# Dizzying Week with Iran/US & Russia on the Back Foot | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 11 May 2026, 1 h 05 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71948049/dizzying_iran_week_spreaker.mp3

The guys break down the latest chaos in the Iran war, from the shaky “ceasefire” and Strait of Hormuz tanker stops to drone strikes, air defense gaps, and the global economic fallout. They also dig into the reported Israeli base in Iraq, covert action options, whether the U.S. goal is a non-nuclear Iran or regime change, and how China and Russia could exploit the crisis. The episode also covers Ukraine’s growing edge against Russia, drone warfare lessons the West still needs to absorb, and Iran’s internet control through “white SIM cards” and regime-monitored access. GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! 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/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ 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 Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio 00:00 — Start 00:31 — Iran “ceasefire,” tanker stops, UAE strikes, and Project Freedom fallout 04:17 — Middle East air defense gaps and the drone threat allies are worried about 06:05 — Why Patriot and THAAD struggle against cheap Iranian drones 08:20 — The hidden global economic fallout from the Strait of Hormuz crisis 10:37 — Israel’s reported base in Iraq and the sovereignty debate 14:09 — Preemptive self-defense, international law, and Israel’s Iraq history 15:38 — Iran war endgame: Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief, and a tougher JCPOA 20:42 — Why the Trump administration’s Iran diplomacy looks stuck 22:58 — Right-wing pressure on Trump to resume the war 24:00 — Covert action, regime change, and arming Iranian opposition groups 29:06 — Non-nuclear Iran vs. regime change: what is the actual U.S. goal? 31:51 — U.S. intelligence gaps, Israeli HUMINT, and the Iran collection problem 37:11 — Trump-Xi summit: China’s leverage over Iran and the U.S. 41:04 — Russia’s drone support to Iran and the growing Ukraine-Iran link 44:59 — Ukraine turns the tide and trolls Putin’s Victory Day parade 50:05 — Drone warfare lessons from Ukraine and why the West needs to catch up 51:59 — Iran’s “white SIM cards,” internet control, and regime surveillance 54:15 — Could a U.S.-backed satellite internet network break Iran’s information blockade? 01:01:00 — Whitefish Security Summit, books, Patreon, and closing thoughts Become a supporter of this podcast:…

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Jill Politics.
[0:04] Speaker 1: I'm here with Mark poly Moreopolis, Mick Mulroy, Andy Milburn,
[0:08] Speaker 1: and Jonathan Hackett. Three Marines, I don't like it, and
[0:12] Speaker 1: a Greek. Uh, walk into a bar. Two greeks, Yeah,
[0:15] Speaker 1: walk into it. What's I got? The start of a joke.
[0:17] Speaker 1: Happy mother's data. Everybody's mom's out there, wives, you know,
[0:21] Speaker 1: all that enjoy your day, have fun. You gotta do
[0:24] Speaker 1: what you gotta do, So Grin and Barrett, you gotta
[0:26] Speaker 1: go to brunch. Hopefully you got some flowers and stuff
[0:30] Speaker 1: for mom and uh, everyone enjoys it. A lot happening
[0:34] Speaker 1: this week. As usual, it's been pretty dizzying. I had
[0:38] Speaker 1: like a ton of notes and it's just like I
[0:39] Speaker 1: don't even know where to begin. You know, supposedly we're
[0:43] Speaker 1: under a cease fire. We have a ceasefire going on
[0:45] Speaker 1: with Iran right now. Obviously not. Iran's been shooting missiles
[0:49] Speaker 1: and drones at the UAE. Uh. We even stopping tankers
[0:53] Speaker 1: in the straight of horn moves. Uh. We had the
[0:56] Speaker 1: Operation Project or whatever it was called, Project Freedom Fries
[0:59] Speaker 1: or whatever was called. That lasted probably eighteen twenty four
[1:02] Speaker 1: hours before that ended, Saudi Arabia was not happy with us.
[1:08] Speaker 1: They denied us use of their bases. I think that's
[1:12] Speaker 1: part of like you guys can correct me if I'm wrong,
[1:13] Speaker 1: but that's part of the reason why we got rid
[1:15] Speaker 1: of or we paused Project Freedom. And we all know
[1:20] Speaker 1: the reason why Project Freedom and it's not Operation Epic Fury,
[1:23] Speaker 1: is because they're trying to make a case for the
[1:25] Speaker 1: sixty days in Congress, like whether or not we're able
[1:30] Speaker 1: to use military force or not. And then a couple
[1:34] Speaker 1: of days ago there was a one page memo like
[1:36] Speaker 1: it was drawing up on the back of a napkin
[1:38] Speaker 1: that people were taking under dvisement. There was some talk
[1:41] Speaker 1: about possibly an end to the war and like an
[1:45] Speaker 1: agreement to start talking about the nuclear issue after the
[1:49] Speaker 1: fighting has subsided or the war ended, or whatever you
[1:52] Speaker 1: want to call it. It's just chaos, Frankly, the messaging
[1:56] Speaker 1: is chaos too. Just now, right before we started going,
[2:00] Speaker 1: it was all over Twitter being reported saying that like
[2:03] Speaker 1: Iran gave Pakistani mediators their response like okay, Like what
[2:10] Speaker 1: is this? Are we on a TV show? Like what's
[2:12] Speaker 1: the response? Like can we get some answers here? As
[2:15] Speaker 1: to what happens next. Uh, there's so many other little
[2:18] Speaker 1: stories to Israel's got a base in Iraq and we're
[2:21] Speaker 1: telling the Iraqis not to go near it. I don't
[2:24] Speaker 1: know how you feel like that if you're in Iraqi
[2:26] Speaker 1: and there's somebody in your sovereign territory, you know, just
[2:29] Speaker 1: setting up a base. It's just chaos. Lebanon's continually getting bombed.
[2:35] Speaker 1: Godz is getting bombed like it doesn't seem like exactly
[2:38] Speaker 1: like these seas fires are doing what they're meant to
[2:43] Speaker 1: be doing. I mean, there's just so much shit going on. Mick,
[2:46] Speaker 1: you go first. I'm picking. I'm gonna just start with
[2:48] Speaker 1: swinging like the hell. I know you're right. I think
[2:53] Speaker 1: he's the he was he the highest ranking. Who's the
[2:55] Speaker 1: highest ranking?
[2:56] Speaker 2: Here?
[2:56] Speaker 3: Is is it?
[2:57] Speaker 1: Andy?
[2:58] Speaker 4: No?
[3:00] Speaker 2: Know?
[3:00] Speaker 1: We have two s, Mick. You're you're actually muted. Mick,
[3:06] Speaker 1: who's the highest? Andy? You were a colonel bro.
[3:09] Speaker 5: I was for you a little prick four star dude?
[3:14] Speaker 3: What the fuck is that?
[3:15] Speaker 1: A four star? Wow?
[3:16] Speaker 4: It doesn't mean it means too Yeah, at least Hick
[3:23] Speaker 4: from none of a one star.
[3:26] Speaker 1: You know what he needs he needs his he needs
[3:27] Speaker 1: his assistance. That he had when he was a dazzny
[3:30] Speaker 1: to fix his microphone. Yeah, that would be great.
[3:34] Speaker 3: I have something.
[3:35] Speaker 5: But there's there's an important little opening that we have
[3:38] Speaker 5: to talk about. Mick, you and I messed up. We
[3:39] Speaker 5: should have been in Athens last night.
[3:41] Speaker 3: You know why.
[3:43] Speaker 5: Metallica played in Athens last night?
[3:45] Speaker 1: I saw that that would have been bad ass. They
[3:47] Speaker 1: played like the Greeks, that Greek song that everybody like Greek.
[3:51] Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know the theme from Zorba. They
[3:54] Speaker 5: were playing that. I mean that is epic. Anyway, go
[3:57] Speaker 5: do the show now, but that that's the biggest news
[3:59] Speaker 5: of the of the week.
[4:00] Speaker 3: Metallicy.
[4:01] Speaker 1: We'll let we'll let make, We'll let Make fix his
[4:03] Speaker 1: audio stuff. So let's start with yes, I s four.
[4:06] Speaker 1: I'm sorry, no, no, please please go ahead, go ahead.
[4:09] Speaker 1: I apologize. I did my two my two cents the
[4:13] Speaker 1: Metallicy that I'm going with the Fulbert Colonel Andy, go John,
[4:16] Speaker 1: you're getting sucked out of this. So you're an listed guy, bro, Yeah.
[4:21] Speaker 4: So I'm I'm just gonna I'm you know, as you know,
[4:24] Speaker 4: I'm in the Middle East right now. Country not to
[4:26] Speaker 4: be named, but uh, the biggest, the biggest concern here
[4:34] Speaker 4: has nothing to do. Well, that's that's not exactly true,
[4:39] Speaker 4: but it's it's not necessarily the straights of whole news.
[4:43] Speaker 4: The biggest concern here is you probably wear, is the
[4:48] Speaker 4: massive gaps in the defense to well short range at
[4:53] Speaker 4: defense right against drones. So and and that's no secret
[4:58] Speaker 4: to anyone who's been tracking this. And the country that
[5:02] Speaker 4: I am in right now that shall remain nameless, did,
[5:06] Speaker 4: like many other countries, bring a Ukrainian advisory team on.
[5:10] Speaker 4: But they're buying assets are passive infrared radar and a
[5:17] Speaker 4: kinetic solution, not from the United States but from the Italians.
[5:23] Speaker 4: And there's an undercurrent of feeling here that and I'm
[5:31] Speaker 4: not saying this is the case because short range of
[5:33] Speaker 4: offense is a big it's it's a big problem across
[5:36] Speaker 4: the board, but there's an underlying feeling that the US
[5:40] Speaker 4: is not the solution to these problems. Yes, we have
[5:46] Speaker 4: an absolutely unbeatable architecture for intercepting cruise and ballistic missiles,
[5:53] Speaker 4: but when it comes to the mass launch of relatively
[5:57] Speaker 4: expendable I mean the shah Ha drone is between in
[6:00] Speaker 4: ten thousand and twenty thousand dollars. There are two issues
[6:05] Speaker 4: right with short range of air defense. One is they
[6:06] Speaker 4: just aren't enough systems. There's three problems. Just aren't enough
[6:12] Speaker 4: systems to focus on drones. Two that the same systems
[6:16] Speaker 4: that we have that are designed for cruise missiles and
[6:19] Speaker 4: blistering missiles, like the Fad and like the Patriot, don't
[6:23] Speaker 4: work so well for drones because of the radar cross section,
[6:27] Speaker 4: the speed of which drones fly, and the attack profiles
[6:32] Speaker 4: of drones. And the third piece is is a huge
[6:36] Speaker 4: expenditure mismatch. And that's you know, that's well publicized, right.
