[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Iran Breakdown.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mark Dubuets.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're trying to understand this war through the lens of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, you've probably already got it wrong and got the wrong map.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no march on Tehran, no mass invasion, no plan to occupy a country of nearly 90 million people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was never the strategy.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's happening instead is a sustained campaign to take apart Iran's nuclear and military systems peace by peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: Missile's drones, naval assets, launchers, command networks, the nuclear program in the internal machinery that lets the regime project force abroad and hold power at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the center of it all, a deliberate effort to severely degrade, Iran's nuclear program, and keep the regime from ever crossing the threshold to a bomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not just happening in the air.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a battle for the straight-of-armus, where Iran is using its one real piece of real leverage.
[SPEAKER_01]: The threat of closing the world's most important oil choke point.
[SPEAKER_01]: While the U.S. works to reopen it and restore freedom of navigation, running alongside of it is an economic war started by Tyron, Iranian attempts to punish global markets answered by U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports that's now costing the regime an estimated $435 million a day, or $13 billion a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: This isn't a war for territory, it's awarded to great capability, disrupt command, shut down the path to nuclear weapons, break the regime's economic backbone.
[SPEAKER_01]: and shrink its ability to threaten its neighbors to tourist enemies and govern under pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: To walk through the military logic of that campaign, I'm joined by John Spencer.
[SPEAKER_01]: John is Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute, he's a former army officer, a combat veteran, and one of the most widely cited voices today on how modern wars are actually fought.
[SPEAKER_01]: How military systems break down and how political goals shape what happens on the battlefield.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's advised commanders, brief policy makers, studied everything from Mosul to Gaza City, and spent years on the ground with militaries, on issues that matter most here.
[SPEAKER_01]: What happens when wars stop being about taking grounds, start being about dismantling an adversary's ability to fight, command, and politically survive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because even without tanks rolling towards Tehran, this war has a logic.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to know what success looks like, escalation, or failure, you have to understand that logic.
[SPEAKER_01]: John?
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark, it's great honor to be with you, my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just honored to be pranked.
[SPEAKER_01]: John, I'm honored to have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, really, you have been one of the most consequential voices out there over many years, and not only consequential but courageous, often running against the narrative, so that that's always important and keeping your analytical honesty, while I think too many around us are losing there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely, and I can't thank you enough for the great work that D.D.
[SPEAKER_00]: does, and all the voices that I listen to, you Jonathan Chanzer, Rich Goldberg, all of them, just to stay informed on understanding the complexity of warfare, you have to know which experts to listen to.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, John, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I obviously mutual admiration society, but let's jump in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been fascinated by your analysis, not only of the Iran war, but of many of the conflicts that have been facing the United States and our allies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've used the phrase, neurological war.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it captures what a lot of people miss.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is a neurological campaign?
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, look like in practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how's this different from some of the things and military concepts that we grew up with?
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, like the US concept of shock and awe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't create the terminology of Quartz, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I am a student of warfare across the ages, taught strategy at West Point, relying on a lot of old dead people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is an element of what's called the neurological strike, so I adapted, because to me, people were, of course, all of the so-called experts, and I actually use a term called experts, because of X, and a snap of a finger, everybody's a strategist, and a Iran expert, or a war expert, but saying that a decapitation strike don't work, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That isn't what I observed on the opening of
[SPEAKER_00]: This operation, I hope we don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we can call it a 40-day war, but we are yet to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the opening of operation, epic fury, and roaring lion, involved a neurological strike.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just a decapitation with the death of the Supreme Leader, but every element in attacking across, really, every ability for the enemy politically and military to have a cohesive
[SPEAKER_00]: Command a control cohesive thought and that's their neurological strike rather than just chopping out the head you're severing the spinal cord and starting their attack every bit and that's what you saw in the first opening hours and really important because it really gets to of course if we talk about the science of war.
[SPEAKER_00]: theories of victory and some of the things we'll talk about, they are resting on a foundation of people like Sun Zoo, Klausowitz, Nakaveli, the cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of those people could have imagined the capability of what was done at the opening of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So really for me as an analyst gets to people saying, well, history shows you can't, this won't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's acknowledge what just happened, this neurological strike.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we're going to talk about, which is the
[SPEAKER_00]: every center of gravity of the Islamic regime, the Iran's ability to wage war, the opening strike severed that capability.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not just killing the Ayatollah, his key advisor, the minister of defense, the head of the IRGC, many subordinate leaders across Iran, all simultaneously.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of the great military theorists of time could have even imagined it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at their theories about
[SPEAKER_00]: It even warden who is kind of an air power theory who kind of said your attack at that center first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody could have imagined because nobody's ever had this capability.
