Let's be Honest - There is No Real Strategy for Iran | EYES ON GEOPOLITCS

We break down the U. S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the debate over whether they were strategically sound, and what the administration may have failed to plan for next. The conversation covers Karg Island, the Strait of Hormuz, naval shortfalls, NSC process problems, and why tactical success could still lead to a much bigger regional war. Mars Men⬇️ For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://mengotomars.com/ Jon Hackett's Book:⬇️ https://a.co/d/082z28uY Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Subscribe to our new newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Whitefish Security Summit ⬇️ https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com/ New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️ https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.com Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 — Start 02:00 -- Did the U. S. and Israel make the right call striking Iran? 04:00 — Kharg Island 07:45 — Military wins vs. political strategy: is the administration actually planning ahead? 18:50 — Why the U. S. keeps getting pulled back into the Middle East 19:50 — Strait of Hormuz risks, naval shortfalls, and the mine warfare problem 47:45 — NSC process failures, Rubio’s dual role, and why strategy may be breaking down 49:10 — Did the Venezuela op create false confidence for a much bigger war with Iran? 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.

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• 3:17Speaker 05

  All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Mick Mulroy, Jonathan Hackett, Mark Palomaropoulos, and myself, Dimitri Kontakos. We have two Marines versus two Greeks. The KY Jelly is about to be.

• 3:34Speaker 05

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• 3:36Speaker 06

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• 3:37Speaker 05

  Of course, Mick, that what is what is KY Jelly Mick is puritanical values. All right. Anyway, a lot going on. I know jokes. Hope everyone's having a good day. Lot happening. Week three of the, you know, the war in Iran. Lots happening. We have a couple of Muse heading that way. Marine Expeditionary Units. It's about 5,000 ish Marines. We also had a lot of a lot of bombing on Crag Island, which is like the the central hub of Iranian oil. About 90% of it goes through there or stops there before it goes to wherever to the endpoints.

• 4:19Speaker 05

  No real end in sight. It seems like the Israel and we also have Israel planning on invading Lebanon, southern Lebanon. So a lot is happening right now. Guys, where are you at with this? What are you guys tracking exactly?

• 4:40Speaker 07

  Greetings from Montana where we finally got snow after we got done with all our winter training. Right? Then it snowed. Yeah. So where to start?

• 4:52Speaker 07

  I would say ultimately from my perspective,

• 4:57Speaker 07

  I support the attacks that depreciated the nuclear program, the ballistic missile program in the Navy. I think that is where the US should have hung attack. They should have acknowledged it was was a war of choice. I think every every attempt to try to claim it was an imminent threat has been proven not to be the case by the intelligence community. ICBMs kind of like a decade away.

• 5:26Speaker 07

  And then of course, the issue of the Secretary Rubio brought up about like, well, Israel's going to attack them. So they're going to attack us. So we had to attack them. I just think that shows a lack of coordination. And I was just reading the Wall Street Journal article this morning that basically said there wasn't an NSC process, not that the NSC got it wrong, that there really simply wasn't. It was just the key principles without any input from anyone else and, you know, it's one arm of the bridge now, but I think it would be a good idea to restate the whole concept of the interagency policy deliberations and with significant injects by the intelligence community.

• 6:10Speaker 07

  When it comes to making overall plans, because again, although I support the strikes, I, you know, it can be the right thing done the wrong way is still the right thing. And I think that's where we're at is what I'm trying to get at.

• 6:26Speaker 07

  Now, the question is going to be, so we just thought about the fact that we might need a Mew to take Karg Island? Because there's really no way to put, to explain that any other way is that we didn't think this through. Uh, or that asset would have already been in the region. It wouldn't be getting shifted from what we claim to be a higher priority region. And the Indian Pacific to go to uh, the Middle East. And then we could, of course, should get down to why Karg Island is so important, and then I'll kick it to you guys. Karg Island was one of the reasons why Iran submitted in the Iran War. Uh, once it started being targeted substantially, they got scared. Yeah, super scared. Uh, 90% of their processing of their uh, oil goes through there.

• 7:12Speaker 07

  It looks like the idea is we've hit the military targets, so softened it. We could use the Mew BLT uh, Italian landing team to go in there. And seize it, and then we put it at risk to the regime. If we were to target the actual energy, there's nothing to bargain with, right? Like, it's all over. So the concept, my understanding from talking to my friends, uh, who are, you know, working the issue is the only way to actually use it as a bargaining chip is to seize and hold it. There's a lot of concerns that come from that. The Marines will be very vulnerable. Um, this is technically boots on the ground, to use an overused phrase. So there's a lot, I'm not saying that this is just a simple decision.

• 7:57Speaker 07

  But that is the concept behind it, that we seize, hold, and then say, let everything through? Or we won't ever give you your uh, the resources you need to fund your own regime. So I'll, I'll stop there, but I think that's going to be the biggest discussion as the Mew gets closer and closer to uh, the area of operations.

• 8:19Speaker 08

  And if I could kind of zoom in the operational level a little bit on there with with Harg Island. When we think about this island and seizing it, there's a key challenge that is a major planning factor that has to be considered because this Mew would have to physically pass through the Straits of Hormuz if they want to project close by. And that's a challenge because 750 kilometers separates Harg Island from the Straits. So they're going to be at risk for 750 kilometers, moving around the Straits up to Harg Island. If the Mew wants to be close enough to the island to take it with a close in seizure, that means the other alternative is launch air assets carrying troops over into the Straits,

• 9:01Speaker 08

  into the island, which in my view of it is probably that second option is more likely to happen where the amphibious readiness group, which is three vessels, would probably stage off of Fujairah. And I'll say why Fujairah in a second here, or Muscat. Muscat's 1,000 kilometers away. Fujairah is 750 kilometers away. That gap of kilometers between Fujairah and Muscat, it's like a kill zone space, a huge amount of space. You don't want to be that far away. You don't want to be in Muscat and have to project Ospreys and other tactical aircraft that far, or from Jordan, from Wafak Salty Air Base, or from other air bases. Turkey's not going to be amenable to this. We've already talked about why in the past, we can talk about it again. But you're going to have to rely on Gulf Partners or standoff forces to actually fly to the island.

• 9:45Speaker 08

  That introduces additional risk into the mission profile because rather than launching an amphibious raid from the ship, you have to launch it in a more traditional troop carrier method where the troop carrier is exposed the entire time. We've heard HACSEF this week say that the drone capability's been reduced 90, 95%. Even if that's true, they started out with 30,000 drones and I bet they've been producing drones since the war started. So that means even if they reduce it to 5% of the amount of drones, it only takes one drone to strike a US troop carrier to dramatically change the trajectory of this conflict because US policy is very sensitive to American casualties, as it should be. That's how we are designed and we care about our troops.