[6:42] Speaker 4: I mean, you hear all the time you're using a
[6:44] Speaker 4: million dollar interceptor against a drone that is a few
[6:48] Speaker 4: thousand dollars a little more than a few thousand dollars.
[6:51] Speaker 4: But for the US it's not so much an expense problem.
[6:54] Speaker 4: It's a magazine problem. But out here it is it
[6:58] Speaker 4: is both. Now, don't get me wrong. Of course, everyone's
[7:00] Speaker 4: worried about the flow of oil through the straits of
[7:03] Speaker 4: hor Moves, and that's that is that is an issue.
[7:09] Speaker 4: But the the continuous penetration and d don't turn this
[7:14] Speaker 4: into a pure dirty joke, but the continuous penetration of
[7:18] Speaker 4: the air defense systems here by drones, and the fact
[7:22] Speaker 4: the fact that on the Iranian side there doesn't seem
[7:25] Speaker 4: to be have been a noticeable depletion of their of
[7:29] Speaker 4: their stores. And now there's there's news about the Russian
[7:33] Speaker 4: support for the Uranians being able to provide fiber optic
[7:36] Speaker 4: cable drones of the sort that are that were used
[7:38] Speaker 4: in Ukraine, and satellite guided drones, all of which can
[7:42] Speaker 4: bypass obviously you know, jamming techniques that is causing real concern.
[7:52] Speaker 6: And you guys just gotcha.
[7:56] Speaker 3: We got you.
[7:57] Speaker 4: See now now now we're back to the the hierarchical pyramid. Ye,
[8:01] Speaker 4: And you can bounce their back. So that's so that's
[8:08] Speaker 4: kind of the defense problem, right, and the secondary problem.
[8:14] Speaker 4: And and I would be interested to hear everyone's point
[8:16] Speaker 4: of view on this is that that what we're a
[8:20] Speaker 4: lot of the predictions about the effect on the global
[8:22] Speaker 4: economy and on the US economy, because that's in the end,
[8:26] Speaker 4: what all the US voters care about is likely to
[8:30] Speaker 4: be far greater than is being predicted. It's it's kind
[8:34] Speaker 4: of the tip of the iceberg, because there are knock
[8:37] Speaker 4: on effects for everything.
[8:38] Speaker 2: You know.
[8:38] Speaker 4: I was just talking to someone who happens to be
[8:43] Speaker 4: a senior executive in Lockheed Martin. So he's he's he's
[8:48] Speaker 4: got no reason to argue against this kind of war.
[8:50] Speaker 4: It's been good for business at Lockheed Martin. But he's
[8:54] Speaker 4: telling me, for instance, he went to the dentist and
[8:56] Speaker 4: there was a shortage of I forget helium or some thing,
[9:02] Speaker 4: and and and that stocks likely to get less and less.
[9:05] Speaker 4: My point is this that when if you just talk
[9:08] Speaker 4: purely in terms of oil and shortage of oil, and
[9:10] Speaker 4: the fact that the US you hear all the time
[9:12] Speaker 4: of the US is self sufficient and the effect on
[9:14] Speaker 4: the US is likely to be less than on the
[9:18] Speaker 4: on the global economy, and that the effect on the
[9:20] Speaker 4: global economy is only going to be short lived. There
[9:25] Speaker 4: are many who are saying that it's absolute bullshit and
[9:27] Speaker 4: this is going to have a catastrophic and longer a
[9:29] Speaker 4: term effect on the global ecommy and the US. So
[9:34] Speaker 4: at that point, that is that is all my rounds exhausted,
[9:37] Speaker 4: and I'll turn back to U. D Uh.
[9:42] Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it to John. I'm gonna let the
[9:44] Speaker 1: enlisted guys shine a little bit before the senior guys.
[9:48] Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually, on the dazzdy thing, I got corrected one
[9:50] Speaker 2: time because we were having a delegation coming to Jordan.
[9:52] Speaker 2: We had a bunch of dazzdy is coming in. One
[9:54] Speaker 2: of them was as dazzd for Africa. I won't name
[9:55] Speaker 2: who it was, but we had like a group chat
[9:58] Speaker 2: where we're supposed to put the precedence of who it is.
[10:00] Speaker 2: We can announce the head of time as they're coming
[10:01] Speaker 2: in through security and stuff like this, and I put
[10:03] Speaker 2: them down as a one star equivalent for where they
[10:05] Speaker 2: were supposed to stand in line, and I got corrected
[10:07] Speaker 2: intensely for that that they're a three star. So I
[10:10] Speaker 2: learned that pretty fast, apparent that's what she said.
[10:15] Speaker 4: Yeah, so we've got we've got seven stars just waiting
[10:20] Speaker 4: around in this particular group chat.
[10:22] Speaker 6: The group that star, Like, you know, the cool thing
[10:28] Speaker 6: about living in Montana, they don't know what the hell
[10:30] Speaker 6: of dasd is and they don't really care.
[10:31] Speaker 2: Yea, the jordanians'ither.
[10:33] Speaker 5: My family doesn't care because I still gotta take the
[10:35] Speaker 5: garbage out and do you have tor cooking?
[10:39] Speaker 2: Yeah? So, speaking of that sovereignty, so Iraq, the Israeli
[10:43] Speaker 2: based there, which is the kind of thing in the
[10:45] Speaker 2: news right now. The Wall Street Journal article about it's
[10:47] Speaker 2: pretty interesting. I've seen some arguments for it, so I'm
[10:50] Speaker 2: against it. I think it's interesting to see those arguments,
[10:52] Speaker 2: and especially if you turn the situation around where you know,
[10:55] Speaker 2: one of the arguments was, what if there was a
[10:56] Speaker 2: Chinese base in the United States that was used to
[10:59] Speaker 2: attack the United States? How would you feel about that?
[11:01] Speaker 2: Because some people are saying, you know, the base is
[11:03] Speaker 2: an invasion of Iraqi sovereignty. But kind of looking at
[11:07] Speaker 2: it more objectively, I mean the cow Many bases there
[11:08] Speaker 2: are in Syria that the US used to have, the
[11:10] Speaker 2: cow Many bases in Lebanon that Israel used to have.
[11:14] Speaker 2: Israel has activity in go On Heights already. I mean
[11:17] Speaker 2: there are other countries too, like in Somaliland. Part of
[11:21] Speaker 2: the reason Somaliland is becoming independent is because Israel is
[11:24] Speaker 2: really leveraging that area in the Horn of Africa to
[11:26] Speaker 2: gain a footholds still hold there. So this stuff shouldn't
[11:29] Speaker 2: be like geopolitically surprising, I don't think. I mean, it's
[11:31] Speaker 2: always kind of shocking to see one country doing something
[11:33] Speaker 2: in another country that wasn't supposed to do it at
[11:35] Speaker 2: the first place, but it's kind of the way things work,
[11:37] Speaker 2: especially look at the US bases in the Middle East.
[11:40] Speaker 2: There are many, many US facilities in the Middle East.
[11:43] Speaker 2: It's kind of shocking to see when you look on
[11:44] Speaker 2: a map how they look. It's almost like a noose
[11:46] Speaker 2: around Iran, and that's how a lot of Iranians, then
[11:49] Speaker 2: the government look at it that the US is there
[11:51] Speaker 2: to encircle the country. But from a tactical perspective, it's
[11:56] Speaker 2: actually very wise move to put that base there, because
[11:59] Speaker 2: you need to afford area to do refueling, you need
[12:01] Speaker 2: to preposition activities, you need to have search and rescue
[12:04] Speaker 2: guys there. You need to have equipment on the ground
[12:07] Speaker 2: to help, especially with certain radar activities, to be able
[12:09] Speaker 2: to be able to predict what's coming into Israel from
[12:11] Speaker 2: Iran faster, with better precision and clarity. There's a lot
[12:15] Speaker 2: of reasons why you put that base there. Almost none
[12:18] Speaker 2: of it has to do with offensive activity. Although it
[12:20] Speaker 2: is very sad that an Iraqi soldier was killed going
[12:23] Speaker 2: to investigate an intrusion on their sovereign territory, which is
[12:26] Speaker 2: where a lot of this negative feeling comes from. But
[12:30] Speaker 2: I think it's just kind of interesting to zoom out
[12:32] Speaker 2: and look at it from a more rational perspective then
[12:35] Speaker 2: just a pure invasion of Iraqi sovereignty, especially because there's
[12:39] Speaker 2: already been Israeli activity in Iraq for many years. The
[12:42] Speaker 2: Peshmerga were not just trained by the United States, So
[12:47] Speaker 2: that's another thing to just think about that. In the
[12:49] Speaker 2: bigger picture, this is not a new development, so to say.
[12:54] Speaker 4: But John, when you say it's new in this sense,
[12:58] Speaker 4: it from an Israeli point of view, all right, From
[13:00] Speaker 4: the global point of view, the Israelis could justify I'm
[13:03] Speaker 4: I'm not arguing for against, I'm just saying it's a
[13:06] Speaker 4: step beyond because their presence in Lebanon they could directly
[13:10] Speaker 4: relate to rocket attacks on their sovereign territory.
[13:13] Speaker 3: Right.
[13:13] Speaker 4: Our presence in Syria was directly related to the fact
[13:16] Speaker 4: that at the time Syria was an ungoverned space that
[13:21] Speaker 4: Bachelor Assad was not. You know, yes, it was nominally
[13:25] Speaker 4: a sovereign country, but it was a raging civil war
[13:28] Speaker 4: taking place, and so it and we had from our perspective,
[13:35] Speaker 4: a direct reason for being there because of the rise
[13:39] Speaker 4: of Isis and all of that. Whereas for the Israelis
[13:44] Speaker 4: to be in a raq that that is a stretch
[13:48] Speaker 4: both in terms of justification, and in terms of the
[13:50] Speaker 4: fact that Iraq is indeed a sovereign country with no
[13:55] Speaker 4: recent history, not since what nineteen sixty seven of aggressive action,
[14:00] Speaker 4: aggressive action against Israel that actually goes and not the
[14:05] Speaker 4: case of Lemanon and you know, against.
[14:08] Speaker 2: Israel, absolutely right, especially from that that big picture perspective.
[14:11] Speaker 2: The UN Charter says that there should be no offensive
[14:14] Speaker 2: wars period. I mean, that's the whole reason it was written.
[14:16] Speaker 2: And this is an offensive war, no matter how you
[14:19] Speaker 2: try to describe what's going on. Is it defensive offensive,
[14:22] Speaker 2: This is a preemptive attack, and Israel often use as
[14:25] Speaker 2: the preemptive self defense doctrine, which is basically offensive action
[14:29] Speaker 2: with you know, it's a euphemism, so you know, they
[14:33] Speaker 2: start with the idea that it's defensive and then justify
[14:35] Speaker 2: what they're doing in exactly how you mentioned. They say, well,
[14:38] Speaker 2: we are under attack or we will be under attack.
