¶ Intro / Opening
The question is, are the Uranians going to use this right and they're going to weaponize it and use it against us? And who knows? I mean, there's it's speculation, but think about this, that's a finite amount of uranium. It's a it's a fair amount in rich uranium, but it's a finite amount anyway. Right at this stage, especially when you are operating against two nuclear nations, it would be near suicidal to load up a finite number of
weapons with your remaining enriched uranium and conduct strikes. The Iranians are not suicidal. In fact, they are among all our enemies, possibly the most rational of actors. I mean by the Chinese, of course, I mean they're there, yeah, very you know, they haven't stayed in power this long through doing purely crazy shit.
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes, an't you a politics? A special one because we missed them so much. Andy Milburn's here, the man, the myth, the legend. I wanted to get his take on what went down over the weekend with you know, the United States bombing the nuclear sites and fod out Naton's and Isfahan. Obviously, you guys know what went down. Be two bombers, fourteen gbus you know, the big boy bunker Busters and thirty Tomahawks
from a submarine. Andy, what's going on? How are you? Yeah?
Hey, d Well. First of all, great to be back. And I'm sorry that my compotres are not here too, because I think it puts undue pressure on the audience just to have me here waxing lyrical. But on the other hand, I'm happy to do so. And just a couple of preliminary, preliminary comments. I was caught unawares by
the strike. No one gave me a heads up, and actually I was mid flight between Tampa and Read and spent a delightful twenty four hours in Istanbul as air traffic controllers decided, or rather the powers that be decided which flights to cancel, which as space was going to
¶ DIA Assessment on Program Setback
remain open, And so I got into Read early hours of yesterday morning and promptly had to go to work, which has made my week so far delightful. And by the way, you mentioned Isfahan, and I do not totally arbitrarily want to say that that brings back memories myself. I was, oddly enough, and I may be certainly in
a minority here among former US veterans. But I have spent time in Isfahan, and I happen to have spent time in Isfahan during a missile attack than this case by the iraqis, which tells you how long ago it was nineteen eighty eight from the War of the Cities. Wow, it's a beautiful, yeah, beautiful city, absolutely lovely, which is
¶ GBU-57 Effectiveness & Centrifuge Depth
not making any comments about the strikes themselves, which I know we're going to talk about.
So what.
Questions you have? Do you do you want me to just to launch it?
I think the biggest thing, I think obviously the seasfire right, whether it holds or not. But I guess we could talk about that after because the big news that trump that, for lack of a better word, was the DIA assessment that got leaked and reported on by CNN that stated that the arranged nuclear program is basically set back a few to several months. I think that was the wording.
Yeah, yeah, so, and two, just by way of our expectation management, I don't have any insights, and certainly if I did have insights, I mean I do have insights, of course I do. What I mean is I don't have any access information if I did. Of course, I couldn't share it here, but you will notice that there are many views on this particular topic, and so I
will simply express an opinion. Before the strike even took place, US intelligence, former intelligence officials opined that the most that even the US could do with the GBU fifty seven, which is the massive ordinance penetrator, which is actually what we dropped, the most that we could do was set the program back. I think you probably remember those comments, and in fact you've had guests on air, former agency guys who said the same thing. Well, that seems likely
to be the case for a number of reasons. One is that when some of the planning of a decade or so ago, when the first topic of striking, the first time that the topic of striking Iran's nuclear facilities came up, it was you know, it was possible that the centrifuges were within range, or it was judged that these centrifuges were within range at the GBU fifty seven. But since then, and as you can imagine, the Iranians
have dug deeper literally all right. And so experts opene now open source that while the limited at the penetration limit of the massive ordinance penetrated. The GBU fifty seven dropped by itself, admittedly is sixty five meters right, and they estimate that the centrifuge isn't.
For dow.
For example, are at least ninety five to one hundred meters deep, which means that they're about thirty meters on the outside. Okay, Now, there's a couple of ways to mitigate that. One is to drop two of these bombs almost at once, I mean, one right after the other, so that one penetrates into the you know, the creative form by the other, and that seems to have been the tactic here. By the way, the B two is the only aircraft that can carry these things. I mean,
they're thirty thousand pounds of ease. So you imagine a B two carrying two that's sixty thousand pounds amazing, you know, fifteen tons of explosive yeah wild.
I think if they said it's like two thousand pounds of tungsten at the top of the the.
Word yeah, which you know, which adds to its penetration capability. So you know, hard to say. I mean, if if things had gone exactly according to plan, and one had been dropped on top of the other. In each case, I think fourteen, yeah, fourteen bombs were dropped by seven b twos then, although not on or on Furdell.
