Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to Eyes on Geopolitical Podcast. I'm Jack
Speaker 1: Murphy and today Dimitri is out because he got something
Speaker 1: eating at the buffet. So he's sitting upon the throne
Speaker 1: holding on for dear life as we speak. But we
Speaker 1: got a great cast of characters here today, joined by
Speaker 1: Mick mulroy, Mark Palmeropolis and John Hackett. Really happy to
Speaker 1: have all of you guys back on the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Good beer, great to be here.
Speaker 3: Poor d what the heck? I hope he's got a
Speaker 3: nice good day. You needs Greek food. I was in
Speaker 3: a Greek food he he's a little bidet with a
Speaker 3: little hot water splashing and you know, won't get irritated.
Speaker 1: A little slap and tickle. He'll be fine.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So on the agenda today, unless you know, any of
Speaker 1: you guys have things you'd like to add. I got Iran.
Speaker 1: The ceasefire is ending, I think in a week, talk
Speaker 1: about foreign intel services, who's better than who? And the
Speaker 1: story that came out this week about the CIA starting
Speaker 1: up some sort of Cuba task force. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: do we want to start at the top with Iran?
Speaker 1: All right? So any thoughts on what's going on with
Speaker 1: that as far as the negotiations, and I mean it's
Speaker 1: it seesaw it back and forth so much that honestly
Speaker 1: I'm not keeping track of it.
Speaker 3: So's what's interesting today just to frame this and then
Speaker 3: because you know, others are smarter than I on this,
Speaker 3: but you know, everyone beats up on axios all the time,
Speaker 3: but they are kind of a reflection of what the
Speaker 3: administration is thinking and the Barack gravied and acxios. They
Speaker 3: revealed a conversation with Trump today. He basically said he's
Speaker 3: doing nothing. He said, there's nothing's gonna happen. He's gonna
Speaker 3: keep the status quo and essentially try to squeeze the
Speaker 3: Iranians economically. Clearly he does not want to go back
Speaker 3: to any kind of military confrontation. I think we've certainly
Speaker 3: talked a lot about the lack of military options, and
Speaker 3: you know there's reports that that German Joint chiefs Kane
Speaker 3: and adamal Cooper basically told him or warned him about
Speaker 3: essentially that a lot of these are not going to work.
Speaker 3: So this is where we are now. But I think
Speaker 3: the key thing and maybe Jonathan you can jump in
Speaker 3: on this because everyone is going to be okay, so
Speaker 3: this is going to be the US policy. What is
Speaker 3: Iran going to do? And I think that with the
Speaker 3: the old adage of the enemy gets a vote, I
Speaker 3: don't think the Iranians are going to sit around.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Is there an opportunity for them to increase hybrid attacks,
Speaker 3: to increase the use of the proxies, and to start
Speaker 3: to continue striking ships in the straight up hor moves.
Speaker 3: It's not like the Iranians are going to sit around.
Speaker 3: They're going to inflict some pain because they seem to
Speaker 3: have a bit of leverage and they think they're have
Speaker 3: the upper hand. What are your what are your thoughts
Speaker 3: on that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think they're already doing
Speaker 4: that because we see in Yemen just yesterday the Houthis
Speaker 4: launched what they called a retaliation attack against the Saudis
Speaker 4: because the Saudis had launched something. They actually put a
Speaker 4: drone into many airspace. But the Huthis I think are
Speaker 4: kind of testing the perimeter to see how much they
Speaker 4: can actually do in a future movement, to see what
Speaker 4: kind of air defenses are up right now, what kind
Speaker 4: of counter uas platforms are available. How would the Saudis respond.
Speaker 4: It looks like a little bit of perimeter testing, like
Speaker 4: touching around the edges there that they're doing. And we
Speaker 4: also see the Iraqi side, there's some Iraqi Shia militia
Speaker 4: groups that are doing some preparations and some kind of
Speaker 4: early stage movements that are outside their baseline. I wouldn't
Speaker 4: be surprised if these were kind of being organized to
Speaker 4: possibly be used, but maybe not necessarily be used. But
Speaker 4: it's kind of how we think about positioning forces. We
Speaker 4: want to have guys there in case we need them,
Speaker 4: And I think that's what we see moving right now,
Speaker 4: is that Iran is looking at, well, what happens if
Speaker 4: Trump decides to do something before the election or right
Speaker 4: after the election. We need to have forces ready already
Speaker 4: there that could be activated quickly without much assembly required.
Speaker 4: But then on the domestic front, you've got cracks in
Speaker 4: the regime. So you have people in the regime that
Speaker 4: really want this war to continue, people in the regime
Speaker 4: that want to do domestic oppression as the number one priority,
Speaker 4: and you also have this kind of what could be
Speaker 4: relatively described as dubbish folks in the regime, which you know,
Speaker 4: to the rest of the world, they are not doves.
Speaker 4: But compared to the hird liners like Pizeshki and the
Speaker 4: President clashing with the Supreme National Security Council, which is
Speaker 4: the strategy setting body that's directly subordinate to the Ayatola,
Speaker 4: they don't agree on how this is supposed to be
Speaker 4: going Poseshkian's folks. The people that are actually, like Goliboff
Speaker 4: going to these negotiations, are trying to get a diplomatic outcome.
Speaker 4: We've seen General Kine also on the US side, recommending
Speaker 4: a diplomatic off ramp as probably the best way out.
Speaker 4: So both sides have this kind of diplomatic off ramp
Speaker 4: option that they're floating on their own respective sides with
Speaker 4: different conditions for what that means. But then also there
Speaker 4: are hawks as well on both sides who are saying, no,
Speaker 4: we're not going to be doing diplomatic activity, We're going
Speaker 4: to be doing military activity or something else that's not diplomatic,
Speaker 4: perhaps economic as the other major option. So it's important
Speaker 4: to watch inside Iran what's going on with regime because
Speaker 4: that's what's going to help us understand what are the
Speaker 4: actual potential outcomes here. I was on another news channel
Speaker 4: recently and I was asked that question, you know, like,
Speaker 4: what about this thing that Dan Kaine said. He said
Speaker 4: that there should be a diplomatic off ramp, and you know,
Speaker 4: really that's that's our chairman of the Joint Chiefs making
Speaker 4: a military advisor's recommendation to a policy maker, which is
Speaker 4: the executive. Whereas you know, Kin can't set military policy,
Speaker 4: he can recommend what to do and the president listens.
Speaker 4: And it's very similar structure in Iran. Not the same titles,
Speaker 4: but similar with the Supreme National Security Council. You've got
Speaker 4: this policy setting body. Then you have others who are saying, no,
Speaker 4: we should do X, we should do, why we should
Speaker 4: do z? And the policy making body is ignoring that,
Speaker 4: or members within the party are doing their own kind
Speaker 4: of side quests in the Red Sea, for example, with
Speaker 4: the with the Houthis and there's there's some untanglement going
Speaker 4: on there where we in the West look at it
Speaker 4: as a monolith and it's not. It's actually different actors
Speaker 4: with different objectives. Some of them are domestic objectives, have
Speaker 4: nothing to do with foreign policy that they think they
Speaker 4: need to do. The Houthy activation versus a Hashtashabi, which
Speaker 4: is a popular mobilization forces reaction or nothing and just
Speaker 4: open the straights up. One thing they all have in
Speaker 4: common is that they understand the straits are now the
Speaker 4: most important thing in this negotiation.
