Video Infoblog: 'Israel Started This... BIG Mistake!" John Mearsheimer vs Piers Morgan
Transcript
Introduction
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first of all it was the Israelis who started this Israel made a major mistake that increases the likelihood that Iran
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will get nuclear weapons nuclear weapons are basically a force for peace NATO couldn't let a European Sovereign
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Democratic country come under nuclear attack and not respond short yes it could and no American president in my
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opinion is willing to sacrifice New York or Chicago or Los Angeles uh for Ukraine
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sorry but Professor understand let me clarify just what we're talking about here we talking
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about nuclear weapons we're talking about nuclear war is it ever Justified morally to deploy nuclear weapons if you
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use nuclear weapons to effectively murder huge numbers of civilians you're
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permitting no war crime well Iran's attack on Israel brought a decades long proxy war to the
Reaction to Iran attack on Israel
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brink of a red hot conflict but most experts in the west agreed with President Biden's verdict that it was an emphatic Israeli win Iran looked weak
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Israel look strong again Western allies and key Arab states rallied to Israel's defense underscoring ties that have been
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sely tested by Israel's assault on Gaza my next guest often swims against the tide of expert consensus he's previously
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argued that a nuclear IR would make the world a safer place and the Israel is the Middle East foremost agitated
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returning to uncensored led to welcome back professor John MIM well John great
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to have you back on um first of all your reaction to what happened when uh Iran
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attacked Israel I was actually uh quite amazed
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that the Iranians attacked Israel I mean this was the first case uh of Iran
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launching uh missiles from its own territory and hitting Israel and they
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launched a massive attack and even though the vast majority of those
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missiles uh and drones did not get through uh the fact is that they did
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launch this attack and some got through uh and then the Israeli retaliation was
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actually a very small retaliation uh it's quite uh amazing to
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me how minor the retaliation was uh and if you look at what the consequences of
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this are I think it uh is not good for Israeli deterrence moving forward the
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Israelis care greatly about deterrence and for deterrence to matter or to work for them what's necessary is for Israel
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to have escalation dominance if Iran and Israel get into a fight it's essential for Israel that it dominate as the two
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sides go up the escalation ladder that's what produces deterrence but if you look at what happened in this case uh there
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was no escalation dominance the Iranian attack was much larger than the Israeli
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attack well it was but I would counter by saying that the Iran attack was a
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spectacular failure in the sense that it caused almost no damage almost all the
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missiles were taken out by the Iron Dome and actually I would say most
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significantly of the whole thing was the way that uh neighboring Arab countries like Jordan raced to help defend Israel
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even Saudi Arabia allowed some of its airspace to be used we saw the UK we saw the French and others come in as well so
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there was an immediate and Rapid collaborative defense of Israel against
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Iran's missile attack which thwarted any real damage being done and in their
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counter Israel You could argue were very specifically targeted around some of the
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uh the nuclear plants which uh Iran is believed to have that they were making the point that they could Target
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anywhere in Iran at will and land their missiles as opposed to them being taken
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out by any kind of Iron Dome defense so I would take issue with your categorization that this was somehow a
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victory for Iran and here I think that that what Israel did was make a very clear statement if you want to do this
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we have the capacity to strike anywhere in Iran at will and we also have the backing of a lot of neighboring
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countries there was never any question that Israel had the capability uh to hit
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Iran with huge numbers of missiles and aircraft that was never in doubt but the
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fact is their retaliation involved attacking one radar they didn't in a
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sense turn the dogs loose and really hit Iran with large numbers of missiles and
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Rockets isn't that smart I mean I I urged them like many people including President Biden I urged in a a post to x
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uh that I really hope Israel shows some restraint here but I fear that Netanyahu wouldn't and to my pleasant surprise on
Israel started this conflict
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this occasion he did show some restraint because I think that there's a lot of goding going on well if finish my point
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I think goding going on uh right across the region against Israel well let me
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finish my point then I I'll get your response you know when you see the activity of Hezbollah of the hooes of
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what Hamas did October the 7th and what Iran then did in response to the attack on their consulate there's a lot of
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deliberate provocation I think of Israel to try and go them into an overreaction which may then uh ruin their global
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global support and sympathy I mean I would argue that that is at least a possibility isn't it
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first of all it was the Israelis who started this by bombing the Iranian Embassy in
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Damascus uh the Iranians did not start this conflict uh that recently took
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place between April 1st and April 19 but they were there with with people from Hezbollah weren't they so they were they
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were military leaders using the consulate to plan attacks on Israel with leaders of Hezbollah I mean that was why
