The Team House - Can Europe Trust the U.S. as a Strategic Partner? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Today we talk about the continued frayed relations between the U.S. & Europe, the possibility of Poland going nuclear. We also talk about the unrest that's been happening in Syria and if it could escalate to another civil war,New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comSupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFire Support: A Veteran’s Guide to Health, Healing, and Life Beyond Servicehttps://www.amazon.com/Fire-Support-Veterans-Navigating-Overcoming/dp/1961989204Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Blusky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBlusky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appBlusky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.sociBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes On. I'm Dimitri Kontakos here with Mick Mulroy and Jason Lyons. A lot cooking since last week. Big thing going on. Ukraine, intelligence sharing has been stopped by the U.S. They're going to have some negotiations in Saudi Arabia in this coming week between the U.S. and Ukraine to see if they can hammer out this mineral deal. yeah a lot going on to uh russia just made a bit trying to push back and kursk supposedly

have taken three villages there um yeah so a lot going on there uh what do you guys mick i haven't spoken to you since they stopped sharing intel so what's like your thought on that yeah d so i mean it's uh it was tough for the ukrainians when they cut off we cut off security assistance of course because but the logistics pipeline the way it works, they'll start running on critical shortages around May, right, of 105 millimeter rounds and the rounds that they use to defend themselves, air muscle buds. But the issue with intelligence, and we don't know exactly what they cut off and didn't, but it has immediate impact, right? So your ability to defend yourself and people say,

oh, they still pass information on defending yourself. And I hope. that's the case. I don't know what it is. But, you know, a good offense is also important in your defense, right? So if you can't see the enemy preparing to launch missiles and drones at you because you don't have the high definition imagery from the United States or the electronic significant package that can also attract people, then you can't adequately hit it before it hits you. Right? So that's offensive, but it's defensive. And then so that's step. Step one, you don't have the ability to strike before they launch. Two, you have a very limited ability to detect the incoming threat and therefore take it out of the sky.

Right. So that's another, that's two. Three, any kind of offensive maneuver requires intelligence, right? I mean, you've got to have eyes and ears out there. And I think that's why you're seeing Russia take advantage. I mean, there was hundreds of drones and missiles and bombs dropped right. the day after we cut off Intel. So I don't think that was an accident.

I think they were taking advantage of this shift between the U.S. providing Intel and potentially grants trying to make up for it. They have satellites, both types of satellites that they need. Of course, none of it is as good as the United States. I'm not just saying that because I'm biased, but most of our European allies have relied on the U.S. foreign intelligence. Right. So us cutting off Ukraine, it's very difficult.

for them to make up for it. Should they have relied on us? You could certainly make the case they shouldn't. Now you can definitely make the case they shouldn't. But certainly this has caused Ukraine a lot of trouble. And it is likely to push Russia further away from the negotiation table, right? So things are going there away. If we're cutting out security assistance and intelligence support,

Russia looking at that, said, why would we now go to the, why would we go to the table to start talking about a ceasefire? So to me, it's having the opposite effect on bringing this conflict to an end and certainly having some kind of earnest dialogue, which Russia hasn't even indicated they're interested in, really, to how this war can stop, at least a pause, where they'd be security guarantees to Ukraine. So it isn't just a pause why Russia brings in more North Korean troops and rebuilds its arsenal. So it's very problematic. It likely caused a lot of the carnage that we saw this week, including the deaths of 14 people and five of more children, at least contributed to it. I think they should turn it back on immediately and not use that as some kind of bargaining chip to get the Ukrainians to the table, which, you know, unless I'm missing something, they seem to want to go to the table. Right.

Yeah. And then the mineral deal apparently, according to reports, and we'll have to find out if it's true. does not, even if they sign it, doesn't mean that they'll turn back on the security assistance, nor turn on Intel. So what's in it for them category, I don't know what's in it for them. It seems like they would have to have a guarantee at least of continued military support and Intel to sign the deal or else it's just, you know, doesn't mean anything for the Ukrainians. And what does this do for our, you know, our European allies?

anywhere, not even just in Europe. You know, if we are, you know, turning things on and off at the, you know, at the drop of a dime here, are they even going to trust us to, you know, to have their backs? You know, that's when I'll start looking elsewhere. You know, it's, I think the second and third order effects of this decision is, has yet to be seen. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show if you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this. You can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com slash the Teamhouse.