• 10:25Speaker 08

  And if if one troop transport gets down, if one, you know, 24 Marines go down in Persian Gulf because of a Shahed drone, that's just one drone that cost a few thousand dollars that could ultimately change a billion dollar 90 degree change in this conflict. The island of Fujairah itself can only hold about two and a half billion dollars worth of oil. That's the the way the capacity works there. So we'd basically be sacrificing two dozen Marines lives for about $2 billion of oil, which is about the tenth of the amount of oil that normally passes through that street. Was it worth it? And that's could be the question that's going to be asked as we look at the planning of this.

• 11:01Speaker 06

  You know, there's there's something I think overall on this that that I wanted to raise with with everyone here is, you know, as we watch, you know, these painful press conferences, I mean, Secretary Hegseth with, you know, his kind of JV football rah rah speeches, which are kind of getting to be interminable and I can't even watch them. But then you have General Kane come up, who seems a little more sober and realistic. And I think that's what you should focus on. I always think we're all not we, but you know, the administration is kind of drunk in military math. And if you, you know, if you go through this, and you know, you can make a case that the US is doing very well right now in terms of military objectives. It's that it's not finished. I don't think we've actioned the nuclear program, at least I haven't seen any of that. But, you know, when we're talking about tritting the Iranian Navy, the military, I mean, clearly

• 11:46Speaker 06

  they're killing, you know, thousands of Iranian troops and IRGC and others. And so you can make that argument. But, I mean, it's almost remarkable because we saw this in Afghanistan with really kind of rosy projections. And what we're missing instead of Hegseth there is, you know, where's Marco Rubio, who is not just the Secretary of State, he's the National Security Advisor. And, you know, we were joking before the show, all the memes of him with all of his various outfits are kind of hysterical. But he has too many jobs. And ultimately, I would be much more comfortable if we had someone actually talking not just on military matters, but on strategy. Because on the on the political dynamics, on diplomacy, on strategy, I don't know if we're winning. Especially when the Iranians seem to be in it for the long haul, it's an existential, you know, fight for them. And ultimately, they're going to try to outlast us. And they'll do so,

• 12:31Speaker 06

  you know, in two ways. One is, you know, economically, whether it's squeezing the Straits of Hormuz and gas prices going up, or attacks on civilian targets in the Gulf, or God forbid, a pretty significant, you know, strike in which US forces were killed, which would have a huge political effect in the United States. And so, you know, I think, you know, I Mick, I had lunch with Dan Shapiro a couple of days ago, former US Ambassador to Israel. And I think he had the same job you had at the Pentagon in the last administration. He was very much like John and maybe not like Dave.

• 13:08Speaker 06

  As he's hanging out with AOC in Brooklyn, but it's very much like us in terms of, hey, you know, you can make a case for this, but the administration hasn't. They didn't go to the American people. They didn't go to Congress, and they certainly didn't seem like they planned. And so my question on this entire, you know, affair, it's not an excursion, by the way, which I thought was preposterous, what Trump said, but it's, you know, perhaps it's the right thing to do, but we have completely, and I'm sorry to say this, incompetent people, not at the Pentagon, but in kind of the overall civilian leadership, you know, executing this. And that's what gives me a lot of pause. And on that note, you know, it's okay if we criticize this. I mean, you know, you have, you know, Hegseth went out and so did others, and Jake Tapper from CNN just did a brutal

• 13:50Speaker 06

  takedown of Ari Fleischer, the former Bush press spokesman's, press secretary's kind of comments, saying like, you know, it's unpatriotic to criticize this. Well, that's what we're supposed to do. That's what a democracy does. And those of us who are actually, I think, correctly criticizing this, like we have on this show today, do so from, from, you know, a position of knowing what we're talking about, having been in war and seeing the consequences, but also from the right place and like, hey, maybe we should have done this, but, you know, the execution of this is all screwed up for so many different reasons. And so just that idea of kind of the reliance on, on kind of, you know, when I say military math, it sounds really good, but there's so much more to it. What do you guys think of that? Is that, is that a fair criticism of just

• 14:33Speaker 06

  the focus on, you know, how many strikes, how much ordnance we've dropped? Like, where's the grand strategy here? I don't see it.

• 14:40Speaker 08

  Well, there's also the risk of relying on these numbers. If we rely on these numbers the way we are, and say that this is the measurement of success, we actually dig a hole for ourselves, because the question then becomes, well, how many weapons do we still have? How much supply do we have? How much can Israel still shoot down? And this has become a big controversy in the Israeli press, talking about the amount of interceptors they have. It's kind of a no-no thing to talk about, because the reality is, they don't have many. And if we continue measuring and making that the headline, that we have conducted X amount of strikes, will be, our own numbers will begin to look like failure soon, if we can't actually continue striking at the rate that we want. It's almost like the Enron collapse, when Enron was baking its books, and they couldn't admit that they actually didn't make that much revenue this month. It's a very similar

• 15:25Speaker 08

  thing where, well, now that's the number you've said is your success, and you can't meet that number anymore. Now what?

• 15:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's kind of like that famous dialogue between the former US Army Colonel and former Vietnamese Army Colonel, where the US guy says, you know, "We beat you in every battle that we fought." And then the Vietnamese Colonel said, "That is true and entirely irrelevant." Right? So we have to, I mean, I do think we should have defined this from a point of view of military objectives and not an absolute one, right? Because to John's point, we're never going to get complete eradication of their ballistic missile program, for example. But we can say we've brought it down as much as we can. We think it's, you know, any continuation is not worth it.

• 16:16Speaker 07

  And then we can do a pause, right? We don't, we have to wait to see what Iran does, but we could offer a, you know, a ceasefire essentially, and see if they're willing to do so. And if they're not, then they keep attacking us, and we have, you know, have to make the decision. But we've defined it very amorphously to include regime change, which was, I would have guessed that if there was a normal NSC process, the intelligence community would have said, "Do not use that as an objective. It's not going to happen." It's just not going to happen. We have no even prospect of putting a large ground force in. And if we don't, not that I would ever advocate for that, but there's a 0% chance of the regime falling.

• 17:01Speaker 07

  Because there's no other armed element that could actually facilitate that. Even, you know, the talk of the Kurds, etc., is not even close. So I would have thought, I would have taken that off even a discussion.