[14:40] Speaker 2: That justifies us doing these activities that normally look offensive,
[14:44] Speaker 2: but because of the way we're framing it, they're defensive
[14:46] Speaker 2: to us. And I think that's how they're trying to
[14:48] Speaker 2: justify that with a very thin justification that doesn't really
[14:51] Speaker 2: stand up to the UN charter, which is not its
[14:54] Speaker 2: absolutely against that kind of activity.
[14:57] Speaker 4: Hey, I just want to before this list to chime in,
[15:01] Speaker 4: but I misspoke, since nineteen eighty one. Nineteen eighty one
[15:05] Speaker 4: was the barming of Iraqi's nuclear.
[15:10] Speaker 2: Ohs Iraq, But actually they bought the serious nuclear reactor
[15:13] Speaker 2: in two thousand and three I believe it was, and
[15:15] Speaker 2: that killed about one hundred North Koreans with something.
[15:17] Speaker 3: Like that two thousand and seven, two thousand and seven.
[15:20] Speaker 2: Sorry, I was there, Yeah, that was that was clearly offensive.
[15:27] Speaker 2: There was no justification.
[15:28] Speaker 1: Would the senior boys want to take this over now?
[15:31] Speaker 3: Yeah? Go ahead?
[15:34] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[15:34] Speaker 6: So where did start? My grandmother used to say Jesus,
[15:37] Speaker 6: Mary and Joseph, which is applied Irish away saying if
[15:41] Speaker 6: things are all screwed up and we need a lot
[15:42] Speaker 6: of help us. I think not that we're all screwed up,
[15:46] Speaker 6: but you know what I start with this, I think
[15:50] Speaker 6: it's important that the world start speaking up because right now,
[15:55] Speaker 6: both iron and to some extent the United States seem
[15:59] Speaker 6: to think this is all about us, when it actually
[16:02] Speaker 6: is not.
[16:02] Speaker 2: Right.
[16:03] Speaker 6: So when Iran decides that you're just going to take
[16:05] Speaker 6: their time to respond to things that they already knew
[16:08] Speaker 6: exactly what they were going to say a long time ago,
[16:11] Speaker 6: and just delay this thing and play the games and
[16:15] Speaker 6: the lego stuff. And I'm not saying we're not doing
[16:18] Speaker 6: a lot of hyperbolic things that aren't necessary either, But
[16:22] Speaker 6: it's impacting the entire world, right, So we've been talking
[16:24] Speaker 6: about it a little bit. It's not just energy prices,
[16:27] Speaker 6: but there's some places in the Far East that are
[16:29] Speaker 6: like running out of fuel.
[16:32] Speaker 1: Right.
[16:32] Speaker 6: There is going to be a major disruption of food
[16:35] Speaker 6: production because thirty percent of the nitrogen it goes into
[16:37] Speaker 6: it comes out of this. It's going to get more
[16:39] Speaker 6: and more intense, and it's time for I think the
[16:43] Speaker 6: parties that are involved, and I agree with Jonathan this
[16:46] Speaker 6: is an elected war of choice. Even though I support
[16:50] Speaker 6: a lot of the objectives, it's on us to end it.
[16:54] Speaker 6: Right in Iran, I know it's playing the victim, and
[16:57] Speaker 6: yes it was attack, but Iran's been the most decentizing
[17:00] Speaker 6: force in the Middle East for almost fifty years and
[17:04] Speaker 6: in their response to being attacked, they've taken it out
[17:07] Speaker 6: on the rest of the world. Right, So they're the
[17:09] Speaker 6: ones shooting at people at innocent commercial shipping for no
[17:15] Speaker 6: parent reason other than they want to just control the
[17:18] Speaker 6: straight and make everybody pay because of their war with
[17:22] Speaker 6: the United States. So I really would start with that
[17:26] Speaker 6: It should be on everybody involved to try to find
[17:30] Speaker 6: it into this because you are having a major impact
[17:33] Speaker 6: on everyone in the world who had no choice to
[17:36] Speaker 6: enter the war. Essentially, it's just getting the consequences, big issues. Obviously,
[17:43] Speaker 6: what the response is going to be will find out.
[17:46] Speaker 6: Hopefully it's something that the United States and Iran can
[17:49] Speaker 6: just talk about without having to post about it, and
[17:53] Speaker 6: we can get into this thirty day proposed period by
[17:57] Speaker 6: the United States to get into detailed planning. Ultimately, they
[18:01] Speaker 6: need to have the straights open. Obviously the blockade would
[18:03] Speaker 6: have to come off because of it, and we need
[18:06] Speaker 6: something that's more stringent and restrictive than the first JCPO.
[18:10] Speaker 2: I mean.
[18:12] Speaker 6: Mostly for political reasons, right because it's going to be
[18:15] Speaker 6: hard to explain why we got out of that in
[18:17] Speaker 6: twenty eighteen and then got back into it now. If
[18:22] Speaker 6: it's not more stringent, which means no enrichment, then this
[18:25] Speaker 6: is going to be viewed as a strategic not a success.
[18:30] Speaker 6: But we can still pull it out. I think we
[18:33] Speaker 6: have made some strides going after the leadership who certainly
[18:38] Speaker 6: degraded their military. We've degraded their strategic assets like ballistic missiles,
[18:43] Speaker 6: perhaps not as much as we thought we did, but
[18:45] Speaker 6: I think you know, we talked about this last time.
[18:47] Speaker 6: Just be upfront, this is what happened, this is what
[18:50] Speaker 6: we're looking at, and this is what we're trying to
[18:52] Speaker 6: do to fix any shortcomings that we have. So I
[18:58] Speaker 6: think we're in a spot there right now when it
[19:01] Speaker 6: comes to the war and Iran that this is going
[19:04] Speaker 6: to either go into real adult negotiations or we're going
[19:09] Speaker 6: to be in a standoff for I mean, what the
[19:11] Speaker 6: CI report that was reported on in the media says
[19:15] Speaker 6: four months before major impacts on the running regime. If
[19:19] Speaker 6: that I mean, I don't know, but if that's accurate,
[19:22] Speaker 6: I don't know that the rest of the world is
[19:23] Speaker 6: going to want to rate or wait around months to
[19:26] Speaker 6: see where this goes. And then the other alternative, of course,
[19:29] Speaker 6: is escalation. And now we're hearing and this is something
[19:33] Speaker 6: we always knew about. You know, there's a potential challenge
[19:36] Speaker 6: to the not only the straight of Hombuz as far
[19:39] Speaker 6: as passage, but there's a lot of fiber optic cables
[19:43] Speaker 6: that run through there that transmit an incredible amount of
[19:48] Speaker 6: financial activity, global financial activity, classified communications, just everything that
[19:54] Speaker 6: makes the world go around. It's about the same percentage,
[19:57] Speaker 6: by the way, is energy.
[19:59] Speaker 3: So and it's very vulnerable.
[20:01] Speaker 6: For those who've spent a lot of time in maritime operations,
[20:03] Speaker 6: which I did, these are very vulnerable communications lines of communications.
[20:11] Speaker 6: So that's another real threat to the world. Hopefully it's
[20:17] Speaker 6: cooler heads and prevail and we can start having real
[20:20] Speaker 6: negotiations on this in a way that's conducive to the
[20:24] Speaker 6: United States. Obviously that's my perspective, but I do think
[20:28] Speaker 6: we have to concede so to the Iranians or this
[20:31] Speaker 6: is not going to happen. That's just the way negotiations.
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[22:14] Speaker 5: So I think we're in a bit of a mess.
[22:17] Speaker 5: I'm not really as not saying that you were optimistic,
[22:20] Speaker 5: but you know, the only optimism you could actually have
[22:23] Speaker 5: is if we had anybody in charge, any adults, and
[22:26] Speaker 5: we don't. The negotiating team is still led by two
[22:29] Speaker 5: real estlic real estate guys. This proposed memorandive MoU, the
[22:33] Speaker 5: memorative of understanding this fourteen point plan, you know, is
[22:37] Speaker 5: just as stupid as the Gaza end of the Gaza war,
[22:40] Speaker 5: the twenty point plan, which didn't do anything other than
[22:42] Speaker 5: stop the war. But nothing There's been no progress on
[22:45] Speaker 5: disarming Hamas or anything.
[22:46] Speaker 3: There.
[22:46] Speaker 5: Same thing with their their one pagers in terms of
[22:49] Speaker 5: the Rushi Ukraine war. And so we don't have any
[22:51] Speaker 5: adults in charge. And the MoU, even if it is
[22:54] Speaker 5: agreed upon, is just to extends the ceasefire thirty days
[22:58] Speaker 5: where we talk more about stuff such as what to
[23:01] Speaker 5: do about the nuclear program in which you know under
[23:04] Speaker 5: whether you like the j c POA or not. It
[23:06] Speaker 5: took eighteen months and you know, several hundred pages with
[23:09] Speaker 5: multiple experts, and we have none of that. It does
[23:12] Speaker 5: they don't exist. Uh, And so I don't see us
[23:15] Speaker 5: in any kind of positive outcome here. I think the
[23:18] Speaker 5: Trump administration is in a huge bind. Certainly, our allies
[23:22] Speaker 5: are getting antsy, and you know, in the flip flop
[23:25] Speaker 5: of what happened last week was was pretty extraordinary. Whether
[23:27] Speaker 5: with this there's going to be this escort mission not
[23:29] Speaker 5: really an escort mission, and not after the Saudi's freaked out,
[23:33] Speaker 5: and so you know, we're at this point now in
[23:35] Speaker 5: which I'm not sure the administration really.
[23:38] Speaker 3: Knows what to do.
[23:39] Speaker 5: I think the if you if you take a look
[23:42] Speaker 5: at you and there is no I don't even know
[23:45] Speaker 5: what a best case scenario is. Would that be some
[23:49] Speaker 5: type of j cpo A like deal in which you
[23:52] Speaker 5: know it's a it's a bit strengthened, but then you
[23:54] Speaker 5: end up giving sanctions relief and then the hardliners the
[23:57] Speaker 5: regime survives. I mean, that's the that's the conundrum of this,
[24:00] Speaker 5: like literally a deal, even whatever you call it, means
[24:03] Speaker 5: the regime lives even longer. I think really the best
[24:07] Speaker 5: case scenario in terms of bringing the Iranian regime now
[24:10] Speaker 5: is to do what we're doing and just wait them out.
