Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode of Ayes on Jill Politics.
Speaker 1: I'm here with Mick Moulroy and Jonathan Hackett. A lot
Speaker 1: happening as usual. The Knicks hopefully will win the championship tonight.
Speaker 1: As we're recording this, fingers crossed USA b Paraguay four
Speaker 1: to one. And that's the end of the sports update
Speaker 1: for this program.
Speaker 2: Back to like what we normally talk about UFC.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, UFC. It's on Sunday. Huh, that's weird. It's
Speaker 1: never usually Sunday. It's usually Saturdays.
Speaker 3: Trump's birthday.
Speaker 2: Oh, happy birthday. All the better, many more, many more.
Speaker 1: So Iran obviously, we've seen it going back and forth
Speaker 1: again like we've seen the last like almost month. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was I don't know if we spoke about the
Speaker 1: Apache getting shot down and then we hit some spot
Speaker 1: like areas in south and southwest of Iran and stuff
Speaker 1: like that too. Israel hit Iran as well after after
Speaker 1: Iran hit Israel or shot ballistic missiles at them. So
Speaker 1: there's been some back and forth stuff straight. Oh, Horn
Speaker 1: Moves is essentially closed, but there are some boats coming through,
Speaker 1: not anywhere near where it used to be yesterday. I
Speaker 1: believe it was Iran leaked the deal points. Then the
Speaker 1: deal points look like maybe one of the worst deals
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in terms of like what the US's
Speaker 1: interests are compared to what Iranian interests are, Like Iran's
Speaker 1: gonna have like a freaking windfall of cash if this
Speaker 1: deal is done, President Trump true social right after that deal,
Speaker 1: those deal points leaked that this is not true, and
Speaker 1: then cut to maybe eight hours later, the Pakistani I
Speaker 1: believe foreign minister but I could be wrong, said that
Speaker 1: like we're a day out for it being signed, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen. Initially was gonna happen in Switzerland, but
Speaker 1: now they said that's not gonna happen. It's gonna happen
Speaker 1: remotely whatever that there's a deal eminent in the next
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. That's where we're at. Now, what the
Speaker 1: deal looks like, No one has any fucking clue. More
Speaker 1: so likely it looks if I had to guess, it's
Speaker 1: looking like the stuff that Iran leaked out those deal points.
Speaker 1: And I'll start with you, John, like those deal points,
Speaker 1: can you give us like a little lay of the
Speaker 1: land of what those deal points are?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So these fourteen deal points. And first of all,
Speaker 3: this is probably not the actual agreement. This is more
Speaker 3: likely a exercise in public negotiation where Iran is trying
Speaker 3: to include the public in this debate because there are
Speaker 3: people in the United States that want this conflict over
Speaker 3: for various reasons, and there are some who want it
Speaker 3: extended for various reasons. And what Iran is trying to
Speaker 3: do is use the information environment to influence the behind
Speaker 3: the scenes parts of the negotiations. And the US has
Speaker 3: done the same thing. If you remember back in I
Speaker 3: believe it was March, when there was the initial talk
Speaker 3: about any kind of ceasefire, there were a lot of
Speaker 3: leaked lists of things. You know, there was a ten
Speaker 3: point plan, there was a fourteen point plan, and this
Speaker 3: and that, and a lot of that activity is not
Speaker 3: necessarily to actually reach a negotiated settlement. Instead is to
Speaker 3: let the public know what the contours or edges are
Speaker 3: of the negotiation. In other words, what are the the
Speaker 3: goalpost limits of the negotiation, like what does the playing
Speaker 3: field actually look like here? And this is the same
Speaker 3: thing when the US and any other country comes to
Speaker 3: the table to negotiate, they come with maximal options because
Speaker 3: you don't want to come and bring your like fifty
Speaker 3: percent option to the table. You want to bring your
Speaker 3: one hundred percent option in and negotiate down to sixty percent.
Speaker 3: You don't want to start handicapped. So what Iran is
Speaker 3: doing is demonstrating what are its maximalist positions, like what
Speaker 3: does it really really want? And then you can think
Speaker 3: about this as something that they can walk back from
Speaker 3: privately and they can say we've had heroic flexibility and
Speaker 3: we have decided to actually meet you at sixty percent.
Speaker 3: This is exactly what happened in twenty fifteen, it just
Speaker 3: wasn't public. During their Iran JCPOA negotiations with the nuclear deal,
Speaker 3: the P five plus one, there were some extreme positions
Speaker 3: that started and then if you remember, Iatola Jmeni said,
Speaker 3: we have demonstrated heroic flexibility and accepted the nuclear agreement.
Speaker 3: So it's actually designed with the end in mind that, okay,
Speaker 3: when we actually do make an agreement, we can say that,
Speaker 3: you know, for these principles that we hold dear, we
Speaker 3: have decided to actually compromise, when in fact those extreme
Speaker 3: points were never going to happen anyway. But it's about optics.
Speaker 3: How does it look to the consumer of that agreement,
Speaker 3: which is the Iranian people, the Iranian regime, the US,
Speaker 3: the world. There are a lot of people that Iran
Speaker 3: is thinking about, the regime is thinking about of how
Speaker 3: to how to frame this properly for consumption globally, privately
Speaker 3: and publicly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So, like what's wild to me though, and make
Speaker 1: ID love to get your your you know thoughts on
Speaker 1: is but like what's weird to me is like that
Speaker 1: came out leaked, but we haven't really heard. Nothing's been
Speaker 1: leaked in terms of like what the actual deal is
Speaker 1: going to look like, at least as far as I
Speaker 1: could I've seen, which is weird to me because if
Speaker 1: a deal is so close to being signed and it's
Speaker 1: essentially twenty four hours away, wouldn't like the deal points
Speaker 1: be already like as closely negotiated as possible, Like you're
Speaker 1: right there, you're at the like less than one yard line.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it was a lot of whiplashs last week, right,
Speaker 4: So it was like, Hey, we needed to jump on
Speaker 4: and talk about going back to war and taking Cargo Island. Hey,
Speaker 4: we need to jump back on and talk about how
Speaker 4: the fact we're not going to go back to war
Speaker 4: and everything's going to be good, and we're about on
Speaker 4: the verge of an agreement. Hey, we need to go
Speaker 4: back on to talk about Iran saying that all that stuff,
Speaker 4: but bullshit, we're not even close to her, you know,
Speaker 4: so like and we don't know, we don't know what's
Speaker 4: actually going on and what's not. So, you know, not
Speaker 4: necessarily complaining about it. It's just that I think people
Speaker 4: are to the point where they're like, once an agreement signed,
Speaker 4: make it public and then we'll know. Because if you
Speaker 4: listen to Iran, as you already said, the uh, that
Speaker 4: would be the worst agreement for the US. The points
Speaker 4: they leaked. You would essentially give away all your leverage.
Speaker 4: We're going to give you sanctionary relief, unfreeze assets just
Speaker 4: to open the straight, which you don't possess in the
Speaker 4: first place. Then not only would we be paying, and
Speaker 4: you could talk about the Reuters report that basically are
Speaker 4: some of our Gulf states countries are going to release.
Speaker 4: So it won't be US, but it will be that,
Speaker 4: but we will collectively be paying them to open the straight.
Speaker 4: If that's the case, bad idea. But I think especially
Speaker 4: the stuff that the US can control specifically, like sanctions relief,
Speaker 4: sanctions opposed by the US, like the frozen assets that
Speaker 4: we have direct control of or even influence over, shouldn't
Speaker 4: be done until dig into a new nuclear agreement. We
Speaker 4: actually need that carot for the agreement given away before
Speaker 4: we get the agreement. Man, they're just going to outweight
Speaker 4: DISA administration or they just might outweight disadministration on next
Speaker 4: because they already got the benefits.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: And let's face it, we all agree that Aron shouldn't
Speaker 4: have a nuclear weapon, but I think we can all
Speaker 4: accept that right now Iran's thinking we should have a
Speaker 4: nuclear weapon. Right, So we've we were in a situation
Speaker 4: where this is even more important than it was before
Speaker 4: the war, because I'm sure that the IRGC extremists, you know,
Speaker 4: even amongst extreamists are saying, told you, we should have
Speaker 4: already acquited a nuclear weapon and this wouldn't be an issue.