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Thank you. another part of what Jay is talking about is also going to be whether they trust our weapons systems. No, if you think about it, I mean, we've essentially made a lot of our systems ineffective because we cut off certain things that are required for them to be successful, like the High Mars, for example. Right? That requires specific U.S. data to be accurate. So if we sell somebody at High Mars and then we decide we don't like them anymore, like apparently we don't like Ukraine anymore.

Obviously, that's something I disagree with. But why buy that system anymore? You think about it. I mean, it's not that difficult from a – and that's what Europe is saying right now. They're talking about canceling F-35 orders and going to their entirely own system. So increasing their manufacturing and technical cable. abilities and basically dumping the U.S., which is the best equipment, weapon systems in the world. But if it's not reliable and you can't count on it, it doesn't matter if it's the best.

If we can essentially render it ineffective, then it is not something that most countries would consider safe. And now that we're talking the way we are about alliances with Russia, at least in some capacity and away from NATO, I think we're about to see. I'm not, you know, somebody interested in investing and all that stuff, but I don't know that investing in U.S. defense industry right now would be a smart mode. Yeah, buy some desault stock, I guess, but we're not, we're not advisors. We're not a financial advisor. No, yeah, I don't mean that.

I just mean from a perspective is we do a lot to promote U.S. weapon sales around the world. We, the U.S. government. It's part of our basically national search. system. Yeah. And it's going to be difficult to explain why countries need to buy our stuff if they now believe that we can essentially render it not useful. Yeah. Question, Mick, and for Jason. You guys have the requisite experience in national security. On a scale of 1 to 10, the absolute like 180 we've done in terms of like our foreign policy when it comes to Eastern Europe. particularly Russia and this whole Ukraine mess.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how fucking insane is it, in your opinion, in your opinions? A bit of a loaded question, Dee. Is it? I'm sorry. You know what I'm fucking insane? Well, one being, it's normal and 10 being F and insane. Okay. You want to go first today?

You want me to. No, go ahead. So, I mean, to put it to put both, sides out there, right? And what I mean by both sides. And I did want to say one thing about this, you know, you see these debates where it's like isolationist versus globalist and all that stuff. I would say, one, it doesn't do the conversation any good. It's just labels, right? But you're not an isolationist if you want to see the border secure. You're not a globalist if you believe that NATO was, a benefit to the United States, right? So, I mean, just have the debates that are

just, you know, putting these tag tags on there. So every president, including President Trump, has been pushing the Europeans to spend more on their own national defense. It's clear to me that they just said, well, we have you here. So we'll spend money on what things we want and we'll just rely on you for our security. And I don't think that was fair under the NATO treaty, right? They had a 2% requirement. And obviously, we had hoped that most of the United.

and would exceed it, not go under it. And they did go under it. So it is good that they finally got their act together. But it's, they got their act together because they don't trust the United States. And so that's the net, a negative. And it's one thing to say that we're going to pull out of NATO, which would be, I think, a horrible strategic mistake. But it's another thing to actually start talking about Russia as if it's some kind of ally. So that's when you start running into the, you do realize what's what could happen. We could have Europe that triples, quadruples, its defense spending, trillion dollars. Germany alone is talking 400 billion.

Poland is talking about doubling its military and basically trading every fighting match male as a soldier. I mean, it is cross Europe. We could get to the point where they do all that. Their military is close to on par with us, or at least certainly substantially stronger. And then we drop out of the alliance. We could talk about how difficult to do that. And then we lose the benefit of having this fully capable military, and it is capable now, but it would be even more capable after this reform to our benefit.

That's the whole point of having a military alliance. And it does bear mentioning that the only time it's been used in the Article 5 cents is for our benefit. So this idea that we have been fighting for NATO partners is, untrue. It's actually the opposite. They lost thousand, over a thousand collectively in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as most people had fought there, saw them, they were there for 20 years. Right. So anyway, so that's, that's, I think, both sides. I would hope that we would get the benefit of Europe's increased capacity building and this idea that they're going to integrate their military and a European defense force for our benefit, which is our benefit.

about a seven I'm talking Jay what do you think yeah I agree with you know with everything that Mick said people jump to one side or the other

you know they like he said like Mick said they put these labels on it and it's not in every case but in some cases in this being one of them it can be both you know it can be both and

safely and effectively. It can be, you can be, but we can say, okay, we're going to take a little bit of an isolation stance here, but we're also recognizing that, you know, alliances like NATO, things like that, and places where we may need to intervene are necessary. But again, people get wrapped up in their political identification, and that tends to push them to one side or the other.

