Ceasefire Between Israel and Syria | Eyes On Geopolitics

In this episode, the hosts discuss the recent ceasefire in Syria, the complexities surrounding the Druze community, Israel's strategic interests, Turkey's involvement in the Syrian conflict, and the implications of Iran's nuclear ambitions. They also address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the challenges of international aid, emphasizing the need for a renewed commitment to humanitarian assistance and the importance of promoting democracy in the region. Follow our Newsletter! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️ https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.com Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Find 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 00:00 Ceasefire in Syria: A Fragile Peace 06:34 The Druze Community: History and Current Dynamics 12:30 The Role of the International Community in Syria 18:17 Iran's Nuclear Ambitions and Regional Stability 39:05 The Risks of Nuclear Confrontation 40:54 The Path to a New Nuclear Agreement 48:26 Criticism of Israeli Policies and U. S. Interests 52:46 Humanitarian Crisis and U. S. Foreign Aid Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair. This is an advertisement for Zolair

• 1:28Speaker 02

  paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Mick Mulroy, Jason Lyons, and I'm Demetri Kontakos. Lot happening as usual. The big stuff that popped off was Israel bombed Syria last week. Hit the Ministry of Defense, hit the Presidential Palace or in and around the Presidential Palace. Since then, Syria and Israel have come to a ceasefire that's been supported by Turkey, Jordan, and the US, obviously. You know, a lot happening there. That was like a quick one-second thing, but you know, obviously, to go from bombing a country to ceasefire within three or four days is pretty dramatic. So Mick, what are you tracking with that?

• 2:25Speaker 04

  Well, first of all, it's a good thing there's a ceasefire. The last thing Syrian people need is another civil war. They've been through over a decade. They've lost over 300,000 people, displaced millions of people. It's a good thing that Turkey, Jordan, the US did broker the ceasefire.

• 2:48Speaker 04

  Just to catch people up, there is a group, a minority religious group called the Druze. They are in Syria, predominantly in Sowoda province, which is in the southern part of Syria. There's about 700,000 of them. They're also in Lebanon. I think there's like 300,000 in Lebanon. And there's around 150,000 Druze in Israel. And they are...

• 3:17Speaker 04

  They are... Many of them are in the IDF, in senior positions.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  They are... And I am an expert on Druze and obviously, I did know about them, quite frankly, before this incident. But basically, they split from Shia Islam a long time ago, like 1017 or something like that. They're very distinct. They have their own religion and it's not open to conversion. And it hasn't been for a long, long time. It's very secretive, but it has like a mixture of a form of Islam. And it really does have a component of Greek philosophy, which obviously, you know, as somebody who follows Stoicism is kind of interesting to me. But they're very distinct. And I bring this up because there are groups that consider them heretics, you know, Muslim groups,

• 4:10Speaker 04

  particularly the group that supports or did support, now ostensibly part of the Syrian military, Islamic jihadists, right? HTS, former Al Qaeda in Syria, Al-Nusra Front and the like.

• 4:27Speaker 04

  So there is a natural conflict there, unfortunately. The Druze do not support the government in Damascus, so the transitional government led by the interim president Ahmed al-Shara. So that's, that's one component. And they were fighting with, although they are Arabs, they were fighting with Bedouin Arabs in the southern part, partly because of territory, partly, I think some would say because they compete for economic trade, even illicit drugs trade. I'm not saying they do or they don't, but that's one of the accusations against at least a part of them.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  But they don't want the government forces of Ahmed al-Shara, who they consider hostile to them in Shuwa. Okay. After this started and people started dying, we saw a lot of the stuff posted, the government sent forces in there, they said, to quell the violence. There's apparently a misconception by the part of the al-Shara government that that wouldn't be a red line for Israel. Obviously, that was a misconception. I think it's kind of hard for me to believe they didn't know that, since Israel has made it very clear that they don't, they also don't trust al-Shara's government, who they

• 5:50Speaker 04

  still refer to as Jelani, his name to go as a, as a member of the Newsreel Front and formerly a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq. And they don't want them on their border. That's why they struck all they could of the Syrian military capacity, right when Assad fled and al-Shara took over. That said, I would point out that Israel, if you were just protecting the Druze, there wouldn't really be a reason to strike and destroy, you know, the Ministry of Defense in Damascus, or strike around the presidential palace. So from Israel's perspective...

• 6:32Speaker 04

  Yes, they have a historical connection to the Druze. They have a lot of Druze with influence in Israel, but there's also a much broader strategic issue here with Israel not wanting any government forces near their border. So that's at least my summary of what's happening. This is very precarious. If this were to kick off again, if Israel and the government in Damascus were to go head to head, one, it wouldn't be much of a fight, but this could kick off other conflicts. You know, we obviously have the Kurds who have an agreement with the government, but that's not going that well. We could see essentially a breakdown.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  The international community is doing what they can. I think we have, we have cut sanctions. Europe also, there's, we're looking at investments in the infrastructure development humanitarian assistance that would support this government that we need to stay until it has an opportunity for a full vote. It's supposed to be five years so the Syrian people can choose who they want to represent them. Because even with the Reformation talks of Sharaw, he is not an elected leader. There will be parliamentary elections in August. So we're starting to take a step toward that. But I think it's important that people know that this is still

• 8:00Speaker 04

  a very tenuous situation and it's not only in the interest, obviously, of the Syrian people, but the region not to have yet another complete breakdown of Syria, which destabilizes the region and could send another wave of, you know, refugees into Europe, which is obviously not something the Europeans want to see.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Kind of a long-winded summary, but.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  No, it's pretty good. Yeah, it was a good one. Yeah. I'll be honest with you, I completely forgot that the Druze, other than in the IDF, were a major part of Israeli culture, except for when I did started hearing about this incident, it reminded me back when I was a kid, teenager. And correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't there a big incident in Lebanon involving the Druze? A massacre at a refugee camp or something like that?

