Daniel Davis Deep Dive 2/17/2026

We are either on the brink of war with Iran or we're on the brink of a diplomatic breakthrough. Today in Geneva, Switzerland, the United States and Iran mediators are talking. In fact, they've actually just finished uh one round and the the initial comment from the Iranian side is something positive. We actually have not yet seen anything officially from the US side. We'll see what they say. But the real question is, does the diplomacy even matter? Is there really negotiations going on or is this just buying time until we get a military preparation up to whatever level the the military guys think that they need to have it before President Trump launches an operation? They have certainly had some history of doing that before and to try and pull fact from fiction and figure out where we're going and what may be coming next one way or the other. We always have the uh the luminary Colonel Douglas McGregor, defense and foreign policy analyst, former adviser to the Secretary of Defense, highly decorated combat veteran and big- time friend of the show. Uh Doug, welcome back. >> Hey, happy to be here. >> Well, listen, I call you the luminary, but it turns out we're both in black today. I don't know if that's a sign or not, but [laughter] what may come, but uh >> they're trying to blend in it. >> Yeah, it kind of kind of fits the mood a little bit, I think. what's going on here. Uh but uh first of all, I I just kind of want to ask your your view just off the top. Um I'm going to show you here in a minute what Foreign Minister Iraqi said after the meeting today, just just a little while ago uh about this uh about the negotiations. Uh but the the real question is do you think they even matter? Is there actually negotiations going on at this? >> You know, it's difficult to say. You have the [clears throat] the usual suspects involved like Mr. Whitov and Mr. Kushner are still leading the charge, are they not? >> They are. >> Yeah. We don't seem to have distinct sets of experts or diplomats for each set of talks, which is a little troubling. Maybe it exists and we simply don't know about it. But right now, to have these two gentlemen lead talks in both areas leads one to believe that we're not terribly serious. I mean, if you're sitting on the other side, you're first of all going to take whatever is said with a grain of salt. Let's be frank. The the Russians and the Iran Iranians have learned over the years that we're not terribly serious. And particularly within the last 12 months of the Trump administration, I think both of them have had very high hopes and expectations only to see them dashed completely. So, I I don't think the Iranian and and Russian delegations are taking any of it all that seriously. That doesn't mean they're not paying attention. It doesn't mean that when they state something, you know, a principle that they see evidence for that they like that they won't say it. But I think they have very jaded views of us at this point. And I think the expectation on both sides is that we will not see anything of substance emerge on the Ukrainian issue and we will not see any sort of agreement that will prevent the war that's coming in the Persian Gulf and Iran. >> Well, let's let's take a look at at what the President Trump has said because he he was asked on Air Force One just last night what he expected going into these negotiations and he had some interesting things to say. What are you expecting from these Iran talks in Geneva tomorrow? So, I'll be uh involved in those talks indirectly and they'll be very important and we'll see what can happen, but typically Iran's are very tough negotiator. They're good negotiators or bad negot I would say they're bad negotiators because we could have had a deal instead of sending the B2s in to knock out their nuclear potential. We had to send the B2s. I hope uh I hope they're going to be more reasonable. They want to make a deal. >> Have you been told that a deal is next to impossible? No. No. I think they want to make a deal. I don't think they want to consequences of not making a deal. They want to make a deal. >> Of course. I thought it was interesting. They're really good negotiators. No, actually, they're really bad negotiators. So, that was an interesting way to start. But but what do you if you even can interpret anything from the statements that the president makes when he says, "Hey, you know, we were having negotiations in 2025 and they ended up not doing the right thing and that's why we had to bring in the B B2s, etc. What does that tell you about this round of negotiation?" >> I I think President Trump has a habit of making things up as he goes along. I mean, this this question comes up routinely. Is there a strategy? No. I see no evidence for any coherent strategic framework for either Iran or Russia or both. In fact, I I don't see any real strategy at work at all other than to threaten and bully in the hopes that you can subordinate the respective opponents to your will. I think that's really what President Trump is all about. He's trying to get people to accept terms that he thinks will change conditions in favor of him, his administration, and uh the United States. And he wants he he's not this is not just about Ukraine or Iran. We're in a larger battle here. You you have an unspoken or un unexplained war underway between us and the emergence of this new parallel uh financial system dominated largely by China. They we call it bricks and that thing is growing and growing. It already represents 44% of the world's population and probably that much of its of world GDP or GMPP. And I think that's part of this. We we are trying to reverse a trend for which we are, you know, unfortunately responsible. What's the trend? Well, the trend is to dd dollararize. The trend is to move away from us. The trend is to build up your own financial economic power such that you are no longer living at the whim of Washington. I mean, if you go back over the events of the last 12 months, you look at the discussions in Brussels about uh Russia's 300 billion rubles, what to do with this Russian wealth that's sitting in the banks and this cavalier manner with which we've approached it all, saying, "Well, we'll just take it and repurpose it and give it to the Ukrainians." If you look at the various discussions we've had and the steady flow of money and equipment into Ukraine despite President Trump's comments and comments by his representatives over and over and over again that we want to start fresh that we want a new arrangement that we want to open new relations with Russia, go back to