The Team House - Aftermath of Iranian Strike on Israel: What Comes Next? | EYES ON | Ep. 19

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseToday the guys talk about the Iranian strike on Israel and what a response from Israel could look like. Also how this exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran effects the war in Gaza, the war in the north with Hezbollah, and  Benjamin Netanyahu's grip on power at home.Find Andy here:Twitterhttps://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substackhttps://amilburn.substack.com/Andy's bookhttps://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations/dp/1526750554Team House socials https://www.instagram.com/the.team.house/https://twitter.com/theteamhousepod?lang=en#geopolitics #iran #israelBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Aizan. I'm Andy Milba. Jason Lyons. I'm Dimitri. So today, no real surprise, I guess. We're still on Israel, not just because I'm here. But guys, I thought I'd kick off just by giving you kind of insights from the Israeli perspective by the IDF perspective. okay, this isn't from official press release, it's just from the people I know within the idea, to my knowledge, this hasn't reached the press, but obviously it's not stuff that is, you know,

classified, otherwise I wouldn't be saying this, but. So as they go through this, you know, they, so an interesting thing here, and I don't know if this is all caught up in kind of the understandable backlash, the 7 October, and this feeling of isolation that is quite strong here in Israel. I'm just commenting on facts.

But there is a feeling here that something among, you know, the establishment, that that was not kind of a token gesture, potentially worse to come, and that not responding to this last one would be a side of weakness, okay? That is, that's a very strong message from the government. The IDF's not all on board with that. a number of senior IDF, why it's not fair to me to say, yeah, senior IDF officers who have been studying around for a while think that this is a strategic shift and that Iran and that this is an opportunity, not but peace with Iran, but at least to de-escalate and that Israel should take this.

I'm just saying this is an alternate point of view. Well, if you read in the press, the British and the Americans, to their chagrin, feel as though Netanyahu is going to ignore them and still straightforward. like Iran. If that happens, I am assured, not that people need to assure me, it's nice, but I'm assured that it'll be done in a, quote, common sense manner. Again, you know, unwritten rules of the game here are not to inflict civilian casualties. The Israelis can be extremely precise if they want to, as we saw in Damascus. So, yeah, we'll see undoubtedly, I'm I would say undoubtedly, we're likely to see an Israeli attack against Iran.

It's going to have to be in the next week to 10 days because rules of the game are such that if it's wait, if they wait too long, now they start another cycle. You know, I mean, when I ask, well, how long? No one will tell me because no one really knows. It's like pornography. Just recognize it, I guess. But I'd like to be a big strike back in the next, I would say the next week or two. But not a serious right now. Don't get me wrong.

There's no country in the world that targets Iran more comprehensively and thoroughly than Israel does. More so than when we in the United States, they have the means to do some pretty devastating things to Iran's economy, communications networks. I'm not just talking about cyber, but we're talking about internal kinetic stuff. I mean, they have certainly the ability to bring Iran to its knees at least temporarily in a relatively short period of time.

But that's not what is going to happen. My point is simply this will probably be a gesture. You know, when I brought up the point that he was, this looked like a game of Tetris. Admittedly a game of Tetris in which I felt quite highly invested. but you know he said hey look this is this wasn't a game um it it may have been true that

when going off the population centers but they were going up the never team uh air air base all right and um it seems like every drone that got through by the way 350 drones ballistic missiles and cruise missiles were launched um not necessarily the 3,000 that were reported earlier um i don't know if that is a correct number, but that's what the IDF is saying. But they're saying together these weigh more than 60 tons, right? And that's 60 tons of the explosive. You know, each ballistic missile has roughly, you know, a five-month-old-gram warhead and Iran fired 110 of these. So the point is, you know, this wasn't like all shot fired off in the middle the desert, it was aimed at

at least once it got through it definitely aimed at a specific military base. And yes, the Israelis had the FF 35 that performed pretty well, but that was all closed in, right? You guys remember, it was like,

