# Negotiations with Iran Fail & Trump Announces Naval Blockade | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 13 Apr 2026, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71275791/negotiatgions_and_naval_blockade.mp3

This episode covers the latest developments in Middle Eastern geopolitics, including Iran-US negotiations, the potential naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the implications of recent military and diplomatic actions. Experts analyze the strategic, legal, and economic aspects of these complex issues, providing insights into future scenarios. Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Subscribe to our new newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Jack's news outlet: https://thehighside.substack.com/ Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Jon's LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 Start 03:58 Negotiation Dynamics with Iran 09:49 Military Strategies and Naval Blockade 20:00 Legal Implications of Military Actions 24:53 Economic Consequences of Conflict 29:59 Military Effectiveness and Intelligence Assessment 33:48 Questioning Military Oversight and Accountability 36:38 Challenges in Battle Damage Assessment 39:40 Skepticism Towards Military Reports 41:20 The Role of Military Leadership 48:58 Strategic Military Movements and Blockades 55:23 Diplomatic Failures and Negotiation Dynamics 01:01:19 The Complexity of U.S.-Iran Relations Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Joe Polics. I'm
[0:02] Speaker 1: here with John Hack and Mark p Mick Moulroy, and myself.
[0:06] Speaker 1: I think Andy's gonna come through at some point. A
[0:09] Speaker 1: lot going on. I'm sure everybody's been watching the news
[0:11] Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Negotiations were happening in Pakistan between
[0:14] Speaker 1: the Iranians and US leading It was jd Vance as
[0:18] Speaker 1: Vice President and uh, I guess Jared Wickoffin and Jared
[0:23] Speaker 1: Kushner and Steve Wikoff were both there. I don't know, dude,
[0:27] Speaker 1: taking notes in the corner. Nothing happened, no deal was reached.
[0:32] Speaker 1: It seemed like we were very, very far apart in
[0:35] Speaker 1: terms of like what everybody wanted. Everyone has since left
[0:40] Speaker 1: Pakistan and over the last week, you know, the ceasefire
[0:43] Speaker 1: kicked off. We did the live stream the first day
[0:46] Speaker 1: of the seas fire. Didn't look great. Iran was still
[0:48] Speaker 1: bombing people, Israel was still bombing Iran. Israel started really
[0:51] Speaker 1: pumping Lebanon too. Initially there was talk that Lebanon was
[0:55] Speaker 1: included in the ceasefire. That turned out not to be true.
[0:58] Speaker 1: Messaging is incredible. Really, everyone's really sounds like they're on
[1:03] Speaker 1: the same page here. Lebanon got smoked too. I think
[1:06] Speaker 1: they two hundred plus two hundred and fifty plus people
[1:08] Speaker 1: died in one day, plus one thousand over one thousand injured.
[1:14] Speaker 1: I don't know where we're at now. Oh, President Trump
[1:17] Speaker 1: just tweeted about a naval blockade, like literally probably thirty
[1:22] Speaker 1: or forty minutes before we started recording this. So there's
[1:25] Speaker 1: a lot of a lot to look forward to. Things
[1:27] Speaker 1: are really looking up. What's going on? Guys? How are you? Guys?
[1:30] Speaker 2: What the hell?
[1:31] Speaker 1: You're happy Easter?
[1:32] Speaker 3: The Greeks work Easter the best?
[1:36] Speaker 2: You're alienating all of our Yes, sorry, I'll drop some
[1:41] Speaker 2: Greek ton stus?
[1:42] Speaker 1: Could he stuss on nesty? Nice? Yeah?
[1:45] Speaker 2: Maybe maybe.
[1:47] Speaker 3: I really try to be. I really try to be.
[1:50] Speaker 3: I'm not playing to my audience. If you ever want
[1:52] Speaker 3: to be in a really cool place for Easter, it's
[1:55] Speaker 3: absolutely grease.
[1:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, I mean, what the heck? You should have
[1:59] Speaker 2: led with them?
[2:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess you're right. I know my Greek supremacy
[2:02] Speaker 1: is lacking nowadays. I gotta I gotta bring it back,
[2:05] Speaker 1: hard hardcore. I'm gonna wear my uh my grandfather is
[2:08] Speaker 1: like f zone outfit like he used to be in
[2:11] Speaker 1: zone now and he fought World War two. Really, Hey,
[2:14] Speaker 1: I'm gonna dig that out and just wear a fucking
[2:16] Speaker 1: skirt for you guys. To two for you guys, because
[2:18] Speaker 1: that's what they would.
[2:18] Speaker 2: Wear, no underwear, the skirt.
[2:20] Speaker 1: I like it, Yeah, I mean definitely, that's the only
[2:22] Speaker 1: way to do it.
[2:23] Speaker 3: That's a connection between the Irish, Scots and Greeks. There dresses.
[2:29] Speaker 2: I mean, I even sent you this morning to clip
[2:31] Speaker 2: from my big fat Greek wedding.
[2:33] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna be eating
[2:36] Speaker 1: a lot of lamb today actually, so our group chat
[2:38] Speaker 1: is gonna get a lot of pictures of lamb on
[2:40] Speaker 1: a spit. Nice And there's Andy Milburn. Hi, Andy, we're recording.
[2:45] Speaker 2: That's what we used to do that. We used my
[2:47] Speaker 2: dad when I was growing up in Jersey, all his
[2:49] Speaker 2: Greek buddies who all you know, came from Athens and
[2:52] Speaker 2: all immigrated. That we used to get a lamb and
[2:53] Speaker 2: cook it for thirteen hours in our garage on a spit,
[2:56] Speaker 2: just drinking all day.
[2:57] Speaker 1: That's where I'm going right now at like three o'clock.
[3:00] Speaker 2: You got Vick, You'll remember this too, cocoz, Oh, come on,
[3:04] Speaker 2: it's lamb and testine.
[3:05] Speaker 1: It's disgusting, all right, Yeah, disgusting. It's like a it's
[3:10] Speaker 1: like a stew. It's well, it's not a stew.
[3:13] Speaker 2: It's a little it's like like jerky type stuff.
[3:16] Speaker 1: Cocoetsy is the little pieces mat is that inside in
[3:20] Speaker 1: a stew like a soup, and it's they're both fucking disgusting.
[3:23] Speaker 1: Come on, it's fucking gross.
[3:26] Speaker 3: And then what's the big gigaban.
[3:29] Speaker 1: Gigabean? Uh, he got this? They're called yeah, that's what
[3:36] Speaker 1: we Yeah, that's my my cousin's call gigantis because they're huge.
[3:39] Speaker 1: They're like big beans. But there, he got this.
[3:43] Speaker 3: It's got some good food.
[3:45] Speaker 2: Soon be back soon, heading there for a month soon
[3:48] Speaker 2: this summer.
[3:50] Speaker 1: What a retired life, all right? So what do we got?
[3:55] Speaker 1: Is the world ending or what?
[3:57] Speaker 4: No?
[3:57] Speaker 3: I don't think so. But okay, if I'm kicking it off,
[4:02] Speaker 3: I'll start with the the negotiations, right so, and I
[4:08] Speaker 3: think the guys will back me up on this. This
[4:10] Speaker 3: isn't really normally how we do negotiations. We usually have
[4:14] Speaker 3: them staffed, right. So, the old version of the NSC,
[4:18] Speaker 3: where you had senior career people from state, the military
[4:25] Speaker 3: obviously and the agency and other intelligence services are generally
[4:31] Speaker 3: the people whose staff these type of negotiations. They begin
[4:36] Speaker 3: with them. They try to set the framework, obviously with
[4:40] Speaker 3: guidance from above, they try to work out the details.
[4:43] Speaker 3: They try to get to points of agreement, and then
[4:46] Speaker 3: when they get to something that they all think is
[4:49] Speaker 3: worth agreeing to, then they bring in the principles. Right,
[4:54] Speaker 3: the principles are supposed to like solidify the deal. They're
[4:57] Speaker 3: not supposed to go and start the discussion because there's
[4:59] Speaker 3: nowhere to go from there, right, and then they can
[5:03] Speaker 3: you know, basically, when you think about how negotiations work,
[5:08] Speaker 3: if you're not the principles, you can concede things, you
[5:12] Speaker 3: can argue about things without it turning into just like,
[5:15] Speaker 3: let's flip the table and walk off. I'm not saying
[5:17] Speaker 3: that's what happened, but it sounds kind of like that.
[5:19] Speaker 3: So that's a bit unusual. I would suggest it worked better.
[5:24] Speaker 3: I would suggest that starting with the vice president, you
[5:29] Speaker 3: got no where to go if it doesn't work out
[5:31] Speaker 3: the way you want it to. But obviously I'm not
[5:34] Speaker 3: making the call, but this is how we did it
[5:36] Speaker 3: for both parties since I can remember. So i'd suggest
[5:41] Speaker 3: that maybe they might want to do that, so that
[5:43] Speaker 3: it isn't like you agree with everything I say or
[5:45] Speaker 3: I'm going back to the United States, because that's not
[5:48] Speaker 3: how especially with the Iranians. The Iranians are used to
[5:52] Speaker 3: and actually all of you can correct me if I'm wrong.
[5:55] Speaker 3: They're used to long term They're used to long negotiations.
[5:59] Speaker 3: They're fine with it. That's how they operate. They're not
[6:01] Speaker 3: going to change.
[6:02] Speaker 1: Uh.
[6:03] Speaker 3: They send a lot of people to this negotiation, probably
[6:05] Speaker 3: for that purpose. So I just rethink about how we're
[6:09] Speaker 3: going about this, because the alternative to a diplomatic solution
[6:13] Speaker 3: is probably a major military escalation. And unless you think
[6:17] Speaker 3: that's a good idea, which most people do not, even
[6:20] Speaker 3: especially in the military, then we need to try harder
[6:22] Speaker 3: on the diplomatic side. So I start with that. And
[6:25] Speaker 3: by the way, if your if your adversary tells you
[6:28] Speaker 3: they want a specific person to be your representative, then
[6:32] Speaker 3: don't send that person. Nothing against Vice President, but they don't.
[6:37] Speaker 3: That's set them set in the state the stage before
[6:39] Speaker 3: we even get to the theater.
[6:41] Speaker 1: Right.
[6:43] Speaker 3: So also, probably not a great the other points, and
[6:46] Speaker 3: I'll be brief, because we have a lot of smart
[6:48] Speaker 3: folks that need to talk on this, uh the straight itself.
[6:52] Speaker 3: So it's unclear to me whether Orron really did imagine
[6:57] Speaker 3: they did set minds, or whether they really can't find them,
[7:00] Speaker 3: or this is just an effort to shove everybody into
[7:03] Speaker 3: Iranian territorial waters, which of course then gives them the
[7:07] Speaker 3: ability to charge and all that stuff. That can't be
[7:10] Speaker 3: the case. In fact, the idea that we're even negotiating,
[7:12] Speaker 3: the idea that they might have some control of the
[7:15] Speaker 3: Strait is just starting on the wrong principle. It's an
[7:17] Speaker 3: international waterway. It's not up not only for Iran, it's
[7:20] Speaker 3: not even up for the United States. Negotiated away right,
[7:23] Speaker 3: this is where the international community needs to go time out.
