05 MAR 2026: Iran War Q&A: Who's in Control? // Who Should We Pick To Lead? // Are There "Moderate" Muslims? // Send in US Troops? // China's Oil at Risk? // Is Israel Leading Trump by the Nose?

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It's March 5th, I'm Brian Dean Wright, former CIA operations officer, and this is The

Right Report.

Hey, good day to you, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to The Right Report, your daily news, podcast.

Don't listen or Q&A this morning, your questions might in tell an assessments, building a brief

for you this morning, that's shaping America and the world.

But before we cover your questions, folks, let's get to a quick update on the news regarding

the latest in the war with Iran.

Fox and Axios news report to thousands of Kurdish forces have launched a ground offensive

against the Islamic Republic of Iran, starting or kicking off out of the northwest of the

country.

They're flooding in from neighboring Iraq.

They were pushed out of their native country Iran years ago, fleeing of course to Iraq.

Well, now they're coming home.

They're part of the Kurdish people that actually stretched between Syria, Turkey, Iran and

Iraq.

It's a group that's been without a homeland for centuries, but perhaps they see this

moment as one to gain at least more freedom.

This development comes days after President Trump held a sensitive set of conversations with

Kurdish leaders about this very possibility of supporting covert action operations probably

through the CIA because Secretary of War Pete Hegseth denied yesterday that the Pentagon

was involved with this.

I'll keep you posted on that development.

Meanwhile, the financial times is reporting that there is a disagreement between the White

House and Israel's leadership on the mission of these Kurdish fighters.

The financial times is quoting a former member of the Israeli Defense Intel agency who previously

served as the head of their analytical branch on Iran, who said the following, and this

is important.

If we Israel can have a coup in Iran, greats.

If we can have people on the streets in Tehran, great, if we can have a civil war, great.

Israel couldn't care less about the future or the stability of Iran.

That is a point of difference between Israel and the US.

I think that you that to Washington DC is more concerned about nation building and threats

to their regional Arab partners.

We in Israel want to just ensure that Iran stays in disarray, end quote.

So in other words, the US this morning, according to this gentleman who worked with

Israeli intel is the US is worried, he says, about say global oil markets are trade to

the person goal for our Arab partner equities, but not Israel.

They would actually be fine with the Arabs and Persian neighbors in a state of conflict.

Now that's interesting and important, but to be clear that it's not the stated policy

of Jerusalem, rather it's a former senior member of their Intel service.

So we'll definitely be following up on this because there is clearly a difference in

mission sets here or strategic goals that if it's true, could really complicate the next

faces of this war, including the role of those Kurds want to come on that next.

We move to operations inside of Iran this morning, Israel launched a major operation yesterday

to wipe out what remains of Iran's ballistic missile and launcher capabilities.

Dozens of those launchers were knocked out of service in both central and western Iran.

Fox News reports that the US military is doing the same with joint chiefs general

Cain saying that US forces are now quote hunting and killing those ballistic missile launchers.

And that folks helps explain why over the past 24 hours, we have seen a notable drop in

Tehran's firing of these munitions as Reuters news reports, those are down 80% since the

start of the war and down 25% over the past 24 hours.

Clearly, Tehran can't fire a missile without these critical launchers.

This news also helps to explain why Israel is lowering their restrictions around what activities

are allowed in the country with fewer Iranian missiles and drones flying through the skies.

People this morning in Israel are now allowed to attend more gatherings and go to work,

although still requiring folks to get quick access to bomb shelters as needed.

Still, we can say that this is a good sign that Iran's capabilities are being degraded

substantially bit by bit anyway.

Speaking of that, the Trump administration is working feverously to open the straight

up war moves that is effectively shot this morning with passage of the world's ships

through that straight down 95% since the war start, that's according to Bloomberg news.

The collapse of ship passage, by the way, is not necessarily because of Iran's attacks,

although that's part of it.

The bigger issue, frankly, is because insurance companies have yanked their coverage of

these vessels if they travel in this area.