Speaker 1: They will not let go of it. I was gonna say, John,
Speaker 1: I mean, when we talk about the status quo today,
Speaker 1: it's different than the status quo a year ago or
Speaker 1: even six months ago. And it seems that the Iranians
Speaker 1: are pretty dead set on militarizing and controlling the straits
Speaker 1: of her Moods, which gives them military control over the
Speaker 1: Persian Gulf.
Speaker 4: I mean that they want to monetize it. So before
Speaker 4: it was about control, especially in the early days of
Speaker 4: the war, when they're like, we just need to get
Speaker 4: this under control. This is part of our sovereign territory.
Speaker 4: If you look at maps, when Abbas Araguchi, the Foreign Minister,
Speaker 4: is speaking on his podium, behind him is a map
Speaker 4: of Iran, and you can see it's not just the
Speaker 4: land that's the map of Iran. It's also the Caspian
Speaker 4: Sea and the Persian Gulf are part of the map.
Speaker 4: This is a new development. This was not this way
Speaker 4: so This is just something to kind of think about symbolically.
Speaker 4: How are they viewing this situation. Well, they've already changed
Speaker 4: their maps in a way that is not good for us.
Speaker 4: It's not good for the status quo before the war,
Speaker 4: status quo ante, right, So they seem to be coming
Speaker 4: to this with the idea that there is more to
Speaker 4: be gained than what they've already gained. They're going toward
Speaker 4: a monetization which I've seen estimates of up to seven
Speaker 4: percent of the value of cargo passing through. They've also
Speaker 4: floated the idea of inbound traffic being handled by one
Speaker 4: of Oman or Iran, while outbound traffic is handled by
Speaker 4: the other country. They've set up these kind of zones,
Speaker 4: and they're they're kind like creating a situation where it's
Speaker 4: going to be a phata company where it's already happening
Speaker 4: and has been happening and cannot be dismantled. And it
Speaker 4: seems that they're stalling some of them in the negotiations
Speaker 4: to allow these structures to be built up so that
Speaker 4: when months from now, the US finally comes to a
Speaker 4: decision that, oh, actually we're going to open the straits again. Well,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be a lot tougher then than it is now,
Speaker 4: and then it was obviously two months before.
Speaker 3: Hey, can I ask make a question here because I've
Speaker 3: been thinking of Mike. I'm serious. I know you've been
Speaker 3: traveling about, but I've been thinking about you because I
Speaker 3: am now even though I am the Greek, you're kind
Speaker 3: of the Greek. He kind of wants to be a
Speaker 3: Greek a little bit. You got your Greek, but you
Speaker 3: have gotten me into this well, the Stoicism, right, yes,
Speaker 3: one holiday, I've been obsessing over this. I've been reading
Speaker 3: it relentlessly, and so here's what I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 3: And it does pertain to the current situation now because
Speaker 3: again you wonder, and this has to do with you know,
Speaker 3: how the US military is poised right now, and all
Speaker 3: the notion of shortages of precision weapons. You know, it's
Speaker 3: and it's it's something that we did at CIA. We
Speaker 3: actually practiced a lot of the Stoic traits in a
Speaker 3: simple operational meeting. You plan for the worst and you
Speaker 3: work backwards. I mean that's the you know what is
Speaker 3: what is the post mortem? Then's the pre mortem? I
Speaker 3: mean that's an element of Stoicism. See I'm I'm getting
Speaker 3: into all this stuff. That's good and so and so
Speaker 3: that's what we did all the time, because when you
Speaker 3: plan for an ops meeting, okay, what can go wrong?
Speaker 3: That's what you do all the time. What are the scenarios?
Speaker 3: So for the US military with Iran? I still don't understand.
Speaker 3: And your previous job as a senior civilian official at
Speaker 3: DED is perfect. How have we not how did we
Speaker 3: not do that? How did we not look at scenarios? Okay,
Speaker 3: it's because the scenario would be a long drawn out
Speaker 3: conflict period and then we planned from that. Yet yet
Speaker 3: we are short we have a shortage of precision weapons.
Speaker 3: It's it's something that I just I'm scratching my head
Speaker 3: and I do I've gone back to the theme before
Speaker 3: we've talked about uh uh. And I will never denigrate
Speaker 3: the men and women in the US military, But the
Speaker 3: leadership at the Pentagon, I am kind of even the
Speaker 3: uniform leadership. How did Dan Kane and Admiral Cooper and
Speaker 3: others not conduct this type of stoic planning in the
Speaker 3: sense of not under not not not planning for the
Speaker 3: worst and then and then working backwards. What are your
Speaker 3: thoughts on that. I've been excited all week to ask
Speaker 3: you this question.
Speaker 2: A right, So I just I just got back from
Speaker 2: DC literally an hour and a half ago. I landed, right,
Speaker 2: So I was there in part to have discussions on this.
Speaker 3: Were you played that group that was asked to chat that?
Speaker 3: The CNN reported that there's a whole bunch of military
Speaker 3: analysts who were asked for their opinion.
Speaker 2: Maybe I was in DC asked. I was in DC,
Speaker 2: and I had many discussions on this very topic. By
Speaker 2: the way, so the obstacle is away. It comes from
Speaker 2: a quote by Aurelius, which is what stands in the
Speaker 2: way is the way that kind of became the ethos
Speaker 2: for how to train Western militaries.
Speaker 3: That's what I love you stuff twice. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of stoic principles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could have a whole podcast on the odyssey.
Speaker 3: For sure, shaking his head right now, where's this gone?
Speaker 2: That's my next podcast. I'll be talking about that. But
Speaker 2: for this so and I'll get to your question. I mean,
Speaker 2: this isn't just an issue of this administration, right, So
Speaker 2: we've been we've been think about this. This is a
Speaker 2: regional conflict with a mediocre military and we're almost out
Speaker 2: of Schlitz, so that's not they're talking about the deputy
Speaker 2: sect definie now like it's his fault, Like that would
Speaker 2: have been the case no matter what, because we don't
Speaker 2: always get to pick when we go to war. We
Speaker 2: could have just gone to war. So this isn't a
Speaker 2: partisan issue. This could have been Biden, this could have
Speaker 2: been Trump, this could have been a this could have
Speaker 2: been right. So it had been everybody. So I think,
Speaker 2: you know, let's dispense of the fingerpoint when it comes
Speaker 2: to political but fingerpoint when it comes to USA. This
Speaker 2: is not sustainable. And now in addition to the ability
Speaker 2: to keep up with like defensive interceptors, pactories, fads, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And I think we've used about eighty percent of the bads.
Speaker 2: I don't know that specifically, but that's what's being reported,
Speaker 2: not from my conversation. We need to adjust quickly. And
Speaker 2: at the same time, we have a massive evolution in
Speaker 2: modern warfare, which is a low cost, extraordinarily lethal alternatives
Speaker 2: to these really expensive, very lethal conventional weapons that we've
Speaker 2: always had. So this is the issue we have to address.
Speaker 2: It's actually not the uniform military's fault to be Frank,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm biased. But this is policy, man, this
Speaker 2: is policy. It's not like you're asking generals, do you
Speaker 2: do not want more weapons? Do you not want low
Speaker 2: cost star trend to is this is policies. Political people
Speaker 2: decide where and how they're going to make these weapons systems.
