00:00:00
Iran has figured out that we can't beat
00:00:03
them. We're not weakening Iran. We have
00:00:05
strengthened Iran and we can't stop
00:00:09
their drone attacks. And what you're
00:00:11
seeing is far more chaotic
00:00:13
decision-making is happening in the
00:00:15
White House than is happening in the
00:00:16
government of Iran and it's evidence
00:00:18
Trump is losing power. So when I look
00:00:21
through the response to the last
00:00:22
conversation, the audience had lots of
00:00:24
different types of questions. Like
00:00:25
there's 90 odd million people stuck
00:00:26
right in the heart of this that often
00:00:28
don't really have a voice. What do you
00:00:29
think happens next for them and what is
00:00:31
Israel's role in this?
00:00:32
>> Well, Israel is playing two roles here
00:00:34
that have not helped us correctly assess
00:00:37
the situation and we'll talk about that.
00:00:39
>> And then what do you think happens with
00:00:40
Europe?
00:00:40
>> NATO is for all practical purposes dead
00:00:45
and what happens next.
00:00:46
>> So for 21 years, I laid out what a
00:00:48
hypothetical bombing campaign of Iran
00:00:51
would look like. And when I was here
00:00:53
last time, every single thing we talked
00:00:55
about unfolded in the first several
00:00:57
weeks of the war.
00:00:59
>> So when you did this 21 years of
00:01:00
modeling these attacks, how did America
00:01:03
come out of this situation?
00:01:04
>> So there was a consistent set of
00:01:07
findings and America can bomb them,
00:01:09
attack them. We could even threaten to
00:01:11
murder all 92 million of them. But the
00:01:14
bottom line is
00:01:16
that is the real danger for us.
00:01:23
This is super interesting to me. My team
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Please help us. Really appreciate it.
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Let's get on with the show.
00:02:22
Professor Robert Pabe, good to see you
00:02:24
again.
00:02:24
>> Great to see you again, Stephen.
00:02:26
>> It's been 4 weeks since we sat down and
00:02:28
talked about everything that was
00:02:29
happening in the war and it's all moved
00:02:31
at light speed. You made some
00:02:33
predictions then. Many of them have come
00:02:35
true already and many of them still
00:02:37
unfolding. But I wanted to get you back
00:02:38
to talk about what the hell is going on.
00:02:41
And I think that's kind of how I started
00:02:43
last conversation. But there's so much
00:02:47
that's being said and I get the sense
00:02:49
that there's a truth that sits
00:02:51
underneath there somewhere because when
00:02:53
you look at what the Iranians are
00:02:54
saying, when you look at what the
00:02:55
Israelis are saying, when you look at
00:02:56
what Trump and America are saying, and
00:02:57
then you look at reality, at some level,
00:03:00
I feel like we're not being told the
00:03:01
truth. My first question to you,
00:03:03
professor, is who are you and who are
00:03:06
you to speak on this subject matter?
00:03:08
>> I am a professor at the University of
00:03:10
Chicago. I have been there for 26 years
00:03:13
almost 27 years and before that I was a
00:03:16
professor who taught for the US Air
00:03:18
Force. I taught conventional targeting
00:03:21
and I thought I was going to go into the
00:03:22
foreign service. I wanted to understand
00:03:25
how we lost the Vietnam War and this
00:03:28
became the origins of bombing to win
00:03:30
>> which is your book I have here in front
00:03:31
of me.
00:03:32
>> That's bombing to win in 1985. I've just
00:03:34
finished all my classes and I have to
00:03:36
pick a topic for my PhD. I wanted to
00:03:39
find the book that laid out all the air
00:03:41
campaigns and that explained why Vietnam
00:03:44
was a loser. Where did that L come from?
00:03:47
When you say air campaigns, for someone
00:03:49
that knows nothing about military
00:03:50
conflict, what do you mean by air
00:03:52
campaigns?
00:03:52
>> What I mean with an air campaign is when
00:03:55
you have military aircraft who were not
00:03:58
just doing a single raid bombing one
00:04:00
target one day, but doing a campaign
00:04:04
over days, weeks, months. in the case of
00:04:07
Vietnam over years.
00:04:09
>> And you wanted to figure out why
00:04:12
countries that do these military
00:04:13
campaigns, which is pretty much what's
00:04:15
going on now in the Middle East, why
00:04:17
they don't tend to win.
00:04:19
>> Why they don't win when they're so
00:04:21
strong? Why is it that when a strong
00:04:25
power really gets its act together, it's
00:04:28
not careless, it's really thinking hard,
00:04:31
it then applies this force, a campaign
00:04:35
overtime and comes out a loser.
00:04:38
>> And you modeled for 20 years a war with
00:04:40
Iran versus the United States.
00:04:42
>> That's exactly right. I imagined uh in
00:04:46
class for 90 minutes I laid out what a
00:04:49
hypothetical bombing campaign of Iran
00:04:52
would look like starting with the
00:04:54
bombing of its nuclear enrichment sites.
00:04:57
There's multiple sites. There's uh Ford
00:05:00
which is an industrial enrichment where
00:05:02
there are centerfuges. There's Natans
00:05:05
also centuges. There's Esphon where you
00:05:08
have gasification of the ore so you can
00:05:10
make the centurfuges more efficient. So,
00:05:13
it's not just one target. There's a
00:05:15
whole target set, a complex of targets.
00:05:18
And so, what I would do is I would lay
00:05:20
out here are the aircraft that could be
00:05:22
used. Uh, here are the likely results at
00:05:25
a tactical level.
00:05:28
Ah, yes, just for context. So, we're
00:05:30
looking at a map of Iran and we're
00:05:32
looking at the Persian Gulf. And um Iran
00:05:35
of course is to the east of the of the
00:05:38
Persian Gulf and Thran is up to the
00:05:40
north middle. Right in the middle are a
00:05:43
whole series of these nuclear sites. You
00:05:46
have Sagad which is where the uranium
00:05:49
ore actually comes from. They don't have
00:05:51
to bring in ore. They have plenty of
00:05:53
ore, but the ore has to be distilled so
00:05:56
that you can get the tiny bits of
00:05:57
uranium 235 you need for uh enriching
00:06:01
the uranium for either nuclear reactors
00:06:04
or bombgrade uranium. That's first none
00:06:07
at esphon to gasify the ore so that when
00:06:11
it spins in the centerfuge uh facilities
00:06:15
at Natans and Ford, you can get the
00:06:19
purity of the uranium 235. That's what
00:06:22
we're talking about here when we say
00:06:23
it's enriched.
00:06:24
>> So when you did this 21 years of
00:06:26
modeling these attacks, how did the
00:06:28
model show
00:06:31
America came out of this situation?
00:06:33
>> There was a consistent set of findings
00:06:36
you just couldn't ignore, Stephen, which
00:06:40
is our bombers would always be able to
00:06:43
destroy the target, the industrial
00:06:46
facility that was enriching the uranium.
00:06:49
The problem always was, no matter uh
00:06:52
which year we did this, you wouldn't be
00:06:55
able to destroy the enriched material,
00:06:58
the actual gold. So, if you're panning
00:07:01
for gold, you see what I mean? And
00:07:03
you've got the gold. Uh you can destroy
00:07:05
the pan, you can even destroy the river,
00:07:08
you can't get the gold. So, let me
00:07:10
repeat that back to you in layman's
00:07:12
terms, and you tell me if I'm correct.
00:07:14
So they they could bomb these sites
00:07:16
where they're making the enriched
00:07:17
uranium, but it wouldn't destroy the
00:07:19
enriched uranium. It would just put it
00:07:21
underneath a bunch of rubble.
00:07:22
>> That's right.
00:07:23
>> So you can bomb it, but you're basically
00:07:24
just kicking the can down the road
00:07:26
because at some point they can go back
00:07:27
and get it. It's undamaged. And then
00:07:29
they can carry on their process.
00:07:30
>> That's right. And and Stephen, they
00:07:32
might even anticipate the bombs coming
00:07:35
because they might get some indications,
00:07:37
you know, we're building up and then
00:07:39
disperse in advance. And the at the end
00:07:41
of last year they did operation midnight
00:07:43
hammer where they bombed the sides with
00:07:46
these incredible
00:07:47
>> exactly as we did in class. Literally I
00:07:49
had just modeled it for the students
00:07:51
three weeks before and almost exactly
00:07:53
the platforms I mean on you know the B2s
00:07:56
the MOAB I mean every single thing we
00:07:58
talked about if unfolded just as we had
00:08:01
modeled in class.
00:08:02
>> So what is going on now? I want you to
00:08:06
help me cut through all of this noise
00:08:07
and all of this propaganda. What's going
00:08:09
on now is uh we're not weakening Iran in
00:08:12
a sense where Iran will be weaker a year
00:08:16
from now, two years from now. We have
00:08:18
strengthened Iran and we're
00:08:21
strengthening Iran in multiple ways. So
00:08:24
far, we've just been talking about bombs
00:08:26
on target. My real specialty, Stephen,
00:08:29
is the interaction of military action
00:08:33
and politics. You're not just hitting an
00:08:36
industrial target. people in the
00:08:38
country, the population, the regime,
00:08:41
they're reacting to that politically.
00:08:44
And that reaction is tremendously
00:08:47
important. And that's what I discovered
00:08:49
in my work studying Vietnam in the
00:08:51
1980s. The why the bombing campaign was
00:08:54
failing, the political reactions by the
00:08:56
population
00:08:58
often are overwhelming the tactical
00:09:02
military effects. So you can hit the
00:09:06
target, you can destroy the industrial
00:09:08
facilities um and in fact you can
00:09:12
energize the population to work even
00:09:16
harder to overcome all that damage and
00:09:20
sometimes they have tremendous
00:09:22
geographic advantages. In Vietnam, there
00:09:25
was an area called the Ho Chi Min Trail,
00:09:28
which was a where the logistics where
00:09:31
the ammo for the um Vietkong guerrilla
00:09:34
fighters in the south were getting their
00:09:36
ammo. And in the 1960s, we knocked out
00:09:40
80 plus% of the throughput of that
00:09:43
pipeline, of that trail. You know what?
00:09:46
It wasn't enough. And we ended up not
00:09:49
being able to stop that little itty
00:09:51
bitty bit of throughput that can't still
00:09:53
could get through and incentivize even
00:09:55
more to get it through because they knew
00:09:58
we couldn't stop it. And that is what
00:10:00
fueled the VC and ultimately uh the
00:10:04
Vietkong the gorillas that were uh we
00:10:06
were really up against in Vietnam. That
00:10:08
is what ultimately bolstered their
00:10:11
morale. They knew we couldn't beat them.
00:10:15
Even though we whittleled them down by
00:10:17
80%, we couldn't get that last 15 or
00:10:20
20%. And that was what was energizing
00:10:24
their morale.
00:10:25
>> So, how does that apply to what's going
00:10:26
on now? In simple terms, what's going
00:10:28
on?
00:10:29
>> Iran has figured out that uh we can't
00:10:32
beat them. That's what's going on,
00:10:34
Stephen. They are figuring out that we
00:10:36
can't beat them. We can bomb them. We
00:10:39
can um attack them. We could even
00:10:41
threaten to murder all 92 million of
00:10:44
them, which is the civilization threat
00:10:46
by uh by President Trump. And the bottom
00:10:48
line is that we can't get to that final
00:10:53
10 20% of um drones and missiles.
00:10:57
>> Okay.
00:10:58
>> Okay. That Iran has and it's probably
00:11:01
bigger than that that we can't knock
00:11:03
out. See, we're able to knock out
00:11:06
anything that's above ground. that
00:11:07
there's a launcher and it's above
00:11:10
ground, we can see it. We can see it
00:11:12
with satellites. We can see it with
00:11:13
other sensors as well. That thing is
00:11:16
going to be gone in a few days. And
00:11:18
that's what the air campaign that you've
00:11:19
watched for 40 days is doing. When
00:11:21
Secretary Hegth or General Kaine talk
00:11:24
about hitting 11 12,000 targets, these
00:11:27
are targets, most of the almost all of
00:11:29
them that are very clearly visible and
00:11:32
above ground. This is true of the Navy
00:11:34
ships as well. Well, guess what? The
00:11:36
Iranians knew that was always going to
00:11:38
be vulnerable. So what they've been
00:11:40
doing is they have been not just deeply
00:11:43
uh burying their industrial enrichment
00:11:45
facilities, they've been deeply burying
00:11:48
their arsenals of drones, deeply burying
00:11:51
their arsenals of missiles. And so they
00:11:54
are in a position where even though we
00:11:58
are unleashing enormous amounts of air
00:12:00
power against them and we are
00:12:02
technically superior, we can't stop
00:12:06
their drone attacks against the ships in
00:12:10
the straight of Hormuz. They know it.
00:12:13
They can use that to their advantage.
