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U.S. Strike on Iran IMMINENT? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS
00:55:24
In this episode, the hosts discuss the current geopolitical landscape, focusing on the military buildup in the Gulf and the implications for Iran's nuclear program. They explore the complexities of diplomatic negotiations, the potential for regime...
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- [00:01]
A
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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, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Andy Milburn, Mick Mulroy, I'm Dimitri Kontakos. A lot happening as usual. First and foremost, the biggest thing is I want you guys to do a couple things. Let's do some housekeeping. Andy Milburn wrote a great article, I'm War on the Rocks. It's down in the description we spoke about in a previous podcast. You could check that out if you haven't yet read the article. It's really great. Also, Mick Mulroy's got a new podcast called the Pub and the Porch. Applied stoicism comes out every Monday. Check that out. Link is in the description as well. If you want to find any more from these guys, all their links are in the description. Check them out there and patreon.com/a teamhouse to support the show. Okay, with that said, a lot happening. Looks like we're building quite a big presence in the Gulf and in the Mediterranean to possibly attack Iran. The protests kind of spiked up a little bit over the last week again, but they've kind of seemed to have simmered down for the most part. Internet is still spotty coming in and out of Iran. Where does this go? There's talk now that there's. There's a bit of negotiation going on. It seems like we're trying to fold in the nuclear talks as well. Where are we at with this? Mick, you go first.
- [02:37]
C
Greetings from the city of Bozeman, Montana, where we're about to kick off one month of tackle training. Lobo Institute here, and we're in search of snow. It is going to be 50 degrees. That's good for winter warfare training.
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B
We have plenty of that. Come to New York, bro. We have plenty of that shit.
- [02:55]
C
So we're going to have to get helicopters to fly us. The only way we can do this is on altitude, right? 10,000ft also. It's going to be a challenge. But anyway, it is what it is. So on Iran, we have, as you said, massive buildup. We have multiple aircraft carrier strike groups, including Wright. I think it's mask for the mountain chain in Oman right now, which is smart. Plus, every time I turn around, there's another destroyer. I'm not sure where they're all coming from, but those can be significant when it comes to guided missiles, of course. And the air capacity just keeps flowing and flowing and flowing. So we're definitely headed toward something. Right? So what could be the off ramps? It would be to earnestly start negotiations in a new nuclear agreement that goes beyond just a nuclear agreement, but also includes ballistic missile programs and proxy force support. That is what I think the administration is requiring. They've been requiring that since the first administration, and I think it's legit, at least to want to address all those. From what I'm hearing, Iran might be able to accept some kind of restrictions on proxies, but won't on ballistic missiles because they consider that like their only real defense. So. And everything else I've heard is essentially, this isn't going to go anywhere. So if it's not. If it's not, let's hope we're wrong. I would always hope that diplomacy ruled the day. Then I can't see the U.S. the White House not taking some form of military action. Right. There's a huge buildup. If they can't get even an agreement in principle to have a new jcpoa, if you will, that they are closer to on the Trump administration. I just don't think this will just end and then we'll just turn around and go home. So then the question is one, what is the objective? Is it simply to degrade the nuclear program further? Is it regime change? Which, you know, I think we should probably have a whole Section about the likelihood of whether you can do regime change from the air would say that would be incredibly difficult. The geography of Iran, it's almost four times the size of a rock. If you want to compare that when it comes to us past conflicts. And it's got about 90 million people, so more than double Iraq, the geography is mountainous. It is designed to sustain the regime's primary purpose is to maintain the regime. So it has all these power centers. The Supreme Leader is basically just holds them together even if he was taken out. All those power centers are not only invested in continuation, they're literally would be toast if they didn't maintain it. There's simply no way to get all the leaders out of the country, et cetera. So it's going to be difficult to do even if you did a ground invasion, which would be insane. But from the air, very few. If you think about 1991, Saddam Air, at least for Iraq, obviously didn't change regime. There's many examples. So I don't think there will be a serious effort at regime change, but they could support the protesters because if anything is going to change the regime, it's going to have to come from within. I just don't know how much you can do to support just by hitting security infrastructure like irgc. And then there's the issue. And then I'll stop here and throw it over to Andy for comments on all the above. But there's a lot of concern that the Iranians will sea mine the Straits of Hormuth. Right. So that could cause major disruption in energy supplies. It would also really affect them. It wouldn't affect the United States as much as other countries though, quite frankly, because we just don't get as much oil from there. And then there's this discussion that I think is legitimate about whether the US could do some kind of blockade. Legitimate in the sense that I think it's actually being discussed. I don't know, to be frank, how effective it would be, but it's kind of like looking at Venezuela, which is not a real model for Iran, but we removed the leadership and now we're doing a naval blockade. And whether I think that's being considered at least for Iran, I don't know how effective it would be, but that's where I think the summary is of what I've discussed this week and what I've been told over to you then.
