Is the U.S. Headed Back Into War With Iran? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

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he wrote a truth social post about it. So we don't know where we're at, you know, obviously, I'm sure hopefully there's some backshanneling going on where we're figuring it out. The straight of her moves is essentially still the facto closed. Some ships are getting out not anywhere near what the normal traffic would be. We started, you know, basically search, you know, search the v B S S v B S S ing. I don't know exactly what the acronym means. Whatever you guys can google it is.

cool for the guys that are doing this for real. Okay,

so we're talking about a rod again. You know, i'd start with this. You know, we do need to get to a point where the US can be successful at this. We've talked about this a lot, and I think we have accomplished some of our military objectives. We never should have used the regime change as an objective. Clearly we do have, probably and I think Jonathan and Mark can

go into detail on this. I think we probably have a more hardline regime right now than we did before the war started, and I think we just need to accept that that's what it is. We have made strides against their ballistic missile program, which was somewhat of a

shield for their nuclear program. We have made some strides against their suicide drones, but I'd be careful from a messaging point of view, of overstating that because clearly they're going to rebuild it, and if they're back to where they were in a year, those military objectives are not going to look as significant as they do right now.

So and then, of course the question is how do we deal with the top priority, which is the nuclear ambitions of Iran, which probably would mean recovering the four hundred and forty kilograms of highly enriched uranium, but it's important to point out they have about ten tons of

enriched uranium, not to that level. But the best way to ensure that they don't try to get a nuclear program is make it completely against their interest to have a nuclear program, which means a negotiated nuclear agreement that provides them benefit, you know, sanctions relief, of course, being the primary that has complete visibility, so the IAEA has the ability to ensure that they're not developing nuclear weapons.

But to say that we're going to just mow the grass, so to speak, which I'm not necessarily opposed to, but I just don't think it's practical. So I think we should put all our eggs into or not all of them,

but a majority of riggs into the diplomatic basket to try to get there. And yes, it has to be better than the twenty fifteen agreement for political reasons. Are people really going to ask why we elected to pull out of that just to get back to the same agreement, and it does have to address THEA ballistic missiles in some capacity, at least restrictions on the straight or most obviously that was open before we started, so we can't leave it worse off. They've found their major pressure point,

and it is a pressure point. We can all acknowledge that, and we've tried to counter with the blockade. I do believe that's where the US is going to double down blockade. I don't think we want to insert ground forces into this conflict for multiple reasons. One, there's really no exit strategy. If we do, it's only escalatory. So we're going to try to push hoard on the blockade, and I do

think it's having an effect it. I guess the next step is what will Iran do to try to it where they start attacking their neighbors again, where they get the huthis to try to obstruct the Red Sea. Baba Mendev don't know.

outlast us, that they'll be successful. It's clearly an indicator to me that we're highlighting what is the most concerning to us, other than that maybe a bifurcated process where we can get to it and negotiated into the war and then start the long term negotiated process to get to a new nuclear agreement. It seems like we're thinking this is all going to happen at once. It took

two years to get to the original agreement. We're not going to send two guys with no experience over there and both simultaneously in the war and come up with JCPO POA two points here. It's just very unlikely to happen. And the more we think it's going to happen, the

more we're going to I think fall short. And when we do get to the long term negotiated process, we need to bring in experts, nuclear experts, careers from the military, State Department, intelligence community to be successful and to be

long term, and I think we're going to have to convince the Iranians that we're not just going to pull out of the agreement in three years because the next president doesn't like President Trump, right, or what's the point?

going to have to address all these issues. But ultimately it's worth it if we can get to a new agreement that stabilizes the Middle East, which of course is in our own interest as well as our partners in the Middle East. And then there's all the other issues going on with manufacturing and defense industrial complex in the United States being able to keep up with this. We're

getting very short on precision strike munitions interceptors. Our allies are now wondering whether we are the right provider of said weapons because we're not keeping up with our obligations based on our actions, and it's deciding to go to war. So that's a bigger broader issue, but it's a real issue from people that are reaching out to me, from our European partners. So I'll stop there, And I don't know if we're going to talk about the event last night, but Iran's obviously the major issue.

