The Team House - Putin's Gaslighting & Gaza's Nightmare | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

In this episode, Dee, Mick Mulroy, and Jason Lyons discuss the recent unprecedented attack by Ukraine on Russian military bases, the implications of this event, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They delve into the complexities of arming militia groups in Gaza, the challenges of countering Hamas, and the future of U.S. military presence in Syria. The conversation highlights the intricate dynamics of international relations and military strategy in the context of current geopolitical tensions.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comFind 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/Bluesky ⬇️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-OperationsBluesky ⬇️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_appBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social00:00 The Unprecedented Attack on Russian Military Bases09:54 Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza20:28 The Complexities of Arming Militia Groups28:38 The Challenges of Countering Hamas40:23 The Future of U.S. Presence in SyriaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Mick Mulroy, Jason Lyons. I feel like we need to make a T-shirt saying a lot is cooking because it's always the seems to be the case. There's nothing like a boring kind of week between times where we speak. Most recent, obviously everyone's very much aware of the incredible, unprecedented attack Ukraine put on like Russian military bases that trashed at least 20 plus of their bombers, AWACs, I think, one cargo plane.

Just, I want to talk a little bit about that just because of, like, the reaction that came out of Moscow and Putin's particularly where, like, this was, like, an egregious terrorist attack, which is, Matt, mind-boggling. Like, you know, Putin and Russia regularly bombed civilian areas. in Ukraine, the country they invaded, they don't really miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to kill citizens and civilians, people that are non-combatants. I want to talk a little bit about that, just like the absolute gas-like nonsense that comes out of the Kremlin where, like, they play the victim. Like, it's incredible. It's like probably what it's like being in an abusive relationship, where it's just like,

you know, you're living in a la-la land, you're living in an absolute fantasy. world with the person you're dealing with. So I don't know. That's, I don't know what, I have no question here, nothing. Make, go ahead. You take the lead. You're the professional here. Well, first of all, greetings from Nairobi, Kenya, the birthplace of Homo sapiens, and

Tusker. So anybody who's ever spent time in, uh, in, uh, Nairobi knows Tusker. It's a great beer, great beer. So two good things come from, well, at least one good thing. from Kenya. Humans, I guess we're still. Jerry's still out on that. Yeah. Jerry's still out on us. So I would say incredible operation. Like the ability to set this up is going to be studied by intelligence agencies and special operation forces forever. Yeah. It's not only a super intelligence driven operation, but the infusion of technology, the infusion. The infusion

of low-cost technology to have massive billion-dollar impacts, I think will be studied forever. Not just for us to do it, but the fact that most modern militaries are extraordinarily vulnerable to these type of attacks. If it could be done there, it can be done in a lot of other places. I've seen some people say, oh, they shouldn't have done it because now they're not going to have a ceasefire.

I would only say, look, man, I don't know any any adversary in history that didn't fight back hard to ever get to a place where they could have a ceasefire that's in their interest. Ever, right? So laying over and playing dead with a country like Russia or any country that decided to invade you is never going to work out in your benefit. So will they escalate? Yes. Will they attack civilians? Yes.

Have they been attacking civilians since February of 2022? Yes. and they're doing it again. So we saw a massive barrage, 450, I think it was 400 drones and 50 crews and ballistic missiles. And about 400 were intercepted. Kudos to the Ukrainian air missile defense folks. That's impressive. But it's also important to point out, as you pointed out, Dee.

They targeted primarily urban centers, which are civilians. Yeah. So the terrorists in this are clear. if you attack and kill civilians, odd purpose, for your own political reasons, and this is obviously a political reason, the taking over of country, you're a terrorist, right? So if you attack an airbase, strategic bombers that are sending cruise missiles at your country, you're not a terrorist, you're a military. So that's clear. That's just the basic definition. And I do think now it's really incumbent on the supporter of Ukraine, Europe and the United States and others,

because there are others. We usually mention them, but don't forget Japan and other countries around the world to do, to double down on supporting Ukraine. They've showed they have the tenacity, the willingness, the competency, the competency, the innovation, to fight a country that's way larger than that. And basically fight it to a standstill. If you look at the map a year ago and look at it right now, it's not changed that much. Russia's losing 1,200 casualties a day, upwards around, I've seen as high as 900 of them, fatalities. So they are in barely making any progress. If the U.S. and Europe and other countries were to double down on our security assistance, they could turn the tides here. And as we start cutting off economically, Russia through secondary sanctions and anything else we can do, unfreezing their assets to give to Ukraine, that would, and I'm like a broken record on that because

