Col Douglas Macgregor: War to the Last Missile in Iran

President Trump is in Turkey today talking to NATO and trying to figure out where we're going to go with the Russia Ukraine war. Still apparently wants to get that over with in a day. We'll see how that works out. Uh but there's also some issues going on in the Middle East and and trying to get the war there over with and whether President Trump is going to try to sound tough and was going to go back and finish the job uh or if we're going to try some sort of diplomatic outcome. We're going to try to figure that out and see what is the prospect for actually having peace in all of these places or will we get it in any of them. And there's nobody better to try to figure that out today than we have back with us, Colonel Douglas McGregor, uh, foreign and defense policy analyst, former adviser to Secretary of Defense, and of course, highly decorated combat veteran. Doug, welcome back to the show as always.

>> Yeah, good to be here, Dan. Well, listen, obviously we'd love to have you on every time we're able to get you on here, but uh people are going to pretty soon have an opportunity to see even more often uh when you have a new YouTube channel of your own called Warrior Diplomacy. Uh what you're seeing on the screen right there is the inaugural video that uh Doug allowed me and Joe Kent to be on there. It's on Warrior Diplomacy on YouTube. We'll have the links in the description there to uh to tell us. what I want if you could like in a you know just a short period of here tell us what the what your intent is with this uh uh channel and what can people expect?

>> Well, as as we discussed at the time, we we're trying to pick topics that are of interest to people particularly oriented on foreign policy and and the military. We're not going to exclude anything else, but I mean that's where we started and we just wanted to listen listen to what different people with different ages and backgrounds had to say. I I think it turned out well.

>> Well, I certainly did and it's gotten I think it's getting good uh good uh play play here and we'll hope to see more out of that channel. Uh but uh let's go ahead and jump right into the to the topic that's hot right now and that is uh the the war in in the Middle East. It's it's sort of in a pause right now. It's it's in a quasi diplomacy state, but apparently according to President Trump yesterday, it could go back to war at any moment.

>> Look, we're going to win one way or the other. We're either going to make a deal or we're going to finish the job. Okay? And it won't be tough to finish the job. Uh I'd rather make a deal because I don't want to affect 91 million people. We can knock down their bridges in one hour. We can knock out their energy supply. all of those big plants that they built, big, beautiful, modern plants. They had a lot of money. They don't have any money now. We haven't given them any money. But we can knock out their electricity and power generating plants and I would say a small part of an afternoon, every plant will be gone. And they know that.

You know, Doug, let me ask you right off the top there. We're allegedly, according to this memorandum of understanding, in a 60-day negotiating period where we're trying to figure all this out. 60 days. And now here we're at the still in the front end of this. And he's already acting like nothing's happening. He's threatening to go back to war. Is that going to get the Iranian side to do what he wants?

>> No. But I think we ought to consider the following. First of all, if we look at those uh 14 points, Dan, is there really any chance whatsoever that we would ever willingly sign up for all 14 and support them? I I don't think so. I think that was always uh mission impossible for Donald Trump because it is the tacit mission that we were defeated militarily and having been defeated militarily could not achieve Israel's goals, which is really why we fought the war to begin with. And remember those goals have changed. Initially the idea was we'll topple the government. As a result, large numbers of Iranians who utterly hate and despise their government will all come out of the woodwork, help overthrow the government, and we'll be able to install a puppet. And the principal Israeli puppet was supposed to be the crown prince of Iran or the I guess I should say uncrowned prince. That failed. So having failed to do that, the only thing that was left for the Israelis that's acceptable is the utter and complete destruction of Iran. And that's what's on the agenda. I don't see any evidence based upon what you just heard from President Trump that the disintegration of the state uh the the utter obliteration of Iran is not still the preferred outcome. Everything else is just nonsense. And when he starts talking about what he's going to bomb, those are really not militarily significant targets, are they? We're talking about killing civilians, destroying lots of infrastructure, and expecting that we will leave Iran in complete ruins, rendering it totally incapable of governing itself, holding itself together, and presenting ultimately, most important, obviously, any kind of threat to Israel. So to answer your question, this is not over. We are at a pause and I think we should talk about what the justification for the pause is as well.

>> And and I I do want to get to that. Um I mean I I wonder if uh you mentioned something about the the initial uh objective was to get all these people to come out of the woodworks and there was no question there was a significant number of people inside Iran that didn't like their government. They definitely were hatred uh hated it. I've talked to a number of them myself, but as a result of this bombing, and I think you and I talked about this before the thing, the likely outcome was going to be a rally around the flag kind of thing. Well, based on the the uh funeral here in the last number of days because it's been a a long elaborate deal, there's a lot of people that came out of the woodwork for the government. And I don't know that I've ever seen a country more unified and certainly in the gross numbers of people that came out and flooded the country of this apparently in the multi-millions especially across different country uh different cities. What do you make of the what you're seeing on the screen now and uh that the increased hatred for Trump himself but the galvanizing of a large number of people for the regime.

