Speaker 1: Hey, what's up, guys. This is d Do us a
Speaker 1: favorite and check out our Patreon page. It's patreon dot
Speaker 1: com Slash the Teamhouse. You get both Teamhouse episodes and
Speaker 1: Eyes on Geopolitics episodes completely ad free. You get them
Speaker 1: early too. You can ask us questions. You can also
Speaker 1: watch the Team House episodes live as we shoot them,
Speaker 1: so and you help support the show and support what
Speaker 1: we're doing here. It's Patreon dot com Slash the Teamhouse.
Speaker 1: Those links are in the description, or if you're listening,
Speaker 1: it's in the show notes down below, so you can
Speaker 1: click it real quick and easy, and it helps us
Speaker 1: keep the lights on. So we appreciate it, and we
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys listening. Thanks a bunch. Hey everybody, welcome
Speaker 1: to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with
Speaker 1: Mick Moulroy, Mark poly Moreopolis, and Jonathan Hackett. I think
Speaker 1: Andy Milburn will be joining us soon soon. A lot happening. Us.
Speaker 1: Just beat Canada and the gold medal game and the
Speaker 1: Olympics and overtime incredible game.
Speaker 2: Yep uh, he is a communist. He was rooting against America.
Speaker 1: I wasn't rooting against America. I was more apathetic to
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Uh, that's that's the best I'll give
Speaker 1: it to you. I mean I gave a little I
Speaker 1: didn't really fist pump when Jack you scored. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it was a really good game on the street.
Speaker 2: Go see AOC and have your little latte with her.
Speaker 1: I would love to, to be honest, Uh, happy to
Speaker 1: buy her a latte. A lot happening as usual. Uh.
Speaker 1: We brought John on, of course, because John is like
Speaker 1: our resident expert in Iran and things seem to be
Speaker 1: heating up. We have a ton of assets in and
Speaker 1: around the area. And that's John. That's beautiful man. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: check out John's book.
Speaker 3: I didn't just pull it out from them.
Speaker 1: Iran's Shot, Shadow Weapons, Covert Action, Intelligence Operations and unconventional Warfare.
Speaker 1: It's out now. That link is in the description. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so a lot happened. We have a ton of assets
Speaker 1: in the in the Gulf, in and around the area
Speaker 1: in and around Iran, as much as we've had in
Speaker 1: twenty years outside of the ground forces. So we really
Speaker 1: are showing the stick. I don't know. There is a
Speaker 1: meeting planned on Thursday with Iranian Foreign Minster and Witkoff
Speaker 1: and Jared Kushner. I don't know if that's like for
Speaker 1: a new hotel or anything, or actually this Iran deal,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's pretty much what's happening. Obviously everything else
Speaker 1: in the world is exploding as well, but that's what's,
Speaker 1: you know, dominating the headlines. So guys welcome, and you
Speaker 1: guys can mudd wrestle for who wants to go first.
Speaker 3: Well, I gotta jump early, unfortunately, so well where to start?
Speaker 3: I think you we're right. We have probably as much
Speaker 3: air power a raid for this as we did and
Speaker 3: maybe even surpassed the two thousand and three invasion of Iraq,
Speaker 3: which me and bark Or intimately involved with, not the
Speaker 3: airpower and a considered amount of naval force. Right, So
Speaker 3: this looks like it's headed either to force or on
Speaker 3: into an agreement, although it seems unlikely if we maintain
Speaker 3: the maximum position of having to zero enrichment, including significant
Speaker 3: restrictions on the ballistic missile program, maybe even proxy for
Speaker 3: support if they do not accept that. And they haven't
Speaker 3: accept that, and according to some they haven't even acknowledged
Speaker 3: the red lines that we have, even though as Mark
Speaker 3: just pointed out, the meeting is on Thursday. That might
Speaker 3: be to hear if they have come along to our
Speaker 3: side and want to avoid what looks like to be
Speaker 3: a fairly significant military confrontation between the US and Iran.
Speaker 3: If they do not, I do not see the US
Speaker 3: just simply turning tail and going home. I just don't
Speaker 3: see that happening. So unless they agree with it has
Speaker 3: to be way better than the JCPOA politically President Trump
Speaker 3: to accept it. It's going to be significant. Now the
Speaker 3: question is going to be is it going to be
Speaker 3: focused just on the nuclear sites. There's some indication that
Speaker 3: they've started rebuilding and reinforcing those sites and the ballistic
Speaker 3: missile launch sites and manufacturing centers, or is it also
Speaker 3: going to include direct targeting of the regime. And there's
Speaker 3: a lot I don't know. It's hard to keep up
Speaker 3: with the stuff that's accurate not accurate, but there's a
Speaker 3: lot of information. I should say that they have started
Speaker 3: basically continuity of regime planning, meaning that they've started dispersing
Speaker 3: their leadership. They've started having every key leader pick four
Speaker 3: successive leaders. So it's clear that Iran that indicates to
Speaker 3: me that they think it's going to happen, which means
Speaker 3: they know they're not going to go on Thursday and
Speaker 3: agree to what the United States is so I will
Speaker 3: stop they're thinking that. Potentially I'd like to see, as
Speaker 3: I hope everybody would, a diplomatic resolution of this, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't look like it.
Speaker 2: Said, Hey, John, can I ask you a question. It's
Speaker 2: actually great to have Iran experts here, because you know,
Speaker 2: McK and I play them on TV and we're actually
Speaker 2: not really are on experts. And one of the things
Speaker 2: I think we have to have a little bit of
Speaker 2: humility on this, But they're the key question that I'm
Speaker 2: kind of really grappling with, and perhaps you can shed
Speaker 2: some light has to do with not US decision making,
Speaker 2: but Iranian decision making. And I think it's just the notion.
Speaker 2: And but that does kind of reflect back to how
Speaker 2: does the US kind of grapple with the notion of
Speaker 2: if the Supreme Leader, if the Irani leadership actually has
Speaker 2: made the calculation that that, you know, a military a
Speaker 2: strike on them is actually worth it for regime survival,
Speaker 2: how can there actually be an agreement.
Speaker 4: At that point?
Speaker 2: You know? And I've been kind of mulling this and
Speaker 2: kind of contemplating this to see, you know, is there
Speaker 2: really a diplomatic opening here. But if because if you
Speaker 2: go with that line of thinking that, you know, I
Speaker 2: was reading some israel formers really until just official saying
Speaker 2: that that's the case, then how do you get out
Speaker 2: of this right now? Or is this is a conflict
Speaker 2: just inevitable if the Iranians really say, like, hey, we're
Speaker 2: not going to back down a pressure, this is two
Speaker 2: weeks too much pride for us, and the US kind
Speaker 2: of holds that maximalist line. You know, where do we
Speaker 2: go from here now other than in a week or
Speaker 2: so ago, when you know, in the future when these
Speaker 2: things are kind of go round and around again, we
Speaker 2: have this enormous force package ready to go. What are
Speaker 2: your thoughts, John.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm thinking back to I think it was
Speaker 4: two thousand and six when the Masad director Married de
Speaker 4: Gan said that Mahmud Ahmad Najad is not our rational,
Speaker 4: but he's rational like within his own worldview, the things
Speaker 4: he's doing makes sense to him. And I think this
Speaker 4: is the best way to think about how the regime
Speaker 4: is calculating what it's doing. There's two precedents for what's
Speaker 4: happening right now. The first is nineteen eighty eight when
Speaker 4: the Iran Iraq war was negotiated to end, and the
Speaker 4: previous iatolas said that this is a poison chalice that
Speaker 4: they have to drink from to end the war after
Speaker 4: a million people had just died on both sides. But
Speaker 4: they that meant that they had to get to the
Speaker 4: point where a million people had died on both sides
Speaker 4: before drinking from that poison chalice, according to them. And
Speaker 4: then of course the other was the twenty fifteen JCPOA,
Speaker 4: which was an imperfect agreement, but to them was a
Speaker 4: necessary agreement to get what they wanted after a very
Speaker 4: long time of pressure to reach that point, including the
Speaker 4: Stuxnet attack on their nuclear facilities and other things that
Speaker 4: really cripple the regime, not as publicly as people have seen,
Speaker 4: but did have effects on the regime. The point there
Speaker 4: is that they don't get there until it seems like
Speaker 4: everything else has been exhausted and there's no other choice
Speaker 4: for survival. And right now they may not be calculating
Speaker 4: that they're at that point. True, they see all these
Speaker 4: forces arrayed against them, but there has been restraint. I
Speaker 4: guess you could call it shown against Venezuela for example,
Speaker 4: and also back in June last year, where the US
Speaker 4: didn't push beyond a certain strategic endpoint, similar to nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety one when George Bush Senior decided not to push
Speaker 4: into Baghdad, Desert Storm, Desert Shield, there was a decision
Speaker 4: made to stop. I think the regime may be looking
Speaker 4: at those historic precedents and hoping within their own worldview
Speaker 4: that there's more to be squeezed out of this. And
Speaker 4: if we look at the JCPOA, you know it was
Speaker 4: imperfect for one reason. That was because proxies were not
Speaker 4: included in that agreement to the West. And perhaps the
Speaker 4: West would like that now, but I feel like proxies
Speaker 4: are so weakened and so destroyed that it's almost a
Speaker 4: throwaway that could be added to it that wouldn't really
Speaker 4: have a true effect in reality, because Hesbela is so crippled, Kaiv,
Speaker 4: hesbulas crippled, the Iraqi, other PMF groups are so crippled.
