Shaun Newman Podcast - #1014 - Larry C. Johnson

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Larry C. Johnson is a former CIA intelligence analyst and deputy director in the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism who left government service in 1993 to found BERG Associates, a private international security consulting firm. A co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), he gained prominence in the early 2000s as a media commentator on terrorism and intelligence issues. You can find his work through his Substack blog Sonar21 where he commentates on the Russia-Ukraine war and the general theme of geopolitics.Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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This is Tammy Peterson. This is Danielle Smith. This is James Lindsay. Hey, this is Brett Kessel, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. How's everybody doing today? Yeah.

I don't know. I'm slowly getting my voice back, which is great. So that's a plus. I just shared my thoughts on Substack as well. If you're curious, my thoughts on Panama City, if you're at all curious on Sean staying in Canada, and you want to hear those thoughts, go over to Substack and you can hear it all there.

All right, folks, I know some people were texting me about my thoughts on Panama and why I went and everything I did with McKell Thorup being invited down there to speak on the state of Canada. You can find that all over on Substack, okay? Throw that right there. With everything going on, world, all right? And you're looking at precious metals, right? You're thinking, yeah, there's

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help protect your purchasing power. Most important, they work with people who share their values, family, community, hard work, living within your business. means and personal freedom. If that sounds like you, go check them out at i-dashwealth.ca. That's i-dash-wealth.ca and see if integrated wealth management is the right fit for you and your family. Diamond 7 meats here in Lloyd Minster is a family-run business with over 26 years of service offering more than just retail cuts. They provide livestock processing for farmers and ranchers in Saskatchewan and Alberta, including custom sausage making for both domestic and wild game. And if you don't have your own animals, that's all right. Their retail sales

connects you directly with producers offering sides or quarters of beef, pork, and lamb, and their experienced staff can help you fill your freezer with exactly what you need. You can find them on the north end of town, Highway 17 and 67th Street here in Lloydminster, or you can give Diamond Sending meets a call today at 306, 8259718. Tell them Sean sent you. Caleb Taves and Renegade Acres, we've been spotlighting. The community spotlight has been on the Cornerstone Forum, which is now sold out. Yeah, that's going to be, by the end of today's conversation and all the conversations last week with like Tom Luongo and Alex and everything, by the end of this, you're like holding Mackin off.

The end of the Cornerstone Forum is going to be something this year because Tom, Alex, and Larry C. Johnson are not going to agree on things, which means there is going to be some fireworks on stage. I could just see it coming. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. But it looks like there's going to be an interesting discussion had at the end. of the Cornerstone Forum this year on geopolitics. So it's sold out, which I'm excited to see all of you find folks coming in from afar. It's going to be an interesting, interesting day.

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appreciate you all. You got thoughts on the show, thoughts on, you know, Plan B in Canada. That was my speech in Panama City was why the Plan B is turning into Plan A. Yeah, go to Substacacacchio, you'll hear my thoughts. That's what I got to say. All right. Let's get on to the tale of the tape. Today's guest is a former CIA intelligence analyst and former deputy director in the State Department office of counterterrorism,

talking about Larry C. Johnson. So buckle up, here we go. Welcome to the podcast. I'm joined today by Larry C. Johnson. Larry, thanks for hopping on. Yes, Sean. I tried to be with you. Well, I'm excited to have you in Calgary here in just a couple weeks.

We've got a sold-out event. There's going to be 700-ish-plus people somewhere in there. And so I think it's going to be an interesting day. Actually, I know what's going to be an interesting day. All you lovely people coming in and giving us your talents, your thoughts. It'll be, it'll be, uh, an interesting day regardless. Where I sit today as I've been, okay, I've had, I've had, I don't know how many podcasts now on Iran and this war going on there. And when we talked last week, I'm like, I should get Larry on to have his thoughts on it.