quite frankly, I'll stop saying it when it starts happening. Yeah. But that, that needs to happen. And I think that would be the quickest way to end this, which, you know, my concern, I'm way more concerned about Ukraine, just to be blunt. But it's also good for Russia. I mean, they're going to lose an entire generation of men. I think they already did, right? The what 700 and I think the British, the UK intelligence puts it over 700,000 casualties, over 200,000 fatalities. Just to put that in perspective, we lost 58,000 fatalities in the Vietnam War, the entire Vietnam War. So this is not only good for Ukraine, the West democracy, the U.S. is standing in the world as a leader of the free nations. It's good for Russia, particularly the ones that are being used as complete fodder to try to take ground

that essentially amounts to nothing. And nobody cares about it. They literally go out there with no training and no equipment and they're just getting butchered. So if we collectively, we be in the international community, we want to end this, that's what needs to happen. The Ukrainians have showed they're willing to fight and fight as hard as it takes to win this thing. And Dee, going back to your statement as well, too, we need to think about who we're dealing with here. Putin is, he is one of the masters of manipulation, so he knows the key words to use. He knows it's not terrorism, but he also knows that using those words will look good on the international states to his sympathizers and

to most or some of his people. I mean, it's been used on and off over the years, you know, since the 70s, you know, when terrorism really became prevalent. But definitely after 9-11. Like, almost every autocratic

leader has used that word to further their own agenda or to make an excuse for something that's happened within their own borders or something that they have done. we're, you know, we attack Ukraine because we're fighting terrorism or some shit like that. So, yeah, it's all about optics. You know, they're never going to admit that they just got caught with their pants down.

True. So this is a long way from over. The other part I go in is it looks like the Russians are potentially preparing for a major attack on Kharkiv and Tsumi, some analysts that I talk to think it's more of a faint, and they're going to focus, actually going to focus more on Donbos. But I guess for people's general idea is they realize that they're not making the gains that they want. They're going to throw upwards around 125,000 more troops at this, which I'm sure will include North Koreans and potentially even Chinese, at Ukraine.

So we're going to see this intensify. We're going to see more civilians get killed and potentially, see some more territory get taken. So we need to be prepared, I think, not only to maintain our logistical supply line, but increase it, because that is one of the biggest challenges right now. The modern battlefield, especially modern battlefield of Ukraine, is keeping up with the logistics supply, you know, 105-5 artillery rounds, for example. We've proven that we in the West just don't have the manufacturing capacity to keep up with the munition requirements in a, you know, a peer-on-peer type conflict, a modern conventional conflict. It's something that we have to

address. You know, we keep going down the same roads, buying these really, really expensive weapons systems. And I, you know, I mean, we talk about aircraft carriers, but there's more than just an aircraft carrier to talk about where we really need to start looking at how this war's playing out. And it is, it is like modernity to the max, you know, these crazy, inexpensive drones, but it's also a version of old school World War I tactics and trench warfare. Yeah. It's trying to keep up with artillery rounds. It's both. It's both. And we should be studying, I'm sure we are, but we should be studying this left, right and center and all the special operations forces and tell special operations, military special operations, I hope we're

sucking in all this information. information in in updating our tactics, techniques, and procedures and our ability to fight the next war. Yeah, well said, hopefully they are doing it. And they can implement it fast. You know what I mean? Like not just take it from like a white paper to like actual practical, functional shit, functional stuff. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I want to tell you guys about the sponsor for today's show.

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Moving on, it's interesting. Like, do we call it, like, I guess the Middle East and Israel and what's going on there with in Gaza, Lebanon, like there's so much happening. I don't know where we want to start. I guess we could start with, like, there's a humanitarian aid-like flotilla heading towards Gaza. I think they've arrived at Egypt near the Gaza, Egypt border. hopefully I don't know what's going to happen are they going to be allowed in like Mick I'm sure you have more of a handle on what goes on there

and how you know the Israelis IDF takes their security like I don't know if they can just allow like a big ass boat to come in with like Twinkies and and whatever and food and supplies and stuff to just roll in probably not so this is not the first I was reading somewhere it's like 30 going back to 2008 the kind of flotilla I think this is only one festival, but have tried to get in there. Only five were successful. And I think in 2010, there was a confrontation with the Israeli Navy and that results in the death of nine activists. So hopefully that doesn't happen.

