[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, this is Mark Dubois, host of the Iran Breakdown.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly a year ago, we started the Iran Breakdown, thinking that Iran would be an interesting issue and that people needed more depth than detail.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we were surprised as anyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: The past year has been a major year for Iran and want to thank viewers and listeners for tuning in.
[SPEAKER_01]: This episode, we're going to do something slightly differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do a joint production with our friends at foreign policy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the podcast that's hosted by FDD President Cliff May.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this time, instead of being the host, I'm going to be the guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Cliff's going to interview me on the Iran issue on Operation Epic Fury and Warring Lion, where we are in the current three-week campaign against these Latinical public and where we may be heading.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for joining us, and we're going to break it down all over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark Dubuets and I have worked together here at the Foundation for Defense of democracies for more than 20 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the early days, just after the attacks of September 11, 2001, we were most focused on Al Qaeda and other non-state actors.
[SPEAKER_00]: But early on, Mark was seized by the most important nation-state sponsor of terrorism, the regime in Tehran, that was vowing death to Israel and death to America, waging a graze on war on what it called then, as it does now, the Great Satan and the Little Satan.
[SPEAKER_00]: too many people still to this day don't understand what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'll translate the Islamic Republic of Iran was the first modern nation state openly committed to Jehad against the West.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we're recording on Thursday, March 19th, is the one year anniversary of Mark's Iran breakdown podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best place you can go to understand the great nation of Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the tyrannical regime that has done such damage both at home and abroad over the past 47 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark or Dubel, as we often call him, is with us at FDHQ today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Cliff May, and I'm pleased you're with us too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here on Foreign Policy.
[SPEAKER_01]: good to see you all, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you, Cliff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, after 20 years of working on Iran, I'm definitely an old man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm certainly age.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'd be trying that one by way, but I would be generous.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's, but anyhow, let's start with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: How in your view goes the.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's called the intense kinetic operations, and now that we're in like with the third week, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, listen, I mean, I think it's from a military perspective, I think it's going extraordinary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it's going better than I would have expected, and it's certainly going better than many people in Washington had assessed over years of war gaming at the Pentagon and within the administration and outside think tanks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, part of some of those war games.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I think all of the kind of parade of horribles that people had planned out or anticipated in those war games, much of that hasn't happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of it has happened, and we can talk about horror moves and some other contingencies.
[SPEAKER_01]: But from a military perspective, I think the combination of the United States and Israel
[SPEAKER_01]: really flying peer to peer and working peer to peer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't think Cliff we've ever in a modern American history or ancient history.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in American history gone a war where we are in combat with an ally who's capable of operating at peer with the United States military.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's what's happened with Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the combined forces.
[SPEAKER_01]: of the United States Air Force, and these really Air Force, the intelligence communities, and the sort of the U.S. Navy have done massive damage to the war-making capability of the regime and also to the repression apparatus.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you've talked about this and written about this quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to elaborate for a second when we talk about them working together what we had never seen before.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have American pilots, and it's really pilots, both in it, F-35s.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have them speaking in English to each other, coordinating, talking about which targets to take.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when you talk about a model ally, you're talking an ally who not only is willing to defend himself, but can work with you, contribute to the collective defense and does so.
[SPEAKER_00]: And suddenly,
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not just a force multiplier, they're part of your force, that's what's different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as we work with the British, I don't know how many, I don't know actually, how many other nations contributed to the invasion of Normandy, I should know that, but I don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but this is something Canada kind of go k god bless Canada, and then they Can't can't quite quite an army it's I think when they finish well, though, too that the fifth largest arm in the world really and then they just Proceeded over decades to to effectively destroy it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but I know that Canadians fought very bravely the Kiwis were with us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But in Normandy, but in Normandy, but look at that the end of the day was it was a U.S. UK operation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we were the senior partner there at Brits for the junior partner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're right, we've never had a situation where we have an ally and but it's also worth remembering Cliff, this is country of 10 million people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, with actually a small air force and a small intelligence community.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's quite extraordinary when you think about our European NATO allies and put the Turks aside, but I mean this is the European continent with I don't know 350, 400 million people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, it's, it's 40 times the size of Israel in terms of population and obviously massive size differential in terms of geography and yet is there one European ally not only standing with us today in terms of political will
[SPEAKER_01]: but in terms of capability, could they stand with us?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think probably the only European ally today, it actually has the ability and the will to fight is ironically Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Garcia's Reyes are also fighting Hezbollah, which is a sort of expeditionary force or army of the Islamic Republic in Lebanon that keeps Lebanon from being a free and independent nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: as well as killed a lot of Americans and they're fighting them simultaneously.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just point that out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's a lot of balls to keep up in the air.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, it's extraordinary what these rallies are doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they've obviously fought a multi-front war since October 7th, but the two major fronts today are the Iranian front and the Lebanese front.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I mean, it's worth remembering.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, how many how many has balleterists who are on the state department list?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the, uh, with rewards of five, 10, 15, 20 million dollars on their heads for Kill and Americans have these railies actually eliminated on our behalf, something else that occurs to me from what you just said terrible conflict we've had, starting on a co-verset with no question about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that conflict hadn't begun,
[SPEAKER_00]: And Hezbollah had continued to build up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had something like 150,000 missiles at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Islamic Republic of Iran had continued as it was building its missile arsenal, way beyond where it is today, we're what have been.
[SPEAKER_00]: Continue building up its nuclear weapons potentials on underground and photo.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, to give the devil as due, people say, let me get to this a little more, look how resilient the regime is, they've been decapitated, they've been hit thousands of times and they're still, you know, they're not giving in.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's to imagine what if there had been no war starting a few couple of years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: This regime had continued to build build build build.
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of war we would be seeing right now I'll just make one more point then I'll let Adam show you if things about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We taught people say I think this is a war of choice not a war of necessity
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you don't fight a war of choice, then you have to fight a war of necessity.
[SPEAKER_00]: A war of choice, you're more likely to win than a war of necessity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And isn't our goal to win?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not an Olympic competition.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a sport where, oh, let's make sure it's fair to the other side.
