Transcription
This is not an existential threat for us. In other words, the war is not being conducted against an enemy that could ever threaten us with destruction. And whatever disputes we have with Iran did not merit a war contrary to what some people in the United States want to believe.
Everyone in the world sees Iran as an heroic figure on the world stage because Iran has stood up against the United States and Israel. Because what they've done is achieved a victory not by attacking us, but by defending themselves against us and demonstrating that they cannot be conquered.
Well, everyone, we're very honored to welcome back into the studio a long time guest. This is Colonel Douglas McGregor. Fantastic insider into all things geopolitics and certainly the Iran War. Colonel, how are you today?
>> Good, Cyrus. Good.
>> Yeah, it's great to see you again. Colonel, you know, we are uh in the 10th week of the Iran war, and I just would like to get your your thoughts on this. You know, we've seen so much news stories this past week with uh Trump launching Operation Freedom and then abandoning that 24 hours later. You know, we're now seeing a potential, you know, peace deal that remarkably is very similar to Obama's deal that that Trump actually said was the worst deal ever made. Let me know your thoughts as we are here in the 10th week of this Iran conflict.
Well, uh, following the administration or for that matter anything in Washington right now is sort of watching a a teenage drama, you know, about high school or something, people are sort of moving wildly at, you know, numerous different directions. It's hard to separate truth from falsehood or fiction from reality. In fact, I'm not even sure they can do that anymore in the White House. President Trump has so frequently misled everybody about what's really happening that it you're tempted to almost ignore whatever comes out of the White House, but then you sit there and you say, "Well, I can't do that. I've got to listen to this nonsense and try to figure it out."
I think, you know, we're on the verge of beginning another round of attacks, or I should say beginning a new offensive, air and missile offensive. And the best way to sum it up is that I think President Trump has stepped on the uh on the express elevator to hell and he's taking everybody he can with him. And that's kind of the way I see it because I don't see any evidence that what we plan to do now is going to produce an outcome that's different from what we've seen thus far. And I know that we've assembled at least at, you know, giving it a glance, it looks like we have more firepower this time than we had the last time. This is particularly true of the Air Force with bombers now in close proximity to the theater or in the theater. A lot of, you know, exotic munitions, perhaps even more than we uh launched the last time. you know, things like the joint uh airtos surface strike weapon, JASM. We launched, I guess, a thousand of these. I think we're going to do at least that many this time. The problem with all of it is nothing has fundamentally changed in terms of your opponent's positions and your opponent's capabilities.
So when I hear, you know, things as I heard yesterday, well, there's this paper that he claims was being discussed. Then you find out within 24 hours, that's complete nonsense. There there isn't. Then you hear again, well, that's not entirely true. There may be an opportunity here. And as you pointed out earlier before we went on live, this looks like a lot like the Obama solution from several years ago. I don't know that any of that is true. But what I do know is that you have an enormous amount of firepower, air and naval assembled in the region. You don't do that for show. And this just is not going to intimidate the Iranians. They're say sitting in what is the geographical equivalent of a giant fortress surrounded by mountains and uh to the south nasty deserts, some of the hottest places on Earth. And I just don't see that anything we can do is going to fundamentally alter their position. If anything, I think they too are going to be stronger this time around than they were the last time. I think they'll probably have more effective air defense, air and missile defense. They've had a lot of assistance from the Chinese. They continue to enjoy enormous intelligence support from both the Russians and the Chinese. But I think more important they they now are in a fullyfledged alliance with Russia and China.
Now I don't know what the content was of the discussion between President Trump and President Putin recently but he was on there for 90 minutes to two hours with President Putin. And the Russian readout that that they'll release suggests that Putin was very straightforward saying don't do this. this could produce something far worse than what you've experienced thus far. So, I don't know. You know, the temptation to read in that is great, but uh I'm not sure what we should make of it except to say that he's pointing to the express train to hell. He's saying, "Look, you know, you're on this thing. This is not going to help you. This is going to make matters worse around the world. It's going to make matters worse for you." So, I'd say that's my quick summary as to where we are right now, which is not really a very good place.
