What Happens Next In This War Will Shock You | Col. Douglas Macgregor

What do you think the likelihood is that we're going to see US boots on the ground? >> Uh, zero. >> Zero. >> I mean, you might see some special operations troops uh mill around the neighborhood. That's eminently possible. Although, I think we're a little concerned about uh getting them out once we put them in. But no, I I just don't see any evidence for it. You You've got an army that's simply too small. It's a fraction of what it was formally uh in the 1990s. Uh the Marines again, they don't have enough men to make a dent. You would probably need somewhere in the neighborhood of at least a half a million troops. And remember that a lot of those are going to have to be part of the sustainment, the support. Then even more important, we're not really organized or trained to deal with the threat because the threat we'd face would be very similar to what the Russians have faced. ultimately mastered in Ukraine. We're not accustomed to dealing with thousands of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles of all different types and sizes converging to attack us. And we've never had to deal with these precisiong guided ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. So now I I think it's almost zero. Imagine you're trying to bring in ground troops and someone finds out, you know, the Iranians will find out through satellitebased intelligence and their various operatives and their supporters in Moscow and Beijing that we're going to try and concentrate forces somewhere. Uh it doesn't matter where you put them. Say they're going to try and come in through Hyel, although that port's in bad shape now. Uh and then you've got to move them through Israel across Syria to get into northern Iran. uh or you're going to try and penetrate the straits of Hormuz and land at Bandrabas. I mean, it's all ridiculous nonsense. The the missiles alone would destroy you along with all of the unmanned systems. So, I I can't imagine that happening. >> I'm seeing reports out of Israel that Israel wants boots on the ground, but they can't get any generals to lead it because their assessment probably matches yours that it's a suicide mission. Can you respond to what we've been through collectively over the last week from this is a short military operation to four to 5 days to 2 to 3 weeks. Then it was four to 5 weeks. Now we're here in September. That doesn't bode very well for a successful mission that we thought would take a weekend and now that's seven months. So, what do you make of this moving target and what it says about the status of the war that we can't see because of propaganda filters? >> Well, I'm seeing some real indicators of success for us. Uh, so much success that President Trump is summoning the aerospace industry heads to meet with him in the White House presumably to tell them our missiles and munitions have done a great job. Right. >> Right. High five. We're done. You guys have done such an amazing job. No, not that we've spent over, you know, a trillion dollars and we have we're out of to Tomahawk missiles and we have we don't have Patriot systems. Like that's really what that meeting is about, right? >> Well, I would think so about a number of things, but it's not an indicator of imminent success or that we're on the threshold of victory. This other business, you know, the Israelis just announced the mobilization of 100,000 reserveists. I'm hearing that a lot of those reservists are not going to show up and they've got to man the force that they're trying to ship into Lebanon where they're meeting again resistance despite enormous uh bombing. Uh I I just don't see the evidence for success. And moreover, now I'm hearing from people who saying, "Oh, you don't understand, Doug. The Iranians are running out of ballistic missiles. They're running out of cruise missiles." Why? Why do you say that? Well, they haven't fired as many over the last two days as they did at the beginning. I said, "Uh-huh. Well, obviously they have to have targets. What have they got left to shoot at? They've already destroyed all of our bases. They've done enormous damage to the infrastructure. Command and control radars, uh, Patriot batteries, THAD batteries, you name it. Uh, oh, no, no, you don't understand. They're running out." As soon as somebody tells me the enemy is running out and that's the reason, I tend to re remember Ukraine. Oh, the Russians are running out of ammunition, they're running out of missiles. Oh, the Russians are losing. The Iranians are winning. I I don't believe anything. Frankly, I I want to look at a different indicator. And the indicator right now comes in the form of insurance premiums for shipping. They have risen by 640%. Just think about that. Uh we don't have to shut down the straits of Hormuz right now. In other words, it doesn't have to be blocked if you're an Iranian. All you have to do is make sure that the risk that insurers have to take is too high. And that's what's happened. We have 3,200 ships sitting to go in and out of the Straits of Hormuz. Now, if you're a Russian flagged or Chinese flagged tanker, you're allowed to leave. you're allowed to come in, but if you're anybody else, you're going to be stopped. And right now, nobody wants to insure the ships. So these these effects are profound. Higher oil and refined product risk premium, higher freight and war risk insurance, tighter financial conditions, and if ships and premiums stay high, Iran is achieving a strategic effect without having to win tactically. So what do you need to keep this going? More drones? Sure. Some more drums, occasional missiles, and who is going to invade you? Oh, I forgot the Kurds, right? Only now we've discovered there is no Kurdish army preparing to invade. We're trying to stand one up, but the Kurds aren't that stupid. They've been down this road before with us, and we betrayed them. So, I you know, I just