- [07:46]
A
Yeah, I agree with everything Mick said. The one thing, there's a couple of things that have really complicated this and of course I would say no regional leaders here in the Middle east.
- [08:03]
C
Or.
- [08:04]
A
Seem confident about what is going to happen. But a couple of things. One is, first of all, and both of these happenings, I'm not saying are linked or even trying to interpret them correctly or interpret them at all. If I was going to interpret them, presumably it would be correctly anyway. So, number one, diplomatic negotiations efforts have not ceased. In fact, they seem to have ramped up, which makes me think that while I'll agree with Mick that there needs to be action at some point because. Or there will be action at some point because I can't see the Iranians being able to compromise on some key issues. Right. But in the meantime, Trump seems to be upplaying the role of Erdogan. He's calling him a problem solver. Right. And Erdogan has reached out to Iran and is offering to negotiate. It's interesting that it is Turkey doing this. And Trump seems to have confidence in Erdogan based on, based on Erdogan's. I'm not saying he. He was successful in doing this, but his ability to negotiate previously between Al Jilani or Al Shira, whatever we're calling him now, and the sdf. Right. So he's giving him. President Trump's giving Erdogan credit for that and saying, hey, it looks like he's giving him a shot to negotiate before things go further as far as strikes are concerned. But to Mick's point, we don't know how receptive Iran's going to be. Certainly Iran's showing no signs in their rhetoric of being willing to negotiate. They're threatening regional war if United States strikes and various other dire threats. And when I think about why would they do that, the only thing I can think is maybe it's an effort to portray this as first, it's a show of strength, maybe false strength, paper tiger. But the other thing is, we talked about this, too, that Iran seems to be, I won't say on the verge of toppling the administration, because it's far from that. But certainly these demonstrations that have occurred are more serious, more in depth, and being put down with greater brutality than previous protestation protests. So it looks as though maybe this is an effort to rally the country behind, you know, towards an external enemy. That may be why Iran's ramping up the rhetoric. I can see no other rational reason to do it. So, you know, but. But the thing is, and we'll see Erdogan's reached out to them, we haven't seen whether Iran is receptive or not. There's probably three things that this. But there's three problematic areas. There's four if you count the protests and if you count the brutality with which the Iranians put down the protests. But as far as points to negotiate on, there's the nuclear issue. Right. I think, you know, I think it's open source. It is open source now that the bomb damage assessments on Isfahan, Natanz and Fordeaux are not as optimistic now as, as they appeared, you know, right after the strikes and that either the Iranians were very quick at turning around and starting to build their capability again, or the damage wasn't as bad as we thought. Okay, so there's that, right? How ensuring that Iran steps back from its plans to build a nuclear weapon. Potentially. That's the point of negotiation. Potentially Turkey could offer to take the enriched uranium that Iran has and store it in Turkey in return for, and I'm on the finish of my technical ability here, but remember the deal with Russia, right. Russia was going to do this back in 2010 in return for rich uranium. I mean, non weaponizable uranium that could help Iran build a civilian civil nuclear capability. Okay, I haven't worded that very well, but you understand giving up weaponized uranium in return for assistance with, with, with a civil nuclear capability. Okay, that potentially a compromise point number two on the proxies. Well, there isn't actually. It's really, really difficult to enforce. If Ron says, oh yeah, we'll step back from bolstering the Houthis, Hezbollah, they could agree to do that. Whether the US Would honor that concession or even give it credibility, I don't know. But it's certainly something the Iranians could agree to do. And as we know, Hezbollah is kind of on the ropes anyway. And it seems as though the Houthis too have died down in their activities. So maybe Iran would be happy to do that in order to focus on getting a firmer grip back at home. But the third point which would be reduction the ballistic missile capability. I can't see them compromising at all, can you, Meg? I mean.
- [14:04]
C
Oh, I think that's the most difficult one for them. I agree.
