The Team House - Terror Plot Stopped Near RAF Fairford | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

We break down the suspected plot near RAF Fairford, the growing use of criminal proxies for covert action, and what the incident could mean if investigators ultimately tie it to Iran. We also discuss the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, China’s role in sustaining Iran economically, pressure on Gulf allies, and whether Washington has lost sight of the nuclear issue.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseJack's news outlet:⬇️https://thehighside.substack.com/Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️Jon's Twitter:https://x.com/jonathanhackettJon's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettJon's books:https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettTwitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackettCheck out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQYoutube:https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find 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/Whitefish security summit ⬇️https://whitefishsecuritysummit.comFind Marc P here:https://x.com/MpolymerFind 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-Operations00:00 – Start00:37 – Five Men Arrested Near RAF Fairford02:17 – Was Iran Behind the Alleged Plot?05:40 – How a Local Tip May Have Stopped the Attack07:29 – IRGC Warnings About RAF Fairford12:35 – What Was the Intended Target?17:17 – How Iran Recruits Criminal Proxies for Covert Operations21:07 – The Gig Economy of Espionage & Sabotage23:56 – Iran, Hormuz & the Latest Ceasefire Maneuvering28:01 – China Is the Key to Economic Pressure on Iran32:48 – What Could the U.S. Offer China in Return?39:20 – Why Washington Is Holding Back on Tougher China Sanctions42:53 – Iran & the U.S. Settle Into a Dangerous Stalemate47:37 – Can the U.S. Still Protect Its Gulf Allies?50:01 – Iran’s Internal Crackdown & the Cost of the War53:07 – What This War Is Teaching the U.S. About Cheap Weapons55:13 – Has Washington Lost Sight of the Nuclear Issue?59:18 – What to Watch Next in Iran, Yemen & the GulfBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

All right, guys, we're back. Eyes on Geopolitics. A lot happening as usual. I'm here with Jonathan Hackett, Mark Polymeropolis, Andy Milburn. The big news that's breaking right now or it's been breaking over the last, you know, several hours is five, five men caught near, God, what's the name of the base? I had it to. Fairford. Hertford.

Fairford. Fairford. Thank you, Andy. Fairfoot. I can't understand you with the accent. Gloucestershire, not Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire. And that's obviously where the U.S. Air Force houses B-1Bs and B-52s and stuff like that. We've been using it for the Iran operations as well.

We still don't know exactly who's behind it. There's a picture release of the five guys on a curb. I'm assuming that's been confirmed that that's actually them and not like a bullshit picture. What else? There's a bit of like back and forth in terms of what was it intelligence related that like we tipped them off or maybe MI6 or whoever tipped off authorities to. catch these guys or was it like a public report somebody called in and saw some suspicious vans called in and the police got them large barrels have been removed from the vans for examination

army eOD disposal teams have been examining the vehicles and uh they've they cut off like 400 meters they evacuated like 80 some out houses in that in that village right next to the airbase and uh so people twitter is a light with this so where do you guys want to start what are you guys hearing is or anything new popping off. Let's go Mark Pete. So a couple things on this. Obviously, I think for a lot of us, Iran, would be the likely culprit. The photos and the individuals just don't read too much into that. They seemingly are accurate, but don't forget the Iranians, just like the Russian MO,

this is the intelligence organs, are, you know, cracking out their kinetic operations to criminals and other gang. So just because someone looks like something, people are under arrest, you can't tell. I'm getting hints from European intelligence officials that it is, on, but no one is willing to confirm this. I would think that the British are going to be sharing this with partners. And so I think that probably the British know a good deal right now, but they have to be exceedingly careful because this is obviously an act of war on British soil. And so, you know, they got to get it right. And so they're smart too, and the British are pretty professional on that. I mean,

you saw the UK Prime Minister canceled all his meetings. This is really serious. Now, you know, we're speculating a little bit, but I think that, you know, there was something that occurred there. And I think all of us have said many times that, you know, the Iran war is not over. And part of the toolkit of Iranian intelligence would be operations like this. So it would certainly not surprise me. I think, again, lots of speculation. One other quick point on this, you know, a lot of us very frequently while we use X, we kind of criticize it. In this case, the open source world, I think there's a lot of really interesting information to be gleaned from this.

And there hasn't been actually irresponsible reporting yet. And so, you know, as when there's a crisis like this, you do actually end up following the Oson sites. And so I think there's something to be said, as we all love to criticize this. But the last point is, is, you know, assuming there will be attribution, boy, it's going to be interesting to see what the response will be. I mean, the U.S. is already striking targets in Iran conceivably could start again. There will be huge pressure on President Trump to immediately do so if this is the Iranians. But what about Europe? There's been so much controversy in Europe about their support or lack of or kind of behind the scenes support to the U.S. effort in Iran.

You know, on one hand, if this was an Iranian sponsored plot in the U.K. that could have killed a lot of people. There could be anger amongst the UK public. On the other hand, it could also be the opposite reaction, like this is what happens. Because the bottom line is, while there has been a lot of kind of hoopla over European states not supporting U.S. military operations, the fact is they have, even in countries like Spain and Italy. And so the debate in Europe will be, will be raging. But if you thought the Iran war was over, assuming this is the Iranians, clearly it hasn't. And the last piece, too, you mentioned, you know, was this intelligence driven? Was it, you know, just some little old lady in the side of the road?

I mean, it could be the notion of, you know, that we all, all those funny slogans you see all the time, you know, see something, say something, put something in. You know, maybe some little old lady, you know, drinking her tea, you know, 70 miles northwest of London. may have saved a mass casualty attack from occurring. Well, it'll also mention if you've written the subway or the tube in London recently, you'll hear them say, see it, say it, sorted. And that's kind of their way of saying, see something, say something, or eagle eyes in the military, the U.S. military. There's all these programs where we're always encouraging people.

If you see something weird out of baseline, say something about it, because you're the one that saw it. Nobody else saw it, right? So it's kind of that problem where if someone's having a problem on the street, let's say they're having a heart attack, and everyone's just kind of standing around like, oh my gosh, she's having a heart attack. You need to point at somebody and say, hey, call the police because the observer effect is a real problem where people don't realize that they are actually the one that has the power to do something about it. They think somebody else with more qualifications will do it.