Anchorage and look at what was discussed there. It sort of created good feelings and I think for a for a time the illusion that we were serious that we were interested in normalizing relations with Russia and that by doing so we could find a way forward in Ukraine all of that's gone away. So I don't think the principles involved in Moscow or Tyrron are taking us very seriously. And remember, you mentioned this 12-day conflict that President Trump mentioned, and you talk about having destroyed the nuclear capability or infrastructure. The Iranians listen to that and what they remember is that they were lied to. They were misled. And in the midst of all these negotiations, the war began. They remember that. They also are saying well all this talk about nuclear continues despite the fact uh we've said we will not produce a nuclear weapon and you claim that you destroyed it. I mean the the whole thing is a bit is a bit hard to take. So I think this is theater and I think he says what he needs to to mllify the press and the public and he moves on to the next thing. I I don't see any real interest anymore in Ukraine. Uh I think we've decided that there's nothing that we can extract from this that will help us. I think that's particularly true for President Trump. There will be no uh ceremony where he is lauded for his great vision of peace for the world and uh where he shake hands with the Russians and the Ukrainians and everybody celebrates. I think he'd hoped for something like that. He knows that's never going to happen. So Ukraine now could we continue to bleed cash and send equipment and technology. We continue to provide information. It's kind of on autopilot. Now why is it on autopilot? Because the people on the hill have said this is what we want because this provides cash in our pockets. It makes us happy, makes our donors happy, our constituents and so forth. >> So he says, "Well, what difference does it make? you know what what's a few billion here or there? I mean, you're dealing now with a 38 to$39 trillion, you know, national sovereign debt. What's a few more billion? I don't think he cares. So, I think he's going through the motions there. Now, when it comes to Iran, that's a different matter. And we all understand that were it not for the Israel lobby and the enormous power and influence exercised by Zionist billionaires inside the United States, we would not be preparing to attack Iran. That's a simple fact. And if you watched him when he spoke to the Knesset and the way he behaved and the people that he acknowledged, I don't think he has much choice in the matter. Uh I think he's given his word. He's committed himself. He's taken money. He has to do it. And then there's another level and another level is simply that everyone I think in his administration but I think this is across Washington is really preeminently interested in enriching themselves in whatever ways they can. And so if you read in the Russian press or you read what the Iranians are writing, they all point to the same thing that these representatives Mr. Whit and Mr. Kushner seem far more interested in whatever side deals that they can pursue uh that will produce, you know, multi-billion dollar outcomes for them and their friends. I I think all of these things are bound up together. Now, does does President Trump see it in those terms? I have no idea. Uh it's very difficult to understand. So, whenever he says something, you got to step back and say, well, what's the real purpose behind this? And I think his comments were, "Well, I got to say something, so I'm going to say X and Y, and people will be happy and go away." He's very good at manipulating the press. I've never seen anybody better. So, I think that's what it's all about. >> Well, as it turns out, and when you have this political theater, there are multiple actors. It's not just a solo performance here. And there is another side to this, and that's in Iran. Uh also I believe it was yesterday, it might have been actually today uh the Ayatollah Kumeni uh was asked or or made a statement rather about one of Trump's previous claims about having the most powerful military in the history of the world. He said this Hey, >> [cheering] [cheering] >> So, they end with the whole death to America and all that. Those chance that are positive there. Is this just Iran trying to put a good face on something that they're going to end up going down? Uh, I certainly remember some of these statements from from like Saddam Hussein before we went in there and they had a bunch of in-your-face kind of stanks and we know how that turned out. How do you think these kinds of counter threats are this time? >> Well, consider the fact that Washington is assembling one of the largest concentrations of US air and naval power in the Middle East since Iraq was attacked in 2003. The strategic objective whether you're sitting in Iran or Moscow or Beijing or Damascus or Ankor is obvious. It is it can be inferred from the composition of the attacking force. a level of destruction intended to induce the collapse and disintegration of the Iranian state and its society. That's what this is about. This is not a demonstration designed to persuade people that they should wake up and pay attention. This is destruction the likes of which we have not seen really in my judgment since 1991. And the goal is clear. Disintegrate the state and its society. then we can pretty much do what we want with it as well as with its oil resources and with the rest of the region because that's what the Israelis want. That's what their backers in the United States want. So when you say what is this man saying? Is he guilty of hyperbole? Probably. Uh could some of that be true? Maybe. Uh we'll have to see. I mean, people have been contacting me about the Chinese technology that is now allegedly in Iranian hands, and I'm I'm sure it is, including the new radars that reach out to 700 kilometers in terms of identifying. I don't know what the acquisition range is, but certainly can identify targets at that level. We we don't know. A lot of this Chinese technology on the air defense side is new. It hasn't been tested in combat. So it it's very difficult to distinguish hyperbole from what could be real. But the point is it doesn't matter. What we need to understand is that for Iran this is an existential war. They figured out what I just said. We are trying to induce the disintegration of the state and its society. That's what this is about. You know, as you you've heard General Keane say over and over and over again, we have the opportunity to take Iran off the board. Well, what does off the