>> Dan, I think we have to regard what we're seeing on the screen as a kind of national catharsis. I mean, they're in a position where they know they're not by any stretch of the imagination a superpower. They're up against a superpower. Plus, it's uh partner Israel. Israel is ultimately in control. So, I guess we have to say the Israeli American uh superpower. They didn't expect to be as successful as they were, though they've obviously been preparing for this for a long time. They did everything they could to strengthen their defenses. They have a real strategy which has helped to concentrate their military power where it counts most. But the bottom line is this is a catharsis. This I I think this is beyond just religious fervor. This is a national event where people are mourning not just the death of this man who in many ways ends up being a metaphor for so many people killed in the war to this point. A an old man with his family sitting in a in a in a bunker of some kind in a room who fully expected to be murdered by the Israelis or us. Turns out he was right. But he is in fact a metaphor for the suffering of the entire country. Everybody who I'm not saying everybody who is who is there is not religiously motivated. What I'm trying to get across is that we we have turned this into a national catharsis a meaningful event that will shape people for many many years. It's the kind of thing, and I'm sure you've experienced this, if you go to Vulgarrad, used to be called Stalenrad, and there's a memorial there, and you can't help but once you're in there and you listen to the music that's being played, and you recognize the losses and what the the true pain that was involved, that becomes a memorial for the kind of thing that you're seeing right now in Tyrron. It's the same kind of thing. Anybody who goes there feels this. I think this is going to be the case in Iran for a very very long time.

Now is does that mean that uh anything that Trump says is meaningful? No, I think it is meaningful. I think that he's reinforcing what the Iranians collectively, whether it's their government or the population, think the interesting part though for for us before this war started, one of the things I said was if we just did nothing to Iran, in 6 to 12 months, we would see a a major change in the government there because that's where things were headed. Society itself wants change. The people that want that change are not all dead. A lot of them we killed when we bombed certain sections of Tyrron where we had clearly people that we would describe as middle and upper middle class, well educated, they were among the most articulate opponents of the regime, not of their country but of the government and the advocates for change. But they're still there. Whenever this ends, it may take a little longer now, maybe a year, two years, but we are going to see a new government come to power then. There's no question in my mind about that. But for the moment, while this war lasts, and they believe rightly that it is still on, uh you're going to see unmatched unity in the history of Persia. And apparently the there's a lot of those uh who want it to continue on on the western side.

You know, we we often talk and I'm sure when Gary plays us here in a minute with Jack Keane, you're going to hit the that little silly warning sign that we have and for good reason. But the reason why we keep showing him is because when Jack Keane very often says something both in the Iranian war and also in the Russian Ukraine war, things that he says he talks about getting on the phone with Trump and then subsequently oftenimes those things actually turn into American policy. So we just saw President Trump a second ago saying what he did yesterday about we go back and finish the job. Here's what Jack Keane said on the same topic.

>> Keith Kellogg was very blunt about it. He says it's time for a second wave of bombing. Go ahead and hit Car Island to wreck their economic and oil structure. What do you think about that?

>> They're diabolical, tyrannical radicals who are going to go right back to all the objectives that they've always had. develop a nuclear weapon, accelerate ballistic missile development so that they can overwhelm the US bases, the Gulf States and Israel. That's the path they were on when we went to war. And they're going to continue to support for proxies. The evidence is what is happening with Hezbollah and Lebanon. They're they've got their full support. I think that is the path that we're on. You know, the president, he's going to put up with this. He already has a healthy dose of skepticism whether we're going to make a deal or not. It's likely we're going to return to combat operations.

>> And and you know, Doug, let me let me just ask your opinion because Jack Keane is nothing if not consistent uh with the mischaracterization that Iran is the evil empire. They're all wicked. There's no good in them. All they want is this lust to destroy America and destroy Israel, which is laughable at face value, but that's what he keeps saying, and people listen to that there. But if Trump does what he suggests, I mean, he's still is a four-star general. I got it. He gets paid. He's for the Institute for the Study War and all the money that comes in, all the Israeli money, whatever. But if he gets his way and Trump does strike those kinds of targets that he was talking about, energy and uh oil infrastructure, etc., we know what that's going to result in in the rest of the region, which is going to be catastrophic for our own economic interests. How can you make his argument there make any sense when he knows he's got to know that it will harm us a lot worse than doing nothing?

>> Well, President Trump, if he were a truly independent agent and acting as president of the United States, would not have ever embarked on this course of action. You know, we've said this for a long time. President Trump is under duress. Now, what that is, I don't know. I mean, there are people out there that talk about, you know, his routine mention in the Epstein files or something. I don't know. The only comment I would make is that the Mossad has had access to all the information in the Epstein files for a long time. So they could have easily utilized that material against him in 2016. They did not. And they didn't really need to pull it out and exploit it when he ran for reelection uh in uh 2020. So, I'm not sure what it is, but he's clearly under duress because what he is saying is laughable. It's it's utterly ridiculous. But you have to understand that people like General Keane and others are part of this cabal in Washington that is very well rewarded financially for their support of Israel and whatever the Israeli leadership in the United States and in Israel wants. So, you've got an Israel first government. The only people that are paying attention to this and believe in any of this are people in my age group because they live permanently in the past and they spend all of their free time watching Fox News whenever they can. Then they go back to playing golf or shuffleboard or pickle ball or something else and then it's back to Fox before they go to bed at night. These are not people actively on the internet searching for the truth. They're not looking for alternative outlets. Uh, and they're not interested in listening to people like you and me. They're very comfortable with the narrative. But the rest of the population, no, absolutely not. But it doesn't matter. And that's what most Americans need to understand. The fact that what 70% or more of the American electorate or people that were polling are utterly opposed to the war doesn't matter. That's what people need to understand. It doesn't matter what they think. They're not in control of their government. Their government is an Israel first government. The people in Washington are comfortable with that. It's made them rich and they want to stay there and they're not going to roll back the influence and power of the pharmaceutical companies or any of the major lobbies that are out there. They're all very comfortable. And Americans are finally going to have to figure out that none of this works anymore. the government doesn't work, elections are irrelevant, they're going to have to do something about it. But they won't until they are suffering. And whatever bad things have happened to them to this point, they shrink to insignificance next to what can happen in the future. And I agree with you, the notion of going back to war is completely and utterly insane. But they will uh I'm confident.

