Iran's Unwavering Attacks / Lt Col Daniel Davis & Col Jacques Baud

0:00The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Tell of the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. In the immediate aftermath of the opening strikes of this war between the United States and Iran, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hamani was killed, and there was hope in the White House that maybe the war would be over before it even started. But as it turns out, no, that's not the case. They eventually replaced the senior leader, the Supreme Leader, with his son, Mustafa Hamani. And for the longest time, he was not seen in public. He was not known. Statements were made only that he had been announced as the new leader.

1:03And in fact, then there became some rumors that he had actually been killed as well. And apparently, eventually, the Iranian side said that actually he wasn't killed, but he was wounded in the same strike that killed his father, Ali Hamani. But he was not seriously wounded, and he is now in charge. Now then, today, for the first time, we have a statement from him where he is vowing to avenge those who killed in the war. And by the way, just kind of a point that doesn't get much in the Western media, but I think it's really important to understand where the mentality in the mindset of this guy is, it's now in charge of whether Iran gives in, whether they keep fighting, et cetera. And that is he lost his father, his mother, his wife, one of his children, at least, and there may have been more, and one of his grandchildren, he's niece, I'm sorry, his niece. So he lost a lot of people, and he himself was wounded, and that is now the guy that's in charge. So try to figure out what this means, and where is this war going now on day 13?

2:04We have back with this today, for the first time in a while, Colonel Jacques Boe, former retired member of the Swiss Intelligence Service and former NATO officer, and man, is he always on target. And you've written so many books about the Middle East, so I'm really excited to have you on today to get your insight into what the world is going on. Welcome back to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me back into the show. Thank you very much. Well, listen, the first one in 2025 went 12 days, and the pain got so high on really all the participants, especially Israel and Iran, that they said, you know what, let's just blow the whistle, everybody get out of the pool. There was no peace, it's funny, and I'll just kind of as a side of sort of funny. President Trump said, you know, I have brought peace to the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years, he said last year. Now there is peace in the Middle East because that, or they stopped shooting. But I think that as you and I've talked about it, various points on there, there was no conclusion to the world. We just stopped shooting. None of the conditions that even were addressed much less solved. And now here we are on day 13 with no end in sight.

3:05How do you see this war unfold and so far? Well, first of all, I think President Trump sees peace in a very, very special way. I have been involved in peace talks and in peace building in many countries. Peace is something that needs to be addressed at the root causes of the conflict all the time. That's the reason why you cannot solve a problem without understanding all the root elements that brought the conflict. And that's very true for any kind of conflict, including the conflict you may have yourself personally with other people. So now the idea that because people don't shoot its peace is obviously wrong, we have I think, and I think that's something that I noticed since about 30 years, we don't know the Middle East. We cannot understand the rationale of the people.

4:06We don't understand the mentalities. We don't understand the culture. And we may, let's say, conceive that the Europeans don't know that well, but it's also surprising to see how poorly the Israeli understand their own political and geostrategic environment. They don't understand the way the Arab think, the way they understand war, the way they understand the idea of conflict, because I studied that quite in details. And I noticed that there are significant differences. It could be, in fact, very easy to solve, I mean, very easy. It's never easy to solve a problem, but it would be easier if we had, we accepted the idea that the Arab culture, I mean, the Middle East culture, I would say, have another kind of logic than we have.

5:07As an example, I mentioned this example very often, the idea of victory. You are a military, I'm a military, we have learned in our schools and military schools that to achieve victory, you have to destroy the enemy. The victory is related to the destruction of your enemy. For a Muslim, victory is not related to the destruction of the enemy. Victory is a victory on yourself. The victory is not to abandon the conflict, not to give up. That's the victory. And that's the essence, the word jihad, for instance, that we tend to translate as holy war is not, it's a wrong translation. The word jihad comes from the verb jihadda. That means to resist, to struggle. The idea is that, and I remember, I had a Muslim working for me in North Africa and he

6:10told me for us, jihad is a daily thing because it's the jihad is to resist the temptation to go outside of the path of God. This resistance to make to keep the right path towards God, this resistance is called jihad. And that's very the same for all the combatants, the combatants, what is required from him. You cannot require someone to win over a more powerful enemy. That's something that already in the 8th century or 7th century people understood. You cannot expect someone to win over a more powerful enemy. But what you can expect from your combatants is that it doesn't give up. Does it keep fighting? Does it keep the determination to fight?

7:10And keeping this determination, keeping this idea that you need to fight, fighting against against the temptation to flee away or to renounce to the config. That's exactly the jihad and that's the victory. Therefore, and that's the reason why many terrorists, for instance, they accused themselves of much more crimes that they actually did. And for them, it's not martyrdom. We tend to understand martyrdom in the West as something very mystical and like this. It's not mystical. It's just the fact that you don't give up. You keep your head straight and you keep your confront the enemy. You don't flee in front of the enemy and that's your own victory. So as opposed to us, a victory for a Muslim is a victory on himself, not over the enemy. So let me ask you then. Let's see how those two mentalities of victory and struggle are going to meet.

