TRIGGERnometry - December 17, 2023


CIA Agent - Is This How Israel-Palestine Ends？ - Mike Baker


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 4 minutes

Words per Minute

172.19089

Word Count

11,081

Sentence Count

753

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

47


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.720 Imagine you're the national security adviser to the prime minister of Israel.
00:00:04.400 What's your advice?
00:00:05.400 You take out their command and control structure, you take out as much of their resource as
00:00:09.240 possible.
00:00:10.240 They're not going to create a buffer zone and then say, OK, well, Hamas is back.
00:00:13.320 We've got the status quo.
00:00:14.320 Status quo is going to lead to more deaths on all sides.
00:00:18.160 We're going to have to have a reckoning at some point with the Iranian regime because
00:00:21.160 they are the reason why we have this conflict right now.
00:00:24.840 The White House has been talking about that.
00:00:25.840 We need a two-state solution.
00:00:26.840 We've read the recent studies, you know, they've been talking about a two-state solution
00:00:31.200 for generations.
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00:01:56.160 Mike, so first question is you were in the CIA for a long time and I think for people like
00:02:02.600 us who don't really know much about it, a question that never gets asked really is what is the CIA
00:02:08.440 and what does it do?
00:02:10.240 Yeah, I don't have a clue.
00:02:13.240 We're still confused.
00:02:14.240 No, no, it's not.
00:02:15.800 The CIA is Central Intelligence Agency, really hasn't been around that long, came out of World
00:02:22.160 War Two, originally called the Office of Strategic Services.
00:02:26.360 And OSS was created during World War Two and was essentially modeled after the British model
00:02:38.920 for intelligence operations, right?
00:02:41.440 I mean, that's kind of where they said, OK, well, I guess this is this is what we're going
00:02:44.800 to need to do.
00:02:45.520 So OSS kind of under the tutelage of the British service during the course of World War Two began
00:02:54.800 to develop this sense of, OK, what we need is we need this other way to protect national security.
00:03:00.040 And that is a collection of intelligence all over the world.
00:03:02.680 And that essentially is the that's the job of the CIA or any intel service, theoretically,
00:03:08.800 is to respond to priority tasking from whoever's in charge.
00:03:14.040 Doesn't matter who's in the White House, right?
00:03:15.900 So whoever's in charge, they, along with their national security team, determine the
00:03:22.900 priority tasking.
00:03:24.220 And that priority tasking list is then sent to the CIA and you fan out all your various
00:03:30.060 resources, whether it's human sources or technical collection or whatever, and you
00:03:34.340 respond to those priority taskings with the overall goal.
00:03:38.580 And it's the only objective is to protect national security.
00:03:41.240 And the CIA certainly, it seems to me, is no longer just collecting intelligence.
00:03:47.140 It's also doing things proactively, taking people out.
00:03:51.500 Some people argue, helping kick people out.
00:03:54.100 Is it not?
00:03:54.580 Is it not doing that?
00:03:55.460 Am I being silly?
00:03:56.260 Well, I mean, of course, during the global war on terror.
00:03:58.180 Yeah.
00:03:58.400 I mean, there's no, you know, there's no doubt about it.
00:04:00.600 And that's, you know, depending on what side of the fence you have people will argue with
00:04:04.560 me.
00:04:04.720 But that's a good thing.
00:04:05.660 I mean, if you're taking out high value targets who are involved in terrorist operations to
00:04:09.360 kill not just US personnel or allies, but, you know, think of the countless Muslims who
00:04:17.600 were killed as a result of the actions of a group like ISIS or Al Qaeda or.
00:04:21.380 So I think there was never just a collection and analytical component to OSS and then developing
00:04:31.080 into CIA when the Cold War hit.
00:04:34.980 There's always been the operational side to it.
00:04:37.220 So the collection of intelligence and then, you know, you got to do something with it.
00:04:41.220 Otherwise, it's useless.
00:04:42.700 You collect intelligence for the sake of it.
00:04:44.260 You put it on the shelf over there.
00:04:45.720 There's no point in having it.
00:04:46.900 Right.
00:04:47.260 Because all intelligence, for the most part, has a pretty short shelf life.
00:04:51.320 Right.
00:04:51.560 Meaning the operational value of it, you know, is is is pretty brief for the most part.
00:04:57.000 So, yeah, it's I mean, it was interesting.
00:05:00.720 You can't you came out.
00:05:01.520 I'm going to disappeared on the historical rabbit hole, but you came out of World War Two.
00:05:04.380 Harry Truman, the president at the time, said, well, thanks very much, you know, to a
00:05:08.500 fellow named Bill Donovan, who ran OSS, the predecessor for CIA.
00:05:12.980 You know, don't let the screen door hit your ass on the way out.
00:05:15.160 And and they shut it down.
00:05:17.900 And then it didn't take very long, you know, as the Soviets started rampaging and doing
00:05:22.160 what they're going to do for the U.S. to realize, well, we probably shouldn't have closed that
00:05:26.120 operation.
00:05:26.920 So they restarted it and then came to CIA.
00:05:29.600 Can I ask one more stupid question?
00:05:31.500 We specialize in stupid questions here.
00:05:33.800 But it's interesting to explore the meanings of all these terms.
00:05:37.460 You mentioned that the purpose of it is national security.
00:05:40.800 And that's a word that get term that gets used often.
00:05:43.580 What does national security mean?
00:05:46.320 Well, every nation acts in its own best interest, right?
00:05:49.040 I mean, OK, maybe you can imagine that the world's a community of nations and we're all
00:05:53.760 holding hands and, you know, you know, corns are flying out of our ass.
00:05:56.660 But that's not the way the world works.
00:05:57.960 So every nation acts in its own best interest.
00:06:00.580 Every nation then determines what is in its own best national security interests.
00:06:04.500 Typically, defense of borders, you know, defense of its economy, whatever it may be, that nation
00:06:12.480 will set up its priority tasking and then, you know, typically works with its allies and
00:06:16.560 in a, you know, somewhat, you know, community of nations, I suppose you could argue, whether
00:06:21.000 it's NATO.
00:06:24.160 OPEC is a good example.
00:06:25.560 I mean, they band together to protect their own interests.
00:06:28.000 So, Mike, I'm my mother is from Venezuela and there's there's some suspicion, shall I say,
00:06:34.540 about the CIA in Latin America?
00:06:36.460 No.
00:06:39.160 I'm shocked.
00:06:42.340 How much do you think that is fair and warranted to have that suspicion of the CIA and be distrustful?
00:06:48.900 And how much of it do you think is unfair?
00:06:52.240 God, trying to quantify that.
00:06:53.960 Look, there's no doubt that some of it is warranted, right?
00:06:59.180 Because, you know, you can't, you can't be operating an intelligence organization with
00:07:09.800 the size of something like the CIA or MI6 or any large nation that's got well-resourced
00:07:18.120 capabilities and not say that there's going to be, what's the best word for it?
00:07:25.280 There's going to be a clash.
00:07:27.280 There's going to be intrusions.
00:07:28.520 There's going to be in other nations activities, right?
00:07:31.780 Because, again, we're all interconnected.
00:07:34.240 So it's not as if you sit inside your bubble, right?
00:07:38.220 And say, well, we're protecting our national security interests.
00:07:41.040 And that never impacts anyone else around, right?
00:07:45.260 Because other nations are doing their own thing.
00:07:47.360 So I guess that's a long, rambling way to say some of it's warranted, some of it's not.
00:07:53.540 It is way above my pay grade to quantify what the percentages on both sides would be.
00:07:58.500 So what we have in Venezuela now, as you know, there's talk of a war with Guyana.
00:08:04.520 Yeah.
00:08:04.860 And you have Maduro, who's done a referendum.
00:08:07.980 Yeah, I want that.
00:08:08.960 I want two thirds of Guyana.
00:08:11.140 Yeah, yeah.
