In this episode, I sit down with Thomas Frieden to discuss the Iranian nuclear program and what it means for the world and the Middle East. We discuss Iran's nuclear program, its intentions, and the possibility of a deal with the United States.
00:00:51.860And this is where he affirmed they had 460 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium, which means that you could very quickly enrich it from 60 to 90 percent, which is weapons grade.
00:01:08.000You can do that in anywhere from seven to 12 days.
00:01:10.720Now, that would be the equivalent of 11 bombs.
00:01:14.100Thomas mentioned earlier, we now know their ballistic missile capability range is way further than we thought.
00:01:21.180By the way, you know what that means? Paris, London, you know, targets that nobody thought they would have had.
00:01:28.380But let me play this. And then I want to ask on the other side of it, as you listen to this, if the president negotiates a deal or if he has to leave, what are the things that must be accomplished before we say mission accomplished?
00:01:43.240OK, this is Steve Wyckoff with telling us that they had the inalienable right to enrich to which we responded.
00:01:51.180that from President Trump, that we had the inalienable right to stop them from enriching.
00:01:57.960So, but they opened up by challenging us.
00:02:01.500Their next statement to us was that they had 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium.
00:02:09.76060% enriched uranium would take a week, maybe 10 days at the outside,
00:02:19.580They were boasting about having it. And they said that that was going to be something that was going to be very valuable at the same time that they were attesting to wanting nuclear for civil purposes.
00:02:33.820There is no reason whatsoever to be enriching past 20 percent unless you're going for a weapon.
00:02:40.580And then finally, and this was all in the beginning meeting, they said to us, and this was some challenge, you're not going to get from us diplomatically what you could not achieve militarily.
00:02:56.440Now, yes, we had destroyed their three main enrichment and conversion centers, Natanz, Esfahan, and Fordow.
00:03:03.940that was clear they of course didn't want to admit it but think about the notion of beginning a
00:03:10.080negotiation by saying that we would they would we would not be able to get diplomatically
00:03:15.960what we couldn't achieve militarily we did achieve militarily but they were basically
00:03:21.460saying that we didn't and they weren't going to give it to us anyway all right thomas let me throw
00:03:28.160that to you with this question framed this way. Now, either they're going to negotiate out. Maybe
00:03:36.360they learned something. The president begged them for peace twice before Midnight Hammer,
00:03:41.640before Epic Fury. He's now giving them another lifeline. What are the conditions? What do they
00:03:49.820have to guarantee? No nukes. That enriched uranium, there's no way we can risk that uranium being in
00:03:57.140the wrong hands now we're reading that marines have arrived and more are going i don't know how
00:04:04.720to interpret that i don't know if that has to do with karg island i don't know if that has to do
00:04:08.400with enriched uranium i i wouldn't know but what are the conditions in your head that either a
00:04:15.080negotiated settlement or a military victory what would it take i i think i think it's going to take
00:04:20.700a negotiated settlement um at the at the end of a barrel of a gun because i think that's all they
00:04:25.820understand. And so I think the military destroying the things that are destroyed and then saying,
00:04:31.480okay, so now are we going to do this? And if you look at the, you know, the multi-point plan,
00:04:36.900really like the first six, seven points was all about, you know, no nuclear, right? You give back
00:04:44.280this stuff. You don't enrich this. You don't do this. You don't do this. You don't do this.
00:04:48.640And someone needs to maybe educate me. Maybe I missed a beat on why they would need enriched
00:04:54.800uranium for industrial purposes. I don't think they run on nuclear power over there. I'm pretty
00:05:01.360sure they have more than enough fossil fuel to run all their power plants and desalination and
00:05:07.060do everything they need to do. But the first section was all about nuclear. The second section
00:05:13.080was about funding all the H's, the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, funding them. Then the third section
00:05:20.320went back to stability so if you really look at it it was a 15 point plan but there was really
00:05:25.400only three asks nukes no funding these other folks and then you know recognition and create
00:05:33.680some sort of a inspection and peacekeeping force and whatnot and that's it and what they're saying
00:05:39.100is you're not going to get through negotiation which you couldn't get militarily you're basically
00:05:43.740telling us okay kill me you know okay run me over which is horrifying it's like really you know and
00:05:50.060The Marines in the area, the USS Tripoli sailed.
00:06:44.800The island that is in the strait, in the hook, as they call it, there's a long lateral island that begins with a Q.
00:06:52.060And they say if you take that, it eliminates a lot of these small rockets and the pestering attacks that they fire into the strait to stop the ships.
00:07:02.060If you look at a map there, I don't know what the name is.
00:07:04.020But anyway, the point is you need the USS Tripler, the USS Boxer.
00:07:14.240Yeah, zoom back on it. See that there? So you take that island and this is what, you know, the military is saying that Keshem, take Keshem Island and you're going to have to do that Marines on the ground. I don't want to see Marines on the ground, but you don't want to see it, but they're, but they're going, they're going.
00:11:35.840And we had that one critically injured pilot, God bless him, who stood there at the State of the Union address and was recognized for his bravery standing there, you know, with canes holding himself up because he hasn't fully recovered.
00:11:48.880and we lost zero, and we've lost 13 here.