Transcription
Hezbollah is an actual force. Yeah, it is of significance. So, Israel would be—it's well equipped. Yeah, Israel would be in a hard place.
I think, to answer your question, I see Iran continuing to play this smartly, where they don't get themselves directly involved, and they don't need to be directly involved. They've shown great restraint so far, and or at least we interpret it as restraint, because they're using like patience as a strategic tool in crafting whatever their next step is.
But if you put yourself in the shoes of Iran, they've got a strong proxy force to the north of Israel; they have an available proxy force to the south of Israel, the Houthis. And then they have a proxy force that's right inside of Israel, in Gaza, and possibly also now in the West Bank, with the growing prominence of Hamas. So they've got—Israel could have a war on three fronts, which—they've never had to deal with before.
Correct. In US doctrine, in the army war college, the air force war college, the lateral war college for the navy, and in all of them, a war on two fronts is something to avoid, because a war on two fronts significantly degrades your capability of winning the war. We learned that in World War I and World War II.
So, Israel is at a place where Netanyahu's policies have driven them to a point where all of their pre-existing enemies now have all the reason in the world to continue going to ramp up and escalate further. And who are the two guys who just got killed? One was a leader of Hezbollah who led the aerial raids that killed the 12 youth. And then the other was a political leader for Hamas who was actually in Tehran. So, Israel launched an attack into sovereign Iran, into the capital city. And that—that's—listen to how crazy this is—that we're talking about Ismael Haniyeh, who was the head of Hamas's political bureau, resident in Doha. He was the lead ceasefire negotiator.
Yeah. Right. So this is the guy that's participating in all these meetings. The crazy thing here is he went to Tehran to attend President—uh—Peskian. I always get his name wrong. President Masoud Raisi's inauguration.
Right. And—and that's an opposition president. That's a president—it's an opposition president, a reformist president who said, "Hey, you know what? We should have talks with the United States." Like this is—Iran took a very weird right turn. I didn't—I didn't predict it happening.
No, I thought for sure Jali would win that race, and he got killed. You know, Raisi walloped him. Anyway, um, the first—the first reports on Haniyeh's killing were that the Israelis had launched a missile at the guest house that he stayed in. And I even said on the show that would require violating Jordanian airspace and Iraqi airspace or Jordanian airspace and Saudi airspace twice, right? Getting in and getting out.
Yeah. That didn't make any sense to me. And then they said day before yesterday, actually, no. They put a bomb in the house in April because they knew that he stayed in the same house.
Serious security problem. Yeah. Stayed in the same house every time he'd go to Iran, and they just waited for him to go, and then they blew it up remotely. But—but this goes to the Israeli ability to violate Iranian sovereignty in any way they want. They kill Iranian scientists. They'll—they'll do car bombs. They do close-in hits. Um, any—they have a whole network in Iran that we can only fantasize about, and it's taken years and years to build.
I want to say one other thing, too. Um, back in what was it—March or April, the Israelis bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed two Iranian generals.
Yes. Major violation of, you know, international law. But the Israelis don't care about stuff like that. Anyway, the Iranians responded again with great restraint. They launched 700 drones—I'm sorry, 600 drones. But they told the United States in advance, "We're going to send these 600 drones." And then they called in the Jordanian ambassador and said, "We're going to fly these 600 drones over your airspace." So it took six hours for those drones to cross over. So everybody is like sitting like this, waiting for the drones to come, right? So the British scattered their jets from bases in Jordan. We scattered our jets. The Israelis scattered their jets and shot down all but seven.
Okay, so seven hit the ground, and a little bit of minor damage here and there, and everybody's like, "Oh, that was the response. No big deal." It was actually a very big deal because it showed the Iranians that the Iron Dome isn't so great as the Israelis say that it is. They were able to get seven drones through. Now, what if those drones had been carrying BW or CW, right? Or big bombs, chemical weapons, biological—I'm sorry.