But I believe it can be both. And I think out of those two, us dropping out of NATO and Mick, you said, you know, it's complicated. I don't even know how that works. I think that would be the more dangerous of the two sides. And so everybody's tracking that you have under the NATO Tweedy, you have to tell they got a name for the country, which is actually us, that you intend to drop out. And of course, that's public. and then you have to have a waiting period of a year, and then you can drop out.

The U.S. has an additional step as it was passed by Congress, supported by now Secretary of State Rubio, that the U.S. can't, that the president can't unilaterally drop out. So he has to go to Congress, I think it's a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Oh, wow. We ran and drop out.

That was passed by, I know Senator Rubio at the time, Senator was one of the sponsors of the bill on the Republican side. So that he keep essentially President Trump can't drop out without that. And us it's challenged in the Supreme Court and they win. But as it stands now, it's a one year waiting period. And then the U.S. system, it was passed in the National Defense Authorization Act. And I think, I can't remember the year, 23. But that.

Wow. Yeah. So there is a, there's a, people were just saying that people were just going to pull out. Right. That's not the case. Well, that's good. Speaking about Poland, Mick mentioned that they're thinking about calling up all their military age males for military training. They're also kicking around the idea of going nuclear, which you can kind of understand, like it's literally their backyard, you know.

What do you guys? what are your thoughts on that and like how would that look like yeah for me it'd be because i've never even put the the you know poland and nuclear together how easy or hard would it be like do they have the capability which i i have no idea yeah so in inside europe you have the u.k and france that are nuclear arm and i think between the two they have like 500 something um i know how many nuclear weapons do you need right but So the question would be internal to the sharing inside the EU, and I don't know the legalities of this, could France or the UK share their technology with Poland and Germany is also talking about it too. We all know the Germans will be able to figure this out on their own.

Sure. Yeah. We probably polls too, not to this, but this is something that could be expanded rather quickly because the technology and the resources are there. So we could see multiple states arm a nuclear weapons inside Europe or countries. And France is talking about using theirs to basically cover the umbrella of the EU, which might be more effective so they don't all have to have their own individual nuclear weapons program. But it speaks to the – I'm not going to say desperation, but it's the only word I can think of right now. It speaks to the gravity of the situation that they see themselves in,

that they're bringing this up. Yes, agreed. And it's, I mean, this is, they're preparing for war in Europe right now. I mean, I think, I think Americans should realize that. There's all the border countries, they're not dropping out of all the, the, conventions on the use of landmines and all that stuff for reason. So they're going to create this, you know, huge demilitarized, but buffer between them and Russia all the way up in Finland.

All they're dropping out, right? So they're spending more on their military. I think they'll probably get collectively more than we spend, potentially, potentially. This is serious. And it could, they think that if Russia is successful in Ukraine, that they're next. And they're not, they know law or can rely on the United States, even though we have an obligation on Article 5. So Europe is preparing for war now. I don't think it's just rhetorical bluster.

I think they believe that this could happen. And they want to get to the point where they're strong enough to deter it from that. I'm sticking with Poland for a second. The foreign minister today tweeted out about Starlink. So Radislav Sikorsky, and sorry if I brutalized that name. Starlink's for Ukraine are paid by the Polish digitized ministry at a cost of about $50 million a year. The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart. If SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider, we would be forced to look at

other suppliers. Elon Musk responded to him, telling him to be quiet, small man, you pay a tiny fraction of the cost, and there's no substitute to Starlink. Marco Ruby, and Elon Musk is Elon Musk.

He's a little cuckoo. We all know that. And he's, you know, susceptible to tweeting at all times of the day. You know, it's fine. But then Marco Rubio, who's the Secretary of State, basically, came out and

sort of backed it. I'm trying to pull up his tweet. And the only thing, too, is you have a foreign minister of an ally, Poland, and the Secretary of State of America, going at it over Twitter, right? Where it's like, this is a bit of an oddity, especially when stakes are so high, man. You know what I mean?