Now, when will you have someone like Larry Johnson and I respect Larry a great deal as you know and his sources and he says nothing will happen till after midterms. Maybe uh I don't know that they can hold out that long. But I do know one thing is if you look at the state of our munitions, our missiles, our weapon systems right now, the United States Navy has more tubes, more launchers if you will, than they have missiles to put in them. Wow.

>> And that's been true for some time and that's not going to change quickly. So what are we doing? I think we're building furiously. I think we're, you know, Trump is trying to do everything he can to extract more from the military-industrial complex that he can use against Iran. And I think one of the things that he's worried about at this stage is that any plan that people may have had to attack China, I think is probably in the trash because they realized, good lord, we can't even defeat Iran on we can't roll them back from where they were. How could we possibly take on China? And I think that's a very legitimate observation. I think they're right. We can't. But on the other hand, he is saying, "Can we afford to lose this war?" Well, my argument is that for most Americans, the answer is yes. They don't care. And we haven't had massive American casualties. We've had casualties, and they're regrettable, but not large numbers of them. So the real question at this point is if you're president and you're Israel first, do you put everything at risk to make the Israel first lobby the people that put you into office that own the hill to make them happy? Or do you stand back and say, "Look, can't do this. Uh I don't have enough weapon systems ready to go. I don't have a large enough arsenal. It's going to take time to rebuild that. And if I go back at this at some point in the future, the opponent will probably be stronger than it was in the past anyway. And we might not win. And if we can't win, then why should we fight? You know, the first lesson of military history over the last 5,000 years is if you don't have to fight, don't fight. But if you do have to fight, pick the time and the place of your own choosing. Make sure the conditions are favorable to you. That doesn't mean go six 7,000 miles around the world on a very shoestring logistical structure and depend exclusively on air and naval power to do the job. But that's what we've done.

>> It is and and that that has put us in a terrible terrible situation. So, President Trump and and his desire to plate the the Jack Keane wing of the Republican party and and this this whole una party really it's not even the Republican party uh that are all for going back into conflict to make Israel happy or whatever their actual motive is. There's probably multiple there's a couple of big problems with with that. Number one, the military is not going to succeed. But to even try to get something outside of that is going to be made near impossible by the objectives we have set. And and there's two big areas. One is that the first point of the uh memorandum of understanding is that the war has to end in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. And then number two is the very close to number two is the straight of Hormuz because that's where our economic lifeline is. Here is Professor Morandi earlier today addressing both of those issues. We're going to start off with his comments on the straight of Hormuz and it ain't up for negotiation as far as they're concerned. The Iranians have told the Omani government that they would like to work with them to have negotiations. But the Iranians have also said if Oman pulls back under duress from the United States, uh Iran will do it alone. So Iran is not going to wait for Oman. Uh the decision has been made in Iran that they will for now on control the strait. they will take uh fees, not extraordinarily high fees because Iran wants uh shipping to go through this trade. Iran wants the Persian Gulf to be a source of uh wealth for the entire region and for Iran as well. Um but Iran will also prevent uh hostile ships, naval ships uh from the Israeli regime or the United States from being able to go to the Persian G to militarize it once again. It sounds to me and just I mean aside from what he's saying, but just from what we see from the official Iranian leadership that they have calculated that we endured everything you had to throw at us for 40 days and 40 nights. We know where your inventories are down low. We know what you can't do because we're still under granite mountains with our drone and missile forces. So, um yeah, we're going to do what we say we're going to do. I don't care what you think. And what are you going to do? You going to go back to war to do it? It seems to me like that the Iranian side is willing to have Jack Keane succeed and they'll still hold on to that straight. What do you think?

>> I think for the Israelis and increasingly for President Trump unfortunately because he obviously is their instrument. Uh this is war to the last missile. That's what people need to understand. Uh this is the sort of situation that that they find themselves in. Israel is now in a point of weakness unlike anything they've faced in their entire history. The entire Greater Israel project, this war against everyone in the region for the permanent security, protection, and hegemony of Jewish power has failed. It's backfired. They know that. And it's it's almost as though you are let let's put it in a context Americans can understand. Imagine you are a small force in the west in Arizona in the 1870s and you are surrounded by hostile tribes, Apache, Comanche, whatever. And you look at your ammunition, you have maybe 100 rounds per man left. You started out with a thousand rounds per man and you're not sure you're going to get any resupply. What do you do? Well, if you surrender or you try to escape, you're likely going to be you'll be destroyed. And so, it's better to sort of clean off your ammunition, check your weapons, and get ready for the next round than it is to do anything else. That's why I say this is this is war to the last missile. By the way, it's not just Israel that's in this position. It's also true for Kief and for Zilinski. For them, it's also war to the last missile. This is a losing proposition. But I think in both cases, there's a growing awareness that the two states and their leaders have done such terrible things to their opponents. There isn't really much hope for any alternative to quote unquote victory or death. And so, I think we'll see them both vanish in the months ahead as states on the map.