You know, the criticism is it's a publicity stunt. Right. You know, you could say that. And you could also say that a lot of protests against. against what they believe to be human rights violations could be viewed as protests, right? Or publicity stunts, right? Right. The civil rights marches, the sit-ins, and, I mean, we'd never call on that.

So I'm trying to be fair. I don't really have a position on it, but I'm just saying that some people's propaganda stunts is other person's genuine activism. So those people believe that humanitarian aid should be getting into Gaza. That I certainly can't agree with. Yeah, I don't think. Right. Yeah. This is more symbolic.

I mean, it's one ship. It's not going to include that much food. But I think the point is to get attention. You know, speak for those folks, obviously. But it's not just food. It's clean water. It's medicine. It's, you know, hygiene stuff.

It's all sorts of stuff. stuff that needs to be going in. It's not. This could be an ugly confrontation. I think I saw that they arrive on Monday. We'll see. Hopefully it doesn't end up with any violence. And I doubt they're going to let them, there's his naval blockade for all of Israel. So they'll probably intercept it. They might detain the people and impound the ship. But I think from their perspective, they're trying to get the attention on the issue. But let's just say it really is hard. deserves, yeah. In my opinion, you know what I mean?

Like feeding people and giving them medicine, I'm game. I'm in. Like, sign me up. And wasn't it like a month, two months ago, maybe more than that, that a, another ship that tried to get through was hit by a drone,

allegedly an Israeli drone? Yeah, I think you're right, Jason. And I think they have drones flying over them right now. I saw a report that Greta Thunthobert, Thubberthur? Thunberg, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she was doing an interview and they could hear the drones.

I don't know if they were Israeli or other countries, but yeah, this has ended up violent in the past. Let's hope it doesn't again, and I think we should all take stock on the issues that are going on in Gaza, which is we've got almost the entire population in phase four, IPC, phase. Phase 4, which is acute hunger, and then close to 500,000, including over 70,000 children are in Phase 5, which is a catastrophic hunger. And the only way that's going to be resolved is major humanitarian aid delivery, which is, I mean, I think they're actually the humanitarian sites are closed right now, if I read that correctly, and even when they're open, there was only one or two.

There needs to be like 300. If you talk to the people, and you know, we've worked there before back in the Maritime Quarter days, the World Food Program will tell you they need to have like two to 300 and spread out around Gaza because some people can't move. Some people are disabled. They're injured. They can't get to, you know, the one place in southern Gaza, you know, below Rafa. This needs to hopefully change. I have a lot of empathy and sympathy for the Israeli people, and I hope Amos all burns in hell, to be frank. But you can do, I think you should be able to do both.

You should be able to take the fight to the enemy, and you should be able to feed hungry, innocent civilians at the same time and make sure that they get the food and medicine they deserve. I was going to... Fuck. I lost my train of thought, which is part normal. I'm going to cut this out, make me look as smart as possible. the other part that's

was in the news this week is Nanjahu arming random gangs in Gaza I don't know if you try to say me and you

are mind meld that's what I wanted to talk about yeah yeah yeah yeah there's you want to ask

a question so you can start no I'm not gonna actually cut it up no I was like a joke yeah

yeah yeah yeah I'm not gonna yeah just say yeah yeah that's a way to do it man you just roll

yeah just rock and roll bro all right so there's a group I think they're called Al-Shabaab,

or that's the name, the guy's... No, his last name. Abu Shabab is his name. Abu Shabab. I'll remember. It's like freedom group or something like that.

It's a gang. It's caused a lot of consternation in Israel as it should on the left and right. You know, they're trying to arm this group. They're well-known for popular,

popular group. They've also eluded the hell out of aid convoys consistently, and they turn around selling selling the food at really high prices to, you know, the same civilians are supposed to care for.

