Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/3/26: Trump Backs Down On Iran Strikes, US Forced Out Of Iraq, Munitions Run Low Amid War

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump backs down from Iran strikes, US forced out of Iraq. Juan David Rojas: https://juandarojasro.substack.com/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. The taco cycle continues on Iran. Trump backs down after making a series of extraordinary threats. Stop me if you've heard this one before. We'll break down the very latest here. Meanwhile, top brass in military warning that we can choose. We can either protect Israel or we can protect the homeland. So that seems great. This comes as U.S. forces are withdrawing from Iraq and a series of warnings have gone out to embassies across the region. Congressman Max Miller is under fire for domestic abuse allegations. We've got some new details there and a wild video that he released doubling down and trying to defend himself. It appears that the U.S. and Israel may have been behind a hybrid war up against Spain, possibly looking likely. We'll show you all the evidence.

Juan David Rojas is going to join us to break down what happened in Seuta with this migrant, quote unquote, invasion. Meanwhile, New York is suing calcium. for the right to control gambling in their own state, this is a major, major lawsuit, which will determine whether or not states have any say whatsoever in what is allowed to go in their state with regards to gambling. Yes, it is a landmark lawsuit. It will literally determine the fate of sports gambling nationwide.

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or you can support our premium subscription program, which is also available at our website. If you're watching this on YouTube, please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you're listening to this podcast, please share an episode with a friend. But as Crystal said, let's go ahead and begin with Taco Sunday of what we saw. Let's put A1 up here on the screen. Trump. The USA is locked and loaded, ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran at levels of military terror, strength, and power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just

been asked by Iran and other Middle Eastern countries to hold off any attack in that the parameters of a deal has been agreed to. This would include the immediate, complete, and total opening of the Hormuz Strait and an end to Iran's nuclear threat. Based on this request, I have agreed for the future benefit of the world and likewise the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran to cancel the attack subject to being able to rapidly make a deal. The country of Israel joins me in this commitment. Get to work, everybody, get it done. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So this comes on the heels of some leakage that came out of the White House. What we can now very clearly see was an op. President Trump met on Friday with his

entire cabinet in which he convened a big meeting about Iran. And in that meeting, what immediately came out and leaks to Axio, CBS News, and otherwise was that the U.S. was planning a massive attack on Iran's energy infrastructure in conjunction with the nation of Israel. Now, immediately, many people said, well, you know, if you were going to do a big attack, would you necessarily leak it in the first place? Many speculated that it was indeed an opening and a threat to try and get Iran to capitulate. However, Iran did not capitulate. They did not come to the table. No deal actually was reached. And when push came to shove, Trump ultimately just decided to cancel it because of the dire warnings from his own military. And we know this because Iran has released this. Let's put it up

here on the screen. They say, the plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is false. A source close to the nuclear negotiation team. This is from Iranian state media. It told Fars media, there is no agreement regarding the reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The news published about it is false. Furthermore, a military source emphasized, as long as the United States continues as hostile actions, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. The passage of ships will only be possible through the designated route and with permission from the Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Hours ago, some media outlets affiliated with the enemy claimed Iran had agreed to reopening

the Strait of Hormuz, a plan which ships would enter the Persian Gulf through the Iranian territorial waters and exit through Omani territorial waters. Basically, Crystal, from what we can see so far is that this so-called parameter of a deal is based upon a meeting in which nothing was agreed to between the Omanis and between the Iranians, in which they were hashing out for themselves, whether ships were able to enter through Iran and exit through the Omani route. Remember, the United States is currently trying to route all traffic through the Omani route outside of Iranian territorial waters, of course, which has been met with Iranian

in fire because of their control of the Strait of Ramos. In fact, just hours after this deal was supposedly announced, Iran fired at a tanker, which was trying to do just that hours ago as of last night. So nothing has actually been agreed to. The blockade is on. Trump just completely basically, I mean, you know, chickened out because we want him to taco. We want that here on this show. But ultimately, it came down to bluster threats didn't follow through because the entire Gulf was

like, please do not do this. You can't defend us. And then our infrastructure will also be destroyed. Yeah, that's right. And I wouldn't be surprised at all because Iran has agreed to nothing if they continue to take shots at strategic assets in the region because, you know, their view is that they need to continue to make us pay and force Trump to do more than chicken out because it's not enough for him to just walk away from the current insane threat that he's making. He actually has to accept a defeat. And that's why you can never, you can never dismiss these wild ravings from him. You know, we see assets moving to the region. We see see him making these very public threats. We see leaks in the press about wild plans that are being hatched and considered in the situation room. And you can't

dismiss it even though we go through the cycle time and time again because it's impossible to see him also accepting the deal that would be on the table, which would acknowledge that we have been completely defeated. So we're now in this no man's land where it is very precarious, where it is very uncertain what the next move is ultimately going to be. And you cannot rule out that he may get frustrated at some point and do some wild, you know, nuclear attack on Pickax Mountain or try to seize Kark Island, et cetera. Put A7 up on the screen. You flagged this this morning. I mean, this gives you a sense of just how desperate and out of ideas they are. They've taken to like crowdsourcing strategies for an attack here.

