they want to get into this. Just how dire are weapons stockpiles here in the US and for all of our allies that we're arming around the world or all of our vassal states more specifically? Because Trump said, he said it during his State of the Union address and he said it again in this 8-minute video that he posted at the start of this overnight when the US and Israel were attacking Iran. He said that Iran is working on missiles that are threatening the United States, not just military bases, but the US homeland. And so he's tried this kind of lastditch effort to argue to the world that Iran is a major threat, right? not quite weapons of mass destruction, but a a version of saying Iran is threatening the United States. But if you look at Iran and everything they've said up until this point, it's we don't want a nuclear weapon. We want to make a deal with you, right? We want to work things out. We want to have peaceful relations and even trade with the United States, if that's a possibility. They're open to a lot, but they're not just going to cave to US demands. And if the US was successful with any of the top assassinations that it was seeking out, that is only going to harden the hearts of the Iranian people so much more so than they ever were before. They are not going to want anything to do with the US. I would not blame them in any sense for chanting death to America because America, the US, that is the country that is directly threatening their homeland, directly threatening their leaders, killing their children while they're at school. I mean, the US is taking this terror and it is bringing it home for the Iranian people. And now they have to respond to that. And so Trump may have thought that it would be easy. will get in, get out, and it'll be another version of Venezuela. But I think what we're seeing is that this is going to be a quagmire, a disaster in a lot of ways. And it's going to be what Trump's second term is remembered by because once again, for the second time in a year, this guy overplayed his hand, thought, "Oh, we can go in, attack her on, and do whatever we want." And once again, it has not worked out in the way that he thought that it would. He should have learned the first time around, but here we are once again. >> Yeah. And KJ, we had reports, we had reports after report after report saying that Iran was preparing its entire leadership, especially at the military level for the event of decapitation, meaning that they were all ordered and trained to uh ensure that operations continue regardless of what happens. And then when we think about the the potential assassination of the Ayatollah Ayat Ali, we we're talking about uh possibly fury being uh escalated and increased all across the region, especially for the Shia population uh given that he is considered maybe the second most important figure uh in this you know in the Muslim world. So uh what do you make of this? It seems like, as Rachel was saying, there's always this expectation that something like this is going to break the back of uh a country like Iran. Uh but it seems like there were so many warnings before this that that might not be the case regardless of whether they've been successful at this or not. >> Yes, we we still don't know. And uh I think it's unlikely. I believe that it is an Israeli uh scop uh and they think that by saying this that this will you know disarm and disillusion people and then also encourage them to rise up. I think that is a complete miscalculation. We'll see what the actual facts are. uh I have heard that you know they have lost contact but that doesn't necessarily mean that an individual has been uh taken out assassinated but I really believe that if they have succeeded in this they are opening a Pandora's box they're opening uh literally you know the gates to you know uh chaos and uh catastrophe all over uh the region uh and uh I think think it also ties into this notion that, you know, they're looking for this magic bullet, an easy, quick magic bullet that will take care of everything, but it simply is not going to work out that way. Uh I think that there have been intelligence assessments that says that even if the supreme uh leader was killed in an operation, it would simply result in the IRGC hardliners taking power and coming back with even more uh you know hardline stances. Uh I mean this is you know perhaps uh a weak analogy but in my household uh we never use antibacterial soap which is supposed to kill 99.9% of germs because we know that if you kill 99.9% you know of the bacteria. You're actually getting rid of all the neutral or beneficial bacteria and you're just going to be left with the hardest elements the most fiercest elements. The thing is right now uh Iran is in this uh state where if if it is not destroyed, it will become stronger and it is becoming stronger. Each time the US goes after it, it simply becomes stronger, more stealed, uh more uh more more capable of resisting. You know, the more you pound iron, the more, you know, uh tempered and and and uh uh strong it becomes. I think that this is what's going on right now and I think the US is completely miscalculating. Certainly I think Israel is miscalculating on this. >> Well uh perhaps we can sum up uh on this question then uh about the larger implications of this. Many people are asking Rachel you know is this the beginning of a World War III scenario? Some people have been on the show have argued that that scenario has been unfolding for a long time now. Um, but what do you say to this? Has World War III just begun now that we see just how big the ramifications and the implications are of this criminal USIsraeli war of aggression on Iran. >> Yeah, I'm one of those who thinks that we've been in World War II for a little bit now. But it does bring up