# This is What Losing Looks Like (Iran War Update) | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 20 Jul 2026, 1 h 13 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73060552/iran_war_losing_spreraker.mp3

This week we break down the collapsed ceasefire and week two of American strikes on Iran, from the deaths of US service members in Jordan to the Chinese navigation system suddenly making Iranian missiles far more accurate. We get into why the air campaign can't achieve its goals, the intelligence gaps limiting US targeting, Saudi Arabia's controversial nuclear agreement, and the vulnerability of Gulf desalination plants. The uncomfortable conclusion: Iran is going to get the bomb, ground troops aren't a real option, and this is now entirely about the Strait of Hormuz. Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Subscribe to our 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/ Whitefish security summit ⬇️ https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com 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 "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 Start 02:47 Why the air campaign strategy isn't working 05:03 Iranian missiles are suddenly hitting: the China GPS factor 08:04 High-value assets at risk and why Hormuz is the real objective 10:07 Targeting explained: why bridges, bases, and tit-for-tat strikes 12:30 The Jordan strike, American deaths, and the coming US response 14:49 Intel limits: what we can't hit and why 17:15 Holding back cyber: saving the exquisite tools 20:47 Stuxnet blowback and how Iran built its cyber capability 22:57 Escalation options: Pickaxe Mountain, the Houthis, Bab el-Mandeb 26:36 Saudi Arabia's balancing act and the 123 nuclear agreement 29:57 "Iran will get the bomb" — accepting the new red line 39:11 Mick Mulroy joins: who's feeding Iran targeting data 41:19 Desalination plants as targets and the Gulf's water vulnerability 50:50 What are our actual options? 53:45 The ground troops question: a Vietnam-like commitment 59:44 Israeli and US elections could reset everything 01:03:28 Hezbollah vs. the Iraqi militias — the real threat 01:07:13 Criticism, hate mail, and wrap-up Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
[0:04] Speaker 1: I'm here today with Jonathan Hackett and Andy Milburn. Mick
[0:07] Speaker 1: Moulroy may possibly will likely be joining us in a
[0:11] Speaker 1: little bit. Uh, you guys are seeing the same stuff
[0:14] Speaker 1: I'm seeing. Uh, ceasefire seems to have completely collapsed. We're
[0:18] Speaker 1: on like day eight of American strikes, you know, on
[0:24] Speaker 1: whether it's Iranian shipping or Iranian you know, islands, different
[0:30] Speaker 1: different targets. Iran has responded with shooting cruise missiles, ballistic
[0:36] Speaker 1: missiles and drones at all of our bases in the region,
[0:42] Speaker 1: which means and you know, shooting missiles against all of
[0:45] Speaker 1: their neighbors.
[0:47] Speaker 2: Uh.
[0:48] Speaker 1: Two service members died in Jordan from that attack, from
[0:52] Speaker 1: one of the attacks.
[0:54] Speaker 2: One is missing.
[0:55] Speaker 1: So you know, this is like a real this, you
[0:58] Speaker 1: know for people who think this is you know, obviously
[1:00] Speaker 1: is so far away, but this is like real people's
[1:02] Speaker 1: lives that are being lost on the Iranian side as well. Like,
[1:06] Speaker 1: let's be frank, right, I'm sure we're not one hundred
[1:09] Speaker 1: percent accurate where we're shooting.
[1:10] Speaker 2: So yeah, some bits.
[1:15] Speaker 1: Like the one quote that really like like stuck to
[1:19] Speaker 1: Mike crawl a little bit was Caitlin Collins, a CNN
[1:23] Speaker 1: who I think is probably one of the better White
[1:25] Speaker 1: House reporters, asked Trump.
[1:28] Speaker 2: What did she ask? Trump? But the hell did I
[1:30] Speaker 2: have it? Hold on?
[1:32] Speaker 1: This is a pretty glaring fucking quote. Frankly, She asked,
[1:38] Speaker 1: you know what, the United States is bombing Iran again? Uh,
[1:40] Speaker 1: you've been bombing Iran for months now? Is this just
[1:43] Speaker 1: a new normal for the American people? Which I feel
[1:46] Speaker 1: like is like a completely fair fucking question.
[1:48] Speaker 2: Uh.
[1:49] Speaker 1: And the President replied, we were in Vietnam for nineteen
[1:52] Speaker 1: year years. We're here for four months, so I think
[1:55] Speaker 1: we've done a lot. That kind of shit coming from
[2:00] Speaker 1: the president is one of the I know, obviously it's Trump,
[2:05] Speaker 1: so like we're desentitized to the crazy shit he says,
[2:09] Speaker 1: but he's talking about like actual fucking war, and Uh,
[2:12] Speaker 1: the way he's just so blase about it to me,
[2:15] Speaker 1: frankly as offensive And I'm being as as generous as
[2:18] Speaker 1: I can be because I have other words that I
[2:20] Speaker 1: could totally use. Yeah, it's a fucking joke frankly that
[2:27] Speaker 1: this guy's the president and he's leading us into this
[2:30] Speaker 1: fucking abyss.
[2:31] Speaker 2: Uh.
[2:32] Speaker 1: The escalation ladder seems to be getting longer and longer
[2:35] Speaker 1: every day. The city doesn't seem to be no end
[2:38] Speaker 1: in sight. So yeah, what are you guys tracking Milburn?
[2:43] Speaker 1: Let's let's I want you to go first. I missed you.
[2:47] Speaker 3: I miss you too, Dean, thank you so you No,
[2:51] Speaker 3: I I think not, I think you know, we've we've
[2:55] Speaker 3: talked about the strategy lacked off before in this UH program.
[3:00] Speaker 3: It isn't simply us throwing rocks, you know. In fact,
[3:07] Speaker 3: I know at least a couple of us were involved
[3:10] Speaker 3: in planning for war with Iran before, and I'm wondering
[3:16] Speaker 3: why some of the assumptions and some of the risks
[3:18] Speaker 3: identified in you know, almost a decade of planning had
[3:24] Speaker 3: been thrown out of the window, namely the anticipation that
[3:30] Speaker 3: Iran would close the straits of All Moose, but also
[3:36] Speaker 3: understanding the limits of an air campaign and through no
[3:43] Speaker 3: one's fault, it's just very difficult to track down the
[3:47] Speaker 3: assets which trying to track down rocket launchers and now
[3:54] Speaker 3: small boats, drone places where drones are being stored specifically,
[4:02] Speaker 3: you know, to leap ahead, what has changed about this
[4:05] Speaker 3: phase of the wall To answer the question that's been
[4:09] Speaker 3: asked the administration where you hope to gain out these strikes.
[4:12] Speaker 3: The list of targets are specifically focused on Uranian assets
[4:18] Speaker 3: that that could end up It was shipping in the
[4:21] Speaker 3: straits of all moves, at least until until last night. Right,
[4:26] Speaker 3: So those who were specifically radar sites acquisition radar in
[4:35] Speaker 3: the southern part of the country, and again missile launchers
[4:40] Speaker 3: places where intelligence was suggesting the ranges were storing drones.
[4:45] Speaker 3: And although I haven't seen this specifically, I assume also
[4:49] Speaker 3: small boats. But all those assets are easy to move
[4:54] Speaker 3: around and hide and decoy and disperse, and especially in
[4:57] Speaker 3: the country like Iran, and the long the war goes on,
[5:01] Speaker 3: the easy it is to do for them to disperse
[5:03] Speaker 3: the remaining assets. And so you know, the strike against
[5:08] Speaker 3: Jordan last night, the strikes against Kuwait are not a surprise.
[5:14] Speaker 3: What is perhaps surprising in this phase, and John can
[5:18] Speaker 3: perhaps jump in to add more amplification on this, is
[5:22] Speaker 3: the increased accuracy of Iranian missiles, right, And that is
[5:30] Speaker 3: I understand mostly attributed to the fact that the Chinese
[5:35] Speaker 3: are providing navigation system. It's no longer a GPS. John,
[5:41] Speaker 3: what's do you remember the term? And it's b h
[5:45] Speaker 3: it's by DO three or something.
[5:48] Speaker 4: It's that it's the frequent GPS alternative.
[5:51] Speaker 3: It's the Chinese frequency hopping version of the GPS, and
[5:54] Speaker 3: I should probably google that. And we have various student
[5:58] Speaker 3: members of our audience who will who will be able
[6:01] Speaker 3: to jump in. But it's but anyway, B three A
[6:06] Speaker 3: is what we call it. It's it's and the network
[6:11] Speaker 3: is called the Baydoo three the millions military military grade
[6:15] Speaker 3: signal we call B three A. And so very quickly,
[6:19] Speaker 3: my understanding is that civilian GPS is you know, obviously
[6:23] Speaker 3: it's a fixed known frequency. It's very jammable. In the
[6:27] Speaker 3: Twelfth Day War and June twenty twenty five, both Israel
[6:31] Speaker 3: and the US were jamming Iranian GPS guided munitions very
[6:37] Speaker 3: hard and at worked. GPS guided systems reportedly failing at
[6:41] Speaker 3: the rates of over seventy percent early in the conflict.
[6:44] Speaker 3: Now ninety eight percent of them are getting through, So
[6:49] Speaker 3: that is that's a concern. So although we're in a
[6:52] Speaker 3: new phase of the wall, although we've narrowed our targeting options,
[6:56] Speaker 3: the targets themselves are easy to disperse, and on the
[7:00] Speaker 3: Iranian side, they're getting more accurate, so so that is
[7:04] Speaker 3: that's certainly a concern. And you know, the last thing
[7:09] Speaker 3: I'll say is that piling on more strikes again might
[7:16] Speaker 3: give us a feeling of satisfaction. But as we've seen,
[7:19] Speaker 3: we've also amped up the risk and the Ranians are
[7:24] Speaker 3: going after and I haven't got confirmation of this, and
[7:27] Speaker 3: the strike on the base in Jordan yesterday, I forget
[7:31] Speaker 3: the name of the base. It's about sixty clicks from
[7:35] Speaker 3: from Aman. But the Ranians are going after specific assets
[7:42] Speaker 3: that we have, not strike aircraft on the ground, but
[7:46] Speaker 3: they're going after the the A Wax, the easy two centuries,
[7:57] Speaker 3: They're going after the KC one thirty five tankers, just
[8:01] Speaker 3: like they did in Saudi Arabia. So for those of
[8:04] Speaker 3: you who like CenTra gravity analysis, these are the critical requirements,
[8:09] Speaker 3: right the high value, low density assets that we have.
[8:14] Speaker 3: And we've got about seventy five percent of these assets
[8:17] Speaker 3: in the region right now, so they're all vulnerable and
[8:19] Speaker 3: we only have a limited number of them. So the
[8:21] Speaker 3: Uranians know what they're doing. They're going after these assets
[8:25] Speaker 3: and increased accuracy. And I'm not being chicken little here,
[8:29] Speaker 3: I'm just saying that last all of this suggests that
[8:34] Speaker 3: this last round of the war isn't going to be
[8:36] Speaker 3: quite as easy as perhaps some people think to simply
[8:40] Speaker 3: shut down the Uranians by piling on more munitions. And
[8:44] Speaker 3: at the end of the day, you know what's our
[8:46] Speaker 3: first priority. Our first priority is hormuse. We're not even
[8:49] Speaker 3: talking about enriched uranium anymore. We're not even talking about
[8:53] Speaker 3: the proxies, even though, by the way, the Iraqi Iranian
[8:57] Speaker 3: backed proxies have only grown stronger this wall. And if
[9:02] Speaker 3: anyone who's observed the after Martha Commanie's funeral, well we'll
[9:05] Speaker 3: see a lot of the traffic control in a Raq
[9:08] Speaker 3: was these militias. We're not even talking about those things.
