Speaker 1: What's going on.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It
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And again, thank you so much for your support. Last hour,
I mentioned some of the confusion over what was part
of the framework for the ceasefire discussions. Right when we
got the fifteen points from America, we had the ten
points from Iran, and then there was like there were
different versions of it and whatnot than Iran's like that's
not in the deal and that was in the deal,
and so like there's a lot of a lot of confusion.
Speaker 1: So I think some of it.
Speaker 2: Is addressed and cleared up by comments from Vice President
jd Vance, who was on the tarmac yesterday departing Budapest, Hungary.
He was getting ready to board the jet and he
did a quick like twelve thirteen minute Q and A
with reporters before he got on board.
Speaker 1: And so he addresses some of this stuff.
Speaker 2: For example, he says, this is regarding why there are
you know, why is Iran saying things are in the
ten point proposal that America had previously said, we rejected
these ten points. They were not they were maximalists, they
were non starters. And so then why is Iran talking
about these ten points and what's in them? And you
know versus you know what's been reported. And here was
his explanation. Basically, it was that there were multiple ten
point proposals from Iran.
Speaker 3: I think it's very important for the American media to
be honest with the American people on this particular issue
because it affects not just you know, the normal.
Speaker 4: Issues of public policy, it actually affects peace and war.
Here's what I mean.
Speaker 3: So, in the past couple of days, I've seen a
lot of reporting from the American media about the ten
point proposal that the Iranians have made. Now, as I know,
because I've been involved in this, there are three different
ten point proposals at least that I've seen floating around.
Speaker 4: The first ten point proposal was something that was submitted.
Speaker 3: And we think, frankly was probably written by Chat GPT
that was submitted to Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner that
immediately went in the garbage and was rejected. There was
a second ten point proposal that was much more reasonable,
that was based on some back and forth between us,
between the Pakistanis and between the Iranians. That is the
ten point proposal that the President was referencing in his
truth yesterday. And then, frankly, I've seen a third ten
point proposal that's even more maximalist than the first ten
point parm that's been floating around various social media channels
now here. Here's what's interesting about all this is that
I've seen various organs in New York Times, CNN, others
pick up and run the original ten point proposal based
on little more than a random Yahoo in Iran, submitting
it to public access television in the country of Iran,
and then them saying that somehow represents the negotiating position
of the government. It's the equivalent of somebody in let's say,
a Democratic councilman in Boise, Idaho, saying something crazy, the
local public access TV picking up that crazy statement, and
then the New York Times running that as the position
of the President of the United States. It doesn't make
an ounce of sense. What's happening on the ground in
Iran is that you have clearly the position of the government,
which is to negotiate with the United States of America.
Speaker 4: You have the position of the President of United.
Speaker 3: States, which is to send the negotiators to Pakistan and.
Speaker 4: Engage in this good faith negotiation.
Speaker 3: And then yes, you have some crazy people at the
fringes of the Iranian system who are leaking anonymously, either
for propaganda purposes or because they're embarrassed, or because they
don't like what happened. And the final point, when I
say they don't like what happened, what we know is
that the United States accomplished its military objectives. What we
know is the United States could have imposed significant additional
military and economic costs in Iran and still has the.
Speaker 4: Capacity to do so.
Speaker 3: But we think, thankfully at this point, I think have
a ceasefire thanks to the leadership of the President of
United States. We have the Iranians promising to open the
straits of poor Moves, and we have a negotiation that's
supposed to start this weekend.
Speaker 4: That's the truth. I think it's a good first step.
Speaker 3: We're going to see if we can make more progress
here in the day's toc com think you can, all.
Speaker 2: Right, so multiple ten point proposals. Donald Trump put out
a truth social post about this also last night around
ten pm. He says the failing New York Times and
fake news CNN each reported a totally faked ten point
plan on the Iran negotiations, which was meant to discredit
the people involved in the peace process. All ten points
were a made up hoax. Evil losers, make America great again.
So again I mentioned this last hour. We have to
maybe think in different terms about the Iranian government being
like a single functioning government. It may not be any longer.
It doesn't appear to be. There are factions. They're like
maybe dozens of factions, and not all of them want peace.
Not all of them are gonna be interested in negotiating anything,
and so they are being pitted against each other. They
have competing interests. They have financial incentives, power incentives, safety incentives.
Right if the government falls, the worst abusers are probably
gonna meet death at the hands of the Iranian people soon.