• 17:15Speaker 06

  By the way, Mick Trump is the one who actually raised that in his, in a true socialist post in the middle of the night. And everyone's like, "Oh, my God, he just advocated for regime." That was, that was two weeks, three weeks before the war started. And so they're stuck from the beginning. I would agree. That would not be something in a regular NSC process in which anyone would have advocated that. But you're almost reactive to that now. And so now we're kind of, and by the way, there's also the blood of Iranians who stayed on the streets on our hands. I mean, I really do believe that. And, you know, and so that's where we kind of are now. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

• 17:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, the last part is, you know, the idea of this unconditional surrender, like it's gonna be Japan in, you know, like 1945. I mean, they're not gonna do that. They have no reason to. What are they gonna surrender to an aircraft? I mean, I just would hope.

• 18:04Speaker 07

  To your point, Mark, it's it's American to criticize policy. We on this show criticized the policy that led to the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And we're gonna critique this too, and that's America. And, you know, for those that don't like it, maybe they should rethink of what they think of freedom of speech. But I want us to be successful because, you know, I'm all about the US being successful in this. I hope they can redefine, or at least they can couch it how they want, define something that we can actually meet militarily and then start looking for an off-ramp. And then if if we get it, we get it. And I think they can claim, you know, they did something that many administrations said they would do.

• 18:48Speaker 07

  But were unwilling to do so, they did it. And it essentially reduced the capacity of this regime militarily, at least. Statually, but we're gonna have to redefine it and have to potentially even acknowledge that things like regime change were never really in the cards. So it'll it'll have to be a little bit of humble pie. But I still think there's a way that the United States can define this, that this will be successful ultimately.

• 19:16Speaker 06

  John, John, I want to ask you a quick question about, and this this seems to, everyone seems to have forgotten the the NSS strategy, the national security strategy. So literally, there was a document that was put out several months ago, and go back, I'd encourage viewers to read this, Dee, maybe you can actually post it. Because it literally says, and it's a it's a withering critique from the Trump administration on all the previous administrations, it essentially says, get the fuck out of the Middle East. And I mean, and whether it's ground forces, what's all the things that we're doing now. It was a blistering criticism. And yet we are there in a capacity far beyond what any other president has done. Mick, you mentioned that maybe maybe Trump did do more than anyone thought

• 19:58Speaker 06

  possible on Iran, yet we are going specifically against his national security strategy, the strategy of the Pentagon, every one with a pivot to Asia. I mean, John, we just pulled a Mew out of, uh, uh, out of the Pacific. And so I just, I, I want both of you guys, but maybe John first, just talk about that just, uh, uh, uh, first, because there is this incredible dichotomy. I mean, and again, it's the American public has no appetite to, or has no kind of attention span, but I think those of us in the national security space are like, holy shit. Like we have, we've gone like, we went on a, we're on full nuclear Middle East mode now. When we've just been told for the last year how, you know, all the shit we did in the past, both you guys, you know, we're not doing anymore. And here we are on steroids.

• 20:40Speaker 08

  Yeah, actually, when I was working with counter threat finance people at the agency, they would always say follow the money, see where the dollars are being spent. And that will help you figure out where the kind of center of gravity of, of someone's thought process is. And if we look at our own dollars being spent and our own centers of gravity, right? When like a red hat perspective, where has the US spent dollars the most since 1978? Let's say, or 1973 perhaps? And on security assistance in particular, the number one recipient of security assistance since 1979 by law is Israel. Number two is Egypt and number three is Jordan, right? And there's their policy reasons for that. Congress sets that spending. So whether the president wants to do something somewhere else,

• 21:22Speaker 08

  that spending forces them to do something where the dollars are supposed to be spent. And I think that's a very important kind of baseline to start with, to understand why does the Middle East keep pulling us back? It's because policy is designed for that. Dollars are spent there. True, we spent a lot of money in Ukraine. We spent a lot of money in Japan and South Korea, for example. And even in Africa, especially during 2017 through 2021 relative, there was a lot of, uh, special operations work in Africa. But the, the congressional decision is that the US will spend money on Israel, number one, Egypt and Jordan, and that has to happen and will happen by law. So until that changes, it's very difficult for the president's policy to actually shift somewhere else. And I remember 2013, the pivot to Asia that Secretary Clinton mentioned.

• 22:05Speaker 08

  Everyone was making the big hoo-ha, like, oh, here we go. We're moving to Asia. Then we get pulled right back to Afghanistan, right back to the Middle East because that is our statute. Says we will do that and we. We'll spend $6 billion a year and no country is allowed to be given more security assistance than Israel. That's our laws. They say that. This is not a surprise or some political statement. I mean, this is the truth. And I think that's very important for people to understand. You know, why is there this magnetic pull? It's because our laws say so. And if we don't like that, we need to vote people into office that will do something different. And until we do that, Congress is going to continue making these resolutions that are 100 to zero in support of Israeli policies in the Middle East. And that means our dollars are going to be spent that way, too. Again, if you don't like it.

• 22:47Speaker 06

  I know.

• 22:50Speaker 08

  But hey, even AOC voted for that, too. So, I mean, this is a major thing in Congress that where, where are the dollars going? Well, they're going there. And that means we're going there. Our troops are going to go there. And if it's very interesting to look at the, the Pacific angle right now, the US just asked for, well, President Trump just asked for China and Japan to send ships to the Middle East to help secure the Straits of Hormuz, which is very fascinating because we just pulled a Mew out of Japan, the 31st Mew, which is designed to protect Japan and the first island chain from a Chinese excursion toward Taiwan. And now we're asking that potential adversary to also send troops with us to the Middle East. I mean, it's just kind of interesting to look at that. But the reason the US is asking.

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• 25:26Speaker 08

  ...is because the US can only secure 10% of the daily transits through the Strait of Hormuz with our naval assets that we have. That's important to think about because we have half the number of ships now than we had in 1988 when we did Operation Praying Mantis and successfully defended the Kuwaiti vessels that were US-flagged. We have half the number of ships now. True, our technologies have improved, but there's not much to do against these mines because we just decommissioned four of all, four of four of our demining vessels no longer exist. So we lost that capability. We have 0% of that capability. We have two littoral combat ships that can help with that. They're not designed for that. They're not task-organized for that. And those ships have had their own problems coming into production and to use besides the mine-lying issues.

• 26:09Speaker 08

  Those ships are kind of looked at within the Marine Corps and Navy as a little bit of a disaster zone. So those are the things we have to demine. Now we're asking our potential adversary to come help us, and we're asking Japan to basically make itself naked for its navy against a potential Chinese incursion to come help us with our operation in the straits that Japan probably didn't agree with in the first place.