00:12:15
And boy are they using it to their
00:12:17
advantage enormously. Yesterday, the
00:12:20
Secretary of War, Pete Hegsth, did a
00:12:22
press conference, and one of the
00:12:24
reporters said to him, "There's been a
00:12:26
ceasefire announced, but it appears that
00:12:29
Iran is still attacking neighboring
00:12:31
countries." Hegth's response to the
00:12:34
reporter was, "Iran would be wise to
00:12:36
find a way to get their carrier pigeon
00:12:40
to the troops out in remote locations to
00:12:43
let them know not to shoot any longer.
00:12:45
It can sometimes take time for
00:12:47
ceasefires to take hold, which was
00:12:49
really alarming to me because it
00:12:51
suggests that there is actually not a
00:12:53
centralized leadership structure in
00:12:54
Iran. And actually, if there's not a
00:12:55
centralized leadership structure, how
00:12:57
does one negotiate a ceasefire if
00:12:58
there's lots of different factions doing
00:13:00
lots of different things? Now, is that
00:13:02
true?
00:13:02
>> I would say it's probably decentralized.
00:13:04
I think he's probably right about that.
00:13:05
>> I'm trying to figure out who in Iran is
00:13:07
negotiating with America and why it
00:13:09
doesn't seem to be the case that whoever
00:13:11
is negotiating control the fact that
00:13:12
people are still firing.
00:13:13
>> Oh, I see. I see. Yeah. decentralization
00:13:16
means chaotic and they can't actually
00:13:18
make decisions. That's just not the
00:13:21
case. The more you move up the chain of
00:13:23
command, the more the leader can give
00:13:27
pre-delegated orders. If X happens, do
00:13:30
do Y. Those can hold for hours and days.
00:13:34
Uh and that's true in every
00:13:35
organization. That's why leaders can go
00:13:37
on vacation uh for a week and come back
00:13:41
and they're worried of course when they
00:13:42
come back. But the bottom line is that
00:13:45
the leaders are setting the strategic
00:13:47
direction.
00:13:48
>> Who is the leader?
00:13:49
>> Oh, it's definitely the supreme leader,
00:13:51
the son of the one we just killed. Oh,
00:13:52
without a doubt. I think this idea that
00:13:54
that he's not there, there's absolutely
00:13:57
no evidence of that. Yes, it's
00:13:59
decentralized in the sense it's hard to
00:14:01
find them, to target them. But by the
00:14:03
way, Stephen, I think the reason that
00:14:05
we're trying to talk smack about the
00:14:07
Supreme Leader, is he is he alive? Is he
00:14:10
dead? is we're trying to goat him into
00:14:12
revealing his location so we can kill
00:14:14
him. But that's not working. So, and
00:14:18
it's also not stopping Iran from putting
00:14:20
out 10 points to Pakistan uh in the
00:14:23
negotiations. It's not stopping Iran
00:14:25
from having messages that go through
00:14:28
Pakistan to um the White House.
00:14:31
President Trump is then agreeing to the
00:14:33
10 points that are coming from Iran, you
00:14:35
see. And then um later on, of course,
00:14:37
President Trump is taking it back. But
00:14:39
the bottom line is um what you're seeing
00:14:41
in terms of chaotic decisionmaking
00:14:44
far more chaotic decision-m is happening
00:14:46
in the White House in the United States
00:14:48
than it's happening in the government of
00:14:50
Iran. They're rising power in the region
00:14:54
as our power is is declining
00:14:57
precipitously.
00:14:58
>> What do you think happens next?
00:15:00
>> We are at a fork in the road. When I was
00:15:02
here last time, uh, I was walking you
00:15:05
through the three stages of the
00:15:07
escalation trap and you kept pushing me,
00:15:10
tell me more, tell me more. Notice I I
00:15:13
was a little bit reluctant to do that.
00:15:15
Well, there is a stage four. For anyone
00:15:17
that didn't hear that episode, could you
00:15:19
give us a one sentence on stage one?
00:15:20
>> And yes, stage one is America bombs,
00:15:23
does leadership change bombing. We hit
00:15:26
targets, kill leaders, but the regime
00:15:29
actually evolves and is stronger than
00:15:32
before. Uh stage two is that then
00:15:34
stronger regime lashes back with
00:15:37
horizontal escalation and takes the
00:15:40
straight of horos at least initially
00:15:42
takes the straight of horos. And then
00:15:44
stage three is that's the ground option
00:15:47
to start to take the straight of Hormuz
00:15:49
back. And that's exactly what you saw
00:15:52
play out in the first several weeks of
00:15:54
the war. Stage three was about the
00:15:56
Marines. The Marines hadn't even moved
00:15:58
yet. And I'm telling you, the Marines
00:16:00
are likely going to move. There's going
00:16:02
to be movement to ground options in
00:16:04
stage three uh here very rapidly in this
00:16:07
war. At that point in time when we had
00:16:09
our first discussion, you wanted to push
00:16:11
for the future. I said, "No, we we need
00:16:13
to wait." And the reason, Stephen, is
00:16:14
because what you're not seeing with me
00:16:16
is throwing random darts at the future.
00:16:19
I'm doing risk assessment out about as
00:16:21
far as you uh you can have stable
00:16:24
predictions. And in war, that usually
00:16:28
means 2 3 4 weeks. It doesn't mean we
00:16:30
can say where we'll be a year from now.
00:16:33
Here though, now that we're in 40 days,
00:16:36
we're at a different point. We've
00:16:38
clearly passed stage one. We're past
00:16:40
stage two where they uh control the
00:16:43
straight of form moves. We've bellied up
00:16:45
to stage three, the ground operations.
00:16:48
Now we're at a branch, a fork in the
00:16:50
road. There's no way to go back to
00:16:53
February 27, which is the pre-war period
00:16:56
that many people would love to go back
00:16:58
to. I too would like to go back to
00:17:00
February 27th. That's not the future.
00:17:04
What happens at this point on in the
00:17:06
modeling and the is a branch either we
00:17:11
go through with the ground war or Iran
00:17:14
becomes an emerging not right away
00:17:18
fourth center of world power. That is
00:17:22
the branch that we face now. This branch
00:17:26
is becoming more evident hour by hour.
00:17:31
>> Explain that to me. So everybody now
00:17:34
knows that Iran is uh controlling the
00:17:38
straight of form and controlling
00:17:39
shipping. That's selective blockade. I'm
00:17:41
taking it a step further. That's not
00:17:43
just about insurance rates of shipping.
00:17:47
That's generating political power for
00:17:50
Iran to get other states to cowtow to it
00:17:55
to accept its objectives.
00:17:58
What are those objectives? So let's talk
00:18:00
about how this affects say Asia. So I'm
00:18:04
going to get into global and then we'll
00:18:05
come back to the Gulf itself. So the
00:18:08
shipping that goes through the straight
00:18:10
of H for H for H for H for H for H for H
00:18:10
for H for H for H for Hormuz 80 to 90%
00:18:12
of it is going right to Asia. The power
00:18:14
that comes with that is with say India.
00:18:17
India is not siding with the United
00:18:20
States. India is at best neutral and
00:18:23
maybe even a little bit more uh uh
00:18:25
edging toward Iran. Well, before this,
00:18:28
you could imagine that the United States
00:18:30
and India would be much more cooperative
00:18:33
here. That's not what's occurring. And
00:18:35
why is that? It's because that oil
00:18:38
that's going into Asia for India, this
00:18:41
isn't just about the price of oil. This
00:18:44
is about the supply of oil. When you
00:18:47
lose literally all the supply, that is a
00:18:52
greater cost than simply having to pay
00:18:55
more for it. So India is in a much more
00:18:58
difficult situation than Europe and the
00:19:01
United States right now. Now look at
00:19:03
Japan. Notice in the Oval Office,
00:19:05
President Trump brought in uh the leader
00:19:07
of the head of state of Japan and
00:19:09
basically browbeat her and she still
00:19:12
wouldn't budge. She still would not
00:19:14
cowtow to Trump here uh and actually
00:19:17
provide military support. What did she
00:19:20
do? She's distancing herself from the
00:19:22
United States. That's exactly what Iran
00:19:26
wants out of America's Asian allies.
00:19:29
This is geopolitical power and it's
00:19:33
rooted in the control of Hormos. It's
00:19:36
rooted in the selective military
00:19:38
blockade. That selective military
00:19:41
blockade produces vulnerability to
00:19:44
India, vulnerability to Japan. And that
00:19:49
is what the we call it the leverage. But
00:19:51
the leverage is is not enough of a I
00:19:54
think a full description. This is
00:19:56
reorienting America's allies in Asia.
00:20:00
Now, let's talk about what's happening
00:20:01
in the Persian Gulf itself. Before the
00:20:04
war, February 27, there was essentially
00:20:07
a balance in the Persian Gulf where you
00:20:10
had Iran on one side and you had this
00:20:14
growing collection of Gulf states that
00:20:17
were part of an emerging web. They're
00:20:19
cooperating with Israel more and more on
00:20:22
different um on different issues.
00:20:24
President Trump is bringing in his AI
00:20:27
billionaires to sort of grease this
00:20:30
cooperation so that there's some
00:20:32
material benefits. Well, that was
00:20:34
effectively a counterbalancing
00:20:36
coalition to Iran. Now, what's happened
00:20:39
after 40 days is this is breaking down
00:20:44
fast. America has military bases in
00:20:47
Qatar, has military bases in uh
00:20:49
Baharrain, has military bases in Kuwait.
00:20:52
I'm just picking a few. Had military
00:20:53
base of course in in Saudi Arabia. These
00:20:56
military bases, they are producing
00:20:59
little leverage here against Iran. In
00:21:03
fact, our aircraft carriers are not
00:21:06
anywhere near the Persian Gulf. They're
00:21:09
a thousand miles away. These bases are
00:21:13
big fat targets.
00:21:15
They are above ground. Iran's precision
00:21:18
drones can hit things above ground and
00:21:20
they're doing it on those bases. That
00:21:22
was their immediate retaliation. What is
00:21:24
what's happening number one is the
00:21:26
anchor the military anchor of this
00:21:29
coalition started to disappear within
00:21:31
hours of the bombing on February 28th.
00:21:33
>> What do you mean by the military anchor?
00:21:35
In order to have this coalition work,
00:21:38
>> which is like Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
00:21:40
>> Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait,
00:21:44
somebody has to be the LA the the
00:21:47
guaranter of protection. It's like the
00:21:49
Ma boss who protects everybody else.
00:21:53
That is the United States. And that is
00:21:56
what our military bases were supposed to
00:21:59
do. They become the military anchor that
00:22:03
allows then for there to become
00:22:06
political counterbalancing against Iran.
00:22:09
That was the Kushner idea in the first
00:22:12
Trump administration. And it seemed to
00:22:15
work and it seemed to uh bring some of
00:22:18
these states together who wouldn't
00:22:20
necessarily think you would cooperate
00:22:22
with with Israel. Well, this is now this
00:22:24
war is torpedoing this whole idea.
00:22:28
President Trump is not even willing to
00:22:31
do much to actually defend our own
00:22:33
bases, much less Saudi Arabia, much less
00:22:35
UAE. What he's telling them is you go
00:22:37
out there and start defending yourself.
00:22:39
Well, that's not a guaranter of
00:22:41
security. The next thing that's
00:22:43
happening is the three these states
00:22:45
which were operating more in concert are
00:22:47
starting to break down and operate in
00:22:50
three pools. You have Iraq which is now
00:22:54
complaining more and more about milit US
00:22:57
military presence there. They're
00:22:58
distancing themselves from American
00:23:01
military presence. And remember we
00:23:02
installed that government in 2003. So
00:23:06
they're not siding with us. They're
00:23:07
distancing themselves uh from us. Then
00:23:10
you have Qatar and you have uh Oman. Uh
00:23:14
what Iran's doing is saying, you know,
00:23:16
we should share some of these uh t these
00:23:19
tolls with Oman. They're moving Oman
00:23:23
into their camp. So you have Iraq moving
00:23:26
closer to Iran. Oman moving closer.
00:23:29
Qatar is trying to keep its head down as
00:23:31
much as possible. They're not they're
00:23:33
not trying to get their nose in this
00:23:35
anymore. And who is what's the third
00:23:37
pool? The third pool is Saudi Arabia, uh
00:23:40
the UAE. These are the states that are
00:23:43
most under threat. And what has Saudi
00:23:46
Arabia done just in the last week?
00:23:48
They've gone to cooperate more with
00:23:50
Pakistan. They have a security deal with
00:23:53
Pakistan. What does that mean? They're
00:23:56
looking to Pakistan as much or maybe
00:23:59
even more than the United States as
00:24:02
their guaranter of security. So all of
00:24:04
this coalition, it's not all siding with
00:24:07
Iran right now. It's fragmenting. And
00:24:11
that's weakening America.