And so do do you the big question is uh that apparently is an open question in Washington is it for you can ma can Iran make good on this meaning if it goes back to war can they hang on to the straight like they say

>> yes there's nothing to keep them from doing so I mean they're in a very wonderful position the straight for reasons of geology and topography is very difficult to control but they have the means we do not. This is not uh a place that you can easily assault on the ground or from the air and exert any real control or influence. They can, as you point out, effectively destroy everything on the western side of the Gulf. They can do that. I would argue the Iranians can destroy Israel as well, completely. And increasingly, there doesn't seem to be much incentive for the Iranians to do much else. I mean, if you're sitting in their position right now and you know that we're trying to build replacements, why wait around? You know, what's the incentive to wait? It's so Russian position in 2022 was well, we we have an inkling of what's going on over in eastern Ukraine. They captured plans that they had found in eastern Ukraine that talked about the reconquest of Crimea and striking deep into Russia. They knew what was buil being built up. They didn't appreciate how bad it was. They underestimated the enormous investment of time, money, and resources that we had made in the Ukrainians. But it became clear that there's no incentive to wait around to be destroyed. It's better to take it on, fight it, and win it regardless of how long it takes. I think that's the Iranian position, too. And I I think it's the winning the winning card, so to say. They can outlast everybody else. That's why I say it's war till the last missile. Who runs out first?

>> And and you know it's it's ironic and and distressing if that was the only issue we had of the straight of hormuz. It's a pretty bleak picture for us. But there's one other issue that makes it even more amazingly bad for our side is that is point number one in this whole memorandum is that the war has to end in Lebanon between Israel and Hamas who wasn't even neither one of them were even party to theou. Uh Professor Mirandi also spoke on that and and laid out an even more clear Iranian position than they have to date on that topic. The Iranians have been very clear to the Americans. There will be no nuclear deal if Lebanon is evacuated. If if it is not evacuated, if the war does not end, there will be no nuclear negotiations if this does not take place. So that's really up to the Americans. And uh in addition to that, the Iranians can make life for the Americans much more difficult in the straight of Hormos. If the Americans refrain from carrying out their obligations elsewhere, then the Iranians will feel that they are not obliged to allow all that many ships to pass through. And that's actually what they're doing right now. But that that is that's President Trump's primary uh political requirement, no nuclear weapons, etc. But he's saying it and it's it's so weird because the Iranian side has always said we aren't going after nuclear weapons. So that's that's easy. We'll we'll declare that and whatever. We'll negotiate that after these other things are done. But now they're saying we won't even start that process unless this happens. And so Doug, I mean, tell me if you'd see it differently, but if that is truly the position of the Iranian government, there won't be any negotiations at all because Israel will never do what was required.

>> Well, from the standpoint privately uh of people in Washington and Israel is very much the same. This nuclear business is almost a distraction. In fact, I would say it's a major strategic distraction. If you go back and look at the comments that were made before and immediately after this the first major round of war that began in February and then concluded uh you know I would argue I guess at least temporarily uh before uh July. What what was the focus? What did what did people talk about? They say, "Well, you know, nuclear weapons, yeah, that that's important, but it's really the ballistic missile arsenal. It's Iran's ability to threaten Israel." And that's the problem. What Morandi says is not wrong, but he needs to understand something. There is only one acceptable outcome for Israel in this war, and that is the complete destruction of Iran. Just as the only outcome right now that satisfies people in KF and for that matter in the globalist elites, not the populations of Europe, but the globalist elites is the destruction of Russia. Just as they wanted to carve up Russia into smaller pieces, rape it and exploit it for its resources. That's exactly what the people in Washington and in Israel want to do to Iran. That has not changed. Now the the other issue on on nuclear weaponry is as follows. If you were really all that concerned about preventing people from developing and fielding nuclear weapons, don't attack them. But that never really occurred to anybody because it really wasn't at the top of the agenda. Remember, the Israelis would probably welcome any excuse they could find to launch a nuclear weapon at Iran. And we would probably sit there and applaud. Fine, great. Go ahead and do it. Don't wait for anybody in the United States to wake up, smell the coffee, and understand the utter insanity and folly of all of this. Don't don't expect anybody to take note of the views of the rest of the world, let alone the Chinese and the Russians. It's not going to happen. Nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn. So what are we dealing with? We're dealing with the kings of the world. Obedient servants of the Jewish lobby in the United States. Well paid for their trouble. Well paid for their efforts. Richly rewarded for everything they say and do. And they are going to fogg this horse until it's dead. That's Iran. So having said that, what is Professor Morandi's answer? Build more missiles. strengthen your defenses. Get ready for the worst because it's coming. I don't think Iran has much choice in that matter.

>> And and and and you know, I I'm listening to you talk here, Doug, and and I'm remembering things that we've said over the the months, uh things that we said prior to the war started, and it seems to me we have now, and tell me if you agree or disagree with this, we have we have walked ourselves into the worst imaginable outcome. You are lobbied so many times. All you got to do is the walk away theory. Just walk away, declare victory, say whatever you want, and then just leave. And then don't even worry aboutus or negotiations, anything else. You can just declare your victory and leave. That would have been the least bad option we had. But I think that now that we have with thisou, Trump has trapped himself into not even a no- win. That would have been a no-win situation. This is nearly, this is what I think from listening to you, we're in a must-lose situation now because with the straight of hormones, we can't get it fully open and we can't get the terms that we want and Lebanon's not going to go anywhere or Hezbollah is not going to go anywhere now then the only thing Trump can do is to go back to war because if he just walks away now without the straight Hormuz or without Lebanon then now that he is seen as a loser. So it seems to me like almost all the pressure is that he must go and do this which will guarantee a physical defeat.

