Speaker 1: All right, hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes
Speaker 1: on Geopolis. We've got a full crew today, Andy Milburn,
Speaker 1: Mark poly Moropolis, Jonathan Hackett, Mick mulroy.
Speaker 2: The boys are all here.
Speaker 1: Too many marines, but we'll figure that out at some point,
Speaker 1: I hope. All Right, we've had our dizzying week with
Speaker 1: the the Memorandum of Understanding. I'm gonna do a little
Speaker 1: bit of context for people, just because, like if you're
Speaker 1: following me on Twitter and stuff and like reading like
Speaker 1: an article here and there, it's like it changes every
Speaker 1: twelve hours essentially at what's going on. We signed a
Speaker 1: deal basically over like you know, remotely with Iran for
Speaker 1: the sixty day seasfire where they were gonna talk about
Speaker 1: the larger issue of the nuclear issue and the enriched
Speaker 1: uranium in that fourteen point plan. These are just someone
Speaker 1: like the basic points. You guys can correct me and
Speaker 1: add a little bit more context. On top of that,
Speaker 1: there would have been the straight of Hormuz opening to normal,
Speaker 1: the US blockade lifted, some talk about opening up and
Speaker 1: giving some money to you a round like their frozen assets,
Speaker 1: and then there was also talk of a three hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollar I guess sovereign wealth front of reconstruction fund
Speaker 1: that was supposedly going to be paid out by the
Speaker 1: majority of the GCC countries or the Gulf countries. At
Speaker 1: least one hundred and fifty billion of that was supposedly
Speaker 1: secured for that. The other one hundred and fifty billion,
Speaker 1: I don't know where it's coming from. Some say US,
Speaker 1: you know, the US is denying that obviously over and
Speaker 1: the big Cavy, the big boy. The big issue that
Speaker 1: looks like what will could kill the ceasefire is Lebanon
Speaker 1: and what's going on with Israel and Hesbola, who have
Speaker 1: been trading back and forth clearly out of Israel. I
Speaker 1: would say that Yahoo's been playing at Kanda down the line,
Speaker 1: trying to like weasel his way like he's good at
Speaker 1: because he's a politician at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: But the ultra right homies like Kevier have been freaking
Speaker 1: out about this, you know, saying that we're not going
Speaker 1: to stop the war no matter what they're not. No
Speaker 1: no deal is going to stop us unless we're involved.
Speaker 1: That's just like basically like the top little layer of it.
Speaker 1: It's been dizzy because I've been trying to keep track
Speaker 1: of this ship for the last week, and it's been
Speaker 1: I was just I was just fed up. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, who knows what will happen. Vance was supposed
Speaker 1: to go to Switzerland. He delayed. He eventually showed up today.
Speaker 1: They're meeting now and Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner are there,
Speaker 1: of course, so everything will be great. I'm sure of it.
Speaker 1: Vance did bite back at a specifically Gavier. He kind
Speaker 1: of he kind of kept net and Yahoo out of
Speaker 1: it and gave Net and Yahoo a little bit of
Speaker 1: credit while going at Gavier and the the far right
Speaker 1: of the war cabinet pretty harsh words too.
Speaker 2: You know. You know there was a I think a
Speaker 2: quote saying there's a country of.
Speaker 1: Nine million people and you can't just kill your way
Speaker 1: out of your problems. And I'm gonna be honest, for
Speaker 1: the first time probably ever, I'm agreeing with JD.
Speaker 2: Vance.
Speaker 1: So you guys give us some context, let us know
Speaker 1: you know what you guys are thinking, what you guys
Speaker 1: are tracking. I'm gonna start with let's start with Milburn today.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: Well, you know I'm gonna be fairly short because I
Speaker 3: know Mark wrote an excellent essay on what a tremendous
Speaker 3: success this for the United States, the the MoU is.
Speaker 4: So I think we.
Speaker 2: Should to sum that up.
Speaker 4: Well, what do make me?
Speaker 3: You know, just ooking with what just happened. So just
Speaker 3: three days after signing, Iron shut US straight again over
Speaker 3: over Lebanon, right, because that was part of Iran's stipulation
Speaker 3: that Lebanon become part of the deal. So even the
Speaker 3: US and Iran's own government kind of agree if if
Speaker 3: it was actually closed, Syncom apparently saying traffic's flowing. But
Speaker 3: but you know, this brings up an interesting point. And
Speaker 3: and you know, I mentioned Mark's Marx article h and
Speaker 3: and of course I think it really there's the fact
Speaker 3: that the US failed and in our strategy, we really
Speaker 3: didn't have a strategy. We have a list of targets,
Speaker 3: it was kind of vague, there was no defined end state. Yes,
Speaker 3: that is a story in itself, but I think, and
Speaker 3: this is where John's expertise, I think will come in.
Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say Iran did have a strategy,
Speaker 3: and it's one they've been preparing for years. You know,
Speaker 3: a lot of people talk about the mosaic doctrine, which
Speaker 3: is kind of decentralized command. It's kind of mission command,
Speaker 3: which is our own doctrine. But it really worked. I mean,
Speaker 3: they anticipated that they would lose a lot of guys
Speaker 3: at the top of the pyramid, and they designed a
Speaker 3: system that could still continue to function.
Speaker 4: So that worked.
Speaker 3: Number one, and again i'll keep this brief. Number two,
Speaker 3: they've built an economy that was some extent resistant to sanctions.
Speaker 3: I mean, John's already talked about the fact that the
Speaker 3: IRGC didn't suffer too terribly from the pounding that the
Speaker 3: Iranian economy took for all the reasons that we've given
Speaker 3: on their show, but also the fact that you know,
Speaker 3: through deals with China and elsewhere, Iran has again designed
Speaker 3: its economy so that so that sanctions are are no
Speaker 3: longer such a such a weapon as as they used
Speaker 3: to be. And the last thing I'll say on that
Speaker 3: on their strategy, which I think is really important, it's
Speaker 3: what they went after. You know, all these firing of
Speaker 3: missiles and drones and they had, yeah, they had an
Speaker 3: extensive inventory, but it wasn't random. You know, they went
Speaker 3: after key targets. They went after uh they'd identified what
Speaker 3: makes what what? When US employees airpower. What really makes
Speaker 3: that work, and it is the what high density or
Speaker 3: high demand load density items it depends on, and that
Speaker 3: is our command and control notes, right, especially a wax aircraft,
Speaker 3: our tanker fleet, which actually is quite limited and it's aging.
Speaker 3: And it went after both of those on the ground,
Speaker 3: for instance in Saudi Arabia and peace app and caused
Speaker 3: extensive damage. And and also ground based command and control
Speaker 3: as well as air defense our radars, so ability to
Speaker 3: sense all of these things were on the Iran's target list.
Speaker 3: It wasn't simply hey, we're going to just fire ship
Speaker 3: and show they were not beaten. They were very careful
Speaker 3: about what they had. They understood clearly the imbalance between
Speaker 3: you know, the cost in effectiveness between interceptors and drones
Speaker 3: and missiles, especially drones. And that isn't just about you
Speaker 3: know that cliche we always hear about that, you know,
Speaker 3: and a Patriot interceptor costs x million dollars and a
Speaker 3: Shahad missile costs twenty to thirty thousand dollars. It's not
Speaker 3: just about that. It's about death on the bench. How
Speaker 3: many interceptors we actually have, all right, how many we
Speaker 3: need globally in order to sustain our commitments, and they
Speaker 3: understood all that they and they kind of led us dry.
Speaker 3: And the last thing was that targeting of golf countries
Speaker 3: was very carefully deliberately done and instead of yes, it
Speaker 3: did piss off the golf countries, but it also had
Speaker 3: the effect of driving a wedge between the US and
Speaker 3: our partners here because Iran could show that we could
Speaker 3: not protect them, we had not gone to the effort
Speaker 3: to build a coalition. And then when it really mattered,
Speaker 3: you saw UAE and Saudi Arabia saying at key parts
Speaker 3: of this conflict, no, we're not going to support and
Speaker 3: I believe I think it was Kuwait right, they said, no,
Speaker 3: we're not going to allow our bases to be used
Speaker 3: for further strikes on Iran. So again, you know, this,
Speaker 3: MoU is kind of I think a natural follow on.
Speaker 3: They sustained a beating, but all they had to do
Speaker 3: was survive.
Speaker 4: They did that.
Speaker 3: They sent a message of resilience. We've all seen these
Speaker 3: lego videos that were masterfully made, and now they've they've
Speaker 3: controlled the negotiations. Do I like that? No, of course
Speaker 3: I don't like that, And I'm just commenting on how
Speaker 3: they've they've and they've really understood. That's how switching thing
Speaker 3: about war being politics by another.
Speaker 2: Means well, wants it back at you go, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take it. I'm taking charge here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll branch off of what Andy mentioned about the
Speaker 5: economy and sanctions and all this. You know, the regime
Speaker 5: has been framing their economy as a resistance economy since
Speaker 5: the nineteen nineties, and in Farsi they actually call it
Speaker 5: this a resistance economy, and what that means is a
Speaker 5: resilient economy that can survive external impacts, whether those are
Speaker 5: sanctions or reductions in capacity, or just actual logistical challenges
Speaker 5: of getting things done out of the country due to geopolitics.
Speaker 5: They've designed their economy to survive this way, and it's
Speaker 5: very clear that their structuring of that was successful. And
Speaker 5: that doesn't mean it was successful for the running people.
Speaker 5: It means it was successful for the regime elites, the
Speaker 5: small minority of people in and outside of Iran who
Speaker 5: are able to maintain their safety, security, and their grip
Speaker 5: on power throughout this really high intensity conflict against their country.
Speaker 5: The US is very good at overwhelming fire superiority. This
Speaker 5: is something that we're very good at we're very precise
Speaker 5: at that we can put a lot of ordinance on
Speaker 5: targets very rapidly in a very large geographic dispersion, which
Speaker 5: we saw was true especially in Western Iran during the war.
