Trump Fails To Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Program

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Welcome back to Pod Save the World.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

I'm Ben Rhodes.

How are you doing, buddy?

You're overseas.

It's very late, your time.

I want the listeners to know.

Yes, I'm doing this

from Vienna, Austria.

What time is it, 11?

It is 11 o'clock at night.

Great time to talk.

And I had some schnitzel, and

it's kind of sitting in my stomach, but other than that, I'm ready to go.

That's the best way to podcast.

We got a big show for you guys today.

We're going to cover the latest intelligence assessment about the impact of the U.S.

bombing of Iran's nuclear sites, the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, why all the triumphalism in Washington about the strikes feels a touch premature, and why Iran might view all of this conversation as being a bit hypocritical.

Then we're going to talk about Trump's trip to the Netherlands for the NATO summit.

I'm sure there's a lot of people then who wish he was going to The Hague for different reasons, but this is for NATO.

The fight over NATO spending, some good news out of Belarus,

how NATO will be, they'll be talking about support for Ukraine.

That's a big issue in The Hague right now.

We're going to do a quick roundup of some weird tech stories, some fun stuff to close.

And then Ben, you just did our interview.

What are folks going to hear?

Yeah, I talked to Nilu Tabrizi, who is a video forensics reporter for the Washington Post and also the author of an upcoming book on the women, life, freedom movement in Iran, which I've read and which is extraordinary.

People should check it out.

And Nilu brings a perspective that's been missing, which is what has this been like for the Iranian people?

She has family, friends, sources inside of Iran.

What have they been experiencing?

What have this filling casualties been like?

What are their attitudes towards the U.S.

government, the Israeli government, the Iranian regime, including people that are no fans of the regime, but are also no fans of being bombed.

So it's an absolutely essential perspective that has been missing in the coverage.

So people should check it out.

That's great.

I'm really glad you did that.

And I agree with you.

It's very hard to find in the coverage.

I think CNN maybe is like one of the few networks that has a crew in Tehran or at least did for a little while.

Yeah, we talk a bit about that.

I mean, it's hard to cover in normal days what's going on in Iran.

Given the internet blackout, it's been even harder.

But interestingly, I mean, you'll find this interesting, Tommy.

I mean, Yilu dug in on Telegram and a lot of other channels like that when she was reporting on the Women Life Freedom Movement.

That was actually one of the few sources of information in Iran when the internet wasn't blacked out.

So it's also just interesting to hear how you cover a story like this.

Yeah, really interesting.

Also, I mean, I heard from someone I know that I'm not going to name or even describe who is in Tehran the other day.

I was like, how the hell are you contacting me?

And this person had like a foreign VPN, so they were able to figure out a way.

But yeah, very, very challenging.

Okay, let's get to it.

So, Ben, it's been a very eventful few days in the Middle East.

In the bonus episode we did on Sunday, we walked through the details of the U.S.

strike on Iran over the weekend.

So we're not going to cover that ground again.

But since that recording, we had a retaliation from Iran.

So on Monday morning Pacific time, Iran fired 14 ballistic missiles at a U.S.

base in Qatar that houses up to 10,000 U.S.

personnel.

Luckily, Iran warned the U.S.

and Qatar in advance that this is going to happen.

So the base was evacuated and American missile defense systems were able to intercept all of the missiles that were a threat.

But it was pretty clear that this was a response that was designed to let Iran safe face and also de-escalate the direct conflict between the U.S.

and Iran.

So that was a good thing.

Then on Monday afternoon Pacific time, Trump Trump tweeted that Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire.

Apparently this announcement caught even some of Trump's own staff by surprise and initially the Iranians denied it before finally agreeing to the ceasefire.

However, as they often do, Israel decided to kind of unload the clip before the ceasefire officially went into place.

There were heavy, heavy bombardments of Tehran.

Iran fired about 20 missiles or drones or projectiles at Israel, one of which hit an apartment building in southern Israel, killing four people and wounding many others.

Israel immediately accused the Iranians of violating the ceasefire.

They vowed to retaliate.

That led to a bunch of angry tweets from Trump and demands that everyone involved basically chill out.

Trump seemed very pissed about this, Ben.

Here he is talking about the ceasefire before departing for the NATO meeting in the Netherlands.

Yeah, I do.

They violated it, but Israel violated it too.

Are you questioning if Israel is committed to?

Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before.

The biggest load that we've seen.

I'm not happy with Israel.

You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them.

So I'm not happy with them.

I'm not happy with Iran either.

But I'm really unhappy if Israel's going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land.

I'm not happy about that.

You know what?

We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Do you understand that?

Spicy.

Huge loads, profanity.

We got it all.

So the ceasefire itself was brokered through direct conversations with Trump and Netanyahu, and then the Qataris helped get the Iranians to agree.

In a future episode, Ben, we should do a big Qatar episode because their role in the world has gotten really interesting lately.

So this is obviously good news, though, Ben, every expert I've spoken to thinks the ceasefire happened because Israel is nearly out of interceptor missiles that are shooting down the Iranian ballistic missiles.

The Iranians are running low on ballistic missile launchers in particular.

Even the U.S.

is damn near out of missile defense interceptors.

So there's incentives all around to hit the pause button.

Of course, we could still see kind of non-direct military retaliation of some sort, and we probably will.

So Trump is once again, he's demanding the Nobel Peace Prize,

which, you know, I would imagine might be reserved for people that cut actual peace agreements, not temporary ceasefires, but we'll find out.

We got Hawks in D.C.

celebrating the U.S.

bombing campaign as a historic success.

So let's just sort of examine the success of this mission or if there is any success.

First, on the nuclear front, according to news reports, Iran may have moved its 900-pound stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

We don't know where it is.

Preliminary intelligence reports say the strike set back Iran's nuclear program a few months, and we don't know whether Iran has covert nuclear sites that still exist.

So, mission accomplished?

Yeah, I'm going to unload my load here, Tommy,

because the amount of

spiking the football on like the 45-yard line in Washington here

is

extraordinary to me in everything that's wrong with the politics of this issue and politics of national security generally.

Let's roll back the tape here.

You had

Trump in a negotiation with the Iranians.

A negotiated settlement can set back their nuclear program much further than this bombing strike did or any bombing strike did.

So the JCPOA,

they had to ship all of their stockpile of enriched uranium outside of the country.

So they'd have none of it in the country.

You would have centrifuges pulled out, put under international supervision in warehouses.

You would have inspectors in the Fordo facility that was bombed.

So what is a better way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?

Shipping all the stockpile out of the country, having inspectors in the facility that is deep underground, and having centrifuges and warehouses, or bombing three sites in a one-off while Israel kills a bunch of Iranian civilians and military officials and IRGC people,

and then, yeah, and then declaring victory.

It's not even a close fucking call.

Okay?

The question is not whether you look tough because you dropped some bombs and say you obliterated something that you didn't obliterate.

The question is, are you solving the problem that you say you're trying to solve of Iran trying to get a nuclear program?

And this did not do that.

And that was entirely predictable because anyone who's ever looked at this issue, including...

some of the democratic national security types who are out there trying to get a piece of the action of how tough they were because they helped plan these strikes.

They know that.

They know better.

The Fordo facility was built to withstand a potential nuclear explosion.

So you can drop the massive ordnance penetrator on it with all of its connotations.

And the fact is, if their high-enriched uranium was moved, and by the way, if you think the Iranians telegraphed their strike on Qatar, Trump telegraphed this strike on Fordo for days.

Okay, like he, yeah, all these people saying he was a genius because he said it was gonna be two weeks and he bombed that for three days.

Well, the Iranians probably moved that stuff.

And if they moved it through some tunnel network that they have under there, if they have advanced centrifuges and they have high-enriched uranium and they have scientists who know what they're doing, they have a nuclear program.

It's not destroyed just because you drop some bombs on a few sites.

So this did not work.

And it wasn't never going to work.

So that's the first point.

If the goal is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, this does not do that nearly as well as the deal that Trump himself was trying to negotiate with the Iranians.

That's the first point.

The second point is we should talk about proliferation.

It sends a message not just to Iran, but to every country around the world that the way to not get bombed is to have nuclear weapons.