8:12I mean, you already have a big East West problem anyway, just in culture and everything else. But now in the realm of conflict, I think it's taken to a new level here. Gary, let's play the one that says President Trump opened. Here he was last night talking about his version of victory. We take decisive action to stop the threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran with Operation Epic Fury. Is that a great name? Well, it's only good if you win. You know, you can only and we've won. Let me say we've won. So I'm not sure what his criteria there is, but I want you to contrast that with the Iranian vision of the victory. Well, first of all, you can see that very much in the way Aleh Hamenei died. His way of making the jihad was not to have a Kalashnikov or so. His way of making the jihad was to go as usual to his office and to die in office.

9:14He was not afraid as others who would go into bankers and hide and things like this. No, that's not what he did. He went to norm to this work and he did his job. He didn't flee away. He accepted the fate of his job. And that's a typical example of jihad, of individual jihad. So, and today we have exactly the same thing. When we go to more strategic and more military issues that we have today, we know that we see that in the West, people start to have concerns regarding the duration of the conflict, the way the conflict is evolving, the economic implication with energy, supply and things like this. And for the Iranians, they have understood during the two-promise, one, two, and three, that we had in 2024, 20, 20, 25, they understood that if they have a ceasefire,

10:22some kind of cessation of, not of hostilities, but cessation of combat, I would say, right now. This combat would resume at some point, because both the Israelis and the US establishment is obsessed with the idea of Iran. Meaning that now they have understood that and they need to have what you can call a decisive victory. And this is beyond, of course, it's not just a victory for themselves, but they also need here to demonstrate their willingness and determination to go well beyond any people would go in order to achieve this victory. And what you, because we see all the, I mean, we don't see much, by the way, because of censorship, but we see all these missiles and drones that are attacking Israel and the US bases in the Middle East, but we also know that Iran, I mean, Iran,

11:27at large, is suffering quite a lot of the US and Israeli strikes. And Iranian population suffers much more. And you may also notice that despite the fact that the population suffers that much, the doesn't seem to have affected their determination to fight. And in fact, that's their way of making the jihad. No, we will not give up, we will continue. And we have to continue, because if we don't continue, that will resume at some point. And that's exactly where we are. And that in fact, Iran is somehow condemned to achieve a decisive victory over Israel and the US in some way. And that's exactly the problem, the US government and the Israeli government have put themselves in, because there is no alternative for Iran in their view.

12:28And therefore, they will not give up the conflict, they will continue, but they will also bring destruction to Israel and to the US military as much as they can. So in fact, you talk about the destruction. Gary is showing you a lot. This is some new video here. I think it's released by Senkham, a phone not mistaken. It shows a lot of the air power inside their Senkham release. It's hitting the jets all throughout, transports, and every other kind of aircraft on the ground inside of Iran. It shows it would have been taken out. This is similar to what the central commander himself showed about their navy the other day. So we are definitely just taken out, ask it after, ask it. I would like to look, though, given that, given the amount of destruction and pain that is being inflicted on Iran, there's no question about it. Of course, we could have also shown those apocalyptic scenes of the last weekend inside Tehran itself. And, you know, these massive clouds of smoke from the oil fires that have been lit, etc. But then I want to show you a pair of dueling social media posts,

13:31one by President Trump, one by President Possesky. And I don't wonder if you can kind of tell me what these two statements tell you, here just within the last day, what does it tell you about the mentality of what each side thinks about how it's going to approach this war. And then I'd like you to analyze the, what side may have the upper hand, giving mentality and the military balance. First of all, President Trump here on Truth Social, yeah, if you can put that one up there, this is from, let's see, that's yeah, that's this morning at nine o'clock in the morning. The United States is the largest oil produced in the world by far. So when the prices go up, we make a lot of money. But a far greater importance to me is President is stopping an evil empire, Iran, from having nuclear weapons and destroying the Middle East and indeed the world. I won't ever let that happen. Thank you for your attention to this matter and then that weird thing there at the end. So that's what President Trump is saying. So now that let's contrast that with Possesky and who is on the downside and who is the recipient of all that destruction that Gary just showed, talking to leaders of Russian

14:32Pakistan, I reaffirmed Iran's commitment to peace in the region. The only way to end this war, ignited by the communist regime in US, is recognizing Iran's legitimate rights, payment of reparations and firm international guarantees against future aggression. What does that tell you about how each side is approaching this war? Well, I think the West and obviously what the President Trump is saying is the rhetoric we are listening about Iran since about 40 years also. We know and that was also signed aligned by the Office of the Director of the National Intelligence last year, Tossi Gabbard who said that Iran has no nuclear weapon, has no nuclear weapon development program since 2003 and we know that it has been checked by the IAA and so there is no development of such a weapon and there is no intent and let me remind you that

15:36Ali Hamane also issued a fatwa prohibiting Iran to have a nuclear weapon. So this threat of Iran being a nuclear threat is simply wrong. Second also what Trump is saying is in the post you just showed is that Iran is a threat for the world and even for the Middle East. In fact, since the 18th century, Iran has not attacked any country in the Middle East and elsewhere by the way. We have attributed and the West has attributed some attack to the Iranian or Iranian backed militia or whatever. So we try to put the Iran everywhere. In fact, Iran is not a country that sponsors terrorism. That's also something we hear very often in the narrative. It's wrong. You have some Shi'ai movement in the Middle East. These movements were created, in fact, by the U.S. presence in Iraq because in Iraq you have a