>> right? Um, Colonel, what do you think about Iran and and what they've been doing over the last month? Do you have any intelligence into I mean, have they been like stockpiling more missiles? Have they been really preparing for this next escalation? Cuz, you know, at the beginning of the conflict, we saw a lot of missiles from Iran, you know, just daily blast into Israel. A lot of missiles being dropped. It's been relatively peaceful the last few weeks as far as the combat, but I think as you mentioned, the US is piling up. Do we have the same thing happening in Iran? Have they been building more missiles, more requiring more drones, you know, getting ready for this next move?
>> Yes, I I would say perhaps even more so. We know that they spent at least 20 years, some people insist 30 years, putting together the force that they have today, building the underground facilities, embedding uh capabilities and mountains and so forth. Uh that's probably true and I think they always regarded the inevitability of war with us as something they had to prepare for. Now they've always been confident that they could ride out a war with Israel and more important do damage to Israel, but they have always genuinely feared us and respected our military capability. So I think that has now doubled down and and improved. Remember, if you look at their performance during the 12-day war uh several months ago, and then compare that with the more recent performance, they were infinitely more capable and more lethal during the last phase. This time, I think you're going to see something similar. Just as President Trump says he's bringing uh the Army hypersonic surfacetoservice missile system into the theater for use, I think you're going to see some new things on the Iranian side. Courtesy I think to some extent from China.
>> and I think the Chinese have flown I don't know how many sorties into thyron delivering missiles technology and technical assistance numerous Chinese on the ground particularly in the uh missile business also to some extent the unmanned system production the Russians have been heavily involved trying to help and assist with integrated air defenses which haven't really worked as as well as they should have to this point. Then the other thing that we shouldn't lose sight of is the Russians have tried very hard to ship in as much humanitarian aid to the Iranians as they can.
>> And when President Trump and his uh you know contingent of uh staffers and supporters say, "Well, Iran's in terrible shape. Their currency is destroyed." And on and on. They're not wrong. But the Iranians are prepared for that kind of damage. They anticipated it and they have now evacuated all of their key buildings. So there's no doubt in my mind that whatever whatever we say publicly, they are anticipating a worst case scenario right now and they're preparing for it. The one thing that I think we could see this time that we did not see the last time is the use of some ground power. In other words, uh we have several thousand uh airborne soldiers, paratroopers, and marines that could be uh involved in seizing an island or perhaps attacking even something like Bondas if for nothing else as a raid to demonstrate the capability. I don't know. These things are possible. Uh what's not going to happen is the United States Navy is not going to sail through that straight and and challenge the Iranians because they know they'll end up at the bottom or certainly decorating the bottom of the Persian Gulf. So that's not going to happen. But I think you could see the Marines and paratroopers used in some way. I think that's an equally bad idea. But you know, I'm just saying this this I think is quite possible. So that that's it. And uh the whole world would like something else to happen. Peace. I mean the the if you'd listen to the people in the GCC, the Gulf Cooperation Council, people from Bahrain, from uh Kuwait and other places, they've said the damage is horrific and if we sustain even worse damage from this point, it'll be a decade or more before we recover. So there's no good news economically for the world and I would argue for us coming out of any of this. But that doesn't seem to deter President Trump.
>> Yeah. Um Colonel, I'd like to talk about these operation freedom that uh President Trump launched. He said, you know, um he announced this that the that the United States was going to, you know, personally escort ships through the straight of Hormuz. Um I think that was largely to, you know, calm down the oil markets. And then of course within 24 hours it was announced that it's not going to be the Navy that's actually going to be escorting. They're going to be providing these GPS signals. And then of course within you know within that 24 hours we also saw Trump say we're going to actually pause the campaign. What what what was the whole deal with Operation Freedom? And you know what is your opinion on that?
