 All right, let's do this. I, you know, I hate doing this, but let's do this. All right. So as you know, there are protests in Iran and these are not just protests about a particular headscarf or hijab or any particular thing. The protests have now turned to a fight for freedom, a rejection of the dictatorial authoritarian, totalitarian, really, to the point of dictating women's clothing, totalitarian regime in Iran. I cannot think of a better cause right now to support. I cannot think of a people, you know, even more in a sense than the Ukrainians, fighting oppression, fighting a dictator fighting for their lives. And the beauty of this is that it started with young women protesting the murder of a woman for showing some of her hair and it's grown into the thousands all over Iran and every city in Iran, the demonstrations. It includes high school girls. It is led by young women primarily, although many, many men seem to have joined. And if you see video of the demonstrations, you can see that it's men, women, all ages. But in a sense, the spirit of it and and the the spirit of it is the spirit of young girls. And they were the first to have the audacity and the courage to not just say, oh, we want to change the rules about headscarfs or something like that. But basically to say down with the dictator, basically to say down with the supreme leader, down with this regime, basically to declare this not just a political protest about this or that issue, but basically to declare this a revolution. And this is unbelievable, unbelievably courageous and inspiring and and and amazing and something that requires support and and every everybody who is free in the world or semi free in the world should be supporting them, should be speaking up for them. And as a as a country, you want, particularly American government, the American government that for so many people around the world represents liberty, represents freedom. We all know it's immensely flawed. It's hugely flawed that this country, you know, is not as free as any of us would like and as far from it. But for the rest of the world, and in a relative basis, people still look up for America as as the symbol of freedom and liberty in the world. It's certainly its founding principles of the best that we've ever seen in terms of establishing country on those kind of foundations. It's kind of it's tragic and sad that we don't live up to that. But one of the things you would expect of the leader of the free world, if you will, the country that at least represents the free world is to speak up is for the government to speak up. Right? You know, America should not be the policeman of the world. We shouldn't go around the world establishing freedom and establishing freedom for countries where it's not wanted, sacrificing our kids and our wealth for their sake. Fine. We shouldn't. I mean, it would be moral for us to engage in such activities. We can talk about whether that applies to Iran or not. I don't think that issue applies to Iran, but we'll talk about that. But moral leadership and moral leadership doesn't require much. Moral leadership requires declaring evil where one sees evil. Moral leadership means supporting verbally, from the bully pulpit, from the White House and from Congress, supporting in words, in sentiment, the people fighting for their freedom. Moral support also involves not negotiating with the people who are pressing these young people, the authoritarians, the dictators, while this is going on. Of course, you should never negotiate with evil, but certainly not while the old population is rebelling against them in inspiring fashion like they are right now. And so at the minimum, that's what you would like to see. Now, Iran is a different case. Iran is clearly an enemy of the United States. Iran has been an enemy of the United States since 1979, and we'll get to why they're an enemy of the United States, but they are an enemy of the United States, whether we like it or not, whether we think it's, whether we cause that or not, they're an enemy. And as such, I think that it's incumbent in the United States to do whatever it can, particularly if it's short of war, to actually eliminate the regime in Iran and stop their animosity towards us, replace the Mullahs with a more secular, more freedom-oriented government, and they won't be an enemy anymore. And one of the jobs of the American government is to eliminate enemies. It's to make us safer, and we are not safe with Iran as an enemy. It funds terrorism, it's developing nuclear weapons for a variety of reasons. We are not safe, as long as Iran is viewed as our enemy. So here's an opportunity not to go to war, but just to help out some freedom-fighting young people who are trying to bring more freedom to their own country, helping them out by speaking up for them, by providing them with moral courage, and maybe sending them weapons through back channels, or in this case, maybe providing them with internet connection, like smuggling in Starlink satellite dishes and servers to be able to beat the fact that Iran has basically put a firewall or attempted to put a firewall around its internet and prevent people from using the internet, both to organize against the government, and be able to communicate with the external world. And you would think, and this is, and so the Biden administration is doing that, that the smuggling is supposedly internet Starlink receivers. Biden has said a few things, I don't think particularly strong, but he's said a few things in support of the protesters in support of their goal. Good for Biden. And you would think, you would think that every