Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Al Qaeda hates America, Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Why?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know what?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Bin Laden attacked America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So look, I think it's a great question.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Will there be more nuclear weapons powers in the future or less as a result of this decision by President Trump?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I actually think there'll be less.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I'll tell you as succinctly as I can.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that is that it's been very clear from the Saudis
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
from the Turks, certainly from even the Algerians and others, that if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they too want a nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In fact, the Saudis have gone even further and said, if Iran is allowed to retain the key enrichment capability that they have under JCPOA, that we want that too.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If there's an Iran standard, we want the Iran standard.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We don't want the gold standard.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In fact, that's been the subject of
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
intensive negotiations between the United States and Saudi Arabia for the past couple of years, both under Biden and Trump as part of the U.S.-Saudi agreement, defense agreement and economic agreement that has been underway.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It is very clear that there's going to be a proliferation cascade in the Middle East if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, and certainly if they're allowed to retain this enrichment capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I also worry about, we haven't even talked about it at all, this conversation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, the most important
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
area in the world, the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's not the Middle East.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's China and the Indo-Pacific.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I worry that the South Koreans, the Taiwanese, and the Japanese will say, you know, we don't trust any U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
commitments to stop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You failed on Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We don't trust you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We don't trust your nuclear umbrella.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We too want nuclear weapons in order to guard our security against China.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so what you would see
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I hope it doesn't happen, but I worry about is this kind of proliferation cascade in the Middle East and in the Indo-Pacific, two of the most important areas for American national security, which is why I think it's very important that Iran's be stopped.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, whether this attack succeeds in stopping Iran's nuclear weapon or accelerates it, we disagree, but I think neither us know yet.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hard to predict.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But what I think is absolutely certain is that if Iran...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
develops that nuclear weapon and is allowed to retain the key capabilities to do so, you're going to see five, six countries in the Middle East, at least three, four countries in the Indo-Pacific asking for the same capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then you're going to have a club of nuclear weapons powers that will have an additional five, six, seven over the next 10 to 20 years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Oh, I think it sends the opposite message, Lex.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think if they see what has happened and that it's successful and it stopped Iran from developing nuclear weapons and in addition...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Trump was able to negotiate an agreement for zero enrichment and full dismantlement, then the message to all these other countries is, number one, you don't need it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And number two, if you try to get it, then the United States is going to use American power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, I'm not suggesting the United States is going to start bombing the Saudis or the Turks or the Emiratis, clearly not the Japanese.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, so there was a lot to unpack there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, many of them are our allies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think the
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
counterproliferation tools to prevent these countries from developing nuclear weapons, including sanctions and export controls and many of the things.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And plus, I think those countries... I understand that in the Middle East, despite Scott's focus on Israel, when you talk to Arab leaders, their biggest concern is the threat from Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let's sort of just back up a little bit and talk about, first of all, the regime itself.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's not the threat from Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're not concerned with the threat from Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's why you had the Abraham Accords.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know, this is why the UAE and Bahrain and Morocco entered into this peace agreement with Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Saudis will one day, and they'll bring many other Arab and Muslim countries in it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They don't say Israel is a threat.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They see Iran as a threat.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so if you counter that threat, you eliminate Iran's nuclear weapons proliferation and expansion.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Those countries now no longer have to build nuclear weapons capabilities to counter the Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, we've also restored our credibility.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We don't bluff.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We said Iran doesn't develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They won't.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And now it's the Japanese who have, as Scott rightly pointed out, they do have reprocessing and plutonium capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Islamic Republic of Iran came into power in 1979.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Taiwanese who used to have a military nuclear weapons program and gave it up, and the South Koreans who agree to our gold standard,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
of zero enrichment, zero reprocessing, those three countries can now say, okay, we rely on the United States, on your word, on your power, and on your ability to actually turn words into action.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It has been declared a leading state sponsor of terrorism by multiple administrations, dating back to the Clinton administration.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We don't need nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I say, if successful, big F, big F, if successful, then it's going to be a significant...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
guard against the potential of greater nuclear proliferation, and we will have less nuclear weapons powers than we otherwise would have.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By Obama, by Biden, by Trump.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it is a regime that has killed and maimed thousands of Americans, not to mention, obviously, hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It is a regime that has lied about its nuclear program and never actually disclosed its nuclear sites.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All these sites were discovered.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
by Iranian opposition groups, by Western intelligence agencies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the UN agency responsible for preventing proliferation, has come out again and again over many, many years in reports, very detailed reports, describing Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
After the show, when we're not recording.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can I respond to a couple of things here?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Just really quickly, I'll try to do it quickly.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
First of all, you know, the notion that Iran is in full compliance with the NPT is just not the case.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The International Atomic Energy Agency has made it clear in report after report after report that Iran is in violation of its obligations under the
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
protocols of the IAEA under the request that the IAEA have made and under the NPT.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they are a serial violator of the NPT, unlike all these other countries we've been talking about that are our allies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Second is this quote, Iran is not attacking Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's quite an amazing quote, which kind of ignores, I think, 50, 60 years of Iranian attacks against Israel, including suicide bombings and terror.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
missiles and drones and October 7th.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it's indisputable that Iran has been attacking Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they've been doing it for many years through their terror proxies that they fund and finance and weaponize.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And since October 7th, they directly struck Israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles in April and October of last year.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So this notion that before 12 days ago,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iranians were just playing nice with the Israelis and the Israelis just came out of the blue.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, you said, quote unquote, Iran is not attacking Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, I mean, it's just not true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That killed thousands of Israelis, maimed thousands of Israelis.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They found out about what everybody else did.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we can dispute whether they directed it on October 7th.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Everybody knows indisputably that Iran financed Hamas, provided Hamas with weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So did Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
that the IRGC and the Quds Force were training Hamas.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hezbollah, backed by Iran, was training Hamas.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There were three meetings before October 7th, one in Beirut, one in Damascus, and one in Tehran, where the IRGC, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were together.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There was a meeting in Tehran that was attended by Khamenei, the Supreme Leader.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, at those three meetings right before October 7th,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know, maybe they're discussing the weather.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Maybe they were discussing Persian poetry.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't know.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But it is hard to believe they weren't discussing something.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the fact that they had armed Hamas, financed Hamas and weaponized Hamas suggests to me that there is pretty overwhelming evidence that Iran has been at war with Israel for decades.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There have been multiple attempts at diplomacy with Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm sure we're going to talk about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott mentioned the JCPOA, so we should certainly talk about the JCPOA, which was the 2015 deal that Barack Obama reached with Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So your listeners, I know they're not going to do it because it's a lot of technical reading, but just go out and read IAEA reports dating back at least 20 years, and you'll see the IAEA meticulously, methodically, dispassionately outlining all of the violations of
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
that Iran has embarked on of the NPT.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Virtually all those are resolved later.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And many open files are still there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, just again, I just want your viewers to walk away from this conversation thing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Okay, that's interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I didn't know that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I'm going to go fact-check Mark and fact-check Scott and just kind of see what this is all about, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because otherwise it's just...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He says, she says, or he says, he says.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The fact of the matter is that Iran has been in violations of its obligations under the NPT, under the additional protocol it never ratified, under its safeguards obligations under the NPT.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It suggests a pattern of nuclear mendacity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But multiple attempts to actually get the Iranians to negotiate away their nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If we're really lucky.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So here's some practical recommendations that I think the United States should follow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think the first is, you know, get the Iranians back to Oman, negotiate with them and do a deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, it's worth mentioning that if Iran wanted to have civilian nuclear energy, there are 23 countries in the world that have it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Again, the deal has to be no enrichment, full dismantlement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think for the reasons we talked about today, Scott and I passionately disagreed, but that's fine.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We agreed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is a reasonable debate.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Neither of us is crazy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Neither of us is rational.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It is what would it take to get a deal with Iran?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I say this is the deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This has to be our red line.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott disagrees.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's fine.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But we got to get a deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In that deal, we got to provide them financial incentives, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We're going to have to lift...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
a certain number of sanctions because they're going to have to get something in return, okay?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We can argue about exactly how much, but I think our opening negotiating position is no sanctions relief, and then we'll get negotiated down from that, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, Lex, I think a lot of this is about how do you position yourself for negotiation?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
How do you come in with leverage?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then how do you find areas of compromise where you satisfy your objectives?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
One is Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Two is...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
the credible threat of military force needs to remain, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Khamenei needs to understand that the United States of America and Israel will use military force to stop him from developing nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If he didn't believe that before 12 days ago, he now believes that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think that's the credibility of that military force
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
but they don't have enrichment and they don't have reprocessing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
has to be maintained in order to ensure that he does not break out or sneak out to a nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think that's absolutely critical.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Third is I think we have to reach agreements with all the other countries in the Middle East to say, hey, listen, we're demanding zero enrichment and full dismantlement from the Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You don't get enrichment and you don't get a nuclear program that is capable of developing nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Our gold standard is the American standard.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Civilian nuclear energy, like 23 countries, no enrichment and reprocess.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We sign these deals called the gold standard with the South Koreans, with the Emiratis, with others.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We should be consistent.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We should be consistent not just with American allies, but also very clear with American enemies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think that's the third important thing we do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Fourth is I think it's really important
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
that we find some kind of accommodation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We can go down many rabbit holes on that, but I think that lays the predicate for a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal that then brings in multiple Arab countries and Muslim countries.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And finally...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
is we talked about the Abraham Accords.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think we need to start thinking about what did the Cyrus Accords look like, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Cyrus was the great Persian king, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Who, by the way, brought the Jews back from the diaspora to Jerusalem.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we say, if you want civilian energy, you can have power plants, you can buy your fuel rods from abroad, but there's no reason to have enrichment or plutonium reprocessing because those are the key capabilities you need to develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Cyrus Accords would be, let's find an agreement between the United States and Israel and Iran, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That would be a remarkable transformation in the region if we could actually do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So imagine a Middle East.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And again, I know this sounds fanciful, but I think this is what Trump has in mind when he starts to talk about the things you're seeing in these truth posts is actually a Middle East that can be fundamentally transformed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
where we actually do bring peace between Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of these countries.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I, by the way, completely agree with you on Syria.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The idea that we are trusting a former al-Qaeda, ISIS jihadist to rule Syria, I think is a big bet President Trump has made.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's made it on the advice of MBS.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We'll see how that transforms.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
or transpires and see if Syria is transformed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the notion that somehow we should just be rolling the dice, lifting all the sanctions and taking this former Al-Qaeda jihadist at his word is a big bet.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If we get the bet right, that is actually a remarkable occurrence because now all of a sudden Syria and Lebanon are brought into this Abraham Accords, Cyrus Accords,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then we actually have what I think all three of us want is peace in the Middle East, stability in the Middle East.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't think we need democracy in the Middle East.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think if the Middle East looked like the UAE, that'd be a pretty good Middle East.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think we'd all be pretty comfortable with that if...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
that kind of stability and prosperity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And ultimately, you could put these countries on a pathway to greater democracy, the way that we did during the Cold War, where countries like Taiwan and South Korea that were military dictatorships ended up becoming pro-Western democracy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So that's kind of stepping back, maybe a little bit Pollyannish, but I think we should also always keep in mind what a potential vision for peace could look like.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, the five countries that have those capabilities and don't have nuclear weapons are Argentina, Brazil, Holland, Germany, and Japan.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think it's the view of many administrations over many years, including many European leaders, that the Islamic Republic of Iran is very different from those aforementioned countries because it is...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's been dedicated to terrorism.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's been killing Americans and other Westerners and other Middle Easterners.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it is a dangerous regime.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You don't want to have that dangerous regime retaining the key capabilities and needs to develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I want to kind of get back more to the present.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mentioned this was around negotiations at Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott's saying that President Trump had said, here's the offer, take it or leave it, zero enrichment, full dismantlement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, in fact, that wasn't the offer that was presented to the Iranians at Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The offer was a one-page offer.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it said, you can temporarily enrich above ground.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You've got to render your below-ground assets.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