Speaker 5: Despite that, Iran was able to use, as Andy mentioned,
Speaker 5: very precise, careful, deliberate strikes on allies and partners in
Speaker 5: the region for non military purposes. And that's contrast to
Speaker 5: what it seemed the US strategy was was a purely
Speaker 5: operational or campaign level strategy of striking a certain series
Speaker 5: of targets or a target deck to affect a military outcome,
Speaker 5: whereas the Iranian regime the IERGC was thinking beyond the
Speaker 5: military objective. They were thinking about political outcomes and impacts
Speaker 5: of their military actions, which again is just like Andy
Speaker 5: mentioned a klouds Whitzy in concept, where military is a
Speaker 5: policy instrument, it is not an end.
Speaker 2: And it seemed that.
Speaker 5: Iran was using that and understood that that if they
Speaker 5: hit Katar or they hit Kuwait, there will be political ramifications.
Speaker 5: That true, there is some sacrifice on their side that
Speaker 5: are negative impacts for Iran, but they will also negatively
Speaker 5: impact the United States. So they're kind of using that
Speaker 5: concept of the Samson option that Israel actually uses for
Speaker 5: its own nuclear policy, where they understand that once they
Speaker 5: unleash this weapon, it will harm them, but it will
Speaker 5: also harm their enemy in a way that's beneficial to
Speaker 5: them unleashing this strike. And Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Parliament
Speaker 5: who's now in Switzerland sitting across the table from Jdevance,
Speaker 5: negotiating a very uneven settlement right now in favor of
Speaker 5: Iran and against the favor of the United States. Yesterday, Glibaff,
Speaker 5: before he got on an airplane, said that he is
Speaker 5: a post war economic commander, which again underscores this understanding
Speaker 5: of economics for Iran, for the elites in Iran, that
Speaker 5: it's about the money. It's not about protecting their people,
Speaker 5: it's not about political institutions, it's not about these esoteric
Speaker 5: philosophical concepts that we appreciate in the West. It's about
Speaker 5: surviving and enriching themselves and surviving to enjoy that enrichment
Speaker 5: and a lot of their money. Almost all of it
Speaker 5: is not in Iran. It's in Europe, it's in Hong Kong,
Speaker 5: it's around the world. It's in Canada. Billions of dollars,
Speaker 5: and they've designed these systems to protect those dollars and
Speaker 5: protect themselves. And if you see, for example, Golibov's son
Speaker 5: has hundreds of millions of dollars in Iran and outside
Speaker 5: of Iran he posts on Instagram. Other IERGC commanders their
Speaker 5: children have yachts in the Mediterranean that on Instagram. These
Speaker 5: are not secrets. And there's even a website called I
Speaker 5: think like the Children of the Regime or something like
Speaker 5: this where you can go see their daily lives, documented
Speaker 5: them spending just untold amounts of money. None of this
Speaker 5: money from work they ever did. This is from either
Speaker 5: oil sales or other illicit activity. Right now, Iran has
Speaker 5: a special program where if you own a vehicle in Europe,
Speaker 5: you can import it into Iran and just pay a
Speaker 5: small tax on it, and now you can bring it
Speaker 5: into Iran, so you can buy it in Germany, for example,
Speaker 5: and then bring it to Iran. There's sanctions that are
Speaker 5: supposed to stop this from happening, but it's happening just
Speaker 5: totally allowed, right and even I think we've talked about
Speaker 5: it before. Companies like Audi for example, or BMW, they
Speaker 5: know about these action, so what they do is they
Speaker 5: take the vehicle slightly apart and they'll put little pieces
Speaker 5: in between the doors and windows and things, and it
Speaker 5: arrives in a box so it's not technically assembled in Europe,
Speaker 5: and they'll bring it to Iran, take the little pieces out,
Speaker 5: reattach everything, and now it's a vehicle that should not
Speaker 5: have been there in the first place. And it's not
Speaker 5: the average person doing this, it's the elites. And the
Speaker 5: reason I'm kind of pushing this elite's button is because
Speaker 5: these are the people in Switzerland right now negotiating with
Speaker 5: the United States on a three hundred billion dollar cash infusion. Again,
Speaker 5: money is there objective. We are about to give them
Speaker 5: more of it. They use this money for very specific reasons,
Speaker 5: like we mentioned corruption and things like this, but also
Speaker 5: to fund has Bullat. After we exited the Joint Comprehensive
Speaker 5: Plan of Action in twenty eighteen, the Hesbola funding levels
Speaker 5: went up from about two hundred and fifty million dollars
Speaker 5: a year to a billion dollars a year until last December.
Speaker 5: We don't have twenty twenty six numbers yet, but there's
Speaker 5: going to be more of it. And we can see
Speaker 5: that this connection to has bullet remains relevant because that's
Speaker 5: why the negotiations were threatened this past seven days in
Speaker 5: the first place, is because Israel and Hezbola were fighting
Speaker 5: war in Lebanon, and Iran said, that's point number one
Speaker 5: on our fourteen point plan. You've got to stop fighting
Speaker 5: in Lebanon, Israel or else we're not going to negotiate.
Speaker 5: So they're telling us that this is important to them financially,
Speaker 5: for security reasons, and many other things in between, and
Speaker 5: they're not going to give up on this point. So
Speaker 5: I think focusing on Lebanon and economics of this conflict
Speaker 5: are probably the two most important things if the US
Speaker 5: wants to do anything to salvage this disaster happening in
Speaker 5: Switzerland right now.
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Speaker 6: So Jonathan you gave I think you raised a really
Speaker 6: good point. I don't want to reiterate all the great
Speaker 6: things you guys said, but I think that and it's
Speaker 6: an article I did write in Engelsburg Ideas, which you
Speaker 6: guys were referring to. I think the title was the
Speaker 6: art of a Bad Deal. I co wrote it with
Speaker 6: Sam Worby. But it's the idea of putting a carrot
Speaker 6: forward deal. And it's exactly what you're talking about, Jonathan. Like, so,
Speaker 6: I guess, first of all, the wisdom of that is
Speaker 6: kind of beyond me. We're actually putting carrots for it.
Speaker 6: Jd Vance, in a press interview, basically came out and
Speaker 6: said we're not doing that, and I think he's lying.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, of course, the press never challenges
Speaker 6: him and anything. Because everything I talked to, all the
Speaker 6: oil analysts, everything, they said that Iran is going to
Speaker 6: get between the ability to sell oil and which is
Speaker 6: the waivers as well as some relief of some type
Speaker 6: of assets. You could be six to twenty billion right
Speaker 6: off the bat. Jd Vance is saying it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 6: But so you know, first of all, where's the truth
Speaker 6: on that? It looks like it actually is gonna happen.
Speaker 6: But again, the idea of putting carrots forward first just
Speaker 6: doesn't make any sense. And it shows how desperate the
Speaker 6: United States is and I think that that is that
Speaker 6: is certainly problematic. The other piece I would add, and
Speaker 6: you know, I'm there. You know, maybe Mick is too,
Speaker 6: and who knows the kind of the resident Israel whisperer,
Speaker 6: But it's the notion of Look, I don't care with
Speaker 6: you if you like bb net Nyahu or not. But
Speaker 6: the idea of linking this to Lebanon, the US allowing
Speaker 6: this is insane. You know, I live in northern Virginia
Speaker 6: right across the way is d C. If you know,
Speaker 6: if I you know I live in Vienna. If I
Speaker 6: don't know, if McLain was getting pounded and was evacuated
Speaker 6: because someone's firing from d C, that would be a problem.
Speaker 6: And yet we have not managed to link this. So
Speaker 6: the Israelis do need to have kind of freedom of action.
Speaker 6: You know, you can you can debate whether or not
Speaker 6: they should have gone into southern lebanon the ground force.
Speaker 6: I think that's just unwise. But the idea of you know,
Speaker 6: removing that ability there to strike back his bullet, the
Speaker 6: US did Israel a terrible favor, and in fact, let's
Speaker 6: not forget his ball as a terrorist entity that killed
Speaker 6: more Americans up until nine to eleven than than Al Kaida.
Speaker 6: And so I think that was a that was an
Speaker 6: awful mistake overall. It's the notion of I think, Jonathan,
Speaker 6: you're right, Israel survived. Andy. I think you said this.
Speaker 6: I mean it's not Israel Ron survived. I think both
Speaker 6: Jonathan Andy said that they controlled. They demonstrate they have
Speaker 6: the control of the straight ufore moves. That's what we're
Speaker 6: the MoU is just to to reopen the straight because
Speaker 6: Trump panicked about the economy period. That's it. It's a
Speaker 6: it's a cash tran it's a transaction of funds for
Speaker 6: reopening the strait. So they demonstrated that again linking the
Speaker 6: linkage to Lebanon was a terrible diplomatic error by the
Speaker 6: United States.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: And then this inclusion of of some type of financial relief,
Speaker 6: which is Jonathan says, is so paramount to the to
Speaker 6: the regime, the Iranian regime. I'll finally, you know, it's
Speaker 6: something I stupidly have done every day on Twitter. I'm
Speaker 6: having fun doing it. I post how many days it's
Speaker 6: been each day since January thirteenth, and it's one hundred
Speaker 6: and fifty nine days right now since President Trump said
Speaker 6: help was on its way, and you know, and a
Speaker 6: lot of us were exercised about things like the botched
Speaker 6: Afghan withdrawal for good reason. We criticized the Biden administration.
Speaker 6: I certainly did, though. I work for a network ms now,
Speaker 6: which is super pro kind of Democrat and supports Biden.
Speaker 6: I was on there every day howling about it. I
Speaker 6: just was period this this is going to be seen
Speaker 6: as a betrayal of the Iranian people. Again, help is
Speaker 6: on its way. As protesters run the street. They stayed
Speaker 6: out there, they got slaughtered, and we are doing nothing
Speaker 6: to help them. And in fact, if you talk to anybody,
Speaker 6: the infusion of whatever it is, six billion, twelve billion,
Speaker 6: God forbid the three hundred billion that allows the regime
Speaker 6: to further survive.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Bottom line is, I think we have done a great
Speaker 6: harm to the ability for people like all of us
Speaker 6: we are don't. We don't do this anymore. Maybe some
Speaker 6: of you guys do clandestinely. I certainly don't. I sit
Speaker 6: on my ass in northern Virginia. But the idea of
Speaker 6: going out into the field and working with indigenous groups
Speaker 6: and making promises, we don't look so good right now.
