Iranian Supreme Leader: Iran Will Destroy Israel! Major Cities Sink into Panic | John Mearsheimer

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]The United States can quit, but the Israelis and the Iranians may continue fighting. And again, as I said, the Iranians have a lot of cards to play here. They can do a lot of damage. So, even if we walk away, it's not clear that that solves the problem. And then again, where I started, the United States will look like it suffered a humiliating defeat. So, I think that President Trump has got himself into a situation where there is really no good exit strategy. Yeah, I I That's the way I see it. And I I I'm still completely baffled by, politically, never mind anything else, he thought this was a good time to take the biggest gamble he's ever taken, because he's got the midterms coming.

[00:00:43]You know, already he was looking like he might lose the house. He could lose the Senate over this. And then, that's pretty much it, you know, as a president, if you don't have any control of any part of Congress, there's not much you can do. You can fly a few executive orders around, but otherwise, you're extremely limited in your power.

[00:01:00]Uh and of course, the other irony of this, um is that Russia is already emerging as one of the big beneficiaries of what is going on, because the sanctions have been lifted. They're making uh enormous amounts of money uh from this, which could carry on the longer it goes on. Um and you got to look at it and say, how does a war you've launched against Iran that ends up with Russia benefiting with higher prices for its own uh stuff, degraded Western sanctions against it, and potential Chinese backing for new projects? How does any of that be a win for the United States?

[00:01:40]Well, it's not. But, to get to your initial point as to how he could have possibly got himself into this mess, I think it's very important to understand that he thought that the Iranian regime was very vulnerable. It was very weak.

[00:01:57]>> And that the United States could cause it to topple with great ease. You want to remember that before the war, when we moved the armada into the Middle East, uh Steve Witcoff has told us that President Trump was surprised that the Iranians did not throw up their hands and surrender before the war started. In other words, President Trump expected the mere threat of force from this armada to cause Iran to surrender.

[00:02:30]And of course, that didn't happen. And then he went to war thinking just a little bit of military force on the first few days, uh this wouldn't be a long war. We would knock off the regime.

[00:02:43]Uh and uh I think that his success in Venezuela, where he was able to uh kidnap Maduro and put an end to that conflict very quickly, gave him additional confidence that he could in a sense float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

[00:02:59]>> Mhm. Uh but the fact is that that didn't happen. And again, once that doesn't happen, he's in a catastrophic situation.

[00:03:07]>> Mhm. But I don't think he thought for 1 second that that would happen. And again, that's why he could dismiss uh the Pentagon's warning that it was likely that the uh Iranians would shut down the strait. And furthermore, the warning that the Iranians would engage in horizontal escalation. They would not simply attack Israel, they would attack American assets in the Gulf, and they would attack the Gulf states themselves.

[00:03:35]He just didn't see this coming. But once it came, he's in a mess that I don't see how he gets out of. Yeah.

[00:03:43]Why should anybody believe that? The Iranians have denied it a numerous times.

[00:03:50]A- And denied it uh after the president spoke. Yes. And said that there have been uh no contacts, direct or indirect, and no negotiations.

[00:04:03]Of course, uh it's possible that uh there have been some contacts. It is impossible that there has been a resolution of major issues, impossible.

[00:04:19]Um And if this turns out to be completely false, which is at least one possibility, I think we have to consider the possibility that the president has really lost touch with reality.

[00:04:37]Um something is seriously wrong.

[00:04:40]We'll find out soon enough.

[00:04:43]Um Again, it there's a sliver of chance that it's true, but none of it rings true.

[00:04:53]Uh the Iranians have been saying very clearly in the last few days there are no negotiations. They have stipulated their terms very explicitly uh that the US must leave its uh military bases in the Gulf region. I must end its aggression unilaterally, must pay reparations.

[00:05:19]Um these aims have been uh uh very clearly articulated and officially articulated uh after the president's statement, I all of it was denied by the Iranians, which is would be unusual if indeed there was some kind of progress.

