Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / Iran’s Last Chance? Hormuz, Ukraine’s 40-Day Failure & U.S. Missile Shortages

Transcript

Iran’s Last Chance? Hormuz, Ukraine’s 40-Day Failure & U.S. Missile Shortages · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  Hello, good morning.
• 0:01
  Welcome.
• 0:02
  It is what time is it anyway?
• 0:05
  730 in the morning.
• 0:08
  Here we are at Lake Ozark.
• 0:10
  Well, here we there's no we there's only
• 0:12
  me.
• 0:13
  Samuel Edward von trap as Jr would call
• 0:17
  me I don't want that von trap nomenclature
• 0:20
  for a couple of different reasons.
• 0:23
  Lake Ozark real estate of the art studios
• 0:26
  where I'm appearing to you from you can
• 0:28
  call in 5737468020 should you feel the urge
• 0:33
  you can listen live at damn radio.com
• 0:35
  forward slash live all the time.
• 0:37
  And we shall have great music playing for
• 0:39
  you except when people are opining on important
• 0:42
  news of the day.
• 0:46
  I went to the Secretary of State's website
• 0:49
  and checked out the election.
• 0:53
  What do you call it results that are
• 0:56
  statewide for the state of Missouri, we may
• 1:00
  go into some of that it looks like
• 1:03
  our friend, the Ikster only got well, he
• 1:08
  didn't nobody got an overwhelming percent.
• 1:11
  The winner one with like 24 and I
• 1:14
  got 22 or whatever the amount is of
• 1:16
  the percentage.
• 1:17
  So I'm not really sure how that works.
• 1:20
  You know, suppose you're not getting a runoff
• 1:23
  when you have seven or six or seven
• 1:25
  people.
• 1:26
  I don't know how how it works.
• 1:27
  Does the highest one go?
• 1:29
  I apologize for not knowing.
• 1:31
  I may have meant to talk to Ike
• 1:33
  about that had some some runs on that.
• 1:36
  But that's not what I want to follow.
• 1:38
  I'll cover some of that toward the end.
• 1:40
  Assuming we have time.
• 1:41
  But we did have the the election things
• 1:46
  going primary going on yesterday.
• 1:50
  But that is not of a great deal
• 1:54
  of interest to me in truth.
• 1:55
  I suppose it should be but it isn't.
• 1:58
  What is of interest me because geez, I
• 2:00
  got people calling in and crying that I
• 2:02
  don't focus on Iran enough.
• 2:04
  Jesus, maybe we should focus on Iran.
• 2:07
  How about how about Iran's last chance people?
• 2:10
  It's Iran's last chance.
• 2:13
  Yeah, what happened to the last last chance
• 2:15
  would be my initial take on that.
• 2:17
  But But now I'm a changed man.
• 2:19
  I'm no longer going to talk about Ukraine.
• 2:23
  Except except later in the show.
• 2:26
  But right now, Jesus, I better talk about
• 2:29
  Iran.
• 2:29
  We might have people out there wondering what
• 2:31
  the hell's going in Iran.
• 2:33
  And yesterday I was informed I didn't spend
• 2:35
  enough time talking about it.
• 2:37
  And having an opinion on it.
• 2:39
  Instead, I wasted my time on Laura freaking
• 2:42
  loomer.
• 2:42
  What in the hell?
• 2:44
  She's got varying points of view.
• 2:46
  And she just changes them all around based
• 2:48
  on who's funding her trips apparently, back and
• 2:51
  forth to Ukraine.
• 2:52
  And, you know, and whether she went to
• 2:55
  Russia and saw burnt out factory from wild
• 2:58
  berries and saw the or maybe she should
• 3:00
  go to the starter bells school and go
• 3:03
  over there and then she can change her
• 3:05
  opinion again.
• 3:07
  And say, geez, these Ukrainians are bombing schools
• 3:10
  and bombing beaches and taking, you know, bad
• 3:13
  news, but damn it.
• 3:14
  See, look, I've got sidetracked into talking about
• 3:16
  Ukraine again, and we should only focus on
• 3:19
  Iran.
• 3:20
  So I thought we would discuss Iran.
• 3:23
  I thought we had covered the bombing campaign,
• 3:25
  the Strait of Hormuz, the depleted American missile
• 3:29
  inventories, the attacks on commercial shipping down that
• 3:33
  way, perhaps the oil market, the nuclear negotiations,
• 3:36
  Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, and
• 3:41
  the possibility of dragging the US into yet
• 3:44
  another time wasting money wasting and importantly, life
• 3:52
  wasting Middle Eastern wars that have nothing to
• 3:57
  do with America from my humble point of
• 4:00
  view.
• 4:00
  And you know, I'm not a guy that
• 4:03
  wanders around wearing a MAGA cap.
• 4:05
  I'm not one of those guys.
• 4:06
  I have never been strongly pro you pro
• 4:10
  Trumpster do whatever the Trumpster says and believe
• 4:14
  everything the Trumpster says, just because he's Trump.
• 4:17
  I'm more likely to believe him because he's
• 4:20
  not a career.
• 4:22
  A whole politician, no offense to politicians that
• 4:25
  I know and respect.
• 4:28
  But I don't personally know the guy.
• 4:31
  I don't know what he would do.
• 4:32
  And so to presume that he's always acting
• 4:35
  in my best interest would be a waste
• 4:38
  of my own brain power.
• 4:40
  And I don't believe that.
• 4:41
  And he sure as hell isn't standing up
• 4:44
  to the neocon crowd, the Klan, the Rubio
• 4:49
  and formerly, you know, the well, the Mitch
• 4:52
  McConnell, we still don't know where the hell
• 4:54
  he is.
• 4:56
  Lindsey Graham passed.
• 5:00
  And I don't want to say anything positive
• 5:02
  about that, because I don't wish that upon
• 5:04
  any person.
• 5:05
  I want everyone to live the longest life
• 5:07
  they can possibly live.
• 5:09
  And I hope that I do too.
• 5:11
  But you never know when it's gonna when
• 5:13
  it's gonna be over.
• 5:15
  And but I can't say that I'm not
• 5:19
  glad that he's no longer in the Senate.
• 5:24
  You know, I think that is, you know,
• 5:26
  if if the only way to get people
• 5:28
  out of the Senate is death, that sucks,
• 5:31
  but they should die quicker.
• 5:33
  You know, that's that's crap.
• 5:35
  There should be term limits or age limits
• 5:37
  or something.
• 5:38
  But at age limits, not really fair either,
• 5:40
  because age is a relative thing.
• 5:43
  So at any rate, apparently, I don't speak
• 5:47
  enough about Iran.
• 5:48
  And it's just not enough for some of
• 5:51
  my enthralled listening crowd who just got to
• 5:55
  begin with Iran.
• 5:56
  So guess what we're going to do?
• 5:58
  We're going to begin with Iran.
• 6:00
  How about that?
• 6:01
  How about we start with Iran, and we'll
• 6:04
  stay with Iran for a little while we
• 6:06
  can examine the war, the ceasefire that might
• 6:10
  or might not exist.
• 6:12
  We have no idea the negotiations that Iran
• 6:15
  says are not negotiations.
• 6:17
  The negotiations that Donald Trump says I ran
• 6:20
  begged him to have it complete.
• 6:23
  Oh, Jesus.
• 6:23
  On the one hand, they're begging for it.
• 6:25
  And on the other hand, they What the
• 6:27
  hell are you talking about?
• 6:29
  We haven't even been asked to cooperate or
• 6:32
  to say anything to struggle over the streets
• 6:35
  of Hormuz.
• 6:35
  The alleged deal between Oman and Iran that
• 6:40
  took place yet took place yesterday, which I
• 6:44
  think should have been done all along.
• 6:46
  The fact that the only deal now is
• 6:49
  geez, you can't charge us for that.
• 6:51
  Don't charge me money to go through the
• 6:53
  streets of Hormuz.
• 6:54
  That would mean that we lost.
• 6:56
  Well, you dumb morons.
• 6:57
  You should have figured that out before you
• 7:00
  went in because you knew it was a
• 7:02
  potential when you attacked.
• 7:06
  And you poo pooed it just like you
• 7:09
  do everything else.
• 7:11
  You know, Russia will collapse it as soon
• 7:14
  as we go in there.
• 7:15
  They're just going to collapse, you know, no
• 7:17
  problem.
• 7:18
  So but let's begin with Iran.
• 7:20
  And what else are we going to say?
• 7:23
  Trump says Iran's just begging for somebody to
• 7:27
  negotiate with them.
• 7:28
  Come to the table, please.
• 7:30
  We're here all by ourselves.
• 7:32
  The oil market accusations involving people around Trump
• 7:37
  are also quite important.
• 7:38
  We've talked about those before the expanding security
• 7:41
  operations on Iran's borders.
• 7:43
  Did you hear about the action into Iraq
• 7:45
  yesterday by Iran?
• 7:47
  That's not very well broadcast over here.
• 7:50
  Nobody talks about it.
• 7:51
  But it happened.
• 7:51
  Sure enough.
• 7:52
  They're over there taking out people between Iran
• 7:55
  and Iraq to growing evidence that the US
• 7:58
  may have reached the practical limit of what
• 8:02
  it can accomplish only through air and sea
• 8:06
  power.
• 8:07
  You know, that's that's what we'll talk about.
• 8:12
  Then maybe we'll move on to what occurred
• 8:15
  in Russian Ukraine overnight, including the massive advances
• 8:19
  by the Russian soldiers on the front lines.
• 8:26
  Mm hmm.
• 8:27
  The alleged the 40 day campaign initiated by
• 8:32
  Kiev ended yesterday, the campaign that was supposedly
• 8:36
  going to force Russia into accepting a ceasefire.
• 8:40
  And what were we going to do?
• 8:41
  We're going to bomb beaches and we're going
• 8:44
  to bomb starter belts type schools, we're going
• 8:47
  to blow up wild berries and make sure
• 8:50
  people can't get their Amazon.
• 8:52
  I don't know baby strollers.
• 8:54
  And what do I buy on Amazon?
• 8:57
  I buy flaxseed.
• 8:58
  That's what I buy on Amazon.
• 9:00
  And then I grind it up.
• 9:02
  And I take it every day because it
• 9:03
  lowers your cholesterol.
• 9:05
  And so that's what I do.
• 9:07
  And so there's, if I was in Russia,
• 9:10
  I'd have to order that through wild berries.
• 9:12
  And I would not be able to get
• 9:14
  it because wild berries distribution centers have been
• 9:19
  destroyed quite a few of them.
• 9:22
  And more yesterday, in fact, more the day
• 9:24
  before.
• 9:25
  And so now there's four or five of
• 9:26
  these that are that are gone out and
• 9:27
  they've shifted allegedly some of their what do
• 9:31
  you call it shipping potential has been moved
• 9:33
  to Kazakhstan.
• 9:36
  They got to put most of our shipping
• 9:38
  stuff into Kazakhstan and send this smaller ways
• 9:42
  not to these huge warehouses inside of Russia,
• 9:44
  at least not right now.
• 9:45
  And we'll regroup after these a holes stop
• 9:49
  what they're doing.
• 9:51
  So that 40 day ceasefire, however, drone strikes,
• 9:54
  refinery strikes, warehouse attacks, attacks on wild berries,
• 9:58
  and soft civilian targets like beaches and resort
• 10:03
  hotels with swimming pools and kids in them.
• 10:07
  Russia has not capitulated after 40 days of
• 10:10
  this BS.
• 10:12
  Russian forces continue to advance just like they
• 10:15
  always have.
• 10:16
  And Ukraine is now asking for variations of
• 10:20
  some kind of ceasefire every day.
• 10:22
  It's a different thing.
• 10:23
  Washington is finally admitting that the weapons cupboard
• 10:26
  that they have is going bare and we
• 10:30
  can't give you anymore.