Speaker 4: So you have to wonder is it just two tracks,
Speaker 4: is it nuclear and ICBM or MRBM missile limitations that
Speaker 4: are gonna built into this agreement, or is it not
Speaker 4: even an agreement at all? That the regime was looking
Speaker 4: for perhaps they're looking for a safe exit out of
Speaker 4: Iran into maybe Moscow or some country where they could
Speaker 4: be safe, and this is a facade where they're just
Speaker 4: looking like they're negotiating these things that are familiar to everyone,
Speaker 4: but instead it could be actually they're trying to negotiate
Speaker 4: for their own survival, whatever that survival might look like.
Speaker 2: Do you think the United States though, understands this. I
Speaker 2: mean one of the worries and I think, you know
Speaker 2: we've talked about this on the show before, is is
Speaker 2: you know there has been a hollowing out of iron
Speaker 2: expertise in the US government. You know, the National Security
Speaker 2: Council staff I don't think operates as it did in
Speaker 2: the past, and we have seen both at CIA and
Speaker 2: the State Department kind of a you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of exodus of really smart folks. Do you think there
Speaker 2: are people around, you know, Kushner and Wikoff and the administration,
Speaker 2: you know, what they're doing on this. I don't know
Speaker 2: the answer to that. I'm curious if you have confidence
Speaker 2: that they are being given this kind of analysis and
Speaker 2: advice that you just kind of put forward.
Speaker 4: I think they're not, and I think it's not necessarily
Speaker 4: because they don't want that. I think it's because it's
Speaker 4: not organic right now. Like if you look back at
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen, in the years leading up to the JCPOA,
Speaker 4: you had kind of a concert of things happening together
Speaker 4: that it was organic. For example, John Kerry and Jawad
Speaker 4: Zarif walking together in Geneva having private conversations. You had
Speaker 4: other people like Robert ally and in college in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy nine new members of the Future regime as college
Speaker 4: students in the United States. They had these relationships that
Speaker 4: had been built over decades and that just doesn't organically
Speaker 4: exist in the current group of folks who are in
Speaker 4: Switzerland doing these negotiations.
Speaker 2: Andy greetings, good to see you guys. Any comments and
Speaker 2: kind of current status of where we are. There was
Speaker 2: just an announcement on social media that Thursday might be
Speaker 2: a day in which Krishner and Wikoff meet the Iranian
Speaker 2: foreign minister in Geneva. So it looks like there's one
Speaker 2: kind of one last gasp effort to avoid conflict.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we have we started a bet on this.
Speaker 4: I think we only market it's a seventy five percent
Speaker 4: bet that by December thirty first, will be a new
Speaker 4: regime in Iran?
Speaker 5: Really well, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, isn't the guy isn't that the chances of Guy's
Speaker 3: just gonna die is like eighty four? Right, Yeah, so
Speaker 3: there'd be a new regime. I don't know why you
Speaker 3: take that bit.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody in the NSC probably put some money
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 4: That's a big issue.
Speaker 2: Now, people, what are you going now?
Speaker 5: So so almost for a moment, I said the last
Speaker 5: four words because Mark, I you know, if you if
Speaker 5: you're asking me what my prediction is, right, I just
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't have one anymore. And and here's why,
Speaker 5: I'm not sure if you were to ask senior members
Speaker 5: of the administration right now, this isn't necessarily criticism what
Speaker 5: is going to happen. I don't think anyone knows. I
Speaker 5: think it's I think this could go, This could act
Speaker 5: out on a whim. Right up to the last minute.
Speaker 5: You know, we talked about the fact that this is
Speaker 5: you know, we hate to use the term unprecedented. In fact,
Speaker 5: we try and avoid using that term on this show.
Speaker 5: But this is, this is a build up in the
Speaker 5: Middle East that I think I'm I think I'm correct
Speaker 5: in saying hasn't occurred since the earliest part of you know,
Speaker 5: the century, right, I mean not the early part of
Speaker 5: the century, around the round the beginning of the Iraq War.
Speaker 5: So to back down now or to find a compromise
Speaker 5: and then have to reposition all of these assets could
Speaker 5: could definitely be seen as a as a credibility blow,
Speaker 5: you know, whether whether it's painted that way or not.
Speaker 5: We you know, you and I and are probably I
Speaker 5: think a lot of people who listen to the show
Speaker 5: know how things work in the Middle East, and regardless
Speaker 5: how it is painted, it does appear. You know, we've
Speaker 5: been saying, banging the drun, we're going to do this,
Speaker 5: We're going to do this, We're going to strike, yeah,
Speaker 5: and then we don't what are the repercussions from that?
Speaker 2: Mick, I want to get before you. I know, Mick,
Speaker 2: you got to you got to go. But there's something
Speaker 2: that's been bugging me. I sent you note the of
Speaker 2: the day in our chat on this too, and that's
Speaker 2: the idea of it. Seems like the administration, you know,
Speaker 2: keeps leaking their their potential strike options. And then John,
Speaker 2: I want you're taking this too. But uh uh, Mick,
Speaker 2: the strike options. It's like it's like you know, going
Speaker 2: to a New Jersey diner. You know, you want to
Speaker 2: go to you know, order some some you know Friday
Speaker 2: eggs or burger and one of them has to do
Speaker 2: with we're going to assassinate the leadership and you know,
Speaker 2: and and to me that first of all, there's a
Speaker 2: little humility there involved. I don't know if the United
Speaker 2: States has that level of granularity in terms of intelligence
Speaker 2: collection to do so. We're not the Israelis. But number
Speaker 2: two and Mick, this goes to things you and I
Speaker 2: did in the past. You know, there are there is
Speaker 2: international law on this. I don't know. You know, we
Speaker 2: are not at armed conflict with Iran. Under Low Act,
Speaker 2: We're not supposed to be able to do this until
Speaker 2: we are at conflict with them. And then there's the
Speaker 2: Executive Order one two three three three, which bans the
Speaker 2: assassination of foreign leaders. And I see nothing in the
Speaker 2: press about this, but for you and I, uh and Andy,
Speaker 2: I'll throw you in there too, for you know, for practicition,
Speaker 2: and Jonathan, I mean, everybody, d We're gonna throw you
Speaker 2: in as well. You're coming on the COVID action like
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff is what how we don't go
Speaker 2: to jail like there is I mean, you you know,
Speaker 2: so it's not like a bunch of CIA and Marines
Speaker 2: are like, hey, let's go wax and people like there
Speaker 2: actually are rules behind this. There are lawyers attached to
Speaker 2: your hip everywhere. And so Mick, your your thoughts that
Speaker 2: there's no debate on this, I mean to me, I
Speaker 2: mean you've sat in that job as the as the daste,
Speaker 2: I believe you know. I mean, you don't just go assassin.
Speaker 2: And you know, you remember when when Trump said, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to go kill prischar Alasade, who was written
Speaker 2: about in Bob Woodwards book, and I think the national
Speaker 2: security world was like, yeah, we really can't do that. Anyway,
Speaker 2: your thoughts on that menu option with the lack of
Speaker 2: any kind of legal underpinning, and of course I will
Speaker 2: throw out the Mick also went to law school, so
Speaker 2: this matters to you.
Speaker 1: There is that.
Speaker 3: Uh so there's not a lot of debate on any
Speaker 3: of it, right, that's kind of surprising. I mean, normally
Speaker 3: you'd think that they'd be a lot of discussion, the
Speaker 3: President talking about it with the American people of why
Speaker 3: this is important because it's you know, the animal gets
Speaker 3: a vote on this. This This might not just be
Speaker 3: surgical strikes and then it's over. This could be you know,
Speaker 3: aircraft carriers that are struck by a messil. It could
Speaker 3: be you know soldiers US soldiers that are killed sitting
Speaker 3: at a base somewhere. It could be clandestine ops against
Speaker 3: you know, soft target targets and diplomats. Right, it could
Speaker 3: be all the above. And you know, Jonathan should talk
Speaker 3: about all the capabilities that they have that he lays
Speaker 3: out in this book. So there should be a discussion
Speaker 3: before we even have I think a direct confrontation. And
Speaker 3: folks that watch the show know that I supported the
Speaker 3: strikes against the nuclear facilities, so I'm not dubbish on this,
Speaker 3: but there needs to be buying because this might not
Speaker 3: go as smoothly as Venezuela. Right, this could go sideways.
Speaker 3: We could have you know, in addition to everything iditioned reference,
Speaker 3: we could have pilot shot down.
Speaker 2: Is it the competition strike on leadership? Is that legal?
Speaker 2: What is your view on that as a kind of
Speaker 2: unofficial and lawyer, Yeah, so it is.
Speaker 3: It is not legal to take out a leader of
Speaker 3: a country that we're not at war with right once
Speaker 3: we're at war, which would be the same with us, right,
Speaker 3: So they would be essentially legal to try to take
Speaker 3: out our commander in chief, but we're not at war
Speaker 3: with them. We're doing this because you know, at least
Speaker 3: what I think is, we're trying to mitigate the threat
Speaker 3: of them acquiring nuclear weapon, which we through multiple administrations
Speaker 3: set is unacceptable. But to go after the leadership, even
Speaker 3: as despotic as it is, is another step. Right, So
Speaker 3: we have no authority we you know, the executive branch
Speaker 3: and the DoD to go to war with Oran, and
Speaker 3: we're taking that one step further, at least in the press,
Speaker 3: with debating whether we're going to take out the leadership.
