S8 Ep647: 13. Guest Cliff May defends the war with Iran as a necessary "war of choice" to deter decades of aggression,. He emphasizes preemptive action against gathering threats and discusses Iran’s crippled regional proxies,. (13)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 27 March 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
13. Guest Cliff May defends the war with Iran as a necessary "war of choice" to deter decades of aggression,. He emphasizes preemptive action against gathering threats and discusses Iran’s crippled regional proxies,. (13)
1934
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchler. I welcome Cliff May, the founder and president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. |
| 0:22.2 | Iran. |
| 0:23.4 | The war in Iran. |
| 0:25.4 | A war of choice, it is said. |
| 0:28.6 | Cliff, a very good evening to you. |
| 0:30.2 | A war of choice is a way of accusing the president of having started a war he didn't need to. |
| 0:35.8 | That is one way to interpret a war of choice. |
| 0:38.6 | You have an excellent column that says, wait, a war of choice, how do you arrive at that |
| 0:44.7 | decision after 47 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran making war on the United States? |
| 0:50.6 | Good evening to you, Cliff. |
| 0:52.0 | Good evening to you. |
| 0:53.8 | And this war of choice, the Iranians |
| 0:57.4 | believed that they could provoke and provoke and attack and kill and threaten for indefinitely, |
| 1:05.1 | and we were supposed to not choose to fight back. Is that the war of choice? Yes, entirely. And the day after the embassy |
| 1:12.7 | was taken in 1979, Ayatollah Ruala Kameney said the Americans cannot do a damn thing against us, |
| 1:20.0 | and that phrase has been used ever since. The Americans either cannot or do not have the will to do |
| 1:25.6 | so. My argument is, I always prefer a war of choice over a war of necessity. |
| 1:31.2 | How could you not? |
| 1:32.5 | I mean, a war of choice is a conflict. |
| 1:35.4 | We decide to wage at a time of our choosing. |
| 1:38.2 | You've heard that phrase before. |
| 1:39.5 | And we decide to choose to go to war to achieve vital goals before such time as our enemies can push our backs up against the wall. |
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