- [14:08]
A
Yeah. I mean, that's a long poll. It's an essential component of Iran's defense network and they don't have the ability to rapidly regenerate that, that capability. And they're actually down, you know, I know estimates of, of what their inventory looks like are varied and unlikely to be entirely accurate. But a lot of what is left are liquid fuel ballistic missiles, which means that, you know, if they do launch an attack, the US or Israel, whoever the, and the region are going to get a far longer, greater warning. Right. As far as repercussions, I agree. You know, the worst thing that could happen that Iran could do isn't launch ballistic missiles and drones from the homeland because as we've seen before with the US anti air defense systems in the region, missile batteries, Aegis Cruisers and all, and the like get so much warning. And with a. And, and the missiles being what they are they relatively easy to intercept. So two things though are a real threat. One is the threat from proxies and specifically the, you know, actually this is a category of proxies. I didn't mention the Shia militias in Iran in particular, always a threat. And, and the flash to bang if they attack US bases is, is far quicker. That's number one, as Mick said. Also sowing mines in, in the Gulf. And last thing, I'll leave you on. Mick, what are you. Are you tracking these explosions in Iran itself?
- [15:56]
C
I got a question about that this morning. I don't have any details. There's been like four or five in multiple different cities and the regime's all blaming them on gas leaks. And just by statistics, it's likely not all gas leaks. So that could be preparation. It's common for Assad, the agency, to have that task. It doesn't necessarily do much in and of itself, but it kind of creates a situation where the regime's scrambling around, the supporters feel like there's something happening. It looks organic, I don't know one way or the other. I wouldn't be saying it, but it could be basically preparation for what's to come, which would be significant. Air and missile strikes on multiple different targets.
- [16:45]
D
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- [18:05]
A
Yeah, it is interesting. And there is an Israeli unit whose mission is to do that sort of things using ground launch precision guided weapons. So it's feasible. And to the, you know, the Iranian regime's claims that these are gas leaks. And if you remember back in July, on a single day back in July, there were four incidents throughout Iran. One in Qom, one in a place called Karaj, one in Tehran, and I can't remember, the fourth one was, I think it was on the island in the Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz. Explosions. Right. The one in the Strait of Hormuz was a really big one that destroyed reportedly 200 stores. Although that's high, you know, what does that mean? How big? Those. But that sounds like a big explosion. And in Bandera Bass, an entire shopping mall, there's a big mega mall burned down. And then the Iranian government at the time said it was due to technical failures and the explosion of gas cylinders or poor maintenance. I mean it seemed pretty ridiculous. So now they're claiming the kind of same thing.
- [19:29]
C
They're concerned that it looks like they're losing control. Right. Which is the purpose of the operation. So this could be very much be the case. Another conversation I had to present both sides if you will, you know, on the US use of force. The person I was talking to said, oh, okay, well either the Iranians can agree to adjust their nuclear ambitious ballistic most missile program proxies or we could do it for them. Right. So is this going to be a thing that every time we think that they're going ahead with a nuclear weapon, let's be fair, they have what, 441 kilograms of enriched uranium to 60%. There's no reason to have 60%. They're almost in the perfectly wrong spot. It's not for civilian purposes and they don't have a nuclear weapon. So from regenerance, having the, you know, the middle ground is not necessarily a smart move. But this one could make the argument that we're just going to mow the grass and make sure they never get there. And the same thing with the ballistic missile program. Every time they start rebuilding it, which they are, it happens again. So from a practical purpose, maybe that's one of the views inside the White House right now. The other part is you can say, well, it's unlikely that you're going to actually change the regime. I think that's fair, probably the intelligence assessment. And then even if you do change your regime, whether it would be more favorable to the United States, I think those are both totally legitimate questions. The person I was talking to said, well, it's probably worth rolling the dice. So if you're a gambler, you roll the dice. You don't know if it's going to be better or worse the same. But, you know, there's a chance, I guess. So I don't know if that's the way you should make, you know, major policy decisions on war and peace. But I guess there is certainly a line of thought that it's worth trying to change the regime simply to see what happens. I think that's a dangerous game to start playing with, even with despotic regimes like Iran. But, you know, obviously there's different views inside the government, and we don't know which one's going to be prevailing.
- [21:44]
A
Yeah, I think you're right, Mick, that the mowing the grass scenario seems the most likely. And I noticed that, that our administration has kind of backed down from discussions of regime change, though it's hard to tell. But Rubio, when he was being interviewed the other day, and I forget where and I forget exactly when, but it's in the last couple of days, seemed quite circa very, you know, he was pointing out all the problems that you just did, obviously, with regime change. And as we talked about on this show, you know, you've got to have a viable opposition to come into place. And that just isn't. That isn't in place right now.
- [22:30]
B
Yeah, you know, speaking as a layman, I think it's rolling the dice in terms of destabilizing an entire region by decapitation, strikes or whatever you want to call it. Trying to take out the regime in Iran is kind of crazy, is batshit insane to me. A lot of times before this, we've to do airstrikes or even talk about regime change. We were like in. At the U.N. sure, we might have been lying to the U.N. about anthrax and, you know, 911 being, you know, connected to Iraq. But we would build up a coalition. We would do the things that, you know, do we take certain steps before we start bombing a pl. Another country to, you know, to hopefully maybe get some regime change. And even if it is a regime we don't like, you know, it's okay. Like, I would think we would be operating on more of a. More certainty than this. It's going to be completely real, honest.