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they were targeted look in international law and
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according to International Norms states don't attack uh the embassies of other
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states this was considered to be a significant provocation unless they're being used by unless they're being used
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as military bases which it is beli certainly Israel argues I don't listen I don't know but it's certainly been
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argued by Israel that there were it was being used part of this consulate area
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was being used as a genuine military base in which case it becomes a leg legitimate Target if indeed they are
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meeting with Hezbollah to plan attacks on Israel isn't it there's no evidence that it was being
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used as a military base and the fact is that if the Israelis are going to hit the Iranian Embassy the end result is
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the Iranians are going to retaliate and they did retaliate now I want to say a few words about that retaliation it's
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very important to understand that the Americans and the Iranians orchestrated the Iranian attack so that it would be
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limited attack it would do very little damage to Israel and the reason this is
Giving Iran nuclear weapons
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the case is that neither the Iranians or the United States wanted this conflict
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and it was the Israelis who by attacking the Iranian Embassy in Damascus dragged
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the Americans and uh the Iranians into this conflict and what we tried to do
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working with the Iranians before the attack on uh April 14
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and during the attack on April 14th was to do everything possible to keep it
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limited and avoid escalation the whole issue of nuclear
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weapons here interesting that you believe that if Iran was allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons it would
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make the world a safer place just explain why you believe that well first of all I think from an
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American point of view and certainly from an Israeli point of view it was be all for the good if Iran did not get
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nuclear weapons I think from Iran's point of view it makes sense to have a nuclear deterrent because nuclear
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weapons are the ultimate deterrent so I want to discriminate or distinguish between what I think is the American and
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Israeli perspective on one hand and what the Iranian perspective is on the other hand what is your perspective with
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regard to the question of my perspective as an American is I hope that Iran does not get nuclear
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weapons and in fact I think that Israel made a major mistake precipitating this recent conflict because it increases the
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likelihood that Iran will get nuclear weapons which is not in Israel's interest so I want to be very clear I'm
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not in favor of Iran getting nuclear weapons so why would you on that point just to jump
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in why would you then think the world's a safer place if you personally do not
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think they should be given nuclear weapons wouldn't it actually have the opposite effect that if you have a regime like the one in Iran right now
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the world is likely to be a far more dangerous place if they have the capacity for a nuclear
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attack no because nuclear weapons of are weapons of mass destruction and that
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would make the Israelis and the Americans incredibly wary of attacking
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Iran a nuclear armed Iran for fear that Iran would use its nuclear weapons either against us or against the
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Israelis uh there's no question if you go back and look at the Cold War the fact that the United States and the
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Soviet Union both had nuclear weapons made the likelihood of conflict between the superpowers much less likely because
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again these are weapons of mass destruction so if Iran had nuclear weapons Israel had nuclear weapons and
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the United States had nuclear weapons all three countries would be remarkably cautious in terms of approaching each
Russia will use nuclear weapons
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other with military forces if you have a middle east where nobody has nuclear
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weapons you can think about fighting a conventional war and conventional War is much less deadly for obvious reasons
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than nuclear war so the argument here is that nuclear weapons are basically a force for peace this is not to say you
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could never have a nuclear war if Iran had nuclear weapons and that of course is why you don't want uh Iran to have
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nuclear weapons but it is much less likely that you would have a war between Iran and Israel or Iran and the United
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States if Iran had nuclear weapons do you think there's any likelihood of Russia deploying any of its nuclear
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Armament for example if Ukraine emboldened Now by new Weaponry uh thanks
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to uh Congress finally passing this big bill for money for them if if that was
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to start pushing the Russians back could you see a situation where Vladimir Putin might use one of his T tactical nuclear
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weapons my view has long been Pierce that if uh Ukraine were to start winning
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on the battlefield and the Russians were losing that the end result would be that
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the Russians would use nuclear weapons to rescue the situation I think the Russians view what's happening uh with
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regard to the Ukrainian War as an existential threat and given that the Russians think it's an existential
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threat if they were in deep trouble they were losing the war in Ukraine I think they turned to nuclear weapons I mean
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doesn't slightly fly in the face of what you've just argued though which is that if you have a nuclear power like Russia
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and you have nuclear powers like America and you and they' they've been helping Ukraine with their Weaponry uh and so on
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you UK nuclear power French nuclear power why would they do that if as you say if the ownership of nuclear weapons
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is the ultimate deterrent why would Russia decide to risk uh a nuclear war