[7:26] Speaker 3: Yet nobody's going to control this. That's just not part
[7:29] Speaker 3: of the negotiations and really enforce that because that can't
[7:34] Speaker 3: be the case. If it is where Iran is going
[7:37] Speaker 3: to drop the rest of their five thousand c minds
[7:40] Speaker 3: in the Strait, then the international community does need to
[7:43] Speaker 3: come together as a coalition. The best way to do
[7:45] Speaker 3: that is after the United States stops attacking, because it's
[7:49] Speaker 3: a different discussion. Other main things we heard the Vice
[7:56] Speaker 3: President talk about really the only thing you talked about,
[7:59] Speaker 3: which was you need to ensure that they don't have
[8:01] Speaker 3: aspirations for nuclear weapon. We had that under the JCPOWA, right,
[8:07] Speaker 3: So we're going to have to be more stringent than
[8:11] Speaker 3: JCPOWAY or there's going to be a lot of legitimate
[8:13] Speaker 3: questions of what the whole point of this was. Right,
[8:16] Speaker 3: If we're just going to get back to essentially what
[8:18] Speaker 3: we had in twenty eighteen when decided to leave it,
[8:22] Speaker 3: then this is going to look like an exercise and
[8:24] Speaker 3: complete futility that's brought the world to the brink of,
[8:27] Speaker 3: you know, a regional conflict that's damaging the international economy
[8:31] Speaker 3: when we're essentially trying to get back to what we
[8:33] Speaker 3: left primarily left because it was political. I don't like
[8:37] Speaker 3: it because it didn't do it. So it's going to
[8:40] Speaker 3: have to include ballistic missiles. It's going to have to
[8:42] Speaker 3: include potentially restrictions on ballistic missiles, and some kind of
[8:48] Speaker 3: addressing of proxy support, you know, to US designated terrorist
[8:53] Speaker 3: organizations in the region. If it's just getting back to
[8:56] Speaker 3: the nuclear issue, then this was this will go down
[8:59] Speaker 3: in history is a WTF to be honest. So and again,
[9:06] Speaker 3: as our listeners know they listen to a regular I
[9:08] Speaker 3: support the objectives. I just want the United States to
[9:13] Speaker 3: come out ahead. I don't really care who's in office
[9:16] Speaker 3: to America, so to speak, but that's important. And then
[9:20] Speaker 3: the last thing, in addition to the fact that we're
[9:22] Speaker 3: probably gonna have forcefully opened the straight up from who's
[9:25] Speaker 3: because I don't be viewed as a strategic failure of
[9:27] Speaker 3: the United States be clothed, we're gonna have to now
[9:29] Speaker 3: address the nuclear material that's left. Like we put ourselves
[9:35] Speaker 3: in a position where that has to be addressed either
[9:38] Speaker 3: they turn it over or we forcibly go get it.
[9:41] Speaker 3: If not, then the whole question of the well, if
[9:44] Speaker 3: the nuclear ambitions is the primary issue of the United States,
[9:49] Speaker 3: we can't leave almost one thousand pounds of highly enriched
[9:52] Speaker 3: geranium there. So we're in a position where this is
[9:56] Speaker 3: just based on our own objectives, we're going to have
[10:00] Speaker 3: to escalate this if it's not if it's not addressed diplomatically,
[10:04] Speaker 3: so and that that to me means we've got to
[10:07] Speaker 3: put way more effort into the diplomacy of this, and
[10:10] Speaker 3: we need to get professionals involved that understand the issues
[10:13] Speaker 3: and they can work through really complex high pressure negotiations
[10:19] Speaker 3: so that we can get to some we can all.
[10:20] Speaker 2: Agree, all right, Demonic, let me just jump in a
[10:23] Speaker 2: couple of things, Mick, I think a great point on
[10:26] Speaker 2: how unusual this was in terms of a principle kind
[10:29] Speaker 2: of taking the lead before it was staffed. I mean,
[10:31] Speaker 2: in every diplomatic negotiation, any kind of Let's just say,
[10:34] Speaker 2: I mean, this is the first such high level meeting
[10:36] Speaker 2: between the US and RUN in five decades, so a
[10:39] Speaker 2: huge deal. But let's say, even if it was just
[10:42] Speaker 2: a bilateral meeting, you have all the underlings setting the
[10:46] Speaker 2: stage with talks with Iranians, and then you bring in
[10:49] Speaker 2: the principles to kind of close the deal. So you're
[10:50] Speaker 2: one hundred percent right on that. I was trying to
[10:53] Speaker 2: be very clever in the media last week, and of
[10:55] Speaker 2: course I usually blow it with the line, but I said,
[10:58] Speaker 2: was this was Advance's Daytona five hundred and I guess
[11:01] Speaker 2: maybe it was. What happened, it was a rain out.
[11:03] Speaker 2: I mean, no one won, no one lost, nothing happened.
[11:06] Speaker 2: I guess storming off would be something akin to and
[11:09] Speaker 2: maybe someone gave them advice. This is what you do
[11:12] Speaker 2: in Middle Eastern negotiations. We've all spent time in the region.
[11:14] Speaker 2: This is like going to buy a piece of gold
[11:16] Speaker 2: in the soup and you don't like the price and
[11:18] Speaker 2: you storm off. And so maybe there's the idea that
[11:21] Speaker 2: the Iranians will come back. But I think there are
[11:24] Speaker 2: three kind of redlines or or asks or are in
[11:28] Speaker 2: some ways existential. It's the nuke program, It's reparations because
[11:32] Speaker 2: they their economies and the shitter, and then it's it's
[11:36] Speaker 2: it's proxies Lebanon Ish. I mean, the idea is to
[11:38] Speaker 2: get the Israelis to stop in Lebanon. And so you
[11:42] Speaker 2: know that the two sides are just too far apart
[11:46] Speaker 2: on that. I think that the one thing to look
[11:50] Speaker 2: at now, and that's why this and so, I mean,
[11:53] Speaker 2: everything's moving so fast. So we were going to talk
[11:55] Speaker 2: about the negotiations, you know, not going anywhere. Now we're
[11:57] Speaker 2: talking about the naval blockade. But this is you know,
[12:00] Speaker 2: I was joking. I don't know if I sent it
[12:01] Speaker 2: to you guys, maybe I did or some other folks.
[12:03] Speaker 2: I mean, you know, my time, my naval experience is
[12:06] Speaker 2: working with naval special warfare and then doing one trap
[12:09] Speaker 2: landing on the George Washington. I mean I don't you know,
[12:11] Speaker 2: so I don't know naval strategy, but it would seem
[12:14] Speaker 2: to me that there are a lot of people have
[12:17] Speaker 2: war gained this and have talked and talked about the
[12:19] Speaker 2: blockade of the straight or hor moves, and so Trump,
[12:22] Speaker 2: of course tweets there puts out a true social What
[12:24] Speaker 2: does it really mean? You know, someone just paying me
[12:27] Speaker 2: and said, okay, we understand they're going to blockade ships.
[12:31] Speaker 2: Are there are we really going to be interdicting boarding
[12:34] Speaker 2: Chinese vessels? There's a supposed to be a summit coming
[12:37] Speaker 2: up soon. I mean that seems and and do we
[12:39] Speaker 2: have enough you know, firepower in the region. I guess
[12:41] Speaker 2: the third carriers on the way. But I just listened
[12:44] Speaker 2: to amost of Redi's on CNN. He said that you
[12:46] Speaker 2: need two carriers and what twelve destroyers and frigates. There
[12:50] Speaker 2: is a risk to force here. I mean, there's so
[12:52] Speaker 2: many things that go into this. But I guess the
[12:53] Speaker 2: question for you guys who you know, former military in particular,
[12:57] Speaker 2: I would imagine Mick, you probably saw this, can't talk
[12:59] Speaker 2: about details, is that I assume this has been war
[13:02] Speaker 2: gained out a billion times with sencom and and I
[13:07] Speaker 2: guess the The second part is can we do this
[13:12] Speaker 2: on our own or do we need allied assistance to
[13:15] Speaker 2: do so? Trump hinted that there might be some allies
[13:19] Speaker 2: who are going to assist with this, assuming this is
[13:22] Speaker 2: less risky than taking Crog Island. I mean, I think
[13:24] Speaker 2: you can probably do this in areas I'm not we
[13:26] Speaker 2: don't have a map here, but it's not as dangerous.
[13:29] Speaker 2: And then maybe the last point too in d you're
[13:32] Speaker 2: our resident political expert here is you know this is
[13:35] Speaker 2: you know, it's a weird time. Jonathan and I were
[13:37] Speaker 2: talking about it in our little green room before. Is
[13:40] Speaker 2: he's doing you know, Trump announced this on Sunday markets
[13:42] Speaker 2: open tomorrow. This is not going to be good for
[13:44] Speaker 2: the US economy. For international markets, people are gonna freak
[13:47] Speaker 2: out again in terms of the the you know, the
[13:49] Speaker 2: whatever the price of gas or oil going up, and
[13:53] Speaker 2: so it is kind of you know, this is going
[13:54] Speaker 2: to cost some more pain and you're going to see,
[13:56] Speaker 2: you know, the gas prices in the US stay higher
[13:59] Speaker 2: or go much higher. So that's kind of interest interesting
[14:02] Speaker 2: domestically on this. Oh last piece too. We got a
[14:05] Speaker 2: lawyer here, right, Mick. This is an active war. I mean,
[14:11] Speaker 2: a naval blockade is an active war. And Jonathan, you're
[14:13] Speaker 2: in law school now, and so law school, it's now
[14:16] Speaker 2: as Congress comes back, do the Democrats say, well we
[14:18] Speaker 2: need a War Powers resolution. This is now like walked
[14:21] Speaker 2: right into the idea of this is an actual, literally
[14:23] Speaker 2: an active war. And so will Congress now take an interest? Anyway?
[14:27] Speaker 2: I throw all these out there, for.
[14:28] Speaker 3: When is the sixty day sixty days out of the
[14:31] Speaker 3: War Powers Acts? Because they have to they have to
[14:33] Speaker 3: write move it going forward?
[14:34] Speaker 2: Right, Well, we're certainly past the one month mark.
[14:37] Speaker 1: So yeah, it started on the twenty eighth rights of February,
[14:40] Speaker 1: so it's probably a couple more weeks.
[14:44] Speaker 3: Ask maybe somebody else could pick up that question.
[14:46] Speaker 1: Also, fun fact, Andy's also a lawyer. Back.
[14:50] Speaker 3: That's right.
[14:51] Speaker 5: Holy, I just I just went to I completed law
[14:55] Speaker 5: school by then.
[14:56] Speaker 2: Okay, well for all, so this is this is something
[15:01] Speaker 2: that you know, people in Congress certainly can ca I mean,
[15:05] Speaker 2: obviously we're in a war with Iran, even though what
[15:06] Speaker 2: a drum called it like an expedition or an escapade
[15:09] Speaker 2: or order to help dumb thing he was saying, but
[15:11] Speaker 2: this seems to be rather a significant anyway, what do
[15:14] Speaker 2: you guys think of the naval blockade? I mean, I know,
[15:16] Speaker 2: we want to talk about the negotiations, but that's almost
[15:19] Speaker 2: past news. Now we're now in a bad How does
[15:22] Speaker 2: this work? And that's some of the questions that I
[15:24] Speaker 2: that I raised.
[15:25] Speaker 5: There questions all that too, But well, I mean, I
[15:29] Speaker 5: think you've got to stop with asking. And I assume
[15:33] Speaker 5: that's what Cooper is asking, because you can't assume this
[15:37] Speaker 5: what what is the objective?
[15:40] Speaker 1: Right?
[15:40] Speaker 5: I mean is the objective to keep commercial ship shipping
[15:45] Speaker 5: moving through the straits? I mean that's what I by
[15:47] Speaker 5: by bringing pressure on Iran, uh, stopping Iran from turning
[15:51] Speaker 5: it trying to get into a toll booth. And and
[15:54] Speaker 5: that sounds reasonable, right, even achievable, and uh, I suppose
[15:59] Speaker 5: it is. I mean, the US Navy can escort ships,
[16:02] Speaker 5: they can they can patrol the sea lanes, they can
[16:05] Speaker 5: intercept missiles, drones.
