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Hours after we spoke to Johns Hopkins Professor of Advanced International Studies Vali Nasr, Israel killed multiple Iranian military officials in a strike against “Iranian nuclear sites.” Both Israel and the United States threatened “even more brutal” attacks to come.

Professor Nasr explains why Israel benefits from attacking Iran, why they can’t do it without US assistance and consent, and how Iran will respond in the coming days.

Useful Idiots: Are you expecting some sort of military strike from Israel against Iran?

Professor Vali Nasr: I don't think Israel is actually able to take out Iran's nuclear facilities on its own without US assistance. It could perhaps hit Iran and then hope the Iranians would retaliate and then bring the United States into a war with Iran. But even in order to get to Iran, Israel cannot surprise the US. It has to go through US radar lines. This idea that Israel would attack Iran on its own without telling the United States, without US cooperation or US support, is just not credible.

Useful Idiots: From Iran's perspective, can you explain why enrichment is a red line? Why they insist on what they see as their right to enrich and how they would respond to an argument from the outside saying, ‘Why can't you meet your energy needs through some other means that doesn't include enrichment, which could put you one day on the path to a nuclear weapon?’

Professor Nasr: They view it as an inherent right. To say that Iran does not have a right to enrich is basically singling out Iran as a special case in the international community. There are other signatories to the non-proliferation treaty agreement, which also enriched uranium. So the Iranians are basically saying, ‘We're happy to give you inspections, we're happy to be transparent with the inspections, but this is an inherent right.’

Secondly, the Iranians have spent billions of dollars over two decades building essentially an industrial capacity enrichment program. And it's now very much embedded in Iran's economy with tons of companies, businesses, et cetera, tied to it.

And thirdly, I think they believe that if they gave up enrichment, the United States would not abide by any deal that is signed. They have zero trust in the US, particularly given that this is the very president who walked away from the previous deal. What guarantee do they have that after they gave up all of their enrichment that any country will supply them with their fuel? And then the United States says, ‘OK, we took everything out of Iran. Now let's renege on the deal like last time, reimpose maximum pressure sanctions on them, and then go after the regime.’

So for varieties of reasons, they don't think it's a good idea to give up the right to enrich. And that's their red line.

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Subscribe to hear the full interview with Professor Vali Nasr on the validity of the claim that Iran’s aim is to destroy Israel, whether Iranian tensions would cease if Palestinians were freed from Israeli occupation, and the true nature of Iran’s relationship with Russia and China.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Claims No One Wants to Protest His Birthday Parade (but threatens them just in case)

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News alert not in our Thursday Throwdown: Our guest Thiago Ávila, who was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, has been forced into solitary confinement by Israel. He is reportedly on Day 3 of a hunger strike in a "small, dark, airless, and contactless cell." Hear him speak last month about why he's risking his life for Gaza. We will give updates on his condition as soon as we have them.

We hope you’re not busy on Saturday because it’s the Big Blowout Military Birthday Celebration Extravaganza Parade to proclaim the 79th birthday of King Donald Trump! There will be no protesters at the event, announced Trump, but if there are (which there won’t be), he plans to use “heavy force” against them. (But it won’t be a problem, because no one would protest his birthday parade.)

This is the gist of Trump’s comments at a press conference this week, as news reports show a rising number of people plan to participate in the “No Kings” protest on Saturday. Trump pretended he wasn’t aware of these protests while also warning illegal and violent action against them.

In this episode, we discuss the political theory that it is better to have a wolf in wolves’ clothing than a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as with the former we can be more prepared for violence. Whether or not this theory is valid, one thing is certain: we are in the era of wolves.

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Protests have been the main news story this week, as anti-ICE protests surge in Los Angeles against the deportation of undocumented immigrants and anti-genocide protests rise against the US’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians. Republicans, the so-called “anti-cancel culture” “pro-free speech” crew, have taken aggressive steps to crack down on dissent, from Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna trying to ban the Code Pink activists from the Capitol to AG Pam Bondi suing a Palestinian-owned coffee shop for having a drink named after a slain Hamas leader.

Sounds like snowflake behavior to us.

But don’t worry liberal media, we make fun of you too, and so much more. It’s a jam-packed Thursday Throwdown. Don’t miss this one.

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Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

On this week’s show, you’re getting two scoops.

It’s a Useful Idiots double header, with former CIA Agent Barry Eisler, who left the CIA to become a spy-thriller novelist (get his latest book The System at barryeisler.com), and Ben & Jerry’s Cofounder Ben Cohen, who was arrested recently for interrupting RFK Jr.’s congressional testimony to protest US funding of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

First, Barry Eisler explains his role as a covert operative in the CIA, and the truth it taught him about American tribalist politics.

I spent three years in a covert position in the CIA. It taught me a lot about the culture and machinations of the U.S. government and what some call the deep state. And it became great fodder for a guy who then went on to become a full-time thriller writer.

What I found there is in some ways a microcosm of tribalism politics in America. And it's this.

A lot of people think, ‘oh, is it a bunch of liberals there? Or is it a bunch of conservatives?’ But the fundamental, underlying, and much more meaningful political culture in the CIA is the belief that ‘Hey, America is a force for good in the world. And everything we do, whether it's traditional espionage or shading off into coups or even invasions and occupations, that's all just to make the world a better place.’

It's that more fundamental thing where they really believe that America is a force for good in the world and that our mistakes are just innocent mistakes, rather than something much more nefarious.

Subscribe for the full interview with Barry Eisler, where we discuss Russiagate from a CIA perspective, watch Palantir’s Alex Karp let slip that his AI kills people, and the connection Barry’s spy thrillers have to Aaron’s nonfiction writing.

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Next we talk to Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s.

After disrupting a Senate testimony from RFK Jr. to protest US funding of weapons for Israel’s mass assault on Gaza, he was hauled out by police and arrested. He explains why he did it:

Everybody has their breaking point. I was reading about the slaughter of all these innocent children in Gaza. And then I read another article in the paper about another outbreak of lead poisoning in Milwaukee. Lead poisoning creates irreversible brain damage and there's nothing you can do about it.

And we know how to prevent it! It's chipping lead paint and lead in plumbing pipes and we could fix it, for a minuscule five percent of the Pentagon budget!

And so those two things: we’re making a conscious decision to provide the bombs as a gift to Israel that they use to kill kids in Gaza. And we're kicking kids off Medicaid and not preventing lead poisoning, an easily preventable permanent disease.

So I said, I’ve got to make my voice heard. I’ve got to take the most serious action that a citizen can take, which is an act of civil disobedience. And so that's what I did.

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Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Ukraine Proxy Warriors Have Second Thoughts about WWIII

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