Speaker 2: It becomes ingrained in the actual political system. So it's
Speaker 2: a much broader conversation. But we got to have it
Speaker 2: because we got to change it. That's my take. It's
Speaker 2: it's simply everybody should see this. I think Mark is
Speaker 2: either meditating or what's going on there. I know somebody
Speaker 2: turned them on. Oh there, he's back. He's back. Okay,
Speaker 2: So some of the some of the stuff I could
Speaker 2: throw out there that might be a good discussion points
Speaker 2: you've already touched on some of it. Iron's completely embolded, right.
Speaker 2: Their demands are going up. Okay, they're not going down,
Speaker 2: They're going up. I mean every time they don't believe
Speaker 2: the United States is willing to use, you know, the
Speaker 2: force necessary to open the straits and then keep it open, right,
Speaker 2: because one thing to force it open, next thing, keep
Speaker 2: it open. Right, they don't believe we want to escalate
Speaker 2: in part because of the lack of precision monitions and
Speaker 2: defensive interceptors and the political fallout of an unpopular word
Speaker 2: being less popular. So every time you hear the negotiators
Speaker 2: talk about their new requirements, goes up. Right, So complete
Speaker 2: reconstruction seven percent, like Jonathan said, So somebody told me
Speaker 2: seven percent just energy alone would be about fifty billion
Speaker 2: dollars a year that they would get from the normal flow.
Speaker 2: If you added everything into it, which is all the
Speaker 2: you know, stuff that goes into food production and all
Speaker 2: that stuff, it gets close to one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 2: in revenue for the regime. Think about that one hundred billion,
Speaker 2: and who's paying it? Everybody? It's not the United States,
Speaker 2: everybody around the world. So it's not a tax on
Speaker 2: the world that I think should wake the world up
Speaker 2: to say, hey, wait, that's unacceptable to us because my
Speaker 2: people are going to pay more. And now I push
Speaker 2: it a lot, but we got to get an international
Speaker 2: coalition here because this is this is something that the
Speaker 2: world should find unacceptable because right now that's the way
Speaker 2: it's going unless something deviates from that. They on the street,
Speaker 2: I know, we don't like to say that, but I
Speaker 2: mean clearly. You know, it's normal like one hundred and
Speaker 2: ten ships that go through a day, but it'll we
Speaker 2: had four six, which it means it's close. So we've
Speaker 2: got to do something to change that. And then you
Speaker 2: have what looks like somewhat of a not that it
Speaker 2: was always unified, but the GC seems GCC seems to
Speaker 2: be falling apart. Right. You got Saudi going with Turkey
Speaker 2: and Pakistan. You've got the Amiradis with the Bahraini's kind
Speaker 2: of like, let's go ahead and finish the job. And
Speaker 2: you've got what one who's left, Katari's and other countries
Speaker 2: that are kind of like, holy crap. This is Omani's right,
Speaker 2: are kind of like holy crap right in the middle
Speaker 2: of this stuff. We need to get this result. So
Speaker 2: we have a splintering of our allies and partners who
Speaker 2: I think are now really concerned about their security going
Speaker 2: forward and whether we're willing to defend them because we are.
Speaker 2: I think pulling forces out of a lot of those
Speaker 2: countries and putting them further away, like in Jordan and
Speaker 2: Israel makes sense from a force protection perspective, but you know,
Speaker 2: why did these countries host our military before wasn't so
Speaker 2: that when the war started that we would leave, right.
Speaker 2: So these are all challenges. So you got the GCC question,
Speaker 2: then you've got and i'd throw on your list. Jack
Speaker 2: Net Yahoo just came out and rejected the border pieces
Speaker 2: fifteen point playing. He just said no, and he said
Speaker 2: sometimes you got to tell you best friends, essentially, Ela.
Speaker 2: So the announcement we made about Hamas disarming and the
Speaker 2: IDF withdrawing, it's not going to happen. IDF doesn't think
Speaker 2: they're going to disarm. They probably have no way to
Speaker 2: actually talent they've disarmed, and so they just came out.
Speaker 2: You know, they have elections. I know, you guys know
Speaker 2: on October and so that issue, which we didn't have resolved,
Speaker 2: but at least it was going in the right direction
Speaker 2: we thought is not right. And that's all tied together. Right,
Speaker 2: These are all boxing So how do we get out
Speaker 2: of it? I mean, I guess I throw it back
Speaker 2: to everybody else. But we're in a situation where the
Speaker 2: United States I don't think, can accept a closed trade.
Speaker 2: It has to go back to the original. We can't
Speaker 2: pay for it. Maybe we can agree to in the
Speaker 2: naval blockade. That's fair but we can't be paying three
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars for reconstructing a country that we attacked.
Speaker 2: The country that pays the reconstruction lost, just say it
Speaker 2: like that. That can't be the case. So, and we
Speaker 2: got to do something in the nuclear program. They're obviously
Speaker 2: not interested in a new nuclear agreement, which they were,
Speaker 2: So we're going to have to plan on a continuous
Speaker 2: mitigation of the threats the best way I can put it,
Speaker 2: which means we're gonna have to keep striking facilities that
Speaker 2: we think are acted. So the war's not going to end,
Speaker 2: right if you think of it that way. So we're
Speaker 2: in a situation that's to your point. I mean, did
Speaker 2: we plan this out? It doesn't look like it, But
Speaker 2: we are where we are. So going forward, how does America?
Speaker 2: How does the United States come out as a strategic success?
Speaker 2: It's going to take a lot effort.
Speaker 3: There's an after action piece of this too, in which
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, aren't we supposed to fight two
Speaker 3: wars at once? Wasn't that the DoD st and yes,
Speaker 3: one war which is like against a second rate military
Speaker 3: and sustain it. I mean, I get, I still am
Speaker 3: just mystified that that there wasn't or planning involved, or
Speaker 3: at least if US military officials were not stronger with
Speaker 3: the president saying this is not sustainable, we can't do that.
Speaker 3: I mean, there there's you know, if you look back,
Speaker 3: I remember, you know when when I was in government
Speaker 3: talking to these rallies, and there was there was some
Speaker 3: Israeli massa chief Meyer Degan one of them, who would
Speaker 3: tell the Israeli Prime minister, we cannot attack her on
Speaker 3: we we we should not do this, period, end of story.
Speaker 3: And I don't see that from US officials. I just
Speaker 3: the people around Trump don't have that ability, like a
Speaker 3: Jim Maddis had uh on the first term saying no,
Speaker 3: we can't do this. I don't see that. I don't
Speaker 3: see Caine strong enough doing that, certainly not Hegseth. And
Speaker 3: so maybe that's why we're in kind of the pickle
Speaker 3: we're in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's like a larger political question about
Speaker 1: you know, what happens when a president installs a bunch
Speaker 1: of sikaphants around him and your you know, your your advisors,
Speaker 1: the people that are supposed to, you know, help help
Speaker 1: you make good decisions, or actually just telling you what
Speaker 1: you want to hear, and I think we're pretty clearly
Speaker 1: in that situation right now. But I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you guys also about this article in the Jerusalem Post
Speaker 1: and when we start talking about insurgents in Iran and
Speaker 1: foreign groups, and you know, we've talked about arming the
Speaker 1: Kurds in the past, and John, you've also expanded on
Speaker 1: some of the different rebel groups in Iran. This article
Speaker 1: is claiming besiege singer abducted in torture to death as
Speaker 1: group Ashtara Zero Day claims responsibility. Have you guys seen
Speaker 1: this article and like, what's your thought about you know,
Speaker 1: who this group could be. Do they have a daddy?
Speaker 1: And is it us?
