U.S. Strike on Iran IMMINENT? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

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Patreon dot com slash the teamhouse to support the show. Okay, with that said, a lot happening. It looks like we're building quite a big presence in the Gulf and in the Mediterranean UH to possibly attack Iran. The protests kind of spiked up a little bit over the last week again, but they've kind of seemed to have simmered down for the most part. Internet is still spotty coming in and out of your own Where does this go? There's talk now that there's there's a bit of negotiation going on.

It seems like we're trying to fold into nuclear talks as well. Where are we at with this? Make You Go?

Plus every time I turn around there's another destroyer. I'm not sure where are they're all coming from, but those can be significant when it comes to guided missiles of course, and the air capacity just keeps flowing and flowing and flowing. So we're definitely headed toward something, right, So what the off What could be the off ramps? It would be to earnestly start negotiations in a new nuclear agreement that goes beyond just a nuclear agreement but also includes ballistic

missile programs and proxy for support. That is what I think the administration is requiring. They've been requiring that since the first administration, and I think it's legit at least to want to address all those From what I'm hearing, Iran might be able to accept some kind of restrictions on proxies, but won't un ballistic missiles because they consider that like their only real defense. So and everything else I've heard is essentially this isn't going to go anywhere.

So if it's not, if it's not, let's hope we're wrong. I always hope that the Wellmacy ruled the day that I can't see the US, the White House not taking some form of military action. Right there's a huge build up if they can't get even an agreement and principle to have a new JCPOA if you will, that they are closer to on the Trump ADMINSTRATIONE. I just don't think this will just end and that we'll just turn around and go home. So then the question is one,

what is the objective? Is it simply to degrade the nuclear program? Further, is it regime change, which you know, I think we should probably have a whole section about the likelihood of whether you can do regime change. From the air, would say that would be incredibly difficult. The geography of her on it's almost four times the size of a rock, if you want to compare that when it comes to us, you know, past conflicts, and it's got about ninety million people, so more than half more

than double a rock. The geography's mountainous. It is designed to sustain. It's primarily the regime's primary purpose is to maintain the regime, so it has all these power centers. The supreme leader is basically just holds them together. Even if he was taken out. All those power centers are not only invested in continuation, they're literally would be toast if they didn't maintain it right. There's simply no way to get all the leaders out of the country, et cetera.

So it's going to be difficult to do even if you did a ground invasion, which would be insane, but from the air, very few if you think about, you know, nineteen ninety one saidam Air at least for a rock obviously didn't change regime. There's many examples, so I don't think there will be a serious for regime change, but they could, you know, support the protesters because if anything is going to change your regime, it's going to have

to come from within. I just don't know how much you can do to support just by hitting security infrastructure or like irgc de siege. And then there's the issue and then I'll stop here and throw it over to Andy for comments on all the above. But there's a lot of concern that the Iranians will see mine the straits of her moods, right, so that could cause major disruption and energy supplies. It would also really affect them. It wouldn't in fact, the United States as much as

other countries though, quite frankly, because we just don't get as much oil from there. And then there's this discussion that I think is legitimate about whether the US could do some kind of blockade. Legitimate in the sense that I think it's actually being discussed. I don't know, be frank how effective it would be, but it's kind of like looking at Venezuela, which is not a real model for a ROD, but you know, we remove the leadership

and now we're doing enable blocking. Or I think that's being considered at least for I don't know how effective it would be, but that's uh, that's where I think the summary is of what I've discussed this week and what I've been told.

to interpret them, presumably it would be correctly anyway. So Number one, diplomatic diplomatic negotiations efforts have not ceased, and fact they seem to have ramped up. Which makes me think that while I agree with Mick that there needs to be action at some point because or there will be action at some point, because I can't see the Iranians being able to compromise on some key issues right. But in the meantime, Trump seems to be up playing

the role of Erdowan. He's calling him a problem solver, right, and Dawan has reached out to Iran and is offering to negotiate. It's interesting that it is Turkey doing this, and Trump seems to have confidence in Dauwan based on based on Erduwan's Yeah, I'm not saying he was successful in doing this, but his ability negotiate previously between Algelani or Alshira whatever we're calling him now and yes and the sd fright and uh so, so he's giving him prisident.