Speaker 6: And I think that's a you know, and if you
Speaker 6: I was just at a conference in Sweden. Uh. There
Speaker 6: was a whole bunch of really really famous Iranian academics
Speaker 6: there anti regime.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 6: But to a t they said that in the beginning
Speaker 6: Iranian people welcomed the US and Israeli strikes. They do
Speaker 6: not do so anymore now. And there is the incredible
Speaker 6: feeling of betrayal right now. Again, you're gonna have the
Speaker 6: scene at some point, I hope not. Maybe it's politically
Speaker 6: suicidal for jd vance of him shaking the hands of
Speaker 6: Valeyboff The from the Iranian side, and and and Mick,
Speaker 6: I thought of you today, this that you know, and
Speaker 6: of course I freaked out. This is this is my
Speaker 6: not promise practicing stoicism. But when jd Vance at the
Speaker 6: beginning of the talks said to the cameras, I love Pakistan,
Speaker 6: there's nobody on the planet who served in Afghanistan who
Speaker 6: says those words I love Pakistan. And so I just
Speaker 6: saw that, and I thought of all of us, Andy
Speaker 6: and and Jonathan, you two little friends, one more thing,
Speaker 6: d I got something for you. Look at this little
Speaker 6: I love Friese thing. Oh yeah, I love that too.
Speaker 6: That's my that's my two sides.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm gonna start with something. I agree with all
Speaker 4: you guys on this stuff. I can remember you said
Speaker 4: the I'm gonna start with a positive, right, and the
Speaker 4: positive had nothing to do with the MU. Major James
Speaker 4: Capers finally received the Medal of Honor, way overdue most
Speaker 4: most Marines certainly, but people from the Special Operations military
Speaker 4: community have been waiting for this for a long time.
Speaker 4: He he actually came and spoke to us at and
Speaker 4: I mean it was such a memorable speech that, like
Speaker 4: I it all came back when I was seeing him
Speaker 4: get the metal honor. So let's start on a positive.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: One thing I would start advocating for I haven't stopped
Speaker 4: advocating for, is to get the NSC back up and
Speaker 4: running in full splendor, like get the careers back in there,
Speaker 4: get people that can talk about like, well, are you
Speaker 4: really going to change the regime if we do airstrikes?
Speaker 4: Are we really going to are they not going to
Speaker 4: close the trade? These are all things that would have
Speaker 4: been discussed all the potential like Okay, if we do this,
Speaker 4: they'll do that. What are we going to do? Are
Speaker 4: we willing to adhere to and take the economic pain right?
Speaker 4: And what is the economic pain? There's experts in every
Speaker 4: one of these areas that could have informed up the
Speaker 4: chain of command all the way to the you know,
Speaker 4: the actual principles. I think Secretary Ubio is a very
Speaker 4: capable person, but he can't be both. He can't be
Speaker 4: the Secretary of State and get somebody on where is
Speaker 4: he he's because the Apartment doesn't agree with any of this.
Speaker 4: Let's face it, we all know that. Everybody knows that.
Speaker 4: Everybody knows that, right, But I'm just talking about the
Speaker 4: process and process matters because I don't think we'd be
Speaker 4: in this position if that was something that was actually
Speaker 4: done before the decision. Get somebody like Jack Keane, you know,
Speaker 4: Jene Keane or somebody that has the gravatas and has
Speaker 4: the uh anyway, so uh if we done if we
Speaker 4: had done that, I don't think we'd be in the
Speaker 4: situation we're in. So to go down the list of
Speaker 4: strategic objectives we had before watching this regime change, I
Speaker 4: know now they're saying they didn't plan on that. They did.
Speaker 4: They said it over and over again. Helps on the
Speaker 4: way mark you just said it. They said we actually
Speaker 4: did have regime change before it was clearly we didn't.
Speaker 4: And then the so that was an objective, we're not
Speaker 4: going to meet it. The intelligence community said that wasn't
Speaker 4: going to happen. You're not going to do you know,
Speaker 4: air war people just quit, it's never gonna happen. Yes,
Speaker 4: we did strike and do the decapitation strikes. And you know,
Speaker 4: I'm somebody that if you kill servicemen and women in
Speaker 4: the United States or CI officers, you should always be
Speaker 4: on the list. So there's zero love loss of the
Speaker 4: de capitation strikes. But Strategically, all it did is give
Speaker 4: us a younger, more pissed off version of the regime. Right,
Speaker 4: So we went from an eighty six year old Iyatola
Speaker 4: Kahmane to a fifty six year old Ayatola Homani, right,
Speaker 4: and we now have Lahiti as the IRGC commander. These
Speaker 4: are and he is I'm sure and correct me if
Speaker 4: I'm wrong. Jonathan one that has always been advocating for
Speaker 4: Ron to have a nuclear weapon, like has been the
Speaker 4: guy that's always been like, hey, you're wrong. No, fought
Speaker 4: was on not having nuclear weapons. Let's get a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So strategically we did not change the regime. We now
Speaker 4: embolden them and with these financial benefits, it's going to
Speaker 4: put them in place, probably in perpetuity, right if they
Speaker 4: actually realize the unfreezing of assets. I think there's around
Speaker 4: one hundred billion total if you look at restricted and
Speaker 4: frozen assets, but immediately like twenty billion if you could
Speaker 4: sell your oil sanctions are gone. I think that's around
Speaker 4: eighty billion a year. This three hundred billion dollar reconstruction
Speaker 4: fund with really baffles me, because what are you reconstructing?
Speaker 4: We struck military targets? Are we going to ask the
Speaker 4: Gulf countries to pay to reconstruct the military targets that
Speaker 4: we use to tack them and cause them damage. I
Speaker 4: don't see them doing it, and it's the logic behind
Speaker 4: it is just it escapes me. So we didn't change
Speaker 4: the regime. So what did we do? That's positive? We
Speaker 4: did destroy their navy, we did destroy their Convention Lavy,
Speaker 4: the Air Force. But we then are giving them all
Speaker 4: this financial incentive. What do you think they're going to
Speaker 4: do with it? They're going to replace the ballistic missiles
Speaker 4: that we did degrade that we talked about so much
Speaker 4: as as a plus, which I talked about as a plus.
Speaker 4: The concern with the ballistic missiles, that is, if we're
Speaker 4: going to protect their nuclear program, so we had to
Speaker 4: degrade it. Now we're get them the money. What do
Speaker 4: you think they're going to do. They're going to rebuild
Speaker 4: their ballistic missiles and now the White House is defending
Speaker 4: their ability to have missiles. Why why? I mean that
Speaker 4: was the biggest criticism or one of the bigger criticisms
Speaker 4: of the JCPOA. Didn't address ballistic missiles, didn't address proxies.
Speaker 4: So that's not even our list of objectives and it's
Speaker 4: still not being discussed in the MoU or in Switzerland
Speaker 4: right now. Proxies and ballistic missiles. We're now defending their
Speaker 4: ability to have ballistic missiles and their proxy forces. Obviously
Speaker 4: we're not even talking about them doing that. So that's
Speaker 4: not healthful at all now. So we haven't met necessary objectives.
Speaker 4: The other one, of course, the biggest one, the priority one,
Speaker 4: is no nuclear weapons. And although the White House was
Speaker 4: saying that they agreed to give up their highly enriched uranium,
Speaker 4: they did not. It's right in the agreement. You can
Speaker 4: look at the MoU. It's not a secret they did not.
Speaker 4: They did not. They haven't agreed to do anything on
Speaker 4: their nuclear front. In fact, Posesskian President Pozeski just came
Speaker 4: out and said they're never going to agree to not
Speaker 4: enrich uranium. He just came out and said that. So
Speaker 4: if that's the case, almost the best we could do.
Speaker 4: And I don't like this. I'm just pointing out, and
Speaker 4: I think is fact is to get back and something
Speaker 4: that looks exactly like the JCPO way right, we're giving
Speaker 4: them billions of dollars, they're going to enricheranium. What are
Speaker 4: we going to try to keep him to three point
Speaker 4: sixty seven. Maybe that's what it was, and I know
Speaker 4: that it was going to expire, but we could have
Speaker 4: simply made it better rather than tear it up. So
Speaker 4: I think I've hit every major point. We should probably
Speaker 4: go on some of the nuances, but I would like
Speaker 4: to see the next sixty days turn this around, right.
Speaker 4: I want to see the United States come out strategically ahead.
Speaker 4: We are not headed there right now. We're not. Everybody knows.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter what party you're in, you know, right,
Speaker 4: left center, people can see that this is not happening.
Speaker 4: The straight up hormose, I'll stop on this straight of
Speaker 4: humose is not actually open. The Iranians have not agreed
Speaker 4: to give up their control of the Strait only to
Speaker 4: bring it to pre war levels and then in the
Speaker 4: future they're going to charge fees. We all know it's coming.
Speaker 4: In fact, they already close it again. But so it's
Speaker 4: even that wasn't a war objective because it was open before,
Speaker 4: and we haven't gotten that back to where we wanted.
Speaker 4: So what's the alternative. I had a friend tell me,
Speaker 4: you know, he picked the best of all the terrible alternatives.
Speaker 4: I don't agree with that I think we actually had
Speaker 4: him on the road. Economically, I think we and we
Speaker 4: if we didn't want to take the economic pressure, we
Speaker 4: shouldn't have done this in the first place. We shouldn't
Speaker 4: have done it in the first place, because the worst
Speaker 4: case is you do it, you then cave. And this
Speaker 4: is going to change the power dynamics in the Middle
Speaker 4: East and around the world. They now know that they
Speaker 4: have an economic nuclear weapon and we have confirmed it.
