TRIGGERnometry - ＂They Didn't Think This Through＂ - Ex CIA Operator, Mike Baker

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00:01:00.000 i'm not saying they don't deserve an ass kicking i'm just saying that i can believe that this 0.78

00:01:07.580 probably wasn't well thought through they were probably a little intoxicated from the venezuela 0.99

00:01:11.960 experience i don't mean to put too fine a term on it but it's a massive fuck up isn't it 0.97

00:01:16.880 there's been like incredible levels of support for the war from trump's base yes yeah is that

00:01:24.440 going to last if this drags on? No. That support, even from the base, is not going to last if people

00:01:30.640 start to think this thing's dragging on into the early summer. One of the issues that we haven't

00:01:35.540 addressed is terrorism and global terrorism. And there's a very real threat now that Iran 1.00

00:01:40.620 is going to launch a global wave of terror. My bigger concern is all the individuals out there,

00:01:46.980 the lone wolf, who get triggered by this. Mike Baker, welcome back to Trigonometry.

00:01:52.640 Thank you very much. Thank you. Great to have you. An interesting time to have you, obviously.

00:01:58.240 It seems that way. There's a lot going on. Yeah, there is a lot going on.

00:02:02.020 Before we get into what's going to happen, what is your analysis of how we got here?

00:02:09.200 Well, we got here because for almost 50 years, the Iranian regime has kind of stuck to their 0.88

00:02:17.260 guns. They've been remarkably consistent over that time. To be fair, they've only had two

00:02:21.980 supreme leaders. Now, maybe they've got a third. We don't know, because no one's seen the new

00:02:27.740 leader, Mostaba. But after roughly 50 years of creating instability in the Middle East

00:02:35.940 and refusing to negotiate in good faith about their nuclear program, continuing to ramp up

00:02:42.800 their missile program, and then, you know, finally slaughtering yet again, but this time 0.78

00:02:49.360 in more numbers, thousands of their own citizens during the last round of demonstrations.

00:02:53.820 I think that was kind of it.

00:02:56.080 That was the thing that put them over the top, along with the fact that they just refused

00:03:00.680 to budge off their negotiating tactic, which was, we're not talking about anything other

00:03:04.800 than an element, a small element of their nuclear program.

00:03:10.760 Were they not willing to, like, I don't know what the technical term is, but basically

00:03:15.040 to merge their uranium so that it was at a low enrichment level. Did they not say that?

00:03:20.440 They talked about, and this is where it becomes difficult, because there's this perception that

00:03:27.020 intelligence is like the movies or the beach books, right? It's all this or it's all that,

00:03:32.120 right? The reality is with Iran, it's been a very heavy lift over all these years to understand 0.70

00:03:36.860 with clarity what is going on there within their programs, particularly their missile and their

00:03:41.100 nuclear programs. What they were talking about was taking that 60% enriched uranium, and there

00:03:45.540 is no, no peaceful civilian purpose for 60% enriched uranium. There just isn't, right? And

00:03:53.600 so they were talking about, well, we could reduce that down to 20%. The problem is with the

00:03:59.240 enrichment process, getting to 60%, getting to 20% even, you've done most of the heavy lift,

00:04:06.180 moving it on to 90 percent or thereabouts where it's considered weapons grade um that's the

00:04:11.780 speediest part so five percent four percent if there was intelligence that said all these years

00:04:16.920 that's all they had because they keep claiming that they've had a civilian peaceful purpose for

00:04:20.860 this then i think things would have been different at this point but um people talk about well my god

00:04:29.440 the trump administration they they started this conflict during the middle of negotiations

00:04:33.940 Reality was, that was, it was negotiations in name only.

00:04:37.740 There was no real serious effort, much like they've done in the past.

00:04:41.980 They were just looking to buy time.

00:04:43.600 And the question is now whether regime change was ever realistic or going to happen, right?

00:04:53.500 What's your assessment of this?

00:04:54.880 Because we had a bunch of people over the course of the last week on the show.

00:04:58.020 So, and, you know, some of the arguments have been put forward is like regime change isn't going to work and never was going to work.

00:05:06.420 And therefore, this is a big mistake.

00:05:08.380 Well, toppling a regime, any regime, by air operations only, that's a low percentage shot.

00:05:17.620 So you can, you know, lots of things can be true at the same time.

00:05:22.120 Like, personally, I can think that it's about time that this regime leaves the planet, right,

00:05:29.600 and gives the people of Iran a better future, you know, some form of government that could do that.

00:05:35.420 I can believe that you're never going to get long-term peace and stability in the Middle East

00:05:40.360 as long as this particular regime exists, right, because their stated objective constantly has been

00:05:46.840 one thing, the destruction of Israel.

00:05:48.820 They built their proxy network for that purpose.

00:05:51.720 Proxies all have the same objective.

00:05:53.740 And, frankly, most of the regional actors, if we're starting to see that now, would much rather see this regime go.

00:06:00.520 I can believe all of that.

00:06:02.520 At the same time, I can believe that this probably wasn't well thought through.

00:06:05.680 Right.

00:06:06.140 Right.

00:06:06.580 And that if you've watched this, I had a good friend who was one of the hostages during the takeover, when the Shaw fell.

00:06:16.780 If you've watched this regime for all these years, it's not hard to understand where they are now, right?

00:06:26.280 You watched them over the years build a system between the clerical authority, the political authority, however you want to refer to it, and the military and the IRGC that was very robust, could withstand something like this over the years.

00:06:44.060 Right. So you've got a commander in the IRGC. Well, now they've got three others in line who they know will take that person's place if something happens to them.

00:06:52.400 Right. This is how they've developed this over the years. So I'm just you know, I think that perhaps I'm not saying they don't deserve an ass kicking.

00:07:03.820 I'm just saying that I think there were people who thought this was going to be easier than than it was. 0.77

00:07:10.300 and that's surprising. I think there were people who didn't see that the Strait of Hormuz would

00:07:14.440 become the thing, right? It's the only leverage point they've really got, right? And so to think

00:07:20.300 that somehow the Strait of Hormuz wouldn't become closed, in a sense, not officially closed, but

00:07:27.620 it's closed for all intents and purposes. That, to me, would be, I'd like to think everyone's

00:07:34.720 thought this through, I guess is what I'm saying. It doesn't appear that way, because there still

00:07:38.600 seem to be some people in Washington surprised that, oh, my God, you know, what do you mean

00:07:44.520 we've shut down the flow of 20% of the world's oil, LNG, you know, along with everything else

00:07:49.580 that goes through the strait? So that's what I mean by I'm not sure that this was completely

00:07:55.420 well thought through. And how is that possible? You're like, you're ex-CIA. I mean, the United

00:07:59.680 States has the biggest intelligence operation in the world, the biggest military in the world,

00:08:03.840 the most military planners in the world. You sound like the U.S. president.

00:08:08.600 We've got the biggest military.

00:08:10.440 You do. You do.

00:08:12.380 And therefore, this is the bit that doesn't sound like the president of the United States.

00:08:16.800 It's extraordinary that we might be sitting here weeks into a conflict going,

00:08:22.680 I can't believe they didn't think it through.

00:08:24.740 How does that happen?

00:08:26.440 Yeah, it's a great question.

00:08:30.360 I think there's probably a lot of people trying to think about that.

00:08:32.560 But look, if the Pentagon has a lot of smart people and a lot of mid and senior level people

00:08:39.640 who came up through the Afghan experience, right?

00:08:41.940 Combat operations, Afghanistan and Iraq, real world experience, right?

00:08:46.440 Now, does that mean that they are listened to?

00:08:49.940 I don't know.

00:08:50.600 I'm not sitting in the room.

00:08:51.740 I'm just saying that I can't imagine that there weren't briefings where someone pointed

00:08:57.000 to a big map of the street of Hormuz and said, you know, it's about 21 miles wide.

00:09:02.300 but it's actually much narrower because of the depths and because of the corridors for the shipping lanes.

00:09:08.100 Here's what they've done in the past. They've closed it before.

00:09:11.480 They've threatened to close it constantly. We all knew that.

00:09:15.560 How are we going to prevent that from happening?

00:09:18.540 But now we're in a position where we're saying, well, geez, we sure like China to come in and help,

00:09:23.380 or we're asking other countries to come in and help.

00:09:25.560 That seems to be an indication that perhaps there was some surprise.

