Axios is reporting that white House national security adviser Jake Sullivan actually presented President Joe Biden with options for a potential U.S. Attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. [00:00:16] So let me just pause to make sure you guys absorb that. Okay. Jake Sullivan was presenting Joe Biden options for the United States military to carry out strikes against Iran, specifically Iran's nuclear facilities. If the Iranians, you know, move toward building nuclear weapons [00:00:36] before January 20th. Okay. So let's just pause for a second and take in how unbelievably absurd that would be. Okay. You've got weeks left in your administration. Imagine if the United States, under the last few weeks [00:00:54] that Biden is in power, decides to carry out military activity against Iran. And essentially, you know, I mean, that's an that is an escalation of epic proportions. Okay, the US at that point would be in a hot war with Iran. [00:01:10] And then Donald Trump takes over. Jake Sullivan is one of the people that I am very happy to not have to hear from for a while until the next corporate Democrat gets elected. I'm sure he'll have some role because it's always the same people [00:01:26] over and over again. But the irresponsible nature of this really does blow my mind. So let me give you some more details about it. So basically, during Donald Trump's first term, he made what I believe is a mistake because of something that Benjamin Netanyahu urged him to do, [00:01:44] which is to rip up the Iran nuclear deal. The Iran nuclear deal, which was a deal involving several countries the United States, Iran and several of our European allies, agreed that there would be, you know, an effort to check in on Iran and make sure [00:02:01] that they're not building nuclear weapons. Netanyahu didn't like that deal, even though it had safeguards, even though Iran allowed, you know, individuals to go into their country to make sure they're not building nuclear weapons. The reason why Netanyahu didn't like that deal is because that [00:02:18] hindered the possibility of the United States going to war with Iran. And to be sure, the far right members of Israel's government, including Benjamin Netanyahu, he's on the record on this, have been trying to egg the US on in attacking Iran, [00:02:34] essentially having the United States fight Israel's war on their behalf. Luckily, so far, the US has resisted those calls. But if the United States government is concerned about Iran building nuclear weapons, we could have reentered the Iran nuclear deal after Trump [00:02:54] made the mistake of ripping it up. Biden, in fact, ran on the promise of reinstating the Iran nuclear deal. But he didn't do that, did he? And so what does that mean when you have more and more aggression from Israel [00:03:10] and Iran feels like, okay, well, they're going to come for us, there's some possibility that they're actually going to start building nuclear weapons. Now, we have no confirmation of that. And up until a few months ago, Iran was denying that they were building any nuclear weapons. [00:03:25] But over the last few months, some of the politicians there, some of the officials there started talking publicly about maybe we really should enrich uranium to 90% in order to build nuclear weapons, [00:03:41] because let's keep it real, folks. If you're a nuclear country, if you have nuclear weapons, the likelihood of other countries attacking you is diminished to some extent. And so Jake Sullivan takes these public statements, [00:03:58] knocks on Joe Biden's door and says, yo, I've got some I've got some possibilities for you if you're interested in the US military carrying out strikes against their nuclear facilities. Now, luckily, there was no commitment from Biden to do any of this, but it is [00:04:16] concerning that the president, on one hand, is a man with cognitive decline. And all these people around him, including Jake Sullivan, seem to be the ones calling the shots. What if Joe Biden decided to greenlight an incredibly irresponsible thing to do? [00:04:34] That's the fear here. And imagine Biden greenlighting that like weeks before Trump goes into office, weeks before he's inaugurated as the new president. So Axios reports that behind the scenes, some of Biden's top aides have argued internally that two trends [00:04:53] the acceleration of Iran's nuclear program and the weakening of Iran and its proxies in their war with Israel, together give Biden an imperative and an opportunity to strike. The sources said some of Biden's aides, including Sullivan, [00:05:11] think that the degrading of Iran's air defenses and missile capabilities, along with the significant weakening of Iran's regional proxies, would improve the odds of a successful strike and decrease the risk of Iranian retaliation. [00:05:29] Okay, we all remember what a disaster Iraq was. Now, consider the military capabilities of Iran, because Iran's military capabilities are far more superior than anything the US experienced with Iraq. [00:05:46] How is this a good idea at all? And what? How would the US benefit