Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College All Things Hillsdale Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course I listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of them at hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale Hewett. So please, but welcome back to the program. Admiral Mark Sea montgomery 'admiral Montgomery's retired from
the United States Navy. He is in the past commanded carrier groups and he joins me from I don't know where. He's always going around the globe somewhere. Admiral, thank you for joining us again, fairly soon after your last appearance. But we've had a big new development, an embargo a blockade. Let me begin by asking you how do we do that?
Thank you for having you.
I am in Taiwan, where blockades are an interesting topic, So how do we do this one? This one is about I fully support this. The President had a couple options here. Iran was illegally blocking the you know, transit passage of merchant ships to the Straits orb who was trying to charge a toll you know, in contravention of
international law. He had two options, and one he could go back to the kinnetic attacks he was doing before the ceasefire, knock their you know, missiles, drones and such back, and then under you know, under threat of US military attack, escort threw merchant ships. The merchant ships weren't thrilled with this because there's still risk to them, you know, it's a very high risk in terms of the cost of their.
Of their cargo. So that was one option.
He chose the second option, which is, look, if you're going to block everyone else who doesn't pay you a toll, whose country of origin you don't like, I'm going to block you, and I'm going to stop detain sees and divert to friendly ports. Ships you know that have that have that have ported in Iranian ports and are now coming out of the streets trying to deliver you know, mostly fossil fuels.
And so I think this is the right thing to do. It is a it is the.
Much less risky to our force, much more direct you know, uh mission application of Iran knock this off.
So I add noll how many ships I've seen reports that we have fifteen ships on the station. I'm sure other ones are going there, and the hw Bush is coming around the long way. They're not going through the Red Sea to get there. How many ships do you need to effectively blockade? Both the Arabian Golf and the Golf are going on Iranian ports.
So I think what you do is you're selected. The answer is, you know variable, because you can select, do I try to stop every possible ship that's going to take a good number, you know, fifteen plus ships just I think for the Iranian side of it, the Gulf, the Arabian Golf, Sigh and Gulf of Amn side of it. But you know, if you seize enough of these, detain and seize them, work gets around the shadow fleet. The shadow fleet ships that hey, this is a bad business
deal for us. The owners of those ships, the merchant, the captains of those ships, they may be criminals, but they're not stupid, right like they do not want to have their vessel seas.
And by the way, once their vessel seas they're in the world have hurt. The chance that they.
Haven't done other violations, that the chance that once they were criminals, they kept adhering to International Maritime Organization rules for safety are pretty low. My gut reaction is those ships will be you know, fined and held for a long period of time. But the bottom line is deterrents will kick in. And so the question how many you need, you need a bunch up front, and I think fifteen is a pretty good number to start with.
Now, I read that we had in the chase of the Venezuelan tankers, two destroyers and an e SB exhibition I C base, overtake and board in seas of Venezuela and hot tanker. Is that what we have in mind here? ESPs and destroyers.
I think the boarding teams can be deployed from ESVs that can be deployed from destroyers. I think we'll get efficient at that so that they can be deployed from a lot of different assets and then you only need one asset. That was also a political chase where we were deciding what to do because the Russians the thing kept switching its flag of origin.
Once you leave in Iranian port, you've tripped the wire on this.
You can't change your flag of origin and hope that it's going to make a significant change in the pace with which we board you. So My take is that this will not be one of these extended you know, trans atlantic all the way from Venezuela to the coast of the ukata Iceland Gap. It won't be one of those. It these will be much quicker, much more, you know,
much more aggressive in our boarding. The boarding teams are limited too, although we do, you know, have a great number of special forces trained in this.
You want to just get them.
Up to speed on the latest steps of doing, you know, making sure you get everybody current, and then you can have multiple teams ready to go. You don't have to have just one or two teams doing all these boardings.
I had Admiral mcgraven on at the end of last year. He was talking about a new book, but he also referenced in that book that he was doing this in the Indian Ocean, repelling down onto tankers prior to the nineteen ninety one war with Saddam because we had a UN resolution that authorized it. We don't have a UN resolution authorizing this. Do you think we are comporting with the law of the sea when we board tankers like this?
I do if we feel Look, I'm pretty sure I'm not a maritime law expert I do not believe there's like a rico, you know, a clause in maritime law. But that's what's really happening here. Aroan is breaking international law by by preferentially giving transit passage to ships that either are Iranian or pay tolls to Iran. All illegal in my mind, these ships are participating in that conspiracy and benefiting from it. I think at a minimum that
gives us the opportunity to board it. Whether whether we can seize them under that is going to be different. But they definitely have been participating in an illegal activity soborn by the Iranian the IRGC. So we'll have to watch what, you know, we'll have to watch on this how far we can take this.
Some ships will be violating other sanctions that exist.
About Iran's oil, and other ones will be violated, you know, some are you know, there are law, there are sanctions against Iran already in existence before this. So if we're just simply enforcing that, then in that case, you know, we'll be completely within international and I'll probably be able to seize and you know, seize the content the cargo as well.
So I think I'm okay on that.
What is the risk to our boarding. You know, I'm thinking right now Jack Aubrey and Patrick O'Brien novels, and now it's a prize cruise and there's always a boarding party and a lot of people all got knocked over the head. But then the prize crews would sail the prize away. What happened to our special operators when they come down? What's their level of risk?
So there's different levels of visit boarding.
So Adam McCrae been talking about the highest level when it's done by special operators like himself or much younger versions of him. Now we also do this with other people like I did VBSS boardings. I mean we did it with traditional Navy officers as well, and Navy enlisted to personnel, and with Coast Guard enlisted personnel and officers on board the ships. So there's all kinds of different
levels of visit boarding these kind of teams. I suspect that we start with the high level, the Admiral McCabe and Sealed Team special operator focused level, and then we see what the hell the threat emerges on these when they drop down. I don't worry too much about like crew gets mutantus because a crew. Getting mutants against five or six admal mcgraveans is not going to go well for the.
Crew and wor to goot around.
Don't do that, then you put you bring on actual mariners who begin who direct the ship's crew in the operation of the ship to bring it into the port where you're going to detain them.
Okay, now that that raises a very arcane thing. Where do we go with the crew? I mean, what do we do with the hot oil in the ship?
Well, we're gonna have to find a completely a a participating port, you know, a country who's willing to support us on this and take these ships.
That if it were inside the Arabian golf, that's pretty easy.