Speaker 4: So it's even more important that we get to there
Speaker 4: and we get an ironclad agreement that ensures they don't
Speaker 4: get a nuclear weapons, which means recovery of the h
Speaker 4: EU highly inerturatium, which means zero enrichment, and it means
Speaker 4: the dismantling of the program that is validated by you know,
Speaker 4: the IAEA any time anywhere inspections. If we don't get
Speaker 4: to that, I think we got issues. We do get
Speaker 4: to that, I think it will be viewed as at
Speaker 4: least this endeavor was somewhat successful. So for the folks
Speaker 4: that are either saying this is you know, already success
Speaker 4: or already a failure, I don't think we know yet.
Speaker 4: That's to come, and that really is how this is
Speaker 4: going to end. It is going to end well for us,
Speaker 4: and that's going to come with some sanctions, relief in
Speaker 4: unfreezing assets. We've got to accept that. But that's for
Speaker 4: the Ironcloud Agreement, not just to do something like open
Speaker 4: up the street, you open up the straight the blockade
Speaker 4: comes down. That seems fair, right, but after that anything
Speaker 4: beneficial and at least from what the US is putting
Speaker 4: out they are talking about, this is another issue. The
Speaker 4: US is saying that Iraan has given up supporting terrorists organization.
Speaker 4: So as you all know, Auran doesn't consider hesbel terrorist organization.
Speaker 4: So I don't know if that's just you know, the
Speaker 4: way that media is putting it out there, but like
Speaker 4: there's no way that that can't be just specific hesbel
Speaker 4: a humas obviously US do, isn't going to a terrorist organization.
Speaker 4: That's not just a proxy. That's a terrorist organization. So
Speaker 4: if we're talking about that, it needs to be covered
Speaker 4: and we'll just have to see. Ultimately, I think it's
Speaker 4: too early to say this was, you know, entirely successful
Speaker 4: or entirely failure. A lot's going to depend on what
Speaker 4: happens in the next twenty four hours. For some reason,
Speaker 4: that's the new timeline, and it looks like we're going
Speaker 4: to be done remotely okay, And I do believe it
Speaker 4: was a rap chief of the Foreign Minister that said
Speaker 4: it would be public, like it would be posted so
Speaker 4: you would know what was agreed to and what wasn't there,
Speaker 4: and that both sides need that because we can obviously
Speaker 4: see that the the propaganda wars have left us really
Speaker 4: puzzled about what is actually being discussed.
Speaker 1: Well, the one thing the delta like where they've met
Speaker 1: actually or whatever, like the Trump reposted the Foreign misspinisters
Speaker 1: tweet about that, so that that it's going to be
Speaker 1: public or there's a deal that's eminent or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So like we've kind of I guess met somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle. John, let me ask you, do you think
Speaker 1: Lebanon is going to be included in this.
Speaker 3: So that's a super important point that I think a
Speaker 3: lot of Westerners don't understand why Lebanon matters in this discussion.
Speaker 3: As you mentioned, Nick, Hesbola doesn't view itself as a
Speaker 3: terrorist organization. Iran doesn't view Hesbula as a terrorist organization.
Speaker 3: Some Lebanese people, about a third of the population, do
Speaker 3: not consider it a terrorist organization. In fact, their worldview
Speaker 3: is kind of what we would consider it to be
Speaker 3: inverted based on our worldview. And if you look politically
Speaker 3: at Hesbola, what is Hesbola today? They're different than they
Speaker 3: were thirty five years ago when they first kind of
Speaker 3: said that they were Hesbola. Today they have twenty seven
Speaker 3: seats I believe in parliament in Lebanese parliament, as a
Speaker 3: political party and as a military force. Their military capability
Speaker 3: is more than a Lebanese armed forces. This is a
Speaker 3: big problem for the current negotiations between the Israeli government
Speaker 3: and the Lebanese government, which is historic because Lebanon does
Speaker 3: not recognize Israel as a state and they're in Washington
Speaker 3: DC right now trying to negotiate bilaterally about this smaller issue,
Speaker 3: the Lebanon Israel issue, relative to the Iran issue. Well,
Speaker 3: twenty seven seats in parliament out of one hundred twenty
Speaker 3: eight seats in parliament. That's that's how many people, that's
Speaker 3: a third almost of the Lebanese government of their parliament
Speaker 3: is Hesbulah as a political party. This is something that
Speaker 3: cannot be ignored because if you look at from twenty
Speaker 3: seventeen through last year, Iran sent the ier GC sent
Speaker 3: one billion dollars a year to Hesbula, the military wing
Speaker 3: of Hesbula. So that's a lot of money for a
Speaker 3: militia in South Lebanon. Right, So if we don't include
Speaker 3: that in our equation, it's kind of like when you're
Speaker 3: doing algebra and you leave out a variable, your answer
Speaker 3: keeps not coming to zero. It's like, why can't I
Speaker 3: solve this problem? It's because you're not including that other
Speaker 3: variable that has to be included in this larger equation
Speaker 3: to balance out all the factors. And so to your point, D,
Speaker 3: maybe it is, maybe it isn't. If it is not,
Speaker 3: it is a mistake, or if it is not, it
Speaker 3: is not going to last because and even Hassan Fuddlah,
Speaker 3: he's the son of an earlier HESBULA member, a very
Speaker 3: prominent Hesbula supporter from the eighties. Two days ago, was
Speaker 3: making a speech in the Dahiya neighborhood, which is south
Speaker 3: South Bay route that Israel had bombed, which is the
Speaker 3: thing that triggered Iran to hit Israel this past week.
Speaker 3: He was making a speech and he said that if
Speaker 3: Lebanon is not included in the agreement, the agreement will
Speaker 3: not last, which is actually if you read Iran's you
Speaker 3: know what the Iran state sponsored media mayor a news
Speaker 3: agency released two days ago, that was the first point
Speaker 3: in the fourteen points that if Lebanon is not included,
Speaker 3: this deal will not happen. Basically is what it came to.
Speaker 3: So it seems that Hesbola and the IERGC are on
Speaker 3: the same page. They're both probably in open channels of
Speaker 3: communication about what this deal should look like because it
Speaker 3: matters to Iran what happens in Lebanon. The reason is
Speaker 3: because of the nuclear program. If Iran can't have a
Speaker 3: nuclear program, they're thinking, how do we protect our territorial integris, Well,
Speaker 3: we have to have surrogate forces between Israel and US.
Speaker 3: The two most prominent surrogate forces are Hezbolah, which is
Speaker 3: part of Hashtashabi or the popular mobilization forces in Iraq,
Speaker 3: and then in Lebanon. Because we've lost Syria. Iran says,
Speaker 3: we've lost Syria to USAD to Assunni. So now all
Speaker 3: we have left is Hesbola in Lebanon, and we have
Speaker 3: to keep them alive, like on life support. Otherwise we
Speaker 3: lose our territorial integrity, our ability to actually have standoff
Speaker 3: defense of our borders against Israel. So this is how
Speaker 3: they're thinking about it. So if we aren't thinking about
Speaker 3: it like that too, if we're not creating an incentive
Speaker 3: for them to put this into the deal in a
Speaker 3: way that makes sense for us, this deal is going
Speaker 3: to be very weak. It's going to be very difficult
Speaker 3: to enforce.
Speaker 4: That is the biggest challenge of this because it really
Speaker 4: does appear to me and maybe this is shifting, which
Speaker 4: would be great, but the US is like the one
Speaker 4: that actually wants us to come to the end the most, right.
Speaker 4: So Arod's like, huh, this is really working this whole season.
Speaker 4: The straight force in this economic energy crisis. They're autocracy, right,
Speaker 4: so they don't really there. They're there. People can take
Speaker 4: a lot of pain people and democracies can do something
Speaker 4: about it. They realize that, right, So and then then Israel,
Speaker 4: I mean this, this this could be a worst case
Speaker 4: scenario for prime minister. Yeah, right, so they get what
Speaker 4: are they talking about for the UA releasing like twelve
Speaker 4: billion dollars? Yeah, yeah, I'm want to make sure I
Speaker 4: get that right. But because Israa's looking at you know,
Speaker 4: billion dollars is a billion dollars no matter who's releasing it, right, Son,
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, this regime who's super pissed off
Speaker 4: and we killed a lot of them, gets twelve million dollars.
