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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Global Player original podcast.
I honestly think in years to come, people will look at Epic Fury as one of the greatest strategic failures in modern warfare.
Donald Trump went into this to destroy Iran's nuclear capability. And what he's clearly given them is a much better alternative to a nuclear weapon.
He seems utterly powerless or in a position where the limits of American power have been reached and the idea that it can just tell a nation what to do and they will just salute politely and say, yes, sir, is not happening now.
On the one hand, he's making a very clear point there. 100 days of epic fury is not 19 years. On the other hand, what an idiot.
The haunting sound of air raid sirens in northern Israel last night, civilians scurrying to air raid shelters and the sound of explosions in the sky as the ceasefire between Israel and Iran looks like it is in tatters.
President Trump has demanded that Israel and Iran stop shooting. The trouble is they're just ignoring him. Is he impotent now? Welcome to The News Agents.
The News Agents.
It's John.
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Chapter 2: What does Trump mean by 'calling the shots' in the Iran ceasefire?
It's Maitlis. And like two squabbling children and a parent who can't control them, it's hard to know who started it because the fingers are pointing in either direction. Was it Israel attacking the suburbs of Beirut? Was it the provocation of Hezbollah? Was it Iran firing the missiles? Was it Israel firing back? I mean, he pays your money and he takes your choice, frankly.
But undoubtedly, the most significant escalation came with Iran attacking firing ballistic missiles into northern Israel last night. Donald Trump saying this has to stop. I demand that it stops. And an hour after that, Israel say, you know what? We're retaliating and firing their own missiles and bombers flying over Iran to retaliate.
Yeah, I mean, certainly from Iran's perspective, they're saying we've had enough. It holds the US directly responsible for what they call ceasefire breaches. because they say that Israel's military activities, actions in... Lebanon, which have been creeping higher and higher up towards the capital.
In other words, not just areas where Israel is legitimately claiming there are Hezbollah targets, but right the way up the country. They say that those actions cannot be separated from US policies. And the Iranians say the actions of the Zionist entity within the region cannot be looked at in isolation from the United States. In other words, what are they doing? They're
If you can't control Israel, then we will do that for you. And we will do that by firing rockets into the West Bank, into Israel, into a country that you have no control over right now. And so Trump has tried to knock heads together. He gave an interview yesterday where he said, I hold the cards, I call all the shots, I call all the shots. But he doesn't.
What has become very apparent, if it weren't before,
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Chapter 3: How is Netanyahu's response to Trump's comments significant?
is that in the last 24 hours, he cannot control what Iran does and he cannot control what Netanyahu does. And it has not stopped him from telling journalists, including Ed Luce from the Financial Times, who we're going to hear from a little bit later. That he is in control, but he ain't.
I honestly think in years to come, people will look at Epic Fury, Operation Epic Fury, as Donald Trump was so proud to call it on the 28th of February. We'll look at this as one of the greatest strategic failures in modern warfare, where you say what we're going to do is in short order, we're going to overturn the regime. We are going to stop their ballistic missile program.
We are going to destroy their military and we are going to retake their nuclear material. And it's all going to happen very quickly. And here we are over 100 days on from that. And Iran, the regime is in place. The sun has taken over from Ayatollah Khamenei. you have got the Republican Guard still able, with command and control, to fire missiles with precision into Israel and into Gulf states.
There has been no progress made on the nuclear material and the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before 28 February, is still firmly shut, driving up prices. Israel and the United States kidded themselves that they could achieve this militarily and it would all be done so quickly. And nothing like that has happened. The regime is in place.
Israel and the US have fired endless missiles, have committed millions and billions of dollars to this campaign, and they haven't succeeded.
Yeah. And I think to try and understand what is behind some of this, from Israel's perspective, you have to go inside Netanyahu's mindset and you have to go inside his party's mindset. Because The more that Likud heard that a deal was imminent between Tehran and Washington, the more concerned they got.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the missile attacks from Iran on Israel?
They thought that this would hurt. Netanyahu's chance of re-election. And I've been talking to Israeli political experts, one of them, Ayala Panayevsky, friend of the podcast, has put it like this. She says, Netanyahu is always thinking about two things, his trial and the elections. Currently, this exchange of missiles just today has already postponed the trial today. We haven't even
talked about the trial that he's facing, you know, this week, but it's already managed to push that, not only out the headlines, but, you know, off the agenda today. He's hoping to get something he can present to Israelis as a win in Iran, because as soon as people start waking up the fact that we're currently losing on all fronts, then he's in trouble.
