The Adam Mockler Show - It’s getting worse…

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Click below for premium Adam Mockler content 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@adammockler/join 👉 https://adammockler.com/subscribe Adam Mockler breaks down why the escalating conflict with Iran is raising serious concerns about long-term consequences and mission creep. As costs rise and outcomes remain unclear, the situation appears to be getting worse by the day. JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdamMockler/ Discord: https://discord.gg/y9yzMU3Gff Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adammockler/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adammockler.com/ Twitter: https://x.com/adammocklerr/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adammockler Contact: [e-mail] Business inquiries: [e-mail] Adam Mockler - Mockler Media LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I truly wish I could say that it was getting better day by day, but the situation between the United States, Israel, and Iran is very visibly getting worse as the days go on. We are about to enter week four of this war. Yes, it is a war. We are about to enter week four. And on this day, Donald Trump is announcing that they're sending thousands to the Middle East. Not exactly to deploy in Iran yet. We don't know the exact reason, but you can reasonably assume that we are gearing up for some operation in the Middle East. Those troops don't even arrive there for another seven days or so. It's going to take about. a week and their operation will take likely another week or so. So that means we are going to blow past the four to six week deadline that Donald Trump and Marco Rubio set out. It's likely going to extend

to eight weeks, 12 weeks, six months in a year and we're going to experience mission creep that leads us to another endless war. And the question that we all have to be asking is, what was the cost of this war and what was the benefit of this war? Obviously a very simple economic framework, cost benefit analysis. And it does not check out with this war. Let me let me, let me, read this off to you very quickly. The cost of this war. Twenty-eight billion dollars spent so far that we know of. That could be not updated yet. 37,000 Iranians killed and IRGC purges. 1,000 Iranians killed and U.S. Israeli strikes. Thousands of people in Lebanon killed, U.S. Israeli strikes. 20 plus military deaths. 25 percent of our anti-missile stockpile has been

depleted. Billions and billions of dollars being added on to our debt. Gas prices in the United States are skyrocketing. Oil prices across the Globara skyrocketing. We're pushing our allies away. Now, what's the benefit? What is the benefit here? I'm genuinely asking you guys. I don't know what the benefit is here. What Republicans will claim is that Iran has fewer missiles. They'll claim that Iran's Navy has been degraded and that nuclear infrastructure has been hits. But that does not line up with the cost-benefit analysis of what we've spent on this war. We've spent tens of billions of dollars. They're asking, for $200 billion more.

We've seen dozens of deaths, and all we've done is, for a short amount of time, stop Iran from having missiles. The only way that Iranian missiles would be a threat to us in the first place is if we started a war with Iran. So if we would have just stayed back, we could have saved US lives, saved money, and not had to engage in this endless war that is very rapidly experiencing mission creep.

Mission creep is, of course, when you start off with one objective. You start off with one goal, and then the objective slowly gets expanded, the amount of money slowly scales up, the timeline slowly creeps to a little bit longer of a timeline, and before you know it, we've been on Afghanistan for 20 years when we said we were doing a one month in and out mission, right? Now, I see two potential timelines for the way that this war ends, and I want to break them down for you right here because they are both bad. They both make the world an inherently less safe place in a more dangerous place. Really, really, quickly, Adam Macher will be on CNN News Night tonight with Abby Phillip at 9 p.m. Central, 10 p.m. Eastern.

So be there on CNN, and then I'll be on CNN again tomorrow for Table for Five at 10 a.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Central. So be there for both of them. It means the world to mean. Drop a like on this video. Subscribe for more debates. And if you want to catch those CNN debates, and let's continue with the two timelines. At this point, there are two potential options for the Trump administration. We have regime change or we have find an off ramp and pull out. From there, there's no other options other than those two. They've claimed they destroyed everything they wanted to. They claim that they've achieved their nuclear-related goals.

So we're still at war. There are only two goals we can have left. Regime change or pull out and find an off-ramp. Now, the problem with regime change is it would necessitate boots on the ground. And right now, Iran is more. The regime in Iran is more radical than they were a month ago, not less. It's a big problem that we just killed a 76-year-old religious extremist and replaced him with his 30-year younger son, who was even more extreme, and whose wife and daughter and, like, parents have been killed by these strikes, and is injured very likely and wants revenge on the United States. So Iran is four times the size of Iraq.