Speaker 3: So there's a legal issue with it, but there's also
Speaker 3: a practical like, Okay, so say we do take out
Speaker 3: the leadership, who's going to take over? Is it going
Speaker 3: to be more amenable to joining an agreement with the
Speaker 3: United States? Potentially not. The GC has historically been even
Speaker 3: more hawkish when it comes to acquiring nuclear weapon than
Speaker 3: the Supreme Leader. So there is the legality, and then
Speaker 3: there's the actual practical effect of taking out the leadership,
Speaker 3: which might not be putting the United States in a
Speaker 3: better position, and if certainly, it could destabilize the entire region,
Speaker 3: which is why I think so many countries are really
Speaker 3: concerned about what happens next. I would only add one
Speaker 3: more thing and then toss it to you, guys. President
Speaker 3: Trump keeps saying limited. The way I'm reading that, and
Speaker 3: it could be wrong, is normally, as everybody in the
Speaker 3: military knows, you present a low, medium, and high threshold.
Speaker 3: Same thing in the agency. Right, If you're saying limited,
Speaker 3: at least it indicates to me he's talking on the
Speaker 3: low end. And I don't think taking out the Supreme
Speaker 3: Leader would be considered the low end. So I don't
Speaker 3: know if it's legitimate that they're talking about this as
Speaker 3: one of the courses of backtion they're considering or not,
Speaker 3: because you know, I just wouldn't see that as a
Speaker 3: limit did course of action?
Speaker 2: Jonathan, What do you think about that? That obviously aspect,
Speaker 2: when you know a regimeed decapitation strike as a as
Speaker 2: an opening legal isn't as smart as well?
Speaker 5: Is it smart?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I'm thinking back to the custom Solomoni assassination
Speaker 4: back in twenty twenty January eighth and y're up before
Speaker 4: January eighth, and there's what is legal and what is possible.
Speaker 4: And with the assassination of Solomoni, they use the authorization
Speaker 4: for use of military force that was approved for war
Speaker 4: in Iraq. Like back to that two thousand and three
Speaker 4: build up, we were just talking about, that's what that
Speaker 4: was for nowhere in there doesn't mention Iaron. You know,
Speaker 4: there's lots of obviously debate about and discussion about how
Speaker 4: that was like patently unlawful according to international law and
Speaker 4: according to our own law because of who that person
Speaker 4: was and what he represented as far as a political
Speaker 4: figure and a military figure from a sovereign country. But
Speaker 4: does that matter in terms of US decision making? Because
Speaker 4: like the Million dialogue from Thucydides, you know, the strong
Speaker 4: do what they can and the week do what they must.
Speaker 4: And if the US is the major power, what relevance
Speaker 4: does the law have to that power? And that's like
Speaker 4: a moral ethical question. But when you have a National
Speaker 4: security Council who is making decisions based on a single
Speaker 4: individual's direction, sometimes moral and ethical decision making is not
Speaker 4: put into there. And so thinking about the attorneys they
Speaker 4: have making these things, I don't remember John, you put
Speaker 4: out the torture memo back in the early two thousands
Speaker 4: for Rumsfeld, I mean, the attorneys that are there are
Speaker 4: making opinions that have been kind of predetermined by the
Speaker 4: policy setter. So they say, we want a legal opinion
Speaker 4: that justifies this action, and that legal opinion will justify
Speaker 4: that action, even if it's a very flimsy or tenuous
Speaker 4: connection to the moral, ethical and legal things behind it.
Speaker 4: And I wouldn't be surprised if a memo was being
Speaker 4: drafted in the past few weeks or memos very similar
Speaker 4: in structure, where they basically just say, here are A, B,
Speaker 4: and C reasons why this is lawful, and now side
Speaker 4: observer analyzes that, they would say that's clearly not right.
Speaker 4: But the president's not interested in that analysis. He's looking
Speaker 4: for a legal justification because that's how international law works.
Speaker 4: There isn't, you know, a common law of international law.
Speaker 4: There's this thing that we agree to and that we uphold,
Speaker 4: and that's why we respond to the pressures of the
Speaker 4: international outcry and hide behind our memos regardless of how
Speaker 4: lawful they look. With Venezuela, you know, we used we
Speaker 4: had a thin justification for that We've had thin justifications
Speaker 4: for invading Iraq. Remember holding up the photograph of the
Speaker 4: UN Security Council showing the refrigerator trucks of chemical weapons
Speaker 4: and all that, despite those things not being true. And
Speaker 4: I think that's what the US will produce in this case.
Speaker 4: No matter what the option is, whether it's just striking
Speaker 4: nuclear facilities again or if it's decapitating the regime, there
Speaker 4: will again be some small, thin justification made to hide
Speaker 4: behind in the international community despite the US doing it.
Speaker 1: No matter what.
Speaker 6: Hey, everyone, I want to tell you about my new novel,
Speaker 6: The Most Dangerous Man, out in June. It is a
Speaker 6: novel about a Regimental Reconnaissance Company soldier who gets kidnapped
Speaker 6: while he's on a mission to West Africa, and when
Speaker 6: he wakes up, he finds that he is now being
Speaker 6: hunted for sport by a group of tech billionaires through
Speaker 6: the wilds of West Africa. This book is based on
Speaker 6: stories that I heard over the years about safari guides
Speaker 6: taking wealthy clients hunting for poachers on game reserves in Africa.
Speaker 6: I took that, and I took a century old short story,
Speaker 6: The Most Dangerous Game, and modernized it, and the product
Speaker 6: is this book which I think will feel contemporary and
Speaker 6: resonate with audiences today. Thank you, and please check it out.
Speaker 2: All right, let's let's just switch to one topic that
Speaker 2: I think again has not been covered a lot. If
Speaker 2: Jonathan's going to really help out with this, but I
Speaker 2: want to go to Andy just hit for his thoughts
Speaker 2: on it, and that has to do with potential kind
Speaker 2: of asymmetric or any kind of Iranian response. Again, I
Speaker 2: think we've gotten so enamored with the power in the
Speaker 2: might of the US military, particularly with successful operations and
Speaker 2: the Maduro op being won, you know it always I
Speaker 2: think in essence we've gotten lucky in some points that
Speaker 2: it hasn't ended in US casualties. But I don't think
Speaker 2: we're talking enough about in the cost benefit of this
Speaker 2: is what the potential Iranian response. So Andy, and we'll
Speaker 2: go to Jonathan in a sect because I think he's
Speaker 2: you know, he's written a book and as an expert
Speaker 2: on this. But Andy, I want to get your your
Speaker 2: sense on this as well as someone who's a veteran
Speaker 2: of you know, decades of being in the Middle East
Speaker 2: and frankly going up against the Iranians and their proxies,
Speaker 2: and so I think those of us who have done
Speaker 2: that do have a you know, there's no hubris, there's
Speaker 2: no you know, there's a sense of humility that this
Speaker 2: is not an adversary that might just fold and we
Speaker 2: might you know, take some hits on this. And let
Speaker 2: me just let me close this by a conversation, Jonathan
Speaker 2: mentioned Mira de Gan when I work with the Israelies
Speaker 2: in the past, particularly in the early two thousands, when
Speaker 2: when they would be considering operations like this, they would
Speaker 2: do a cost benefit analysis and say, and I remember
Speaker 2: to Goan saying this to us personally, saying, you know,
Speaker 2: if we take this course of action, we might lose
Speaker 2: an embassy. Okay, got it, And everyone's kind of shocked.
Speaker 2: And they said, but we're willing to take that risk.
Speaker 2: And that certainly to me, is not being done in
Speaker 2: the United States now. So Andy, what are your thoughts
Speaker 2: on that in terms of potential Iranian response and are
Speaker 2: we are we not talking about this enough in terms
Speaker 2: of what the American people might you know, be seeing
Speaker 2: in the next couple of days or weeks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'm glad you brought this up because I
Speaker 5: think I think it's fair to say that pretty much
Speaker 5: everyone in this in our August group of co hosts
Speaker 5: for this show now has been involved with this particular
Speaker 5: problem said in the past, you know, enough said. But
Speaker 5: my point is that we've all been focused on on
Speaker 5: Iran's malign influence in the region, right, And I think, again,
Speaker 5: I can't speak to you guys, but if we could
Speaker 5: go back, you know, the Juju POEA offered a couple
Speaker 5: of positive things. It offered access. It offered some level
Speaker 5: of transparency. I said, some level, not total transparency, but
Speaker 5: it offered a better level than we have now. Right,
Speaker 5: we went from scrapping a jig poet to a painis.
Speaker 5: But the big, the big problem with the jig poa
Speaker 5: was that it didn't even address proxies. And I think
Speaker 5: what we're going to look at again, I said, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't predict, but I think what we're going to look
Speaker 5: at again is a default to the easy button, which
Speaker 5: is a focus on nuclear enrichment and kind of a
Speaker 5: handwave towards proxies. And I think one of the problems
Speaker 5: here that we've all wrestled with is the problem of monitoring.
