Interview · moment 2 of 31
Scahill: Cheney Looks Tame, Democrats Sat on Their Hands, and Trump's Venezuela/Libya Misread of Iran
from Emergency Podcast: Iran, Israel, & Imminent Destruction | The Tim Dillon Show #486 · #486
3 min
Guest
Scahill argues the Trump administration makes Bush/Cheney look like constitutional scholars, that Democratic leadership cynically avoided a War Powers vote, and that Trump's team is wrongly modeling Iran on Venezuela or Libya despite Iran's decades-old horizontal power structures.
- Dick Cheney and the Bush team look like constitutional law scholars compared to Trump's approach to war powers.
- Democratic leadership sat on their hands during the buildup, refusing public debate and delaying a War Powers Act vote.
- Democrats cynically exploited the situation, wanting regime change but hoping Trump screws it up electorally.
- Trump administration is approaching Iran like Venezuela or Libya, expecting to kill the leadership and cut a deal.
- Iran has built horizontal institutions since 1979—it's not a one-man dictatorship that collapses if you kill the supreme leader.
- Trump's people talk about this like a sporting event, with Pete Hegseth bragging about overwhelming firepower.
- After Hegseth said Iranian attacks were abating, Iran launched some of their most ferocious attacks on US targets that night.
- Iranians have successfully targeted high-end US radar systems for early detection, leading to more hits on bases.
- The idea that you're just going to overthrow the Iranian government is a massive miscalculation.