Shapiro: Time for Total War on Iran. Mass Casualties OK. Carlson: Shapiro Won’t Join the Fight

Israel-First podcaster Ben Shapiro is urging President Trump to wage total war on Iran, which would necessarily require ground troops and would likely end with thousands of Americans wounded or dead.

The neoconservative commentator’s latest call for a war in which he will not be a combatant comes about a year after he said opponents who worry about ground troops in the war are “lying.” Now, he says, “we” Americans are “willing” to sustain mass casualties.

Shapiro’s commentary, broadcast yesterday, provoked a sharp response from Tucker Carlson, who called Shapiro a “little freak” who won’t risk his life in the war he advocates. Shapiro responded with a vile slur.

Tune Changed

Before yesterday’s podcast, Shapiro had assured viewers that Americans would not fight on the ground in Iran. In fact, Shapiro said, only liars would say such a thing.

“You shouldn’t take into account the things that they say will happen that do not even come close to happening,” Shapiro warned. 

Indeed, “no one’s talking about” a full-scale ground invasion or regime-change operation, he said:

And I want to point out again, people are lying to you about this. They are lying. Many of them are lying because they believe this is what’s going to happen. You should take into account the things that they say will happen, that do not even come close to happening. 

In fact, if war opponents were predicting a ground invasion, they weren’t lying. But Shapiro’s point was clear: President Trump would not commit ground troops in any unconstitutional war against Iran.

Yesterday, Shapiro not only changed his tune, but also advocated mass slaughter and destruction. That, of course, would involve ground troops.

Arguing that Americans are “confused and upset” about what seems to be a “stalemate,” Shapiro claimed that what Americans really “want is victory.”

“There’s this bizarre notion in foreign policy that the American people are deeply worried about the immediate cost of war to the enemy, that the American people, we can’t handle the ugliness of war for even a day, that every conflict has to be totally antiseptic,” said Shapiro, who has never served in the military and knows nothing about military operations:

And here I’m not even talking about the American willingness to undergo casualties. No one in America wants American casualties, it’s a tragedy and a horror. We do understand that war does come along with casualties, and we are willing to undergo those casualties in pursuit of an end and a victory for America. But as far as the idea that, for example, America, we can’t hit Kharg Island because the Iranian people would then be deprived of oil resources, the American people are, I should say, not particularly concerned about that. 

We are far more concerned with why we’re there, not winning. I think what we actually ought to do is say an eye for everything. Like you touch a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, and we kill the head of the IRGC … we kill your entire leadership class. Again, we destroy South Pars and we strike hard. One drone, and that’s what happens. That is the way you win in the Middle [East], by the way, the way you win generally.

In other words, Trump must commit ground troops to the war because Americans are “willing to undergo those casualties.”

That’s doubtful. And Americans are not concerned about “winning” in Iran, which is impossible. The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows a strong majority of those surveyed oppose the war: 60.1 percent oppose it, while just 37.4 percent support it.

Carlson Responds

Carlson quickly noted that the “we” who are “willing to undergo those casualties in pursuit of an end and a victory for America” does not include Shapiro. At 42 years old, Shapiro is eligible to enlist in the U.S. Army, which raised its enlistment age to a serendipitous 42. Indeed, when the Army did so in March, Shapiro was arguing that the war had to go on. But Shapiro did not enlist and instead fought the war from behind a microphone.

He “could go volunteer to fight the war himself, but of course he won’t,” Carlson wrote on X:

He’s got no interest in making any kind of personal sacrifice. None of them do. Israel’s finance minister bragged the other day that having American soldiers fight Netanyahu’s wars “is the best for us.” [Bezalel] Smotrich doesn’t want to die for Israel. Neither does Ben Shapiro. Dying for Israel is your job. You’ve got to wonder how people like this — liars without honor, wisdom or loyalty to the United States — wound up in positions of such profound influence throughout our society. How did Mark Levin get the president’s cell phone number?… It’s all so nuts, and ultimately suicidal. 

Carlson wrote that Trump will follow Shapiro’s order for an invasion, “as he has consistently for months.”

Carlson also noted that the coming results are predictable “because every neocon ‘victory’ is identical: huge numbers of innocent people killed, disproportionately Christians, economic destruction, famine, mass migration and deepening authoritarianism at home.”

And when the war in Iran “ends in disaster, as it inevitably will,” Carlson concluded, “Ben Shapiro will be able to blame you for it.”

Shapiro was not amused and unleashed a Christophobic smear. “Goyslop,” he wrote over Carlson’s post.

Far-left podcaster Cenk Uygur sallied forth to defend Carlson.

“What the f**k is this?” he wrote on X:

I was told that the word goy was never used derisively and that implying that it would be used that way was antisemitic. Here is Ben Shapiro openly insulting Christians and other non-Jews. This is definitively a slur. Guaranteed no one in media will object.

As for Smotrich, Carlson was right.

“Israel has no interest in joining the campaign,” he said recently, “the current situation is the best for us.”

Eighteen Americans have died in what President Trump has said is America’s war for Israel.