board mean? It means disintegration and collapse of Iran and its society. So, they get that. So, they're liable to say any number of things. And I don't think it matters very much at this stage. We will find out what they can do. We will find out what we're able to do. And the rest of it will be decided. Now, let me ask you, uh, the the you said that we've had the the most air power certainly since 1991. Uh, maybe the the only other time would have been in, uh, March of 2003 when we went back into, uh, Iraq for the second time. But in both of those cases, we had kind of a big ground force, too. Is it possible for the United States with all of this amassed air power, air and missile power to be able to disintegrate the regime or can it survive? Because it seems to me that their primary objective would be to inflict as much pain as they can as fast as they can while they still have the ability to fire and then to just endure and survive. But can they? Well, you know, Dan, and I think you've seen this up up close yourself on the Hill in your discussions there over the years, [clears throat] most political, and I would even argue most of our senior military leaders in Washington who engage in these air and missile campaigns are convinced that the application of massive firepower from a distance will be stunningly effective and decisive. Now, there are reasons why they think that. They tend to equate explosions on the ground with effectiveness. In other words, look at that tremendous explosion. Surely this must be having an impact whether or not it does. And it takes time to determine that. The other part is in in the preparation stage in the frenzy of uh analytical targeting focused on prec precision strikes against the opponent's critical nodes transportation systems, weapons, energy grids and key leaders. Suddenly the US military's limitations and gaps in knowledge are lost. In other words, we don't necessarily see ourselves objectively. We are we see ourselves as absolutely indisputably capable of dominating everything. So the planning process itself is so convincing that it galvanizes resistance to diplomacy and it persuades the president, the secretary of war, I assume, and the senior military adviserss that an air and missile campaign alone will compel the opponent to submit to Washington's demands. And this is not surprising. Remember, presidents rarely concern themselves with the details of military operations and Washington's political class has at most a cocktail level of familiarity with war and the limits of military power. So [clears throat] to answer your question, uh I think we are on a uh an artificial high right now and we are preparing to impose tremendous price in infrastructure in human terms on the Iranians. The Iranians are responding accordingly. and and how would you imagine whe whether it's going to succeed or not, what would you imagine say an opening 24 hours to look like? What what might the United States do to try and them right off the bat? >> I think the initial strikes will be horrendous, horrific. I think you will see massive bombing from high altitude B2s, B-52s if they can if they can fly safely. Uh I don't know if the B1's will be part of it or not, but they will drop thousands of bombs and uh probably thousands of tons of explosive of all different types and kinds. They will be designed for the purpose that I outlined earlier to essentially paralyze the opponent uh create a sense of hopelessness uh in him and in his population to demoralize him. Now, what does that look like specifically? How much tonnage are we talking about and which targets? I mean, we don't know. And if we knew, I wouldn't say anything because I don't want to see the lives of Americans pointlessly sacrificed in this fiasco. But having said all of that, I think the likelihood or probability that you're going to achieve in the first 24 hours or for that matter even in the first week the the level of destruction designed to do what we discussed earlier is unlikely and this will probably not be costfree as has usually been the case in other air campaigns. Remember the last time that we [clears throat] had a significant loss was really in 1999 during the Kosovo air campaign. You remember we lost a stealth fighter, an F-17. We were very lucky to get that pilot out before he was captured. That was a one-off practically in the stand from the standpoint of the air and missile community. So the the US air and naval leadership is very confident of what they can do. what they can do may not necessarily be what President Trump wants in terms of inducing disintegration and collapse, but they're going to give it a good shot. But this time, I would expect losses. Losses on the ground, losses in the air, maybe some losses at sea, although the Navy is very good at positioning itself out of range. >> Well, you know, you say you you don't want to talk about the US losses. will apparently know somebody else does that isn't too concerned about it. In fact, he even uh louds the US troops here and that is brother Lindseay Graham. >> Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely they can. I think the risk associated that with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking and pulling the plug and not helping the people as you promised. So he doesn't seem to be concerned about it at all. It's like, yeah, there'll be some people killed. that that is just something that just irritates me more than I can say, angers me more than I can say because there is no, and you've laid this out very well and articulated it. There is no compelling national security issue for the United States that we should launch this war of choice because we're not going to be helped out by it. But by doing so, we are going to incur the wrath most likely of the Iranian response and Americans will die. Lindsey Graham seems to be aware of that and seems to be fine with sacrificing some number of Americans to pursue the unattainable. What do you make of that? >> Well, there are a few points. The first is that he's reiterating something that his particular uh supporter group of supporters, neocons, globalists, whatever you want to call it, that our interests and the interest of the Israeli state are the same. that we are both in the same war against the same adversaries. That's the keystone and the edifice of the argument, if you will. So, you've got to accept that upfront. If you accept that, then he begins to make some sense. I don't accept that. I think there are some areas in which our interests coincide and overlap. I certainly think we've always had an interest in helping [clears