[SPEAKER_00]: And unique with Israel's intelligence penetration, precision-godly munitions, bunker-busting munitions, and two of the greatest air forces in the world combining and synchronizing their efforts to open a war,
[SPEAKER_00]: which is a contest of will to immediately paralyze the other side is this neurological warfare that I talked about and I wrote an article about it's a unique capability clearly that the United States and Israel were able to put together and no other country and I'll say this very frankly, I don't think any other country in the world has it capability to open a war like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, John, when I think about this Iran War, I think about it in a sort of broader context because here at FD, obviously, we're keenly interested in this access of aggressors, where you have Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, and Radical Islamists who are working very close to get gathered against beleaguered democracies.
[SPEAKER_01]: The United States, hopefully, were the kind of arsenal of democracy, but then there's these beleaguered democracies Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, Japan, the Baltics, Poland, I mean, these other countries that are under threat from American enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I think about what has been demonstrated in this war,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm constantly pushing myself to think, has this been a war that has demonstrated the kind of lethality that the United States is capable of, but also the kind of coordination that we can have with allies.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a possible have this level of coordination, for example, with Ukrainians, or with some of our NATO allies, is a possible have this kind of coordination with the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Australians, and some of our Indo-Pacific allies, or is this really unique what you've seen between the United States and Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So understanding like all the work fighting capabilities, I mean, there are allies, of course, to have air forces, but you're like the president and Secretary of War Hexf said, willing is one thing capable as the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd had to go down each one of those scenarios, just from a forced projection perspective, of course, the United States is the only one that can project power globally, then have an ally like Israel show parody.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the parody isn't just in what their air forces can do, the munitions that they have, but they're also that intelligence apparatus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I couldn't think of anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Ukraine couldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: While Ukraine is doing unimaginable things, defending against the Russian aggression across a geographic front that is,
[SPEAKER_00]: surpassing most people's ability to imagine the sheer geography of it and what they're doing in adapting innovation, drone robotics is phenomenal, but I can't think of any other ally who has that sole capability to join and provide such parity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also tamper that with context context context, depending on geography, you know, how far they're projecting power and this is for Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's another
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote this article about the strength of Israel right now from the military perspective doing what most even Israelis would think possibly not only the sustained air campaign with its own refuelers, intelligence, creating their own air superiority, like they did in a 12 day war, but reaching Yemen, and these aspects of being able to project power, pin out what country you're talking about, that doesn't have that capability,
[SPEAKER_00]: and it would be challenged depending on the scenario.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are a lot of allies.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is the Churchill, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the only thing we're fighting with allies is fighting without them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want these allies to be capable and unwilling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've seen war puts everything to the test mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we've seen in course we talk about war fighting capabilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk tactics.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it puts everything to the test.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: allies, and their internal political situation, you know, what's been done to the British army, the British Navy, I mean, that's just a sad story of an evolution of a society and they can trade off on its own defense.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't think of anybody else at this moment mark that could join in a, in this scale of an operation with this level of dominance to be very frank, as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, John, I want to talk about breaking the Islamic Republic's warmaking machine, because certainly I think President Trump has defined it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think pretty clearly, I mean, he's not a discipline speaker and he's sometimes goes off on rhetorical flights with reporters, but I think from February 28 when he announced this war and the kind of constant stream of press communications from the White House.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the objective of this war has been to break their war-making capability and to prevent Iran from ever building a nuclear weapon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk a little bit about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it practically means to dismantle a military system rather than just to feed it on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd ask you this question, if you had to identify the single most important target.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's been hit in the campaign, not the biggest, but the single most important, what is it and why?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're going to take me back to teaching strategy or even my own observations of doing what we call center of gravity analysis.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is the sole source of power that we
[SPEAKER_00]: says it's a paradigm we got from closeness on war that you know probably one of the most quoted but least read publications in the strategy world because it's so thick.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in order to be able to wage war, right, a nation's ability to wage war is a combination of its means and its will.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the opening shot, the United States and Israel took a attack, the systems, which support both the means and the will, in order to project power outwards, it needs two things, missile launchers and air defense capabilities, and the attack overwhelming attack, I would say, if you press me,