Yes. Biological weapons, chemical weapons. It would be—it would be unprecedented in history. So, the Israelis think they're so smart and so good that they got away with killing two generals who just were replaced the next day, right? And the world thinks that Israel is so powerful because of their reach. Look how safe they are. They reached into Syria and killed these guys. They reach into Iran and kill that guy. They bomb Lebanon and kill this guy. It's not as great as they think it is.
Meanwhile, Iran is finding a way to learn more about its enemy without actually killing Iranians.
Exactly. Because it's a bunch of extremist proxy people who are actually taking the fall. What do you think of these rumors this week that it was the MEK that did it on behalf—which is a—it's a cult, actually, but it was originally a communist opposition group during the Shah's time that assassinated an American ambassador, kidnapped an American four-star general, and then all of a sudden we decided, "Oh, they're not so bad after all," and then they hired Rudy Giuliani to represent them in Washington, and they were fetted by the Clinton administration, and you know, Maryam Rajavi, the head of it—her husband was the founder, and he just kind of disappeared one day, and everybody said, "Oh, she killed him and buried him in Iraq"—now she's the head of it, and uh—now she's in Washington, she's in Paris, they have big dinners for her on Capitol Hill, and the rumor is that it was the MEK, since they're already in Iran, that actually planted the bomb. That's interesting. I hadn't heard that before. I heard it just this week.
So there's just—we, you know, Russia's invasion of Ukraine—yeah—did a number of things I think people don't realize. It highlighted Russia's inadequacy to carry out a land campaign.
You can say that again, right? But it also highlighted that we don't really know the capabilities of any country that's out there. So, anything you can do to try to make yourself look bigger than you are, quote-unquote, "paper tiger," is what most countries are trying to do, right? So, Russia's trying to look strong, Israel's trying to look strong, America does things to try to look strong, China's doing things to try to look strong, too. But there's also a very real saber-rattling that happens where nobody really wants to get too deep into a contest.
Hold me back.
Right. Right. Hold me back. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So like—like your question, original question was what happens if Hezbollah really does go all into Israel? It's a bloodbath. See, I think it's more likely that Hezbollah is going to do something than the Iranians. The Iranians, I could see firing a rocket at an Israeli embassy, let's say, or killing an Israeli defense attaché somewhere. Hezbollah, I think, is ready to fight. And Hezbollah has been training for it for a long time as part of their charter. They're—they're neighbors, right? Hezbollah stands a real chance. And—and what we learned on October 7th—yes, there were a lot of deaths. Yes, there were a lot of civilian deaths. A solid third of all the people that died were military deaths, IDF, Defense Force, Border Patrol, etc., etc., right? So, when anybody tries to compare 9/11 with October 7, it's not a strong comparison. You can't compare the two. You just can't. Not in terms of the number of lives lost, not in terms of the fact that Hamas was a known threat and a known enemy of Israel for a long time. They've been oppressed for a long time, whereas the attack on the United States on 9/11 was completely out of nowhere. It was unprecedented, and it was unprovoked, right? So there's—there's huge differences between the two, but it's a very convenient comparison in some media channels to try to make them sound like the same thing.
Mhm. But one of the things that Israel has to—has to do right now is also look strong. One of the things Netanyahu has to do right now is look strong. He has to look strong enough to keep the war hawks in his own cabinet at bay and also work against a current of unpopular support from his base or from the—from the Israeli people. And the United States is stuck in this awkward position where we—I mean, we've been making our policies about Ukraine. Those have not been popular. Ukraine has not been successful in the way that I think our—our allies in NATO hoped they would be successful. If anything, the prolonged conflict in Russia and Ukraine has highlighted the corruption and transparency issues with Ukraine that have just made it even worse.
Mhm. So, Israel and—well, the United States is stuck with these two slow horses that it's—it's painted itself into a corner under the Biden administration with supporting. So, if it's a Harris administration that comes next, she's still—she's adopting two slow horses.
I want to add one thing if I could.