• 26:30Speaker 07

  Yeah, on that point, Jonathan's point, so the Avenger class minesweepers were decommissioned. I think it was like last year, right? The last one? Yes. Literally terrible timing. They were designed specifically. They didn't have metal holes. They were silent. They had all this special kind of radar. That's what they did. I mean, that was their sole mission. They they gave that mission to the, as Jonathan said, the littoral combat ships, I think, the Independence class. But they do it with drones, right? It's really not the ship itself, at least my understanding. And again, we're Marines, not naval officers, but they they they basically gave it to a multi-purpose platform.

• 27:13Speaker 07

  And so the question, and people, and I've talked to people that really think, I think, know this.

• 27:19Speaker 07

  They're concerned that they haven't nearly been as tested, obviously, as the ones we decommissioned. And this might not go as smoothly as we had hoped. But it wasn't made, the decision was made before this conflict, so it's not really casting aspersions to anybody. It's just we're going to deal with with that. But to your other question, Mark, yes, I mean, as I've mentioned before, I'm more of a Reagan era Republican as far as national security. So this idea that we were going to withdraw from the world, stop being the leader of the free world, focus on homeland security, which is, to be frank, I mean, every country focuses on homeland security. If you want to be that exceptional nation, you got to go beyond that, right?

• 28:02Speaker 07

  Literally, every country focuses on its own security. And now it's proven already in a matter of months to have not been the right decision. And the people who wrote it, including the national defense strategy, so specific to the military, are now on Capitol Hill defending the war in Iran.

• 28:25Speaker 06

  It's incredible, Rich Colby.

• 28:26Speaker 07

  Like, yeah, like, like, three weeks later.

• 28:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's incredible.

• 28:30Speaker 07

  Right? So the, the, and, and maybe, I'm not to put it down all on process, but the process of the NSC is what creates the national security strategy. And then, of course, the component of the NSC that's specific to the defense civilian and uniformed creates the defense strategy. It just doesn't seem like there was, uh, there's obviously not a consistency. And it's almost like we tossed the whole thing already. You know, within a month of passing it. So we'll have to see. I'm sure the counter argument be like, no, we got to take care of Iran so that we can then do our strategy. But I think it's pretty clear and to Jonathan's other point on the follow the money.

• 29:15Speaker 07

  The Middle East is always going to be important to us. Let's just accept it. Let's just accept that with the US taxpayer pays enough to our national security that we should be able to do all the above. Right? All the above. We can do it. We can do it. Diplomatically, intelligence militarily, we can be the, you know, exceptional country, the indispensable, indispensable nation around the world. And we should view it that way. Yes, we have priorities like we always have. Uh, but this idea that we can only focus on ourself, uh, and dominating the Western Hemisphere is just not what, uh, does not live up to the, what the United States, I think, true mission is, which is to essentially be that leader of the free world.

• 29:58Speaker 06

  And also with that, the notion on the mute, just one, one quick thing for both of you guys. And John, Jonathan, maybe jump in here because I think that there's a couple of things here. One is, I think, Nick, you mentioned that it certainly appears that it's amazing because the problem set of the Straits of Hormuz should have been first. And I mean, look, the Pentagon, you know this, you've stared at this fricking problem set for several decades. So the idea that we're unprepared for this is, is quite extraordinary. Or perhaps there was a recommendation, um, uh, to the civilian leadership that wasn't taken, uh, on this. But I find that remarkable and that we're at a place now where, and, and, and I don't understand why it's not more of an issue. Where it's is it is it getting baked in that there actually might be US ground forces? The Mew is going. Is that a feint? Is that is that a threat to the Iranians? Or is it actually?

• 30:43Speaker 06

  If you look at the Straits of Hormuz militarily, is this going to be required? Because it's so difficult. So but but here we are. Not not only has there been, you know, we've expended a huge amount of money on this. The region's a bit of a mess. We're actually talking about putting US forces on the ground. I mean, again, just if you if you kind of sit back and think, well, wait a second, you know, during the Trump campaign or the initial stage of the Trump administration, this is actually unfathomable. What's occurring right now? I guess maybe your your the question on that is is also a political question, too, is that the American people are going to are they going to be OK with this? And because likely there will be American servicemen and women who die if we go down this road. I cannot imagine.

• 31:27Speaker 06

  And just you take a look at the, you know, the air to air KC one thirty five crash. I mean, bad shit happens or drones hitting our people in Kuwait. Probably there will be casualties if we do this. I mean, your thoughts?

• 31:39Speaker 08

  Yeah, I mean, on the political question, the people have spoken through their representatives and senators, whether or not they want to stop this war. And they the Congress decided not to make a resolution to stop it. So I mean, based on our system, that's the output of our system that those who are elected chose to allow this to continue, which is, you know, whether we agree there or not, that's how it's designed to work if it's working properly, of course.

• 32:03Speaker 05

  We can all admit it's bullshit. It's OK. We can all.

• 32:06Speaker 07

  It's approval. It's approval. That's why we should look.

• 32:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I mean, like, the latest polling is like it's like hovering around thirty percent approval for this. It's like the American people do not want this to go on, and they definitely I'm an American citizen. I don't want fucking boots on the ground. I let's go covert full full force, baby. You know what I mean? Let's do that. Not interested in Marines getting fucking killed on Karg Island or more KC one thirty five people crash. I got not interested at all. It's no benefit to us whatsoever as a country. Zero.

• 32:40Speaker 08

  Well, I think there's two indicators you can kind of analyze from this with the with the Marines. So first of all, the fact that the Marines were not positioned there or chopped there, like change of operational control from the Pacific to the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain before the conflict started, kind of indicates that that was not part of the initial planning, first of all. And second of all, moving the Marines from the Seventh Fleet to the Fifth Fleet is a is a strategic decision, not an operational decision, which signals to me that they they will be probably used. This isn't likely a feint because the the amount of things behind the scenes that have to occur for the Marines to move from one to the other and be positioned somewhere else, it's not simply a military objective that's being achieved here.

• 33:20Speaker 08

  It's also a political and strategic objective that requires a lot of thought and planning to do at the level that needs to move them there. So that that kind of signals to me that, yes, they will be used. And looking at Kharg Island, I mentioned earlier the distance between the Straits and Kharg Island. But there's another distance that's really important, and that's the distance between Kharg Island and Abadan. Abadan is the primary, like mainland part of the entire oil production for Iran, and it's not very far away from Kharg Island. And if the government right now, the US government is looking at an incremental approach to kind of solving this problem that they've created in the Straits, they'll put Marines maybe on Kharg Island and then say, well, it's only 100 kilometers to Abadan. That's not too far. Maybe we take Abadan.

