The Iran War Just Entered A Dangerous Phase | Col. Douglas Macgregor

I think what Iran has to do is survive. If Iran survives, they will be victorious. And they're dealing right now with the United States armed forces and the Israelis who are effectively waging a campaign that is designed not just to decapitate the state. In other words, eliminate the leadership, but to destroy the society, to cause it to disintegrate. That's really what they want to do. If they can do to Iran what they failed to do to Russia and Iran fragments, then they can exploit the oil resources as they wish. They ideally they'd like the Iranians to capitulate and then to accept a puppet regime that reports to Israel that is subordinate to Israel. Israel is the beach head so to say for the control over the region. I don't think it's going to work and I think a great deal of punishment can be meed out to Iran for some period of time. But there are already people in Washington who are claiming victory who are saying that they have defeated the air and missile defenses and they can now attack at will and that it's simply a matter of time until the Iranians are exhausted. I'm not sure I buy that. I just don't know the details. I think what we've seen thus far is that we have been unable to prevent the missiles from penetrating all of the air and missile defenses in Israel and in the Gulf. Uh if I were living in UAE right now or Qatar or any of these places, the first question I would ask is uh why do we want these Americans in our countries anymore? Look what's happened to us. They haven't been able to protect us and yet they said they would protect us. uh you know this is the sort of thing that we don't think about in the west but I think that's something that is on people's minds in the Gulf Israel is in a different position for Israel this is a do or die proposition either they're victorious and they establish their hegemony over the region or they are defeated and protect potentially destroyed the United States is simply doing what the Israelis wanted to do which is destroy their principal opponent although keep in mind Eddie that the Israelis have already within the last two weeks identified Turkey or Turkey as people like to call it as potentially an even more dangerous enemy than Iran. And so many of us have begun to think that after if we are successful in destroying Iran that Turkey will be the next on the menu because the Israelis will want to destroy them. Now, they've recently called up a 100,000 men uh in the Israeli armed forces from the reserves and they are now invading Lebanon again. How far do they plan to go be to the Latani River or all the way to Beirut? I don't know. I know that at least one Mkova Israeli tank was destroyed by Hisbellah and Hezbollah is obviously fighting. They're launching missiles and rockets at Israel and they are fighting against the Israeli army as it moves up through the country. There are a lot of things happening that nobody's reporting right now. Right now, the CIA and the Mossad are trying to put together an invasion of Iran by the Kurds. They're trying to persuade the Kurds in northern Iraq and in Syria to organize for an invasion of Iran. And they are promising the Kurds a state of their own if they are successful and do so. Now, this is very threatening to both Turkey or Turkey and Iran because that state would be composed of territory that is partially Iranian and partially Turkish. So, there's a lot going on and the fact that we are encouraging this right now leads me to believe that the air and missile campaign is not quite as successful as advertised. And you know, the last time we spoke, you were making a very profound point about the power that the Israeli lobby has in the United States. >> Uh and um and that that that this um you know, this uh this backing up of Israel in its in its in its objective, as you call it, his do or die objective by US military power. Is it's not popularly supported. Is that changing or is it still is it still is it still very unpopular amongst amongst ordinary Americans? >> Well, without traveling across the country, I have to rely on the polls. >> Uh I did travel recently, but uh not not after the war had begun. My suspicion is that Americans are not supportive of it. And as we were talking earlier, if you go back and look at polling data, the overwhelming majority of Americans were opposed to involving ourselves in the First World War. We did not support a war against Germany and AustriaHungary. Again, in 1939,4 and 41, we were opposed to war against Germany. The only reason we ended up being drawn into the war against Germany is because the Japanese bombed us and Hitler stupidly declared war on us. If he hadn't done that, it would have been very difficult to persuade Americans to go to war against Germany. And that's not surprising. Just as we have millions of people of Irish Catholic ancestry, we had millions and millions of people of German ancestry. And people were not supportive of these wars. Today, I think the situation is not very different. We're we're sick of all the interventions from Vietnam to the interventions in Latin America all the way forward to our relentless wars in the Middle East. Americans voted for Donald Trump because he promised to end this. He said he would stop what he called the forever wars. There would be no more interventions in the Middle East. Yet, this is the thing that he's done. As soon as he's been in office for a year, he's begun a war. This was not forced upon us. This is a war that Israel wants. And we have to understand that uh Israel's influence in the United States is not simply a function of this thing we call the AmericanIsraeli political action committee, APEC. They perhaps spend $3 million a year promoting support for Israel. This is because we have a group of billionaires, perhaps 12, 15 Zionist billionaires who spend enormous quantities of money to ensure that politicians will support anything that Israel