4/19/24: Israel Strikes Iran Risking WW3, David Sirota On Biden 2024, Saagar Interview w/ Arta Moeini

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So we had some major updates that could not wait for Monday. So wanted to go ahead and bring the news to you. The headline is this: Israel striking Iran. This in retaliation for the Iranian strikes on Israel. Those strikes, of course, in retaliation for what was the beginning of this whole escalatory chain, the Israeli strikes on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus. So let me go ahead and pull up what we know at this point. And there are still some question marks about what exactly has unfolded. So let me show you how The New York Times is reporting this. They say Israel strikes Iran, but scope of attack appears limited. I'll read you a little bit from their report. They say here are the latest developments. The Israeli military struck Iran early on Friday, according to 2 Israeli and 3 Iranian officials, in what appeared to be Israel's first military response to Iran's attack last weekend, but one whose scope at least initially appeared to be limited. And that is the good news here. You got to love how The New York Times leaves out how this all began with the outrageous Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus. A violation of international law and the Vienna Convention. Moving on, they continue. The Iranian official said that a strike had hit a military airbase near the city of Isfahan in central Iran. Initial reaction in both Israel and Iran was muted, and Iranian leaders did not publicly blame Israel for any strike, which analysts said was a sign that the rivals were seeking to de-escalate tensions. For nearly a week, world leaders have urged Israel and Iran to avoid sparking a broader war in the region. Let me go ahead and show you some of what they're talking about in terms of the Iranians downplaying this strike or attempted strike. In fact, the Iranians are even claiming that this was just drones that the Iranian air defenses hold, that they shot everything down, that there actually wasn't any sort of an impact in Iran proper. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. It could be that they are just saying that because they don't want this wider war. And frankly, they're acting like the most responsible party in this whole conflict. Let me show you a little bit of what Iranian state media is reporting, how they are reporting this, just to give you a sense of the way that they're trying to downplay what happened here. Thankfully, in polls—

