Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
Speaker 1: We got a special guest today, Mark Polly Moropolis, former
Speaker 1: CIA officer. He's got a new podcast called The Crisis Room.
Speaker 1: He's hosting it with Amber Rudd, former Home Secretary in
Speaker 1: the UK and Mark Urban, investigative journalists and author. Check
Speaker 1: it out. The links will be in the descriptions called
Speaker 1: the Crisis Room. Uh Mark, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Bro?
Speaker 3: Well? Crazy times. Glad to be with you guys. I
Speaker 3: see Mick is joining us from an undisclosed location as
Speaker 3: he's running around the golf. Very brave of him, probably
Speaker 3: the Four Seasons or or or Ritz somewhere, but I
Speaker 3: admire bravery and his dedication to the podcast.
Speaker 4: It's undisclosed, man, I can't tell you what one.
Speaker 1: Of so obviously what's happened last night? Crazy? The US
Speaker 1: got into the fray bombed Iranian nuclear sites, Ford Au,
Speaker 1: Natons and isafon used any people are talking anywhere from
Speaker 1: twelve to fifteen b two bombers. Half of them were
Speaker 1: like a diversionary tactic. The other half went into he
Speaker 1: ran with I believe I saw a fighter escort. They
Speaker 1: dropped upwards of fourteen GBU fifty sevens, the mops the
Speaker 1: thirty thousand pound bombs on the sites, specifically at ford Aw.
Speaker 1: The rest of the sites got about thirty Tamahak cruise
Speaker 1: missiles from submarines in the Gulf. Pretty wild. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been we've been gearing up for this. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously in the news we've seen like the movement of
Speaker 1: like our carrier groups and stuff like that, more and
Speaker 1: more tankers heading that way. So it was like the
Speaker 1: riding was kind of on the wall. President Trump said
Speaker 1: the other day yesterday or two days ago, that he
Speaker 1: was gonna give it two weeks and then make a decision.
Speaker 1: And the twenty four hours it happened later a lot
Speaker 1: to cover. Obviously, I just gave you the like bullet
Speaker 1: point stuff, like Pete hack Set, Secretary of Defense, just
Speaker 1: had a presser saying that they obliterated the obliterated the
Speaker 1: facilities and stuff like that, and that was the most
Speaker 1: magical attack in the history of attacks. And then right
Speaker 1: away General Kane, joint Chairman of the Joint Chief says,
Speaker 1: we don't really have a b DA yet. It's still
Speaker 1: being assessed and it's going to take time. So thankfully,
Speaker 1: there was somebody who was sober. I'm not a presser.
Speaker 1: I not literally sober, but figuratively I mean or both. Anyway, guys,
Speaker 1: what are your what are your thoughts? Mark you you
Speaker 1: go first. You are a guest of honor, so kind of.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you mentioned some things that are important,
Speaker 3: so like anything, and you know, Jason and Mick will
Speaker 3: certainly understand this. You know, BDA takes time. Bomb damage
Speaker 3: assessment takes time. You know, if using words like obliterate
Speaker 3: really not that smart. I think General Kine, who incidentally
Speaker 3: his last job was as the kind of the lead
Speaker 3: military advisor at CIA to the director, but I think
Speaker 3: he was much more sober and said that, you know,
Speaker 3: we think we had good effects, but we just got
Speaker 3: to see and that's going to take kind of all
Speaker 3: sources of intelligence collection, human intelligence, signals, intelligence imagery might
Speaker 3: take days, even weeks to figure it out. Looks like
Speaker 3: a very successful strike, you know, thank God for the
Speaker 3: incredible you know, planning and bravery of the of of
Speaker 3: kind of the entire package, but we just don't know.
Speaker 3: And I think that ultimately this gets judged at the
Speaker 3: end of the day by the effects one quick thing
Speaker 3: just to throw in there, and Dean, you know, we
Speaker 3: can argue about this if you want, no, no, but
Speaker 3: in some ways, you know this argument of whether we
Speaker 3: should do it or not as a legitimate one. But
Speaker 3: you know what, I have no tears shed for the Iranians.
Speaker 3: The rent was long overdue. Whether it's you know, the
Speaker 3: Iranians supplying e fps, the explosively formed projectiles killed a
Speaker 3: lot of US forces in Iraq, or there of course
Speaker 3: plots to kill President Trump and his members of his
Speaker 3: former members of his national security team. I could go
Speaker 3: on and on US embassy bombings in Beirut and marine barracks.
Speaker 3: So you know what, if the Iranians got a little
Speaker 3: taste finally, because frankly, US policy has been a business
Speaker 3: across multiple administrations and we've never done anything to Iran.
Speaker 3: The fact that this president, who I think a lot
Speaker 3: of us have some questions about in terms of competence
Speaker 3: in his national security time, the fact that he's in
Speaker 3: charge now, you know not probably not ideal, but you
Speaker 3: know what, you know again, the rent was was long overdue,
Speaker 3: and so I'm not shedding any tears.