Speaker 4: There's a peace agreement, there's a nuclear agreement that I'm
Speaker 4: sure Israel it's not going to agree with. And now
Speaker 4: Israel's required to withdraw and leave Hesbalala armed and somewhat intact.
Speaker 4: So from their perspective, that's not a good scenario. And
Speaker 4: they and they made it clear that they're not actually
Speaker 4: included in the ceasefire. So this is a I think
Speaker 4: this is going to be an issue that's shared the burden,
Speaker 4: if you will, by the United States and ron As
Speaker 4: Jonathan just so aptly explained the relationship between Iran and
Speaker 4: hesblah uh. They have influence, right, you know, they considerably
Speaker 4: funded them a billion dollars a year. They need to
Speaker 4: be a part of the regional piece or on being,
Speaker 4: you know, putting direct pressure on Hesbola both to stay
Speaker 4: north of the Latani River, to not attack Israel at
Speaker 4: least at the at the basic level. And then of
Speaker 4: course the United States would have a better time trying
Speaker 4: to influence our partner. But it's that's going to be
Speaker 4: the big challenge. It's it is going to be the
Speaker 4: thing that everybody's going to be looking at, which could
Speaker 4: blow this up, even if it's agreed to.
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Speaker 3: Love you bye, and I'll mention too about the Straight.
Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of commenters in different videos and
Speaker 3: podcasts kind of say that Iran doesn't really control the Straight.
Speaker 3: There aren't Irunian vessels patrolling the Straight. You know, it's
Speaker 3: a mistake to think that they actually do control it.
Speaker 3: And I struggle to wrap my head around a statement
Speaker 3: like that because you look at the effect. What is
Speaker 3: the net effect of the situation, and the net effect
Speaker 3: the situation is that vessels are not moving at the
Speaker 3: same rate they were before the war started. And it's
Speaker 3: not just because the US is bobbing her on. It's
Speaker 3: because there's a thread against those vessels economically that even
Speaker 3: if it was actually materially safe, like the boat could
Speaker 3: go through without blowing up. Insurance companies, which are all
Speaker 3: completely based on risk analyses are looking at this and saying,
Speaker 3: I don't care if it's actually safe. We're not sending
Speaker 3: our vessels because unless you're willing to pay two million
Speaker 3: dollars per vessel for insurance plus the whatever toll Iran
Speaker 3: wants to charge, you're not passing through with my ship.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to ensure that vessel. And that's really
Speaker 3: what is the important point about the Straits. Iran doesn't
Speaker 3: even have to be there. It's it's the feeling that
Speaker 3: these companies have, these economic interests, have looking at the
Speaker 3: strait saying it's just not worth it. And until it
Speaker 3: becomes worth it, the vessel frequency is going to remain
Speaker 3: very low.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: And I'm told by somebody at fairly not fairly, I'm
Speaker 4: very confident knows what he's talking about. Is it there?
Speaker 4: There can be some seepage. I don't know if that's
Speaker 4: the correct word, but it's only on the outflow. In
Speaker 4: other words, you could use the you can use limited
Speaker 4: outflow through the southern part of the of the passage,
Speaker 4: but you can't get in. I don't know why that's case.
Speaker 4: So we might eventually over time it'll be way reduced
Speaker 4: to Jonathan's point, which still means that the crisis exists.
Speaker 4: But even once you get them all out, like I
Speaker 4: don't know, months and months and months, like, you're not
Speaker 4: getting any in. So it's eventually even that is just
Speaker 4: like a reserve that would eventually run dry, and eventually
Speaker 4: they're real reserves and countries around the world are going
Speaker 4: to run dry. Like even if this is solved, apparently
Speaker 4: this issue is just going to be resolved economically for months.
Speaker 4: The longer it goes on, the more compounding it's going
Speaker 4: to be. And again it's not just energy, it's also
Speaker 4: you know, the nitrogen, the material used to make a fertilizer,
Speaker 4: that's key for food production. Yeah, you know the hydrogen
Speaker 4: and are the night yeah, Helium helium, Yeah, that's used
Speaker 4: to make the high tech chips, and all these things
Speaker 4: are just gonna compound and get really consequential. The only person,
Speaker 4: the only country that seems to be there isn't a
Speaker 4: country actually that's not impacted. Obviously Aron's impacted by the
Speaker 4: blockade and everything else. But this is really something that
Speaker 4: I think the United States is going to press on,
Speaker 4: but it's got a lot of challenges ahead of it
Speaker 4: to make sure.
Speaker 3: And even before the war started, China, the number one
Speaker 3: purchaser of oil from Iran, has been transitioning to an
Speaker 3: electrical vehicle society and just I believe it was in
Speaker 3: April they reached thirty three percent vehicles on the road
Speaker 3: are electric, are completely.
Speaker 4: Electric, massive solar's they CNN did a whole piece on it.
Speaker 4: It's not just the solar fields, but they have mirrors
Speaker 4: that direct the the sunlight into these towers. Have you
Speaker 4: seen these?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're becoming energy independent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, energy independent. So that's gonna even there. There are
Speaker 4: leverage to leverage around, right, So the further they get
Speaker 4: away from that mattering because China doesn't like to get
Speaker 4: involved in, you know, other people's wars. So as soon
Speaker 4: as they can basically have less dependence, it's going to
Speaker 4: be not good for us when it comes to not
Speaker 4: good for a round either. What are they gonna do
Speaker 4: when they can't sell energy to right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: Interesting to me, John. I'd love for you to name
Speaker 1: some of those podcasts or videos who think, like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the straight of hor moves because it's not physically or
Speaker 1: actually mine completely that they can't roll through no problem
Speaker 1: like it's not if there's so many like the fact
Speaker 1: that they can't get insured, the insurance is just you know,
Speaker 1: astronomical to the point that doesn't make sense. It's all
Speaker 1: it's all about the dollar, like it's all about business,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it doesn't matter if it's.
Speaker 3: Actually it's behavioral finance. I mean you think about, like,
Speaker 3: all kai, how did al Qaida actually harm the United
Speaker 3: States with the nine to eleven attack. Although the thousands
Speaker 3: of lives that were lost was an immediate loss to
Speaker 3: this country, it was what they did to impose costs
Speaker 3: on our transportation system following the attacks that was the
Speaker 3: real success for them. TSA. All these difficulties we have
Speaker 3: going to the airport. If listeners remember who were alive
Speaker 3: before nine to eleven, you used to just show up
Speaker 3: at the airport and go sit in your seat and
Speaker 3: you didn't have to go through any kind of security
Speaker 3: at all. You just sit there and wait for your
Speaker 3: airplane to come. That is a totally different world that
Speaker 3: will never go back the way. It was billions and
Speaker 3: billions of dollars that they were able to impose and
Speaker 3: costs on not just the US, but the West Europe
Speaker 3: and of course worldwide now because every country if they
Speaker 3: want to fly to the West, they have to comply
Speaker 3: with some of these security requirements. So that's the real cost.
Speaker 3: And it only took one thing and didn't have to
Speaker 3: do anything else ever again, and it's similar way they're on.
Speaker 3: It's the idea, it's the danger that imposes the cost.
Speaker 3: In fact, it's just like nuclear weapon negotiation. You don't
Speaker 3: want to use your nukes. You want to create fear
Speaker 3: of the nukes, but the moment you use it, now
Speaker 3: you have to actually work with it, which is not
Speaker 3: what you want to do. Instead, you want to you
Speaker 3: want to leverage the feeling that the thing brings to
Speaker 3: the table, but not actually use it. And that's exactly
Speaker 3: what Iron is doing. And they understand that there is
Speaker 3: this effect on the economy without ever having to touch
Speaker 3: or put a single mind in the water. As long
Speaker 3: as the fear is there, that's the terns.
Speaker 4: It is working. They do not want to go through that,
Speaker 4: they don't want to take the risk, and that your
Speaker 4: companies don't want to ensure that. So it and it
Speaker 4: won't be resolved by the trickle, right, It won't be
Speaker 4: resolved by the trickle. Once a trickle actually comes out,
Speaker 4: there's nothing going in. So this is gonna this is
Speaker 4: going to go on for a long period of time
Speaker 4: unless the negotiators can do their magic.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, guys, why is the UAE like
Speaker 2: so down to just pay up?
