WEBVTT
00:00:01.840 --> 00:00:02.959
Welcome back to the program.
00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:04.400
It's a pleasure to be with you.
00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:12.560
Well, as ceasefire just stopped Israel from finishing the job against Hezbollah, that America just hand Iran exactly what it wanted.
00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:19.679
I thought we'd talk about that with David Dowd, who is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, FDD.
00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:21.440
David, welcome to the program.
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:23.920
Thank you for having me on.
00:00:24.559 --> 00:00:34.159
Was this a good deal in any way, shape, or form before we get to the specifics about what it did with Israel finishing the job on Hezbollah, one of Iran's proxies?
00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:54.000
There was a critical uh locale that had to be taken by the IDF called Bintujel that would have dealt Hezbollah a significant uh military and morale blow had it been taken.
00:00:54.159 --> 00:01:00.240
Bintishbel uh is an iconic uh town in Hezbollah's resistance narrative.
00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:04.799
It's where Nasrallah once declared that uh uh Israel is weaker than a spider's web.
00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:09.280
And if the Israelis were able to control that, they would have been able to control several villages nearby.
00:01:09.359 --> 00:01:19.840
And if you saw the lead up, the narrative that Hezbollah was building and the lead up to the ceasefire, they were staking a lot on the ability to control Bintisbel, to repel the Israelis in Bintisbel.
00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:28.480
So had at least the Israelis been able to take that locale, that town, um, then uh things may have been in a better position.
00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:33.680
You would have deprived Hezbollah of an image of victory, which they try to present after every conflict.
00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:41.680
Well, and the other piece to this is President Trump saying that he has prohibited Israel from taking any further action.
00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:52.480
Well, you know, I mean, uh there's certainly been a narrative that says, oh, all of what's happened with Iran has been dictated by Israel to the American president, which I don't buy.
00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:53.680
I don't buy that argument.
00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:56.079
We have to look out for our own security as well.
00:01:56.239 --> 00:01:59.840
And I think we would have had to do it whether Israel existed or not.
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:07.040
But in this case, uh to have the president saying, I'm telling another country what they may and may not do, that may be a bit much as well.
00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:09.120
I wanted to get your take on all that.
00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:17.120
Well, ultimately, it kind of puts to rest the notion that Israel is uh leading the United States in any way.
00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:37.280
And it reminds me of uh June 24th, uh 2025, uh right during the 12-day war, after Iran had launched a ballistic missile attack on Belsheva city in southern Israel, uh, several Israelis were killed, and the Israeli Air Force jets were en route to strike in Iran, and President Trump said turn the planes around, and that was that.
00:02:37.439 --> 00:02:40.319
Uh and this this is very reminiscent of that.
00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:50.960
And I think what President Trump is trying to do here is perhaps trying to give the Lebanese government some breathing room uh to deal with with Hezbollah.
00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:56.319
As they've been saying, they they you know, claiming they have been for the past 15 months.
00:02:56.479 --> 00:03:03.120
Um and their excuse is that Israeli operations uh have been hampering their ability to finish the job.
00:03:03.199 --> 00:03:06.560
Now, I think the facts really don't sit with the Lebanese.
00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:15.039
Um and uh you know the signals coming from Beirut over the past month and a half uh are not promising that they'll actually finish the job.
00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:21.520
I think it seems like they just want the Israeli war effort to stop and then to return to the business as usual.
00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:23.199
And that seems to be the picture of the thing.
00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:32.240
But David, in that case, does business as usual mean Lebanon just tolerates Hezbollah operating as a terrorist organization from their land and attacking Israel?
00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:35.360
Because that doesn't sound like it has good long-term prospects.
00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:37.759
Or is that what they mean?
00:03:38.960 --> 00:04:03.599
Well, I mean perhaps not tolerating Israel, uh or sorry, Hezbollah attacking Israel in the mean term, but uh I think going back to a situation of doing nothing and just you know kicking the bucket down the road, that that that's what Lebanon did for the you know the 15 months between the November uh 2024 ceasefire and when Hezbollah restarted the war that Hezbollah had begun on October 8th of 2023.
00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:10.400
They said a lot of big things, they said a lot of things that were exciting that were un you know unusual for Lebanon that made it look like they were about to act.
00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:18.560
They even claimed the Lebanese army even claimed on January 8th of 2026 that they'd taken effective control over the southern Litani area.
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:21.120
This is the area that's adjacent to the border with Israel.