I mentioned yesterday that the the Prince, the the exiled
son of the last Shah of Iran.
Speaker 1: This guy's name is Reza pa La.
Speaker 2: Vi, and he was he did a he put out
an address to the people of Iran. He has been
doing this pretty regularly, but he did he did another
one last night. And I was thinking, like, did we
suspend the air campaign under the the you know this uh,
this ruse of a ceasefire, because like it didn't seem
like who's doing the ceasefire?
Speaker 1: And Iran's like, we're not doing ceasefires.
Speaker 2: And like, are we just like stopping the air campaign
in order to give the Iranian people maximum ability to
you know, take to the streets overthrow their government. Not sure,
doesn't appear to be the case, because Paula Vi once
again told the people to remain patient. This is what
Donald Trump has said, this is what Benjamintanyahu said. Right
there will be a moment where you will be empowered.
You will have a chance to take back your liberty.
I mean, that's the thing. If you want liberty, you
have to take it. We can't do this for you.
We are not going in there with all the ground troops.
This is not a raq this is not Afghanistan. You've
demonstrated repeatedly for years that you want this Islamic colonizing
regime gone. This is your chance to do so. The
boots on the ground will be Iranians. So how do
you do that? Probably need some weapons. Well, we heard
the other day Trump said that they had sent weapons,
but apparently they sent them reportedly through the Koords. And
then Trump said that he was not happy that the
people who were post to hand off the weapons just
kept them. Okay, well what if they didn't, right, What
if that's a lie? What if the Kurds did in
fact hand off the weapons. Why would Trump lie?
Speaker 1: Then? Maybe?
Speaker 2: So this way the Iranians don't know that there are
a whole bunch of people in various areas that are
now armed. Also, Paula V issued a direct and pointed
challenge to the Iranian National military this week. They are
different than the IRGC. Okay, the IRGC is sort of
the internal security forces. They work for the Mullahs. The
national Army different and so he is now calling on
soldiers to break ranks with current leadership. In a series
of statements shared on social media, Paula V called for
the regular armed forces to step forward and protect the
Iranian people from the ir G. He characterized the current
regime as occupiers who are driven by a destructive and
apocalyptic madness that has pushed the nation toward a total collapse.
He targeted the tension that already exists between the traditional
national army and the IRGC. He said, how have you
closed your eyes to these realities and withdrawn from your
duty to defend the nation and the people. How will
history and future generations of Iran judge you. Paula Vie,
who has previously expressed a willingness to serve as a
transitional leader should the current regime fall, frame the situation
as a final opportunity for the military to reclaim its
professional honor. He called on the Iranian public to put
pressure on the military, asking citizens to demand that the
army fulfill its national role before it's too late, stand
together with the nation and save Iran. He acknowledged the
reports of the cease fire and said that this should
not be seen as a setback for the Iranian people.
He claimed that recent developments had significantly damaged Deron's military
and security leadership, including senior commanders across the IRGC, the
besiege and intelligence services, while saying that the state's command
and control system had been paralyzed. He says, await the
decisive moment, Remain vigilant. All right, if you're listening to
this show, you know I try to keep up with
all sorts of current events, and I know you do too,
And you've probably heard me say get your news from
multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you detect media bias,
which is why I've been so impressed with ground News.
It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines
news from around the world in one place so you
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The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored
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the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature
your subscription. Then not only helps my podcast, but it
also supports ground news as they make the media landscape
more transparent. Let me jump over to the text line
here and read what you've been writing, Jim says, Pete.
The British Navy is not even really a coastguard anymore.
That Russian tanker going through the English Channel with a
military escort shows that the Royal Navy shadowed them, but
with a tanker. Oh my gosh, that's even worse. Jefferson says.
That's why we need greenland. The North Sea is wide
open to keep choke points open for NATO. Also, Southeast
Asia country started gasoline rationing and were instructed to work
from home for their people. They don't have the resources
to help keep the Gulf open. Yeah, this is the problem. Like,
if you guys are so reliant on imports through dangerous territories,
then maybe you need to contribute to the safety of
those vital choke points. You know, I don't know what
the hell in your time to rename the thing, oh
oh hormones the Strait of America, we could call it,
uh seven oh four number says I served on various
mind sweepers from eighty six through ninety five. As a
sonar technician, we're the ones who would hunt, find and
neutralize the mines. The last mind sweeper to actually work
in a live minefield was the USS Guardian in nineteen
nine ninety two. I served on the Guardian during Desert Storm.
