Joe Rogan Experience #2500 - Scott Horton

Joe Rogan and Scott Horton spend nearly two and a half hours on U.S. foreign policy, tracing the neoconservative blueprint behind the Iraq War, the 'seven countries' plan, and the 1996 'Clean Break' document. Horton lays out his thesis that NATO expansion and CIA-backed coups in Ukraine provoked Russia's invasion, drawing on broken promises made to Gorbachev. The bulk of the back half dissects the recent U.S.-Israel war on Iran, which Horton calls a Netanyahu-driven mistake that exposed America's Gulf military empire as a hollow bluff. He explains Iran's safeguarded nuclear program, the IAEA inspection regime, and why he believes regime change is impossible. Throughout, Horton frames war as driven by special interests, public-choice incentives, and 'backdraft' blowback.

• Horton says he was invited to the Oxford Union to debate Ukraine and lost the audience vote, blaming his own framing.
  00:01:34
• Estimates the total terror-war cost at roughly 5 to 10 trillion dollars, asking where all that defense-contractor money went.
  00:22:16
• Frames Ukraine as 'Russia's Canada,' arguing America would invade Canada and nuke Moscow if Russia did the reverse.
  00:35:46
• Argues the U.S. Middle East military empire is 'completely bankrupt' and that Iran called Trump's bluff in the recent war.
  01:15:45
• Claims government officials now admit Iran retains 70-75 percent of its missiles and launchers despite strikes.
  01:24:05
• Says Netanyahu talked Trump into the Iran war through flattery and a 'double-jump' rhetorical trap on enrichment.
  01:28:45
• Walks through the full uranium enrichment cycle and argues Iran had a 'latent deterrent' but was never actually building a bomb.
  01:55:36
• Reveals the war's opening strikes killed schools full of little girls, comparing the toll to the Oklahoma City bombing.
  02:17:00

• Horton says he has done over 6,200 interviews since 2003 and gave up his KPFK radio show last year.
  00:04:09
• Cites journalist Andrew Cockburn calling neoconservatives 'a cross between the Israel lobby and the military-industrial complex.'
  00:13:28
• HW Bush promised Gorbachev at Malta in December 1989 the U.S. would not 'take advantage' if Warsaw Pact states were freed.
  00:36:16
• George Kennan, architect of containment, predicted in a 1998 NYT interview that NATO expansion would provoke Russia.
  00:38:51
• The 2019 RAND study 'Extending Russia' explicitly proposed provoking Russia into overextending itself, with disclaimers attached.
  00:44:03
• Estimates the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage was the biggest single release of methane into the atmosphere ever.
  00:57:36
• TSMC, founded in 1987, produces over half the world's advanced chips and more than 90 percent of cutting-edge nodes.
  01:13:10
• Claims Bill Clinton allowed three-stage rocket technology transfers to China via a Commerce Department licensing scheme.
  01:47:47
• Says Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu personally told him Israel had 200 atom bombs by the time he leaked in 1986.
  02:06:01
• Notes Oliver Stone's film JFK was produced by Arnon Milchan, later revealed as an Israeli intelligence operative.
  02:10:40