to remember when he used to practice setting up engagement areas for anti-almer and, you know, the whole law more concept, you know, you start hitting them. I, you've coordinated your fires, synchronize your fires at every phase line to converge and inflict maximum casualties, essentially, is what a, you know, at the optimum range of those weapons systems. That's what

an engagement area is. And so essentially you had this, you know, the sky between here and Iran is that engagement area. And as they were moving, though, of being retribed by countries and route, you will have noticed that UAE and Saudi are saying, you know, they did not participate, as in they didn't send up aircraft. The Israeli state they, you know, of course, had to say, well, they participated way more than people realized. And that's probably true, you know, and for obvious reasons, Saudi and UAE don't want to tell people. Jordan foreign press insisting that Jordan did launch aircraft. And again, I think personally that's probably likely, but King Abdullah is in a really,

really difficult position. I mean, Jordan, over 50% of the population, some say 80% of the population of Palestinian. And if you're noticing what's happening in Jordan, they are among all Arab country populations, they are most up in arms at what Israel is doing, demanding their government for the stock to it. And so you can imagine tremendous pressure on them. Now, ironically, So you've got the population of a country that has just taken a huge risk for Israel, that is Jordan, but the population is filled with animus towards Israel, most of the population. And yet you have Iran, and if you guys are reading reports back from Iran, there is no such anger among the population. And the weird thing is, you know, Iranians don't grow up with this visceral hatred of Israel in the way that a lot of Arabs do. And so to them, it's kind of an artificial imposition by their government, who they hate.

It is true that if their country is threatened, it doesn't matter who threatens, then they will unite as Persians behind one. And that's why the administration is profiting from all of this. If you notice in Iran in the last set series of, you notice, you know, so hurry out. No, if you notice, you've been reading about Iran. You know, I do because I'm a key kind of interested in the country. but the elections, I think they were in municipal elections held earlier this year, but they're all, you know, they all were represented by the national parties. And in typical Iranian election fashion, of course, these are share in elections. And so, you know, everyone is steadily attracted and disqualified except for the government's choice.

Well, there was a record low turnout for elections this year, has never been lower since the revolution, which is, arguably another indicator that the Iranian population is beginning to have enough what that means of course is likely to be limited but be interesting to see so but but Iran by all accounts Iran you know for what is where Solomani speaking from heaven al-hamini talking to Putin by phone

reports reportedly said hey listen Iran is not one his information and there's no reason why Iran would at this point Iran was sitting very pretty the way things were going. It doesn't need to be dragged in itself into a war. But while all this is going on, is bubbling up north here.

Hasbullah Iran's proxy, unclear. The Israelis are unclear. They know that Nasrallah got a direct order from there we go. I'm going to say, do not get involved, you know, don't don't

don't, don't plunge us into war, basically. You know, don't bring us beyond a point on which we cannot return. So as Bala launched a pretty serious throwing a rocket attack yesterday up north. Actually, an hour. I was, you know, I was nowhere in. I mean, I was up there at the time.

I didn't steal here. But it did infect the casualties. And once in critical condition, Tenu did. Being treated up there and the Israelis conducted three strikes back already into Lebanon. And then one is in Shabaya Farms area. Remember, I said what happens. The area stays there, but they got, bottom line is they kill three high-ranking of Pizbollah members, one in Shabaya Farms and two elsewhere.

So you see this, the game still continues, you know, up north here in these, and there's a vast area, you know, by standards of Israel, fast area that has been evacuated some 45,000. No, I'm sorry, 75,000 people told. I've been in that area. I was up, you know, I've been in that area. I went up yesterday the day before to Mutula, which is the most exposed to Butts way out forward, like on a finger pointing into Lebanon.

And I was sitting there, and you've got high ground on the Lebanese side. You've got Lebanese villages that in the past, have been His Bola Hesbola nodes. And remember, Hizbollah fighters are not outsiders in southern Lebanon. They're indigenous.