Speaker 4: So this group is actually an interesting one to look
Speaker 4: at from an open source intelligence perspective, like using like
Speaker 4: analytical tools. Their Instagram became active in December twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: They made a few posts up through January and then stopped.
Speaker 4: Remember the war started February twenty eighth. There were no
Speaker 4: more posts until April, and the posts in April were
Speaker 4: different than the posts in January. They were still in
Speaker 4: the same category of material, which was anti regime posts saying,
Speaker 4: you know, like the beusiege had been murdering us, which
Speaker 4: is true. The Busiege were out there shooting and killing
Speaker 4: and slaughtering people, but there was no communication from January
Speaker 4: to April. In April, when they came back, they started
Speaker 4: focusing on doxing specific Busiege people, saying, you know, this
Speaker 4: guy lives at this house, he was there at the
Speaker 4: protests and killed these people. We will pay you using
Speaker 4: cryptocurrency on a telegram channel if you kill them and
Speaker 4: send us a video of you killing them. As soon
Speaker 4: as we receive the video, we'll pay you. And this
Speaker 4: is all from Farsi posts, so this doesn't what I'm
Speaker 4: saying to you does not exist in English right now.
Speaker 4: I've read the Farsia side of it, and it's very
Speaker 4: interesting to see that shift in narrative. Of course, these
Speaker 4: things are all inferential. We don't have the full knowledge
Speaker 4: of what's going on, so this is just an inference.
Speaker 4: But it seems that there was a shift in control
Speaker 4: or shift in narrative that occurred, probably in March, that
Speaker 4: pushed whatever this group was, if it is a group
Speaker 4: or single individual, toward something more targeted, more violent, more
Speaker 4: real in the real world. Rather than just reporting past events,
Speaker 4: they're now focusing on future activity, and they.
Speaker 1: Are I believe another one of these groups that is
Speaker 1: supporting Reza Paula VI if I read correctly.
Speaker 4: So based on the Farsitis side of this, you know,
Speaker 4: I actually kind of looked at this to question that
Speaker 4: as well. I don't see really clear indications that this
Speaker 4: group is a monarchist group or supporting the monarchy. It
Speaker 4: seems that they're more anti regime, and from previous discussions
Speaker 4: we've had, you know, there are a lot of groups
Speaker 4: that have the same thing in mind, and that is
Speaker 4: they want the regime gone, but they don't agree on
Speaker 4: what should come.
Speaker 1: The day after.
Speaker 4: And actually zero day in the name of the organization.
Speaker 4: You know, when I first see that, I used to
Speaker 4: work at NSA. When I hear zero day, that means
Speaker 4: an exploit that needs to be fixed right now, or
Speaker 4: else there's going to be a problem.
Speaker 2: In the system.
Speaker 4: But actually zero day in Farsi has been us throughout
Speaker 4: this conflict to refer to what happens the day after
Speaker 4: the regime is gone. Interesting, So I think Westerners might
Speaker 4: not pick that up and they'll see zero day and
Speaker 4: think like, oh, this is you know, some cyber thing. No,
Speaker 4: it's actually very much domestic for domestic Iranian consumption is
Speaker 4: not designed for Western consumption. That's another key point to
Speaker 4: pull out here. The media that's around this is not
Speaker 4: in English at all, and it's written in a way
Speaker 4: that is common within the Tehrani Farci speaking youth like,
Speaker 4: let's say up to age thirty maximum kind of way
Speaker 4: of writing. So this there's clearly a target audience and
Speaker 4: clearly a specific, you know, way of talking this is
Speaker 4: this is going toward, and in fact, the article here
Speaker 4: that's discussing this, the group actually didn't claim responsibility for
Speaker 4: killing this busigy. There's a pretty gruesome video of somebody
Speaker 4: knifing this dude to death, like in a horrific, slow
Speaker 4: burning way, and he was accused of killing some protesters
Speaker 4: and that's why they killed him. But the video was
Speaker 4: sent to this group, and then the money was sent
Speaker 4: to these people who made the video, and so there's
Speaker 4: a lot of interesting stuff. Another questionable thing is a
Speaker 4: lot of what we know about the murder, in particular
Speaker 4: of that busig is not from the group. It's from
Speaker 4: regime linked media sources like FARS and some other IERGC
Speaker 4: controlled media. So there's something going on here. Domestically within
Speaker 4: Iran about this group that's definitely got alarm bells going off.
Speaker 4: And interestingly, another tas NME News, which is an IERGC
Speaker 4: controlled media organ in Iran, they published this an article
Speaker 4: about this busig getting murdered and how terrible it was,
Speaker 4: and then within hours they took the story down. So
Speaker 4: this is just very fascinating to kind of watch this
Speaker 4: all play out in Farsi. By the way, this is
Speaker 4: not for Western consumption. Again, so there's something going on here,
Speaker 4: and it's hard to say is it actually happening, is
Speaker 4: it real? Is it the way they're describing it. Who
Speaker 4: is doing this? This could be Mosad, it could be
Speaker 4: the United States. It could even be their regime doing
Speaker 4: something to justify something else. For example, because they killed
Speaker 4: four that they hung four of the people that they
Speaker 4: accused of being involved with this, so the question could
Speaker 4: be were they just looking for a justification to execute
Speaker 4: these people that they already might have had captured. So
Speaker 4: there's a lot of questions here, but there's certainly something
Speaker 4: interesting going on in here that was meant for a
Speaker 4: very specific audience and that we are now seeing.
Speaker 3: You know, we've always wondered about COVID, the possibilities of
Speaker 3: COVID action. I mean, we saw the kind of the
Speaker 3: this boxed Israeli plan, and there's been really extensive reporting
Speaker 3: on that in the Israeli press. It's really remarkable. This
Speaker 3: is the COVID action plan, using the Kurds, using the
Speaker 3: you know, the recruitment of former president of Mdinizad. But
Speaker 3: there's got to be other stuff going on. It's not
Speaker 3: that Masad didn't just take a knee, and I would
Speaker 3: imagine the agency as something cooked up as well, and
Speaker 3: so who knows. You know, one of the things that's
Speaker 3: really interesting from you know, after serving at the at
Speaker 3: CI for a long time and then and kind of
Speaker 3: then getting upset when all the COVID action plans that
Speaker 3: we ran always leaked. You don't see as much leaks
Speaker 3: on this kind of stuff now, Jack. I know you
Speaker 3: dig like crazy when you and Sean do all your
Speaker 3: deep dives on stuff, but I don't. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: the major COVID action plans of at least Mick when
Speaker 3: you and I were in whether it's in Afghanistan or
Speaker 3: you know, the Syria program, all that stuff came out
Speaker 3: in the press. I don't see a lot of that now, it's.
Speaker 1: Kind of I don't think there's as much happening as.
Speaker 3: That could be it as well, But I think COVID actionly,
Speaker 3: you know, probably should play a big role now since
Speaker 3: the military option is really not as much on the table.
Speaker 3: But I would I would imagine they're considering these things, Nick,
Speaker 3: what do you think?
Speaker 2: So I don't know obviously, or if I did, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say anything about it. But I mean my view
Speaker 2: is co reaction should be continuous. Yeah, you don't just
Speaker 2: start co reaction because you start a war, right, I
Speaker 2: mean it's a little late. I'm not saying that's what
Speaker 2: we did. I don't know, but like it, that's when
Speaker 2: it leaked, you know, the Israeli planned It's like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's arm the curve, I mean now, and then to
Speaker 2: talk about it, of course puts a giant bullseye on
Speaker 2: these guys. Right. My understanding was we could put they
Speaker 2: could muster around four thousand or can imagine going against
Speaker 2: the entire GC, the besieged in the Iranian military four
Speaker 2: thousand people that just got armed yesterday. That's not going
Speaker 2: to work. So again, I don't know, I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: talking about it. But I think we should have a
Speaker 2: long standing, very broad I think Jonathan brought up before.