Because, you know, as every day goes by, things just change and don't change all at the same time. But certainly there's more, um, facts or, or, um, sequences playing out. What are your thoughts on the U.S. and Israel attacking Iran right now? It was like the decision of Adolf Hitler to launch World War II by attacking Poland. Create a provocation. It was an illegal, it's an illegal war. It's an unjustified war. It's immoral.

Trump literally, in my view, should be tried for a war crime, put before something like the Nuremberg trials and put in jail. There was no reason to do this whatsoever. completely unjustified and he did it and what's really shocking is he's you know he'd built his reputation on opposing this very thing starting an unnecessary war in the Middle East so it's gonna it'll end his presidency and I won't have them I won't have an ounce of sympathy for him when you say an illegal war well I don't I don't know this sounds like a probably is a dumb question, Larry, but is there a justified war then?

Like, what flips the two? If Iran had attacked us, you know, if Iran decided on its own to start attacking our military bases there or our diplomats, you know, that's an act of war. It's like, you know, in Canada, you've got stricter grand laws, but, you know, I teach self-defense. you can't just because you think somebody's a threat, you can't walk out and shoot them. In fact, if you do that, you'd like to go to prison. And justifiably so. However, if somebody is threatening your life and there's no way you can extricate yourself from it,

and then, you know, then you can defend yourself and kill the person that's trying to kill you. Same thing applies to, you know, laws of war. Iran, the United States has persisted in telling one lie after another about Iran. So going back to September 1980, then President Carter with Zabigna of Bersenski, encouraged Iraq to start to attack Iran because we didn't like the fact that the Ayatollah Khomeini had taken over and booted out. all of the spies that the United States used to control in Iran. That war started.

In 1983, Iraq for the first time uses chemical weapons, a weapon of mass destruction against Iran. Chemicals provided by us, the United States. So we're the same as somebody that's given a murderer, a loaded handgun. and Iraq conducts multiple chemical attacks against Iran, and during the entirety of that, Iran never used chemical weapons in response. They could have, but they didn't. And yet we persist in with the lie,

Iran's the number one sponsor of terrorism. No, it's not. The statistics are quite clear. They're collected by the Central Intelligence Agency. They're published by my old office at state, now called the Bureau of Counterterrorism every year, April 30th of every year. Now it comes out as the country report on terrorism back in 2003, or from 1990 to 2003, it was called Patterns of Global Terrorism.

And what that shows is 80% of the fatalities from terrorist attacks, those are attacks on civilians for political purposes, have been caused by Sunni groups, groups that are funded, supported by, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, not Iran. But, you know, we like to persist with mythologizing that, oh, Iran's this brutal authoritarian state, really? Compare how Iran treats women compared to what Saudi Arabia does. Compare the number of public executions in Saudi Arabia, a much, much smaller country than Iran.

Iran. I mean, it's no, and yet, man, we hang out, we buddy up with the Saudis, take their money. You know, so the United States is just, it has one objective with respect to Iran. We want control of their oil and gas. That's it. We want to be in control of that. That's why we got rid of Mosadei, the elected president of Iran back in 1953. That's why we wanted to keep the Shaw in place, because our oil companies got to control that resource. And now these damn, you know, these damn Shia take over the government, and they don't allow us to take control of it. And we've now, you know, we've now started a war that we can't win. And it's going to, you know, it's going to destroy the presidency of Donald Trump. So I call that, oh, well, that's the silver lining to this.

the illegal war just for a second and and i don't know maybe um there there probably is a difference and you can probably explain it to me the mainstream would call russia's war an illegal war that they were the aggressor how is that different than this well starting with 2014 where the united states conducted a coup uh in uh ukraine and uh inserted a new government that then began attacking Russian-speaking persons in the Donbos, started a civil war there. Russia was actually being attacked, and Russia had been trying to find a peaceful way out, had offered negotiations, et cetera. It was the West that was intent on attacking Russia.