[SPEAKER_00]: As our colleague, Brad Bowman, says, I never want Americans to be in a fair fight ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the most important dates, Cliff, as we think about this, beyond October 7th,
[SPEAKER_01]: in really providing context to what could have been.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, May 2018, President Trump withdraws from the Obama nuclear deal, the joint comprehensive plan of action of the JCPOA.
[SPEAKER_00]: FDD, particularly you, push really hard for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we certainly fought against the JCPO in 2015.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason I tell people why, because I'm still getting on Twitter people saying, JCPOA, I would have prevented this regime from getting nuclear weapons, and you guys threw it away was a diplomatic solution.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one would have provided Iran with, we estimated about a trillion dollars worth of sanctions relief.
[SPEAKER_01]: They obviously would have taken that money and they took some of that money.
[SPEAKER_01]: They never got all of it because President Trump withdrew from the agreement to build up their warmaking capabilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are proxies, like as well as Hamas, Palestinian, Slovakia, the Houthis.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I include all of that as part of their warmaking capabilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: drones, terror proxies, their navy, they would have used that money to buy advanced weaponry from the Chinese and Russians, fighter jets, attack helicopters, submarines, so over the course of the JCPOA, with that kind of money, they would have built up a formidable military and had sufficient resources to fund their terror proxies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two is the agreement contains certain restrictions on our own ability to expand its nuclear program, but those restrictions would expire or sunset over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, they would begin to sunset starting a couple years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ballistic missile UN embargo got lifted.
[SPEAKER_01]: The arms embargo got lifted.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these were UN Security Council resolutions that under the JCPOA get lifted.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this allows Iran to buy
[SPEAKER_01]: ballistic missiles and weapons, free of UN restrictions.
[SPEAKER_01]: The nuclear restrictions sunset, and so that allows Iran by 2030, which is a few years away from today, to actually emerge with an industrial size enrichment capability with near zero nuclear breakout.
[SPEAKER_01]: with multiple enrichment facilities, buried under mountains, with advanced centrifuges that spend much faster than first-generation centrifuges, and therefore, you need fewer centrifuges, so as a result, they are easier to hide, and you now have the capability to at near zero nuclear breakout to breakout nuclear weapons, and by the way, under the JCPOA, all of that expansion of their capability
[SPEAKER_01]: under the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing restricting them after 2030 from actually enriching to any level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing in the agreements that you couldn't, you couldn't enrich 20% 60% even 90% long.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then develop nuclear weapons.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were able to build out this massive capability.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what they effectively had were patient pathways to nuclear weapons, a trillion dollars in sanctions relief to fortify their economy and to fund their
[SPEAKER_01]: external aggression and build up a even more repressive apparatus to control their people.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was of all happened under the Obama deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So May 2018, Donald Trump does something very important.
[SPEAKER_01]: He withdraws from the agreement.
[SPEAKER_01]: He puts all the sanctions back and he begins a campaign of what came known as maximum pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then fast forward January 2020, the next important date, Donald Trump kills Custom Soleimani.
[SPEAKER_01]: Custom Soleimani, head of the RGC Cuds Force, the most famous and competent and strategic and deadly battlefield commander that Iran has ever had.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was responsible for building up this
[SPEAKER_01]: network of terror proxies this so-called access of resistance or what we call on the Iran breakdown the access of misery But he was really the one who who built up his balla and Hamas and Palestinians on the G-hide and the Shiite militias in Iraq and the Houthis into this formidable terror army Well Trump takes him out no other U.S. president was ever prepared to do that
[SPEAKER_01]: some presidents had the opportunity and they decided not to because they were they were warned that if they did this would trigger World War III with Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump takes that custom soul of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: The regime doesn't even react because they are so shocked.
[SPEAKER_01]: They love a few missiles that give us a warning, and now you've taken off their most important battlefield commander.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then fast forward to October 7th, the Israelis in a sense, and it's kind of, it's kind of gruesome to say, but they got lucky.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did they get lucky?
[SPEAKER_01]: They got lucky because
[SPEAKER_01]: mass decides to jump the gun.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I was using that exact phrase.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I have seen where it decides from the rain point of view, jump the gun.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just back up for one second, if the J.C.P.A had been left in and cast on some money, so a money had been left in place to continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think how strong the regime would have been right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it might have been, especially if you understand that the regime is in and what we call an axis with the strongest communist party in history and Beijing with the Neil Imperialist in Moscow and with a regime in North Korea that, by the way, with diplomatic solutions all failed so they have nuclear weapons.
[SPEAKER_00]: and ICBMs in the same year in America, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just imagine if the four and up those four said to us all at one point right now because nothing of this had happened, you understand we have a lot of nuclear weapons for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You understand that there are things you will need to do because you don't have the missile defense system you need.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can take out, I have dozen cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want us to try or you want to capitulate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, the price of gas could go up to five dollars, you don't want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if I'm not sure, seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had been a coordinated invasion of Israel, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sinor hadn't jumped the gun, but it had been coordinated with
[SPEAKER_01]: Hisbala, Hamas, Palestine, and Islamic Gihad, Shiite militias, the Houthis, and the Iranians, invading and reigning missiles and drones on Israel, there was probably a pretty good chance Israel would have been eliminated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you say, Iran would have been much stronger.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would have had hundreds of billions of dollars in the sanctions relief it would have pocketed from the JCPOA.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would have had the opportunity to build up this nuclear infrastructure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it is 2018, 2020, 2023 that are in very important years in the setbacks that we have delivered to the Islamic Republic.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get into 2024.
[SPEAKER_01]: when in April and October of that year, these Lannick Republic fires ballistic missiles and drones at Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: From its own soil.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the first time, often you always use the proxies.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the first time, it decides to directly attack Israel from its own soil.