this—

here we go. That's the one. Okay, so this is one analyst saying Iran state broadcaster in Isfahan this AM is saying city's in complete calm and security. People are going on with their normal lives. 1 to 2 hours ago, sounds were heard in the sky. We understand several miniature UAVs were overhead, which were shot down. So very clearly here, you've got Iranian state broadcaster in the city that was allegedly struck saying nothing really big happened. Everything's fine. Everything's calm. Yeah, we had a little few UAVs overhead. They were shot down. Nothing actually hit and trying to project calm and hopefully de-escalate this situation. You know, it's impossible to underscore just how fraught and perilous this whole thing has been. And of course, The context here is the US under Joe Biden has claimed since post-October 7th that they wanted to keep Israel's assault on Gaza from spreading into a wider regional war. They have failed on all counts. You know, not only do we have now these direct strikes traded between Israel and Iran, with Israel beginning this provocation with the strikes on the Iranian embassy, which, you know, You can imagine how the US would respond if our embassy and a number of our top military commanders were assassinated. You can imagine how we would respond. So then Iran responds with what appears to have been calculated to be a large show of force, but intentionally calculated to avoid significant casualties. So just as this sort of presentation of force. And we can say that because they gave the U.S. and our allies 72 hours notice so that we would be in position to shoot down a majority of what they were firing, which we did. And by the way, I do mean a majority because the U.S., apparently according to the reports, was involved in shooting down a majority of what was shot at Israel. So it was meant to be a large show of force, but calculated to not actually create significant damage and not to cause any significant casualties, which it did not. So the reports are— and this is all, you know, very difficult to say what actually unfolded— reports are that the U.S. tried to talk Israel out of doing any sort of response to that and basically saying, listen, take it as a win that the Iranian offensive here, that they— this attack was all, you know, your defenses held. No significant damage done, declare victory, and let's move forward. Bibi Netanyahu, who has for decades wanted this big war with Iran, of course, couldn't just, you know, leave well enough alone. He started this provocation to begin with. There were also reports, and I can actually put this up on the screen because this is, you know, you can make of this what you will as well. There were reports that the US actually agreed to Israel's plan for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1 million Palestinians are currently sheltering, in return for not carrying out a large Iran strike. The US is denying this report. Is it true? Is it not? We don't really know. But the fact that we're in a position where we're having to like bargain and beg the Israelis who are wholly dependent on us, who rely on us for diplomatic protection, military aid, etc., that we're having to bargain and beg and basically, you know, sacrifice the lives of Palestinians to try to keep from getting dragged into this broader regional war directly in conflict with Iran is such a testament to just how failed the Biden policy has been with regard to Israel this entire time. You know, the whole idea from Biden was, I'll do the Bibi-Netanyahu bear hug. And then since I'm showing all this public support for him, it'll give me more leverage behind the scenes to try to coerce this conflict in the direction that I want. And one of the primary goals, again, from the beginning, according to the administration and, you know, leaks to reporters, was to avoid exactly the situation we find ourselves in now. But since at every turn, when pressed, the US says there are no real red lines, we'll do anything for Israel, we stand with Israel no matter what. Of course, Bibi feels enabled to do whatever the hell he wants to do, including creating a wildly dangerous situation for our own service members, for the entire region, and dare I say, for the entire world. That's what our policy of nothing but enabling whatever the Israelis want us, want to do. That's what that policy has ultimately brought us to. So, you know, it's a strange situation. The best possible news that I could wake up to this morning is that the Iranians are trying to downplay and say, hey, listen, nothing really happened here. Hopefully giving them enough, like saving enough face for them. To avoid feeling like they now have to respond again and ticking once again up the ladder of escalation. But it's small comfort that we've come to this place where we are so on the brink that the best news we can hope for is that they're pretending that, you know, this additional strike wasn't a big deal, that we have direct exchanges between Iran and Israel. That's where the Joe Biden policy has ultimately led us. And again, you know, we'll see what happens with regard to Rafah. Bibi has been making it very clear that there is no avoiding their ground invasion. He set the date. He said he's got the plans in place. Apparently, Joe Biden, who has expressed at least some hesitation or some reluctance about this ground invasion into Rafah at a time when not only have you had already mass civilian death, mass destruction of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. You also have this all-out humanitarian crisis, people starving to death, a famine officially set in, at least in northern Gaza. You've got a million-plus displaced Palestinians in Rafah. And if the report is true, Biden basically capitulating and saying, all right, because you've brought us to the brink of this hot war with Iran, we're going to let you invade Rafah. Go ahead to avoid this, you know, to have a more limited strike on Iran. So there's a lot of questions here this morning. There's still very open questions about where things go from here. You know, the other couple of things worth mentioning are, number one, this retaliatory strike on Iran. Comes on the same day that our UN representative vetoed in the Security Council, UN Security Council vetoed the recognition of a Palestinian state. So doing Israel's bidding on the very day that they do the exact opposite of what we had wanted them to do. Not to mention that vetoing a Palestinian state seems to be at odds with our purported policy of supporting a two-state solution. So there's that. It also comes at a moment when our representatives are busy pushing through a record-breaking amount of aid, both to Ukraine but also to Israel, to continue shipping them the weapons that they are using not only to massacre Palestinian civilians, women, children, and innocent men, but also that they are using to put our own service members and national security interests at risk. So extraordinary developments. Thank God the Iranians seem to be wanting to downplay this, wanting to end this escalatory chain. You know, if, if this is where it ends, we all honestly owe them a debt of gratitude because you can only imagine if it was our military commanders assassinated at our embassy. I doubt we would be so restrained. I doubt we would be so measured. So that's where we are today. That's the most I can tell you about where we are. Obviously, still incredibly fraught, incredibly risky situation. If there are additional developments, I'll make sure to bring them to you this weekend. Otherwise, we'll give you all the very latest on Monday. Hope you guys enjoy the weekend and I'll see you soon.

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I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him.

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And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass convict, right? Just finished 5 years. I'm gonna have cookies and milk. Yeah.