They have a more radicalized regime. They have twice the population three times the military and they're surrounded by mountains. So if we were to do a boots on the ground, adventure in Iran, whatever you want to call it, an operation, we would quite literally lose thousands of soldiers. I think we would lose tens of thousands. We would lose all of our equipment. It is quite literally impossible geographically to invade Iran. And even when you're there, again, it's four times the size of Iraq, twice the population, three times the military.

The military is more radicalized. Leaders are more radicalized. They're not powered by a cult of personality. They're not powered by the Supreme Leader. They are powered by an ideology. It is hard to win against a religious ideology. Okay, what is the second timeline? I've already laid out the first timeline that is incredibly unsafe for Americans,

incredibly unsafe for American troops, and would be disastrous. What does the second timeline look like? Well, that would necessitate pulling out and looking for an off ramp. Trump very clearly does want to find an off ramp, but just can't do it right now because it would be disastrous. But if we pulled out, again, it makes the world an inherently less safe place, a more dangerous place. Think about it.

We replaced Hemene with his son, his 30-year younger son. As I said, his son is more radicalized. He lost his wife, daughter, and his father. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in complete control. The moderates in Iran currently have zero power, and the Iranian people want to rise up against their regime, but Trump has already betrayed them so they don't know what to do. So if we do find an off-ramp in pullout, here's what we've achieved. Nothing.

We have degraded their military capacity for a short amount of time, and they'll rebuild, and eventually Republicans will make the same excuses, but we've achieved nothing other than making the world a more dangerous place, other than taking a radical leader in Iran and replacing them with somebody 30 years younger who is more radical and more incentivized to strike back. You think Iran doesn't want to build nukes after this. Iran is incredibly certain that they need nukes after the United States has done this. Every single time the United States and Iran have entered negotiations, the United States just bombs the fuck out of them rather than actually using diplomacy to minimize their nuclear enrichment.

The only president that was able to do that successfully was Obama and Trump shit on him for that. So again, we've gone through the cost-benefit breakdown. We've gone through the two timelines, both of them bad. And it's also worth pointing out, even that people, surrounding Trump do not agree with this operation. I mean, of course, Marco Rubio does. Of course, like, Lindsey Graham does, but we know that J.D. Vance doesn't agree. We know that just three days back, Donald Trump's own director of counterterrorism, Joe Kent, resigned and said there was insufficient evidence of an imminent threat coming from Iran. We know that Tulsi Gabbard just testified

in front of the Senate and then in front of the House, and in both situations, she could not clarify if there was an imminent threat, and she seemed to be beating around the Bush and undermining Trump's own argument the entire time. She was very, very hesitant to back up any of the administration's claims, which is odd because she's part of the administration. So, you know, the title of this video or the theme of this video is going to be like, it got worse. Everything just got worse. And I'm not saying that to sensationalize or to panic anybody. I genuinely believe that things are spiraling in the Middle East. And it's not just my personal belief. You just look at the headlines, look at the escalatory strikes that are happening between Iran and Israel on the South Pars gas field,

or oil field, sorry, that is going to hurt the entire globe. Things are getting worse, and our administration is not even engaging in a fundamental cost-benefit analysis, and if they are, they just don't give a shit. Republicans are claiming that Trump is playing 4D chess, but Trump just flipped the board over and took a shit on the desk, basically. So one last time, there is an enormous cost in terms of lives, money. the Iranians, the Americans who are involved, Europe is now involved. There is a massive cost for everybody with very little benefit.

Okay, so Iran can't use missiles and ships that they weren't really using anyways. Listen, I also think the Iranian regime is awful. The people need to be freed, but the Iranian regime is awful. But them having stockpiled missiles isn't an imminent threat to the United States. So we started a war and destroyed their base and said we had to do that, because one day we might get into war with them and they might be able to use those missiles. So we're just going to start the war now. Make it make sense.

It doesn't. We're paying for it. And I'll catch you all tonight on CNN. I love you all. I'll see you in the next video. And peace out. This spring performance auto group invites drivers to upgrade with confidence. From March 26 to 28th, the spring upgrade sales event offers a $1,000 upgrade credit toward any new or pre-owned vehicle.

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