00:09:31.080 and maybe it was because they thought the regime was going to collapse you know once we that we

00:09:36.320 had very good intelligence about that initial strike uh on some of the leadership including

00:09:40.540 the supreme leader and maybe there was this feeling because people always think they can

00:09:45.620 do it better right every generation thinks they can do something better maybe that was part of it

00:09:50.480 and they thought that we'll we'll get regime change they were probably a little intoxicated

00:09:54.780 from the venezuela experience so i mean it i don't mean to put too fine a term on it but it's a

00:10:02.260 massive cup isn't it well it depends on it depends on how you define cup it depends on what the word

00:10:10.100 is is as joe clinton said but who by the way i think is a very smart individual um you know the

00:10:17.920 I guess, full disclosure, I'm a centrist Republican, right?

00:10:22.620 Like national security, like secure borders, like smart immigration policy, like fiscal responsibility.

00:10:29.680 You know, those things often don't come around very often.

00:10:32.780 So it is a, if you define, which is what's happening, the goalposts are moving.

00:10:38.280 If you define victory as a significant degrading of their military capabilities, you know, their missile program, for example.

00:10:47.920 then it's not really a up because what you're looking to do is every administration has done

00:10:52.560 the same thing. They've just put lipstick on this pig and hoped that somebody else would deal with 0.77

00:10:56.440 it. So if you if you define it as, OK, we have now kicked the ball further down the field than 0.94

00:11:02.380 any other administration, they're still in power. Right. And in some form, it's probably a much

00:11:08.540 hardened administration now run more by the IRGC than it ever has been. But if you define that as

00:11:16.060 a win, which I think is what we're going to see, along with some additional damage to

00:11:22.580 their nuclear program, which again continues to be difficult in terms of assessing, then

00:11:28.560 OK, it's not a complete **** up.

00:11:32.240 But if you defined it as we're going to remove this regime, then yeah, you're not winning.

00:11:37.100 And we're not winning in another sense because we've been talking about the Strait of Hormuz

00:11:41.020 and that is Iran's trump card.

00:11:42.700 Just talk a little bit what it actually means for the global economy if it continues with the shutdown, or if Iran continues with the shutdown, I should say.

00:11:51.460 Yeah, and it doesn't take much. That's the thing, right?

00:11:55.560 Because what you're doing is you're impacting perception, right?

00:11:59.260 If you convince the insuring businesses out there, the insurance companies, the shipping industry, that it's just not worth that effort to haul that tanker through there,

00:12:08.180 then they've won, even if all they've done is hit maybe a dozen and a half vessels over all this period of time.

00:12:15.420 It doesn't take much at all.

00:12:17.360 So closing, what's that, one-fifth or so of oil flows through the strait.

00:12:22.900 Everybody's been talking about that.

00:12:24.060 Now we're all experts on the strait.

00:12:26.580 But also LNG, right, is an important aspect of this for Europe, right, in particular, for Asia.

00:12:33.380 Explain what LNG is.

00:12:34.980 Liquidified natural gas.

00:12:36.200 Okay.

00:12:36.320 right so and then all the other things that go through their fertilizers right

00:12:40.460 for food 50% of the world's traded fertilizer goes through that this is me

00:12:44.600 being an expert and helium which we use for cooling microchip fabric engine

00:12:52.100 facilities like there's some this is real impact it's a it's a real

00:12:56.140 significant impact people can feel it in the US for example people see it at

00:13:01.100 the pump right that's the that's the first place they see it which is why

00:13:04.340 suddenly the straight became so right important because they have in the US 0.96

00:13:10.640 they have midterm elections coming up in November and there's no easier way to 0.98

00:13:16.160 get your ass kicked in an election than to be responsible for spiraling gas 0.98

00:13:21.200 prices at the fuel pump so this that's what it comes down to you know politics 0.99

00:13:27.860 so now the focus is on how do we prevent that again you would argue that perhaps that would

00:13:35.240 have been here in this playbook that you'd pull out as soon as the bomb started dropping because

00:13:40.400 you knew that's where the iranians would go because they can't match the u.s and israel 0.98

00:13:43.960 toe-to-toe for military capabilities so uh yeah it's it is um likely that

00:13:53.540 the U.S. is going to try to figure out a way to negotiate a settlement, if they can figure out

00:14:00.280 who to talk to, so that they don't have to begin the process of escorting tankers and ships through

00:14:07.000 the strait, and so that they don't have to think about taking Karg Island, which is responsible 1.00

00:14:12.660 for the Iranians, anyway, for kicking nine out of ten barrels of oil out of the country, right?

00:14:17.440 So that's a very important site for them. They don't want to do that, right? If you start

00:14:23.460 escorting ships through the strait, saying, oh, the straits, it's open. Yay. Now we want gas prices

00:14:30.960 to go down. Well, for how long are you going to do that for? That's very costly. And all it takes

00:14:35.860 is one drone, right, to hit one of those vessels, and you're right back where you started. So that

00:14:44.200 sounds a bit like an indefinite effort. And I don't think the administration wants to get engaged

00:14:51.200 in that so i think that if they can figure out who to talk to and whomever they talk to has

00:14:56.580 some level of agreement from other factions within that government now that's kind of operating in a

00:15:02.720 fashion that is much less top down then they'll probably go that direction it seems to me that

00:15:09.960 iran have got a stranglehold with the strait of humus on the global economy haven't they yeah in 1.00

00:15:16.340 a sense they do yeah they do and that's and again that's that's why i keep going back to the same

00:15:20.960 thing was how do you not see that when you've got recent examples where they've used it for that

00:15:25.760 purpose right so you you knew this was going to happen when did they use it before um it was what

00:15:31.340 are we in uh 2020 this is a clever i am 2026 um i want to say 2019 well i think was the last i maybe

00:15:38.900 i'm maybe so they do this regularly well and i don't want to say regularly but they've done it

00:15:42.940 before okay and they've also threatened to do it regularly again i keep going back to that same

00:15:48.220 thing. If it's all hindsight, I get that. And I'm not privy to the intelligence that the White House

00:15:57.200 has. Right. So when they talk about there was an imminent threat, I don't know. None of us here

00:16:01.740 know. Right. And unless you're in those briefings and have access to it. And that information is

00:16:07.480 very close health. Intelligence is compartmentalized. So just because you have someone

00:16:12.880 who had clearances um and was in a position they may not know about what's happening over here

00:16:20.100 you know what you're supposed to be doing right if you're responsible for you know some operation

00:16:26.160 in uh you know in in uh former soviet union for instance you're not going to know crap about what's

00:16:31.760 going on over here because you're not you have a need to know um so i don't know what they

00:16:36.660 considered to be an imminent threat, as they put it. But one scenario could have been that they

00:16:42.940 worked a little bit closer with allies and they gamed out what we're going to do when the Iranians 1.00

00:16:51.180 start to create havoc in the strait. And then you've got people on board, including the Gulf 1.00

00:16:57.160 States, obviously. The Gulf States are, you know, they won't say it publicly, but they're probably,

00:17:01.320 you know happy as pigs and right over the way this could be going i think they're getting 0.80

00:17:07.140 worried because they probably also thought maybe we got a chance to change the government here 0.68

00:17:10.860 because the worrying thing is for me and again push back on this this i'm just a regular joe

00:17:15.700 blah blah blah but you look at the strait of hamouz shutting down and you go immediately there is a

00:17:22.740 timeline here this can't carry on indefinitely and iran are the one holding the cards because

00:17:29.960 that we need it opened if not we're going to be in dire straits economically and by

00:17:35.600 we i mean the globe and eventually pressure is going to come to bear on the americans

00:17:41.100 and then they're going to have to capitulate or am i projecting no no i don't think you're

00:17:46.280 projecting i think they'll capitulate because of politics because of the midterm election

00:17:52.240 and because then they don't want it down looking down the road you know i will say that in in the

00:17:57.160 u.s people don't tend to have a long-term vision in politics right they're looking at whatever

00:18:01.260 election is right in front of them but there will be some looking at 2028 and the white house so

00:18:06.740 this you know this is being played out um from that lens right i don't think you're going to see

00:18:15.960 again i don't think you're going to see a prolonged effort here i think all this talk you're hearing

00:18:22.560 from the white house uh about you know having these negotiations part of that is kind of the

