Speaker 1: When we say who's in charge, we're usually wrong when
Speaker 1: we when we killed Salami, for example, the commander of
Speaker 1: the military, you know, we thought that would decapitate the IURGC.
Speaker 1: It didn't because he's not in charge. The people who
Speaker 1: are actually in charge are not big names. They call
Speaker 1: them sapahis or guardians that are in the background, that
Speaker 1: are controlling a lot of this stuff, not for ideological
Speaker 1: reasons as their number one reason. It's more about economic
Speaker 1: control and wealth generation for their for their inner circle.
Speaker 1: If the Iotola left, I feel very little with change.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes On Geopolitics.
Speaker 2: We've got a special one today. Of course, we're joining
Speaker 2: Nick mulroy, Jason Lyons, and special guest Jonathan Hackett.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: He's been on there, he's been Eyes On and Team
Speaker 2: House before, incredible episodes. Check them out for sure. He's
Speaker 2: a uh wrote this great book Iran Shadow Weapons, Covert Action,
Speaker 2: Intelligence Operation, Unconventional WARFRI. And I think he's a perfect
Speaker 2: guest for what's going on. What's been going on for
Speaker 2: a while, you know, last week so in Iran protests
Speaker 2: against the regime and stuff like that, they've seemed to
Speaker 2: turn violent. Over the last few days, the internet's been
Speaker 2: cut off countrywide. There's been like a lot of reports,
Speaker 2: varying reports of like how many people have been killed
Speaker 2: by the regime and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: It's like all the way up to a couple of thousand.
Speaker 2: They're saying that a lot of their hospitals are like
Speaker 2: overrun with people with gunshot wounds and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Jonathan has an intimate knowledge of what goes on in
Speaker 2: Iran and stuff, so I think he would have been
Speaker 2: a perfect guest for today. So thanks to me, Jonathan.
Speaker 2: What's up man?
Speaker 3: How are you good?
Speaker 1: How you guys doing?
Speaker 3: It's good to be here, good man.
Speaker 2: I mean, where do you want? Just want to start?
Speaker 2: You guys want to start like a basic on a TikTok,
Speaker 2: like what went down when and how it all popped off?
Speaker 4: Well, I could start with what I'm getting from media
Speaker 4: folks on the inside scoop if you will, like stuff
Speaker 4: that's not reported yet and obviously of interest. So apparently
Speaker 4: obviously there's significant protests, like over seventy cities. It appears
Speaker 4: that they have been identified as enemies of God now,
Speaker 4: which apparently and the Alexicon means you know open fire.
Speaker 4: It will when it comes to the besiege in the BIERGC.
Speaker 4: I think it's unknown how many have been killed, but
Speaker 4: I've seen reports size a thousand plus. I don't think
Speaker 4: people know, but I think there's a new scrubbing mechanism
Speaker 4: that uses AI to go through social media to try
Speaker 4: to identify more accurate numbers. But either way, it's really
Speaker 4: bad and for the protesters, I should say, and for
Speaker 4: the regime, which is a good thing of course, And
Speaker 4: I think Jonathan will get into all of the mechanisms
Speaker 4: that the regime has to stay in place. It's basically
Speaker 4: their main effort at all times, right, and they're just
Speaker 4: as concerned about their population, if not more so than
Speaker 4: even external threats. The other big factor I would throw
Speaker 4: out there for discussion with the group is, and this
Speaker 4: is now reported, so this is the public is that
Speaker 4: the administration is reviewing potential military options to enhance the
Speaker 4: protests in Iran. I would assume, although I don't know
Speaker 4: that there's already a pretty massive covert program going on.
Speaker 4: If not, there should be. I don't think that's the debate.
Speaker 4: I think the debates is whether they would use overt
Speaker 4: military efforts like strikes potentially on IRGC facilities or something
Speaker 4: that's directly associated with the security forces that are oppressing
Speaker 4: the people. I heard, and I think this is someone
Speaker 4: in reporting that the debates between the White House and
Speaker 4: the State Department. So the State Department's kind of of
Speaker 4: the mind that this won't help the protesters. It'll just potentially,
Speaker 4: you know, give the regime an out to say this
Speaker 4: is all US based, it's not real, et cetera. Hard
Speaker 4: to say that when it's extensive as it is, but
Speaker 4: they'll use it and potentially try to get people a
Speaker 4: rally around the flag, so to speak. And then I'm
Speaker 4: told that the White House has been very uh pleased
Speaker 4: with their use of military force in the second term
Speaker 4: to date and that they are war incline to use it.
Speaker 4: So there you go. Throw it back to you guys
Speaker 4: to hit those points. I think jonathan'ld be great to
Speaker 4: really talk about what the regime does to keep itself
Speaker 4: in power, because he's he's written some excellent books on
Speaker 4: the topic, and I think, as you said, the perfect timing,
Speaker 4: and he's a Murray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, almost our fire had to throw that out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah with that, yeah, yeah, So it's day fifteen of
Speaker 1: the protests, so that, as you're saying, Mick, it's very
Speaker 1: tough to know exactly how many are injured, how many
Speaker 1: are killed, how many have disappeared, And the problem there
Speaker 1: is that both sides benefit from whatever number they're using
Speaker 1: because it can satisfy different objectives based on what that
Speaker 1: number is. And that's similar in most conflicts and protests,
Speaker 1: So we probably will never really know exactly how many
Speaker 1: died in this protest or were arrested. Similar happened in
Speaker 1: the past. There's been about ten different protests that have
Speaker 1: names that are very significant in Iran in the last
Speaker 1: forty plus years, and this always is an issue of
Speaker 1: knowing how widespread is it, who actually is dying, who's
Speaker 1: doing the killing. Interestingly, in this particular protest, because they
Speaker 1: shut the internet off around seventy two hours ago, the
Speaker 1: only media that's being released is being released by IRIIB,
Speaker 1: which is it's the Islamic Republic if Iran Broadcasting, which
Speaker 1: is a state owned and state controlled, IERGC controlled news outlet.
Speaker 1: That's the outlet that's actually releasing images of morgues and
Speaker 1: warehouses and hospitals full of bodies, which is very interesting
Speaker 1: to consider. Why would the regime be doing that. And
Speaker 1: I think it's more about messaging to Iranians than it
Speaker 1: is about messaging to the world. And what they're probably
Speaker 1: trying to do is intimidate the people that are once
Speaker 1: their internet actually gained some access, the first images they're
Speaker 1: going to see are images of their dead people. And
Speaker 1: I think that's probably the goal of what that is
Speaker 1: right there. And that's again, the Internet has been a
Speaker 1: weapon that the regime has been using recently. They use
Speaker 1: it in June against their own people. They actually shut
Speaker 1: the internet off when Israel and the US were striking
Speaker 1: your on. That wasn't the outside shutting them off. That
Speaker 1: was the regime shutting the people off from knowing what
Speaker 1: was going on. Because fear is their weapon. I think
Speaker 1: it was rage against the machine that said like fear
Speaker 1: is your only God on the radio, and I mean
Speaker 1: it's really true. You can weaponize this feeling, which will
Speaker 1: maybe prevent some people from actually taking to the streets,
Speaker 1: because what the regime does not want is more people
Speaker 1: on the streets. Even if those people don't have weapons,
Speaker 1: they have voices, and they have the ability, they have
Speaker 1: spending power, and in an economy that's damaged. Like the
Speaker 1: current Iranian economy, spending power is everything. And that's a
Speaker 1: huge point about who is actually protesting right now. If
Speaker 1: you look at, for example, in twenty twenty one during
Speaker 1: the water shortage protests, or twenty nineteen which they called
Speaker 1: Bloody Abon, which is when fuel prices had tripled, and
Speaker 1: I could name a bunch of other ones, there was
Speaker 1: usually a single segment of society protesting. You know, for example,
Speaker 1: during the masa Amini protest, it was a lot about
Speaker 1: human rights, women's rights, So there's a certain segment of
Speaker 1: society it's going to stand out there and protest right now.