I noted that yesterday, but of course the White House announced that it would cover

these ships with our taxpayer dollars.

But as Bloomberg news reports, that plan, it's in the works, but it's going to take another

two weeks or so to fully coordinate it and finalize the plans with the existing insurance

providers.

So that means that we will continue to see oil, gas and other products continue to be bottled

up in the Persian Gulf with continued impacts on the global economy and gas prices.

It's going to be bouncy folks for a while until we get that Persian Gulf straightened

out and this insurance issue, more to come on that.

Speaking of contested waters, the Associated Press reports on some dramatic footage that

you might have seen of US submarine blowing up the front end of Iranian warship of the

coast of Sri Lanka, of the 180 Iranian soldiers on board at least 87 are confirmed dead.

It has yet one more vessel down as the US vows to destroy all of Iran's navy.

Also dead this morning or growing number of Iran's internal police, the Associated Press

and the Wall Street Journal report that the US and Israel are targeting the IRGC's officers

and its street militia that have been cracking down on the protesters over the past several

months, really the past 40 years.

The US and Israel are blowing up their headquarters, their training facilities and police stations,

ultimately then trying to weaken the regime's grip on power, hoping to give the Iranian

people some space to rise up and revolt without being crushed again.

In short, ladies and gentlemen, the war in the Middle East in Iran and with Iran continues

a pace with Israel and America on the continued offensive, Iran continues to be on its heels

more so this morning than yesterday with the Kurds now on the march, opening up what

is a new front and a degree of complexity with this war and conflict.

And that takes us to a pivot this morning away from facts and data to your questions and

my answers today on this unscripted Q&A episode about the war in Iran and with Iran.

First up, we've got some great listeners, Tom and a gentleman who's calling himself

a fletch.

Brian, how is it that Iran can continue to launch hundreds of missiles and drones when

they supposedly have lost all of their leadership, who's calling the shots exactly?

Great question.

So the IRGC is doing so, but not its senior commanders.

Army explained why.

So 20 years ago, when of course the US invaded Iraq, Baghdad fell and the IRGC saw exactly

why.

And that is that the Iraqi Army divisions were centralized in the capital with very top

down decision making.

And that's clearly a good approach if you're looking for a good or better coordinated sort

of whole of theater response, but it's a really bad thing when your top leadership in the

capital gets annihilated and your mid or lower level commanders are left rudderless.

So when the IRGC saw this, they changed the way that they did business, especially during

times of conflict.

They devolved more authority to the media and lower guys to sustain the fight against

a bigger opponent like the United States.

And that is exactly what is happening right now.

And it's how the regime is hoping to continue to fight.

They've delegated the trigger authority and the targeting processes to the mid and lower

level guys as the senior leaders get liquidated in Tehran and elsewhere.

But what that means is what we have seen.

It's why the Iranians are shooting missiles and drones at the civilian infrastructure

around the Gulf and sometimes just at random.

The targeting packages are not being centrally planned.

It's just sort of a fire at will of the uncoordinated or certainly under coordinated, that's

for sure.

So there are some important implications of this.

And clearly a lot more random targets are getting hit.

The second piece, and I suggested this yesterday and I'll also on Monday, we may very well

see this devolution of power down to the lower and mid level guys result in guerrilla fighting

because each unit will then become sort of its own little army with eventually little

factions and warlords developing over time.

That's the fear of the CIA this morning.

So then that clearly presents all kinds of different problems for us, but good for the

Iranian regime.

It's going to bog us down, you're going to end up chasing thousands of smaller targets

and tens of thousands of men versus one supreme commander in the capital who offers to surrender

on behalf of the nation or the national force.

So that is why then ladies and gentlemen, why regime change planning becomes so very

important.

And I think it's why President Trump is now calling on the Kurds using the CIA to do that

with covert action.

What we are now seeing with this devolution of power down to the lower and mid level guys

is that you've got to have some boots on the ground to fight them and the Kurds are

going to be those boots.

So there you go.

