9-3-26 - 9am - Will the Iranian People Stand Up

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1:00where visibility and attention matter most. Nightwalks, early morning runs, parking garages, college campuses, dogwalks, travel. It features bright flashing LED light modes, a built-in flashlight, and a 130 decibel siren that can quickly draw attention if something feels wrong. And because it's lightweight, rechargeable, TSA friendly, and easy to clip onto jackets, strollers, bikes, or keychains, it actually fits into real life without being bulky or complicated. More than 4 million people already trust She's Birdie for added peace of mind. For the people you care most about, daughter, partner, friend, student, or parent, this is one of those simple things that can make a real difference. Go to She's Birdie.com. Again, that's She's Birdie.com. Good morning, Michael. I'm wondering if we couldn't bring back Flip Flop and pin it on Telefrico. It worked on John Kerry pretty much. And somebody needs to let Trump know that he's got all that nagging money. 400 million, I heard.

2:01He needs a sense of it to Texas because if we lose Texas, we lose. Thanks, bye. Amen, amen, I agree. I totally agree. I don't know why. You know, I've seen a pretty good, well, I'm the good middle end. I saw dragons running. He gives me this thing guy. I don't know why he gives me this thing guy. You give this S.E.T. and grin every time I see you too. It's just, well, it's because I know, I know more about what's going on in your life than I would ever want to know. That's the first problem. So I wonder whether or not Mrs. Redbeard has, you know, she, I think she has her own naked her button she walks around with. And I'm just curious whether she pushed it, pushed it again today or not. She was eerily happy when I got home. Who were she? Seriously? Yeah. Damn question. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, leave it alone. Right, yep. Right. Oh, wow. And of course, then you're still gippin' around and you get your brace on and then I see you've got, you know, you got a bike at home and you know, you're doing all your crap

3:03and you walk around it. And I know that it still feels weird to you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I just get kind of a through, you know, I get a thrill up my leg. And I think about you got a funny feeling going down your leg. Yeah. So I don't know why but I offered Gina. I just said to you before the program started saying it's just not to do this today. I mean, I got more stuff and I'll ever get through today. So it's not like I'm not prepared. I'm just like, and you know what? It's almost Labor Day. Yeah, really. Yeah, we're totally not wasting time right now either. No, not at all. And I got something actually pretty serious to talk about right now, but I maybe I'm just trying to avoid that. But I offered Gina a hundred bucks to do the next three hours. You're on the Walmart chicken rotisserie chicken bag. She may do it. Well, if the speakers out there, I think what they do is that when I come on air, I think out there they turn the speakers way down. They should. Yeah, so they can't hear me. So, but if you're out there, Gina, I'll throw in a rotisserie chicken too.

4:07Not the chick. She's vegetarian. So she's not going to eat the rotisserie chicken, but there's a rotisserie chicken bag. We'll purse that. Huh? See that? Yeah. Well, I know the chicken. I'm in a plastic bag with a hand. What are you talking about? It's a rotisserie chicken. Huh? A bag. Purse. Works you even listening to the show that was previously on before you? Is that a serious question? No, I'm not listening. I don't. I try to make clear numerous times. I don't listen to talk radio. I don't want to be influenced. I don't want to. No, I do not. I do not listen.

5:17Love it. She would love it. She'd love, she would love the joke. She would get the joke too. But does Gina have one? Because I now, I hope they do have the speaker's turned down because if Gina really wants one, I'll go get one for. That depends. If it's, if it's under, let's say 20 bucks, I'll go get her. The story we were reading, so it was like 595. Oh, good. See that, that I will do. because I actually need to do a Walmart run before I go to the undisclosed location to pick up a few items So yeah, that would pick up a chicken rotisserie bag for you, Gina. Hopefully they'll be back in stock So exactly I can put it in order and then put her name on it. She's gonna buy and pick it up Yeah, we'll have it delivered here to the station But I could do that too. That's right. It'll take six weeks No, it'll take six minutes to have it delivered to the station It'll take six weeks or to figure out where once they get inside the building where it's supposed to go through Right. That's that's the problem. That's the problem

6:17when When I was the undersecretary There were there were numerous times either in the say the Roosevelt room or down the White House situation room where There would be something going on. I you know, let's say we've got we've got bush there Maybe scooter liby's there on behalf of the vice president Andy Card the chief of staffs there Condi rise this before she became secretary state because I'm thinking about 9-11 because that's coming up and Maybe nor manata the transportation secretary. I would be there and then maybe George tenant from CIA would be there and there would be this discussion going on and the discussion was Obviously being directed by the president And at some point the president would say something that Nobody really knew who was directed to They didn't know whether they would should answer or not answer it