[16:08] Speaker 2: The full blockade, and and so I think the idea
[16:11] Speaker 2: would be to to put pressure on India, China, Russia
[16:15] Speaker 2: others who their economies now will be hurt when some
[16:18] Speaker 2: of their ships were getting through. And so the idea
[16:21] Speaker 2: is to now put pressure on Iran's allies so to speak,
[16:24] Speaker 2: because everything be shut down, there's no escorting or anything.
[16:27] Speaker 2: It was my understanding of this.
[16:28] Speaker 5: But sorry, okay, no, no, that's I mean, no, that's
[16:32] Speaker 5: that's exactly. That's exactly the question and the answer that
[16:36] Speaker 5: he needs it. So so then it becomes Look, it's
[16:41] Speaker 5: like all of these things that have been toited, ground operations,
[16:45] Speaker 5: amphibious landings, uranium extraction if they're feasible on paper, right,
[16:51] Speaker 5: But but a navel and I'm not a you know,
[16:53] Speaker 5: I'm not a rest chipper, the prominent of the navy.
[16:57] Speaker 5: So but but I you know, I do know that.
[17:01] Speaker 5: I mean, the people are throwing around numbers of ships
[17:04] Speaker 5: and everything. It's the types of ships that are important.
[17:06] Speaker 5: You need, you know, you need destroyers, but you need
[17:09] Speaker 5: ages systems, you need a layered defense because you've got
[17:12] Speaker 5: to defend against And we've talked about this. The biggest
[17:16] Speaker 5: threat are anti ship missiles, right, and if we are
[17:21] Speaker 5: to believe our own intelligence reports, at least fifty percent
[17:26] Speaker 5: of launchers are still intact. And I believe and I've
[17:29] Speaker 5: got to check this is true. But when you're talking
[17:32] Speaker 5: about anti ship missiles, the ratio is even higher. So
[17:36] Speaker 5: there are significant number of anti ship missiles still out there,
[17:39] Speaker 5: which means we're trolling all of these assets right within
[17:42] Speaker 5: range of those missiles, so being able to sustain that
[17:48] Speaker 5: for any period of time. Yeah, we may be cutting
[17:53] Speaker 5: off oil to China and other allies of Iran, but
[17:59] Speaker 5: we're also imposed a massive economic cost on ourselves and
[18:03] Speaker 5: not to mention risk, to force, political risk, risk to
[18:07] Speaker 5: mission and all Iran has to do. Yes, it is
[18:11] Speaker 5: an act of war, but arguably we're already committing an
[18:14] Speaker 5: active war. Or we Iran would have to do is
[18:16] Speaker 5: launch a missile or a drone and then of course
[18:21] Speaker 5: there's a mind friend. This is where this is our
[18:23] Speaker 5: real Achilles Tendon. I thought I would use a Greek
[18:27] Speaker 5: analogy or it being Orthodox Easter, and that is the
[18:32] Speaker 5: fact that we are. And this is common knowledge. The
[18:35] Speaker 5: United States Navy, for a number of reasons, is woefully
[18:39] Speaker 5: short of mind hunters. I think there's you know, you
[18:42] Speaker 5: can look it up on open source. I think there's
[18:44] Speaker 5: like one Avenger class mind hunter in Bahrain, if it's
[18:47] Speaker 5: still there. And that is it. So we are very
[18:50] Speaker 5: dependent on allies when it comes to countermind measures. Why
[18:54] Speaker 5: is that? I'll make this brief because we have squandered money.
[18:59] Speaker 5: Because if you you're a mind hunter dude in the navy,
[19:02] Speaker 5: just like in the amphib navy, it's not sexy. You
[19:04] Speaker 5: don't carry a lot of weight when it's arguing for money,
[19:07] Speaker 5: and all the money goes to the you know, the
[19:10] Speaker 5: platforms that carry people into the rank of admiral, like
[19:14] Speaker 5: aircraft carriers for instance, which as you know, are a
[19:16] Speaker 5: massive waste of money. But I digress. So you know,
[19:20] Speaker 5: the bottom line is, even if you even if you
[19:25] Speaker 5: think that the objective itself is feasible, that by blocking
[19:29] Speaker 5: off this artery, you are forcing people to the negotiation table.
[19:33] Speaker 5: And I would argue that's always a risky bad because
[19:37] Speaker 5: they will find alternate routes a guarantee, and you know
[19:41] Speaker 5: the ban is still open. Secondly, you're putting all of
[19:45] Speaker 5: your assets in harms way. And as I've said, simply
[19:48] Speaker 5: by imposing a blockade, legally you're already at war. So
[19:52] Speaker 5: around could shoot at our ships and say it was
[19:55] Speaker 5: in self defense. And I think that gets back and
[19:58] Speaker 5: I'll shut up because I don't want to talk too much,
[20:01] Speaker 5: but I think that gets back to a key part
[20:05] Speaker 5: of why the negotiations broke down because we made assumptions
[20:08] Speaker 5: that are incorrect. Aside from the team we sent, Aside
[20:11] Speaker 5: from the fact that we didn't empower them. Iran didn't
[20:14] Speaker 5: come to the table week. You know, they didn't come.
[20:17] Speaker 5: Those negotiators weren't there in a desperate state of trying
[20:21] Speaker 5: to find a deal. They were feeling fairly resilient. Iran
[20:25] Speaker 5: feels as though it has not come out at the
[20:28] Speaker 5: bottom of the recent campaign. Doesn't matter what kind of
[20:32] Speaker 5: military attrition we have exacted. Yes, you know, they've sustained
[20:36] Speaker 5: military pressure. We've done enough damage to divorce Iran into concessions,
[20:41] Speaker 5: but not real concessions, not not in the ones that matter,
[20:45] Speaker 5: like the straits of all moves and like uranium your richment.
[20:49] Speaker 5: I mean, negotiations aren't driven by what we think is
[20:52] Speaker 5: objective reality. They're driven by perception. And Iran's perception is
[20:56] Speaker 5: very different from Washington's, and that's why the negotiations are
[20:59] Speaker 5: broken out.
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[21:44] Speaker 3: Question then I know too, Jonathan to add into his
[21:48] Speaker 3: comments on this. So obviously I wore with Iron, so
[21:51] Speaker 3: seizing their oil trying to prevent them from benefiting from
[21:56] Speaker 3: their closures straight makes sense. How would we legally justify
[22:01] Speaker 3: seizing in other country's vessel with their resources after going
[22:08] Speaker 3: through an international waterway that we say should be open
[22:12] Speaker 3: because it's an international waterway? Like, what legal basis would
[22:16] Speaker 3: we had for doing that? And then what are we
[22:20] Speaker 3: going to do with it? Yeah? Yeah, it's going to
[22:23] Speaker 3: keep up basis.
[22:24] Speaker 4: I mean, who's going to adjudicate, who's going to adjudicate
[22:28] Speaker 4: in the international system, whether the US can legally do
[22:31] Speaker 4: it or not. I know that's kind of a sensitive question.
[22:33] Speaker 4: But the thing is, the US isn't part of the ICC.
[22:35] Speaker 4: We're not party to some of these treaties that set
[22:39] Speaker 4: the outlines for how people should behave in the international system.
[22:42] Speaker 4: And blockade is actually not an active war according to
[22:45] Speaker 4: the Constitution. It's an active war according to international humanitarian law,
[22:48] Speaker 4: which does come out of the UN, but doesn't bind
[22:51] Speaker 4: the United States to behave a particular way, And the
[22:55] Speaker 4: blockade would not need to be approved by Congress technico.
[22:59] Speaker 4: I mean, this is an argument that the administration can
[23:01] Speaker 4: make pretty well that they don't need Congress's approval to
[23:04] Speaker 4: position military vessels in international waters, right because that is
[23:08] Speaker 4: certainly an executive function. This is this is how they
[23:11] Speaker 4: would frame this. For sure, they could do this. I mean,
[23:17] Speaker 4: they've got the ability to do visit, board, search and seizure.
[23:20] Speaker 4: They can do a pose and nonopposed boarding if for
[23:22] Speaker 4: any suspicion whatsoever. Because remember, there's not normal due process
[23:25] Speaker 4: in the high seas, so you don't need to first
[23:27] Speaker 4: suspect a vessel of anything in the high seas. And
[23:31] Speaker 4: I'm thinking back to Vera Cruz nineteen fourteen, when the
[23:34] Speaker 4: Marine seized Vera Cruz we behaved in a very similar
[23:36] Speaker 4: way around the Bay of Vera Cruz before we actually
[23:38] Speaker 4: went ashore into Barra Cruse and seized that port. Again
[23:42] Speaker 4: another questionable thing under international humanitarian lack in the US.
[23:45] Speaker 4: Do that Probably not, But we did and nobody could
[23:49] Speaker 4: stop us. And that's there's a kind of a couple
[23:51] Speaker 4: of points in there. Is that whether it's right or
[23:53] Speaker 4: wrong is important, but is that relevant to whether we
[23:55] Speaker 4: can do it or not. Because we can do it,
[23:58] Speaker 4: we goes back to the Median dialogue, you know that
[23:59] Speaker 4: we've talked about before that we can do it, So
[24:02] Speaker 4: we do it, and there's no other balancing factor to
[24:05] Speaker 4: pull us back into the world where different parties are
[24:07] Speaker 4: on the same plane. Back when we had the multipolar
[24:10] Speaker 4: world or the bipolar world with Russia for example, in
[24:12] Speaker 4: the Soviet Union, where there were repercussions of US doing
[24:15] Speaker 4: something like this, you know, there was the Cuban naval blockade,
[24:17] Speaker 4: of course, which is important, but there was a balance
[24:20] Speaker 4: against that to reduce the tensions and break the blockade
[24:23] Speaker 4: against Cuba, you know, And there isn't something on the
[24:26] Speaker 4: other side like that this time. So the US is
[24:28] Speaker 4: kind of able to move in a way that is unchecked. Essentially,
[24:31] Speaker 4: especially when we're talking about exclusive economic zones and the
[24:34] Speaker 4: international waters and the straits, which is very small, and
[24:38] Speaker 4: you could functionally blockade it without creating an actual blockade.
[24:41] Speaker 4: Just because of how small it is, you could you
[24:44] Speaker 4: could create a very difficult area to traverse. I mean
[24:46] Speaker 4: that if you look at actual topography under the water,
[24:49] Speaker 4: there's only so much space that those ships can actually
[24:51] Speaker 4: traverse safely based on the whole depth. So you could
[24:56] Speaker 4: essentially actually create just physical obstruction rather than a qui
[25:00] Speaker 4: unquote blockade to stop vessels from moving in and out.
[25:02] Speaker 4: So this is another consideration that if you were in
[25:05] Speaker 4: Trump's team trying to explain this to the world, there
[25:08] Speaker 4: are explanations that could be sent forth as a facade
[25:11] Speaker 4: to describe it. Just like when we killed cost some solmony,
[25:15] Speaker 4: you know, according to internationally meditaran law, that was clearly
[25:17] Speaker 4: not allowed, but we came up with an explanation for it,
[25:20] Speaker 4: and then presented that very thin explanation and acted on
[25:23] Speaker 4: it and then continued forward as if nothing happened and
[25:25] Speaker 4: that it was justified.
[25:27] Speaker 2: Have you guys been question though, Yeah?
