Loading summary
Transcript56 lines
- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator 1
Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all in one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, E Commerce, hr. Fully integrated, easy to use and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com
- [00:28]
Commercial Narrator 2
that's odoo.com Fiscally responsible financial geniuses Monetary Magicians these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [01:04]
JBL
Hello friends, I'm JBL and I am joined today by Tim Mack from the Counteroffensive here on Substack, one of my favorite Substack publications. And so Tim went to, if you don't know his backstory, he went over to Ukraine basically as soon as the war broke out years ago now and became I think, the most indispensable person on Substack, reporting on the ground from Ukraine day in and day out. His stuff's been invaluable and he stood up as he was just telling us a just a popup publication about Iran. And tell so Tim, tell me, where do they where can they get it if they just go to the counter offensive, can they go from there? Do they have to go follow and do another click?
- [01:53]
Tim Mack
The best way to find our reporting on Iran is at iranwar News and it's on Substack as Iran War Dispatches. But if you go to iranwar News, you'll be able to find our latest obsessive reporting on Iran, but with the counteroffensive style, which the counteroffensive has really been about human interest reporting. And so we've brought that over to Iran storytelling. So for Iran war dispatches, we are covering how Iranian farmers are dealing with the ecological effects of these attacks on oil oil holding sites in Tehran. There's been this black rain phenomenon that you may have heard of that's been occurring.
- [02:37]
JBL
I haven't. Tell me about it.
- [02:38]
Tim Mack
Well, this black rain phenomenon, following this, following the bombing of IRGC oil depots, there's been reports that we received and from our sources, photos of black rain falling in Tehran. Basically the oil and the smoke and the ecological impact of what's happened is really affecting farmers in that region which have already been devastated by a drought. You could argue that actually the genesis of a lot of what we're seeing in Iran right now is, isn't necessarily the protests that happened last year or the Israeli bombing as part of the 12 day war or the strikes that are ongoing right now. What really is the genesis of all the upheaval in Iran is the drought. As simple as that, is that access to water has been extremely, extremely limited. The Iranian government even talked about moving the capital outside of Tehran because of the access, Access to water being such a problem that access to water being a problem has led to dramatic increases in the price of everything right. And inflation, along with political repression, has led to demonstrations. And those demonstrations then led to the killings of tens of thousands of Iranians just seeking their freedom and subsequent to that, the Israeli and American bombings in Iran. So it may all come down to, I think there's a good argument for it, that it all comes down to Iranian farmers suffering through a drought.
- [04:18]
JBL
Well, I mean, this is a thing that we saw in various American defense publications for like the last decade, which is like, hey, climate change can cause regional instability. We ought to be cognizant of environmental effects. And I guess we don't care about that anymore. So I guess I have so many questions for you. I, and so I, I, I wish I had a coherent way of asking him, and I'm not, I don't, I'm just going to sort of scatter shot my way through that. I hope that's okay. The first thing is when, when you, when you have your reporters, especially you know, the person you have on the Armenian border talking to people, did the people, did the Iranians who are leaving the country, who you, you guys have heard from, were they surprised? Did they, did they expect coming after the June strikes that there would be a major, well, not just bombings, but like major military campaigns coming from the US And Israel six months later, five
- [05:20]
Tim Mack
months later, I don't think there's a great amount of surprise, particularly among the people who oppose the regime. There's a lot of support as well. You know, put, I think from their point of view, put aside who's doing it. They're attacking the people who have harmed us and I praise them for that. And you know, I know you've written about the total lack of strategy in the American engagement here in the war and the Lack of an ability to follow through. And the jokers from the State Department to the Pentagon, who have no coherency in terms of aims or objectives or tools to reach either. But from the perspective of people who are seeking freedom in Iran, even if they don't get regime change, the United States and Israel are harming the people who have harmed them. And they can live with that. And so there is kind of that part of it. But given the upheaval that's happened in Iran over the last 18 months, these latest strikes hardly seem like a surprise. They seem more like the culmination of the kind of violence that's been growing and breeding in Iran over the last year and a half.
- [06:35]
JBL
So for the people who are trying to get out, I mean, what is the plan for refugee. Is there a plan? Does it seem as though anybody has prepared for, huh, we may have a refugee crisis here. What are we going to do about it? Like, where are these folks supposed to go? Who's going to take care of them?