I mean, go back to 1997, where even though Ukraine was not an official member of NATO, NATO set up a base in Ukraine called Yavariv in western Ukraine that was a de facto NATO headquarters. And Russia was sitting there with U.S. bringing more, you know, having broken the promise not to push NATO to the east, we continue to push NATO to the east. Yeah, no, so Russia wasn't sitting there. This wasn't about trying to get control of territory at all.

it was, as they said, denazification, demilitarization. The United States, through NATO, was building up the Ukrainian army to a level with the intent of having it attack Russia, defeating Russia, allowing the United States then to come in, get control of Russian resources. Yeah, it is quite different, quite different. Iran has never attacked its other neighbors. You know, I've listened to some of these people, they're citing off this litany of terrorist attacks.

Oh, the Marine Barracks in October of 1983. That wasn't Iran. There's a group called Amal. Amal is a Shia group that formed in 1972, seven years before the emergence of Iran. They were already involved with attacking Israeli, military personnel primarily over what they saw as Israel taking their land. The blowing up of the marine barracks, which is not terrorism,

because it's an attack on a military target. We may not like it, but they're not attacking civilians who are unarmed. But that attack was provoked by the United States battleships that shelled, We fired two times during September of 83 into the Bakal Valley, killing the Shia, men, women, and children. So again, there's always a context for this. But, you know, they were citing the Kobar Towers attack.

That was al-Qaeda. They cited the attack on the USS Cole. That was al-Qaeda, not backed by Iran, backed by Saudis. So I said there's been this attempt to portray Iran as his vicious, aggressive force. What Iran did do is it sent the Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops into Syria in 2012 to fight alongside Bashar Assad against al-Qaeda and ISIS. who attacked the United States on 9-11 in 2001? That would be al-Qaeda.

Who was attacking U.S. forces in Iraq during our, again, another illegal invasion, our invasion of Iraq in 2003. That was ISIS. So here is the Iran fighting the very Islamic extremists that had attacked us, and we feel that Iran is the terrorist threat. I mean, none of this makes sense. And yet, American people get fed this constant line of nonsense and accept it uncritically without thinking it through.

He said, I want to say four weeks, and this will all be over. Yeah, I'll take that bet. Sorry. I just think of COVID when they said two weeks, flatten the curve, we'll be out of this. Yeah. Anytime you put a, it's four weeks and we'll be done. I'm like, this is like the war in Ukraine will be ended in a couple days. You know, like it's, how long does this go for?

Like, is this, or is this going to start and spread to a lot of different places? I think it would go at least six months. Iran has got the world by the balls and I mean, and you know, they've got a pretty firm grip. The shutdown of the Strait of Hermuz is closed off. Oil flows out of the Persian, not just oil, liquid natural gas, and urea for fertilizer.

35% of the world's source of fertilizer comes out of the Persian Gulf. I think the percentage on liquid natural gas is roughly the same. The oil accounts for 21% of the world consumption. When you cut those off, we've had spikes in the past during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Yeah, the price of oil spiked up because they thought there would be some disruption,

but it never stopped flowing out of the Persian. in Gulf, it kept flowing. The same thing happened when Russia started the special military operation and again, spiked the price of oil way up. But again, the

flow came out. It's turned off now. And so, in fact, some of the oil refineries are on fire because the United States and Israel decided to attack oil refinery in the depot in Iran. So the Iranian

turned about, fair play, boom, started taking out the oil refineries in the Persian Gulf. This, the West was totally unprepared. The United States is totally unprepared for what Iran's retaliation has been. We had counted upon our air missile defense system to stop Iran's missiles. That's been a complete failure. Iran has taken out. five radar systems that one is the TYP, A.N. dash TYP. It's called the Tipsy. The other one is

ANFPS. One of those costs $500 million to build. The other costs $1.1 billion. The other costs $1.1 billion. The Iranians have destroyed over four. $4 billion worth of radar. This is early warning radar. This is radar that was used to alert that there was an inbound, that missiles had been launched from Iran and were going to hit at spots either in the Persian Gulf or in Israel. Those radars provided a minimum of 15 minutes warning, sometimes as much as 30 minutes warning. Now Israel is just getting a minute warning at best.

