I don't know what's going on. I don't quite understand it. Um with the whole ISIS thing and troops in the Middle East and should we or shouldn't we and negotiations in Afghanistan. Of course, top commander says US will rely on allies to stop ISIS from researching in Syria. Is a story in the Washington Examiner today. We had some reports in the last week that if we if we pull out, ISIS will be back and strong within six months.
We had um Liz Slide from the Washington Post on to say that ISIS was down to one square mile. I'm having trouble reading this story my clients. Longtime CBS News military analyst joins us to discuss the sand countries once again, and just I'm gonna throw him a two strike curve ball in a bit and talk about Venezuela. But Mike joins us. Now, Hello, Mike, how are you, sir? It's it's always a pleasure. If ISIS is indeed down to one square mile, how are they going to be
back and strong in six months if we pull out? Yeah, a lot of weightlifting and diets. I don't know. I mean, the bottom line is it's in it's in so many people's interests to prop up an enemy, to have it in the Middle East, and to keep propping it up because it just you know, it pays bills, It allows us to write stories on it, we can allocate military resource towards it. But if you look at the reality of the situation, um, it's not in America's interest to
be inside of Syria. You saw the President over the weekends say to Margaret Brennan that we're going to stay in Iraq because we can keep an eye on Iran from there, and and that's what the generals are telling them, of course, because that's really what we're doing. But now it's it's taken the Iraqi government and throwing it into a flux because they're insulted that we're actually doing that
inside of their country. So I still think the President's instinct is right top to bottom about getting troops out of these locations. If we don't have any long term strategy to be there, and if we're there just to be in the middle of things, Um, it's just it's just not in the interest of our youth of America that we're gonna ask to go give their lives for their country. Basically, well, I think you've described it beautifully.
We're there to be in the middle of things, keep an eye on around, keep Iraq from becoming completely an Iranian client state and then having a semi occupation of Afghanistan. I guess to enforce whatever agreement the Afghan government and I'm using quotes there and the Taliban come up with. I think that is the strategy, right. My my friend Scott Miller was on the fourth Star that commands in Afghanistan. He was very sober about the situation there. Um, there's
not a military solution at this point. We're going to have to negotiate. Um, it's a generational problem. You know. Report came out the other day that we still don't have trained enough Afghan pilots. We need a hundred and sixty Blackhawk pilots in order for the Afghan military to be considered successful. We still can't come up with a hundred and sixty of them in a country of three d and fifty million people. We can't get six hundred
and sixty of them trained to fly a helicopter. So all all of the generational things had happened in Afghanistan haven't been fixed in the last twenty years plus. Um, negotiate with the Taliban, we'll be out of there. And if we see you know, guys and videos of guys jumped around on monkey bars in a K four sevens, will attack them with drones. But but Afghana is going to be turned over to the Afghan people. Do you think that point of view is going to hold sway? Well,
I don't know a good question. It's gonna come down to, you know, in the past a lot of it. John mcain has such an influence when he was the chairman of the House House Arm Services Committee, there's no way he would approve us leaving out of there. And he in some cases the Senate and these politicians do have
more power than the president. Uh. And I think it just gets back to whether Lindsay Graham and the folks on the on I guess on the House, on the Senate Services Committee will do the same thing as Um. The guy from Nebraska is the is the new chairman. I think he's gonna be well on line with what
Trump wants to do. And I wouldn't be surprised if we cut the troops out of there by half at least before his reelection or his the re election back ISIS was one of the stories out of the the Intel chiefs when they reported to Congress last week, and the media making a big deal of Trump and disagreement with his intel chiefs or doesn't listen or doesn't read briefing books and all this different stuff attacking Trump because uh, you had people with the uniforms on saying ISIS is
still a threat and they'll be back and tough. Um, so are you saying they just they just take that point of view because they want to continue the military machinery going that direction. Or what is what is the inertia of that? Well, it's it's in their best interest from a risk perspective, to align themselves with the least risk averse position there is, and that is status quo. Let's not do anything. Let's keep changing the way we are.