00:08:11.780 So.
00:08:12.440 Exactly.
00:08:13.060 Yeah.
00:08:13.340 And all of a sudden, he seems to have discovered democracy when it interests him, which is quite
00:08:17.120 interesting.
00:08:18.120 So.
00:08:18.740 Well, if you assume the referendum is an actually, you know, clear and transparent referendum.
00:08:25.280 But I'm sure the discovery of oil.
00:08:27.860 Yeah.
00:08:28.200 In the scheme, I had nothing to do with.
00:08:29.500 No, of course not.
00:08:30.320 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:08:30.780 No, of course not.
00:08:31.680 No, of course not.
00:08:32.240 He's a principled guy.
00:08:33.420 We know that.
00:08:33.840 Yeah.
00:08:34.240 So how would the CIA approach this?
00:08:37.540 Because actually, I don't think people are taking this seriously enough.
00:08:41.360 This is a big deal.
00:08:42.840 And it's happening right on the back door of the United States.
00:08:47.080 Right.
00:08:47.600 Well, yeah, it's a great question.
00:08:50.080 And I agree with you.
00:08:50.800 I don't think it's not that they're not taking it seriously.
00:08:52.680 I don't think anybody's paying attention.
00:08:54.100 Right.
00:08:54.460 People have very limited bandwidth, it seems.
00:08:57.340 Right.
00:08:57.480 They get very sort of ADHD on most issues.
00:09:00.880 So right now it's all been Israel Hamas.
00:09:03.420 Prior to that, it was the Ukraine when 7 October kicked off the conflict in the Middle
00:09:07.540 East.
00:09:07.820 Now you couldn't find reporting on Ukraine for weeks.
00:09:10.600 Right.
00:09:11.040 It just so the fact that nobody's looking over at Venezuela.
00:09:14.260 Right.
00:09:14.700 Even within the U.S. administration, and it's in their own backyard, that doesn't surprise
00:09:21.320 me in the least.
00:09:22.520 But yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:09:23.740 You're talking about a move, a referendum that supposedly guarded a, what, 95% positive
00:09:30.820 response to seize two-thirds of a neighboring country's territory.
00:09:36.880 That's basically what it is.
00:09:38.340 That region's about two-thirds of that size of that country.
00:09:44.160 Just in the region, but more importantly, you know, outside of the region, geopolitically,
00:09:48.380 that's a major concern, right?
00:09:50.340 But you get very little attention paid to it.
00:09:52.440 So what's the role of an organization like the CIA in that?
00:09:57.880 I mean, if that's the question, well, first and foremost, it's to be proactive and stay
00:10:02.640 ahead of the curve in terms of understanding what's happening, right?
00:10:05.420 Getting insights so that you're not surprised.
00:10:08.220 Because that is part of national security, is ensuring that the leadership, right, whether
00:10:14.560 it's the president, the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, or whomever, isn't surprised by what's
00:10:20.140 happening.
00:10:21.020 And so you have to be ahead of the curve.
00:10:22.820 That means you're collecting intelligence.
00:10:24.220 That means you're gathering information from whatever source you may have that can tell
00:10:29.160 you what are the plans and intentions, right?
00:10:31.660 What's the motivation?
00:10:32.620 What are the intended actions?
00:10:36.280 And that, depending on the topic, is a really heavy lift, right?
00:10:40.940 So you look at Iran as an example.
00:10:46.880 Understanding Iran's ambitions with its weapons program, incredibly heavy lift, very difficult.
00:10:53.040 Limited sources that you could potentially, you know, tap into to understand that.
00:10:58.300 But with Venezuela, no, it's a perfect example.
00:11:00.820 Look, we missed the boat many times, whether you're talking about the CIA or broadly U.S.
00:11:07.960 administration policy, over what's happening in our own backyard.
00:11:12.000 Central America, further south.
00:11:14.240 You know, it's an area that we tend to not so much disregard as ignore, right?
00:11:22.620 And focusing on other concerns, oftentimes, you know, recently terrorism, obviously, but
00:11:27.760 oftentimes the Middle East.
00:11:30.300 Oftentimes our, you know, activities related to China, Russia.
00:11:35.100 So right down there, right south of the United States, tends to get short shrift, right?
00:11:43.640 We don't, I don't think, tend to focus enough attention or our best resources or our best
00:11:48.000 personnel.
00:11:48.860 And then we get surprised.
00:11:50.800 You know, somebody like Chavez shows up.
00:11:53.640 You know, Maduro, we're thinking like, what the hell?
00:11:55.920 You know, what's with this cyclical shift to the left on a somewhat regular basis?
00:12:01.680 Because it's because we don't pay attention.
00:12:04.940 And you say we don't pay attention.
00:12:06.740 And I think that, you know, that's a very interesting point that you raise there.
00:12:10.880 But what you're faced with is political instability there of a huge kind, which is then going to
00:12:19.180 impact the U.S.
00:12:20.820 In a way, I would argue, and people say I'm crazy when I say this, on a similar level to
00:12:26.460 Israel-Palestine for the United States.
00:12:28.740 Because Venezuela is backed by Iran.
00:12:32.360 They're backed by China.
00:12:34.600 They're backed by Russia.
00:12:36.480 This is a proxy war, isn't it?
00:12:38.260 Yeah.
00:12:38.500 Well, it is, essentially.
00:12:39.820 I mean, that's certainly how China is, if you just take them, that's how they view it, right?
00:12:44.900 We talk about Iran and Iran's proxies, you know, and currently what they're doing to,
00:12:50.080 in a sense, escalate the conflict, right?
00:12:52.040 You know, the U.S. administration is all spun up about, well, we don't want to escalate the
00:12:55.380 conflict by, you know, upsetting or targeting Iran's regime directly.
00:12:59.700 They've already done it through their proxies.
00:13:02.020 China looks at Venezuela as an example.
00:13:04.300 And, you know, it's not as if they approach the Venezuelan government with offers of economic
00:13:12.160 assistance because they're gracious and benevolent, right?
00:13:15.820 That's bullshit.
00:13:17.000 So they're doing it because they view this as a, I don't want to say a stronghold, but
00:13:23.900 an opportunity, right, to create, you know, a foothold, a potential point of disruption,
00:13:32.340 instability, angst for the U.S. administration, all those things from the Chinese regime's point
00:13:39.320 of view, those are good things, right?
00:13:41.020 And so, you know, look, they're building a military facility, training facility on behalf
00:13:47.280 of the Cuban government, right?
00:13:48.980 Are you, I mean, that should be of concern.
00:13:52.440 But, you know, we've been, again, previous administration or the current and the one before
00:13:57.680 the Trump administration were spun up about, you know, trying to reestablish warmer relationships
00:14:03.740 with the Cuban regime.
00:14:05.440 And meanwhile, the Cuban regime is, you know, on the other side, they're dealing with China.
00:14:09.500 Come on in, build this facility for us.
00:14:12.560 I mean, we don't seem to multitask sometimes very well, right?
00:14:18.680 And by that, I mean the U.S. administration at any given time, not just this one, not the
00:14:24.260 Trump administration, not the Obama administration, any administration.
00:14:28.160 We seem to have a hard time with the concept that, you know, we want to do right in the
00:14:33.300 world.
00:14:33.640 You know, I do believe in a sense that the U.S., they tend to, of a lot of the places
00:14:42.900 that I've been and spent most of my life overseas in some bizarre places, they tend to have this
00:14:50.700 naive view sometimes that the world is, you know, mirrored by our, you know, the Western values, right?
00:15:00.540 So, and everybody does that, you know, you mirror your own values on other people.
00:15:04.220 The U.S. tends to do it, you know, in a more or a less pragmatic way because they sometimes
00:15:09.520 actually believe it.
00:15:10.500 Oh, you're going to behave like we do, right?
00:15:12.580 You know, we go into Iraq or we go into Afghanistan and we imagine somehow, you know, you're going
00:15:16.980 to get this, boy.
