The Team House - U.S. Strike on Iran IMMINENT? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

In this episode, the hosts discuss the current geopolitical landscape, focusing on the military buildup in the Gulf and the implications for Iran's nuclear program. They explore the complexities of diplomatic negotiations, the potential for regime change in Iran, and Turkey's role in regional dynamics. The conversation also delves into the ongoing conflict in Syria and the importance of standing by allies like the SDF. The hosts speculate on future military strategies and the implications of the War Powers Act on U.S. military engagements.U.S. Elite Medical Services ⬇️https://uselitemedicalservices.com/use the code "team20" for 20% offAndy's article: https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/gaza-and-the-conduct-of-urban-war-civilian-harm-risk-and-responsibility/Montana Security Conference ⬇️https://mi1.suitsandspooks.com/Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSubscribe to our new newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comCheck 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/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?uBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 Start01:54 Off Ramps + Hormuz Risk06:35 Erdogan Mediation Angle09:52 Nuclear Deal Sticking Points14:44 Explosions Inside Iran37:51 War Powers + AUMF44:16 Syria SDF UpdateBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, what's up guys? This is Dee. Do us a favor and check out our Patreon page. It's patreon.com slash the Teamhouse. You get both Teamhouse episodes and Ozzygopolitics episodes completely ad-free. You get them early too. You can ask us questions. You can also watch the Team House episodes live as we shoot them.

And you help support the show and support what we're doing here. It's Patreon.com slash the Teamhouse. Those links are in the description. Or if you're listening, it's on the show notes down below. You can click it real quick and easy. And it helps us keep the lights on. So we appreciate it. And we appreciate you guys listening.

Thanks a bunch. Everybody, welcome to another episode of Aizond Geopolitics. I'm here with Andy Milburn, Mick Mulroy. I'm Demetri contacos. A lot happening, as usual. First and foremost, the biggest thing is, I want you guys to do a couple things. Let's do some housekeeping.

Andy Milburn wrote a great article. I'm Warren the Rock. It's down in the description. We spoke about it in a previous podcast. You could check that. out if you haven't yet. Read the article. It's really great.

Also, Mick Morroy's got a new podcast called The Pub and the Porch, Applied Stoicism. Comes out every Monday. Check that out. Link is in the description as well. And if you want to find any more from these guys, all their links are in the description. Check them out there. And patreon.com slash a team house to support the show. Okay.

With that said, a lot happening. It looks like we're building quite a big presence in the Gulf. and in the Mediterranean to possibly attack Iran. The protests kind of spiked up a little bit over the last week again, but they've kind of seemed to have simmered down for the most part.

Internet is still spotty coming in and out of Iran. Where's this go? There's talk now that there's a bit of negotiation going on. It seems like we're trying to fold in the nuclear talks as well. Where are we at with this mix? you go first. Greetings from the city of Bozeman, Montana, where we're about to kick off

one month of tackle training at the Lobo Institute here. And we're in search of snow. It is going to be 50 degrees. That's not good for winter warfare training. We have plenty of that. Come to New York, bro. We have plenty of that shit. So we're going to have to get helicopters to fly us.

The only way we can do this is on altitude, right? 10,000 feet. Also, it's going to be a challenge. But anyway, it is. is what it is. So on Iran, we have, as you said, massive buildup. We have multiple aircraft carrier strike groups, including right. I think it's mass for the mountain chain in Oman right now, which is smart. Plus, every time I turn around, there's another destroyer. I'm not sure where they're all coming from, but those can be significant when it comes to guided missiles, of course. And the air

capacity just keeps flowing and flowing and flowing. So we're definitely headed toward something, right? So what could be the off ramps? It would be to earnestly start negotiations in a new nuclear agreement that goes beyond just a nuclear agreement, but also includes ballistic missile programs and proxy force support. That is what I think the administration is requiring. they've been requiring that since the first administration, and I think it's legit, at least to want to address all those. From what I'm hearing, Iran might be able to accept some kind of restrictions on proxies, but won't on ballistic missiles, because they consider that like their only real defense.

So, and everything else I've heard is essentially this isn't going to go anywhere. So if it's not, if it's not, let's hope we're wrong. I always hope that diplomacy ruled the day. Then I can't see the U.S., the White House not taking some form of military action. Right. There's a huge buildup. If they can't get even an agreement and principle to have a new JCPOA, if you will, that they are closer to on the Trump administration,

I just don't think this will just end and that we'll just turn around and go. home. So then the question is, one, what is the objective? Is it simply to degrade the nuclear program further? Is it regime change, which, you know, I think we should probably have a whole section about the likelihood of whether you can do regime change from the air. I would say that would be incredibly difficult. The geography of Iran, it's almost four times the size of Iraq, if you want to compare that when it comes to U.S. past conflicts, and it's got about 90 million people, so more than double Iraq. The geography's mountainous, it is designed to sustain.