00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:23.199
And as it turns out, none of that was true.
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:32.959
Hezbollah was able to sustain a fight against perhaps the most intensive uh IDF onslaught in Lebanon in history uh for over a month.
00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:38.319
So kind of puts to rest the claims that Lebanon was really dismantling Hezbollah in any way.
00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:54.959
Um and I think what you know what's going to happen is a similar situation where for the foreseeable future, uh you'll have a lot of Lebanese hang-wringing and no action, and a periodic statement that you know excites the capitals in the West and kicks the bucket down the road.
00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:56.879
And meanwhile, Hezbollah will lay low.
00:04:56.959 --> 00:05:02.560
I think they may lay low for a very long time uh and slowly regenerate.
00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:12.639
Uh and you know, the the situation will be left up to the same inaction and unwillingness to deal with Hezbollah that we've seen from the Lebanese between 2006 and 2023.
00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:14.319
That's a lifetime, right?
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:16.800
Uh and 15 months subsequent to that.
00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:21.839
I'm talking to David Dowd, who's a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense Democracies.
00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:25.680
David, it begins to sound like the whole world's full of a bunch of deadbeat do-nothings.
00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:32.560
And look, I I fault I fault Donald Trump when I think he's, you know, but we've got a Congress that doesn't want to act.
00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:47.439
We've got a NATO that doesn't want to act, we've got w European allies who say, oh, you're not actually asking us to do something about things like Ukraine that's on our own soil, or like uh the Strait of Hormuz, that's uh that's part of our region as well.
00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:53.439
No, we want you to do it all, and then we will sit back on the in the peanut gallery and criticize you.
00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:55.839
Am I wrong for seeing it that way?
00:05:56.800 --> 00:05:58.560
No, unfortunately you're not.
00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:10.959
I mean, look, I think uh the West is uh war weary, uh, and that would be a good thing if our adversaries weren't war weary, or if if our adversaries were also rather war weary.
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:21.839
The problem is our adversaries, be it China, be it Russia, be it Iran, uh, they're taking advantage of this war weariness that seems to have set into the West in the United States.
00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:23.040
And can you blame us?
00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:25.120
We've gone through several world wars.
00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:30.399
Uh you know, the taste of Iraq is still fresh with most Americans.
00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:38.720
Um, and our adversaries are taking advantage of this uh to push us back to assert their control and assert their dominance.
00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:47.519
And unfortunately, uh in the conflict between the West and these adversaries, the West led by the United States, obviously, this is a marathon.
00:06:47.600 --> 00:06:50.879
It's it's it's it's a fight of who can hold their breath longer.
00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:51.360
Yep.
00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:57.279
And you know, it's not a fight of who has the more resources or who has the power more powerful military.
00:06:57.439 --> 00:06:59.199
It's who can hold their breath longer.
00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:03.600
And unfortunately, our adversaries have shown that uh they have a lot of patience.
00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:05.600
Cheese eating surrender monkeys.
00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:11.839
Uh, David didn't say it, I said it, but that's David Dowd, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:14.079
David, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show.
00:07:14.319 --> 00:07:20.720
By the way, those spam texts and the scam emails you get all the time, the ones that flood your phone, well, they're not random.
00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:23.040
The scammers buy your personal info.
00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:25.759
And the data brokers, they're the ones who are selling it.
00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:32.079
Data brokers collect your name, your address, your phone number, even the medication you take, and your income too.
00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:37.759
And then they package it all up and they sell it to anybody willing to take the money, including criminals.
00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:41.839
I used Incogni to take back my privacy and my safety.
00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:51.199
Incogni contacts the hundreds and hundreds of data brokers, and they do it on your behalf because they can legally demand that data brokers take your personal data down.
00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:56.480
Although, how would you like to go out there and try to get hundreds and hundreds of data brokers to do that?
00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:01.759
I've already had my information scrubbed from more than 900 data brokers.
00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:05.199
And incogni, make sure your data stays gone for good.
00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:06.000
The result?
00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:08.319
Less spam, fewer scam calls.
00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:09.680
That's a big deal for me.
00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:15.199
A lot less of your personal info just floating around on the internet like clearance merchandise.
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:18.800
Go to incogni.com slash L A R S.
00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:21.439
Stay in 60% sign up today.
00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:28.720
That's I N-C-O-G-N-I, incogni.com slash Lars, and you're listening to the Lars Larson show.