I just don't know what the outlook is except to say I agree. This could go on for many, many more weeks. I I love when people would say to you, Colonel, a colonel who led men into battle for crying out loud and who has sources, deep deep sources within the United States military more than any of us sitting here on this table or anyone who's like probably watching right now, unless there's some sort of keyboard cowboy that we don't know about. But to say to you that you're wrong about what Iran's missile capacity is, you've been studying this for for decades and their ability to sustain this. Um, you've laid out many, many times on our show. So, I guess I'll just ask you straight out, is there a way that we could actually beat Iran short of a nuclear weapon? >> Well, I think the bar is very low for Iran. All Iran has to do to be victorious, if you will, is survive. That's it. That's all they have to do. Continue to lob missiles, continue to launch drones, uh strike back if we come close to the country in whatever way they can. Uh they've managed to maintain command and control. They've dispersed their forces. Those forces are surviving. They seem to have a very large supply of missiles and drones. contrary to what anybody may think. So all they have to do at this point is survive. Now what do we have to do to win? That's the real question, >> right? I mean, you listen to all this bombastic nonsense and hyperbole from the president. We're the greatest. We have the greatest force in the world. Woof woof. Okay, fine. It's the greatest in the world. What are you trying to do? Well, regime change really hasn't worked very well, has it? You managed to kill the supreme leader. that simply galvanizes the population against you and Shiites worldwide against you. So I don't think that's helped very much. They've developed a good succession system. So if anybody is killed or wounded and taken out of action, they have plenty of people to step up and take over. So if we're not going to regime change this forcibly with bombing by trying to bomb everybody out of office, what are we going to do? And I think what we're trying to do is destroy Iran and and cause the society to disintegrate. And we're desperate. We're grasping for straws. We're trying to get the Kurds to go in to create havoc. I I see evidence that we're milling around and and causing trouble in Azerban that may result in a resumption of war there between Azerban and Armenia. Uh at the same time the Turks aren't very happy about our aspirations since the Kurds of course want to build a state at their expense and the expense of Iran and the Turks and the Iran are already sh Iranians are already sharing intelligence. So if our goal is to destroy the country I don't think we're going to achieve that. But if we came even close to it I think we're going to end up dealing with the Chinese and the Russians. >> Yeah. it and that's that's something I thought we wanted to avoid, but then again, you know, we thought that was the case under Biden. And it turns out that Biden crossed all of his red lines almost immediately, sending everything he said he wouldn't send and risking everything he said he wouldn't risk. Looks like Donald Trump wants to do the same thing, >> right? You know, there is an option for President Trump to save face and say, "Look, we got the Ayatollah and we got a lot of bad guys. We're pretty happy we're walking out of here. The problem is that it's doesn't seem to be Donald Trump in the driver's seat. It seems to be President or Prime Minister Netanyahu that it's Israel's will that we are bending towards. So, if we walked away now, we probably would be led like a dog right back here until I don't know what. So, it has to be disastrous. And yet we can't really get a true picture of what the Americans are being asked to do even though we're funding it. And I notice because I follow your X feed closely, it helps me to cut through the bull, but you got a lot of turds now who are pushing back on you. And you I didn't see this before because the proar faction, the pro-war bots are out. And I noticed you're taking a lot of stuff for telling the truth. Now, that tells me something. >> That tells me you're over the target, Colonel. >> Yeah. >> Well, unfortunately, if you object to waging war with uncertain purpose and unattainable goals, then you're viewed as a traitor. I mean, that's obviously you you don't support what's right and good. But I think Americans are smarter than Washington thinks. And I'll be frank, I don't think this is going to lead anywhere. I don't think uh President Trump is going to tow the battleship Missouri into the Persian Gulf and then repaint the name on the Missouri to the USS Trump and hold a surrender ceremony there for the Iranians. I don't think that's going to occur. I hope we can get out of this without ending up in a major war with Russia and China uh without blowing up the entire region. The entire region is pretty much blown up as it is. But uh I think what's going to happen is that over the next several weeks uh war fatigue is going to set in. I think we will take more casualties than we've taken thus far. And I think President Trump may be in real trouble. He may not finish his his term. He may end up no longer being president by the time the war ends, however it ends. >> So maybe you can give us just a military assessment um beyond what you've already said here. Where do things stand on the Israeli side? Are they, you know, CNN is not allowed to show us, Fox News is not allowed to show us. RT got shut down from showing us what's actually happening inside of Israel, you know, bombing attacks inside of Israel. What do we, you know, what do we know about their the Iranian capacity at this point? Are they sitting back? As Professor Morandi in Thrron has said this morning, the Iranians are using basically some of their old old missiles. um they haven't even really used some of their most advanced