this is from CNN. They say exclusive. U.S. military asked troops for creative and unconventional ideas to punish Iran. The request from a senior officer at the U.S. military command carrying out President Donald Trump's war with Iran came in an email. We need ideas. We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran. An officer in U.S. sent comms intelligence branch wrote in a message sent Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar. Second source also said a senior U.S. military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran the crowdsourcing style query, which military officials said was unusual over email, is one sign of the limited and potentially unpalatable options available to Trump to force Iran into a deal on his terms, hoping to find an alternative.

The official at Sentcom kicked off the brainstorming session via email to see if anyone had a better idea. The second source said CEDCOM is looking at everything, acknowledging it needs to re-evaluate the strategy. I mean, this is wild. I mean, Sagar, think about this. How long, how many decades has the U.S. military been thinking about and wargaming and planning out what they would do vis-à-vis Iran, considering, we thought, every possible scenario. And so if you think, you know, if you're listening to Mark Levine or you're listening to Ben Japiro, and you're hearing all this confidence from people, oh, we just need to strike them harder,

we just need to bomb them a little bit more, and it's all going to work out. The U.S. military doesn't think so. They are literally out of ideas and having to go to the crowd. Hey, I don't know. We got nothing. You guys got any thoughts on what we could do here? Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies?

Will the pasto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty? half full or come home at all. And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything.

Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Julianna, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask chat GPT.

Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that.

How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know why was my poop green that one time? Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting you, the internet guests, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

I'm Munga shit together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths.

I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five-year acceleration and get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcast. 47 years, trillions of dollars, and all I got was this lousy email. I mean, that kind of sums up, basically, where we're at. You're going to the junior officer corps and be like, hey, we've only spent our entire careers planning for this. This has been the number one thing, the op plan on the desk, the sent com commander. It's literally his job every year to update the plan. And they executed that plan. It was a tremendous failure. So what does that say about them? And I'm sure there's some junior military officer and other who's trying to come up with some better ideas.

And they can try. But the end of the day, you know, what we have in front of us is very simple. Is within the bounds of what Trump, actually this is, and this dispels the entire thing. This is not a military problem. This is a political problem because if this had a military solution, it would have already been done when it comes to unconventional ideas. And, you know, let's take past wars where the U.S. was bought in like World War II or others. What would happen in a situation like this is they would have buy-in from the business community, from the intellectuals, from all of society who are all working together to creatively solve this very, very thorny issue. But here, the vast majority of the population, We want out. Any corporation that's not a defense contract or other that's engaged in trying to do this, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't want to continue this war. We want this over width, done for. And that's the biggest problem that the White House faces. Politically, we don't want a ground invasion. Sure, it could happen, but that's not necessarily something that any of us want at all. In fact, we want the total opposite. And that's why within the confines of what Trump has, where he has to have minimal casualties and he wants to inflict maximum damage, there is no military.

solution to this problem, period. The sooner that we get to capitulation and to acknowledging de facto Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, the sooner, the better we all are off. And in fact, you can even see any even signs of peace, quote unquote, or even lack of action. You know, oil isn't like $80-something a barrel, so it'll, you know, if this comes and stays for the next two weeks, you will see dipping below $4. And it will just continue to be this on and off cycle. But I do think that your point about how the Iranians will very likely continue to punish is because they see that the problem of oil continuing to go up and down and, you know, up and down is giving the White House the runway necessarily that they don't want. Because remember,

the blockade is still in power and their economy is still suffering. They have a much higher capacity for suffering than we do. They've lost. I mean, so many more people in the engagement. I mean, we're going to talk about one of them. Actually, maybe we can just put it up here, now, A5, for example, all of what's being done in our name. You know, right now, it appears that the United States, we dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a family home on Kashim Island, killing a husband, a wife, and their two-year-old son. The paper found no indication of a nearby military target. You can see the crater.