Like Trump won when Trump would go off about NATO, not paying their fair share, even though Poland was one of the countries that did pay the 2% or more, that's a little bit different than, when there's a full-scale invasion going on, people are dying by the tens of thousands, where you have your foreign ministers of two allied countries going out on Twitter

within an oligarch in the middle of it. Yeah. There was also a report, just to round out to store, there was also a report that the EU and European nations were looking at alternatives to Starlink, just, I mean, just in case, which you cannot blame them, right? This speaks to the same fact

where they need to rely on their own security, rather than relying on American security. Yeah. And I think Elon Musk came out after that and said that he would absolutely not cut off. Yeah. So, I mean, this goes to a broader question of reliance in how vulnerable it makes countries

if they rely on a system that has the ability of one individual to just cut it off. And I think that's probably why he sent out that last tweet because, and it doesn't even matter. Every one of these countries are now going to say Starlink is, is compromised. And we use it. I mean, we teach tactical training up here in Montana. We use Starlink. It's awesome.

It's very user-friendly, even, you know, Lites like me. But it's going to be considered not reliable, even threatening to turn. it off is, you know, these countries are going to be like, okay, got it. Never going to rely on that again. It's just common sense when it comes to national security. So bad decision, I think, to even. And then the other company, I don't remember the name, so I'm not going to repeat it, but the one that cut off the high resolution imagery.

Oh, yeah. Like, good luck trying to get another person to buy your imagery. That's done. You're over. Unless you're just going to work for the U.S., There's consequences rolling downhill for all the U.S. defense industry on this. You don't have to be somebody who follows defense interest to see that coming. They're just not going to rely on us anymore.

We're unreliable. We essentially can at a moment's whim turn off the effectiveness of a weapon system or imagery or communications, which obviously are required to be able to function as a military. And that all trickles down to, you know, from. that big picture all the way down to that human asset on the ground he's like why do I why should I work with you guys if I you guys can do this you know at the drop of a hat how do I know that you're going to keep me safe you know so again those second and third order effects yeah yes it's going to have a serious consequences yeah what do you think a little

what do you think is going to go down at these talks in Saudi Arabia? Also, I got a question, like a dummy question. Why are they happening in Saudi Arabia between these two delegations? But let's just speak to the more broader point of what are you think is going to happen? We're going to sign this mineral deal? Like, Mick, you... So Saudi Arabia is trying to play a lot of the roles in mediation. Of course, this is between the U.S. and Ukraine.

So it should be, you know, regardless of the current issues between the leaders, it's a partner, it was partner. So, but anyway, that's where they're having it there. They're going to play a substantial role in, you know, U.S. in Iran, for example, potentially, because they've had their own Dayton, if you will, with Iran. But I think that's why it's happening there. So what will happen? I think they have made it clear. They be in the Ukrainians already to say.

sign this mineral deal. And the U.S. is saying in some ways it guarantees security because the U.S. can't realize their benefit of the deal if Ukraine's taken over by Russia, which is true. But I do think Ukraine's going to want to see some kind of security assurance, even if it's primarily Europe backed up by the United States with air power or something. And they're going to want to at least see the continuation of security assistance because they don't really have an obligation to pay back that which they've already got. So Intel and security assistance, I think, would be at the minimum for Ukraine, but we'll see. I think they said they're ready to sign it.

And, you know, at the end of the day, I hope it gets signed. And we go back to supporting Ukraine with security assistance and Intel. It's in our own interest. And if that happens, and we're seeing Europe move out and increased support. Now they're releasing the, or at least there's reports that they're going to release the funding that they've seized from Russia. So if we want to get Russia at the table, we're going to have to start making it consequences against them if we want them to do it. Because right now everything's going in their favor. That's, I mean, I'm not a good negotiator, but that's not going to work in my opinion.

Jay, got anything on that? No. It makes pretty good at this. As usual. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, so what's been going on in Syria? I mean, Mickey, you know the ins announced.

You want to give us a rundown on what's happened the last week or so in Syria. Yeah, and I was just talking about this. This is, you know, everybody was watching Jalani, if you believe he's not a reformist. Ahmed al-Shara, if you believe he is. Obviously, the Jalani is a name that he used when he founded. al-Qaeda in Syria, right? So he took over Damascus with HTS, which used to be, or still is, I think, a U.S. designated terrorist organization. There was a lot of reformist talk, a lot of hope that he would be more unified. I think the current administration was much less or is much less more doubtful

than the last administration on whether he was, in fact, or a former. And I think, unfortunately, for the people of Syria, that that seems to be accurate. Because in the last 48 hours, over 1,000 people have been killed by forces aligned with him, his forces, jihadists, that essentially now run the government in Syria. And he did more than just fight the, you know, the Assad in certain. They brutalized civilians, summarily executed them, stripped women down, paraded them. There's some reports, nude and did horrible things to them, and then summarily executed them. They've gotten kids to shoot their parents. It is about as bad and as ISIS slash al-Qaeda as you get.