person out there who supports freedom and liberty, who supports individual liberty would be in favor of this, would view this as a good thing. This is not Russia. Iran doesn't have nuclear bombs, so you don't have to be afraid. This is not Russia where you could argue in some convoluted way. This is some ambiguity about Putin's motives, as some on the right do. This is not that. This is unequivocally an evil regime, a theocracy that is oppressing and suppressing and denying the rights of its women and the rest of its population. And you'd think that everybody who believes in freedom, everybody who believes in liberty, everybody who hates oppression would stand up and support the protesters and support whatever covertly the US government can do, you know, short of let's say war, which is more controversial, to change the regime or to at least support these protesters, give them all courage. But that is, of course, not the case when it comes to libertarians. So I want to read you, I don't know if I'll read the whole thing, but parts of it because I'll get too angry, parts of it of an editorial written by Ivan Eland, E-L-A-N-D, from the Independent Institute. Now, the Independent Institute is an institute that who's found an executive director who passed away a year or two ago. He did my guts after 9-11 for the positions I took. He used to come to every conference that I'd speak at, if I was on a panel speaking about anything, it doesn't matter what it was, he would come in front of the line and ask me why things like why I was for, you know, the genocide, I don't know, the bombing of civilians in Iraq or in Afghanistan or whatever. So he would harass me constantly about what I'd written and what I've said about war and about national defense. So this does not surprise me. This is again, this is not the Mises Institute, this is the Independent Institute. Now give credit what credit is you. The Independent Institute has really a lot of really good writers and economics. Victor Davis Hanson is a scholar at the Independent Institute. He's not exactly a pacifist, but there is a huge pacifist streak with the Independent Institute. And a lot of stuff in economics they do is excellent. Yes, it was David Thoreau who used to follow me around and harass me. You'd think he'd have better things to do, but he used to do that. And Yvonne is the guy who writes for them on the Middle East on foreign policy more broadly and it's terrible, just awful. But this is a new low. This is a new low. So here's the title of the commentary. Will Biden's support for Iran protest backfire? Backfire? Like what? He writes, although Biden's policy of active assistance for the Iranian protesters is not as aggressive as Trump's assassination of Qasem Soleimani, it might be as dangerous. I don't even know where to start. I mean, Trump's assassination of Qasem Soleimani was a weak act. Qasem Soleimani was the head of the National Guard in Iran, the Republican Guard in Iran, responsible for the killing of Americans all over the Middle East, from helping in the bombing of the Koba Towers in Saudi Arabia to assisting Hezbollah in the killing of American Marines in Beirut and notice none of this is in Iran, and then the killing of Americans all over the Middle East during the 1980s to the killings of Americans in Iraq and in Syria during the Iraq war. The fact that all we did in response to all of that is assassinate one general is pretty pathetic, pretty pathetic. But no, that is way too extreme, way too extreme. Assassinating Soleimani is really, really dangerous because we really, really need to be afraid of these Iranians. They're really, really dangerous. I mean, the fact that we have the mightiest military force in all of human history, the fact that we could crush Iran in days, I mean irrelevant to these guys, but put that aside what Biden is doing by giving moral, by giving more support to these protesters, these young girls is as dangerous. Oh, I'm so afraid of what the Iranians will do to us. Now, we'll see that this is not so much motivated by fear of the Iranians, but by really what they believe motivates all U.S. actions in the Middle East and it's borderline. Anyway, I'm going to read you the first paragraph. The Biden administration, unlike the administration of President Barack Obama, has decided to take active approach to aiding anti-government protests in Iran in response to the death of a young woman, this time for not wearing the required headscarf properly. No moral outrage at the fact that she was killed for not wearing a scarf properly. Who cares? It happened in Iran. They have sovereignty in Iran. It's, hey, who are we to tell the Iranians how to govern their own people? Who are we to tell the Iranians what to do or what not to do? Iran is an independent country. These are like the anarchists, but sovereignty, oh, they care so much about Shafi, particularly more than anybody, the sovereignty of authoritarian thugs. I'm going to get angry because it pisses me off. It will get to Obama later. Not only did President Joe Biden, not only did President Joe Biden publicly side with the protesters in a speech before the United Nations, but the U.S. government may also help smuggle Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system into Iran so that the protesters can communicate. Musk has said that his system is now activated in Iran to try to nullify Iranian government's attempts to shut down the internet communication services. Yay! Shouldn't we be applauding? Shouldn't this be like the coolest thing ever? Shouldn't this be yes? Oh no. This policy, which warms the heart of