¶ Geopolitical Timing & Strike Implications
I think twelve out of the fourteen were on four to zero.
Of twelve out of fourteen, Okay, in any case, Yes, it's it's hard to say conclusively whether that plan should have worked, right, but it's certainly believable, credible that that they they you know, they didn't quite reach the centrifuges themselves. I don't know if THEDIA leaked report what it's based on, but I assume it's based on more than speculation, right, I assume it's based on some kind of battle damage assessment.
But let me just say absolutely credible that that we've set the Iranians back months but haven't destroyed the new site completely. And I can't explain why the Israelis have come out with a different estimate.
They just did.
Yeah, yeah, you know, they were a little more a little more optimistic, and I don't, you know, who knows what the truth is or whether we will find out in the near future. Of course, the you know, the timing, the timing was as perfect as we can expect to get it, except that this didn't happen five to ten years ago before the sites had been buried deep yet and by that mean as perfect as we can expect it. And I'm sure that Mark and Mick have already commented
on this. You know, we've always there's been three things holding us back from striking nuclear Iran's nuclear facilities before. One is essentially for fear of repercussions, not fear, but for concerned repercussions from Iran's proxies his BALLA, but more notably the sheer militia in Iran, and that risk, I mean that hasn't I wouldn't say that stopped us alone, but it was certainly it was certainly something that we
took in consideration. Of course, the Rainier proxies are now on the ropes for the time being, so the timing was good from that perspective. Secondly, of course, you know, you always run a risk when you penetrate in enemies integrated their defense systems, You run a risk of being shot down. And in this case, the Israelis have you know, they cleared the way for us. And the third part of this was, yes, we were concerned about the death to which the centrifuges had been sunk and how much
damage we could actually do. Well. I don't know the details on this, but apparently the Israelis had already created the sites, which presumably meant that the bombs that we dropped had less distance to penetrate. I don't know. I can't say conclusively again whether that part is correct or not. And it was also it was also well timed in a sense from the point of view that it seemed
like as though negotiations were going nowhere. I mean, let's be honest, it's taken two decades of both negotiating, planning, and threatening to bring us to this point. If the Iranians have lost their ability to generate nuclear weapons, I think that's a good thing for the region. You know, they have the ways that the way that they threatened the region up to this point is by through a
massive array of ballistic missiles. So that was the other reason too, right, we were concerned potentially about missile strikes on Allied countries or even US spaces, missile win drone strikes, and yet their inventory has been drastically reduced, hasn't been obliterated in tally, but it has been reduced by the Israeli strikes. So the timing was was propitious, but you know, we gained. We were dealing with a physics problem and it's hard to say whether how successful we were. Time will tell.
Yeah. Yeah, And what you mentioned with the Israeli called me out saying that it's set it back many years. That's from the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission through the Prime Minister's office to talk a little bit about like the geopolitical angle of this, because the DIA assessment early assessment came out yesterday and you need to get it.
I cut this stuff out of notion. Okay, go ahead, I'm listening.
So the DIA assessment, the early assessment that came out yesterday that Trump's been refuting pretty pretty hard, pretty viscerally, i'd say, pretty adamantly says that it came back only
a few months obviously compared to the Israeli one. It is like, is this Israel trying to like play Kate Trump to try and just to be like, hey, yeah, no, we did this and it worked, and you know, the regions better for it, because I do think it sets while starting from last year bombing Iran sets like a pretty dangerous precedent, like where Israel could just like pick up and bomb them whenever they feel like it.
Yeah, hard to say, I mean suddenly Netniel, who was urging Trump to do this. But I like to think that the United States did this fall for our own reasons, because it was in our own national interests. In again, you know, I don't think anyone can get sentimental about Iran losing its ability to generate nuclear weapons and has proven itself to be a to be a difficult actor to say the least in the region. But at the same time, yes, and we want to avoid for our
own interests. And this is me speaking obviously, not speaking for the administration, but we want to avoid being closely
¶ Potential Iranian Blowback
aligned to Israel. You know, here I am in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is an ally of ours too. There is a great deal of sensitivity about how closely from the Arab world here, you know, how closely the United States is aligning itself with the Israeli policy. I think we have to be warey of that, and we have to be our own actors if we are to maintain credibility in the region. And by the way, whether we like it or not, you know, the strike did help bolster
US credibility in the region. You know, we actually followed through and did something. We did something that was you know, outside Iran and outside of Iran's proxies, is widely regarded in the Middle East, to include among Golf States and Saudi Arabia as being generally a good thing.