None of these MCMs remain in the fleet today. To
my knowledge, we don't have a proven mind countermeasureship available.
Only the airborne platforms from the MHC helicopters enjoyers show daily.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they I saw a report that they had they
had taken offline the last mind sweepers like in I
think last year or something, and so like, we may
not have the capability to do those old mind sweeping
operations or is there some other tech that they have right?
But again, like all indications to me are that the
Trump administration is on purpose not moving to reopen the
Strait of Hormuz. I do not believe that we are
incapable of reopening it if we wanted to. I believe
we could. The quest is when do we do it?
And do we try to get others involved? And Trump
has repeated he said it with NATO, He's been saying
it with the Gulf countries like You guys have to
step up and secure yourselves. You cannot rely on us
to do all of these things for you all over
the world. Steve says, one story says iron has four
hundred pounds of uranium, and another story says Iran has
one thousand pounds. Which is it?
Speaker 1: It is?
Speaker 2: The numbers I saw were like four hundred and forty
kilograms of your sixty percent enriched uranium. And there is
no reason to enrich uranium to that level. The only
reason you're at sixty percent is because you're trying to
get to ninety percent, and that's like a two week process.
And so they have it at sixty percent, and they
bred to Witkof and Kushner about it. And that's u
and that's enough for eleven missiles, and they have the
ballistic missiles. They could strap this material onto any kind
of you know, ordinance and deliver a radiological bomb. Seven
oh four number says, I hope you are right in
your suspicions that something else is going on, but as
of right now, with what is known, this whole thing
is making America look like a joke.
Speaker 1: I disagree. I disagree.
Speaker 2: I look at the I look at what we just
accomplished in five weeks. And I understand the difference between
you know, tactical versus strategic, and so what is the
strategic end game? But the tactical side there is like
we sliced through all of their air defenses, took them
all down. They have nothing left for air defenses? Are
are f fifteen that was shot down? That was that
was a man pad right, that was like some guy
with an RPG on his shoulder. So like all of
the systems that countries have purchased from Russia and China
are worthless, and every country that bought it knows it.
Speaker 1: Russia and China know it too.
Speaker 2: We have we've taken out more than fifty of the
IRGC leadership. We've made the we've we've created an environment
that may be most conducive to the Iranian people finally
overthrowing this regime. Right, they Israel has once again decapitated Hesbela.
They're blowing up all of their stuff in southern Lebanon,
and now they're in talks Lebanon the government of Lebanon
who may actually finally step up and fight with Israel
against Hesbolah. Right, there was a reordering going on of
the ally of the alliances in the Middle East, and
they're all tar marketing this Shia doomsday death cult ideology,
which is a good thing that hopefully it creates greater stability.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. We're gonna have to wait and see.
I was told I said that too much yesterday.
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just reported by the Farce news agency. Not kidding, that's
what the IRGC affiliated news agency is called.
Speaker 1: It's called Farce.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's spelled fars, but Farce, citing an informed
source who says that the Islamic Republic rules out negotiations
with Washington and will keep the straight up hoor moves
closed until a full cease fire is established in Lebanon.
So again further evidence there is a fractured government in
Iran right now. You have different factions that are in
disagreement about how to pro You got a civilian government
and you have the IRGC and the Ayahtola and the
Mullahs the clerical crowd, right, and so you've got these
two different camps.
Speaker 1: The IRGC.
Speaker 2: Has been muscling the president and the other members of
the like the parliament and all of that.
Speaker 1: The civilian government.
Speaker 2: Now on whether or not the Israeli actions in Lebanon
should stop before any talks between the US and Iran
jd Vance was asked.
Speaker 1: About this on the tarmac last night.
Speaker 3: I actually think and there's a lot of bad faith
negotiation and a lot of bad faith, you.
Speaker 4: Know, propaganda going on.
Speaker 3: I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think
the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it
just didn't. We never made that promise, We never indicated
that was going to.
Speaker 4: Be the case.
Speaker 3: What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused
on Iran, and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies,
both Israel and the Golf are of states. Now that said,
the Israelis, as I understand it again, I'm supposed to
get a fuller report when I get on the plane,
have actually offered to be frankly, to check themselves a
little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure.