So Iran is, has proven to be quite resourceful. And the United States, yeah, we're dropping lots of ordinance. But the thing people don't realize is Iran is three times larger than Ukraine. I want you to think about that. Look at the last four years with the war in Ukraine by Russia. Russia has fired. research I've done

said that they fired over 12,000 ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. They fired probably well over 50,000 drones. They've dropped fab bombs, these glide bombs, in the thousands. And what has happened to Ukraine? Has Ukraine suffered damage?

Absolutely. Has it been forced to surrender? No. So now we're hitting Iran. And the way the story is being told in the U.S. media, oh, it's devastating. It doesn't even begin to scratch the surface compared to what Ukraine has experienced vis-à-vis Russia. Okay? So people just need to, you know, open their eyes and recognize there's no comparison. You know, it's just a matter of planes flying and dropping bombs and that's going to make people surrender. render, tell that to Hamas. Here you got Israel, which has every military advantage in the world. They surround the Gaza Strip, which is a five-mile by 25-mile piece of territory. There's no entry and exit for resupplies to Hamas, at least visible.

Israel's got, you can drop bombs at will. It's got artillery. It's got tanks. here we are two year two and a half years let's see so December January February so two years and four months since the start of Israel's offensive against Hamas to defeat Hamas who's carrying rifles and cyan pistols and an RPG that's it they don't have modern military equipment tanks, etc. And Israel can't beat them. They've tried, but they failed. And so, you know, this notion that somehow

now in a territory, as massive as Iran is, as with as difficult as the terrain is, that we're somehow going to prevail over Iran, is just ridiculous. Well, you're muted. For the for the size comparison, I was curious for Canadians what would it be. And what Grock's telling me is it's essentially two and a half times the size of Alberta, right? So like, you know, if you're sitting Alberta, you're going out of Ukraine, well, what's the size compared?

I don't know. Alberta. Now double the size of our province and then another half and you get the size of Iran. 17th largest country in the world. I'm curious about this. I was watching a guy's video of the straight and how much traffic flow was going through it. And then when they shut it down, how it just kind of petered off to like, nothing's moving. Yeah.

And one of the things I was wondering, now I've heard different things, Larry, about insurance. Nobody will insurer's ship to go through there. But I'm like, if you have, I ran by the nuts. I'm talking from the U.S. standpoint. Yeah, yeah. You're absolutely destroyed them. Why is there no ships moving through there? Yeah, because how can Iran have that straight still locked down when you're, you've got them on the run and everything else?

Shouldn't everything just start flowing again? Or is that not the way it works? I'm sure there's way more to it than just that. Well, it's because Iran has missiles that are in caves. They can easily be fired. And they got drones. Drones that easily cover all that territory and can destroy the ships. We don't, you know, we, the only way that we could get that straight reopened is we would have.

have to invade Iran and occupy that portion of southern Iran. That's the only way. And if we did that, we'd lose tens, if not hundreds of thousands of men. So one of the things they've been applauding the Trump administration on is the fact they're not going to put boots on the ground. They're going to have other countries do that for us. I say us, I'm the Canadian sitting up here. I should say for you.

Yeah, well, they put that word out about the Kurds, that the Kurds are going to do that. You know, the Kurds have been betrayed. They're one of the most betrayed ethnic groups in the world. So, you know, the United States roped them into fighting against Bashar al-Assad. And then when Bashar al-Assad goes down, instead of us backing, you know, fulfilling our promise to give them their territory in northwest or northeast Syria, we backed out on it. We sided with Turkey. Turkey started killing the Kurds.

We basically abandoned them. So they, you know, they've learned not to trust us. And these people were saying, oh, yeah, we'll let the Kurds go in and do it. And they came back and said, no, thanks. Would not happen. Let's rewind the clock. Donald Trump gets elected. He's like, I mean, you can go back and watch it.