16:43very strong Shi'ai minority. They might or may not have been supported by Iran, but those movements were resistance movements to a foreign occupation. Let me just ask a question on that because to the ears of a lot of Western American, specifically, audiences, they'll say what do you mean they're not the sponsor of terrorism? Everybody knows that is what they'll say. Is this one of those cases that you're describing right now? Okay, so one man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter. So it depends on which side of the equation you look on in terms of what they have or haven't done. This is exactly that. We define what these terrorists are not. By the way, it's interesting to see that the the the the Iranians have have defined EU air forces and navy members. I mean those I mean the all of the European navies and air force as terrorists. They have defined them as terrorists. So if you are a French pilot traveling somewhere in Iran, you could be arrested and condemned as a terrorist. Meaning that and I'm not saying this is very very wise to do such thing, but we do

17:50exactly that. What defines a terrorist? You know, we decide in the West that Hasbola, for instance, the terrorist organization or Hamas. But in fact, it's just us. The rest of the world doesn't define them like this. And even if you talk about those resistance movement in Iraq, for instance, they were not even defined as terrorists by the US as they were there because the the military, I mean the definition which is used in US army force as a terrorist includes only those groups who attack civilians. But those who attack or are fighting against a military force are not considered as terrorists. So here again, we tend that's very clear with countries like France. Anytime they have something they don't like they call it terrorists. But by doing so, we create

18:50and probably it's not the subject today to talk about this. But the problem by designing terrorists for whatever reason is that you never know exactly what kind of strategy you need to address the real terrorism. And we tend to do that. But the rest of the world doesn't consider Iran or even Iran backed rebel groups as terrorists. The Hasbola as an example is a resistance movement. Is not a terrorist organization. They never claimed to have a territory in Israel or think like that. They just want to have the Lebanese territory vacated from the Israeli forces period. And the problem is that Israel has never always left all the Lebanese the territory they occupied in Lebanon since 1982. They have vacated a lot of territory but not all of them. And the Hasbola has said,

19:58well, it's not a matter of how big this territory is or not. The Lebanese territory must remain Lebanese territory and will fight against this occupation as long as it takes. And that's the rationale for the Hasbola. They don't have any objective to fight in Tel Aviv and so but of course when they are involved in military operation with Israel, then of course you have as you have in normal combat, you have artillery fire rockets and things like this and you hit also in the depths of your enemy. But essentially, Hasbola is a resistance movement. And so when we say that Iran's sponsor terrorism, I think it's it's an abuse of words. Definitely. Iran is not and in fact the most of the terrorist that affected the West were Sunni terrorism. And and after the 911, Iran was instrumental in helping the the US to to to to chase the jihad group.

21:09Because you also have those jadi group operating within Iran. Obviously and and Iran has been and you may remember General Sulimani. It has been thanked by the US military for his cooperation with the US. So the is Iran is not a country that's sponsored terrorism. I think it's wrong. This is mere propaganda that we we we propagate here. It's it's it's not nor in the intention nor in the facts. Well, let me let me just play us another video here from President Trump yesterday who is very much going down this path and see if you can pick it up here. Here play the one that's called Trump move or more. As you know, we're doing something that nobody ever thought was possible to do. Our military is the best is the most powerful in the world and they're hitting them very hard. This is 47 years of abuse and killing lots of people killing and maiming lots of

22:13people. What is it, Peter? What board do you need to do militarily for this operation at the end? More the same and we'll see how that all comes right now. They are they've lost their navy. They've lost their efforts. They have no anti-aircraft apparatus at all. They have no radar. Their leaders are gone and we could do a lot worse. We're leaving certain things that if we take them out or we could take them out by this afternoon in fact within an hour they literally would never be able to build that country back. So he's saying again and there you know we've been taking abuse from Iran for 47 years killing people, maiming people etc. So I'm not going to ask you about two different things in that clip but we'll stay with that one first of all. Is that what you're talking about when you say how we're characterizing Iran and what they've been doing since their existence in 1979? Well that's exactly that. I mean the Iran has not been astride for the West at all. Neither for

23:18Israel nor for the West at large and in fact when they had the opportunity to do it when for instance the US attacked in Iraq. Iran remained neutral both in 1990 and 1991 and in 2003 they remained extremely neutral and they're even returned some equipment that were for instance aircraft that were where you had some Iraqi pilots who took refuge in Iran. Iran returned those planes to the Iraqis or slash US. So no Iran has not been a threat. It was and in fact for a very long time even Israel didn't consider Iran as a real threat. It started in the early 2000s before that the main enemy of Israel was Iraq and in fact in Iraq you had some Palestinian

24:20militia who took refuge there and that was the main adversary of the Israel and Iran was even considered by Israel as an ally because Iran yes was the Shi'i government country and it was almost considered by Israel as an ally in the fight against the Sunni threat if I can summarize like this and that change after the fall of Iraq then because Israel always feel that they need an enemy to achieve their national unity and and things like that and therefore once Iraq fell they they took the same enemy as the US and namely Iran but if you look objectively at the fact you have no contentious issue between Iran and Israel. I mean there have no territorial