So, you know,

we could have a whole episode on what this could do for nuclear proliferation around the world, right?

Then there's the issue of the fact that it killed nearly a thousand people inside of Iran, which you never talk about.

Like as if that's just, we're so normalized after Gaza that, oh, you know, killing a bunch of people, that's normal.

I'm glad the best thing that Trump did is put a pause on this.

And that's a good thing.

And I'm glad that he called that Israel in a way that he frankly hasn't and that Joe Biden hadn't on Gaza because the same thing could apply to everything they've done on ceasefires in Gaza.

So, look, I'm glad that there's, it seems to be that there's a ceasefire.

I agree with you.

It's probably because Israel couldn't shoot down ballistic missiles anymore, and the Iranis were running out of them.

So, everybody wanted to buy some time here.

But the premature celebration of this is just insane to me.

And to all the people dunking on people like you and me, it's like, I feel just as strongly as I did two days ago.

This was a war that didn't need to happen, a bombing campaign that didn't need to happen.

There was no imminent threat.

There was no legal basis, and it didn't accomplish the point of the bombing.

So what are we celebrating exactly?

Yeah, it's sort of like, I want to play one clip and then offer some thoughts.

Here's J.D.

Vance kind of.

trying to duck the question about Iran's uranium stockpile and what it means for Iran's future ability to proliferate.

This was on Fox News on Monday.

Do you know for sure where all the highly enriched uranium is?

Well, Brett, I think that's actually not the question before us.

The question before us is: can Iran enrich the uranium to a weapons-grade level?

Our goal was to bury the uranium, and I do think the uranium is buried.

We don't want that 60% in uranium to become 90% in radium.

That's the real concern, and that's what was so successful about our mission.

So, after all this, if the Iranian government survives as is, what's to stop it from rebuilding over time if they, in fact, moved the 60% highly enriched uranium?

You know, that's the concern.

No, no, no, the big concern, Brett, and this is, again, what we destroyed, is their ability to enrich uranium.

If they have 60% enriched uranium, but they don't have the ability to enrich it to 90%, and further, they don't have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success.

Even in-house propaganda organ Brett Baer is not impressed by that load of bullshit.

So, Ben, we got CNN and the New York Times reporting that this early U.S.

military intelligence assessment says the strikes set Iran back by months before the attack.

There was a rushed breakout, was thought to take three months.

They've been delayed like six months.

The report said the stockpile was moved before the strikes.

You hear JD Vance not want to talk about that there.

And then Israeli officials believe that Iran has covert enrichment sites somewhere, and there's evidence that the underground facilities at Fordo were not destroyed.

If that assessment is correct, I suspect there will be pressure from Israel and Hawks in D.C.

to bomb again.

So that's a little preview of coming attractions or maybe some sort of ground operation.

I saw the administration canceled a briefing for Congress today about the strikes, probably because they don't want this news to get out.

But more broadly, like there are other things worth thinking about here about the implications and fallout.

The Economist reported that there's this new generation of generals taking over because Israel assassinated their bosses and that this next generation is even more belligerent, something to consider going forward.

There are reports of a widespread crackdown on dissent within Iran, Iran, and you're seeing lots of opponents of the Iranian regime argue that these strikes are rallying people who disliked the Iranian regime behind it to their side.

Clearly, Israeli intelligence and probably U.S.

intelligence had Iran totally wired before this operation started.

I wonder if they'll have that same level of visibility now or if some of those collection opportunities were dried up or killed off.

We just don't know.

Iran's parliament voted to stop cooperating with the IAEA, meaning they won't allow international inspectors to its nuclear sites.

Now, I was talking to an Iran expert who pointed out that an immediate withdrawal by Iran from the NPT, the Nonproliferation Treaty, would almost certainly lead to a snapback of UN sanctions as part of the JCPOA.

So Iran will probably chill out for a while and wait to leave the NPT until October when the JCPOA finally expires.

But it will likely happen eventually, which means we will just not have nuclear inspectors in Iran anymore.

And then I was talking with our old friend and colleague, John Wolfstahl, who's a a nuclear expert who is now with the Federation of American Scientists.

And he pointed out that when Trump pulled us out of the JCPOA, it eliminated a lot of really stringent restrictions on Iran that prevented them from bringing in specialized carbon fiber and things that you need to make centrifuges.

And that once the JCPO went away, it's likely that Iran then stockpiled those materials somewhere.

So they're just going to restart building centrifuges sooner than later.

But I'm also really interested to see what Russia does now.

Israel took out something like 70 of Iran's air defense systems, maybe all of them.

Many of those were Russian-made S-300 systems.

Iran has some homegrown air defense systems, but it'll be interesting to see if the Russians step in to help them rebuild their defense infrastructure, because we know that Iran and Russia now have this even closer relationship because the Russians need Iranian drones.

So this is kind of a mutually beneficial thing and it's worth watching.

It's also worth watching whether North Korea helps them with nuclear tech and also to see what the Chinese do.

Like I wonder, I think China buys like 90% of Iran's oil currently.

I wonder if they'll step in and buy even more and be something of a financial lifeline.

And then, you know, there's just something of a pride element that I think people don't understand

in the Western media, Ben, which is that I'm sure there are Iranians who are annoyed that their government has spent decades and billions of dollars on nuclear technology.

But then there's others in Iran who view it as a source of pride and like a sign of modernity to get nuclear technology.

And they think that efforts to prevent them from getting this stuff, this nuclear tech, it's just another element of like colonialism, essentially.

So fully abandoning this project could have political blowback on the current regime and it might prevent them from abandoning this project generally.

So there's just a lot of X factors out there that we don't know and a lot of reasons to be skeptical that this bombing campaign, both the US and Israeli, has set things on a better course.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: Well, yeah, and that comes back to this point of what was the point of the bombing campaign, right?

And we are living in such a short-term, I mean, in the U.S.

political media environment since Trump,

we like 24 hours is a long time, you know?

Like, you know, something looks like a great success for six hours, and then it looks terrible for six hours.

You have to measure the bombing campaign against what it was supposed to achieve, which was destroying or setting back the Ryan nuclear program.

The JCPOA, which is, you know, not a perfect deal, right?

But is, and so I'm holding it up not as a JCPOA, but it's probably the kind of deal Trump would have have gotten if Steve Wickoff had been able to go to Oman without Israel bombing Iran.

Set them a year, like all the estimates were that it was at least a year to them being able to break out to get enough nuclear fuel for a weapon, and then they'd have to weaponize it.

So what I mean by that is if the Iranians kicked out every inspector and decided to totally stop complying with the JCPOA and started running all their centrifuges at enriched uranium at maximum volume to get enough fuel for a weapon would take them a year.

This bombing campaign didn't get anywhere near that amount of time.

So

what was the point of this?

When I look back on it, what it looks like to me is that Israel launched a bombing campaign that was about not just a nuclear program, it was about regime change.

They were killing all of these IRGC officials, all of these military officials.

They were threatening to kill the supreme leader.

They were hitting infrastructure.

Trump Trump comes in and drops these big bombs on these three nuclear sites and in a strange way, kind of stops the Israeli bombing campaign and backs down from regime change.

Maybe because his MAGA base, you know, I mean, I think he, you know, it seemed like he was speaking to Hawkish MAGA and MAGA MAGA, right?

Hawkish MAGA when he's bragging about obliterating nuclear sites that he didn't obliterate, and MAGA MAGA when he was telling Israel to cut it out and turn their pilots around.

And so now everything is stopped and nothing is better, right?

I mean, this is kind of like what Trump did on tariffs.

I mean, I mentioned this to you, but it's like he makes everything gets worse.

And then he kind of comes in and he hits a pause button and says, Look, I saw it.

I'm a firefighter, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And half the house is burned down, but I put out the fire, but still half the house is burned.

And that's where we are.

And meanwhile, look, and I'll be the first to say, if Trump then gets a nuclear deal with monitoring and inspections and all the things within the JCPOA, then I'll say, okay, well, like he's, he, you know, he solved a problem.

I wish he didn't have to drop bombs to do it.