facilities, quote, non-operational.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then at some time in the future, three, four years, as Scott said, there'll be a consortium that'll be built, not on Iranian territory.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It'll be a partnership with the Saudis and the Emiratis.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hezbollah?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hezbollah's nothing without Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We'll just have Scott and I fighting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That'll be the last remaining two.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's a fun kind of fight.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That'll be fun.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It'll be under IAEA supervision.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, look, I love the vision that Scott painted.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I agree with some of the libertarian instincts that he has.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that enrichment facility will create fuel rods for your nuclear reactors.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But my view is that America is the indispensable power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott mentioned earlier in the conversation about the rules-based order that is so important and the NPT and all these rules-based agreements that are important to maintain.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, the rules-based order has been maintained by the United States since World War II, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There is no American prosperity there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to the degree that we have.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's no recovery of Europe.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's no recovery of Asia after the devastation of World War II without American power and the rules-based order that America has led and backstopped.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think America first...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
is about american power and deterrence i think if you want to avoid war i think you cannot just believe in some fantasy where all the world's leaders are going to get together in some place and are just going to agree to disarm all their nuclear weapons and we'll disarm our entire military and we'll have one submarine off our coast and some all of that is going to lead to peace i mean i think what has led to peace in the past has been the
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So that was the offer presented to Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
American forward deterrence of our military and a belief that our enemies think we will credibly use it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that offer would come with significant sanctions relief,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think if they believe we'll credibly use it, then it's less likely they will challenge us.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And if they're less likely to challenge us and challenge our allies, there's less likely to be war.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So for me, deterrence leads to peace.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And any kind of unilateral disarmament
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
any kind of, I think, sort of fanciful notion that somehow our enemies are going to respect the non-aggression principle that is the core fundamental underpinnings of libertarianism, which I think in a personal relationship, I think is very important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
billions of dollars that would go to the regime.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But remember, these are aggressors.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They don't respect the non-aggression principle.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think we can spend a lot of time, we did over how many hours now has it been, talking about the fact that
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott's view of the world, it's America that provokes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's America that provokes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then it's not America provoking, it's Israel provoking.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And oh, by the way, America provokes because we're being seduced or paid or browbeaten by those Israelis and those Jews in America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Obviously, the economy there has been suffering.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I think that whole notion that somehow we are the provocative force in global politics, I think is...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
is wrong.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think the fact of the matter is we make mistakes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The regime has not had the resources that it's had in the past to fund what I call its axis of misery, its proxy terror armies around the world.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We are an imperfect nation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We have made some serious, sometimes catastrophic mistakes, but there is a bad world out there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There are evil men who want to do us harm and we have to prevent them from doing us harm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And to do that, we need an American military that is serious and well-supported.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We don't need a military industrial complex that ultimately is going to
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We need thoughtful leaders like President Trump who will resist that and will say at the end of the day, I will use force when it is selective, narrow, overwhelming, and deadly.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that was Trump's operation just a few days ago.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He went after three key facilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
that were being used to develop the capability for nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Nuclear weapons are the greatest danger to humanity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I totally agree with Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think a world without nuclear weapons, the kind of world that Reagan envisioned and others have envisioned since, is really the only way we can eliminate the most devastating weapons that could end humankind.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But we have to make sure that those weapons don't end up in the hands of regimes that seek to do us harm and that have done us harm over many, many decades.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, yeah, I mean, deterrence, peace through strength, rules-based order.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The foundation for defense of democracies is not the foundation for promotion of democracy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We don't believe in this important concept that we have to promote democracy around the world.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'll speak for myself because we have many people at my think tank.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We're 105 people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We have different views.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't personally believe that it is the role of the United States to bring democracy to the Middle East or democracy around the world.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think to the extent we've tried, we've failed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not sure the Middle East is ready for democracy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, Iran is interesting because it's not an Arab country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It is a different country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it was a good offer.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
country altogether culturally.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a very sophisticated country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It has a long history.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It actually has a history where it has had democracy in the past.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I was shocked that Khamenei rejected it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It is a country that I think could have incredible potential under the right leadership and under the right circumstances.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't know if the right circumstances are a constitutional monarchy with Reza Pahlavi as the crown prince or the Shah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't know whether it's a secular democracy or not.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let Iranians make that decision.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Reza Pahlavi.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know the guy?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I met him.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I thought it was Pahlavi.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Oh, wow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, it's okay.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's okay.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's the only thing you've ever gotten wrong.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's not bad.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He did reject it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think he rejected it because I think he believed that he could continue to do to President Trump what he had done to President Obama, which is just continue to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the Americans at the table in order to ensure that he could keep all these nuclear facilities, all these nuclear capabilities, so that at a time of his choosing, when President Trump is gone, he can develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, it is a bit interesting to say that Iran has no intention to develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, maybe I could respond to that because, I mean, again, it's always America's fault, according to Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Just take a jab at it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, no.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm going to segue into an answer because I think it deserves an answer.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
A military-industrial complex is a serious concern.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because I think you're right there, you know, the bigger it gets and the more weapons you have, you think the more the greater the temptation to use it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think that's sort of the argument.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then there's also self-enrichment and how much money can be made.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And all of that, I think, is of serious concern to people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's examine the nuclear program and ask, does this sound like a regime that's not interested in building nuclear weapons?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Look, I think Trump is somebody who it's hard pressed to say that Donald Trump is a great advocate of the military industrial complex or that he is.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He is in their pocket the same way that he's in the pocket of the Israelis and in the pocket of the Saudis and in the pocket of everybody.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I think the one thing with Trump is that Trump has he has learned the lessons of American engagement over the past few decades.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think Scott's done a good job of kind of laying out the mistakes that have been made, even though, you know, we can discuss about causal connections and who's responsible.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And, you know, I lean on we I want to.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, Scott, can I finish this?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because your causal connection is always, it's America aggressing, Israel aggressing, and all these poor people responding to us.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But nonetheless, I think Trump has, he's learned the lessons, but he hasn't over-learned the lessons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's not paralyzed by Iraq.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
or Afghanistan or the mistakes made by his predecessors.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He understands that at the end of the day, we need serious American power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We need lethal power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We need forward deterrence.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he's been very careful and very selective about how he uses American power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, we've talked about it throughout this whole conversation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they built deeply buried underground enrichment facilities that they hid from the international community and they didn't disclose.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Trump used American power to kill Qasem Soleimani, one of the world's most dangerous terrorists.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He killed Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, one of the world's most dangerous terrorists.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He refrained from going after
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
the Iranian takedown of our drone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He refrained from when the Iranians fired on Saudi Aramco and took off 20% of our oil, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's been very, very selective about the use of American power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He did go after the Houthis, who are Iran-backed, and were using Iranian missiles to go after our ships.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, nice try.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Anyway, everybody knows that the Iranians have been financing the Houthis.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hezbollah has been training the Houthis.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Iran has given capabilities to the Houthis to develop their own indigenous missile capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The fact of the matter is he did, in a way, go after the Houthis himself.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
much more intensively than Biden did in order to prevent them from continuing to shut down Red Sea shipping on which both America and our allies depend as a trade route.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He actually did it quite successfully because after a few days of pretty intensive bombing, the Houthis got the message.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they cut a deal with Donald Trump.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're not going to interfere with our shift anymore.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, it sounds like he, in terms of promoting American national security interests, sounds like he did a pretty good job of sending a message to the Houthis and the Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They had an active nuclear warhead program called Ahmad, which ended in 2003 formally when the United States invaded Iraq.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Don't mess with the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that gets us to the contemporary reality.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He took a decision one day.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
on one day to send our B2s and our subs in order to do severe damage to three nuclear facilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It was a one-day campaign.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It was selective.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It was narrow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It was overwhelming.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think it sends a message to Khamenei.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it sends a message to regimes around the world, anti-American regimes around the world, that Donald Trump has not over-learned the lessons of the past 20 years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But that, in fact, he is not going to dismantle the U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
military and dismantle our nuclear program and fly around to all these cities and call peace conferences and hope that these dictators will just sit down with America and say, you know what?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All is forgiven, the United States of America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's all your fault.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You did this all.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We admit our responsibility.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then we have nothing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
we have peace and paradise on earth.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Trump is much more pragmatic and in some respects cynical when he looks at the world and he realizes the world is a dangerous place.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I have to be very careful about how I use American military forces.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I am not gonna send hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the way, I mean, we all talk about Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, the Israelis are one of the best allies we could possibly have.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They fight and they die in their own defense.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They fought multiple wars against American enemies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They haven't asked for American troops on the ground.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There are no boots on the ground in Israel defending Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we know that because not only has that been detailed by the IAEA, but actually Mossad in a daring operation in Tehran took out a nuclear archive and brought it back to the West.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The best we've given them is we've given them a fad system to help them shoot down ballistic missiles that have aimed at them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And our American pilots have been in the air recently with our Israeli friends shooting down ballistic missiles.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the Israelis have had a warrior ethos.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We will fight and we will die in our own defense.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I would just say, if you're going to actually build out a model
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
where you're going to minimize the risk to American troops.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's find more allies like that, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I worry about, I'm like Scott, I really worry about China, Taiwan.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I really, really worry about that because the Taiwanese are not capable of defending themselves without U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
assistance.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we may have to send American men and women to go defend Taiwan.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we can have a whole debate about the wisdom of that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But again, it would be very, very helpful to have more Israels in the world, more countries that are capable of fighting against common enemies and against common threats without having to always put American boots on the ground in order to do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Look, I'm not a Russia expert.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not a Ukraine expert.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm sitting in front of two people who know a lot more about that conflict than I do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You are, we should say, banned by Putin.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I am.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I have been sanctioned by Russia and by Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Sanctioned, yes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yes, banned, sanctioned, threatened.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Thank you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Thank you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, it causes some difficulties.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But anyway, I think the answer to that is that...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
For Putin, he needs to understand that, like Khamenei, he has two options here.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Option one, which President Trump has signaled over and over and over again, is come sit down and negotiate a ceasefire with the Ukrainians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then the IAEA, the United States and the intelligence communities went after this detailed
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't want to get into the details and the back and forth about who's responsible for the fact there's no ceasefire, Putin or Zelensky.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, that's a whole other debate.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I'm sure you guys have a lot of opinions on that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But path one is sit down and let's negotiate a ceasefire.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Path two is the United States will use American power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
in order to build our leverage so that Vladimir Putin understands that he has to do a ceasefire.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, I'm not suggesting US troops, absolutely not.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What I am suggesting is there's a package right now of sanctions that have 88 co-sponsors in the Senate across party lines.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think Trump is using that and will use that as a sort of sword of Damocles hanging over Putin and the Russian economy to say, look, Vladimir, we either do a ceasefire or I'm going to have no choice but to have to start imposing much more punishing sanctions on you and on the Russian economy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
went into it and discovered that this Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, had an active program to build five atomic warheads and was a very detailed program with blueprints and designs, all of which was designed under Ahmad to build a nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think there's an economic option.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think there's a military option.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think the biggest mistake Biden made