25:22there is no territorial claims. The Jewish minority in Iran is very well treated and in fact you could see the various interviews of the Jewish community in Iran they are very happy and even they said that they would defend Iran against the Israelis because they consider Iran as their country you also may consider that Iran is the only Middle East country that that accept Jews in its army forces. So there is no real objective problem between the two countries. If that's the case then and this is a definitional issue and we're just choosing something that supports what we want to do on the ground. What about the second half of what President Trump said there in terms of where can this war go? We're going to look at both the Iranian and the American Slash Israeli side here let's start looking at the US side. Obviously all those images Gary has already been showing

26:26about the Navy, the Air Force, the ground targets. I mean everything is just the oil infrastructure, desalination plants, all kinds of things are just getting crushed inside of Iran. They lost their senior leader in the opening rounds and so but now then you see Iran is starting to fire back but President Trump said in that clip there that we're on the way to victory for sure. He said it just hours after that that we are basically winning because and he said we've taken out their Navy, we've taken out their Air Force, we've taken their Air Defense out so basically they have no choice and we could even take out more if we want to will that win the war for the United States. Well I think the President Trump is confusing the amount of destruction they are doing in Iran and achieving a victory. These are two different things especially when you consider what I said before about the jihad and you can you can see the same example with the Palestinians. The amount of destruction is not connected or correlated with the probability of achieving victory and in fact

27:34it's almost the opposite because the more destruction you bring the more incentive you create for having a jihad and that's exactly what you see. The Iranians have can certainly receive a lot of punishment from the West, from the US and from the Israelis and certainly a big amount of destruction but I'm not sure this will affect their determination to fight and they have and remember that they had years to prepare for this situation because for years we have threatened them of being attacked. In fact even we did so I mean the Israelis have attacked many times Israel in a way that Iran didn't respond because they didn't feel it was the right time to start a war but we had that in 2024, 2025. Again this is true promise for that means they have been attacked before three times and we know that each time it was Israel who started. Meaning that

28:41the Iranians have prepared themselves for years to respond in such a situation. They perfectly know the US capabilities, they know the satellite reconnaissance intelligence capabilities of both Iranians and the US. I mean the US more in the area of technical intelligence about the Israelis more like a human, human intelligence but the Iranians know perfectly that. Nevertheless they're prepared for that and that's exactly what we are seeing. They reply with those increasing powerful missiles with multiple independent reentry vehicles meaning they are extremely difficult to counter and that's exactly what we are witnessing in Israel now that the Iran dome and arrow and well David Sling is not really an issue but I mean all these

29:42and the U.S. Fad system, all this system don't seem to be very effective against the kind of missile. I'm sorry, Jacques, we got some breaking news there Gary's popping in there. Gary, do we know anything about this in terms of who may be doing this active shooter in I believe that's Michigan, right? No, it's a very fluid situation right now and it's just breaking right now so we're seeing what's we're seeing what's happening as it's unfolding here. So now this is this is complete concerning any time you have an active shooter near a synagogue obviously for the military or the religious issues but this comes on the heels just yesterday where a lot of American officials were claiming that Iranians could potentially do terrorist attacks inside of America and if this turns out to be something like that what do you foresee is that whether this does or not the claim that that's what could happen in the event that Iran tries to fight back against the United States by using sleeper sales or whatever you want to call it and by attacks inside the American

30:44farmland. First of all do you think they would do that and secondly what would be the impact if it turns out they did? Well we have to be very careful here I mean we had an attack a terrorist attack yesterday or the day before in Belgium against a synagogue and it I mean the Belgian authorities relate that to the conflict in Iran and I attribute that to some Iranian proxy. We have to be very careful with that because in fact you know it's very similar to what we have seen after the the operation in Palestine in October 2023 that means that a lot of people in Europe and elsewhere in the world are shocked by the fact that Israel and the US are constantly attacking others without being punished or without being sanctions or not even being condemned even at the UN Security Council by the way meaning that they tend to let's say try to make justice themselves and that's

31:50a very dangerous situation that's why I think we should condemn these attacks not just for the sake of condemning the US or Israel or so but also to show that we don't have a kind of the double standard when it comes to assessing an attack because that creates an incentive that you have we have much more Muslims today that we had let's say 40 years ago and today also because of the conflict we have created ourselves by the way we have a lot of people and very often people who are even a fundamentally something like this we're taking refuge in our countries you have these fixed periods with the Afghan or a Syrian people and think like that in the US but that exactly the same happens in Europe and now this this situation that we create because in fact it's always the West that attacks others and this situation creates a situation where

32:53people individuals just and I'm convinced that Iran has not decided or started anything on that this is really individual initiatives that are made by individuals who are shocked by this kind of double standard we have when it comes to an attack like this one the fact that for instance the European countries have not even condemned the attack against Iran but they have condemned the the response of Iran yes I'm going to go to that there in fact let's come to something that really surprised me a little bit you mentioned the United Nations Security Council there was a vote yesterday that was 13 to zero with two abstentions condemning Iran here is what our U.N. Ambassador Mike Walls had to say about it today they are unified they are standing together there's no disagreement amongst them and they are publicly on the world stage condemning Iran and calling