Speaker 4: That our negotiation is successful.
Speaker 3: That's not because that is part of the ceasefire. I
think that's the Israelis try to set up us up
for success. And we'll, of course see how that unfolds
in the next few days. But look, if Iran wants
to lead this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where
they were getting hammered over Lebanon.
Speaker 4: Which has nothing to do with them.
Speaker 3: And which the United States never once said was part
of the ceasefire.
Speaker 4: That's ultimately their choice. We think that would be dumb,
but that's their choice.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: But it also, you know, proves the point that hasbala
is their proxy army that has colonized Lebanon in order
to attack Israel, just like Hamas was is and the Houties, right,
these armies that they support militarily and train and fund
and everything else, they've.
Speaker 1: Always said, oh no, no, that's not us.
Speaker 2: So this way, like their hands wouldn't be you know, dirty, like,
oh we didn't do that, that wasn't us. Then he
was asked, when will the Iranians stop blocking the Strait
of Hormuz.
Speaker 4: The deal is a ceasefire, a negotiation.
Speaker 3: That's what we give and what they give is the
straits are going to be reopened. If we don't see
that happening, the president is not going to abide by
our terms if the Iranians are not abiding by their terms.
Speaker 2: Fair enough? Is the threat? He was asked, this was
a direct question from a reporter. Is the threat to
wipe the Iranian civilization off the map, still on the table,
and is it fair to keep ninety million Iranians under
that threat for the actions of their leaders.
Speaker 3: Well, look, the leadership is really to blame for the
condition of the country in Iran. The President of the
United States has made very clear that the United States
has a lot of leverage here. We have economic leverage,
we've got military leverage.
Speaker 4: What he's trying to do.
Speaker 3: Is make sure the American people are safe and strike
a deal that's good for the American people. I just look,
I encourage the Iranians to come to the table.
Speaker 4: Seriously, we've seen.
Speaker 3: Some signs that they're gonna do that. We've seen some
signs of bravado. Fundamentally, weren't a good spot. They're reopening
the straits, we have a ceasefire, and frankly, if they
break their into the bargain, then they're going to see
some serious consequences.
Speaker 1: Wiping them off the map.
Speaker 2: It's different than an economic leverage or military leverage.
Speaker 3: Why is that kind of language useful in this kind
of scenario. Well, again, the President of the United States
is saying that unless the Iranians do the right thing,
he is going to have some serious consequences for the regime.
We obviously don't want the people of Iran to suffer,
but we have a lot of leverage the.
Speaker 4: President United States could use. And it's why I.
Speaker 3: Think it's so important for the Iranians to be negotiators
in good faith.
Speaker 2: So on the text line, Jeff says, it's hard to
secure your freedom from a tyrannical regime without weapons. Our
forefathers understood this, and so do the Iranians, and I
think so too does the US administration. A guy named
or maybe it's a female, Zeneb Riboa, I've read from
their work before. Research fellow at the Hudson Institute Center
for Peace and Security in the Middle East wrote an
op ed at The New York Post titled all the
pieces are lining up for regime change in Iran, and
by that doesn't necessarily mean an invasion, a decapitation strike,
a new flag over the capitol that was Iraq and Afghanistan,
where American power underwrote both the military campaign and the
political reconstruction that followed. Iran is a different problem, and
Trump is running a different playbook. See I hear so
many people Inevitably they're always of the same mindset that
America is losing this, and they seem to be arguing
everything as if this is the Iraq War and it's
not so. Iran's survival depends on three pillars, the ideology,
the patronage network, and a coercive apparatus right to bring
a system like that down. All three must fall or
fail simultaneously. Iran was already decomposing before this operation began. Regionally,
the regime had been losing its grip for two years
after the humiliating Hesbalah Pager attack in twenty twenty four,
the Twelve Day War last year that exposed its hollow
air defenses. The deterrent Tehran spent decades building turned out
to be largely performative at home. The economy had already
collapsed after the sanctions cut off Iran from the global
financial system. When the government announced plans for a steep
tax increase widely understood to fund the ir GC, the
Iranians erupted and they took to the streets. Revolutionary systems,
like the Islamo Marxist regime in Iran, they survive by
continuously reproducing their founding idea across generations and the Islamic
Republic has lost that capacity. The coercei of apparatus was
already weakening because the ideology had failed. So the US
and Israel struck a regime already coming apart. And that's
why I say it's fractured and the rifts are growing larger.