It's primarily, the regime's primary purpose is to maintain the regime. So it has all these power centers. The Supreme Leader basically just holds them together. Even if he was taken out, all those power centers are not only, invested in continuation, they literally would be, you know, toast if they didn't maintain it, right? There's simply no way to get all the leaders out of the country and et cetera. So it's going to be difficult to do, even if you did a ground invasion, which would be insane. But from the air, very few, if you think about, you know, 1991, Saddam Air, at least for Iraq, obviously didn't change regime.

There's many examples. So I don't think that will be a serious effort at regime change, but they could support the protesters because if anything is going to change your regime, it's going to have to come from within. I just don't know how much you can do to support just by hitting security infrastructure like IRGC, besiege. And then there's the issue,

and then I'll stop here and throw it over to Andy for comments on all the above, but there's a lot of concern that the Iranians will see mine the Straits of Hermouth, right? So that could cause major disruption and energy supplies. It would also really affect them. It wouldn't affect the United States as much as other countries, though, quite frankly, because we just don't get as much oil from there. And then there's this discussion that I think is legitimate about whether the U.S. could do some kind of blockade,

legitimate in the sense that I think it's actually being discussed. I don't know, be frank, how effective it would be. But it's kind of like looking at Venezuela, which is not a real model for Iran. But, you know, we remove the leadership and now we're doing a naval walking. And whether I think that's being considered at least for Iran. I don't know how effective it would be. But that's where I think the summary is of what I've discussed this week and what I've been told. What are you in?

Yeah, I agree with everything. Mick said, the one thing, there's a couple of things that have really complicated this. And of course, I would say no regional leaders here in the Middle East seem confident about what is going to happen. But a couple of things. One is, first of all, and both of these happenings, I'm not saying or linked or even trying to interpret them correctly or interpret them at all, if I was going to interpret them, presumably it would be correctly. Anyway, so number one, diplomatic, diplomatic negotiations efforts have not ceased. In fact, they seem to have ramped up, which makes me think that while I'll agree with Mick that there needs to be action at some point because, or there will be action at some point,

because I can't see the Iranians being able to compromise on some key issues, right? but but but but uh but in the meantime trump seems to be upplaying the role of o'dawan he's calling him a problem solver right and odoin has reached out to iran and is offering to negotiate it's interesting that it is turkey doing this and trump seems to have confidence in odoan uh based on um uh based on on Oduan's, I'm not saying he was successful in doing this, but his ability to negotiate previously between Al Jolani or Al-Shera, whatever, we're calling him now, and the SDF, right? And so he's giving him, President Trump's giving Oduan credit for that and saying, hey, it looks like he's giving him a shot to, to negotiate.

before things go further as far as strikes are concerned. But to mixed point, we don't know how receptive Iran's going to be. You know, certainly there are not showing no signs in their rhetoric of being willing to negotiate. They're threatening regional war if the United States strikes and various other dire threats. threats. And when I think about why would they do that, the only thing I can think is maybe it's an effort to portray this as, first, it's a show of strength, maybe false strength, paper tiger. But the other thing is, you know, we talked about this too, that Iran seems to be, I won't say on the verge of toppling the administration, because it's far from that, but certainly

these demonstrations that have occurred are more serious, more in depth and being put down with greater brutality than previous protestation. So it looks as though maybe this is an effort to rally the country and behind, you know, towards an external enemy. That may be why Iran's ramping up the rhetoric. I can see no other rational reason to do it. So, you know, but the thing is, and we'll see, you know, Oedon's reached out to them. We haven't seen whether Iran is receptive or not.

there's probably three things that this, but there's three problematic areas. There's four if you count the protests, right? And you've count the brutality with which the Iranians put down the protests. But as far as points to negotiate on, there's the nuclear issue, right? I think, you know, I think it's open source. It is open source now that the bomb damage assessment, on Isfahan, Natanz and Fordo are not as optimistic now as they appeared, you know, right after the strikes and that either the Iranians were very quick at turning around

and starting to build their capability again or the damage wasn't as bad as we thought. Okay. So there's that, right? How ensuring that Iran steps back from its plans to create, to build a nuclear weapon. potentially that's the point of negotiation potentially turkey could offer to take the enriched uranium that uh that iran has and and stored in turkey in return for and i'm on the thin edge of my technical technical ability here but remember the deal with russia right russia was going to do this back in 2010 in return for um rich uranium i mean uh non non weaponizing

usable uranium that could help Iran build a civil, a civil, a civil nuclear capability. Okay. I haven't worded that very well, but you understand giving up the weaponized uranium in return for assistance with, with a civil nuclear capability. Okay. That potentially a compromise point. Number two on the proxies, well, there isn't actually a, it's, it's, it's really, really difficult to enforce if Ron says, oh, yeah, we'll step back from bolstering the Houthis,