Speaker 2: Can't just be the Curds. That's not going to work.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of other groups. What they need is coordination,
Speaker 2: and that's where I think we could come in to coordinate,
Speaker 2: to plan, to train the leadership, to organize that stuff,
Speaker 2: and then obviously to equip.
Speaker 1: We should point out Mick, I mean, you have direct
Speaker 1: experience in this kind of activity in this.
Speaker 2: Part of the world.
Speaker 1: You know, you were one of those teams in Northern Iraq.
Speaker 1: Actually one of the other team was was Sam Fattis,
Speaker 1: who recently passed away. But I mean, well, I think
Speaker 1: both of those teams did some pretty incredible work as
Speaker 1: far as like sabotage behind enemy lines, and.
Speaker 3: Our team did a little bit better than the other
Speaker 3: team did.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of that's been out, so it's
Speaker 2: an example of what you could do their Kurds, right,
Speaker 2: what you could do with motivated malicious right. I mean
Speaker 2: we saw it also in the fall Taliban and Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: but that was the same thing in Northern Iraq. The
Speaker 2: team that me and Mark were on, and as you said,
Speaker 2: Sam was the overall leader. We were on a separate team,
Speaker 2: but he was a think I think, you know, I'm biased,
Speaker 2: but that took on Onsara Islam and operations Viking Hammer
Speaker 2: US with tenth group, handful of Americans. I was there
Speaker 2: like it could be spies, how few Americans with like
Speaker 2: six thousand Kurds and maybe one hundred and twenty Americans.
Speaker 2: And then we became the Northern Front, right, because the
Speaker 2: Turks would't let the fourth and for two division in
Speaker 2: and we had to go to the Kurds and say, congratulations,
Speaker 2: it's just you and us, right. I remember when we
Speaker 2: had to say that. I was a little rough, but
Speaker 2: I mean that shows how highly motivated and trained groups
Speaker 2: like the Kurds can do. And they were going against
Speaker 2: you know, the Holding Guard. There's a conventional army, tanks, armor, personnel, cares, artillery.
Speaker 2: The Kurds had you know, high louxes with you know,
Speaker 2: dish is and pekms on the back. They did have
Speaker 2: our air support, right, but we also that's and I
Speaker 2: did an academic paper actually with General Tovo at the
Speaker 2: time was Lieutenant Colonel Tobo retired as Lieutenant General Covo
Speaker 2: Tobo to talk about how the US military and the
Speaker 2: agency needs to maintain the capability to work together to
Speaker 2: do things like that. Like that should be part of
Speaker 2: you know, special operations officers, be they in the agency
Speaker 2: or in the military career progression when it comes to
Speaker 2: their skill sets, right, because we keep whenever we go
Speaker 2: to war, we kind of figure it out and then
Speaker 2: we kind of separate and go our separate ways. But anyway,
Speaker 2: that's that I'm digressing a bit. But to your point, Jack,
Speaker 2: this can be done. There is examples of how it's
Speaker 2: been done well. But it has to be organized, madd maintained.
Speaker 2: It needs to be a long term strategy. And but
Speaker 2: I think a lot of CIA people, I think Mark
Speaker 2: would agree with me. What the CIA doesn't want to
Speaker 2: see is this isn't working. We can't figure it out.
Speaker 2: Diplomacy's failed. We don't want to use the military to
Speaker 2: you go dudes, and then we're like, oh crap, because
Speaker 2: I mean talk about I mean, you don't want to
Speaker 2: get it handed to you when it's when it's already
Speaker 2: you know, a dumpster fire. So it needs to be
Speaker 2: coordinated in line with diplomatic efforts, economic efforts, military efforts.
Speaker 2: But in my view, it should be continuous.
Speaker 1: I just want to point out this book real quick.
Speaker 1: This is another good one. Mark Gerdovik, who yes, I
Speaker 1: believe he was Colonel Tovo's S three during the camp book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one's very good. And geez, Sam Fattis wrote one
Speaker 1: also that was pretty good. Let me see if I'm
Speaker 1: pulling up here here it is the CIA War in Kurdistan.
Speaker 1: That one's worth reading. Also, where's it? Uh? Where can
Speaker 1: people find that academic paper you mentioned?
Speaker 2: Meck, I was Middle East since too. It was me
Speaker 2: General Tobo and Uncle Landy who went by Uncle Andy
Speaker 2: still does. But yeah, yeah, yeah, that was.
Speaker 3: That was really good and it was also cleared by
Speaker 3: the agency, which is actually really helpful for the rest
Speaker 3: of us, because I've cited that about a billion times
Speaker 3: not to get so yeah, and I totally agree because
Speaker 3: you know, uh, with the end of the GWATT, you know,
Speaker 3: we all everyone gripped together with our military counterparts, and
Speaker 3: then just naturally with the great power competition, everyone drips apart.
Speaker 3: And that's not good. It's kind of should be institutionalized.
Speaker 3: But one quick thing, Jonathan, I don't know if you
Speaker 3: saw this, and it does go to the notion of
Speaker 3: covert action and kind of narratives. But the new MASSAT chief,
Speaker 3: Roman Goffman, basically fired his deputy, also fired the head
Speaker 3: of the Iran Operations Division and they're head of analysis.
Speaker 3: Pretty remarkable. That seems to me to be an indictment
Speaker 3: of something in this campaign. I mean, and of course
Speaker 3: you don't see any of that on the US side,
Speaker 3: but for the new MASADE director to come in and
Speaker 3: can that the chief of Iran is pretty extraordinary and
Speaker 3: the chief analytic chief analyst, what do you think of that?
Speaker 4: The challenge too is, you know, it seems that the
Speaker 4: war plan that the Israelis had that they presented to
Speaker 4: the US was really contingent on the US persisting and
Speaker 4: actually like continuing to follow through. And it's possible that
Speaker 4: the plans that those individuals put together fell apart inside
Speaker 4: of Iran, which we don't see because they're all happening
Speaker 4: behind the scenes, but things probably fell apart because that
Speaker 4: contingent requirement of US participation following through wasn't there, and
Speaker 4: so there probably wasn't this alternative CoA built into it,
Speaker 4: because I mean, when you're selling a sales pitch, you
Speaker 4: don't want to say, like, well, in case this fails,
Speaker 4: we're also going to do this because you don't want
Speaker 4: to just suggest that there's going to be failure possible
Speaker 4: when you're selling it to the United States, because you
Speaker 4: want the US, especially the people that heard it in
Speaker 4: that room of eight people, they need to hear success, success, success,
Speaker 4: And I think that failure probably was minimized and de emphasized.
Speaker 4: And now those gentlemen are probably seeing the effects of
Speaker 4: that minimization in their own you know, behind the scenes
Speaker 4: politics in the organization.
Speaker 3: But of course there's nothing on the US side. There's
Speaker 3: no accountability on our side. I mean there is, there is.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a pretty stark contrast. And then the
Speaker 3: former misad folks that I know are all pissed because
Speaker 3: they think they're getting blamed for this when it's you know,
Speaker 3: Nanyahu's the one who of course signed off on everything
Speaker 3: and was really pushing a lot of these plans as well.