[SPEAKER_01]: These really air force responds, and their response under Biden,
[SPEAKER_01]: has to be limited, because President Biden is not willing to give these rallies the green light to really attack Iran in any kind of fundamental way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what these rallies do is they attack the air defense systems of these Lambic Republic and they demonstrate to the United States that they can take out these sophisticated Russian air defenses.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 2024 is a wake-up call, well, wait a second, maybe these Lambic Republic is not 10 feet tall, and maybe these air defenses are not going to protect them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that sets the stage for the 12-day war last year, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: In June 2025, another exchange, and now the Israelis go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of these really is demonstrate to America in the first 11 days after eliminating their Earth defenses, bombing key nuclear sites, taking out key leadership, by the preview of what we're seeing today, they demonstrate to the United States of America.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's our pilots that are taking the risks.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sky is clear for you, and then President Trump makes a faithful decision, and I would think superb decision, and he sends in B2 bombers and he drops massive orders, penetrators, and we fire Tomahawk missiles, and we do severe damage to key Iranian nuclear sites, including the Fordo facility, deeply buried on the ground, an enrichment facility where the Iranians could weaponize uranium, and President Trump is
[SPEAKER_01]: He is vindicated, he is proven right against a foreign policy and defense establishment that you can take on the Islamic Republic of Iran as the United States with your pure ally Israel, and you can do severe damage to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he ends that war in 12 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes to diplomacy and he says to the Iranians, okay, let's negotiate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here are my demands.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should not have a nuclear program.
[SPEAKER_01]: you should not have enrichment.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should not have reprocessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should not have the key tools you need to develop nuclear weapons.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you should have civilian energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be like 22 other countries.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can buy your few rods from abroad.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can stick them in your reactors.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can power your electrical grids.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we're not going to give you enrichment because we know from the past that your goal is to turn that enrichment material into weapons grade.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've gone to 60%.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the only country ever to go to 60% that didn't develop nuclear weapons and you're 97% of the way there to having what you need to develop nuclear weapons by having 60% in rich uranium.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're not going to let you have in Richmond.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will agree to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: we can do a deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, I don't even need a deal on missiles or your terror proxies.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just need a deal on enrichment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we can make Iran great again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll lift the sanctions and you'll have hundreds of billions of dollars at Obama had promised you and I had stopped because I withdrew from the agreement.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does Iran say?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they continue to try reconstitute their nuclear program and their missile program and continue to fund these terror proxies that had been so severely degraded by the Israelis.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with that in mind, President Trump says, okay, that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've given diplomacy a chance we've exhausted that option and he launches Operation Epic Fury.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, and I suspect that he believed after the 12th day war, Iran's would say because it's logical by the way we think
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we got, we got kicked around pretty good on this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thought we had missile defense from, and didn't work, and they destroyed a lot of things, and we, you know, we're just gonna have to make some compromises here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they didn't end in a way they couldn't because they have not an ideology, but a theology, a communist theology, and there's just no way they can even appear to bend the need to the infidel to the great Satan.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, but it takes some imagination or some traveling to see that these people are, I'm not going to average a ring and I'm talking with the regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a mentality that's profoundly different from ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get kicked around, we may say, you know, if that's enough, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, listen, the smart play for the late harmony, I had told a comment out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm, you know, I'm amazing after 20 years working on this issue to imagine he is now the late, I had told a harmony.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would it been to say, all right, President Trump,
[SPEAKER_01]: I got you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing a deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will give up her enrichment capabilities and we'll give up her reprocessing capabilities and give you our centrifuges and you will let all the sanctions and we will get hundreds of billions of dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in his own mind, Trump's gone at that point in two and a half years.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a new present in the White House in 2029.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chances are, unless it's
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe Marco Rubio, next president on the Republican side or on the Democratic side is not going to be as focused.
[SPEAKER_01]: This President Trump on the Iran issue and is not going to be prepared to use American power in the way President Trump has used to deal with this issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then
[SPEAKER_01]: You're way to the racist.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now if you're homine or a successor, you rebuild your enrichment capability.
[SPEAKER_01]: If pocketed all that money, and now you start to rebuild your axis of misery, you start to fund your terror proxies, and America can't do a damn thing about it as the late Iotola Homanese had back in 1979, 1980.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would have been the smart play.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't they take the smart play?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you've got to put your finger on it, which is it is impossible for harmony at the time to imagine that level of compromise when his mind humiliation, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a result, defiance for harmony was always going to be not the rational choice, but was the logical choice, because based on his set of logical assumptions,
[SPEAKER_01]: hominase resistance approach was going to be fully consistent with with hominase and his lamic republic and everything that they had built and their entire
[SPEAKER_01]: self-perception as well as their entire strategic doctrine and he badly miscalculated.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I might have said or somebody might have concluded, okay, I understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's 86 years old at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an old man in a hurry.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to see certain things happen while he's alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can't possibly give him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then after he's dead, essentially correct me if I'm
[SPEAKER_00]: Top is the bull goose in Iran if you'll experience expression and he's a younger man And he's a smart guy everybody says a lot of people saying oh, he was so pragmatic I don't know if it's so pragmatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he was so cultured.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he killed thousands of his own people.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not so cultured.
[SPEAKER_00]: He you know hang his gay people That's usually not something that the left approves of it in this case they give him us give him a pass
[SPEAKER_00]: But he doesn't say, okay, now that I'm in charge, I'm gonna do exactly what you said which would be the smart thing to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll cut a deal with.
[SPEAKER_00]: with Trump, and let's see what happens in three years, because I remember how old Larry and Jerry is, but he's not that old, and then we'll be back in the saddle and up to the races again, but he doesn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because I think then in the day this, the Washington has been under a delusion for decades, as they search for the elusive Iranian moderate.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Inside the Islamic Republic, and so there is really no difference fundamentally
[SPEAKER_01]: Harmony and Larajani.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no difference ideologically, seeologically, they are men that have bought into the idea that the Islamic Republic was founded upon the idea of resistance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that its goal is to eliminate Israel, and its goal is to drive the United States out of the Middle East, and its goal is to
[SPEAKER_01]: advanced the goals of the Islamic Republic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you are Larry and Johnny, even if homine is not there, you are not going to compromise.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the only way you compromise, I mean, 2015, homine compromised with Obama.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the only way you compromise is you do the JCPOA because some homine is perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't giving in anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was getting the possibility of sanctions lifted, hundreds of billions of dollars into his coffers that help him build up exactly the capabilities that he needed in terms of missiles and drones and terror and nuclear and all he had to do was be a patient man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would wait and the restrictions would go away and now it has near zero nuclear breakout enrichment capability.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's not a compromise.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just smart strategy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be patient.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to straight line, but I will zig and I will zag my way to nuclear weapons and to the resources that I need in order to both sustain the Islamic Republic and ensure that I can finance its regional and global ambitions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Laryn Johnny would have taken us exactly the same direction that Harmonate took us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And whoever takes over from Laryn Johnny now that he's been eliminated will take us in that direction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now that most of the Harmonate supposedly the successor of Supreme Leader, assuming he's still alive or capable of exercising his duties, he too will take us in that direction.