[00:05:41]Uh So, this is uh extraordinary. It's a little hard to uh guess definitively at this moment for us, and I don't want to make a definitive judgment, but if in fact this is as empty as as it may well be, I think it raises questions about the president's mental soundness. This is not a tactic. This is delusional and very dangerous. So, we will see shortly what what this really means, but it could mean something about the president's state of mind. I'm going to deviate from Iran for just a moment because of some other breaking news.

[00:06:23]Perhaps the most extreme member of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet, his Treasury Minister Bezalel Smotrich, uh just announced, speaking for the Netanyahu government, that they wish to annex southern Lebanon and make it part of Israel.

[00:06:44]Well, this is also in line with um clear statements also by the US ambassador Mike Huckabee that Israel can claim the territories that it likes.

[00:06:59]The Israeli government is a fascist regime.

[00:07:03]It knows only violence. It also very much calls into question uh Trump's assertions right now because it also stated uh in this context that it was continuing its attacks on Iran. Uh so, if you add these things up, it seems to me that um we both have a continuing war that is leading to World War and perhaps a president that has lost touch with reality.

[00:07:37]Back to Iran, Uh, Professor Sachs. What has been the geopolitical reaction in national capitals around the world to Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump's war of choice?

[00:07:55]Uh, it is viewed uh catastrophically all over the world. Uh, there is no question in anybody's mind uh anybody that this is a war of naked aggression by two uh uh individuals uh I would add parenthetically two mentally unstable individuals. Uh, this is not a war where people debate uh well, is this Iran doing this? Is this uh America Israel doing this? It's very clearly understood that this is a war of naked aggression without any justification whatsoever. Um Interestingly, it seems to be strongly supported within Israel, which is a country uh absolutely uh under a complete uh wall of propaganda now and censorship.

[00:09:00]Uh, the Israeli public uh is uh it seems that these opinion surveys so would say 91 support 91% support for the war are are correct and I suspect them to be. Uh, it is a war of a kind of fascist uh uh territorial expansion and hegemony by Israel that the United States has joined that has turned disastrous that the world understands could lead to imminent calamity.

[00:09:37]I think uh perhaps uh Again, I'm I'm not a psychiatrist to understand Trump, but it could be that he has been warned and seen over the last hours that his actions have led the world to the brink of catastrophe.

[00:09:57]And so he pulled back. I mean Asia the Asian stock markets collapsed today. Of course energy prices soared today.

[00:10:07]And maybe Trump saw that coming and again, while I'm not a psychiatrist to analyze this, Trump perhaps is unable to fashion any statement in which his actions are called into question.

[00:10:26]And so he has fashioned a a delusion which would explain his backing off which he senses needs to be done.

[00:10:37]Again, we'll know soon enough and then more competent people than I could diagnose what has really happened. But given the Israeli intention to fight, given the Israeli continued attacks on Tehran, given Tehran's statements, given the war intentions that Tehran has stated in the last 2 days, it all seems to add up to a a delusional statement by Mr. Trump.

[00:11:12]Why would um the US have failed so miserably to think through the impact of the bombings?

[00:11:24]Why could they so horribly miscalculate thinking, "Oh, we'll kill the Ayatollah, we'll bomb some buildings in Tehran, and there'll be a spontaneous uprising and liberal democracy uh will uh will flourish. Is this the nonsense that Netanyahu and Mossad fed to Trump?

[00:11:45]What we're seeing is a a collapse of American governance.

[00:11:51]Uh not only the assertions of power by the president that he doesn't have, not only the unconstitutional order, but a collapse of thought.

[00:12:02]Uh this is true not only in the instance of this war, it's true pretty much across the board.

[00:12:10]There is no thinking going on. Look at how the world was engaged in Trump's upheaval of the trading system in the past year, which uh produced a catastrophic end to job creation, uh did not touch the uh the trade deficit, of course, because it's illogically unconnected, took $150 billion from the American people, and then was deemed to be simply illegal.

[00:12:43]Uh well, from the beginning, and we talked about it, none of those actions made any economic sense. They were without substance from a policy point of view. Uh you had uh people of extraordinary ignorance uh pushing these policies. You did not have a process. There was no review.