They grew up there. So it's this whole UN farce about, hey, you must push all your armed militias north of the Littani. Well, 75% of the Bala lives south of the Litanians. So

why the fuck would they know what I'm saying? It just shows. Yeah, why would they move from where they live? Yeah. Well, yeah, they live there. Anyway, so there are these villages that the Israelis call Hizbollah villages, and they are up on the high ground above Matula. All right.

So, Matula, you know, Matula can be Shwak, also from Syria and Lebanon at the same time. So property values have gone down there pretty dramatically. And my point there was, I just can't see this place being repopulated ever unless, unless his bolla you know really does they totally evacuated that caboots

not only the cabots um curriette shimona chriot shimona chriot shimona is one of the major largest towns of me and um I hate that cliché it's like the ghost town but it is it is it is weird

you drive through that and you know I mean there's nothing there's no cars on the road There's no one in the gas stations. It was nothing like anything I saw what it was. It was like a frontline town in Dombas, except there were more people on the front line town in Tombas and they're wearing. So the scale of the evacuation of all of these people have to live somewhere. They were all down in Tiberias or in Barnes around there. So, you know, we talked about economic burden.

It just keeps stacking up here for Israel. and then there's another, it's another pressure point for the, you know, for the government. This, this latest piece, where Netanyahu, you know, I'm just stating the facts where he's talking about striking back to Iran, if we be told, and I'm just talking to civilians and soldiers, I haven't met a single one who thinks that's a good idea. Yeah, I saw a poll supposedly around 74% are against it. Yeah, I'm like, and, and let me, so this is very dangerous for the government. Because in execution of the war in Gaza, they had like 90%.

Well, no, that's not fair because they had the opposition from both the extreme right and also from families and the hostages. But for the most part, overwhelming percentage of the population supported the conduct of the war. And it had no beef about the way it was being conducted. They did have a beef with Netanyahu. He is very, very unpopular. but while he represented the country at war, you know, no one's going to tear him down.

But now there's, and I'm not fearing in the state. In fact, I'm just now what I'm hearing is a little bit, it's like, hey, wait a second. What the fuck, man. Iran, really? You know, we just emerged from this miracle, right, where the nations of the world come together. And this is what I mean about it being dangerous, thinking of this is Petrus. And I got a, you know, text for people. in the States saying, yeah, of course, this was just an elaborate.

I'm like, did, not because I was hearing this route, but when you look, if you, if you know anything about, that sounded horribly pompous, but could be an attack like that, it's really difficult to watch an attack like that and make it kind of a, you know, a lame slack. It really, really is against the country of 10 million people in a fairly small area. Well, I mean, look at what went into defending it, right? like US, UK, French, Jordanian. Exactly. And that's what, you know, that's what kind of like my people here now,

because you don't hear a lot about that. You hear about the arrow system and the F-35 and the, I'm not, listen, I'm not suggesting that. No, well, that's on top of Israel's already amazing, like anti-air and aircraft, right? Yeah, but they had been seriously. I don't know what the break between destruction and the Israeli airspace and destruction from assets that included British tornadoes,

Aegis cruisers, supposedly Jordanian aircraft as well as Israelis. So yeah, I mean, sorry, go on. No, I was just going to ask. So what does this do for Hamas,

good or bad? Is the pressure still on them or operations still ongoing? Yeah, it's not had. As you know, operations were in a law in Gaza before this. The IDF had pulled out all but one brigade. So they've got one brigade. It's outside an urban area. Actually, I can see it from where I was today.

It's outside the, you know, Gaza City. But it's been launching. raids into into the city itself. In fact, they were obviously not, there was obviously some operation taking place today. It was a good deal of a very audible bombing

I understand in one of the brutes is by Garzen and one of the IDF guys said, told me, yeah, I've been back to an operable operation. So that's just doing raids in and out, but that is because they came to a natural kind of a natural

culminating point. So So, you know, we talked about this, that they, one of the, one of the real problems here is that, they've got a very small professional military. You know, they like to say, hey, Israel has a large and modern army, but the part that is large isn't very modern and the modern, the part that is modern isn't very large. Well, it's really, you know, the point is they, I would say they put a disproportionate amount of reliance on a very small part of that regular army. So you take, you know, I'll just give you numbers.