>> Yes, I think that's true. And I think again uh I don't want to don't want to keep repeating it, but I think it's true. It's war to the last missile and we're not leaving until we think we have expended all of our munitions and capabilities. We're not going anywhere. And Donald Trump, the big disappointment with Donald Trump is as follows. If you go back and it's not just a question of looking at what he was saying before he was elected, but let's look at what he's done since he arrived. What has he really succeeded in fundamentally changing? And I think the answer is nothing. Arguably one of the keystones in the edifice of success that he was trying to build was the simple passage of legislation on voter integrity. I mean it's hard to imagine any country in the world that would say we don't want every citizen that comes to vote on election day to show their identity lest we should discover they are American citizens. Instead, we don't want to demand anything of anybody, and effectively, we're leaving that into the lapse of the states. So, there's no voter integrity. If there's no voter integrity, how meaningful are elections? If elections aren't meaningful, what does that say about the republic? Now, you would think that what I just described would be at the top of Donald Trump's list of critical tasks to be performed. Have you heard him say a lot about that lately? Not really. Uh I think he's walked away from these things that were vitally important to the survival of our republic and instead is focused on all the things that are important to his donors, to the donor class, the global globalists that currently govern the west. Uh what else do you want to call them besides donors and globalists? Zionists. Uh neocons. Uh the Epstein class. I mean, use whatever you want. All lump them together. They're the people that are driving the strain. They could care less about elections. They could care less about the electorate. They don't care who shows up or doesn't show up. They're in control. That's the problem. And President Trump has done nothing to change that, nor do I expect that he will in the near future.

>> Yeah. And that that uh that leaves us in in a big conundrum. I mean, if we just ended the show right there, that's it's a pretty bleak outlook here. Unfortunately, there's another side to this whole problem here. And you you mentioned war to the last missile. Well, that doesn't just apply in the Middle East. That also applies in the the Russia Ukraine war. And in fact, that seems to be something that Vimir Zilinski wants to help accelerate because he's really keenly interested in those missiles. Nonsense. So he's saying and he has said in in the previous few days, look to all of NATO, forget about this 2027 because apparently there's already some contracts to give them some patriots in 2027 that have yet to be built. He said, you know what, forget about all that. give me all of them that you have right now and then give me this this additional uh ability to manufacture going forward in my country here. Uh what do you think of that idea?

>> Well, he's also mentioning something else that I think is worth noting in the context of what he was discussing. He was saying what is wrong that the western world is not adequately mobilized its industry its capabilities its forces to support Malinski. Now you know I've never been a supporter of this man. He like everything else associated with the Ukrainian war is a fraud. I mean this is someone Kamoyski a famous Jewish oligarch from Russia who then moved into Ukraine and established himself and made billions. He's now, I guess, sitting in jail somewhere. He's the one that found Silinski, who grew up speaking only Russian, who was a comedian, not a Ukrainian ethnically, and certainly not by birth, and puts him in charge of Ukraine with the help, of course, of the Nuland and Kagans and others. Now, these people created this fictitious government, and we have been backing it to the hilt thanks to the CIA and, you know, the United Kingdom's uh MI6. And he's saying, "Look, you put me here. I was willing to try and get out of this with a peace agreement. You sent in Boris Yeltson. He promised me the world. You haven't delivered." And what he's really saying is if you don't give me everything now, I'm not going to be here in another year. And he's correct. He is absolutely correct. Now, there's something else that is never mentioned. That is that President Putin has exercised enormous restraint. He's always been opposed to any action that might result in the sudden introduction of NATO forces into the equation. He doesn't want a major war. He's handled that very well. But things are getting rough right now in this war in the sense that the Russian people certainly have run out of patience. But we need to remember that President Putin also has enormous influence in Venezuela, in Cuba, even in Mexico. He has enormous Venezuelan enormous amount of influence in many countries. he could escalate the conflict that we've got going right now in Ukraine against him and for that matter what we're doing in in the Middle East to destroy Iran and move this horizontally into the Western Hemisphere. We we are lucky that we've got President Putin on the other side of this equation. The problem is somewhere along the line, President Trump seemed to promise some degree of flexibility, understanding or agreement in Alaska that turned out to be a complete and utter fraud. And I think that's begun to really change the situation and the attitude in Moscow towards us. It's not simply we can't believe in anything the Americans say. They're really the enemy too, just as much as the people in Europe. I think that's very dangerous and that's why it is not impossible that we could see dramatic events over the next several months. The assumption that the Russians will sit quietly uh gradually bite off pieces of their enemy there. Now we've got these fortress cities that are falling, but not move beyond that I think is a mistake. I think it's very dangerous. This is a more dangerous period right now than perhaps any that we've seen to this point. So I don't know which which particular conflict blows up in our faces first, whether it's Iran or Ukraine. And I don't exclude trouble in the Caribbean with Cuba and Venezuela and Mexico. But nobody seems to be focused on any of those things. Nobody sees any connectivity between those things. And we really ought to. There's more going on than we realize. So we don't have control over what's happening in our own country and that's another matter. We haven't even talked about economics and you can bring on Jeff Curry who knows more about the oil market and oil trade than anybody but you can bring on any number of people beyond him. No one can predict with absolute certainty but we know we're headed for an emergency set of circumstances between now and the fall in the oil markets that's going to have an impact here at home as well. Is anybody really thinking that through? Or is President Trump absolutely convinced that he can simply manipulate these markets in perpetuity because we're running out of the oil to do it? Now, maybe that'll change and, you know, sun will break through and and suddenly all the bad weather will go away. I don't know. But I think there are too many variables. There's too much potentially bad that could go wrong. But no one seems to tie that together in any sort of meaningful way.