7:21Some of them in the room Might think them to be in class. It's it's on see like being in some class in a giant classroom in college Where your class has like 300 students in it? Here we got like maybe ten of them most and you're sitting in that giant auditorium and you're just dreading that well You know if his professor professor just looks down the seating side that you know the list of names in the class and just Calls on dragon red beard and dragon red beard. They're seeing they're just dreading it But here's a small room very tight in the situation room is very close and very tight and That question might be thrown out And you're thinking three things one is that directed to me Two is anybody else gonna answer this and three if it is directed me. I haven't quite yet figured out what the answer is This week the president of the United States Not this week yesterday actually I should just say yesterday Trump looked at

8:22Ron Where the bomb started falling again Monday after what a month or so of quiet And he asked a question out loud, but he wasn't in a sit room He was sitting in the oval office at least appeared to be in the oval office and I when I sat there nice and I saw the video of this I thought holy crap People in that room are thinking don't turn around and look at me He asked why he asked he asked why the Iranian people don't rise up and fight Why don't they throw off those guys who've been running that country into the ground for 47 years and Then he goes and he puts it on true social and It's actually a fair question and Maybe some of you have asked yourselves the same thing when you're watching the footage on the on the cabal Then something happens that almost never happens the next day He answered his own question. He finally answered it honestly. He said and I'm quoting him

9:25I Understand there the Iranians quite they're being shot And then he said when I ask this question I ask you sort of knowing the answer Let that sink in because he's exactly right They're being shot and he asked the question. I don't know why but he asked the question knowing what the answer was So let me give Trump credit for the honest part and then let me pick up the question where he kind of set it down Because if the answer to why won't they rise up is because they're being shot then the really interesting interesting question The one worth a segment of the of your time today is not why won't they is what would it actually take for them to do that What would it take to bring down the Iatola the IRGC the besage the whole machine and Then there's the second half to that question It's the half the president was asked directly this week, but he would not answer I

10:29Think in fact, I think it was Peter Lucy that asked the question What could our side Let's just say the CIA Mossad MI6 in other words the United States the Israelis the British because those are the best Foreign operatives we have what could they actually do to help with anything? So that sent me down the rabbit hole and What I found really surprised me Because I'm the guy that wanted to say something else Before any of the big words I want you to stand somewhere with me. They're in Tehran You're 22 years old You've got a phone in your pocket and on that phone is every text you've ever sent because you never did anything Every account you follow on Instagram or Facebook or anything else every photo you've taken and Up the block just as you as you walked out of your either your your house or your shop or your cafe

11:31Just up the block. There's a checkpoint Now since the war began the Bichis and the police two separate things there. There's an official police department obviously But then there are these thugs the Bichis there. They're kind of the the thugs for the IRGC They're kind of like the enforcers in the mafia. Let's put them that way So the police and the Bichis and all these people thrown up more than a thousand of these roadblocks in the streets in the alleys Some places you might not even expect it now Iranian lawyers have described them the officers stop you They take your phone. They scroll it right there on the sidewalk and look through it They find a message to the wrong person A video that they don't think you should have not did it wrong that they just don't think you should have a video Oh, they just found an account that you follow that the regime doesn't like or Put it even worse. It's just that one guy that one son doesn't like and

12:33Any one of those and some year in the back of a van Black hood of your head That's who we're talking about when when when I say the Iranian people that's who we're talking about That's the person we're asking that's the person the Trump was asking aren't you rising up the guy that's giving thrown the back of a van Like you're watching some you know version of treacher or something reach her Now I'm taking why alone in first is the whole ball game and why it's not coward This is actually some kind of is a is the form of math Here's the trap and every regime like this one is built on the same trap Let's say I'm right that most of the country is finished with these people I think they are nine out of ten Iranians would dance in the street today the regime falls It still doesn't move, but here's why Nobody wants to be the first one out the door because the first one out the doors the one who's gonna get shot right to the

13:36There's been a way they're not even gonna take you to hang you somewhere from the crane. There's no shoot right there on the spot Nobody wants to be the first out the door You'll pour into the square If you know and can see a million other people are pouring in with you You will not pour in if it might just be you or Handful of others against the machine So everybody waits to see if everybody else goes and because everybody's waiting nobody goes The fear is doing the job The regime doesn't have to do anything the fear does it by itself That's why something can look absolutely impossible right up until the week it looks in you know totally inevitable The anger remember the anger's there the whole time But the anger is underground it's hidden because if you show the anger well, you're gonna get a bullet between the eyes and Nobody can tell you nobody and somebody does they're lying to you