within the regime, which to some maybe surprising. They're a little bit obscure to understand, and it's because we don't often talk about domestic politics in Iran. Instead, we just talked about Iran the threat and don't kind of go

deeper than that. And there's four different camps. There's moderates, reformists, pragmatists, and hardliners, and these kind of come up over the years, especially like two thousand and nine when there was a contested election with mud Amani Nijad and then the reformists and the reformists probably won that election, but the hardliners said no and so Ahmai Nijad became the president. Again.

That's why there was a two thousand and nine Green Revolution because there was this disagreement between these two groups, and a lot of these protests that have come out have been a kind of symptom or result of the disagreements between these groups that have existed since the revolution.

So this isn't a new thing, but it's something that's important understand because when we're thinking about negotiating and when Trump says we don't know who we're negotiating with, it's actually partially true because probably on the NSC side, we don't actually know who holds the power levers right now. It's most likely the hard Liners, which is Ahmad Vahidi, who's in charge of the IRGC. Now. He was actually the original founder of Kutz Force back in nineteen eighty eight,

when Kutz Force wasn't even a military unit yet. It was an idea they had and they started using it as this overseas. It was called Office of Liberation Movements or OLM. They actually sent that team to Bosnia, which was the first partner engagement COULDS Force ever had, was to fight in Bosnia with the Muslim groups there that the US was actually supporting, which is a very interesting time period in our history. We're actually aligned similar to

when we were fighting Isis in twenty sixteen, when Iran was also hitting the same targets at that time. So Fahdi also was involved in the Amea bombing in Argentina in the early nineteen nineties and also the bombing of the Israeli embassy in the early nineteen nineties, killing several hundred people. He was directly involved in the operational planning

of that. So he's been a hardliner since day one, fought in the Iran Iraq War, and now it seems as though he's kind of resting control of the internal levers of government, which means we can probably expect a more hard line position not just to pomacy but also military operations. So he was one of the first founders of the Mosaic Doctor, And like all these things we hear about that are negative about the regime what they're doing, Fahiti has directly got his hand inside of that stuff.

So when we think about like, oh, was there regime change, whether there was or not, the person who has power now is worse than the person who had power before. It doesn't really matter how you define regime change. What matters is what are they doing, what are the effects of what they're doing? And I would estimate it's going to be worse because this guy is he's not moderated by how many faction that was the clerical faction that

was kind of had this veneer of control. The ERGC has always had control, but now that veneer is kind of removed, and we can see it removed because Muhammed Badger Ghalibof, the Speaker of Parliament, seems to be losing control over what's going on, and that control is being distributed over to those IERGC insiders, which are led by Bahiti.

And I think that's important for listeners to understand, like what's going on over there, because we may think that we're talking to Gollibof and Golibaf is leading the country because he's a Speaker of Parliament, but he actually only controls a small percentage now of the decision making that's going on in the country.

I'm sure there's opposition within D O D on this, and Iran doesn't get anything about resumption of military activity

because they're getting thumped. I think that you know, you know, I've talked about kind of this, this fascination we have of military math and the impressive press briefings, but it turns out that all those impressive press briefings is not what the Defense Intelligence Agency is actually reporting when they said there's still significant percentages of thrones and launchers for for ballistic missiles, and so perhaps the Iranian military has

not been degraded. There was a report yesterday I saw that actually in Irani and F five launched an attack in the Gulf.

But I guess one of the questions I have is will the United States or Israel at some point make a determination again for reasons that I'm not sure I agree with, that resuming attacks on the on Ran is actually in our interests? And again you know what does that mean? And and there is the notion of signal versus noise, signal meaning actually movement of assets and movement of assets suggests. And again you guys see the same airflow on open source stuff is still moving towards the region.

We have the third aircraft carried battle Group there. I guess the second MEW has arrived or is about to. And so you know, it's not like they're withdrawing forces.

