What Happened in Iran?

great mission accomplished. President Trump did it. He threaded the needle between to the scilla and charybdis of our great fears regarding Iran. On the one hand, not doing anything and letting Iran get a nuclear weapon not going to happen. That's on the one side. On the other side, the risk of getting drawn into a longer, more involved war. I don't know that we can confidently say that we're out of the risk of that latter thing. We need to wait to see what happens, because there's still a

lot that could happen. Iran is certainly weakened, it is certainly in a much worse place. The Israeli attacks led to the decimation of its major military leadership. Worse than decimation,

by the way the word decimate is really cool. It comes from this practice in the Roman Army when the Roman Army, when a particular army unit had behaved in a horrible, dishonorable, disobedient way, decimation was a punishment meted out on that unit of the army, which basically meant that every tenth man was just executed and they would have to run among their fellows while their fellow soldiers

beat them to death. Yeah, that'll get your attention. Okay, I guess I better straighten up and fly right as I'm beating one of my fellow soldiers to death, and it could just as well be me anyway. The Iran anyway, the Iranian military leadership has been completely decimated. It seems that their nuclear development capacity has been decimated. I don't know,

I would imagine. So there's intelligence assessments sort of indicating that, yes, it seems like the Ford out site was completely destroyed, or at the very least, if it's not completely destroyed, it is very close to completely destroyed. I'm not so one hundred percent certain about what Iran's capacity was. I don't know that anyone in the West is really one hundred percent certain about what Iran's capacity was for actually

developing nuclear weapons. I feel like we've had people warning that Iran is on the you know, on the one yard line of developing a nuke. Ohle, They're only a month away from a nuke. They've been only a month away from a nuke for like, you know, the last twenty years. So forgiving me if I'm a little skeptical to that point. But I'm not the guy in the Oval office. I'm not the guy getting the intelligence directly from the Israelis and from American intelligence sources, So I

don't know Trump does. So that those were the two big risks was letting Iran alone and letting them develop a nuclear weapon, which I think is intolerable. I think it gives even if Iran doesn't use it, it gives them an intolerable amount of negotiating leverage within the region and gives them standing in status while they continue to be the world's chief exporter of terrorism through their various proxies. So it stops that from happening, but does it draw

us into a broader conflict? And this is what I'm afraid of, and I don't think we can know that right now. Iran is clearly I would say, not going to take this lying down, or they have to. I think they have to demonstrate some kind of response in order for the regime in Iran to maintain some shred of credibility. And this is one of the geopolitical things about Iran. There's all these people have been saying, all these people pushing for regime change in Iran, they've been saying.

I think it was Gray Connolly, whom I followed. Was a really interesting guy. He's an Australian lawyer and a military historian. He was noting that during the Iraq Iran War, the son of the Sha who had been oustered. You know, the Iran was governed by this guy, the Sha Shaw was in charge. He gets thrown out and the Iranians replace him with the Islamic Republic and ruled by the Iatolas.

During the Iraq Iran War, the son of the Shaw volunteered to the Islamic Republic to let him come back and fly warplanes because he was a pilot, to fly warplanes to help the Islamic Republic in their fight against Iraq. Because basically, I guess there was sort of this attitude of like, Okay, yeah, we disagree about our internal Iranian politics, but boy, we don't like these Iraqis, so we're gonna, you know, let me come back to I realize you oustreed my dad, but let me come back to volunteer

to fight for you. I mean that's the and he brings up that point just to demonstrate the Iranian people may not like the Shah. I don't know, maybe they do, maybe they are excuse me, the Iranian people may not like the existing Islamic Republic of Iran. Maybe they do,

maybe they don't. But there's no that doesn't necessarily follow that they'll be so delighted at Israel and America for blowing up all their nuclear sites and decimating Iran's you know, capacity militarily as a country, and that they'll be so delighted with it that they'll overthrow the Islamic Republic. That does not necessarily follow at all. Maybe, if anything, it

hardens their support for the Islamic Republic. And that's the other thing is is this sense that American political sentiment can shift very significantly as a result of current events. I think popular support for Donald Trump went up after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Stuff happens, and it changes Americans' attitudes towards politics. I wouldn't be surprised if support for Trump went up a little bit after this Iranian strength. So I would say in Iran, probably it's

the same thing. Do we think that Israel and America blowing up a bunch of stuff in Iran. Is that going to make the Iranians more inclined towards them and less inclined towards their current ruling government. I don't know. I don't necessarily think so. I think, if anything, it's going to make them continue to be more angry at Israel. It's not like Middle Eastern populations need more of an excuse to hate Israel, and they all, you know, they've

been fairly consistent about not liking the United States. And if you hate Israel and you hate the United States and they keep attacking you, maybe you retreat to being more supportive of the Islamic Republic rather than less now, unless the Islamic Republic shows itself to be totally ineffectual.