I don't think he did, but, but he hasn't, you know, there's not, you know, and that may be harder.

Or, frankly, they may make a deal with him and just have a bunch of covert sites because they don't trust us anyway.

I mean, that's the other thing.

It's like, it's hard to imagine a world in which they trust us to, to, you know, for them to come into a deal.

So on this nuclear issue, everybody's celebrating the fact that they like tipped off the Qataris and did this face-saving thing while ignoring the purpose of this.

The purpose of the strike wasn't to force them into notifying the Qataris before they shot some missiles at a base.

The purpose of the strike was to dismantle the nuclear program, which it couldn't do as well as diplomacy, which is the reason why this was always a bad idea.

Meanwhile, you've pissed off a whole generation of Iranians, right?

I mean, how would, I mean, to answer, you know, to your point, like, what if we got bombed?

What if some country just came in here and bombed us tomorrow?

Do you think we'd be like happy that that happened?

Cut a deal.

No, you'd kill them.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd be like, let's go fucking get some revenge, you know?

And so we don't know that the Qatar thing was the last thing they'll do.

And frankly, I think part of what the Qatar thing was, was messaging to the Gulf countries, you know, who are hosting U.S.

bases.

Hey, you know, because the Iranians did this in 2019, they hit an oil processing site in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia then, you know, subsequently normalized relations with Iran.

I think it's a bit of messaging to them.

Like, hey, like, we're notifying you this time.

We don't want the fight with you.

But if the Americans take us out, if there's a regime change scenario, the next time we're not going to notify you.

And the next time we might not shoot at the base, we might shoot at your oil fields.

You know, I think that's what that strike was about.

It was a message, not just to Qatar, but to everybody in the Gulf, that if regime change is on the table, we can burn it all down.

This time we're notifying you, next time we won't.

And that's not to overstate the Iranian power.

It's to say that if they're cornered and they feel like they're going to, you know, collapse, they have some cards to play.

And so,

I just don't see how this made anything any better.

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Let's talk about the broader principle involved and kind of like the short-term, long-term thinking issue.

So, on the question of this broader principle of whether it's a good idea for the U.S.

to bomb other countries with no legal authorization from Congress or the UN.

I will say, like, I obviously, first of all, I just want to say, I feel like a hypocrite talking about this.

Like, there's much to criticize from the Obama days about the use of drones and then the Libya conflict in particular, but like, we're trying to learn from that and apply those lessons here.

Obviously, though, Trump made no effort to get allies or the UN on board.

And as you pointed out on Sunday, Ben, you know, they had, by saying there was two weeks for diplomacy,

he humiliated a lot of them.

I think it was the German foreign minister who had a meeting with the Iranians, left that meeting, gave a statement about how hopeful he was that they could get a deal.

And then like literally hours later, the B-2 bombers took off to begin the run.

So Trump's team is arguing that they had the legal authority to bomb Iran because there was an imminent threat from Iran's nuclear program.

But we know that's not true because in March, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, testified that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program.

And then a couple of days ago, the Washington Post had a long report on Netanyahu's decision-making around this war.

And they reported that he, he, Netanyahu, issued the general order to prepare for a strike in October of 2024.

And BB had decided to do it with or without the U.S.

as far back as in March of this year.

So you don't usually wait nine months to deal with an imminent threat.

And the Post says that despite all these efforts by the Israelis, mostly Israeli political leaders, to convince both Biden and then Trump that there was some sort of smoking gun evidence showing that Iran was racing to get a nuke, the Israeli decision to launch a military strike was almost entirely based on Israel deciding it needed to jump on this moment of opportunity of weakness for Iran because their proxy forces are weakened and because all their missile defense systems were taken out.

So, the lack of an imminent threat makes this action illegal, both under U.S.

and international law.

And so, long story short, you know, as we said, the fact that the U.S.

can pull off this mission doesn't mean it was effective in the long run.

It doesn't mean it was legal.

It doesn't mean it was the right thing to do for U.S.

national security.

And by the way, like, North Korea is sitting on 50 nukes.

They have ICBMs that we think can hit U.S.

cities, major population centers.

If this is about imminent nuclear threats, why does North Korea get love letters and Iran gets bombed, right?

Like none of this makes sense.

And what is the message?

The message to the world is that Kim Jong-un gets love letters because he has nuclear weapons.

And if you don't, you might get bombed, which is a message to everybody to have your own covert nuclear weapons program, you know?

And on the legality of this, it's not even close.

Nobody's even presented any information that suggests that this is imminent.

Trump is, you know, tried to throw his own intelligence community under the bus.

But this is the thing that worries me, Tommy, is like you mentioned earlier, there was supposed to be this briefing for the Hill

on the outcome of the strikes, and they've delayed it.

Well, guess what they're doing?

They're cooking the books.

Does anybody doubt that that's what's happening?

Of course, that's what's happening.

Because we saw it happen before our eyes.

Tulsi Gabbard said that they were potentially years away from weaponizing, and Trump said, no, that's not it.

And then she came out and said, well, maybe it's weeks.

And so now, what's what's going to happen?

Well, we have from the New York Times that the U.S.

intelligence community thinks this set them back maybe a few months.

By the time they brief the Hill, I'm sure that'll change.

But nobody believes it.

Nobody knows what to believe.

And

that is incredibly dangerous that the American people, American legislators, nobody can believe what Trump's going to say about something as serious as the basis on which he went to war, the basis on which he put Americans in harm's way and killed some Iranians, the basis on which

he might make future decisions.

I mean, that's how we're in this kind of uncharted territory here.

And these allies who are just don't put out on a limb and they saw it off the limb.

I mean, I just don't know how many times they can go along with this

whole thing.

So look,

the best thing he did

is he stopped it.

Right.

I mean, the thing I was most worried about was a slippery slope to regime change.

To his credit, right?

Give him credit for this.

He saw that happening.

he saw israel going down that road and trying to pull him into it and after doing this bombing he said cut it out which tells you that even donald trump was like shit man i don't want my whole presidency to be about like falling israel into the rabbit hole of a regime change war in iran but that doesn't mean that that threat's over because as you said the drumbeat's going to come back because the people are going to start to see well the iranian stuff wasn't destroyed they might be reconstituting their nuclear program they might actually be dashing for nuclear weapon and we might be in a scenario where what, every few months or every year, like we're called upon to bomb Iran or the Iranians pop up with a nuclear weapon or some really angry people in Iran decide to, you know, activate some sleeper cell.

Like, we are in this, right?

And this was the danger.

Like, wars don't end on true social.

Wars don't end when the cable news cycle moves on to the next issue.

Like, when you bomb a country, when you commit an act of violence against a country of 90 million people, you're in it for a while.

And so we, you know, and I don't see how this, at this point, leads to good places.

Now, again, if they can get this into a diplomatic negotiation that leads to a verifiable agreement, different story.

And I welcome that.

But that's just not where we are.

Yeah.

And just to be on this regime change point, I mean, Trump, I agree, he deserves credit for not pursuing it, but he confused the shit out of everybody because

his staff was denying that regime change was in the cards.

And then he's putting on Truth Social, quote, if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?

MIGA, MIGA, make Iran great again.

So he was asked again about regime change during this gaggle on Air Force One earlier today.

Here's a clip of what he said.

Do you want to see regime change in Iran?

No.

If there was, there was.

But no, I don't want it.

I'd like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible.

Regime change takes chaos.

And ideally, we don't want to see so much chaos, so we'll see how it does.

You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good business people,

and they got a lot of oil.

They should be fine.

They should be able to rebuild and do a good job.

They're never going to have nuclear, but other than that, they should do a great job.

I'm sure BP loved him.

Wishing them the best of luck on rebuilding their missile defense systems and stuff.

So, hopefully, this is the final word on this.

We talked about how there were these reports that Trump vetoed a plan from Netanyahu to kill the Supreme Leader.

That is an obvious regime change operation.

But there were slightly less subtle ones, like bombing the gates of even prison and trying to let out political prisoners, even though you could put them at risk and kill them.

That's very regime-changey.

Bombing the state TV network, that's pretty regime changey moves for prodding regime change along.