Speaker 1: You know, multiple billion? I think it's twelve or fourteen billion,
Speaker 1: whatever the number is. It's just like, hey, don't bomb
Speaker 1: us anymore. And also like let us bring our oil
Speaker 1: out of the straight and like we'll give you this
Speaker 1: fourteen bill.
Speaker 3: This is a state acting in its own interests because
Speaker 3: they left Opek that was number one. They joined the
Speaker 3: Abraham Accords, that's number two. They they are seeing that
Speaker 3: this is a moment like the say, let's past six
Speaker 3: years is a moment in their history, a turning point,
Speaker 3: and they're they're calculating that, okay, in the future, countries
Speaker 3: will become energy less dependent. Let's say that means our
Speaker 3: primary source of income is going to decrease. If you
Speaker 3: look at what Dubai is doing is trying to become
Speaker 3: a tourist hub and a cultural hub and trying to
Speaker 3: relocate a lot of things from the UK, for example,
Speaker 3: like the Louver opening in Dubai. These are all indications
Speaker 3: that the UAE is trying to create itself as it's
Speaker 3: a place besides an energy place. And that's I think
Speaker 3: what they're doing right now is they're seeing this moment
Speaker 3: is a turning point, like we have to do this.
Speaker 3: If we don't, when when hostilities reduce, we're just going
Speaker 3: to become like Bahrain or Qatar that's only used for
Speaker 3: its oil or gas, and we don't want to be
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 4: And if you are in Abu Dhabi louve is, ind well, sorry,
Speaker 4: it's super and go there every time we had to
Speaker 4: go there on the humanitarian stuff. But so on that point,
Speaker 4: I mean, I imagine don't know this to be true,
Speaker 4: but I imagine they got some form of Mareen light, right.
Speaker 4: They were probably using that literally as the carrot to
Speaker 4: get this going. I don't like it, but you know,
Speaker 4: nobody's asking me. I don't like paying paying countries to
Speaker 4: set an example, not not specific to UAE, but paying
Speaker 4: countries to do things that they don't legally have the
Speaker 4: authority to do in the first place. Right, So as
Speaker 4: soon as there's there is like eight major maritime choke
Speaker 4: points if you will, around the world, and there is
Speaker 4: some country that's next to them. So if they can
Speaker 4: create the at least the oppression that it's dangerous by
Speaker 4: shooting at some you see what I mean. I mean,
Speaker 4: it doesn't we need to as an international community to
Speaker 4: say we're not playing this game.
Speaker 2: We're not, you're not.
Speaker 4: You don't get to, you know, hold the world economy
Speaker 4: hostage because you've got you know, a bunch of small
Speaker 4: boats with you know, missiles on, and you're willing to
Speaker 4: kill innocent civilians who happen to be you know, commercial semen.
Speaker 4: So I think I think we have to draw a
Speaker 4: line there. But I do understand we're gonna have to
Speaker 4: have some carrots to get get her on to back
Speaker 4: in the nuclear agreement. But I think that's the sanctions relief,
Speaker 4: and I think most of their it should be performance based.
Speaker 4: You've performed this, I opened the straight you get this,
Speaker 4: we open the blockade. It can happen at the same time,
Speaker 4: it can be phased. But then for the financial relief,
Speaker 4: at least most of it should come at the conclusion
Speaker 4: of the nuclear Yes, maybe I'm a hawk, but that's uh,
Speaker 4: that's what everybody used to say. Let's see what they
Speaker 4: say when this agreement come out.
Speaker 1: It's a different world, man, you know, I mean on
Speaker 1: Fedruary twenty seventh, I was with you until we start
Speaker 1: a bombing them, and then now the goalpost has moved
Speaker 1: dromat uh and not in our favor. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: a little bit about the HU. There's a CNN report yesterday.
Speaker 1: In recent weeks, orang is drastically escalated efforts to seal
Speaker 1: off its cachet of UH near bomb grade uranium, deliberately
Speaker 1: collapsing tunnels and booby trapping entrances with explosive minds, according
Speaker 1: to five sources familiar with US intelligence.
Speaker 2: What do you guys make.
Speaker 1: Of that, because obviously, if we do have a cease
Speaker 1: fire and tomorrow signed, that's a sixty day extension or
Speaker 1: whatever in many days extension to negotiate the nuclear issue.
Speaker 2: What what kind of what does that signal to.
Speaker 1: You guys that they're they're trying to like vomb it
Speaker 1: in place and make it like, you know, unattainable.
Speaker 4: Well, there's not a deal until the steal port right
Speaker 4: on the chairman, the chairman who had to cut short
Speaker 4: as European trip and go to Tampa and be briefed
Speaker 4: on it. I don't know if that's accurate, but that's
Speaker 4: you guys know it's so they know it's they know
Speaker 4: it's not only part of our plan, but serious briefed
Speaker 4: part of our plan. And because of the comments around it,
Speaker 4: they know that the US doesn't want to do it.
Speaker 4: So the more they make it more dangerous to the
Speaker 4: force that would be carrying it out, the more likely
Speaker 4: we won't do it. So I think it's very unlikely.
Speaker 4: So the best way to get recover that is to
Speaker 4: a negotiated diplomatic which where we could just go in
Speaker 4: nobody's getting shot at, and they can bring in the
Speaker 4: earth movers I think, like an isophone. They're going to
Speaker 4: have to build probably an expeditionary airfield of some sort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the earthwork right, and you can only remove
Speaker 1: the highly enricheranium with fixed wing.
Speaker 2: You can't do it with the helicopters.
Speaker 4: So it's way better to do this because think about it,
Speaker 4: it could take weeks wait up till so we're gonna
Speaker 4: have be on the ground. You know, even if we
Speaker 4: send in you know, all the forces, we have a
Speaker 4: raid out there, they're going to get hammered for weeks.
Speaker 4: You know, it's in most of these facilities are in
Speaker 4: the middle of the country. Like, it's not the it's
Speaker 4: not the ideal solution, and we should we should we
Speaker 4: should want that to be recovered, for sure, but it
Speaker 4: should be recovered in a way that doesn't put you know,
Speaker 4: this many troops significant risk.
Speaker 3: And also, you know, I obviously haven't seen the intelligence,
Speaker 3: but using measurement and signature intelligence, you could look at
Speaker 3: what they're doing. Let's say that they're putting minds at
Speaker 3: certain HGU points. Well, that's just telling me where all
Speaker 3: the HGU is hidden. Yeah, you know, it seems kind
Speaker 3: of interesting. I wonder, like what actually is going on,
Speaker 3: you know that we can't see on their side, like
Speaker 3: are they are they using opsect to like create deception,
Speaker 3: like to put some other minds some other places, or
Speaker 3: are they leading some that are not mine?
Speaker 4: You know, they start putting it in all random places.
Speaker 4: We're like, oh, I didn't know they had it there. Yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 4: It's tough. I mean, there's either we can either get
Speaker 4: it all out of the country and destroy it. They
Speaker 4: could get it out and then degrade it back down
Speaker 4: to you know, civilian usage. I mean, and the other
Speaker 4: thing about this whole scenario you can bring in low
Speaker 4: and rich uranium to use for civilian purposes. If it
Speaker 4: was really about their wanting to have a civilian nuclear program,
Speaker 4: that could be done. But it's they have almost one
Speaker 4: thousand pounds of sixty percent of rich geranium, which is
Speaker 4: so far beyond what you need that it shows that
Speaker 4: they that they it isn't about a civilian nuclear like,
Speaker 4: there's no reason to do it to that love, which
Speaker 4: shows that they're intent ultimately is to get a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 4: And from a purely pragmatic perspective, you know, if we
Speaker 4: you know, if you were on their side, you'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: we need one, we don't watch it to have one,
Speaker 4: do everything I agree with doing over But it's like
Speaker 4: they have all the incentive now to get one. Well,
Speaker 4: they can actually way of a deliverable nuclear weapon the
Speaker 4: world changes.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: The difficulty they have too, is that they could they
Speaker 3: could make ninety percent weapons grade, but they haven't developed
Speaker 3: sufficiently a delivery vehicle yet. So that's that's the other
Speaker 3: challenge that they have not really gotten towards. So they've
Speaker 3: done really well on the enrichment side, and they it's
Speaker 3: a short technical step from ninety percent, but the problem
Speaker 3: is weaponizing it, and I think that's probably what Israel
Speaker 3: has been targeting more than the enrichment program, is the
Speaker 3: weaponization of it, because the enrichment is one thing, but
Speaker 3: you have to deliver it. And I think as long
Speaker 3: as they can't deliver it the nuclear core exactly, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, miniaturize it for delivery. That's like years away, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: And it's highly technical and they don't have the organic
Speaker 3: ability to create the actual devices that would allow it
Speaker 3: to work.