33:58them out for the indiscriminate firing in all direction of hotels resorts ports this strategy Iran has of trying to so chaos and shake our allies and even shake us in Israel is absolutely backfired you are seeing the Abraham Accords coalition standing strong and fighting back and then another piece to that Sean was China and Russia abstained they backed away they didn't stand with Iran when it really came down to it especially with the Gulf Arabs standing strong so there's enough we don't need to play the risk that one I want to stick on that because Jackie you saw the first part of what he was talking about there I'm going to I'm going to come back to the circle back to the China and Russia part but let's look at the first part where he was just like has this how the audacity of Iran to do anything in retaliation to an absolute unprovoked war that we have started the United States and Israel no matter what anybody thinks there's no one can claim anything besides that we started this in the midst of negotiations

35:01and then now here at the United Nations Security Council you have a 130 and two abstentions vote where everyone is condemning not the United States and Israel but the victim how does that it's hard for me to get my head around that well that's very interesting because in the the communicate of the Europeans just on the 1st of March as I said they condemned the reaction of Iran and they also condemned the reaction of Iran against the Middle East countries and and it's very interesting to see that President Pezashkyan has made all efforts to say to the to the to his neighbor neighboring countries that he was not fighting against the countries but only on against the military bases and the U.S. assets that are on these countries the problem is that as soon as it's they started to strike

36:07the U.S. military bases the U.S. started to dispatch the personnel into hotels and other places within the country and Iran continued to strike these hotels where you had military personnel located and that creates a situation where of course it's not just a military base that is attacked but also the the personnel in civilian areas if you want and that's something that is of course difficult to explain maybe I understand the rational from the Iranian point of view because somehow these equipment or the military assets that were in the Middle East were in fact see in some kind of centuries and they were they felt they were protected because they were

37:07in in in in countries that Iran was not initially wanting to attack like Saudi Arabia for instance and and and they felt protected but again Iran decided to go beyond this and to attack the military every wherever they are so yes it but again they have launched a war and now we have war that's the problem and the the Middle East countries who also claimed that they would prevent the use of the space to attack Iran they didn't do that so somehow they also participated in some way to the initial strike against Iran now the problem is that and this vote in the your the U.N. Security Council demonstrate how the weight of the West is is is is important because if you

38:15look at it from a very let's say objective point of view this is a terrible injustice there is no objective rational to attack Iran as we have discussed before there is no rational for that it's just that the U.S. and probably Israel felt that it would be an easy victory because by killing a few leaders they would led Iran to some kind of revolution and into some revolution or think like that and this didn't happen in fact the opposite happened and we have now even the U.S. intelligence assessed that in fact the country is extremely stable so there is a misjudgment at the very beginning of the whole issue and we we attacked Iran out of the blue we even within the negotiation process I remind and even two processes because there were a first one

39:19that was initiated in January this year under the auspices of Russia at the request of Israel to have some kind of non-aggression pact between Israel and Iran that was at the request of Israel and that was brokered by Russia and not many people are talking about that today we were kind of limited in time here and I don't want to miss a couple of opportunities there's two important things I want to talk about in the remainder of the time we have number one staying on this issue of the United Nations Security Council I have to admit that I was initially surprised at neither China nor Russia vetoed it I thought that that's what they would do but instead they abstain from it can you explain to us what might be behind why those two chose that path well I to be honest I'm surprised too I would have expected to to them to to make some kind of a deal at least so that means that on one hand because that's what happens usually in the Security Council you know it's always a kind of a negotiation and I would have expected the Russian and the

40:24Chinese to make kind of a deal to say well we have a resolution condemning the initial attack or against Iran and then okay we support the resolution against the harsh response of Iran or something like that but that's obviously not what happens so to be honest I don't have an explanation at this stage maybe the idea is that and you may have seen that in the recent days in fact all the leaders of the Middle East have called Vlandia Putin to have some kind of mediation or that some kind of advice from Russia because and that's interesting by the way that those leaders and I think that that applies to almost all leaders I mean Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait at least have called Vlandia Putin and Donald Trump apparently also

41:28meaning that Russia seems to be in the kind of the center of gravity of some kind of negotiation process in the region and probably Russia wanted to keep that possible role open and that explains probably why they didn't want to to have a very clear position and they abstained instead of vetoing the decision that's maybe an explanation it would it would seem to me that both Russia and China they certainly don't want Iran to fall and they certainly don't have any love for the West so it wouldn't seem like that they would do anything that would facilitate the West and make it easier on the West unless they got something in return do you have any sense of what that might have been even even speculatively well they may have this role as mediation because remember that apparently I mean Donald Trump called the Vlandia Putin and apparently they called

42:30they talked about this so this might be the role Russia and that would be quite a important diplomatic victory for at least Russia maybe China too but at least Russia so that might be the explanation again I don't really know the exact that's just my own interpretation but the fact of the matter is that all these Middle East leaders didn't call the EU for instance they didn't call the U.S they called Vlandia Putin and that should be also an indication of how the world is changing here because that shows and and remember that I just mentioned the case of Israel and this non-aggression pact they ask Russia to broker that not the U.S and of course the problem is that Russia is the only country that can talk to everybody I mean the U.S cannot talk