On WhatsApp, there are groups calling it Netanyahu's comeback voters war. In other words... He is trying to find a way of giving the Israeli people something in an election that could be September or October, which reminds them why they need him as their prime minister. At the moment, they don't. He hasn't achieved anything in Iran.
He hasn't really made proper inroads into Hezbollah in Lebanon, despite the fact that they have targeted three and a half thousand places and killed God knows how many civilians there. in the process, he hasn't got anything to offer them. Hamas still controls Gaza.
And I think inside Likud, there are voices saying, anonymously, we should say to reporters, without another round of the war with Iran, we will lose the elections. They're on a knife edge at the moment. There is some sort of strategic alliance between two of the opposition parties, which could make it harder for him to win. At the moment, they're looking like they could be September.
If they get pushed back into October, because he doesn't feel he's achieved enough on this war with Iran, then it's even more complicated, because October the 7th, obviously, is the commemoration, the three-year commemoration of the attacks by Hamas. And that is not a good look for Netanyahu, because it is seen as a massive security breach on his watch. So... He is in an absolute electoral fix.
And if you're trying to work out what is happening in the skies above Iran or above Tel Aviv, that tells you some of the story, I think now, which is it all comes back, as it always seems to, to one man, one autocrat's story. Absolute necessity to stay in power to avoid prison.
And let's consider the other autocrat in the White House.
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Chapter 5: Why is Trump perceived as powerless in the Middle East crisis?
And, you know, you just have to replay again. I'm sorry. All the things that Donald Trump said that propelled him to power, his disillusionment with what had happened with the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq and the forever wars. and the commitment of American troops overseas that seemed to go on without end and body bags being flown back to America. And what was this all about?
And it's time to focus on America itself and to be America first and to close it, you know, just to draw up, pull up the drawbridge and live within America. That is what he told the American people. That was his big selling point. And hey, presto, he now finds himself having committed to this war and cannot see a way out of it. He cannot see the exit.
He wants Iran to sign a deal which will mean that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, that they hand over all their nuclear material. Why is Iran going to do it? I mean, Iran doesn't feel, yes, sure, it's under pressure economically. Yes, sure, the Iranian economy and unemployment levels are high. But the Iranian regime is about self-preservation.
It doesn't give much of a shit about what the Iranian people are going through. It's a dreadful regime and survival is everything. And at the moment, you would have to say it is surviving and it is costing Donald Trump. And as you say, you use the word impotent at the top of the show. he seems utterly powerless or in a position where the limits of American power have been reached.
And the idea that it can just tell a nation what to do and they will just salute politely and say, yes, sir, is not happening now.
Yeah. And I think the other thing is, I mean, Iran is a god awful regime, right? We don't need to overstate just what happened in January of this year. It's dreadful to its own citizens. But it just so happens that... that the enemies it's picked on here, Trump and Netanyahu, are probably two of the most despised leaders in the world right now.
And so there aren't a lot of people sort of pushing back, saying, oh, we must come to the defence of Israel, we must come to the defence of America. I mean, traditionally... They came to the defence of each other and that hasn't been enough. But you don't really see the rest of the world now saying this is shocking what Iran is doing.
You say, well, I don't like them, but, you know, frankly, I'll leave all of them to it.
You know, and you don't need to just talk about Iraq. Recent example, Afghanistan. Recent example. You can go back further. And Donald Trump did when he gave an interview to meet the press with Kristen Welker at the weekend.
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Chapter 6: What are the political motivations behind Netanyahu's actions?
So the sort of feed through effect of this stalemate on the Strait of Hormuz is lethal for the Republican Party. And I think that might explain some of the, you know, displays of modest displays of spine from a few more Republicans than normal that we've seen in the last couple of weeks.
Ed, brilliant to talk to you.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Real pleasure. Nice to talk to you both.
That's how they vote in California.
They're crooked, just like you're crooked. Your press is crooked, and meet the press is crooked.
To be fair, I'm not crooked, but let's continue.
Really? Well, you play right into their hands then. Let's continue. You're either crooked or you're stupid. Let's continue. You play right into their hands with this crap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. You know that I won an election in a landslide, and I got 94% bad press. But Mr. President, he's never presented evidence.
You know why I got that? Because you have no credibility.
But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged. Let's keep talking about it. I want to talk about Todd.
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