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Excited to be joined this morning by one of our great partners over at Lever News, David Sirota, founder of that great outlet, who has a bunch of new exciting projects to talk to us about. And David, I was saying to you I was so excited to see that at a time when a lot of news organizations are struggling and having to lay off staff, that you all are actually expanding, which I think is a real testament to the need that you serve and the unique reporting that you all have done on, you know, frankly, compared to the giant corporate media outlets, a fraction of the budget. So congratulations on that.

Thank you.

Thanks so much. And what I'm really excited about is we've been able to hire journalists, journalists to do the digging, the investigations that we do. I think there's a We're losing a lot of journalists right now, and I know people have some criticism of the media industry generally, which I share that criticism. I think one thing I'm most worried about is the loss of people employed to actually report and surface original information. So that's what we're investing in.

Yeah, well, we've really relied on your work. We've relied on it with regard just recently to the Baltimore bridge collapse. And the machinations to try to limit liability for this giant shipping company. I know you all are relaunching the Lever Time podcast and you're taking a look at what has been very perplexing to a lot of the media class, which is why in spite of the fact that there is low unemployment and high stock market and some other sort of macroeconomic indicators that are positive for Joe Biden, his economic numbers continue to be So Poor. We actually have a little bit of a trailer for the relaunch of that podcast. Let's take a listen.

I think that the more rough and tumble, the more debate, the more vigorous exchange, the more you are battle testing your party, the more you are battle testing your ultimate general election nominee for that battle with the Republicans. And I look back to 2008.

You talked about Ronald Reagan being a transformative political leader.

I did not mention his name. Well, I'm here.

He's not.

Okay.

Well, I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes.

Yeah, that primary was vicious. I feel like people don't remember just how tense things got between the Clinton and Obama teams. Like, if you read accounts from back then, you see just how much vitriol there was between both of them, and personally too. Absolutely. And the same thing with the 1992 primary. I mean, that was a brutal primary between Bill Clinton and Mario Cuomo was potentially going to run and Jerry Brown. I don't think those primaries weakened those general election nominees. I think they battle-tested those general election nominees. And I think those general election nominees came out stronger and better and more suited to win the general election. But I feel like, honestly, I feel like that view is in the minority of the Democratic Party.

So bold stance there in favor of actual democracy. And it ties in with the economic conversation because I think anyone who's tried to understand, okay, well, why do Americans still have legitimate upset around the state of the economy at this point, has been met with this sort of derision of like, oh, well, what do you just want Donald Trump to get reelected again?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's this perfect storm, perfectly bad storm for the Democrats in this way that they've suppressed a primary. Which means that they've suppressed a debate, a discussion about, for instance, economic issues. And the White House has gotten comfortable just saying, hey, listen, these are your choices, take it or leave it. We don't have to actually use a primary process to sharpen our message. So in other words, Biden hasn't— in not having a primary, hasn't faced the kinds of questions, uh, in a day-to-day basis that he will face in the general election, for instance, about the economy. So there's been a year or two of the White House just sort of trying to flip it off, but those questions about the economy aren't going away. Now, you said— you're right, the macroeconomic data is decent. And look, the country would be in worse shape if the macroeconomic data was worse. But that doesn't mean people's day-to-day lived economic experience is particularly good. And Biden, up until very recently, I don't think, hasn't really had a really sharp message to say to voters, to address those concerns to voters. And those are real concerns.

Yeah. Instead, a lot of the approach has been, at least from the sort of like Biden reporters and spokespeople has been to gaslight or to tell you, you know, your experience isn't real. You're just being tricked by media coverage that's negative of the economy. So what are some of the pain points that you have been able to identify that are real and are contributing at least to the fact that many Americans are not happy with the Biden economic record, in spite of the fact that, you know, some of the things he's done, I think, are a really positive step forward economically. Labor and antitrust really stand out to me. We covered with Emily on CounterPoints, covered the new DOJ suit of Live Nation, Ticketmaster. That direction is really promising but doesn't necessarily impact Americans right now today.