We are adding. Now this might be you know, plan in advance already, but it is kind of a strange situation, is that really? I mean, if you think about it, you know, so Vice President Vans didn't go, didn't hop on a plane.

lot of big moving parts. But then there's this thing hanging over us in terms of the military option, and I do think the Iranians haven't kind of unleashed what they could in terms of asometric warfare. Maybe they have, and they've we stop cyber attacks, maybe we have the US ice in the Israeli I sually have stopped kind of the Iranian terrorist apparatus overseas. But I think they could do a lot more and they've chosen not to.

And so I guess the question for you guys, after my little soliloquy there is do you think actually it's possible that military active best thing that could happen, Well, the best thing that can happen would be a really good diplomatic agreement, Mick, As you said, aside from that, maybe just this kind of strange status quo we're sitting at now, Well, nothing is preferable to resumption of military activity. What are your guys thoughts.

to let go of. And I think neither side knew before the conflict started just how powerful this lever would become during the conflict, and now Iran is realizing that. They're like, we don't want to let go of this thing, because now this is all we've got left, especially after all the strikes have degraded things within the country. So they're looking at this point as a non degraded, appreciable

asset that they don't want to let go of. And the reason I'm mentioning that because I'm looking at Lebanon and think about what's going on with this meeting between President Awun and Netanyahu in DC, which is very historic. If people don't know, since nineteen eighty two, there has not been a meeting between the Lebanese leader and an

Israeli leader. And if you've been to south Lebanon, there are signs that point south to Palestine and they don't have signs that point to Israel because Lebanon doesn't recognize Israel as a country. They recognize as Palestine. If you go into the museum and bey route, there's maps, you know, the history Museum, there are maps of Palestine today and

it's all Israel, you know. So the fact that these two leaders are meeting is a very important component of this larger negotiation where if we can break off the Lebanese component from the main Iran theater component, at least from the military planning perspective, Iran's going to lose its ability to have a surrogate force in Hesbola if that's true, because what will probably happen is a Lebanese armed forces and the IDF will start to work together in South

Lebanon to suppress Hesbola, which is kind of a thing that has never been discussed in the past because we had the UN Security Council resolution in the South setting up the Blue line to kind of keep the status quo between Israel and Lebanon since the two thousand withdrawal.

It's possible that that could shift a little bit where the Lebanese and the Israelis began suppressing Hesbola, and that would mean the regime would only have really it's Iraqi and hoothy forces that could actually be a threat in the region, and there could be this kind of domino effect where first we suppress Hesbola to a neutral degree so they can't do anything new new to them, and then we've got the Houthis kind of suppressed in the Red Sea area, which we generally do, and then the

only threat really is that western portion of the Iraqi portion. And perhaps by taking out these dominoes, now you just have a rump state of the IRGC that's been reduced significantly anyway, and maybe that's the direction that we might be moving it based on how we're doing these negotiations.

of rezuming military activity against Iran? And you know, and what would that actually entail?

how much can we sustain and maintain over time? And I think they're looking at that, and they're looking at the terrain and how difficult the rescue operation was how much asset was required to get those two pilots out was a lot. And if we can expect more down pilots, we can expect more harmed forces and isolated persons if we do a ground incursion. And I don't think the DoD is willing to sustain that, or maybe they will if they have to. I don't think they want to, yick.

I would argue not that much. But of course the military planners no more than I do, because they see that, they're seeing the intel. But everything I'm hearing is they don't want to start it, not necessarily because they want the war to end, although I think they do. It's just they we don't gain that much for restarting the air war so no, I don't think the Pentagon thinks that's the way to go. To Jonathan's point, I do think that's the way to go, and I think we're

going there, whether it's planned or not. In the sense that you know, the three major pillars nuclear ambitions, proxy forces, and ballistic missiles. The proxy forces have been degraded pretty substantially. Look at Hesbolon obviously a moss. The two remaining are still an issue. But we should double down on enhancing the relationship between the Lebanese armed forces and the Lebanese government and Israel and US, because if we can remove