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 05

  That was the first time I remember hearing about them.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  Right. So they're definitely a persecuted minority group.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  You know, I don't want to act like I'm a Muslim or a religious scholar here, but they have a different interpretations of the Prophet Muhammad's status. I don't believe they think he's a prophet, but it's very difficult to learn about their religion because they, they're pretty closed. But I bring that up again because there is a conflict between those who would view them as non-believers and then, you know, obviously the extremist elements of that would try to take violence against them for it. So they've been protecting themselves for a long time. They've existed. They fled from Egypt into the mountains of Syria predominantly, and they still, they're still there. And I think Israel views them somewhat

• 9:42Speaker 04

  as a, you know, a natural ally and also because they do have influence in Israel. I mean, I've known several very senior IDF officers who are, who are Druze, right? So they, they have, and Israel doesn't want to see, you know, 150,000 Druze flee into, not flee, but go into southern Syria to defend themselves, which they will, and they started doing. I was gonna say, I heard they started. Yes. Yeah, it's right there, right? So it's not that far. And then, then you've got Israeli, Israelis in there and it's, the best thing is, you know, I think, not that they're asking

• 10:22Speaker 04

  me, is the government Damascus focus on international development, getting food to the people and moving toward a government that represents the people, but I mean by represents, they actually chose, right? And if they're, if they're good and they do all these things right, then maybe they'll be the ones they choose. If they don't, if they, if they focus all their efforts on, you know, military activities against the minority groups, well, obviously those minority groups aren't going to vote for you. So that's something I think the US can assist with. We obviously want to see a stable Syria and it might just need some diplomatic coaching right now.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  I have a question about like the history of the Druze and in Israel.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  And correct me if I'm wrong. In 1967, when that went down and Syria took the Golan Heights, isn't that when like the majority of the Druze population was joined, joined in Israel when they like annexed the Golan Heights?

• 11:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think they, I think they're predominantly for the go, from the Golan Heights. I don't want to like go past my level of expertise on the Druze. I read a lot about them. You might guess because I talked about it on ABC quite a bit this week. But I knew no several, but I don't want to, I do believe they're predominantly in the Golan Heights. Yes. Absolutely.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Um, and there was some, uh, there's talk of, not talk, it's happening. Israel's moving to two divisions up towards there. Uh, and they're looking like they are going to go into, uh, what's the area called? Swahita? I don't want to.

• 11:58Speaker 04

  Swahita, Swahita.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Swahita.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  It's yeah, province, the southern province of Syria. Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, well, I'm the cynical guy, right? I'm going to be honest. It's a land grab. I'm going to say what I think. It's the land grab by Israel. And they could, they could, you know, because I had Jack Murphy on the other day and he made a good point. It's like, well, how can you pick and choose what minority groups you give a shit about?

• 12:26Speaker 04

  Well, we do. Just throwing it out there.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  I don't agree with that either. I don't agree with that either. Yeah, that's fucked too.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  I think most, I mean, it's a fair point. It's a fair point. You could, and, and Israel has basically made it a no go for the, for the, uh, government, the transitional government, right? So in a way you could say that it's a land grab in the sense that they won't, they just won't accept them down on their border. Um, but the, but the, yeah, it's more than just protecting a minority. It's also the strategic interests of Israel.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  I don't think anybody thinks that's not true. Another factor that's complicated this is there's no one voice for the Druze in Swahita. Right? So you get like three leaders to say, okay, yes, he's firing. Then you got this guy, uh, Hickmott that, uh, is head of the. Syrian, not the Syrian, the Suède Military Council. Another factor if you, to put in a little bit of the-

• 13:22Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 13:37Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic. In a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 13:48Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 13:53Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 13:59Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  The perspective of the government in Damascus is they think a lot of the Assad regime fled and is in Suède, right? They couldn't get out of the country. And they believe that this Suède Military Council has many of the members or former regime members, who they obviously strongly oppose. And then the government of Damascus would also point out they believe that a lot of the illicit drug trade happens down there. But they, of course, want to, on the flip side of that, they want to control all of Syria. But let's, let's go back to the legitimacy issue, right? So there needs to be a stable government in Damascus. They're it. I think that's why the US government is supporting them. I'm not opposed to that.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  But let's also point out that they didn't get elected to be in Damascus. They just took over by force, right? So the Jeffersonian democracy that speak about them is a little overstated, I would say, to be fair on all sides. We have to see what they do. They're saying a lot of the right thing, but there's also a lot of jihadists that are in that government. And that is, I think, a legitimate concern of Israel. Does it necessitate taking strikes inside Damascus? Probably not. But, I mean, let's be fair to all sides and let the, you know, let the listeners make their opinion.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Andy Milburn, Colonel, how are you, sir?

• 15:44Speaker 04

  What's up, Professor?

• 15:46Speaker 09

  Good to see you guys again.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  Now I can't see you because I got the wrong layout.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Oh, shit.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  I didn't even know you were there.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, Andy just joined us, of course, Andy Milburn. Uh, what are you, what are you tracking with the whole Syria, Israel's, you know, now with the ceasefire?

• 16:04Speaker 09

  Well, I came in on the, uh, on the tail end of, uh, Mick's, Mick's talk there, but I, so knowing Mick, I will say right up front that everything he said was right and I agree with him 100%. And I don't want to add anything, but it'd be redundant. No, but I, I will say a couple of things perhaps that are, you know, not just for the sake of being controversial, Mick. I agreed, uh, that, uh, Al-Jalani's, uh, the, the Al-Jalani, uh, sponsored government or brokered government or initiated government there in Damascus is not a democratic government, but you know, I sometimes wonder if we aren't too wedded to the concept of democracy.

• 16:48Speaker 09

  It hasn't worked well for us and hasn't worked well generally in, in the Middle East. You know, a, a leap to so-called democracy. I think about, okay, I know I'm on thin ice here. But I think, I think, you know, I think we have to put, I think we have to expect that there is going to be a, uh, sorry, I, I think we have to expect that there's going to be an interim period, um, uh, government that doesn't look democratic. And, uh, and I think that may not be a bad thing. I mean, think about our own experiences in Iraq, uh, you know, with the democratic government actually brought around ISIS because it was democratic in the sense that it represented a Shia majority, but they, uh,

• 17:33Speaker 09

  they, they were heavily punitive on the Sunni minority and it ultimately resulted in, in bad things. So, you know, in, in order to have a functioning.

• 17:44Speaker 09

  I'm pausing here for a moment because I'm wondering about our own, our own model. In order to have a functioning effective democratic government, you need a broadly educated middle class. And that, right now, that middle class is no longer existent in Syria. Everyone who could escape has escaped. And so this may be, this may be the best hope we can hope for.

• 18:06Speaker 04

  So I assume you mean like promoting democracies overseas, not, not our democracy, right, Andy?