Hezbollah. They could agree to do that, whether the U.S. would honor that concession or even give it credibility. I don't know. But it's certainly something the Iranians could agree to do. And as we know, you know, Hizbollah is kind of on the ropes anyway. And it seems as though the Houthis too have died down in their activities. So maybe Iran would be happy to do that in order to focus on getting a firmer grip back at home. But the third point, which would be reduction of the ballistic missile capability, I can't see them compromising at all. Can you make? I mean, I think that's the most difficult one for them. I agree. Yeah, I mean, that's a long Paul. It's an essential component of Iran's defense network and they don't have the ability to

rapidly regenerate that capability. And they're actually down, you know, I know estimates of what their inventory looks like are varied and unlikely to be entirely accurate. But a lot of what is left are liquid fuel ballistic missiles, which means that If they do launch an attack, the U.S. or Israel, whoever the region are going to get a far longer, a greater warning, right? As far as repercussions, I agree, you know, the worst thing that could happen that Iran could do isn't launch missile, ballistic missiles and drones from the homeland. Because as we've seen before, with the U.S. anti-air defense systems in the region, missile batteries, Aegis cruises and all and the like. You get so much warning and with a sin and the missiles being what they are,

they're relatively easy to intercept. So two things, though, are a real threat. One is the threat from proxies and specifically the, you know, actually this is a catarigot proxies. I didn't mention the Shia militias in Iran in particular. They're always a threat. And the flash to bang if they attack. attack U.S. bases is far quicker.

As someone, as Mick said, also sewing mines in the Gulf. And last thing I'll leave you. Mick, are you tracking these explosions in Iran itself? I got a question about that this morning. I don't have any details. There's been like four or five in multiple different cities, and the regime's all blaming them on gas leaves. and just by, you know, statistics, it's likely not all gas leaks.

So that could be preparation. It's common for Assad, the agency to have that task. It doesn't necessarily do much in and of itself, but it kind of creates a situation where the regime scrambling around, the supporters feel like there's something happening, it looks organic. I don't know one way the other. I wouldn't be saying it.

But it could be basically preparation for what's to come, which would be significant error missile strikes on multiple different targets. It could be. Thanks to our sponsor today, U.S.elitmedical Services.com. If you are a veteran and need further medical documentation to help bolster your claims, please check out U.S.elitmedicalservices.com. Not only do they help veterans with medical nexus letters and DBQs, they offer wellness and longevity treatments such as testosterone,

and replacement therapy. Please go and get checked out by one of their providers. We're all just trying to get by and improve our family's life, business, and our own well-being. The veteran population has had enormous amounts of stress that has led to chronic fatigue and much more. The VA is an interesting place and medical evidence is the premise of your claim. You deserve what you fought for. You deserve to feel better again. More energy, better mood, better recovery, and more. I can also say from my own personal experience that trying to go through VA and file disability claims is incredibly difficult, and there's no way I would have been able to do it without a service such as USelitmedicalervices.com. So please go check them out, and you can use the discount code, Team 20, to get 20% off when you go and use them today.

So go to go to USelitmedicalservices.com and use the discount code Team 20 to get 20% off today. Yeah, it is interesting. And there is an Israeli unit whose mission is to do that sort of things using ground launch precision-guided weapons. So it's feasible. And to the Iranian regime's claims that these are gas leaks. And if you remember back in July, on a single day back in July, there were four incidents throughout Tehran, one in Korn, one in a place called Karaj, one in Tehran. And I can't remember the fourth one was.

I think it was in the island in the Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz. Explosions, right? And the one in the Strait of Hormuz was a really big one. it destroyed reportedly 200 stores, although that's hard. You know, what does that mean? How big those? But that sounds like a big explosion. And in Bandera Abbas, an entire shopping mall,

there's a big mega mall burned down. And then the Iranian government at the time said it was due to technical failures and the explosion of gas cylinders or poor maintenance. I mean, it seemed pretty ridiculous. So now they're claiming the kind of the same thing. They're concerned that it looks like, they're losing control, right? Which is the purpose of the operation.