- [23:35]
C
Yeah, I mean, good point. Very good point. Hopefully that's not how we're deciding on major strategic policy decisions. It's gonna also backfire. Right. We're not the only country that can decide that's a good policy. Right. That we just go around taking on leaders. And again, the way Iran is configured, like most regimes like this, their primary purpose is to stay in power. It's not to, like, promote the interests of the Iranian people. So they're designed to withstand not only a direct ground invasion. Right. The besieged forces, like, it's over a million people. And it's really designed to be very, like, autonomous separate units that can fight on well past an actual conventional military invasion and the power centers. And it's all tied to, you know, I think, complete corruption with huge offshore, you know, repositories of money. Right. So it's going to be very difficult, I think, to facilitate a regime change. But I think you both made a point that they kind of came off.
- [24:48]
A
The only wild card would be taking out the Supreme Leader. And there you're on. You're on shaky, honestly. I mean, international law, the decapitation strikes, going after actually killing the head of the state is a. A big deal. I don't know whether that would be an obstacle for us. But perhaps more importantly. Yeah. As. As Mix pointed out, you don't know what comes next. And there is no.
- [25:16]
C
He's 86 years old.
- [25:17]
A
Like, you may just need to just wait. I mean, he's gonna. And. And the point is that Mix entirely. Right. Yeah. The Republic, sorry, the Revolutionary Guard and. And the besieged have. They'll have. You know, there's a transition plan in every case. And. And as we talked about, the hold that the IGRC has on the Iranian. Just. The country itself is multifaceted. It's economic and it's military. I mean, it goes deep into the. In the roots of the. The fabric of the country itself. You don't topple it by simply killing one or two people. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting. The Turks, I mean, the Turks haven't come up. I mean, they remember, of course, that the Turks backed Al Jelani, who overthrew Assad, who was Iran's. Iran's man in Syria.
- [26:25]
C
Absolutely.
- [26:26]
A
And so they were on bad terms then. But it does look as though the Turks have been trying to kind of reach. Well, they have been reaching out to the Iranians. I don't know if you, during all the protests, I believe it was Erdogan or it might have been his foreign minister said, commented publicly that there's, that there was Israeli influence behind the protests, you know, which kind of played into Iran's. In my messaging too.
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B
Someone question, I have a question. What does, what does Turkey get out of doing this? Like, how do they benefit?
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C
They like to be viewed as like one of the leaders, you know, quite frankly, in the Muslim world. And I think part of trying to get that kind of mantle now is being directly involved in negotiations to avoid conflict or in conflict. Right. You see it Qatar, it's Turkey, you know, in Gaza, for example. Other than that, maybe favor favored status within the Trump administration, but it's kind of one in the same. It's just really presenting your country as a leader in that.
- [27:32]
B
That's it. That's only. Why just to like show like, hey, we're statesmen, we can. We have influence in the region.
- [27:40]
A
That's a big deal. For Erdogan to be seen as being a major statesman on the international stage. I mean, his country's economy is in shite state partly because of his policies. He has thousands of dissidents imprisoned. There is trouble bubbling in Turkey, but the Turks are naturally quite nationalistic. That's an understatement. And, and so again, on the world stage, being able to see their leader take a prominent position is huge deal. That's number one. Number two is, you know, there's always been, I mean, it's all regional rivalry. Right? It's all, it's like 19th century Europe. That's really like Middle east now is. There are, there are no friends, there are only interests. And so you see this shifting dynamic and, and Turkey would like to be seen as being the go to negotiator in place of, for instance, Saudi Arabia. And in this particular instance, you know, the Saudis, uae, the Qataris are all unified in advising President Trump not to strike Iran. You know, and, and, and so it is Erdogan that Trump has reached out to, to, to kind of issue, to do this negotiation and issue the warnings. And Erdogan likes that. You know, this makes him feel his chops.
- [29:15]
B
Yeah, I think it was yesterday, the day before, there was some like, talk coming out of like Saudi Arabia saying, like, kind of going back on that, like being like, oh, yeah, maybe we should, you should hit Iran too. I don't know if it's just like different factions within the, the kingdom that.
