LARRY JOHNSON : Will the MOU survive 60 days?

The “no meeting scheduled” headline sounds small until you trace what it’s sitting on top of: a disputed MOU, a live-fire exchange around the Strait of Hormuz, and a U.S. posture that may be more exit than escalation. Larry Johnson joins me to walk through why Iran says it never asked for direct talks, how transit protocols are being enforced on the water, and why public claims of leverage do not match the operational reality on the ground.

Then we follow the consequences where they actually land: your cost of living. If Gulf shipping gets constrained, the shock is bigger than oil. We talk sulfur and urea shortages that squeeze fertilizer production, what that means for food supply and prices into the next season, and why helium matters for semiconductors and consumer electronics. This is geopolitics as supply chain math, and the math is ugly.

We also revisit the JCPOA and the nuclear incentives created when agreements collapse under pressure, plus the growing role of China and Russia in shaping Iran’s options. From alternative payment systems like CIPS to rail corridors that rewire trade routes, a post-dollar world is not a slogan, it’s infrastructure. We close with the escalating danger in Europe and Ukraine, where miscalculation could drag NATO into decisions it is not politically ready to make.

If this helped you connect military headlines to economic reality, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. What’s the single biggest risk you think people are underestimating right now?

Chapter Markers

• 0:00 Cold Open And What’s Brewing
• 1:50 Did Iran Actually Ask For Talks
• 3:20 Strait Rules And The Drone Strike
• 6:55 Withdrawal Orders And Base Damage
• 11:30 Iraq Raids And Lebanon Pressure Points
• 14:45 Why A Gulf War Is Unworkable
• 21:26 Fertilizer Helium And The Price Shock
• 25:27 JCPOA Lessons And Nuclear Incentives
• 31:10 Protecting Your Finances From Inflation
• 34:04 Iran China Rail And A New Payment System
• 40:32 Europe Ukraine And Article V Risk
• 45:39 War Games And Cooked Outcomes
• 49:19 Syria As A Proxy Idea And Farewell

[SPEAKER_03]: Jared Kushner and Steve Wickoff have been stood up on their date.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's our by the raining counterparts, and this comes to spite President Trump's assurances that Iran asked for a meeting, however, no direct talks are scheduled as the 60 day clock continues to run.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to Hawaii and shirt today, which means the one and only Larry Johnson is here with us.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we're going to talk about this.

[SPEAKER_03]: We can dust up, which conveniently occur between trading windows as you may know.

[SPEAKER_03]: And apparently, construction is underway of an Iranian railway to China, all that and a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, it's Tuesday, June 30th, and welcome to once again, Hawaiian shirt day on the Jim Webb podcast, here with Larry Johnson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Larry, great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was always.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, look, Jim, as you know, it's part of a requirement being a Florida.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you don't have one of these, you're not properly retired for a business meeting.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're not lying and this was basically I guess this is standard issue for Florida I got this at the Blue Wahoo's game last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So cool move here.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think if you won it's pretty cool The baseball team may suck but at least they got good taste and close absolutely Absolutely, and I got I got to figure out when they're they're give away as again this year to go Refresh my supply here But it's a a man great great to have you and

[SPEAKER_03]: want to get into some of your stuff that was on sonar 21 here in a second, but some right off the top.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we were supposed to have the next round of in-person meetings.

[SPEAKER_03]: We were guaranteed by President Trump via true social, I guess that counts as an official statement from him, that the Iranians had asked for a meeting.

[SPEAKER_03]: And apparently, there is not one, I guess, indirect talks.

[SPEAKER_03]: So what's your take on this?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, the Iranians didn't ask for a meeting.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've been insisting all along that it's the United States now that's violating the MOU.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that's absolutely correct.

[SPEAKER_01]: The United States is trying to pick and choose what it wants to follow.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in the process, there are assuming that Iran is just going to put up with it and say and not protest and just the opposite.

[SPEAKER_01]: The lead negotiators are actually the Foreign Minister, Gali Balf, the head of Parliament.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've gotten marching orders from the Supreme Council.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is about like 86 of the leading clerics in Iran and 60, I think it was 62 of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: 64 voted the other day that, hey, you know, you're not going to show any flexibility whatsoever on this MOU.

[SPEAKER_01]: The MOU has got to be implemented as is stipulated or else we're not going to have anything to do with United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we saw that, you know, the first major violation was last Friday.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the M.O.U.

[SPEAKER_01]: stipulates in paragraph five that Iran and only Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no, then stay Iran and the United States, Iran and one of the Gulf countries like O.M.

[SPEAKER_01]: or Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

[SPEAKER_01]: Probably Iran is given the responsibility for arranging the safe passage of ships through the straight of Hormuz, only Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: And nowhere in there, in that paragraph, did it say.

[SPEAKER_01]: But hey, Iran, you can't fire upon any vessel that's ignoring your instructions, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Didn't say that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so Iran put together the Persian Gulf straight authority protocols.

[SPEAKER_01]: And these protocols outlined what all shit.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he shipped the most of the past.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what you do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fill out an application, give it to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

[SPEAKER_01]: then you're good to go.