00:24:14
>> So what happens next?
00:24:15
>> You know, as President Trump wants to
00:24:16
do, call the war off. That's not going
00:24:19
to put us back to February 27. Iran has
00:24:22
20% of the world's oil. It's going to be
00:24:24
able to have uh 75 billion hundred
00:24:27
billion of of revenues here over the
00:24:30
next year. And also those deeply buried
00:24:33
caves and tunnels where they have their
00:24:34
drones uh that can be used to fashion
00:24:36
nuclear weapons. within a year Iran
00:24:39
could have nuclear weapons and we can't
00:24:40
stop it. So if we pull back you can
00:24:44
start to see that Iran's power is going
00:24:47
to grow internally. Uh but then even
00:24:50
more than that its relationships with
00:24:53
Russia, its relationships with China
00:24:56
will start to move closer together
00:24:58
against America.
00:25:01
And you see this happening from the
00:25:03
moment almost the first several days of
00:25:05
the war. Russia almost immediately
00:25:08
offered Iran military targeting
00:25:10
information to target US ships. That's
00:25:13
why our our carriers are so far away.
00:25:16
It's because Russia has the ability to
00:25:18
see those carriers, tell Iran where they
00:25:20
are, and if those carriers get too
00:25:22
close, man, they're going to be smashed.
00:25:25
But it can get worse than that, Stephen,
00:25:27
because as this power grows over time,
00:25:31
as these incentives for uh China,
00:25:34
Russia, and Iran to cooperate against
00:25:36
America grow over time, Iran has control
00:25:40
now of 20% of the world's oil. Russia
00:25:43
has 11% of the world's oil. That means
00:25:47
there can be either formal or tacic
00:25:50
cooperation to take 30% of the world's
00:25:54
oil off the global market. Let China
00:25:58
soak up a whole lot of that. And that
00:26:02
can truly produce mega economic
00:26:07
consequences for America, for Europe.
00:26:10
And why are they not going to do that?
00:26:13
Because they're nice guys. Is that
00:26:15
really what we're counting on now?
00:26:16
Russia, Putin is not going to want to
00:26:19
wreck America's economy because he has a
00:26:22
a a bond with Donald Trump. What do you
00:26:25
think the fundamental
00:26:28
flawed assumption was at the start of
00:26:29
all of this from the United States?
00:26:30
>> That Iran was was was weak on its last
00:26:33
legs and all we had to do was uh push it
00:26:36
over the edge of a cliff and it was just
00:26:38
a matter of just one more push
00:26:40
>> and then the people would rise up and
00:26:41
>> yeah, we have painted a picture of Iran
00:26:45
um as beaten down as the reason it's not
00:26:49
retaliating very much is they have no
00:26:51
capability to retaliate. And I tell you
00:26:54
tell you this um Stephen, so I' I've
00:26:56
been in big debates here at uh the
00:26:58
Council on Foreign Relations in New York
00:27:00
where I've literally been the only
00:27:02
person on the stage to stand up and warn
00:27:05
that this picture of Iran is is is way
00:27:07
too negative. There was a a widpread, I
00:27:11
think, false assumption across the
00:27:13
foreign policy community. no one willing
00:27:16
to really stand up and challenge it very
00:27:18
strongly that Iran was basically
00:27:22
collapsing on its own. This was always
00:27:26
in my view underestimating the power of
00:27:29
Iran. And you say, well, where does my
00:27:31
view come from? It came from the
00:27:34
modeling of the bombing. What would
00:27:36
happen as this went forward? And none of
00:27:39
these elements of Iran's power were ever
00:27:41
knocked out. When I look through the
00:27:44
response to the last conversation, the
00:27:46
the audience had lots of different types
00:27:48
of questions. So, I'm going to try and
00:27:50
represent some of the audience's
00:27:51
questions to try and bring them into the
00:27:53
conversation. One of them was about
00:27:54
Israel's role in this. And I thought it
00:27:56
might actually link to what you just
00:27:57
said about where we get our intelligence
00:28:00
from that informs the decisions we make
00:28:02
because there are some people that are
00:28:03
skeptical that the intelligence is
00:28:05
coming from Israel and that therefore
00:28:06
that it might not be as accurate as if
00:28:08
it was coming from our own sources. I
00:28:09
would say Israel has been playing the
00:28:11
role of diplomatic spoiler. So in the
00:28:14
12-day war when last June when the US
00:28:17
bomb fore we've been focusing on that
00:28:19
that happened in the middle of the
00:28:20
12-day war. Donald Trump said he was
00:28:22
going to negotiate with a certain set of
00:28:24
Iranians and literally the next day uh
00:28:29
36 hours later Israeli air power killed
00:28:34
them
00:28:36
killed the negotiators. we were set to
00:28:39
negotiate with. This was totally
00:28:42
spoiling the idea of a diplomatic
00:28:44
outcome because they were dead. So, you
00:28:47
couldn't have a negotiated outcome. Now
00:28:50
if we come to February 28, who dropped
00:28:54
the first bombs that killed the supreme
00:28:56
leader that uh killed those other
00:28:58
several dozen doves that he was meeting
00:29:00
with?
00:29:01
>> Donald Trump um as as many of our
00:29:04
governments have um describes that you
00:29:08
had a balance of hawks and doves inside
00:29:11
of the Iranian government. And uh the
00:29:14
idea here is with leadership
00:29:16
decapitation is well if you kill uh the
00:29:19
hawks then the doves will just be the
00:29:21
ones left. We did the opposite or more
00:29:24
correctly the bombing was started by
00:29:26
Israel on February 28. we came in
00:29:29
behind. And in fact, Secretary Rubio,
00:29:32
our Secretary of State, explained a few
00:29:34
days later that um uh Israel basically
00:29:38
backed us in a corner because Israel
00:29:40
said, "We're going to kill that Supreme
00:29:42
Leader whether you like it or not, and
00:29:45
that is going to maybe lead to attacks
00:29:47
on your military bases, so you better
00:29:50
prepare an air campaign to come behind."
00:29:52
and Rubio said that's what happened
00:29:54
because again just before the 20
00:29:57
February 28 bombing we're negotiating
00:29:59
with Iran and we're killing the very
00:30:03
people that Trump was saying are the
00:30:05
ones we wanted to negotiate with the
00:30:08
ones who were going to help move Iran
00:30:10
closer to the American position that was
00:30:13
Israel as spoiler
00:30:14
>> so there's this individual called Ali
00:30:17
Laurajani the former secretary of Iran's
00:30:19
supreme national security council and he
00:30:21
was killed killed in an Israeli le air
00:30:23
strike on March 17th, 2026. Trump
00:30:26
claimed on True Social that I can't say
00:30:29
his name, but I'm going to try.
00:30:30
>> Ljani
00:30:32
>> was the primary contact for a 10-point
00:30:34
peace proposal that Trump had called
00:30:36
workable and a basis for a real
00:30:37
agreement. Trump suggested that the
00:30:39
strike was poorly timed when Israel
00:30:41
killed him and complained that Israel's
00:30:43
lone wolf actions were complicating his
00:30:46
ability to wrap up the war on his own
00:30:48
terms. He famously posted that he was
00:30:51
inches away from the biggest deal in
00:30:53
history before the assassination reset
00:30:56
the clock.
00:30:57
>> So this would be the third instance then
00:30:59
of Israel as diplomatic spoiler. What
00:31:02
you're hearing from Trump's own mouth is
00:31:04
he thought he uh was close to a working
00:31:08
relationship maybe not a full deal with
00:31:10
a certain set of individuals in this
00:31:12
case Ojani. And what did Israel do when
00:31:16
they found out about it? They killed
00:31:17
that person. And yes, I I understand
00:31:20
there's issues of intelligence, but you
00:31:22
know, most of us don't have a clearance,
00:31:24
so we can't talk about that. So, let's
00:31:25
talk about the actual public description
00:31:28
that we've heard from. Prime Minister
00:31:30
Netanyahu over the last several years.
00:31:32
The public description is that Iran is
00:31:35
simply a paper tiger. That that um
00:31:38
Israel has been dominating Iran,
00:31:41
knocking out its air defenses, launching
00:31:43
other attacks here in 2024.
00:31:46
The rhetoric that's coming publicly has
00:31:50
been painting the picture of Iran as a
00:31:54
weak and and not just weaken but
00:31:57
basically It's down on its last
00:31:59
legs and all you need is a final
00:32:02
coupigra. That has been Prime Minister
00:32:04
Netanyahu's language.
00:32:06
>> The other thing that the audience wanted
00:32:07
to know is they wanted more specifics on
00:32:10
stage three.
00:32:11
>> Yes. Yes.
00:32:12
>> And is stage three happening? We talked
00:32:14
last time about ground troops. It's very
00:32:16
important and I I've been saying this on
00:32:18
the Substack and my and my ex to follow
00:32:20
the key indicators here of deployment,
00:32:23
not follow just what's occurring with
00:32:25
the rhetoric of our leaders. Um, and the
00:32:28
key thing to to know is that if you're
00:32:31
going to um weaken Iran with ground
00:32:35
power, there's only a few ways you can
00:32:38
get that ground power into Iran. You
00:32:42
could try to come through Pakistan, but
00:32:44
Pakistan actually is Iran's ally who
00:32:47
gave Iran the 600 centerfuges in 2002 to
00:32:51
start developing its enrichment program.
00:32:53
So, and Pakistan has 100 nuclear weapons
00:32:56
or so. So, I don't think we're doing
00:32:57
this uh here. You could try to do it
00:32:59
with Afghanistan, but notice you'd have
00:33:01
to get all the troops in Afghanistan.
00:33:02
That's not working. You could also go to
00:33:04
Azerbaijan. That's up there. Notice on
00:33:06
the first day of the war there was a
00:33:08
missile that hit Azerbaijan and people
00:33:11
on CNN there weren't what what's going
00:33:12
on here. It's just a random in fact I
00:33:15
think uh our our our public statement on
00:33:18
that day was this shows how how
00:33:20
incoherent uh the Iran leadership is.
00:33:23
That's not what I saw. What I saw is
00:33:25
they understood that Azeraijan was
00:33:28
always thought to be a staging area to
00:33:30
go to Thran. And so if you're going to
00:33:33
take Thrron with a division or two, you
00:33:37
would really want to have your forces
00:33:39
start here from Azerbaijan. Now, so far
00:33:42
though, that's not happening. Azarbaian
00:33:44
said, "Nope, don't count on us. We're
00:33:46
not getting in the middle of this." Now,
00:33:48
we're back to why would you start to
00:33:50
think about Marines uh to take territory
00:33:55
here on the coasts of Iran? So inside
00:33:59
Iran where the straight of Hermuz is
00:34:01
>> that's the that's the beginning of it.
00:34:03
You would start there around inside Iran
00:34:06
around the straight of Hormuz as a beach
00:34:08
head.
00:34:09
>> There's some photos which I'll throw up
00:34:10
on the screen showing what the terrain
00:34:12
around the straight of Hormuz looks like
00:34:13
and it's it is quite shocking.
00:34:15
>> It's it's a moonscape and what you can
00:34:17
see is that this is the most difficult
00:34:21
terrain for amphibious operations to
00:34:23
operate in.
00:34:24
>> What is amphibious operations? uh where
00:34:26
you have troops that are on ships on
00:34:28
landing vessels. Uh just like Saving
00:34:30
Private Ryan, they go from the water
00:34:33
onto the beach. You would also then have
00:34:35
um some air power with some Osprey, but
00:34:38
they're doing essentially the same
00:34:39
thing. They're coming onto the same
00:34:40
beach.
00:34:41
>> What's an Osprey?
00:34:42
>> Uh an Osprey is a specialmade plane that
00:34:45
we've made for the Marines. And it's a
00:34:48
plane that is a hybrid between a
00:34:50
helicopter and a jet. And so the
00:34:52
propellers on the plane are able to
00:34:55
rotate. So they can fly as a propeller
00:34:58
plane um here or a uh a cheapman's jet
00:35:02
or they can actually um like a
00:35:04
helicopter. And that's really great if
00:35:06
you want to fly fast to a beach and then
00:35:08
go straight down.
00:35:09
>> So are you saying that you think they
00:35:12
will put boots on the ground in the
00:35:14
straight of Hammoose?
00:35:15
>> Let me just fill out this a little bit
00:35:17
more. Okay. So the other big thing that
00:35:20
that the folks need to know is where is
00:35:23
the oil? Iran's oil and here I'm drawing
00:35:27
a circle here. Iran's oil is all in this
00:35:31
uh southwestern part almost all of it is
00:35:34
in the southwestern part of um of Iran.
