Iran War Off Ramps /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Jim Jatras

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1:01The President of the United States took the United States to war against Iran as we are now being confirmed what we have suspected along, has now been confirmed by Joe Kent, the number two at the Office for the Director of National Intelligence who resigned today and in his letter, he expressly said that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and he could no longer serve in a government where we were basically lying to our people and doing things that didn't make any sense. More on that in just a second. But in terms of looking for an off-ramp, what can the United States do? We are in a war we cannot win, at least in an acceptable cost at an acceptable timeframe. So the question is, is there an off-ramp? President Trump declared victory, Taco has some have called it, anyway, is there a way to him to get off? Now, ironically, with this Joe Kent thing, there was one opportunity that he could use. We'll talk about that in a second. Unfortunately, it seems that he has jettisoned. Here's what President Trump said just moments ago. Well, I read his statement.

2:02I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read a statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out, because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat every country. It realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. And many people, many of the greatest military scholars, are saying for years that President should have taken out Iran because they wanted a nuclear weapon. They were, if we didn't do the attack. Or if I'll go a step further, if I didn't terminate Obama's horrible deal that he made, the Iran nuclear deal, you would have had a nuclear war four years ago. You would have had, you would have had nuclear holocaust. And you would have had it again if we didn't bomb the site. So when somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran was a threat, we

3:07don't want those people because, and there are some people, I guess I would say that, they're not smart people or they're not savvy people. Well, okay, point of clarity. He did, Joe did not say that Iran was not a threat. He said they were not an imminent threat, which is really important. And we have what's in today, try to figure out, you know, what is going on with this? What are some of the ramifications of this? And then of course, most importantly, where is this we're going? We have back with us today, Jim Jatras, former US diplomat, GOP Senate Foreign Policy Advisor, and that there is his ex account is at at Jim Jatras. Jim, welcome back to the show. Daniel, great to be with you again. Well, listen to that. This is some pretty significant earth-shaking kind of capabilities, at least diplomatically and politically in the United States. And I want to just kind of jump right into that because what I said in the opening was if President Trump was looking for some kind of a way out, he could have used this letter by saying, I had no idea. I mean, this, I have been deceived according to this letter that Joe Kent said, Gary,

4:08if you could put that full screen out there, one operative piece, I want to read one paragraph from this letter of resignation. He said early in his administration, high ranking, Israeli officials, influence members of the American media, deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your American first platform. And so pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran, this echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat, as I specified there, to the United States and that you should strike now. There was a clear path to swift victory. This was a lie, and the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war. What do you make of that claim that he says that this was an intentional and will-choreograph lie from Israel and American media to deceive President Trump? Well, it certainly has the virtue of being true. I mean, it's absolutely true. And frankly, Daniel, I think Trump knows it's true. Words, I don't necessarily agree with Mr. Kent that Trump was deceived.

5:12I think he was probably deceived as to how successful this was going to be. But I don't think he did this because he thought, well, let's see, what did he say in his statement just now? Well, a nuclear war would happen four years ago. Or what if I happened back in June if I hadn't bombed the nuclear sites back then? I don't know how much of that he actually believes. I think he's in this because he knows politically because he's been pressured by the Israelis and maybe by some other people, whether it's the Epstein stuff or whether it's, hey, Mr. Trump, you better watch that's a prudent film again, that he knew he had to do it, but he was least was assured, hey, it's going to be a cakewalk. We can get this done. It'll be doable. And he did, I think he did get hot box by people who told him, yes, sir, zero disease defects, sir, we can get this done and it won't be a problem. Well, but then the other issue you see that I thought this gave this gave, we could have given Trump an opportunity to say, I'm going to use this letter as a way to get out,

6:13but it looks to me like he has just said, I'm going to scramble this up, throw it out and just keep on going over the cliff. How do you see that? Oh, absolutely right. I mean, first off, even if he could admit to being deceived, that would mean I actually made a mistake was or was ever even conceived of Trump saying something like that. Or I had the wool pulled over my eyes. I was misled, which also means I was ignorant or not, you know, up on my game and so forth. He's not going to admit to that either. So if there was some small, they have an off ramp there and say, well, come to think but I guess I could have thought this out, but he's not going to do that. He's just going to have the personality to do that or the ego to do that. Got to bring yourself back in, Den. So then where does that leave us? Because the issue at this stake here is that we are on an award that can't be won and this whole straight of Hormuz issue really is the central cog and the fulcrum that this

