The Gulf States Want Israel’s Victory - w/ American-Israeli Strategist Joel C.Rosenberg

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:03]Joel, how are you?

[00:00:05]>> I'm doing well. Good to see you.

[00:00:07]>> Uh, pleasure, man. I uh, yeah, I'm I'm looking forward for this conversation. We're in a very different place now to what we were last time we spoke and uh, we had a great discussion last time about the war. One, you know, my position. I'm very critical of the war. Not a fan of the of the Iranian regime, but also don't think a war is the solution. And we had that back and forth before. We're in a position right now where Trump, from what I see, maybe you disagree, Trump is trying to offramp. Trump wants to walk away. The impact on the global economy has been been been more than than anyone would like to see. The munition stockpiles in the US are depleted, but Iran, I'm not saying they want to go back to war, but they do seem a lot more emboldened.

[00:00:47]Their requests in the negotiations now, they want to delay negotiating the nuclear program. Um, they want to control the straight of Hum. And these are like the non-negotiable demands and and um what else do they have?

[00:01:00]Non-aggression, etc. The rest is expected. But these are the two big points. They want to try to get some assets unfrozen, but that's part of the nuclear program negotiations. But they they're in a position where I'm worried now. I was very optimistic before when Trump was making those crazy statements.

[00:01:14]I started I was one of the few that like, all right, guys, it looks like he's going to offramp. I don't think he went insane like some people are saying.

[00:01:20]But now I've kind of I'm not as optimistic as I was back then because I feel like Iran is twisting his arms so much that he may not not have a choice but to continue this economic warfare and if it doesn't work may need to resort to u a kinetic strike again.

[00:01:37]Yeah. Well, I think there's uh that's that's well framed. Um and I think there's a few things. First of all, I think you know obviously you and I have a different view. I I think that uh well on this part I think you and I would agree which is President Trump does not have an itchy trigger finger and I I think he deserves credit that he has really tried to negotiate with Iran last year uh for 60 days and got nowhere and then because of the strikes last summer thought okay well that you know they get it they they they'll understand now that I'm serious so let's let's make a deal and uh and it didn't work. Um and but now I think what's happened is I think Trump is satisfied that he's done as much as he needs to do kinetically uh in terms of military attack. I'm not saying there aren't more targets. There are um and but but he shifted to this blockade um which I think is very uh was very unexpected. I mean, I didn't hear anybody um predicting that that Trump would actually use the blockade. It was all that Iran was going to use the the straight of foreign moves to its advantage. And I think uh Trump uh flipped the script. Uh that has led me to two other real quick things. I've been super impressed by the uh United Arab Emirates. Uh first of all, the Emirates defense of itself, its missile defense um of missiles, of rockets, of suicide drones. Uh you know, you guys there got twice as many attacks as we did here in Israel. And the Emirates shot down about 95% of it. And >> you guys, by Israel sent an iron dome.

[00:03:23]You saw the reports. Yeah. And boots on the ground here. You see the >> report? Well, that's right. I mean I that this is something that I think is fascinating that it's emerged uh into the light which is that um uh president Emirati president Muhammad bin Zed or one of his team called uh Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said um we could use some help. Would you send over one of your Iron Dome systems? And it's not like we didn't need every single one here in Israel. But I think that's that is a sign of just how close we are. But also, none of us in Israel, and I don't think anyone in the United States, you know, outside of people who have intelligence uh clearance, understood how advanced the Emirates uh missile and rocket defense system already was. Like, that's just super impressive because you guys could have been a smoldering wreckage if if they hadn't taken that and and nobody had seen it tested, right? Israel's had this test over and over and over again for the last, you know, as long as I can, you know, 20 years or more. So, that was very impressive. also that the Emirates have an oil pipeline that I didn't I didn't know. I mean, I'm I don't think it was clandestine or anything, but that could move oil from its uh you know, one shore over to the other side of the Gulf without having to put all the oil on on ships. That was interesting. And also that the Saudis had missile defenses that could shoot most things down. And that they've got a pipeline that takes oil to the Red Sea from the Gulf. All that has been very impressive and um and I think the the how the United States, Israel, the Emirates and the Saudis have worked together. I would say Bahrain as well. They're not as big a player, but they certainly host uh the America's fifth fleet. So, they've done an amazing job. And they were not, you know, they're not a smoldering wreckage either. So, this is good. But I think here's the tactical thing that the Iranians are working on at this moment.

[00:05:15]They are watching to see why should they capitulate if the Democrats in Congress are able to maybe pull over some Republicans and stop Trump u under the War Powers Act. Now, I don't think that applies, but I understand it's a reasonable case and it has to get uh you know adjudicated as it were. Um, if if Congress stops Trump from being able to use military force, this will be a huge victory actually for the Iranians. I uh so I hope that does not happen. I I'm not saying what war necessarily, but uh >> quick question on that. Do you know what are the odds of that happening? I haven't looked into it. I haven't it's not something I did a deep dive into.