00:18:27.900 the stuff that trump does right and never i don't think anyway you should never take

00:18:31.760 uh the president literally right but people do and it drives them crazy right because they

00:18:37.560 they take them literally you think no no no he just throws at the wall sometimes to see what

00:18:41.700 sticks right so origins is a tri-state property developer right that's what he does you know you

00:18:46.820 punch somebody in the nose you get punched back you throw at the wall you see what sticks you

00:18:50.260 go that route, come up with a deal, very transactional. So I think they're trying to 0.93

00:18:56.340 figure out, but again, this problem is that the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, right, has

00:19:02.560 found themselves where they want to be, which is in a more, you know, direct command role. I think

00:19:10.020 the clerics have realized that perhaps that they're taking a back seat, but they'll continue

00:19:14.520 the optic of of running the show you know and and the politicians you know that who knows right i

00:19:22.280 mean now they're talking about the speaker of the parliament being the guy that maybe they're

00:19:26.600 talking to and he's saying nobody's talking to me i we're not having any of these discussions

00:19:30.600 which shouldn't be a surprise if you're having discussions maybe you you know you prefer people

00:19:34.920 not to think you are right so i get that if there's something going on behind the scenes i

00:19:38.600 don't know but i do think they're going to be desperate to try to make that happen because

00:19:43.160 you're right otherwise down the road right um the only so far the only country that's really not

00:19:51.560 worried about this in a big way is china right they're the only ones getting boil uh out of the 1.00

00:19:56.360 strait almost all those tankers that are going through with iranian oil are going to china so

00:20:01.960 you know and once again they're fairly delighted that this has preoccupied the u.s gives them a

00:20:07.880 really good look at our military capabilities and the hardware and where they're lacking

00:20:12.120 in terms of their modernization.

00:20:15.080 So nothing happens in a bubble, right?

00:20:16.980 Everything's connected.

00:20:17.920 So that's why I appear to be rambling.

00:20:21.000 Most people think they're informed.

00:20:23.260 In reality, they're selectively informed.

00:20:25.500 Modern media doesn't just tell stories.

00:20:27.600 It quietly decides which ones you never hear about at all.

00:20:31.020 That's why I use Ground News.

00:20:32.920 It's the only app that compares

00:20:34.780 how the same story is covered across the political spectrum

00:20:37.460 and show you what whole audiences are not being told.

00:20:40.400 The Blindsport feed is one of my favorite features.

00:20:43.420 Every day, it flags upwards of 20 stories

00:20:45.600 that are being ignored either by the left or the right.

00:20:48.200 Follow along at ground.news slash trigonometry.

00:20:50.780 Take this story.

00:20:51.660 A major US poll found that Republican voters' confidence

00:20:54.480 in Trump's economic leadership

00:20:55.920 has dropped sharply during his second term.

00:20:58.500 That is not a minor data point.

00:21:00.240 If you only read right-leaning publications,

00:21:02.460 you would have missed this completely.

00:21:04.120 On the other hand, look at this.

00:21:05.740 The UAE drops UK from scholarship list

00:21:08.060 over radicalization concerns on university campuses.

00:21:11.320 That's a significant story.

00:21:12.820 Yet, coverage from left-leaning outlets

00:21:14.640 was almost non-existent.

00:21:16.020 Ground News puts all of this in one place.

00:21:18.220 Headlines, bias breakdowns, ownership, and context.

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00:21:31.060 The same one we use.

00:21:32.420 And stop being managed by the media.

00:21:35.400 Which is, you're not rambling at all.

00:21:37.900 Because what we're dealing with here, effectively, is unknowns.

00:21:41.840 And then you see how America bombed, not America, sorry,

00:21:45.380 Iran bombed the gas field of Ras Lafhan.

00:21:48.560 And you go, they're responsible, I think, for around 15% of all the world's gas. 0.77

00:21:54.640 And you're going, I mean, if it wants to,

00:21:59.000 Iran can literally plunge us into a global economy. 0.99

00:22:02.940 If it just decides...

00:22:04.140 Global recession.

00:22:04.500 Sorry, yeah, global recession. Apologies.

00:22:06.240 it can plunge us into a global recession if it just wants to go all in if it you know and who

00:22:13.100 knows maybe i guess i would hope that's one of the scenarios they've mapped out which is what

00:22:17.020 if they consider this an existential threat then maybe they just say let's see what happens and

00:22:21.520 they and they you know i mean they've already kind of in a way done that right look you have

00:22:27.040 to remember a lot of those regional actors were on iraq side during the iran iraq war so you know

00:22:33.020 Iran, the Islamic Republic hasn't forgotten that, you know, they're not under the impression

00:22:38.960 that those countries are on their side in some fashion. Most of them tried over the past handful

00:22:46.540 of years, right, to try to have some level of detente or diplomacy or something to see whether

00:22:52.020 that would work. I think most of them feel like that didn't work out. And so there is this notion

00:22:58.320 that, look, if they really feel as if this is it and their back's against the wall, then, you know,

00:23:03.400 what are they going to try to do? Well, look, you know, what's their capabilities? At this point,

00:23:09.620 they've been well degraded, right? But it doesn't take much to blow up some power plants, blow up

00:23:14.580 some desalination plants, blow up, you know, some energy infrastructure. And they've got all that

00:23:18.380 mapped out. Amazing thing is they've been getting targeting data from both the Russians and the

00:23:25.120 Chinese, which is kind of fascinating. And the White House has been a little dismissive of the

00:23:31.320 reporting that says the Russians have been assisting, not just in targeting data, but also

00:23:35.680 in how to make those drone attacks more lethal, more efficient, more effective. And because

00:23:44.580 they've obviously had a fair amount of experience now over the past four years of Putin's invasion.

00:23:48.440 So that, again, you know, what I'm trying to say, I'm always trying to point out that

00:23:53.940 it's not just here you know sure yeah you know it's happening all worlds well and look as someone

00:23:59.320 who's very pro-ukraine i nonetheless will say this i mean the russians will say look at america

00:24:04.700 how much they're helping you train you're giving them all the satellite information you're giving

00:24:08.100 them weapons you're giving them money you're giving them so like why wouldn't we help iran

00:24:11.900 in this situation and uh this is the concern i mean you talk about uh what would happen if they

00:24:18.120 just the escalation threat is what i think a lot of people are rightly worried about because

00:24:24.040 if the administration goes harder iran is forced to go harder and then you know when we had robert

00:24:30.200 paper and that's kind of one of the things he explained is if say you have a marine attempt at

00:24:35.400 a landing on kag island or to try and take control of the strait that forces iran to take this more

00:24:41.160 seriously they then destroy all kinds of stuff around the middle east and also in their own

00:24:46.040 country because they're like well what do we have to lose yeah i think this idea look they've they've

00:24:50.320 got i believe a second marine expeditionary unit heading out there um each one each of those

00:24:57.920 uh muse carry about what uh 2 500 uh marines and then another couple thousand sailors or so to

00:25:04.860 support those operations they're really a self-contained assault force right um and much

00:25:11.300 like we had two carrier strike groups on on target you don't do that just to posture right you're not

00:25:18.680 doing this just because you want to show what you can do right so that was an indication along with

00:25:24.800 the fact that they had gotten so many tankers out there right which obviously are key to all this

00:25:30.560 aerosol operations got to be able to refuel um the the fact that you're getting those marines on

00:25:38.020 on target you have to imagine you know there's a contingency plan likely for an assault on carg

00:25:45.940 island now again i think they're going to do everything possible to try to avoid that and

00:25:50.660 declare a big win right and then and then back out of this thing um and whether that happens or not

00:25:59.780 iran may have a say in whether that happens or not right uh but if you put boots on the ground

00:26:05.860 in Karga Island doesn't take much.

00:26:09.040 They may, the Iranian regime may decide,

00:26:11.260 okay, well, we're not going after the Saudis.

00:26:14.320 We're not going after UAE because those players, 1.00

00:26:18.060 not just them, but the other players also,

00:26:20.720 they're very close to pushing their chips

00:26:23.080 into the center of the table and saying, that's it.

00:26:24.960 We're going from a defensive posture

00:26:26.320 to an offensive posture.

00:26:27.960 So they may stop short of that,

00:26:29.780 but they will definitely target U.S. military

00:26:32.900 on Karga Island.