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A
Are like it was MBS's brother who's the defense. Yeah. In D.C. talking to members of the think tank in a, you know, it was a, I mean it was open to journalists. So it wasn't as though they were trying to hide anything. And he, he made the comment and it may have been taken out of context that if the United States didn't strike Iran there would be a problem of losing credibility. And again, this might have been taken out of context. He might have said, hey listen, all the, you know, I understand that the United States might lose credibility because you built up forces in the region. And he might have then gone on to say, but because the, you know, the Saudis haven't said, oh no, no, that's not the case. They haven't done anything to repudiate. Repudiate what he said. And I think it's, it might be the Western media that's saying that it's a directly opposed to what MBS is saying, which is, hey, this isn't going to be in the best interests of the region to strike Iran.
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B
And also Saudi Arabia has closed. Go ahead. Sorry.
- [30:39]
C
No, I was going to say it did seem like a change. Like all the reporting before was that Saudi Arabia didn't want to see military action against Iran, which is why I think this got so much attention. But it could be what Andy said he could say, well, now that we're here, right, the US Built up this huge military presence. I can see why it would be difficult not to use it. It doesn't necessarily mean he thinks or more importantly Saudi thinks it would be a good idea. I just don't know. But if you look at the reports, it seems to be contradictive or contradictory of what they had originally.
- [31:16]
A
But the media loves doing that. You know, I mean that makes the story right.
- [31:22]
B
Also, I mean another like Saudi Arabia did are saying they're like the US Is not allowed to use their airspace if there is an attack on Iran. Turkey said the same thing too. Interestingly, so does Qatar. And I get it. They don't want to get ballistic missiles fired on their soil. And also don't we have a deal with Qatar now?
- [31:45]
C
We do. We do.
- [31:46]
B
Right. A newly minted one last. That happened after the last.
- [31:52]
C
Enhanced. Enhanced. So there's. You got NATO, of course, and you have major non NATO allied status. I don't know how many countries are in that. But now like Qatar has enhanced major non NATO allied status with this. It's an executive order though. So they probably realize that, okay, one, the President can change his mind.
- [32:11]
B
Yeah.
- [32:11]
C
It's simply, you know, the President drawing a promise to him, you know, for himself. So they probably realize that although it's better than not having it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to last beyond President Trump's administration or even that, you know, even that that's the case. Yeah, they don't have to. There's no. It's not a treaty. That's the point.
- [32:34]
B
Yeah, yeah. So what happens next? What do you guys. Let's do some speculation. That's always fun. What happens next? Does it happen? Are we waiting for the full moon for no moon so JSOC can go in and snatch the Supreme Leader? What are we doing?
- [32:52]
C
I imagine that they're actually briefing President now on courses of action again, maybe a decision brief because the assets are in place. And then if he decides to go ahead, then from the process it goes back to the Defense Department and then of course the Central Command. And then it's. Then there's all sorts of other considerations of when it'll happen. Right. They might want to, you know, just like we did in Venezuela. Not to say that they're anywhere comparable, but we send planes that way we see how they react, we see where their defenses are, we see how they scramble planes. We might start doing that. The weather and all that stuff plays a part. It's really over to the military at that point to pick the ideal time based on non political issues. Right. Stuff that's more in line with being most advantageous for the military. And then we'll see. I don't know how long we give them to decide whether they're going to come to the negotiation table. But everything I've seen is they've kind of pooh poohed even doing it. They'd be in the Iranian regime. So I don't know what would stop it from happening now unless we just pulled off. That seems unlikely.
- [34:08]
A
Yeah, I think, I mean, I agree with Mick. I think that the target, you know, the most practical course of action. Of course I'm not, you know, I'm not. Even when I was in uniform, I wouldn't be in the decision space on this. But most practical course of action would seem to be to go off to the nuclear facilities to do continuously degrade them and also to degrade the Iranian inventory of ballistic missiles because that would be those two things and air defense, you know, what they have left of their air defense. Because the Russians are The only ones who are resupplying with air defense. So those three things you could achieve, really, I'm not saying you're going to achieve overwhelming, decisive effects, permanent, but you're certainly going to be able to achieve significant effects in those three areas, rather than if you go after members of the regime or the administration, in which case the repercussions may, as we pointed out, maybe may come back and bite you. Things that I think are possible, too, but probably won't happen. You know, covert action. Mick knows. Mick's the expert on this, but it's always. It's always a possibility. But I think we would work through partners if we did that. Covid action, his particular partner in the region who is already involved in those things in Iran, I would guess. And again, I'm speculating here, I don't have any access to knowledge, and if I did, I wouldn't share it. But I would guess that Covid action within Iran continues to be problematic for U.S. united States for a number of reasons. It's a high risk, and it's just an area that would be tough, I think. Mick, feel free to jump in.