Speaker 1: The significant news item is that it's not just one group.
Speaker 1: It's the Bazari merchants, which were actually the people that
Speaker 1: fueled the base for the regime to take power in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine in the first place, and that core
Speaker 1: element of their constituency is protesting against them. This is
Speaker 1: a huge change and has never happened since nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: So that's a very interesting development.
Speaker 4: Question for you on the internet. So we don't go
Speaker 4: past that because I mean, they shut it down, But
Speaker 4: what about skylike like is their ability to override that
Speaker 4: does it take. And if you don't know the answer, sorry,
Speaker 4: if I'm putting you on the spot or on business
Speaker 4: for everybody, like, is that able to get through? Are
Speaker 4: they actually able to interfere with Skylink's ability to provide
Speaker 4: the Internet to the population in Iran or and there's
Speaker 4: something we could do cyber wise to affect that change.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So what you're talking about is basically a mesh
Speaker 1: network configuration, which Starlink is a branded version of a
Speaker 1: mesh network. I actually wrote a paper on this enable
Speaker 1: post graduate school, where you can create a mesh network
Speaker 1: to provide Internet and basically circumvent a state controlled internet system,
Speaker 1: which the regime actually imported the Great Firewall from China.
Speaker 1: China came in and actually as a partnership built Iran's
Speaker 1: internet infrastructure, which is what the regime is throttling right now.
Speaker 1: So they're able to filter almost ninety eight percent of
Speaker 1: Internet traffic using this mechanism. But the regime has had
Speaker 1: a problem not just with mesh networks like you're talking about,
Speaker 1: but also with dishes on roofs. And if you see
Speaker 1: pictures of Tehran or any other major city, you just
Speaker 1: see roofs covered in satellite dishes because the everyday people
Speaker 1: they want to be able to reach out to the
Speaker 1: outside world, and they're using these these parabolic antennas to
Speaker 1: do that. There are other ways as well, because even
Speaker 1: with the throttled Internet you can still get around it.
Speaker 1: There's two applications. One is called Freegate and one is
Speaker 1: called Siphon, and both of these are used to get
Speaker 1: around the Chinese Great Firewall and Iran's what it's called
Speaker 1: National Internet Network, which is called the niin. Both of
Speaker 1: these basically act as open web proxies that have these
Speaker 1: huge rotating server lists. They don't always work. Let's say
Speaker 1: it's like a ninety eight percent failure rate, but if
Speaker 1: you can get a two percent success rate on that
Speaker 1: penetrating the filtered network, that's success, right. So if you
Speaker 1: couple that with a mesh network like starlink, you could
Speaker 1: have some success. The problem with starlink is it costs money.
Speaker 1: You're talking about a regime where the economy is completely
Speaker 1: controlled by the IRGC and the people are protesting because
Speaker 1: they have no money.
Speaker 4: How are you going to put it? Seems be a
Speaker 4: good investment on the US government's part.
Speaker 3: Just that's not.
Speaker 1: Exactly what I was getting at is that if we're
Speaker 1: talking about covert support or even overt support, maybe that
Speaker 1: means paying subsidizing starlink temporarily to allow people access so
Speaker 1: they can go out and arrange protest movements.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and so the rest of the world, you know,
Speaker 4: And I would say that we should stick to the
Speaker 4: covert side, not to direct overt strikes. I kind of
Speaker 4: agree with State on this. But one of the things
Speaker 4: we can do is amplify the organic nature of what's
Speaker 4: going on right now, and that's giving people the Internet
Speaker 4: put out there what's happening. You know, hopefully that's the case. Hopefully,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure you know there's smart people looking at
Speaker 4: this right now how we can do that. But so
Speaker 4: you do think, Jonathan, there's a way around this attempt
Speaker 4: of the regime to basically put the country in the dark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's going to affect most people because
Speaker 1: most people aren't sophisticated enough to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get around it. But there are other ways too. So
Speaker 1: I mentioned the filtering anti filtering, those two applications freegate
Speaker 1: and siphon. Then there's the Mesh network like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: And there's another way, which is if you're in the
Speaker 1: border areas like an herd a stand or abadon down
Speaker 1: the south. If you're close enough to the Emirates, or
Speaker 1: you're close enough to Iraq, you can use Cork, you
Speaker 1: can use a tess a lot. These are the two
Speaker 1: other Internet service providers that are in Iraq and the
Speaker 1: Emirates that actually you can reach them because of a
Speaker 1: line of sight, so you could actually still transmit outside
Speaker 1: the country totally absent of the government's control of the Internet.
Speaker 1: Can you amplify those You can do that with repeters. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: especially in a country like Iran that has a lot
Speaker 1: of high dramatic terrain, perfect situation for reputers across the
Speaker 1: top of the ridge lines to just pass that signal
Speaker 1: from a major city to the border area.
Speaker 2: Are there doing that? I'm hoping right Cia M I
Speaker 2: six Whoever, hopefully.
Speaker 1: It's really tough because those things are so obvious that
Speaker 1: if the regime, I mean, all you need is a
Speaker 1: you know, a small handheld device to figure out where
Speaker 1: that signal is coming from and direction, find on it
Speaker 1: and destroy it, which is what they were doing with
Speaker 1: the antennas on roofs as well. There's just so many
Speaker 1: of them. If you could flood the environment with these devices,
Speaker 1: the regime just wouldn't have the resources to stop it.
Speaker 4: Could you do it wrong? Version of a repeater.
Speaker 1: You could, but that would require a lot of power.
Speaker 4: I know we're geeking out here, or at least I am,
Speaker 4: on the tactics of this, but I'm not a cyber
Speaker 4: expert by any stretch. But it seems like that would
Speaker 4: be one of the best things that the international community,
Speaker 4: including in the United States of course, could do to
Speaker 4: amplify what is clearly an organic, not you know, fabricated
Speaker 4: uprising against the regime, right, So, I mean, and you're
Speaker 4: a very well published author, which is awesome. Can you explain?
Speaker 4: And sorry, I know you probably have some questions, but
Speaker 4: I just wanted to know this because I'm going to
Speaker 4: be talking happing about this today, Like what is the
Speaker 4: mechanism other than what we all know why our GC
Speaker 4: besiege et cetera. Could force like the mechanism internal that
Speaker 4: keeps the regime in place, both by you know, the
Speaker 4: kind of intelligence and the action arm of that element.
Speaker 4: And are they any good because we've obviously saw direct
Speaker 4: strikes by Israel on individuals that they had you know
Speaker 4: they were hosting and clearly they've been infiltrated. What's your
Speaker 4: thought on that and can you kind of give the
Speaker 4: listeners an idea just how they keep themselves in power
Speaker 4: with such a opposition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this grip on power that we see today
Speaker 1: is kind of a long term development that started in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine when the current Iatola took over from
Speaker 1: the original Ayatola. And what happened was he consolidated power
Speaker 1: economically through these organizations called bonyads, which are essentially kind
Speaker 1: of like quasi religious charity organizations on paper, but what
Speaker 1: they do is actually funnel all the money the regime
Speaker 1: controls into these specialized and tes. That's at one layer,
Speaker 1: and then below that are things like banks, state pension funds,
Speaker 1: you know, overseas investment funds. So you think about like
Speaker 1: in the United States we have private equity and hedge
Speaker 1: funds and things like that. The regime has something very
Speaker 1: similar to that that are owned in the person of
Speaker 1: the Ayatola, and one of them is called Setad se Tad,
Speaker 1: which is interesting to look into if you have time.