throat] the Israeli state to survive in conflicts with its neighbors. We do not have an interest in the destruction of Iran, the Iranian state, or the Iranian society and its people. That's ridiculous. We have no interest in that whatsoever. Secondly, [clears throat] he's saying that, well, yes, we'll probably take some losses and this is not without cost. I mean, effectively, that's what he's implying, but it's worth it because quote unquote, we're helping the Iranian people. Well, I'll be anxious to see the millions in the streets cheering on the arrival of the United States Air Force and Navy as they pulverize everything in sight. I don't think so. And I've never bought the argument that the overwhelming majority of the population wants to overthrow the government. I would say at least half the population is sick to death of Islam. That's true. Uh this is a long-term development. I mean the best thing that's happened I think as a result of Kumeni back in 1979 has been that the population has said we've had it with Islam. We have to remember that Islam is also a foreign import to Iran doesn't originate there. It's originally an Arab concept an Arab religion that was exported at the point of a sword to Iran. So I think the Iranians collectively and this is nothing new. If you go back to Samuel Huntington and look at his clash of civilizations or political order and changing societies, he used to teach that stuff at West Point. He talks at length about the capability, the potential of all the Muslim states to integrate with the broader world in the modern society. And he points out the only one that can do it now is Iran. >> Iran has the human capital. Iran has the potential to join the larger family of nations. But the rest of the Islamic states are quite frankly behind and won't be there for some time. But unfortunately, bombing the place isn't going to fix that. And then finally, there's this other business that Iran presents a danger to the world. That they are striving desperately for nuclear weapons. Well, that's not true. They they aren't a danger to the world. They are a danger to people in the region that threaten them. And wherever they involve themselves, it's inevitably to either offset dangerous influence from Israel to support people who are being punished by the Israelis or to simply support their co-religionists in places like southern Lebanon, in parts of the Emirates, in Yemen, and so forth. But all of that is ignored in favor of Iran is a dangerous place. The people in charge are maniacs. This is nonsense. is just is just not true. But don't lose sight of the fact, and I'm sure you've seen this. If you go to my generation, the so-called boomers, they've been listening to this dribble from Fox News and CNN and everybody else for decades. Oh, yeah. Iran's bad. We should destroy Iran. We got to get those guys, you know. Okay. Why? Well, they killed our Marines. Okay. What were we doing in Lebanon? The great achievement of Ronald Reagan and and Cap Weinberger at the time was to say we don't belong in Lebanon. We have no business being there. We should not put ourselves between the Israelis, the PLO, or anybody else. We also forget that the Heisbah, the party of God, did not exist until the Israelis occupied the place. >> So, [clears throat] you know, this is a different rendition of historical experience. It's all through the prism created in Israel, then uh disseminated out of New York City to the various media outlets. And anybody who disagrees with it is an anti-semite by definition now. So if you don't agree with that, you don't like that, you don't support it, you're an anti-semite. End of discussion gone. We'll see how long this works. We don't know. >> Yeah. Well, it has been pretty successful at keeping a lot of voices silent and it's definitely been successful at keeping other voices elevated, which some of you just one some of them you just mentioned. Here's a new one uh that was also on Fox News last night. In talking about these negotiations coming up in light of President Trump last night saying, "I'm trying to find a negotiated settlement." You had Fox News here interviewing Mark Tissson who had somewhat different of a view. The foreign minister Arash Abbas Ababrachi on the objectives for negotiations in Geneva said this. I'm in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal. What is not on the table, submission before threats. >> Yeah, he's got a choice between submission and destruction because that's those are the choices he's facing. He doesn't get to set the terms. And the fact is Donald Trump, look, I don't think that there's a chance that the Iranians are going to agree to the kind of deal that would avoid military action. They're not going to give up enrichment. They're not going to give up their ballistic missiles and they're not going to give up their uh willingness to go support terror groups around the around uh the Middle East. Uh but I think Trump is right to go through the process of giving them a chance uh to to to say yes and submit. Uh but if they choose not to, I I think Donald Trump is going to act. And look, he he has a choice now between following the example of Barack Obama who drew a red line in Syria and then did not only didn't enforce the red line, but made a chemical weapons deal with the Syrian regime. uh and which they cheated on. Or he can choose the path of Ronald Reagan and FDR and become one of these presidents who has literally transformed the world. >> Let's look at that last part first. A couple things I want to talk about from that soundbite, but let's look at the last part first. Does President Trump have a chance to be a transformative in a positive way like Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War? >> Well, he [clears throat] did what he came into power. He could have done a lot of things. You know, we've talked about that before. uh he could have changed direction right away with the Russians and simply said that's it. I will not support this war any longer [clears throat] and you know I've been down this road before. I actually mentioned it to the president. just go out there, offer to host a peace conference, but pull the plug on this regime, this most corrupt country in the world, and [clears throat] uh get our get our personnel out, you know, in and out of uniform that are operating over there, stop the flow of arms. That went nowhere. So, I think as [clears throat] far as Ronald Reagan goes, uh, Ronald Reagan was by no means anxious to go to war with anybody. He was acutely sensitive to the dangers presented by nuclear weapons and he responded positively to