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Back to this piece real quick from Zenebribua, fellow with
the h's An Institute's Center for Peace and Security in
the Middle East at the New York Post, talking about
the fall of this regime. All the pieces are lining
up for regime change. The bombs did not start the collapse,
but it accelerated two different crises that are now beyond recovery.
I talked about this the other day. The President of
Iran got in an argument with the IRGC leadership and
he's like, like.
Speaker 1: We're not going to be able to recover from this.
Speaker 2: We've got like three weeks left before the entire country collapses.
So the first crisis is legitimacy. When the IRGC chose
the Nepo baby to be the new Ayatola to succeed
his father, it violated the Islamic Republic's own founding principles,
which bar hereditary succession. A regime built on rejecting dynastic
rule reached for a dynasty the moment it came under
real pressure. So that's a crisis of Legitimacynumber two crisis
regional isolation. The whole Arab street mobilization that Aron long
counted on never materialized, and in fact, Arab states that
once tolerated to Iran's reach are now coordinating with Trump
to eliminate the threat. By the way, you know, it's
not mentioned in their ten point proposal Palestine. It's almost
as if they don't really care about that issue. Maybe
they were just using it. Trump does not need a
deal to persuade the IRGC that its regional ambitions have
been amputated. He is making that a reality before their
eyes without American boots on the ground, while keeping that
option visibly on the table. Meanwhile, the regime has waged
an information warfare campaign seeking to project resilience and shape
perceptions of the damage. And it is succeeding in pushing
its narrative in Western mainstream media because they don't want
Trump to succeed, or they are of a mind that
the American project and Western civilization is not worthy to
be at the station it is, and so good, we're
going to lose. We're not a force for good. We're
not doing anything beneficial for anybody but ourselves. Like this
is like, this is the whole black pill sector of
a podcast is stand American? I'm sorry it succeeded in
pushing the narrative in Western mainstream media, but the targeting
record tells a different story. American and Israeli strikes have
reached the core of the IRGC's command and control structure,
and no volume of social media output changes what those
commanders can no longer do. A third front may prove
the most consequential, and that is the Iranian people. The
regime has maintained a full Internet shutdown, showing that its
leaders understand information travels faster than bomb. The US must
close every remaining corridor of IRGC survival. That's financial pressure,
that's the most effective instrument, and Washington should directly pressure
the UA to shut down the shadow banking infrastructure in
Dubai that has long allowed the IRGC to circumvent sanctions,
and the boots on the ground have got to be
Iranian boots. Trump has a window, and windows close. The
pressure and precision that brought Iran to this point must
now be sustained long enough to make the coming popular
uprising irreversible. Right liberty is achieved by those willing to
win it, to fight for it, and Iranians are going
to have to do that themselves. On the text line,
here's Dean again. We have lost focus. There you go,
the Pannikins, the black pills, and Dean, this is what's
so frustrating. It's like, after all of the information I've
been providing to.
Speaker 1: You, and this is what he says.
Speaker 2: The purpose of this war was to remove their nuclear
capabilities and kill the leaders behind it all. No, that
was not the objectives. I've gone over this. I don't
even know how many times I can't. How is it
you still don't know the objectives. It was destroy their
nuclear capabilities. It was to eliminate their ballistic missiles and
drone production lines and stockpiles. So they cannot project power
outside of their borders. And it was to destroy their
air force and their navy. Those are the objectives. The
objective was not to kill all the leaders. That was
Israel's objective. Israel was like, we want regime change. So
he says, job done, we achieved our objective. What now,
how do you ever eliminate a person's ideology? Lobotomies, No,
that's why you hope that the Iranian people rise up
against them and overthrow the colonizing.
Speaker 1: Islamist And then he says, it's all about power.
Speaker 2: The US will not be happy until any until everyone
acknowledges Trump in America to be their hero. See this
is you gotta stop looking at everything through a lens
of Trump derangement syndrome. Okay, the elimination of the Islamic
Republic regime has been something that every single president has said,
they can't get nukes, right, we don't want them in
power anymore.
Speaker 1: Fifty years. This has been the posture of America, like.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm at the point where I'm done, Dean,
I'm done.
Speaker 3: With you.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
support and the support of the businesses that advertise on
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and tell them you heard it here. You can also
become a patron at my Patreon page or go to
dpecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening,
and don't break anything while I'm gone.