Yeah, in terms of blowback, do you think at some point, I know, there's obviously a ceasefire right now, but Iran's gotta be thinking about doing something, right I mean, I can't really see them just cowering and just be like, Okay, we'll give up everything. You know, we need to give up and every you guys want our ballistic missiles too, We could you know, all terms, all types of like actual self defense to not just the nuclear program. Obviously
the nuclear programs no bueno. But what do you think the blowback looks like?
Yeah, that's a great question. And I don't know. I do know that the regime must right now be feeling quite desperate. You know, they're not now let me let me rephrase that, okay, but they I mean they have there's certainly there's certainly on the ropes has certainly had a severe disadvantage. They haven't lost all of their ability to cause harm and they still have a significant missile inventory and Hezbolla as a matter of time before Hesbala
and even Hamas are back on their feet again. You know, I mean, the amount of anger that it's been generated in the last two years by Israeli actions, for instance in the Middle Least is you know, it's not going to die away, all right, and there's going to be certainly there's going to be a resurgence that these two groups. They're not down and out, but it's going to be a while before Iran can really flex its muscles again, if you know, if it can in the near future.
So that's a long winded way of saying that I don't know, but I just want to remind listeners again of the Vincennes incident, which is back in nineteen eighty nine when the us AS Vincennes mistakenly shot down in an Iranian air bus with some two hundred and fifty civilian passengers on board, and almost a decade later, the Iranians, one assumes, planted a bomb in the van of the skipper of the Vincennes, the skipper at the time in
San Diego. He would turned out he didn't get in the vehicle as his wife and she was civillly injured. But I think, you know, it's just an example of how the Iranians are willing to play, or perhaps that's the only game they can play sometimes, is the long game to exact vengeance. But I don't you know, to them, Israel is the big enemy. It doesn't mean that we have we've we're lily white as far as the concern.
We did just strike their nuclear facilities, but I don't think striking back in the United States is going to be a top priority. The missile attack on Aladide was a pro former act done, as I think we all know, for the sake of saving face. They gave Katar heads up that it was going to happen. Only fifteen missiles were fired, and they were fired in a half heart hit type attempt. Right. It wasn't really a serious attempt. It was just look, okay, now we're going to write back.
It was for domestic consumption. And you know, the Uranian media, state owned media, of course, the trumpeting that we inflicted, that we suffered casualties, et cetera, et cetera. But everyone knows that didn't happen. Now, if they really wanted to strike back at us, they would have gone after our bases in Iraq using sheer militia drones, you know, which
they'd done before to greater effect or Syria. And by the way, bases in Iraq and Syria are not protected by patriot missile bat batteries, the one in Aladid is. So it was kind of if they it was a safe way to be seen to exact vengeance and look good.
Let me ask why aren't those other bases in Iraq and Syria not protected by patriot batteries?
Yeah, great question. Well, there's only limited number of patriot batteries to go round, right And now they may have I you know, I I may my my information may now be outdated. But but that that that was That was certainly the case, you know, a few months ago.
Yeah.
And and in any case, you know, even protected by patriot batteries is not when you when it comes to short range head offense, patriots only do a certain amount of good and they don't. They are not good at blocking drones. So short range other short range missiles and that's the threat really and Syria and in Iraq drones and other shorter range missiles fined by local militias. Yeah, that's not some delicious but Iraq certainly.
Also another bit of the from the assessment, and even before the early assessment got released yesterday about the four hundred kilograms of enriched geranium like supposal, we don't know where that is.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I know there's a great deal of angst about that, and it's I I would say this, Okay, I think it's the right thing to do to give them a heads up. Okay, that kind of keeps things again on this Not not a gentleman's playing. That's not what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is that, hey, with the United States, it's saying we live by values, we will save lives where we can, but on the other hand, we are going to take
out your nuclear program. All right. The downside was four hundred kilograms of apparently we don't know for sure, but four hundred kilograms in rich uranium escaped. Well, the question is are the Uranians going to use this? Right, They're going to weaponize it and use it against us, and who knows. I mean, there's it's speculation, But think about this,
that's a finite amount of uranium. It's a lot, it's a fair amount of in enriched uranium, but it's a finite amount anyway, all right, at this stage, especially when you are operating against two nuclear nations, it would be near suicidal to load up a finite number of weapons with your remaining enriched uranium and conduct strikes. And the Iranians are not suicidal. In fact, they are among all
our enemies, possibly the most rational of actors. I mean by the Chinese, of course, I mean, but they're they're very you know, they haven't stayed in power this long through doing purely crazy shit.