[SPEAKER_01]: The goal, and I think we should get to this in the conversation.
[UNKNOWN]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to do a number of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing is we have to destroy the war-making capabilities of the Islamic Republic.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to do severe damage to the repression apparatus of the Islamic Republic.
[SPEAKER_01]: At some point, we are going to conclude major military operations because they will not and should not go on indefinitely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the question is, as we move to the next phase, is have we done sufficient damage to the repression apparatus?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that when Iranians take the streets back, and they will, because Iranians have been on the streets repeatedly since the late 1990s, and they're coming back.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not, they're not there now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody's saying, well, where are they Iranians?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are they in the streets?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're not there now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bombs are dropping.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not going to take to the streets now.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're waiting to see how much damage we in these rallies can do to the repression apparatus, and then the calculation will be as follows.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the change in the repressive capabilities of the regime compared to what they were in January when the regime massacre 30,000 Iranians?
[SPEAKER_01]: And what is the enhancement in the capabilities of the opposition who are on the streets in January unarmed and with very little support from the United States or others?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we change that calculation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we diminish the repressive capabilities of the regime?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we enhance the opposition capabilities so that when the two meet again, the regime is weaker and the opposition is stronger?
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that's the case,
[SPEAKER_01]: can Iranians take back their country as President Trump said they have a once in the lifetime opportunity to take back their country and hopefully have a free and stable and prosperous Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: God of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you have to, you put up a piece out just today, titled Operation Warringline is re-reg the rules of war against Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: It made some interesting points, but I want to, but I want to, before I ask you to go talk a little bit about that, I want to talk about some of the, at least one of the naysayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Nacer have in mind is somebody you and I know, not only we do it, you know, I know I'm introduced to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have not seen anything bad about Bill Crystal, brilliant guy, but we know our group, great and a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he says, said, in a piece today, if some courageous truth teller, we're to enter the oval office this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And speak, he'd say, it ain't going great, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, sir, it's going pretty badly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had tip to bridge you because he says something about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the Tehran regime had at this point to limited the U.S. present, the U.S. vice president, the Speaker of the House, Sunker and Navy, and destroy our Air Force, that any commentator would say, I go in so well for the moulins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, I mean, you know, and these rallies use the analogy.
[SPEAKER_01]: If they are taken out, the Prime Minister of Israel, the IDF chief of staff, the head of military intelligence, they had a Mossad, and they also destroyed the three major
[SPEAKER_01]: and essentially destroyed the Israeli Air Force and taken out the Air Force Commander and taken out the Naval Commander and sunk Israel's Navy in submarines and Israel's Defense Industrial Base was destroyed.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are things going?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's the elimination of Israel, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think that, I mean, I don't know if Bill said anything else to back up that argument,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think Bill, you know, he comes at this as he was a very strong advocate for the war and Iraq and obviously what it didn't go as Bill had predicted.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he comes with a certain amount of understandable caution.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also I think Cliff is something else to work here and and I think this was really worth touching on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: that Trump derangedments syndrome and BB derangedments syndrome is impacting people's analytical capabilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the hatred that many people have for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu and one we can discuss this and why in all the reasons and some of it's understandable and some of it's overwrought.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what happens is because of the disdain that people like
[SPEAKER_01]: their ability to assess the actual military successes has been distorted.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's no doubt, I think there's overwhelming evidence of military successes in the first three weeks now.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's still things to do and let's talk about those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, all right, there's Hormuz.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if there's existing nuclear sites?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much more that needs to get done in order to declare this a military victory.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what the way I like to think about this, so that I don't get caught up in this world of derangement is I think of myself as sitting in a room with the men that are actually leading this campaign and sitting around the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: would be General Cain, who is the Chairman of Joint Chiefs' staff, Admiral Bradley Cooper, who is the Sen Com commander, John Radcliffe, who is the CIA director.
[SPEAKER_01]: And next to them, would be men in uniform and intelligence officials, and these are the people that are actually day and in day out, thinking about and running America's military intelligence campaign.
[SPEAKER_01]: would be David Barnaia, who's the head of Mossad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shlomi Bender, who's the head of a man, Israel's military intelligence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tomibbar, who's the head of the Israeli Air Force, their commander, IDF Chief of Staff, Eles Amir, and a group of serious military and intelligence professionals
[SPEAKER_01]: who are running the war on these rarely side.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I exclude Trump and BB from the room, and I think about who are the military and intelligence commanders running the first phase of the war.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now one cannot push aside the commander of chief and one cannot push aside the prime minister, clear to their making key decisions, but in terms of the actual military phase of this, I focus on those men.
[SPEAKER_01]: And their competencies, their track record, their professionalism, and all of them in their own right have got incredible track records of success, including against the Iranians.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's our eye step away from BB and Trump derangedments in them and unlike some of our friends are able to look, I think, dispassionally and objectively at what is the US and Israeli military and intelligence accomplishments in the first three weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Cliff, I think they're impressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's talk about what's left to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Admiral Markman, come here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our great colleague here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has an uped in today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thursdays, New York Times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very much, I think, along the lines of my column in the Washington Times posted Tuesday night in the Wednesday paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically saying that the conflict cannot end with this regime saying you see we survived and the most important energy choke point in the world is ours, the straight of Hormuz.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cannot, and this is something I think is an important subsidiary point, but important.