So this could be very much be the case. I would, another conversation I had to present both sides, if you will, you know, on the U.S. use of force, the person I was talking to said, oh, okay, well, either the Iranians can agree to adjust their nuclear ambitious, holistic most missile program proxies, or we can do it for, right? So is this going to be a thing that every time we think that they're going ahead with a nuclear weapon? Let's be fair. They have, like, 441 kilograms of enriched uranium to 60%. There's no reason to have 60%. They're almost in the perfectly wrong spot. It's not for civilian purposes, and they don't have a nuclear weapon.

So from Eugene and turrets, having the middle ground is not necessarily a smart move. But this one can make the argument that we're just going to mow the grass and make sure they never get there. And the same thing with the ballistic missile program. Every time they start rebuilding it, which they are, it happens again. So from a practical purpose, maybe that's one of the views inside the White House right now. The other part is you can say, well, it's unlikely that you're going to actually change your regime. I think that's fair. Probably the intelligence assessment.

And then even if you do change your regime, whether it would be more favorable to the United States. I think those are both totally legitimate questions. The person I was talking to said, well, it's probably worth rolling the dice. So if you're a gambler, you roll the dice, you don't know if it's going to be better, worse, the same. But, you know, there's a chance, I guess. So I don't know if that's a way you should make, you know, major policy decisions on war and peace. But I guess there is certainly a line of thought that it's worth. trying to change the regime simply to see what happens.

I think it's a dangerous game to start playing with, even with despotic regimes like Iran. But, you know, obviously there's different views inside the government, and we don't know which one's going to be prevailing. Yeah, I think you're right, Mick, that the Mowing de Gras scenario seems the most likely. And I noticed that our administration has kind of backed down from discussions of regime change. Though it's hard to tell,

but Rubio, when he was being interviewed the other day, and I forget where, and I forget exactly when, but it's in the last couple of days, seemed quite circling, very, you know,

he was pointing out all the problems that you just did, obviously, with regime change. And as we talked about on this show, you know, you've got to have a viable opposition to come to place, and that just isn't that isn't in place right now.

Yeah. You know, speaking as a layman, I think it's rolling the dice in terms of destabilizing the entire region by decapitation strikes or whatever you want to call it trying to take out the regime in Iran. It's kind of crazy. It's bad shit insane to me.

A lot of times before this, we've to do airstrikes or even talk about regime change. We were like in the at the UN sure we might have been lying to the UN about anthrax and and you know 9-11 being you know connected to Iraq But we would build up a coalition we would do the things that you know We take certain steps before we'd start bombing a play a A another country to you know to hopefully maybe get some regime change and even if it is a regime we don't like

You know it's okay Like, I would think we would be operating on more of a more certainty than this. It's going to be completely real, honest. Yeah, I mean, good point. Very good point. Hopefully, that's not how we're deciding on, you know, major strategic policy decisions. It could also backfire, right? We're not the only country that can decide that's a good policy, right?

Right, yeah. decide that we just go around taking out leaders. And again, the way Iran is configured, like most regimes like this, their primary purpose is to stay in power. It's not to promote the interests of the Iranian people. So they're designed to withstand not only a direct ground invasion, right? The besieged forces, like it's over a million people. And it's really designed to be very, like, autonomous separate units that can fight on

well past an actual conventional military invasion and the power centers. And it's all tied to, you know, I think complete corruption with huge offshore, you know, repositories of money, right? So it's going to be very difficult, I think, to facilitate a regime change. I think you both made a point that they kind of came up to the top. The only wild card would be taking out the Supreme Leader. And there you're on. you're on shaky honestly

I mean international law the decapitation strikes going after actually killing the head of the state is a big deal I don't know whether that would be an obstacle for us but perhaps more importantly yeah as Mix pointed out you don't know what comes next and there is no

86 you're maybe just need to just wait and the point is that's It makes entirely right, yeah, the Republic, the, sorry, the Revolutionary Guard and the besiege have, they'll have, you know, there's a transition plan in every case. And as we talked about, the hold that the IGRC has on the Iranian, just the country itself is multifaceted, it's economic and its military. I mean, it goes deep into the roots of the, for the, the fabric of the country itself you don't you don't topple it by simply killing one or two people so yeah it's going to be interesting um you know the turks i mean the turks and they haven't come on i mean they remember of course the the turks backed uh... aulani who overthrew the over through the over through assad who is uh iran's iran's uh man in Syria.

And so they were on bad terms then. But it does look as though the Turks have been trying to kind of reach, while they have been reaching out to the Iranians. And during all the protests, I believe it was Erdogan, or it might have been his foreign minister said, commented publicly that there's, that there was Israeli influence behind the protests, you know, which kind of played into Iran's messaging too.

I have a question. I have a question. And what does Turkey get how to do in this? Like, how do they benefit? They like to be viewed as, like, one of the leaders, you know, quite frankly in the Muslim world. And I think part of trying to get that kind of mantle now is being directly involved in negotiations to avoid conflict or in conflict, right?