[24:12] Speaker 5: It's going to be a test of patience, and if
[24:13] Speaker 5: it takes four months and they lose half a billion
[24:15] Speaker 5: dollars a day, perhaps then the regime crumbles. But that
[24:18] Speaker 5: of course the Trump administration won't do that. With the
[24:20] Speaker 5: midterms coming up, I think one of the things that
[24:23] Speaker 5: to me is is most interesting is this this call
[24:27] Speaker 5: from the right and certain elements of the right, whether
[24:30] Speaker 5: it's Hugh Hewitt, who's a very influential commentator, Mark Thiason
[24:33] Speaker 5: who writes for the Washington Post, who and who apparently
[24:36] Speaker 5: is incredibly influential on on on Trump by no Mark
[24:40] Speaker 5: and and people, he's gotten a lot of grief because
[24:42] Speaker 5: he was kind of a never Trump guy at first,
[24:44] Speaker 5: but now he's tight with the president. But he's and
[24:47] Speaker 5: Mark Levin from Fox and so there's there's a whole
[24:50] Speaker 5: bunch of folks who are howling for Trump actually to
[24:53] Speaker 5: resume the war and so and basically they're saying, they're
[24:57] Speaker 5: calling them out that hey, this is you know, the
[24:59] Speaker 5: US does not look very strong. Right now, we are
[25:01] Speaker 5: not responding, you know, militarily to the Iranian the transigence.
[25:04] Speaker 5: So it's gonna be interesting to see which way Trump
[25:06] Speaker 5: gets pulled. This has nothing to do with these rallies,
[25:07] Speaker 5: by the way, D Sorry, I know you want BB
[25:11] Speaker 5: to pull all the strings, but in this case, clearly
[25:15] Speaker 5: I think these rallies would like the war to be resumed.
[25:17] Speaker 5: But I think that Trump's the pressure Trump is feeling
[25:19] Speaker 5: is from those who are who are and it's going
[25:21] Speaker 5: to driving nuts. And it is fun for those of
[25:24] Speaker 5: us in the media to kind of kind of with
[25:25] Speaker 5: that needle, like, hey, wow, you look like President Obama
[25:28] Speaker 5: and there's nothing worse than Trump's mind if you're quateham
[25:30] Speaker 5: with Obama. So I think we're you know, we're we're
[25:34] Speaker 5: in a bit of a pickle. I'm not sure exactly
[25:35] Speaker 5: how to get out. The other interesting point which has
[25:37] Speaker 5: been bandied about, Lindsey Graham said something I think incredibly
[25:40] Speaker 5: stupid and naive, but that's not unusual when he said
[25:43] Speaker 5: that we should have a Second Amendment solution and flood
[25:47] Speaker 5: the country weapons. That should be the COVID action plan, which,
[25:51] Speaker 5: if you know COVID action plans, is preposterous, but it did.
[25:55] Speaker 5: It did kind of make me start thinking about, well,
[25:57] Speaker 5: you know, Trump has complained a bit about it looks
[25:59] Speaker 5: like there was a COVID action plan that went astray,
[26:01] Speaker 5: that we did arm the Iranian courage and they kept
[26:04] Speaker 5: the weapons. It's kind of funny he's been he's been
[26:06] Speaker 5: talking about that, and then the Israelis, remember, pushed this
[26:10] Speaker 5: very strongly in that famous White House situation room meeting
[26:12] Speaker 5: where David Barnea, the MOSAD chief, talked about uh, some
[26:17] Speaker 5: type of of kind of regime change operation. Marco Rubio's
[26:20] Speaker 5: response was bullshit. But it did start me thinking about,
[26:23] Speaker 5: you know, is there actually any kind of COVID action solutions?
[26:26] Speaker 5: Mick and I you and I have talked about this before,
[26:28] Speaker 5: because I think that, you know, if you think about
[26:32] Speaker 5: uh and I don't know that the answer to this,
[26:35] Speaker 5: but if you think about ways that actually could work
[26:37] Speaker 5: over time, perhaps that is one of them that would
[26:40] Speaker 5: not be as you know, not in terms of overt
[26:42] Speaker 5: military uh uh pressure. So ultimately, again I'm not I'm
[26:46] Speaker 5: not sure where we are right now. I don't you know,
[26:49] Speaker 5: they're they're in this kind of I don't know if
[26:51] Speaker 5: it's an escalation trap there this kind of spiral. But
[26:54] Speaker 5: I'm not sure how we get out of this right
[26:55] Speaker 5: now in which US interests are actually protected.
[26:59] Speaker 3: Uh And and.
[27:00] Speaker 5: So we'll see and the other people who think they
[27:02] Speaker 5: know which way Trump is thinking, I mean, I think
[27:05] Speaker 5: he honestly changes his mind so much.
[27:06] Speaker 3: We really don't know.
[27:08] Speaker 5: Because the flip flops on policy given have been pretty remarkable.
[27:11] Speaker 5: I mean literally, you had Marco Rubio speaking in favor
[27:13] Speaker 5: of this escort mission and then several apps, and he
[27:16] Speaker 5: went on all the talk shows and he was eloquent
[27:18] Speaker 5: and everyone's like, wow, that sounds like, you know, we
[27:20] Speaker 5: seem to know what we're doing. And then literally Trump
[27:22] Speaker 5: versed himself and all of that got thrown out. And
[27:25] Speaker 5: so you know, we go through this whiplash NonStop. We're
[27:28] Speaker 5: talking now on Sunday, on Tuesday, we could be doing
[27:30] Speaker 5: something totally different.
[27:33] Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll covert action if I could just touch on that, Yeah, yeah,
[27:40] Speaker 6: I mean from my perspective, covert action needs to be
[27:43] Speaker 6: part of a comprehensive policy and and this might not
[27:48] Speaker 6: be the majority of you and continuous when it comes
[27:51] Speaker 6: to our adversaries, like we shouldn't go, oh, let's do
[27:54] Speaker 6: a covert action program now because things aren't working, right,
[27:57] Speaker 6: I mean, that's that's like the worst case scenario for
[27:59] Speaker 6: the agency. It's like okay, right, like okay, so we
[28:04] Speaker 6: can't figure it out diplomatically, the military says they can't
[28:07] Speaker 6: figure it out, and so let's just hand it to
[28:10] Speaker 6: the agency, and then they wonder how that doesn't work
[28:12] Speaker 6: out that well. It needs to be comprehensive in the
[28:15] Speaker 6: sense that it's just one element of a national capacity
[28:22] Speaker 6: that we use against our most difficult adversaries, and that's
[28:25] Speaker 6: this case. Obviously, orn is becoming one unfortunately. So I
[28:30] Speaker 6: do think we should have one. I assume we do.
[28:32] Speaker 6: I don't know. I don't not asking because if I did,
[28:34] Speaker 6: I wouldn't be talking about it. But it should be
[28:36] Speaker 6: continuous because you never know when elements of it are
[28:41] Speaker 6: more important than other elements of it. And if you
[28:43] Speaker 6: don't have the groundwork, there's nothing to turn on, you
[28:47] Speaker 6: see what I mean. So I think and I hope
[28:50] Speaker 6: that we do have a robust covert program, not just
[28:53] Speaker 6: you know what everybody thinks, you know, give you know,
[28:56] Speaker 6: drop parachutes of palettes of weapons and stuff like that,
[29:00] Speaker 6: but the influence side, all that stuff, which I don't
[29:02] Speaker 6: think we're doing that great a job on at least
[29:04] Speaker 6: what I can see. I think we should have all
[29:06] Speaker 6: that stuff, the idea that we're just going to harm
[29:09] Speaker 6: ninety million people. I mean, if the regime is good
[29:13] Speaker 6: at anything, it's staying the regime right. And they've already
[29:17] Speaker 6: showed they have no problems slaughtering innocent civilians. They already
[29:20] Speaker 6: did it before the war. So we got to be
[29:22] Speaker 6: careful what we're doing because unless we really don't care
[29:25] Speaker 6: what happens to the Uranian people, we could actually cause
[29:29] Speaker 6: you know, a major that would pale the prior extermination
[29:35] Speaker 6: of protesters in comparison. So we need to make sure
[29:38] Speaker 6: it's done in comprehensive step, with a cohesive, comprehensive policy,
[29:45] Speaker 6: and that it should be something that's endured, right, So
[29:49] Speaker 6: it should be it should last past this. And they're
[29:52] Speaker 6: doing it to us, right, so it's not like, you know,
[29:55] Speaker 6: they'll do everything they possibly can to us then being Russia,
[29:58] Speaker 6: China or on. So I think we should we should
[30:02] Speaker 6: view it that way. But to throw it to a
[30:05] Speaker 6: cover program when you can't figure it out, is is
[30:08] Speaker 6: like the worst case scenario for the age.
[30:10] Speaker 5: Well, I mean, think about our COVID action programs that
[30:12] Speaker 5: did not that were not successful. Think about the Syrian
[30:15] Speaker 5: program reportedly in the press again, US policy was all
[30:19] Speaker 5: jacked up there. And let's let so let's say there's
[30:22] Speaker 5: a US COVID program for regime change, but we signed
[30:25] Speaker 5: some kind of limited j c po A two point
[30:28] Speaker 5: five giving massive sanctions relief strengthen the regime.
[30:31] Speaker 3: How does that work? That's not in concert with each other,
[30:34] Speaker 3: That's right.
[30:34] Speaker 6: So that's the comprehensive part.
[30:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's got to be you.
[30:38] Speaker 1: Know, what's the most important thing. Is it a non
[30:40] Speaker 1: nuclear Iran like or regime change? What's the most important
[30:43] Speaker 1: thing we need to get out of this? What's the leam?
[30:47] Speaker 5: I would argue regime change? I mean, you know, and
[30:49] Speaker 5: which which originally that was Trump's comment in January. Uh,
[30:54] Speaker 5: the you know, the non nuclear Iran part is the
[30:56] Speaker 5: j c p o A, frankly, which the right wing
[30:59] Speaker 5: in the Republican Party lamp baseded mercilessly for you know,
[31:04] Speaker 5: for years.
[31:04] Speaker 3: And so I think he took.
[31:06] Speaker 1: Their orders from Trump and Trump hated it because Obama
[31:10] Speaker 1: made it like it's real simple how they make Republican politics.
[31:15] Speaker 6: You know, Kentagon was pushing to keep it and if
[31:19] Speaker 6: you had issues with ballistic missile you know, collection and
[31:24] Speaker 6: proxy force operations, we could address it separately. Now we're
[31:28] Speaker 6: back to the same place. So I mean, not that
[31:31] Speaker 6: anybody would keep keep in mind what the d D
[31:33] Speaker 6: did back then or their position, but it's kind of
[31:36] Speaker 6: justifying it now because even the current administration is they're
[31:39] Speaker 6: not talking about ballistic missiles. They're not talking about proxies
[31:43] Speaker 6: in this Nally agreement, least that I can see.
[31:46] Speaker 1: Right.