that hesbela issue, it'll never be completely eradicated. So we have to send reasonable expectations, but reduce it to the point where it's not a threat to Israel or a significant one, and it's not something that Aaron can use for its strategic purposes. That's a big win. If we can get to a nuclear agreement, then we're confident that they won't actually get to a nuclear weapon. That's a

big win. And guess what if we can't. I imagine, you know, if you just listen to Jonathan's discussing about the new regime, all of them are going to want a nuclear weapon. So we're gonna have to We're gonna have to get to a place where they don't want it, and right now they do want it, like if there was hesitation before. I imagine, at least philosophically, right now they're like, well, look at what's happening. Does look what's happening in North Korea? So the two rogue states, there's

your examples. So I imagine all of the IRGC people who are pushing the former Supreme Leader to get a nuclear weapons like, told you it, right, So we're going to have to address that immediately because now the incentive is definitely there. We don't want them to want that. That's the second pillar. And then the ballistic missiles, of course that could be tied. I mean, there could be restrictions. We're never going to have them eliminated because they needed

for their national defense. But let's do it in a way that it's regionally makes sense, but not but to become a threat, you know, outside of the region and to the level where it could actually protect a nuclear program. So if to Jonnason's term, if it's a rump state in or on that essentially regardless of their intent is not threatening their region, is not using proxy forces, it's not destatebolizing the Middle East. Then that is a good

place to hint. And if we can focus on that, that would be a win. And I'm looking for a win for the United States, not like it's a sports event, but like we did this for a reason. We need to be successful strategically, And right now it can go either way. I really could to the other point. Mark like, this could be a stalemate for a long time because neither side wants to push the military button again, and neither side seems to be willing to compromise, at least

publicly on the diplomatic front. So we can have this long, dragged out blocking of the Strait for the world's uh you know, energy supply and other important material and the blocking of the Strait from our perspective for the Iranians. And I don't know what that's going to do long term for uh, you know, global economy, but it's got to be negative. So we're going to have to figure

out how to break that in past. But right now we could be set for a long period of time of that, Like we could be talking about this, you know, to Christmas here on hiz On, like, what's going to happen next other than the blockade of the blockade. So hopefully we can convince the Iranians legitimately that it's in their interest to have a nuclear agreement and in the war in terms that are still amenable to the US government.

and it's all, it's all one hundred percent maximalist. But that's not the way diplomatic agreements get signed. So I think that one thing that might constrain Trump, and this is not a good thing, is that an agreement in which you know, where there's going to be some type of you know, moratorium on in Richmond uranium, whether it's ten years fifteen years whatever, which is the only way

this actually works. I think because of the national pride piece for the for the Iranians, that might not be enough to satisfy kind of some of the right wing kind of supporters behind Trump and the Lindsay Grahams of the world who are going to be howling over this. So I think politically it'll be interesting to see how Trump. I don't think he cares. He doesn't believe in anything.

He would you know, come to agreement, but he has boxed himself in politically on this, and I guess one of the things that the other thing to kind of note, politics is of course involved in this, and you know, maybe he's made an assessment that the Republicans are going to lose in the midterms regardless of what he does,

so he will He's okay with economic pain. I mean, you know, if you want to legacy defining agreement, which might be acceptable in terms of constraints on the Iranian nuclear program, uh, you know that's uh and it all and it might take that this notion of kind of the battle of time, and maybe Trump's like, okay, we're going to do this, and it's going to take a while, because remember he said at one point he said it's indefinite the ceasefire, then he said three to five days.

Now it's back to kind of indefinite again.

There's other people in the chat who are not fans.

JD Vance not going to Islamabad. So you know, the best thing that they could do is take his phone away so he can't you know, tweet about about Iran. But but going back to kind of my, my, my, you know, it's the idea of you know, is this is this Trump's kind of decision. You know, it was Venezuela, Iran and then Cuba going to be his legacy. You know, politics be damned, We're gonna have five dollars gallons of gas.