00:15:17.860 You're going to love our whole idea of democracy.
00:15:20.520 And 20 years in Afghanistan, they didn't know what the fuck we were trying to sell them,
00:15:23.720 right?
00:15:23.840 They had no idea after all that time.
00:15:26.020 And so we could have known that by looking at what the Soviets did in Afghanistan.
00:15:30.120 We have all that information about what the Soviets did and how much trouble they had
00:15:33.640 and how many years they spent trying to get the hell out of there for the same reasons
00:15:37.420 that we ended up trying to get out of there and eventually did.
00:15:39.720 So, you know, we tend to do that and that's a problem, you know?
00:15:45.460 So I think, and at the same time then, you know, when you make those mistakes, when you
00:15:50.320 mirror your values and then you don't get the results because you've given them the
00:15:53.620 party hats and all the money and the resources and they don't behave the way that you want
00:15:56.820 them to, you know, then you spend this time trying to recalibrate and it's a tough
00:16:03.200 thing.
00:16:04.200 But, yeah.
00:16:04.680 Mike, one of the things we've been talking a lot on the show, we recently had the former
00:16:08.860 Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, and others talking about the phrase that
00:16:13.680 Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, the leader of Iran, the leaders of many countries and are
00:16:17.740 using, which is multipolar world.
00:16:19.240 They keep talking about this, which seems to me like a code for throwing America off
00:16:24.680 the pedestal, essentially, right?
00:16:26.340 Challenging American hegemony, etc.
00:16:29.280 And France has brought up the issue with Venezuela.
00:16:31.580 Venezuela, what is happening in the world at the moment and why is it happening?
00:16:37.160 Well, you're right.
00:16:38.000 You're getting this growing effort.
00:16:40.460 A lot of it led by China, frankly, their global initiative to create this concept of the global
00:16:47.080 south, right?
00:16:47.900 We're going to build up, you know, this entity, this global south operation that is going
00:16:56.420 to, essentially, the goal is to supplant the U.S. at the top, at the future.
00:17:01.640 I'm simplifying this thing, but if you imagine you've got your ladder and right now, and again,
00:17:08.580 I'm not saying it is or isn't, but this is the Chinese regime's view.
00:17:11.480 The U.S. sits on top of that and they don't like that.
00:17:14.680 They view themselves, Xi, remember what I'm saying?
00:17:17.280 I don't mean the Chinese people, Chinese culture, history, fantastic.
00:17:20.000 But the Chinese regime, led by Xi, views itself at the top of the food chain, right?
00:17:26.140 And they've got a plan, their global security initiative to get there.
00:17:30.120 It's a blueprint.
00:17:31.180 And part of that is to develop this world where you don't have the U.S. sitting up there.
00:17:38.320 I don't think they're so much interested in a multipolar world.
00:17:41.420 They're interested in a world where China replaces the U.S. and sits up top, right?
00:17:46.680 And creates this influence, and they're doing it through a variety of means,
00:17:50.420 and they've been very successful, as you pointed out, in South America.
00:17:53.700 They've spent well over a decade and a half traveling around, locking up mining rights,
00:17:59.680 and doing a variety of things that they do under their Belt and Road Initiative to get to this point.
00:18:06.980 And that's their goal, right?
00:18:08.640 And it's not because they think the world will be a better place because of it.
00:18:13.520 They just want to sit up there.
00:18:15.240 Well, like you said, every country pursues its national security interest and national interest in general.
00:18:19.720 And they're not doing it because it's in the best interests of Venezuela or the best interests of the Democratic Republic of Congo
00:18:26.860 or wherever they've been busy doing their business and creating these relationships,
00:18:33.580 mostly by handing out bags of cash.
00:18:36.720 And then the bill comes due, and some of these countries are starting to realize that's a problem.
00:18:42.080 But, look, you can make an argument that the world is a less chaotic place when you have a—what's the word I'm looking for?
00:18:57.820 Bipolar? No.
00:18:59.020 But when you have a world that isn't a multipolar—I don't even know if I understand what multipolar means sometimes
00:19:08.700 because I've heard different definitions of it.
00:19:10.960 But when you have a multipolar world, I think the potential, the downside—maybe there's an upside.
00:19:16.160 The downside is probably more chaos.
00:19:17.660 Well, right. This is what I always think about because, look, I'm no—you know, I haven't worked in the CIA.
00:19:22.160 I'm no great expert.
00:19:23.040 But it just—when I look at what's happening in Mexico, when you take out a stable situation where one cartel is dominant,
00:19:30.940 that doesn't usually end in stability and peace and kumbaya.
00:19:35.100 What seems to happen is a power struggle until the emergence of the next hegemonic cartel, and then you just go around in these circles.
00:19:43.400 So if you apply that to the world, it doesn't seem to me that replacing the world as it is now with a world in which you have Russia, China, the U.S.,
00:19:53.600 all competing for that top dog position, that does not seem to me like a more stable and secure world for everybody involved.
00:20:00.040 I don't think it is. I mean, you could point not just to cartels, but we could look at Tito.
00:20:05.720 You could look at Gaddafi. You could look at, I mean, shit, Saddam Hussein, right?
00:20:10.260 I mean, you know, I'm not saying better the devil you know, but just proving the point,
00:20:16.120 which is when you take out what is a strong leader or situation,
00:20:20.980 then you better be aware that what comes in behind that could be chaotic and not particularly pleasant.
00:20:27.380 Libya is a hot mess, right, since Gaddafi left.
00:20:30.420 Now, before Gaddafi got taken out, he was kind of our guy in terms of he had pledged his support for fighting terrorism and all of this.
00:20:38.440 And so theoretically he was. And then there were other, you know, reasons, I suppose, why, you know,
00:20:46.160 some countries were very keen to see Gaddafi removed.
00:20:49.260 And he was. And now nobody talks about Libya, but Libya is a disaster, right?
00:20:53.900 It's a complete disaster. Slave markets everywhere. It's it's it's terrible.
00:20:59.660 You know, so I think, yes, I think there's there's there is that problem.
00:21:03.720 But again, I get it.
00:21:07.660 People look around at a situation where, you know, the U.S. sits on top of the of the food chain.
00:21:16.000 And people, you know, complain, well, they're acting as the policeman of the of the world, imposing their views on things.
00:21:24.200 And, you know, OK, fine. China sits over here and goes, well, that's what we want.
00:21:28.740 It's not like it's not like they're upset because, you know, not enough voices are heard.
00:21:32.700 They're just so that's fine.
00:21:34.760 I get why people complain about whoever said the top at that particular moment in time.
00:21:38.900 But don't be unrealistic about why somebody else is complaining about it.
00:21:42.500 Right. They're not doing it because they feel as if, well, we should all have more of a say in things.
00:21:46.760 They want more of a say in things.
00:21:48.920 Mike, and the obvious question is, given the U.S. support for Ukraine, given the U.S.
00:21:56.300 obvious support for Israel, given the U.S.'s huge level of indebtedness of its own, irrespective of those conflicts, too.
00:22:03.660 So how well positioned is America to actually fight off these these very serious challenges?
00:22:10.580 Right. Yeah, it's a problem because you're talking I mean, look, you're talking about with Israel, you know, the concern was opening up a multi front war.
00:22:17.140 Right. Well, you know, the U.S. is is facing these these various fronts in a much more serious way.
00:22:24.200 I can remember when our biggest issue was Haiti, the the Balkan crisis, which was a real problem.
00:22:32.340 But you look at the scale of it now and you look at, you know, the theater of war involving Ukraine and Russia, you look at the Middle East.
00:22:41.120 Now, the Middle East is going to argue, OK, well, it's just more of the same, I suppose.
00:22:45.160 You know, I've heard this. People say that's, you know, it's always a problem over there.
00:22:50.000 What? So, OK, if you want to dismiss it that way.