Trump's giving other one credit for that and saying, hey, it looks like he's giving him a shot to negotiate before things go further as far as strikes are concerned.

But to mixed point, we don't know how receptive and ran it's going to be, you know, Sertenly, the rant's showing those signs in their rhetoric of being willing to negotiate their threatening regional war if the United States strikes and there and various other dire threats and and uh when I think about why would they do that, the only thing I can think is maybe it's an effort

to portray this as at first it's a show of strength, maybe false strength, paper Tiger. But the other thing is, you know, we talked about this too, that Iran seems to be I won't say on the verge of toppling the administration, because it's far from that. But certainly these demonstrations that have occurred are more serious, more in debt, had been put down with greater brutality than previous protestation protest.

So it looks as though maybe this is an effort to rally the country and behind, you know, towards an external enemy. That may be why Iran's ramping up the rhetoric. I can see no other rational reason to do it, so, you know. But but the thing is, and we'll see once reached out to them, we haven't seen whether Iran is receptible or not. There's there's probably three things that

this but there's three problematic areas. There's four if you count the protests, right, and you've count the brutality which with which the the Uranians put down the protest. But as far as points to negotiate on, there's the nuclear issue, right the I think, you know, I think it's open source.

It is open source now that the bomb damage assessments on Ista, the Tarns and for Doux are not as stick now as as they appeared, you know, right after the strikes, and that either the Iranians were very quick at turning around and starting to build their capability again, or the damage wasn't as bad as we thought. Okay, So so there's that, right, How ensuring that that Iran steps back from its plans to to create to build

a nuclear weapon. Potentially that's the point of negotiation. Potentially Turkey could offer to take the enriched uranium that the that Iran has and and store it in Turkey in return for and I'm on the finash of my technical technical ability here, but remember the deal with Russia, right, Russia was going to do this back in twenty ten in return for rich uranium, I mean a non non weaponizable uranium that that could could help her oun't build

a civilia a civil nuclear capability. Okay, I haven't worded that very well. But do you understand giving up weaponized uranium in return for assistance with with with the civil nuclear capability? Okay? That potentially a compromise point number two on the proxies. Well, there isn't. Actually, it's really really difficult to enforce. If Ron says, oh yeah, we'll step back from bolstering the huthi's his boller. They could agree to do that, whether the US would would honor that

concession or even give it credibility. I don't know, but it's certainly something in the Uranians could agree to do. And as we know, you know, his Bolla is kind of on the ropes anyway, and and it seems as though the Huthis two have died down in their activities, so maybe maybe Iran would be happy to do that in order to focus on getting a firmer grip back at home. But the third point, which would be reduction of the missile ballistic missile capability, I can't see them

compromising at all, can you make? I mean, I think.

the and the region are going to get a far longer, greater warning. Right as far as repercussions agree. You know, the the worst thing that can happen that Iron could do isn't launch missiles, ballistic missiles and drones from the homeland because as as we've seen before with the US, where US anti air defense systems in the region sent missile batteries, agus cruisers and all and the like, you get so much warning. And with the sin and the

missiles being what they are, they relatively easy to intercept. So two things, though, are a real threat. One is the threat from proxies uh and specifically the you know, actually this is the category of proxies. I didn't mentioned the Shia militias in Iran in particular, always a threat and the flashtip bang that they attack US bases is far quicker as number one is. Mix said also sewing

mines in the Gulf. And last single levial Mick, what do you are you tracking these explosions in Iran itself?

or the other. I wouldn't be saying it, but it could be basically preparation for what's to come, which would be significant air and missile strikes on multiple different targets.