I could name any of a number of Arab states that are happy to hold these for us. Outside the Arabian Golf, it gets a little more complicated whether Oman will take them obviously, you know, you can think about Yemen, Pakistan and India.
They're probably not going to take.
Them, and so you have to start, you know, working your way around and finding someone who is who is.
In charge of the specifics of an embargo. Admiral you've been in and out of depending on forever who's working this plan, because this is the first time we've done this since Cuba.
I think, well, we've done sanctioned enforcement though, I mean just off of Venezuela, we did it. We've done it against Iran, we've better. I don't believe we've done it against Russia explicitly, although we've been authorized to. We've just chosen not to.
And we've done it in the past against Iran and North Korea over years, so we know how to do it.
It is.
You're right, though it is an interagency process between the State Department and the Department of Defense. It's informed by the intelligence community, so there's a lot of you know, this has got to be done properly, but you know, the planning for it is coming out of US Central Command. The are been authorized as line of effort and they're coming to the plan, but it definitely needs State Department support.
They're the ones who go contact countries, I think, and say, can we bring you these ships, which you're not going to appreciate getting unless you already have significant beef with the rod in which case you won't care.
And the cargo on them are they sees for the benefit of the international community. Who have been hurt by Iran, So that.
Depends on whether they're in violation of an existing sanctions norm you know, some of these will be so some of these will be treated differently than others.
All right, I'll be right back with Admiral Montgomery after the break. During the break, I'm going to talk to him about any conditions under which we might actually sink as chef. That'll be over at my YouTube page. Don't go anywhere, stay on the sale on news channel. I'm back with Admiral Montgomery between network broadcasts. Admiral, are there any conditions under which you can imagine we would have to sink a ship leaving Iran?
Ship is remains non compliant and it's in our efforts to board it, you know, keeps its speed up.
You know, first of all, we can board by helicopters. At that point, we may also do some disabling fire. I don't think we're gonna like doing that, because you know, I'm not saying this is the pottery barn rules of general power, where you break it, you own it. But if you break it and then you want to take it someplace, now you've got to toe it.
So we'll be trying our hardest not to do damage.
The ship as we it's engineering plan, as we board it and and get it out.
Now, having said that, if we drop guys.
On and there is uh, you know, some kind of kinetic response by the Iranians, you know, we'll fight it and then drop back and if necessary, you know, take further action against the ship that could result in the sinking.
I doubt it. I think I think the Seals would win most of those you know meetings.
Would we would we give notice to a crew to abandoned ship of are we disabled or sunk it? Because it's an oil tanker, I assume it can explode at some point, Yes.
We would give we give the crew fair warning. Look, first, we're just trying to get them to lay two so we can board them. If they failed to allow us to do that, we might be disabling fire if necessary. Again, we're going to try to prevent that.
We're gonna but if we ever get to the point where we're going to sink it, we would give fair warning, I think, because my presumption is that some of the like the boat engineers and stuff are non combatants. In that case, they're just you know, unfortunate criminals along for the ride, and you know, we want to give them an opportunity to get off. I don't think we'd give them a lot of time though.
Now it's a speculative, Admiral. Are the American Naval officers and crews involved in this? Are they excited to be doing this? Is this something that they live for? You know?
I did a VBSS boarding of a ship where they sequentially shoveled sheep crap down on all of us as we climbed up the ladder wells to it that I did not look forward to the next few boardings.
But in general, this is about doing the mission.
I think, I think seal you know, our special operators have a operator. They get into an operational mindset and I'm not sure happy is the right word, but driven and fixated and focused and mission accomplished. So I'm not you know, the Seals will be fine. The Navy people supporting them, let's visit, boarding surgencies will be fine. I these these will not be considered unimportant missions by by naval crews.
And one minute too we go back. Is the Navy under stress right now? Given the number of ships we have and how many are deployed.
So it's becoming under stress. And you know this, this is a law. You know this is an extended a pointment. We were under stressed after October seventh when we served ships to the Middle East. That's maintained through the Venezuela operations and now the increase for this. So what I would tell you is it's you have to look across a two to three year spectrum and say, too many ships have been underway, missing maintenance availabilities, getting backed up
for training assessments, crews deployed excess amount of times. Yes, we are under stressed. Air Force fighter squadrons under stressed, and RB air defenders are under stressed. Those are three vital assets that have been pushed hard in the Middle East. So, yes, there's stress.
But we're coming right back with the Admiral standby, be right back. Welcome back in America. I'm gonna do it with a senior fellow for the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy. We're Admiral Mark Montgomery, retired in the United States Navy. I remember we have watched a six week war unfold, its head turns and twists, the blow up in Islamabad. Now the embargo how do you assess how it's going overall?
Well, look, if our you know, if our strategic goal was regime change, where we have not, we're not on track to achieve it.
If our strategic goal is change how the regime acts towards its partners, towards Israel, towards the United States, we're on the sp we're moving that, and we've applied a lot of combat power that makes it. You know, as Brad Admiral Cooper and Denial Kine have laid out, we have really eliminated a significant amount of their of Iran's cost and position capabilities and their production facilities to reconstitute them.
So there, I would tell you we've made a lot of progress on that, but obviously we haven't achieved, you know, a complete change in how the regime acts, as evidence by them walking away from Vice.
President advance in Asamabad.
I think the embargo will be another pressure element applied to them. This is going to hurt them economically significantly, and we'll see if it brings them back to the table so they do change the regime's behavior.
No, No, I count this as a strategic win. I'd like your opinion on it. This is Secretary of Rubio speaking bluntly about the regime in Iran, cut number six.
These people are lunatics, They are insane. They are religious zelots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future. And all of their neighbors know that, by the way, which is why.
All of their nual I think that's the kind of clarity America needed about the Islamic Republic, and I count that as a win. Do you, I do.
I think it'd even better if we played clips from the Supreme previous Supreme leaders comments about what they would do to Israel when they got a bomb, what they would do in the United States when they got a bomb and a long range ICBM. There's no doubt that they had apocryphal intentions towards Israel and eventually towards the
US States. We're holding we're holding them accountable for what they said they would do when they got those weapons, and preventing them from getting the precursors those weapons, whether they be in ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons, is absolutely appropriate.
Last question, Adam, I give you a couple of minutes to open this up on for people to be educated. We've invested a lot of our navy's resources and our military's capital in the Middle East for thirty months since ten to seven, and rightly, so, where have we thinned it out in response? Because we don't have a lot of strategic reserve built into our military.