wants. And the way they do this is that they're singularly focused on Israel. And they tell any candidate for office, if you're willing to support whatever we want for Israel, then we'll give you millions of dollars and you will be elected. and if you don't support Israel and whatever Israel wants, we will give the money to your opponent. Well, this has been going on for over 20, 30 years. They now control Congress. They now control the White House. And President Trump refused much of this money during his first term. But when he decided to run for office again, he made an agreement with the Israeli billionaires. In other words, the Zionist billionaires and said, "Yes, you know, you contribute to my campaign and I will deliver for Israel." Delivering for Israel includes a war against Iran. And war with Iran is something that the Israelis have wanted for 30 or 40 years now. We've had a nonstop barrage of propaganda and information about Iran over the years. And when you listen to people in the news in the United States, and I think to some extent in Europe, it's as though nothing has changed in 47 years in Iran. But we know that Iran has changed profoundly. It is not this medieval society that is hopelessly oppressive to women. It's very different today. It's advanced and it's very open to the West. And unfortunately, you know, the Israelis had sabotaged that. So right now, we're engaged in a war that we began against Iran at the behest of Israel. In fact, we were still reluctant to become involved. And the Israelis were the first to attack. And once they had begun the attacks, President Trump said, "Well, then let's support the Israelis." And we went in in support of Israel. But when you I mean if Trump was here, I mean he would argue that um would he not that um that that taking down the the Iranian regime and trying to support the people to to take more to take control of their own destiny is it is is in Americans interests, not just Israeli interests. That that's what he would argue. >> Yes, of course. And I I think what we've done is that we've misrepresented the the events on the ground in Iran. The the initial protests that everyone saw in January were very legitimate. Even the government recognized the protests as legitimate and they were aimed at frustration with the sanctions that we had imposed on the Iranian economy. They were also aimed at what they rightfully characterize as the government's mismanagement of the economy. The government said, "Yes, we we are not we are not blameless." and they were negotiating with the Chinese for a billion dollar loan so that they could stave off some of the worst effects of our sanctions. In the middle of this, the Mossad intervened with hundreds of agents, 40,000 Starlight terminals from Elon Musk and his organization, and they tried to turn this into an attempt to overthrow the government. The Mossad agents on the streets of Thyron and other cities were actually passing out weapons and urging people to kill policemen. And in fact, over 400 policemen were shot and killed. But this was made in the West to look like an uprising when in reality it wasn't. It was repurposed by the Mossad to look like something it wasn't in order to persuade us to intervene with military power against the regime. Now, thanks to assistance from Chinese and Russian intelligence, the Iranians were able to put down this Mossad driven operation very quickly. They ran down and found the Starlight terminals, confiscated them, ended that. Uh, actually the Russians and the Chinese helped jam the satellites and the whole thing stopped very suddenly long before Donald Trump was able to make any sort of decision about quote unquote helping the population. I think we need to understand something. When when I was involved with the Kosovo air campaign, there was this assumption that Mallich who who became this uh object of derision in the west could be bombed out of office. And it was very clear that wasn't going to happen. But it was also clear that the Serb population wanted a different government. And that's what they got after the bombing. Several months later, Malloich was removed legitimately, legally, and a new government came to power. If this war ends in in in any time frame, whether it ends next week or it ends in 6 weeks, I predict that down the line, several months later, you will see a new government in Iran. There's no question about that. The theocratic leadership of the country understands that. And that's why you've seen relaxation in Iran. The mosques are largely empty. People are not going to the mosques. In fact, if anything, there is a renaissance of what I would call Persian culture and identity, which is seen as something very positive. Islam was always treated as a foreign import. In fact, population is referred to the Mullers often as the Arabs who rule us. >> Yeah. >> Because again, Islam was seen as something foreign. So, you're going to get the change. But what you've done when you bomb the place, what we did when we bombed Yugoslavia is that we forced cohesion on the society. We galvanized the population against us and we have galvanized the population of Iran against us. Now that it becomes clear we're trying to organize an invasion by the Kurds and it becomes increasingly clear that our aim is to destroy Iran and break it up, which was always our aim in Ukraine against Russia. That's just going to make the Iranians that much more determined to stay together. In other words, I don't think you can bomb your way to reform. I don't think you can bomb your way to new governments. >> Can I just this by now, but unfortunately we don't. >> Colonel, can I just go back there on on your on your analysis there that the uh that the um protests were mad driven uh and that the Chinese and uh Russians were in a position to provide information uh to that effect. Uh, I mean that's the implication and that 400 policemen were were killed. How like when you provide that analysis which is which is which