[SPEAKER_01]: As long as you're not sailing to Israel or owned by an Israeli source, so it's a way to embargo Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, last Friday the United States working behind the scenes with the UK MTO, the maritime trade organization, they directed this ship called the Everlovely.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everley, go ahead, go through all in the Amani site, ignore those Iranians, don't do what they say.

[SPEAKER_01]: Iran hit it with a drone, and then the United States said, well, we take unbridge at that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, in violation of the MOU, or stipulates, the neither sides can attack the other.

[SPEAKER_01]: The United States launched an attack on Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: Iran said, here we go again.

[SPEAKER_01]: They launched a retaliatory strike.

[SPEAKER_01]: That ended it for Friday, coming to Saturday, two more ships try to get through.

[SPEAKER_01]: U.S. is a company in them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I find this hilarious.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're saying the ship is being accompanied by the U.S. aircraft.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the ship's going to 12 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Max, being accompanied by an F-16 that's going to like 350 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: How does that work?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you ever been like the Indianapolis 500, the first motor race I went to, all it is, it's a blur of color going past, you know, you have to focus on one card to keep track of what's going on.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's what the ship is saying.

[SPEAKER_01]: All this in is this blur of a plane flying by.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Iran hit that, hit the ship, and the United States then launched in the tack, and in response to that, Iran went, they launched major attacks on two airfields in Kuwait and Bahrain.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, U.S. didn't have any aircraft there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So both of these were described to be by one of my buddy's black duty,

[SPEAKER_01]: military political fear they're you know we're blowing we're blowing sand up we're blowing different things but nobody's really getting killed nobody's really suffering severe injury but it is sending a message who's in charge start for that second exchange of fire

[SPEAKER_01]: U.S. didn't retaliate, instead Trump comes out with, oh, it runs begging for talks.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then it running for a minister came out and said, no, we're not.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we go to, if we go to Qatar, we're going to go talk about the, you know, technical things with the, the folks in Qatar, we've got nothing to say to the Americans at this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: MOU is what the MOU is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now with all that is backdrop,

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know if you're aware of this, but Pete Hicks has signed an order five, six days ago, initiating the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I did not see that.

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, in fact, I was told that he even took out a Sharpie and he added some units to that withdrawal order.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, as you know, based on your experience, it's just not a simple matter,

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, troops, Marines, get on the back of this truck, and let's go.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's some logistics involved, and there's time and distance and everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it took a while to get all those aircraft over there, it took a while to get the helicopters over there, and another equipment.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now they get to bring it home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so we saw this big flurry of activity over the weekend of all these planes coming in and a lot of social media focuses all the United States is building up for a attack saw that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, nope.

[SPEAKER_01]: I went back to my buddy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I said and light of all this exchange of fire and the person golf between the US and Iran or we as they give them the stand down or reversing those orders he goes nope.

[SPEAKER_01]: they're still in place and we're still moving, you know, these are massive waves of personnel and equipment that have to be moved.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the United States actually is back and out.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's out there pretending like it's posturing, it's ready to fight, but the reality is it's back and out.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's very interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I saw everything with the, I mean, a flight tracker pinged all those aircraft going in and everything seemed very unverifiable that put in 650,000 guys on the deck to do a ground war and I was not hearing anything about deployment orders from the people that I know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for that at a very illuminating piece of data there, and that's actually very encouraging.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you did that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But to go back to the strike on the Amani side by the Iranians, my favorite piece of that was the Iranians, almost like a Bob Boss saying, it's very dangerous to go through Amani waters.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, dude, you hit him with a drone.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's like they're going to run a ground or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But so, you are pretty convinced that this is all moving in a de-escalatory direction.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is that my inference correct?

[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, for now, yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's put it this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: The United States is not moving the assets in place that it would need to escalate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, the rhetoric side, I don't know if it's going to de-escalate.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, Trump escalated the other day talking about the end of the world for Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: But having the actual aircraft in place to carry it out in the munitions, that's going to be, I think that's in reverse.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, what you're seeing

[SPEAKER_01]: is like at all indeed air force space and I don't know, did you ever pass through that during your time going overseas?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's in Kuwait.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's in London.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was there in 2004.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because usually, you know, when I went to Belad with J. Sock in 2006, I had to, you know, food a Munich, got to cut Doha and then get bused out to Aloudine, next thing, you know, you get on a C130.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the luxury flight into Iraq with corkscrew.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is back when they're doing corkscrew landings.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, but that was that that's the biggest space for the United States in the entire region and it had this thing called the combined air operation center, K-Ock.

[SPEAKER_01]: And K-Ock man was the nerve center saw all the flights.

[SPEAKER_01]: It could tell when missiles were being launched out of Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: It had this billion dollar radar set up and other radars.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well,

[SPEAKER_01]: Iran blew the hell out of those radars, they're gone, and Kayak has now been relocated to, I think, Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's no longer in the Middle East, so that for all practical effects, all the deeds gone, fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain, dead, it's been blown to smithereens.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we talk about, well, you see, United States going to withdraw troops, well,

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a de facto withdrawal underway simply because these bases have been so devastated and the United States is impovering up the money to rebuild them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, and that's actually a great segue here.

[SPEAKER_03]: We'll get to you.

[SPEAKER_03]: We got a super chat in from...