I mean, it is stunning, like genuinely crazy. Scenes out of Gaza. Why did we kill these people? For no reason, you know, absolutely not. And their blood was shed for literally nothing in this case. And it shows also the point about CENTCOM being like, we need more ideas. We've run out of targets, it appears. If we're going around and we're hitting family homes with 2,000 pound bombs,

we're just bombing random stuff in and along the straight of Farmuz or where Iranian air defense capabilities are ahead. And so you can see, like, it is just a never-ending cycle of we bomb simply for the sake of bar. all belying a, you know, an actual diplomatic solution. And that diplomatic solution will involve the greatest strategic defeat of the United States in modern history. And that's simply people, we have to swallow it. Until we get used to that idea, then this is just going to be the status quo. And the president has not suffered nearly enough to be able to get him to that point. Because we all know, you know, what it's going to have to look like. It's just, it is the simple reality of the current facts that are in front of us.

I mean, this 2,000-pound bomb dropped on a family home. Trump's constant threats to commit war crimes against civilian infrastructure, the, of course, triple-tap bombing of a girl's school, which I don't think anyone could say with a straight face for sure was unintentional. We act just like the Israelis now. You know, we spent a long time covering the genocide in Gaza saying that with all of the qualms and critiques that we have of the way the U.S. military behaved in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were some lines. And I don't think that we can really say that anymore, you know, I don't think that we would, given a similar scenario. I mean, we backed the entire Gaza genocide. So how can we even say separate ourselves from any of this? This is exactly the way that Israel

behaves is the way we behave. And we think nothing of taking your tax dollars and using it to buy 2,000 pound bombs that we drop on family homes, you know, in Iran. So that is what our country is at this point. And people should be. horrified by that. Do you have any expectation that the Trump administration will engage in any sort of investigation to find out what happens here? No, because there was theoretically an investigation into the girls' school bombing. And Trump came out and said, oh, well, we'll never know what happened, meaning they'll never release the results. They know exactly, exactly what happened there. A couple things with regard to the, let's crowdsource and brainstorm the next move here because we're out of ideas. Do you think Iran's out of ideas? No, they know exactly what they would do next. They know exactly the way that they would escalate. They have lots of ideas for how they could cause even more pain and tighten the grip on the global economy,

which is obviously a primary strategy for them. So while we're running around, I don't know, what can we do next? We kind of blew our load with all the targets and none of it's really having an impact and don't really want to do this ground invasion because it will be a complete and total disaster and probably won't work anyway. Don't really want to do a whole tactical nuclear weapon on Pickax Mountain because of what that will unleash. Iran has a plan and a strategy and has been executing it quite effectively. So their coherence versus our chaotic incoherence, I think, tells you a lot to begin with here. And let's go ahead and put A6 up on the screen in terms

of how Iran is thinking about this. This is from Treat to Parsi. He's reflecting on the latest taco cycle, he says, yet another apocalyptic threat followed by another self-congratulatory climb down. The pattern is becoming tiresome by now. Unable to escalate his way out of the self-inflicted debacle, Trump tries to bluff his way out, except Tehran is not falling for it. Rather, it is confidently raising the stakes, calculating Trump will only fully commit to a diplomatic solution once he has internalized that he does not have a military option. It's a risky strategy with potential attacks in Egypt and cyber attacks in the U.S. We'll get to that in just a moment. But what? that the new and far less restrained military leadership believes is more likely to achieve security

than giving into Trump. So the next few days will undoubtedly be eventful. And he's holding a Q&A session Friday. I believe you can sign up over at his substack, which of course we recommend that you do. But, you know, the reality here is soccer. It's easy for us to sit here and say, hey, taco all the way. Like, let's get the hell out of here. That's what's going to be best for the U.S. That's what's going to be best for the war for the world. This war is. an utter incomplete disaster. If you're Trump, and by the way, also, if you are a member of the military brass, the deep state, you're ideologically committed to the U.S. Empire, we have to acknowledge that's basically the end of the U.S. Empire. Admitting defeat, admitting that we can't control the waterways.

I mean, what are we as an empire if we aren't, you know, out there to secure free trade, free global trade and commerce around the world? If we have to acknowledge, no, we can't do this with Iran, even if we wanted to, they get to have a say. That is. basically the end of U.S. Empire. And so that's why even a lot of the military brass that had a lot of reservations going into this, which were expressed clearly not forcefully enough to Trump, why they're still going to be trying to figure this thing out and trying to come up with a solution, okay, if we do, you know, some insane bombing campaign, if we do some sort of raid, maybe there's some sort of hacking up, maybe we can take out a few more regime leaders.