Speaker 1: There was a time article, i think in the nineties
Speaker 1: about Ayatola Kamani about how he's potentially one of the
Speaker 1: richest human beings on earth, more than j Bezos because
Speaker 1: of his control over these bonyards. And it's we're talking
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of dollars. And there was actually a
Speaker 1: statement by the Minister of Finance in the regimes inner
Speaker 1: circle a few years ago where he admitted that twenty
Speaker 1: percent of the black market in Iran is controlled by
Speaker 1: the IERGC. So if the government is saying twenty percent
Speaker 1: is controlled by the IRGC, you can only imagine what
Speaker 1: the real number is, right, And if they're controlling the
Speaker 1: black market and they're also controlling the regular commercial market,
Speaker 1: it it's not about necessarily our conventional ideas about securitization of
Speaker 1: a state, which is what's causing repression. Instead it's economic
Speaker 1: control of the state. So the reason fuel prices are high,
Speaker 1: the reason the tomn is devalued, the real is devalued,
Speaker 1: the reason there's little water access, this is because the
Speaker 1: regime is controlling the economy rather than allowing actual government
Speaker 1: functions to move normally as they should. I could go
Speaker 1: into it very deeply, but I'll leave it there.
Speaker 3: John.
Speaker 2: We had like there was like a report maybe a
Speaker 2: month or a few months ago, maybe two three months
Speaker 2: ago about Iran and their the drought, the problem with
Speaker 2: their water has that is it really like just comes
Speaker 2: down to the regime like holding the you know, the
Speaker 2: Spagott open or not in terms of like getting because
Speaker 2: they were talk about moving to the capital and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. I can't say, like just insane things that
Speaker 2: you can't even like, you know, the scale of it
Speaker 2: is like unbelievable to even think about.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is not a new issue. I mean twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one there is a huge protest movement. It was
Speaker 1: water shortage and labor issues and some other stuff. The
Speaker 1: problem is this infrastructure that is in the water system
Speaker 1: is poorly maintained. It's basically Shaw era infrastructure that's not
Speaker 1: ever been updated. So you've got like rotting metal, you've
Speaker 1: got pipes clogged up, you've got poorly managed dams. Because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of corruption in the government obviously, right,
Speaker 1: so like the people that are supposed to be like
Speaker 1: technocrats that you'd want running these things are not running them. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's higher GC affiliated individuals who are either brainwashed or
Speaker 1: sympathetic to the regime as their number one qualification to
Speaker 1: be running a dam, right, So that's that's a big problem. Also,
Speaker 1: I think it's I camember how many decades. This is
Speaker 1: the worst drought Iran has had in decades, right, So
Speaker 1: they're already at a low water table. They're having issues
Speaker 1: with how the crops are being like how the efficiency
Speaker 1: of the actual movement of water to grow crops is happening.
Speaker 1: You have to remember it's a very mountainous country. Like
Speaker 1: where we mentioned there's there's very little kind of lowland
Speaker 1: flat land with water access, so it requires extra infrastructure
Speaker 1: to actually move water from mountain to mountain. There's one
Speaker 1: navigable river in the entire country at the Karoon River
Speaker 1: where actual ships can move on the rest of it
Speaker 1: are not navigable by large ships, So there's already like
Speaker 1: a environmentally low water level there. Combine that with corruption
Speaker 1: and with a drought, now you've got a recipe for
Speaker 1: water disaster, which is like one small component of the
Speaker 1: current protests.
Speaker 4: So the next thing, of course, is what if we
Speaker 4: have catastrophic success. I'm sorry, Jay, just throw that out there.
Speaker 4: Maybe you have like the questions I'm getting is what
Speaker 4: comes next? Right, Like what if you know there's reports
Speaker 4: that the Iatola is talking about fleeing to Moscow, et cetera. Like,
Speaker 4: what if the regime is decapitated, is it just simply
Speaker 4: going to leave the IRGC is presumptive power that will
Speaker 4: fill the vacuum. Is there any chance that it could
Speaker 4: be a formation of a government more friendly to the
Speaker 4: United States, the West and being part of the you know,
Speaker 4: community and nations. Is there any leader that actually has
Speaker 4: the clout to stand up and do that, or are
Speaker 4: we basically going to move from a theocracy into a
Speaker 4: military dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's three possible outcomes. But I'll first
Speaker 1: put a pin on the thing about the decapitation. When
Speaker 1: we say decapitation, we're typically thinking about a person or
Speaker 1: a small group. So in this case, most people are thinking, well,
Speaker 1: if we kill Ayatola Jameni or he runs away to Moscow,
Speaker 1: if the regime is decapitated. But there's a problem. It's
Speaker 1: like the whole problem framing concept in military planning. If
Speaker 1: we don't frame the correct the problem correctly, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be pursuing the wrong problem in the wrong solution the
Speaker 1: entire time. The thing is with the regime. When we
Speaker 1: say who's in charge, we're usually wrong. You know, when
Speaker 1: we killed Salami, for example, the commander of the military,
Speaker 1: you know, we thought that would decapitate the IURGC. It
Speaker 1: didn't because he's not in charge. The people who are
Speaker 1: actually in charge are not big names. They're not on
Speaker 1: the on the news all the time. It's a small
Speaker 1: group of they call them sapahis or guardians that are
Speaker 1: in the background, that are controlling a lot of the stuff.
Speaker 1: Not for ideological reasons as their number one reason. It's
Speaker 1: more about economic control and wealth generation for their for
Speaker 1: their inner circle. So if the Iotola left, I feel
Speaker 1: very little would change. And I'll go back to the
Speaker 1: three outcomes. One is that he leaves and or dies,
Speaker 1: The second one is that the monarch returns, and the
Speaker 1: third one is that the IERGC takes over. These are
Speaker 1: very three, you know, common potential outcomes. The most likely
Speaker 1: thing that will probably happen, and I'm not a future
Speaker 1: you know predictor of the crystal ball. Probably what would
Speaker 1: happen is the IRGC would take over. That third option
Speaker 1: is most likely. The reason for that is because the
Speaker 1: monarchy is not universally liked, even by people who want
Speaker 1: freedom in the country. Because a monarchy doesn't really equal freedom,
Speaker 1: It just equals another way of consolidating power, which is
Speaker 1: what the revolution was about in the first place. A
Speaker 1: lot of the outside Iran support for inside Iran protests
Speaker 1: talk about the monarchy, and that does not correlate to
Speaker 1: what people want inside the country. And it's the people
Speaker 1: inside the country that ultimately have to live every day
Speaker 1: with what the next government is. Right, So that's always
Speaker 1: a question of what do the people outside want versus
Speaker 1: what the people inside want, And we have to rectify
Speaker 1: those two desires in kind of trying to predict what
Speaker 1: might happen next and what the consequences are. And if
Speaker 1: the US or Israel is perceived widely by people in
Speaker 1: Iran that they were behind a regime change and the
Speaker 1: monarch came back, I feel like we'd probably run into
Speaker 1: a very similar problem that we had with the original
Speaker 1: Shah before he left, where there was this widespread kind
Speaker 1: of consternation about who's actually running things in the country,
Speaker 1: even if the monarch was purely running it himself without
Speaker 1: foreign influence. If people doubted enough, you're going to lose
Speaker 1: that kind of support for that leadership.
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Speaker 3: Jay, what do you got? You were going to say something.