It does sound like the counterargument that regime change would lead to chaos, which would lead to mass migration, won the day in Trump's mind.

So that's a good thing.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Maybe he's listening to Pod Say the World.

Probably not.

But I mean, actually, but if you talk to, you know, if you listen to Nilu, I mean, just to preview this a little bit, there is concern that the gains that the Women Life Freedom Movement had made, right, you know, women starting to uncover their hair, like there's going to be a crackdown potentially on dissent, that the bombing of Eden prison, you know, not only did it hit apartment buildings and kill innocent people, but apparently it potentially hit like the infirmary and the hospital for the prisoners there.

So it made life worse for the people in the prison.

I mean, you just, you can't do this through bombing, you know, and we've so normalized bombing people in the Middle East that it's like, well, that was a 12-day war, you know?

Well, not to the people in Iran, it wasn't.

Like, it hasn't happened there before, you know, since the Iran-Iraq war, right?

Like, they're not going to forget it, you know?

Right.

And that's what's so, I mean, I don't know.

I want to ask you, Tommy.

I mean, it's like, I don't know what to do anymore about the way this stuff is covered and the

kind of, you know, Monday morning declarations of victory during a seven-day week.

You know, I just don't know because you're like me.

And actually, you're more online than me.

Like, like these people are like, I'm getting emails from people like, oh, like, everything you said is wrong.

I'm like, no,

you guys are,

like, what do you think you did here?

You know, but I, I don't know how to get across to people how insane it is, how normal it is to just bomb people in the Middle East and think that the bombing itself is the achievement, you know?

Yeah, and then stopping it.

It's a triumph.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bombing is an achievement and stopping is a triumph.

You know, like, like whatever Trump does, because I'm going to play this card now, too.

Can you imagine if like Barack Obama did this?

If Barack Obama, like, randomly bombed a country and then before he'd achieved anything, said he'd achieved everything and should get the peace prize?

I mean, it's basically what all of DC wanted to do to Syria to enforce the red line, right?

Which was just bomb the country to show that we would.

Yeah, look, this is driving me crazy.

The short-term thinking and triumphalism in DC is not surprising after Iraq, but it's amazing we've learned none of the lessons.

I mean, on Sunday, we talked about the fact that the U.S.

military can and will win every battle.

The question is winning the war and like the broader national security needs and like the second and third order impact of these strikes.

And Ben, a colleague we worked with, Rob Malley, had a great piece in foreign affairs, I think today, that I thought was really smart.

And it talked about how in the West, we tend to always look back to World War II as precedent, where it was like a black versus white, good versus evil, clear winners versus clear losers.

But he wrote that the Middle East has its own set of precedents that are more likely to be relevant.

And he included these examples.

In the 1970s, Jordan crushed this Palestinian guerrilla movement, which prompted the emergence of the Black September organization, which led to the Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes.

Israel invades Lebanon in 1982.

They force the PLO into exile in Tunisia.

That leads to the rise of Hezbollah.

In the 1980s, the U.S.

support for the Mujahideen drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but led to the rise of the Taliban and a generation of jihadist groups, including Al-Qaeda.

Everyone was triumphant.

You know, we talked on Padse America about the Gulf War I vote and how there were all these Democrats who felt like it killed their political career because they were against it.

But after the Gulf War in the early 90s, Osama bin Laden decided to focus on the United States, and we know how that ended.

The Iraqi.

Because we put our troops in Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War.

Yeah.

Exactly.

The Iraq war leads to ISIS.

The overthrow of the government of Yemen leads to the Houthis.

Gaddafi's overthrow in Libya leads to chaos and the spread of weapons and fighters all across northern Africa in the Middle East.

And so, you know, I'm with you.

Like, yeah, the DC political class and media are always going to be just entranced by the shock and awe portion of the war.

But the long run is what matters.

And that is what's still scary about this.

But what's so maddening to me about it, too, is that the American people, such as they are, aren't where the DC political class is, right?

50%

disapprove.

Yeah.

Like, people don't like that we bombed Iran.

And they don't really care, I think, that Trump came out and declared victory or that there's some people on TV talking about how great it is.

It's like, so if I'm a Democrat, like if you can't weather like a few tough news cycles on the principle that we shouldn't bomb countries for no reason against the law, you know, risking all these things,

then

what are you doing in politics?

You know, I still don't, I just don't understand it, you know, and there's such a fear of being called weak, and there's no fear of being wrong about supporting a war that might turn out to be a bad idea.

And Trump is a master of short-termism, an absolute master at shifting the terms of the news cycle to what he wants it to be, right?

So one day he wants the news cycle to be about, I launched a strike, I'm such a tough guy, I obliterated these sites, even though they're not obliterated.

And then the next day he wants to be the peacemaker.

And the news cycle just follows him where he's going.

And my advice is stop following Trump.

and stop having the debate on his terms.

What do you stand for?

What is your argument to Americans and the world about what we should be doing?

And just stick with that argument.

Because you know what?

There'll be days when your argument looks good and there'll be days when your argument looks bad.

You and I have both look like idiots some days and geniuses other days.

But the more consistent you are, at least people know where you're coming from.

And so then when something happens that validates your view later on, they'll actually give you credit for it instead of thinking you're like late to the party.

Yeah.

And just one last point on this.

Like in diplomacy, it's important to just try to put yourself in your adversary's shoes from time to time and try to imagine their perspective on all these things.

And

in that context, it's just worth remembering kind of Israel's own nuclear history.

So Israel is believed to have about 90 nuclear weapons, warheads, that is, and the ability to make a bunch more.

David Bagurian, the first prime minister of Israel, decided to get nukes in the mid-50s because he wanted a nuclear deterrent against his Arab neighbors.

In the 50s and 60s, Israel secretly acquired the technology and materials to make a bomb.

They lied to the U.S.

about their intentions.

They got a bunch of help from France and Norway, who at one point along the way, you know, got assurances from Israel that they wouldn't make nuclear weapons.

Those assurances were lies.

When U.S.

intelligence discovered Israel's nuclear facilities, the Israelis lied to us about them.

There's a great story in the Washington Post that I drew a lot of this from that talks about how the Israelis built like fake control rooms in their main nuclear facility to make it look like a civilian energy plant when really it wasn't.

There was a deal that Nixon cut with Gold of My Ear that was basically like, don't ask, don't tell about your nuclear program.

But Israel was

in that agreement said they would not test or acknowledge their strikes, but it seems very likely that Israel broke that promise too and tested a nuke in 1979.

Israel is one of five countries not signed on to the UN Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The list is India, Pakistan, North Korea, and South Sudan.

There are other others who have refused to sign.

Iran is a signatory, even though it has been accused of violating it with its nuclear program.

But just long story short, like that context can help you understand why the Iranians would think that the international community was completely full of shit on this issue.

And I highly recommend reading this post story because it's fascinating.

But, you know, try to see it from their perspective.

Yeah,

they're good guys.

My first best year is that this problem is solved.

I mean, there's a reason we spent so many years on nuclear deal because we don't think Iran should have a nuclear weapon.

We don't think that'd be good.

So that's not, I'm not rooting for that.

I'm rooting for the best thing would be a diplomatic agreement, multilateral, by the way, because the U.S.

and Iran don't trust each other.

You need other countries in on the deal.

You need UN inspectors in on the deal.

I just don't know another way to solve this problem because just bombing again and again is either going to bring about regime change and the chaos that Trump himself fears, or it's going to bring about a covert Iranian nuclear program.

I just don't think you solve the problem through just bombing every few months, which is unfortunately what might be what we're heading into.

Before we take a break, I just want to talk to you guys about how the right wing is dominating YouTube.

And that is a real problem because tons of people go to YouTube to search for political information.

And what they find is garbage from TPUSA or The Daily Wire or Ben Shapiro because those guys have much, much bigger channels.

So when you subscribe to Pod Save America or Pod Save the World on YouTube, it really helps us surface good, factual, progressive information in the algorithm for people who are just trying to figure out what's going on in the world.

It's free, it takes two seconds, it helps us a lot.

So please do your part.

Open YouTube, search for Pod Save the World, smash that subscribe button, maybe smash that subscribe button to Pod Save America too.