Well, look, there's, there's two things going on in the people's lived experience of the economy. There are things that are bearing down on them— housing costs, the cost of money itself, interest rates creating higher costs for auto loans, transportation and the like. Grocery prices have up until recently been going up. So these are real pain points, basically pain points on the necessities of life, right? Like food, housing, shelter, etc., etc., etc. And there is an argument to be made that no one president in the course of one term can solve all of those problems immediately, problems that were developed over multiple, basically generations of neoliberal economic policies. So you have these pain points here that are real. I think the reason any incumbent gets blamed for that is because they're the incumbent. But I also think that the incumbent can do things to combat being blamed for that. Let's go back to— let's remember that Franklin Roosevelt ran for reelection in the middle of the Great Depression. Reelection. In the middle of the Great Depression, right? He didn't run around saying, hey, listen, all you people are just, you know, you're misled about how bad the economy is. You know, the media is gaslighting you, right? He positioned himself instead as the sharp tip of the spear against the corporate forces that were creating that pain, as opposed to saying, hey, everything's getting better. So Biden has not really done that. He has not really positioned himself as the sharp tip of that spear. And I think if we're being honest, part of it is a White House messaging problem. They haven't faced a primary that's prompted them to have to actually really engage day to day. But if we're also being honest, part of it, I think, is the fact that he's an 81-year-old guy and it's hard to communicate a strong, tough, economic leadership message as the sharp tip of the outrage at corporate forces bearing down on people. It's hard to do when you're as old as he is. It's not to run him down for being old. It's not to say it's, you know, it's his fault for being old. But I think almost inherent is that part of the job of being president is using the bully pulpit. And look, when you're 81 years old, it's probably harder to use the bully pulpit by virtue of the fact that you're an older person.

I think there's that, which I noted actually when these latest inflation numbers came out that were hotter than expected. And, you know, people like you and me who have been talking about greedflation from the beginning and were initially dismissed as like fringe until it was kind of undeniable. And you've got these CEOs admitting on earnings calls like, yeah, that's what we're doing. There was an opportunity there for him to come out and not try to downplay that, you know, groceries cost more than they did last year and that that's significant for people, but to really call to task the corporate price gougers who are contributing to that state of affairs. But that would mean he was a completely different person with, frankly, a different ideology and a different level of vigor that he's able at this point to bring to the table.

Look, I totally agree. And I think the, the sad part about this, among other things, is that I actually do think that the Biden administration has a story to tell. I think when you look at what's going on at the FTC, when you look at what's going on at DOJ antitrust, when you look what's going on at the NLRB, when you look further back to what happened with the American Rescue Plan. Now, granted, that was— that expired. But the American Rescue Plan, a huge investment in the working class of this country. The Biden administration does have a story to tell. They just haven't told it very well. And you're never going to tell that story only through your FTC chairperson or or only through your deputy or assistant attorney general for antitrust. The president has to be the one telling that story, and I don't think the story has been told. But I think there still is time here. And what I'm saying is that I think when you look at the State of the Union address that Biden just delivered, the themes of that State of the Union address, I do think were right on. He really was trying to position the administration as a counter to corporate power. Is it a little too late? I don't think it's exactly too late yet. Is it going to be enough? I don't know. Can he deliver that message in the noise of the general election? I'm not so sure. And will they actually sharpen the message enough where enough people will believe that they are really serious about being that challenge to corporate power? These are all the unanswered questions.

Yeah, and that's, that's my last question for you, David, is how much are people even processing politics at this point about being about economics? Because they have this sense of like, well, whether it's a Democrat or Republican, things don't really change much for me personally. So I guess I should just vote on like who signals the right way in the culture war or how I feel about Donald Trump, which I don't want to dismiss those things as illegitimate. By the way, I mean, I think the looming threat of Trump is real, and it is legitimate to be concerned about that. But how much has economics just sort of vanished from the landscape of what people even expect politicians to deliver at this point?