really jumps out at me because it's very different from what we've been told. Like how do you know that to be the case? >> You can't own a weapon in Iran. Where did the weapons come from? They came from the Mossad agents. The organization provided them. And there was no one on the streets before this began with the Mossad Convention. Nobody was trying to kill anybody. That was quite clear. In fact, when I spoke to Iranians about it over the phone, they said, "You have a battle right now between conservatives and reformers in the reform movement." Some of the conservatives are urging us to exercise patience and restraint. And the reformer oriented uh people are saying, "No, we need reforms now." Well, that's legitimate. This sort of thing goes on. Let me give you another example. You've seen uh in in 2020 all sorts of civil unrest in the United States in places like Seattle, in Portland, in Los Angeles, uh in Chicago. Do you remember 2020 all this >> were those attempts to overthrow the government? >> Was the government in danger of being overthrown? No, that's not true. Recently, we've had resistance to the deportation of illegals in a place like Minnesota. Does that indicate a determination to overthrow our government? No. Uh, what I'm trying to get across is Iran is a very big country. It's far more complex and sophisticated than we give it credit for being. So are we. Yeah. >> So jumping to the conclusion on the basis of something you see on television, oh look, the United States is falling apart. Oh look, the government is going to be over threat. It's a lot of nonsense. Same thing is true about Iran. >> Massive. Yeah. >> And how do you how do you see this? This by the way, you know, the big concern really people are always concerned about, you know, what what's going to be in their backyard, but it looks as if um the sorry, the alleged blocking of the Straits of Hormuz seems to be, you know, seem is is being presented as as the as as likely driving up, you know, the day-to-day cost of uh as you would say, a gallon of gas in America. We would say a gallon of petrol or diesel in Ireland. Uh do you see that working its way out over the next number of days and weeks? and and if so, what's on the other side of that? Uh because you know, if that's inflationary, it's going to start putting real pressure on Western economies. >> Yeah. No, I think it will. But let's go back and look at this supposed blockage >> of the straits of Hormuz. They have not blocked the straits per se, but they have weapon systems built into the sides of mountains and hills surrounding the straits of Hormuz that can attack ships. Some ships did try to break through when there was no blockade, but they started moving towards the Gulf. They were told to stop. They didn't. So, they were attacked and they burned furiously because they had all the oil aboard for about 24 hours. Let's understand something. If you're taking oil to China and China imports roughly 50% of its oil from the Persian Gulf, the Iranians are letting those tankers through the straits of Hormuz. The the Iranians are not stopping tankers headed for China. They are stopping tankers that are headed to people that don't support them, who are opposed to them. Now, who has the most to lose? Japan imports 75 or 72% of its oil from the Persian Gulf. South Korea imports 65% of its oil. India 50% of its oil. China 50%. Uh the European Union roughly 18% in the United States only 2%. Now, the reason that I'm reading you those percentages is that everyone in Ireland and everyone in the European Union and everyone in Great Britain should ask the following question. Why would the United States that professes to be our friend and ally do this to us? Did the United States consult any of its allies before it decided to unleash a war on Iran? No. Yet, we claim to be allied with South Korea and Japan. We never contacted them and said, you know, we're thinking about doing this, but we know there could be a profoundly negative impact. We want to talk to you about this and find a way to avoid that. Did we do that? No, we didn't. Just as we treated tariffs in the same manner, we suddenly said everyone is is going to be tariffed. Very stupid. And we've had to walk those tariffs back. They have not been a success story. Well, neither will this be a success story because if you're sitting in South Korea and Japan, you're going to do what China and India have done. Go back to Russia and Russia is going to pump out as much oil as it possibly can to all of those countries. And Russia will make a landslide fortune. As a result, Russia is being strengthened and enriched by this stupidity in the Gulf. And supposedly everyone in Washington and Europe wants to harm Russia. They just secured Russia for for decades in terms of wealth and and uh trading relationships. We are destroying our relationship with all the countries that I mentioned because we're harming them. We never talk to them. And they're asking why didn't you consult with us? Well, we don't consult with anybody. We're the center of the universe. Just ask Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the center of the universe. Everything that happens happens because of him. He'll tell you that. It's a very unhealthy situation for us. But that that's a that's a very interesting point you're making about um about the the the movement and the supply chains and globally because of this and that Russia is the obvious um bene you know will will be the obvious beneficiary. I that's a point that hasn't certainly been made over here. at least I haven't run across it. H what's your current assessment therefore uh just to switch uh you know to to switch away from from the Gulf for a second to what's happening um between Ukraine and Russia and how close that is coming to some kind of resolution or do you not think so? >> Well, I think there's going to be a Russian attempt to resolve things this year. I think there's a sense of urgency about doing it. Uh