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark, it's the ability to project power outwards, and that is those missile launchers, but also there are defense of capability, which is its own story, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the air superiority that the United States and Israel has created in the opening hours is also historic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And despite the two down, if you want to count, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: hit by enemy fire, it's still historic against a nation of the size to create that air superiority.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said one thing, missile launchers, if I was, you know, entering the test, I would also put the leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, imagine killing Hitler and his successor, killing every element of the Nazi regime hierarchy, both political and military in the opening shot of the war, it is just not it can never be imagined.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: all of it to create them to really struggle to have a cohesive response and the means the launchers are really critical in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's often this debate.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think in military circles, but I think it applies in business just as well, which is, you know, this idea that if you lose your management structure, it'll always be someone to replace them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you lose that, there'll always be someone to replace them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've never commanded a military, but I am CEO of FDD, and even our small organization of a hundred plus people,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know that there are a players and b players and c players and if you lose your a players that's a real blow I mean maybe the b players can step in to become a players but that's a lot more difficult and I imagine for the regime in Iran right you take common a
[SPEAKER_01]: and Larajani and Salami, and the members of the IRGC and Bussees and Intelligence Services and Army, people who've got decades and decades of experience and you eliminate them all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say in that opening, like 40 seconds on February 28th, when in 40 seconds, 40 senior IRGC and military and political leaders were eliminated along with Hamanai,
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, you can replace them and then you eliminate those replacements and you can replace them but at some point you're starting to really diminish the experience and qualifications and competence of who's taking over.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I think we just think these people are just easily replaced, but I think in war as an as in business as in life, that's not that's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, and I think the history is being written.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a great point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, again, I'm a realist, but I'm also just like straight criticaly thinker.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hear all these people, these prophets, projecting failure, projecting the regime, surviving, all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, let's be truthful, like you said, go back to the February 28th speech of President Trump.
[SPEAKER_00]: Zach Objective listed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then a conversation about IRGC giving up their arms, the people having a chance to take back the regime, but in this aspect of wars,
[SPEAKER_00]: and I get the whole there's always somebody else to take their place, but if you understand the objectives of the war and really and I hope we can do it because I actually was a part of the invasion of of Iraq in 2003 to overthrow the Bathor regime and I jumped into the north.
[SPEAKER_00]: the sheer difference between an limited war with limited objectives and an unlimited war with maximum objectives like regime change and seat taking the ground and ruling the population versus a limited war and this is the crazy world we live in right now where it's like the rooting for the United States and Israel to lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're making up objectives so they can say that you've already lost and from this perspective of taking out the entire leadership
[SPEAKER_00]: Just in, whether if you, even if you're an international relations student of understanding powers of a nation and you better than I understand the different factions within the IRGC and the Islamic regime and they're wrong, you can't tell me that taking out all this leadership doesn't severely expose fissures in which you could have cataclysmic consequences, but everybody wants their, there's 30 second clip today, they want to know what's happening
[SPEAKER_00]: balls and strikes of failure and victory today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's problematic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I think you can change use that analogy at FDDR motto is we call balls and strikes regardless of the picture, meaning regardless of the presidents.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, unfortunately, Trump's arrangements and has diminished the analytical capabilities of many people out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, unfortunately, there's just a lot of people out there for whom the Iran war is an opportunity
[SPEAKER_01]: undermine the president and win politically rather than being honest in the assessment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I want to pivot to an area of specialty for you, urban warfare, and you made a comment about that the goal of this campaign, at least expressed by the administration by the president himself, was not regime change, was not
[SPEAKER_01]: materially providing support to the Iranians to come back to the streets and take back their country.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, it was aspirational President Trump has talked about it, but it doesn't seem to have been one of the defying goals of the Trump administration.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's certainly a very much defying goal of the, of FDD and this podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that's where we differ from the president, but we think ultimately that the only solutions all of this is for the United States and Israel to provide maximum support to their Indian people to come back to the streets to take back their country.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but I want to ask you about if the regime falls.
[SPEAKER_01]: some of the darker scenarios that could occur, and an insurgency breaks out, and there's a big war between factions of the security state itself, and we are in an urban warfare environment in the streets of Tehran or in Tehran in Iran's 20 major cities.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any sense that in a post collapse Iran, you could see the kind of brutal urban warfare that the United States was engaged in in Iraq and Afghanistan that these really have been engaged in in Gaza and in Lebanon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, because I think it's always important not to think about just the rosy scenario of a peaceful stable democratic post Islamic Republic, but a Iran that is collapsed into fractional warfare and an urban warfare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's so I know we don't have the time that it would take for me to spin up on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot, even my own podcast I've spent six years digging into those, and I love doing case study methodology, especially when you talk urban centric aspects of whether it's the Battle of Kiev, which was the center of gravity for the Russian invasion.