They're going to throw a lot at the wall because they realize that it is kind of all on the line here. And, you know, they're ideologically committed to the continuance of the U.S. Empire. And so that's why, in a lot of ways, them and Trump are in the same boat at this point. Right. That explains the $1.5 trillion military spending because they're like, oh, we just have to spend even more on the exact same weapons that got us in the same situation that we're in right now. We could have more weapons. It wouldn't matter. It literally wouldn't matter.

It wouldn't change anything about Iranian capitulation. Zero. What it would change, obviously, is the American ability to defend other far-fling parts of our empire. but this is going to create like the husbandry of resources, which is a disaster, ultimately, to the prestige and to the image, because it was inconceivable, even to extreme military skeptics like me, that we would be in this situation today. I mean, all the script was written, though, to be fair, when we look at the drone threat, when we look at the intercept. We talked about it here for years and years from the Ukraine conflict to the Operation Midnight Hammer, the reduction of THAAD. The script was there, but nobody expected, I think, the third act to go in the direction. that it ultimately did. So now what's going to happen? In my opinion, this like phase two style type thing where we have no war and no peace, it's going to happen for a very long period of time, for exactly the situation that you just laid out. It's just like Afghanistan. Admitting defeat is so catastrophic to the image and prestige and, you know, of the United States and its military that we will throw

good money after bad 10 times over just to not have to admit defeat. And Trump will have to have to have to be brought to a crushing economic situation to ultimately recognize the de facto Iranian or Amani control of the Strait of Hormuz. Many, you know, the cranks of the people like us who are like, why are we in this? We will all be vindicated in the end. Don't worry. But in the interim, like you said, there are very, very powerful people here in Washington, many of whom didn't even agree or want to launch the war in the first place. We're now like, we have to put it all on the lines, very first world war mentality. You can see it through all ages and all warfare, even though we have a useless and stupid situation, you're like, well, for the future, for us as a

nation to be able to survive, we have to continue to do it. And that's how you end up in these prolonged and disastrous quagmire. So Vietnam, perfect example, highly recommend everybody, you know, if you read and look at the exact situation, from how you go to a few thousand military advisors to 500,000 American troops on the ground, took five hundred thousand American troops on the ground. It took five years. It's nothing. But the logic in which it all happened is exactly the way that it is right now. I don't think we'll end up with ground troops, at least in a prolonged occupation sense, like we are with her, but that doesn't make it any less catastrophic. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally

eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause?

Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask chat GPT. Or maybe we can ask an actually.

human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know why was my poop green that one time? Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast.

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Munga shit together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about. And what it really means to live forever. for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain,

as opposed to his brain. Here's some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five-year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined.

They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're basically all sitting here waiting around for either a catastrophic economic crisis or a catastrophic political crisis because those are the things that would force this to an end. And that is the Iranian understanding.

So when will that come? You know, we've talked endlessly about the strategic. petroleum reserve about the oil markets. There's all sorts of, you know, interconnectivities in the economy that very hard, even for experts to predict when something is going to break in a catastrophic manner, we're basically waiting around for that or we're waiting around for the sort of political crisis, you know, vis-à-vis Vietnam, like a similar level political crisis that forces Trump's hand in forces an end here, although I think he's more impervious to those forces than, you know, than previous presidents were.

And for him, as long as he's like, you know, staying out of prison and getting rich, then he only cares so much. But the economic crisis, he doesn't want to be remembered as Herbert Hoover. So that's kind of where we are. It's just sitting here and wondering when the global economic system

is going to completely fall apart in a way that forces their hand. And that's kind of a terrible place to be. Right. And it could take years, years and years. That's why we really need to buckle in. Let's put A4 up here on the screen. This is very important also.

You know, we were talking here a little bit about the empire. Well, it turns out that Saudi Crown Prince, MBS, is one of the main reasons that these attacks did not go forward. The Kingdom, by the way, even released their readout of the call, where they explicitly said the Crown Prince asked President Trump not to resume major air strikes on Iran. You never see that out of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What they see here is that Salman spoke to President Trump on Saturday, expressed concern over his plans for massive new strikes, because, of course, Iran had actually published a list of sites that would be struck in retaliation, many of them in Saudi Arabia, which would have sent oil prices absolutely skyrocketing. Quote, the Saudis expressed concern, asked for clarity about the plan of action.