the Russians and it was very clear that he was he was going to cooperate to end the cold war. It was not some sort of chest beating victory. Although that's what his supporters thought because I think privately he knew and and people behind the scenes knew that the Soviet Union was falling apart for reasons of its own demise, reasons of its own uh creation. Socialism, state socialism failed. As far as FDR is concerned, if you think turning half of Europe to the Eurals over to communism along with most of Asia in the form of communist China was a huge success, then you're on your own. I don't agree. So for God's sakes, let's not go down any more of those roads as we did under FDR. Now, now the other thing he mentioned in there at the beginning was he said that Iran has this opportunity to completely surrender or be destroyed. And he says, "I'm I'm good with these these negotiations because maybe that gives them a chance." Is there actually a chance? Because it seems to me that Benjamin Netanyahu and many of of his supporters in the Western media, we're going to get to Jack Keane in a second, have been all over themselves to set up conditions for these negotiations that can't be met. so that the only option is the destruction path. Do you think that there actually is though a chance for Iran to say, you know what, fine, we'll give you everything you want so you don't attack. Would we take that deal? [clears throat] >> No. But in fairness to Mark Tissson, he's a long-term and very articulate spokesman for the neoconservative wing that dominates Fox News. That's why he's there. and he's being financially rewarded for the positions he takes and his uh as I said carefully articulated argument which is war with the world until it submits to Israel and America. That's that's what you could sum up his position as. So no, I don't think there's any chance at this stage for any sort of agreement with the Iranians because we can't compromise on the points that Benjamin Netanyahu provided to us. These are Netanyahu's conditions. Let's not lose sight of this. Let's get back to the facts. We are the instrument of Israeli power and international finance right now in its war with bricks and the countries that refuse to submit to, as they have for many decades, to our financial domination. This this is not all about territory. It is a it is about resources, but preeminently finance. So, I don't know. I don't see anything resolving itself without a fight. >> And for Iran, this is, let's be frank, the only thing they've got to do is endure, persist, outlast. That's their goal. They need to inflict some damage on us, too. But they've got to uh persist and exist. If they can't, they're finished. And they know that. >> And and if they can, then that's going to put us in a world of hurt. If we can't knock them out, if we get into a situation like we did with the Houthies where we have these big brash statements about what we're going to do and all of a sudden we can't and we can't get out of it, we could walk away from the Houthie deal. We just put some paper on it and said, "Yep, we succeeded. They begged us for it to be over and we moved on." They stayed there, but they didn't keep attacking us. So that was fine. This one would be a lot more difficult. And apparently acutely aware of that is brother Jack Keane who is going to be saying here about this. He says that President Trump has given an olive branch. But when you describe the branch, it sounds more like a pointy end of a spear. Negotiations are underway. President Trump uh sticking to his pattern here has offered a diplomatic olive branch to them as as he did prior to the 12-day war and he he gave him 60 days and on the 61st day Israel attacked Iran and then we participated in in that operation to end that war and he did the same thing with Maduro, you know, offered him an olive branch, actually offered him a ride out of Venezuela with some degree of immunity and refused to take it. and we all saw what happened to him. Well, here we are looking at this again. And the Iranians, I think, true to form uh will not negotiate on really enrichment. Uh so our audience understands there are some place north of 60% enriched uranium. You only need 3 to five for civil nuclear power. And I it's unlikely they will go down to that level. And and listen, the Iranians are such diabolical, pathological liars that they don't even admit that they're in pursuit of a nuclear weapon. >> Sorry, I had to I had to include that last part there because I I was like, wait, wait, who is the diabolical liars? Because we have just claimed categorically they have a nuclear weapon, we have to destroy it, and they're going after it. But Doug, all of the evidence that has been provided publicly says that they have not had one since 2003 and don't have plans to have one now. What do you make of that? >> Dan, in [clears throat] these discussions, as you know, in Washington, the truth is irrelevant. In fact, it's fungeable. You can twist it, turn it, any any direction that you like as long as you can control the media and you can control the legislature and the White House. And that's effectively what's going on. He's repeating the Israeli mantra. You know, when you talk about Venezuela, we need to understand a couple of things. We snatched Maduro and his wife because we went in on the ground and paid off a lot of people. And yes, Delta did a brilliant job. Delta along with the Ranger Regiment, these are exceptionally good troops and they have a lot of technology. It came off well and I'm very happy about that. But we don't control anything on the ground in Venezuela. The people in that country aren't paying any attention to us. That's certainly true for the current government. They may get on the phone and tell you, "Yes, that's wonderful." And and listen to whatever Secretary Rubio, you know, the aspiring viceroy of Latin America, uh, wants to tell them, but they could care less. They're going to do whatever the damn well want to do, and there's nothing we can do about it. Yeah, we can stand offshore and we can capture any oil tankers that come out, but eventually they know we'll give up and go away. In fact, one could argue that that's happened to some extent because we've had to pull the battle group out. We've replaced them with a few ships. But the truth is that this is an illusion. But illusions are powerful. That's something that President Trump as a reality TV star understands very, very well. Everybody in Washington likes that. So, we have the illusion of power and success in Venezuela. There's nothing to do with Iran. Iran is a civilizational