[SPEAKER_00]: the strategic objectives for the entire war for Putin had to change because he lost that battle, specifically to Tehran with a city of that scale of nine million in the core, extended to the pervert breeze, you're getting over 16 million.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said if the regime falls and you have this contest per power, there is a nature and when you have notal cities, individual cities playing out in a different way, it does matter like we've said in Gaza, Hamas has the guns and they are the power and they are the power.
[SPEAKER_00]: So who has the guns?
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean that the IRGC and the besiege, you have the guns today, you won't be the ones who have the guns tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: of population mobilization, and this is what played out in January, which is very dangerous for the population.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, John Smith is personal opinion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see the regime fall and the terror that it does to the population end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, maximum support and maximum pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure we can't talk about operation, economic theory.
[SPEAKER_00]: But those are all parts of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is absolutely a potential.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is again why don't do crystal balling of your contest of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if we were to do the Iraq war, where we seized Baghdad with a single brigade and Baghdad has been managed, but you have cities like Felicia and Deja,
[SPEAKER_00]: Romadi all turned into separate of the core power and emits them out of violence happen after the war essentially objective or achieved and have transitioned and you got to give the United States an Israel credit for the constraint that they have had.
[SPEAKER_00]: on targeting things in Tehran and other locations with a hundred percent of precision guided munitions because of the potential for catastrophe for mince violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, you know, and this is the whole thing about like arming ethnic minorities like the Kurds, which is all part of the mass membership pressure campaign against the regime to do the behavior that isn't as likely a reality as that.
[SPEAKER_00]: not anarchy, but severe period of power or contest that could is a absolutely potential you have experts that could go to even Iran purges history of when that has happened in revolutions and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, there's something about me on the urban warfare side of the so is it cuts both ways right on one hand, you can see urban warfare being waged against the regime by the Iranian people, right in these
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can see Urban Warfare in an insurgency context where the remnants of the security services of the agency and the busseys and the intelligence services come together and wage an urban war insurgency against a new Iranian leadership.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's kind of, again,
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't repeat, but it echoes, it reminds us of what happened in Iraq, right, where you had remnants of the Iraqi army.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the political leadership who organized and we faced a brutal insurgency that was supported by Iran, that was armed by Iran, but was fought by remnants of the Iraqi army and political leadership.
[SPEAKER_01]: So urban warfare would cut potentially both ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: We could use it to help bring down the regime, but we could also have to face
[SPEAKER_01]: a urban insurgency being waged by remnants of the Iranian security state.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like not enough, enough thinking has gone into that, certainly I hope that it hasn't, maybe I'm just not aware of that, inside the US military or inside the US intelligence community.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it seems to be an area of study quite worthwhile, particularly if our angle is to bring down this terrible regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't answer your question about, do I think people are thinking about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I think there are people thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But are they in the room, a part of the conversation as I know, even FED experts have been in some of those rooms, providing that expertise.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the publications I use almost daily, Michael Howard's article, the use in abuse or misuse military history, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So Iraq, just from the I was there when the greatest decision to lead to a path to a failure, a firing the entire,
[SPEAKER_00]: bath government and anybody associated with it as well as the military, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are the depth of conversation, I understand what is the Iran and Society, how many support the IRGC, what is their difference between the Kosh and the IRGC, where are the different powers that could be both the, as you said, cutting both way, even in the urban centers of
[SPEAKER_00]: How is power maintained, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love studying even urban security, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, again, going into what's been struck.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are of these, you know, almost 20,000 things that have been struck during the Puri Day of War as you and I were talking about Puri started, besieged tech points, besieged tech quarters, intelligence centers, even internal police headquarters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which are all levers of even urban security because where do you protest,
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are books even during other situations like the Arab shrinks, where can you lose power so quickly that you don't have the ability to maintain it?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is in the urban centers, of course, but it goes both ways, but as you saw Israel attacking every lever of the regime,
[SPEAKER_00]: to maintain power, even in protests which happen in the urban centers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see that it is gray, it isn't black and white.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there's lots of potential for good and bad to happen in the urban centers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do know if some people, although actually, I have a lot of job security as in those who study urban warfare, even in historical case studies.
