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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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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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In March 2023, Ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg told Congress that it's the "acme of professionalism" to use Ukraine to fight Russia because that "takes a strategic adversary off the table" without "using any US troops."

He’s now Trump’s special envoy to Russia and Ukraine. And he’s changing his tune:

“Risk levels are going way up,” he said this week after Ukraine carried out drone strikes on four Russian airfields. “When you attack the Russian nuclear triad, the risk level goes up.”

And he’s right: according to President Trump, Putin said on a phone call this week that “he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.” This new risk, on top of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed so far, is making hawkish proxy warriors regret their provocation.

 

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This week’s Thursday Throwdown showcases hypocrisy, lies, and regrets all across the media spectrum: Republicans are now admitting that the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that “wouldn’t touch Medicaid” will, in fact, cut Medicaid. Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL (short for Apartheid Defense League) said the quiet part out loud, insisting that social media companies should remove anyone who doesn’t support Israel. An embarrassing Fox News guest thinks he’s funny when singing a song about how he doesn’t like children’s educator Ms. Rachel. And former Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is the latest to jump ship from the Democratic Party, announcing she is now an Independent.

Everything’s terrible and everything’s ridiculous. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.

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