Retired U.S. Army Colonel and combat veteran Douglas McGregor joins me to discuss the latest in the Iran crisis and why the United States should not attack Iran. He also talks about the need for a "Great Power Conference" to bring together all of the world's major powers and allies to bring peace to the region.
00:07:24.820And ultimately, it was clear that Iran had a choice.
00:07:28.780It could be humiliated and essentially get on its knees and beg for forgiveness and be a subject state of greater Israel, or it could fight.
00:07:40.420And Iran is not going to be subjugated.
00:07:42.800We have to treat Iran as a sovereign state.
00:07:45.700And I think if we bring in all of these other great powers at a conference, let the various people make their case, arbitrate it, and sort it out, we can avoid a major war.
00:07:56.880The problem right now is that you've got the Russians who are telling the Iranians, look, work with us.
00:08:25.200And the worst thing that could possibly happen at this stage is that he decides to become personally enraged and commit us to a conflict that we're not prepared to fight.
00:08:34.420We'll go through our arsenal of missiles and rockets and everything else very, very rapidly.
00:08:38.340The best that we can put to sea right now at one time are four carrier battle groups.
00:09:03.840How do you get out of it when you begin taking a major loss like that?
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00:09:39.900The other excellent point that I think you make that most Americans do not recognize is they just assume that there will be no effect on them.
00:09:47.620Should we proceed and the Iranians shut down the Strait of Hormuz where almost a quarter of the world's global oil supply flows, it would be, as you point, a huge disruption in supply chains and the cause of runaway inflation.
00:10:04.140You predict, I think correctly, that gas could hit $7 a gallon virtually overnight.
00:10:09.640Every working family in the country would be crushed.
00:10:12.780Suddenly truckers cannot deliver food, as you put it, causing our economy to crash.
00:10:18.720So Israel trying to drag us into this wider conflict.
00:10:26.020Americans should not assume that it will have no effect on their everyday lives.
00:10:30.580I think the impact would be catastrophic, as you point out.
00:10:37.180Plus the fact, you know, I strongly support many of the internal, actually all of the domestic policies that President Trump has implemented.
00:10:46.280They haven't been perfectly implemented.
00:10:48.020We have a long way to go, but he is on the right track.
00:10:50.640All of that could be lost overnight as a result of what you described.
00:10:55.360And Americans are pretty understanding until they can't eat, until they can't buy something, until they don't have a job.
00:12:03.580I felt badly for the people who were there.
00:12:06.060But it's a hell of a lot nicer than being in Gaza right now.
00:12:09.560And I think we need to put that Gaza thing right at the top of the agenda and end that catastrophe.
00:12:16.100When President Trump visited Riyadh, and I think later said it again in Qatar, he announced that we would be getting food, medicine, and aid to those in Gaza.
00:12:39.220And that's been a deliberate Israeli policy.
00:12:42.420You know, President Trump is someone that probably ought to publicly say that Israel should hold a snap elections because it needs new leadership.
00:12:53.940You know, mass murder is not a national policy that the world is going to support.
00:12:59.620Some people got away with that in the past, and we know.
00:13:02.880They still paid a price in the 20th century.
00:13:40.080You have much courage in saying it, but it has to be said.
00:13:43.700It really does threaten to disrupt President Trump's governing coalition.
00:13:49.700He was elected as the anti-war candidate.
00:13:52.280He was elected as the candidate to oppose endless foreign war, where our inherent national interests were not clear.
00:13:59.540Yet, I fear that some of his advisors, some around him, and some leaders, such as Netanyahu, seek to draw him into this war to do the dirty work of Israel.
00:14:12.120And this, I agree with Tucker Carlson, who is taking quite a beating from some on the right today, but who is sticking to his guns, as you have done.
00:14:23.700While I have you, I do want to ask you about the stunning diplomatic move to bring Syria in out of the cold to take our ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, who's an enormously able man, somebody I've known since 1972, make him a special envoy to Syria.
00:14:42.460It's a stunning piece of statecraft, but I wonder what your thoughts are on the implications of it.
00:14:49.880Well, the Turkish-Israeli cooperation that helped to produce the removal of Assad and the emergence of this new government of former ISIS members and former al-Qaeda members is something that's very difficult to fathom.
00:15:08.620We want something that produces stability.
00:15:12.340But most of the people that we're dealing with right now in Damascus are bathed in blood.
00:15:20.840They've killed untold numbers of Christians, Druze, Shiites, Armenians, you name it.
00:15:30.620I don't know how long this thing will last.
00:15:32.540And right now, the relationship between the Israelis and the Turks on this whole score is sickeningly reminiscent of the Nazis and the communists in 1939.
00:15:46.220I don't know how long this thing will last, Roger.
00:16:11.700We're talking to retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas McGregor, former advisor to the Secretary of Defense and author of five books on military history and strategy.
00:16:22.160One of the great geopolitical and military strategic thinkers in the country.
00:16:27.760And he is a very strong piece picked up today by Zero Hedge, in which he urges President Trump not to commit American force to the war in Iran.
00:16:40.520You have a kind of a five-point proposal here for the president that you say the president should do to disfuse the conflict.
00:16:49.840Colonel McGregor, go through this for us.
00:16:51.320Well, first and foremost, I think we should do something nobody in Washington likes to do, which is to go to the United Nations and ask the United Nations Security Council to effectively impose a ceasefire that we say we will support.
00:17:07.760End the killing in Gaza and make it clear to the Israelis that until they stop killing people in Gaza, we are not going to continue our aid to them.
00:17:17.360And then also to talk about the other things that are going to have to happen in connection with Gaza, one of which is eventually we've got to put some soldiers in there that will provide some measure of security and separate the parties.
00:17:29.720And they'll have to come from non-aligned nations, not from us.
00:17:34.120You know, and then I think more important than anything else, we've got to hold a conference.
00:17:41.840They've been done before, during and after wars.
00:17:44.460We need a great power conference, and we need to bring in China, Russia, the United States, also India, I would argue, which is not aligned, but has strong interests in the end of this instability, and ultimately Brazil.
00:17:59.220We need to make this as global as we can, but still keep it to a small group of people.
00:18:05.000And then we need to sort out these issues.
00:18:09.320I don't think that diminishes our power.
00:18:11.200I think it will increase our influence and stature.
00:18:14.460And I think it would be very good for President Trump to offer to host this wherever we want to have it and lead this effort and get everybody on side, and we'll come up with a solution that won't necessarily be what everybody wants.
00:18:29.320But it will stop the war, because I'm very afraid of where things are headed right now.
00:18:35.080Israel is not doing well, and we can't necessarily rescue it in time.
00:18:40.220And we need an end to this as soon as possible.
00:18:43.440Well, as you correctly point out, the neocons, the warmongers, have had 22 years, and they have failed.
00:18:51.940The results since 2003 in the Middle East, 7,000 dead Americans, as you write, 50,000 wounded, open borders, 100,000 Americans dying yearly from fentanyl poison.
00:19:02.000Clearly, America has other priorities at this moment, and I agree with you.
00:19:07.020Our theory is that President Trump will lose his mandate to close our borders, to negotiate better trade deals, to cut taxes and regulation, to rebuild our military strength, to make America healthy again.
00:19:21.560All of these important aspects of Trumpism could be lost with a decision to enter this war with our military might.
00:19:31.080Let me thank our guest today, Colonel Douglas McGregor.
00:19:33.960You can find him again at OurCountryOurChoice.com.