You're absolutely right, Hugh, is that when there's a we have you know, two hundred and eighty to three hundred ships at any one time and commission, about a third of them can be underway and about you know, seventy to eighty could be like deployed. So when you have a significant amount deployed like this on this mission, it means that you're not doing something someplace else.
I think it's the Western Pacific is the big loser on this. And you know a number of ships that are operating, you know, from the Koream Peninsula down to Singapore, you know, down to Australia is low because we push those ships forward either and we haven't had ships stop there. They've gone from San Diego all the way straight to the Arabian Gulf.
We've got to prevent that. Right, we are losing some deterrent impact on China. But what I'm really worried about is two to three years from now, there's going to be a readiness deficit, both in the Navy ships, the Air Force fighter squadrons that we have at Basis, and Army air defenders. All three of those assets are burning readiness right now. In the Middle East.
It's important they're burning readiness because we're accomplishing a national security a mission tasked by the President. But when that's over, you need to understand that our ability to do other missions is impacted.
I don't understand that, Admiral, what do you mean we're burning readiness?
That means what happens is when ships do these kind of missions, and you served ships in to do we wouldn't normally have fifteen destroyers in the Middle East. We'd have them doing training, doing maintenance, doing other things.
What happens is they all come back and they try to pile into maintenance activities together and they get extended out. Over two or three years. They tried to pile into training activities to get it and expanded out. So when you look forward, like twenty four or thirty six or forty eight months from now, there's a lot less ships underway. Famously, we did this in twenty thirteen to twenty fourteen in the Middle East, where we had two carrier strike groups
on deployment for eighteen months straight. The reflection came four years later, twenty seventeen President Trump and his first year as president, he had no carriers deploy So that was the readiness had been burned four years earlier, and ships were not effectively ready to go, you know, four years. Hence now carriers tend to show themselves much later.
The destroyers will be earlier two to three year years from now.
There'll be lesser stories available for underway operations because of the excess deployment time they're doing right now and did six months ago and twelve months ago.
Okay, last question, Admiral, our allies in the Pacific, Philippines, Australia and Singapore, Taiwan, Japan. Are they viewing this as a net plus because Iran might flip from being with the alliance of tyrants to being at least neutral, maybe on our side, or are they viewing it as a positive negative in other words, a disaster for readiness in the Pacific.
Look, they understand both of those impacts, and I'll tell you they take a third one, which is they like to see the United States standing up to an authoritarian regime right alongside a model ally Israel. You know who's another model, ally Japan as they increase their defense spending. You know who's another model, ally Korea as they increase
their defense spending, another model ally Taiwan. Those three countries see this and see the United States taking action alongside in this case a non treaty ally Israel, and they appreciate it.
And non treaty.
Allies in the former Saudi Arabia ue Qatar, they appreciate that. And by the way, the Taiwanese particularly have to look at this counter block and bargo issue, go, hey, that's a pretty good trick. China tries to blockade ships from coming to visit US in the United States goes down the streets of block and says, nothing goes to China.
I mean, that's a pretty good lesson.
For the Chinese that they're not going to have their way with a blockade or embargo against Iiwan without a counter punch from the United States.
So in all those ways, you they're happy.
Padn't thought about that, but that's why we talked to you. Admiral Mark Montgomery, Rare Admiral Mark Montgomery, retiring United States Navy Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy, following him on acts at Mark C. Montgomery. If he only caught the last part of that, I'll post it over at my YouTube channel as well. Thank you, Adam. I'll get some sleep wherever you are far flying across the world. We never find them in the same place. Twice.
Welcome back, America. If you don't recognize that music, it's because you're under sixty. That's the same sound from Let's Make a Deal, which marked Michael Orran, doctor Michael Orran, ambassador from is to the United States for many many decades. He used that analogy today with a Viva Klompass in her wonderful podcast Boundless Insights and dtr Orran. I normally just take everything you say and believe it. But I think you're depressed. I think you need some sleep. This
was a big win for America and Israel. They're bleeding out over there in the regime of the fanatics. Why are you so depressed?
Well, and you go back to what I said about the number one and door number two. All right, Monty Hall, forgive me. Behind door number one is Iran wins the war. Ron wins the war even though it lost its navy and lost its many many factories and so many institutions and its leadership. But the fact of that is that the United States and Israel did not achieve any of our strategical goal as yet of eliminating Iran's nuclear capabilities. Certainly that Arsenal stockpile of high in the enrich geranium
remains there. The ballistic system, probably fifty percent of their rockets are still usable with rockets and that can be launchers, which is a serious threat to Israel in the Middle East.
Iran can still support terror and the straits of her moves.
It was not in control of the rounds, not in stroll of the straights of the moves before the war.
Now it is okay. So that's behind door number one.
Behind door number two is that Iran lost the war and America and Israel are the great winners of the war. Because yes, none of these strategic objectives have been a change. But Iran is economically broke its own people hate the regime. Eighty five percent of the people hate the regime. Irani regime has no friends in the Middle East at all. It's surrounded now by enemies. It has lost and estimated three hundred billion dollars in assets, and damage has suffered, and it's not coming back.
It's not coming back.
And the ring of fire that terrorist groups that Iran once had against Israel has been greatly, greatly depleted. And it's just a matter of time before this regime fall. So you know more Number two, Umber one, door number two. Clearly the truth lies somewhere in between. And this naval blockade which the President is now levied today on Iran could design between door number one and door number two.
And here I have a feel, but you know, I don't know if you saw the fox off ed I had about two weeks ago where I called for a naval blockade, that this is the ultimate end for this war, that the goal of that the model of the war is not a rock in Afghanistan but the Cold War. And you have an initial military stage which is followed by a strong economic stranghold on Iran to bring the
regime down. And I hope that this will be the balance, this will make the decision between door number one and door number two.
All right, let me add a couple of dimensions for you two the strategic goals obtained as a broadcaster and an analyst in the United States. I want to play for you Marko bo enunciating what I consider to be a strategic win, which is clarity in the United States. Cut numbers six, Secretary of State Rubio.
These people are lunatics, They are insane. They are religious zelots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future.
And all of their.
Neighbors know that, by the way, which is why all of their neighbors have been supportive of the efforts work.
Sir Ambassador or I think it is a strategic breakthrough that the jcpoa Obama, Podbros. And everybody on the left are now confronted with the fact that Yosemite Sam lives in Tehranney fires at everyone whenever he's mad. I mean, we can't hide. But they're not rational people. They'll never be rational people.