Well, this is the part. Now you're really getting to my personal pain point, because it's the thing that I get depressed and demoralized about, that it feels like at least right now we're in an ahistorical moment. In this way, that in the past, are you better off than you were 4 years ago used to be kind of the defining question of presidential elections, you know, or as James Carville had put it, you know, it's the economy, stupid. I'm not sure we're living in a society anymore where economics is considered salient and germane to elections and how we pick presidents, which I think is actually a problem. Right. To me, that should be the first and foremost question of, of what does this presidential election mean for the economic future and destiny of this country and the economic experience of people in their daily lives? I think that's the first and foremost thing that we actually do have the most control over as a country, right? Like, the policies directly affect us here and now, economic policies. And if those policies aren't part of how we're making a decision in these elections, we're basically saying we can't change the economy, that both parties, all of the candidates are just simply uninterested in making any kind of change that would benefit the majority of the population. I don't wanna be in that place. I think that's a really, that is in a sense, that is the democracy crisis. If we simply say economics is just not part of how we pick people. I don't wanna believe that we're there. It would really be a break from history if we are there. But, but yes, it does feel like we now live in an era of, of vibe elections that are almost exclusively about the culture war and nothing about the class war.

David, where can people check out Lever Time?

You can find it at levernews.com. Just go right there. You'll find it right there.

All right. Great to see you, my friend, as always. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Usually on This Podcast Will Kill You, we talk about the diseases, infections, and biological threats that can make us really sick.

But right now we're doing something a little different.

We're stepping back and looking at what the human body needs to keep going.

When you consider what we know about sleep in humans, there's one rule that comes out. We are predictably unpredictable sleepers.

We're talking about why sleep works the way it does, why our bodies don't follow neat rules, and why modern life why life makes rest so hard to come by.

The second half of our series takes us to the digestive system with a multi-part series on what happens after we eat. Okay, I just have to say that all of my favorite words apparently are digestive words.

Sphincter, peristalsis, duodenum. It's fascinating, it's funny, and it matters so much more than you think.

Episodes of our new series run from January 20th through February 17th with new episodes every Tuesday on the The Exactly Right Network.

Listen to This Podcast Will Kill You as part of the Exactly Right Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I wouldn't sat on the little ottoman in front of him.

Hi, Dad.

And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass convict, right? Just finished 5 years. I'm gonna have cookies and milk at mom's.

Yeah.

On the Cena Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trejo to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances. The entire season 2 is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Haddish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.

I'm an alcoholic, and without this program, I'm gonna die.

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search The Sino Show, and listen now.

Hello gorgeous, it's Lala Kent, host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at Sur may be over, but I'm still loving life in the Valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. I've been full-on oversharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Schwartz when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife?

I almost flipped a pizza in your lap.

Oh my God, I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry, I don't want to blame alcohol. I gotta blame that one on the alcohol.

This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on lifin'. Because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's Untraditionally Lala. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Joining me now is Arta Moeini PhD. He is the research director at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. Thank you so much for joining me, sir. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Saagar. Glad to be here.

So, Dr. Moeini, you caught my attention. You had a long Twitter thread and was backed up by an article. I wanted to put it up here on the screen. It is "The Gaza War and the Twilight of International Moralism." So without getting too in the weeds, I think the takeaway that I had at the very least is that using moral moralistic language, genocide being one very much in vogue at the moment, but in general that we deploy in international politics is in some ways counterproductive and doesn't achieve the moral outcomes that those who use the term want. Why don't you give us your argument for why?

Yeah, sure. I think proponents of international law often have very good intentions. They want to end conflicts. They want to minimize casualties, and they have this sort of attachment with this construct, which for me is a construct, a natural construct called international law. But the moralism that they attach to the framing of the world actually in many ways ideologizes conflicts, politicizes conflicts, demonizes others and makes a kind of actual conversation that's required for diplomacy impossible. So I think by shaking or shedding our moralistic frames, by shedding our sort of needs for these kinds of ideological framings, we can actually— and prioritizing national interests, and real power relations, we can develop a certain strategic empathy and either prevent conflicts from happening prior or to find solutions to them and resolve them more easily once they do arise.