7:14whole war is pointing on. We can drop however many tons of bombs that we have and however many thousands of missiles and other kinds of ordinance on top of the Iranian leadership, assassinate leaders, blow up boats, planes, whatever we want to do. But if that's not going to be able to force open the straight of Hormuz, then we're not going to be able to win. And if it leaves the government in charge, then that violates when Trump stated war objectives from the first hour. And of course, we're not even talking yet about this 400 and something kilograms of reprocessed materials or the nuclear program. How do we get there from here? I don't see how we can get there from here for a couple of reasons. One is everybody keeps talking about nuclear program, missiles, proxies in the region, Israel, et cetera, et cetera. A few weeks ago, Trump at the beginning of his operation, I guess it was only two weeks that seemed like time flies, he announced our goal was unconditional surrender. You know, that's 100%. You can't ask for less. I mean, all those other factors are all subsumed into the one that demand that encompasses

8:19everything. Unconditional surrender. Has he backed off from that? Now, I understand. He's Trump. What he says yesterday doesn't have any bearing on what he says today. But he's going to say, well, we'll settle for a lot less that and call it a victory. Maybe that's what he would like to do now. Somehow he's got to get the straight of Hormuz reopened. And as you know, the Navy, US Navy is not keen to do that. All of our friends and allies, he's asked to participate in that. They're not that crazy. Actually, when the first thought occurred to me was when he invited the Chinese to come in and help open the straight, my thought was, what if the Chinese take it up on his offer? Say, hey, we're going to send our fleet in there to escort the ships coming with oil for China. And by the way, while we're there, we'll send some intelligence to our Iranian friends. Thank you for the invitation. I mean, what kind of a dumb invitation was that, even from what he thinks he's trying to accomplish here? I don't think the Chinese will take him up on his offer. But if I were in their shoes, I would do it.

9:19Well, I hadn't thought of that. I just thought how silly it was at service value. But I guess if they think it for who knows, maybe they still will. Let's take a look at, I want to kind of get into why the straight is the central figure here and why it is so difficult to get this open. As many people think, we have this incredible armed forces. Our air power is undiminished. It's basically all intact, hardly any of it's been knocked down, allegedly only by a handful of friendly fire incidents or an accident, so called. But then you can look at all the naval power that we have, and you're thinking, how can this be hard? We should be able to get this open. Well, there's a couple of reasons why. I want to start off looking at brother Jack Keen, who goes on all the time to talk about all the things we should be doing and how he seems to give so much difference to first of all to the state of Israel, and that's important, watch this. All we want to do is take away their offensive capability now and in the future from attacking

10:21to include nuclear weapons. The Israelis do it. They have added a little bit more to that. They're helping us do that and doing a significant heavy lifting. One of the last weekend, when Central Command reported, 15,000 strikes against the run of taking place, nine of those 15,000 have been done by Israel, so they are significantly involved here. But their other thing that they're doing is destroying the organizations that sustain the regime. IRGC, law enforcement command, the Basin militia, which is a repressive arm, the police infrastructure, and the mission they've given themselves, in addition to taking down the offensive weapons now and in the future, is to set the conditions for an eventual regime collapse. Now let's just look first. Now I just said that I think the straight of Hormuz is the center part here, but the Israelis are looking even beyond this. They're actually not, don't appear to be that concerned about the straight. We are for reasons I'll get to in a second, but it sounds to me like their objective is

11:25the destruction of the Iranian state. Let me ask you, do you think I know that your background is not in the military per se, but your intelligence and diplomatic stuff, is it possible for Israel to completely dismantle the state? I mean, they've already launched, according to what he said, 9,000 strikes here, and this is only day 18, but it's a country of 90 million people, and it's four times bigger than Iraq. Do they have the capacity, do you think, to make good on that to destroy the Iranian state? Again, as you put out, I'm not the military expert here, but it sounds to me very, very improbable. I mean, you remember right after the Supreme Leader was killed at the outset of the campaign, they seem to think at least wanted to project, okay, it's a millertime, we've taken him out and mission accomplished, and the whole thing's going to fall apart. Maybe there are countries like that, maybe Iraq under Saddam Hussein was like that. You take out the top guy and the whole thing falls apart. I don't think that's the case here. They've already seen the new Supreme Leader, and I guess they're claims now he's been injured