[25:31] Speaker 3: Care, Yeah, just a quick follow on, and this is
[25:32] Speaker 3: a question, really not a comment. Won't that just magnify
[25:38] Speaker 3: the issue that Iron's already capitalizing on, Like they've they've
[25:42] Speaker 3: decided to close the Straight to make this a global issue.
[25:45] Speaker 3: Then if we start seizing tankers going through like that
[25:49] Speaker 3: would reduce the amount of energy worldwide, won't that shoot
[25:52] Speaker 3: up the cost of energy and therefore on will be
[25:54] Speaker 3: like now they're doing it, So I mean it's it's
[25:57] Speaker 3: like now we're almost equal in this the issue. Just
[26:00] Speaker 3: a question, like I mean, I'm not an economist, but.
[26:03] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, if you look at the statistics of
[26:05] Speaker 4: who gets the oil out of the Straits, the recipients, Yes,
[26:07] Speaker 4: China is a large recipient. I think it's like thirty
[26:09] Speaker 4: eight percent of the oil that leaves the Straits goes
[26:11] Speaker 4: to China something like that. But the others, the majority
[26:14] Speaker 4: of it is going to South Korea and Japan and
[26:16] Speaker 4: other allies and partners of the United States that produce
[26:19] Speaker 4: a significant amount of highly advanced technical equipment all the
[26:21] Speaker 4: way down to very simple items that are imports to
[26:23] Speaker 4: the United States, which means there's almost like a value
[26:25] Speaker 4: added tax that's going to be de facto impose on
[26:28] Speaker 4: every single good that we get from Asia, which again
[26:32] Speaker 4: reason California's gas prices are historically high is because most
[26:35] Speaker 4: of their petroleum related items actually don't come from the
[26:38] Speaker 4: US that come from the Pacific, just for logistical reasons.
[26:41] Speaker 4: And that also means goods coming into the Port of
[26:43] Speaker 4: Los Angeles and the things you buy on Amazon and
[26:45] Speaker 4: other places coming from that same sea line of communication.
[26:49] Speaker 4: There's going to be a step up of increased value
[26:51] Speaker 4: on all those items, everything, not just gas. Gas is
[26:53] Speaker 4: the thing that people feel at the pump, but over
[26:55] Speaker 4: time you're going to start seeing like the ripple down effects,
[26:58] Speaker 4: just like when COVID stopped people from being able to
[27:00] Speaker 4: cut trees down to make furniture, and suddenly that created
[27:02] Speaker 4: these huge expansive costs in other unrelated areas like home building.
[27:07] Speaker 4: Because of how how the economics works, that's not an
[27:09] Speaker 4: automatic direct increase in price, and we're going to certainly
[27:13] Speaker 4: see that. It's probably even after the conflict ends, there
[27:15] Speaker 4: will still be ripples of increased price that continue to
[27:17] Speaker 4: go up even after the war's over, whenever that might be.
[27:20] Speaker 4: And people are going to wonder, why is my stuff
[27:22] Speaker 4: still expensive? And it's because of the way economics works.
[27:24] Speaker 4: It is not an automatic overnight. Suddenly the prices are
[27:27] Speaker 4: high and suddenly they are low, like oil futures, because
[27:29] Speaker 4: oil futures are speculative, whereas the price of your bananas
[27:33] Speaker 4: is an absolute price, and that's how much it cost
[27:35] Speaker 4: to get it on a ship, put diesel in the ship,
[27:37] Speaker 4: and then sell it to the United States.
[27:39] Speaker 2: One one quick question for those who have experience with
[27:43] Speaker 2: suncomon the military. I mean, how do you think this transpired?
[27:47] Speaker 2: I mean, this was this was probably in the toolkit
[27:49] Speaker 2: somehow right the closing the straight or from is Richard
[27:50] Speaker 2: Hass wrote about it last week. Other people have you know,
[27:52] Speaker 2: so clearly policymakers. Richard Hass was in the you know,
[27:55] Speaker 2: the Bush administration, so this has always been out there.
[27:58] Speaker 2: I'm sure there was war games. How do you think
[28:00] Speaker 2: it transpired in that you know? Was this was this
[28:02] Speaker 2: Admiral Cooper? Was this Dan Can or hex that's you know,
[28:05] Speaker 2: giving Trump options on what to do and if the
[28:07] Speaker 2: negotiations fall apart and Islamabad, this is the next step.
[28:11] Speaker 2: I mean, or maybe answer the question, in a normal administration,
[28:15] Speaker 2: how would this have have come about?
[28:19] Speaker 3: I think there's likely these options were known even prior
[28:24] Speaker 3: to the war starting by the most senior leaders, and
[28:27] Speaker 3: they're looking for things that they can do to change
[28:30] Speaker 3: the current situation. Even as dramatic as this would be,
[28:36] Speaker 3: I just it seems like it's just going to exacerbate
[28:39] Speaker 3: the very issue we're trying to avoid. Because I mean,
[28:42] Speaker 3: that was a great answer, by the way, Jonathan, But
[28:45] Speaker 3: my understanding, even if China gets thirty eight percent of it,
[28:48] Speaker 3: if there's just less energy out there, it's going up
[28:50] Speaker 3: for everybody. So to keep saying well, we don't get
[28:53] Speaker 3: that much energy from there is kind of like true
[28:56] Speaker 3: but also irrelevant because our gas prices are going up anyway,
[29:00] Speaker 3: because if there's less if if if China's going to
[29:02] Speaker 3: buy energy from somewhere else, it's going to drive the
[29:05] Speaker 3: supply and demand situations drive the price up. So if
[29:09] Speaker 3: we were seizing, are we're gonna take it? Are we
[29:12] Speaker 3: gonna sell it? We're gonna keep the money? I mean,
[29:15] Speaker 3: what is what is the ultimate in game?
[29:17] Speaker 2: Like what's we're gonna see the Chinese tanker?
[29:21] Speaker 3: And isn't that an act? It would be an act
[29:23] Speaker 3: of war if they seized ours?
[29:25] Speaker 4: Right right?
[29:26] Speaker 3: So what is China gonna do? I doubt they're just
[29:28] Speaker 3: gonna sit there and go, well, I guess the United
[29:30] Speaker 3: States can do what they want.
[29:32] Speaker 2: There's between Trump and she they're supposed to be at least.
[29:36] Speaker 6: That's gonna be overes and as they see the Chinese tag,
[29:40] Speaker 6: I mean, I can't and and I you know, obviously
[29:43] Speaker 6: I haven't worked at the level that mecanspen I was
[29:46] Speaker 6: that sucks for three years.
[29:49] Speaker 5: And yeah we we. I mean there would naval blockades,
[29:52] Speaker 5: remember of I mean essentially the facto blockades of Yemen
[29:55] Speaker 5: to stop the flow of lethalway to Yemen. But but
[30:00] Speaker 5: imposing it a blockade, a US blake blockade on the
[30:03] Speaker 5: streets of Hormouse. I don't remember ever being touted as
[30:06] Speaker 5: a CoA. Because it gets back to again, what is
[30:09] Speaker 5: the objective? I you know, John, no one argues those
[30:13] Speaker 5: points better than you, And you're absolutely correct about this
[30:17] Speaker 5: kind of this this philosophy, right that we are we're
[30:22] Speaker 5: no longer in a we're no longer in the Cold War.
[30:26] Speaker 5: We can we can essentially just to do things that
[30:29] Speaker 5: we need to do on the justification of national interests
[30:33] Speaker 5: and get away with it. But I would argue there's
[30:36] Speaker 5: there's a limit to that. So money is perhaps not
[30:41] Speaker 5: a good example because the death of Solmony. While people
[30:45] Speaker 5: certain people may have said, hey, that's pretty messed up,
[30:48] Speaker 5: it didn't impose economic hardship on on, you know, a
[30:53] Speaker 5: significant portion of the world. And I'm wondering at what
[30:57] Speaker 5: stage we say we stop saying, hey, I don't care,
[31:00] Speaker 5: I don't care, it doesn't matter if we piss the
[31:02] Speaker 5: world off. I mean, there are going to be costs
[31:06] Speaker 5: imposed on us, right I mean, think about the Prime
[31:09] Speaker 5: Minister of Canada's recent speech about shifting defense contracts and partnerships.
[31:15] Speaker 5: And you know, we've already seen what's happening in Europe.
[31:18] Speaker 5: They're turning away from us. There's obviously this isn't this
[31:24] Speaker 5: isn't about losing friends in the play in the playground.
[31:29] Speaker 5: It's they were going to be significant costs for us
[31:33] Speaker 5: that perhaps aren't aren't seen right now. So I would
[31:36] Speaker 5: say that from a from a perhaps some more mature perspective,
[31:43] Speaker 5: and maybe we're showing right now these things do matter.
[31:46] Speaker 3: So another issue that I'm pretty sure I'm going to
[31:48] Speaker 3: get a question on this week. You know, I'm up
[31:51] Speaker 3: at six am our time here in Montana for the
[31:54] Speaker 3: Pentagon briefings. It sounds like the numbers might might not
[31:59] Speaker 3: be added up. So I've been touting the fact that
[32:02] Speaker 3: we've been getting closer and closer to some of our
[32:05] Speaker 3: objectives because we're you know, ballistic missiles, suicide drones, et cetera.
[32:12] Speaker 3: That's going to be challenged if it turns out that
[32:15] Speaker 3: the numbers that they're saying, and I don't know wi's true,
[32:18] Speaker 3: but there's obviously reports that we were talking about or
[32:21] Speaker 3: at least texting about yesterday. So what are the actual numbers?
[32:26] Speaker 3: And if we can't trust public Pentagon briefings, it's time
[32:31] Speaker 3: to pull this into the Senate and have hearings that
[32:35] Speaker 3: are also open on the record, or not on the record,
[32:38] Speaker 3: but under oath, right, because this is the one part
[32:41] Speaker 3: of the war that we collectively, I think would acknowledge
[32:45] Speaker 3: that the US is making progress. And if it's not
[32:48] Speaker 3: the actual correct numbers, that's an issue. That's a big issue.
[32:54] Speaker 3: So your guys thoughts on that, because.
[32:57] Speaker 2: Nick, I'm glad, I'm glad you're raising that just because
[33:00] Speaker 2: this is this is you know, I've I've called it
[33:02] Speaker 2: kind of fuzzy math uh uh, And you know there's
[33:06] Speaker 2: the and I've used this. I'm guilty as well. I've
[33:09] Speaker 2: used this a million times. It's that famous World War
[33:10] Speaker 2: One British saying, you know, we're we are, you know,
[33:12] Speaker 2: lions led by donkeys, lions being the US military, donkeys
[33:16] Speaker 2: being the civilian leadership. Uh and so. And it's it's
[33:20] Speaker 2: fun saying that in a sense because it gives the
[33:23] Speaker 2: US military a past, because we've seen how successful they've
[33:27] Speaker 2: been in Let me just say everything I say on this,
[33:29] Speaker 2: and you know how much I respect I have for
[33:30] Speaker 2: you guys who served. This is not at the This
[33:33] Speaker 2: is at the very senior level. This is not at
[33:35] Speaker 2: the junior ranksy enlisted level. These are you know, men
[33:38] Speaker 2: and women go into combat, You do what you're told
[33:41] Speaker 2: and do it extraordinarily. Well, this is at the Dan Kane,
[33:44] Speaker 2: you know, Admiral Cooper level. And and and I've I
[33:47] Speaker 2: kind of I've started thinking that, you know, perhaps we
[33:50] Speaker 2: have all been romanced too much by these briefings. And
[33:53] Speaker 2: then I started thinking back to Iraq and Afghanistan, where
[33:55] Speaker 2: there were senior level briefings and a lot of it
[33:57] Speaker 2: was bullshit. And so I think that it is fair
[34:00] Speaker 2: to ask those questions. It's not condemning anybody, but and
[34:04] Speaker 2: and Mick the one part, and I know you know this,
[34:07] Speaker 2: the part that's weird is because the intelligence community, there
[34:10] Speaker 2: was a leak that the intelligence community is the one
[34:12] Speaker 2: who's assessing that the Iranian military the missilestocks have not
[34:16] Speaker 2: been a traded enough. So it's not like we're saying it.