- [06:54]
Tim Mack
What's been curious is, so right now I'm in Armenia, and Armenia and Iran have these deep historic ties of friendship. And so there are a lot. There are quite a lot. One of the reasons we decided to set up Iran war dispatches in Armenia as opposed to other places is that it's relatively free and there are a lot of Iranian exiles and expats here that we can communicate with, network and get information from, which is really the kind of core of networking and reporting. And what surprised me, though, is that there are fewer people who have fled the country into Armenia than I expected. One of the reasons is because Iran is a very, very, very big country.
- [07:36]
JBL
Yeah.
- [07:37]
Tim Mack
That if you leave, if you leave Tehran and you go into, for example, the mountainous northern regions, you could be pretty assured that you're not going to be affected by airstrikes. Right. There are, there's no targets there. And it is one of the, one of the things that, that you kind of reflect on when, when as the United States considers, whether a limited or larger scale, a boots in the ground presence, if they do kind of want to engage that way, is that Iran is, you know, much larger than Iraq with the mountains of Afghanistan as its terrain features. You know, I mean, it is very hostile territory, very large, and Iran is large enough to be able to, you know, to be able to have this war and, and people be displaced internally, but not yet externally. You contrast that, for example, with Lebanon, which as a result of strikes in the south of Lebanon led by the Israelis, has led to many, many thousands of refugees fleeing for safety in a much smaller country. So that really is one of the main reasons why we haven't seen 100,000 people try to leave overnight.
- [08:56]
JBL
So from the reporting I've been reading, it seems pretty clear that military commanders in both the US And Israel have basically given up on regime change in any sort of timeline that can be counted on. So it doesn't mean that the Iranian regime is forever, but like, it isn't going to go away tomorrow and it probably won't go away next week. And if it were to, to fall, if the Islamic Republic were to fall, that would require a category difference in terms of both intervention and duration, and the timeline for that would be indeterminate. The political leadership in at least Israel and possibly in America, does not seem to have reconciled themselves to this and seems to believe that regime change is still an option on an outcome on the table. Do the people you're talking to on the ground, and again, I'm sure you're talking to lots of different groups, what does the sense seem to be about the stability of the Iranian regime? Because I look at this and I just wrote about this today, it does seem to me as though Iran has just passed two very, very significant tests, the first of which is they survived a decapitation strike from the US And Israel. The second of which is they survived a transition of power. So they, they've moved from one supreme leader to another supreme leader, which is not always, you know, if you're in an authoritarian country, those transitions are always fraught. You never know. You know, things could fall apart at those moments. So they've done that. They've just, they've just endured a stress test, which seems pretty useful information to have if you were part of the Islamic Reform Republic. I mean, that, that suggests that, okay, the mosaic, you know, all the contingencies that you've been planning for basically since the Iran Iraq war, your, your strategic goal, your doctrine at least hasn't been disproven so far. Maybe it hasn't been proven, but it hasn't been disproven. And what you, what you set up to do, dispersed command and control survival ship protocols for the regime mosaic defense plan, which sort of the idea is to push control out to all 31 provinces and be decentralized. The just military doctrine of not engaging in direct force on force conflicts and resorting to asymmetrical warfare, those things are looking reasonably successful. So as from the people you're talking to, the people you're seeing, what Are the, what are the views of regime survival for Iran? Like what, what do people think the near term future of that looks like?