we are in a situation in Ukraine right now where the ground is soaked. This is the muddy season and it's very difficult to wage war until the mud dries out and the ground becomes fairly solid. So I would not expect any major movements probably until April or even May. But it looks from the disposition of Russian forces on the ground uh concentrated in the south and the and in the west of eastern Ukraine and in the north near Karkov that we will see Odessa taken by the Russians in the near future. Obviously Karov will fall to them. The real question is that once these things happen, and I think they will happen within the next 90 days, 120 days, will the Russians then decide to cross the river and and just go into Kief because it's clear that the government in Kief is not going to negotiate in good faith with Moscow on any on any issue of importance to both states. The answer in Ukraine was obvious and apparent. Ukraine always needed to be a neutral state on the model of Austria. Uh that was always doable and accessible. There there was no need for war. All this business with NATO was disastrous for Ukraine. And Ukraine for reasons of internal corruption and other problems was never qualified to join NATO and I would argue the EU for that matter. So I think what will happen is we'll see certainly Odessa fall back into Russian hands. Remember Odessa was Russian from its inception since uh certainly since its founding in the 18th century by Katherine the Great. The these things are going to happen. Now the question is how rapidly. >> Ukrainians don't have much to put in the field. They're scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to manpower. Most of the manpower is either dead or it's left the country. Again, Ukrainians have lost between 1.5 and 1.8 million soldiers. The lies in the west about the huge losses that Russia allegedly has taken are just lies. Forget it. The Russians have lost perhaps 200,000 killed and maybe another 100,000 150,000 wounded. But in contrast to the Ukrainians, the Russians have a very developed medical evacuation system. And so most of the people that are wounded go back, they recover and are recycled back into the army. The other thing is that the Russians have no manpower problems. They have large numbers of people willing to fight who want to fight. And that's because Russia has not followed its historic pattern of paving the road to victory with its own dead soldiers. They have been very sparing with Russian life. So I and the war the people want the war to be over but the Russian military is still very popular and held in high esteem. Now when you go into Ukraine, if you step away from the mainstream and there are a lot of ger German journalists who have actually gone into Ukraine, Finnish journalists as well and the picture they paint is of a population west of the Neper River that wants this war to end. And if anything they they vary in attitudes towards dislike and absolute hatred of Zalinski and the corrupt government that he presides over. So I think I think we'll see it end. I think there's a good chance that it will end. And of course, you know, Putin has waited for change in the governments in Western Europe, particularly Berlin, Paris, and London. They that may yet happen because I see no evidence that the European populations are in any hurry to put on uniforms and march east to fight the Russians in Eastern Europe. Can I just bring you back there just to the numbers because um I've asked you this once before but just for those who haven't heard you before the numbers you're giving there about the casualty rates in in in Ukraine and the much lower casualty rates in in Russian in the in in the Russian military h that's that's completely opposite to what's been what what's being presented by the western media. So how how are you getting your information and >> from people on the ground in Poland, Ukraine and Russia? >> Okay. The other thing is that analysts on the inside at the CIA and elsewhere, they know the truth because they can see the satellite imagery and you can do this on commercial satellite. See the imagery for the uh cemeteries. >> Yeah. >> The cemeteries in Ukraine are chalk full and they've actually buried thousands of people in mass graves using bulldozers trying to disguise the losses. You also have a tendency in the Ukrainian army not to report losses because then the money that comes in to pay the people who are dead goes into the pockets of the battalion commander, the brigade commander, the company commander. So the widows and orphans never get paid anything. >> Th this is how horribly corrupt Ukraine is. If you're wounded, you have to be prepared to pay someone to take you to an aid station or a hospital. I mean, this is this is the end of the Ukrainian state. It's hanging on by its fingernails. But you have a facade that is well financed and propped up by MI6 and Great Britain and the CIA. And by the way, the MSAD because the relations between the leadership in Ukraine and Kief and the leadership in Israel and the United States are all very close. So, how do you see that then playing out if there is going to be an end to to it this year? And um you know, you're suggesting that Odessa will be taken, which gives greater access to the to the sea to the south. Um how how do you see you like what will Ukraine look like after this? I mean, I presume that it's going to be, as you call it, a neutral state, but will will it be will it be a puppet of anybody? I mean, in other words, will it could it all just kick off again at some stage in the future unless unless something more permanent is organized for it? >> Well, if we had gone ahead and supported the negotiations in late April 2022, then I think there would be would have been only perhaps Donetsk and Lhansk would have ended up as autonomous republics within Ukraine since they're Russian speaking and Russian ethnicity and religion. But the rest of Ukraine would have been intact and it would have ended