[9:11] Speaker 3: We're talking specifically about Hall moves. And the thing is,
[9:16] Speaker 3: even if even if we manage through all our naval
[9:20] Speaker 3: assets in the region, two carriers, over twenty surface vessels,
[9:25] Speaker 3: untold number of aircraft, et cetera, et cetera, even if
[9:28] Speaker 3: we managed to force an opening and the straits of
[9:30] Speaker 3: Wall moves, the effect on the global economy remains because
[9:35] Speaker 3: commercial we're talking about commercial ships. It's still high risk.
[9:39] Speaker 3: Until the Iranians agree not to strike ships and there's
[9:43] Speaker 3: some kind of negotiated settlement, the problem continues, and that
[9:47] Speaker 3: is the issue I think we're facing right now. So again,
[9:51] Speaker 3: the tactics don't fit in any coherent, overarching policy, and
[9:58] Speaker 3: that's the bottom line, any overlaunching policy that can be
[10:02] Speaker 3: achieved through the tactics that we're using.
[10:07] Speaker 4: Yeah, and I would also add on to that, In
[10:08] Speaker 4: addition to the center of gravity component of this targeting
[10:11] Speaker 4: that we're seeing, people are asking why are there these
[10:14] Speaker 4: tip for TAT strikes going on? Why are they hitting
[10:16] Speaker 4: bridges in Iran? Why is Iran hitting US bases in Jordan?
[10:20] Speaker 4: Like this question is from the public. I'm trying to understand,
[10:23] Speaker 4: you know, why are these targets the targets. One part
[10:26] Speaker 4: of it is what you mentioned, Andy, that they're doing
[10:29] Speaker 4: operational level analysis of target packages and deciding, both the
[10:32] Speaker 4: US and Iran both deciding about you know, if I
[10:34] Speaker 4: strike a bridge that links this base to this base,
[10:37] Speaker 4: that has a stronger impact than if I just hit
[10:39] Speaker 4: an aircraft at that base. And at the same time,
[10:42] Speaker 4: if you look back to Operation Allied Force in nineteen
[10:45] Speaker 4: ninety nine and Kosovo and in the Balkans generally, you know,
[10:48] Speaker 4: Bosnia and so on, we had a multi discipline intelligence
[10:53] Speaker 4: approach to targeting. In that conflict, we had not only
[10:57] Speaker 4: air assets, which is a massive air campaign in Kosovo,
[11:00] Speaker 4: we also had a very extensive human intelligence network inside
[11:03] Speaker 4: of Kosovo that was helping us to identify and validate targets.
[11:08] Speaker 4: So there were some targets that we already knew about,
[11:10] Speaker 4: like military bases, which are fixed and pretty slow to
[11:14] Speaker 4: change on a spreadsheet, but we also had new locations
[11:17] Speaker 4: like point of origin sites when the enemy would be
[11:19] Speaker 4: launching mortars or artillery, which they can move around very easily.
[11:24] Speaker 4: In relation to bases, we'd have human sources on the
[11:26] Speaker 4: ground who would say, Hey, that truck, although it was
[11:29] Speaker 4: at X location today, now it's at Y location right now.
[11:32] Speaker 4: So we'd be able to tell the pilots in the air, hey,
[11:34] Speaker 4: adjust fire dynamically and go strike this point of origin
[11:37] Speaker 4: site that we've noticed. With our imagery intelligence and with
[11:40] Speaker 4: our signals intelligence, we also have human intelligence telling us
[11:43] Speaker 4: that that's actually where they are, and that's actually what
[11:45] Speaker 4: it is that we think it is. In Iran, we
[11:47] Speaker 4: don't have this, so we're relying very heavily on signals
[11:50] Speaker 4: intelligence and imagery intelligence to say that looks like a transporter.
[11:54] Speaker 4: Erector launcher, it looks like it's there right now, and
[11:56] Speaker 4: it looks like it has a weapon on it, We
[11:58] Speaker 4: strike it, and then we don't really know what that
[12:00] Speaker 4: strike did to it because we can't go validate with
[12:02] Speaker 4: battle damage assessant, and we can't also say how many
[12:05] Speaker 4: more they have left and other things like that that
[12:06] Speaker 4: human intelligence can tell us, but that the other two
[12:09] Speaker 4: disciplines alone have a hard time being really forceful on.
[12:13] Speaker 4: The reason I mentioned that is because you look at
[12:15] Speaker 4: why did Jordan hit Wafak Salty Air Base or MSAB,
[12:18] Speaker 4: which is in Jordan. This base is well known. When
[12:21] Speaker 4: I was in Jordan, we used to joke that this
[12:23] Speaker 4: was the largest land based aircraft carrier that the United
[12:25] Speaker 4: States has in the Middle East, because most of our
[12:27] Speaker 4: air assets were at Waffak Salty Air Base separately from Qatar,
[12:31] Speaker 4: which is where Air Force's Central Command is at, and
[12:33] Speaker 4: there's a lot of air assets in Katark. Katar has
[12:35] Speaker 4: been hit multiple times during this conflict, but MSAB, that
[12:39] Speaker 4: base has been there a very long time. That's a
[12:41] Speaker 4: well known target. There's plenty of open source satellite imagery
[12:44] Speaker 4: of Waffak Salty Air Base. You can look it up
[12:47] Speaker 4: on Google and see it the huge airfield. There lots
[12:50] Speaker 4: of US military infrastructure there. So from an Iranian perspective,
[12:54] Speaker 4: it's kind of a low cost strike in terms of
[12:57] Speaker 4: intelligence because they don't really need to validate much to
[13:00] Speaker 4: know that if they lob an intermediate range ballistic missile
[13:03] Speaker 4: at it, they're going to hit something that's American. Now,
[13:06] Speaker 4: the problem here is they don't know what exactly they're
[13:09] Speaker 4: going to hit, and my suspicion is they did not
[13:11] Speaker 4: intend to kill Americans in the strike. They probably meant
[13:13] Speaker 4: to hit American assets, fixed assets, and that was not
[13:17] Speaker 4: the goal because they know that by killing Americans. American
[13:20] Speaker 4: military forces are highly sensitive to casualties. When Americans die,
[13:24] Speaker 4: we tend to respond with overwhelming force. They know this
[13:28] Speaker 4: firsthand because the reason cost some Solamani is dead is
[13:31] Speaker 4: because two months before that Americans were killed in Syria,
[13:36] Speaker 4: a contractor and active duty members were killed, and we
[13:39] Speaker 4: launched an assassinated their most important military commander in response.
[13:43] Speaker 4: And we have typically done that not just against Iran,
[13:46] Speaker 4: but against many other examples, including in Vietnam, where most
[13:49] Speaker 4: of our overwhelming responses that were dynamic in nature, not
[13:52] Speaker 4: planned ahead, but by dynamic in nature were in response
[13:56] Speaker 4: to US casualties like this, so I would expect to
[13:59] Speaker 4: see a larger US response than we expect. Over the evening,
[14:04] Speaker 4: we saw a strike on a couple of facilities, an
[14:06] Speaker 4: IRGC facility. I don't think that's the end of the story.
[14:09] Speaker 4: I think there will probably be increases in retaliation from
[14:13] Speaker 4: this that the US is probably trying to put together
[14:15] Speaker 4: right now to consider, Okay, how do we respond to
[14:18] Speaker 4: this proportionally based on how we understand proportional, not how
[14:22] Speaker 4: the adversary understands it, but how does the US military
[14:24] Speaker 4: understand that? So I wouldn't think this is over yet.
[14:27] Speaker 4: And on the tit for tat part of it, those
[14:31] Speaker 4: intel limitations are real, so the US can only hit
[14:34] Speaker 4: what it understands. So if the US doesn't understand let's
[14:38] Speaker 4: say a underground facility, we can't just bomb it. We
[14:41] Speaker 4: have to know what we're hitting. Like when you're putting
[14:43] Speaker 4: a weaponeering package together and you're having the air officer
[14:45] Speaker 4: actually sit there with you and talk through the targeting.
[14:47] Speaker 4: As far as the intel side, you're actually picking strike points.
[14:50] Speaker 4: You're saying, what are the locations on this facility that
[14:52] Speaker 4: are the best the weakest to hit, or the locations
[14:55] Speaker 4: that if we hit it will cause damage in a
[14:56] Speaker 4: particular direction. There are lots of considerations. It's not just
[15:00] Speaker 4: dropping a bomb. So a lot of these facilities we
[15:03] Speaker 4: might not be able to strike now because we lack
[15:05] Speaker 4: knowledge of what's going on inside that facility and around
[15:07] Speaker 4: that facility, So we won't hit everything that's as valuable
[15:11] Speaker 4: as we want to hit yet without that human intelligence
[15:14] Speaker 4: on the ground. So that's going to be a limitation
[15:16] Speaker 4: where you're going to see probably a lot of infrastructure strikes, bridges,
[15:20] Speaker 4: water purification barracks, fixed military assets, because those are things
[15:25] Speaker 4: we understand with limited information. You're not going to see
[15:28] Speaker 4: strikes on let's say, a G two intelligence headquarters in Tehran,
[15:33] Speaker 4: because even though we are striking a lot, we are
[15:35] Speaker 4: still trying to limit civilian casualties as much as we can.
[15:38] Speaker 4: And when you're looking at that G two headquarters, you
[15:40] Speaker 4: don't really know what's in the buildings around it, so
[15:43] Speaker 4: you don't know which kind of weapon to use to
[15:45] Speaker 4: destroy that building, to make a blow up, to make
[15:47] Speaker 4: an implode versus explode, and things like that. So you're
[15:49] Speaker 4: going to probably see those larger headquarters entities left off
[15:53] Speaker 4: the target list for now until we understand more about
[15:56] Speaker 4: those targets so that we can ensure that we're hitting
[15:58] Speaker 4: them the right way with what our doctrine says. And
[16:02] Speaker 4: next to that the GPS issue that you mentioned, Andy,
[16:05] Speaker 4: So there's actually three different major GPS like networks in
[16:09] Speaker 4: the world. There's the free world GPS, which is GPS
[16:14] Speaker 4: Global Positioning System. There's the Russian version, which is the GNSS,
[16:18] Speaker 4: which is just like our GPS, but it's a Russian
[16:20] Speaker 4: controlled satellite array that the Russians can use. Even if
[16:24] Speaker 4: our GPS goes down, the Russians will still have GPS,
[16:26] Speaker 4: and vice versa. This is a Cold War development. As
[16:30] Speaker 4: we were developing our space program, which was a cover
[16:33] Speaker 4: for our nuclear program, our intercontinental ballistic missile nuclear delivery program,
[16:36] Speaker 4: the Russians are doing the same thing. You need GPS
[16:39] Speaker 4: for that, so the Russians had GNSS for that. China
[16:42] Speaker 4: was a late to the game. But China also had BDS,
[16:45] Speaker 4: which is the bidy that you were talking about, Andy.