00:00:01.840 --> 00:00:02.959
Welcome back to the program.
00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:04.400
It's a pleasure to be with you.
00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:12.560
Well, as ceasefire just stopped Israel from finishing the job against Hezbollah, that America just hand Iran exactly what it wanted.
00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:19.679
I thought we'd talk about that with David Dowd, who is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, FDD.
00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:21.440
David, welcome to the program.
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:23.920
Thank you for having me on.
00:00:24.559 --> 00:00:34.159
Was this a good deal in any way, shape, or form before we get to the specifics about what it did with Israel finishing the job on Hezbollah, one of Iran's proxies?
00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:54.000
There was a critical uh locale that had to be taken by the IDF called Bintujel that would have dealt Hezbollah a significant uh military and morale blow had it been taken.
00:00:54.159 --> 00:01:00.240
Bintishbel uh is an iconic uh town in Hezbollah's resistance narrative.
00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:04.799
It's where Nasrallah once declared that uh uh Israel is weaker than a spider's web.
00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:09.280
And if the Israelis were able to control that, they would have been able to control several villages nearby.
00:01:09.359 --> 00:01:19.840
And if you saw the lead up, the narrative that Hezbollah was building and the lead up to the ceasefire, they were staking a lot on the ability to control Bintisbel, to repel the Israelis in Bintisbel.
00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:28.480
So had at least the Israelis been able to take that locale, that town, um, then uh things may have been in a better position.
00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:33.680
You would have deprived Hezbollah of an image of victory, which they try to present after every conflict.
00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:41.680
Well, and the other piece to this is President Trump saying that he has prohibited Israel from taking any further action.
00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:52.480
Well, you know, I mean, uh there's certainly been a narrative that says, oh, all of what's happened with Iran has been dictated by Israel to the American president, which I don't buy.
00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:53.680
I don't buy that argument.
00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:56.079
We have to look out for our own security as well.
00:01:56.239 --> 00:01:59.840
And I think we would have had to do it whether Israel existed or not.
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:07.040
But in this case, uh to have the president saying, I'm telling another country what they may and may not do, that may be a bit much as well.
00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:09.120
I wanted to get your take on all that.
00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:17.120
Well, ultimately, it kind of puts to rest the notion that Israel is uh leading the United States in any way.
00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:37.280
And it reminds me of uh June 24th, uh 2025, uh right during the 12-day war, after Iran had launched a ballistic missile attack on Belsheva city in southern Israel, uh, several Israelis were killed, and the Israeli Air Force jets were en route to strike in Iran, and President Trump said turn the planes around, and that was that.
00:02:37.439 --> 00:02:40.319
Uh and this this is very reminiscent of that.
00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:50.960
And I think what President Trump is trying to do here is perhaps trying to give the Lebanese government some breathing room uh to deal with with Hezbollah.
00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:56.319
As they've been saying, they they you know, claiming they have been for the past 15 months.
00:02:56.479 --> 00:03:03.120
Um and their excuse is that Israeli operations uh have been hampering their ability to finish the job.
00:03:03.199 --> 00:03:06.560
Now, I think the facts really don't sit with the Lebanese.
00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:15.039
Um and uh you know the signals coming from Beirut over the past month and a half uh are not promising that they'll actually finish the job.
00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:21.520
I think it seems like they just want the Israeli war effort to stop and then to return to the business as usual.
00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:23.199
And that seems to be the picture of the thing.
00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:32.240
But David, in that case, does business as usual mean Lebanon just tolerates Hezbollah operating as a terrorist organization from their land and attacking Israel?
00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:35.360
Because that doesn't sound like it has good long-term prospects.
00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:37.759
Or is that what they mean?
00:03:38.960 --> 00:04:03.599
Well, I mean perhaps not tolerating Israel, uh or sorry, Hezbollah attacking Israel in the mean term, but uh I think going back to a situation of doing nothing and just you know kicking the bucket down the road, that that that's what Lebanon did for the you know the 15 months between the November uh 2024 ceasefire and when Hezbollah restarted the war that Hezbollah had begun on October 8th of 2023.
00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:10.400
They said a lot of big things, they said a lot of things that were exciting that were un you know unusual for Lebanon that made it look like they were about to act.
00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:18.560
They even claimed the Lebanese army even claimed on January 8th of 2026 that they'd taken effective control over the southern Litani area.
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:21.120
This is the area that's adjacent to the border with Israel.