00:26:34.340 And you could almost piss on Carg Island from the shoreline, right?

00:26:40.260 I mean, you're not talking about a massive, you know, complex issue.

00:26:44.100 They just have to be successful a handful of times.

00:26:47.260 And then you've got the issue of the U.S. and the population, which is already still,

00:26:52.760 a lot of people have forgotten it, but there's still a lot of folks fatigued from the global war on terror.

00:26:57.620 So you start losing more personnel because now we're in something that doesn't look anything like

00:27:02.880 what they were told it was going to be at the outset, yeah, now you've got a problem. 0.99

00:27:07.080 And the Iranian regime, they're not stupid, right? 1.00

00:27:09.720 A lot of them are dead, but the ones that are living are not stupid. 1.00

00:27:12.800 They will have thought this through. 1.00

00:27:15.080 Right.

00:27:16.280 One thing I want to talk about, Mike, which we haven't addressed yet, is you talked about

00:27:21.040 the U.S. allies in the region.

00:27:22.900 One of them is Israel.

00:27:24.320 And just for people who may be coming to this fresh who don't know our backstory with it,

00:27:29.320 after October 7th, we really didn't comment very much on Israel and that situation for about a

00:27:35.220 year. The only thing we've ever really said, we've interviewed people who are very pro-Israel,

00:27:39.740 very pro-Palestine, somewhere in the middle, everybody. And where we came down on it, among,

00:27:44.660 you know, among other things, is kind of the one thing we've always said about Israel,

00:27:48.480 we don't want to be hypocrites and be like, oh, look how terrible what they're doing in Gaza is,

00:27:52.860 because I know if our country had been attacked in the way that they were on October 7th,

00:27:57.040 we would have bombed the out of anyone who stood next to anyone who walked the dog of anyone who 0.97

00:28:01.460 had anything to do with it. That's a fact. And the dog. And the dog. Yeah. Right. And we wouldn't

00:28:06.440 have given the about any of it. So I'm not going to sit here and comfort and safety isolated from

00:28:12.220 Hamas and Hezbollah and all of that and tell Israelis how they should do this. You know, 1.00

00:28:17.260 we would have done the same. But even we are starting to look at this and we're kind of going,

00:28:21.420 I mean, Israel has got its own, you know, Bibi Netanyahu as the leader of Israel. You talk to

00:28:25.420 Israelis now. A lot of Israelis are like, Netanyahu is kind of, you know, he's off the rails a little

00:28:29.720 bit here. And it's becoming very clear, by the way, that Israel and the United States have

00:28:35.420 different agendas here. And it looks to me, I may be completely wrong, but I'm just saying what I'm

00:28:43.680 thinking in the moment. And Francis and I talk about this a lot because it's a thing that we

00:28:46.960 think about. It looks like to many people now, and when we talk to people in America, like normal

00:28:52.240 people, not people who are like anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, people who are balanced and

00:28:56.420 reasonable, are kind of going, well, in this conflict, it looks to us like the U.S. has

00:29:01.600 drawn in to something that's bad for the U.S., while Israel is getting kind of a lot of what 0.57

00:29:07.160 it wanted here. Is that a fair assessment?

00:29:10.600 It's an assessment.

00:29:12.060 I don't know.

00:29:13.080 You can say it's an assessment.

00:29:14.680 Well, no, I don't know that I'm qualified to say whether it's a fair assessment or not,

00:29:17.880 right um because again i not being privy to the conversations that took place you know leading up

00:29:22.920 to this you know yes you've got a lot of folks that say oh my god israel dragged them into this

00:29:27.720 into this war yeah i don't think that's true because i don't imagine israel can like a small 0.90

00:29:32.120 country drag a big country doesn't make any sense but what what i'm saying is something else which

00:29:36.280 is from an israeli perspective just thinking rationally i may be totally wrong i'm not an

00:29:40.440 expert bombing the of iran is always a good thing iran is a regional rival uh it funds samas it 0.98

00:29:47.400 funds hezbollah funds the houthis so you're degrading their ability the ballistic missile

00:29:52.440 program their drones right wonderful irrespective of nuclear weapons irrespective of regime change

00:29:58.120 you just you just mow the lawn right but the united states is put itself and the global economy now

00:30:05.720 and in at risk in some ways for an objective that matters a lot less i would argue to the united

00:30:11.960 states yeah i think yeah just in proximity right i mean look you know the israel's dealing with an

00:30:18.680 existential threat right they're surrounded by by this problem yeah right and so yeah you're right

00:30:23.880 in a sense right the u.s so but but u.s administrations they tend to sometimes they

00:30:32.280 they'll act in a way that you look and you think well what why are they doing this right why do

00:30:36.760 they feel as if they need to do this there's some moral obligation there's some desire to spread

00:30:41.240 democracy or whatever the reason may be um and so you know again staying away from this whole

00:30:49.800 idea of you know israel and what their their intention i think here is um is not to not to

00:30:59.400 bring this to a close in the same way that that uh the us is looking to do right they're not facing

00:31:05.560 the same or calculating this the same way right and so i think what we're seeing is is netanyahu

00:31:12.600 and he's always had his distract his detractors inside israel right so that's nothing new right

00:31:16.520 there's there's a large contingent there in israel that thinks like you know if we could just get rid 1.00

00:31:20.440 of netanyahu we'll all live in peace somehow um and i you know so i i uh putting israeli politics

00:31:28.680 aside because i'm definitely not qualified to talk about it from a military perspective from

00:31:32.840 an operational perspective right they seem to have done this they've pushed their chips and said we

00:31:38.600 are using this as an opportunity because if we don't if we don't get to a point again i don't

00:31:43.720 know that they're thinking regime change they're i think they're a little bit too pragmatic for

00:31:47.400 that you know but i think they're thinking we have to be comfortable with the with the amount

00:31:52.840 of damage we've done to the iranian military capabilities particularly the missile program

00:31:57.560 they've been more worried about the missile program for years than they have been about

00:32:00.200 the nuclear program then uh and also with uh their proxies particularly hezbollah right um

00:32:08.120 i think that's that's where they want to be they want to be comfortable enough and they've got

00:32:12.120 their intelligence in that region tends to to be better than u.s intelligence right i mean again

00:32:17.720 because of proximity and years of having to do this and their abilities of of working within

00:32:23.240 that environment um so they you're right they've you and you can see these different agendas now

00:32:29.960 you know and they're they're they're diverging um and then you've got the other part of it which is

00:32:36.920 what are the the gulf states thing right what are the saudis thing and there's some interesting

00:32:42.440 reporting whether it's accurate or not again you have to kind of balance it out and say well let's

00:32:46.280 Let's see if it gets corroborated here somehow.

00:32:48.960 But, you know, with MBS, with the head of Saudi talking about staying in the fight.

00:32:55.700 Right. He's urging, supposedly, the White House to to not stop.

00:33:00.300 Right. Because most of those those folks out there know that if you leave the regime in place, at some point, they're going to have to do this over.

00:33:08.780 Someone's got to do this over again. Right.

00:33:11.240 Because it's not as if they're going to give up.

00:33:14.640 If the theocracy stays in place, it's not like they're going to have a, I was about to say a come to Jesus moment, but I guess that's not happening.

00:33:22.380 That seems unlikely.

00:33:23.420 That seems unlikely.

00:33:25.120 But, you know, so they're going to maintain their objectives.

00:33:29.100 It's just going to be much harder for them.

00:33:30.600 And like I said, the can's been kicked much further down the road.

00:33:33.820 So maybe now instead of, you know, a couple years of a window, you know, now they're looking at 10 years, 15 years to rebuild and get to a point where then it has to happen again.