And I think that's what we're gonna wait and see. First, we heard different stories, reports, indications that the Iranians might engage in you know, one of the consistent things that happened in Iraq was you would have Iranian backed militias operating in Iraq who would fight and kill Americans. And that's where Iran had so much blood on its hands.

It's why President Trump killed their General Solomani back during the first Trump administration was because they kept funding these different militia groups in Iraq that would attack American soldiers. So there was this indication, this thought very shortly around the time of the bombing, that Iranians would ramp up their attacks on American military personnel currently operating in Iraq and in Syria. Maybe that'll happen if they do. What's the United States going to do? I mean, sit there

and take it? Presumably not. And this is where we got to see what kind of a involvement, what kind of developed involvement takes place after this. That's the rub So that's why I'm not at a point of saying, ah, yes we did it, we declare victory President Trump perfectly thread of the new We're not on the hook for regime change. Well, we don't know that. Could these events precipitate some kind of toppling of the existing Iranian regime? And if it does, what kind of babysitting would whatever

new thing comes into its place need? And will our neocon foreign policy establishment be okay? If say Russia tries to come in and nurse whatever new thing comes aboard, just as they will not be okay with that. And that's the thing with that's the thing I'm so concerned

about with regime change. I think people are proposing this idea that if we do just a couple more air strikes we could topple the Iranian regime, that maybe the Iranians ready to get rid of the Ayatola, and maybe we do a couple more air strikes, maybe we could even take Komani out, could take the Ayatola out, and

then a new regime. And how much better would that be if the Islamic Republic was not governing Iran, if the Iranians had some other kind of government that was going to just not be the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Well that'd be great. But I think it's crazy to think that such a government wouldn't need babysitting in the form of American soldiers. Of course it would

need that. I mean, just think about it. First, If they topple the Islamic Republic, it's not like, you know, it's not like zero people support the current Islamic Republic. Clearly millions and millions and millions and millions of people do. Probably a large percentage of the army does of their military forces do? And again it is relevant Ted Kruz to understand that there are ninety million people in the country, twice as many, twice as many people as live in Iraq,

almost to as many people as live in Afghanistan. So if a new good government comes aboard, I find it hard to believe that there won't be some level of civil war, and then the United States will have to decide, Well, it's very much in our national interest not to have the Islamic Republic running things, and it's more in our interest to have this side win. So what are we gonna do? Are we gonna just sit there and let a civil war break out? Have these two sides duke

it out. Russia may very well support one side over another. And if the Russians get involved, boy, the pressure will be on us to get involved. See this is why regime change would have been a terrible idea. I think that that there's no way regime change happens quickly. I mean I would support regime change too if I knew it could be quick, snappy, easy, see you later. Ayatola come back in Shaw and the Shaw is greeted with garlands of flowers and has one Iranian approval rating. That's

not gonna happen. It just won't that that that's ridiculous to think that that's gonna happen. So now it maybe we haven't gotten to that point, And I think that's why I've been saying all along. Oddly enough, the one person I trust more than anybody in all this is Donald Trump. And I feel like this time with Trump, rather than last time, he's surrounded by advisors who all kind of think simpatico with him. I think Vance very

much is aligned with Trump. I don't think there's a weird thing like there was, you know, under Trump, like Mike Pence didn't agree with him about a lot of things. I don't think Vance is like that. I think Vance is very much believes in Trump on a lot of things. Maybe maybe one or two things they might I think Vance is probably more socially conservative than Trump. But I think Vance is totally on board. I think Rubio is totally on board. I think Hegxeth is totally on board.

If anything, I think Tulci Gabbard as the head of the Director of National Intelligence, I mean, she seems to be upset and isolated because she didn't even want to do this. She didn't even want to do this initial military strike. And seems on the outs that way. But it doesn't seem like there are too many people that It really doesn't seem like there are too many people

in the administration who are talking about regime change. Everyone is afraid of being drawn into a broader conflict and doesn't want to do something that would draw into a broader conflict. So oddly enough, I feel like I trust Trump more than I trust anyone else. But he did take this step, and we won't know the ultimate success of it. I think you honestly, this is the kind