>> Well Cyrus I think we have to accept the reality that there has never been a viable or coherent strategy for this campaign. I mean quite frankly I've looked at it and looked you know in sort of frustration to find a a very specific purpose method endstate construct that says the purpose is X. I think the purpose initially was oh we're going to bomb in support of all of these thousands of people rising up in opposition to the government. And of course to think in those terms you had to listen to the Israelis. And the Israelis of course are pro, you know, proflegant liars uh about all this sort of business. And they created the illusion, I think, in President Trump's head and in the heads of others in the United States that there were millions just waiting for the opportunity to pull out their knives and shovels and go after the bullets. That's not true. That's really never been true. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't opposition in the country, absolutely. But the opposition was not of the type that was uh presented. They did not kill 30,000 people. We think 3,400 which includes 400 policemen. Now, how were the 400 policemen killed that were trying to manage the demonstration? Well, the MSAD and the CIA smuggled weapons into the country, passed these out, and that actually directed some of the fire. So, this was not some sort of spontaneous uh uprising in in Tyrron. This was something very very much uh at our instigation. And they told President Trump this would work. Well, that had no chance of working. And he was prepared at that point to to launch strikes. He was so convinced that this might work. It didn't. So then they changed their goal to well decapitation, you know, regime change from the top down because once again, the Israelis promised if you do this and kill these individuals, this whole thing will collapse. That's because the Israelis have taken the position from the beginning that Iran was much like the Arab states. other artificial constructs much like Israel that emerged in the aftermath of World War I.
>> and that's not the case. Iran is a civilizational state. It's it's been around for over 2,000 years and the people there acutely feel this. So that's absolutely not true. That failed. But we did bomb to achieve that. And when it became clear that wasn't going to happen, we began to look for other targets. And the sort of I would say the methodology changed from decapitation to widespread destruction aimed at the disintegration of the Iranian state. Well, that failed. We ran out of the exotic missions. Our inventories for everything else were low. So, we declared a ceasefire. And once again, everybody lied and said, "Oh, well, they're begging for this. They're on their knees. They need this." Stuff really wasn't true. This is not an existential threat for us. In other words, the war is not being conducted against an enemy that could ever threaten us with destruction. And whatever disputes we have with Iran did not merit a war contrary to what some people in the United States want to believe. They want to believe that the Iranians have been plotting the deaths of thousands of us forever. That's just not true. And what they did during our occupation of Iraq is something we've actually done in the past. When the French were in Mexico, we helped the resistance to the French in Mexico against the French because that's what you do when you have a foreign power moves into a neighboring country that presents a threat to you. You help the locals who want to rebel against it and eject the power. So that's essentially what they did. But they didn't build all of the IEDs. They showed some people how to do it and the people inside Iraq then built the IEDs. They also came to our aid and assistance that nobody bothers to point out. In fact, General Sulammani that we went out of our way to assassinate was instrumental in bringing about peace with the Shia community in the south and moving this mulla that had been a thorn in everyone's side out of Iraq and stuck him in quot to study theology. This brought about not on its own but was a large part of this sort of surge success which had a lot more to do with money being passed out to key figures in Iraq and also uh the work that was done by Sulmani down in southern Iraq. Anyway, the point is that we we ignore those things and then if we ignore completely the war between Iraq and Iran.
>> Iranians lost over 800,000 people killed. That's almost a million.
>> And this didn't break Iran. What What do we What do we expect? I guess we expect the impossible. And so I think we're going to go back in this time and you're going to see the purpose is destroy the Iranian state, cause its society to go under, ruin its economy, do maximum damage. That means anything goes. Target sets are going to include anything that could be remotely connected in any way, shape or form to military potential. So I guess that means everything and anything. Factories that produce toys, factories that produce anything. This this is what happens in these air missile campaigns. Then in the meantime, we'll use these ground troops to try and create the illusion that we have been successful. See, we control this island inside the state, inside the Gulf. I I think we'll end up losing a lot of people unnecessarily because uh controlling little islands which may have made a difference 100 years ago makes no difference at all now because it has no depth. You can't protect anybody on it. Then in the meantime, you know, the global position, the global picture is just horrific. This morning I I was looking at the conditions in India where I wanted to know what the a barrel of oil is costing there. It's $118 a barrel and rising.