Well that we would assume in Israel debt that that would be self evident, that you know, the difference between North Korea and Iranas and North Korea gets nuclear weapons because it wants food. Iran wants to gole weapons because it wants to dominate the Middle East and ultimately the world,
and his lie systematically about its nuclear program. I was actually in the room in Washington, in the in the White House when Fordah was revealed, when the kum the underground facility was discovered, and oh wow, gee, they have this underground facility just to make peaceful nuclear power with the one hundred thousand centrifuges.
So they lie about it all, and of course this is what they want to do.
It if they had had that nuclear weapon, they would be sitting now on this dride the Straits of Humus with the nuclear weapon and in the United States would not be able to levy that naval blockade.
If you were to ask, I think I probably said this on the program before. If you would ask Bill Clinton.
Whether he could go back, you know, thirty forty years and prevent North Korea from getting a nuclear weapon by use of military means, would he say yes?
Of course he'd say yes.
And what the administration is doing now with this naval blockade is not just assuring the security of Americans now, but assuring the security of the children grandchildren of America's today.
And I think that gets into the groundwater of American public opinion. I think the Democrats have gone off the left edge and they're going to have to bring themselves back. I'lla Clinton in nineteen ninety two before anyone takes them seriously. Let's talk next about Lebanon. You were worried with Lady's accompass about Lebanon, and I really do understand it's a neglistential threat. I really do understand you're beating the crap
out of him. And when you said the President leaned on you a little bit, that might have been a little public consumption stuff. I don't think we're asking you to stop, are we, because you can't.
No, No, it wasn't stopping.
I think the President asked them to scale it down. So what we did was to stop bombing Beirut.
And we're focusing our.
Aerial activity and our grand activity on southern Lebanon the time.
B but still it's not going to get the head of the snake.
And eventually, if we're going to stop his Bola to degree that we can stop is Bola short of some type of international intervention or preferably the drying up of the of the funds from Iran. That's what would kill his bula. We're going to have to keep on striking it, his bulla wherever it is. But we're up against a
and I cannot stress this enough, Hugh. We're up against a narrative that has taken hold of the mainstream media in the United States, which is that, you know, Israel's wake up in the morning, we think nothing else but to go out and kill a bunch of innocent Lebanese
without provocation. So you had a front page story in the New York Times what two or three year days ago that was a huge story, went on for like five ten pages about all the suffering that we have inflicted on the Lebanes without mentioning.
One, not one rocket fired it at Northern Israel.
Hugh. His bulla has fired six thousand rockets at Northern Israel.
It fired at the other day at Southard Israel.
I made another note when I'm stopping every minute I'm out there trundling on my run in the morning, listening to you and Aviva, and I stopped and tell Michael, nobody reads the New York Times anymore. They do the crossword puzzles, they play wordle and they listen to the recipe. Jonathan Swine and Maggie Haberman have a good piece. They have a few good reporters, but nobody take their cues from it. And what did you make of the President
denouncing the Nutter fringe of the Republican Party? Finally, the people who hated Israel?
He probably that's why I candid them. That's great, that's great, But listen, it's not just the New York Times. That's the thing.
You know, even out of the Wall Street Journal. We tend to depend more on the Wall Street Journal. I had a headline two days ago Israeli's kill eleven Lebanese.
Who were they?
Eleven Lebanese? They were just Bulla people.
A major aerial operation against against against Beirut the other day, and they the reporters said that three hundred elevenies were killed. Of the three hundred elevenies, because how many were his Bullah? In one building? We killed one hundred his ball of terrorists in one building. We have killed one thousand, four
hundred his Bulla terrorists since this war began. You de duck that from those casualty levels there, and you're going to get something like a one to one civilian to combatant casualty ratio, which is which is a world record, But you won't hear that anywhere anywhere in the mainstream President United States. So is a systematic delegitimization of this country and the denial of our right to defender cells.
And I'll be right back with Michael Lauren because I've got I'm mister happy Talk today because I'm so glad that jd Vance slapped them and left that I'm enormously relieved that we didn't do a deal and instead we've got an embargo. But I'll bring doctor Oran back during the break. We'll play on the podcast, and you'll be back after the break as well. I'm back with Michael
Oran during the break. Michael, there is this trend line that shows younger Americans influenced by TikTok and other influencers don't support Israel the way that older Americans like my generation does. I also believe that that's going to change because the trajectories of the countries are so dramatically different. Israel emerges from this war a technological superpower, the only reliable ally we have who can interoperate with us in a way that has not been sent since World War
Two and probably not even then. And they're reliable and they talk to us versus the I mean marginal people on either end of the spectrum who don't like Jews and they're poor, sick people. I just think, to Iran is broken? Am I too happy?
Hold on, listen, We thought we had defeated his Bola very very decisively during the last round of fighting.
And it turned out we didn't look how quickly they came back.
So my fear is, and I'll put my finger on it that, Yeah, the Rudions will do, will make, you know, reopen the straits of humors. They may give up the nuclear arsenal, the stockpile, they may you know, freeze enrichment indefinitely, but the quid pro quoe could be sanctioned relief. And to me, and I think too of the Israelis, that is the key to it all that the minute they get their hands on money, they will rebuild.
And that's going to be crucial. I haven't seen the president talk about, you know what he's willing to pay for any of this. He set down the red lines. We like the red lines very much.
And by the way, the IDF is on high alert tonight for the possibility of renewed fighting.
We all are we just you know, we have.
Our national it's Holocaust Memorial Day to day, and then we have our Independence Day coming up, and our National Memorial Day for the Army coming up. And most of the ceremonies have now been canceled for the fear that Iran actually may launch a preemptive strike against us. And we'd have, you know, thousands of thousand people out of some ceremony. We'd like that, But I think the concern here is that the sanctions would be lifted and Iran would then use that money to rebuild.
So you wrote a book Israel at one hundred, probably four years ago, before ten to seven, and you were mister optimists, with the exception of the Haredi issue and a couple of other issues, including the Palestinian popular I am very much more an optimist for Israel now because regime, it's my understanding, you're the historian. My understanding, no Arab regime, no Middle Easian regime, suffers a loss of faith, there's significant and survives. Am I right about that?
Depends on you to define regime. But Arab leaders have suffered tremendous loss of faith. You know, Gamal Apto Nasser survived. He died of a heart attack after the in nineteen seventy fifter Six Day War.