of thing. It's like, it's like when a football team, you know, has their draft during the NFL Draft and they get a slate of players and it's like, Wow, what a great draft. It's like, well, you don't know if it's a great draft. You've got to wait like two or three years. You might have to wait like at least a year and maybe two years before you can fully assess whether the forty nine ers draft in you know, twenty twenty five was particularly good. I mean,

we got to see how these players develop. I feel the same way with this air striking against a ron We can't be one hundred percent sure that it was successful until we wait a little to assess. All right, when we return, We'll have more discussing all of this, and I might even dive into the question of the constitutionality legality of the president doing this air strike in the first place. That's next on the John Girardi Show. One thing to note about all this is where do

the American people stand? And then more specifically, where do Trump supporters stand the American people. I feel like this is one of the problems about pulling the American people about military interventions is do you support a limited intervention

of just a bombing attack on Iranian nuclear sites? Like, if you present the question as, hey, what if the ultimate best case scenario happens and we're totally not drawn into a larger conflict and it's just a limited, one time run and it destroys all of Iran's nuclear capabilities, Yeah,

overwhelming majority of Americans are like, oh, that's great. Sure. If, on the other hand, you pull it as do you want the United States involved in another Middle Eastern conflict, Everyone's gonna say, well, no, that sounds terrible, and it does sound terrible. And that's the problem with how do you pull these things to actually gauge American popular sentiment. Now, there's one way of pulling. You know. One poll that's been brought up is that only thirty one percent of

Americans actually view Iran as a serious threat. True, but it's also the American people don't know much about Iran. Our policy makers don't know much about Iran. Ted Cruz didn't even know how many people lived in Iran. I continue to think, by the way, that that was not a gotcha question that Ted Cruz got the idea that you're a United States senator, you might be called to vote on this. You're on the air saying you want regime change, you damn well better understand how difficult that

would be. And one of the things of understanding out difficult that would be is having some sense of how big and populous Iran is, which makes the whole regime change thing way harder. So this notion that anyway Ted Cruz annoys me to no end. I find his shtick to be tiresome. He is preachy, preening, self laudatory. I can't stand listening to him for more than like five minutes anyway, somehow like not that Donald Trump isn't you know,

it's so weird. I have more like I'm more capable of listening to Trump praise himself because I think Trump it's part of his it's obviously shtick, like some of it, like it's so over the top sometimes about how everything he does is the best and greatest that it's like funny. But when Cruz does this fun oh oh Shuck's just a simple, normal guy who went to Harvard Law School and is a very high level lawyer, and it's a very incredibly ambitious, high level political operative. But I'm just

a normal Texan just like you. I just cannot stand Ted Cruz anyway. So I'm basically I long and short of this is I don't exactly even know where the American people are. I think the thing is, in all likelihood, the American people will follow success or follow failure. If this is all and we destroyed Iran's nuclear program and we're not going to really be drawn into any larger conflict other than if there's just a few little scraps with Iranians trying to attack Americans in one or two

isolated places and that's it. And long term, we're not even thinking about this. Americans will look back on this whole episode and think, great, what a success. If, on the other hand, we get drawn into a much longer, more protracted conflict, Americans are not going to be happy about this. And I disagree with some of the sort of maga super maga folks who didn't want to get involved, who are saying Donald Trump is burning the bridges of

his magabase. His magabase will be abandoning him for this decision to break his promises and get us involved in the Middle East. First of all, the only thing, if there is one thing that Trump supporters love, it's Trump. That's it. They are more inclined to trust him than any Trump aligned commentator ever. If you know, they like Elon Musk only in so far as he travels with Donald Trump. They like Tucker Carlson only in so far

as he travels with Donald Trump. They like Candess Owns only in so far as she travels with Donald Trump. They liked Elsea Gabbard only in so far as she travels with Donald Trump. If all of those people leave and say Trump has abandoned his principles. You know where most Trump supporters are still gonna stick with. They're still gonna stick with Trump. He's the guy who has their loyalty end of the day. That's just the reality of

how most Trump supporters are gonna go. And again, I don't think that most Trump supporters are dogmatic about this. I think they broadly don't want protracted, long Middle Eastern involvement Middle Eastern wars. But I think everyone on the Trump pro Trump side was like, that was awesome when Trump took out Sulimani and was worth it and it didn't pull us into a much broader conflict and took out this guy who was killing a bunch of Americans.

Good job. I think they're gonna view this if this intervention winds up having the limited long term effect that the Solamani attack did. I think Trump supporters are not gonna give a crap about the fact that, oh, he bombed another country. I think think they're gonna be okay with it because for one thing, they trust Trump. They like Trump, and the thing that they don't it's not any intervention in the Middle East that they don't like. What they don't like is getting US involved in a

long protracted nation building project. That's what most of the American population doesn't like. So I don't think we're out of the woods yet. I think there's still a chance of us getting pulled into some broader thing. But I certainly don't think Trump supporters are gonna flee now. When we return, I want to talk about the legality of Trump initiating these strikes. That's next on the John Gerardi Show.