So they're not good folks. They're really not good folks. They're opposed to Hamas, but, you know, Hamas, at the end of the day, it's a terrorist organization for sure, but it's a gang,

and this is just another gang. So, I mean, I think we can all get the concept, but the problem is it's going to further destabilize Gaza. It's going to cause more death and destruction, and who the hell knows if they don't turn on you, right? I was just going to say,

now you're creating your next operation. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what Israel did before, right? When they armed this armed group that ended up being Hamas against Fata, right? Like, isn't that what they did in, like, the 80s? So it's called Freedom Group Gaza al-Shabaab. It's nice how he gets his name in there, too. It's smart.

You got a brand, right? Yeah, Shabab means a student, I think, in there. Yeah. Or boys. Yeah, like Al-Shabaab, if you think of Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda affiliate, in Somalia. It's like, they say it's like a cross between

the young men and students. So his name is Abu Shabat. It's interesting too, like, Netanyahu came out like defending that they're doing that. You know what I mean?

Like, I guess it got out and he just went out and started like spinning for, you know, arming these guys. Um, I guess anything is better than Hamas.

I'm sure they're not like, fucking, you know, peace loving, amazing people. No, they're taking advantage of their own people right now. I'd say the alternative would be, and this is something international community could do other than just

set out tweets, is to actually build an internal Palestinian security force, a police force, not a military, police force. They can vet, remember, just in Gaza alone, there's 2.2 million people. Only 30,000 people were Hamas. And now I'm guessing it's around 10,000. So there's a big pool to, to go from, that you could train. You could vet first. You have to do a lot in selection,

vetting, making sure they're not attached their terrorist organization, train them as police officers, so they can both secure the population and prevent gangs from taking hold or taken back hold. That's something international community you could be doing right now. You could be, you know, ferreting people out, training them in another country, maybe Egypt, for example, and then getting them back in there so that the IDF can eventually withdraw. Because if I was in the Israeli security cabinet, I'm not withdrawn if there's nobody that's going to take my place other than Hamas. So I think the international community would say would be well served by becoming involved in that. Apparently, Secretary Blinken tried to get people to donate to a multinational force.

They said not only no, but hell no. So that the only thing I see left is other than private security, which is not, I think, a long-term, answer. I think Palestinians want to be basically run by Palestinians, and they want to be, look up and see a police force of Palestinians. So in order to do that, we have to vet them and train them and get them back in there and get ready to replace Hamas, which hopefully gets quashed entirely. Man, that's a toll order. It is. It's ways your, way to God's sakes. Ways to set them done. I mean, you can train them in Gaza, or you can train him in the West Bank, I guess, and send them in to start like a rotation.

Yeah. So it's, yeah, taking them out of the country, that is just problematic. I get that as a guy who trained a lot of partner forces. But you could also train them there, train on the West. Yeah. It'd be hard to train them there. It's in the middle of the war zone, right? Yeah.

But there has to be a solution that leads away from a permanent occupation of Gaza by Israel, which is where it is going right now, for sure. And I think we can all agree, even if you don't agree with them, Israel doesn't care what the rest of the world says. If that problem isn't fixed, they're going to stay. It's going to be a permanent occupation, no matter how many flotillas you sent it. Freedom flotillas. Yeah. So what's the aim of arming this militia group or this criminal gang group?

Is it just to like fight Hamas? That's the concept. That's it. Yeah, they take and they're permanent. But then you could end up with a group that's completely undisciplined, criminal, prove that they didn't care at all about the civilian population. They were stealing food from them, right? So that can't be the new police force.

Or if it is, you're in trouble or they're in trouble. So I think, yeah, again, it's easier said than done. But if we don't actually start focusing on that, I don't see an end in this. Even if we get the humanitarian aid turn back on, what should happen. There is no place to live in Gaza. There is almost no functioning infrastructure. The water is completely contaminated and it doesn't come out of the taps. There's no power.

There's no way to grow your own food or raise your own livestock. It's just completely decimated. So there has to be security. They have to quash some moss, security. And then there's going to be a $50, $60 billion international effort to reconstruct Gaza. And that's at a time when, you know, humanitarian aid, developmental aid has been cut around the world. So it's a, it's a, it's challenging. Right.

Another bit that happened this week. UN Security Council vote to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Everyone voted for it except the United States who vetoed it. We all know the fucking UN. is basically symbolic at this point, right? Like, even if they did pass accounts a resolution, who's going to enforce it? They're not going to.

They need the United States, or they need a European, you know, union to get involved and, like, build a coalition. So the fact that they're just, it's a symbolic thing. Like, I don't understand why we need to act like Israel's proxy in the Security Council, man. Like, I'm going to be honest.