12:28or killed. I don't know if that's true. If he is, well, there'll be another Supreme Leader. I don't know if there's anybody in the structure of the Iranian state who is not replaceable. We've heard a lot about this mosaic structure of their defense, so that it's, let's say a lot of horizontal integration rather than vertical top down integration. Again, assuming that's true, and I have no reason to think it's not true, I think they can take a lot of punishment and lose a lot of people without the state itself being compromised in a fundamental way. Maybe they think that they keep inflicting this much punishment on Iran that at some point the leadership there will want to, that they will want to look for an exit ramp, short of the same way that the Russians talked the Serbs into throwing in the towel after 78 days of bombing in 1999. And they hadn't been defeated from the air, but they saw a political compromise that would spare them for further punishment. Maybe that's what they're hoping the Iranians will do, but that doesn't get you to either

13:31regime change or the collapse of the Iranian state. So those goals will not be met, but that's scenario. Well said, that's really important to point out there. Those objectives in the Balkan situation in this one are fundamentally different and not what's being set out. So if we succeeded in this one, that might get the word over with, but it won't accomplish any of the goals if the Israelis set out, which was to destroy the regime, because the regime will be fully intact, everything else will still be there. They just will have stopped fighting, which I don't think is going to satisfy the Israeli side. But let me get to the issue here about why the straits are so important. Now, there's been a lot of, in the news here, lightly about the fact that President Trump has been asking all these countries to help us with navies to clear the path because our navy has been insufficient to get that done. That can also, and accurately in this point, talked about how hard it would be just to escort those vehicles or those tankers through the Gulf and how money resources that takes. There's two things operating here.

14:32One is we have to reduce the Iranians' ability to attack those ships that are going through. And that is what we're working on very hard right now. So that's one thing. The second thing is just the force that it takes to escort. There's two ships per tanker, and there's hundreds of tankers. So I mean, for the United States to do it, it would rob us of doing other things as well. In other words, actually fighting the war. So yes, we can do some of it. If we had to do all of it, we could, but it would just slow down the traffic in quite a bit. Actually, just get the job done, the scale of it. We need other ships. And he's only, he's a forester general. So this is supposed to be his primary thing he's talking about. He's only talking about the logistical issue of escorting all those ships through there. He's not even talking about the military task. The reason why that thing is closed is because Iran has drone boats on the surface that they

15:34have already demonstrated because a lot of ships have been burned out in the Gulf. We've seen these incredible videos. They have speedboats, which are almost all protected. So we've destroyed a lot of their surface vessels, these big ones, but we haven't hardly even touched any of their actual speedboats because they're underground. And they could come out at a time of their choosing. There's the mines, of course, the sea mines. There are the submarines that the Iranians have. There are the underwater, basically modern torpedoes, what they're called, and underwater missiles that have the ability to maneuver underwater. And that doesn't even talk about the drones, the missiles, artillery, everything else that can come from the shore. In short, there is no shortage of ways that any ships that start to navigate the thing without permission is going to get burned and probably sunk to the bottom of the sea. So why in the world would any of these nations that President Trump is asking come and help us in, oh, by the way, they've all declined. Every one of them so far, nobody has accepted President Trump's willingness to send their ships in to do that.

16:36Let me just ask you from a diplomatic standpoint, why would they? Well, like I said, I think the Chinese are making a mistake by not accepting this offer. But I think it's Doug McGregor likes to say that there are two kinds of naval vessels. There's submarines and there's targets. And by sending service ships out to Escort, and I assume the general is right, it would take two ships to Escort each tanker, and we simply don't have that many ships. And these other countries are not going to get involved in this either. Again, it's almost like Trump's divorce from reality is actually, if he's trying to find a way to isolate the United States together with Israel from anybody who had claimed to be an ally of the United States, he's certainly finding a mighty, fine way to do it. In other words, you throw something on the table saying, now, if you really want to help out and get involved, come get involved in this effort and you throw on the table and effort that cannot possibly work, could only present, only present a liability for