Speaker 1: If it's years away, why why do we attack them?
Speaker 3: We do almost pathway defeat, right when you say John,
Speaker 3: pathway defeat. This is the whole concept of countering weapons
Speaker 3: of mass destruction is that you don't just strike the
Speaker 3: end point or the beginning point. You actually look at
Speaker 3: the entire pathway of how it's produced and you hit
Speaker 3: every single vulnerability along the way because it's a hedging attempt,
Speaker 3: so that in case that your strike on that vulnerability
Speaker 3: X was not sufficient, you're also hitting vulnerability why vulnerability
Speaker 3: bravo all the way along, so that the whole system
Speaker 3: itself is degrade.
Speaker 1: But there's also like the reality on the ground right now,
Speaker 1: after the June twenty twenty five strike For the most part,
Speaker 1: every intelligence assessment. Obviously I'm not privy to the classified
Speaker 1: shit said that, dam moved it. It's been there, it
Speaker 1: hasn't gone anywhere. Isn't there something to say that, And
Speaker 1: we were working diplomatically to figure it out, maybe get
Speaker 1: it taken out of there. Isn't there something to be
Speaker 1: said about, Like we did the job last June, why
Speaker 1: do we have to do it again?
Speaker 3: Because there's a reason. They can produce their own centrifuges now.
Speaker 3: So even if they leave the stuff in Isfahan, they
Speaker 3: actually have two other reactors that are under construction right now.
Speaker 3: One's a heavy water plant which makes a special kind
Speaker 3: of hydrogen used for weaponization, and the other is actually
Speaker 3: an enrichment facility. They also have two million kilograms of
Speaker 3: uranium in a mine that's in their territory. So let's
Speaker 3: say we remove all of the uranium, we remove all
Speaker 3: of the centrifuges. They can still produce more centrifugees and
Speaker 3: they can still enrich more uranium. So this is kind
Speaker 3: of the it's like a runaway problem where you're just
Speaker 3: kind of like grabbing at them as they're running and
Speaker 3: they're still doing it or they still could do it.
Speaker 3: And the thing is you need to remove the will
Speaker 3: to do it rather than anything else, because as long
Speaker 3: as the will is gone, the threat's gone. Well, right now,
Speaker 3: they have all the will in the world to keep
Speaker 3: doing it with whatever resources they can, because they're being
Speaker 3: attacked by two countries with nuclear weapons, and they're like,
Speaker 3: we will do whatever it takes to make sure that
Speaker 3: our program does not go away. We'll make even if
Speaker 3: we have to make you think that it's going away,
Speaker 3: and we'll do it temporarily. We still have the ability
Speaker 3: to do it and not toons. They have a factory
Speaker 3: underground that can actually make the IR seven centrifuge, which
Speaker 3: is the most advanced centrifuge that is out there right
Speaker 3: now besides the ones the US, Russia and China have.
Speaker 3: This is a really advanced centrifuge. They can make it,
Speaker 3: they have the ability to produce it, and they need
Speaker 3: some rare earth and other special minerals to do it,
Speaker 3: but China and Russia will give it to them, or
Speaker 3: they can get it from other sources as well. So
Speaker 3: I think the nuclear threat is going to exist as
Speaker 3: long as the will exists.
Speaker 1: And the wheels stronger than ever. Absolutely, yes, yeah, good god, guys,
Speaker 1: what do we do.
Speaker 4: I find out in the next twenty four hours, right,
Speaker 4: whether this is.
Speaker 2: What do you guys think? Does it happen? Is there
Speaker 2: a deal in the next twenty four hours?
Speaker 3: It is a weekend, and he loves doing stuff with
Speaker 3: the market on the weekend. Yeah, and we just got
Speaker 3: a SpaceX ipo. So that's good.
Speaker 4: Flying to DC tomorrow, I'll be flying in right when
Speaker 4: the UFC fight's going on.
Speaker 2: Perfect, I mean, because there's no way to tell.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what to make of like
Speaker 1: the Pakistani Foreign minister coming out and saying there's a
Speaker 1: deal iminent, Like does that change it?
Speaker 4: Eighty five percents there? I mean, I like to look
Speaker 4: at the glass out full, but like fifteen percent is
Speaker 4: actually really substantial, right, that could be like the biggest
Speaker 4: parts of the agreement, like the fifteen percent could include
Speaker 4: I want all the benefits up front or you know,
Speaker 4: around telling us, and that's a non starter. I think
Speaker 4: if the US gets what it says the terms are
Speaker 4: were in a better place, We'll.
Speaker 2: Have to see.
Speaker 3: But the terms have to be better than the twenty
Speaker 3: fifteen JCPODA. It can't just be better than February twenty eighth.
Speaker 3: It has to be like all the way better because
Speaker 3: the whole thing was for nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: You know, you can you can spend whatever you want,
Speaker 4: but history is going to be very critical with the
Speaker 4: decision you get out of an agreement to only get
Speaker 4: back into the same agreement basically this many years later
Speaker 4: after you know, the sixty percent enriched uranium, with the
Speaker 4: proxy forces basically just increasing their activities. Everything is yeah, but.
Speaker 3: And Americans have died in between then because of that, right,
Speaker 3: you know, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty this year, like Americans
Speaker 3: have died because we pulled out of that agreement.
Speaker 4: It for strategic reasons and obviously political reasons. It needs
Speaker 4: to be better, and really the only way be to
Speaker 4: be better is zero and Richmond because it's very limited
Speaker 4: at the JCPU.
Speaker 2: I think there's no way that happens.
Speaker 1: No way, I mean got like have the straight OHRD
Speaker 1: moves open back to normal and a better deal than JCPOA.
Speaker 1: There's no way orangoes for that.
Speaker 3: Well, the only thing that would make it better is
Speaker 3: that Hezbola is disarmed and the Lebanese armed forces take
Speaker 3: over control of self Lebanon this this would be a
Speaker 3: significant difference between the twenty fifteen JCPOA and whatever we
Speaker 3: come up with now. Even if everything else was kept equal,
Speaker 3: this change would make it arguably a better deal, although
Speaker 3: it would you have to ask, like, was it worth that,
Speaker 3: like everything we've done in the last eleven years, was
Speaker 3: that cost worth just adding Hesbola to the agreement? And
Speaker 3: I don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 4: At least you can have an argument. You think you
Speaker 4: can make it right, right, we got to get to
Speaker 4: a better agreement than the JCP and I think Jonathan's right,
Speaker 4: we can get significant concessions has been That's a positive
Speaker 4: for original piece for sure. Something I mean, yeah, good lord,
Speaker 4: this is this is this country used to be, you know.
Speaker 3: So much better of a place the Paris in the
Speaker 3: Middle East.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Paris.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when my team was there, we were we were
Speaker 3: able to go skiing in the morning and then go
Speaker 3: surfing in the afternoon every day if we wanted to.
Speaker 4: But we were busy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now shame Let me ask you what happens quick
Speaker 2: quite like just a little history.
Speaker 1: That's because I'm not I don't know this, but as
Speaker 1: a JCPO it was being negotiated. You know, in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, where were they at in terms of how
Speaker 1: much enricheranium did they have? Was it anywhere near sixty percent?
Speaker 4: I mean the disagreement itself kept it to three point
Speaker 4: three and a half or something. Yeah, like nowhere close.