I mean, we saw 340,000 Israelis mobilized in 48 hours. Okay, that is, that's the strength of the Israeli military. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. We would really appreciate it if you guys went and reviewed us on Apple or Spotify. Those reviews really help people find the podcast and help it get recognized. And, you know, if you've been enjoying the show, we really appreciate your support.

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So go and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. But only, you know, there's only about 20, 30,000 professional, you know, professional soldiers, all right? At any given time, the IDF is much bigger than that because you have, you know, three cohorts of conscripts at any given time within the military. But here's one. When you come into an operation like this, which requires a very high level of soldierly skill,

as urban operations do, when you throw in hostages, now you are really, really reliant on a very, very small part of your force. And in this case, it was very specifically the command of brigade. And so the Israelis brought together three of their the spectrum of operations forces I'm not mispronceding but the Dudavan

which is a battalion that specializes in operating in Arab territory the Maglan who have a mission where they actually it's a counter-reigning mission but it's involved a long range of precision fires organic and non-hurtainic and bringing them in manner that delivers

is delivered against enemy vulnerabilities from close in I don't know if I made that vaguen up and then you've got the e-gars and the e-gars are trained specifically as

guerrilla fighters okay they are they you know they the term they use is we you know we out Hezbollah and they operate primarily well they were operating in Lebanon

you know in the same way probably the SAS were operating or not operating in the island the proper, right, turn the troubles the same type of mission, right? So anyway, so they brought these very highly specialized three battalions of spectral operations

in, and they made them into a brigade of, when I say conventional infantry, people get angry, but they are just, they're rangers, all right? And I'm not going to make any comments by rangers. No, they're like good rangers, which I know

sounds like a moron. But, yeah, and And so now they have to, they're relying very heavily. So this brigade is within the 98th division. And if you watch, this brigade has changed around divisions, which is quite common in the Israeli military. But the commander brigade is being attached to whichever divisions, you know, in the hotspot, right? And for a period, they detached part of the commander brigade early on to go up north when they thought his follow was going to kick off. Well, my point is whenever they come into a hard part of fighting, the Commando Brigade

that goes and secures the foothold and do all the fighting. Oh, there's one other unit, the Yarlahm, who are there, combat engineers, who also taking tremendous amount of it. I mean, not tremendous amount of it. I don't mean to say that. Low ever and conventional infantry took in Fallujah, but they are taking, they're still taking, you know, they can ill afford to lose these guys. we can afford to lose a few grunts, right?

That's what the Marine Corps is all based on, as the Air Force says in full metal jackets. Marines die. That's what we're here for, but the rainfall lives on in that ocean, right? What am I talking about? But the point is, you cannot. You can't afford to terms.

I mean, it's not here, not anywhere, but especially not here. The United States, we can afford to lose a few as long as they're seals. But here, you know, it's taking years to make. these guys. That whole cliche about you cannot mass produce spread operations is true. So when you start using them as conventional infantry in a very highly casualty intensive environment,

then you're running a risk of losing that capability. And when you're relying on it because you have a big gap, just by the way things are set up between your special operations forces and the rest of the army, right? Notice I say the rest of the army, both conscripts and professional, All right, this is one argument. There's a huge gap. And you're lying so much on these guys. And now, because you never expected to go to war for this long and have them clear buildings. And now you've lost, you know, I'm just saying half of them.

And I don't mean kill all the Israelis have a very low number of KIA, but they have about 10 dudes seriously wounded when you look at the, well, no, about five to eight guys seriously wounded enough to be, you know, hospitalized for a period of time. for everyone killed. You know, so that's like, that's higher than, that's a higher ratio than we had in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, you know, here they've got evacuating them no distance at all.

