Iran has figured out that we can't beat

them. We're not weakening Iran. We have

strengthened Iran and we can't stop

their drone attacks. And what you're

seeing is far more chaotic

decision-making is happening in the

White House than is happening in the

government of Iran and it's evidence

Trump is losing power. So when I look

through the response to the last

conversation, the audience had lots of

different types of questions. Like

there's 90 odd million people stuck

right in the heart of this that often

don't really have a voice. What do you

think happens next for them and what is

Israel's role in this?

>> Well, Israel is playing two roles here

that have not helped us correctly assess

the situation and we'll talk about that.

>> And then what do you think happens with

Europe?

>> NATO is for all practical purposes dead

and what happens next.

>> So for 21 years, I laid out what a

hypothetical bombing campaign of Iran

would look like. And when I was here

last time, every single thing we talked

about unfolded in the first several

weeks of the war.

>> So when you did this 21 years of

modeling these attacks, how did America

come out of this situation?

>> So there was a consistent set of

findings and America can bomb them,

attack them. We could even threaten to

murder all 92 million of them. But the

bottom line is

that is the real danger for us.

This is super interesting to me. My team

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Let's get on with the show.

Professor Robert Pabe, good to see you

again.

>> Great to see you again, Stephen.

>> It's been 4 weeks since we sat down and

talked about everything that was

happening in the war and it's all moved

at light speed. You made some

predictions then. Many of them have come

true already and many of them still

unfolding. But I wanted to get you back

to talk about what the hell is going on.

And I think that's kind of how I started

last conversation. But there's so much

that's being said and I get the sense

that there's a truth that sits

underneath there somewhere because when

you look at what the Iranians are

saying, when you look at what the

Israelis are saying, when you look at

what Trump and America are saying, and

then you look at reality, at some level,

I feel like we're not being told the

truth. My first question to you,

professor, is who are you and who are

you to speak on this subject matter?

>> I am a professor at the University of

Chicago. I have been there for 26 years

almost 27 years and before that I was a

professor who taught for the US Air

Force. I taught conventional targeting

and I thought I was going to go into the

foreign service. I wanted to understand

how we lost the Vietnam War and this

became the origins of bombing to win

>> which is your book I have here in front

of me.

>> That's bombing to win in 1985. I've just

finished all my classes and I have to

pick a topic for my PhD. I wanted to

find the book that laid out all the air

campaigns and that explained why Vietnam

was a loser. Where did that L come from?

When you say air campaigns, for someone

that knows nothing about military

conflict, what do you mean by air

campaigns?

>> What I mean with an air campaign is when

you have military aircraft who were not

just doing a single raid bombing one

target one day, but doing a campaign

over days, weeks, months. in the case of

Vietnam over years.

>> And you wanted to figure out why

countries that do these military

campaigns, which is pretty much what's

going on now in the Middle East, why

they don't tend to win.

>> Why they don't win when they're so

strong? Why is it that when a strong

power really gets its act together, it's

not careless, it's really thinking hard,

it then applies this force, a campaign

overtime and comes out a loser.

>> And you modeled for 20 years a war with

Iran versus the United States.

>> That's exactly right. I imagined uh in

class for 90 minutes I laid out what a

hypothetical bombing campaign of Iran

would look like starting with the

bombing of its nuclear enrichment sites.

There's multiple sites. There's uh Ford

which is an industrial enrichment where

there are centerfuges. There's Natans

also centuges. There's Esphon where you

have gasification of the ore so you can

make the centurfuges more efficient. So,

it's not just one target. There's a

whole target set, a complex of targets.

And so, what I would do is I would lay

out here are the aircraft that could be

used. Uh, here are the likely results at

a tactical level.

Ah, yes, just for context. So, we're

looking at a map of Iran and we're

looking at the Persian Gulf. And um Iran

of course is to the east of the of the

Persian Gulf and Thran is up to the

north middle. Right in the middle are a

whole series of these nuclear sites. You

have Sagad which is where the uranium

ore actually comes from. They don't have

to bring in ore. They have plenty of

ore, but the ore has to be distilled so

that you can get the tiny bits of

uranium 235 you need for uh enriching

the uranium for either nuclear reactors

or bombgrade uranium. That's first none

at esphon to gasify the ore so that when

it spins in the centerfuge uh facilities

at Natans and Ford, you can get the

purity of the uranium 235. That's what

we're talking about here when we say

it's enriched.

>> So when you did this 21 years of

modeling these attacks, how did the

model show

America came out of this situation?

>> There was a consistent set of findings

you just couldn't ignore, Stephen, which

is our bombers would always be able to

destroy the target, the industrial

facility that was enriching the uranium.

The problem always was, no matter uh

which year we did this, you wouldn't be

able to destroy the enriched material,

the actual gold. So, if you're panning

for gold, you see what I mean? And

you've got the gold. Uh you can destroy

the pan, you can even destroy the river,

you can't get the gold. So, let me

repeat that back to you in layman's

terms, and you tell me if I'm correct.

So they they could bomb these sites

where they're making the enriched

uranium, but it wouldn't destroy the

enriched uranium. It would just put it

underneath a bunch of rubble.

>> That's right.

>> So you can bomb it, but you're basically

just kicking the can down the road

because at some point they can go back

and get it. It's undamaged. And then

they can carry on their process.

>> That's right. And and Stephen, they

might even anticipate the bombs coming

because they might get some indications,

you know, we're building up and then

disperse in advance. And the at the end

of last year they did operation midnight

hammer where they bombed the sides with

these incredible

>> exactly as we did in class. Literally I

had just modeled it for the students

three weeks before and almost exactly

the platforms I mean on you know the B2s

the MOAB I mean every single thing we

talked about if unfolded just as we had

modeled in class.

>> So what is going on now? I want you to

help me cut through all of this noise

and all of this propaganda. What's going

on now is uh we're not weakening Iran in

a sense where Iran will be weaker a year

from now, two years from now. We have

strengthened Iran and we're

strengthening Iran in multiple ways. So

far, we've just been talking about bombs

on target. My real specialty, Stephen,

is the interaction of military action

and politics. You're not just hitting an

industrial target. people in the

country, the population, the regime,

they're reacting to that politically.

And that reaction is tremendously

important. And that's what I discovered

in my work studying Vietnam in the

1980s. The why the bombing campaign was

failing, the political reactions by the

population

often are overwhelming the tactical

military effects. So you can hit the

target, you can destroy the industrial

facilities um and in fact you can

energize the population to work even

harder to overcome all that damage and

sometimes they have tremendous

geographic advantages. In Vietnam, there

was an area called the Ho Chi Min Trail,

which was a where the logistics where

the ammo for the um Vietkong guerrilla

fighters in the south were getting their

ammo. And in the 1960s, we knocked out

80 plus% of the throughput of that

pipeline, of that trail. You know what?

It wasn't enough. And we ended up not

being able to stop that little itty

bitty bit of throughput that can't still

could get through and incentivize even

more to get it through because they knew

we couldn't stop it. And that is what

fueled the VC and ultimately uh the

Vietkong the gorillas that were uh we

were really up against in Vietnam. That

is what ultimately bolstered their

morale. They knew we couldn't beat them.