>> No. And in something that's just not auguring well for this sun to be broken through or to to for us to suddenly discover sanity. Uh obviously President Trump does by all accounts think that he can into perpetuity manipulate the markets and the paper market that he can manipulate somehow will translate into the physical market. Uh that's probably not going to happen. But that also that mentality translates into the war itself in the Russia Ukraine war. And let me just show you this is this is kind of a mainstream view. You might not have even heard of this guy Andrew Harding uh who was on Fox News talking about how the mainstream sees this war right here. And I think this illuminates an even bigger problem.

>> I think if any president is going to ensure both sides come together, it's going to be President Trump. That's not to say that any type of ceasefire or a pause in fighting is easy. Clearly it hasn't been. But the president has a strong track record certainly in the second administration in securing pauses in fighting, ceasefires, even long-term stoppages in fighting between different countries around the world or different parties around the world. Whether that's with Israel and Hamas, that's India and Pakistan or certainly more recently with the United States and Iran. Here, the president is very much focused on seeing diplomacy prevent conflict from becoming bigger issues.

>> No, I I've aside from just the insanity of of that, there has been because President Trump said it a couple of days ago that he still wants a diplomatic end and I think I think we're going to get it. He said I think we're on I got on the phone on the 4th of July with President Putin and I mean you could have lifted that almost verbatim from January 21st of last year when he took over and said the same things and 18 months later nothing happens and people still keep listening to them. And then this this guy here, I think he's probably talking not to the Fox News audience, but to President Trump himself, who obviously always watches this and it's just feeding his ego that he can do all these things and he's doing none of them. What are your concerns if Trump believes his own rhetoric?

>> I think we should send that young man down to Fort Benning uh and he should spend some time in the eye and eventually someone will punch him out and throw his ass out and that should end his career. Uh, he's pretty good. It's pretty annoying. He he sort of embodies in his appearance and and speech and so forth everything I think is wrong with American manhood these days. There isn't much manhood. And he's willing to say whatever, you know, the people that put money in his pocket say. Look, this is all crap. It all means nothing. It's all nonsense. Unfortunately, as we began this program, I said most of my generation listens to it. That's the problem.

>> Yeah.

>> They continue to listen to it and they believe it. Uh but everybody else has walked away. So I think once you get under the age of 50, you begin to see more and more and more and more people say this is nonsense. This makes no sense at all. I don't want anything to do with it. I think the the truth is that in the eyes of most of the electorate, our great institutions of governance are entirely lacking in legitimacy. That's a very dangerous thing. People just don't believe what they're being told anymore. Uh but again, if you're living in the bubble of Washington DC, there are no problems. If you move a 100 miles west, south or northeast or northwest, you begin to get a very different picture. But unfortunately, inside Washington, fantasy world uh is intact. And he's an example of it.

>> And uh let's shifting back over to to Ankora where the NATO summit is starting today. Uh there's even more going if you can you can say and just kind of wag your head on this this guy. He's a young guy. doesn't know anything. But it's it's a lot different when it's somebody who's supposed to know something. Especially the NATO Secretary General Mark Rut who is going to in this this clip here is starting a path that you can see that is very much uh symptomatic and systematic into demonizing Russia to make everybody want to go to war with them. the idea of loyalty to the United States. Do you think that's important within NATO?

>> Well, of course, it's loyalty to everyone, to everybody. This is how this alliance has been created. 32 nations being totally loyal to each other. That means that an attack on one is an attack on all the article five, the fact that we all agree that Russia is the long-term threat. Look at the declaration we agreed on in the H last year. Uh we will come out with a new declaration on Wednesday. Of course, I cannot talk about that, but I'm I have every confidence that it will be very strongly worded again.

>> Doug, what what is it? What can we surmise from the fact that you have the secretary general just like his predecessor Yin Stolenberg, who never even contemplated any kind of diplomacy or an off-ramp and only went down the path of more military. Is there any prospect, maybe I'm missing something. Is there any prospect that by demonizing Russia and turning them into a permanent enemy that somehow it can result in something good for the alliance?

>> I think he must have finished recently reading uh Alexander Duma's Three Musketeers. Uh he's confusing the three musketeers with the 30 plus members of NATO. Everybody in NATO has a different perspective. This is the problem with the alliance. It's why Eisenhower opposed the expansion of the alliance when he was president. In fact, he wanted to neutralize countries in most of Eastern Europe, make them neutral states. He said, first of all, we don't have the military power and the wherewithal in the United States to defend all these countries against the Soviets. He said secondly, he didn't buy into the notion that the Soviets were a hellbent for another war on the scale of the Second World War. He knew too much about the war. had an appreciation for the destruction wrought against the Soviets. So his view was let's make these places neutral and that included Poland. I think ultimately if he'd had the opportunity he probably would have signed on for that in Germany as well. But my point is this uh RA is an empty suit. So is Stolenberg. These people were picked by Washington DC, by this cabal of neocons, globalists, uh, whatever you want to call them, Zionists, the whole crowd together, uh, in Washington DC. He's our man. He's going to keep this war going. He'll sustain it. He'll do whatever we tell him. I mean, I once, uh, heard from a secretary of the Navy who was asked by the Secretary of Defense, you know, is there anybody you want to get rid of? And this man turned around and said, "Yeah, I want to be rid of this CNO, the Chief of Naval Operations." And the Secretary of Defense said, "Oh, no, no, no. You can't do that." He said, "Well, why not?" He said, "I'm going to make him the chairman of the Joint Chiefs." I said, "What? This man's not competent. He's made a mess of everything in the Navy. Why would you do that?" He said, "Because he's the only man I know who will do exactly what I tell him." Okay, now that's within the last 35 years. So

What you're seeing is essentially the same thing play out. NATO is an empty facade. These are these are states with liilipian organizations.

