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Trump's Iran Gamble Escalates - Bill Walton #6381 · Financial Survival Network

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Speaker 1: You know, I think people don't appreciate Trump's success over
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Speaker 1: his long career has been his ability to gauge and
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Speaker 1: measure ricks and take risks. And you know this is
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Speaker 1: there's no way you can't say this is a gamble.
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Speaker 2: It is.
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Speaker 1: But then the other characteristic he has, he's an incredible improviser,
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Speaker 1: and so once he's into something, he can do a
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Speaker 1: one eighty to go a different direction if things are
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Speaker 1: not working out with the initial plan. And of course
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Speaker 1: you know that's that's the way almost all great leaders operate.
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Speaker 3: You're listening to Carrie. Let's his Financial Survival Network where
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0:57
Speaker 2: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
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Speaker 2: Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz, and we are
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Speaker 2: with Bill Walton today. Bill, you just wrote a piece
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Speaker 2: for Blaze. It's up on your substack. Bill Walton dot
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Speaker 2: substack dot com, Our substack, khl FSN dot substack dot
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Speaker 2: com And basically you're talking about Trump Iran and the
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Speaker 2: coalition against victory. Is that what the what the opposition
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Speaker 2: really is? I mean, is Rand Paul really against the
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Speaker 2: country winning or is he just really fundamentally opposed to
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Speaker 2: UH to the country going into wars without problem congression?
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Speaker 1: Well, I'd put Rand Paul in a in a special category,
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Speaker 1: which is where he's always been. So I don't think
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Speaker 1: he I don't think that's it. He's exactly who had
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Speaker 1: in mind. I mean, obviously the Libertarians don't want any
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Speaker 1: wars whatsoever. But you know, there's some people in this
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Speaker 1: country who supported all the other wars when somebody else
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Speaker 1: was president, and now because it's UH the Donald doing this,
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Speaker 1: they're they're implacably opposed to it. And you know, they're
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Speaker 1: accusing of him of jumping in willy nilly and and
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Speaker 1: and it's true he did not do a very good
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Speaker 1: job building any kind of coalition or consensus to UH
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Speaker 1: to strike against Iran with with Israel.
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Speaker 2: The way he did.
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Speaker 1: But I think he correctly points out that they've been
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Speaker 1: monitoring Iran for a long time. And you know, I
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Speaker 1: didn't know this, but the Israelis had cracked the uh,
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Speaker 1: the IT systems in Iran, and Iran has run has
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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of more of cameras that they use
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Speaker 1: at surveillance and the Israelis broke into that and uh
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Speaker 1: they've been monitoring that for two three years, maybe longer,
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Speaker 1: and they caught the Supreme Leader out in daylight with
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Speaker 1: with all of his uh, you know, collaborators, and they
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Speaker 1: were going going into a really unsecured place and they
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Speaker 1: took the opportunity to take them out and they did.
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Speaker 1: So there was no the timing was I think dictated
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Speaker 1: by the street, the opportunity to take out the Supreme Leader.
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Speaker 1: And now we find ourselves all in and you know,
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Speaker 1: we got to figure out what to do next. And
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Speaker 1: you know, the point of my article in part there
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Speaker 1: are lots of aspects was, you know, I think people
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Speaker 1: don't appreciate Trump's success over his long career has been
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Speaker 1: his ability to gauge and measure ricks and take risks.
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Speaker 1: And you know, this is there's no way you can't
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Speaker 1: say this is a gamble.
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Speaker 2: It is.
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Speaker 1: But then the other characteristic he has he's an incredible
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Speaker 1: improviser and so once he's into something, he can do
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Speaker 1: a one eighty to go a different direction if things
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Speaker 1: are not working out with the initial plan. And of
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Speaker 1: course you know that's that's the way almost all great
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Speaker 1: leaders operate. It was in Napoleon's there's no battle, No
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Speaker 1: battle plan survives the sound of the first gun shot.
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Speaker 1: I mean, there are all sorts of few people attributed
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Speaker 1: to that quote, but it's it's. It's it's a case
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Speaker 1: where we've got somebody who I think is probably one
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Speaker 1: of the better presidents we've ever had. And he's got
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Speaker 1: to say in his style is very off putting, but
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Speaker 1: nevertheless he always seems to have something, something going, and
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Speaker 1: I'm we're all eager to find out how this thing
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Speaker 1: wraps up. I mean, it's it's if you stare at
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Speaker 1: a map of the Middle East very long, you'll draw
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Speaker 1: some pretty sober conclusions.