So the world's now aghast as they should be in that. and they're looking to El Shara or Jolani to like what the hell is going on, right? So what are you going to do to stop this? I don't know that he promoted it. I don't know if that's known yet. But I can tell you that every group that, and we're looking at doing some humanitarian stuff there,

every group is going to react to this by saying, this guy is not a reformist. He's not about a unified. This is an Alloite community, which is on the east coast of and it was associated that's where Assad came from of course doesn't mean you kill every

al-a-white just because he happened to be of that sect about the Druze in the south which are Christians are basically creating their own country we already know about the Kurds in the east it's going to segregate the entire country and zero interest in

integrating a military because they don't trust it at all and after last week, why would they? So this is going in the wrong direction. Yeah. And you also saw Israel taking a bit more of an active role. They sent in a big special forces up deep into Syria. And they're defending the Druze.

Right. We've moved into the Druze, yeah, for sure. I'm trying to look if there was any update where, like, did Jalani or Alsharo make any? any kind of statement in terms of like what the fuck's going on, right? You're the interim president, you know, everybody wants to see you in your nice suit, be a statesman. I think if you really want to be taken seriously,

now is the time to kind of put a statement out there and see whether, you know, shit or get off the pot, like in terms of being just another Al-Qaeda guy or an actual, you know, leader of a country. He did make a statement. It was what you'd expect. But, you know, I talked about accountability. ability and all that. He's going to have to prove it because, I mean, either he was complicit in it,

which means he shouldn't be in charge of anything, or he doesn't have the ability to stop it, which means he isn't in charge of anything, right? So, which means like stop pretending to be president. You know, why are we listening to you just because you can't wear a suit and you, and you know, you know, he's well-spoken. Okay, great. There's been plenty of despots that are well-spoken. So I think that the world's going to find out whether he's either, you know, complicit with this or can't do anything to stop it.

If you can't do anything to stop it, then it's serious in a bad place. Not that it was, I mean, it's obviously a good thing. Assad is gone, but he can't just replace one brutal dictator with another. Yeah. I think is it safe to say he doesn't have control over like the, majority of the guy, like the, you know, Al Qaeda or HTS, former HTS guys. Honestly, that's the best case scenario for him right now.

Right. Right. I don't have control over. Because if you do have control over them, and they videotaped all this stuff. So I wouldn't recommend going to see it, but I do a lot of foreign media where they play stuff that we would never play on.

And it was just nonstop. It was like, it was tough to watch, even from somebody who spent way too much, time of war zones it was it was god awful and so they filmed it the people who perpetrated it and put it on social media so this this means a they want to do this be they don't fear any repercussions because why would you do that right so either he is controlling this or he has no control over and the latter is the best case scenario but it's not a good scenario yeah j got anything no i mean like just said his best his best defense is I had no control over this well okay that's great for you

but what about the rest of the country you know what's going to happen now I mean I think a short term fix for him might be to say hey we hunted down those responsible you know but people do that all the time within their own organization turn on their own people you know and just as a show of force. So it really doesn't mean anything at the end of the day. What happens now for like in terms of the international community? Because there was a lot of talk once Jalani came to power. And he was doing like the glad hanging with like Turkey and he went Saudi Arabia. He was really going around. You know, this is the new leader of Syria. There was talk about like Europe and other countries like kind of lightning the load in terms of sanctions and things like that to kind of open the economy up,

get some stability going. Where does that stand now? I mean, I can't see that. being like full steam ahead anymore. So there's a meeting, I think, in Naman this coming week, maybe Wednesday or something, between a lot of the regional actors, Turkey, et cetera, on this very issue. As far as the sanctions, the U.S. was looking at getting rid of the Caesar sanctions, because that was specific to the Assad regime, who's obviously, you know, sitting in Moscow right now. but this is probably going to put a pause on any of that. And to give the current administration credit, they called it.