[SPEAKER_03]: lip-lop-zop, and I, people, sounds like Batman, yeah, handles out there are very interesting here.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get to this first, and then, yeah, it said critics in Iran were either losing leverage by the US slicing off bits of the MOU, what do you think?

[SPEAKER_03]: regarding Iraq, Lebanon, Hormuz, and frozen assets in a little bit of, I guess, color I could throw on there is what apparently went down the green zone over the weekend where you had the counterterrorism force and the Iraqi military doing some raids on what appeared to be pro-rainy and that's why it was described opposition forces or people within the Iraqi government.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it didn't make sense for the latter.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start with the latter, and then we'll go to the former question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Four Minister Arracci was in Iraq visiting with the Prime Minister making arrangements because they're having the funeral in termment of the Ayatollah Hamani who is martyred on February 28.

[SPEAKER_01]: So five months later, they're now going to planning in the ground and a holy site, a place called Meshad.

[SPEAKER_01]: If this was, this is, I think, better described, at least by the Prime Minister's sources as a move against corruption, not a move against, so-called, pro-Roney in groups.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because, again, if he was, if he was going after Iran, why would he meet with the Foreign Minister and make arrangements for the funeral?

[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't make sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're not pitch and a fit, part of it is because of the relationship with Pakistan and the relationship with China, they don't want to take any kind of action that's going to be seen as provocative or they could stand accused of, oh, you're violating the MOU.

[SPEAKER_01]: But so they've held firm to their parts and I think the one that's really going to bring it, you know, terror to part will be Lebanon and the US, you know, the games the US is playing there with trying to come up with this new plan to destroy Hezbollah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Notice,

[SPEAKER_01]: that since since the signing of this MOU has below has not been off-paking offensive operations, they have stood down per request of Iran, but one of these days, I think Iran's going to turn them loose and say, you know, go get them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so then at that point, you're going to see a dramatic surge in the fighting and southern Lebanon, and Israel will be taking

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna, I want to get to that one second, but you mentioning the withdrawal from the region or potential withdrawal from the region signed by Hagset here brings me to the next section.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we've got a little teaser by Jake Sullivan.

[SPEAKER_03]: I rarely agree with this guy, but even a plant's bro finds another one.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Donald Trump joined Israel in launching a misbegotten and illegal war in Iran.

[SPEAKER_02]: Got stuck in a corner.

[SPEAKER_02]: that we never stepped on his stuff with the is there and have to get out of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in showing it is he's he's he's saying some things is he being is he being able to confront his rail on some of its, you know, let's say massive overreaction to drone attack.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think basically what he has finally come to, but only because he allowed his reel to restart a war in Gaza that it stopped and he started a war with his reel in Iran that is

[SPEAKER_02]: has kind of reached the end of his rope, but I think it is only after two years of doing things that went way beyond anything that the previous administration did or that administrations before that had done.

[SPEAKER_02]: What he's saying makes sense, it's logical, but it has to be understood in a context in which he pretty much put America's security at risk and set us back strategically by joining Israel on a war that President Biden and previous presidents had refused to join.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's the one tip bit here that, like the focus on is he got into a war that previous presidents had refused to join and you couple that with, we've got, I hope we have some images here of the damage, but CSIS put out a report saying that the war is cost about 40 billion to include up to 5.1 billion in damage on the ground and some of this stuff may not be rebuilt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, at least two of the radars that were taken out in Bahrain and in Qatar.

[SPEAKER_01]: each radar was an excess of a billion dollars to build and maintain.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, one of the radar, another, since I don't want to call it a radar, let's call it a communications link terminal.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was tied into space defense.

[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently, that got destroyed and created a lot of consternation among the joint staff.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got that kind of damage that was done.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I go back, I'm such an old guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when I started at state in 1989, one of the, a Navy SEAL commander that was detailed there, Paul Evinco.

[SPEAKER_01]: Paul had been the commander of the Hercules barge, so two years previously, in 1987, the U.S. set up a floating barge that became a navy base off the coast of Bahrain.

[SPEAKER_01]: And his job was to stop the Iranians were trying to mine the straight.

[SPEAKER_01]: Back then, Iran had very, very minimal military capability.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had some boats, they had some helicopters, and they had these mine-lane ships.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so Paul was involved in, well, the Iranians could do very little damage to the Americans back then.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, jump ahead now, so that was good Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was coming almost 30, 39 years ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: that that was taking place in that thirty nine years, Iran now has acquired massive military capabilities to the point.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can shut us out completely of the Persian Gulf.

[SPEAKER_01]: They couldn't back then.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we took them on and Paul had an engagement one night with like twenty four running gunboats and he had little birds and his own boats

[SPEAKER_01]: But that was then, this is now completely different picture.

[SPEAKER_01]: Iran actually controls the Persian Gulf.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Pussy-9 states in the position saying, OK, militarily, what are you going to do?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's put in the Marines.

[SPEAKER_01]: OK, how exactly are you going to get them there?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we'll put them on landing craft.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, that'll work out well because Ron has this thing called drones and cruise missiles and short range ballistic missiles.

[SPEAKER_01]: Probably not a good idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you can concern about the longevity of the Marines.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's get the 82nd Airborne.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's have them parachute in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's a great idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once you get on the ground, how are you going to resupply them?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and let's do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do it in the summer right now when it's a 125 degrees.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you only need to drink about, you know, 10 liters of water a day just to stay alive.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, you know, these...