You see it in Qatar. It's Turkey, you know, in Gaza, for example. Other than that, maybe favored status within the Trump administration. But it's kind of one and the same. It's just really presenting your country as a leader in that. That's it. That's only why, just to, like, show like, hey, we're statesmen. We have influence in the region.

That's a big deal for Erdogan to be seen as being a major states from the international stage. I mean, his country's economy is in shite state, partly because of his policies. He has thousands of dissidents imprisoned. and there is trouble bubbling in Turkey, but the Turks are naturally quite nationalistic. That's an understatement. And so, again, on the world stage, being able to see their leader take a prominent position,

it's a huge deal. That's number one. Number two is, you know, there's always been, I mean, there's all regional rivalry, right? It's like 19th century Europe. That's really like Middle East now is, There are no friends, there are only interests. And so you see this shifting dynamic.

And Turkey would like to be seen as being the go-to negotiator in place. So, for instance, Saudi Arabia. And in this particular instance, the Saudis, UAE, the Qataris are all unified and advising President Trump not to strike Iran. you know i say they they and uh and and so it is erdogan that trump has reached out to to to kind of issue to do this negotiation and issue the warnings um and o'derone likes that you know this makes them feel as chops yeah i think it was yesterday the day before there was some like uh talk coming out of like saudi arabia saying like kind of going to kind of going back on that, like being like, oh, yeah, maybe we should hit Iran too. I don't know if it's just

like different factions within the kingdom that are like... It was MBS's brother, who's the defense of Costa. Yeah, in D.C. talking to members of the think tank in a, you know, it was a, I mean, it was open to journalists, so it wasn't as though they were trying to hide anything. And he, he made the comment. may have been taken out of context that if the United States didn't strike Iran, there would be a problem of losing credibility. And again, this might have been taken out of context. He might have said, hey, listen, all the, you know, I understand that the United States

might lose credibility because you built up forces in the region. And he might have then gone on to say, but because, you know, the Saudis haven't said, oh, no, no, that's not the case. They haven't done anything to repudiate, repudiate what he said. And I think it might be the Western media that's saying that it's a directly opposed to what MBS is saying, which is, hey, this isn't going to be in the best interest of the region to strike Iran. And also Saudi Arabia has closed. Go ahead. Sorry.

No, I was going to say it did seem like a change. Like all the reporting before was that Saudi Arabia didn't want to see military action against Iran, which is why I think this got so much attention. But it could be what Andy said. He could say, well, now that we're here, right, that we do U.S. built up this huge military presence, I can see why it would be difficult not to use it. It doesn't necessarily mean he thinks, or more importantly, Saudi thinks it would be a good idea. I just don't know. But if you look at the reports, it seems to be contradictory of what they had originally.

But the media loves doing that. You know what I mean? That makes the story, right? Also, I mean, another, like, Saudi Arabia, they are saying that, like, the U.S. is not allowed to use their airspace if there is an attack on Iran. Turkey said the same thing, too, interestingly, so does Qatar. And I get it. They don't want to get ballistic missiles fired down their soil. And also, don't we have a deal with Qatar now? We do, we do.

Right, a newly minted one last, that happened after the last... Yeah, it's like an enhanced, hence. So there's, you got NATO, of course, and you have major non-NATO's allied status. I don't know how many countries are in that, but now like Qatar has enhanced major non-NATO ally status with this. It's an executive order, though, so they probably realize that, okay, one, the president can change his mind. Yeah. It's simply, you know, the president drawing a promise to him, you know, for himself. So they probably realize that although it's better than not having it,

doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to last beyond President Trump's administration or even that, you know. Even that. That's the case. Yeah. They don't have to. There's no, it's not a treaty. That's the point. Yeah, yeah.

So what happens next? What do you guys? Let's do some speculation. That's always fun. What happens next? Does it happen? Are we waiting for the full moon, for no moon? So J.

Sox can go in and snatch the Supreme Leader. What are we doing? I imagine that they're actually. briefing president now on courses of action again, maybe a decision brief. It's because the assets are in place. And then if he decides to go ahead, then from the process, it goes back to the Defense Department, and then, of course, the Central Command. And then it's, then there's all sorts of other consideration of when it will happen, right? They might want to, you know, just like we did in Venezuela, not to say that there are anywhere comparable. But we send

planes that way. We see how they react. We see where they're defecutive. are, we see how they scramble planes, we might start doing that, the weather and all that stuff plays apart. It's really over to the military at that point to pick the ideal time based on non-political issues, right? Stuff that's more in line with being most advantageous for the military. And then we'll see. I don't know how long we give them to decide whether they're going to come to the negotiation table, but everything I've seen is they've kind of poo-pooed even doing it. They'd be in the running-in regime. So