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
in this whole war, and there's many mistakes in terms of signaling, not having U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
credibility, Afghan debacle, which signaled to Putin that he could invade without any kind of American response, is he kind of went in and he tied Ukraine's hands behind their back.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, he actually tied one hand behind their back while they were fighting with the other hand, and he refused to give him the kinds of systems that early on in the war would have allowed the Ukrainian military
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
To be able to hit Russian forces that were mobilizing on the Russian Ukrainian border.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think if he had done that, I think this war would have ended sooner.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There'd be far less casualties.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think Putin would then understand, maybe I need to stop.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Strike a deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not a Russia expert or Ukraine expert.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't know what the deal looks like.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You keep the Donbass, you keep Crimea, you keep, you know, larger chunks of eastern Ukraine.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's for smarter people than me on this issue to decide what the deal looks like.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But there's no doubt today Putin thinks that he can just keep fighting, keep killing Ukrainians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
keep driving forward.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Eventually, he's going to wear down the Ukrainians through a sheer war of attrition.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He'll throw hundreds of thousands of Russians at this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He doesn't care how many Russians are going to die.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's the way the Russians and the Soviets have fought wars for many, many years, just endless number of Russian bodies being thrown into the meat grinder.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he thinks he can continue without any consequences.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I worry that as a result of the fact that we are not
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
showing Putin that we've got leverage, it's made war more likely, it's made a war more brutal, and it's going to make a war more protracted.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Trump is early.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, it's interesting you said that because he's early indicators.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Again, who knows where the ceasefire goes?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think it was important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He slapped Khamenei, but he also said to Bibi, enough, enough.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it's like, OK, now we're going back to Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's going to be a temporary ceasefire.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now let's negotiate.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think that's important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think it shows that Donald Trump is leading, not following.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It shows that Donald Trump is his own man, not on the payroll of the Russians or the Iranians or the Israelis or all these other crazy accusations that have been made about this guy for many, many years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he's going to give, as they say, peace a chance.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he's going to give a ceasefire a chance.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's going to give negotiations a chance.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I don't think he's sending the message...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to the Iranians and he needs to send it to Putin is, if you don't take me up on my offer, I've already demonstrated that I am serious and I will use American power carefully and selectively in the way that I've done in the past.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So again, it's interesting to say that he doesn't have the intention to build nuclear weapons when he actually had an active nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we can talk about what happened to that program after 2003, and there's a lot of interesting details.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I think it's interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Philosophically.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know, libertarianism or colonization.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Or isolationism in practice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I think the 30s are more interesting to me than what happened between 39 and 45.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think the debate in America was very interesting in the 30s, where there was really a strong isolationist movement, you know, with Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford and Father Coughlin and many.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Joe Kennedy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So when you combine the fact that he has an active nuclear weapons program
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, Joe Kennedy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, they defined themselves as sort of America firsters.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But it was very much an isolationist strain.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think we can talk about that history.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Coughlin was a new dealer, not a right winger.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Anyway, very much an isolationist talking about America having to stay out these entangling alliances.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is not our war.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Emotionally understandable, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because you can also overlearn the lessons of World War I, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think they overlearned the lessons of World War I, I mean, which was a brutal war and a devastating war, mostly for Europe, but obviously for the United States, we lost thousands of American men and women.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So the 30s was this big debate between...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The those who saw the gathering storm of what was happening with Nazi Germany and those who wanted to keep America out.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think in some respects, it's like today with the contemporary reality with Khamenei is that because these isolationist voices were so prominent and so vocal and in some cases quite persuasive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He has sites that are buried deep underground.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to American leaders, Hitler calculated that the United States would not enter the war.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so he could do what Scott says.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He could focus on the Eastern Front.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He could gather his forces, and then he could do a kill shot on the Western democracies in Western Europe, and the United States would not intervene.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, you're right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The big mistake he makes is declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He has weapons scientists who come out of the Ahmad program and continue to work on the initial metallurgy work and computer modeling designed to actually begin that process of building a warhead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But he believes all through the 30s and before Pearl Harbor that the isolationist voices are keeping FDR from entering the war, even while Churchill and the Brits and the French and others are imploring the Americans not only to just just to provide provide them with material support, with weapons so that they could hold hold on to the island and defend themselves.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think Hitler miscalculates.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In the same way, I think Khamenei miscalculates.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Khamenei heard the debate over the past number of years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He believed that this sort of isolationist wing of the Republican Party, represented, I think, by Tucker Carlson and others who have been very anti-intervention with respect to Iran, I think he believed that that was the dominant voice within Trump's MAGA coalition, and that as a result, the United States would not use
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
military force.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So in the same way that Hitler miscalculated the influence of the isolationists on FDR, Khamenei misjudged the influence of the isolationists on Trump, and both ended up miscalculating to their great regret.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So to me, that's the sort of parallel between kind of World War II in the 30s and the prelude to World War II and what we're seeing in the current reality over the past few weeks.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And all of this has been hidden from the international community.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He has spent estimates of a half a trillion dollars on his nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
in direct costs and in sanctions costs.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they were giving refuge to al-Qaeda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the CIA said, this is a key facilitation pipeline between Iran and al-Qaeda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Key facilitation pipeline.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And one has to ask, and I think it's an interesting question, to compare the UAE and Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, there's a 9-11 report by the 9-11 Commission.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's a 9-11 commission report.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
People can Google it, which talks about the cooperation between Iran and al-Qaeda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Only in Bosnia when they were doing a favor for Bill Clinton.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Beyond that, and CIA released thousands of pages of classified material that they declassified showing the relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Treasury Department under Obama and under Trump.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
actually designated a number of Iranian individuals for facilitating al-Qaeda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The UAE signed the gold standard.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So anyway, I mean, these are important facts.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The greatest era that we've made in the Middle East is this notion, not the greatest, but one of the greatest, is this sort of conceptual era that somehow Sunnis and Shiites don't work together and Iran doesn't work without Haida.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They said we'll have no enrichment capability or reprocessing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not saying you say that, but many people think that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And of course they do work.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They hate each other.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But of course they work together because they hate us more.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But can I just say something, Lex?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because I actually think just stepping back from like all of this detail.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The more we start to zoom out now, the better.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, I'd like to zoom out a little bit.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Look, I think the lessons for me over 22 years on working on these issues is one must learn about the mistakes that we've made in Iraq and in Afghanistan and Libya.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They spent about $20 billion on that, and it supplies 25% of their electrical generation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
One must learn about the mistakes that we made in Vietnam, mistakes that we made in World War II.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So we can make them all over again and not run this time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can I finish or are you good?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, I'm ready.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think that what President Trump is trying to do is learn, but not overlearn.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think he understands the mistakes that have been made.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think he's trying to rectify those mistakes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he also understands that American power is important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It is a force for good in the world, even though we have made major mistakes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think there is a great danger amongst certain people
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to believe that no power should ever be exercised, that all American power is a bad thing and a destructive thing, and sometimes to confuse major tactical decisions that have been made, whether it's been made by the Brits in World War II or the Americans or us or whoever it is in whatever war, with the fact that there is a strategic reality that we always have to be conscious about and that we have enemies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is not the Garden of Eden yet.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I hope the libertarians create one.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I want to go live there when they do, and Scott and I will be neighbors, believe it or not, living in that Garden of Eden together.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But there are major threats in this world, and we need to find the right balance.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Khamenei spent...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
balance between the overuse of military power and the underuse of military power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If we want to avoid wars, we have to have serious deterrence because our enemies need to understand we will use selective and narrowly focused, overwhelming military power when we're facing threats like an Iranian nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
a half a trillion dollars, and that program supplies maybe 3% of their electrical needs.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That is a serious threat.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a serious threat to us.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a serious threat to the region.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a serious threat with respect to proliferation around the world.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think with that respect, I think President Trump's decision
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to drop bombs on three key nuclear facilities was a selective targeted military action that I hope will drive the Iranians back to the negotiating table where they can negotiate finally the dismantlement of their nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think there's a danger.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Again, we've had a four hour debate on this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm sure if you want to rewind, you can listen to all our arguments once again.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the fact of the matter is, is that our unwillingness to use power, if we're never going to use power, all that's going to do is send a signal to our enemies that they can do whatever they want.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They can violate whatever agreements they want.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They can use aggression against anyone they want.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think that makes sense.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
puts American lives in danger.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we've seen the results of that, where we delayed and delayed and delayed, and we didn't move, and we didn't move too early, and we didn't preempt, and the threat grew, and we ignored the gathering storm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so I think the lessons of 100 years of American military involvement is, if you have an opportunity early on, as the storm is gathering, to use
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All instruments of American power, with the military one being the last one you use, then deter when you can and strike when you must in order to prevent the kinds of escalation and wars that everybody at this table and I'm sure everybody listening in your audience is seeking to avoid.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In fact, they have a reactor that they bought from the Russians called Boucher, and that reactor, it's exactly what you'd want in a proliferation-proof reactor.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Maybe the Korean dictator, North Korean dictator ruined it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But again, one doesn't want to blame our enemies for their mistakes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They buy fuel rods from the Russians, they use it, and they send the spent fuel back to Russia so it cannot be reprocessed into plutonium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Do you ever blame the enemy?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
North Korea is not your enemy?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Really?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They build nuclear weapons, ICBMs that target America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I already said that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Whatever fault it is, the fact of the matter is...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Do you ever, ever blame an American adversary?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Or is it always our fault?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In fact, what happened is always our fault.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Always John Bolton's fault.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yes, that's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Sounds like a beginning of a negotiation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And maybe they went nowhere because the North Korean dictator, at the end of the day, is a dictator who wants to threaten the United States with ICBMs and nuclear.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I just think it's important for your listeners to understand just some of the technical nuclear history here in order to unpack this question of, did Khamenei want nuclear weapons?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Listen, you're criticizing the sequential decisions made in negotiation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I am.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm just asking you a serious question after hours of talking to you, which I must say I've really enjoyed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've learned a lot.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I enjoyed it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think there's been areas of agreement, obviously real disagreement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But here's the question to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Like, really?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, do you ever, ever hold our adversaries responsible or do you just don't think we have any adversaries?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Are they a threat to America?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I understand it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Your position.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What was his goal here?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then we can talk about, was this the right operation in order for the United States to
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, you made it very clear America has no adversaries.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
order the B-2 bombers to strike these facilities in what, again, was a limited operation, as President Trump has said, and in order to drive the Iranians back to the negotiating table and finally do the deal that President Trump has asked them to do since he came into office in January.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What gives me hope?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think, first of all, I have a lot of hope and confidence in the wisdom of the American people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Americans understand
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
the end of the day, that they need leaders who are about making America great again.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think they elected Donald Trump, who is flawed in many, many ways.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think Trump is wrestling with some of the questions that we have been wrestling with for the past five hours.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think most Americans know that we have adversaries.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And, you know, it's just overwhelming numbers of Americans understand that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They may disagree on exactly who is an adversary and how you rank them, but they know we have adversaries.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think the third thing is Americans greatly admire the men and women in uniform.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I think the institution with the greatest popularity in America still remains the U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
military, while many of other institutions are failing the American people and are reflected in the polling.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think we've got to be very judicious about how we use this incredibly powerful military.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because most importantly, it comes down to, it's not about weapons and technology, it's about the people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's about the men and women who have sacrificed their lives to serve our country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
At the end of the day, if we understand we have adversaries, we're careful about how we use our military, we understand the importance of forward deterrence in order to actually confront threats before they become so severe that we ended up plunging ourselves into war.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I agree totally with Scott in terms of how we use our money and how judiciously we have to guard it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I agree with how we've run up these massive debts and we have to be actually, if we're serious and conservatives are really serious, they need to tackle these massive budgets, deficits.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it would be really easy if it was just all about the military and we could just kind of get rid of the Pentagon and all of a sudden we'd be running balanced budgets.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's not the case.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We have much deeper structural issues.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