[SPEAKER_01]: these peep, these, a lot of these commentators, and some of them are former military shocks me are saying stupid stuff like this, not thinking through the logistics, not thinking through the practicalities, of what does it mean to have a marine or a soldier on the ground, and if they get into combat, how do they get re-supplied, because you know, first hand, how quickly you go through a magazine, then all of a sudden, you don't have, it's

[SPEAKER_01]: Loader, you know, some guy comes over and starts stuffing rounds into the magazine for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, we don't have a ground option, no matter how how terrific it sounds.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we ignore the part that the carry out at ground operation, you might need it assembly point in advance.

[SPEAKER_01]: And where are we going to get that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, except all of our assembly points are well within the range of all the short range intermediate range ballistic missiles that Iran has.

[SPEAKER_01]: So scratch that as an idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what we find is where now the United States is caught strategically.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have a military option that's viable.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well put it well put and we're gonna go back to super chats here real quick Man, I'm gonna flip flop zoop.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got flip flop zoop.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're back again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you flip Bob zoop, but he or they said that one earth is going on one earth is going on with a huge number of U.S. military transports to the Middle East past few days.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think we already hit on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there there there is

[SPEAKER_01]: If they called the Uber, that's the Uber driver showing up.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're getting on board and going home.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, thank God.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, man.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's, I'm so, the, is another good segue into the strategic conundrum or problem the United States has.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you wrote a really good piece on your blog, so in our 21.

[SPEAKER_03]: about the economics of this, specifically, things like helium, sulfur, and yurea, and the hiccup here, and with the global transport of it and the secondary and tertiary effects on market prices.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, everything from every focus on oil, but you're talking about manufacturing for things like electronics, but then also probably the most important thing for human survival outside of water is food.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it is fertilizer tied into this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, Ambrose Bears is reported to have said that war is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now, we can update that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually teaching Americans about the food cycle, the food supply, helium, the

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't, you know, personally, I figured fertilizer was a company that goes up and scrapes up a bunch of cowdun for, you know, ferments it and then sells it as, you know, put this on your crops and it'd be great.

[SPEAKER_01]: So who knew that this is a big chemical process that involves sulfur, which comes off of oil, and urea.

[SPEAKER_01]: nitrogen, but the combination of those two are critical factors in the production of fertilizer and up to between 25 to 35 percent of the world's supply of sulfur in your rea, coming out of the Persian Gulf, is no longer coming out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that has, that's led to a serious shortage in both sulfur and urea, which means the fertilizers not getting produced, which means the price of fertilizer has gone way up.

[SPEAKER_01]: So those farmers who can afford it, they're having to pay more money while there's some farmers that can't, and those farmers who have to absorb that have to hope that whatever they produce, that they're able to

[SPEAKER_01]: You can capture that cost and what they sell.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you had to buy $50 for a bag of fertilizer last year, now that's $100, well, where's that other 50?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to add that 50 onto splitted among the crop that you're producing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps.

[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, the point of all this is we're going to see a world-food shortage.

[SPEAKER_01]: starting probably in October and extending into next spring.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one effect.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you mentioned the helium.

[SPEAKER_01]: Helium is critical for making computer chips.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I figured it was for party balloons and people talking funny, you know, will I pitch voice?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, you absolutely need the helium to engrave those

[SPEAKER_01]: you know, it's still magic to me, but that's one of the reasons now we just saw Tim Cook from Apple come out and say, yeah, you know what that high-end iPhone iPhone, that's going to cost you an additional 200 bucks.

[SPEAKER_01]: And know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's the cost of the chip that's going into it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just aim for the MacBook Pro, that's going to be $300.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, all of a sudden, now this is an inflationary spike.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just, it's not one item, it's going to hit across the globe, it is not just one product, it's a variety.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, the globe is really impatient with an inflationary height.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then it's not like they're generating more income and some cases got fixed or lower incomes.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's a it's a it's a perfect storm of economic chaos.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, um, so on that note, um,

[SPEAKER_03]: I can't help but go back to the importance of the Trump administration has put on the nuclear side of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: They keep hitting on it for whatever reason.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you tie this into the JCPOA, which took years to negotiate.

[SPEAKER_01]: About two years?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So with that in context, it's never been more important.

[SPEAKER_03]: U.S. has never had as a little leverage in negotiating process, we have basically none right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think it's a viable thing with all the economic pieces out there on the table where at a second notice it looks like the reins could just choke off the straight again and cause the global economy to go kind of into a free fall?

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if they'd be willing to do that, let's get your take on it.

[SPEAKER_03]: But where are we with this and how long do you think it's going to take?

[SPEAKER_03]: Or do you think we even can get a nuclear kind of agreement out of this?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think they'll get a nuclear agreement.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Ron's willing to make one.

[SPEAKER_01]: What it Ron's going to do, they're going to enforce the PGSA protocols.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that means, hey, you want to sell your ship out of the Persian Gulf for sell it in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, give us, name of the ship, cargo your carrying, where you're going, who's the owner of the ship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just basically, they're going to impose a de facto embargo on Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: So anybody other than Israel can go in and out of shape.