I don't know what would stop it from happening now unless we just pulled off. And that seems unlikely. Yeah, I think I mean, I agree with Mick. I think that the target, you know, the most practical course of action, of course

I'm not, you know, I'm not, even when I was in the uniform, I wouldn't be in the decision space on this. But most practical course of action would seem to be to go off to the nuclear facilities to to continuously degrade them and also to to degrade the Iranian inventory of ballistic missiles because that would be those two things and and air defense you know what they have left at their air defense because they the Russians are the only ones who are resupplying with

air defense so those those three things would could you could achieve really you know I'm not saying you're going to achieve overwhelming decisive effects permanent, but you're certainly going to be able to achieve significant effects in those three areas, rather than if you go after members of the regime or the administration, in which case the repercussions may, as we pointed out, maybe may come back and buy you. Things that I think are possible too. but probably won't happen, you know, covert action. Mick knows, Mick's the expert on this, but it's always a possibility, but I think we would work through partners if we did that, COVID action,

this particular partner in the region who is already involved in those things in Iran. I would guess, and again, I'm speculating here, I don't have any access to knowledge, and if I did, I wouldn't share it, but I would guess that COVID action within Iran continues to be problematic for us, United States, for a number of reasons. You know, it's a high risk, and it's just an area that would be tough, I think. Mick, feel free to jump in. Yeah, I don't know, just like Andy, I wouldn't say if I did, but, I mean, I wouldn't talk about it if I had, and I don't have any access to it. So what I would say about Code Action is it works best if it's in conjunction with an overall strategy.

oftentimes at least the agency feels like if they can't figure it out diplomacy diplomatically they can't figure it out militarily they just know it to the agency and say good luck it's a it's a dumpster fire and then like how is that a place to start right it should be like supporting diplomacy economics military action and covert action should just be a part of that not the solution to most problems so if we do go forward I would guess there is definitely a component to that that is enhancing for what the overall strategy is. But I don't know. I don't know that for sure. We already talked about potential sabotage operations. Then sometimes we're better at doing something. Sometimes our partner countries are. We can say Israel.

Yeah, of course, Israel, right? So they obviously have focused 99% of their efforts on Iran or their proxies. And we cover the world. So, but we can help them as well. I think we'll see action over the next week, probably, if this is going to happen. And we'll see indications, to be frank, because this would be, you know, they still probably want to withdraw non-essential personnel from like Alludeade, like we did last time.

So you'll see a flow. Obviously, the military, we wouldn't want to give those indicators, but there's only so much they can cover, right? I think you will see potentially, there's another issue that this blockade again that the U.S. is discussing. There's some concern that it could actually trigger the conflict. So we're putting naval assets in place. They're doing naval exercises around the Straits of Horamutes. Yeah, but they stopped it.

They rescheduled them or whatever. They rescheduled it, right? So that probably was because of that concern. They were going to be in direct proximity. one thing happens and, you know, that makes the decision for us rather than the commander chief making.

But I believe they have a tentative exercise schedule with Russia and China out in the Indian Ocean for like a month from, for like a few weeks from now. But it's tentative, so I don't know if it's going to go down. Then, of course, another issue in this is like, what does the role Congress plays?

Right. So these limited military engagements, the White House will argue, doesn't trigger the War Powers Act, right? But if you have a near-continuous limited military engagements, one could argue like, well, it's, yeah, I guess taken individually, they're limited. But now it seems to be the force of our diplomacy seems to be led by force. Right. And again, I was for the strikes in Iran on nuclear. facility, and I was for the apprehension of Maduro, so not that that matters, but I would say that there is a legitimate discussion of can you, is it, is congressional approval and participation only when it lasts beyond 60 days? Or when does Congress say, you can't just go from country to country, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, you know, whatever's next, and not trigger the, you, the congressional part of the Constitution when it comes to a declaration of war. I don't know if that's ever going to be resolved. It doesn't seem like the Supreme Court's willing to weigh in,

in a very legitimate way on the War Powers Act. And what is the lanes of the road between Congress and the chief executive? I think that's become a moot point, sadly. I mean, sadly, regardless of administration, because the intent of the War Powers Act was to, was to rebalance the Constitution, right? So there was a genuine check on the executive when it came to military adventurism overseas.

And yes, that is the role of Congress. But it's become a political football. So if one party holds both chambers, they're going to make it difficult for the executive to go to war or take military action. But if the executive, if the same party is in power in both chambers or is dominant in the Senate in particular

and it's the same party as the president, then you're going to see a very laissez-faire attitude towards allowing the executive to do what he wants. It's not the intent of the, you know, here am I divining the Constitution. That's not the intent of checks and balances, right? The intent was that the purse strings, that whoever holds the purse strings, which is Congress, is a genuine check to prevent the president taking the country into war, basically, and committing American soldiers to war without the say-so of elected representatives.