00:33:42.840 but it will have to happen again i don't think they're changing their stripes if they stay in

00:33:46.760 place and in fact some would argue they now have a much stronger incentive to get a nuke an actual

00:33:51.800 nuke before this they were enriching uranium now they actually have an incentive to build a bomb

00:33:57.400 and test it so we know they have a bomb as quickly as possible so this can't happen again right right

00:34:03.400 can we stop that is it it's possible to stop it do we have the the will or the uh the uh i mean

00:34:11.960 mean we have the ability i think short of invading the whole country with two million men exactly can

00:34:17.080 we stop it in another way i think yes i think um they did not they definitely didn't obliterate

00:34:23.460 the president again don't take the president literally when he says we obliterated it you 0.99

00:34:27.600 think no you didn't but of course it came back to bite him in the ass right well if you'd obliterated 0.98

00:34:31.660 we wouldn't be having this one right what i mean go after the missile program maybe but we wouldn't 0.98

00:34:36.100 be still talking about in the towns and the other facilities so um but i do think that they they

00:34:41.700 could but it you know never say never right you never get to a zero risk in any of this right so

00:34:49.640 there's there's always that slight chance that i mean nobody really has solid intel on where

00:34:55.180 the enriched uranium is maybe it's buried well underground at this point um maybe some of us

00:35:00.860 moved maybe the north koreans decide after looking at this they think hey we made the right move we

00:35:05.580 race to get that nuke weapon now look at us we're safe uh like you said the iranians you know the

00:35:10.080 regime will take that lesson maybe the north koreans step in and help right i mean the russians

00:35:14.340 have been helping them with technology transfer for the past four years exchange it would that

00:35:18.920 you know it wasn't pro bono on the part of the iranian government to help them with drone

00:35:22.820 technology so yeah there's there there is that fact that if the regime stays in place it's it's

00:35:30.760 more hardline probably the irgc has more say in things likely um and i don't think they're going

00:35:38.280 to change their stripes and give up there was a little bit of talk i it was talk the other day

00:35:43.420 about well you know that this this conversation that supposedly is taking place off the radar

00:35:48.740 with with somebody in the irani regime they floated the idea that we'll give up our nuclear

00:35:53.700 ambitions thinking like no they're not why would they do that yeah exactly why it's so

00:36:00.080 But, you know, again, I think they read American politics pretty well.

00:36:05.020 And they're probably saying, look, you know, maybe the White House just wants something to grasp onto and claim victory and say, look what we did, you know, try to get back to normal.

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00:37:37.380 your free gift today. Look, this is a very difficult question to ask, Mike, but...

00:37:43.560 Well, don't ask.

00:37:44.280 this is what a lot of people are thinking what is the likelihood if iran gets nukes that they

00:37:52.020 actually use them that they actually fire one into tel aviv is that hyperbole or is that within the

00:37:58.200 realms of possibility i you know i think it's within the realm of possibility it's like do

00:38:03.040 aliens exist sure yeah and don't you know don't say no well that would seem silly and preposterous

00:38:08.620 and a little bit arrogant, but I think with that idea of nukes, I think, would they use it?

00:38:17.460 I think a regime like theirs is the possibility is increased somewhat because of the zealous nature of a theocracy.

00:38:28.360 um and again because of this look people have done you know incredible things in the name of

00:38:36.920 religion over the life of this planet and so uh i wouldn't it kind of comes back around when

00:38:45.820 again the white house came out with this you know we had an imminent threat i don't know was it

00:38:50.300 imminent who knows and then the president comes out and says you know if we hadn't done what we

00:38:53.540 did on the 20th of February uh what did he say within two weeks you know they would have had a

00:38:59.240 a nuclear weapon I don't know I don't know that he got that intel right and I don't know that the

00:39:05.660 intel was credible and I don't know if he had the intel that he should actually say it in a press

00:39:09.100 conference but um do I think that there's a possibility that if they had reached that that

00:39:15.660 stage that now you're a little bit uh more angst-ridden because they've got it and they

00:39:23.820 have stated many many times that you know their primary objective is the destruction of israel 1.00

00:39:28.380 get them off the map um there's that possibility i guess and and nukes come in all shapes and sizes

00:39:35.680 right you don't necessarily have to drop the big one right but anyway i i don't think anybody in

00:39:41.840 region wants them to have that we're not so the u.s and israel are not alone in this in a sense

00:39:47.440 right well hold on mike see sorry to bite into your line of question francis but this is the

00:39:51.760 really important distinction that we've explored with all kinds of guests we've had experts on

00:39:56.320 islamism on the show we've had iranian dissidents on the show we've had all kinds of people on the

00:40:00.240 show and whenever we bring up you know well why does iran want nuclear weapons why should we fear

00:40:05.680 around having nuclear weapons there was go oh yeah you know they practice this 12-a shia islam which 0.97

00:40:10.960 means that they're waiting for the messiah and blah blah blah so therefore they're you know you

00:40:14.960 can't trust them because religion and blah blah blah whenever we push those people on that issue 0.90

00:40:19.760 they always kind of back away and so then i go okay well what if iran i mean much more likely

00:40:27.920 scenarios iran wants nuclear weapons for the same reason everybody wants nuclear weapons which means

00:40:32.800 you get to dominate your region you can't be invaded you can do whatever the hell you want

00:40:37.200 you can fund your proxies to attack israel and nobody's going to bomb the out of you 0.76

00:40:42.480 etc and that seems to me like the much more likely explanation well i think it's it's the more

00:40:49.200 i don't want to say safe it's the more logical explanation because nobody knows if they would

00:40:54.320 use a nuclear weapon or not right i mean that's just a reality i don't have a clue but i would

00:40:59.840 would i be a little more concerned if they have it would i be more concerned that because you just

00:41:04.080 said they would do whatever they want but we've already seen when they do what they want how bad

00:41:08.180 it is it's not good sure and it's and it's not good for the stability and long-term uh you know

00:41:12.880 success of the region i don't want to run to have a nuclear weapon but what the point i'm trying to

00:41:16.860 make is it seems to me that people are very cavalier with the claim that the moment they

00:41:24.180 get a nuke they're going to drop it on television won't disagree with that at all right yeah and

00:41:27.820 And that, and so, so when we talk about that, that worries me that people, because if we

00:41:34.520 actually believe that, if we actually thought that they've got nuclear material, they're

00:41:39.200 going to build a bomb and they're going to drop it on Tel Aviv the day that they do, 0.70

00:41:42.580 you'd be going, well, then in that case, we literally have to like do to them.

00:41:46.200 Do anything possible.

00:41:47.360 To what we did to Germany and Japan, right? 0.98

00:41:49.300 That's what we've got to do.

00:41:50.780 But no one's talking about doing any of that, which tells me that this is probably BS with

00:41:55.440 all respect.

00:41:56.260 Well, I don't know whether it's BS.

00:41:57.600 I think it's it's it is it's a way to justify, you know, what you're doing.

00:42:05.320 I do think that. And again, I go back to the same thing.

00:42:09.580 I'm not a clue if they would drop the bomb on Tel Aviv as soon as they get it.

00:42:13.980 Right. They have stated what they'd like to do to Tel Aviv.

00:42:17.260 We have seen what they've done in the past.

00:42:21.060 We know that there are a destabilizing factor in the region.

00:42:24.520 And that's not just the U.S. saying that.

00:42:26.260 That's the Saudis and the Qataris and everybody else out there.

00:42:30.140 But, yeah, I don't disagree with the fact that it is used, right, as justification when, in fact, you don't know that.

00:42:38.540 Because I don't disagree.

00:42:39.500 They want it for leverage, right, for sure, right?

00:42:43.780 And that leverage would allow them then to do kind of what they want to do, certainly in the region.

00:42:49.980 And we don't want that.

00:42:50.840 That's a problem.

00:42:51.360 And that's bad.

00:42:52.020 But it's so different from the claim that's being made.

00:42:55.300 Yeah.

00:42:55.540 Yeah. And that kind of bothers me. I mean, it's, you know, maybe I'm being naive, but like, I don't like it when people are lying about that because it matters. Right.

00:43:03.100 Yeah. I don't know that. I mean, I guess some people I'm sure straight up lie. Some people are. Who knows? Maybe they're couching it in terms of, you know, well, this is just the geopolitical realities that we face.

00:43:13.840 So we have to do this. You know, someone's got to step forward. I don't know. But I don't disagree with the idea that it is used as justification. Right.

00:43:22.200 without 100% certainty.

00:43:24.960 But you're not going to get 100% certainty on this world.

00:43:27.900 That's also true.

00:43:28.880 Sorry, Francis.

00:43:29.700 No, no.

00:43:30.600 But moving on now, one of the issues that we haven't addressed

00:43:34.080 is terrorism and global terrorism.

00:43:36.100 And there's a very real threat now that Iran is going to launch 1.00

00:43:40.460 a global wave of terror against the UK, the US.

00:43:45.680 How big of a concern is that?

00:43:47.400 And what do you think the likely impact of that will be?