[SPEAKER_01]: All you got to do is fill out that paperwork and go.

[SPEAKER_01]: But one thing that's preventing ships from taking advantage of that for the European ship owners is Europe's going to sanction anybody that uses the Iranian route.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's okay guys, so you're screwing yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, as far as ships going out, the India, the China, the Asia, they're going out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Iran is not restricting their flow at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: and good news is the United States did lift that blockade so it's not militarily trying to intervene to stop those.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I don't know about you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had never until recently read the JCPOA.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been back and read it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, what was Trump thinking?

[SPEAKER_01]: This was a good agreement.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if your goal was to control Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon, this was it.

[SPEAKER_01]: The only criticism you could make was it was limited to 10 years, but if everybody had complied and gone along and lifted the sanctions,

[SPEAKER_01]: Iran was not seeking.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they had no reason to.

[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't being quote attacked in such a way that they needed to respond.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, without being attacked, and a growing majority of Iranians are saying, you know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: If we had a nuke, they wouldn't be doing this to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: They wouldn't dare.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, how do you argue with that logic?

[SPEAKER_03]: really can't, that's the unfortunate thing about it and about the JCPOA.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was one of the first documents I had to really dive into and I started working on the Hill and it was an interesting document.

[SPEAKER_03]: And to get to your point about the limit to 10 years, that was the constant crowing on the more hawker side in the Senate.

[SPEAKER_03]: Was it, oh, they're going to get to the point where they can just break out quickly after 10 years, but then you go back to the, I guess the baseline,

[SPEAKER_03]: point of sanctions, which is you're trying to change behavior.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's economic coercion, and it's all built in there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And over a decade, I mean, maybe you work through something like this document and the arrangement, and you change both the attitude of our domestic view over Iran, and perhaps their internal view of the United States, and you come to more types of agreements.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the fact that maybe that they had the capability to build a new get some point wouldn't be a problem or a threat like maybe you could paper overall this stuff after a period of time you worked together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and not only that, I think back at the time the United States with Europe had got Russia and China on board to support that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, now they're supporting Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, when they tried to do the snapback sanctions in the last fall, China and Russia said, we're not following that, no, we're not going to do that at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they've played a critical role, particularly the Chinese and enhancing Iranian capabilities.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was told by a Pakistani source a couple of weeks back.

[SPEAKER_01]: that during one of those last strikes that took place on U.S. military bases on the tenth of June, strikes are carried out in Bahrain at Kuwait, at the Ali al-Salam Air Base, at the Prince Saudi Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and Mawafat al-Salti in Jordan.

[SPEAKER_01]: That they were using, that they used some Chinese missiles in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: that were being operated by Pakistani military personnel that had been trained on it, so they're sitting there side by side with their Iranian counterpart, do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, that's a big difference, and I know when that one very sensitive

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's call it global interstellar communication system was taken out in Bahrain.

[SPEAKER_01]: The assumption that the Pentagon was either the Chinese or the Russians provided the Iranians with the coordinates for that to take it out.

[SPEAKER_03]: not be surprised.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's really what we've been doing in Ukraine.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, turn about, turn abouts for our play.

[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, um, got another super chat here real quick.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's a good opportunity for us to mention our friends at Patriot Supply or my Patriot Supply.

[SPEAKER_03]: Larry and I live in Hurricane Zone.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, it's, uh, always a good idea.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some type of go bag or a hurricane fun design call it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I keep one of my garage and one of my

[SPEAKER_03]: And you will never want something so bad as to when you need it, particularly supplies fresh water and food that you can find at my Patreus Supply.

[SPEAKER_03]: But from Jonathan Ventura, a much easier name to pronounce than the other handle.

[SPEAKER_03]: But how should Americans protect themselves with the incoming inflation crisis?

[SPEAKER_01]: If you have debt, get debt at a fixed rate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't get it where it's going to be indexed to the rate of inflation.

[SPEAKER_01]: It where it can be adjusted.

[SPEAKER_01]: I saw this firsthand in Argentina back in 1984.

[SPEAKER_01]: My wife and I, with our son, is in three.

[SPEAKER_01]: We moved, we were down there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was actually asked to supervise the construction of a church because I spoke Spanish in the group that was building a church.

[SPEAKER_01]: They needed a ring go up there to watch this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I was in Argentina during the mention of hyperinflation, thousand percent annual inflation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one of my dear friends, he owned a bakery.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was a guy that provided pastries to the Argentine airline, the Arrolinia, Sargentina.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he'd actually been an Air Force pilot in the Argentine Air Force.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he made the mistake at this time.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sold his existing house, which is like about 4,000 square feet.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it went big house up a little class guy, bought a new truck every two years, and to build this bakery.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's trying to build this bakery in the midst of this inflation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he found out he hadn't paid his tax on the real estate.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was being indexed.

[SPEAKER_01]: When he finally got the tax bill, the tax on the property he had sold was twice what he received as payment for the property.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the lesson out of that was, don't, you know, if you've got, like if you've got a fixed rate loan right now, 3% hang on to that, because inflation will then be your friend.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it will burn away that debt.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you are indexed to, you know, if you've got any kind of debts that like credit card bills that are just, you know, get out of those, get out of those, that's, that'll kill you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Smart man, make sure my wife sees that.