Speaker 4: And that's saw the same thing in Gaza too. I mean,
Speaker 4: right after twenty twenty three October, there was a lot
Speaker 4: of blame finger pointing, and none of it was at
Speaker 4: NATANYAHUO at least, you know, public resigned, right Ron and.
Speaker 1: Bar I so guys, here's a mixed paper that he
Speaker 1: wrote with Ken Tovo, who is the commander of tenth
Speaker 1: Special Forces Group when this happened. A regular warfare case
Speaker 1: study in CIA and US Army Special Forces operations in
Speaker 1: Northern Act two thousand two to two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: Definitely worth going to find that one. So to switch topics, Mark,
Speaker 1: you wanted to get into and I have not read
Speaker 1: this article, but you wanted to get into that there
Speaker 1: was a rating of intelligence services across Europe.
Speaker 2: It was pretty fun.
Speaker 3: This is in I think, I mean, it's all over
Speaker 3: the place. It was the Telegraph, I don't know, but
Speaker 3: then the Guardian published it at the Times in the UK.
Speaker 3: So basically it was a it was a pure study
Speaker 3: amongst all European services and ranking the top intelligence services
Speaker 3: in Europe. And m I six came out on top.
Speaker 3: France was number two. I think Germany was three, which
Speaker 3: is ridiculous, but but there was and all of course
Speaker 3: everyone you know, the Brits and and and I know
Speaker 3: a lot of former and current British officers and they're
Speaker 3: you know, they're absolutely out of their mind with with
Speaker 3: glee and happiness. Now even if you remind them of
Speaker 3: the Cambridge five and you know, all the other things
Speaker 3: that happen. It doesn't matter. But but ultimately it's uh,
Speaker 3: it's pretty interesting and a lot of it has. The
Speaker 3: reason why I wanted to raise it was a comment
Speaker 3: that in the article that Ralph Goff, who was a
Speaker 3: very well known, very respective agency officer, you know him well, Uh,
Speaker 3: he made talking about how good the Brits have been
Speaker 3: in Ukraine, and I think there's this there's this undertone
Speaker 3: that we all have in the Brits never talk about it,
Speaker 3: but you know, the British security services and British special
Speaker 3: Forces have been very very well there and been way
Speaker 3: forward leaning. And so that's interesting too. And then the
Speaker 3: other part that I thought that was fascinating was, and
Speaker 3: again based on my experiences the end of my career,
Speaker 3: which was all Near East in CT until the end
Speaker 3: which was Europe, was dealing with the French and how
Speaker 3: the French and I found them to be really incredible
Speaker 3: partners on CT in Africa, uh, to the point of
Speaker 3: where they do not have the same kind of rules
Speaker 3: that we have. And in fact, in this article that
Speaker 3: I was reading in the in the British press, they said,
Speaker 3: yeah that, you know, a British intelligence officer said you that,
Speaker 3: you know, the French are savages. They basically there was
Speaker 3: a list of forty or fifty you know, isis and
Speaker 3: all kind of target. They just went and killed them all,
Speaker 3: assassinated them all. So it's just interesting to kind of
Speaker 3: look at the right the you know, our allies across
Speaker 3: the pond, and and there's I mean, this didn't get
Speaker 3: a lot of play in the US, but it certainly
Speaker 3: within the intelligence world. This this kind of ranking, which
Speaker 3: was peer rank. It's not a newspaper journalist doing it's
Speaker 3: they really did us, you know, they they somehow did
Speaker 3: us some kind of poll of intel officers.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other part of it, just one quick thing is
Speaker 3: it didn't tell you know, I think that they are
Speaker 3: really good services like the Poles, which have done incredible,
Speaker 3: just ground crazy shit for us over the years. Anyhow,
Speaker 3: So these are the allies by the way, Mick, that
Speaker 3: you want to have help us. Of course I want
Speaker 3: to as well, so does Jonathan, so does Jack in
Speaker 3: in Iran. They're really good if they're on our side.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the DGS is much more aggressive than people realize. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so so so is the French special Forces,
Speaker 1: Like I actually heard they have done something like twenty
Speaker 1: five military free fall insertions into West Africa over the
Speaker 1: last like five or six years doing ops and during
Speaker 1: the whole ISIS years. You know, the French special forces
Speaker 1: guys in Iraq and I believe in Syria too, part
Speaker 1: of TF Hydra. They were deployed there with the express
Speaker 1: mission of assassinating French citizens that had joined ISIS, Like,
Speaker 1: do not let these guys come back home?
Speaker 2: Like that is not to happen, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Say, isn't that the monarch?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've worked with them. They're kind of like
Speaker 2: special activities. Yeah, they're good, they're I mean, I think
Speaker 2: one thing that is positive is the intelligence services tend
Speaker 2: to work together regardless of you know, what the overall
Speaker 2: relationship is between the countries. You know that politically goes
Speaker 2: up and down.
Speaker 1: And they unless it's like r there are some limits
Speaker 1: on how well you guys.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, no, I meant like among allies, like we
Speaker 2: could have issues with France and Spain and but yeah,
Speaker 2: we I mean I don't know that it got out there,
Speaker 2: but we helped DGSA with one of their issues, and
Speaker 2: I think after that, and it was to recover somebody
Speaker 2: who was kidnapped, the relationships just got really tight.
Speaker 1: Oh you're talking about got kidnapped?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the at all the time we helped
Speaker 2: them with one of their guys, but with one of
Speaker 2: the French citizens, French guys, French DGSE, and uh, it
Speaker 2: just got really really tight after that. I think they
Speaker 2: were always doing good stuff, but then we just started
Speaker 2: to hear more about it after that. And and the Brits,
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, just like you, Jack, I'm an
Speaker 2: Irish American, so I can't go too far on this,
Speaker 2: but I've worked with them many times in there. I
Speaker 2: actually had one come over my house and said, so
Speaker 2: you got an Irish pub and a boxing gym because
Speaker 2: you're just a freaking walking stereot type art Jeb. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what do you expect? He came to my pump all
Speaker 2: the time. But they are they are, they are good.
Speaker 2: They can do good things when they're when they want to,
Speaker 2: and I think we don't we shouldn't take our relationship
Speaker 2: with all these countries for great.
Speaker 1: You know, if Mark points out the Polish Agency of
Speaker 1: Avadhu I believe is the name of the aw their
Speaker 1: intelligence service does some incredible stuff. And then another one
Speaker 1: is the Belgians.
Speaker 2: A V I D.
Speaker 1: That's another one of those.
Speaker 3: I think you're talking to Dutch.
Speaker 1: Are they the Dutch? Yeah? Thank you.
Speaker 3: If they're outstanding that yeah, they punch above their weight class.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How about you, John, did you have any partners that
Speaker 1: you worked with that you were particularly impressed by?
Speaker 4: UH As far as direct action, it was DNSIS Lapon
Speaker 4: Lapon Detachment eighty eight in Indonesia. They did some of
Speaker 4: these like highly orchestrated assassinations inside Indonesia. One of them
Speaker 4: they killed this guy named Dolmatine who you can look up.
Speaker 4: He was a bad guy in Jemmy Anslomia. But they
Speaker 4: basically fixed him in place using his webcam while he
Speaker 4: was in an internet cafe and then from like behind
Speaker 4: the buildings a couple up behind a couple streets back,
Speaker 4: they like shot through and shot him in the back
Speaker 4: of the head right over in front of the camera
Speaker 4: and like used that as to find the fix and
Speaker 4: finish component of the operation. It was like really well done.