Speaker 4: Now the other side was you know, I'm not on
Speaker 4: either side. The other side will say, well, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of the enrichment when Biden came into office, and
Speaker 4: you know, they didn't immediately get back into the JCPOA.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's true, but all I know
Speaker 4: is the Pentagon. Although we obviously, you know, once the
Speaker 4: president makes decisions to carry out orders, we questioned, like,
Speaker 4: why not just make it a better agreement? Why not
Speaker 4: just build off of the agreement that's there. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but neither is
Speaker 4: zero agreement that's not perfect, right, And we could have
Speaker 4: addressed the issues of ballistic missiles and supporting terrorist organizations
Speaker 4: if it wasn't in the agreement. That that meant we
Speaker 4: could address it in other by other means. Because it
Speaker 4: wasn't in the agreement, you see what I mean? So
Speaker 4: that's that was our position at the time, but ultimately
Speaker 4: the President made the decision. And that's why I think
Speaker 4: it really needs to be more substantial.
Speaker 3: And also the reason the enrichment took so long, like
Speaker 3: it got back during the Biden administration, because the way
Speaker 3: that Iran abrogated its side of the deal was a slow,
Speaker 3: incremental abrogation. So when the US pulled out in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: we unilaterally pulled out completely, like we just abrogated everything
Speaker 3: in there, and we kicked them out of the swift
Speaker 3: banking system, so it was kind of a two pronged
Speaker 3: strike against them. But Iran still followed the deal because
Speaker 3: the other P five plus one countries were following it,
Speaker 3: and so Iran had an incentive to continue because of
Speaker 3: the sanctions structures that were associated with the agreement. So
Speaker 3: they actually would telegraph and they would say, you know,
Speaker 3: in three months, if X doesn't happen, we're going to
Speaker 3: increase by this percentage, and they very incrementally did so
Speaker 3: until about twenty nineteen twenty twenty, when they were all
Speaker 3: the way back up to or all the way to
Speaker 3: sixty percent enrichment. So they were telegraphing and giving opportunities
Speaker 3: for the West to say, Okay, never mind, we're going
Speaker 3: to come back to this agreement, which I mean the
Speaker 3: United States by that, of course, but the US ignored that,
Speaker 3: and Biden also ignored it. I mean, it wasn't that
Speaker 3: it was Trump versus Biden, like it was. The US
Speaker 3: decided not to return to the deal.
Speaker 1: Why why wouldn't Why why wouldn't the Biden administration try
Speaker 1: to get back into that deal?
Speaker 3: I think, I mean, this is my opinion, probably because
Speaker 3: the Trump administration had made an agreement with the Taliban
Speaker 3: about the withdrawal from Afghanistan before Trump's exit, but it
Speaker 3: was timed at the early months of the next president's presidency,
Speaker 3: so that whichever president came next would have to deal
Speaker 3: with the exit from Afghanistan. And you know, that was
Speaker 3: what was going on back then. And I think probably
Speaker 3: there was discussion within the Biden administration that we don't
Speaker 3: want to involve ourselves in an Iran negotiation while we're
Speaker 3: also trying to solve the Afghanistan withdrawal problem. And I
Speaker 3: think that's probably part of the calculus that went into
Speaker 3: why they didn't restart those talks at that time.
Speaker 4: Out we got to look forward. I gotta learn, we
Speaker 4: gotta learn from that, look forward to weekend. Put the
Speaker 4: US in a better position, which is I mean, it's
Speaker 4: challenged right now, so it's to be determined.
Speaker 1: But why would they think that the Afghanistan withdrawal would
Speaker 1: actually have any effect on the on the negotiations try
Speaker 1: and get back in the JCPO way or add to
Speaker 1: it or whatever. Why is that even in the calculus.
Speaker 3: Because that's the entire eastern border of Iran. Okay, it's
Speaker 3: a massive security concern for both Iran and Pakistan. So
Speaker 3: if the US is negotiating with Katar and Pakistan and
Speaker 3: Afghanistan about the Taliban, you know you have to consider
Speaker 3: that issue.
Speaker 2: Okay, man who.
Speaker 4: Another episode talk about. Yeah, we get to a point
Speaker 4: where we have the strongest military in the world by far,
Speaker 4: and the best intelligence service, I'd say, and somehow we
Speaker 4: can't come out ahead in these conflicts that we decide
Speaker 4: to go into. It's like, I think we have a
Speaker 4: policy making issue here, because we certainly don't have a
Speaker 4: practitioner issue. By practitioner, I mean people are carrying out policy.
Speaker 4: I think we have the most effective diplomats, military, and
Speaker 4: intelligence services in the world. Yeah, we seem to have
Speaker 4: a real hard time coming out strategically ahead in these
Speaker 4: conflicts we decide to get into.
Speaker 3: It's just improperly using these exquisite instruments that we.
Speaker 2: Have right.
Speaker 1: And likes, and you have like experts usually on the
Speaker 1: NSC right that I'll tell you XYZ will happen most likely,
Speaker 1: and the policymakers being like that doesn't matter, like we'll
Speaker 1: just do this anyway and not listen to experts.
Speaker 3: Well, even with the Obama administration, timber Sycamore, the covered
Speaker 3: action in Syria, the NSC was the one pushing that
Speaker 3: COVID action. They were saying, we need to go into
Speaker 3: Syria and arm these guys against us AD, and people
Speaker 3: in other agencies like the CIA and other places were saying, well,
Speaker 3: if you do that, you know these guys are affiliate
Speaker 3: with al Qaeda, and this kind of problematic and down
Speaker 3: the road there might be some issues that happened which
Speaker 3: ended up being true, but it took a long time
Speaker 3: for that to actually sort itself out in a way
Speaker 3: that we can actually see that that was true.
Speaker 4: Ye, And I'm not saying like obviously the people that
Speaker 4: are elected or elected and they make the ultimate decisions.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's not a listen to the careerist over
Speaker 4: it is we have an issue right because we're not
Speaker 4: coming out ahead. So I'm all about the US coming
Speaker 4: out ahead, which I think is good for you know,
Speaker 4: the free world, especially for both the free world. But
Speaker 4: we need to figure out what we're doing wrong instead
Speaker 4: of just moving on to the next endeavor and not.
Speaker 4: It's it's very difficult to do because it becomes a
Speaker 4: partisan issue. But I think, you know, our foreign policy
Speaker 4: should not be a partisan issue. We should have a cohesive,
Speaker 4: comprehensive policy that lasts beyond whoever is in office. The
Speaker 4: only way to do that is to develop it together.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Foreign relations committees, for example, should have a lot to
Speaker 4: say inconsistency, and our strategies should last beyond you know, administrations,
Speaker 4: because it's just really focused on our core strategic interests,
Speaker 4: which ultimately don't shift because it's a party a different party.
Speaker 4: That's my that's me being on the soapbox. But I
Speaker 4: think we're I think whether you're on the right, left
Speaker 4: or center, and whether you're a publican, Democrat or independent,
Speaker 4: you can say we probably should be doing better with
Speaker 4: the with the tools that we have in our toolbox.
Speaker 2: I think that's no, there's no question there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, uh, you know, even just dismantling
Speaker 1: USA I d was a fucking terrible, terrible move.
Speaker 4: I mean, there was plenty of things that it shouldn't
Speaker 4: have been doing that it was doing. But again, then
Speaker 4: let's get it back on track to go to our
Speaker 4: core interests. Our core strategic interests in the United States
Speaker 4: don't aren't partisan, They're not partisan. We want to improve
Speaker 4: our economy. We want to stabilize the world so we
Speaker 4: can free trade with it, right. I mean there there's
Speaker 4: basic stuff. We want to have more democracies because why
Speaker 4: we're a democracy and we promote it. It's in our
Speaker 4: core Uh, it always has been, I guess until recently
Speaker 4: that needs to be I know we're getting on a
Speaker 4: I'm getting on a soapbox here, but we are talking
Speaker 4: about something that we could easily go either way. Right now,
Speaker 4: come out behind. I'm definitely hoping we're coming out ahead,
Speaker 4: but we need to make sure that this that we
Speaker 4: use the actual lessons learned, the expertise, and the tools
Speaker 4: that we have in our toolbox, which are which every
Speaker 4: America pays for let's also put it that way, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, our next defense budget is going to be
Speaker 4: one point five trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fucking atrocious, Mick. I'm gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I know this is like you know, you guys are
Speaker 1: all in the service and stuff like that. One point
Speaker 1: five an extra five hundred billion dollars for what nobody
Speaker 1: knows is a fucking joke.
Speaker 2: Don't get crazy again, apox not.
Speaker 3: The foreign policy idea is to like, please.
