The Team House - The U.S. BOMBS Iran | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

In this episode, the hosts discuss the recent US military actions against Iranian nuclear sites, the implications of these actions, and the potential for blowback. They explore the challenges of intelligence assessments, the Iranian resistance, and the broader geopolitical landscape in the Middle East. The conversation highlights the complexities of military strategy, regional stability, and the potential consequences of US actions in Iran.Check out Marc's new podcast here:Apple podshttps://podcasts.apple.com/ng/podcast/the-crisis-room/id1815989479Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7CrrgePZN4R3FoNZUNONQeSupport 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 Start02:15 US Military Action Against Iran07:11 Iran's Response and Regional Implications12:43 Intelligence and Assessment Challenges16:10 Potential Blowback and Future Scenarios22:01 The Role of Resistance Movements in Iran24:31 Conclusion and Future ConsiderationsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Aizon Geopolitics. We got a special guest today, Mark Polymeropoulos, former CIA officer. He's got a new podcast called The Crisis Room. He's hosting it with Amber Rudd, former Home Secretary in the UK, and Mark Urban, investigative journalist and author. Check it out. The links will be in the description.

It's called The Crisis Room. Mark, what's going on, bro? Well, at crazy times. Glad to be with you guys. I see Mick is joining us from an underscore. closed location as he's running around in Gulf. Very brave of him, probably the four seasons or a writ somewhere, but I admire bravery and his dedication to the podcast. It's undisclosed, man.

I can't tell you which one it is. So obviously what's happened last night, crazy, the U.S. got into the Frey, bombed Iranian nuclear sites, Fordow, Natanz, and Issefan used any, People are talking anywhere from 12 to 15 B2 bombers. Half of them were like a diversionary tactic. The other half went into Iran with, I believe, I saw a fighter escort. They dropped upwards of 14 GBU57s, the mops, the 30,000 pound bombs on the sites, specifically at Fordow. The rest of the sites got about 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles from submarines in the Gulf. pretty wild i mean it's been we've been gearing up for this i mean obviously in the news we've seen

like the movement of like our carrier groups and stuff like that more and more tankers heading that way so it was like the writing was kind of on the wall president trump said the other day yesterday or two days ago that uh he was going to give it two weeks and then make a decision than 24 hours it happened later um a lot to cover obviously i just gave you the like bullet point stuff like Pete Hacks said Secretary of Defense just had a presser saying that they obliterated the facilities and stuff like that and it was the most magical attack in the history of attacks. And then right away General Kane, Joint Chairman of the Joint Chief said we don't really have a BDA yet. It's still being assessed. It's going to take time.

So thankfully, there was somebody who was sober. I'm not a presser. Not literally sober, but figuratively. I mean, or both. Anyway, guys, what are your thoughts, Mark? You go first. You're our guest of honor. So kind of, well, I think you mentioned some things that are important.

So like anything, and, you know, Jason and Mick will certainly understand this. You know, BDA takes time. Bomb damage assessment takes time. You know, using words like obliterate, really not that smart. I think General Kane, who, incidentally, his last job was as kind of the lead military advisor at CIA to the director. But I think he was much more sober and said that, you know, we think we had good effects, but we just got to see. And that's going to take kind of all source intelligence collection, human intelligence, signals, intelligence, imagery might take days, even weeks to figure it out. Looks like a very successful strike, you know, thank God for the incredible, you know, planning and bravery of the entire package.

But we just don't know. And I think that ultimately this gets judged at the end of the day by the effects. one quick thing just to throw in there, and Dean, you know, we can argue about this if you want. I'm ready. No, no, but in some ways, you know, this argument of whether we should do it or not is a legitimate one. But you know what? I have no tear shed for the Iranians. The rent was long overdue, whether it's, you know, the Iranians supplying EFPs, the explosively formed projectiles, you know, killed a lot of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Or there are, of course, plots to kill President Trump and his members of his former members. members of his national security team. I could go on and on. U.S. embassy bombings in Beirut, the Marine barracks. So, you know what, if the Iranians got a little taste finally, because frankly, U.S. policy has been abysmal across multiple administrations, and we've never done anything to Iran. The fact that this president, I think a lot of us have some questions about in terms of competence in his national security time, the fact that he's in charge now, you know, probably not ideal. But you know what? Again, the rent was long overdue. And so I'm not not shedding any tears.