Speaker 1: Make thoughts. We got too many people here. If it
Speaker 1: was just me and you I would toldally fight you
Speaker 1: on this, but go ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well I'm certainly not gonna argue with Mark
Speaker 4: on that because I agree. I mean, ultimately, Iran has
Speaker 4: has has himself to blame for this. They've been the
Speaker 4: biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East, whether it's Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,
Speaker 4: keep going. Yeahmen, they have paused this. They are they
Speaker 4: are a force for evil. To be frank they up
Speaker 4: until the time of nine to eleven, Hezbola, a group
Speaker 4: they formed and totally supported, killed more Americans than al Qaeda.
Speaker 4: And they had the opportunity President Trump and you know,
Speaker 4: certainly President Biden as well, gave them all the opportunity
Speaker 4: to come to the table to come up with an
Speaker 4: agreement that would have not only you know, started palming
Speaker 4: down the Middle East, but it would have given sanctions
Speaker 4: reliefs or would it would have taken that off the
Speaker 4: burden of their own people, which are very confident, capable,
Speaker 4: modern and would do quite well in the global economy.
Speaker 4: That's all on them. And then the continuous rhetoric, you know,
Speaker 4: death to Israel, destiny United States. I think this was
Speaker 4: this needed to happen, and because of the IDF eliminating
Speaker 4: the air missile defense systems of Iran within the first
Speaker 4: forty eight hours of their pain. It really took the
Speaker 4: complexity of our operation, which I'm familiar with them at
Speaker 4: time I'm depending on, down several notches. But with that said,
Speaker 4: hopefully executed planned deception operations. That really shows you why
Speaker 4: the US is the most capable, competent, and effective military
Speaker 4: in the world, probably in the world's history, because of
Speaker 4: technology and how we have learned to use it. So
Speaker 4: I know it sounds like I'm cheerleader here, but I
Speaker 4: think it was the right decision. You drop twelve GBU
Speaker 4: fifty sevens thirty thousand pound munitions on Ford out, I
Speaker 4: would be surprised if there's much left. And even if
Speaker 4: there is something left down there around three hundred feet,
Speaker 4: I don't know how you get to it. And to
Speaker 4: be frank, I think we should tell them if you
Speaker 4: start rebuilding, we're going to do it all again. So
Speaker 4: just take off the nuclear and think how much Iran
Speaker 4: has spent on a nuclear program when they could have
Speaker 4: spent it on their own. People think how much they
Speaker 4: have spent a hezbolah, a moss, the hoofies all the
Speaker 4: militias in Iraka in Syria instead of turning it into
Speaker 4: something that would have been beneficial to their people. So
Speaker 4: that's up to the Iranian people to decide. But I
Speaker 4: think we did make the right decision here, and the
Speaker 4: military performed extraordinarily.
Speaker 1: Jay, what do you got?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean they both said it quite well. But
Speaker 5: taking how I feel about the administration off the board,
Speaker 5: I have to agree that it was long overdue, and
Speaker 5: I don't know, given our forty year history, who else
Speaker 5: would have done it. I don't necessarily agree with how
Speaker 5: the aftermath is handled, the press conferences, the you know,
Speaker 5: the misspeaking and all that other stuff, but I believe
Speaker 5: that it was it was necessary, and I think now though,
Speaker 5: we need to focus on what comes next. Like you know,
Speaker 5: Mike alluded to, if they start building again, well then
Speaker 5: they get it again. But I also think that we,
Speaker 5: meaning us, the Israelis and anyone else getting involved allies
Speaker 5: need to think about the Iranian people and what comes next,
Speaker 5: you know, because they're paying the price for this just
Speaker 5: as much as the Iranian government. And I just got
Speaker 5: a message from someone. I don't know how true it is,
Speaker 5: but apparently the Iranian Parliament voted in favor of closing
Speaker 5: the Strait of Hormoz. I know that's not the beat
Speaker 5: all end all. It still has to get approved by
Speaker 5: the Supreme Council. But you know that's a big deal.
Speaker 5: You know, that's that is the ripple effect starting, the
Speaker 5: butterfly effects starting.
Speaker 1: So we'll see, Yeah, that's that's what I want.
Speaker 4: That's our biggest concern too. Actually, that was when I
Speaker 4: came to their retaliatory options. Closing austraighta hermos is probably
Speaker 4: not something we can stop from happening. Our navy is,
Speaker 4: as you might guess, the only navy capable of clearing it.
Speaker 4: And it's going to take months, and then you're gonna
Speaker 4: have to convince commercial shipping that it's actually fully cleared,
Speaker 4: and then they're going to have to convince their insurance
Speaker 4: company that it's this could that would majorly disrupt the
Speaker 4: flow of commerce, especially energy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, region iron gas will jump up to over one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks a barrow or oil.
