Iran’s Retaliation POUNDS Israel & US Bases as Trump LOSES IT | Greg Stoker & Lowkey

Welcome everyone. Welcome back to the show. It's your host Danny Hiong. You are tuning in to another update of the war as on Iran. As you can see, I am joined by Greg Stalker, former US Army Ranger, geopolitical analyst. He's also running for Congress in Texas. Greg, good to be with you. >> Thanks for having me on. Crazy times. >> Yeah. Yes, they are. Well, uh, how about we get started? you know, overnight there were massive uh missile salvos sent at Israel. Um the the videos I'll just pull up are uh pretty damning and convincing. Uh here is just Tel Aviv in one instance. I'll turn off the volume because it can get quite loud. Um and this comes in conjunction of what I believe now is wave 15 of Operation True Promise 4. Uh we know that uh you know uh uh the United States and Israel are continuing their bombing campaign. Uh and uh there's a lot of talk about running out of air defense interceptors, Greg. Um and I want to actually just pull up even what Donald Trump just said about the war. >> What an amazing unhinged. very contradictory statement given that uh uh you know we're only in about day four of this war and that Donald Trump is both talking about going on forever how wars can be fought forever and very successfully with these unlimited supply of weapons but saying that at the highest end we have good supply but are not where we want to be much additional hybrid weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries and he blamed of course Joe Biden for this problem. So, Greg, uh, where are we at right now? We know that Iran's, uh, retaliation this time is far different than the 12-day war, especially given the factor of hitting US bases, US air defense systems. There's just been a report of a THAAD taken out in the UAE by Iran. U, they're tridding with drones now, it seems like, in the latest waves of Operation True Promise force. So, what's been your reaction to uh the latest developments here in this conflict? >> I mean, it's almost boring to talk about at this point. I think you had me on last week when we had this exact discussion about how we knew we didn't have the stock piles for these kind of interceptors. They take forever to produce. They're hugely expensive and we don't really have the industrial base to really uh pump these things out. And it wasn't just us warning about it. It was like Defense Magazine, all of these defense reporters and ex uh like Air Force colonels talking about munition stockpiles. We've been talking about this since the genocide in Gaza started, right? Um and now, you know, a lot of generals didn't want this war to happen, especially inside the Pentagon. That's why the Pentagon was leaking like a civ up to the start of this operation because we don't have munition stockpiles. You know, we could reference the old war game from last year uh done by the uh inst uh the yeah uh the what was it? Oh, the CSIS um study where, you know, we they war gamed it out using over 60 ex-military uh general officers that we'd run out of munitions within four to five days over a conflict over the straight of Taiwan. This is like nothing new. And what I wanted to talk about, especially like when it comes to like drone warfare and these hypersonic missiles, it kind of like when you don't have air superiority and you don't have completely complete domination of the skies, this is what allows you to democ like democratize warfare against a power that has massive uh air assets and carrier strike groups. And we're seeing that now. I've talked about especially early on when Hamas was still firing rockets into uh Israel proper uh during the opening days of the genocide that there was a massive cost imbalance with respect to you know these asymmetric missiles and drones versus these interceptors you know and it speaks more to the equalization of the ability to wage aerial warfare whether defensively or offensively than they do of the exhaustion of financial capacity to run wars. You know, these missiles and drones are a fraction of the cost of these massive interceptors. You know, as aerial explosives really get like cheaper and cheaper, it makes deterrence and the ability to inflict reprisals more and more accessible to semi like peripheral or non-state forces. you know, kind of makes aerial warfare, you know, originally the monopoly of the imperialists available to poorer or sanctioned countries, you know, um, and this is kind of what we're seeing right now because they can keep sending like the United States has hit a lot of stockpiles. They've hit hundreds of military targets in Iran, but you're not going to get them all. And it's highly likely, and this is the main concern in the Pentagon, that they're going to run out of interceptors, which have not been completely effective obviously, uh, before uh, Iran runs out of its stockpiles of more democratized, cheaper aerial assets. >> Yeah. And we're seeing, Greg, I'll just pull up some of these, too. I'll pull up uh what has shocked especially Israeli but also US military analysts as well as they're watching what's happening in these waves in Operation True Promise 4 is there are some weapons that I think they underestimated Iran even having for example like these multiple cluster head missiles that actually break off into many different parts right before they land. Here is one example of this as the interceptors are trying to hit it. uh we see uh that there is just uh an absolute I mean they're just they're just uh absolutely just demolishing the the effectiveness of these uh uh of these interceptors, Greg. And then here's the hypersonic weapon I wanted to uh to show because I I think people don't understand. You're talking about them being cheaper and you know how Iran builds these weapons, but they're incredibly effective. I mean, here is the just how fast. I mean, people just have to not don't blink when you watch this because you can't even see it. I I mean, you can't even like that's how fast this these missiles are. Uh, and Iran doesn't even have to fire that many of them uh in order to uh make this work. And here's another one I'll just play here uh that uh shows all of these interceptors in the air. Uh uh you know uh it's funny in one of these videos you just see Iranian missiles getting through despite it. You'll hear settlers in Israel say, "Oh, it's like fireworks." And then when the missiles get through, they're they're screaming for their lives because they they just don't understand how this could be happening. So Greg, uh continue your analysis of of uh especially Iran's strategy here because I I think there's a fundamental misconception about this. A lot of people uh are are maybe not getting this. >> Yeah. I mean, it was kind of hard to anticipate like what the strategy would be. Like this is very much an open air weapons test way more so than the uh last operation true promise like or like during the 12-day war. uh this is more uh of Iran going you know on the attack mode uh targeting US assets in different Gulf states that were complicit or giving support to these attacks of course like Saudi Arabia the UAE didn't want to get hit that's kind of why they wanted to close their airspace and that's why US had the US had moved some of its troops out and reallocated assets because you know uh they didn't want their our quote unquote allies or subimperial states uh to get hit but Iran did Anyways, um and so basically Iran's strategy as to make uh a conflict that the US wanted contained. Israel, whether that it wants it contained is very debatable and we can have that conversation, but the US wanted it contained and now it's not. And there's a lot of problems being demonstrated in this open air weapons test. It's not just the hypersonic missiles getting through putting rounds on target. It's not just a cheap uh like shorter or medium range ballistic miss uh ballistic missiles arrange uh Iran's shooting and uh the Patriot missile batteries and THAADS really not intercepting massive problems with radar detection and also uh it seems like we had a friendly fire incident uh where three F-15 air superiority fighters got shot down over Kuwait. You know, I was on here last week talking about like mechanical failures and one ina million shot, like what happens if a fighter goes down over Iran and the massive problem that would be. I mean, luckily for the US, it happened over friendly airspace. Um, but it's it's actually been a mess. No one who has ever existed in the defense sector or in the military from an analytical perspective is thinks that this is going well. Everybody knows this is a dumpster fire of an operation and there's no clear vision going forward. And just like when we were talking about like Hamas uh like fighting the uh IOF in Gaza, what they have to do to win is just survive, you know, like the Vietkong were never going to defeat the US Empire in the field. They just needed to survive long enough and do enough damage and cause enough friction at home for the American people to be like, "Yeah, we're we're really not doing this anymore." And so that's kind of what the strategy is. And so, of course, it seems overwhelmingly likely and actually I think the Iranian state media put it out that the Ayatollah was killed this weekend. Uh, and it that was done by Israel. All the controversial strikes are being done by Israel with US intelligence support. Uh, so they're doing the Ayatollah Girl school can probably the massacre at the girls school can probably be attributed to an Israeli strike. I can't confirm that. I don't think anybody can at this point. Uh, but they also uh reporting coming out of the Jerusalem Post from an hour ago, they hit the assembly of experts, you know, the body of like 88 people or I forget the exact number who chooses the next replacement for the Ayatollah. So, they're just trying to kill anybody that could take that role. And that's basically the the strategy from their perspective, just to uh keep a power vacuum um open long enough for the government to collapse. And it doesn't look like that's going to work because the myth I think of decapitation strikes should have been uh you know debunked a long time ago. It didn't work with Hezbollah. Might not probably not going to work here. Um, so what their plan is is just to uh kill everybody who would step into that role. Of course, uh, Peshkan is at large. Um, and I'm not sure if there's another process going in for picking another pro, uh, president, but what happened and when you talk about Iranian strategy, they decentralized a lot of their military command before it happened. The IRGC didn't. There's other uh elements like the regular army and the besiege in the state, too. So the decapitation strike strategy is unlikely to work. And now Hezbollah has entered the battle space. Houthis might also enter as well. Uh at least they've disrupted red uh shipping uh Red Sea shipping traffic with threats. But yeah, the uh Iranians just need to hold on and uh there's currently in Congress right now, I think as we're recording, a war powers resolution being fought on the floor of the house. And this is deeply unpopular. So, they just need to hang on, do enough damage, um, and hope the U for the US to stop doing what it's doing. >> Yeah. Well, how likely is that, Greg? Uh, because I'll just pull up uh, you know, you mentioned that they are targeting uh, US bases and we can see the damage here. I'll put it. There's there's satellite here, satellite imagery of what happened to uh Bahrain, the US naval sports facility, the fifth fleet, the alu deed air base of course, sentcom's headquarters, and of course what happened in Kuwait where uh we are told, Greg, that that's where the six casualties, US casualties of this conflict have originated from due to Iranian drone fire. But Iran is saying the casualties are far higher uh on the US side. Uh right now Iran is saying 650 casualties in two days. Uh that is the latest update on that number. And you've heard it Greg. Uh I'm sure you have. Donald Trump and uh I believe Raisin Kaine just said it as well. Dan Raisin Kane that there's going to be more. So and it's not a popular war either. So, what do you make of of of this? The the US side is taking a lot of hits. They are uh they're trying to minimize it. They're saying, "Oh, well, this isn't really happening." They're the Abraham Lincoln hasn't, you know, moved back. It wasn't hit at all by missiles and uh there's only minimal damages to our bases. What What are we supposed to believe here? >> Okay. Well, it's not minimal. First of all, uh that's like the most significant damage a US base has taken since like the opening days of the global war on terror. Um yeah. Uh so when it comes to the casualties, I am very mistrustful of wartime propaganda coming from both sides. It's just a basic um basic uh information war. So I'm definitely distrustful. Now from my own experience and again I don't like to use like personal experience so much because it's really not a data set but the US didn't lie about its casualties during its engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know we had casualties like every hour on like the evening news. You know you'd have the people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan put up their units and stuff like that. That's really not happening right now. Uh, it's kind of like a a different age and a different military than what I was in. What was interesting is Sentcom put out that three people, three service members were killed and