[34:18] Speaker 2: It's not the Iranians aren't saying it's our own intel
[34:20] Speaker 2: community saying it. So I do think this kind of
[34:23] Speaker 2: you know, this this romance we have on and of
[34:26] Speaker 2: course Dan Kane sounds really good because hegseeth is a
[34:28] Speaker 2: complete clown. But maybe Dan Kayne's not telling the truth.
[34:32] Speaker 2: I'm just and you hate to say that. He's a
[34:34] Speaker 2: respected three star, he work at the agency before. He
[34:37] Speaker 2: is kind of to me, the bulwark against some of
[34:38] Speaker 2: the craziness is, you know what if these numbers are
[34:42] Speaker 2: kind of fuzzy math, But I think it does matter.
[34:46] Speaker 2: And I've been and make your prescription on this is
[34:49] Speaker 2: not to get up and scream and whatever I'm saying
[34:51] Speaker 2: now it's exactly right. Is the oversight from Congress. Where
[34:54] Speaker 2: is the House and the Senate committees in Congress, as
[34:56] Speaker 2: you all know here is totally irrelevant anymore. It is
[34:59] Speaker 2: not a co branch. They do absolutely nothing on oversight,
[35:02] Speaker 2: and in particular, the Armed Services side has always been
[35:04] Speaker 2: even more of a rubber stamp than the Intel oversight.
[35:08] Speaker 2: But I think it's fair, and I'm you know, I'm
[35:10] Speaker 2: glad you raised it. It's okay to raise those things
[35:13] Speaker 2: because so much is predicated on okay, even though strategically
[35:18] Speaker 2: things might be a little kind of uh, you know
[35:21] Speaker 2: off Now you know that, you know, we have done
[35:24] Speaker 2: a significant amount of damage to the running military, and
[35:26] Speaker 2: ultimately we can kind of if we're going to fall
[35:28] Speaker 2: back on anything, that's gonna be a good thing. But
[35:30] Speaker 2: what if we haven't.
[35:32] Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think I agree. I'm agreeing with
[35:36] Speaker 5: both of you. And yes, I mean the and and
[35:38] Speaker 5: there's a platform and aside from the from the committees,
[35:43] Speaker 5: there's a platform too to to leverage accountability on this,
[35:47] Speaker 5: and that's the Wall Palace Act. But I don't think
[35:52] Speaker 5: anyone's lying about this. I think it's I think it's yeah,
[35:57] Speaker 5: I think it's just got taken out. Oh okay, all right.
[36:03] Speaker 5: I don't think anyone's lying about it. I think it
[36:06] Speaker 5: just gets back to the notorious difficulties in conducting accurate
[36:11] Speaker 5: BDA when you're just using tech means or from the air,
[36:15] Speaker 5: especially with an adversary like the Iranians, who are masterful
[36:21] Speaker 5: at decoying things, at hiding things, at disperse and rocket
[36:25] Speaker 5: launchers and missile launchers are notoriously difficult things to find
[36:29] Speaker 5: and destroy. So I think, you know, we probably just
[36:34] Speaker 5: as in any war, from when you're counting what you're
[36:37] Speaker 5: doing to the enemy from pilots reporting, and I'm thinking
[36:44] Speaker 5: back Second War, notoriously, the pilots reporting their own victories
[36:48] Speaker 5: over other aircraft were always exaggerated. It wasn't anyone's lying.
[36:52] Speaker 5: It's part of its wish for thinking. And part of
[36:54] Speaker 5: it is just the technical limitations of conducting remote battle
[36:57] Speaker 5: damage assessment. And the other part is the fact that
[37:00] Speaker 5: the Iranians have been preparing for this for a while.
[37:05] Speaker 5: They know we have the technical technological competence, and they's
[37:09] Speaker 5: good at bypassing that and fooling us.
[37:13] Speaker 4: Point if your BDA is limited to forward looking infrared
[37:16] Speaker 4: video as the only source of BDA, I mean all
[37:19] Speaker 4: of us have seen these videos in the past, real ones,
[37:22] Speaker 4: even in high resolution. You don't really know what happened
[37:25] Speaker 4: to that transporter or erector launcher, like maybe it's still operational.
[37:28] Speaker 4: I can still drive. You know, we don't know exactly
[37:30] Speaker 4: where we hit it on the structure. There's all kinds
[37:32] Speaker 4: of question marks, right. And it's like you said Andy
[37:34] Speaker 4: a few weeks ago, once you start approaching that like
[37:36] Speaker 4: eighty to ninety percent BDA, the numbers start to just
[37:39] Speaker 4: fade away into to idealized descriptions of what's actually happening
[37:44] Speaker 4: on the ground. And Iran has had forty seven years
[37:46] Speaker 4: to bury their stuff underground. They've been doing it. They
[37:49] Speaker 4: they taught has Bula to do it in the nineteen eighties.
[37:51] Speaker 4: Has Bulla did it very successfully in the war in
[37:52] Speaker 4: two thousand and six where in Israel and has Bula
[37:54] Speaker 4: and Lebanon. One of the reasons has Bula I was
[37:57] Speaker 4: able to survive that that very intense war was the
[38:00] Speaker 4: extensive tunnel network that Iran helped them build in Lebanon.
[38:04] Speaker 4: Costom Solmoni himself was there during that war helping direct
[38:07] Speaker 4: the war effort. You know, this is a very close
[38:08] Speaker 4: link between the Lebanese way of fighting, or that has
[38:11] Speaker 4: below way of fighting, and what Iran has. But Iran
[38:13] Speaker 4: has on a much larger scale, with a lot more
[38:15] Speaker 4: resources and a lot more time and more will to
[38:18] Speaker 4: survive as a system because they're a governing system of
[38:21] Speaker 4: an entire country, right, and they've been under they felt
[38:23] Speaker 4: that they've been under attack for so long. They're the
[38:27] Speaker 4: entrenched position they have almost requires boots on the ground
[38:31] Speaker 4: just to assess the PDA if you want actual truth
[38:33] Speaker 4: on what those numbers really look like.
[38:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, so those are all great points. I mean, I'm
[38:39] Speaker 3: not saying anybody's you know, falsifying information, but we do
[38:43] Speaker 3: need to have a actual hearing that's has the intelligence
[38:48] Speaker 3: professionals talking about, because it's all going to come out eventually, right.
[38:51] Speaker 3: You can't you can say something now, but history's gonna,
[38:54] Speaker 3: i think, be accurate on what we actually did or
[38:56] Speaker 3: didn't do. I wish it was one hundred percent on
[38:59] Speaker 3: all the above. That's what I'm hoping, But it's not
[39:02] Speaker 3: going to do any good to say it is and
[39:04] Speaker 3: then we leave sign an agreement. Any Uranians come back
[39:09] Speaker 3: and say it, by the way, half of our ballistic
[39:11] Speaker 3: missiles are still here, and then we're going to look
[39:14] Speaker 3: not good. Put it that way. I just think we
[39:17] Speaker 3: need to baseline the truth and figure out just where
[39:20] Speaker 3: we are in our efforts to hit those objectives.
[39:24] Speaker 2: Let me just throw one thing in there, and is that.
[39:26] Speaker 2: I also have memories of things such as the district
[39:29] Speaker 2: assessments in Afghanistan where the military was putting out stuff
[39:32] Speaker 2: that was just flat out wrong. You guys, remember this
[39:36] Speaker 2: the degree of Taliban control. I mean, so, I don't
[39:39] Speaker 2: know how you define it. Is it bad analytic tradecraft,
[39:42] Speaker 2: is it lying? Whatever it is. It was just flat
[39:44] Speaker 2: out wrong. And I remember the Intel community came back
[39:45] Speaker 2: and said, now we don't think so. But what about
[39:48] Speaker 2: the Pat Tellman story? I mean, what about burn pits?
[39:50] Speaker 2: What about Gulf War syndrome. I mean, it's okay to
[39:53] Speaker 2: say that the government actually has not been truthful to us.
[39:55] Speaker 2: I'm not sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but we're questioning
[39:59] Speaker 2: after the after I Rack and Afghanistan and all the
[40:03] Speaker 2: stuff that went around there at the US military, at
[40:05] Speaker 2: senior levels set a lot of things that were not true.
[40:07] Speaker 2: You can excuse that. And I've I mean, I and
[40:09] Speaker 2: and and again. This is you know, it's it's hard
[40:12] Speaker 2: for me to say this because I'm not a conspiracy
[40:14] Speaker 2: theorist at all, but I do think it's fair to
[40:17] Speaker 2: question sometimes, uh uh, some of these statements, because you
[40:21] Speaker 2: also don't know the degree of pressure that that Uh,
[40:24] Speaker 2: the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is under. He's got
[40:26] Speaker 2: Pete Hegzept, who's firing everybody who disagrees with him, right
[40:29] Speaker 2: next to them, and so you know, is their political
[40:32] Speaker 2: pressure to it's not cooking the books, but to say
[40:34] Speaker 2: things that perhaps you know, do you think Dan Kane
[40:37] Speaker 2: and you know, deep down would be more comfortable in
[40:39] Speaker 2: an honest setting saying something a little bit different than
[40:42] Speaker 2: when he's sitting next to Pete Hegzept. I don't know.
[40:44] Speaker 2: I think it's fair though, to to to question this.
[40:47] Speaker 2: And again, this is not disparaging the military at all.
[40:49] Speaker 2: I'm talking about the very senior levels of lead because
[40:52] Speaker 2: a key point is when you talk to people and
[40:54] Speaker 2: I don't I don't have the context you do at
[40:56] Speaker 2: D O D. When I talk to people inside the
[40:58] Speaker 2: intelligence community, I have not found any buddy at senior
[41:01] Speaker 2: levels who think this is a good idea. Nobody and
[41:06] Speaker 2: even though in Mick I share your you know you
[41:08] Speaker 2: share your view on this is that we can detest
[41:10] Speaker 2: the Iranian regime, we can support the warrings, but the
[41:12] Speaker 2: execution of this has been a bit of a mess,
[41:14] Speaker 2: and so I do wonder if that that, you know,
[41:17] Speaker 2: the people we care about, kind of the rank and file,
[41:20] Speaker 2: might have a different view of the way things are going.
[41:22] Speaker 2: I just throw that out there.
[41:24] Speaker 3: They can for a written submission of what the intelligence
[41:27] Speaker 3: community thinks right now. Yeah, Oversight committees for armed services
[41:34] Speaker 3: and intelligence can ask for a written assessment right now
[41:37] Speaker 3: one class. Right, we don't have to talk about sources
[41:39] Speaker 3: and methods. But if it's okay to give your assessment
[41:42] Speaker 3: on tv uh, it's okay to give your assessment, the
[41:46] Speaker 3: actual assessment in a written statement that then can people
[41:49] Speaker 3: can read.
[41:50] Speaker 1: I think that could be great in a functioning democracy,
[41:54] Speaker 1: which well, a bit of a wrench. Go ahead, go ahead.