00:35:38
Kuwait's oil is all right here. Iraq has
00:35:42
couple puddles of oil. It has a big
00:35:45
puddle of oil right here. Saudis oil is
00:35:48
all right here. You might uh try to land
00:35:52
forces of division here in Iraq, in
00:35:55
Kuwait, uh in Saudi Arabia and come
00:35:57
around this way. This is why knocking
00:36:00
out these bases as truly platforms here.
00:36:04
This was why they I think they start on
00:36:06
day one. This wasn't just to hit the
00:36:08
bases in retaliation. They are weakening
00:36:11
our ability. They're taking away
00:36:13
different axes of attack. And this is
00:36:16
why in the uh Substack I published three
00:36:19
days before the war, I'm specifically
00:36:22
talking about Marines moving in limited
00:36:25
areas to take coastal regions as beach
00:36:27
heads.
00:36:28
>> What's a beach head?
00:36:29
>> A beach head is where you have a a
00:36:31
foothold, a tow hold, where you're going
00:36:33
to funnel in more forces after that. And
00:36:37
you are going to very likely want to
00:36:39
control an area that's at least about
00:36:42
100 miles by 20 m in order to get behind
00:36:46
all this uh this this mountainous
00:36:48
terrain. And what does that look like?
00:36:51
The oil fields. Stephen, this is what
00:36:53
President Trump is almost surely talking
00:36:55
about when he says he's going to take
00:36:58
Iran's oil fields. What he is probably
00:37:01
um being given options for is how you
00:37:05
could start in a limited way with an
00:37:08
amphibious, submarine, a limited assault
00:37:11
to take a a small set of stretch of
00:37:13
beaches and then you would want to
00:37:16
follow and take if you're going to start
00:37:17
this at all, you're almost surely going
00:37:19
to want to just start to take the oil
00:37:21
fields. And President Trump's been
00:37:23
talking that way for years really. He
00:37:26
also said in a recent interview that if
00:37:28
it was up to him, he would go and take
00:37:31
the oil. But he said the American people
00:37:33
weren't like that. And he said it once
00:37:35
and then he said it again and then he
00:37:36
said it again. This was during a press
00:37:38
conference on Monday, April 6th. He
00:37:40
said, "If it were up to me, I would take
00:37:42
the oil. I would keep it all for
00:37:44
ourselves and make a lot of money
00:37:45
because to the victor belong the spoils.
00:37:48
But people in the country sort of say
00:37:51
just win and come home." And I'm okay
00:37:53
with that too. And he said that from the
00:37:55
interview that I was watching twice,
00:37:56
which made me think that he really wants
00:37:57
to go take the oil. But if he does put
00:38:00
troops on the ground in Iran,
00:38:02
>> it just creates a clearer target for
00:38:05
those drone strikes. It creates a
00:38:08
clearer target for those drone strikes.
00:38:10
But what people maybe are not fully
00:38:12
understanding is the political
00:38:14
consequences of the deaths of those
00:38:17
Marines. Yeah,
00:38:18
>> most people are assuming if those
00:38:20
Marines go in and die, this will make
00:38:23
America run away. It'll be like a punch
00:38:25
in the face and we'll run away. That's
00:38:28
not likely to be what happens. Again,
00:38:30
this is my area of what happens when you
00:38:32
have military force in politics come
00:38:36
together.
00:38:37
You need to understand that when those
00:38:40
Marines go in and say hundreds die or or
00:38:43
so over time, there will be 36% of the
00:38:46
public that will have supported that.
00:38:49
That 36% is going to see those Marines
00:38:53
died for them. That 36% is likely to
00:38:58
double down in their commitment because
00:39:00
otherwise they died for nothing. Now,
00:39:04
the 50% 59% excuse me, who's opposed to
00:39:08
the war, they'll still be pretty hotly
00:39:10
opposed to the war. I'm not saying
00:39:11
they're going to move toward the war,
00:39:13
Stephen. What I'm saying is you have a
00:39:15
Republican president supported by 36% of
00:39:19
of the Republicans here, almost no
00:39:21
Democrats. If you start to actually have
00:39:24
deaths here, this is going to lead to a
00:39:28
bigger version of we can't withdraw now.
00:39:32
we must quote finish the job otherwise
00:39:35
they will have died for nothing. This is
00:39:38
what happened in Vietnam. In Vietnam in
00:39:41
the early stages you will see that it's
00:39:43
sticky up the support for the war. It
00:39:46
takes a while to go down. And why does
00:39:49
it take so long to go down? It's because
00:39:52
of exactly what I'm saying. The politics
00:39:55
of this of the death of our troops in
00:39:58
battle does not lead to we cut and run.
00:40:02
It leads to we double down for the honor
00:40:05
of the troops. That's why I'm saying we
00:40:08
start this even in a small way. Even
00:40:11
car. It doesn't really matter where you
00:40:13
start it, but once you have those ground
00:40:16
forces go in and they start to take
00:40:18
casualties, you're probably in for the
00:40:20
sixmonth ground war minimum. It looks
00:40:24
like they're going to try and avoid that
00:40:25
outcome. It looks like they're doing
00:40:27
everything in their power, America, to
00:40:29
avoid a scenario where they have to send
00:40:31
troops in. The the threats that have
00:40:33
come out of Donald Trump's truth social
00:40:35
posts really talk about I mean, look,
00:40:38
I'll read this one here. It says, "A
00:40:39
whole civilization will die tonight,
00:40:40
never to be brought back again. I don't
00:40:42
know what will happen, but it probably
00:40:43
will." Um, and all a lot of the tweets
00:40:46
are
00:40:46
>> Can we just focus on that one, the
00:40:48
civilization, because it's much that was
00:40:51
a few days ago. A lot of people are
00:40:53
already trying to move past it. This has
00:40:56
much more importance and endurance than
00:41:00
I think we're understanding now. So,
00:41:03
first of all, that statement that
00:41:05
President Trump said that he will end an
00:41:08
entire civilization in one night, uh, we
00:41:12
need to understand this is not a drunk
00:41:13
at a bar. This is the president of the
00:41:16
United States who has at his disposal
00:41:19
thousands of nuclear weapons that could
00:41:22
in fact achieve that. And let me just
00:41:24
explain how hair triggered these are. We
00:41:27
have 500 Minutemen 3 missiles. They have
00:41:31
warheads between 100 kilotons and 300
00:41:34
kilotons which is multiple times more
00:41:37
powerful than Hiroshima Nagasaki each
00:41:39
one of them. and they can be retargeted
00:41:43
within 45 minutes. That's what it takes
00:41:45
to retarget the gyroscopes. And then it
00:41:48
takes about 25 minutes for them to hit
00:41:51
Iran. So when the president of the
00:41:53
United States is saying this, he's only
00:41:55
one of a handful of people in the world
00:41:57
who could pull who could actually make
00:41:59
this credible. Second point is that is
00:42:02
the most declared statement of genocidal
00:42:05
intent we've ever seen from an American
00:42:08
president. No American president has
00:42:11
threatened to end a civilization before,
00:42:14
which is at the heart of the genocide
00:42:16
treaties in 1948. The intent to commit
00:42:19
genocide. Harry Truman, people will say,
00:42:22
"What do you mean? We had Harry Truman.
00:42:23
We bomb we we bombed Hiroshima
00:42:25
Nagasaki." Go and look at his statement
00:42:27
on Hiroshima. Harry Truman. He did not
00:42:29
say he was ending Japan as a
00:42:32
civilization. He pulled back and said it
00:42:34
was about to destroy Japan's military
00:42:37
power. What President Trump has done by
00:42:41
making those statements is he's
00:42:43
persuading all 92 million Iranians that
00:42:47
he is willing to kill them and he has
00:42:50
the power to kill them. And yes, he
00:42:53
pulled back from killing them on
00:42:55
Tuesday. And yes, he may not have used
00:42:57
nuclear weapons on Tuesday, but if any
00:43:01
other leader had said that, if imagine
00:43:04
Vladimir Putin stands up and says he's
00:43:07
going to end American civilization
00:43:09
tonight, he's got the weapons to be able
00:43:13
to do that. Are we just going to sit
00:43:14
back and say, "Oh, yeah, he didn't do
00:43:16
it. He must not have meant it." No. That
00:43:18
would mobilize enormous anger against
00:43:22
Vladimir Putin in the United States,
00:43:24
even among Democrats. And my point here,
00:43:27
Stephen, is before uh this war started,
00:43:30
we had a real pro-democracy movement in
00:43:33
Iran. And on your show, I told you this
00:43:36
was going to fade. This was one of the
00:43:38
predictions I made to you said this is
00:43:40
going to fade over time. You're going to
00:43:42
see nationalism bonding the society and
00:43:45
the regime closer together. President
00:43:47
Trump is bonding them together like
00:43:50
never before. If you're one of the
00:43:52
pro-democracy
00:43:54
individuals here, movement in Iran,
00:43:56
where are you going to go for
00:43:57
protection? Are you going to go to
00:44:00
Donald Trump who's threatening to kill
00:44:02
you with essentially nuclear weapons? Or
00:44:05
are you going to go to your own
00:44:06
government? This is going to hasten the
00:44:10
support, increase the support for Iran
00:44:12
developing nuclear weapons. the
00:44:15
pro-democracy movement is now likely to
00:44:18
support this.
00:44:20
>> On that point, one of the questions and
00:44:22
one of the points raised by the audience
00:44:23
last time we had the conversation was
00:44:25
really we didn't spend enough time
00:44:26
talking about the 90 plus million people
00:44:28
that live in Iran.
00:44:29
>> Yeah.
00:44:30
>> That are often many of them caught
00:44:32
amongst all of this absolute chaos. And
00:44:35
I I was looking at a bunch of messages
00:44:37
from people that are living in Iran. Um
00:44:40
I'll read some of them from ordinary
00:44:41
citizens. Um, I'm not great at math, but
00:44:44
where will the money, the resources, and
00:44:46
the experts come from to build a country
00:44:48
that ordinary people spent decades
00:44:50
trying to build?
00:44:51
>> From the This is a different person.
00:44:52
From the beginning of the war until
00:44:53
today, we have been bombarded. Not only
00:44:56
are we not one step closer to freedom,
00:44:58
from what I can see, we are miles away
00:45:00
from it. From another person in Iran, a
00:45:03
whole civilization will die tonight,
00:45:05
never to be brought brought back again.
00:45:07
This has deeply terrified me.
00:45:10
It's it's it raises really the question
00:45:12
a lot of this disc discourse doesn't
00:45:14
speak much to 90 plus million people
00:45:17
that are living there and that are
00:45:19
having to exist under this terror. And
00:45:20
like the best way that I could
00:45:21
conceptualized it is I I I imagined if I
00:45:23
had woken up one day and Vladimir Putin
00:45:26
or some other leader around the world
00:45:28
had said that they were potentially
00:45:30
going to end the civilization that I
00:45:32
live in, the country that I live in
00:45:34
tonight, how would I be feeling? And if
00:45:37
I was hearing bombs go off all the t
00:45:39
time, how would I be feeling? Um, and if
00:45:42
things were escalating when me and my
00:45:44
family lived, how would I be feeling?
00:45:46
And it is chilling to think about. It's
00:45:51
chilling because this is now moving the
00:45:55
needle inside of Iran to make the
00:45:59
ordinary person on the street uh even
00:46:02
the pro-democracy movement willing to
00:46:05
tolerate Iran killing Americans
00:46:08
because we're killing them and we're
00:46:12
saying we're going to do it even worse
00:46:13
and we're say even beyond that we're
00:46:15
saying at the whim of a president who
00:46:18
wakes up thinking Maybe this will help
00:46:21
his save his presidency. He is willing
00:46:24
to uh uh kill the entire civilization of
00:46:28
a country because he thinks maybe this
00:46:31
is going to be his off his golden uh
00:46:33
offramp to get out of this problem for
00:46:36
himself personally. And by the way, we
00:46:38
we in our country when al-Qaeda attacked
00:46:42
us on 9/11, there was tremendous fear.
00:46:45
There would be more attacks by al-Qaeda
00:46:48
in the weeks afterwards. There was just
00:46:50
much fear. And I've done the studies of
00:46:53
the American public opinion on this.
00:46:55
It's the fear of Muslims killing
00:46:58
Americans that's driving the support for
00:47:02
the Iraq war. If this is happening to
00:47:04
Americans, you can only imagine what's
00:47:07
going to happen to the ordinary
00:47:09
Iranians. And they've been subjected not
00:47:10
to just one attack, 40 days of attack.
00:47:14
>> So for the average Iranian person that
00:47:18
opposes the regime in Iran and has been
00:47:20
living under terror and oppression for
00:47:24
many, many decades.
00:47:27
What do you think happens next for them?
00:47:29
They're they're the group of people that
00:47:30
I that I think about and care about the
00:47:32
most in this equation. We spend a lot of
00:47:33
time talking about US power and we talk
00:47:35
about lots of these other regional
00:47:36
partners, but there's like 90 odd
00:47:38
million people stuck right in the heart
00:47:39
of this that often don't really have a
00:47:40
voice.
00:47:41
>> Their life expectancy will go down in
00:47:43
measurable years. So if we had taken out
00:47:45
the electric power, so this is something
00:47:47
I know quite a bit about in the 1990s. I
00:47:50
was uh working for the Air Force
00:47:52
literally under uh my boss was John
00:47:55
Warden, the leader of the leadership
00:47:56
decapitation school. And he brought in,
00:47:58
not classified at all, he brought in
00:48:01
engineers of electric power plants to
00:48:03
teach us how to take down electric
00:48:06
power. The electric power grid in Iran,
00:48:09
it looks like a network. And that
00:48:11
network has big nodes. That's what
00:48:14
President Trump said he would he's going
00:48:16
to take off the big power plants that
00:48:18
produce uh in the 10 20 30 uh megawws uh
00:48:22
range. And they're probably about 130
00:48:25
nodes altogether. But if you just take
00:48:27
out the top 10, you're probably going to
00:48:29
take down the entire network because the
00:48:33
top 10 nodes are distributed in the
00:48:35
right places to support different uh
00:48:38
electric power in different regions of
00:48:40
the country. You have two choices in a
00:48:42
target in targeting sense. You can take
00:48:44
out the transformers in which case you
00:48:46
knock it out for a week or two and it is
00:48:49
inconvenient. And yes, there will be
00:48:51
some people who will die. There were
00:48:52
human chains around those targets by the
00:48:54
way. those people would die. But if you
00:48:56
took out the hulls, the generating
00:48:59
hulls,
00:48:59
>> what's that?
00:49:00
>> That's the giant turbines that are huge.
00:49:04
There is no backup to those. Each of
00:49:06
those is specially made. You will be
00:49:10
knocking the out that generation for 6
00:49:12
months, 12 months, maybe 18 months at a
00:49:15
minimum. What that's going to do is stop
00:49:18
all dialysis in the country. that's
00:49:21
going to stop all um the uh heart
00:49:24
surgeries and other life-saving
00:49:26
surgeries that are going to happen in
00:49:27
the country. It's going to take out all
00:49:29
the food refrigeration in the country.
00:49:32
So, you know, when power goes out in
00:49:35
your house and goes out for 10 minutes
00:49:38
or or or an hour, it's not so bad. You
00:49:40
don't really notice it. But when it goes
00:49:42
out for 2 days or 3 days or a week, all
00:49:44
the food in your refrigerator spoils and
00:49:47
you can't eat it fast enough. you can't
00:49:49
give it away fast enough because it's
00:49:51
happening to everybody on your block.
00:49:54
Well, that's what would happen across
00:49:56
the country. So, there's going to be an
00:49:58
enormous amount of spoilage of food and
00:50:02
that refrigeration then is not going to
00:50:05
be available to come back. And so,
00:50:07
you're going to have enormous hunger
00:50:10
problems here. So, people that were
00:50:12
already malnourished, they are going to
00:50:14
be susceptible to more disease. So you
00:50:17
will end up lowering the life expectancy
00:50:22
in a measurable way of that population.
00:50:26
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Enjoy. So, there's been a lot of talk in
00:52:35
the recent days about a ceasefire and
00:52:37
Trump said he was going to he said tweet
00:52:40
these horrific things about ending a
00:52:42
whole civilization tonight and then at
00:52:44
the final hour said that they had
00:52:46
proposed a 10-point plan and that there
00:52:48
was going to be a twowe ceasefire. What
00:52:51
do you think was actually going on
00:52:53
there?
00:52:53
>> The collision of stages three and four.
00:52:56
So what you are now seeing is we can we
00:52:59
we are now understand we're in it for
00:53:02
the long haul which means we can't go
00:53:04
back to February 27. We can't undo the
00:53:07
last 40 days. It's just not going to be
00:53:09
possible. So there's only two futures
00:53:12
going forward. Future number one is that
00:53:14
ground war option and we've talked about
00:53:16
how terrible that is and of course
00:53:18
that's obviously bad bad cost. But
00:53:21
future number two is Iran as an emerging
00:53:24
fourth center of world power. And that
00:53:28
is incredibly damaging to America's
00:53:31
power. And that is going to be damaging
00:53:34
to President Trump's legacy.
00:53:36
>> Is there not another option where Iran,
00:53:40
their leadership says, "Okay, we won't
00:53:42
make nuclear weapons. Okay, we'll be
00:53:44
friends. Okay, it's all over. Please
00:53:47
stop bombing us. Let's go for peace."
00:53:49
So, so my response to that is I've been
00:53:52
studying the history of international
00:53:54
politics for over 35 years. I know quite
00:53:57
a bit about uh great power politics and
00:53:59
regional power politics going back 300
00:54:02
years. I have never seen a country at
00:54:04
the regional level or at the great power
00:54:07
level surrender power. Did America after
00:54:10
World War II decide, well, yes, uh, we
00:54:13
we have the capability to build nuclear
00:54:16
weapons, but, you know, we want to get
00:54:18
along with the Russians who helped us
00:54:20
defeat Germany. So, what we're going to
00:54:22
do is we're going to actually have a a a
00:54:25
deal, an arms control agree. In fact,
00:54:27
this was proposed, by the way, um, and
00:54:29
we rejected it, which is we're just
00:54:31
going to not go down that road. We're
00:54:33
going to surrender the power advantage
00:54:35
that we have uh here so that we can be
00:54:38
cooperative with the Soviets who had
00:54:41
just worked with us to defeat Nazi
00:54:43
Germany.
00:54:43
>> So that's not going to happen.
00:54:44
>> We there's no evidence in history in our
00:54:48
history. We've never surrendered power
00:54:51
even when it might have been a good
00:54:53
idea. We haven't done that. They're not
00:54:55
going to do this.
00:54:56
>> They're not going to do that.
00:54:57
>> No, they're not going to do this. You
00:54:59
already see this in the in why the uh
00:55:01
the ceasefire is breaking down. so fast.
00:55:03
It's breaking down so fast because
00:55:06
essentially President Trump, he didn't
00:55:08
just declare victory. He said that
00:55:12
Iran's uh not going to have all this
00:55:14
power that I'm explaining to you. And
00:55:16
what Iran did is almost immediately
00:55:19
assert, oh yes, we are. They they've
00:55:22
come right back right away. If President
00:55:25
Trump is expecting that out of the
00:55:27
goodness of their heart, they're gonna
00:55:29
surrender emerging world power,
00:55:33
this is this is just a fantasy. Uh it's
00:55:36
not going to happen. Uh he wouldn't
00:55:38
surrender power. Why is he going to
00:55:40
expect Iran's going to surrender power?
00:55:43
>> So, I'm looking at this apparent
00:55:46
10-point proposal submitted by Iran.
00:55:49
Mhm. Um, and you you got to take this
00:55:51
with a pinch of salt because there's
00:55:52
different reports about what this
00:55:53
10point proposal looks like, but it says
00:55:55
that based on official releases from the
00:55:57
Iranian state news agency, the IRA and
00:56:00
international reporting, the 10-point
00:56:02
proposal from Iran to the United States
00:56:04
was for a permanent ceasefire, number
00:56:06
one, end attacks on allies, a complete
00:56:09
halt to Israel and US strikes across the
00:56:11
region, specifically Lebanon, Iraq, and
00:56:13
Yemen. Number three, reopen the Straight
00:56:14
of Hummos. Iran will allow safe passage
00:56:16
through the Straight of Hongos. collect
00:56:19
tolls. Iran will charge a fee,
00:56:21
reportedly $2 million, for each ship
00:56:22
passing through the straight. Revenue
00:56:24
sharing with Aman, which is toll
00:56:26
revenues, will be split with Oman as
00:56:28
custodians of the strait. Number six,
00:56:31
lift the sanctions, the complete removal
00:56:33
of all US primary and secondary
00:56:34
sanctions. Release assets. Number seven,
00:56:37
the immediate return of all frozen
00:56:39
Iranian funds held abroad. Number eight,
00:56:42
the right to enrich uranium. US
00:56:45
acceptance of Iran's right to domestic
00:56:48
uranium enrichment while Iran commits to
00:56:51
not seeking nuclear weapons. Number
00:56:53
nine, war reparations, full compensation
00:56:55
paid to Iran for reconstruction costs
00:56:57
from the bombing. And lastly, number 10,
00:56:59
the termination of all UN resolutions
00:57:02
against the regime and a new binding UN
00:57:04
Security Council resolution to enforce
00:57:06
this deal. Now, listen, I don't know a
00:57:08
lot about what I'm talking about, so
00:57:10
that's the disclaimer. However, it
00:57:12
sounds like a good deal for Iran in many
00:57:14
respects. on every single point and it
00:57:16
also validates Iran as an emerging world
00:57:18
power. So all of those points in the
00:57:21
details if you think of them as a flow
00:57:24
diagram all 10 of them are adding up to
00:57:27
validation of Iran as uh top in the
00:57:32
hierarchy in the Persian Gulf. So why is
00:57:35
it so important to be the number one
00:57:37
strongest state in the world? It's
00:57:39
because in the last 300 years, whether
00:57:42
it was Britain, the United States, or
00:57:44
whether it's China in the future, the
00:57:46
number one state typically dictates the
00:57:48
rules of how the world systems operate.
00:57:51
Well, what you're seeing with Iran is
00:57:53
they want to dictate the rules in the
00:57:54
Persian Gulf. And that's what that is.
00:57:56
Now, if we pull this over, which I love
00:58:00
your props, uh here, that is good. So
00:58:02
right now you see that even though it's
00:58:04
the United States is just um uh that
00:58:08
lone flag it has this higher weight and
00:58:12
what this is reflecting is uh the United
00:58:16
States as uh the number one country in
00:58:18
the world the most powerful. Now if you
00:58:20
also then add um this over here. So this
00:58:24
would be Israel. You can see this is the
00:58:28
world that Netanyahu is depicting um
00:58:32
before on February 27th. But the actual
00:58:36
world I just want to point out is a
00:58:38
little bit different. The actual balance
00:58:40
of power is closer to this. It's closer
00:58:43
to the United States and then we have
00:58:46
China and we have uh Russia. There are
00:58:49
three centers of world power and in 1990
00:58:53
um it used to be by the way uh just the
00:58:56
United States and the Soviet Union. Then
00:58:59
Russia, the Soviet Union collapses. This
00:59:01
is when the United States is the sole
00:59:03
superpower, the unipolar moment. It
00:59:06
immediately shifts like this from 1989
00:59:10
to 1992. Dramatic shift. However, along
00:59:14
the way in the last 30 years, you see um
00:59:18
this changing. And what's changing?
00:59:20
Russia actually still is weak. It's
00:59:22
still about 2% of the world's GDP.
00:59:24
That's not really what's changing.
00:59:25
What's really changing is is China is
00:59:28
now much much much more powerful. It's
00:59:30
still not as powerful as the United
00:59:32
States, but notice that we were here in
00:59:34
1990 and now the balance is starting to
00:59:36
be uh to come like this. Well, if we
00:59:40
start to add Iran as a center of world
00:59:43
power, uh, now we're starting to change
00:59:45
this in a much different way. Now these
00:59:48
three powers are starting together in
00:59:51
concert to become more powerful than the
00:59:54
United States uh especially with respect
00:59:57
to energy and energy matters so much
01:00:01
because it's an underlying component for
01:00:04
our economic growth that GDP the way um
01:00:08
uh we measure uh great power Stephen for
01:00:12
decades and decades we've used static
01:00:14
indicators GDP how big is your military
01:00:18
How many nuclear weapons you have that
01:00:20
all rests on the productive capacity of
01:00:25
your country which is why the productive
01:00:27
capacity is so important. What does that
01:00:30
turn on? It turns a lot very heavily on
01:00:34
oil. Oil today is the commodity. If you
01:00:39
lose access to oil within weeks or a
01:00:43
month and a half, this has dramatic
01:00:46
cliff effects on your economy. Now, if
01:00:49
you lose access to semiconductors,
01:00:51
pharmaceuticals, that's bad. And it's
01:00:54
bad over time in particular, you lose
01:00:57
access to oil. This is a cliff that you
01:01:00
we go off over six weeks, eight weeks
01:01:04
because there's not enough uh storage
01:01:07
capacity of anybody in the world to make
01:01:10
up for 20% 30% loss of world oil.
01:01:14
>> So on this point of oil, the US don't
01:01:16
get their oil from the straight of
01:01:17
Hammoose.
01:01:18
>> We don't. But it's a global market and a
01:01:22
lot of the uh price of oil that we're
01:01:25
going to pay is going to be determined
01:01:28
by the global price of oil because oil
01:01:31
is a funible commodity. It's like a uh
01:01:34
water that runs through the whole
01:01:36
system. When there's a shortage, it
01:01:38
drives the price of all of us up.
01:01:41
>> Okay. So, I've got a graph here showing
01:01:42
the price of oil. And you can see I'll
01:01:44
throw it up on the screen. You can see
01:01:45
it's been climbing ever since the 27th
01:01:47
of February. So, this will impact
01:01:49
Americans at the pump as well.
01:01:51
>> Oh my gosh. And you see it in the pump
01:01:53
already. Where I am in Chicago, I'm
01:01:55
paying some I was paying something like
01:01:57
310 a gallon. Now, the last time I I
01:02:00
filled up, it was 460. It's a bit of a
01:02:03
misnomer to think that we can as America
01:02:07
get away scot-free with everybody else
01:02:10
losing oil and we're not going to we're
01:02:13
not going to pay a price. Now to be
01:02:15
clear, we will have supply of oil. The
01:02:18
price will go up. This will increase
01:02:21
inflation. This will probably increase
01:02:23
bond prices over time. Uh the bond
01:02:26
price,
01:02:26
>> the bond is the loans that essentially
01:02:29
any uh corporation companies or the
01:02:32
University of Chicago takes out to
01:02:34
borrow money to operate. So the
01:02:36
University of Chicago borrows uh has has
01:02:39
10-year bonds. This is essentially we're
01:02:41
borrowing money and then we have to pay
01:02:43
back that money plus an interest rate.
01:02:46
That's what the bond rate is. It's an
01:02:47
interest rate on on borrowed money.
01:02:49
Well, if that interest rate goes from 4%
01:02:52
on a 10-year bond um to 5% or 6 or 7%
01:02:59
the costs of the interest just goes up
01:03:03
massively
01:03:04
>> and everybody will feel that in various
01:03:05
ways. the US government right now, the
01:03:08
biggest uh budget item in the US
01:03:11
government budget is the cost of
01:03:13
interest for the debt of the $40
01:03:16
trillion in debt. We're going to have to
01:03:18
shrink social security. You're going to
01:03:20
have to shrink Medicaid. This is not
01:03:22
notional, Stephen. Iran and uh Russia
01:03:25
together could have a tremendous impact
01:03:28
on America's economy. This this is the
01:03:31
real thing. So with your balance of
01:03:33
power analogy, this is where we where we
01:03:35
could get to.
01:03:35
>> This is where we could get to with the
01:03:37
next several years. I would say um
01:03:39
probably two years out. I would say that
01:03:41
America has an edge. And I'm trying to
01:03:44
depict it as it's like about a 25 or 30%
01:03:48
edge from the combination of China and
01:03:51
Russia today. And China is gaining, but
01:03:54
still it's actually slow yearbyear. So
01:03:57
you'll see a little bit of an uptick. So
01:03:58
maybe going I'm trying to depict from
01:04:00
say a third advantage for the United
01:04:02
States to maybe uh 30% 28% in the next
01:04:06
four or 5 years. You add Iran to this
01:04:09
and then especially these combinations
01:04:12
I'm describing where they can do things
01:04:14
together. Now in the next several years
01:04:17
you're actually talking about uh the
01:04:19
scales where these three are much are
01:04:22
stronger than America where I'm not
01:04:24
talking about just America's losing it
01:04:27
incrementally. You're getting abrupt
01:04:29
changes in the world balance of power.
01:04:31
>> So, what happens now if Trump just pulls
01:04:32
out?
01:04:33
>> This is the world. Iran is an oil
01:04:36
hegeimon in the Persian Gulf. Uh, within
01:04:39
a year or so, they're very likely to
01:04:41
have nuclear weapons. I'm saying the
01:04:42
pro-democracy movement is going to be
01:04:44
pounding the table to get nuclear
01:04:46
weapons. They're going to want to deter
01:04:47
any uh idea from Trump of hitting them
01:04:50
again. Um, and then I'm saying beyond
01:04:52
that, you have the possibility of Iran
01:04:55
and Russia deciding to cooperate here to
01:04:59
strangle uh and coers the United States.
01:05:02
And if the United States doesn't cowtow
01:05:04
to them, then they can pull that oil off
01:05:07
the market.
01:05:08
>> So, what should
01:05:10
Trump do? Do you think if you were
01:05:12
president of the United States, what
01:05:14
would you do right now? So when I was
01:05:15
here 40 days ago, we had the same
01:05:17
question. And what I said was we needed
01:05:19
to accept uh that there would be a deal
01:05:22
and we were going to have to accept that
01:05:24
the deal that Iran was offering us on
01:05:26
February 27 where they would get to keep
01:05:28
their 3.5% enriched uranium wasn't going
01:05:31
to be good enough. We were going to have
01:05:32
to lift oil sanctions. We're going to
01:05:34
have to do various things to sweeten the
01:05:37
deal, so to speak. Well, notice actually
01:05:39
Scott Besson did some of that. He did
01:05:41
lift the but the power of Iran has grown
01:05:44
so much Stephen that's not good enough
01:05:48
and that's what you're seeing with why
01:05:49
this deal is the ceasefire is starting
01:05:51
to break down from Iran's side. So what
01:05:54
would you offer Iran? I think a enforced
01:05:58
military containment of Israel would be
01:06:02
a serious uh card that America could
01:06:06
play that I think Iran would get Iran at
01:06:09
least in a serious discussion. I don't
01:06:11
know if it would be enough. I want to be
01:06:13
careful here that I don't say, "Well,
01:06:15
this will certainly uh be the deal Iran
01:06:17
will take." But we have to imagine if
01:06:20
Iran has world power, what is it going
01:06:23
to take to get Iran to surrender some of
01:06:26
that? Well, one thing would be to have
01:06:28
confidence that Israel is not going to
01:06:31
keep attacking it or its allies.
01:06:35
>> But then they're not going to believe
01:06:36
that after what's happened.
01:06:38
>> Well, it would have to go through. You'd
01:06:39
have to make it enforceable. It's not
01:06:41
going to be good enough to try to
01:06:43
promise that. What thing President Trump
01:06:45
could do since the Republicans control
01:06:47
both houses of Congress is President
01:06:49
Trump could push through a bill through
01:06:51
Congress that says if Israel attacks
01:06:54
Iran or uh could even extend to to
01:06:56
Lebanon, but let's at least start with
01:06:58
Iran. Um all funds for Israel, both
01:07:02
military and economic, will be cut off
01:07:04
through the end of Trump's presidency.
01:07:06
Now, that passes through uh both
01:07:09
chambers of Congress. President Trump
01:07:10
signs it. Now you're talking. Now we
01:07:13
actually have as much teeth as you could
01:07:16
ever have of a military containment of
01:07:19
Israel.
01:07:20
>> So presumably in such a scenario, Iran
01:07:22
would continue to enrich uranium because
01:07:25
they've now had a taste of what can
01:07:26
happen to them if they're powerless.
01:07:28
>> Well, let me extend this um a little bit
01:07:30
more. So let's talk about article two of
01:07:32
the deal that's going to go through the
01:07:34
Congress. Israel joins the NPT and that
01:07:38
is the quidd proquo for getting Iran to
01:07:41
accept the on-site inspections of its
01:07:44
3.5% enriched uranium. So, Israel gets
01:07:48
to have um its Deamona nuclear power
01:07:52
plant where it has plutonium for its
01:07:54
nuclear weapons that's measured by the
01:07:57
non-prololiferation treaty, the IAEA.
01:08:00
Those are the inspectors. And Iran
01:08:03
will have on-site inspections at the
01:08:06
various locations we're talking about.
01:08:09
But the second part of this, Stephen,
01:08:10
would be quit proquo. If Iran is going
01:08:13
to be subject to on-site verification,
01:08:16
on-site monitoring, Israel, which is now
01:08:19
not part of the non-prololiferation
01:08:20
treaty, already has nuclear weapons.
01:08:24
It's going to have to accept that this
01:08:26
can't be a one-sided deal going forward.
01:08:29
It's going to have to be a more balanced
01:08:32
situation when it comes to monitoring um
01:08:35
nuclear weapons capabilities.
01:08:37
>> So, what does that mean specifically
01:08:38
that Iran would be able to monitor
01:08:39
Israel's nuclear weapons
01:08:41
>> uh through the IAEA? That's right. That
01:08:43
would be the material for the weapons,
01:08:45
not the weapons themselves. So,
01:08:46
>> they already have weapons. So, what's
01:08:47
there to monitor?
01:08:48
>> Oh, no, no, no. Right now, the number of
01:08:51
Israel's uh Israel's nuclear weapons is
01:08:53
not known. We have vague counts. The
01:08:56
reason Israel is not part of the NPT is
01:08:58
not because it doesn't matter. It
01:09:00
provides the kind of calc the kind of
01:09:02
detailed information through the IAEA
01:09:06
that would be useful for estimating the
01:09:09
size of Israel. Israel Netanyahu is
01:09:12
going to want to give that information
01:09:13
to Iran.
01:09:14
>> This isn't about want to anymore.
01:09:15
Stephen, what we're talking about is
01:09:17
what are the offer? You've asked me the
01:09:19
hard question. What is an offramp to
01:09:22
this tradeoff between the ground war and
01:09:26
Iran as the fourth center of world
01:09:28
power? And I said, okay, there is an
01:09:30
actual off-ramp here. But notice that
01:09:33
the hesitation now is politics. And
01:09:36
that's what I'm trying to explain that
01:09:38
that I study the interaction of military
01:09:40
action and politics. And I'm with you. I
01:09:44
I don't think Israel will likely they've
01:09:46
been trying to spoil these other deals.
01:09:48
I don't think Israel is going to allow
01:09:50
this to occur. But now then we're right
01:09:52
back to the tradeoff that nobody wants
01:09:56
to confront. So
01:09:57
>> So what do you think is going to happen?
01:09:59
What I think is that we are going to go
01:10:02
back and forth between stage three and
01:10:04
stage four for months.
01:10:05
>> What's stage three and stage four?
01:10:07
>> So stage three are preparations for the
01:10:09
ground war.
01:10:10
>> Yep.
01:10:10
>> And Iran emerging as a force center of
01:10:12
world power. I think both of these are
01:10:15
likely to go on for months. I think that
01:10:18
uh for stage three, the ground war
01:10:20
option to truly be taken off the table,
01:10:22
you would need to see America
01:10:25
withdrawing its military forces. You
01:10:27
would need to see all the carriers leave
01:10:30
the region and go back to uh other parts
01:10:33
of the world. You would need to see the
01:10:36
Marines that have been moved to the Gulf
01:10:40
go back to Camp Pendleton in California,
01:10:42
go back to uh Japan. You would need to
01:10:45
see the hundreds of aircraft like the
01:10:47
F-35s, for example, that have been moved
01:10:50
to the region. They all need to go back
01:10:53
to their pre-war locations. So, we're
01:10:55
going to bounce between stage three and
01:10:57
stage four.
01:10:57
>> Yep. That's the diagram. So, the new
01:10:59
diagram I'm trying to
01:11:02
>> we just um I think there's still, if you
01:11:05
pushed me on this last time, I still say
01:11:08
there's a 70% chance that we're going to
01:11:11
start a ground operation. And it's not
01:11:14
because President Trump wants it. It's
01:11:16
not because he's not trying to avoid it.
01:11:18
It's because there's a trap. And the
01:11:20
trap that he's gonna face is, is he
01:11:23
really willing to be the president where
01:11:26
under his presidency, Iran detonates a
01:11:29
nuclear weapon to demonstrate it has
01:11:31
nuclear power? From his rhetoric, and
01:11:33
listen, these are just the tweets. It
01:11:35
seems like the alternate option he's
01:11:38
considered when he talks about bombing
01:11:40
the infrastructure and bridges and roads
01:11:42
and power plants is just completely
01:11:45
decapitating the country and I think in
01:11:47
his own words, sending it back to the
01:11:48
stone ages. will come back. This will
01:11:51
come back, but it would be as I believe
01:11:53
the precursor to more ground operations,
01:11:56
Stephen. So, I don't think that this
01:11:58
will be a case where you do the electric
01:12:01
power targeting and then it's done.
01:12:03
Finally, he's satisfied. He's pounded
01:12:05
them enough and walk away because you do
01:12:08
the electric power targeting. You have
01:12:11
further incentivized 92 million. They
01:12:13
still have the enriched uranium. You
01:12:15
have 92 million people desperate now for
01:12:18
not just getting a nuclear weapon for
01:12:20
deterrence, but for payback. And so you
01:12:23
will find the pressure for the ground
01:12:25
war will be even more intense in the
01:12:28
aftermath of all of that. This idea
01:12:31
they're going to be bombed back to the
01:12:32
stone ages where we won't worry about
01:12:35
them anymore. um they're going to be
01:12:37
this minor country that we will just
01:12:39
ignore. As long as they have 1,000 lb of
01:12:43
60% enriched uranium, 10,000 lb of five
01:12:46
and and 20% enriched uranium, um this is
01:12:51
this will just not be the case.
01:12:52
>> So, you still think the most plausible
01:12:54
probable outcome is that Trump ends up
01:12:57
sending ground troops in specifically to
01:12:59
do two things? I think I remember you
01:13:00
saying last time. One of them is to go
01:13:01
and get the uranium. Yep.
01:13:03
>> And the second, I believe, is to defend
01:13:05
the straight of Hormuz.
01:13:06
>> Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I think I think
01:13:08
these are the two things that are on the
01:13:10
table.
01:13:10
>> And you think it's going to it's
01:13:12
probably going to take several months.
01:13:13
>> I think it could go on Yes. for months
01:13:15
because I think that you were going to
01:13:17
see that there's going to be uh this
01:13:21
back and forth. And the way to monitor
01:13:23
this so you can see is the timeline
01:13:25
speeding up or slowing down is literally
01:13:28
the movement of the deployed troops.
01:13:32
Don't track this by what the
01:13:33
negotiations are. Don't track this by
01:13:36
what comes out of President Trump's
01:13:38
mouth or even the Iranians mouth. Track
01:13:41
this by the movement of forces. That is
01:13:45
the best indicator of what's going to
01:13:48
come.
01:13:50
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01:15:39
I will speak to you then.
01:15:46
on this point where you said you don't
01:15:47
think Trump would want to be the
01:15:48
president that presided over Iran
01:15:50
releasing a nuclear weapon. Is that
01:15:52
because if he pulled out now they would
01:15:54
enrich the uranium and then maybe
01:15:56
demonstrate it under his
01:15:58
>> that that's right. So the scenario that
01:16:00
I have laid out I've laid this out to my
01:16:02
classes for years. The idea of what Iran
01:16:05
would do with nuclear weapons a lot of
01:16:07
people have an image and it's coming
01:16:09
from the public so I understand why they
01:16:11
have it. People have been a lot of
01:16:12
people have said this image where Iran
01:16:14
gets a a nuclear weapon or two and that
01:16:17
what they do immediately is they blow up
01:16:19
Tel Aviv with the first one and maybe
01:16:21
New York with the second one. This is
01:16:23
just highly unlikely because what would
01:16:26
happen is we would retaliate with
01:16:28
nuclear weapons under that. uh here much
01:16:31
more plausible and everything I'm seeing
01:16:34
from Iran has been completely supporting
01:16:36
the idea that they're thinking this
01:16:38
through um uh uh strategically is you
01:16:42
would want not to just have one working
01:16:45
nuclear weapon or even two. You want
01:16:47
five. Ideally, you want 10, maybe even
01:16:51
15. This is what happened with North
01:16:53
Korea. Because once you have, let's even
01:16:56
say five, the most rational thing to do
01:16:59
is you detonate the first one as a
01:17:01
detonated test. You test it on your own
01:17:03
territory and then you listen for a week
01:17:06
while everybody says, "Well, they only
01:17:07
had one. They were stupid. They don't
01:17:09
have dot." And you detonate the second
01:17:11
one. And once you detonate the second
01:17:13
one, just like when we hit Nagasaki
01:17:16
after Hiroshima,
01:17:18
everybody will assume there's a lot more
01:17:22
there. And that is how you actually
01:17:25
deter the United States from attacking
01:17:28
you. And by the way, that's what
01:17:30
effectively North Korea did. When
01:17:32
President Trump took office in 2016,
01:17:35
North Korea was a major problem. We were
01:17:37
talking about bombing North Korea and so
01:17:39
forth. And there's multiple reasons, but
01:17:42
the big issues are that North Korea has
01:17:45
a lot of nuclear weapons. We're not
01:17:47
going to be able to get them all. They
01:17:49
have some other things they can do too
01:17:51
like like artillery on soul. But this
01:17:54
isn't just North Korea and Trump decided
01:17:56
to be, you know, sort of best buds here.
01:17:59
>> So the other route that played out in my
01:18:01
mind was that Trump would just keep
01:18:03
bombing Iran to keep them weak. But
01:18:05
again, that doesn't solve the straight
01:18:06
of Hammoose problem.
01:18:07
>> Doesn't solve the uranium problem and
01:18:09
doesn't solve the straight of Hormuz
01:18:11
problem because if we knew where that
01:18:13
material was and we could just bomb it
01:18:16
out of existence. I'm talking about the
01:18:18
enriched uranium material. We would have
01:18:20
done this already.
01:18:21
>> Which leads all roads to really the only
01:18:24
solution being some kind of deal.
01:18:26
>> Absolutely. That's why the best thing to
01:18:28
do is a deal with the military
01:18:31
containment of Israel. That's deal.
01:18:34
>> The problem you have with such a deal if
01:18:37
when you're going into that deal is the
01:18:38
enemy know that you don't really have a
01:18:41
plan B. You don't have a plan B. That's
01:18:43
right.
01:18:44
>> And so your negotiation position is very
01:18:45
weak. That's why you That's why you're
01:18:47
they're going to keep their 3.5%
01:18:49
enriched uranium no matter what. The
01:18:52
problem we face here is if we were ever
01:18:55
going to get the 3.5% enriched uranium
01:19:00
um to go away, we should never have
01:19:03
ripped up the Obama nuclear deal by
01:19:06
Trump in 2018. They've been developing
01:19:09
ever since the Biden administration. He
01:19:12
Trump one couldn't figure out how to
01:19:13
stop the enriched uranium by by Iran.
01:19:16
Biden couldn't figure out how to stop
01:19:18
it. Trump now has been trying to figure
01:19:20
out how to stop it. And you know what?
01:19:22
It's not stoppable. It's not stoppable
01:19:25
short of these options I'm laying out.
01:19:27
There's no way to get that material
01:19:29
without ground forces, Stephen. And
01:19:32
you're not going to send those ground
01:19:33
forces in just a thousand guys to get be
01:19:37
it some postage stamp of an area for a
01:19:40
month or two trying to find that
01:19:42
enriched uranium. This is just not
01:19:45
realistic. Going to be a bigger option.
01:19:47
>> I think it's clear to me, you know, I do
01:19:48
this podcast and ask these questions and
01:19:50
have people on because I'm actually
01:19:51
really trying to find answers for
01:19:52
myself. And I think if I've arrived at
01:19:54
any conclusion from everything I've
01:19:55
learned over the last couple of weeks,
01:19:57
it's that I think Trump made a really
01:19:58
big mistake. Um pro and that mistake
01:20:01
probably started when he ripped up
01:20:03
Obama's deal.
01:20:04
>> That's right.
01:20:05
>> But it's clear that
01:20:07
>> Foraux was the really really big one.
01:20:10
>> I think I think he's stuck.
01:20:12
>> He is stuck.
01:20:12
>> I think he's stuck. I think he's facing
01:20:16
several bad options going forward. So I
01:20:18
really have no idea what's going to
01:20:20
happen. And
01:20:21
>> well what you're going to what you will
01:20:22
also watch Stephen back to politics here
01:20:25
is uh Trump right now we're not it's not
01:20:29
just paper anymore who's saying he's
01:20:31
lost control he's losing power the world
01:20:34
is saying that and this is going to
01:20:37
start to become the Republican party is
01:20:40
going to say that and what this is going
01:20:42
to do is it's going to incentivize Trump
01:20:44
even more probably to become more
01:20:46
belligerent not to become calmer so as
01:20:50
Trump is becoming the lamest of lame
01:20:53
ducks going forward because it's evident
01:20:56
he's losing power and as he loses power
01:21:00
here on the international scene this
01:21:02
will mean he will lose power
01:21:04
domestically as well and we'll never go
01:21:06
to zero but it will be a slow decline
01:21:10
this is where the real sort of future is
01:21:13
here why this is not simply a steady
01:21:16
state now this is why I won't make a
01:21:18
prediction of what's going happen in
01:21:20
September. We are not at a steady state.
01:21:22
It is an unstable balance here between
01:21:26
three and four. Three and four.
01:21:28
>> What do you think happens with Europe? I
01:21:29
feel like Europe, you know, Europe
01:21:30
aren't on either side of your scale
01:21:32
here. You've got Iran, Russia, and China
01:21:34
on one end of the scale scale. You've
01:21:36
got the US on the other. Europe and
01:21:38
NATO, what happens? Are they going to
01:21:41
>> NATO is for all practical purposes dead?
01:21:45
We're just writing its obituary. It's a
01:21:48
body in the morg already. Most people
01:21:51
don't think that NATO is a political
01:21:54
alliance. NATO is much more than that.
01:21:56
If there's an article 5, what that
01:21:59
means, Stephen, is there's a military
01:22:01
operation with an American general at
01:22:03
the top. And with article 5, the
01:22:06
American general tells the other count's
01:22:09
militaries, including their nuclear
01:22:11
weapons, what to do. Now, if you're
01:22:14
Britain and you have nuclear weapons and
01:22:17
or even if besides the nuclear weapons,
01:22:20
if you're Germany, you don't have them,
01:22:21
are you going to follow uh uh General
01:22:24
Kane's orders on anything at this point?
01:22:27
I don't think so.
01:22:28
>> So, article 5 is the document that all
01:22:31
the NATO countries have signed. No, it's
01:22:33
the part of the NATO treaty which says
01:22:36
if there's a NATO operations like in
01:22:38
Afghanistan,
01:22:40
it's American general who orders all the
01:22:43
other countries militaries what to it's
01:22:45
a hierarchy. So it's not a um a
01:22:49
collection where the countries get
01:22:51
together and they have these big like uh
01:22:54
cooperative decisions. No, the Americans
01:22:57
run the plan. They are the ones who
01:22:59
organize the military operation. they
01:23:01
run the plan and they just assign the uh
01:23:03
other countries uh roles the way they
01:23:06
would um the army, the navy and the air
01:23:08
force inside of the Pentagon. What I'm
01:23:10
saying is what you just saw with Iran is
01:23:13
such a a horrible catastrophic failure
01:23:17
within just weeks. The idea that any
01:23:20
Europeans are going to follow the orders
01:23:24
of an American general and and I don't
01:23:26
even think this is going to be just
01:23:28
under Donald Trump. I mean, I think for
01:23:29
years, I think this is just laughable.
01:23:32
>> Trump was quite angry and scathing with
01:23:34
his words about NATO. He said, "It's a
01:23:36
paper tiger and referred to them as
01:23:39
cowards." And as we've been sat here
01:23:40
today, you might be aware that NATO were
01:23:42
meeting with Trump today in Washington
01:23:45
DC. And the NATO Secretary General Mark
01:23:48
Root said, "When it came time to provide
01:23:50
the logistical and other support to the
01:23:52
United States needed in Iran, some
01:23:54
allies were a bit slow, to say the
01:23:57
least. In fairness, they were a bit
01:23:59
surprised. To maintain the element of
01:24:01
surprise for the initial strikes,
01:24:02
President Trump opted not to inform us
01:24:05
ahead of time. But what I see when I
01:24:07
look across Europe today is allies
01:24:09
providing a massive amount of support
01:24:10
nearly without exception. Allies are
01:24:12
doing everything the United States is
01:24:14
asking. They have heard and are
01:24:16
responding to President Trump's request.
01:24:19
So, it sounds a little bit like an
01:24:21
apology tour coming from NATO. Um, and
01:24:23
the German chancellor has also made made
01:24:24
a comment saying that they do not want
01:24:26
to split NATO.
01:24:27
>> Well, they don't want American troops to
01:24:30
leave the um uh the European continent
01:24:34
because that provides some deterrent to
01:24:37
Russia. That's what you're hearing
01:24:39
there. But NATO was always had an
01:24:44
anchor. Remember we talked about
01:24:45
anchors. The anchor in NATO was
01:24:48
America's protection of European
01:24:51
security. What you're seeing when
01:24:54
President Trump creates a problem, a
01:24:56
catastrophe the for the world and says
01:24:59
he won't send American uh forces in to
01:25:02
the straight of Hormuz, but he wants the
01:25:05
Europeans to send their forces into the
01:25:07
straight of Hormuz. This is the opposite
01:25:10
of protection. He's making NATO
01:25:13
countries or European countries
01:25:15
vulnerable and they're reacting to that
01:25:18
by saying we won't do it.
01:25:20
>> According to diplomats, NATO secretary
01:25:22
briefed member capitals today that Trump
01:25:25
is demanding concrete commitments within
01:25:28
the next few days from NATO to help to
01:25:30
secure the strait of Hormuz, which would
01:25:33
only make sense if you were doing phase
01:25:36
three, the ground operation. So you
01:25:38
cannot secure the straight of H for H
01:25:40
for H for H for H for H for H for H for
01:25:40
H for H formuz only with air power. We
01:25:42
if we could we already would. You can't
01:25:45
secure it only with naval power. If you
01:25:47
could we already would. We have a much
01:25:49
bigger navy, much bigger air forces than
01:25:51
any of those countries individually or
01:25:53
even combined. The only reason you would
01:25:56
really want those uh forces from NATO is
01:26:00
uh because you're planning on a bigger
01:26:02
ground operation and you're that's what
01:26:05
you're seeing right there. And I don't
01:26:06
think Europeans, let's not even talking
01:26:08
about the word NATO. I don't think the
01:26:10
Europeans are likely to do it because
01:26:12
you're seeing why would they, if they're
01:26:14
ever going to do it, Stephen, they would
01:26:16
want Trump out of office. The number one
01:26:18
thing that I don't think is going to
01:26:20
happen here is anybody's going to bail
01:26:23
out Trump.
01:26:24
>> It's political suicide really for a lot
01:26:25
of the European leaders.
01:26:27
>> Political suicide for the Democrats to
01:26:29
bail out Trump in our country. It's
01:26:31
going to start to become political
01:26:32
suicide for even Republicans to bail out
01:26:34
Trump. That's what you're going to start
01:26:36
to see in the fall. And it's going to be
01:26:38
political suicide for the Japanese, for
01:26:40
the Indians. This is the problem. Trump
01:26:43
caused the problem.
01:26:46
He's, as I said on your show last time,
01:26:48
he's going to become LBJ if he doesn't
01:26:50
uh take a deal soon. Well, that was 40
01:26:52
days ago, Stephen, and he still hasn't
01:26:54
taken the deal. Not really. And he's
01:26:57
becoming LBJ. Nobody's going to want to
01:26:59
be associated with him.
01:27:01
>> Here in the UK, we have Karma as the
01:27:02
prime minister. And it appears to me
01:27:06
that since he's come out and started
01:27:08
saying that he won't support Trump's
01:27:10
war, he we won't send troops to the
01:27:12
Middle East, it appears that that's
01:27:13
actually driven up his favorability
01:27:16
amongst certain people. And it makes me
01:27:18
think that actually, as we say, it's
01:27:19
it's political suicide for European
01:27:21
leaders to send troops there because
01:27:22
they will be they will lose the next
01:27:24
election in their country.
01:27:26
>> I I think you put it exact excellent,
01:27:28
Stephen. I I really can't improve on
01:27:30
that. Let me just say that a year ago
01:27:33
with the tariffs um I started to do a
01:27:36
study of tracking how European support
01:27:39
for America was starting to go into the
01:27:41
tank and that was with tariffs. Now what
01:27:46
Trump has done is he's driven up the
01:27:48
price of oil. He's hurting their
01:27:49
economies in a serious way and as that
01:27:53
actual damage occurs and it's still in
01:27:56
the pipeline. it hasn't hit as strong as
01:27:58
it likely will in the next month. You
01:28:01
are likely going to see that the publics
01:28:04
in Europe are going to become
01:28:06
anti-American
01:28:07
and it's not just going to be can't
01:28:09
support Trump anymore coming here. I had
01:28:12
to pay the the visa the ETA and it it
01:28:15
took forever and what's happening here.
01:28:18
We're getting some payback here on
01:28:20
Americans. I think this next next time I
01:28:23
come to London, I'm not going to be
01:28:24
surprised that the price of that visa is
01:28:26
doubling or tripling.
01:28:27
>> What is your closing highlevel remark
01:28:30
about all this stuff? And I guess I
01:28:32
really want to focus it on on the
01:28:33
average person who is going about their
01:28:35
life as a normal civilian in any of
01:28:38
these countries that are affected. What
01:28:39
is the highle point of view here that we
01:28:41
we need to close upon? The high level
01:28:43
point of view is we're about to start
01:28:46
think think seriously about the election
01:28:50
and what we need to do is not just
01:28:52
choose bounce back and forth between uh
01:28:56
Republican and Democrat and actually
01:28:58
Britain is a is a case study of what can
01:29:00
happen if you bounce back and forth
01:29:02
here. We need to start to really support
01:29:06
strong stable policies that will empower
01:29:11
the middle. The problem that we face,
01:29:14
Stephen, is we're moving back and forth
01:29:18
from really uh ideas here that uh one
01:29:21
year we we really don't like what
01:29:23
Biden's doing and now we have the
01:29:25
radical wing on the other side and we
01:29:26
certainly don't like that. Well, if we
01:29:28
keep going back and forth here between
01:29:31
two uh extreme alternatives, we'll just
01:29:34
get different versions of bad outcomes.
01:29:36
And it's not making things better. It's
01:29:38
a cycle that's making it solution.
01:29:41
>> The solution is the public needs to hear
01:29:45
that every election, every choice, we
01:29:48
are uh we have an opportunity here to
01:29:52
focus on the more centrist candidates.
01:29:55
And this is something that we really can
01:29:58
make decisions about. And it's just
01:30:02
simply the case that if we don't do
01:30:04
that, what you're going to get is you're
01:30:06
going to get back and forth bouncing
01:30:09
around. And I don't think a third party
01:30:11
here, these ideas are really very
01:30:13
meaningful. This really comes down to
01:30:16
talking to the public. And it's one of
01:30:17
the big reasons, Stephen, I'm going to
01:30:19
the podcast world because you remember I
01:30:22
I've advised every White House and so
01:30:24
forth. We've got to get beyond that.
01:30:26
We've got to actually talk to real
01:30:28
people and this is what you do and
01:30:32
increasingly I'm doing it and I really
01:30:35
believe that the podcast network is an
01:30:38
opportunity to do that. But it doesn't
01:30:40
mean that it forces people to vote
01:30:42
Democrat or Republican. We've got to
01:30:44
understand that we we can't just keep
01:30:47
thinking about uh well, okay, now we're
01:30:50
really mad at Donald Trump and we're
01:30:51
going to get the independents and now
01:30:53
they're going to vote with the Democrats
01:30:54
if all we do is end up getting another
01:30:57
extreme on the other side because what
01:30:59
you're going to do is you're going to
01:31:00
keep pissing off the middle and they're
01:31:02
going to keep bouncing back and forth.
01:31:04
And round after round, we've been doing
01:31:06
that now um for years in the United
01:31:09
States. And what does it look like? It
01:31:12
keeps getting worse. keeps getting
01:31:14
worse.
01:31:14
>> What are you suggesting the solution is?
01:31:15
Vote for the centrist candidate
01:31:17
>> all the way through. Yes. Yes. It's a
01:31:19
very simple thing, but it's not going to
01:31:20
happen unless we talk about this because
01:31:24
it does mean that sometimes the centrist
01:31:27
candidate is the person, the woman on
01:31:29
the other side. And if we're not willing
01:31:31
to do that, then we're really condemning
01:31:33
ourselves to this cycle. I'm going to
01:31:35
explain more about it. It's it's a
01:31:37
version of the escalation trap gone
01:31:39
domestic. It's called the legitimacy
01:31:42
shock cycle and I'll be talking more
01:31:44
about this in September. So the trap I'm
01:31:47
talking about here with violence and
01:31:49
politics isn't just international and
01:31:52
you end up with traps here domestically
01:31:54
as well. And I'd like to close with a
01:31:56
few thoughts for the people in Iran. I
01:31:58
think ever since I've put myself
01:32:00
mentally um in a situation where there
01:32:03
was a world leader saying that they were
01:32:04
going to annihilate my civilization and
01:32:07
there was bombs going off. You know,
01:32:08
we're currently filming this in our
01:32:09
London studio, but if there was bombs
01:32:11
going off around the studio and there
01:32:12
was threat that someone was going to
01:32:14
annihilate civilization, it's quite
01:32:16
unthinkable for me how I would I would
01:32:18
be functioning. And it immediately, I
01:32:20
think, shines a light on the the mental
01:32:22
health and psychology of the people in
01:32:23
Iran right now and how they must be
01:32:24
feeling. So, I think that's probably an
01:32:26
important message to share cuz we can
01:32:29
sometimes get a little bit caught up in
01:32:31
the hypotheticals of war and strategy
01:32:34
and all these kinds of things, but at
01:32:35
the end of the day, there's 90 plus
01:32:36
million people in Iran that are right in
01:32:39
the middle of this and we we're sat in
01:32:40
this very warm, cushy London studio. So,
01:32:43
>> well, there's a bond that is occurring
01:32:45
between the middle 60% of the American
01:32:49
public and the 92 million in Iran. Yeah,
01:32:53
>> they don't like the radicalism
01:32:57
and on on either side. And what you were
01:33:00
what you were vocalizing, Stephen, is
01:33:03
the frustration that our politics has
01:33:06
been locked up by the extremes. And I
01:33:09
suspect the 92 million in Iran are
01:33:12
feeling almost exactly the same thing.
01:33:13
Their choices now are being locked into
01:33:16
extremes. And that is that bond here
01:33:19
that you're trying to vocalize. I
01:33:21
believe it's valuable to vocalize it
01:33:24
because this is what it means to empower
01:33:26
the people and this is what it means to
01:33:27
be a democracy which is that we actually
01:33:30
talk about not just the other side is
01:33:33
bad and we're always good is we we talk
01:33:37
about where the future really should go
01:33:39
and the idea that we're even imagining
01:33:41
the possibility of a $40 trillion in
01:33:44
debt country getting rocked by um Iran
01:33:48
and Russia here who have their own
01:33:51
reasons for wanting to hurt us. We may
01:33:52
not fully realize that, but but we
01:33:55
really hurt Russia in the '9s here with
01:33:57
our ideas of shock therapy, and we made
01:33:59
out like bandits, by the way. Uh so that
01:34:02
the we we really do have some uh real
01:34:05
growing bonds at the social level.
01:34:08
>> Professor Robert P, thank you so much.
01:34:10
It's a pleasure to speak to you once
01:34:11
again. And uh this is such an evolving
01:34:13
situation, so I feel like we might end
01:34:14
up talking again at some point in the
01:34:16
future when things play out. Hopefully,
01:34:18
you know, one can only hope uh for peace
01:34:20
for for everybody situation
01:34:22
>> every day. That's my number one thing.
01:34:24
Just ask my wife. And by the way, will
01:34:26
you stop being so charismatic? Because
01:34:28
my wife, when we listen to this, she
01:34:30
turns my voice off. All she wants to do,
01:34:32
Stephen, is listen to you.
01:34:34
>> Is she American? I think Americans.
01:34:36
>> I'm just You have And you've made me up
01:34:39
my game.
01:34:40
>> That's so funny. Well, thank you so much
01:34:42
for your time and uh you've put a lot of
01:34:44
time into explaining this to layman's
01:34:45
like me and it's really helped turn the
01:34:47
the lights on to some degree. I'll I'll
01:34:49
be honest, it's turn the lights on and
01:34:51
with the lights on I am
01:34:55
confused. I'm confused about
01:35:00
which path is
01:35:02
productive and most beneficial to
01:35:05
society and humanity. And even though I
01:35:07
can see more clearly now about the
01:35:09
dynamics of all of these potential
01:35:11
pathways, none of them seem that great.
01:35:15
So that's where I'm going to leave it
01:35:16
for today. But we'll pick up this
01:35:17
conversation again soon when more
01:35:19
information comes in.
01:35:20
>> That's right. And let's hope it's not as
01:35:22
much as a trap as as I'm as I'm painting
01:35:24
it. But if it is, then it's really even
01:35:27
more important that when we get to the
01:35:29
fall, we don't mislead ourselves into
01:35:33
into thinking that this is just um
01:35:35
temporary, that it's all going to be
01:35:37
solved quickly. We need to understand
01:35:39
that we're going down some major major
01:35:42
roads here. And this situation, as bad
01:35:45
as it is, notice that it's actually
01:35:47
worse than it was a month ago when we
01:35:48
were here. It's worse, Stephen. And the
01:35:52
reason it's worse is we didn't head it
01:35:54
off enough at the past 40 when we when I
01:35:57
was here four weeks ago. If President
01:35:59
Trump had taken some of the deals that
01:36:01
we were talking about then we wouldn't
01:36:03
be anywhere near where we are today. So
01:36:06
as bad as that negotiating position I'm
01:36:08
say of can militarily containment of of
01:36:11
Israel I realize people are saying oh my
01:36:13
god could never happen. Well think about
01:36:15
the things that could never happen that
01:36:16
are happening right now. This is the
01:36:19
better pathway now. And if we don't take
01:36:21
this pathway now, we come back in a
01:36:23
month or two, it will be worse.
01:36:27
>> Thank you, Robin.
01:36:28
>> We're done.
01:36:29
>> Thank you.
01:36:29
>> Thank you so much.
01:36:31
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