00:43:50.920 Yeah.

00:43:51.320 You know, I think just from an operational perspective, I think my bigger concern is all the individuals out there, the lone wolf individuals, the copycats, whatever, who get triggered by this and decide not.

00:44:06.480 They don't get a phone call from, you know, Mustafa Khamenei or somebody saying, yeah, I want you to go do this now.

00:44:12.500 You know, you're a sleeper cell, so now wake up.

00:44:15.920 It's more the people who think this is my justification for going out and doing something right.

00:44:21.320 And those, in part, sometimes because of the disjointed nature of something like that and the inability to see it coming or pick up communications intercepts on something like that, they are very difficult to identify and then to mitigate that risk.

00:44:39.420 So that's the part. The state-sponsored issue? Well, sure. I mean, if I was the Iranian regime over the past handful of years, would I want support assets in the U.K.? Would I want support assets in the U.S.? You know, absolutely, right? And what would I want them doing? Well, I'd want them, you know, pulling a recce on an interesting site that maybe we would consider to be a soft target. 0.70

00:45:06.400 So, yeah, the counterterrorism people in the U.S. are stretched thin, right?

00:45:13.040 They're working their asses off all the time.

00:45:15.020 But you could argue they've been doing that, you know, for years now.

00:45:19.100 I mean, everybody's tired from the war on terror, but the terrorists aren't tired from it, you know, elements of it.

00:45:25.060 And the people that are trying to fight it on the other side, on the counterterrorism operations, they haven't given up.

00:45:31.380 It's not like they got tired of the whole effort, and so the past few years they've just let it go.

00:45:36.400 So in a sense, there's nothing new there. It's just, yeah, OK, fine. You've got a heightened threat alert because of this.

00:45:43.780 But like I said, I think the bigger issue is those people out there that for whatever reason, right, they're true believers or they're, you know, they've got mental issues.

00:45:53.920 They're going to look at this and go, this is my this is my justification.

00:45:56.880 But that must be a genuine worry for America, because since we've been here, which is a comparatively short period of time, we've seen, I think, already three Islamist terrorist attacks in the U.S.

00:46:08.940 I mean, you must be worried.

00:46:10.840 Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everybody's you're worried.

00:46:13.460 But at the same time, you know, you can't sit in your foxhole. Right.

00:46:17.140 So you got to you got to get out and get busy.

00:46:19.260 And what I do know is that since 9-11, all those years ago, which seems like ancient history, right?

00:46:26.500 I've got teenagers, and I talk to them about it, and they kind of look at me like, hmm, really?

00:46:33.300 It's like when I talk to my middle boy, who's a basketball player, talk to him about the old guys, right? 0.98

00:46:38.680 Bob Cousy, Pete Maravitz, they're like, oh, come on.

00:46:41.980 Seriously, Unc? Right? Those guys.

00:46:43.660 so I think it's it's it is you you get to a certain point when you work counterterrorism

00:46:52.020 operations whether it's a local or the state or the federal level or overseas where you become

00:46:58.720 very pragmatic right about it because you know the threat's always there the methodology is

00:47:06.720 doesn't tend to change much technology can change kind of how you gather intelligence to some degree

00:47:11.620 but um you just kind of keep ticking along so i'm not saying i mean i'm not worried i'm just saying

00:47:17.700 yeah you just you just raise the alert but it's the same problem but there's got to be a renewed

00:47:23.660 focus because from an outsider's point of view i'm looking at going so there was one in michigan

00:47:29.560 with a truck loaded with explosives trying to drive into a synagogue then you had a potential

00:47:35.120 nail bomb attack in new york then you had the shooting in austin yeah i mean and this comes

00:47:41.620 on the heels of and and this is another thing that i would have been doing if i was the iranian

00:47:45.580 regime i would have been taking advantage of what essentially was a very porous border for

00:47:49.860 several years under the previous administration vetting just wasn't there right and because they

00:47:55.280 weren't focusing on it they didn't have the resources down there um and so the customs and

00:48:01.500 Border Patrol, you know, they did what they could do, but there was really no vetting. And so the

00:48:06.500 idea of how many people came across that border with nefarious intent, right, whatever it may be

00:48:12.000 for narcotics trafficking or for terrorism purposes, we don't really know, right? And so

00:48:18.200 that's a problem. And so it compounded this already, you know, significant issue of terrorism

00:48:25.080 on the home front. And you're right, obviously the conflict, anytime you have a conflict, right?

00:48:31.500 got a problem i mean obviously 7 october the height the the alert you know was was raised and

00:48:38.140 it just happens whenever there's something like this the target can change right and and who

00:48:42.780 you're looking at and but on the other side again this idea of the the the individual who's triggered

00:48:49.580 into a lone wolf attack you know they're they're always out there right um so it it it sometimes

00:48:57.660 I guess what I'm saying is sometimes with the state-sponsored, it can be, I don't want to say

00:49:02.100 it's easy, but it can be a little less complicated and not quite as much based on luck. You know,

00:49:09.040 with a lone wolf, maybe you get lucky and the individual's cousin sees something and actually

00:49:13.920 says something, right? That's kind of what you have to hope for, is that somebody within that

00:49:18.240 orbit is willing to speak up. If that doesn't happen, you know, it can be very difficult.

00:49:24.140 Because senior security officials in the UK have said that they're highly worried

00:49:30.180 that what the Iranians are going to do is pay petty criminals 0.97

00:49:33.740 nominal sums of money like £500, £1,000 to create small acts of terror

00:49:38.800 in order to destabilise security, to destabilise society.

00:49:45.080 And we saw an incident in the UK a few weeks ago where ambulances were set on fire.

00:49:51.900 And the Islamist group came out and said, we claim responsibility for this. 0.53

00:49:57.640 Now, we don't know. Is that a ploy? Is that a game? Is that a mind game?

00:50:01.600 Or is it actually true?

00:50:04.020 And what happens is that as that continues, it destabilizes society.

00:50:09.760 Sure. It's like shutting down the straddle of Hormuz, right?

00:50:12.860 It doesn't take much to do something that has this outsized impact, right?

00:50:16.960 So a handful of incidents, and what have you done?

00:50:20.740 suddenly you know everybody's losing their right and and it becomes a real it after 9 11 you know

00:50:27.540 that was that was a major a major uh event obviously i just that was a statement of rocket

00:50:34.260 science uh but people people kind of pulled together right and so you developed a mindset

00:50:42.420 within a population that said that was a very helpful thing for a period of time but then again

00:50:47.380 like i said everyone's gotten tired we kind of got out of that everybody's back to listening to their

00:50:52.180 airpods and staring at their phone when they're walking around nobody's operationally aware

00:50:56.260 not that they you know should be but pay some attention i guess is what i'm saying so

00:51:01.460 this is when you when you look at the potential for just a handful of things to create

00:51:10.660 um an outsized impact on a population you know a handful of lone wolf terrorist incidents i mean

00:51:18.820 bin laden talked about this you know well before 9 11 he was going to bankrupt america right through

00:51:24.580 um using our own civil liberties and and you know the freedoms um cause us to kind of retract and

00:51:32.420 do what we did which was this you know multi-decade effort against the war the war on terror so 0.79

00:51:38.260 So, yeah, and again, the IRGC and the goods force and, you know, all their proxies, they're not stupid, right? 0.60

00:51:47.240 They know how to do this.

00:51:48.680 But whether there's, you know, I don't have access to that intelligence,

00:51:53.480 but I will say that the FBI and other authorities in the states spent a massive amount of time focused on this very issue.

00:52:03.140 And they have gotten much better over the years, right?

00:52:06.280 We had some problems with siloed information leading up to 9-11 and some other issues in terms of lack of human sources in different places.

00:52:14.320 But they have gotten much better at the process of sharing intelligence from across the board, the state, the local, the federal authorities, working with liaison partners overseas.

00:52:24.340 So that part of it's the good news.

00:52:27.880 But they just need to have success, you know, once or twice a handful of times to change the entire dynamic of a country.

00:52:35.820 And also, radicalization is a major problem, particularly within the Muslim community.

00:52:42.040 Because you're thinking there will be a lot of potentially young men who are looking to this,

00:52:46.080 and some young women, who will get radicalized by certain preachers. 0.92

00:52:50.040 We've seen it happen time and time in the UK.