• 10:31
  So we'll discuss missile manufacturing, Patriot interceptors, Ukrainian
• 10:36
  Flamingo missile, and the proposed European Friar interceptor
• 10:40
  system instead of the Patriot.
• 10:42
  The difference between announcing weapons program and actually
• 10:46
  producing weapons have meaningful differences in definition and
• 10:52
  maybe we should explore those.
• 10:54
  We're also going to return to sweat the
• 10:56
  Spanish enclave in North Africa, and the border
• 10:59
  border crisis involving Morocco and Spain.
• 11:02
  I watched this video yesterday, where this reporter
• 11:05
  kid is reporter kid was running down the
• 11:08
  road with the Spanish, the Moroccan migrants who
• 11:12
  had jumped into Spain.
• 11:14
  Now, remember, it was some 50 60,000.
• 11:16
  And they say all but 10,000 immediately
• 11:19
  were sent back.
• 11:20
  Some 60 were killed, you know, by drowning
• 11:23
  or trampling through all the BS that went
• 11:25
  on regarding this.
• 11:27
  There are allegations that this was conducted by
• 11:29
  the United States and Israel, mainly Israel, but
• 11:34
  with some support and propagandizing of this decision
• 11:40
  in in Spain, to entice people to come
• 11:47
  into the EU.
• 11:48
  Now a lot of people now are reporting
• 11:50
  that some of these people will be able
• 11:53
  to get away with the fact that they
• 11:56
  are now in Spain proper, even though it's
• 11:59
  on the African side of the of the
• 12:02
  Mediterranean.
• 12:04
  And so it's right next to Morocco.
• 12:07
  And there's right on the Straits of Gibraltar,
• 12:09
  beautiful, beautiful country.
• 12:10
  And I loved it over there.
• 12:12
  I didn't get to that little Spanish enclave.
• 12:15
  But I crossed I sailed across to this
• 12:17
  European side of the Gibraltar and check that
• 12:22
  out both in Spain and in Portugal is
• 12:24
  fantastic and very beautiful area of the world.
• 12:28
  And, you know, as an American, I think
• 12:31
  it's my duty to travel the planet and
• 12:34
  report to other people what they can see.
• 12:38
  Because Americans always gets Mexico if you haven't
• 12:41
  been to Australia, holy crap, go to Queensland,
• 12:44
  go to the Great Barrier Reef, they have
• 12:47
  things you haven't dreamed of.
• 12:48
  America is a beautiful, vast, wonderful country.
• 12:52
  And I've been to all 50 states.
• 12:54
  And I just I love it.
• 12:56
  And I there's plenty to offer.
• 12:58
  And I'd love to make a second round.
• 13:00
  But I'm not sure in my lifetime, I
• 13:03
  could do a second round when I've only
• 13:05
  got 57 countries under my belt, and I
• 13:08
  want to get to 100.
• 13:09
  So I strongly encourage people to travel.
• 13:12
  I'm hoping by the end of this month
• 13:15
  to get to Egypt.
• 13:16
  That's what I'm hoping I haven't been able
• 13:18
  to arrange it yet.
• 13:19
  And I may have to seriously curtail the
• 13:22
  amount of time I can spend over there.
• 13:24
  But I'm hoping to get over there.
• 13:27
  And I've got it almost worked out.
• 13:30
  I just got to see if I can
• 13:31
  figure that out.
• 13:32
  That would be just fantastic.
• 13:33
  A couple of things interfering scheduling is a
• 13:36
  bit off and maybe I'll have to go
• 13:38
  into September when I prefer to travel anyway.
• 13:41
  The last few years I've taken September's I
• 13:44
  did Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan is what they
• 13:48
  prefer to call it and spent some time
• 13:50
  in Bishkek went to a couple of Russian
• 13:53
  style sanatoriums just beautiful stuff.
• 13:58
  So we'll talk a little bit about that
• 14:00
  crap too.
• 14:00
  But because I don't want to offend anyone,
• 14:04
  Jesus, I better get to Iran.
• 14:05
  I mean, what if I don't talk about
• 14:07
  Iran enough?
• 14:08
  It's the war that Washington just cannot quite
• 14:11
  win.
• 14:12
  And they can't just leave it alone.
• 14:15
  Holy crap.
• 14:15
  If you left, then what Donald Trump is
• 14:18
  now giving Iran.
• 14:20
  It's so called last chance.
• 14:23
  Listen up, a holes.
• 14:26
  It's over.
• 14:27
  Donald Trump said it's over.
• 14:28
  So the problem, this appears to be at
• 14:31
  least the fifth last chance that I'm aware
• 14:36
  of.
• 14:36
  Maybe I'm wrong.
• 14:37
  Maybe it's only four.
• 14:38
  However, it could be six, who knows.
• 14:41
  But Trump told reporters that American forces have
• 14:44
  been prepared to launch what he described as
• 14:48
  an extraordinarily powerful attack, possibly stronger than any
• 14:52
  attack since the Second World War.
• 14:55
  And you know, he's already taken a blowing
• 14:57
  up bridges, highways, refineries, water facilities, you know,
• 15:02
  civilian targets, because now that Ukraine is doing
• 15:06
  it on a regular basis.
• 15:07
  This is this is okay for America to
• 15:09
  behave this way.
• 15:11
  And to blow up civilians and attack civilian
• 15:13
  not not military might, but stuff that will
• 15:17
  make people feel it.
• 15:18
  That's what we're that's what we're suggesting goes
• 15:20
  on in Ukraine.
• 15:21
  It's exactly what we're doing on behalf of
• 15:24
  Israel in Iran.
• 15:26
  That's what Israel does.
• 15:28
  I mean, Jesus, they just blow blow up
• 15:30
  the civilians.
• 15:31
  It's the civilians are in the way.
• 15:32
  bulldoze them.
• 15:33
  Get them out of there.
• 15:34
  You know, we have Palestine.
• 15:36
  Oh, Jesus, let's get rid of that.
• 15:38
  Lebanon.
• 15:38
  We're done.
• 15:39
  I ran get the hell out.
• 15:42
  People all Jesus, these people may later not
• 15:45
  like us.
• 15:46
  We got a nuclear weapon and we're allegedly
• 15:48
  stronger than them.
• 15:49
  But hey, you know, let's get the US
• 15:53
  in to blow up the people that way
• 15:55
  we can claim we weren't do it.
• 15:56
  But they're doing it on our behalf.
• 15:58
  Anyway, that may be a bit extreme.
• 16:00
  And that might be offensive to some people.
• 16:02
  But that's the way I see it.
• 16:03
  And I don't like it.
• 16:06
  So and I'm pretty consistent in that in
• 16:09
  that view.
• 16:10
  I don't like the way America has behaved
• 16:12
  over the last 30 years since I was
• 16:14
  an arms control inspector and escort over here
• 16:17
  on the United States for inspectors coming over
• 16:20
  here when we were eliminating nuclear threats.
• 16:24
  Now what are we doing?
• 16:25
  We're building advanced nuclear threats bigger and bigger
• 16:28
  and bigger because we need to blow up
• 16:30
  the world.
• 16:31
  I don't like that approach and never have.
• 16:34
  But people could bitch about me when I
• 16:36
  was in the military because I said the
• 16:37
  same thing.
• 16:38
  I remember I pissed off the head of
• 16:40
  the Department of Energy when we were on
• 16:42
  the Nevada nuclear test site.
• 16:44
  And the Russians were all there.
• 16:46
  And we were spending millions, hundreds of millions
• 16:49
  of dollars drilling holes 2000 feet deep, putting
• 16:52
  nuclear bombs in the bottom, filling them up,
• 16:54
  blowing them up, testing the the wave, the
• 16:57
  shock wave from 60 miles away in some
• 17:00
  NASA style building that we're at, or we
• 17:03
  would drill into the side of the mountain,
• 17:05
  put a nuclear bomb in it and blow
• 17:07
  it up.
• 17:09
  Watch the top of the mountain collapse inward,
• 17:12
  because a nuclear explosion underground nuclear testing and
• 17:15
  the reason you do it underground, and you
• 17:17
  hope it doesn't vent and blow out stuff
• 17:20
  into the thing is because you're trying to
• 17:22
  eliminate nuclear weapons, not anymore.
• 17:26
  No, we want to create more.
• 17:29
  We want to bomb them into oblivion.
• 17:32
  And you know, what are we trying to
• 17:34
  do?
• 17:34
  Non proliferation doesn't mean you keep Israel from
• 17:37
  having one and threaten its neighbors doesn't mean
• 17:39
  you keep Ukraine from seeking one or Finland
• 17:42
  from seeking one or frickin Estonia, Latvia and
• 17:45
  Lithuania seeking bombs Poland once you know that
• 17:49
  these people are all hoping to get them.
• 17:51
  Oh, gee, but those are good guys.
• 17:53
  Saudi Arabia is now in the in the
• 17:57
  purification or what do you call it?
• 18:00
  The Iran, the whatever the peer is it
• 18:03
  purification of the uranium processing of uranium refining
• 18:07
  to a greater quality of the uranium I
• 18:09
  forget the word and when I forget a
• 18:11
  word, it'll take me a bit to get
• 18:13
  it back.
• 18:13
  And I always think of it in Russian
• 18:14
  this morning, I was stuck on the word
• 18:16
  who touched Nenea.
• 18:17
  And it took me five minutes to come
• 18:19
  up with the fact that who touched Nenea
• 18:21
  really meant clarification.
• 18:25
  I can't remember the word.
• 18:27
  And it happens to me.
• 18:29
  Unfortunately, from time to time I listened to
• 18:33
  so much in Russian sometimes I get a
• 18:35
  I think of the word in Russian before
• 18:37
  I think of it in English.
• 18:38
  It's pretty funny.
• 18:39
  And anyway, Iran tells a different story than
• 18:42
  the old Trumpster.
• 18:43
  Okay.
• 18:44
  According to Trump, the operation he postponed his
• 18:48
  strongest since the Second World War.
• 18:51
  He postponed it after he got calls from
• 18:53
  Iran, from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar
• 18:58
  and other regional governments and Trump's version is
• 19:00
  pretty straightforward.
• 19:02
  Iran learned that a devastating strike was imminent.
• 19:05
  Iran called and cried and pleaded for negotiations
• 19:08
  according to Trump and Trump as a bet,
• 19:12
  you know, as a benefactor, you know, as
• 19:14
  the good guy, he agreed to delay the
• 19:17
  attack to save lives.
• 19:20
  He don't give a rip about Iranian lives.
• 19:24
  That's not what he's doing.
• 19:27
  He cares about whether he's gonna run out
• 19:29
  of missiles.
• 19:30
  Okay, Iran tells a different story completely.
• 19:33
  The Iranian position is that the United States
• 19:36
  does not get to decide when there is
• 19:39
  war.
• 19:39
  And when there is peace.
• 19:41
  Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Bagay, I hope
• 19:45
  I said that right, said Tehran would negotiate
• 19:48
  only when diplomacy serves Iran's national interests.
• 19:53
  Iran will defend itself whenever circumstances require and
• 19:57
  will not accept an American timetable for war
• 20:00
  negotiation.
• 20:01
  That difference isn't rhetorical.
• 20:04
  They've followed that since February.
• 20:06
  Trump needs the world to believe that Iran
• 20:09
  is being forced to the negotiating table, just
• 20:12
  like you trade needs to believe that if
• 20:14
  they kill, you know, people in the wild
• 20:16
  berries, plants or blow up beaches, that they're
• 20:20
  really forcing Putin to the table.
• 20:22
  Unfortunately, they're both wrong.
• 20:25
  And they are forcing the opposite.
• 20:29
  They are digging in and saying, you know
• 20:31
  what, it's only war that's going to end
• 20:34
  this.
• 20:34
  And we'll take the consequences, whatever they are,
• 20:37
  if that means the US or Israel more
• 20:39
  likely is going to bomb the hell out
• 20:41
  of us.