[00:13:10]There was no uh public discussion. There was no congressional uh process and hearings to assess these issues. These were decisions made by Trump and a few incompetent people around them. So, it wasn't only the assertion of non-constitutional or extra-constitutional authority, it was without a process that one would deem to be rational in any sense whatsoever or knowledgeable. If you think about this war, this is a war chosen by Trump, Hegseth, perhaps Whitcoff and Kushner, who knows.

[00:13:59]This is not from all that we know a war based on deliberation on the intelligence agency reports. Mr. Kent has made that very clear. So, what we're seeing here is not only an unconstitutional assertion of power, we're seeing a complete and utter breakdown of competence of normal process, even of rational review of options, discussions, and possible consequences.

[00:14:35]So, I believe that this is not only a constitutional crisis, it's a crisis of the most minimal kinds of competence. I happen to be in China now and listen to proceedings about China's state of economic strategy. It is detailed, it is thorough, it is forward-looking, it is based on 2 years of systematic deliberation. I was with the many of China's leading academics in the past day, top scholars, very brilliant people who have been part detailed processes of review, debate, and deliberation.

[00:15:27]Whatever else one wants to say, the United States has no such process at all right now in any sphere of governance.

[00:15:38]We are not only in one person rule, we are not only in an end of our constitutional order, we are in a state of complete incompetence. And this is why the most basic points of what could happen day-to-day with the actions that are being ordered are not even being considered systematically.

[00:16:03]Or if objections are raised by the CIA or others as was reported or by the DNI, they're not taken into account by the small gang that is I was going to say running things, but they're not running things, things are running them. So, this is why the most basic points are not even considered and perhaps it's even worse than I'm saying. Perhaps the state of delusion the president is even more extreme than we are considering right now. I I don't know, I'm not guaranteeing that, but if it turns out that Trump's statements are false, then I think we have a even another uh uh order of magnitude crisis on our hands that needs to be faced squarely.

[00:16:59]Uh this may help convince you about the soundness or unsoundness uh of his of his thinking.

[00:17:09]Uh here is CNN questioning him about who's going to be in control of the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:17:16]Watch this. Thank you.

[00:17:17]>> What about the Strait of Hormuz? Who's going to be in control of that? That will be opened up very soon if this works.

[00:17:22]>> How soon?

[00:17:23]And who's going to be in control of it?

[00:17:25]Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil?

[00:17:27]It'll be a jointly controlled.

[00:17:30]By whom?

[00:17:31]Maybe me.

[00:17:32]Maybe me.

[00:17:33]>> United States be able to Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah. Look, and there'll also be a form of a a very serious form of a regime change. Now, in all fairness, everybody's been killed from the regime.

[00:17:49]They really started off. There's automatically a regime change. But we're dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid.

[00:17:59]Uh the people within know who they are.

[00:18:01]They're very respected.

[00:18:03]And maybe one of them will be exactly what we're looking for. Look at Venezuela, how well that's working out.

[00:18:13]Wow.

[00:18:15]Something is >> Maybe me and the Ayatollah will run the Strait of Hormuz. This is really crazy.

[00:18:24]Something may may literally be uh dire and and off on all of this. Uh again, we're used to Trump lying every time he moves his lips. We're used to wild statements and contradictions.

[00:18:44]Uh but something uh seems even more diluted and more bizarre today than in the past because uh the policies have failed, clearly. Uh what we saw over the weekend was not only uh Iran's credible deterrent to Trump's threat, but missile barrages hitting Israel with no evidence of an Iron Dome even approaching the missiles as they were coming into several sites in Israel.

[00:19:24]So the situation could be very dire on the ground as well as I leading to a a break in the president's mind attachment to reality. Again, time will tell. Maybe there's an explanation for all of this, but it's not very easy to see. Certainly Trump is not going to be running the Strait of Hormuz with the Ayatollah.

[00:19:55]So these statements are these statements are utterly absurd. I utterly meaningless beyond Trump's normal confabulations in the middle of a war that threatens the world. And I just want to ask where are the senators?

[00:20:21]Are there grown-ups in Washington left?

[00:20:24]Is there a single other than Rand Paul who I think we all should utterly respect.