Yes. One of the things I learned early on in my analytic career at the agency was always watch for troop movements and ship movements, right? If people at the Pentagon, for example, are really worried about hostilities, they're going to send carrier battle groups. And today we announced that we have two carrier battle groups in the region. One has just come out of the Gulf and is now in the Arabian Sea, and the other's in the Eastern Mediterranean. That scares the hell out of me. We're moving—we're moving fighter jets also. Yeah, it could be a show of force, but it's a very real mobilization. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, I remember one of the analysts saying that this was going to be tough for us because the Persian Gulf was too shallow for an aircraft carrier. We had never sent one into the Persian Gulf ever, right? It was just too shallow. Um, by the time that hostilities began, we had six carriers and their associated battle groups in the Gulf at the same time. And each carrier has 12 ships that accompany it, you know, destroyers and supply ships and all kinds of different stuff. So, we already have two, and the announcement day before yesterday that we're sending fighter jets. And interestingly, the Pentagon didn't say how many, right? Didn't say where they're going and didn't say what kind. So it's—we don't know—we don't know what's going to happen next, but we do know that there are significant American interests in the Middle East. You've got not only our interests with Israel, but you've got our interests with Saudi, you've got our interests with UAE, you've got our interests with Jordan. What do you make of the—I forget who it was—it was some secretary of something on TV like two—two or three days ago came out and was pounding his chest about how there are—I think the number he said was $10 trillion worth of valuable resources, natural resources and minerals in Ukraine that we needed to keep out of Russia's hands so they wouldn't share it with China.
No idea. And I've never heard anything—anyone in the government, anyone in the media talking about any sort of resources in Ukraine until now. Honestly, I thought they just had wheat.
People have been talk—well, in Eastern Ukraine or Western Ukraine?
Oh, there it is. People have been talk—people have been talking about Eastern Ukrainian—Lindsey Graham minerals for a long time.
Senate show horse Lindsey Graham. So this is—yeah. So—so now it's just seems to be like there's this new—this new goal for the Ukraine conflict—to keep minerals out of the hands of China and Russia.
A new—a new wish.
Yeah. A new justification. Afghanistan has $23 trillion worth of rare earth metals that were just discovered in 2015—2016.
Yeah. And where does China fit into all of this? A year ago, you were on here, and you—you made the claim that before—I think you said right before the presidential election for the US that China would invade Taiwan.
I don't think I ever said the word invade. It's funny I had this conversation with Julian, too.
Okay. Because it certainly seems like somewhere you guys interpreted the word invade. I said China would move on Taiwan.
Move on Taiwan. Okay. In the lead-up to the 2024 election. I believe that started in October of last year. Really culminated when they took control—when the KMT took control of the legislation in January of this year. And since then, we've just seen a continued escalation of military movements and military exercises and increased rhetoric. Like right now, for all intents and purposes, Taiwan is—is politically locked. It has a president that's pro-separation, and it's got a dominant legislation that's pro-unification, and then it's got all these independent players, and it's just—it's a hot bit of Chinese activity, and I'm still sitting there uncertain of if more is coming, because if I'm in Xi Jinping's shoes right now, watching what's happening in the United States, which is the only benefactor to—to Taiwan—if I'm watching what's happening in the United States—we're so confused right now that we've got a—we've got a sitting president who basically can't take action. We have a—a race between a convicted felon and a district attorney that didn't—has never won a vote. And we haven't even had an official DNC to announce the candidate for the Democratic National Party to support through the presidency. Not to mention all the challenges that America has anyways—economically, politically, you know, whatever else—civilly. So there's—there's—it's such a good time right now for Xi Jinping. He must be looking at this knowing that after—after November 5th, after what—the 100 days before the president takes office is just this—this window of time where conditions kind of only get worse for them to—to move on, to take an aggressive action of some sort. They're in the perfect window right now to basically do something, and we're going to be so landlocked—so—so head up our ass that we can't even make a decision to take action. Freedom. So fresh.