I want to talk about a point that it's a little tired and it's a little hackneyed because it keeps happening every time a president decides to initiate a strike. The question sort of rises ineffectually from conservatives. Didn't he need to, like ask for authorization of military force first? Doesn't Congress need to vote on this? And I want to think about it, and I want to talk about it as far as historical precedents and sort of the ideas behind it. Now, the Constitution vests in Congress the

power to declare war. It is firmly with Congress. Okay, Congress declares war now. The president is, however, the commander in chief of the military. And it's long been sort of established thought that the president does not need to wait for Congress in order to engage in defensive activity. Right, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor. Soldiers in Hawaii who see the planes coming in and

dropping bombs. A soldier runs to an anti air gun, and the officer says, no, no, no, no, no, you can't shoot. Congress hasn't declared war. No. Okay, the Japanese drop bombs. The President immediately gets on the horn and says, all right, we got to get aircraft carriers over there immediately, We got to launch attacks on We know that they're Japanese here here. Immediately launch attacks so we can repel

their advance so that they don't get to the West coast. Okay, the President doesn't need to wait for Congress to declare war first before he does that for defensive stuff. Everyone is pretty much agreed that, yes, if the president is repelling an imminent threat, he doesn't need to wait for congressional authorization before he acts. However, the decision to declare

war seems to be a kind of policy decision. If it's a decision about declaring war to stop someone who is posing an imminent threat that is not yet there. Basically the thought is that, well, Congress has to decide it, and there are a lot of sort of classical classical history, Greek and Roman sort of precedents for that that the

founding fathers, I think were very deliberately imitating. So in the ancient world, in the Mediterranean world of kind of Greece and Rome, those cultures, specifically, many of the city states, the poll as, the singular polis plural polays, many of the individual pollais of the Greek and Roman worlds. So you got the Roman Republic over here in Italy, and then you had all these individual Greek city states, you know, Corinth, Thebes, Sparta, Athens,

et cetera. They wound up developing more democratic political systems, political systems in which the citizenry, however defined, and the citizenry being a citizen was a kivas in the Key West in the Roman system, or a polytase in the Greek sense. It was a very restricted, small group of people. Not everyone was a citizen. It was usually limited to adult men, non slaves, and they would extend citizenship only very reluctantly. I think in some city states, I think

it was Athens. You'd only be a citizen if you could prove that you had a grandfather who was a citizen or something, which is kind of seems how do you eventually become a citizen. They were very stingy about granting citizenship, and so foreigners living and working in the city would be in a different status, and very often those people were more concerned with trade. The idea was that your citizens, and actually sometimes citizenship was qualified by

like property qualifications. The people who got to vote. That this was the basic rule, with some exceptions, but this was the effective thing. The people who got to vote were the people who were going to fight. The people in the Roman Republic and in the individual Greek city states who got to vote were the people who were going to fight if it came down to a war.

So if you were the person, if you were one of the people who was going to be fighting, you got to be part of whatever sort of deliberative body of citizens they had for voting on legislation. And there was greater or lesser degrees what the citizen assembly was able to vote on. In Greece, the citizen Assembly was incredibly powerful and could vote on all kinds of things.

Greek had a pretty much a pure democracy. Someone would propose legislation, it could be debated, and in the broad debate of all the citizenry, someone could suggest amendments and they could change it. Blah blah blah blah blah. Now in the Roman Republican system, their various popular assemblies, they could only vote up or down on a piece of legislation that had already been debated and proposed, often by the Senate. So the Senate got to be the deliberative body.

They got to decid do we want to do this, and they'd fashion some proposal. It would be called the sinatus consultum, the proposal of the Senate, and the people could only just vote up or down on it. There's no no amendments, no free wheeling debate, but the citizenry would get to vote on things. And in Rome it wasn't one man, one vote. It was basically the weight of the vote of someone who had more property was greater than the weight of someone who had less property.

But the idea also seemed very much tied to military service. Both in the Greek world and in the Roman Republic. The kinds of property qualifications in Rome that you needed to have was basically, can you afford your own hop light armor? Can you afford your own armor? In Greece, it was can you afford your own hop light armor?