00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:23.199
And as it turns out, none of that was true.
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:32.959
Hezbollah was able to sustain a fight against perhaps the most intensive uh IDF onslaught in Lebanon in history uh for over a month.
00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:38.319
So kind of puts to rest the claims that Lebanon was really dismantling Hezbollah in any way.
00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:54.959
Um and I think what you know what's going to happen is a similar situation where for the foreseeable future, uh you'll have a lot of Lebanese hang-wringing and no action, and a periodic statement that you know excites the capitals in the West and kicks the bucket down the road.
00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:56.879
And meanwhile, Hezbollah will lay low.
00:04:56.959 --> 00:05:02.560
I think they may lay low for a very long time uh and slowly regenerate.
00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:12.639
Uh and you know, the the situation will be left up to the same inaction and unwillingness to deal with Hezbollah that we've seen from the Lebanese between 2006 and 2023.
00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:14.319
That's a lifetime, right?
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:16.800
Uh and 15 months subsequent to that.
00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:21.839
I'm talking to David Dowd, who's a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense Democracies.
00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:25.680
David, it begins to sound like the whole world's full of a bunch of deadbeat do-nothings.
00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:32.560
And look, I I fault I fault Donald Trump when I think he's, you know, but we've got a Congress that doesn't want to act.
00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:47.439
We've got a NATO that doesn't want to act, we've got w European allies who say, oh, you're not actually asking us to do something about things like Ukraine that's on our own soil, or like uh the Strait of Hormuz, that's uh that's part of our region as well.
00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:53.439
No, we want you to do it all, and then we will sit back on the in the peanut gallery and criticize you.
00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:55.839
Am I wrong for seeing it that way?
00:05:56.800 --> 00:05:58.560
No, unfortunately you're not.
00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:10.959
I mean, look, I think uh the West is uh war weary, uh, and that would be a good thing if our adversaries weren't war weary, or if if our adversaries were also rather war weary.
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:21.839
The problem is our adversaries, be it China, be it Russia, be it Iran, uh, they're taking advantage of this war weariness that seems to have set into the West in the United States.
00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:23.040
And can you blame us?
00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:25.120
We've gone through several world wars.
00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:30.399
Uh you know, the taste of Iraq is still fresh with most Americans.
00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:38.720
Um, and our adversaries are taking advantage of this uh to push us back to assert their control and assert their dominance.
00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:47.519
And unfortunately, uh in the conflict between the West and these adversaries, the West led by the United States, obviously, this is a marathon.
00:06:47.600 --> 00:06:50.879
It's it's it's it's a fight of who can hold their breath longer.
00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:51.360
Yep.
00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:57.279
And you know, it's not a fight of who has the more resources or who has the power more powerful military.
00:06:57.439 --> 00:06:59.199
It's who can hold their breath longer.
00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:03.600
And unfortunately, our adversaries have shown that uh they have a lot of patience.
00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:05.600
Cheese eating surrender monkeys.
00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:11.839
Uh, David didn't say it, I said it, but that's David Dowd, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:14.079
David, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show.
00:07:14.319 --> 00:07:20.720
By the way, those spam texts and the scam emails you get all the time, the ones that flood your phone, well, they're not random.
00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:23.040
The scammers buy your personal info.
00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:25.759
And the data brokers, they're the ones who are selling it.
00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:32.079
Data brokers collect your name, your address, your phone number, even the medication you take, and your income too.
00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:37.759
And then they package it all up and they sell it to anybody willing to take the money, including criminals.
00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:41.839
I used Incogni to take back my privacy and my safety.
00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:51.199
Incogni contacts the hundreds and hundreds of data brokers, and they do it on your behalf because they can legally demand that data brokers take your personal data down.
00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:56.480
Although, how would you like to go out there and try to get hundreds and hundreds of data brokers to do that?
00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:01.759
I've already had my information scrubbed from more than 900 data brokers.
00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:05.199
And incogni, make sure your data stays gone for good.
00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:06.000
The result?
00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:08.319
Less spam, fewer scam calls.
00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:09.680
That's a big deal for me.
00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:15.199
A lot less of your personal info just floating around on the internet like clearance merchandise.
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:18.800
Go to incogni.com slash L A R S.
00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:21.439
Stay in 60% sign up today.
00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:28.720
That's I N-C-O-G-N-I, incogni.com slash Lars, and you're listening to the Lars Larson show.