• 34:04Speaker 08

  Maybe we also take Bouchere, because Bouchere, if you'll remember from the nuclear strikes, is a primary location of Iran's nuclear program where there is currently uranium underground. Well, that's even closer than Abadan. Well, that's another great point to project forces onto the mainland. And the reason I'm mentioning this is because of something we all remember from Afghanistan and Iraq, which is mission creep.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 08

  Once you've got the forces there.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 34:25Speaker 08

  Absolutely. Once you've got the forces there, it's only one more step. Well, it's just a little bit. It's almost like a gambling problem or or an addiction, you know, like, well, I'll just have one more cigarette before I quit, you know? And if they're right there in front of you, it's very tempting to use, especially if it gets short term domestic wins. When we can say, well, we took Kharg easily. We took Maduro easily. Oh, we can do Cuba. You know, like, these things suddenly become easy in your mind psychologically because of successes you just had in some or other realm.

• 34:54Speaker 06

  Mick, Mick, I just, the thing, I think sometimes, and this is like instinctive, we always want to give, and I say this with respect, you want to give the US military a pass on this, because I think there's a criticism of the civilian leadership, but you can't give the military a pass to the Pentagon if it does look like, as both of you have suggested, that, you know, the Mew was never activated, that the Straits of Hormuz was not considered. You know, there are, there's, there's big fights on social media, you have people like, you know, John Spencer, who can't ever see anything go wrong that any administration or Israel ever does. And he's been howling the last couple of days, saying that, you know, all of us who are saying that there was no planning for, for the Straits of Hormuz don't know what we're talking about, except we have our own eyes. And you can see, so, so how did the Pentagon, let's, I mean, we can focus in a little bit on the military,

• 35:39Speaker 06

  too. I know these are your old brothers and sisters, but, you know, how did this happen? Again, or, or was advice not taken? But I, but, you know, you do have to kind of look at the Pentagon planning on this and say, okay, you know, this is a problem that we've stared at forever. What are your thoughts?

• 35:55Speaker 07

  So I think, I mean, I don't know, to be, to be frank, to be clear, but it's, looks like it was decided by a very small handful of people, and again, referencing this Wall Street Journal article, without a lot of input beyond the chairman, when it came to the military side, because the military would have taken the guidance in to be prepared for missions and started doing, that's what the chairman's office does, right, the Global Integrator, they would have started doing things to facilitate not only what they expected the campaign to go, but also the branch plans and contingencies that have to play for. The idea that the, that the Mew's just now, and it's two weeks away, right? Something like that?

• 36:39Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 36:39Speaker 07

  I mean, that just, it's impossible to say that that was, that, that indicates anything other than they didn't plan for this.

• 36:46Speaker 06

  Right.

• 36:47Speaker 07

  I mean, sorry, it just is what it is. I just, I don't think the chairman could even, right?

• 36:52Speaker 05

  It's kind of wild that like, like, it's like they decided to open up a sandwich shop, but instead of a sandwich shop, they're going to fucking war. Five guys, like, let's just start a business, you guys, this'll be fun.

• 37:05Speaker 05

  That's insane.

• 37:06Speaker 07

  Deep with a former Mute Commander, friend of mine, on how this would go. And I'm not gonna go through it because I don't want to give any information away. You know, the top lines are this. It's difficult to get there. And Jonathan already hit it. You know, basically, you have to traverse 700 kilometers of Iranian coastline to get there, unless you fly. But flying has got its issues. But it's also staying there, right? You know, being able to protect your force when you're there, which is going to just be, you know, bombarded. And then, like, what if it doesn't work? That was the biggest, it was a more of a strategic question from my friend that I was talking to. Is like, okay, so we're going in with the idea that it's going to put

• 37:50Speaker 07

  so much pressure that Iran's gonna capitulate and open the Straits of Hormuz and sue for peace. What if we get there, the Marines are getting bombarded, they've successfully taken the island, they've done everything militarily successful, as we would expect Marines to do, and Iran just blows them off. You know what I mean? Like, they just, nope, we're still gonna block the Straits of Hormuz, and we're still gonna keep attacking our partners and allies. And

• 38:13Speaker 05

  I have a question about

• 38:14Speaker 07

  That's a great question. Yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 06

  Let me just jump in right here. I got a, I got a bullet, guys.

• 38:18Speaker 05

  All right, bye. Thanks, Mark.

• 38:20Speaker 06

  I can leave this open, or no?

• 38:22Speaker 05

  No, you're good.

• 38:23Speaker 06

  Okay, sorry, guys.

• 38:24Speaker 05

  All right, bye.

• 38:26Speaker 07

  Take care, bro.

• 38:27Speaker 05

  I have a question about Crag Island, about like, let's say the Marines do take it.

• 38:33Speaker 05

  Are they assuming that, is there like a thought process that like, you know, we're gonna have 2,500 Marines there, it's Iran's like central hub of like distributing oil, they're less likely to attack it because they're gonna fucking destroy their entire economy? Is that like a thought process that's going on?

• 38:51Speaker 08

  Well, the important thing is that these ballistic missiles have different range capabilities, so they can't use their long range ballistic missiles to fire on Karg Island unless they reposition their transporter or reactor launchers further away. So this is already a problem that the regime will be thinking through. But that number of Marines you mentioned, 2,200, 2,500, that's not the amount of Marines that will take the island, because the way that the Marine Expeditionary Unit is designed is to be an air and ground task force. So there's an air combat element, a ground combat element, and a logistics combat element, plus some other sustainment elements around that. What you'd probably see instead is a battalion landing team, which is 550 roughly people, actually physically seizing, holding and sustaining on that island. While you'd have other people kind of in these rings of distance around it to protect,

• 39:36Speaker 08

  sustain, resupply, deploy, redeploy, do reception staging, armor movement and integration. All these things that go into what's called the rapid planning process, or rapid response planning process that the Mew uses to plan for exactly this type of contingency. So the Mew can do it operationally. It's part of their doctrine to do that. That's why, that's why the Marine is, the Marine unit is being sent there because it's literally the only entity in our entire Department of Defense that can do exactly this operation as their primary mission objective, right? Question is, as you asked, is what, are they safe after that? What does that mean after that? Well, the regime has like 4,000 mines right now. The transits before the war started were around 140 plus transits per day around the straits. So if you do the math on that, they can still put the straits at risk regardless of what