Even though we whittleled them down by

80%, we couldn't get that last 15 or

20%. And that was what was energizing

their morale.

>> So, how does that apply to what's going

on now? In simple terms, what's going

on?

>> Iran has figured out that uh we can't

beat them. That's what's going on,

Stephen. They are figuring out that we

can't beat them. We can bomb them. We

can um attack them. We could even

threaten to murder all 92 million of

them, which is the civilization threat

by uh by President Trump. And the bottom

line is that we can't get to that final

10 20% of um drones and missiles.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. That Iran has and it's probably

bigger than that that we can't knock

out. See, we're able to knock out

anything that's above ground. that

there's a launcher and it's above

ground, we can see it. We can see it

with satellites. We can see it with

other sensors as well. That thing is

going to be gone in a few days. And

that's what the air campaign that you've

watched for 40 days is doing. When

Secretary Hegth or General Kaine talk

about hitting 11 12,000 targets, these

are targets, most of the almost all of

them that are very clearly visible and

above ground. This is true of the Navy

ships as well. Well, guess what? The

Iranians knew that was always going to

be vulnerable. So what they've been

doing is they have been not just deeply

uh burying their industrial enrichment

facilities, they've been deeply burying

their arsenals of drones, deeply burying

their arsenals of missiles. And so they

are in a position where even though we

are unleashing enormous amounts of air

power against them and we are

technically superior, we can't stop

their drone attacks against the ships in

the straight of Hormuz. They know it.

They can use that to their advantage.

And boy are they using it to their

advantage enormously. Yesterday, the

Secretary of War, Pete Hegsth, did a

press conference, and one of the

reporters said to him, "There's been a

ceasefire announced, but it appears that

Iran is still attacking neighboring

countries." Hegth's response to the

reporter was, "Iran would be wise to

find a way to get their carrier pigeon

to the troops out in remote locations to

let them know not to shoot any longer.

It can sometimes take time for

ceasefires to take hold, which was

really alarming to me because it

suggests that there is actually not a

centralized leadership structure in

Iran. And actually, if there's not a

centralized leadership structure, how

does one negotiate a ceasefire if

there's lots of different factions doing

lots of different things? Now, is that

true?

>> I would say it's probably decentralized.

I think he's probably right about that.

>> I'm trying to figure out who in Iran is

negotiating with America and why it

doesn't seem to be the case that whoever

is negotiating control the fact that

people are still firing.

>> Oh, I see. I see. Yeah. decentralization

means chaotic and they can't actually

make decisions. That's just not the

case. The more you move up the chain of

command, the more the leader can give

pre-delegated orders. If X happens, do

do Y. Those can hold for hours and days.

Uh and that's true in every

organization. That's why leaders can go

on vacation uh for a week and come back

and they're worried of course when they

come back. But the bottom line is that

the leaders are setting the strategic

direction.

>> Who is the leader?

>> Oh, it's definitely the supreme leader,

the son of the one we just killed. Oh,

without a doubt. I think this idea that

that he's not there, there's absolutely

no evidence of that. Yes, it's

decentralized in the sense it's hard to

find them, to target them. But by the

way, Stephen, I think the reason that

we're trying to talk smack about the

Supreme Leader, is he is he alive? Is he

dead? is we're trying to goat him into

revealing his location so we can kill

him. But that's not working. So, and

it's also not stopping Iran from putting

out 10 points to Pakistan uh in the

negotiations. It's not stopping Iran

from having messages that go through

Pakistan to um the White House.

President Trump is then agreeing to the

10 points that are coming from Iran, you

see. And then um later on, of course,

President Trump is taking it back. But

the bottom line is um what you're seeing

in terms of chaotic decisionmaking

far more chaotic decision-m is happening

in the White House in the United States

than it's happening in the government of

Iran. They're rising power in the region

as our power is is declining

precipitously.

>> What do you think happens next?

>> We are at a fork in the road. When I was

here last time, uh, I was walking you

through the three stages of the

escalation trap and you kept pushing me,

tell me more, tell me more. Notice I I

was a little bit reluctant to do that.

Well, there is a stage four. For anyone

that didn't hear that episode, could you

give us a one sentence on stage one?

>> And yes, stage one is America bombs,

does leadership change bombing. We hit

targets, kill leaders, but the regime

actually evolves and is stronger than

before. Uh stage two is that then

stronger regime lashes back with

horizontal escalation and takes the

straight of horos at least initially

takes the straight of horos. And then

stage three is that's the ground option

to start to take the straight of Hormuz

back. And that's exactly what you saw

play out in the first several weeks of

the war. Stage three was about the

Marines. The Marines hadn't even moved

yet. And I'm telling you, the Marines

are likely going to move. There's going

to be movement to ground options in

stage three uh here very rapidly in this

war. At that point in time when we had

our first discussion, you wanted to push

for the future. I said, "No, we we need

to wait." And the reason, Stephen, is

because what you're not seeing with me

is throwing random darts at the future.

I'm doing risk assessment out about as

far as you uh you can have stable

predictions. And in war, that usually

means 2 3 4 weeks. It doesn't mean we

can say where we'll be a year from now.

Here though, now that we're in 40 days,

we're at a different point. We've

clearly passed stage one. We're past

stage two where they uh control the

straight of form moves. We've bellied up

to stage three, the ground operations.

Now we're at a branch, a fork in the

road. There's no way to go back to

February 27, which is the pre-war period

that many people would love to go back

to. I too would like to go back to

February 27th. That's not the future.

What happens at this point on in the

modeling and the is a branch either we

go through with the ground war or Iran

becomes an emerging not right away

fourth center of world power. That is

the branch that we face now. This branch

is becoming more evident hour by hour.

>> Explain that to me. So everybody now

knows that Iran is uh controlling the

straight of form and controlling

shipping. That's selective blockade. I'm

taking it a step further. That's not

just about insurance rates of shipping.

That's generating political power for

Iran to get other states to cowtow to it

to accept its objectives.

What are those objectives? So let's talk

about how this affects say Asia. So I'm

going to get into global and then we'll

come back to the Gulf itself. So the

shipping that goes through the straight

of H for H for H for H for H for H for H

for H for H for H for Hormuz 80 to 90%

of it is going right to Asia. The power

that comes with that is with say India.

India is not siding with the United

States. India is at best neutral and

maybe even a little bit more uh uh

edging toward Iran. Well, before this,

you could imagine that the United States

and India would be much more cooperative

here. That's not what's occurring. And

why is that? It's because that oil

that's going into Asia for India, this

isn't just about the price of oil. This

is about the supply of oil. When you

lose literally all the supply, that is a

greater cost than simply having to pay

more for it. So India is in a much more

difficult situation than Europe and the

United States right now. Now look at

Japan. Notice in the Oval Office,

President Trump brought in uh the leader

of the head of state of Japan and

basically browbeat her and she still

wouldn't budge. She still would not

cowtow to Trump here uh and actually

provide military support. What did she

do? She's distancing herself from the

United States. That's exactly what Iran

wants out of America's Asian allies.

