Midterms Drubbing, CENTCOM & the Next Phase of the Iran War | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

We break down what the midterm results could mean for U. S. foreign policy, how much power Congress actually has over the executive branch, and why tools like war powers resolutions and sanctions often fall short in practice. We also discuss CENTCOM’s new Task Force Iron Gate, the Iran nuclear issue, growing concerns about U. S. military readiness, and how Israel’s political shift could affect the next phase of the Iran war. VAER Watches ⬇️ https://www.vaerwatches.com/theteamhouse get a free watch roll with your purchase. 20% for active duty, veteran, leo, & first responders Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Jack's news outlet:⬇️ https://thehighside.substack.com/ Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett 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 00:00 – Start 00:26 – Midterms & What They Mean for U. S. Foreign Policy 01:33 – Can Congress Rein In the President? 05:42 – War Powers & Executive Authority 10:24 – Why Civic Institutions Are Breaking Down 14:07 – Task Force Iron Gate Explained 17:23 – Why Sanctions Haven’t Stopped Iran 19:18 – CENTCOM’s New Role in Economic Pressure 23:06 – CENTCOM Launches a Podcast 28:42 – The Military’s Problem With Dissent 32:45 – $20 Million for Iran Nuclear Information 36:41 – The IAEA, JCPOA & Iran’s Nuclear Program 42:51 – Is the U. S. Losing Ground in the Middle East? 44:45 – A Counterterrorism Military Facing Iran 48:37 – What Happens Next With Iran? 50:13 – Israel’s Election & the Future of the Iran War 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

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• 0:57Speaker 02

  This episode is presented by Verwatches. Go to vaerwatches.com/the team house today and get a free watch roll with your purchase. That's vaerwatches.com/the team house. Fuck. Okay. Hey guys, we're back. Eyes on geopolitics. I just got like something's happened on the backend here that they don't let you know when they're updating the fucking site. And now I just got John on like a big screen and it freaked me out a little bit, even though John, you're as handsome as ever. It's eyes on geopolitics. We're here, it's me and John. Lot happening as usual. This past Tuesday, we had the midterm elections. Democrats, uh, for the most, like pretty much sounds like they wiped, looks like they wiped the floor with Republicans.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  They got, it looks like 56 Senate seats and it looks like 250 plus House seats. So it was a big overturn. Um, I want to talk about it a little bit, like what's it going to look like for, you know, US foreign policy and geopolitics going forward, at least for the next two years. You know, will they try and pass a war powers resolution? Uh, will they start giving Ukraine more support? You know, there's a lot of stuff going on. Um, so of course I have my resident expert here, John.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  What are your thoughts?

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, thanks for calling me handsome. I'm wearing my orange, very seasonal color today.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Gorgeous.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  Those who watch on YouTube will notice the orange theme because the last two episodes we did also had a pumpkin in the background, which is no longer in the background, but the orange is still with us here.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  I love this. You're ready for fall.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  Of course, got a lot of leaves outside to take care of. So glad I'm not doing that right now.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  But, uh, yeah, with the midterms, it's kind of interesting because I've had this question a few times this week on different media outlets about, okay, so now that the midterms happened, does that mean that Congress can stop Trump from what he's doing in the Middle East? And I think that I, I wish the answer was very easy to, whether it's yes or no, I wish that was an easier answer, but it's actually not because of the way that our balance of power works in the government. Even if Congress completely did not like what Trump was doing and they completely stopped funding and like did everything 100%, all of them, all the way, you know, let's say a hundred, 100 to zero votes in the Senate. It would still take time for that to work its way across the branch and then take time for the executive branch to respond to those changes. And then that's without any resistance from the executive branch.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  So of course we can assume there will be some resistance, especially seeing that Susie Wiles voluntarily left the administration the past couple of days and Mr. Miller was elevated into her position. Uh, that does not seem to be in the direction of frictionless, uh, response to what Congress might be doing. In fact, it may be the opposite. So I would not be surprised that even though we've got this war powers resolution, which by the way, is not the first one. There have been many war powers resolutions that have passed. These are kind of toothless expressions of congressional feeling more than legal tools. Uh, you know, there's, there's some things like the National Defense Authorization Act, which is a very powerful tool, which tends to have less teeth because there are a lot

• 4:11Speaker 03

  more interests to balance there. You know, let's say you've got a Democratic Senator, you're like, oh, great. We just got a Democratic Senator in Michigan. Yeah, well, there's also industrial interests in Michigan that will force that individual to not vote as liberally as you may have thought he would because of the people there in the state, you know, Michigan being a high industrial focal point. Same thing with other states that you're like, oh, Texas, wow, it just turned blue. There's also a lot of interest in Texas that will influence the way that those new blue electees will have to behave in Congress. So when it comes to a real thing like, like the NDAA, you will not see as much against what the executive branch is doing. Whereas in these more performative, maybe not 100% performative, but mostly performative

• 4:55Speaker 03

  actions like a war powers resolution, it's a lot easier to just vote for that. Um, so I think those things are less powerful than we would hope they would be. And the other issue is of course, we still have the authorization for use of military force that's 26 years old, that's still being used by every president since then, no matter what side of the aisle they're on. And you'll hear some chirps and squeals in Congress about it, but nobody's actually doing anything about it. They keep it there. So this is another thing that I've mentioned this before, as long as Congress whittles away its authority to the executive branch, the, the answer to this question will not be that the president is going to just listen to Congress because they have given him power to not listen. And until Congress takes that power back in whatever form that is, we're going to