Speaker 4: But like you should expect the best, right, That's what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, Sorry for sure?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean the form policy that we've been
Speaker 3: we've been advertising this this administration is that we're going
Speaker 3: to stop fighting wars overseas where we are dismantling a
Speaker 3: lot of our security assistants. We're dismantling the Army's security
Speaker 3: force assistance brigades. So like we're trying to pull back forces.
Speaker 3: And the question is, well, how is it that pulling
Speaker 3: back forces cost more than having them deployed? And if
Speaker 3: that's true, then why take them back? Just keep them
Speaker 3: where they are at the lower cost that they were,
Speaker 3: rather than using more tax pay dollars for less.
Speaker 4: And we're gonna have to pay again to get a
Speaker 4: back out there when we realize that it's really difficult
Speaker 4: to project force without having forces already projected, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like it isn't it's just it's it's
Speaker 4: just basic geography, right, so we want It's not we're
Speaker 4: not doing people a favor by having basis in their country.
Speaker 4: They're doing us a favor. Think of all of our
Speaker 4: efforts in Africa and the Middle East. I mean, if
Speaker 4: we didn't have our platforms in Europe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we'd be how that'd be a logistical nightmare.
Speaker 1: And we're supposed to. We're the best at logistics when
Speaker 1: it comes to like being able to project power, right,
Speaker 1: Like we're number one.
Speaker 4: That's I think our secret, Our secret to our success
Speaker 4: is actually the logistics, right Amateurs talk tactics and professionals
Speaker 4: talk logistics. If the US has the ability to project
Speaker 4: force so much better than any other military in the world,
Speaker 4: that's our key. I mean, we have, you know, I
Speaker 4: think the best of a lot of different spheres of
Speaker 4: national security. But that ability to project force is really exceptional.
Speaker 3: But you need the basing access and overflight to do it.
Speaker 3: And that means you need partners and allies who are
Speaker 3: willing to let you use their airspace, their airfields, their partnerships.
Speaker 3: And that can be accomplished with one soft team of
Speaker 3: twelve guys in that country training a Tier one force
Speaker 3: in that country for a couple of years. That's enough
Speaker 3: good will for that country to say, yeah, you can
Speaker 3: use our airfield when you need to use it.
Speaker 4: Keep your friends, keep your friends close.
Speaker 2: Man, we're not doing a good job of that right now.
Speaker 4: No better friend, no worse enemy we need, right absolutely,
Speaker 4: That's that's right, General Maddice, Secretary Maatus that that that
Speaker 4: should be our motto. And both sides of that equation, right,
Speaker 4: because both sides cat you want people to be like
Speaker 4: the US is a damn good friend. They're there when
Speaker 4: it's when it's tough, and you want your enemies to be,
Speaker 4: you know, scared, scared to death of us. Right. Another
Speaker 4: great Mattus quote to the only thing they have to
Speaker 4: decide is when hold they're going to die in uh
Speaker 4: when we're there? Right? So, I mean you want both.
Speaker 4: It can't just be one you need. I don't think
Speaker 4: you can be most effective. You got to be the
Speaker 4: good friend and the enemy. That people don't want to.
Speaker 2: Go against Are we doing that? Are we living up
Speaker 2: to that currently.
Speaker 3: Some places, but not as much as we have been
Speaker 3: in the past.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a let's talk a little AI news.
Speaker 1: John just toss this into the signal chat a statement
Speaker 1: from Anthropic statement on us blah blah blah. The US government,
Speaker 1: citing national security authorities, has issued an export controlled directive
Speaker 1: to spend all access to Fable five and Mythos five
Speaker 1: by any foreign national, whether inside or outside of the
Speaker 1: United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. So it goes on.
Speaker 1: So it's that's pretty wild. I mean, you know, business
Speaker 1: side Thropic.
Speaker 3: Well, they actually turned off Fable completely. So in reaction
Speaker 3: to the news, just to be safe, Anthropics said, well,
Speaker 3: we're just not going to let anybody use it. So
Speaker 3: now they just pulled the plug on it completely.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but what so what does FABLE do again?
Speaker 2: Sorry?
Speaker 3: So, Fable is their newest model that just came out
Speaker 3: last Tuesday, I believe, and it's a very advanced version
Speaker 3: of the different types of the reasoning models they have.
Speaker 3: So Mythos came out before that. Mythos is even more
Speaker 3: advanced than Fable. Some governments, including France have used Mythos
Speaker 3: to develop cyber tools and to identify zero day vulnerabilities
Speaker 3: and things like this, because it's it is very advanced,
Speaker 3: and so it seems the US government is saying that
Speaker 3: exactly now it's it's in the hands of an ordinary
Speaker 3: user or a Russian or whomever, or a North Korean
Speaker 3: this would be a great ransomware builder, for example. So
Speaker 3: I think that that's the concern, But that means Anthropic
Speaker 3: now has a business problem, like you said, where they've
Speaker 3: developed this really advanced thing and it costs a lot
Speaker 3: of money to develop it, and it can do a
Speaker 3: lot of good, and maybe it's kind of to look
Speaker 3: at like nuclear science, where you could do a lot
Speaker 3: of good with nuclear research and you can do a
Speaker 3: lot of bad with it. And how do you create
Speaker 3: the right balance between those two truths?
Speaker 4: How do how do we when we don't control what
Speaker 4: our adversaries develop.
Speaker 3: It's tough, plus China making it sound too you.
Speaker 4: Can be real like preachy about it, but then where
Speaker 4: you go, well, the enemies are going to do it.
Speaker 4: I mean Russia had a during go back to the
Speaker 4: nuclear issue, Russia had a plan that if it felt
Speaker 4: like it got attacked and they couldn't and their nuclear
Speaker 4: forces couldn't be in tech with the Kremlin, and you
Speaker 4: just started launching all the nukes. It was a dead
Speaker 4: man's hand. It just like this one missile went across
Speaker 4: the tirety of the Soviet Union, just launching all the
Speaker 4: ones that were still uh, you know, violet.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So if you if you think about that's our adversary,
Speaker 4: you think they're not going to use AI to ultimate
Speaker 4: benefit them once they can. I'm not saying that that's
Speaker 4: an issue right now, but are we going to just
Speaker 4: tie our own hands? It's it's actually a really complicated
Speaker 4: discussion because, yeah, we don't want a computer decided to
Speaker 4: kill all these humans. They're already doing it. By the way,
Speaker 4: in Ukraine, AI.
Speaker 3: You targeting Israel used it in your own also during
Speaker 3: the first days of the Salvo.
Speaker 4: Yep, it's happening. It's happening.
Speaker 2: Can we use it as well?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: This is a good point because Anthropic was the company
Speaker 3: that Pete Hegsef kicked out of contracts. And I'm curious
Speaker 3: if this this statement is a punishment for refusing to
Speaker 3: put guardrails or to take guardrails for the deality. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because they didn't ban anything else. They only banned anthropics
Speaker 3: most recent model.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So based on the statement, our understanding is that the
Speaker 1: government believes that it has become aware of a method
Speaker 1: of bypassing or jail breaking Fable five, which you would
Speaker 1: think if they release Fable five on Tuesday and mythos
Speaker 1: it's out there right, the Chinese and the Russians likely
Speaker 1: or even like some independent group that works for either
Speaker 1: or both has jail broken this and figured it out,
Speaker 1: especially the Chinese, like all their models are based on
Speaker 1: American models. Yeah, you know, that's why they get them
Speaker 1: out so cheap. So to think that this is going
Speaker 1: to stop anything. And like it said in here, like
Speaker 1: even foreign national anthropic employees, like they have the smartest
Speaker 1: and best people are going to work at AI companies
Speaker 1: because there's big money to be made, right, there's no
Speaker 1: like how can they put the put the toothpaste back
Speaker 1: in a tube?
Speaker 2: Here? John, you know you know everything, John tell.
Speaker 3: Us, you should ask fable.
Speaker 4: I wish I start asking AI out of control.