17:38any ships that they would choose to send. Of course, they're going to refuse and that even further the sense of isolation that we have from all these countries to which we're allied. So it's completely counterproductive as far as I can see. And let's see what the reaction of President Trump, we talked about his reaction to Joe Kent, what he sent that line letter out this morning. He always has some response. He doesn't take rejection well and this is no exception here. This is from a true social earlier this morning. And the main part of it here is he said because of the fact that we have such a military success, we no longer need or even desire the NATO country's assistant. We never did, which is weird because you just asked for it literally the day before. And then he messaged all these countries and he said, by far, we are the most powerful country anywhere in the world. We, all caps, we do not need the help of anyone. Now tell me, how is that going to be, how's that going to land in each of these countries? Japan, South Korea, you know, all these different places of France, UK, when, and let's just

18:40take UK as an example, on March 6th, the UK said, hey, we will give you an aircraft carrier. Trump sent riots back and says, yeah, no, thanks. Why would we want that after we've already won the war? Then he turns around a couple of days ago and says, actually, yeah, we'd like to have the UK Navy. UK against us. No, Kierstarmers says, yeah, we're not going to do that. And then now he says, well, you know what, we never needed any of this and we can do it. We don't need anybody's help any what is that going to do? And let's look at UK first, but what is it going to diplomatically to those other nations? What are they thinking of America today? I think it's reinforcing a notion. Look, I'm not fond of any of these European leaders either and neither is Mr. Trump. I mean, and for good reason, but this kind of, you can't fire me. I quit. I invite you to my party and you refuse. Well, I didn't want you here anyway. That's the same, you know, the attitude he's taking with these people. And I think that what he's doing is, is none are under only undermining whatever small rapport we had left with these people that hadn't been destroyed during the course of the

19:44the crane war that he's basically alienating whatever potential support these people would have. Well, look, I'll be honest with you, Daniel. I don't think his allies are worth a damn anyway. I mean, do they actually contribute in any way to the defense of the United States or the American people in any meaningful way? They are supposedly some assistance in projecting power, like for example, the way European countries participated in the Libyan air campaign or whether the Brits came along with this and the war in Iraq. If they can be sort of auxiliaries or some assistance to us in some of these power projection adventures, that's one thing. Here they can't even do that. But let's be honest, these people are not really allies and they really never were. I mean, again, what do they ever contribute to the defense of this country? Not at all. I think just another indication of how these adventures in the far reaches the world

20:46have really nothing to do with the security of the United States or the safety of the American people. And of course, I would argue that in this case, this is not that they're failing to come to our defense because our defense is not questioned. This is our offense. It's a question. And even aside, now I'm certainly no fan of the NATO alliance. I think it's outlived. It's usefulness. And it should appropriately go away. But I'm just putting myself in the position of these allies. That now we don't need them because we shouldn't have had to call in it. But I'm worried that we may be changing the whole nature of everything, not by a wise course of action, not by a sane decision, but by foolishness that's going to rip things apart. And harm, maybe what happens if there is a breakup, so to speak, because why would UK, why would France, why would Japan, why would they want to send their ships to what their military leaders are no doubt telling their leaders, you're going to be sending our ships down there to go to the bottom of the ocean and our people die for a mission that can't

21:46succeed. So no one's going to do that. And if they're being asked to do that, what does that tell them about the wisdom and the civility of the United States? Well, you know, I can't help but think there's a little element of Shoddenpoi to hear that these European leaders, you know, Starmer, Meritz, Macron, none of these guys like Trump. And Trump really hates them too. And I think they probably are, to some extent are looking at this, I say, you know, that SOB has really gotten himself in a big, big, big pickle over there. Now he's asking for our help, let's just let him do in his own juice for a while. You know, since he's asking us to do something that doesn't make any sense anyway, and we're certainly not going to do. And now he's pleading for our help, oh, no, he doesn't really want our help, he's going to go and salt us some more, I think they're just happy to sit back and watch him destroy himself. And it's anything that even goes beyond the relationship of state to state between these countries, the United States, NATO, blah, blah, blah, but I think there's some personalities

22:49involved here too, because there's so much of this adventure that is reflective of Trump's erratic personality and what seems to be increasingly not in competent state of mind, not competent state of mind. Right. And that is the real issue here. And I've said several times already that I think it's a militarily unattainable task to force the straight-of-home who's open for the reasons I just mentioned there about all the different capabilities that Iran has that they can pull, even in their diminished state. But then you see, again, part of what Joe Kent mentioned here about the role of the mainstream media being part of a misinformation campaign. Here is Admiral Steve Reedus, former senior NATO officer when he was on active duty, talking about how the Marine Corps could be used to take down Carg Island, which is a northern part of the Persian Gulf, and somehow he thinks that would be a useful thing. The Persian Gulf is huge and a great deal of oil and gas moves and up there, Carg Island,