This is geopolitical power and it's

rooted in the control of Hormos. It's

rooted in the selective military

blockade. That selective military

blockade produces vulnerability to

India, vulnerability to Japan. And that

is what the we call it the leverage. But

the leverage is is not enough of a I

think a full description. This is

reorienting America's allies in Asia.

Now, let's talk about what's happening

in the Persian Gulf itself. Before the

war, February 27, there was essentially

a balance in the Persian Gulf where you

had Iran on one side and you had this

growing collection of Gulf states that

were part of an emerging web. They're

cooperating with Israel more and more on

different um on different issues.

President Trump is bringing in his AI

billionaires to sort of grease this

cooperation so that there's some

material benefits. Well, that was

effectively a counterbalancing

coalition to Iran. Now, what's happened

after 40 days is this is breaking down

fast. America has military bases in

Qatar, has military bases in uh

Baharrain, has military bases in Kuwait.

I'm just picking a few. Had military

base of course in in Saudi Arabia. These

military bases, they are producing

little leverage here against Iran. In

fact, our aircraft carriers are not

anywhere near the Persian Gulf. They're

a thousand miles away. These bases are

big fat targets.

They are above ground. Iran's precision

drones can hit things above ground and

they're doing it on those bases. That

was their immediate retaliation. What is

what's happening number one is the

anchor the military anchor of this

coalition started to disappear within

hours of the bombing on February 28th.

>> What do you mean by the military anchor?

In order to have this coalition work,

>> which is like Saudi Arabia, Qatar,

>> Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait,

somebody has to be the LA the the

guaranter of protection. It's like the

Ma boss who protects everybody else.

That is the United States. And that is

what our military bases were supposed to

do. They become the military anchor that

allows then for there to become

political counterbalancing against Iran.

That was the Kushner idea in the first

Trump administration. And it seemed to

work and it seemed to uh bring some of

these states together who wouldn't

necessarily think you would cooperate

with with Israel. Well, this is now this

war is torpedoing this whole idea.

President Trump is not even willing to

do much to actually defend our own

bases, much less Saudi Arabia, much less

UAE. What he's telling them is you go

out there and start defending yourself.

Well, that's not a guaranter of

security. The next thing that's

happening is the three these states

which were operating more in concert are

starting to break down and operate in

three pools. You have Iraq which is now

complaining more and more about milit US

military presence there. They're

distancing themselves from American

military presence. And remember we

installed that government in 2003. So

they're not siding with us. They're

distancing themselves uh from us. Then

you have Qatar and you have uh Oman. Uh

what Iran's doing is saying, you know,

we should share some of these uh t these

tolls with Oman. They're moving Oman

into their camp. So you have Iraq moving

closer to Iran. Oman moving closer.

Qatar is trying to keep its head down as

much as possible. They're not they're

not trying to get their nose in this

anymore. And who is what's the third

pool? The third pool is Saudi Arabia, uh

the UAE. These are the states that are

most under threat. And what has Saudi

Arabia done just in the last week?

They've gone to cooperate more with

Pakistan. They have a security deal with

Pakistan. What does that mean? They're

looking to Pakistan as much or maybe

even more than the United States as

their guaranter of security. So all of

this coalition, it's not all siding with

Iran right now. It's fragmenting. And

that's weakening America.

>> So what happens next?

>> You know, as President Trump wants to

do, call the war off. That's not going

to put us back to February 27. Iran has

20% of the world's oil. It's going to be

able to have uh 75 billion hundred

billion of of revenues here over the

next year. And also those deeply buried

caves and tunnels where they have their

drones uh that can be used to fashion

nuclear weapons. within a year Iran

could have nuclear weapons and we can't

stop it. So if we pull back you can

start to see that Iran's power is going

to grow internally. Uh but then even

more than that its relationships with

Russia, its relationships with China

will start to move closer together

against America.

And you see this happening from the

moment almost the first several days of

the war. Russia almost immediately

offered Iran military targeting

information to target US ships. That's

why our our carriers are so far away.

It's because Russia has the ability to

see those carriers, tell Iran where they

are, and if those carriers get too

close, man, they're going to be smashed.

But it can get worse than that, Stephen,

because as this power grows over time,

as these incentives for uh China,

Russia, and Iran to cooperate against

America grow over time, Iran has control

now of 20% of the world's oil. Russia

has 11% of the world's oil. That means

there can be either formal or tacic

cooperation to take 30% of the world's

oil off the global market. Let China

soak up a whole lot of that. And that

can truly produce mega economic

consequences for America, for Europe.

And why are they not going to do that?

Because they're nice guys. Is that

really what we're counting on now?

Russia, Putin is not going to want to

wreck America's economy because he has a

a a bond with Donald Trump. What do you

think the fundamental

flawed assumption was at the start of

all of this from the United States?

>> That Iran was was was weak on its last

legs and all we had to do was uh push it

over the edge of a cliff and it was just

a matter of just one more push

>> and then the people would rise up and

>> yeah, we have painted a picture of Iran

um as beaten down as the reason it's not

retaliating very much is they have no

capability to retaliate. And I tell you

tell you this um Stephen, so I' I've

been in big debates here at uh the

Council on Foreign Relations in New York

where I've literally been the only

person on the stage to stand up and warn

that this picture of Iran is is is way

too negative. There was a a widpread, I

think, false assumption across the

foreign policy community. no one willing

to really stand up and challenge it very

strongly that Iran was basically

collapsing on its own. This was always

in my view underestimating the power of

Iran. And you say, well, where does my

view come from? It came from the

modeling of the bombing. What would

happen as this went forward? And none of

these elements of Iran's power were ever

knocked out. When I look through the

response to the last conversation, the

the audience had lots of different types

of questions. So, I'm going to try and

represent some of the audience's

questions to try and bring them into the

conversation. One of them was about

Israel's role in this. And I thought it

might actually link to what you just

said about where we get our intelligence

from that informs the decisions we make

because there are some people that are

skeptical that the intelligence is

coming from Israel and that therefore

that it might not be as accurate as if

it was coming from our own sources. I

would say Israel has been playing the

role of diplomatic spoiler. So in the

12-day war when last June when the US

bomb fore we've been focusing on that

that happened in the middle of the

12-day war. Donald Trump said he was

going to negotiate with a certain set of

Iranians and literally the next day uh

36 hours later Israeli air power killed

them

killed the negotiators. we were set to

negotiate with. This was totally

spoiling the idea of a diplomatic

outcome because they were dead. So, you

couldn't have a negotiated outcome. Now

if we come to February 28, who dropped

the first bombs that killed the supreme

leader that uh killed those other

several dozen doves that he was meeting

with?