[00:06:02]What are the like what's the likelihood of it passing? Yeah, my understanding is I think there's been five votes so far and they they've gained a little bit of progress each way. I I didn't read the last one, but I'm saying that you already had uh Rand Paul uh a Republican voting with the Democrats. Now, right now, it's hard for me to picture a Republican that would turn against the president. I mean, that that they would really be uh that would be a political suicide act. Um and and based on what?

[00:06:31]so that the Iranians can hold on to their whatever enriched uranium they have there at Pickax Mountain or in Fordo or Isvahan like what like this job is close to being done. I don't think it is done. I would I would like to see the economic pressure be what what causes the Iranian regime such that it is uh to make a a deal in its own benefit um and not have to war. But um >> I think the terms that we >> and the United States is ready if they have to go back uh into kinetic operations.

[00:07:06]>> I agree on this one. I think where we will disagree on what terms the US should accept. I think you your terms will be pretty look I think Trump should walk away if they accept to um limit their nuclear program something similar to JCPOA. He may need something a bit more to declare a win um and a limit on their control of the shadow of hummus.

[00:07:26]These are the two terms that I think Trump should walk away. I think your demands will be a bit more because you'd want to limit their um ballistic missile program, for example. That'll probably be a big one. I know you prefer a regime change, but you know, we can we can dismiss that right now considering where we are.

[00:07:40]>> Yeah. I Well, as as I said to you on the program before, um I would love to see regime change, but I don't believe it should have been and it is not an actual objective of this. to create the conditions for regime change has been objective and I think they've done as you know the US and Israel has done as well as they could possibly do. I think I would say um I do think uh the United States should hold out for Iran promising not to build long range missiles medium range depending on the range but I mean for for defensive purposes like I I don't blame any country for having defensive you know anti-aircraft you know defensive whatever you know but clearly it has used its longer range missiles not only to attack the Emirates and the Saudis and the Bahrainis and the Qataris, that was a surprise, and almost everybody else in the region, including Israel.

[00:08:35]But the longer the longest range missiles we've seen, you know, they had always told us they didn't have anything more than 2,000 uh kilometers, and they obviously shot at Diego Garcia, which is almost 4,000 km away.

[00:08:48]>> But there could have I I spoke I spoke to an expert on that. It might have been, we can't know for sure, but it might have been the same missile, but they made it a lot lighter, changed the warhead, might have not had a warhead whatsoever to allow it to reach Diego Garcia. I think we'd agree. We no one none of us would want to see long range missiles for Iran. I think requesting Iran to have missiles that can't reach the Gulf as that they know this is their deterrent against aggression from a superpower like the US. I think that's unfair, unreasonable. Again, that's someone lives in the UAE that had those missiles or drones hit near near them.

[00:09:20]But I just think from a pragmatic perspective it's it's um it's it's just not not feasible or reasonable. I do have there's one area Joel I want to get your thoughts on is >> well let's just you also mentioned JCPOA. So let me just say um no there can be no enrichment Trump has come this far. There's no way he should capitulate on Iran being able to enrich. He had lit he had of course through Jared uh Kushner and Steve Woff multiple times said if you guys really want if Iran really wants peaceful civilian nuclear power then the United States will provide you know at a cost um the same thing that we do for the Emirates right the Emirates have a nuclear peaceful civilian power system and nobody has gone ballistic as it were over it. Why? because the United States literally brings in uh the the uranium fuel rods which are only enriched to like three and a half percent or so and then once they're spent we take them out and we replace them with new ones.

[00:10:19]That's how civilian power should be done in a country that threatens genocide against the United States and Israel. So I don't think Trump can and he won't uh capitulate on that and getting the the material that was in there before to getting that out of the country. But that's not much for Iran to say yes to and to have its ability to turn back on its economy. Uh so I think those are the minimums.

[00:10:48]>> H yeah cuz the JCPOA from what I understand it enriches to 3.6 or 3.7%.