[SPEAKER_01]: there are a few of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm prone to this and I think it's really useful to hear from you and for our viewers to hear from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I am prone to sometimes is perhaps too much optimism.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's because I'm rooting for the United States of America and I wanted to win regardless of the president is, I always am rooting for America, but also being honest and illidically,
[SPEAKER_01]: in what cards Iran has and the cards they can play.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the kind of Iranian adaptation you're watching most closely?
[SPEAKER_01]: The moves that tells you that the regime has figured out how to live with this military and economic campaign rather than break under it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The kind of regime's best card.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, which I think is more useful than hearing what its weakest cards are, what's its strongest card.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll tell you what I think it is and then I want you to either agree or disagree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think its strongest card is at the negotiating table.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that this that Iranians have always best at Americans.
[SPEAKER_01]: at the negotiating table, they've run circles around multiple use presidents, multiple US negotiators.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they're excellent negotiators.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there are elements of Iranian culture that help them in these negotiations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think also mostly they're very experienced at negotiating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they negotiate.
[SPEAKER_01]: all day every day in Iran and learn from a young age actually how to negotiate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you've got people like Araqchi, who's the foreign minister and the lead negotiator, who's been involved in Iranian nuclear negotiations for decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was involved as a Jeva Zareef deputy in the 2015 negotiations where in my view they
[SPEAKER_01]: So I worry about how we're going to do in Islamabad, negotiating with Iranians.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I guess from a military perspective or a political one or you you choose what's there.
[SPEAKER_01]: best card, and what are you most worried about if you see them playing it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that there isn't a card that we haven't seen, but it's just a variation of doubling down on the chaos strategy.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's just attacking all the Gulf States vulnerable energy resources, the, the, the,
[SPEAKER_00]: asymmetric ways to impose a multi-month cost to the straight-up or moves, because I believe I agree with you, actually, on the negotiation table, but also playing the Western ideals for short wars, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to,
[SPEAKER_00]: cause this as they are famous for to drag out negotiations, to drag out, just engage with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where everybody wants to go back to doing other things, which is a very problematic, and I think the United States has reminded people when I did it as well, and this idea of short wars, but the whole...
[SPEAKER_00]: drawing it out, whether that's on the cost of the global economy, the cost to politically as the even the United States, whether it's a 60 day marker or the midterms, you name it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are considerations, of course, and that...
[SPEAKER_00]: figuring out a way, which is a strong card to just draw this out to the point of, which I don't think the President Trump would allow them to, of increasing the risk of taking action and going back to the chaos strategy, because again, if only five percent of your missiles get through and they hit, you know, Qatar's gas field again, you get to a
[SPEAKER_00]: imposing costs on the opposite side.
[SPEAKER_00]: This being us, although I too want us to win the United States to achieve a better piece, which I do think is the outcome of this is a better piece and not the shortness to the point of no return that we had, which is its own measure of success, like you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: and other people play towards the accuracy that they'll die rather than seeding anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even in the history of international relations and even evil regimes, they want to maintain power.
[SPEAKER_00]: So on their side, playing cards and posing costs to not just the United States, but the whole chaos strategy they attempted would be one of my biggest concerns rather than just
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's exactly right, John.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I always think of it as sort of three clocks, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a nuclear clock, it's ticking by how long it's going to take for them to develop nuclear weapons.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we've set that back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think we've obliterated it, but I certainly think we've set back the nuclear clock.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the second clock, which is the regime survival clock.
[SPEAKER_01]: How long will the regime survive?
[SPEAKER_01]: and survival is clearly a critical part of their calculations.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you, I think there are people who want to die, but also think there are people who don't and they want to live and accumulate wealth and project power.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the third clock is the American Will clock.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much will do we have?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Iranian game is to shorten the nuclear clock, extend the regime's survival clock, and break the American Will clock.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that really comes down to President Trump's willingness to sustain political and economic pain in order to remove this
[SPEAKER_01]: multi-generational threat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think President Trump for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is his legacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has also been his obsession since the 1980s people forget that.