[SPEAKER_00]: The straight of Hormuz is an international war away.
[SPEAKER_00]: No regime or government in Iran has a right to claim it as its own.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to do so, and for other nations to say, oh, what can we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't tell me you care about international law then, because
[SPEAKER_00]: The freedom of navigation is a fundamental international law based on an international, basically, the most basic international law, freedom of the seas, which goes back to the 17th century, the idea that there are commons, and we all should respect them, that goes back, but no international law means anything if it's not enforced.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if the US doesn't enforce it, nobody does, and then there is no international law.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Houthis can take over the Boba Mendeb, which is maybe the second most important energy choke weight in the world, and they would, and then they control the economy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have nuclear weapons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, America, it will never be great again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be over the hill power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Xi Jinping will have what he wants, which is to replace
[SPEAKER_00]: with his junior partners at his side.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but let me say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Admiral Montgomery Monty, as we call him, makes very clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not easy to secure the straight of her mousse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't say it's not doable, but it's obviously easier to throw down a mine than to clear a mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we have to get rid of all the ways that they can attach it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're not building anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just attacking, or not even attacking actually, threatening to attack, so there's no insurance of the boat's circle through, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's basically what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it takes their, and, you know, Aaron McLean has talked about this well as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's affiliated with us and others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now with CBS and has the School of War podcast, which is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: That there are phases you have to go through because basically you've got to eliminate the threats coming from the shore coming from boats coming from drones very difficult to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't done nearly enough in the US in terms of drone warfare.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people thought that's not for us that's for others.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's for us now too.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's another place as you pointed out where the Ukrainians said, hey, we can help because we know a lot about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know more than anybody else about fighting drone warfare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep in mind, the Iranian regime provided drones and even the belief for a drone factory to the Russians to help kill Ukrainians, which should you would think galvanize some of your opinions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hasn't will we get to look at that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it should also galvanize to be fair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: As they say, strictly non-partisan.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should also galvanize people in Washington on the right, including in the Trump administration.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I get to move.
[SPEAKER_01]: The most courageous and the most important European ally that is step forward in the past three weeks has been Zelensky and Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bringing both rhetorical and moral support to the United States against the Islamic Republic of Iran, but also as you say, offering capabilities anti-drone capabilities to us and to our Gulf allies.
[SPEAKER_01]: that are going to be very, very important and being able to defeat Iranian drone warfare.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to be very important in opening up the streets and maintaining the straight as a free and open passage going forward for weeks, months and years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think Ukraine should be recognized for what it is, which is a model ally, like Israel and would you rather fight with Ukraine on your side or the Spanish under the current socialist workers government who don't even want to be in NATO anymore and no one's been for it and quite a few others.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just give you one quote from Admiral Montgomery's piece, some people should read it, but if they haven't, if the United States can hold firm for the next few weeks,
[SPEAKER_00]: Admiral Montgomery says it can fully degrade Iran's war making apparatus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This would usher in a multi-year interval of calm of the kind that neither sanctions nor diplomacy has been able to produce in four decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, you know what I don't mind, he will.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he talks about usher in a multi-year cut, because he knows that these guys will always try to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you want to talk about a long word, the G-Hide started 1,400 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: they're going to be not everyone's going to fight it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the Saudis want I don't think want to fight it anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the Emirates, but there will be people who want to fight this war.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what he says strikes me as exactly right on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you mentioned the Saudis and Emirates, and I actually just want to take a slight decent from her moves, but then it relates back to her moves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is,
[SPEAKER_01]: What is extraordinary is the extent to which I think Islamic Republic miscalculated when they decided to retaliate ferociously against the Gulf.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the actual, the country that has sustained the highest number of Iranian strikes, missile and drone strikes in the past few weeks has not been Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: though Iran is tried.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually been the way over 2,000 drones and missiles have been fired at the tiny Emirates who've done a really remarkable job of defending against that using air defense systems provided by the United States and Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Emerites, I think, without going into detail right now, I think when the story is written about this war, I think people will learn things about the Emerites that will surprise people in a very positive way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing I think is just worth noting is even countries that are problematic for the United States, like Qatar.
[SPEAKER_01]: After the Iranians attacked Qatar, and I've gone now after their shared natural gas field, even Qatar has starting to change their tune.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been long in Iranian ally.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been long a huge problem for the United States and for Israel and for the West and dealing with these Latinical public.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just noted the other day there was actually a really good op-ed in El Jazeera.
[SPEAKER_01]: making the case for why the United States and Israel are winning and why President Trump must see this through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it's much more positive than what's much much of the mainstream media here in the U.S. on this effort.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I sort of, I chuckle because I, you know, you mentioned this Atlantic piece at Rich Goldberg and I wrote, which we, you know, we wrote for the Atlantic, which tends to be a place where
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of voices are very skeptical of this war, um, but I, I know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought, oh, that's, that was so much smarter that he wrote it for Al Jazeera.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Al Jazeera would never run a piece like that, unless the family that rules Qatar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all Donnie family had and picked up the phone and called the managing editor of LJZera and said, by the way, I know we've told you all these years to bash Israel and bash America and support the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've made an editorial decision, change it 180 and literally on its head overnight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just start putting out.
[SPEAKER_01]: news and an op-eds hammering the Islamic Republic and supporting the United States in Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even Qatar, which is kind of on the, you know, as one of these outliers in the GCC is being very close to Iran, has began to shift its position.
[SPEAKER_01]: The UAE, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis,
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though monies who are always playing both sides, I think the GCC was furious when the Iranian started attacking them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You saw that in a unified GCC condemnation.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, Cliff, I mean, we talk about America being isolated, Israel being isolated in this war.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the United Nations, there was a resolution sponsored by Bahrain.
[SPEAKER_01]: which also by the way I should have mentioned as a country that has been attacked by Iran and has condemned the Islamic Republic.
[SPEAKER_01]: They introduced a resolution.