[41:58] Speaker 5: And I think Mark, I mean Mark brings up a
[42:02] Speaker 5: good point. I don't. I'm not giving a pass to
[42:06] Speaker 5: the military. I think you know what I hope happened.
[42:09] Speaker 5: I'm always I'm always disappointed when I hear politicians on
[42:14] Speaker 5: either side. Are civilian leadership make these grandiose statements about victory, overwhelming, victory,
[42:20] Speaker 5: mission accomplished, And I always hope that behind the scenes,
[42:25] Speaker 5: then military leadership is talking to them saying, hey, boss,
[42:29] Speaker 5: I recommend you hold up before saying this, because here's
[42:33] Speaker 5: a quick primer on BDA. And here's why. Because these guys,
[42:37] Speaker 5: you know, at the four star level obviously aren't stupid.
[42:40] Speaker 5: They know they understand what's going on. So I can't
[42:44] Speaker 5: answer to why. Maybe they have said these things, but
[42:48] Speaker 5: we have seen grandiose statements come out of military leaders
[42:51] Speaker 5: and that disappoints me even more. And and I don't
[42:55] Speaker 5: feel sorry for them because at that level, that's when
[42:58] Speaker 5: you make four stars in my opinion, and you get
[43:00] Speaker 5: treated like a viceroy, you get treated like a god.
[43:03] Speaker 5: I mean you are treated. You have to be in
[43:05] Speaker 5: the military to understand the hierarchical, organized, institutionalized, sicker fancy
[43:10] Speaker 5: that takes place around a four star I mean it is.
[43:15] Speaker 5: It's quite sickening, you know, every single I'll stop, but
[43:20] Speaker 5: there's a doubt keep going. No, the doutside is you're
[43:23] Speaker 5: expected to show courage when that courage is needed for
[43:27] Speaker 5: the sacly constitution's sake of the nation. And a reminder
[43:30] Speaker 5: again that when officers take that oath of office, they
[43:33] Speaker 5: don't promise, they don't swear to obey right, they promise
[43:37] Speaker 5: to carry out all the duties to best their ability,
[43:40] Speaker 5: but the enlisted guys do. Having been both officer and enlisted,
[43:44] Speaker 5: I understand that the oath is different. So you have
[43:47] Speaker 5: an obligation to all the enlisted men and women in
[43:51] Speaker 5: the Armed Forces who have sworn an obligation to obey you,
[43:54] Speaker 5: to ensure that when you tell them to do things,
[43:57] Speaker 5: it's in good faith. Right, So all that you know,
[44:00] Speaker 5: all these cascading effects. All the wish is to say
[44:02] Speaker 5: there's more to having a commission than I think, sadly
[44:05] Speaker 5: a lot of people realize. And there's more, certainly holding
[44:10] Speaker 5: flag rank at the nexus between policy and strategy, and
[44:15] Speaker 5: there's more of an obligation than simply offering military advice.
[44:21] Speaker 3: I'll stop at you.
[44:21] Speaker 4: When General mackenzie was still the centcom Commander, I was
[44:24] Speaker 4: at the Defense Attache Office in Jordan and he was
[44:27] Speaker 4: coming to.
[44:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, he was coming to.
[44:31] Speaker 4: Visit to do some Syria related stuff, and we were
[44:35] Speaker 4: instructed by his team. This is the Defense Attache Office,
[44:37] Speaker 4: like we're supposed to represent the sec deaf in the country.
[44:39] Speaker 4: We have high level policy issues to take care of
[44:41] Speaker 4: on a daily basis. We were pulled off of what
[44:43] Speaker 4: we were working on, so that when General McKenzie came.
[44:46] Speaker 4: He would not touch a single doorknob in the embassy.
[44:48] Speaker 4: And we had to have people from the Defense Attache office,
[44:50] Speaker 4: from the colonel level, everyone all the way down, standing
[44:53] Speaker 4: at doors throughout the embassy to ensure that his hand
[44:56] Speaker 4: would never touch a door handle. And this is exactly
[44:58] Speaker 4: what you're talking about, Andy, about the life's roy behavior
[45:01] Speaker 4: of these generals.
[45:05] Speaker 1: Why just because I alone's got to open the door.
[45:08] Speaker 4: For them, I couldn't be bothered to touch a door.
[45:11] Speaker 1: He got it. I'm just too important.
[45:13] Speaker 2: I have a good portraya's two good portraya stories. He won't.
[45:15] Speaker 2: I'm sure he's not listening to this because he doesn't
[45:17] Speaker 2: like me very much. When I was the deputy station
[45:20] Speaker 2: chief in a month, he hated our station chief and
[45:23] Speaker 2: he was the sent Com chief and I was the
[45:24] Speaker 2: acting the chief was gone, and so he came for
[45:26] Speaker 2: a for a brief and uh and he said, Hey,
[45:30] Speaker 2: I want to go see the head of Jordanian the
[45:32] Speaker 2: Intel Service. And I responded to his staff, I gotta
[45:34] Speaker 2: take him like, that's my role. I mean, he can't
[45:36] Speaker 2: go alone. That's just you guys know this from an embassy,
[45:38] Speaker 2: like the san Com chief can't go to the and
[45:40] Speaker 2: he said, no, I'm going alone. I said you can't,
[45:43] Speaker 2: and I'm a GS fifteen and I'm like, I'm going
[45:44] Speaker 2: to get creamed in this down the line, but ultimately
[45:47] Speaker 2: he agreed. But then he showed up two hours early,
[45:50] Speaker 2: so the head of the Jordanian Service spent and then
[45:52] Speaker 2: they called me from GID the headquarters. So then I
[45:54] Speaker 2: went running over there, but it was two hours late,
[45:56] Speaker 2: and the head of the service had spent two hours
[45:58] Speaker 2: briefing portray Us and the the history of the Yemeny
[46:01] Speaker 2: tribes because he knew that I was supposed to be there.
[46:04] Speaker 2: So Portrayus was just furious with me right there, and
[46:07] Speaker 2: then Patres asked to get the PDB in his hotel
[46:09] Speaker 2: room and I refused to bring it over. I said,
[46:10] Speaker 2: you got to come read it. And so all of
[46:12] Speaker 2: this didn't matter until he then gets named director, so
[46:17] Speaker 2: my career is totally fucked. So I see him down
[46:20] Speaker 2: in the gym and I was lifting and he comes
[46:22] Speaker 2: down there and I was on the weight bench and
[46:24] Speaker 2: he kind of looked at me and think he remembered,
[46:26] Speaker 2: and he basically wanted me to get off the weight bench,
[46:28] Speaker 2: and I'm like, I'm not done. Sorry, that's I mean,
[46:31] Speaker 2: it's it's the agency is kind of a different place.
[46:33] Speaker 2: So I just kept lifting and and I think that
[46:35] Speaker 2: you know, uh, until he was removed. My career was
[46:37] Speaker 2: on a on a hold a bit. But one of
[46:40] Speaker 2: the great things I did see there was a serious
[46:42] Speaker 2: briefing and a GS twelve analyst told him in the briefing, sir,
[46:44] Speaker 2: you're wrong, and he almost fell over. That's just not done.
[46:48] Speaker 2: You guys know better, but that that's not done to
[46:49] Speaker 2: a four star. But anyway, the Imperial uh uh.
[46:55] Speaker 5: You know him on a true true story though, And
[46:58] Speaker 5: I'm surprised that the that you just mentioned didn't think
[47:01] Speaker 5: about this, and this this was actually in the military.
[47:05] Speaker 5: Tons in a rock that was I'm so sad to
[47:08] Speaker 5: admit this. A marine two star whose aid used to
[47:12] Speaker 5: go down and sit on the gym like his next
[47:14] Speaker 5: station in the gym suit he could, like fully in
[47:20] Speaker 5: full camouflage, you know, full uniform utilities, that that little
[47:24] Speaker 5: piece of it down. Yeah, as I found out when
[47:28] Speaker 5: I said to her, are you are you using the
[47:31] Speaker 5: bench right?
[47:36] Speaker 2: He's not going to tell them, Hey, I worked for Mattis.
[47:39] Speaker 3: He's the opposite of everything you're saying. Yeah, you're right right,
[47:42] Speaker 3: I'd go down and take on the bench, right, take
[47:46] Speaker 3: my my suits, my seersucker suits into the drag cleaner,
[47:50] Speaker 3: and he'd be in front of me in line.
[47:52] Speaker 2: That's awesome.
[47:52] Speaker 3: I mean, these are stories that are all over the
[47:54] Speaker 3: place because it's true.
[47:56] Speaker 2: At the barber shop, that's how you gain the loyalty
[48:00] Speaker 2: that people who work.
[48:01] Speaker 5: For you, right, yeah, yeah, but he's exactly whatever. But
[48:07] Speaker 5: you know, we do this to ourselves. And because at
[48:11] Speaker 5: some stage in those officers' careers they were not like that.
[48:15] Speaker 5: Maybe they were, but they couldn't get away with it
[48:17] Speaker 5: right when they were lieutenants, captains, majors. But we as
[48:21] Speaker 5: an institution let them get it, get away with it.
[48:23] Speaker 5: And and foreign militaries make that observation about us. You know,
[48:27] Speaker 5: the Brits call their their first their call their general
[48:30] Speaker 5: officers by their first names. It's Brigadier Mike or Joe Ward.
[48:35] Speaker 5: You know, there isn't that same I mean, they showed
[48:36] Speaker 5: them respect, but it's not that same it's not that
[48:40] Speaker 5: same idol worship that that we show. And you know, again,
[48:46] Speaker 5: so the cost to that, which isn't commonly understood, is that, yeah,
[48:50] Speaker 5: you may lose all of that in a in a heartbeat.
[48:55] Speaker 5: By by doing by by speaking truth to power, that's
[49:00] Speaker 5: the risk they run, right.
[49:03] Speaker 3: So uh, going back to the war, what's the next step?
[49:10] Speaker 3: I mean, if there's no plan for further negotiations. The
[49:15] Speaker 3: eleventh MEW I believe has already departed Hawaii and headed
[49:19] Speaker 3: over the George Bush is on route. That would be
[49:22] Speaker 3: the third. We already know that Jaysock's there. I mean,
[49:27] Speaker 3: that's been pretty obvious with the rescue of the pilot.
[49:33] Speaker 3: So the next stage is starting to seize terrain to
[49:35] Speaker 3: open the straight or does this actual blockade the alternative.
[49:40] Speaker 4: To that, I mean, what you mentioned earlier about flowing
[49:43] Speaker 4: forces into the Gulf is probably what you exactly mentioned,
[49:46] Speaker 4: prepositioning for further action as unrelated to a blockade. It's
[49:50] Speaker 4: probably the blockade is used to describe it, so it's
[49:52] Speaker 4: more palatable to the public, but in fact it's prepositioning
[49:56] Speaker 4: ahead of time to gain that you know, force of time,
[50:00] Speaker 4: shortening of the timeline between getting from ship to shore
[50:02] Speaker 4: because you're already there, which was the problem before the
[50:04] Speaker 4: ceasefire was announced. We couldn't get through the straits to
[50:06] Speaker 4: get in there, and that was a big problem with
[50:08] Speaker 4: the Card Island seizure question because it was so far away.
[50:11] Speaker 4: But if you're right, if you can see it from
[50:13] Speaker 4: the vessel, big difference.
[50:15] Speaker 2: And the IDF Chief of staff just announced today that
[50:18] Speaker 2: he's prepping, uh, prepping for rezuomed combat. That's right, So
[50:22] Speaker 2: I think that you know so so meck. Maybe a
[50:24] Speaker 2: way to say this too is you know, who fires
[50:26] Speaker 2: the first shot? Now again, it's going to be these rallies.