>> Donald Trump um as as many of our

governments have um describes that you

had a balance of hawks and doves inside

of the Iranian government. And uh the

idea here is with leadership

decapitation is well if you kill uh the

hawks then the doves will just be the

ones left. We did the opposite or more

correctly the bombing was started by

Israel on February 28. we came in

behind. And in fact, Secretary Rubio,

our Secretary of State, explained a few

days later that um uh Israel basically

backed us in a corner because Israel

said, "We're going to kill that Supreme

Leader whether you like it or not, and

that is going to maybe lead to attacks

on your military bases, so you better

prepare an air campaign to come behind."

and Rubio said that's what happened

because again just before the 20

February 28 bombing we're negotiating

with Iran and we're killing the very

people that Trump was saying are the

ones we wanted to negotiate with the

ones who were going to help move Iran

closer to the American position that was

Israel as spoiler

>> so there's this individual called Ali

Laurajani the former secretary of Iran's

supreme national security council and he

was killed killed in an Israeli le air

strike on March 17th, 2026. Trump

claimed on True Social that I can't say

his name, but I'm going to try.

>> Ljani

>> was the primary contact for a 10-point

peace proposal that Trump had called

workable and a basis for a real

agreement. Trump suggested that the

strike was poorly timed when Israel

killed him and complained that Israel's

lone wolf actions were complicating his

ability to wrap up the war on his own

terms. He famously posted that he was

inches away from the biggest deal in

history before the assassination reset

the clock.

>> So this would be the third instance then

of Israel as diplomatic spoiler. What

you're hearing from Trump's own mouth is

he thought he uh was close to a working

relationship maybe not a full deal with

a certain set of individuals in this

case Ojani. And what did Israel do when

they found out about it? They killed

that person. And yes, I I understand

there's issues of intelligence, but you

know, most of us don't have a clearance,

so we can't talk about that. So, let's

talk about the actual public description

that we've heard from. Prime Minister

Netanyahu over the last several years.

The public description is that Iran is

simply a paper tiger. That that um

Israel has been dominating Iran,

knocking out its air defenses, launching

other attacks here in 2024.

The rhetoric that's coming publicly has

been painting the picture of Iran as a

weak and and not just weaken but

basically It's down on its last

legs and all you need is a final

coupigra. That has been Prime Minister

Netanyahu's language.

>> The other thing that the audience wanted

to know is they wanted more specifics on

stage three.

>> Yes. Yes.

>> And is stage three happening? We talked

last time about ground troops. It's very

important and I I've been saying this on

the Substack and my and my ex to follow

the key indicators here of deployment,

not follow just what's occurring with

the rhetoric of our leaders. Um, and the

key thing to to know is that if you're

going to um weaken Iran with ground

power, there's only a few ways you can

get that ground power into Iran. You

could try to come through Pakistan, but

Pakistan actually is Iran's ally who

gave Iran the 600 centerfuges in 2002 to

start developing its enrichment program.

So, and Pakistan has 100 nuclear weapons

or so. So, I don't think we're doing

this uh here. You could try to do it

with Afghanistan, but notice you'd have

to get all the troops in Afghanistan.

That's not working. You could also go to

Azerbaijan. That's up there. Notice on

the first day of the war there was a

missile that hit Azerbaijan and people

on CNN there weren't what what's going

on here. It's just a random in fact I

think uh our our our public statement on

that day was this shows how how

incoherent uh the Iran leadership is.

That's not what I saw. What I saw is

they understood that Azeraijan was

always thought to be a staging area to

go to Thran. And so if you're going to

take Thrron with a division or two, you

would really want to have your forces

start here from Azerbaijan. Now, so far

though, that's not happening. Azarbaian

said, "Nope, don't count on us. We're

not getting in the middle of this." Now,

we're back to why would you start to

think about Marines uh to take territory

here on the coasts of Iran? So inside

Iran where the straight of Hermuz is

>> that's the that's the beginning of it.

You would start there around inside Iran

around the straight of Hormuz as a beach

head.

>> There's some photos which I'll throw up

on the screen showing what the terrain

around the straight of Hormuz looks like

and it's it is quite shocking.

>> It's it's a moonscape and what you can

see is that this is the most difficult

terrain for amphibious operations to

operate in.

>> What is amphibious operations? uh where

you have troops that are on ships on

landing vessels. Uh just like Saving

Private Ryan, they go from the water

onto the beach. You would also then have

um some air power with some Osprey, but

they're doing essentially the same

thing. They're coming onto the same

beach.

>> What's an Osprey?

>> Uh an Osprey is a specialmade plane that

we've made for the Marines. And it's a

plane that is a hybrid between a

helicopter and a jet. And so the

propellers on the plane are able to

rotate. So they can fly as a propeller

plane um here or a uh a cheapman's jet

or they can actually um like a

helicopter. And that's really great if

you want to fly fast to a beach and then

go straight down.

>> So are you saying that you think they

will put boots on the ground in the

straight of Hammoose?

>> Let me just fill out this a little bit

more. Okay. So the other big thing that

that the folks need to know is where is

the oil? Iran's oil and here I'm drawing

a circle here. Iran's oil is all in this

uh southwestern part almost all of it is

in the southwestern part of um of Iran.

Kuwait's oil is all right here. Iraq has

couple puddles of oil. It has a big

puddle of oil right here. Saudis oil is

all right here. You might uh try to land

forces of division here in Iraq, in

Kuwait, uh in Saudi Arabia and come

around this way. This is why knocking

out these bases as truly platforms here.

This was why they I think they start on

day one. This wasn't just to hit the

bases in retaliation. They are weakening

our ability. They're taking away

different axes of attack. And this is

why in the uh Substack I published three

days before the war, I'm specifically

talking about Marines moving in limited

areas to take coastal regions as beach

heads.

>> What's a beach head?

>> A beach head is where you have a a

foothold, a tow hold, where you're going

to funnel in more forces after that. And

you are going to very likely want to

control an area that's at least about

100 miles by 20 m in order to get behind

all this uh this this mountainous

terrain. And what does that look like?

The oil fields. Stephen, this is what

President Trump is almost surely talking

about when he says he's going to take

Iran's oil fields. What he is probably

um being given options for is how you

could start in a limited way with an

amphibious, submarine, a limited assault

to take a a small set of stretch of

beaches and then you would want to

follow and take if you're going to start

this at all, you're almost surely going

to want to just start to take the oil

fields. And President Trump's been

talking that way for years really. He

also said in a recent interview that if

it was up to him, he would go and take

the oil. But he said the American people

weren't like that. And he said it once

and then he said it again and then he

said it again. This was during a press

conference on Monday, April 6th. He

said, "If it were up to me, I would take

the oil. I would keep it all for

ourselves and make a lot of money

because to the victor belong the spoils.

But people in the country sort of say

just win and come home." And I'm okay

with that too. And he said that from the

interview that I was watching twice,

which made me think that he really wants

to go take the oil. But if he does put

troops on the ground in Iran,

>> it just creates a clearer target for

those drone strikes. It creates a

clearer target for those drone strikes.

But what people maybe are not fully

understanding is the political

consequences of the deaths of those

Marines. Yeah,

>> most people are assuming if those

Marines go in and die, this will make

America run away. It'll be like a punch

in the face and we'll run away. That's

not likely to be what happens. Again,

this is my area of what happens when you

have military force in politics come

together.