[SPEAKER_01]: It got the largest support but biggest support in UN history.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was something over 150 countries that co-sponsored and supported it condemning the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: for attacking the golf and for it's many nefarious acts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So remarkable piece by the way, diplomacy by our friend Mike Walsh, who used to work here at FDD and is now the ambassador to the United Nations, but getting that resolution condemning the Islamic Republic is very important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, how does this all relate to horror moves?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, at the end of the day, we're going to need a coalition to keep horror moves open.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the core of that coalition is us, United States, and our capabilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're going to be countries that can bring just a flag.
[SPEAKER_01]: All they'll do is bring a flag and say, yeah, we're with you, and there's nothing else they can do for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there'll be other countries who can bring more than a flag, and actually can bring mine's weakening capabilities, and provide intelligence, and can be, you know, provide naval warships, and can do more.
[SPEAKER_01]: The end of the day, we'll be leading that effort, but it's very important that we have his broad coalition,
[SPEAKER_01]: that's basically says to the Islamic Republic of Iran, you are alone, you are isolated, and the world has come together to take back poor moves and to maintain poor moves for the free flow of oil for the international economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're seeing that coalition emerge in real time, we just today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going here because this morning, it's like, look bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a question for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy are allies doing badly, but it's...
[SPEAKER_00]: in the afternoon is already changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's what seven nations that are saying will be part of this coalition?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that what you're talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's statement put out by the UK and Germany.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Italy was in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Japan was in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Japanese Prime Minister is obviously in Washington today, meaning the president.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I think you're going to hear from our golf allies, you may hear from the Indians, the Koreans, others who are starting to join this coalition.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, because at the end of the day, I mean, the fact of the matter is
[SPEAKER_01]: The United States of America gets about 3% to 5% of our total energy needs from the Gulf.
[SPEAKER_01]: Japan gets 70 percent.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, the one country we haven't really talked about with respect to her moves that gets a high percentage of its energy needs from the Gulf is China.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, almost 50 percent of its oil comes from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I were the Gulf states, we're providing the other 50 percent to China.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be calling Xi Jinping in Beijing and I'd be saying, so you know that
[SPEAKER_01]: oil and natural gas that you depend on to drive the Chinese economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's what you're going to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to call your friends in Tehran, and you're going to tell them to knock it off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if not, then we can't provide energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when this is all over, we're going to have to recalculate.
[SPEAKER_00]: right although Tehran is saying we'll let the ships through to go to China, but nowhere else because we have now because their conceit at least rent is we can, this is our, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually right, but my point is not the oil and natural gas that's going to China on the run.
[SPEAKER_01]: My point is the other 50 percent of the oil and natural gas that's going from the Gulf countries to China.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those aren't being allowed to go through by the regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I thought maybe they were allowing that to go through if you're going to try and it's fine if you're going to What whatever's being allowed through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was where you got to take control of the police.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but what the political point I'm making is that if you're the GCC Yeah, okay, you're currently under attack by Iran
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, tankers are not going through except the ones that are going to China.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to say to the Chinese, the end of the day, call your friends in Tehran, tell them to knock it off because this is a threat to the GCC, our security and our economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, the GCC has leverage over China because the GCC is providing 50% of China's energy needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Point being here is that the Battle of Hormuz is a military battle, which President
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's a political battle, and it's an economic battle, and it's too early in this campaign to know how we're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think militarily, I'm a Cooper.
[SPEAKER_01]: General Cain in the United States is taking out the offensive capability, methodically, day by day, missiles, drones, fast attack rafts, and moving forward in a patient and careful way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's important.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, for all the naysayers who said, there was no plan, they didn't have a plan, nonsense.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, in the same comment, then comments had a plan to open up or lose, probably since the day is a Jimmy Carter, right, when we were much more dependent on the Gulf for our energy needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: The question then is, do we win that militarily?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does President Trump play the Trump card?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is Cargueland?
[SPEAKER_01]: We can talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does it take?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean to take back Cargueland?
[SPEAKER_01]: And what kind of leverage does that give the United States?
[SPEAKER_01]: against Iran and then we move into building the coalition making sure there's lots of flags alongside the U.S. flag as we think about convoys and then move into the next phase of ensuring that we win the battle of foreign moves, the Iranians decisively lose because without that, however much military degradation we've done to the Islamic Republic, if we lose the battle of
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I want to talk a little bit of a good car guy on the fest because I got about three.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got 30 to many subjects that I want to keep is for you for your sake and then back to an hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing what happened on carguer island where the bombing was so precise according to the president that we knocked out all the military facilities but left the oil infrastructure intact.
[SPEAKER_00]: Important to understand why he did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think and this is an odd kind of a
[SPEAKER_00]: When my father fought in the South Pacific in World War II, he was fighting the Japs.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't fighting the imperial regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was fighting the Japs, so let's say, you know, he was clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And plenty of people talk away.
[SPEAKER_00]: They fought the Germans in World War II.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're trying to fight a regime, and we're trying to, we want only the best for the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know very much, and everybody here at FDD does, and I think Trump does too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, part of what he's saying is we're going to leave that because that's economically vital for the people of Iran if we can end up with a decent government in Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also if he says if we don't end up with a decent government, I can cut off all the income to this regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Marines who are coming, and it's going to take them a little while to get there with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fibiis vessels.
[SPEAKER_00]: My guess is they can take that island a few hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you knock down most of the military, and I don't think the military on that island is huge, you've got a lot of, you know, you're not going to have a much of a resistance on that island.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Carg Island is an important, longer term for what we understand all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyhow, let me, I'm about to stop there
[SPEAKER_00]: So look, I think it's what it's like.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Carl Island, I just understand this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So so Iran's oil exports generally about $78 billion a year, but 50% of the Iranian state budget.
[SPEAKER_01]: That $78 billion pays for three years of the budget of the entire Iranian military security intelligence and proxy terror forces.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just again, semi-billion dollars a year in annual revenues.