23:53that is the heart of the Iranian. And that, believe me, is U.S. Marine Corps 101 seizing islands, think Iwo Jima, World War 2, Okinawa. They're very good at this. It's a relatively small island. John, it's about third the size of Manhattan where you are. I think the Marine Force coming in with complete air superiority and sea control around it would be sufficient to seize and potentially hold the island. That puts at risk the entire Iranian economy. That's basically because they are really nothing more than a gas station. That puts them at big risk and then you turn to them and say, hmmm, how would you like to open the straight-of-war moves now? That's a pretty reasonable play. Yeah, a pretty reasonable play, that depends on your definition of reasonableness. Now he's making it sound like, yeah, they can definitely do that. It would be a risk, it would be hard, but that's something that could its Marine Corps 101.

24:53Well, yesterday on our show, we interviewed a Marine Corps combat officer and he's saying you're missing the boat here. We sent second-time night Marines in to seize the island and to recover the personnel. It was a vertical development. They used 11 helicopters in the initial wave. Three of those helicopters were shot down with significant casualties on the Marines and the Airmen aboard that. The remaining eight helicopters, five were destroyed so badly that they were taken out of the battle. They went back to ships or the shore, some had to be destroyed on the shore. We basically lost eight out of 11 helicopters. Many of the Marines couldn't land because their helicopters had been hit. They had to return. Marines on the ground were in danger of being overrun. It was not a good situation. We had to bring in more helicopters and do more assaults. We lost more helicopters damaged. The thing that saved the day, and the only reason why I know this is it was my father played a role in this. He's a maintenance officer and they were out of helicopters and the Marines weren't getting off that island. But my dad found a hanger queen in Thailand and identified it and said, hey, let's get

25:55this thing up. There's some engine problems with it. But they got it up. It could participate. It saved 44 Marines lives. It came in at night. Did a hell of an extraction. Got them on a ship. The engine eventually burned out because it was a temporary fix. But the bottom line is we left under fire. We, the Marine Corps, left under fire and we left three Marines behind. We left an N-60 gun crew behind alive at the time. They were eventually captured by the Cameroos and executed. Ladies and gentlemen, I just laid out what's going to happen to any Marines that go on the Carring Island. It's going to be hell on earth. Now, that's, he was referring to an event that happened in the beginning of Cameroos in the 1970s where the US Marines went on to an island to try to recover some people who had been lost. But the issue of taking down the island he showed about it, that's how hard it would be to a larger force than the one we're talking about. Here. So when you hear Admiral Sabrida saying, oh, yeah, this is Marine Corps 101 and this could make the Iranians think, oh, well, you know, yeah, sure, we'll open the straits now. Let me just ask on that point, just assuming that Scott Ritter is correct and I certainly

26:59agree with his assessment that that one shit, there's no way, number one, I don't know how anybody thinks it's going to get through the straight of poor moves all the way up through the Persian Gulf and to even get there to make the attempt, we'll leave that aside for the second. Just looking at the diplomatic thing, do you think that the seizure of that island is going to cause the Iranian people after all they've suffered so far to say, okay, Uncle will open up the strait? No, I don't think so. I mean, it obviously would cut down on their export capacity and we give them all the more incentive to step up their attacks on all the other Gulf states and their, some of that's happened already, but if they're looking for the Iranians to say, all right, that's it, all bets are off, we're going to destroy everything, all the capacity of the Saudis, the Emirates, the Bahrainis, Qataris, none of them are going to be exporting anything for the foreseeable future, they're going to do that. So if it's a question of, we think we're going to inflict enough pain on the Iranians

27:59where they cry, Uncle, I think that's going to come back and smack a lot more pain on our supposed partners in the region, as far as we would assemble the force, by the way, I assume what you would do is probably come in, starting, land them in the Red Sea and come over, land over to Kuwait, someplace like that, or northern Saudi Arabia, and then try to launch the attack from there, you're right, you can't get up through the Gulf to assemble that force, they'd have to come in from someplace farther west and get to the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula from there. Of course, there's a real problem with that is that now I'll just pull this map up here to demonstrate, there's a big problem with that in that, this is Carlisle Island right here, this is the Persian Gulf, et cetera, but if you could come in from, I mean, they couldn't get to Kuwait with that ship, that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, the MOU, there's no way for them to get into here to come out, I guess they could launch from somewhere here. They'd have to come over, over land from the west, from, in other words, nowhere near the

