Analysis of Middle East Conflict Dynamics

This war is being pushed by Israel with three

aims. One, its own regional hegemony, take

Iran off the map. You, you can't-- They don't have freedom of movement as

long as

Iran is a regional power.

Two,

diminishing the power of the GCC, the six Gulf states, which are a rival to

Israel and are becoming this kind of Switzerland of the Middle East,

and that's bad

for Israeli interests. And three, getting the US out of the Middle

East because we constrain their ambitions.

Getting our bases out, destroying our bases.

Israel wants our bases out of the Middle East.

I said this to Trump, to his face, in the Oval Office,

days before the war began.

And he looked at me and said, "Yes, you're right.

But in the end, we all die anyway, so it doesn't matter."

That's exactly what he said. "In the end, we all die anyway." And

I said to him, shocked,

"But what about our kids and our grandkids and, like, our country?"

And he goes, "Ah." That's, that's a ver-

What does that mean?

That's a ver- I don't know. He didn't respond.

That's a verbatim exchange