Speaker 4: This is a long time ago too, Like before f
Speaker 4: three a d was so popularized, highly good at it.
Speaker 4: He would just sit in one.
Speaker 1: Of those hops where what was it, like a guy
Speaker 1: that was a JI, guy that was in prison for
Speaker 1: killing one of their dudes, and they went and raided
Speaker 1: the prison and like shot the guy through the bars.
Speaker 2: In the cell. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they would do stuff like that all the time.
Speaker 3: And they did it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean they killed the leader of MIT, which is
Speaker 4: another splinter group of Jumma Islamia, by like going through
Speaker 4: a village and just like shooting and shooting people on
Speaker 4: their way to him, like without discriminating and just going
Speaker 4: toward until they finally got him. And you know, yeah
Speaker 4: he's deab but it's or like twenty five other people
Speaker 4: in the village.
Speaker 1: Jesus well Mark, Before I know, you got to get
Speaker 1: going in like maybe ten minutes. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that we touch on this report that the CIA
Speaker 1: has opened some sort of Cuba task force.
Speaker 3: So this this is a big deal just in terms
Speaker 3: of priorities. I mean, I think that's the way you
Speaker 3: got to look at it now. Adamantus wrote this for
Speaker 3: The New York Times, and tous is extremely well sourced
Speaker 3: within the agency and is written on Cuba for years,
Speaker 3: so I would tend to believe it. And then the
Speaker 3: Miami Herald picked it up as well, and so then there,
Speaker 3: of course are well sourced on Cuba, just from their
Speaker 3: proximity and the Cuban American community in South Florida. But
Speaker 3: I think it's important just in the sense of, you know,
Speaker 3: this is something that obviously Secretary of Slate, Secretary of
Speaker 3: State slash National Security Visor Rubio is of paramount importance
Speaker 3: to him personally. And when you set up a task force,
Speaker 3: you do so to increase obviously collection both human intelligence,
Speaker 3: signals intelligence, you know, imagery open source, but that means
Speaker 3: you're pulling resources from somewhere else. You know, the agency
Speaker 3: is a finite number of people and money and resources.
Speaker 3: I would imagine there probably will be similar efforts in
Speaker 3: other places in the US national security kind of ecosystem,
Speaker 3: and that's done either to support future military operations and
Speaker 3: SLASH or covert action, which also could be COVID influence.
Speaker 3: So it's not necessarily a coupe, but it's influence operations.
Speaker 3: But you don't do this if this is something is
Speaker 3: not afoot in some fashion.
Speaker 1: Didn't didn't this already kind of exist under like the
Speaker 1: what is it called the Western Hemisphere Missions Set, not.
Speaker 3: Not that not not a task force of this of
Speaker 3: this nature. So yeah, I mean there's the CuBox group,
Speaker 3: but not not an actual task force where you bring
Speaker 3: in this. This now becomes all source. It becomes there's
Speaker 3: analysts who are brought in. I mean, it's a it's
Speaker 3: a thing. They're gonna pull people from it. They're also
Speaker 3: going to pull people from a mixed old world. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, this just doesn't happen because and at least
Speaker 3: that's what the the article said. And you know, one
Speaker 3: one can wonder is the administration really going to jump
Speaker 3: into another foreign adventure, But you know it's certainly that's
Speaker 3: something that is you know, it's it's raised in priority.
Speaker 3: And in the article as well, it's said that this
Speaker 3: has been raised in what the national security world is
Speaker 3: called the nip IF, the National Intelligence Priorities for Framework.
Speaker 3: This is in the first tier that matters. Again, that's
Speaker 3: where money and resources go. Final peace on. This is
Speaker 3: in all of my contacts and Jack, you know, you
Speaker 3: and I have talked Cuba before because the whole Havana
Speaker 3: syndrome issue. I have a ton of contacts in the
Speaker 3: Cuban American community, including some great, wonderful kind of the
Speaker 3: Cuban exile groups. They will not settle for a venezuela
Speaker 3: type operation. They want full work. They are they said
Speaker 3: that they consider the venezuela thing to be a failure,
Speaker 3: and they're very skeptical or not so skeptical, but they're
Speaker 3: going to hold Rubio to task on this. So the
Speaker 3: idea of doing a venezuela you know, some kind of
Speaker 3: like light type operation, I don't know. So it's just
Speaker 3: it just gives you a kind of you know, you
Speaker 3: think about signal versus noise. This is signal, this is
Speaker 3: not noise. A task force is a task force, I.
Speaker 2: Would add, I mean, I don't know if the story
Speaker 2: is accurate, but it sounds like it is. I would
Speaker 2: add that this is actually consistent with our national security
Speaker 2: strategy and defense strategy. You remember we used to talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, we were going to shift to the Western
Speaker 2: en not saying I agree with it, but it is
Speaker 2: what it is. You're supposed to mean, make strategy for
Speaker 2: a reason, and then of course went to war in
Speaker 2: the Middle East. But if you look at it as
Speaker 2: consistency and what we said we were going to do
Speaker 2: and put our resources tour it has it has some
Speaker 2: validity there. Put it that way, and I agree with Mark.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people that are focused on
Speaker 2: this region, the Western Hemisphere, don't want to just see
Speaker 2: a repeat of Venezuela. Essentially just removed the head and
Speaker 2: as you guys know that that the problem still exists
Speaker 2: and could go back, you know, depending on the interest
Speaker 2: and lack of interest by the United States. But I
Speaker 2: don't know what that necessarily means for Cuba.
Speaker 4: Something interesting I saw was some satellite imagery today there's
Speaker 4: four different locations inside of Cuba that had they're just farmland,
Speaker 4: and now they have a bunch of Chinese solar panels
Speaker 4: that have been installed. And of course obviously there's rolling
Speaker 4: blackouts and consistent blackouts and right now a lot of
Speaker 4: energy constraints, and it seems that you know, I don't
Speaker 4: know who in China is providing this stuff, but a
Speaker 4: lot of things from China don't usually happen without Chinese permission,
Speaker 4: government permission, So it just kind of interesting to see
Speaker 4: this showing up behind a blockade inside of a completely
Speaker 4: sanctioned country. That now you have these brand new solar
Speaker 4: panel farms built.
Speaker 1: Yeah, any of you guys, I mean, I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know, I mean how much you came across it, Mark,
Speaker 1: But I mean, how would you assess the CIA's penetration
Speaker 1: of Cuba because my impression is that all of the
Speaker 1: sources you know that we have on the books or
Speaker 1: double agents that DGI has kind of ran circles around
Speaker 1: US for many years, well.
Speaker 3: The record ain't good. I mean, I mean, it's it's incredible.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Cuba has been a country that
Speaker 3: has had astounding success against US. There's very senior former
Speaker 3: US intelligence officers who are who are Cuban agents, an ambassador,
Speaker 3: ambassador who is a Cuban agent. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 3: it's it's pretty stunning. Cube. Obviously it's a denied area
Speaker 3: if you're you know, serving with the USBSC and the
Speaker 3: vent in the c I station was closed for a
Speaker 3: while and then reopened. Now of course one of the
Speaker 3: one of the and and so there is that notion of, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, are they are the Cubans still that formidable
Speaker 3: an adversary? Now some argue that because of the economic
Speaker 3: kind of deterioration, is that actually the Cuban intelligence services
Speaker 3: have really suffered because of that. So that's that's certainly possible.
