Triti Parsi: We’re seeing how Israel and the US’s relationship with Israel is becoming a litmus test in numerous American primary elections, both on the left and on the right. We saw that it was a litmus test in Michigan, two or three nights ago. It was a litmus test in Kentucky in Massie’s primary election, and I think is going to continue to be that in several others. So, we’re entering a completely new phase in American politics in which supporting Israel in the manner that many members have done, supporting AIPAC’s position, is going to be politically costly in a manner that never has been the case in US history before. It’s always been a political no-brainer. Even if people recognized clearly that this was bad policy, it was nevertheless good politics, because it kept the member of Congress safe. It kept the president safe. That is now changing. It is a complete gamechanger for America’s domestic politics and also for its foreign policy in the Middle East.
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What has been proposed on the intelligence merger goes way beyond what has existed in the past. It was put forward by Tom Cotton in the Senate. That amendment would essentially mean that the US intelligence services are forced to share all kinds of intelligence with Israel. Forced. And the only way that can be prevented is if the president personally intervenes, which means that he would constantly have to set aside all other duties that he has during the day in order to review every intelligence data point and decide whether they should or should not be shared. Which means that essentially it would happen on a very rare occasions and as a result the US would be forced to share almost everything. It is disastrous. It goes way beyond anything the US has ever done with Israel or with any other country. It also jeopardizes the US’s intelligence sharing arrangement with many other countries because no one’s going to share anything with the US any longer, knowing that everything that is shared with the US immediately ends up in Israeli hands.
Nap: This is the same Israel that destroyed the USS Liberty. The same Israel that welcomed Jonathan Pollard and took his stolen data and sold it to the the the Soviet Union. The same Israel that spies on the White House.
Mark Wauck: I’ve done a transcript of a stimulating exchange between Trita Parsi and Judge Nap. The transcript covers approximately the second half of the linked video. Parsi presents his views on the current situation in Trump’s war on Iran. Then, spurred by the Judge, Parsi discusses the new book on the Israel Lobby, which I discussed last week:
Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power
Lastly, Parsi also discusses Trump’s plan to subordinate American NatSec agencies to Israel.
In addition, much of the exchange is prompted by an article by Parsi:
Before Hormuz there was Suez: What Trump can learn from Eisenhower.
The exchange is preceded by Parsi speaking about the ways things used to be—when the US was able to intervene militarily in the Persian Gulf region. I think you’ll see Parsi raise certain themes that we’ve been emphasizing lately—such as that Iran is seeking escalation on its terms:
Trita Parsi : What the US Misunderstands about Iran : LIVE – (PART TWO)
TP: Sitting in Kuwait today, however, is a very different story because that America no longer exists. The America that had that capacity, that had the ability to sell to the American people that the US needed to go into a ground war in the Middle East for the sake of a minor kingdom. That America no longer exists. And as a result, relying on [that proposition] today is a completely different proposition than relying on it 20 30 years ago.
Judge: All right, I want to post a statement by Mr. Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament. This was just two days ago:
“Massive attack coming. Wait, never mind. They want to negotiate. That’s theater diplomacy on loop using bullying, broken promises, fake news as leverage as a failed strategy. Acknowledge the facts and fulfill your commitments. We don’t need more theater.”
It appears as though the Iranians see right through Trump and aren’t afraid to say so publicly.
TP: Yes, I think we have reached the point at which it is clear that Trump cannot escalate his way out of this conflict. And, on top of that, he can no longer bluff his way out of this conflict. The Iranians are calling the American bluff. And I think when they also see reports revealing that the US is not only extremely short on interceptors, but has also depleted its offensive projectiles such as Tomahawks, etc. that reinforces their view that the US actually does not have the capacity to revert to war to achieve its objectives.
In this next paragraph Parsi is referring to the fact that Iran is actually seeking escalation in order to put Trump in a box that would force him to accede to Iran’s conditions.
It is actually to this point, that I think Iran was trying to drive this situation after the second round of the war, based on a conviction that the only time Trump will actually become serious about diplomacy–will truly dedicate himself to diplomacy–is when he has internalized that he does not have a military option. Only then will he be able to resist the temptation of thinking that he just might be able to bomb a little bit in the middle of the negotiations in order to improve his negotiating position. As long as Trump felt that he had that option, he used that option. He did that in the second round.
