Thomas Small

You have to think, I want to achieve something.

Oh, I can only achieve it using force.

Okay, I'll use force then.

But what is it you're seeking to achieve?

I don't think at the moment.

perhaps apart from wanting to be reelected or staying out of jail or whatever.

I don't think the Israeli government at the moment has an answer to that question.

Arabs aren't stupid, they see that, it annoys the hell out of them, especially since it resulted in many tens of thousands of Arabs dying.

I know how it feels, Francis, doesn't it?

You just feel like that's the Middle East for you.

no well i mean no you're not wrong but i i you know it's interesting i don't know i i um i think at the moment it's safer to be pessimistic and because you know i did actually feel to my shame a bit optimistic in february and i thought that um a very malign actor

And my heart in this sort of fight is with the Middle East.

And I just see Iran as having had on balance the worst record in terms of destabilizing the Middle East, killing people, polluting their brains by brainwashing them, making it a more and more a sectarian hell hole.

So there for me, they have always been the proximate

evil that needed to be dealt with until you could get progressively close to solving solving the other problems.

So I did allow myself to feel optimistic in February, and now I feel like, you know, a bit mugged by reality that the United States

once again proves its incredible capacity militarily to not achieve political aims.

Like it's just a remarkable record of not being able to achieve political aims despite this incredible

technologically superior force, just unimaginable.

America remains so powerful at that level, but it does not translate into political achievements on the ground again and again.