Larry Johnson & Pepe Escobar: Iran Strikes Back At Israel; What Comes Next (10-3-2024)

https://rad-patriot.com/larry-johnson-pepe-escobar-iran-strikes-back-at-israel-what-comes-next/
Love me some Pepe. Pepe Escobar and I first met last December, during my first trip to Moscow. We were instant friends. When I arrived in Moscow in the midst of a record-breaking snowstorm, I was standing in line waiting to check in to the hotel and noticed that the man in front of me looked remarkably like Pepe Escobar. The man turned, looked at me, and then said, “Oh my God! You’re Larry Johnson.” And I said, “You look like Pepe Escobar.” He laughed with his iconic good cheer and we immediately agreed to meet for drinks and a snack. This was the birth of a dear friendship.

Apart from Alastair Crooke, an icon in his own right, I could think of no one better than Pepe with whom to mull over the implications of Iran finally delivering on its promise to retaliate against Israel for the murder of Ismail Haniyeh. Most of the Western media is reporting the Iranian attack as “unprovoked.” Just one more example of the corruption and lies that undergird the so-called free press in the West.

There was a lot of behind-the-scenes action, in Israel and in Tehran, that the media is ignoring. The biggest story, one that Pepe brought to light, is the internal ruckus in Iran pitting President Pezeshkian against Ayatollah Khameni. Pezeshkian admitted that he was bamboozled by the West, naively believing that if Iran held back from launching retaliatory missiles at Israel, that Netanyahu would stop the slaughter of Palestinians and that a ceasefire would come to pass.

Instead, the promised ceasefire was a deadly trap. According to Lebanon’s foreign minister, Nasrallah had agreed to call a ceasefire and was meeting with an Iranian General to discuss the matter when both were assassinated. Richard Steven Hack has written a good piece explaining how it appears that the ceasefire proposal was a ruse to entrap and murder Nasrallah. This is just one of the issues Pepe and I discuss.