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with NATO for example if they did this because NATO would surely feel uh an absolute moral compulsion to respond in
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that eventuality no I think what you're missing here is that Ukraine has no
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nuclear weapons of its own no so I think yeah but that's not my argument I know
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that and in fact you could argue that your original argument about Iran applying to Ukraine would Russia have
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invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons and had its own deterrent I think that's that would back
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your argument but here I would argue that your argument slightly falls apart because surely Russia would not want to
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do that risking retaliation from America UK and other countries or a full-fledged
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NATO response because NATO couldn't let a European Sovereign Democratic country
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uh come under nuclear attack and not respond surely yes it could because if we
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responded with nuclear weapons against Russia Russia would then respond with nuclear weapons against the United
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States of America and no American president in my opinion is willing to sacrifice New York or
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Chicago or Los Angeles for Ukraine so the idea sorry but Professor cannot you
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cannot honestly think that Vladimir Putin could drop a nuclear weapon on the
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people of Ukraine and there would be no response from America or the
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West I said there wouldn't be a nuclear response there may be a response but there won't be a nuclear response
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because you want to remember that if we hit Russia with American nuclear weapons or Western nuclear weapons the end
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result is the Russians will retaliate against us and we do not want to be hit with nuclear weapons this is why we
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don't want Ukraine to have nuclear weapons it's why we didn't want West Germany or South Korea or Japan to have
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nuclear weapons during the Cold War East Germany you
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mean no West Germany we didn't want West Germany to have nuclear weapons because our great fear was that if the Soviets
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overran West Germany the West Germans would use nuclear weapons they would hit
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the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union would retaliate against the United States we don't want to become involved
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in a nuclear war but then it seems if if so we're not going to fight right I understand that but if if a nuclear
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power like Russia can simply use its nuclear weapons with impunity and other nuclear powers do not respond then the
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nuclear deterrent collapses doesn't it because they've they've just ignored it no it doesn't it has no effect on our
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nuclear deterrent our nuclear deterrent remains intact and the fact is the Soviet Union during the Cold War in
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Russia Today will not attack the United States for fear that we would use our nuclear deterent against the Soviet
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Union and the Cold War and Russia today but the point is that if the Russians were to use nuclear weapons inside of
How the West should respond to Russian nukes
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Ukraine today we would not respond with a nuclear attack on Russia because that
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would precipitate a general thermonuclear war and the last thing we want is a general thermonuclear war this
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is not to say we would be happy about the fact that Ukraine was hit with nuclear weapons because we certainly
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would not be and we certainly would respond in some way but we would not respond with a nuclear strike on Russia
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how how would we respond that would have any effect I'm not sure it's it's very hard
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to say I mean even if we used simply Conventional Weapons we got involved in
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the war with Russia we would then have a great power war between Russia on one
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side and NATO on the other side which included the United States and once you have a great power War involving Russia
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versus the United States the danger of nuclear escalation presents itself and
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this of course is why President Biden has wisely said that under no
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circumstances will American military forces be introduced into the Ukraine war because he understands that once you
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do that you're out on the slippery slope you're out on the slippery slope to nuclear escalation and the last thing we
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want as I've emphasized to you is a nuclear war between Russia and the United States I get that but but if
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Russia was to use one that is right there the nuclear escalation that you are so Keen for everyone to avoid it's a
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deliberate Act of nuclear provocation and I just cannot imagine that in that eventuality with hundreds of thousands
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of ukrainians being slaughtered with a nuclear Weapon by Russia I just cannot imagine that there would be no similar
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response from the West they would have to I don't believe that I don't believe
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that for one second then what you really do I put words in your mind but aren't you painting a picture then of Russia
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being effectively infallible here they can do what the hell they
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like my point to you is that if the Russians are losing in Ukraine and
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Ukraine and the West are winning the Russians I believe will initiate nuclear
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use in Ukraine and they will do that not only because they think they are facing
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an existential threat but also because they will not fear nuclear retaliation
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from the West what if President Biden or Trump whoever it may be in charge at the time what if they preempt this by saying
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if in that eventuality of Russia starting to lose the war and it's a big if by the way we clarify by that but if
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they were if they were to preempt it preemptively say as president of the United States warn Russia if you use a
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nuclear weapon we will help Ukraine defend itself with a nuclear weapon then
