Bill Kristol: A Madman's Way of War
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so we are back with editor-at-large Bill Kristol, author of the Morning Shots newsletter. A lot's happened since Friday's podcast with Amanda Carpenter, which should be a reminder to you all to be checking out the Bulwark Takes feed on the weekends as news happens because we're at war with Iran now. And Bill, I just want to kind of start with a state of play for people, if that's okay with you. You can edit or amend any of my assessment. I will be happy to. And also, you and JBL and Sarah and Mark Kirtling did an excellent early Saturday morning at 9, kind of first snapshot of where things were. And then you and I and Mark Kirtling did something at noon yesterday, Sunday.
And I've got to say, both of them were, I thought, informative and luckily informative. General Hertling's there so the rest of us can talk and he can actually explain and analyze. But no, I think both our analysis of what was happening on the ground and here at home, for that matter, domestically, which you particularly focused on yesterday, was good. Look, it's a very impressive military operation. We took out a huge number of Iranian assets working with Israel. Very close collaboration with Israel. I mean, I may be a little surprised by that. Usually there's some attempt to maintain distance. It seems like it was a genuinely coordinated effort. Wiped out a large percentage of the Iranian leadership.
And really a nationwide campaign against military assets way beyond degrading key nodes of the nuclear program or taking out some missile sites. That was... What happened last summer in June, this was a real attempt to go after the regime in many aspects, I'd say. And if you look at this, just a map of the places we've hit, some of them were not nuclear. Many, most of them are not nuclear. Some of them were, you know, ballistic missile sites. There were other forms of regime, places the regime had... Assets and weapons and coordinating structures. And so the military campaign is consistent with regime change as a goal. That's clearly has been Israel's goal. It's the goal Trump articulated late Friday night, early Saturday morning in his little eight minute address.
He's wavered back and forth on that goal since, obviously. In terms of the military effort, finally, it's gone well. But, you know, wars are wars, right? So we've lost four soldiers, sadly, and some planes and others. You know, Iran is not disabled anymore. Let me just give a quick rundown on that. So before we get to what exactly the goal is here, as you mentioned, like a total annihilation, decapitation of Iranian leadership. Ayatollah Khomeini dead. Ahmadinejad was not involved in this government, but was, I think, kind of plotting a more radical coup-type government. He's also dead. Among familiar names to listeners, total domination of Iranian airspace. Obviously, Israel has... ton of assets inside iranian military leadership so impressive in that sense but you know as wars go you know it's not just us bombing them uh there are four american soldiers dead at the time of this taping we don't know the details on that yet those are initially uh they announced three had died and then another one added this morning
Three U.S. F-15 Strike Eagles went down in Kuwait in a friendly fire incident. The pilots survived there. The headquarters for the U.S.
What are the current tensions between the U.S. and Iran?
Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain has been hit. U.S. Embassy has been attacked in Pakistan, Iraq, Kuwait. There was a mass shooting in Austin that...
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–4:07
2
What are the current tensions between the U.S. and Iran?
4:07–6:35
3
How is Trump's administration handling the war messaging?
6:35–11:56
4
What military strategies are being employed against Iran?
11:56–13:28
5
What are the implications of the U.S.-Israel collaboration?
13:28–19:57
6
How does the situation in Iran affect U.S. domestic politics?
19:57–27:34
7
What are the potential consequences of a prolonged conflict?
27:34–34:12
8
How are the upcoming Senate primaries in Texas relevant?
34:12–56:41
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