- [11:43]
Tim Mack
I want to make a bigger, broader point that's more of a caveat and then, and then, and then narrow in on your specific point. So the bigger, broader point is that autocratic regimes are brittle structures. When they bend, they break. Right. And that they can break very suddenly. If you look at, if you look at the collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, it happened in quite breakneck speed. If you look at the fall of the Assad regime, it happens over a course of 72 hours, maybe five days. And what really leads to the collapse of an autocratic regime? It really isn't. It wasn't in either of those cases some sort of external threat bombing them into submission. It was individual soldiers, individual people deciding they no longer wanted to hold up the structure of the regime, that they were no longer ready to fire on their fellow citizens in order to keep that institution of power alive. The thing about Iran right now is that it's very much degraded to the point, to probably its lowest point since 1979. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't have incredible potency and incredible violent ability, that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps still has close to 200,000 people that are still alive, that are still armed, that are still able to inflict violence on their fellow citizens. And the very sad conclusion that we're getting from a lot of folks that we're talking to who have come out of Iran or currently in Iran is that these strikes came too late. And that what happened in the devastating Iranian response to the demonstrations earlier this year is that the killings of tens of thousands of protesters, the people who would have risen up now to take advantage of these strikes, they're all dead. That the IRGC didn't merely shoot them in the streets, but then went into hospitals and went room to room executing people who had been wounded in protests, both vulnerable people who had sought refuge in places of medicine. And these people are gone and they won't come back. And who knows how long it will take for these thousands upon thousands of people, demonstrations and folks with the kind of courage that it takes, the kind of courage that I've never had to stand before guns and say, I demand, I demand to be free. That is no small request. And the people who did have that courage, unfortunately, died for it. And you can't replace that easily. That is really, right now, the thing that's missing, and that's not to say anything negative of the people of Iran who want their freedom now, but having just gone through this terribly traumatic event and not months, not, not quite, not very long ago.
- [15:03]
JBL
Right.
- [15:04]
Tim Mack
It's hard to, for that to, to, to say to them, okay, well, why don't you get, get back out there, guys? Yeah, it might be easy for us to say, but to your point here,
- [15:16]
JBL
I mean, the classical way in which regimes, authoritarian regimes fall is they fall from internal defections. Right? It's. And so it is the external pressures, which can either be from third parties like, you know, say, America and Israel, or from internal dissident movements. Those things exist in order to cause the, the members of the ruling regime enough people in there to realize the current status quo can't keep me safe. I've got to switch sides and go to this other new emerging status quo which can keep me safe. And that's how regimes evolve. The problem here is that it is not clear what potential alternative could emerge to keep, say, the IRGC people who would need to defect safe. Right. There does not seem to be another within the regime cohort that would do that. Certainly does not seem like the Iranian freedom movement would be able to do that. And so, like the like, if you were just like, working this through as a test case, you would say, well, obviously what you would need is like a coalition, a coalition of foreign troops to come in and guarantee safety and guarantee internal security so that Iranians could stand up a new form of government. And I just find it difficult to believe that that will happen. But maybe I'm wrong.
- [16:49]
Tim Mack
The Iranians, for all their evil, are deadly precise and deadly proficient in asymmetric warfare. The Iranians were responsible for no small number, likely in the thousands of American soldiers killed due to IEDs and Iraq and Afghanistan, specific kinds of IDs, by the way, that yielded devastating force even among up armored vehicles that the American military has. So the idea of some sort of ground assault in large waves, I fear it would be a terrible mistake. But one of the things that has been suggested is to arm Iranian Kurds in the northern areas of, of the country to create a sort of rebellion within. There's been some suggestion that the American intelligence services or the Mossad and, or the Mossad are doing that right now. There are also a group called the Iraq of Iraqi Kurds that are in eastern Iraq who could theoretically be armed and then act as, as a, as a rebel force against the central Iranian government. But as you can imagine, that comes with all sorts of other risks and uncertainties.
- [18:19]
JBL
Hard to do that without Providing them lots of like, I mean, again, just classically, the way this would work is the outside power, like America would provide them with military training and leadership. Right? We'd have officers on the ground teaching them doctrine, we'd give them intelligence, we'd be giving them air cover, would be establishing no fly zones. Right? I mean, to do that in a way which has any reasonable chance of success seems to demand a level of involvement that I find it difficult to imagine would be sustainable in America right now.
- [18:53]
Commercial Narrator 3
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for management, managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [19:23]
Commercial Narrator 1
If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done
- [19:54]
JBL
every day.
- [19:55]
Tim Mack
Or no. So when we launched the counteroffensive, we had a tagline, Good morning to readers. Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands for our Iran coverage. At Iran War Dispatches, we've been trying to think, okay, well, what would we do to. What is the question that we want to answer every morning? What does an American reader really want to understand? And so our, our, our kind of byline, our daily shout out is a lot more mercenary than it was in Ukraine. Every morning we talk about the price of crude oil. Good morning to readers. The price of crude oil is X and it's gone up Y percent since the Iran war started. Because we, when you think about, you know, the, the conduct of the war and the ability of really any American president to conduct a war, it really has to do with the price of oil here. The problem is, is that as the Trump administration finds itself more and more constrained due to the rising price of oil, which is Today, again, over $100 a barrel, I've learned a lot about oil price benchmarks in the last week and a half.