economic problems in this country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And everybody knows that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so we got huge challenges as a country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I really believe, as I believe since I was a little kid, that America is the greatest force for good in the world.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that we make mistakes, sometimes tragic mistakes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We make huge miscalculations.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think we will be much more clear in how to rectify those mistakes if we stop obsessing
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
with these boogeymen that are out there, the Israelis, the Jews, the influencers.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, and we start focusing on our adversaries, which are not the Iranians, because 80% of Iranians despise this regime.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And, you know, Lex, I feel really bad that we, in five hours, we actually haven't even talked about that in any detail.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And, you know, the only place they don't succeed in the world...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
is inside the Islamic Republic.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
When they come to America and Canada and Europe, they're incredibly successful people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And 80% of Iranians despise this regime and they long for a free and prosperous Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so it's a big question that they're ever going to get there and who knows the right way to get them there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But at the end of the day, I am convinced that the vast majority of Iranians are our friends.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But there is a regime that has been trying to build nuclear weapons, has been engaged in terrorism for decades, has killed and maimed thousands of Americans and our allies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it's a regime that has to be stopped.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think Donald Trump, in the past couple of weeks...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I would argue in the past number of months, has tried to play a strategy, try to figure out a way to offer the Iranians negotiations and a peaceful solution to this, but use overwhelming military power recently against Iran's nuclear sites in a very targeted way in order to send a message to the Islamic Republic of Iran that they cannot continue to build nuclear weapons and threaten America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, really, everything?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There was not one thing I said that was true?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so I hope that things will work out
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
well on this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've always said curb your enthusiasm because we have still a lot of pieces that still need to fall into place.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And this is going to be a windy road as we try to figure this out.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Just one thing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, and want to thank you very much for
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
having me on the show.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, it was a real pleasure to meet you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I enjoyed the debate, very lively.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I admire your dedication to the issue and your intention to detail.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think all of that speaks well of you and your commitment and your passion for this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So thank you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Thanks, Lex.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
22 years of working on Iran, and I got that right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Appreciate it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Thanks, Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They have no plutonium route to the bomb under the JCPOA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iraq is where they pour concrete into the reactor and shut it down.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the reason they pour concrete... Under the JCPOA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Not they, but the Obama administration is right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Under the JCPOA, poured concrete into the calendria in order to prevent them from using that reactor to reprocess plutonium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So there's a distinction between Iraq and Boucher.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott's exactly right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Boucher is a reactor, a heavy water reactor provided by the Russians, as I described, for the generation of...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
electricity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's proliferation proof.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iraq is the opposite.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a heavy water reactor that was built for a plutonium pathway to nuclear weapons, which is exactly why under the JCPOA, they literally had to pour concrete into the middle of it to prevent it from reprocessing plutonium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So the Obama administration was very clear under the JCPOA, we are going to pour concrete into the Iraq facility, as Scott acknowledged, because we are concerned that Iraq can be used for reprocessing plutonium, for a plutonium pathway to a nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can be used, but we don't know if it was used.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm happy that there's no indication for your viewers who are interested in not to plug my own podcast.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I apologize.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But it is a very good podcast.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I just recently had David Albright on my podcast, who is actually a physicist and a weapons inspector and goes into a lot of detail about the Iranian nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Please listen to the podcast.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iran breakdown, by the way, is the.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And David's the president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And by the way, he spent decades on this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And to his credit, he was one of the deep skeptics of the Bush administration's rush to war with Iraq.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's not true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He vouched for claims that there were chemical weapons in Iraq and later said he was sorry for it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Again, I mentioned the Bush administration's rush to war based on their claims that Saddam was building nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He did debunk the aluminum tubes, though.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He debunked it and was a deep skeptic, again, of the rush to war in Iraq.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know, the argument today, Lex, which I think is the more interesting argument, because there are very few people
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
left today who don't believe that the Iranians were building the nuclear weapons capability that gave them the option to build nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I already said that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We can debate whether they had decided to, and I'm interested to hear Scott's opinion on this, but the recent intelligence that has come out that the Iranian nuclear weapons scientists have begun preliminary work
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
on building a warhead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Came out from where?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Wall Street Journal did verify this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's a lot of false claims to refute.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
One at a time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Lawrence Norman actually wrote a piece.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This was during the Biden administration.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because the Biden DNI had actually come out for the first time in their annual threat assessment.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
had removed a line that said, Iran is not currently working on developing any capabilities that would put it in the position to actually deliver a nuclear warhead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And what became the Lawrence Norman piece in the Wall Street Journal was that there actually was initial work done on metallurgy and on computer modeling.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so those actually were defined terms in section T of the 2015 JCPOA, which defined weaponization in that section.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And metallurgy and computer modeling were some of the initial steps.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So the DNI was very concerned under Biden that these initial steps meant that either Khamenei had given the green lights
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Or nuclear weapons scientists, in order to get ahead of the boss so they could be in a position if he decided to move forward on this, were in a position and their timelines were therefore expedited.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So it's interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, again, you've got the DNI under Biden.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You've got the CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You've got Israeli intelligence.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You've got the Wall Street Journal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And you've got the IAEA asking questions of Iran on its past weaponization activities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Why are you denying us?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'd like to just sort of quote CIA Director John Ratcliffe, because Scott brought up the CIA and the Intelligence Committee.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Ratcliffe had a good way of looking at this, and that he said is, you know, when you're in the 99-yard line as a football team,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
you have the intention to score a goal, quote unquote.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And what he was actually pointing to is, let's not talk about this debate about whether Khamenei had given the order or not given the order, because Khamenei knows that if he gives an order, the US and Israeli intelligence community will pick up on that order, and that will be the trigger for strikes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What Ratcliffe is saying is that Khamenei had built the nuclear weapons capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's at the 99-yard line.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And both the CIA and European leaders, the European intelligence community has said for years that if Iran has that capability and they're on the 99-yard line, at that point, it's going to be too late to stop them once that decision is made to assemble the final warhead, which, by the way, is the final piece of what you need for a deliverable nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, there's a lot there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So just a couple of things I think that are worth your viewers knowing because Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, the nuclear physics is complicated and it's also important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So the Iranians have assembled about, we say about 15 to 17 bombs worth of 60% enriched uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think it's always important for your listeners to understand what does this all mean?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Enriched to 3.67%, to 20%, to 60%, and then to 90% weapons grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Like what does this actual process mean?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
First of all, obviously, enriched uranium is a key capability to develop a nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It can also be used for other purposes, civilian purposes and research purposes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You can use it to power nuclear submarines.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let's just, if you don't mind, if I could just break it down.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's fascinating.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it's, again, important just to understand the sort of basics before we jump into the allegations and claims and counterclaims.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So if you're going to enrich to 3.67%, enrich uranium, that's for civilian nuclear power.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But when you do that, you've basically 70% of what you need to get to weapons grade.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So you've done all the steps, 70% of the steps in order to get to weapons grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If you enrich to 20%,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
you are now at 90% of what you need to get to weapons-grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, why would you need 20%?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You may need it for something like a research reactor, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iran has, correct.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iran has a Tehran research reactor for medical isotopes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now you can, by the way, you can buy those isotopes from abroad or you can produce them at home.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If you're going to enrich to 60%,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
then you've done 99% of what you need to get to weapons-grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then 90% is, quote, weapons-grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the way, you can use 60% to actually deliver a crude nuclear device.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That has been done in the past.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But you want to get to, quote, 90%.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's weapons-grade uranium as Scott's defining it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But just again, to clarify,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
These huge stockpiles of 60% that Iran has accumulated, this 16, 17 bombs worth of 60%, is 99% of what they need for weapons grade.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I just wanted to explain that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Again, just to clarify, I just think it's important to understand the definition of terms.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Once you have 60% enriched uranium, you've done 99% of all the steps, including some of the steps that Scott's talking about.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You've done 99% of what you need to have weapons-grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
a deliverable nuclear weapon, so you need the weapons grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And just to repeat, they have multiple bombs worth of the 60% enriched uranium, which again is 99% of the steps you need to take for weapons grade.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they're very close to weapons grade.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's 1% more that they need to do to enrich to weapons grade.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The second aspect of a deliverable nuclear weapon is obviously the delivery vehicle, and those are the missiles.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
According to the DNI and other incredible sources, Iran has got the largest missile inventory in the Middle East, 3,000 missiles before the war began, and at least the ballistic missiles, 2,000 capable of reaching Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So there's no doubt that Iran has the ability, once they have the weapons-grade uranium and the warhead, to affix that to a missile and deliver that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Certainly to hit Israel, hit our Gulf neighbors, hit Southern Europe.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They also have an active intercontinental ballistic missile program, an ICBM program, which ultimately is designed not to hit the Israelis or the Gulfies, but to hit Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
deeper into Europe and ultimately to target the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let's just understand the missile program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it's an important part of it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The third leg of the stool, and Scott has already alluded to this, and we've had some debate on this, and I think we should talk about it, what it really means in detail, is you've got to develop a warhead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
or a crude nuclear device.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And according to estimates from both U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
government sources and nuclear experts, it would take about four to six months for Iran to develop a crude nuclear device.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is something that you wouldn't use a missile to deliver, but you would use a plane or a ship.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of about a year and a half to
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to deliver or to develop a warhead, and that's to affix to the missile.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So it's sort of the three legs of the nuclear stool, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The weapons-grade uranium, the missiles to deliver it,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the warhead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The blueprints were given, just to clarify, it's just interesting, just in terms of the history of proliferation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So Iran's initial nuclear program, which is built on centrifuges, as Scott and I have been talking about, that was actually given to, the designs of that were given to them by A.Q.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Khan, who was really the father of the Pakistani nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he actually stole those designs from the Dutch,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and handed it to the Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He also handed it to the North Koreans and the Libyans and others.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they were able to illicitly acquire this technology and release the blueprints for this technology from the father of the Pakistani bomb.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think that's an interesting point.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they obviously bought heavy water reactors from the Russians, which they've been using for electricity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I want to just get to the second thing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it's just important for listeners to know.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then I want to get to JCPOA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
First of all, I'm glad Scott knows about what's going on at Parchin because the IAEA doesn't.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they've been asking the Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's not true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I want to just, again, just put it out there for your listeners.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They should just Google Ahmad, A-M-A-D program, and they should learn about the Ahmad program because it's detailed in US government documents, experts in Iran's nuclear program, including David Albright, who actually saw the archive, went in there, wrote a whole book on it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And there's a lot of detail about how Iran had an active nuclear weapons program called Ahmad to build five nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I want to
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Get to the JCPOA, because I actually think that's an interesting discussion for Scott and I to have, because I think there's things that we agree on there and things that we disagree on.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So this is a 2015 nuclear deal that Obama reaches.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's negotiated painstakingly over two years between 2013 and 2015.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it follows the interim agreement that the United States negotiated with Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it's in that interim agreement in 2013 where the United States for the first time actually gives Iran the right to enrich uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There were five UN Security Council resolutions passed with the support of Russia and China that said Iran should have no enrichment capability and no plutonium reprocessing capability because of the fears that Iran would turn that into a nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But in 2013, they give that up.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
2015, we reach the JCPOA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And under the JCPOA, Iran is allowed to retain enrichment capability and reprocessing capability, but over time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So Scott mentioned these sunsets.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I just want your listeners to understand what these sunsets are.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Essentially, the restrictions that are placed on Iran's nuclear program, and there's some really serious restrictions placed on it, especially in the short term.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The enriched material has to be shipped out, not to the French, but to the Russians, and
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And there's restrictions on Iran's ability to operate these facilities in Atanz and Fordow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're not closed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They still remain open, but there are restrictions on what they can do with it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's also restrictions on Iran's ability to test and install advanced centrifuges.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, the reason you'd want an advanced centrifuge rather than the first generation centrifuge that AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, gave to the Iranians is you need a smaller number of these centrifuges to produce weapons grade uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If it's smaller, Lex, it's easier to hide, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You can put it in...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