I mean, there's a lot of people that were very hesitant during the transition and now that the Trump administration's in place to talk to El Chara. I'm a believer that you should talk to people, but maybe they prove me wrong in the sense that you don't want to normalize a guy who has. has not proven that he's like let's face it he took power by force i mean it's a good thing that assad left but he thought like he was elected by the people of so he's not the president i mean people i wish we'd stop calling people president unless they were democratically elected but's another topic but just because he's a self-described president he took power by force and uh he hasn't shown

any actions really that he's a different and my opinion and i know people would disagree that but after last week I don't think he'll hear many of them saying sure say anything um it's interesting too because I remember when he first came to power in the interim government after he took Damascus and stuff and Assad fled um there was all this talk about like sometime in March they would get together and kind of figure out a constitution um we are sometime in March now and it doesn't seem like that's going to happen anytime soon unfortunately He might start talking about that. It takes a long time to write a constitution, right?

It gives you time to stay in power. And then there's, you know, they've even said four years before an election. I mean, that's most of them said, okay, so you're just going to stay in power. That's the plan. So these, and so Syria is just not going to be a country, right? It's going to be a series of sections. Staying in the Middle East, Iran rejected the, the, idea or the like the pitch to talk about their nuclear program at the united states um they came out

pretty pretty heavily against it i mean the president of iran last week said he was willing to open a dialogue but the big bossy ayatola uh kibash that and the i atollah spoke yesterday i believe and it was a pretty pretty uh clear rebuke of like trying to have any kind of dialogue with the United States, definitely not Israel. So we're there now, and we've heard it before that, like, Iran's very, could be very close to weaponizing a nuclear weapon, you know, six months or so to actually, like, a deliverable. What happens with this?

Because I know, even though we're kind of scooting away from Ukraine, the administration, they're very much Iran Hawks still there. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So, yeah, the issue is they have enough enriched, they believe enough enriched uranium per six weapons. The next step is they have to be able to create the triggering mechanism that would cause it to explode, right, to be an actual weapon. And then you could say, I'm sure they have Iran has, that's why they focus so much on ballistic missiles. They have the ability to reach Israel, which they've already proven.

So that's a lethal combination. Israel will not accept it. I think they would launch their own effort if the U.S. wasn't with them, but if the U.S. is with them, then the chances of success go up substantially. There's also certain munitions that only we have that would be very effective against, you know, these hardened, deep earth facilities. So I agree with you, Dee. this administration's hawkish on Iran, and I think they should be. And this, according to President Trump, I mean, he seems to be trying to do this diplomatically. But if the Ayatollah has summarily dismissed that, but they're still going for a nuclear weapon, I think we could see direct U.S. military action against it, at least from else's comments, potentially with Israel or without. But you're seeing a lot of activity of, you know, our strategic bombers in the area is probably,

intentional to send a signal. Certainly, I think this could happen in this year. Jesus. There was a bit of a few days back, and we didn't talk about this pre-show, but where the Trump administration was having secret talks with Hamas, which I'm sure did not sit great in Israel. Any thought on that? What's what that deal is?

you want to start, Jay? No, I didn't know anything about it. Yeah, I mean, it just gets caught up and, like, everything else that's going on, you know what I mean? Like, it's a break in a news thing and then something else happens, so. Yeah, it's, I think it was overwhelming,

to be frank, and I'm part of it. So the issue is, apparently the Trump administration has been talking to Hamas since they came to office, right? And at least the reports aren't that they didn't tell the Israelis. So I get there's two parts of that too. So if you look at it from the U.S. point of view, the criticism, fair or not, of the Biden administration, was they were functioning as a mediator, which is good, except for the fact that we have Americans that are hostages. So we're not just a mediator.

We're a grieved party, if you will. So I think the Trump administration is saying, therefore, we're going to talk to directly to, and I saw the gentleman that replaced Roger Carson's. today on a news program. He said basically the U.S. has to deal directly with Hamas because we're not just a functionary of Israel. Good point. I think from Israel's side, it might complicate their ability to get their hostages out.

That's how they view it. So it just require coordination, but the U.S. I think should play a direct role in recovering U.S. citizens. There are citizens. So that's why I'm. would stand on that. I think that's what the U.S. the White House would say is why they're known.