And I will say this, I mean, when they do their passive acts, everything stops. I mean, it's a priority for them. It's not a criticism. It's priority. I mean, they know they're not going to lose momentum. And so, you know, they get their guys out of there. And once they do, they've got a very high survival way.

But it means there are a lot of, one of my point is that that means that there's a deceptibly large number of soft guys, for instance, who are wounded badly enough to be able to come back to duty. Any time soon, but they don't count in the KIA statistics. Oh. I got a question. Like, so now with all this going on with Iran and like, you know, they're planning an attack on Iran and probably Iran retaliating. somehow. What does that do with the timeline they have for going into Rafa? Does it slow it down? Does it? No, I don't think. Here's what I think. I think the Iranian, I'm sorry, the Israeli attack. I can't, you know, even Israelis are finding hard to explain why it's happening. But, you know, Israeli counter, counter, whatever you want.

to call it. So I think, you know, but I think the rationale is this, hey, we want, you know, we kind of want the last word, but we don't want it to escalate for, but we don't want to run to think, hey, we're going to want to throw the shit against Israel and this pro won't do anything, right? Because this was unprecedented. And by the rules of the game, when you do something that no one's done before, you've got to be spank, right? I mean, you've got to, that's, you just, you go to jail without passing go.

that's because you've broken the rules of the game you can't have players changing the rules of the fucking game all the time it would be chaos someone could get hurt so anyway um so so i think there's some the argument coming from the Israeli government would probably be yes well we need to do this that you cannot strike at the Jewish homeland um regardless of whether the people got hurt or not And, you know, the Israeli government is also saying they weren't hurt because, you know, we, we destroyed the missiles.

We collectively destroyed the missiles. It was luck. I mean, not luck. It was, it wasn't connected. I mean, they tended to hurt us. And that's what counts. But I think if it's done, you know, they'll hopefully, missiles will hit empty desert, although I don't know. It wouldn't be a cyber attack.

I mean, I'm sure there will be a cyber attack. But it won't only be a cyber tank. Hey, by the way, behind the scenes, Ron has launched, you know, cyber attacks have gone out by a factor of like 300% here in Israel since the start of the war. And a cyber, let me see if I can pull up the name, but a particular cyber group has started to have some success.

Yeah. Oh, hey, you know what, something else? I know I'm jumping around a little bit. Israeli told me they studied that's 2019 thrown attack on the Saudi's Aramco oil facility. Remember that they got through and despite the fact there was a Patriot battery there. A lot of it had to do with early warning and signing a lack of burning warning. So they, you know, they didn't explain exactly why, but I think what they, what that calls them to do is understand. understand the relation, you know, time-spacing launch indicators and to focus on those launch

indicators, as they've always done, but they really started focusing on the launch indicators in Iran and for, you know, for, for the missile, you know, all the missile heads out there, they're going to say something absurdly simplistic, but, you know, you're looking for like, for instance, So if a missiles using liquid fuel, then that has to be prepared a day or two in advance. You're moving all these vehicles. In other words, you cannot prepare an attack that size without there being indications and warnings. The US satellite system played a part in that. The Israelis told me they didn't necessarily need that.

but you know i mean that could just be a little bit of chutzpah um but you know the point is that they literally for 48 hours they're watching all these things being prepared again the israelis just think this was a natural course of events it looked like the arrainians were trying to hide it but it's of course you know it's just the most impossible to do so um so once the uh you know once the missiles were launched you know, when you were talking about initial flight and then thermal, so the initial was caught by, I mean, it was a US satellite system. The, it's like OFECs by satellites.

So those satellites can't pick up enough parity to pick up the launch preparations, which makes me think maybe it was, you know, it must have been the Israelis that first alerted to this. But once the missiles were launched, they were picked up by the OFECS satellite system. and that gave Israel 10 to 12 minutes advance warning. So the problem with the American system, well, not the problem, the strength of the American system is that it's set up so that it can, although it can't track preparation, it can detect missile launch before it happens.