But you can survive.
Certainly, the Asads kept on losing in Syria, but you know they survived because they have their the ability to oppress their population. You know, it could be the eighty five percent of the Iranian population hates the regime, but if they're afraid to go out in the street, you know, because they're going to get a bullet in their head and they would, then that regime can survive and it
can build again. We're dealing with an enemy here that does not think in terms of weeks and months, but rather years and decades.
Look what's happening with Hamas.
And Gaza Look what happened, which was look what happened with Hamas and Gaza U All right.
Basically they were let off the hook. Yeah, sure, we'll we'll disarmed, we'll disarm.
And now they're telling to the United States to take a powder and they're getting stronger and stronger every day, and the most recent news shows that they are rebuilding their rocket capabilities.
All right, stand by, we're coming back on the network. Doctor Michael Oran is with me. Stay tuned, Welcome back in America. Doctor Michael Lauren, former Israeli ambassador United States, former deputy minister in a previous Netnahuu government, is still with me, Doctor arn Because you were pessimistic this morning on the podcast I listened to, I'm going to ask
you to put on your optimist hat. And I hope you and I hope you both we both talk on Israel's hundredth birthday, and I have a feeling it will be a superpower, the equal of the United States, with its own B two bombers and its own strategic capability, and no one will screw with them, and that there will be oil and gas pipelines that end up in Haifa because it's safer than going through the Red Sea.
I have a different bit. What is your most optimistic vision for Israel at its one hundredth birthday in twenty forty eight.
Now I would subscribe to everything you just said, But the biggest challenge for this country, you know, far beyond Iran ultimately, are the internal challenges.
Whether we can reunite the unite Israeli society.
The issue of the ultra Orthodox service in the military, their integration and the economy is tearing this country apart, and it's got to stop. We had the Chief of Staff tell the government last week that unless the ultra Ethlex are inducted in the military, the army is going to collapse. Can you imagine, you know, the chairman of the joined Chief of Staff saying that to the President of the United States in the middle of a war.
So these are major.
Issues that are not well understood outside of Israel, but in Israel, everyone knows that these are the make it or break it, make it or break it issue. And I just add one other thing about make it or break it is that what's going to make it or break it in this war, it's a match of wills. It's the Iranian will against the American will.
And we are here.
We're not going anywhere.
We've been through a lot in many ways, were tired, and some of us are depressed, but we know we have no choice and we're going to keep fighting.
And we just hope that the American people will understand.
That this is a war not just for their security today, but for the churity of their children and grandchildren, and that's where that can. You gonna kick that can down the ball of the world road. That's where that can is going to end up in future generations.
Okay, good question. You've carried a lot. I hope you've carried a lot of the load of doing public diplomacy for Israel. I mean, you've been working around the clock. I don't know how many interviews you've given in the last five weeks, but it's got to be three hundred, yeah four. Who does that when you retire? Who has got and who actually has credentials. There are a lot of people who have talking heads in Israel, just like here, but not many of them have sured does Ambassador of
the United States? Do they have any young people groom for that?
John, No, they don't. But we have some really excellent young people are coming up the pipe. I know you've had an istery you've had have you've ret the gore on your program? Who's excellent.
If you know.
Natasha Hausdorf, he's this international lawyer's wonderful for Britain. There are some young people who are coming up were terrific, really terrific to be in the government room.
In the government. It means you have to be in governments.
Having sat in the Parliament for five years, you don't necessarily get to do this. You're busy voting on postal reform, but I'm working on you often mentioned you're very nice to mention. My NGO called the Israel Advocacy Group, and one of the things we do with the israe Athecy Group is.
Try to groom young people.
To a point where they can enable me to retire because after this war, who knows we may need it.
How do you do that? Because there's a funny place to end. We do need people to make the arguments from Israel in English to Americans about why you are our greatest ally and will remain that way. And if the Israel Advocacy Group is doing that, Americans of all stripes ought to support the Israel Advocacy Group. How do you do it? Thank you?
How do we do it?
We work, We have some food from generous donors, and I have to spend a big chunk of my time fundraising and showing and we so, for example, if we've done on four hundred interviews in the last six weeks, we send this out to our donors. Then they can click on any of those interviews and see them. I was on Fox Elier tonight. I just finished about four interviews tonight alone. And that's an addition to writing. And I'm coming out with a book about this war, a very detailed book with HarperCollins.
Well more about that later. And we're just we are acting around.
I had a wonderful staff, and I think above all a very dedicated, indefatigable and fearless wife. So a lot of we keep in mind that most of the interviews with the United States are on your primetime, which is two, three, four o'clock in the morning, our time.
Yeah, very last question, doctor Oran. When you look back at ten to six and you look today and here we are in April, is Israel better off than it was despite the horror that would come on ten to seven? Then it was on ten six, twenty three.
Oh instably and asked toably war. I know this is a very controversial thing. I'm going to say the war saved us at a horrible price, but it saved us. We were privitly content to let his bullet humus, you know, build up on our borders, to let Iran get nuclear capabilities and to let them build up ballistic capabilities that would threaten us in a conventional way.
We were preventing.
The ultra arth stocks. Enlistment issue was a radical left wing issue, it wasn't a national issue. And so today no terrorist organization is going to build up on our borders again. We are facing this ultra orthlocks issue and we will face Iran and we will address the question of you know, the Iran's threat to our national assistance.
And aimably is the correct answer my view, Doctor Michael Awan. Always a pleasure following on action, Dr Michael Law and support Israel Advocacy Group because if anyone can room people are to talk and communicate its Michael Lauren, Thank you, doctor. I'll be right back, Stay tuned. I'm America. I'm h Hughett. Welcome to the Sale News at Salem Radio Network, our
wonderful array of affiliates across the United States. We had a whka Y talk radio over the weekend in Hickory, North Carolina, twelve ninety AM and one or two point three FM. Welcome, there are hundreds of you and we're glad to have you. Look. Oil is in the front pages. Everybody knows that they're paying more for gas. I thought I would go to the source, the American Petroleum Institute, and ask them about what I thought I knew. But I'm a lawyer and I used to do environmental law,
but I didn't really do energy. And so I'm so pleased to welcome Dustin Meyer, Senior vice president of API. The American Petroleum Institute is where you go for your facts and figures on oil. Dustin, how long have you been with API?
Well almost eight years, but been in the oil business my entire career.