[31:46] Speaker 6: So the criticism that was levied at the prior group,
[31:49] Speaker 6: mostly because I think a lot of it was just political,
[31:53] Speaker 6: which I could care less about, is now coming back
[31:56] Speaker 6: and now we're just talking about nuclear ambitions, not the
[32:00] Speaker 6: other components that were so criticized for.
[32:07] Speaker 4: Would you not say that where COVID programs go wrong
[32:14] Speaker 4: is largely because again you know COVIT, good COVIT programs
[32:19] Speaker 4: and I'm not an expert like you guys are, but
[32:21] Speaker 4: good COVID programs should begin with the solid intelligence base, right,
[32:26] Speaker 4: collection base, at the strategic levels, so you understand what
[32:30] Speaker 4: is going what is the calculus that's going to change behavior?
[32:34] Speaker 2: Right?
[32:35] Speaker 4: And I mean we talk all the time about regime change.
[32:37] Speaker 4: What we're really talking about is changing the behavior right,
[32:41] Speaker 4: either through regime change, either through either through attritional methods
[32:46] Speaker 4: or coercive methods, but changing behavior. In order to understand that,
[32:50] Speaker 4: you need a strategic intelligence understanding of what that calculus is,
[32:56] Speaker 4: how the regime thinks. And I don't know, but I
[33:00] Speaker 4: don't know where the gap is, but there's definitely a
[33:02] Speaker 4: gap there. I don't know if the gaps whether on
[33:06] Speaker 4: the part of the ic that they're just not collecting
[33:10] Speaker 4: at that level they don't have the assets, or whether
[33:13] Speaker 4: they do and they're providing the advice. But the gap
[33:16] Speaker 4: lies between the advice and thelit our political leadership and
[33:21] Speaker 4: not following that advice or not listening to it.
[33:24] Speaker 5: Andy, don't forget. And I'm going to be very careful
[33:26] Speaker 5: on this. There is a plethora of press reports from
[33:29] Speaker 5: the twenty eleven, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen time frame over
[33:33] Speaker 5: a catastrophic agency disaster in which reportedly cover communication systems
[33:40] Speaker 5: were so compromised that we lost are basically our entire
[33:43] Speaker 5: asset base. I don't know the status of that. I
[33:46] Speaker 5: can't talk about it obviously or really in relation to
[33:49] Speaker 5: what's going on now, But I think it does call
[33:52] Speaker 5: on the question is you know, what is our asset
[33:54] Speaker 5: based how much do we know about Iranian plans and intentionments,
[33:57] Speaker 5: what's the penetration of senior most levels of the Iranian
[33:59] Speaker 5: regime and the political, military, diplomatic, economic sphere. I don't
[34:03] Speaker 5: know how good our collection on Iran, which is was
[34:06] Speaker 5: obviously is a hard target, but there was a devastating
[34:10] Speaker 5: compromise several years ago, and so you know, one could
[34:14] Speaker 5: ask the question, I'm surprised national security journalists haven't, is
[34:17] Speaker 5: what's the status of the ICs you know, reach look
[34:20] Speaker 5: into into inner workings of Iran. I think it's a
[34:23] Speaker 5: fair question. I'm just surprised no one's asked it.
[34:26] Speaker 2: I think a lot of it too, is that we've
[34:27] Speaker 2: outsourced a lot of our humans to Israel to collect
[34:30] Speaker 2: on Iran inside of Iran, where there's a lot of
[34:32] Speaker 2: US collection outside of Iran or for actual resident agents
[34:35] Speaker 2: in Iran, A lot of that is Israel, and we're
[34:37] Speaker 2: relying on their intel provided through that conduit to us,
[34:41] Speaker 2: which carries a lot of bias implications, whether they intend
[34:45] Speaker 2: to or not. Similar to Curveball, which was the source
[34:48] Speaker 2: before the Iraqi invasion two thousand and three. That was
[34:51] Speaker 2: a B and D German source that we weren't allowed
[34:53] Speaker 2: to access or talk to for several years while he
[34:56] Speaker 2: was being debriefed, giving us all kinds of fabricated information
[34:59] Speaker 2: that we couldn't verify through asset validation because he was
[35:01] Speaker 2: not a source of the US. And this is it's
[35:04] Speaker 2: not intentional. The Germans didn't intentionally do that with Curveball.
[35:08] Speaker 2: Mosad might not be intentionally doing that with the US.
[35:09] Speaker 2: But there's always that tint of the person giving you
[35:12] Speaker 2: that information secondhand. We trust them, they're good at it,
[35:16] Speaker 2: but there's going to be some taint on what exactly
[35:18] Speaker 2: is the purpose of this information and which information do
[35:20] Speaker 2: they choose to share or not share. Do they modify
[35:23] Speaker 2: what they share, taking some off, including some other stuff
[35:26] Speaker 2: to kind of influence how we receive it, to give
[35:28] Speaker 2: us a different picture of what's actually going on politically,
[35:30] Speaker 2: especially at the higher echelons of government in Iran deeply
[35:34] Speaker 2: penetrated by Mossad, less so than the United States, not
[35:37] Speaker 2: just because of what you mentioned Mark about the compromises,
[35:40] Speaker 2: but it's they've had a longer time to just develop
[35:43] Speaker 2: this infrastructure that's been uninterrupted inside of Iran versus the
[35:46] Speaker 2: United States, which is a lot of interruptions, especially with
[35:49] Speaker 2: the wars that have been going on.
[35:50] Speaker 1: I mean, isn't an intelligence picture now in terms of
[35:52] Speaker 1: like how many guys we have placed in there and
[35:55] Speaker 1: stuff like that completely thrown on its head. It's like
[35:58] Speaker 1: a puzzle that's almost done and then just threw the
[36:00] Speaker 1: puzzle off the table when we started, when we smoked
[36:03] Speaker 1: forty senior leaders.
[36:06] Speaker 2: Well, that's manbe factored in, but you can't really predict
[36:09] Speaker 2: exactly how it's going to go. I mean, even if
[36:11] Speaker 2: you have somebody that's completely cooperative, that's been recruited as working,
[36:14] Speaker 2: you know, really well with you and has been vetted,
[36:16] Speaker 2: once they start seeing people dying around them, their motivations
[36:19] Speaker 2: begin to change. And if you can't swoop in there
[36:21] Speaker 2: and have a face to face with them to like
[36:22] Speaker 2: to reassure them and make sure they're still on board,
[36:25] Speaker 2: you might start to lose them. And you might not
[36:26] Speaker 2: notice that because you're at a distance. You're at one
[36:28] Speaker 2: thousand mile long screwdriver trying to handle this guy.
[36:32] Speaker 6: Hopefully, we have as much influence agents in there as collectors, right,
[36:38] Speaker 6: we actually need people to start prodding the regime in
[36:40] Speaker 6: a certain direction, and that's another you know, it's a
[36:44] Speaker 6: covert program type of scenario, and I would hope that
[36:49] Speaker 6: that's we're thinking as much about that as the kind
[36:52] Speaker 6: of schwashbuckling type like you know, like launching crates of
[36:58] Speaker 6: ak's in a certain noting. Nothing opposed to that in general,
[37:01] Speaker 6: but we need to do more on the influence side
[37:04] Speaker 6: to get this get this regime to a place that
[37:08] Speaker 6: is conducive to ending the war. We should really focus
[37:11] Speaker 6: on any I want to win, I want to be successful,
[37:13] Speaker 6: but we should really focus on ending the conflict because
[37:17] Speaker 6: this is this is something we elected to start. I know,
[37:20] Speaker 6: we think we're going country that matters, but we're not.
[37:24] Speaker 6: And there's this is this is going to have major
[37:27] Speaker 6: impacts that's going to last a long period of time
[37:30] Speaker 6: on countries that can't afford it, right, So they can't
[37:35] Speaker 6: afford to lose food supplies, right, and they'll and there's
[37:39] Speaker 6: countries that will be the last in line to get
[37:42] Speaker 6: the food that's left.
[37:44] Speaker 2: Right.
[37:44] Speaker 6: So it's it's a part of us to get to
[37:47] Speaker 6: that point and then we can work out the details
[37:49] Speaker 6: and the negotiation. If Iran is just going to play,
[37:53] Speaker 6: you know, at the game, and just they've decided that
[37:56] Speaker 6: they could outlive us, then we're going to have to
[37:59] Speaker 6: look at escalation. I mean, it's I don't know that
[38:01] Speaker 6: we can just sit in this current situation forever, but
[38:06] Speaker 6: the escalation comes with a lot of risks, so we
[38:08] Speaker 6: need to be ready. We also have, of course, a
[38:10] Speaker 6: shortage of precision strike munitions, but we don't, to my understanding,
[38:14] Speaker 6: have a shortage of other weapons we can use. Munitions
[38:18] Speaker 6: we can use that are GPS guided, et cetera. But
[38:24] Speaker 6: it's going to be something that we have to consider.
[38:26] Speaker 6: But I think as this good goes on, if iron
[38:29] Speaker 6: keeps delaying, or if it's just nowhere in the right ballpark,
[38:32] Speaker 6: we're going to be looking at an escalation. I just
[38:35] Speaker 6: don't know if that escalation is actually going to do
[38:37] Speaker 6: the trick. Hey, can you're definitely going to respond.
[38:40] Speaker 5: Can you guys comment on the importance of the or
[38:44] Speaker 5: maybe lack of, but the upcoming summit between between Trump
[38:47] Speaker 5: and President Sheet in Beijing.
[38:49] Speaker 3: I mean, it's.
[38:50] Speaker 5: Clearly Trump wanted this thing to be over before that.
[38:52] Speaker 5: I think the summit was delayed because of the war.
[38:54] Speaker 5: But now he's going and in some ways, we lose
[38:57] Speaker 5: a lot of leverage. I mean, ideally this would have
[38:59] Speaker 5: been a summit when you talk about tariffs and trade
[39:01] Speaker 5: and all the kind of the sticky things. But now
[39:03] Speaker 5: the war is going to dominate this and and we're actually,
[39:07] Speaker 5: you know, probably going to be asking the Chinese for
[39:09] Speaker 5: help and how they influence Aron.
[39:13] Speaker 3: What are your all? What's your what's your thoughts?
[39:15] Speaker 5: I'm not a China expert at all, but you know,
[39:17] Speaker 5: perhaps look at from the Chinese point of view, what
[39:19] Speaker 5: is what? What is she going to try to get
[39:21] Speaker 5: out of us? Will they help? They like to see
[39:24] Speaker 5: the US totally in disarray right now? You can make
[39:26] Speaker 5: that argument. What does it mean in terms of you know,
[39:29] Speaker 5: future conflict with with Taiwan. Think about this and the
[39:34] Speaker 5: kind of the great power competition.