And, you know, as a counterintelligence agent, usually I'm not the one out there actually seeing this stuff. I'm operating off of tips that other people have sent in. And we're going to go look at that stuff. So it's very important that people see something. They do say something. From somebody that I've been speaking with in the UK, they've noted to me that it was. is a woman who's lived in this village, Wellford for 30 years. We saw at 12.40 in the morning vans staging.

She said, we don't have vans in our village, and she called the police. This may or may not be totally like exactly what happened, but the person I've talked to is pretty credible. So I don't doubt it. The issue with intelligence generally, as Mark was mentioning with Ossent or any other types of stuff, in the intelligence community, we never typically give a yes or no answer. You know, if a higher up asks, is this attack happening? We don't typically say yes or no.

We talk in probabilities. We talk about, you know, we've seen these different indicators and warnings of things happening, taking all these together, we have this likelihood that we've assigned to this thing probably maybe happening. I think that's important here too, where we and the outside are seeing a lot of indicators and things in social media and other places, we can never say for sure that X equals Y. And I think that if we do say that X equals Y in this case, we're making a mistake.

And instead, we should observe the indicators that we're seeing of, you know, these vans are in this location, there were black drums in the vans. Five individuals were arrested. They have a particular appearance. These are all indicators. These are all pieces of material that we can kind of put together and we can never really have a perfect answer. And there's another piece, another indicator that's important to me as someone observing this,

is that the IRGC back in July issued a warning about this specific base. Right. Because this base is the U.S. 5001st Combat Support Wing headquarters and the 420th Air Base Squadron, which hosts B-1B Lancers. And if you remember all the way back in June of last year when we were striking the nuclear facilities the very first time, we were staging in other locations. around like Diego Garcia, for example, we had 15 lancers there that participated in the strikes. The UK was a place where some of this was going on.

The Iranians didn't like that. They've issued numerous warnings. But in July, it was a specific warning about this specific base, right? So that's another indicator to kind of put on the map of, you know, there's things pointing in the direction that this could be Iran sponsored, Iran directed, Iran led, perhaps. And those three things just mentioned, sponsored, directed, and lead are all different levels of involvement. You know, just like remember with ISIS, there was ISIS inspired attacks versus ISIS directed attacks, right? So this is very important as observers, as educated observers, to look at this and kind of continue questioning it. Even as we get more material, we have to continue questioning the...

The only thing I would add is, yeah, I mean, it does look, who knows, but it does look from reports on the BBC and even the president that it was, say even the president, because at first he said working with, you know, UK intelligence week, But then in a comment afterwards, he said, yeah, I think maybe it was Scotland Yard. But in the UK media, it's reporting that it was indeed a local reporting suspicious activity, three black vans. So, you know, that's a great point. And the, you know, the US presence in these airfields in the United Kingdom, as you all know, has been long term. It's been since the Second World War. It's always been controversial.

Do you remember in the days of Greenham Common? And, I mean, during the Cold War, there were massive. demonstrations outside US bases against, you know, the fact that there was suspicion of nuclear weapons being stored there. But by and large, you know, I'm not saying this because I'm half British, but by and large, you know, both population and so the governments have been very supportive of the US presence and not covered in the news, but covered, you know, Mark just commented now. Yes, the UK was a platform for these strikes, B52s, B1Bs, and also, you know, and

And also, of course, and Mark will know better than it. Mark and John, of course, know better than the rest of us or the rest of us, a conduit of, a continuous conduit of intelligence, you know what I mean throughout. Last thing, last comment I make, Mark made a really interesting comment about, you know, what if it had been successful? What if there were civilian casualties? What would the reaction be? Well, it's difficult to judge a public reaction, you know, as a counterfactual. But I would point to the fact that, that, you know, if you remember 7 July 2005, there were bombings. Islamists backed bombings in London on the tubes resulting in, I think it was 150 deaths or so. And the reaction far from being, you know, this was a known goal, we should now disengage, was to be absolutely supportive of the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan. And that support, you know, the reaction to British public, again, I'm not just saying this hard British, but you have to go all the way back to the Blitz, right?

You know, bombing, civilian, inflicting civilian casualties has had the opposite effect. Same thing with the IRA. You know, the honestly, the, probably the views of the British public about Northern Ireland were, hey, just cut it the fuck loose, you know. We don't care about it. until the IRA started bombing London in the 70s. And then there was that increased support for the campaign, support for Operation Banner, for the troops, and a feeling that, hey, no, that's part of the United Kingdom and fuck the IRA. So, yeah, these, I mean, obviously this wasn't intended to wear away at civilian morale. It looks as though this was intended as an act of sabotage.

Can I ask a question to you guys to Jonathan and Andy? So you have these vans with explosives. What would be the intended target? Would it be the actual aircraft? Would it be just getting onto the base inflicting mass casualty on U.S. airmen who are there? You know, I know that's speculating. And I would imagine that the U.K. security services may have the actual plans since they have these individuals in custody. But what, and for both of you, knowing the security at some of these sites, let's say they you know the little old lady hadn't reported in and they they have these explosive laden vans you know what are they trying to do well that's a that's a really good question i was thinking about that i was thinking the only way this made sense is if it was if they were planning to use

a breaching you know one or two vans to breach their way in detonate at the gate and then the others drive in onto the runway because i mean obviously you can't with a security on these stations you can't simply just drive through. That's the only thing I can think would make sense. And some of the Osen sites had the B-1s actually parked in the open. So presumably that's what they were thinking. Yeah. So there's actually precedent for something similar to this, not the same organization, but in Afghanistan 2012 September, there was an attack on Camp Leatherneck. And this was three squads of Taliban fighters that were able to actually cut the fence in a very sophisticated way to breach the fence. This was when Prince Harry was on the base as well, which was advertising