29:00Persian Gulf, come over from the Red Sea area, over land, and then assemble the force in Kuwait. Right, yeah, I'm just, the force they could get a symbol, they could flound even, get that in the west, that ship that's, that we've seen the images of that, you can't obviously move that one, so that's, that won't work, and therefore, without that, then you don't have the ability, because that thing is also going to get the Marines right up to the landing zone, it's going to provide security, without that, there's almost no way to do that, you can allow them in if you got complete air cover, that the problem is, you know, do you have complete air cover, and those are easy to shoot down in comparison without all that, but anyway, the bottom line is even if you've got them on there, without the staying power, it's just not going to help. And, you know, did he, did he really say think Ewo Jima, does he really want us to think Ewo Jima in terms of how this could go? I certainly don't like that idea. Yeah, there was a lot of casualties on Ewo Jima, that's not, and there's thousands and thousands of Marines, not 2500, yeah, so let's, let's don't follow down to that one.

30:06Interesting. I said earlier that, you know, a lot of this is, it would be like a suicide mission. Well, that's, that's also being recognized by a former NATO chief, who said that joining Trump's Hormuz coalition is like buying a promo ticket for the Titanic after it's been hit by an iceberg. What is this? I mean, we laugh a little bit about that, and certainly for good reason, but, you know, you get back again to President Trump's state of mind. We showed you that, that opening scene where he just flat lied about, you know, why we got into this war, you know, that the, the claimant that Iran was imminent threat to us to when there's everybody knows that it wasn't. It's clear that it wasn't. He's changed his objective so many times. Now, he says, I want help. Now, he says, no, I don't want help. We don't need it. Without help, we cannot force open the straight of Hormuz. So what is President Trump going to do if the days start turning into now weeks and then into months? I, I, I think they'll double down and throw good money and lives after bad.

31:11I mean, they'll basically say we have no path forward except to keep doing the same thing we're doing and do more of it and hope it works. I don't, I don't see any other way out. Well, actually, I do see another way out and it's more the political one in the sense of what I said early about Serbia in Russia during the 1999 war. What are the Russians in the Chinese going to do? If they see that the United States is stuck here, we're bleeding. Do they want to basically say fine? Let's keep that going on as long as possible because that diminishes American power globally, not just in that region, or do they go the other direction or they say, okay, fine. The Americans have failed to attain their objectives here. Now let's de-escalate. Let's give Trump an offer and let's give them a way to claim victory and walk away. So this thing doesn't get further out of control. Now the Iranians say they don't want to do that. They won't accept this ceasefire for the same reason the Russians won't accept this ceasefire in, in Ukraine. Why, why do you want to give the other side if they're losing an opportunity to rearm

32:15and come back and get at you again after a few months or a few years? That logic makes sense to me if I were in the Iranian shoes. I'm not sure that's the way the Russian and the Chinese will think. They very well may be thinking if this escalates further, it's going to go nuclear. They don't want that. The Chinese are going to want to make sure that their oil supply, even though it's being guaranteed by the Iranians, will not possibly be interrupted. So it's conceivable that the Russians and the Chinese will do the Iranians what the Russians did at the Serbs in 1999. It's saying, okay, fine, you've made your point now settled for a deal. The problem there is, as also was the case in 1999, 1999, whatever deal the United States makes will not be honored by the United States. And the Iranians should be smart enough to understand that. For example, some people have said, well, if the Iranians really get the upper hands, they can dictate, okay, America, you pull your bases out of the Gulf, you take the sanctions off, whatever other concessions they will demand.

33:17How likely is it that any of those promises would be kept, even if Trump was willing to make those promises, which he's not going to do? Well, and that's actually one of the things that Abbas Arokshi, the four ministers, said, would ask, why don't you ask for a ceasefire? He said, because we want to teach them a lesson so that they never think about attacking us again. If they reach a ceasefire under the conditions in terms you just laid out here, then that's nearly guaranteed it's going to happen again. Which is why they said they chose to actually not give in when the original request came in, prior to the start of this war, because they said, we'll just keep coming and doing this. Now then, they've chosen that path, and it doesn't seem to me like China, Russia, or anybody else is going to talk them out of it, which is a problem for the global economy right now. I don't think Russians in the Chinese could talk them out of it, but if they were determined to do it, could they actually put pressure on the Iranian ally to make a bad deal? That's the situation with the Russians did the Serbs in 1999, but then again, Russia was very weak in 1999, and Serbia was in a much more difficult situation than Iran is now.