I know people might say it sets a precedent. It could open up, you know, other avenues in terms of being able to sanction Israel and stuff like that. But like if we're not going with it, like going to go along with any kind of sanction, what's the harm in not vetoing a Security Council vote? So I think from the U.S. perspective, they don't want to put pressure on Israel to end the war before Hamas is destroyed. Right. So that's what you're calling for. You're not, it's not a resolution to increase humanitarian assistance, which, again, as you can tell,

I would support. Not that it matters to my support. But it's to stop the war. Right? So just stop fighting completely, entirely. Hamas is still in existence. Right. So that's, I think, what the perspective is the United States right now, is that we don't want to put Israel in a position

where they have to stop fighting before they believe they've successfully degraded Hamas to a point where they're not a threat. Perhaps they will come back and say, we need to have a resolution to allow adequate amounts of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and then I would hope the U.S. would support that. Sure. But to your point, Dee, I mean, it's, if you, I think we're going to talk a little bit about Lebanon. You know, one of the reasons that Israel wants to go into southern Lebanon and push Hezbollah to the Latani River,

one is because they keep attacking northern Israel, but two, it's a UN resolution that they're not supposed to be south of the Latati River, right? And that was past many years ago. So it is symbolic in the sense that, you know, nobody's going to actually go and force it. But it does give clout, I think, to the, I think at least political clout, to their argument. But ultimately, it doesn't make things actually happen if the countries that supported aren't willing to military. militarily back. Jay, you got anything? No, I mean.

All right, so I got something. So the whole idea of destroying Hamas or decimating it to a place where it's no longer functional, feels like that's a bit of a pipe dream. Because, like, even if, like, they'll just fucking rebrand. Like, you're not, I know if I'm, I'm trying to see it if I was in Gaza right now. I'm a young kid, 16, 17 years old. I see my friends dying, people dying. I'm going to be pretty pissed at Israel, man.

Not going to lie, which is likely going to make me join an extremist organization against Israel, right? You guys have been doing it. You've done it, right? You've done coin. You've done by with and through. Try to figure it out hearts and, or they don't even do coin. But you've been there where it's like the things that we do or the things that Israel is doing in Gaza will not, I think, make them a past. classified population.

I feel like, you know, at least a small subject of, a subset of the males there, at least, will be extremists who are ready to fight forever, generation after generation after generation. So I think, like, what, I think Israel really needs to ease off the, like, we have to destroy, you know. Because if they pulled out right now, right, and let's say Hamas reorganized and they still had 15,000 or so soldiers and infrastructure. Israel won. I mean, the place is fucking destroyed. Like, it's destroyed.

I don't know what winning looks like, but it's a disaster there. What's the difference if the name is Hamas or the name is whatever, you know? Al-Shabaab's freedom group. You know what's the difference? No, good point. Good point. I mean, one thing about coin, and you're right, they don't even have a manual for countering insurgency. is you've got to be careful that your military actions don't just make a bigger problem.

Right? You go heavy-handed in. You kill people that shouldn't be killed, and you might have killed four militants, terrorists, whatever you want to call them, and you just created 40, right, because of how heavy-handed you were. That's something we learned for sure. So it's not that we're perfect. It's just lessons we've learned.

And it's almost impossible to defeat a philosophy. So I think if you're talking to military, the weapons, the tunnels, their arsenals of missiles, you can quantify that and you can bring it down to a level that would make it very difficult for them to be a launch attack on Israel,

which is never going to be, I don't think, unprepared again. But they're going to regenerate fighters because everything you just said to. So I think the long-term way to change that is economics. Basically, poverty, and a belief that there is nothing for you in life

is what drives basically young men to join groups like this. We all know that's true. And when I first joined, one of the older paramilitary guys told me the most dangerous animal in the world is a young man with no job in an AK-47. Or I guess in our case in M-4, right?

Or M-16. But get the point. Right? So it's going to, and again, it's way easier said than done. So I'm not, one, I don't think I'm saying anything that's a revelation to anybody. But it has to be a combination of that. It has to be a combination of defeating them militarily to the point where they're not the biggest threat that they were before. And then changing the perspective of the people that live there and give them a future. You know, ultimately young men all over the world, they want to get a family, they want to get married, they want to have children, they want to provide for their children. They want to protect their family. They want to protect their friends' families. You've got to give them that, I think. And that's going to be, and we can't look to Israel to do all this stuff. It has to be the international community.