the media. That's why they chose that date to attack. They had the plan for a year. They were waiting to use it for a spectacular moment. And these squads had multiple goals. It wasn't just one goal. What they had were actually phased goals. If they made it past the first objective, they would continue on with the understanding that they would die. So the goal first was to strike aircraft because those were closest to the fence. So they put some dynamite in the fuel tanks, blew those up, exploded some fuel bladders after that, kept fighting across the airfield, and their final destination was Prince Harry's tent, which was inside the Danish-controlled area of the base. And so those were all phases, and they knew they probably wouldn't achieve the final one, which was the Prince Harry strike. But that was okay,

as long as they actually entered the base. And after interrogating the only survivor of that, we learned that their goal was just to enter the base. That would be enough. If they could strike and kill, that was great. But just entering from their perspective was a success, because it meant that they were able to do something against the Americans there. So if you look at the map of Raft Fairfield here, the way the place where the Wellford village is at, it abuts right up against the fence where part of the aircraft have to turn and come on after they've approached. So this is an area where they might get lucky and hit a Lancer. They might get lucky and hit something else. They might kill some people. These are probably all goals that belong to the same

plan. And it probably wasn't a singular objective. Instead, it was, you know, make the Americans look bad number one, which by breaching the fence and entering the base at all would make the Americans look bad. It would also make the British look bad because British security is there for the exterior of the base as with any host nation airfield as well. It's also a British military base. So that would make the British generally look bad because they entered a British control facility. So there's all kinds of things here that they could say were the victories and instead they were stopped before achieving any of them, which is good. But lucky. This was not an intentional thing where we had, you know, for months we've been tracking them and we knew the vehicles and the, you

know, like the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, we only learned afterward where those vans came from because of the VIN numbers printed on the axles. Right. Right. So it's a very similar situation where we are just lucky to have found an indicator and stop it. That's a really good point just to make, because this, if we had penetrated this cell, they don't even get close to having explosive laden vehicles within a couple, you know, miles of the base. This thing is taken down far, but, you know, there's no way the British security services would allow that. And so I think you're right. I think there was just, you know, there's a lot of kind of dumb luck involved in a little old lady. God bless them. Yep. Yeah, and that's the thing is if you look at this, the fence line there,

the place that they were entering, like, if you look at this military, like from a planning perspective, it is the weakest point of the base perimeter because there is a forest and a village nearby. So you can get easy vehicle access without being noticed because there are roads. So people are on roads. That makes sense. Then there's a very thin stretch of forest and then the fence and then the aircraft, right? So you don't have to go through any buildings. You don't have to go through any gate entry or anything like this. If I was planning this attack, this is a great spot to enter the base. Do you think it's important that let's say there's a debrief of this cell?

And I think what you'll probably find is that these are not IRGC terrorist operatives. It's probably their MO of recruiting gangs or criminals in doing so. Is that enough to kind of pin it on the Iranians? Let's say we don't have signals intelligence that says it's ordered by the IRGC leadership. There's no IRGC officer who's in custody, just but the. these criminal gangs, with some kind of loose nebulous tie back to Iranian intelligence. You know, is that going to be enough for attribution? Because I think this is where you start having these analytic arguments. And sometimes I fear that because of the lack of high

confidence on some of these things, then we don't take necessary measures afterwards. Right. Usually with these type of things, they're handled remotely. So they'll use some kind of encrypted messaging app outside of the country to recruit, task, train, equip the these folks. Usually they'll find them in kind of the dark reaches of the internet, whether that's on the dark web or on some feed, like on Telegram, for example. There are some channels that some individuals are in that the Iranians are watching and they say, okay, this looks like a person that they either need something, they have some motivation to do it, or they'd be just open to it for other financial reasons and things like that. Remember money, ideology, coercion, and excitement

are the four extrinsic motivators that people like to press those buttons. Telegram has a lot of those people with those buttons. We've seen it in the United States where the IRC, a Kutz Force officer, to Hells Angels, Canadians, had them infiltrate illegally into the United States to try to assassinate Masiolinajad in New York City. The FBI luckily was surveilling her apartment, so they caught that before it became a problem. But this is a common tactic they use because it's a denied area for them, which means they can't easily operate on the soil. So they're going to use either remote communication, which is growing more and more common these days because it's cheap and safer, or they're meeting them in third country locations, tasking them in those third country

locations and then sending them on, which is how it used to be. And that's less and less these days, because it's, first of all, it's easier to detect. Like Singapore used to be a great location for that. Singapore now has biometrics everywhere. And it's very difficult to do the kind of things that Singapore used to be used for. So the regime is looking at this and they're saying, well, I'm going to look at telegram. Maybe one out of the 10 people I've been selecting will bite, but that costs me very little. That was very safe for me to do. And that's okay. And it's okay if they fail because the attribution is so difficult that it's okay. It's all right that we spent $1,000 or $2,000 or whatever on this operation, $10,000. None of our officers were implicated.

That's great. But the Americans or the UK look bad because there was a security incident, right? Yeah, and the fair aspect to the fact that now resources will be focused on rare area security, greater resources. It all detracts from focus on the campaign itself. Well, I'll tell you one thing, Dee. There's some smart dudes in this chat and it's not me. Or me. I know. Hey, guys, I got a roll. I got another by Mark. Love y'all. Tell the

bulwark guys, I say hello. I'm not. I'm not doing a bulwark pod now. I got to do something else. Dee, you've got to pay Mark more so that. I know, I know. I got to sweeten it. I got a sweetening He's getting pulled away from by commercial lure of CBS and other channels. Sorry, Eminet. No, no, not true. Not true.

Look, look, I, you know, I'm loyal to my old friend, so I'm still here with y'all. All right, guys. Thanks, Mark. See you. Bye, bye, bye. 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 team house. podcast completely ad free and early and you can also watch it live as we interview our guests And it's the best way to support the channel so if you can if you're open to it you can go to patreon com slash the team house that link is in the description We appreciate the supporters and we hope you would consider being one so it's patreon.com slash the team house Thanks guys

It's interesting too because like we did have a couple of podcasts talking about like the door or dashification of like, you know, terrorism or not even that, like BDA assessments, like hiring people out, gig economy workers. You know, we talked about the China and how they're doing that on LinkedIn with the fake companies and trying to recruit, you know, former analysts or whatever to try and, you know, get some secrets out of them. And it's, it does smell like, you know, there's easily, you plausibly deny it, right? Like, there's enough deniability there for Iran.