>> when it comes to jet fuel, other kinds of distillates, diesel. The world is in serious trouble. And so are we, by the way. We're going to run out of diesel before we run out of gasoline. And even though we're in better shape and we keep talking about our so-called energy independence, the truth is our storage tanks are not empty, but we're well below what we want to be here at the beginning of the summer. And it's not going to take very long for us to exhaust what we have in reserve. That's going to upset a lot of people. Everybody forgets diesel runs trucks. Your trucks deliver everything. uh airlines are collapsing and we're going to see thousands of flights canled day after day, week after week. Now, that may be treated by some people as well, that's just a temporary inconvenience. That's modest for the purpose of destroying Iran that could get a nuclear weapon and threaten the whole world. Well, that's all nonsense. That's just crap. Uh they have never really wanted a nuclear weapon, and I'm not sure they really want one now. although I rather suspect that they'll build one at this point as will a lot of other people because that's how you keep us and the Israelis out. But in the meantime, uh you know, what what's the impact elsewhere which I think nobody is is really understanding. I mean, if you look at China right now, look at Beijing. Beijing and Moscow have both concluded we can't let Iran go under because it's perfectly obvious that these uh dangerous unbalanced leaders in the west, particularly in Washington, will want to go after us. So, we have to make our stand with Iran. And and remember there was this thing that people talked about there was going to be the uh sort of fulcrum of bricks an alliance between Russia, India and China. Well, I think that's changed now. It's Russia, Iran and China. Iran is a frontline state right in the firing line of the US and Israeli forces just as the European and American forces are keeping Russia in the fire line. So I think the first thing is to understand that President Trump wants to go to Beijing. What is he going to find in Beijing? Well, I think he's going to find a lot of people who are extremely angry and unhappy with everything he's done. You know, if he expects President Xi to comply with whatever demands he makes, he's out of his mind. Beijing just announced that Chinese companies are not going to abide by US sanctions on their refineries, especially those linked to Iranian oil trade, including the big heavyweight, I think it's called Hangley Prochemical. This is a sea change in relations between Beijing and Washington because as annoying and irritating as the tariffs were, I think we've seen that the Chinese have been willing to accommodate us.
>> in on many of these issues of uh of commerce, trade and tariffs. That's over. China is tightening its grip on trade with the United States. It's it's expanding export controls on critical minerals. It's reinforcing its own supply chains and power to shape relations with the rest of the world. In other words, it's steadily reducing its investment in the United States. It's dumping our treasuries, our debt, and it's reallocating reserves toward harder assets, particularly gold, and reducing reliance on American uh commerce. This is very dangerous because we import so much from China and it may not make a great deal of difference militarily to to us in some ways, but it's certainly going to make a difference to the American consumer. So, I think president's President Trump's fundamental belief in the utility of American military force and power to shape our foreign policy has been a disaster.
Mhm. >> Uh the one thing he needs to learn before he goes to Beijing is something he cannot learn and that is some measure of humility because we actually need Chinese assistance. We need to demilitarize our relations with China and the rest of Asia. Asia is is currently very fed up with us, tired of us. They just assume do business without us. That would be a catastrophe, right? Right. But how do you how do you get President Trump to that point? You know, President President Trump always reminds me, frankly, of uh Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill had many positive attributes, but he had some very negative ones. And he didn't like facts when they contravened his point of view, when they contradicted his positions, his policies. I mean, he just refused to accept them. I think the best example was Montbatton goes to India to manage the independence of India from British imperial control. Did a pretty good job ultimately wasn't perfect. Comes back to Great Britain and uh Churchill is furious. Won't even speak to him. Won't meet with him. Well, that's sort of Trump-like. But the liquidation of the British Empire was an absolute necessity because they were broke. their debt to GDP ratio was 240%.
>> They couldn't afford health care for their own population. I don't think President Trump is is considering all of these factors and giving them proper weight. You know, what happens here in the United States is ultimately much more important than anything that goes on overseas. When he says we're not dependent on the Persian Gulf, he's right. Then what are you doing? Well, we all know what he's doing. He's fighting a war for Israel. Right.
>> And this is disaster.
>> Yeah. Uh Colonel, you touched on something important there, which is of course China, and you mentioned that briefly that, you know, China has essentially told Washington, you know, we're not going to listen to your your demands, you know, these sanctions, you know, for example, if you don't want us importing Iranian oil, um we're we're going to we're not going to listen to that. We're going to do what we want we need to do. Speak to the importance of that. I mean, this is really, I think, a very big move from China, essentially standing up on the world stage. Does that just really show that China has a lot more power and that they just are not going to take these threats from Donald Trump?