00:52:52.460 And all of a sudden, you have a portion of the population who are American-born

00:52:57.960 who suddenly become a threat to the country.

00:53:00.080 Yeah. Well, again, when you have an incident and it's a really interesting dynamic, right? The way that social media has changed how we process information, as soon as there's an incident, whether it's the Michigan synagogue attack or anything, suddenly everybody's a reporter, right? Everybody's a journalist.

00:53:21.060 so they're on their phone and then you've got this segment of society that they'll see a

00:53:25.780 they'll see a name right uh oh well that sounds sounds middle eastern you know i knew it i just

00:53:35.060 knew it right and then they'll look and they'll say oh wait a minute he was in the national guard

00:53:39.220 here in the u.s wait a minute he was he was born wherever in in the states what and so there it's

00:53:44.020 it's a confusing dynamic but it speaks to exactly what you're saying which is you trying to identify

00:53:49.140 these individuals is you need an element of luck. I never had a single operation in the agency

00:53:57.280 that didn't have some element of luck when there was success involved, right? At the point where

00:54:02.760 you think, you know, you're just really good at it and you don't need luck, then you're kind of.

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00:55:32.700 Mike one of the other things I want to ask you about is it seems inevitable to me that this will change very much the dynamic of the relationship between European countries including our country the UK and America because I'll be honest with you.

00:55:50.740 I think from the European perspective, this kind of looks at this point as we sit here talking a little bit like America and Israel went and did a thing.

00:55:59.640 And now they expect us to pay the price of that. And that's going to piss a lot of people off.

00:56:04.520 Yeah. Well, it already has. I was in I was in London when President Trump was making those comments about Keir Starmer.

00:56:14.820 You know, he's not Winston Churchill. And, you know, we don't need anybody to come into the fight after we've already won.

00:56:20.740 And, you know, as a as a dual citizen in the U.S. and U.K., I found it offensive.

00:56:30.380 And I didn't like that because I don't like we shouldn't be talking that way about close allies.

00:56:35.680 Right. Where we've got so much history. Right. And there's been disagreements in the past.

00:56:39.800 That's true. So I thought not not the best move.

00:56:44.340 But then you step back and you go, well, what else do you expect?

00:56:47.020 you know what you're going to get from President

00:56:49.080 Trump, which is in part why his base

00:56:51.220 just loves him, right? Because

00:56:53.060 in a sense, he kind of

00:56:55.120 talks like them, right? He feels

00:56:57.180 like the guy next door, right, in a way.

00:56:58.960 And I think they like that, but

00:57:01.180 it also leads to these

00:57:03.100 messaging issues.

00:57:05.440 And so...

00:57:06.980 My point is something else, though,

00:57:08.780 which is, while he was slanging off

00:57:11.140 Keir Starmer, I was very happy

00:57:13.080 with that, because Keir Starmer...

00:57:14.340 It depends on your politics. Keir Starmer

00:57:16.840 is not Winston Churchill. And it's not really even about politics, actually. It's about reality. So

00:57:23.020 both Labour and Conservative governments in our country, if they've run down the military,

00:57:27.780 they've run down our industrial base, they've run down our intelligence operator, they've run down

00:57:32.220 almost everything that we need to make ourselves safe. And so when Marco Rubio or when President

00:57:38.060 Trump comes over to Davos or to Munich and they tell Europeans, you need to up your game,

00:57:44.080 I'm rooting for them when they say that.

00:57:46.260 I think that's important.

00:57:47.480 The point I'm making here is this isn't about talk anymore.

00:57:50.400 This is about you went and caused Australia from Moose to get closed,

00:57:54.140 and we are the ones that suffer from that

00:57:56.200 because we are the ones that import the gas, the oil, the fertilizer, etc.

00:58:00.420 In a way that actually the United States is quite insulated from.

00:58:04.360 I mean, you produce almost all your own energy, etc.

00:58:08.060 We don't.

00:58:08.780 And so having taken this action, now we in Europe and in the UK are supposed to suffer the economic consequences of the action.

00:58:17.380 It's not about talk. It's about reality.

00:58:20.260 Well, the talk also is when you I guess my point being is when you slack somebody off and then you have to turn around and ask for their help.

00:58:26.060 Yeah, that's that's a messaging problem.

00:58:29.340 Yeah. But but the logistics side of it, you know, the actual real world impact is, yeah, you're right.

00:58:35.760 I mean, now and I think that there's a lot of there's a lot of Gulf states that feel that way.

00:58:40.180 You know, what the hell? Right. And we weren't happy with the Iranian regime.

00:58:42.960 But, you know, we kind of had this this thing going. Right.

00:58:46.880 And now it's it's it appears to be somewhat fucked up. 0.97

00:58:51.700 So and that kind of goes back to something we were talking about earlier. 0.94

00:58:56.160 A scenario that you could have argued might have produced somewhat different results would have been to include.

00:59:05.760 some of your allies in the pre-planning now you know there are some in the states will say well

00:59:11.020 that's that you know then you take away the element of surprise and they go well you're not

00:59:14.360 talking to them about a specific targeting operation on a specific date and specific time

00:59:19.060 you're saying look we have to have these conversations because here's what we believe

00:59:23.080 here's what we think um can we get some agreement people don't agree fine you still have the same

00:59:28.680 result you go out and do it on your own right but i think there probably could have been a way to do

00:59:35.320 this right and and you know there'll be again i'm always amazed at you know that there's there's a

00:59:41.000 lot of folks who think well that's bull we don't need anybody else and president trump has enunciated

00:59:45.640 that pretty clearly you know lately but that's not true we do need other people right you can't

00:59:52.520 you you can't draw the curtains around uh the u.s and say that we're we're isolationists right i love 0.51

00:59:59.960 I would love to be in a world where you could be libertarian and isolationist and the s**t

01:00:07.360 wouldn't hit the fan, right, on a regular basis.

01:00:09.380 I think that'd be lovely.

01:00:10.600 But that's not my experience anyway from being overseas for a long period of time.

01:00:14.860 Can you elaborate on this, Mike?

01:00:16.520 Because, you know, there are a lot of people who have that view.

01:00:19.520 Dave Smith is a prominent proponent of that.

01:00:21.560 Very smart guy.

01:00:22.420 We've had him on the show.

01:00:23.480 We had a great debate.

01:00:24.420 You know, we don't agree with Dave, but he puts his arguments, well, why is that worldview

01:00:28.320 not accurate in your opinion because i i guess it's it has to be based on your your life experiences

01:00:35.240 right my life experiences have been a lot of it being overseas in some fairly hostile environments

01:00:41.660 where you see how uh people treat each other and and sort of the worst sides of of of of humanity

01:00:51.460 and um i don't live in a world where i think we're so disconnected that we can just ignore

01:00:59.260 everything else that happens around the world and somehow we're not going to be impacted i'm a big

01:01:03.660 believer in the fact that you know something you do something over here it's going to impact over

01:01:08.820 here right the world's too goddamn small anymore and and it worked one time but a couple hundred

01:01:14.900 years ago right and now that's not how we're we're all so tied together so that's that's what i mean

01:01:21.000 by that I don't my personal experience has been it tells me that while it'd be lovely you know

01:01:28.340 um this is not a community of nations where everyone's got everybody else's best interest

01:01:33.720 at heart right and so um that's that's but again I get it I get Dave and and others who think that

01:01:41.580 way and and you know if if I felt that was the way the world worked then I'd probably think that too

01:01:47.680 right hey great but anyway that's that's where i that's all i have to say about that well that's

01:01:54.320 not your experience i get it i mean one of the points you make about the impact this happens here

01:01:59.040 and then there's an impact over there is in terms of european and countries in the uk i mean i don't

01:02:04.560 know what's going to happen nobody does but logically speaking if the united states is not

01:02:10.320 effectively acting like your ally anymore talking about you causing you problems i mean a logical

01:02:16.240 solution for a lot of european countries would be to do a separate deal with iran

01:02:20.880 yeah yeah or logical deal is to you know kind of tighten that that alliance you know within the eu

01:02:27.760 and and you know say okay fine and i think that was you know i agree when when uh when trump was

01:02:33.040 talking about the lack of spending on for nato yeah great yeah absolutely you know yep get on

01:02:40.320 board right have a little more skin in the game um but again i i i suppose right you you could