Speaker 4: So I think we have to take the heat a
Speaker 4: bit on the economic side of this, but continue on
Speaker 4: and if if they rupture the agreement, we should view
Speaker 4: that as thank goodness, and then we can go back
Speaker 4: and start negotiation this again. I know it's there's no
Speaker 4: easy answer to this. I'm not saying that, but I
Speaker 4: want America to come out on ahead. I want her
Speaker 4: on the regime, not the running people, to come out
Speaker 4: way in the rear, you know, in other words, negatively.
Speaker 4: So we're not headed there right now. It's super concerning,
Speaker 4: and I'd like to see, you know, the smart folks
Speaker 4: come together and come up with a plan for the
Speaker 4: US to turn this around, starting from a difficult position.
Speaker 6: But Nick, one quick thing on that there are no
Speaker 6: smart folks, the NSC doesn't work. Trump doesn't listen to anybody.
Speaker 6: So I agree with you, you know, this is a hope.
Speaker 6: But there's there's nothing I see on the horizon that
Speaker 6: shows any indication of anything positive happening. Jared Kushner and
Speaker 6: Steve Witkoff and JD. Vans are the ones who are
Speaker 6: in Switzerland. That's a recipe for disaster, you know. So
Speaker 6: so the idea there is no one, there's no one
Speaker 6: coming to the rescue, there's no smart people involved, and
Speaker 6: you know, so I just I don't see how that
Speaker 6: is ever going to occur. I don't know what, you know.
Speaker 6: Marco Rubio is fleeing from this because of twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 6: He wants to be president and this is a disaster.
Speaker 6: He knows it, you know. And I'd go back to,
Speaker 6: you know, the quart of the State Department's gone. At
Speaker 6: least most of my friends in the agency are long past,
Speaker 6: are long gone, you know. I mean I was asking
Speaker 6: even one of my former you know, counterparts in Mosad,
Speaker 6: you know, and he basically said, how can everyone have
Speaker 6: made so many mistakes on Iran? Like we all collectively
Speaker 6: used to actually be pretty good on this, but there's
Speaker 6: nothing I see on the horizon that is optimistic that
Speaker 6: we're going to do anything positive here. In fact, Trump
Speaker 6: is bored, Rubio wants to go off to Cuba, and
Speaker 6: everyone's focusing in the mid terms. I mean, I think
Speaker 6: you might have said this that this is the worst
Speaker 6: case scenario that we start something and don't finish it,
Speaker 6: and we've kind of poked the bear. Uh, but if
Speaker 6: you're gonna you know, if you want to poke the bear,
Speaker 6: you better kill it. And we didn't. And there's no
Speaker 6: I mean, if if anybody thinks we're going to resume
Speaker 6: military confrontation in any serious manner, they're on They're on crack.
Speaker 6: Trump wants nothing to do with it. I don't think
Speaker 6: Sentcom or the Pentagon do as well because of because
Speaker 6: of you know, the you know, the depletion in stocks.
Speaker 6: And plus there's a question of can it actually work? Uh,
Speaker 6: what more can we do without putting in ground forces?
Speaker 4: So you know, those are all those are all good points.
Speaker 6: I mean, really pessimistic on this, I don't know. And
Speaker 6: so but here's here's here's my question to you. This
Speaker 6: is actually important because we all consider and criticize, and
Speaker 6: I'm great at that okay, So what do we do
Speaker 6: and what you know or what could we do or
Speaker 6: what what do you I mean knowing that there is
Speaker 6: we have incompetent people in charge. That's the thing that
Speaker 6: drives me nuts. I don't see anyone's you know, I
Speaker 6: I like I don't like watching Fox News. I like
Speaker 6: watching General Keane because he's up there, and he laid
Speaker 6: into Sean Hannity the other day, as he should. I
Speaker 6: thank god someone in that crazy network is saying something normal.
Speaker 6: And so you know, I don't see I'm not I
Speaker 6: don't have room for optimism.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Well, I get your idea. What you're saying is it's
Speaker 4: unlikely that they're going to pull these people and make
Speaker 4: prebaty fair. But I think there are people out there
Speaker 4: that could could be very valuable in an NSC. I mean,
Speaker 4: their career is right. There's the military didn't empty of experts,
Speaker 4: the Department of Energy didn't empty of experts, the CIA didn't,
Speaker 4: the State Department. Yes, I know a lot of there's
Speaker 4: still people there. There's still people there, people left.
Speaker 6: I think there are a lot of people who are
Speaker 6: gone and you could.
Speaker 4: Bring them back. I mean, they could be retired, you
Speaker 4: can still bring them back to the NSC. I know,
Speaker 4: maybe I'm you know, Tiltner willneck win bills here, b
Speaker 4: I think like it's not going to be an easy task.
Speaker 4: But if it, if it doesn't happen, then we already
Speaker 4: know what the outcome is.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 4: We're seeing it. We're seeing it, and I don't want
Speaker 4: that for the US. I don't care about whose president,
Speaker 4: who's party benefits and stuff. I just want to see this, uh,
Speaker 4: not end up the way it's headed for the and
Speaker 4: the region, all our allies.
Speaker 3: I actually make the last point is a really key point.
Speaker 3: We've certainly lost credibility in the region. And and to
Speaker 3: your point, Mark, I mean and yours too, make actually
Speaker 3: the you know, I know it sounds like we're hand ringing,
Speaker 3: but it's difficult not to wring your hands at this
Speaker 3: point because look the you know, we we' when you
Speaker 3: look at the details. Let's let's take the whole framework deal.
Speaker 3: What it says about in the enriched uranium, right, I
Speaker 3: mean that potentially, potentially that gives the greatest cause for
Speaker 3: optimism and this whole sorry mess. Okay, but when you
Speaker 3: look closely at that, because the Framework Deal has Iran
Speaker 3: agreeing to down blend its enriched uranium, basically dilute it,
Speaker 3: so it's no longer weapons grade under IAEA supervision. So
Speaker 3: you know, on the surface, that looks like real progress,
Speaker 3: but then you look at the actual language in your agreement,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of the minimum methodology, and the material
Speaker 3: itself never leaves Iran. It stays on iranium soil, so
Speaker 3: while the real terms get negotiated over over the next
Speaker 3: sixty days, So.
Speaker 4: They're going to stop enrichment.
Speaker 6: That's right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: You've got a commitment to a process, not a commitment
Speaker 3: to an outcome, and nobody's actually verified anything yet, you know,
Speaker 3: to your point about I mean, it's like just a
Speaker 3: dreadful divorce settlement, right, it's we made all these all
Speaker 3: these things are flowing in Iran's favor before they even
Speaker 3: have to do anything. And the IAEA's what's his name, Grossy,
Speaker 3: I mean he he was in Switzerland this past weekend
Speaker 3: still working out what this semen looks like. In practice,
Speaker 3: it's not it. There's no inspection happening, the inspections being negotiated,
Speaker 3: so it's really it's hard to be optimistic, but I
Speaker 3: think and you know the same thing about hebola. You know,
Speaker 3: and I think, I think this is an interesting point,
Speaker 3: not because I'm about to bring it up, but I
Speaker 3: think we have to be you know, you have to
Speaker 3: approach this from a point of view had real politic.
Speaker 3: Is his bolla okay, bear with me. Is his bolla
Speaker 3: a real threat to the United States? I get it,
Speaker 3: they've killed Americans in the past, But I'm not swayed
Speaker 3: by that, nor should anyone. I don't think not, because.
Speaker 6: I mean, otherwise we would have never we would never
Speaker 6: have made.
Speaker 3: Peace with Germany.
Speaker 4: For Christ's sake.
Speaker 3: Sixty seventy thousand israelis moved out of the neighborhood. I
Speaker 3: get it, but that doesn't affect us. However, his bolla
Speaker 3: is absolutely disruptive to the regions, so it is in
Speaker 3: our interests.
Speaker 6: It is in our.
Speaker 3: Interest to pursue them. But you can't. You're not going
Speaker 3: to bomb them into oblivion. I mean, that's so firmly
Speaker 3: entrenched right in Lebanese society. I mean, you can you
Speaker 3: can read anything about this by people who understand his bolla.
Speaker 3: That you have to approach it from by you know,
Speaker 3: bringing bringing influence on Lebanon, supporting Lebanon to do what
Speaker 3: it needs to do in order to enforce the you know,
Speaker 3: UN resolution, what was it, seventeen oh one, all those
Speaker 3: things bombing, the bombing has done very little.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We are here, though, and this is the really pessimistic point.
Speaker 3: We are here because we just didn't anticipate and I
Speaker 3: don't know how we didn't anticipate that whole moves would
Speaker 3: turn out to be as Trump card no pun intended, right,
Speaker 3: and that was an improvise. You know, Iran built its
Speaker 3: entire war strategy around Hall Moves back in five oh six,
Speaker 3: and I just don't understand why he didn't understand that.
Speaker 3: Because the US military flagged almost we all know this, right,
Speaker 3: it's not it's open, open source. The US military flagged
Speaker 3: Hormos is the single biggest risk of a war with
Speaker 3: Iran for decades, and it was in all the briefings.
Speaker 3: The Joint chiefs warned about it before the strikes even started,
Speaker 3: and the assumption was going in was that Iran would
Speaker 3: either back down or the Navy could just reopen the
Speaker 3: straight by force. But you know who who who even
Speaker 3: gave that advice? I mean, and now you can't undo
Speaker 3: that through negotiations. So Ran knows the power that it has.
Speaker 3: It's been proven and that is what no amount of
Speaker 3: negotiation and this next sixty days can undo. And Iron knows.
Speaker 2: That you offriend of Mickey ran Away.
Speaker 4: No, I'm joking.
Speaker 2: I'm joking.
Speaker 6: I was going to pick on him too, because I
Speaker 6: want to talk about happy math from the Pentagon because
Speaker 6: you know, we had talked about on the show so
Speaker 6: many times before got the briefings from Heg Seth and
Speaker 6: Dan Kane and I and I challenged everybody here that
Speaker 6: you know that. My thought was, you know, the military
Speaker 6: has lied to us before, and I think they're they're
Speaker 6: lying to us again. And I know that's hard for folks.