then they released the footage um of the the caskets being brought back uh to a US air base in the continental United States and there were like four caskets. So, that was kind of weird that they messed that up and now it's six. So the it was a makeshift command center, tactical operations center. It was like a triple wide trailer kind of sophisticated I guess that Iran knew about that because it wasn't a hard site or a traditional tactical operations center especially on one of those bases that has been developed and built up for a long time. It's all deeply bizarre. Do I think 650 service members have been killed? No. That's not something you can actually hide. Uh it's it's US standard operating procedure to actually uh like if someone's killed in theater to shut down all comms until the families can be contacted because there's an entire branch of service uh that goes and contacts families like in person uh before comms can go back up and we haven't seen those comms blackouts that you'd see uh when like a mass casualty happens. So I it looks like a lot of wartime propaganda. However, US service members are getting wounded. Uh they're >> Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Could they be talking about casualties as in wounded and killed? Because uh killed might be far lower than 650 casualties. Yeah. >> Well, they don't really have to release uh wounded and injured in the same way that they have to do uh with casualties. >> Uh but again, this is a completely new ideological military that I wasn't in back in the day. So >> yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like SenCom is uh kind of every other day, every day uh updating it by like two. Uh, so we don't know actually what what exactly is going on, but um we'll have to keep we'll have to keep we'll probably know a lot more once this is over. But I wanted to actually uh Greg, you know, I I'll just pull up this because I think um you know the the issue of air defenses is getting pretty intense. Uh there's now talk about relocating THAAD and patriots to the Middle East from the Pacific, which is something the Pentagon really did not want to do before this even uh started. Uh there there's also uh just ample evidence that Israel's air defenses in and of itself are running out uh very dramatically. I'll just uh pull up uh that while you react to it because you know I I think it's uh becoming Let me just pull this up. Yeah, here we go. Um >> I think it's become quite clear that this is a major problem and I can pull up Marco Rubio talking about it. So here's the video. uh uh they a lot of people are saying that Iran is using older missiles, older technology uh to begin all of this and that there might be more in store. I don't know what the accuracy of all that is, but this is the scene we're kind of getting where there even in Israel there's no sometimes there's just no interceptors going up to to fight off these attacks. How big of a problem is this? And can the US, we were talking a little bit before the show, can the US actually transfer these uh systems from the Pacific as rapidly as they need to? >> Uh first of all, uh when it comes to interceptors, Israel has a very like low threshold for taking damage or casualties. In fact, you know, when US politicians talk about stop arming Israel with offensive weapons, actually what you want to be voting against is defensive weapons because the defensive weapons allows them to have their, you know, psychological safety net of the Iron Dome, which gives them public consent or the government and the military public consent to wage these messianic expansionist wars and bombing campaigns throughout the region. So, you know, in my political journey, I I always advocate for no no defensive weapons. That's actually what gives them the impunity to do that. So, a lot of people aren't enjoying it right now. We've seen the massive amount of booked flights going out of Tel Aviv back to Europe and New York City and LA. Uh so, yeah, when it comes to bringing more fads into the region from South Korea, I'm just reminded like even since I was like a kid, like I'm I'm fourth generation Army. I grew up in the whole arsenal of democracy propaganda. Uh we've always been trying or trying to prepare for you know an existential like war conflict uh against China over the straight of Taiwan. You know that's why we have the base in South Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan. Like every time we when I say we, I mean the imperialist government of the United States tries to shift its focus to isolating and directly confronting China, we always get dragged back into a Middle East conflict. So there's kind of a running joke in defense circles is like everyone shifts assets to Indo-Pacific command and then something happens and it goes back to central command and then back to Indoaccom. And so it's just this running cycle of assets, be they naval, be they air defense, just moving based off these conflicts that don't need to happen and are completely avoidable. Can they get if if we just lost a THAD battery, that's an insanely expensive piece of hardware. There are >> much How much is it, Gray? >> I would have to fast >> 40 million 40 million something of that sort. Well, I think interceptors are their THAD interceptors are multi-million dollars per per interceptor and they can only produce only a handful a year. So, it's like, okay, so they make the B they they ship the battery, but like do we have these munitions? You know, I I think this this really speaks to how like endstage finance capitalism has really captured the US uh you know, defense industry to privilege precision over mass. So we actually cannot fight a highintensity conflict anymore. Like we only have one factory in Poland right now that produces all of our 155 Howards or shells for mass artillery. Like what's this is revealing is, you know, we can only do things like uh Venezuela operations, send in Delta Force uh and our special operations community because no one else has that capability. They don't, but it's all we can really do. And as I talked a uh with you after the Venezuela operation, that's where we get a lot of our military propaganda. You know, it's what I call special operations porn. But like when it comes to actually highintensity conflict stuff, we can't do it anymore. We don't have the industrial base. everything's financialized priv uh privileging uh like all of these high dollar research and development um contracts like Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics to make these interceptors which are defensive. They don't really even work but they're hugely hugely expensive. So it's not really about winning the war anymore. It's about making money for private contractors which is why half of over half slightly over half of the Pentagon's budget doesn't go to the military. It goes to these private contractors and there's this deep rot inside the military. It's not just because, you know, there's a lack of readiness or a recruiting crisis. It's because all of our logistics, all of our industrial base, quote unquote industrial base doesn't really exist, is done by the private contractors. You know, I was talking to my uncle about this. He was like this still this MAGA guy. And so I had to use like a a Roman Empire uh analogy because like he knows about that. Uh could you imagine how effective the Roman army would have been if they didn't handle their own logistics? Like that's what allowed them to be this massive imperial force. So we don't have that right now because it's all done for profit, not for the actual functioning of the military. So what this conflict has definitely exposed and highlight is uh this massive rot with inside the department of war and the military apparatus that there is no political will to fix. The Democrats don't have it, Republicans don't have it. It just makes too much money. And again, all we can do is special operations. >> And that's really not something that a lot of people are interested in trying in Iran. you know, we have a really bad track record of uh special operations disasters in Central Asia, so we'll see. >> Yeah. And uh Iran's terrain is very challenging as well. Um we Yeah, we'll have to see. I wanted to uh pull this up. You know, I I think I've seen this cost. This is from the Islander, but I feel like I've seen this cost that up it can be up to $44 million a shot for Patriot interceptors. uh at chasing down what often is $250,000 worth. >> Um I think the I think the 44 million is closer to the THAAD or arrow interceptors. I think Patriots are going to be way cheaper than that. >> Right. Right. Right. So, you know, their lack of effectiveness though in terms of being able to uh hit an Iranian missile or drone, I think really speaks to exactly as you said, there's a a changing way of how war is fought. And the US seems very behind, which begs the question, Greg, you know, a lot of people in the audience wanted to to ask this um of my guests today is who do you believe is winning this conflict? Because I think right now, of course, Iran has taken civilian casualties. The US and Israel are bombing, you know, they bomb the media. What is that? The IIB. Uh they're bombing schools. They're bombing anything. Every they're trying to essentially uh break the Iranian people. Um and Iran has been very strategic and and very intentional about how they are going about this and have hit very important targets and have already caused a bit of panic inside of the Pentagon. So uh what's your take on this question? >> My take on this question is it's it's not this equivalent relationship. you know, the conditions for victory for Iran are different than the conditions of victory for the United States. And can you actually can anyone in the audience actually describe to me what the United States conditions for victory are? like like regime change, uh killing the Ayatollah and anyone who would succeed him, destabilization, balkanization, destroying all of the IRGC, collapsing the central bank, like what are we talk what are the conditions for victory for the United States? They haven't set any. You know, it's it's it's like Iraq 2.0 in some ways. uh you know the the conditions for victory for Iraq were to overthrow Saddam and do a interminable nation building forever war exercise but we don't even have that for Iran. So I don't know what the conditions for victory for the United States are because they haven't been set. We're just doing this kind of mowing the grass operation every two years it seems now with Iran or every year where we just ignite this new conflict, kill a bunch of people, IRGC commanders, politicians, nuclear scientists, uh declare victory and then walk away. However, this time is going to be different because we clearly started this con uh conflict in conjunction with the initial Israeli strikes. Whether or not, you know, people in the White House or the Pentagon were super excited about that prospect, it's debatable. Uh it doesn't matter. Um this conflict has expanded in dimensions way beyond what the United States decision makers would have liked and it's not going well. It's it's revealed deep strategic weaknesses and operational weaknesses. And I don't know, can anybody tell me what a US condition for victory would look like? It hasn't been set. And again, all Iran needs to do is just survive as an entity and they win. Like there there is really no way out of this uh for the United States unless they, you know, they've lost the propaganda or the information war. uh the Trump administration, this is going to like destroy his legacy, I believe. Um, a lot of people are jumping ship. A lot of people are realizing like this was the final straw. Like he has straight up lying to you now. Um, I mean, it it was a not just it's not just been a military disaster, but also an information disaster as well. So, I don't know how the United States pulls itself out of the fire and achieves quote unquote victory conditions, which haven't even been set, if that makes sense. >> Yeah. Well, let's uh let's talk about that information disaster because we can definitely uh uh pinpoint the incredible difficulties that the Trump administration is having. Not just justifying the war, but also I think a lot of this is trying to hide uh what we know, we played it the last time you were on the show. We know that Sentcom, we know that the US military breast, the foreign policy that they pay attention to what people are seeing on social media. They're seeing the same things that we're seeing. They know. I mean, they're they're in this war, so they obviously know uh what Iran is doing and how that looks. >> Oh, yeah. There there are entire specializations within the military that just monitor this stuff. >> Exactly. So, they know. And now we have uh So, as they're trying to hide exactly what's going on, the difficulties, as well as justify this war, we see some pretty uh stark uh contradictions. So, here's Marco Rubio's longer uh reasoning for why the US is doing this in the first place. >> This operation with a very clear goal in mind. I haven't had a chance to see a lot of reporting. I don't understand what the confusion is. Let me explain it to you and I'll do it once again as clearly as possible. Perhaps we'll report it that way. The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran's short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now and it's doing quite successfully. I'll leave it to the Pentagon and the Department of War to discuss the tactics behind that and the progress that's being made. That is the clear objective of this mission. The second question that been asked is why now? Well, there's two reasons why now. The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone the United States or Israel or anyone they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic and in fact it bared to be true because in fact the within an hour of of the initial attack on the on the leadership compound the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already been activated to launch. In fact those had already been pre-positioned. The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. He we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even hire those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't. So which the last part is is is actually an interesting admission. First of all, nothing about nuclear, which we can get into in a second when we hear JD Vince. But also that last part of we knew Israel was going to attack, so we had to essentially >> attack as well. >> Yeah. or or or or if we even break down the quote unquote logic further, it's like Iran thought we were going to attack them first, so they were going to attack us first, which means we had to attack them actually first. You know, in his defense, like ar like log trying to logically argue for this war is kind of like trying to use the scientific method to disprove gravity. So, I mean, I feel for him. And again, when it comes to these strategic goals, you know, one person is saying one thing. Marco Rubio is like, "Yeah, it's the ballistic missiles." Then you have another White House official being like, "It's actually the Iranian nuclear program." >> Here's JD Vance. >> So long as we achieve the president's objective to make it clear that Iran can't build the bomb, I I think the president will be happy with the outcome. >> So, you know, the bomb being a nuclear weapon. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then you have other officials uh like talking about regime change. So like which which one is it guys? Take a pick. And it's very clear that there are factions within the White House and the Pentagon that don't support this. But then there are also like actually religious extremists with inside the US government and the military who are behind this not just for any logical reason but because you know they need to bring about Armageddon. >> Literally that's where we're at. >> Here it is. Asia Times. US troops were told Iran war is for Armageddon, the return of Jesus. Advocy groups reports commanders giving similar message to more than at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military. A combat unit commander told non-commission officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God's plan and that President Donald Trump was anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth. So there you go, Greg. uh help us understand this. >> This is actually a pretty big story that nobody's reporting on yet. At least no western mainstream media is reporting on yet. Uh the the complaints were taken by a nonprofit watchdog that monitors religious extremism in the military. It's the military religious freedom foundation. and they received like 40 complaints or 110 complaints from 40 different units across 30 different installations I believe uh if I uh remember the exact numbers from the article uh of non-commissioned officers and lower uh ranking officers reporting that they're that they're company commanders or battalion commanders or division commanders are saying this you know like every like every time you go go went off the weekend, you return back to work on Monday in the military. You get like commanders briefings and emails with a week like your agenda for the week, your training schedule, everything. And this was in there. Insane. Uh so, you know, I grew up spent the most formative years of my life in a special operations unit. And there's like two different types of people in these kind of units. There's like the secular degenerates that all you do is like party. That was me. And then you have like the actual evangelical Christians who are like married at like super young age. Um they're highly religious evangelical go do like prayer circles before doing any operations. And if someone's going to do war crimes it's generally those guys. But those are the two archetypes. So, you're having all these secular people uh in the military being briefed by these like religious zealots and that that this is coming at a time and an unprecedented scale that I haven't seen before. Um, of course, you know, we always had that. You can look at reporting from the early days of the Iraq war with like generals and admirals who were evangelicals supporting the war in Iraq even though they knew that we didn't have WMDs, but they're doing it for the messianic vision of a greater Israel. So like a lot of these senior commanders in the military actually believe in this messianic vision and uh that's a huge problem because it's killing morale, you know, and no like a lot of these people are secular. Most people in the military are secular and actually they tend to vote the the overwhelming majority of the military like over 50% actually votes Democrat because a lot of them are people of color. Uh they're from the cities, large urban centers. Uh so so this is actually kind of a huge friction and fraction point in the military that this is coming out. I never saw this um especially to this extent. It's actually kind of absolutely uh bizarre, but it speaks to uh the the politicization of the military, especially at the command echelon. And that's something we all should be uh deeply fearful about because, you know, military decisions should be done by logic and not like what is a religious zealot ideology. So, uh that's also another point of deep rot with inside the the US imperial armies. Uh it's not just private contractors. It's not just de-industrialization, it's also the politicization uh of and that's only going to destroy morale and fracture it even further. So like this war is exposing so many systemic problems again which there is no political will to fix. >> Well, Greg, you know, as we've been going through now four days of this thing, I I there's such a a massive difference I think when you talk about morale, right? We have for example and I think this is where I I believe Iran has certainly won especially this part of the battle if not it being a total turning point in the war. So all the murder, all the the assassinations, killing the Ayatollah Ali Kamei, uh that was supposed to break the Iranian people, but they immediately came out in droves. In droves as air I've seen some of these videos, Greg, where there's air defense uh I'll just zoom in more sometimes putting the video 100% will uh mess with the audio, but I've seen Iranians in the streets as air defenses are activated right above them. I mean, that is something. And then we've had Hezbollah join. We know that Ensurala is probably going to get involved if this goes on uh as long as we think. And then you know on the other side on the US side we've had bases visibly destroyed. We've had uh three fighter pilots having to eject themselves and their planes falling to the ground because of friendly fire uh of Kuwaiti air defenses supposedly. And we've had just over and over again we we have Israel getting pounded every single day with their air defenses likely running out soon. So this part of it feels very much um at least on the side of Iran in terms of who has the initiative and and Iran has said Iran is saying they want a long war and the US can't they can't decide. They keep saying the Trump administration says in secret they only want it a few days. Then he says it can go on forever. Then, you know, we hear, "Nah, we can't tell you how long this is going to go on." So, it it one side looks like chaos, the other side looks like they have initiative. What do you think of that? >> Well, we we all knew that there was going to be this rallying around the flag happening if they start hitting girls schools, hospitals, and start killing political and military leaders. We knew that was going to happen. That's not really surprising. Um, a lot of this, of course, we we went we did more like a geopolitical deep dive about, you know, bricks and the belt and road initiative and why Iran needs to fall to basically prevent a tripartite uh strategic alliance between Iran, China, Russia and you know glo like anti-western essentially global infrastructure. This that's beyond the scope of our discussion here today. Uh but from the Israeli perspective, they know that this is kind of one of their last chances to really send it all out there. Uh there's a deep sense in their leadership that unconditional US support for what they're doing is not going to last forever. They need to strengthen their own military and actually do as much damage as they can while they still have the aegis of the US empire protecting them unconditionally and kind of being led by them from a foreign policy perspective. So, we're seeing civilian targets getting hit all throughout the south of Lebanon. Looks like they're going to potentially reinvade or at least establish like security checkpoints south of the Latani River. Uh they're probably going to if Ansar law gets involved uh start doing bombing runs on Yemen and they're going to focus on local targets while the US uh focuses on the targets in Iran because we have more force projection uh than they do and we don't have to like uh refuel over Iraqi or Syrian airspace like they do like this. So this is going to be one of their last chances I believe to uh enact the Arts Israel plan. And again, just like I was talking about ideologues in the US military where they think like this is going to bring about Armageddon and it really doesn't make any strategic sense. We can look at these decision makers in Israel and say the same exact thing. Like >> yeah, >> we know like they are trying to disarm Hezbollah, never going to happen. Um >> I mean they're in it right now. They're hitting tanks. They got drones. They got rockets. they're they're hitting them. >> Uh so this is going to be like I think one of the last chances and a lot of this is if you look at what's happening with like the Venezuela oil uh and and the the leadup to this operation. Sorry, I have allergies. Like you had to do that first, you know, because everyone was saying, "Oh, we're we're we're we're stealing Venezuela's oil for us." Like we can't even refine that oil, you know? It's too crude. It doesn't have the purity that our systems uh require uh to refine petroleum. So, who can use them? Cuba uh and the Gulf States. And you know, if you the trade of Hormuz gets shut down, you're going to need another alternate supply of oil. So, this is helpful for like the Venezuela operation was helpful for like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And if you actually look at the moves behind the scene, a lot of actors in the United States are starting to kind of move or envision an alternate power base inside the region moving from Tel Aviv, which is kind of toxic right now to uh Riad and Abu Dhabi uh going forward. So, you know, you have massive real estate investment deals. uh the Trump administration is heavily involved with the Saudis and the Emiratis and joint real estate projects and stuff like this. So it's not just all about Israel anymore which is interesting and uh because as as a imperial colony it's kind of been tainted. So we're kind of seeing the ascendancy of these subimperial states coming out of the Gulf. Um but again it's not that clear-cut because the Gulf States don't want to be getting hit by Iran either. this regional instability doesn't really serve them at all. Uh it's it's just an absolute mess. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you, Greg, uh we don't we don't have firm numbers on Iran's capabilities. Uh they don't they don't announce them and they don't actually uh even reveal them. their strategy on how they hit Israel and the you know US military assets uh don't really reveal it either because they they've taken a very uh measured approach but I'm wondering you said this is the last chance for Israel to get its greater Israel project and of course to get full >> the last chance but running out of time >> but it is running out of time but it's also to get full US support for that it might be a very there might be there's a very narrow window I think I would definitely agree with that but Is this last or is this uh time that's running out, this hourglass that's been turned over and we see the sand uh days of our lives kind of thing going on for them? Uh do we see this though as being a kind of miscalculation that Iran may actually hit them hard enough to make life very difficult for Israel's even I mean you know they always complain about Iran wanting to wipe them off the map. that doesn't seem in play but to make their existence even just difficult unlivable >> if if Israel cannot be secured there goes a lot of your foreign investment you know all all these like data centers that we're building in Israel all all you know even during the first Hezbollah war that massive intel chip factory that was like a half a billion or $800 million that got cancelled you know a lot of foreign investment which Israel relies on because it doesn't really produce produce anything other side other than like tech stuff uh and diamonds strangely even though there's no diamond mines in Israel uh that's it like that's their economy it's been struggling for a long time a lot of people have left Israel and went back to Europe there's a brain drain uh situation that's in danger of happening and you have to we haven't talked about this a lot but what is the morale in the Israeli Defense Force you know the the the social contract in the Israeli occupation force is that, you know, you do two years as a conscript and then you go back to Tel Aviv and you get to live a nice like upper middle class life as a data engineer or something else. And uh that's just not happening now. They're getting involved in all of these like what is looking increasingly like a forever war, reinvading the south of Lebanon. Um, and a lot of reporting, if you look at like Jerusalem Post and Wet News and Con, they used to really be reporting heavily on like troop morale and stuff like that. It's not they're not really doing that anymore. And they also have a moratorium on reporting on their suicide rates. So, you know, we can call them ideologues or whatever, but like they the rank and filed troop, it's highly likely that they don't want to be doing this either. So, uh, like it's it it's kind of like a house of cards. All they can do is bomb stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we talked about before this even started, Greg, that that was likely what was going to happen, that they would bomb stuff and hope that that that would that that would mean Iran would say and Iranian people would say, "Yes, welcome. Welcome to our our government. Do whatever you want to it. Uh, do whatever you want to our sovereignty." Now, Greg, uh, final question before we get to maybe an audience question or two here. Um, the White House actually just released this memo on what the actual objectives are, and it might be a little small, so I'll I'll zoom in because the Q&A part is cut off and not really even relevant. Um, it says right here that major combat operations against Iranian regime were uh were launched this past weekend and that the objectives are clear. So, here's all the objectives. destroy their missiles, raise the industry to the ground, annihilate their navy, ensure t the terrorist proxies of the regime can no longer destabilize the region, and ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. Greg, we're in day four. How successful has the United States been in these objectives, if they are in fact the objectives? >> Well, here here's the thing about both the missile industry and the nuclear program. even if they achieve the objectives, you know, they're not destroying the knowledge, you know, it can all be rebuilt and it will be rebuilt if the you if the Iranian government survives, which I predict is likely annihilating their navy. It's not really a flex. There's a like two nuclearpowered carrier strike groups around. Um, and of course, you know, Iran has irregular navy vessels, too. Kind of not to the same extent that China does, but it's not just their their flagged um and armed vessels. Uh, and ensure the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region of the world and attack our forces. Um, I don't see that as an achievable objective. We've been saying that for like three years now. Uh, yeah. So, okay, cool. Also, it's a stupid operation name, Epic Fury. Um yeah, at least they put out a cohesive statement. Um it would it will be interesting to see what comes out of the war powers resolution in the uh in Congress today. >> Yeah. Yeah. The uh well the resistance groups Yeah. Hezbollah they they said that Hezbollah was dead and Hezbollah is now fighting uh again after the Ayatollah uh was assassinated. It was killed. Um and uh you know the missiles, the missiles are still going up. Um so it's obviously not uh raised as of yet. Uh what else was there? The nuclear question. Iran has said over and over it doesn't want a nuclear bomb, but it's not going to give up nuclear energy and it's likely that it will continue to pursue that regardless of what happens in this conflict. And we should also >> over and over and over. >> I don't want to sound like a broken record, but hey, countries are allowed to have navies >> and they're allowed to have nuclear programs for uh energy and they're allowed to have missiles. You know, this is absolute blazing hypocrisy. And a lot of people um in the United States see that as reasonable. But what they don't understand is the rest of the world sees us as the aggressors and us as the the terrorists. And this is doing nothing, absolutely nothing for US soft power, especially when we're doing things like uh implementing on behalf of Israel like DIA doctrine stuff like bombing civilian targets in order to demoralize the population so much that they abandon their government who can't protect them. That is actually like the definition of a terrorist attack. >> Yeah. you create chaos, destroy civilian life, um, and make people uh, believe that the government can't protect them. So, they start siding with the terrorists or not wanting their government to exist anymore. So, we're kind of we're doing that. And, you know, some Americans are coming to the uh, or sorry, US citizens are coming to the realization that, you know, we're the bad guys in this situation. We are the terrorists. And it's also undoing a lot of 911 propaganda. That was so >> I mean the the the polling numbers, what did Trump say? He doesn't care about polls. He doesn't care about them at all. >> Yes, he does. He's >> I know that's what he says, though. He says he doesn't care, but the polls are not in his favor. They are looking they look bad now and there is no uh sign that they are going to reverse that uh 2080 spread. 20% in favor, 80% opposed or don't know, don't care. But either way, uh the 20% support is incredibly low for this operation. >> Just like the dispensationalist evangelical block. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then the the Navy flex, uh Trump was spewing on and on about this Navy flex, uh Iran, even if they they were they bombed naval vessels at port. Okay. So, yes, you destroyed their naval vessels, but if they wanted to shut down the straight of Hormuz, which is being signaled toward uh they have drones. They have drones that could make life very difficult for naval vessels and commercial vessels and all that. >> And what we saw what we saw and they have more sophisticated drones than the Houthies did. And the Houthies shut down the entire uh choke point. They're going into the Red Sea. So, you know, all you have to do is just make make sure ships are uninsurable and they won't sail through it. So, uh >> they don't want to be hit by drones no matter what. Like that's obvious. So, here's some questions, Greg. Uh just a couple. Um I think they're Let's see. Uh where's the first one here? Uh here we go. Is the straight of Hormuz completely shut yet? Uh will it will the closure escalate the conflict? Uh I think I haven't pulled up my naval tracker. Um there there are open source sites guys that you can see all the ships transponders that are broadcasting throughout the world. Um I think there's still I haven't checked today but there was still some traffic going through and will shutting down the straight of Hormuz escalate the conflict. Uh well it Trump himself did say that he doesn't care about polling numbers and Americans and presidencies are won and lost over gas prices. So if the straight of Hormuza shut down and again this goes back to like the Venezuela operation and getting alternate sources of oil for Gulf States, I I don't I don't see it escalating the conflict. I mean I think they there's some strategic reasons why they haven't tried shutting it down yet, but uh I don't think it will escalate anything. In fact, it I think it would uh really curb a lot of military considerations uh in terms of expanding this conflict. >> Yeah. Well, it would hit the world economy uh very hard and then the Trump administration would actually have to wonder or actually have to consider what do people think of this war? >> I mean, I'm concerned because I I think like they've just completely given up on the midterm elections here this coming November. And so that's kind of nerve-wracking if you're a US citizen. Like what what kind of shenanigans is this administration going to uh pull to retain power in the House, the Senate, and the Judiciary? U so this war is concerning not just for the immediate president, but what it means uh for uh US citizens in November. >> This is a interesting question, Greg. Why hasn't Iran issued preconditions for peace talks? I'm thinking nuclear disarmment of Israel and the closure of US bases in the Gulf. the Epstein axis couldn't agree to these but regionally >> uh preconditions for peace talks see the uh I've been talking about this for a while it's like kind of some reason the same reason why Hamas never preconditioned uh peace talks even while Israel was uh using diplomatic talks as uh a tool and a cover for political assassination against them like no matter what Israel did they always always came to the All right? Because they are waging an information war. And the information war is that these guys are religious zealots. Uh they're completely unreasonable. They cannot be talked to or trusted. And so them coming to the table in good faith every time from a very reasonable position is how it it's what they're doing to frame uh this and push back on literally centur centuries centuries of orientalizing propaganda that paints these people as like third world savages. Your their words not mine. U but while exposing that like they are the third world savage. They're uneducated. They're violent. They're cheering on the death of people they don't even know and understand. And by Iran consistently acting as a good faith, rational actor when it as opposed to these religious zealots in the White House and then the loup party in Israel. Uh they are showing the world that they are an actual part of the Congress of Nations. They're not this rogue state and it's part of a larger information strategy I believe. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and Iran, Greg, uh, here is just, um, some, uh, I wanted to pull up. Oh, where where did it go? Oh, here we go. Donald Trump, I had it up. I don't know why it's, uh, Hold on one second. Because, uh, Donald Trump has said it's too late for any of these talks. Uh, that's his uh, that's his his position now. Uh that's what he said here on his true social. Uh so-called Iran was supposedly reached out. The air defense, air force, navy, and leadership is gone. Now they want to talk. I said too late. But here is uh Ali Larajani who said uh just a day before that that Iran didn't start this war. we will fiercely defend ourselves and uh we will make it very difficult for the uh you know for the enemies. And he said that Iran is prepared for a long war. So either Iran is bluffing or Trump is lying. I don't know which one it is, Greg. Well, I I know which one it is, but I'm curious about yours. >> Uh well, first of all, Trump is lying. uh the Iranian military has not been destroyed and the navy has not been destroyed and all their air aerial assets have not been destroyed. Like that's easily verifiable. And even if like what does he mean by the military? Is it the IRGC? Is it the regular army? Is it the garrison militias? Is it the bassie? Like no. Okay. And Iran is prepared for a long war. That's why they built the tunnels and the hardened bunker sites and the massive military stock piles beneath them because that's what you do when you cannot uh establish air sovereignty against the United States just like the Vietkong just like Hamas just like Hezbollah you build tunnels. Uh they have been preparing for a long war and one of the reasons uh they have been they've been doing it since uh since we invaded Iraq. Uh Pete Hexath uh got up on on stage yesterday and talked about how Iran killed US service members in Iraq. Why was that? Well, because all the neocons back in the Bush administration, Wolawitz, Rumsfeld, uh what's it whatever his name is, uh Cheney, sorry. They said Iran was next. So what did Iran do? They sent an IRGC into Iraq to start training Shia sectarian militias to bog down the United States intermittently in Iraq so they didn't get invaded. Like this has all been in response to US aggression in the region starting with US overthrowing their democratically uh democratic government in the 50s. And so, uh, when they started building their nuclear program, they always knew that Israel wouldn't tolerate it. And that's why they built these hard sites deep, deep underground, not because, not against Israel, because Israel doesn't have the capabilities to do that. And they never will have the capabilities to use massive ordinance penetrators to hit these sites. It was always against the United States and US aggression for decades now. So yeah, I think they are prepared for a long war. And even if they're not, the US is not prepared for a long war. We've been talking, every time I've come on this show, we've been talking about how we don't have stock piles or an industrial base. So like, what are we even talking about here? >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't Great. I mean, even if uh Donald what Donald Trump said, everything is gone. I mean, there is a desperate attempt, it seems, to make it look like these objective even still listening to him. He said there they're you know we set their nuclear program back decades like last year and now >> obliterated right I thought it was obliterated but then uh JD >> obliterated. It was tremendous. So >> and then March 2nd JD Vance says we can't let them build a B. Well, how could they? It's obliterated. Uh and you know um the math you know just doesn't work out for the United States. Even Marco Rubio acknowledged this. I don't know if you saw this. Here it is. They are producing by some estimates over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month. They can build a hundred of these a month. Not to mention the thousands of one-way attack drones that they also have. >> So, so not good math there when we talk about just a few interceptors to >> even if you take the price differential out of it, it's just Yeah, it's not going to happen. >> No. But I I guess we're going to go ahead with it because, you know, um this is just end of empire imperial violence that you can look throughout history is what happens even even pre- capitalism, you know. So, uh I I definitely think that I I don't like to make predictions anymore because the world's so insane and the new the news cycle so insane, but I would be surprised if this lasts to next weekend, >> but we'll see. >> Yeah. I mean, we still have some time as we wait uh for low key here because there's a lot of course uh first of all what what I noticed before this started, Greg, was that the mainstream media, Politico, other outlets were talking about how Donald Trump's administration has not communicated any kind of message to people in the United States, not just about why, but about how this is going to happen. And they cited 911. They cited World War II, of course, Vietnam. These were different kind of wars. But then they even started uh the war on terror began after, you know, that uh really jumped off uh after 9/11. And they said, well, George W. Bush, you know, he went up to the camera multiple times and said, "This is how it's going to happen." Donald Trump did it zero times. The one time he did it, they were already striking Iran. Uh which took a lot of people by surprise. So now it's hard to believe and hard to understand exactly how long this could last. In what in what planet could this conflict actually last beyond this that this weekend as you're saying? >> Well uh I guess we'll just have to stop using interceptors and get hit. >> Uh you know just like we did back in the good old days. um just you know eating rounds and hoping to survive which I don't which because we don't have any consent for this war the US service members are not even going to have an appetite for that you know when you look at why the USS Gerald RR Ford had to go into port because 80% of the toilets didn't work well you and they started finding shirts and debris inside the pipes that's like Gen Z's version of fragging I seriously believe that US service members aboard the the flagship of the US Navy uh sabotaged it and and that you can't remain at sea if you don't have u any like sewage or any sanitation because what's the biggest threat like chalera like dysentery all of these like uh diuretic diseases that you get if you don't have clean water and you're like backed up in sewage so there's just really not an appetite not in the American people not in the US military. Um I I was uh like the last time the uh Iran war was happening, I was messaging uh with uh I was talking to Mike Pryzner who's the producer of the Empire Files. He used to be uh big he's big into like veteran activism and like getting people out of the military as conscientious objectors and he's like the last time this happened there was an unprecedented a number of people calling the GI Bill hotline to uh to get out. uh which is not something that's uh happened very often and people need to know because I've been getting in Twitter fights on this because you know I've been triggering a lot of uh uh MAGA cultists um being like you know even if you don't disagree with the war play pray for their safety they they'll get thrown in jail if they don't follow that's not true you can follow as a conscientious objector you just have to write an essay you have an interview with a chaplain a psychiatrist and your commanding officer And the overwhelming majority of people who file as a conscientious objector keep their VA benefits and everything can file for disability blah blah blah get free get free health care for the rest of their life because you get an honorable discharge and your benefits reflect the time and service you've already done as a conscientious objector. So you could actually absolutely leave the military and be protected while doing it. Now they don't teach you this. They don't tell you this because they don't want you to know. But this has been in place since Viet since after the Vietnam War. And so I know conscientious objectors who did like couple years in service, filed, got out, I've interviewed them. Uh yeah, and they're good to go. And they have VA healthcare and dental and all this other stuff. GI Bill, VA home loans. So like all these people can actually get out if they want to. Most of them don't know about it. So I'm actually kind of trying to do a education campaign. So I don't think anybody in the military or a lot of people in the military watch watch your show or listen to my podcast. But if you know somebody in the military and they're kind of like questioning if this should be happening or like do they want to get out, they can uh just go to the GI Bill or GI rights hotline and has all the uh all the information that you need for you. Uh, and there's also a bunch of 501c3s that support veterans transitioning out as conscientious objectors. So, it's absolutely a protected process and everybody needs to know that so you don't have people like, you know, uh, excusing, uh, this kind of stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh I mean there when we talk about the there could be far more conscientious objectors coming out of this uh war, Greg, should these air defenses run out and you know the damage to the bases is significant, but once those uh they run out entirely, uh there will be far more hits uh that are more damaging as long as Iran continues to do what it's doing. We haven't even heard about the Gerald Ford, Greg. Like where where did that go? What is it doing? Have you heard about what what it's because it it docked is it is it docked uh outside of Israel? Like is it there? And it had all of these issues with plumbing and I haven't heard anything from it. A lot made of the Abraham Lincoln, but not much of the for >> uh Okay. Trans I'm trying to see if it's transponder is on right now. Uh, okay. I think it's AIS transpan transponder has been off since the beginning of the operation. So, unless someone has like eyes on it in like the port of Larnica and Cyprus. I don't I don't really know. >> Yeah. But not a lot of we we're not hearing I mean we're hearing a lot about the Abraham Lincoln. There was even some rumors that Abraham Lincoln dispatched the aircraft that uh killed all of those the horrible murder uh massacre of the young girls at the school in Iran. Um but not anything from the Gerald Ford. A lot you know Iran said they hit the Abraham Lincoln Sangcom said no but nothing about the Gerald Ford at all. >> Yeah. Um I I think there was a lot of really bad press. If you read like stars and stripes or defense.com, like everybody within that community was like, "Yo, the sailors sabotaged this entire plumbing system." Uh, and that is a huge personnel problem and a huge security and operational risk. I wouldn't be surprised, this is pure speculation, if they were just taken off of operational duty to deal with like internal sabotage potentially because that will that'll get your entire unit just taken off the line until it's solved. >> Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Um and then Greg uh you know as we continue what are what are some things that you believe uh in this war so far that uh maybe you know we see all the chat on social media about the attacks uh the US bombings and then of course Iran's retaliation but what do you think is the the not being considered here uh so much uh when we're talking about how this war is going why this war is being fought >> okay well so every time and I I I speak about this a lot. Every time we do wars overseas, it comes back home. Uh Danny, have you heard about the uh the shooter in Austin, Texas? >> No, but somebody actually wanted me to ask you about that. So, let I'll pull up that super chat if I can find it, but uh please uh >> So, uh I I've gr grew up in Austin. I lived in Austin on and off my entire life. I live about 12 minutes away from where the shooting happened uh over the weekend. What we're told is on Sixth Street. I don't go to Sixth Street anymore. It's the big party street that's shut down on the weekends because I'm not in my 20s. Um yeah, he he was a naturalized citizen from Sagal uh who went around with a rifle and a gun and shot people at a number of venues. The entire operation is incredibly sketchy. First of all, uh the classic, oh, there was a Kuran in the car. uh and he was a Sagal Sunni apparently shooting people at random in solidarity with the Ayatollah a Shia who was just killed. He has also had a picture of him wearing a property of Allah shirt and um actual practicing Muslims cannot have the name of God on that or you know any shirt that they're wearing and the FBI is kind of just like trust me bro it was you know it was terrorism and then Greg Abbott's like we're going to do a terrorism crackdown you know because the war is coming by uh coming back home and um it's just it's just got scop written all over it meant to jin up more and more consent for attacking Iran and bringing the hammer down on Muslims when uh you know the the consent for this war is failing every time I swear to God every time is don't I might be a conspiracy theorist even though you know CIA and FBI has released files that they do this kind of thing they recruit mentally unstable people on the internet in like chat groups or messaging uh and get them to do these kind of things. It's just there's no compelling evidence after the Charlie Kirk assassination and the Tyler Robinson stuff and there was no transparency. There's zero reason to trust Cash Patel's FBI at this point and it really is giving scop and it's making at least massive news here in Texas. Uh, and so I think this war in Iran is just going to be used to jin up more consent for a further police crackdown and a further mobilization of the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Because again guys, whatever imperial violence and to forms of repression and control we implement overseas is almost immediately ported back home to us citizens of the Imperial Corps. So that's something that crazily happened over the weekend. It's absolutely bizarre. There's no transparency and it's very much trust me bro. >> Yeah. And it's uh that was a Joseph George member, longtime member. Thanks so much for the question. Uh >> and I point out >> that >> Yeah, please. >> You know how many white boys have shot up Sixth Street and it was it was just like a we're praying for like the mental health crisis and the male white man loneliness epidemic, but of course um we're going with this narrative now. >> Yeah. And uh uh though it gets worse, Greg, though, I feel uh when things don't go well. Uh and uh everything on the spreadsheet right now uh in this war is bad. So uh and then we have to factor in the longer this goes on, of course, the economy, the capitalist economy, the world capital economy is going to take major hits. Hormuz or not. uh because uh we know how uh these oil companies, these so-called investors and financers, we know how much they while they profit off of war uh when wars don't go well and things become unstable in major sites of investments is like Saudi Arabia, which we didn't even talk about this, Greg, after their embassy got hit by what is being said is Iranian drones. uh they're now looking to directly enter the war and positioning Haimars uh you know to to fire at Iran. >> That would be really insane. Uh if they fired uh long range artillery at Iran, but again just like Israel, we gave them the highs. Um I don't I don't think they'll enter the war. uh you they they've been uh cultivating a obviously they're a subimperial state of the US but uh they've been cultivating a relationship uh you know uh MBS Muhammad bin Salman the crown prince went to Tran last year for the first time in a very very long time. Um, again, nobody in the region wants this war and nobody wants a failed state in Iran and nobody wants, you know, Israel and the CIA getting involved in controlling resource fums made along territorial and ethnic lines. You know, Donald Trump just before we got on the street says like probably in response to how poorly the war is going that in the future we might directly support armed separatist militias. But let's let's talk about that. Do you think that the that Turkey is going to um allow or not intervene or not uh engage or protest like us arming and enabling and funding Kurdish separ separatists in like what the Washington Warhawks call South Azure Bay? Do you think Pakistan who's dealing with its own balo insurgency is going to like not see us arming beloi belo separatists as a direct threat to its territorial integrity? Nobody wants this. The UAE doesn't want it. Saudi doesn't want it. They're just, you know, having to say things. I I don't think they'll shoot high mars at Iran. To what purpose, you know? Uh so yeah, it's just completely destabilized the region and soured soured uh a lot of our long-standing