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“It’s a psyop!” says Professor Sami al Arian, responding to the blustering and bloodthirsty address Pete Hegseth gave this week.
In the speech, Hegseth claims that US “capabilities continue to build. Iran’s continue to degrade. We’re hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran’s air defenses [are] flattened. Iran’s defense industrial base, the factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programs [are] being overwhelmingly destroyed.”
For good measure of ridiculous sadism, Hegseth quotes a World War II admiral to flaunt the murder of Iranians: “And to borrow a page from Admiral Ernest King in World War II, we’ve decided to share the ocean with Iran. We’ve given them the bottom half.”
But, Professor al Arian claims, this is bluster. This is a psyop against the American people.
“What he’s trying to do is to psyche the people and tell them that we’re winning and that the other side is totally decimated and obliterated and defeated. But the fact of the matter is that Iran is still shooting. Iran is having a war of attrition.
Whatever he’s blustering, whatever he’s saying, it’s total exaggeration as I see it.
First of all, you cannot defeat your opponent or change the regime from the air. The Taliban didn’t have a single air [defense]. And who won at the end? Who was fleeing and leaving in a hurry? Hamas didn’t have any air. And two years, they couldn’t pacify Hamas over Gaza, which was 360 square kilometers.
Iran is a vast country. Iran is 1.65 million square kilometers. We’re talking about an area greater than Western Europe. So whatever is hitting is hitting, obviously. But Iran is not going to surrender. It’s not going to submit to whatever dictates he may have.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Professor Sami al Arian in which he predicts how Iran’s regional allies like the Houthis in Yemen will affect the war, why Iran is striking other Arab nations, and whether the US actually gets any material benefit from helping Israel in their hunt for dominance over the Middle East.
We also speak with Lebanese journalist Hala Jaber, who joins us from Beirut as Israel expands its assault on Lebanon. She reports on Israel’s continued targeting of journalists, including this week’s “deliberate” airstrike on journalist Steve Sweeney, caught on video in Southern Lebanon, the surprising and stifling control the US has over the Lebanese government, and Hezbollah’s role in the fight against Israel and the broader Iran War.
Plus, catch our weekly recap of the craziest moments on corporate media, the Friday Free-for-All: Tulsi Gabbard Just Hit Rock Bottom
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