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Negotiations with Iran Fail & Trump Announces Naval Blockade | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS
01:08:33
This episode covers the latest developments in Middle Eastern geopolitics, including Iran-US negotiations, the potential naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the implications of recent military and diplomatic actions. Experts analyze the...
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- [00:00]
A
This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea after the Big Game. Like most people, I kept thinking about the commercials and there was one that stayed with me. It was from the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate. And it wasn't loud or flashy. It showed a Jewish kid being targeted at school and another student who chose not to ignore it. As someone who was Jewish, that moment felt very real to me. Not dramatic, just familiar. And what struck me was how clearly it showed that hate doesn't always announce itself, but the impact is still huge. If you saw the Blue Square spot during the Big Game, it's worth thinking about. And if you want to show support, sharing the Blue Square is one small way to do that.
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- [01:07]
D
Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with John Hack and Mark P, Mick Mulroy and myself. I think Andy's gonna come through at some point. A lot going on. I'm sure everybody's been watching the news and stuff like that. Negotiations are happening in Pakistan between the Iranians and us. Leading it was JD Vance, vice president, and I guess Jared Wyckoff and Jared Kushner and Steve Wykoff were both there, I don't know, taking notes in the corner. Nothing happened. No deal was reached. It seemed like we were very, very far apart in terms of like what everybody wanted. Everyone has since left Pakistan and over the last week, you know, the ceasefire kicked off. We did the live stream. The first day of the ceasefire didn't look great. Iran was still bombing people. Israel was still bombing Iran. Israel started really pump Lebanon too. Initially there was talk that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire. That turned out not to be true. Messaging is incredible. Really. Everyone's really sounds like they're on the same page here. Lebanon got smoked too. I think they 200 plus, 250 plus people died in one day, plus a thousand, over a thousand injured. I don't know where we're at now. Oh, President Trump just tweeted about a naval blockade, like literally probably 30 or 40 minutes before we started recording this. So there's a lot to a Lot to look forward to. Things are really looking up. What's going on, guys? How are you guys?
- [02:36]
C
Dude, what the hell?
- [02:37]
D
Oh, yeah. Happy Easter to the Greeks.
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E
Greek Easter. The best candy.
- [02:43]
C
You're alienating all of our.
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D
Yeah, sorry. I'll drop some Greek, too.
- [02:50]
C
Nice.
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D
Yeah, There you go.
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E
I really try to be. I really try to be. I'm not playing in my audience. If you ever want to be in a really cool place for Easter, it's absolutely Greece.
- [03:03]
C
Yeah, but d. I mean, what the heck? You should have led with that.
- [03:06]
D
Yeah, I guess you're right. I know my Greek supremacy is lacking nowadays. I gotta. I gotta bring it back. Hard.
- [03:13]
B
Hardcore.
- [03:13]
D
I'm gonna wear my. My grandfather's, like, so f. Zone outfit. Like, he used to be an Amazon and he fought World War II.
- [03:20]
C
Really?
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D
Yeah. I'm gonna dig that out and just wear a skirt for you guys. A tutu for you guys, because that's what they would wear.
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C
No underwear. The skirt. I like it.
- [03:27]
D
Yeah. I mean, definitely. That's the only way to do it.
- [03:29]
E
That's a connection between the Irish, Scots and Greeks there. We all wore dresses.
- [03:36]
C
I mean, I even sent you this morning that clip from my Big Fat Greek wedding.
- [03:40]
D
Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm gonna be eating a lot of lamb today, actually, so our group chat's gonna get a lot of pictures of lamb on a spit.
- [03:47]
C
Nice.
- [03:48]
D
And there's Andy Milburn. Hi, Andy. We're recording.
- [03:53]
C
We used to do that. We used my dad when I was growing up in Jersey. All his Greek buddies, who all, you know, came from Athens and all immigrated that. We used to get a lamb and cook it for 13 hours in our garage on a spit. Just drinking ooze all day.
- [04:04]
D
That's where I'm going right now at like 3:00'.
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F
Clock.
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C
And you got Mick, you'll remember this, too. Coco Rzzi. Oh, come on. It's the lamb intestine.
- [04:12]
D
It's disgusting.
- [04:13]
E
All right.
- [04:14]
D
Yeah, it's disgusting, dude. It's like a. It's like a stew. It's. Oh, well, it's not a stew.
- [04:21]
C
It's like. Like jerky type stuff.
- [04:23]
D
Cocoretti is the little pieces. My giritza is that inside in a stew. Like a soup. And it's. They're both fucking disgusting.
- [04:30]
C
Come on.
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D
That's fucking gross.
- [04:32]
E
Stephanie, what's the big giga bean thing?
- [04:36]
D
Gigabyte. He got this. They're called. Yeah, that's what we. Yeah, that's my. My cousins call it Gigantis because they're huge. They're like big beans. But they call. He got this.
- [04:50]
E
It's got some good food.
- [04:52]
C
Soon. Be back soon. Heading there for a month soon. This summer.
- [04:57]
D
What a life. Retired life. All right, so what do we got? Is the world ending or what?
- [05:04]
E
No, I don't think so, but. Okay, if I'm kicking it off, I'll start with the, the negotiations. Right. So. And I think the guys will back me up on this. This isn't really normally how we do negotiations. We usually have them staffed. Right. So the old version of the nsc, where you had senior career people from State, the military, obviously, and the agency and other intelligence services are generally the people who staff these type of negotiations. And they begin with them, they, they try to set the framework, obviously with guidance from above. They try to work out the details, they try to get to points of agreement. And then when they get to something that they all think is worth agreeing to, then they bring in the principals. Right. The principals are supposed to, like, solidify the deal. They're not supposed to go and start the discussion because there's no way to go from there. Right. And they can. They can. You know, basically, when you think about how negotiations work, if you're not the principals, you can concede things, you can argue about things without it turning into just like, let's flip the table and walk off. I'm not saying that's what happened, but it sounds kind of like. So that's a bit unusual. I would suggest it worked better. I would suggest that starting with the Vice President, you got nowhere to go if it doesn't work out the way you want it to. But obviously I'm not making the call, but this is how we did it for both parties since I can remember. So I'd suggest that maybe they might want to do that so that it isn't like you agree with everything I say or I'm going back to the United States, because that's not how. Especially with the Iranians, the Iranians are used to. And actually all of you can correct me if I'm wrong, they're used to long term. They're used to long negotiations. They're fine with it. That's how they operate. They're not going to change. They sent a lot of people to this negotiation probably for that purpose. So I just rethink about how we're going about this. Because the alternative to a diplomatic solution is probably a major military escalation. And unless you think that's a good idea, which most people do not even especially in the military, then we need to try harder on the diplomatic side. So I'd start with that. And by the way, if you're, if your adversary tells you they want a specific person to be your representative, then don't send that person. Nothing against vice president, but they don't that them set the stage before we even get to the theater. Right. So also probably not great. The other points, and I'll be brief because we got a lot of smart folks that need to talk on this, the strait itself. So it's unclear to me whether Iran really did, I imagine they did set mines or whether they really can't find them or this is just an effort to shove everybody into Iranian territorial waters, which of course then gives them the ability to charge and all that stuff. That can't be the case. In fact, the idea that we're even negotiating, the idea that they might have some control of the strait is just starting on the wrong principle. It's an international waterway. It's not up not only for Iran, it's not even up for the United States to negotiate it away. Right. This is where the international community needs to go. Timeout. Yeah. Nobody's going to control this. That's just not part of the negotiations. And really enforce that because that can't be the case. And if it is where Iran is going to drop the rest of their 5,000 sea mines in the strait, then the international community does need to come together as a coalition. The best way to do that is after the United States stops attacking Iran because it's a different discussion. Other main things we heard the vice President talk about, really the only thing he talked about, which was we need to ensure that they don't have aspirations for nuclear weapon. We had that under the jcpoa. Right. So we're going to have to be more stringent than jcpoa. There's going to be a lot of legitimate questions of what the whole point of this was.