- [36:10]
C
Yeah, I don't know. Just like Andy. I wouldn't say if I did, but, I mean, I wouldn't talk about it if I had, and I don't have any access to it. So what I would say about COVID action is it works best if it's in conjunction with an overall strategy. Oftentimes, at least, the agency feels like if they can't figure it out, diplomacy, diplomatically, they can't figure it out militarily, they just throw it to the agency and say, good luck, it's a dumpster fire. And then how is that a place to start? Right. It should be like supporting diplomacy, economics, military action. Covert action should just be a part of that, not the solution to most problems. So if we do go forward, I would guess there is definitely a component to that that is enhancing for what the overall strategy is. But I don't know. I don't know that for sure. We already talked about potential sabotage operations. But then sometimes, you know, sometimes we're better at doing something. Sometimes our partner countries are.
- [37:08]
B
So we can say Israel.
- [37:10]
C
Yeah, of course, Israel. Right. So they obviously have focused 99% of their efforts on Iran or their proxies, so. And we cover the world, so. But we can help them as well. I think we'll see action over the next week, probably, if this is going to happen. And we'll see indications to be frank, because this would Be, you know, they still probably want to withdraw nonessential personnel from like Al Udaid like we did last time. So you'll see a flow. Obviously the military wouldn't want to give those indicators, but there's only so much they could cover.
- [37:48]
B
Right.
- [37:49]
C
I think you will see potentially there's another issue that this blockade again that the US Is discussing, there's some concern that it could actually trigger the conflict. So we're putting naval assets in place. They're doing naval exercises around the Straits of Hormutz.
- [38:08]
B
Yeah, but they stopped, they rescheduled or whatever.
- [38:11]
C
Yeah, they rescheduled it. Right. So that's, that probably was because of that concern they were going to be in direct proximity. One thing happens and you know, that's that that makes the decision for us rather than the commander chief.
- [38:24]
B
But I believe they have tentative, a tentative exercise schedule with Russia and China out in the Indian Ocean for like a month from, for like a few weeks from now. But it's tentative. So I don't know if it's going to go down.
- [38:39]
C
Then of course, another issue in this is what is the role Congress plays. So these limited military engagements the White House will argue doesn't trigger the War Powers Act. Right. But if you have a near continuous limited military engagements, one could argue like well, it's yeah, I guess taken individually they're limited. But now it seems to be the, the force of our diplomacy seems to be led by force. Right. And again, I was for the strikes in Iran on nuclear facility and I was for the apprehension of Maduro. So not that that matters, but that I would say that there is a legitimate discussion of can you is it is is congressional approval and participation only when it lasts beyond 60 days or when does Congress say you can't just go from country to country, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, you know, whatever's next and not trigger the congressional part of the Constitution when it comes to declaration of war. I don't know if that's ever going to be resolved. It doesn't seem like the Supreme Court's willing to weigh in in a very legitimate way on the War Powers Act. And what is the lanes of the road between Congress and the chief executive?
- [40:09]
A
I think that's become a moot point, sadly. I mean, sadly, regardless of administration, because the intent of the War Powers act was to rebalance the Constitution. Right. So there was a genuine check on the executive when it came to military adventurism overseas. And, and, and yes, that is the, that's the role of Congress, but it's become a Political football. So if one party has. Holds both chambers, they're going to make it difficult for the executive to, to exit, you know, to, to go to war or, or take military action. But if he, but if the executive, if, you know, the same party is in parody in both chambers or is dominant in the Senate in particular, and it's the same party as the President, then you're going to see a very laissez faire attitude towards allowing the executive to do what he wants. It's not the intent of the, you know, here am I defining the Constitution. That's not the intent of checks and balances. Right. The intent was that the purse springs, that whoever holds the purse strings, which is Congress, is a genuine check to prevent the President taking the country into war, basically, and committing American soldiers to.
- [41:38]
C
War.
- [41:40]
A
Without the say so of elected representatives. That's the intent. And the Supreme Court was supposed to be the arbiter on that. And, you know, when gray areas have arisen. But as Mix pointed out, that hasn't happened. You know, I mean, we continued. I mean, yes, I know Iraq and Afghanistan were different because we were operating under an aumf, but authorized use of military force. But there was never any concerted effort to revise that aumf. Right. And it just continued and continued and continued. And that's part of the problem why we, we ended up in Afghanistan. I think one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why we lost our way in Afghanistan because there wasn't sufficient congressional oversight to demand what exactly is our strategy? And all this effort that we're putting in, how is it aligned with a coherent policy? Rotation after rotation, the great efforts that we saw on the ground at the tactical level evaporated because they didn't align with a coherent policy. And that should have been a congressional role to ensure that happened. But it didn't happen. And when Kabul fell, everyone would point a finger at each other. It became political football, too. But the bottom line is, I'm not arguing from the point of view of either party. I'm just saying Congress didn't do what it was supposed to do over the course of 20 years.