Mick, thoughts? We got too many people here. If it was just me and you, I would totally fight you on this. But Mick, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm certainly not going to argue with Mark on that because I agree. I mean, ultimately, Iran has himself to blame for this. They've been the biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East,

whether it's Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, keep going, Yemen. They have paused this. They are a force for evil, to be frank. They, up until the time of 9-11, Hezbollah, a group they formed and totally supported, killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda. And they had the opportunity, President Trump and, you know, certainly President Biden as well, gave them all the opportunity to come to the table, to come up with an agreement that would have not only, you know, started calming down the Middle East, but it would have. have given sanctions reliefs or would have taken that off the burden of their own people, which are very competent, capable, modern, and would do quite well in the global economy. That's all on them. And then the continuous rhetoric, you know, death to Israel, death to the United

States, I think this was, this needed to happen. And because of the IDF eliminating the air and missile defense systems of Iran within the first 48 hours of their campaign, it really took the complexity of our operation, which I'm familiar with at my time in the Pentagon, down several notches. But with that said, fully executed, planned deception operations, that really shows you why the U.S. is the most capable, competent, and effective military in the world, probably in the world's history because of technology. and how we've learned to use it. So I know it sounded like I'm cheerleader here,

but I think it was the right decision. You drop 12 GBUF7s, 30,000 pound munitions on Ford out. I would be surprised if there's much left. And even if there is something left down there around 300 feet, I don't know how you get to it. And to be frank, I think we should tell them, if you start rebuilding, we're going to do it all again. So just take off the nuclear.

And think how much Iran has spent on a nuclear program when they could have spent it on their own people. Think how much they have spent on Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, all the militias in Iraq and Syria, instead of turning it into something that would have been beneficial to their people. So that's up to the Iranian people to decide. But I think we did make the right decision here and the military performed extraordinarily. Jay, what do you got? Yeah, I mean, they both said it quite well, but taking how I feel about the administration off the board,

I have to agree that it was long overdue. And I don't know, given our 40-year history, who else would have done it? I don't necessarily agree with how the aftermath is handled, the press conferences, the miss speaking, and all that other stuff. I believe that it was, it was necessary. And I think now, though, we need to focus on what comes next. Like, you know, Mick alluded to, if they start building again, well, then they get it again.

But I also think that we, meaning us, the Israelis, and anyone else getting involved, allies, need to think about the Iranian people and what comes next, you know, because they're paying the price for this just as much as the Iranian government. And I just got a message from someone, I don't know. know how true it is, but apparently the Iranian parliament voted in favor of closing the street of Hormuz. I know that's not the be-all-end-all. It still has to get approved by the Supreme Council, but, you know, that's a big deal. You know, that's, that is the, the ripple effect starting, the butterfly effect starting. So we'll see. Yeah, that's what I want to. That's our biggest

concern, too, actually. That was when I came to their retaliatory options, closing. a strait of her moves is probably not something we can stop from happening. Our Navy is, as you might guess, the only Navy capable of clearing it, and it's going to take months, and then you're going to have to convince commercial shipping that it's actually fully cleared, and then they're going to have to convince their insurance company that it's, this could, that would majorly disrupt the flow of commerce, especially energy out of the region. Yeah, and gas will jump up to over 100 bucks a barrel. or oil.

I'll throw out there. Iranian parliament doesn't mean anything. So it really is going to be a, their security council is going to make that final decision. And so we'll see. I mean, you know, I think that's clearly that's one of the retaliatory options. That might hurt them just as much in terms of the Iranian economy. But, you know, there are lots of things in their toolkit that they can do, whether it's, you know, ballistic missile strikes against U.S. forces. is they're, you know, kind of using their very capable global terrorist apparatus to go after

U.S. interests anywhere, whether it's embassies, whether it's U.S. military facilities, whether it's just American tourists. There's a lot of things that the Iranians can do. The question is, you know, will they do that? Because the U.S. clearly backchanneled Iran saying, if you do this, much more is coming. And, of course, we've also overtly said that as well. So I think it's a question of the Iranians having to save face with their own people, with the regime, versus. versus really risking much more severe U.S. firepower coming at them. And if anyone tells you what they're going to do, they're lying. We just don't know.