>> Well, it should demonstrate that to President Trump and to Washington. I'm not sure that it will. Uh, I hope it does because China is rapidly becoming the dominant power. And how did China become the dominant power? By intervening in other people's countries, by blockading other people's ports, by destroying supply chains in other people's regions? No, it's become the dominant power by focusing exclusively on commerce and building its own prosperity. We don't seem to understand that's what we did until we involved ourselves in World War I and World War II. We did exactly the same thing. We avoided unnecessary conflict and we built up our own strength, our own infrastructure. Today, people go to China and they said, "My, what a it's brilliant, Doug. You have can't imagine what it's like." I said, "No, I know. That's what people said about us at one point, but we've thrown all that away and there doesn't seem to be any end to it right now. It's almost as though we've decided to become entirely dependent upon bullying people in order to reach agreements with them. That's catastrophic. So, I think Beijing right now has seen us embark on a series of suicidal policies. And the most serious suicidal policy yet is this war on behalf of Israel. Not just against Iran, but effectively against anybody Israel doesn't like because Israel spends most of its time killing its neighbors, immediate neighbors. You know, so we've actually uh relieved them of the burden of dealing directly with Iran so they can, you know, deal with others that they dislike, that they want to mass murder or expel. people in Gaza, people in uh the West Bank, people in southern Lebanon, and that's by no means the end. They wear the greater Israel patch, and that tells you they want everything that's in Jordan, the Sinai plus all the way to the Nile. So, what we're also not seeing are the Turks and the Egyptians who are on the margins of this, their populations want to destroy Israel. the leaders are much more circumspect and have exercised great restraint. How much longer will that continue? And who really thinks that once this business ends in the Gulf, and it will with with Iran, whether it ends with a bang or with a whimper is anybody's question, but it's going to end. Who thinks that Israel will remain Israel when this is over? That everyone will say, "Well, that's that's wonderful. Now we can go back to normal." No, this is the real message that Iran is sending to everybody. Normal is over. The status quo is over. The Arabs are saying this. There's no more Sykes Pico. That's dead. And Sykes Pico was instrumental in creating Israel. So I I just, you know, it's incomprehensible to me that no one can look beyond the end of their noses in Washington. Everyone right now is trying to figure out are we hitting the right targets. They haven't figured out it doesn't matter how many targets you hit.
>> right? >> These people aren't going to give up.
>> And why should they? It's their country. Just like, you know, the the Iranians published a set of regulations. I don't know if you saw it outlining the future of the straight of Hormuz. Did you see that?
>> I haven't. Not yet.
>> Yeah. >> No. where they talk about the new uh authority for the uh strait which they see as initially themselves but then they say this is going to become international others in the region are going to have to be involved with this other great powers very intelligent absolutely right we need a new authority to shape how this is handled you had such a thing emerge after World War I in 1926 called the Montreus Convention and that essentially said Turks you lost the war but you control is straight and uh these are the way we want want you to behave and these are the things you say you want will you accept it they said yes we've never had any problems with the Turks over the Bosorus uh and I think this is exactly what the Iranians are looking for right now but what are we going to do we're going to say absolutely not because from our standpoint if you're President Trump that's surrender.
>> right
>> so how do you get beyond this sort of uh mental block that says everything must be decided by our force, our interest, our demands, even when we have no interest in the straight of hormones other than to have free access to it like everybody else, which we had before the war. Right, Colonel? I I have a good interesting question. We saw uh Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday. Um he essentially addressed the nation and said our goal now with this war is to get to the point where the straight of Hormuz is open much like it was at the beginning of the war. Um I mean is that just a remarkable statement? I mean is that just the United States admitting uh you know a complete failure of this war because essentially we want to go back to the conditions of February 27th. That's that's that's when the straight of Hormuz was open. But I guess now as you said, you know, Iran has now put out a plan saying, "Look, there's going to be a future authority and and and how we're going to deal with this." Um, so let me know your your thoughts on on Marco Rubio's comment.
>> Right now in the world, everyone other than the United States, Israel, and perhaps uh the UAE, which is has turned out to be a duplicitous but steadfast supporter of Israel. Everyone in the world sees Iran as an heroic figure on the world stage because Iran has stood up against the United States and Israel. So that's the first thing that has to be understood. So from the vantage point of the rest of the world, hearing Rubio say this p elicits laughter for the reason you just cited. Well, that's what we had before you made war on Iran. But here in the United States, there may not be an understanding of that. Sadly, you'll have lots of people who say, "Well, that's right." But what Rubio really meant was, "We want it to be open, but we want it to be open on our terms. Iran's terms are unacceptable. Although it's a fact that Iran controls most of the coastline in the Persian Gulf, they have the greatest stake in what happens in the Gulf. They live there. We don't live there. We don't have much of a stake in it. So, we're back to where we were before. Who are you kidding? Secretary Rubio right.