clandestine facilities without this large enrichment centrifuge footprint.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So there's restrictions on these advanced centrifuge R&D.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Iran gets significant sanctions relief as part of this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the whole assumption here
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
from both an Iranian and American perspective is these restrictions are going to sunset.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're going to disappear over time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In fact, 2025 is the year where some of the significant restrictions on Iran's capabilities begin to sunset.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And all of them are effectively gone by 2031.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So in 2031, Iran can emerge with an industrial size enrichment capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They can emerge with advanced centrifuges that they can install in as many enrichment facilities as they want to build.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and Iran can enrich to higher and higher levels.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they can go from 3.67 to 20%.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They can go to 60%.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's nothing in the JCPOA that actually prohibits them from going to 90% in Mediterranean.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think at the time, the Obama administration's theory of the case was, yeah,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Sure, in 15 years' time, but in 15 years' time, we'll be gone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hopefully, there'll be a different government in Iran, and maybe we can renegotiate a different agreement with that government that will extend the sunsets.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So that's the JCPOA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The reason that critics of the JCPOA—and I was one of them—
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We objected to the deal is not because it didn't have some short term temporary restrictions that were useful, but that if you got it wrong and there was the same regime in power in 15 years, that regime could emerge with this huge nuclear program with the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons in these multiple hardened sites.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iran, we estimated, would have a trillion dollars in sanctions relief over that 15-year period.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And if you got it wrong that it was the same regime in power as had been in power in 2015, then you had some difficulties.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I just wanted to lay out the case against the JCPOA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, to steel man Scott's argument, I think there's a legitimate argument because I actually didn't support the withdrawal from the agreement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
President Trump withdrew in 2018.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I did a similar version of what Scott was suggesting, was I thought that the United States should negotiate with the Europeans, the French, the Germans, and the UK, who were part of the original deal, extend the sunsets as an agreement between the United States and Europe, and then collectively go to the Iranians and say, let's renegotiate this agreement to extend the sunsets.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If you don't want a nuclear weapons program, then you should agree that you don't need these capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and let's extend the sunsets for another 15, 20, 30 years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
President Trump- Somebody give me a screenshot of this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There we go.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Agreement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There we go.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's fun.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That makes my heart feel so good.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, so I'm not sure if he would have, but let's just a little bit of history.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it's just useful for the viewers to know, again, the context, especially when Scott and I agree.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So a process was begun.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm loving this so much.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the Trump administration.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Trump appointed Brian Hook, or Secretary Pompeo actually appointed Brian Hook, who was the lead Iran envoy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he began a process of talking to the Europeans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the Europeans actually rejected this idea.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so at some point, Trump said, look, if the Europeans aren't prepared to get on side, then I'm out of the deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm out of the deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And if you're interested, I can talk about why I thought we should have stayed in the deal, because I thought it gave us some important restrictions in the short term, certain leverage.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But Trump decides to withdraw from that agreement because he recognizes that the fatal flaw of the agreement or the fatal flaws of the agreement are one, giving them any enrichment capability, especially at an industrial size within 15 years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And two, are these sunsets, as Scott said, under which these restrictions are going to go away, and Iran's going to end up with a massive nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think that's just important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We can talk about the JCPOA, the process and everything else if you're interested.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So next, actually, can I just say one thing interesting?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And again, I think it's going to be a later topic.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so it's going to be a provocative statement, but.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think let's put it on the table.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I absolutely agree with Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I think it was a travesty of the accusations against Donald Trump as a Russian agent.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, completely debunked, but it did.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it paralyzed his presidency for two, two and a half years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I agree with Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The idea that you would accuse the president of the United States of being a foreign agent for Vladimir Putin, I think is...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Unfounded.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I thought at the time disgraceful and I thought it was really important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Scott did really good work in debunking that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I would say that just a couple of days ago, I was watching a podcast.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott was on and he accused...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Trump being an agent for Netanyahu and the Israeli government.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think, again, the accusations that the president of the United States is a foreign agent for some foreign government, I think we should just put all of that aside in any discussion and just say President Trump makes his own decisions, whether we agree with them or agree with them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But he's not working for...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The FSB, and he's not working for Mossad.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
President Trump makes his own decisions based on American national security.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, Lex, I think you're right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I think Elon Musk spent, what, $400 million to helping Trump get elected.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And obviously there are a number of philanthropists.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think clearly his son, Don Jr., has had a lot of influence in who gets elected in these positions in the Pentagon, NSC.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Tucker Colson has had a lot of influence.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think, as you say, he surrounds himself with people who have certain ideas, ideologies, policies.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The president makes his own decisions.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I just want to touch on just one thing because I don't want to leave this alone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Just out of respect for the victims of Iran-backed terrorism and hostage-taking and assassinations since 1979.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is the regime that took our...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
took hostages in 79, took our diplomats hostage.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott says, you know, 83 was really the only thing that happened and throws out a lot of information, certainly some pretty breathtaking accusations that somehow the Israelis knew about this and didn't tell the Americans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's an assault officer's accusation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Victor Ostrovsky is his name.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, I know exactly who he is, and he's been widely discredited.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and having an ax to grind with, with Mossad.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But anyway, um, not only 83, but all through the nineties, the two thousands, 2010s, 2020s, um, there have been hundreds of attacks of, um,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
assassinations of hostage-taking.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There are thousands of Americans who have been killed and maimed by the regime.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can you be specific what you're talking about?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, I mean, I can give you a whole list.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Sure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Literally, I'm happy to pull it up.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Lex, I shared it with you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a long list of attacks all through the 80s and 90s.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, everything from...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The, you know, Khobar Towers.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let him lay it out.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All right, let's hear it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I got my pen in my hand.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Go ahead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And again, according to U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
intelligence findings, it was actually Hezbollah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
that worked with Al-Qaeda, trained Al-Qaeda in that attack on the Khober Towers.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They were kidnapping our diplomats in Beirut.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They launched attacks against our soldiers while in Iraq.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The notion that somehow- How did you debunk that?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, I don't think, well, you say you debunked it, you just made your claim.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But those were Iran-backed militias.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
backed by Qasem Soleimani, who Scott referred to, who was the commander of the IRGC Quds Force, who supplied them with those IEDs, or those EFPs, actually, those explosives.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, again, this has been all confirmed by...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I'd like your viewers to Google not just a couple of sources, but actually Google the U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
government reports that did a whole after-action report on the Iraq War.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All the mistakes were made in the Iraq War, and there were a legion of mistakes made.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But it was very clear that Iran had actually provided the technology, the training, the funding necessary.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
for these Iran-backed militias to kill Americans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I could see Scott- In fact, they even learned a method from Lebanese Hezbollah that got it from the IRA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So Lebanese Hezbollah, as I'm sure all your listeners know, has been trained, financed- That's true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But they got it from the IRA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And supported by Iran for many years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The copper core bombs and that design did not come from Persia.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So again, I think we all admit, Scott admits as well, that Hezbollah was trained, financed
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and supported by Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hezbollah has been responsible for many of these terrorist attacks.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hezbollah was actually created by the IRGC before the Israeli invasion.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What's amazing?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So what we know now from Scott, because he's given certainly a lot of context to how he actually sees things, is here's who lies to you and here's who doesn't.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
government lies to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Israeli government lies to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Israelis clearly lie to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Mandacious bunch.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Saudis lie to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But you know who doesn't lie to you, actually?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hezbollah doesn't lie to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Al-Qaeda doesn't lie to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I didn't cite Al-Qaeda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the Ayatollah of Iran doesn't lie to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, I mean, again, the sort of view of the regime in Iran, and I think Scott wisely said at the beginning of this discussion, like, what did you say?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't have any love for the Ayatollah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm a Texan.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't have any love for the Ayatollah in Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And yet, despite the fact Scott doesn't have love for the Ayatollah, and I agree with him, and I think he's being sincere, in every discussion that we've had on every topic, it's always about everyone's lying except the Ayatollah in Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's not lying about having a nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He didn't actually support all of these terrorist organizations that he founded, financed, and supported to kill Americans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It wasn't the Ayatollah in Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's not lying about his deception campaign against the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's not lying about
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
negotiations with the Americans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's the Americans' fault all the time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So he's presented all the time in Scott's conception here as a sincere actor who doesn't want to develop nuclear weapons, who doesn't actually want to kill Americans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's just always a victim of American and Israeli aggression.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it's an interesting conception.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think let's talk about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I mean, I'm fascinated by the conception because
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's very contrary to mine, obviously.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's very contrary to, I think, decades of overwhelming evidence that the Islamic Republic has been war with the United States since 1979.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I don't take too much stock in what people say.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I take stock in what they do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So death to America, death to Israel could just be a slogan.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It could be just propaganda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But when it's actually operationalized,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
then you start to ask, well, maybe it's not just propaganda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Maybe it's intention operationalized into capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know, what we're forgetting here, and again, it's this causal relationship.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's we aggress against Iran and the Israelis aggress against Iran, and Iran is always reacting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, let's give the Iranians their due because Khomeini made it very clear when he established the Islamic Republic that there will be a revolutionary and expansionist
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
regime, and they will expand their power through the Middle East.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so he built, and to his credit, was very successful until October 7th, this axis of resistance, as he calls it, which are these terror proxy armies, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Iraqi Shiite militias, the Houthis in Yemen, and certainly supporting the Assad regime in Syria.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He built a very, very
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
impressive and deadly axis that he turned against the United States and against Israel, which saw its culmination on October 7th.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think after October 7th,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That was a huge miscalculation for Khamenei.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we've seen the results of what's happened to his axis of resistance through quite devastating Israeli military capabilities over the past number of months.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But he has an ideology.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think where I agree with Scott is I'm not sure if Khamenei would actually use a nuclear weapon against Israel, the United States, because I don't think Khamenei is suicidal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think what Khamenei wants is he wants a nuclear weapon
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
as a backstop for his conventional power, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's very much the Kim Jong-un model of North Korea, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm going to have nuclear weapons with ICBMs to threaten America, but what I'm actually going to do is threaten South Korea with having massive conventional capabilities on the DMZ that I could take South Korea in a week.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I could destroy in a week.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So you, the United States and South Korea have no military option.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's Khamenei's view.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He can actually, building up this massive ballistic missile arsenal that he's unleashed in the past 12 days,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
that, according to, again, the US and Israel, was going to go from 2,000 to 6,000 to 20,000, that from Khamenei's perspective, he didn't need to drop a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What he needed to do was use the threat of nuclear escalation in order to use his conventional capabilities, his missiles, to destroy Tel Aviv.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And you've already seen the damage from just a few
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
dozen ballistic missiles getting through the kind of damage that he's wrought on Tel Aviv already.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That is the conception that Khamenei has.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a revolutionary regime.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It aggresses.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I do think it's interesting, and I think we should talk about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can I ask you a question?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Just not a comment by me, but a question, just your perspective.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So just so I understand this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So the nuclear archive, this massive archive that the Israelis were able to take out of Tehran
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
bring to the United States, bring to the IAEA, which is very detailed blueprints.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's just the alleged studies documents again.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's the same stuff from the smoking laptop.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let me just ask you, because it's huge and it's very detailed and it shows clearly that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program, certainly until 2003.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then we can have a discussion about what happened after that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Are you suggesting that that's all been forged by Israel?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Not the laptop, but this entire archive that they pulled out with diskettes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've seen it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've seen many of the documents.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's thousands of pages.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm asking.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is not what I'm claiming.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Is that all forged by Israel?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