With the hop light armor was the kind of Greek armor used in the Greek system that there was a certain specific kind of sort of heavily armored infantrymen, and the idea was basically, our city state is not going to war unless the people say we're going to war. We're not going to leave this up to the decision of one man, one magistrate. If we're going to war. The guys who are going to do the fighting, they're

the ones who are going to decide. And this may have been part of the reason, not just you know, the brutalization of human nature that led to slavery or the you know, the chauvinism of the ancient world against women. The women weren't going to fight, The slaves weren't going to fight. The foreign merchants living in the city, they weren't going to fight. And the really poor who couldn't afford any armor, they weren't gonna fight either. They don't

even have armor. The people who are gonna fight, they were the ones who decided. And this some people think this is why Athens actually developed its democracy as a more pure democratic form of government. People think Athens was able to develop that because, well, the property qualifications for fighting as an Athenian were not as great as the property qualifications you need to fight as say a Spartan. Why because Athens had a navy. Athens chief military might

was in her navy. You don't need a full set of hoplight armor to be in the navy. You just got to, you know, pull an oar. But your life was on the line just as much as anybody else. So that was kind of the classical model. The people decide if they're going to vote, and this is part This is why for these broad decisional questions of should we go to war or shouldn't we not talking about an emergency situation of repelling an attack, but something where

it's a war somewhat of choice. We have received these acts of aggression, how are we going to respond? Do we resort to diplomacy? Do we resort to this? The founding fathers put that decision in the hands of Congress, and in two deliberative bodies, one the Senate, the idea being the Senate. This was the counsel of wise, experienced elders. That's what senate means. It's the gathering of old men, the gathering of the elders. Senex is the Latin word

for an old man. The senatus is the old guys club. Okay, it's the old men gathering club. And the Senate in Rome was posed of It was usually older men, but it was men who had already held some kind of public office magistracy within the Roman Republic. And the former consuls were, you know, the eldest senator who was a former consul was who was called the princept sonatus, the head of the Senate, the prince of the Senate, the chief of the Senate. He always got to spoke first,

to speak first. And the idea was, well, why are we letting any Joe Schmoe do this. Let's have our former generals, former magistrates, officers, Let's let them have a first crack at deciding what is whise here. That's our Senate in the United States was manifestly patterned off of that. Now, the nature of the United States Senate is much different from what it was at the founding at the founding, senators were picked by the state legislatures. Today they're directly

voted on by the people of those states. But also the decision of whether to go to war was with the House. Why is it with the House of Representatives. Well, the House repe Andatives the closest thing we've got to direct democracy. It isn't purely direct democracy. It's not all of the citizens of the United States of America voting up or down should we go to war. But the House Representatives comes to Washington in a system of proportional representation.

Every member of the House represents roughly the same number of Americans. Members of the House Representatives are up for re election every two years. The shifting tides of American opinion can be reflected in the House of Representatives and its makeup. You could have a huge Republican majority one year. Two years from now, it could be completely gone, replaced with a huge Democrat majority, or a huge this majority,

or a huge to that majority. The House is responsive to the day to day changing views of the American people, and those are the two bodies we put our war making decisions on. Now the President will try to argue that, hey, I have authorization to do this. In a number of ways, the President might try to say, look the two thousand and one Authorization for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorism. That justifies my actions. Iran is a constant, continual state

sponsor of terrorism that they've attacked. They've killed hundreds of American servicemen, particularly in Iraq. Their proxies have done all kinds of horrible things, including most recently the October seventh attacks. More recently than that, the ongoing Houthy attacks that are threatening American shipping. Iran continues to be a dangerous, ongoing threat. They're developing a nuke, they could be getting close. This is a defensive thing. I don't need to wait around

for Congress. I already have one, a Congressional Act from two thousand and one authorizing me to do this, and my inherent power to act in a defensive way to protect American interest. Okay, I see those arguments. I still kind of feel like it would have been better to have Congress debate this. I think it was a choice whether we went to this war or not, and we would have really benefited from Congress debating it. I think, so when we return, should we build a new Bulldog Stadium.

Next on The John Girardi Show, there's a story about whether or not if Presno State got a new football stadium, and if it was kind of more like the new football stadiums that like San Jose State build that Sacramento State's about to build, et cetera, if this could be

a real cash cow for Fresno State. I guess I'm just gonna say this, I'd like to see Bulldog Stadium more consistently selling out Before I commit to that, I feel like too often a lot of folks in Fresno just kind of fall away if the team loses two or three games, and before I commit more taxpayer dollars to that, I'd like to see some pretty committed commitment by the city. I don't want it to be another Grizzly stadium where they struggle to fill in. That'll do it,

John Girardi Show. See you next time on Power Talk