The tense exchange broke out after Iran launched retaliatory missile strikes.
Alex Armstrong lost it when a GB News guest claimed the joint US-Israel attack on Iran was to do with race (Image: GB News)
GB News host Alex Armstrong clashed with political commentator Jonathan Lis over whether the strikes on Iran were justified. Israel and the US carried out joint “preventative” air strikes on Iranian targets, aimed at destroying Iranian missiles. US President Donald Trump announced that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed in the attack and warned “we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before” on his Truth Social platform.
However, Dubai and neighbouring cities were hit by explosions after Iran launched retaliatory missile strikes following the joint US-Israel attack on Tehran on Saturday. On GB News, Armstrong described Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a “terrorist regime” and an “evil organisation”, adding that no one should mourn its destruction.
Lis agreed: “The thing that I shared the fewest tears for is the things that happened to the Iranian regime and their outliers. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.
“I think it’s quite possible to hold that view and still condemn, wholeheartedly, an illegal war against Iran, which has already claimed up to 200 lives. Those people did not ask for this war and they did not deserve to die.”
He added: “We always have this double standard where we think it’s a price worth paying to see brown people be killed.”
Interjecting, a furious Armstrong responded: “That is absolutely ludicrous! It’s totally ludicrous to make this about race tonight. This has nothing to do with race!
“This is to do with a terrorist regime that has spread its tentacles around the world, it has funded Hamas. You could argue that the war in Palestine wouldn’t even be happening if the Iranian regime had fallen decades ago, which it should have done.”
Jonathan Lis argued the killing of innocent Iranian civilians was not justified in the attack (Image: GB News)
When the presenter doubled down that it has nothing to do with race, Armstrong disagreed: “Of course it is.”
He said there are many people that find Israel‘s government “completely monstrous and reprehensible,” but that doesn’t mean it is justified to attack Israeli targets where innocent civilians are put in harm’s way.
He went on to argue that he simply has a different view about a point of international law, but feels the same about the Iranian regime.
Mani Basharzad hit back: “World War II wasn’t about race or colour. When France was occupied by the Nazis, we didn’t care whether they were white or brown. It was a regime which was an occupying force and it was completely justified and legal, in my view, for the UK, US, and USSR to attack the Nazis.
“You’re assuming that the government in Iran is a legitimate force. It is an occupied force when they bring Iraqi terrorists to kill Iranian people. How can we say that is a legitimate government?