- [21:18]
JBL
Yeah, I have a friend with a Bloomberg terminal subscription who, like, is constantly sending me screenshots of the futures curve and stuff. And it's, yeah, we're all learning new things.
- [21:28]
Tim Mack
The thing is that the Trump administration has very foolishly stated that they will decide when the war ends. That is not a decision that you got to make on your own. Unfortunately, one of the big problems and one of the strategic issues around this whole war is the Strait of Hormuz, this key choke point where 20% of world energy, naval supply moves through. And you can say the war is over, but as long as the Iranian military and the IRGC decide to keep that straight closed, there's going to be this deepening tension, this tightening tension where the reason why the United States is looking for an easy withdrawal is not going to diminish. You could say it's over, but the reason the Trump administration is feeling so much pressure to end it is because of rising oil prices. But if you end it and the price of oil doesn't go down, well, that defeats the whole purpose of trying to end it to begin with. Right. And, and so bribe the Iranian regime, though. Well, the Iranian regime, actually. I mean, there's been some reporting today that suggests that the Iranian regime is in no mood to have any conversations with Steve Witkoff or the Trump administration. And their perspective is, we were negotiating with you when the war started, Right. Why will we talk to you now? And, and so, you know, and this is.
- [23:05]
JBL
That's the position you take when you think you're winning, by the way.
- [23:09]
Tim Mack
That is a position that you take when you think you're winning. And if you listen to Iranian officials, they are speaking with increasing optimism about how they've weathered the worst parts of the joint Israeli American attacks and that actually the initiative moving forward is on their side. I wouldn't quite take that position. The United States dominates the era over their country, but at the same point, they have a lot of different assets. I'm reminded by the Taliban saying, actually that NATO has the clocks, but we have the time. And the Iranians don't have the technology. They don't have really complicated, expensive air assets over the country, but they do have time on their side. And they do have rising oil prices causing these restrictions on American freedom, political freedom, to act on their side. And if Trump decides to withdraw in some sort of elegant or inelegant way, I think, I think they'll make, they'll make the Trump administration pay a price for that.
- [24:30]
JBL
So let me, let me tell you my, Let me tell you my fear of this. My Fear is that the most likely outcome, that Trump decides he needs an exit. And I do believe that there are things that he can give the Iranian regime which would allow them to allow him to declare victory. For instance, long term easing sanctions and sort of renormalizing Iran and the regime and allowing them to have some economic prosperity, which then makes their hold on power internally stronger and more resilient over time. Right. This is what he can offer them. And the Israelis sure wouldn't want that. But the Israelis aren't going to really have much of a say, I don't think. If, if, if the Americans decide they're done with this war, then they're going to be done with the war, and we just have too much leverage over Israel for Israel to do more than, you know.
- [25:32]
Tim Mack
Well, here's what's crazy about that.
- [25:34]
JBL
So I, I do worry that, like, we, this all ends in a week or a month or two months. And the end result is that a lot of material has been blown up. We've had a leadership change within the regime. But in terms of internal dynamics, the Iranian regime actually winds up with a stronger position in terms of internal control. I think that would be a pretty bad outcome, but it feels like it's the most likely outcome.
- [26:00]
Tim Mack
The thing is that what's so perverse about this is that the easing of sanctions in return for normalization of relations is what the Iran nuclear deal was all about and what the Obama administration. So a deal which himself tore up, a deal with Trump himself tore up after the Iranians already received the money that had been frozen, which had been the, the, which had been the biggest strike against the deal. So the Iranians get their money, then Iran. Then, then, then Trump removes the restrictions on Iran's freedom to, to develop its nuclear program. Then, then snapback sanctions occur. Then, then the United States attacks. Then the what the outcome is that they get their money, they get sanctions relief. And, and what, what, what, what exactly happened there other than the killing of the ayatollah.
- [27:03]
JBL
But that's like classic Trump, right? You set a fire, you then put the fire out and you tell everybody, look at that, the fire's gone.
- [27:11]
Tim Mack
Right.
- [27:12]
JBL
This is, that's kind of how he does everything.
- [27:15]
Tim Mack
I don't why I, why I'd be surprised if that was, if the outcome was some sort of negotiated settlement in the near term is I think the Iranians would like to see the American administration squirm a little bit.
