Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Trump moving carrier from Pacific to relieve USS Lincoln EXPOSED flaws in U.S. military

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Trump moving carrier from Pacific to relieve USS Lincoln EXPOSED flaws in U.S. military · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: A new report reveals the surprising and unconventional method the
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  Speaker 1: Trump administration has used to get a deal to end
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  Speaker 1: the war with Iran. Axios reports, citing three people with
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  Speaker 1: direct knowledge, the White House created a back channel using
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  Speaker 1: the president of Iraqs Kurdistan Region, who has the trust
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  Speaker 1: of both the US and Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
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  Speaker 1: The decision was made in May due to uncertainty about
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  Speaker 1: whether the people they were actually negotiating with across the
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  Speaker 1: table spoke for the IRGC and the Supreme Leader. Let's
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  Speaker 1: bring in Rick stengel Ms, now political and list and
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  Speaker 1: former Undersecretary of State for the Obama administration. Good to
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  Speaker 1: see you, my friend. So how unprecedented, Rick? Is a
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  Speaker 1: move like this using leadership from another country to negotiate
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  Speaker 1: a challenging deal.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Alex, let's unprecedentent about all this is when you're
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  Speaker 2: trying to kill your negotiators and the gentlemen on the
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  Speaker 2: other side of the table, which is what Israel and
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  Speaker 2: the United States stated at the beginning of this war.
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  Speaker 2: I mean they decimated the leadership class of Iran, and
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  Speaker 2: the unintended consequence of it I think is that the
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  Speaker 2: Revolutionary Guard extremists, the people on the hard right came
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  Speaker 2: to power, and the other difficulty that they've had, which
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  Speaker 2: is understandable, and this when a country is under attack,
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  Speaker 2: is how do you actually communicate with them? They're afraid
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  Speaker 2: of being assassinated. I'm not sure how to communicate, So
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  Speaker 2: you have to start using third parties. I mean, using
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  Speaker 2: mister Barzini, who is a well known pragmatist, not a revolutionary,
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  Speaker 2: to try to talk to the revolutionary Guard in and
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  Speaker 2: around seems like a good idea, but if you look
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  Speaker 2: at the outcome, it doesn't seem to have actually increased
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  Speaker 2: any greater likelihood of a deal. And in fact, according
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  Speaker 2: to the Axiosts, mister Barzini volunteered to host talks himself
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  Speaker 2: interact in the Kurdistan region and that didn't pan out.
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  Speaker 1: But given your understanding of the hierarchy brick of Iranian leadership,
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  Speaker 1: what might have happened during those main negotiations to make
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  Speaker 1: the US think we may not be dealing with the
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  Speaker 1: right people.
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  Speaker 2: I think there are all kinds of things, Alex. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it's hard to know who the exact Iranian leadership is.
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  Speaker 2: This that's what's so unorthodox about these negotiations. It's not
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  Speaker 2: like the talks that happened under President Obama, where you
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  Speaker 2: had representatives of Western nations. You have representatives of Iran.
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  Speaker 2: The Iranians called together a group of negotiators from their
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  Speaker 2: B and C team. And so we've still not seen
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  Speaker 2: the new Ayatola. We've still had no seemingly direct communication
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  Speaker 2: from him. He's supposedly giving orders, but we have no
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  Speaker 2: way of even how the negotiators are communicating with him.
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  Speaker 2: So the degree of difficulty is high. A lot of
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  Speaker 2: it is a responsibility of the US, but I certainly
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  Speaker 2: understand that they don't feel like they're getting clear answers,
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  Speaker 2: and they're not.
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  Speaker 1: You have Central Command, as you know, revealed that it's
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  Speaker 1: head visited the troubled USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle
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  Speaker 1: East amid personnel and family reports of dire conditions on board.
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  Speaker 1: How bad does it have to be for the military
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  Speaker 1: to send top brass to personally assess the situation.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's sort of a classic situation, and
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  Speaker 2: I mean this has been the story of the war
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  Speaker 2: from the beginning, that it was a worth of choice.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't very well planned. So the fact that the
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  Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln has to stay at sea much longer than
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  Speaker 2: anybody anticipated because the war has gone on much longer
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  Speaker 2: than anybody anticipated. Seems like something that makes sense. You know.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure the reports are true from the what the
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  Speaker 2: what the folks on the ship are suffering from. But
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  Speaker 2: of course they took an oath. They're military men and women,
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  Speaker 2: and it's the military's job to kind of provide help
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  Speaker 2: for them. I mean, what was so extraordinary, and I
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  Speaker 2: don't know if you're going to ask about it, is
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  Speaker 2: you know, Trump's comment that, like a twelve year old like, no,
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  Speaker 2: they haven't been there long enough. You know, what is
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  Speaker 2: the commander in chiefs supposed to say? You're supposed to say,
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  Speaker 2: I want to thank the men and women of the
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  Speaker 2: USS Abraham Lincoln for their incredible performance, for their fact
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  Speaker 2: that they're doing it against all odds and extreme discomfort
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  Speaker 2: the American people, thank you, and we're going to come
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  Speaker 2: to your aid. Now. He said, no, they haven't been
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  Speaker 2: there long enough, they haven't suffered enough. The fact that
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  Speaker 2: he identifies and people think that he's a supporter of
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  Speaker 2: the military, I've just found absurd from the get go.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we know today the USS George Washington is moving
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  Speaker 1: to the Middle East. It is leaving though no US
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  Speaker 1: aircraft carriers in Asia or the Western Pacific Pacific. Rather,
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  Speaker 1: how vulnerable does this leave the region amid those tensions
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  Speaker 1: between China and Taiwan.
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  Speaker 2: So alex As, you know, it's been US military policy
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  Speaker 2: for decades to be able to fight a two front
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  Speaker 2: war with all the military and all the strength that
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  Speaker 2: your command. I mean, what this war in Iran has
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  Speaker 2: proven is that we can't really do that. You know,
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  Speaker 2: it was something like a fifty percent depletion of precision
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  Speaker 2: guided missiles. The fact that the that the Navy is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, having to replace aircraft carriers from different areas.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, we're very, very vulnerable in the South China
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  Speaker 2: Sea and places where China could threaten threaten Taiwan. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: you know, this has really exposed a lot of laws
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  Speaker 2: in the military, which could be a good thing if
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  Speaker 2: they figured out how to do it. I mean, because
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  Speaker 2: you have America, which is the largest military power in
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  Speaker 2: the planet by ten times. We have the ten times
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  Speaker 2: the military budget of the next of the next ten countries.
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  Speaker 2: It's running out of weapons. I mean, we need a
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  Speaker 2: new strategy and we're spending you know, three or four
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  Speaker 2: million dollars on precision guided missiles to shoot down twenty
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  Speaker 2: thousand dollar drones. You can't last that way.
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  Speaker 1: M okay. It's always a sobering but very welcome conversation
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  Speaker 1: with you, my friend. Thank you, Rick Stengel. I will
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  Speaker 1: see you again, excited,