[50:30] Speaker 2: UH is going to be uh iron I mean, and
[50:32] Speaker 2: don't forget that. One of the things that maybe we
[50:34] Speaker 2: can raise too is the kind of the use of proxies.
[50:37] Speaker 2: Wasn't there an attack on our diplomats in Baghdad?
[50:40] Speaker 1: Yes, there was an ambush when they were trying to
[50:43] Speaker 1: bring bring the reporter back to ambush dot convoy. Yeah.
[50:47] Speaker 2: After the ceasefire was announced. And so there's also the
[50:49] Speaker 2: acy mention, so how does this kick off? Again? I
[50:51] Speaker 2: guess is a is a good way to to ask that.
[50:54] Speaker 2: That's that's we.
[50:55] Speaker 4: Could use a gulf of tongue kin type of framing
[50:57] Speaker 4: where it doesn't really matter who actually fires the first
[51:00] Speaker 4: as long as our narrative describes it a particular way
[51:02] Speaker 4: that it was somebody else's fault and that's why we're
[51:04] Speaker 4: doing it now.
[51:07] Speaker 1: Well, all know how that worked out.
[51:10] Speaker 3: Opening the straight right? So isn't isn't the actual premise
[51:13] Speaker 3: of the seasfire already folded?
[51:15] Speaker 4: Like?
[51:15] Speaker 3: Do we have an obligation?
[51:17] Speaker 1: Or is this just right?
[51:19] Speaker 3: We don't?
[51:20] Speaker 2: Why did we do that? Anyway? We did? I mean,
[51:21] Speaker 2: do we really think Trump? I mean, so okay, so
[51:26] Speaker 2: I best. I mean, if you want to be very kind,
[51:28] Speaker 2: you know, we want to give diplomacy a chance, diplomacy
[51:30] Speaker 2: a chance both.
[51:31] Speaker 4: You know.
[51:31] Speaker 2: I think the Trump administration did want it does want
[51:33] Speaker 2: to see this end Ron agreed to it. I for
[51:39] Speaker 2: for some reasons supposed I suppose they saw the US
[51:43] Speaker 2: maybe in a weaker position. But did anyone actually think
[51:45] Speaker 2: this was going to work? Did someone's next to Trump
[51:47] Speaker 2: say hey, this might actually work? Or I mean, why
[51:49] Speaker 2: did we even do this? What was the point of Islamabad?
[51:51] Speaker 2: I don't know, because the sides are so far apart.
[51:56] Speaker 2: Or was that just that, you know, you know, the
[51:59] Speaker 2: Trump minis just giving a bit of a breather domestically
[52:02] Speaker 2: because he was getting you know, he's getting so hammered
[52:05] Speaker 2: on this issue.
[52:06] Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm.
[52:08] Speaker 4: Curious if it was a way to get the straights open,
[52:10] Speaker 4: to get those vessels into the Persian Gulf without being
[52:12] Speaker 4: opposed to get in.
[52:15] Speaker 1: Yesterday we did see two US warships transit transits straight
[52:18] Speaker 1: and they stopped and pulled back. I guess they would
[52:20] Speaker 1: probably you know, dipping their toes see what was going
[52:23] Speaker 1: to happen. So, and now we have a naval blockade
[52:26] Speaker 1: announcement today, and if we.
[52:30] Speaker 4: Do an anti access area denial technique kind of like
[52:33] Speaker 4: what China does in the South China, see, then Iran
[52:35] Speaker 4: can't really do much to stop us from flowing additional
[52:38] Speaker 4: forces into the gulf because we'll actually control the waterway.
[52:42] Speaker 2: And what about the houthies, guys, you know, is there
[52:44] Speaker 2: is there you know we we kind of we talked
[52:46] Speaker 2: about that in the past, but is that now now
[52:48] Speaker 2: that there is a naval blockade And presumably and you
[52:51] Speaker 2: all tell me what they're gonna there's gonna be more
[52:53] Speaker 2: naval assets including and Trump hinted in that true social
[52:56] Speaker 2: post allied forces. You know, do the hoothi's now come
[52:59] Speaker 2: into play again as part of you know, potential strikes
[53:02] Speaker 2: against uh uh, not just the US, but other navies
[53:05] Speaker 2: or even you know, international shipping.
[53:08] Speaker 3: Probably right, I mean, I certainly can and I think
[53:12] Speaker 3: it's the Ranius have been holding back, probably for an
[53:15] Speaker 3: indication that we're gonna seize territory or in this case,
[53:19] Speaker 3: start blocking everything coming out of there. Why aren't we
[53:22] Speaker 3: just trying to seize the ships that are associated with
[53:26] Speaker 3: ran like there their energy.
[53:31] Speaker 5: Is.
[53:31] Speaker 3: This is a complete blockade, right, I know what happened.
[53:33] Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's everything and everything.
[53:37] Speaker 5: I thought, I'm sorry, go ahead. I thought they just
[53:42] Speaker 5: and I don't know at all, just from my knowledge
[53:46] Speaker 5: is from reading tweets, but I thought the intent was
[53:49] Speaker 5: to prevent friendly nations from getting charged a toll for
[53:55] Speaker 5: passing passing through the straits of Home News.
[53:59] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So in his tweet he did mention that,
[54:02] Speaker 1: like it was a long rambler. So in that whole
[54:04] Speaker 1: rambling about the naval blockade, he does mention protecting boats
[54:09] Speaker 1: that have already paid the toll or will be being
[54:12] Speaker 1: paying the toll, like that can't happen. That was a
[54:14] Speaker 1: big part of the tweet as well.
[54:17] Speaker 2: You know, diploma the international relations by true social is
[54:20] Speaker 2: probably one of the most frustrating things. I mean, you know,
[54:23] Speaker 2: there's A, don't forget the seat. There's no even the ceasefire,
[54:26] Speaker 2: there's no written agreement. I mean, all of this is
[54:28] Speaker 2: so you know everyone. I mean, I guess defenders the administration,
[54:32] Speaker 2: defenders of Trump say unorthodox is his kind of mantra.
[54:35] Speaker 2: But I mean so much stuff goes on here that
[54:38] Speaker 2: you're just you know, you literally, we're talking about foreign
[54:41] Speaker 2: policy based on a post on social media?
[54:46] Speaker 1: Are we gonna let go? A Mick mix? Later, he
[54:48] Speaker 1: threw on his jacket. He was ready to go and
[54:50] Speaker 1: talk to the legacy media organizations, which I call the enemy. No,
[54:54] Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
[54:55] Speaker 2: Uh, the competition, Yeah, potentially criticized the military leadership. That's
[55:03] Speaker 2: a that's a big, big step for him.
[55:05] Speaker 1: Yeah. I wanted to touch on like a little bit
[55:08] Speaker 1: of like the confusion with the ceasefire, right because initially
[55:11] Speaker 1: it was a ten point planning Iranians had proposed, which
[55:14] Speaker 1: is like insane. I mean, but frankly, they're in a
[55:17] Speaker 1: position of strength. If you ask me, we look like
[55:20] Speaker 1: shit strategically. And if it's true that they still have
[55:23] Speaker 1: half their ballistic missiles and half their drones left after
[55:27] Speaker 1: a month, and you know, more than that, like almost
[55:31] Speaker 1: a month and a half or you know, of us
[55:33] Speaker 1: bombing the shit out of them, we are not in
[55:36] Speaker 1: a strong position for negotiations. Also, I want to ask, like,
[55:40] Speaker 1: why did they just sit there for twenty one hours negotiate,
[55:44] Speaker 1: not come to a deal, and like everyone just went
[55:46] Speaker 1: home right, Like these things are supposed to be negotiated
[55:49] Speaker 1: over the next two weeks at least in theory until
[55:51] Speaker 1: the twenty first. Why is it now that like we're
[55:55] Speaker 1: all just going home now, Like, shouldn't this be a long,
[55:58] Speaker 1: drone out thing, the.
[56:00] Speaker 4: Twenty fifteen nuclear deal. I mean, we've heard stories about
[56:03] Speaker 4: John Kerry and Joad Zareith foreign Minister taking like long
[56:06] Speaker 4: walks at night together by the Lake Geneva for days,
[56:10] Speaker 4: you know, without talking about the negotiations at all, and
[56:12] Speaker 4: like that, an that was an integral part of the
[56:14] Speaker 4: actual end outcome where they spend a lot of time
[56:17] Speaker 4: building trust. Because especially we just had our own war
[56:21] Speaker 4: of choice against that country, It's going to take some
[56:24] Speaker 4: time for them to actually suit at the table and
[56:26] Speaker 4: believe what we have to say. It's not going to
[56:28] Speaker 4: happen in twenty one hours, you know, especially if they
[56:31] Speaker 4: just got there they like as you mentioned, Mark the
[56:33] Speaker 4: principles at the table at the first time. That's the
[56:35] Speaker 4: reverse order it's supposed to go. And as you also mentioned,
[56:38] Speaker 4: mark the diplomacy by tweet, what we end up doing
[56:41] Speaker 4: is putting ourselves in these untenable public positions that we've
[56:44] Speaker 4: told the world we're doing, and it's impossible to come
[56:47] Speaker 4: back from that at that point. Whereas traditional diplomacy it's
[56:50] Speaker 4: all happening behind closed doors until the very very end,
[56:52] Speaker 4: and there are some strategic leaks that do come out
[56:54] Speaker 4: to kind of sample the environment and see what's going on,
[56:56] Speaker 4: but nobody's actually putting out their positions publicly. By doing so,
[57:00] Speaker 4: you're actually committing yourself to that position. It's embarrassing or
[57:03] Speaker 4: impossible to step back from that. And both of those issues,
[57:06] Speaker 4: putting the principles first and then airing our diplomacy publicly
[57:10] Speaker 4: is actually taking the air out of our sales and
[57:12] Speaker 4: our ability to have momentum in any negotiation, even if
[57:14] Speaker 4: it was a quote unquote normal one, not one between
[57:17] Speaker 4: the US and Iran that we were just at war
[57:18] Speaker 4: with after we started the war against them in the
[57:20] Speaker 4: past two months.
[57:22] Speaker 2: You know, sometimes we try to make sense of what
[57:25] Speaker 2: this administration does and I'm not sure that, you know,
[57:28] Speaker 2: if there's there's some rationality there. I mean, everything as
[57:31] Speaker 2: you just John Finnon would Mick said before, as it
[57:33] Speaker 2: was backwards, you know, the idea of principles going first,
[57:36] Speaker 2: but jd Vance someone who the Iranians wanted because they
[57:38] Speaker 2: don't like Kushner and and wick Off. I mean, at
[57:41] Speaker 2: the end of the day, it is Trump does that agency.
[57:43] Speaker 2: It is going to be his call. But you know,
[57:45] Speaker 2: then then you start thinking about where does twenty twenty
[57:48] Speaker 2: eight fall into this. Marco Rubio was literally at a
[57:50] Speaker 2: UFC fight with Trump yesterday in Miami. I mean, that's
[57:52] Speaker 2: the Secretary of State slash National Security Advisor, that's his role.