stuff yet and they're sort of sitting back. Um can you help us understand and also the American deaths we've only heard six Americans have died. I'm hearing that that number is false. Maybe you can tell us about the American killed in action numbers that you're hearing about. Maybe you just can give us a sense of all of these things. >> Well, let's start with Israel. I think internally Israel is suffering from considerable unrest. Uh there are lots of unhappy people in Israel right now. They've been through quite a lot as a result of starting this war in the aftermath of 7 October. Uh they've got armed forces with people that are exhausted, that are tired. Uh at least a million Israelis have left the country and gone elsewhere, and I'm sure more would leave if they were able to do so. So I think the the future for Israel is ominous. It it strikes me that Israel and Iran may well end up in this contest that I would describe as competitive collapse. In other words, which state falls apart first? And if I were betting, I would say Iran will not be the first. That it will be Israel internally. They're already bringing in large numbers of mercenaries to fight and that's been going on almost from the beginning. Israel has sustained a lot of damage. It's probably going to sustain a lot more before this is over. And I don't know where Mr. Netanyahu is most of the time. Everybody keeps asking that question. He's not exactly very visible these days. Uh so I think Israel is in trouble. Let's put it that way. Now when we go to the Persian Gulf, we look at the Emirates, we look at Saudi Arabia, but particularly the Emirates, I think we as a nation are finished there because deterrence has failed. What the Iranians have demonstrated pretty conclusively is to fight wars, you don't really need navies and air forces. If you're defending your country with missiles and unmanned systems and ground troops, you can wage war for a very, very long time. We are at the end of a 6,000mi logistical pipeline. We've got to replenish everything. We don't know how many missiles we've fired. We're not sure about how many enemy missiles we've intercepted. And when you're in that kind of position, when in doubt, you tend to make things up. I think we're making a lot up, saying that we're doing a lot better than we are. Uh, but it's it's impossible to know with any precision. But the point is, you can bomb lots of people in Iran over a long period of time, but you're not going to bring down that nation, and you're not going to bomb its current government out of existence. So, when you look at the map, I I tend to, you know, rely more heavily on rebar. I find that most of their data is pretty good. And uh as I look at the charts right now, I'd say the Iranians are continuing to do quite well. And I don't think that we are pounding them into the dust or pulverizing them out of existence. And I think that's one of the reasons that we're going to send more troops and more firepower there. We've got three B carrier battle groups that we can surge and over the next two weeks I think they're going to get them ready and bring them over so they can replace the two carrier battle groups that are there now. So this is going to go on and as you pointed out everybody stopped talking about 48 hours. Remember we go back to WhitF and he said well President Trump and I thought they were going to capitulate. I mean after all look at all the firepower we amassed. Persia has been with us for 2,700 years. I don't see any evidence that they're about to go away. I think they'll they'll endure. I think ultimately by enduring they will win. The question is what what soers us up? I think it's going to be economics. Remember, Japan depends for 72 73% of its oil on the Persian Gulf. South Korea depends about 66 65% of its oil comes out of the Persian Gulf. China 50% but the Chinese have substantial strategic reserves and they have a new pipeline into Siberia. So that no doubt helps a great deal. India's oil 50% of it comes from the Persian Gulf. And right now Indian industries whether it's ceramics or automobile tires or any number of things anything that contains petroleum all of your uh you know your fertilizers contain elements from petroleum those businesses are being destroyed in India and people are beginning to say now wait a minute did President Trump ever consult with any of the nations with which we are aligned or nations that are ultimately friendly to us before he decided to do this? The answer is no. Did anybody really present him with a systematic analysis of how likely it was that we would be successful striking Iran from the air or was that simply waved aside based on anecdotal evidence provided by the Israelis that said, "Oh, this will be over in 2 days or 3 days or 4 days." Uh, we don't know the whole story. I mean, the truth will come out eventually. We'll find it out. But I think most of our assumptions were false. the they were evidence-free as so much analysis in Washington is. So, I think we're in for the long haul and hopefully we don't have any ships that are damaged or sunk. Hopefully, we don't have a carrier that's struck by one of these ballistic missiles. That would be disastrous because right now all the bases are are basically gone in most of the region. They're not usable anymore. >> Gosh. Uh I want to I want to ask you just one more question about the idea of escorting ships through the streets of Hormu the street of Hormuz. Um no one has taken us up on that offer. President Trump said hey we'll be the insurer the US taxpayer will do that. I mean >> now that insurance rates have skyrocketed as you pointed out. >> So the the the government is saying okay we'll do it. that puts US taxpayers on the hook. And I assume they would pay for, you know, replacement costs, death tolls. I I don't know exactly what that means. You and Colonel Davis both kind of freaked out about that because you're like, you really want