00:22:54.120 But it is. And it and they're having discussions in in the states, in Washington, D.C., up on Capitol Hill at this very moment, talking about what can we and can we not do?
00:23:06.780 There is a growing sense that with Ukraine, part of this is obviously based on domestic politics that, you know, enough's enough.
00:23:16.100 Maybe, you know, maybe that money needs to be brought back and spent at home.
00:23:19.880 Maybe, you know, there's there's not the appetite, you know, that people thought at the outbreak when during the it's been almost two years since Putin moved in in a big way.
00:23:33.600 But I think, you know, we had people out in the streets waving Ukraine flags.
00:23:39.180 Everybody's, you know, free Ukraine. Everybody's got bumper stickers, flags on their front porches.
00:23:45.060 And it's not been quite two years. And there's a fair amount of fatigue, which is, I think, surprising to a lot of people.
00:23:55.680 But and also the attention, because, you know, we have short attention spans.
00:23:59.220 Everyone's now focused on Israel. Do you think it's also because the Ukrainians aren't winning?
00:24:04.820 Oh, sure. If the Ukrainians were kicking ass, I don't think you'd have war exhaustion in this way.
00:24:09.500 Yeah, I agree with you 100 percent. There's no doubt about it.
00:24:11.860 The the emotions were running high leading into the counteroffensive, you know, at the beginning of summer.
00:24:20.680 And you're right. If they had made inroads, if they had, you know, made their way as maybe even to their own borders again on the east.
00:24:30.680 And sure, we wouldn't be having the same conversation.
00:24:33.840 There wouldn't there wouldn't be this sense of, well, maybe enough's enough, you know.
00:24:37.260 But I think, look, you have to be pragmatic. Right. And again, this is where I think sometimes, you know, the U.S. can miss the boat a little bit.
00:24:46.000 And they sometimes they catch up for domestic political reasons.
00:24:50.160 And in this case, we've got a 2024 election coming up.
00:24:53.280 And I think the current White House looks around and thinks, OK, well, what's you know, where's the wind blowing as far as the voters go?
00:25:01.660 Right. Do they have the stomach to continue putting billions and billions of dollars into Ukraine?
00:25:06.340 I mean, just like with Israel, you know, where where the wind's blowing and the current administration looks out there and sees protests in the street, you know, related to free Palestine or from the river to the sea.
00:25:21.460 And they look at the Arab American voters. They look at the youth voters and they, you know, suddenly it goes from, OK, unequivocal support to Israel to yes.
00:25:29.180 But we have to be very, very careful here. And you have to be very careful about how you, you know, conduct your operations on Mars.
00:25:34.520 And we have to look for a truce. And they're playing both sides. Right.
00:25:39.540 And that's a strange place to be.
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00:27:51.040 Yeah, it's a strange place sometimes when you think that your foreign policy is driven by domestic political concerns.
00:27:56.480 I mean, I'm not sure that that's the best route to go.
00:27:58.320 So, because again, you define your national security interests, those should be free of your own domestic political interests, I would think.
00:28:06.500 But I'm not a politician, so what the hell do I know?
00:28:08.720 Mike, we're looking at this situation around the world.
00:28:13.080 We're seeing these wars potentially springing up or springing up.
00:28:17.640 How much is this the responsibility of the Biden government?
00:28:21.020 How much of this is these leaders looking at Biden and going, yeah, now's our time?
00:28:29.480 Yeah.
00:28:34.420 Yeah, I try not to be too political, right?
00:28:37.880 I mean, you know, one of the things that I always tried to imagine, whether it's true or not, I suppose,
00:28:42.960 but, you know, based on your own experience, the CIA tends to be an apolitical operation at the operational level.
00:28:52.920 You know, again, you've got a director who has some, you know, he's got his own relationship with the president.
00:29:00.180 But if you're just, you know, somebody within CIA operations, you don't, believe me, spend any time sitting around chatting about politics.
00:29:08.420 You don't care.
00:29:10.120 And ideally, I've seen and I've been in a lot of countries where you have wholesale change every time there's a change in the government
00:29:17.260 and they just clear out that particular intel operation, law enforcement, and bring in their own people.
00:29:23.560 That is a terrible place to be.
00:29:25.560 So to the degree that it can be, you need to do everything possible to ensure that your intel operations are apolitical.
00:29:32.460 And again, realizing it's a human endeavor, so you're never going to get down to completely apolitical.
00:29:36.620 But as far as, you know, is the current turmoil the result of people looking at Joe Biden and saying,
00:29:46.740 well, he and his team seem a little bit weak, so maybe now is the time to engage in this?
00:29:54.940 I think every administration gets tested, right?
00:29:58.940 Joe Biden is a known quantity, right?
00:30:01.680 These various leaders out there, they've seen him for 50 years.
00:30:06.420 In one way or another, or their personnel have seen him.
00:30:09.040 Their intel operations have been assessing politicians for all this time.
00:30:13.840 So they've had 50 years to look at everything about Joe Biden.
00:30:18.140 So it's not as if in the past couple of years they thought, well, let's test him.
00:30:21.780 They kind of knew what they were getting, right?
00:30:23.760 And he came in, and I think certainly if we just kind of look around the world, Iran has certainly made the calculation that they're not dealing with a strong leader, right?
00:30:38.380 They're not dealing with somebody who they can't quite read, right?
00:30:41.940 And by that I mean you could go back to Ronald Reagan, right?
00:30:48.100 One of the things that the Soviets had a problem with with Reagan in terms of profiling and assessment was they really weren't sure exactly how aggressive he was going to be at any given moment.
00:30:57.640 They didn't know because they felt as if he was capable of walking in to NORAD and saying, well, let's let those missiles fly.
00:31:05.040 And that tends to keep people a little bit more guarded and on the back foot.
00:31:10.200 So Iran's made the same calculation, I think, in a different way with the Biden team, in part because the Biden team came out at the very beginning and said, we want to bring in a different mindset.
00:31:24.900 We want to have a warm relationship.
00:31:26.420 Well, we want to have a relationship with Iran.
00:31:28.640 They took their foot off the sanctions pedal, right?
00:31:32.640 And they put in place in their various positions that are Iran forward leaning, whether State Department or the Pentagon or elsewhere, they put in people who had appeasement in mind, who had, you know, let's let's get rid of this maximum pressure approach that was previously used with the Iranian regime.
00:31:48.360 And let's let's call it a new day.
00:31:50.900 The Iranian regime doesn't want a new day.
00:31:53.160 Every time you put your hand out to shake their hand, they smack it away.
00:31:56.000 Right. I mean, that's that's a track record that they have.
00:31:59.460 So I think, yes, the chaos now that you're seeing in the Middle East, because Hamas.
00:32:06.060 Wouldn't exist without Iran, Hezbollah wouldn't exist without Iran, the Houthi militants that are launching missiles into the Red Sea, they wouldn't exist without Iranian support and training and funding resources.
00:32:20.040 So what they're doing now is based on their assessment that they're dealing with a weak White House.
00:32:26.000 All right.
00:32:27.840 Did Putin make the same calculation?
00:32:35.280 That one almost feels to me like I'm just like wasting your time by speculating way too much.
00:32:40.640 I don't know.
00:32:41.940 But I will say there's nothing really surprising about the Biden White House, you know, or Secretary Antony Blinken or any of them.
00:32:52.720 So I don't think they had a hard time reading what their response would be.
00:32:56.740 They looked at Obama and Obama, you know, had laid down a couple of red lines in the past when he was president.
00:33:04.180 And apparently they weren't actually red lines or lines in the sand because he didn't take any action.
00:33:09.940 I think they look at that sort of thing and think, OK, well, Biden is part of that same mindset.
00:33:14.700 China, I think, is a little bit different.
00:33:19.960 They play a much longer game.
00:33:21.280 I don't think they look in terms of we're going to take advantage of a two-year, three-, four-year time frame.