[16:47] Speaker 4: So these are three different independent arrays of GPS controlled networks.
[16:53] Speaker 4: Iran is relying on China's network, not on Russia's, but
[16:55] Speaker 4: on China's network to get a lot of accurate information.
[16:58] Speaker 4: So even if we try to jam Iran using our GPS,
[17:02] Speaker 4: which sometimes they do depending on what the equipment is
[17:04] Speaker 4: that they're using, there are areas that we can't jam
[17:08] Speaker 4: as easily because it would require whenever you jam something,
[17:11] Speaker 4: there's a diplomatic component to that. If we jam a
[17:14] Speaker 4: Chinese system, we are technically in an active war with
[17:17] Speaker 4: China by blocking their communication system. So there's going to
[17:19] Speaker 4: be a calculation made. Is it worth blocking China's GPS
[17:23] Speaker 4: for us to harm Iran? And if we could harm
[17:25] Speaker 4: Iran somehow without blocking the GPS, maybe we choose the
[17:29] Speaker 4: somehow option, even though it's less because we don't want
[17:32] Speaker 4: to implicate China into this consideration. So there will be
[17:34] Speaker 4: some calculation there going on with what's the cost and
[17:37] Speaker 4: benefit of using this now? And also some of these
[17:40] Speaker 4: technologies we have to work with GPS in particular, we
[17:44] Speaker 4: don't want to use it in a conflict like this
[17:46] Speaker 4: because we're saving it for later in a bigger conflict,
[17:49] Speaker 4: because some of these things are very very technical and
[17:51] Speaker 4: sophisticated and depend on the enemy not knowing we have it,
[17:55] Speaker 4: and if we use it now we can never really
[17:57] Speaker 4: use it effectively. Again, we could still use it, but
[17:59] Speaker 4: just wouldn't be surprising and overwhelming and important as it
[18:02] Speaker 4: would be if we waited, say in a nuclear war
[18:05] Speaker 4: with Russia, for example. So there's also that calculation being made,
[18:09] Speaker 4: just like Winston Churchill decided not to announce that we
[18:11] Speaker 4: had broken Enigma as early as we had, and British
[18:15] Speaker 4: civilians died because of this, because the importance of just
[18:17] Speaker 4: having that as a secret was way more powerful than
[18:20] Speaker 4: just telling the world that we had done so. And
[18:22] Speaker 4: so there are still things like that in the world,
[18:24] Speaker 4: including zero day vulnerabilities. We haven't seen very much talk
[18:27] Speaker 4: about cyber attacks against Iran right now, and there's probably
[18:30] Speaker 4: a degree of keeping those zero day vulnerabilities secret until
[18:35] Speaker 4: the future time when we actually need to use these
[18:37] Speaker 4: more powerful tools, and we've just calculated this is not
[18:40] Speaker 4: the time, which at the operational level is a very
[18:43] Speaker 4: wise move, I think, because it's always about measuring risk.
[18:46] Speaker 4: You can never eliminate it, and you can never use
[18:49] Speaker 4: everything you've got right now, because the value of it
[18:51] Speaker 4: goes away the moment you use it, just like nuclear weapons.
[18:54] Speaker 4: A nuclear weapon is powerful because it's not used the
[18:57] Speaker 4: moment you use it, the threat is completely understood and
[18:59] Speaker 4: completely on the table, and it changes the game, and
[19:02] Speaker 4: the game is only good in your favor if you
[19:04] Speaker 4: don't use your nukes.
[19:08] Speaker 5: Hey, guys, I want to tell you tonight about my
[19:10] Speaker 5: new novel, The Most Dangerous Man, coming out June ninth.
[19:14] Speaker 5: I think, like a lot of you, I read in
[19:17] Speaker 5: high school the short story The Greatest Game, which is
[19:21] Speaker 5: almost a century old at this point, but it's the
[19:24] Speaker 5: classic premise of man hunting man for sport. This book
[19:30] Speaker 5: is based off of that a little bit, but also
[19:33] Speaker 5: on stories that I have heard over the years about
[19:36] Speaker 5: Safari guides that have actually taken hunting parties, wealthy people
[19:40] Speaker 5: hunting poachers in West Africa. That idea kind of cooked
[19:45] Speaker 5: off in my mind when I was asked to write
[19:48] Speaker 5: a novel and get back into writing fiction again. And
[19:51] Speaker 5: this book is about a ranger with the Ranger Reconnaissance
[19:54] Speaker 5: Company who's on a mission in West Africa and gets
[19:57] Speaker 5: kidnapped and hunted for sport by a group of wealthy
[20:00] Speaker 5: tech billionaires. I had a lot of fun writ in
[20:03] Speaker 5: this book, and I think you'll have a good time
[20:05] Speaker 5: reading it. It's quick, fast and furious, fast paced action
[20:11] Speaker 5: action novel, and I hope you all check it out.
[20:14] Speaker 2: It's up there.
[20:16] Speaker 5: You can find it wherever books are sold, the hard copy,
[20:19] Speaker 5: the hard back, the soft cover, and also the Kindle
[20:22] Speaker 5: e book edition. We'll have some links down in the
[20:25] Speaker 5: description for you. The book comes out June ninth, and
[20:29] Speaker 5: I hope you all let me know what you think
[20:30] Speaker 5: of it.
[20:43] Speaker 3: It's a great, great point about cyber, you know, the
[20:49] Speaker 3: one assumes that that is something that we would be
[20:55] Speaker 3: integrating at this level, you know, Johnna, I mean to
[20:58] Speaker 3: your point though about not using cyber because we're worried
[21:03] Speaker 3: about exposing methods. I mean, I'm not sure, you know,
[21:09] Speaker 3: explain that one to me. I'm not sure I buy that.
[21:11] Speaker 3: You know, surely we would integrate cyber regardless. We've already
[21:16] Speaker 3: conducted cyber operations against Iran in conjunction with Israel right
[21:21] Speaker 3: in the past. Why why would we not do so now,
[21:25] Speaker 3: especially especially now that we know that the Chinese have
[21:29] Speaker 3: given them that you know BYD systems. I mean, we're
[21:33] Speaker 3: trying to right, we're trying to side step. We realized
[21:37] Speaker 3: jamming is no longer as effective. I think I assume
[21:41] Speaker 3: that's one of the reasons why we've changed our targeting.
[21:45] Speaker 3: I say, we collectively in the United States to a
[21:49] Speaker 3: kind of node by no targeting, going after the surveillance towers,
[21:54] Speaker 3: like the other day to hit the Chabaha surveillance tower
[21:57] Speaker 3: in southern Iran. So you know, we realize obviously what
[22:04] Speaker 3: is happening. I just can't. I mean, I just don't.
[22:09] Speaker 3: I'm not sure I buy that were waiting on. We're
[22:12] Speaker 3: reluctant to use cyber at some level. Surely we can
[22:16] Speaker 3: use cyber operationally without perhaps exposing our methods.
[22:23] Speaker 4: I think the more normal, let's say cyber operations are
[22:27] Speaker 4: probably going on what I'm talking about, are the more exquisite,
[22:30] Speaker 4: one time use things like we saw in Venezuela when
[22:34] Speaker 4: the president was taken There is a massive cyber attack
[22:38] Speaker 4: that night that blacked out the city. That's the kind
[22:41] Speaker 4: of thing that you can only use one time because
[22:43] Speaker 4: the way that it's used, the way that it's implanted.
[22:45] Speaker 4: Once it's used, now it's known, and I would not
[22:49] Speaker 4: be surprised if there were things in Iran that could
[22:52] Speaker 4: be switched on and off in a way that would
[22:54] Speaker 4: spectacularly turn the country off in a way that be
[22:56] Speaker 4: advantageous for us in various ways, but the moment that
[22:59] Speaker 4: we use we can't use it against Russia and we
[23:02] Speaker 4: can't use it against China anymore because it will be understood, analyzed,
[23:05] Speaker 4: exploited turned around. We had the same problem with stucks
[23:08] Speaker 4: net when we attacked Natons the cyber attack in two
[23:11] Speaker 4: thousand and seven. The reason Iran developed an offensive cyber
[23:16] Speaker 4: capability that is very formidable is because they reverse engineered
[23:20] Speaker 4: the stuckxnet virus that we used in two thousand and
[23:22] Speaker 4: seven and they use it against Saudi Aramco in the
[23:24] Speaker 4: Shamun attack, which brought down It was the largest cyber
[23:27] Speaker 4: attack in Saudi history and destroyed huge amounts of infrastructure
[23:31] Speaker 4: and oil output on the night of power during Ramadan
[23:34] Speaker 4: when they use some other cyber tools to analyze pattern
[23:37] Speaker 4: of life and identified that that was the best time
[23:39] Speaker 4: to attack. That tool was a child tool of stucks net. Later,
[23:44] Speaker 4: they also reverse engineered something called Flame, which was a
[23:47] Speaker 4: cyber tool that the NSA independently developed that was very
[23:50] Speaker 4: very capable of doing a lot of things. Let's say
[23:53] Speaker 4: they reverse engineered that and they've been using it ever since,
[23:56] Speaker 4: and we can't defeat it because the way it was designed.
[23:58] Speaker 4: It was designed to be undefeatable verse engineered, but it
[24:01] Speaker 4: can't be stopped. But the way that it actually works,
[24:03] Speaker 4: So there's that idea of once it's in the wild,
[24:06] Speaker 4: what happens next? What if North Korea gets their hands
[24:08] Speaker 4: on this technology and uses it against US or against
[24:11] Speaker 4: Australia for example. So there's this concern of the effects
[24:15] Speaker 4: beyond the battle space of using the more exquisite Let's
[24:18] Speaker 4: say that the one percent tools that we have. The
[24:20] Speaker 4: other tools are out there, for sure, they're being used
[24:23] Speaker 4: right now, absolutely, But then there's the cost of what
[24:26] Speaker 4: happens once we fire this shot? Will it be fired
[24:29] Speaker 4: at us?
[24:29] Speaker 2: Too?
[24:30] Speaker 3: So I mean the media is reporting that Trump's being
[24:34] Speaker 3: briefed on well obviously is being briefed on military options
[24:39] Speaker 3: in response to the US deaths. I mean something has
[24:42] Speaker 3: to be seen to be done, right, And I suppose cyber.