You know, I'm not going to start any wars, right? I remember being like, you know, like up here in Canada, I appreciate. that. Let's not, let's not do this. Now you fast forward and people will tell me going into Venezuela and taking out Maduro wasn't a war. That was just, you know, boom, grab, we can argue about it, but okay, sure. You know, the things that went on in Mexico, don't know how much U.S. involvement had in it. I'm sure you have more knowledge on that. But the bombing of Iran, I'm like, I don't know what the definition of war is. I can look it up, but this is war. I like a healthy distance from politicians.

I don't fully trust everything. You know, I watch too many of them say one thing out and then go do something completely different. Is this just bad advice to Donald Trump? Is this Donald Trump always wanted this? What are your thoughts on, you know, from a man who said he was going to, I'm not starting any wars. We're not going back to the Middle East, all these different things.

And now we're, you know, you're there. Trump is just a tool. He's just, he's in a location that he's positioned that he's been used. This goes much deeper and beyond Donald Trump. I mean, this goes in part to the Zionist control of the American government. And the enormous influence it exerts through billionaires, people like Bill Hackman, this is one in particular, that has acquired some notoriety.

Trump's own past experience with the Qabad community in New York City, this ultra-religious, but also they're split because you've got part of the Qabad movement, which is not this modern Zionism. You know, they think that the Messiah has to return before you create this nation of Israel. But anyway, Trump's not calling the shots. He's been presented with, you've got to do this, Mr. President. And, you know, he was told lots of lies, and he's not a critical thinker. So, you know, he's now been bamboozled once again by BB Netanyahu and the likes of, they're not just Lindsey Graham, it's crossed the board.

Ted Cruz, Richard Blumenthal. It's bipartisan on the Democrat side as well. And now he's going to pay the price. I don't know. Have your gas prices gone up? Yes, they have. How much? We're a dollar this morning.

I was listening to you on, I was listening to this morning, Larry, I forgive me. You were talking about gas prices. I'm spacing on what conversation that was, regardless. Okay. Our gas prices went from, what was it, folks, a buck? Now, this is a leader, a dollar, I want to say a $1.13. And this morning, it's $1.39. So that's, you know.

36. 36 cents. 38 cents, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's up 50 cents as of two days ago here.

And so the price is going to keep going up because the supply has contracted dramatically. Now, the Wall Street is pretending that this is just a 10. temporary blip and Trump's selling, oh, this is, just a spike, it's going to come right back down. No, it's not. Because there's not alternative sources of oil that can be quickly pumped out and then process. So this is the cut off of oil, and then on top of it blowing up tankers already fall with oil. You know, non-stations apparently attack three Iranian tankers.

And so all Iran's going to do is start attacking all those other tanks. bankers. Iran has announced that any country that gets rid of the Israeli and U.S. embassies, ambassadors out of their country, they get safe passage with their oil. Iran announced that? Yeah. Yeah. Who's leading Iran right now? Well, the Moshhtaba Khamani, the new leader of the IRGC. I mean, he's the new, he's not really an Ayatollah yet. He's a cleric. but he replaced his father. I mean, there is, there's an Islamic council that really was calling the shots.

But this guy, Chamini, he's a serious gentleman. And, you know, he's, the odds that he's going to get revenge on behalf of his father and his wife and his child that were killed by the United States. Can you imagine if you were put into a leadership position and the country that killed your family? Do you think you're going to be forgiving of that? No.

Their blood demands justice. And this is, you know, Trump and Israel are now sending signals that, okay, let's negotiate a ceasefire like they did last June. And Iran said, no, no ceasefire. We're not backing off of this. they're not going to back off until they're going to extract concessions from the West. That will be the essential, you know, the West is essentially going to have to surrender to Iran or this war will continue indefinitely and it will destroy Trump and his economy.

You just said the opposite thing that I just heard, which is Donald Trump wants unconditional surrender from Iran. I think I'm saying that right. Yeah, yeah. And you just said that the only way Iran will stop is if the West surrenders. Right. Now, here's, and here's the nature of the West surrendering. Iran will say, you must lift all economic sanctions on us immediately. And you must withdraw all U.S. bases out of the Persian Gulf. Now, what would Iran give up in exchange for that? Iran would say, and if you do that, then you can come in and inspect our nuclear sites.

You can have IAEA inspectors, and we'll even allow U.S. inspectors on the ground. They might, they might, but if, you know, if this goes too far, remember, the only guy that was preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon was the father of Moshtaba Khamani. Ali Khamani, the Ayatollah,

he was the one that had prohibited, declared it as a haram, as a sin, and therefore Iran had not built a nuclear weapon. I cannot now say with confidence that unless Moshtaba comes out and says, I'm going to continue my father's fatwa, then Iran's not going to get a, a nuke. And so they would have that to negotiate with. But right now as things stand, I don't see

either Israel or the United States willing to concede on those points. And that's why the war will continue. And with each passing day, Iran's ability to defend Haifa and Tel Aviv is going to get less and less and less. And Iran's going to start using bigger, more powerful missiles. The ones are dropping right now with carry a one ton warhead, you know, 2,000 plus pounds of explosive. That's a big

explosive. So Israel is not going to be able to sustain this. And economically, the United States won't either. You know, one of the hard things to do is to like there's just so much noise on

social media. From both sides, right? Or I don't know. Just like one saying the U.S. doesn't have enough munitions. They're running out. Everybody talking, there's not enough there. Then I just read another thing this morning that said the amount at which Iran is shooting its missiles off. They no longer have enough launchers for that because they've been attacked so they can have all the missiles in the world they want, but they can't shoot them off and launch.

Do you take, where do you, not how do you decipher, but where do you put those two thoughts? Well, the latter is a lie, number one. They don't need mobile missile launchers to launch the missiles that they're now launching. Those are being launched from underground, I'll call them underground tubes. Literally, you can look at it. You'll look at an expansive land. You're not going to see any tunnel or anything. No, all of a sudden, the missile explodes out of the ground and then is rapidly covered up by the dust.

You know, that doesn't require launchers. Number one. Number two, U.S. intelligence about the size of the, Iran's missile force is wrong because the missiles are built underground. They're stored underground. And even with ground penetrating radar, we don't know how many they have. We don't know how many they produce. So we've got that.

the U.S., depending upon the weapons system, as far as Patriot missiles go, and they're exhausted. That supply is exhausted. Probably didn't mean anything because, frankly, it's no good. It's a lousy piece of air defense. It doesn't really defend against ballistic missiles.

It can take out some drones. You can do that okay. but the total production since 2015 maximum production is 4,620. Pack 3 missiles. Those are the missiles that are fired at a ballistic missile that's coming in. The pack 3, you fire two of them at an incoming missile. So just do the math. 4,620.

That means it could take out 2,310 missiles. How many missiles has Russia fired into Ukraine over the last four and a half years, or four years in one month? That would be 12,000 plus, okay? So even if the United States had given every single Patriot missile to Ukraine. And Ukraine had fired off all of those missiles against the targets coming in.

They would have done maybe 25%, less than 25%, about 20% of the missiles that fired. And the system would be exhausted. Because right now it only produces, it's producing 620 a year now. Okay? So that, I mean, that's not my,

opinion that's a reality numbers reality fad missiles and let's point out the the the pack three costs around six million per missile the thad that's a terminal high altitude area defense weapon those go for 12 to 13 million a pop and we produce the grand total of 79 a year now um If you look at the JASM, the Joint Air Strike missile, that I think they actually have, you know, they've got, you know, more than 100, 200,000 of those. So they're not short of that.

They are short, you know, the Tomahawks are not in great abundance. The J-DAM, they are short on that. depends on the particular weapon system. But we don't have a single instance in history, at least in the last 80 years, of just mere air power bringing about regime change, which ostensibly that's what this is all about, getting somebody in charge of the government in Iran that will be submissive to the West. Yeah, I was, as you're talking, I'm on the plane ride home from Panama, I was watching a few of the expats there had brought up cycles.

And specifically Ray Dalio, which I'd watch Ray, his cycle video, I can't remember. It was like four or five years ago. It was right around COVID or the end of COVID talking about the cycles of empires. And on the downward slide of an empire, they go to wars that they shouldn't go into. And, you know, like, I don't know, as you're talking right now, you know, I've had multiple different people on this podcast talk about the different sides of each of these. But then you watch Freed Dalyon, you're like, man, I don't know, right? Like, it feels like maybe that's, you know, like you're talking about Russia. And we all sit here in Russia, uh, you know, at least I sat here. And you listen to all the, the conversations

around Russia, Ukraine. You're like, you can see it. Like what, what? Russia's been outlining don't do this. And yet they just continue to do it. And they go, everybody said, oh, Russia will be done in three months, six months a year. Well, and then it, those are Those were Western analysts saying that. That's what I mean. Yeah. No, correct. Sorry.

Sorry. Western analysts said they would be done right away. Okay? That wasn't the case. And this time around, Western analysts are, well, and I shouldn't say Western analysts because there's a ton of people that I follow are saying this is a terrible idea. But they're like, oh, yeah. In, out, not a big deal.

And you're like, what, wait a second. That's kind of what we said about Russia. And that wasn't the case. Yeah. And now we're saying about Iran. And all I got to do is just pick on like four different things. And four weeks and we're out doesn't sound like a plan. That sounds like a big old wish.

But maybe I'm wrong, Larry. I could be wrong. I mean, we could all be wrong. But it doesn't feel like it. Well, the nature of how the United States and Israel attacked Iran has had the same galvanizing effect that 9-11 had or Pearl Harbor had in the United States. It's united the people. It's not divided them. And it's angered the people against this outside enemy where they're prepared to fight.

And, you know, they forget the history. These are Shia Muslims. Okay. And within the Shia history, sort of the founding, the imam, was a guy who stood up against this corrupt, Sunni and this guy only had like 70 fighters with him and he went to battle against three three thousand and was defeated and died but the she honor him as as this martyr who fought for his convictions that mentality still exists among the modern she in Iran and the

The United States says, you know, we have awakened, we have awakened a warrior nation, and we're now, we're going to pay the price with, it's going to be delivered primarily economically, the collapse, you know, the collapse of the U.S. dollar. And, you know, the United States, it's going to come out of here with its reputation greatly diminished. you know, the once feared U.S. military power will be exposed for being an empty shell.

Walk me through the collapse of the U.S. dollar. I obviously see that by the straight being shut down, the price of oil going through the roof, cost of it affecting everybody's, you just go to the pump as we pointed out. But the collapse of the U.S. dollar, you're meaning countries from around the world are going to stop buying. basically U.S. debt. Yeah, well, they've already stopped. Well, that's what I mean. Well, they'd already stopped.

This is just going to accelerate it. Yeah, yeah, accelerated. And as they buy up more gold and more silver, hard assets. And, you know, particularly Russia and China are doing, you know, the trade in their own and their respective currencies. and Russia sits in a they're in the catbird seat right now

what does the world need? Oil, liquid natural gas and urea for fertilizer. Boy, Russia's flushed with all that. The world's going to need it. There's not an alternative source. They can't wait and say, hey, well, well, we'll just, let's wait a month or two

and this will all be fixed. if this goes I'm not going to say if I said when this goes for more than a month without this happy resolution that we were anticipating after you're expecting prices to climb and climb and climb

oh they'll they will explode right now they're not exploding because the market makers have bought into the lies told by Donald Trump all right they'll learn this is there's no quick turnaround here

and there's not you know I know like some like our friend Tom Luongo it predicted that Iran it's over Iran's lost you know Tom's going to learn he's absolutely wrong so if that's your assumption