• 18:13Speaker 09

  Uh, yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  We're still good with, you know? Yeah. No, I get what you're saying, man. It's totally, I do, I do concede that the idea that we can just go around the world making everybody democracy is, is just not going to happen. I think we should promote it. I mean, that's what we are. But to your point, not every country is ready for it. All I'm saying is, if you don't want minorities to fight back, claiming you're the legitimate government in Damascus because you took it by force, is not a good argument for why another group can't try to take your position by force, right? So there is no, there's no, there's no moral right there. So all I'm saying is they need to prove that they want to lead the country.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  Ultimately, that should be the choice of the people, or it's going to stay fractured the entire time. Because if they're going to try to dominate the minority, the minorities who is all armed, this is the Middle East, right? And the SDF is of course armed by us. They're, they're going to say, okay, well, I guess Mike's right, so I'm going to, I'm going to take you on the battlefield. And I don't think that's in the, in the interest of anybody in Syria. They have a lot, they should focus on developing the country, building up any kind of economy, because you're right, I think 80% of the population is below the poverty limit. And then, you know, humanitarian assistance and that.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  And then hopefully, they prove that they should be running the country and then, because there is elections coming up. So a forum in, in August for the parliament. So they're trying to move that way, which I think is good. But that's, that's why I think, what it, what it does in addition to promoting democracy, which has been part of our foreign policy, it also gives people buy-in to the government.

• 20:06Speaker 04

  Right, long term. They had a vote, win or lose, just like us, it's, you know, that it's buy-in to the government. If not, the government says, hey, I'm the government because I took over from the last jackass that tried to tell you what to do by the tip of a gun, then they don't have any buy-in. It's just gonna be fractured and, you know.

• 20:29Speaker 09

  Yeah, I agree with that 100%. And, you know, there was, there's so many more things. I mean, so far, so good, though. I have to say that. There's so many things that could have gone cataclysmically wrong in Syria. I mean, you think about all the churn going on there. You've got the Alawites who now feel threatened. You've got a population, the majority of whom are extremely angry at the Alawites and associate that sect with Assad and the previous regime and all the horrific things that went on. And yes, there have been, there has been retribution, that, you know, there has been fighting between

• 21:14Speaker 09

  Al-Jalani's mob and the Alawites. But it's not as bad. It hasn't turned into a wholesale massacre the way people thought about. You think about the SDF, the Kurds and the Turks, the fact that they backed Al-Jalani, you'd think also another potential would be an out-and-out civil war between the Turkish-backed Arab groups and the Kurds. And that has been fighting, but it hasn't broken into a whole-scale war yet, you know. So there are...

• 21:43Speaker 04

  Oh goodness.

• 21:44Speaker 09

  Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of, a lot of really bad things that could have happened that have not yet happened. And there do seem, I will say this, regardless of Jalani's background, there do seem to be some really mature, sensible voices in the administration, in the regime that has taken over now. I mean, at least they're saying the right things. So all of these are positive indications.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we've had, you know, and I've had direct contact with a lot of them. And I think they are, at least the ones I've talked to, mostly about humanitarian stuff, do have the interests of the people throughout Syria in mind. So I'd have to give them that. And I'd have to give the administration, ours, a credit, Secretary Rubio, for moving pretty quick on this and getting this, getting this stopped. Like you said, this could have been far worse. It could have kept escalating and it could have turned, it could have turned even worse than it was, way worse than it was. I think we're...

• 22:40Speaker 05

  So, sorry, Mick. Let me ask you, us aside and Israel aside, what role do you guys think that Turkey will play in Syria moving forward? Or do they only care about the North, Northwest? Is that it? Or will they get involved wholeheartedly?

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Oh, they're involved wholeheartedly. They, they, they supported the interim president. They supported his efforts throughout. And I think that's, that's the other, not danger, well, I had danger. So you get a lot of tension between Turkey and Israel. If, I'm not saying that that could happen, but if it did happen, it would be dire consequence. If there was actually a conflict between a NATO ally in Turkey, who's obviously a very modern, advanced military, and Israel, who's obviously a very modern and advanced military, that'd be like a nightmare scenario. And I'm not saying it's likely to happen, but it's like the worst case scenario.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  If, because they support Shalani, I mean, El Shara, and Israel does not, they do not buy into the reformist idea of what Shalani, and then the US does. So the US does, we've, we've removed the sanctions part, the sanctions that can be removed by the president. So the executive action sanctions, not the congressionally passed ones. And it looks like we're really moving to normalize relations. So the United States is kind of right there in the middle. But to Andy's point, this could have been far worse. Let's make sure diplomatically it doesn't get far worse.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, we had a Charles Lister on Middle East Institute before. He wrote a couple of days ago that Israel's like essentially position was ever since Al Shara took over was light regime change. And that's what they were like, uh, which I don't know what that means. Which, uh, what is what they were lobbying the US government for. Sorry, Andy, I cut you off.

• 24:45Speaker 09

  Yeah, no, the only thing I was gonna say is that both Turkey and Israel.

• 24:51Speaker 09

  You know, there are, they are rational actors in the sense that they are not going to come to blows against one another. You know, they remember the, um, uh, I mean, they, they, they've, they've gone through periods of, uh, of having bad relations. Remember that, um, uh, the incident, when was that? Back in 2009? Or rather 2010 where that Turkish bro, the Mamaris broke the blockade in Gaza and Flotilla 13 intercepted it. And well, they came to blows there. Uh, but, but in the end, but you know, again, everyone talked about then. Uh, deteriorating situation, possible conflict, but it's, it's just not going to happen between those two.

• 25:36Speaker 09

  They, they continue a dialogue, at least their militaries continue a dialogue, especially their, their respective air forces. They know that that would be bad for both countries, uh, to, you know, they're not by no means friends, but they are both. They understand they're rational actors in the same way that Israel and Egypt are. But, uh, yes, there, there is definitely a, a divergence of, of interest there. And there, and there's some divergence of interest frankly, between the United States and Turkey and Syria. We just haven't got, you know, we've seen that in the past when we were backing the SDF. And, um, I think we're likely to, to see it again going ahead. I mean, we're walking a fine line.

• 26:21Speaker 09

  I think it was a good decision by the administration to lift the sanctions and give this government a chance. Because anything is better than what has been happening to Syria since 2011. Uh, but.

• 26:35Speaker 09

  But in the end, we've got to bear in mind that the Turks have an agenda in that part of the world that is not always, it's not always aligned with our own interests.

• 26:50Speaker 04

  Yes, very true. And there was an Israeli minister, I don't remember which one, that called for assassination of President Al Sharawi. So, yeah, that's, obviously, Charles is super smart on Syria. I go to him to get, get information for sure. But there, there, yeah, there's a lot of tension in Israel when it comes to that government.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  At least from that minister, it's beyond just a soft regime change, right? It's a direct.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we'll see what goes down. Hopefully, the ceasefire holds and less people get killed. Moving on to.

• 27:28Speaker 09

  I would be remiss if I didn't comment that I love your haircut.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Thanks, I appreciate that. I'm trying to look like you.