[SPEAKER_03]: All about this so back to back to the global side of this so I saw something over the weekend I don't know how viable it actually is, but it looks like the Iranians have broke ground This has begun construction on the Iran Afghanistan China rail court

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the more than broken ground on it, they've actually, I think they had the first run of a train from China to Iran last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so this thing is well underway.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's

[SPEAKER_01]: you've got this convergence so that's the old so let's call that the old Silk Road they goes you know goes back uh thousand years where people were bringing a trading from east to west and they would go follow this route you know through you know through Iran through Afghanistan and Tajikistan and then uh up through all the way to China um

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you've got the north south, you've got also the north south, which goes from Russia St. Petersburg all the way to Chabahar and the southern coast of Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Iran really is that it's a critical economic crossroads.

[SPEAKER_01]: for the future economy, and that's the back story between this whole U.S. focus on Iran, because the global economic order that was established in the wake of World War II, Bretton Woods System, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, then what became known as the Petro Dollar in the 1970s,

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's allowed the United States to basically rule the world economically because everybody had to have our dollars or so we thought.

[SPEAKER_01]: But now, in the wake, in this started in 2022 with the special military operations in Ukraine, the efforts to punish Russia accelerated efforts to create an alternative financial system.

[SPEAKER_01]: The threats that were made against China at the

[SPEAKER_01]: working through, they've been working to create this new infrastructure.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's real now, instead of countries buying the US treasuries, which, you know, finances the US debt, these countries are now buying Chinese bonds.

[SPEAKER_01]: because those bonds are backed by gold.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's number one.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Chinese have set up an alternative to Swift.

[SPEAKER_01]: Swift is a way that banks wire money from one bank to another.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically an email system.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, hey Jim, I'm emailing you $500 and credit account, XYZ, and then, you know,

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if my email gets into your spam folder, it may be there too before you find it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the problems with Swift.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's ironically named.

[SPEAKER_01]: It ain't so swift.

[SPEAKER_01]: It ain't quick.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sips, which the Chinese have created is called a cross-border interbank payment system.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's digital.

[SPEAKER_01]: Zip Zip, you know, it's like using Zell.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so you go to your bank account and say, I'm going to Zell, Jim, 1000 bucks, and boom, I get notice it's gone, and you get notice he got it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: Seconds.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what China's created in the last month, a 26 additional international banks have signed up with China and that's it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We like your system.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be working with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this whole new economic order is starting to emerge as a competitor to the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: And frankly, there's not a lot of the United States can do to stop it and try to sabotage it here and there.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the more the United States tries to sabotage and stop it, the more rationale they create for its creation.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, without question.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I remember back to, is it 2019, 2018, 2019 somewhere in there, when the administration at the time, first took great umbridge with the North Stream 2 pipeline.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And one of them.

[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the, not really stories I'm here, but one of the things that I was doing was trying to prevent a Ted Cruz sponsored sanctions package from getting out into the wild, which was going to target anybody who had any type of financial dealings with that and then include a whole list of NATO allies who were participating in the North Stream to construction.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was like 90% completion, 95% something in there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was at the very last second.

[SPEAKER_03]: They had billions invested in it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And about that time, an alternate to Swift popped up.

[SPEAKER_03]: I believe it was in Switzerland.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was pretty eye-opening.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that, you know what?

[SPEAKER_03]: that they were ever really going to use that, but it's one of the points of it was exactly what you just said was that this is updated, it's easy to use, and not only is it that, but it's an end around on the weaponization of the dollar, because we were providing our own allies who fought with us alongside us in World War II and Afghanistan, to from pursuing their own economic security and energy security, which is far more important.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, that's where Europe has screwed itself.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is right now, it's acting completely irrational.

[SPEAKER_01]: They stood by, Ily, while the North Stream gets blown up, forcing them to come to pen it upon LNG coming out of the United States, which is far more expensive.

[SPEAKER_01]: They lost access to a very inexpensive form of oil for refining their own gas.

[SPEAKER_01]: coming out of Russia and so now they're dependent upon a more dependent upon Persian Gulf oil which is shut off.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the economic crisis from this, the closure of the state of Hormuz, it's going to hit Europe first and hardest.

[SPEAKER_01]: United States will then, we'll catch the second wave.

[SPEAKER_01]: but Europe's in real trouble right now and they don't even know it or they don't refuse to acknowledge it instead they keep talking about wanting to go to war but Russia

[SPEAKER_01]: And Russia is now saying, all right, what we hear you, and we're going to act accordingly, which that's why I think the most dangerous area of the world right now, it's not in the Persian Gulf.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's in Ukraine and Europe.

[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't really have a pivot point to that, but what do you think what is what is so dangerous about the situation developing in Europe right now?

[SPEAKER_03]: Other than back in my head, I would think that Ukraine army is about to kind of snap and have burned out of guys and we might step into the gap.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to paint just scenario and I'll have you answer it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the Central Law Cartel is now receiving drones and missiles that China is building.

[SPEAKER_01]: and they are launching those into Austin, into Albuquerque, into Phoenix, into Brownsville, Texas.

[SPEAKER_01]: What would be our reaction?