[SPEAKER_01]: President Trump, to somebody who came of age in a generation where he saw the reckless response of the Carter administration to the taking of our hostages, those hostages who language for 444 days under
[SPEAKER_01]: And was talking about, I mean, I've seen clips of President Trump long ago taking Carg Island from like 1988 when he was on the book tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about how this would be a way to break the economic and political will of the regime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think people underestimate the extension, which the president is committed to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's be honest in the assessment because I think there have been many things achieved in terms of military degradation and nuclear degradation and clearly leadership decapitation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's talk about home moves because as we're recording this podcast, I think it's fair to say that the United States has not won the Battle of Formus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the United States is moving forward on a strategy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports has been part of that strategy, an interesting way where President Trump has flipped it on the Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's think about Hormuz militarily, and to what extent do you think Sankam has a plan is moving forward on a coherent plan, and don't want you to look in your crystal ball,
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, what is your best assessment militarily of our chances of of winning that homo's battle either again, either militarily and or politically?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a great question.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a closet with, you know, I quote this old dead question because, um, we all do, but, you know, the three forces of what we know in wars, clouded in a fog.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I come up with a bit of humble pie knowing all that we don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: just out of frustration, truly on what are the different options that the United States and Israel has to achieve its goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I could get people to agree on what the goals are, and I mean, if you could just go to the White House as the extra, and how many times they've had the post, here are the four goals, and then the president, even on April 1 said,
[SPEAKER_00]: the goal is not regime change.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's never been regime change.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never said that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people are like, they just, they want to, this is that cherry picking of data.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you asked me about the streets of promos.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote not article about, because the straight-of-home moves was in a certain status weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: People believe that's because Iran was so powerful that we could do nothing about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You asked me about sitcom planning.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anybody had been worked in the Pentagon to include a buys and a foresharge general and a little thing think that he created, think that the United States military, the Pentagon, the joint staff, sitcom, napcom, hasn't planned.
[SPEAKER_00]: or a closure or a contest in the straight-up from moves, then they should never be allowed on another podcast in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their entire task force is whose sole job mark for decades is to plan the straight-up from moves scenarios.
[SPEAKER_00]: What capabilities does Iran have?
[SPEAKER_00]: What capabilities do we need to have to deal with those?
[SPEAKER_00]: But because the President was factoring multiple factors to everything from the market day to day to the supply of the oil to the impact on whatever it was coming in and out, but the ultimately the risk to direct action,
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of battle for moves take over the media conversation while the destruction of the Navy was identified as a primary objective of Operation Epic Bureau.
[SPEAKER_00]: That goal, I don't know how many people could argue that that hasn't been achieved, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of it's sitting on the bottom of a sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: To answer your question, of course, it's a compliment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, it's about which course of action, branch or sequel is implemented to lower the risk to international shipping trying to go through this narrow passage to the US forces that would use different options, whether it's season islands, strafing the entire coast of Iran to stop their ability.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is almost a blockade from afar and we still don't know what the impact we know the dollar amount and you did it in the intro the impact to the Islamic regime and then the second order effects if this was ever to come to a stop impact since this regime was already failing the entire economy collapsed in January and that's why you saw the rise of the protest
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, preventing them from ever using the threat again, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wars and act of force or the threat of force.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why the president keeps threatening very legitimate options that could be continued.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he for many reasons isn't doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is that mean operationally and I think a lot of our listeners and I think people just out there in expert land, as you say, on X, have struggled with understanding the specifics of what Sancom, US Navy, can do operationally to open up the straight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they've obviously been trying to neutralize.
[SPEAKER_01]: Missiles drones going after fast attack graphs that the RHGC uses to harass ships.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is now the blockade on the blockade, as you say, which is think it's an instrument of effect of economic warfare, cutting off our odds of exports and imports.
[SPEAKER_01]: in order to exacerbate the economic pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But where does Sancom go in terms of opening up the straight?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, is this, are these naval escorts?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we neutralize the offensive capabilities that Iran still has?
[SPEAKER_01]: And doesn't it just take one,
[SPEAKER_01]: missile a one drone striking at a big hole in one very large tanker container of oil to to set this all back considerably.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the challenge to these questions Mark that I've gotten before, where I can provide a list of options that I can imagine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I don't have all the intelligence on what remains of Islamic regime's power along the coast to project power outward, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it isn't as simple as,
[SPEAKER_00]: the drones or missiles striking and moving target, mining things, mining the streets, whether it's surface, mid-water under, you know, on the bed, pressured, like all this technical and tactical data that you need to have to have to have an understanding, but also an evolution of US military capabilities, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a list of things that, and this is what the president and the best military advice
[SPEAKER_00]: that could be done to, you know, kind of the standoff attack is what most people are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is the least recent most people are more familiar with that we could actually start restart bombing and focus all efforts on the Islamic regime's means.