David Albright actually wrote an entire book.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a very detailed book.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Your listeners should Google it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's David Albright and the archive where he goes in, he went in detail, and he confirms the information in that archive that Iran had an active program under something called Ahmad to develop five atomic weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So again, you and I can debate this all day.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Forget all
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Assuming that was true, we're talking about a piece of paper.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's not a piece of paper.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a massive archive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm just asking the question.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You believe Mossad fabricated all of this as a lie to deceive the United States, the IAEA, and the international community.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's just my question.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But my question is, is not that it's debunked because we can argue about whether it's debunked or not.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But are you saying that Mossad fabricated it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's what you're claiming.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not asking about the laptop.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, I'm not asking about the laptop.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm asking about this huge archive that was sitting in a warehouse in Tehran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Sure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
First of all, thanks so much for having me on.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Great to be on with Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I know he and I don't agree on a lot, but I certainly admire the passion and the dedication to stopping wars.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, so...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Folks should read the book on the archive because David had full access to the archive, all the detailed documents and blueprints.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he writes a book that, again, the conclusion of which is Iran had an active nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, they had already built a covert enrichment facility, which was only then disclosed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They had gotten centrifuges for AQ Khan.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They'd built a deeply buried underground facility at Natanz.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They were putting in place the component parts for...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
a nuclear weapons capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Ahmad showed conclusively, unless you believe Mossad fabricated it all, that they actually had the plan to build nuclear warheads.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Again, Seymour Hersh says that it was when... Seymour Hersh is not a nuclear weapons expert.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So that's something we want to talk about.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
David Albright has.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You saw the archive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Hersh's sources said that when America invaded Iraq,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let's talk about how we got to this war.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, that's a distraction, my question to you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a distraction.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
My question is, let's not go to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and 9-11 and the Iranians and a million people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's just stay on the top.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You're asking me what I already answered.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So President Trump comes into office and immediately lays out that his Iran strategy is maximum pressure on the regime, and he will not allow Iran have a nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You believe Mossad fabricated that entire.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's all agree.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You're going to read the book.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Maybe Lex, you're going to read the book.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Viewers, you should read the book.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think David Albright has done a meticulous job.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the way, just warning, it's a big book, very detailed, hundreds of pages.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he goes through it in meticulous detail in analyzing this archive and showed again that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program designed to build five atomic warheads.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now we can talk about what happened after 2003 and did they make the decision to totally stop it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he makes that clear
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It happens all the time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, Lex, maybe we should talk about what happened after 2003.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What about this 2007 NIE incident?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What does it mean?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Did it mean Iran had now abandoned its nuclear weapons program?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Or did something else happen?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's an interesting history.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
consistently, I think, made it very clear during his first term, made it clear throughout his career.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's not what the 2007 NIE says.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What the 2007 NIE says is that, and you are correct, according to the 2007 NIE report,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
is Iran made the decision after the invasion of Iraq not to pursue an active nuclear weapons program anymore.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because we were putting their best friends in power in Baghdad for them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, because the United States had gone in and in a matter of 100 days had taken down the Iraqi army.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's why you and I did not publicly support the Iraq war, did we?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
As far as I possibly could.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And thus begins this process with the Iranians, which has kind of multiple tracks.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They had fought an eight year war with where almost a million people, Scott, as you know, had been killed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they were they were afraid that the United States was going to march from Baghdad to Tehran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they make a decision to end their active Ahmad program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They make a decision to build up the key capabilities they need to retain an Iranian nuclear weapons option, specifically the enrichment capabilities at Natanz and then Fordow and at Iraq, giving them the plutonium route.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then what they do is they take the members of the Ahmad program, the nuclear weapons scientists that have worked on this, and they disperse them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they're now no longer in a formal weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the one that Trump sees most interested in at the time is the diplomatic track.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're put in a number of different research centers and universities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who you mentioned...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
who's in some respects, I wouldn't call him the Oppenheimer of the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's more like, who was in the Oppenheimer movie, Leslie Grove, the guy who was actually responsible for the organization and the training and the recruitment and the guy that actually ran the program as opposed to Oppenheimer, the sort of brilliant nuclear physicist.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is Fakhrizadeh.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So Fakhrizadeh takes control of this program
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And now it is dispersed and it is unstructured in that sense because they recognize that if they continue with this, the United States may march to Tehran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he makes it very clear from the beginning in a sort of Oval Office remark.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so the NIE says Iran is retaining the key capabilities, the enrichment capabilities to give them an option for a nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But we, the NIE, have decided or we have concluded that they no longer have an active, structured nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
However, since then,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What have we seen?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We've seen them actually do what many suspected they would do, which is build all the key capabilities that they need so that at time of their choosing, they can decide
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to develop a nuclear bomb, whether it's a crude nuclear device, as you've described, whether it's a nuclear warhead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We've had that discussion so far.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He says the Iranians can either blow up their nuclear program under U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But just, sorry, just to finish.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So just understand the brilliance of Iranian nuclear deception, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it's really interesting to get in the minds of the Ayatollah and understand this, because he doesn't want to provoke the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He doesn't want to see another Iraq-style invasion, this time of his country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's building this capability on the enrichment side and on the reprocessing side.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He is framing this as I'm only building a civilian nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's taking the weapons scientists who are building part of an active nuclear weapons program and he's dispersing them
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
putting them under the guidance and direction of Fakhrizadeh and starting to build out these capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I admire, I have to say, I really admire the way he's played this three-dimensional nuclear chess game.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's very, very interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
supervision or someone's going to blow it up for them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think he made a tragic mistake
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
about six weeks ago when he rejected the offer from Trump at Oman and then provoked both an Israeli and then an American strike.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But he was playing this game almost perfectly before then in building out these capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think what he should have done if I were him, I would have waited out Trump.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I would have waited three and a half years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I would have taken the offer in Oman, which gave him enrichment capability above ground.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And even though, you know, at the time we think Netanyahu is really trying to push the president into a military campaign.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This consortium that was going to be built in three and a half years would never be built.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And even if it was built, he could just say, I'm not interested anymore and challenge the next president, whoever that is, Republican or Democrat, to do anything about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think the political calculation should have been the next president's not going to do anything about this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'll be able to then be able to complete my nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But he challenged Trump.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He thought Trump was a paper tiger.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He rejected that offer at Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we've seen what's happened over the past couple of weeks.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, I'm sure we'll talk about that throughout the podcast.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The president authorizes his lead negotiator and close friend, Steve Witkoff, to begin outreach to the Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that's begun the Oman round.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it's Oman round because it's taking place in Oman with mediation efforts by the Omanis.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He didn't say that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the implication was, by the way, no U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
president ever said they're going to obliterate Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
President Hillary Clinton, all options are on the table.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Anyone can Google her word.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
She was never our president.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, I said she was running for president.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, but she was never our president.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But no U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
president ever said they'd obliterate Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Nobody ever said they'd drop a nuke on Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There are five rounds of negotiations with the Iranians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I'm almost talking about nuking Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No one's talking about bombing Iran to smithereens or obliterating or anything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And through the course of those negotiations, the US finally puts on the table an offer for Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We'll talk about the details of that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Iranians reject that offer.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we're now into the sixth round, which is supposed to take place on a Sunday.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He actually said, President Trump has said that an Iranian nuclear weapon is a threat to the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
President Trump sends out 20 truth posts a day.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let's look at the many, many, many things that he said.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
On the Thursday before the Sunday, the Israelis strike.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they go after, in a rather devastating campaign over a matter of now 12 days, they go over and go after Iran's nuclear program, the key nuclear sites.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Actually, IAEA has now said that they actually can no longer do this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because America...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because America withdrew from the- Before this war started.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, I mean, at the end of the day, let's just be factually accurate.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the fact of the matter is anybody who knows anything about nuclear weapons program knows that we do not have 100% certainty on anything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, Scott is making claims here that the Mossad is fabricating, the CIA is fabricating, everybody's fabricating.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But he's also assuming that we have 100% certainty about what Iran is doing inside a country more than two and a half times the size of Texas.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
As Scott rightly said, mountainous, incredibly difficult to monitor, incredibly difficult to surveil.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They built underground facilities at Natanz and Fordow without our knowledge.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They didn't disclose it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We finally found out about it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's not true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I already refuted that an hour ago.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Anyone can rewind it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
going after weapons scientists who are responsible for building Iran's nuclear weapons program, and also go after top IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard commanders, as well as top military commanders.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it was through this exact kind of belligerence when we already had a deal that we could have continued to work with them on.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and Israel and the West.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We constantly aggress against North Korea, against Iran, against Russia, against these countries.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they respond to us.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they respond to us
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In ways that they build nuclear weapons programs that are peaceful, but we force them to develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They don't actually mean to kill us.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And yet there's still this one site that is the most fortified site.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's called Fordow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's an enrichment facility.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's buried under a mountain, goes about 80 meters deep.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If this podcast is all about the American government and the mistakes it's made, then we can spend four hours on it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So, Lex, I think the best case and something I've advocated for, I've been working on this for 22 years, is that the Iranians return to negotiations at Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
sit down with the United States and conclude an agreement that peacefully and permanently and fully dismantles their nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's encased in concrete.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They agree to that, which means they shut down any remaining facilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They give up all the remaining centrifuges and enriched material that they could use to develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It has advanced centrifuges and highly enriched uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They let the IAEA in in order to supervise this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They actually commit to not rebuilding this nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we commit, as we've done with 23 other countries, to helping them provide civilian nuclear energy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because it seems to me a little fanciful that Khamenei would build a civilian nuclear program under 80 meters of concrete, surrounded by rock, and take
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
All the risks he's taken, and by the way, he faces a risk to his regime, spent a half a trillion dollars to do this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Israelis can do damage to it, but it's clear it's going to take the United States and our military power in order to severely degrade this facility.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It makes no commercial sense.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But let's take him at his word that he wants civilian nuclear energy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's build it for him.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
As long as there's no enrichment or reprocessing that gives him the key capabilities that he could if he decides to build nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That seems to me a thoughtful decision.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Scott would probably agree with it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Proliferation proof.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He can't build nuclear weapons and we can do this all peacefully.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's my preference.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What can Trump do to help make that happen?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think what he can do is he can say to the Iranians, look, I made you that offer last time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You rejected it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, that offer is no longer on the table because that offer gave you enrichment.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, temporarily, but I now see the game that you would have played when I left office to turn that enrichment and enrichment capability into nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So that deal's off the table.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But here's the deal that's on the table.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a one-page deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You give up your nuclear capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We help you build civilian nuclear energy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think that's best case.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think worst case is that the Iranians do what they've unfortunately been doing over and over again and rejecting these deals and holding firm that they want to retain this enrichment capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the only reason they want to retain enrichment capability is the option to develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Otherwise, they can have civilian energy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Tomorrow makes much more commercial sense to do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the entire international community would help them and pay for that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I worry that they're going to just remain intransigent at the negotiating table.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think if they do that, then what I worry that they're going to do is whatever remaining capabilities they have left, they'll bide their time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They'll wait for the opportunity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Maybe it's not now.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Maybe it's when Trump's gone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Trump orders the United States Air Force to fly B-2 bombers and drop 12 massive ordnance penetrators, which are these 30,000 pound bombs on Fordow in order to, as he said, obliterate it more realistically to severely degrade it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they will rebuild this nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And they'll be then inviting...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