14:40Nobody can tell you if or when or which week or which day or which hour or which moment or which thing breaks the surface not me not the regime and no no matter what they tell you the CIA can't tell you that either You would not believe how many times that myself or anybody else in that situation room Well, the president himself could ask George Timon or any of the analysts a question and there is no answer There are many times that I would get the presidential daily brief in my own office Nobody else around so you know, I don't have to worry about asking a stupid question in front of you know The secretary of state or something and I would ask the briefer. Well, what about this? Why why why why do I care about that or why should I care about that or what do you think really gonna happen? And the answer would be we don't know And I learned after a few of those I don't know and trying to do follow up questions like you know the typical lawyer that I am I would start asking about why why why why why you know give me the five W's you want rather than why and of course

15:40I soon learned that when they say we don't know They truly don't know So if fear is a lock This is is our key to that lock why would open one of those regimes up? There is a woman named Erica Chenoweth who did the study that everybody in this field is now arguing with She and the colleague went through a hundred years of uprisings the ones that one the ones that got crushed And they were trying to analyze what separated those that succeeded and those that failed It was not the size of the crowd It wasn't how righteous the cause the single largest thing that decided whether one of these movements either one or died was simply this Whether the men holding the guns put the guns down Think about it this way If any of the soldiers or any of the police or the thugs the bachie or any of the IRGC

16:46If any of them defect when they refuse to fire on their own people and they start walking blatantly over to the other side That's when revolutions that's when oppositions that's when the regimes begin to fall because that alone shows Oh, there's a weakness. There's a crack in the dam When the guns hold when the soldiers keep shooting the crowd knows that will home in a hearse Now in this in this woman's numbers Security forces peeling away more than quadrupled the odds the whole thing would succeed There's your hands right there everything swings on that one hinge So now let's look at Iran and let's look at Iran through what she just says and everything gets really clear in it in a very quick hurry In Iran the guns have held The revolutionary guard has not cracked the bachie the street militia the thugs they've not cracked

17:50There's a whole winner of protests through the war all the bombings the analysts who watch this closely Say they have yet to see any real fractures in the security forces themselves the men that and the thugs Are still firing And here's the tell that they know this is their weak point There are reports, so let me just say something that I can't swear to just reports The reports are that the regime has been leaning on foreign fighters They're actually bringing in militiamen from Lebanon Iraq and Afghanistan to do some if not all of their dirty work Why why would you why would you import a foreigner to point a gun at an Iranian in an Iranian street? Here's what I believe because Somewhere in that building They're actually afraid that an Iranian kid in a bachie uniform

18:51Told the fire on a girl who kind of looks like his sister Has a tates The foreign gun is insurance against the day that their own guns look at somebody where they see their sister Someone that looks like their sister they see their mom someone that looks like their mom or their dad and they hesitate That day I think is the entire ballgame But see and I wonder Why has that day not come with those chicken bags at Walmart you are literally Buying the bag you are paying Walmart to do their advertising As you do with anything that you wear or hold that has a logo on it So sure yeah, why not? What can what can choose as me now about that? Is Are they the rotisserie chicken bags being sold as purses? No, that's like a fabric bag if

19:54Like a fabric bag. It's a purse that looks like the rotisserie chicken bag Grief really they're selling them for $5.95. Yeah, and people are buying those. They're sold out Wow, we are a six society. Yeah And it's really sick to consider that If I am anywhere near Walmart today, I may stop see if I can find one Simply because I want to put it on Gina's desk. Yeah, yeah That's that's six bucks. Well plus taxes in color. I will that's ten bucks. That wouldn't be too bad That fee stuff. Forget the fee. Yeah, I'll own the fees are so 12 bucks. Yeah, 12 bucks Yeah, so 5.95 turns into 12 dollars in colorado. Yeah speaking of colorado before I go back to the uh Iranian Revolutionary Guard Can I go back to that news was a con was Connor doing the I forget who was doing the news. Yes, Connor So Connor's doing some news and he says that Senator John Hickenlooper Is asking for four million dollars

20:58I assume from FEMA to help clean up the screw up down in blah blah No, wait a minute, Senator You ought to be glad that I'm not the undersecretary right now Because I would look at a four million dollar request from a state Particularly a state the size of colorado And I would say My recommendation to the president would be no You ought to have four million dollars in your rainy day fund somewhere to take care of that kind of accident yourself I don't care whether it's you're asking the EPA. I don't care whether you're asking you know FEMA DHS I don't care whether you're asking you know, I don't know Department of Commerce Department of Defense the White House itself. No Four million dollars colorado can come up with that colorado screwed up colorado can pay for it and four million dollars No way I would approve that But you know why you ask you know why he asked you do you hear the report?