34:22So I think it's unlikely they would actually pressure Iran into signing on to a bad ceasefire deal. I don't know though that they wouldn't try to persuade them to do it in some way, that they would see the more the dangers of escalation and teaching a lesson like, as Mr. Arajji says, that they would see, well, yeah, maybe they will come back against Iran in six months to a year, hey, but that's Iran, that's not us. Maybe they will actually be that cynical in that respect. Again, that's not the calculation I would be making in Moscow or Beijing, but they do have a tendency to be very short-sighted sometimes in how they approach things. And let's take a look at the Israeli side of this too, because they obviously have agency here as well, according to Joe Kent, and according to just common sense and self-evident logic and evidence, they coerced President Trump to do this, they tricked him, they would ever fill in the blank. They got him to do this. And so now you see that they are continuing to expand in the West Bank, operations that

35:25still not totally stopped even in the Gaza Strip, and then now here of late, they have taken the ground incursions into southern Lebanon. They have been bombing relentlessly into Beirut, et cetera, trying to carve out more territory there. They never gave up the territory they had in Syria before. It seems to me that that's a big diversion if Iran is the target here. Why is Israel spending so much time and energy and resources into Lebanon? We're going to make it hail while the sun shines. I mean, they obviously have enemies all around from their perspective, sort of like in the Godfather. All they accounts at once, right, is that they see where they have a cover, because all the focus is on Iran, we can do whatever we want in these regions, in these areas, nobody's paying much attention to it. How many stories we're hearing now from what's happening to people in Gaza or the West Bank or the fighting in Lebanon where, actually, as I understand, the Israelis are not doing that well against his fellow on the ground in Lebanon. But I think they're going to make the best use of this opportunity.

36:25I do wonder, by the way, you know, where's BB? I mean, the stories of whatever wherever he is, whatever condition he is seem to be multiplying the longer he stays out of the public light. Now if something has happened to him, will that materially change the direction of a Israeli policy? I kind of think it probably won't. I think they probably are in this for the duration now. They're going to do whatever they want to do in their immediate vicinity as, let's be honest, ruthlessly as possible, while the world is distracted with what's going on in the Gulf, excuse me, with Iran, and, you know, like, for example, we've been talking a lot about the straight-up Hormuz, and I don't think the Israelis care that much about the straight-up Hormuz, except there's a proximate step of, you know, whether they can bring the Iranians down or not. In other words, I don't think they care what impact the straight-up Hormuz closure is going to have on the rest of the world economy. As long as they have their unlimited subsidy from Washington, I don't think they care that

37:27much about that. Well, that certainly appears to be the case so far. It's just to hear from me to see where this is going to go anytime soon, because militarily, we're not going to be able to force that straight-up Hormuz. That is going to continue to send the price of, you know, keep the price of gas high. In fact, it's a live shower announced $96 a barrel. So it continues to hover right up around that $100 mark. So everything that we try to do with releasing the strategic petroleum reserves, with talking out, you know, we're trying to bring people in. A lot of those things are kind of keeping it calm, so it hadn't gone over the top. But if none of these things materialize, nobody else comes into help. We can't force it open. Then all the good words in the world are not going to help, and that number is going to start going up. Gasoline prices are already going up in the United States, all of which puts pressure on Trump. And if anything, and I'd like your view on this before we let you go, it seems to me that the despot, the fact that we have a lot more leverage and a lot more military power, Tom is not on our side.

