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Press TV: Hegseth and top military officials appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee to defend White House’s $87.6 billion emergency budget request. The War Secretary revealed that the Iran war has already cost the U.S. $37.5 billion, warning that troops training will be curtailed without immediate funding. Democratic lawmakers have sharply criticized the Trump administration for Hegseth’s failure, with some warning against another endless war with no clear outcome.Some lawmakers also shamed the Pentagon for seeking unlimited money for bombs while ordinary Americans struggle to feed their families.
Dr. Barrett, always a pleasure to serve you. Hope you’re safe and doing well out there in Morocco. Your thoughts? Just earlier this week, I should say there’s an Ipsis poll. I don’t know if you saw it. There’s an 68 percent, record high 68% disapproval of the war on Iran. It trumps Afghanistan at 65, Vietnam at 66, and Iraq at 67. I know there’s a standard percentage of deviation here, and they could all be one or two points up and down. But nevertheless, it ranks as supposedly, for the time being, the most unpopular war with American people in U.S. history since records were kept.
Kevin Barrett: Yeah, that’s not surprising because it was the most unpopular war, at the beginning of any war, that the United States has ever begun. In fact, the difference then was even greater. At that time, the approval rating was as low as about a third of the American people. Normally at the beginning of a war, there’s a rally around the flag effect. So normally, a huge majority of Americans, for whatever reasons, brainwashing, I suppose, being the biggest one, tend to support their country and their leadership when the war begins. But this time, that didn’t happen.
After 9/11, it was 90 percent approval of invading Afghanistan. And this time it was like 30% worth of weak, lukewarm approval. And it’s only been going down since then. So this is an incredibly unpopular war, as it should be. Trump ran for president in 2016 by criticizing his predecessors for getting involved and continuing in these forever wars. Now he has found himself in the mother of all forever wars that’s going to result in the mother of all defeats, because now the mother of all surrenders, the MOU, is going to have to be redone in an even more unfavorable to the US and its Zionist masters way, and a more favorable to Iran way, than the original MOU. They’re going to have to actually follow it up front. Trump’s signature means nothing.
So Trump has gotten his country into a real mess. Losing this war as badly as they’re losing it, and finishing it with a surrender as outrageous as the surrender that’s going to be coming up, is going to really be a big blow to the dwindling power and prestige of the U.S. empire at this critical time in history.
Press TV: What’s wild at this point, Dr. Barrett, Donald Trump’s still selling the same pretext that we need to stop Iran’s ability to build a bomb. I mean, didn’t you do that with the June 12-day war last year? You bombed the heck out of three key nuclear facilities, basically with bunker bunkers. So God knows what the damage is, like layers and layers beneath the ground. And back then you said we put Iran’s nuclear program out of commission.
Kevin Barrett: Well, if you look at some of the videos on social media of Hegseth being grilled by the congresspeople about this, you almost have to feel sorry for Hegseth. He’s in such a terrible position. They asked him about why he said that they had completely put all of Iran’s rockets and drones out of commission halfway through the second week of March. And so obviously, they’ve made all of these bombastic claims of victory that are the precise opposite of the truth, which is, again, a huge political liability.
They could have gotten out of this. The American empire actually could do very well just through diplomacy in the region. And indeed, rather than bombing Iran and making it more likely that Iran at some point will conclude that it needs a nuclear weapon to ensure its own security as an existential issue against an existential threat… what they (the US) is doing is they’re trying to convince Iran that it might actually need a nuclear weapon, which Iran doesn’t want and is resistant to.
So everything the US is doing is completely counterproductive. It’s all about protecting Israel, and all of this is making Israel look that much worse. It’s reshaping the region in a way that’s ultimately going to put Israel completely out of business. So once again, “they plot and God plans, and God is the best of planners.” Because as they plot, they’re undermining all of their own goals.
Press TV: And before I let you go, really quick, Dr. Kevin Barrett. At this point, okay, dropping Hegseth, they’re asking for another $60-plus billion in funding. My question is, with respect to the 37 or 38, let’s round it out to $40 billion you’ve already spent in this imposed war against Iran. What have you achieved? And what are you going to achieve with another near $70 billion added to it?
Kevin Barrett: Well, they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, and that seems to be what this insane administration wants to do. After $30 billion already spent, and that’s a gross underestimate, they want to just keep spending the same kind of money or more to do exactly the same things that don’t work.
Iran has its weapons well protected under mountains. They weren’t able to bomb them and cause any real disruption in Iran’s ability to hit American targets and allied targets and Israeli targets with its drones and missiles, which are actually getting more powerful and more accurate—as big US media, starting with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, have been admitting recently here in the United States. They’re admitting that Iran actually is hitting targets with more power and more accuracy. They’re more impossible to stop than they were at the beginning. And of course, that’s because Iran started by firing its older stuff and they saved their better stuff and are building even new generations of even better stuff all the time.
So this is really a stupid war as well as an evil, immoral war. And I think it’s going to continue to be the most politically unpopular war in American history. It’s probably going to set new records for unpopularity.