[24:47] Speaker 3: Another aspect of cyber, which may seem counterintuitive but nevertheless
[24:53] Speaker 3: is true, is it doesn't have It doesn't have that
[24:58] Speaker 3: kinetic political effect. Right if you're playing, if you're playing
[25:02] Speaker 3: to a global and domestic audience, often the effects of
[25:05] Speaker 3: cyber are not clearly evident and purposefully not publicize, which
[25:12] Speaker 3: in a sense, if you're looking for especially with a
[25:15] Speaker 3: war that's less than popular and you wanted to show
[25:19] Speaker 3: that you're in charge, it's perhaps not as satisfying an
[25:24] Speaker 3: instrument to use as kinetic targeting. But I know so,
[25:30] Speaker 3: but talking about tit for tat, so we you know,
[25:33] Speaker 3: do undoubtedly the options available, and there aren't a wide
[25:38] Speaker 3: range of options. I mean, going after Iranian infrastructure, right
[25:44] Speaker 3: it certainly energy infrastructure, another round against Ron's nuclear sites,
[25:52] Speaker 3: or perhaps targeting one of the underground facilities like the
[25:55] Speaker 3: one at let's it called Pickaxe Mountain, you know, perhaps
[26:01] Speaker 3: going in again with bunker busters, something that's going to
[26:05] Speaker 3: really make the news. So I mean, does appear as
[26:08] Speaker 3: though obviously the military is preparing for those options. There's reportedly,
[26:13] Speaker 3: I mean, it's all over Twitter, thirty three aerial refueling tankers,
[26:18] Speaker 3: Kisey won thirty five's crowding the Tomak and Bengurian airport
[26:23] Speaker 3: in preparation for something. But at the same time, the
[26:28] Speaker 3: problem is, again I don't want to appear to be
[26:31] Speaker 3: chicken little, but the problem is that the Uranians too
[26:36] Speaker 3: appear to be telling the huthis Hey stand by for
[26:41] Speaker 3: you and Houthi's moving assets into position being directed to
[26:48] Speaker 3: move assets into position to give the BAM the band
[26:53] Speaker 3: Al Mandeb a good slaking. Should the US take targeting
[26:58] Speaker 3: to the next steps. So now we have both borderways
[27:01] Speaker 3: threatened and effectively closed off, and meanwhile Iranian strikes on
[27:09] Speaker 3: on on Kwaiti border posts, oil platform reportedly a desalination
[27:15] Speaker 3: plant too, although that didn't make the news, but I
[27:17] Speaker 3: saw it on x Kuwaiti consulate in in Basra to
[27:22] Speaker 3: Amaradi tankers. Notably, Saudi Arabia has not been hit in
[27:28] Speaker 3: this round, but they did. They've been issuing. They showed
[27:31] Speaker 3: another condemnation today against all of these attacks and likely
[27:38] Speaker 3: may well consider the if the Hoofies get involved this
[27:45] Speaker 3: as a as a direct attack on Saudi Arabia.
[27:48] Speaker 1: So yeah, so I wanted to mention, Sorry, John, Yeah,
[27:52] Speaker 1: I did see a little bit of chatter talking about
[27:54] Speaker 1: like US s letting Saudi Arabia off the off the
[27:57] Speaker 1: chain for against the HOOFI. I don't know if that's
[28:01] Speaker 1: plausible or actually you know, in the cards. I just
[28:05] Speaker 1: wanted to get your thoughts on that, sorry, John.
[28:08] Speaker 4: Well, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular. Qatar obviously
[28:11] Speaker 4: has been negotiating and helping to negotiate between various parties
[28:14] Speaker 4: in this conflict. But Saudi foreign ministry officials, high level
[28:18] Speaker 4: officials attended the funeral for how many which is significant
[28:22] Speaker 4: if you look at who attended the funeral and at
[28:24] Speaker 4: what rank were they. This is a very interesting analytical
[28:27] Speaker 4: exercise if listeners want to look it up. It's very
[28:30] Speaker 4: fascinating actually to look through like who sent who and
[28:32] Speaker 4: who are they? The Saudis did send some significant folks
[28:35] Speaker 4: and if you remember, before the war started, Saudi Arabia
[28:37] Speaker 4: had been increasing its steps toward so let's say at
[28:42] Speaker 4: daytant with Iran that Mohammed bin Salmon had been working
[28:46] Speaker 4: toward and trying to do to to basically, you know,
[28:49] Speaker 4: calm tensions in the region after especially nim Or Nimmer
[28:52] Speaker 4: was assassinated a few years previously, are killed executed a
[28:55] Speaker 4: few years previously. That was a major problem for Iran
[28:58] Speaker 4: and Saudi relations and since then and both countries have
[29:01] Speaker 4: been trying to kind of fix that damage. And I
[29:04] Speaker 4: think seeing the Saudis at the funeral signals that hope
[29:07] Speaker 4: is still there because Saudi Arabia seeks to benefit by
[29:10] Speaker 4: regional stability, whatever that means, and the Saudis have their
[29:14] Speaker 4: own interest. In fact, you know, there's something called a
[29:16] Speaker 4: one two three agreement, which is a special nuclear agreement
[29:18] Speaker 4: between the US and a foreign partner about how nuclear
[29:22] Speaker 4: research and development should go. The US is negotiating a
[29:25] Speaker 4: one two three agreement with Saudi Arabia right now, which
[29:27] Speaker 4: will allow the Saudis to enrich uranium or and plutonium.
[29:31] Speaker 4: And interestingly, there are no restrictions on weaponization on this
[29:35] Speaker 4: particular agreement. Every one two three agreement is different between countries.
[29:38] Speaker 4: When I was in Jordan, we were negotiating a one
[29:40] Speaker 4: two three agreement with Jordan, there's had a weaponization cap
[29:43] Speaker 4: on it or restriction on it. The Saudis negotiated one
[29:47] Speaker 4: without it, which is a pretty big deal and also
[29:49] Speaker 4: shows you know, that's Saudi Arabia trying to fix itself
[29:52] Speaker 4: in the region as a power. And they have said
[29:55] Speaker 4: Muhammed bin Salman himself said, you know, if Iran gets
[29:57] Speaker 4: nuclear weapon in Saudi Arabia is getting one two And
[30:00] Speaker 4: I mentioned all that context because Saudi Arabia cares about
[30:03] Speaker 4: Saudi integrity, sovereignty and stability, price stability for their country,
[30:08] Speaker 4: and so they're looking at this like, how do we
[30:10] Speaker 4: balance against all these competing interests. We have this very
[30:12] Speaker 4: powerful neighbor, Iran. We also have Iran controlling some elements
[30:17] Speaker 4: inside of Yemen, but we also have shared interests in
[30:20] Speaker 4: Opek and oil prices and economics in the region. So
[30:23] Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia is playing a diplomatic not necessarily a game,
[30:27] Speaker 4: but they're being careful about how exactly do they commit
[30:29] Speaker 4: to either side, and what kind of side do they take,
[30:32] Speaker 4: and how do they fit into this, just like Katar
[30:34] Speaker 4: is doing, but for different reasons, and I think the
[30:37] Speaker 4: attendance at the funeral kind of indicates that. And with
[30:39] Speaker 4: the Houthis, maybe Saudi Arabia is allowed to be unrestrained,
[30:43] Speaker 4: but does that mean they will be unrestrained. That's a
[30:45] Speaker 4: question for the Saudi government to make the decision on,
[30:48] Speaker 4: not the US to tell them, hey, go fight the Huthis.
[30:51] Speaker 2: Instead, it's going to be a.
[30:51] Speaker 4: Saudi decision about how much do we actually do here,
[30:54] Speaker 4: because we do care about the day after the war.
[30:57] Speaker 4: After the war ends, we still need to find some
[31:00] Speaker 4: common ground with whatever Iranian government remains after this war.
[31:04] Speaker 4: So we can't go too far and too hard because
[31:06] Speaker 4: there could be repercussions. And it's a similar concept to
[31:09] Speaker 4: what happened with UAE in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where
[31:11] Speaker 4: there were divisions on how those two states decided to
[31:14] Speaker 4: prosecute the war in Yemen, with the Saudis deciding one
[31:18] Speaker 4: way and the Amordis deciding to remain. And that's a
[31:20] Speaker 4: very interesting thing to think about because those states do
[31:23] Speaker 4: care about the day after the war much more than
[31:25] Speaker 4: the West and the United States cares about it.
[31:27] Speaker 3: I think, yeah, And you know, from a Saudi perspective,
[31:33] Speaker 3: it makes perfect sense, of course, because I think and
[31:39] Speaker 3: it'll be interesting, you know, John, I don't know who
[31:41] Speaker 3: you feel about this, but I mean I don't We're
[31:44] Speaker 3: not going to stop Iran from getting the bomb. I
[31:47] Speaker 3: mean we aren't. Eventually Iran will get the bomb. The
[31:51] Speaker 3: prize is too evident to be a member of the club.
[31:55] Speaker 3: Brings such prestige, but it brings in fun us ability.
[32:00] Speaker 3: Right look at North Korea, and it's just too difficult
[32:06] Speaker 3: to actually prevent Iran from doing so. I mean, we've
[32:09] Speaker 3: done our best at this stage. It's not as though
[32:13] Speaker 3: we did those strikes back in June as a warning
[32:17] Speaker 3: to the nuclear program. I mean, it was a wholehearted
[32:20] Speaker 3: attempt to eliminate around this nuclear program. But for all
[32:24] Speaker 3: the reasons we've talked about on this program, that's we've
[32:28] Speaker 3: probably by launching Midnight Hammer. Again not a criticism necessarily,
[32:34] Speaker 3: but by launching Midnight Hammer, the fact that it failed
[32:37] Speaker 3: turned a near impossible task probably into an impossible one.
[32:41] Speaker 3: Undoubtedly the Uranians have learned from that strike. They learned
[32:45] Speaker 3: very quickly, right, They've learned how to better conceal, They've
[32:51] Speaker 3: learned to do their centrifuges. The enriched Uranian gets dispersed,
[32:58] Speaker 3: and even the you know, the technology we have cannot
[33:06] Speaker 3: cannot put a holt to the program. I think my
[33:08] Speaker 3: feeling is, without being an expert in that field, that
[33:12] Speaker 3: we're just not going to prevent a run from doing so,
[33:15] Speaker 3: you know, diplomatically, publicly we always say that this is
[33:18] Speaker 3: it's unacceptable. But what do we really focus on? Probably
[33:23] Speaker 3: where we focus on are the problems that are most
[33:27] Speaker 3: imminent to us interests or mooses number one. Number two
[33:32] Speaker 3: are the proxies. But specifically I mean not his Bolla,
[33:36] Speaker 3: not even the Huthis, although they are a Second, the
[33:39] Speaker 3: number one proxy that we should be concerned about are
[33:42] Speaker 3: the Iranian back militias in Iraq, who've launched something like
[33:46] Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty attacks on US forces in the
[33:51] Speaker 3: last three years. I mean significant amount. I mean, and
[33:55] Speaker 3: are only gaining traction in Iraq. That's that's a you know,
[33:59] Speaker 3: after Hemu, that's the biggest issue. Again, I'm not saying
[34:02] Speaker 3: that we tell Iran, hey, don't worry about it, but
[34:05] Speaker 3: this looks to me perhaps as a way of at
[34:10] Speaker 3: least hedging our bets. All right. So there are those
[34:14] Speaker 3: who would argue, even if Iran gets the bomb, it's
[34:17] Speaker 3: not an existential threat, not even to Israel, even though
[34:20] Speaker 3: we hear Israel say all the time it's an existential threat.
[34:23] Speaker 3: Israel's got the bomb too. But if you can if
[34:26] Speaker 3: you can enable all right, or turn a blind eye
[34:31] Speaker 3: to other regional partners in the rich and uranium and
[34:34] Speaker 3: developing their own program, then arguably you help a little
[34:39] Speaker 3: bit balance the nuclear balance of power right in the region.
