Colonel Douglas MacGregor (11:05)
Well, obviously this is more evidence that the people in Washington think Americans are incredibly stupid because they think that somehow or another by encouraging the Israelis to fire the first shot, that we'll understand or believe instantly that, oh, we didn't do a thing, and now we have to because Israel's in the fight, right? Americans aren't that dumb. And I think Americans actually know this is all about Israel, so we can sit around and debate the pros and cons of the whole thing, but, you know, this. This is all about Israel. And it's about Israel's agents in the United States, the collection of billionaire zionists who essentially are dictating policy to our government. And, you know, I hope you remember that the only time the democrats and republicans all stood and cheered wildly was when Mr. Trump talked about attacking Iran. That seems to have been the unifying force because that's where the money is. Who's paying these people? Where is it? Where is it coming from? Well, those billionaires are pouring money into these people and they all know that if you go along with it, you're going to get more money. And if you don't, they're going to give it to your opponent. So now, militarily, how will this goes? That's a real tough call. You know, I've been looking at Larry Johnson's work today. Larry put together a great story involving all the various types of aircraft on both sides and the types of missiles and so forth and so on. The truth is this, this is a big country, very large. They have a lot of very bright, capable people. This is not a backward desert waste disposal plant. This is a serious country with a long and distinguished history. These people are not going to surrender. They're not going to submit to Israeli hegemony on the basis of our threats. So they're going to fight. What have they got? They have an almost inexhaustible arsenal of missiles and at least 2,000 of them fall into the theater ballistic missile category, maybe a few less, but it's close to 2,000. Then they have a lot of other medium range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles. Some of these are of a relatively new variety from China, including missiles designed to attack and demolish or even sink ships. The range though, of course is an issue and the radars are an issue. We know that the Chinese have provided some very new state of the art radars that theoretically can look out to 420, 430 miles and even identify stealth aircraft at that range. On the other hand, we have extraordinary aircraft, there's no question about it. This is the largest, I think, collection of modern aircraft, fifth generation and fourth generation, that the world has ever seen. These aircraft can reach out far beyond the normal range thanks to the weapon systems they carry. We don't need to go through all of them, but they have the capacity to destroy a number of these radars at a distance, at a standoff distance. But we don't know the range of the missiles that will be fired at them in some cases. Some of these are Russian in origin, but a lot of them are also Chinese. So to answer your question, worst case, we could have our bases utterly destroyed in the region. They may actually be able to go all the way out to nearly the Red Sea and beyond Israel. We don't know. We know that they see everything. They have satellite based intelligence from China and Russia. We also know that they have agents on the ground who can pick up the proverbial cell phone and call. So there are a lot of People out there that are going to help them and they've got lots of information. The real question is how tightly integrated are these air defenses? How much experience is on the ground? I'm told there are hundreds, maybe as many as 2,000 Chinese on the ground in Iran helping the Iranians. I would think that that's necessary because you can't deliver some of the technology that's come in within the last few weeks and expect these people to be able to do it. Now, we have Americans in F16s flying for the Ukrainians, not in US uniform, but they have gotten permission from the national command authorities to go over there and fly these aircraft on the west side of the Dnieper. I would not be surprised if there are not some Chinese pilots on the ground ready to climb into the cockpit and fly some of the new aircraft that have been delivered to Iran. Then of course, you have the Russians, and the Russians have excellent intelligence. They've got lots of ships, they've got lots of submarines. I think the Chinese have submarines and ships out in the area. I don't know how many are currently stationed outside the Strait of Hormuz, but there are several. All of this suggests that we could take losses. Could we have 500 casualties? Sure. Could we have only 3 or 400? Potentially? Can we kill thousands of Iranians? Yes. There's no question about it. So the losses the Iranians will take will be disproportionate because this bombing campaign, air and missile campaign, is not designed to induce compliance with Mr. Netanyahu's demands. It's designed to disintegrate the state, to fragment the society, to induce chaos, in the hopes that all of this will collapse like a house of cards. I don't think it'll work, but I think that's the real purpose behind it all. And the question is, how long can we keep it up? 10 days, 2 weeks? Not too much longer. So Iran's principal mission is to survive. If they survive, they win. If they collapse like a house of cards, they lose. And we, we look great if, if they disintegrate and collapse. But if they survive, we look stupid because we've thrown everything in the world at them and it hasn't worked.