state, a nation that has existed for 2,000 plus years. Uh, this is not going to roll over and play dead for us. This isn't going to be easy. And then finally, we have to take into consideration something else that General Jack Keane has routinely dismissed out of hand as irrelevant. the the Russians and the Chinese are not walking away. They have a vested interest in the survival of the Iranian state. They will watch and they will see what happens and based upon how this progresses and whether or not the Iranians are really in danger of being entirely destroyed, they will make decisions. Now, they're going to hold a live fire exercise, as you know, out in the Indian Ocean, just beyond the Persian Gulf. Chinese vessels, Russian vessels, Iranian vessels. That's a demonstration of capability to some extent, but it's also a red cl star cluster. You know, you remember the red star cluster goes up and everybody blasts living daylights out of everything in front of them. >> Well, that's kind of what the Chinese have done. They've already done it to our so-called debt. They're metering it metering the dumping of debt. They've slowed it down a bit. But if this persists and this goes on, they'll dump it all and the bond market, our bond market will be in trouble because whenever this sort of thing happens, the yield rises and you get you get a higher and higher yield. At some point when it hits 5% on the 10-year, we've probably had it. And I think Bessant Bessant knows that. Bessment, he's tried very hard to cultivate the Chinese. I don't think they're listening to him. But these financial economic issues in the background are not insignificant. They're very significant. Now, you add to that the potential for a direct military confrontation. I would say today it's low, but as this progresses, as this takes time, it could rise in probability because everyone, the Turks, they don't want to be involved in a war, but they don't have an interest in the destruction of Iran. The Turks are cooperating with the Israelis because that's what Erdogan wants because he thinks it's a way to increase his power and territory. But that's not really true. As they've discovered in Syria, the opportunity there for a conflict is real. We don't know what all the Arab states will do. They've put up with enormous insults and offenses. The Arab street has been deemed irrelevant. Well, we'll see. We We just don't know what the Egyptians, the Saudis, the Emirates, we don't even know with absolute certainty what happens in Jordan. and Jordan we consider as a pacified Arab island of our influence and power which is why we put so much military power into the country. So I I would simply say this is open-ended right now. Mark Tissson is really telling you the truth when he says there's not going to be an agreement. He's he's right. I think we've had leaks coming out of SenCom where that that allegedly Admiral Cooper has told everyone get ready for the war. uh even if there is an agreement, we may yet fight. And that's probably the right thing to tell everybody that you'll recall back in 1990 911, every time every time somebody opened his mouth and talked about peace talks, I went around and crushed it. [laughter] >> I do remember that. Yeah. >> When you're a soldier on the ground, you need to focus on what you're going to do. You don't say, "Well, maybe there'll be peace. The hell with that?" So that's what that's what the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines all have to do right now. That's completely understandable, but I think it's going to happen for all the reasons that we've discussed. And I think the consequences for the president will be severe. You know, remember, all you have to do is look at the the polling data. 53% of all Americans pled think that uh things are worse off now under President Trump than they were under Biden. Only 33% think that it's better. I mean, it's that's not good. you know what what uh what's the uh debt to GDP ratio right now it's almost 125% and rising you know the these things are not inconsequential and I think somebody in the White House knows this but for reasons that we don't know there's confidence that they can get through this they can achieve their aims and then get back to doing whatever they want to do that's probably an illusion >> yeah and you know I and I guess you got to add in there kind of as a as a capper on on this part of the show here. Uh for Mark Tissson to make his comments, for Jack Keane to make his comments, Lindsey Graham at all these uh if anybody is still thinking maybe there are going to be some negotiations success that's going to preclude war. Um maybe Iraqi is the only one that seems to be thinking that because uh one other thing that the Ayatollah said yesterday uh seems to indicate that they also are very sober minded about what's coming. >> In one of his recent remarks the president of the United States said that for 47 years America has not been able to eliminate the Islamic Republic. He complained about it to his own people. That is a good admission and to that I say you will not be able to do it either. And that that kind of goes into your comment just a second ago that their objective and their uh priority of effort is going to just be to survive. And he seems to be saying you can try and blow us up because he mentioned earlier that that's a lot of combat power with those ships and planes and you can do a lot of destruction but you're not going to be able to completely destroy us. And I think that that I I think that that is what they have to do. Just hunker down. And let me ask you a final question here. If you were the Iranian side, especially in the aftermath of the June attack last year, and you you basically saw us play our cards, so you could see what we could do to them if you didn't already know. >> Do you think that you could have a system where you would spread out your missiles, you would have bunkers, whatever, to where you could survive an attack of this magnitude? >> Yes, [clears throat] I think we can. In fact, the dispersion of capability uh has been achieved in Iran. the numbers of underground facilities are really quite staggering. So, I would argue yes. Now, to that has to be added the air and missile defense. You know, you've got to have some effect with your air and missile defenses. The last time around things didn't work very well for the Iranians. Uh this time they may work a lot better. We will see. Uh clearly the Chinese and the Russians have tried to help them and this time they have access to a lot of intelligence they didn't have the last time. And then finally uh there is