from this at all? I understand how some Israeli officials are trying to go the US into doing this, but how exactly would this be beneficial to the United States? [00:06:03] How would it be beneficial to the Middle East? Right. I mean, Jake Sullivan's going into this with the assumption that like, oh, yeah, we're totally going to get them. They're weakened. Iran has shown an insane level of restraint. [00:06:18] We actually don't know what they're fully capable of at this moment, because they know if they carry out the kind of attack that you would expect from Iran. Right. That's when the US would get involved militarily, and it might not bode well for them. [00:06:34] But if anyone in the United States government thinks that it would be a cakewalk to defeat Iran, I mean, they really have another thing coming, but it might actually lead to a drawn out Lengthy, brutal war where the only individuals that really benefit are the military contractors. [00:06:53] Right. The military industrial complex and all of those executives and shareholders that literally make money off war. So I'm going to give you some more from Sullivan because this guy is unbelievable. This is a direct quote. You can look at the public statements of Iranian officials, which have changed [00:07:13] in the last few months as they have been dealt with strategic blows, says Sullivan. To raise the question, do we have to change our doctrine at some point? The fact that that's coming out publicly is something that has to be looked at [00:07:28] extremely carefully, Sullivan said. And this was at a conference in New York two weeks ago at the same event, according to Axios. Sullivan suggested the blows Iran and its proxies had received over the last year could push Tehran to seek a nuclear weapon [00:07:45] it generates choices for that adversary that can be quite dangerous. And that's something we have to remain extremely vigilant about as we go forward. Biden didn't commit to anything. He didn't say yes or no. [00:08:03] And you know, I gotta I gotta be honest. This is a Barak Ravid reporting, and it's a little wishy washy for my taste because on one hand he's like, but, you know, Sullivan wasn't trying to encourage Biden to do this. I just read you his quotes. I just read you his quotes. [00:08:20] It sounds like encouragement to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. I mean, I understand you want access to your sources, but you got to call a spade a spade. The quotes speak for themselves. The idea that Sullivan wasn't trying to persuade Biden to do this incredibly [00:08:37] irresponsible attack is, like, ludicrous. It's like it's laughable. So look, Iran allegedly has increased its uranium enrichment to 60%, close enough to the 90% level, according to Raviv's reporting. [00:08:55] Needed to produce a nuclear weapon that Iran's advanced centrifuges could accomplish in a matter of days. 60% is not that close to 90%. Okay. And the idea of doing an attack and treating this as if it's an imminent threat is laughable and incredibly irresponsible thinking. [00:09:14] If you want to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. I don't know, maybe go back to something Obama did correctly, which was entering a nuclear deal with Iran, along with our European allies, who ensured that there were checks involved to prevent Iran from actually [00:09:32] building nuclear weapons to prevent them from enriching uranium. That was the right way to go about it. But now there's no discussion about any deal. And by the way, when Biden was first elected, Iran wanted to meet with him. [00:09:48] They wanted to have conversations and negotiations about reentering the Iran nuclear deal when Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal. Iran actually continued following it for some number of months, hoping that the United States would come to its senses because our allies [00:10:05] were also part of the deal, were urging the US to reenter the deal. So really, the US government has one of two choices. They could either continue escalating toward a hot war with Iran on behalf of Israel, which would benefit the United States 0%. Or they can, [00:10:24] I don't know, maybe think about peaceful diplomatic solutions, but people don't really make money from the peaceful diplomatic solutions, do they? And our precious ally Israel wouldn't be happy with the peaceful option here. So I'm glad that Biden didn't commit to doing this. [00:10:44] I don't know how Trump would behave or how he would respond to, you know, Iran. He did not handle Iran well, in my opinion, in his first term. I think what he did with the Iran nuclear deal was a massive mistake. So we'll see what happens. [00:11:00] But the idea that an outgoing president would escalate toward a hot war with a foreign country right before the new president is inaugurated is insane to me. Absolutely insane. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. [00:11:17] You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows and specials right after they air. [00:11:33] So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. Thank you.