Man, I guess we lost our music.
Well, anyway, it's better than awkward silence in the beginning, is it not?
It was somewhere between Petros and 80s porn, I don't know what to do with it.
Welcome back Alex, nice to have you.
Ryan, good to talk to you again.
So, you missed most of the fire that we had, what was it yesterday?
The days run all between each other now, I think it was yesterday, where we had the space originally
talking about the situation with the Iran proxies going US troops, and there was quite a lot
of fire there, it was pretty interesting.
Seems like the fire is just about to start.
Yeah, well, if it's Joe Biden responding, if you remember last time he responded to one
of these things, I think he killed like eight children with a drone strike or something.
So I'm not too confident in whatever is about to happen here, but I guess we're gonna try
to get into it a little bit and figure out what these options could possibly be.
So we're just going to get people up to the panel here, just give us a couple of minutes
In the meantime, welcome back Michael, John, Alfred, I don't know if we've spoken before
as well as Dylan, welcome to the panel guys.
I might have a little bit of a, my signal should be fine, I'm still in Hawaii covering
Yeah, you're a good brother, we can hear you loud and clear.
Alright, so I'll go ahead and let the team continue bringing up the panel and I'll go
ahead and kind of kick this off a little bit.
Alex, love your takes on this kind of thing, and I want you to go first.
So it looks like what we've heard, and these may even be selective leaks from the White
House, because the White House does like to leak things to Politico and such.
And the latest that we're hearing here from Politico is that the Biden administration
is, quote, carefully deliberating a response, aiming to deter further attacks without escalating
tensions in the region, and that potential US response options include striking Iranian
links in Syria or Iraq, or Iranian naval assets in the Persian Gulf.
And again, the White House, this White House loves leaking to Politico, so there might
actually be, this might actually be some sort of the options that they're considering.
If you're Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, what would you be advising right
What would be your thoughts as to what should happen here?
Well, I mean, what you just ran from Politico is literally word for word almost what I wrote
yesterday for the Atlantic Council for the same thing.
I mean, it's pretty obvious that there needs to be a forceful response so that there is
an act of deterrence, but it also can't be so strong that it starts another war that's
unnecessary for a whole host of reasons.
But that is a fine balance right in between the two.
But it also speaks to what you were just mentioning on top of it, right?
So selective leaks, it's being made clear, broadcast that, hey, we are going to strike
We're likely going to be bigger than what you have seen before, but we are messaging
very publicly that we are not looking to start a war.
Now that doesn't mean that Iran, depending on what happens, doesn't respond to what's
going on, but it's pretty clear that, yes, I think you're 100% right that there's
messaging coming out of the White House.
And each of those options they listed are pretty feasible and plausible for a host
So we have the militias in Iraq and Syria, right, the ones that took credit was the
Iraqi-based, one of the Iraqi-based, you know, when they're calling it part of the
Axis of Resistance, one of the groups that was there, I believe it was K.H.
from Namaste and Khatib Hezbollah, which has been around for a while and it's
nothing new in that regard.
And again, folks who were just joining talking about the attack in question, right,
because we saw three U.S. troops died.
There wasn't anything different, for the most part, about that attack in terms of
how it was conducted, the mechanics, the weapons systems used, and what it was,
versus the other 158 that preceded it, except for the fact that troops died this
And there's been some open source stories about how potentially the drones in
question could have been confused for a U.S. one-returning debate, so I still
have a hard time understanding how that's possible, because they all have
It sounds like just a, you know, a potential screw-up, but that story still
needs to be made more clear.
It doesn't really make a lot of sense.
But in either case, three troops died, upwards of 40 wounded.
I think today they said that eight people were then brought to the diplomatic
medical facility, I believe probably in Baghdad at the embassy, and then they
were evacuated from there to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
So the total number of wounded from all the attacks combined is probably
somewhere close to 100 at this point, with, you know, there's at least one
service member who was put into, I think, critical condition, and then there's
a whole host of others who have traumatic brain injuries, some ranging
from mild return to duty, others with more substantive injuries.
And so there's been some responses to date from the administration, like
Nick was just saying, that have been a couple of F-16s knocking out an
empty warehouse here or there, or weapons depot here or there.
You know, there have been some attacks in response where IRGC members
allegedly who were in Syria or Iraq had been killed as well.
But whatever was done in response to the attacks that had been coming has
been insufficient to stop, you know, additional attacks from happening.
And there are folks in here, in this room, I think, and others who
have made comments, you know, can you ever really deter this from happening
because the folks involved don't really care.
That's part of the problem, and that's part of what we've been talking about today.
So Iran has, in some cases, stood up from scratch, and others have
supported existing groups like Hamas as part of the axis of resistance
as they're calling it, which, you know, the Shia crescent going across.
So Hezbollah and southern Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, you have militias
in Iraq and Syria, many of whom, particularly on the Iraqi side,
formed the ground force to augment the Iraqi army to fight ISIS.
And then you've got the Shia faction in Yemen, the Ansar Allah, who are
known as the Houthi rebels, who've been firing missiles at both ships
and as well towards Israel, which has been shot down and nothing's
really landed yet, except for we did have a commercial ship that was hit the other day.
And so this has continued to happen.
The Iranian foreign minister has stated publicly that he, it wasn't really
a personal thing, it was more of an extreme thing to have for the state,
that if the war in Gaza were to continue, that the US wouldn't be immune
from feeling pain or something along those lines.
So this has been going on for quite some time.
There's been a lot of debate back and forth in the press over the last,
you know, two months, almost three now, about what to do,
about whether there was sufficient response in the United States,
and has been leaked through political and many others, and has been
common based on my own experience working with a lot of these same folks
in the national security positions when I was in, at the end of the Obama
administration, while a lot of these folks were back in senior government
positions, is nobody wants to hear the war, which is a good thing,
because I don't think we need to have one for a whole host of reasons.
But second, you know, they have taken a lot of actions to ensure
that there wasn't going to be an escalation, but at the same time,
has that also hampered them from taking sufficient action
to stop things from happening?
And that's really what the political debate is right now in Washington,
which you can imagine is now falling along partisan lines.
So that's kind of a background of how we got to where we are this evening.
So, John, I'm going to go ahead and bring you in on this.
I know the statements that the Biden administration has been making so far
and what they have potentially leaked to Politico regarding, you know,
sort of the potential attack factors that they're considering.
Do some of these statements, sort of, especially with John Kirby saying,
well, you know, we don't want to get into a war with Iran or anything like that.
Does it seem like the Biden administration is showing a lot of weakness here?
Is maybe that the reason that Iran was so ballsy to back an attack on U.S.
Yeah, so, I mean, well, I don't want to characterize it as weakness,
but I would say there's definitely been a reticence to respond decisively to the
over right now near 200 attacks on U.S. bases, infrastructure in the region.
Some, including arguably myself, have characterized this as weakness.
Right. We've seen them allow vessels like the Beshad, the MB Beshad in the Persian,
not the Persian Gulf, in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
We know that this ship is actively targeting commercial vessels and naval
vessels for the Houthis and providing this targeted information.
We've seen a reticence to strike the ship as well.
I'm of the opinion we should.
And we arguably should have long ago.
Now, I believe Alex just made his point before, right, that while the nature of this attack
is really no different than the ones in the past, the only difference in this attack
is that it did end up killing U.S. forces.
And so I do think it is important, though, to note the intent of the forces who
perpetrated this attack was probably no different than the other 100-some odd attacks, right?
This time it just had a different effect.
And people have been mentioning this all day, right, that the intent has remained the same
And so arguably the intent was always to kill U.S. forces, right?
They just finally succeeded.
Now the only reason they've been emboldened and the only reason Iran has felt in both proxies
in the region and in other places abroad, right, has been because of the reticence
to respond decisively, right?
We saw Operation Prosperity Guardian, right, or I mean, sorry, Operation Poseidon Archer,
which was supposed to be this kind of comprehensive, sustained operation to degrade and destroy
the Houthis' ability to threaten commercial naval shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf
And it lasted about a week.
It was about a week of limited strikes that didn't actually really see, you know, good
I mean, that's just my own personal opinion, right, because the Houthis continue to strike
targets in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
I think it paused for maybe like less, just less than 24 hours and they immediately resumed
with their drone and ballistic missile attacks.
And so we now see the Biden administration making similar promises to a similar operation
of similar scale, likely larger.
And you know, my biggest question here is, right, is it going to be another empty promise?
Are we going to see limited strikes on IRI in the local region for about a week, and then
they'll taper off and they'll just continue these strikes until more U.S. forces die?
So I mean, that's the biggest question I have here.
So yeah, I would kind of characterize this as weakness.
So I'm kind of at this point, I'm at a see it to believe it type of point here
with the Biden administration.
Michael, welcome to the stage jumping.
Yeah, thanks, Nick and Alex, Mario, been on with them many times over the past few months.
Look, I think what I just want to highlight here is that, you know, from day one, you know,
myself and others have been warning that kind of, you know, people have been asking,
well, what's the red line for the U.S.?
What's the red line for the U.S.?
They seem to get frustrated that the answer from, you know, that I was giving people
three months ago was still the answer, is the death of U.S. uniformed service members,
Not contractors, not injuries, not TBIs, not other things like that, you know, actual U.S.
And so I think we're all in agreement here that there's going to be a response.
I think we all probably agree that there should be a response.
And I think, like Alex laid out, you know, there aren't very many, you know, serious,
credible military analysts on this platform, but I think the ones that do, and including
the several that are on this panel, thankfully, I think we'd all agree, basically these options
range from, you know, a combined series of strikes in Iraq and Syria on, you know,
PMF-aligned militias in Iraq, on IRGC-aligned militias in Syria, maybe doing some other
things outside of that domain, like John mentioned, you know, going after the Iranian IRGC Navy,
you know, surveillance ship that's been kind of in and out of the red sea in the Gulf
of Aden, and then kind of broaching this issue of, do we go ahead and conduct strikes
And then I would even argue there's a couple levels to that escalation ladder within that,
You could go after coastal radar and air defense sites.
You could go after critical infrastructure.
You could go after, you know, oil refineries, Bandar Abbas, that kind of thing.