So what I meant by like not strapping like sixty percent of rich geranium to like ballistic missiles and shooting them into Tel Aviv, but I meant like, you know, bringing them to you know, one of their shadow sites or they There is some reporting that isfahan Is is deeper than ford Ou where their centrifuges are, so like bringing it right, bringing it there and like enriching it and continuing their program.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's always a risk and you know, we know of those three sides, right, but there are there's now reports that the program may be more distributed than we thought, that there are more than those three sides, so you know, the potential risks multiplying. We did. We did what we could, but the intelligence that we had at the time, but the time marches on and the Iranians, as I said, are they you know, they they're pretty smart.
Yeah.
People, Again, the regime state empowered this long and I'm sure they haven't punted all their eggs into just three baskets. So yeah, I think we can. We can go down paths that lead us to many risky scenarios that have resulted from this strike. But nevertheless, I still, you know, I believe it was a It was a good thing, even if we just sent back, set the program back, because it's sent a very powerful message that we are serious about doing this.
Yeah, barakravated the Axios, not the other unit. Eighty two
¶ Iranian Regime's Domestic Issues
hundred news reporter, I mean the Oxios reporter wrote just recently Israel Israeli official with direct knowledge says they intercepted comms to just Iranian military officials are lying to their political leadership about the extent of the damage at the nuclear.
Sites, oh right, lying as far as it's worse than they're saying, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, again who knows, multiple reports, right, But.
That also came out like literally minutes after the Israel Atomic Energy Commission came out and said that it's going to take many years for them to come back. So, I mean, I'm sure there's a pr pr aspect to all this. And like you know, who's winning the spin game because you see any around what's going on there. You know, they're touting it as like the victory over Israel day there, right, Like they have like a whole rally and stuff.
So we'll think about think about the problems that the Iranian regime is having with its domestic audience. You know, we've talked about this that even in its pro former elections, it is losing, it has lost ground in the last few years, or the electorate has simply not bothered to show up, and there have been you know, there is a significant opposition group within Iran and they're fed up
with the economy being and the toilet. They're fed up with with the IRGC's adventurism overseas, which is costing the state in financial terms and in terms of being a political parah and has done, you know, since the birth of the Islamic Republic. And remember too that Iran has a highly educated middle class. You know, it's I wouldn't say unusual, but it's in a minority among Middle Eastern
countries to have such an advanced middle class. And you know, they're not They've got to be careful how they exhibit their opposition to the regime because of course we've seen how the administration exerts crackdowns. But on the other hand, it's real and the Iranian regime is concerned about it. You know, you've probably heard anecdotal reports or even seen YouTube videos about locals sharing even the Israeli strikes in military facilities. Their discontent is real, and the administration is
concerned about that. So it isn't they're just not. They're not just looking at what they're going to do as far as taking on their geopolitical opponents. They're also worry about how they appear to their domestic audience right now, Yeah, and they are domestic audience does not appear to want more even now.
Yeah, you could say that too about the United States domestic audience as well, right, Like.
Well, yeah, sixty percent opposed, only sixteen percent were for US taking action against Iran until we did take action, and then I believe the numbers are much higher. I never realized. So that was it.
Yeah, Well, I'm I mean hopefully that's it. Right. Uh yeah, there was one more piece I wanted to talk to you about. I'm just looking over Twitter to see if something popped off. Hex Seth just announced about an hour ago that they're gonna task the FBI to investigate the
leak of the DIA assessment. It seems like there is a bit of a back and forth kind of going on in the annals of government where you know, people aren't exactly willing to just go by whatever sounds the best, right, Because if I hadn't bet money, I would bet that it's closer a few months rather than a few years where this nuclear program is set back. And I just don't know what the endgame looks like. Is it just like every time we feel like it, or Israel feels like it, we can hit Iran And uh no.
I mean in Finnis, I think you know this was two decades in coming. D I think I mean, the generations of US planners have have planned this particular strike, and it was conducting a very sophisticated way. I think it was. It was in that sense, a one off, and the timing was was absolutely right. I don't know what the motivation is for leaking that report. It's kind of interesting, and I don't know if even if it
was deliberately leaked. I assume of course it was. And I find it highly unusual that there have been so many leaks of secret and top secret information from US from D O D in the last you know, the last few months, the last five months. It's it's certainly it's a strange strand I mean it is to say it's unusual as an exaggeration. I mean, you don't really you don't really see that. Yeah, only within dud.