[34:45] Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not suggesting that's our work here, but
[34:48] Speaker 3: undoubtedly that's in everyone's mind. So this agreement is on
[34:54] Speaker 3: Trump's desk. He am my understanding. He hasn't signed it yet,
[34:58] Speaker 3: As John pointed out, significant because until this point, the
[35:02] Speaker 3: two thousand and nine deal with UAE was considered the
[35:06] Speaker 3: gold standard, and for that UAE got the civil nuclear
[35:10] Speaker 3: cooperation but explicitly gave up the right to enrich uranium
[35:14] Speaker 3: or reprocess plutonium. You know, under this protocol does Saudi
[35:22] Speaker 3: Arabia would not agree to do either of those things. So,
[35:27] Speaker 3: you know, the US is currently fighting a war against Iran,
[35:30] Speaker 3: but Trump himself has framed at least party has been
[35:33] Speaker 3: about stopping around from using enriched uranium to build a weapon.
[35:37] Speaker 3: At the same time, there's kind of perhaps the realization
[35:40] Speaker 3: that this isn't really going to be possible. So now
[35:44] Speaker 3: sitting on his desk as a deal that would let
[35:46] Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia around its principal regional rival enriched uranium domestically
[35:50] Speaker 3: with weaker safeguards than the standard Washington itself set for UAE.
[35:56] Speaker 3: So you could credibly you could credibly say this is
[36:00] Speaker 3: only a deliberate decision and an acceptance of the fact
[36:05] Speaker 3: that we can't stop and ran from crossing that red line.
[36:10] Speaker 3: So perhaps we'd moved the red line for other upon
[36:12] Speaker 3: as in the region.
[36:16] Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think if Saudi Arabia began in enriching uranium,
[36:19] Speaker 4: it would be crazy to think that Iran would not
[36:23] Speaker 4: try to do so again, just from a purely realist
[36:27] Speaker 4: you know, like we in the West, we love political
[36:29] Speaker 4: realism and the realist you know, theory of international relations.
[36:32] Speaker 4: It's like a textbook example of Okay, step one, Saudi
[36:35] Speaker 4: Arabia and riches uranium. Step two, Iran riches uranium. This
[36:39] Speaker 4: is exactly how states think and work as states, as
[36:42] Speaker 4: black boxes, like forget the emotional issues within the regime
[36:45] Speaker 4: and ideology and religion, just pure political action, like why
[36:49] Speaker 4: would you not do it? It would not make sense,
[36:51] Speaker 4: especially when Israel already has over one hundred nuclear weapons
[36:54] Speaker 4: and has not signed the Nuclear non Proliferation Treaty or
[36:57] Speaker 4: the Biological Weapons controls or any of these other treaties
[37:01] Speaker 4: and controls that other states have signed and have not
[37:04] Speaker 4: followed perfectly but have still signed them, and those are
[37:06] Speaker 4: still Israel just refuses to sign them at all, which
[37:09] Speaker 4: kind of signals like what Israel is going to do.
[37:11] Speaker 4: If they want to use these, they will use them.
[37:13] Speaker 4: And if now Saudi Arabia has it again, the principal
[37:15] Speaker 4: rival besides Israel. Now you have these two states that
[37:18] Speaker 4: have both interests in keeping you out of the game.
[37:22] Speaker 4: You're going to want to play the game, and you're
[37:23] Speaker 4: going to do it clandestinely because you don't want.
[37:25] Speaker 2: It to be stopped.
[37:26] Speaker 4: So instead of stopping them and scaring them into not
[37:30] Speaker 4: enriching uranium, we're going to actually be forcing them deeper
[37:32] Speaker 4: and harder to find, and they will be doing it
[37:34] Speaker 4: in a way that will be more difficult for us
[37:36] Speaker 4: to stop. They'll also build alliances that may be surprising
[37:39] Speaker 4: to us so that they can gain access to materiel
[37:42] Speaker 4: and the information that they might not already have or
[37:45] Speaker 4: has been eliminated or destroyed since twenty twelve, after Israel
[37:48] Speaker 4: started assassinating Iran's nuclear scientists. We may see them make
[37:51] Speaker 4: alliances with countries we wouldn't expect. China is a great
[37:54] Speaker 4: example of that. China is an atheistic communist country. Iran
[37:58] Speaker 4: is a Shia ideological you know, religious state, and their
[38:03] Speaker 4: closest ally is China. That's not because they agree with
[38:06] Speaker 4: Chinese atheist communism. It's because China is willing to be
[38:10] Speaker 4: on their side and help them in this world where
[38:11] Speaker 4: they're isolated. Just like in Sudan Iran, the IERGC built
[38:15] Speaker 4: a navy base in Sudan. Sudan was their greatest regional
[38:18] Speaker 4: partner for in the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands,
[38:21] Speaker 4: the IRGC navy trained all of Sudan's navy. After Omar
[38:25] Speaker 4: al Bashir was removed, the Emirates went into Sudan and
[38:28] Speaker 4: started co opting the Sudanese government toward the Amorti side,
[38:32] Speaker 4: and Iran lost a TOHL there in Northeast Africa. So
[38:35] Speaker 4: that's just something to think about. Like, regional politics are
[38:37] Speaker 4: very real here. It's not about ideology. It's about how
[38:40] Speaker 4: do I keep my state strong Visavi your state? And
[38:44] Speaker 4: the nuclear issue is the ultimate pinnacle issue for these states,
[38:48] Speaker 4: jockeying for what power means to them. And if if
[38:52] Speaker 4: my adversary has a nuclear weapon, you better believe I'll
[38:55] Speaker 4: try to get one too, And that's how they're going
[38:56] Speaker 4: to look at it. I mean, it would be kind
[38:58] Speaker 4: of crazy to think otherwise.
[39:01] Speaker 1: Would Israel be okay with Saudi Arabia, you know, having
[39:07] Speaker 1: the door open essentially to getting a.
[39:08] Speaker 2: Bomb, certainly not.
[39:11] Speaker 4: I think there's going to be lobbying from the Israeli
[39:13] Speaker 4: side to go against that, but ultimately it's US decisions
[39:16] Speaker 4: about what do we want power structures to look like.
[39:19] Speaker 4: In the Middle East, we have a lot of basing
[39:21] Speaker 4: access and overflight with Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain.
[39:26] Speaker 4: Those states all have a seat at the table. They
[39:28] Speaker 4: get a voice, and they get a vote. It may
[39:30] Speaker 4: not be as strong as Israel's sometimes, but it is
[39:33] Speaker 4: something that is meaningful. And those states can ban together
[39:36] Speaker 4: and say hey, we want X. Israel might say you
[39:39] Speaker 4: can't have it, and the US says, well, unfortunately, both
[39:42] Speaker 4: of you can't get what you want. I'm going to
[39:43] Speaker 4: give half of X to you guys and stop the
[39:45] Speaker 4: other half because of this other pressure or some other consideration.
[39:49] Speaker 4: So it'll come down to what do all these states
[39:52] Speaker 4: say and what do US interests look like at that time.
[39:56] Speaker 4: And remember OPEK is very important, but we have a
[39:59] Speaker 4: new change with OPEK. Emirates departed OPEK.
[40:02] Speaker 2: This is a.
[40:03] Speaker 4: Really interesting development that will affect how the US operates
[40:05] Speaker 4: in the Middle East because it's going to affect economics globally.
[40:09] Speaker 4: And the question is what happens with OPEK going forward?
[40:13] Speaker 4: Vis A VI, These nuclear discussions because it's an energy
[40:18] Speaker 4: issue fundamentally, you know, nuclear power is an energy issued
[40:21] Speaker 4: the France's energy twenty five percent of it is nuclear power.
[40:25] Speaker 4: So ultimately, you know, in the future, after the Emirates
[40:27] Speaker 4: and these other Gulf nations try to divest themselves of
[40:30] Speaker 4: dependence on fossil fuels, nuclear energy is going to become
[40:33] Speaker 4: very important for those countries, and OPEK will become less
[40:37] Speaker 4: and less relevant over time, and that's something that they
[40:38] Speaker 4: are considering. It's something the US is also thinking about.
[40:41] Speaker 2: Mc molroy Hello, all right.
[40:43] Speaker 6: Jens, it's spend one of those days, as you guys
[40:46] Speaker 6: already know. I'm sure you're already talking about it. It's
[40:48] Speaker 6: just jumping from one to the next to the next.
[40:50] Speaker 1: What is mainstream media talking about.
[40:55] Speaker 6: Obviously the deaths of our service members in Jordan, which
[41:02] Speaker 6: is tragic, unfortunately expected that it's going to happen as
[41:07] Speaker 6: these things escalate, and thoughts solvishly to the family and
[41:10] Speaker 6: friends of this and the one missing, which I'm not
[41:13] Speaker 6: quite sure I understand how one is missing, but perhaps
[41:17] Speaker 6: it's just the damage done to the location where they
[41:20] Speaker 6: were present.
[41:22] Speaker 7: One thing i'd bring up on that.
[41:23] Speaker 6: I don't know if you guys have already covered it,
[41:25] Speaker 6: but I want to know who's providing targeting information to
[41:30] Speaker 6: the Iranians because it's it's they're not.
[41:33] Speaker 2: This good, right, So we get talked about that a
[41:36] Speaker 2: little bit.
[41:37] Speaker 6: Yeah good, what was your guys? Well, I don't want
[41:40] Speaker 6: you to recast what you already talked to the talk
[41:44] Speaker 6: to the audience about. But my concern is it's China,
[41:47] Speaker 6: Russia both, and I think the US, right, I would imagine,
[41:52] Speaker 6: so yeah, I would imagine the intelligence community has been
[41:56] Speaker 6: tasked of finding out determining it and if it fits
[42:00] Speaker 6: in fact the case, there needs to be some kind
[42:02] Speaker 6: of consequences.
[42:03] Speaker 7: So I'm not saying we've got a world China anything, but.
[42:07] Speaker 6: Yeah, we got to protect our service men and women
[42:09] Speaker 6: at all costs. And if they get these targeting data
[42:12] Speaker 6: that's allowing them to hit precise targets.
[42:15] Speaker 7: Like that, we need to we need to address it.
[42:20] Speaker 4: But the Russians did the same thing with the GRU
[42:22] Speaker 4: in Afghanistan. If you remember, they're putting out information on
[42:25] Speaker 4: US forces and things. And China has already provided imagery
[42:29] Speaker 4: intelligence using their proprietary satellites that are not commercially available
[42:32] Speaker 4: for Iran at the outset of the war, so it
[42:35] Speaker 4: would be you know, par for the course to expect
[42:38] Speaker 4: them to continue doing that.
[42:40] Speaker 1: And the Iranians we mentioned they're using the Chinese version
[42:44] Speaker 1: of GPS, that that's harder to jam on our end,
[42:48] Speaker 1: all right.