Or you could actually take the most severe step, which would be to go ahead and target
Iranian enrichment sites, you know, strategic nuclear sites, things like that, right, which
I think we could all probably agree as well.
This administration is just not going to do.
I think it's also probably a fair statement to say that that's not in U.S. interest.
The Saudis would love to see us do that, or the Israelis would love to see us do that,
but it's not in U.S. interest.
And I'm speaking, you know, as an American, as somebody that has served in our government
So yeah, I don't think it's in our interest to have a full-blown war with Iran, and
I think that, like Alex said, really, we have to thread the needle here on responding
to the deaths of U.S. service members, but we really do need to be very mindful of how
deep we want to involve ourselves in a region where, frankly, I think we could see over
the past 20 years, there aren't a lot of very serious, hard U.S. national security
interests at stake, right?
We have lots of priorities in Europe, we have lots of priorities in Asia.
The Middle East has mostly not rendered a lot of benefits relative to our level of
involvement there over the past 20 years, so I think that's what this administration
is trying to do, and I don't think that, you know, we're going to see the higher-end
I do think we will see something more than we've seen to this point, and I think that
the statements that you've seen from Blinken and from other people that have been leaked
to the press have already indicated there's going to be a multi-phase, sort of multi-layered
approach to this that I think could go on for days, it could go on for weeks, but as
far as, you know, restoring deterrence, you know, I got to say, you know, and maybe Alex
and I differ on this, that's just not, that's just kind of a canard, that's just kind of
a ridiculous concept when you apply it to armed non-state groups that use terrorist
tactics and have complex strategic motivations that are driven by, you know, things that
are not entirely rational, right?
The Houthis have said many times they want to defend the Islamic world, they want to fight
back against the injustices that they claim that they see in Israel, and that's what's
motivating their actions.
So, you know, dropping a bunch of tea lambs, dropping a bunch of jaydams on the Houthis
is not going to alter those strategic intentions, and there's plenty of international relations
literature and national security literature out there on that, on the fact that you
really cannot deter terrorist groups, you really cannot deter, you know, complex armed
non-state actors like this.
You can deter China, you can deter Russia, you can deter state actors on a strategic level
with nuclear arsenals and that kind of thing, but that doesn't really apply here when we're
talking about, you know, Iran-backed militias or Qatib Hezbollah or the Houthis, and the
other point I'd make and I'll sort of end here is that, you know, we have this proxy
discussion about Iran, right?
And if you've worked these groups, which I have, you know that this is kind of a scale,
it's kind of a gradient, right?
The idea that the Iranians have perfect command and control and are directly tasking, you
know, tactical orders to these militias is just not accurate, and if you're familiar
with these groups, and if you've studied them and you've worked on them in the IC
or at DOD, you know that that's true.
It doesn't mean that Iran is not funding them, training them, equipping them, advising
them, that's obviously true, we all know that.
But the question is, you know, if we're taking for granted this idea that, well, okay, so
now we've got to go, you know, conduct, you know, serious unilateral strikes in Iran that
stand a very good chance of, you know, massive reprisals on all these U.S. bases that we've
all admitted are very vulnerable, and we've really just been lucky that there haven't
been more casualties like the tragedy we saw on Sunday, you know, okay, that's
what you're inviting if we go ahead and take that stuff, whereas I think the
smartest thing to do here is hit IRGC positions in Syria and hit Qatib Hezbollah,
which, you know, I know there hasn't been maybe an official determination of this,
but we all know that they went ahead and conducted the attack on Tower 22,
go after them, right, in a way that we haven't yet, and what does that mean?
That means targeting senior leadership, it means targeting personnel, not just
weapons depots and storage facilities and things like that, and I think that
actually would thread the needle on what we need to see, so that's kind of how I'm
looking at this, Nick, and, you know, I think it is important here to keep U.S.
interests kind of at the center of the conversation.
No, you made a lot of interesting points, and I do want to give the
opportunity to the audience and put down their questions in the bottom right hand
corner there, because that's, honestly, that's what drives these conversations and
I just go through and I find some intriguing things, so I really appreciate
you guys help with that bottom right hand corner, and in the meantime, I'm
going to let Dylan jump in.
Yeah, I agree with mostly everything that Alex and Michael and John said.
You know, I think this was certainly predictable when you look at what's
been going on the past few months since October 7th, what I would say, you
know, to look at for a couple key indicators, if you look at some of the
flight traffic last night, leaving the United States going over the pond, at
least six KC-135 Stratotankers, so the U.S.
is definitely putting in the capability and the potential to go pretty
hard in terms of an air campaign, what those targets are, you know, you
know, TBD, but we're definitely giving ourselves the capability to go
hard. Another thing I would say is, and this is a question to the panel as
well, because I haven't really made up my mind on it, and would love to
hear people's thoughts, is the Biden administration looking at Pakistan's
response to Iran's attacks on Pakistan, you know, Pakistan hit Iran
proper. Is that something?
I know it's a little bit apples to oranges, but I'm just curious to see
if people are, and specifically the administration is looking at that as
like, okay, we can push Iran to X limit whatever that is without fear of
major reprisals. So that's kind of my two cents. One, certainly
predictable. Two, if you look at the flight traffic heading out of the
United States, a lot of firepower going into that region. And then three, are
we looking at Pakistan's response to Iran and saying, okay, we can do
Anybody on the panel want to jump in?
Yeah, if I could just jump in on the Stratotankers that we're seeing going
over the Atlantic yesterday, about 24 hours ago, it is important to note
that NATO's steadfast defender, up to now the largest exercise, I believe
in a couple of decades, is ongoing right now. And the United States was
already slated to contribute a large amount of air power, including, I
believe, some B-1B bombers as well. And not to mention, there's already
B-1B bombers that are based out there as part of the NATO's Baltic
air policing as well. So there's already supposed to be a considerable
amount of US air power there. One last thing on the Pakistan-Iran
dynamic. So, you know, I first kind of posited, right, that kind of
what Dylan just said may have been true when we kind of in the early
hours after Pakistan struck some terrorist entities inside of Iran.
But then it became very clear, very quickly, that this was some type
of like pre, maybe not agreed upon, but they had kind of arranged
like, okay, you're going to respond in turn. Because if you just
look at some of the stuff from their MFAs and their MOFA, right,
their Ministry of Foreign Affairs of each country, you know, it
was really reciprocal language. They were saying, okay, we
understand we're going to have this mutual agreement to take care
of terrorist entities within our borders. And then it kind of went
away really quickly. I don't think that it's a good idea to
compare Pakistan striking terrorist entities inside of Iran
to the United States striking IRGC or conventional Iranian
military assets in Iran. I think Iran's response would be far
different. One, because obviously, we're at the United
States and Pakistan are two different countries. And then
two, just the dynamic between each country is very important
I think that's right. I would just quickly say too, that the
KC-135 flights that are not really what you want to focus
on, if you're looking at US capabilities changing in the
region, I would actually point to the C-17, the reach flights
that flew out later that day for additional assets that I
think could be involved in either protecting US troops or,
or augmenting any kind of response. I think John's right
to kind of say I wouldn't, I wouldn't read too much into
Yeah, and so that's, that's one of the questions that I was
going to ask as well is, you know, because we do hear about
these, I know there have been posts today even about
movement of military aircraft down in Texas and stuff. And
you know, people like to elude to the fact that there might
be some sort of ongoing operation that we don't know
about at this point. But if, if what you're saying, John,
is true, where there's some sort of air exercises ongoing,
which explains the traversion of those Stratotankers over
from the US over to Europe and the Middle East, then
that's a fairly decent explanation to that. Alfred,
Yeah, I kind of want to tag on to what Michael was saying
with these C-17s. And when I look at that, you know, I, I
was sort of seeing this whole thing unfold. And I think
it's true that the Biden administration is probably
going to try to thread the needle on this, look at IRGC
targets, leadership personnel, instead of just bombing
some depot somewhere. But if we have C-17s traveling
across the Atlantic, going to some of our bases in
Europe and closer within the Middle East, I think
you're looking at probably a large scale, maybe not a
large scale operation, but a multi-day operation instead
of just one strike. That's, that's where I'm leading,
especially with the C-17s, but would like to hear
everybody else's opinion on that.
I think that's a good point, Alfred. I'd agree with you.
I think that lines up too, with all the statements that
we've been seeing out of the White House and the
Pentagon today in everything that showed up in
Politico. I think we are looking at probably a
multi-phase operation here, which again, you know,
begs some, some important questions on how far, you
know, do we want to double or triple down on this
when again, you know, the U.S.
interests at stake here are very minimal in places
like Syria or Iraq at the moment. So I think
that's kind of the big, the big question.
And I totally agree with that because, you know, the
more you suck into this, this fight, the more you
suck into this conflict, even if we're only
striking IRGC targets where we can say, OK, these
guys aren't Iranians and, you know, we're not
going to start World War Three. You know, if
we're talking about multifaceted operations,
where it's perhaps even boots on the ground,
special forces, things like that, you're, you're
drawing in more combat power, U.S.
combat power into the region and possibly
starting a major conflict. Now, when our blood is
spilled in these conflicts or in these
situations like these, yes, there needs to be a
response. There needs to be something done.
But that secondary consequence of these actions
that we take, that has to be part of the
equation. Is it worth going to war with Iran if
something like this happens? Is it worth
going to war with a state actor within the
region who doesn't like that we're bringing in
boots on the ground and dropping bombs at a
more rapid rate? That's sort of the equation
that I hope the Biden administration is
making. You know, adding on to that, Alfred, I
think, and this is very unfortunate, but I do
believe the administration and frankly, every
administration, I do believe internal domestic
politics does add a flavor or a filter or a
lens, however you want to say it, to foreign
policy. And this is a super interesting year
with elections coming up. And I don't know, I
don't think anybody on this panel knows how
much domestic politics plays into certain foreign
policy decisions. It shouldn't, but I think it
does. And I think that's important to consider
where Biden does want to thread the needle
here, in my opinion, at least. Yeah, so I'm
going to go to this real quick, where it looks
like apparently, according to CNN here, so you
can take it with a grain of salt if you want
to. It looks like a US official has said the US
is being careful not to be too specific about
the origin of the drone or which militants
launched it in order to preserve some element of
surprise when the US responds. A question to the
panel, how much information do we know about
that already? Don't we know a decent bit?
Yeah, we do. But, you know, and I think that is
smart, though, you know, the White House has
been criticized several times at this point for,
you know, tipping its hand way too early in the
case of responding to the Houthis and regarding
some of the other attacks on US forces. And so
I think it is reasonable for them to finally
shut their mouths about this kind of thing. And
again, if you've been involved in, you know,
national level defense and intelligence
planning, it really is important that those
details are not, you know, even even to partners
and allies, you know, they can be leaked,
they can be spread around. I think in the case
of the Houthi attacks a couple of weeks ago on
January 11th, the Brits, you know, took all
that stuff to the press. So, yeah, I mean,
there's an operational security component
there. But as far as, you know, what we can
piece together in the open source and what's
already kind of clear, just based on, you
know, what we call the TTPs of the attack,
the tactics, techniques and procedures that were
used. I think it is fairly obvious if you
cover the region and you, you know, have a
counterterrorism background, I think it's
pretty clear that Qatib Hezbollah was
behind this. And again, I know this gets
very complicated for people and I don't
want to get too in the weeds, but I'll
just say really quickly. So, KH, right, is
part of the Popular Mobilization Forces,
which is a sort of paramilitary arm of
the Iraqi government. They are part of
the Iraqi government. They were huge in
the counter-ISIS fight back in, you
know, 15, 16, 17, where when the Iraqi
army basically fell apart, right, and
basically just turned tail and ran and
and ceded half the country to ISIS. And
so these Shia militias that became the
Popular Mobilization Forces kicked
ISIS's ass all over Iraq. And we don't
like acknowledging that in the United
States because they're kind of, you
know, aligned to Iran, but they did a lot
of the fighting on the ground and they
and they did a very good job and they
beat ISIS back. And so the result of
that was that the Iraqi government had
to incorporate these guys into the
government, right? This is just simple
power politics, right? The PMF has a
monopoly on violence in Iraq. They were
able to say, okay, we saved the country,
you better believe we're going to become
integrated with the security forces,
integrated with the government, that kind
of thing. So the, so Qatib Hezbollah is
connected to the Iraqi government, but
they're obviously very, very, very, very
cozy and directly assisted, trained,
advised, you know, given intelligence to
buy the IRGC and buy Iran, right? Because
they're all sort of pro-Shia, you know,
hardline pro-Iran guys. And so this
group has been kind of the main sort
of, you know, especially in Iraq has
conducted most of the attacks on U.S.
forces that we've seen. You know, I
think we're up to 165 of them now in
total. And so the U.S., you know, is also
trying to thread this needle up. You know,
we also are in negotiations with the
Iraqi government. We're also trying to, you
know, we give the Iraqi government
billions of dollars of aid every year,
and now basically a wing of their
security forces has been conducting all
these attacks on the United States
because they are, you know, funded and
supported by Iran. So the U.S. has to
consider all of these second, third,
fourth-order effects when kind of
looking at this. I think it is still the
right thing to do to go after KH. But
again, the bigger issue that people are
missing here is that the Iraqi
government, since the counter ISIS fight
and really since the invasion in 2003,
has basically become a client state for
Iran. And people can be upset at that.
They can, you know, wring their hands
over it all they want. Nothing is
really going to change that at this
point. And even the United States has
recognized that unless we want to, you
know, fight an entire Iraq war 2.0, that's
not going to change. So it begs the
question, you know, if we go ahead and
hit KH hard and everything like that,
that's great. We, you know, you're trying
to, you know, protect our troops. That's
really critical. Again, like Alex
mentioned earlier though, you can't
really restore deterrence against a
group that is more or less a terrorist
group and more or less, you know, an arm
of the IRGC. So you're just trapped in
this, you know, constant call and
response cycle until you break the cycle.
And that's why I would argue that the
better, more responsible thing to do
for US national security interests is
actually not to maintain a presence in
Iraq anymore. It's a government that
has been completely hostile to our
presence there for the better part of
five or six years now. And we pay them
billions of dollars to basically take
pot shots at our men and women in
uniform. So, you know, KH is a big part
of the problem here. And I just want
to call attention to that for people.
Lucas, you were growing a lot of
thumbs down. You want to jump in on that?
Yeah, no. Well, what I was referring
to with the thumbs down was that it's
bad that we were sending all this
money and spending all this money in
and having pot shots thrown at us.
But let me just speak to the
situation overall. I think that
there's two real values at stake
with what the response should be.
One is that if you spill a drop of
American blood, we ought to spill a
gallon of yours because we cannot
have Americans be we need to go back
to a time when America was actually
respected on the world stage and
where you wouldn't have situations
with these random militias going
and killing US citizens. So that's
one. There ought to be some type
of response because our guys were
killed because of this. At the
same time, equally as important,
I would argue, you know, I mean,
we can talk about the specifics,
but the US, we should not be
starting World War Three. And
after whatever response comes,
which since since it's Biden,
it'll probably not be a good one.
You know, he'll probably miscalculate
it. Let's be real. But ideally,
after whatever response does come,
we should immediately leave the
Middle East because there is little
to no tangible benefit for any US
citizen for having billions. I
mean, at least over the decades,
thousands of lives is lost. Okay,
our number one adverse it like in
reality, our number one adversary
is China. And basically no other
country can actually threaten the
US. Listen, I also don't think we
should go to war with China. Okay,
I think we should be smart about
it and realize that any world
war, any large war that we get
involved with will kill people
and we have to take that into
existential threat coming from
the Middle East to the United
States. China is the number one
threat. And where these troops
should be even more so than East
Asia is on our southern border,
where there is an absolute
tangible threat coming from
there. You have millions of
people flooding across the border
from cartels, we don't know who
they are. Literally millions of
people in just a few years have
come across the border and we're
already seeing crime rates spike
drug deaths increase. Okay, the
amount of drugs flowing in from
the southern border increasing.
And the other reality is for US
citizens, okay, this massive
increase in immigration, you
know, it's always funny, it's
always funny, where liberals
always love to talk about
unaffordability, and they love
to talk about low wages. Why do
you think that is? When you
have tens, I believe it's 14
million illegal immigrants in
our country, primarily, those
guys are going to be working in
more, I guess low skill, you
could say, I mean, you know,
not wanting to demean anyone,
but low skill, labor. That's
what these guys are working in.
And they're the reality is
they're reducing when you have
an increase in supply, you're
going to have a decrease in
happening. That's why real
wages have stagnated so much is
because you have these illegal
immigrants that are coming in
and working for mega companies
being paid sometimes even under
minimum wage. So we need to
control our border. It's a
matter of national security. And
that is something that actually
does affect people in the
United States, unlike having
our troops, just be shot at in
the Middle East for no tangible
benefit. They just sit there to
get shot at. Instead, they
could be stopping the illegal
immigration on our border. And
that's what should happen. So
that's my take on the whole
Thank you, Lucas. Appreciate it.
Hamida, let's go to you. What
Um, hi, everyone. Thanks. Thanks
for having me. Um, obviously,
it's a really difficult time for
people because I think emotions
are running really high. Like
American servicemen who've been
killed, right? And women. So I
think it's really difficult.
There's a lot of, I think,
fear and anger. And obviously,
I mean, it's, it's escalated to
a different level when, when
one of your own have been
taken. Um, and I think that
that's all the more reason to
step back. I'm not, as many
people know, I'm not a fan of
the IRGC. They've, you know,
the Niakitz front group here
have kind of come after me.
But, but all that aside, I
think if we step back and we
consequences of this will be,
because we know we're at a
higher level, um, regional
threat than we've ever been
before. Um, and why are we
here? Why, why have we gotten
here? So we've had, um, Israel
attacking regional parties
since, you know, for the last
few months, amping up the, the
pressure points. And then, um,
you do have responses from the
IRGC, which are then to attack
region. And I just depart
slightly with what Michael has
said, um, in that it's not
necessarily, uh, Kata'ib Hezbollah.
It might be one of the, um, I,
I sent you a note about that
from Philip's mind. It might be
coalition. It's not necessarily,
uh, KH, but certainly it's one
of the IRGC proxies in, in
responsible. There's no two
ways about that. Um, but so I
think that there are some
questions to ask. And I think
yesterday, um, really actually
was, you know, spot on. He did
say that, um, that they'll act
at a time and in a manner of
our choosing. If you choose to
timeline, uh, what are you
doing in a set, in a sense?
Like, I'm just asking people
to step back strategically
think, cause I know people
want an eye for an eye, but
to step back, who benefits
at this moment, if there is
an escalation in the region,
which is not what any of the,
the actual US partners and
regional allies want. They
don't want to see a regional
benefit? The answer to that
because who benefits when
stockpiles are low, Michael,
agree with me, but, um, in
all of the war gaming for
industrial base, they didn't
factor in the regional war
that would be precipitated
with the Israeli attacks on
responses would be degraded
what Israel is doing. And,
to extend further, you are
risk more. It's going to be
servicemen. Um, and in that
know, I always talk about
where it comes down to it.
want to question a little
bit, but I understand the
a hundred percent. You're
saying Russia benefit died.
If you dive deeper a little
bit on that one, I'm very
So, um, in all of the war
games, it's not, it's not
someone had said earlier,
millimeter, um, suppliers,
Ukraine is suffering. Um,
people have tried to ramp
up capacity in Pennsylvania
greater extent than I can.
But if you're fighting on
you've got to consider is
so many risk factors. It's
So you're, you're, you're
would Russia benefit from
it himself, he's like the
fight in Ukraine. Um, and
Ukraine because of what's
happening with Israel. Um,
right. I just want people
really agree with that. I
that. And again, you know,
my issues with escalation
interests or lack thereof
in the Middle East. They're
not tying them to Russia,
big benefit that the U.S.
has is a massive capacity.
industrial issues and our
forces from other places.
pulling assets, you know,
of thing. And so far, all
again, I'm not, you know,
terms of obviously Syria,
withdrawal is needed. And
allies wouldn't stand for
and do that. So that is exactly what they're doing. They are following national interests
of Russia. And look. So, Cheyenne, you're saying the same thing. Have you been with it essentially?
This has got to benefit Russia again. She wasn't able to answer. Can you answer for me? Why do you
think Russia matters here? Look, I'm just going to add, I'm going to continue with this. There is a
universal law of nature that weakness always emboldens predators. And that's the universal
law. A lot of people, that's my issue with isolationist people who think that if you withdraw
from the Middle East, if you leave the Middle East, if the United States leave the Middle East,
the Middle East won't leave the United States. Because these people do not follow your logic.
These people do not respond to mathematical logic. These people are terrorists.
I understand your point of view, and I understand where you're coming from. Specifically,
I was hoping you could answer the Russian question that you brought up, is how does Russia benefit
from this? That's what I'm looking for here. I understand your views on the government,
but we're trying to focus on the strikes on Iran by the US. How do you think Russia would benefit
you? Absolutely. Every reasonable person knows that. They're creating distraction from Ukraine.
They're opening up new fronts. They are exhausting United States' capabilities.
They're supporting Ukraine in this war, and that is exactly what they're doing. They're
exhausting US capabilities. They are distracting them. That's what they're doing. And that is
exactly what Putin wants, Putin wants distraction from Ukraine. And that is exactly what they're
doing. The United States has weak leadership, and the fact that we have these attacks in the first
place is because of Joe Biden and the doctrine that is in charge in the United States.
Cheyenne, you disconnected there. Let me go to someone else. Let's get some more thoughts
onto this. Intel, go ahead. Intel, welcome to the panel. Go ahead, tell me your thoughts.
Thank you so much, Ryan. My thoughts, and maybe I can talk about the Russia aspect of it here
shortly. You don't have to focus on Russia solely. I'm just trying to look for an answer.
I want to more focus on the US targeting Iran, where do you think they would hit, et cetera?
Yeah, so I want to agree with one of my fellow, best way to describe this,
my fellow O centers, even though he has more experience, actually, in intelligence.
Michael D'Amino, very, very, very intelligent dude. Not trying to shine you on, brother,
but he made a post just recently in regards to what he had thought. And I agree with it. I think
many other people may agree with it, is that the US will probably target the Iranian-backed
militants throughout the Middle East, probably in Syria and Iraq, and also the IRGC. I think
that any sort of known IRGC installation in Syria and Iraq, I think they're going to be targeted.
That IRGC installation, I've heard there's some sort of cooperation between them and Iranian-backed
militants. I think that base is probably going to be absolutely destroyed, if not leveled to
the ground. That's just my personal thoughts. Maybe they might spare some parts of it,
maybe the mosque they'll spare, but I think that most of the military targets within that base
will probably be eliminated. He also entertained the idea of possibly attacking Iran itself.
I'm not sure about that, I don't know. On another note, I think that Israel may be involved
in maybe some sort of cooperation in terms of intelligence sharing. Maybe they might even
conduct their own type of strikes into Lebanon against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon,
I don't know. Or maybe they might join in in some sort of joint cooperation. I don't know.
That's kind of my speculation on that. I'll reserve any sort of Russian comments right now,
but check out Michael D'Amino, his post. It's a very informative, highly credible source.
So that's all I have to say. Thank you, Ryan.
I like the guy with his thoughts. Hamid, welcome to the space, man. I want to get your thoughts
and everything that's going on. You're someone very familiar with the region.
Hi, Ryan. Hi. Thanks, everyone. I think I'm just going with Intel. It's very,
very unlikely for Washington to strike Tehran directly. It would be a full-scale war in the
region. I think they're going to strike Al-Khatib leader Said Azizi. He's probably,
probably he's the most wanted man right now. They're going to strike either Iraq or Syria
by the morning. I don't think so. It's going to be a full-scale war to Iran or Tehran
in any sort of manner. Anything Intel says, I think it's more probably it's going to be
Iraq or Syria, one of the back malicious group in Iraq or Syria. That's what I think
is going to happen. They're not going to strike Iran directly. They know that it's going to bring
massive consequences, a regional war, a global economic failure. So Washington doesn't want to
do that. Biden doesn't want to do that. So I don't think so. They're going to strike
Iran or Tehran or any sort of soil in Iran directly. Thanks, Ryan.
Thank you, Hamid. I appreciate you. Aaron, let me come to you. What do you think, man?
So the situation is very good. I can see a number of outcomes, one being
Mike has very muffly. Is it like rubbing on your shirt or something? It's very hard to...
Can you hear me? I can hear you, just so you can make sure your mic isn't rubbing on your shirt.
Yes. Sorry, my apologies. The first thing I can think of is, apparently, I'm hearing that the
Khatib Hezbollah units in Iraq are evacuating some of these bases. One of them, in particular,
where the drone was launched from. So there is that. Another possible scenario for US strikes,
and it's been brought onto the table, is that they hit, fall on a one-way attack
on the MB Beshad and some of the Iranian ships in the Red Sea. The two Iranian frigate escorts
in the Gulf of Badan. The MB Beshad is a command and control ship, right? The Revolutionary Guard
Corps that's been watering in the Red Sea in the Gulf of Badan for several months. They
sink that. That should have been something months ago. Then they sink at least the frigates
and, of course, the other ship as well. This is something that would be maybe... You could
consider it definitely proportional, but apparently this is on the table.
As we discussed in Myspace last night, the Balma Report, which is every Wednesday and Sunday
night, we played out the scenario that a lot of people don't think that they're going to hit
Iran, the IRGC direct, but it is a possibility. I can see them flattening the hell out of
Khatib Hezbollah in Iraq. I can see them doing this. I can see them sinking those ships in the
Gulf of Badan or the Red Sea. Absolutely. Actually, that would even be a better option
because they also have been assisting the Houthi rebels,
and that is certainly something that I can see directly would be a proportionate response.
Thank you, Aaron. So, Syrian girl, I'm going to come to you. I'm just curious. I want to...
We discussed the possibility of where the attacks could be. Could this, in your opinion, lead to
a larger scale regional war in the Middle East where they just start shooting back and forth
at each other? Especially we know next door, right next door, they had a fight with Pakistan.
Thankfully, it didn't get too crazy, but we know next door, next door is what's going on in Israel.
Talk to me, Syrian girl. Well, when it comes to Pakistan and Iran, they probably had a deal
with each other to just destroy the certain separatist groups in each other's countries,
essentially. So, I don't think the US would attack Iran directly, as people are saying.
If they did, it would have catastrophic consequences for the US Navy,
US military bases, and of course, Israel. So, we know that Iran has full capability of launching
multiple ballistic missiles at US bases directly, and the US didn't respond to that. So, the US has
shown consistently that they don't want to go to war with Iran, especially because Netanyahu has
been begging the US to go to war with Iran for the last 20 years for the sake of Israel,
and the US has sort of dragged its feet. Now, Netanyahu managed to convince the US that by
invading Iraq, it will make the Middle East have decades of peace, which was a complete joke.
But it seems like at least there's a shred of American agency left, which is not completely
beholden to the Zionist lobby. Now, unfortunately, the Zionist lobby is so powerful that it may be
the case that the US will decide to sacrifice itself on the altar of Zionism. But hopefully,
why better minds will realize that this is not America's fight, this is Israel's fight,
leave them to it. What does this creation have that is good for the United States? Nothing.
Israel has been selling US military secrets to China since the 80s, including missile technology,
airplane technology. The only reason that the US is putting itself into this position is because
Israel has purchased its politicians through APAC, etc., etc. So, the best case scenario would be for
the US to pull its troops out of Syria and Iraq, since the Iraqi government has requested the US to
leave, since they're illegally in Syria, that will protect their bases. But I don't think they're
going to do that. They're going to strike militias just as they always have. I would be
surprised if they strike Iran directly, because the consequences would be even worse. But if they
do strike the militias hard, then there's going to be more bodies being sent home. That is just
the equation. There's going to be more American bodies being sent home. It's not going to
de-escalate the situation. The escalation ladder has already been decided on, but since before
October 7th. Essentially, this is an opportunity for the Pentagon has already been discussing
leaving Syria. I think this is a great opportunity to go ahead and do that. Unfortunately,
because of the Zionist lobby, the US is probably not going to follow its own interests and do
that. And of course, it's going to weaken them in Ukraine against Russia as well, as well as
China. And just very quickly in response to one of the comments made here that if we leave
the US, then the Middle East will not leave the US alone. No, the US has never been attacked
by any of these militia groups that have actually fought alongside them to defeat ISIS and Al-Qaeda
in the Hashed, in the PMU units in Iraq. And the only terrorist group that's not leaving
the US alone is the Israeli terrorist group, the IDF, that was created by three terrorist
organizations that initially sent a letter bomb to Will Truman. So it's Israel that's really been
attacking the United States. None of these other groups have ever, the only reason they're against
the US at the moment is because of their alliance with Israel. And I think Israel is creating more
enemies for the US in the region than France. So Aaron, for whatever reason, somehow we always
devolve into the Israel conversation. But, you know, it's the neighbor next turn.
Aaron very much disagreed with what you were saying. So I'm going to let Aaron jump in on
this one. Aaron, welcome. Aaron, I hate when I do the build up and it just doesn't work.
We got to reach out to Yolanda about that double news.
It's okay. Israel has always been on the side of the United States.
And why do you sell US military secrets to China?
No. Where the heck are you getting that? Because that is complete false information,
total Russian disinformation, Iranian disinformation.
I'm going to give it to Ryan so that he can put it in the jumbo trunk, okay?
So you can be proven incorrect.
The problem is there's so much disinformation out there and there's so many people spreading it.
And, you know, it's hurting Ukraine and it's certainly hurting. Russia is losing this war
in Ukraine, absolutely. And Iran would certainly lose against the United States and allies.
Iran, unfortunately, is very, their military, they may look tough, but they are pretty
rudimentary in comparison and technology to the United States and NATO allies.
I have to say that. I mean, it's just these proxies are all they can maneuver around.
Without these proxies, the IRGC has nothing left, except maybe they're ballistic missiles.
And yes, they have a sizable ballistic missile fleet. They do not.
The RTASH, their army, you have a lot of moderates in there. And these guys are the
guys that could, I really hope, overthrow the IRGC. Because the IRGC, it's getting slim
pickings for them and they can't afford to lose Hezbollah. They can't afford to lose,
even Khatib Hezbollah, sure. But Hezbollah up in Lebanon, they can't afford to lose them.
So I just posted this thing in the jumbo trunk that contradicts your claim that Israel did not
sell US troops to China. It's from military.com, which is a very, you know,
US website has high repute. I'm going to send underneath that multiple sources where we know
that Israel in the 80s sent Israel, US tank missile and airplane technology to China.
The technology, even if it's so rudimentary, I mean, compared to now, everything now...
Actually, it's the reason why China is the powerhouse that it is today.
Actually, yeah, China powerhouse. There's a lot I see right through those cards.
Take a look at the quality of their warships right now. The Pakistanis are not happy with
the Janki class. I'll tell you that. Apparently the barrels of their main guns have been blowing
up or warping away. I'll say this, that there's a lot more to meets the eye with China. China
looks more still. They maybe look powerful, but there's also a lot of paper tigering going on
there. I don't think there's any question that Chinese espionage... I'm not on... Obviously,
I don't see... I was hearing a girl on Syria, basically, but there's no question that
Chinese espionage has been taking American secrets. Why have they been able to stand up
hypersonic technology? I mean, because of their theft of American technology. It's just widely
known. The Chinese have been grieving from the United States and espionage for years.
Hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army. Yeah, absolutely. That is a
problem. That is a problem just like espionage from the Russians. Yeah, but we know that Israel has
been spying on the U.S. They actually have their spies caught and sentenced to prison.
And then those spies go and sell the secrets to China. I mean, this is your greatest ally.
Is that what you're going to Iran for? And of course, it's not about devolving the conversation
about Israel. We can see the elephant in the room here. It's not like this happened in a vacuum.
Come on, let's have some geostrategic analysis here. We can't talk about what's
happening now without talking about Israel. It says that China... What's next? You're going
to say that China is an ally to the United States? No, I'm saying Israel is not your ally.
Are you seriously suggesting that this forced posture doesn't exist because Israel hasn't
egged on America? Of course, Israel has been egging on America, like the world can see it.
You've got to be blind to miss it. Look, America and Israel,
Israel has absolutely been on the side of the United States. The United States has
certainly been on the side. No, no, Aaron, I think you're misunderstanding what she's saying.
She's saying, in your opinion, is Israel egging on a larger regional war?
I don't think so. Bibi, unfortunately, Bibi Netanyahu, yes, he is very extreme. Yes,
I will agree with that. And I don't agree with every policy that he makes. I don't agree with
every policy that his government makes. Is he egging for a bigger war? No. Does he want Iran?
How come? Because he's saying he wants to hit Lebanon. He's been egging on saying he wants
to go to hit Lebanon. He's been saying even today they put out that this war with Hamas is
going to go for much longer and longer. Isn't that egging a larger war when you're trying to
provoke Lebanon? I mean, they've hit Lebanon, they've hit Syria. I'm asking out of curiosity
for your opinion. And Syrian girl's wrong. Sorry, it's not 20 years he's been doing. It's 30,
30 years. The Israelis have been doing their best since October 7th to beat any,
like the enemies that are on their doorstep, which is Hamas. We know he got, and of course,
the North Hezbollah. Unfortunately, Bibi is, you know, he's his bravado. Yes, I understand.
He doesn't want a massive war with Iran. He wants to take out the enemies that have
hit his country. And he's doing so because that's, believe it or not. And you know, this
Hezbollah has attacked Israelis since October 7th. Yes, they have. And then there's been responses.
So you can see what Israel has no right to defend itself. So they have arrived to attack
them under international law because Israel is occupying territory that is passing in territory.
So Israel is doing their attacking since 1948. Sorry, I'm just still in shock over the fact
that we've been ignoring all of Israeli statements about Iran and all of its actions and lobbying
actions and like literally what it's been doing across the world for the last three decades is
beyond belief. Sorry. For sure. So let's, let's, let's go. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead,
Brian. Sorry, I was gonna say let's rope in back to Iran. Let's bring in a new voice. Xerxes,
go ahead. What do you think about what's going on with Iran? Who do you think they're going to
hit? Do you think it's going to lead to a large regional war? Go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for having
me up. I don't think they're going to hit inside of Iran, nor do I advocate for that
or any sort of war inside of Iran. We a lot of the things I heard Michael and other people
talking about was about deterrence. Well, actually, I think we've kind of got here
based on the lack of deterrence regionally. Regionally, you know, I point to events like,
you know, this none of this happened in a vacuum, you know, since the war in Iraq,
the IRGC brags about this supplying advanced IEDs that were maiming American troops in
Iraq through their militias in Iraq killed 603 Americans. Nothing was done about this.
Americans leave Iraq to a large extent and I feel like the IRGC sees things like this
and they feel rewarded and they feel emboldened by their strategy. You fast forward, they attack
Saudi Arabian oil fields, knock out 5.7 million barrels per day, 50% of Saudi oil capacity.
You fast forward today, the Saudis have relations with the Islamic regime. The IRGC again feels
emboldened and the last one is attacking shipping in the Persian Gulf, putting limp minds on
shipping, on UAE shipping. The UAE backs out of maritime security arrangements with the US
and today has relations. And so I think, I guess what I'm trying to say here is there was many
instances where there could have been deterrence. Nothing is done. The IRGC feels emboldened and
you fast forward today, three American troops get killed, but none of this happened in a vacuum.
For me, I think the group you go after is the Quds Force. The Quds Force is the group you should
go after in the region. They are actually set up independently even from the Islamic Republic.
They have their own independent economy. They have 50,000 Shia youth militias across the Middle East
and they have weapons depots across the Middle East, including missiles, including small arms,
including drones, all of which are used to attack US bases. That's the group you gotta go after.
This group is actually set up in a way where if the Islamic regime falls tomorrow in Iran,
they are set up to go to another stronghold, Shia stronghold across the Middle East, and they
can continue operations. So for me, that's the group you have to go after.
Is that right? When you say the Quds group, can you just re-expand it where they are in the region?
So, I didn't listen. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't,
I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't interrupt anybody. I waited, I waited my term,
Hamid, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to wait your turn, you can. I'm going to be,
I'm going to be done here, probably. I'm going to, I have other things to go do, but I wanted to
say this. That's what I think is gonna be, don't let it take up too much of your time.
I think he asked a good question. He said, he said, do you know where they could be?
So I'll finish what I was saying. So that's, that's where, that's the idea I have, you know,
you know, the way you go after the Quds force, they should not have freedom of movement around
the, the region anymore. You know, they shouldn't be able to transport weapons from,
they shouldn't, they shouldn't be able to transport weapons from Iran all the way to
Lebanon through Syria, use regional seaports. And the three things I listed,
I kind of pinned it to my, my page. That's the way I think you should go after them. But anyways,
that's okay. So this is, this is, before we get there, I don't actually think that they are going
to hold on. That's a great question. That's a great question from home. Well,
well, listen, I mean, I mean, look, look, listen, okay, I'll answer your question. Okay,
I'll answer your question. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, uh, U.S. security intelligence. But when you see
them, when you see, when you see them getting bombed in Syria, in Lebanon, getting taken out,
there's never a meaningful response they have to this. So they exist out there. We know them
because we're seeing this happen. Do you want me to, do you want me to list the names of the,
do you want me to list the names of the colonels? Do you want me to list the name of the colonels?
Do you want me to list the name of the colonels who have been taken out in Syria, in Iraq,
in Lebanon? Because we know this has happened. By the way, the, the IRGC themselves go forward.
So you asked me where they exist. That's where they exist. If you don't believe me,
take hominase word for it. He goes to their funerals. Explain it.
They go to their funerals. So for anybody, for anybody, for anybody who wants to know,
I mean, I tweeted about it. I put in my job. We're trying to, they're the ones,
if you could just answer his question, who are the quotes for the people,
for the ignorant people in the audience who don't know.
Yeah. So again, I explained this earlier, they're operating, they're controlling a lot of the
proxies in the region and they're doing things, you know, all of the extra territorial operations,
all of this is done by the Quds Force. And to say that they don't exist or where they are at,
I mean, we've seen them getting killed in these airstrikes in various countries. So
obviously the US, the US, the US knows that the US know the US.
It's not to you, to the audience. Quds is like a sent come for IRGC in the Middle East.
Okay. So you don't even know.
That's one way to say it. That's one way to say it. The sent come for.
Yeah. Yeah. That's my way.
All right. I'm sure it is.
Okay. So this is what I want to do here. I'm going to kind of do it a little bit of
a re reset because we're going through the audience questions and the feedback and such.
And people are very interested in the Biden administration's potential response tonight to
this escalation in the Middle East. So I want to go to Chase. And before I do,
I want to encourage everybody, bottom right hand corner guys, go through that tag, either me or
Ryan, it's much easier for us to see the comments that you post. And we'll be going through
those comments, feedback, complaints, whatever you got. Bottom right hand corner. Chase,
welcome to the stage. Glad to have you.
Thank you for having me. I've really been enjoying listening to everybody's
insight on this issue. I find this whole conversation sort of incredibly frustrating.
Not that I'm frustrated with any of the speakers or anything like that, but just
the fact that we're again talking about going to war in the Middle East. And the one thing
that stuck out, and I can't remember who the speaker was who was mentioning this, but talking
about strengths relative to those of the United States or those of Israel or those of NATO in
terms of Iran. I just want to mention the United States hasn't won a war since World War Two.
And the wars that we have lost have been lost to military forces that are substantially inferior
to the United States. So we lost in Iraq, we lost in Afghanistan, we lost in Vietnam.
We've lost basically every other conflict that we've been involved in because
the enemy, for lack of a better term, just doesn't give up before we do. And I think a war
with Iran, regardless of how much more sophisticated our technology or our training might be or our
weapon systems may be, a war with Iran seems to me to be an absolute recipe for disaster
for the United States, not just the region over there, but for the United States. Because I don't
foresee Iran giving up before the United States does. I just don't think that we have morale
to beat a foe like that. What do you guys think?
100%. The reality is that the United States, our number one enemy, even because I was speaking
earlier about China and I guess a little bit about Russia and Iran, but really the American
citizens' number one enemy is the people that are here, that are pushing transgender children
on the entire country. This is something that we have never seen basically ever in this country.
The people that are actually destroying the lives of Americans are right here.
They're in the White House, they're in Congress, they're in the courts in many cases, a lot of
far left judges. What we need to focus on first is actually restoring our country. Again,
I brought this up, illegal immigration, the border, is just the best example of it because
it is literally an invasion. We're caring about these other countries, the invasion of Ukraine,
whatever's going on in the Middle East, which again, U.S. service members were killed,
so there should be a response. We shouldn't let it go completely unpunished at all.
What we're seeing is in the U.S., that is where the American citizens' quality of life,
and even going forward, and not just quality of life of how many iPhones or Big Macs you can
consume per day, but of real tangible things such as real wages, marriage rates, divorce rates,
these things are going down here. Let's focus on Iran right now because we're about to get into
original conflict. Let's hone in on that real quick because I want to get some other answer.
I have a real quick comment about that, actually about Iran, because I was going to say
a lot of what is going on between what the response might be from Biden, it's going to
be interesting because it is an election year, and he's looking at two real main groups, the more
neoliberal boomer types who are going to be wanting more intervention, and a lot of the
young progressives in the Democratic Party that are going to be very much against aggression
in the Middle East. It'll be interesting to see, historically, the Democrats seem to have gone
just even with picking Biden as a candidate for the more boomer route, but we'll see what
happens with that. I'm going to go to Chase on this because it is an audience question that
we've been getting down there a little bit. Is this sort of escalation that we're seeing,
are voters going to put the blame on Joe Biden? Is it going to actually hurt him at the ballot
box, seeing that for the first time since October 7th, when the Middle East really became unstable,
we're seeing U.S. troops killed again? What are your thoughts?
Yeah, that's a great question. I have a bizarre complicated theory as to what's going on
in this entire conflict, and I'll tell you guys what it is, and you guys can push back as much
as you want. This is sort of my from-the-gut interpretation of what's going on.
If you look at what was announced a month before the October 7th attack on Israel,
Bibi Netanyahu announced the IMEC corridor, which is this corridor that was established
from India through Israel that's basically set up to be a competitor to China's Belt and Road
Initiative. In my opinion, what's going on here is actually a conflict for the global reserve
currency of the world. Of course, right now, it's the dollar. China wants it to be the end.
I think Iran wants it to be the end. Russia wants it to be the end or something else as well.
This IMEC corridor was announced, and 30 days later, this attack happens on Israel.
What I think happened was I think the reason that we left the weapons behind in Afghanistan
when we left in 2021 was because we wanted Iran to get the weapons, and we wanted them to supply
Hamas with the weapons, and we wanted Hamas to do this attack. They knew it was coming,
in my opinion, it was on the 50th year anniversary of Yom Kippur. They knew it was going to come.
They allowed it to happen. There were American weapons there, and what this has done is it's
garnered international support for Israel to do what it's always wanted to do to Gaza,
which is basically just eviscerate the region, because they believe, Israel believes,
that the only way to stabilize Israel is to just eradicate all the Palestinians, in my opinion.
That's what I think. The reason the United States wants this to happen
is because if Israel is stable in this IMEC corridor, it can go into effect with
Saudi Arabia participating, other nations participating, because the corridor is
stabilized. It's not threatened by any sort of terrorist attacks or outside threats.
This protects the dollars, the global reserve currency, because it sets up a competitor with
China's Belt and Road Initiative, this IMEC corridor. I believe that this conflict with
Iran is directly related to that, because Iran is working with Russia and China to try to
replace the dollar as the global reserve currency, and the United States, in the interest of its
own national security, obviously wants the dollar to remain the global reserve currency.
We're saying that this is all about terrorist activities and land disputes and territory
disputes and religious disputes over the region, but in my opinion, our government, at least
the United States government, really only uses those things as excuses to conduct war
or military action for reasons that are a little bit more pragmatic and sophisticated
and maybe even evil. I'm not condoning it, I'm just explaining it.
You're referring to BRICS, right? Chase, you're referring to saying that they're using this
to kind of destabilize the BRICS and what's going on with BRICS.
Well, BRICS is a variable, certainly, but the IMEC corridor specifically,
and you can look it up, Bibi announced it literally a month before the attack on Israel.
The IMEC corridor is a trade route that goes right through the port of Haifa in Israel,
and the whole purpose is to set up a competitor route with the Belt and Road Initiative that
China's been working on, so that basically all these nations don't rely on China for trade and
the entire hemisphere of the planet by having basically the only trade route.
So it's setting up a competitor to the Belt and Road Initiative, which would
eliminate the threat that China would have enough leverage, economic leverage,
if it was the monopoly trade route in the region, to sort of subvert the dollar as the goal of
reserve currency. I know that it comes off bizarre and is a stretch and sort of outside curveball,
but the more you guys look into it, I think the more you'll think that there might be something
to that theory that I have.
Sam, welcome to the panel, man. I wanted to get your thoughts on this before,
after this, I want to go to Simon, then to Sam, go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Well, I'm in Tehran now, and we're not really that worried about anything happening,
Does it have anything to do with who the President of the United States is?
That's a question we're getting a lot down in the morning.
Not at all. It doesn't matter at all who the President is in the US,
because the US will not attack Iranian soil. That's really the point here.
If they want to do something, they'll probably do it in Iraq or Syria.
I don't even think they were going to attack and enable assets, as they call it.
So I think what they'll do is they will probably attack something in Syria and Iraq,
and Iran will retaliate to that, and we're going to have that going on for a while,
but the US will not attack Iranian soil.
Okay, so kind of to dive into that just a little bit now,
do you believe that any of this situation will be taking place right now if there was
a stronger US administration? Because it seems like the general consensus is
the current commander in chief is just not, doesn't portray any sort of strength across the
world. And I know President Trump's entire system of beliefs was piece through strength,
and we saw the Middle East a lot more stable during Trump's administration.
Does that not have anything to do with it?
Well, let me ask you a question. So Trump orders the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.
What does Iran do in response? What did Iran do?
It bombed, you know, assets.
Injured 100 soldiers, possibly killed two drone operators.
Okay, what did President Trump do in return?
Exactly. So like I said, we're not really that worried in Iran. It doesn't matter if it's one
geriatric guy versus another, you know, almost 80 year old guy, the other one is a little bit
more fresh and, you know, has his wits about him. But I mean, these things are not really
relevant here in Iran. I'm not saying that as a, you know, just just just the facts.
It's just reality. What will happen is they will hit something in Syria and in Iraq.
Again, they've mentioned that they might want to hit some Iranian quote unquote naval
asset, which I don't think will happen because then Iran will hit American naval assets.
And they just don't want that right now. They've got enough on their hands with Yemen.
So they'll probably hit something there and Iran will hit back. There might be major escalation
from the Iranians in Iraq more than in Syria, because the Iraqis are already asking the
Americans to leave. There's not that many Americans there. So I think that's that's
the level of of what's going to happen. And the reason is because America because
Iran has deterred America from attacking its homeland. And and again, these things
might not be reported in the US or, you know, there might be, you know, the situation in
terms of the politics in the US, there's very few people who actually talk about the realities of
what's happening in West Asia, or the realities of what happens in Iran or Iran's real positions.
But the reality is that the Americans are not going to attack because they're deterred. And I
just want to refer everybody to the war games that the Pentagon conducted in 2003,
called Millennium Challenge. This is 20 years ago, where they simulated an attack on Iran.
And it was supposed to be a seven day war game. And they shut it down after two days because
Iran had sunk every American ship in the West Asia. And so the Pentagon shut it down itself.
That's 20 years ago. I know it's a phrase happens like 20 years. Well, 20 years ago,
and, you know, Iran's capabilities have probably improved by a factor of 10 since then.
So that's the point I'm saying with the capabilities that Iran had 20 years ago,
everybody can look it up. So you're claiming right now, if America attacks Iran,
and then just to clarify and simplify a little bit, you think that Iran would beat America?
No, it would retaliate in a way that would completely destroy US assets in West Asia.
The price is too high. If they attack Iranian soil, not if they attack Iranians in Syria,
or if they attack whatever Hashdul-Shabi in Iraq, or if they attack something,
if they attack Iranian soil, Iran has officially stated it as their policy
that they will attack US assets in West Asia, whether it's bases, whether it's ships.
And so the US is not going to do that. Because they will lose, you know,
tens of billions worth of assets that they have. Michael, let me come to you to get your thoughts
on the other side. Thanks, Ryan. Yeah, so very quickly, I wanted to question what
I think Nick articulated was apparently the consensus here, that because Biden
really, Michael, I don't want to go too far from this one, because this is a big claim that Sam
made. So let me go to other Michael, then I'll come to you so I can get his side of this.
Yeah, I apologize. Thanks, Ryan. Yeah, look, I'm not really on a particular side of this. My view is
that the United States shouldn't be conducting attacks on Iranian soil, because there are no US
interests that are served, political, economic, security, whatever, by doing that. And I think
that, you know, again, we're kind of using some of these terms in ways that I don't think people
really, I don't think people really understand how they're used. The United States isn't deterred
by Iran. The United States has 4000 nuclear weapons, it has escalation dominance in every
part of the world. If the United States wanted to, yeah, it could completely destroy Iran.
The point, though, is that when it comes down to whether it was Trump in the previous
administration, or whether it's Biden, when the president is really sitting there, making a
final determination on are we going to attack Iran, right, which is the point that President
Trump got to in 2021, under his administration too, right, where we were, that those options
were on the table, those target decks were made, ship 2019, right, were, yeah, we're in,
you know, planes were in the air, ships were firing up, you know, tea lamps, we got very close
to conducting attacks on Iran, the New York Times wrote a great sort of breakdown of that.
The point is that when we get to that point, fortunately, no matter what their party is,
no matter what their biases are, every American president has recognized, wait a minute, what are
we doing here? What is achieved by any of this? It's not fear of Iran or fear of losing or anything
like that. It's like, there's no point in this. And that's why President Trump, it literally
happened in the final 18 minutes before these strikes were supposed to go off, like, no,
we're just not doing this. And I think that Biden very similarly understands that there is
absolutely nothing, no U.S. interest is served by an attack on Iran. And I think
Aaron made some good points earlier, and I kind of, you know, Intel, you know, referred to my
threat on this. I broke down kind of what the options are, right? If you're familiar with the
way that Pentagon and the IC and the NSC work in the United States, there's kind of a menu
of options that are given to the president, right, kind of on the lower end, the less escalatory
end, to the higher end. And I think that what this administration is going to do, right,
leaving aside what all the options are, what do we think is going to happen, I think you're
going to see very significant strikes in both Iraq and Syria on IRGC bases, in Mayadeen, in
Syria, for example, or in on Qatib Hezbollah positions in Iraq. And I think you may,
the most that I think you could see from this administration would be looking at something
like the MV Beshad, which is the Iranian support ship that's been providing intel to the Houthis
and that kind of thing in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. I think they could strike that
because that's clearly an IRGC asset and not, you know, Iran or part of the Navy or something
like that. So I think that's what you're looking at as far as what the options would be. I think
every American president, even going back, you know, beyond, you know, you know, the Bush
administration flirted with a lot of this stuff, too, for as aggressive as they were, they understood
that there was just no point in that. If you know the geography as well, that's another element
that I would bring up here. In the late 1980s, I would encourage a lot of people to read up on
the Iran-Iraq War, right? Both of those sides went to war and it was bloody and nasty and in
very mountainous terrain along the Iran-Iraq border. And neither side could really gain an
upper hand with millions of troops at hand on both sides. And, you know, at the time, you know,
to the larger militaries in the entire world and they couldn't even make a dent on each other,
really. So the point is, you know, if you think a ground invasion is going to happen or something
like that, I mean, that's just completely off the table. The United States isn't going to do that
because there's no point in that. But as far as what we're going to see, I think you will see
more of those medium-level options in response. Because, again, like Sam and other people have
mentioned, these U.S. bases in the region, of which there are many, they're going to come
under fire in response. And we saw how that played out in 2020, right, after Soleimani. And it's
just not a price that makes sense for the U.S. to pay, given the interest in the region,
right? What are the interests? Well, a lot of people claim that it's ISIS. Well,
the territorial caliphate of ISIS was destroyed in 2019. I had a front-row seat to that. ISIS exists,
but it's a complete husk of the group that it used to be. And there's no point in the United
States maintaining these facilities in remote parts of Syria and things like that, where really
they exist as a strategic liability and as leverage for Iran to play this game of footsie,
where they want to keep the U.S. bogged down, but they don't want to war, right? And that's
where I would push back on what Sam said, that if Iran were so powerful, they'd have no problem
going to war with the United States. Iran is terrified of that, which is why they work
through all these proxy groups. And that's why they put out all these statements to try to say,
no, you know, just kidding, we don't want to see more escalation, all other stuff. They work
through these proxies specifically to avoid that direct involvement. And that's why I think,
really, at the end of the day, a lot of people don't understand this, and I'll wrap up with this,
is that if you're looking at core national security interests, Iran doesn't want to war
with the United States, and the United States doesn't want a war with Iran. And I think those
are the only two things that I think will keep us out of a major regional war here.
And I think that that is true. It was true under the Trump administration, and I think
it's true under the Biden administration, not to give any of them credit for any of that,
it's just that in the final calculus, it's just not in US interests to be doing.
Let me just clarify, because I think maybe I misstated, or I didn't communicate it correctly,
or clearly. My point was not that Iran would hit US assets in Iraq and Syria, it would still be
the hashed, and that would be doing that. Now, of course, Americans and in the West,
they're generally used to calling them proxies, but they're not really proxies,
they make their own decisions as well, because the US and Israel are used to having a master
proxy relation with whoever they are with, but that's not the relationship that Iran has with
these groups. They have independence, they can make their own decisions, but there is coordination.
When I said that American bases would be attacked in Syria and Iraq, I didn't say that Iran directly
was going to attack them. What I meant was that they were going to be attacked by whatever forces
exist in Iraq and Syria, and probably most likely it would be the hashed from Iraq.
In terms of the ship, if the Americans hit an Iranian ship directly, then Iranians at that point
will respond directly themselves, and not through whatever coordinating with some other group.
Can I just ask Michael real quick?
On the issue of deterrence, what I meant with deterrence is not strategic global deterrence.
What I mean is deterrence within West Asia. If we look at, and apparently looking at your bio,
you were involved in some of these things. If you look at what America went through in
the last 20 years in the region, they basically lost everywhere they entered.
For Iran, it's not a big deal to deter the US in West Asia,
it's actually been winning against the US in West Asia for the last 20 years.
America has been beating America for the last 20 years, my man, I appreciate it.
We can call it that, but obviously Iranians know how to play the game,
and they've been beating the US, they beat them in Iraq, they beat them in Syria,
they beat them in Afghanistan, they beat them in Lebanon.
When the US political establishment is completely listless and making terrible decisions, it has no
strategic disposition to speak of whatsoever across a 25-year period. The US has got in its own
way, and I think the history on that is pretty clear. If you look at a lot of the really good
books and literature that have been written on Iraq and Afghanistan and things like that,
the core issue at play was never winning and losing. There are no strategic benefits to this,
which is why we pulled out of Afghanistan. I know that a lot of people didn't like the optics of
the withdrawal, but I would challenge people to say, okay, give me four reasons why the United
States has to maintain a permanent presence in Afghanistan. Not a single person on the panel.
Let me explain to you why they did it, because it wasn't just being stupid. Basically,
for the Americans, from a strategic perspective, Afghanistan is considered
a mountain fortress in the middle of Asia. If they maintain strategic control over Afghanistan,
they are able to infiltrate and destabilize China to the east,
Iran to the west, Indian subcontinent to the south, and the Russian sphere of influence in
the north. That's why they didn't leave for 20 years. They didn't give a shit about Binlan,
they didn't care about ISIS, they didn't care about the Taliban. It was about maintaining
the mountain fortress in the middle of Asia, and the same with the Soviets when they wanted
to take over Afghanistan, and the same with the British when they wanted to take over Afghanistan.
And none of them could do it, and none of them will ever be able to do it.
So that was the reason for staying in Afghanistan for 20 years.
And what the details were of how they were beaten, who supported who, what happened,
those are long stories which are interesting. For those who would like to talk about that,
we can talk about that at some point.
Okay, on the Iran front though, Michael, do you think that they'll take out,
Connie, do you think that they'll go off to him?
Yeah, I think that's on the table. Look, a lot of people said we couldn't reach out and
touch Soleimani, and we did. And I would just say that if you're taking a lot of trips,
and you're in the IRGC right now, maybe you shouldn't do that, maybe you should stay home.
The chapter is he's gone to ground because of it, right? Because he's marked.
But look, this is the thing, if the US, and I say this a lot, the US has been very
responsible in not going whole hog to this point. And a lot of people have been criticizing,
again, I'm not trying to get into the politics here, I'm a professional military analyst,
I'm a former Intel guy, I don't really care about that. My point is on the military analysis.
The US, to its credit detriment, it looks weak, whatever, the bottom line is,
we're at a three out of 10 right now for what the US could be doing in the Middle East.
I'm not advocating for us to get to a 10, but what I would tell people is,
if you don't think that, okay, the first rounds of US strikes in Iraq and Syria in response to
attacks on US troops, they were targeting warehouses and weapons depots and things like that.
If you don't think the US can, at the snap of a finger, start targeting senior leadership
in these IRGC-backed militias, or in KH, or in other places in the region, you're sorely
mistaken. And if the US wants to take that step, it will. And actually, part of what
I outlined in my thread is that the one difference that we could see in a US response to American
troops finally being killed as a result of all these strikes is that instead of looking at weapons
depots and storage facilities and other things like that, the US actually shifts to a posture
of leadership targeting and other things like that for these militia groups, or for even the IRGC,
going after IRGC bases in Syria. But I think the reason that that is a good way to go is
because it keeps the horizontal escalation, as we call it, spreading horizontally into all these
other different theaters, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, whatever, it keeps things in Iraq and Syria,
which is beneficial for the United States right now. If you go out and attack Iran,
now you're introducing maybe 300 or 400 new variables as to what could happen next.
And I think that the US response will mostly come in Iraq and Syria because the attack
that killed these US troops came from Iraq and Syria. And all of the 160 other ones came
from Iraq and Syria, right? So that's where escalating vertically-
For me, the biggest calculus, Michael, is you've got the worst administration that has ever dealt
with the Middle East in power right now. You've got Satterfield McGurk, who's an absolute
nightmare. McGurk's hated universally throughout the Middle East. He's universally reviled as
incompetent. The only safe pair of hands is literally Bill Burns, who's got any kind of
strategic depth. You've got Jake Sullivan, who frankly fucked things up with the JCPOA,
and you've got Blink in there. It's a nightmare. If you're going to go into any scenario,
it's like the worst team to go in with.
I've said this many times. I think President Trump had a much better intuitive understanding
of US interests in the Middle East and the players and how to deal with them
than the current administration does. And I'm saying that as a guy that worked in both
administrations. I think I have a pretty objective view here, and I'm trying to call
balls and strikes and give them the analysis as straight as I can give it. Yeah, I don't
disagree with you there. I know we basically disagree on everything, but the current
administration has not done a good job articulating any of what's happening to the
American people. You have American troops that are killed, and you have the Secretary
of Defense reading off a prepared statement. I mean, are you kidding me how disgraceful that
is? And you have a president of the United States now that, after hundreds of attacks
on US service members, hasn't been able to go on national TV and articulate in depth
to the American people what interests are being served by the United States being here,
why we have to stay, why it's important, what we're doing to protect our men and women in
uniform. Okay, none of that has happened. So this administration, I mean, you're not, you know,
if you're looking for me to defend them or something, and that's just not going to happen,
I've been incredibly critical of them from the start and on many of these spaces as well. So
I look, I'm with you there. They have not done a good job with this. And they really should not
be, you know, they advertise themselves as the, you know, the adults are back in charge here.
And I don't see any evidence of that at all, personally.
So I think so we agree. So we agree that they're not going to attack Iranian soil,
number one. And we also, you think because America is like scared of doing that?
No, it doesn't, it doesn't make a difference who it is. I mean, they're not,
the calculus is the same, whether it's Trump or whether it's Biden or whoever,
they know that if they attack Iranian soil, there's going to be a major escalation from
the Iranian side. And that's not something that they want. Like you said, they don't want the war.
Iranians don't want a major war either. So it's going to stay within Iraq and Syria. We can agree
on that. Also, let's not forget that Trump wanted to actually take the troops out of Syria,
if everybody remembers, right? He had that interview with Sean Hannity,
and where he literally said that there's a thing called military industrial complex
that doesn't let me take them out. So anyway, he took a lot of anyway, he abandoned the Kurds,
and then the Turks came rolling in and screw. Well, no, I mean, I'm talking about, I'm talking
about, I'm talking about the American, I'm talking about the American troops that are now east,
east of the Euphrates on the, on the eastern border with Syria. Trump officially announced it
publicly. He wants to take them out. And when he couldn't, he came on and had that Sean Hannity
interview saying, they're not, they won't let me do it. So the point is that the reason these
troops are there, I mean, I'm kind of trying to kind of disagree a little bit with what Michael
was saying that there are strategic reasons within the logic of the Pentagon, why they
would want to have them there. I explained Afghanistan, why the US stayed there for 20
years, it wasn't just bumbling and not having, you know, not knowing what they're doing.
The reason that you have these American troops exactly on the Syria and Iraqi and Jordanian
borders, because they don't want to allow there to be a connection between Iran, Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon, into Palestine. So they maintain those bases. Tanaf is the major, basically ISIS is
protected by the Americans in Tanaf. It is the area that the ISIS they retreat to
when they do the attacks, and they have American support there. And in Syria, ISIS works with the
US and in Iraq, it works against it. In the Kurds, in the North, in the Syria, the CIA wanted to
work with them. I'm sorry, CENTCOM wanted to work with them. The Joint Chiefs didn't want to
upset the Turks. So there's different factions within the US, some of them working with ISIS,
some of them working against ISIS. And so it's a lot more complicated than people are told in America.
It's a lot more complicated than, you know, the Washington bubble, rain washing allows you to
believe it. So Tanaf is a place where ISIS is actually active and coordinates with the US.
Got it. Simon, let me come to you, man. We haven't heard from you. Thank you for being
here with us. Okay, Ryan. Yeah, thanks for having me. You know,
I think everyone's kind of saying the same thing. I think we all know that it's just
going to be a continual tip for that. And the tip for that is taking us in a really nasty direction
because, you know, America is going to respond, it's going to come after a militia in a proxy
region. And every time this happens, we seem to be bringing in a new set of enemies, and it seems
to be escalating further and further and further of what started out. And so somebody's going to have
to retreat at some point and actually solve some real problems. And so if we look right back,
what are the real problems? Well, you know, there's the oil powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran,
they need to normalize. They're on that path. China was taken on that path. China's continuing
to try and negotiate normalization there. But Israel certainly doesn't want that. You know,
that's really the solution that really helps. The second thing is obviously the Palestinian cause.
Israel doesn't want that, the colonial expansion. That's the thing that pretty much everyone wants
apart from Israel. And that's the reason that we are here right now, because we're pretending
that October the 7th was the event that triggered this when it was geopolitics that led to October
the 7th with Netanyahu putting up a sign in the U.N. of the new Middle East and not including
any of the regions in that. And we're talking about whether it's going to be Trump or Biden.
We've already mentioned quite a few times. Yeah, Biden's been awful at some of the decisions that's
been made, trying to tell the world that this was just about October the 7th and ignoring
all the history that went behind that. But as we also said, Trump, there was an Iranian nuclear
deal that was reversed, that was destabilizing, that led to an assassination of Qasim Soleimani,
and that led to Abraham Accords. What's Abraham Accords? Abraham Accords is taking Iran out of
the equation, negotiating between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and America and other regions.
And so that's inherently destabilizing. The other thing that if you listen to what the regions
want is they want America out. So who actually wants war right now? America doesn't want war,
England doesn't want war, Iran doesn't want war, Russia doesn't want war, China doesn't want war,
there's only one nation. And that's that left over settler colonial expansion projects,
which is Israel. And that was the destabilizing effect. It was taking Iran out of the equation
through the fact that because Netanyahu's whispering in everyone's ear, and it seems like
everyone's become a proxy. And of course, America can destroy and go all nuts and escalate.
But America doesn't want that because it's bad for America. And so we've got to look at what
are the root causes? How are we actually going to get to solutions? Are we just going to
carry on tit for tat until we get there? Or is someone actually going to recognize what's going
on here? And so that's why I think, you know, everyone's talking about let's just stop blaming
Israel. But let's face it, this is everything that's happened. There's only one country that
really benefits from this, because it's part of their goals right now. And the whole world
seems to be standing by that, because politicians are doing not what the people want, because no one
wants to go to war. This is not good for anybody. And at some point, someone's going to have to
start solving real problems here. And the American people are going to have to ask themselves.
All right, three, Simon, who would this be good for? If there was a regional war triggers
right now, who would this be good for in your opinion? Well, there's only one politician
right now, and that's Nitin Yahoo, who wants to has been whispering and destabilizing and, you know,
create what essentially, you know, everyone, America came into Iraq, and we ended up with ISIS. We're
going to be doing the same mistake again, it looks like. Because Nitin Yahoo, you know, that's the
goal. There was look at there was a conference yesterday, where there was members of the
Israeli government that were jumping up and down for joy with a bunch of settler terrorists
from Israel that had a conference about how they're all going to settle in Gaza. The Palestinian cause
needs to be resolved. Israel doesn't want to resolve it. Until we look at that, you know,
and all of these different normalizations, negotiations, they all fall down because one's
saying, well, we want to resolve the Palestinian cause. And the Israeli government's just saying,
hell, no, we want to expand. We've got a different vision for the Middle East.
And America's willing to kill their people to buy into that, let's face it, you know,
UK right now, they're saying they don't they want they want to start drawing people in
to, you know, to fight this, this regional battle, the Houthis have said,
listen to what everyone is saying, the Houthis are saying, we're doing this, because
we've got it, we want to stop the genocide in Gaza. Everyone's saying the same thing. Everyone's
saying we want to, you know, this is a reaction and escalation against this Zionist entity. So
what stage are we going to actually start solving the real problems? You know, America just doesn't
want to and doesn't need to be in the Middle East retreat. All right, fair enough is going to
make it look weak. I think we all know that America is strong. But at some stage, we're
going to have to figure out what that looks like, or we're all going to World War Three.
And we're all fighting for Israel, in order to commit a genocide against the Palestinian cause.
Like what the hell kind of what the hell are we really going to do this?
And that's what this tit-tat, that's what this tit-tat is going to take us to.
So what we're going to do here, well, I guess we'll go to, because I see Jaleh, I don't want
your hand to get hurt here because of the amount of thumbs down you're giving. So I'm going to go
to you real quick. And I'm going to let you tell me why you have given so many thumbs down
and laffy faces in the past, like five minutes here. What say you? Because it's amazing.
You know, Israel just went through a massacre, the biggest massacre since the Holocaust.
And then you're talking about Israel being the bully here.
What about the five massacres before October the seventh that were inflicted upon the
Palestinian people? Oh, please. Oh, please.
Yeah, we've given you a lot of time, Simon. I'm going to let her go, and then you can
respond to her. Go ahead. You've got to unmute. Bottom left hand, go ahead.
Well, what I wanted to say was that you're talking about colonizers.
Iran is colonizing the whole region. Buying up the hunt.
How? Please get out of here.
What all the proxies would die if the regime fell tomorrow. You're actually talking about?
It's delusional. You have mental problems.
Look at the democratic engineering in Syria.
All right, guys. I promise I'll let you I promise I'll let you guys all respond.
I understand. Jala, go. Jala, let's. Oh, we don't make accusations like that over here.
I'm going to step out of this one. It's all you, bro. You handled it.
Jala, please. We don't make accusations like that. Please don't do that. We don't
condone that or support that, and we disavow that.
Anybody who lives in Iran is a terror. I sympathize. Just look at her ID.
Guys, guys, guys, guys. Come on. One at a time. Please, Jala, please go. Please withhold
from making personal attacks, because if you do, then they'll be able to do it to you, and
it'll become a gong show in here. Jala, please go ahead. Double mute.
Okay. You know what? I am a Zionist, and I'm also for making more cutlets.
The Iranians here will know. You're a current separatist.
You're from Kurdistan in Iraq. Just say it. I'm from Kurdistan in Iraq.
Yeah, it's clear from your... I mean, you've got Ukraine flags.
Okay, can we kill you guys? Come on. Come on. We gotta at least...
Mario, check your account. You're having connection issues.
Yeah, so I don't know if the... So far, so good.
We can't have a real conversation with this person. She's not here to have a real conversation.
Because you keep interrupting me, and you keep...
I mean, you keep throwing insults at them. You're provoking them, to be fair.
Could I make a couple points?
No, one second, Michael, please. Let's let her go, so then these guys can respond.
Jayala, go ahead. By the way, we are having some connective issues. If we crash, we apologize.
Thank you for being here with us. Jayala, go ahead. Try your best not to attack.
You keep taking my mic, and then you say, go ahead, and then...
Because you provoke them. They attack you. I'm trying to...
And people are... Okay, this time I won't mute. Go ahead.
This is for people with different opinions, right? You have people here talking about Israel
almost not being able to have a future, and talking about the 7th of October as if...
Oh, it was just something understandable. It was a massacre, right? And about colonizing other
countries, look at the Houthis. Look at Hezbollah. Look at the militia.
So this is what we're going to do, Jayala, right? And this has nothing to do with what you're saying.
I'm just going to be honest here, because we're way off topic.
I'm going to go back to...