Before I'm, it's like not, it's not fair going. I meant it's before the missile actually lists raises off the ground using absolutely non-headable phrases you know, I mean, right at that, right at the beginning of launch. So before it's even begun to build a trajectory, okay? So that it's really useful. And undoubtedly those systems, that system was used

to help the Israelis. And then you had kind of, you had, convergence of um we're not convergence but when when you're talking about kind of the operational um allocation of areas or for kind of guarding all right both the outer cord and the inter cordon to use ground terms but using you know so not using the not using but collaborating coordinating coordinating with aircraft the various the various countries through which these drones were passing. And a number of countries

scrambled, you know, of course, their aircraft. And reporters, Saudi and the UAE were among it. Definitely Jordan did. And of course, the UK and the US. The US, of course, had the seaborn systems, too, which have had... By the way, they've had incredible success. And I want to talk about that, too,

because, I mean, we give the Navy a bunch of shit about being a bunch of, you know, chubby technical. No, no, you. No, no. No, but you know what? When it comes to the ballistic missile defense, they are really, really fucking good.

I mean, I'm not just talking because we had the best technology in the world. I mean, everything from seamanship to, you know, positioning, the tactics. Those guys know their profession. They are really, really sharp. Of course, you know, we've had some bumps on the road to get here collectively as a nation. I mean, we talked about the Vincennes. But I think what they do, and it's a combination of an incredible cutting edge technology that reacts to nanoseconds. But you always need a human in the loop.

Of course, because it's an American system. Actually, that's not strictly true, but I won't talk about that. It's not strictly true. You always have a human in the loop. I want to talk about the Iranian, like the retaliatory strike, like, when intelligence-wise, besides, like, you know, satellites and, you know, signals intelligence. Was there any human intelligence or at least even like diplomatic back-channeling from Iran through the Swiss or whoever else saying like, hey, this is going to happen? And not maybe this is how it's going to happen, but like we don't want to fucking kill like 2,000 Israelis because we know it's going to blow things up. that's a really good that's a good point be undoubtedly that happened and and and you know i've been

i've been told that uh here that that that happens his back channel so and there's no details but of course it happens it's in both nations interest right to to talk behind the scenes um and and i'm told yes um but i'm also told and i have no way of terra-parrifying this guy sorry but i'm also told that that back channel isn't working like it i mean i'm not often, but it's not that funny, but it's not working like it used to prior to 7 October. You know, it's not, there's something, and I'm relaying probably, you know, I mean, I'm relaying from someone else. So I don't want to get too caught up in the imagination of this, but the point being that Iran's stance has, in a way, hardened since then. At the same time,

you're seeing with him Israeli, the guy that Iran watches, um, recognition that no actually you don't see a lot of recognition of anything. They are very you know they with good reasons right.

Don't don't trust the Iranian administration for a nano sent me and I was trying to think of almost yeah I mean you can blame that but I mean the thing they need to trust though is like and at the same time

exactly exactly that they'll act in own interests that's really what it is all about because you can negotiate with someone you don't have to you may hate them they may have have american or it's really blood on their hands but in the at the end of the day they're going to do something that's in their own interest and if by getting them to do that you save lives or so do your your gains you got to just got to suck it up and do it not get a much of all about it you know um but uh i i think honestly um the scary thing is i don't think anyone does know um when before when i say before seven october before when we had discussions when i was still in uniform about iran um there was some degree there was always some degree of certainty

about things about the intelligence that we're getting a mismanatch i don't know if it's an indication of anything, but that kind of confidence is no longer that with the Iranians. It's not, so I don't know what's changed, but I sent something as, and it's concerning. You know, there's no doubt about it that