We'd really appreciate it.

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All right, Trump is off to The Hague for the NATO Summit.

It's the big annual meeting that

I've been.

Yeah, he is, but you can't check out the cells.

Big annual meeting to all the heads of states from the 31 NATO member countries and then a bunch of others where they talk about whatever.

I'm sure Trump wants this to be a big Iran victory lap, but I'm sure these intelligence assessments will dampen his mood.

The big fight, as has been the case recently, is how much NATO members are spending on their own defense.

Trump got bored of demanding that these countries spend 2% of GDP on defense, and he's upped his demand to 5%.

However, that 5% is broken into parts.

It's 3.5% of spending on core military needs over the next decade, and then 1.5% on what's been described as defense-related spending on infrastructure or cybersecurity.

So that's a little squishy.

It's been a big fight with Spain that we won't get into because they were refusing to meet the 5% target.

It's not totally clear whether that's been solved.

Trump is also, once again, playing FTSE about whether he is committed to the cornerstone of the NATO alliance, which is shorthanded as our Article 5 commitment.

It says an attack upon one NATO member is an attack upon all, and they will collectively respond.

Here's a clip of Trump talking about Article 5 on Air Force One.

Can you clarify what you mean?

Are you still committed to mutual defense?

I'm committed to saving lives.

I'm committed to life and safety.

And I'm going to give you an exact definition when I get there.

I just don't want to do it on the back of an airplane.

Committed to friendship.

It's just incredible.

The biggest topic is probably going to be the war in Ukraine.

Russia launched a massive ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro today, reportedly killed 17 people, wounded 279, including 27 kids.

There's a journalist I follow who reported out these stats, who tweeted that it was the biggest Russian attack on civilians in Ukraine since yesterday, which I think is just a good reminder that this war is raging and having devastating consequences on civilian populations far away from the front lines.

Ben, the European response to the U.S.

strikes on Iran have been muted and pathetic.

Like you have leaders like Kirstarmer, who's like...

His whole life has been dedicated to international law, and he's unwilling to call what the U.S.

did in Iran illegal.

Do you think that's because these guys are all just scared shitless that Trump would take any criticism of him out on Ukraine or NATO generally?

Yes.

I mean, I think that's exactly what's going on here.

And the timing of the Iran strikes, like the week before the NATO summit,

I think is part of our colored, their wishy-washy response and the inability, even at least Macron

came out and said there's no legal basis because there is no legal basis.

They can't cite any.

Libya.

like there was at least a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force.

Like there's nothing here, right?

But I think that they were terrified of picking a fight with Trump on the eve of the NATO summit when they were trying to probably plead with him to continue to provide some support to Ukraine, to not cut off intelligence support to Ukraine, to at least hear them out on backing up a potential European force as part of a peace deal in Ukraine, which is far off.

It's a reminder, by the way, that the only war that Trump has stopped since he took office is the war that he started in Iran.

I mean, good point.

Didn't end the war in Ukraine.

They had a ceasefire in Gaza that he celebrated, and then things got much worse than they've ever been.

But I think the thing to watch here is on the Article 5 piece,

there's actually not multiple definitions.

You're either going to come to people's defense or you're not.

So if he's pretty specific, actually.

Yeah, he kind of teased like some revision to that.

I don't really know what that could be, but that's going to freak people out along the Eastern Front with Russia, like the Baltic states, because they depend on that for their survival.

But what is the messaging on Ukraine?

Is it pressuring on Ukraine to get a peace deal from Trump?

Or is there some indication that because because Russia is clearly not coming to the table, that maybe he'll put on the table some increased defense support for them?

And, you know, we don't know.

I would imagine Trump's not going to, you know, he's going to split the difference as usual and say he's for peace, but not really have any plan for it other than telling people he's for it.

Yeah, it's clear that Trump has just beaten so many of these NATO leaders into submission.

I mean, Trump truth socialed a screenshot of texts he got from the head of NATO, Mark Ruta,

praising the Iran strikes.

They called it truly extraordinary, something no one else dared to do that makes us all safer, like unbelievably.

Like, I have to raise this, Tommy.

Like, I mean, at some point, the guy they're appeasing is Trump.

I mean, because they're just

is there anything he can do that they're not going to, you know, kiss his ass over?

I mean, because at some point it's going to be something that they really don't like, you know?

Yeah.

And the 5% thing, by the way, is bonkers.

We don't spend 5% of our budget on defense spending.

Trump's just inventing numbers and throwing it at them.

I mean, at some point, have a spine, guys.

Like, yes, they need to increase defense spending in part because they have to backfill the U.S.

on Ukraine, but this is getting, you know, the Europeans,

it's in, I say, as an American, it's in our interest that you stand up to our president sometimes, or else you're going to encourage them to do crazy shit.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the Ukraine part, I mean, who knows what will come out of this.

I mean, I don't know if you saw this, but Politico had this weird story with the headline, Washington has had it with Andre Yermak, that is basically just a bunch of current and former officials, I think, in the Biden administration and Trump administration, just unloading on Zelensky's chief of staff, calling him annoying and damaging to the Ukrainian cause.

And it was just like, it was just weird.

Like, I've never seen anything like it, like an entire article, just like taking down a foreign staffer.

It was very odd.

Well, it's kind of like, look, I've heard some of these, you know, whispered complaints.

But the thing is, it's kind of punching down, you know, because like the guy is like, you know, he's Ukraine.

He's clearly Zelensky's guy.

They're under invasion.

He's probably a hard guy to deal with.

But like,

why do you need to be...

This is like what you guys say at MPSA all the time.

Like, why do you have to go tell Politico about all your complaints about your fellow Democrats?

Like,

what is gained by

telling Politico how much your Mac pisses you off?

Like, his people are getting slaughtered.

Like, of course, he's going to go over there and try to push you for whatever you can get.

One bit of good news, man.

I mean,

opposition activist, a guy named Sergei Tikhodeskaya, was released from prison in Belarus along with 13 others, all political prisoners.

He had been locked up since 2020.

His wife, Svetlana Tikhoneskaya, is now kind of the primary Belarusian opposition leader because when her husband was arrested, she stepped into the void.

So these prisoners were released in coordination with a visit from Trump's special envoy, Keith Kellogg, who is supposed to be kind of a lead guy on the Ukraine account, has kind of been iced out by the Russians.

But it was good to see.

I imagine this is going to be part of a broader thaw in relations between the U.S.

and Belarus if Kellogg is visiting Minsk.

But welcome news.

Very welcome news.

And she, we should say, she

went out of her way to thank Trump and his team.

So clearly they believe, and I trust them, that this was a difference maker.

And he looked terrible, by the way.

I mean, awful.

He looked like he'd aged about 20 years in prison, which gives you a suggestion of what it's like in a Belarusian prison.

I do wonder what the quid pro quo was, because if you look at the tape, Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, looks like super chummy and happy to see Keith Kellogg, you know, like,

so he may feel like he's coming in from the cold, which is something that Putin would want.

So this may be something where everybody got something that they wanted, right?

You got this guy out of prison, but maybe Putin got his guy out of the penalty box a little bit, but we'll see.

Yeah, we'll see.

We want to do a quick roundup of some interesting tech stories we saw.

So, first, the House of Representatives have banned WhatsApp from government-issued phones due to, quote, the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, the absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.

Interesting.

Meta, which owns WhatsApp, is very pissed off.

They pushed back hard.

They talked about the end-to-end encryption, but it's also interesting that Iran recently asked citizens to remove WhatsApp from their phones, claiming that Israel was using WhatsApp to spy on Iran and identify targets.

Second story here, The Times had an interesting piece about how Trump is using American tech companies to punish its enemies.

For example, Microsoft provides email services to the International Criminal Court.

And when Trump sanctioned the ICC's top prosecutor, Trump demanded Microsoft cut off his email access.

Just an interesting way they're kind of leveraging everything they can to punish enemies.

And then finally, Ben, there is a growing bipartisan concern about the work that the big data firm Palantir is doing for the the U.S.

government.