• 20:42
  Well, with a nuclear bomb, because the more
• 20:45
  likely people that are going to bomb the
• 20:47
  the planet with a nuclear bomb are the
• 20:50
  US and certainly Israel, you know, there's not
• 20:52
  going to be any, you know, if somebody
• 20:54
  bombs it, it ain't gonna be North Korea.
• 20:57
  You know, using a nuclear bomb, it won't
• 21:00
  be Iran with a nuclear bomb, even if
• 21:02
  they had one, it'll be the US or
• 21:04
  Israel, proving that they are stronger than everyone
• 21:08
  else, because they can make the hard decisions
• 21:10
  to terminate, you know, this multi multi polar
• 21:17
  world and the hegemony needs to stay there.
• 21:20
  Why?
• 21:20
  Because we will throw a nuclear bomb and
• 21:22
  they won't.
• 21:23
  And that's sad.
• 21:25
  But search your search your brain and your
• 21:28
  heart and you'll know it to be true.
• 21:30
  I do.
• 21:31
  So there you have it.
• 21:33
  That's the Iranian position.
• 21:35
  The difference is really not just in the
• 21:38
  rhetoric.
• 21:38
  It's not.
• 21:39
  Iran needs its own population, its regional allies
• 21:43
  in the global south to understand that Tehran
• 21:46
  is not surrendering and that it controls the
• 21:49
  pace and scope of negotiations.
• 21:51
  Both sides are therefore negotiating over two things
• 21:54
  simultaneously.
• 21:55
  They're negotiating over the substance of an agreement,
• 21:58
  the MOU, which fell apart just like we
• 22:01
  knew it would win less than a week.
• 22:03
  They're negotiating over the public appearance of who's
• 22:06
  winning.
• 22:06
  Trump needs the world to say he's winning.
• 22:09
  And so therefore, he always says, oh, Iran
• 22:11
  called me.
• 22:12
  Iran says it's communicating through intermediaries.
• 22:16
  People want something to happen.
• 22:18
  And so therefore, calls are going back and
• 22:20
  forth.
• 22:20
  So Trump can always say, oh, geez, they're
• 22:22
  begging me to do this.
• 22:23
  They're begging me to do that.
• 22:25
  Iran goes, no, we're not.
• 22:27
  You know, we don't anticipate that he's ever
• 22:28
  going to do anything the way he ought
• 22:30
  to anyway.
• 22:31
  And so we're you know, we're playing along.
• 22:34
  But we're our path doesn't depend upon you
• 22:38
  is basically what they've said all the time.
• 22:41
  Doesn't depend upon what you do.
• 22:43
  We presume you're going to be doing what
• 22:45
  you've done for the last, you know, 50
• 22:48
  years and that it's not going to change
• 22:50
  because you're in the pocket of Israel and
• 22:52
  Israel doesn't want it to change.
• 22:54
  Therefore, it's not going to change.
• 22:56
  Plus, if you back off, you will be
• 22:58
  a loser.
• 23:00
  Yet again, just like in Afghanistan, just like
• 23:03
  in Iraq, one and two, you know, you
• 23:05
  go and what did we win there?
• 23:08
  Long term, long term, nothing.
• 23:11
  We go in there, blow some people up,
• 23:13
  destroy the stuff and leave leave it in
• 23:15
  worse shape than it was when we went
• 23:19
  in.
• 23:20
  And unfortunately, Trump doesn't want to be that
• 23:22
  loser.
• 23:23
  And so him having to say the same
• 23:25
  thing, he's not going to like that, that
• 23:27
  he that he's losing.
• 23:29
  So Trump says the United States controls the
• 23:33
  Straits of Hormuz.
• 23:36
  Do they?
• 23:37
  Because you put a blockade at the end
• 23:39
  of it.
• 23:39
  He says it's a blockade.
• 23:40
  Iran says nothing's going through the strait without
• 23:43
  Iranian participation.
• 23:45
  Anyway, Trump says there will be no tolls
• 23:48
  and no Iranian permission system.
• 23:50
  Well, he's pushing that because he failed in
• 23:53
  what he did.
• 23:55
  It was already that before this started.
• 23:59
  The cause of this is Trump and Israel.
• 24:03
  So there you go.
• 24:05
  Iran is discussing arrangements with Oman, allegedly settled
• 24:09
  yesterday, but I haven't seen any final of
• 24:11
  that, that will leave Tehran with a central
• 24:14
  role in navigation, ship inspection, security and the
• 24:18
  routing of commercial vessels.
• 24:20
  This is why every announcement is followed by
• 24:23
  a contradiction.
• 24:24
  Mediator says progress has been made.
• 24:26
  Trump says the deal is complete.
• 24:28
  Then it's not.
• 24:29
  Then it is.
• 24:30
  Then, oh, geez, we got to bomb them
• 24:32
  into oblivion.
• 24:33
  Oh, wait a minute.
• 24:33
  We have an agreement.
• 24:34
  We'll stop it.
• 24:36
  Meanwhile, people are making billions on the stock
• 24:38
  market, manipulating the funds because they know what
• 24:42
  Trump's going to say before he says it.
• 24:44
  So it's, uh, Iran saying there's no direct
• 24:50
  agreement with Washington and the USA and the
• 24:53
  Strait must be reopened is because they understand
• 24:56
  the they understand the economics of what's going
• 24:59
  on.
• 25:00
  Iran says the Strait can be open, but
• 25:02
  only under a strict security structure that recognizes
• 25:05
  Iran and Iranian authority.
• 25:07
  That isn't diplomatic confusion.
• 25:09
  That's the battlefield.
• 25:11
  So what's the Hormuz arrangement?
• 25:13
  The immediate negotiation concerns Hormuz.
• 25:17
  One-fifth of the world's oil passes through
• 25:20
  well, seaborne oil passes through this disputed or
• 25:25
  disrupted normal navigation Strait.
• 25:30
  So the arrangement says it creates separate patterns
• 25:35
  for vessels entering or leaving the Persian Gulf.
• 25:38
  Iran would monitor or approve ships entering along
• 25:42
  the northern side of the Strait ships leaving.
• 25:46
  The Gulf could travel along a southern route
• 25:49
  closer to Oman, but Iran would still seek
• 25:52
  a role in approving or coordinating that movement.
• 25:55
  Iran's position is that weapons and intelligence systems
• 25:58
  have entered the region on commercial or do
• 26:02
  or you dual use vessels for years and
• 26:05
  later are employed against Iranian targets.
• 26:07
  Now think about that.
• 26:09
  You may not agree with the premise that
• 26:12
  we shouldn't be able to deliver weapons into
• 26:15
  wherever Israel, anywhere else through the Strait of
• 26:20
  Hormuz, but this isn't just about the oil.
• 26:23
  That's why they wanted that entering into the
• 26:27
  Strait of Hormuz happens on the northern side,
• 26:29
  on the Iranian side.
• 26:31
  So they can stop all of the massive
• 26:34
  amounts of weapons being delivered through that port.
• 26:38
  And you know that's a legitimate interest of
• 26:41
  a state like Iran, especially in keeping with
• 26:44
  what's been going on.
• 26:45
  I'm not saying I agree or disagree.
• 26:47
  I'm just saying it's a reality.
• 26:50
  So Tehran frames maritime control as national defense
• 26:54
  and not an attempt to extort international shipping
• 26:59
  or extort people from, you know, pull their
• 27:04
  money away.
• 27:04
  Take it.
• 27:05
  So the American position is absolutely the reverse.
• 27:12
  Washington says Strait of Hormuz is international waterway.
• 27:15
  It's not, by the way.
• 27:17
  It rejects Iranian tolls service under the law
• 27:20
  of the sea.
• 27:21
  It is not.
• 27:22
  It's a 23 mile straight, 12 on each
• 27:25
  side would put it at 24.
• 27:27
  And so Oman controls 12 miles out.
• 27:30
  Iran controls 12 miles out.
• 27:32
  There is no international waterway at that point.
• 27:36
  And in other similarly situated strait scenarios, people
• 27:43
  pay tolls.
• 27:44
  They have to pay money to get through.
• 27:46
  You know, it's there.
• 27:47
  So Washington says it's an international waterway.
• 27:51
  It rejects tolls, service fees or permission and
• 27:54
  argues that the U.S. Navy is the
• 27:56
  effective power to guarantee navigation.
• 27:59
  They haven't been before, nor have they done
• 28:01
  anything like that.
• 28:03
  Qatar, Oman, Pakistan are serving as intermediaries.
• 28:07
  Qatar says negotiations are advancing but aren't complete.
• 28:11
  They want restoration of a ceasefire, freedom of
• 28:13
  navigation, return to broader diplomatic style discussions.
• 28:18
  So the practical question isn't whether Iran can
• 28:21
  permanently close the strait themselves, which we see
• 28:24
  that they can.
• 28:25
  The question is whether they can make shipping
• 28:27
  through the strait so dangerous, expensive and unpredictable
• 28:30
  that insurers, mainly insurers, ship owners and energy
• 28:34
  markets behave as though the strait is closed.
• 28:36
  That's what's happening.
• 28:39
  And that is where Iran is getting its
• 28:41
  leverage.
• 28:42
  It doesn't have to defeat the U.S.
• 28:43
  Navy.
• 28:44
  It just has to create enough uncertainty that
• 28:47
  commercial vessels hesitate, can't afford the insurance or
• 28:53
  tankers alter their routes and oil prices remain
• 28:57
  elevated.
• 28:58
  That's all to the benefit of Iran.
• 29:00
  So Iran wants to, what are we going
• 29:03
  to say?
• 29:04
  Iran wants to go all the way on
• 29:08
  this issue.
• 29:09
  And so you know what we're going to
• 29:11
  do?
• 29:12
  We're going to go all the way, is
• 29:15
  what I think we're going to do.
• 30:51
  Let's go all the way.
• 30:54
  Yeah, let's go all the way.
• 31:02
  Working in a factory, eight days a week.
• 31:40
  Let's go all the way.
• 31:55
  More asphalt
• 32:16
  jungle.
• 32:18
  Got to be a man of war.
• 32:21
  I'm a fucking dreamer, sitting in the sky.
• 32:34
  The Hollywood square.
• 32:38
  Living in Disney land.
• 33:28
  Let's go all the way.
• 34:20
  That was Sly Fox.
• 34:21
  Good stuff.
• 34:22
  Maynard is what I had to say about
• 34:24
  that.
• 34:25
  Let's see.
• 34:27
  Let's go all the way down to the
• 34:30
  bottom of this amount here.
• 34:33
  And let's keep talking about Iran because God
• 34:35
  forbid we don't talk about enough Iran around
• 34:38
  here.
• 34:39
  We got to do some more Iranian.
• 34:41
  We worry about Iran.
• 34:43
  We must have a position.
• 34:46
  We have to take a position on Iran.
• 34:49
  Well, my position I believe has been pretty
• 34:50
  damn clear.
• 34:51
  I'm against what we're doing in Iran.
• 34:54
  Just like I was against what we were
• 34:56
  doing in Afghanistan.
• 34:58
  Just like I'm against what we are doing
• 35:01
  with whom in the Ukraine.
• 35:03
  Just like I was against the same things
• 35:06
  going back for a hell of a long
• 35:08
  time because fools and idiots are sitting on
• 35:11
  the triggers.
• 35:12
  And I disagree.
• 35:15
  You know, I don't like the fact and
• 35:19
  I don't like or dislike the guy.
• 35:21
  I don't give a rip.
• 35:22
  But I don't like the thought processes that
• 35:25
  are indicated to me in his testimonies in
• 35:29
  front of the Senate and whatnot for put
• 35:31
  me in coach.
• 35:33
  Put me in coach.
• 35:34
  Pete Hegseth is not, you know, somebody that
• 35:40
  I respect and honor.
• 35:41
  I just don't.
• 35:43
  I think he's a warmonger.
• 35:45
  I think that Rubio's a warmonger.
• 35:47
  Unfortunately, the people that the old Trumpsters been
• 35:50
  getting his advice from lately are all warmongers.
• 35:55
  Trump wouldn't like this.
• 35:57
  Trump wasn't like this before before this term.
• 36:02
  He wasn't a warmonger.
• 36:04
  He was a peacemaker.
• 36:05
  That's what he said.
• 36:06
  I'm a dealmaker.
• 36:07
  I can get deals all made.
• 36:09
  Well, where are they?
• 36:10
  You know, show me some dealmaking ability so
• 36:12
  far.
• 36:13
  You know, what was the name of that
• 36:15
  show that he had?
• 36:16
  The business thing where you show your business
• 36:19
  and then he approves whether you get funding
• 36:23
  for it or not.
• 36:23
  I forget what it was called.
• 36:24
  Shark.
• 36:25
  Was it Shark Tank?
• 36:26
  I don't remember what that was.
• 36:27
  But either way, he's missing the art of
• 36:29
  the deal here.
• 36:31
  You know, I want a deal.
• 36:32
  These are deals.
• 36:33
  These are threats.
• 36:33
  When did he become the bully?
• 36:35
  When did he become a bully?
• 36:37
  That's what I well, he's been a bully
• 36:38
  this time for sure.
• 36:40
  Now he has no problem telling his point
• 36:42
  of view.
• 36:42
  And I appreciate that.
• 36:44
  You know, I'm a person who will tell
• 36:45
  you my point of view.
• 36:46
  I'm a person who will, but I'm not
• 36:48
  a bully.
• 36:49
  I will listen to your point of view
• 36:50
  as well.
• 36:51
  And I will honor that point of view.
• 36:54
  Am I not going to agree with you?
• 36:55
  But it's not just well, I'm going to
• 36:57
  sit on you until you agree with me.
• 36:59
  Or I'm going to, you know, you have
• 37:01
  your blockade, I have mine.
• 37:03
  We're both controlling the straight, right?
• 37:05
  So I blockaded by blowing up shipping, you
• 37:09
  blockaded by parking your Navy down south.
• 37:11
  Why aren't you putting the Navy in the
• 37:13
  straight itself?
• 37:15
  Good question, isn't it?
• 37:18
  You wonder.
• 37:20
  There's an oil market problem that is becoming
• 37:24
  more and more apparent.
• 37:26
  And it's an explosive accusation coming out of
• 37:30
  Tehran.
• 37:32
  Iran is accusing individuals around the Trump administration
• 37:36
  of profiting from advanced knowledge of American statements
• 37:41
  and military decisions affecting oil prices.
• 37:44
  Well, I've alleged this, I've said the same
• 37:46
  thing.
• 37:47
  They're making a concrete accusation.
• 37:49
  An Iranian channel alleges that major short positions
• 37:53
  were placed shortly before announcements that delayed attacks,
• 37:58
  announced ceasefires and suggesting possible diplomatic breakthroughs.
• 38:03
  There's always these short positions that are put
• 38:06
  out right before.
• 38:07
  So there's a report that describes several trades,
• 38:11
  including large positions, allegedly open minutes or hours
• 38:16
  before price moving statements are made.
• 38:19
  And Iranian sources suggest that Jared Kushner, Steve
• 38:23
  Witkoff are connected to this activity, may be
• 38:27
  connected to this activity.
• 38:28
  You can't claim that they are.
• 38:29
  We don't have any concrete proof.
• 38:31
  But sure as hell makes sense.
• 38:33
  You know, I'm thinking I'm going to do
• 38:34
  this.
• 38:35
  Why wouldn't you take a position on that?
• 38:37
  You're involved in there.
• 38:38
  This is what they do in the Senate.
• 38:40
  This is how these people go into office.
• 38:43
  The rich get richer.
• 38:44
  And those who are just normal folks get
• 38:46
  rich rather quickly because they know what's going
• 38:50
  on in advance.
• 38:51
  And they can take positions.
• 38:53
  They and their families can take positions in
• 38:55
  advance that nobody else has access to.
• 38:58
  And so the Iranians are just saying it
• 39:00
  straight up.
• 39:01
  And this report includes large positions that were
• 39:06
  open minutes before and, you know, point directly
• 39:11
  at states that Iran has not produced public
• 39:16
  proof of this.
• 39:16
  And the White House, Kushner and Witkoff haven't
• 39:20
  issued substantive responses in that that matters.
• 39:23
  But there's a serious question that should be
• 39:26
  asked.
• 39:27
  You know, I can't sit here and neither
• 39:29
  can they pronounce that anyone's guilty of doing
• 39:32
  this.
• 39:32
  But the strongest argument supporting Iran's suspicion is
• 39:37
  the apparent timing of a huge number of
• 39:42
  large trades immediately before government announcements that move
• 39:48
  the oil market one direction or another.
• 39:51
  If trade data is authentic and accurately timed,
• 39:54
  the pattern deserves an investigation of some sort.
• 39:57
  You wonder if there's going to be, after
• 39:59
  the old Trumpster leaves office, another goal going
• 40:04
  through this.
• 40:04
  Just like, you know, oh, gee, we need
• 40:07
  to put Fauci in jail.
• 40:08
  Oh, gee, we need all these people talking
• 40:10
  about jail for everybody.
• 40:13
  Everybody's doing it.
• 40:14
  They're all a bunch of damn criminals.
• 40:16
  And it's disgusting.
• 40:19
  But each side wants to punish the other
• 40:22
  ones when they leave, as if that's going
• 40:24
  to mean that when the next time they
• 40:26
  come up, they're not going to get charged.
• 40:29
  You know, well, they're not going to get
• 40:30
  charged because we didn't get charged.
• 40:33
  They're all a bunch of damn crooks.
• 40:34
  And I don't like it.
• 40:36
  I don't like people getting into office and
• 40:39
  getting rich.
• 40:40
  I don't like it.
• 40:42
  And selling their power, selling their information and
• 40:46
  getting on the back end some kind of
• 40:49
  a benefit.
• 40:50
  But unfortunately, that's how our system works.
• 40:53
  And if you're going to play in that
• 40:55
  system, you've got to be good at it.
• 40:56
  And these people are very, very good at
• 40:58
  it.
• 40:59
  The system allows it, doesn't it?
• 41:01
  Are they really criminals if the system allows
• 41:04
  it?
• 41:04
  Good question.
• 41:05
  What if it was me?
• 41:07
  What if I'm running for office and I
• 41:09
  know that I got to take a pile
• 41:12
  of money from these people who want me
• 41:14
  to take a certain position later?
• 41:16
  And I take that money.
• 41:17
  But then I disagree.
• 41:19
  Something changes and I don't want to take
• 41:21
  that position.
• 41:21
  Am I going to become an enemy later?
• 41:24
  I mean, all you can promise when you're
• 41:26
  running for office is that you'll evaluate things
• 41:28
  from the correct point of view and make
• 41:32
  your own determination, not based on the money.
• 41:34
  But ultimately, they're buying or forcing the vote.
• 41:38
  And if you get their money this time
• 41:40
  and don't do what they want you to,
• 41:42
  you're sure as hell not going to get
• 41:43
  it the next time.
• 41:44
  And you better hope to have a variety
• 41:46
  of people providing you money and saying, well,
• 41:50
  you know, you do this, you've bought my
• 41:52
  vote.
• 41:52
  Is that illegal?
• 41:56
  Is it?
• 41:57
  That's what's happening.
• 41:59
  It happens all the time.
• 42:01
  And if you're going to know about Iran
• 42:03
  and all the bombing in front of it,
• 42:05
  well, then why wouldn't you use the information
• 42:09
  to benefit yourself, your family and your friends?
• 42:11
  So these are serious questions and God knows
• 42:14
  the answers.
• 42:15
  I don't know.
• 42:16
  I don't know the correct answer.
• 42:18
  Nobody ever gets charged.
• 42:19
  I think they all get away with it.
• 42:21
  And then then they bitch about it.
• 42:23
  So so then you got all these people
• 42:25
  like me sitting around and bitch about it.
• 42:27
  But if I'm given the same opportunity, am
• 42:29
  I going to take it?
• 42:30
  If they tell me that tomorrow Trump's going
• 42:33
  to announce if I find out that Trump
• 42:35
  is going to announce something tomorrow and nobody
• 42:37
  else knows it, why wouldn't I go to
• 42:40
  the stock market, you know, round up, you
• 42:42
  know, some money, put it on a on
• 42:44
  a strategic bet and make a shit pot
• 42:47
  of money off it?
• 42:48
  Why wouldn't I?
• 42:49
  That's what they're doing.
• 42:50
  Of course, they're already rich and they're getting
• 42:53
  richer.
• 42:54
  They ought to give that to the rest
• 42:56
  of us as well.
• 42:56
  But this is how the system works.
• 43:00
  It's depressing, but true.
• 43:02
  So the timing of these trades, they certainly
• 43:05
  bring up questions.
• 43:06
  I ran talking about them.
• 43:08
  That's all fair.
• 43:09
  You know, they should talk about it.
• 43:10
  But if you want to talk about the
• 43:13
  counter position, sophisticated oil traders, you could say
• 43:16
  like Kushner and Whitcoff.
• 43:19
  Oh, they're sophisticated oil traders.
• 43:20
  They're probably better oil traders than they are
• 43:22
  diplomats, to be truthful, because where did they
• 43:26
  come from?
• 43:26
  You know that they came from money before.
• 43:29
  And so they're sophisticated.
• 43:31
  They're not somebody that's just dead saying this.
• 43:34
  They're seeing the pattern before.
• 43:36
  And so sophisticated oil traders constantly take positions
• 43:41
  based on rumor, shipping data, possible statements by
• 43:45
  a president, military movement, diplomatic leaks and market
• 43:49
  expectations.
• 43:50
  So a correctly placed trade, you know, put
• 43:54
  down before an announcement isn't necessarily by itself
• 43:58
  evidence of insider knowledge.
• 44:00
  And that is how they all get away
• 44:02
  with it.
• 44:02
  They say, oh, we're experienced traders.
• 44:05
  You know, Nancy Pelosi became one over the
• 44:08
  years and she sat her ass up in
• 44:10
  the Senate.
• 44:11
  You know, she's there.
• 44:13
  And in the legislature, I mean, the weakest
• 44:16
  link is the connection to the named individuals
• 44:19
  who placed these trades, which brokerage accounts were
• 44:23
  used.
• 44:24
  Who is the beneficial owner of these trade
• 44:27
  accounts and what communications occurred before the transaction
• 44:30
  occurred?
• 44:31
  And did anyone in government transmit nonpublic information?
• 44:35
  Those are questions that can be answered, but
• 44:38
  they're going to require what banking records, brokerage
• 44:41
  records, communications, genuine investigations.
• 44:44
  And until evidence exists so far, it doesn't.
• 44:48
  The responsible description would be to say something
• 44:50
  like this.
• 44:51
  Iran is making serious allegations about the suspiciously
• 44:55
  timed oil trades.
• 44:57
  Well, I'm curious.
• 44:58
  You know, I'm making I'm making the same
• 45:00
  general commentary.
• 45:02
  You know, I'm not accusing anybody anything.
• 45:04
  I'm just saying that these are questions that
• 45:06
  that reasonable minds want to know the answer
• 45:09
  to.
• 45:10
  And so the allegations, we're never going to
• 45:12
  prove them, but I mean, how the hell
• 45:15
  are you going to get it?
• 45:16
  You think you send up a sunshine request
• 45:18
  and give me all our Freedom of Information
• 45:20
  Act request on the federal side and ask
• 45:23
  for a bunch of documents are going to
• 45:25
  get them to you?
• 45:27
  That's funny.
• 45:28
  No, I don't think so.
• 45:30
  But these claims shouldn't be automatically dismissed just
• 45:33
  because it came from Tehran.
• 45:36
  They shouldn't be repeated as mere fact either,
• 45:39
  because, you know, just because it's politically attractive
• 45:44
  to say stuff about these guys, you know,
• 45:47
  even though it is.
• 45:49
  Trump, he has one big difficulty.
• 45:52
  He's divided the negotiation into two stage.
• 45:55
  Stage one, straight to Hormuz.
• 45:57
  Stage two, he's always claimed this is all
• 46:00
  because of nuclear Iran and we can't have
• 46:03
  a nuclear Iran.
• 46:04
  That might sound orderly to you, but it
• 46:06
  isn't.
• 46:07
  The first stage might be achievable because everybody
• 46:10
  has a financial interest in restoring safe commercial
• 46:12
  travel, safe commercial navigation, safe individual passage through
• 46:18
  the ports and not having to worry about
• 46:20
  dying on a on an oil tanker.
• 46:23
  Iran needs its export revenue, so it's eager
• 46:26
  to come up with an arrangement.
• 46:29
  And the Gulf states need something predictable so
• 46:31
  that they can go back to shipping 20
• 46:33
  percent.
• 46:34
  China, India, other Asian buyers need energy from
• 46:39
  that port coming out of that strait.
• 46:44
  Trump wants to demonstrate that the war produced
• 46:47
  some kind of a result.
• 46:49
  He can't do that so far.
• 46:51
  Sure as hell can't.
• 46:52
  That that he in fact, the argument is,
• 46:56
  is that his actions along with Israel's is
• 46:59
  what caused this to occur.
• 47:02
  Not Iran.
• 47:03
  This isn't Iran's fault.
• 47:04
  This is the fault of those who started
• 47:06
  this nonsensical attack to decapitate a country, which,
• 47:14
  holy crap, it didn't work.
• 47:16
  You know, could we decapitate America?
• 47:19
  I mean, what would happen in America?
• 47:20
  Think about this.
• 47:21
  What would happen in America if somebody decided
• 47:24
  to wipe Washington, D.C. off the face
• 47:28
  of the planet?
• 47:30
  What would happen?
• 47:32
  Do you think we'd fall into chaos and
• 47:34
  internal fighting and everybody wants their own state?
• 47:38
  Hell, you could argue that it's a good
• 47:40
  thing.
• 47:40
  I bet we'd clean up for a little
• 47:42
  bit.
• 47:43
  Hell, it's it's probably likely that our our
• 47:46
  what do you call it, our culture, our
• 47:50
  country, our empire would survive longer than what
• 47:55
  it's currently slated to be.
• 47:56
  You know, empires rise and fall and ours
• 47:59
  is on the decline, you know, according to
• 48:03
  the to historical models we're on the decline.
• 48:06
  But what would happen if if would we
• 48:08
  defend our country, our culture, our way of
• 48:11
  life?
• 48:12
  Would we?
• 48:13
  I think we would.
• 48:14
  I'd feel pretty positive about that.
• 48:16
  You just create a new national capital and
• 48:19
  start all over.
• 48:21
  And it doesn't mean we'd be decapitated.
• 48:24
  So why do you think that in Iran
• 48:26
  the same result wouldn't happen?
• 48:29
  You know, especially because they're a religious based
• 48:31
  culture and they have a religious leadership that
• 48:38
  arguably comes first.
• 48:40
  And then the foundational governmental requirements come after
• 48:47
  that.
• 48:49
  I don't know.
• 48:50
  Curious.
• 48:51
  Good question, isn't it?
• 48:53
  The nuclear question is a little bit harder
• 48:54
  than that.
• 48:55
  So Trump wants to demonstrate that the war
• 48:57
  produced a concrete result and he can't.
• 49:00
  Decapitation, which is what they wanted to talk
• 49:02
  about as having accomplished something, accomplished nothing.
• 49:07
  And so and it caused greater problems.
• 49:10
  So now we've got an economic crisis that
• 49:12
  took place over there.
• 49:13
  And the economic crisis is the Iranians have
• 49:17
  showed their ability to have a massive impact
• 49:21
  on shipping out of the Strait of Hormuz.
• 49:24
  And so, you know.
• 49:27
  Whether it was the war really over nuclear
• 49:30
  question or was a decapitation, I argue is
• 49:32
  decapitation.
• 49:33
  They argue that they you know, Iran was
• 49:36
  pretty damn far away from having a nuclear
• 49:38
  weapon anyway.
• 49:39
  I'm not so sure that I care if
• 49:41
  they do have one.
• 49:42
  You know, what about detente in that area?
• 49:44
  What about what about a an equal playing
• 49:48
  field in the Middle East?
• 49:49
  Maybe that would settle things more than what
• 49:51
  it is right now.
• 49:53
  Is everybody having the ability to do that?
• 49:56
  Iran is not going to voluntary dismantle every
• 49:59
  element of its nuclear infrastructure without receiving some
• 50:02
  kind of an enormous security and economic concession.
• 50:06
  It's just not going to going to do
• 50:08
  it.
• 50:08
  It has watched what happened to Iraq after
• 50:11
  Saddam Hussein lost his deterrent capability.
• 50:14
  Watch what happened in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi
• 50:17
  abandoned his unconventional weapons programming.
• 50:20
  From Tehran's perspective, complete disarmament without a binding
• 50:24
  security structure is going to amount to preparing
• 50:27
  the country for future attack.
• 50:29
  That's all that's happened in the last forever.
• 50:33
  When dealing with Iran, the US and Israel,
• 50:36
  meanwhile, do not want an agreement that just
• 50:39
  delays Iran's ability to enrich uranium.
• 50:42
  They want a structure that prevents Iran from
• 50:45
  reconstructing a weapons option.
• 50:48
  And so the gap between them is pretty
• 50:49
  large.
• 50:50
  And I don't know what the right answer
• 50:51
  is.
• 50:52
  Our activities have consistently not been diplomatic.
• 50:58
  It's always, you know, do what we say,
• 51:00
  not what we do.
• 51:01
  It's okay for us to have nuclear bombs
• 51:03
  because we're the good guys.
• 51:05
  You're not.
• 51:06
  And so therefore you can't have it.
• 51:09
  I mean, it's all a judgment problem.
• 51:11
  If you treat them like the bad men,
• 51:13
  they become the bad men.
• 51:14
  You know, that's how it works.
• 51:15
  The gap is enormous and is always going
• 51:18
  to be there when you continue to think
• 51:19
  that way.
• 51:20
  And you don't believe in the autonomy of
• 51:22
  independent countries.
• 51:23
  You just don't.
• 51:25
  And so it's an enormous gap.
• 51:27
  Will it ever be resolved?
• 51:28
  Not so sure.
• 51:29
  And I don't even know who's right anymore.
• 51:31
  That's the depressing part is I can't come
• 51:35
  out and say unequivocally that America is always
• 51:39
  right.
• 51:40
  We've been wrong enough in the last, you
• 51:42
  know, in my entire lifetime.
• 51:44
  I've been watching the idiots at work in
• 51:48
  government, and they've created serious doubt in my
• 51:53
  mind that we've been doing the right thing.
• 51:55
  Very serious.
• 51:56
  I share those doubts with you here.
• 51:59
  If you, you know, it all depends on
• 52:03
  what America perceives.
• 52:06
  And if we continue to treat the rest
• 52:09
  of the world as subordinates, we're not doing
• 52:13
  ourselves any favor.
• 52:14
  And by the way, they are pushing back
• 52:17
  now.
• 52:18
  When I talked over the last couple of
• 52:20
  days of Laura Loomer and her love of
• 52:24
  hegemony, and she was pretty straight up on
• 52:27
  it.
• 52:27
  She said Ukraine is defending American hegemony.
• 52:31
  No, they're not.
• 52:32
  They're fighting for Ukraine.
• 52:34
  I mean, it's a foolish proposition, but that's
• 52:36
  what she's saying.
• 52:37
  People like Ukraine are defending American hegemony.
• 52:41
  That's what she said.
• 52:42
  Geez, they're keeping away the multipolar world.
• 52:45
  We can't have a multipolar world because then
• 52:47
  the U.S. isn't in charge of everything.
• 52:49
  Where in the hell did you ever come
• 52:50
  up with the need to say that America
• 52:51
  must be in charge of everything?
• 52:53
  I don't get that.
• 52:54
  Makes no sense to me.
• 52:56
  So we have enormous gaps between the fractured
• 53:02
  logic of people like Laura Loomer and normal
• 53:07
  people who honor the other culture, other individuals,
• 53:12
  other countries, autonomy, you know, having your own
• 53:18
  country and not having to force that country
• 53:22
  to believe that it's a bad actor.
• 53:25
  I mean, just like we did with Venezuela.
• 53:27
  You know, we picked that.
• 53:28
  Nothing's changed in Venezuela, except we've stolen a
• 53:32
  bunch of resources.
• 53:34
  That's what happened.
• 53:35
  You know, believe it or not, that's what
• 53:37
  happened.
• 53:38
  So complete denuclearization is a slogan, unless somebody
• 53:44
  defines it.
• 53:45
  Mr. Trump, you know, making an arrangement governing
• 53:49
  shipping and being able to negotiate inspection enrichment
• 53:53
  limits or temporary restraints is also important.
• 53:56
  But complete denuclearization, does it mean no nuclear
• 54:00
  weapons?
• 54:01
  No highly enriched uranium?
• 54:03
  Nobody's defined this, by the way.
• 54:05
  Trump tries to claim it's no nuclear weapons,
• 54:07
  but that's not what they're fighting here.
• 54:09
  Does it mean no uranium enrichment of any
• 54:12
  kind?
• 54:12
  Meanwhile, you give Saudi Arabia permission?
• 54:16
  Whoever said Saudi Arabia needed permission for non
• 54:20
  -proliferation?
• 54:21
  That's under the non-proliferation treaty.
• 54:23
  I'm not even positive that Saudi Arabia is
• 54:26
  a member of non-proliferation.
• 54:27
  Israel's not.
• 54:28
  They wouldn't sign it.
• 54:29
  They said, hell no, we won't do it.
• 54:31
  Nobody ever said anything about that.
• 54:32
  Because why?
• 54:34
  Israel's the good guys, right?
• 54:36
  We have to, they must be the good
• 54:38
  guys because we're giving them all our money.
• 54:41
  They have to be the good guys.
• 54:43
  How could he ever claim they're not, especially
• 54:45
  if they're the only people supporting them over
• 54:47
  all these years?
• 54:48
  All the rich money in the world ends
• 54:50
  up in Israel.
• 54:51
  Why is that?
• 54:53
  You tell me.
• 54:56
  Does any deal require removal of centrifuges or
• 55:00
  foreign control of all of Iran's nuclear stuff?
• 55:05
  Verification by the IAEA?
• 55:07
  How about that?
• 55:08
  It's already in place anyway, but not in
• 55:11
  Israel.
• 55:12
  Does it require American personnel on Iranian territory?
• 55:15
  Nobody's ever going to accept that.
• 55:16
  Each definition produces a different agreement and a
• 55:19
  different possibility of war.
• 55:21
  The fact is, this is not simple.
• 55:27
  And the repercussions that have come from this
• 55:32
  unprecedented stupidity of February are going to be
• 55:37
  with us for a very long time.
• 55:39
  And so the military reality is the following.
• 55:43
  The U.S. can continue to strike Iran.
• 55:45
  The more important question is whether these additional
• 55:48
  strikes will achieve any sort of political result.
• 55:51
  Air power can destroy buildings, bridges, aircraft launchers,
• 55:55
  labs, you know, whatever you want, communication and
• 55:57
  command facilities.
• 55:59
  Air power will not guarantee that all enriched
• 56:02
  uranium has been located.
• 56:04
  It cannot guarantee the destruction of every underground
• 56:07
  installation.
• 56:08
  It won't permanently control any of Iran's border
• 56:12
  regions.
• 56:13
  And it will not occupy any nuclear site.
• 56:15
  It cannot replace the Iranian government.
• 56:18
  So bombing isn't going to do any of
• 56:20
  these things.
• 56:20
  It's not going to force 90 million people
• 56:23
  to accept a political settlement designed by Donald
• 56:27
  Trump in Washington or Marco Rubio or any
• 56:30
  other neocon.
• 56:32
  You know, one of the shows I talked
• 56:37
  about yesterday was said that physically removing enriched
• 56:43
  uranium from hardened Iranian facilities would require thousands
• 56:47
  of American troops.
• 56:50
  That sounds reasonable to me.
• 56:52
  You know, if you're going to go in,
• 56:54
  that'll be another Afghanistan style BS endeavor for
• 57:00
  the American military, costing lives and money, wasting
• 57:04
  time in another country.
• 57:06
  World's changing.
• 57:07
  There needs to be more of a cooperative
• 57:10
  effort instead of this do as I say,
• 57:12
  not as I do thing that we've been
• 57:14
  so used to for the last 100 years.
• 57:17
  The troops would then become targets in themselves
• 57:20
  if we put them over there for Iranian
• 57:22
  missiles, for drones, for militias and sabotage.
• 57:26
  That is a central military problem.
• 57:28
  And bombing alone will not produce a surrender.
• 57:31
  What are we going to do next?
• 57:33
  The blockade?
• 57:34
  How long is that blockade going to be
• 57:36
  indefinite?
• 57:37
  So then what?
• 57:39
  So the straight is basically closed either by
• 57:42
  Iran or the U.S. Closing still results
• 57:45
  in the same thing, right?
• 57:46
  Does this mean we have to have a
• 57:48
  ground invasion?
• 57:49
  That's going to require troop levels and political
• 57:51
  commitment far beyond shock and awe of Iraq
• 57:54
  and far beyond anything the American public has
• 57:59
  been told to expect by the old Trumpster.
• 58:02
  The regime change that's already happened.
• 58:04
  First two levels, Trump says we're on level
• 58:06
  three, right?
• 58:07
  This is a risk of more fragmentation across
• 58:10
  a large, heavily armed and ethnically diverse country.
• 58:14
  You could make it 10 times worse, just
• 58:17
  like we did in Iraq, just like we
• 58:19
  did in Syria and every other place we've
• 58:22
  gone over there to dick around.
• 58:25
  Diplomacy.
• 58:26
  Diplomacy requires concessions, and Trump is never going
• 58:29
  to concede on anything.
• 58:30
  And the Iranians aren't either.
• 58:33
  And they've spent months telling their population that
• 58:35
  the other side is losing.
• 58:37
  Trump says we're losing.
• 58:39
  Trump says we're winning.
• 58:40
  But on the other side, they say we're
• 58:42
  losing.
• 58:44
  I don't think we're doing that well.
• 58:47
  I don't think put me in coaches convincing
• 58:49
  me any that, oh, geez, we're winning.
• 58:51
  You know, we're bombing the hell out of
• 58:53
  them.
• 58:53
  There are articles that say we don't have
• 58:55
  any weapons left.
• 58:56
  You know, now what?
• 58:57
  You can't help Ukraine because Ukraine can't take
• 59:00
  our weapons because we need them.
• 59:02
  We got to keep bombing those Iranians.
• 59:04
  Right.
• 59:04
  So this is why Trump repeatedly approaches the
• 59:07
  edge of escalation and then pauses.
• 59:10
  It's not necessarily because he's weak.
• 59:12
  He's not weak.
• 59:13
  He's he's a strong president.
• 59:15
  He's I prefer the peace president instead of
• 59:17
  this put me in coach environment.
• 59:20
  I don't like that.
• 59:21
  You know, and Marco Rubio talking big and
• 59:23
  then being the guy that's now he's now
• 59:27
  the face of it all.
• 59:28
  Whatever happened to J.D. Vance and his
• 59:30
  normal, normal profile.
• 59:32
  This is why this is so important.
• 59:35
  The next step is going to be much
• 59:38
  more expensive than the previous steps.
• 59:41
  And this has already been expensive enough as
• 59:44
  the American weapons inventory is a serious industrial
• 59:47
  problem.
• 59:48
  U.S. has used one third of its
• 59:50
  Tomahawk inventory, two thirds of available Patriots and
• 59:56
  substantial portions of other precision strike munitions in
• 1:00:00
  the Iranian conflict.
• 1:00:02
  The exact percentages we don't really know because
• 1:00:06
  they're not going to tell us.
• 1:00:07
  But everybody says it's at least those numbers
• 1:00:11
  that are in the know.
• 1:00:13
  OK, and but those numbers are classified.
• 1:00:15
  Public estimates might refer to particular deployable categories
• 1:00:19
  rather than the entire stockpile.
• 1:00:21
  But the broader conclusion is it's difficult to
• 1:00:24
  dispute a sustained high intensity air and missile
• 1:00:27
  war consumes advanced weapons far faster than the
• 1:00:31
  U.S. can replace them.
• 1:00:32
  We don't have the manufacturing ability to replace
• 1:00:35
  them as quickly as they need to be
• 1:00:37
  replaced.
• 1:00:39
  So there's.
• 1:00:41
  Requested spending for Tomahawks, precision missiles, that and
• 1:00:45
  Patriot systems is very dramatic.
• 1:00:48
  The money appropriate in twenty twenty seven won't
• 1:00:51
  create an interceptor in twenty twenty seven.
• 1:00:55
  Patriot missiles take three and a half years
• 1:00:57
  to arrive from the time you start to
• 1:00:59
  do it until the time they get there.
• 1:01:00
  Tomahawk delivery timelines approach four years and certain
• 1:01:04
  orders take over five years.
• 1:01:07
  So that's the part that politicians don't tell
• 1:01:10
  you.
• 1:01:11
  Congress can appropriate money in an afternoon, but
• 1:01:14
  a factory can't create trained workers, specialized components,
• 1:01:17
  testing facilities, rocket motors, guidance, electronics and secure
• 1:01:21
  supply chains in the same afternoon.
• 1:01:23
  U.S. may have enough weapons to continue
• 1:01:25
  operations against Iran, but the strategic concern is
• 1:01:29
  what remains for the next major contingency.
• 1:01:32
  What happens if Taiwan, Taiwan, the Strait of
• 1:01:35
  Taiwan erupts or if North Korea makes a
• 1:01:38
  move or if America bases a wider regional
• 1:01:41
  attack?
• 1:01:42
  What if Ukraine demands more patriots?
• 1:01:45
  You know, what are we going to do
• 1:01:46
  then?
• 1:01:46
  Military inventories exist to cover multiple threats, not
• 1:01:50
  just the war being fought today.
• 1:01:51
  Trump says America's got plenty.
• 1:01:53
  He also says he needs more.
• 1:01:55
  Those two statements aren't entirely compatible, are they?
• 1:02:00
  The U.S. can possess large arsenal and
• 1:02:02
  still be below the quantity demanded by its
• 1:02:04
  own war plans.
• 1:02:06
  So let's let's get to that and maybe
• 1:02:08
  just because, by God, we must speak about
• 1:02:12
  Iran.
• 1:02:12
  By God, what if we don't?
• 1:02:14
  The world could end if we don't talk
• 1:02:16
  about Iran.
• 1:02:17
  We're going to talk about the zombies out
• 1:02:19
  there that don't pay attention to things that
• 1:02:22
  need to be paid attention to.
• 1:02:24
  And so we're going to listen to.
• 1:02:28
  What are we listening to?
• 1:02:30
  The Hooters, that's what I think.
• 1:04:13
  Oh, you people speak.
• 1:04:19
  Oh, you see.
• 1:04:24
  He's going to call you.
• 1:04:30
  No one ever spoke to Noah They all
• 1:04:37
  laughed at him instead Workin' on his ark
• 1:04:44
  Workin' all by himself Oh, the
• 1:04:54
  sun comin' 40 days and 40 nights Took
• 1:05:04
  his sons and daughters with him Yeah, they
• 1:05:10
  were the Israelites All you zombies, hide your
• 1:05:17
  faces All you people in the street All
• 1:05:27
  you sick and dead in high places The
• 1:05:32
  rain's gonna fall on you Holy
• 1:06:00
  Father, where have all your children gone?
• 1:06:11
  Sittin' in the dark Livin' all by themselves
• 1:06:16
  You don't have to hide anymore All you
• 1:06:23
  zombies, show your faces All you people in
• 1:06:29
  the street All you sick and dead in
• 1:06:35
  high places The rain's gonna fall on you
• 1:06:41
  All you zombies, show your faces All you
• 1:06:48
  people in the street Yep, the
• 1:07:02
  rain's gonna fall on you, says Holy Moses.
• 1:07:07
  So what happens sometimes?
• 1:07:09
  Well, there you have it.
• 1:07:12
  We have zombies.
• 1:07:14
  We had earlier some sly fox.
• 1:07:16
  Good stuff.
• 1:07:17
  Maynard.
• 1:07:18
  And we're gonna go back, because by God,
• 1:07:20
  we have to talk about Iran!
• 1:07:23
  Holy smoke, what if I don't keep talking
• 1:07:26
  about Iran?
• 1:07:26
  Am I gonna make it?
• 1:07:28
  Must I talk about Iran?
• 1:07:30
  Iran has its own widening internal security campaign.
• 1:07:33
  Iran is treating the conflict as more than
• 1:07:37
  an air war.
• 1:07:38
  They just are.
• 1:07:41
  Iranian forces have reported operations against Kurdish separatists.
• 1:07:46
  What are these called?
• 1:07:48
  The linked cells from the Iran, from the
• 1:07:54
  border regions, I mean from Iraq.
• 1:07:57
  Alleged intelligence networks that are coming.
• 1:07:59
  Armed infiltrators and suspected U.S. or Israeli
• 1:08:02
  -connected operatives.
• 1:08:03
  They're worried about this type of thing.
• 1:08:05
  Israel's always got operatives inside of there.
• 1:08:07
  They talk about it in their intelligence, and
• 1:08:10
  here's what we've got going on.
• 1:08:12
  One report describes Iranian activity extending into or
• 1:08:16
  near Iraq's Kurdistan region, particularly around Suleymaniyah, Erbil,
• 1:08:23
  and the Qandil Mountains, and the Iranian frontier.
• 1:08:27
  Iran, Turkey, Iraq authorities may be coordinating intelligence
• 1:08:32
  concerning the armed Kurdish groups, although portions of
• 1:08:35
  those reports are unverified.
• 1:08:37
  We don't have any information on that.
• 1:08:39
  Iranian authorities have also reportedly clashed in western
• 1:08:43
  Kurdistan province, west Azerbaijan, Sistan, and Baluchistan, and
• 1:08:49
  other border regions.
• 1:08:51
  Weapons, ammunition, grenades have been reportedly recovered in
• 1:08:54
  some of those IRGC raids on the borders.
• 1:08:58
  Iran's view is that the U.S. and
• 1:08:59
  Israel are continuing to use separatist and insurgent
• 1:09:04
  groups to open internal fronts inside of Iran
• 1:09:07
  while Iran is under external military pressure.
• 1:09:10
  So the opposing view, the U.S. and
• 1:09:14
  Israeli side, would say that Tehran is using
• 1:09:17
  the war as a justification for sweeping domestic
• 1:09:19
  crackdown against dissidents, minority movements, and political opponents.
• 1:09:23
  Well, gee, imagine a dissident in Israel.
• 1:09:28
  If you had a dissident in America, are
• 1:09:30
  they going to be cracked down?
• 1:09:31
  We got some armed group of Kurds in
• 1:09:33
  America.
• 1:09:34
  Are we going to take them out?
• 1:09:35
  I don't know.
• 1:09:36
  If we have a group of Venezuelans in
• 1:09:38
  Denver that overtake, take over a hotel, are
• 1:09:40
  we going to do something about it?
• 1:09:42
  Or we're going to go, oh, geez, you
• 1:09:44
  know, those are just people with opposing points
• 1:09:46
  of view, right?
• 1:09:47
  We don't worry about that.
• 1:09:48
  Both possibilities can be true simultaneously is the
• 1:09:52
  point.
• 1:09:54
  Foreign intelligence services are likely supporting armed infiltration.
• 1:09:58
  We know that's a history of Israel, and
• 1:10:00
  the U.S. isn't against that.
• 1:10:02
  The Iranian state can also be using this
• 1:10:05
  genuine threat for a broader repressive campaign.
• 1:10:09
  So there's no specific evidence or identity of
• 1:10:13
  any detainee, any seized communication.
• 1:10:15
  They just talk about it in general terms
• 1:10:17
  in Iranian news broadcasts.
• 1:10:20
  There's no weapons tracing, operational orders.
• 1:10:23
  They don't give that sort of information out.
• 1:10:25
  They don't talk about foreign funding, any of
• 1:10:27
  the records that they got.
• 1:10:28
  We're not going to get access to any
• 1:10:29
  of that, not over here.
• 1:10:31
  But that's what they're reporting over there.
• 1:10:33
  So the practical significance is that any effort
• 1:10:36
  to destabilize Iran from its own border regions
• 1:10:39
  risks pulling Iraq or Turkey deeper into the
• 1:10:42
  conflict as well.
• 1:10:43
  Neither one of them really want that.
• 1:10:45
  The Kurds, the U.S. has always used
• 1:10:47
  them to create instability wherever they happen to
• 1:10:53
  be located.
• 1:10:55
  So northern Iraq could be a convergence point
• 1:10:59
  for Iranian forces, Turkish intelligence, Kurdish factions, Iraqi
• 1:11:05
  militias, and American support of all the above.
• 1:11:09
  Everybody talks about Iran supporting terrorist networks all
• 1:11:13
  over the place.
• 1:11:15
  It's just named a terrorist network because then
• 1:11:18
  you don't have to justify anything because you've
• 1:11:20
  named it a terrorist network.
• 1:11:22
  If it's supportive groups, supportive of Iran that
• 1:11:25
  are everywhere, and you just say it's a
• 1:11:27
  group supportive of Iran and don't call them
• 1:11:30
  terrorists, nobody's going to be as jazzed up
• 1:11:34
  about what you're doing.
• 1:11:35
  But if the U.S. is supporting activities
• 1:11:38
  of Kurds or anybody else, some kind of
• 1:11:42
  ethnic group like we always do, those guys
• 1:11:45
  aren't terrorists.
• 1:11:47
  We describe them as freedom fighters or something
• 1:11:51
  like that.
• 1:11:52
  But that may not be the same perception
• 1:11:54
  on the other side of the border or
• 1:11:56
  the other side of the world.
• 1:11:58
  So is Ukraine full of freedom fighters?
• 1:12:04
  Are we fighting for democracy in Ukraine?
• 1:12:06
  No, we're fighting for 40 days to destroy
• 1:12:09
  public trust in Putin inside of Russia by
• 1:12:13
  killing civilians on beaches, blowing up.
• 1:12:17
  Oh, crap, am I talking about Ukraine and
• 1:12:19
  Russia again?
• 1:12:20
  Oh, my God, I'm going to get in
• 1:12:22
  trouble.
• 1:12:22
  I got to go back to Iran.
• 1:12:24
  We must talk about Iran.
• 1:12:25
  But there's a correlation between Iran and Ukraine.
• 1:12:28
  Can I provide that or am I going
• 1:12:30
  to be penalized for not doing so?
• 1:12:33
  A dangerous path toward expansion appeared after Ukraine
• 1:12:37
  struck an Iranian.
• 1:12:39
  Get this, they've done something anti-Iranian in
• 1:12:44
  Ukraine or Ukraine did it.
• 1:12:47
  Holy crap, they're merging together.
• 1:12:50
  What in the world?
• 1:12:51
  We're only going to have one war before
• 1:12:53
  too long.
• 1:12:53
  It'll be World War Three.
• 1:12:55
  Have I talked about that at all?
• 1:12:56
  I don't know.
• 1:12:57
  Maybe I shouldn't talk about that and I
• 1:12:58
  should only talk about Iran.
• 1:13:00
  If a world war is coming, by God,
• 1:13:02
  it's got to be because of Iran, certainly
• 1:13:04
  not Ukraine.
• 1:13:05
  So the dangerous path toward expansion of war
• 1:13:08
  appeared after Ukraine struck an Iranian commercial vessel
• 1:13:12
  in the Caspian Sea, which doesn't even touch
• 1:13:15
  Ukraine.
• 1:13:16
  We're going to blow up an Iranian commercial
• 1:13:18
  ship inside the Caspian Sea.
• 1:13:24
  And Iran blames Kiev and said they were
• 1:13:25
  going to retaliate.
• 1:13:26
  And they said they were preparing retaliatory attacks
• 1:13:29
  against three locations inside of Ukraine.
• 1:13:32
  And according to Iranian General Mohsen Rezaei, Ukraine
• 1:13:36
  contacted Tehran, described the attack as a mistake
• 1:13:40
  and provided assurance that Iran was not the
• 1:13:43
  intended target.
• 1:13:47
  We were attacking Russia because we thought there
• 1:13:50
  might be Russian oil on your ship.
• 1:13:52
  So they don't care.
• 1:13:54
  If something's flagged with another country, they're going
• 1:13:56
  to do it.
• 1:13:57
  But they also know that Iran is going
• 1:13:59
  to think like they do and they're going
• 1:14:01
  to fight back.
• 1:14:02
  And they had plans of it.
• 1:14:04
  They had three places targeted inside of Ukraine.
• 1:14:09
  And, you know, Iran's not going to worry
• 1:14:12
  about that.
• 1:14:13
  They don't have any problem with attacking people
• 1:14:18
  who's fighting the interest or fighting on behalf
• 1:14:21
  of.
• 1:14:21
  They've shown that by attacking the U.S.
• 1:14:23
  bases.
• 1:14:24
  So this is important for two reasons.
• 1:14:26
  It shows how easily the Ukraine war and
• 1:14:30
  the Iran war could actually merge.
• 1:14:33
  Sorry, I said the word Ukraine.
• 1:14:35
  I didn't mean to.
• 1:14:36
  The non-Iranian war and the Iranian war
• 1:14:40
  could emerge because I'm only supposed to be
• 1:14:42
  talking about Iran, you know, today.
• 1:14:44
  Can't go folding in.
• 1:14:46
  And then that other country in the eastern
• 1:14:48
  half of Europe is attacking vessels and infrastructure
• 1:14:52
  of Iran that it believes contribute to, can't
• 1:14:56
  say Russia either, the farther eastern military logistics.
• 1:15:00
  So Iran, I can say Iran, is cooperating
• 1:15:05
  strategically with the enemy of the country that
• 1:15:10
  bombed its commercial.
• 1:15:12
  You know, we're not allowed to talk about
• 1:15:14
  Ukraine and Russia today.
• 1:15:15
  Sorry, I should quit being facetiously irritating and
• 1:15:19
  say that Iran is cooperating strategically with Russia
• 1:15:22
  is the accusation by Ukraine.
• 1:15:25
  The U.S. is supporting Ukraine and simultaneously
• 1:15:28
  fighting Iran.
• 1:15:29
  So a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian asset
• 1:15:32
  will or could therefore trigger Iranian strikes on
• 1:15:37
  Ukraine.
• 1:15:38
  And Iran has made no bones about it.
• 1:15:40
  You keep doing it, we're going to attack
• 1:15:42
  you.
• 1:15:43
  And it'll be additional Russian support for Iran,
• 1:15:45
  they're alleging.
• 1:15:46
  So and the incongruence between the fact that
• 1:15:50
  now there's allegations, even Rubio said this last
• 1:15:53
  week, said something to the effect of, well,
• 1:15:56
  geez, those Russians are supplying targeting data.
• 1:16:00
  They're supplying information to Iran to attack U
• 1:16:05
  .S. bases.
• 1:16:06
  They're providing intelligence.
• 1:16:07
  China may be as well.
• 1:16:09
  Right.
• 1:16:09
  Well, then, you know, that's OK.
• 1:16:12
  You know, or that's not OK.
• 1:16:14
  That's that's evil.
• 1:16:15
  You know, that shows that Russia and China
• 1:16:17
  are evil.
• 1:16:18
  If they are providing anything to Iran, their
• 1:16:20
  own ally, it's they can't provide it.
• 1:16:24
  But a person is not even a U
• 1:16:28
  .S. ally.
• 1:16:28
  Certainly not a NATO member can be provided.
• 1:16:32
  U.S. targeting tracking data to allow Ukraine
• 1:16:36
  to strike deep inside of Russia on targets
• 1:16:39
  targeted by American intelligence passed out by.
• 1:16:44
  Well, I forget what the name of it
• 1:16:46
  is called.
• 1:16:46
  The Elon Musk, the military side of of
• 1:16:51
  the Elon Musk, the Pentagon version of Starlink.
• 1:16:55
  And I forget what the Starfire I can't
• 1:16:57
  remember what it's called.
• 1:16:59
  But the strongly military side, all that is
• 1:17:02
  given to.
• 1:17:06
  Israel for free.
• 1:17:07
  So I don't know.
• 1:17:09
  Second, Iran's decision not to retaliate suggests that
• 1:17:13
  Tehran is still attempting to manage its escalation
• 1:17:16
  and keep it down.
• 1:17:17
  So I think, you know, one misidentified ship,
• 1:17:21
  one misunderstood drone operation or one government that
• 1:17:24
  feels politically unable to absorb an attack without
• 1:17:27
  responding.
• 1:17:29
  And Iran is absorbing that attack, the one
• 1:17:32
  on their commercial vessel in by Ukraine.
• 1:17:35
  So doesn't mean Iran's peaceful, but it does
• 1:17:41
  mean that Iran can distinguish between attacks that
• 1:17:44
  require retaliation and incidents that might be able
• 1:17:47
  to be resolved through diplomatic explanation.
• 1:17:49
  It's the kind of distinction that the U
• 1:17:51
  .S. should encourage and not mock.
• 1:17:56
  Right, I think.
• 1:18:00
  Meanwhile, Israel and the wider region.
• 1:18:04
  Israel is arguing, of course, for sustained increased
• 1:18:07
  pressure on Iran.
• 1:18:09
  Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister, is warned that attacks
• 1:18:12
  by Iran or Iranian aligned groups will be
• 1:18:15
  met forcefully.
• 1:18:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course they will.
• 1:18:17
  U.S. has a different set of incentives.
• 1:18:20
  Israel's strategic objective is to degrade Iran's military,
• 1:18:25
  nuclear and regional capabilities for as long as
• 1:18:28
  possible.
• 1:18:28
  Trump has to consider oil prices, American casualties,
• 1:18:32
  missile inventories, most important for him, 2026 elections,
• 1:18:37
  pressure from other Gulf governments and the possibility
• 1:18:40
  of a larger war.
• 1:18:41
  Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are politically
• 1:18:43
  and partially and particularly exposed.
• 1:18:46
  Saudi's Aramco maintains exports by shifting some of
• 1:18:51
  its oil through the east-west pipeline toward
• 1:18:53
  the Red Sea terminals.
• 1:18:55
  But its financial performance is benefiting from elevated
• 1:18:59
  energy prices.
• 1:19:00
  And that alternative route is also vulnerable.
• 1:19:04
  Houthis have threatened to this export route through
• 1:19:06
  the Red Sea.
• 1:19:07
  If Hormuz remains dangerous and the Red Sea
• 1:19:09
  is also threatened, the principal alternative energy corridors
• 1:19:13
  would be simultaneously hit and placed at joint
• 1:19:17
  risk.
• 1:19:17
  At the same time, that would be a
• 1:19:19
  strategic nightmare.
• 1:19:20
  So a war intended to control Iran ends
• 1:19:25
  up giving Iran and its aligned forces leverage
• 1:19:28
  over both the Persian Gulf and the Red
• 1:19:30
  Sea approaches.
• 1:19:31
  So what is the conclusion?
• 1:19:33
  Because by God, I must talk about Iran.
• 1:19:36
  Can't imagine I could go a whole day
• 1:19:39
  without mentioning Iran because, you know, listeners who
• 1:19:44
  wish to send me offensive emails might be
• 1:19:47
  offended if I don't talk about Iran every
• 1:19:50
  day.
• 1:19:50
  So I hope this cures the problem with
• 1:19:54
  not speaking about Iran enough, at least for
• 1:19:57
  today.
• 1:19:58
  What if I have anything to say about
• 1:20:00
  Iran tomorrow?
• 1:20:00
  Am I required to say it?
• 1:20:03
  Oh my God.
• 1:20:04
  So today I've tried to limit my discussion
• 1:20:08
  on anything non-Iranian, but I want to
• 1:20:11
  give you an actual conclusion.
• 1:20:13
  The strongest argument against Iran is that Tehran
• 1:20:18
  is using maritime pressure, regional armed groups, missile
• 1:20:22
  forces and nuclear ambiguity to do several things.
• 1:20:29
  That is what they're doing.
• 1:20:31
  They want to build a coercive leverage far
• 1:20:33
  beyond their own conventional military power.
• 1:20:36
  They want to control the Straits of Hormuz.
• 1:20:38
  And by the way, they're doing it.
• 1:20:40
  Not totally, but you have two different blockades
• 1:20:44
  going on, one from the north controlled by
• 1:20:46
  Iran, one from the south controlled by the
• 1:20:48
  blockade of the U.S. Navy.
• 1:20:50
  How long are they both going to be
• 1:20:51
  able to exist simultaneously, if at all?
• 1:20:54
  The strongest argument that supports Iran is that
• 1:20:57
  the U.S. and Israel initiated a war
• 1:20:59
  without demonstrating how bombing would produce an achievable
• 1:21:02
  political result.
• 1:21:05
  What are we getting out of this?
• 1:21:07
  Seriously, what are we getting?
• 1:21:09
  Nothing.
• 1:21:10
  That's what I say.
• 1:21:12
  And so the weak link in this argument
• 1:21:15
  is the assumption that any sort of additional
• 1:21:17
  force is going to produce a different political
• 1:21:20
  result after months of force have failed to
• 1:21:22
  produce anything.
• 1:21:24
  There's no surrender.
• 1:21:26
  The economic endurance of Iran, we don't know
• 1:21:29
  what it is, but it's apparently stronger than
• 1:21:31
  the so-called experts believed it to be.
• 1:21:34
  We can impose costs upon Iran through continued
• 1:21:39
  activity, but that depends upon exports, internal stability,
• 1:21:43
  regional trade, public confidence.
• 1:21:46
  What the Americans respond with is to combine
• 1:21:50
  the threat of renewed strikes with economic pressure
• 1:21:53
  and negotiations through Oman, Qatar and Pakistan.
• 1:21:57
  The likely Iranian discussion on this negotiation is
• 1:22:05
  without, they're not going to publicly acknowledge that
• 1:22:10
  they're negotiating with Washington, and they wish to
• 1:22:12
  insist upon retaining authority over the Strait of
• 1:22:15
  Hormuz.
• 1:22:16
  We'll see what happens.
• 1:22:19
  The evidence that could change any of these
• 1:22:21
  conclusions is a verifiable nuclear agreement.
• 1:22:24
  That's not going to happen.
• 1:22:27
  Credible proof that Iran's weapon program is dismantled
• 1:22:30
  or clear evidence that either side has made
• 1:22:34
  a strategic decision to abandon diplomacy.
• 1:22:38
  So far, they haven't said that they're abandoning
• 1:22:42
  diplomacy.
• 1:22:42
  There's arguments about whether one side or the
• 1:22:45
  other wants it or not.
• 1:22:47
  But either way, this is not peace.
• 1:22:50
  The MOU was not peace.
• 1:22:54
  It's a heavily armed pause that lasts for
• 1:22:58
  a day or two until the next, oh,
• 1:23:00
  gee, let's throw a few bombs each way
• 1:23:02
  or missiles.
• 1:23:04
  And then you pause again.
• 1:23:07
  Both sides get to define the pause as
• 1:23:09
  the other side surrendering or falling apart.
• 1:23:12
  You know, I happen to believe that, you
• 1:23:18
  know, campaigns of this nature don't stop.
• 1:23:21
  Very similar to and I must now turn
• 1:23:23
  for, you know, this 40 day campaign that
• 1:23:27
  hasn't forced Russia to surrender.
• 1:23:29
  Forty days ago, Kiv promoted a new pressure
• 1:23:32
  campaign.
• 1:23:33
  The theory was that intense attacks inside of
• 1:23:35
  Russia against refineries, fuel and structure, logistic networks,
• 1:23:40
  warehouses, transportation, gas stations, commercial distribution centers is
• 1:23:45
  going to create economic disruption so vast and
• 1:23:48
  public anger so huge that Putin couldn't resist.
• 1:23:53
  And ordinary Russians are going to call for
• 1:23:56
  his head and call for, you know, stopping
• 1:24:01
  the Russian special military operation.
• 1:24:07
  Attacks would make war more visible to ordinary
• 1:24:10
  Russians.
• 1:24:11
  This was the theory anyway.
• 1:24:12
  And Russian experience, Russian citizens will experience fuel
• 1:24:15
  shortage, delivery delay, rising costs and insecurity, just
• 1:24:19
  like they are in Iran, because that's what
• 1:24:21
  the U.S. It's the same theory.
• 1:24:24
  Businesses are going to pressure the Kremlin.
• 1:24:26
  Public will blame Putin just like they're going
• 1:24:28
  to blame whoever's in charge in Iran.
• 1:24:30
  Right.
• 1:24:30
  Russia will then be forced to accept a
• 1:24:33
  ceasefire on terms favorable to Kiv, just like
• 1:24:36
  Iran is going to be forced to access
• 1:24:38
  the ceasefire where Trump gets to pick their
• 1:24:40
  next leader.
• 1:24:41
  You know, Trump gets to run it.
• 1:24:43
  Hell, he could send Rubio over.
• 1:24:44
  Rubio is the king of the world.
• 1:24:46
  You know, you put him to run Venezuela.
• 1:24:48
  He gets to run Cuba.
• 1:24:50
  Why is that?
• 1:24:50
  Because he speaks Spanish?
• 1:24:52
  I don't know.
• 1:24:52
  There appears to have been that strategic concept
• 1:24:55
  has been put into both of these areas
• 1:25:00
  by the by the West.
• 1:25:02
  So this is strikes on Russian refineries.
• 1:25:05
  This is expanded wild berries and taking out
• 1:25:08
  civilian soft targets like beaches, resort communities, resort
• 1:25:15
  hotels.
• 1:25:15
  But what happened?
• 1:25:17
  The attacks were real.
• 1:25:19
  The damage is real.
• 1:25:20
  The civilians have been killed.
• 1:25:21
  People on beaches have been blown up.
• 1:25:23
  Hotels, resort hotels have been blown up with
• 1:25:26
  people in them.
• 1:25:27
  A school, a pedagogue institute to become a
• 1:25:32
  teacher with young 18 to 20 year olds,
• 1:25:36
  women where they've been killed.
• 1:25:39
  There's substantial business loss.
• 1:25:41
  You know, wild berries is huge and they've
• 1:25:43
  lost hundreds of millions.
• 1:25:45
  But the strategic outcome has not matched the
• 1:25:48
  political promise.
• 1:25:50
  After 40 days, 40 days gave up yesterday.
• 1:25:52
  Russia hasn't accepted Kiev's terms.
• 1:25:54
  Putin didn't face an internal revolt.
• 1:25:57
  Russian forces haven't halted their advances.
• 1:25:59
  If anything, the the advances are greater.
• 1:26:02
  Russia's expanded strikes on Ukrainian military production, logistics,
• 1:26:07
  ports, energy systems, railways, fuel and command infrastructure.
• 1:26:11
  The 40 day campaign has to be judged
• 1:26:14
  on two levels.
• 1:26:15
  Tactically, Ukraine demonstrated it could attack deep inside
• 1:26:18
  of Russia, but strategically, it hasn't forced Russia
• 1:26:21
  to do anything.
• 1:26:22
  That's a distinction that is essential to the
• 1:26:26
  analysis here.
• 1:26:28
  A drone can successfully hit a target and
• 1:26:31
  still fail to achieve any purpose of the
• 1:26:33
  campaign.
• 1:26:35
  You know, the attacks on wild berries have
• 1:26:37
  been designed to strike economic logistics and public
• 1:26:40
  psychology.
• 1:26:41
  I can't order my flax seed through wild
• 1:26:44
  berries because it's a warehouse company.
• 1:26:47
  You know, it's part of the daily commercial
• 1:26:49
  life of millions of Russians and damages therefore
• 1:26:53
  affected sellers, customers, transportation, regional distribution and
• 1:26:57
  inventory.
• 1:26:58
  And, you know, these attacks have damaged facilities
• 1:27:01
  in Moscow, Leningrad, Tver and other regions, along
• 1:27:05
  with attacks affecting food distribution and others.
• 1:27:08
  And there's a significant share of wild berries
• 1:27:11
  warehouse capacity has been damaged and that the
• 1:27:14
  seller losses are substantial.
• 1:27:16
  Those numbers are preliminary.
• 1:27:18
  The intended message is clear.
• 1:27:20
  The Russian state cannot protect ordinary commerce.
• 1:27:23
  This is what they're doing.
• 1:27:24
  But the campaign is produced in my view,
• 1:27:27
  a different reaction.
• 1:27:28
  Russian retailers are now decentralizing their distribution and
• 1:27:33
  wild berries is developing major logistics facilities in
• 1:27:37
  Kazakhstan and other projects are being hardened.
• 1:27:41
  This isn't changing anything.
• 1:27:42
  Russia's responses against Kiev and Odessa have been
• 1:27:46
  massive and they are literally nearly Ukraine is
• 1:27:51
  nearly cut off from the Black Sea and
• 1:27:54
  that is going to damage them substantially.
• 1:27:57
  And they are continually asking for cease fires.
• 1:28:01
  Why don't we stop the air campaigns and
• 1:28:04
  go to the ground?
• 1:28:04
  What are you going to lose on the
• 1:28:05
  ground?
• 1:28:06
  And I don't think Russia is listening at
• 1:28:09
  all.
• 1:28:09
  And we're going to end on this Iran,
• 1:28:12
  Iranian segment.
• 1:28:14
  Don't you feel better that I only spent
• 1:28:16
  a couple of minutes talking about Russia and
• 1:28:19
  maybe I won't be chastised so severely for
• 1:28:22
  not paying enough attention to Iran.
• 1:28:25
  My God, it's important that we discuss Iran
• 1:28:28
  every day.
• 1:28:29
  I'll try to have an Iranian segment so
• 1:28:32
  that we don't miss the focus of what's
• 1:28:34
  important in the world.
• 1:28:36
  In the meantime, you have a great mid
• 1:28:39
  Missouri day and I thank you for playing.
• 1:28:42
  So have a very good.
• 1:28:44
  How's the weather today?
• 1:28:46
  Is it going to cooperate?
• 1:28:47
  I hope it stays a little overcast.
• 1:28:48
  It looked overcast when I was coming into
• 1:28:50
  the studio, but who knows?
• 1:28:52
  Have a great day.