Things are going fine. But Donald Trump is no different than any president in the past that takes intelligence information and uses it in the manner that he wants to, and in this case, he uses it in an opposite manner. You know. He brings up this great relationship we have with North Korea. He thinks things are going worse in Iran than they are. Um, he is again like the last two that have taken this intelligence information and used
it for whatever benefit he's wanted to do. My client's military analysts down the line dropping bombs of plane spoken wisdom. You're talking about how UH military and intelligence executives, as it were, behave a lot like I don't know, entertainment executives or other executives. The smartest thing they do I I remember. I'll put it this way. David Letterman will once said that UH TV executives jobs is having their
job at the end of the day. And so what you're saying is, if you advocate the status quo and it goes poorly, you're at much less risk career wise than if you advocate a change. Yeah, exactly. And you look at the Army, I still think, you know, I'm Army Green through and through, obviously, and I mean my son will go into the Navy. I've got to shift a little bit of loyalty there in some regards here shortly. But the bottom line is the Army struggles for a mission,
and it's struggling. And right now, if we come out of the Middle East, like what the president wants to do. The armies really going to struggle for our mission. The Navy will continue to get funded because the Navy projects power in the South, trying to see the Air Force
gets funded. It's a strategic weapon. But it's the army that endorses great hardship in the Middle East as the army that will have those casualties, and and and from my perspective, it's just time to come back and reinvent the whole process as to what we want our military to do. Well, that's interesting, that is tremendous, So a a shift, as I mentioned, Is there any role for the United States military beginning with providing humanitarian aid and
ending with a land invasion in Venezuela. Well, let's hope it's the aid. It's humanitarian aid, and let's hope it's in a peaceful transition, because that's such a tinder box that could take place. I mean, we're we're really looking much like the ninety nineties right now. Afghanistan is going to return back to the Taliban and power, and you're gonna have these Central American revolutions that are taking place. What could happen there is all function of what the
army does. If the army decides to turn against the citizens, you'll have a blood bath in the streets. As that military is well funded and is well prepared to do anything. Um, if if you can get a transition of power, if there's another election, if there's something, then perhaps it'll happen peacefully, but we've got to be especially careful. It's a good example of reallocating of resources. Maybe that that does become
the mission for our army. Maybe we do not from an occupation perspective, but let's focus towards on our own hemisphere, clean up our backyard, and then maybe that's the goal for the next ten years. It would be something that I think people can get their arms around. Hey, do you have or are you going to write a book or do you have a blog or anything that we can turn people onto because this is really good stuff. Yeah,
I don't. I'm I'm gonna write a book someday. It's called You've got to write a letter, and it's going to be about that. Everything I've ever done in my life always happened because I wrote a letter to something or somebody, and I keep sitting down, I start to write it, but then I get But now I've got to get something good on TV. That is. Yeah, I'm gonna write a bunch of I'm gonna write. You know, puberty changes everything that be about my coaching career, you know,
with some little kids. Amen to that. I'm a master of the obvious, you know what. And it's funny, Mike, I've considered writing a book many times, and every time I have the same thought. There are plenty of books. No one's going to read it. No one's going to read it anyway, supply without demand. Uh, Mike Clients, CBS News Military Analysts, Mike, fabulous. As always. We can't thank
you enough. Great guys, Thanks, thanks. Quite interesting. He's a lot closer to Rand Paul than he is to all of the main street media, who all of a sudden is in love with fighting endless wars because Trump's the president. Yeah but yeah, but he arrives at it through such an interesting, uh you know path as a major in the Army and an artillery commander and and Operation Desert
Shield and Desert Storm awarded the Bronze Star, etcetera. He knows what he is talking about from that point of view, From a soldier's point of view, and he arrives at a lot of the same conclusions that you know Rand Paul does you know via his row. Yeah, I'm not discounting all of my lions experience, which is vast and all that sort of stuff, But some of it's pretty damned obvious, it seems to me, and has been for years. Afghanistan's gonna end up in the hand of the Taliban.
We can't stop that, right in any agreement we forge with them will not be worth the goat skin it's printed on um unless we you know, there are certain boundaries which will not cannot be crossed, and and we are close enough to send something horrific from the sky to remind them of that. Some of our hanging around us keeping on our in Yeah, that's kind of what we thought for a long time. And now the Iraqis
have their japanties in a wad. Sorry to hear that we can ship them some good American made panties which you're probably made in China.