Transcription
Uh, the next question is about the Strait of Hormuz. Uh, it is one of the most important, uh, phenomena in this war, and the blockade Iran put on the Strait of Hormuz, and the blockade the US military put on return. And, uh, do you think the US military is capable of opening the Strait? And what do you think is the future of governance over the Strait of Hormuz?
Well, again, this ties into what, uh, Professor Morandi and I were discussing earlier. Um, we know for a fact that in 1988, I believe, um, the United States reflagged, um, uh, tankers, and we escorted them through the Strait of Hormuz. Um, a demonstration of America, of American military power and determination in saying that we will not allow the Strait to be closed. We will not allow, uh, nations to threaten shipping. Um, and it succeeded. We, we, we succeeded because the, the, our potential enemies lacked the capacity to defeat the United States military in a stand-up fight. Um, then we had the Gulf War, where once again the American military flowed through into the Persian Gulf. There were mines, but we overcame the mines, and we got this confidence that no matter what, the United States would always be able to project power into, um, the Strait of Hormuz, through the Strait of Hormuz, and control the Strait of Hormuz. And so we just made assumptions that this would be done. The Fifth Fleet was installed in Bahrain and given the mission of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. And they simply did what we used to do, but with less, because, you see, we got weaker and weaker and weaker. So instead of having large flotillas go through, we put some mine sweepers through. We put a destroyer through. Every once in a while, we put a carrier through, and they brought it back out because a carrier doesn't have a life expectancy of very long, even in the Persian Gulf. And, but we convinced ourselves that simply by sailing ships and flying airplanes, that we would keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Um, again, the Iranians are smarter than we are, because the Iranians took a look at the force projection of the United States and said, "How do we defeat this?" We do it through area denial munitions. We create missiles that are able to project, uh, lethality into this area, and we make the missiles survivable. We give, we have enough missiles, uh, so that if the enemy comes at us and bombs this and that and the other thing, we can still sustain the pressure. They planned the long fight. Um, and again, the United States wasn't prepared for the long fight. We, we lacked the capacity to achieve the objective up front, and we lacked the capacity to achieve the objective over time. So the Iranians could take control of the Strait of Hormuz indirectly through firepower and sustain that over time. And I don't know when exactly, um, the Iranian supremacy was achieved. I would say that it was a while ago. It's been a long time that Iran has actually had this capability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, but the United States never woke up to this reality, you know.
But the, the interesting thing is, um, was it 2020 that Iran shot down a Global Hawk over the Strait of Hormuz? I believe in the, in late 2020, around that time. And, um, and President Trump said, "I'm going to bomb Iran in retaliation." And he was prepared to strike the air defense sites in Iran that shot down the Global Hawk. And his military advisors said, "Excuse me, Mr. President, here's the problem. If we bomb Iran, they're going to retaliate, um, and the retaliation will be against our bases and against our regional allies. Um, and then we will have to escalate and and retaliate them. And then we'll be into a general war where the Strait of Hormuz will be shut down and energy manufacturing in the region will be attacked. And now we're going to run into the reality that we not only can't ship energy out of the Strait of Hormuz, but they stopped producing energy. And then the question is, what do we do? Because we don't have the ability to project this power and to assimilate, to to, you know, build up this power will take months, if not years. They estimated that we would need 900 to 1.2, 900,000 to 1.2 million, uh, American forces to physically move in and take control. And then the question was, even if we did that, how do we move in? Because this isn't 1985 when Scott Ritter planned the naval, the amphibious assault on Chabahar. Iran now has area denial munitions that can attack shipping as it comes in closer. And we can't guarantee the projection of the force or the sustainability of the force. So it would take us many, many months to build up the force, and we can't guarantee victory even after that. Do you really want to start this fight, Mr. President?" And the answer was no. And so he didn't.
The reason why I bring this up is that, um, we knew that in 2020. We knew we couldn't do it. We knew that we couldn't seize the Strait of Hormuz. We knew that Iran could shut it down at any time. So armed with this knowledge that we acted on, it wasn't theoretical. We went to war against Iran assuming what? That we could take over the Strait of Hormuz. This is lunacy. We can't take over the Strait of Hormuz. This, you know, Professor Morandi and I have had a long conversation over time about Iran's nuclear program. And, you know, I've spoken with others about whether Iran should have a nuclear bomb or whether, you know, whether it's right for them to acquire it. And I've always said no, Iran shouldn't have a nuclear bomb. Not only from law, but Iran doesn't need a nuclear bomb. And Iran proved that point. Iran has two nuclear weapons. One is their ballistic missile force. It's non-nuclear, but it can achieve nuclear-type results by eliminating energy production in a region where the world needs that energy production. And two, it's ability to control the Strait of Hormuz. This is the ultimate nuclear bomb. Um, so, you know, Iran, I, I, there's nothing I can see that changes this equation other than a change in political leadership in Iran. It will require a revolutionary change in political leadership to get Iran to give up this Strait. And even then, I don't imagine any Iranian government's going to give that up because this is what guarantees their national security going forward.