• 5:36Speaker 03

  continue seeing these challenges where overnight you see strikes on Keshaw Island in the Straits of Hormuz. We still see that the US is not supplying Ukraine with the proper air defense, even though the election happened. So there are lots of things that you would think Congress would suddenly start doing in the world, foreign policy wise, not just, let's forget the domestic politics, but foreign policy wise, that are not going to happen. If they, if they do happen, it'll be a very long time coming and it will not be in the format that we had hoped for.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  John, Jesus. The idealism runs away from me once you hear the truth, you know, about how things work. So like, let's say they did pass a war powers resolution, um, Senate and House and Senate. Right.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  He's probably not signing it. He's probably videoing it or minimum pocket videoing it, whatever. Um, I don't, they don't have enough votes to override a veto unless some Republicans jump over.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  A significant amount of Republicans do, not just a couple.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, yeah. Good God. Just always, always full of light and confidence in this show whenever I hear this.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  And you remember the Gulf War, 1991, 1990, when George Bush senior launched forces into Saudi Arabia to start out? That was under the, the war powers resolution framework where Congress actually was not happy about that and did not want that to happen. But because of the way that he thought about it in advance, he had deployed enough forces in enough places that it was a fait accompli and there wasn't much Congress could do about it. And that wasn't the first time that happened, but that was like a big example of it where it doesn't really matter what Congress thinks, as long as the president can do something within 90 days. 90 days is a long time. Like from, from this week, 90 days forward, we're talking about next year.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  So there's a lot we could do in Iran, a lot we could do in Ukraine or not do in Ukraine. There's a lot we could not do with China, for example, around the world that doesn't really matter what Congress says, because Congress doesn't really have the tools. Remember the only way that we can stop someone in the executive branch from doing something is by sending an executive branch agent to go arrest them from the, with the DOJ. So like, that's not going to happen, right? So we have to be more honest with ourselves about like, what is the actual change in foreign policy that's going to happen? And it might be a lot less than we would have expected.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  It's interesting to me, like, you know, if, if an administration is in contempt of Congress, right, or like not abiding by, uh, let's say an act that's passed, like the Jeffrey Epstein Act.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was gonna ask, like, what are the, what's the mechanism for enforcement, right? Like you think the, the DOJ, which is technically under the, uh, executive branch, has to send somebody to arrest or the president? Like it's something that sounds completely unprecedented, which it probably is, it's never probably happened.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  How does that, I guess, like, we never thought like an executive would be so much, uh, kind of just balking at Congress to the point where we need to enforce it, but it's, it's just like, is there any talk of, at least by like constitutional thinkers, because the Congress and politicians aren't going to think of this, to how do we enforce actual acts of Congress that are passed?

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's not actually designed for this problem, which is one of the only, in my opinion, one of the only weaknesses in the way the constitution is designed is that it did not contemplate the branches behaving this way, because they also didn't contemplate Congress giving away as much power as it has. Because it was originally designed that Congress would be the penultimate, or not the penultimate, but the ultimate power. And then the president would be penultimate, in other words, second to Congress. But, and that, the whole point of that was because we had a king.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Who was the executive and they didn't want the king in charge anymore. They wanted what was essentially a parliamentary system in charge. So Congress was elevated. Congress has whittled away that elevation and it's, it's gone back to actually the, against the intent of what the framers had in the first place, which is kind of an interesting political philosophy we could talk about. But the practical matter is, for example, let's say a judge in the third branch of government says, here's an injunction, you can no longer do X to the executive branch. Well, the enforcement mechanism, like the people on the ground who are supposed to go enforce that injunction are DOJ people. So if it's the DOJ that brought the case in the first place, whereas Supreme Court or whoever judge says, don't do that, we're going to send someone after you. Who are we sending? Oh, we're sending you after yourself to go through this.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Crazy.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  So, um, unless there's political will at the top to do something.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  With it, it's not going to happen.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Or you actually have like an actual independent DOJ, which like, I guess you have had that in the past, right? Like there's always like this big like separation, for lack of a better analogy, like church and state with like a president and their AG, you know, or their FBI director were very much like, they would obviously coordinate on big issues, but like they would still keep it separate and you kind of wanted an independent type person to do it. It doesn't seem like, obviously that's not the case now.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's an interesting thing, right? Because you never think these institutions, you think these institutions are kind of bulletproof. And then like we saw with the Epstein Act and other things where they're just bucking against actual laws that are passed that the president signed, right?

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Even the Lindsey Graham law that just passed about Ukraine, like, okay, so everybody passed it, the president even signed it. And then just after that, like, yeah, but we're not going to do it.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Man, oh, man, it really, it really kind of like, if you really look into this stuff, and I know a lot of people don't, it's, it kind of shakes your faith. And these institutions, right, that we put so much kind of

• 11:24Speaker 02

  faith behind, faith, for lack of a better word.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Well, that's why civic virtue is such an important thing, like teaching civics in school and having people participate in local and state politics. In any capacity at all, super important because the institutions only exist because we, the people, allow them to continue. If we alter the way that we live, they will go away. I mean, these are just social contracts. These are informal agreements that are between millions of people every day. Many of us not participating in those agreements, but those agreements still are there. And if we all turn our backs on those things, they just fall apart. There's no, there's not another person there that's going to step in and be like, oh, okay, you guys messed up. Let me fix this for you. Because that's a dictatorship, if that is the case. We don't want that. Instead, it should be us, all of us, even us with different ideas that disagree with each other should be

• 12:08Speaker 03

  all participating somehow so that there's this like averaging of the social contract toward a direction that all of us are okay with.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Let me ask you this, right? You're the lawyer, lawyer in training, right?

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Constitutional law question, like, how do we? How do we make a DOJ that's actually independent or give Congress the teeth to enforce their, their past laws that, let's say, an executive or even somebody in the judiciary is not going with?

• 12:40Speaker 02

  What do we do? Is it, is it like an amendment, which you need, like, you know, to get an amendment to the Constitution is like, you know, you need fucking whatever, three quarters and like, don't you need two thirds of the state legislatures too? Yeah. So it's like a big hole. What's the move? Is it just that?