Now let's back up a minute. Let's look at Warsaw. A lot of things have been happening in Poland and people aren't paying attention to them. You know there was a quite a a serious falling out if you will between the Ukrainians and the Poles. Now having millions of Ukrainians pour into Poland as refugees hasn't helped matters. Historically, the Ukrainians and Poles have had trouble dealing with each other as it is.

But recently, what we've seen is that uh the president of Poland, of the order of the eagle, white eagle, which is the highest honor that you can confer on someone from Zalinski and bringing it back to Poland. And Zilinski said, "Take your white chicken back and have it." And then subsequently the Polish government has decided to declassify the contents of all the shipments of arms and equipment that are being sent to Ukraine from Poland.

Well, this is a very good thing because as people go through this, and I don't think you're going to see a lot of attention given to it here in the United States, probably not in the globalist controlled Western European states either. Excuse me. But I think what you're going to find out is that vast quantities of this were pilferred, stolen, resold on the black market, misused, abused, and so forth.

The polls are waking up. Now, the population of Poland has for some time to the tune of 55 to 60% been opposed to entering any war against Russia. I think that's important since they're on the front line. Now they've fallen out with Ukraine, which they regard increasingly as a criminal organization. They don't even see it as a real state anymore. It's a country, but not a real nation state in the way that we normally think of it.

Now, that's that's just Poland, but Poland is a big chunk of NATO. People don't realize this. The Poles probably have the best army on the European continent. Polish troops are excellent, well disciplined, well trained. uh and the polls are happy to maintain an even larger army regardless of whatever pressure we put on them. That that has nothing to do with it.

But the point is NATO itself is finished. Its members are not comfortable. They're not happy. People are going through the motions. There is very little unity of action and unity of purpose in NATO. I don't expect to see any emerge. And once again, it's because if you go to Stockholm and then you fly down to Lisbon or Madrid, the views of the world are very different. You cannot expect Mal me Maloney in Rome to share the same view of the world that is common in Helsinki.

Now, having said that, we should talk a little bit about the potential for extreme stupidity and danger in North uh East Europe right now. Well, and and that's actually what I do. I know we're running short on time here. Uh so I'll just kind of run through a lightning here because it all is all connected here. Uh we have a number of things you talk about NATO doesn't have any uh consensus. At least some of the the elite leaders are trying to tie everybody together to something that's going to stir something because like here just today, eight tankers were attacked uh in the Russian shadow fleet in the Azovv area on top of two that were the day before uh Bansk and Belgar were attacked again successfully by the Ukrainian side into Russia. Um, and then you had uh here this uh um the uh leader in in uh Finland that said he supports Union Ukraine's intensifying drone strikes deep within Russia. Uh you had let's see the the new Latvian prime minister who who came out and said yes I'm I'm I'm hosting 14 military contingents from NATO countries as a warning to Russia. Uh and then we had this uh gem here where uh Voven and Lexus uh the well-known Russian pranksters uh got together with the the leader in one of the presidential supporters um Madrid role in uh in Tinan and he said, "Hey, we'll be happy to help Kiev with attacks on St. Petersburg." And he promised it support and coordination and even admitted that the Estonian air defense has holes. Uh but this was it turned out to just be a hoax.

But that the fact that he's willing to do that, I mean, what do you make of all this stuff, Doug? Because when you add this one last piece here, Germany is plans on a sharp rise in its defense spending, 125 billion just next year. It's like a a one-third increase in a single year. Russia can't ignore all of these things because this is not just rhetoric. A lot of these are actions. What is the implication for security here? And what will Russia do?

>> Well, let's dismiss Germany upfront. uh whatever they allocate to defense, it would take 10 years to build a German army. There is effectively not much of an army there right now in order to build something capable of taking on and fighting a force like the modern Russian army. 10 years. Having said that, Germany is increasingly reaching that point of almost total de-industrialization. I don't know how much longer the German state and economy will survive. I mean, if anybody can stretch it out, it's the Germans. They can always make something from nothing. But the population is very restive. And again, what will it take for the population to be rid of Matts and the people in Berlin? I don't know. But I think it's probably closer than many of us realize. And I'll know more because I'm headed to Germany in the near future and I'll find out a little bit more about what's actually happening on the ground.

Now, having said that, let's go back to the others. Uh, my my sources tell me that this man in Finland is in fact a CIA asset. Uh, I'm not an intelligence expert, but I would encourage those who are, and you know who some of them are, to dig into that because I've got that gotten that from some very reliable sources. That wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't be the first time we've done this. But for him to successfully take Finland from a very successful economic state and I would argue a very successful society and turn it into a bull work of American imperial intervention in northeast uh Europe and Scandinavia is quite an achievement. It's astonishing.

Now we know that the Finns have had problems for a long time with the Soviets. their their experience under Soviet rule or with the Soviets was never good. They they weren't terribly happy to be under Russian rule, but their experience with the Soviets during and and after the Second World War were not good, but they managed to navigate those waters successfully and come out the winners, I would argue, on the other side. So it's a great tragedy why they want to invite destruction by putting nuclear weapons from the United States or anywhere else on their soil in close proximity to European Russia is a mystery to me. Makes no sense.