So why don't you operationalize that to, let's say, the Israel conflict, like we said, using the word genocide, apartheid, all of these things, whether or not they're technically true or not, but even the definitions, the game itself, you view as counterproductive, let's say, to achieving an end, which I think we all want here, which is a peace to the conflict. What would your approach be then?

Yeah, so my framework is that if we adopt an actual sort of realistic view of the world and not look to demonize the other side. So I mean, this happens on both sides. So when we think about Israel, I mean, I think it's very clear that the sort of opponents of Israeli policy use a certain framework of genocide language labeling to demonize the other side. And I think that is very unhelpful because it actually kind of dehumanizes and discredits the other side, making them actually double down on the policies that I have a lot of problems with, and maybe many others do as well. But I think by doing that tactic actually is very unhelpful to getting them to change their policies. And it happens on the other side as well. This is not just a problem that, for example, the left has. I mean, the pro-Israel right, for example, uses similar kind of human rights discourse or moralizing language by trying to connect the sort of its own opponents to Hamas or to— or calling them anti-Semites or whatnot. I think these kinds of rhetoric are sort of a framework that come from ideology. And actually thinking about a realistic understanding of how and why states do what they do and why power relations and how that's important in the world, that can really change the dynamics on the ground. I mean, think about, for example, I mean, I would just say this, In America, we have had a tradition of statesmanship going back to George Washington that emphasizes what I call, and with a colleague, Washingtonian realism, going back to George Washington. And it prioritizes national interests and looking at things as they are instead of focusing on ideology. And we can fast forward to the Cold War and we have another classic realist like George Kennan who also, while some hawks in Washington would like to read him as the, as, you know, the force behind sort of military containment, actually understood that ideology cannot be fought through military force. And actually, you need to find the real sources of conflicts and, and the political appeal of the ideology. So both of these can be applied to the, to the Israel-Gaza scenario because you can see how You know, the very idea of Israel thinking that it can eliminate Hamas, as we know from our experience in Afghanistan with the Taliban, it's impossible to physically eliminate a sort of a non-state actor that is steeped in ideology. You have to find the reasons and for, for their ideology and the spread of that ideology. So that's one thing. And then at the same time, you have to understand that, yes, Israel does have significant ontological insecurities and physical insecurities. And by trying to deal with them and telling them, for example, that, hey, it is not in Israel's long-term interest, a long-term national interest to engage in this kind of behavior. And this is going to actually have fundamental consequences for the future of Israel itself. This will actually, I think, make the conversation on realist ground much better and much stronger and towards a ceasefire or towards whatever resolution we can try to imagine.

Yeah, I get a lot of criticism when I talk in this way. People say that it's cold-blooded. And one of the things that I liked and took away from what you said is that you can actually achieve more moral outcomes, you know, if you actually try and engage with this. If you look at things on a level playing field and you're not always using moral outrage or anger or, you know, for example, I think the perfect example here is that the Biden administration is branding Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide, but then they deny that it is a genocide Whenever it's Israel and it's Gaza, and it's like, well, now you have a selective application of rhetoric to a term that was supposed to mean something. Now it actually means nothing. So arguably you have made a disservice to any future ability to say anything about what is or is not a genocide. Whereas if instead that we look at it as like, this is bad, this is counterproductive to Russian interests, Israeli interests, and others, then possibly the Russians would listen to us or the Israelis would listen to us and vice versa if we were to look at things actually level.