That's the intent. Supreme Court was supposed to be the arbiter on that and you know when gray areas have arisen. But as Mick's pointed out, that hasn't happened. You know, I mean, we continued. I mean, yes, I know Iraq and Afghanistan were different because we were operating under an AUMF, but authorized use of military force. But there was never any concerted effort to revise that UMF, right? And it just continued and continued and continued. And that's part of the problem why we we ended up in Afghanistan, I think, one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why we lost our way in Afghanistan, because there wasn't sufficient congressional oversight to demand what exactly is our strategy

and all this effort that we're putting in, how are we, how is it aligned with a coherent policy, rotation after rotation, the great efforts that we saw on the ground at the tactical level. evaporated because they didn't align with a coherent policy. And that should have been a congressional role to ensure that happened. But it didn't happen. And everyone, you know, when Kabul fell, everyone wanted to point a finger at each other, it became political football too. But the bottom line is, I'm not arguing from the point of view by the party.

I'm just saying Congress didn't do what it was supposed to do over the course of 20 years. Yeah. And we kept expanding EMF, right? So then they gave us a reason to be in Yemen, Somalia, Syria, right? Any continuation that had to do with al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc. It became like an endless approval for Congress. And I'm not saying we shouldn't have fought in those places. Don't get me wrong.

But from a constitutional structural perspective, what is, I think the answer of the American people is it looks like they're just not going to do their constitutional rule. Congress. Yeah. I mean, it's supposed to be a liberalization, but when so small, when you have a nor volunteer force, representing such a small percentage of the average legislators, constituents, right? I mean, who's writing letters saying, hey, why's my son or daughter in X place? It's a tiny minority, tiny minority. And so, you know, I'm not suggesting we should have the draft.

But, you know, Vietnam, that's why it was such big issue. Because, because. Of course. Yeah. I mean, you didn't see anywhere near the level of protest the last 20 years of the GWAT. And you did, you know, in Vietnam because it had direct impact on everybody, regardless of their position on the war. Yeah, also, most of the families of folks who were deployed over the last 20 years probably weren't massive. campaign donors either.

So who's really going to fucking listen to them? And I also don't want to, I mean, even if you oppose the war, I think families would be a little hesitant to be too vocal when they're a child volunteered to be in the,

you know what I mean? So, especially you joined. It's a good point. I mean, I'm not saying bring back the draft, but I think we can all agree that if we had a draft, military adventurism would probably subside quite a bit. Yeah.

Certainly when it comes to introducing ground forces. And you could have a, you know, you could have a non-military national service aspect of it like the Germans did. And you, you know, positive things would happen like Brooklyn would be clean. I mean, and you, you would get that sense of, just that sense of national, you know, national. It's out of nowhere. Yeah. Anti-Brooklyn rhetoric.

It's unacceptable. Don't let, don't they, aren't they using the AUMF, uh, to justify what they're doing with the, uh, the drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific and also what happened in Venezuela? The rhetoric. I don't, again, there's no connection between al-Qaeda that I can think up in drunk art. But isn't that the reason why they, isn't that why they, terrorist organization? But then they call them like, uh, narco-terrorist organizations, and they change the, uh, wording

for them? to like make it seem like, yeah, no, we could do this. This is okay. This is not against international law. And the State Department designate a foreign terrorist organization. Right. Under their authorities, it doesn't give you right to use military actions. It's basically like sanctions and banking and travel or something.

I got it. But it sounds the same. It sounds the same, right? As AOF and foreign terrorist organizations. Sure. But it's not, I don't think, legally. Let's talk real quick about what's going on in Syria. you know, SDF and Al-Shaara forces or the, you know, Syrian government forces are clashing.

Another place where Turkey has a lot of sway. Just a quick rundown on what's up there. How's it looking? Because there was some talk about there being like a, they were going to figure it out. They came to some kind of piece or some kind of deal. And it seems to have unraveled a little bit. A bit. See, I mean, just to the background, obviously, this has been contentious between the United States and Turkey.

for the entirety of the defeat ISIS campaign and the enduring defeat of ISIS, because the U.S. has been paired with the SDF, whose primary leadership corps is the YPG, which the Turks believe is too connected to the PKK, a foreign terrorist organization. But the U.S., particularly the Defense Department and the agency, has seen that they were the most effective partner that fought alongside the United States, sometimes well beyond what they would have really needed to protect themselves, and did most of the fighting and to die against ISIS, which benefited the world. There was an 80 country coalition.