relationships. >> Well, it also seems to have and we're just waiting for low-key everyone. I believe he's having some technical issues and Greg, thanks for being generous with your time as we as we do that. Um I just wanted to we're now seeing reports I mean some of this stuff is happening as we speak. Uh there's we know Hezbollah is back in and Hezbollah being back in also throws no matter how many people we know Israel is going on a rampage in Lebanon right now to uh mass I mean talk about ma trying to mass murder the population as they generally do but uh there's also Hezbollah is back in the fight Greg uh look at this uh always with Streamyard. So here we go. Um they're destroying tanks again. There's now as we are speaking there are rockets >> aliad's reporting that so it's most likely accurate. >> So there's also Yeah. So again well these are all up to you know the minute reports. There's also sirens according to the cradle that there are sirens going off in Israel because there are missiles being launched uh from Lebanon which means that Hezbollah is still uh they're still going. Um and that upends this whole project of not only disarming Hezbollah but also trying to establish that uh permanent uh you know occupation zone for Israel to uh you know continue their project. So a lot of things are just kind of erupting. Do do you think the US even expected this because Hezbollah was deemed dead? >> Well, the U the US like the ODNI, Office of Director of National Intelligence. It's the department that kind of aggregates all the information collected by every foreign and domestic intelligence agency from the CIA, the FBI, MSA, NSA, DIA, all the three letters. They didn't think that Hezbollah was disarmed. I cannot imagine they didn't see this coming. Um, but again, the Israeli government is willing to take these hits if they can further punish and emiserate Lebanon and maybe uh reoccupy parts of Lebanon south of the Latani River. Uh, again, I'm going to go back to my initial thesis that they know because they're not stupid. They might be zealots, but they're not completely stupid. They know that US unconditional support is not going to last forever. And I don't mean it's going to disappear in the next couple years or overnight, but it's going to end with this uh this generation that currently dominates political power. So, the older boomers, silent generation folks, right? Uh who are very hawkish. They've been in the reigns of power since the late 90s, early 2000s, and they're just not going away. But once those guys are gone, you know, but um they're the unconditional support is going to dry up. So this riot is not going to last forever. So I think they're trying to make hay while the sunshines. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there were uh of course rumblings that Israel was going to use uh the strikes on Iran by the United States and and Israel too to justify its aggression on on Lebanon even further. Um, I think they even announced that they were planning on hitting Lebanon and essentially anybody uh that was s, you know, a so-called threat to to Israel, but uh, nonetheless, I think Hezbollah is uh, you know, it's still around and it's still going to cause at least some problems for the Israeli regime. >> Yeah. And they're they're never going to truly disarm because once they do, they're they're done. And that's why Hamas is never going to, I don't think, ever completely disarmed. They might like, you know, pull a PKK in like Turkey or like the north uh or in like parts of Syria where they send out a social media video of them burning a couple AK-47s. But no, once they once they give up their arms, they're done. And that means um Lebanon completely becomes a a vassel in its entirety, not just in its in its government. So, uh, they can't afford to if they want to survive as an institution. And right now they they're fighting for their existential survival. That's why they entered the war not just like in solidarity with Iran like they did with uh Hamas and Gaza, but they're doing it because they they have to like they have to make as this hurt as much as possible to make it end. Because if Iran goes, they are they're completely isolated and this is an existential war for their own survival right now. So, I definitely think they're going to be sending it, waging a ground war, destroying as many tanks, maybe not so many rockets, but um I definitely see like small anti-tank teams running around uh just like they did last time, just like they did back in 2006, just like they did back in the 80s. So, probably older like more decentralized tactics. Uh, of course they haven't had enough time to like really build up their uh their leadership structure. Having it that centralized and that and and that hierarchical actually really hurt them last time. So I think they're going back to old school playbooks of decentralized cells and networks running around um the south of Lebanon. >> All right. Yeah, Greg, thanks so much for joining me today. Uh this was great. I appreciate you taking the extended time out. Uh, our second guest has come. Uh, here he is. Hey, Loki. How are you doing? I hope >> you okay. >> Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Um, >> nice of you to show up, man. It's been a minute. >> I was late. This uh I'm not sure what's happening with my uh my technical stuff at the moment, but yeah, it's good. >> Uh oh, sorry, I've lost your uh your mic. Uh I don't know what happened there. >> Okay. Yeah, I know. This is going to be uh low key. I can't hear you at all anymore. Let me um let me see what happened. I tried to make you louder because you were a bit quiet. Um and now it seems you have been turned off. Uh >> I look out and come back in. >> Oh, no. You're good now. I can hear you. I can hear you. >> All right. Well, I I'm going to go head up uh head out. I got to go do campaign stuff, guys. I'm running for te uh Congress in Texas District 31. just a heads up if you're interested in living in the region. So, uh, good to see you again, man. And thanks for having me on, Danny. >> Of course. Yeah. And everybody, uh, you can follow Greg on his X and and his campaign in the video description after the show. All right, Greg. All right, Loki. Good to see you, man. I know it's kind of a been rough to technical technically, but I definitely wanted to get your view on what's going on uh, in this war. maybe you can help us analyze because we've I can show the images of what's happening to Israel. I can show the images of what's happening to US bases in the region and that's been a lot of the talk. But what has this demonstrated to you in terms of uh the significance of uh Iran's retaliation, the resistance, etc. What what has what has been important for you? H your volume I can't hear you anymore. I don't know why. Um, what's happening here? Uh, let's see. Um, maybe, yeah, maybe if you want to come back. >> No. Okay. I Okay. No, you're good. You're good now. Uh, I think it's because every time I try to make you a little louder, uh, I just won't mess with it anymore. So, continue. >> Okay. Okay. Ultimately, I think what has been demonstrated is that Israel is in essence a paper tiger which has an air force which can attack civilian buildings. It has a military which can spy on communications. It has >> uh low key one thing I I don't mean to interrupt you. Is there do you have any headphones by any chance? Uh because there is an echo I think. >> Okay. The headphones unfortunately can't connect while the phone is charging. >> Oh, there's no um Bluetooth or anything like that. Okay. >> There's there's not unfortunately because it has to be plugged in, >> right? >> It's possible. This is quite an old phone. I'm so sorry, man. The the technology let me down today. >> It's all right. It's all right. >> It's uh there's a lot of crackling, I think. I don't know if the audience >> Yeah, there's and there's an echo on my side, I think, because of the um but it's not the worst. Uh continue, Loki. We'll we'll we'll get through this. Uh how about you? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. >> Okay. So ultimately what we're looking at is a situation where Israel believed that the decapitation model would be successful in removing 50 years worth of preparation. You are talking about people that have understood from the very beginning of the process which was the Islamic revolution in Iran that they would eventually have the United States go to war with them from the Zaros mountain strategy which was hacked during the Carter hatched during the Carter administration to the other methods which were adopted throughout other US presidents. Iran always had an awareness that this day would come. And so for that reason, it set about building its military capabilities without any US technology and trying to conceal them as much as possible. So you had the production on an industrial scale ballistic missiles underground which can be shot from surface to air with fairly um precise directions. And since the uh lesson of the 12-day war, actually you've seen governments in the region look at how they can adopt some of Iran's methods. So for instance, Turkey began ballistic missile development post uh the 12-day war when seeing how successful Iran was. And it's worth remembering what exactly happened in the 12-day war. You're talking about the use of over a thousand drones and only 500 ballistic missiles. Iran was able, according to the Israeli land authority, destroy 11,000 buildings within the political entity of Israel, damage over 30,000 buildings, and a third of those buildings which were damaged also had to be brought down and destroyed. In addition to that, you had over 41,000 Israeli citizens make claims to the Israeli uh compensation authorities to uh give them some type of uh monetary compensation for damaged property during that time. So just so we understand the scale of exactly what happened during that period and also it's important to understand that Israel cats Israel's defense minister at the time stated that they would have killed Ali if they could but they couldn't because he was nowhere to be found during that time. And in this way, you've seen a difference in the operation that Israel launched with the United States and at the time they launched it. Because most military operations take place at 2 am because the understanding is that in terms of the cycle of the human being, 2:00 a.m. is the point when they are at their least um aware. And like with the Venezuela operation against Maduro, it was 2:00 a.m. There's this is the standard practice really. But in this case, what happened was they launched it um around around 8 or 9 in the in the morning there um because they were responding to intelligence that said all of these individuals be together at the same time and we can kill um you know in a place where it was well known he would be anyway. But that move essentially signaled to Iran that now was the time to defend yourself in the way that you've been building up for these 50 years. And you have seen unprecedented targeting of US bases in the region. And they are moving from being a protective factor to being a liability. And at that point when US bases actually become a liability for the countries that host them, then the empire begins to fall. Its veneer, its uh prestige begins to disintegrate. And also you've seen the actions of the US soldiers on those bases. Rather than protect those states, the US soldiers have vacated their bases and gone into hotels, thus endangering people around them. But also Iran impressively showing that it has intelligence about where these uh soldiers and in some cases CIA um individuals are are based and has been able to strike them. And ultimately what that does is it places a an antagonism really between the US and its key allies in the region. And of course, when you look at Trump's targeting of Venezuela in the time he did it, it was in order for the US to have access to the uh the world's number one u uh oil um producer really at a time when he knew that if they were going to move on Iran later in that year, then it would be difficult to maintain the oil supply from the Middle East in the same way that it was. And already we've seen in uh the UK the gas uh prices increase by almost 100% just in the few days of this war. So really for from the Iranian perspective, the U mission is to incur the largest uh cost possible so that the United States is unable to sustain this uh this war and ultimately the alliance with Israel becomes more and more costly by the day. The public perception is is really um furious really I would say people are with Trump. They feel betrayed by him. This was somebody who got in on an anti-war ticket, who told people he was against the forever wars, that he was not a neocon. But when you actually look at who the main forces are that have been pushing for this war in tandem with Israel, it's been the neocons. So uh in the uh in the early 2000s, Richard Pearl and others in organizations Douglas Faith and others wrote up a report for Benjamin Netanyahu called Clean Break, which basically foretold what happened in Syria, which was the uh encouraging of um sectarian forces, which would then turn into separatist forces, which could then lead to a bulcanizing of the state and the decentralization of power and and weaken any chance of there being a centralized military that could oppose Zionism effectively. And the same the same mentality is what Israel has when it looks at um Iran. But the difference is is that