- [09:23]
D
Right.
- [09:23]
E
If we're just going to get back to essentially what we had in 2018 when we decided to leave it, then this is going to look like an exercise in complete futility that's brought the world to the brink of, you know, a regional conflict that's damaging the international economy. When we're essentially trying to get back to what we left private, primarily left because it was political. I don't like it because it didn't do it. So it's going to have to include ballistic missiles. It's going to have to include potentially restrictions on ballistic missiles. And some kind of addressing of proxy support, you know, to U.S. designated terrorist
- [10:00]
G
organizations in the region.
- [10:01]
E
If it's just getting back to the nuclear issue, then this was, this will go down in history as a wtf, to be honest. So I, and again, as our listeners know that, listen, I support the objectives. I just want the United States to come out ahead. I don't really care who's in office, Team America, so to speak, but that's, that's important. And then the last thing, in addition to the fact that we're probably going to have forcefully open the Strait of Hormuz, because that'll be viewed as a strategic failure of the United States if it closed. We're going to have to now address the nuclear material that's left. Like we've put ourselves in a position where that has to be addressed. Either they turn it over or we forcibly go get it. If not, then the whole question of the, well, if the nuclear ambitions is a primary issue of the United States, we can't leave almost 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium there. So we're in a position where this is just based on our own objectives. We're going to have to escalate this if it's not, if it's not addressed diplomatically. So and that, that to me means we got to put way more effort into the diplomacy of this and we need to get professionals involved that understand the issues and that can work through really complex, high pressure negotiations so that we can get to something we can all agree.
- [11:27]
B
All right.
- [11:28]
C
Demonic. Let me just jump in a couple of things, Mick. I think, great point on, on how unusual this was in terms of a principal kind of taking the lead before it was staffed. I mean, in every diplomatic negotiation, any kind of, let's just say, I mean, this is the first such high level meeting between the US and Iran in five decades. So a huge deal. But let's, let's say even if it was just a bilateral meeting, you have all the underlings setting the stage with, with talks with Iranians and then you bring in the principals to kind of close the deal. So you're 100% right on that. I was trying to be very clever in the media last week and of course I usually blow it with lime, but I said this was Vance's Daytona 500 and I guess maybe it was. What happens? It was a rain out. I mean, no one won, no one lost, nothing happened. I guess storming off would be something akin to maybe someone gave them advice. This is what you do in Middle Eastern negotiations. We've all spent time in the region. This is like going to buy a piece of gold in the souk and you don't like the price and you storm off. And so maybe there's the idea that the Iranians will come back, but I think their three kind of red lines or asks are in some ways existential. It's the nuke program. It's reparations because their economies in the shitter and then it's proxies. Lebanon. Ish. I mean, the idea is to get the Israelis to stop in Lebanon. And so the two sides are just too far apart on that. I think that the one thing to look at now, and that's why this. And so, I mean, everything's moving so fast. So we were going to talk about the negotiations, you know, not going anywhere. Now we're talking about the naval blockade. But this is, you know, I was joking. I don't know if I sent it to you guys. Maybe I did or some other folks. I mean, you know, my time, my naval experience is working with naval special warfare and then doing one trap landing on the George Washington. I mean, I don't, you know, so I don't know naval strategy. But it would seem to me that there are a lot of people have war game this and have talked about the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. And so Trump, of course, tweets there, puts out a true social. What does it really mean? You know, someone just pinged me and said, okay, we understand they're going to blockade ships. Are we really going to be interdicting boarding Chinese vessels? There's supposed to be a summit coming up soon. I mean, that seems. And. And do we have enough firepower in the region? I guess a third carrier is on the way, but I just listened to Admiral Stavridis on CNN. He said that you need two carriers and what, 12 destroyers and frigates. There is a risk to force here. I mean, there's so many things that go into this. But I guess the question for you guys, who you know, former military in particular, I would imagine, Mick, you probably saw this, can't talk about the details, is that I assume this has been war gamed out a billion times with centcom. And I guess the second part is, can we do this on our own or do we need allied assistance to do so? Trump hinted that there might be some allies who are going to assist with this, assuming this is less risky than taking Carg Island. I mean, I think you can probably do this in areas we don't have A map here, but it's not as dangerous. And then maybe the last point too, and Dee, you're our resident political expert here, is, you know, this is, you know, it's a weird time Jonathan and I were talking about it in our little green room before is he's, you know, Trump announced this on Sunday markets open tomorrow. This is not going to be good for the US Economy for international markets. People are going to freak out again in terms of, you know, the, whatever the price of gas or oil going up. And so it is kind of, you know, this is going to cause some more pain and you're going to see the gas prices in the US Stay high or go much higher. So that's kind of interesting domestically on this. Oh, last piece too. We got a lawyer here, right? Mick, this is an act of war. A naval blockade is an act of war. And Jonathan, you're in law school now. And so in law school it's now as Congress comes back, do the Democrats say, well, we need a war powers resolution. This is now like walked right into the idea. This is an actual, literally an act of war. And so will Congress now take an interest. Anyway, I throw all these out there
- [15:35]
E
for when is the 60 day, 60 days under the War Powers act means they have to, they have to approve it going forward. Right.
- [15:41]
C
Well, we're certainly past the one month mark. So.
- [15:44]
D
Yeah, it started on the 28th. Right. Of February, so it's probably a couple more weeks ask.
- [15:51]
E
Maybe somebody else could pick up that question also.
- [15:53]
D
Fun fact. Andy's also a lawyer or a bastard too.
- [15:57]
E
That's right.
- [15:58]
C
Holy.
- [15:59]
B
I just, I, I just went to, I completed law school by the.
- [16:03]
C
Okay.
- [16:03]
B
Well, for all
- [16:06]
C
in terms of this is, this is something that, you know, people in Congress certainly can, can. I mean, obviously we're in a war with Iran. Even though what if Trump called it like an expedition or escapade or whatever the hell dumb thing he was saying. But this seems to be rather significant anyway. What do you guys think of the naval blockade? I mean, I know we want to talk about the negotiations, but that's almost past news now. We now have a naval blockade. How does this work? And some of the questions that I
- [16:31]
E
raised there questions on that too. But.
- [16:35]
B
Well, I mean, I think you've got to start with asking and I assume that's what Cooper is asking because you can't assume this. What is the objective? Right? I mean, is the objective to keep commercial shipping moving through the straits? I mean that's what I. By bringing pressure on Iran, stopping Iran from turning it into a toll booth. And that sounds reasonable, right? Even achievable. And I suppose it is. I mean the US Navy can escort ships, they can patrol the sea lanes, they can intercept missiles, drones, the full blockade.
- [17:16]
C
And so I think the idea would be to put pressure on India, China, Russia, others who their economies now will be hurt when some of their ships were getting through. And so the idea is to now put pressure on Iran's allies, so to speak, because everything is going to be shut down. There's no escorting or anything. It was my understanding of this, but. Sorry, okay.