21:58Because well, I mean kids swim in the river Wildlife's there CPW says there's fish in the river Well, maybe you should screwed up in the first place Yeah, if I recall seeing me talk about wasn't that one of my Michael Brown minutes this week Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, because they they they did a patch or something and they forgot they didn't realize it and maybe do it Ride or something and somebody called it afterwards. Yeah, I kind of see I remember what I may not know what I Talked about yesterday, but those minutes kind of sticking my head because I use those other places Now back to the IRGC. He can looper can just Stop the campaigning on that kind of crap. Good grief. You haven't done squat anyway Now let's talk about why the guns are holding him in Iran As I've tried to explain before the IRGC is not really an army Over the last two or three decades They've turned themselves into a business empire. It's a corrupt business empire. It's them off. Yeah

23:04Don't believe me they own construction telecommunications companies energy they they they control an oh entire Slices of the Iranian economy that are run through companies that the IRGC controls and there are some analysts More than half more than 50% of the country's oil and gas money Fows through the hands of the IRGC So if you're a guard commander The regime falling doesn't just cost you your job. Oh my gosh. Now it's your business your money It's your whole world everything you built up You might actually have to flee to Switzerland. You got some Swiss bank account hiding stuff You know That loyalty is But probably even more than it is achieved and bot loyalty is expensive, but it's very sturdy And then there's the bachee and they're an entirely different animal

24:05They're your neighbors They actually are embedded what by block mosque by mosque campus by campus and they know their job is to know and they do know who you are It's not an army you be in a battle. It's a web of just thugs You're already caught in before the first march ever occurs and then there's the war our war You think American and Israeli bombs falling on around which shake the regime's grip kind of loose But the evidence is the opposite When a foreign country is bombing you people rally to their flag even a flag they hate The nationalism goes up not down That hardens the very forces that we need to see crack So the war did not loosen and particularly a regime this based on a fanatical religious ideology In fact at hand of the regime and it's an excuse to tighten their control And to call every protester a traitor and that you're working for the you know the great Satan

25:10The protests in Iran are Leaderless nobody's driving the car And I don't mean there's a compliment about some beautiful spontaneous democracy I mean it as there this is a fatal problem They erupt over a thing a price hike a girl that's killed in custody a blackout the anger goes up like a grease fire spreading through a kitchen And it moves at the speed of a phone city to city in an afternoon group to group and then the hard part never happens Nobody builds an organization. There's no leadership inside the country This survives the first week of trying to put an organization together Because the regime's going to arrest or kill anybody the steps up They don't have an agreed upon plan For the morning after the regime falls where's the last time you heard anything about the Prince the Shah's son the exiled prince haven't heard anything about him in in months There's no single Iranian that everybody the merchant the student the oil worker the soldier the thugs nobody trusts anybody to hold the wheel

26:19So speaking of Palavi the son of the Shah Now he's got a real profile the cameras follow him although I haven't heard much about him But how deep his support actually runs inside the country is questionable Whether a merchant in some bizarre and tabriz or a baji sergeant in mishad would follow him and open question Anything might tell you will they they will that I would be very very skeptical So put it all together The anger's real the anger's everywhere it spreads faster than it organizes The guns have not turned there's no one agree that the Iranian degree. Hey, we went to follow this person That's my answer to why they won't rise up. It's not cowardice They're just boxed in But that brings us to the question the president dodged Our side Is there anything that we could do about those boats? Then I mentioned earlier

27:22You got CIA you got mishad you got MI6 What about any of them? Well the president got asked at this week straight out whether American intelligence would help the Iranian protesters And he would not say in fact he just changed the subject To let me say it Because let's don't be a bunch of little you know children about this I want to walk through why it would take based on my experience Both with the CIA and the misad in Israel and with the bridging MI6 I worked close I shouldn't say closely, but I worked often with them They all sat down tomorrow Is that okay? We're going to help bring these people down Well, what's that work? This is not a movie. Mike I'm kind of wondering if those Chicken bags that Walmart selling will confuse their security people when people walk out they might think they're stealing a