The Russians now of course have to deal with this as you point out. Even though they think this is insane, they look at this and say, "Well, if they're going to do this, we can't sit here and do nothing in response." That's the problem. And unfortunately, it's not just the Finns, it's the Swedes. And in both Finland and Sweden, there was no referendum. You're not talking about nations of hundreds of millions of people. You have what, eight or nine million Swedes, what five million Finn you can hold a referendum. Do we join NATO or not? I think if you'd held referendums in those countries, they wouldn't have joined. Uh, I think we bought off, bribed, say whatever you want these governments to join the alliance and they tried to convince and I guess have successfully persuaded some that they're more more safe and secure with us present in their country than they would be otherwise. They could not be more wrong. And all they have to do to find evidence for this is look at the Persian Gulf. Look at the states on the western side of the Persian Gulf.

>> That's such a great point.

>> All the way up to Kuwait. What in the hell are they thinking? It's insane. That is not a prescription for future strategic security. It's a prescript prescription for certain destruction under the wrong circumstances. And again, you've also got to turn your attention back to the Russians. The Russians, and you know this from your personal experience, they're great people, but they have reasons for insecurity. They have a long history of dealing with everyone from the from the Mongols all the way up through uh you know the the French and then the Germans and and so forth. They are worried about defending their country. Remember, Russia's borders are largely indefensible. They're flat. They're open. They're easily penetrated. And so now you want to put nuclear weapons in proximity to them in a place like Finland or Sweden. I mean I can't conceive of any dumber idea. And in fact again if you go back to Eisenhower you can read I guess you not everybody can but those who have clearances can go in and read in the files of the National Security Council staff the various memoranda that Eisenhower penned himself because Eisenhower discovered he was his own best author. And so he inevitably had to dictate the general good pastor who was his military assistant. effectively the first national security adviser and he he got fed up and he said no listen this I'm going to dictate to this to you this is what we're going to do and he made the point that putting nuclear weapons on the ground at the time in Germany was extremely hazardous because he said there's very little hope in the opening hours of a conflict given the posture of Soviet forces the number of forces we have on the ground that we can prevent these nuclear stockpiles And you know where they are as an army officer. You were over there and you know where the air bases are. We can't prevent these from being overrun and captured. Now this is 1955, 1956 57. The the whole idea is frankly insane. It makes no sense. None whatsoever. But if it if anything did make sense, we wouldn't be talking, would we? I guess not.

Uh, last question here before we let you go. Uh, where does this go? Uh, is there any prospect that we just mumbled stumble through this and and it doesn't end up blowing up anywhere or is NATO condemning itself for there to be a clash with Russia? What do you think?

>> President Putin, I think, has waited uh with some justification for turnover in the governments in Europe. His expectation is he knows the true state of affairs in Germany. He has good information on that. He has friends in Germany and they're telling him the truth. And the truth is everybody hates Matts. And Merkel is now regarded in the history of the Germanspeaking peoples as probably one of the greatest traitors they've ever had in their midst. I mean, it's common for people to say, you know, Hitler went overboard and did terrible damage to us. Merkel has been worse. look what she has done to us. I mean, you hear these kinds of things. Uh so I think he's been waiting for change there.

I think we may see real change come first in Great Britain. Meaning you have these roving gangs of Muslim men, largely but not exclusively Pakistani uh essentially hunting people in various English cities. And uh the rape gangs are not gone. uh they've been suppressed somewhat, but they're still there. I think the British people are very close to exploding. Uh so Britain is is is probably now candidate number one for total civil unrest and and change in government. I used to think it would be France. I still hold out for the French because I think they're even more revolutionary in character. But as long as the French population receives its pensions, its uh goodies from the state, they're probably not going to take much action. But that could change. And that could change very suddenly because all of the governments are leveraged to the hilt. Everyone faces the same problem. We are all deeply in debt, way in over our our heads. And the ability of the globalist finan financeers to manage this I think is coming to an end. And whatever happens here financially is going to have a terrible impact in Europe. Everybody knows that. So I guess it's a it's a matter of waiting and watching and managing the various explosive events until they really happen someplace and you set it all in motion. It's sort of it's not like World War I. We don't have real nations as we did in World War I. And by that I mean these large nation states and imperial structures, but it's similar in so far as everybody knew based on the Balkan Wars and the problems there, there would be conflict in Europe. Just it's just that nobody knew what would set it off. Nobody knew where it would happen and when it would happen. And in fact, uh, when it first happened in the Balkans and Serbia, the stock market in London didn't even react >> because most people in Britain saw no reason why they should become involved in a war involving anything that happened in the Balkans. But everything changed.

>> Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see how it's going to work out. But, uh, back to your original concept that we'll fight until we run out of missiles. uh that day is not that far off, especially if we get into one where both sides get used it. But uh really appreciate you coming on and uh illuminating this today. And one more uh comment everybody go to the new Warrior Diplomacy YouTube channel of Douglas McGregor. You see the address right there on the screen uh McGregor Warrior Diplomacy uh on YouTube and look forward to seeing more videos coming out of there.

>> Okay. Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it.

>> Appreciate you guys too. And uh we will be back in about 1 hour. Uh we're going to have Jim Jatris back on. He's going to give us uh uh some additional a new uh uh angle on this whole Russia Ukraine war. He's he's going to talk about some things that are different than uh what we've had on either of our shows so far today. That's going to be at 2 pm. Jim Jatris, former uh American diplomat and uh Republican or Senate aid. So he's got a lot of interesting uh stories to to share that you'll see then. Thank you very much and we'll see you in an hour on the Daniel Davis deep dive. You know we don't have sponsors cuz we hate to hit you over the head with ads. I don't like them. So show a little love back. Subscribe, like, and send this to somebody you care about.