[00:20:32]Are there any senators in the Republican Party that are adults that are watching this and thinking that I the state of our republic and the world are on the line and that this is somehow normal and and to be lived with this way. Is there anyone that can possibly imagine at this moment that the right way to approach this issue is that our negotiators are Mr. Whitcoff and Mr. Kushner at this state of affairs in the world.

[00:21:10]And that uh the president who is probably completely confabulating uh says, "Oh, there are people we're talking to. They're good people. They're they're terrific people." without naming names because he's probably making it up on the spot.

[00:21:27]It could be a profound psychological defense reaction.

[00:21:31]Who knows?

[00:21:33]But are there any grown-ups in Washington Very very any responsibility for us?

[00:21:41]Very few. I think the Republicans are are terrified of him.

[00:21:45]>> [clears throat] >> Whereas in reality >> terrifying? He's he's a if it's as it seems that we're in a his state of delusion, isn't more terrifying than letting this run its course? Of course it is.

[00:22:02]>> What what is what is what are people so afraid of to find out what is true and what is not true and what is really happening and who is making who is making decisions and why it is that the deputy of the director of national intelligence uh directly contradicted the president and that the only responses that the FBI starts to investigate him rather than asking serious questions before we are all done in by delusion?

[00:22:39]So, please, somebody must be an adult in Washington somewhere in the Republican Party.

[00:22:45]Honestly.

[00:22:47]Let me ask you a a question involving your economic expertise. What's the fate of the petrodollar after this?

[00:22:58]I should start by saying that to my mind a petrodollar, that means the invoicing of of oil in dollars or renminbi or another currency is actually not the main point, although it's a very frequent meme these days on the internet that that the American strength comes from the fact oil is denominated in US dollars.

[00:23:31]This is not exactly true.

[00:23:35]It's even not remotely true.

[00:23:38]The United States economy depends on its productivity, its workers, its technology, its physical production base, and whether oil is denominated in oil in euros or renminbi or dollars honestly is of secondary significance.

[00:24:01]There's a bit of significance to it, but it is not the major point. The major point of this war is that we have a profound supply crisis of oil and gas that I is escalating because it's not only the blockage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz that is impeding oil and gas reaching world markets, but the physical destruction of the oil and gas fields and of the pipelines and of the refineries.

[00:24:41]I spoke with one political leader just a few hours ago in Beijing, a very experienced international leader who said to me Jeffrey, I dealt with the the physical infrastructure uh of oil and gas in my country, you should know how hard it is to build these refineries and this physical facility these physical facilities and how long uh and arduous will be the repairs from them. This is what threatens to push the world economy into a profound crisis. This is why the stock markets collapsed in Asia uh today. This is why I believe uh Trump confabulated uh in his mind a solution to a crisis that he had gotten the whole world into when he had to come up with something that somehow solved his ego uh after having made a catastrophic error. Again, little bit amateur psychology, time will tell, but the fact of the matter is it's not exactly the denomination of uh a physical flow into this currency or that currency. There are secondary effects. I don't want to deny it, but the principal strength of an economy comes from what we produce with what technologies, with what skilled labor, and those are long-term investment uh those result from long-term investments, and this is where everything about Trump is a disaster for the American people because we're not making any long-term investments in our country. Everything is the most short-term gimmicks, whether it his stealing a hundred fifty billion dollars from our pockets for his illegal tariffs, or this war that somebody has rightly called not a war of choice, but a war of whim that is taking place. None of this has to do with economic well-being, which is why he was ostensibly supported by his voters to help improve their living standards.

[00:27:03]Nothing is going to help that, and that would depend on us not having broken roads and airports that don't function anymore, and government that shut down half the time, and breakdown of our physical infrastructure all over the country. That's his job, not starting wars of whim that can bring down the whole world economy. Well, thank you for that explanation. I'm going to read you a few more one-liners, which I think you'll say reinforce your view about the rapidity with which he lies. The reporter asks, we don't have this on tape, but I have the transcript. If the war is ending as you claim, do you still need 200 billion?

[00:27:52]Oh, it's always nice to have.

[00:27:56]Reporter, who is Steve Witkoff speaking with in Iran? Trump, a top person.

[00:28:00]Reporter, who is it?

[00:28:02]Trump, I can't. I don't want them to be killed.