43:37to Iran I mean this is this is no longer but I mean even the EU cannot talk to Iran because they have such a very clear cut stance against Iran that they are not credible as a mediation power the Russia has this ability to talk to everybody and that's also a success of the Russian diplomacy by the way yeah and we'll see how that goes we will see what by the way I did query a Chinese expert friend of mine no Dr. Law Goldstein from Brown University and he said that one of the things at least on the Chinese part of it may have been that there's a summit planned with President Trump coming up soon and that they may have said if you want that to happen here we'll go ahead and give you your your abstention vote here but there's going to be something we're going to want on the other side there and maybe that was a quid pro quo we have to guess on that until it comes out but I want to shift now to to where this war is going to go here as I see it

44:41and I'm going to show you a sound about to support the one of my contentions on the U.S. side here but I am arguing that right now anyway the center of gravity of the conflict portion of the military conflict portion this is the Persian Gulf is the straight of Hormuz who ever can control that that controls where this war can go and when it can come to an end President Trump last night said that that's on our advantage you talked to the CEO of various oil companies there's not that one actually the one we're going to see it's happening they are pretty much at the end of the line doesn't mean we're going to end it immediately but they they are they've got no navy they've got no air force they've got no anti air traffic anything they have no systems of control we're just riding free range over that country and now we're going to look very strongly at the straits the straits are in great shape we've knocked out all of their boats

45:42they have some missiles but not very many I think we're in very good we're in very good shape now that was last night and he's saying we're in very good shape Gary's already been showing you all kinds of flaming hulks of of ships in the Gulf that are that were on flames last night of the the Gulf of or the port of it in Oman was it was in in flames also and then yeah if you can put that graphic up there the hormones graphic I mean you see here just how critical it is to to global energy I mean you see you know 172 million barrels so far have been released in strategic reserves to try and keep the price down that's not that's maybe having a damping effect but it's not stopping it and you also see 20% of the oil it goes through here and that one one gap there so first of all do you accept the the contention that that is the center gravity militarily and if that's the case who's got the upper hand well that's definitely true and in fact the Iranians have announced that before they have they have said they would

46:46block the straight of hormones if they were attacked so it nothing new there I mean I I'm even wonder why we are surprised because they have said that before now the issue is that in order to to block the straight of hormones you don't even need to have sophisticated weaponry or things like that in fact what prevents the traffic in the straight of hormones are just entrance companies because the fees are so high that it prevents and the risk is so big that in fact it just in itself it prevents the traffic through the straight of hormones and again this is attacking Iran it's exposing himself to this kind of problem and this is why I still don't understand this obsession from the US and Israel to attack the the Iranians you know Iran is a country that

47:50has always tried to get closer to the West always and it's it's also culturally a country that is very close to the to the West and it would be very easy here because there basically there is no contentious issue essentially all the contentious issues are created by the West not by Iran so it would be very easy to stop this conflict in reality the problem is that we don't want it for different reason I mean just listen to the Instagram and you have all the answers and even Donald Trump by the way when he talked that the Iranians have cut women in two and think like this I mean this is just insane allegations so what where can this go because and this is one of my operating theories and I had like your opinion too as much as you've studied military history and recent events is that what we saw with the the way that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were able to push

48:54the Russian Black Sea fleet out of Sevastopol and further back in the Black Sea because even without a Navy with technology with with drones with any ship missiles they were able to sink the muskva and they were able to force the rest of the ship to go back and now then they it's a lot more difficult for them to operate I my assessment is that the reason why we haven't forced an opening is because if we bring our Navy into range into especially if we literally bring it into the straight or into the Gulf of Oman is that we bring it into range and that we will find that we get hit too and I think that the we haven't brought it in because of that very thing there so first of all do you agree that that's the case that our Navy is a lot more vulnerable than President Trump seems to say it is and then secondly if that's the case what what what assets do we have to force an opening well I think even the US Navy officials said so that's in fact it's too risky to engage into the straight to intervene and here the difference with the Black Sea is that here the

49:59Hormuz straight is a key area in the conflict is strategic point to to for the for the conflict at large while if you look at the Ukraine the the conflict in Ukraine is on the ground not on the sea so the sea plays a role but it's it's a collateral role it's not a key role in that sense while here it's a central role because of the energy supply because of the strategic importance because also for the the Gulf countries it's a key artery for them to to to receive goods and and whatever so it's it's a central issue now I think again the the Iranians understand now they did a decisive victory and they will certainly play out the issue of the straight of Hormuz to

51:01bring the US to a position where they have to negotiate it's not that will no longer be a decision of Donald Trump that will be just a necessity for Donald Trump and I have said in other maybe on other channel that the Israel in this case had put itself into the situation of a poem in in this this issue meaning that the the striking Israel again and again is also a way to achieve some kind of pressure on the US to force them into a situation where they have to negotiate and that's exactly what the Iranians want to put them obviously this war cannot go indefinitely and certainly the potential of the US is much bigger than what has been engaged so far and probably the

52:01Iranians have also bigger resources as what has been engaged before but we understand that it cannot go indefinitely there will be a point where the the two parties will have to negotiate now the Iranians have demonstrated they they will not be the first one to ask to negotiate and in fact even if apparently Donald Trump asked them for a ceasefire the Iranians have said no there is no way we don't negotiate you have started that and will continue until it's not because you want to negotiate it's because you need to negotiate and you know and you know I'm looking at the screen right here this is the price of oil this is this is where the war started basically the day before right here it was $67 a barrel you see now this is a live version right here it's $95 and going up you see it's it's gone up 8% I think in the in the last 24 hours and it continues to take up that seems to me to be the if there's a time clock it seems to be it's that one right there