And it's tough, right? Because we have collectively decided to spend less money on crisis areas like this around the world. And at the same time, we're talking about a $50 billion program to rebuild Gaza, which I think should happen. But this is taxing to the rest of the world. world. So it has to be, I think, both military effort, followed by a substantial aid and developmental effort that changes the perspective of all people in Gaza. But we all know that the terrorists are young men, essentially. And we got to change there. Yeah, I agree. I think that this needs to be a multidimensional approach to take Hamas's narrative away from them. Like,

why can't we why can't Israel and the world state the world powers why can't we say yes or why can't they say yes we're going after Hamas and we're going to go after Hamas but we're also going to allow aid into the country not shoot at those aid convoys and not kill first aid first responders and at the same time build that police force that you just talked about because now you're taking all of the the words you're taking everything the narrative away from And if they, instead of focusing on bombs and bullets, and that's all the world sees that Israel is doing and some of those land and most of those land on civilians, say, look, we're doing all of these, these multi-pronged approaches. And now Hamas has nothing to use for their propaganda. That's right.

That's right. So we solved it all. We just need $50 billion. Yeah, that's all. We got to, we're going to have a go for me in the bottom. Yeah. All right. Moving down to, oh, quick question.

You guys are the military and strategic experts, right? You've done this for a long time. Wouldn't it make more sense to really degrade Hamas? Is if you were to back out, have them kind of reconstitute, form up, get on communications, like map out what they're about, what their structure looks like now, and, like, systematically take them out that way, which we obviously know Israel's very good at. rather than, you know, 50,000, however many troops down in Gaza, bulldozing buildings, and, like, trying to get into tunnels.

I think that would be the plan if they pulled out, too. But right now, I think they occupy around 45% of Gaza. Their goal is up to 75%. So there's five divisions right there now, and I think they're moving in tens of thousands more. So this is far from over. And I think there is some truth behind the idea. And I think, more importantly, Israel, he's believed this.

Netanyahu doesn't want the war to be over. Right. He's concerned that his, you know, the war's over, he's out of power. They held him accountable for this whole thing in the first place. And then he'll face all the... Corruption stuff. Yeah. And that's a pretty crappy way to keep a war, for a reason to keep a war going.

And, you know, I know a lot of Israelis, got a lot of Israeli friends. And I, and a lot of, I'm not going to name them. A lot of them are military people, and they all believe that. It's anecdotal. I didn't do it. I didn't do a survey. Sure. But, and that makes a lot of them mad.

And the other part of this, obviously, it pales in comparison to the crisis for the Palestinians in Gaza. But Israelis are tired of this. I'm talking, like, reserve is to be called up like three or four times. They put their entire life on hold. They can't even get out of college. They should have been out five years ago. I mean, it's like, it's really, not five years ago. But it's, you talk to them, and it's like, oh, and then most of the fervent,

you know, far right people, they don't even serve, you know. So, like you talk to the IDF, but they're like middle of the road people, you know, and they're like, what? You know, I'm not making light of it, but it's a big challenge in Israel. That's why there's this whole thing of making, you know, the ultra-Orthodox serve in the military, which you're exempt. Yeah. You know, a lot of the people that actually serve are middle-of-the-road folks that I think would want to see this bore over

because they're the ones fighting it. And they're taking a toll. It's taken a toll on the next generation of Israelis, for sure. So I think hopefully there's enough pressure that brings this to an end. And of course, the hostages need to be. The other part about this is Abbas could have accepted the damn offer. Yeah. Right?

60 days. Humanitarian aid, 10 hostages released. They want the permanent, they wanted Israel to agree to permanently withdraw before they even agreed to turn over all the hostages. Think about that one. So they don't get, I mean, there are terrorist organizations, so I guess we can't hold them to hope too high of a standard, but they should have accepted the offer by the United States to have a ceasefire.

If they cared at all about, which they don't, I think it's clear, about the people of Palestine, the Palestinians of Gaza, they would have accepted that offer, even if it didn't mean that Israel had agreed to a full withdrawal of forces. All right, sticking in the region, a different country, though, Israel hitting Lebanon in the last few days or so. Mick, what are you tracking with that? I know they try to say it was like a Hezbollah kind of like a drone manufacturing plant or something like that. That's right, dude.