• 40:21Speaker 08

  we do in Card Island for a very long time in terms of combat time, right? So even if we did, it takes us two weeks to get there, first of all. So there's a lot of things happening in those two weeks. Then they actually seize and hold the island, which takes a few days to do. Now we're talking about next month. The regime could then deploy more mines. They're not sophisticated devices. They could deploy more mines. They're magnetic. They don't really require very much to be used, especially with small boats that they have. The other very important thing we haven't mentioned yet is the Houthis have not been active. And so if countries try to move oil somewhere else while this, while the US is trying to do this chess piece movement in the straits, for example, Fujairah, which I mentioned at the beginning of the show, it's important because there's actually a land-based pipeline across

• 41:05Speaker 08

  the Saudi, the peninsula that can move a small amount of oil to Fujairah and then send it out. There's another one across Saudi Arabia as well, but that's not quite in the discussion right now. But the Houthis can target that Fujairah port from the south to north. Right? So even if we put troops outside Fujairah to protect the Mew that's been deployed inside the Gulf, that that back element, that rear element could now be at risk by the Houthis on the other side. So these are like very important things to think about as we're thinking, what happens when those Marines actually land on the island? It's not just the island that's now a thing to consider for force protection. It's also things in the rear area that we consider to be the rear area that the enemy can then open up and harass us in the rear area. Hate to use the Vietnam comparison, but this did happen in Vietnam when we were doing

• 41:49Speaker 08

  operations into North Vietnam and then the North Vietnamese activated forces in South Vietnam to bring the fight to us in our rear areas, which threw us off balance numerous times in many of their North Vietnamese successful operations against us. And we had superior forces at that time as well.

• 42:06Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think they struck Fujairah yesterday, right? I mean, I saw certainly social media posts that. Um, and then of course, the Houthis can also put other, you know, the Red Sea, Babel, Mende, all other places. This this hasn't gotten as bad as it could get.

• 42:23Speaker 08

  Exactly.

• 42:24Speaker 07

  And we could end up with, although I agree with Jonathan and my friend, we can take, the Marines will take the island if tasked. The question is, how do we get them out of it? Now, if everything works fine and they and it's basically a tic for tac, then I guess that's how we get them out of it. But if they don't concede, and they don't really seem to be willing to concede anything.

• 42:46Speaker 07

  The other point, and I think we've talked about this before, is this whole mosaic defense of Iran, right? They they are designed that if they take a significant threat to the regime, which this obviously was, they operate very independently, like thirty one different provinces, different commanders, different intelligence collection capability, militias, special type operations. I mean, this is what they are designed to withstand. So I don't necessarily know how we could ever get to a point where they would unconditionally surrender. I think there'll always be somebody that's in the regime, even if we keep decapitation strikes. So we're in a position where, again, why I'm advocating for the US to set our own objectives

• 43:29Speaker 07

  to determine when we met it, and then unilaterally do a pause if necessary, and see if it can decompress the whole situation where Iran will follow. But if the whole idea is to put military pressure enough to get the regime to have some kind of signing of surrender, it's just, it's putting a task on the military that's ill-defined and really unachievable. Right? I mean, if you're gonna fight an asymmetric war, you have to be willing to take more pain than the other. And that's what they've clearly decided to do. And they've clearly decided to take as much pain as we can give them.

• 44:05Speaker 08

  Yeah, there's another Vietnam era quote that the Americans win, or they, what is it, they, they lose if they don't win, and the other side wins if they don't lose.

• 44:15Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 44:15Speaker 08

  Because it's about attrition. Americans are not designed to support attrition because we have a democratic process that puts pressure every four, or two to four years on what our war policy is. And if that war lasts longer than two to four years, you're almost guaranteed a shift in how the war is gonna be executed in a way that misaligns with the original objectives of that war.

• 44:34Speaker 05

  I want to ask you guys about the, uh, there was a Bloomberg report about the US Army sending 10,000 interceptor drones, uh, developed like in Ukraine to the Middle East to combat Iran's like missile and drones. Uh, they call it, they're from AI-enabled company, Merops is called. Um, it costs about 15 grand each. Uh, you know, uh, I love this idea. Why the fuck didn't we have that like three months ago there? Before we start, or three weeks ago?

• 45:02Speaker 07

  I think that is a bird that actually catches bees in the air or something, I think.

• 45:06Speaker 05

  Is that it?

• 45:07Speaker 07

  I thought it was like an acronym, but it's not. It's actually named. Um, yeah, it's time for the United States to wake up to the realities that are, we're seeing in Ukraine, right? Low-cost, but efficient, lethal options. Instead of thinking that everything has to be Probably dating myself here, a Cadillac that we spent an incredible amount of money on. And uh, and somehow that gives us this superior advantage in every conflict we fight. It's just simply not the case. And this, this, you know, the assassin's maze concept that I think everybody uses that term because it sounds cool. That the Chinese have is basically, you know, uh, fight something that's a hundred percent cheaper to kill. Something that's a hundred percent more expensive.

• 45:48Speaker 07

  Uh, the United States needs to realize that's, that is a, that is a concept of warfighting that we need to embrace. I know that there's like a desire to have every, you know, district in the country participate in the building of some massive new uh, weapon system. And I'm not saying that all of those weapon systems are not a good idea, but we have to have a balance. And this is really proven that this war of attrition is uh, we're gonna run out of interceptor missiles here shortly.

• 46:17Speaker 08

  A, a great comparison is the shot, one shot head costs thirty thousand dollars to make, which is one of these drone, one-way attack drones, thirty thousand dollars. One uh, tomahawk is three point six million dollars per tomahawk. It just, I mean, orders of magnitude different. And the outcomes can almost be the same, depending on what the target is that you strike with this either device.

• 46:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I, my, my question is like, why didn't we plan to have like five thousand of these drones down there, uh, dispersed across all of our bases? Uh, ready to intercept instead of using Patriots and, you know, that costs probably what, I don't know what a Patriot misses, one point three mil, I think I read. You know, that is incredible. Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think that's.

• 47:01Speaker 05

  Forget the thads too, the thads are like insane, insanely more expensive. So like, why not have five, eight, seven thousand drones? Ready to rock at all our bases dispersed in the region, especially before we're about to, we know. We decapitated a regime that now is completely out of control, right? Like you mentioned the mosaic doctrine. Like, we don't even know who to negotiate with. Like, how long will it take if we did reach a deal? With the top brash for like the rest of the thirty-one provinces, still like, oh yeah, okay, we're, we're gonna back off now.