Or, you know, some people are saying it could be Russia maybe too, because obviously Russia has a sustained sabotage campaign across Europe. So, yeah, it's an interesting, please. Yeah, and the Russians, ever since the poisoning scruple, right, the poisoning in Salisbury, when was it, 2016, 2017, the ever since then, I mean, those who are GRU guys, but ever since then, they've been using proxies throughout Europe, locally, local hires.

So it does seem to be the trend. And that's the definition of covert action is the activity is not necessarily hidden, but the sponsor is not obvious. And like you said, D, it could be Russians. It could be Iran. It could be somebody else. It could be something we didn't expect, right? So that's what covert action is. So this looks a lot like a covert action until we figure out who it was and the sponsor is revealed.

It could still be a covert action that we just figured out who it was. And Scruple was 2018, just for the audience. Oh, that's three years out, two years out. Yeah, and as far as what is happening in the war itself, I mean, it's been a quiet week relatively, hasn't it? I mean, last week were the strikes on Saudi Arabia, but we still seem to be in a bit of a lull. I know the Saudis have been bombing Yemen. The French and the British have reached out to the Saudis to offer help. The French with air defense, they've got a small ground contingent up in Yambu, which is a port on the red sea.

It's the port that, you know, it's the tip, the western edge of the pipeline, right, that was pumping oil across the width of Saudi Arabia and was hit by the Houthis last week. I don't know yet if it's been repaired, but the French have sent air defense and air defense unit up there and are also offering help, I believe, escort. help in the Red Sea itself. But other than that, it's been relatively quiet. Well, there was some chaos last night, along over the last day or so in Hormuz, right? It wasn't Iran shooting anti-ship missiles at boats being escorted by the U.S. Navy.

Supposedly, there was reports of them putting mines in again in Hormuz. Barack Raviv, take it as you will, would say that no ships were hit at all. Iran's news agency said 19 ships were hit, so I'm assuming it's got to be landing somewhere in the middle of that, you know what I mean, or in and around that. And that calls with what happened within Iran send the U.S. terms for a ceasefire to start talking again, and supposedly Trump said, no, bueno, today he was asked, and he said that they're probably going to start talking again.

So God knows, you know, what the thinking is there. I don't know, and I get it. You need to puff your chest out and be. like, no, we're going to keep going, but we do have the midterms coming up. I also, I would assess that a lot of what we're seeing this week are tactical moves by both sides because of the UN discussions going on. So first of all, Iran does not want to be denied access to the United States to go speak at the UN, right? Which has happened in the past during the first Trump administration.

We rejected the visas of some of the UN delegation from Iran, which we're not supposed to do because the Vienna Convention of 1961 and the UN Charter, but we did anyway. So I think they're trying to be on their best behavior so that that doesn't have. right now because they need to have that kind of pulpit at the UN to be able to say what they want to say. Posashkian made a speech at the UN downplaying the violence against Iranians back in January, but also trying to kind of dance a fine line with the U.S. So that was a carefully choreographed set of behaviors, I think, leading up to that speech so that he could have that speech. So that was kind of tactical choices this week, I think, in how Iran decided to act, including

offering that ceasefire term restart. That was probably not for the U.S. That was for global consumption. So that when Iran's up there speaking at the U.S., they can say that they've been trying hard, you know, especially with a short memory of observers, they can say we've been trying hard this week, even, right? So I think those were probably why, those reasons are why they've been behaving a little bit. And I think that behavior is going to go off a cliff soon on both sides, especially if this attack was planned on purpose in the UK. Let's say it was Iran. Let's say it was planned and it was supposed to happen at this time. Not a coincidence. It would have happened right after Iran spoke at the UN, so they don't need to be

at the UN anymore. They've left the country. right so these are those kind of things to think about within the tactical thinking of you know diplomatic and military action at the same time yeah we're really in the position though of what more what more can we do that we're not already doing right and iran knows that doubtless i mean the pot keeps simmering the longer the pot keeps simmering i mean who knows if it is indeed the the irgc's goal to extend this beyond the midterm neglections but certainly they're aware of the fact that this war is domestically unpopular. And we're in the ironic position, as we discussed on this program, being very, you know, having the world's most powerful military, but being almost impotent when it comes to forcing Iran to the negotiation table. And I agree with you, John, that the solution is going to be ultimately economic. I mean, that's the only pressure that Iran's rulers right now appear to be aware of.

But even then, that's, you know, it's touch and go, right? I mean, whether we really are bringing the necessary pain to bear on the decision makers to get them to negotiate. Well, the problem is China. And this week, we had an official state visit of Xi Jinping to the United States, which President Trump received him on the tarmac, which is not a usual double. diplomatic action to do. Typically, the protocol officer in the United States will meet the head of state. The only time we've done that is for the Pope and Vladimir Putin, which was also Trump. So this is another interesting move here where clearly we, we the government, are trying to be

obsequious toward China, perhaps to achieve some behind the curtain objective with Iran. And as we saw, Xi Jinping got a state dinner, which was like heavily negotiated and was a very contentious state dinner to plan because the U.S. clearly wants something, but the U.S. has also been behaving as an economic bad actor toward China. And China has done the same to the United States, of course. But that means that we have to play nice this week during this meeting with Xi Jinping because clearly Trump is trying to not only get something about Iran with the sanctions, because that's where the sanctions need to be put and to be enforced is between Iran and China, because that's the weak point, right? That's the leak in the boat is China, the gaping hole

in the bottom of your hole is the trade with China and Iran. And also the price of the pump is very high. The price of goods is very high. All these things have something to do with China trading with the United States. And it's important for the U.S., even if it's not publicly declared, to reach some kind of dayton with China here in this week. Because the elections are coming up, as you mentioned, Andy. I was just driving in the South Carolina area this week. All of the local elections are going on, right, because of the midterms. Every political advertisement I saw was related to gas prices, which is very interesting. All the billboards had something about, you know, before Trump, the price was this, after Trump, the price was that, or just a picture of a gas pump with a high price