[42:50] Speaker 6: Yes, And other than that, I mean, it really does
[42:52] Speaker 6: look like we're headed toward major escalation. I mean, if
[42:56] Speaker 6: we're not already there, right and from all of the
[42:59] Speaker 6: publicly available information on the flow of you know, the airflow,
[43:02] Speaker 6: et cetera, this looks like it's going to go up
[43:05] Speaker 6: and it's going to be prolonged. So we're looking at
[43:08] Speaker 6: a and then of course we have the other shoot
[43:11] Speaker 6: to drop when it comes to increasing direct attax on
[43:15] Speaker 6: ships in the Red Sea Blahnda by the Huthis, you know,
[43:20] Speaker 6: strikes Yeah, one important point that I did talk about
[43:23] Speaker 6: this morning. You know, we're hitting facilities infrastructure in Iran, right, like,
[43:30] Speaker 6: including potentially desalinization plants. As I'm sure Jonathan can tell you,
[43:37] Speaker 6: Iran doesn't rely on desalinization plants near as much as
[43:41] Speaker 6: the Gulf countries like Kuwaits like ninety. It comes from water,
[43:46] Speaker 6: comes from the sea to desalinization, and I think like
[43:50] Speaker 6: Ohman's about eighty percent, seventy percent in Saudi Arabia that
[43:56] Speaker 6: I was looking at, and maybe around fifty percent in
[43:58] Speaker 6: the UAE. There's like entire cities it would have to
[44:02] Speaker 6: be evacuated if they successfully target a lot of desalinization
[44:06] Speaker 6: plants in the Gulf. Right, So this is this is
[44:09] Speaker 6: not parody when it comes to reliance on that. And
[44:15] Speaker 6: Iran's clearly saying they're gonna they're going to hit economic targets,
[44:19] Speaker 6: including energy and decimalization plants.
[44:22] Speaker 7: And I think they already did in Kuwait.
[44:24] Speaker 4: So and just to put that on there, it's three
[44:27] Speaker 4: percent of Iran's water comes from desalinized water.
[44:30] Speaker 7: Three percent ago.
[44:32] Speaker 6: Didn't know that, so ninety Kuwait three And I don't
[44:37] Speaker 6: know what the plan would be if they successfully knocked
[44:39] Speaker 6: out the desalinization plants in some of.
[44:42] Speaker 4: These countries, and in Iran, those desalinization plants are generally
[44:46] Speaker 4: all in the south right by the Straits of War
[44:48] Speaker 4: moves because those are kind of isolated coastal communities that
[44:51] Speaker 4: don't have access to the same mountainous water resources that
[44:54] Speaker 4: the rest of the country has. So by taking those out,
[44:56] Speaker 4: it's a very localized target deck that has almost no
[44:59] Speaker 4: impact strategically on the overall military situation in Iran.
[45:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. About a year ago there was a
[45:09] Speaker 3: meeting here at the embassy and talking about various threats
[45:15] Speaker 3: and what might precipitate a basically an audited evacuation of
[45:22] Speaker 3: US and other foreign nationals. And they covered a variety
[45:28] Speaker 3: of threats. But they are sitting next to a brit
[45:30] Speaker 3: who works for an oil company here, and he leaned
[45:33] Speaker 3: over and he said, hey, they haven't they haven't touched
[45:36] Speaker 3: the most serious, which is if Iran goes after desalination plants.
[45:41] Speaker 3: He said, that changes the whole game. And so you're
[45:46] Speaker 3: kind of seeing that. It's an interesting point and it's
[45:49] Speaker 3: probably one that wouldn't have occurred to US maybe, but
[45:53] Speaker 3: it's talking about critical infrastructure number one and number two.
[46:00] Speaker 3: It is particularly vulnerable. These plants are easy to hit
[46:02] Speaker 3: and they tend to be well within missile range. And
[46:09] Speaker 3: you know, in a country like all these countries, right
[46:12] Speaker 3: with the air offense assets available, it's really hard to
[46:16] Speaker 3: cover these dispersed sites against multiple types of threat. That's
[46:21] Speaker 3: part of the problems we're seeing along with the you know,
[46:24] Speaker 3: in an increased accuracy of Iranian missiles and then to
[46:30] Speaker 3: mixed point about the who they's that's particularly a concern.
[46:36] Speaker 3: It's you know, the the trigger point for that could
[46:41] Speaker 3: well be the US up in the ante and hitting
[46:45] Speaker 3: Iranian infrastructure. We had a senior hoof the official this
[46:50] Speaker 3: week saying, you know, if the current situation gets worse,
[46:55] Speaker 3: we're going to close the band the Bab Almen depth
[46:57] Speaker 3: straight and where we're going to have an alliance with Iran.
[47:02] Speaker 3: And we've already seen, uh, you know, after Yemeni forces
[47:06] Speaker 3: bombed the Sinar Airport runway right a couple of weeks
[47:10] Speaker 3: ago to block an Iranian delegation flight from landing. The
[47:14] Speaker 3: Hufi's blamed Saudi Arabia for it, even though it was
[47:17] Speaker 3: actually Yemen's own government forces, and they retaliated by firing
[47:21] Speaker 3: ballistic missile salvo at Appa Airport in southern Saudi Arabia.
[47:27] Speaker 3: So now now the hoofis are saying that there will
[47:31] Speaker 3: be an outright siege on Saudi Arabia and that they
[47:35] Speaker 3: intend to paralyze all Saudi airports if there is any
[47:39] Speaker 3: more interference with those flights. So so that could be
[47:43] Speaker 3: there's an additional possible trigger. And then on the shipping side. Obviously,
[47:48] Speaker 3: they've been reported attacks and commercial vessels near the Ban
[47:52] Speaker 3: band Almendeb and off Judea in the last couple of weeks.
[47:57] Speaker 3: And plus a separate incident was Saudi ban THEMNY forces
[48:01] Speaker 3: intercepted a boat smuggling weapons manufacturing components for the bound
[48:08] Speaker 3: for the Hufi's in the same strait. So you've got
[48:11] Speaker 3: a tax going both ways already in the street. And
[48:16] Speaker 3: that's yeah. Again, desalination plants, increased accuracy of Iranian missile targeting,
[48:25] Speaker 3: and now the threat to the BAM. The escalation isn't
[48:28] Speaker 3: all going to be one sided. That's I think the
[48:31] Speaker 3: problem we're dealing with.
[48:34] Speaker 4: And plus about five years ago, if you remember, the
[48:36] Speaker 4: Saudi intelligence headquarters was struck by a drone that was
[48:40] Speaker 4: either I think it was Kaypes Balaara, Yemen. But they
[48:43] Speaker 4: had the precision capability five six years ago to hit
[48:46] Speaker 4: deep inside of Saudi Arabia at fixed targets that they
[48:49] Speaker 4: were aware of. They haven't forgotten that. In fact, they've
[48:51] Speaker 4: gotten better and as you mentioned, Andy, they were receiving
[48:53] Speaker 4: new parts to actually help make their weapons smarter, you know,
[48:58] Speaker 4: putting electrical components on there to make the rockets more precise,
[49:01] Speaker 4: to make the speed more correct, to make the trajectory better.
[49:05] Speaker 4: So they're actually getting better at every component of how
[49:08] Speaker 4: these weapons work, so that when they are used, they're
[49:10] Speaker 4: going to have better and better capability. They're also learning
[49:14] Speaker 4: each time they use one of these weapons, they're doing
[49:16] Speaker 4: lessons learned and thinking about, Okay, last time we fired this, X, Y,
[49:19] Speaker 4: and Z happened, how do we get around that problem there?
[49:22] Speaker 7: How do we defeat this?
[49:23] Speaker 4: And with the air defense is as you mentioned, the
[49:25] Speaker 4: only real way to have a successful envelope of air
[49:28] Speaker 4: defense is to have air defense systems physically located at
[49:31] Speaker 4: all the target locations. And it can't just be one type.
[49:34] Speaker 4: It can't just be let's say, a Jericho air defense missile.
[49:37] Speaker 4: It has to be something that can hit at every
[49:38] Speaker 4: single distance and trajectory and altitude because there are multiple
[49:42] Speaker 4: different ways that these can enter the atmosphere and land
[49:44] Speaker 4: on a target. Some of our systems like Patriots, can
[49:47] Speaker 4: only intercept a particular vector of that envelope. We need
[49:51] Speaker 4: other things like the air, like the iron dome to
[49:54] Speaker 4: cover these gaps. And they understand this, it's all math.
[49:57] Speaker 4: They understand, you know, this weapon fire is at this
[49:59] Speaker 4: speed at this number of degrees. That means I fi
[50:03] Speaker 4: fire at this angle, I can penetrate that pocket because
[50:06] Speaker 4: I know they have these three types of air defenses
[50:07] Speaker 4: that can only defend a ninety percent of the envelope
[50:10] Speaker 4: leading ten percent open. And so this is something that
[50:13] Speaker 4: they're understanding. And those rocket motors they're using allow them
[50:17] Speaker 4: to actually adjust the rocket as it re enters to
[50:20] Speaker 4: go between that gap in the air defenses. And we
[50:22] Speaker 4: actually saw that in Jordan, the way that that the
[50:26] Speaker 4: intermediate range ballistic missile was used. It was actually adjusted
[50:29] Speaker 4: in flight to strike in a particular way. And that's
[50:32] Speaker 4: something that they did conceptually know how to do, but
[50:35] Speaker 4: they hadn't been really using it very much, and they
[50:38] Speaker 4: just used it now, which means we should expect them
[50:40] Speaker 4: to use it more. It was very successful.
[50:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the Saudists are really really good with
[50:44] Speaker 3: the They've got their Patriot batteries and they are excellent
[50:48] Speaker 3: at i mean their air defense system. Their air defense
[50:52] Speaker 3: guys are selected among the best of their intakes for
[50:57] Speaker 3: obvious reasons, because they are actively outwarm more than any
[51:01] Speaker 3: other service here. But the problem, of course is the equipment.
[51:04] Speaker 3: It's the same problem that we the US are dealing with,
[51:08] Speaker 3: and the acquisition problem with a drone and the shy
[51:12] Speaker 3: head type drone flies low, you know, in a kind
[51:17] Speaker 3: of sixty I mean it's from from about you know,
[51:21] Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty feet up to I don't know,
[51:24] Speaker 3: a thousand feet or so, right and slow with the
[51:27] Speaker 3: radar signature the size of a large bird. And that's
[51:32] Speaker 3: exactly the profile that conventional radar, to include patriot acquisition
[51:36] Speaker 3: radar is not good at capturing. And you know, these
[51:42] Speaker 3: things get lost in the ground clutter, and then you
[51:45] Speaker 3: disperse them, you're going to get you know, you're going
[51:50] Speaker 3: to get them. You're going to get some are going
[51:52] Speaker 3: to get through, especially as we talked about with their
[51:54] Speaker 3: increased methods of combining drones with missile Yeah, it's it's
[52:07] Speaker 3: I would say it's an impossible target set to eliminate
[52:10] Speaker 3: the threat, but it's certainly extremely difficult.
[52:13] Speaker 6: So the question is what are we going to do? Right,
[52:16] Speaker 6: there's not great options and it's hard to see. You know,
[52:23] Speaker 6: we're not going to give up that's strategically suicidal. Can
[52:32] Speaker 6: we endure the pain of dramatically increased energy costs? It
[52:38] Speaker 6: looks like we're going to have to. Can we do
[52:41] Speaker 6: things to put more pressure on the regime, Absolutely, But
[52:45] Speaker 6: the question is how long will it take to get
[52:49] Speaker 6: enough pressure that they would actually kind of bend to
[52:53] Speaker 6: our will and agree with something more in line what's
[52:56] Speaker 6: acceptable to us, like secondary actions, pushing that trying to
[53:02] Speaker 6: cut off the ground, you know, logistical corridors that they
[53:08] Speaker 6: resupply and obviously provide some economic benefits, just like we're
[53:12] Speaker 6: dealing with the maritime in the blockade. I don't know
[53:15] Speaker 6: how long it's going to take, right, And I do
[53:18] Speaker 6: think you know, obviously Iran thinks that they can play
[53:21] Speaker 6: up the political issues is caused, which I think is true,
[53:27] Speaker 6: but that's going to lead up to the election day
[53:30] Speaker 6: in November, and then what happens after that, Right, their
[53:33] Speaker 6: leverage if they have any, and I think they do,
[53:36] Speaker 6: kind of goes away after that, right, because what happens
[53:39] Speaker 6: happens in the election, then it is and then there's
[53:42] Speaker 6: no more election for President Trump and there's no more
[53:45] Speaker 6: election for his party wise still in office.