- [17:37]
B
No, no, that's, I mean, no, that's exactly, that's exactly the question and the answer that needs to. So, so then it becomes, look, it's like all of these things that have been touted, ground operations, amphibious landings, uranium extraction, they're feasible on paper, right? But in evil. And I'm not a, you know, I'm not a rust chipper Department of the Navy. So, but, but I, you know, I do know that. I mean they, people are throwing around numbers of ships and everything. It's the types of ships that are important. You need, you know, you need destroyers, but you need Aegis systems, you need a layered defense because you've got to defend against. And we've talked about this, the biggest threat are anti ship missiles, right? And if we are to believe our own intelligence reports, at least 50% of launches are still intact. And I believe, and I've got to check this is true, but when you're talking about anti ship missiles, the ratio is even higher. So there are significant number of anti ship missiles still out there, which means we're trolling all of these assets, right within range of those missiles. So being able to sustain that for any period of time. Yeah, we may be cutting off oil to China and other allies of Iran, but we're also imposing a massive economic cost on ourselves. And not to mention risk to force, political risk, risk to mission. And all Iran has to do, yes, it is an act of war, but arguably we're already committing an act of war. All Iran would have to do is launch a missile or a drone. And then of course there's a mind friend. This is our real Achilles tendon. I thought I would use a Greek analogy on it being orthodox Eastern. And that is the fact that we are, and this is common knowledge, the United States Navy for a number of reasons is woefully short of minehunters. I think there's, you know, you can look it up on open source. I think there's like one Avenger class minehunter in Bahrain, if it's still there, and that is it. So we are very dependent on allies when it comes to counter mine measures. Why is that? I'll make this brief. Because we have squandered money. Because if you're a mine hunter dude in the Navy, just like in the amphib Navy, it's not sexy. You don't count. Carry a lot of weight when it's arguing for money. And all the money goes to the platforms that carry people into the rank of admiral. Like aircraft carriers, for instance, which, as you know, are a massive waste of money. But I digress. So the bottom line is, even if you think that the objective itself is feasible, that by blocking off this artery, you are forcing people to the negotiation table. And I would argue that that's always a risky bet because they will find alternate routes, I guarantee, and the BAM is still open. Secondly, you're putting all of your assets in harm's way. And as I've said, simply by imposing a blockade legally, you're already at war. So Iran could shoot at our ships and say it was in self defense. And I think that gets back. And I'll shut up because I don't want to talk too much, but I think that gets back to a key part of why the negotiations broke down. Because we made assumptions that are incorrect. Aside from the team we sent, aside from the fact that we didn't empower them, Iran didn't come to the table weak. They didn't come. Those negotiators weren't there in a desperate state of trying to find a deal. They were feeling fairly resilient. Iran feels as though it has not come out at the bottom of the recent campaign. Doesn't matter what kind of military attrition we have exacted. Yes, they've, you know, they've sustained military pressure. We've done enough damage to force Iran into concessions. But not real concessions, not on the ones that matter, like the streets of Hormuz. Unlike uranium enrichment, I mean, negotiations aren't driven by what we think is objective reality. They're driven by perception. And Iran's perception is very different from Washington's. And that's why the negotiations are broken down.
- [22:08]
D
Hey, what's up, guys? This is D. Do us a favor and check out our patreon page. It's patreon.com teamhouse. You get both Teamhouse episodes and Eyes on Geopolitics episodes completely ad free. You get them early too. You can ask us questions. You can Also watch the team ass episodes live as we shoot them. So and you help support the show and support what we're doing here. It's patreon.com theteamhouse those links are in the description or if you're listening it's in the show notes down below so you can click it real quick and easy and it helps us keep the lights on. So we appreciate it and we appreciate you guys listening. Thanks a bunch.
- [22:50]
F
When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.
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Obtain Business Internet Advantage Gratis Spectrum Punto Com d Free for Life Paramas Informaciones
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E
Servicion if you work in university maintenance, Granger 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. The question I know to Jonathan to add into his comments on this so we're obviously at war with Iran, so seizing their oil, trying to prevent them from benefiting from their closure to strait makes sense. How would we legally justify seizing another country's vessel with their resources after going through an international waterway that we say should be open because it's an international waterway? Like what legal basis would we have for doing that? And then what are we going to do with it?
- [24:58]
G
Yeah, the thing is legal basis, I mean, who's going to adjudicate in the international system whether the US can legally do it or not? I know that's kind of a sensitive question, but the thing is, the US isn't part of the icc. We're not party to some of these treaties that set the outlines for how people should behave in the international system. Blockade is actually not an act of war according to the Constitution. It's an act of war according to international humanitarian law, which does come out of the UN but doesn't bind the United States to behave a particular way. And the blockade would not need to be approved by Congress. I Mean, this is an argument that the administration can make sure pretty, pretty well that they don't need Congress's approval to position military vessels in international waters. Right. Because that is certainly an executive function. This is how they would frame this for sure. They could do this. I mean, they've got the ability to do visit board search and seizure. They can do opposed and unopposed boarding for any suspicion whatsoever. Because remember, there's not normal due process in the high seas. So you don't need to first suspect a vessel of anything in the high seas. And I'm thinking Back to Veracruz 1914, when the Marines seized Veracruz. We behaved in a very similar way around the Bay of Veracruz before we actually went ashore into Veracruz and seized that port. Again, another questionable thing under international humanitarian law. Can the US do that? Probably not, but we did, and nobody could stop us. And there's kind of a couple of points in there. Is that whether it's right or wrong is important, but is that relevant to whether we can do it or not? Because we can do it. It goes back to the Melian dialogue, you know, that we've talked about before, that we can do it. So we do it. And there's no other balancing factor to pull us back into the world where different parties are on the same plane. Back when we had the multipolar world or the bipolar world with Russia, for example, the Soviet Union, where there were repercussions of us doing something like this. Now, there was the Cuban naval blockade, of course, which was important, but there was a balance against that to reduce the tensions and break the blockade against Cuba, you know, and there's. There isn't something on the other side like that this time. So the US Is kind of able to move in a way that is unchecked, essentially, especially when we're talking about exclusive economic zones in the international waters of the straits, which is very small. And you can functionally blockade it without creating an actual blockade just because of how small it is. You could, you could create a very difficult area to traverse. I mean, if you look at the actual topography under the water, there's only so much space that those ships can actually traverse safely based on the hull depth. So you could essentially actually create just physical obstruction rather than a quote, unquote blockade to stop vessels from moving in and out. So this is another consideration that if you were in Trump's team trying to explain this to the world, there are explanations that could be sent forth as a facade to describe it. Just like when we killed Qasem Soleimani, According to international humanitarian law, that was clearly not allowed. But we came up with an explanation for it and then presented that very thin explanation and acted on it and then continued forward as if nothing happened and that it was justified.
- [28:03]
E
How do you guys follow on question though?
- [28:05]
C
Yeah, go ahead, Nick.