on it, you know, and it would say something like, is this who you want in office? So, like, clearly, the gas price issue is affecting Americans domestically. Iran knows this. China knows this. These are domestic levers that those two foreign powers can use to push to force the U.S. government to make concessions that they normally wouldn't make. But the U.S. has to also think about that from a security perspective. So there's a lot probably going on behind the scenes this week, not just with the U.N. speech was going on, but also that state visit of China and the United States going on. Yeah, so, you know, I was looking up, said it's relatively quiet. It has been relatively quiet, but I mean, the straits are still closed, and there was a single, there's been kind of a track,

it says track has recorded a single transit in the last week, right? I don't know if that's correct. That seems incredibly low, whereas before the daily average was 85 ships going through. There have been two merchant ships attacked in the last week. One was off Oman and a crewman killed, 27 injured. And another was an Indian vessel near Kesham Island, so further in, further within the Straits. But interestingly enough, no one's claimed responsibility for those two attacks. I mean, it may obviously pretty obvious who it was.

But the Iranians are not saying, hey, it was us. And then, you know, as we touched upon, Wikoff met Iranian officials this week, or not last week, right, at Unger. And the Iranian proposal was that hostility stop on every front, including Lebanon and Yemen. And those, you know, the war still continues in those two areas. I mean, even today, as I mentioned, the Saudis have been born in Yemen. And that the U.S. releases more than $1.2 billion in frozen assets,

lifts oil sanctions, and ends the blockade. And then on day seven, right after the U.S. has done that, after Israel and Saudi Arabia, we've agreed to cease hostilities in those two places. Day seven, Iran reopens Hormuz. So it may well have been the timing that caused the president to reject that is unacceptable. Well, also interesting to point out that if you remember, the very first negotiations that occurred during this conflict, when there were all these leaks about the proposal between Iran in the United States, the number one thing on that list was ceasing activities in Lebanon and Yemen.

Yeah. So they seem to be pretty consistent at what they're requesting. Yeah. John, or Andy, I got a question about like the summit with or like the state dinner, right? We're trying to like, you know, loop them up to okay to maybe, you know, really actually not support Iran as much anymore. And like maybe the sanctions aren't doing the job because we seem to be like kind of, kind of, balking on the secondary sanctions, the economic doomsday and all that, what are we offering them or what could we offer them in, you know, in place of quitting support to Iran?

Well, remember that China also has around 700 sanctions on individuals and entities from the United States from Treasury. So those are things that can be removed. We also have tariffs on Chinese goods, which can be lowered. We have some less favorable trading relationships with China currently that are costing Chinese manufacturers a lot of money. For example, last year, after April's, what was it called the, I can remember what it was called like Freedom Day or whatever it was last April. When all these tariffs came on, suddenly Chinese manufacturers started moving factories to Vietnam and other countries so that they could evade that the tariffs and they did. So that was very expensive for them to have to do. So perhaps the U.S. could say like, okay, if you move back to China, we won't do something about

that. There are a lot of economic things. And I think China cares a lot about its economy, right? If you remember in the early 2000s, they had a 9% annual growth rate, which is completely unsustainable. That's been diving quite a bit. Certainly in no small part due to these tariffs and other economic activities the U.S. has put against China in the past, let's say, 15 years. China wants to regain that growth rate. There's all these empty cities with buildings that have been constructed and no one's living in them. There's a lot of inefficiencies in their manufacturing processes because of sanctions and because of tariffs

and because of other problems. At the same time, they're trying to create an energy independent China that relies on a lot either renewables or Chinese produced natural gas and oil and things like that. We were talking about previously in northwest China, they're able to actually turn coal into crude oil, which has been a deliberate move because they don't have to depend on crude oil from Iran, right? So I think there are a lot of places that the U.S. could probably work with China to create efficiencies in the Chinese market to help China resuscitate itself because there will

be a point if things continue this way where the Chinese currency divide between the Rennimbi and the U.S. dollar is so stark. So right now, the way China's monetary policy is, the Rennmese is, the Rennmese, Minbi is intentionally devalued to create a trade disparity where the Chinese market makes money while producers don't. The people in the factories are super poor, but the people selling the stuff are very wealthy because they're using dollars at the end point of their trades, whereas the people in China are using Benminbi for their domestic purchases, which is an intentional monetary policy.

And there will be a point where that is not a rescuable thing. So I think China's concerned about that. They're concerned about what happens if their biggest trading partner, which is the United States, stops trading with China, right? because China could cut off trade with the U.S. too, but that would hurt China. So they don't want that. They want more trade. I mean, if you're a rational economic actor, you want more trade, you want it more efficiently,

you want it more efficiently, you want it faster, right? It doesn't matter if you're a communist or if you're a capitalist. And it's exactly what Deng Xiaoping said in 1978. It doesn't matter what color the cat is. It's a cat. Does it meow, right? White or black, it doesn't matter. Communist capitalist.

They want to make money. They're human beings. So I think that that's the kind of discussion probably happening in a very frank way after these state dinners where it's just a few, policymakers from both sides sitting around having a frank discussion about, okay, what do you want? What do we want? Here's what we can do. So, John, I mean, you've talked about, we've talked about the teapot refineries, right?

And the fact that U.S. has already sanctioned them. And there was a terminal operator to Hengel and then the shipping and front companies in Hong Kong. But none of those, I think you said this, none of those, I mean, really putting direct pressure on China, what would that is sanctioning a major state bank, right? But do you, I mean, first of all, why would we not do that? Why have we not done that yet? Is it for fear of retaliation? It's the downstream consequences of how the supply chain between the U.S. and China works. Like, for example, if you buy something on Amazon and it's plastic and it's made in China, there's a high likelihood that the crude oil precursors, because they actually use these little pellets that they

melt down from crude oil and make into plastics. That was an Iranian-sourced crude oil that we are purchasing through Amazon. That's kind of a dirty little secret that we don't like to say. But a lot of the products we order on Amazon are produced in China based on Iran-origin, crude oil precursors, right? So imagine if suddenly we stopped using Amazon today, just like today we're using it tomorrow, we're not using it. How would that impact the American economy?