And those are the Kurds. Right. Those are the – well, they're both Arab and Kurd, to be fair, inside the SDF. It's just that the leadership is predominantly Kurdish. But, you know, 80 country coalition, the SDA did most in fighting, right? So I think – I personally think – and I know them a lot to be – to be upfront. We owe them to be their partner in advocating for them in a future Syria. I'm not saying we should advocate for the Rahaba concept and they're completely autonomous

and all that stuff. But they, I think, earned the right of the United States to be an advocate with the El Shara interim government so that they're in a good place. And Siri isn't a good place. It's not saying we should be totally biased toward them. But I think a lot of them feel like we're essentially abandoned. And that's happened before. It causes a lot of tension with the special operations community,

who has spent a lot of time, a lot of time, particularly the Army side of that, and with the agency, because they have been exceptional partners when it came to on-the-ground fighting. And I think that's something that I hope that we can keep in mind that every international engagement isn't purely transactional. has to be some loyalty to partners and allies, or they're not never going to be that toward us again. There's a practical reason, too, in addition to just ethical. I know we didn't have much time at the end, but this could come back next week. Andrew? No, I mean, I agree to tell you with Mac.

I wrote an article back in 2019. actually was an interview with MSNBC and which when we were first talking about pulling out of Syria, right, and leaving the SDF to the mercy of the Turks. Like America, I feel quite strongly about standing by our allies, you know, and not just saying that in a vague term. We've turned our back historically. We haven't been very good at standing by the groups who don't represent foreign sovereign countries, but have done the lion's share of the fighting against our enemies. You know, you go back all the way to Vietnam and the Monteneyards and not just the Monteneyards, but various other ethnic groups within Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. And then in the, you know, the Canter ISIS campaign was the success that it was because we had a capable ground fight. fighting force. And we collectively defeated ISIS at the incredibly low cost when it comes to casualties. It was the antithesis of Afghanistan where we flailed around and lost. And that was thanks to the SDF. Yes, they were in it for themselves. Of course. But it was a good partnership. and actually it was a partnership based on trust.

We had teams in there, the US soft community, very small teams working with the SDF, coordinating fire support, totally at their mercy. We're totally beholden to them for protection and they never let us down. So, yeah, I feel pretty strongly about us turning our backs on them in any way,

whether it's with the Syrian, regime or with the Turks. All right. Anything else, guys? It's pretty good. Pretty solid. Yeah. I want everyone to do some favor.

Like and subscribe. If you're listening to us on audio, rate a five star, subscribe there. Tell a friend, you know, why not? Mick Mulroy, he's got a great new podcast called the Pub and the Portch Applied Stoicism. That link is in the description. Andy Milburn, great new article about what's going on

with the urban warfare in Gaza down in the description. He wrote that for Warren the Rocks. That link is there as well. And he's got a great book when the Tempest gathers. I'm still waiting for Mick to write his book. I'm very excited.

I can't wait for that. And yeah, Patreon.com. Yeah, patreon.com slash the team house. Please. One more. The summit that's coming up. So it's called the Montana Intelligence Summit. It's going to be in the town

that Lobos headquartered in. Whitefish. Hopefully we get the whole podcast team out there. It will change to the Whitefish Security Summit this year. But it's the same thing. Same thing. We hope to make it a place where it will probably remain the special operations intel heavy, but it will include policy and everything that goes into national security.

And there's a lot to do in Whitefish. I'm biased. But I think it's going to be excellent, and we hope to make it an annual thing with this new group. we're attached to you. Yeah, that link is also in the description. Check it out there if you want to go for tickets and everything to see who's on the speaking. Perfect location.

And I agree with your decision, Mick, to shift that from Brooklyn, not just because the activities that you can pursue in Brooklyn are at a different level, but the Brooklyn Intelligence Summit is, well, an oxymoron. Unbelievable. You're just defaming. You're defaming the great borough of Brooklyn, and it's frankly disgusting. It is disgusting, yes. Thanks, guys.

As always, check us out. The links for everything is in the description. We'll see you next week. Thanks, Jeff. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the Eyes On podcast, and the high side news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox, and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Aizon and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the high side.

So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy, and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox, and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week. It's really good, man. I'm checking it out. The website for it is teamhousepodcast.com.com slash join. Teamhousepodcast. Dot kit.com slash join.

You go there and you enter into your email list, or you enter your email into the little thing on the website, and you're good to go, and that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support, and hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link? The link will also be down in the description, if you're looking for it there.

And that's teamhousepodcast. Dot K-I-T-K-L-O-IndiaTango.com backslash join.