38:28It's more an ally of the Iranian side. How do you see it? No, I think that's absolutely right. I have to tell you, I'm a little bit surprised that the price of oil hasn't gone faster than it has so far. I mean, it seems that to a limit extent, Trump's assurances, that we've got this at hand, we've destroyed them. This is a big victory. I guess they're not watching Daniel Davis deep dive to see what the real situation is. Are they really swallowing this problem about how well things are going and how this is just going to be a temporary problem and things will be back normal in a few weeks? People in the petroleum global markets, really that naive, anyway, I do think that the longer this goes on at some point, especially if something fairly dramatic happens, and I don't know what that could be, to show how badly this thing is going, then maybe we will see a spike at that point. Also I have to also wonder, Daniel, at what point do the Iranians, if they're really in

39:28it for the long haul here, do they announce, by the way, we have developed a nuclear weapon now because we know that as this escalates, that's the logical endpoint for the Israelis certainly, not for the Americans. And they have to, if they're thinking out ahead, I mean, after all, you know, don't they say chess originated in ancient Persia? I mean, if they're chess players, they should have been able to figure out several moves out where this eventually is going to go unless the Americans are willing to defeat and walk away, which I don't think we are. So I think that's a very real possibility moving forward. Yeah, that's a concern many of our guests on our show, and I personally have as well that we have given the memory incentive to race to the bomb, and since we have no inspectors on the ground and no observation, we won't know if they're doing it or not until it just presents itself to us there. Last question I have for you here, I wonder if you could just speak a little bit about the impact all of this is having, especially with the high-price oil on Russia, because

40:30they have, over the last month or so, their military operations on the ground have kind of slowed down. You don't hear many of these, you know, what had been almost nightly barrages of long-range missiles and drones heading into, hit the energy sources in Kiev, et cetera. A lot of that isn't kind of silent, but their production hasn't gone, which implies that they are building up larger stockpiles of all these key ammunition weapons systems. Meanwhile, of course, with the price of oil going up, that's a global commodity. So that also helps Russia. How do you see this affecting Russia so far? She maybe, Trump really is a Russian agent. This is all to raise the price of oil, so who can make more money, I guess. That was all his clever plan, I guess. Well, look, in terms of progress on the ground, this is what they call the Ruspootitsa, the muddy season, so you don't expect them to have that much movement on the ground right now. You know, the Russians, at least to my mind, have always been fighting what I call a pedagogical war to try to get the other side to agree to their minimum terms, which they voiced back in June of 2024.

41:33Maybe that will change. A lot of people have claimed that, especially with the kind of treachery we see, you know, if Kof and Kushner, to set the Iranians up for the attack that the Russians are no longer going to be pursuing diplomatic track, theirs is going to move dramatically to change the war, the way they conduct the war in a way that will actually point toward a military victory rather than trying to entice the West into making a diplomatic deal. Maybe that's the case, but honestly, I won't believe it until I see it. I think that if you look at what the Russians are saying, and my experience with them over the decades, they are so irrevocably grounded in normalcy. They seem to have trouble understanding how you deal with people who are simply not rational, not normal. And that seems to be, have been their Achilles' people all the way through. I don't even have a hard time with that myself. And you know these people firsthand, I mean, it's just the way it is. And you know, you still have people in Moscow talking about the spirit of the Anchorage and

42:37how what you mean Trump walked away from the agreement we thought we had with the handshake. Well, duh, what did you expect? And so I don't really know whether they've finally woke it up and smelled the vodka and say, look, we need to do what we need to do. And maybe you're right. Maybe the slowing down of the pace of attacks, which are not dependent on the muddy season. You can do that without reference to what the ground looks like. Maybe they are doing that in preparation for a major offensive when the ground dries out. And it's amenable to that kind of movement. Like I said, I'll believe it when I see it. Well, yeah, that seems to be attitude. A lot of people do. One thing we know, though, is that the balance of power is irrevocably on the Russian side. And it's not going to be reversed. The question is, how long can it drag out? But in any case, they are flushed with cash these days that they weren't before because they're probably more choice. So thanks, thanks to President Trump on that. But yeah, in any case, I really appreciate you coming on today.

43:38Always do value your input here. And we very much appreciate of it. Thank you. And we appreciate you guys too. Be sure to like and subscribe if you haven't done that before you left and before you leave, rather. And we will look forward to seeing you on, by the way, we have Apple podcasts, Spotify podcast attic. We are on nearly anything you want, whether it's here on YouTube, on a conventional podcast or on sub-stack. We've got a little of everything. Be sure to share that with those you'd like, folks, because truly, we are unintimidated and uncompromised to bring you all the truth on all these different areas, no matter where it is. Share this with your friends because you know, major media is not going to give them what they need. They're not going to give them the truth that we will. Thank you very much, folks. And we'll see you on the next episode of Daniel. They've steeped that. You know, we don't have sponsors because we hate to hitch over to head with ads. I don't like them. So show a little love back, subscribe, like, and send this to somebody you care about.