interventionists, interventionists like me, on the American left and right, is justified with high-flying rhetoric that the United States supports freedom fighters worldwide. High-flying rhetoric. But this is the real reason why we're helping the Iranians. Here's the real reason. He says this in half a sentence and he never mentions this again. But this is the kind of ugliness that lies behind so much of this libertarian cause. But it is really an attempt to help overthrow a repressive theocratic government, okay that sounds pretty good, that is Israel's major foe. Not America's major foe, not anybody else's. But basically we are doing the bidding of Israel. The only reason we're sending in, the only reason we care about these girls, the only reason we're helping them is because, I don't know, the Jews control America? The Israeli lobby controls America? Wow. I mean there it is, right there. I didn't say it. It's because of Israel. Israel manipulates us. Israel controls us. Talk about borderline or maybe not borderline anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nonsense. No America has no interest in Iran. It's all, I mean we probably thought that when Iraq, according to Ivan, I'm pretty sure this is true, and have troops all over the Middle East and have been in all of them, not because of our strategic blunders, our strategic mistakes, but because of those Jews, because of those Israelis. That's why we do it all for the sake of Israelis. This is a major libertarian. This is not some third-rate marginal character. This is a major play, major play. In 2009 he goes on, a year of widespread anti-government protests in Iran in response to a rigged election. Obama took a more prudent and restrained approach by not publicly supporting the protesters. I guess the Israelis weren't as powerful within the Obama administration as they are in Biden's. Now notice prudent and restrained. What does that mean? That means Obama didn't support the demonstrators. Obama was a more coward. Obama refused to stand up for freedom. I mean I was critical of him, now I've been critical of him since then. One of the worst things Obama administration did was it missed an opportunity in 2009 to actually support a revolution in Iran and instead the revolution was crushed. Many, many Iranians were killed and the Americans just stood by and did nothing. They were much more interested in negotiating quote a deal with the theocrats, with the thugs. As a result the Iranian government could not allege that the CIA had sparked the protests and thus discredited them in the eyes of many Iranians really. The Iranians that believed the supreme leader, by the way the supreme leader just last week said that the current crisis, the current protest, the current revolution was inspired by the CIA. So it does not stop, it does not stop their supreme leader from lying to them since when? Since when? Do they only lie when we give them cause? He's already said it before Biden said anything before the Stalin went in and the Iranian people who believe that this is caused by the CIA and not caused by the fact that their own quote morality police killed a young woman, are they the people we care about? The people who believe the Mullahs lies, the theocrats lies? I mean the Iranians on the street, the Iranians fighting this revolution, the Iranians that actually want change, they probably want the CIA to come in and help them out. But no, the CIA always discredits and it's bad for the Iranians. No it's not, that is a lie. The Iranians who want a revolution want the CIA's help. The Iranians who want a revolution, the Iranians who value freedom, the Iranians who value liberty, the Iranians are fighting for their own lives right now, they want our intervention. They're not going to be turned off by the fact that the CIA is intervening, they're going to support that intervention. The people who don't want the CIA to intervene are the theocrats, other theriterians are the dictators. So he continues this time US intelligence agencies could possibly even attempt to aid protesters by smuggling Starlink boxes into the repressive country. Oh my god they might they might give them Starlink satellites. He continues at first blush this new more active policy might seem like a benign and cheap way to help overthrow the Iranian government. Yes it could, which has been virulently opposed to the United States since its inception in the late 1970s and now notice this added sentence, largely due to decades, America's decades-long backing the Shah's budo regime. Really? I mean this is the problem with libertarians, the pragmatic, anti-ideas, anti-principles so they can't imagine that maybe maybe the theocrats hate us because the theocrats and because we represent the exact opposite. Yeah that's unthinkable I know after 9-11 when I said this is an ideological war the libertarians laugh. No they attacked us because we have troops in Saudi Arabia which is complete and utter I think the technical term is bullshit. They attacked us because we are a threat to their ideology, we're a threat to their existence, we're a threat to their whole view of the world. If we as a secular country can be successful, if we as a secular country can be strong, if we as a secular country can beat the crap out of them then what are their what is our lead to them? What's the point? America made a lot of mistakes in Iran but the reason the Iranians opposed to the United States since the 1970s has nothing to do with the fact that we backed the Shah of Iran it has nothing to do with the fact that we helped depose a socialist from the government of Iran in the early 1950s and every