• 12:58Speaker 03

  So you could do an amendment. I mean, amendment is the best thing to do because it's the most comprehensive. It's the hardest to contest. Like, once it's passed, it's like, this was literally the will of almost everybody in this country, you know, up and down, left to right, everybody. But that's why it's the hardest, because it does require getting consensus. And it also requires people like publicly state their position, which people don't really like to do. So that's, that's possible, but not likely. Instead, what could also be better is perhaps some legislation where there's like a joint control of a law enforcement entity between Congress and the executive or between the executive and the states. Somehow like DOJ having some entity that's partially funded and supported, maybe the personnel are provided by each state. And then it's funded with oversight from Congress or like, there's some like overlap between entities that are separate.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  And something like that already exists funding wise with the way that Medicare or Medicaid are funded in the United States, where it's a federal program, but much of it is funded by individual states. But it looks kind of seamless from the outside, like, oh, it's just being funded, but it's actually funded by these competing interests between different states and also different vertical levels of government. So there's, there's some ways that these structures exist that we've seen in different ways that are possible. It would just require someone to give up some sovereignty and that someone could either be the executive, it could be Congress, it could be the states. But someone's going to have to say, okay, let me give up a little bit. That's the hardest part is convincing a stakeholder to give up some sovereignty. It's easier when they don't have the sovereignty to say they'll participate. When you're, when you're giving up something you already have, that's harder. And that's, goes back to the original thing about why Congress is whittling away its power and why the president won't give it.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, interesting, interesting stuff to see how like the real sausage is made and how like we can actually see things through. It seems pretty impossible, particularly like the way over the last 30 or so years, like how how completely partisan things are. And it's just like

• 14:48Speaker 02

  nothing, it's always just like a bipartisan watered down kind of stuff. It's no real like big legislation that's, that's affecting us in, in, in positive ways.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Talk to me about Task Force Iron Gate.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. So this is a really interesting concept. Speaking about idealism, as you mentioned earlier, this is a, an ideal way of thinking about how politics works, which means it's not real. And so you look at, you look at a picture of Iran on a map and you look at who's surrounding Iran on a map. Okay, you've got seven land border countries. That's Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And we, at one point in our recent history, could have enforced the border with Afghanistan. But we didn't even then, okay? And I was on some of those operations where we tried to do that. That didn't work. Pakistan, same issue.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  That's the eastern entire half of Iran's border is two countries that will not participate for various reasons with us in this operation. By the way, this operation is supposed to stop stuff from coming and going into and out of Iran. To, I guess, blockade the country. Remember, Iran is quite self-sufficient. And that wasn't like a natural thing. That was because of the survival of the fittest in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranians that survived, the regime that survived, learned how to survive. And the ones that couldn't adapt died or left the country. So you've got this country of survivors, both in the regime and the people that they fight every day, which is the Iranian people, both sides are survivors. So they've figured out ways to get stuff in and out of the country.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Fun fact, most of the saffron that you buy in your store, in the grocery store that says it's a product of Spain is actually a product of Iran, because there's a trade relationship between Iran and Spain where Iran exports its saffron to this, these couple of providers inside of Spain that then take it out of the packaging and put it in new packaging and say that it was packaged and made in Spain, even though it's not. And they sell it to the United States and the US government allows this to happen. This is just one example, because when we talk about like sanctions evasions, export control and all the stuff that this task force is supposed to stop. Bro, the stuff has been going on already.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  In the US. And I've also mentioned on the show before, the Audi example where if you go to downtown Tehran, especially North Tehran, you'll see these like super expensive vehicles. It looks like you're in Dubai or something. How do these cars get there? They're from Germany. They're from the United States, right? How'd they get there? Aren't we sanctioning them? Aren't there export controls? Yeah. What happens when someone wants something, though? They're going to get it. And the way they do that for the vehicles in particular, especially the Audi example, is they actually take the vehicle apart. So they're like millimeters apart each piece. And they put these little dividers and stuffing inside of it. So when it's shipped, it's not shipped as a complete vehicle, because the way the export control is, is only for a completely manufactured item for this particular case. So when they get into the country, it's totally fine to bring it in. And then they just pull all the inserts out and put the vehicle back together. Now you've got an Audi A8

• 17:42Speaker 03

  or RX or whatever you got in there. And now you've got this like super expensive car that was brought into the country. And you're like, well, how'd that happen? And you look around people with iPhones and Apple. I mean, even if you watch like an Iranian TV series, in the series, they'll have iPhones, they'll have laptops, brand new MacBooks as just the cast in the show, like the show itself. It's like as if there was no sanction. And this isn't Apple's fault. Like, but I mean, it all goes to this Task Force Iron Gate concept, like, guys, we've been doing this for 47 years. We've been trying this for 47 years. We've, we've done a lot of stuff. We've tried a lot of different things. During Trump one, there were 748 sanctions on Iran, on persons and entities. Did that stop them? No. In fact, it actually created new ways for them to generate wealth outside of Iran, because they're like, okay, let's put all of our capital in Europe,

• 18:27Speaker 03

  put it in these banks over here. And now it's actually growing because they benefited from the way the stock market behaved in the last 15 years. Instead of having it in Iran where it would have deteriorated due to inflation. So there are many, what in economics we call negative externalities that occur from this type of behavior. This is yet again, an example of that. So I mentioned the land borders of these countries where you're like, that's not going to happen. But then you have this like gaping northern border in the Caspian Sea with Russia. Where they directly, I think 11% of Iran's trade moves across the Caspian Sea to Russia. What are you going to do about that? Right? And then we have the other issue where China is using all this crude oil from Iran and from other entities that are Iran-linked.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  If China is not pressured or stopped from behaving with Iran the way it is, especially providing, let's say, targeting materials to kill Americans or providing weapons and like tailfins for these ICBMs that Yemen is launching at Saudi Arabia. If we're not stopping China, this stuff is going to continue. Because China is like, it's like a sieve. It's like just emptying it from between China and Iran. And if we're just like, okay, we'll just stop, you know, the tiny amount of, of trade with Bahrain's bazaar that they're doing with Iran to like import small trinkets and, you know, saffron. What are you doing?

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  It's like, it's just like laughable to look at this thing. I mean, we could go on and on about, I'll just leave it right there, but it's just like, it blows my mind.

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• 24:47Speaker 02

  Like the Task Force Iron Gate, is it just a repackaged of like these secondary sanctions that we were talking like Economic D-Day kind of shit, like we heard a few months back, and nothing really happened because we didn't really enforce it with China or enforce it with Russia? It's just like these kind of press releases. It's like they put in like a name generator for like a cool task force name, and they put it out, and it's just repackaged bullshit that hasn't been working anyway. That's what it feels like from an outsider, like me.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  So, first of all, it's a CENTCOM thing, which means it's actually a military idea. So that's, that's new. That's different than how the sanctions previously were, because usually sanctions are covered under DOS as far as the way that they're enforced, or DOJ, depending on it.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  DOS, Department of State, right?