the question of how Russia and China specifically are going to respond because at the end of the day, if they lose Iran, that is going to be incredibly damaging for them both. And so obviously Iran has its capabilities, right? We have only just begun to see Iran's capabilities and they have noted that they have a lot of different surprises in store. But it also raises a question for countries like Russia and China that have tried to kind of take a more hands-off approach. Obviously, they have a number of things that they're dealing with in their own backyards and they have issues that the US has intentionally placed there, but they are going to have to decide how to respond and what they're going to be able to do for Iran because I think that the future of the multipolar world is at stake here, right? this question of are we going to stand up to the US empire and what is that going to look like? Well, right now Iran is doing everything it possibly can to stand up to the US to stand up to the region to make it clear where it stands. I think it's going to be a very decisive moment for the multi-polar world in the same way that the war in Ukraine has been a decisive moment for Russia and for its handling of the US and the US empire being a just complete and total bully. Now we're in a position where we look at Iran, we look at how they are standing up and it's the question of who is going to stand up with them, who is going to tell the US that this is not okay. You cannot continue in this way. And who is going to put their money where their mouth is at the end of the day? Because for decades now, the US has been the empire. If they want to overthrow a government, they do it. If they want to invade a country, they do it. What they say goes. And no one has really fully been able to stand up to them. But Iran has resisted. Iran has withtood a just incredible amount of pressure. And they are still resisting right now. I think that there's something to be said for the Iranian people who have been through hell and back who, you know, at this very moment are losing friends and family members because of these horrific attacks that the US and Israel is carrying out. They are paying the price and they are standing truly for the entire world and up against this massive bully that has targeted them at this point for far too long. >> Yeah, KJ, same question to you. >> Yeah, exactly. You know, I think that we can see the minations and the intent of the Epstein class that thinks nothing of wiping out 85 school children, you know, going to school dutifully. You can see, you know, the blood on their, you know, torn up uh backpacks. So, this is what we're up against. You know, there is this fundamental legitimation crisis that is happening for the imperial West. Uh they are afraid that their power is waning. They're resorting to extreme and overt and naked violence. They're no longer bothering to hide it. We're no longer given the courtesy of being even lied to now anymore. They just simply go in and do what they will. The weak suffer what they must. The strong do what they will. But I do want to point out that currently the US has not brought in any meaningful concentration of ground troops. And this is because it knows that it has no ground game. And ultimately uh without a ground game, without ground troops, you do not defeat an enemy. Of course you can damage, you can even destroy countries, but you cannot defeat an adversary. And the fact that they don't have ground troops, the fact that they don't have that kind of preparation that we saw for example with Iraq and Afghanistan lets us know that even as the US uh retaliates and acts out with this tremendous violence and brutality, it also understands that there are certain hard material limits to what it is capable of. And at the same time you you you can be quite sure that both Russia and uh China are using what is happening right now as a laboratory uh for how they will continue to you know challenge the US as the war comes closer and closer you know to their capitals as well. So I think that it's not a lost game. I think it's important. I think the most important thing right now is for people in the global north to restrain their governments uh to call them out uh to prevent the US from continuing to escalate and to come back to its senses. Iran has never been a threat to the United States. Uh it does not have nukes. It has no intention to have nukes. It was not posing any danger to the United States. This is completely unprovoked, unwarranted, a war of aggression for imperial design. Uh, and we need to be out there in the streets, uh, on the phone lines, uh, in every perceivable way and capacity, uh, trying to prevent this from escalating any further. The US needs to stop right now. >> Yeah. No, I think uh, that's a great point. We can begin to close here. I'll just say this. uh whatever one thinks about Iran, its leadership, its politics, whatever, uh if it is true that the supreme leader, the ayat ali has been killed, he's 86 years old and uh how Iranians will likely see him as someone who died defending his country. He didn't leave the country. he didn't uh it was obvious that this uh attack was likely known about beforehand whether they had enough time to react to it uh in full as fully as they would want to um in this case but uh that begs the question is how do now Americans uh people in the United States westerners view themselves visav this war uh not just something that's unpopular but you know something that uh we're either involved in or spectators of or or But there's uh there's a big question as to how people should uh you know really approach this moving forward. But any final comments Rachel and KJ that you want to make before we close out here? >> Yeah, I'll just throw in there really quick that you know going back to the so-called war on terror, right? You think of how hard the US government and the US media worked to sell this idea of weapons of mass destruction, to sell this idea that the American people in the aftermath of 9/11 were going to come under attack again. They sold the war on Iraq that way. We look at this war on Iran. The US government hasn't even really tried. I mean, Trump's points, you can go through and fact check every single one of them when it comes to Iran wanting a nuclear weapon or the danger that Iran poses to the United States or even the danger that Iran poses to US troops in the region who the US has intentionally put around the around Iran. And so it's very telling to me and it should be insulting to the American people that their government is making it clear to them that they don't even care if they are propagandized into the next phase of World War II. Trump is going in there anyway. They're dragging them in there anyway. And so especially for the Americans that did vote for Donald Trump hoping that he was going to be the peace president, that this so-called board of peace was ever going to mean something, right? that the the idea that Trump was going to end any of the wars or even make good on this long list of wars he claims he's solved. the people who genuinely believed in that, they are the ones especially who need to start putting pressure on the Trump administration, on Republicans, and on Democrats as well because at the end of the day, as we saw at his State of the Union address, they were not too happy with Trump in a lot of ways, but all in favor of an attack on Iran. And that is very telling, or at least it should be for the American people, >> right? They were clapping as he was uh promoting the WMD's lies that he repeated again in his uh 8 minute long statement in an undisclosed location. KJ, any final thoughts? >> Yes, I'm absolutely, you know, the same as uh Rachel. I agree with her 100%. You know, war will not save any will not prevent or uh prevent from any of the problems that we are facing which are facing which are structural. They have to do with the contradictions of the system itself. And everybody who was told a vote for Trump is a vote to end wars should understand now if anything that they were lied to. And so what we need to do is we need to take action not only to stop the wars, but to punish and to call to account the liars and the wararmongers. That's our task right now. >> Yeah, I I really agree with both of you. I really hope that this moment can demonstrate that when it comes to US empire imperialism that we see that the uh bigger the carrot, the harder the stick. Every time we go through this where there's a figure Donald Trump twice, Obama once, over and over, we can name them over and over and over again. uh the the bigger the lie, the worse it seems like their record and their service to Empire ends up being in large part because there's probably a lot of there's a lot of things that uh uh this is potentially supposed to serve which ultimately end ends up as we see now backfiring hard. But uh it was great to be on with both of you. I want to be sure to thank everyone who gave a super chat, who became a member today. As well, I want to point everyone uh to Rachel's YouTube channel in the video description. That's where you can uh subscribe to her channel, follow her work. She does great work, daily work. Uh I think it's daily work, right, Rachel? I feel like you are >> just about. Yeah. >> Yeah, just about daily. Um and uh not to mention uh you have been very gracious with your platform and space for both of us. And so I just want to say thank you for all the work that you do and KJ of course to you too for giving your time here uh to spend it talking about this. And we'll have to keep this is not going to this is likely going to go on for a little bit. So we'll have to keep a breast of the situation. But uh anything you want to say to the audience before we head out of here you guys? It's time to hit the streets. It's time to hit the phones. It's time to take action. It's time to take everything. Take everything you have and stop the war machine. >> Yeah. >> Yes. And uh Oh, sorry, Rachel. Please. >> Oh, I was going to say what KJ said. I couldn't have said it any better. >> Well, without further ado, everybody, uh, as you go listen to both Rachel and KJ, be sure to hit the like button before you go because that will boost their voices so more people can hear them, too. uh go to the video description, find Rachel's work and also to find all the places to support this channel. I'll be back probably daily likely I think tomorrow morning I'll be back. I'll let you know what's going on with that very soon as we do daily updates here of this uh what could be and what already is actually I shouldn't say could be a monumental moment in history with this criminal war of aggression on Iran by the United States and Israel. All right everybody, salute. Take care. Bye-bye.

Independent journalists and analysts KJ Noh and Rachel Blevins react to the preemptive strikes launched by Israel on Iran as Trump green lights full-scale war. Trump just made a fatal decision to attack that could change everything. Follow Rachel Blevins: https://www.youtube.com/@UCR0qQlskMnffysEChGKqFpQ FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DannyHaiphong FOLLOW ME ON TELEGRAM: https://t.me/dannyhaiphong SUPPORT THE CHANNEL ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/dannyhaiphong Support the channel in other ways: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dannyhaiphong Substack: chroniclesofhaiphong.substack.com Cashapp: $Dhaiphong Venmo: @dannyH2020 Paypal: https://paypal.me/spiritofho Follow me on Telegram: https://t.me/dannyhaiphong #iran #trump #ww3