Speaker 7: I was just gonna ask, as far as the protests
Speaker 7: are concerned, do you think that the regime is willing
Speaker 7: to Is there a red line that the regime would
Speaker 7: not want to protest to cross before they increase their
Speaker 7: the use of violence against the protesters, and what might
Speaker 7: that look like if they were I think the regime
Speaker 7: is acting in a state of fear and survival and
Speaker 7: they're not using logic to calculate to your question about
Speaker 7: a red line.
Speaker 1: I think what they're doing is they're going to continue
Speaker 1: throwing assets at the problem to try to tamp down.
Speaker 1: And there's actually clear indications of that happening right now.
Speaker 1: They have Afghans actually manning checkpoints in eastern Iran. They
Speaker 1: have Hezbola in Tehran marching down the streets enforcing the law.
Speaker 1: They have Pakistanis, and they have some other foreign fighters
Speaker 1: that we're working with the regime in Syria that are
Speaker 1: now in Iran actually doing a siege like law enforcement activity.
Speaker 1: They did this previously in I think it was twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen or twenty seventeen. It was twenty seventeen. During one
Speaker 1: of those protests, they had five thousand Lebanese Hezbula fighters
Speaker 1: patrolling the streets in Tehran. And I think you'll see
Speaker 1: something like that continuing, where rather than making a logical
Speaker 1: choice about what to do next, they're going to just
Speaker 1: continue throwing these foreign assets at it to try to
Speaker 1: tamp down.
Speaker 7: Which was what is their probable state of mind? And
Speaker 7: you said it's panic mode right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've been this way for a long time and
Speaker 1: they've that's kind of been their main mode of behaving.
Speaker 1: Rather than thinking like a rational actor, they've been acting
Speaker 1: like someone with their backup against the wall, making very
Speaker 1: rash decisions about what to do next.
Speaker 2: I mean, you do see what the uh what uh
Speaker 2: Comane's tweeting and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: He's tweeted like an absolute maniac.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: That doesn't sound like somebody who's really in control and
Speaker 2: locked into what's going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if I was, you know, if I was
Speaker 1: the ninety year old dictator and I was afraid that
Speaker 1: I might get to pose, I'd probably stay off of
Speaker 1: Twitter because, uh, every time you hit send. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Hey, Jen, so I gotta jump real quick. I'll
Speaker 4: try to jump back on I all.
Speaker 2: Right, look mixed, going to say mixed, going to parachute
Speaker 2: into Teyran right now to assassinate the Supreme Leader.
Speaker 3: You didn't, you're here to hear first.
Speaker 1: Bring me back some saffron.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I know you don't want to speculate, but
Speaker 2: like you said, like the IRGC is likely if you
Speaker 2: had a bet money, likely, the IRGC is the one
Speaker 2: that would take over Iran. Also, the interesting thing I've
Speaker 2: seen like over the last it's been more than like
Speaker 2: the last few weeks of protests. It's been more like
Speaker 2: the last few months basically ever since we Israel and
Speaker 2: the US hit the nuclear sites.
Speaker 3: It was like you see these kind of like puff pieces.
Speaker 2: In America, like the Western media about the Shaw and
Speaker 2: how and you know you hear it on Twitter too,
Speaker 2: as these protests have continued to go on where they
Speaker 2: like bring back the show, long live a show and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and it's like, dude, this guy's been
Speaker 2: outside of Iran for fifty years. Yeah, so it's like
Speaker 2: they really is some like secret love for this guy
Speaker 2: to come back, or is that just what like Western
Speaker 2: powers really want.
Speaker 1: You got to think about a lot of the Iranians
Speaker 1: that are let's say our parents' age, that are outside
Speaker 1: of Iran. They left Iran during your revolution, so like
Speaker 1: they grew up Proshaw left the country after their views
Speaker 1: and now they're speaking and their kids grew up like
Speaker 1: that too. So people that are our age or even
Speaker 1: younger grew up in that environment, like in calif Warn you,
Speaker 1: for example Los Angeles a lot of pro Shaw stuff,
Speaker 1: because that's those were the people that left the regime
Speaker 1: or left the country and came to the United States.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what we have. Doesn't mean it's it's
Speaker 1: false support, but it may be overemphasized or over over.
Speaker 1: It's it's not representing the actual sentiment, especially like I said,
Speaker 1: inside Iran, like because those are the people that will
Speaker 1: have to be dealing with the new government if there
Speaker 1: is one every day, and is that the government that
Speaker 1: they wanted in the first place? You know, And actually
Speaker 1: Iran people think about Iran, they think like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: this centralized authoritarian system, whether it's a monarch or it's
Speaker 1: a ayatola. But Iran actually has had democracy twice in
Speaker 1: its h you know century recent century of history. Nineteen
Speaker 1: oh six they had a constitutional revolution. In the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three they had Muhammed Mossadeg who was deposed by
Speaker 1: the CIA. Both of those times that people actually picked
Speaker 1: their government, and both times it was a democracy. So
Speaker 1: there is a big desire for that in Iran. The
Speaker 1: problem is, and I don't know if this is over
Speaker 1: to the Venezuela discussion, there's oil in Iran, and foreign
Speaker 1: interest in oil are always looking they and it's easier
Speaker 1: to manage a single authoritarian than it is to manage
Speaker 1: a democracy if you want the oil out of that country, right,
Speaker 1: and that's just rational, you know international relations concept. You
Speaker 1: want to have the simplest access to that resource. So
Speaker 1: whether it's the United States, Britain, Russia, or China, all
Speaker 1: of them have something in common, and that is they
Speaker 1: want the oil in Iran. And if that means that
Speaker 1: they need to keep it dictator or a monarch in power,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll do it because that means they get what
Speaker 1: they want.
Speaker 2: It's interesting you said, how you know folks that came
Speaker 2: from Iran like immigrated to the States and like you know,
Speaker 2: maybe the UK and other places after the year during
Speaker 2: the you know, the fall a mirrors a lot like
Speaker 2: Cuban immigrants right to the States, even like Greek immigrants
Speaker 2: to the States, right, like a lot of them came
Speaker 2: over during like the junta and stuff like that. There
Speaker 2: are those like he kind of gets they kind of
Speaker 2: get stuck in time a little bit, right and remember
Speaker 2: like the good old days before, without thinking what the
Speaker 2: actual people on the ground of whether it's Cuba, Greece, Iran,
Speaker 2: or take your pick, really want for themselves. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you have anything else in Iran or jay if you
Speaker 2: have any questions on it Iran, I just let.
Speaker 3: Them want to ask if you.
Speaker 7: Know what Israel's role on the ground might be or
Speaker 7: even geopolitical. As far as all this is concerned, what
Speaker 7: are they saying.
Speaker 1: From my contacts inside Iran, the consensus or feeling is
Speaker 1: that Israel's deeply penetrated the i urgy see and outside
Speaker 1: the erurgycy but still in the government because there are
Speaker 1: some actual secular components of the government. And I think
Speaker 1: that's probably true. And the question is the ones who
Speaker 1: are infiltrated, are those the ones that will eventually take
Speaker 1: over or is there a separate element that will eventually
Speaker 1: take over. And it's really tough to say because obviously
Speaker 1: when you're doing clandestine work, it's hard to manage that
Speaker 1: because it's clandestine, so you can't actually, you know, answer
Speaker 1: every question about what your move might do, what the
Speaker 1: effect might be. I think it will be interesting because
Speaker 1: if you look at who was assassinated in June, there
Speaker 1: is certainly a select deck of individuals who were killed
Speaker 1: and then a select deck of peers who were not killed.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, doing some inferential analysis, you
Speaker 1: could question about why did they survive?
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, you know, because we're you know, relatively.