Trump signed this EO in March that calls for eliminating information silos across the U.S.

government, but this creates huge privacy concerns if Palantir is throwing all that data together and creating like a mega database full of all of the U.S.

government's information about American citizens, which could enable mass domestic surveillance programs.

And you can only imagine what like a Stephen Miller would want to do with that kind of technology.

In the meantime, Ben, Palantir, their valuation has gone from 50 billion last year to 300 billion this year.

So they are benefiting enormously from kissing Trump's ass.

I guess of those three stories, Ben,

the surveillance one kind of freaks me out the most.

But any thoughts on the above?

It does freak me out the most.

And like, this is a really important thing that we have to watch, and it's hard to get your mind around.

But I mean, the WhatsApp thing, you know, I wonder how our WhatsApp chains are going to hold up to scrutiny.

Yeah, no kidding.

But the Palantir one is the most important thing because

we we know

from China what a total surveillance state looks like, right?

So in China, there is bulk data collection, you know, based on reporting

of everything,

your public information and your non-public information, right?

So the Chinese Communist Party can essentially vacuum up.

everything

that is in the public domain about you, but also can vacuum up your private communications, your DMs, whatever the thing is.

And

they can then use AI

to kind of profile you, right?

Like who's a potential threat.

And actually,

there, there's even this social credit system idea that

your kid might not get into a good school, right, if you're not sufficiently pro-Xi Chinpang, right?

Pro-CCP.

That's one version of total surveillance.

Another version of total surveillance is in the West Bank, where Israel similarly vacuums up everything the Palestinians do based on reporting, right?

You know, this is not based on when I was in government, but from what I've read, you know, and what you can surmise, they're vacuuming up all the public data and the non-public data.

And they can use that, by the way, to blackmail people if they want to

put out information on people or disinformation on people or to intimidate people.

And,

you know, the scary thing in the U.S.

is there's already a lot of data out there, right?

Corporations, I mean, you know,

Tommy, I don't know if you've had the eerie experience where you are talking about something, and then when you go to search something online about it, like the search seems to be incorporating what you were saying.

Yeah, there's always that feeling.

Your phone is listening.

Yeah, there's that, yeah.

But we know that apps are tracking your data and corporations are, but the thing is, what Palantir could do

is

that I'm doing with this long windup is with the introduction of AI,

like they can make use of the data.

So, you know, it used to be, I used to think to myself, well, you know, the government could be collecting this stuff, but nobody's going to sit there and read it all.

Well, with AI, if they decide that they want to contract out to a palantir or somebody like that to look at all the public data and potentially the non-public data and figure out where to do an ICE raid, right?

Or figure out, you know, who's like the kind of protests, you know, what protests might be happening on Sunday so we can get ahead of that.

That's when we get into really scary authoritarian stuff.

And I just think the business model of what Palantir is selling is they're selling total data dominance.

They're selling a version of mass surveillance.

I mean,

I'll caveat that in all the ways, right?

Yeah, well, it's a bad thing.

We don't want all of our data in one place, especially because what if it gets hacked, right?

Like the Russians or the Chinese get access to it.

The AI piece is scary.

Like, there's just information silos are bad.

We want a government to be efficient.

But like Elon Musk, just like firing a bunch of people, taking all our data and chucking it to one place, there's a lot of like ways that could go really badly.

Yeah.

Your question is Yathwan.

Like what might Steve Miller do with that data?

You know, like I feel like

that's the thing that you always have to keep in mind in the Trump years because those people are in charge now, you know?

Yeah.

All right, Ben, to close out the show, I got to choose your own adventure for you for kind of a lighter topic, but it's a Sophie's choice vibe.

Would you rather talk about the CEO of Telegram Seaman or Jeff Bezos's wedding woes?

I mean, I'd rather talk about Jeff Bezos' wedding woes because I think it's more fun.

We'll dig into that.

I don't really want to know about the semen either.

The quick and dirty on Pavel Durov is that apparently he has fathered 106 kids, 100 as a sperm donor, and apparently he said he's going to split his entire fortune equally among them, but it's not going to be available to you for 30 years from the date he gave the interview.

So we'll have some time to figure out how to fake a DNA test and say we're his kid.

But let's talk about Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.

They're getting married in late June in Venice, Italy.

So Jeff reportedly gave Lauren a 30-carat engagement ring.

It's worth $35 million.

They kicked off a week of wedding celebrations with a foam party on his super yacht, or so says USA Today.

The guest list is likely to be filled with celebrities, musicians, actors, tech luminaries, political figures, insufferable dipshits like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

But Venice is one of the European cities that are facing a tourism backlash from locals.

So I think a year or two ago, Ben, we covered this story.

It was a fun story in Barcelona, where people are like attacking tourists with squirt guns.

Folks in Venice, though, are especially with Bezos, his money, the space tourism bullshit, et cetera.

And so the wedding venue isn't known yet, nor is the exact date, but locals are already threatening to fuck with it.

They're talking about blocking the canals with boats boats or like inflatable alligators or doing all kinds of shit to just mess up their wedding.

People are holding up no space for Bezos signs.

So it's interesting.

Like this is kind of fun.

We wish these activists the best of luck in their peaceful protests.

It is a bit of a dicey move for Venice since tourism is kind of their main thing.

And like the Venetian glass business has been somewhat on the decline since the 17th century.

But, you know.

Have your fun, I guess.

Oh, I couldn't be more for it.

I mean, I've been following this pretty closely, and there are reports that they're already moving the location of the wedding a little bit outside of Venice.

So there's an early win.

But let me just say, like, the thing about Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez is

they seem to be like the tackiest people on earth, you know?

Like

the foam party.

Like, they seem to be doing what they think was cool, like, when they were 19 or something and they weren't invited to the party to do.

They look kind of plasticky and ridiculous.

They both look like a lot of work has been done.

I'm just going to say, you know, again, reportedly, like I, you know, every caveat all these things that we say now.

But I also want to ask, like, I get why like Ivanka and Jared are going, but like, I saw some people on that list that I found kind of disappointing.

Like, I think I saw Leo might be on that list.

Like, you know, I guess he owns Andrew.

I think that guy just chases cash around.

I don't know him.

I've never met him.

I do think he's.

Oh, appearance fees.

You think there's appearance?

There are probably appearance fees in the world.

Well, no, just like kind of rich people that kind of subsidize your life.

I don't know why that's the case with a lot of these super-rich celebrities, but they a lot of them just have

a buddy.

I mean, if Jeff Bezos offered you $2 million to go to his wedding, would you go?

Hell yeah.

Yeah,

in a heartbeat in terms of Venice.

All right, good.

I'm in.

I'm in.

I'm in.

All right.

That is it for us.

We're going to take a quick break.

When we come back, you'll hear Ben's interview about what life is like on the ground for the Iranian people.

So stick around for that.

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Okay, I'm very pleased to welcome Nilu Tabrizi to the podcast.

Nilu is a visual forensics reporter at the Washington Post.

She's also the co-author of a forthcoming book, For the Sun, After Long Nights, The Story of Iran's Women's-Led Uprising, which I just have to say, Nilo, you know, I've read this book, is absolutely extraordinary.

If you followed the Women Life Freedom Movement, if you're interested in in that movement, if you feel any solidarity with that movement, if you want to know anything more about the attitudes of people inside of Iran, I truly encourage people to pick up this truly, truly remarkable book.

Nilo, actually, before we begin, when can people pre-order the book?

You can pre-order right now.

And thank you.

Those are very nice things you said.

Well, that's good.

Well, actually, before we even begin,

can you just get one question about how, because it's such a unique book that you co-authored with somebody who's on the ground in Iran.

Just give people a sense of how you reported that book, because I think that will also give people a sense of the insight you have to bring into how people are thinking in Iran today.

Yeah, so I co-wrote this book with my friend Fatima Jamalpour.

She's a journalist in Iran, and we had been friends for years.

We met in 2017 and I tried to get her accredited for the Times when I was at the New York Times at that point, but they just weren't accrediting anyone in the country.

So we just kept in touch,

you know, comparing notes and just, yeah, keeping in touch as everything developed in the country.

And then when the protests started, we got back in touch again and decided to write this book together.