Speaker 6: I did not serve you all, did I think we
Speaker 6: have to question all those briefings, including from Dan Kane.
Speaker 6: I really do, uh. And so you know, I think
Speaker 6: history and Hegseeth is a fool. But but history might
Speaker 6: not be as kind because you know, you know, the
Speaker 6: all the all the programs that seem to have been
Speaker 6: obliterated other than the ir the Iranian navy, which is
Speaker 6: the bottom of the sea, but not really because of
Speaker 6: all the fast attack ships and everything, all all this,
Speaker 6: all their drone whatever they have. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 6: not so sure that we didn't go through a whole
Speaker 6: other exercise of the military not being truthful or maybe
Speaker 6: the be was bad at the time, but they said it.
Speaker 6: And if you had believed that, then the war was
Speaker 6: essentially over. And it's not so to provoke Andy and Jonathan, Jonathan,
Speaker 6: what do you what do you think on that?
Speaker 5: I think back to Vietnam when we had the whole
Speaker 5: body count problem, where we had these whiz kids who
Speaker 5: were extremely intelligent engineers that second f McNamara surrounded himself
Speaker 5: with to try to get ahead of the Vietnam problem
Speaker 5: that that they inherited in the fifties, and so from
Speaker 5: France in particular, because France basically gave us their problem
Speaker 5: and told us to handle it. And that's what we
Speaker 5: did in Vietnam in the early years, and in order
Speaker 5: to get ahead of it, we thought of how how
Speaker 5: can we rationalize what we're doing there? And they decided
Speaker 5: to start doing this body count thing. Well, what that
Speaker 5: did was it incentivized people on the ground to first
Speaker 5: of all claim kias that did not happen, and second
Speaker 5: of all, to kill civilians to increase the number, and
Speaker 5: this especially on the on the Vietnamese partner force side,
Speaker 5: because that would increase the amount of resources they could
Speaker 5: get the hirer the body counts were, whether they're real, fabricated,
Speaker 5: or other people that were killed that were not the enemy.
Speaker 5: That was all designed so that these numbers could come in,
Speaker 5: because that's what the whole thing was focused on, was
Speaker 5: how many died, how much damage was done? Numbers, numbers,
Speaker 5: And that's exactly what you're talking about, Mark, Where in
Speaker 5: the modern world we don't actually have that exact incentivized problem,
Speaker 5: but we do have a very similar issue where the
Speaker 5: Department of Defense, because that's what it's called by law
Speaker 5: and not Department of War. The Department of Defense is
Speaker 5: trying to advertise successes that don't exist, and they're doing
Speaker 5: that with numbers because it's hard. It feels like it's
Speaker 5: harder to argue numbers because you see these things. Oh,
Speaker 5: I see the imagery. I see the bomb striking the target.
Speaker 5: That must have been a destructive, a destruction of an
Speaker 5: enemy target. Well, let's go on the ground and actually
Speaker 5: evaluate was that an enemy target. Was that a transporter
Speaker 5: or director launcher was that a point of origin site.
Speaker 2: Was there a mortar there?
Speaker 5: We will never know because we on the US side
Speaker 5: are not actually going on the ground to do battle
Speaker 5: damage assessment. We had this problem in Iraq, even if
Speaker 5: we were in the same area, if we couldn't actually
Speaker 5: get to the target to evaluate if it was struck
Speaker 5: or not, we couldn't beat totally certain that that was
Speaker 5: the right target, the right time, with the right impact
Speaker 5: that we're saying that it was. And you know, the
Speaker 5: same thing with drone warfare. If you don't have someone
Speaker 5: on the ground, a human source to validate or signals
Speaker 5: intelligence to validate that that was actually destroyed, you can't
Speaker 5: be totally certain that was destroyed. And if we're on
Speaker 5: the order of thirty thousand, fifty thousand strikes in a
Speaker 5: week or in a month, every one of those strikes
Speaker 5: needs to be validated. And the law of large numbers
Speaker 5: kind of indicates that if you're not validating small numbers
Speaker 5: of targets, you're also not validating large numbers of targets.
Speaker 5: So there's this kind of runaway problem where you don't
Speaker 5: really know. It's almost like shooting in the dark. You
Speaker 5: know you're shooting you're definitely expending rounds, but you're not
Speaker 5: really sure, like where are those rounds hitting and are
Speaker 5: they actually causing more problems than there were before you
Speaker 5: fired that round. So there's a lot of challenge here
Speaker 5: without us actually being on the ground to evaluate. And
Speaker 5: you could be on the ground a lot of capacities,
Speaker 5: like I said, it could be recruited sources, human sources,
Speaker 5: it could be really exquisite signals intelligence as to use
Speaker 5: in a particular way. It could be other things besides
Speaker 5: ground troops. But ground troops really help because that's us,
Speaker 5: so you could trust us.
Speaker 6: It's the end of gotten no better. I mean, I
Speaker 6: hear you. But again, so they're doing these briefings and
Speaker 6: they're going to Trump and showing them all this stuff,
Speaker 6: and he's getting mesmerized. So Trump was a dufust Thanks
Speaker 6: for winning, But so.
Speaker 5: Isn't the same problem Maybe Trump won the same problem
Speaker 5: against ISIS because and I remember this because I was
Speaker 5: in Syrian and a rock during this time in Jordan
Speaker 5: as well, where we would you know, deliver up our strike,
Speaker 5: battle damage assessments and things like that. They would get
Speaker 5: restructured and repackaged before like they would leave us our teams,
Speaker 5: and on their way up to the president they would change.
Speaker 5: And this was that time when Trump's name had to
Speaker 5: be inserted dozens of times into his President's daily Brief
Speaker 5: in order for him to even pay attention, not even
Speaker 5: to absorb, but to just pay attention. And I remember
Speaker 5: we got our National Intelligence Priorities Framework designed and setting
Speaker 5: down to us for collection. It was not approved until
Speaker 5: Trump got to put his digital you know that that
Speaker 5: really weird signature he has in like size forty eight
Speaker 5: font on the actual matrix for our collection matrix. That
Speaker 5: was that was that had to happen, or else it
Speaker 5: couldn't get approved. So this is the person that's listening
Speaker 5: to this stuff. He will only consume what he likes
Speaker 5: to consume. So what's happening is these hangers on, these
Speaker 5: palace hangers on around him are changing the material and
Speaker 5: changing the information in a way that he'll actually digest,
Speaker 5: which means they have to alter it's actual subject matter
Speaker 5: and fundamental truth. That's my belief, and I saw it
Speaker 5: during Trump one, where they would actually modify things that
Speaker 5: we said on their way to the presence daily brief
Speaker 5: so that he would actually keep his eyes open on
Speaker 5: the page that's being dictated to him, because he's not
Speaker 5: reading it, it's being dictated to him, and he has
Speaker 5: to hear his own name. So this is that same
Speaker 5: person now ten years later, eight years later, eighty years old,
Speaker 5: just turned eighty, barely can stay awake, and so now
Speaker 5: think about how much of a challenge is to even
Speaker 5: hold his attention long enough. He doesn't care about what's
Speaker 5: happening in Iran. He cares about his image, his legacy,
Speaker 5: these things, and so the people around him are trying
Speaker 5: to feed him information that makes him believe that his
Speaker 5: legacy is positive. And you can see in what he's
Speaker 5: saying on social media he believes that the things he's saying.
Speaker 5: I don't think he disbelieves what he's saying. I think
Speaker 5: the information. If he saw what was actually true, he
Speaker 5: might not have such a positive attitude toward what's going
Speaker 5: on with Iran and related issues.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and John, you know, also there's there's the fact
Speaker 3: and I'm not defending the military here, Mark.
Speaker 6: Look, there's.
Speaker 3: There is an explanation that should have taken place, whether
Speaker 3: or not Trump wanted to listen to it or not.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if that explanation occurred. But you
Speaker 3: know b d A, as as John pointed out, is
Speaker 3: really tough unless your boots on the ground. And it's
Speaker 3: it's complex. I mean you there's three parts of it, right,
Speaker 3: I mean you you've got the physical damage assessment and
Speaker 3: and that's alone is quite difficult. You know if you're
Speaker 3: doing it just from the air, all right, what is
Speaker 3: your and you because you're comparing three m post strike pictures, right,
Speaker 3: which is difficult. Have assets that are dispersed and moving
Speaker 3: you're doing You've got a functional damage assessment, which asks
Speaker 3: the harder question. You know, if something was hit, can
Speaker 3: it still do its job? So give an example, I
Speaker 3: mean we're going after missile launchers. A missile launcher or
Speaker 3: with a created support building can can still do its job.
Speaker 3: It's completely operational, right, but it looks as though it's
Speaker 3: destroyed and it's easy to explain as such. And then
Speaker 3: you've got the really harder part, which is a system
Speaker 3: assessment which zooms out further and if individual nodes are destroyed,
Speaker 3: can the broader system still function? Reconstitute? And so you know,
Speaker 3: understanding all that, the analysts understand that, getting operational commanders
Speaker 3: to understand all that in itself is quite difficult to
Speaker 3: be honest with you. I think John will agree. And
Speaker 3: then and then when you're packaging it for a president
Speaker 3: who has quite a short attention span, let's you know,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm understating that. Then it becomes near impossible. So
Speaker 3: even without intentional duplicity, the whole bda thing was bound
Speaker 3: to go wrong. And when you're talking about a system assessment,
Speaker 3: you know, let's take the navy as an example, someone
Speaker 3: somewhere along the line should have told them the conventional
Speaker 3: Iranian navy was never a threat. The threat was always
Speaker 3: always small boats, mines and drones and missiles. Of course,
Speaker 3: in that order, missiles can be fired from anywhere and
Speaker 3: hit the straight anywhere.
Speaker 2: In Iran.
Speaker 3: Around's a big country. It's easy to disperse missiles. The
Speaker 3: Iranians use decoys, very easy to hide missile launchers there.