You need to understand that when those

Marines go in and say hundreds die or or

so over time, there will be 36% of the

public that will have supported that.

That 36% is going to see those Marines

died for them. That 36% is likely to

double down in their commitment because

otherwise they died for nothing. Now,

the 50% 59% excuse me, who's opposed to

the war, they'll still be pretty hotly

opposed to the war. I'm not saying

they're going to move toward the war,

Stephen. What I'm saying is you have a

Republican president supported by 36% of

of the Republicans here, almost no

Democrats. If you start to actually have

deaths here, this is going to lead to a

bigger version of we can't withdraw now.

we must quote finish the job otherwise

they will have died for nothing. This is

what happened in Vietnam. In Vietnam in

the early stages you will see that it's

sticky up the support for the war. It

takes a while to go down. And why does

it take so long to go down? It's because

of exactly what I'm saying. The politics

of this of the death of our troops in

battle does not lead to we cut and run.

It leads to we double down for the honor

of the troops. That's why I'm saying we

start this even in a small way. Even

car. It doesn't really matter where you

start it, but once you have those ground

forces go in and they start to take

casualties, you're probably in for the

sixmonth ground war minimum. It looks

like they're going to try and avoid that

outcome. It looks like they're doing

everything in their power, America, to

avoid a scenario where they have to send

troops in. The the threats that have

come out of Donald Trump's truth social

posts really talk about I mean, look,

I'll read this one here. It says, "A

whole civilization will die tonight,

never to be brought back again. I don't

know what will happen, but it probably

will." Um, and all a lot of the tweets

are

>> Can we just focus on that one, the

civilization, because it's much that was

a few days ago. A lot of people are

already trying to move past it. This has

much more importance and endurance than

I think we're understanding now. So,

first of all, that statement that

President Trump said that he will end an

entire civilization in one night, uh, we

need to understand this is not a drunk

at a bar. This is the president of the

United States who has at his disposal

thousands of nuclear weapons that could

in fact achieve that. And let me just

explain how hair triggered these are. We

have 500 Minutemen 3 missiles. They have

warheads between 100 kilotons and 300

kilotons which is multiple times more

powerful than Hiroshima Nagasaki each

one of them. and they can be retargeted

within 45 minutes. That's what it takes

to retarget the gyroscopes. And then it

takes about 25 minutes for them to hit

Iran. So when the president of the

United States is saying this, he's only

one of a handful of people in the world

who could pull who could actually make

this credible. Second point is that is

the most declared statement of genocidal

intent we've ever seen from an American

president. No American president has

threatened to end a civilization before,

which is at the heart of the genocide

treaties in 1948. The intent to commit

genocide. Harry Truman, people will say,

"What do you mean? We had Harry Truman.

We bomb we we bombed Hiroshima

Nagasaki." Go and look at his statement

on Hiroshima. Harry Truman. He did not

say he was ending Japan as a

civilization. He pulled back and said it

was about to destroy Japan's military

power. What President Trump has done by

making those statements is he's

persuading all 92 million Iranians that

he is willing to kill them and he has

the power to kill them. And yes, he

pulled back from killing them on

Tuesday. And yes, he may not have used

nuclear weapons on Tuesday, but if any

other leader had said that, if imagine

Vladimir Putin stands up and says he's

going to end American civilization

tonight, he's got the weapons to be able

to do that. Are we just going to sit

back and say, "Oh, yeah, he didn't do

it. He must not have meant it." No. That

would mobilize enormous anger against

Vladimir Putin in the United States,

even among Democrats. And my point here,

Stephen, is before uh this war started,

we had a real pro-democracy movement in

Iran. And on your show, I told you this

was going to fade. This was one of the

predictions I made to you said this is

going to fade over time. You're going to

see nationalism bonding the society and

the regime closer together. President

Trump is bonding them together like

never before. If you're one of the

pro-democracy

individuals here, movement in Iran,

where are you going to go for

protection? Are you going to go to

Donald Trump who's threatening to kill

you with essentially nuclear weapons? Or

are you going to go to your own

government? This is going to hasten the

support, increase the support for Iran

developing nuclear weapons. the

pro-democracy movement is now likely to

support this.

>> On that point, one of the questions and

one of the points raised by the audience

last time we had the conversation was

really we didn't spend enough time

talking about the 90 plus million people

that live in Iran.

>> Yeah.

>> That are often many of them caught

amongst all of this absolute chaos. And

I I was looking at a bunch of messages

from people that are living in Iran. Um

I'll read some of them from ordinary

citizens. Um, I'm not great at math, but

where will the money, the resources, and

the experts come from to build a country

that ordinary people spent decades

trying to build?

>> From the This is a different person.

From the beginning of the war until

today, we have been bombarded. Not only

are we not one step closer to freedom,

from what I can see, we are miles away

from it. From another person in Iran, a

whole civilization will die tonight,

never to be brought brought back again.

This has deeply terrified me.

It's it's it raises really the question

a lot of this disc discourse doesn't

speak much to 90 plus million people

that are living there and that are

having to exist under this terror. And

like the best way that I could

conceptualized it is I I I imagined if I

had woken up one day and Vladimir Putin

or some other leader around the world

had said that they were potentially

going to end the civilization that I

live in, the country that I live in

tonight, how would I be feeling? And if

I was hearing bombs go off all the t

time, how would I be feeling? Um, and if

things were escalating when me and my

family lived, how would I be feeling?

And it is chilling to think about. It's

chilling because this is now moving the

needle inside of Iran to make the

ordinary person on the street uh even

the pro-democracy movement willing to

tolerate Iran killing Americans

because we're killing them and we're

saying we're going to do it even worse

and we're say even beyond that we're

saying at the whim of a president who

wakes up thinking Maybe this will help

his save his presidency. He is willing

to uh uh kill the entire civilization of

a country because he thinks maybe this

is going to be his off his golden uh

offramp to get out of this problem for

himself personally. And by the way, we

we in our country when al-Qaeda attacked

us on 9/11, there was tremendous fear.

There would be more attacks by al-Qaeda

in the weeks afterwards. There was just

much fear. And I've done the studies of

the American public opinion on this.

It's the fear of Muslims killing

Americans that's driving the support for

the Iraq war. If this is happening to

Americans, you can only imagine what's

going to happen to the ordinary

Iranians. And they've been subjected not

to just one attack, 40 days of attack.

>> So for the average Iranian person that

opposes the regime in Iran and has been

living under terror and oppression for

many, many decades.

What do you think happens next for them?

They're they're the group of people that

I that I think about and care about the

most in this equation. We spend a lot of

time talking about US power and we talk

about lots of these other regional

partners, but there's like 90 odd

million people stuck right in the heart

of this that often don't really have a

voice.