[39:37] Speaker 6: I think China thinks it has upperhand now because everything
[39:41] Speaker 6: you just said, Mark, I think they think, Okay, the
[39:43] Speaker 6: US has gone to aner war. They chose, they clearly
[39:48] Speaker 6: won out. I think that's obvious to everyone involved. And
[39:53] Speaker 6: China can help. Therefore, they have cards if you want
[39:56] Speaker 6: to use that now, they have a lot of cards.
[40:01] Speaker 6: That doesn't mean they can automatically play and we'll concede,
[40:04] Speaker 6: But when it comes to the trade war, terroriffs, etc.
[40:08] Speaker 6: The United States is going to be asking China to
[40:10] Speaker 6: do things and not do things to support Oran, and
[40:13] Speaker 6: they're going to want something to return. And of course
[40:16] Speaker 6: it does have an impact. They do get some of
[40:18] Speaker 6: their energy from Oran, and any reduction causes issues everywhere,
[40:22] Speaker 6: so the costs and everything else, and the global economy
[40:26] Speaker 6: going down and packs China of course substantially, So there's
[40:30] Speaker 6: going to be a pretty I think it's going to
[40:32] Speaker 6: focus actually on the war itself because it doesn't impact
[40:35] Speaker 6: everything else. That would have been an on the agenda,
[40:38] Speaker 6: and that's what we've surely wanted it to be about,
[40:40] Speaker 6: not about us going to them looking for help on
[40:43] Speaker 6: the war with Iran. We wanted it to be on economics.
[40:47] Speaker 6: So yeah, I think we're in a situation. It's up
[40:50] Speaker 6: to us how we play it. But I think we're
[40:53] Speaker 6: going ahead with it because the President has decided it's
[40:57] Speaker 6: in our interests and maybe he can convince the Chinese
[41:00] Speaker 6: to do things to push or on closer to our position.
[41:05] Speaker 2: The US just sanctioned a couple of Chinese companies that
[41:08] Speaker 2: were providing satellite imagery for a precision strike in the
[41:11] Speaker 2: gold area, and I think that's going to probably come
[41:14] Speaker 2: up in the summit as well. Not just those companies
[41:16] Speaker 2: in particular, but how the US is reacting to Chinese
[41:19] Speaker 2: behaviors back and forth will definitely be discussed. And I think,
[41:22] Speaker 2: as you mentioned, that still puts China in a position
[41:25] Speaker 2: of strength because now they have more cards that they're
[41:27] Speaker 2: able to play, whether those cards are good or not,
[41:29] Speaker 2: they have more cards. The US is kind of like
[41:32] Speaker 2: using its cards as this goes along, and it makes
[41:33] Speaker 2: it a lot tougher for that to become a more
[41:36] Speaker 2: balanced discussion, I think.
[41:39] Speaker 6: Absolutely, and those I mean that matters right, That high
[41:45] Speaker 6: value intelligence is what the Iranians need to adequately target
[41:49] Speaker 6: US and using satellite imagery and everything that comes with it,
[41:53] Speaker 6: everything else they might be providing in Russia as well,
[41:57] Speaker 6: and Russia's resupplying all their drones by the way, I
[42:00] Speaker 6: mean there's plenty of reports on the components coming in
[42:03] Speaker 6: through alternate means. So I mean, if you ever did
[42:07] Speaker 6: have a question about whether Russia was our enemy, I mean,
[42:11] Speaker 6: they just prove it over. I mean, I know we're
[42:13] Speaker 6: going to get to Russia and Ukraine. We need to
[42:15] Speaker 6: talk a bit about that. But Russia is once again
[42:19] Speaker 6: the malign actor, not the friend of the United States,
[42:21] Speaker 6: never has been, never will be. And we're touting how
[42:25] Speaker 6: we've depreciated their drone capacity, which is good. Russia's filling
[42:28] Speaker 6: it back up.
[42:30] Speaker 4: Yeah, there's say economist started call. The economists apparently got
[42:35] Speaker 4: hold of a gru document that showed how the plan
[42:40] Speaker 4: to support Iran untold whether that's already taking place, but yes,
[42:46] Speaker 4: supporting with the components of the of upgraded Shahads which
[42:54] Speaker 4: are now being made in Russia. Of course with the
[42:58] Speaker 4: view to the Ukraine conflict. That's important too, because you
[43:02] Speaker 4: know I mentioned the fiber optic and satellite guided versions
[43:07] Speaker 4: are drone so harder to intercept. But a really interesting
[43:10] Speaker 4: part of this, It was all interesting and we talk
[43:12] Speaker 4: about perhaps our absence of covert action. The Russians have
[43:17] Speaker 4: a plan to train drone operators and one thing I
[43:21] Speaker 4: didn't think about, but there are ten thousand Iranian students
[43:25] Speaker 4: in Russia right now, and so there's a discussion in
[43:28] Speaker 4: this document about about training a portion of these students.
[43:35] Speaker 4: They're just using that as one potential source for drone operators,
[43:42] Speaker 4: and so they're providing expertise not just equipment. And yeah,
[43:46] Speaker 4: I would love to talk about Ukraine and Russia maybe
[43:49] Speaker 4: at the end, but I just just teaser to throw
[43:52] Speaker 4: out there. I listened to an interview the other day
[43:54] Speaker 4: with the Estonian Foreign minister. Of course, the Estonians have
[43:58] Speaker 4: their eye on the ball very closely because they think
[44:00] Speaker 4: they are next right, and he said, you know one thing,
[44:05] Speaker 4: because the tide has turned. There's no doubt about it.
[44:07] Speaker 4: The tighters turned in Ukraine and Russia's on the backfoot.
[44:12] Speaker 4: I mean, it's as incredible though it may seem that
[44:15] Speaker 4: has happened. Ukraine now has the edge across the board.
[44:19] Speaker 4: I'm not saying that victory is near. I don't think
[44:22] Speaker 4: terms like victory are useful in that conflict. But certainly
[44:25] Speaker 4: Russia's on its back foot. And so this Estonian foreign
[44:28] Speaker 4: minister said that they have uncovered plants because the Estonians
[44:32] Speaker 4: are really open when they uncover Russian stuff going on
[44:35] Speaker 4: in Europe. You know, the Germans and even the Brits
[44:38] Speaker 4: they try and they keep try and keep it on
[44:40] Speaker 4: the down low, except when in certain instances when it's
[44:43] Speaker 4: already gone out of the media. But the Estonians right
[44:46] Speaker 4: a while way was saying, look, the Russians are doing this,
[44:49] Speaker 4: so he said, they stumbled on a Russian plan for
[44:55] Speaker 4: if and when the conflict comes to an end, is
[44:56] Speaker 4: when by some kind of ceasefire or even shorter that
[45:02] Speaker 4: because one of the Russians problems now socially are these
[45:07] Speaker 4: all these returning veterans. They've got about a million and
[45:10] Speaker 4: a half guys who have served in Ukraine. A lot
[45:13] Speaker 4: of them were former convicts who are now who have
[45:16] Speaker 4: had amnesty and they're having a lot of problems. You
[45:19] Speaker 4: can read about this across the board, open source media, rising,
[45:23] Speaker 4: violent crime and all this. Well, the Russians have a plan,
[45:25] Speaker 4: according to Estonians, of releasing of just pushing all these
[45:29] Speaker 4: guys million and a half people into Shengen right and
[45:34] Speaker 4: infiltrating them also into the UK And there doesn't have
[45:38] Speaker 4: to be a covert action plan linked to that. Undoubtedly
[45:42] Speaker 4: there will be to sub components of this group, but
[45:45] Speaker 4: just ubilizing influence of pushing a million and a half
[45:49] Speaker 4: guys who are mentally unstable, a lot of them before
[45:53] Speaker 4: the war were criminals, brutalized, and now they're running around
[45:58] Speaker 4: in the Shenghan zone doing a kind closing all kinds
[46:02] Speaker 4: of mayhem undoubtedly. That's believable. It's something that everyone is
[46:08] Speaker 4: focused on. The short term target called way to the
[46:10] Speaker 4: war ends. You know, it's gonna be a ceasefire, But
[46:13] Speaker 4: but what comes after that? Russia's you know, that's that's
[46:16] Speaker 4: not the end for Russia because the goal is to
[46:19] Speaker 4: continues to be destabilized Europe.
[46:23] Speaker 5: How good was it by the way that Zelensky was,
[46:25] Speaker 5: how he was trolling Putin? Zilensky allowed this, you know,
[46:31] Speaker 5: ostensible three day seas far allowed Putin to have his
[46:33] Speaker 5: little red square uh victory in Europe's I mean celebration, unbelievable,
[46:38] Speaker 5: shocking when you think about over the last several years.
[46:43] Speaker 5: Yet you also have, I mean Tulca Gabbard in that
[46:46] Speaker 5: open testimony the dni IS several weeks ago, said that
[46:49] Speaker 5: US intelligence still assesses Russia has the upper hand. I mean,
[46:52] Speaker 5: what planet are we on if we say.
[46:54] Speaker 4: That Tulsi Gabett's planet, which is as we all know,
[46:58] Speaker 4: quite a different.
[47:00] Speaker 3: It's quite really incredible.
[47:01] Speaker 5: I mean, what are the are the figures, you know,
[47:02] Speaker 5: a million casualties, including three hundred and fifty thousand dead,
[47:05] Speaker 5: I mean, these are these numbers are incomprehensible for Americans,
[47:10] Speaker 5: you know, and and they're the point of this. I
[47:13] Speaker 5: think maybe it's a good discussion to have, is is
[47:15] Speaker 5: Ukraine actually doesn't need us anymore? You know, so much
[47:18] Speaker 5: of us were kind of in this planet because the
[47:19] Speaker 5: Trump administration was you know, took a pretty radical turn, uh,
[47:24] Speaker 5: and that you know, this would be the end of Ukraine.
[47:26] Speaker 3: But it's not.
[47:27] Speaker 5: And frankly Trump's got in board with it. We don't
[47:29] Speaker 5: hear much about peace efforts. Every once in a while,
[47:31] Speaker 5: Kushner and Witdkoff, the dynamic real estate duo meet with
[47:35] Speaker 5: some Russian down in Miami. I think they just happened.
[47:37] Speaker 5: But nothing's happening on that, and that's good. The less
[47:40] Speaker 5: we actually talk about or say anything on Russia Ukraine,
[47:42] Speaker 5: the better, uh, because e're up stepped up so much
[47:45] Speaker 5: and there's more to do. But you know, I think
[47:47] Speaker 5: that those doomsday scenarios didn't happen, And there is a
[47:51] Speaker 5: theory that many people have. I think that I tend
[47:53] Speaker 5: to agree with that. The less we actually meddle in
[47:55] Speaker 5: this now, because our intentions are not pure, we are
[47:59] Speaker 5: you know, we should be on you Ukraine side. We're
[48:00] Speaker 5: not just the less any Trump ever talks about Ukraine
[48:05] Speaker 5: Zelenski the better it is. What do you guys think
[48:08] Speaker 5: of that?