- [43:12]
C
Yeah. And we kept expanding AUMF. Right. So then that gave us a reason to be in Yemen, Somalia, Syria. Right. Any, any continuation that had to do with Al Qaeda, isis, et cetera became. It became like an endless approval for Congress. And I'm not saying we shouldn't have fought in those places, don't get me wrong. But from a constitutional, structural perspective, what is, I think the answer to the American people is it looks like they're just not going to do their constitutional rule Congress.
- [43:43]
A
Yeah. I mean it's supposed to be deliberate, but when so small, when you have a normal volunteer force representing such a small percentage of the average legislators constituents. Right. I mean who's writing letters saying hey, why is my son or daughter in X place? It's a tiny minority. Tiny minority. And so, you know, I'm not suggesting we should have the draft, but Trent, that's, you know, Vietnam, that's why it was such a big issue. Because of course. Yeah.
- [44:19]
C
I mean you didn't see anywhere near the level of protest the last 20 years of the GWAT than you did, you know, in Vietnam because it had direct impact on everybody, regardless of their position on the war.
- [44:32]
B
Yeah. Also most of the families of folks who are deployed over the last 20 years probably weren't massive campaign donors either. So who's really going to fucking listen to them?
- [44:46]
C
They also don't want to. I mean even if you oppose the war, I think families would be a little hesitant to be too vocal when they're child volunteered to be in the. You know what I mean? So. Especially if you joined. Good point. I mean if. I'm not saying bring back the draft, but I, I think we can all agree that if we had a draft, military adventurism would probably subside quite a bit.
- [45:14]
A
Yeah.
- [45:15]
C
Certainly when it comes to introducing ground.
- [45:17]
A
Forces and you could have a, you know, you could have a non military national service aspect of it like the Germans did and you, you know, positive things would happen like Brooklyn would be clean. I mean and you, you would get that sense of just that sense of.
- [45:32]
B
National, you know, where out of nowhere.
- [45:35]
C
Yeah.
- [45:37]
B
It's anti Brooklyn rhetoric. It's unacceptable. Don't let, don't they. Aren't they using the AUMF to justify what they're doing with the, the drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific and also what happened in Venezuela, the rhetoric.
- [45:54]
C
I don't. Yeah, there's no connection between Al Qaeda that I could think of and drunkard.
- [45:58]
B
But isn't that the reason why.
- [45:59]
C
Yeah, isn't that why they organization.
- [46:02]
B
But then they call them like narco terrorist organization. They change the wording for them to like make it seem like, yeah, no, we could do this.
- [46:11]
A
This is.
- [46:11]
C
Okay, this is not against foreign terrorist organization.
- [46:15]
A
Right.
- [46:16]
C
Under their authorities. Doesn't give you a right to use military action basically like sanctions and banking and travel or something.
- [46:24]
B
I got you.
- [46:25]
C
It sounds the same. It sounds the same. Right. As Aumf and foreign terrorist organization.
- [46:30]
B
Sure.
- [46:31]
C
But it's, it's not, I don't think, legally.
- [46:34]
B
Let's talk real quick about what's going on in Syria. You know, SDF and Alshara forces or the, you know, Syrian government forces are clashing. Another place where Turkey has a lot of sway. Just a quick rundown of what's, what's up there. How's it looking? Because there was some talk about there being like a. They were gonna figure it out there came to some kind of, some kind of piece or some kind of deal and it seems to have unraveled a little bit.
- [47:02]
C
A bit? See, I mean, just the background. Obviously, this has been contentious between the United States and Turkey for the entirety of the defeat ISIS campaign and the enduring defeat of ISIS, because the U.S. has been paired with the SDF, whose primary leadership corps is the YPG, which the Turks believe is too connected to the PKK, a foreign terrorist organization. But the U.S. particularly the Defense Department and the agency has seen that they were the most effective partner. They fought alongside the United States, sometimes well beyond what they would have really needed to protect themselves, and did most of the fighting and dying against ISIS, which benefited the world. It was an 80 country coalition, and.
- [47:45]
B
Those are the Kurds country coalition.
