Crashing the War Party Kelley Vlahos and Daniel Larison

According to journalist Matthew Petti's number crunching, 31% of English-speaking media have been using the phrase "Hamas-led Health Ministry" since Oct. 17. Before that day, only 7% were using such a phrase. What happened? Petti points to the Oct. 17 explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, the perpetrator of which has not been independently confirmed. He said civilian casualty counts were not only second-guessed by the Biden administration but questioned because the ministry was "Hamas run." Repeating this led to the Western media pick-up of the phrase. Not only does linking the ministry and its data to the militant group delegitimize both, it serves a broader insidious narrative that Gazans and Palestinians are Hamas, which serves Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's interests in justifying the relentless bombing of civilians. Petti talks to Kelley and Daniel about this and the broader responsibility of the Western media in the coverage and interpretation of these complex issues on the ground today.
More from Matt Petti:
Media amplified US, Israeli narrative on Palestinian deaths, Responsible Statecraft, 11/20/23
The international pressure on Israel that really matters comes from the Middle East, Analyst News, 10/19/23
Why does Egypt fear evacuating Gaza? Responsible Statecraft, 10/13/23
America's Broken, Lurid View of Foreign Wars, Reason magazine, 10/12/23


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Experts are now speculating that America's reputation in the world, particularly in the Middle East, is taking a hit worse than when it invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. Giorgio Cafiero, head of Gulf State Analytics and a keen observer of politics in the region, tells the podcast this week that President Biden is becoming more hated than George W. Bush during that era. This threatens to get even worse each day that the Israeli bombardments continue and more Palestinian civilians are killed (as of this writing, it is well over 11,000, nearly half of them children). Meanwhile, Arab leaders, especially those in the Gulf States with ties to both the U.S. and Israel, are coming under increasing pressure by the Arab Street to do more than just rhetorically signal their anger and displeasure with Tel Aviv and Washington.
In the first segment, Kelley & Dan talk about the big Biden-Xi Jinping meeting in San Francisco this week: a nothingburger or a real step forward for diplomacy? 
More from Giorgio Cafiero:
Consequences Of The Israeli War On Gaza, News Looks, 11/14/23
Will Turkey-Israel ties reach breaking point amid Gaza war?, The New Arab, 11/14/23
Will UAE hurt Russia with export controls to please the US amid Israel war? Al Jazeera, 11/7/23
China and Israel have enjoyed serious ties. What happens now? Responsible Statecraft, 11/3/23


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A popular narrative after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and ensuing retaliation by Israel has been that the U.S. had dropped the ball because it had 'pivoted away' from the Middle East over the last three administrations. That is simply not true. According to our guests this week, CATO researchers Jon Hoffman and Jordan Cohen,  Washington has maintained a status quo in the Middle East that had become untenable. It has been fueling the region with weapons; making deals with dictators in Saudi Arabia and Israel at the expense of the Palestinian issue, and ignoring the growing violence and tensions in the occupied territories. We talk about this and more as the violence threatens to spill over to other parts of the region, which will embolden those in Washington who want us to have a bigger, not a smaller footprint there.
More from Jon Hoffman and Jordan Cohen:
Emergency Aid or Budget Trick? Assessing Biden’s $100 Billion Spending Request, Jordan Cohen w/ Dominik Lett, CATO, 10/20/23
Biden's Middle East Deal is a Disaster, Jon Hoffman, Responsible Statecraft, 9/27/23
Many Arms and Little Influence in the Middle East, Hoffman and Cohen, War on the Rocks, 8/23/23
Counter-revolutionary? A deeper look at Israel’s relationships with Arab autocrats, Responsible Statecraft


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There are currently 2,500 American troops in Iraq and another 900 in Syria. Their bases have come under repeated fire in both countries since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. According to Pentagon officials, Iranian-backed militias are to blame, and they expect more as fighting ramps up in Gaza and the West Bank. Adam Weinstein, a senior fellow on Middle East issues at the Quincy Institute and an Afghanistan War veteran, spoke with Dan and Kelley this week about how vulnerable these troops are today. He also talked about the risks of the war expanding to Lebanon and the possibility of Iran and neighboring Arab nations, along with the U.S., getting dragged into the conflagration. 
In the first segment, Kelley and Dan talk about the reaction of the Global South and Arab state leaders to the events in Israel and how the international community seems to be fracturing, once again, against U.S. desires for consensus.
More from Adam Weinstein:
Iraq as it Is, with Steven Simon, Foreign Affairs, 9/27/23
‘The Return of the Taliban’ Makes Sense of Afghanistan’s Misery, Foreign Policy, 7/19/23
How to Withdraw From Iraq Within Five Years, with Steven Simon, Quincy Institute, 5/9/23


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In this special episode, Kelley and Dan update the headlines from the Gaza strip and talk about how U.S. policy in the region has become increasingly effective in terms of pushing for a two-state solution and helping to restrain the more extreme impulses of the Israeli government ahead of the Hamas attacks on Israel and retaliatory strikes in Gaza over the last week.
In the first segment, we talk to Mark Hannah, senior fellow of the Eurasia Group Foundation about the organization's recent polling, Views of US Foreign Policy in a Fragmented World, which finds strong public opinion in favor of diplomacy with Iran and Russia, declining interest in fighting a forever war in Ukraine, and an interesting uptick in support for military intervention against China in defense of Taiwan.
More from Mark Hannah:
The Real Reason Ukraine Isn’t Ready to Join NATO, Politico, 9/18/23
Washington Should Divide, Not Unite, Russia and China, The National Interest, 9/14/23
Straight Talk on the Country’s War Addiction, New York Times, 2/18/23


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It took the Ukraine war to show how broken the U.S. war machine really is. President Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex in 1961 and we know that it is ten times as worse as he even imagined. But after almost two years of war in Ukraine and tens of billions of American weapons transfers, we now know how limited -- if not dysfunctional -- the MIC really is. Yale scholar and lecturer Michael Brenes joins us to discuss how this happened historically, and what Washington might do to claw the industry back from the five mega-corporations that now dominate and control U.S. defense manufacturing and supply.
In the first segment, Kelley and Dan talk about the latest events in Gaza and Israel and bemoan the exploitation of the conflict by outside warmongers who want to drag the U.S. into a wider conflict with Iran.
More from Michael Brenes:
How America Broke its War Machine, Foreign Affairs, 7/3/23
The future of restraint after Ukraine, Foreign Exchanges, 12/19/22
Great-Power Competition Is Bad for Democracy, with Van Jackson, 7/14/22


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