But one key point on this is what kind of a whole bunch of us have done in the past. This is why the intelligence community is so important, because they're going to be laser-focused right now on trying to figure out, not only assess analytically, but actually for collection on what Iran is going to do. So really interesting times ahead. And I just throw out there for discussion, kind of a weird time for the director of national intelligence to be on the outs with the president of the United States.

She took the party line again. She was in the situation room yesterday because she said, oh, they can have them within weeks now. Two months ago, it was they're not even doing anything and it'll be years now. It's all of a sudden it feels like we're taking Israel's intel assessments over our own, to be frank, and to just spice up this conversation a little bit.

Well, one thing on that, D, I think one thing, Israel has a different calculus. So there's a legitimate debate. Clearly. What is the new intelligence from this Israeli dossier? But talking to the Israelis, after October 7th, you know, they're not going to, they don't give a shit about weeks, months, even in year arguing over that because their tolerance for risk is much lower.

And so, you know, Iran was an, the Iranian nuclear program is an existential threat. The Iranians' defenses are so degraded now. This was a chance to take a shot. and whether their analysts differ with our analysts in terms of, you know, John Racklett, the CIA director said this is like, you know, sprinting down the field on a football field, yet you don't go across the goal line. And so at the end of the day, I understand the Israeli thinking on that, but I do think there's a legitimate question on from the U.S. side in terms of analytic assessments.

And that's where, you know, Congress has to get in and try to figure out exactly what did the Israelis provide. What was the U.S. analytic line? You know, is Rackcliffe, the CI director and Tulsi Gabbar, the DNI chief? at odds over this. But looking at it from the Israeli perspective, I get it. They said, you know, we're not, we don't really care if we're going to have an argument in terms of weeks, months, or even a year. It's an existential threat.

Iran is vulnerable now and we got to do this. Well, yeah, you even heard from Netanyahu's speech after they started bombing the Iranian facilities last week that they're a year away or it could be even a couple of months. So like their assessment to weaponize it, right? Because they have reached the area where it's relatively easy to get the enriched uranium to the point where it's weapons grade. I'm going to bring this up. Go ahead, Mick, sorry.

One point on that, there was no reason to do that. They're well past what they would need for civilian energy or medical. Right. So they're doing it for a reason. They're at 60% we think. It's very, it's kind of, it speeds up as you get higher to the top. 90 is what it needed. They didn't have to do that.

They chose to do that. They did it for a reason. Yeah. I think we all know the reason. Either they were going to do it or they were trying to put pressure on the U.S. for to better their negotiation stance, and it was really dumb either way. They didn't have to do that. And the U.S. has given them options to take enriched uranium up to the needs of a civilian

energy program from out of the country like other countries in its region have agreed to, and they could have done it too. Yeah, talking about the enriched uranium, too. I saw a graph from the Financial Times, and it's very interesting in terms of you know, the times when the uranium wasn't you're rich almost at all was during the JCPOA years. And then the last couple of years, it's gone up pretty dramatically. Same president got us out of the JCPOA. And as many beefs as you have with the JCPOA, it was an actual diplomatic resolution that

that stopped what the Israelis are, you know, screaming from the rooftops about and that's enriched uranium. Frankly, also like also like to chat about, You know, we still want a diplomatic, diplomatic resolution to this, blah, blah, blah, is interesting when, you know, in one of the initial strikes, the head of the head negotiator gets swacked, along with IRGC guys who, you know, have fun meeting Allah and like, you know, other nuclear scientists,

the chief negotiator of the diplomatic talks, kind of sends a bad sign, I would assume, like if you're trying to negotiate a highly complicated nuclear deal. Maybe I'm missing something. Thank you. So the DOD just through the record, not that matters now, but the DOD was against getting out of the, you know, I really withdrawing from the 2015 JCPOA. It wasn't a perfect agreement, but to your point, Dee, it did keep them well under the limits.