the issue of Israel. What happens to Israel? We were not terribly successful in stopping the multitude of missiles fired by Iran at Israel. We were successful against some but not not all. And and you see on the screen there, this is uh being reported by the Israeli media that the uh Iran has received some number of Dongfang 17 DF-17 anti-ship missiles from China. Whether they have or whether they haven't, we we know that they have a lot of anti-hship missiles of their own. Uh let me just ask you a final question here. In the event that and let's just pick the number one. If one American uh vessel is sunk by the Iranian side, what what impact may that have on the impression that America is basically incapable of being defeated? >> Well, I think it'll be serious. Uh, you know, I think I mentioned this before that the Boore war had a very negative impact on the British Empire largely because 30 to 40,000 boores, there were never much more than them, excuse me, never much more than those numbers of them, uh, embarrassed the British because the British had to bring in a quarter of a million troops to suppress 30 or 40,000 guerillas effectively. and they look stupid and they deserve to look stupid because they went in there and they behaved almost as foolishly and incompetently as they had during the uh Crimean War in 1854 and as they had really all the way back to Waterloo. It was it was really breathtaking how little had changed. They behaved as though they could get into squares and kill the usual suspects without much damage. and the world took notice of it and I think the Germans in particular were a little surprised that they performed so poorly. So the British did try very hard from about 1905 until 1913 to remedy that. They did make some improvements but not as much as they needed and they barely clung to uh France in 1914. They came close to being exterminated on the battlefield and the French had to carry most of the burden for the next year plus certainly for the next 18 months. So what could happen to us if we lose ships, if we lose a lot of people, if they can jam our satellites, if they demonstrate that they have that kind of uh expertise, cyber attacks, all these things put together and things go badly for us in a dramatic way that I think that will invite large numbers of people in the future to challenge us. I think we can say that with absolute certainty. You know, and you got to remember, President Trump was very vocal pointing out, we are the greatest. There's no one better than us. We can do everything. We can come to you tomorrow and do what we did in Venezuela. You know, you're going to be you're going to be tested now. We are going to be tested now, President Trump. That's where we're headed largely because of that kind of rhetoric. My greatest concern is this thing drags on and the temptation to turn to the use of a tactical nuclear weapon becomes real. That's my greatest concern. >> Yeah, I have I have equal concerns on that. Um, in the amount of time we have left, I want to shift gears a little bit back to the Russia Ukraine war. I don't want to leave that one off because there also [clears throat] are are some talks on schedule for that. Also in Geneva tomorrow, there is scheduled trilateral meeting with the United States, Ukraine, and Russia to try and figure out if there's any room for negotiations, if anything has changed there. Now, based on some comments recently by Sergey Lavrov and and and Voteir Zalinski, doesn't seem like we're any further down the road than we were in Alaska last year. You can comment on that. But back to the category of some delusions in the West. I I just could not fail to at least put this one soundbite in here from uh former amazing four-star general David Petraeus who has this comment about how the future he sees for Ukraine. This is Ukraine's greatest generation. It's very similar to the American greatest generation. But I think when the cessation of hostilities begins, we're going to see Ukraine as the greatest military-industrial complex in the Western world. Uh and they're going to build a new country uh with new economy, not the old extractive economies of the past. uh and they will I think over time come to see what Ukraine's greatest generation will have done not just on the battlefield but also in building an entirely new country focused on new technologies uh and and new economic endeavors. >> The the greatest generation would you say to you from America that you know at least on our Kelly won World War II and that they're going to be the greatest industrial company in the Western world. I mean, man, what is going on here, Doug? >> Well, General Petraeus has never been very concerned about the truth of any of his remarks. You can go back uh to the 2023 and his insistence that the Ukrainians have mastered combined arms tactics with all of the all of the new equipment. They were going to smash their way through Russian defenses. You know, we've been down this road before. It was all nonsense. The notion that you would talk about 1942 1943 combined arms tactics on the battlefield in Ukraine was itself an admission of complete ignorance and futility. I I think this time around he is sort of pronouncing uh Lazarus on the table the corpse as a future resurrected superhero. It's not going to happen. If the Russians thought for even a few seconds that this was serious, what he described that you would see such a military-industrial complex on the ground rise in Ukraine, they'd turn the place into a parking lot. >> I mean, let's let's get real. This is the problem with this entire mindset. The only thing he and people like him have done is sacrificed millions of lives. They they've put the very existence of the Ukrainian people uh into question. In fact, some people think that it's over. So many Ukrainians have left and have no intention of ever going back. That's one problem. The second problem is that whatever is left uh is going to be completely disabled, traumatized, and incapable of doing anything for years. But one thing is absolutely certain. what he described is not going to happen. The Russians will never permit it. And I think that truth has sunk in in Moscow. They we're going to see this spring is going to be different from previous years. Will it be different enough? Will they end it finally? That depends on a number of factors, but we know where the concentrations of Russian forces are. We know what the goals are. And the goal is now clearly Noval Russia, new Russia. They've given up on any any chance of intelligent negotiations and so they're going to seize and hold what they think is