further strikes, further war, and further suffering.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I worry that that is the worst case.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And by the way, as part of that worst case in retaining the capabilities,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The extra worst case is they take those capabilities and they go for a nuclear bomb.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, if Scott's right and the regime has never had any desire for a nuclear bomb, we don't have to worry about that because, according to Scott, all of this has been fabricated, all of this has been a result of U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and Israeli intelligence mendacity, and we don't have to worry about a nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I personally worry about it, knowing this regime, looking at
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
two and a half decades of nuclear deception.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I worry that they want to retain those capabilities and at time of their choosing, develop a nuclear bomb.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think if you're responsible and you're trying to think through the various scenarios, you've got to consider an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout as a possibility.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And you've got to try to mitigate that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You either mitigate that at the negotiating table through a full dismantlement deal or, and that's not, it's the least
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, it's the least good option for sure is you're going to have to go back in there, either the Israelis and or the United States, and you're going to have to continue to use both covert action and air power to destroy those capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think one must never dismiss possibilities because, as I said, you've got to plan against worst-case options.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So that happens.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then he offers the Iranians, as he's been offering all the way through, you have an option.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I wish you'd listen and not put words in my mouth.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You can go back to Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I told you Oman, and you decided to force me to go to Fordow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I came to this country 22 years ago.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I became a proud U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
citizen 10 years ago.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm proud to be an American.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But now we can go back for negotiations.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And accusing me or Lex or any immigrants to this country of not being un-American is deeply offensive.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let me answer Lex's question, Lex.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's get back to your question.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because I think it's an important question.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What are the chain of events that could lead 500,000 mechanized U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
troops to have to invade Iran, which would be a disaster?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that's something we never want to see again.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's one of the lessons of Iraq.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Scott has done a good job over the years in...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
demonstrating that we don't want to do that again.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So is there such a scenario?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he forces a ceasefire on the Iranians, gets the Israelis to agree.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think one must never rule it out because there is a scenario, for example, where the regime collapses.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the regime collapses and there's chaos inside Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not suggesting that'll happen.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There are a whole bunch of scenarios maybe we should talk about with respect to the collapse of the regime.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But you could see a scenario where the United States would have to go in there in order to try to secure military and nuclear and missile assets so that it doesn't end up at the hands of warring countries.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
factional and ethnic groups that Scott referred to.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because again, as he's rightly pointed out, Iran is not Persia.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can't the IDF handle it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And that's where we are today.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So can I just finish?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Just who can handle it, who cannot handle it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think that it's a potential scenario, which is why I don't think anybody should be advocating for a US decapitation of the regime in Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I have long been on record as supporting the Iranian people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
providing support to the Iranian people to, at one point, take back their country and take back their flag.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's where, as you say, a tentative ceasefire that just came into effect.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's very much sort of Reagan's strategy that Reagan ran in the Cold War of maximum pressure on the regime, maximum support for anti-Soviet dissidents, while, by the way, he was negotiating arms control agreements for the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
in order to try to reduce the number of nuclear-tipped ICBMs that both countries had pointed at each other.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think the Reagan strategy of providing support to the people is a far better strategy for trying to get transition, leadership transition, government transition inside Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think the scenario of decapitation strikes, killing Khamenei, taking out the entire government could potentially lead to that scenario.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think we have to be
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
conscious of that, and we have to guard against that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we'll see now if the Iranians decide to take President Trump on his repeated offers, join him in Oman for another round of negotiations.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think that's important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, if a scenario happened like that, yeah, I mean, I think the Israelis have demonstrated extraordinary capabilities, and they could go in there, and they could secure loose nuclear materials that you would be worried could be
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
fashion for nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott doesn't seem to worry about these materials.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I worry about these materials and capabilities in the hands of anybody because they're all capabilities that just the physics of it, you can produce nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So best case scenario, negotiation, we fully dismantle their program in Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Worst case scenario is having to return for continued military strikes that continue to escalate the situation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Worst, worst situation is some kind of decapitation strike that collapses the regime and causes chaos.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There are a whole bunch of other scenarios we can talk about that are embedded in that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think if you're a responsible person and a responsible analyst, and certainly you're a responsible policymaker, you've got to be planning for all of these scenarios and more.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, is there some stuff you want to add to that?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, the IAEA just came out recently.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Just point of fact, sort of interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We'll see on the battle damage assessment, but they actually think the facility was destroyed and that the centrifuges...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
the sensitive centrifuges were destroyed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So just interesting for the viewers.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it may be premature.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, no, that's not what I said.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's not what I said.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Be careful what I said.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, no enrichment capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let me just step back from this because we agree on some and we disagree on a major issue.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then if we both agree, Iran deserves a civilian nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not sure I said that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, I think it's, again, important, the distinction here.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We both agree that Iran deserves a civilian nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
23 countries have civilian nuclear programs and they don't have enrichment and they don't have reprocessing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Where we differ is I don't think Iran should have the Iran standard.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think that Iran should agree to the gold standard that 23 U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
allies have agreed to.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So have civilian nuclear program, but you don't get to keep the key enrichment and reprocessing capabilities that you need to develop nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And America, of course, allowed Russia to sell them a heavy water reactor for the same purpose.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I agree with Scott that I think one of the ways out of this is, yes, whether it's the Chinese or preferably as an American, I prefer the Americans actually sell reactors to the Iranians is great.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
nuclear industry in this country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But if they can't, the South Koreans can, the Russians can, the Chinese can.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I wouldn't want to have significant Russian and Chinese influence in Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So better that it be a Western country that does it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Nevertheless, provide those reactors.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're proliferation proof.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's no enrichment and no reprocessing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You buy your fuel rods from abroad.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You put them in the reactors.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You power the Iranian electrical grid, which is in terrible shape because Ayatollah has spent a half a trillion dollars trying to build nuclear weapons and not trying to provide electricity for his people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's help him.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's help his people get electricity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the key difference in our argument, and it's a fundamental difference.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The key difference is I do not want to give this regime
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
enrichment or reprocessing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because they have shown over time, for whatever reason, whether you believe it's they intended to, or we were lying about it, or we broke them, it doesn't matter.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What they have shown over the past number of years is they have gone up from 3.67% enriched uranium
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
for civilian purpose, all the way up to 60%, which is 99% of what you need for weapons grade.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Since we've seen them do it before, we don't want to see them do it again.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So no enrichment, full dismantlement, full deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then there's a peaceful resolution to... What I worry about is positions that are taken that undermine President Trump's negotiating leverage in Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because... Can I ask you, you were saying you support the JCPOA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So let me ask you a question because you're right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, I'm glad you've pointed out because I, I try to take a nuanced position and during the JCPOA debate and I got hammered by the left and I got hammered by the right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Okay.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The, the, the left hammered me because I criticized the JCPOA because it's fundamental flaw was twofold.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
One, it gave Iran enrichment capability that would expand over time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
as the restrictions sunset it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And number two, the sunsets were going to kick in and Iran would emerge with this industrial-sized program, which we would not be able to stop.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, the nuance position, which I got hammered on by the right, was I said, go negotiate with the Europeans, agree on a common transatlantic position to approach the Iranians and say, look, that deal that we did back in 2015, we think it's flawed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We want to extend that deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We want to get rid of the sunsets.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we are going to negotiate a deal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, does that mean we have to give you more sanctions relief?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, probably.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Europeans are not going to just agree without sanctions relief.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What happened is the Trump administration tried to negotiate with the Europeans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Europeans were opposed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
because they didn't want to revisit the agreement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We knew the Iranians were completely opposed, and there was no way they were going to do this if the United States and Europe were divided.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so just a little bit of history, I just think it's interesting history.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It was at that point that President Trump decided to withdraw from the agreement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Look, enrichment capability is a red line.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It has to be a red line.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Even though you know it's protected by the NPT, the right to peace for nuclear technology.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They call it a loophole, but they have the right to enrich uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
As there's different interpretations of everything, including agreements, there is a...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
a raging debate about whether the NPT actually gives you a right to enrich.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In fact, the Obama administration, even with the JCPOA, was not willing to recognize Iran's right to enrich, but they were willing to recognize its de facto reality that they were enriching.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can you explain NPT?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iran is a member of it, and it is supposed to promote peaceful civilian nuclear energy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And it's supposed to prevent countries from developing nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think that's a basic summary of it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iran refused to ratify the additional protocol.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I just want to just be clear on the facts.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, it's really important.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The important point, you asked me what I would advise the national security advisor of the United States, or if I was the national security advisor of the United States, which I guess I can't because I'm a foreigner.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But the fact of the matter is.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That it was Iran who started this?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, it's remarkable to me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I want to reiterate this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott, you're a patriotic American.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
God bless you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
God bless the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Thank you for allowing me to come to this country and become an American.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's a great country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And as a patriotic American, I assume that the United States government and the United States intelligence community and the United States military has America's best interest at heart.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
However, we have learned from the history, and Scott's done a very good job of detailing this during the Iraq war, that the United States gets it wrong.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't think the United States lied us into war, but the United States got it wrong.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We must make sure that we learn the lessons of Iraq, but not overlearn the lessons of Iraq.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I would also say this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There are many lobby organizations in the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's the China lobby.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's the oil lobby.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's the pharmaceutical lobby.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's the Qatar lobby.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I live in Washington.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I see all these lobby organizations, okay?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Fact of the matter is the pro-Israel lobby, which actually lobbies in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship, is comprised of tens of millions of Christians and Jews and Hindus, and yes, yes, Muslims, who believe strongly in a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The reason that relationship has been so strong over so many years and that this, quote, lobby has been so successful is they're pushing through an open door with policymakers, not because some nefarious money influence, but because at the end of the day, the interests align.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We counter terrorism together.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We counter nuclear proliferation together.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we believe that the U.S.-Israel relationship is a strong relationship.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And these accusations of dual loyalty and these accusations of Israel firsters that Scott's thrown around, I think distract us from the conversation, which I think we should return to.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Let's talk about today.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We've talked about best case scenarios.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We talked about worst case scenarios and we talked about really worst case scenarios.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I think let's talk about the way forward.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I'd be interested in hearing from Scott where he thinks we're going.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I'm certainly, I don't crystal ball these things.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's always difficult to predict.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think President Trump has done
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
A really good job.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He has led this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He has not been at the beck and call of Bibi Netanyahu or Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia or anyone else.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He has led this effort.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He has made these decisions.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
This is a man who throughout his entire career, and not just his political career, but many, many years before that, believed that an Iranian nuclear weapon was a threat to the United States of America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