- [28:06]
E
Yeah, just a quick follow on and this is a question really, not a comment. Won't that just magnify the issue that Iran's already capitalizing on? Like they've decided to close the strait to make this a global issue. Then if we start seizing tankers going through like that would reduce the amount of energy worldwide, won't that shoot up the cost of energy and therefore Iran will be like, yeah, now they're doing it. So I mean it's now like now we're almost equal in the issue. Just a question, like, I mean, I'm not an economist, but yeah, I mean
- [28:39]
G
if you look at the statistics of who gets the oil out of the Straits, the recipients, yes, China is a large recipient. I think it's like 38% of the oil that leaves the Straits goes to China, something like that. But the others, the majority of it is going to South Korea and Japan and other allies and partners of the United States that produce a significant amount of highly advanced technical equipment all the way down to very simple items that are imported to United States. Which means they're almost like a value added tax that's going to be de facto imposed on every single good that we get from the from Asia. Which again reason California's gas prices are historically high is because most of their petroleum related items actually don't come from the U.S. they come from the Pacific just for logistical reasons. And that also means goods coming into the port of Los Angeles and things you buy on Amazon and other places coming from that same sea line of communication. There's going to be a step up of increased value on all those items. Everything, not just gas. Gas is the thing that people feel at the pump. But over time you're going to start seeing like the ripple down effects, just like when Covid stopped people from being able to cut trees down to make furniture. And suddenly that created these huge expansive costs in other unrelated areas like home building. Because of how the economics works, that's not an automatic direct increase in price. And we're going to certainly see that it's probably even after the conflict ends, there will still be ripples of increased price that continue to go up even after the war is over, whenever that might be. And people are going to wonder why is my stuff still expensive. And it's because of the way economics works is not an automatic overnight. Suddenly the prices are high and suddenly they're low, like oil futures, because oil futures are speculative, whereas the price of your bananas is an absolute price. And that's how much it costs to get on a ship, put diesel in the ship, and then sell it to the United States.
- [30:15]
C
One quick question for those who have experience with CENTCOM in the military. I mean, how do you think this transpired? I mean, this was, this was probably in the toolkit somehow, right? The closing, the straight reform is Richard Haass wrote about it last week. Other people have, you know, so clearly policymakers. Richard Haass was in the, you know, the Bush administration. So this has always been out there. I'm sure there was war games. How do you think it transpired in that? You know, was this, was this Admiral Cooper, was this Dan Kane or Hegset's, you know, giving Trump options on what to do? And if the negotiations fall apart in Islamabad, this is the next step. Or maybe answer the question, in a normal administration, how would this have come about?
- [30:54]
E
I think there's likely these options were known even prior to the war starting by the most senior leaders, and they're looking for things that they can do to change the current situation, even as dramatic as this would be. I just, it seems like it's just going to exacerbate the very issue we're trying to avoid. Because, I mean, I, that was a great answer, by the way, Jonathan. But my understanding, even If China gets 38% of it, if there's just less energy out there, it's going up for everybody. So to keep saying, well, we don't get that much energy from there is kind of like true, but also irrelevant because our gas prices are going up anyway. Because if there's less, if there's, if China's going to buy energy from somewhere else, it's going to drive the supply and demand situations, drive the price up. So if we seize it, are we going to take it? Are we going to sell it? We're going to keep the money? I mean, what is, what is the ultimate end game? Like, what's the potential?
- [31:55]
C
We're going to seize a Chinese tanker,
- [31:57]
E
and isn't that an act? It would be an act of war if they seized ours.
- [32:00]
B
Right, Right.
- [32:02]
E
So what is China going to do? I doubt they're just going to sit there and go, well, I guess the United States can do what they want.
- [32:07]
C
There's a summit coming up between Trump and Xi. They're supposed to be at least that's
- [32:12]
E
going to be over as soon as they seize the Chinese tank.
- [32:15]
B
Yeah, I mean, I can't. And, and I, you know, obviously haven't worked at the level that Mick has, but I was at Soxan for three years and yeah, we, we, I mean, there were naval blockades, remember, of, I mean, essentially de facto blockades of Yemen to stop the flow of lethal aid to Yemen, but imposing a blockade, a U.S. blockade on the Straits of Hormuz. I don't remember ever being touted as a coa because it gets back to again, what is the objective? John, no one argues those points better than you. And you're absolutely correct about this kind of, this philosophy that we are, we're no longer in the Cold War. We can essentially just do things that we need to do on the justification of national interests and get away with it. But I would argue there's a limit to that. Soleimani is perhaps not a good example because the death of Soleimani, while certain people may have said, hey, that's pretty messed up, it didn't impose economic hardship on a significant portion of the world. And I'm wondering at what stage we say, we stop saying, hey, I don't care, I don't care. It doesn't matter if we piss the world off. I mean, there are going to be costs imposed on us. Think about the prime Minister of Canada's recent speech about shifting defense contracts and partnerships. And you know, we've already seen what's happening in Europe. They're turning away from us. Obviously, this isn't about losing friends in the play, in the playground. There are going to be significant costs for us that perhaps aren't seen right now. So I would say that from perhaps a more mature perspective, and maybe we're showing right now, these things do matter.
- [34:21]
E
So another issue that I'm pretty sure I'm going to get questioned on this week, you know, I'm up at 6am our time here in Montana for the Pentagon briefings. It sounds like the numbers might not be adding up. So I've been touting the fact that we've been getting closer and closer to some of our objectives because we're, you know, ballistic missiles, suicide drones, etc. That's going to be challenged if it turns out that the numbers that they're saying, and I don't know what's true, but there's obviously reports that we were talking about or at least texting about yesterday. So what are the actual numbers? And if we can't Trust public Pentagon briefings. It's time to pull this into the Senate and have hearings that are also open on the record or not on the record, but under oath. Right. Because this is the one part of the war that we collectively I think, would acknowledge that the US Is making progress. And if it's not the actual correct numbers, that's an issue. That's a big issue. So your guys thoughts on that?
- [35:32]
C
Because, Mick, I'm glad you're raising that just because this is, I've called it kind of fuzzy math. And you know, there's the. And I've used this, I'm guilty as well. I've used this a million times. It's that famous World War I British saying, you know, we are, we have, you know, lions led by donkeys. Lions being the US military, donkeys being the civilian leadership and so on. And it's fun saying that in a sense because it gives the US Military a pass because we've seen how successful they've been. And let me just say everything I say on this, and you know, how much respect I have for you guys who served is this is not at the, this is at the very senior level. This is not at the junior ranks, the enlisted level. These are, you know, men and women go into combat, you do what you're told and do it extraordinarily well. This is at the Dan Kane, you know, Admiral Cooper level. And I kind of, I've started thinking that, you know, perhaps we have all been romanced too much by these briefings. And then I started thinking back to Iraq and Afghanistan where there were senior level briefings. And a lot of it was bullshit. And so I think that it is fair to ask those questions. It's not condemning anybody, but. And Mick, the one part, and I know you know this, the part that's weird, is because the intelligence community, there was a leak that the intelligence community is the one who's assessing that the Iranian military, the missile stocks have not been attributed enough. So it's not like we're saying it. It's not the Iranians aren't saying. It's our own intel community saying it. So I do think this kind of, you know, this romance we have, and of course Dan Cain sounds really good because Hegseth is a complete clown. But maybe Dan Cain's not telling the truth. I'm just, and I hate to say that he's a respected three star. He worked at the agency before. He is kind of, to me, the bulwark against some of the craziness is you know what if these numbers are kind of fuzzy math? It does matter. And Mick, your prescription on this is not to get up and scream. And whatever I'm saying now, it's exactly right is the oversight from Congress. Where is the House and the Senate committees? And Congress, as you, we all know here, is totally irrelevant anymore. It is not a co equal branch. They do absolutely nothing on oversight. And in particular, the armed services side has always been even more of a rubber stamp than the intel oversight. But I think it's fair and I'm glad you raised it. It's okay to raise those things because so much is predicated on okay, even though strategically things might be a little kind of off. Now. We have done a significant amount of damage to the Iranian military and ultimately we can kind of, if we're going to fall back on anything, that's going to be a good thing. But what if we haven't?