It wouldn't just make consumers upset. It would destroy our entire supply chain of foreign goods coming to the United States. And so China, you think China would retaliate that way? if we sanctioned a major state bank? I don't know if it would be for just one state bank, but I think if we did something that was disruptive to their economic processes, such as sanctioning a bank or banks,

perhaps, or a multitude of sanctions on different sectors of the economy that all feed into this, there may be a reaction like that, maybe not a 100% stoppage, but there may be some of them showing us what it could feel like if they did escalate, right? Like kind of a warning. I think what I just described,

like cutting off Amazon, if they invaded Taiwan, for example, that would be on day one probably what would happen. They would cut off complete economic access to the United States at the same time as having a military activity with Taiwan. That's more likely to be the total extreme reaction in a situation with a Taiwan scenario. Whereas now they probably don't want to disrupt it all the way. They probably just want to show a little bit. And we've actually had an indicator of what that would look like during COVID, although it wasn't China's fault.

It was the world market stopping. You remember this. There was a couple of weeks where the market just ended, closed, and it destroyed businesses all over the world. not just in China or the United States because of how interconnected the global markets are and how important China and the United States are to that entire global market. So I think they wouldn't be that extreme if they didn't have to be, because it seems they're trying to be careful with how they calibrate their responses to U.S. actions. So both sides are calibrating the response.

We're not, you know, we're not, we're holding back on sanctioning major state banks because we know that the repercussions will come back and hit us. It's a threat that we're holding in reserve. And of course, we're all dependent too on rare earths, right? I mean, among many other things. So there's a whole spectrum of consequences should we do that. We still haven't had the elections yet. So we're not going to do something like that before November.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't know if those campaign ads are going to get even spicier if inflation goes up even more. You know, it's pretty high. It's at four and a half-ish percent, like, which is. diesel for $7 at some place. Yeah. That's incredible. You've never seen that before. And diesel powers all that land movement of stuff. Like if we get something from Amazon, if it's on an Amazon vehicle that's not electric power, it's diesel, right? And that's expensive, which means that's passed on to you,

the consumer. And if these consumers keep getting pat, it's almost like a value added tax from our war. If we keep getting this increasing, people are going to get more and more upset about the price they're paying or what they cannot pay. And if interest rates for mortgages continue going up, you're going to start to see foreclosures and defaults on borrowing, which is another another massive problem that is very difficult. You cannot just turn it like a light switch on off to fix it. It takes a lot of economic time and care to fix that problem. Yes, but I mean, so there are multiple levers and we don't necessarily want to yank the big ones right off the bat. I mean, there's always the thread of, I mean, tariffs are always

in the background, right? Chip access, which is a huge deal. And as you pointed out, just the wider trade deal makes far more for China than Iranian crude, right? I mean, just financially, which is, which has got to be foremost in China's in in their calculus. I mean, they're not driven by ideology to necessarily to support Iran. They're using Iran, of course. But if it's going to cost them too much, then it's something that they would walk away from quite happily, I'm short. If they reached crude oil independence or energy independence, like real sustainable independence, I think we would see less and less relationship between them and Iran, at least

on a friendly level. They may still see them as a customer or a supplier, but it won't be this state level interaction and dependency that we're seeing right now. Yeah. Yeah, so they actually get, I mean, they get a small percentage of that oil, only about 2% from Iran, but the streets being closed, cuts off oil. from, you know, other Gulf suppliers too. So, I mean, they're getting oil from, not just from Iran, but from Saudi Arabia, UAE,

Qatar, and probably Iraq too, right? So, yeah, they're hurt. They don't need that anymore. That's great for them. Yeah. And I think 33% of their vehicles right now on the street are electric. Electric. Smart move.

Yeah, and they're leading solar power, too, like they're the leading nation in it. So, I mean, we're in the stalemate, right? The Washington thinks the blockade's working, which, I mean, arguably it is, but it's working slowly. Iran's not able to export anything, and its currency is under pressure. And then, you know, I mean, but I'm sure Tehran thinks higher oil prices. The effect on the global economy of the blockade, of the straits been closed, on shipping, insurers is going to create indirect pressure on the U.S., mid-term, you know what, five weeks away. And I'll say there have been some changes in the direction of people complying with US sanctions

and things like this. So for example, countries surrounding Iran that have a border with Iran, which there are about a dozen, they have not allowed Iranian origin aircraft to land in their airports this past week. And so there actually have some flights. There was one that was going to Tajikistan that was actually turned around mid-flight and sent back to Tehran. And these these states are deciding to listen to what the U.S. is asking them to do, which is don't let Iranian aircraft of any type. Commercial doesn't matter. Do not let them land here. And they cannot enter your airspace. So to, for example, transit through Tajikistan, they're not allowed to do that. To do that with Armenia, Georgia, so on, right? This has been a big thing for Iran is that they've been

able to actually fly, you know, certain people in the country to and from, right? Now no flights are allowed to or from. So if you're going to Iran or leaving Iran, and that includes all citizens, Remember, there's 93 million people there. So even citizens who support what the U.S. is doing are stuck, which is a challenge. However, the land border crossings are not closed. So people are still allowed to drive to when what they're doing is they're driving to the border near where an airfield is on another country, getting out of their car, going across the border, getting in a vehicle, and driving to that other airport and then flying away. Not regular citizens can do this, right, because the border guards won't let them leave the country. So it's Iranian elites doing this.

So again, we've got this well-intentioned restriction that's supposed to harm. the government, but instead it's actually letting them continue going and harming the people that support what we're doing. And there's only so much support that you can do while you're being harmed by what we're doing. Right. So like this, there's going to be a fine line here where we need to figure out like, how do we actually do this? Because the regime is, it's not a democracy. They can do whatever they want in their country. So if we say like, you're not allowed to have iPhones in the country and the regime says, well, I can find a way. They're going to do it. They don't care what our rule was. They're going to find a way around the rule. Whereas the regular citizens are harmed by

that rule. So again, this is another challenge that's coming up this week where it's partially working, but they're partially working around it. Yeah, and the, so the regime is isolated. The population suffers from a, from a perspective of U.S. allies in the region. I mean, the Gulf states are under a great deal of pressure, right? I mean, Saudi Arabia made the news all last week with the strikes on Saudi Arabia, the fact that the Houthis now have seized the coastline. next to the Babalmandeb, which cuts and hit the bypass pipeline that went from the refineries in eastern Saudi Arabia to Yambu, which is a port in the northern part of the Red Sea, and from which shipping would take it through the Suez Canal. So that pipeline was severed. I don't know if it's being repaired yet. And then further down in the Red Sea of the Bam.