>> now. He knows he's kidding the American people. And thus far, he has gotten away with it. So is President Trump. I run into people all the time and I say, "What do you think?" Oh, we ought to just crush those people. Really? Really? Why? Oh, well, we've had problems with them for years. We just need to finish this and crush them. I presume, right? So, well, what happens if Russia and China decide that crushing is unacceptable because if it ever came to that, I think Russia and China would intervene directly and there's nothing to stop them from doing that. What what is going to get in the way of Russia and China? Oh, well, we'll send out our navy and air force. Okay. Well, look what it's take taken to deal with Iran. Uh most of the US Navy in one way or another has had to divert its attention, its resources, its people into the Persian Gulf region, into the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean. Uh if that's what it's taking to deal with Iran that spends 1% uh or a fraction of of percentage on defense that we do, then that suggests if we have to take on Russia and China, we're toast. People aren't smart. They don't think in those terms. We're the greatest power in the world. I mean, you know, this sounds like Great Britain before the First World War where the British used to sing in the pubs. We've got the men. We've got the ships. We've got the money, too. So we could go and do anything we want. And much of what we call British power in the British Empire died on the battlefields of World War I for nothing against people that were never their enemies. And that's what we're doing right now. The people who live in Iran or Persia are not by definition enemies of the United States.
>> Yeah, that's a really good point. Uh Colonel, I want to talk a little bit about the blockade because I've seen some interesting analysis. Uh there's a IMF uh economist named Robin Brooks. He's been very vocal on Twitter basically saying the United States blockade has been a tremendous success. Um you know he's actually advocating that this is what we should have done to Russia uh you know with the Russian Ukraine war. Uh and in his theory he says that if the United States continues to blockade we're basically going to destroy the Iranian economy. They're going to come on their hands and knees begging for a deal and all we need to do is continue this blockade. Why is that failing? Why why is that is that theory?
>> What did you say this man's name was?
>> Robin Brooks.
>> Robin Brooks. I don't I don't know this person.
>> Okay.
>> Uh probably needs to look at a few maps and understand something. When we blockaded Cuba, we called it a quarantine, but it was effectively a blockade. We committed on a routine basis 180 ships. Cuba was an island. Blockading Cuba was possible. Uh there are people that looked at World War II and discovered after the war, in fact it was Admiral Nimmits that that implied this. We didn't understand the lethality and capability of submarines. If we had had 200 submarines at the beginning of the war, we could have blockaded Japan and starved it into submission. Yes, Japan's a collection of islands. Yes, that's eminently possible. Uh Iran is not an island. That's the first thing Robin Brooks needs to understand. Secondly, Iran borders other nations. These nations are on the whole friendly to and absolutely not hostile to Iran.
>> He doesn't understand the belt and road project which has now put rail lines uh that reach all the way down to Burbas from Russia and Central Asia that carry all sorts of goods and can actually carry fuel. Then you have other routes that run through Pakistan straight through Pakistan all the way to China. And then you have seapports. There's a there's a seapport built by the Chinese on the coast of Pakistan called Guadrat. And that particular seapport is only 54 miles from the Iranian border. So you can land all sorts of material uh including including food and other other kinds of critical resources there that could be trucked from there through Pakistan right into Iran. Now I suppose you could then commit most of the US Air Force to fly all over the region 24 hours a day, seven days a week to try and pick off any of these places, destroy these routes. We've got most of the Navy committed. So, I guess we can commit most of the air force. I don't think it'll work. You know, you also have routes right across the Caspian into Russia from Iran. Uh, and finally, we're back to Turkey. This is the giant 4 or 500 lb gorilla in the room that nobody talks about, the real once and future military power of the region. How much longer will they sit this thing out before they finally said enough is enough? uh this this this just doesn't make any sense. And even that blockade of Cuba, which included 180 surface ships, that didn't include that also included some submarines, included lots and lots of aircraft. There were eight aircraft carriers involved in that. Four were what we would regard as standard aircraft carriers and four were submarine chasers. We were right next to the continental United States. The Caribbean was effectively a puddle that we controlled. Uh we don't control all that ocean space. We don't control the Red Sea. We don't currently control the Persian Gulf. We don't control the Caspian. Uh I'm not sure we could lay claim to controlling the Eastern Mediterranean.