the Trump regime thought more along the lines of the Maduro uh model where you're able to decapitate the um the government and then use that as a sort of bargaining stick and a threat to whoever is still there afterwards and then use that to try and push your um your will on the remaining people from the political class. But in the case of Iran, they do not realize the ideological commitment which exists and has been built up over these 50 years and the perception that people have of the struggle against um Zionism. And so therefore they are faced now with an an equation of an intrigent population which is not limited just to the government or the political elite. is spread across the region and they have very clear clarity about what the United States intentions are and Israel's intentions are. I think what they're trying to do now is encourage ground forces through Kurdish groups um the Barzani uh family and others in in the north of Iraq and uh Kurdish groups in Iran to try and move on the government as a ground force in some way, but then as an air force, it seems that they want the Saudis to possibly get involved and take over from Israel and the United States to take that pressure away from them. The question is whether that will work. And of course, there's been the reports in the um recent days that Mossad agents were arrested in both Qatar and Saudi um who seemed to be intent on causing problems there and possibly blaming it on Iran. Of course, Israel has a long um track record in these types of activities from the Leavon affair in Egypt where they placed um bombs at US um interests within the country in order to try and uh force the US government against the government of Jamal Abdas. And of course, Levon was the minister of defense in Israel at that time and later won a medal for carrying out this uh this operation. And then of course you have the case of Iraq where Mossad, which was a fledgling um intelligence agency in 1951, placed bombs at uh areas of uh Jewish interest within Iraq. So they placed bombs at synagogues. They placed um uh bombs at cafes frequented by Jewish Iraqis in order to try and compel those people to become Israeli and leave Iraq. Because at the time you had Tofi Kasui, the prime minister, having placed something called the denaturalization law, which would um allow Jewish Iraqis to leave the country and become Israelis. Of course, when many of them did eventually leave following the bombing campaign, they were um put in camps and sprayed with DDT by Israel once they arrived. And so anyway, what we see here is an attempt an attempt to throw the entire region into war. But what Iran has done is respond in a way that will be written about in the history books for centuries uh to come. And this was something that those of us who are um level-headed said before this that the United States and Israel have never faced any opponent like this in the history actually of of of Israel. Certainly it has never faced an opponent like this. And after the 12-day war, this was the very thing that those in the Israeli land um authority were saying that we have sustained damages that we have never before sustained and we're trying to get things uh back together in that way. So this is an entirely different animal in a way to what they have faced previously in Lebanon and Palestine. >> Yeah. I mean, uh, that's one thing I've, uh, wanted to harp on, too, is how historic this already is. And of course, there's a lot of we do live in the collective west. And, um, there will always be a lot of doubters given that our particular regimes are Zionist and imperialist in character. Uh, there are a lot of doubters about um, what Iran can do and how long it can sustain this. Uh my question to you Loki is uh uh what what are some of the factors? There's always the military factor what Iran has but there are other factors as well that drive I believe what we are seeing um resistance that Iran has said now is not going to stop. They are rejecting US uh overures towards talks. Now the Trump administration wants to say no there's we haven't been uh you know we're we it's too late no more negotiations but there's been many reports about how there have already been overtures and Iran said no that this is going to be a long war that they have their own objectives so now the US is starting to come out with objectives that they they're throwing all the pasta at the wall saying this is what we want to do this is what we want to do it's not very clear but Iran says it has its own objectives so what are these factors and objectives do you believe are at play here that maybe we're not paying attention to so much that uh influence uh what Iran does and what Iran is doing. >> Well, I think what is often overlooked in terms of the story of Iran's bond to the Palestinians is that prior to the Islamic Revolution, those who would go on to work for it actually trained with Khalil Wazir Abu Jihad of Fatah. He was the head of intelligence in Fatah who was later assassinated by the Israelis in Tunisia. But he um is someone that worked on training those forces in Lebanon who would later return to Iran and work for that aim. Of course, you have to remember that in the words of Talal Naji, the head of the popular front for the liberation of Palestine, the PFLP, who is currently imprisoned in Damascus, it was it would have been impossible for the Palestinians to um have the victories that they had and be able to defend themselves in the way that they were able to without the support of the um Iranians. You also look at someone like Salah AI from um Hamas. He stated very clearly that Iran is the only state in the world with a budget specifically for the liberation of Palestine. Kasim Solmani of course um was instrumental in the training of these forces in Lebanon, in Syria, in even in Gaza itself. You have the introduction of the Cornet missile, Russian missile that they were able to get in. You had a whole underground base in Sudan built by Iran for the purpose of arming the resistance in Gaza. And that's why of course the division of Sudan was a key um a key objective of the Zionists and something they were able to achieve. And um but it was a key link in the chain. Um and Iran was able to you know the the well-known phrase about the Palestinian revolution is that it went from the the the stone and the slingshot in the first inif and then in the second in father you see the appearance of different methods that were uh largely due to what who they called the muendis yakya um who was himself assassinated when Israel booby trapped a telephone that he used once a week and was able to uh kill him by exploding it in his hands to then Iran being able to arm the Palestinians with uh with more advanced uh hardware and then you see the method of resistance change and you can trace that line very clearly. The Iranians and their attitude to supporting the Palestinians was actually very nonpartisan. So for example, even when Feta was at odds with the Iranian position um and went through Oslo and the rest of it, there is the example of the Karin ships which were intercepted by the Israelis. One of them was intercepted but the rest of them were not. And those arms on those ships got to Gaza and were used to arm fata as well as the other Palestinian um resistance organizations. Iran has gone out of its way to give all of those factions anything they want. Um, and I think that's one aspect of the story which is often overlooked. I think the Iranian support for the Palestinians is somehow caricatured or viewed as a proxy or viewed as a um as for Iran's own interest. But you've never seen a more selfless support for the Palestinians. And let's be clear, what Iran is going through now is literally due to supporting Palestine. When you look at United Against Nuclear Iran, for example, and this was a point I was alluding to earlier, literally it features on the board the brother of George Bush. It features on the board um an individual that was George Bush's representative at the United Nations during the Iraq War. It features a myriad of neocons. It features the former head of Mossad during the Iraq war in 2003. John Bolton was key to key to united against a nuclear Iran. And interestingly enough, this way that this military adventure has been carried out in Iran. Even Joel John Bolton is attempting to disassociate himself. You know, this is somebody who was instrumental to the war in Iraq, instrumental to the war on terror. now seeking to disassociate himself from this current campaign on Iran because they're seeing how much of a disaster it it has been. Um, and that's because Iran was ready and they knew what was coming and as I say they prepared for it for 50 years and they built technology that had no involvement from any US company whatsoever. when they're launching these strikes, people will look at and they say, "Well, how does Iran possibly know how can it see where the Israelis are to strike them, right?" Because the the Iranian jets are not flying into other people's airspace. Well, they're using the satellite systems Beu and Gloness, which is China and Russia. And with those systems they are able to uh see into the uh the other side in in in quite an invasive and serious way and able to achieve what are really objectively speaking miracles um in terms of the way they are striking back. And ultimately there is not a country in the global south watching what is happening right now and not taking notes about the way that Iran has been able to defend itself. 25% of humanity exist in political systems which are currently subject to US sanction. Millions of people around the world have been killed by US sanctions. No country in the world is more sanctioned right now than Iran. For it to have been able to do this is really a testament to the brilliance and the the scientific genius which is at work in that country. And ultimately those who are looking at this in an objective way will say these are achievements which will uh speak for centuries uh to come for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Those are great points low-key. And uh one of the objectives the US always uh once in a while I mean I think it gets downplayed because the US wants to amplify the threat of Iran to uh measures far beyond uh what this actually portends. But they always say, well, Iran, we need to stop Iran from supporting the so-called terrorist proxies. And who are those so-called proxies? there all the resistance uh organizations and groups especially the Palestinians and also extending out to uh Lebanon uh and Yemen and and elsewhere. So it's a huge goal and uh you know I think it's unprecedented. A lot of people, you know, would they look at the the deaths that Israel and the United States have caused in Iran, but a lot of people, I think, to understand how a global south country uh can do this, can fight back in this way with this kind of technology, with this kind of weaponry, and make uh significant uh damage, impose significant damage on the US and Israel. And if we add the US into here, unlike the 12-day war, we're talking about something that actually is history bookw worthy, regardless of the outcome, which I can ask you about low key where you think this is going. But right now, if we're looking at this four days in, we see the outcome is uh at the very least uh not uh up to where the United States and the uh and Israel uh want it to be, where they want it to be, which is of course full regime change. Yes. Um and I think they have slightly different objectives. So I think for Israel the aim is uh social collapse and chaos but a creative chaos which they can move around to their interests on the US side of things but particularly Trump because he's not Bush. He he is not a believer in this idea of committing large forces for attritional warfare and long protracted um operations. U Trump views it as advantageous to just dip in and out with a very cleancut operation. But those are actually diametrically opposed uh interests. And what's fascinating is that someone like Marco Rubio is coming out now and saying essentially that Israel was going to take action and we didn't want Israel to take action alone, but Israel was going to take action whether we liked it or not. But this is interesting because it's it's really uh depicting the USIsraeli relationship in a new way. But this was a massive gamble for Trump to partake in. And ultimately people will both allies in the US domestically and in the region generally will be looking at him and shaking their head at how he could do something so so silly. Because when they compare the way Iran responded to the 12-day war, it was completely different. In the 12-day war, what partly was the coming to the end of it was when Iran targeted El in DHA and that was obviously telegraphed and people were informed that this was going to happen. Um but it was a warning and that warning ultimately was not heeded. What needs to happen regionally is people need to look at least across the next few decades at pivoting away from this idea of the US military being the key guarantor of the global economy. Move away from the US military being the protector of supply lines and move to a more independent situation. Ultimately, Iran in the region supports forces who are working from independence from neoc colonialism. It doesn't support forces actually contrary to what many will say who have a strictly sectarian outlook. Um if it did, it wouldn't have supported some of the groups that it stand stood with. Um definitely among the