But most importantly, this, this Islamic Republic is stronger today than it has been since, I mean, Professor Morandi could probably tell me better, but since the revolution. I mean, there, the, the people of Iran seem to have rallied around their government like they've never rallied around it before. I mean, again, I might be reading too much into anecdotal things, but, you know, there's this, uh, there are these Iranian filmmakers that make these Lego movies. Um, they're very effective here in the United States. It's some of the best information operation imaginable. Um, it's hard to believe that the Iranian intelligence doesn't control them, but they claim that they, they don't. But my understanding is that they were part of the political opposition before this war. Not violent opposition, but people who said, "We're not so happy with the government, this, that, and the other thing." Today, they're right there. That's Iran. People who might have said, "I'm not so happy. I'm not happy about the economy. I'm not happy about this." Not violent revolutionaries. Those are unpatriotic. I'm talking about average Iranians who are just unhappy with the situation, which is normal in any country, by the way. It's not being critical. You know, if, if you, if you have a people that aren't unhappy, you're doing something wrong because people should always be unhappy because they should always be holding you to a high standard, seeking a better life. Uh, but what I'm, the point I'm trying to get at is these people who were not the best friends of the regime before the war are now openly advocating on behalf of the regime in one of the most effective ways possible. Um, and this, to me, seems to be Iran. That the Iranian people have pushed away petty differences and have rallied around the nation of Iran. And the nation of Iran today is defined by Islam. We can't pretend that it's not defined by Islam. So the simplistic notion that we can kill the Supreme Leader and make the Islamic Republic go away and be replaced by a secular entity, uh, ruled over by the son of a failed Shah. I mean, no rational human being could ever buy into that notion.
But Iran today has a solid government, a solid people who are solidly aware that they hold the world hostage by controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Uh, they don't want to hold the world hostage. They would prefer to have the Strait opened up and energy flowing. But they are able now to tell the world that if you dare attack us again, we will strangle you. Before, it was a theoretical weapon. Now, it is a demonstrated weapons capability that I think will actually guarantee peace going forward because there's no force capable of taking the Strait of Hormuz from Iran in a reasonable fashion. What I mean by that is, if Iran shuts the Strait of Hormuz, the global economy will collapse, the regional economy will die before any force capable of taking the Strait of Hormuz from Iran could be assembled. So it's Iran's ultimate weapon, and, um, I think Iran is, uh, correct in, um, not giving it up.
>> Okay. Thank you for, uh, uh, joining us. And, uh, you had a very good, uh, talk at the start of the war that, and you said, "US lost the war because they didn't know Imam Hussein or Imam Mahdi based on the way you think about the situation." Do you have any more comments for Iranian people who, uh, see this show? And is there any more comments that you want to add?
>> Is there any more comments I'd like to add? Yeah, I'd love to have a conversation that lasts hours and days. I mean, one of the reasons why we're in this situation today is because of the ignorance of the American people about the reality of Iran. Um, look, I last traveled to Iran in 2005, and that's a long time ago, 21 years. Uh, but I remember landing in Iran and, um, being totally surprised by what I saw because of my ignorance. I thought I'd see something. I saw something else. I saw a reality. I saw the reality of the Iranian people. Um, and this was during the presidency of Ahmadinejad, when, you know, anti-American sentiment was supposed to be at its all-time highest. And the amount of love I experienced, I mean, human love, meaning from human to human, the way the Iranian people just said, "My goodness, an American is here in our country. Welcome. Thank you for coming." Um, was amazing.
But the other thing was how much they knew about the United States. I went to a restaurant to eat, and I had a family come up to me in tears. "Why are you crying?" "I mean, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings by coming to Iran." They said, "No, no. We want to give you our condolences." I said, "For what?" They said, "We saw the flooding in Houston, and we saw a family swept away, and it's just terrible, and we send our heartfelt, you know, best wishes to you and the American people." And I, and I just sat there, like, "Wait a minute. If, if I mean, I'm just being honest here. The average American sees about a, um, an earthquake in Iran that collapses a city, as has happened. Um, you know, our first, you, our first instinct isn't to pick up the phone and call an Iranian and say, 'Hey, we're sorry what happened.' Our heart goes out." Most Americans go, "Well, they're Iranians. They sort of deserve it. You know, uh, those, those silly ragheads, uh, you know, God got, they, God gave them what they deserved. Um, they're kind of ignorant because we, we don't view the Iranians as people. We don't view them as humans. We view them as, I mean, you hear "savages" is a word that's often used in American social media. Those Iranian savages. And it's spoken from the government. The government says these words. The President of the United States says these words, and that echoes down amongst the American people who are ignorant about the reality of Iran.