00:33:26.340 I mean, they're way down the road.
00:33:27.660 So I don't think they look at Biden and think, OK, now what's our move on Taiwan?
00:33:33.600 And that's a much longer runway for them.
00:33:37.400 So I don't know.
00:33:38.440 It's a great question.
00:33:39.700 I don't think I gave you much of an answer.
00:33:41.180 No, I think it was a very good answer.
00:33:42.580 And I think it was a very honest answer, Mike.
00:33:44.460 You know, I find it surprising.
00:33:46.940 And look, maybe I get this wrong, and please correct me, that the American government have been giving Iran money?
00:33:54.860 Oh, sure.
00:33:55.360 Yeah, yeah.
00:33:55.780 Yeah, yeah.
00:33:56.120 Recently.
00:33:56.640 Yeah, yeah.
00:33:57.660 That's insane.
00:33:59.060 Well, you could argue that there's no reason for it right now because they haven't done anything in a sense to deserve it.
00:34:06.180 But it's part of this idea that they've been unfreezing assets.
00:34:09.820 So they unfroze a while back $6 billion that really hit the headlines, right?
00:34:14.960 Because I think the Republicans were, they saw, you know, blood in the water and thought, OK, this is an opportunity to make some hay here.
00:34:21.320 But in reality, the Biden administration's actions had been giving the Iranian regime much more money than that because they had, again, eased on the sanctions, allowing Iran to realize much greater revenues from their oil.
00:34:35.000 And but they unfroze $6 billion as an example of assets and their idea, their concept, which is I think is extremely flawed, was that we are just giving this to them.
00:34:52.260 And it's their money anyway from their old oil proceeds, but we froze it, you know, and they're saying it's only to be used for humanitarian purposes.
00:35:02.920 And they did the same with another tranche of money that they just unfroze, $10 billion.
00:35:08.600 It's only for humanitarian purposes.
00:35:12.360 Well, A, the U.S. government has a hard time keeping track of its own money, right?
00:35:19.880 So the idea that they're going to somehow monitor this stack of cash, right, that they've now unlocked is absurd, but also money's fungible.
00:35:30.760 So, you know, if you tell me that you're now giving me $10 billion, but you can only use it for medicine or to build another school, well, that's great.
00:35:40.860 OK, that's what I'll use it for.
00:35:42.000 But I'm going to take this other $10 billion that I got sitting over here in my reserves, and now I'm going to spend that on more drones and missiles for the Houthi militants to, you know, spend some time fucking up the Red Sea and creating more of the chaos that I want to create because, you know, instability from their perspective is good.
00:35:57.120 It keeps distance from what they don't want, which is a stable Middle East.
00:36:03.180 You get a stable Middle East.
00:36:04.200 By implication, that means Israel has a right to exist, right?
00:36:07.180 If the Saudis make that deal and normalize relationships, are you kidding me?
00:36:10.300 The Iranian regime doesn't want that.
00:36:11.640 So whatever they do is designed to meet that ultimate objective, which is the destruction of Israel.
00:36:18.420 But I guess going back to the money, the idea that the U.S. administration could stand in front of the cameras and tell the American public or Congress that, yeah, you know, we're monitoring it.
00:36:28.580 Only used for humanitarian purposes.
00:36:30.200 It's just either they think that the American people are incredibly stupid or the American people are really stupid and they know something and they're just doing the obvious.
00:36:42.120 So anyway, yeah, they are giving them money.
00:36:44.820 And Mike, you mentioned Israel-Palestine.
00:36:46.500 I think we'd really like to talk about that a little bit.
00:36:49.420 The obvious question for me is imagine you're the national security advisor to the prime minister of Israel the morning of October 8th.
00:36:57.720 What's your advice?
00:36:58.600 How do we respond?
00:37:00.360 What do we do?
00:37:01.540 Well, I think, A, your first response is what they did.
00:37:07.840 And to me, that makes perfect sense.
00:37:09.500 You have to destroy this entity.
00:37:11.040 You have to remove Hamas.
00:37:13.340 Can you?
00:37:13.800 Is that possible?
00:37:14.380 Well, no.
00:37:14.680 And that's the next part of the calculation, which they've now come around to, which is you can't do that.
00:37:21.300 Counterterrorism is not a zero-sum game.
00:37:25.720 You can't reduce the risk down to zero.
00:37:27.640 It never will happen, right?
00:37:29.020 You mitigate and you do what you can, right?
00:37:32.660 It doesn't mean that you don't take out targets.
00:37:34.860 I mean, that's a, you know, in counterterrorism anyway.
00:37:38.260 I don't want to sound mercenary and people go, oh, my God, that's terrible.
00:37:40.860 Well, that's great.
00:37:42.680 And when we live in that wonderful world where everybody gets along, fine.
00:37:45.980 You know, don't do it.
00:37:47.280 But people don't act in other people's best interest.
00:37:51.540 So when you're talking about counterterrorism, I do get it.
00:37:55.620 If you, if their initial response, it was a motive, it was anger, it was despair, it was anguish, it was all these things.
00:38:02.460 We're going to destroy Hamas, right?
00:38:05.240 And the concept is right, but what they don't mean is in reality, right?
00:38:13.680 So what you want to do is you degrade the structure of Hamas so much that you've mitigated the risk down to as much as possible, which is not going to be zero, right?
00:38:25.500 Because they've got a bottomless well of potential recruits, it seems, on the fighter level.
00:38:30.060 You take out their command and control structure.
00:38:32.200 You take out as much of their resource as possible.
00:38:35.540 Iran will keep filtering it in, right?
00:38:37.840 But that's what you do.
00:38:41.980 Now, the problem, and they knew this was going to be a problem right at the outset, was the narrative.
00:38:48.020 And the narrative turned remarkably quickly, given how brutal 7th October was, the narrative turned amazingly quickly to it's Israel's fault.
00:38:56.500 Because look at all these dead Palestinians.
00:38:58.780 Well, Hamas knows exactly what they're getting.
00:39:00.580 Hamas has been in charge.
00:39:01.520 You know, sometimes you talk to these young people that are out on the college campuses, and they're like, well, you know, you've got to get the Israelis out of Gaza.
00:39:08.760 And you think, well, how long have they been there?
00:39:10.180 And they've been, oh, you know, ever since Israel's been a state.
00:39:13.060 And you think, okay, well, look, not to, you know, pick too fine a point here.
00:39:17.180 But they handed Gaza over to Hamas, right?
00:39:22.200 Hamas kicked Fatah out.
00:39:24.080 And what was that, 06?
00:39:25.640 I guess, 06.
00:39:26.600 And Hamas has done nothing in that interim period to now to better the lives of the Palestinian citizens.
00:39:33.420 In fact, they've taken most of the money that was funneled by NGOs and governments to improve the lives of Palestinians, right?
00:39:44.160 And they've pocketed it or used it for their own terrorist purposes, right?
00:39:48.520 So billions of dollars have just been funneled away from the people on the ground, right?
00:39:54.580 And then people go, well, they voted Hamas in.
00:39:56.300 And, okay, well, okay, fine.
00:39:57.700 But it's kind of like the referendum on Kiana.
00:40:00.480 I don't know.
00:40:01.080 Was the referendum honest?
00:40:02.260 Was the vote honest?
00:40:03.620 Who knows?
00:40:04.040 I mean, there is very high levels of support for Hamas in Gaza.
00:40:07.200 Now there are, certainly.
00:40:08.620 And I would say that before, and I would also argue that it's not in your own best interest to say you don't support Hamas.
00:40:15.780 So, you know, it's like any poll numbers.
00:40:18.720 I don't trust a lot of poll numbers in the U.S. or the U.K. or anywhere, right?
00:40:22.000 So I'm not sure.
00:40:23.040 For example, Ceaușescu had a 93% approval rating the day before he was arrested and executed.
00:40:28.320 Right.