>> and we don't have the ships to do it. And everybody fails to realize, you know, you send a ship over to another ship and you stop it and you inspect it, you board it. Then you have to take custody of this thing depending upon what you decide. There are all sorts of problems with this. It's not even a an intelligent legal option for us right now. It's not not resource sensitive. We're overreaching. Again, you know, we've been overreaching too much and this is another overreach. So, no, I think that's absolutely crazy.
>> Yeah.
>> To put bluntly.
>> Yeah. Absolutely. Um I think it Thanks for bringing in the expert analysis there. I agree with you. you know, it it's it may potential opportunity if it's an island, but with the with the land borders and but we also forget just the size of Iran, right? Four times the size of Iraq. It's a large large country. Uh tremendous relations with its neighbors, Belt and Road Initiative, railways. I mean, lots of options there uh for Iran. Uh Colonel, I've got an interesting question. You know, today at the time of this reporting is May 6. Is is Iran in a stronger position today than they were on February 27th? is is basically is this war basically just enabled Iran and really have them emerge as a new uh you know world power in this in this new geopolitical world.
>> I think you can make that case. Uh I think from the standpoint of the rest of the world, Iran has now stepped on the stage again as a great power. Something it has not done for a couple of hundred years frankly. And uh it's it's going to remain in that position for some time to come because what they've done is achieved a victory not by attacking us but by defending themselves against us and demonstrating that they cannot be conquered. And that's a very important statement. That's something that Abraham Lincoln tried to tell Americans. By the way, before he did, Andrew Jackson did. And Andrew Jackson has said, you know, the only problem we have in this country are other Americans. If if we decide to kill each other, we can destroy this place. But nobody can take us on. We're too big. You know, no one can can land on our shores with great ease and march all over the country. They'll exhaust themselves. They don't have enough forces. Andrew Jackson was right. Right now, the same thing is largely true for Iran. When I hear people talk about, well, we need to invade Iran, they they have no idea what they're talking about. If you look at what it took to mount the Normandy invasion, the forces that were required, and what did we do? We went from the northern coast of France and the southern coast of France inev inevitably all the way to the Czech border. Well, if you did that in Iran, you wouldn't even get halfway up uh the the length of the Iranian state. uh you'd be somewhere's in the middle probably of a desert. Or if you were going to try to get into the country and you tried to go in from the north or from the west, then you're going through something that looks like the Rocky Mountains. Just like, well, we we'll go ahead and we'll march to Leadville, Colorado from Colorado Springs. Huh, that's pretty rough. That's a long haul. you're going thousands of feet up and you know long distance to sustain yourself and you can be cut off at any number of different places. The whole thing is just not doable. This business of we cannot be conquered is important. The Russians made that point to Napoleon uh and they were right. They made it subsequently in in their history to the to the Germans and I think the Iranians can say the same thing. We cannot be conquered and that leads you to nuclear weapons.
Mhm. >> Well, the use of a nuclear weapon is off the table, and thank goodness President Trump made that abundantly clear in a press conference quite recently, and I'm glad he did.
>> Agreed. Agreed. Um, now that a nuclear weapon is off the table, as President Trump did point out, and I agreed I'm very thankful that he said that, uh, what is a viable exit from this catastrophe for the United States? Would it just be to admit that, you know, we've we've made a mistake, try to go back to what it was, but now realize that there's a new authority. Iran has that global power. I mean, do you see that happening? I mean, you did mention earlier that probably most likely we're going to look at a ground invasion at some point. Uh, what is the easiest pathway for an exit here? You know, that Donald Trump certainly needs.
>> Well, I I've said this several times and, you know, I don't know that President Trump is receptive to this sort of thing. He strikes me as having become over the last four or five years much more rigid in his thinking and in his mindset than the man I remember. He was not that rigid when I last spoke to him in 2020 by any means. Much more open-minded. And I would describe him at that point as singularly disinterested in dragging the United States into another war.