Speaker 3: Just I'll throw out the running running parliament doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 3: So it really is going to be their Security Council
Speaker 3: is going to make that final decision. And so we'll see,
Speaker 3: I mean you know, I think that's that's clearly that's
Speaker 3: one of the retaliatory options that might hurt them just
Speaker 3: as much in terms of the Iranian economy. But but
Speaker 3: you know, there are lots of things on the in
Speaker 3: their toolkit that they can do, whether it's you know,
Speaker 3: ballistic missile strikes against US forces that you know, kind
Speaker 3: of uh, using their their very capable global terrorist apparatus
Speaker 3: to go after US interest anywhere, whether it's embassies, whether
Speaker 3: it's US military facilities where it's just American tourists. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of things that the Iranians can do. The
Speaker 3: question is, you know, will they do that? Because the
Speaker 3: US clearly back channeled Iran saying if you do this,
Speaker 3: much more is coming, and of course we've also overtly
Speaker 3: said that as well. So I think it's a question
Speaker 3: of the Iranians having to save face with their own
Speaker 3: people with the regime, versus really risking much more severe
Speaker 3: US firepower coming at them. And if anyone tells you
Speaker 3: what they're going to do, they're lying. We just we
Speaker 3: just don't know. But one key point on this, what
Speaker 3: kind of a whole bunch of US have done in
Speaker 3: the past. This is why the intelligence community is so
Speaker 3: important because they're going to be laser focused right now
Speaker 3: on trying to figure out not only assess analytically, but
Speaker 3: actually for collection on what Iran is going to do.
Speaker 3: So really interesting times ahead, and I just throw out
Speaker 3: there for discussion, kind of a weird time for the
Speaker 3: Director of National Intelligence to be on the outs with
Speaker 3: the President of the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she took the party line again. She was
Speaker 1: in the situation shroom yesterday because she said, oh, they
Speaker 1: can have them within weeks now. Two months ago it
Speaker 1: was they're not even doing anything and it will be
Speaker 1: years now. It's all of a sudden, it feels like
Speaker 1: we're taking Israel's in tel assessments over our own. To
Speaker 1: be frank and to just spice up this conversation a
Speaker 1: little bit, Uh, well.
Speaker 3: One thing, one thing on that d I think one
Speaker 3: thing to Israel has a different calculus. So there's a
Speaker 3: legitimate debate clearly, what is the new intelligence from this
Speaker 3: Israeli dossier. But talking to the Israelis after October seventh,
Speaker 3: you know they're not gonna they don't give a shit
Speaker 3: about weeks months even clearly arguing over that because there
Speaker 3: there are talents for risk as much as much lower.
Speaker 3: And so you know Iran was in the Ironnian nuclear programs,
Speaker 3: is an existential threat. The Iranians defenses are so degraded.
Speaker 3: Now this was a chance to take a shot. And
Speaker 3: whether their analysts differ with our analysts in terms of
Speaker 3: you know, John Ratclife, to see how director said, this
Speaker 3: is like you know, sprinting down the field on a
Speaker 3: football field, yet you don't go across the goal line.
Speaker 3: So at the end of the day, I understand the
Speaker 3: Israeli thinking on that, but I do think there's a
Speaker 3: legitimate question on from the US side in terms of
Speaker 3: analytic assessments. And that's where you know, Congress has to
Speaker 3: get in and try to figure out exactly what did
Speaker 3: the Israelis provide? What was the US analytic line?
Speaker 2: You know, is.
Speaker 3: Ratcliffe, the CI director in Tulsa gabber the D and
Speaker 3: I chief at odds over this. But looking at it
Speaker 3: from the Israeli perspective, I get it. There they said,
Speaker 3: you know, we're not we don't really care if we're
Speaker 3: gonna have an argument in terms of weeks, months, or
Speaker 3: even a year. It's an ex essential threat, is Iran
Speaker 3: is vulnerable now and we got to do this.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you even heard from Nan Yahoo's speech after they
Speaker 1: started bombing the Iranian facilities last week that they're a
Speaker 1: year away, or it could be even a couple of months.
Speaker 1: So like their assessment to weaponize it, right, because they
Speaker 1: have reached the area where it's relatively easy to get
Speaker 1: the enriched enricheradium to the point where it's weapons grade.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring this up. Go ahead and mix.
Speaker 4: Sorry at one point on that there was no reason
Speaker 4: to do that. They're well past what they would need
Speaker 4: for all civilian energy or medical right, So they're doing
Speaker 4: it for a reason. They're at sixty percent. We think
Speaker 4: it's very it kind of it speeds up as you
Speaker 4: get higher to the top. Ninety is what it needed.
Speaker 4: They didn't have to do that. They chose to do that.
Speaker 4: They did it for a reason. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 4: I think we all.
Speaker 2: Know the reason.
Speaker 4: Either they were going to do it, or they were
Speaker 4: trying to put pressure on the US or for to
Speaker 4: better their negotiation stance, and it was it was It
Speaker 4: was really dumb either way. They didn't have to do that,
Speaker 4: and the US has given them options to take enriched
Speaker 4: uranium up to the needs of a civilian energy program
Speaker 4: from out of the country like other countries in this
Speaker 4: region have agreed to. And they could have done it too.