up as being neutral. Now the only provision the Russians made at the time was that they wanted a Russian to sit on the National Defense Council to ensure that the provisions of neutrality were carried through. The Russians did that by the way with Austria and Finland after World War II. But after a period of time once neutrality was established that the Russian representative was withdrawn. The problem now is that the Russians have been lied to so routinely by us, and I'm talking about Washington as well as the European heads about everything, going back to the Minsk Accords, that they no longer believe anything we say. And if you don't believe anything we say and you recognize that you're dealing with a puppet sitting in Kiev who is working for Washington, Jerusalem, and Western Europe primarily, and that this is an entirely fraudulent and corrupt system, you have to cross the river >> and you have to make extraordinary demands because the last thing you want to do as a Russian is to have to fight another war. >> Yeah. They don't want a resumption of this. In other words, they don't want a government that is dedicated to cultivating hostility towards Russia. A government that is going to rebuild forces whose only existence is to destroy Russia, whose only purpose is to destroy Russia. And when you when you then apply the same method of thinking to back back just go back to Iran. How do you see now I know it's a very fluid situation but you have a very good take on it. How do you see it playing out? What's your base case scenario at this point? destruction. The destruction being meed out to Iran right now makes it an absolute certainty that whatever government emerges in the future as a successor to the current one will be very hostile to the United States and Israel. You've now harmed the population decisively. The population is not blaming their government for the war. They're blaming Israel and the United States. In western Ukraine, what the German journalists have discovered is that the Ukrainians are saying, "This needs to stop. The Russians will never accept what exists today in Kief. So, please stop it." In other words, that's their attitude. We've got to find a way to live with our neighbor in Russia. >> Well, how long? >> That's very different from from Israel and Iran. How how long do you think the the the uh Republican guard can hold out with the in the current situation be in other words before this start of the bloodletting the first phase comes to an end. What's your sense? >> Well, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard uh is a multi-headed hydra if you will. >> Uh you cut off a head and another one grows. It's spread all over the country. It's heavily invested in the economy. Uh, one of the reasons people have been angry with the government is that they've seen the Iranian Revolutionary Guard essentially siphon off money and productivity from the rest of the rest of the population. Uh, again, you can go and try to kill the Republican Guard. I don't or Revolutionary Guard. I don't think you're going to get to much of it. Imagine an anaconda, a large boa constrictor. you you hit parts of it in the tail. You try to get the head, but you can't. And if you do get the head, it grows a new head. In other words, this thing is too large and too inextricably intertwined with with the government and the society to easily defeat. But again, I predict that in 6 months you'll have a different government and that will go away because the population will do that. But what the population is not going to do is pour into the streets with big signs that say, "Thank you so much for killing thousands of us and bombing our country into the stone age. We're so grateful for your help." Forget it. That's not going to happen. That never happened in Serbia. And today, if you go to Serbia and ask them about the campaign in Kosovo, they hate us. They don't hate the American people, but they damn well hate the American government. Yeah. So, so bas bas like what I'm picking up from you here is that look this thing is going to go on a bit longer than uh than the >> I think so. >> Yeah. And but that that ultimately there's going to be a regime change in Iran decided by the Iranian people. Uh and uh hopefully that won't involve some kind of civil war situation arising inside Iran. >> That that is always a danger. And remember that the people in Washington and in Jerusalem would love to see that >> because that's their opportunity to divide up Iran. >> I take your >> allow them to capture mineral resources and portions of the country that they can exploit at will. I take your your earlier point by the way of the ancient um history of of Iran of Persia uh is quite extraordinary all the ways back to Zoroastrianism which predated all the Abrahamic religions and and of course then the Islam you know the Islamic invasion of the country which was foreign to it at the time as it was to many other countries in the region. Uh they're an extraordinary uh I mean I often thought myself um I know you love history and you know I do too but the the possibility of ever visiting Iran and actually seeing its its archaeology. Um >> well there's one last thing that we haven't discussed and needs at least partial mention. >> Will Russia will China simply sit on the sidelines and allow us to pulverize Iran into submission to Israel? Will they allow us to destroy Iran? Remember, the Turks see no no value and no profit in watching Iran be destroyed. Turkey is a civilizational state resting on the foundation of the Ottoman Empire. >> Yeah, >> Persia has been around for 2700 years. you know these these countries are foundational uh stones in the foundation and the edifice of civilization around the world. >> So I I I'm just saying I don't think the Chinese or the Russians will allow Iran to go under. So we ought to think about that because right now that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to destroy and disintegrate the state.