- [38:08]
B
I mean, I don't think I'm agreeing with both of you. And yes, I mean, and there's a platform, you know, aside from the committees, there's a platform too to leverage accountability on this, and that's the War Powers Act. But I don't think anyone's lying about this. I think it's.
- [38:31]
C
I think it's been stormed off.
- [38:32]
B
Yeah. I think it just got taken out. Oh, no. Okay. All right. I don't think anyone's lying about it. I think it just gets back to the notorious difficulties in conducting accurate BDA when you're just using tech means or from the air. Especially with an adversary like the Iranians who are masterful at decoying things, at hiding things, at dispers and rocket launchers, missile launches are notoriously difficult things to find and destroy. So I think, you know, we probably just, just as in any war from when you're counting what you're doing to the enemy, from pilots reporting
- [39:19]
C
the, you
- [39:19]
B
know, I'm thinking back to Second World War. Notoriously, the pilots reporting their own victories over other aircraft were always exaggerated. It wasn't anyone was lying. Part of it's wishful thinking and part of it is just the technical limitations of conducting remote battle damage assessment. And the other part is the fact that the Iranians have been preparing for this for a while. They know we have the technological competence and they're good at bypassing that and fooling us.
- [39:49]
G
If your BDA is limited to forward looking infrared video as the only source of bda, I mean, all of us have seen these videos in the past, real ones, even in high resolution, you don't really know what happened to that transporter or erector launcher. Like maybe it's still operational, it can still drive. You know, we don't know exactly where we hit it on. On the structure. There's all kinds of question marks. Right. And it's like you said, Andy, a few weeks ago, once you start approaching that like 80 to 90% BDA, the numbers start to just fade away into two idealized descriptions of what's actually happening on the ground. And Iran has had 47 years to bury their stuff underground. They've been doing it. They, they taught Hezbollah to do it in the 1980s. Hezbollah did it very successfully in the war in 2006 where Israel and Hezbollah and Lebanon. One of the reasons Hezbollah was able to survive that, that very intense war was the extensive tunnel network that Iran helped them build in Lebanon. Qase Soleimani himself was there during that war helping direct the war effort. You know, this is a very close link between the Lebanese way of fighting or the Hezbollah way of fighting and what Iran has. But Iran has it on a much larger scale with a lot more resources and a lot more time and more will to survive as a system because they're a governing system of an entire country. Right. And they've been under. They felt that they've been under attack for so long, the entrenched position they have almost requires boots on the ground just to assess the pda if you want actual truth on what those numbers really look like.
- [41:12]
B
Yeah.
- [41:13]
E
So those are all great points. I mean, I'm not saying anybody's, you know, falsifying information, but it, we do need to have a actual hearing that's has the intelligence professionals talking about. Because it's all going to come out eventually.
- [41:26]
B
Right.
- [41:26]
E
You can't, you can say something now, but history is going to, I think, be accurate on what we actually did or didn't do. I Wish it was 100% on all the above. That's what I'm hoping. But it's not going to do any good to say it is. And then we leave, sign an agreement, and the Iranians come back and say, by the way, half of our ballistic missiles are still here. And then we're going to look not good, put it that way. I just think we need to baseline the truth and figure out just where we are in our efforts to hit those objectives.
- [41:59]
C
Let me throw one thing in there, is that I also have memories of things such as the district assessments in Afghanistan where the military was putting out stuff that was just flat out wrong. You Guys remember this, the degree of Taliban control. I mean, so I don't know how you define it. Is it bad analytic tradecraft? Is it lying? Whatever it is, it was just flat out wrong. And I remember the intel community came back and said, nah, we don't think so. But what about the Pat Tillman story? I mean, what about burn pits? What about Gulf War syndrome? I mean, it's okay to say that the government actually has not been truthful to us. I'm not sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but we're questioning after Iraq and Afghanistan and all the stuff that went around there, the US Military at senior levels said a lot of things that were not true. You can excuse that. And I've, I mean, I, and, and again, this is, you know, it's. It's hard for me to say this because I, I'm not a conspiracy theorist at all, but I do think it's fair to question sometimes some of these statements because you also don't know the degree of pressure that, that the chairman of Joint Chiefs is under. He's got Pete Hegseth, who's firing everybody who disagrees him right next to him. And so, you know, is there political pressure to. It's not cook in the books, but to say things that perhaps, you know. Do you think Dan Cain, you know, deep down, would be more comfortable in an honest setting saying something a little bit different than when he's sitting next to Pete Hegseth? I don't know. I think it's fair, though, to question this. And again, this is not disparaging the military at all. I'm talking about the very senior levels of leadership, because on a key point is when you talk to people, and I don't have the contacts you do at dod, when I talk to people inside the intelligence community, I have not found anybody at senior levels who think this is a good idea. Nobody. And even though, and Mick, I share your, you know, share your view on this is we can detest the Iranian regime, we can support the war aims, but the execution of this has been a bit of a mess. And so I do wonder if that, you know, the people we care about, kind of the rank and file might have a different view of the way things are going. I just throw that out there.
- [44:00]
E
They can also ask for a written submission of what the intelligence community thinks right now. Oversight committees for armed services and intelligence can ask for a written assessment Right now, one class, right? You don't have to talk about sources and methods, but if it's okay to give your assessment on tv, it's okay to give your assessment, the actual assessment, and a written statement that then people can read.
- [44:26]
D
I think that would be great in a functioning democracy, which. Bit of a wrench going on. Go ahead, go ahead.
- [44:36]
B
No, I think Mark, I mean, Mark brings up a good point. I'm not giving a pass to the military. I think what I hope happened. I'm always disappointed when I hear politicians on either side are civilian leadership make these grandiose statements about victory, overwhelming victory, mission accomplished. And I always hope that behind the scenes, their military leadership is talking to them, saying, hey, boss, I recommend you hold up before saying this because here's a quick primer on bda, and here's why. Because these guys, you know, at the four star level obviously aren't stupid. They know, they, they understand what's going on. So I can't answer to why maybe they have said these things, but we have seen grandiose statements come out of military leaders and that disappoints me even more. And I don't feel sorry for them because at that level, when you make four stars, in my opinion, you get treated like a viceroy. You get treated like a God. I mean, you are treated. You have to be in the military to understand the hierarchical, organized, institutionalized sycophancy that takes place around a four star. I mean, it is, it's quite sickening, you know, every single. I'll stop. But. But there's a downside.
- [45:56]
D
Keep going, keep going, keep going.
- [45:58]
B
No, the downside is you're expected to show courage when that courage is needed for the sake of the Constitution's sake of the nation. And a reminder again, that when officers take that oath of office, they don't promise. They, they don't swear to obey. Right. They, they promise to carry out all their duties to best of their ability. But the enlisted guys do. Having been both officer and enlisted, I understand that the oath is different. So you have an obligation to all the enlisted men and women in the armed forces who have sworn an obligation to obey you to ensure that when you tell them to do things, it's in good faith. Right? So all that, you know, all these cascading effects. All I wish is to say there's more to having a commission than I think, sadly, a lot of people realize. And there's more certainly to holding flag rank at the nexus between policy and strategy. And there's more of an obligation than simply offering military advice. I'll stop.