00:40:28.560 The 7% are very powerful, Mike.
00:40:30.500 Yeah.
00:40:30.620 So I suppose, Mike, what I'm getting at is it seemed to me with the October 7th attack, Israel was in a position, I forget what it's called in chess, where every move you make makes you lose.
00:40:43.980 It seems like that to me.
00:40:45.660 You respond, you're the evil bad guy killing innocent Palestinian kids.
00:40:50.380 You don't respond, you've just had your 9-11 and you're not doing anything.
00:40:54.780 Right.
00:40:55.520 You want to destroy Hamas, but actually you can't.
00:40:58.160 Right.
00:40:58.380 So what is the play here?
00:41:02.700 Well, the play is what is going to happen, which is they're going to hit a point where they feel as if they've done what they can and they balance that with the international pressure, which is enormous, right?
00:41:12.920 And rightly so.
00:41:13.660 You don't want – and they understand this.
00:41:15.760 It's insane to me sometimes when people go, well, they just don't have a – they have no regard for life.
00:41:20.600 Well, yes, they do, right?
00:41:23.160 And people won't believe that.
00:41:24.900 My personal experience with the IDF and operations is they have a great concern, in part because they know what it means on the world stage, right?
00:41:35.560 And in part because they just – they're not a Hamas.
00:41:38.880 Hamas embeds themselves with the civilians because they know they're going to get dead civilians because they know that's going to help their narrative, right?
00:41:45.420 I mean it's just – I'm not going to be pushed off of that belief anyway.
00:41:50.440 And so they have no regard.
00:41:52.720 It's like saying ISIS had regard for the people of Iraq or al-Qaeda had regard for – they drive bomb-laden vehicles in the middle of a market.
00:42:04.640 They don't care about casualties, right?
00:42:07.180 It's not their point for being.
00:42:09.500 So with Israel, they've got to find that point.
00:42:14.320 I think they've already assessed it and made that decision.
00:42:16.880 Look, they're already talking to the Saudis and Egyptians and Jordanian government about the plan, the security plan for Gaza once the conflict ends.
00:42:29.920 They're talking about a buffer zone along the border, an increased buffer zone along the border.
00:42:33.420 That implies that they understand they're not going to be able to get rid of Hamas, right?
00:42:38.580 So Hamas can't do what they did on 7th of October.
00:42:43.180 But it implies that they understand this idea that they're going to completely destroy Hamas is probably not going to happen.
00:42:49.700 The question then to backfill that is, well, what happens to Gaza?
00:42:53.240 Who governs Gaza, right?
00:42:54.660 The U.S. administration had a relatively simplistic answer.
00:42:59.080 You know, they've been pushing this about, well, we get Mahmoud Abbas from the West Bank.
00:43:04.800 You know, they'll go back in.
00:43:06.700 You know, point being is Hamas kicked out Fatah.
00:43:10.000 Hamas kicked out, you know, that organization.
00:43:12.720 That's why they ended up in the West Bank and you had this split situation with Hamas and Gaza.
00:43:16.260 People really don't have much time for Mahmoud Abbas, right?
00:43:20.180 So that's probably not a realistic thing.
00:43:24.120 But what does it mean?
00:43:25.100 Hamas cannot remain governing in Gaza.
00:43:27.940 I don't think that's going to, that's not going to happen.
00:43:29.520 So they're not going to create a buffer zone and then say, okay, well, Hamas is back.
00:43:32.780 We got the status quo.
00:43:33.820 Status quo is going to lead to more deaths on all sides and more instability.
00:43:38.340 And you might feel righteous about calling for a ceasefire right now, right?
00:43:42.580 But until you get, you know, some plan in place that says this is what we're going to, and it's not the status quo,
00:43:50.140 you're just basically kicking the can down the road so you feel righteous about yourself
00:43:53.840 because you can go out on the campuses and protest for, you know, a ceasefire.
00:43:59.300 Hamas has already clearly stated they're going to keep doing it.
00:44:02.440 7 October, I mean, they've said it repeatedly.
00:44:05.340 Senmore has been very clear.
00:44:07.860 And it's probably a good thing for people to take them at their word based on what they've done.
00:44:11.580 Mike, the thing that I find frustrating when we talk about Israel-Palestine is,
00:44:16.640 and we've already touched on this point before,
00:44:18.600 we look at these people like Hamas through Western eyes,
00:44:22.500 and they think that they think like us.
00:44:25.060 When the reality is, they look at the world a little bit differently, don't they?
00:44:30.600 Just a little.
00:44:32.880 Yeah, and that is, and that's an incredibly important part.
00:44:36.080 The CIA, one of your toughest jobs is to understand that, that if you're, because again,
00:44:47.400 imagine it's not an easy sales job, right?
00:44:50.400 Trying to convince, say, a Russian colonel or a member of the foreign ministry in Russia or wherever
00:44:58.680 to provide information that will benefit the West and could likely end up to that individual's death.
00:45:08.960 That's a tough sell.
00:45:10.480 So you have to be deep into the psyche of whoever you're talking to.
00:45:13.780 You have to really understand what their mindset is.
00:45:16.740 And terrorists, it's the same way.
00:45:19.120 Because you're still trying to collect intel, right?
00:45:21.260 You're still looking for sources of information.
00:45:23.040 You want, hey, if you can get a source inside Hamas's Al-Qasam Brigade, great, right?
00:45:27.920 So it's not as if you don't do the same intel collection effort, or like with a cartel, whatever it may be.
00:45:35.100 So that's an incredibly important part of it.
00:45:38.340 We don't understand, the West, I mean, doesn't understand the brutality.
00:45:44.160 We don't understand the disregard for human life, for values that we hold dear.
00:45:51.420 And so you're right.
00:45:55.020 We imagine scenarios or we game out potential to attack scenarios.
00:46:01.740 How do we defend ourselves against these things?
00:46:03.760 And sometimes it's a very difficult process because you can't imagine the lack of regard
00:46:11.280 that some of these organizations have, some of these people have for human life.
00:46:17.620 It's just, we can't fathom it.
00:46:19.880 It's not part of our abilities.
00:46:22.080 We can't, for whatever reason, right?
00:46:24.760 We think we can, you know, because we've seen the news.
00:46:27.860 But ultimately, at the end of the day, it is a real problem.
00:46:31.720 It's a flaw that we have in the whole process of assessment, of recruitment, of sources,
00:46:37.480 of understanding potential attack plans and scenarios of motivations, plans and intentions.
00:46:42.800 It's a real, it's a real problem you've outlined.
00:46:45.620 We'll be back with our guests in a minute.
00:46:47.880 But first, do you remember the Canadian trucker protest in 2022, where thousands of Canadians
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00:47:09.780 Incredible.
00:47:10.220 But once the Canadian authorities had started to criticise the crowdfunding platforms, ramping
00:47:16.560 up pressure to close the campaigns, it didn't take long for the biggest crowdfunding platform,
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00:47:27.020 Now, this is where our partners, Give, Send, Go, come in.
00:47:30.380 They stepped in when the other platforms backed off and raised millions of dollars for the truckers.
00:47:35.840 When they were criticised and dragged through the Canadian courts, Give, Send, Go said it
00:47:40.320 respected diverse views and believed hope and freedom are values worth fighting for.
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00:48:10.140 And now, back to the interview.
00:48:12.020 To me, it's this utopian way of seeing the world, which is lovely in a way, but it's,
00:48:18.980 you know, quite demented as well.
00:48:20.700 That, you know, you're going to sit down with Hamas or you're going to sit down with Nicolás
00:48:26.360 Maduro and, you know, and he's going to be, you know what?
00:48:28.980 You're right.
00:48:30.200 I've just seen it.
00:48:31.140 You're right.
00:48:31.660 Yeah, you got it.
00:48:32.340 Yeah, you got it.
00:48:32.660 Human rights.
00:48:33.080 Don't know why I didn't think about this.