But you know, I'm I'm gonna be the one who took down the Iranians running nuclear program maybe and then and then and and because maybe they have it baked in that they're Republicans, lose the House and maybe even the Senate anyhow, regardless, So kind of interesting to think about.

if they don't, what's going to happen. So if Congress doesn't act under the Act and correct me if I'm wrong, law student, then it's supposed to, then it's essentially over. We're supposed to stop combat operations. So if they don't act, then then that's going to be a institutional issue, which I may first. There you go, and it's about time that the Supreme Court decides this issue. How this isn't decided yet is beyond me. No matter where you stand

on it. The idea that the most important thing the government does is the decision to go to war, and it's clearly spelled out in the Constitution Article one obviously,

with the power to declare war for Congress and the Commander in Chief for Article two and it's still we still don't have a definitive statement by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of an act that's been around since the early seventies. Is just baffling to me. Maybe you guy should talk about that at Yale.

executive branch. And this what I would mention the red hat part of it, because what's happening in the Office of Legal Council right now is they're saying, Okay, if Congress does say we can't do this, how else can we describe what we're doing in a way that can still be allowed. So what if I'm in their office and I'm thinking that I'm going to immediately look at authorization for use of military force for Iraq. And that's what they used in twenty twenty twenty January when we

killed costom Sole money. We use the au MF for the Iraq war, and it passed muster. And they're going to say, we already passed muster on it. Once we have precedent that we were allowed to continue striking Iranian targets using the AUMF, we're going to keep doing that now, and we're going to say it's self defense. And if you saw that State Department message that came out a couple of days ago saying the US is acting in self defense of itself and Israel deep put in your

ear plugs. We've already set kind of the groundwork for us to come up and make a justification that, oh, we're not doing an offensive war. This is a defensive conflict against Iran underneath the AUMF, and that's why we're allowed to continue doing this we don't even need the nineteen seventy three War Powers Resolution because we're in self defense right now, we're under attack, it's not that we're attacking. So if I was in their office, that's probably the

conversation that's going on right now. How do we draft a memo like that to allow people to continue regardless of what Congress does. But probably Congress won't do anything because they already have had an opportunity to do something and they haven't done it.

is an at Yeah. So so I mean, that's that's that would be an argument for someone who actually cares about the Constitution, I mean, or cares about the kind of the rule of law and and constraints and three brant three core equal branch of the government to say on either side of the asle, hey, you know, Congress has to get involved here because you know, it's just like so many other things this administration is doing and

Trump is doing against the norms. You got to be careful because if it becomes kind of regularized, the next the next president comes from the other party is going to do all the same things. And so you know that's but but I don't I mean, look, I don't know how you guys feel. I've totally lost all faith

in Congress as an institution completely. And when you've kind of going back to back to politics politics, when you see Trump's approval ratings are in the thirties, it's a you know, it certainly looks like there'll be a blood bath. Uh probably a bad term now, but you know they'll lose significantly in the midterms. But you also, if you look at the support for Democrats in Congress, it's like

in the teens. I mean, so people don't like Congress to begin with, and for good reason because they you know, we have incompetent you know, of dipshits as a useless I mean, the people who are actually running you know that, you know, the powers of our government now never should be there.

situation and whether you're red or blue or neither. That if you said, hey, can the president just start an endless war and just keeps going on without Congress authorizing, and I'm guessing about ninety nine percent of America say no, no, right, I mean because the current people to be frank, that are in this war keep complaining about the war we just left that went on for twenty years, right, So like it seems like we need to slap the table

on just how this should go, regardless the current situation or who you're affiliated with. They do we literally not want Congress, which is the direct representation of the American people, to have no say in whether we continue war. And they don't get to opt out. They don't get to just say nothing or vote to not vote, which is what they're.

the different objectives. But if they've done this and let's say Congress votes on it, the administration is in a hugely strengthened position because the other the other part of it too is and there's no doubt and you know, perhaps this is an interesting avenue as well, uh is the Iranians. Notice, I mean, you know, the Iranians have used kind of social media and trolling and all of this because they certainly see the divides in the United

States and this exacerbates that. But let's say we had a congressional vote, the administration had done the right thing and it passes. That actually puts the Iranians in a weaker position. Trump in a better position politically. But most importantly for us is we are in a better position visa vi Iran if you had that a successful vote.