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Correct. Yeah, so it's either a state or a justice issue typically with sanctions, economics. This is a CENTCOM DoD because it's still the Department of Defense, which by law is still called that. It's not Department of War. That's made up. But it's a DoD entity doing this this time, which is new. And so what they have is a 20-man team, or 20-person team, let's say. And this 20-person team is basically doing interagency coordination with other groups that already are doing what you just mentioned. So there's export control activity at state, for example. So what the CENTCOM team is probably going to do is send them emails and have VTCs, video conferences, where they say, like, are you guys tracking anything in the Middle East? And they're like, yeah, we saw this thing go over here. And they're like, okay, let's see if we can put a drone over there and see what's going on. And they put the drone over there, and there's nothing going

• 26:18Speaker 03

  on. This is most likely what is actually you're gonna see. And like, when I was working on this in Afghanistan, we would actually get up on these flights called the Aerial Interdiction Force. And I was an interrogator on one of these flights, wherever. If we, if we captured somebody, I would interrogate them, right? We did this without intelligence leading up to what was going on. So we'd like literally get in the air, go fly around, and we'd wait for someone to say there was maybe something happening in this area, like on the Pakistan border. And we would land there and stop and talk to whoever was there. This sounds very much like what I'm seeing with the CENTCOM Task Force Iron Gate issue, because you're talking about thousands and thousands of kilometers of ungoverned space that even these countries cannot themselves govern, right? And especially if you're talking

• 26:59Speaker 03

  about southeast and east Iran. This is why there's such an opium crisis in some of these countries like Iran and Afghanistan, because these borders are non-existent. They are not there. And I can tell you this myself. I have been on these areas, and I have looked around and said, which country am I in right now? I don't know. There is no indication. And there are no border guards. And the border guards that are in certain areas are working for warlords and drug lords, have no connection to the government.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, they're probably underpaid civil servants, right?

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  You know, so if opium traffickers rolling up, like, here's five grand, which is probably, you know, 20 years of pay for this person, or 10 years of pay for this person, they're obviously gonna look the other fucking way. Why wouldn't they?

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Totally, yeah. I mean, we even had farmers that were farming this opium, and it's like, I can get $5,000 a hectare for opium, or I can get $40 a hectare for sorghum. Okay.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  This is a pretty simple game here. So like, is the US gonna go back to the anti-opium concept in Afghanistan again? Is it like, is this what we're gonna do? Because, I mean, what are you stopping across the borders? Because the stuff I mentioned earlier, like the iPhones, the iPads, the cars, these are not crossing the land borders between Afghanistan and Iran. These are being flown in and brought on shipping containers in the Straits of Hormuz into Bandar Abbas and into Tehran, and like, normal commercial activity. These are being driven by like little bongo trucks across the border that we're gonna go shoot with a 50 cal, right?

• 28:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. And also, in reality, how do you even like, how do you police that? We can't even police like our own, like, most of the drug trade that comes into America is through commercial shipping. Like, that's the vast majority of it.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Not across the border.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Right. It's not like some mule.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Los Angeles or Baltimore.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's not like some fisherman in a boat or smuggler in a boat that were drone striking because it looks cool on camera. You know, there hasn't really been a slowdown in terms of like, drugs in flux coming into this country since.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  That was Steve Miller's idea, by the way. I just read that recently.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Well, I think he's gonna be a tremendous, I think he's gonna be a great chief of staff, frankly. You know what I mean? I really do. Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  I think he'll represent the interests of those who appointed him.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. The white nationalists, you mean? I mean, I'm sorry, what? Sorry, I was just free associating. Yeah, it's interesting how it feels like these guys like hire consultants to come up with ideas. They're like, I think this will be good, and I think this will make like a really good press release and stuff, and you could put it on your new cool podcast. You know, because CENTCOM just came out with a podcast as well, which is like the cringiest fucking shit I've ever seen in my life. Like, my brother, you're losing a fucking war. You're getting smoked in a war. You're the boss of CENTCOM. I don't give a fuck if you steal your deputy's fucking fries. I don't give a shit if you're a Bengals

• 29:42Speaker 02

  fan. Nobody fucking does. Wake the fuck up. So whoever, whatever the PAO or the PR consultant was like, you know what we should do? We should definitely do an inside CENTCOM podcast where you talk about absolutely nothing. Wow. You lose a war that everyone told you you'd lose. You get our, the American interests across the region, particularly military interests, wiped out completely, probably tens of billions of dollars in damage, and radars, and things like that. Let's start a podcast and talk about you being a professional free thrower after you're fucking retired. Like, it's just so tone deaf. It's almost, it's farcical. It's like if you were in a writer's room and someone was like, I have

• 30:27Speaker 02

  a crazy idea for an episode of Veep. They'd be like, guys, that's too much. Like, what are you talking about? Let's, let's, let's dial it in a little bit.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Although The Simpsons gets it right and has gotten it right.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  About this administration, which is kind of interesting.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  What are your thoughts on the podcast? Have you checked it out? The Centcom podcast?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  To me, like my first thought was, I remember when forces were about to go on D-Day and Eisenhower sent a letter to the forces that were about to go on D-Day and you read the letter. It's like a couple of sentences long, but it's this like very inspiring leader, speaking to the men who are about to go die for these people, both for Americans and for Europe, right? Like for the free world. And you read that and then you hear this guy on the podcast and he's a, he's a warfighter. I mean, he has a very distinguished career and nothing against it, but it's like, it just made me think like, what happened to our leadership, the way that we lead, especially as generals? There is not generalship anymore. Like even Schwarzkopf, making his way across the front line in Saudi Arabia, right before we, we went

• 31:30Speaker 03

  back and pushed Saddam out of Kuwait. That was a leader, you know? And, and something happened in the nineties till, till now, where we don't really see that as much anymore. We have this like inspirational individual who is speaking like a, like a man, an adult man to, to men who are about to die. And like, there's something about that that is very different than when you listen to this podcast. It's very flippant. It's very empty. It's not serious. And it's like, as you mentioned, we are in a war, even though the president this week said that we hadn't lost anyone killed in this war this year. We have lost people killed. I believe it's 18 or 17 Americans dead from the war. So people are dying. People will die. There will be more deaths, whether we like it or not, especially if we escalate.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  And I think it's a time for seriousness. It's a time for actual warriors to stand up and lead, lead from the front, lead as, as men. And I don't see that when I hear this podcast. It's like you mentioned about the french fries thing, like, what are we doing here? What is the, like, if this is the thing that you hope reaches the most ears in Centcom, is this the message you want to be sending to those ears? Or should it be a message about leadership, resolve, patriotism, sacrifice, honor, right? You know, you look at, for example, like, uh, when I joined the Marine Corps, we watched Gladiator at MEPS, which is where you sign up for, you're going to the military, which is quite a bit of propaganda, but at the same time, it like binds you together. You're like, dude, we are about to be-

• 32:54Speaker 02

  They make you, they make you watch it?