[SPEAKER_01]: 50% of state budget, $70 billion in annual revenue space for three years of the military security intelligence and terror proxy budget.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how important it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And about 90 to 95% of that 78 billion in oil exports goes to a car island.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you control car island, you choke the regime.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the regime is not getting $70 billion a year, they can't pay their military.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't pay their security, they can't pay their intelligence, and they can't pay the terror proxies.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you want to talk about fracturing the regime, if you want to talk about mass defections, one of the ways you do that is you got to strike at the financial artery of the regime so that the regime can't actually pay the 150,000 members of the RGC, the 2.2 million members of the besiege, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The tens of thousands of members of the Ministry of Intelligence, and can't actually
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how you actually start to facilitate the kind of defections and regime fracturing and undermining the elite support base of the regime that we need for phase three.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that when Iranians take to the streets, they're not facing a unified ruthless and effective security apparatus.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all connected.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why cargiling is so important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm not a military planner.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how easy this to take cargiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how easy this to hold cargiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if Marines on cargiling would then be on relentless drone and missile fire from the coasts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's part of the reason why the U.S. military is taking out those offensive capabilities not only protect tankers that are going to go through the straits of her moves, but also if the Marines take our island, you want to get as much of that offensive capability neutralized the exercise we want Iran, the regime to have no offensive capabilities and frankly no defensive military capabilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't need them because they haven't because because really people say, well, they, it's a mountainous country.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't just, you can't, can't, no one's trying to conquer it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one's wants to send an infantry to the conquer it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not these rallies couldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The U.S. doesn't want to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's no, we do, but we want them not to be bred to the U.S. or to our allies, or to their own people.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we want.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Cargallon is, is, is, I think, a really important step up that escalation ladder.
[SPEAKER_01]: If President Trump decides to play that card.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that requires troops.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, politically one has to ask, you know, is the president going to be prepared to commit so-called beats on the ground and risk U.S. lives to take out carguer event?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which I think is a good segue to the nuclear issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, on the nuclear side, we've seen some evidence in the past three weeks of the United States and Israel going after some nuclear sites, but it hasn't been a major priority yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think part of that is, again, this is a phased operation that they really began with strikes against regime leadership, decapitation.
[SPEAKER_01]: and going after the military arsenal and the warmaking capabilities and the defense industrial base of the regime, as we plan a battle of Hormuz, as we start to think about Carg Island, as we start to think about what is the next stage of this operation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the next stage or the military operation, I would hope, is to do severe damage to what remains of Iran's nuclear
[SPEAKER_01]: There's two major issues, three major issues, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is in, is Fahan.
[SPEAKER_01]: A second is in Isphahan and Natans, and a third is just near Natans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the locations.
[SPEAKER_01]: What am I actually talking about here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me start with Isphahan.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Isphahan right now, there's two problems we have.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is that we think about half of the highly enriched uranium, which is uranium that's been enriched to 60%, which is 97% and we need to get to nuclear weapons, is buried under the
[SPEAKER_01]: as a result of the strikes, the mostly Tomahawk strikes, and his really military strikes from the June 12 day war, half the HAU, under his fahon.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is fahon as well, according to the IAEA, the international atomic energy agency were concerned that Iran may be building a new enrichment facility there, and the IAEA cannot confirm whether that facility is complete, whether their centrifuges are ready installed, or there's no fahon.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's in his fahon.
[SPEAKER_01]: So is Fahane is about a potential new enrichment facility and half of the HEU.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's shift over that hasn't been hit in this war yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: The centrifuge where they think the centrifuges are in is Fahane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not hit and if hit, not in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in a decisive way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: In, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: In the tons, there is also about the other half of the H-E-U buried under the rubble, the same thing is really nice, they struck that in the 12-day war in June, but that's the other half of the H-E-U.
[SPEAKER_01]: So half H-E-U and it's the half of it in the tons.
[SPEAKER_01]: They think they've destroyed many of the centrifuges.
[SPEAKER_01]: They maybe some left.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, they could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've no doubt the Iranians have other centrifuges.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Squirled away that that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The strength is what you always talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the third thing I'm worried about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that outside of Natans is a place called Pickax Mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the Iranians have been doing for a number of years now is they've been building underground, much deeper underground than even the Fordo facility that was struck.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, hundreds of feet underground, heavily fortified,
[SPEAKER_01]: a new potential facility where they can have enrichment, central fusion manufacturing, and they can do weaponization.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the problem with this facility is if they complete it, and it has gone so deeply underground,
[SPEAKER_01]: We may not be able to destroy it from the air, using even the massive ordinance penetrators that are dropped from B2 bombers that President Trump effectively used to destroy the Fordo site back in June of last year during the 12-day war.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what I worry from a nuclear perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may be that all of this could be taken care of from the air, but it may be that it can't be, and that in the case of the H-E-U in Isphahan and the Thons,
[SPEAKER_01]: pickaxe mountain itself, that the United States and or Israel would have to spend his send his special forces in order to run an operation, to retrieve the H.E.U.
[SPEAKER_01]: and to destroy pickaxe mountain, very complicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: military operation, very difficult political decision, both for the President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, to send Americans and Israelis on the ground, because God forbid they're wounded, they're killed, or they're taken hostage.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to infubill the regime before you can possibly really consider that seriously.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think defang to a really huge extent, so that you know there's just nothing they can do about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, exactly right, I mean, if you go to certain special forces, you know, this isn't like 20 guys from Delta Force or shell dog coming in and, you know, securing the issue and and leaving, this is weeks long, you got to secure the perimeter, you might have to fight your way through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and you've got to get in construction machinery, you've got to start digging through the rubble, you've got to find the HU canisters, and you've got to pull them out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on pickaxe mountain, you're going to have to get in special forces there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there the question is, do you have the explosive charges that can destroy such a deeply buried facility?