Speaker 5: So if Iran said, okay, hey, we're out of proxy business. Okay,
Speaker 5: we would know, hey that Rand's lying because just like
Speaker 5: ballistic missiles, they're not going to deinvest. But secondly, how
Speaker 5: is that monitored?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: And how do we do we do this by by
Speaker 5: conducting meos and taking ships over and trying to prove
Speaker 5: the smoking gun connected with ron? I mean, it's not
Speaker 5: an easy You can't just say, hey, Iran's not going
Speaker 5: to suddenly say hey, I'm going to open up all
Speaker 5: shipments from Iranian ports to inspections so you can ensure
Speaker 5: we're not transporting lethal aid to our proxies. We know
Speaker 5: that's not going to happen, and what but what measure
Speaker 5: is short of that? Can that either that problem even
Speaker 5: be monitored? That is I think that from from purely
Speaker 5: from my point of view, that's the big one of
Speaker 5: the biggest problems with the discussions.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: You either make it relatively uncomplex and you focus on
Speaker 5: nuclear enrichment, or you get to what is really the
Speaker 5: issue for the US. Really is the issue not an
Speaker 5: issue that it that that appears existential because it's we're
Speaker 5: all convinced it that it is, but that problem of
Speaker 5: destabilizing the region, which is I would say the primary
Speaker 5: reason and amplistic missiles, but to a lesser extent, I
Speaker 5: don't see this conversation going down. And the last thing
Speaker 5: I'll say, you know, we've been talking about what will
Speaker 5: the strikes? You know what sort of strikes they will be,
Speaker 5: and of course we begin with, well what are they
Speaker 5: intended to accomplish? I would say one or two things.
Speaker 5: One is a mowing the grass type return to nuclear
Speaker 5: facilities that perhaps sets the program back six months to
Speaker 5: a year. And the other is retribution. Right, I said
Speaker 5: I was going to do this, so I'm going to
Speaker 5: do it. At least seven thousand people have died, you know,
Speaker 5: at least, probably many many more in the in the
Speaker 5: Iranian latest Iranian revolution, the president did say that if
Speaker 5: the killing went on, he was going to intervene. The
Speaker 5: killing did go on after he said that, So we
Speaker 5: may be facing a hey, I've got to do this,
Speaker 5: and that if we're following that rationale, that leads me
Speaker 5: to say, only under those conditions, I think would we
Speaker 5: go after leaders of the besiege or the IGC and say, hey,
Speaker 5: this was justice for what they did in terms of
Speaker 5: meeting out punishment to the protesters. Very last thing I'll
Speaker 5: say is I don't think anyone I would hope no
Speaker 5: one harbors any real thought that by taking leaders out
Speaker 5: of any organization within Iran, we are really enabling a
Speaker 5: democratic takeover by any opposition group, because we're not. That's
Speaker 5: a that's a huge gap, as we all know.
Speaker 2: Jonathan, what's the Iranian response likely to be in your mind?
Speaker 2: And I think go in terms of, you know, high,
Speaker 2: medium or low confidence on this, you know, so you know,
Speaker 2: and also throwing the notion I think in the past
Speaker 2: there's been some kind of tacit understandings in order to
Speaker 2: avoid escalation between the US and Iran. But the asymmetric
Speaker 2: capabilities and what Iran could do in terms of damage
Speaker 2: to US interest, US facilities overseas, just to Americans, what
Speaker 2: are your thoughts on that, because again I don't think
Speaker 2: that's really been discussed enough, particularly in the US national
Speaker 2: security media, from Congress or the American people. Everyone thinks
Speaker 2: this is so antiseptic, but it might not be. So
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on Iranian capabilities to inflict some
Speaker 2: harm on us?
Speaker 4: So, a lot of the responses we've seen over the
Speaker 4: past twenty five years from Iran against the West are
Speaker 4: not the full response option that the regime has, and
Speaker 4: I think that that has kind of convinced some observers
Speaker 4: that perhaps the regime is so weak that it can't
Speaker 4: actually respond. But actually, if you look at Farsi language
Speaker 4: discussions from the regime to their own audience, they use
Speaker 4: this term heroic restraint all the time when they're talking
Speaker 4: about what they've done. Like when COSTM. Solomoney was assassinated,
Speaker 4: that was like huge groundbreaking moment where this guy was
Speaker 4: untouchable and like the thought was if he dies, the
Speaker 4: whole thing is going to like the massive war going
Speaker 4: to happen, and there wasn't. And the Iatola himself said
Speaker 4: that they're exercising heroic restraint, Like what does that mean? Right?
Speaker 4: And if you look at what their actual military doctrine is,
Speaker 4: it's called the Mosaic doctrine, where they have this very
Speaker 4: high emphasis on dispersal of not just forces, but also
Speaker 4: decision making, which is part of the reason why the
Speaker 4: airline was shot down in January after Solomani was killed,
Speaker 4: because decision making was so decentralized that people that should
Speaker 4: have been looking at these missile systems were not looking
Speaker 4: at them because of their way that they're doing their
Speaker 4: command of control. It's designed so that if leaders get
Speaker 4: taken out, the war still happens, right, And that's actually
Speaker 4: from the German military World War two called offstrog tactic,
Speaker 4: which is mission command, which the US also uses. But
Speaker 4: Iran has really pushed it down to the ground force level.
Speaker 4: And why I'm saying that when we think about the
Speaker 4: negotiations and including proxies into those negotiations, to remove Iran's
Speaker 4: connection to proxies, this is an unrealistic request that I
Speaker 4: hope that negotiators understand. Why when we look at, for example,
Speaker 4: the Marine Corps, we have the Marine Air Ground Task
Speaker 4: Force concept where the air and the ground component work
Speaker 4: together and they're both necessary components of the success of
Speaker 4: those operating forces. The proxies are also like this within
Speaker 4: the mosaic doctrine. If you remove the proxies, that doctrine
Speaker 4: falls apart because part of that rapidly decentralized command of
Speaker 4: control is the fact that the proxies can operate on
Speaker 4: their own without regime coordination in the moment. And this
Speaker 4: is a huge difference between Arab militaries and Iranians military,
Speaker 4: not just the RTESH, which is their regular conventional forces,
Speaker 4: but also the IERGC. They're designed to operate independently if
Speaker 4: they must, They're designed to operate without any connection back
Speaker 4: to some C two node somewhere else. And I think
Speaker 4: that when we're thinking about how do they actually respond
Speaker 4: without heroic restraint, this is the real scenario we should
Speaker 4: be looking at, rather than looking at the past twenty
Speaker 4: five years and saying, well, how do they react when
Speaker 4: we did X, Y and Z, Because that's likely not
Speaker 4: what they're going to do this time. Because I think
Speaker 4: they understand this is an existential threat for real, and
Speaker 4: you can see that not in their rhetoric but in
Speaker 4: their actions. For example, on January thirty first, the IERGC
Speaker 4: dispersed a bunch of ground force units to all of
Speaker 4: their intercontinental ballistic missile sites and then medium range ballistic
Speaker 4: missile sites, which they've never done before. And they did
Speaker 4: this to protect those sites from ground force incursions, which
Speaker 4: means they expect there could be boots in the ground
Speaker 4: that might attack those facilities. They've never done that before
Speaker 4: since nineteen eighty eight. Right. Another example is sending out
Speaker 4: no tams for live fire over the Persian Gulf. Warning
Speaker 4: mariners to stay away and actually firing live munitions across
Speaker 4: the water, which they haven't done in a long time. Additionally,
Speaker 4: they have Russia there with them doing those maritime exercises,
Speaker 4: which is obviously a deterrent effect, which changes the US
Speaker 4: decision calculus about what type of attacks they might take
Speaker 4: because they don't want to hit Russian forces, or maybe
Speaker 4: if they do, they have to change how they think
Speaker 4: about that. Eighty percent of their oil goes to China.
Speaker 4: That means China has to be part of this decision
Speaker 4: making calculus as well, and Iran knows that. So they're
Speaker 4: probably thinking about how do we use those assets we have,
Speaker 4: which are foreign assets, Chinese and Russian assets, and how
Speaker 4: do we disperse decision making as far down as possible
Speaker 4: that even if the US does strike us, we'll be
Speaker 4: able to do things to not just them, but to Israel,
Speaker 4: to UAE, to Bahrain, to Saudi Arabia. I mean, these
Speaker 4: these are the things that are in their minds as
Speaker 4: they're thinking about what they do. And I would imagine
Speaker 4: that these decisions have already been made long ago, right,
Speaker 4: So it's not like they're they're deciding it now and
Speaker 4: they're disseminating the information now about what to do instead.
Speaker 4: This is part of their doctrine, has been built in
Speaker 4: since two thousand and two when the mosaic doctrine was
Speaker 4: made part of their military doctrine at their basically equivalent
Speaker 4: of their War College. All of the officers who have
Speaker 4: been trained in the IRGC since two thousand and two
Speaker 4: have been trained in this doctrine, just like the Marine
Speaker 4: eric around task force concept we have in the Marine
Speaker 4: Corps very similar. You know, every echelon of rank, they're
Speaker 4: exposed to a higher level of this concept. And that
Speaker 4: is their doctrine that we've just never seen it before used,
Speaker 4: And that's what I would be concerned.
Speaker 2: Do you think the administration has this level of granularity
Speaker 2: again that you're describing, whether it's NSC staff or input
Speaker 2: from the state or the agency or from DA I mean,
Speaker 2: because I would think that this is actually important. Again,
Speaker 2: in a normal working administration, you have a course of action,
Speaker 2: there'd be National Security Council meetings, it's staffed up and down,
Speaker 2: and there would be you know, and you do go
Speaker 2: through this cost benefit calculation. But do you think anyone's
Speaker 2: actually you know, in an oval office meeting with the
Speaker 2: president saying hey, this is what could happen, and this
Speaker 2: is why exactly the scenario you laid out. And then
Speaker 2: of course it affects the negotiators because if we're putting
Speaker 2: proxies on the table, but you're saying this is non negotiable,
Speaker 2: then you know, what are we doing?