• 27:36Speaker 04

  High and tight?

• 27:36Speaker 03

  That's what I'm trying, that's what I'm going for, yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  It's like a popular haircut now.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Like, walking around town, I mean, this, by the way, this week, my town goes from like nine thousand to like forty nine thousand, because we have a massive

• 27:55Speaker 04

  concert. It's like three days of country music. It's awesome. You hear it from my house, but you're seeing a lot of new people in town, obviously, and there's a lot of the marine haircuts. I don't know if it's a style now or what?

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, it's more of a fade rather than like a high and tight, but. Yeah, it's the style, yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 09

  He's even got like the, you know, the Lance Corporal mustache where you're trying to get away.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  Just outside of regs.

• 28:19Speaker 09

  Just inside of regs. That's my, that's my first sergeant used to say, hey, if you're ever looking in the mirror and going, damn, that's a fine looking mustache, then it's out of regs.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  So that's why they have like these weird ass like, super tight.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, can't go past you, like.

• 28:40Speaker 09

  Hmm.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  Course, I mean, it makes sense.

• 28:43Speaker 09

  Caterpillar. No, anyway, don't, don't diminish from my compliment.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  No, please keep, keep, no, keep complimenting me. This could be a show entirely about complimenting me.

• 28:53Speaker 09

  I'm sure you're turning heads there in Brooklyn.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  I always, yeah, of course. It's like a daily occurrence for me. All right. New battle damage assessment just dropped like it's an album uh on Iran and what went down there. Uh, they said that Ford out was completely not, I mean, destroyed or taken back. A good amount of time, but Isfahan and what was the other one? Was it Natanz?

• 29:17Speaker 09

  Yep.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, that they were, you know, it was basically uh.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Not super, it wasn't destroyed, you know.

• 29:25Speaker 09

  Wasn't obliterated?

• 29:27Speaker 03

  No, it wasn't obliterated.

• 29:28Speaker 09

  Obliterated.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Oh, the other thing was Sencom did um propose a larger campaign that took, may have taken weeks. Um, that President Trump said no to, he decided to do this, the one night only thing. Um. Would, I mean, I don't think, is that really shocking that Sencom has a plan about like a multi-day air campaign over around? Like it's been, we've been planning this for 25 years.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Yes, you always have three courses of actions and he, Andy and Jay will tell you, right? You have the one that's like really high and they got the one you want is the middle and then one you definitely don't want is at the bottom, right? So, you know, I'm sure said comes said, we could do this operation for a month. No one that, you know, the president is likely going to say no, and then he's going to go with the second one, right? It's like the Goldilocks uh effect. Um, you know, we knew this was going to happen, right? BDA's get better with time. We get more people talking on phones that wouldn't. We get human assets to get access that didn't have it immediately after. Obviously, it makes sense. For hours where we dropped, I think that was the one we dropped 12, you know, GPU 57s, right? So who's designed to destroy subterranean?

• 30:41Speaker 04

  Uh, the other ones, Israel hit a lot of surface strikes. I think there was two at, uh, was it Natanz? Um, so I think we can expect that. So it's, it's lining up. The only thing I would say is.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  We still control the air over Iran. So this doesn't, if, if, if we have the intelligence, it says they are either rebuilding that. I think Israel will go ahead and strike. Or what we don't know is the stuff that's most concerning. It looks like a lot of the highly enriched uranium did survive. They could probably move to a black site. In other words, one we don't know about and start heading toward it at a time when the IAEA cooperation is now over. So this is not over. That's what is my point. And I don't think we should view it as, okay, we struck them and now we're not going to talk about Iran nuclear ambitions. Iran probably has a nuclear ambition now, maybe that they didn't have before, you know,

• 31:39Speaker 04

  the war with Israel and the, and the strikes. Right. They said over and over again, that if you ever, we ever strike their facilities, they're definitely going to try to get a nuclear weapon. So I think we should listen to them and just expect that this might require, you know, mowing the grass, as we used to say. We might have to do this over and over again. Not a good thing, but until Iran comes back to the negotiation table, we get an agreement and they allow the IAEA back in, I think we can expect this. Boys, Andy, Jay?

• 32:11Speaker 09

  Yeah, I am. No, I mean, I, I agree again with everything Mick said. One day I'm going to have to find things to argue about with him, but I will say this, I know, and I'm just not, I'm not just saying this against the purpose of being contrary. I think that we just have to accept sooner or later Iran's going to get a nuclear weapon. It is what it is, you know, and it's not an existential threat to the United States. It's not necessarily in our interest. It's certainly not in our interest. Sooner or later it's going to happen. More concerning for us is the, is the prospect of Iran continuing its malign actions in the Middle East and being a disruptive influence.

• 32:51Speaker 09

  And that really does, is, is in, in contravention of our interests, you know? So I guess where I'm heading on this is. Again, this is putting me, I know, way out in left field, but it understanding that sooner or later Iran's probably going to develop a nuclear weapon. With that in mind, you know, I think, I think we drive a hard bargain as far as supporting Iran, supporting proxies and focus on that side of the equation. And not get sucked into too much to Israel's argument about, you know, this is an existential threat to Israel, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 33:33Speaker 09

  Is it an existential threat to Israel? Israel's got nuclear weapons. You know, remember the Cold War? I mean, we were both, both your Soviet Union and the United States were existential threats to each other, but it never came to blows because everyone understood that.

• 33:47Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 34:02Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 34:13Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 34:18Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 34:24Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 34:44Speaker 09

  Iran, in the end of the day, the Iranian administration, I'm not justifying them, I'm not saying they're good guys, but they're rational actors. I, and again, I know this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but I, but I, I think in the end, it's, I mean, we just have to be realist. It's, it's gonna happen. It may not be, they're not gonna have, I don't think they're gonna have a formidable array of nuclear weapons, but certainly I think they'll get one.

• 35:12Speaker 09

  But that's not, that's not, for me, that wouldn't be my biggest concern. My biggest concern would be that they would continue to do what they've been doing since the 1980s, which is just fuel the whole region with massive instability, supporting bad things. And that is what we should be going after. That is what is in opposition to US interests. Uh, we don't, our interests don't mirror those of Israel. And yes, the Israelis have, since time immemorial, the last few decades, been banging the drum on, hey, this is an existential threat to us. I would even argue that it's not. It's not even an existential threat to Israel for the reasons that I have stated. And I think we need to bear all of that in mind.