01:02:50.080 make an argument for could the eu cut a deal with iran um i don't know i don't know that that would

01:03:00.720 work um i'm just i'm thinking through this out loud uh but i would see where you could eventually 0.95

01:03:06.960 get to that point if you get you know your ass kicked enough by what you thought was a tight 0.85

01:03:13.420 ally and you know so now look you don't need to go any further than saying here we don't need you 0.91

01:03:23.760 we don't need anyone and then over here well you know we're going to need your support in opening

01:03:28.400 the straight because look you guys have a lot of skin in the game because this you know it's more

01:03:32.140 important to you than it is to us well we're the ones who created this problem right the u.s

01:03:37.460 military so i just think that that's where i come back around to saying sometimes and it gets a bad

01:03:43.380 name sometimes in the u.s among certain folks again a lot of times people who think that you

01:03:48.100 know it's it's it's the u.s it's our way or no way uh in the real world you do need to think about

01:03:55.680 coalition building right you do need to think about marshalling your resources along with your

01:04:01.000 allies, you know, for force multiplier purposes, that has more impact. I do think if we had thought

01:04:08.020 this through, and if we had worked a little harder on that idea, that we probably wouldn't

01:04:12.840 have had this issue. They still would have tried to blockade the strait, but we would have been

01:04:17.140 on top of it. It wouldn't have been a reactive moment, right? We would have been proactively

01:04:21.100 dealing with it, not just us. Well, the attitude to Iran and, you know, the not thinking through

01:04:27.560 what they're likely to do seems to me to be kind of replicated in Europe, where you go,

01:04:32.200 well, whatever you think about Keir Starmer or Macron or whoever, you have to understand

01:04:37.320 their situation from their point of view. If you're the leader of a European country,

01:04:42.360 you're looking down the barrel of a recession. People don't generally get re-elected in the

01:04:47.400 middle of a recession. If something goes bad in your country economically, you tend to get the

01:04:52.360 blame and you tend to get voted out. So you're putting these people who are already in quite a

01:04:56.460 weak position into a bind. Then you're talking about them. Then you're trying to pin the blame

01:05:02.740 on them for something you did. You put all that together. I mean, you could be talking about a

01:05:07.280 permanent fracturing of the alliance. Yeah, I don't think it's going to go that far. Because

01:05:14.100 again, I think I think the White House will do what they can to get out of this here relatively

01:05:18.840 soon um because they they not because of that but because of internal u.s political right concerns

01:05:25.500 but there's also this thought that okay well right now you know the our eu allies are saying

01:05:33.940 ah they're not going to you know they're not going to take part maybe they'll do something

01:05:37.660 appropriate which i think was the phrase they used the other day you know take appropriate

01:05:41.380 measures you know that's what that means but then i think there was some thinking in d.c in

01:05:47.200 Washington, D.C. that, well, they'll come around once they realize how bad economically this could

01:05:51.800 be for them, you know, and from the energy supply, they'll come around, right? And

01:05:59.140 to the point of self-preservation, maybe they will because they'll look and go, all right,

01:06:06.700 well, better we go all in and help open the strait than face this problem on the global

01:06:15.300 energy markets, and suddenly we're in a recession, and now we're going to get kicked out.

01:06:18.880 So they may do a calculation that says, all right, we don't like it, and yes, we feel 0.95

01:06:24.360 insulted, but maybe out of self-preservation so that we don't completely get our ass handed 0.50

01:06:29.880 to us in the next election, we'll go all in and help with the efforts.

01:06:33.700 So that may play a role in this.

01:06:35.580 Again, coming back around to the idea that politics influences everything.

01:06:39.300 And speaking of politics, one of the things we've seen, obviously, in this country, in

01:06:42.780 the united states is there's been like incredible levels of support for the war from trump's base

01:06:48.980 yes yeah is that going to last if this drags on no no i won't it they because while his base is

01:06:57.840 is very supportive um there's you maybe take a knife and cut half of that out and say if this

01:07:04.440 thing is a protracted conflict you're going to lose half that base because they're not all in 0.98

01:07:09.220 on that. And I don't, I just don't see the White House going all in on that. I think they're

01:07:20.480 really looking at this stage of the game for some way out. And they're going to have to be careful

01:07:27.560 because what does that do? That gives the Iranians leverage, right? Then suddenly they read the,

01:07:32.460 you know, the tea leaves and they say, okay, and here's our list of concessions that we want.

01:07:37.900 And I think that's already happening. Whomever they're talking to, if they're talking to somebody. And that's a big question, right? Because who's got the ability to cut a deal at this stage of the game, right?

01:07:51.940 Again, Mushtab al-Khamenei, he hasn't been seen ever since he was named as an successor.

01:07:56.640 There's no evidence that he's copacetic, right?

01:07:59.780 So who is it?

01:08:01.960 I would argue it's not the Speaker of the Parliament, right, Muhammad Khalifa.

01:08:09.700 You know, he's not a reformist, right?

01:08:15.280 So who are you trying to cut a deal with?

01:08:17.520 The IRGC, right?

01:08:19.140 They've got a new commander of the IRGC after they whacked the last two, head of the Quds Force, maybe.

01:08:28.200 There's not a lot of people out there that you could argue can carry out a deal that the various elements now of the Iranian leadership that exists would agree to.

01:08:41.360 And maybe now they're at odds with each other, right, over do you have discussions?

01:08:45.620 No, we don't want discussions.

01:08:46.660 Do you cut a deal?

01:08:47.580 Do you find some concessions?

01:08:48.660 What do those concessions look like? So this is going to be very complicated.

01:08:53.220 But I do think the White House is very keen to make that happen for what you've described.

01:08:57.520 That support, even from the base, is not going to last if people start to think this thing's dragging on into the early summer.

01:09:04.960 Mike, pleasure as always to have you on the show.

01:09:07.840 Really? Do you mean that?

01:09:09.200 Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. It's always great to chat.

01:09:12.900 Final question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:09:17.220 i'll tell you what i think uh is is it's gonna sound odd but i think it's ukraine because for

01:09:24.780 the past several weeks there's almost no headline right um in the u.s it's particularly noticeable

01:09:32.920 where we we do seem to have adhd right so we can't focus on more than one thing so you're hard pressed

01:09:39.720 to know you know that there's something happening in that conflict and you know the ground's thawing

01:09:46.000 You know, we're moving into the spring fighting season. And it looks like so far over the, you know, recent week, few days that you're getting a start of what looks like a spring, maybe early summer offensive.

01:10:01.220 it's still a major conflict causing major suffering and with the potential to really

01:10:09.340 create problems for NATO, for the EU. Putin's showing no signs of backing off his demands.

01:10:18.240 I don't think he sees any downside to continuing the effort. And yet, because of the way information

01:10:25.500 flows and how we're all like raccoons chasing the next shiny tinfoil ball we've taken our eye off it

01:10:31.780 and it's like it's not even happening right and so i think that's the one thing people need to

01:10:36.040 kind of touch back in and say oh that's going on mike and why is it still going on because

01:10:40.220 president trump you know repeatedly you talk about not taking them literally i mean he said

01:10:43.920 it'd end the war on day one it's been a lot of days yeah it's been more than one day i will say

01:10:50.500 that. Yeah. If I knew that, you know, I'd get myself one of those Nobel Peace Prizes, you know,

01:10:58.420 if someone would just give me one. But I think that the problem there is Putin, again, doesn't

01:11:04.640 see a downside to doing this. He still believes that I think he can outlast the West. He can

01:11:10.820 outlast Ukraine. He's got the manpower advantage. But when you look at it, you think it's been all

01:11:17.220 these years. And, you know, he's in a World War I scenario where they're trench fighting.

01:11:25.020 It's remarkable. And it's remarkable also from a technology standpoint, how drone warfare has

01:11:29.280 just completely changed the battlefield. We're seeing that played out now, obviously, in the

01:11:33.560 Iran conflict. But that is an absolutely fascinating part of that whole sad story.

01:11:39.780 Mike, thanks for coming on. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where Mike is going to answer

01:11:44.380 your questions. Who do you see, if there is anyone, as a viable opposition leader replacement

01:11:51.460 for the current regime that would be acceptable to the non-radicalised populace?

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TRIGGERnometry - April 01, 2026

＂They Didn't Think This Through＂ - Ex CIA Operator, Mike Baker

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