[53:47] Speaker 7: So I mean, it just seems.
[53:49] Speaker 6: Like it's going to escalate substantially and expand.
[53:53] Speaker 7: What I mean by expand.
[53:54] Speaker 6: Is we're already talking about it, the consequences of the Gulf.
[54:01] Speaker 6: I don't know what they would do if they do.
[54:04] Speaker 6: Uh see not only their energy infrastructures targeted, which it
[54:09] Speaker 6: already has been and it can be, and that will
[54:11] Speaker 6: increase the you know, the issue with worldwide energy lack
[54:17] Speaker 6: of supply, but also the actual capacity to stay in
[54:20] Speaker 6: the country, like Andy is talking about Angolan. You know,
[54:25] Speaker 6: no water, can't can't live in a desert, right, So
[54:30] Speaker 6: this is going to go from some of these beautiful
[54:33] Speaker 6: cities to completely unpopulated if that happens. I don't want
[54:37] Speaker 6: to be like a pocket apocalyptic here, but it's things
[54:41] Speaker 6: that could happen. I don't I don't think what we're
[54:43] Speaker 6: talking about is out of the realm of possibility here.
[54:47] Speaker 6: So we got we got to be prepared for contingencies
[54:52] Speaker 6: that we didn't plan for, or even if we did
[54:55] Speaker 6: plan for them. I don't know what the answer would be,
[54:57] Speaker 6: how do we keep a population and do buy or
[55:00] Speaker 6: Doha or Kuwait city that doesn't have.
[55:04] Speaker 7: Direct access to.
[55:08] Speaker 4: I think probably the uncomfortable answer is that ground troops
[55:11] Speaker 4: would eventually be required to have a decisive end to
[55:14] Speaker 4: this conflict. Because we've had extensive economic sanctions. We've had
[55:18] Speaker 4: extensive diplomatic interactions in various capacities. We have an information advantage,
[55:23] Speaker 4: you know, lots of international pressure. The regime has been
[55:27] Speaker 4: under pressure for forty seven years. Their entire economy is
[55:30] Speaker 4: built around resistance. I mean, it's not like a new
[55:32] Speaker 4: concept for them. So I wouldn't be surprised if the
[55:35] Speaker 4: only way to actually decisively end this would be ground forces,
[55:39] Speaker 4: which is not something I advocate for, like zero percent
[55:42] Speaker 4: advocacy for that. I do not think it's a good
[55:44] Speaker 4: idea for US forces.
[55:45] Speaker 2: That would be yeah, because you have a brain.
[55:47] Speaker 4: It would be like a Vietnam like commitment with probably
[55:50] Speaker 4: Vietnam like ending, And I think it would probably be
[55:52] Speaker 4: an unwise move for the US interest generally, not just
[55:55] Speaker 4: the Middle East, but generally to do that. But if
[55:57] Speaker 4: we're looking at it from a you know, unbuy rational
[56:00] Speaker 4: outsider perspective, if it was like pieces on a chessboard,
[56:04] Speaker 4: the only way to get the checkmate is to kill
[56:06] Speaker 4: the king and bring it down. I mean, you can't
[56:08] Speaker 4: just leave the king running around without ending. And that's probably,
[56:11] Speaker 4: unfortunately the only way militarily to end this. Of course,
[56:16] Speaker 4: there could be a diplomatic outcome that would be lopsided
[56:18] Speaker 4: toward the United States that we could negotiate, which seemed
[56:21] Speaker 4: to be what we were barreling toward with an uninformed
[56:24] Speaker 4: backing into it. But I don't think that that's going
[56:27] Speaker 4: to end well for the US. On the dramatic side, the.
[56:31] Speaker 3: Thing is, I don't see use of ground troops. I
[56:35] Speaker 3: see no options for US of ground troops that would
[56:39] Speaker 3: be decisive unless you unless you're talking about an invasion
[56:44] Speaker 3: force of three hundred thousand troops, I mean invading Arman
[56:50] Speaker 3: with all the consequences that that would entail. I mean,
[56:53] Speaker 3: none of the ground options that are being touted to
[56:56] Speaker 3: this date, from seizing islands and moves occupying cog, occupying
[57:04] Speaker 3: you know, the coastline, going after enriched uranium, none of
[57:08] Speaker 3: those seem at all practical and heavily outweighed by the risks.
[57:13] Speaker 3: I just can't for a moment think that the United
[57:18] Speaker 3: States with planning an invasion. The war is unpopular as
[57:22] Speaker 3: it is, but I mean, i'm i'm I agree with you.
[57:28] Speaker 3: There's nothing there's no more of the same, there's no
[57:31] Speaker 3: escalation path that's going to lead to success, for seeable
[57:36] Speaker 3: success We've we've tried everything, right, So what are we
[57:40] Speaker 3: going to do now? Hit energy infrastructure, hit nuclear infrastructure harder,
[57:47] Speaker 3: and it's.
[57:49] Speaker 2: Do some more crimes. Yeah, of Israel's books.
[57:52] Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's option one. But I mean, to
[57:54] Speaker 3: John's point, the option two is to find you know,
[58:01] Speaker 3: his Qatar and Oman, finding some path to another ceasefire
[58:07] Speaker 3: and and working out some way to reconcile the fact
[58:10] Speaker 3: that Iran wants some form of control or tall authority
[58:14] Speaker 3: over hormose and the US wants free passage restored. It's
[58:18] Speaker 3: really all about homose. I think at this stage, I
[58:22] Speaker 3: don't I think the US would accept any option that
[58:26] Speaker 3: ignored that ostensibly ignored even nuclear Enrichmond at this stage,
[58:32] Speaker 3: just to get the straits open. And no one's even
[58:35] Speaker 3: talked about the proxies recently, you know.
[58:37] Speaker 6: What I mean.
[58:37] Speaker 3: It's no one's talked about control of missile, ballistic missile inventory,
[58:48] Speaker 3: any of that stuff. It's all about hormos.
[58:50] Speaker 2: That's done. That's done.
[58:52] Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm the Iranians too, like in the room,
[58:54] Speaker 1: I'd be like, guys, that's done. We don't even talk
[58:56] Speaker 1: about that anymore, and faces like that's over.
[59:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, The other thing that's kind of interesting us in
[59:03] Speaker 3: the John talking about you know, du asked about Israel.
[59:07] Speaker 3: Won't Israel be opposed to Saudi Arabia. It's really interesting
[59:11] Speaker 3: to watch the dynamics in the Republican Party, specifically around
[59:15] Speaker 3: the administration when it comes to relations with Israel. They
[59:20] Speaker 3: are distancing themselves rapidly. You see JD. Vance's latest comments,
[59:25] Speaker 3: and and it's ironic, isn't it really? Because netnya who
[59:30] Speaker 3: has nowhere to go now. You know, when it was Obama,
[59:34] Speaker 3: he could talk to Congress, but that's that's just not
[59:38] Speaker 3: available anymore. When when when the right wing of the
[59:41] Speaker 3: Republican Party, when the when the crew round Trump are
[59:46] Speaker 3: distant to include Trump himself for distancing themselves from Israel
[59:50] Speaker 3: and even implicitly in some cases advances Vance's case, explicitly
[59:56] Speaker 3: blaming Israel for problems that we are facing. Now. It's
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: you know, if I was, if I was in ISRAELI
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: I would be really concerned about that. I think it's unprecedented,
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: absolutely unprecedented. We didn't even see we didn't see anything
[1:00:15] Speaker 3: like this under Biden. No was always not you know
[1:00:19] Speaker 3: what I mean, but.
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: We never we never had passurely attacked a Ran but
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: killed their killed their leader. So expected things to be great,
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: but I think the other president has been that stupid.
[1:00:33] Speaker 3: It's going to have great implications, as John points out,
[1:00:36] Speaker 3: for the for the balance of power in the region,
[1:00:38] Speaker 3: especially as we're talking about this unprecedented, potentially unprecedented uranium
[1:00:44] Speaker 3: Richmond agreement with Saudi Arabia. You know, who knows what follows.
[1:00:48] Speaker 3: F thirty five's all over the place to you know.
[1:00:52] Speaker 3: I mean, there's no doubt about it that the administration
[1:00:55] Speaker 3: is trying to make good with Golf States, having realized
[1:00:59] Speaker 3: that has forfeited a good deal of goodwill in this wall.
[1:01:07] Speaker 4: And I think also you should be watching the elections
[1:01:09] Speaker 4: in Sorry I was gonna mention the Israeli elections coming
[1:01:14] Speaker 4: up October twenty seventh. There is a real threat that
[1:01:17] Speaker 4: BB will lose control over domestic Israeli politics and possibly
[1:01:22] Speaker 4: with Gottie Eisencote, who's a Sephardic Jew, not an Ashkenazi Jew,
[1:01:27] Speaker 4: potentially taking over politics in the country with a coalition
[1:01:31] Speaker 4: with very different views about how this conflict should be
[1:01:33] Speaker 4: prosecuted and how relations with the US should be constructed,
[1:01:36] Speaker 4: and things like this. So that's going to be and
[1:01:38] Speaker 4: it's hard to predict what that will look like because
[1:01:40] Speaker 4: it's a coalition based government, so we don't know exactly
[1:01:42] Speaker 4: who will join that coalition and how those views will
[1:01:45] Speaker 4: influence the state's view toward those things. So that's an
[1:01:49] Speaker 4: interesting kind of spanner that's going to be thrown into
[1:01:52] Speaker 4: this three way conflict between Israel, Iran, the United States.
[1:01:55] Speaker 4: Because US elections in November will also change calculations. So
[1:01:58] Speaker 4: it's a very short time right now. In three months,
[1:02:01] Speaker 4: the politics of two of those three players will change somehow, somehow.
[1:02:05] Speaker 4: It's hard to say, but it will be different than
[1:02:07] Speaker 4: it is today.
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to be the guy that says this,
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: but we need to like bite the bullet for lack
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: of a better term, and uh, don't put good money
[1:02:16] Speaker 1: after bad because this is going nowhere fast and ground
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: troops is political suicide for anybody who even thinks about
[1:02:27] Speaker 1: and talks about it seriously in Congress or the White House,
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: even Trump, who's like teflon don all that bullshit. Three
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: hundred thousand troops in another fucking forever war. What did
[1:02:41] Speaker 1: he campaign on?
[1:02:42] Speaker 2: Right? Why did so many people back this guy even.
[1:02:46] Speaker 4: With a one percent casualty rate, you're talking about three
[1:02:48] Speaker 4: thousand Americans dead and a three hundred thousand person deployment.