some of the Israelis are like, you know, I mean, honestly, any country, Ukrainians, British in the Second World War and shit, even New Yorkers. A phlegmatic in the end. You know, you've got to go on with life. But there is a lot of, I think it's fair to say, I think my Israeli friends would agree that there's a lot of acts under the surface here. And someone told me about a quarter of

the population left since I'm not telling you. I don't know if that's true. But yeah, country, I don't think I, who knows if country will be the same. But there's something has definitely been shattered here. without sounding too cliche then it's it's very tangible even to me is it going but you know

but someone who's been coming here a lot and it's sad you know I mean it's a deal of course all of this is yeah we're chatting about it but it's you know obviously

no one here is just missing the gravitas and the tragedy yeah and I was not on the completely This is today being talked through what happened again in Berri. But this isn't like a guided tour. I'm talking to the families.

You know, I was invited down. And it's really, you know, it's hard. It's hard even six months afterwards. And I'm not in that to hear to see, you know. So, and I recognize that on both sides, and there's things like that. That tragedies of such depth and scope. that people are fundamentally changed in their views and for generations.

We talk about that, right? On both sides. Right. And that's concerned. Yeah. It begs a question. When does this stop the back and forth, the tit for tat? When does it stop?

And who stops it? Like, is it pressure from outside, from the U.S., Brits, you know, whoever? Is it the people themselves, do they say, all right, enough's enough? It's like, is it a change of government? You know, who stops this thing? That's a really good question. And I can't answer it directly. So I'm going to give you just some views from Israeli friends, okay?

And general consensus. And I'm not pretending to talk for all of Israel. I'm just going to say, okay. So the consensus from them is that, United States has the ability to change the course of um uh or not change the course of of the war they didn't want that this is the paradox they they were quite resent for the ones for my friends you know about the u.s trying to you know i'm not commenting i'm just saying that but now

this is a sense of hey if this starts to go off the fucking rails and we find ourselves now in a tip for tab with Iran with no offerant

is the US going to come in and put a stop to this I find that confident you know that somewhere in the wall at least someone has confidence that the US will step in

at the last minute to a yeah but what does that look like diplomats No, I'm, I just say, I think it's the leap of faith. I don't know. I don't know. You know, I mean, what they're talking about paradox is, I think, is, um, the administration

meaning on their own government. Now, bear in mind, the people who are talking to me are half American. Okay, so I, again, I'm not talking to people really. I know you can, we're going to get a lot of people going, hey, fuck you. We don't give a shit. You know, I'm talking about people divided loyalties anyway. Right. And, and the feeling that, hey, the U.S.

probably put a stop to this. We don't want to, you know, we don't want to go to war. And the U.S. should put a stop to it if it looks like that's what's going to happen. Because we don't want to go to start in war at that scale. We could be supported the war in Gaza because it had limited aims and everyone was traumatized by what had happened and it had to stop. And so we backed the government 100% that way and were resentful in the U.S. But now, no, we didn't buy it to a war with Iran.

Right. Yeah. So like, let's say Israel continues doing what they're doing. They hit back Iran, even if it's limited in scope or whatever. And Iran keeps hitting back. Then they go into Rafa and Egypt spins up, right? Because that's an obvious red line for Egypt. And they continue to northern Israel stuff with Lebanon and Hezbollah. You know, they're fighting a war on three fronts, more or less.

At what point do they ask us, hey, we need help? because we're fighting everybody. Yeah, so I'm smiling inwardly because the Israelis are masterful at who I'm not calling a propaganda. The Marine Corps is a propaganda machine. But public diplomacy, I mean, Stratcom across the board, you know,

they're all on message. All on message on this. and yeah I mean it really is I mean it really is only

it is well first of all it's kind of a feeling yes now is the time for Western intervention but secondly is this oh it's kind of this

and we've seen this in the States too but it's this dissonance between their feelings of stung national pride, their feelings of isolation, and yet their feelings now with cohesion, which is very strong as it was for us in 9-11. They're balancing that against being represented