MBS urged Trump to de-escalate and from launching the strikes. Apparently, the Saudi defense minister, who I think is the brother, known as KBS, came to Washington, 13-hour flight for a single meeting just with the vice. President J.D. Vance, in which he begged him, please, do not go forward with these new strikes and then flew back to Saudi Arabia. That's how 26 hours on a plane for a one-hour meeting in which they saw the situation that dire that they couldn't even just pick up the phone. I think, again, just underscoring how disaster is going to. Oh, he's got a nice plane, sorry. Oh, he's got, he's definitely got a nice. That softens the blow. Let's not, let's not, you know, we'll cry too many tears for the, for the rich princes of the House of Riyadh. But, you know, or the House of Saad, sorry. But I do think it underscores just how much of a pain position that they are in, how the UAE. So Saudi is in that position, too, where remember, they're exporting some oil. The UAE and Bahrain are apparently pissed off of the United States for not escalating the conflict because they're done.

They're locked in right now. And they're also, I mean, the UAE's not getting pounded as much, but Bahrain and Kuwait absolutely are. And they're like, hey, why are we been buying all these weapons? We need more interceptors. And Trump and them are like, yeah, you need interceptors. So does Ukraine. and so do we. So basically, we're the only ones getting them because we're the ones who make it, which is what's making everybody rethink their alliance. But I do think, you know, to the empire

point, when you, imagine this, you have an empire of antiquity. You have the provinces, of which you have guaranteed their security. You start a war, which is disastrous for said provinces. And then the provinces, I guess usually would say, hey, you need to come and defend us. But when it gets revealed that you can't defend them, then, of course, you're going to have to go back to the imperial capital and say, please, please, don't stop because you don't have the capacity to defend us, which means that you're actually going to inflict pain. And that is, as you said, the beginning of the end. None of this will happen overnight. It happens over many, many years, but, you know, it is very easy, I think, at least in this position now, to say, generally based

upon the course of history, we know where this story is going to go. And none of it is good for the U.S.'s ability to defend, you know, quote-unquote, allies. And I mean, I talk a lot here and I have for many years about NATO and all that. I don't care about Estonia, Latvia, or any of the far-flung post-1990s additions. But I do care a lot about Japan and South Korea, about the UK. I mean, you know, Australia, actual critical trading partners, allies of the United States. And right now, we're in a situation where that's in question. And that's what I think should scare everybody. Do you care about Sayyuta, Spain?

Because a place I never knew existed. You didn't even know what existed. Very interested in. Never been. Now, I got to be honest, it is fascinating. Totally. Yeah, no, I started going down that history, rabbit hole. Right.

We'll get to that in a minute. So just one last thing on in terms of the allies. The Saudis have enough sort of size and societal strength and position that I think they feel like, you know, they'll be okay out of this war. They don't like the attacks. This is very bad for them, very bad for their economy, all of that stuff. And so that's why they're coming and like, hey, could we not do this? You know, this hasn't worked out the way that you said it was going to work out because there

was reporting that early on when Trump was saying, hey, it's going to be four days, no problem. We're going to take them out. It's going to be great. Iranians have been a pain in your butt. Now you'll have more ascendance in the region. They were like, great, cool. When this hasn't gone the way they wanted, now they want out. Now they want a deal.

They want this to be done. they want to go back to sort of normal course of order, not that that's entirely possible. Bahrain and UAE are more in the boat of sort of like the U.S. Empire protectors. Like, this is genuinely existential. UAE is barely a country. I mean, it really isn't quite a proper country. And their whole thing is built on their brand as this luxury respite for the global elite, the global money launderers to come and stay and enjoy and park their money.

Being in a war zone is not part of that deal. So they've got a real existential problem. And then Bahrain has a problem as well because their leadership doesn't have a lot of legitimacy. You've got a lot of Shiites there who are sympathetic to Iran. So they have an existential issue as well. So I think for those countries, you can understand they're in this sort of like all or nothing place as well where to end the war now is going to be somewhat unacceptable for them because they've, you know, that threat will remain and that threat will. loom and will undermine the very sort of the underpinnings of their of their states such as they are. So I think that's part of why you see a different response there.