[SPEAKER_00]: to influence the straight-up on moves, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't have this all, and this is the certainties that people talk in, like, they have the power to close it, and we can't do anything about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's just ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they think about, then you will have some people experts to come on that might remember, the last time we escorted for over a year commercial shipping through the straight-up on moves, and then once a single ship was hit, Operation Training Manus, we, on least,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in President Trump's turn, on least tell on those who, and then they got the message, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is real hard power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, there are limits to it, but the idea that the US Navy and there is more capability, I think it was, there are many people that kind of have pointed this out that there's already more capability.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the region then there was the turn of the last 40 day war right there's another aircraft carry on the way there the capabilities are in the region to use overt capabilities but again
[SPEAKER_00]: There is now more land power right on the land power guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't I don't I don't I understand the Fallacies in the whole boots on the ground thing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't want as somebody who was there on the ground any rock when the mission transferred from Seas power over throw at regime two Build a nation in a country of very Complete interest and sectarian violence and everything
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want boots on the ground that turns into nation buildings, but I'm also not so
[SPEAKER_00]: driven by fallacies of that you couldn't seize key terrain in the straighter home moves, which would give you a decisive banage to knock things down or attack things in the straighter home moves on the Iranian side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whether that's U.S. forces or other forces in the dark allies, Qatar, UAE, others willing to provide aid and opening the straight by force.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you, I mean, wars at contests up will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, you want to impose your will on the whoever's in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is in your expertise, Marka, who's in charge right now now is that they are she called the straws is is you know, who the political so called leadership to influence them that the cost of continuing their behavior is too much right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is puts on that center of gravity at Carg Island, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I open the straight-up from a move?
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do it by force.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do it through force to convince them that it is no longer in their best interest of survival.
[SPEAKER_00]: While regime changes not the goal, you know better than I do that the regime really wants to stay in power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you really attacked, you could attack their power in a course of the bridges, but carg Island and everything else, which does have a second and third
[SPEAKER_00]: You could get the straight-of-home moves open.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the problem is, is that people talk in certainties.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are things that I can't even think, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So even seizing an island, whether we want to seize, isolate an island, destroy an island, we can absolutely do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: With things that I don't even know about, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So if this isn't Eorgima, the Marines want to seize an island, it isn't going to go like it didn't war or two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, even a Marine Expeditioner unit has what 20 at 35s, it's going to bring something that nobody else has ever seen in an operation that is what they are trained to do, but haven't done it with this capability before.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not an easy answer, Mark, the reason that it's what it is right now is because of
[SPEAKER_00]: matter of fact, but the whole boots on the ground thing to me is also frustrating as so you want us you're rooting for us to lose, but you want to if anybody puts a single boot on the ground which has already had been boots on the ground to be cleared then it's a failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think John you're getting an important point.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've tried to make
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is that we can fight to open our moves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: That the US military is at a plan in place for decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're moving through that plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if we had allowed Iran to continue on the trajectory that it was on,
[SPEAKER_01]: before the 12 day war and now before the 40 day war that we would have emerged when Iran would have reached a lethal end state with nuclear weapons, ICBMs, 10,000 ballistic missiles, hundreds of thousands of drones, a military that had been built by China and Russia, a navy and air force.
[SPEAKER_01]: and certainly hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief to fund it.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Iran was at that lethal end state, there would be no fight over her moves, because when the Iranians closed her moves, we couldn't fight them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the consequences of that battle would have been horrendous for U.S. forces, U.S. allies, U.S. embassies,
[SPEAKER_01]: and ultimately for the American homeland.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they would have won the battle without firing a shot and they would have a permanent stranglehold over harm moves over global energy markets and over the global economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mere fact that we're having a debate and a discussion and watching it play out in real time about the battle of harm moves suggests that we are fighting
[SPEAKER_01]: not when they are in this lethal end state.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have no ability to fight them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, Hormuz is something that was inevitable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And certainly not surprising, as you say in the 1980s, the Iranians tried to do something similar during the Reagan administration and during Operation praying mantis, we sunk half the Iranian navy and then had to escort tankers for many, many months.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's on her moves.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to shift the conversation to missiles because this is another area where I think supporters of the war have talked about the severe degradation done to Iran's missile program and critics of the wall point out that well not enough degradation has been done and Iran still has these deadly capabilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: What where do you come out on Iran's
[SPEAKER_01]: missile capabilities because I actually think major reason for fighting the 40 day war is to prevent Iran going from the couple thousand ballistic missiles that had had before the war started to a significant diminishment of that and that had we not thought this war in the 12 day war Iran would have emerged according to Israeli military intelligence with over 11 thousand
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, um, one at your having.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I know we have great professional respect for each other, but actually having an institution and a set of experts who have looked at this for more than 40 days is helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And understanding the Iran strategy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whole what percentage of the launchers have been attacked.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at the, you know, with a 10,800, I think according to the idea of strikes, that the idea of Fed made, and then the 13,000, I think strikes at the United States have made.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, like, what were they hitting in most of the, like, I'll talk about my, our own analysis.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that that was not just attacking launchers, mobile launchers, supplies, but every,
[SPEAKER_00]: bit of the system to create another single missile again, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the factories, the fuel components, the scientists, the research centers, that's what's been done in 40 days is destroying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know we're going to talk about the nuclear program and how, what's the estimate of how far has been put back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And right, and the reason
[SPEAKER_00]: Iran has such an expansive missile development program is because of China, and I think the President even said in the last couple days that they stopped the shipment, problematically having some missile component supplies that Iran needs, and it might have been from China might have not been within the missile program.