00:48:34.740 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:35.340 You've just, you know, we've watched this Disney film together and all of a sudden, you know
00:48:38.900 what, it's really important that we treat everybody as equal, the bare necessities.
00:48:42.860 Yeah, yeah.
00:48:43.700 No, it's, look, you need to have hope in the world, right?
00:48:47.880 You want to think, you want to imagine that things get better, that people think that way.
00:48:51.880 And that's a good thing.
00:48:55.220 But I can only talk from personal experience.
00:48:58.940 And, you know, I tend to be pretty cynical about things, in part because you see the worst
00:49:06.980 of people out there, right?
00:49:08.200 And so while you want to imagine that you can get to a place where there's this peaceful
00:49:16.620 world and everybody's operating together and we're all concerned about the common good,
00:49:21.460 you know, you've got a responsibility, again, and going back to the original thoughts about
00:49:25.680 national security and national security interests, first responsibility, protect your citizens,
00:49:30.720 your population, your people.
00:49:32.160 And so being naive or being hopeful, hope is not necessarily, or feelings, right?
00:49:40.500 Or the idea of being righteous, it's not a good way to direct your planning for as far
00:49:46.260 as national security interests, homeland defense, whatever it may be.
00:49:49.340 And that, if that makes you cynical, well, so be it.
00:49:52.680 But again, I look around and I think sometimes we get caught short because we, it's not just
00:50:03.240 about mirroring values, right?
00:50:04.880 It's sometimes it's deeper than that.
00:50:06.560 We genuinely imagine that taking the high road, right, is somehow going to force others or lead
00:50:16.640 others to do the same.
00:50:17.940 And it never, it never happens.
00:50:19.500 And certainly it won't happen with a group like Hamas or the Iranian regime.
00:50:23.440 Look, you know, again, I go back to the same thing.
00:50:25.580 At some point, the U.S. is going to have to deal with the Iranian regime or the U.S. and allies.
00:50:30.380 You know, it's going to take that, it's going to take a very strong coalition to do this.
00:50:35.760 And I don't mean militarily, but we're going to have to have a reckoning at some point with
00:50:40.040 the Iranian regime because they are the reason why we have this conflict right now.
00:50:43.860 And they have been the reason in the past and they will be in the future as long as they are
00:50:48.240 allowed to imagine that they can continue to disrupt and pursue their dream of the destruction of Israel.
00:50:56.360 Mike, neither Francis or I have anything like the expertise that you bring to this conversation.
00:51:02.140 But the one thing, I think the reason people sometimes listen to what we say about these
00:51:05.300 things is he mentioned his mother, family from Venezuela.
00:51:08.540 I was born in Russia, grew up in the Soviet Union.
00:51:11.400 So this idea that Western people have about people in other parts of the world being all
00:51:17.500 nice and sweet and friendly.
00:51:20.260 But you know what?
00:51:21.460 We spend more and more time in America now.
00:51:23.360 When I go to America, it kind of makes sense to me because Americans are genuinely, from
00:51:28.880 my experience, like really nice people.
00:51:31.100 They're kind of very friendly and helpful and collaborative.
00:51:35.260 And so I think it's hard for people in the U.S. to imagine that there are parts of the
00:51:39.020 world where people don't think about the world in that way.
00:51:42.900 Did you have to have some kind of like anti-mirroring training as part of your CIA thing?
00:51:48.520 Or do you just land in Baghdad and you're like, after three days, you kind of got it all
00:51:52.480 sussed out?
00:51:53.500 Yeah, you're there and you go like, well, this is fucked.
00:51:56.240 So, yeah, part of it with the U.S., I think, part of it's a space issue.
00:52:04.580 And by that, I mean size issue, right?
00:52:06.680 You've got the luxury of this landmass, right?
00:52:11.520 And so while it's not an isolationist place, right?
00:52:17.400 In a sense, it is.
00:52:18.980 It's constantly inward looking, right?
00:52:20.680 And so, you know, a lot of problems just seem a long ways away.
00:52:24.680 And that allows you, I think, to be, whether it's nicer, maybe it's naive, whatever the
00:52:30.440 word is, you have that benefit because of distance and size, right?
00:52:35.940 And it's the same reason why people make fun of Americans for so few of them having passports.
00:52:40.800 You don't need a passport in America.
00:52:42.400 You've got everything.
00:52:43.260 You want to go skiing, go skiing.
00:52:44.760 You want to go to the beach, go to the beach.
00:52:46.280 You want to live in the city, live in the city.
00:52:47.700 You want to go to the desert, go to the desert.
00:52:49.080 You've got everything.
00:52:50.260 And that's always my response, too.
00:52:52.440 Look, have you been there?
00:52:54.220 I mean, it's got its benefits.
00:52:55.640 No, it's got its drawbacks, too, because, you know, the variety is amazing when you start
00:53:01.440 traveling around the world.
00:53:02.420 I'll tell you what you don't have in America, and actually, it's really important.
00:53:06.020 The one thing you don't have is history.
00:53:08.200 And I think that's one of the reasons that American foreign policy and just general people
00:53:12.940 sometimes, you know, they haven't seen 2,000 years of the same mistake being made over and
00:53:18.040 over in their buildings, in their monuments, in their history books.
00:53:21.620 So it's easier to think in a more idealistic way, perhaps, which can be a strength.
00:53:26.760 But I also think it can be a weakness, as you were alluding to.
00:53:29.420 I think that's right.
00:53:30.640 We have a short-term view, in part because it's a short history over there, right?
00:53:35.500 And in part because we just, everyone seems to have ADHD.
00:53:40.420 But they're certainly all taking the medication for it.
00:53:43.700 Let's put it that way.
00:53:45.080 So I think it's just an interesting idea.
00:53:49.400 But I think, I mean, where does that, what does that lead to?
00:53:54.720 I mean, the problem, I think, that's facing the U.S. right now is not so much outside our
00:54:03.800 borders, right?
00:54:04.320 I mean, that's a problem, right?
00:54:05.340 That obviously goes without saying.
00:54:06.840 But our political system right now is really divisive.
00:54:12.180 And in talking about how little history we've got, it's incredible that we've gotten that
00:54:16.800 to this point in such a short period of time, right?
00:54:19.700 It's a two-party system, and it is like trench warfare right now.
00:54:24.500 Nobody's talking on the other side.
00:54:27.560 And there's nobody living in the middle, you know?
00:54:29.700 And so that is contributing, I think, to some of the problems that we're facing, right?
00:54:35.960 Both domestically, certainly, and then outside the country, because it impacts the way that
00:54:42.520 any administration comes in and views foreign policy.
00:54:46.660 And because they're so focused on how dysfunctional the internal politics is right now.
00:54:53.160 And also there's a tremendous amount of self-interest.
00:54:55.640 There's self-interest with every politician everywhere around the world.
00:54:57.760 But in the U.S., we have senators who can maintain their job as a senator for 42 years, 50 years.
00:55:09.220 Their entire career, they can have done nothing else except be a politician.
00:55:13.560 And I think that's a real problem.
00:55:15.260 But that's not a topic for today.
00:55:18.020 And it's that division, because a nation divided is going to be weaker.
00:55:23.280 Yeah, absolutely.
00:55:24.360 No, absolutely.
00:55:25.140 And you tend to get, then you'll get these cataclysmic events, you know, 9-11, whatever it may be.
00:55:30.660 Draws everyone together.
00:55:31.900 That's kind of standard human behavior.
00:55:33.720 You had that one.
00:55:34.640 And Putin's very good at that.
00:55:36.280 Putin is extremely good and has been good at creating the outside threat.
00:55:41.000 You know, whenever he's faced with internal turmoil or potential political dissent, create an outside threat, rally the people around it.
00:55:50.080 And he's been extremely good about that.
00:55:51.940 Xi and China, you know, does the same thing, essentially.
00:55:55.860 Although he's got problems from an economic perspective.