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aren't they putting in in the sand there a line of of deterrent which if it gets crossed everyone understands what
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happens isn't that the only way it actually works the only way a deterrent actually works is if the other side
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believes that you're going to use the same thing or worse but you're assuming that the other side
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which is the Russians in this case would believe that threat and I don't believe they would believe that threat well I
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think they have to I think if you're America you're going to have to want them to believe that threat you got to
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want them to believe you're serious otherwise I just cannot picture a situation where where Russia Unleashed a
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nuclear attack on a European country and America just doesn't respond in kind it
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would there's no deterrent there that's basically saying to pet you can use your nukes whenever you want against any
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country you like and we the great superpower of the world will just stand by and and let you do it and we may
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attack you conventionally but you know that is not going to be a like for like and that's not going to be a deterent is
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what I think if you're a member of NATO which Ukraine is not you have an article five
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guarantee and you are depending on the American nuclear turrent to provide
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security for you so if a NATO country is attacked with nuclear weapons there is
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some reasonable chance the United States will use nuclear weapons to defend that NATO country but Ukraine is not a member
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of NATO and uh Ukraine is not of great strategic importance to the United
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States and therefore the United States is not going to risk nuclear war to save
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Ukraine I mean it's that simple it wasn't a nuclear scenario but when you look at what happened with the first
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invasion of qwa by Saddam Hussein Kuwait was not a member of NATO and yet America
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immediately sent boots on the ground uh to repel Saddam from Kuwait uh I I'm not
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sure there's a massive difference between Kuwait and the influence of that
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to America and the west and Ukraine a massive Sovereign Democratic European
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country you know it's been invaded by illegally invaded by a nefarious power
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and America didn't hesitate to kick Saddam out of out of qwa there's a huge difference between
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these two scenarios there was no threat of nuclear war with regard I said it wasn't a nuclear situation the scenario
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that you're describing with regard to UK Ukraine involves nuclear
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weapons fully understand just what we're talking about here we're talking about nuclear weapons we're talking about
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nuclear war the United States of America does not take this threat lightly this
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is a threat of huge magnitude talking about getting possibly incinerated I
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think you misheard my what I said I deliberately said it I know it's not a nuclear situation the point being why
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should America defend Ukraine given it's not a NATO country uh and I I would say
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well nor was Kuwait a NATO country but America did send boots on the ground there to kick out Saddam Hussein
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ideologically what is the difference actually between defending Kuwait against Saddam and defending Ukraine
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against Vladimir Putin however you end up doing it we're just not talking about
Putin likely to win
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defending Ukraine and defending Kuwait we're talking about using nuclear weapons we're talking about nuclear war
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we're talking about the possibility of getting incinerated this is not our matter one should take lightly and you
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only use nuclear weapons under the most extreme circumstances the United States
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would only use nuclear weapons if its survival was threatened and the idea that the Russians conquering Ukraine or
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dropping a nuclear weapon on Ukraine threatens their survival and therefore should precipitate a nuclear war is I
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think not a smart argument the fact is that if the Russians were to use nuclear
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weapons the United States would not respond by precipitating a general nuclear war then Putin wins
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right Putin might win that's right and you want to remember that if you
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look at what's happening in the conventional War it looks like Putin's going to win despite the fact that we've
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now passed this largescale arms package for Ukraine Putin is likely to win why
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is that not a terrible thing for America and the
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West because you have to prioritize the threats that you face in the world and the fact of the matter is that what
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happens in Ukraine does not matter that much to the United States I know for people like you this is a life and death
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matter the thought of any country uh on the planet that the West defends uh
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losing is a major defeat and has catastrophic consequences I mean you
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felt this way about us pulling out of Afghanistan but I think that places like
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Afghanistan even places like Ukraine don't matter that much on that I didn't really I I felt with Afghanistan America
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should have kept a small military presence there to maintain some kind of order and I think I was justified in in
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saying that given what's happened since I thought throwing the the country back to the Taliban was a catastrophic error
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of judgment and it wouldn't have happened in the way it's happened if America kept a couple of thousand troops there as it does All Around the World in
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Endless bases so it seemed to me having done you know many many years of hard work in Afghanistan as a response to
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9/11 to then simply just overnight throw everybody out uh and leave the country
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to the Taliban particularly for women's rights never mind anything else I thought was an abrogation of America's Duty and the