Speaker 1: Yeah uh yeah, talking about the enrichera too. I saw
Speaker 1: a graft from the Financial Times and it's very interesting
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, the times when the uranium
Speaker 1: wasn't your rich almost at all was during the JCPOA
Speaker 1: years and in the last couple of years it's gone
Speaker 1: up pretty dramatically. The same president got us out of
Speaker 1: the j CPOA and as many beefs as you have
Speaker 1: for with the j CPO it was an actual diplomatic
Speaker 1: resolution that that stopped what the Israelis are you know,
Speaker 1: you know, screaming from the rooftops about and that's enriched uranium. Frankly,
Speaker 1: also like also like the chat about you know, we
Speaker 1: still want a diplomatic diplomatic resolution to this blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Is interesting when you know, in one of the initial strikes,
Speaker 1: the head of the head negotiator gets swacked along with
Speaker 1: IRGC guys who you know have fun meeting a lah
Speaker 1: and like you know, other nuclear scientists, is the chief
Speaker 1: negotiator of the diplomatic talks kind of sends a bad sign.
Speaker 1: I would assume, like if you're trying to negotiate a
Speaker 1: highly complicated nuclear deal.
Speaker 4: The d O D just through the record. Not that
Speaker 4: matters now, but the d OD is against getting out
Speaker 4: of the uh. You know, I really withdrawing from the
Speaker 4: two thousand fifteen JCPOA. It wasn't a perfect agreement, but
Speaker 4: to your point, d it did keep them well under
Speaker 4: the limits we could have addressed you know, proxy force
Speaker 4: operations and other things, because it wasn't addressed in that
Speaker 4: and another and other sanctions. And there's there's also a
Speaker 4: problem with who's gonna enter agreement with us if we
Speaker 4: can just unilaterally withdraw every time we change, you know,
Speaker 4: political parties. If you can't honor agreement from a past
Speaker 4: political party, then you know, it makes a lot of
Speaker 4: these agreements, unless they're treaties, unless it's ratified, kind of
Speaker 4: kind of challenged.
Speaker 1: Sure, a little bit more on blowback, just to game
Speaker 1: it out a little, Like let's say they start shooting
Speaker 1: some ballistic missiles that you know, Bahrain our embassy in Iraq,
Speaker 1: or they have they spin up some malicious militias over
Speaker 1: there to like attack the embassy. Where do we go
Speaker 1: from there? If we start taking you know, casualties.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think it depends on the casualties. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know that's gonna that's gonna be you know, if
Speaker 3: it's a mass casualty event, a lot of Americans are killed,
Speaker 3: that's gonna engender very severe response. If it's and if
Speaker 3: and there's there's so many other there's so many nuances
Speaker 3: to this as well. If it's if it's the Iranian
Speaker 3: shooting off a couple, you know, a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: ballistic missiles to satisfy their own internal need to do so,
Speaker 3: and there's no US casualties, and you kind of see it.
Speaker 3: That's how they call today. I think the US probably
Speaker 3: will not respond and that. But but the problem with
Speaker 3: that is that there's a lot of unknowns there, you know,
Speaker 3: ballistic missile you know, so it's like what you see
Speaker 3: in Israel. Sometimes, uh, they can be effective and sometimes
Speaker 3: they can fall in an empty field. So that's that's
Speaker 3: why the situation I think is is is so dangerous
Speaker 3: now and why I'm sure there's there's you know, not
Speaker 3: just over but certainly messaging that's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: And probably probably along with you know, using the offices
Speaker 3: of our some of our golf allies as well, to
Speaker 3: try to de escalate this as much as possible, because again,
Speaker 3: the the you know, President Trump, I don't think he
Speaker 3: wanted to do this, and of course the maga world
Speaker 3: is going bananas now because they think it's another kind
Speaker 3: of never ending war. If you can manage to kind
Speaker 3: of just have this be a one off, I think
Speaker 3: he certainly walks away, probably with his mega coalition still okay,
Speaker 3: But if we start getting getting at it with the Iranians,
Speaker 3: that's a whole different story.
Speaker 4: Uh So, anybody they think, they'll probably try to design
Speaker 4: it similar to their response to the assassination of cost
Speaker 4: him soul of money. Right, there was a lot of
Speaker 4: there's a lot of a lot of boom, but not
Speaker 4: a lot of impact. So they you know, they control
Speaker 4: the media, so they they say they did a lot
Speaker 4: more than they did. But to Mark's point, you know,
Speaker 4: that's a that's a difficult thing to calculate. You know,
Speaker 4: if you get through and you kill a bunch of
Speaker 4: Now that said, uh, sitcom did a lot of work
Speaker 4: to get people out of harm's way. They moved you know,
Speaker 4: naval vessels out of Bahrain and move aircraft at an
Speaker 4: Allied aid. They I wasn't joking when I was like
Speaker 4: my hotel I was just in was full of people
Speaker 4: who had been moved out to the point where they
Speaker 4: would have hit it. They will hit an empty base
Speaker 4: in a in a golf country. Uh And they or
Speaker 4: doesn't have a lot of friends, but they're they're gonna
Speaker 4: lose a lot if they start just watching ballistic missiles uh,
Speaker 4: into these neighboring golf countries. So it's it's a risk
Speaker 4: on many levels.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Prior prior to all the spin up to this,
Speaker 1: like there was always talk and we've talked about it
Speaker 1: many times on the show about how if we did
Speaker 1: hit the nuclear facilities, it would really only set it
Speaker 1: back six months to a year, right there a nuclear program,
Speaker 1: What if that's the case, even though we did drop
Speaker 1: twelve or fourteen gbus and like you would assume that's
Speaker 1: like fucking mush there. Now, you did see each other
Speaker 1: some satellite photos as well of trucks leaving the ford
Speaker 1: Ou facility like hours before the strike. So let's say
Speaker 1: they moved the enricheranium to another facility, they said, is
Speaker 1: Fahan is a lot more as a fortified or almost
Speaker 1: as fortified as Fordau was, or is what happens if
Speaker 1: you know, our BDA is done and then like Intel
Speaker 1: comes out that we really have it, like completely wiped
Speaker 1: it off the off the map and they can reconstitute
Speaker 1: it within a year or something like that. What's the
Speaker 1: move there? Just continue to.
Speaker 3: Hit them maybe, I mean so again, that's why the
Speaker 3: intelligence collection is so important and the BDA, you know,
Speaker 3: But ultimately I think this this should be seen kind
Speaker 3: of as part of a kind of longer term campaign
Speaker 3: and these Raelies will see that this for sure, and
Speaker 3: perhaps they're the ones who are going to do are
Speaker 3: going to hit it again. One of the things though,
Speaker 3: is that you know, so many people are making this comment.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm guilty of this as well. So you know,
Speaker 3: the last thing I want to do is go on
Speaker 3: program like this or on TV talk about you know,
Speaker 3: the interest causes of enriched uranium. I don't know what
Speaker 3: the hell I'm talking about. It's in the same thing.
Speaker 3: So in terms of how much is the Iranian program degraded, well,
Speaker 3: there's a couple of things that we know, Uh, Israel
Speaker 3: killed you know nine of the leading nuclear scientists. They
Speaker 3: also destroyed the archive of the Iranian program, which was
Speaker 3: important because that's the kind of the historical knowledge of it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: They're going there meticulously, going after five of these six sites.
Speaker 3: So you know, the idea that it's only been a
Speaker 3: bit degraded, I mean, I think when when people start
Speaker 3: saying that there's a there's a political bent to this,
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be pretty significant. But we
Speaker 3: also shouldn't say it's been obliterated, like I think the
Speaker 3: President and Pete Hexa said, because nobody says that, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of the sober people in the national security world
Speaker 3: will will say, you know it, uh, and there'll be
Speaker 3: some kind of assessment on it. But I think it's
Speaker 3: not going to be in the in the in the
Speaker 3: realm of months. Clearly, it will be in the realm
Speaker 3: of years. And and that's something that I think that
Speaker 3: Israeli an US national scurity planners probably thought was enough
Speaker 3: to take such type of action. But to say it's
Speaker 3: going to be obliterated gets a little silly. And of
Speaker 3: course to say that it's it's only been degraded a
Speaker 3: couple months, same thing. Come on, there's just too much
Speaker 3: that's happened.
Speaker 4: True, I agree, and I think said, oh, sorry, Jason,
Speaker 4: go ahead, man. I was just gonna short briefly say,
Speaker 4: you know, we don't know, we don't know, so the
Speaker 4: intelligence community, I mean obviously biased, so as Mark should
Speaker 4: lead this effort to determine how much it was degraded.
Speaker 4: You know, is it a year, is it two years?
Speaker 4: Is there something that we don't know in the works
Speaker 4: that wasn't struck. Iron promised to get a nuclear weapon
Speaker 4: or take every step possible to get a nuclear weapon
Speaker 4: if they were struck, And now I can you know,
Speaker 4: if we're looking at it from their perspective, that's even
Speaker 4: more important. So the threat isn't over. I think we
Speaker 4: have to be very careful not to you know, do
Speaker 4: a touchdown dance and act like this is this is over.
Speaker 4: It's it's simply a part of a larger, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: effort against Iron, all their destabilitions, destabilizing actions in the
Speaker 4: in the region, and their pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 5: Sorry, No, it's just just my two cents added to this.
Speaker 5: And I'm like Mark, I'm not a nuclear scientist. I
Speaker 5: don't know anything about this. Stuff. We also have to
Speaker 5: take an account the i a e as uh monitoring
Speaker 5: of the release of radiology you know, radiation or radiological
Speaker 5: you know, debris whatever, because it may not even be
Speaker 5: safe for them to go back in there and restart
Speaker 5: the program. We we just don't know. So it's it's
Speaker 5: a bunch of unknown unknowns.
Speaker 3: So good count good fun Hey, I got something funny
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 2: Tell me so.
Speaker 3: And I'm reading us off of of social media, so
Speaker 3: I can't claim credit for this. But there is some weird,
Speaker 3: kind of like sexual thing with these names of these
Speaker 3: operations rising good Night Hammer. It sounds like rectile dysfunction supplements.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, come on, yeah, that's what they call me.
Speaker 1: When I get it, I get a little bit too
Speaker 1: drunk and I start texting my ex girlfriends at midnight, so.
Speaker 3: I gotta go to mix. You're at senior levels of
Speaker 3: d D. Who makes up these names?
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know. I mean they got
Speaker 4: a sense of humor, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you because I actually Operation town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these names are going to start popping.
Speaker 4: Up, probably probably the lance corporal in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 3: That's probably, Yes, I thought i'd throw that out there.
Speaker 1: They might have like a name generator, like a random
Speaker 1: name generator.
Speaker 2: Somebody somebody's projecting.
Speaker 1: Midnight Hammer does sound like a gas station dick pill.
Speaker 3: Sorry podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm pretty much like for the most part
Speaker 1: done with all my notes and stuff like that. With
Speaker 1: the weird thing is like, how you know, obviously this
Speaker 1: is taking you know, this is above the fold. This
Speaker 1: is like what everyone's talking about. But like, you know,
Speaker 1: Gaza still going on. Uh Israel you know, does on
Speaker 1: occasion go into Syria and hit areas in there, Lebanon
Speaker 1: as well, mostly Gaza, right, because what's going on, especially
Speaker 1: at the eight station, the last eight stations in the
Speaker 1: last few days, people going to get food and they
Speaker 1: get smoked by the IDEF. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: like people to forget what's going on there. Obviously the
Speaker 1: Iranian regime is bad news and no one's a fan
Speaker 1: of them. Oh, I want to get your assessments on.
Speaker 1: Like there is a there is a message coming out
Speaker 1: of the White House in the administration where like, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't want regime change or whatever, which they're saying
Speaker 1: that because they want to play cake half to their
Speaker 1: half of their base that like, we're not going to
Speaker 1: send troops in, it's not going to be another war
Speaker 1: like we're used to. Who are outside of the regime?
Speaker 1: Who are like who are there? Who's the resistance in
Speaker 1: Iran that could I know, we see the shaw now
Speaker 1: or the Shaws the turn Prince out on doing hits
Speaker 1: and stuff like that on TV. But the actual resistance
Speaker 1: in and around who could possibly be the people that
Speaker 1: take the mantle if the regime were to fail fall?
Speaker 7: That is a good question.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the people. And so there's been popular
Speaker 3: uprisings in Iran against the regime when we saw this
Speaker 3: with of course the all the p us against the Hijab.
Speaker 3: So there's and there's tremendous popular discontent. But you know,
Speaker 3: is there is there some kind of resistance movement to support?
Speaker 3: I mean, you know there there are certainly groups there,
Speaker 3: but I think we got to be really careful.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and I think the administration is one hundred percent right. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, whether they're doing it to playcate their base,
Speaker 3: but you know, don't go down that road of promoting
Speaker 3: this now. If things happen kind of organically, that's a
Speaker 3: that's a different story. But let me throw one thing
Speaker 3: for Jason, UH and Mick and d before we leave,
Speaker 3: because you look at this, and you know, President Trump
Speaker 3: has I think, undertaken an action which a lot of
Speaker 3: us who've been his critics are applauding now. But there
Speaker 3: but we're not consistent on doing the right thing because
Speaker 3: we are still kind of in the process of a
Speaker 3: banning Ukraine. And I think that's a point as as
Speaker 3: Trump is being lauded for this from many of us
Speaker 3: in kind of the National security blob, but Ukraine's still
Speaker 3: out there and there's no signs that we're going to
Speaker 3: do anything in terms of supporting, uh, the Ukrainians. And
Speaker 3: so one of the things in kind of the Ukrainian
Speaker 3: circles that I kind of dabble in is that there
Speaker 3: is some concern there that this uh, this uh you
Speaker 3: certainly is not not necessarily going to distract, but that
Speaker 3: that hey, you know, prop might be lauded for this,
Speaker 3: but hey, what about us, your guys thoughts?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: I just don't know how much UH support the Shaw
Speaker 4: you know, has in Iran, so I can't speculate. I'm
Speaker 4: guessing probably not that much. And I talked to people
Speaker 4: out here in the Gulf who share that opinion, so
Speaker 4: I'll defer to them. There's a lot of different groups
Speaker 4: in Iran. It's not homogeneous society. They got a lot
Speaker 4: of courage me and marks folks, if you will, there's
Speaker 4: plenty of groups that would and the people in general,
Speaker 4: like every woman in Iran, would like to see this change.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're completely oppressed in in a in in
Speaker 4: a horrible way. And I think any any young person
Speaker 4: that wants a chance that modernity wants to get away
Speaker 4: from them. But that has to be organic. If we
Speaker 4: try to, you know, do it again like we've done
Speaker 4: this before in our at least you own it right
Speaker 4: and and then it's not organic, and then whoever comes
Speaker 4: next will play to that. But the other point for Ukraine,
Speaker 4: I totally agree we did the right thing here. We're
Speaker 4: not doing the right thing in Ukraine. They shouldn't have
Speaker 4: any doubt. Did they get one hundred percent support from
Speaker 4: the United States. We're the leader of the free world.
Speaker 4: They're a democratic country that was invaded unlawfully and unprovoked
Speaker 4: by Russia, who is one of our top two adversaries.
Speaker 4: And I'd say our most dangerous one if we've abandoned them.
Speaker 3: The look what we could have done or could be doing,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, may differences. Russia has nuclear weapons, not the reason why,
Speaker 1: like we're not actually doing pushing it all the life.
Speaker 3: Argue we have an overblown panic and worry over their
Speaker 3: use of nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: Sure, that's what really, you.
Speaker 3: Know, tainted some of the Biden administration's really good things
Speaker 3: they did was that they were always hand ringing over this,
Speaker 3: and clearly Trump feels the same.
Speaker 4: I think we should have said before it started, since
Speaker 4: we had obviously very good intelligence that it was going
Speaker 4: to happen, we should have told Russia, if you go in,
Speaker 4: we're going to support them one hundred percent. We're going
Speaker 4: to give them every weapon that they need to defend themselves.
Speaker 4: So like Market alluding to not wringing our hands on
Speaker 4: F sixteen's and Abram tanks and atackms, and we should
Speaker 4: have just said, hey, it was your choice. You invaded
Speaker 4: that country we're now supporting. We wouldn't be supporting them
Speaker 4: if you wouldn't have done that. But we didn't do that,
Speaker 4: and we put ourselves in a in a buying I think.
Speaker 4: But that's a buying that we created.
Speaker 2: It's a buying we could have changed, and it's not
Speaker 2: too late to change it. I still do it. Two
Speaker 2: things to be truer once we can do what we
Speaker 2: did and Iran and still say okay, Russia back to you.
Speaker 3: You know, so it ain't gonna happen No, yea fury.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's gonna happen either. All right, make it out
Speaker 1: of here. Thanks for stopping, Thanks for staying safe to.
Speaker 3: Worried about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, get room service. Let me know what the room
Speaker 1: service man.
Speaker 2: Me some of those mints off of the pillow. All right, thanks,
Speaker 2: you'd be surprised.
Speaker 4: What I'm next up is.
Speaker 3: Probably but where do we where do we find such
Speaker 3: brave man?
Speaker 4: Well, apparently at five Stars hotels.
Speaker 3: By the way, we're gonna fel shitty and we're gonna
Speaker 3: have to cut this.
Speaker 1: All right, just to wrap up, Thanks Mick for that.
Speaker 1: Of course. Check out mixed links that are in the description.
Speaker 1: One more time, mark your new podcast, The Crisis Room
Speaker 1: with Mark Urban Amber Rudd Some Heavyweights. Amber Round being
Speaker 1: a former Home Secretary of the United Kingdom. Mark Urban,
Speaker 1: a distinguished investigative journalist, wrote a great book about the
Speaker 1: essays and does a ton more work. You can find
Speaker 1: it everywhere wherever you find your podcast. The links will
Speaker 1: be in the the script. You could check out mark there.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get a link in there before
Speaker 1: we like ended. Uh, just to wrap up, I'm worried
Speaker 1: about the blowback, to be honest, right, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we did touch on it slightly and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean in terms of the blowback, because
Speaker 1: what happens if they do kill five or so servicemen
Speaker 1: and women and we're We're not really the type of
Speaker 1: country that's going to take that lightly.
Speaker 3: Yep, right, right, So there's there's consider that you should
Speaker 3: be worried. I mean, you know, nothing is you know,
Speaker 3: nothing is free. There's cost benefit analysis, and clearly the
Speaker 3: president had received uh uh, and I would say, you know,
Speaker 3: direct analytic assessment saying that you know this is this
Speaker 3: there might be RUnni in retaliation and so obviously we're
Speaker 3: trying to dissuade them from doing anything, but they certainly
Speaker 3: could and there's Americans could be harmed because there's one
Speaker 3: One of the interesting things to note though, is that
Speaker 3: in my when I was working with the Israelis over
Speaker 3: the years, they're actually much more willing to take casualties.
Speaker 3: Twenty four Israelies have been killed, uh in that they're
Speaker 3: kind of the ballistic missile fire from Iran. I think
Speaker 3: if twenty four Americans are killed, there is going to
Speaker 3: be an absolute you know, uh political kind of uh
Speaker 3: nuclear meltdown. No pun intended here, but the Israelis are
Speaker 3: certainly more more more willing to take casualties than we are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think, uh, well, since last night, I've
Speaker 5: gotten numerous texts and phone calls about here in the
Speaker 5: home in the United States, you know, should we be worried?
Speaker 5: Everybody and everybody used the term sleeper cells, you know,
Speaker 5: I guess because that's the thing that's being touted in
Speaker 5: the media.
Speaker 2: You know. So they're like, what should we do?
Speaker 5: And I'm like, okay, well you're stay vigilant as always,
Speaker 5: but live your life. But it is a legit concern
Speaker 5: from people closer to home, including my mom.
Speaker 2: She called me, She's like, are you gonna be up?
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm sitting in Pennsylvania, you know.
Speaker 3: But Jason is a key thing on this. We also
Speaker 3: take I mean, so obviously the FBI should be honest,
Speaker 3: but it's also an FBI that who's mantra under the
Speaker 3: new leadership has changed. They're running around doing border stuff
Speaker 3: and going after cartels, and so have the Joint Terrorism
Speaker 3: Task Forces. You know, have they been kind of seeing
Speaker 3: limited personnel and resources? You know, are we up to
Speaker 3: the task right now? As there as the as so
Speaker 3: much of the attention and local law or federal law enforcement,
Speaker 3: but domestically has moved to the border.
Speaker 1: I don't know, just seems like a lot of chaos.
Speaker 1: And now my next question, Jason's perfect spot on, was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: in terms of like hitting us here, what are the
Speaker 1: chances of that happening? I mean, I'm sure uh Iran's
Speaker 1: got their hands full at the present moment because my
Speaker 1: buddy asked me the same thing, and I'm like, listen,
Speaker 1: even if we did trade fire and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: they probably are using a lot of their bandwidth in
Speaker 1: terms of like protecting themselves right now to be like
Speaker 1: giving commandic controls over But in a year or so,
Speaker 1: like they don't forget, right, and if the regime is
Speaker 1: still around in a year or so, what's to stop
Speaker 1: them from doing something on American soil? And once that happens,
Speaker 1: it's game on We're gonna forget the last twenty five
Speaker 1: years and it's be like, let's invade another country again.
Speaker 1: You know, let's get these guys eating French fries, you know,
Speaker 1: American may French fries. Let's build some Let's build some
Speaker 1: burger kings in Tehran. Yeah, it's gonna be a crazy
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. See where it goes. Israel has continued.
Speaker 1: Israel initially after the bombing went down last night, said
Speaker 1: that they were going to hold off on bombing Iran again.
Speaker 1: They have since started to bomb Iran again solid twelve
Speaker 1: hours and they say the reason why is for other
Speaker 1: goals that are trying to be reached, other goals. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that means. Mark, Maybe you can enlighten me.
Speaker 1: My layman.
Speaker 3: Ass Well, they're going off to the ballistic missile capably,
Speaker 3: obviously going after the launchers, but also the kind of
Speaker 3: the whole production factories, the whole kind of Iranian military
Speaker 3: industrial complex. Look, Israel has their boot on the neck
Speaker 3: of Iran. It is insane for them to stop now.
Speaker 3: They do have to kind of keep in mind how
Speaker 3: far do they are they going to go? And in
Speaker 3: terms of if the regime is threatened. But let's be
Speaker 3: careful on having these rallies or dictating to them what
Speaker 3: they're going to do in terms of kind of continuing on,
Speaker 3: and at some point they will stop. You know, these
Speaker 3: the the other part of the Israelis are probably running
Speaker 3: out of interceptors. In terms of their own air defense.
Speaker 3: The pace for their air force has been just brutal
Speaker 3: and so so I wouldn't expect this to last all
Speaker 3: that much longer if there is no significant running in retaliation.
Speaker 1: Oh. Brother, A lot of questions coming up, So guys,
Speaker 1: keep it, keep your eyes on this. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: everybody will be Marcus was great. Thanks, any any last thoughts.
Speaker 5: No, I mean, like Mark just said, I think Israel
Speaker 5: is going to do what Israel does. I don't think
Speaker 5: it's going to do any good for us to tell them, hey,
Speaker 5: it's time to stop. They're going to stop when they're
Speaker 5: ready and when they need to. I don't This is
Speaker 5: kind of outside of what we were just talking about.
Speaker 5: But I don't see regime change anytime soon. Honestly, I
Speaker 5: think everybody's just gonna, you know, do the whole Hey,
Speaker 5: you got popped in the mouth Iran. You know it
Speaker 5: can happen again. You hit, we hit you with the right,
Speaker 5: We got a left. You know, I think it's just
Speaker 5: now wait and see and uh, you know, just be
Speaker 5: on our toes.
Speaker 1: Mark pie Moreopolis, MSNBC contributor The Crisis Froom new podcast.
Speaker 1: Check it out. The links into this description really good one.
Speaker 1: I've been enjoying the episodes, All the boys, Andy Mick
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Speaker 2: To see Mark, you too. Take care.
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