[48:09] Speaker 6: I think Putin's talking about this because he realizes now
[48:12] Speaker 6: he can't win. He cannot win, He's not going to
[48:15] Speaker 6: win this thing. And the hats off to the Ukrainians
[48:19] Speaker 6: because they have they have proven and everybody wrong right
[48:23] Speaker 6: from the beginning of this, where all of US analysts
[48:27] Speaker 6: were saying, oh, you know, a couple of weeks and
[48:29] Speaker 6: they'll be three days, three days, and they'll be in Kiev,
[48:32] Speaker 6: right and look where we are, and there they've through
[48:36] Speaker 6: their in it, not not just their innovation, but certainly
[48:39] Speaker 6: their innovation and tenacity. They have fought a you know,
[48:43] Speaker 6: you know, a so called superpower to a standstill. And
[48:47] Speaker 6: now they realize, uh, you know, I think we could
[48:50] Speaker 6: have done a lot more upfront. I think we could
[48:52] Speaker 6: have certainly do even more obviously than we're doing now.
[48:57] Speaker 6: But they realize, even with the level that they're getting
[49:00] Speaker 6: of a sport right now, that this is the clock's
[49:03] Speaker 6: running out, right, So this is the best chance for
[49:07] Speaker 6: Russia to have uh a US administration that isn't you know,
[49:12] Speaker 6: super pro Ukrainian is right now and the clock's running out,
[49:15] Speaker 6: and it's going to run out, and the Ukrainians know it,
[49:18] Speaker 6: and they're gonna and now they're going to turn the
[49:20] Speaker 6: tides here. And then at the end of the day,
[49:22] Speaker 6: the power base in Europe is going to be Ukraine.
[49:25] Speaker 6: It's gonna be it's gonna be a hell of a
[49:27] Speaker 6: turn of event.
[49:29] Speaker 2: Uh.
[49:29] Speaker 6: And then what is Putin going to be looking at.
[49:31] Speaker 6: He's going to be looking at an expanded NATO. He's
[49:33] Speaker 6: going to be looking at Germany's adding like four hundred
[49:36] Speaker 6: thousand troops. I mean, who thought that would happen. He's
[49:38] Speaker 6: going to be looking at a revitalized strong Europe and
[49:41] Speaker 6: Ukraine as the most advanced, experienced military in Europe. Uh.
[49:47] Speaker 6: And and if you look at it from his perspective,
[49:50] Speaker 6: he has made a horrible strategic mistake. And I hope
[49:54] Speaker 6: we just pound that in. Uh even further, this goes
[49:58] Speaker 6: forward and and you Granians are doing it. I thought
[50:01] Speaker 6: it was awesome to your point, Mark that he was
[50:04] Speaker 6: basically trolling Poot. You can have your little parade right down,
[50:08] Speaker 6: one million soldiers, right, but have your little parade. He
[50:12] Speaker 6: has proven that he uh, he is not a strategic thinker,
[50:17] Speaker 6: and he has miscalculated this entire thing.
[50:20] Speaker 4: A parade without vehicles.
[50:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just gonna say the parade was really, uh,
[50:24] Speaker 1: pretty watered down, like the first time in like nineteen years,
[50:28] Speaker 1: I think it was. And they moved a ton of
[50:31] Speaker 1: like anti air stuff closer into Moscow and stuff like that,
[50:34] Speaker 1: worrying about you know, worrying about drones and things like that.
[50:38] Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty obvious the writing's kind of on
[50:40] Speaker 1: the wall that Russia is uh, you know, not the
[50:44] Speaker 1: fucking superpower like you mentioned, Mick, that we all thought
[50:48] Speaker 1: they were. It's it's it was an interesting week when
[50:52] Speaker 1: it comes to Ukraine. And like listen, Ukraine's down in
[50:55] Speaker 1: the Middle East teaching yep, probably us and our ally
[51:00] Speaker 1: like how to fucking fight you know, drone swarms and
[51:03] Speaker 1: stuff like that, which you asked me. We probably should
[51:05] Speaker 1: have known that before we went into uh Iran guns blazing.
[51:10] Speaker 6: We're going to use all their lessons learned to train
[51:13] Speaker 6: our military for the future battle that will inevitably come.
[51:18] Speaker 6: And it's a lot of it's coming out of Ukraine.
[51:21] Speaker 5: I mean, it's a giant lab experiment. I mean, but
[51:23] Speaker 5: it was even even when the fight was in the East,
[51:25] Speaker 5: before the Russian invasion. I remember, you know, folks from
[51:28] Speaker 5: the IC, the in the soft world coming back from
[51:30] Speaker 5: eastern Ukraine, and when I would talk to them, they
[51:34] Speaker 5: would say exactly that this is a lab experiment, a
[51:36] Speaker 5: lot on ew and electronic warfare, but really extraordinary. And
[51:39] Speaker 5: that's only just kind of quadrupolt at this point. And
[51:43] Speaker 5: you know, I mean, look back at the both the
[51:44] Speaker 5: Israelies and the United States initially rejecting Ukraine's assistants offers
[51:48] Speaker 5: of assistance and teaching us about drone warfare, and now
[51:51] Speaker 5: they're doing so. But we all said, we were there's
[51:54] Speaker 5: a lot of Hubert, there's a lot of arrogance, and
[51:55] Speaker 5: we said no at first. And uh, and take a
[51:59] Speaker 5: look at what these are facing now in southern Lebanon
[52:01] Speaker 5: with his bally using FPVS, which is which is scaring
[52:04] Speaker 5: the crap out of everybody, and it should and you
[52:08] Speaker 5: guys would know this much more. I mean, I don't
[52:09] Speaker 5: know if there's like this, you know, doctrine being rewritten
[52:11] Speaker 5: right now for you know, for land warfare. But this
[52:15] Speaker 5: idea of these you know, swarms of drones, I mean,
[52:18] Speaker 5: it's pretty wild because you've just seen lines just not
[52:20] Speaker 5: move for years on end. It's like old World War
[52:23] Speaker 5: One trenches, but it's because of drones that to me
[52:26] Speaker 5: is just incredible and that you know, what kind of
[52:28] Speaker 5: lessons do we in the Chinese take for the future,
[52:31] Speaker 5: but really interesting stuff.
[52:34] Speaker 6: We are training. You know, my company trains our folks
[52:37] Speaker 6: out here in Montana on the incorporation of lessons learned
[52:42] Speaker 6: from and it's it is, it is something we have
[52:45] Speaker 6: to get way ahead of. Drop the hubris. We don't
[52:48] Speaker 6: have the experience they do. That's what smart, smart armies
[52:53] Speaker 6: do that we we learn from others, right, and I
[52:55] Speaker 6: think we're doing it right now for sure.
[53:01] Speaker 1: Anything else, guys, that's like tickle in your fancy talk
[53:04] Speaker 1: to me.
[53:05] Speaker 3: I got a roll, I got Mother's Day.
[53:07] Speaker 1: Mark, get out of your happy Mother's Day, Yohn, you
[53:10] Speaker 1: track and anything I feel like you wanted to say,
[53:13] Speaker 1: late of Mark. Thanks.
[53:15] Speaker 2: Nothing in particular, except about the Internet in Iran. They
[53:18] Speaker 2: just put out there's a lot of more information coming
[53:20] Speaker 2: out these days about actually how it's it's operating. And
[53:22] Speaker 2: there's a very interesting thing called a white sim card
[53:25] Speaker 2: that the regime is actually letting people purchase and if
[53:28] Speaker 2: they have enough money they can buy this and it
[53:30] Speaker 2: actually lets them have complete access to the outside world.
[53:33] Speaker 2: So it's only certain registered users for example universities, hospitals,
[53:38] Speaker 2: defense industrial base and it's every every applicant is vetted
[53:41] Speaker 2: first before they gere given this card. So it's not
[53:43] Speaker 2: just if you have money you get it. You have
[53:45] Speaker 2: to actually be aligned with the regime to get it,
[53:48] Speaker 2: and it gives them total unrestricted access. And there's a
[53:50] Speaker 2: second thing called Internet pro which Iranians have to pay for.
[53:55] Speaker 2: So to put it in context, the average monthly salary
[53:57] Speaker 2: and around is three hundred dollars a month. Employment is
[54:01] Speaker 2: around sixty percent, so that means only forty percent of
[54:04] Speaker 2: those people are making three hundred dollars a month. The
[54:05] Speaker 2: others are making zero. One gigabyte of data is thirteen
[54:09] Speaker 2: dollars to get a gigabyte of data with a VPN,
[54:13] Speaker 2: So your average person, which is the majority of the country,
[54:16] Speaker 2: can barely afford a single gigabyte of data for a month.
[54:19] Speaker 2: To even communicate to the outside, well, that means like
[54:21] Speaker 2: going on Twitter and downloading a video, right, I mean
[54:24] Speaker 2: that's like one video one gig these days, whereas this
[54:27] Speaker 2: white sim has no limit on it. But there's a
[54:30] Speaker 2: huge there's like a twenty million Toman entry fee, which
[54:33] Speaker 2: is several thousand dollars. It's like hundreds of dollars per
[54:37] Speaker 2: month just to have the thing activated, and then it
[54:39] Speaker 2: charges you buy the gigabyte as you use it. So
[54:41] Speaker 2: it's a huge cash cow money making machine, which the
[54:44] Speaker 2: regime's very good at extracting black market fees of things.
[54:47] Speaker 2: This is another way they're doing it, and they're able
[54:49] Speaker 2: to still obviously monitor all the stuff that's going on
[54:51] Speaker 2: that Internet. It's not like it's free Internet. It's free
[54:54] Speaker 2: monitored internet that the regime is letting people use. So
[54:57] Speaker 2: I thought that was just kind of interesting that that's
[54:59] Speaker 2: now coming into the public sphere instead of there was
[55:02] Speaker 2: a lot of time in the past two months where
[55:03] Speaker 2: people were kind of like word of mouth telling each
[55:05] Speaker 2: other how to communicate outside the country because it was
[55:07] Speaker 2: so dangerous to do so. They executed a guy last week,
[55:10] Speaker 2: publicly hung him off of a crane because he had
[55:13] Speaker 2: a starlink terminal that he was using. So people are
[55:16] Speaker 2: very nervous about how to actually communicate with this. The
[55:18] Speaker 2: fact that the regime publicized these tools is kind of
[55:21] Speaker 2: interesting to see, and of course Iranians in Iran can't
[55:24] Speaker 2: see that because they can't even get on Twitter to
[55:25] Speaker 2: see that because they can't afford it. So there's a
[55:28] Speaker 2: very interesting divide going on. And back to your point earlier,
[55:31] Speaker 2: Mike about covert influence. Part of the reason I think
[55:33] Speaker 2: it's not effective in Iran is because people can't be
[55:36] Speaker 2: influenced using that kind of media because they can't get
[55:39] Speaker 2: on it. So if we did something like a lower
[55:42] Speaker 2: Earth orbit mesh network direct to sell communication something like
[55:46] Speaker 2: that to enable them to actually get on the Internet,
[55:48] Speaker 2: then we can start influencing them from abroad. Otherwise it's
[55:51] Speaker 2: going to be really tough logistically to access the amount
[55:55] Speaker 2: of people necessary to actually create some sort of unified
[55:58] Speaker 2: movement that COVID influence would seek to contain.