absolutely essential for their national security. That's where we're headed. What he's describing is worse than delusion. It's almost a death sentence for the remaining people in Ukraine, certainly for those that live west of the river. You know, Doug, one one of the things that to bolster your position there, and by the way, we we can't really help but notice here, Petraeus is always talking, and I don't know why, but he has this deflated football on his on his desk. And if that's not a metaphor for for the words that he's saying, I don't know anything could be. He might not want to do this to himself, but I don't know. There it is. >> Yeah. Well, I don't know what it is either. It's a bit strange. Uh perhaps he'll explain that to you if you give him a call. Maybe he would. I'll may have Gary reach out to him and see if he'll come on the show. >> Well, you know, I was going back over previous air campaigns in the 20th century and in this century. The only one that is indisputably a success story was the Israeli air campaign of 1967 where they launched preemptive strikes against the Egyptian and Syrian Jordanian air power. Uh that was a success. There's no question about it. I don't I'm not saying that they won the whole war on their own, but they made it impossible for their Arab opponents, but that's it. Every other every other air uh and missile campaign has failed to perform to expectation. So, I think that's the bottom line for our discussion. I would not expect the next one to be any different despite the fact it's very obvious that I think the chairman of the joint chiefs has told the president if you really want to achieve this aim of causing the government and its society to disintegrate you are going to need a lot more firepower and that's what's showing up a lot more firepower. Uh, right. Who's who's to argue with that? And and you talk about the air campaign. I mean, that headline that Gary was showing there, Russia has been on a air and missile campaign for quite a long time. I mean, you say well over two years and that's in conjunction with the ground force that continues to put pressure and even that has still not forced Ukraine to completely uh disintegrate. But I want to ask one last question in the time that we have here about Russian capabilities. Now, many of the folks here in the United States say that uh Russia is not that capable. They're not that good. In fact, they kind of suck. They It's taken them all this year with all these advantages they have. They still hadn't been able to break through and completely crush them, etc. But you mentioned a second ago the Petraeus's uh how wrong he was on the 2023 Ukrainian offensive where they tried it to have this big counterattack and this you know combined arms and all that is just obliterated. I have not seen, especially since Russia went back onto the offensive in late 2023, I have not seen them do anything more than these small unit things. Do you believe that Russia could at some point actually attempt something on a large scale like what what the Ukraine side but maybe uh have learned some other lessons here? Because otherwise uh how do you view their capability? The [clears throat] Russians have learned how to operate in an environment where top attack makes maneuver almost impossible. And the Iran the Ukrainians have tried to produce millions of drones to counteract uh Russian mobility and and Russian maneuver. I think the Ukrainians have had some success, but not enough to save themselves from destruction. and they've wasted their best manpower in pointless attacks and offensives that had no chance of success. In this regard, it's very reminiscent of the First World War where people repeatedly, stupidly tried the same thing over and over and over again and lost billions of soldiers as a result. Everybody did it. Uh the Germans began to do less of it when they went over to the strategic defense. But the Russians, the foolish Austrians, the French, the British, all sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives again and again trying to operate in an environment that was not conducive to successful maneuver. So when you say what will the Russians do, I think the Russians are going to move up to Zabarisha. They're going to cross the river. They're going to seize Odessa. At the same time, I think they will move on Karov. Those things are I think written into the operations orders. Those are the goals and objectives. Now, will they go beyond that and move on KF? I think that depends on the situation. But when you talk about their offensives, you're talking about something very deliberate, very methodical that leaves very little chance for what I would call mass casualties. >> [clears throat] >> Lead with small bodies of troops. Maximize the use of firepower. Excuse me. [clears throat] Maximize the use of firepower against your enemy's concentrations, his fortifications, his defenses. Then exploit as rapidly as possible. Consolidate, repeat. I mean, that's that's what you're seeing. This will happen, I think, on the operational level this year. And how far do they get? Where do they decide to stop? Where will they be in September? Depends [clears throat] entirely on how uh how much they decide to do. And thus far, President Putin has turned out to be very cautious and very deliberate. Again, he's always made it clear that he [clears throat] does not want to provoke NATO. But increasingly, Russia is preparing for just that war. And so they're not going to waste manpower, sacrifice resources, uh, unnecessarily if they think they may have to fight European troops in Western Ukraine. And I think they still consider that a possibility. >> Well, let's let's uh hope that stays merely a possibility and doesn't turn into reality because then you have the possibility of nuclear weapons being used there as well and that it means everyone will lose. Let's hope common sense comes to that. Thank you so much for coming on today though, Doug. Really appreciate this uh crystal clarity on both these two subjects, things that are very much at the front forefront of what's happening in the Western world. And we appreciate it. >> Thank you, Dan. Byebye. >> And we appreciate you guys, too. Be sure and like and subscribe if you haven't, and we'll look forward to seeing you later this afternoon on the Daniel Davis deep dive. You know, I don't try to talk you into buying gold or tell you how to run your stock portfolio, but there is a way you can help us. Subscribe, hit that like button, and share this with somebody you love. [music] >> [music]

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