not just to our allies, but to the United States of America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he's been very clear on record.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He led this campaign since he started in January.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He offered negotiations.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He got rebuffed by the Iranians in Oman.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He put pressure on the regime economically.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He continued to offer negotiations.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He offered a very good, something that I thought was flawed negotiations.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, Lex, I got to tell you, the offer in Oman that he gave to the Iranians, I thought it was flawed because I think it allowed Iran to retain this key enrichment capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Iranians turned it down.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think Khamenei, to his everlasting regret, is going to wonder, why did I turn that down?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I could have got the enrichment capability that Scott thinks they deserve.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And yet I rejected it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Why did I reject it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because now look what's happened in the past 12 days.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've lost Fordow, mostly.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We'll see what happens on the BDA, the Battle Damage Assessment.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've certainly lost Natanz.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've lost my conversion facility at Isfahan, which converts uranium hexafluoride into, well, converts yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride to pump into centrifuges.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the most important thing I lost at Isfahan is a conversion facility that takes 90% enriched uranium and turns it into uranium metal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know the 60%?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's 99% of the way to 90% enriched uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the way, you can make a crude nuclear device with 60% enriched uranium.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I just want to put that on the record.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But he lost that key conversion facility that turns 90% enriched uranium, or even 60% enriched uranium, into uranium metal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You need uranium metal to fashion a crude nuclear device or a warhead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's been destroyed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And when I was coming in this morning, I just checked.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I thought it was interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
There's been a whole lot of discussion about the fact that about 12 or 16 trucks showed up at Fordow in the days before the U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
strikes and moved something out of Fordow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, according to reports just this morning, we'll see if they're verified.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't trust single sourcing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't trust what some reporter just says in their stories because reporters got it wrong over and over again, especially all the ones who accuse President Trump of being a Russian agent.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But we'll see what happens.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We'll see if it's verified.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But according to the reports, most of the material remained at Fordow because the Iranians were calculating this was the most heavily fortified facility.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They were also calculating that President Trump was not going to strike it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because what they had been doing was listening to lots of voices.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we can name the voices or we can just talk to them about a collective who they thought were telling Trump, don't do it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we're telling Trump, don't do it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Trump decided on his own to do it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So they kept the enriched material at Fordow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And if that's the case, it may be that much of it was destroyed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Again, caveat.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's just one or two stories right now, one in NBC News, and let's see what happens over the coming days.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But if that's the case, that material may have been destroyed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
One other element that we haven't even talked about at all today, which I think your listeners should be aware of,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We talked a lot about nuclear weapons development, warhead development.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What the Israelis did was they took out the top 15 nuclear weapons scientists who have been part of, remember I talked about that original Ahmad program and the development of those five atomic weapons?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, some of them who are old enough come from the Ahmad program, which is the early 2000s.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Some of them are new, but they've been, or not new, but younger, and they've been trained by the veterans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
the 15 top guys taken out.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That is akin to it's January or February 45, and the entire central team of Oppenheimer gets eliminated three to four months before the Trinity test, where we explode our first nuclear weapon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I would say significant damage to Iran's nuclear weapons program suggests that we potentially have rolled them back
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
for years, I don't know how many years, and all those technical assessments are still to come, but significant damage.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So the question, as I said, is have they retained enough capabilities that they've squirreled away, stored in covert sites, put under deeply buried tunnels,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to break out to nuclear weapons?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's Scott's concern.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
That's my concern.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Lex, I'm sure it's your concern that they could do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Or have they set back the program so significantly that Khamenei then has to decide, will I be inviting another Israeli and or U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
attack if I try to break out?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And if I do, do I risk my regime?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, but you said that the Ayatollah doesn't want a nuclear weapons program, Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You were very clear about that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What I said, what I was very clear about.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Ayatollah never wanted a nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Are you going back on that now?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
None of those countries have a nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can I just say technically, just, I think again, important for your listeners to understand under the JCPOA, uh,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Iran is allowed to keep a stockpile of a maximum of 300 kilograms, as I remember, of 3.67% enriched material.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're allowed to continue to enrich as long as if they go over that 300 kilogram, they have to continue to send that out to Russia.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
to Russia to blend down.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so they kept the enrichment capability, the ability to enrich.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They did keep a stockpile.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They're not allowed in those early years to go under 3.67%.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They would be allowed to go to 20% and 60% and 90% as the restrictions sunsetted, but they were able to keep all of those key capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I just want to clarify just technically what the JCPOA actually said and what it didn't say.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, but Scott, you're mischaracterizing what I'm saying.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I need to clarify when you mischaracterize.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Sure.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
A couple things I think were interesting, what Scott said, and I agree certainly with some of it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, the first thing is, I do believe President Trump has negotiated in good faith.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, he sent Steve Witkoff, his chief negotiator, for five rounds of negotiations since he came into office.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The second is, I mean, we can keep going around in circles, but the fact of the matter is, I do believe that Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations have
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
since 1979, killed and tried to kill and maim Americans and taking them hostage.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think it's important for me, again, to put that on the record.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But where I agree with Scott is, and it's interesting, and I don't know if Khamenei has changed.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's 86 years old.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's been in power since 1989.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And there's a little bit of history that I think is really interesting, Lex.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It was 1988, and Iran and Iraq had fought this brutal eight-year war, a million people dead.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the United States accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger airline.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The United States offered to pay compensation and apologized.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Iranians didn't believe it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They didn't believe we could accidentally do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
They thought we were going to be intervening militarily on behalf of Saddam.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So Khamenei, who's not the supreme leader at the time, he was the Iranian president, he and Rafsanjani, they go to Khomeini and they say, Mr. Ayatollah,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We got to sue for peace with the Iraqis because the Americans are intervening and we cannot fight the Americans.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We fought this brutal war.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We'll continue with Saddam.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We cannot fight the United States of America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Like that perception that there's no way they can fight the United States of America because that's regime ending potentially.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Even if we don't intend to, that could actually happen.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And there's a famous line where Khomeini says, all right, I agree.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I will drink the poison chalice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'll drink the poison chalice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I will agree to a ceasefire on pretty tough terms for Iran.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's interesting now, 36 years later, or 37 years later, Khamenei is now going to decide to drink the poison chalice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Does he agree to a negotiated deal with the United States?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Does he agree to a deal that President Trump, and I mean, Scott criticizes me for it, but that's President Trump's position, is no enrichment, full dismantlement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the way, that's backed up by 52 of 53 Republican senators and 177 House GOP members and backed by everybody in his administration, including J.D.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Vance, who's been emphatic about that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Does he agree to that deal?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Or does he decide, I'm not going to join the Poison Chalice, and I am going to take other options?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, I agree with Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Like, going after a U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
military basis, except in a symbolic way, suicidal.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Closing the Straits of Hormuz?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
40% of Chinese oil goes through there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Chinese have been saying to the Iranians, don't you dare.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the way, 100% of Iranian oil goes from Iran and Karg Island through the Straits of Hormuz.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So economically suicidal for the Iranians to do that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Terror attacks, absolutely.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, that has been their modus operandi for years.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I would be concerned about terrorist attacks against U.S.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
targets, against civilians.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
potentially sleeper cells in the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So he's used terror cells around the world.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He's engaged in a decades-long assassination campaign, including on American soil, by the way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, including most recently where he went after an Iranian American three times to try to assassinate her
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
In New York, a woman named Marcia Linejad.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And so he's got to be calculating, like, what is my play?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So if I don't do a deal, how can I actually squeeze the Americans?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Scott's right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Like, he must be thinking to himself.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
you know what?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I was literally on the 99-yard line with an entire nuclear weapons capability.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I should have crossed the goal line.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If I had had a warhead, a nuclear warhead, or multiple nuclear warheads, as they had been trying to build since the Ahmad plan in early 2000s, there's no way Israel and the United States would have hit me militarily if I had nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Then I would have had the ultimate deterrence to prevent that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then I would be like Kim Jong-un with nuclear weapons
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I would then build ICBMs and then I'd have the ultimate deterrent to stop that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So he's got to be thinking maybe now, and I can guarantee you the revolutionary guards.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Can I tell you the Libya example?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I think Scott is the most interesting one for me, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Because in the Libya example, it was a big mistake.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
By the way, Ukraine is another good example of this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We went to the Libyans and we said, you must fully dismantle your program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And Gaddafi said, reluctantly under huge American pressure, okay, I'll do it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And the Brits and the Americans went in there and literally hauled out his entire nuclear
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But that wasn't my point.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Okay.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
My point is, is he had a nuclear program and we can debate about, again, how we had debating about whether, again, it's always Gaddafi and Khamenei and all these people, they don't really want nuclear weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We just misunderstand them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But, but that's not the point.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The point is we did a deal with Gaddafi.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We pulled out his nuclear program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And then I don't know how many years later, but it wasn't too many years later, seven years later.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Thank you, Scott.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We actually took, took Gaddafi out.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And he didn't have a nuclear program, so we took him out in the Libya operation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Now, Ukraine is another great example.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The Ukrainians, after the fall of the Soviet Union, you know this, they had the Soviet nuclear arsenal or good parts of it on their soil.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So we went to them and we said, all right, well, here's a deal for you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Give up the nuclear arsenal off your territory, and we and the Russians and the French guarantee your territorial integrity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
and your sovereignty as a country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So the Ukrainians said, fair deal to me, gave up all the nuclear weapons, and then Putin has now invaded Ukraine twice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But Scott, my point is, and I think you'll agree with this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
My point is, if you're Khamenei and you've seen those two examples of Libya, you gave up.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Your nuclear program, Gaddafi gets taken down.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Your Ukraine, you gave up your nuclear weapons and the Russians invaded twice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
If you're Khamenei thinking to yourself, the only thing that matters more to me than my nuclear weapons program is my regime survival.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And in 12 days of war, the Israelis specifically, because we hit Fordow and Isfahan and Natanz.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We, the United States, hit those sites.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
We, the United States, hit those sites.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I said we, the United States.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not a neocon.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I'm not a neoconservative, so I don't know who he's talking about, but I'm not a neoconservative.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, so let's go back to where Khamenei may be.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean—
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
in a bunker, 86 years old, thinking he's going to drink the poison chalice and agree to a deal with Donald Trump and Oman?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Or is he going to do all of the things that Scott and I are concerned about?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And one of those, and Scott has pointed this out, rightly so, is he may decide now to break out for the nuke or creep out for the nuke.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He may decide not to do it now.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He may decide to do it
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
in three and a half years when president Trump is gone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And I think that the, the important thing is he's seen we, the United States, we took out Fordow and Natanz and Isfahan in one operation with B2 bombers and, and,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
12, 30,000-pound massive orange penetrators and Tomahawk missiles.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So if he didn't think that the United States had serious military power before, he now knows we do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
So I've said online in the past 12 days and even before that, curb your enthusiasm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Curb your enthusiasm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, just this sort of idea that this has been like this unbelievable success and everything's great and everything's going to be amazing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And we stopped the nuclear weapons program.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And this has been a resounding success.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I've just said kind of curb your enthusiasm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Khamenei remains very dangerous.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The regime remains very dangerous.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
A wounded animal is the most dangerous animal in the animal kingdom.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He retains key capabilities to build weapons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
What does unconditional surrender mean?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It means no enrichment, full dismantlement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Okay.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yes, exactly right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Isn't that what that means?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But President Trump made it very clear.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Unconditional?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
He made it clear.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I don't support regime change.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Well, except for that one post...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
A few hours earlier.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I actually, I'll explain that one because I thought it was really interesting.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I guess Donald Trump doesn't listen to Bibi all the time, does he?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Every country, every country that defends its national interests.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
I mean, that's not unusual for Israel or any other country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
But I think to understand.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
You know how many American lives the Israeli intelligence community has saved?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And ask people in the FBI and CIA who work counterterrorism how many American lives the Israelis have saved because of their intelligence capabilities.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
Not only planning operations against the United States, but executing them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
No, no, no.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
The history is America's problem with Al-Qaeda is because of Israel.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
America and Israel are terrorist states.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
And when I mean us, Scott, I mean America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#473 – Iran War Debate: Nuclear Weapons, Trump, Peace, Power & the Middle East
It's all us, Scott.