• 35:56Speaker 09

  Can't follow up with either of those. Those were, those are, they're both great points. I mean, by all means, by all means, go ahead and mow the grass, yes. But, but at the same time, we need to be talking to Iran. And we need to be saying, behind, you know, behind the curtain, we need to be telling them, hey, whatever happens on this, this side, okay, you know, we're against proliferation, all that shit. But if you start supporting groups like the Houthis, not start, continue supporting groups like the Houthis or Hamas or Hezbollah, again, that's, that's really gonna get our goat. And that is what's gonna piss us off.

• 36:36Speaker 09

  Or if you start fueling the Syria, if you start opposing the Syrian regime again and, and fueling the opposition there, that's gonna really piss us off. That's when we're gonna come down hard on you. Those are the things that we should be concerned about most.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  And on that point, I mean, we just, or the Yemeni government just seized, what, 700 tons? I think it was the biggest one yet of, uh, very advanced weapons going from Iran into Yemen, right? So they hadn't stopped, right? Even with all this going on, they haven't stopped. And we just saw last week two commercial ships. I actually knew some of the security guys that were, uh, on them, um, that were sunk. Struck, sunk, people killed, civilians killed. And I'm sure a lot of those weapon systems came directly from Iran. They use this proxy force as some kind of way to skirt responsibility. And to Andy's point, maybe we should just start holding them directly responsible for

• 37:35Speaker 04

  everything that they, especially when they're launching, you know, advanced cruise missiles that they obviously didn't make up in Houthi land at particularly commercial vessels.

• 37:50Speaker 09

  We've kind of been giving them a bye on this. You know, we make a big thing of the nuclear weapons, but think way back in Iraq when US soldiers were being killed by weapons supplied by Iran. You know, we've talked about it. We said we brought pressure on them, but we haven't really held their face to the grindstone to mix my metaphors, right? I mean, we haven't, we haven't really made this a red line. And I think it's time to do that.

• 38:19Speaker 05

  So let me ask then, if, if they do get a nuclear weapon, do you think that that would cause them to now bump up what they're doing already? Because it's kind of like, you know, what are you going to do? We have a nuclear weapon now. So now we're really going to supply the Houthis. Now we're really going to start shitting Syria. Or do you think that they, I'm going to say, I doubt this is probably a rhetorical question. Or do you think once they get it, they'll be like, okay, we're happy now and just back up?

• 38:50Speaker 09

  I mean, it's a great point, but I, but I think, you know, we call that bluff. I mean, you know, United States is a nuclear, has a vast nuclear array. Of course, Israel has a nuclear array. We, we think, we speculate that's bound to be far greater than Iran is able to build in the next 50 years. So again, we're dealing with the rational actor. Iran can hold the prospect of nuclear weapons all at once, but in the end, we know they're not going to use them and we can bring. We can bring pressure to bear as though they are not a nuclear nation. I don't, I don't think it changes the calculus is what I'm saying in the way that North Korea

• 39:33Speaker 09

  being a nuclear country changes the calculus with North Korea. You've got a truly, you know, you've, you've got a guy who is totally irrational and doesn't give a shit how many of his population are killed. And, and at the end, you know, it's not a, it's not the same model as the Soviet Union or, or even Iran, and we have to recognize that, that, you know, that if we could, if we could go back in time, that's one thing that we certainly would do. Pakistan is a nuclear nation and we've seen some, we've seen some nut jobs in, in charge of Pakistan, but at the end of the day, these are the, the United States. We're relatively comfortable with Pakistan, so I'm going to do anything against overtly,

• 40:18Speaker 09

  overtly against our interests, but there's always the prospect that Pakistan's going to use nuclear weapons against India. You know, I mean, we're walking a fine line across the globe on this topic, but I just, again, I'm just saying from our perspective, from the perspective of, of US interests, what has really hurt us and will continue to hurt us or Iranian, is Iranian malign action in the Middle East. That is, that is what we really should be focusing on.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  Would be interesting to see what the intelligence community said about if, if there was a kickoff of a nuclear weapons arms race, right? So would that stabilize or destabilize the region with everybody? You know, it's kind of like walking into a bar where everybody's armed. People tend to be polite, you know? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. And you can do that actually in Montana, but that's a, that's a good question. I don't even know what the intelligence community's assessment of that would be. Would it, you know, because there's a concept during the Cold War, the mutually assured destruction, right?

• 41:24Speaker 04

  So MAD, that it kept it a Cold War because it was, it was in no country's interest, the US or the Soviet Union, to have a hot war when we were both armed to the teeth with thousands of deliverable nuclear weapons. I don't know. But that'd be, be interesting to see if we could get somebody on the show that has worked in that area of analysis.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  And it'd be interesting to see if somebody would actually say that that would be the case. Cause like, I feel like if there is an actual intelligence assessment like that, maybe 20 years ago or whatever, it would ever be released. Because, you know, there are people that don't want Iran to have a bomb. They don't want the Saudis to have a bomb. You know, because a Shia bomb is gonna, you know, start a Sunni bomb.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. The other issue is this is that the uh nuclear confrontations are not regional. Right. If you see the, you can, you can look at this on YouTube. If there was a regional uh limited exchange of nuclear weapons in India, Pakistan, I mean, it dramatically affects the entire world ecosystem. Like severely. Not like, oh, it's a little dark today. No, we're talking like crop production goes down 15, 20%. It's a, it's a real um global consequence.

• 42:46Speaker 09

  And I, and I would say that is we are far greater risk of that happening. Indeed, it's come close to happening back in the late 90s. Than we are of Iran and and Israel really using, squaring off and, and

• 43:03Speaker 09

  and using nuclear weapons, I guess what I'm saying, first strike or not on either side. I think both countries in the end are rational enough not to do that. But I'm not, now for, for the audience, I'm not saying that Pakistan and India are not rational actors, but I'm saying the level of hatred between those two countries takes them to the point where perhaps they cease to be objectively rational, you know, and I, and the last thing I'll say on this is, and I remember having a uh Pakistani Brigadier, he was a very charming guy and um, you know, brought up in the British tradition. That's probably why he was charming, you know, played cricket, was uh drank tea and all of these things.

• 43:46Speaker 09

  And yet, when we started talking about India and we started talking about, what, what was the incident in the late 90s? Was it Kargal? Am I pronouncing it right? Um.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  Sounds right.

• 43:55Speaker 09

  And and and he talked about the fact that Pakistan has a policy of first strike. All right, a first a first strike preemptively. Okay, if they think India is going to drop the bomb, their policy is we're going to do it first. All right. And he was quite open about this. That is scary. I mean, that really is scary, because as Mick says, that's not going to just affect Pakistan and India. That is a constant threat that I think because it's been around for so long, we kind of underplay.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 09

  I guess what I'm trying to say is, what I'm trying to say again is Israel having a nuclear bomb. I mean, sorry, Iran having a nuclear bomb, while certainly not something that we want, is perhaps not as as a disastrous event as we may, or the Israelis betray it.