Nap: But this is the thinking of a mob boss, of a Mafia chieftain–not of a president of the United States who should have at his disposal a vast array of diplomatic tools.
TP: Absolutely. an [garbled] advice that would tell him that this is a foolish idea. Don’t go back into this war. You’re not going to be able to change the facts on the ground to your liking. And it’s, again, stunning to me that having experienced the first round of war that did not end up the way Trump wanted, he went back into it without a new idea, without a new strategy, without a new tactic, without new intelligence, without some new plan that would make it different. So throughout those first 13 days I thought to myself, ‘Okay, he probably has some sort of a card up his sleeve.’ And he didn’t. It’s just stunning to me that he did this a second time without changing anything, thinking that the same method, the same strategy, everything else the same would lead to a different result. And that the advice from the people around him, particularly the military advice, was not strong and clear enough for Trump to understand that this is not going to work. There was no reason why it would have worked.
Nap: I want to ask you a few questions about Israel. And, of course, the absence of Israel from many of these negotiating tables. Not a surprise. But before we do, this is a terrific clip by a colleague of yours, Ian Lustick, on the dangers of a foreign entity having control over the government of the United States.
Ian Lustick, Co-author of Israel’s Lobby: “What George Washington prophetically pointed out in his farewell address after he decided not to take a third term, he warned the country that there was a flaw in the system. There was a vulnerability in the system. The vulnerability was that if there was in the United States a faction that was passionately attached to a foreign country or passionately opposed to a foreign country because of its ethnic or religious or ideological background, there would be no natural countervailing force to it inside the country. That would mean that unless there was an agreement that foreign policy was not something that should be part of the electoral process, that politics should stop at the ocean, that there should be bipartisanship beyond the borders of the United States. If that wasn’t the case, that passionate minority attached to another country could control US policy, entangle us in wars we shouldn’t be in, and distort our image and our affairs abroad.
Now, Washington had in mind the fact that the Democrats associated with Jefferson were in love with the French Revolutionaries. That’s no longer the issue. But the issue that did come through to show that Washington was right about what he was worrying about was the issue of Israel. Because there has never been any group in the United States attached to a foreign power with as much political clout as the group that is represented by the Israel Lobby in the United States.”
Please note the way Lustick phrases that. He’s saying that the Israel Lobby represents a “group in the United States.” That group is attached to a foreign power, Israel, but The Lobby represents the group—not Israel.
Nap: “Any group in the United States attached to a foreign power with as much political clout as the group that is represented by the Israel Lobby in the United States.” An absolutely accurate, true, profound and courageous statement.
TP: Absolutely. So Ian and his co-author, Eli Clifton, are coming out with this book. I think the release date is on Monday. It is called Israel’s Lobby. In some ways it is a followup on John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt’s first book from 2007, The Israel Lobby, but in some ways it goes deeper and also looks at one factor that was not addressed in full in the previous book–which is the money trail, the manner in which campaign finances, etc. have enabled this lobby to become as influential as it’s been.
I personally believe that this is going to be the most important book of 2026, and it’s coming out at an absolutely crucial point. We’re seeing how Israel and the US’s relationship with Israel is becoming a litmus test in numerous American primary elections, both on the left and on the right. We saw that it was a litmus test in Michigan, two or three nights ago. It was a litmus test in Kentucky in Massie’s primary election, and I think is going to continue to be that in several others. So, we’re entering a completely new phase in American politics in which supporting Israel in the manner that many members have done, supporting AIPAC’s position, is going to be politically costly in a manner that never has been the case in US history before. It’s always been a political no-brainer. Even if people recognized clearly that this was bad policy, it was nevertheless good politics, because it kept the member of Congress safe. It kept the president safe. That is now changing. It is a complete gamechanger for America’s domestic politics and also for its foreign policy in the Middle East.
Nap: So here’s the question. The removal of the IDF and Israeli dominance in Gaza and in Lebanon is an absolute requirement for peace between the United States and Iran from the Iranian perspective. It’s even articulated not Gaza but Lebanon in the Memorandum of Understanding. Can anybody expect that Trump can compel Netanyahu to withdraw from these two territories? It’s hard for me to believe he would ever do that voluntarily. He would only do it with a gun to his head.