All right, So my big question is when something like the Strait of Horror Moves gets shut down, oil goes up. I think it's about one hundred and two dollars a barrel today. How does that signal other producers of oil to bring new production online?
Yeah, Well, when it comes to a disruption like this, there's always two variables, right, There's the scale of it, and there's the duration. We've known the scale from the beginning, and the straight orforard Moves has always been a critical choke point. It's about twenty percent of global oil supply, twenty percent of global LNG supply. Major refined products transit as well. So we know the scale, but the duration has always been the open question. Right now, we're at
about six weeks. It could go farther. And the reason why I mentioned that is because when you start considering what the supply response is going to be from other producing areas, it really does depend on that duration. You're not going to see much of a response if there's a conflict or a disruption that only lasts a couple
weeks or a month and a half. It's really once you get into month two, month three, month four that that provides a clear enough and persistent enough signal to see a meaningful production response, be it from the United States or anywhere else around the world.
So let's talk about the indication that would you would be led to believe it's going to be long in the have to lead to a supply response. How long or what sort of things would make you call up your buddies in the API world and say, you know, we've got to turn on some wells, or we got to uncap some old wells, or we got to drill some new wells.
Well.
I think realistically it would take several months. You know, there's just a lot of uncertainty and volatility in the marketplace right now, and for any company that's operating around the world, including in the United States, you need clarity, You need some predictability to make what are ultimately pretty large CAPEX decisions. A lot of the companies you know, are very clear about this coming into the year. Coming into the year, the market environment was very different, right
The markets were very well supplied. If anything, people thought that market prices were going to fall, and companies set their capital expenditures accordingly. Now to be moving in a fundamentally different trajectory, well cryer is a pretty significant shift. If you're going to do that, you may if you know that the duration is going to be persistent, but if you think it's going to be short lived, that's a lot less likely, and so we need to be realistic about what the supply response is.
Going to be.
It's always the case that the United States is uniquely responsive to changing market conditions. Right Not only are we the world's largest oil producer, but we have also been the world's largest supplier of new oil over the last several years, including if you go back to the Russian invasion Ukraine, that was a significant price spike that lasted for several months, and you saw US increase their production significantly.
So the United States is well positioned to do it, but it is still a function of the duration of the crisis of the disruption.
Where when we go to get new supply do we look in American terms, not to Venezuela getting new equipment, new operators, but in the United States, where are the wells that come online when the price rises in stays sufficiently high that it makes economic sense for the company involved.
Yeah, so the United States is really blessed to have so many diverse producing basins. But what you've seen over the last several years is that really the first place to respond, the first basin to respond, especially for oil markets, is almost always the Permian basin in West Texas and going into eastern New Mexico. I mean, it's the most important oil field in the world. It's a tremendous resource,
and developers there can move pretty quickly. And so when you rewind back to these various crises points throughout the last several years and then you see a US production response and look at where it came from, it does overwhelmingly often come from the Permian basin. But that's not to say that that's the only game in town. Right The Bachan formation up in North Dakota is a tremendous resource.
We have a lot of development going on in the Gulf of America that's a little bit longer lead time that's not going to be responsive to rapidly changing market conditions of the sorts that we've seen over the last couple of months. But it is still a huge baseload source that we continue to exp and that's one of the benefits of the overall US portfolio of producing assets
is it's not just one basin. There are so many different supply zones that we can pull on, both in the short term and in the long term.
Now and again, I'm a lawyer and a landage sky, not an economist, But one of the few things I remember learning about economics is that the answer to high prices is high prices, and people answer high prices by producing more of what is in demand. Two ways to produce it increase the supply or increase the delivery mechanisms. And I've read over the weekend that there are a lot of plans to diversified delivery from our friends in
the Gulf, thee Saudi Arabia, Kuwait via pipelines. What do you know about that?
Yeah, I mean these are pretty loosely foregmned plans, but it makes sense. And this is one of the oldest rules in the energy business, right is there is strength in diversity of supply. This has always been the case. In many ways. This is an unfortunate reminder of how important that lesson is. It has long been known that the straight of Horror Moves is a critical choke point
for energy flows. Now having been through this experience, you could completely understand if a lot of producers in the Golf area are very interested in expanding or developing new infrastructure that's designed to circumvent the straight of Horror moves and maybe move product from the east to the west and have it go out the Red Sea or have
it go all the way up through the Mediterranean. I think that that inevitably, whenever this conflict ends, that is going to be one of the takeaways is the importance of diversifying supply, not just within the Persian Gulf region itself, but even around the world. And again, when you look around the world, there's only so many major supply sources out there, and the United States really is one of them.
That's why it's so important to have a policy environment in place that ensures that our companies and investors from around the world can develop these resources a timely manner to reduce the overall dependence on some of these ship chokeholds like the straight offormos.
Now dusin Meier. I assume that American Petroleum Institute not only knows where all the oil is and all the gas, they also know who builds the pipelines, and they also know who builds the infrastructure. Is their capacity within those companies to go about a year or two years worth of infrastructure expansion.
Oh?
Absolutely. I mean the industry is capable of building enormous projects very swiftly and can move quite quickly, and so yeah, the capabilities are there. It really just becomes a question of, you know, is there a long term signal to make these sort of investments that ultimately have to last for
many decades in order to really make sense. I think that this has been such a painful chapter for so many different regions of the world that that probably sends a pretty strong signal, not just in the Gulf area, but in the United States. You know, we talk a lot, Hugh, about how difficult it is to build projects in the United States. We benefit from all of these resources in the subsurface, but can we reliably get them from where the product is produced to where it's in demand. Historically
the answer has been yes. But now it's so difficult to build interstate natural gas pipeline. Sometimes it can be difficult to build LNG export projects. Getting that level of permitting certainty is so important for our industry, not just here in the United States, but anywhere around the world, because that's the sort of investment that the world is going to need coming out of this conflict.
You know, Leader Thoon and Spiger Johnson both been on this program talking about permitting reform that will allow us, for example, to connect Pittsburgh area natural gas with New England that is paying so much. Do you think that this shock will shock some legislators into realizing we need permitting reform in the United States.