Speaker 3: I mean, all these, all these factors play in what
Speaker 3: is absolutely unjustifiable is the extreme confidence shown by guys
Speaker 3: in uniform when they breathed I agree with you, because
Speaker 3: they should understand what I have just explained. Because I'm
Speaker 3: not I'm not an intel in a list. I'm an
Speaker 3: operational guy, but I at least understand that, and so
Speaker 3: there was a sense of of misleading the American public.
Speaker 3: I do agree on on that from people who should
Speaker 3: have known BETA, or maybe they didn't. Maybe truly they
Speaker 3: have reached four star rank been quite ignorant about what
Speaker 3: BDA involves, or or you.
Speaker 6: Get the senior levels and you realize that you're there
Speaker 6: and if you say anything against the grain, you will
Speaker 6: not be there any longer.
Speaker 2: But I too.
Speaker 6: Conventional wisdom, and I'm just throwing this out there, and
Speaker 6: just for whatever I you know, you guys know this,
Speaker 6: but like, this has nothing to do with the you know,
Speaker 6: an F thirty five pilot or someone on a US
Speaker 6: ship somewhere, a US marine, like you know, the people
Speaker 6: on the ground. This is not them. I'm talking about
Speaker 6: the leadership who have to brief the President of the
Speaker 6: United States on how the conduct of the war is going.
Speaker 6: And and and Dan Kane, the chairman, has been given
Speaker 6: a pass because Pete Hagsath is such a complete and
Speaker 6: utter fool. Kine has been given a pass. But Kane
Speaker 6: also was involved in these briefings. And I don't think
Speaker 6: President Trump gets his rosy a picture without Dan Kane
Speaker 6: providing that rosy picture. And I think, you know, it's
Speaker 6: fair to go back and say because right now, I
Speaker 6: mean some people, I think some people, especially on the
Speaker 6: right in the United States, are like, hold on a second.
Speaker 6: I thought we were winning. We're kicking their ass every day.
Speaker 6: All we saw in Fox News was death and destruction
Speaker 6: from above. And wait a second. Now the narrative, of
Speaker 6: course on the right is shifted that we kind of
Speaker 6: screwed the pooch on this. But you know, there is
Speaker 6: something to be said out Mick came back, Mick, I
Speaker 6: this is I was. I was talking about something that
Speaker 6: you would you would we had talked about before, perhaps
Speaker 6: disagreed a little bit previously. Just has to do with
Speaker 6: kind of the military briefings that were provided over the
Speaker 6: last several months. And I you know, we had all
Speaker 6: given kind of uh, dan can a pass. But but
Speaker 6: I think we do have to go back and because
Speaker 6: with the happy math uh and all the things, and
Speaker 6: then Andy and Jonathan talked about the difficulties in BDA.
Speaker 6: But I do think we can go back and say, well,
Speaker 6: hold on a second. You know, the President has been
Speaker 6: brief NonStop that we're winning the military and these Pentagon briefings,
Speaker 6: even though Haigseth is kind of a fool. Dan Kane
Speaker 6: has been sitting there and saying kind of a lot
Speaker 6: soberly but saying the same things, and it turns around,
Speaker 6: turns out now that will hold on a second. So
Speaker 6: I do think that's fair to at least kind of
Speaker 6: question that, going back to things such as Andy said,
Speaker 6: you know, military briefings at Vietnam with body counts, and
Speaker 6: you know there's you know, I look back to times
Speaker 6: in Irock in Afghanistan, military briefings turned out really not
Speaker 6: to be correct. I think it's fair to just raise
Speaker 6: that now as we're sitting in a place where it
Speaker 6: looks like we're not coming out. I don't think we're
Speaker 6: losing this war at all, but we certainly are. You know,
Speaker 6: we didn't win, not yet.
Speaker 4: I mean, this should be something that's reviewed by basically
Speaker 4: the arm the services committees. They need to review, like
Speaker 4: because the tellis assessment, it's going to come out right,
Speaker 4: and then they can look at what was briefed and
Speaker 4: what was the case, and they can you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: they're just mistakes because they adjust their assessment. But it
Speaker 4: needs to happen because the history needs to be correct
Speaker 4: and we need to make sure that the presidents get
Speaker 4: in the right information and obviously the American people because
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, we pay for right
Speaker 4: I did right before I had to jump on it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: to another media outlet. I did have a question for
Speaker 4: you guys, because I heard somebody talking. She was on
Speaker 4: the House Intelligence Committee. Now she was trumpeting the idea
Speaker 4: that Ron signed this thing and said they won't to
Speaker 4: have a nuclear we as a big positive. I would say, well, like,
Speaker 4: they've agreed to not have a nuclear weapon, I don't
Speaker 4: know how many different times, and yeah, right, And then
Speaker 4: she said, and you can look it up. They she
Speaker 4: had seen intel, which is kind of an odd thing
Speaker 4: to say that they have a clandestine nuclear program, which
Speaker 4: kind of counted her position. You know, It's like, so,
Speaker 4: what does it matter if they're signing a document to
Speaker 4: the Great Satan that they're not going to have a
Speaker 4: nuclear and then she's and then it was like, wait
Speaker 4: a minute, what, because I mean I don't have access
Speaker 4: to information anymore. But she said that yesterday as if
Speaker 4: she had read it recently. So if they have a
Speaker 4: clandestine nuclear.
Speaker 2: Program, make you sorry repeat that a little bit. You
Speaker 2: broke up a little.
Speaker 4: So she was saying as somebody, as a member of
Speaker 4: the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that she had seen
Speaker 4: intelligence that they have a current clandestine nuclear weapons program.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's true. I haven't been open.
Speaker 4: I don't have access, and nor would I want it
Speaker 4: because I talk about this stuff too much. So if
Speaker 4: that's the case and we know it, what is it
Speaker 4: we're trying to negotiate, And what do we care if
Speaker 4: they're writing things that they clearly aren't intending to do?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean? Like, do you think that's accurate?
Speaker 4: I guess is a question for the group. And then
Speaker 4: the other part is how far advanced are we because
Speaker 4: we're only talking about the parts of the nuclear program
Speaker 4: that we think we know. You see what I mean?
Speaker 4: Is there one that's utilizing these fortresses that are impenetrable
Speaker 4: right now? I don't know, because that throws a big
Speaker 4: monkey ranch into the whole I think scenario going on.
Speaker 5: Well, when Chramani sent the delegation, he said that there
Speaker 5: had to be a certain number of these Supreme National
Speaker 5: Security Council members that would approve of the negotiations. There's
Speaker 5: twelve of them. It required nine yes votes, all twelve
Speaker 5: of course voted yes because it's an authoritarian regime. But
Speaker 5: in that statement saying that all of them agreed, they
Speaker 5: said they're going to approach these talks with total distrust.
Speaker 5: That's a quote total distrust. So as you mentioned, Mick,
Speaker 5: they're going to go sign this piece of paper with
Speaker 5: the Great Satan with total distrust. I would lean more
Speaker 5: toward the clandestin nuclear program being true than them agreeing
Speaker 5: to give up nuclear weapons verbally or on a piece
Speaker 5: of paper in Switzerland. And I think that's very important
Speaker 5: to understand. You act versus words. You know, there's a
Speaker 5: lot of words being thrown around right now because there's
Speaker 5: a financial incentive for them to look like they're doing
Speaker 5: what they say they're doing until they get their hands
Speaker 5: in that cash and they're going to put something that's
Speaker 5: going to get diverted. And that was a big, you know,
Speaker 5: dispute with the JCPOA was that if we give them
Speaker 5: a credit facility or some kind of special purpose vehicle
Speaker 5: with money for humanitarian supplies and things, that that would
Speaker 5: divert cash for them to use somewhere else in a
Speaker 5: negative way, you know, for purchasing dual use weapons. Systems
Speaker 5: or actuators and other in rocket systems. Right, And again,
Speaker 5: three hundred billion is a lot more than what was
Speaker 5: with the JCPOA. So even if that was used in
Speaker 5: a very strict humanitarian vehicle, and they claim there will
Speaker 5: be no weapons and no nuclear you know, equipment being produced,
Speaker 5: that's what they say. They approached this with total distrust.
Speaker 5: They said that I would take them at their worth.
Speaker 5: They don't trust the West, they have never trusted America.
Speaker 5: That has been death to America, death to Israel since
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy nine and remain so. And that's actually what
Speaker 5: anser Allah or the Huthis and Yemen, that's their slogan
Speaker 5: is death to America, death to Israel, even it's on
Speaker 5: their flag, and that's an Iranian proxy force. So I
Speaker 5: think we would be kind of deluding ourselves with idealism
Speaker 5: and hope, just wishing and hoping that the regime is
Speaker 5: being honest. They're telling us that they don't trust us.
Speaker 5: I feel like, how can you how can you look
Speaker 5: at that and just ignore that and say no, they're
Speaker 5: going to sign the document and they're going to follow it.
Speaker 1: I have a philosophical ish question, and I know the
Speaker 1: Iranian regime is shit and terrible, But can you blame
Speaker 1: them for giving no, not being able to trust us
Speaker 1: going into these negotiations, have you know, looking at the
Speaker 1: looking at it? Yeah, absolutely, by looking at the history,
Speaker 1: can you blame them, especially if their one goal is
Speaker 1: regime security, which Jack John's incredible book Our Ant Shadow
Speaker 1: Weapons points out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's from their perspective. They
Speaker 4: don't trust us, we don't trust them. And the question
Speaker 4: is like, wouldn't you be trying to get a nuclear weapon?
Speaker 4: I mean, I know it's not popular to say, but
Speaker 4: for pragmatic reasons, like if it like, what would you
Speaker 4: be doing if you were in their shoes right now?
Speaker 4: What would you be advocating for with the Supreme later? Seriously?
Speaker 4: I mean, look at you guys, aren't Yeah, on.
Speaker 6: This issue, I think it was a couple of things.
Speaker 6: One is you have to see which member of hipsie
Speaker 6: said this. You know, you know at which which member
Speaker 6: of the committee. Some of them are complete idiots, and
Speaker 6: so who knows if she said this, she probably shouldn't
Speaker 6: have the number. Two, there has been some reporting that
Speaker 6: suggested when the Israelis came to President Trump and uh,
Speaker 6: and kind of convinced convinced him for the nuclears, for
Speaker 6: the strike on the nuclear facilities, it had to do
Speaker 6: with something new that they had uncovered. So there is
Speaker 6: there might be something murky out there, and it's probably
Speaker 6: less you know, uh, conclusive that there is a clandestine
Speaker 6: nuclear weapon program. Could by the way, just that ended
Speaker 6: up itself if it was real. That leaks, Sorry it does.
Speaker 6: It ain't our collection, so that would leak.
Speaker 4: In a sentad way.
Speaker 3: It did.
Speaker 6: But but I think there's probably some nuance there.
Speaker 4: On that.
Speaker 6: One thing I wanted to raise with you guys, which
Speaker 6: you know, so it was interesting. So CNN reported essentially
Speaker 6: there's some side agreements on the MU and and then
Speaker 6: insinuated that there are leadership splits within or on I mean,
Speaker 6: I was going back and forth with some of the
Speaker 6: CNN commentators and they said, Okay, that might be true,
Speaker 6: because you really have the political types who are in
Speaker 6: Switzerland now. But the idea that somehow there's there's leadership
Speaker 6: splits and that you know, first of all, the political
Speaker 6: folks can come out on top, but that not that
Speaker 6: the IRGC is still controlling everything. I wonder if it
Speaker 6: even matters. But and you see this theme with especially
Speaker 6: with Vance and Trump, who you know, they say things
Speaker 6: I don't even because they've been briefed. But you know,
Speaker 6: there's reasonable people we're dealing with, or there are, you know.
Speaker 6: But so I guess the question is do you see
Speaker 6: any leadership splits? And if there are, doesn't even matter
Speaker 6: considering the IRGC are the ones with the guns.
Speaker 4: So the only thing I've heard on them leadership splits
Speaker 4: isse these folks that we obviously consider hard liners, the
Speaker 4: hard liners don't and they basically told them, don't come
Speaker 4: back if you concede anything that we told you not
Speaker 4: to concede. Like they're not acting like Gallibov and Arachi,
Speaker 4: you know, like they're they're I mean, correct me if
Speaker 4: I'm wrong, But most of what I've heard is they
Speaker 4: have been told like, even if you want to concede something,
Speaker 4: if we told you not to, don't do it. That's
Speaker 4: what it doesn't Matt Price, Yeah, right, yeah, but you.
Speaker 6: Know there's always this search for moderates. I mean, Jonathan,
Speaker 6: you have a pretty good sense of history of US
Speaker 6: Iranian relations, I mean from you know, Bud McFarland's key
Speaker 6: in a birthday cake or whatever, the fuck we did then.
Speaker 6: I mean, we always have this incredible desire to finding
Speaker 6: moderate to speak to in Iran and it never works
Speaker 6: and we end up looking like naive idiots.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and actually, for the listeners, what Mark's referring to
Speaker 5: is the Iran Contra affair where when we secretly went
Speaker 5: to go agree in Iran to delivering weapons for drugs
Speaker 5: and so on and all that scandal. There was a
Speaker 5: cake also delivered off the aircraft with a key in
Speaker 5: the cake, which is kind of a fascinating part of
Speaker 5: our history. I recommend people go read about it if
Speaker 5: they haven't read about that. But it's interesting.
Speaker 4: Why would we put again, it was like a trust exchange, and.
Speaker 5: It was actually organized by an Israeli businessman and that's
Speaker 5: the one who recommended putting the cake or putting the
Speaker 5: key in the cake. It's a whole interesting.
Speaker 6: It's I mean, it's really it's a humiliating story. But
Speaker 6: again it was a key bugged.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 5: But if you're looking at today right now in Iran,
Speaker 5: the question about is there a split, the answer is yes.
Speaker 5: And the way I can I can confirm that. So
Speaker 5: you know, the regime pays a lot of people to
Speaker 5: go out in the streets and do these pro regime
Speaker 5: protests to make it look like there are people in
Speaker 5: Iran that like widely supporting what's going on. Now these
Speaker 5: have actually gotten a little bit out of a hand
Speaker 5: because the people that are supporting the negotiations in Switzerland
Speaker 5: on the pro regime side are actually telling these protesters
Speaker 5: to please stop protesting, and they're not because they're being
Speaker 5: controlled by IERGC elements who are telling them to continue protesting.
Speaker 5: And you can actually see this played out on different
Speaker 5: Iran controlled media outlets. You know, there's the Islamic Republic
Speaker 5: of Iran Broadcasting which is the IERGC controlled media. Then
Speaker 5: there's a Ministry of Intelligence controlled broadcasting station also, and
Speaker 5: there are different narratives on both of these, even though
Speaker 5: they're both pro regime on the Ministry of Intelligence side
Speaker 5: and the Foreign Ministry supported media. They're saying that these
Speaker 5: protests are going down and people are leaving the streets,
Speaker 5: and on the IERGC side, they're actually amplifying and saying
Speaker 5: more people are coming out to the streets to protest
Speaker 5: the US negotiations with Iran. There is certainly.
Speaker 6: I love this, it's interesting, and we geek out on
Speaker 6: this stuff. The big question for you then doesn't matter?
Speaker 6: Does it?
Speaker 4: Is there?
Speaker 6: I mean, so you know we're seized on this, you
Speaker 6: see an intelligence report, they're split. So, okay, does it
Speaker 6: actually matter with the final Iranian position? How can the
Speaker 6: US take advantage of this argument? And maybe I'm totally wrong,
Speaker 6: is it doesn't matter because the herdline think anyway?
Speaker 5: It does matter because the way that we are defining
Speaker 5: moderate and hardliner is shifting. They are all hardliners in
Speaker 5: my opinion. If we say moderate, we're joking to ourselves.
Speaker 5: We're just talking in relative terms. But there's one person
Speaker 5: that's on the delegation in Switzerland that tells me that
Speaker 5: this matters, and that's Golibof. I actually saw yesterday, I
Speaker 5: think it was on CNN. He was described as a moderate,
Speaker 5: and I had to reread that sentence because I was like,
Speaker 5: how are you calling this guy a moderate? He is
Speaker 5: a deep seated hardlining member of the old IRGC crew
Speaker 5: that should have been whacked on day one, And in fact,
Speaker 5: the US asked Israel not to kill him, him and
Speaker 5: Vahiti both because we wanted to negotiate with him, because
Speaker 5: we didn't really understand who these people were, and now
Speaker 5: we see who they are and he's there in Switzerland.
Speaker 5: So if he is there in Switzerland, then whatever he
Speaker 5: decides is going to be the law of the land,
Speaker 5: which is a very important point. It's not that they
Speaker 5: sent a Ragchi this time or Pozeshkian. There's a reason
Speaker 5: Pozeshkiin is not on the delegation because Posesshkiin has zero
Speaker 5: control over what happens. He can say a lot, and
Speaker 5: he does say a lot on social media, but it's
Speaker 5: the IURGC who's in charge. In Golibof has held almost
Speaker 5: every important position in the IRGC that exists, and now
Speaker 5: he is the parliament speaker, so he controls the modules also,
Speaker 5: which is their like their Senate. He controls that now
Speaker 5: and he's the one that's leading the delegation. It's him
Speaker 5: a Ragchi, the Foreign Minister, it's represented from the Supreme
Speaker 5: National Security Council. It's the Central Bank Director of Iran
Speaker 5: who's a sanctioned individual but has a black diplomatic passport
Speaker 5: and travels to the United States to DC and oil representatives.
Speaker 5: So it's the mystery of oil. This is the delegation.
Speaker 5: So to your point, Mick, this Yeah, exactly. This is
Speaker 5: about the straits of horror moves and the movement of oil.
Speaker 5: This is not about resolution of conflict. It's about a
Speaker 5: specific economic outcome. As you mentioned, Mark, that Trump got
Speaker 5: flustered with what's going on economically and is trying to
Speaker 5: find a way out. That's why those people are at
Speaker 5: that meeting, so that there can be a way out
Speaker 5: for the US government to somehow get out of this
Speaker 5: with something.
Speaker 6: It seems like we're getting our asses handed by that.
Speaker 6: I mean, the Iranians are really good negotiators. I mean,
Speaker 6: but just you know, I mean, this is I mean,
Speaker 6: I hate to say this, Mick. I'm like, I'm with
Speaker 6: you on this, but I want us to win. But
Speaker 6: you have this select team versus wit Cooff and Jared
Speaker 6: and jd Vance. I just how do we win this?
Speaker 5: Well, plus, these negotiators on the Iran side have been
Speaker 5: negotiating the same people, The same named people have been
Speaker 5: negotiating for forty years. They're super experienced. Yeah, they've they've
Speaker 5: met every American delegation and they've seen them come and go.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like us going to Afghanistan every year
Speaker 5: and we meet the guys for the first time. They've
Speaker 5: been there the whole time, you know, and it's very
Speaker 5: similar to that.
Speaker 4: So I mean, like we're trying to come up with
Speaker 4: ideas and maybe I'll throw this to any In fact,
Speaker 4: they will throw it to any. One of the biggest
Speaker 4: issues of getting ships at the Strada Hormos is getting
Speaker 4: ships to accept that it's safe enough even with US
Speaker 4: military escort. You think there's a way that we could
Speaker 4: basically ensure all these ships and even put our people
Speaker 4: on it to try to get the free flow, because
Speaker 4: if we if we took that away from this becomes
Speaker 4: a different discussion. Like I'm throwing out there, I don't
Speaker 4: have any basis to know whether that's a potential, but
Speaker 4: I think we need to start thinking out of the
Speaker 4: box right now because if we're headed down to an
Speaker 4: I Runian successful outcome of this, Like, is that a
Speaker 4: potential with the military escort and the military umbrella that
Speaker 4: would be over that we could start getting the free force?
Speaker 3: I think and answer to your question, I mean, and
Speaker 3: I hate to say this, but there's the military side.