- [46:57]
G
Yeah, actually, when General McKenzie was still the CENTCOM commander, I was at the Defense Attache office in Jordan. And he was coming to. Yeah, he was coming to visit to do some Syria related stuff. And we were instructed by his team, this is the defense attache office. Like we're supposed to represent the sec def in the country. We have high level policies issues to take care of on a daily basis. We were pulled off of what we were working on so that when General McKenzie came, he would not touch a single doorknob in the embassy. And we had to have people from the defense attache office, from the colonel level, everyone all the way down, standing at doors throughout the embassy to ensure that his hand would never touch a door handle. And this is exactly what you're talking about, Andy, about the viceroy behavior of these generals.
- [47:40]
D
Why? Just because someone's got to open the door for them.
- [47:45]
G
Couldn't be bothered to touch a door hand.
- [47:47]
D
Got it. I'm sorry, it's too important.
- [47:48]
C
I have two good Petraeus stories. He won't. I'm sure he's not listening to this because he doesn't like me very much. When I was the deputy station chief in Amman, he hated our station chief and he was the CENTCOM chief and I was the acting. The chief is gone. And so he came for a brief and he said, hey, I want to go see the head of Jordanian intel service. And I responded to his staff, I got to take him, like that's my role. I mean, he can't go alone. That's just. You guys know this from an embassy. Like the CENTCOM chief can't go to the. And he said, no, I'm going alone. I said, you can't. And I'm a GS15. And I'm like, I'm going to get creamed in this down the line. But ultimately he agreed. But then he showed up two hours early. So the head of the Jordanian service spent. And then they called me from GID headquarters. So then I went running over there, but it was two hours late. And the head of the service had spent two hours briefing Petraeus on the history of the Yemeni trust because he knew that I was supposed to be there. So Petraeus was just furious with me right there. And then Petraeus asked to get the PDB in his hotel room and I refused to bring it over. I said, you got to come read it. And so all of this didn't matter until he then gets named director. So my career is totally fucked. So I see him down in the gym and I'm lifting and he comes down there and I was on the weight bench and he kind of looked at me and I think he remembered and he basically wanted me to get off the weight bench. And I'm like, I'm not done. Sorry, that's, I mean the agency is kind of a different place. So I just kept lifting and I think that, you know, until he was removed, my career was on a, on a hold a bit. But one of the great things I did see there was a Syria briefing and a GS12 analyst told him in the briefing, sir, you're wrong. And he almost fell over. That's just not done. You guys know better. But that would, that's not done to a four star. But anyway, the, the, the imperial.
- [49:30]
B
Well, you know, true story though and I'm surprised that the general that you just mentioned didn't think about this and this, this was actually in, in the military times in Iraq there was a, I'm so sad to admit this, a Marine two star whose aide used to go down and sit on the gym like his next station in the gym so that he could like fully in full camouflage, you know, full uniform, utilities,
- [49:58]
C
holding that, that, that little piece of
- [49:59]
B
equipment holding it down.
- [50:01]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [50:03]
B
As I found out when I said to her, are you, are you using the bench?
- [50:08]
C
Right, I'll just wait. Mick has these stories too, but he's
- [50:12]
E
not going to tell them, hey, I work for Mattis. He's the opposite of everything you're saying.
- [50:16]
C
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Right.
- [50:18]
E
I, I, I'd go down and to
- [50:19]
C
take, give you a spot on the bench, right.
- [50:21]
E
Take my, my suits, my seersucker suits into the dry cleaner and he'd be in front of me in line.
- [50:27]
C
That's awesome.
- [50:28]
E
I mean these are stories that are all over the place because it's true he gets haircut at the barbershop.
- [50:34]
C
That's how you gain the loyalty of the people who work for you, right?
- [50:38]
E
Yeah, but he's exactly what, everybody's unusual
- [50:43]
B
but you know, we do this to ourselves and because at some stage in those officers careers they were not like that. Maybe they were, but they couldn't get away with it. Right. When they were lieutenants, captains, majors, but we as an institution let them get, get away with it and, and foreign militaries make that observation about us. You know, the Brits call their, their first, their call their general officers by their first names. It's Brigadier, Mike or Joe or you know, there isn't that. I mean they show them respect but it's not that same, it's not that same idol worship that we show. And again, so the cost to that which isn't commonly understood is that, yeah, you may lose all of that in a heartbeat. By speaking truth to power. That's a risk they run.
- [51:37]
C
Right.
- [51:39]
E
So going back to the war, what's the next step? I mean, if there's no plan for further negotiations. The 11th MEU, I believe has already departed Hawaii and headed over. Was the George Bush's en route? That would be the third. We already know that JSOC's there. I mean, that's been pretty obvious with the rescue of the pilot. So the next stage is starting to seize terrain to open the strait. Or does this actual blockade, the alternative to that?
- [52:17]
G
I mean, what you mentioned earlier about flowing forces into the Gulf is probably what you exactly mentioned, pre positioning for further action as unrelated to a blockade. It's probably the blockade is used to describe it so it's more palatable to the public. But in fact it's pre positioning ahead of time to gain that, that, you know, force of time. The shortening of the timeline between getting from ship to shore because you're already there, which was the problem before the ceasefire was announced. We couldn't get through the straits to get in there. And that was a big problem with the Hog island seizure question because it was so far away. But if you're right, if you can see it from the vessel, big difference.
- [52:51]
C
And the IDF chief of staff just announced today that he's prepping for resume combat.
- [52:57]
E
That's right.
- [52:57]
C
So I think that, you know, so, so mech, maybe a way to say this too is, you know, who fires the first shot now again, is it going to be the Israelis or is it going to be Iran? I mean, and don't forget that one of the things that maybe we can raise too is the kind of the use of proxies. Wasn't there an attack on our diplomats in Baghdad?
- [53:16]
D
Yes, there was an ambush when they were trying to bring. Bring the reporter back. They ambushed that convoy.
- [53:22]
C
Yeah, that was after the ceasefire was announced. And so there's also the asymmetric. So how does this kick off again, I guess is a good way to. To ask. That's the.
- [53:30]
G
We could use a Gulf of Tonkin type of framing where it doesn't really matter who actually fires the first shot as long as our narrative describes it a particular way that it was somebody else's fault. And that's why we're doing it now.
- [53:43]
E
Well, the ceasefire, we all know how
- [53:44]
D
well that worked out.
- [53:45]
E
Opening the Strait. Right. So isn't the actual premise of the ceasefire already Folded like, do we have an obligation or is this just right? We don't.
- [53:55]
C
Why did we do that anyway? I mean, do we really think Trump, I mean, so, okay, so at best, I mean, if you want to be very kind, you know, we want to give diplomacy a chance. Diplomacy a chance. Both. You know, I think the Trump administration did want. It does want to see this end. Iran agreed to it for some reason. Suppose, I suppose they saw the US Maybe in a weaker position. But did anyone actually think this was going to work? Did someone next to Trump say, hey, this might actually work? Or, I mean, why did we even do this? What was the point of Islamabad? I don't know, because the sides are so far apart. Or was that just, you know, you know, the Trump administration just giving a bit of a breather domestically because he was getting, you know, he's getting so hammered on this issue. I don't know.
- [54:43]
G
I'm curious if it was a way to get the straits open, to get those vessels into the Persian Gulf without being opposed to get in.