So we kind of conceived of it as two Iranian women journalists covering the movement, one from inside the country, one from outside, and kind of our narratives and how, you know, with our backgrounds, the different ethnic groups we come from, you know, the experience of staying, the experience of leaving, and how that informs the journalism we do.

Well, I think that gives people a sense of the fact that you have family, you have friends, and you have sources inside of Iran.

So obviously, given what's been going on for the last 12 days

with the Israeli strikes, the U.S.

strikes, the Iranian reprisals, this is an incredibly

tense and difficult time for people inside of Iran.

And it's been harder to understand what's going on there because the internet's been cut off.

There's not the same level of media presence as you might have in Israel.

You obviously have family, friends, and sources there.

We'll dig in a little bit more, but just what is the baseline of what you've heard from people about how they're doing and how they've experienced the last 12 days?

I would say it's taken a few forms.

I think at the very beginning, people were shocked.

It was just unbelievable that a capital city of 10 million people with the population density of New York City was being bombed, that there were so many airstrikes in residential places.

And so just from the very beginning, when I woke up that Friday morning and I had so many messages from my family members, from sources, and then as I was looking at visuals and verifying them, it just didn't seem real for a few days.

And so, you know, the experience of people inside as well, they were frozen.

You know, I think some people might look at the region and say, oh, this is a region used to turmoil, but it's not like.

The last time Tehran was bombed was during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 88.

You know, this is like people don't have bomb shelters in the way that maybe you might imagine if you haven't been there.

And so this was something in our cultural memory that hadn't happened.

And it was just a moment of shock and I think re-traumatizing for a lot of people.

And given the fact that the internet's cut off, have people been getting information?

What is your sense of how much they're able to receive messaging from the government, how much they're able to understand what's going on, whether they trust information from the government?

What is your sense from being in contact with people about how they feel about just knowing the basics of what's happening?

So while people may not trust official government channels, Iran does have a rich media scene.

There's so many different outlets.

There's Telegram channels, there's citizen journalist channels.

So, the way that a lot of people inside the country were learning about what was going on was through Telegram, through following these channels.

I mean, there weren't even EVAC orders

that were like Israel didn't issue evacuation orders until three, four days after the first strikes.

So, people were really learning about what was happening online, on Twitter, by the sharing of information.

And so from the first day from the Friday, the 13th up until that Wednesday, internet was pretty good.

But then Wednesday, it really, really shut down.

And, you know, we saw President Trump post a message that everybody should evacuate Tehran, which, you know, is a city the size of New York City.

There are obviously bombs going off in.

parts of Tehran.

What is your sense of how many people left, what the access was to basic necessities like food and gas,

the sense of life for people in the city that was under bombardment and getting these messages to evacuate when that was probably not the easiest thing to do.

I mean, on a good day, Tehran is filled with traffic.

So, in that first weekend that people were trying to leave, it was just videos of gridlock.

And sources that I spoke with said, oh, I waited for six hours at a gas station to get gas.

I could fill up a third of my tank.

And so, in those first couple of days, a lot of people were leaving, but the journey took hours.

You know, a source of mine said a journey that would take a two-hour drive took seven hours with traffic, or a six-hour drive took me 20 hours to get out of the city.

So, it was really just frantic at the beginning.

And there were a good number of sources that didn't want to leave because they don't have the means to, they couldn't get gas to leave, or because they don't have a second place to go to.

So, a lot of, there was also people stuck there.

You know, I've been struck in the conversation around this whole situation.

You know, there's a lot of focus on the nuclear program, which we'll get to.

There's a lot of focus on the kind of machinations between Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu and where he's the Supreme Leader.

There has not been a lot of attention on Iranian civilians.

What is your sense of the

loss of life or the casualties or the damage that have been suffered by Iranians themselves, particularly kind of innocent Iranians, not necessarily IRGC commanders, but just people that, you know, might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yeah, I mean, when you target an urban center, civilians will be killed.

I mean, that's just the fact.

And so today, even Iran's health ministry said there were 610 casualties.

Other activist groups like the Human Rights Activist News Agency, Harana, they put their numbers at about 900.

So we're still sorting through what the death toll is going to look like.

But I mean, when we look at the first waves of strikes, where Israel was going after nuclear scientists, they went after IRGC members, they targeted residential buildings, right?

And so who lives in those buildings?

Like people who are regular people.

I have a source of mine who is out of the country who told me that her family members, a whole family of

her relatives got taken out and that the last she heard, they were still under the rubble.

Or someone else I spoke to said that Evine, which was bombed a day or two ago, I don't even know what time is anymore.

But when Evine was bombed, Evine, the prison, is in a highly residential area.

And so whether it was from the blast wave, but an apartment right next door crumbled and they lost all of their neighbors.

So I'm hearing narratives and accounts like this all the time.

And yeah, and that's, I saw some messages too that in the bombing of Evine prison, which is a notorious prison where they hold a lot of more politically oriented prisoners, they also ended up bombing the kind of infirmary, the places where people got care.

So they weren't helping those people in that prison.

Well, I want to go through kind of the attitudes of people.

And there's kind of three different actors here, right?

There's the U.S.

government, the Israeli government, and the Iranian government.

To just start with the U.S., which I assume is kind of associated with Israel anyway, so maybe it's the U.S.

and Israel.

What do you think these strikes have done in terms of the attitudes of people in Iran towards the U.S.

Put aside

for a moment, you know, whether these could be people who don't like the Iranian regime, but I'm just kind of curious, you know, because sometimes in the U.S., there's this presumption that the Iranian people

want us to bomb the regime to liberate them or something.

But what is an accurate portrayal of kind of how people might respond to the fact that Israel and the U.S.

are bombing them?

Yeah, I was speaking to a source of mine who is a painter in Tehran, who obviously is not, you know, this person's a creative, they don't support the regime whatsoever.

And they had told me it was really heartbreaking, the airstrikes, because, as he put it, the face of Iran was changing.

You know, women were walking around without hijabs in Tehran, still sometimes being harassed, of course, by the police, but society was changing a little bit.

You saw visual examples of that, and that was on the terms of the Iranian people who pushed for this change and who lost their lives for it.

And so, now seeing

their country being bombed, a lot of people are very angry.

It's not like all of a sudden there's this groundswell of regime support, but you do see people rallying around the flag like that.

that is legitimate.

Another example I'll give you is there was someone I was speaking with in the south of the country who was a steel worker.

I was interviewing them for a story about electricity and the lack of electricity in Iran.

And this is someone who's deeply affected by the regime shortcomings.

And so this person, about half of their job was cut last year because the factory didn't have enough energy to run.

And so this person, up until a couple months ago, when we were speaking, was not a fan of the regime whatsoever.

When I checked in a day after the airstrikes, their first response to me was, F Israel, F the U.S., I am, I want to be martyred for the regime.

I don't want to speak to you anymore.

And so once I kind of got them to relax and said, I'm not here reporting on a story.

I just want to make sure you're okay.

They explained that, you know, like they hate what's happening, that like now I'm ready to be martyred for khamini, which is not what I would have expected from this person that I had been speaking with for several months.

So you really do see people's attitudes start to shift.

And when you know, we see, consuming this in where we are, Prime Minister Netyau is giving these speeches to the Iranian people.

First of all, they're in English, so that's a little unusual.

But one, he said, quote, our fight is not with you.

Our fight is with the brutal dictatorship that has oppressed you for 46 years.

I believe that the day of your liberation is near, and when that happens, a great friendship between our two ancient peoples will flourish.

Does that kind of message even reach

Iranians?

If it does, how is it received by them?

Or do you think that's just kind of him speaking in English to Americans about Iran?

I don't know what his intention is behind a message like that, but I haven't heard one person that I've spoken to in Iran say, wow, it's great that we're being bombed.

And wow, Israel is our friend.

Like those, that is not communicated to a civilian population.

I haven't heard anyone express that.

Okay, so now about the regime itself.

I mean, obviously, you know, you've covered and, you know, I think like

for good reason, had a sense of solidarity with people in the Women Life Freedom Movement who are not fans of the regime and who wanted to see change inside of Iran.