Well, it's a great question, Hugh. And look, permitting reform has been our number one legislative priority already, going all the way back to last summer. Right, it is so essential that we get this done. And I think that the experiences over the last couple of months, among other things, it is a reminder of the importance of controlling your own energy destiny, and one of the obstacles for us
doing that. We've made a lot of progress as we've shifted from being a major importer of oil and gas to being a net energy exporter, the world's largest producer of oil, the world's largest producer of natural gas, and all of the benefits that come along with that. We've made a lot of progress, but the primary remaining obstacle is the need to reform our permitting system to the environmental review process that has become so disconnected from what
the original statutory intent was. It just makes it so difficult to build anything anywhere. I absolutely think that that is one of the lessons from this crisis is you have to be able to build things in your own country. You have to be able to build it quickly. Everybody agrees there should be an environmental review process, nobody questioning that, but it should be smart, it should be predictable allow those investments to take place.
Dustin Meyers, Senior vice president of the American Patroleum Institute, Thanks for being available on a hurry for me, and I look forward to talking to another API spoke first and about Nizeweale another alternative later in the week. I appreciate your being there. Don't go anywhere, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt on the Salem News Channel Salem Radio Network. It's a wonderful radio affiliate network. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewett.
Selena Asita has calmness of the world. She's the President's favorite journalist. She's also a writer for The Washington Post, the Washington exemin of the New York Post, to Pittsburgh Post Gazette and creator Syndicate Selena, I want to talk to you about your piece about the pit revival, but before I do, I have had messages today from TDS affected old friends who want to know if I'm outraged
at the President and the poper mixing it up. And I won't engage because this is hardly new and it's hardly news, and it hasn't bothered me in the least. You're as catholic as I am. What's your reaction?
Same?
Absolutely the same.
In fact, I didn't even know about it until today because I've been so busy working and I don't. Sometimes wonder you how do people even have time to spend as much energy on being outraged when.
Catholic they're anti Trump, and so they want Catholics to be anti Trump, and Catholics say, uh, the pope. The pope gets it right, the pope gets it wrong. The Pope doesn't do politics. The pope does doctrine. Call me when he says that divorce people and get married, or call me when he says the communion, Yeah, call me on a doctrinal matter. I don't expect them to get politics, right, do you.
No?
Absolutely no, it's not a politician.
I mean in a way he is, but in a way that we don't think of in traditional American politics. Look, popes have always weighed in on wars. Popes have always weighed in on immigration. It's often always been way off from from where leaders of countries are for a variety of different reasons. But that's the way a pope is always going to be. Does it make me dislike the pope? Does it make me dislike the president? It's just another day that ends with why as.
Far as okay, let me switch over to your fascinating story on Sanctuary Church in Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Revival and what happened downtown. Tell people about it, take your time.
Yeah, it was really amazing.
It was how the University of Pittsburgh at at Peterson Center where the peat as they call it, which is where you usually will catch a basketball game or cont shirt. Uh, And it was filled with thousands and thousands of mostly young.
People though I'm not so young, who just came for for this revival.
It's it's sort of stemmed out of another revival that happened in September, not long after Charlie Karp was murdered, and and it's it's just sort of this growth that I've seen in faith that has been happening since excuse me, last fall. And I have to say in that story, I also talk about the growth and Catholic attendance. And my little parents alone there were too. My little parents is just like this little country church, right, there's two
hundred new baptisms, and they were babies. They were all babies of people coming coming together and being awakened right drawn back into church.
And it's a very very real thing.
Well, you know, I went to the vigil on Saturday night Eastern because I was working on Sunday morning for Fox New Sunday, and so I went to the vigil, which is not my favorite service because it is a three and a half hour service, but there were fifty adult baptisms, which is kind of remarkable. And I don't think it's unique. I think it's going on. I credit Focus, which was begun by Archbishopship Hugh Back in Denver. I credit John Paul, the Ion and the benedict Seminarians, not
the Francis Seminarians. Don't credit them. But I think the American Church is pretty vibrant right now. And I got to say, sixteen minutes went out of their way to find the three lefties who are bishops in the United States, and they didn't do the church in the favor, but they didn't hurt it either. It's not like it makes it. It's like throwing pebbles at a battleship, right, and.
People are people that are drawn to Catholicism.
If we just keep it a Catholicism, people would have drawn to Catholics andraicism. We're not watching sixty minutes to see three people gripe about American politics.
They're just not These are most.
Of these people that are coming to the faith are young, they have young families.
You know, just this little antidote from yesterday. I am always late.
For church, not like late you're Italian.
When the bells ring, I'm just like scooting in there.
And there are four parking lots and they're filled to the brim and people are parked on It wasn't like this year ago.
People are parked on the side of the road.
And this die comes past me like really aggressive, like mad, and he goes and he's grumbling about it because I can't believe the parking here.
And I said, you ought to consider the alternative.
Yeah, And.
He looked at me and I said, yesterday. Yesterday was the one hundredth anniversary. I hope people go to my Twitter account and check this out.
I put it very sad today, one hundred anniversary of the church that my family came up in, and it was the last service.
I couldn't even bring myself to go.
Well, you know, it happened sometimes because of demographics and populationship. Yes, what are they going to do? What are they going to do with the building.
I don't know.
I think it's too soon. But yeah, the neighborhood changed drafts drastically. It was a church that you walked to. It really have a parking lot. It was built one hundred years ago when the northern suburbs of the city were booming, and that has changed.
People have moved.
They have moved to places where I am, where it's more country, more rural, and that's where you see the explosion in a lot of churches.
So it has always been, so it will always be. But I did see your post and I thought, oh, that's kind of sad. On the other hand, tell me about the church as a whole and not about the arguments between the pope and the president. They're not very similar people, right, They're not very similar.
You know, They're not similar people at all.
And the only people that are mad about this is the same people that are mad every day, every minute of every day, who cannot have gotten over Donald Trump winning one, not one, but two elections, And they're going to be mad for the rest of their lives because he's never going to leave the atmosphere in terms of a kid, He's going to always be part of what we talk about in American culture and politics, and.
Their anger is not good for them.
I really do believe that.
I think I think their anger is disfiguring their peace of mind and probably taking years off of this life and maybe making it more difficult than the next. I'm not sure. I don't judge, judge not let you be judged. Selena Zito. You can follow or add Zito Selena on ax. See the picture of her beautiful church of origin. Were you baptized there?
Selena?
I was dead my dad?
All right, So go look at the picture over at Zito Selena on ax. Sign up for all of the columns at Selena zito dot com and come right, my friends. You've probably seen the headlines are worse your latest cell bill, big wirelesses raising rates again. That means you could be paying more for the same service, or getting pushed into a priceier plan that you simply don't need. That's the right.