53:03so the question is going to be how long can the United States go on and maybe more to the point even not how long can the US go on how long will the Iranians side go on to be able to keep this thing closed off and not be destroyed you have many time clocks in fact because you have this one obviously it's very important one especially for the US and especially for domestic policy for the for Donald Trump because of inflation and what all that it's also very important for the Europeans because the Europeans have cut themselves for any cheap energy sources so this is a problem for the West at large but there is also something else and we cannot also forget that is the fact that Israel is under the the the is the Iranian missile and Israel will probably be destroyed completely destroyed in fact some Iranian officials have said well we are prepared to destroy

54:04completely Israel and that also create a pressure over Donald Trump so they are they're multiple pressure in fact there are probably even those people in and and you may have a similar reaction by the way with South Korea now with those sad systems that have been removed from South and people start to understand that having the US as an ally might be toxic so you have this this kind of reaction and we have already some officials I think it was in Bahrain who said to said well that's where the or friendship with the US has led us to you know they they felt that they have been dragged into a country they didn't want and so the all that will also create a pressure against the US so you have obviously the all pressure and the all energy issue you have

55:06Israel that receives every day tons of of missiles and drones and all that and that certainly affect also the the the survivability of of the country a lot and Gary if I can get you to put that that graphic of the or the MAGA polls here's here's another pressure on top of of president Trump this is heading into the midterm this is this is as of just a couple of days ago and you see on the one hand it shows his base support MAGA Republicans 90% they approve the striking grant that's no problem but heading into the midterms what is absolutely like toxic is the independence at 27% you can't win an election with just your side you have to get some percentage of the independence you know you're not going to get the opposite party so the Democrat 9% doesn't mean anything but that 27% of the independence especially the longer this goes and the more cost it has especially with oil going up in the process of everything from gasoline to groceries and

56:06anything else that's going to start causing him pressure that he's going to fear getting wiped out in the midterms not just law so with all of these these pressures you're talking about the oil price the Israeli situation and his domestic energy what does that tell you about the time frame that we have to make some kind of negotiation and how long can the Iranian side drag out this current environment well that's two things first of all that our intelligence is quite weak because we always miscalculate our operations we always underestimate the enemy and that's that happened with with the with the Ukraine that happens today here with Iran and that means that the more the more we wait the less likely we'll win in some because the Iranians are even in fact those who defend themselves they have if you can put it that way the right with them and and the West has not and and especially in the in the US with those midterms I think

57:11it would be wise from the US to deal very quickly with Iran but the problem is what kind of guarantees they can offer to Iran and that's the key point because Iran will be ready to stop the the hostilities under the condition that there will be enough guarantee that it will not resume yeah gear if you put that possession in comment back up again too that'd be great that's what he said there he said that it recognizing Iran's legitimate right payment of reparations and firm international guarantees against future aggression that's what he laid out just just yesterday exactly that's that's exactly the point you see the and and asking for reparation is is also something it's probably it's not for the reparation themselves but reparation will be an acknowledgement from the US that they did think wrong they miscalculated the whole thing and it's it's an acknowledgement in some in in some way that the Iranians are like as I said before

58:14the the Iranians will not wait until Trump wants to negotiate they will they will go as long as it take until Trump needs to negotiate that's that's where I think we are heading to and the reasons there's another aircraft carrier strike group coming in the George Bush and apparently there's some reports that there's a fourth one that may also be coming whether that's to replace or add to I don't know but would that additional amount of firepower is there it will actually regardless of all these things combined is there any path for president Trump to bring so much combat power onto Iran that he could compel them to submit and not have to wait for to be forced into that negotiation you're talking about again you are here addressing the whole issue that I explained before about the jihad the more you come we do your assets and your force and all that what you what you will do what you achieve is only to escalate the determination of the Iranians who

59:17fight but we have seen it in the recent days is precisely that where I mean everybody expected the Iranian society to to be split or to be destabilized by the attacks on the leadership in fact the opposite happened and you see even there were reports now that even some opposing opposition people who are not very keen to support the government but now they have joined the the support to the government because they feel threatened as a nation and that's exactly the we are achieving that's what I call the asymmetric thing that you you you you think that by using force you will force your adversary into a more unfavorable situation and in fact on the contrary you stimulate your enemy and your strategy backfires on you that's exactly where we are and that's what I'm sorry we're already over the time that I had for you so I don't want to

1:00:18take too much of your time but man don't want to miss this question here given what you've just said given what we have physically observed inside of Iran that that that more force will only harden their resolve even more and those clocks that you've already mentioned are all ticking in a negative direction and they're short but good friends and Trump can't just drag this out till June July or something like that I mean these are near term pressures on him right now what can he what can he do and where can this go if he doesn't give into that pressure well if he would be wise he would stop everything today he would engage into negotiation he would prepare some guarantees for the Iranians to say okay now we find a way to live in peacefully we lift all the sanctions we we try I mean that's it sounds a little bit extreme what I'm saying but in fact as I said Iran Iran is not an hostile country per se it's it was brought into the situation because