28:22chicken But you said they're there There's a canvas or canvas or something. Yeah, yeah, some kind of fabric But they look I mean it looks it shows a chicken on the inside So it looks like you've walk up to the rotisserie chicken rack That's what the bag looks like the purse Why? Because why because some poor little kid in China who's barely surviving Is is making a stupid chicken rotisserie bag? Yeah, 595. He's getting paid 12 cents an hour to do it We're paying 595 plus the six dollars on fees that Colorado tax and fees will add to it to do what and then to be a joke So I'll give one to Gina. She'll be nice. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Lathrabath. They should take it home throw it away There's the life cycle right there of the chicken bag. She'd be actually walk around with it That's scary that bothers me That they should bother everybody that the person delivering your news is walking around with a Walmart chicken bag

29:30Just say just say vegetarian It's walking around with a chicken bag. Yes. That's that's even better. It's even better Real quickly What could they do Those actually fairly simple In terms of the things complex in the implementation keep the country online Every single time that something happens the regime cuts off the internet Because the blackout is how you isolate people and that allows them to do their worst dirty work in the dark and keeps the organization from happening You can't you can't organize the crowd of teenagers in Aurora without the internet The same thing is true in Iran Iran Iran Internet same thing you got to do it You've got to help them also build the second part you got to help them build the thing they don't have an organization You got a fund train advise so that the next time that stupid grease fire I mentioned really flares up

30:35There's some sort of structure underneath it Leaders who've thought about the day after a plan that's the hard part This is the one that matters the most you go to work on those barracks The barracks were the bajeed the IRGC commanders are remember that hinge I told you about The whole thing turns on whether the guns ever defect so the highest value thing That an intel service could even attempt is inside the guard and the army in the bishis itself Find the commanders who are wavering Find the ones who have just sick of this where they're scared or they're ambitious Open a channel Make it possible for a general to imagine surviving the switcheroo Maybe even prospering afterwards promise them they can have access to their money or something Because if you can move the guns That's moving the one thing that decides everything And if you do that everything else is just noise The other is a couple of other things

31:39I would protect and unify the exiles Yeah, I know that Pavlava is out there, but you know there are other exiles too Get the diaspora together get them organized we can do that that's will that's something the intel agencies are very good at And I would do this as one last thing And this just shows how much I've been taught by the sickos at Langley Name the torturers put their faces their bank accounts on a list sanction them you let every interrogator that's beating somebody in prison Know that his name might be next on that list You raise the price you raise the cost of the crackdown on the guys that are doing the crackdown You You name and threaten them so that everybody in the country knows when you go home Oh, you're one of them And then you do the stuff that well the movies are made out of

32:43The sabotage the targeted operations all the cloaking dagger stuff everybody thinks is no it isn't trust me it exists. It's real And I'm not gonna pretend that the intel services don't do it. Oh some of the stuff that Am I six and Assad taught me not better than some of stuff CIA taught me So there's the honest list and it's a serious list And if you're a certain kind of hot I want to talk to you for a minute because I'm nearly I am one of you You're not in the long of thinking good. Let's go. What are we waiting for? We know how this goes when we do it because we've done it a lot Lenzio Rourke who went through America's covert regime change operations during the Cold War All the time we tried to swap out a government shadows We installed the leader we wanted about 39% of the time Less than half we failed to even keep the operation secret more than 70% of time So coverts not always covert

33:44We know the road that starts with let's help them from the shadows But we've driven into the ditch more than often more often than we've actually driven the covert stuff home That's the general case and Iran is even worse because Iran is the single worst place on the globe to try this And There's a reason why In 1953 the CIA working with the British helped push out the elected prime minister Muscidag and put the shaw back on his throne. We did that. It's not a theory its history in our own governance acknowledged it Over here 1953 is a paragraph in a textbook that nobody reads over there. It's still alive It's the beating heart of the regime's whole story about itself and for 70 years Every Iatola has told the Iranian people the same thing the Americans didn't once and they'll do it again And anybody in those streets waving a flag we that we don't like is really just a puppet of the great Satan

34:50It's the most useful piece of propaganda that we Our cells ever created and they did it before I was even born We're not boring lot of news is boring and tedious and depressing and makes you angry You don't want to live your life like that Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong and Getty We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world about something about a comedic tone We have a winner Yes Listen to Armstrong you getty on demand on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts