Did America Just Switch Sides on Ukraine? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS
00:00This episode is presented by VareW watches.Go to VareWatches.com slash the team house.Hey, everybody, we're back.Welcome to Tys on Geopolitics.I'm here with Jonathan Hackett, Mark Polymeropolis.Milburn might be joining us.I don't know yet.Hopefully he does.
00:16If not, we will carry on without him.A lot happening over the last week, as usual.Nothing really different.The big story from the Telegraph,I have it pulled up here because I'm prepared for these shows.Musk approached Trump to slow down Starlink in Ukraine,and that's from Joe Barnes at the telegraph.That came out a couple days ago.
00:38After this went down,Musk was saying that the president and the DOD asked him essentially to do this,which so it seems to be like people are pointing the finger at each other.See, you know, I didn't do it.I didn't do it.So what happened was it seems that the Starlink, a Star Shield,internet access in Ukraine was throttled.And so like their military couldn't use it to target or do whatever,
01:04or not target.It was actually defensive.And the way they tested it too, because it came out of Ukraine,is like they went over to an EU country that's borders Ukraine.I'm guessing it's Poland.Is it Poland?I don't know.Whatever.
01:17It doesn't matter.Went to a EU company, EU country.And once they went over the border, the internet started working perfectly.They were going up to 180 kilometers an hour.It was working fine.They jumped back over the border to Ukraine.It doesn't work again.And we did see over the last few days a pretty huge bombardment of Kiev by Russia.
01:39Over 100 Shaheed drones, like 30 plus ballistic missiles, hitting anything and everything they can.So there seems to be a huge, huge rift going on.And before we started, I was saying, like, I wanted, were we going to name this episode?Like, you know, did we switch sides to Russia now?because it seems like we're doing a lot to help them out.Couple this with the diesel deal.You know, basically we had the Lindsay Graham Act that sanctioned Russiaand Trump wrote up on executive order to ease those sanctions and like kill, like strip what was in that bill,
02:13which I don't know how that's fucking legal, especially because he signed the bill into law.But riddle me that.This administration loves to be in contempt of Congress and break the law.Seems like they do it as easy as breathing.So this is where we're at.Clearly, you know, I don't know how you're not a European country or an allied country that's like we could trust the America with anything anymore because the writing seems to be on the wall.So, Mark, let's talk to me about it.What do you think?
02:42What are you tracking?So let's talk big picture because you wanted, you know, the title of the episode.And so you can title it two ways.You know, has Trump switch sides to Russia?or, you know, was he ever on the good guy's side?So, you know, I'm being a little snarky here.But, you know, there's a couple things which happened this week, which is going to be hard for the GOP defenders of Trump who are pro-Ukrainian.There are some.
03:08But it's going to be hard for them to kind of maintain the line that Trump actually has done anything good for Ukraine.Despite, you know, there's the, there is continued intelligence sharing.And there is continued the Pearl program in which we, in which the Europeans buy weapons from us.and then they provide them to the Ukrainians.That is going on as well.And so that's what the kind of the GOP defenders of Trump will say.But the last couple days have been pretty stark in what's happened.And I want to go to Jonathan in a second so he can actually describe because no one can get this right.
03:38So maybe he can.You know, Star Trek, Starlink, Star Wars.It's just it's fucking maddening.Rubio.I'm a joke.Rubio got it wrong in a presser as well.And so Jonathan, I think, will be really helpful in unfucking that.But the two big things are the, you know, the diesel deal, which really means Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kuchner win.
03:59That's just the overall notion that there is somehow money to be made for the Russians.And that's going to entice the Russians to settle.Now, I met with someone yesterday who's closely tied to the White House.That is their thinking.There is a logic to this.It's wrong, but that's their logic, is that Russia will never give up.And the only way to get them to the table is to entice them.to bring them into the fold more. I don't agree with it. That's their thinking, and that thinking has won out.
04:27And in essence, that is, in my view of portrayal of Ukraine. And then the other piece, and let's justput it very starkly, Jonathan's going to decipher what happened really specifically with, in essence,the satellite systems. But we have decided to withdraw a force protection measure for the Ukrainiansthat resulted in the deaths of Ukrainian civilians. And at the same time, by which,withdrawing this force and force protection measure. The U.S. government doing so. I don't care if it'sMusk, if it's Trump, if it's Bridge Colby, whoever it is. Someone on our side did this. That led to notonly the U.S. personnel at embassy Kiev were at grave risk and the thousands of American citizens.U.S. citizens, by law, FBI, others were supposed to protect them. They were at risk as well. And what I think
05:15you need from that is a gang of eight briefing. That's the leaders of Congress. They can demand this.We've done this before. Congress is out of session. They're going toto come back after the midterms. You're going to need a preservation order for all records on this.You're going to need hearings. This is a extremely serious matter, in my view, again, because it'snot restricting the Ukrainian's ability to hit targets in Russia. Fine. That's a debatable issue.This is defensive measures. And so to me, it was absolutely egregious. Something that I'm actuallysurprised at. You know, if you ever think the Trump administration can surprise you, this is one of them,because you're talking about putting men and women of the U.S. government at risk on the ground.
05:52Okay, God bless the Ukrainians and what they've gone through.But I'm trying to get through to the MAGA world.Maybe you have some people in, you know, I'm sure you have lots of people who vote Republicanin this podcast, and they find.They should.It's America.Just think about that.The men and women, there's a lot of veterans here.
06:08People in the U.S. military, intelligence services, state department, at EmbassyKiev, could have gotten killed because of something the U.S. government did.That's crazy.So anyway, that's my thoughts on this.But big thing for Jonathan, I mean, literally Rubio this morning or his last night is onpress for he's on the way to, I think he's on the way to India. He gave some convoluted thing about,you know, what occurred. And then everybody responded back, well, he's wrong on that too. Socan you tell us what exactly happened or could have happened or what these systems do? Because
06:35there's two separate systems as well, I understand. Yeah, so there's Starlink and Star Shield.Starlink is the commercially available, like commercial off the shelf, low Earth orbit data provider,essentially. And then Star Shield is a separate defense oriented system that,uses the same backbone, but is for a defense consumer, which means it's going to have lessrestrictions on its use. It's going to have some more access to different bands of satellitecommunication, because you know there are different bands like L-band, X-band, K-band. X-band is specificallyonly for military use. This is part of how the U.S. regulates the global satellite system that wehave. There's different satellite systems, by the way. There's the U.S. one, the Russian one,
07:14the Chinese one. There's a European one, especially when we're talking about GPS positioning.there's the one that Ukraine is using as a U.S.-based backbone system.That's kind of the key here, because if Ukraine was using a European provider, this wouldn'tbe happening, but Ukraine is using a U.S. linked provider, which is Starlink.Low Earth orbit generally is a newer kind of thing that's gaining traction.And when I say newer, I mean the last 50 years, as far as satellite communication goes,low-earth-orbit satellite constellations were initially going to be something that the militaryused with the guys in the ground, you know, geographically dispersed.
07:48able to communicate with direct-to-cell communication in their positions on the ground to other people at command of control.That's what low-earth orbits for.But this commercialization of it is kind of how the internet was commercialized.It was initially a government thing invented by DARPA back in 1960, 70s, and 80s, and then became commercialized.And so that's what we're seeing with low-earth orbit satellite communications.And what we're witnessing is the tension between that transition from a military system to a commercial system,where commercial users are going to want broader, faster, more reliable access than the military was accepting.And Musk is closely linked with the U.S. government on this because this thing is not completely privatized yet.
08:25This section of the atmosphere that these satellites are operating in, which is very low Earth orbit and still regulated quite heavily by the U.S.which means the U.S. can interfere with it if they want to.The U.S. can turn it up, turn it down, do things to it, manipulate it.And that's exactly what we're seeing this week.And this shouldn't be looked at narrowly.It shouldn't be looked at as a single satellite communications being interfered with.It should be looked at as a wider U.S. policy vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine because of the Iran war.Because what's happening domestically inside the United States is that diesel is very expensive, gas is very expensive.
08:59The Republican Party is concerned about the price of gas at the pump coming up here in about three weeks, two weeks at the midterm elections.Trump is flailing around trying to find a way to reduce the diesel price because he's saying,sees that as a, not just him, but strategists, see this as a key problem for votes in swing statesand purple areas to get under control if they want to have the votes go red. So this is kind of alast ditch effort on the U.S. domestic politics side to pressure Trump to go talk to Russiato get a concession. And when I'm looking at this, I'm seeing the U.S. is asking Russia,please give us diesel. Russia is saying, okay, we'll do that if, and here are our conditions.Many of those conditions involve Ukraine.
09:43Things like the ability for the Ukrainians to communicate in rapid movement on the ground with low Earth orbit satellite constellations, that's one thing.Turn it down, throttle it.And we saw that happen.Another is the intel sharing.So when last, let's say, 48 hours, there were two strikes, major strikes in Kiev that you were just talking about, Mark.The U.S. normally shares intelligence about those strikes ahead of times because we have very sophisticated ways of knowing that those things are going to happen.and we provide sanitized versions of that intelligence to our partners.We have the duty to warn.
10:13And actually we do it not just to our partners, but to anyone that we have a relationship with.We have a duty to warn them that we know about an impending attack.We did not share that intelligence in the last 48 hours with Ukraine.This is a new development that I think is underreported or not as widely discussed as it should bebecause this is a conscious decision on a U.S. policy level not to tell our partner that they were going to be attacked,even though we knew about it.This was a very large attack on Kiev.And as you mentioned, there are Americans in danger of these attacks as well.
10:42So we were willing to allow Americans to be harmed and killed for this policy position.I mean, so Jonathan, you're a former U.S. military, correct?I mean, I was former CIA.Like, that makes me crazy when I hear that.I mean, what is your reaction to that?It is crazy.I mean, we have shared information with our non-allies and non-partners before about attacks happening to them, to our enemies.Have you ever seen something like this in your career?
11:06Yeah, me neither.that's the thing that that that's that's why I'm kind of throwing a fit about this with the congressionalinvolvement. I mean, obviously flailing for something, um, uh, to try to investigate what happened.Because I just, I mean, I've just never seen anything like this. It's, it's, I mean, I, it's hard to evenfathom that, you know, I mean, there's, you know, you can be a cynic about politics, but this issomething else. I mean, if I was at embassy keve now, I'd be like, what the hell just happened?And by the way, if embassy keve was warned and we didn't warn the American citizens in Ukraine,that's a massive statute, a violation of the statute as well.
11:38And if they had been hurt, they are possibly, you're going to law school.I think there are some possible liability issues.Like, it's nuts what happened.And I don't know if this administration is just incompetent and just did it because they, like Trumpand Musk talking about it, or if actually any lawyers at the NSC or someone like that actuallyokay this, because that actually is pretty wild as well.Maybe I tend to think they didn't do that because everyone's running away from this, becauseI think people realize this is bad.
12:04So everyone has disavowed this.Yeah.And, you know, back to the legal point, too, on especially the diesel sanctions, waivers and all this stuff.So when the Lindsey Graham Act was written and passed, the reason that it was able to pass on a bipartisan level is because of Section 115 of that act that gives the president the ability to weasel out of the act.So, Dee, that's your answer.There's no violation of the Lindsay Graham Act.No.And it's mentioned actually in the executive order, the third paragraph of the executive order, it's a very long executive order.
12:33It's a very long executive order, actually. It's longer than usual, which means they actually put some thought into it.That third paragraph says section 115 allows us to waive anything in this bill.And you remember, Jonathan, some Democrats were opposed to the bill. And they were opposed to the bill. And everyone's like, well, hold on a second. We've wanted this thing to pass so much. And they were opposed to the bill exactly for this reason.And so it turns out those who voted for it who got a lot of heat actually may have been right because they basically said, this is toothless. This is stupid. Trump's going to do it. And he did it.Yep. There was a loophole built into it from the beginning.Yeah. It sounds like par for the course for Congress, you know.But this is, but this was, this was, I mean, the cynics in everyone should say, like, again, so it became just theater.So this was not a very enforceable piece of legislation. It's not the original kind of Lindsey Graham bill.
13:21There are these caveats in there why the White House agreed to it, knowing full well they would do this.And, you know, it's actually interesting because in the South Carolina Senate race, this is now an issue too.I mean, Lindsay Graham's sister, who has been running around saying that, you know,obviously she's there to honor herher late brotherkind of hard for her to justify this and she didshe actually basically I mean it's justit's the whole thing is just so she has
13:45absolutely no fucking idea what the hell she's doinglet's be real you saw that debate clipyou know asked a pretty simple foreign policy questionand she balked out of like completelywhich you know I don't really focus on foreign policyI don't really have an understanding of foreign policymeanwhile Lindsey Graham's whole fucking thing was aboutforeign policy you know he didn't do a fucking thing
14:03for the people of South Carolinaline and let's be real.I'll add a little bit of an editorial.One thing that everyone, I think many Americans can agree on is that the Russians are notour friend and they have not been our friend.Even during World War II when we were allied against the Germans, that was an alliancethat was required for the time.That was not because we were friends.
14:23But Trump does not agree with that.Trump actually, that's where he differs so much from the majority of the American peopleand it seems to have gotten away with it.I mean, the idea that there was a Russia hoax, all of the.that is getting proven. I mean, it's getting disproven. There was no hoax. It's being disprovenbecause Trump has just outwardly turned towards Moscow. I mean, it's something that, you know,Ronald Reagan's rolling in his grave. I mean, and, you know, there's, we always follow all this stuffon social media. There is a group of pro-Ukrainian members of the kind of the Republican Party
14:55foreign policy class. And it's getting to be very hard for them. In fact, I mean, you know,the National Review. The National Review is probably the Bible.for the conservative movement.And who is it?Andrew McCarthy came out today and basically said Trump should be investigated for his tieswith Russia.I mean, that's pretty shocking.Did you guys see that?
15:15Yeah, I was going to mention that.And saying about like Congress should investigate this and see what's what.That's the National Review.Yeah, it's pretty wild.I mean, Congress won't do shit, but.I know.That's not me saying it.Crazy person from MS now, even though I'm a centrist.
15:32Nobody believes that, but I am.Not like Dee, who is a radical.leftist.We have an Antifa member on our podcast.But no, but it's the National Review for God's sakes.I mean, I saw that.I was like, I don't, I just hit like repost, not even a comment.Yeah.
15:47It was kind of crazy to see for sure.I mean, but I could totally see like, you know, the National Review types, the, you know,neo-con folks who are going to start bucking up against this, but it's going to fall on deaffears.They don't really have any kind of wasta in the Republican Party anymore.Well, I think what it's important is that.that, well, I mean, there's a couple things.So, yeah, it might fall on deaf ears.
16:10But it does go, I mean, it's, you know, it does go in line with this notion of corruption.And if you look at the opinion polls, we're talking politics now,diverging from foreign policy.But corruption is the biggest issue in the minds of voters.And so when you get to, hey, we want to have rapprochement with Russia for a business deal.And you have Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcroft negotiating them.And there are some of the basis of people's complaints about corrupt.I think it does tie together a little bit.
16:37And the other thing, too, is, you know, winter's coming.The Democrats win, you know, that means administration might not listen to subpoenas,but the congressional oversight is going to go into overdrive.And so, you know, all this stuff is going to come out.So if you're smart, I mean, you're, I mean, here's the thing to look at.And, you know, I had a gleeful two weeks of covering the Kim Gulfoyle,U.S. ambassador to Greece meltdown.And, you know, that kind of stuff matters because there's no way she would have survived anyhow, but she wouldn't have survived Democratic Congress.
17:11Howard Lutnik, I don't think he's going to stick around. Cash Patel might not either.You know, there's some people who there's just going to be, Pete Hegzath is going to get impeached.I mean, I'm completely convinced the House will impeach him, probably the first thing that they do.And so ultimately, you know, there's going to be some lot of unpleasantness coming.And so I think that, you know, some of these things, when the National Review comes out and says stuff like that, investigate Trump for Russia ties.We're getting down a road where I think that there will be some accountability.I mean, at least the beginnings of it.I hope so.
17:43Gone nothing.All right.I'm a centrist.I don't get political.Yeah, sure.You got political in the beginning.You basically said, you said Trump and whoever did this has blood on their hands.Yeah, it war is politics by other means.
17:56I mean, they do. And so, you know, there was something that popped up that drove me nuts this morning. Now I'm going to get Jonathan, I'm going to ask him. I mean, David Petraeus came out. Someone asked him on a show. Does Trump, I think it was Sky News, a British show. I said, does Trump have blood on his hands? And he was like, well, he kind of mealy mouth. Just fucking say it. If true. People are so scared. Just say, if true, yes. It's not hard to do. I mean, you can just point to the Americans who died in the Middle East during this conflict. They would not have died but for a presidential.action, a war action in the Middle East.There's a direct line to this.But even more so than that, because sadly, people die in wars and presidents start wars.This is a force protection measure that someone pulled.Yeah, I think actually the intel sharing thing is the biggest, like, exclamation point to me,although the throttling of the Starlink, all this other stuff, that's bad.But like, the fact that we deliberately did not warn American citizens inside of Ukraine
18:52of an impending known casualty event.to give them time to evacuate, to move, to do whatever, we didn't do that.And that is an intentional choice we made to harm Americans.Just say it.You did.If you were David Petraeus, I would be saying.Yeah, I don't get what David Petraeus is, I mean, I get it.He's a fucking talking about.
19:14Yeah, he's a talking about.More corporate boards than you could ever imagine.I mean, I have so many friends who have told me that they have to be very careful of what they say.They've been warned by their companies who have massive contracts with the U.S.government. They got to be careful, which is why I have nothing. I have you, Dee. Thanks. I'mabout to be here for you, bro. I have you. But, you know, but I'm serious. I mean, so, you know,and again, that's kind of unfortunate because we're supposed to live in a democracy andhave a right to free speech, but a lot of people don't feel that way. I mean, this goes back
19:44to the conversation that Mick and I went at a long time ago. I mean, aside from kind of Ben Hodges,who I love, there's very few former U.S. military generals who have spoken up, although Admiral McRaven has,which I thought that was very good.I mean, come on.What are we doing?And so, you know, this, and I understand the need, the desire to be apolitical in,in the general sense, but not in extreme circumstances like this.Like we are, this is a country that has a policy.
20:11We have a pro-Russia policy now.If you're a cold warrior, if you served in the, I just don't get it.How do you, how are you quiet?If you can't say something now, when can you?You know, and it's late, that's fine.And, you know, is my buddy from MS now, Joe Scarborough.says, you know, he's, you know, Baptist conversions, you know, we'll take them any time.Take them late.
20:30Come on the train.I mean, other people will be like, it's too late, but.Well, the thing with generals, too, like three and four star generals, those are politicalappointments.You know, those are advice and consent of the Senate, political appointments.And it's strange that suddenly after they retire, they are no longer political, you know,like the whole point of their position was to be a policy advisor on military affairs in variouscapacities.
20:51Interesting.It's almost like they have a duty to Americans to continue being in that.that capacity. They, you know, they were there. They owe us something, especially the price thatAmericans pay in war. They have a special duty, I would argue, to continue informing Americansgenerally because the Congress, which is the people, elected them through advice and consent,right? So, like, there's some remaining or lingering duty they have to stand up and actuallysay what's going on. I don't get it. Who is better positioned than a military general that actuallysaw what was going on behind the scenes to come and say, here's my interpretation of this thing for you,
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24:26Yeah, I'm excited about the sponsorship.So I really hope people go and check out there.Yeah, absolutely.Question.You guys spoke a little bit about what it would be like if you guys were still serving, right?What do you, what do you like if you're Ukraine or if you're another NATO or a European ally, what do you think in seeing this shit go down?And I have a follow up question too for Jonathan.I'm sure you can answer.
24:49Is Europe equipped to handle?doing the Starlink, Star Shield stuff, and for Ukraine to completely decouple from the United States outside,I have hopefully some still intelligence sharing.Let's do the first.I mean, I think we should.I mean, the overall question, not the capabilities part.Jonathan can handle that.Overall, they should, and they have.
25:12I mean, we're in a different place now than we were a year ago.In fact, the French have been providing a whole bunch of battlefield intelligence, you know, not as good as the U.S., but they're doing that.the Ukrainians in terms of their, you know, indigenous kind of industrial capability for dronesand other systems, fantastic. The Europeans are stepping up. I mean, I think, you know, if I was Zelensky,you know, do you want a total break from Trump? No, but he kind of did that because he's had enough.I don't blame him. And so I think the Ukrainians are close to being able to handle themselveson their own. And, you know, that's sad as a former, you know, U.S. government practitioner,but we're not reliable.
25:53We're not necessarily on the right side right now because with this, whatever this shift is.So my answer would be yes, shift.And I think that's happening already.And I think there's all, you don't see any panic right now.The Europeans are not rushing to kind of get on their knees in front of Trump that they did before.Mark Gruta, the NATO Secretary General is not rushing doing an emergency trip.I think there's a lot more like that, you know, this is this sucks.but this, you know, this is manageable.
26:24I think the part that's really unfortunateis there's going to be a lot of civilian casualties this winterbecause the Ukrainians have run out of interceptors.But that has nothing to do with the battle.There's a difference between what happens on the battlefieldwhere they're doing well and there are civilians,kind of, you know, the strikes that Russia is going to incuron civilians killing a lot of Ukrainians.
26:45But I don't think there's a sense of panic.Maybe I'm wrong, but I think there's just a different dynamic now.Jonathan, what do you think?Well, I'm thinking about NATO and about, you know, the question, can they defend themselves?And NATO, you know, was a U.S. designed thing to put a U.S. nuclear umbrella in Europe so that there wouldn't be nuclear weapons hanging around Europe outside of U.S. control.That's kind of the original intent of NATO from a realist perspective.And we have France, the U.K., perhaps Germany, other states with the ability to host or produce or use nuclear weapons in Europe now.And that was a major reason France left NATO back in the day.
27:24If you'll remember, NATO lost France and France rejoined.And this was over the nuclear issue about nuclear sovereignty per state.And I think Europe has long been kind of maybe not a cacophony, but at least a concertwith different people playing different instruments at different times, but they createkind of a symphony in their defense system where they're defending each other in various waysagainst various enemies, especially if you look at like the Napoleonic Wars and going back in historyabout how there was the first coalition, the second coalition, the third coalition, all these differentstates that were enemies coming friends.
27:55This is part of European history.And I think Europeans look at what is the threat right now?Can we fight that threat?I think the answer is yes, especially when you have Germany re-arming, reinvigorating itsdefense industry in Western Germany in the rear valley.You have France also doing the same thing with its aircraft, especially.You know, there have been long challenges with air superiority in developing an independent non-F-35alternative for Europe.
28:17and France and Germany both have been developing those alternatives well.And that's besides Russia-Ukraine conflict, that's been a European continental question since Brexit when the UK left.So there have been these long questions in Europe about how do we defend ourselves in case UK or the U.S. is not there.And I think that has just become more obvious that that needs to be answered in the affirmative these days because the U.S. is not there.And the U.S. can't even, if you look at the tension between the U.S. and Europe, the U.S. cannot even land a lands.answer on the continental European airfields because of our behavior and our relationship withEurope that we have designed for ourselves. This was not a outside issue. This was the U.S. creatingthis problem for ourselves. And now it's coming home to roost. And it's just underlining to
29:03Europe, minus the UK, that Europe needs to be able to defend itself if it has to. And I thinkstates like Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are essentially pushing the rest of Europe to say,please make sure that that's true.And on the question of low Earth orbit satellite direct-to-cell communication, this is not a fancy special technology.Any private company with the right capitalization can produce these low-earth-orbit satellite mesh networks and send them up into space.And especially, you've got a lot of European satellite communication private companies.You also have official state-level SATCOM capability that France and Germany especially can launch and manage.they could help Ukraine and they could help the European state, like the EU in particular.
29:49So I think this is less of a concern.It's more that the market right now has Elon Musk ahead of it.He has flooded the market with this technology, so he has the capability.But it's not precluding other states and other private entities with the right willpower to launch this.I would actually be more concerned and realistically concerned that China would launch an alternative as well.That's very cheap that Europeans would purchase because it's cheap.And then a Chinese-controlled low-earth orbit satellite constellation is now over Europe.And then in the event of an actual open hostilities with Russia, China would come to Russia's aid
30:23and essentially do exactly what Elon Musk just did in Ukraine.They would do it to Europe.This would be a bigger concern that I would have that would push me to tell the European Union to get your own indigenous satellite mesh network up there nowbefore China gives an alternative that you can't refuse.Yeah.And just for anybody who's, you know, because I wrote something pretty inflammatory on Twitter.No way.Yeah, me, yeah.
30:52I wrote that Trump's a piece of shit because he is.And some people were saying, you know, some people were coming back on me and stuff because there's obviously a lot of cult members.But let's not forget, like, Russia is actively providing Iran with, like, Intel and information and information.And where our bases are.They're not Americans.Right.So let's not, yeah, we're, it's real simple now.Like, you need to pick between good and evil.
31:17You have to pick aside.Like, is it, are you for Ukraine and they're fighting for their own sovereignty and freedom and democracy?Or are you for fucking Putin who's been in power for 27 years now?And who's, you know, trying to be an imperialist fucking scumbag.Like, it's a real simple, like, this shouldn't be hard.I mean, right.Right. I mean, it's just that's, but everything is thrown up in the air. I mean, the idea of a Republican president being from Moscow is, you know, Ronald Reagan's rolling in his grave. I don't know what else to say.We've also backed yourselves into a policy corner because this, the war with Iran, the way that we've prosecuted this war, we've backed ourselves up into this diesel price issue because we didn't end the war the way that it could have been ended.
32:04You know, we entered this lukewarm phase of tit for tat, which is just causing prices to run away.instead of either not going to war in the first place or having a decisive end to the war,we chose the third option, which is this middle option of just stagnation,which now we are stuck with the diesel price issue at the midterms.And that's causing these choices that the president is making that he otherwise wouldn't even be faced with.But, Jonathan, it's not even a choice.I mean, it's stupid.No one thinks it actually would work.
32:32The other point is that what he's decided to do on the diesel issue with Russia,actually, no one says actually would have any effect on diesel price.That's the crazy thing.I mean, it's, you know, so it's even just a bad, bad policy.Maybe it's designed to just waive all overall sanctions entirely.I think that's what the whole thing is.But the idea that this would actually have an effect on the price of diesel is nuts.And again, Ukraine war has nothing to do, as you said, with the price of diesel has to do.
33:01Everything has to do with Iran.One thing with, back to the Iran war, I was talking to someone yesterday.And it was, you know, there's obviously a line of thinking, Jonathan, you're an Iran expert. So, you know, in terms of, you know, we're in this kind of sort of, you know, I don't know what you want to call it a hot piece with the notion neither side wants to escalate before the midterms. But there also is a lot of kind of churn out there. And you see movements of assets. There'll be three, you know, about a week before the election, I think there'll be three carriers on.station, you do see an airflow of tankers going back to the region. And there was all thesereports that a course of action that has been briefed or will be briefed to the president has todo with this Moab, the mother of all of bombs, or basically, you know, is this giant munitionsused in Iran. And so what this individual was telling me was one of some of the concerns isthat actually the escalatory piece, even though neither side wants it, is not what we have all been
34:08talking about, which is a possible Iranian terrorist attack. The escalatory peace is misunderstanding.If the Iranians actually think that Trump will or may decide to strike before the midterms,that whole notion of not doing so goes out the door and they might preempt. And there is talk onthis. And if you talk to kind of people in the region, there, you know, people are speaking about aconcern. At first, I thought, that's crazy. Why do the Iranians do that? But they would do it becausethey actually may believe incorrectly, but they may believe that Trump might do this before theelections. And so now you have this, the escalatory piece is miscalculation based onsignals that are misinterpreted. What do you think of that notion as something to worry about?
34:53Well, it worries me because I look back to Abel Archer, 1983, which I encourage listeners to read about.That was the closest we ever came to a nuclear war with Russia.And that was because the U.S. was doing an exercise in Europe.And the Russians interpreted that as a first strike and almost launched a second strike.And the reason I bring that up is because, you know, key goals and intelligence, there are a couple of them.One of them is to reduce strategic surprise, informed decision makers, and reduce miscalculation.Because you just don't know exactly what's going on on the other side.So you have to make assumptions that are informed.
35:25but if you lack access, you're going to make poorly or less than perfect decisions, poorly shaped decisions.And that could be what exactly you're describing, Mark, because first of all, we lost our access to human intelligence sources inside Iran years ago.We're relying on Mossad, a second-degree actor to tell us things that has their own interests.So, like, that stuff's shaped already before it's reaching our table.We've gutted our own intelligence community.We've lost our ability for intelligence oversight that we used to have.There's less strict analysis going on here, clearly at the top, where,things that were low probability but possible are being interpreted as probable and being taken
36:01as facts, which is not a good intelligence analysis outcome. A lot of these things are kind offloating around, reaching a poorly formed NSC that's basically not functioning to a group oflike half a dozen individuals that are not intelligence professionals or career politicianscoming together and saying that sounds like a good idea and just doing it. That's on the U.S.side. Yeah. That's not to mention the Iran side, which is recently gutted involuntarilyover the last eight months, and you're left with people that perhaps don't have the expertise toeven think about these issues at all. Right. So now we have both of those sides in a perfectsituation to make a miscalculation, to make a misstep. And the problem is you could make one small
36:39misstep, but to save face, you have to do more things after that following it, even though youshouldn't and you know you shouldn't do it. And that's for both the U.S. and Iran and other actors in theregion. Let's say Israel, who has an election coming up in 10 days, right? So there's a lot ofdifferent actors ready to make a lot of mistakes. And I think this is a very sensitive time,especially bringing those aircraft carriers into the region. It does signal something. It sends amessage. That's what deterrence is. You know, the adversary has to know that the capability isthere. They have to know that you're willing to use it. And they have to know what it is andwhere it is for the deterrence to actually like be ready as a recipe to use. The problem is it can
37:15be interpreted too much. Yeah, that's right. The other side can look at that and say, oh, no,that's not just deterrence. That is a threat. And we need to do something about it. So there's a lot right nowkind of simmering and the temperature could be turned up very rapidly by accident.And so if let's say the Iranians are, if the Iranians assess we're going to strike before themidterms, they then try, they start making plans to preempt. We pick that up. And then we haveto then preempt the Iranian preemptive strike. I mean, so it's so easy to see that scenario kind ofcascading down. I just hadn't thought about that as much. I was more concerned about,you know, an RAF, you know, the terrorist attack against, like, the RAF base in the UK,
37:54if that succeeds, then it's game on. Because when you just think about it, the idea thatPresident Trump would actually strike Iran before the midterms is preposterous, politically.It makes absolutely no sense. And so, but maybe that just doesn't matter because things cankind of spiral out of control. We'll see. Well, there was even that,social media post that I don't know how credible it was the other day that said that apparentlythe Trump administration secretly asked Iran to symbolically strike pickax mountain and Iranpublicized the request and said no uh you mean Israel no Iran was going to strike their own their ownno we were like let us hit it let us hit it symbolically yeah yeah so the reason I mentioned this as
38:39oh that's funny that's what we've done that before with that's why I'm saying it is actuallybelievable because we've done it several times in the last five years. Actually, right after theSoleimani strike was the first time that was made public that we did it. And let them strikeAlasad Air Base. Like we've done it. We've allowed both sides to do this. Right. So this isn'ttotally incredible to me. I mean, there is some degree of possibility. God, cynicism. But that could also bethat could also be Iran signaling saying, hey, we see that you're doing things. We're trying topublicly signal that we don't accept it. Even if that never happened, even if the president of theUnited States never sent that message, they could be making this statement as an
39:14information operation to try to signal to the U.S. like, hey, we are interpreting what you're doing,and this is our potential response to that. And I should also mention that there was a,around a 30-page document that the IRGC published in English targeting U.S. voters that theyput out to try to make Americans read this thing. And it basically puts out all of the IRGC'spolicy positions about why Democrats should be reelected and should be elected during the midterms.It's kind of fascinating because it was written, it is by the IRGC. That's not like a U.S.made thing. But it basically says, like,If you can elect Democrats, this war will be over and so on and so on and so on.
39:47And it's just kind of an interesting thing.The way the information environment is being used right now is very fascinating to look at.You would think the IRGC would know better than to send out a 36-page thing for Americans to read because you know that they have a fucking Reddit.Yeah.I know, really?Right.Well, they're relying on us to interpret it and they listen to what we say.Makes sense.
40:04So here's the bottom line on all this.You know, I did a little corporate gig where I got paid some money to talk to some corporate clients about what I thought would happen in the Middle East.and I don't know if I was very good because I just said, I don't know. I mean, how do you put anypercentages on this? You know, there's so many unknowns. You have a wild card. You have wild card in theIranian leadership. You have a wild card in our office in our, in the White House. You have externalfactors like the Israelis. I mean, to assess this situation, I would just say, you know,just continue on with left of boom planning because, you know, it could happen. But at the end of theday, it's very hard to figure out, you know, what's going on here. And I kind of laugh when I
40:48hear people make some kind of strong predictions because that's just, you're going down a bad roaddoing that. Well, I actually was at giving a lecture this week. And one thing I mentioned was someoneasked the audience, you know, very similar question, like, oh, what's going to happen? How is itgoing to end? And I said, I don't know. Also, I don't know. But I said, there are no straightlines in nature. And when you look on a map, if there is a straight line on a map, like betweenIraq and Syria, for example, between Jordan and Syria, you can probably imagine that theconflict is not over yet while there is still a straight line on that map. Because that means thatsome third party put that line there. The people that have those countries did not draw those
41:25lines, which means there's some unsettled challenge here or challenges that is yet to beresolved. And until that is resolved, through violence, diplomacy, something else, you're going tocontinue seeing that. And I actually raised the issue of Libya and Chad, because if you look at theborder between Libya and Chad, it's hundreds of kilometers of a straight line over the desert,completely unenforceable at all. And there are many conflicts back and forth over this territorybecause it's an unresolved, imposed third-party straight line. There is no straight line in naturemight be the thing I take from this. I'm going to borrow this from Jonathan. Yeah, that's whycamouflage works. I like that. A little bit, not really off topic, but what do you guys make of
42:08the Israeli settlersbeaten the shit out of the foreign delegation?I mean, that's something that, you know,is continuously catastrophicfor Israel's reputation.The West Bank is out of control.I thinkin the Israeli
42:25kind of internal electoral dynamics,you know, there has beenpeople who I think have been very smartly condemning this,including the Israeli president.Netanyahu can't.And I think,I think that's what certainly ultimately just qualifies him as a leader.But elections are coming out and guess what just happened?
42:44Like, you know, you guys, I got the stink guy from Dee because my phone went off.Trump just endorsed Netanyahu.So there you go.So that's, I actually like want to turn my phone off right now.But, but no, that was egregious.And that can't happen.The West Bank is out of control.There is, you know, the settler terrorism there.
43:04It is, it is wrong.It is immoral.It's also incredibly stupid as support for Israel is cratering internationally.I mean, what else to say about this?And, you know, it was responsible, period.You know, you can't have vigilantes running around there.And so, you know, nothing else to say other than this cannot happen.It's simple as that.
43:25Horrible.I think actually using the word terrorism is actually great right now because who uses this word in the West Bank narrative?Look at who says this over time.it's very fascinating to see like when is it okay in the mainstream to call settler violence terrorism.There are moments in time when this is true and a moment when it's not true.Right now, actually, Ambassador Huckabee, not the most anti-Israel figure we have in the U.S.government, mentioned that it was terrorism.I thought that was a very interesting thing to see that he decided to say that publicly.
43:58And also the opposition party, the main opposition party to Lakud is calling it terrorism.as are former defense ministry individuals in Israel that are not running for office.So there's a lot of vocal opposition in Israel to this behavior.And again, remember back in 2023 before October 7th, there was a lot of opposition to exactlythese types of policies that enabled West Bank settler violence to happen in the first place,especially with Smotrich and other fellows that were very pro-West Bank settler behavior.So I think that's kind of, you know, what do we have 10 days until the other?election there.
44:34Nine.I think the nine days.These things are not fortuitous, you know, this has been going on for a while.And the fact that it's only now becoming a controversy is kind of sad.Well, they've been beating up Palestinians, which is horrible.But now they're beating up foreign diplomats in CNN.Well, they also, they also beat up an American citizen journalist that had journalists onher shirt and broke her arm and broke her back.
44:55Yeah.She's in her 60s, I think.CNN crew.Yep.So that's, yeah.Yeah, we'll see what happens in nine days.I mean, if you, if you, if you,you know, I think the future of U.S. international support for Israel is at stake.
45:08They've got to get this shit under control.What are the polls looking like?It's very complicated.You know, who knows?I mean, it should be a referendum on October 7th, but the Israeli electorate certainly tilted towards the right.I mean, it could be kind of a, there might be a requirement for coalition governments.I mean, if, so we'll just, you know, we'll see.I don't even know if we're going to find out that next day or not, but it's going to be close.
45:33And let's, I mean, the reason why I was distracted is like, now I was thinking, like, all right, what does Trump's endorsement of BB actually mean?Now, Trump is enormously popular or was enormously popular in Israel.B.B. has been desperate for this endorsement.But, you know, we'll see.By the way, what the fuck is the U.S. president endorsing foreign leaders for?Like, my head's going to explode.But anyway, I mean, we're so fast.I mean, this isn't exactly like a normal American president.
46:03I think that's safe to say.What are we doing here?Are you kidding me?Yeah, I think that's totally.I mean, I try to wonder what you guys would be thinking like work.And I know you mentioned it a little bit.I would have resigned.I would have quit.
46:12Really?Yes.I could not serve this government.I'm sorry.People could be pissed to me.You know, now I would not say that if I was a, you know, a GS-12 case officer.But in a position I would have had right now, it would have been very senior and I could not have done that.It's just you're too close to the totem pole.
46:30And so people don't leave because they say we have to try to protect.the institutions, but I think at this point, I could not represent us at a senior level.What am I supposed to say? Because, by the way, if you tell the truth, you know, it's going to getback to Washington. Yeah, and you're lying, your interlocutors are going to think you got a dick grownout of your forehead. Now, if I was a, you know, a just, you know, 11 or 12 case officer on the groundin XYZ country, I'd put my head down and probably try to keep going. But at a senior level,the level that I was, I would not, I would have retired. And that's why all my friends have retired.everybody's gone.
47:03I mean, it's not, I don't know anybody essentially who's left.And when they leave, there's a giant sigh of relief because this is just completely,and these are, these are, you know, three quarters of these people I'm talking about have voted Republican their whole life.Yeah, I mean, they're working for the CIA.Jonathan, what would you have done if you were still?I did retire.I mean, I retired the very day that that started.So, and I was overseas.
47:28Yeah.Well, I mean, the thing is like, when you're sitting in a room,when you're saying, why are we doing this?And the we includes you making the policy execution choice.That's when exactly this decision that you're talking about, Mark, has to be made.Because there are lower level guys, like, you know, when I was a staff sergeant in Afghanistan,I would say, like, why are they making these policies?But there's a time when it's not they anymore.
47:49It's we.And that's a blurry transition period.But there is a time when you are there at the table and you're actually making that execution choice.And that's when you have to make a decision.Like, am I part of this problem?Or I'm going to step outside of it?We used to be the good guys.I mean, I hate, you know, listeners, viewers are going to hate this.
48:08And we can be in the future.This is a, this is a giant anal war on the United States what's happening right now.Dee likes that, don't you?The view of the anal work.That was a good analogy.Yeah.But, and it can be cured with some.Ointy drugs.
48:26But, you know, so we can get back to the idea of American exceptionalism.I mean, you know, there's things that we can do in the future to, you know, it's going to take a while to build back.But, and this could be under a Republican administration, but we've got to get over this current one because this is just beyond the pale in so many ways.Yep.So there's going to be a lot going on over the next week.I'm sure this story is just starting out too.Also an interesting little fact is they put out the Trump administration did put out the executive order or like the press release for the executive order like on Friday afternoon, which is like take the trash out day.So in terms of like media.
49:02No, D, though, I'm retired.So I never pay attention to those things.Every day is kind of a Friday afternoon for me.Yeah, that's true.That's a good point.Yeah, I don't know.Also, what day is today now?It's Sunday.
49:11I got to go pick.I bought a new suit.I actually, I didn't have a suit.I have to go to a couple of weddings coming up.So I actually bought us.I gave away all my suits when I retired.I went and bought a suit.Well, now, yeah, you lost weight too, so you got to get something nice and custom made.
49:24Yeah.So I'm very excited.I'm going to go pick it up in the mall right now.Also, fun fact, Mark did pay for our lunch at Vienna in the other day.I did.I did.Because me and Jack were down in AUSA.I went back yesterday too.
49:38I placed rules.I was very impressed.I loved it.I'm a former restaurant guy.So like once you see a restaurant that's packed at 12 p.at noon on a Wednesday, I'm shocked.You know it's a good restaurant and people are going to it.Yep.
49:53You saw the hat.I wore an Afghanistan up on the wall.Yep.We got a couple.I think we got a couple little bling on the courtesy of the, uh, theV.I.They gave you some T-shirts to walk away with.Right.
50:02And that's the.Vienna in hat I've always had.Yeah.Right there.But I think, but the,they give you a free t-shirt too.I know.I felt,
50:10I felt appreciated.There you go.All right, boys.Anything else?We did it all.All right.Do us a favor.Check out John's books.
50:19Right there,Shadow weapons and the Theory of a Regular War.Those links are in the description.Mark P., of course,all those links are in the description.Go to Patreon.Patreon.com slash the Teamhouse.And that's it.
50:31Thank you, guys.Thank you guys.Hello, everyone.If you're hearing this, you are not a member of the Patreon.You can get your hands on ad-free episodes that come out early.And you can ask us questions.Maybe we'll answer them.You can also watch the Teamhouse podcast completely ad-free and early.
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