- [27:30]
JBL
Yeah.
- [27:32]
Tim Mack
And that furthermore that regimes don't collapse when they're attacked by a Foreign force, they collapse when they give into a foreign force. Right. When they are seen as weak, when they are seen as being unable to protect the nation's sovereignty. At this point, what the Iranian government is not acting in order to appeal to or shore up its support among the protesters who want the theocratic autocracy dead. They're looking to, they're looking at the kind of center of Iranian society to ensure people. Right. That what we're just the point we were discussing before which the Iranian government and the Iranian military still remain the most powerful pillars and institutions and they will exist tomorrow as they have existed yesterday. If you give in and you say, okay, well yeah, you bombed us, but let's make a deal suddenly that, that message is not, not so clear.
- [28:33]
JBL
Yeah, that's, I mean the, I guess it all hinges on is there a deal that can be made which allows each party to plausibly claim victory internally? Right. So can, can Trump plausibly claim victory in America such that the Republican voters buy it? He doesn't need everybody to buy it, he just needs Republican voters to buy it. And in Iran, could the mullahs claim victory in a way that, you know, the, the, the places where their support matters most are able to buy it? I don't know. I, I, I feel like it's probably easier from the Iranian side because you will, I mean simply surviving an all out attack by the great Satan and the little Satan is itself something no Middle Eastern country has ever done. So I mean it feels pretty important. Are you concerned about the war widening? I, I've seen like Noah Smith wrote a, like, oh, maybe this is the foothills of World War three. Post I, that strikes me as a pretty low probability event. I, I do find it hard to see the war widening, but I don't from where you sit, you're in the region and what is it, what does it look like and feel like?
- [29:52]
Tim Mack
Well, the first week of the war, I mean, you could definitely see the war widening. Right. And from my perspective, you know, I normally live in Kiev now, now right now I'm spending some time in Armenia here covering the Iran war. I see these as, as terribly, terribly interconnected wars. One of the major reasons for these strikes on Iran is that, or the freedom to strike Iran is that Russia is otherwise engaged, weakened and occupied with Ukraine. The Russian support for Iran, which has been one of its greatest allies in the Middle east, is not there. And it's not there because they can't afford to, to help their ally. It's been mostly symbolic support and then when I'm in Ukraine, when I listen at night and I hear drones in the skies above my apartment, what I'm hearing are Iranian designed shaheed drones, right, blowing up in the city. And so I see these as deeply interconnected, certainly more interconnected in some ways than even the global war on terror was. When you think about Iraq and Iran and North Korea, Russia, Iran and North Korea are much more connected than terrorist networks in that time were. We've seen as a result of this Iran war strikes on Cyprus, Cyprus, which is an EU member. We've seen attacks on Azerbaijan, the airport in Azerbaijan, which is a key kind of route between Europe and Asia that isn't either Russian or Iranian. We've seen attacks, as you know, all across the Middle East, I think over two dozen countries. But I guess what would qualify as World War Three if not this? Maybe this is not World War III because it's not long enough. Maybe it's because not enough, quote, unquote, great powers are involved. But it does, what it does, I think is remove some of the restrictions on, on the, on great powers which have been in place since World War II to prevent a World War 3. It has removed, for example, any moral authority for the United States to condemn. I hope, I hope it never happens. China invading Taiwan, right? And in a lot of ways has created a lot of data which the Iranians will are likely to share with their friends in China about drone usage, about air defenses and, and et cetera, et cetera. One of the, one of the great, one of my great fears is, and we did, we did a story about this on Iran war dispatches was about, we did this deep dive into the kinds of munitions that were being used at great speed as a result of the first week of the Iran war. And what we found was not only were the Americans and their allies in the Middle east using Patriot missiles and interceptors at an incredible pace, but that the United States is manufacturing so few of these interceptors that there would never, there simply will not be enough time between now and 2027 when a theoretical Taiwan invasion might take place for the United States to replenish its stocks of anti missile and air defense interceptors. That is a terrifying idea that really Trump had at the beginning of this war had, had a, had a choice to make and that is either attack Iran or protect Taiwan. And he's already made that choice, whether we, he knows it or not, by the very, by the very tools that he has before him, his decision to attack Iran in this way. And then and then to expend air defense assets in the way that was necessary to defend American lives and those of our allies. We've already made a tacit decision to not defend Iran. And that is kind of horrifying to me.
