Useful Idiots

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“It’s a psyop!” says Professor Sami al Arian, responding to the blustering and bloodthirsty address Pete Hegseth gave this week.

In the speech, Hegseth claims that US “capabilities continue to build. Iran’s continue to degrade. We’re hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran’s air defenses [are] flattened. Iran’s defense industrial base, the factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programs [are] being overwhelmingly destroyed.”

For good measure of ridiculous sadism, Hegseth quotes a World War II admiral to flaunt the murder of Iranians: “And to borrow a page from Admiral Ernest King in World War II, we’ve decided to share the ocean with Iran. We’ve given them the bottom half.”

But, Professor al Arian claims, this is bluster. This is a psyop against the American people.

“What he’s trying to do is to psyche the people and tell them that we’re winning and that the other side is totally decimated and obliterated and defeated. But the fact of the matter is that Iran is still shooting. Iran is having a war of attrition.

Whatever he’s blustering, whatever he’s saying, it’s total exaggeration as I see it.

First of all, you cannot defeat your opponent or change the regime from the air. The Taliban didn’t have a single air [defense]. And who won at the end? Who was fleeing and leaving in a hurry? Hamas didn’t have any air. And two years, they couldn’t pacify Hamas over Gaza, which was 360 square kilometers.

Iran is a vast country. Iran is 1.65 million square kilometers. We’re talking about an area greater than Western Europe. So whatever is hitting is hitting, obviously. But Iran is not going to surrender. It’s not going to submit to whatever dictates he may have.”

Subscribe for the full interview with Professor Sami al Arian in which he predicts how Iran’s regional allies like the Houthis in Yemen will affect the war, why Iran is striking other Arab nations, and whether the US actually gets any material benefit from helping Israel in their hunt for dominance over the Middle East.

We also speak with Lebanese journalist Hala Jaber, who joins us from Beirut as Israel expands its assault on Lebanon. She reports on Israel’s continued targeting of journalists, including this week’s “deliberate” airstrike on journalist Steve Sweeney, caught on video in Southern Lebanon, the surprising and stifling control the US has over the Lebanese government, and Hezbollah’s role in the fight against Israel and the broader Iran War.

Plus, catch our weekly recap of the craziest moments on corporate media, the Friday Free-for-All: Tulsi Gabbard Just Hit Rock Bottom

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Tulsi Gabbard in 2020: To all who voted for Trump bc of his antiwar rhetoric, it’s time to realize he lied to u. Stand with me against Trump’s Iran War!

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in March 2025: The Intelligence Community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.

And now in 2026, how does Tulsi Gabbard, who opposed the Iraq War, condemned US regime change wars, and sold “No War With Iran” t-shirts, respond when President Trump starts bombing Iran to prevent the use of nuclear weapons that her own department found to be nonexistent?

Let’s check the tape from her disastrous Senate hearing this week:

Congressman: Last year you testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Do you stand by statement?

Gabbard: Context matters—

Congressman: You either stand by it or not.

Gabbard: It’s a serious question—

Congressman: Was Iran weeks away from achieving a nuclear weapon?

Gabbard: It would be a disservice to the American people to answer with a mere yes or no.

Congressman: Were you lying or not?

Gabbard: I stand by the IC assessment.

So the once anti-war Tulsi Gabbard, the first guest ever on Useful Idiots back in the Rolling Stone days, refuses to stand up to the administration, officially becoming a key player in the USA WMD Hoax Part Two.

To her credit though, she didn’t outright lie and say Iran was close to having nuclear weapons. That honor goes to the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe.

Congressman: Was Iran developing a nuclear weapon prior to our military action last June and did Iran remain committed to developing a nuclear weapon in the lead-up to this conflict?

Ratcliffe: Yes.

Congressman: If left unchecked, do you think Iran would have the ability to develop missiles capable of reaching the United States?”

Ratcliffe: Yes.

We’ve got one who lies and another who contradicts those lies in a perfect microcosm of the disastrous discohesion of the Trump administration’s war-of-choice against Iran.

Also in this Friday Free-for-All: antisemitism-whisperer Jake Tapper accuses the recently-resigned Director of Counterterrorism Joe Kent of, you guessed it, antisemitism, for claiming Israel pushed the US into war with Iran, Fox News says Iranians are begging US-Israeli bombs to rain down on their own country, and a weird ADL panel complains that all the “cool kids” are against genocide.

It’s a mess of a week. Katie and Aaron are standing up to make fun of it all. It’s the Friday Free-for-All, subscribe to support independent media and watch the full episode here:

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This week we’re speaking with Iranian Professor Behrooz Ghamari, whose unique history gives him an important perspective that challenges Trump’s regime-change war-of-choice in ways few others can.

In the 1980’s, Ghamari was sentenced to death by the Iranian government for being part of a Marxist group trying to overthrow the Islamic Republic. He was held in Evin Prison’s death row, where countless political prisoners have been tortured, and was denied cancer treatment for his worsening lymphoma.