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UK right but this is your world view which is the United States has a responsibility to be everywhere uh and
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everywhere they should certainly be preserving freedom and democracy otherwise why why self style yourself as
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leader of the Free World you either are leader of the Free World and America still has I think half the world's military uh Firepower uh and obviously
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one of the biggest economies you either are that that entity leader of the Free
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World or you're not and if you are then what comes with that is a responsibility to protect freedom and democracy when it
Morality of dropping atomic bomb in WW2
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comes under attack from totalitarian regimes I would
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think I think if you look at the history of American foreign policy it's very hard to make the case that our principal
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goal has to been to protect freedom and democracy the United States has a rich
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history of overthrowing uh democracies around the world and we have a rich history of
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siding with some of the world's uh biggest dictators so this idea that we're out there protecting freedom and
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democracy and it's our principal goal uh in my opinion doesn't mesh with reality
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let me ask you about the morality of nuclear weapons Tucker Carlson was on Joe Rogan's podcast this week and said
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that he believed um that it was effectively immoral evil that the Allied
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powers of World War II were not justified in dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed over
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200,000 civilians uh what where do you sit with the morality of this is it ever
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Justified morally to deploy nuclear
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weapons well I think that if you use nuclear weapons to effectively murder
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huge numbers of civilian uh you know you're C you're committing a
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war crime I personally believe that uh the firebombing of Japan which took
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place before we dropped those uh nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
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here you want to remember peers that we killed more people the first night we firebomb Tokyo than we killed at either
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Hiroshima or Nagasaki so we were murdering huge numbers of Japanese civilians well before we dropped those
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nuclear weapons uh I think it's a war crime and I believe Curtis L said to Robert mcem at the time they were both
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uh with 20th Air Force in the Pacific that uh if we lost the War uh they would
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be tried at the next set of nurg Trials so I think it was a war crime uh but
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what happens when countries get into desperate Straits and we felt we were in Desperate Straits at the time because we
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did not want to invade the Japanese home Islands we thought that the casualties would be huge uh we thought it was
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appropriate to uh drop those bombs on Japan uh and I think that the people who
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did it were fully aware that they were killing massive numbers of civilians that this was effectively a war crime
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but I think they believe that the ends Justified the means if if by dropping those bombs as most you know experts
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would would say was the case you prevented potentially million Millions more people being killed including many
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more civilians than died in those two bomb attacks is that not moral justification for doing it in the sense
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of yes it's horrendous yes the loss of civilian life is appalling uh and
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unprecedented but it will save maybe five 10 times as many civilians getting
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killed in the longer run as this war goes on you can make that argument for sure
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and many people made it at the time uh I understand understand the argument full well but I think the fact of the matter
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is you are still murdering huge numbers of civilians and uh if you think
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murdering I think we probably murdered about 900,000 civilians between March
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10th 1945 and mid August 1945 if you think murdering 900,000
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civilians is Justified because uh in the long run it will save more lives you
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could make that argument but again I still think it's committing a war crime yeah I mean if you categorize it all
28:00
civilian deaths in a in a war like that as murder you're effectively saying that every one of those deaths is a crime I
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would not argue that what the Allies did in response to what the Nazis and the Japanese were doing was a crime
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necessarily they were responding to an existential threat to the world including mass murder of civilians as we
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saw the Holocaust so a response is not is not necessarily murder is it it's
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effectively self-defense the question you have to ask yourself is
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whether or not you think because the Nazis were committing genocide because
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the Nazis were committing mass murder in Europe that that justifies bombing
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German cities and purposely killing huge numbers of civilians uh do you think
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that lets you off the hook that's the argument you're making you're saying that because the Germans were so
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horrible we were allowed to be horrible ourselves but we weren't as horrible as
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the Germans and furthermore we were doing this in self-defense that's the argument you're making and what I'm
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saying is I understand that there are strategic imperatives for killing
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civilians right this is why we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear
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weapons we thought that it made good strategic sense and that it would save American lives especially those GIS who
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would have to invade the Japanese home Islands but I still still think that that is a case of war crimes and uh and
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I think that to use your rhetoric uh lets us off the hook how does any
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country defend itself from an existential threat like the Nazis then by your by your categorization without