I don't claim to be an expert on anything, and I know I'm not, especially Iran. Um, there's some things I'm good at. There's some things I'm just a student of. I'm a student of Iran. I'm in constant learning mode. But as a student, I understand this: that if we're going to talk about Iran and the Islamic Republic, and we can't speak in an intelligent, conversant manner about Ali, Hassan, Hussein, Karbala, Ashura, then there's no reason to have any conversation because it means we don't understand the Iranian people. We don't understand how they think, what motivates them, etc. And if we, you know, that's just the reality that the Iranian people have a, you know, not just 5,000-year history of being Persians, which is also resonates. I saw that. Uh, but they also have a deep and abiding faith, a pure faith. They believe in their system of religion. And it's an honest belief. It's not an imposed belief. These are not people being terrorized by dictatorial ayatollahs who say, "You must believe this." These are people who actually, my understanding of how Marja' works, etc. These are people who empower ayatollahs because, again, I'm a student, but my understanding is, once I pass through the education process and and get to a certain rank, I have to write a religious thesis of basically my interpretation of how modern-day society is impacted by religious law and publish it. And then my Marja' doesn't work unless people come to me and say, "We, we have trust in you. We have faith in you." That an ayatollah isn't imposed. An ayatollah is empowered by people who say, "We believe in you as a religious leader." This is my understanding. Um, which means that this isn't a religious dictatorship. This is actually religious democracy. Uh, but we in America can't understand that.
I want to have this conversation. I want to have other conversations. This could go on forever. But the most important thing is that we have to start treating the Iranians as human beings. Um, one of the highlights of my adult life is meeting Professor Morandi. I've met you many times, you know, long distance. We've had conversations, and intellectually, we, we get along. I mean, there's, there's, there's a commonality there, but you never really learn about a human till you meet the person, see them in person, see how they are, see the totality of, I don't know what he thinks about me. I can come off as very abrasive. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm your typical American, and, you know, for the better or for worse. But I will tell you this, that Dr. Morandi is the best ambassador the people of Iran could have because he is honest, he has integrity, he is kind, he is intelligent, he is strong when he needs to be strong. Um, don't, don't let the soft voice fool you. There's a core of steel in this man that, uh, I think is replicated throughout Iran. Um, and this, what I'm trying to say to the American audience is, you need, before you buy into the propaganda being put forward by the US government, take the time to learn about the Iranian people. It's the message I've used about Russia. The best way to defeat Russophobia is to go to Russia, experience Russia, capture the reality of Russia, and bring it back to the United States. Well, I have a new mission. It's a mission that I've always, and I've always had, as I said, I've traveled to Iran before, and I've always said, "I want to go back." But the murder of 165 school children hit me. Not my wife and I talked about it, and she said, "We have to do a better job of bonding with Iran." Um, now I hope one day to bring her, and she very much wants to come to Iran. But she told me, "Your mission must be to return to Iran. You owe it to the Iranian people to go to Iran, to meet with them, to stand in solidarity with them, but more importantly, to learn about them, to learn from them, and bring that back to do with Iran what you've been trying to do with Russia." So that's my mission. Now, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do it. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it, but, uh, it's something I very much want to do because it's, it's necessary. We don't have to be at war with one another. In fact, it should be just the opposite. We should learn how to live in peace and harmony.
Okay. >> The Iranians were so receptive to me when I came, and I have a funny feeling that they'd be receptive to any American who came to their shores in good faith. Not as submissive. I don't submit to anybody. I'm an American. I have that, all that hubris and arrogance that Professor Morandi talked about resides in me. And it's a, it takes a long time for me to control that, to, because you have to control it through intellectualism. You have to think, and then you have to open up your heart and be a human being and realize that hubris and arrogance only causes problems. There's nothing wrong with being proud of who you are. Everybody should be proud of who they are. Uh, but there's an absolute necessity to recognize in the other that they too have a right to be proud, and that we are equals in this world together. And so that's what I want to try and accomplish is to show Iran to the American people so that we view the Iranians as equals. And, uh, if we do that, anything's possible.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> I just want to say that I'm sure that Scott knows how I feel about him, and he's an extraordinarily courageous, decent human being, and very knowledgeable, and he's had a big impact on how many people think about in the United States and beyond about, uh, Iran and about, uh, the world that we live in. And I hope to see him in Tehran.