[SPEAKER_00]: The United States and Israel has
[SPEAKER_00]: systematically destroyed Iran's ability to create more missiles today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we had the argument up, yeah, but what about their missile launcher supply today?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have that intelligence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it's significant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if anything, I will use the metric of how many missiles can they get out.
[SPEAKER_00]: how many of those missiles hit what they are planning to hit and it's not, it's, you know, to the realm of 90% which if you have, you know, 2,500 missiles, that's still a lot of missiles, but imagine if they had 11,000 missiles going back to you, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what we, we elect political leaders to assess all the intelligence and make that decision up.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're at a point of no return and I believe like you, that President Trump acknowledged that we are at a point of no return.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if they continue down this path that they've been allowed to continue, we would get there and we could do nothing about it and it would be a very dark Middle East and a dark world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's been a systematic dismantling, that's right where I want to use.
[SPEAKER_00]: Up, Iran's missile supply and military industrial complex.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think the statistic that I most interested in on the missile side is exactly that it's missile production capacity, and I think the best we know at least from public sourcing is that Iran was producing about 100 new ballistic missiles a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: as they were on this glide path to many thousands of ballistic missiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Secretary Rubio was the one who really put it very well as he always does.
[SPEAKER_01]: That it was really the creation of this missile shield that would then give Iran immunity from US or Israeli action.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then
[SPEAKER_01]: Under this missile shields, the Iranians could then finish their nuclear weapons program, and really then be in a position of enormous power and influence.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this statistic most interesting is 100 new ballistic missiles a month, and now it's down to zero.
[SPEAKER_01]: So today, and that might change tomorrow, but today the Iranians can't produce one new ballistic missile.
[SPEAKER_01]: So every ballistic missile they fire, or everyone that gets destroyed, they can't replace it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's an important element of success and certainly significant degradation in those deadly capabilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, that's the level of analysis that seems to be missing in the mainstream.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is important if you go back to the start of the operation of what the goals are with the nuclear, missile, navy, proxy program.
[SPEAKER_01]: John, listen, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for everything that you've done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for your analysis and look forward to having you back as this campaign proceeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much, Mark.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to John Spencer for helping us think clearly about what's actually driving this conflict.
[SPEAKER_01]: The war doesn't fit the old templates, there may be no dramatic invasion, no surrender ceremony, no single decisive moment on a battlefield.
[SPEAKER_01]: What we're watching is that is a contest of wills, fought on multiple fronts at once, of Iran's military, its nuclear program, over the straight of our moves, and over an economy being squeezed, harder by the day, the Iranian economy and to some extent the global economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This question is whether pressure can dismantle all of it faster than the regime can adapt dispersion survive, and Iran still command effectively, can it deter or can it project force abroad while holding control at home?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can it still rebuild the credible path to a nuclear weapon and to a massive missile arsenal?
[SPEAKER_01]: And can it keep its economy from collapsing and to a blockade that cost it, nearly half a billion dollars every day, while it has sustained over 300 billion dollars
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the questions now, because in wars like this, victory is in a single event.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a point where one side quietly loses the ability to do what it used to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: To launch to coordinate, to intimidate, to govern, to race towards a bomb, to pay its own bills, to control its own people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's the Democratic absorbs that pressure, adapts through, it starts to crack under it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll shape how this war ends and what comes after across the region.
[SPEAKER_01]: This has been the Iran breakdown.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mark Dubuets until next time when we break it down all over again.