[1:02:50] Speaker 4: That's unpalatable. That's almost as many died in twenty years
[1:02:54] Speaker 4: in Afghanistan. Rock completely unpalatable. And you're fighting an enemy
[1:02:58] Speaker 4: who's a conventional military force, not an irregular insurgency in
[1:03:02] Speaker 4: the mountains. With SA sevens, this is an actual military
[1:03:05] Speaker 4: with with a lot of resources and international backing from
[1:03:09] Speaker 4: very powerful allies. It would be a very different game
[1:03:12] Speaker 4: than the one we had in Afghanistan.
[1:03:14] Speaker 1: In Iraq, you have to assume that, like the Pentagon
[1:03:17] Speaker 1: has a force depletion, right like, so you know it's
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: going to be way more than one percent, obviously, Uh,
[1:03:23] Speaker 1: you know than it was in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yeah,
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: it's a tall order, there's.
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: No doubt, there's no exaggeration of numbers. By the way,
[1:03:32] Speaker 3: I mean think about it. We invaded at Raq with
[1:03:35] Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty thousand and we realized it was
[1:03:38] Speaker 3: not enough to do.
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: What we needed, like what eighty thousand contractors?
[1:03:43] Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you know, and that was against a
[1:03:46] Speaker 3: vastly depleted force and different terrain, smaller country.
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: Uh, you name it. Yeah, golf for one. How many
[1:04:00] Speaker 1: troops that we have in there, do you guys know?
[1:04:05] Speaker 4: I want to say a quarter million. Because there was
[1:04:10] Speaker 4: the Saudi coalition that were Syrians fighting with us as well,
[1:04:12] Speaker 4: we had we had a pretty wide coalition at the time.
[1:04:14] Speaker 4: This time we won't have that.
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: Riddle me that a fucking coalition to go into a
[1:04:17] Speaker 1: fucking war. It's guys, we're out out of ours. It's crazy.
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: What's going on here is crazy. You guys both know,
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: and you guys are being gentlemanly, and I respect you
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: and love you guys for it, but this is fucking crazy,
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: and frankly, we need to just take the l and negotiate. However,
[1:04:35] Speaker 1: we need to negotiate because if it's truly about uranium
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: enrichment and nuclear weapons, that's what we should focus on.
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: And more and more that JCPOA is looking better and
[1:04:45] Speaker 1: better every fucking every fucking day.
[1:04:47] Speaker 3: I don't think it is about you play weapons anymore.
[1:04:50] Speaker 3: It's about Yeah, I think it's all about whole moves,
[1:04:54] Speaker 3: you know, And and I don't know what's going on
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: behind closed doors, but I look, if you, if you're
[1:05:03] Speaker 3: a realist, you're gonna have to accept Iran's going to
[1:05:06] Speaker 3: get the bomb. I mean, Iran is going to get
[1:05:09] Speaker 3: the bomb. And anyone who says they're not going to
[1:05:11] Speaker 3: get the bomb, tell me how they're not going to
[1:05:14] Speaker 3: get the bomb. Explain it. Because we've done our best,
[1:05:17] Speaker 3: we've shot our ball, and you know, as John says,
[1:05:20] Speaker 3: unless we invade the country, we're not going to start
[1:05:24] Speaker 3: them getting the bomb. So politically, diplomatically, of course, we
[1:05:29] Speaker 3: say that's unacceptable. But what do we do. We hedge
[1:05:32] Speaker 3: our bets and we focus on the things that really matter,
[1:05:35] Speaker 3: getting all moose open. And I'm saying, go after the
[1:05:38] Speaker 3: link with the militias in Iraq because those are a
[1:05:42] Speaker 3: real those are a real threat to the region, they're
[1:05:45] Speaker 3: a threat to us. I'm going to get beaten up
[1:05:48] Speaker 3: for saying this. His bolla is not a threat to
[1:05:50] Speaker 3: the United States. Okay, I know, if Hey, I get it.
[1:05:54] Speaker 3: I know if Mark was on, he'd waxed lyrical about
[1:05:57] Speaker 3: what happened in the eighties. Look, you know the japan
[1:06:00] Speaker 3: and Germans killed a lot of Americans too. You know,
[1:06:02] Speaker 3: you've got to move on. But his bolla is not
[1:06:04] Speaker 3: a direct They're not a they're not our friends, don't
[1:06:07] Speaker 3: get me wrong. I'm not saying his balla is good.
[1:06:09] Speaker 3: I'm saying, what is what is the most direct threat
[1:06:12] Speaker 3: of the United States among the proxies the Iranian back
[1:06:15] Speaker 3: militias in Iraq, no doubt about it.
[1:06:18] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:06:18] Speaker 3: If we want any presence in the region, especially in
[1:06:21] Speaker 3: Syria and even in Jordan, but especially in Iraq, we
[1:06:25] Speaker 3: need to we need to curtail their ability to hurt us.
[1:06:29] Speaker 3: And that is something that we need out of out
[1:06:32] Speaker 3: of Iraq, I mean out of Iran, right along with
[1:06:36] Speaker 3: the straits being open and and we and we don't
[1:06:39] Speaker 3: tell them, hey, it's okay to have a nuclear weapon,
[1:06:43] Speaker 3: but we understand beneath the surface they're going to get one.
[1:06:46] Speaker 3: That's that's my feeling.
[1:06:47] Speaker 2: Again.
[1:06:48] Speaker 3: I'm going to get beaten up for saying this. No,
[1:06:50] Speaker 3: I don't think it's okay. I'm just saying it's impossible
[1:06:53] Speaker 3: to stop it.
[1:06:54] Speaker 8: The reality of the situation, the reality, yeah yeah, And
[1:06:57] Speaker 8: so what else do you do, Well, you're trying to
[1:07:00] Speaker 8: fact the balance of pair in the region other than
[1:07:02] Speaker 8: is for perhaps you let other regional partners and rich uranium, right.
[1:07:08] Speaker 3: And what's that's what that looks like.
[1:07:10] Speaker 1: That's what's happening, and if you read John's book Ran
[1:07:15] Speaker 1: Shadow Weapons, it is very clear that Iran's prime their
[1:07:21] Speaker 1: aim the Iranian regime is to stay in power and frankly,
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: after what's gone on over the last let's call it
[1:07:28] Speaker 1: a year. Because I would, I would, I would put
[1:07:30] Speaker 1: in the Twelve Day War with this. This is all
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: one war. How would you not be fucked with ever again?
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: Is if you have like a couple dozen nuclear weapons,
[1:07:41] Speaker 1: no one will ever fuck with you again, and your
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: regime will be secure forever unless something on the inside happens.
[1:07:47] Speaker 3: Undoubtedly. I mean this whole episode has just ran full style.
[1:07:54] Speaker 1: Always feeling good. Yeah, we always end on a happy note.
[1:07:58] Speaker 2: It's the best. Man.
[1:08:00] Speaker 1: I just can't keep hearing like yeah, we're gonna keep
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: going at and like we need to blah blah blah.
[1:08:05] Speaker 1: It's just like complete wishful thinking that makes no sense.
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: I mean, the Iranian proxies in Iraq, like the militias, Yeah,
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: let's go after them. Let's go after them with special
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: operations or overtops. You know, the things were good at
[1:08:20] Speaker 1: let's use them. But as far as like we think
[1:08:22] Speaker 1: this is gonna happen, where they're gonna they're gonna bend
[1:08:25] Speaker 1: to our will. They have the cards now we don't,
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: and that's a fact.
[1:08:31] Speaker 4: We gave them the cards.
[1:08:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, February twenty eight, the horror moves open.
[1:08:35] Speaker 3: It's definitely a segment of the American population, massive segment
[1:08:39] Speaker 3: that does not understand this. Okay, there's a large segment
[1:08:42] Speaker 3: of the population that doesn't give a shit, right unless it
[1:08:44] Speaker 3: affects crisis that you can't you know, that's probably most population.
[1:08:48] Speaker 3: But there's also as I've realized after I wrote that
[1:08:51] Speaker 3: article about hey, Iron's kind of had a theory of
[1:08:55] Speaker 3: victory here and they're pursuing it single mindedly, and that
[1:08:58] Speaker 3: kind of contrasts them with what we've been doing. I
[1:09:02] Speaker 3: got all kinds of not not as much hate mail
[1:09:05] Speaker 3: as my articles about Gaza, but close to it, and
[1:09:09] Speaker 3: and it surprised me. You know, a lot of it
[1:09:12] Speaker 3: is from people who are, you know, barely literate, so
[1:09:15] Speaker 3: I don't care, but uh, it really surprised me how
[1:09:19] Speaker 3: ignorant a number of people are, and they think it's
[1:09:23] Speaker 3: treasonous to to criticize US policy, which is absurd.
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: You know, it's like it's like the most patriot you do, bro.
[1:09:34] Speaker 3: Of our democracy are based on being able.
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: To Those people are straight up their brain rotted, their brains,
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: they have no wrinkles in the brain. They're absolutely fucking
[1:09:45] Speaker 1: brain dead.
[1:09:46] Speaker 3: But you know, you know that's sort of me. I mean,
[1:09:48] Speaker 3: we have some in our audience.
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: I know, yeah, you're brain if you're listening right now,
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: you're fucking brain dead.
[1:09:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, but it doesn't matter. They're loyal listeners and they just.
[1:09:57] Speaker 1: Like to subscribe though. You know, I all right, guys,
[1:10:02] Speaker 1: do us a favor. Check out John's books Ran, Shadow
[1:10:06] Speaker 1: Weapons in the Theory of Regular War. Those links are
[1:10:08] Speaker 1: in the description. Andy Milburn he's putting out a couple
[1:10:11] Speaker 1: chapters here and there for his new book about the
[1:10:13] Speaker 1: war in Gaza. Incredible book that I didn't read the
[1:10:16] Speaker 1: second chapter. The first one was fucking awesome. It goes
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: into like the lead up to October seventh.
[1:10:23] Speaker 2: Really really good.
[1:10:24] Speaker 1: That book should be coming out soon, but those chapters
[1:10:28] Speaker 1: are out in the substack. That link is in the
[1:10:29] Speaker 1: description as well.
[1:10:31] Speaker 2: Check it out.
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: Obviously Andy's memoir When the Tempest Gathers great great book.
[1:10:37] Speaker 2: What else?
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: Patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, help us support the show,
[1:10:42] Speaker 1: you get episodes ad free and early, and you could
[1:10:46] Speaker 1: send us messages that will actually read because the rest
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: of them. I don't look at the regular comments. I
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: know you guys sometimes dabble, but I don't give a
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: shit what anyone has to say, frankly. But yeah, that's it, guys,
[1:11:00] Speaker 1: A pleasure as always.
[1:11:01] Speaker 2: I love you.
[1:11:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, great talk by everyone.
[1:11:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, great talk.
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: Say you love me too, John, Jesus Christ.
[1:11:07] Speaker 3: I'll loves This is very distasteful.
[1:11:16] Speaker 5: Hey, guys, I want to take a moment to tell
[1:11:18] Speaker 5: you about the Team House Podcast Newsletter. If you go
[1:11:22] Speaker 5: and subscribe, it's totally free, and what it will do
[1:11:25] Speaker 5: is aggregate all of our data, all of our content
[1:11:29] Speaker 5: that we put out, the things that are on the
[1:11:31] Speaker 5: Team House on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that
[1:11:37] Speaker 5: I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high Side,
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[1:12:01] Speaker 5: You can find our newsletter at teamhouse podcast dot kit
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