- [34:31]
JBL
I mean, not just Taiwan. We've pulled out thaad systems out of South Korea, which are part of the matrix that hold the North Koreans at bay. So here's one of the many tangential concerns I have and I imagine is yours, is the consumption of key material that should be going to Ukraine. I mean, just, you need Patriot missiles, right? You need to be able to sell anti missile and anti drone weapons to Ukraine. It would be better if we were giving them to Ukraine, but we don't do that anymore. Um, I mean, those stores are just being depleted, as you said. To what extent are the Ukrainians going to feel that? Does this endanger them and thus like also broader European stability?
- [35:24]
Tim Mack
Yeah, it's a terror. It's, it's really a bad situation that the Americans and the Europeans and the Ukrainians find themselves in. Zelensky quipped. I'm not sure exactly which day, but over the last week that, and this is true, by the way, that the, that America and its Middle east allies expended more Patriot interceptors in a week than had been provided to Ukraine over the course of four years of warfare. And, and by the way, the Ukrainians are using every last one in a strategic way, trying to target only the missiles that, only the hypersonic missiles that pose the greatest danger to, to Ukrainian lives. But the fact is that we're going to see a lot more. We're going to see a lot more bombings and strikes in Ukraine that are unanswered or unintercepted because there's just nothing to sell to the Europeans to give to you to the Ukrainians. That is just a fact. I do a lot of writing and thinking about defense technology and one of the new, one of the new developments, we track Russian defense technology really, really closely and what they're doing. One of the new developments is these new shaheeds where they have smaller drones on top of the drone, and then they launch these other drones which are then controlled by other people and can attack very small targets. Your apartment, your, your moving car, a very small area in the city. And so far, cities like Kyiv and cities from the center of Ukraine westward have not been subject to these kinds of effective assassination tools. But they are going to be soon. And all of which is to say that things are going to be very Very dangerous, very, very dark. Quickly. And I consider these, these conflicts totally, totally related, which is why we started the counteroffensive and we started Iran war dispatches to try to illustrate the two sides to the war.
- [37:41]
JBL
So what is, what does the future look like for Ukraine then? I mean, I, it's bad enough that, that Europe now has to buy everything and, and it isn't just being sent from the United States, which it should be. Our security is European security, even if Americans don't understand that, but did not have the material to even sell it. And I mean, it does seem pretty clear that Europe is really moving quickly to restart its own defense industry. Like, they, they are looking to stand up domestic production, especially in drone and counter drone stuff. Um, but that does take a little bit of time. Like, you know, it takes 12, 24, 36 months to do those things. Um, what is, I mean, what does the near term future look like? Can, can Ukraine hold out for another year, two years? I mean, that, I don't mean to be so grim, but I just look at this stuff and it strikes me as like, catastrophically bad.
- [38:45]
Tim Mack
It's bad. It's not catastrophically bad.
- [38:47]
JBL
Okay, good. Talk me off the ledge.
- [38:50]
Tim Mack
I'm pulling you off the ledge, but I'm not telling you to get off the same. Don't jump. Yeah, get away. I, I'm pulling off the ledge, but you can stay. I think the appropriate position is to continue to lean out the window. That what I would say is I speak to Ukrainians every day. I have a, a large team of Ukrainians on my team. And the idea of, of Ukrainians just deciding, okay, well, that was, you know, that, that, that the last four years of pushing back against Russia and trying to, you know, to, to trying to keep our nation sovereign and our culture alive and our language alive, we're just going to stop that now. I, I, I don't think that is what we're going to do. Basically what this means is that the costs of continuing to resist Russian violence is just going to increase. There are going to be more missiles that go unanswered in the city. There's going to be more drones that blow up without intervention, and that is going to be very much just baked into the new facts of life. It's hard for me to describe to folks outside of Ukraine what it's like to be inside Ukraine, but there is a keep calm and carry on sort of attitude where you just kind of get used to the idea of bombings in your city. Whereas, yeah, at the beginning of the war. I would rush down to the basement every night and just sit there anxiously tapping on my phone, getting every piece of information about which drones were coming from which direction and what. Which at the time, it wasn't drones, but which troops were coming from which direction and which missiles were coming from where. Now you think to yourself, okay, well, it's five attack. Five nights of attacks out of the last seven. And, you know, I just need to sleep, so I'm just gonna pull my sleeping bag into the. Into the hallway and sleep on the floor and, you know, and deal with it. And you just deal with it, because what else is there to do but deal with it? So. So this is. This is what. This is the way that. That. That whole. That whole attitude develops.