- [54:50]
D
Yesterday we did see two US Warships transit the strait and they stopped and pulled back. I guess they would probably, you know, dipping their toes, see what was going to happen. So. And now we have a naval blockade announcement today.
- [55:05]
G
And if we do an anti access area denial technique, kind of like what China does in the South China Sea, then Iran can't really do much to stop us from flowing additional forces into the Gulf because we'll actually control the waterway.
- [55:18]
C
And what about the Houthis, guys? Is there a. We talked about that in the past, but is that now that there is a naval blockade? And presumably, and you all tell me there's going to be more naval assets, including. And Trump hinted in that true social post allied forces. Do the Houthis now come into play again as part of potential strikes against not just the US but other navies or even international shipping?
- [55:44]
E
Probably. Right. I mean, they certainly can. And I think it's. The Iranians have been holding back probably for an indication that we're going to seize territory or in this case start blocking everything coming out of there. Why aren't we just trying to seize the ships that are associated with Iran, like their energy? This is a complete blockade. Right. I know it happened right before.
- [56:09]
C
Yeah, it's everything in and everything including.
- [56:12]
B
I thought.
- [56:13]
C
I'm sorry, go ahead.
- [56:15]
B
I, I thought they just, and I don't know at all, just from my, My knowledge is from reading tweets, but I thought the intent was to prevent friendly nations from getting charged at Toll for passing. For passing through the Straits of Hormuz.
- [56:35]
D
Yeah. So in his tweet, he did mention that like it was a long rambler. So in that whole rambling about the naval blockade, he does mention protecting boats that have already paid the toll or will be paying the toll. Like that can't happen. That was a big part of the tweet as well.
- [56:53]
C
You know, diploma International Relations by True Social is probably one of the most frustrating things. I mean, you know, there's. Don't forget the seat. There's no. Even the ceasefire. There's no written agreement. I mean, all of this is so, you know, everyone. I mean, I guess defenders of the administration, defenders of Trump say unorthodox is his kind of mantra. But I mean, so much stuff goes on here that you're just, you know, literally we're, we're talking about foreign policy based on a post on social media.
- [57:22]
D
Are we going to let go of Mick? Mick, see you later. He threw on his jacket, he was ready to go and talk to the legacy media organizations, which I call the enemy. No, I'm just kidding.
- [57:32]
B
The competition.
- [57:33]
D
Yeah,
- [57:36]
C
Mick. To potentially criticize the military leadership. That's a, that's a big, big step for him.
- [57:40]
D
Yeah. I wanted to touch on like a little bit of like the confusion with the ceasefire. Right. Because initially it was a 10 point plan the Iranians had proposed, which is like insane. I mean, but frankly, they're in a position of strength if you ask me. We look like strategically. And if it's true that they still have half their ballistic missiles and half their drones left after a month and you know, more than that, like I'm almost a month and a half or you know, of us bombing the shit out of them. We are not in a strong position for negotiations. Also, I want to ask like, why did it, why did they just sit there for 21 hours, negotiate, not come to a deal and like everyone just went home. Right. Like these things are supposed to go be negotiated over the next two weeks, at least in theory, until the 21st. Why is it now that like we're all just going home now? Like, shouldn't this be a long, drawn
- [58:34]
G
out thing, the 2015 nuclear deal? I mean, we've heard stories about John Kerry and Jawad Zarif, foreign Minister, taking like long walks at night together by the Lake Geneva for days, you know, without talking about the negotiations at all. And like that was, that was an integral part of the actual end outcome where they spent a lot of time building trust because especially, I mean we just, we just had our own war of choice against that country. It's going to take some time for them to actually sit at the table and believe what we have to say. It's not going to happen in 21 hours, especially if they just got there. As you mentioned, Mark, the principals at the table at the first time, that's the reverse order it's supposed to go. And as you also mentioned, Mark, the diplomacy by tweet, what we end up doing is putting ourselves in these untenable public positions that we've told the world we're doing. And it's impossible to come back from that at that point. Whereas traditional diplomacy, it's all happening behind closed doors until the very, very end. And there are some strategic leaks that do come out to kind of sample the environment and see what's going on. But nobody's actually putting out their positions publicly because by doing so you're actually committing yourself to that position. It's embarrassing or impossible to step back from that. And both of those issues, putting the principles first and then airing our diplomacy publicly is actually, it's taking the air out of our sails and our ability to have momentum in any negotiation, even if it was a, quote, unquote normal one, not one between the US and Iran that we were just at war with after we, we started the war against them in the past two months.
- [59:57]
C
You know, sometimes we try to make sense of what this administration does. And I'm not sure that, you know, if there's, there's some rationality there. I mean, everything as you just. Jonathan and what Mick said before is, was backwards. You know, the idea of principles going first. But J.D. vance, someone who the Iranians wanted because they don't like Kushner and.
- [60:33]
B
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F
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- [61:31]
C
And Wyckoff. I mean, at the end of the day, it is. Trump does have agency. It is going to be his call. But, you know, then. Then you start thinking about, where does 2028 fall into this? Marco Rubio was literally at a UFC fight with Trump yesterday in Miami. I mean, that's the Secretary of state slash national security advisor. That's his role. He shouldn't have been there because no principal should have been there. But if a principal should have been there, it should have been him. And he's yucking it up in Miami at a UFC fight as the vice president is, you know, playing Bizarre Merchant and storming off after 21 hours. I mean, the whole thing is just so weird. And, you know, I mean, you know, at some point I was thinking, like, is this whole. Is this all just performative theater? You know, why did we. There was. If you had Iran experts. We used to. I don't know if we do anymore. Again, that some people did go with.
- [62:18]
G
Retired.
- [62:19]
C
No, I know, but I'm saying some people did go with. With. With the traveling party. So there were some, quote, experts from somewhere from, as they said, from the State Department. So I suppose that's a good thing. But did anyone, you know, really anticipate this was, you know, that there would be any progress? Because as you said, it took a year and a half for the JCPOA to be negotiated with. You know, and so I don't know. You know, some of the times I get. I have gotten more distrustful of government in my older age. And so that's why I was saying before about the US Military. But it's the same thing for, you know, in terms of. For the Trump administration. Now, was this all just designed for what chance of this? Why did we even do this? The Islam and. And then the media that now I'm going to kind of support D. Like, literally there was. I couldn't believe this. There was a CNN reporter who said she had chills, she had tears in her eyes watching the Islamabad thing. There was a New York Post reporter, too, saying this. The great. The Pakistanis were so what are we doing?
- [63:19]
D
Yeah, that's like so fucking cringe.
- [63:23]
B
I had tears in my eyes, too.
- [63:24]
C
Yeah. I was thinking if I got diarrhea in Pakistan, every time I went, I never failed to get the shits going to that country.
- [63:31]
G
I had tears. They weren't in my eyes, though.
- [63:33]
C
Eight 107 millimeter rockets for a year being fired at us from Pakistani military positions. Separate issue.
- [63:39]
D
But who said that on cnn?
- [63:41]
C
Any name her I could find it. I mean, all right, it was just, you know, people had chills from this. Fuck off.
- [63:48]
D
That's so cringe, dude.
- [63:49]
C
Like, but it was. But so. So were we all kind of mesmerized by this? I mean, it is a big deal. The first kind of high level contact in 50 years. But I mean, you know, Jonathan, this is your thing. Like, you follow the Iranian US Relationship. But was there ever any chance, like, why did, you know, why did we do this? I'm not quite sure. Because, by the way, or a lot of times people would say, in a normal world, don't have a summit with your adversary if there can be no chance of success. You know, you don't actually show up when you know it's going to fail.