- [47:47]
C
Those are the. Well, they're both Arab and Kurd, to be fair. Inside the sdf, it's just that the leadership is predominantly Kurdish, but, you know, 80, 80 country coalition. The SDF did most of the fighting. Right. So I think, I personally think, and I know them a lot to be upfront, we owe them to be their partner in, in advocating for them in a future Syria. Not saying we should advocate for the REHABA concept and they're completely autonomous and all that stuff, but they, I think, earn the right of the United States to be an advocate with the Alshara interim government so that they're in a good place and Syria is in a good place. I'm not saying we should be totally biased toward them, but I think a lot of them feel like we're essentially abandoned them. And that's happened before. It causes a lot of tension with the special operations community, who has spent a lot of time, particularly the army side of that and with the agency because they have been exceptional partners when it came to on the ground fighting. And I think that's something that I hope that we can keep in mind that every international engagement isn't purely transactional. There has to be some loyalty to partners and allies or they're not never going to be that toward us. Again, there's a practical reason, too, in addition to just ethical. I know we didn't have much time at the end, but this could come back next week.
- [49:20]
B
Andrew.
- [49:21]
A
No, I mean, I agree totally with Mick. I wrote an article back in 2019, actually, it was an interview with MSNBC and which. Which gave. When. When we were first talking about pulling out of Syria. Right. And leaving the SDF to the mercy of the Turks like Mercant. I feel quite strongly about standing by our allies. You know, I'm not just saying that in a vague term, we turned our back. Historically, we haven't been very good at standing by the groups who don't represent foreign sovereign countries, but have done the lion's share of the fighting against our enemies. You go back all the way to Vietnam and the Montagnards. And not just the Montagnards, but various other ethnic groups within Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. And then the counter ISIS campaign was the success that it was because we had a capable ground fighting force and we collectively defeated ISIS at incredibly low cost. When it comes to casualties. It was the antithesis of Afghanistan, where we flailed around and lost. And that was thanks to the sdf. Yes, they were in it for themselves, of course, but. But it was a good partnership. And. And actually, it was a partnership based on trust. You know, we had teams in there, the US soft community, very small teams, working with the sdf, coordinating fire support. Totally at their mercy or totally beholden to them for protection, and they never let us down. Yeah, I feel pretty strongly about us turning our backs on them in any. In any way, whether it's with the Syrian regime or with the Turks.
- [51:30]
B
All right, anything else, guys? It's pretty good. Pretty solid. Yeah. I want everyone to do us a favor, like, and subscribe. If you're listening to us on Audio, Rate it. Five stars. Subscribe there. Tell a friend. You know, why not? Mick Mulroy, he's got a great new podcast called the Pub and the Porch. Applied Stoicism. That link is in the description. Andy Milburn, great new article about what's going on with the urban warfare in Gaza down in the description. He wrote that for War on the Rocks. That link is there as well. And he's got a great book, when the Tempest Gathers. I'm still waiting for Mick to write his book. I'm very excited. I can't wait for that. And yeah, patreon.com yeah, patreon.com teamhouse please.
- [52:15]
C
One more. The summit that's coming up. So it's called the Montana Intelligence Summit. It's going to be in the town that Lobo is headquartered in, Whitefish. Hopefully we get the whole podcast team out there. It will change to the Whitefish Security Summit this year, but it's same thing, same thing. We hope to make it a place where it will probably remain the special operations intel heavy, but it will include policy and everything that goes into national security. And there's a lot to do in Whitefish. I'm biased, but I think it's going to be excellent and we hope to make it an annual thing with this new group we're attached to.
- [52:57]
B
Yeah, that link is also in the description. Check it out there if you want to go for tickets and everything. He was on the.
- [53:03]
A
That's a speaking perfect location and I agree with your decision make to shift that from Brooklyn. Not just because the, the activities that you can pursue in Brooklyn are quite a different level, but the Brooklyn Intelligence Summit is, well, an oxymoron.
- [53:20]
C
So.
- [53:24]
B
Unbelievable. You're just defaming. You're defaming the great borough of Brooklyn and it's frankly disgusting.
- [53:33]
A
It is disgusting.
- [53:35]
B
Thanks, guys. As always. Check us out. The links for everything is in the description. We'll see you next week.
- [53:42]
C
Thanks, gents.
- [53:44]
D
Hey, guys. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the Eyes on podcast and the High side news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week, it's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Eyeson and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the High side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week.
- [54:25]
C
It's really good checking it out.
- [54:28]
D
The website for it is teamhousepodcast.kit.com join teamhousepodcast.kit.com Join. Go there and you enter into your email list or you enter your email into the little thing on the website and you're good to go and that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up.
- [54:51]
C
Where's the link?
- [54:53]
D
The link will also be down in the description if you're looking for it there.
- [54:56]
C
And that's teamhousepodcast kitkit kilo India tango.com join.