The Iraq War didn’t just “happen” it was sold with a storyline, staffed by specific operators, and justified by a strategy that had been circulating for years. I’m joined by Scott Horton of the Libertarian Institute to unpack the Clean Break doctrine, what it tried to achieve for Israel’s right wing security vision, and how a set of wildly wrong assumptions helped push the US into a war that ended up strengthening Iran instead of containing it.
We walk through the mechanics of how the war case was built: exile sourcing, the Office of Special Plans, alternative intelligence streams, and the WMD and terrorism claims that made Baghdad sound like an urgent threat. Then we connect the fallout to today’s Middle East power map, where leaders are still trying to “fix” the original mistake, often by escalating in new arenas. Scott also explains why Israel’s objectives toward Iran can look less like clean regime change and more like limiting Iran’s ability to support Hezbollah and project power into the Levant, even if that means betting on destabilization.
From there we shift to the Trump era crisis: ceasefire fragility, Iran’s demand to release frozen assets as a trust test, and the hard technical reality behind the slogans about nuclear enrichment. We also talk about how Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank remain active fronts that can sabotage diplomacy at any moment, and what it would take for Washington to actually restrain Netanyahu if a real US-Iran deal is the goal. Subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review, then tell us what you think: is a durable peace even possible with these incentives in place?
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