But, Ghamari explains in his excellent new book, The Long War On Iran, four decades after getting freed from a place he never thought he’d outlive, Israeli airstrikes hit the prison, along with over 17,000 other civilian sites. Ghamari “had this feeling as if my home was attacked.”

Today, we’re asking him why, after the horrible treatment he endured, does he still reject US regime change of a government he fought to oppose.

Useful Idiots: It’s fascinating that you were literally scheduled to be executed, you were on death row, you were deprived of cancer treatment, and yet your analysis is so clear-eyed. You are able to criticize regime change. You are even able to give credit to this government that wanted you to be killed.

Behrooz Ghamari: A political project cannot be the extension of your own trauma. We need to transcend that trauma in order to advance a political project. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people who are celebrating these military attacks. They’re supporting Israel bombing Iran, supporting President Trump bombing Iran.

There are actually people who use the trauma of others to justify their own celebration, which is a very bizarre kind of logic.

But I think it’s a sign of political maturity if one tries to transcend these things and understand: what price are we willing to pay? Because that’s the main question.

People always cite Immanuel Kant, saying ‘dare to know and speak truth to power.’ But people usually forget the second part of it: ‘Speak the truth to power and be willing to lose your head for it.’ And so I challenge those people who are celebrating in the US, if they’re willing to speak the truth and also willing to lose their head for it. Because they stand at a distance and are quite ambivalent about loss of life in Iran.

Subscribe to hear our full discussion with Professor Ghamari where we ask him to respond to the Iranian diaspora claims about foreign regime change, Iran’s treatment of its own people, and why Iranians should have to “pay the price for Palestine.”

Plus, don’t miss our Friday Free-For-All: Jake Tapper: Iran Wants Us to Bomb Them!

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According to the Financial Times, the US and Israel have launched strikes against more than 17,000 civilian sites in Iran since the beginning of their war of choice, and people are understandably asking: How do Iranians feel about their country being bombed?

Well, who better to tell us how Iranians really feel than an Israeli-American, because that’s who Jake Tapper asked.

“How do Iranians see the future unfolding in Iran?” Tapper asks Israeli-activist Emily Schrader.

“By and large, the responses from Iranians that I have spoken to has been overwhelmingly in favor of the United States’ and Israeli action on the ground. They’re very happy!”

That’s right, the voice of Iranians, according to Jake Tapper, is an Israeli who literally works with Israeli intelligence, who claims that Iranians are happy that we assassinated their leader, murdered over 170 girls during school hours at an elementary school, bombed multiple hospitals, and are targeting countless civilian sites.

This isn’t journalism, Jake, you’re a pro-Israel activist white-washing the war crimes and genocide of an illegal regime.

But he isn’t alone! In this Friday Free-for-All, we’re watching a CNN panel call Megyn Kelly “antisemitic” for claiming that this is “Israel’s war,” Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin claims the Russians are secretly aiding Iran to destroy America, Palantir CEO is so excited that his AI is killing school children, and Lindsey Graham finally mentions his actual constituents in South Carolina after years of only discussing Israel and Ukraine (but just to tell them to send their children to fight and die for him in the Middle East…)

Everyone’s bad! But watch em with us, so you can laugh instead of cry at all of them. It’s our Friday Free-for-All. Subscribe to support independent media and watch the full episode here:

In the lead-up to the Iraq War, the Bush Administration, with the help of Democrats and corporate journalists, stuck firmly to coordinated lies, talking points, and fabrications to trick the American people into supporting of a war of aggression in the Middle East, using WMD and Saddam Hussein lies all in concert to make a single, cohesive story.

This time around in Iran, they’re trying to do the same thing. But they’re doing it so much stupider.

They’ve messed up talking points of how long we’ve “been engaged in war with Iran,” how long they expect this new war to last, whether or not we’re even at war, and so many more flubs. Katie and Aaron spend a mega 2-hour Monday Mourning debunking all the craziest and sloppiest lies from Lindsey Graham, Jake Tapper, Mike Waltz, Israeli ambassadors, and more.

It’s a nicemare nightmare out there – watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.

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This week’s interview and Friday Free-for-All have combined into one mega LIVE episode. We speak with Iran experts Negar Mortazavi and Trita Parsi about what is currently happening in the US and Israel’s war on Iran.

But first, Katie and Aaron run a recap of the biggest lies and craziest takes from this week in corporate media, from Jake Tapper and Jon Stewart to Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer.

It’s all insane – watch with Aaron and Katie to laugh instead of cry at it all.

And please subscribe to the show to support independent media and get bonus content!

Useful Idiots Forever

Join Aaron and Katie LIVE at 1:30pm est today (Friday) on YouTube for an important Iran update with Iranian journalist Negar Mortazavi

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