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, something really, really, really nasty with the Chinese.

[SPEAKER_03]: First of all, we'd smash the crap out of the Sinoleo Cartel, probably cross the border, and then that wouldn't be the end of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: We would do whatever it took to stop that flow.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in the tradition of the United States, punish the Chinese physically.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bombs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Mr. Webb.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are correct, sir.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what's now going on with Russia, the Europeans, particularly the breads, they've stepped up the provision of missiles and heavier drones that are flying deeper into Russia.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not like that there are attacking military targets, they're attacking civilians, they're killing civilians, they're just killed a baby today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and so this is the, it's enraging the Russians.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not making a single bit of difference in terms of the strategic picture.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not enhancing Ukraine's ability to conduct ground operations.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's more just to sort of piss on the Russians.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the Russians are saying,

[SPEAKER_01]: They've warned, you know, the Sergei love for off and others warned the diplomats and cave, you better get out, you get out now why you can, because when, you know, and they've been retaliating all along, but they're still, they've got steps that they can go.

[SPEAKER_01]: The danger now is,

[SPEAKER_01]: At some point, if these attacks, if these supply of missiles continue and the supply of intelligence to carry out those attacks, that Russia will strike in the UK, or strike in Germany, or strike in Romania, possibly in Poland.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so then it's going to get the NATO Senate, well, do we do Article 5?

[SPEAKER_01]: And the problem with Article 5 is all the legislators have to vote to go to war.

[SPEAKER_01]: Are you out of your mind?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this is where Sergei Kataganov has come in and say, look, we've got to restore the deterrence and fear of Russia.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just right now, they think we won't use a nuke.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why he said we would have to use a tactical nuke or two to remind him, you know, if you're going to FAA fall, this is the consequences.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I said it's dangerous right now because Russia has been pushed to a point that if the same thing was happening to us, we would be responding militarily and we would be attacking China.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, and that's ties back into what Trump said on the campaign trail that he would end this war on day one.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, he was trying to end it before he even came into office allegedly, and it seems who have gotten a lot worse in part of it is that it's just ignored.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, they're ignoring what's actually happening on the ground.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Russians are making significant progress.

[SPEAKER_01]: More rapid progress than was anticipated, particularly into nets.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they're operating in summy in the north.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're 10 kilometers from the major city of summy, which they will capture.

[SPEAKER_01]: Carcive, they are in the process of surrounding carcive, which is really a Russian city as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then the next down you've got Danetsk, and then from the Netsk, you've got Neapropid Throwsk, you've got Zappar Risa, and you've got Harrison.

[SPEAKER_01]: So all along that, just think of, you know, like to draw a close parenthesis,

[SPEAKER_01]: it looks like a sea inverted sea or at least I could see from one top to the bottom that's a whole front line in Ukraine and Russia's moving all along that front now which is they weren't able to do that in the past because they didn't have the manpower

[SPEAKER_01]: They had limited logistics, and they had limited supplies of artillery, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not now.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've got ample supplies, which is why they've been moving slow because they weren't going to outpace themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't under any pressure to act quicker, but now it's accompanied in a warning to the west.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't stop this, you're going to pay a price.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I do not want to find out about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: True, but I got to go back to Super Chat, not a question this time, but it's from BlipLopZoop again.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got your name right, three times a charm, but yes, General Van Riper, I have a tremendous amount of respect for that man and would love to have him on talking about his red team.

[SPEAKER_03]: on the Millennium Challenge, which he, I mentioned that actually on the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I was involved with, you know, scripted, I scripted exercises and game war games for J-Sock for 23 years.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember one of the particular we did at Otis Air Force Base.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they had what was called Red Cell, which at that time, it was just after Demo Dick Mar Cinco, he'd created Red Cell.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now it was under the command of Admiral named Stan Holloway.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so this was, this was where John Kennedy used to go for summer vacation with his family when he was president.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they had this one house that was going to be the target house.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a CIA component to what we was called, the Foreign Emergency Support Team.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was called the incident response team.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they went up a day in advance to the base commander said, uh, yeah, I'll see, uh, see that house.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we need to take down the fence and we've cut down these trees, so we can get surveillance.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, if you cooked the bread in advance, you're going to have good bread.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where you see these exercises.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of doing a real world to find out, and to our capability, soccer, can we actually do anything?

[SPEAKER_01]: You say, no, no, we got to cook the outcome.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's where CIA was cooking the outcome, and that's what General Ripper ran into.

[SPEAKER_01]: When,

[SPEAKER_01]: The guys are actually losing and they're going, oh, we can't lose because we've got the best We've spent all this money.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, 100% and that reminds me of But a buddy of mine used to tell me he's a retired chief worn officer and at the very end of his career he went over to Help run war games.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was a charge of a lot of really cool stuff in the Marine Corps, but He one day he came up to me and was just like

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the big ones, comedy, was talking about a war and they had been working against fighting the Russians.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they had run a whole bunch of simulations where they dropped in.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it was the 101st, the 101st, the 82nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: And believe it was the 101st.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they got chewed to dirt within the first like 48 to 72 hours.

[SPEAKER_03]: They could not run this scenario.