• 44:52Speaker 04

  I think the best course of action, if we could sweeten the pot, if you will, is to get them back in a nuclear agreement.

• 44:58Speaker 09

  Hundred percent.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  And if they could develop an economy, because they have super intelligent people, advanced society, very innovative. If we could, and you brought this up earlier, Andy, if we could get them to have a sizable middle class, right? That's what stabilizes countries. Every country has really poor and really rich people. I don't know where you go. It's the middle class that stabilizes that.

• 45:23Speaker 09

  Yeah, educated.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  In education and, you know, a sound economic base where people are, you know, comfortable, they can secure livelihood for their families. That's that's where they need to go. And I don't think they're going to get there unless they let back into the global economy. And that's only going to come with a nuclear agreement, you know, a new. The issue is, does the regime care about the regime only? Or do they care at all about the people of Iran?

• 45:54Speaker 03

  But Mick, let me, let me, uh, let me ask Andy and Jay, like, let's say they do come together and come back with a new agreement and it's JCPOA 2.0 with some like added things or whatever, right?

• 46:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  What's to stop, yeah, what's to stop Israel from undermining that agreement like they did from 2005, 2015 onwards?

• 46:16Speaker 05

  I don't think there's anything. I mean.

• 46:18Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying, like, we could do all this work, this diplomatic work, people grinding for years or decades at a time, and just for Israel to be like, you know what? We're gonna fucking bomb them again because we feel threatened. Even though I would argue this is going to accelerate their, their nuclear program rather than them, even Netanyahu saying they're a year away in his speech right after he bombed them.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  I mean, I think the US would have, put a lot of pressure, obviously, and we do give them a sizable portion of their defense budget is coming from the US taxpayer. Uh, I would like to hear their argument. I, I don't disagree with your point, Dee, but I like to hear their argument. We say, well, we just got an agreement. President Trump has said no enrichment in Iran. And if we feel that we can validate it, and they're not enriching at all, so they're part of this multinational consortium of, you know, they get, you know, enriched uranium from outside the country to use for their nuclear program. And let's, let's face it, they have, energy is not an issue for Iran, so the need for a nuclear program is not as high as other places.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  But if we get to that and Iran, I mean, excuse me, Israel still tries to, I, I would have to hear their argument. I, I do think the US could put and would put significant pressure if they got Iran to concede to the no enrichment, which is beyond what the 2015 JCPOA had. At that, that time was like 3.67 or something. It was enough for, uh, energy, but obviously not anywhere close to 90% for enrichment.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  But it doesn't look like they're talking anymore.

• 48:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it's to me, it's administration dependent. You know, are they willing, have they shown a history of actually enforcing what they say as far as, hey, we have something in place, keep your hands off of Iran until, you know, they prove otherwise. But I also think it's Israel dependent as far as telling us ahead of time, hey, in 24 hours, we're going to bomb them because we have intel that they're rebuilding or whatever. Or are they just going to do it and then we have to do, you know, play catch up? So I think maybe there are those factors are also in play.

• 48:37Speaker 09

  Yeah, we seem to be and have been for a while in a rather unhealthy position of saying collectively that that any criticism of Israel is un-American. And I think we have to remind ourselves of the fact that our, again, our interests do not always align absolutely with Israel. And I will remind everyone, not you guys, because you remember this, right? Do you remember Pollard, the whole Pollard case, right?

• 49:03Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, the spy case.

• 49:05Speaker 09

  Yeah, Mick, you may not remember this, but when, um, when Pollard was, um, when he was pardoned or let not pardoned or let go, uh, there was a, there was considerable opposition to that within the intelligence community, mainly from the agency, but also the NSA. And I'll tell you why. It wasn't simply because he betrayed his country, but it was the nature of the stuff that he was handing to Israel. He threatened, uh, he was handing sources and methods, not, not, not, uh, related to Israel, but stuff that we were doing against the Soviets, right? Why did the Israelis want that stuff?

• 49:49Speaker 09

  Well, they were negotiating getting certain.

• 49:54Speaker 09

  Jews, high-level dissidents out of the Soviet Union at the time. Guys with specific scientific expertise. They were bargaining with the Soviet government at the time to get these guys out. And then suddenly, they tasked one of their agents to start collecting stuff that we are collecting on the Soviets to include, and I can't mention the program here, but a very highly classified program. It was a method of us collecting intelligence in a certain spectrum. I think you guys are tracking what I'm saying from the Soviets. Pollard gave that to the Israelis, and we have no doubt that was passed on to the Soviets.

• 50:38Speaker 09

  All right, that is why the agency was so pissed off when Pollard was released from jail. It wasn't simply that he was passing, he was letting an ally know what we were doing. Because the second part of this, why would the Israelis want to spy on the United States? We let them know everything, right? I mean, our level of intelligence sharing is pretty high level, as you guys know. So the only reason they would want to have a spy within our, you know, within the intelligence community would be to collect on areas that we wouldn't normally pass to them, again, kind of our counter-Soviet operations. And I bring that up simply as, you know, it's not, I'm not derogating the Israelis.

• 51:21Speaker 09

  I'm just pointing out there is a classic case of the fact, a reminder to all of us that our interests do not neatly overline. The Israelis will always, always, when it comes to a choice like that, they're not going to be affected by emotion, they're going to be affected by their own interests, even if it means jeopardizing US sources and interests. And that's just the nature of the world. We need to understand that before we get all weak-kneed and start thinking that Israel and the United States are the same entity.

• 52:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, and there's nothing un-American about, I would second Andy's point about criticizing the policies of Israel. There's nothing un-American about criticizing the policies of America, right? I mean, that's very American. And there's plenty, and I know I have a lot of Israeli friends that also do criticize and disagree with the policies of the current administration. So hopefully, that's just a very weak way to debate, you know, policy issues. Just to simply claim you're not patriotic because you disagree with a policy issue.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  But it's Or even anti-Semitic, too. Coming on. There are people that

• 52:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:38Speaker 03

  Which is kind of wild, because like you even saw, you know, the former PM of Israel.