Let's put A3 up on the screen. You know, I'm not really sure what to make of this. But in terms of what the Iranians are up to or could be up to, there's a report from the New York Times and we've seen some other reporting that the Iranians have, it looks like potentially the Iranians have hacked U.S. water supply systems in seven different states. that we know of. Minnesota being one, Michigan being the other, I don't think we know what the other five states are specifically. This is one of those saga where they say, well, it bears the hallmarks of an Iranian hack. We don't know for sure. It's possible, you know, I take it sort of more seriously than perhaps I otherwise would for two reasons, number one, because Trump wants to downplay it. Like if this was some sort of an intel op from the U.S. government or from the Israelis, it feels

like Trump would embrace it. Oh, yeah, they're coming after us. That's why we've got to attack them. We've got to neutralize the threat, et cetera. He has very much wanted to downplay these and even tried to blame the Minnesota government for hacking their own water system. Okay, sure. And then the other reason is because Trita Parsi, of course, we have a lot of respect for, thinks that it's possible that this was the Iranians as well as a sort of warning shot. They didn't do anything here that really caused problems. It was more of an announcement of their capabilities of, hey, you know, nice water supply system you have there connected to the internet, shame if something would happen to it. Again, I'm not sure and neither are the analysts who were quoted in this New York Times piece,

but it's definitely something to consider and pay attention to because we feel very protected here in the U.S. We have, you know, a lot of our own geographic advantages, which are tremendous. And we know that Iranian missiles can't reach our homeland, our shores here. it's a reminder that in a world that is completely interconnected, they still do have potential ways to, you know, disrupt life here as well and get at us and mess with us. And of course, we know that also from every time we go to the gas bump and see what the price is. I am always skeptical of these types of stories. Everyone should be too. It does make sense in the way they trade to put it in that it would be the horizontal escalation in terms of you mess with our power plants. We're going to try and mess with yours. And it has always been kind of a glaring cybersecurity problem. that we have major holes and problems with our utility companies, energy. I mean, even in terms of our airlines, you know, United or American gets grounded every other week because of an IT problem. We don't know why, but that's hundreds of billions of dollars, you know, at stake if that

we were to have a sustained shutdown. So it's very possible that it could be there. Obviously, we'll watch it. Like you said, too, Trump downplaying it does seem to actually make me think, hmm, maybe there was actually something there. because if it were real, or if it were something that, or sorry, if it weren't real, if it was like a manufactured thing to try and to escalate the war,

then people who would want to use it as a pretext would certainly be crying. So we'll see, they may, knowing this administration, they may turn around and do that sometime in the future. All right, let's get to the military. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies?

Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all. And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.za for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything.

Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask chat GPT.

Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that.

How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know why was my poop green that one time? Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting you know, the internet guests, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

I'm Mungisha together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths.

I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five-year acceleration and get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things that we have learned from this war is what a failure, the U.S. basing strategy, has been throughout the region. And now we have this extraordinary development we can put up here on the screen. after how many years have we been in Iraq? Because of this war, it appears that we are approaching an actual full withdrawal from Iraq as bases in the Kurdistan region face attacks from Iran and their proxies. Patriot air defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles and drones have already been removed, according to Al Monitor and their sources. Let me go ahead and read you a little bit of this article. They say the U.S. military has started to draw down. Its last remaining forces from Iraq stationed in the vicinity of Arbiel's airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan region well-placed sources tell Al-Monitor, Patriot mobile air-to-surface air defense systems that detect and shoot-down incoming missiles, drones, and other airborne enemy equipment have already

been removed from the military compound. The pull-out started last week and is ongoing with the bulk of the U.S. forces and their heavy equipment out. All of the Patriot anti-missile batteries had been redeployed to an undisclosed destination, they said, adding that other defensive weapons systems remained in place as of the time of publication. Regional officials claimed the pullout was Sagar routine and in line with the U.S. commitment to withdraw all its forces from Iraq by a September 30th deadline that was agreed with Baghdad. So I think we can read the T-Laves here. And I mean, this is pretty extraordinary. Basically, Iran wants us out of the region. And in a way, we are being forced to oblige because we can no longer protect our forces throughout the region. We have to marshal

our resources as we run low on all sorts of missiles and missile interceptors and all the rest. So we have to strategically repositioned to make sure we can protect, I guess, the most vital assets at this point. And so after all of this, it is now the Iran war that has actually forced us to fully withdraw from Iraq where we never should have been in the first place. Well, yeah, that's kind of where I was going to start. It's like, well, let's actually look at the history of this base of Kurdistan. This was one of the jump-off points between the United States and ISIS, where we fought side by side with the United States Special Forces and a lot of the Kurdish troops that helped defeat ISIS, both in Iraq and in Syria. But then let's actually

take a step back even further and let's think about why these bases and all of that have to be driven out in the first place. The truth is we invaded this country of Iraq. And yeah, we deposed Saddam Hussein. And we turned it by our own admission into an Iranian. proxy state in which the Iraqi prime minister has had to come here to Washington and effectively demand, as of a few weeks ago, that we leave. And remember, that was an agreement that was agreed to in the Oval Office in which Trump and the Iraqi PM said, yes, the United States is going to exit the country. But it's going to do so not on terms that are ours and not in terms of a quote-unquote prosperous Iraq that has the ability to thrive as a democracy, is George W. Bush

and all that sold to us. But one in which there are, Iranian military proxies, which have the ability to shoot drones at American service members. And don't forget, this is also where multiple service members died in a mysterious air crash of those two tankers. Let's not forget that, and there's still a lot of questions that's around it. In addition to, just last week, that unexploded drone that actually was exploded by some EOD tech and ended up killing a nearby American service member, that happened in Iraq, alongside those three casualties that also happened in Georgia. So we still have forces that are there on the ground, having to leave basically unceremoniously.

And in the midst of all of this, especially not on our own terms, does demonstrate ultimately the benefit to Iran and to their strategy. This also comes on the heels of the emptying we've seen previously of the Al-Aid Air Base in Doha, which was a huge base of operations. I used to live very nearby it, these C-17s and these transport planes that were coming in. I was there in 2008. they would be coming in all hours of the day, bringing in supplies and troops and all this other stuff for the war in Iraq. To have to abandon that for the drone or the missile threat is crazy.

We also have seen similar situation in Kuwait and Bahrain in which the air defense either was knocked out or non-existent. Troops having to go sleep in hotels. So we've seen this now time and time again where being driven out, not just the bases, but of the ability to use them for the function that we ultimately wanted, which is the major problem. And I think that you compare this. as we've talked about previously, with the military failure. The truth is, is like, we are living through what is technically called, like, a revolution in military affairs. I won't go into all of it, but it is a fascinating intellectual exercise in which, you know,

the ways in which warfare is conducted and understood is completely changed. I've talked here previously about the battleship and World War II and how what changed about the, what changed in the theory of the battleship to a bill to project power and how that was blown up in a single second whenever aircraft were able to sink them, you know, in a matter of seconds. It completely changed the understanding of naval warfare at that time. Well, this time, you know, it also happened in the 1990s. I won't again bore everybody with the details. But the drone threat and the missile threat in particular, along with the interceptor math and the exchange between those two is another one, I think, that we're all living through. And I saw some discussion about that today.

And you can actually see it with B3, which is really shocking. I mean, first of all, when we read this headline, some might even ask, why are we protecting Israel in the first place? But the top U.S. general in the region has now warned the Pentagon, quote, he lacks sufficient forces to protect Israel. He says that a shortage of Navy destroyers used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks will now have to force the head of European command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead. He says that the Pentagon this week, he lacks sufficient naval forces to continue protecting Israel from incoming ballistic missiles,

illustrating how the ongoing Iran war has imposed the constraints on the military, and that he will be forced to choose between defense of the U.S., quote, homeland, as in bases, over that of Israel, who, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to the Washington Post. But what I think this demonstrates, first of all,

is that same empire problem that we had previously. Don't forget that we had a situation where the United States was expending more of our interceptors that Israel was expending of their own, even though they have them. Why? For no reason that has ever been revealed here to the public. Let's not forget that in Operation Midnight Hammer in 13 days, the United States expended 25% of the entire THAAD inventory, 25% of everything that we had, just to shoot down missiles that were headed towards Israel, not towards the United States. So see now how the defense of Israel,

not just in terms of them dragging us into this war or being complicit, etc., convincing Trump to do it, but even just the sheer military defense of them, what it has cost us and allies that are actually meaningful and helpful to our country. I think when you pour these two things together, or a pair of these two things together, and then show these Gulf allies, which, by the way, you know, I'm not some big Gulf defender, but if you're going to look at it in a balance sheet, you'd say, hey, we'll get a hell of a lot more from Kuwait or Bahrain or any of these places than we do from Israel, this tiny little country with no even oil or in terms of our trading, and especially if you were to put them together, you would obviously prioritize one over the other.