Speaker 4: Right? And I think you're right that probably there is
Speaker 4: not the level of granularity that you would hope. And
Speaker 4: it's not that it doesn't exist. It does. For example,
Speaker 4: the DEA puts out an unclassified report every year called
Speaker 4: Iran's Military Power and it's like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: page document that anyone can download and read, and it
Speaker 4: has a lot of this information about how their order
Speaker 4: of battle looks and how they disperse forces and et cetera.
Speaker 4: Is that information making it to the Oval Office? Probably not.
Speaker 4: And I remember even during my time when I was
Speaker 4: in the Middle East, most recently at the embassy over there,
Speaker 4: we had the President's Daily Brief getting put together all
Speaker 4: the time, and it wasn't getting read. So even if
Speaker 4: if the President's Daily Brief is not getting read, and
Speaker 4: that is the most important piece of material that we
Speaker 4: produce as an intelligence community that's not getting read and
Speaker 4: that other report's definitely not getting read right, and that
Speaker 4: means it's not just not getting read by the president,
Speaker 4: it's not being absorbed by the decision makers that are
Speaker 4: there that could go tell the President that this is perhaps,
Speaker 4: you know, Option A might be preferable to Option B
Speaker 4: because of this granularity that we have, and I don't
Speaker 4: think that that exists right now.
Speaker 2: Andy, quick question for you. You know there's been reports.
Speaker 2: I think Wall Street Journal wrote an article and I
Speaker 2: find it interesting because you know, we've all been out
Speaker 2: there for extended period of times to get cranky, but
Speaker 2: that there is some issues with I think it was
Speaker 2: the four the carrier battle Group, especially the carrier that's
Speaker 2: being extended now, and the deployment. I think it's going
Speaker 2: to be the longest deployment of a carrier since Vietnam.
Speaker 2: And you know, sailors, you know, aramin pilots or whatever
Speaker 2: getting cranky. There's problems with the toilet. I mean, it sounds,
Speaker 2: you know, it sounds a little bit kind of into
Speaker 2: the weeds. But do you think any of that matters?
Speaker 2: And it's not necessarily for morale, but also, you know,
Speaker 2: shit starts breaking you, and you and Jonathan certainly know that.
Speaker 2: But Andy, what are your thoughts on on kind of
Speaker 2: this extended deployment and does that cause you any concern?
Speaker 2: You see a lot on social media people are saying,
Speaker 2: suck it up. I'm not sure that's really the right response.
Speaker 2: Of course, the commander chief calls you to do something,
Speaker 2: you do it. But you know, should we be concerned
Speaker 2: about this extended deployment? And then you know, and what
Speaker 2: really an immense amount of firepower with that carry battle group,
Speaker 2: what they can bring yees, So a couple of things.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 5: And you know, the marine in me is, you know,
Speaker 5: shut the fuck up, what are you talking about? But
Speaker 5: on the other hand, look, it's a we keep saying this,
Speaker 5: and it's progressively true and true. It's a it's an
Speaker 5: all volunteer force, and the all volunteer force. The demographics
Speaker 5: within that all volunteer force change repeatedly, so you know
Speaker 5: you can't And I would order argue that social media
Speaker 5: access makes it even worse. Right, people think that, oh, hey,
Speaker 5: people can can communicate better with their families. Well they
Speaker 5: can to a point, but it also heightens that sense
Speaker 5: of proximity and the proximity of all their concerns at
Speaker 5: home where I'm heading on this says, yeah, I think
Speaker 5: you're definitely seeing cracks. The Navy is notoriously closed mouthed.
Speaker 5: I think John will agree with that. When it comes
Speaker 5: to releasing information about morale or about leadership, and when
Speaker 5: they relieve people, it's always you know, loss of trust
Speaker 5: and confidence and racourse not much better. But my point
Speaker 5: is there's always kind of this opaque thing. But if
Speaker 5: you look between the lines, you've got, you know, you've
Speaker 5: got a lot of churn and social media about reduced
Speaker 5: readiness of these carrier groups. That's that's a pragmatic reason.
Speaker 5: It's not that you you know, giving in too to
Speaker 5: feeling overly compassionate to whatever generation this is. You've got
Speaker 5: a record of mishaps on the it is on the
Speaker 5: Roosevelt right recently, I forget how many aircraft they lost overboard.
Speaker 5: They shot one of their own aircraft down. Some of
Speaker 5: these mistakes were when you when you watch them on video,
Speaker 5: it's just incomprehensible. How does a trained crew do those things?
Speaker 5: I don't know what the investigations have revealed. The Navy
Speaker 5: haven't released those investigations, but I would maybe fatigue as
Speaker 5: part of it. Right, either way, something's going wrong, and
Speaker 5: we saw this in the in the Pacific and the
Speaker 5: Seventh Fleet, remember back in you know, about ten fifteen
Speaker 5: years ago, culminating in a couple of fatal collisions.
Speaker 2: Jonathan, what are your thoughts on that too, because and
Speaker 2: think about it from a leadership perspective if you want
Speaker 2: to address it that way, because I think the idea
Speaker 2: of the suck it up is not going to work
Speaker 2: if you're the captain of the carrier, I mean you
Speaker 2: do care about your crew, yeah, and so, and of
Speaker 2: course then there's the notion too of readiness and being
Speaker 2: able to carry out critical you know, tasks in combat
Speaker 2: in which people are going to be asked to put
Speaker 2: in twenty hour days.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you've got a real dilemma because of the way
Speaker 4: our fleets are designed. You can't just send another aircraft
Speaker 4: carrier that hasn't been spun up yet. You know, it
Speaker 4: takes so many months to get ready to go. So
Speaker 4: your only option is to chop a ship from Seventh
Speaker 4: Fleet to Fifth Fleet, for example, and extend its deployment.
Speaker 4: And now you're asking for every person participating on that
Speaker 4: thing to extend their life and mentioning social media. Actually,
Speaker 4: I've seen posts on Facebook and other places where spouses
Speaker 4: are complaining about how much time their husbands are out there,
Speaker 4: which is a problem from an OPSEC perspective, because we're
Speaker 4: not the only ones looking at that, you know. And
Speaker 4: when morale gets affected like that, there are leaks like
Speaker 4: this that can then be used to exploit the not
Speaker 4: just the information environment, but also the actual combat effectiveness
Speaker 4: of those individuals because it helps the other side understand things.
Speaker 4: And I also mention, actually, the regime is taking advantage
Speaker 4: of exactly what you're talking about right now. I just
Speaker 4: saw I'm at Yale Law School right now, and we
Speaker 4: have a veterans community, and there was a veterans community
Speaker 4: message put out requesting a petition to be signed by
Speaker 4: combat veterans to protests against the US going to war
Speaker 4: against Iran. I looked into where that thing came from,
Speaker 4: and it came from the Quincy Institute, which is a
Speaker 4: regime connected think tank, because they want veterans to basically
Speaker 4: stay this statement, and then the regime can say, look,
Speaker 4: American veterans don't support this war, so we cannot forget
Speaker 4: that information environment that is attached to an integral to
Speaker 4: these combat deployments of actual ships sitting out there at
Speaker 4: sea at the same time. Because it's the same world, right,
Speaker 4: we can't just think about the naval dimension or the
Speaker 4: air dimension. They're all connected together. And I'll also mention
Speaker 4: too that the UK just disallowed the US from using
Speaker 4: Diego Garcia, which is a massive difference from the past,
Speaker 4: and it's extremely important because last year and a when
Speaker 4: we were also doing a lot of determent build up
Speaker 4: with our Lancers, we use Diego Garcia to preposition those
Speaker 4: lancers because we need a certain area in distance to
Speaker 4: put those aircraft for them to be effective, not just
Speaker 4: to be used once, but to use over and over
Speaker 4: in combat, and Diego Garcia is kind of that special
Speaker 4: place to do that where we have access basing and overflight. Well,
Speaker 4: the UK just disallowed us from doing that, not only
Speaker 4: in Diego Garcia but also in mainland UK. So that
Speaker 4: changes the calculus, and that pushes a lot of pressure
Speaker 4: onto the Navy because that means the Navy is now
Speaker 4: the go to place to launch from sea rather than
Speaker 4: launching from land. And of course there are a couple
Speaker 4: of places we can use like Jordan for example, and
Speaker 4: Qatar to launch air assets, but those are so close
Speaker 4: and inside the engagement zone that kind of puts them
Speaker 4: at risk in a way where we still need further
Speaker 4: out rings of aircraft. And the only way to do
Speaker 4: that now because the UK is prohibiting us from using
Speaker 4: those locations is aircraft carriers, which again puts further pressure
Speaker 4: on those forces that are going to be deployed there,
Speaker 4: because if we launch a strike and it lasts for
Speaker 4: more than a day, those aircraft carriers have to remain
Speaker 4: even longer than they have remained now, right, And what
Speaker 4: does that mean? I mean do we bring another aircraft
Speaker 4: carrier from another fleet? And if we do that, we
Speaker 4: lose our force projection in those areas where we remove
Speaker 4: those carriers. So these are all things I'm thinking about
Speaker 4: when I'm seeing what's going on, especially with the Mediterranean
Speaker 4: deployment and then the Fifth Fleet deployment's ramping up.
Speaker 2: I would just add that, you know, there's been obviously
Speaker 2: a lot of controversy over the UK denial of David Garcia,
Speaker 2: but you know, this is what happens when we treat
Speaker 2: allies like shit. It was in the UK when the
Speaker 2: kind of explosion of anger about President Trump's statements about
Speaker 2: NATO forces and their performance in Afghanistan, the whole Green
Speaker 2: Line issue, and the anger in the UK this is
Speaker 2: not just the general public, but also with current and
Speaker 2: former at least intelligence officials that I know was something
Speaker 2: I'd never seen before. And so this is the result.