And with the Houthis there, it means that now the Straits closed on one side, And the BAM, cut off by the Houthis, the pipeline severed, there's just no means, or very little means for the Saudis to export oil. So they're under tremendous pressure. And, you know, all of Gulf states concern now about their air defense, they are very exposed with not just oil infrastructure that we talk about desalination plants. Most of the countries here in the region depend on salination plants. for more than 50% of that water. So, you know, the time is not necessarily on the side of the good guys. I mean, it's a very sub-fraud situation needed to say.

And the thing is, none of these states on their own or even in concert can end this war themselves. This is a war the U.S. started and the U.S. has to finish it. So, for example, if Saudi Arabia is at risk, the U.S. needs to help Saudi Arabia, because we put them in the situation that they are now in danger. The Yon-Bu pipeline was not in danger. danger in January. It is now. And if we put them there as a state, we have to step in and help them with air defense, with repairs, with partnership, with new agreements, probably some four military sales, some foreign military financing, some additional state-to-state help because

we put them in that position. If we didn't put them there, it's a different story. If it was just a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but this is not the situation. I couldn't agree more. And the whole request for airstrikes against the Houthis was linked to the interceptor problem, right? So everyone knows that all countries in the region, indeed the United States, have used up more interceptors than they could afford, right? Let's just put it that way. I mean, estimates vary. Total amount, of course, in each country's case is classified. But very clearly a concern. Lockheed Martin releases interceptors to countries under U.S. direction, right, as far as prioritization.

And so the Gulf country's bottom line is they know they're not going to be able to fill up their magazines anytime soon. And as the Houthis continue to throw and the Iranians cruise ballistic missiles and drones, the only way to mitigate that shortage of interceptors is to go after the launches, right? That hasn't been very successful against Iran. Mercifully Iran has held up off-hitting. Gulf states directly recently, but the Houthis have been hitting Saudi Arabia. Hence, NBS's request to Trump to go after the launchers. So it was a, I mean, it was a slap in the face

to, you know, the reply, no. I mean, how much would that have cost the United States? Very little. We talked about this, right? I mean, it's not like they have to really reposition forces or anything. And sometimes you do things, even if it costs you something just for the sake of allies, just for the they can maintain credibility in the region, which is in short supply, by the way. And at the same time all this is happening, inside Iran, the Iranian government is still going after its own people, which is crazy because you'd think that they would be focusing on national security, like outward looking or like trying to rebuild things and all this, but they're actually increased their suppression against the Iranian people. And actually just this past week,

they've started this new policy where if there is a building, a home that people are like out of the country or out of town, they're not in it. They'll put a notice on it. And if you you don't have a person in it when they come around next time, they demolish the house. And they're doing this on purpose to try to keep people in the country because they know people want to leave. It's, I mean, it's so hard to live there just financially. You can't afford anything. I mean, the to the Taman is so hyperinflated right now.

It's on par to soon join hyperinflation like there was in Zimbabwe or even like the Vimar Republic before World War II, which was the highest inflation in history in the world. Their Tomon is just almost completely worthless. Every day, things are doubling, tripling, quadrupling and price every day because of the way their monetary policy is, right? So these people are trying to leave and the government is trying to keep them there and force them to live in this situation, right? And you remember back in January, we said help is on the way.

So not only did we betray our partners in the region, our allies and partners, we also betrayed the very people in that country that we said we'd protect. So it's time for the U.S. to show up and do something and continue doing something and not just a blockade. And the thing is, it's a different story if we didn't do anything and this situation just arose on its own and then, you know, there are problems. We caused these problems. We started this conflict.

We have to help the people in the country and our allies and partners in the region. And like you said, Andy, people are running out of patience. You know, if we just want basing access and overflight, this is becoming a problem, where we are now having to put forces at Diego Garcia thousands of kilometers away, not only because our bases are at risk, but because our allies and partners cannot defend those bases, right? In the past, they could against different types of adversaries. But now we've used up so much.

And I say we, I mean, allies, partners and the United States have used up so much of our defense and offensive capability, that it's a difficult ask for the U.S. to even stage forces in the region, right? And not just at our primary facilities, but also at our fallback sites, our continuance of operation sites that are further back, places like Jordan, for example, which has for a very long time been that kind of secondary line of defense outside that first ring of defense in the Gulf itself, that's at risk, right? And it's at risk from very cheap, relatively cheap weapons, you know, whether it's a Shahhead drone or a ballistic missile. I mean, these ballistic missiles were developed by the Germans before World War II.

They're still using the V2 rocket base system, right? These are like dumb, dumb weapons, essentially, that can be manufactured relatively easily and cheaply compared to these super sophisticated, exquisite bombs that we have that are millions and millions of dollars, and the interceptors too, millions and millions of dollars. So, you know, there are two paths that could be taken. One is the very exquisite system.

One is a cheap system, and many of them. Iran chose the latter. We chose the former. And now we're in a quagmire because of this disparity between these two systems. On that note, it's a, you know, it should have been a salient lesson for us, too, when you talk about expensive systems and for a long time, and we've talked about this too on this program, our acquisition, our procurement process has been focused on these high-end expensive platforms. You know, 30 million dollar drones, right, instead of blue-collar drones that are now readily available. Turkey's making them.

I mean, Ukraine's making them. drones that accomplished the mission, but they accomplish it with mass, right, by overwhelming air defense systems. But we're still dependent on our high-end drones, and they're getting shot out of the sky at the cyclic rate. You know, so it's not even as though they're less vulnerable. Our critical enablers are manned tankers being destroyed on the ground. AWACs, C2 nodes, both brown-based as in Bahrain, as I mentioned in and airborne. You know, the Iranians know what they're doing. They've been going after these things.