They said it was in his Iranian-supported drone manufacturing facility. that they hit. They also said that the Lebanese armed forces, which we've worked with for a long period of time, and they're a good military for the, you know, in that region, are not moving fast enough to replace Hesbola positions in southern Lebanon. So that was part of the November 24 ceasefire agreement. So Aune, the president, who was a former head of the laugh, and somebody, the U.S. historically has a very good relationship with, particularly the Department of Defense, myself included. He's in a rock and a hard place. It's very difficult to disarm a militant group in your country that essentially, you have to look at the numbers,

but it's almost in parity with the laugh, right? It's not just some fringe, you know, militant group. It's a very heavily armed, even though Israel did a hell of a number. against them. So this could kick back off. It really could. And this would not be good for Lebanon at all. It wouldn't be good for Israel. And I'd be fighting full on in another front.

And it would destabilize the region even further and make it less likely you would ever get to a conclusion in Gaza. So it's something to watch. I think a lot of people took their eye off it because of the ceasefire, which was good. And right now the U.S., I think have stopped all at least high-level diplomatic visits to Beirut because of it. Because of like security concerns?

Because they don't believe that the Lebanese government is moving fast enough to implement the ceasefire agreement. And disarm has blown. Right. It's wild to me, man. I mean, also what's going on in Syria as well, right? Like Israel's bomb in Syria too. They're itching the bomb Iran, too.

It's like, how many fronts can you? you really have. And that could be coming. And, you know, you're seeing more and more reports, media reports, on the difficulty of actually doing major damage to the Iranian nuclear program. It's important to point out. I mean, I think some people think it's just like pull the trigger and it's all over. And it's gone, poof, yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a very difficult military challenge. If that was the case, it would have happened already. It would have been done already, right? And now you're seeing reports, like most people are familiar with like Istafon and Natanz. I used to know all these.

But those are the, for the folks out there, that's the Iranian nuclear facilities. That's right. That's right. For the areas. It's another one. You hear these names. And then there's a new list of names that it just came out in the media that, you know, that they've been building that we didn't know about apparently.

So it's not only hitting the right ones. It's hitting all of them. It's being effective. I think some of them are up to 800 meters under the ground. Fordow, I think, is one of the most fortified. But, again, like I said in other episodes, I'm for the military option if it's the last option, but people just have to realize it's not going to be one and done.

And I don't think Israel can really do it effectively without the U.S. it requires those massive ordinance penetrators, the GBU, like 57 Alphas and Bravos. And I think we're the only ones to have them, and I think we're the only ones that aircraft. And even those might only set them back three to six months. Yeah. So it's like...

I don't think I'm telling any secrets here, but those are giant, huge, slow-moving planes, which means we have to take out a lot of air defense to use those things. So we're talking a lot of death and destruction on the ground just to be able to bomb these facilities. So it's a big decision. It's not as easy as some. Even senators seem to think it is like, oh, hell, let's just blow them up and we'll be done with this.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you need to go get a brief in the Pentagon. I think senators just want that sound bite. You know what I mean? Like, that's all they give a shit about. God bless them. you know they just want that sound bite and like look how tough i am on iran and there's really nothing that there's nothing behind that it's a mile wide and an inch deep there's nothing

and once you get a little bit inside of it there's nothing there so hopefully they can come up with an agreement but there's going to be a lot of pressure because it's starting to look like the 2015 jccdioa you know where they're allowed to enrich uranium to a low level and people are going to be like but what the hell did you get out of it for that? Like what was this whole from 2018 to 2025? What was the whole thing about? Right? And so they have to make it.

It was political. Politically, they're going to have to show it's different, or they're just going to get a lot of criticism. I don't think Trump cares. He might not. And frankly, I think Trump's bulletproof enough where he can get a very similar agreement, if not a carbon copy, and we'll play it off as a win. and his followers will, we did it, you know?

So he's got kind of that cover in terms of like maybe people in Washington will be like chirping and stuff like that. And the Iran Hawks will be upset like the ultra-Aranhawks. Not like you, Mick, you're not. I wouldn't put you right there. Yeah, you're not. No, I think you might be right. They're part of it's a sales amount. I'll do the political salesman stuff, but it exists.