[00:10:54]Now that might seem like a small number but that's the difficult part. Enriching above that is where it gets easier and easier exponentially easier. So this is why people like yourself think even that part they should not be allowed to do because that's a difficult part and getting to that part makes it easier to enrich further and get to a level where we got to today which is what they did after JCPOA >> because you're right you only need between three and 5% enrichment to get to civilian power and some medical isotopes and you know there's a few things that that are sort of normal but what Iran already now has is the experience not to mention the technology techology to go to 60% and 60% is just a week or two away from getting to 90% which is bond rate and you can make bombs by the way um out of 60% you can't make a warhead but you can make bombs that will you can put on a ship and blow up uh the Dubai harbor or the Tel Aviv you know Hifa harbors or whatever so so you so this is absolutely unacceptable um and I I would just add that Iran's, you know, language over all these years, decades now, has it that we don't intend this for for military purposes, then don't build it under a mountain. Don't build it with missile defenses all around it. Don't, you know, it is insane. There's no there's no reason for 60%. There's no reason for over 5%. Unless >> or unless you want to threaten, we will build a bomb if you attack us. So enriching to that level, I'm not saying it's okay, but enriching as a deterrent.

[00:12:32]It's impossible to know which one they chose because they did enrich the 60% which is not needed for civilian use. So they counter a be like Joel, we wouldn't do this if there was no threat and your arguments like you shouldn't. The threat is because you planned to do this or you >> Okay, but this is this is the this is uh you know to draw a little bit of Superman into this conversation. This is the bizarro world where Iran for 47 years threatens death to America, death to Israel, you know, kills thousands of Americans, ma thousands of I mean came kills and ma thousands of Americans and even more Israelis and then says but you threaten us and therefore we need a nuclear weapon. And it's just it it nobody almost nobody believes that. uh and and the way Iran has handled itself, even a friend of theirs, an ally I would say, Qatar, who I have trouble with because they played a double game. But one of the things that bit them badly is that they thought the Qatari leadership thought that they had this relationship with Iran that they were an intermediary and they they there was no they didn't even imagine a scenario. I don't think when they would be attacked for something that they didn't even do.

[00:13:47]I'd say the following. When if someone comes in and attacks, kills my anyone in my family, I think all gloves are off. I think the limits of what I would do in retaliation, there's very little, you know, there's very little I won't do in return, especially something I would prevent other family members from dying.

[00:14:05]Now, I know it's probably not the best example, but in Iran's case, when you go in there and say you decapitate their leadership, you kill their supreme leader, religious leader with his family, and then you say, "We're going to lead to a regime change. is going to collapse the whole regime. And that's a country that saw what happened in countries like Syria and you know in a more concerning way to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and to in Libya to Gaddafi. Um I I don't we've had this discussion like I'm I'm not saying it just justifies it but also understand where they're coming from in terms of their retaliation.

[00:14:32]>> Mario here you have to you have to what you're describing is how they feel now.

[00:14:37]Okay, fair enough. Right. But that the way they feel now vengeance and all this is exactly why you can't end this war by saying okay fine just you know have enriched uranium do whatever I think literally now it's even they're even more dangerous today if they had the capacities that they had two months ago than they would have been two months ago right I mean this is even worse so um that's why they have to be defamed they they're not a normal nation at the leadership level. The people want to be free, but that's not America's and Israel's or the Arabs job. As much as we we we grieve for the Iranian people and want them to be free, but what we have to do is make sure they can't pose a serious, much less an existential threat to any of our Arab allies, to Israel, to NATO, or to the United States. That that's the bottom line. And we now know they're even more dangerous now if they had the same capacities they had yesterday.

[00:15:42]>> Yeah, I think the world the the region is is it's a very different discussion now to what it was before. I wish I wish we took the Omani deal, the the one in Geneva. I think it was a good deal. I think Trump gambled that he could get a better deal by decapitating their leadership and weakening the regime. Um he took the gamble. I don't think it paid off. We'll see. But it doesn't look like it's paying off. And if anything, the government is the Iranian, the IRGC is doubling down on their demands and demanding even more. The opening of the straight of Hum was nothing even not nothing being even negotiated. So, um, >> well, we're agree into >> Yeah, exactly. Exactly. the economic welfare could work. One of the things that you and I talked about uh was whether Trump was going to send ground troops in, not you know 500,000 uh like in Iraq, but but um was he going to take Car Island? Was he going to take some of the other islands? Um and while there was a case for that, I I I believe I made it on your show that the the the concern, not that I would be necessarily against it, but that you'd be making US forces sitting targets. They're now stationary trying to hold a single island or five islands or whatever they are. And now you give Iran a capacity to attack. The the blockade strategy has been, I think, brilliant because what it's doing is it's starving cash that would be otherwise going to the regime, what's left of the regime. It's not the same regime, so let's be honest. But but now it's a regime unmasked, right? So they they're not even pretending that they're going to be peaceful. So but they can't sustain. We can sustain the west can sustain the the region the Arab world and Israel can sustain the economic challenges countries are being are being >> the Gulf countries are being choked off as well. Are you sure the global economy could sustain? You sure the the the African countries that depend on that fertilizer can sustain? Now I'm not saying that it won't work. Maybe it does work. It's but it's impossible to really know who will blink first because the global economy is already taking a massive hit every economist I speak to.