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is we have to look at it
Speaker 3: like any other tool or weapon, which a tool can
Speaker 3: be a weapon, and a weapon can be a tool,
Speaker 3: we have to think about what is everybody else doing
Speaker 3: with it, and what is our goal? And if our
Speaker 3: goal was to remain superior to others, we have to
Speaker 3: use it to its maximum capability because we have to
Speaker 3: assume that they will do the same thing. And if
Speaker 3: we don't do that, we are opening ourselves up, like
Speaker 3: you said, Mick, to a vulnerability that they are going
Speaker 3: to be stronger than we are in this field. That
Speaker 3: would be a mistake. So maybe that is going on
Speaker 3: behind the scenes and we just don't know it, and
Speaker 3: maybe that's part of the ban on the average user
Speaker 3: using it. But we all know that suppression is not
Speaker 3: a good recipe for actual success, you know, like if
Speaker 3: you try to suppress someone from doing something, they're going
Speaker 3: to find a way around it. Iran is an excellent
Speaker 3: example of that that repression is not going to solve
Speaker 3: this problem. Instead, we should probably be opening it up
Speaker 3: to like some kind of competent among you know, very
Speaker 3: advanced hackers and users to show us how they can
Speaker 3: best use fable to do something egregious, like actually incentivizing
Speaker 3: that like we did at Black Hat. You know, National
Speaker 3: Security Agency was a frequent attendee at Black hat. I
Speaker 3: was one of those people that was there. There are
Speaker 3: many people from intelligence entities going to these to see
Speaker 3: these really advanced smart people. How can they use this
Speaker 3: and how can we keep them insulated rather than isolated?
Speaker 3: In other words, if they're making these really scary tools,
Speaker 3: how do we bring them into the fold before they
Speaker 3: go out and use it for bad Because you know,
Speaker 3: if you give them the correct incentive, they're going to
Speaker 3: want to work with you, and I mean a positive incentive,
Speaker 3: not a negative one. There was the whole you know,
Speaker 3: bug bounty program back in the early two thousands where
Speaker 3: we were paying hackers to give us zero days and
Speaker 3: then sign NDAs and promise not to use them and
Speaker 3: let us use them in our toolkit. And that's a
Speaker 3: reason we were able to do stucksnet against Iran's nuclear
Speaker 3: program was because of zero day Like that, there were
Speaker 3: a couple of zero days involved there and some other
Speaker 3: very advanced hacks where we actually brought hackers in to
Speaker 3: help us. And I think it's very important to bring
Speaker 3: in programmers, people that are very savvy on this stuff
Speaker 3: to help us and to be part of us, because
Speaker 3: if we don't, Russia, China, North Korea Iran and even
Speaker 3: some non state actors who are just financially interested are
Speaker 3: going to take advantage of this new technology. And the
Speaker 3: thing is, the technology is going to be there, whether
Speaker 3: we like it or not. We have to accept that
Speaker 3: it's going to be there, and what it is today
Speaker 3: is not what it's going to be in ten years.
Speaker 3: It's going to be dramatically more. And if we're left behind,
Speaker 3: we're going to be this, you know, like the Byzantine Empire,
Speaker 3: this like rump state that had this glorious past and
Speaker 3: everything else has passed us by. And that's kind of
Speaker 3: a choice we have to make right now.
Speaker 1: It's shocking to me, frankly, that like the National Security Apparatus,
Speaker 1: the United States doesn't have some kind of mechanism in
Speaker 1: place with open AI and thropic and whoever else I say,
Speaker 1: I I guess, but they're you know, flagging, but at
Speaker 1: least Anthropic, which seems to be like the most bleeding
Speaker 1: edge frontier model. How they don't have some kind of
Speaker 1: mechanism to be like this model we just made is
Speaker 1: fucking crazy. And we're letting you know that for guidance,
Speaker 1: and maybe we water it down for public use and
Speaker 1: stuff like that maybe we need to like you know,
Speaker 1: you know, rejigger what we need to jigger, like you know,
Speaker 1: dial it down or whatever we have to do. I'm
Speaker 1: shocked that there isn't a mechanism like that already in place.
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is, it's inevitable that this would be developed.
Speaker 3: It's just like physics, like once people figure out the equations,
Speaker 3: anybody can do it with the right resources. And whether
Speaker 3: it's Anthropic that develops fable or some other company that
Speaker 3: develops some other LLM, the tools are there to make
Speaker 3: it happen.
Speaker 2: Right, you know.
Speaker 3: And if Anthropics first, that's great. But a Chinese company
Speaker 3: like Deep Seek, which is very good at industrial espionage,
Speaker 3: I mean that's China's forte figuring out reverse engineering and
Speaker 3: making a new version. That's that's their proprietary version that
Speaker 3: we have a hard time to understand. They're going to
Speaker 3: do it anyway, So we should be kind of helping
Speaker 3: Anthropic probably get even more advanced faster. It's an arms race,
Speaker 3: for sure, but the arms race also got us into
Speaker 3: space and created our GPS systems that we enjoy and
Speaker 3: many other positive benefits. There's a way to harness this
Speaker 3: to make positive benefits come to society if we're smart
Speaker 3: about it, if we're scared about it, that's actually the
Speaker 3: worst direction this could go, because then our adversaries are
Speaker 3: ahead of us.
Speaker 4: Found the third off set national security has been like that,
Speaker 4: that continuous desire to get a step ahead. The question
Speaker 4: is how far ahead are we going to get over
Speaker 4: our adversaries or are we dragging them with us because
Speaker 4: they can simply recreate what our companies.
Speaker 2: Are, all right, you doing? Yeah, yeah, it's across the sphere.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a bigger conversation. But if you think
Speaker 4: think of the top five, you know, most significant tech leaders,
Speaker 4: they're not just running the world, you know, when it
Speaker 4: comes to national security, it's also social and influence. And like,
Speaker 4: these companies are coming just colossal and something that I
Speaker 4: don't think we've really had in history, at least to
Speaker 4: this extent. It's just for beating everything science, technology, development, culture.
Speaker 1: And you look at the CEOs, you see these look
Speaker 1: at the CEOs of these companies and you're like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: do they do they really deserve this much power?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'll say no, they don't because they're fucking lunatics. But
Speaker 1: for the most part they're lunatics. You know, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be an interesting thing. I mean, I'm shocked that
Speaker 1: there's no like direct line from like Anthropic to the
Speaker 1: NSA to be like, hey, guys, the things I hope.
Speaker 4: So there should should be established.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you have Anthropic in and
Speaker 1: open AI raising money at a like a scary level,
Speaker 1: like a like a spell bound bounding level, and they're
Speaker 1: going to try and go pro public this year and
Speaker 1: raise more money, so they're like, we need to be
Speaker 1: at the top. You know, this is a battle for
Speaker 1: fucking existence because I think in back of their minds
Speaker 1: they know that at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 1: probably gonna end up being like one massive AI company
Speaker 1: rather than like three or four, just because the economics
Speaker 1: may not work, because I don't know if it's I'm
Speaker 1: one of the believers that AI is not going to
Speaker 1: completely like you know, people won't have to work anymore
Speaker 1: and change the world completely. I think it is a
Speaker 1: place for it for sure, like in productivity, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's to the point where it doesn't
Speaker 1: even make economic sense. And like there's that's that's another show.
Speaker 1: We could totally get into and hopefully we will. I
Speaker 1: want to do something about AI and the business of
Speaker 1: it on this channel. Yeah, so we'll see nothing no
Speaker 1: good news ever. That's great, really excited about it. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you guys worked in fucking national security
Speaker 1: for twenty thirty years and it's just like you guys
Speaker 1: got good news occasionally, right, We got been lodded and
Speaker 1: that was good.
Speaker 3: That was past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we don't want to talk. We don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about that. Don't mention that. Uh yeah, fuck
Speaker 1: all right, anything else that's on your mind, guys.
Speaker 4: I think we got it good episode.
Speaker 1: I want everyone to do me a favor. I want
Speaker 1: everyone to go by Jonathan Hackett's book Iran Shadow Weapons.
Speaker 1: I also want people to go and check out mixed
Speaker 1: new podcasts that's pubbing, The Porch, Applied Stoicism, and The
Speaker 1: white Fish Security something that's coming up next February. All
Speaker 1: those links are in the description down below, and Patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash the Teamhouse. That's the best place you
Speaker 1: can go to support the show. You get both Teamhouse
Speaker 1: and Izon episodes ad free and early, and you help
Speaker 1: support the show. Guys a pleasure. As always, Let's go Nix.
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