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Well, they brought us in at like nine in the morning.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  And they, we didn't like sign our documents till the evening. And so there's like 20 of us sitting there doing stuff throughout the day and we watched Gladiator three times. They had it on the loop. So we're all like sitting there like, we who are about to die salute you. You know, like, we were ready to go. And, uh, that is not the way that this podcast comes across. And I know that the comparison isn't like excellent, but at the same time, like, there is a different feeling evoked when a leader speaks a certain way and behaves a certain way, compared to when he acts like a bro in the locker room, which there's certainly time for that. But is it on this platform when you're reaching the most, the largest audience that you could possibly reach in any format at all these days in modern times? Probably not the right platform for that.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  I wonder if General Patton stole his deputies fries, you know, during, uh, you know, during World War II.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  And that's even, even worse because like Simon Sinek's Leaders Eat Last is like, in the Marine Corps, that is our mantra. Like, if you're a leader, you are not putting food in your mouth until all the men below you have eaten. And the fact that this dude is stealing his deputies food, like, again, completely counter to what is normal to me.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Well, he's a Navy officer, right?

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Oh, very true. Yeah. They are entitled to literally-

• 34:08Speaker 02

  I don't wanna, I don't, I know, I don't wanna trigger the Navy officers again, because I remember what happened before. People freaked. They'll fuck out.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  They all put their rings on and started knocking on the table, tell you about the Naval Academy and honor.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's just interesting how extremely tone deaf this entire thing is, like particularly the podcast and when they're dropping it to like, I don't know, man. I, I, I mean, maybe have like a, a, a review or like some outside counsel to be like, guys, this is the craziest thing you possibly could do right now.

• 34:40Speaker 03

  But dude, that's the problem in the military is that over time, even my time, I saw there is less and less appetite for dissent of any kind, any kind, especially even like, there's always this like sacred triad where you have the commander, the deputy commander, and then the senior enlisted member, where they have these three, especially in the Navy, this is actually a very like sacred thing. But the triad has become more of just like, three of the same voices speaking to each other in an echo chamber, instead of someone standing up and being like, that's not a good idea. Are you sure we should do that? And it's in private too. It's not a public thing.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  It's like behind closed doors, they all sit down and they level and speak as men. And, you know, we actually saw that on the Russian side back in the Cold War, working well, when during the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was a triad of nuclear missile officers aboard the submarine that was about to launch a nuclear missile at the United States and one of them dissented. And they did not launch a nuclear war. Like, that's how it's supposed to work. And it's supposed to work like that even on lesser scales, like when you're about to make a huge public statement to tens of thousands of soldiers and sailors, airmen and marines and the world and your enemy. Cause I mean, think about Iran listening to this. They're like laughing. Like, oh, no wonder we're not losing. Look at the other side. Look how seriously they're taking it.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Iran's done, the regime's done such a good job in terms of information ops, specifically targeting Americans. This is basically gonna fill their coffers in terms of content for like, probably the next month or so. You just, just make it fun at this, you know, like come out with another Lego AI thing, making fun of like Admiral Cooper and his deputy talking about french fries and free throws.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Well, it's very much like, you know, uh, playing an instrument while Rome burns, that kind of concept where things are going so badly that you're looking for something completely unrelated and like airy and light to go play in, so that you don't have to think about all the heavy things. But the problem is, if you Admiral want to be in the position that you're in, you don't get that opportunity. It's the military. It's, it's not some other thing. It's, you now have this burden and you must carry it. And you have to carry it in a serious way. In fact, that Admiral should be the most serious person of all people in Centcom, because everybody's responsibility comes to, it's on his shoulders.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's interesting how you're talking about that triad in terms of like being able to like kind of red team and like, you know, second guess, go back and forth, debate it or whatever and figure out like, you know, maybe something doesn't make sense, how it's kind of morphed into like, everyone's just yes men to each other. Like this is a great idea. Because if there's nobody there to tell the commander of Centcom, a four star general, right, four star, that, hey dude, you might have a great career and like be a great military strategist. In terms of strategy, this is the wrong move right now. This isn't peacetime and like, our recruitment numbers are kind of low and like, maybe we want to

• 37:30Speaker 02

  make the, we want to make Centcom and the military look like a great place to be. I could see how a video like that would play. But right now, after what's gone on in the last eight months, it's almost, it's not, it's, it's beyond laughable. It's like, mind boggling that they would put something like this out.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  We need like Friday Night Lights type speeches, like getting these people like all on board. Cause I'm sure there are people in Centcom deployed right now that are like, this doesn't make any sense. I remember like when I was in Afghanistan and some of the stuff I was doing was like super cool and fun. At the same time, I was like, wait, why are we even here though? Like, I get what we're doing. It's cool. But like, are we, is this the right idea? You know? And like, you need someone way up at the top to be like, this is the right idea and here is why. You know, I kind of like wrap you guys all up together, because then we're about to go out tonight and do it again. And you need to make sure everyone's at like a hundred percent to go do that. Cause you don't want someone being like, yeah, you know, I'm not really into this thing. And then like, that's like across the force and we're talking on like tens of thousands of people wide.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, at scale. Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, I'm interested to see episode two. I doubt it's gonna come out, frankly. I doubt I think this is, they're gonna sunset, they're gonna sunset this podcast. Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  It was too popular. This is the problem. It was too good.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Exactly. Uh, oh man. It was just hilarious. Also, guys, if you, anybody out there, if you have any information on Iran's nuclear program, there's a great new, uh, $20 million reward you can get. This came from Centcom as well. Um, which, you know, the timing is incredible, frankly. And you know what's funny? Like, maybe if they didn't race to the top as like, as the midterms were happening, because they just kind of posted this. Um, but it would be fodder, like politically, if let's say they put this out maybe a month ago, like they're just now putting out a $20 million reward out there for any kind of information based on the Iran, about the Iran nuclear program

• 39:25Speaker 02

  that we obliterated supposedly. Uh, it, it, it's just insane to me. John, your thoughts while I get this thing up. He sent me.