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and I can't remember the fourth one. I think it was an island in the gulf in the Straight of hor moves explosions, right, And the one in the Straight of hor Moos was a really big one that destroyed reportedly two hundred stores. Although that's how you know, what does that mean? How big those But that sounds like

a big explosion. And in Bandura, Bass and the entire shopping mall the later there's a big mega mall burned down, and then the Uranian government at the time said it was due to technical failures and the explosion of gas cylinders or poor maintenance. I mean, it seemed pretty ridiculous. So now they're claiming to come.

The person I was talking to said, oh, okay, well, either the Uranians can agree to adjust their nuclear ambitious, holistic most missile program proxies, or we can do it for right, So, is this going to be a thing that every time we think that they're going ahead with a nuclear weapon, And let's be fair, they have four hundred and forty one kilograms of enriched uranium to sixty percent, there's no reason I have sixty percent. They're almost in

the perfectly wrong spot. It's not for civilian purposes, and they don't have a nuclear weapon. So from regene endurance, ivan the you know, the middle ground is not necessarily a smart move, but this one can mact the argument that we're just going to mow the grass and make sure they never get there. And the same thing with the ballistic missile probe. Every time they start rebuilding it,

which they are, it happens again. So from a practical purpose, maybe that's one of the views inside the White House right now. And the other part is you can say, well, it's unlikely that you're going to actually change your regime. I think that's fair probably the intelligence segment assessment. And then even if you do change the regime, whether it'd be more favorable to the United States. I think those are both totally legitimate questions. The person I was talking

to said, well, probably worth rolling the dice. So if you're a gambler, you roll the dice. You don't know if it's going to be better or worse the same, but you know there's a chance, I guess. So I don't know if that's the way you should make, you know, major policies, decisions on war and peace. But I guess there is certainly a line of thought that it's worth trying to change the regime simply to see what happens. I think has a danger is game to start playing with,

even with despotic regimes like arod Ah. But you know, obviously there's different views inside the government, and we don't know which one's going to be prevailing.

that you just did, obviously with regime change. And as we talked about on this show, you know, you've got to have a viable opposition to come into place, and that just isn't that isn't in place right now.

Sure we might have been lying to the UN about anthrax and you know nine to eleven being you know, connected to Iraq uh, but we would build up a coalition, we would do the things that you know, do we take certain steps before we'd start bombing a place another country to you know, to hopefully maybe get some regime change. And even if it isn't a regime we don't like, you know, it's okay, Like I would think we would be operating on more of a more certainty than this.

It's going to be completely real, honest, Yeah, I mean.

to like promote the interests of the Ranian people. So they're designed to withstand not only a direct ground invasion, right, the besiege forces, like it's over a million people, and it's really designed to be very like autonomous, separate units that can fight on well passed an actual conventional military invasion, and the power centers and it's all tied to you know, I take complete corruption with huge offshore uh you know, repositories of money.

the state as a a big deal. I don't know whether that would be an obstacle for us, but perhaps more importantly, Yeah, its mixed, pointed out, you don't know what comes next, and there is no like the may just need to just wait he's going and and the point is that it mixed entirely, right, Yeah, the republic idea, sorry, the Revolutionary Guard and the besiege have the they'll they'll have you know, they'll be there's there's a transition plan

in every case. And and as we talked about the hole that the I g r C has on the Iranian just the country itself is multifaceted. It's economic and its military. I mean, it goes deep into the the roots of the the fabric of the country itself. You don't you don't topple it by simply killing one or two people. So yeah, it's gonna be interesting. The you know, the Turks,

I mean, the Turks haven't got up. I mean they remember, of course, the Turks backed Algilani who overthrew the overthrew Asad, who is Iran's Iran's a man in Syria, and so they were on bad terms then. But it does look as though the Turks of being trying to kind of reach what they have been reaching out to the Iranian

side during all the protests. I believe it was other one what might have been, as Foreign Minister said commented publicly that there is that that was it was really influenced behind the protests, you know, which kind of played into Iron's in my messaging too.