We could have addressed, you know, proxy force operations and other things because it wasn't addressed in that and another sanctions. And there's also a problem with who's going to enter agreement with us. If we can just unilaterally withdraw every time we change, you know, political parties. If you can't honor agreement from a past political party, then, you know, it makes a lot of these agreements, unless they're treaties, unless it's ratified, kind of challenged. Sure. A little bit more on blowback, just to game it out a little. Like, let's say they start shooting some ballistic missiles that, you know, Bahrain, our embassy in Iraq, or they spin up some militia, sea militias over there to, like, attack the embassy. Where do we go from there if we start taking, you know, casualties?

Oh. I think it depends on the casualties. I mean, you know, that's going to be, you know, if it's a mass casualty event, a lot of Americans are killed. That's going to engender a very severe response. if it's and if and there's there's so many other there's so many nuances to this as well if it's if it's the iranian shooting off a couple you know a whole bunch of ballistic missiles to satisfy their own internal need to do so and there's no u.s casualties and you kind of see that that's how they call it a day i think the u.s probably will not respond um and that but the problem with that

is that there's a lot of unknowns there you know ballistic missile you know so it's like what you see in israel sometimes um they can be effective and sometimes they can fall in an empty field um so that's That's why this situation I think is so dangerous now and why I'm sure there's not just overt, but certainly messaging that's going on behind the scenes and probably along with, you know, using the offices of some of our Gulf allies as well to try to de-escalate this as much as possible. Because again, the, you know, President Trump, I don't think he wanted to do this. And of course, the MAGA world is going bananas now because they think it's another kind of never-ending

war. If he can manage to kind of just have this be a one-off, I think he certainly walks away, probably with his mega coalition still okay. But if we start getting at it with the Iranians, it's a whole different story. So anybody? I think they'll probably try to design it similar to their response to the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, right? It was a lot of boom, but not a lot of impact. So they, you know, they control the media. So they, they say they did a lot more than they did. But to Mark's point, you know, that's a, that's a difficult thing to calculate, you know, if you get through and you kill a bunch of, now that said, CENTCOM did a lot of work to get people out of harm's way. They moved, you know, naval vessels out of Bahrain. They moved aircraft out of

I wasn't joking when I was like my hotel I was just in was full of people who had been moved out to the point where they would have hit it. They will hit an empty base in a in a Gulf country. And Iran doesn't have a lot of friends, but they're going to lose a lot if they start just launching ballistic missiles into these neighboring Gulf countries. So it's a risk on many levels. So prior to the spin-up to this, like there was always talk, and we've talked about it many times on the show about how if we did hit the nuclear facilities,

it would really only set it back six months to a year, right? Their nuclear program. What if that's the case, even though we did drop 12 or 14 GPUs and like you would assume that's like fucking mush there now? You did see, there were some satellite photos as well, of trucks leaving the Fordow facility like hours before the strikes.

So let's say they moved the enriched uranium to another facility. They said it's Fahan is a lot more as as as a fortified or almost as fortified as Fordow was or is what happens if, you know, our BDA is done and then like Intel comes out that we really haven't like completely wiped it off the off the map and then it can reconstitute it within a year or something like that. What's the move there? Just continue to hit them? Maybe.

I mean, so again, that's why the intelligence collection is so important. And the BDA, you know, but ultimately, I think this should be seen kind of as part of a kind of longer-turned campaign. And the Israelis will see this for sure. And perhaps they're the ones we're going to do or going to hit it again. One of the things, though, is that, you know, so many people are making this comment. I mean, I'm guilty of this as well. So, you know, the last thing I want to do is go on a program like this or on TV, talk about, you know, the interest cases of enriched uranium.

I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And the same thing. So in terms of how much is the Iranian program degraded? Well, there's a couple of things that we know. Israel killed, you know, nine of the leading nuclear scientists. They also destroyed the archive of the Iranian program, which was important because that's the kind of the historical knowledge of it. They're going, they're meticulously going after five of these six sites.

So, you know, the idea that it's only been a bit degraded. I mean, I think when people start saying that, there's. there's a political bent to this. I think it's going to be pretty significant. But we also shouldn't say it's been obliterated like I think the president and Pete Hickson said, because nobody says that. You know, kind of the sober people in the national security world will say, you know, and there'll be some kind of assessment on it.

But I think it's not going to be in the realm of months. Clearly, it will be in the realm of years. And that's something that I think that Israeli and U.S. national security planners probably thought was enough to take such type of action. But to say it's going to be obliterated, it gets a little silly. And of course, to say that it's only been degraded a couple months, same thing. Come on. There's just too much that's happened.

True. I agree. And I think, you know, Iran said, oh, sorry, Jason, go ahead, man. No, go ahead. I was just going to briefly say, you know, we don't know what we don't know. So the intelligence community, I mean, I'm obviously biased. So as Mark should lead this. effort to determine how much was degraded, you know, is it a year, is it two years?

Is there something that we don't know in the works that wasn't struck? Iran promised to get a nuclear weapon or take every step possible to get a nuclear weapon if they were struck. And now I can, you know, if we're looking at it from their perspective, that's even more important. So the threat isn't over. I think we have to be very careful not to, you know, do a, you know, do. touchdown dance and act like this is this is over it's it's simply part of a larger uh you know effort against iran all their destabilizing destabilizing actions in the in the region and their pursuit of a nuclear weapon yeah i think uh go ahead go ahead sorry no it's just um just my two

cents added to this uh and i'm like mark i'm not a uh a nuclear scientist i don't know anything about this stuff. We also have to take into account the IAEA's monitoring of the release of radiation or radiological, you know, debris, whatever, because it may not even be safe for them to go back in there and restart the program. We just don't know. So it's a bunch of unknown unknowns. Good point.

Good point. Hey, Dee, I got something funny for you. Tell me. So, and I'm reading this off of social media. I can't claim credit for this. But there is some weird kind of like sexual thing with these names of these operations. Rising line, Midnight Hammer, it sounds like erectile dysfunction supplements. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what they call me when I get it. I get a little bit too drunk and I start texting my ex-girlfriends at midnight. So I got to go to Mick. So Mick, you're at senior levels of DOD. Who makes up these names? They don't know. I don't know.

I mean, they got to. sense of humor. You know? I don't know. I can't tell you. About Operation Pound Town Town. Yeah. These names are going to start

popping up at roadside gas station. It's probably a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps. That's probably so funny. But who makes it shut? I thought I'd throw that out there. They might have like a name generator, like a random name generator.

Oh, uh-huh. It doesn't sound random. No, it doesn't. Sounds like midnight gas. Somebody's projecting. Midnight Hammer does sound like a gas station Dickville brand. Yeah. Rise and lying?

Come on. Sorry. No, no, no. Serious podcast. I mean, I'm pretty much, like, for the most part, done with all my notes and stuff like that. Uh, with the weird thing is like how, you know, obviously this is taking, you know, this is above the full. This is like what everyone's talking about, but like, you know, Gaza is still going on.

Uh, Israel's, you know, does on occasion go into Syria and hit areas in there. Lebanon as well, mostly Gaza, right? Uh, because what's going on, especially at the eight station, the last, the eight stations, the last few days. People going to get food and they get smoked by the IDF. Uh, So I don't want to, like, people to forget what's going on there. Obviously, the Iranian regime is bad news. No one's a fan of them.

Oh, I want to get your assessments on, like, there is a message coming out of the White House and the administration where, like, oh, we don't want regime change or whatever, which they're saying that because they want to placate half to half of their base that, like, we're not going to send troops in. It's not going to be another war like we're used to. who are outside of the regime who are like who's the resistance in Iran that could I know we see the Shah now the Shah's the Karam Prince I'm doing hits and stuff like that on TV

but the actual resistance in Iran who could possibly be the people that take the mantle if the regime were to fall that is a question I mean it's the people And so look, there's been popular uprisings in Iran against the regime. And we saw this with, of course, all the protests against the hijab.

So there's, and there's tremendous popular discontent. But, you know, is there some kind of resistance movement to support? I mean, you know, there are certainly groups there. But I think we've got to be really careful. Yeah. And I think the administration is 100% right, you know, whether they're doing it to placate their base. But, you know, don't go down that road of promoting this. Now, if things happen kind of.

organically. That's a different story. But let me throw one thing for Jason and Mick and D before we leave because you look at this and, you know, President Trump has, I think, undertaken an action which a lot of us who have been his critics are applauding now. But we're not consistent on doing the right thing because we are still kind of in the process of abandoning Ukraine. And I think that's an important point as Trump is being lauded for this from many of us in kind of the national security blob. But you, Ukraine's still out there and there's no signs that we're going to do anything in terms of supporting the Ukrainians. And so one of the things in kind of the Ukrainian circles that I kind of dabble in

is that there is some concern there, that this certainly is not necessarily going to distract, but that, hey, you know, Trump might be lauded for this, but hey, what about us? Your guys' thoughts. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't know. I just don't know how much, support, the Shah, you know, has in Iran, so I can't speculate. I'm guessing probably not that much. And I talk to people out here in the Gulf who share that opinion, so I'll defer to them. There's a lot of different groups in Iran. It's not homogenous society. They got a lot of courage, me and Marx folks, if you will. There's plenty of groups that would, and the people in general, Like every woman in Iran would like to see this change.

I mean, they're completely oppressed in a horrible way. And I think any young person that wants a chance that modernity wants to get away from them. But that has to be organic. If we try to, you know, do it again, like, we've done this before, in Iran at least, you own it, right? And then it's not organic. And then whoever comes next will play to that. But the other point for Ukraine, I totally agree. We did the right thing here.

We're not doing the right thing in Ukraine. They shouldn't have any doubt that they get 100% support from the United States. We're the leader of the free world, their democratic country that was invaded unlawfully and unprovoked by Russia, who is one of our top two adversaries. And I'd say our most dangerous one. If we've abandoned them, that'll set us there. Look what we could have done or could be doing. you know? Yeah.

The main difference is Russia has nuclear weapons. Yeah. Isn't that the reason why? Like we're not actually doing, pushing it all the way? I would argue we have an overblown panic and worry over their use of nuclear weapons. Sure. That's what really, you know, tainted some of the Biden administration's really good things they did, was that they were always hand-wringing over this and clearly Trump feels the same.

I think we should have said before it started since we had obviously very good intelligence that it was going to happen. We should have told Russia, if you go in, we're going to support them 100%. We're going to give them every weapon that they need to defend themselves. So like Marker alluded to, not wringing our hands on F-16s and Abram tanks and A-Tacombs and all. We should have just said, hey, it was your choice. You invaded that country. We're now supporting. We wouldn't be supporting them if you wouldn't have done that.

But we didn't do that. And we put ourselves in a bind, I think. But that's a bind that we created. It's a bind we could have changed. And it's not too late to change it. You can still do it. Two things can be true or once. We can do what we did in Iran and still say,

okay, Russia, back to you know, so. Ain't going to happen. Man, I know. But, yes, in theory. Yeah. I don't think it's going to happen either. All right, Mick, get the hell out of here. Thanks for stopping by.

Thanks for staying safe, too. Be careful. I'm a high-star hotel. We're worried about you. Yeah, get room service. Let me know what the room service menu. Grab me some of those mints off of the pillow. All right.

Thanks, Mick. You'd be surprised what my next stop is probably, but I'd call you from there. Where do we find such brave men? Well, apparently at five-star's hotel. That's your own. By the way, we're going to feel really shitty, and we're going to have to fucking cut this money. I know.

Have a good wake for me. Have a good Irish wake for me. Be safe, brother. See a Mick. All right. up. Thanks, Mick, for that. Of course, check out Mick's links that are in the description. One more time, Mark, your new podcast, The Crisis Room,

with Mark Urban, Amber Rudd, some heavyweights. Amber Rudd being a former Home Secretary of the United Kingdom. Mark Urban, a distinguished investigative journalist wrote a great book about the SAS and does a ton more work. You can find it everywhere, wherever you find your podcast. The links will be in the description. You can check out Mark there. I just wanted to get a link in there before we, like, ended.

just to wrap up. I'm worried about the blowback, to be honest, right? I was going to say, yeah. I mean, we did touch on it slightly and stuff like that, but yeah, I mean, in terms of the blowback, because what happens if they do kill five or so service men and women, and we're not really the type of country that's going to take that lightly. No, it's on them on.

Yep. Right, right. So, look, these are, there's, there's, there's, You should be worried. I mean, you know, nothing is, you know, nothing is free. There's cost-benefit analysis, and clearly the president has received, I would say, you know, correct analytic assessments saying that, you know, this is, there might be Iranian retaliation. And so obviously we're trying to dissuade them from doing anything, but they certainly could.

And there's Americans could be harmed because there's one of the interesting things to note, though, is that when I was working with the Israelis over the years, they're actually much more willing to take casualties. 24 Israelis have been killed in that kind of the ballistic missile fire from Iran. I think if 24 Americans are killed, there's going to be an absolute, you know, political kind of nuclear meltdown, no pun intended here. But the Israelis are certainly more willing to take casualties than we are.

Yeah, and I think, well, since last night, I've gotten numerous texts and phone calls about here in the home in the United States, you know, should we be worried? Everybody and everybody used the term sleeper cells, you know, I guess because that's the thing that's being touted in the media, you know, sort of like, what should we do?

And I'm like, okay, well, your stay vigilant as always, but live your life. But it is a legit concern from people closer to home, including my mom. She called me.

She's like, are you going to be, I'm like, I'm sitting in Pennsylvania. You know, but Jason is a key thing. this. We also take, I mean, so obviously the FBI should be on this, but it's also an FBI that whose mantra under the new leadership has changed. They're running around doing border stuff and going

after cartels. And so have the joint terrorism task forces, you know, have they been kind of seen limited personnel and resources? You know, are we up to the task right now as there, as the, as so much of the attention and local law or federal law enforcement, but domestically, has moved to the border. I don't know. It just seems like a lot of chaos. And now my next question, Jason's perfect spot on, was like, yeah, in terms of, like, hitting us here,

what are the chances of that happening? I mean, I'm sure Iran's got their hands full at the present moment because my buddy asked me the same thing. And I'm like, listen, even if we did trade fire and stuff like that, they probably are using a lot of their bandwidth in terms of, like, protecting themselves right now to be, like, giving commanding controls over. But in a year or so, like they don't forget, right?

And if the regime's still around in a year or so, what's to stop them from doing something on American soil? And once that happens, it's game on. We're going to forget the last 25 years and it should be like, let's invade another country again. You know, let's get these guys eating French fries, you know, American-made French fries. Let's build some Burger Kings in Tehran.

Yeah. It's going to be a crazy couple weeks, see where it goes. Israel has continued. Israel initially after the bombing went down last night, said that they were going to hold off on bombing Iran again. They have since started to bomb Iran again, a solid 12 hours. And they say the reason wise for other goals that are trying to be reached.

Other goals, I don't know what that means. Mark, maybe you can enlighten me, my layman ass. Well, I mean, they're going to have to the ballistic missile capability. Obviously, they're going after the launchers, but also the kind of the whole production factories, the whole kind of Iranian military industrial complex. Look, Israel has their boot on the neck of Iran. It is insane for them to stop.

Now, they do have to kind of keep in mind how far are they going to go in terms of if the regime is threatened. But let's be careful on having the Israelis or dictating to them what they're going to do in terms of kind of continuing on. And at some point, they will stop. You know, these, the other part, the Israelis are probably running out of interceptors in terms of their own air defense. The pace for their air force has been just brutal. And so, so I wouldn't expect this to last all that much longer if there is no significant Iranian retaliation.

Oh, brother. A lot of questions coming up. So, guys, keep your eyes on this. I mean, obviously everybody will be. Mark, this was great. Thanks. Any last thoughts? No, I mean, like Mark just said, I think Israel is going to do what Israel does.

I don't think it's going to do any good for us to tell them, hey, it's time to stop. They're going to stop when they're ready and when they need to. I don't, this is kind of outside of what we were just talking about, but I don't see regime change anytime soon, honestly. I think everybody's just going to, you know, do the whole, hey, you got popped in the mouth, Iran. you know it can happen again. We hit you over the right. We got a left. You know, I think it's just now wait and see.

And, you know, just be on our toes. Mark Pymoropolis, MSNBC contributor, the crisis room, new podcast. Check it out. The link is in the description. Really good one. I've been enjoying the episodes. All the boys, Andy, Mick.

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