Oh. And going back, I remember what I wanted to tell you, There have been reports of like the regime in Iran rounding up like seven hundred or so suspected Israeli agents, people that I guess helped facilitate stuff for the for Masad in Israel. So yeah, it does seem like they're very much cracking down. Also, last week I had a former marine. I keep having marines on this goddamn show. You gotta mix it up. John Hackett, who's yeah, yeah, No,
that's it's another John Hackett. Actually yeah, And he said he's like they had a protest literally like once the bombing started, like there was a protest, anti regime protest, they started fucking snatching them up, and you haven't heard from them since literally within a day. While they're getting bombed, they were snatching up people who were like anti region,
with anti regime sentiment. So again, like you know, this Iranian regime isn't exactly uh you know, fucking you know, mellows and gum drops.
I mean, I mean, the Ranian regime has kept people in line through executions and torture and mass incarceration since its birth. I mean, let's not let's not sightestep this issue. It's a it's a highly disruptive bad influence throughout the Middle East, malign and has been in despite every attempt to alter its course external attempt to alter its course, it has kept that course and has pursued a policy of military adventurism overseas at a great cost to regional stability.
I mean, anyone who starts to get mushy eyed about Iran just needs to look the fact that the Iranians, you know, and of course the Russians subsequently extended and exacerbated the war in Syria, which yeah, you know, I've seen half a million deaths and a million and a half refugees. I mean more than that, actually a million and a half external refugees. I mean, it's just an incredible suffering over the course of the last fourteen years.
That was that was Iran's playground, that was Hebola's playground. As you know.
The interesting thing to see is like how Hezbola hasn't really done anything. I know they're in a bad way obviously, but I'm still I'm pretty sure they still have some of their rockets intact, right, and they're very close to Israel, and it's interesting how they kind of not.
Done much well. I mean, I think they're probably having I would guess it's not just by the rockets, but come on, and control problems, succession of leadership problems, they whatever, who knows. I mean, the Urranians never had kind of carte blanche do it, don't do it, authority over Hisbolla and azraela was his own man. And we don't know how Isbolla has emerged from that, how it is now, but it's certainly probably not the right time viewed by
most Hisbolla surviving. HASBOLLA leaders to pop its head about the parapet again.
Yeah, I could totally see there being a huge power vacuum there right now, right like people jostling for control or maybe not because like your number one target.
List, Yeah, hard to tell. I mean they had Hasboala had a pretty a pretty well designed succession of command, you know what I mean? Remember used to say. I used to say that among all decapitation strikes, the one was likely to really have some last thing, in fact, was if Nazrala was taken out, Because he was he embodied his baller in a way that few other leaders embody their organization. And he was, you know, say what you like, but yes, a bad actor, but he was
¶ Future of Nuclear Negotiations
a highly talented, charismatic bad actor who will did extraordinary influence not just within his organization but throughout Lebanese politics and indeed throughout kind of the militant politics of the of the region. He was an icon, and so losing him undoubtedly put no one really thought that he would
be lost. It's losing him undoubtedly has put his baller in the ropes for a while, and that is probably why you're not seeing any coherent decision making coming out of the organization, at least for the time being.
Yeah, well, Andy, I mean I'm trying to think. I think I'm good. I think I have enough for all that I need.
Well, well, so what I'm looking forward to reappearing with everyone else too. I can't wait for time.
What do you think do you think is Iran comes back to the nuclear negotiation table?
I mean, the question is did the nuclear negotiations go on? I mean, what do we negotiating about or for anymore? That's that's really the issue in honestly, it was kind of a half hearted approach by both sides, right, So I don't see there being more nuclear negotiations anytime soon, cerbtainly not under this administration.
Andy Milburn, everybody check them out. The links are in the description grab his book, When the Tempest Gathers excellent memoir. When's the new book coming out?
Oh yeah, hopefully my publishers not watching right now. But he's just given me an extension to the end of the month, so it'll be coming out before the end of the year.
All right, great, all right, so awesome, So we'll keep an eye out for that. Guys. Help support the Showpatreon dot com slash the Team House, both eyes On Geopolitics and The Teamhouse completely AD free, and a lot more perks that go with it. Of course, remember check out Andy. His links are into description. Andy's got a substack too. It's good and yeah, thanks Andy. This is awesome as usual.
Yea, all the best everyone, see you see you again in a few days. Thanks dey, thank you.
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