• 47:34Speaker 07

  It's a good point. I mean, we don't even know this current status of the Supreme Leader. I mean, I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to say, hey, how come he didn't do a video or speak? Right? And then I've talked to an Iranian who was like, and by the way, the grammar was horrible. And this person's pretty educated and it didn't, I mean, I, I didn't read or know this to be true, but I'm pretty sure based on what this person said is like, the, the person A, used terrible grammar, B, used a lot of more Arabic words than they would have expected and obviously didn't appear on camera or vid or audio. Like there's something going on there.

• 48:14Speaker 05

  Well, he was injured in the initial attack, right?

• 48:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, but maybe more far more injured than we might know. And then the question that I've also heard from people who followed Mostaba's career is he pretty much does what the IRGC tells him to do is what is, is what I would sum up like half an hour conversation. So it's, it's the IRGC that's in charge. And, and it's an amorphous group. Like, so who are we going to negotiate with? Uh, essentially is, is the point of your question, uh, Dee, and I don't know that we have an answer to that.

• 48:48Speaker 05

  I mean, it was pretty clear before these bombings start, the attacks started and the

• 48:52Speaker 08

  We basically left the two worst guys alive.

• 48:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 07

  Yeah. Who you think, Laranjani and?

• 48:59Speaker 08

  Kali Boff.

• 49:00Speaker 07

  Kali Boff, that's the speaker, right? Of the

• 49:03Speaker 08

  Yes, you've got the speaker of parliament and the Supreme National Security Council leader. But these, these guys are old IRGC guys from the Iran Iraq war and they're the kind of lever pollers that have been the lever pollers for decades and everybody else that was killed was someone beholden to these two guys. So the fact that these two guys are still alive, it's like, we almost got the opposite outcome that we were looking for with the strike deck that we used. Which could have been just because we didn't have enough human on the ground to actually validate the targets at the very opening when we were doing the triggered strikes to actually hit those, those large scale first three strikes on day one. Because as far as the strikes that I've worked on, we, you know, if we want to have that one individual in there, we're going to make sure we know who else is in the room with them.

• 49:44Speaker 08

  Because if we, you know, there's strategic effects, if you kill the wrong people at the wrong time. And it seems that we just dropped bombs on large gatherings of folks during Ramadan, which is actually, you know, a strategy that I have used as well. Because you get the most bang for your buck when they're all having soho or dinner together. But if you don't know who's in there, you might end up eliminating the ones that you actually wanted to survive for a specific amount of time to get a specific end state out of after that strike.

• 50:13Speaker 05

  So you're saying, John, that don't plan a war on the back of a napkin with five guys? Is that what you're saying?

• 50:21Speaker 08

  Maybe it was six guys might have been.

• 50:22Speaker 05

  Six guys, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 50:24Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 07

  I mean, they're they're critical people, but the whole point is they should be informed, right? I mean.

• 50:28Speaker 05

  But who's the only one that's like actually like General Kane?

• 50:32Speaker 07

  Right, General Kane, I think, you know, is doing the best he can. But the other guys, uh, sa- save, say, the Secretary of State, they go from talking about domestic policy to say, I mean, they don't have time to be an expert on all of this stuff.

• 50:46Speaker 05

  I totally agree.

• 50:47Speaker 07

  I'm not making excuses for them, but.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  But that's why you need a robust NSC. Yeah, like, that's why you need that robust NSC. You're an executive, you're not in the weeds, but like, yeah, you shouldn't just be like, like, again, this isn't starting a business, this is actually going to war that's gonna ki- that's killed thousands of Iranians. You know, we have 150 plus injured Americans, plus like now I think it's over 12 dead. Um, and if there's no end in sight, it's like, these are huge decisions that you're in charge of, like.

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• 53:13Speaker 05

  Anybody with wrinkles in their brains would understand that like I need to get as much information from as many experts as possible before I make a commitment like this that will lead to people dying and, you know, potentially hundreds of billions of dollars. Forget even the oil, like in our economy, like just the actual money that it costs to sustain operations.

• 53:37Speaker 05

  And I'm a dummy and I know that, like, you know, you would think that people in charge would be like, yeah, let's get as much information as humanly possible. Get smart guys in the room like Mick and John and Andy and like, you know, and tell us the truth so we can make an actual decision, not get dogged up by Israel.

• 53:53Speaker 08

  The challenge is when military planners are presenting these options, they're in their advisor capacity and they're saying, here is the most likely outcome. Here's the most dangerous outcome. Here are some black swan events to look out for. We recommend against the most dangerous option. We recommend against this particular avenue. And then the decision maker will look at that and say, I'm ignoring your advice and I'm taking the most dangerous option. Plus, I'm tacking on these other political outcomes because I want to do that. And that's not against the current administration. That's how every administration works. That's how it works at the embassies. When we're at the country team meeting with the ambassador and the senior defense official says, sir, I don't think that this is a good idea to do X. And the ambassador says, thank you for that. I'm doing X. And there isn't much you can do about it because then they'll come back to you and say, now plan for X, even though you just told them that that was a bad idea.

• 54:38Speaker 08

  And here's all the reasons why. You have to put all those reasons why to the side and use them as contingencies. And then plan for how you're actually going to execute this thing that you just told them was a bad idea.

• 54:49Speaker 07

  And in these meetings in the past have been recorded. I mean, not necessarily recorded like verbatim, but there's notes and minutes and what we agreed to and what the Defense Department agreed to. And part of it is to hold us accountable for later. Uh, and part of it is just so everybody goes on record.

• 55:08Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 55:08Speaker 07

  Right? Um, where did you stand? Did you think it was a good idea? Did you think it was not a good idea? And, uh, with the idea that, um, we hope that we get better as we go back and look at the decisions made and say, you know, the Bay of Pigs or what have you.

• 55:24Speaker 07

  Don't see that happening now. I don't, I don't know what the current status at the NSC is, but to have the Secretary of State be both the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State means there's not a National Security Advisor or a Secretary of State. It's got to be, it, it has always been robust. It was robust the first Trump administration, um, especially when, uh, General.

• 55:46Speaker 07

  McMaster was there. Yeah, he was, I thought he was very present, had a strategy for everything. Army officer, of course, right? Uh, I thought he was very good, but he was a good example of like a robust, engaged national security apparatus that the president could, you know, to Jonathan's point, they can rely on or not, but it's there and chances are they would at least take it into consideration decisions.