Speaker 2: I mean, kure Starmer, the prime minister, who would never,
Speaker 2: I mean no British prime minister would do this except
Speaker 2: if he had the support of the public, and he does.
Speaker 2: There's no the political controversy in the UK is not
Speaker 2: It has a lot to do with you know, with
Speaker 2: the Epstein files. It has very little to do with
Speaker 2: uh Starmer's move here because I think it's popular because
Speaker 2: of we've treated our allies like like crap, let me
Speaker 2: just flip something. D I'm gonna put you on the
Speaker 2: spot here. I was. I was joking before about your
Speaker 2: your love of AOC and I'm totally kidding on this.
Speaker 2: You you know, this is a a political podcast usually, but
Speaker 2: I think but but AOC did make the news because
Speaker 2: she started, you know, sending out on social media, you know,
Speaker 2: no war and her on and I guess the question
Speaker 2: I would have for you, is, you know, what is
Speaker 2: a smart strategy from the Democrats presumably they're the ones
Speaker 2: or select Republicans as well, who are not in favor
Speaker 2: of military action. And would it be just kind of
Speaker 2: a statement like that, which which in some ways I
Speaker 2: think is not helpful, or would it be better to say, hey,
Speaker 2: you know what we do need is congressional authorization. We
Speaker 2: need we need another AUMF authorized use of military force.
Speaker 2: We need at least a president to address the American people,
Speaker 2: congressional hearings. I mean, these are things that are supposed
Speaker 2: to happen. So if you're coming from the Democrats side,
Speaker 2: you know, is it effective just with these little slogans
Speaker 2: know where and Iran? Or would it be smarter to
Speaker 2: actually be a little more nuanced, Hey make it, hey,
Speaker 2: President Trump, make the case, Let Congress vote if you
Speaker 2: go through the War Powers Resolution and things like that,
Speaker 2: or even just tell us what the end state, what
Speaker 2: the goals are.
Speaker 1: I think it depends what your goal is. Right, is
Speaker 1: your goal messaging right? Because messaging a ten word statement
Speaker 1: goes viral a lot more than you know, we should
Speaker 1: really have a sit down, congressional meeting and hearing about
Speaker 1: this and like lay out your plan and give us
Speaker 1: sex as and o's Also I think the seals kind
Speaker 1: of been broken with Venezuela and the drug votes in
Speaker 1: terms of international law and like where Congress sits? Does
Speaker 1: Congress have any authority? Do they do? They have authority?
Speaker 1: But do they want to use their authority? Also, the
Speaker 1: other problem is most Democrats are kind of for this,
Speaker 1: right They we've hated around Iran for a long time.
Speaker 1: We even Democrats. It's not just a republic thing cozy
Speaker 1: up with Israel and Apak. I mean, if you want
Speaker 1: to talk but nuts and bolts. I think that's why
Speaker 1: AOC goes that way where it's like put it on
Speaker 1: a fucking poster or a T shirt, because it's like
Speaker 1: easy for people to understand, like the majority of American
Speaker 1: public doesn't give a fuck about Iran. Well, doesn't want
Speaker 1: us spending more and more money on a foreign war,
Speaker 1: even if it's three week engagement where we're just blowing
Speaker 1: the shit out of them, and frankly, there is no plan, right,
Speaker 1: Like I saw a couple of people tweet who are
Speaker 1: like experts or national security analysts saying that the move is, oh,
Speaker 1: it's good because we don't have a huge ground force there.
Speaker 1: It's just a build up of a navy and air
Speaker 1: force assets. We'll have a Q three week four week
Speaker 1: aerial bombardment and will negotia with the remnants. It's like,
Speaker 1: that's the fucking plan here. Like to me as the layman,
Speaker 1: that makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. Because we've talked
Speaker 1: about it before that more than likely Uron's not gonna
Speaker 1: come out of this and bring the show in on
Speaker 1: a fucking white horse driving, you know, heading down Main
Speaker 1: Street to take control, or they're not going to become
Speaker 1: some liberal democracy that's ready for AI and and modernization
Speaker 1: and being part of the global economy. Like an IRGC
Speaker 1: faction is going to take over and probably be even
Speaker 1: more brutal than the Ayatola is, and that's who we're
Speaker 1: going to negotiate with. Like, I think it's just wishful thinking, frankly,
Speaker 1: and I always heard from other CIA folks that like,
Speaker 1: wishful thinking is the worst thing to have. And I
Speaker 1: just and I'm just still reeling from the fact that
Speaker 1: more than likely there isn't somebody with a granular kind
Speaker 1: of look at what's going on in the Oval office
Speaker 1: advising the President and his advisors of the Cabinet or
Speaker 1: Pete haiksth or whatever. To me, that'sake a complete dereliction
Speaker 1: of duty. You don't have some smart guy in there.
Speaker 1: I got one on a fucking podcast today on Sunday.
Speaker 1: What are we talking about? You can't get one in
Speaker 1: the fucking Oval Office. Like, to me, that's a fucking joke.
Speaker 1: I'm done, Thank you, Mark.
Speaker 2: Well we'll get We'll get Jonathan to walk down to
Speaker 2: sixteen hundred Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Please, a lot of men, guys, let me.
Speaker 2: But for Jonathan and Andy, I want to throw something
Speaker 2: in into that on a on a personal level. And
Speaker 2: so I struggle with this sometimes I'm not a fan
Speaker 2: of this administration. That's not a surprise on this podcast.
Speaker 2: And Dee gets a lot of hate metil. But where
Speaker 2: I agree with kind of the overall premise is you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, if you've if you've been at the
Speaker 2: tip of the spear, which we have, you know, we
Speaker 2: have friends who've been killed by by the Iranians. In essence,
Speaker 2: the EFPs in Rock, the running support that SHIA groups there.
Speaker 2: I mean, in my entire adult life of twenty six
Speaker 2: years at CIA, you know, a lot of it was
Speaker 2: folks on Iran or her proxies, and none of it
Speaker 2: was just a struggle for ends. It was kinetic, it
Speaker 2: was down and dirty. I do not like this regime
Speaker 2: and I would love to see regime change. We also
Speaker 2: seem to forget that the Iranians were trying to kill
Speaker 2: you know, President Trump and John Bolton and Mike Pompeio
Speaker 2: and others. And so there's a side of me on
Speaker 2: the just the personal side is yeah, you know, I could,
Speaker 2: if we could, you know, get this regime out of there.
Speaker 2: I'm all for it. Sometimes though I struggle just with
Speaker 2: the mechanics of it. And what I think is a
Speaker 2: is an administration that doesn't have the competence to do
Speaker 2: this right. So with that all in mind, I think
Speaker 2: it just from a personal standpoint. You are both former
Speaker 2: Marines who both have been, you know, actively in the
Speaker 2: fight against the Iranians. What does your gut tell you
Speaker 2: on this? I mean, is there something that naws on you?
Speaker 2: So right now we're doing we're saying a lot of
Speaker 2: things the administration is not doing right on this. But again,
Speaker 2: I sometimes i'd sit back and I say, you know what,
Speaker 2: but I'm actually for the notion of regime change, and
Speaker 2: in particular I am absolutely for supporting the Iranian people
Speaker 2: who rose up. Either it's ten thousand or thirty thousand
Speaker 2: killed it. It was a debacle. And so Jonathan, let's
Speaker 2: start with you from your guest, so you're hones your
Speaker 2: personal you know your personal experiences, you.
Speaker 4: Know my thought being involved in this stuff over these
Speaker 4: past twenty five years, I'm the first one to say, like,
Speaker 4: war is not good and we should try to do
Speaker 4: everything we can to avoid violence. And I think we
Speaker 4: have done almost everything we could to avoid violence in
Speaker 4: this case. I mean over years and years. And the
Speaker 4: other thing that I think about is there's our strategic
Speaker 4: end states, but there's also the strategic end states of
Speaker 4: the Iranian people that are suffering under this regime. And
Speaker 4: that's ninety percent of the country, maybe more than that,
Speaker 4: that want this regime gone, and have wanted this regime
Speaker 4: gone more and more over the past forty seven years, right,
Speaker 4: and especially in the past two months January eighth and ninth,
Speaker 4: If you do the math on it, they were on
Speaker 4: the low end, they were killing five human beings per
Speaker 4: minute every minute for forty eight hours. On the high end,
Speaker 4: you're talking in excess of twenty to thirty people per
Speaker 4: minute for forty eight hours. That's insane. And that's and
Speaker 4: all the complaints we had about the war in Gaza
Speaker 4: that was over two years and Israel killed almost the
Speaker 4: same amount of people in two years that the regime
Speaker 4: killed in two to three days. Where is the outcry
Speaker 4: from the West against that. That's how I'm looking at that,
Speaker 4: And especially because you're talking about a country of almost
Speaker 4: ninety million people suffering not just violence and death and
Speaker 4: rape and destruction, which it's beyond what most people understand.