[00:17:45]So that's um I'm not saying it's a it's a bad idea, but it's also not a foolproof idea.

[00:17:50]>> Well, so on on oil and gas is, you know, it's one of these things where it's a double-edged sword in the sense that yes, the Arabs uh aren't able to get as much oil out because normally it goes on ships, right? They they're using these pipelines. That's good. It it doesn't it's not foolproof and it doesn't solve everything. But the prices they're getting for each oil barrel is is much higher. And and in in a strange sort of world, it they're going to be compensated for for a season. Although every it's very interesting, too. The Emirates deciding they're leaving OPEC. That's another element. I think it's a positive element. What what's happening is the United States is producing more oil and gas right now than Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Iran, China, and Russia combined. And what's happening is we are not where we were when I was six years old in 1973 where you know where the Arab world could could decide because of America's relationship to Israel we're just going to we're just going to put an oil embargo on you guys and you're going to be screwed.

[00:18:57]The United States because of the drill baby drill uh policy has we're we're economically independent in terms of oil mostly and and and now we can export as well. What's happening, I'm just saying, is it's changing the dynamic. And you're what what didn't happen, see the whole Iranian strategy of attacking the Gulf States, even though they weren't even directly involved in the USIsrael operation, was to split the Arabs away from the United States and away from Israel and had the exact opposite reaction. And I think the I think I don't think that the Iranian leaders that are left, right, where whatever holes and bunkers they're in, I don't still think they fully understand how much their world has changed, how much damage has been done to them militarily and and how much damage has been done in terms of their theory of the crime. The theory was the Arabs there. It's like they're living the last wars of of decades ago and they thought they could break Arabs away from Israel. Remember in 1991 when President George a George HW Bush um was going to go to war against Saddam Hussein to remove uh Saddam from raping and pillaging Kuwait.

[00:20:15]uh Bush and and then Vice President Cheney had to spend almost every day on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister at the time Yitsak Shamir. Whatever you do, for God's sakes, Israel cannot get into this war because the Arabs will then break away and we will be left holding the bag in dealing with Saddam. That is not the case anymore. the Arab leaders and I've met with each of them. Muhammad bin Zed, Muhammad bin Salman and the others, King Abdullah, President Lisi, I'm not saying they have deep love and affection for Israel. Um, but they have grudging respect and and in the case of the Emirates more than grudging like you're an ally. We don't agree with you on everything. We don't agree with you on the Palestins. There's a number of issues we've got, but but you're an ally now. And I think what the Iranians don't see it. They they and they are living in a past world and it's going to take some time. But the Arabs have made their choice. They're with the United States.

[00:21:17]Uh and some of them, at least the Emirates and Bahrain, I'd say, are with Israel and that the Saudis want to be, but they're with the United States.

[00:21:24]That's the key in this discussion. And and so the Iranian, who are the Iran's allies? Russia and China, neither of which have lifted a finger to help them.

[00:21:36]I >> agree. And I think the UAE's made that position very very clear. Doubling down on the rel a lot of people were questioning what the UAE will do. They double down on the relationship with the US and Israel and that's what we're seeing at least in the short term. Um Joel, always a pleasure to have you.

[00:21:48]Usually we do longer and I'd love to have you again this week if you're free uh to do a deeper dive because I want to talk to you about Lebanon. I think that one for me is really South Lebanon is really upsetting me. So next time we talk we'll probably do that. And also we need to talk about Israel is now going into election season. Netanyahu could be >> I would love it. Yeah. I just did an exclusive interview with his main rival Naftali Bennett, but we can get into that later.

[00:22:12]>> I'll message you. I want to I've never done a deep dive into Israeli politics, so that's probably something you can explain to me in the audience. Um, that'll be interesting.

[00:22:20]>> Joel, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Joe.

[00:22:22]>> Bless you.

[00:22:23]>> All right, everyone. We've got uh Colonel McGregor coming on any minute.

[00:22:26]So, I'll stop this live and the next live, this is the um the marathons you all know that we do um almost every day.

[00:22:33]So we're going to have Colonel McGregor, Scott Horton, Karim Betar from Lebanon to talk about what's happening in in in Lebanon, Era David Miller, the negotiator who's negotiated many of the the the the agreements in the Middle East and the region at the best of the US. And Dimmitri Lascares, the journalist that goes everywhere there's war, he's there. He was in Iran during the war. He was in Lebanon right afterwards during the war. Not sure where he is now, but you guys know Dimitri from YouTube. We usually get pretty heated when we have our interviews. So, I'll see you any minute.

[00:23:02]Colonel McGregor will join. Probably in the next two to three minutes, we'll start the live again. Bye, everyone.