- [41:10]
JBL
That's. That's a hard way to live.
- [41:15]
Tim Mack
And I notice. I noticed one of your commenters saying I've never been very good at keeping calm and carrying on. But what I would say is you will find it in you. What we're. I suspect darker days are ahead, I'm sorry to say, and our ability to adapt, our ability to be resilient is much greater than you might imagine it right now. You know, these times do call for a sort of courage within us that maybe we haven't tested yet, but it is something that we have within us. It is something that we have within us. And while you reside in the relative safety of the United States, it's time to take this moment to do whatever you can to organize, to express your views towards your elected officials, to support humanitarian causes or other causes that you think are worthy in order to push back. While there is time to push back, because the terrible and dangerous technologies that are we see in Iran and Ukraine, they are not going to be restricted just to those places. Drones are too cheap and too easy to use for that to happen. It is only a matter of time. It is only a matter of time until people who mean to do us harm manage to find ways to do that in the United States or to the United States. And so this is a very. It's a very, very rare, rare period for us to prepare to take very seriously this rising tide of violence across the world. And not. Not to think, you know, oh, well, it's just a regional conflict or, you know, it's isolated over there. I very much worry that we are on this terrible pathway in which it's going to come home to the United States very, very soon. We've seen hints of that already, and it's only a matter of time until it becomes a regular reality.
- [43:31]
JBL
This is what it means to live in a multipolar world. And this is what the. These are the practical consequences of America's abdication, of its role as the global hegemon. And I mean, I will never understand it, the extent to which America abdicated its position because eggs got too expensive. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's a. It seems like an absolutely crazy thing to me. I struggle to find historical analogues. When you, when you see empires collapsing or civilizations collapsing, it's normally because there's like an external threat. It's not often. It's just decadence. Not often. It's like the people, insiders, like, I'm bored of it. You know, that guy from the TV is funny. Let's make him president. But here we are. Tim, can you hit people up again on where they can find you? The counteroffensive is the substack being run about the Ukraine war, which you should all be subscribed to. It's been doing amazing work for years. But Tim and his colleagues have a brand new thing up about the Iran war.
- [44:34]
Tim Mack
Yes, that's right. You can find it at iranwar News. It's on substack as Iran War dispatches. Please do help us by subscribing for free. Today we're doing a lot of stuff that is frankly dangerous and really very difficult to do. Pulling out information from Iran. We're about to, in the next, in a period of days, send one of our reporters into Iraq, into those border regions between Iraq and Iran. And that's going to be quite dangerous and something. We need to be precise with you. Your support would mean everything. And all that means right now is to go to Iran Ward News to hit subscribe. That that support would be. That would be quite meaningful.
- [45:20]
JBL
Yeah, guys, do me a solid. Go over and sign up and support the. The amazing work they're doing. Sarah, Tim and I were talking about this this week. This has been like a very, very strange. You said it yourself when we started, Tim, a very, very strange war to try to understand from the outside. Because, because as you said, the reporting is so hard to get at because frankly, because the United States government is no longer a trustworthy source of information. Like you now have to assume the worst of the United States officials that you would from Iranian officials, you know, which is, wow, that's something new. So we really do rely on media, and especially independent media, like what Tim is doing. So Iran War dispatches. Iranwar News.
- [46:07]
Tim Mack
Iranwar News at Iranwar Dispatches on substack. And you'll find deep investigative reporting, human interest reporting, and really difficult information that we're pulling out of Iran right now.
- [46:23]
JBL
Yeah. Tim, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me. Stay safe, buddy. We'll talk again soon. Everybody else, thank you for being with us. Good luck, America.
- [46:36]
Commercial Narrator 3
With Verbocare, help is always ready before, during, and after your stay.
- [46:43]
Tim Mack
We've planned for the plot twists, so
- [46:45]
Commercial Narrator 3
support is always available because a great
- [46:48]
Tim Mack
trip starts with peace of mind.