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committing war crimes well if you look at how the
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Soviets who were basically responsible for defeating the Nazis uh in world War
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II uh they did not commit many war crimes in the process of defeating the
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Vermont it was basically a ground war where the Soviets uh uh the Red Army
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rolled up the Vermont there were no bombing of cities there were no dropping of nuclear weapons now there's no
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question that there was a lot of rape and pillaging especially at the end uh as the Red Army moved into Germany but
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aside from that this was not u a uh
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purposeful campaign to murder huge numbers of civilians so you can fight a
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war on the ground involving two armies that basically avoids uh the problem of bombing cities
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and murdering huge numbers of civilians what if what if the Nazis are bombing
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cities as they were what do you mean I'm
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not the Battle of Britain the blitz I mean if they're going to send over bombers and just attack cities in the
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way that they did how do you defend yourself without committing war crimes by your by your
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assessment well the British defended themselves with fighter aircraft the RAF
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fended off uh the LT vaa and won the Battle of Britain the the RAF the
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British did not commit War war crimes uh to defeat the liwa in the Battle of
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Britain uh there's no question that the RAF uh at different points in the war
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purposely targeted German cities and purposely tried uh to murder large
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numbers of British civilians you know the story of bomber Harris for sure but
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uh that's not what happened in the Battle of Britain and my only point is if you talk about what bomber Harris did
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and the RAF did against German cities this was a war crime they were purposely bombing working class areas in German
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cities because that they believed would maximize that strategy would maximize
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the number of civilians well it wasn't as simple as that were they because they were deliberately targeting industrial cities in the main which were being used
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to build Munitions as well so there was a legitimate reason to Target these but that was the case in many cases that's
Is John positive about the future of mankind?
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not true yes it is no but no I mean what happened was that the
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British quickly found out and this is what happened to us when we bombed Japan
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we quickly found out that bombing economic and Military targets didn't work I could walk you through the story
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about the bombing of Japanese cities like Tokyo it just it didn't work and the reason we turned to bombing
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civilians to killing civilians when we bombed Japan and this was true with regard to bomber Harris is that bombing
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economic targets didn't work let me I found this conversation as always
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fascinating Professor mam I love having you on um it's been quite a downbeat interview I have to say for obvious
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reasons are you positive about the future of mankind or are you are you selling at this
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stage I I'm quite pessimistic about the future of international politics uh I
33:22
think if you look at what's going on in Ukraine and you just think about the conversation that you and I were having
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it's heart to think that the future doesn't look as depressing as the present and the recent past with regard
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to Ukraine if you look at the Middle East I mean I see no hope there uh this
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terrible situation is just going to go on and on the Iran Israel case that we talked about uh will pop up again in the
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future uh and if you look into the situation in East Asia what you see is
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that the US and the Chinese uh are engaged in this intense security competition where there's a real
33:59
possibility of a war in the future over Taiwan or the South China Sea or the East China Sea and then there are all
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sorts of other places you can look like the Korean Peninsula the border between India and China and it seems like
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there's no end of potential war or potential conflict uh between uh the
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major powers in the system and even the minor powers in the International System and then when you look inside States and
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you look at what's happening if you look at what's happening to Liberal democracy around the world it's not a pretty
34:32
picture look at the United States look at Britain uh two of the paradigmatic liberal democracies they're both in
34:39
serious trouble so I hate to say this but I find very few reasons to be
34:46
optimistic about the future and sometimes I think I'm glad that I was born after World War II and I lived you
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know most of my life uh in the uh uh 20th and 21st century because when I
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think about moving forward again doesn't look like a pretty picture well you failed to give me any positivity but I'm
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going to give you some because assuming the world doesn't end before the end of
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May there is a very high probability that my football team Arsenal will be
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Premier League champions before the world ends and that is a reason Professor to feel positive albe it in a
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small way if you're an Arsenal fan like me
35:31
H it's a very interesting perspective and it goes to show you how important
35:36
how important Sports is yeah for people uh in the modern world you know there
35:42
was a a great manager called Bill shankley who managed Liverpool Football Club and he said football is not a
35:48
matter of life or death it's far more important than that I kind of share that view and how ironic if the if the final
35:55
winners of the Premier League before the world was was was blew itself to Pieces uh was a club named Arsenal named after
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the woolage Arsenal military Munitions base in South London uh Professor M shim
36:08
brilliant to have you back on I love debating these things with you I always feel like I I learn a lot from our
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conversations and I hope you come back soon thank you very much you're welcome Pierce thank you