in the international forum by a man that many of them not only don't trust, but despise and hold personally responsible. for 7 October. That's kind of the, you know, the paradox to churn. And they know, when I say they, to generalize them, but the Israelis have spoken to feel as though while, you know, while the fighting in Gaza was going on,

there wasn't a lot of daylight between the far right. And, you know, we'd call it what you know, mainstream. Although mainstream, there is where your opinion has shifted, markedly to the right since the events of 7 October. Nevertheless, there was, you know, even amongst the real extremists and there are some and the more kind of moderate liberal scientists of whom there are many, there was no daylight on the Gaza. But now, now the change of daylight when it comes to Rafa,

when it comes to Israel's relationship with the United States in particular, but the international community in general, now there's definitely a gap emerging and the feeling that among people here they don't want to be an international it doesn't matter if they feel

in the right they don't want that this is a Western-leaning highly educated, highly technical population they don't think of themselves as I'm just saying kind of a Middle Eastern country in that sense of course they I mean intellectually yes It's from Middle East country.

But, you know, I mean... Is there a mechanism... They don't want to be separated from them. So let's say it continues on the way it's been... The trajectory it's been playing out. And let's say it comes back. They go into Rafa and the cohesion kind of falls apart and that gap widens even more.

Is there a mechanism in the Israeli government to like get rid of Netanyahu? I know it's like the wartime thing. So he's got like fucking everyone's singing kumbaya. Let's kill like Palestinians. but um it it doesn't have to be that dramatic you know uh the prime minister actually only kind of has persuasive power within um and again i you know i forgive me if there israeli's listening they get wrong but you know the decisions of the government are collected decisions by the cabinet um and the prime minister is uh first among many you know or but he's just kind of

one vote um and and so you don't have to like think of anything as dramatic as a coup, you can tear away, you can pair away one of the moderates in the cabinet and support him. I'm talking from the US perspective. And that is what the US did when it invited Benny,

Benny Gans over to the United States, right? And not. So, you know, I think the administration is probably doing this in a small trip. I know they're like, oh my God, we got Andy Melbourne's support. Thank God for that.

You know, I mean, it's probably smart way of doing it. They understand the way that Israeli politics is. It's not, it's mirror an image. And I, you know, the weather's working since the US side. They don't mirror image and think, okay, we just got to say, we got to overthrow it in Yahoo. No, I mean, that's not good. No, I'm saying, like, whatever.

No, no, no, I mean, I understand totally what you mean. I'm not suggesting a coup in Israel. No, no. No, I'm not. I mean, Bibi Netanyahu is pretty shitty. It's nice. Yeah, so.

I wasn't talking. I meant, you know. It's just a thought experiment. Yeah. I'm not a coup. No way we were talking about. No, no. Yeah.

A mechanism in the actual government to be like, you know, enough is enough. Yeah. Yeah. Political. Not coercion, but compelling. Yeah. Um,

but I think, I think, uh, the U.S. is always going to be so sensitive about being medal in another country's elections. And we're still kind of recovering from having done so in Russian elections, right, in the early 90s.

I mean, thinking, you know, I'm not. And most elections. Oh, whoa. Oh, yeah. Yeah, some without elections. Yeah. Yeah. Chile and actually Iran.

Yep. That was a big one too. Yeah. It was the U.S. and the Brits who put the Shah in power in 1953. and started this whole ball rolling fucking cold. All right, Andy, when are you back?

It says Sykes Pico wasn't enough. Hey, I'm back on, I'll be back playing the next episode. What day is it? Wednesday. Wednesday. Wednesday. Is it? Yeah.

Oh, yeah, it is. Okay, yeah, I'll be back Tuesday. Monday will choose. Monday. All right. When does this go out? It goes out tonight, Wednesday night, 8 p.m. Awesome.

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I know. That did. I did. What else? I didn't know. It was translated into Bronx. Brooklyn, bro. Brooklyn.

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