00:55:58.700 I think that we are still struggling to understand, I think.
00:56:03.040 And that's going to be important because that speaks to his ability to stay in power.
00:56:08.720 So.
00:56:09.840 Mike, we want to ask you some questions from our supporters.
00:56:12.200 So we'll head on over there in a second.
00:56:15.140 But before we let you go, we always ask the final question.
00:56:18.700 Before we do, though, I just wanted to ask.
00:56:20.800 I mean, it feels like I think to a lot of people, the world is kind of on fire at the moment.
00:56:24.760 Do you think is your short term prognosis that it's going to get better or is it going to get worse?
00:56:29.720 I think it's going to get better.
00:56:34.640 And I'll tell you why.
00:56:35.320 Really?
00:56:35.760 Wow.
00:56:36.140 I think it's going to get.
00:56:36.840 I know.
00:56:37.280 Right.
00:56:37.740 You spent too much time in America.
00:56:39.440 Yeah.
00:56:39.780 You might be booing him.
00:56:41.220 You don't bring.
00:56:42.240 You don't bring.
00:56:42.700 It gets fucked and it's going to get more fuckity.
00:56:48.080 I don't think it's a word, but I've just made it up.
00:56:51.280 You think it's going to get better?
00:56:52.340 And here's why I say that.
00:56:53.260 OK.
00:56:53.480 It's because I think that there will be a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, in part because there is this fatigue in the EU as well, obviously, in the US in terms of resources.
00:57:13.520 Putin was counting on that, I think.
00:57:15.620 He knew that this got drawn out, that this would happen.
00:57:19.780 I think that was their assessment.
00:57:21.000 He hasn't made a lot of right calculations about this war, but I think that was probably one of those that he intuitively understood that the US would not be, you know, politically would not have the will for a long period of time.
00:57:33.960 Zelensky, I think, will see that.
00:57:36.120 Zelensky's got his own internal political issues right now.
00:57:40.100 That's going to be a serious problem.
00:57:41.440 If they don't get that shit pulled together, right?
00:57:43.640 If he starts, you know, you start seeing these fractures and criticism and a lot of nitpicking and all these arguments, that's going to do nothing to sharp support, you know, from allies.
00:57:54.760 So I think the solution will be that they will come to a negotiated settlement that will, unfortunately, kind of leave things looking the way that they were at the outset.
00:58:06.560 You know, if anything, I think maybe the Russians will end up with a little bit more land.
00:58:11.880 I'm not saying this is a good result.
00:58:13.400 I'm just saying that that's what I think is going to be the result.
00:58:17.780 Israel of Moss, I think, is also, I know it doesn't look like it right now, but I think it's winding down because, again, I think they've made that decision.
00:58:27.620 The toughest part is going to be who governs, right?
00:58:30.140 That's going to be the biggest issue, right?
00:58:31.640 It's not going to be – the biggest issue is not going to be when do we pull troops out of Gaza, right, and what Backfield said.
00:58:37.160 It's going to be what's the longer-term situation they're governing.
00:58:40.600 People talk about, well, we need a two-state solution.
00:58:42.360 The White House has been talking about that.
00:58:43.300 We need a two-state solution.
00:58:44.320 Well, read the recent studies.
00:58:46.820 Read the recent, you know, case history on this.
00:58:48.560 And, you know, they've been talking about a two-state solution for generations, right, 48, you know, and then they talked about it in 93, they talked about it in 03, talked about it in 14.
00:58:58.740 Never happens, right?
00:59:00.100 But somebody's got to come up with a solution.
00:59:01.920 But what I'm saying is the conflict itself I think will wind down.
00:59:06.880 And, again, if it ends up in just the status quo and Hamas remains as sort of a governing entity in Gaza, I think then it'll kick off again and we'll have problems.
00:59:17.060 But if they can solve that problem, I think we're in better shape.
00:59:22.540 Xi, I don't think you're looking at a near-time move on Taiwan in any way.
00:59:28.240 I think that that will be a soft move.
00:59:30.120 I don't think, you know, we imagine that he's going to, like, bring the ships in and, you know, and drop in troops and suddenly they take over Taiwan.
00:59:38.400 I don't think that is the way that they're planning this out, right?
00:59:43.400 I think you look at Hong Kong and how they did Hong Kong and I think that that's more of the approach they're looking at with Taiwan, a soft, slow envelopment of the society.
00:59:55.060 So, yeah, I think, will we always have problems?
00:59:58.040 Of course we will.
00:59:58.540 Don't get me wrong.
00:59:59.440 We don't know where the next ship storm is going to come from, but that's why you have intel services, theoretically, to be out there looking for those next crises, not just in the one that's in front of you, right?
01:00:09.180 We did that with terrorism for a while, right?
01:00:11.100 We made that mistake, right?
01:00:12.580 You respond, you get a terrorist attack.
01:00:15.000 Next thing you know, you're responding by building in physical protocols to deal with that previous attack rather than what that next one might look like, right?
01:00:23.980 So the key to, you know, intel services is you've got to be imagining what is the next crisis, what's the next hotspot, what's the next problem, and that's what they spend all their time trying to do.
01:00:35.500 But, yeah, you know, as bizarre as it sounds, I'm a somewhat – I'm a cynic, but I'm a somewhat hopeful person too.
01:00:42.540 And I also think it's a pretty resilient world that we live in.
01:00:47.760 So, you know, at some point we'll – you know, I'll be proven wrong, but then you can have me back and I'll say, yeah, I fucked that one up.
01:00:56.920 Mike, final question.
01:00:58.440 What's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be?
01:01:04.400 God, that's a hell of a question.
01:01:07.080 We ask all, I guess, that one.
01:01:08.320 That same one?
01:01:09.300 Yeah.
01:01:09.500 I'll bet some people have given really good answers too.
01:01:12.480 Some.
01:01:13.400 Yeah, some.
01:01:14.540 Well, this won't be one of those times.
01:01:17.760 Yeah, I think for me – and again, this will be boring – but I think the one thing that we need to be focused on that we're not focused on right now – I mean, some people are, but it's a small group – would be the underlying strength of the economy in China, right?
01:01:36.780 The second largest economy in the world.
01:01:38.700 And we've been kind of kicking that can down the road, willing to look the other way as they present us with three or four or five different sets of books, you know, in terms of their economy.
01:01:50.360 There are a lot of problems.
01:01:52.640 They've been having issues.
01:01:54.880 She has actually been getting some pushback from party elders over the course of the past year, very upset about the economy, very concerned about – what does that mean?
01:02:03.760 It means population unrest, so one thing that they worry about is losing control of the population.
01:02:10.320 Again, we have to imagine because, you know, this is where we put our Western values on there and go, well, I mean, sure, of course, they'll get out in the streets and they'll protest and everything.
01:02:20.440 It's not really –
01:02:21.580 They've tried that.
01:02:22.340 It didn't work out.
01:02:22.980 Yeah.
01:02:23.200 It didn't work out.
01:02:24.020 Yeah.
01:02:24.340 It didn't work out very well at all.
01:02:25.680 But I think that that is the thing that people should be focused on because so much of what goes on globally, we're very interconnected, right?
01:02:34.980 In terms of economics, which drives a lot of other issues and concerns and conflicts, that's the thing that I think people need to focus a little bit more on.
01:02:44.560 Look, you know, not that we're going to get that transparency.
01:02:47.560 We still don't know what the hell happened as far as COVID goes because the Chinese regime has failed to be transparent in any way and the world has failed to demand answers as opposed to just asking and then giving them a free pass.
01:03:01.800 And so we don't know.
01:03:02.820 We're going to have another pandemic.
01:03:04.680 There's no doubt about it.
01:03:05.760 There's no doubt about it.
01:03:35.760 What do you think of this latest news about the 20 to 40-year infiltration of the U.S. government by a Cuban spy and what are the potential consequences of such an infiltration?
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