>> Their life expectancy will go down in

measurable years. So if we had taken out

the electric power, so this is something

I know quite a bit about in the 1990s. I

was uh working for the Air Force

literally under uh my boss was John

Warden, the leader of the leadership

decapitation school. And he brought in,

not classified at all, he brought in

engineers of electric power plants to

teach us how to take down electric

power. The electric power grid in Iran,

it looks like a network. And that

network has big nodes. That's what

President Trump said he would he's going

to take off the big power plants that

produce uh in the 10 20 30 uh megawws uh

range. And they're probably about 130

nodes altogether. But if you just take

out the top 10, you're probably going to

take down the entire network because the

top 10 nodes are distributed in the

right places to support different uh

electric power in different regions of

the country. You have two choices in a

target in targeting sense. You can take

out the transformers in which case you

knock it out for a week or two and it is

inconvenient. And yes, there will be

some people who will die. There were

human chains around those targets by the

way. those people would die. But if you

took out the hulls, the generating

hulls,

>> what's that?

>> That's the giant turbines that are huge.

There is no backup to those. Each of

those is specially made. You will be

knocking the out that generation for 6

months, 12 months, maybe 18 months at a

minimum. What that's going to do is stop

all dialysis in the country. that's

going to stop all um the uh heart

surgeries and other life-saving

surgeries that are going to happen in

the country. It's going to take out all

the food refrigeration in the country.

So, you know, when power goes out in

your house and goes out for 10 minutes

or or or an hour, it's not so bad. You

don't really notice it. But when it goes

out for 2 days or 3 days or a week, all

the food in your refrigerator spoils and

you can't eat it fast enough. you can't

give it away fast enough because it's

happening to everybody on your block.

Well, that's what would happen across

the country. So, there's going to be an

enormous amount of spoilage of food and

that refrigeration then is not going to

be available to come back. And so,

you're going to have enormous hunger

problems here. So, people that were

already malnourished, they are going to

be susceptible to more disease. So you

will end up lowering the life expectancy

in a measurable way of that population.

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Enjoy. So, there's been a lot of talk in

the recent days about a ceasefire and

Trump said he was going to he said tweet

these horrific things about ending a

whole civilization tonight and then at

the final hour said that they had

proposed a 10-point plan and that there

was going to be a twowe ceasefire. What

do you think was actually going on

there?

>> The collision of stages three and four.

So what you are now seeing is we can we

we are now understand we're in it for

the long haul which means we can't go

back to February 27. We can't undo the

last 40 days. It's just not going to be

possible. So there's only two futures

going forward. Future number one is that

ground war option and we've talked about

how terrible that is and of course

that's obviously bad bad cost. But

future number two is Iran as an emerging

fourth center of world power. And that

is incredibly damaging to America's

power. And that is going to be damaging

to President Trump's legacy.

>> Is there not another option where Iran,

their leadership says, "Okay, we won't

make nuclear weapons. Okay, we'll be

friends. Okay, it's all over. Please

stop bombing us. Let's go for peace."

So, so my response to that is I've been

studying the history of international

politics for over 35 years. I know quite

a bit about uh great power politics and

regional power politics going back 300

years. I have never seen a country at

the regional level or at the great power

level surrender power. Did America after

World War II decide, well, yes, uh, we

we have the capability to build nuclear

weapons, but, you know, we want to get

along with the Russians who helped us

defeat Germany. So, what we're going to

do is we're going to actually have a a a

deal, an arms control agree. In fact,

this was proposed, by the way, um, and

we rejected it, which is we're just

going to not go down that road. We're

going to surrender the power advantage

that we have uh here so that we can be

cooperative with the Soviets who had

just worked with us to defeat Nazi

Germany.

>> So that's not going to happen.

>> We there's no evidence in history in our

history. We've never surrendered power

even when it might have been a good

idea. We haven't done that. They're not

going to do this.

>> They're not going to do that.

>> No, they're not going to do this. You

already see this in the in why the uh

the ceasefire is breaking down. so fast.

It's breaking down so fast because

essentially President Trump, he didn't

just declare victory. He said that

Iran's uh not going to have all this

power that I'm explaining to you. And

what Iran did is almost immediately

assert, oh yes, we are. They they've

come right back right away. If President

Trump is expecting that out of the

goodness of their heart, they're gonna

surrender emerging world power,

this is this is just a fantasy. Uh it's

not going to happen. Uh he wouldn't

surrender power. Why is he going to

expect Iran's going to surrender power?

>> So, I'm looking at this apparent

10-point proposal submitted by Iran.

Mhm. Um, and you you got to take this

with a pinch of salt because there's

different reports about what this

10point proposal looks like, but it says

that based on official releases from the

Iranian state news agency, the IRA and

international reporting, the 10-point

proposal from Iran to the United States

was for a permanent ceasefire, number

one, end attacks on allies, a complete

halt to Israel and US strikes across the

region, specifically Lebanon, Iraq, and

Yemen. Number three, reopen the Straight

of Hummos. Iran will allow safe passage

through the Straight of Hongos. collect

tolls. Iran will charge a fee,

reportedly $2 million, for each ship

passing through the straight. Revenue

sharing with Aman, which is toll

revenues, will be split with Oman as

custodians of the strait. Number six,

lift the sanctions, the complete removal

of all US primary and secondary

sanctions. Release assets. Number seven,

the immediate return of all frozen

Iranian funds held abroad. Number eight,

the right to enrich uranium. US

acceptance of Iran's right to domestic

uranium enrichment while Iran commits to

not seeking nuclear weapons. Number

nine, war reparations, full compensation

paid to Iran for reconstruction costs

from the bombing. And lastly, number 10,

the termination of all UN resolutions

against the regime and a new binding UN

Security Council resolution to enforce

this deal. Now, listen, I don't know a

lot about what I'm talking about, so

that's the disclaimer. However, it

sounds like a good deal for Iran in many

respects. on every single point and it

also validates Iran as an emerging world

power. So all of those points in the

details if you think of them as a flow

diagram all 10 of them are adding up to

validation of Iran as uh top in the

hierarchy in the Persian Gulf. So why is

it so important to be the number one

strongest state in the world? It's

because in the last 300 years, whether

it was Britain, the United States, or

whether it's China in the future, the

number one state typically dictates the

rules of how the world systems operate.

Well, what you're seeing with Iran is

they want to dictate the rules in the

Persian Gulf. And that's what that is.

Now, if we pull this over, which I love

your props, uh here, that is good. So

right now you see that even though it's

the United States is just um uh that

lone flag it has this higher weight and

what this is reflecting is uh the United

States as uh the number one country in

the world the most powerful. Now if you

also then add um this over here. So this

would be Israel. You can see this is the

world that Netanyahu is depicting um

before on February 27th. But the actual

world I just want to point out is a

little bit different. The actual balance

of power is closer to this. It's closer

to the United States and then we have

China and we have uh Russia. There are

three centers of world power and in 1990

um it used to be by the way uh just the

United States and the Soviet Union. Then

Russia, the Soviet Union collapses. This

is when the United States is the sole

superpower, the unipolar moment. It

immediately shifts like this from 1989

to 1992. Dramatic shift. However, along

the way in the last 30 years, you see um

this changing. And what's changing?

Russia actually still is weak. It's

still about 2% of the world's GDP.

That's not really what's changing.