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what you pay. Take control today. Visit Consumer Cellular dot Com slash hugh and use the promo code Hugh Hugh for your second month for free, or call eight hundred four one one forty four fifty four again. Remember my code is Hugh. If you're over fifty, listen to this. You can get a single line with unlimited talk texting data for just thirty five dollars. I'm a consumer Sellular dot Com slash Q. I'm blowna back in America. I'm
Hewett his promise. Josh Cross, our editor in chief of Jewish Insider, Josh, how would you judge reaction both within the American Jewish community and within Israel to the ceasefire and the embargo?
So two different, I think points of view when you look at Israeli public opinion and American Jewish public opinion. There was a wave of new polls in Israel that we reported on this weekend showing a lot of Israeli frustration.
About the ceasefire. This is conducted by the way before.
The negotiation in Pakistan went nowhere, and that Trump has now decided to blockade the straight and sounding a more I think a much more hawkish tone in the last twenty four hours. But look, I think Israelis expected, at least for the time being, a little more impact out of the military operation. I think they're satisfied. And Benjamin Netanyahu gave I think a notable speech where he talked about the damage done to the Iranian ballistic missile program,
to the nuclear program. But based on some of the rhetoric at the beginning of the war versus what was accomplished so far, I think a lot of Israelis are a little bit I mean, they spent six weeks in bomb shelters and having their lives disrupted.
I think they expected a more military games with the war to go on longer.
Frankly, there's a hawkish sense that that there should have been more military action taken. I think in the US Jewish community it's much more divided. I think it's more divided along partisans, where Jewish Democrats I think are more cool about the war, and Jewish Republicans and dependence that may be more supportive.
But I also think that there's a lot of uncertainty about where this is going.
To go given the negotiations which led you know, the Trump administration have a hard line, and now we will see where things happen, but where things head militarily.
Now, Josh, my point of view is the Iranians are always lying and the Americans in the Israelis are never telling us the whole truth. I suspect that I have seen estimates of three hundred billion dollars worth of damage to the Iranian economy, and embargo means they're out of money. They could have their assets seeds at any moment by the UAE, where the shadow banking is. They're on their back, and I don't know what they're going to do if we board and seize a couple of tankers or even worse,
sink them, They're really screwed. I don't know how anyone isn't happy with where we are relative to where we were on February twenty seven. Are you happy with where we are relative to where we were on February twenty seven?
Well, I can say that a lot has been accomplished militarily and has degriten to the point where I think even the most skeptical onlooker will acknowledge that a lot of Iran's weapons production and facilities have been degraded. I think we're the polit I mean, and then this is partly politics, but both Prime Minister and Anatanyahu in Israel and President Trump here in the US, you know, they are prone to very lofty rhetoric or very ambitious rhetoric.
And I think, uh, the expectation was in Israel, the prospect of regime change was was floated, not so much here in the United States.
But I think, you know, the notion that the.
Weapons production has been devastated and totally destroyed not not.
Quite the case. There's still more to do.
And also the economic implications here in the States and across across the world. So you know, you kind of got I think the politics flow from a cost benefit analysis. I think there definitely have been some tangible benefits in degrading Iran's military production. Further, h was it, you know, but does mean we're in another year, there's going to have to be another war because not everything was completed. That that's the open question, both in Israel and the United States.
That I spent most of the last week saying it could be Munich, it could be Recovic, it could be Appomatics, turned out to be Rekovic and jd Vance did the Reagan grim face leave in a hurry. But when you look at what's happened, Iran has no money, They have no ability to project force beyond some speed boats and ten to twenty percent of their missile capacity. And they can still maybe haunt the haunt the straight of horror moves, but already alternatives to that are being developed on paper.
I would think Israelis would be if not. And by the way, we haven't stopped. The United States did not demand Israel stop operating in Lebanon. That's just win after we're stacking wins here.
Yeah.
I also think the point you made, Hugh crazy that we're kind of having these conclusivets with six seven weeks into the war, like this attention deficit disorder in the country where we expect immediate returns. That's not how history oper I mean, you look through any war, you look at any diplomatic negotiations. This stuff tent does take time. The notion that this is a failure massive, I mean, it's kind of absurd on its face.
So I do agree with you on that.
I try to try to put it in with our coverage a Jewish insider, try to add that nuance because this is not black and white, and this is not something that's going to happen immediately.
And I do think the trends have been encouraging.
I don't think the regime is more powerful than it was at the beginning of the war, and hopefully maybe with some economic pressure, there could be pressure from the inside. But I don't think it's going to happen overnight. It'll take a longer amount of time. I also think that, you know, the big question is what is the Trump administration going to do. I do think there was a sort of a Ratievic moment where people were worried that
Vance was going to give away the store. It turns out he held the line and left after twenty one hours, and I think that was the right way.
I think a lot of Israelis will relieved, a lot of Americans.
I think our relief that we're not taking undue concessions to a ran. But I think the big question here is, you know, is there gonna be military operations again? What does it mean to to blockade the Straight. How is that going to affect the economy in the larger context of the war.
Well, what is I think? I know what a blockade does is it means they're out of money and they're not going to get any What do you think a blockade means?
You know, my read of it is that they're they're putting back and they're they're pausing the.
Military pressure, but they're going to now try to put economic pressure on the regime. I think it makes some sense, given that the regime has lost militarily and they're other
they're facing the squeeze economically. But it is sort of counterintuitive because you know, we've been talking about trying to open the Straight and that was sort of the context of a lot of our conversation and how to handle the situation, and now you know the US is actually trying to keep it closed for preventing ran from making money off of the limited amount of oil transfers or energy transfers that we're coming through.
We have our cake and eat it too. We don't want any ships from Iran going through, but we want everyone else to come through, and we've sent a couple of destroyers through. We got a minute last minute, Josh, we have blown up fifty to one hundred of their senior people. There's a power scramble underweigh in Iran right now. We can't see it. I can't hope to understand who is. But do you have any sense of how it's going? You know?
There was a story I read over the weekend that highlighted the five leading officials left in the Iranian regime, one of them being that the Speaker of the Parliament, who is someone that the White House has at least privately identified as someone that may be a little more pragmatic.
I don't know if that's the case, but that's that's what the White.
House is thinking is But it shows they're generally fairly lower level folks, which shows how significant not just the losity Iola, but a lot of the.
More senior IRGC officials work or for six weeks or
More, Many many more chapters to be written, many of them can be read at you Shinsider, and you ought to follow Josh on x at Josh Cross Hour Coming