And something you said, John, made me think, yeah, so, you know, there's a pragmatic reason, too. Plenty of pragmatic reasons to help our allies in the region respond to Saudi Arabia's request. Think about it. So Iran has packaged negotiation deals with Yemen and Lebanon, right? All one theater with the Straits of Hormuz. In other words, no opening of Straits or Homoos until hostilities cease in both those places. Well, Saudi Arabia, understandably, is bombing Yemen right now, striking back at the Houthis who have been bombing Saudi Arabia. So we're going to need Saudi Arabia to agree to that.

Now, the Israelis are another matter, too. I mean, the Israelis have veto right now, unfortunately, over our negotiations. So that's going to, if Iran's going to hold true to that requirement about there being a ceasefire in Lebanon, And notice, by the way, the nuclear program hasn't even received a mention. You know, the Iranian foreign minister dismissed it and when asked about it in longer, he said, no, we're not even negotiating. And we're not even going to talk about that anymore. And from the U.S. standpoint, we haven't even brought it up in several weeks because we're just,

I mean, our aperture is, we've got to get the streets open. So a problem that didn't exist before the war, Straits of Hormuz, has now become the only problem we're trying to solve, and we've forgotten about the problems that we said that we had started the war to solve. Right. And actually, speaking about forgetting about things we've already talked about, UNSCR, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which is from the Israel Hezbollah War 2006, the United Nations interim force in Lebanon, the blue line, all in South Lebanon. These have been unresolved problems. This wasn't like we resolved the conflict in 2006 as an

international community and then everything was fine in Lebanon, it was an open conflict, kind of like North Korea, South Korea is still unresolved, technically. That's similar to South Lebanon, and the Lebanese armed forces now have to ask permission from Israel to occupy their own bases. That's how much control there is south of the Latani River. You have dozens of Israeli positions literally exercising sovereignty over towns and cities in South Lebanon, where the village leader, which is called a Muhtar, has to ask permission from the IDF to leave his village to go to the other village. These are complete control, and this has been happening since the war started. This was a separate theater of conflict that was not ended after 2006.

And it's important to understand that from the wise Iran asking about Lebanon so much. And it's very closely linked to the 2006 war, which did not end. It was simmering. It did not end. And I think people easily forget this, that, okay, the war is over, different conflict. Iran now, bad actor. True. But there is a conflict here that's not over yet that has a very important end state.

the U.S. could win here because we have brought the president of Lebanon to the United States to Washington, D.C. in the past month, he met with Israeli leadership, which has not happened for many, many years. There was a movement toward a actual resolution in South Lebanon. That is a key. Like, if Trump is looking for a win, this is the thing he could claim as a win. If you can get Israel and Lebanon to cooperate, I mean, Lebanon does not even recognize Israel as a state. If you go to Beirut and there are signs that go that point to the south, it says this city is next or the next city 50 kilometers and then it says Palestine there is no like if you go into the the national museum of Beirut there are maps in the museum talking about where different pieces from the the collection

came from on the map it says Palestine it doesn't say Israel so like this is what we're talking about in Lebanon this would be a huge win if you could just get Lebanon and Israel to cooperate even without recognizing each other as states just cooperate that's a great place to do it but instead we're so focused on the straits of Hormuz we've forgotten the nuclear issue ballistic missiles aren't even mentioned anymore. It's like we're taking steps backward. And if you ever done close quarters battle, you know, the two rules are never stand in a doorway and never walk backward. That's how you get killed. You have

to keep the ground you've seized and can't let go of it. And it seems that we're just relinquishing territory that we've seized, theoretically speaking in this conflict. I don't feel good about this, guys. Yeah, there's just no, normally we end on a high note. I'm trying to

think of one, but. We have more to talk about if you want to talk about when's deed day for Cuba? We have any idea? You can ask the reservists that have been mobilized for self-com. They probably know. There's so much happening. It's a full.

Yeah, stay tuned to everybody. I mean, it's going to have to do a midweek episode to talk about that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I would say we could just end saying, I mean, things to watch this week, right? The Iranians said that waiting for a formal counter offer. You know, Trump was dismissive in a interview with the media, but the Iranian, is saying they're waiting for the official counteroffer through mediators, or maybe that Trump's

public rejection is the final word. Do the attacks, you know, in the, in the straits and the vicinity of Vermont continue? Who gets blamed for them? Do U.S. strikes continue? What are they going to be focused on? I mean, we've had, we've reached the law to the point of diminishing returns, surely. You know, we keep saying we're going after missile launches, IOC, Navy Speedboat, drone bases. And indeed, you know, we've suppressed activity. But again, there's, you know, there's not a lot more that we can do to move the needle on, on diminishing Iran's military capability for all the reasons that we talked about on the show. Does Saudi Arabia get the help its need?

It needs, does it restore the, you know, the Yambu oil bypass? Do the Houthis take action in the BAM against ships? Do they make good on their threat? All of these things, right, to watch this week. Also, I think the info space on this attempted terrorist attack or attack on the RAF base, see where it goes, you know, see where reports come out, like who did what, etc. similar with the Marsock unit in Ecuador that just did a joint operation with the Ecuadorian police and the DEA capturing some Mexican cartel members.

I think more information will come out with there and we could probably talk about that on Wednesday. Yeah, I'm game. I would also love to do a deep dive on what's going on in Mexico because the CIA is extremely active down there. It's clear. Clear as day. I think that would be a great one.

Boys, what a day. Unbelievable. Indeed. I thank you all. Jonathan, go get Jonathan's books. Those links are in the description. Iran's Shadow Weapons and the Theory of a Regular War. Andy Milburn, when the Tempest gathers, an incredible memoir, some wild stories in there.

And his new book's coming out soon. He's posting some preview chapters on his substack. The links of everything are in the description. Please click that if you want to know more. And support the show patreon.com slash the team house. You get both eyes on and team house episodes, add free and early, and you help support the show. most importantly,

guys, thank you. Love you. Thanks, guys. Bye, everyone.