Palestinian in Lebanon and in Iraq. there are non sectarian components that all of those organizations mention. Um but ultimately that what has been revealed here is that the United States is basically not fit to protect um the uh the the supply lines and the states themselves. I mean, when can you imagine a time when you would see US forces vacating their bases and then being essentially chased with ballistic missiles into the hotel rooms. They try and hide it. that you know this is this is in it's reminiscent of of the the humiliation that the US military faced in Vietnam you know and I believe that this go in history in a similar way it's also important to remember that both China and Russia have had an interesting role in this whole process so as I pointed out beu and glass have been essential to all of Iran's military operations from the the first true promise operation. Um, and Israel was not happy about that, of course. But in this case, we know that Russia made clear US air force plans to Iran several days before they took action. We also know that China has been helping to replenish Iran's um defenses. And of course, from the Chinese and the Russian perspective, it would make sense because drawing the US into a war of attrition in Iran would take pressure away from Ukraine and Taiwan without a doubt. They're now talking about moving the THAAD um system away from South Korea and uh bringing it, you know, and and this idea that perhaps Iran have taken out the the THAAD um the THAD platform um around the UAE. All of this is unprecedented. All of this, all of this, none, none of this was expected by the US or Israel. And there's actually little that Israel can offer um the United States. You also have to remember that Iran easily has over 100,000 drones, has tens of thousand ballistic missiles, at least if not around 100,000. It can continue this almost at infinitum. The United States and Israel both have very limited air defenses. What are they going to do? And this is why in the 12-day war, this was partly what made the United States and Israel essentially beg for a ceasefire. It wasn't the Gulf begging for a ceasefire at that time because none of the US bases were being targeted. It was solely Israel and the United States were unable to protect Israel. Israel was out of air defenses and so it was able through the help of the Gulf to um persuade Iran to stand down and rather than take that warning and heed that warning, everyone in the region either took it for a weakness or did not learn the lesson which was being communicated to them. And so they went for a maximum escalation strategy which is the Israeli way. It is the Zionist way. The Zionist way is a maximalist unrealistic um uh utopian um perception of the way things are going to go. They believed, for instance, that they could drive 2 million Palestinians into Egypt, that they could drive two million Palestinians by killing them on mass on an industrial scale out of Gaza. They failed and they lost. They believed that with an air force campaign they could then militarily occupy the south of Lebanon. They actually tried and failed to do that. And ultimately the lesson from Syria is that without local agents, Israel is unable to achieve its objectives. Now those local agents may be knowingly or unknowingly working for Israel, but they're local agents. And so in Lebanon, they they have, you know, local agents, but those local agents have to be a bit shy about their position. Um, and you see with the Lebanese government now, um, attempting to neutralize the resistance. But those Israeli soldiers and those tanks, four tanks, Israeli tanks have gone today in one day in Lebanon. If Israel thinks it can go in and occupy Lebanon, it will learn the very same lesson that it learned before. You know, Trump is talking about boots on the ground in Iran. That is a completely unrealistic um perception. It would definitely be the nail in the coffin of the US empire. The United States is in no position to carry out any type of occupation that it carried out in Iraq or Afghanistan. They were completely um pulled thin. And if they think they could do that in a country like Iran, which is three times the size of Iraq and has a very coherent and you know these countries that the United States went into in Iraq and Afghanistan had unfortunately by the time that they were occupied no army to speak of. Iran's not the same. It's it's very clearly not the same and they are learning that lesson. And these US soldiers, how much longer are they going to be willing to die for Israel? Their perception of Iraq and Afghanistan, rightly or wrongly, is that they were dying for 9/11. Now, that's a very different, psychologically speaking, that's a very different equation. What you're now saying to these soldiers is that, yeah, you're dying for Benjamin Netanyahu. That's not going to stay for much longer. And when you look at the aircraft carrier which the toilets were being blocked up the the um USS Gerald Ford, it's entirely possible and I'm aware that that you know it has been said that this was a form of mutiny. And so if you saw that form of mutiny before the war, what do you think is going to happen when uh US soldiers are feeling a type of pressure in the region that they have never ever felt before? What type of stigma do you think will then be attached not only to the US military but also to the Israelis? Do they really believe Do they really believe that they are in invincible in the face of public opinion? Do they do they not believe that it's a factor at all? Do they really believe that people that have moved to the Gulf to escape taxes in their home country are going to be happy to live next to US bases? Do they believe the people employed to clean the bases are going to want to go in? that they believe the people employed to work in restaurants in these bases are going to want to go and work at Burger King or McDonald's inside a US military base. When when this level of pressure is sustained for even a few weeks, imagine this type of pressure sustained for 6 months because that's what Iran has in mind. It has in mind that it will fight like this for six months. the whole entire world will change. If you have six months of a similar nature to these last few days, we're in a different world at that point. >> Yeah. And there's a lot of talk low-key of this turning into a war of attrition, which however we want to view that term, I'm not sure I would use that. uh just only because I think Iran is if we look at all these waves of operation true promise 4 we can see that uh they are they have a very diverse and very unpredictable strategy uh that they are employing and uh if a war of attrition means a long grind out kind of standoff between uh the the waring party the aggressors uh US and Israel and Iran. uh we just don't know. While we know that the Pentagon and the the w you know the west in general is very worried about their ammunitions and stockpiles and air defenses. Iran is not uh spreading the message of uh having you just said in there there's indications of an infinite capabilities if they're continuing to produce the drones. if they're continue to produce even just the short-range missiles, which probably don't need all that much if they're doing it underground. Yeah, this is this could be a forever war that I don't think the United States and Israel have ever uh understood. And you know, I I'm wondering uh in closing, you know, there's a question low-key, how do we avoid the Samson option? because we the unpredictability of a declining and a collapsing uh empire like the United States is and of course Israel attached to its hip uh it that also leads to some unpredictability I think into how uh its so-called rulers uh uh react to this kind of disaster. Well, you know, Danny, there are different lessons from the Vietnam War from different angles. So, in the case of the Palestinian resistance, in the case of Iran, this working underground to produce the means to defend yourself, it was seen in the Vietnam War and they learned from the insurgency how to develop their ways of doing things. Of course, you had the Punji trap in Vietnam, which was spikes under the ground where US soldiers would trip and fall in. Um, and they had a a really expansive tunnel system in Vietnam. The Palestinians, of course, have the same. The Lebanese have the same with the help from North Korea, um, created in the south of Lebanon. And Iran have the same. The United States came out of Vietnam and created the internet because what they wanted to do was be able to predict um insurgency to surveil people and in fact when the internet was being created and uh Yeshua Levine has a a great book about it called surveillance valley which looks at the foundation of the internet and the way in which at the universities it was being made MIT for example you had sitins by students against it and protests against it because they knew of the consequences it would have for people and what the intentions behind the invention of it was. However, and here's where the interesting part of this question comes. If you look today at what the internet has been used for by those who are supporters of the Iranian government, you have Hammer, which is the Palestinian refugee boy created by Nil Ali, who has his back turned. Now, it's said that he would only turn around and face the world when he was able to return home to Palestine. Alhamdulillah, today is the name of an organization which has hacked the emails of Barak. It has hacked the emails of Benny Gance. It has hacked the emails of a myriad of the founder of Israel's cyber unit. It has hacked emails of Netanyahu's entire close circle and release that information to the world and it's had real world uh consequences. The informationational it hacked David Bena's phone, the uh the head of Moss. Um, so what you're seeing now is an a a a very um creative way of using the methods of the enemy um against them against them on the part of Iran and others in this epic battle for um um self-determination and ultimately liberation from neoc colonialism. But uh the question here about the Samson uh doctrine is an interesting one because there will be those arguing for it on the Israeli side, the use of uh tactical nukes against Iran. Now even in the case of the use of these kind of weapons and the the huge amount of damage that that would cause you would not be able to uh completely subjugate the population. But also you would ensure that the perception of those in the present and those in the future and the children of those in the future and the grandchildren of those in the future. You would ultimately clarify who was good and who was evil. You would ultimately clarify who was right and who was wrong. And you would certainly, if he hasn't already, put Netanyahu's name in the history books alongside the great oppressors of human beings that were responsible for the deaths of many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. So that would be something he would have to weigh closely. Ultimately, it would be something that Donald Trump would be against, but I actually think it would guarantee the break between Israel and the United States and make and make the clinging to Israel a really an untenable position to have. Um, it would certainly render Israel persona nongraata in civilized company around the world for decades to come. Yeah. Uh, great point. I think this is a good place uh to leave it. I I want to make sure everyone knows that I really appreciate all of the super chats and the memberships and all of that. And appreciate everyone for watching. I want to make sure everyone knows that Loki's ex account is in the video description where you can find all of his what he's tracking, what he's doing. Um, I want to ask you, Loki, is there anything uh that you want to mention here? >> Nothing at all. Just keep doing what you you're doing, Danny. And um thank you for your patience today. My apologies to everybody that I was a bit late. >> No worries at all. Everyone, we're going to head out of here together. Everyone, hit the like button before you go. I'm going to be back on tomorrow, I think. I believe with President Muhammad Randi and Pepe Escobar. That will be at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time for these daily updates on what's happening with this US-Israeli war aggression on Iran and of course the historic retaliation and response by Iran that we are covering here daily. Everybody hit the like button before you go. that helps keep the conversation going so more people can hear uh both of our guests today and you can go to the video description as well for all the places to support this channel. Without further ado everyone, bye-bye.

Former US Army ranger Greg Stoker and rapper/journalist Lowkey join the show to break down Iran's latest round of Iran's Operation True Promise 4 as the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran begins to unravel. Follow Greg Stoker: https://x.com/gregjstoker?lang=en Follow Lowkey: https://x.com/Lowkey0nline FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DannyHaiphong FOLLOW ME ON TELEGRAM: https://t.me/dannyhaiphong SUPPORT THE CHANNEL ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/dannyhaiphong Support the channel in other ways: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dannyhaiphong Substack: chroniclesofhaiphong.substack.com Cashapp: $Dhaiphong Venmo: @dannyH2020 Paypal: https://paypal.me/spiritofho Follow me on Telegram: https://t.me/dannyhaiphong #iran #trump #israel