Tom Fletcher, thank you for the questions about how and why the Iranians are still fighting

this morning, which takes us to a next great question from Ms. Gloria, she asked Brian,

do you have any intel that our administration had someone that they vetted to run the country

and from within Iran that could be a reasonable interim leader?

Okay, and if so, what's the status of that?

So Gloria, yeah, the answer is, yes, we did have a couple of people in mind, one guy especially,

and then he died.

And then we had others back ups and they died too because we or more often has been the

case, the Israelis bombed these guys either on accident or on purpose because the Israelis

didn't necessarily have our list of most preferred candidates.

And that's an oopsie.

And that happened from my understanding because we attacked the Ayatollah sooner than we

expected after the CIA got that intel last week.

The day after stuff, the regime change, that became a lot less important than the opportunity

to wipe out the head of the snake as it were.

But Gloria, as Tom and Fletch pointed out, Iran is still firing and they're still deadly

all because of that devolution of powers to the IRGC units.

So we're spreading the problem around, right, but we are decentralizing it.

So now we are chasing down and bombing that problem or the Kurds do it for us.

Do we still have an opportunity to talk about who leads next?

And the answer is yes, we've got the Kurds at least, but we've also got other ethnic groups

as I covered on Monday, like the Blouche or the Azeris in the east and the north respectively.

We've got the Shah's son, who by the way does not have a ton of support,

but some of the polling that I've seen and folks that I've talked to who kind of have a better

pulse on this, they think that most of the Iranian people would probably support him

as a bit of a placeholder for now.

So those are some of the initial options and I would tell you that the CIA has some other leads to.

And it's probably some current or former assets, especially from the war in Iraq next door.

But as we think about that possibility, let's remember something from Iraq.

So going back 25 years, do you all remember a guy named Ahmed Chalabi?

He became our guide to lead Iraq after we killed or removed Saddam.

And Chalabi was supposedly vetted and embraced, certainly by this CIA and then the state

department. But Chalabi was a crook and a fraud. And he probably had a really big role in feeding

us that bunk intel. You might remember the about the WMD regarding or from an intel asset called

curveball. The point is that the CIA and their vetting of Chalabi was not so good.

And the agency's predictions of his leadership skills and how long he would stick with us,

not so good either. He was just awful. All right. So let's think about that. But then let's also

remember Afghanistan. Do you remember the guy Hummed Karzai? We picked him as the president of

that country. The CIA did actually and the state department some. And he was a disaster corrupt.

He was mentally unstable. But he was our guy, even though as my folks out there who have served

in that region, you all know that Afghans didn't really like him or support him. He was a terrible

puppet. So I could go on and on on this. I mean, we think about in Syria training some of those

rebel fighters or what we did in Libya. The point is that over the past 25 years, certainly in my

professional career, the United States government, whether that be the Pentagon or the CIA or both,

we do not have a great track record of picking good leaders abroad or rebel forces even.

By the way, you might be wonder, well, why is that why we so bad about that?

Folks have asked me on that and whether I've seen a couple of reasons for that.

First, I have seen presidents say, hey, CIA, who do you got in whatever country?

And the agency will say, oh, yeah, well, we've got to X, Y or Z person.

Because who wants to say to the president, wow, we got a couple guys. They're kind of losers.

Nobody, we have nobody. So that is why the agency will prop somebody up and pick them quickly.

Sometimes you may also have a good leader, a potential leader, the CIA might be working with somebody.

And then we propose that person and then they go bad for whatever reason. I've seen that too

when I worked at the CIA. And that's because people, the human nature, we can go from good to bad,

not a good. But I'll tell you, the biggest problem that I have seen is when we pick people,

they end up having very different agendas than us. And we think that we can control them or

manipulate them. And maybe we do for a time until we don't. So, Gloria, here's what I would offer

to you and the president to avoid this regime change issue. And who do we pick?

Make this job, this issue belong to the Arabs and have them work with the Israelis. This is

their fight, their backyard, their history, their religions, their cultures, not ours.