[SPEAKER_01]: or are you going to be introducing something that will make that inaccessible to human beings for the next 100 years, which has its own complication, so let's not get into what substance I'm talking about, but effectively that would be quite a difficult decision to make for any president and any prime minister.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the remaining nuclear issues are complicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say one
[SPEAKER_01]: this necessarily has to get destroyed in the next couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think as long as we have eyes into the HAU in Isphahan and the Tons, as long as these rallies are still flying and dominating the air space, which they have, and I think they've destroyed 85, 90% of the air defenses, so we have air dominance.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as President Trump,
[SPEAKER_01]: continues to support Israel, having that ability to go in and strike, any sign that the Iranians are moving to retrieve the HEU, if we can detect that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we've got pretty good eyes into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: These really could then strike at any time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on pickaxe mountains, similarly, I don't know if we have to do it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we absolutely have to come up with some solution in the coming months and certainly
[SPEAKER_01]: to destroy that facility.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, Iran will rebuild its nuclear capabilities deeply underground, immunized against our and the Israeli ability to neutralize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll ask you a final question, but feel free to put in the he points that we haven't gotten to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I said I don't like to talk about wars as if they're sporting events, but for the sake of metaphor, I will.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of this exercise, what's some bronze medal for us?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's a silver medal?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's a gold medal?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a bronze medal is that we have destroyed a bronze missile capabilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've taken out inventories, launchers, and done severe damage to the production capability.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is quite remarkable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Iran had the largest missile inventory in the Middle East before the 12-day war.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was severely degraded and then reconstituted with Chinese and Russian help.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are at the point now where we think about two-thirds of the missile launches have been either destroyed or disabled.
[SPEAKER_01]: Iran's ability to produce ballistic missiles has gone from about 100 in a month to zero.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me underscore that, Cliff, right now Iran cannot produce one more ballistic missile.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're producing a hundred and a month, who would just bump up and let that just sink in.
[SPEAKER_00]: A hundred and a month.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you take that by the way, producing interseppers at the same rate, probably almost would mean really hard to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, exactly right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you look at what Iran's threat was, there was obviously always the nuclear threat that got a lot of attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you took Iran's ballistic missile, cruise missile inventories in the thousands, their production capabilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: ability to produce 100 additional missiles a month, 1200 a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: You start to imagine five years out, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: that Iran has now got thousands and thousands, maybe tens of thousands of missiles, including ballistic missiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now they have this massive inventory of missiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are now immunized against our ability to respond to a nuclear breakout or any kind of Iranian aggression against US bases, US embassies, US allies.
[SPEAKER_01]: because those missiles become so dangerous.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing this, we're seeing part of this movie right now in action.
[SPEAKER_01]: But right now, they don't have this kind of inventory.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have a number of, like this level of launchers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are degrading them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But imagine five years out, we wait exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, at the JCPOA, which never dealt with missiles, don't we get them a trillion dollars?
[SPEAKER_01]: a industrial size nuclear enrichment capability, and we allowed them to build thousands, and thousands, thousands of ballistic missiles, and now they are a formidable power, and our ability to confront at a that point is completely neutralized.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: What is a bronze medal?
[SPEAKER_01]: A bronze medal is we have taken that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, that's a great bronze medal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we have destroyed something that in my twenty-two years of working on this issue, I never thought we would be able to get arms around.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always thought, well, we could do some deal and we get the Iranians to agree voluntarily on range and
[SPEAKER_01]: Warhead restrictions and we could keep them within the, you know, the missile control technology regime and it was all these like diplomatic sanctions solutions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never thought we were able to do this and it's just remarkable to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a bronze medal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it may even be a silver medal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the silver medal is we do all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We destroy their warmaking capability.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do severe damage to their repression apparatus and we win the battle for moves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Silver medal.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we bring down Islamic Republic of Iran and we put a place with a new leadership that is pro-American, pro-Israel, pro-West, and we forge the Cyrus Accords with peace between Iran, Israel, and a new Iranian leader shakes hands with an Israeli prime minister on the White House, South Lawn.
[SPEAKER_01]: and President Trump gets a well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize, and all of this, by the way, I think even without the gold medal, even the silver medal, I think those accomplishments are going to fundamentally change the calculus of countries in the Middle East, even those who are deeply skeptical of normalization with Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: that they understand that they need to be part of an American Israeli Middle Eastern security apparatus with missile defense and intelligence integration and that the only way that they can be protected from threats from Iran, if it remains this revolutionary regime, is if they have
[SPEAKER_01]: strong relationships with Israel under US supervision.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what we have is a situation where the United States can then start to knit together a group of highly competent allies that can defend the Middle East against the threats.
[SPEAKER_01]: With Israel as a model ally, the Emirates as a model ally, maybe some other Middle Eastern countries who are like the Saudis and others who are taking their capabilities and I'm being fully integrated into our security architecture and are willing to fight and willing to defend their countries and defend the Middle East, that is where the United States now can say, hey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sandcom Commander, you're in charge of this, but in terms of our military resources, we're shifting to the Indo-Pacific, to take on the Chinese to fan Taiwan, to fan Japan, and to fan what is going to be the most important area of responsibility of the 21st century.
[SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully do more for Ukraine at the same time, so Russia doesn't begin to...
[SPEAKER_00]: dominate Europe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think there's the opportunity, again, you gain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Model ally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take the polls, the Lithuanians, the Estonians, the Latians, you know, the checks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the Germans were starting to kind of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Finns.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Finns.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And start to build the same kind of, I mean, we have that security architecture, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called NATO.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the country that's not in NATO, they need to be in NATO, is Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we actually have a security architecture.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a Western European, we have a European NATO, we have a Middle Eastern NATO, all under American leadership, all back by American force, American credibility, and our defense industrial base.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we have all these allies spending money on their military who both have the will and capability to fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that
[SPEAKER_01]: And we actually, to me, I'm very optimistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: We usher in an era of what President Trump has talked about since he came in office in his first term of peace as opposed to war, but peace through strength and through deterrence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at that point, I would have to say Trump has done what he wanted to do because that is a definition of making America great again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a pre-eminent in the world, bringing about peace, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, we're going over an hour or so.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll let you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to say for the record, what a treat, what a privilege, what an honor to be in the same cognitive foxhole with you for our overdue decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very lucky for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you, Cliff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, thank you for giving me the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you've been an incredible partner and incredible mentor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, you know, foundation for defense of democracies was your vision.
[SPEAKER_01]: You founded it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You understood that
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and at the end of the day, the United States had to be the arsenal of democracy, and I, uh, I'm, I'm grateful to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thanks to all of you who are with us today here on Foreign Policy.