Speaker 2: It's understood that the kuts Force and i Arogy. You see,
Speaker 2: obviously it protects Iran and its main thing is to
Speaker 2: protect itself and the Supreme you know, the Ayatola. But
Speaker 2: like they're obviously deployed across the world. Are they pulling
Speaker 2: back in terms of like their covert stuff outside of
Speaker 2: Iran to like come back and be like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: we got to make sure things are covered at home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's important to distinguish between kuts Force, which
Speaker 1: is like a special operations element that does partner force
Speaker 1: training with the elite partner units like in Syria previously,
Speaker 1: and the IRGC generally, which is much larger because the
Speaker 1: IRGC also has an intelligence organization which actually took over
Speaker 1: from the we call it the MOIS, but if they
Speaker 1: actually call it VAJA. So IRGC Intelligence Organization took over
Speaker 1: domestic intelligence activities from this other entity in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine after the Green Revolution that Johan Bashi sobs
Speaker 1: and when they did that, they set up across every
Speaker 1: province an outpost. So there's IERGC Intelligence Organization all over
Speaker 1: the country, and there's also some other elements. There's there's
Speaker 1: actually quite a few other other named elements that are
Speaker 1: supporting them on all these provinces. So kutz Force is
Speaker 1: still doing what Kudz Force does because it's a foreign entity,
Speaker 1: like they're supposed to only do stuff outside the country,
Speaker 1: whereas IRGC Intelligence Organization is the one that's most concerning
Speaker 1: domestically and also regionally. So there's there we call it IRGCIO.
Speaker 1: The IO is all over the place in like Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Syria,
Speaker 1: like the ring around Iran basically as could force as
Speaker 1: much further out. You know, they're in Latin America, they're
Speaker 1: in Africa, they're sometimes in the United States. Not doing
Speaker 1: very well with their operations they try, you know, so
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty widespread, whereas it's the the io that's
Speaker 1: inside Iran that's that's causing a lot of this background
Speaker 1: collection that's resulting in a lot of what they do
Speaker 1: is they'll they'll they'll disappear people to scare others. So
Speaker 1: you saw during the masa Amini protests what they would
Speaker 1: do is they would actually use Instagram to geolocate where
Speaker 1: the people were, and they'd go to their house and
Speaker 1: basically throw them off their rooftop to kill them that way,
Speaker 1: and then say that someone committed suicide, you know, and
Speaker 1: like they would use this as a way to instill
Speaker 1: fear and kind of like make people think twice about
Speaker 1: stepping outside. But they've turned the Internet off, so they
Speaker 1: can't use that tool very well. Right, Yeah, So going
Speaker 1: back to what I was mentioning earlier, that's why they're
Speaker 1: probably releasing these images of people and you know, the
Speaker 1: dead essentially is to try to achieve that same outcome.
Speaker 3: Damn unbelievable. What's going on? All right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's flip to another oil rich country, Venezuela, that
Speaker 2: we last week. Obviously everyone knows, we went in and
Speaker 2: snatched Maduro. He's three miles away from my house right now,
Speaker 2: relaxing in a Brooklyn detention center. Interesting thing this week,
Speaker 2: what happened. You know, we saw President Trump with Secretary
Speaker 2: of State Rubio and some other folks from the administration
Speaker 2: meet with a round table of oil executives and the
Speaker 2: Halliburton executive. And I joked with you guys before the
Speaker 2: show started about how insane that would be if we
Speaker 2: did that in two thousand and two, in two thousand
Speaker 2: and three when we went into our Iraq. And now
Speaker 2: it just seems to be normal, Like this is like
Speaker 2: just normal operating procedure. And I kind of went through
Speaker 2: down a rabbit hole in terms of like what what's
Speaker 2: the deal with Venezuelan oil and how it's like heavy
Speaker 2: crude and it needs like serious refinement, and that like
Speaker 2: Venezuela really isn't the infrastructure really isn't there. It needs
Speaker 2: like five to ten years of like modernization for them
Speaker 2: to like make it cost effective. You know, they get
Speaker 2: like they get some precursor that goes into the oil
Speaker 2: to like you know thin it out from Russia, Like
Speaker 2: they don't really have a great infrastructure there. Also, the
Speaker 2: other part about the heavy crew thing is like heavy
Speaker 2: crew needs to be at eighty dollars a barrel for
Speaker 2: it to make sense economically for Venezuela. Also, the whole
Speaker 2: thing about them having three hundred plus billion of reserves
Speaker 2: was a number that Hugo Chabas came up with back
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands to like say, hey, you're
Speaker 2: a real deal player here, and that's the number that
Speaker 2: we've taken for the last twenty five years. Is being true,
Speaker 2: some people are saying that it could be a third
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Oil still, obviously, but you know, it's not exactly like
Speaker 2: we could just go in there, stick a tap into
Speaker 2: the ground and then we're rich all of a sudden
Speaker 2: because we have all this oil. You know, most of
Speaker 2: the oil execs at that round table, at least maybe
Speaker 2: they were offline, off the record, we're talking like this
Speaker 2: doesn't really make sense for us economically, and most of
Speaker 2: them are actually more into it for getting their ten
Speaker 2: billion dollars for Like the judgment that was against that
Speaker 2: was like levied against Venezuela when they pulled out when
Speaker 2: they like nationalized the oil industry there. So it's just
Speaker 2: I don't know what the fuck we're doing there, is
Speaker 2: basically my point. So John, what do you got?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So, actually it's interesting this situation with the oil
Speaker 1: because it's even though it feels regional, it feels local,
Speaker 1: it's actually international in scope. Because we were just talking
Speaker 1: about Iran's oil as one thing, China has all these
Speaker 1: small teapot refineries is what they're called. They're basically kind
Speaker 1: of like backyard oil refineries that are designed specifically to
Speaker 1: work with this kind of crude exactly. And what has
Speaker 1: been going on a lot of Venezuela and oil is
Speaker 1: that it's been doing ship to ship transfers over to
Speaker 1: China and being refined by these very small time almost
Speaker 1: like entrepreneurial oil refineries. Right. Well, the problem that the
Speaker 1: US now controlling that you have to think about what
Speaker 1: effect will this have on Chinese oil use? How will
Speaker 1: this affect China Iran oil use because Iran is a
Speaker 1: number one provider of oil to China currently. Well, if
Speaker 1: there's a regime change in Iran and the US now
Speaker 1: controls Iran and Venezuela, oil production. What does that mean
Speaker 1: for China? Because if China's oil is coming from these
Speaker 1: two countries and the US now controls it, the only
Speaker 1: other option is Russia. So this is just I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to speculate on what could all these
Speaker 1: like third order effects, but that's a very interesting thing
Speaker 1: to think about internationally, about what will happen just because
Speaker 1: of the change of control over the oil now with
Speaker 1: the crude oil, the US is actually the only country
Speaker 1: that's able to truly commercialize what's currently in Venezuela, and
Speaker 1: that's why Chevron stayed there for so long. The problem
Speaker 1: is the infrastructure, of course, is breaking down. It's been
Speaker 1: breaking down for a long time. It was nationalized previously,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of you know, detritus in these
Speaker 1: in these processing pieces of a equipment. But if the
Speaker 1: oil price, like you said, it needs to be eighty
Speaker 1: dollars for it to be profitable, and right now it's
Speaker 1: in the fifties. Again, internationally, how is that going to
Speaker 1: affect opek? How is that going to affect Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: and the Emirates who we want to have on our side,
Speaker 1: because if we if we push them out of this game,
Speaker 1: guess who they might start selling oil to China? Right,
Speaker 1: So like there's a lot of third order questions that
Speaker 1: pop out of this single act of taking over this
Speaker 1: oil damn.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's like a lot going on here. Like
Speaker 2: it's pretty uh unbelievable. Yeah, just this whole rabbit hole
Speaker 2: I went into about like going it like, you know,
Speaker 2: I still have trying to wrap my head around why
Speaker 2: the fuck we did it, right, because like we play
Speaker 2: the we play the role is like, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: freedom and democracy coming to you soon, but we're still
Speaker 2: we're dealing with Maduro's number two and number three command right,
Speaker 2: Like the Rodriguez siblings you know who are seeing Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: and who have been in the government for twenty plus years.