Yeah, I mean, that's certainly true, I think. And it actually, I think what you're bringing up is something that I also brought up in the article, which is the, yes, there is this sort of idea of hypocrisy in terms of selective application of US policy in regards to international law. That really shows a different question, which is the fundamental problem of enforcement in international law. There is no real global hegemon now. Now, once we shifted from unipolarity to multipolarity, and so we don't have an ultimate arbiter and ultimate enforcer. So for so long as the United States was the— we were in the unipolar moments of sort of American triumphalism, and the United States could select and pick and choose how to interpret international law, how to apply international law in different conflicts to serve its interests. Now, in the condition of multipolarity, using this sort of— we are now in a great transition. And within this great transition, we are seeing various different regions of the world. I don't like the term Global South, but Global South is the common term for it. The various multiple regions of the world are basically doing the same thing. The specter of interpretation is open to everyone. And so that actually means that what the United States specifically did since 1990, after the fall of the Soviet Union, we sort of shifted in the '90s to this sort of selective politicization of the international law framework using human rights and using, you know, human rights as a weapon, using responsibility to protect. You know, all of those things that we did, now others are doing as well. So almost for any conflict that you can think about in the world, you have the situation where Russia, for example, uses the same, the very same argument that America used for NATO intervention in Serbia to justify its own intervention and aggression in Ukraine. And Ukraine also uses the same principles of the UN Charter in terms of self-defense and territorial integrity to make its own claim be sort of shrouded in legitimacy. So again, all of these states are engaged in power. I mean, again, the relationship of power is key. And I think by not looking at the power relations and the fact that nowadays international law is used as an instrument for rhetorical and reputational influence and prestige to— and you basically, once you do that, you get your side, your partisans to accept your side of things and basically have legitimizing arguments for your side of things. And your opponents will have the opposite view and opposite interpretation. This is the problem of lack of enforcement that's inherent to international law as it is constructed. Because again, the international law, the first word is international. We know, as any good realist would, that the international system is not actually a sort of a monolith. It doesn't have a sovereign, and therefore it is anarchic. The condition of anarchy is returning where there is no unipolar order and no global sovereign like the United States that can get away with doing those arbitrations still according to its interests, but it cannot get away with it anymore. And other countries are doing the same thing. So it means that Effectively, the dawn of multipolarity shows the tensions inherent to international law because we cannot see it in an international way. We don't have that sort of enforcement mechanism. But that takes us to the second problem of international law as well, because international law is, again, the category of law is sovereign and sovereignty. That's a domestic category. But also that implies that there are certain conventions, traditions, and shared heritage, let's say, that has given way to codifying those traditions as law. However, what we have now, uh, this construct, this sacred cow of international law, is, is basically was premised on a particular code that was a European code that came out of the 19th and 20th century, but then it was codified in post-1945. So it's a, uh, it's, it's a particular parochial viewpoint of the world in a world that's actually diverse. So it doesn't have enforcement, but it also tends to universalize from a parochial position and basically try to make its position as the universal position. And the rest of the world that has different conceptions and different forms of life and different philosophies and different norms and values fundamentally now rejects that. But it increasingly has the power to say no. And interpret it differently. So I think we need to get away from this international law framework because it's unhelpful for a peaceful and, I would dare to say, ethical relation between states that's based on some sort of regularity and rules, as proponents of the rules-based order like to say, that actually would happen when you prioritize power and think about power in that way. This mockery of power politics and real politics as something that's fundamentally immoral blinds us to the fact that seeing the world as it is instead of through the lens of ideology, and again, international law by definition is ideological because it reflects only one perspective of the world and then it universalizes it. And it was contingent as well. So there's nothing natural about it. It was always ideological and it gives us framework which can be abused and instrumentalized and politicized and actually makes the cause of peace much harder to achieve.

Really well said. My favorite is when people are like, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal. I'm like, wait, is there a legal invasion? There's no such thing as illegal invasion. Invasions are invasions. It's like, it doesn't mean anything. And if it is illegal, now what? Who's going to enforce it? Oh, you can't do anything about it? Well, then international law is fake.

Take.

So I really appreciate you, sir. I really recommend people go— you got— I'll put your Twitter account and everything in the description. Very interesting thinker, and one who wants, I think, the same outcomes as many of the people who use this rhetoric, but is advocating for a different course, one that I endorse wholeheartedly. So thank you very much. We appreciate you.

Thank you, Sagar. Glad to be here.

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