• 39:34Speaker 03

  I have so many thoughts about this and one that just came to me that I hadn't thought about earlier was that this is a 20, this is a $20 million reward for Iran's entire nuclear program, which is supposed to be pretty existential for the United States. And I'm remembering back to Osama bin Laden, his was 25 million.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  So you're telling me that bin Laden, that an individual was more important than Iran's entire nuclear program, that we just launched a war over and have not stopped fighting yet? That we just decided now is a good idea to do something? I mean, I, it's just like, I'm looking at this flyer that they have on their website, on the State Department's website and-

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Get it up right now. Just give me one moment.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  That I, there's a couple of different flyers. The one that I thought was great was this one that has these little thumbnail images in it. So that's, you know, on the left-hand side, it says what they're seeking information on, which I'll cut apart in a second. And then on the right, there's these three images. One is an image of Iran with the capital Tehran and like a radiological sign over it, which sounds almost like we're gonna, we are going to nuke Tehran. That's what it looks like. And then the other image is these two AI-generated characters inside of a facility that I think they thought was a nuclear reactor, but actually is an industrial facility for like, uh, hydroelectric power. So that's, that's another issue there. The third issue is that the image of an actual nuclear facility they have on this thing is a facility that we built in 1965.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  It's a five megawatt research reactor that produces medical iodine that cannot enrich uranium. It's the only peaceful item in the entire nuclear program in Iran. And this is the one that's on the rewards for justice picture.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm gonna put it in post. So people are looking at it right now.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's it's just excellent to look at and to think about and like who put this together? And also like, what is AI doing to us? Because it's clearly smoothing out our brains from looking at this image. And so going toward the substance of what is in here. So you've got, they're looking for nuclear scientists and staff, nuclear program technologies and quote unquote, associated organizations and personnel. Like, what does that mean? Right? Super nebulous.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  And again, it's been released in November, even though we obliterated it last June and then obliterated again in March and obliterated again over the summer. So is this an admission of failure? Maybe this program, and this is my thought, maybe this had already been thought up back in February, like when the war was starting, they wanted to put this out. But it would be bad optics to put it out because it would look like the whole point of the war was not what it what it is, you know? So there's that. The other thing is, if you look at the actual website where this image came from, because they have like other stuff written on there, like more depth. One of it says, experts estimate that the quantity of uranium, if enriched further, could be enough for several nuclear weapons. So there's a couple of words in there. Experts estimate, right?

• 42:16Speaker 03

  So it's like when you're watching a toothbrush commercial and you've got a dentist brushing his teeth, he's like, I recommend this toothbrush.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Who are these experts that estimate what quantity? Because it doesn't say the quantity. And it's if enriched further, which it's not, okay, could be enough for several nuclear weapons. Could be, right? So it's super tenuous, right? I mean, it's just like, the stuff jumps off the page at me. But the other thing is that they're they're basing this whole thing on the fact that the IAEA does not have access to measure what's going on in Iran.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  I have a question. Why doesn't the IAEA have access to Iran?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  What an excellent question. I'm glad you asked. So there was this old agreement that used to exist called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that allowed the IAEA access into Iran.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  I remember hearing something about that, yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  One of the signatories decided to leave that agreement in 2017.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Which one? Which signatory?

• 43:08Speaker 03

  It was one of the bigger ones, I think, probably the United States left. And when that happened, the US did something else where they kicked Iran out of the SWIFT banking system, which then caused Iran to go underground to the black market all over the world and do what I talked about earlier, where they put all their money in Europe, the United States, Canada, South Korea, and Japan. And now that money has grown dramatically above what it would have been if we had not kicked them out of the SWIFT banking system. And we'd have transparency and oversight into what they were doing with their dollars. All of that aside, the IAEA can't get in there. So the thing is, it says on there, the lack of compliance for the IAEA safeguards and their obligations is part of the reason for this rewards for justice program. But then my first thought was, why aren't we doing this for Israel?

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Because if I'm not mistaken, the IAEA has never once in history been allowed to visit Demona in the Negev Desert to see the 100 to 200 nuclear weapons that Israel has there. So why is it a double standard like this, right? Why is there one way of dealing with one nuclear rogue state while with weapons? And this is a harsher way of dealing with a non-nuclear weapons rogue nuclear weapon state like Iran. Why is that? I think it's kind of an interesting question that if the justification is this, there are other countries doing this too. Why aren't we doing anything about those countries? And back to the Israel issue, it's not just nuclear weapons. They they're not a signatory of the Biological Weapons Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty,

• 44:39Speaker 03

  the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and they have nuclear weapons. This should be much more concerning, I think, to people because they are not part of any treaty that regulates nuclear weapons. Even if those treaties are flawed, Iran is a signatory, which allowed the whole IAEA thing to occur in the first place with the 2015 JCPOA. Because Iran was an MPT signatory, the IAEA was able to go check this stuff. Whereas on Israel's side, we have no idea if this stuff is being safely stored, if it's there's waste buried in the desert, in the Dead Sea. Like, none of this is known. It cannot be known legally, right? So we should at least have some oversight of our other friends in the region that have worse stockpiles, more dangerous, less regulated, less trans-

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, they don't really donate in midterms and presidential elections and stuff.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  They try.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Does Iran have a big lobby in DC?

• 45:33Speaker 03

  There was actually a, I believe she's a representative elected in California, who is the niece of Jawad Zarif, the former Foreign Minister of Iran. And she actually changed her family name so that it wouldn't be clear, but she was elected in this election.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, the Muslims are taking over from what I've read. Yeah, so I'm very, I'm very scared of that. Yeah, I mean, it's a great point. I think it also like it. You know, the same question can be asked, you know, like, why when Israel attacks Iran a year ago or so, we provide them air cover when Iran shoots ballistic missiles back at Israel? When the Houthis and, you know, the militias in Iraq are attacking Saudi Arabia, our other ally in the Gulf and the region, and we don't provide any air cover, right? There seems to be a double standard in that. I am no lover of the Saudi Arabian Kingdom, like the regime there, the.

• 46:30Speaker 02

  But if they're our allies, like, why is, you know, one thing for one ally and one thing for another? I mean, we're frankly bankrolling a genocide in Gaza too. What do we talk, an annexing of southern Lebanon? And parts of Syria, like, we're we're cosigning it, that's for sure.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  So, yeah, it, you know, don't get me crazy. John, go ahead. Continue.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  Well, I think talking about the research reactor actually is very interesting because back in the 1950s and 60s, we had this program called Adams for Peace, which is an Eisenhower program, where we wanted to give countries nuclear knowledge and know-how and some enrichment capability in exchange for them not building nuclear weapons. Iran was one of those countries. Up until the day of the revolution, we were working with them on nuclear research. Much of their early nuclear research knowledge that they have today came from the United States. Like, we built that stuff for them. And that research reactor is a five-megawatt reactor. Five megawatts is not big. This is enough to do research, like producing medical iodine, a little bit of cesium for for research uses. You cannot enrich uranium with this at all. I mean, it's like physics do not allow it, right?

• 47:41Speaker 03

  And so the fact that this is the one that we're targeting in this image, just kind of like, it's laughable. Because there are like Pickaxe Mountain, Natanz, Bushir. Like, there are these way worse, bigger, more dangerous facilities that we didn't even put up. We we chose an AI image of a fake factory.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say, yeah, yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 03

  Can't we put a real picture? I mean, even back in the day when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in power, you remember there was a picture of him walking through the centrifuges and like smiling and like looking at the centrifuges.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  With his white coat on?

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, like, we have that footage. It's already exist. Why couldn't we use the stock footage, right? It just kind of looks lazy to me.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Well, because somebody put this through ChatGPT and like came out with this bullshit.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a disaster.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  It is an absolute joke.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know what to say. I mean, we look like a.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  And it's funny, I put out a tweet, you know, my tweets sometimes can be incendiary and people get worked up about them. And I'm really sorry and I really feel bad about that. You know, it really keeps me up at night. But we're also kind of like, our blinders are on, especially if you're like, rah rah, America can't do any wrong. That like, you know, people were sending me, because I made fun of the podcast, right? Like, we're losing the war spectacularly. Let's so like, let's just start a podcast. And people, you know, would send me pictures of the old Ayatollah, like, talk to him, how's he doing? I'm like, and it's like, this has been in the news for the last year now, right?

• 49:15Speaker 02

  The US bases in the Middle East have been decimated. The fifth fleet, we don't even park our shit there anymore in Bahrain.

• 49:24Speaker 03

  We have to fly, we have to fly from Diego Garcia to bring resupply.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  And what's interesting, over the last 20 plus years, like, the amount of infrastructure we put into the military infrastructure, we put into the Middle East, right? That's all essentially been, has been wiped away. You know, when we're talking about a possibility of kicking back up the strikes on Iran, which we have been hitting them anyway. But like, in terms of like a bigger, at a bigger scale, we're shuffling people around the Middle East now because we're worried about ballistic missiles and drones hitting our our bases, continuing to hit our bases, you know?

• 50:01Speaker 02

  And frankly, like, you know, when Iran sends over a few ballistic missiles and maybe 30 drones, we use 70 Patriot missiles. The the ROI and the cost structure doesn't make sense. We can't do that indefinitely. And the fact that people have their blinders on, they don't want to believe that this is like, we're losing and like, our defense is kind of antiquated and we're not really up with the times. It's kind of scary to me, frankly, because I'm a US rah rah too, you know what I mean? Like, I don't want to, I don't like the regime in Iran and stuff like that. But at some point, you have to kind of face reality.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Well, in the last 25 years, this was a problem at SOCOM when I was there. You know, we were used to going in the middle of the night with NVGs with Blackhawks to go roust a guy out of bed who did not have NVGs or a Blackhawk, grab him and take him where we wanted to go. With, there was no air defense systems shooting at us. There was no opposition in the sky fighting back. And that's how we have developed much of our doctrines in the recent, let's say, quarter century, where a lot of our equipment, communications equipment, logistics, sustainment, support, all these things are built around the fact that we had a counterterrorism military. And we have not adapted at all to a conventional adversary like Iran, which is not like the strongest military on the planet, but it is a pretty large conventional fighting force

• 51:20Speaker 03

  with the advantage of a home field and really intense terrain that we are not prepared to fight on, ground forces. So even if we put ground forces, it would be rough. Even if we were ready, it would be rough. So instead, we have this air campaign that's just puttering along. How long can that putter for? I mean, you can't just stay in that in phase one of a five-phase military campaign.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, it's um, it's kind of interesting to like all the talk about, you know, because very much the GWAT was kind of like, there was conventional guys getting after it, no question, right? And they had some of the hardest deployments that you've heard, and you could watch it on the team house and stuff, like 16 month marathon deployments where they're stuck in a valley, you know, and people are shooting at them from the top, you know, nightmare deployments. But I think it's safe to say that special operations was really like the key to the GWAT, you know, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan. Um, a fight with a conventional army, even as like third raiders, Iran's would be conventional, you know, for the most part, and SOF would play like

• 52:25Speaker 02

  a supporting role, same as like if we fought Russia, or we fought China. And it's interesting to see like just how much we've let it kind of atrophy a little bit.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  I mean, even if you look at the Gulf War, most of the Gulf War was conventional forces on the ground, like tanks, armor, guys on foot, like massing across. And the reason, one of the reasons we won is because Saddam's forces did not have the willpower to continue fighting. That is not the case in Iran. But the numbers and type of equipment are similar. So you're talking about several hundred thousand IRGC fighters across various components of their military service, air, land, and sea, who are very much invested in fighting. And they are not going to abandon their positions. Some of them will, yes, that does happen in war to everybody, even the Germans, some of them abandoned their positions. But that's not universal. And especially when you

• 53:20Speaker 03

  have an invading force, rather than you are the invader, it's a huge unifying action when you're like, well, now I have to defend my soil, my family, my friends. It's not just ideology anymore. And again, that's what happened in 1980 when Saddam invaded Iran. There were all these different opposing groups in Iran during the revolution. And as soon as Saddam's forces crossed the line, they're like, well, forget that difference. Look at this enemy. And this is going to be a very similar thing in Iran. Absolutely.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I just want like people in America, right? We have it pretty good outside of no healthcare. Like, we have it, you know, we live in a relatively safe country. I want to like, what would happen if like, an invading force came into your neighborhood? How would you feel? Frankly, you know, you