[57:56] Speaker 2: He should he shouldn't have been there because no principal
[57:58] Speaker 2: should have been there, but if Aprint should have been there,
[58:00] Speaker 2: it should have been him. And he's yucking it up
[58:03] Speaker 2: in Miami at a UFC fight as the Vice President is,
[58:06] Speaker 2: you know, playing bizarre merchant and storming off after twenty
[58:09] Speaker 2: one hours. I mean, the whole thing is just so weird,
[58:11] Speaker 2: and you know, I mean, you know, at some point
[58:14] Speaker 2: I was thinking, like, is this whole is this all
[58:15] Speaker 2: just performative theater? You know, why did we there was
[58:19] Speaker 2: if you had Iran experts, we used to. I don't
[58:21] Speaker 2: know if we do anymore again they do that some
[58:25] Speaker 2: people did go with UH, now I know, but I'm
[58:29] Speaker 2: saying some people did go with with UH with the
[58:32] Speaker 2: traveling party. So there were some quote experts from somewhere
[58:35] Speaker 2: from that, they said from the State Department. So I
[58:37] Speaker 2: suppose that's a good thing. But did anyone you know,
[58:40] Speaker 2: really anticipate this, was you know, that there would be
[58:44] Speaker 2: any progress, because as you said, it took a year
[58:45] Speaker 2: and a half for the JCPOA to be negotiated with,
[58:48] Speaker 2: you know, And.
[58:49] Speaker 1: So I don't know.
[58:50] Speaker 2: You know, some of the times I get I have
[58:53] Speaker 2: gotten more distrustful of government in my older age, and
[58:57] Speaker 2: so that's why I was saying before about the US military.
[58:59] Speaker 2: But I it's the same thing for you know, in
[59:01] Speaker 2: terms of for uh uh the Trump administration. Now, was
[59:05] Speaker 2: this all just designed for?
[59:07] Speaker 4: What?
[59:08] Speaker 2: There's a chance of this? Why did we even do this?
[59:10] Speaker 2: These a lot? And and then the media I'm gonna
[59:13] Speaker 2: uh uh kind of support d like literally there was
[59:17] Speaker 2: I couldn't believe this. There's a CNN reporter who said
[59:19] Speaker 2: she had chills, she had tears in her eyes watching
[59:22] Speaker 2: the Islama bad thing. There was a New York Post
[59:24] Speaker 2: reporter too, saying this the great The Pakistanis were, so
[59:27] Speaker 2: what are we doing?
[59:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like so fucking cringe.
[59:31] Speaker 5: I I had TEUs in my eyes too.
[59:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking if I got diarrhea in Pakistan
[59:36] Speaker 2: every time I went, I never failed to get the
[59:38] Speaker 2: ships going to that country.
[59:40] Speaker 4: I had tears, they weren't in my eyes, though.
[59:42] Speaker 2: Eight hundred and seven millimeters rockets for a year being
[59:44] Speaker 2: fired at US from Pakistani military positions separate issue.
[59:48] Speaker 1: But you said that on CNN any namer I could
[59:51] Speaker 1: find it.
[59:52] Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it was it was just you know,
[59:54] Speaker 2: people that have chills from this.
[59:57] Speaker 1: Often that's so cringe dude, like, but so were we
[1:00:01] Speaker 1: all kind.
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: Of mesmerized by this. I mean it is a big deal,
[1:00:04] Speaker 2: the first kind of high level contact in fifty years.
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: But I mean, you know, Jonathan, this is your thing,
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: like you follow the Iranian US relationship. But was there
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: ever any chance, like, you know, why did we do this?
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure because by the way, or a
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: lot of times people would say, in a normal world,
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: don't have a summit with your adversary if there can
[1:00:23] Speaker 2: be no chance of success, you know, you don't actually
[1:00:25] Speaker 2: show up when you know it's going to fail.
[1:00:27] Speaker 4: So anyway, and they start maximal's positions, which means you
[1:00:31] Speaker 4: needed to have a long period of time to moderate
[1:00:34] Speaker 4: those maximal's positions to reach that kind of place on
[1:00:37] Speaker 4: a playing field where you can actually start throwing the
[1:00:39] Speaker 4: ball back and forth, because right now they couldn't agree
[1:00:42] Speaker 4: on even which field to play in. You know, that's
[1:00:45] Speaker 4: going to take time to frame those starting points before
[1:00:47] Speaker 4: they can even get to the actual issues they want
[1:00:49] Speaker 4: to negotiate. And that's that difference between zone of primary
[1:00:54] Speaker 4: agreement and best alternative to negotiate outcome, the two important
[1:00:57] Speaker 4: negotiating you know, frameworks where there weren't even agreements on
[1:01:02] Speaker 4: what to agree on yet, which will eventually come, but
[1:01:05] Speaker 4: you first have to hit those. And it seems like
[1:01:06] Speaker 4: they just want to cram this in to make a
[1:01:08] Speaker 4: kind of a show that they were trying the US
[1:01:10] Speaker 4: I mean a show that hey, we're doing this, they
[1:01:12] Speaker 4: didn't accept it. We're going back to work kind of
[1:01:15] Speaker 4: or back to war kind of concept. That's what it
[1:01:17] Speaker 4: really feels like, more of a pretext to say that
[1:01:19] Speaker 4: it's okay, we're going back to the conflict now because
[1:01:21] Speaker 4: we tried, and I.
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: Mean you saw, like February twenty seventh, there was like
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: a real path to like maybe figure in this out diplomatically,
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: and it was reported that wick Cooff and Kushner are like, oh,
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: that's going to take months. It's like, yeah, no, shit,
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: you dumb fuck, it's going to take months. Sorry, I know,
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: I hate Steve Wickoff and Jered Kushner. I'm sorry, like
[1:01:41] Speaker 1: because it's just dumb and dumber, and frankly, I don't
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: blame the Iranians for not wanting to go anywhere near
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: of those guys. They spoke to them the last time,
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: and both times they got bombed, Like what are we
[1:01:51] Speaker 1: talking about? Would you take them seriously?
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: You know, in negotiations at the end of the day,
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: you know, wars were going to end in a messy fashion,
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: and so the US maximalist positions, which are legitimate positions.
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: But but if this, if there's going to be a
[1:02:05] Speaker 2: diplomatic solution, unless we have regime change, we are going
[1:02:08] Speaker 2: to have to cave on some stuff. That's just that's
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: just the way diplomacy works. You know, at some point
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: we're going to have to say to the runnings. Yet
[1:02:16] Speaker 2: you can have some low level civilian nuclear program or
[1:02:20] Speaker 2: and even more so, there's going to be reparation, not reparations,
[1:02:23] Speaker 2: there's going to be sanctions. Really for reparations would be
[1:02:25] Speaker 2: politically impossible. But you know, but the maximalist position in
[1:02:28] Speaker 2: the United States, and I'm saying, if you want an agreement,
[1:02:31] Speaker 2: if you don't want an agreement, go for full on
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: regime change, because I don't see that, you know, and
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: you guys jump in on this. I mean, I don't
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: see how there's any other way to look at this.
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: It's the same thing with like Israel and Hamas like
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: this idea of you know, the demobilization of Hama's weapons.
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: It's never going to happen in the history of the planet.
[1:02:50] Speaker 2: That ain't happening. Thus there's no agreement.
[1:02:54] Speaker 4: Same with Hesbola, with the UN Security Council resolution that
[1:02:57] Speaker 4: was supposed to disarm Hesbola and allow the Lebanon are
[1:03:00] Speaker 4: forces to come into the South and reoccupy the South
[1:03:02] Speaker 4: and all this. That's what the blue line is for
[1:03:04] Speaker 4: down there. Has Bola will never give up their weapons,
[1:03:07] Speaker 4: you know, the only way has blah gives up their weapons.
[1:03:09] Speaker 4: Is if there's no more has blood hands to hold them.
[1:03:12] Speaker 4: I mean, this is their position, Andy thoughts.
[1:03:18] Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I'm I'm sinking into depression quietly here
[1:03:22] Speaker 5: and because I don't have the answer to it's what
[1:03:26] Speaker 5: you guys are saying. And what really hits me every day,
[1:03:30] Speaker 5: and I know it hits you two, Mark and John
[1:03:32] Speaker 5: and d two is is just the loss of confidence.
[1:03:37] Speaker 5: We's the fact that the world is ridiculing us and
[1:03:41] Speaker 5: our former allies. In my case, you know a lot
[1:03:43] Speaker 5: of friends in the UK. I'm saying, what former uh,
[1:03:48] Speaker 5: what former chands there are saying about us, about the
[1:03:52] Speaker 5: special relationship, And it's painful, you know, I mean, and
[1:03:58] Speaker 5: I don't I don't think how anyone who understands history,
[1:04:02] Speaker 5: who understands who is educated can say that doesn't matter,
[1:04:07] Speaker 5: that that we can alienate the entire world and continue
[1:04:10] Speaker 5: just as though you know, with just as though nothing's happened.
[1:04:16] Speaker 5: It's going to affect It's gonna affect everyone to some extent.
[1:04:20] Speaker 1: YEA, we haven't even talked about like the rhetoric thats
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: becoming at the last couple of weeks with against NATO
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: from the administration as well as, like, you know, the
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: buddying up with Orbon, who is clearly at least his
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: regime is a seems more and more like a Russian proxy.
[1:04:40] Speaker 2: It is hopefully is going to lose in several hours.
[1:04:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's coming up the election there so and mix
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: sense something in the chat as well. The sixty day
[1:04:50] Speaker 1: you know, sixty day clock should expire around April twenty ninth.
[1:04:54] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, good luck on Congress during anything.
[1:04:56] Speaker 1: But yeah, Congress is you know Gelded just Unix walking around.
[1:05:05] Speaker 2: All right, you went mute, You're muted?
[1:05:10] Speaker 1: Sorry, sorry, I said, and Andy had to leave us.
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: Who's gonna go do push ups? He just texted me
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: on the side, all right, what do we expect?
[1:05:17] Speaker 5: You know what? I was hanging around just waiting for
[1:05:19] Speaker 5: you to say something like that. I'm learning from the Iranians.
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, just final quick thoughts for me.
[1:05:30] Speaker 4: I'm looking at the market. I want to see what
[1:05:32] Speaker 4: happens when the market opens at nine thirty tomorrow, because
[1:05:34] Speaker 4: i know how censor the administration is Trump specifically is
[1:05:37] Speaker 4: to this, and I'm curious to see how that tracks
[1:05:40] Speaker 4: with what comes out. And of course I'm going to
[1:05:42] Speaker 4: look at polymarket and look at announcements over the weekend
[1:05:45] Speaker 4: and see how insiders are faring. Because this is a growing,
[1:05:49] Speaker 4: growing problem over the last sixty days, where people in
[1:05:52] Speaker 4: the DoD and at the White House are certainly profiting privately,
[1:05:56] Speaker 4: independently off this conflict trading and material non publican from
[1:06:00] Speaker 4: and I think that people should be more aware of
[1:06:02] Speaker 4: that and look look at that themselves.
[1:06:06] Speaker 2: I would agree on the markets, that's gonna go to jail.
[1:06:09] Speaker 2: Everything everything is political now. So Trump early responds to that,
[1:06:12] Speaker 2: and if the market's kind of tank again, I'm surprised
[1:06:17] Speaker 2: this announcement was made on a Sunday. Usually doesn't happen.
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: All right, guys, we'll see you next week. Don't forget.
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: All The links to all the guys are down in
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: the description. Check them out right there. And the best
[1:06:27] Speaker 1: place support to show is Patreon dot com, slash the teamhouse.
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: You get Teamhouse and eyes on episodes at free and early. Guys.
[1:06:34] Speaker 1: As always, thank you and happy Easter. The Orthodox people.
[1:06:38] Speaker 2: I'm excited for land send pictures of your lamb.
[1:06:41] Speaker 1: I am the group chat is going to be filled
[1:06:44] Speaker 1: with it, all right, All right, bye, guys, Hey.
[1:06:51] Speaker 7: Guys, I want to take a moment to tell you
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