Speaker 4: If you see the videos and what's going on there,
Speaker 4: it's utterly disgusting that there are these animals doing this
Speaker 4: to people who just want to be free. And with
Speaker 4: that in mind, regime change is not it's not great,
Speaker 4: But what if that could be freedom for people at
Speaker 4: some point and it won't be freedom tomorrow. And that's
Speaker 4: the thing to think about. There's a cost if there
Speaker 4: is regime change, Just like the French Revolution and even
Speaker 4: the American Revolution, when there's regime change, there's a moment
Speaker 4: of absolute like violence and it doesn't matter if the
Speaker 4: shot comes in on a white horse, well he's got
Speaker 4: to get there first. And while he's getting there, there
Speaker 4: is law lessness, there is violence. I mean, we remember
Speaker 4: in Baghdad when we came in there, there was absolute
Speaker 4: unrest because there's no government, there's no sovereignty, there's no police,
Speaker 4: there's no trash, there's no sewer like the things that
Speaker 4: keep society together. For a moment, it just evaporates. And
Speaker 4: that is going to be a really tragic moment. I've
Speaker 4: spoken to Iranians who are in Iran right now. They
Speaker 4: want that. Yeah, they're willing to pay that cost, and
Speaker 4: they're even willing to die for that right now. And
Speaker 4: that's that's something to remember that when our interests align
Speaker 4: and the interests of those people aligned, that's the moment
Speaker 4: to act. And I think that moment is now.
Speaker 2: So you know, I was in Europe recently and I
Speaker 2: just I was lucky to be involved with the group
Speaker 2: who received a briefing from one of the you know,
Speaker 2: the shahs of the Crown Prince's senior advisors. And it
Speaker 2: wasn't a ra ra speech of this has to be done,
Speaker 2: but it was much more of kind of the state
Speaker 2: of where the Iranian people are, and it was it
Speaker 2: was pretty compelling argument that you know, the regime is
Speaker 2: on its last dying days at some point that could mean,
Speaker 2: might mean one year or five years. But I do
Speaker 2: think that what I come back to as well is
Speaker 2: again is I hope we do this right. But it's
Speaker 2: the Iranian people and the idea of a new future.
Speaker 2: And you know, everybody, I mean, I'm going to say this.
Speaker 2: I live in the DC area, so we have a
Speaker 2: zillion Iranian friends, so we're all mesmerized by this and
Speaker 2: certainly want to see change. Andy, what are your thoughts
Speaker 2: on that? Again, as someone who is kind of up
Speaker 2: against the Iranians for some time, and you know, perhaps
Speaker 2: a critic as I am of you know, the mechanics
Speaker 2: of how the Trump administration is doing this, But does
Speaker 2: this not you as well, like, you know, hold on
Speaker 2: a second, Like the right side of history is going
Speaker 2: to be regime change.
Speaker 5: I absolutely agree, and yes we can you know, quite rightfully,
Speaker 5: we talked about, well you can't Russian too, you can't
Speaker 5: force regime change from the air, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 5: But there are, as everyone here knows, things that could
Speaker 5: be taking place right now that are focused on practical,
Speaker 5: long term goals. And so one of which, and it
Speaker 5: is kind of the messaging to the US domestic public
Speaker 5: that you know, there's been very little of that, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, this would be a good opportunity for the
Speaker 5: administration to give the case for intervention in Iran based
Speaker 5: on based on what the Iranian regime has done. You no,
Speaker 5: make absolutely open the cruelty, the scale of death on
Speaker 5: you know that has occurred, and all these other things,
Speaker 5: myriad things that they're doing, you know, blinding, using munitions
Speaker 5: deliberately to blind people in the crowd. I mean, all
Speaker 5: of these things that that as far as do I
Speaker 5: in the long term, Do I think American popular opinion
Speaker 5: paid plays a big role in foreign policy? No, absolutely not,
Speaker 5: but it's but it's certainly something the administration. You know,
Speaker 5: if they're looking for reelection and building a case domestically,
Speaker 5: they start on that. And then the second part, as
Speaker 5: everyone here knows, we wouldn't be reading about seeing about
Speaker 5: which are developing covert options, which I'm sure are happening.
Speaker 5: And it's again I mean those of us who work
Speaker 5: with resistance groups and motor for instance. No, it's easier
Speaker 5: said than done, but I'm sure there's two parts of
Speaker 5: that right. There is the assessment piece upfront, which are
Speaker 5: the legitimate groups, which ones are likely to be able
Speaker 5: to bear a burden, and which ones do we want
Speaker 5: to bear a burden in an insurgency, whether it be
Speaker 5: long term or short term. How do we enable them?
Speaker 5: Should we enable them? You know, all these are complex
Speaker 5: questions that takes a while on the ground to be
Speaker 5: able to understand. I would imagine that we're looking at
Speaker 5: those things as well as other non kinetic options focused
Speaker 5: as kind of foreign movement in consonance with our support
Speaker 5: for an insurgent group within Iran, in other words, planning
Speaker 5: a campaign that's focused on perhaps covert operations to parallel
Speaker 5: what is happening out in the open and the last piece,
Speaker 5: and you know, I would say, yeah, I think strikes
Speaker 5: are going to happen. I think they're going to be
Speaker 5: a little bit of a mowing the grass option unless
Speaker 5: we start seeing domestically this case for intervention to support
Speaker 5: the insurgency, Unless we see that openly. I think that
Speaker 5: the follow on the strikes are going to are going
Speaker 5: to be going off the nuclear facilities, which, as we know,
Speaker 5: is an imperfect short term solution. But that is all. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I would, I mean, I would absolutely think that there
Speaker 5: are COVID steps taking place now, as long as we
Speaker 5: don't undermine those covert steps by announcing, Hey, we have
Speaker 5: just taken these covert steps.
Speaker 2: Right wait, yeah, probably these rallies. You know, these rallies
Speaker 2: have done a pretty remarkable job in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: recruiting assets and Prince Blake networks, amongst the kind of
Speaker 2: that the ethnic minorities in Iron So I would imagine
Speaker 2: there's some of that going on. Before we close, I
Speaker 2: want to I want to kind of throw out a subject.
Speaker 2: This just came to me, and it's something that you guys, actually,
Speaker 2: Andy and Jonathan, you are perfect for this. One of
Speaker 2: the things that I found really interesting over the last
Speaker 2: couple of years as I kind of make the rounds
Speaker 2: and give some guest lectures at universities is teaching about
Speaker 2: ethics and morality in conflict. And you know, I've I've
Speaker 2: given this talk. I went down to the Citadel, I
Speaker 2: did it. I did at a Catholic university, and you
Speaker 2: know this this was this with groups that actually think
Speaker 2: about this stuff. And so this is what's what I
Speaker 2: think is is gnawing at me a little bit and
Speaker 2: I want to get your your take on that. If
Speaker 2: there was to be an agreement, uh that that avoids war,
Speaker 2: it's going to be an agreement around the nuclear program.
Speaker 2: But in essence, what that does is it allows the
Speaker 2: regime to survive. And then we go back to the
Speaker 2: ethics and morality of Presidents Trump several weeks ago that
Speaker 2: help was on the way, and again, what the conversation
Speaker 2: we just had was what appeals to me and maybe
Speaker 2: to us, is that you know, that's that's something that
Speaker 2: actually matters. You know that the Iranian people actually stayed
Speaker 2: out in the streets because they thought the US was coming,
Speaker 2: and so on that ethics piece of it, the morality
Speaker 2: piece of it. Actually an agreement, a nuclear agreement that
Speaker 2: would avoid war has a unethical component to that, which
Speaker 2: means the regime survives. And that's what's it's actually keeping me.
Speaker 2: It's keeping me up at night, it's driving me crazy
Speaker 2: a little bit. So, Jonathan, what are your what are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on that? Because look, I mean the one
Speaker 2: thing and I you know, I know Mick certainly much
Speaker 2: better than Andy that I know you do you we've
Speaker 2: known each other for a couple of years. Jonathan we
Speaker 2: just met. But you know Mick who you know US
Speaker 2: Military Marine Corps lawyer is one of the most ethical
Speaker 2: people I've ever met. And I think that's that's not
Speaker 2: based on his training at CIA, it's based on his
Speaker 2: training with the Marine Corps. And again, so Jonathan off
Speaker 2: to you on that ethics piece of this. An agreement
Speaker 2: to stave off war in some ways is unethical because
Speaker 2: of our promises made.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, being a world leader
Speaker 4: has the world word leader in it. That means you
Speaker 4: have to lead, and leading is not easy, right, And
Speaker 4: if you're going to say, if you're the president and
Speaker 4: you're going to say the helps on the way, it
Speaker 4: has to be on the way. And I'm thinking about
Speaker 4: like the Berlin Airlift, when we went and saved all
Speaker 4: those people in Berlin. That was at a great risk
Speaker 4: to us and a great risk to the people in Berlin,
Speaker 4: and we did it because we said we're going to
Speaker 4: do it right. Even things like the lend lease program
Speaker 4: and all these other things in World War Two where
Speaker 4: we like huge risk to do and there was a
Speaker 4: lot of repercussions that could come from it, but we
Speaker 4: didn't negotiate with the others with the enemy to stay
Speaker 4: back and allow things to continue. And the status quo
Speaker 4: in Iran has not worked for anybody, not even for
Speaker 4: the regime, I mean for anybody, since nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 4: And if we continue to a lot to put it
Speaker 4: on life support, what are we accomplishing just to say
Speaker 4: that we had an agreement. There's really nothing that comes
Speaker 4: this because everybody knows that if the regime comes this agreement,
Speaker 4: they're going to get some concessions for themselves too that
Speaker 4: are positive for the regime beyond the agreement itself. Do
Speaker 4: we really want to be again keeping them on live
Speaker 4: support just so that this will happen again? I mean
Speaker 4: even today and yesterday that this was forty days since
Speaker 4: the actual protest killings, the major Day eight and nine happened.
