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Ditch the clowns on the left and the jokers on the right.
And join Michael Smirconish right here in the middle.
This is the Smirconish podcast for independent minds.
From the Wall Street Journal, headline US allies work on reopening
Hormuz after Trump pressure.
The lead of the story says the UK and European Union said they were discussing options
for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway that Iran has effectively closed.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK was looking at deploying robot mind hunters.
The comments came after President Trump said that he and his team had asked seven countries
to help police the Strait.
Trump said that for any that decline, we will remember.
Admiral James Stavridis is a retired four-star US naval officer,
currently partner in Vice Chair of Carlyle,
12th Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation Board,
previously served for five years as the 12th Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
at Tufts and he led NATO in global operations from 2009 to 2013 as the 16th Supreme Allied Commander.
Admiral, welcome back, you sir are a combatant commander.
So tell me what does an operation like the administration is now contemplating look like?
It would be under US command, it would not be a NATO mission, Michael, it's important to remember
that this is beyond the the remit of a NATO operation. What this could be under is similar to what
I commanded in 2009 to 2013 just over a decade ago, the counter-piracy mission.
So think US three-star Admiral in command, in Bahrain, and that individual works for the Commander
of US Central Command, whom we've been hearing a lot about lately, Admiral Brad Cooper.
So three-star Navy Admiral Bahrain, probably a two-star British Admiral, maybe French Admiral,
the French are talking seriously about sending Charles De Gaulle, their aircraft carrier,
but a two-star probably from a European nation, and then a series of what are called Commodores,
these are commanders who have control over two or three individuals ships.
So if you think about the nations who've been approached, it's the nations who compose NATO,
but realistically, France, UK, Germany, Italy have immediately deployable ships.
It could be combined with a European Union commander, that might be the deputy,
the two-star who's currently commanding the EU forces, which are over in the Red Sea.
So you put all that together, you give them, you probably need a dozen to fifteen major
warships, you give them the kind of unmanned vehicles support that the Brits are talking about.
We also have that, we call it Task Force 59. So you put all that together, it's a maritime operation,
and you tell them, okay, go to it in the Strait of Hormuz, and the last piece of the puzzle,
Michael is, you add the minesweeping capability.
US has three lateral combat ships, the Brits have four minesweepers, the Saudis have three minesweepers,
other European nations have very good minesweeping capability.
That would be the front edge, cleared the Strait, take out the remaining Iranian resistance.
I'm painting a very simplistic picture. Every step of what I just said is fraught with
political, economic, and above all military challenge.
Admiral Stavridis, what you haven't mentioned are boots on the ground.
The USS Tripoli is headed to the Middle East, it has Marines attached on board.
What does that mean? Does it mean that there'll be some type of beach incursions so that the
shoreline is protected? If we stop and think about what US Marines do and are very good at,
they seize and control territory. Think US Marines, second world war,
you ogima, all of those kind of major operations, seizing islands across the Pacific.
It's built into the Marine DNA. So what are the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf that could
be taken? There are two to the south. Abu Musa, there's another one down to the south,
I'm sailed by all these. But the one the Marines are going to be focused on, and I'm sure are
looking at planning is of course cargyle, and that's up in the northern part of the Persian Gulf.
And it's vital, Michael, because it's the economic heart of the Iranian economy.
So I think the Marines are more likely to be used to threaten or to actually seize cargyle,
but your point is well taken. If there were individual pain points along the land,
shore, say ballistic missiles, some kind of artillery even, minesweeping facilities. Yes,
the Marines could go ashore and seize those as well. Final point, the Marines don't only use
across the beach, small crap, like you'd think of saving private, Ryan, modern version.
They also, and believe me, they prefer to go by helicopter. And the Tripoli and other ships
in the region have plenty of helicopter capability to get in the shore also.
How can you prevent against an Iranian drone or missile? Because all it would take is one from
the shoreline. Yeah, I often say to people who will point out quite correctly, and I was part of it.
In the late 1980s, we escorted ships in and out of the Arabian Gulf. One big difference,
and Michael Smirconis just drew a line under it, is cheap drones that can be thrown in massive
numbers at the task force. So how do you prevent it? Well, the ships have a variety of different
systems that can knock down drones, close-in weapons systems. They have surface-to-air missiles.
But the key to stopping the drones is not to stop the individual drone that's coming in.
That's last ditch. What you want to do is find where the drones are coming from and
destroy that facility. And even better, and this, of course, is what US Central Command is doing
overall in the campaign. You destroyed the military industrial complex. Where are they building
them? Where are they putting them together? What are the critical logistic nodes as they are
transported? Where are they fueled? Where does that fuel come from? You understand that supply chain
that ends up with a drone hitting your ship. You reverse engineer it and you kill it. That's
easier said than done. But that's how you would protect against. And here's one other
interesting, almost ironic factor in the anti-drone war. Who's the best in the world that's
fighting drones right now? Well, that would be Ukraine because they've been doing it now for four
years plus. So the Ukrainians are in the midst of gearing up to provide additional anti-drone
technology and capability. They built little drones that are even cheaper than the Iranian drones
to knock down the Iranian-style drones. And they've been doing that because Iran has been supplying
these bigger drones to Russia for years. The Ukrainians know a lot, the Ukrainians know a lot
about that. I hope they quickly are brought into the fight here. From the Washington Post, Admiral
Stavridis, this is the Smirconish podcast from Sirius XM. When a trip to the hospital or pharmacy
leads to a bill no one saw coming. We're here to help. Your health insurance provider is working
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Syria's XM channel 124 and anytime on the Syria's XM app from the Washington Post Admiral
Stavridis. After two weeks of war against Iran, President Trump may soon be ready to declare victory,
but he confronts a challenge. Tehran also gets a vote and what follows is then a big picture
assessment of where things stand in a very base sense. Are we winning?