Speaker 2: They were part of Hugo you know, they came up
Speaker 2: with Hugo Chavas. So it's really interesting, like you know,
Speaker 2: how the veil has kind of been lifted a little bit.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if this is like what US
Speaker 2: foreign policy has been all about for the last fifty years,
Speaker 2: but kind of really seems like that's what it's been
Speaker 2: about for the last fifty years, is in just imperialism. Frankly,
Speaker 2: sorry to talk like a pink okami.
Speaker 1: But well, you know, we don't have the balancing force
Speaker 1: that we had with the Soviet Union previously, where there
Speaker 1: was like a second actor that could come in and
Speaker 1: affect what was happening, and we're currently sort of unrestrained
Speaker 1: or unipolar, I guess is the term to use. But
Speaker 1: there are no constraints, there are no repercussions, which no
Speaker 1: matter actually who is in office, because if you look
Speaker 1: during the Obama administration, you know, the Predator drone was
Speaker 1: used exponentially more than it was during the Bush administration, Right,
Speaker 1: That's one example. And the things we were doing in Syria,
Speaker 1: like you would never imagine we'd be doing that in
Speaker 1: Syria if the Soviet Union was still around. Right, So,
Speaker 1: because there are no checks on that, regardless of who
Speaker 1: is in power in the United States, the US as
Speaker 1: a country internationally is going to act in an unconstrained
Speaker 1: way until there is a constraint placed on it.
Speaker 4: Make your back glad to see the Middle Eastern media
Speaker 4: is head start collectively exploding.
Speaker 3: Them or really, why did something new happened?
Speaker 4: All the reports are coming out now that you know,
Speaker 4: obviously the White House is considering these strikes, and according
Speaker 4: to them, the decision point or the options brief will
Speaker 4: be Tuesday and a decision will be made. I don't
Speaker 4: know that to be true, just passing on. I think
Speaker 4: they were citing the Reuters, so I know. We moved
Speaker 4: on to Venezuela bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about the crazy roundtable of oil executives
Speaker 2: and Halliburton, which again would be unbelievable to see if
Speaker 2: this is twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: Do the oil executives really really want access to Venezuela.
Speaker 4: I say that not as a statement, a genuine question.
Speaker 4: I'm an energy expert.
Speaker 2: I think the only company that was like really down
Speaker 2: for it was Chevron because I think Conico Phillips has
Speaker 2: like a big deal with Guyana and they have the
Speaker 2: same kind of heavy crew that Venezuela does, and it's
Speaker 2: more developed and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So there isn't this real.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously people are gonna want to make money,
Speaker 2: but there isn't like this huge rush as people would
Speaker 2: think that there would be to get this Venezuelan.
Speaker 4: Like a decade long infrastructure built. Yeah, this effective, right,
Speaker 4: So this is a long term commitment by these companies
Speaker 4: that may or may not last policy wise beyond the
Speaker 4: next three years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Also, like what's the situation on the ground, like
Speaker 2: in terms in Venezuela, right, Like, how are you going
Speaker 2: to protect these assets? You know, you're gonna drop one
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars of investment and maybe in five years
Speaker 2: the country looks different and they say fuck all again,
Speaker 2: you know which Frankly, if you ask me, that's like
Speaker 2: within their rights to do because it's their country and
Speaker 2: it's their resources.
Speaker 3: But why would anybody with.
Speaker 2: You know, if I want to be profitable, if I'm
Speaker 2: an investor or an oil company, why would I dump
Speaker 2: billions of dollars in fixing infrastructure if there's like a
Speaker 2: maybe there?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And is it just we're going to keep the regime
Speaker 4: in place by paying part of this to them. What's
Speaker 4: the difference between you know this and what was going
Speaker 4: on before? Essentially, I mean, the US used to promote
Speaker 4: democracy around the world. Right, we actually recognized that ed
Speaker 4: Mundo Gonzalez won the last of the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 4: Like that's official policy right now by the United States.
Speaker 4: So we're going to try and I know it's much easier.
Speaker 2: Doesn't seem like the facto policy to be honest, right,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Like, why aren't we forcing them to either let them
Speaker 4: be the interim government or pulled another election.
Speaker 1: Department just went there and met with the current government.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, so we're basically propping them up, which is
Speaker 4: just that the Maduro government minus Maduro.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You guys know anything about the collectivos that are on
Speaker 2: the ground in Venezuela. Can I get a little bit
Speaker 2: of info on that.
Speaker 4: Well, Like most regimes, their primary purpose is to stay
Speaker 4: in power, right, So the collectivo is a paramilitary group
Speaker 4: that's kind of like a common lease. Has been described
Speaker 4: to me a combination of a security force, a cartel,
Speaker 4: a gang, street gang. They are basically affected because they're
Speaker 4: extraordinarily and violent and they have no restraints when ordered,
Speaker 4: So that would make it very challenging, you know, to
Speaker 4: reinsure Maria Machado, of course, I think that's a fair point,
Speaker 4: but essentially locks down everything and anyone at the direction
Speaker 4: of the Minister of Interior. It was one of the
Speaker 4: apparently the most powerful leader that's there. It's not under
Speaker 4: our system, of course, but under their system. It's it's
Speaker 4: about the regime security. So that individual is has a
Speaker 4: lot of clout, much more so than the acting president.
Speaker 2: All right, Uh, I think that's all I got for Venezuela.
Speaker 2: I'm missing something. You guys should hit me up. I mean,
Speaker 2: it looks like another fucking quagmar, to be completely honest,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't seem like we're at all promoting democracy anywhere.
Speaker 2: We don't really give a fuck about that. They We
Speaker 2: just care about who agrees with us and does what
Speaker 2: we want them to do. Another another, you know, in
Speaker 2: the Western hemisphere, Greenland, you know, there's talk about, you know,
Speaker 2: invading Greenland or paying citizens of Greenland one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars to like become American citizens, which like, why the
Speaker 2: fuck would you do that? Because one hundred grand would
Speaker 2: just go to your medical bills if he became an American.
Speaker 3: Uh So, why what's the incentive in that bills? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Or that? Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: You know, if we were to ever try and take
Speaker 2: over Greenland, obviously it would be easy militarily. That's what
Speaker 2: the one thing we're good at is fucking fucking other
Speaker 2: people's militaries up.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: What comes after is usually where we fucking stumble. What
Speaker 2: happens to NATO as an Alliance, right.
Speaker 4: It's it's this is this is hard to believe we're
Speaker 4: even talking about it's you know, it started as like, oh,
Speaker 4: he's just a bloviating too.
Speaker 3: He's just dotty and old.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean where to start, right, So Greenland. We
Speaker 4: have like three treaties with Greenland, to include the NATO treaty, right,
Speaker 4: and they've they've During the Cold War, we had many
Speaker 4: bases in many people. It's it's strategically important. Yes, that's true.
Speaker 4: It's like the interceptor point for you know, in a
Speaker 4: continental continental ballistic missiles coming our way. Apparently somebody told
Speaker 4: me it's like the pogy or whatever the top of
Speaker 4: the trajectory is is right under it, so it's the
Speaker 4: easiest place to strike it. So that's definitely true. It's
Speaker 4: also you know, we're seeing Arctic ice cap melt, so
Speaker 4: the access to hydrocarbons and rare earth minerals are more prevalent.