Number two is you know there's always been I mean this all regional rivalry, right, it's all it's like nineteenth century Europe. That's really like Middle East now is there are no friends, there are only interests. And so you

see this shifting dynamic. And UH, and Turkey would like to be seen as being to go to negotiating in place, for instance, Saudi Arabia and in this and in this particular particular instance, you know, the Saudi's UAE, the Qataris are all unified and advising President Trump not to strike Iran. You know, I say they they and Uh and and so it is Dawan that Trump has reached out to to to kind of issue to do this negotiation and

issue the warnings. And another one likes that, you know, yes, makes him feel as chopped.

been taken out of context. He might have said, hey, listen all that, you know, I understand that the United States might lose credibility because you built up forces in the region. And he might have then gone on to say, but because you know, the Saudis haven't said, oh no, no, that's not the case. They haven't done anything to repudiate

repudiate what he said. And I think it's it might be the Western media that's saying that it's a directly opposed to what NBS is saying, which is, hey, this isn't going to be in the best interests of the region to strike Kuran.

a good idea. I just don't know. But if you look at the reports, it seems to be contradictive of our contradictory of what they had originally.

So they probably realized that although it's better than not having, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to last beyond President Trump's administration or even that you know.

we send planes that way. We see how they react, we see where their defenses are, we see how they scramble planes. We might start doing that. The weather and all that stuff plays apart. It's over to the military at that point to pick the ideal time based on non political issues, right, stuff that's more in line with being most advantageous for the military, and then we'll see.

I don't know how long we give them to decide whether they're going to come to the negotiation table, but everything I've seen is they've kind of poot pooed even doing it. They be in the running regime so I don't know what would stop it from happening now unless we just pulled off, and that seems unlikely.

those two things. And and aired efense, you know what they have left at their head offense because they were the Russians are the only one who ones who are

resupplying with air defense. So those those three things could you could achieve really, you know, I'm not saying you're going to achieve are overwhelming, decisive effects permanent, but you're certainly going to be able to achieve significant effects in those three areas rather than if you go after you know, members of the regime of administration, in which case the repercussions may as we put as we pointed out, maybe may come back and buy you things that I think

are possible too, but probably won't happen, you know, covert action. Mix the expert on this, but it's always it's always a possibility. But I think we would work through partners if we did that COVID action, particular partner in the region who is already involved in those things in Iran.

I would guess, and again I'm speculating here, i'd have any access to knowledge, and if I did, I wouldn't share it, But I would guess that COVID action within Iran continues to be problematic for US United States for a number of reasons. You know, it's a high risk and it's it's just an area that would be tough. I think, make feel free to jump in.

want to give those indicators. But there's only so much they could cover, right, I think you will see potentially. Oh there's another issue. That's this blockade again that the US is discussing. There's some concern that it could actually trigger the conflict. So we're putting naval assets in place, they're doing naval exercises around the straits of horror moods.

the commander chief maker.

When it comes to decorational war, I don't know if that's ever going to be resolved. Doesn't seem like the Supreme Courts willing to weigh in in a very legitimate way on the War Powers Act, And what is the lanes of the road between Congress and the Chief Executive.

So if one party has holds both chambers, they're going to make it difficult for the executive to to you know, to to go to war or or take military action. But if he but if the executive, if you know, the same party is in parent in both chambers, or it's dominant in the Senate in particular, and it's the same party as the president, then you're going to see a very less safe their attitude towards allowing the executive

to do what he wants. It's not the intent of the you know, here am I divining the constitution, But that's not the intent of checks and balances, right. The intent was that the perseperience that that whoever holds the purse strings, which is Congress, is a genuine check to prevent the president taking the country into to war basically and committing American soldiers to war without without the say so of elected representatives. That's the intent, and the Supreme