>> Right?
>> All of that's changed now. But if I were talking to him, I said, "You you what you've got to do is very straightforward, very simple. You go to the podium in Washington DC and you make an announcement." You say, "I wanted to talk to the American people." In fact, what I would do, I do it from the Oval Office, and I would talk to the American people. I wouldn't screw around with this Washington press corp, which I know he hates anyway. So, just go into the Oval Office and and make it an announcement at 8 or 9:00 at night so everybody can watch it and just say, "I've I've reviewed everything that we've undertaken against Iran to this point. It's abundantly clear that we've done enormous damage and this damage will not be reversed quickly. But it's also clear that what we've done is not going to achieve our ultimate aims. So, I've decided to suspend all further military operations on the following grounds. Number one, we're not going to achieve what we want with our military power. That's clear. Number two, what we've done is harm the global economy, and that was not something that I wanted. And I still don't want it. And I want the world to have access to everything that's in the Persian Gulf. Fertilizer, food, feed, stock, fuel, everything. We We've got to end this immediately because our friends have been hurt. India, Japan, uh Taiwan, even China, Korea, we we're Vietnam, Indonesia, Ma, Thailand. We we don't want to hurt those people. We don't want to hurt our European friends and allies. So, I'm going to halt this immediately. I am directing SenCom to disengage our forces. We are leaving and uh we urge the Iranians to open the straight so that everyone can have access. Finally, I'm going to talk with some of our close friends and ask them for assistance in finding a way forward uh with Iran that does not include direct military conflict. In other words, we need to resolve our disputes in other ways. Uh thank you for this, for listening to me. Keep in mind, I regret whatever damage that's being done to this point, but the best way to address that is to end it. And that's what I'm doing. Thank you. God bless America out."
>> I think that would work because most Americans would receive that positively now. It won't go down with uh, you know, combat heroes like Lindsey Graham,
>> right,
>> and others. There goes this is a fullscale surrender. those. No, it's not. It's dealing in a forthright manner with the facts.
>> right?
>> But, you know, that's something he's not inclined to do.
>> Yeah. Well, we can only hope that uh President Trump can certainly come to that conclusion at some point. But, uh, Colonel, I just want to say thank you so much for your incredible insights. you know, um we just saw this past week for the first time mainstream media has finally reported that the US military bases were fin were attacked in the very early stages, but of course you were on our podcast uh you know very quickly and you were one of the first ones that admitted that and that's why we have you on the show because you provide the insights that the mainstream media is not doing and I just want to say thank you for your amazing work. And then our final thing is just let everybody know, you know, where we can continue to follow your work. I' I've been following your new Substack. It's amazing. love your articles. So, just tell us where we can continue to follow your amazing insights and work.
>> Well, thanks for that. Uh, yes, the McGregor Warrior Substack is well worth people's time to to read. I'm trying to write new things and post them every week, especially while the war goes on and I'm trying to provide a different perspective although there are other good people out there making similar arguments, but nevertheless, so that's one place. Uh I would also urge people to go to my website where virtually everything I've ever said or done is posted. And then uh you know the national conversation we have been waiting for this war to resolve itself in some fashion before we swing into full action. But the national conversation is really about finding a new way forward. We want to explore what the options are because we really want a third party to be blunt. You know, we think the two parties have failed us and a lot of Americans that we talked to tell us that. We want to offer an alternative. Whether or not we can, I don't know. But I think based on a lot of events over the last few years, more and more people are beginning to understand this. And I'm one of these people that believes I grew up with nothing but Democrats in Philadelphia. And they were solid people, believed just as much in the country as as anybody that I knew who was a Republican. we can bring these people together and forge a different path into the future, I think.
>> Yeah, I I agree with you as well. So, everybody, we're going to put the links down to Colonel McGregor's, uh, website, his Substack, and also a good follow on Twitter as well. I'd encourage everybody to follow all three of those sources. Uh, Colonel, thank you again for your amazing insights, your time today, and we look forward to welcoming you back to the show in the future as we always continue to talk about this crazy world that we live in.
>> Thank you, Cyrus.
>> I appreciate you. Thank you everybody and we look forward to seeing you in our next interview.