just the one saying that, remember, we even played Saudis on their own television in the midst of the war who were furious saying they're defending Israel, but they can't even defend us. It's such a crazy situation. Totally. I mean, let's just pause on the wild nature of even having to say, well, we've got a tough choice on our hands. Defend Israel or defend the homeland. Like, how is this even being framed as, I don't know, which way should we go? But it shows you how committed they are to the endless support of this small country in the Middle East, which is, I think, quite insane, quite insane at this point. Let's go ahead and put B2 up on the screen just to show you some of the

state of play here in terms of the economy. Trump says the Iran talks are to resume after the U.S. called off a major attack. Oil prices are down after the latest taco. So once again, the market's taking seriously whatever Trump is saying. here and buying himself some more time. Let's also put B4 up on the screen. This goes to what we're speaking about previously about how locked in the deep state and the military brass is. You've got a U.S. commander who claims he's got a two-week plan to escalate strikes in Iran. The idea here just basically being, let's bomb them more and bomb them harder and maybe that'll work. This is also something that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal prior to Trump backing

down. So I think this could also potentially be seen as part of just the, you know, using the, weaponizing the press to try to make a credible threat against Iran that would hopefully cause some sort of, you know, create some sort of leverage for the U.S. in negotiations and forced Iran to concede things that they have been unwilling to concede. This obviously didn't work. But I also don't doubt, Sagar, that there are plenty of people inside of the Pentagon who find coming to a deal that acknowledges defeat at this point to be completely unacceptable and are floating a lot of wild plans, wild desperate plans, because wild and desperate plans are all we have at this point. That's very true. You know, I also think we should pair some of this with the sheer insanity

of what it actually looked like, like what this war, if Trump had actually pressed the button and said it would. Let's go to B4. For example, this was the actual plan all leaked out to the Wall Street Journal. It was a two-week plan to escalate strikes. As Trump, for Iran's missile attack, the question is how long the new air campaign will last. The Sencom commander had pushed a 10 to 14-day intensive air strike, aimed to cripple Iran's missile capacity, despite warnings that the U.S. is running low on defense munitions. Basically what Admiral Cooper had been pushing, who is the leader of Sentcom, was, well, what we can do is we can cripple the Iranian ballistic missile capacity a little bit more.

if you give me all the spare munitions and interceptors in the entire arsenal. That was his plan. And in addition to that, Trump was also saying we would hit some of these critical infrastructure. But one of the things that we learned after the pause of the, or after the pause or whatever you want to call the initial ceasefire, was even though we'd said, we destroyed 95% of Iran's ballistic missile capacity. It turns out the number was more like 30%. And then that 30%, a lot of it was able to be dug out, as now evidenced by the fact that

they were able to hit one of our bases, which killed several U.S. service members, and I've been able to use them all across the region in the interim. So I do think that, you know, when we talked previously about CENTCOM asking for unconventional ideas, this idea and this plan is so, you know, ludicrous in its actual proposal to basically just continue what would already had been done and to, quote, finish the job in terms of the targets, as if those targets had done anything what they were supposed to do in the first place, which was bring down the regime, even in conjunction with all of these insane Israel airstrike. So I just want to make sure people know. That's what the actual plan was on the table. Yeah. And quite to the contrary, I just strengthened the government by all accounts as

best we can tell from the outside. Put the last element in this block up on the screen here, guys, B6. This is just important to note where we are at this point. This is from the New York Times. It's framed under what they call news analysis, which is somewhere between, you know, reporting and opinion. This is Stephen Erlinger, who they say has covered issues related to Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1978. And the analysis here is going to be very similar to things you've been hearing on this show for quite a while. They say in Iran, the U.S. appears headed for a strategic defeat, allies fear with none of President Trump's aims accomplished. And the straight of form is closed. U.S. allies see dysfunction and vulnerability from the war. To see this sort of analysis in the New York

Times, you know, which is very hawkish, very pro-American Empire outlet, is, I think, a significant development in and of itself and a sign of the times of how undeniable the defeat has become in this war. And, you know, I like how they frame it in terms of our allies, fear. But very much the writing is on wall here in terms of what we've been unable to accomplish and how on every objective that we claimed during this war that we had, we have gone backwards from where we started. So everything that, you know, whether it's Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapon, whether it's wanting to topple the regime, whether it's wanting to back up the protesters in the streets,

whether it's in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, on every single one of these metrics, that have been floated at times as objectives of the war, we have undeniably gone in the opposite direction and have much, much less leverage in order to secure the aims than we did before we started this foolish war. And that is now being openly acknowledged in mainstream publications like the New York Times. Yep, exactly right. Yeah, I mean, to the extent that it's just saying what a lot of people already know, you know, it's not actually important for what it says, but it's important for where it appears at the front page on Sunday. And that just means things are a lot worse.

Once they get to that point, you can just bet that it's actually much, much worse in terms of what all of us on the leading edge can see. All right. Shall we get to Max Miller? Indeed. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, A.O. rewatch.

a new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guestores, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song.

Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, AEO rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together in Iheart women's sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka, showing out.

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