Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and we'll only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to

subscribe at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made

possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here,

please consider becoming one.

Okay, welcome back to another episode of More From Sam. We are taping this episode live in front of

subscribers. They've submitted questions in advance of the show. And then we've asked them to provide

any follow-ups by using the chat feature so that we can try to address their feedback in real time.

Another thing to add, the questions for this episode are outstanding. I love being reminded that so many in this audience are so thoughtful and smart with different voices for many parts of the world. And I just want to thank everyone for taking the time to submit the questions. There's really great stuff in here. So I'm excited for today's episode. I haven't seen any of these questions, by the way. No, you have not. Well, and I'm as excited as everybody else. Yeah. Oh, this is a good one. This is going to be a good episode. We'll try to get to as many as we can, and we'll get to those in just a moment. But first, a word from our sponsor. Next week, Sam has shows in Portland and Vancouver, March 11th in Portland, March 12th in Vancouver. There are still some tickets available

for those shows as well as for the shows we have on sale in May. Toronto's already sold out, but

you can find info for how to get tickets at samharris.org for the other shows I just mentioned,

as well as DC, New York City, Austin, and Dallas. Okay, on to our first topic. Sam,

should the U.S. have taken military action against Iran?

Yeah, well, I think you have to hold two thoughts in your head simultaneously to have an adequate

answer to this question. So the first thought is that at any point since 1979, it would

have been a good thing to unseat the regime in Iran. It would have been true when

they took our hostages. It would have been true in 1983 when they engineered the bombing of the

marine barracks in Beirut. It would have been true during the Iraq War, whatever you think about

that war, given that they were producing all the IEDs that were killing our soldiers.

It would have been true in 1989 with the Salman Rushdie Fatwa.

This is an engine of terrorism and just awfulness for the world, for open societies everywhere,

to say nothing of the immiseration of the Iranian people.

And I think it's a scandal of the Obama administration and the Biden administration not

...