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Good evening. It's Wednesday, August 7.
Tonight: You would likely not know this from listening to prevailing mainstream media discourse, but the Middle East is on the brink of what is certain to be an extremely dangerous war between Israel, Iran, and its various proxies, including – most dangerously for Israel – Hezbollah, which has tens of thousands of highly effective rockets, at least pointed directly at Israeli cities and other sensitive targets.
Unlike in April – when the Iranians retaliated against Israel after their embassy in Damascus was bombed by the Israelis but did so in a way that was negotiated with the Americans and perfectly purposely designed to cause little damage – the Iranians this time, by all accounts, have decided that a far more serious and less restrained attack on Israel is compelled, after the Israeli assassination on Iranian soil of the Hamas leader, who was leading the negotiations for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Gaza. If the Iranians do what they are claiming to everyone they intend to do, this would not just be a war between two other foreign countries on the other side of the world. This would be every bit as much of an American war as an Israeli war, given that the Biden White House, whatever that means these days, has vowed to intervene in the war on the side of Israel and has already deployed major American military assets to the region specifically for that purpose.
All of this is happening while the sitting American president is, according to his own party, mentally addled and incapable of processing complex information and while the vice president is single-mindedly focused on ensuring that she will ascend to power next January.
There is also, by the way, another U.S.-funded-and-armed war still raging – that's the war in Ukraine – and the Russians have been steadily advancing, consolidating their advantage over Kiev, weakening the Ukrainian front line even further and virtually ensuring that they will be the winner of that war one way or the other. All of this – but especially the imminent escalated conflict in the Middle East that will involve, at a minimum, the U.S., Israel and Iran – deserves far more attention and analysis than it has gotten. As a result, we will spend this evening talking to what we believe is one of the best and most insightful foreign policy and international relations analysts that we know – that is the University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, who is also the co-author of the 2007 book entitled “The Israel Lobby,” about the powerful way that that lobby plays it up and about the powerful role that lobby plays in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East.
In an interview taped earlier today, just before the show aired, we spoke to Professor Mearsheimer about all of these crises, the role of the 2024 election and what effect that could have on them, and what the motives of each state actor are in the Middle East, as well as Russia and Ukraine. Our interviews with Professor Mearsheimer are always among our most-watched episodes, and for good reason. He has proven over and over to be extremely prescient and insightful in his analysis of Ukraine, Russia, Israel and the broader Middle East, as well as U.S. domestic politics, largely because of his refusal to simply mindlessly accept and then restate establishment doctrine, West dogma, and Western propaganda the way the vast majority of American academics do. I am convinced that our discussion this evening is among the most illuminating we have done with him, and we are excited to show it to you.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update.
Interview: John Mearsheimer
G. Greenwald: Prof. Mearsheimer, thanks so much for joining the show tonight.
John Mearsheimer: My pleasure, Glenn.
G. Greenwald: So, just as a preface to our conversation, I just wanted to let you know twice a week, we have an aftershow, after our live show here on Rumble, for our members and subscribers, and one of them said, “Why is it that every time you have your timer on, you don't actually talk about China? I'm really interested in hearing the two of you talk about China.”
I explained that every time you come on, I always have a long list of things I want to ask you, and China is always on them but, unfortunately, there are major national security crises, very imminent, either exploding or about to explode and I feel compelled to talk to you about those and that seems to be the case right now as well. So, maybe one day we'll sort of set aside a bunch of time to talk about China, or maybe we can get to it, time permitting.
Let's begin where we shall obviously begin which is in the Middle East. I think the last time you were on, it was after Iran responded to the Israeli bombing of their embassy in Damascus with what looked or was designed to look like some sort of major retaliation, but was in fact designed by the Iranians to be of great restraint, of sort of a type of attack that could easily be intercepted, maybe not to the extent that it was but, certainly, it wasn't the most advanced or sophisticated weaponry that they used. I think a common theme over the last ten months since the October 7 attack has been your view that the reason you may not be as concerned about a kind of regional conflagration is because you always point out that neither Iran nor the U.S. wants a major war between Iran and Israel. This time, though, the Iranians are at least saying that they have to go much further than they went the last time, that it can't be a sort of performative response. What do you expect the Iranian response to be this time?
John Mearsheimer: I agree with you, Glenn. I think that if you go back and you look at what happened in April, it was not only the Iranians who worked to limit the attack. The Iranians actually coordinated with the Americans because, as you say, both the Americans and the Iranians wanted to avoid a war that involved the two of them fighting each other. This is a very different story. The Iranians have made it clear that this time, they're not going to work with the Americans to limit the attack and they're really going to try to slam Israel. Exactly what that means is hard to say, but I would imagine that they will launch a much more forceful attack this time, than in April and I wouldn't be surprised if it comes in multiple waves. Very importantly, the last time we were able to convince the Israelis to limit their retaliation on April 19, this is after the Iranians struck on April 14. On April 19, the Israelis retaliated with a minor, strike and that was in large part because we convinced them to do that. I don't think that will be the case this time. So, I think what you're talking about here is a situation where Iran slams Israel and Israel slams Iran back, and then in all likelihood, the Iranians will retaliate and, in all likelihood, the Israelis will retaliate. So, you'll go up the escalation ladder. That's what it looks like at this point in time. I hope that doesn't prove to be the case.
And with regard to the Americans, I think we're basically caught in the middle because we are committed to helping to defend Israel. Israel cannot defend itself. As we saw the last time in April, they need the Americans, and we have promised that we'll be in the fight with them. So, the Iranians and the Israelis look like they're headed for a major conflict and we're caught in the middle.
G. Greenwald: I guess why that jars me a little bit to hear you say is that, in the past, whenever I've been very concerned about escalation in the region, you've sort of come on to give some assuring words that it's unlikely and that no one really wants that. Certainly, the Iranians don't. And it appears like this time you're somewhat saying the opposite, that you kind of expect a very dangerous conflagration. I'm not saying that you expect it to be some unlimited escalation, although it appears that you're suggesting that that's quite possible and, as you say, this is not a war between two other countries on the other side of the war. This is a war that the United States government, whatever that means at this point, has explicitly said it's going to intervene to defend Israel and has already deployed major military assets to the region to do so. Why this seems like that should be one of the only things people are really talking about? It seems like it's not really forefront on most people's minds. Is that your impression as well?
John Mearsheimer: Yeah, I think that that's true. I think people are not – most people – are not paying serious attention to this and they can’t imagine what the consequences are going to be. Just to take this a step further, Glenn, there's the Iranian dimension, which you and I are now talking about. There's also the Hezbollah dimension. You want to remember that not only Hezbollah and Iran are very close allies in this fight, but also there was a double assassination. There was the assassination in Tehran, which precipitated, the possibility of a major Iranian blow against Israel. But there was also an assassination against a high-level Hezbollah operative in Beirut, which has given the Hezbollah leaders a very powerful incentive to retaliate against Israel. So, it is easy to imagine a war breaking out between Hezbollah and Iran on one side, and Israel and the United States on the other side. And if you just talk about Hezbollah, Hezbollah has somewhere, they now say, between 150,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel, many of which are highly accurate. I mean, the amount of damage that a missile force like that could cause is truly great. And the Israeli Iron Dome system is not going to be able to deal with many of those incoming missiles or rockets. And the same, by the way, is true with the ballistic missiles coming in from Iran. So, I think that Israel is really going to get slammed in the event that you have a war that escalates between both Hezbollah and Iran, on one side, and Israel, on the other side, and I sometimes say to myself, I wonder what the Israelis are thinking here. Why are they at all interested in going down this road? From a strategic point of view, it just makes no sense at all. And then you say to yourself, well, the Israelis may invade Lebanon. They can’t invade Lebanon. Their army is worn out from what's happening in Gaza. There are just all sorts of evidence of that coming from the Israeli side. They don't have an army that can go into Lebanon and eliminate this threat. So, they're just in really deep trouble. And what do they do in response to this situation? They just keep digging deeper and it befuddles me as to what they're thinking.
G. Greenwald: I want to get back to that but before we get to the Israeli perspective, I just want to stick a little bit more with the Iranian perspective, because the huge looming reality for Iran is that the country they want to attack or retaliate against has nuclear weapons, and Iran does not. We interviewed a professor who was a political scientist and historian about the use of nuclear weapons and why there hasn't been a repeat use since 1945 – yesterday was the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima – and she was essentially saying that what is at the core of it is not the use of nuclear weapons, but deterrence, the idea that a country that has nuclear weapons will not be meaningfully attacked because of the fear that nuclear weapons will then be used against the country that attacks them. What is the calculus of the Iranians here? Why are they willing to risk that in order to avenge this murder on their soil?
John Mearsheimer: I don't think an Iranian attack, would be severe enough that it would justify a nuclear response.
G. Greenwald: But if there's escalation, it goes up the escalatory ladder, there's a chance of that, I mean, I think that has to be in the calculus of the Iranian mind.
John Mearsheimer: I think it has to be in the calculus, the question is, does it loom large or not? And I would think that they believe it doesn't loom large at all, that the Israelis are not going to use nuclear weapons. It is such a drastic step. And the truth is that Iran is not threatening the survival of Israel. If you're threatening the survival of Israel, they will roll out the nukes. The Israelis will. But this is going to be an attack in all likelihood that does some damage to Israel, maybe even serious damage, but doesn't threaten the survival. So, I think they're not worried about nuclear weapons being used. I think, if you want to extend this whole situation forward 5 to 10 years, I think that if you do have a war now between Iran and Israel, it will give Iran very powerful incentives to get nuclear weapons. The Iranians are very close to having nuclear weapons. They're enriching uranium up to the point where it's just a hop, skip and a jump where they have weapons-grade uranium and they can, you know, make a bomb. They can't do it overnight, but they'll be very close. And if you posit a situation where these two mortal enemies, who are both basically paranoid, have nuclear weapons, and you get into a crisis 5 or 10 years from now, it would be extremely dangerous. You'd have a crisis instability in the extreme. So, what I'm saying to you, Glenn, is I don't think the nuclear problem matters that much here but I think, moving forward, this is going to become an increasingly dangerous dimension to this conflict.
G. Greenwald: So, you mentioned earlier the vast stock of missiles that Hezbollah possesses and it’s already demonstrated the ability to enter Israeli airspace undetected. They released some drone footage that they obtained just hovering over major Israeli military installations in some of the most sensitive Israeli targets of water and sewage and that sort of thing on which your civilian infrastructure depends. Just looking at Hezbollah alone, because my understanding is, from the Israeli perspective, they always have taken extremely seriously the damage that can be done. You figure out not just hundreds, but probably thousands of Israelis killed if they really were to do a serious retaliation with these missiles of the kinds that you're suggesting they might do, not even an all-out retaliation, but just a serious retaliation. Would you tell me about the level of damage that you envision? And I know you're not a mind reader or a crystal ball reader, but what kind of retaliation or damage are we talking about that might be done to Israel, just a few buildings exploded or we're talking about the possibility of major civilian casualties?