You mentioned a bit about this kind of rally around the flag dynamic.

What are the complicated emotions that people feel

who are no fans of this government, but also obviously feel a sense of nationalism when they're under attack.

Do you have any,

I know it's early days, but is there any sense of kind of how people in that movement are thinking about how this geopolitical intervention interacts with their movement?

I mean, a few people I've spoken to are really worried about what's next.

You know, they're worried that once this 12-day war is over, are they going to suppress us even harder?

You know, I have sources in the Kurdish provinces in Sistan Balochistan who told me that members of their community are being rounded up on these trumped up charges of colluding with Mossad.

So people are very scared that this type of repression will crack down after as a way to keep everyone in line.

And we don't know what that's going to look like yet.

Yeah, I mean, because I imagine it's, you know, like you said, I mean, and this draws in your book.

I mean,

people tend to think of this in terms of regime change, right?

The regimes are there, it's not.

And therefore, this movement started and somehow it failed because the regime is still there.

But what you're describing is actually a process of change,

of hard-earned change.

I mean, what was the state of the woman life freedom movement leading into this

event, this war, based on your reporting, based on your book?

You know, how were they trying to change things without foreign intervention?

Yeah, I mean, the woman life freedom movement was continuing in terms of continuing to resist.

I mean, right after, you know, just getting to the year anniversary of Masajina Amini's death, which is what sparked the movement, the parliament passed this hijab and chastity law, which was overwhelmingly voted for in parliament.

It was seen as a sharp rebuke to an uprising.

It put things like,

you know, like incredibly large fines for not wearing hijab, your car being impounded, like just a laundry list of really intense measures to keep the hijab intact.

But that law, even though it was

overwhelmingly voted for, it never was actually implemented.

And a lot of the activists and organizers that I spoke with pointed to that to say, that's part of our victory.

The fact that they're not suppressing us every day and that this draconian law hasn't come into force, like that, that shows the success of the movement.

And the movement isn't, I don't think you can really judge it in terms of whether or not it toppled the regime.

It's just you have to see how society is moving afterwards.

And just like everyone that I talked to that has been in Iran the past couple of years, maybe hasn't been back for a while, they would tell me, oh my gosh, it actually is very moving to see women without hijab in Tehran, even though they could still be harassed.

But still that visual symbol, like that shows that the movement was continuing.

Women are continuing to resist.

And if it's not bombs, what is it that women in the movement and men in the movement, and you write about men in the movement too,

want from the outside world, from the U.S., from other countries?

I think they just want to be treated fairly.

I think they just,

I think it was very difficult.

I had people in Iran messaging me about, well,

Israel just bombed this hospital.

Why isn't there coverage of this?

Or why aren't our voices being heard?

Like, they just want to be heard and seen and respected.

And they want to have that agency.

Well, yeah, I want to ask you that.

I mean, it's interesting, you know, reading your book and seeing how deeply you've reported inside of Iran and

obviously have

loved ones there.

You're also at the Washington Post.

What is your sense of what's been missing from the coverage?

I mean, if most of our audience, I mean, we have some international audience, of course, but if most of our audience is kind of Americans who are consuming this in the normal places,

you're uniquely positioned to kind of tell us, hey,

something's missing here.

Like,

what are people not seeing in the way this war is being digested?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,

showing the civilian casualties, that is really important.

It is really hard to report from Iran from afar.

My colleague Yagona Tori Tabati did an amazing piece about one of the first civilian casualties of the airstrikes and really showing the human side of that.

Now, if we're not there, it's really difficult for us to independently be able to verify the casualties to, you know,

what we basically rely on are visuals that are sent from people in Iran to different Telegram channel admins that are published on Twitter.

Like we use those pieces as evidence, but it's really, really hard to come by and verify them, especially if the strikes happen at night, for example.

So it's a really difficult endeavor to do from afar.

But yeah, I think that's the thing that's missing is really just a focus on civilians and what it has been like for them.

Yeah, I mean,

I'm just going to ask you something I actually hadn't thought.

thought of to ask you, but you mentioned that story.

And I think it was that story I shared just on some social media platform and got a bunch of messages from people being like,

you know, F you, why are you an apologist for the Ayatollahs?

And it was about like a young woman who'd been killed.

And the question, I guess, is, what do you do about that kind of otherization?

You know,

this kind of multi-decade demonization of Iran as a country.

Understandably, a lot of people have good reasons to not like this government.

I sense in your reporting, you're obviously no fan of the regime.

How do you insist on this kind of separation of Iran, the country?

And actually, this was a whole debate, right?

We're not at war with Iran, we're at war with its nuclear program or something, but at the same time, you see this otherization happening.

What is your advice for how do we hold a space for the fact that Iran is a

country of 90 plus million people

that is much more bigger and complex than whatever the worst thing is that the supreme leader said?

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.: I don't know if this is a very basic piece of advice, but just talk to Iranians.

Talk to people.

I mean, there are so many of us that have left.

You know, my family, we left Iran in 1994, so I can still maintain a connection, but get to know your community, get to know why they've left as much as you can.

Try to, I mean, yes, we speak Farsi, so many people in Iran speak English.

Like, you can have a dialogue with these people, and you can have a dialogue to understand why it is so difficult to live there,

what they feel about the government.

Do they separate themselves?

Like, I think it's really hard to separate the human casualties and say that

this current round of conflict is just with a nuclear or a military program when apartment buildings are being bombed.

Like, I think that that is just really clear.

Yeah.

Do you worry that

sometimes the nuclear program gets kind of wrapped up with the treatment of women, right?

Like, as if they're the same thing, you know, I mean, for people who are trying to change things with respect to the treatment of women, with respect to basic freedoms in Iran, how do they feel about the nuclear program?

Or how do they feel about the fact that

their treatment gets kind of wrapped up with these other aspects of the regime in terms of how the U.S.

and Israel talk about Iran?

Yeah, I mean, most, I mean, many people are going to have different opinions about the nuclear program in Iran, but I mean, people just want a normal life.

You know, this is the, just the level of like a lack of economic opportunities.

Like, this has been, this has been the story for the past decade in Iran.

It's just how difficult it is, how currency devalues every time there's conflict, the value of the real drops, like people's, what people have in their bank account just completely just becomes less and less.

Like just really trying to understand the struggles that people have there daily

and how, you know, they like a lot of people want to leave and they can't.

It's very difficult to.

Have you done your mandatory conscription?

Do you even have the funds to leave?

You know, a lot of people are stuck and they're trying to make best in a country that hasn't served them.

Yeah.

And I guess it's too early to tell, but I mean, any sense of how people,

I mean, are people living kind of day to day or do they have some kind of horizon that they're looking for as this ceasefire maybe holds and things look, people look ahead?

It's day to day from people that I've been speaking with.

My family members messaged me today and they asked, do you think the ceasefire is going to hold?

And I said, I have no idea.

And they sent me examples of, well, well after the ceasefire with uh with gaza this and this happened do you think this will also happen in iran like they're really you know smart people that are paying attention to what's going on in their region um i had no helpful answers for them um but yeah so i think because of that it really is day-to-day

and did they worry that what happened in gaza could happen there

I don't think anyone has brought up Gaza to me

because it's still kind of like out of the realm of belief that Israel flew over multiple countries.

It's not like Iran shares a border with Israel.

They flew all the way and dropped bombs on top of a capital city.

Like, I still think that shock is there.

So I don't know.

Yeah, I haven't gotten that sense just yet.

I think people are still really processing it.

All right.

Well, look, really appreciate you joining us.

People

should obviously pick up your book for the sun after long nights.

It's pre-order now.

Where can they follow your work in the post?

You can follow me on X at NTabrizi, or you can type my name, Nilu Tabrizi, in the search bar at the Post and find my stories there, too.

Great.

Well, thanks so much for joining us.

And hope you'll come back when the book's out and we can have a proper chat about it.

Lovely.

Thank you so much.

Thanks again to Nilu Tabrizi for joining the show.

Thanks to you, Ben, for podding late.

And hopefully, we won't have another bonus episode, man.

Hopefully, the world will just chill out for a week so you can enjoy your trip.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody, for listening.

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