• 56:14Speaker 05

  Do you think that there's anything that has anything to do with like how well the Venezuela operation went, even though it's like totally night and day, you know, a two hour JSOC operation in the dead of night compared to sustained air operations? Like, do you guys think that because that went so well and like, you know, as well as it possibly could be, there was one guy who was injured?

• 56:36Speaker 05

  That added into the calculus of like President Trump and whoever else to be like, yeah, we could totally fucking do this. It's just be fucking easy with the United States like.

• 56:48Speaker 07

  Well, President Trump referenced it several times. I think the whole idea that he can find somebody in the regime that he can work with and then put pressure on them to capitulate is what he did in Venezuela. It's just entirely different country. Again, I think that would have been something that would have been identified in the discussions about this. It would have been like, yeah, you could very well end up with somebody who's more extreme than the actual person that you took out. In that case, the former spring leader. And it looks like that's what happened. And that's what, you know, from what I've seen from open reporting, that's what the IC said was going to happen. Not to, you know, tout something that's not in our own interest, but it seems like that's what they said was

• 57:30Speaker 07

  going to happen. And that's what is happening. And it's unlikely to change. So we have to deal with the current situation, not the one we want or the one that we try to present, but the one that's actually is.

• 57:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. And if you guys were listening, we did say that too before this popped off as well. John did. So if you want.

• 57:47Speaker 08

  You guys should be making some money on Polly market with all my.

• 57:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, for real. I know with all he called the who the new boss was going to be called everything. John's secretly very wealthy from all his predictions.

• 57:58Speaker 07

  You can bet on all this stuff?

• 58:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 08

  Oh yeah. There's actually the CFTC just put out new guidance on how and or how not to bet on events like assassinations, wars, things like this that are, you know, morally questionable. There are some prohibitions, but they're very hard to regulate these what they're called event contracts. And yeah, it just came out like two days ago about what what you can actually do. The problem is someone from unit 8200 before the war started made like 500 grand off of what happened. And then some people at the Pentagon, like three to four people at the Pentagon also made a bunch of money on the war before it happened. So now this is being considered insider trading, which is a huge problem now because it's not actually regulated as a securities market.

• 58:43Speaker 08

  So now we need to reinterpret how we understand what securities market means in as far as event contract bidding.

• 58:50Speaker 07

  Wow, it's shocking. It's illegal.

• 58:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:57Speaker 05

  Uh, anything else, guys, sticking in your craw in terms of like, have we touched on, missed anything?

• 59:02Speaker 08

  Yeah, I'll mention one thing that I think should always be mentioned during this war, and that's the Iranian people, because these are ultimately the ones that have to bear the cost of whatever happens. Whether the US succeeds or fails, that's kind of not as important in my mind as what happens to the Iranian people, because they're the ones that they got this war, many of them support it. But, you know, the outcome is important, because I remember in 2003, when we invaded Iraq, Iraqis were on the street cheering the fact that Saddam Hussein was gone. We all remember these videos. But because of decisions that outsiders made about the inside, that cheering turned into gunfire very quickly. And it's very important that we don't lose sight of the fact that the people that we need to win over are the Iranian people. And that can quickly go sour. That's almost 90 million people that right now support

• 59:46Speaker 08

  us. That could be almost 90 million people that don't support us if we don't smartly execute the especially the exit from this conflict, if there is such an exit. And the important thing to note there is in the last couple of days, the regime has been putting out a lot of propaganda out in the media about if you protest, we're going to kill you. And the IRGC Intelligence Organization, which is actually the premier, it's almost like the CIA inside of Iran, because they don't have domestic and foreign separation in their intelligence operations. That's who's actually putting these messages out. And they've been arresting dozens of people over the last few days and charging them with crimes against the regime about propagating anti Islamic, etc., etc., etc., however you want to describe it. What basically they're charging them with is trying to go out in

• 1:00:29Speaker 08

  the streets and protest. Because we've kept saying that we want to enable these people to go out and do a regime change. But 95% of the internet is cut off, and the regime itself has said the 5% of the internet that's on is only for people who support the regime. So they are themselves saying that 95% of the country doesn't support them. I mean, that's, that's crazy. But they're saying that. And that's really important from an outsider perspective. How do you want to win this conflict? How about you put up a mesh network, low earth orbit satellites, direct to cell communications, that people can get on their phone and say, hey, meet me at 5pm at the square, so we can go protest, right? Or, hey, that barracks was blown up, there are weapons there, we can go take those weapons and start going out in the streets and fighting back. That component is missing. And that component, in my opinion, is necessary if we actually want to keep those people on our side.

• 1:01:13Speaker 08

  As we exit from this, however, we do exit.

• 1:01:16Speaker 07

  Concur. Radio free Europe. Leader of the free world. We still, we still should be that. Yeah, exactly. The concept is what I'm hitting at is that we still need to be that shining city on a hill that I know it sounds a little Pollyannaish, but that's why I view the United States. So, and I think it goes directly to Jonathan's point that we need to be that beacon for them and not just treat them like they're just a pawn in this thing. We support them until we decide that it's easier to deal with and throw them under the bus.

• 1:01:51Speaker 08

  And it seems like that's where a divergence between US and Israeli strategies happening because Israel is striking police checkpoints. They're striking very low level tactical, you know, vehicle checkpoint areas where cars have to pass through. And they're doing that because what they're trying to do is remove the place where the actual enforcement actions are happening against the people. So that the people can come out and do things. They're using very interesting AI enabled drone swarms right now with facial recognition to actually identify some of the guys that were killing people in January, the actual person and then go, go kill them with a drone. So that's a huge divergence between what we are doing with these standoff munitions from a distance. Israel is actually in there on the ground, removing the real problem, which is regime people with guns from the streets.

• 1:02:35Speaker 07

  So they're clearly doubling the regime change route. Yeah. Dismantle the Islamic Republic. Yeah.

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. Interesting times, guys. All right. This was great as usual. I want everyone to check out the links down in the description. The Whitefish Security Summit is happening in a couple of weeks. So check that out. That link is down in the description. John Hackett, of course, his incredible books, Iran, Shadow Weapons and Theory of Irregular War. What's your other book called?

• 1:03:06Speaker 08

  Theory of Irregular War and Iran's Shadow Weapons.

• 1:03:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, those links are in the description as well. Uh, Mark P, of course, down there. And if you want to help support the show, go to patreon.com slash the team house. You get both eyes on and team house episodes at free and early. And, uh, yeah, as always, guys, great show.

• 1:03:26Speaker 08

  Hey, great talking to you guys.

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• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.