Speaker 3: There's no clean military fix. The military side could be
Speaker 3: used to enable a negotiated agreement about traits of all news.
Speaker 3: That's a tough part about this. I mean, keeping it
Speaker 3: open by force is what the blockade already tried. It
Speaker 3: just turned the Strait into contested space. You know, it
Speaker 3: didn't really solve anything. So a long term military commitment
Speaker 3: to hold a twenty one mile wide waterway against mines,
Speaker 3: fast boats, and drones is.
Speaker 6: Not a strategy, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean it's a it's a liability, right, So the
Speaker 3: real fix and it's a it's not a good answer.
Speaker 3: I mean it's the only answer. It's just not a
Speaker 3: satisfactory one.
Speaker 4: Is it's a.
Speaker 3: Slow structural approach, right, reduce dependence on the Strait itself.
Speaker 3: Saudi and Ua pipelines already bypass you know, they're already
Speaker 3: working on a bypar bypassing the Straits with exporting their oil.
Speaker 3: But that's you know, that's a long term approach. Find
Speaker 3: ways to make the cost of closing it land on
Speaker 3: Iran's own economy, specifically, not just spike prices for the
Speaker 3: whole world. Right now, the threat works precisely because the
Speaker 3: pain is global and diffuse. It's not concentrated on Turan.
Speaker 3: So we can find a way to do that. I mean,
Speaker 3: house isn't home Moose isn't a problem you can off
Speaker 3: and it's a fact of geography, and Iran will always
Speaker 3: be able to lean on it. The real progresses is
Speaker 3: making that leverage work less by finding it, you know,
Speaker 3: ways around it, and also directing some of that pain
Speaker 3: back on to Tehran. So it's it's it can't be
Speaker 3: solved by the military, which course paints me to say.
Speaker 3: And you know, while while I'm here and I know
Speaker 3: these about to shut us down, he's got to go
Speaker 3: on to more important things. No, I'm loving this, but
Speaker 3: but you know, Mark and Mick both kind of said
Speaker 3: it brought up the point that we need guys who
Speaker 3: really know what the goals are and how to negotiate,
Speaker 3: and we talked about what we should talk about. You
Speaker 3: know what do they do? So very briefly, I think
Speaker 3: they need to handle Lebanon first, right, because it's a
Speaker 3: live fuse. Iran has explicitly tied or moose access the
Speaker 3: Lebanon cease fire holding and we just watched it use
Speaker 3: that exactly justification to shut the straight down three days
Speaker 3: after signing the MoU So Israel isn't a party to
Speaker 3: this deal. Washington's having to manage a partner. It doesn't control,
Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't control the clock. And that's going
Speaker 3: to mean real pressure on They're going to have to
Speaker 3: bring real pressure on Israel, not just public statements asking
Speaker 3: for a restraint, because restraint hasn't worked. And until that
Speaker 3: is solved, and I mean real pressure, I mean whatever
Speaker 3: leverage we have with Israel, it's a time to use
Speaker 3: it because our interests as nations have diverged. And again
Speaker 3: I don't you know, I don't always agree with JD. Vance,
Speaker 3: but he's right in addict at that point. And Lebanon
Speaker 3: can make the whole thing blow up on our face
Speaker 3: unless we clamp it down right now. And the way
Speaker 3: to do that is bring pressure in Israel.
Speaker 4: That's number one.
Speaker 3: Number two is get the nuclear mechanism verified, not just promise.
Speaker 4: Right, So.
Speaker 3: Sixty days isn't going to solve the problem, but it's
Speaker 3: enough time to convert the vague language into a binding
Speaker 3: kind of verified agreement and similar to the jig poet
Speaker 3: right with real inspection, access, a real timeline, something that
Speaker 3: costs Iran a real price if it walks away, and
Speaker 3: then the other way. The third thing is we've got
Speaker 3: to stop spending leverage before Iran has moved on anything.
Speaker 3: The blockade's gone, the frozen assets are already moving. That
Speaker 3: was round one and it went before anything was verified.
Speaker 3: So whatever's left the reconstruction fund, future sanctions relief has
Speaker 3: to stay strictly conditional, this time tied to confirmed, verifiable steps,
Speaker 3: not handed over on good faith alone. So you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, the honest bottom line is nobody seriously expects
Speaker 3: sixty days to resolve the missile program or the proxies
Speaker 3: or the stockpile. The real tests is narrower, and that
Speaker 3: is what we can salvage out of the language from
Speaker 3: this mlu I think taking the steps we've already taken.
Speaker 3: At the same time, when it comes to a whole moose,
Speaker 3: looking for a longer term solution where we are not
Speaker 3: so dependent on who moose because this whole talk of
Speaker 3: us keeping it open militarily is absolutely impractical and it
Speaker 3: plays right into Iron's hands. So we want to figure
Speaker 3: out a way to remove that Trump conck from Iran.
Speaker 4: It just makes you wonder, like when they talked about
Speaker 4: the straight closing and we knew it was going to
Speaker 4: be closed, what was the plan. What was the plan
Speaker 4: to either keep it open or prevent it from closing
Speaker 4: or I mean that's what you talk about in the
Speaker 4: policy coordination process. I mean it's.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, just describe a problem with sent Com, you know,
Speaker 3: and I think I suspect that Mark is right on
Speaker 3: this that. I mean, I don't know what advice was offered,
Speaker 3: but I feel that if you offer advice, if you're
Speaker 3: at that nexus right between policy and strategy, and you
Speaker 3: have four stars on your collar, you should be willing
Speaker 3: to throw your career away for the sake of the nation.
Speaker 3: If you are offering advice and you know that not
Speaker 3: following that advice is going to be disastrous to your
Speaker 3: country's interests, then it's time to resign. And we didn't
Speaker 3: see that. I don't know what happened. I don't know
Speaker 3: why sent Com wasn't banging the table harder on that piece,
Speaker 3: but it does make me suspicious. I'm very disappointed, of course,
Speaker 3: not that anyone's really losing sleep over they.
Speaker 4: Didn't say that. You know, if here's your options and
Speaker 4: they all are not good, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely, I'm saying and in order
Speaker 3: for but there needs to be some bite to that. Right,
Speaker 3: here's your options, but if if the boss follow goes
Speaker 3: down a path that you know is going to be disastrous,
Speaker 3: then what do you do is just troll along and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: well he didn't take my advice. No, as a four
Speaker 3: star general, you owe your country a little more than that.
Speaker 3: That's just my belief. You get treated like a like
Speaker 3: a proconsole, like a viceroy. People, Jennif flipped in front
Speaker 3: of you, I mean those of you wearing uniform. No,
Speaker 3: I'm not exaggerating. It's unbelievable the way we treat four
Speaker 3: stars and so they're gods. Well, when the time comes
Speaker 3: with that, you know the whole Spider Man thing. Right,
Speaker 3: with great power comes great responsibility, and that includes being
Speaker 3: willing to say, Okay, I'm going to walk away from.
Speaker 4: This because.
Speaker 3: What you're going to do, what you're about to do
Speaker 3: by not following my advice, it's going to seriously hurt
Speaker 3: our interests. I know that all the fucking all the
Speaker 3: counter arguments to this, blah blah blah, you are. I'm
Speaker 3: not challenging civilian control of the military. Far from it.
Speaker 3: I'm saying that the military has a very key role
Speaker 3: in in uh in in in the long run, helping
Speaker 3: political leadership, not do things set out disastrous.
Speaker 6: I mean, look the outcome commander or chief, remember he
Speaker 6: he retired. Do you want to know?
Speaker 4: Partners?
Speaker 6: I just you know, so there there is that option.
Speaker 6: So I just I think it's yeah.
Speaker 3: And it does happen occasionally, very occasionally in the US
Speaker 3: military too occasionally. I mean, break Newball was probably the
Speaker 3: last time a three star or full star resigned of
Speaker 3: a question of principle, and that was on the outset
Speaker 3: of the Iraq War.
Speaker 6: And and Andy. The reason why I think it's fair
Speaker 6: to ask these questions is that the possibilities and I
Speaker 6: hope it doesn't get that way for a complete strategic
Speaker 6: disaster right now for the United States is real. I mean,
Speaker 6: that's how bad, no, I I you know, I mean,
Speaker 6: this is this is a doozy.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm saying it's not okay to now, Hey,
Speaker 3: you didn't take my advice, so I'm still gonna draw
Speaker 3: my pay and be jenifucted to Uh No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Work that way.
Speaker 3: In my mind, of course, damn above colonel, maybe that's why.
Speaker 2: But man, oh man, Okay, what a show. We'll see
Speaker 2: what happens.
Speaker 1: Obviously, this week, and we're gonna once we get off here,
Speaker 1: we'll probably be looking on our Twitter to see you
Speaker 1: about any kind of updates and stuff like that. With
Speaker 1: the talks in Switzerland right now. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: what else to say. We're doing plugs. John Hackett, great
Speaker 1: book I ran, Shadow Weapons The Theory of a Regular War.
Speaker 1: Those links are in the description. Mick mulroy, The white
Speaker 1: Fish Security Summit link is in the description. Come me
Speaker 1: up in February of next year. Mark, I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: the link to the article you wrote recently down in
Speaker 1: the description as well that we mentioned, So check that
Speaker 1: out of course, Ay Milburn, Uh, when of the type
Speaker 1: it's gathers great autobiography. That link is in the description
Speaker 1: as well. Do us a favor If you like the show,
Speaker 1: hit It Like Hit subscribe rated five stars and check
Speaker 1: out our Patreon, Patreon dot com slash the teamhouse for
Speaker 1: free episodes, early episodes and helping support the show. Guys
Speaker 1: A pleasure as always, Unhappy.
Speaker 5: Father's Day, Happy Father's Day, guys.
Speaker 2: Copy Father's Day to John to be.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right, Wow.
Speaker 2: Mike's always looking for me as always.
Speaker 3: Yes, The Modes of Modern Medical Science it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: what age you are now you can still approach Get
Speaker 3: on you ju.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Thanks guys.
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Speaker 3: As