1:01:21it was threatened by the West constantly in the last 45 or 47 years or so so meaning that if we could reverse that course by saying okay we understand we will not achieve our goal that way we take the other way around we know that they have no nuclear weapons we know that they are not they did not want things to expand and to invade the rest of the world and and think like that so we we start becoming and think reasonably and that's probably the best way to achieve a result for the safety and the security of all including Israel because yeah just like we need to start thinking reasonably that's a pretty high barred across with the current leadership that we have both the United States and Israel but you know they have that what happens if we don't get it what happens if we don't act reasonably what do we see play out let's say over the next one month just keep it at that time frame well again if they don't realize this I mean in my view the

1:02:26the Iranians will not stop they are and there is no incentive for them to stop they will continue so then they have started something I mean the the US and Israel have started something now it's it's up to them to understand the situation and to understand that the other was will not stop because again you have to give them an incentive to stop and there is none so Iran will continue and the the the the higher price will be paid by Israel certainly the the the US can still strike Iran and will bring an amount of destruction there no doubt on that but that will only stimulate the Iranians and in the face of the world those who are right are the Iranians even if at the security council this was decided otherwise the the most of the world in the world understand that

1:03:32Iran was attacked and not the opposite and therefore Iran is in fact on the on the right side of history if you can put it that way they may pay also a very high price but they are ready to do it because for them it's an existential issue yeah wow well you know I wish we had it up in another half an hour I could keep going well on this but you've laid out a pretty stark picture here and the evidence is pretty hard to refute that we are in a really tough situation here with no good offram from the president because we have started as we took this path to start and we thought would be easy it wasn't now then there are no easy exits there are only hard exits and I don't know which one he's going to take but Tom is going to be against us here and especially with the economics of this shutting down the straighter hormones it's going to start to affect everybody Europe Asia the United States everybody's going to be effective this keeps dragging on do you see it any different oh absolutely and in fact those who are less affected are exactly those

1:04:35like China for instance China is affected but not as much as Europe for instance the China depends only probably for two or three percent of its oil supply from this region or from the straight of our moves so it's not significant and China can probably find alternative sources than the Middle East so again this is a miscalculated operation from A to Z and really and and when I say Z I say Z because you have to find a letter but in reality they don't even have thought about how this would end because we don't see clear objectives we don't see not even a strategy I mean if you don't have an objective you cannot have a strategy that's almost by definition and and you don't have even an exit strategy so we have the the whole thing has been miscalculated from

1:05:40yes in its entirety yeah can't argue with you there well listen before we let you go I wonder if you can give us up because a lot of our folks who follow you here very closely are really interested in your personal situation with these sanctions that have still been leveled on you individually by the European Union can you give us an update where is all that well I'm still under sanction now we just completed the application for annulment of the listing on the sanctioned list we send that to the European Union that will take a few months I guess until they have read the document and and if they accept to remove me from the sanctioned list the thing is that we the my my lawyers have clearly said that these sanctions are illegal completely illegal there's not a single point that can be understood as legal they're merely political and I remind you that

1:06:40these sanctions are in fact foreign policy measure that is applied to someone who lives inside the EU meaning that all my constitutional rights the rights that are recognized by the EU have not been respected in addition to that their my lawyers have not found a single allegation that supports the accusation of the of the the European Union so there is not a single quote from me for instance that supports the accusation of the European Union so is there anything that anybody who wants to help is there anything that can do anybody that can send a letter to you send an email to or is it running their own course all the letters you can say to the European Union will be very helpful and there is a support committee that is currently being set in Switzerland but there are legal issues because of the funding and and and think like this that have been raised

1:07:44because I mean I don't want to do to go do the specifics but for those who want to do something I mean sending letters to the EU or or think like it's probably the best way to show my as a judge Napolitano recently said in his show I am the sanctioned person the most famous in the world and that can help my case because the EU understand and you you have seen also also in the US and the current Trump administration is is fighting against censorship in the EU and the rising dictatorship and autoritarism that is raising in the EU and and my case is is a is a case in point and therefore everything people can say about it in the media and all that can help my case well we will certainly do that let's see I'm looking for something here

1:08:45there will be a few Swiss who will demonstrate in in they will come to Brussels and and demonstrate for me in front of the European Parliament and think like this so that will be probably some fun that will come with Alporns and think like this so they want to do it in a very Swiss way well listen I recommend people I just google this and just found that real quick the European union right to us this information is available here just google this uh right to the European union you'll you'll find it out right there and it'll do this a little place here where you can get your send us your question or your empty issue you have and you can write down right here free jock bow that's what we want to see because I don't want you to be the most sanctioned man in history I'd love to see you be the most former sanctioned man in history uh very soon so we appreciate you so much and we value your advice and then the information you've given here has just been just gold and man everybody in the White House should be paid a lot

1:09:48of attention to it and for right to be done we need to get you off that list thank you very much Colonel for coming on we always value your time well thank you for inviting me it's always a pleasure to be in your program thank you very much to all of you thank you very much and we will see you guys on the next episode of the Daniel Davis deep dive you know I don't try to talk into buying gold or how you had to run your stock portfolio but there is a way you can help us subscribe hit that like button and share this with somebody you love