• 52:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 03

  Call what's happening in Gaza.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  Half of the IDF, if people are familiar with the IDF, they're, they tend to be middle of the road, you know, at least they were. And plenty of them disagree. It doesn't make them right or wrong, but it certainly doesn't make them anti-Semitic, you know, Jewish Israeli IDF soldier.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  All right, Andy's gone. I love Andy. We'll miss Andy. That's really I don't know. He said he had to run. He said in the chat, he had to run. Oh, okay. Yeah, interesting take. I mean, we, what we, we had Bill Evanina on, on the Team House the other day, just came out. He's the former director of counterintelligence for the DNI. And I slipped in a question at the end, where I was like, hey, I know, obviously, we have, like, you know, is Iran, Russia, China, that are like actively trying to penetrate, you know, US spy agencies and spy on us in general. I'm like, out of their allies, which is like

• 53:45Speaker 03

  the worst acting. And I asked that because I knew the answer, right? And he said it was Israel. I mean, he had a pretty diplomatic answer, though, like saying, you know, like, we're really close allies, although we look at this as friendly fire. I'm like, okay. I mean, I wasn't the host there. So, you know, finally, Jack let me speak on the Team House. But it's interesting, right? Like an ally that we do a lot for. I mean, we do a lot for is still actively and forget the just the Pollard thing, right? During like that era, but also right now what's happening. I mean, they do it now.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, we got to be smart. We got to be, we got to be realistic. I'm, I'm, I support Israel, uh, the country for sure. But yeah, there's a, there's, I mean, a lot of our allies collect on us. We collect a lot on our allies too, right? So I guess when you're in the spy game, you're not as, you're more pragmatic, I guess, I would say, right? Cause it's hard to be, you know, flipping out when somebody's spying on us and we're spying on them. So it's,

• 54:54Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ashkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 55:09Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 55:20Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 55:25Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 55:31Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  Something that happens and

• 55:56Speaker 04

  yeah, um, last bit, um,

• 56:01Speaker 03

  There's a lot going on. Barak Ravid, the reporter from Axios, said that the Mossad chief, David Barnea, visited the White House this week to discuss Israel's plans to transfer the population of Gaza and requested the assistance of the Amer- of us, the Americans, in encouraging other countries to absorb hundreds of thousands of people from Gaza.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  That's crazy. I'm just saying it like that. I know that's not crazy analysis, but that's a fact. It's insane to displace hundreds of thousands of people from Gaza to other countries. It doesn't matter where. Some would say that would constitute a war crime, myself included. What's gonna, how the fuck do we fix Gaza? Make, go ahead, tell us right now.

• 56:52Speaker 04

  Wow, we're gonna have to start over with the hour. And I probably still won't come up with a solution. I would say if you forcibly displace people from their country, that's against international law.

• 57:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm not an international lawyer, but I'm pretty confident in that. And I don't know how you practically do that from a military perspective. I'm sure the IDF's head's blowing up. Like, we're gonna move, we're gonna forcibly move 2.2 million people? Remember, Hamas is only, was, at the beginning, only 30,000 people.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  Terrorists. So now they're probably down around 10. From the, so we're talking 10,000 are terrorists, and we're gonna forcibly move 2.2 million people against their will to countries that don't have the capacity to host, some of them, at least the countries I saw listed, to take care of their own people.

• 57:48Speaker 04

  Right? So how are you gonna support them there?

• 57:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  Right? So the practi- it's, the legality is obviously an issue, but also just the practicality is also an issue. Like, you're gonna, I mean, I don't even know how one would do that. And I don't know what you would do with people, once you got there. Is the international community gonna fund in perpetuity the housing, food, expense that, you know, these countries, a lot of them are Africa?

• 58:18Speaker 04

  Would need to support their people, these, you know, the Palestinians. And then what kind of destabilizing issues would that cause for those countries? I mean, you just keep going and going and it's not good. The I think, I think the best way to focus is how do we end the conflict? How do we ensure the security concerns of Israel, which obviously are real? How do we reconstruct Gaza so that the Palestinians can live in peace and develop and have their own future for their families? And then how do we eventually get back on track for, you know, a two-state solution, which we seem to be very far away from now, much further than we have been in the past?

• 59:03Speaker 04

  So that is where I think the effort should be. I can't even imagine how the forcible relocation of people out of Gaza would even.

• 59:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think every country on that list, right off the bat, should say, absolutely not. No, the answer is no. You know, whatever else we can do to try to help, we'll do, but no. Because if you even entertain talks in that, you're opening up a, you're going down a slippery slope with that. So I would say, hell, no. And the US should be first and foremost to say, no. Not that I'm saying they're coming here, but I'm saying Israel, take that shit off the board. It's not even a, it's a nonstarter.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  Right. And the first step, and I think the US is obviously pushing for this. We saw an announcement, I think, was it last night that there was the hostages? But we should all be rooting for the US and their effort, our effort to get to a ceasefire, the 60-day ceasefire. That is, I mean, hostages need to come out, massive amounts of humanitarian assistance need to go in. It's a dire situation on both fronts. So we should be rooting for that. But this, this idea that they're going to forcibly relocate millions of people.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Batch it, you could say it.

• 1:00:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's just a nonstarter. I think it's, and if we had anything to do with it, that would be forever. Part of our legacy.

• 1:00:28Speaker 05

  Black mark on us. Exactly.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  All right, last bit of news, USAID officially shut down. They, uh, we just burnt, uh, 500 tons of emergency food stores.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  That weren't even in America, I don't think, right? They were already overseas and we destroyed that stuff. 500 tons of food.

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  That's probably already been paid for, right? It's not like we're gonna bounce on the check, right?

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Kind of unbelievable, uh, that this is how these things work.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  Mick, I mean, you're in the humanitarian space. You tell me, uh, you could have used probably 500 tons of food to, for what you're, you do, your endeavors.

• 1:01:08Speaker 04

  Yes, and I think, I mean, this is, this is just, should have happened. Let me just put it that way. We, to your point, D, there, it is overseas, uh, cause we prepositioned these, uh, stores. A lot of them were these emergency biscuits that, you know, a kid can eat two of them a day and survive and has all the nutrition and vitamins and all that and minerals and stuff. Um, already paid for. I don't know, but it, it seems to me like we should have, we, the government should have offered the World Food Program. Cause it costs money to actually destroy it, right? So like, uh, if we said, hey, World Food Program, come take all this stuff.

• 1:01:48Speaker 04

  Give it out, right? That's a, or any of the big NGOs, um, that, that have the capacity and potentially the, the money to move it and, or pay for the least place that, that we don't want to pay for anymore. It just seems like it's a total, total waste. There is, there's a report out in the Washington Post, uh, that came out July 1st, which is the day the USAID officially shut down. That they predict 14 million people will starve to death, uh, by 2030 because of the cuts, uh, both in foreign aid, not just the United States, but also what USAID used to do. Now I get some of the criticism, they're paying for stuff that they shouldn't have, but the core mission.