Speaker 3: One thing that was wild is that you know, you
Speaker 3: had not only John Ratcliffe, other c I officials actually
Speaker 3: visited Cuban recently open for discussions with uh. There are
Speaker 3: Cuban counterparts. So there's this there's kind of this interesting
Speaker 3: game being played. But Jack, I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a very good question because when you talk about
Speaker 3: increasing collection, the past collection at least on the human
Speaker 3: side was very suspect. Now because there were so many
Speaker 3: uh doubles. Now you know, is has that change? I'm
Speaker 3: not entire really sure, and I think that more than likely,
Speaker 3: there's some validity to the notion of that the Cuba
Speaker 3: has been so battered economically that you know, and and
Speaker 3: again their patrons have been also the Russians too, and
Speaker 3: so you know, are they as formidable an adversary? But
Speaker 3: that we we shall see, let's see what what we
Speaker 3: end up doing. I don't think we should shark from
Speaker 3: that just because there's been so much uh, you know,
Speaker 3: failure in the past in terms of on on on
Speaker 3: the human side. But you also can't you know, there
Speaker 3: can't be any hubris. We have to have some humility
Speaker 3: and that we are dealing with the Confidence Service.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we've kind of fucked that one a
Speaker 1: few times in the past already. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean when you talk about the ambassador, the National
Speaker 3: Intelligence officer for Cube, like there was serious mate that
Speaker 3: the d I as top analyst on Cuba was a
Speaker 3: spy for Cuba. That's astounding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'd be proud of that if it was reversed. Usually,
Speaker 2: the interesting thing.
Speaker 1: About d g I is I am understand it is
Speaker 1: that they get ideological recruitments, which we very rarely get.
Speaker 1: As I understand it, like CIA doesn't get a lot
Speaker 1: of ideological recruitments in that US.
Speaker 2: Like during the Coal War.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you think that's like a Cold War dynamic mic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're in the Cold War at least
Speaker 2: at least from what I wasn't around then, but at
Speaker 2: least from what I know that a lot of it was,
Speaker 2: you know, the opposition to the Soviet Union and UH
Speaker 2: and the desire to ensure that there wasn't a you know,
Speaker 2: Third World War. I would call that ideological.
Speaker 3: Should I think there's a chance that Jonathan and Mick
Speaker 3: and Jack and d all of us are going to
Speaker 3: be talking Cuba in the next month or two.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: Is it going to be before the elections mid terms
Speaker 3: or not?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: But and it's crazy, by the way, I mean Venezuela, Iran, Like,
Speaker 3: are we really going to do another little Foray? But
Speaker 3: I think there's very I mean, the one thing with
Speaker 3: this administration, this is not ideological or political. You'll be shocked.
Speaker 3: I'll say something neutral is that you should never say never.
Speaker 3: I think that's a fair statement. Things that you thought
Speaker 3: couldn't happen certainly can happen. And so I think we'll
Speaker 3: be talking Cuba soon.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've been told that some of these talks that
Speaker 1: are happening up at Camp David, they're kind of being
Speaker 1: advertised as being about Iran, but actually Cuba is one
Speaker 1: of the main topic of some of those talks.
Speaker 3: One other thing on this for Jonathan and Nick, like,
Speaker 3: why the hell did we do all our tdys and
Speaker 3: pcs's in the sandbox? Like, I'm sorry, Cuba is a
Speaker 3: little bit more fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, if you're not, if you're.
Speaker 3: With the sandbox, I.
Speaker 2: Got to go to some Latin American stuff and Far
Speaker 2: East Philippines, et cetera. But yeah, I don't know the
Speaker 2: other thing that people are talking about, but I tried
Speaker 2: to somewhat unsuccessfully this week is Ukraine. Like Ukraine right
Speaker 2: now has stop the Russians, Like they're not advancing, they're
Speaker 2: getting slaughtered. They are striking facilities way beyond where we
Speaker 2: thought they would, and they are getting almost no US support,
Speaker 2: like it is really little support. And even that, you know,
Speaker 2: the the idea that they were going to be able
Speaker 2: to manufacture like the pactories and stuff, because right now
Speaker 2: they're literally I think they're almost out entirely right, that's
Speaker 2: why they're getting hit so hard. I don't even know
Speaker 2: if that's gonna happen. So I would just I will
Speaker 2: beat the drum, even if it's not what the news
Speaker 2: is talking about. Not only is it the right thing
Speaker 2: to do, right, Uh, we're are the leader of the
Speaker 2: free world, but we have an opportunity if we have
Speaker 2: to play this game card to help them win, which
Speaker 2: means we'd win, right. So I'm just saying we need
Speaker 2: to win, right, So like if we win in uh,
Speaker 2: not that we need to I mean, I'm not advocating.
Speaker 2: We run around claiming victory for the Ukrainians who did
Speaker 2: one hundred percent of the work. But if we want
Speaker 2: to get behind a winning cause, not only is it
Speaker 2: the righteous cause, but these guys are already proved they
Speaker 2: can win by them. Can you imagine if we gave
Speaker 2: them full the little support.
Speaker 3: So I'm just gonna By the way, the Russians just
Speaker 3: trying to blow up several Ukraine airplanes in Germany. I
Speaker 3: saw that this is a terror state, this is insane state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just target apartment buildings, kill women and children,
Speaker 2: the old people. They don't even hide it. I'm with you,
Speaker 2: and it'll never win that way. All it does is
Speaker 2: make the Ukrainians less likely to ever concede. It's not
Speaker 2: even a winning strategy. It's just murder.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to see the targeting of wild berries like
Speaker 1: the Russian amazon. Yeah, because that's purely an economic target.
Speaker 1: You'd have a hard time saying that that's a military
Speaker 1: target or it's a dual use facility. But it is
Speaker 1: having a psychological impact on the Russian sense they can't
Speaker 1: get their deliveries.
Speaker 2: Well, apparently there's so little support for the troops in
Speaker 2: the front lines that families buy stuff from Wildberry to
Speaker 2: into that they buy helmets, I mean all the stuff
Speaker 2: that's not lethal, but like that don't have a body armor.
Speaker 2: I mean, these guys have like a one week life spectancy.
Speaker 2: If you if it's your kid, you're buying it. Apparently
Speaker 2: it comes. They ship a lot of this food, body armor, helmets,
Speaker 2: you know, all the stuff that you need, but isn't
Speaker 2: the lethal stuff.
Speaker 1: Anything else. Guys, Before we wrap up here today, John
Speaker 1: is the author of Iran's Shadow Weapons. You can go
Speaker 1: and find that book right now. Nick Mulroy with the
Speaker 1: Lobo Institute. Where can people find the Lobo Institute, Nick.
Speaker 2: We got a website Lobo ins dot g Lobo Institute
Speaker 2: dot org. And of course we're out here in Whitefish.
Speaker 2: If you're interested in that Whitefish Security Summit, there's a
Speaker 2: link to it. We're going to get all you guys
Speaker 2: out here for that. He's gonna get wrapped.
Speaker 1: And mister Plis, you have a book out too, don't you.
Speaker 3: It's been out for a couple of years. Clarity And
Speaker 3: if anyone wants to see me yapping away, I'm on
Speaker 3: TV a lot in the morning. I'll be on five am.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow suffering.
Speaker 2: Yeah six.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys for joining us today and we'll
Speaker 1: see all of you next time. Thanks guys, take care.
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