And if he can sell it as a better agreement and he got to win. I mean, ultimately, I think we should all hope for a diplomatic solution, not a military. Sure. I wouldn't take it off the table, but it could escalate in ways that people don't understand. Right. And it's not in our best interest. Mike, I got a question for you. What are your thoughts on, like, us pulling out of Syria a lot of our bases and stuff like that?

Like, we're tracking our force on the ground there? So, you know, that's been, this debate has been going on since I was in the, you know, when Secretary Mattis left. I don't know if I guys ever told you that, but I was undergoing one of those treatments for men when they hit 50, you know what I'm talking about? You know, they check your under regions. And I came out, I came out of that. Back then they used to put you under. And the doc was like, got bad news for you. I'm like, oh, you find something?

He goes, no, no, no, you're fine. Your boss quit. I was like, what? That's the doc that tells you that? Yeah. Secretary Mattis resigned. So we've been going, and I bring that up, yeah, kind of funny story, but we've been talking about the full withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria all the way back to

that. It's like 2017 or 18, 18, maybe. I think we're still to a point where Kooli. heads prevail and the politicians understand that it's one of the most effective partner forces we ever had, the SDF. And I've been involved a lot. I wasn't really involved in them, so I don't feel bad saying about it. I was not tooting, you know, my own horn here. God bless all the folks in the military and the agency that put that force together and supported them. And then, of course, especially the SDF themselves, which did 90% of the fight and a dying.

out there to defeat ISIS and ensure it didn't come back. So I think what happens is ultimately people go, you know, we have very few people on the ground. We're providing key intelligence support, operational planning support, and some maneuver support. And we are able to do all these things that we would normally have to send in multiple divisions of Marines and Rangers, right? And J-Soc and such. or soldiers, I should say. Yeah. And I think people understand that eventually, and that's why we never leave.

We haven't left. Even now they're talking about it. And then they said, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's pare down a little bit and I'm on a lot. And now there's actually some discussion with the new Syrian government for them to agree to keep U.S. forces in Syria. So that's a switch. So there'll be like a status of forces agreement. or some version of it, where U.S. forces can stay there. And from my perspective, it's important that we do for the defeat of ISIS.

It also counters Iran, which is on its back foot in Syria right now, way back foot. It counters Russia, which is also on its way back foot. It's good for the United States. We don't have people directly involved with the fight. It's, of course, still a war zone, but we're not the primary. fighters and we support them and I think I think we should continue that so that that is the current status last thing I saw or spoke somebody about is we're actually working with the the government in Syria to formalize our presence on the ground and I think that's in our interest yeah

interesting uh it'd be interesting to see I mean it's wild how like enemies become like partners and stuff like that uh it's very interesting I mean I get it like HTS is a offshoot of al-Qaeda they hate ISIS so I guess let's work with them it's obviously more complicated than that this guy wants to be a statesman and stuff like that but I would even say a trust but verify he's a verifying verify

my book he was he started al-Qaeda and Syria and he was obviously our enemy but he's saying the right things and doing the right things and the last thing Syria needs is a a renewal of the Civil War.

So if he proves to be honest on his inclusion of everybody, his adherence to basic human rights or human rights of general, and he has an election. That's going to be the big test. I have an election. I have a Syrian people.

Can we make a bet? Let's take futures. Bet a Tusker? Yeah, I'm in. I'm going to say it's a negative on that. And if it is election, it's going to be like, bullshit one. What are we talking about?

He wants to be the boss. I get it. Who doesn't? We need more presidents in the world that are actually presidents that are actually elected by the people. Not just a self-declared title of president. Yeah. Anything else?

Tickling your fancies? I think we covered a lot, man. I think we're good. Yeah. I want everyone to do us a favor. I want everyone to go. If you're interested in checking out these guys go to their links in the description they're all there uh check out fogbo lobo from mick nchild soldiering dot org awesome incredible uh organization fighting a fight that needs to be fought so um anything else andy milburn of course we miss him dearly uh check out his book

when the tempest gathers link is in the description if you want to support the show best place to do it is patreon dot com slash the team house that link is in there's the description as well. You get both the team house and eyes on geopolitics absolutely ad-free and you get it early as well. And yeah, that was just great, guys. Thank you. We'll be coming to you next week from Juba.

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