• 1:02:32Speaker 04

  To contribute to the plight of humanitarian crises as a country, we've always been very good at that. We should be proud of it. Why? That needs to continue. And then to develop countries so they don't become a perpetual state of need, so that they can't eventually join the world economy and maybe even trade with the United States, right? I mean, we're a capitalist society. We should want that. I think that core mission should never have been cut down. And you could talk about PEPFAR. I mean, President Bush came out with President Obama on the concern with that. You know, you in that, it's not only horrible for the people in those countries, but that that could spread, you know, these these international

• 1:03:17Speaker 04

  epidemics around the world, right? It's not just, and there's nothing wrong with helping people just for the sake of helping people, right? But it's also in our own interest. You could have mass migration. You could have, you know, the spread of disease that wouldn't be spread if we contained it at its point of origin. So there's, I think, I think this needs to be returned on. Fine. It's in the, it's in the State Department now. A lot of people on both sides of the aisle used to argue that USAID should fall under the, the State Department anyway. But it needs to be turned back on. The US should play a prominent role in, I think humanitarian assistance and disaster relief around the world. And right now, we're, we're not doing it.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, very well said. I feel like, I don't know how anyone could really disagree about this. Cause like even, yeah, all right. USAID was probably doing some bullshit, wasting money like most probably government programs do. But for the most part, they did a good job. And frankly, their budget was a fucking rounding error in our federal budget, right? It wasn't like we were spending, I love you guys and I love the military and I love what it stands for, but like, they should get their shit together too, in terms of like an audit and seeing where our money fucking goes there. It's a trillion dollar thing. Besides the Marines, right? The Marines, Marines passed their audits. Yeah.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:04:46Speaker 04

  And I think most military members would agree with you, dude, just so you know.

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  They they can see that a lot of the stuff isn't getting spent correctly. It's not a it's not a slight on the military.

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  It's interesting, man. I think there's a lot of stuff that most people will agree on if if uh just, you know, because

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  Get out of their own way.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's kind of human nature like, yeah, all right, we see starving kids somewhere like we want to help them. We think there's waste, fraud and abuse somewhere. We should actually look at it and pinpoint it and take the time to figure it out and fix it instead of just chopping it like it's just we're worried about our next uh earnings call like it's a publicly traded company. It's not how government works.

• 1:05:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I I just read something yesterday and I'm paraphrasing here. Um, speaking of waste, uh, something basically this expert said from the moment that these funds were frozen. And uh, that includes like this, this uh food that was um spoiled from the time that that aid stopped. The vendor, as far as the vendors and the contractors go that distribute it and all that other stuff, the interest that is accruing on all of that stuff is starting to surpass what is the supposed savings in ending the program. So it would have been cheaper to, like you said, uh, Mick, give it to another organization and say, pass this out or, you know, restart part of the program, you know, it'd be worth the money, but we're wasting

• 1:06:08Speaker 05

  money trying to save money.

• 1:06:09Speaker 04

  Yep, and a lot of this would have gone to children, right? I think everybody's, everybody that's an adult should should care about that. It should be your, you know. So, yeah, it's super.

• 1:06:19Speaker 03

  I mean, even if you don't like kids.

• 1:06:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  It's like, you know what I'm saying? Like, let's feed some starving kids. You know what I mean? Like, this isn't a

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  We're part of a society, right?

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  Political thing. Right, exactly.

• 1:06:30Speaker 05

  When I was in Somalia, people would, you know, joke and you see it in the movie, um, Black Hawk Down, you know, they call the Somali skinnies. You know, and obviously it's a horrible thing there, you know, they're they're die, they were dying and they are dying, but I still saw those same Marines while we were out feeding starving children. Giving them food or a little bit of water and stuff like that. So anybody with a heart, you know, or and a soul should be all on board with getting this food to where it needs to go. And not just food, all the aid.

• 1:07:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. Great way to end it, boys.

• 1:07:06Speaker 03

  Um, I want you guys to do us all a favor. Check out Mick Mulroy's links. Check out Andy's links. Check out Jason's links. We have a new newsletter for the Team House and Eyes On. It aggregates everything. That link is in the description as well. And the best way to support the show is patreon.com slash the Team House. Get both Eyes On and the Team House ad free and early, get early access. And, uh, yeah, as usual, guys, this is great. Awesome. Thanks, gents.

• 1:07:32Speaker 04

  Thanks, gents. Have a great rest of your weekend.

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  Take care. You too.

• 1:07:36Jack Murphy?

  Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show. If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this, you can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com/the Team House. And for $5 a month, you can get access to all of these episodes of the Team House ad free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast Eyes On with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, Mick Mulroy. That one, you will also get all of those episodes ad free. And you support the channel and the show, and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members are literally what has helped this company, this small business survive, especially during our early years.

• 1:08:21Jack Murphy?

  And you are what?

• 1:08:23Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:08:37Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:08:48Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 1:08:53Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:08:59Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:09:19Jack Murphy?

  Continues to help this thing going even as we navigate the turbulent world of YouTube advertising. So we really appreciate all of you guys. There's going to be a link down in the description to that Patreon page. And there is also going to be a link to our new merch shop. So if you guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise, we got stickers and we also have

• 1:09:42Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:09:57Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:10:08Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:10:13Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:10:19Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:10:39Jack Murphy?

  Patches. And I should mention, if you sign up for Patreon at $10 a month, we will mail you this patch as well. So we really appreciate that. But they're also for sale on the merch shop. And additionally, they got t-shirts up there, water bottles, a tote bag, coffee mugs, all that good stuff.

• 1:10:59Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:11:14Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:11:25Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:11:30Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:11:36Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:11:56Jack Murphy?

  Stuff. So please go and check them out and support the show. We really appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

• 1:12:14Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:12:28Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:12:39Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:12:45Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:12:50Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair.

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 1:14:11Speaker 11

  Relax and get ready for bed with Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray. Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals powered by pure Epsom salt and natural Dead Sea salt. Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray is designed to help you unwind and get in a nighttime state of mind. Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray is wellness you can feel, and you can find it in your local bath aisle. Dr. Teal's. Yep, you needed that.

• 1:14:40Speaker 12

  Monday night brings one more big matchup to settle into. And when every play matters, the last thing you want to do is step away to figure out dinner. That's where DiGiorno comes in. Get a DiGiorno pizza ready before kickoff, then enjoy restaurant-quality taste fresh from your own oven while you stay locked into every play. Stock up on DiGiorno over the weekend so when Monday night rolls around, the only thing you sweat is the game. Shop now at the link in the episode description. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno.