Unpacking the Bipolar Messaging of the Iran War | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

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A lot of happening is usually you guys missed. We were talking offline about the next wife fish security summit, so check that out.

It's going to be February 24 to the 26th of next year. So take, keep an eye out for that. It's going to be exciting. Guys, how are you? It's great to see you. A lot happening per usual. A lot of confusion too. There's just been kind of like messaging chaos over the last week. We left over our last episode. We were talking about the naval blockade that was being announced. It doesn't seem to be much of a blockade.

Frankly, the straight-on-horse moves seems to be the fact, though, shot still a ton of mixed messaging. We had the Treasury Secretary percent on Friday talking about extending. The way getting rid of the waiver on sanctions for Iran and Russia and for selling their oil. That was Friday. Happens last night or night ago. That waiver was extended.

So we really have no clue what's going on frankly. J.D. Vans, maybe J.D. Vans, but Jared Wick off. And no, Jared Kushner and Steve Wick off. I put them together because they're just like a one blob of aneptitude. Our heading back to Islamabad tomorrow, possibly with J.D. Vans. We don't know. There's some mixed messaging there as well.

That was just as we were getting online about an hour ago. It's been going on. Anyway, a lot happening.

“Where do you guys, what do you guys tracking? What do you guys want to talk about exactly?”

Make you go first. I mean, we all thought somewhere mid and last week that we were headed toward an agreement. Because it was so much positive statements coming out of the White House that you're like, this is great. And they're going to give up all their H.E.U. and we can fly it to the United States. And the straight's going to be open.

And I was certainly hoping that was the case. But it turned out not to be the case. At least the rating said it wasn't the case. And if they say it wasn't the case, it obviously it's not. Because they're the other part of the, you know, the process.

What it comes to ending a war between the two countries.

So, you know, the first thing and not that anybody's listening.

But it just doesn't help to try to do negotiations publicly through social media. It just hardens both sides. They get angry at each other. And it makes the negotiators a job more difficult. Really, it would be better if we just let this field Marshall who's flying all over the world for Pakistan to turn on and how coming to United States. To do the needful back channel negotiations.

And both sides willing to compromise.

“Because the alternative, I think is pretty clearly going to be an escalation.”

I don't think President Trump wants to leave this with just, you know, yes. We did a lot to reduce their military capacity. I think the New York Times article just came out kind of questions exactly. The numbers that we've been saying, but we have reduced it. So that's good, ballistic missile suicide drones.

Obviously they're Navy and Air Force.

And then we can't leave the straight-up or move clothes or that's a failure.

This is, there's nothing that you can spend to say that it won't be. They didn't have it before. They end up with control of the straight and being able to hold the rest of the world ransom with 20% of their energy supply. That is a big failure. So what are we going to do from here?

We're either going to come up with a diplomatic resolution to this. That's acceptable to both sides. What I'm guessing we're going to start using ground forces to try to secure the straight and Potentially recover the HEU, which they don't seem willing to give on. And so, and then one last point, when it comes to the agreement.

“Right now, the only thing different from the JCPOA that we're hearing publicly is that you won't have the ability to enrich all.”

Under the JCPOA they could, but only up to 3% which wasn't weapons. But they did have the ability to enrich. We're not hearing any discussion on ballistic missiles restrictions. We're not hearing any discussions on not funding terrorist organizations. Also known as proxies.

When I was in the Pentagon 2018, that was the biggest reason we were told that we needed to get out of the JCPOA. It didn't include those two things. So if this doesn't include it, I mean, just by definition, there's going to be a lot of, I think, critiques on what this was all about. If, essentially, we end up just getting back into the JCPOA.

And certainly, if we released, you know, the $20 billion and funds that they have,

and reduced and eliminate dissection. I did understand the argument at the time that it didn't include ballistic missiles and proxies. Our position to Pentagon was like, well, that's a dress it separately. But that's what we were told.

“That's why the White House decided to unilaterally withdraw.”

So I'll stop there, but I think we need a better agreement than the one we got out of. Or we're really going to have to question what this was all about from a foreign policy decision making process. Yeah, it's kind of interesting that the center of gravity is now the straights of whole news, right? Some of those kinds of consequential arena in this conflict. And it's not the nuclear issue, it's not any of those things that we were.

I want to say kind of brought up with to focus on, right? I mean, make at a higher level than me, but I was a planner focusing on these plans. And then at socks and tells focusing on the immediate problem of Iranian malign influence in the region. And blocking the streets of Hormus was a contingency that we discussed should be go to war and it was a disadvantage. And there were plans to, there were plans to mitigate it.

We recognize that it would be a blow and those plans, though,

“depended heavily on coalition support and the region, which we seem to have discarded to see the least, right?”

So, I mean, and just last thing that I'll say is that, you know, little hearts, little heart was a British. He was a British first World War veteran and a strategist. And he said, look, the object of war is a better piece. You shouldn't go to war unless you can ensure that you secure a better piece. And I was optimistic for a while that maybe we would see a better piece because we grew up under the shadow of Iran in the region.

And perhaps that was going to be curtail, but it couldn't be curtailed in the ways that we were doing it alone. And destroying, for instance, the Iranian Navy was almost irrelevant, right?

Because it was the mosquito fleet that was always a danger to the Straits. It was in the mix of his vessels.

It was the small boats, it was the mines, it was the drones, drones for a recent development and the ballistic missiles. And now, sure enough, you know, Iran's not contesting the Straits through conventional Navy. It's regular Navy's gone, but it was never the decisive factor. They've avoided distributed asymmetric. I hate using that term.

It is an asymmetric approach. It's built around these small fast-craft, short-based missiles, drones, concealed launches. And we've done little to nothing to remove that threat. If you look at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times recent articles, that quote, our own intelligence community, saying that at least 50% of the missile launches are still intact, thousands of drones,

The small boats didn't even figure in our BDA announcements.

And that's how we are, where we are.

“So, I think a couple of things, one is just overall, I don't think there's any silver bullet for this.”

So, it's kind of think this morning, it's very easy to critique everything that's happening, and we will do so. There's actually, you know, when you talk about, okay, we're in this right now, we're stuck. And as we've said many times here, and Nick, I love when you kind of say, hey, man, we actually, we want US to win. We're on Team America here, like so.

But we're kind of in a shitty situation, and I don't see any really great options for the following reasons.

One is, you know, the military option is not working. Let's just be very clear on that. But, you know, and of course, you know, we can, we can talk for the entire program. We've got the PTXF press conferences. But even Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when he comes out, he talks about all the great things US military is doing. Then you have on the side press reports saying that the Defense Intelligence Agency says 40% of the drones are still there.

6% of the missiles, whatever it is, they still retain a lot of the capability that frankly during these Pentagon briefings, nobody even addresses.

And you don't get any questions because the Pentagon press corps, at least the normal ones have all been kicked out.

But I'm not sure what the, what the option is right here, because the Iranians really believe they can outlast us. You know, it's a recent time between when the Iranian economy collapses whenever that may be. Versus when the US economy, you know, inflation, price and gas, and then the world economy when we kind of have had enough. And the Iranians think they can outlast us. And so even if it just ends up being kind of this test of patience, now make you, you raise something, which is interesting is that, you know.

Some of us can kind of go and say, all right, these negotiations just like everything with Iran is going to be kind of this inturmutable set of round after round after round.

“But if Trump does get in patience, and I think he will.”

And, you know, what is the military escalation? Is that really going to be boots on the ground, which is going to cause US casualties? Does, you know, as we've talked many times before, the Pentagon will do it, of course, because it's building control of the military. They will execute based on what they are told to do, but this is going to be pretty politically explosive in the United States and for Trump as well. And so, and actually, I don't think he wants to do this.

But again, what are the options that are left? And kind of, what would seem to be the thing that is going to end this, which is going to be really dissatisfying, because it's not going to certainly account for the Iranian support for proxies or the ballistic missile inventory or the Iranian people in regime change. It would be kind of a JCPOA 2.5, I mean, a little bit stronger.

“And that's where we all thought this was heading, I think it was last Friday. I mean, my god, everyone, and we're all over victim of this, who are doing media stuff, things seem to be going in a direction, which is kind of a strength in JCPOA.”

There are people arguing about, you know, what is this, the time in which, or is there a set time in which the Iranians could then, you know, start to begin. And Richmond, again, was 20 years versus what we said five years, but then everyone kind of backtrack from that as well. On the best case scenario, it turns into an agreement like that, Trump will get lamb-baseded on this. And then worst case is, I don't know what we do, or there's going to be, you know, there's going to be a ground operations with significant U.S. casualties.

This is one of those foreign policy challenges, and for, you know, all of us who do speak in the media, you know, of course, you kind of analyze the situation, but then at some point you say, like, okay, this is what I think we should do, and on that, on that note, there's not a lot of great options. I don't know what you guys thought so, but it seems to me, we have boxed ourselves in into a really, you know, really tough situation, a bit of a pickle, and there's no kind of quick silver bullets that's going to get us out of this.

So on that point, bark and don't, everybody, of course, but, like, so we keep talking about, all right, so we could seize, you know, some of the islands to open the straight. We could potentially launch this, which would be a really complex, special operations to get the HEU. On the straight, though, so if we did it, and we were successful, the Marines land, seize islands, like, how do we get out of it? Like, how do we, what, what comes next? I mean, you have to, you have to think, you know, five steps ahead, and how it actually advances your overall policy, because we know if you tell Marines and Rangers to, you know, take something, they're going to take it.

They're probably to your point, Mark, take casualties, so this is, that's horrible, but then like, so we're going to live there. I mean, we're going to just formally occupy the straight, so that it's open. I don't know. That's a question. And then the HEU recovery mission by everybody's estimation is going to be, would be weeks.

It is what I'm concerned about, or thermopoli, depending on, you know, I'll probably want to go back.

Um, so these are really big decisions. It isn't just like, I'm pulling a trigger, and it's just going to happen, and it's going to work. And of course, Iran's going to retaliate for either of those things substantially against our partner countries in the region. So, it's just, we can, yeah, that's the question is, yeah. Think about your previous role as, as Dasty, when you were sitting in the Pentagon, you would have been asked if there weren't to be a National Security Council meeting that's probably not, but you would have been there.

“What is your recommendation? I, because I don't know what the silver bullet, there is none. So, you know, what would you recommend we do?”

Double, well, I mean, start with, I mean, it's easy to say, but double down on diplomacy. You know what I mean? Like, it's not in our interest to go to escalate. It's not. And I'm not just being nice to Iran, right? I wish the regime would get wiped off the face of the Earth. But, um, these are decisions that aren't. It isn't, I think some people get too comfortable with, okay, we launched a military operation, it can be a lot in our Baghdaddy,

or kept her catch a Maduro, and it's just the easy button. It's not the easy button, and this is definitely not the easy button. This is, this is something that we could get stuck in, quite a lot, and I don't want to see that happen.

“So, I don't know how we can, it has to be better than the original JCPOA, I think, to make it viable for the United States.”

But we need to accept that it might not be the perfect solution. Andy, what do you think about, what do we do if we actually took these islands? Louie, I'm going to have written about it, and I think it's an appallingly bad idea. Because yes, we can do it. It's militarily feasible, as you point out, there's two questions to ask. First, there's what for, right, what is the strategic game that gives us, and secondly, what comes next?

We've anchored ourselves to it. We've become fixed targets. We've forwarded it all the advantage that we have without the options of a, and you've got to keep forces there, right? And even then, they don't keep the straits open, I mean, we've talked about this, so with the range of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, with the range of drones, you're not doing anything by sitting on terrain.

“And the uranium seizure mission, even if we pulled it off, right?”

And let's just say, and we're all tip-toeing round, so let's say on the right side of classified, of course, as we always do on the show.

But even if hypothetically, you can do this in a week, right? With only 1,000 guys on the ground, plus heavy equipment, blah, blah, blah, all the stuff that you can read and open sources required, then what? So why do we take the uranium rate? It's not, but the program itself, the expertise is still there. The centrifuges are still there, if we'd to believe our own intelligence community reports, many of them being buried so deep.

Yes, some of them have been buried also by the ECM pain, but they're recoverable, and they can be back in business. So we haven't destroyed the program, and added a great risk. Yeah, no, so I agree, the only option now is diplomacy. And there's one other factor, a couple of factors, right, that are also affecting this. The effects on the regime of the war have not been favourable to the United States, rather than, you know, the conflict by killing that top layer.

And I'm not saying, you know, sometimes that's a good tactic, but promise it, in this case, that we've strengthened the hard line elements within the regime. And if you'd believe again, open source reporting by Wall Street Journal in New York Times, internal dissent has been suppressed. And at some care, it's been, it's been subjugated under this feeling of patriotism and the feeling that they're being attacked by an external country.

So they've, to some extent, we've united the country behind a harder line regime, and the revolutionary goddess increased its influence.

It's isolated from the effects of the economic blows against a sensible blows against on itself, because of the way they distributed their wealth, we've learned that from John Hackett. So we're not, again, we haven't achieved a better piece. It's perhaps still within our grasp. There's no doubt that Iran is feeling the pressure. Otherwise, they wouldn't be showing up in Islamabad, but not to the extent that we think they have.

And he said, you know, when we are running around operations, and you know, when you first recruit in Iranian asset, when you sit down, obviously you secure their their agreement to work, you know, from the United States, not against their country, against their government, of course.

And then you come up with a salary, and in our old world, Mick, we would say, okay, you're going to pay the thousand bucks a month, there we go, right, a cable, that's it.

But in the Iranians mind, that was just the beginning of the negotiation over his salary. And so, you know, these are a master negotiators, and so it was funny, because then later on he's your handle in the asset, when you say, hey, here's your thousand bucks for your, you know, this money's like, oh, no, no, no, I want two thousand.

“Wait, wait, wait, we agreed a month ago, it's like, yeah, that was a month ago. So, you know, these are negotiators, and the Iranians probably can, can, can wait us out, and I guess something Andy, you said, I think is really important.”

The question that we should ask ourselves, I'm still a romantic, I did this job for the agency, I still believed in American exceptionalism.

You know, whether we're talking to the Kurds or the Syrians or our indigenous personnel in Afghanistan, I believe the Americans were the good guys.

So the question now, you have to ask yourself, is are the Iranian people today actually better or worse off since this war started, and I don't know the answer to that, because there's no talk of the quote, help it's on its way from Trump. I mean, that was, to me, that was inspiring. I was like, I'll get behind this, and we're nowhere there. In fact, if there's an agreement, if there's a GCPOA 2.5, let's say, there's going to be sanctions relief. You're going to infuse cash into the Iranian regime, and they might actually survive longer, so just something to throw out last piece of time.

They probably will survive.

Yeah. Last piece on this, and it's something that I felt guilty about, I, you know, also, you know, we all do our TV stick, and we're all, we were all Friday was a day of incredible optimism.

I mean, I don't know if you were on, I certainly was, and I look back and I'm like, I wish I hadn't said what I said, which was, hey, we may be closer on agreement. I think it was all bullshit. And you got to ask yourself, okay, what happened here? Was it a couple questions for you guys to consider? Was it this struggle within Iran between the hard line elements, you know, if you either the IRGC chief versus Iraq, she, the foreign minister, you know, wasn't actual struggle there for what's going on?

Was it bullshit spewed out by, quote, sources of the US National Security Media, some of us included, that we bought the nonsense about the optimism that it was coming from, you know, and, and, you know, Kushner and Wittkov have half the US press corps and speed dial. So, was it that? And was that BS designed to kind of push a narrative that things were getting closer, you know, baby to influence the deal. And so, or was it, or, and was it, you know, Trump market manipulation, the stock market went up dramatically, oil prices fell, helps the US economy.

There's a combination of all those, but I do think it won't happen, but I was thinking back like, man, like, we were just totally snowed by this optimism on Friday, and it looks like it was all BS, or some elements certainly were. So, what, what are your guys thoughts on that? Because I was totally guilty in that, and I look back now, and I'm like, man, I shouldn't have said, well, I should have been much more cautious saying, like, hey, this is interesting. This is coming from the US side, not so sure what's going to happen, but I was not that, and I think I fell into that trap a little bit.

Thoughts. Yeah, I'm, I do think the, like, influences. Sorry, there is a different system in Iran right now. They have, you know, power brokers, like you already mentioned, or I'm actually the foreign minister.

“You also have this guy that's the new head of the National Security Council, Zogadara, I think, is his name. I told, I don't know much about him, but I'm told, like, he was such a hard liner that, like, costume-sool-a-moddy wouldn't work.”

Like, he was saying, this guy's too into it. I'm Theresa, and my experience in all entrepreneurs, start a choppy fry in full size. I wonder if the choppy fry is already the first day. And the plate will make me no problem. I have a lot of problems, but the plate is not one step away. I have the feeling that the choppy fry is a plate from the continent, everything is super simple, integrative, and simple, and the time and the money that I can't invest in there. For all him in Vaxtum, now it's the costen-los-testen of choppy fry, punkte-de.

So take a look at that. Right. Yeah, we're dealing with this. Yeah. Calling you a psycho. Exactly.

Oh, I mean, he's dealing with people who are reasonable. I mean, he comes out and he's spews this shit out all the time.

“He says, we like the people we're dealing with. And we're good. What's he talking about?”

I don't know. Because if he's the ultimate guy, and obviously the new supreme leader is both lost his entire family and is apparently seriously injured because of the strikes.

So, I mean, I think we have to accept that we're in a, we have a regime that's going to be even more hardline than the old one.

It is therein likely, if we get to an agreement, which we all want to hear point mark, that's going to maybe permanently install them as the governing body abroad forever. Right? Because they're going to have sanctions relief, and our agreement is with them. So now we're not going to have an incentive to see them deposed even though they're absolutely horrendous. So all that stuff's out to window if we get to an agreement.

“Yeah, it's, it's a challenge. And are we promoting the, you know, this idea that everything's rosy, so it, you know, I think that's the US's view is, we just keep saying it, so that it'll actually happen.”

I just think eventually in the probability to that point, people just don't listen to it. They just say, okay, let's see what actually comes out of it, which written in what's agreed to. I was on a bunch of foreign media yesterday, and all of, and with people in Tehran, who will obviously push in their side, and they're like, none of this stuff was agreed to, it's all made up. And we don't know how to get to an agreement if there's not even going to be a baseline of honesty and something that's actually written and published.

And I argue with these folks all the time, because they just promote the regime, but it's hard to argue with that one. Like unless there's a written agreement, why would anybody believe it's, that it's actually, you know, public.

“It says, this is what we agree to, open the streets. What does open mean?”

Open doesn't mean Iran gets a charge of million dollars and have everybody go through their territorial waters and they decide whether you go through open is an international waterway that has just like it was. But there's got to be a definition and they've got to actually put down in writing what they're agreeing to, because this is clearly not working. The way it is.

And can you go over the disposition of U.S. forces now just from open source, you know, where are we in terms of, is there a third aircraft carrier battle group there?

Like where are both muses there? Where are we in terms of this bill? If I saw something on again, it's on open source, it's on, you know, on Twitter that there there's continues to be this pretty significant airflow of assets from the United States. Maybe the audience will get to kind of go over exactly what's what are order of battle is if we can say it in unclassified way. Yeah, I mean, I'd have to pull make in. I haven't, I haven't been, I haven't been counting the order of battle here in the Middle East.

But certainly there's been no return of units. So anything that's come is being additive. I haven't, I didn't know there's a, I wasn't tracking those at third, third carrier.

I know we've, we've flown significantly in the last couple of weeks. We've flown more tankers out here. And I say that significant because it's a really interesting aspect of the air campaign or maybe it's just interesting to me because of the geek. So Iran wasn't, Iran knew they couldn't, they couldn't shoot our aircraft out of the skies in mass. So they went after critical enablers, right? They went after, I mean, do hate call them the, the nest and eggs of air power. In our case, those are the tankers, right, the sea, I'm sorry, the case you 135 fleet, that's aging limited number of air frames. So when after our air wax aircraft, because of course, they, they play a key role too and we've got a limited number.

And they went after our acquisition radar, hearing the golf and, and they were pretty successful. You know, you can look on open source what they did here in Prince Sultan Airbase to the air wax and tankers and they destroyed acquisition radar in Jordan and Bahrain. So we've had to replace those, but we've, but if the reports are to be believed, we've replaced them in mass and we've, we must have very few tankers left back in the states.

“We flew a ton into Ben Gurian airport of all places the other day. So ostensibly it looks as though we're preparing for further action. And that's why you see all this, this suppressed hysteria on Twitter.”

But I agree with, I agree with you guys that I don't sense that, not that I have any great insights, but I don't sense that from this administration. And then, nothing to, nothing to gain at all by escalating militarily. I mean, we have reached the limits of what we can attain through a military campaign. That's bottom line.

And if I, if reports are correct, even the Navy's running short of child, which tells you how desperate things are.

But, you know, on a serious note, on the diplomacy, I'm, I'm not a diplomat by background, but I think diplomats will tell you that. That it's, obviously, it's an error if you take small small bites right when things appear to be as they are now. You don't, you don't go for the, you don't go for your ultimate objectives right away and decide after 21 hour.

“Conversation, you're done because it's not going to happen, right? You have to, you have to calibrate your expectations accordingly.”

And you have to accept the conditions for a comprehensive agreement as we've just been talking about and not present because of the perceptions of both sides of both other vectors. So that I think the likely outcome and the one that we, we United States have to accept is, you know, if progress is made, it's going to be, they've got to develop an interim framework, something that stabilizes the immediate situation in streets of Hormuz. And, and yes, perhaps Lebanon too, without, without resolving these underlying issues.

So it might be a temporary arrangement on, on, partial sanctions relief.

Some form a de-escalation in the streets. And, and with agreement to talk about an arrangement on nuclear activity during the next talks. So on the, you question Mark, I think the love of the view is going to be there within a week, maybe a little over week. And then the USS George H. W. Bush, I think it's gone through this, you're brought to, it's gone through the, it's in the med somewhere.

“I'm sure some of our audience knows, but I do try to keep track of it because that's, I mean, if, if you talk, if when you listen to the Iranian commentators, that's what they think this is all about.”

This is, this is all just churn until, till we get more forces there, and it's, it doesn't actually amount to anything, and it's just a delay. Can you blame anything else? I don't, I don't blame them because, you know, we attacked them right in the middle of negotiations. Why do you think that the White House, before I, I do think the White House actually wants to agree with them? So I don't think they want to use two views and, you know what I mean?

But the other alternative is just to double down on this block eight, and I do think the block eight's haven't put in pressure on the regime. My only question, and this is for an economist, probably more than us, but, so if we just double down on a straight, and we completely block 20% of the world's whole supply without any end in sight, and we're not going to try to force open the straight militarily because it's too risky. I mean, what does that kind of do to global energy crisis?

“If they just accept that it's going to, and then what if they start, you know, Houthis get in the game, you know?”

And they start, I don't know if they can completely block the Bob, but I think they can certainly make it difficult. We know that. So, and then we're just stuck here, we're just stuck with, and then they're going to have to do something because if you cut them off entirely, they're going to have to do something to change the game, so it's the Houthis, it's attack, you know, Qatar, UAE, the energy facilities, and those countries in Saudi. Like, all the issues that we're trying to deal with as a shift at this from a conventional military fight to kind of like, you know, asymmetric economic type fight of attrition, get magnified, right?

I mean, there's nothing coming out of the street, there's nothing that goes through the Bob. I mean, that would be, oh, the other thing about the aircraft carrier is it actually when I think I'm wrong. I think it went all the way around. I don't want to avoid it. Yeah, right, the Horn of Africa is something crazy.

Isn't that great? Look it up.

Well, why do you guys talk about the bottom line on that?

I think you said you'd better. So, one of the things though, you know, I think D kind of chimed in there, and he said, well, well, on a second, each time, you know, we've seen this build up, we've used it. We saw the buildup event as well, it used it. And so while it makes no sense for there to be escalation right now, I mean, there is a buildup.

And, you know, we can't kind of discount the, you know, Trump's true social posts, only what an hour or two ago, when he threatened now, to, once again, to destroy all Iranian, what was it was bridges and power plants. Kind of, you know, more of this kind of infrastructure Armageddon. And so, you know, I think that there is reason to be concerned because when Trump has threatened these things, he actually has carried them.

And as opposed to ground forces on Cargalin or, you know, or anything like that, you know, the next step in any escalation would be some kind of bomb and campaign against infrastructure targets.

“You know, maybe that's what, as you climb the escalator ladder, that's what the, that's what the Pentagon is, is recommending versus kind of something that.”

Which, which of course is going to lead to world condemnation, there's going to be talk of, you know, is this war crimes, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, maybe that's what's next on that kind of the menu if these talks and there's a lot of Biden don't go anywhere.

So, it's off the coast in Namibia, it's going around Cape of Good Hope for the Wall Street Journal, and it'll be in the, in the area at the close to the end of the month, it's not the first week.

Yeah, but a lot of C6 sailors going around the Cape, that's an unusual move to US Navy. Clearly, I mean, okay, but that's not, that's not where you really want to project in terms of. Yeah, it's not confidence inspired. Also, like, what's next on the menu from the DOD is arguably war crimes says, I kind of, says how far this has gone like out of control, frankly. I mean, Andy mentioned it before about like when they game this out.

Straight to her moves was the number one thing to worry about, right, the asymmetric threat, the fast attack boats and stuff like that, not so much their destroyers or whatever frigates or whatever they have.

Not so much their two F 14s from 60 years ago.

And so we knew this going in and up until we started bombing at the end of February. On the table was a supposed deal that was better than the JCPOA in terms of like uranium enrichment and stuff like that.

“So I think like just going out and bombing and attacking Iran with Israel, it doesn't hasn't really benefited our position.”

I would say at all, especially now that like, oh, if they don't have another 24 hour session and everyone goes home upset, everyone's maximalist on either side because everybody thinks they're winning. And nothing gets done. The next move is just the bomb bridges and power plants like that's insane to me or grab carg Island for an extended period of time to squeeze their oil revenue like while our marines are getting fucking incoming the entire time. Like how many like there's got to be a casualty assessment on what that would look like and it can't be good at all.

There's no way we can protect all of them just have 500 marines just sitting there protecting an island while they're catching. Not even straight, they're catching direct fire like all day every day. All right, just don't know how any of it makes sense, frankly. So the elements would be gets there, made it, made according to several rewards. So I think the military build up there.

“You know, I get everything you guys have said is correct, but I think the military build up there is a red herring.”

I think it's a, I think it's a show of force to back negotiations and think. Obviously we have to, we have to back what we said about forcing the blockade or whatever we're calling it and all the straights, but. I dug for a moment. See us resorting to using ground troops. Reins and any capacity aside from in maritime addiction operations.

Yeah, just, you know, all the reasons that we've said it just, it would be such a strategic faux par that I'm I'm pretty sure that. That all the generals who haven't been fired yet are advising and admirals are advising strongly against it. And, and I think, you know, again, you said earlier, I wasn't it another thing I'm not as, I'm not an economist. But, but I'm fascinated by reading about the impact of the war and a little bit dismayed because. Even if the straights are opened.

The way that it's been explained is that the risk premium is already being built in, right? So, even if even if oil is physically moving prices are going to remain elevated because of a persistent geopolitical risk. That the straights will close again or there's going to be attacks on tankers infrastructure and so insurance rate go up costs go up. And that's.

We're not insulated ultimately from the effects.

Transportation costs energy costs the IMF has has downgraded global growth for costs raised inflation expectations across.

I mean, I don't think that's just posturing. I mean, these are all realities so I'm. I'm hoping and I'm thinking, I mean, these things are these are are.

“So, factors that affect this administration, right?”

I mean, the economics of all of this could well be disastrous. Well, the writing is not a wall in terms of the midterms. Like, they, you know, everything that all polls are projecting that the Republicans are going to get wiped out in possibly. Definitely the house and possibly the Senate too. So, the writing is definitely on the wall.

They see this is happening and like you mentioned like everything going up fertilizer is going to go up between foods going to go up.

We had an economist on a couple weeks ago talking about all the things that are like second and third or effects that are affected by the straight being the fact.

Oh, shut. I don't think this administration really cares, frankly, about the midterms. I think they care about getting a win in the press. And I think this whole thing is like, frankly, and this is super cynical, like it's just content. And it's crazy.

Well, I think there's an argument to be made that, you know, and that, you know, the midterms are already lost. And so this is kind of, and I, I subscribe to this a little bit. I mean, this is kind of legacy defining stuff for Trump, Venezuela, Iran and Cuba.

“I think there's some element of truth to that.”

And so, you know, with that in mind, I think, you know, maybe the administration is willing to risk that economic pain, if they can get a win out of Iran.

I just, the problem is the enemy gets a vote and we're kind of stuck in, you know, a great line.

There's no easy button right now. I mean, for all accounts that you read in the press, who knows, it's true enough that Trump and even Hegseff, which is amazing, or maybe not, is surprised that Iranian resiliency. Now, they shouldn't have been. If they had Iran experts, they would have said Iran and Iraq fought a brutal war on the Iranian suffered terribly.

And I think the Iranian regime is, you know, certainly willing to, to sacrifice kind of the well-being of its people and perpetuity for this. But, I do wonder that kind of, just the, the calculated, you know, Trump wants to win in Iran. And, and, and, you know, perhaps that the losses in the midterms are already baked in won't matter at this point. And you can make an argument again. You know, let, let's say there's a win or let's say Iran capitulates totally.

They give up every energy prices are still going to be brutal. Americans don't give you shit about foreign policy. So Trump could get this win, but if gas prices are still high, and not even come November, it doesn't even matter. November, it matters when this summer. I mean, at some point the midterms are, they're going to, they're Republicans are going to say it's lost no matter what.

“It's too late, because at any, I think you know that the residual effect is just,”

is going to be, it's going to take months and months. And when we're talking, I think KLM's, you know, just announced they're going to run out of jet fuel soon. Yeah. And so, you know, so I, you know, there, but there is a notion that Trump is doing this as something for his legacy. And the problem with that is his legacy is to do anything that Obama didn't do.

Or not to do anything Obama did. And so, what would be the right agreement now, just, and it, because you have two sides, and there's going to have to be compromised, would be a kind of a JCPOA 2.5. It's pretty obvious. And that might not even be, you know, in terms of, I think it's abandoning the Iranian people.

There's no doubt about that. And you might not address the proxies and the missile inventory. But it just in terms of the actual nuclear side of things, there's probably something that all of us, in a vacuum would say, yeah, that's actually fine. We can probably live with that.

But I don't know if Trump can politically, too, because they have to convince him it's a win, so he can go out and crawl. Anything that's going to come out of his mouth if it's a compromise is going to be, people are, like us are going to say, it's a strength in JCPOA. We did this, all this for that. So I think that puts Trump's in a bind as well, because even this kind of the art of the deal guy,

when there is a deal to be had, might not take it, because he's going to get criticized. And you do have the your favorite subject. You do have a very noisy pro-Israel contingent, especially on X. The freedom of defense and democracy you crowd who, you know, it's a maximalist position on everything. And that's, I mean, Lindsey Graham.

Obviously he's not part of that any kind of logic group. But you know, Lindsey Graham has been kind of... Yes, you could have convinced me. But Lindsey is warning in the press, hey, you know, no capitulation kind of like Obama. So I think there are some constraints politically from Trump from his right

that he's boxed himself into. I mean, you can't have JD Vance, go to Pakistan, offer 20 year delay and enrichment. And then Trump literally publicly the next day saying, I don't like that. So I think what happened...

I think what happened was that was based on like a release in that 20 billion, that's frozen.

And once somebody put out that test balloon online, got a lot of heat from like the groups you were talking about.

I think that's literally what happened. That's why they yanked it away. They're throwing up test balloons. That group that you mentioned, they put it out and they start shedding on it.

Pick up a little bit of steam, get some calls for some donors, adults and calls up as like, what the fuck? And that they pull back. That's what happens. I think it's that simple.

Yeah. That's what's happening. Yeah, it's fucked. So you guys bring up a really interesting point.

“If you narrow it down to what are US interests, right?”

What a really our own interests, not Israel's name. And I get it, Israel's an ally, blah, blah, blah.

But first of all, you know, a couple of comments in the Chick Poe,

we didn't really determine legal after proxies or list of missile inventory. At all. I don't know. I don't know. It's all focused on nuclear.

Right, nuclear. Because we realized that we couldn't... Even back then, we couldn't materially affect that for any extended period of time through an air campaign. The only reason, now the proxies, when we talk about the proxies,

let's talk about the proxies that we United States care about. And this is an argument. Obviously, I have not. It's so I invite push back. We care about the militias in Iraq, right?

Because they're influence potentially on the Iraqi administration and the threat to our own forces in the region, because they have proven historically not to be friendly, right? We should care about them, and we care about the hoothees, because of the mischief they get up to now and then by closing the ban.

Hisbola? We care about hisbola, because Israel cares about hisbola. Now, in fairness, we care about hisbola. We say, because of stability in the region, we care about hisbola, because we want Lebanon to be a functioning democracy

and lessbola threat in hisbola. Hisbola threatens that, right? But bottom line is we don't really care about better. That's not the reason. We care about it because of Israel.

Because Lebanon's Lebanon goes to shit and a handbasque, and we don't make it concerted effort to help Lebanon. We care about hisbola, because he Israelis are telling us hisbollets and existential threat. Do we care about ballistic missiles coming from Iran?

No, those were never a threat to us.

Really? Honestly, I would argue never a threat. We're a guy's in the region where the threat from militias launching fucking drones and everything. Yes, they were provided by Iran.

But you see what I'm saying. That we set these goals that we couldn't achieve through an air campaign. That weren't even that important to us. And the core issues were going after the particular proxies that concern us.

“And most of all, then nuclear program, and I think that's what we need to focus on.”

And by the way, reduction of proxies, yeah, it makes sense. We talk about going after the source and Iran to dissuade. Iran's never going to be dissuaded for from support for the proxies. Iran's always going to see that as a great way to strike back and asymmetrically strong way, because trying to prove that they're doing it

in an interdict, that flaw of lethal weight is proven really difficult.

So the solution is to go off with the proxies themselves, and we'll show up in a moment.

But that isn't. But you can't do that purely through a military campaign. It's used really to have found out, again, any gain, any gain. Right? Yes.

His bullet is deeply embedded in the economic and the political structure of Lebanon, and unless you have a concerted reconstruction effort, unless you give the UN there a different mandate, or even insert another peacekeeping force to back the government of Lebanon, and call it a building public capacity effort.

You're not going to affect his baller for any long period of time, and mowing the grass, killing thousands of civilians, trying civilian infrastructure just means you're setting conditions to have to go back and do it again in a few years. These are lessons that the Israelis have not learned.

But I feel as Americans, as United States, we need to be smarter than that, and now now are our interests to what are our national interests. And I think that the negotiators now, and he might just agree with you, at least it sounds like they do. In the sense that they're only talking about the nuclear issues.

There aren't anybody talking about. And the streets. Even in the streets. Yeah, well, that, yeah. I imagine Blinken and Burns, and President Obama was like, "Wait a minute,

“that's what we did in you guys criticize this.”

And now you're doing the same thing." And they're not including ballistic missiles and proxies. And at least there's no discussion of it publicly. Again, in the Pentagon, we thought, "Okay, well, let's keep the agreement."

or certainly the proxies side, when we just address it separately. Like, by loop when we get together, you make it almost impossible to get to an agreement, which isn't anybody's interest.

“So I'm not advocating that you have to include it,”

but that's the whole reason why we got out of the first place.

So there's going to be a lot of it. I think part of it is just, it's almost like nowadays, our policy is so tied to domestic politics that it can't say consistent, because it's all about trying to get a political advantage over your political opponents, which means you can't agree with anything they say,

even if it was in the interest of the United States. They all conceptive politics ends at the water's edge, Ben and Berksner. And it's like, "God." Like, it's now, it's just all wrapped into it.

And people, they don't even, you know, and there's been a lot of talk about this. People who are adamantly opposed to wars in the Middle East, they're now four, a war in the Middle East. It's like, "Well, what are you saying for?

I mean, I can understand, I can disagree with people.

Fine, that depends all the time."

But it's really hard to disagree with somebody that actually doesn't believe what they're saying. It's like, "Well, what is it? Are you opposed to the, would we send six trillion dollars and foreign wars over the last 20 years? Or are you for it now?"

But simply because it's in, you believe it's your political team. I definitely don't think that hypocrisy is just going to be pretty kind of laid pretty bear if there is going to be an agreement because, as you guys noted, that when you see the criticism of the JCPOA, it is a lot of it has to do with the lack of attention

on the ballistic missile inventory and the proxies. I mean, that's just, it's like the receipts are there. So it's going to be interesting to see how people react to that. Now, there also was the, and this goes along, by the way, exactly, Trump's negotiating style.

And if you think about it, he would be like, "Those are too hard. Let's not do those."

We're going to go on the one thing that we probably can agree on,

which would be some kind of a new deal. And so, but the hypocrisy is pretty stunning. I mean, Andy, I push back just a little bit. I mean, I don't have to tell you this. Obviously, the history of his ball is record of killing Americans is pretty acute.

So, you know, I do think that his ball is still in order to say, "And there's still our ball of plots and we still, you know, there's active counterterrorism operations that go on against his ball." Or, you believe, of course, not to the same level of threats to U.S. forces in the future. You change the issue of malicious, but I wouldn't discount, you know,

his ball of threat to Americans. I would argue very fast, being built by his ball in the last five years.

“How many American servicemen have been killed by his ball in the last five years?”

Also, I would argue too that a lot of the American people don't even know where the fuck his ball is, or can't point out, let me do it. I really do. I mean, you know, you're in his baller. I don't, I totally disagree with you. He was both against you.

241 Marines, but that was 40 years ago. I mean, that's like when I came in the recall, going after the Japanese, because they killed, you know, it's history. Listen, I'm overstating this just for the sake of argument.

Of course, I'm not a his baller. Of course, they need to go. They need to go. They're destructive to the entire region. What they've done to the country of Lebanon is, you know,

I don't think people realize that. Many people don't realize that. So I don't want to get on the tension of supporting his baller. They need to be of this greater destroyed. What I'm saying is, knowing the grass is not the way to do that.

And I'm agreeing with you guys. Yeah, so we narrow it down. I mean, a version, a modern version of, I've speak softly and carry a big stick is, going to these negotiations willing to compromise and,

“but there's stuff that we can do behind the scenes, right?”

So we've done before. We could continue to do to bring pressure on that ballistic missile program and do real things against it, and against the proxies, especially against the proxies,

without resorting to this matter there, if they campaign that looks good and press conferences, but it cheeset right. When you bring up a really good point, because one thing that we don't see as much of,

and I think it's, and I have a theory on this. I don't think President Trump likes covert action, because he can't brag about it. But there's a big part of this, he does. You know, that I think,

and again, we're not of a certain government right now, but so many of these things could be kind of handled, you know, quietly behind the scenes, with very aggressive covert action plans. And I don't, you know, I don't think it happened during the Biden administration.

I don't know what's going on in the Trump administration. I think probably a lot of our covert action resources are folks in the Western Hemisphere on Mexico. I mean, you know, mixled crowd is probably all brushing up on Spanish right now.

Like, covert action doesn't work for him,

because he can't talk about it. That's not fun. And, and it takes time, right? I mean, it takes time. It takes time and patience to, to get it and place and to see effects.

Yeah, that's where I go. That's where I go with it. That's where I go with it. That's where you need to go. And I'm a dirty liberal, like,

“comedy, and I'm saying that's what you need to go.”

Like, hit Russia back to for the fucking Havana stuff. Yeah. Well, hockey scenes behind the scenes hit the Iraqi, the Iranian militias in Iraq. It has been like, do it covertly. Yeah.

We should be the best in the world in doing that stuff. And it should be continuous. If you look at the Reagan type of the way he did National Security, he had a very robust military, but didn't use it that often. But he was a nonstop on the covert side.

Right. Like, that's, you know, that's the traditional Republican approach that one I promote, I guess. I would argue.

I mean, never sell weapons to Iran to fund some covert action.

That's a specific thing. It's a concept, I'm talking. I'm just saying it. It's, it is what softly and carry a big stick. And the big stick isn't used that often,

because it doesn't necessarily help the US overall. But the covert stuff, you know, that's continuous. You know, they can still support us. And we're both six, ultimately success stories. Right.

Afghanistan, you know, against the Soviets. I mean, there's all sorts of examples. Some of them are going to work. Some of it isn't going to work. But that's just, you know,

who sell money strike. You know, all of us were kind of shaken our hands. It's shaken our hands. And why wasn't this done under Title 50? Why the world was done under Title 10?

Why brag about it? Just just people just like him. Because he was in the train. He was, you know, way Trump can do that. He was getting a peach for Ukraine, bro.

That's why he did it under that title. That's why.

“But you get a, I mean, covert action eventually comes out, right?”

So you get credit historically. If that's what your biggest issue is. So I mean, but I agree with Mark, but that's, you've got to speak in your covert action.

So what's going on with all these scientists? We were seeing kill. I don't know. But it's starting to be like, it go beyond just conspiracy theories.

I think it's 11, 11. It's going on. Is that? What? I mean, it's become a statistical possible in this meeting.

Right? I'm just throwing it out there. Because, you know, we obviously do what Israel does it. We're at war with the country who, you know, has incentives.

And then all of a sudden we're seeing all these scientists. I'm just throwing it out there. Don't have any evidence. Maybe I haven't followed it, but yeah. Followed a tangent.

She like on the periphery. I don't know. You should be all over this. No, not directly. No, it's not out my alley.

I don't know. But for you see stuff, you like this. Aren't they UFO people? Is that why? There's a bunch of nuclear scientists.

Oh, getting clipped. I don't know. Who's got who benefits? Quibono, right? Isn't that the question?

Like I like. How they think it's going to help them. But except for the fact that we're doing it to them. Right. Right.

“I mean, how many are on the nuclear scientists at up getting off?”

I'm just brain, because if, you know, obviously somebody who has authority needs to review it. If it's, if it's a threat, we need to, we need to address it. I guess that's my point for bringing it up. Like they have to, you just to start.

Okay. What is that? Is it's not going to change or a new business? I brought up, we had to talk about it. Yeah.

You walk you right into that one, bro. How do you expect a counterintel in the FBI to be fucking doing a good job? The guy's passed on his fucking office. He's trying to not walk that way. Come on, bro.

That Atlantic story was as well-sourced as you can get. They can get it. Doesn't sources make. Someone said that to me. I know.

I know. I don't talk about friends. Like I, I have no cash while we did a lot of stuff together when he was a prosecutor. If you guys ever become director or something. I'm not going to get on here and talk about you guys, I've just...

All I know is, okay. So let's switch. I have a good way to make, not feel uncomfortable about this. Because one of the things that we've seen, it's a little bit of a little bit of a shift here.

One of the things that you've seen is this incredible and I hate it.

I won't retweet it, won't repost it, but you'll watch it. With some, you're like, "They're pretty good. Is this Iranian propaganda campaign?" With all this stuff they're putting out with the Lagos. And they just had one with cash.

And, you know, he's with his hockey shirt on, holding a beer passed out. But there's the Iranians are crushing us on propaganda. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Totally.

And it's concerning because, you know, Trump, the Trump administration, the State Department,

Did you hear it? Did you hear it?

Getting global engagement center.

That's right.

“Yeah, and so we're getting kill on this thing.”

And it's so I'm really conflicted because just, you know, it's what I say impressive. I hate him saying that, but you're looking at it. It's pretty sophisticated. It's showing the nuance of kind of U.S. politics.

It's really hard hitting. It's working. And these are spread all over the place on TikTok. Well, you guys know what's on that. Yeah, it's just written about that actually.

The information domain we're losing. We're losing at the strategic level. And that's a good. It's kind of interesting when you, the BBC did a documentary about that.

And again, and I'm just talking about what came out on this documentary. I don't know for sure, but the argument, but what it appears happened is that, you know, you removed this upper layer of the IRGC

“who were, you know, that pedigree went back to the revolution, right?”

I mean, that's not exaggeration. I mean, Soleimani. Or the Iran Iraq war at the very least, the 80s. But they were, you know, tough guys, but they were rooted in that kind of thought pattern.

And so when it came to propaganda, it was very, it was cumbersome. It was, you know, it was Mueller. The boomers got white down. The boomers came up and they like,

"Hey, we know how to reach the American or the global population. And they, and those TikTok videos are, I mean, they're masterful. I mean, in a way that you rarely see propaganda, and you see, and they're doing something

that propaganda really does. It pulls in an audience that the adversary audience. But that audience is pulled in, not laughing at the propaganda. They're laughing along with the messaging.

Which is, which is very unusual.

You think about Second World War,

the Brit's had someone called Lord Hall Hall. You know, it was a traitor, basically. It used to broadcast. And it was forbidden to listen to him. Brits used to listen to him.

Because he was, he was funny in a way that was not intended. He was just a ridiculous figure. Hanoy Jane, right? Famous two, G.I.C. listened to her.

But it was kind of laughing at her. But people are watching these videos because they were genuinely, very entertaining and funny. And like all good propaganda, there's a kernel of truth in them.

And some of them. It's not the kind of heart. I like it, but then I hate it because I can't stand the Iranians. And I want to see them.

If you're right, you know, the regime gone. But, but it's impressive. And you're right, Andy. This is not from the old Stargy, you know, 1980s crowd.

Yeah. I think I did. I see somewhere that this might even be being produced in the West. Some of you in California.

Well, there's a couple of commits. So what happened? There's a copycat. So there's an American copycat. Produced.

Produced. So these Lego videos. And that. And that.

“And that being produced for domestic political reasons, right?”

Not not pro Iranian. But they've seen how. How impactful they are when the Iranian is released. And so I've got. So you may see a video circulating now.

circulating now called what should we do with the drunken hex death right and it's said to a drop kick Murphy song and it's it's actually pretty funny And there's another one And there's another one about And the company it's it's one dude. He's in Montana, right? And I think he attended the white fish security conference and got the idea from that Is and it's called ponda. He's like a speaker next year. Yeah, but but the but the one said the original ones

I'm being produced outside Iran but by Iranians okay By companies that were contracted by the Iranian government and so they hit the savvy They know how to get these these things out. They're fluent English speakers So they understand, you know, they it's AI but it's very clever AI because they're putting in the right language models the right terminology And did you say you wrote on this recently? No, no, I wrote about

N-sways and means strategy in the in the campaign and and I talk about the information domain

And how we were losing the information domain amazing and how we how we got rid of some of the ski capabilities to before the war is not just

the GC but you talk about mine sweepers in September We decommissioned the five last five adventure class nine countermeasures ships in fifthly actually in the U.S. Navy That sent a send them back

So we made some bad

Bad choices that that have made us vulnerable

But yeah, that's a great point mark the information war We're way behind Do we need a we need an eyes on Video like that AI generated with those little legos Yeah, yeah, we can make that happen. It's probably easy now. I think I think that should be your homework for this week

You're not on the homework bro. I don't do I haven't done homework in 35 years. It's a really clever one You can look at our bits called your countries run by pedophiles and and but Don't lean up

The song and the chorus is so catchy yeah, my colleagues were kind of humming along to it in the yeah, that's what's good about it

“Yeah, I mean, that's how you know what I think up issue with especially like the maga”

The entire magas fear why they're having so much trouble with the info is because they're fracturing right like half of them You know, really you're not not into like the wars and stuff like that and also I think we're there putting a lot of a lot of Stake into the Sancom briefings and the Sancom Twitter like Nobody believes that shit. You want to make something funny easy to understand not like we destroy 600 of these today Yeah

So do you be really good at this? I mean think about it No, I mean it just I just want to mention one thing because I've been on my time rate the last couple episodes about these Pentagon briefings Because I because I think just headset is just and with his kind of the religious kind of tones We're way out of control and then I was kind of criticizing even perhaps the chairman But the one thing that Admiral Cooper and Dan came the chairman did

Last time which I thought was really good and smart was highlight just kind of the role of the kind of the the airmen and the sailors

“And I think that's something that is actually”

Positive to do and and because you know we do have to kind of keep in mind that there are people out there in harm's way and and so you guys know what I'm talking about when When did it just just so many kind of just a little different vignettes and I actually I do think that is useful It's for more useful than you know, then hexas kind of JV football speeches Which now changed with some kind of religious connotation which is just it's beyond cringe worthy right now But it's one of the kind of throw that out there highlighting the role of individuals who Cooper and came kind of come across in their travels

That kind of appeal to me. I like that I'm saying something positive about one of the briefings. How about that? Yeah, well our military is the best in the world

I mean, but it's always so it's before back isn't it that you know you utilize the soldiers Salem rain, but it doesn't really get us anywhere if you're sending them to war

Potentially for the wrong reasons. I'm saying, you know, I mean we we utilize them all the way through Iraq and Afghanistan But we were still killing them for a core in I mean, I'm I'm overstating the case. That's that's it's an all volunteer force I don't get theory-eyed about casualties uniform personnel, but I do I do think there's an obligation to make sure we should their blood. It's in a coherent course and for strategic gain, right and that's

That's the part that that I think we perhaps perhaps Congress is missing right now Well, I mean you have you have 300 injured plus and 13 Americans killed an action, so Trump's gonna own that you know whatever happens on here. This that was on you to watch his decision So I think it's end of April will that be 60 days, right? Yeah, so that's not I think yeah right around there because it's like everyone's I don't think this is

Rats ass and the Congress is just nonexistent, so technically you're on both the Congress both voted like both houses Senate and the House representatives both voted against Really, no I don't understand Yeah, it changes win totally. Yeah I don't understand how you advocate your constitutional responsibility, right? No one's saying you must stop the war

“They're saying hey by the war powers act you need to put the Congress needs to vote on this, right?”

Yeah, that's what I'm looking up. But that's my understanding 60 days they have to actually take an affirmative step So I think people are conflating the hate this is unpatriotic if you oppose the war. No one's saying that The saying you you just need to ask the questions, right? What what are the what's the strategic outcome? What's the end state's side? Oh, we going about it the right way blah, blah, blah, just do your fucking job It's a healthy mechanism

At the end of 60 days according to the war powers act

Or withdraw forces from conflict, which seems to be the same thing to me, but so this is specifically saying that at the war powers act

You they have to take an affirmative step to continue. It's not just we're just not going to vote Is there a president as ever agreed that that's constitutional not sure why the Supreme Court hasn't decided that seems kind of important Is there a argument to be made that like when they call the for the ceasefire bomb stop dropping that 60 days rear resets Is there an argument there? I don't know I don't know what what constitutes

End of hostilities According to the war power act I mean, this is the same time we're true Business and commerce that voted to confirm except is sector F as tall Cs D&Is can she's there's nothing to do with it

“I think they only time only reason they would do the only way they do something if U.S. ground forces are introduced”

That that I think people would be very uncomfortable with that But I think it would hope that that would guilt them enough to do their fucking job And they don't but they don't and even if you add in the days that were at a whenever gets the 60 days If they don't actually vote to continue then they've just pointed that at right The act is no longer

It sets a bad precedent. That's for sure that like the act is like basically we don't we don't we don't we don't

But for a long time. I mean, that's you know, I think we have to do things out of it because it and say that we weren't bound by it, but we did like the the briefing. You know that stuff. Yeah, I'll try to use an alternate force after 9/11 Yeah, and we extended that all the way to our operations in Syria, right? So it but technically there was a congressional authorization. There isn't like this doesn't have anything to do with the 9/11 tax, right?

“We can argue. Yeah, I think Congress got used to being lazy and exercising that constitutional”

obligation in the global war on terror Because yesterday, UMF was Just extended almost without discussion for 20 years. So this is a perfect thing for YouTube lawyers here It's this notion that I think that the White House subscribers doing Trump does the the notion of the unitary executive

You know, it's a very powerful executive

A branch that does kind of supersede legislative and judicial. I mean, that's the theory That people on the on the someone the right half, and I think that White House certainly is exercising that There's a ton of research to get a fancy name essentially means that we actually haven't heard that. That's a that's a that's a really That's an interesting population of course. Yeah, it's the idea of you know, the mutatory. Yeah, there's a lot of

That's a fancy word for no constitution not under our constitution. Yeah, that's yeah, our constitution clearly says

“The president's a commander in chief. So once it's authorized by Congress you have to have one individual that's in charge”

But it's not that they that the president regardless of what your political position can decide to go to war You know and be the commander in chief. That's clearly not what it says in the constitution. It's then excursion, though Correct, right. Yeah No, I'm making that this is you're make you are you are you are showing you are old true and I would say good classic righteous old school republicanism here

That's constitution. Yeah, constitutional republican, but that's not I think the theory of many who are in power And that's unfortunate because by the way, members that theory only holds when they're in power Like they're not going to promote the unitary right executive theory when you know the next Democrats in the Exactly, that's the thing that I don't understand sometimes That this this all can be turned on either

Yeah, I mean it's it's easy done. They're foolish shit. It's okay to say it It's okay to say it's okay to say it. It's a full of it. Well, so I don't know for it. It's what side is pushing for a for a defaction The dictator of you know a unitary executive to do whatever he wants like I don't see like call your book Are calling for like Biden to be the your unitary, you know executive, you know, let's be really here Let's be real

But anyway, yeah, they're full of shit. It's fine. We can admit it and Congress is useless. I think this is rolling Hey, I'm I'm proud of us we had we had an elevated Relatively intelligent conversation without John I'm surprised by I too

And I got to look a lot up though Yeah, now when I when I I do want to say when I tuned in though you were talking about

And that was off line

“From you tonight. There's no police on the agency guys”

No magic easy, but it's gonna be a quote. I use later on on TV. That's really good. I like it

But I'm not gonna say this is for my friend at ABC McMolroy. I can't see again It gets in LNBC you could say you're Fred McMolroy, but I don't know I will credit you on that And let's let's also just go back. We'll say one thing on this Do that for those of us who spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and made it through unscathed gastro-wise A quick trip to Pakistan to the Srinha hotel where all these negotiations are take a place

Would in gender a massive bout of dysentery from like 24 hours on the ground

So I'll take my ass away. We're gonna talk of Pakistan

“Not to follow over this story to that mark. So the the Saudis here are very close to the Pakistanis”

In fact, according to the local media whole bunch of Pakistani soldiers. So they have an exchange program Good friend of mine who's the senior Saudi naval officer Did he tour with the Pakistani Navy and asked them about that and he said yeah, you know He said yeah, yeah, I mean, you know the Saudis are very polite. He's like yeah, they're nice people Baba he said, but you know

On the ship their toilets There is no system it just goes into the sea Literally anyway Yeah, before I did a check that's I'm just quoting Said something about that then I go we would bring the tone of the conversation back to toilet humor since we have

Two Marines and D here and two Marines and two Greeks It's naturally where these things gravity Yeah, ask and Anyway

“Anything else boys I was a great episode. I think I've been talking about what's gonna happen in Cuba”

I know that's next week. We should do Cuba next week. We have to we have to wait something actually happens Don hey, there was just a big team there from the US government including probably some of our old friends make so They were just in Havana And a bit sweet we've been squeezing Cuba pretty hard over the last like a few months as well Hope everything's okay. All right guys do it's a favor if you want any of the links of the guys the links are down

In the description always and if you're listening on audio, they're also down there as well

Best place to support the shows patreon.com slash the team house to get episodes at free and early That's it as always guys. I appreciate it. Thank you Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the team house podcast newsletter if you go and subscribe It's totally free and what it will do is aggregate all of our data Of our content that we put out the things that are on the team house on our geopolitics podcast eyes on

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