What's really changing is is China is

now much much much more powerful. It's

still not as powerful as the United

States, but notice that we were here in

1990 and now the balance is starting to

be uh to come like this. Well, if we

start to add Iran as a center of world

power, uh, now we're starting to change

this in a much different way. Now these

three powers are starting together in

concert to become more powerful than the

United States uh especially with respect

to energy and energy matters so much

because it's an underlying component for

our economic growth that GDP the way um

uh we measure uh great power Stephen for

decades and decades we've used static

indicators GDP how big is your military

How many nuclear weapons you have that

all rests on the productive capacity of

your country which is why the productive

capacity is so important. What does that

turn on? It turns a lot very heavily on

oil. Oil today is the commodity. If you

lose access to oil within weeks or a

month and a half, this has dramatic

cliff effects on your economy. Now, if

you lose access to semiconductors,

pharmaceuticals, that's bad. And it's

bad over time in particular, you lose

access to oil. This is a cliff that you

we go off over six weeks, eight weeks

because there's not enough uh storage

capacity of anybody in the world to make

up for 20% 30% loss of world oil.

>> So on this point of oil, the US don't

get their oil from the straight of

Hammoose.

>> We don't. But it's a global market and a

lot of the uh price of oil that we're

going to pay is going to be determined

by the global price of oil because oil

is a funible commodity. It's like a uh

water that runs through the whole

system. When there's a shortage, it

drives the price of all of us up.

>> Okay. So, I've got a graph here showing

the price of oil. And you can see I'll

throw it up on the screen. You can see

it's been climbing ever since the 27th

of February. So, this will impact

Americans at the pump as well.

>> Oh my gosh. And you see it in the pump

already. Where I am in Chicago, I'm

paying some I was paying something like

310 a gallon. Now, the last time I I

filled up, it was 460. It's a bit of a

misnomer to think that we can as America

get away scot-free with everybody else

losing oil and we're not going to we're

not going to pay a price. Now to be

clear, we will have supply of oil. The

price will go up. This will increase

inflation. This will probably increase

bond prices over time. Uh the bond

price,

>> the bond is the loans that essentially

any uh corporation companies or the

University of Chicago takes out to

borrow money to operate. So the

University of Chicago borrows uh has has

10-year bonds. This is essentially we're

borrowing money and then we have to pay

back that money plus an interest rate.

That's what the bond rate is. It's an

interest rate on on borrowed money.

Well, if that interest rate goes from 4%

on a 10-year bond um to 5% or 6 or 7%

the costs of the interest just goes up

massively

>> and everybody will feel that in various

ways. the US government right now, the

biggest uh budget item in the US

government budget is the cost of

interest for the debt of the $40

trillion in debt. We're going to have to

shrink social security. You're going to

have to shrink Medicaid. This is not

notional, Stephen. Iran and uh Russia

together could have a tremendous impact

on America's economy. This this is the

real thing. So with your balance of

power analogy, this is where we where we

could get to.

>> This is where we could get to with the

next several years. I would say um

probably two years out. I would say that

America has an edge. And I'm trying to

depict it as it's like about a 25 or 30%

edge from the combination of China and

Russia today. And China is gaining, but

still it's actually slow yearbyear. So

you'll see a little bit of an uptick. So

maybe going I'm trying to depict from

say a third advantage for the United

States to maybe uh 30% 28% in the next

four or 5 years. You add Iran to this

and then especially these combinations

I'm describing where they can do things

together. Now in the next several years

you're actually talking about uh the

scales where these three are much are

stronger than America where I'm not

talking about just America's losing it

incrementally. You're getting abrupt

changes in the world balance of power.

>> So, what happens now if Trump just pulls

out?

>> This is the world. Iran is an oil

hegeimon in the Persian Gulf. Uh, within

a year or so, they're very likely to

have nuclear weapons. I'm saying the

pro-democracy movement is going to be

pounding the table to get nuclear

weapons. They're going to want to deter

any uh idea from Trump of hitting them

again. Um, and then I'm saying beyond

that, you have the possibility of Iran

and Russia deciding to cooperate here to

strangle uh and coers the United States.

And if the United States doesn't cowtow

to them, then they can pull that oil off

the market.

>> So, what should

Trump do? Do you think if you were

president of the United States, what

would you do right now? So when I was

here 40 days ago, we had the same

question. And what I said was we needed

to accept uh that there would be a deal

and we were going to have to accept that

the deal that Iran was offering us on

February 27 where they would get to keep

their 3.5% enriched uranium wasn't going

to be good enough. We were going to have

to lift oil sanctions. We're going to

have to do various things to sweeten the

deal, so to speak. Well, notice actually

Scott Besson did some of that. He did

lift the but the power of Iran has grown

so much Stephen that's not good enough

and that's what you're seeing with why

this deal is the ceasefire is starting

to break down from Iran's side. So what

would you offer Iran? I think a enforced

military containment of Israel would be

a serious uh card that America could

play that I think Iran would get Iran at

least in a serious discussion. I don't

know if it would be enough. I want to be

careful here that I don't say, "Well,

this will certainly uh be the deal Iran

will take." But we have to imagine if

Iran has world power, what is it going

to take to get Iran to surrender some of

that? Well, one thing would be to have

confidence that Israel is not going to

keep attacking it or its allies.

>> But then they're not going to believe

that after what's happened.

>> Well, it would have to go through. You'd

have to make it enforceable. It's not

going to be good enough to try to

promise that. What thing President Trump

could do since the Republicans control

both houses of Congress is President

Trump could push through a bill through

Congress that says if Israel attacks

Iran or uh could even extend to to

Lebanon, but let's at least start with

Iran. Um all funds for Israel, both

military and economic, will be cut off

through the end of Trump's presidency.

Now, that passes through uh both

chambers of Congress. President Trump

signs it. Now you're talking. Now we

actually have as much teeth as you could

ever have of a military containment of

Israel.

>> So presumably in such a scenario, Iran

would continue to enrich uranium because

they've now had a taste of what can

happen to them if they're powerless.

>> Well, let me extend this um a little bit

more. So let's talk about article two of

the deal that's going to go through the

Congress. Israel joins the NPT and that

is the quidd proquo for getting Iran to

accept the on-site inspections of its

3.5% enriched uranium. So, Israel gets

to have um its Deamona nuclear power

plant where it has plutonium for its

nuclear weapons that's measured by the

non-prololiferation treaty, the IAEA.

Those are the inspectors. And Iran

will have on-site inspections at the

various locations we're talking about.

But the second part of this, Stephen,

would be quit proquo. If Iran is going

to be subject to on-site verification,

on-site monitoring, Israel, which is now

not part of the non-prololiferation

treaty, already has nuclear weapons.

It's going to have to accept that this

can't be a one-sided deal going forward.

It's going to have to be a more balanced

situation when it comes to monitoring um

nuclear weapons capabilities.

>> So, what does that mean specifically

that Iran would be able to monitor

Israel's nuclear weapons

>> uh through the IAEA? That's right. That

would be the material for the weapons,

not the weapons themselves. So,

>> they already have weapons. So, what's

there to monitor?