[SPEAKER_03]: They needed to run without giving them a, like, basically a hall pass to insert and set up all the logistics and do their thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's quite frankly, that doesn't do anybody any favors.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to find out, can we do this or not?

[SPEAKER_01]: And say, huh, because back, you know, back, guys, it was 2006, we did one of the exercise we scripted was for going after Iran's nuclear weapons or nuclear program, and to attack what was called HDBT's hardened deeply buried targets.

[SPEAKER_01]: and it was conducted out in the desert of Las Vegas outside of Las Vegas and the quote the lesson learned was, don't do it, you can get too many casualties.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we did it and they said, oh, this didn't turn out too well.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'd be nice if we took some notes on that every once in a while.

[SPEAKER_03]: And all right, so I got one last question for you here.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is a point of pain for me to have to ask this.

[SPEAKER_03]: You had President Trump out there over the weekend.

[SPEAKER_03]: I always take his out there because I guess he, that's what he does.

[SPEAKER_03]: He just out there talking about how he thinks the Syrians could do a better job against Hezbollah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, it's, I follow the logic on this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's, I mean, I'd love to get your take here in a second, but following the logic on this,

[SPEAKER_03]: we have installed Al Qaeda in effect, our mortal enemy in the Global War on Terrorism, the reason that me and a lot of my friends enlisted, installed them in Syria, and now we're trying to use them, or so just because it's good to use them as a proxy in Lebanon, I cannot, I cannot square this circle.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, yeah, that's because you're saying and rational, you know, unfortunately the United States has played this double game, and where we have fooled the American public, and we're fighting international terrorism, and it's a, it's a wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: The number one sponsor, and then you said, well, wait a second, actually.

[SPEAKER_01]: All the, you know, 95% of the attacks in 2001 have been carried out by the Sunni extremist groups, ISIS, Nusra, Hayat Taurar, our sham, the group that created by Shader, the current head of Syria.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, but at the same time, we discover that my old outfit also was involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: The CIA was providing funding, training support to these very Islamic extremists that we claim as our enemy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we use the more it's convenient for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: So with Trump talking about using Syrian, you know, trying to use Syria to go to fight Lebanon, Hezbollah, that was one of the reasons going back to Iran's involvement in the Civil War in Syria starting in 2012, 2013, because of these, is Sunni extremists.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would attack Shia Muslims, declaring that they were not real Muslims, that they

[SPEAKER_01]: So Iran had a, you know, they had a definite interest in helping, at the time, by sure, all of a sudden, fend them off.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now, now here we go, claiming that we want to use them to attack Hezbollah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Al-Shara to his credit is not incredibly stupid, because he recognized, they don't have, they don't have a functioning army

[SPEAKER_01]: with the logistics in place that would be needed to support an impact against Pens belong.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you know, Pens belong, in fact, it had already defeated much of ISIS.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pens belong was fighting alongside Iran in Syria against ISIS.

[SPEAKER_01]: Against the people, we claimed that attacked us a 9-11.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, we declare them as our enemies.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know, while, you know, if you, you go try to explain this to a new recruit, or in recruit, and I hope you're looking at you going, sir, what are you saying?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's, uh, I always give back to, on the one hand, I am, uh,

[SPEAKER_03]: I am cynically happy, I don't say it's with any series, but I am happy that someone else from Alain Bar University is doing things with their life.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's out there, you know, succeeding, he's running a country, good for him.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I guess the way that I would try to explain it to somebody is I would just go back to our support for the Mujahideen and Afghanistan and say every time we do this, it goes terribly wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, no.

[SPEAKER_03]: and the long-term implications of them introducing themselves into the conflict and Lebanon would be unbelievable.

[SPEAKER_03]: And hopefully, it's just one of those random dumb things that President Trump says.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm worth it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, are Larry, hey, I really appreciate this as always, you're coming on.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm excited to see you next month at the 1776 Foundation Conference.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Be fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to go out and get a tailor to make the uniform.

[SPEAKER_01]: Robert Barnes made me look cool.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he did.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe you look like, uh, I don't know what's a man.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just watched the series turn for like the third time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, forget the, the Intel guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, whatever he's saying.

[SPEAKER_03]: He may look, he may be looked like a colonial officer, something that my ancestors were not.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were very much backwards and listed folk.

[SPEAKER_03]: So.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, as we're mind, all militia.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they're tradition.

[SPEAKER_03]: Larry Johnson, sonr21.com.

[SPEAKER_03]: Check him out if you haven't.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure most of you already have.

[SPEAKER_03]: He is actually fantastic.

[SPEAKER_03]: And truly appreciate having him on today.

[SPEAKER_03]: We will be back tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_03]: And on Thursday, Scott Horton will be stopping by.

[SPEAKER_03]: Also, hey, I appreciate you Robert Gibson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Common Sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: Love to hear it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for the donation.

[SPEAKER_03]: The super chat if you will.

[SPEAKER_03]: And if you guys are thirsty, you want some caffeine get yourself some killer instant coffee at killer instant coffee dot com got some right here in my don't try to make mug from best pro shops.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is delicious.

[SPEAKER_03]: It is the official coffee of the German podcast and we will see you tomorrow same bad time same bad place.

[SPEAKER_03]: I will not be in a Hawaiian shirt because Larry Johnson won't be here until then have a good one.