• 54:07Speaker 03

  I mean, it happened in 1776.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Right, right. Speaking of that, we have a great team out this episode that just dropped about snipers in America in the Revolutionary War. Really cool.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  I saw that. That was advertised. It looked pretty cool.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Great episode. Pat O'Donoghue's got a cool new book. Check it out. Um,

• 54:26Speaker 02

  all right. So where do we go from here, John? Thoughts and comments? Tell me everything you know.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  Well, I think if the administration's going to act, they're going to do it sooner rather than later, because Congress will eventually come around and do some stuff. So and I know that the executive branch knows that. So they're probably thinking through under a time pressure right now of like, okay, those options we had earlier, what are the big ones right now that I can look at? And they're going to probably make a decision soon. Because if they don't, they're going to have less ability to actually do anything. Now, the other kind of monkey wrench is that Miller is very focused on domestic US politics as far as immigration, which could be a distraction to Trump. So it could actually pull him away from the Iran war in a way that he can't get back to it. Yeah. So that could also occur and almost like eat them from the inside out if he allows that to happen.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, listen, I was kind of surprised when Wiles got taken out, you know, resigned or whatever, and Miller was

• 55:20Speaker 03

  She voluntarily left.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  So to me, that does, like you said, Miller's thing is like immigration, domestic stuff. Um, that worries me in a different way, in terms of like, what are they going to do?

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Miller's a pretty belligerent guy. In terms, like, what would they do? Like, secure their administration? Right? It doesn't seem like Miller's the right guy, chief of staff wise, to be playing, that's going to be willing to play ball with a Democratic Congress, a Democrat Congress, right? Like, seems like they're going to be at odds. It is a good point, though, frankly, like you're saying, like, does it, does it shift away focus from Iran?

• 56:02Speaker 02

  And I don't know what bombing the shit out of Pickaxe Mountain is really going to do, you know?

• 56:07Speaker 03

  Well, the other thing we didn't mention is the elections in Israel, and how that's going to also change the way this goes, because Gadi Eisenkot had some more interest in diplomacy with Iran than Netanyahu did. And Netanyahu's was zero. So it's more than zero. And that's going to be happening very soon, too. Because the president of Israel just directed Eisenkot to form a coalition. So like, that's going to be happening. That coalition has to include some Arabs. So there's going to be that as well. So there will be some refocusing in foreign policy for Israel, too, in a way that will pull away from Iran kinetically. Not completely, but it'll be less sharp than it was under Netanyahu. And that will also affect the US, because it was Netanyahu convinced Trump in the first place in January to go to war. So now

• 56:49Speaker 03

  that voice is a little bit quieter. So that may not be there as much either. And Miller's voice is quite loud. So it could be, as I said, that Miller's voice is the only one that's heard in the room.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Do you think Eisenkot will be able to pull it together, 61?

• 57:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Really? Okay. Wow. Okay. Because I haven't really heard much about like whether the like people's confidence and whether he's going to be, he'll be able to like get enough of the Arab voting.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  My thought is the president wouldn't have directed the coalition if they didn't think behind the scenes that it was going to happen.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, I mean, it's going to be a very interesting next couple of months. I worry, because I feel like at some point, Donald Trump is going to figure out he's kind of cornered. And I don't know if he's to the point where he's old enough and dotty enough where he's just like, I don't really care. You know, I'm going to try and steal as much as I can before I get out of here and eventually pass away, because he's not a young buck anymore. But the Stephen Miller appointment does worry me.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  But I also think Trump really wants a victory for his legacy, to be able to point to unequivocally and say like, I did that. And I think an Iran victory would be one of those things. Because we've been trying, and he remembers the Jimmy Carter era, like, for some reason, it seems like Trump's mind was shaped between like 1977 to 1987. And like, everything he does is based in that 10 year period. And the Iran hostage crisis is an important part of that. And I think he looks at that, and he's like, I could be the one to fix this. I think he really believes that.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  But he was anti-Iran from the get, from the 80s, you know, I remember, you know, he took out the thing in the newspaper and stuff like that. So he's always kind of had like a, a thing for Iran, you know, uh, go ahead.

• 58:27Speaker 03

  There's an excellent movie people should watch called The Apprentice, which is about Trump's formative years. It's kind of like Vice, the one about

• 58:35Speaker 02

  Cheney.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  What's his, Dick Cheney. It's similar in style to that, but it's much more like to realism. It's very real. And they did a really good job on like

• 58:42Speaker 02

  It's a really good movie.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Roy Cohn like shaped his worldview and like, how he like figured out the Make America Great Again slogan from watching a Reagan speech. Like, it's a great, great movie. Highly recommend.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. And yeah, really good. Sebastian Stan plays a good, really good Trump. Um, all right. Do we get everything? Do we figure out the world's problems, John?

• 59:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think we solved it.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  I mean, that's pretty good timing, under an hour, frankly. I mean, they should hire us to fix shit. I want people to do us a favor. I want people to go and buy John's books. Those links are in the description down below. It's a Theory of a Regular War, Iran, Shadow Weapons.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  Right next to my bear hat.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Bingo. bearwatches.com/the team house. Get an incredible timepiece, assembled in America, by the way. Uh, just food for thought. All the other links are in the description. You want to find out information on the other guys, all down there. Go to our Patreon, patreon.com/the team house. Help support the show. And we'll probably, you down for a midweek at?

• 59:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  If you could swing it.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  I'm sure something will happen, probably. So

• 59:48Speaker 02

  That's fair to say. Um, all right. Thanks, man.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  Hello, everyone. If you're hearing this, you are not a member of the Patreon. You can get your hands on ad free episodes that come out early. And you can ask us questions. Maybe we'll answer them. You can also watch the Team House podcast, completely ad free and early. And you can also watch it live as we interview our guests. And it's the best way to support the channel. So if you can, if you're open to it, you can go to patreon.com/the team house. That link is in the description. We appreciate the supporters, and we hope you would consider being one. So it's patreon.com/the team house. Thanks, guys.

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