Hopefully it's coordinated, though. Question. The American citizens that are there are they're dual citizens, right? I think so you don't think Israel will have like, like, we want to be pointed on this. You know what I mean? Like wouldn't want like to have the right of what, you know,

way to go in terms of Yeah, fair point, fair point that they would want that because they want to be, they want to consolidate who's making the decisions, right? I mean, which does make, it's understandable, right, in terms of, like, getting a deal done. Yeah. Yeah, for all of the hostages, not just the Americans. Right.

That's what the, that's what the concern is for Israel. It's a valid concern that Trump administration will come up with a plan to get Americans out, but not Israelis. I know they're dual citizens, but yeah, I understand their concern, which is why I think it should be heavily coordinated. And I think it will be. But it does, I think it is a fair point to say, well, they are Americans. And we're not going to totally rely on another country to make the decisions for us when it comes to our citizens, be they dual citizens or not.

I think that was a point that they made this morning. Yeah. And just as we started recording this, Israel cutoff electricity to Gaza. probably a couple hours ago. But they were going to send a delegation somewhere to negotiate again. It's like whoever these negotiators are, man, somebody buy them a fucking beer

because it sounds like it's nonstop kind of You know, Yeah. They're going to Doha, right now going to Doha, I think, to talk about. So the cutting off of electricity is substantial as you guys would guess, as what all our listeners.

They've already cut off humanitarian aid, so there's no food going in. The electricity, of course, is necessary to run hospitals, but also to run the purification of water. So huge issue. They're not going to be able to have clean water. The only alternative I would, there is no alternative that I know of. And where actually my group has a plan to bring fresh water into Gaza. So we're probably smarter than the average bear on the issues of clean water in Gaza. But it's obviously seawater, right?

Which you can't drink. So huge problem. I think the idea behind it is they're going to put pressure on Hamas to extend the first phase of the ceasefire negotiations because there's no consensus at all inside Israel on going into the second phase, which requires to withdraw of IDF from Gaza. and they're just not to a place where that's feasible because there's no alternative other than Amos to security that would be a backing left by the withdrawal of IDF. So obviously this is significantly controversial because you can't withhold food and water and medicine from civilians as a method of warfare. But this is likely why they did it is to put so much pressure on Hamas.

but they're also hoping Hamas cares about the Palestinian people of Gaza, which they've showed zero concern. Zero concern. If you look at Gaza, it's completely destroyed. And then they pop up with their clean uniforms. Like we're supposed to be impressed. Yeah.

Yeah, man. I don't know how I feel about cutting food and water from a place that's been fucking team. And I know there's probably still another 10,000, 15,000 Hamas bad guys. I get it. but cotton food and water just to prove a point and put some feet to the fire you know there's real life fucking consequences for that and I just can't fuck with that.

Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. Agreed. God damn it. We got to finish off on like a feel good story sometimes for the love of God. Mick, what else? Talk to me. What do you got? So if you guys are cool with it, I do have a book from a friend of mine who just, he just wrote it if it is sorry that it's I got a different view here but uh he's a retired green beret Eric

Lawrence good buddy of mine for the last I don't know decades decades he wrote a book it kind of looks like a military manual I think it was up there's not but it's called fire support a veteran's guide to health healing and life beyond service so I I feel like it's we should you know highlight plug these kind of things because this is a veteran talking other veterans about a very real concern which is finding meaning after service. And this is this book's all about. I assume you can find it on Amazon, but that's what it's called.

Even has like a serial number like an old. RG 00-0-01. FM. Anyway, I wanted to highlight that because, you know, he spent a lot of time putting this together and it's primarily just to labor love for his fellow veterans. Cool. There'll be a link in the description for that.

Oh, so go grab that there. Anything else? I think we covered it. Oh, I got to jump on. I got to jump on. Yeah, Mick's got to go do his real job instead of like, you know, scurrying with us. Check out Mick at Fogbo.

Incredible work, providing humanitarian aid across the world. Lobo Institute as well. Any and all links are in the description for Mick. You want to see stuff he's read. He's written and stuff. Follow him on Twitter. on blue sky linked in all those places down in the description jay of course his links are down to the description as well andy milburn we miss him desperately he'll be back soon his links are

also in the description and if you want some cool merch like what jay's wearing or what mix drinking from that link is in the description as well if you want to help support the show patreon dot com slash the team house ad free audio and video for both eyes on in the team house and thank you guys really appreciate it. Thanks, Jens. Thanks, guys.