So let them take the lead, let us monitor or referee, I don't know, Rubio, Ratcliffe of the CIA

can referee or quarterback this, heard the cats. But they have to own regime change.

Our objective and people have asked me about this. Well, so what is the objective, Brian? You said

on Tuesday, the things were muddled. So what is it? Our objectives or our mission accomplished

should be narrowly focused on four things. First and foremost, crushing and understanding the

nuclear program, current and historical. Second, no more intercontinental ballistic missiles,

none of that technology, the ICBMs or any long range missiles. Third, neuter the Iranian navy

so that it can never threaten the straighter hormones ever again. And then finally,

providing intel and probably munitions to crush at least Hezbollah, maybe the Houthis

to address the Red Sea issue, although I would let the Europeans handle that.

And then when it comes to Hamas, Israel can handle that. And that would be my counsel to the President.

Those are the elements of mission accomplished to offer to the American people and how we exit from

this fight with our heads held high, passing off that regime change stuff to the Arabs and

the Israelis and focus on the four goals and then get out. So there you have it folks. Good

questions this morning from Tom and Fletch and Gloria. And with that, let's take our first quick

break of the morning. When we come back, we got another question about possible regime change

options. This is regarding picking a moderate Islamic cleric to rule Iran. Okay, logically, I guess

that makes sense, but what exactly is a moderate Muslim? That's important to ask and answer. So

we're going to try to do that. Then just a couple of minutes. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the right reports. Let's continue with our Q&A episode this morning with our next

question. This comes from Mr. Jublius who asked or Tez Brian. I think that the quickest way to end

this war with Iran is to get a reformist to be made supreme leader of Iran and Iran's political

system. The presidency is actually not the highest authority. The real power sits with a

supreme leader. That means even a moderate president cannot fundamentally change policy unless the

clerical leadership and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accepted. So picking a reformist as a

supreme leader is probably the best way forward to end this war. All right, Jublius. Thank you

for this sir. So your suggestion here isn't illogical. I think it makes a lot of academic sense.

I'm tracking it. But here's a question. What is exactly an Islamic reformist?

Define that from me. Then second, tell me who that might be in Iran. And then third,

tell me if that person has any credibility with the people to lead. So those would be from an

agency's perspective and intel officers perspective. Those would be the three challenges that I would

say you would face in picking a so-called reformist. You know, what is that? Who is it? And whether they

have popular support? You would also then need to assess with whatever degree of confidence,

high confidence, hopefully, that this person is a reliable reformist that they're not going to

change stripes on you. So Jublius, I would say that I don't believe that that person exists today

in Iran, again, putting all those variables together in part and especially because I don't know

how we would even define reformist. You know, what is a moderate Muslim? What's their theology

exactly? And I will tell you in current era governments, when I had worked with them abroad,

the truth is that moderate or a reformist Muslim, not really Muslim at all, not in the strict sense

of the word, not in my experience, these guys who will drink and smoke and gamble, have a few

mistresses on the side, etc., etc. You know, they might celebrate the high Muslim holidays as it were,

but that's about it. There are more of a people who embrace the culture of Islam rather than the

theological commitment to the religion. And that is why, by the way, so many of the actual

purists of Islam are either in jail in the Middle East because they're fanatical or, sadly,

they have fled to Europe or the United States. And they operate, you know, mosques and places

like Manassas Virginia as I covered on Tuesday or daycare centers and Minneapolis as we've been

covering this fall or they run for Congress, run the city of New York. Anyway,

that aside, I'd offer Mr. Julius that regime changed by picking a moderate or a reformist

Muslim is not what I would advise President Trump to do or any president. If the Arabs in the

Israelis want to figure out that fight and that issue and define it all and, and, and, you know,

cycle through the issue, okay, fine, good luck to them. I want us to have nothing to do with that.

Let's instead stick to our narrow mission accomplished, you said, a goals of destroying the

nooks and the ICBMs and the long-range missiles and the hypersonic, by the way, also the Navy and

those proxy fighters, the Hezbollah guys, get us out of the regime changed stuff, pass that

baton to the Arabs and the Israelis. All right. Next up, we've got Mr. Eric from somewhere in America

who wrote in one of many actually who were a little bit frustrated by my episode on Tuesday.

When I said that the Trump administration was, well, muddling the message a little bit behind

why we are getting involved in this war and our goals. I think they've tightened it up since Tuesday,

but nevertheless, Eric said that there were three reasons, especially, including first,

because Iran is a state sponsor of terror and has been for 50 years, give or take.

Second, this war gives us the chance to cut off China from their oil and that's a big deal.

And third, said Mr. Eric, quote, in case you are still confused, Brian, the Iranian regime under

the Ayatollah killed over 40,000 of its own citizens within the last month. End quote.

All right. So the argument here from what I'm understanding is that if a government or a regime

kills whatever number of people, that is a justification for us to wage war on them.

Well, as I have told Eric, but I would offer to all of us, I don't think that is sufficient.

And I think I can demonstrate that pretty clearly and horrifically by going to North Korea.

And I will offer this now if you have a screenish stomach or little ears,

well, you might want to have those folks step out of the room.

At this very moment, tens of thousands of North Korean dissidents and innocent people

are in prison in that country and they are being tortured and they are being killed.

And I want to tell you how vile it can get in North Korea.

When women are imprisoned in that country, the vast majority of them are raped repeatedly

and many get pregnant. When that baby is born, we have high confidence intel,

both in public and in clandestine reporting, that the guards will deliver what is probably their baby

and then torture the child, the baby, the newborn right in front of the woman as a form of

punishment and control. Ladies and gentlemen, this gets evil. These guards will chop off the

fingers of the babies in front of mom, the toes, then the arms, then the hands and the feats,

and the genitals, they will disembowel the baby as it's screaming right in front of mom.

Then the parts are fed to dogs. Those stories have been well known for over 20 years.

So thinking about that horrific reality this morning, as I'm speaking to you, it's happening.

I would say to Eric, should we attack or invade North Korea because of these tens of thousands of

people and women are being treated like this every single day? Well, I would say no,

because the world is gross and awful and evil, because humans are gross and awful and evil.

And we can't necessarily get involved in every one of these situations where all these humans

exist and do terrible things. That said, sometimes a nation's evil behavior is just so

demented that it moves the world to action. All right, fair, but I can't tell you this morning

when that threshold is met in every single situation. That takes discernment and debate.

Man, all right, maybe we should do it in North Korea. And if people and leaders around the world

think that make the case. They've got nuclear weapons. So what are we going to do about that?

In this case, Eric and Iran, a country killing 40,000 of its people, horrific,

vile, wrong, it should enrage the world, but should it justify sending in U.S. forces to attack

the country with some plans for regime change? I would argue that that alone is not sufficient.

I personally am much more moved to involve ourselves in this to stop the spread of nuclear weapons

and that advanced ICBM missile technology. That stuff, when put together, will destroy the entire

planet. All of that said, Eric, I really am hearing you on this argument. It's quite compelling

emotionally. It's not without logic, not without reason. But I would just say to you that if we

start saying that when thousands, tens of thousands, whatever number of people abroad get killed,

that we're going to get involved, I think that that is a pretty low threshold. And a lot of

Americans are going to die where there's been a lot, a lot of money getting involved in conflicts

that we don't fully understand just because we are very compassionate people. But I'm here in

here, Eric. I really am. Next up, we've got Mr. Ricky from Minnesota. Brian, he wrote, on Tuesday,

you said that China was in a world of hurt with oil because of this war with Iran and also then as

Waila. But yesterday, you said the opposite. The China is, you know, sitting okay or pretty or

in a better position. Did you get different intel to make this change over the past few days?

Ah, Ricky, no, I've confused you. I've confused the audience. That is immortal sin, by the way,

in this business of podcasting. So let me clarify and explain how, what I have said in these two

episodes, it's actually quite consistent. So for starters, we need to know that China is a major

domestic producer of oil. They are the world's fifth largest producer of their own oil. They're

actually head of a rock, Iran and the UAE. However, they consume vastly more oil than they produce,

and that is why they are still a net importer of oil. In fact, the largest importer in the world.

The vast majority that comes from the Middle East, about 80 percent, with the rest of it being

imported from Russia, Brazil and Malaysia, which is really just Iranian oil. It's illegally

shipped. It's swapped out and see nearest Malaysia. So over the past year, one of the things that I

think we've talked about on the podcast is that President Xi has dramatically increased the

amount of imported oil into his country. He's placed it into storage into his strategic petroleum

reserve or SPR. Most former Spiesers books like me think that he's doing this to get ready for a war

over Taiwan that he assumes, I think, correctly, that he would get cut off from his Arab supplies

and probably others if he declared war on Taiwan or blockaded it. So his oil reserve right now

then gives him about 100 days, 120 give or take of this emergency oil supply. So in the short term,

that means then the China is sitting okay, pretty good actually in the short term. They've got

that oodles of the stored oil and their domestic production too. But given their loss of Venezuelan

oil and now probably losing that Iranian oil. And for now, the Arab oil too, we're now getting

into a medium term problem. If not frankly a crisis, President Xi is going from sitting okay to

pretty nervous in the medium term. He's got options like buying more oil from Canada or Brazil

or African countries, maybe us too. But it's going to be a lot more expensive and he just can't

replace the replace the volume that he gets from the Gulf for the Arab countries. So he's got a

medium term problem in the long term. And that's where I spoke or shared on Monday, China faces,

I think, a bigger crisis or real crisis. If it cannot get back Iran supply, if it loses Venezuelan

oil, if President Xi jeopardizes the Arab or the Gulf oil because he defends Tehran, well,

boy, and he has to pay a lot more for the stuff coming from Canada and Brazil, those collectively

or some serious squeezes on his economy and his big goal to take Taiwan. And at the other

piece that I talked about on Monday that India is building that military base at the straight of

Malacca, which could cut off the Arab oil. That's a bad deal. Plus this we can't forget.

We'll remember that the United States is growing its presence in the Gulf of Thailand in Cambodia.

We've talked about that. And also off the coast of the Philippines, those of course with the waters

where the Arab supplies would have to sail through. It's a pinch point. And the Panama Canal

and Diego Garcia, President Trump trying to control the Panama Canal. That would influence the

amount of oil going to or from I should say Colombia or Brazil. If we controlled Diego Garcia,

that would probably hit African oil too. You start putting all this together for the long term.

You start to appreciate why the Chinese government has got some long term anxiety about their energy.

It's an existential dread really for how the world might squeeze it down the road.

So Ricky, I hope that that longer explanation helps you understand how two things I think

can be true here that China is sitting okay or pretty good in the short term given its domestic

supply and all that storage. But they're increasingly anxious when we think about the medium

term. So I hope Ricky that that helps to unmodel things a little bit. Let me know if I've missed

the mark or if you have any other questions. Next up, let's talk about drones. Danny asked Brian.

He there are unconfirmed reports that the Mexican cartels have sent their members to Ukraine

to learn about drone warfare. Could the cartels ramp up attacks on us given that the war in Iran.

Maybe we're distracted. All those payback. All right, Danny, good and fair question. Although

I want to start with a reminder, you mentioned it's an unconfirmed report. No, we've actually

confirmed it. Mexican cartels have absolutely sent their members to Ukraine to learn how to use

and fight with drones. The Ukrainian military intel has confirmed that. The Mexican government has

confirmed it as well. So getting to your broader question though, the good news. We have some good

news on this. The United States government, under Trump, has increasingly just wired the cartels.

It's not perfect. It's not 100%. But it is vastly better than under Joe Biden and the Democrats

who did not care about this issue. They really didn't treason this level stuff in my view.

But Trump has moved the needle on this in a big material way. He has changed things and thank God

for that. So that's the good news. Things are better. I appreciate that question, Danny.

On a related notes, we're going to go back to Tom and Fletcher had a follow-up question.

They asked Brian, how is it that we have not been able to develop a more inexpensive yet

effective missile or an anti-drone drone to combat or stop or runs $20,000 drones?

So look, this is a frustrating issue and lots of people all around the world are dealing with this.

We're working on it. That's the good news. For starters, we've talked about, I think on the

podcast, the directed energy weapons, like lasers bringing these things down. But the energy

requirements for these anti-drone systems using directed energy, like the lasers, the energy

requirements are really, really big and challenging unless these systems are tied to a very big fixed

energy supply, like let's say on a ship's nuclear reactor or on maybe a really, really big truck.

But got it. We're working on it. There's also a system that we talked about before

where they're putting older guns, like let's say a 40-cal, putting them on turrets.

And they're sort of combining that with artificial intelligence to then identify some inbound drones

and then just blast them out of the sky. If you could visualize Star Wars on the death star

shooting down a plane's coming by, is it worth? But they're going to do this in this case with

old-school bullets. And that has currently been engineered. In fact, right now it's being offered.

So again, here, Tom Fletcher, we're working on it. It's a tough problem. It's one that everybody

around the world is working on with different solutions for different scenarios.

Like if you're trying to defend a base versus a bunch of guys out in your field,

you know, Russian to a position to, like we see in Ukraine, it's really, really tough. But we're

working on it. All right, that takes me to our final question this morning. And really, it's a

debate. And it's one that is just roiling President Trump's mega-base, America First Base. But a lot

of people asking me about this. And to what extent did Israel push Trump into this war with Iran?

Or are they directing our foreign policies, sort of generally speaking in the Middle East?

So let's cover this. But let's start not with Israel actually. I'm going to start going back

a number of years back in the early 1940s. The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

went to the United States with his spies. And he set up a propaganda operation in New York City

to push Americans and Roosevelt into supporting the war, the Second World War, getting us involved.

Roosevelt was opposed. Most Americans were opposed. So Churchill set up camp in New York City.

And he just starts pumping out propaganda in our press for years. Did that work? No.

The Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor did. But Churchill never offered an apology in trying to

push us into the war. He forever justified it. The point here is that our supposedly closest

ally used spies and propaganda and sustained operations for years to twist us to get them to

embrace their foreign policy priorities. 60 years later, give or take, the British are still doing

this, but in a different way. And I know this personally because I had a British intel officer,

I think it told you all the story once before. I had a British intel officer try to work me over

when I was at the CIA. I was at a liaison meeting with British intel services. We were talking

about a shared operation. And up comes to me, Jamie Bond, who's the sister of James Bond, of

course. And she said all kinds of sweet things to me, trying to get me to tell her some classified

information. She, no kidding, invited me to go on vacation with her, saying that I was so handsome,

et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, she was a honeypot for sure. So the point remains that every nation

will target you. Every nation can be targeted. And that includes by your closest to allies.

And this is why that isn't gentlemen. From an national security perspective, nations never

have friends. They have interests. And sometimes you work together with a foreign nation. Sometimes

you work against each other. And it's the same nation. That's just how it works. So for example,

the CIA had me work on an operation in cooperation with China. Oh, that was awful for me. I

hated doing it. But my president and senior agency officers directed me to do it. But even when

you're working with another country, and let's say that you like them, there are still risks

that they will get you into trouble. Case in point, Ukraine. How many times on this podcast have

I expressed a alarm that a junior partner, Ukraine, might try to drag us into a bigger war with

Russia, kind of like a tail, wagging the dog. I've used that expression, the tail wagging the dog.

Now that doesn't, in this case, make Zelensky some sort of bad guy necessarily. But it does

underline that shared interests, as we have them for whatever period of time, they can diverge in

really big ways. And they can try to use the United States to do their dirty work.

All right. So that then takes me to Israel. We have compatible interests with Israel in many ways.

And I have worked with Israeli liaison on some operations, including those regarding Iran.

But even on that target, which is pretty compatible for us, we're going to have differences.

In fact, the report that I mentioned at the top of the episode from the financial times that

Israel is actually fine with some degree or a lot of chaos in Iran, while we want a thoughtful

regime change and a related strategy to protect our Arab partners, I think that that report from

the F.T. Israel. We have different, we have some serious differences in our emissions and our goals

with the Israelis, even on this target. And that's true, just like the Brits and the Chinese

and the Ukrainians, they will try to bring us to their side or squeeze us lobbying our presidents

and our politicians and CIA officers to do their bidding or give them intel for using their honeypots.

And yes, the Israelis use honeypots against us and a lot of people for sure.

So my broader point folks is that when we hear about this debate or this issue of allegedly

Israel controlling our policies and us, I would sure encourage us to remember a few things

that again, no nation has friends, only interests. And at second, we can and should work with all

kinds of nations when we have shared interests. But third, be very vigilant when you work with

countries and understand that they will try to work you over to get 100% of what they want.

But that is not just Israel. That is everybody. And in this case regarding Iran,

my counsel to the president then and my offering to you is that we remain laser focused on our interests.

And again, that would include first no Iranian nukes and trying to understand that historical

program. Second, no intercontinental ballistic missile technology in Iran, no ICBMs or no long range

missiles, no Iranian navy, all because of the straight up hormones and what we're seeing this

morning economically. And no more proxy fighters out there like an especially Hezbollah. Beyond those

interests, I would argue it's not our fight. You know, when it comes to the regime change stuff,

hand the baton to the Israelis and or the Arabs and let us get back to what's in our interests,

to what the Trump administration has said over the past several months. And that is the pivot

to China and the Americans. One last thing for you this morning about Israel,

if people like Tucker Carlson and more recently Megan Kelly have made some really big and frankly

outlandish claims that are just factually and demonstrably inaccurate or frankly ill-informed about

Israel, it just shows that they have very little experience working on really tough global issues,

certainly military and intel ops. And yet I also know that both of them are quite smart.

So I have to ask myself, why are they doing it? And the answer is I don't know for sure,

but I have a few things floating around in my mind. At first, I do wonder if foreign cash is

paying them or their staff members to say this stuff. And I offer that because you might remember

about a year and a half ago, we know that Russia was giving some cash to an intermediary and

I believe it was Tennessee who then gave a bunch of money upwards of think 40 or $50,000 a month

to various conservative podcasters to say nice things about Russia.

So can we really rule that out here? No, I don't think that that would be smart. I think that's

possible. The second thing that we've talked about, certainly in the case of podcasters or influencers

like Candace Owens, is a desire for clicks and fame. I think that drives a lot of people in

so-called new media. And then we've got just sort of the good old, very sad anti-semitism. I think

that might be playing a role here at some level or some combination, all those things. I don't know,

but it's really disappointing. And it's very embarrassing to watch. And look, you can disagree and

maybe you should with Israel Netanyahu. I don't know. Yeah, that's fine. But just make sure that as

you do appreciate that every nation will try to push and lobby us. I've seen it. I've lived it

at the CIA. It is not just Israel at any rate. I hope that this response to a lot of questions I've

been getting on this helps answer some of your questions and fears and concerns. And I sure hope

you get a chance to ask follow up questions. Have any answer more on this. And to that point,

I really do look forward to more of your questions in the coming days and weeks about all kinds of

things, certainly Iran. But great questions for today, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for giving

me the chance to respond and keep up your great questions and feedback on sub-stack. I am loving it.

So more to come this week and next week, of course, more news and analysis tomorrow on the US and

other parts of the world. There has been a lot going on in the Middle East this week. But there's

a lot going on in other places too. We will tackle it tomorrow. And with that, let us gentlemen,

let us conclude this morning's episode of The Right Reports.

As always, I will see you tomorrow, God willing. Until then, I leave you with a creed of every good

spy and every wise American. Though the words from the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 32,

and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Good day.

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