Court was supposed to be the arbiter on that. And you know, when gray areas have arisen, But as Mix pointed out, that hasn't happened, you know, I mean we continued. I mean, yes, I know, Iraq and Afghanistan were different because we were operating under an AUMF but authorized usimilitary force. But there was never any concerted effort to revise that AUMF right, and it just continued and coninued and continued. And that's part of the problem why we ended up

in Afghanistan. I think one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why we lost our way in Afghanistan because there wasn't a sufficient congressional oversight to demand what exactly is our strategy and all the effort that we're putting in, how we how are we how is it aligned with a coherent policy? Rotation off the rotation. The great efforts that we saw on the ground at the tactical level evaporated because they didn't align with the coherent policy.

And that should have been a congressional role to ensure that happened. But it didn't happen. And everyone, you know, when when Kabul fell or everyone to point the finger at each other. It became a political football too. But the book bottom line is, I'm not arguing from the point of view by the party. I'm just saying Congress didn't do what it was supposed to do over the course of twenty years.

you know, Vietnam. That's why it was such a big issue because because of course, yeah, I mean it is.

you oppose the war, I think families would be a little hesitants, be too vocal when they're child volunteered to be in the you know what I mean, So especially if you joined. Yeah, a good point. I mean, if I'm not saying to bring back the draft, but I think we can all agree that if we had a draft, military adventurism would probably a subside quite a bit. Yeah, certainly when it comes to introducing ground forces.

effective partner. They fought alongside the United States, sometimes well beyond what they would have really needed to protect themselves, and did most of the fighting to dieing against ISIS, which benefited the world. Where there's an eighty country coalition and those are the country coalitions to those of the well, it's they both Arab and kurd to be fair, inside of the STF, it's just that the leadership is prime

predominantly Kurdish. But you know, eighty eighty country coalition, Yes, you did most of the fighting, right, So I think I personally think uh, and I know them a lot to be To be upfront, we owe them to be their partner in in advocating for them in a future series.

I'm not saying we should advocate for the Rahava concept and they're completely autonomous and all that stuff, but they they I think earned the right of the United States to be an advocate with the El Shara interim government so that they're in a good place and isn't a good place. I'm not saying we should be totally biased toward them, but I think a lot of them feel

like we're essentially abandoned, and that's happened before. It causes a lot of tension with the Special Operations community, who has spent a lot of times a lot of time, particularly the army side of that, and with the agency because they have been exceptional partners when it came to on the ground biting. And I think that's something that I hope that we can keep in mind that every

every international engagement isn't purely transactional. There has to be some loyalty to partners and allies or they're not never going to be that toward us. Again, there's a practical reason too, in addition to just ethical. I know we didn't have much time at the end, but this could this could come back next week.

we turned our back. Historically, we haven't been very good at standing by the groups who who don't represent foreign sovereign countries but have done the lion's share of the

fighting against our enemies. You know, you go back all the way to Vietnam and the Montagnards and and not just the Montagnyards, but various other ethnic groups within Cambodi, Alaos and Vietnam and then in in the you know, the kind of ISSIS campaign was the success that it was because we had a capable ground fighting force and we collectively defeated ISIS at the incredibly low cost when

it comes to casualties. It was the antithesis of Afghanistan where we flailed around and lost, and that was thanks to the SDF. Yes, they were in it for themselves, of course, but but it was a good partnership and and actually it was a partnership based on trust. You know, we had teams in there. The US soft community are very small teams working with their SDF, coordinating fire support totally at that mercy, were totally beholden to them for

protection and they never let us down. So yeah, I feel pretty strongly about us turning our backs on them in any in any way, whether it's with the Syrian regime or with the Turks.

is there as well. And he's got a great book When the Tempest gathers. I'm still waiting for Mick to write his book. I'm very excit. I can't wait for that. Uh. And yeah, Patreon doc Yeah, Patreon dot com, Slashi team House please one more.

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