>> Oh, no, no, no. Right now, the number of

Israel's uh Israel's nuclear weapons is

not known. We have vague counts. The

reason Israel is not part of the NPT is

not because it doesn't matter. It

provides the kind of calc the kind of

detailed information through the IAEA

that would be useful for estimating the

size of Israel. Israel Netanyahu is

going to want to give that information

to Iran.

>> This isn't about want to anymore.

Stephen, what we're talking about is

what are the offer? You've asked me the

hard question. What is an offramp to

this tradeoff between the ground war and

Iran as the fourth center of world

power? And I said, okay, there is an

actual off-ramp here. But notice that

the hesitation now is politics. And

that's what I'm trying to explain that

that I study the interaction of military

action and politics. And I'm with you. I

I don't think Israel will likely they've

been trying to spoil these other deals.

I don't think Israel is going to allow

this to occur. But now then we're right

back to the tradeoff that nobody wants

to confront. So

>> So what do you think is going to happen?

What I think is that we are going to go

back and forth between stage three and

stage four for months.

>> What's stage three and stage four?

>> So stage three are preparations for the

ground war.

>> Yep.

>> And Iran emerging as a force center of

world power. I think both of these are

likely to go on for months. I think that

uh for stage three, the ground war

option to truly be taken off the table,

you would need to see America

withdrawing its military forces. You

would need to see all the carriers leave

the region and go back to uh other parts

of the world. You would need to see the

Marines that have been moved to the Gulf

go back to Camp Pendleton in California,

go back to uh Japan. You would need to

see the hundreds of aircraft like the

F-35s, for example, that have been moved

to the region. They all need to go back

to their pre-war locations. So, we're

going to bounce between stage three and

stage four.

>> Yep. That's the diagram. So, the new

diagram I'm trying to

>> we just um I think there's still, if you

pushed me on this last time, I still say

there's a 70% chance that we're going to

start a ground operation. And it's not

because President Trump wants it. It's

not because he's not trying to avoid it.

It's because there's a trap. And the

trap that he's gonna face is, is he

really willing to be the president where

under his presidency, Iran detonates a

nuclear weapon to demonstrate it has

nuclear power? From his rhetoric, and

listen, these are just the tweets. It

seems like the alternate option he's

considered when he talks about bombing

the infrastructure and bridges and roads

and power plants is just completely

decapitating the country and I think in

his own words, sending it back to the

stone ages. will come back. This will

come back, but it would be as I believe

the precursor to more ground operations,

Stephen. So, I don't think that this

will be a case where you do the electric

power targeting and then it's done.

Finally, he's satisfied. He's pounded

them enough and walk away because you do

the electric power targeting. You have

further incentivized 92 million. They

still have the enriched uranium. You

have 92 million people desperate now for

not just getting a nuclear weapon for

deterrence, but for payback. And so you

will find the pressure for the ground

war will be even more intense in the

aftermath of all of that. This idea

they're going to be bombed back to the

stone ages where we won't worry about

them anymore. um they're going to be

this minor country that we will just

ignore. As long as they have 1,000 lb of

60% enriched uranium, 10,000 lb of five

and and 20% enriched uranium, um this is

this will just not be the case.

>> So, you still think the most plausible

probable outcome is that Trump ends up

sending ground troops in specifically to

do two things? I think I remember you

saying last time. One of them is to go

and get the uranium. Yep.

>> And the second, I believe, is to defend

the straight of Hormuz.

>> Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I think I think

these are the two things that are on the

table.

>> And you think it's going to it's

probably going to take several months.

>> I think it could go on Yes. for months

because I think that you were going to

see that there's going to be uh this

back and forth. And the way to monitor

this so you can see is the timeline

speeding up or slowing down is literally

the movement of the deployed troops.

Don't track this by what the

negotiations are. Don't track this by

what comes out of President Trump's

mouth or even the Iranians mouth. Track

this by the movement of forces. That is

the best indicator of what's going to

come.

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I will speak to you then.

on this point where you said you don't

think Trump would want to be the

president that presided over Iran

releasing a nuclear weapon. Is that

because if he pulled out now they would

enrich the uranium and then maybe

demonstrate it under his

>> that that's right. So the scenario that

I have laid out I've laid this out to my

classes for years. The idea of what Iran

would do with nuclear weapons a lot of

people have an image and it's coming

from the public so I understand why they

have it. People have been a lot of

people have said this image where Iran

gets a a nuclear weapon or two and that

what they do immediately is they blow up

Tel Aviv with the first one and maybe

New York with the second one. This is

just highly unlikely because what would

happen is we would retaliate with

nuclear weapons under that. uh here much

more plausible and everything I'm seeing

from Iran has been completely supporting

the idea that they're thinking this

through um uh uh strategically is you

would want not to just have one working

nuclear weapon or even two. You want

five. Ideally, you want 10, maybe even

15. This is what happened with North

Korea. Because once you have, let's even

say five, the most rational thing to do

is you detonate the first one as a

detonated test. You test it on your own

territory and then you listen for a week

while everybody says, "Well, they only

had one. They were stupid. They don't

have dot." And you detonate the second

one. And once you detonate the second

one, just like when we hit Nagasaki

after Hiroshima,

everybody will assume there's a lot more

there. And that is how you actually

deter the United States from attacking

you. And by the way, that's what

effectively North Korea did. When

President Trump took office in 2016,

North Korea was a major problem. We were

talking about bombing North Korea and so

forth. And there's multiple reasons, but

the big issues are that North Korea has

a lot of nuclear weapons. We're not

going to be able to get them all. They

have some other things they can do too

like like artillery on soul. But this

isn't just North Korea and Trump decided

to be, you know, sort of best buds here.

>> So the other route that played out in my

mind was that Trump would just keep

bombing Iran to keep them weak. But

again, that doesn't solve the straight

of Hammoose problem.

>> Doesn't solve the uranium problem and

doesn't solve the straight of Hormuz

problem because if we knew where that

material was and we could just bomb it

out of existence. I'm talking about the

enriched uranium material. We would have

done this already.

>> Which leads all roads to really the only

solution being some kind of deal.

>> Absolutely. That's why the best thing to

do is a deal with the military

containment of Israel. That's deal.

>> The problem you have with such a deal if

when you're going into that deal is the

enemy know that you don't really have a

plan B. You don't have a plan B. That's

right.

>> And so your negotiation position is very

weak. That's why you That's why you're

they're going to keep their 3.5%

enriched uranium no matter what. The

problem we face here is if we were ever

going to get the 3.5% enriched uranium

um to go away, we should never have

ripped up the Obama nuclear deal by

Trump in 2018. They've been developing

ever since the Biden administration. He

Trump one couldn't figure out how to

stop the enriched uranium by by Iran.

Biden couldn't figure out how to stop

it. Trump now has been trying to figure

out how to stop it. And you know what?

It's not stoppable. It's not stoppable

short of these options I'm laying out.

There's no way to get that material

without ground forces, Stephen. And

you're not going to send those ground

forces in just a thousand guys to get be