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Speaker 2: So I bring this back to Art of the Deal,
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Speaker 2: and I read that book when I was a much
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Speaker 2: younger man. I mean, I think the book came out
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Speaker 2: in eighty seven, and I might even still have a
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Speaker 2: copy around of it. But what he said was when
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Speaker 2: he goes into a deal, he doesn't look at the upside.
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Speaker 2: He doesn't spend all his time looking at the upside.
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Speaker 2: He looks at the downside, and that's what makes him
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Speaker 2: decide whether or not to go in a deal, into
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Speaker 2: a deal. And what's really cool about that is exactly
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Speaker 2: what he did here, exactly what he did in Venezuela, Cuba,
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Speaker 2: Panama Canal, and when he goes into other situations, because
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Speaker 2: what's his downside going into Iran? We're heading for war anyway.
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Speaker 2: You know, it might get bogged down, but in more
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Speaker 2: likelihood they're never going to win or force a settlement
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Speaker 2: upon the United States in Israel. Same with Venezuela. Hey,
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Speaker 2: where's that happens? Is you go to get Maduro and
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Speaker 2: he gets killed. Either way, the US is a winner.
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Speaker 2: You know, Panama Canal, Cuba perfect example. What's our downside there?
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Speaker 2: You know the Cuban people are going to suffer, but
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Speaker 2: they've been suffering for sixty seven years. So that ability
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Speaker 2: to look at his downside, to calculate the risk and
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Speaker 2: then actually make the decision to take the risk is
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Speaker 2: really what sets him aside from other presidents. You could
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Speaker 2: argue whether his assessment of the risk is wrong, but
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Speaker 2: it's the outcome that counts, and we're going to find
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Speaker 2: out soon enough, right, well, yeah.
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Speaker 1: I agree that with your other examples that those are
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Speaker 1: pretty much not much downside initiatives if he does that,
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Speaker 1: you know, especially Cuba, but Iran I think is a different,
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Speaker 1: different situation. I mean, first place, it's a massive country
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Speaker 1: and size and population over ninety million. You know, he's
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Speaker 1: up against the leadership that evidently, even after we take
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Speaker 1: the Supreme Leader out as extremely deep and also just
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Speaker 1: as fanatic as he was, and so we've lopped the
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Speaker 1: head off, we've lopped the next level off, and now
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Speaker 1: we're in the third level and they don't see, they
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Speaker 1: don't seem any less intransigent than the Supreme Leader. So
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Speaker 1: we're still dealing with the irrational negotiators, irrational depending on
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Speaker 1: your point of view. Now, the risk, though, is that
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Speaker 1: of doing nothing. I think that was the key calculation.
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Speaker 1: And you know, we saw when when they launched a
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Speaker 1: ballistic missile that ended up in Diego Garcia over two
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Speaker 1: thousand miles away Indian Cea. Diego Garcia is the joint
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Speaker 1: UK US Air Force base. That proved that they've got
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Speaker 1: something that if they turned that launching pad around, you've
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Speaker 1: got Paris at London, you know, Berlin, you know, and
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Speaker 1: then it's not too far along to you know, you
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Speaker 1: start thinking about the United States. So they and the
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Speaker 1: other thing is they you know, we thought, well, we've
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Speaker 1: taken out their nuclear bomb making capability. That didn't really
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Speaker 1: happen night, and we're not sure what did happen, but
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Speaker 1: it's clear they were working working on something and there
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Speaker 1: was some thoughts that they could put together or something.
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Speaker 1: It may not be perfect, but it would certainly kill
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Speaker 1: a lot of people. And they were not years away
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Speaker 1: from that. They were months away from that. So if
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Speaker 1: we didn't act, we'd end up with with Iran, with
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Speaker 1: those weapons, with people who believed in martyrdom and and
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Speaker 1: the glories of all those virgins in heaven. And that's
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Speaker 1: not an enemy. That's not an enemy you'd like to
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Speaker 1: you like to sit across the trenches from what people
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Speaker 1: are willing to die for their cause happily.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it makes it different for sure, And you know,
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Speaker 2: I'm just hopefully it'll work out. But what about this
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Speaker 2: group opposing him, particularly the people on the left, without
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Speaker 2: using party tags if you will.
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Speaker 1: Well, the people on the left have not been for America,
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Speaker 1: at least America that you know, constitution limited government, you know,
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Speaker 1: freedom of speech, all the all the protections we've got
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Speaker 1: in the Constitution, they have not been for that country
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Speaker 1: for a long time. And the Democrats have been increasingly
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Speaker 1: taken over by the by the radical lefts who would
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Speaker 1: go even further in the culture wars as we've seen.
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Speaker 1: You know, they were never going to support Trump. But
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Speaker 1: it's interesting they just don't even care that they also
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Speaker 1: might be supporting their country, because that's not that's not
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Speaker 1: where they are. And the thing it's interesting is that
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of Republicans that are not in that category,
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Speaker 1: but nevertheless they're they're luke warm because you know, the
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Speaker 1: awful lot of deep state Rhino Republicans and lobbyists and
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Speaker 1: people of Washington who really want Trump to go away
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Speaker 1: because he's ruined their game and so if he me
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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the war, but they just
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Speaker 1: want to see Trump fail, and if Trump fails, then
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Speaker 1: they think they can win the election in twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 1: Can Yeah, And you know, there's some Republicans that don't
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Speaker 1: seem to mind being in the minority. So it's it's
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Speaker 1: not like we've got a lot of a lot of
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Speaker 1: ferocious warriors on on on the right, if that's what
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Speaker 1: you want to call it. We don't, so it's it's
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Speaker 1: Trump been a few supporters against virtually everybody else.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: By the way, he's got the he's got the Wall
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Speaker 1: Street Journal, which is interesting because I've been reading the
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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal for the last year and they had nothing
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Speaker 1: good to say about Trump. But you know, they were
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Speaker 1: big Paul g. Joe was all in on the rock.
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Speaker 1: And I think they still feel like, you know, we
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Speaker 1: ought to be projecting power abroad. So they've been supportive
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Speaker 1: of of of President Trump, which which I'm glad to see.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely, And uh, well I guess well, uh,
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Speaker 2: history will be the judge. But it's a big gamble
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Speaker 2: to be taking. And but I think it's also a
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Speaker 2: big gamble to be taking that that, you know, betting
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Speaker 2: against the country, rooting for defeat. That that's pretty bad,
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Speaker 2: you know, Bill, it really is. It's kind of disgraceful, disgusting. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: that's more disgusting in one word.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let me tell you some horribles that I
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Speaker 1: didn't quite realize. I spent that three hours looking at
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Speaker 1: a map of the Middle East yesterday, and a couple
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Speaker 1: of things jumped out. One is the you know, United
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Speaker 1: Arab Emirates is just right across the strait from Iraq,
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Speaker 1: and so all those Arab countries which I sort of
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Speaker 1: thought was remote from from Iran rather Iran, are not,
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Speaker 1: and they're they're easy shooting distance for for whatever weapons
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Speaker 1: that Iran has left. The other thing, if you just
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Speaker 1: look at the political map, you don't recognize how the
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Speaker 1: terrain in Iran is Awfully you know, it's it's mountainous,
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Speaker 1: and if you look at the shoreline, it's also mountainous,
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Speaker 1: and there's there's really no beaches or any place you
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Speaker 1: could land to go in to launch an invasion, even
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Speaker 1: if we did want to have ground troops. And then
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Speaker 1: you know, the thing about this Carg Island is it's
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Speaker 1: just off off the shoreline of Iraq, and you know
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Speaker 1: there are lots of other ways that they could you know,
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Speaker 1: if we did take If we did take Carg, then
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Speaker 1: it's most likely that Iran would shut off. They put
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Speaker 1: the oil there and may and get it delivered in
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Speaker 1: some other ways. So it's not exactly a checkmate if
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Speaker 1: we get it. And as far as taking the uranium,
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Speaker 1: I mean, you got to believe these people aren't dumb
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Speaker 1: enough if they've got four hundred and fifty what is
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Speaker 1: it four and fifty pounds or four and fifty I've
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Speaker 1: lost track five the kilos. Anyway, we've had enough uranium
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Speaker 1: to make like ten or twelve nuclear weapons. And after
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Speaker 1: the last strike last year, you have to believe they've
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Speaker 1: got that scattered all over the country. So we couldn't
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Speaker 1: we couldn't gather it all up now, you know, on
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Speaker 1: the other side, what's not being reported around has been devastated.
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Speaker 1: I mean, the bombing campaign is you know, they've they've
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Speaker 1: delivered something like three times three times the amount of
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Speaker 1: explosives as we had the Hiroshima bo Hiroshima weapon that
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Speaker 1: and we used in World War Two, and you know,
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Speaker 1: so it's it's it's not like Dresden in World War Two,
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Speaker 1: where you're bombing a very concentrated areas all over the country.
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Speaker 1: But they've they succeeded in taking an awful lot of
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Speaker 1: the infrastructure. So you know, they're they're they're on the
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Speaker 1: verge of societal collapse because of the collapse of the infrastructure.
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Speaker 1: And you don't read about that in the US media
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Speaker 1: or even the European media. For that matter, because again
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Speaker 1: that's that coalition against victory I think we're up against.
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Speaker 2: Couldn't agree with you more so, how do you think
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Speaker 2: it's going to wind up? Your prediction?
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Speaker 1: Okay, I don't know Donald's. Donald's doesn't like to be
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Speaker 1: pinned down. Yeah, it seems to me like there's if
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Speaker 1: we'd hope for regime change, I don't think we realized
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Speaker 1: how deep their bench was and that there they've got
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Speaker 1: enough enough people still in place that I don't think
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Speaker 1: they're inclined to let let a regime change happen. And then,
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Speaker 1: of course, the only people that have guns are the
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Speaker 1: leadership in Iraq and all the rest of the people
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Speaker 1: are unarmed, and they were able to kill thirty two
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Speaker 1: thousand people just last month. I don't know, So we're
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Speaker 1: not going to get a regime change, but we certainly
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Speaker 1: defanged that their military, their war making capability, and so
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Speaker 1: I think there could be a basis for for some
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Speaker 1: sort of negotiated into this. But their demands right now
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Speaker 1: are completely extreme. We're supposed to exit the Middle East
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Speaker 1: and you know, do all sorts of things. We and
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Speaker 1: of course our demands are from their perspective equal, you know,
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Speaker 1: it's extreme to them. And so we're pretty far apart
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Speaker 1: on on on any talking. So my guess is we're
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Speaker 1: going to keep shooting. And the thing that we don't
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Speaker 1: want to have happened, and and and it's a card
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Speaker 1: that Iran has is these desalienation plants, which are so
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Speaker 1: critical to the Middle East. They're there within uh they're
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Speaker 1: within shooting distance of of Iran, and if they start
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Speaker 1: going after desalination uh plants, all of a sudden, the
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Speaker 1: ability to's the same society in those countries goes away.
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Speaker 1: It would be a human rights catastrophe. So you know,
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Speaker 1: that's that's where this could go. And so we need
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Speaker 1: to be you know, it's it's not like we like
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Speaker 1: the other side doesn't hold cards. So I think we've
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Speaker 1: got to figure out some way to wind this down,
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Speaker 1: excepting that we're not going to get total victory.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's where I think the invasion from the
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Speaker 2: north is coming, but we won't know until it's done.
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Speaker 2: Trump is the master of distraction. I mean, if he
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Speaker 2: was a magician, he would be better than David Copperfield because.
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Speaker 1: I quite agree agree.
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Speaker 2: Going man, he's fun to watch.
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Speaker 1: Hey, I'm with him, but I just this. This is
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Speaker 1: a tough game.
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Speaker 2: Well, on the one hand, he's got everybody looking at
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Speaker 2: the the Straits of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz, and
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Speaker 2: on the other hand he's got the Iranian armed forces
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Speaker 2: pinned down over there. Now it's ripe for an invasion
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Speaker 2: from the north using the Kurds as well as other
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Speaker 2: mercenary force. How many Kurds are there, because I you know,
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Speaker 2: ten to fifteen thousand I've heard, but you right, how much.
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Speaker 1: Iran's got an army, army that has a million men
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Speaker 1: in it.
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Speaker 2: They know how many the loyalty we don't know about.
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Speaker 2: But to point is that could very well be planning
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Speaker 2: an invasion from the north, and not that the Strait
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Speaker 2: of Horror moves doesn't matter, but they're not ready for it. Mountains,
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Speaker 2: the eighty second Airborne probably going to go in there,
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Speaker 2: see some airfields, air bases and fly them in. Anyway, Hey,
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Speaker 2: make sure you check out Bill Walton dot substack dot com,
17:25
Speaker 2: k h l FSN substack dot com. Bill always a pleasure,
17:30
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for here stopping by.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Kerry, great talking with you.
17:33
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival network your
17:37
Speaker 3: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
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