TP: Well, he started doing it when the MOU was in place. As you recall, this was a requirement of the MOU and, once the MOU was signed, you saw that Trump started talking very differently about Israel’s presence in Lebanon. He said the Israelis were conducting themselves in a way that is unacceptable. You don’t blow up an entire building just because you’re trying to take out one person. JD Vance went out and said that Israel cannot kill its way out of every problem. He reduced Israel’s standing to the same standing such as France and the UK–allies of the United States but not exceptional states. This was not an exceptional relationship, a special relationship. So you started to see clear measures towards implementing this. Unfortunately, the whole thing collapsed over differences over the Strait of Hormuz and also, incidentally, Trump spoke about a regional ceasefire no longer as an Iranian demand but as an American requirement for the deal to work.
So I do believe that the intent was there to make it work. I think there were other elements in the Trump administration that opposed it because, suddenly, immediately after the MOU, you had Marco Rubio go to the region and sign this Lebanese – Israeli agreement that completely contradicted the terms of the MOU. In that agreement the Lebanese government inexplicably signed on to an agreement that said that Israel would stay in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah had disarmed, whereas the MOU makes no such mention. As a result the Israelis were allowed to stay in southern Lebanon–completely contradicting the MOU. It really puts the question to Trump in the clearest possible way. What’s most important to you? Is it to end the war with Iran or is it more important to you to allow the Israelis to do whatever they want in Lebanon?
Nap: But here in the US–with very very little debate and likely passage–is Trump’s proposal to create a merger between the Israeli military and the Pentagon, between Mossad and the CIA. The latter probably already exists de facto. This would make it de jure, would make it by law, which would facilitate or even require the sharing of intel and security information. We don’t have that with any other country. Do we have a treaty with Israel? No. This is a demolition of American national sovereignty in deference to exactly what Mr. Professor Lustick was talking about.
TP: Yes. A couple of points of clarification though. What has been proposed on the intelligence merger goes way beyond what has existed in the past. It was put forward by Tom Cotton in the Senate. That amendment would essentially mean that the US intelligence services are forced to share all kinds of intelligence with Israel. Forced. And the only way that can be prevented is if the president personally intervenes, which means that he would constantly have to set aside all other duties that he has during the day in order to review every intelligence data point and decide whether they should or should not be shared. Which means that essentially it would happen on a very rare occasions and as a result the US would be forced to share almost everything. It is disastrous. It goes way beyond anything the US has ever done with Israel or with any other country. It also jeopardizes the US’s intelligence sharing arrangement with many other countries because no one’s going to share anything with the US any longer, knowing that everything that is shared with the US immediately ends up in Israeli hands.
Nap: This is the same Israel that destroyed the USS Liberty. The same Israel that welcomed Jonathan Pollard and took his stolen data and sold it to the the the Soviet Union. The same Israel that spies on the White House.
TP: Oh, the same Israel that is the second, and at times the main, target of American counterintelligence efforts, because it is so intense in its efforts to spy on everything going on in the US. Let me give you another example. During the JCPOA negotiations, in the beginning, the Obama administration, hoping to be able to please the Israelis, shared all details of the negotiations with the Israelis. In fact, when the American negotiators had completed their negotiations in Geneva or wherever it was, they tended to fly first to Israel to brief the Israelis before they came back to Washington. So, often times State Department officials were not in the know for 48 hours of the details of the negotiations because the Israelis got the information first. The reason why the administration stopped doing so is because they found out that that intelligence, that was willingly shared by the Obama administration in the hope that the Israelis would not be opposed to the deal, was being used by the US Israeli embassy in Washington to lobby Congress, share the information in a selective manner in order to get Republican opposition to that deal. So they were using that intelligence to sabotage the negotiations on American ground in Congress. Once that became clear the administration stopped sharing almost any information with the Israelis. And again, we know the rest of the story how the Israelis completely opposed the deal. But they opposed it all along. They were just having an easier time opposing it and sabotaging it when the US administration was actually sharing that information.
The other part of what you said—just one clarification. I am under the clear impression that the administration certainly did not initiate the language in the NDAA that would have that type of a merger, with the sharing of — what they’re essentially trying to do is to take away the money that the US is giving Israel on a yearly basis and put it in some sort of a bureaucratic process in the Pentagon that would be out of sight of Congress and out of sight of the American public. This was initiated by Benjamin Netanyahu himself. He took credit for it. I’m not entirely clear of the extent that the administration has been supportive of it. Its final outcome is still not entirely clear but, if it passes, similar to what we saw with the intelligence merger essentially, it will be absolutely disastrous.