Speaker 4: And then if you look at the globe and just
Speaker 4: flip it like this, once that's the case, the world
Speaker 4: gets a lot smaller. So obviously it's strategically important. So
Speaker 4: is everything that touches the Arctic. That said, the aforementioned
Speaker 4: treaties allow us to do everything that we're saying that
Speaker 4: we need to do that we're not doing right now. Like,
Speaker 4: if it's that big of a security issue and Russia
Speaker 4: and China are just circling Greenland, which they're not, then
Speaker 4: why aren't we there? Like why did we degrae our
Speaker 4: reduce our presence to like one hundred folks in one base.
Speaker 4: So the question is, if it's that important to why
Speaker 4: aren't we doing something about now? Why aren't American companies
Speaker 4: in there full full throttle looking how to exploit this?
Speaker 4: So that's that is one issue on whether this is
Speaker 4: really about the things that we are saying it is.
Speaker 4: And then the second issue is just the damage this
Speaker 4: is doing to the United States reputation to even talk
Speaker 4: about it. Under the UN Charter, you cannot obviously use
Speaker 4: threat against another nation. You can't even threaten it. So
Speaker 4: we're already past that. We're threatening because they won't take
Speaker 4: it off the table, which is a threat to use
Speaker 4: military force against the NATO partner. So we're clearly in
Speaker 4: the wrong internationally on this. It is I mean, you're
Speaker 4: you're seeing reports that NATO, I mean European countries are
Speaker 4: going to start sending forces there, and you know why
Speaker 4: they're doing it. They're going to say, well, you said
Speaker 4: that it's under threat, So now the UK, Germany and
Speaker 4: France are going to send forces potentially of course uh
Speaker 4: Deadmark as well, uh t Greenland right now to bolster
Speaker 4: or this perceived threat of Chinese and Russian invasions. And
Speaker 4: that's going to course just escalate it because it's going
Speaker 4: to irritate the White House and we'll see where it
Speaker 4: goes from here. But the other part of this, and
Speaker 4: I'd love to erit. You guys, think about this. This
Speaker 4: is clearly against the treaties that the US signed, which
Speaker 4: is against US law. So how the military would even
Speaker 4: entertain or prepare for an invasion is a question I
Speaker 4: would have because it's clearly an unlawful order to invade
Speaker 4: a NATO treatied ally per the US law that established
Speaker 4: our presence in NATO, unless we withdraw, which I think
Speaker 4: takes senate action, not just unilateral executive action. So I'll
Speaker 4: stop there, tacity.
Speaker 1: I think also thinking about Article five. You know, the
Speaker 1: only time it was used was in Afghanistan, right, And
Speaker 1: I was thinking back when I was deployed there in
Speaker 1: the same base I was on. We had Danish special
Speaker 1: forces with US. We actually used the chow Hal you know.
Speaker 1: We have Danish special Forces partnered in Ghana right now
Speaker 1: with US SAFT training the Ghanaian military. There's Special Boat Service,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's there's active US work with the
Speaker 1: Danes overseas. And I can't imagine how it must be
Speaker 1: for those teams on the ground working together, watching this
Speaker 1: happening and looking at each other, you know, because it
Speaker 1: could potentially be that the next morning you wake up
Speaker 1: and suddenly we're enemies in the same camp. It's just crazy.
Speaker 4: It is crazy, and they're very effective, and quite frankly,
Speaker 4: I've stood at a dignified transfer for one of them,
Speaker 4: and I think this is really rubbing, not that you know,
Speaker 4: they're taking this new account veterans, especially of Afghanistan the
Speaker 4: wrong way because this is not the way you talk
Speaker 4: and treat allies, and as as Jonathan said, the only
Speaker 4: time Article five has been initiated has been to our benefit.
Speaker 4: And a lot of these countries sat in Afghanistan, even
Speaker 4: a rock which I don't even know what I had
Speaker 4: to do with nine to eleven for decades, and the
Speaker 4: Danes specifically per capita, I think was one of the
Speaker 4: highest casualty rates per capita of any of US.
Speaker 7: As crazy as US having even talked about this is
Speaker 7: it also begs the crazy the equally crazy question. You know,
Speaker 7: could this be a ploy by this administration to drive
Speaker 7: a wedge in NATO? You know, they've already made it
Speaker 7: clear that they don't think it's effective anyway, So what
Speaker 7: would stop them from using this or even bringing this
Speaker 7: to the table just to drive wedges and form cracks
Speaker 7: in NATO to try to ultimately get it to pull
Speaker 7: itself apart.
Speaker 4: Point And it's doing it.
Speaker 3: It's working.
Speaker 2: If we if that's a real plan within the administration,
Speaker 2: I mean, are we're actively working for Russia's benefit then, because.
Speaker 1: Like hundred treaties out of the UN we just pulled
Speaker 1: out of them this past week.
Speaker 8: Good god, guys, And it's I mean, let's let's let's
Speaker 8: feel those whole world order was established by US after
Speaker 8: World War II for our benefit, Like we're gonna write
Speaker 8: this order and we're on top of the order.
Speaker 4: Right, that's a good thing. That's why the US economy
Speaker 4: is the number one in the world. It wasn't by accident, right,
Speaker 4: and we The US's power is its friends and its
Speaker 4: ability to coordinate in form alliances that matter to everybody
Speaker 4: in the alliance. The NATO alliance is the most significant
Speaker 4: I think military alliance in history. I think one could
Speaker 4: argue and it benefited us, right, So if if we
Speaker 4: rupture NATO, you know, I think there's I don't know
Speaker 4: if they're accurate, but like you're seeing some statements out
Speaker 4: of European leaders that they're already looking at how to
Speaker 4: shut down US basis.
Speaker 2: I was gonna mention that there was an EU minister
Speaker 2: that was like popping off on the radio somewhere. I
Speaker 2: don't remember his name, so apologies where he was like,
Speaker 2: if this were to go down in Greenland, like we're
Speaker 2: going to kick you guys out of every single base
Speaker 2: you guys are in. We're more than happy to take
Speaker 2: it over. I mean, listen, getting all the European countries
Speaker 2: to do the same thing at once. I mean, whatever,
Speaker 2: we'll see if that happens. But even if it happened
Speaker 2: in Italy or Germany or wherever take your pick, wherever
Speaker 2: there's US bases, that's a real like you'd never heard
Speaker 2: something like that from it The Europeans always take things
Speaker 2: into consideration and they huddle and they talk about stuff
Speaker 2: and they come out with a really cool statement. But
Speaker 2: like that's like real PC. But frankly, I kind of
Speaker 2: like to see them have a little bit of teeth
Speaker 2: and like bite back against this administration because this administration
Speaker 2: seems to not give a fuck about Europe.
Speaker 4: Might not have a choice and remember all the things
Speaker 4: that have to happen to do it. I mean, if
Speaker 4: you do it by force, here's what issue. I don't
Speaker 4: think the United States, the American citizen is going to
Speaker 4: want to view its country as a neo colonial power.
Speaker 4: It's right, So I think you'll get refusing orders for
Speaker 4: real then. And I also think that at the end
Speaker 4: of this term, whoever comes next is probably going to
Speaker 4: give it back right because it was taken by force,
Speaker 4: so there's no like treaty law, none of that. I
Speaker 4: just don't see it happening. So I wish we would
Speaker 4: have to talk about it because it sounds like just
Speaker 4: a ridiculous idea. I think the Senate would step in
Speaker 4: and cut off all funding for it, I really do.
Speaker 4: I looked at comments from senators. The only one I
Speaker 4: saw that was really significant was talking about, well, I
Speaker 4: was talking about buying it, right, take the force off
Speaker 4: the table, even though it's not technically off the table,
Speaker 4: and then look at the buying part. Well, to buy it,
Speaker 4: he would have to you know, it's still part of Denmark,
Speaker 4: so they would have to agree, and then Greenland has
Speaker 4: to agree. And Greenland gets a lot of support from Denmark. Right,
Speaker 4: they have a total basically socialist system, all their healthcare,
Speaker 4: all their education, way more than they contribute. Unless the
Speaker 4: United States wants to give more to the people in
Speaker 4: green One, then they give to the people in Montana.
Speaker 2: Or New York, Zengland's almost like Region's almost like Kentucky.
Speaker 4: Yeah, then we're gonna then we can't match it, nor
Speaker 4: do they. And it's clear they don't want to be
Speaker 4: part of the United States from all.
Speaker 2: Why would you want to be part of the United States? Seriously,
Speaker 2: why would you want to be.
Speaker 4: I mean they don't.
Speaker 3: So that's Greenland if you're yeah, right.
Speaker 4: They're doing pretty good. The other part is then the Senate.
Speaker 4: It has to be a treaty. So the Senate has
Speaker 4: to pass the treaty to actually purchase Greenland, and the
Speaker 4: House has to pass the appropriations to buy it, Like,
Speaker 4: I mean, does anybody I'm not an expert on the
Speaker 4: acquisition of foreign countries, but I think that's a heavy
Speaker 4: lift that it's never and there's no interest. Nobody else
Speaker 4: in the Senate has talked about this until now, so
Speaker 4: the idea that they want to purchase and that you know,
Speaker 4: I'm obviously an old school Reagan type republic, but the
Speaker 4: current thinking of MAGA is the opposite of this, right,
Speaker 4: It's more on the isolation a side. It's not in
Speaker 4: the neocolonial let's take over, you know, territory from allies.
Speaker 4: So I just don't see how this is.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I was a MAGA bro about America first,
Speaker 2: I'd be pretty fucking pissed about seeing what's going on
Speaker 2: in the last few months, Gonna be honest.
Speaker 7: But anything I'm seeing on social media and you know,
Speaker 7: TikTok and YouTube and all that they are, you know,
Speaker 7: they're screaming that, you know, hey, President Trump, what happened
Speaker 7: to America?
Speaker 1: First?
Speaker 7: Like, I've seen people full on who when I first
Speaker 7: started watching them, we're all about this administration, and in
Speaker 7: the last six months or so have completely turned on
Speaker 7: them completely. So I think it's gone beyond them. I
Speaker 7: think them playing to their base was for elect for votes,
Speaker 7: and then once they got into office, it.
Speaker 4: Was screw you, We're going to do what we want.
Speaker 7: We don't care whether you like us or not.
Speaker 4: But there's representatives and the House and the Senate that
Speaker 4: you know, hopefully they have their own agency, and they are.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're seeing some pretty scene, I think, so,
Speaker 4: I hope so this is would require anyway, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: This might not help them on the but and I
Speaker 4: don't do politics, and I don't belong to a party,
Speaker 4: but I'm just looking at this from the national security perspective,
Speaker 4: like the US not not either any party. This is
Speaker 4: not in our national security interest. Even the discussion is
Speaker 4: seriously fraying our alliances. And I don't know if it's recovery.
Speaker 4: I mean, think of I guess I'd ask anybody that's listening,
Speaker 4: think if you are a European leader right now, like,
Speaker 4: what would you be doing.
Speaker 1: From reserve currency?
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of economic things that they could do, right,
Speaker 4: they could like the whole bond mark is it depends
Speaker 4: on foreign leaders foreign decisions, right, This could just not
Speaker 4: go well for the United it's already not going well
Speaker 4: for the United States. I wish we would just move on.
Speaker 4: I support plenty of the things that they've done, not plenty,
Speaker 4: but some. I try to call it objectively, but this
Speaker 4: is objectively a terrible idea, even a talk, and I
Speaker 4: don't think we're gonna do it, which makes the talk
Speaker 4: even worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mack, I would agree with you. I mean, anybody
Speaker 2: with a normal functioning brain would agree with you. But
Speaker 2: you know, you see officials from the administration going on
Speaker 2: news channels and spinning this as a good idea, actual
Speaker 2: card carrying members of the administration going out there.
Speaker 4: And I never said this before, right, So it's it's
Speaker 4: never been an issue. Apparently we got the Virgin Islands
Speaker 4: with some deal, like we agreed never to make a
Speaker 4: claim on Greenland and they gave us the Dutch Antilles
Speaker 4: or something like that, and that is why we have
Speaker 4: the US Virgin Islands. Like if if it's just going
Speaker 4: to be a mite, makes right, And you know what's
Speaker 4: it's the famous quote the strong do what they will
Speaker 4: and they must yeah yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: That looks like the new Ford policy of the United States,
Speaker 4: and that has not been the United States. I think. Ever,
Speaker 4: certainly after we came to prominence after the end of
Speaker 4: or during World War Two. Certainly after it's in our
Speaker 4: interest to be the leader of the free work, not
Speaker 4: the boys.
Speaker 3: We got anything else. I'm not feeling good about this conversation.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 4: Is that what we do here? No?
Speaker 2: Never, I almost never feel good about our conversations after.
Speaker 3: I want to thank Jonathan. Yeah, I can you.
Speaker 4: Tell us something about your book?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: By the way, please let me want I'll put it
Speaker 4: right here. I'll put it right here. A lot of
Speaker 4: my buddies do the write books, my stoic buddies and
Speaker 4: my national security buddies, because it's the same view as ABC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's right here above my shoulder. It's called Iran's
Speaker 1: Shadow Weapons, and it's about how they use covert action
Speaker 1: and intelligence operations both overseas and inside the country to
Speaker 1: achieve their foreign policy objectives. And it's unique because it's
Speaker 1: based on a bunch of stuff I got declassified for
Speaker 1: the first time, so a lot of it's former CIA cables,
Speaker 1: a lot of intelligence reports. Also, I translated a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff out of VARSI that was from the regime
Speaker 1: itself that's been leaked to the public, and a lot
Speaker 1: of new analysis using those two sources that people never
Speaker 1: get to see. So it's almost a third of the
Speaker 1: book is just references because I put a ton of
Speaker 1: actual analytical horsepower behind it. My idea was to kind
Speaker 1: of create like an open source product that you would
Speaker 1: hope to see on the other side of the green door,
Speaker 1: you know, but with materials available to the public.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put a link into the description for that,
Speaker 2: so if anyone's interested, please grab it. There also Jonathan's
Speaker 2: other book as well, about irregular Warfare, and uh Mick Moulroy.
Speaker 2: He's got a podcast called The pub and the Porch
Speaker 2: Applied Stoicism.
Speaker 3: Check that out.
Speaker 2: Those links are in the description. Jason Lyons links are
Speaker 2: in the description Muscles from Brussels. Uh Andy Milliburn's links
Speaker 2: are also in the description. And the best way to
Speaker 2: support the show is joining our Patreon. You get both
Speaker 2: Team House and Eyes On episodes at free and early
Speaker 2: and you help support the show. You can go to
Speaker 2: team the Patreon dot com slash the Teamhuse. Any and
Speaker 2: all information is in the link. The links are in
Speaker 2: the description. John as always, Thank you man. That's this
Speaker 2: is great. Make Jason YouTube awesome. We'll obviously keep an
Speaker 2: eye on it, Iran and what happens, we'll keep you
Speaker 2: guys posted. Thanks Thanks a lot, guys, Thanks Thanks Chance.
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