it's one of the things if you got tickets to the Cornerstone Forum the final discussion on geopolitics is you Tom and Alex and listeners to the show can do simple math and go, well, that should be an interesting conversation. Because Tom is pro what the U.S. is doing. Alex, somewhere in the middle of like, I don't see this as a good move at all. And that was their last discussion. They had a bit of a disagreement on it, I would say. And then you're

on the other side, right? And I go, well, this should be an interesting discussion because you're saying, this is a terrible move. This is the end of the U.S. And, you know, I don't need to explain to listeners. Yeah, because, you know, when you understand what's behind, let's take, I know the Venezuela story. I mean, someone that I'm close to was directly involved with this. And the involvement was you had three people connected to Maduro's security detail that basically became cooperators through DEA. with the United States in anticipation of getting the $50 million reward that was offered.

This was done for the reward. And they helped team it up. They had actual meetings with Delta Force in advance. So this was some Kabuki theater. And Maduro was betrayed from within. But Maduro wasn't the only. only one betrayed. Those three informants that did this, they've been stiffed. They didn't get the $50 million reward. And they're not a, they're a little unhappy right now. So, but, you know, that's

what goes on. But, you know, I said, what is presented to you in public is, oh, this is, this is what's happening. The people rose up and threw it off. Oh, nonsense. Stop with that crap. Iran's a whole different animal and Iran is probably has been the most unjustly persecuted country in the world there I got you back now. Let me say for the record that I hate Streamyard for this very reason. Yeah there we're back now

stream I hate Stream sorry Larry you said the people in Venezuela are celebrating in the What a load of bull crap. And then you cut out. Yeah. Well, and we've seen the same in Iran, just the opposite. And again, the president was told that they had done polling in Iran and that 80% of the Iranians hated the Islamic Republic and wanted to get rid of the Ayatollah.

That's what, and so they, he really believed that. His advisors believed that. And that was a fraudulent manufactured poll. The fundings of it were National Endowment for Democracy and USAID. And in my view, fronting for the CIA to create a narrative that would have justified this action. And what has happened is just the opposite. The people have rallied by the millions behind the new success. To the IATOLE.

going in full force before this started, but like now it's on a sane level because you'll, you'll see the videos of the Trump dance and a whole bunch of people celebrating, but then you see the opposite of exactly what you're talking about. And I think the average person just sits back and goes. Yeah. Maybe they're, maybe they're full in one camp or the other. I don't know. I just sit back in, I don't know. I'm sitting in Alberta. I'm like, this is why I bring on people such as yourself and a whole lot of others just to try and bring us up to speed. on what you're seeing because I try and I mean some days I just turn it off I'm doing okay I don't I don't even know what I'm doing anymore Larry I'm gonna go

hang out with my children and and and and I'll come back to this tomorrow when I talk to Larry get type thing you know because there's just so much going X just take a look and it's just it's just I don't know an insane amount of noise from both sides trying to win over an audience I think would probably be the easiest way to put it yeah Yeah. You know, just, I always use a couple of simple tests. You know, Israel's claiming, oh, they haven't laid a glove on us. Oh, we're shooting down all their missiles. Great. Let's bring our news crew in there so we can show how magnificently your air defense systems are functioning. No, no, you can't do that. Oh. What do the Iranians say? Ronians said, come on in. We'll show, you know, take a look. You can watch what's happening. You know, that's CNN, got unfettered access.

They haven't restricted any media outlet from going in. You want to come see what's been to come in and take a look. And then what does State Department do? Oh, that's outrageous. They're getting propagandized by the Iranian government. They criticize CNN. You know. Larry, appreciate you coming on.

Who's not afraid to let you see what's happening? Cornerstone Forum, March 28th in Calgary. I think that'll be an interesting conference. conversation and I think there's a whole lot of people that'll be very interested to hear it. Either way, thanks for hopping on today.