But at this point, the other part of this now, maybe to throw into kind of go against everything I'm saying, is that maybe we've gone so far and that they've done so little that actually this vote might not pass now. So maybe that's part of their calculation as well, because they flubbed the initial part of this and so, and that would be if there was a War Powers resolution and it failed in Congress, that would be pretty damaging to our position, the negotiating table.

in America. I mean in the West Coast they are, but like at some point, like that's gonna that Bill's gonna come due.

pickup truck yesterday. I was shocked expensive gas expensive now.

by an oligarch that passed through unmolested. There were four Omani vessels that passed through, one ferry, which is normal like local traffic, and then two Iranian flat shadow fleet tankers passed through, one an Iranian owned vessel and one a non Iranian own vessel. That's all that passed through. Twenty five percent of the eight vessels that went through in the last forty eight hours where Iran linked vessels

and one was a Russian oligarch. So to me, it's like, okay, how actually controlled is this and how are we describing it in the west versus what's actually happening on the ground. It's just a question mark, and we didn't stop.

But one question I have for you guys, and I think it's important, is what the Trump administration, with Trump himself has been saying over the last what three or four days perhaps is talking about these divisions within uh Iran and it is potentially significant, you know, uh, And I guess that brings up the idea or to me,

it did in terms of our intel collection. You know, do you think this is because Trump is actually you know, finally even listening to or receiving intelligence briefings that hey, this is what's happening. You know, this is why these things are breaking down within within Iran because there does seem to be some type of leadership struggle and that just brings up the notion of our intelligence collection in Iran.

And what I've talked about before with you guys is, hey, we're great at man hunting the fine, fix and finish us in the Israelis can kill anyone anywhere on the planet. That's been demonstrated. That's a different type of intelligence collection and different source you recruit for patternal life versus a strategic asset in the you know, in the you know Iranian you know, Supreme leader's office. So what do you

guys think of that? Or if you have any window into the state of US intel collect now, I mean, do you think it's because it seems to me that Trump is now alluding to things that he did he would not have come up with on his own. So maybe there is some interesting intelligence collection that's coming in that detail. Is this kind of the splits within the Iranian leadership? What are your guys thoughts.

the US to know. Is this a tactic of delay where they believe they have leverage the longer this goes, or is it actually a dysfunction of the government, Because that's a big determination if you can because you know from the US perspective from President Trump's perspective, if it's literally because you know, the Supreme Leader doesn't want any technology communication devices around them obviously for obvious reasons, and there's this slow like courier system to get information back

and forth. Is it because there's just arguments between Vahidi and Gollibah, for example. You see a lot of stuff

about that, and it's just they just had an impasse that have been broken by the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader even alive.

efforts against Iran going on forever. So I do wonder what's happening with that, because you could actually make an argument. And I think you know, Micky, we've talked about this on so many This goes back to the Solemny strike. Why in the world was it not titled fifty versatile ten oral? Trump wanted to talk about it. But there there are things that we could be doing under the table.

keeping our end of the deal. But we're really good at doing it, like embedding with groups. Look at the de ISIS program for example. I think we could be just as good as it with influence operations. I don't know that we put the needed resources into it as we do with the others. If we are great. If we aren't, we need to do a much better job. But they're only really effective if we keep them quiet.