[56:02] Speaker 1: Hell, yeah, what's holding us back from doing that? What's
[56:05] Speaker 1: holding us back? How much would that cost? Ballpark?
[56:08] Speaker 2: The thing it costs is political will. If there's a will,
[56:11] Speaker 2: there's a way.
[56:14] Speaker 1: Political like us political will? Yeah, yeah, we already attack
[56:20] Speaker 1: the rails and stricts. Let's go for it. Yeah, I
[56:25] Speaker 1: would be The.
[56:26] Speaker 2: Thing that would change is how do you get those
[56:29] Speaker 2: things up there?
[56:29] Speaker 3: Right?
[56:29] Speaker 2: So what you have to do is launch. There's only
[56:30] Speaker 2: two launch points in the world that you could launch this.
[56:32] Speaker 2: There's actually three, but one's Chinese controlled together two are
[56:35] Speaker 2: in the United States, So you get to launch thousands
[56:37] Speaker 2: of these antennas up into space at low Earth orbit,
[56:41] Speaker 2: which is very possible. That's what starlink is, but it'd
[56:43] Speaker 2: have to be dedicated in geosynchronous orbit over Iran, or
[56:46] Speaker 2: it would have to be designed in such a way
[56:48] Speaker 2: that although it is not geosynchronous, it's still orbiting to
[56:51] Speaker 2: provide one hundred percent coverage twenty four hours a day,
[56:53] Speaker 2: which is way more expensive than geosynchronous. The problem with
[56:56] Speaker 2: geosynchronous is that it's much further away from the Earth,
[56:59] Speaker 2: so that means that there's different layers that would have
[57:01] Speaker 2: to be put into it so that it can still
[57:02] Speaker 2: communicate to the ground, and there's a couple of other
[57:04] Speaker 2: logistical problems with that. So that would require an entire
[57:08] Speaker 2: kind of industrial base to be built around this thing
[57:10] Speaker 2: that doesn't exist right now. In the government side. There
[57:13] Speaker 2: is a private sector option, which is Starlink, and there
[57:16] Speaker 2: are other competitors as well that Jeff Bezos is also
[57:19] Speaker 2: working on this too. So if the US wanted to,
[57:22] Speaker 2: like the government wanted to support this, that could support
[57:24] Speaker 2: the private sector in doing this because the infrastructures there.
[57:28] Speaker 2: We did that in Ukraine for a while and then
[57:30] Speaker 2: Elon Musk pulled back off of that and then went
[57:32] Speaker 2: back into it and allowed it again. But you'd probably
[57:34] Speaker 2: need some kind of protections over that because China would
[57:36] Speaker 2: probably start interfering with that communication. So there'd be those
[57:39] Speaker 2: kind of political layers built on top of it. It's
[57:42] Speaker 2: something that's not impossible at all, something that already exists now,
[57:45] Speaker 2: and it would just require us political will at the
[57:47] Speaker 2: government level to actually go and support that.
[57:50] Speaker 1: John quick question about that, is this something that can
[57:53] Speaker 1: be built by the military or the intelligence community, launched
[57:58] Speaker 1: and right now it would be over I RAN right
[58:01] Speaker 1: doing that for a RAN. Would it be able to
[58:03] Speaker 1: be moved to different if we needed it, like a
[58:05] Speaker 1: capability that we could use at different times in places
[58:08] Speaker 1: let's say another war popped up.
[58:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, we already have it. We already have these governments.
[58:14] Speaker 2: The thing is you've got to have ground systems, So
[58:16] Speaker 2: you can't just have the air terminals. You also have
[58:19] Speaker 2: to have ground terminals. You'd have repeaters depending on what
[58:21] Speaker 2: the type of system you're using, and for example, the phones,
[58:27] Speaker 2: so you can do direct to cell communication. You just
[58:29] Speaker 2: need to have that dedicated mesh network over the target area,
[58:34] Speaker 2: which requires a huge saturation of the airspace in that
[58:38] Speaker 2: that that bubble. So you can do it. It just
[58:40] Speaker 2: requires a lot more than the already is there because
[58:43] Speaker 2: on the military side, you're talking about a small footprint
[58:45] Speaker 2: Special Operations Force. For example, let's say in Africa, you
[58:48] Speaker 2: only need a few handsets that have the actual antenna
[58:51] Speaker 2: that can that can reach that far that that that
[58:53] Speaker 2: level of frequency, and you need a lot of power
[58:56] Speaker 2: to be able to keep that transmission open. And you
[59:00] Speaker 2: only need so many satellites if you have let's say
[59:02] Speaker 2: a team of fifteen to one hundred people using it.
[59:05] Speaker 2: If you've got millions of people using it, now you've
[59:07] Speaker 2: got a massive energy draw. You're going to have a
[59:09] Speaker 2: percentage of the equipment lost just for various accidental reasons.
[59:14] Speaker 2: So you need to have a lot of ass up
[59:16] Speaker 2: there basically with power which means solar power, a lot
[59:20] Speaker 2: of stuff up there, and also have people on the
[59:23] Speaker 2: ground that actually have the handsets that can communicate. And
[59:27] Speaker 2: the issue is if it's projecting too much energy down
[59:29] Speaker 2: it'll be easier to interfere with because IURAN will immediately
[59:33] Speaker 2: begin trying to interfere with that communication, whether that's with
[59:37] Speaker 2: jamming or other means, or with China helping them with
[59:40] Speaker 2: anti satellite weapons, with China has used, and actually most
[59:43] Speaker 2: of the space debris in orbit around the Earth is
[59:45] Speaker 2: because China use an anti space weapon, anti satellite weapon,
[59:49] Speaker 2: blew up a satellite a few years ago, and now
[59:52] Speaker 2: there's tens of thousands of pieces of space junk that
[59:54] Speaker 2: are damaging all of our active antennas up there because
[59:57] Speaker 2: of this one single strike they did. So we know
[59:59] Speaker 2: China can do it. They've demonstrated Russia also has a
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: GPS jaman capability that can mess up a lot of
[1:00:04] Speaker 2: this lower orbit stuff. So there's a lot of state
[1:00:07] Speaker 2: actor challenge built into this that's going to require an
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: expansion of the program plus US support the entire time.
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: It can't just be like a fire and forget thing.
[1:00:15] Speaker 2: We'd have to basically be a shield for this on
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: the ground and in the air as it's going through. Again,
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: not impossible.
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: How much ballpark.
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: Billy depends on how much you want to do. It's
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: in the billions, for sure, but I mean it's probably
[1:00:31] Speaker 2: not as much as the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier that
[1:00:33] Speaker 2: had a fire in its laundry room and now was
[1:00:35] Speaker 2: sitting in Subic Bay in a beautiful location.
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: To fifteen billion, I feel like that's yeah, the amount
[1:00:40] Speaker 1: of money we fucking throw around. I feel like this
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: is the capability that.
[1:00:43] Speaker 6: Keep the capacity for the Yeah, like you said.
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: It's a home run. I feel like, why wouldn't you
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: not try and do this, whether it's some kind of
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: hybrid with private sector or not. Frankly I would avoid that.
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: I mean, but it would also be an intelligence coup
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: for us because we'd be able to monitor all that traffic.
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: So like, if everyone's using this in in Iraq and
[1:01:02] Speaker 2: Emirates in Saudi Arabia, because all the Gulf countries will
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: want to use it too, and we can give them
[1:01:05] Speaker 2: metered access to it, and in doing so, we can
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: also monitor the communication. So like, it's like a win
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: for us long term strategically to have this thing up there,
[1:01:12] Speaker 2: because who else is going to put that up there?
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: It costs so much money. The barrier to entry is
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: very high.
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, So fifteen twenty billion that was mixed like private
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: jet budget. When he was at the Agency, I think
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: right Air America. Yeah, yeah, that sounds like something they
[1:01:31] Speaker 1: should totally be really seriously thinking about doing and like
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: uh scaling it as fast like expondent, like uh, you know,
[1:01:39] Speaker 1: make putting this to the front of the line in
[1:01:41] Speaker 1: terms of like an intelligence capability. I don't know why
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: they wouldn't.
[1:01:45] Speaker 6: Is it anywhere the freedom is washed?
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: Right?
[1:01:48] Speaker 6: Yeah, all these despotic governments would have their citizens actually
[1:01:53] Speaker 6: find it out the truth.
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: In Russia right now, that's a big problem. They're blocking Telegram,
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: which is a very common Russia tool, and it's being blocked.
[1:02:01] Speaker 2: That would be a thing you could just put overhead
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: mesh network direct to cell communication back on telegram.
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:02:08] Speaker 6: Wow, Well maybe we are working on this, but we
[1:02:11] Speaker 6: need to speed it up.
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's viable. That's super cool. All right, boys, always
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: a pleasure, as you know. Blah blah blah.
[1:02:21] Speaker 2: Go.
[1:02:21] Speaker 1: I want everyone to do me a favorite. Check out
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: the white Fish Security Summit. That link is in the description.
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: The next summit is February. End of February February twenty seventh,
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: the weekend of that or the right.
[1:02:32] Speaker 6: Before twenty fourth, twenty six.
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: Twenty fourth to the twenty six Apologies of course, Jonathan
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: Hackett his books Iran, Shadow Weapons and the Theory of
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: a regular warfare or is it warfare?
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: War war and actually talk in the book about why
[1:02:46] Speaker 2: it's not warfare. It's very important.
[1:02:47] Speaker 1: Hell yeah, so if you yeah, check that out. Andy
[1:02:50] Speaker 1: Milburn of course, great book. All the links are down
[1:02:52] Speaker 1: to the description. Mark p if you want to tell him
[1:02:54] Speaker 1: he's a liberal. His twitter's down in the description. Anything
[1:02:58] Speaker 1: you need and the best place to help support to
[1:03:00] Speaker 1: show is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. You get
[1:03:03] Speaker 1: ad free episodes and early episodes of both The Team
[1:03:06] Speaker 1: House and as on And thanks again guys, a pleasure
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: and Happy Mother's Day.
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: Happy Mother's Day.
[1:03:16] Speaker 7: Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell
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