to sail near Iran? You really want to do that? Um, and no one has Why, who would do that? Who would sail towards a country escorted by the country that's bombing that country? So it doesn't seem like it just seems like bluster, right? Is that what you think? >> Well, I don't know. Uh because I think that President Trump frequently uh is a victim of what we call ready, shoot, aim, >> he says things and then subsequently somebody tells him it's not possible, it won't work or it's not true. Uh then he just sort of waves it off. But this time I don't think he can wave off some of these remarks. I can't imagine any admiral in the United States Navy urging us or President Trump to send Navy combatants into the Persian Gulf right now. They'd be sitting ducks. That's the easiest thing in the world to hit and sink. So, I think the idea is crazy. Note that the carrier battle groups, particularly the USS Abraham Lincoln group, has moved as far away as they possibly could without completely sacrificing their ability to contribute to the air campaign. Because remember, you know, you've got a most of these fighters are about a 300 mile uh range. That means they've got to fly out 150 miles and back 150 miles. and you're a long way from Iran. If you're four or five, 600 miles south of the Persian Gulf, that means that you've got a lot of refueling going on. All all of these things cost us logistically. So, I just don't see it working. I don't see it happening. I think what you'll end up doing maybe is conducting a kind of naval blockade, but that's going to get you into trouble with everybody. You know, right now we what we see is a pattern of missile volies and drones based on a specific group of targets that are provided uh largely as a result of Chinese intelligence surveillance and recon reconnaissance and the satellite-based intelligence is also providing the battle damage assessment. And so this is a very carefully orchestrated campaign on the part of the Iranians. the these people are not amateurs. So we we on the other hand, you know, seem to be stumbling. You know, it reminds me of uh Lloyd George who said it at the beginning of World War I, if the politicians stumbled into the war, the generals have certainly stumbled through it. And I think that's what we did. We stumbled into this behind the Israelis that that hooked us in. And we're trying to make the best of it. I'm sure the generals in the air force, the admirals in the navy are doing everything they can, but this is tough. And in today's t attack, you know, the Iranians used one of their Kurumshar ballistic missiles with submunitions. They've done horrific damage to Bengurian airport, put it out of business. This was because obviously the Israelis attacked the airport in Thyron. Uh these people aren't finished. They're a long long long way from being finished. I think they're going to be standing when Israel's in ruins. And and that's the problem because when do the Israelis finally step up and say enough is enough. We're going to use a nuclear weapon and put Iran out of business. That's really what I worry most about. >> I've been, you know, hearing from sources pointing out that I there are number of IDF soldiers who've been overheard discussing this. Use a nuclear weapon. Just use a nuclear weapon uh and take out Iran. So I I'm not wouldn't be surprised by that. Um, Doug, I'll get you out on here on this, which is this idea. We've been hearing from the Iranian side that they've hit our aircraft carriers, they've targeted, hit our aircraft carriers, that they've hit some of our Navy ships. Is that propaganda from the Iranian side? What are you hearing from military sources? We can't seem to get any data as to whether or not any of our ships have been hit. >> Uh, you know, I do have some friends in the Navy. I'm told that at least one of the DDGs was hit and they did have a fire on board, but the rest of it, no. And you know, the other thing is nobody wants to confirm success because they're afraid that they're going to tell the Iranians that that they've hit the right target. But the truth is that you can't really conceal the effects because they're going to be picked up on satellite intelligence anyway. But historically, just remember, we always slow roll casualties. We slow roll losses or we simply lie. We lied during the Second World War because the losses were always higher than than we expected. During World War I, they were horrific and people waited months to hear the truth. So, I I I just don't think that much of what we are hearing is truthful from our side. And I don't know that the Iranians are telling us everything either because if you think you got close to a carrier, maybe you say, "Well, we got close, so tell them we we got a we nicked the carrier or something." Who knows? I don't know. >> Yeah. >> But I I don't think we can depend on much integrity in war. What did Napoleon say? The first casualty in war is the truth. >> Right. >> He was right. >> Absolutely. >> Colonel Douglas McGregor, great to see you as always. Thank you so much. Where can people read your new Substack piece that you just published? What is the name of your substack? >> Well, I think it's something like McGregor Warrior. Uh, but you know, you stick my name in there, you'll find it. You'll get there. >> Yeah. Fantastic. >> You know, I also have McGregor TV, but I'm shadowbanned, so nobody ever finds it anymore. >> Well, go looking, folks. Raise the algorithm. >> That's what people say about our show. They're like, "We can't ever find you. We don't get notifications. We subscribe. You don't show up on our homepage. You You get shadowbanned." So, they don't want the truth out there. Colonel unpopular. >> Yeah, exactly. >> All right. Well, I'll go into your X feed and fight with your turds. That will make me feel better. Sometimes [laughter] Sometimes when I get mad about the war, >> I just stir stuff up. >> What? [laughter] That's the key.