So like if we can't, as soon as we brag about doing something on the influence side, then everything that we touched turns to the opposite of gold. Put it that way, right, Like I was going to ask you a like who do we want to actually take power in Oran? But then I thought otherwise, because we put a damn target on their head, right, So I think that's where we should not that Aron listens to eyes on but maybe they do.

and others then crushed all these moderates. So, you know, Nick, along with your point, and Jonathan, we can put you on the spot. You know Ron better than us. I mean, who is who would be the who would be a a you know, someone that or a group can say that pragmentist moderates whatever you reformers that we should be pushing, that would be a the better let's just say, the best negotiating partner to get to a reasonable settlement.

candidates through the Supreme Leader's office. So anyone in any position of authority that currently is in the government now has already been approved by the Supreme Leader, which means they already have bought into the list of requirements that they must have, but not just religious requirements but also ideological alignment and other things that put them in a certain bucket that would be unacceptable to the US unless the US is willing to change his policy like we

did with Achmedal Shara and Syria, where the first week of December he was a ten million dollar bounty in his head. In the second week of December, we are meeting with him in his office and he's now our friend.

are the people. So there needs to be some kind of referendum or change in the structure of the government where the people that are not allowed to have power are allowed to have power, because all the ones who do have power are aligned with the regime. If you describe them as moderate, that's all relative. It's moderate in relation to a hardliner. And what does that even mean.

I mean, that's just an abstract thing. So I would be worried about keeping the people in government who are there now and expecting them to become aligned with us, because that's not how they were picked in the first place. You know that it was like an evolution of that of their beliefs that got them to the point where they are now, and they're not going to change that. Inside themselves. They might publicly say like, oh, we're fixed, we're better now, but I don't know if I would trust that.

in the system and you know, arrange power structures in a way that's beneficial. And if he's doing that in the government, that's probably helpful to keep things predictable, because sometimes it's better even if the guy is bad if you know about him. It's easier than if you don't know about him, but he's good because you don't know

what to expect. So in this case, we can actually prepare things around knowing how he behaves and what he does, because we've been following him for a long time and he's you know, pretty predictable as far as what he's going to do next, whereas someone like Vahiti is a lot less like that. And that's because Vahdi has an ideological thing guiding him, and that is the destruction of Israel. And he's said this since nineteen seventy nine, that that's his dream, and he keeps saying it even now like

today he said it. So, I mean, this is not something that's changing very soon for him. So putting someone like that or allowing them to reach the top is probably not going to be a helpful outcome for the US. So someone like Pozeshkian is not good the president because he's very weak, and he was selected to be president on purpose because of his weakness. And you know, Raisi was like the opposite of Pozeshkian. Raysi died in a

helicopter crash. They brought Poseshkia in because he could actually be that counterbalance of quote unquote moderate to the more hardline group which is led by Vahiti. So these people all exist within the same universe basically of their belief systems. So from us on the outside, there aren't really any moderates really in there in terms of the world's idea of what a moderate is.

because who's going to stop him. He's the one that controls the most violent organization in the country with the most power and authority behind him. So in this situation, I mean, he's like an authoritarian inside of an authoritarian system, So he's got this ability to just unilaterally act. I wouldn't be surprised if he just broke the quote unquote rules that they ask.

but it really doesn't matter if Fahiti can simply fire him as to all the negotiations that we if we do get these going, which we all hope we do, it really comes down if that's the case and he has the authority to do it, and obviously he has the inclination that it really comes down to trying to get kinse Vahidi, which is the most hardline person I've heard described that it's a good idea to enter a new nuclear agreement with the United States, Right, I mean,

because if he gets close to an agreement, or even if he has an agreement, he can simply remove from

having any authority.

could continue on without whatever plan he has. So he's almost got it like a double win out of this by allowing Golliboff to look like he's in control until the moment that it has the highest value to remove him.

former US Ambassador Saudi Arabia. Chris Costa, he's the current director of the Spy Museum, but was this Presidential Special Advisor for counac Terrorism and hopefully all of our team from eyes on so we which it's shaping up to be pretty pretty freaking good. So excited about it.

At yelled too. I mean, there is you know, that's passing the torch to the next generation. There's some really smart folks out there. So that's what kind of gives me a boot, you know, just you know that there are there are people still willing to step up and do public service. Every time I do these talks, I ask people how many hear in an audience of fifty you are interested in going to the government. A lot of people raise their hand. That's a good thing.

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