- [64:18]
G
So anyway, they took maximalist positions, which means you needed to have a long period of time to moderate those maximalist positions to reach that kind of place on the playing field where you can actually start throwing the ball back and forth. Because right now they couldn't agree on even which field to play in. You know, that's going to take time to frame those starting points before they can even get to the actual issues. They want to negotiate. And that's that difference between zone of primary agreement and best alternative to negotiate outcome. The two important negotiating, you know, frameworks where there weren't even agreements on what to agree on yet, which will eventually come, but you first have to hit those. And it seems like they just want to cram this in to make a kind of a show that they were trying the U.S. i mean, a show that, hey, we're doing this. They didn't accept it, we're going back to work, kind of back to war kind of concept. That's what it really feels like. More of a pretext to say that it's okay, we're going back to the conflict now, because we tried.
- [65:15]
D
And I mean, you saw, like, February 27, there was like, a real path to, like, maybe figuring this out diplomatically. And there was reported that Wyckoff and Kushner, like, oh, that's going to take months. It's like, yeah, no shit, you dumb fuck. It's going to take months. Sorry. I know. I hate Steve Wykoff and Jared Kushner. I'm sorry. Like, because it's just dumb and dumber. And frankly, I don't blame the Iranians for not wanting to go anywhere near those guys. They spoke to them the last time and both times they got bombed. Like what are we talking about? Would you take them seriously?
- [65:45]
C
You know, in negotiations at the end of the day, you know, wars were going to end in a messy fashion and so the US maximalist positions, which are legitimate positions. But, but if this, if there's going to be a diplomatic solution, unless we have regime change, we are going to have to cave on some stuff. And that's just, that's just the way diplomacy works. You know, at some point we're going to have to say to the Iranians yet you can have some low level civilian nuclear program or, and even more so there's going to be reparation, not reparations, there's going to be sanctions relief. Reparations would be politically impossible. But you know, but the maximalist position in the United States and I'm saying if you want an agreement, if you don't want an agreement, go for full on regime change. Because I don't see, and you guys jump in on this. I mean, I don't see how there's any other way to look at this. It's the same thing with like Israel and Hamas, like this idea of, you know, the demobilization of Hamas weapons. It's never going to happen in the history of the planet. That ain't happening. Thus there's no agreement.
- [66:45]
G
Same with Hezbollah, with the UN Security Council resolution that was supposed to disarm Hezbollah and allow the Lebanon armed forces to come into the south and reoccupy the south and all this. That's what the blue line is down there. Hezbollah will never give up their weapons. You know, the only way Hezbollah gives up their weapons is if there's no more Hezbollah hands to hold them. I mean this is their position.
- [67:06]
C
Andy, thoughts?
- [67:09]
B
Yeah, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm sinking into depression quietly here and, and because I don't have the answer to, to what you guys are saying and what really hits me every day, and I know it hits you too, Mark and John and, and is just the loss of confidence, the fact that the world is ridiculing us and our former allies, in my case a lot of friends in the uk I'm seeing what former charge stare are saying about us, about the special relationship and it's painful, you know what I mean? And I don't think how anyone who understands history, who understands, who is educated can say that doesn't matter. That we can alienate the entire world and continue just as though, you know, we're, just as though nothing's happened. It's going to affect, it's going to affect everyone to some extent.
- [68:12]
D
We haven't even talked about like the rhetoric that was coming out the last couple weeks with against NATO from the administration as well as like, you know, the buddying up with Orban, who is clearly, at least his regime is a. Seems more and more like a Russian proxy.
- [68:31]
C
It is. Hopefully he's gonna lose in several hours.
- [68:33]
D
Yeah, that's coming up. The, the election there. So. And Mix sent something in the chat as well. The 60 day, you know, 60 day clock. It should expire around April 29th.
- [68:45]
C
Well, yeah, good luck on Congress doing anything.
- [68:47]
D
But, yeah, Congress is, you know, gelded. Just eunuchs walking around.
- [68:56]
C
All right, you went mute. You're muted.
- [69:00]
D
Sorry, sorry. I said Andy, Andy had to leave us. He was gonna go do push ups. He just texted me on the side.
- [69:06]
C
All right, what do.
- [69:07]
D
What are we expecting?
- [69:08]
B
You know what? I was hanging around just waiting for you to say something like that. I'm learning from the Iranians.
- [69:19]
D
Yeah, just final quick thoughts for me.
- [69:21]
G
I'm looking at the market. I want to see what happens when the market opens at 9:30 tomorrow because I know how sensitive the administration is, Trump specifically is to this and I'm curious to see how that tracks with what comes out. And of course, I'm going to look at polymarket and look at announcements over the weekend and see how insiders are faring because this is a growing, growing problem over the last 60 days where people in the DOD and at the White House are certainly profiting privately, independently off this conflict, trading in material, nonpublic information. And I think that people should be more aware of that. And look, look at that themselves.
- [69:56]
C
I would agree on the markets. That's going to be everything. Everything is political now. So Trump really responds to that. And if the markets kind of tank again, I'm surprised this announcement was made on, on a Sunday usually doesn't happen.
- [70:12]
D
All right, guys, we'll see you next week. Don't forget, all the links to all the guys are down in the description. Check them out right there. And the best place to support the show is patreon.com theteamhouse you get teamhouse and eyes on episodes ad free and early. Guys, as always, thank you and happy Easter to the orthodox people. I'm excited for Easter.
- [70:31]
C
Send pictures of your lamb.
- [70:32]
D
I am. The group chat's going to be filled with it.
- [70:36]
C
All right.
- [70:37]
D
All right, bye, guys.
- [70:41]
H
Hey, guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House podcast.
- [70:45]
B
Newsletter.
- [70:46]
H
If you go and subscribe, it's totally free and what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the team house on our Geopolitics podcast, Eyes on things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on books, we recommend upcoming guests that we have coming on the show and also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you'll go and check it out. We send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis. You can find our newsletter@teamhousepodcast.kit.com join again. The website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com join
- [71:38]
F
with Verbocare Help is always ready before, during and after your stay. We've planned for the plot twists so support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind.
- [71:52]
I
Developers are shipping AI apps at machine speed Human speed. Security can't keep up. For every model you ship, there are nearly three hidden components attackers can exploit. Invisible to most teams. Enter EVO by sneak, the world's first agentic security system. It maps your entire AI stack, enforces live guardrails, and secures your agents in real time. EVO build fearlessly in the AI era with security as agentic as your apps. Visit Snyk IO meetevo to learn more,
- [72:23]
H
so we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the description.
- [72:29]
I
Developers are shipping AI apps at machine speed human speed. Security can't keep up. For every model you ship, there are nearly three hidden components attackers can exploit invisible to most teams. Enter EVO by sneak, the world's first agentic security system. It maps your entire AI stack, enforces live guardrails, and secures your agents in real time. EVO build fearlessly in the AI era with security as agentic as your apps. Visit Snyk IO. Meetevo to learn more. Developers are shipping AI apps at machine speed. Human speed Security can't keep up. For every model you ship, there are nearly three hidden components attackers can exploit invisible to most teams. Enter EVO by Snyk, the world's first agentic security system. It maps your entire AI stack, enforces live guardrails, and secures your agents in real time. EVO build fearlessly in the AI era with security as agentic as your apps. Visit Snyk IO. Meetevo to learn more.