Speaker 4: People were out there protesting at sharif Is, the beating
Speaker 4: up bus egis, that's again a perfect opportunity to do something.
Speaker 4: And coming to this agreement betrays those people who even
Speaker 4: today are out there protesting because they believe that this
Speaker 4: world power who said they're going to help will come
Speaker 4: to help, you know, And there's a we could have
Speaker 4: chosen to say nothing that's different, but we didn't say nothing.
Speaker 4: We said something, and now we need to do something.
Speaker 2: You know, this reminds me Andya of and you've talked
Speaker 2: about it before, and this this is not a new
Speaker 2: subject that I've raised. But you know, in my career
Speaker 2: working with the Iraqi Kurds, the Syrian opposition, running one
Speaker 2: of our bases in Afghanistan with our Afghan indage, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't have a great track record of keeping our promises.
Speaker 2: And so that's the you know, that's what kind of
Speaker 2: naws at me about this idea of war avoidance might
Speaker 2: mean regime survival and then we betray the actual protesters
Speaker 2: on the streets. What do you think of that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: In fact, off the we withdrew or announced we were
Speaker 5: going to withdrawal, the reality wasn't quite the same on
Speaker 5: the ground from Syria. Do you remember that it was
Speaker 5: in twenty nineteen, right.
Speaker 2: Trump did it after a call with the Turkish That's
Speaker 2: very point.
Speaker 5: And I saw a leader and so I did an
Speaker 5: interview with MSNBC what it was called then, Kendelanian and
Speaker 5: you know, just basically not saying anything controversial except that hey,
Speaker 5: they this is you know, I explained what the SDF
Speaker 5: had done for us, explaining the fact that when we
Speaker 5: just kind of throw our allies to the wolves after
Speaker 5: they have done things where I interest in line is
Speaker 5: not a good precedent because there are pragmatic reasons, right,
Speaker 5: But even so I was beaten up for my emotional argument.
Speaker 5: So I think there's a there's just a lack of
Speaker 5: understanding about this that the solid pragmatic reason that we
Speaker 5: all understand as form of soft or ic practitioners is
Speaker 5: that you can't you can't betray people and then expect
Speaker 5: other people to trust you. It's number one and number two.
Speaker 5: When we're just using the intelligence community and we're just
Speaker 5: using soft our record of using proxies is actually really
Speaker 5: really good, you know. I mean, whether it be the
Speaker 5: SDF for looking back and things like Plant Columbia or
Speaker 5: in our Salvador, when we're not putting massive amounts of
Speaker 5: troops on the ground, when we're just using proxies, we
Speaker 5: have a pretty good success rate. So we don't want
Speaker 5: to violate that, right, We don't want.
Speaker 2: To betray that trust.
Speaker 5: That's a good you know, That's enough reason, I think
Speaker 5: all of us. It goes far deeper than that, and
Speaker 5: I don't think we have to feel apologetic about talking
Speaker 5: about American values and what those really are. And all
Speaker 5: of us understand. I think, I mean, the reason why
Speaker 5: we served our country in different forms wasn't because we
Speaker 5: thought that our country set made the best deals possible, right.
Speaker 5: It was because our country represented certain values that went
Speaker 5: beyond transactional negotiations, and those values were persistent, right, And
Speaker 5: those were things, regardless of administration, that we were willing
Speaker 5: to risk our lives fall. So that is important for
Speaker 5: all of us who wore in the.
Speaker 2: Uniform agreed, and so let's see what happens again. It's uh,
Speaker 2: you know, the irony is that if there's a deal
Speaker 2: that avoids war, it's gonna give your Runnian regime, you know,
Speaker 2: life to fight another day. That's gonna be hard for
Speaker 2: some of us the stomach. D. I'm going to throw
Speaker 2: it back to you. I'm gonna give you one more opportunity,
Speaker 2: D to acknowledge you're happy the US won the gold medal.
Speaker 1: I am happy the US won the gold medal.
Speaker 2: You're a hockey You're a hockey fan.
Speaker 1: I am, yes, I am a hockey fan.
Speaker 2: At Miller Trocheck, Come on, gold medals. This is a
Speaker 2: big deal.
Speaker 1: Ranger fan, the Ranger stink I saw. I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit angry about that, but yeah, no I am. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm fine with it, honestly, Gotta be honest. You guys
Speaker 1: can call me a comedie all you want. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Blow me. That's for the for the audience. We just
Speaker 1: had an incredible, nuanced conversation about the Iraq possibly Irani
Speaker 1: and war. Now it's like devolved into hockey talk and
Speaker 1: I'm telling everybody to blow me. Sorry, I'm leaving it
Speaker 1: in too. It was a great game, obviously, and I
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching it, and I am happy. I am happy
Speaker 1: the US one.
Speaker 2: All right, So are you happy now? I'm playing there? Okay,
Speaker 2: a little bit, a little bit, a little suaged by
Speaker 2: your non communist leanings at this point, but you can
Speaker 2: go back to get your little coffee shop in Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 5: Okay, when did when did Russia? When did the Soviet Union?
Speaker 5: NX that Czechoslovakia? I mean really, and it's nineteen sixty eight, right,
Speaker 5: So Hungary was fifty six and I think Czechislavakia was
Speaker 5: sixty eight, and there was a Winter Olympics. I want
Speaker 5: to say. The next Winter Olympics, Czechaslovakia played the Soviet
Speaker 5: Union in ice hockey, and you can still find copies
Speaker 5: of that match. But it was it was blood laden.
Speaker 5: As you can imagine. They pretty much ignored the puck throughout.
Speaker 5: I'm not comparing that to the United States versus Canada.
Speaker 2: It was a pretty pretty rough game.
Speaker 1: It was pretty rough and the only problem with it
Speaker 1: was also like you can't fight. They can't have fights,
Speaker 1: or they kicked out of the game during the Olympics,
Speaker 1: which isn't the same as regular NHL, so there weren't
Speaker 1: any like real, you know, fist fights. There were just
Speaker 1: some scrums.
Speaker 2: Awesome game, incredible game, guys, gotcha. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I want everyone to do me a favor. I want
Speaker 1: everyone to check out John's book I can't remember, Iran Shadows,
Speaker 1: Iran's Shadow Weapons. It's on Amazon right now. The link
Speaker 1: is in the description down below. Andy Milburn's got a
Speaker 1: great book When the Tempest Gathers. Check that out mark
Speaker 1: as well. All the links are down to the description.
Speaker 1: And we have the Whitefish Security Summit in April April
Speaker 1: second to the fourth. Check that out. The links are
Speaker 1: down to the description. The keynote speaker is General Stanley McCrystal,
Speaker 1: so it should be a good one and Mix going
Speaker 1: to be there. Maybe ees On will be there. We're
Speaker 1: trying to figure that out. I have a phone call
Speaker 1: with the organizer later. We'll see if they meet our price.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And by the way, business class travel only, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, that's the only way to go. That's the only
Speaker 1: way to go, dude. Check that out. That link is
Speaker 1: into description as well. And of course, if you want
Speaker 1: to help support the showpatreon dot com slash the Teamhouse.
Speaker 1: You get both Teamhouse and eyes On episodes ad free
Speaker 1: early and you can ask us questions. Do all that.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more access to us. And if
Speaker 1: you have any questions for the guys on eyes On
Speaker 1: hit send them over on Patreon. I'll make sure everyone
Speaker 1: gets them. Jonathan as always a pleasure. We got to
Speaker 1: have you on more and more because I feel like
Speaker 1: you're the smartest guy in the room. And I'm still
Speaker 1: freaking out about the fact that it's fifty to fifty
Speaker 1: that there is a person in not in the Oval
Speaker 1: office talking about these things while they're Uh, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: That freaks me the fuck out because if I can
Speaker 1: get a guy for a podcast, they could definitely get
Speaker 1: somebody in the Oval office to brief the President or
Speaker 1: the Essay or whoever they need to brief.
Speaker 4: It's a choice.
Speaker 2: It's a war on for tease.
Speaker 1: So all right, guys, that's it.
Speaker 4: I love you, Thank you, Thanks guys.
Speaker 6: Hey, guys, I want to tell all of you today
Speaker 6: about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both
Speaker 6: the team House podcast, the eyes On podcast, and the
Speaker 6: high Side news outlet which I run with Sean Naylor.
Speaker 6: The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's
Speaker 6: going to come into your inbox and you're going to
Speaker 6: get the most current podcasts on eyes On, in the Teamhouse,
Speaker 6: and whatever's topical or current on the high Side. So
Speaker 6: it's another way for us to get the information out
Speaker 6: to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and
Speaker 6: you never really know what you're gonna get. So this
Speaker 6: is a once a week email. It'll slide into your
Speaker 6: inbox and it will have you know the greatest hits
Speaker 6: of that week.
Speaker 2: It's really good.
Speaker 6: Checking it out. The website for it is Teamhouse Podcast
Speaker 6: dot kit dot com, slash Join Teamhouse Podcast, dot Kit
Speaker 6: dot com slash Join. You go there and you enter
Speaker 6: into your email list, or you enter your email into
Speaker 6: the little thing on the website and you're good to go.
Speaker 2: And that'll be it.
Speaker 6: So we really appreciate your support and I hope you'll
Speaker 6: consider signing up.
Speaker 2: Where's the link?
Speaker 6: The link will also be down the description if you're
Speaker 6: looking for it. There and that's Teamhouse Podcast dot kit
Speaker 6: k I T