We are winning militarily in that the quad pack of objectives that the administration has
sort of settled on after moving around on a couple different fronts in terms of messaging,
but the quad pack is destroy their navy, destroy their ballistic missile capability, take out their
Iranian guard, their militias, and get after the remaining nuclear program, which I think
really boils down at this minute to their their stash of enriched uranium. Three out of those four
are basically shattered at this point. They can still launch some drones, they can still launch
some ballistic missiles, but we haven't gotten after the nuclear material. That's a very tough
nut to crack. So put all that together, I think militarily the campaign is like an eight out of
ten, maybe even a nine out of ten. There have been some some terrible mistakes that the
tragic attack on the girl school. We've had some two air refuelers perhaps have both had significant
damage when crash was lost 14, 13, 14 people. So yeah, there are tragic mistakes and missteps
here, but the campaign is somewhere between an eight or nine out of ten. That's the good news.
The bad news is overall the strategic campaign of taking down the regime of keeping the
straight of four moves open, ensuring Iran cannot continue to conduct mischief all around the
region. The Houthis are still in the field. It's not going as well, and I think that's the
dilemma that President Trump is wrestling with. He'd love to disengage from this war. He doesn't
have a signature accomplishment in it as yet. Two final questions for Admiral Stavridis. One,
do you see parallels? This this may seem like a foolish analogy, but it popped into my head,
and I told the audience I would ask you, any analogy between the Soviets in 79 in Afghanistan
and what's going on with the U.S. in Iran, insofar as it was an asymmetric battle. Here was the big
bad Russian bear coming into a force that was not so sophisticated, and yet was able over time
just to hang on and endure and finally cause the Soviets to give up. Yes, and we're in the midst
of March madness. You know the expression, hang around the hoop. Just continue to throw up
whatever you can. Engage, show you're not defeated, and sometimes an opponent will just
peter out and lose interest and walk away. The other obvious analogy, Michael, is you know this
is Vietnam. The big bad Russian bear, how about the big grand American eagle? We the big countries
get bogged down, and because it means so much more to the people of that nation than it does to
the big Russian bear, the big American eagle, the big Chinese dragon. Great powers have vast
interests, and when challenged hard in a small place, they can lose interest and walk away,
and I'll conclude with this. The third and obvious parallel is Afghanistan, where the United
States dominated Afghanistan militarily for two decades, and then finally, the Taliban were able
to using essentially asymmetric warfare with their flip flops and their AK-47s and their
hit and run tactics were able to cause us ultimately to lose interest and walk away. We need
to be careful not to let that happen here, and that doesn't mean getting bogged down in a huge
land war, but it does mean completing additional objectives, open the straight of our moves, figure
out how to get that control over that radioactive material. I think those are the two big ones on
the table. Final question, different subject, it pertains to military spending. Three or four days
ago, headline from CNN, use it or lose it, Pentagon spending binge set record in final days.
I'm sure you saw the stories. They talk about king crab and lobster tails and steaks.
What can you educate in two minutes or less about military spending, the Pentagon budget,
and why a situation like this arises? It arises every single year. At the end of the given fiscal
year, there's typically a challenge because it's almost impossible to manage $900 billion, the
largest organizational budget in the world full stop of one entity controlled by a single chain
of command. It's almost impossible, I'd say impossible, to manage that down to really small units.
So you do end up in some cases with shortages of funding and in some cases, surpluses,
and it's then incumbent upon the individual commanders down at the allocation levels in these
budgets to ensure that they're not spending it in ways that that strike an off note such as
you saw in that article. At the end of the day, if that article had said, and they scooped up all
that last minute money and they spent it on 22 additional standard missiles or Tomahawk missiles
or rebuilt a barracks in Washington state, that would be okay. An article like that hits the same
way you and I are old enough to remember the $250 hammers and all of this is of a piece. It's just
the size, scope, and scale of that budget makes it understandably very difficult, doesn't excuse
mistakes, but it shows more attention needs to be put on the Pentagon's inability to complete
and a simple audit. This is a pretty example of why that is. I thought it was a $70 toilet seat,
but your recollection is probably probably better than mine. No, no, it's both. It's both. You can
Google, Google both toilet seat and hammer and Pentagon, and I think you'll get an outrageous
story on both of them. Admiral, thank you. As always, we really value you and your contribution.
My pleasure, Michael. Talks in. Bye bye. Have a good day. Admiral James Stavridis is a former
Supreme Allied commander of NATO at Stavridis J or Admiral Stav. I was just on the website today.
Admiral Stav dot com. Admiral Stav dot com. You know today's poll question at sporkanish.com.
Are we winning the war? Are we winning the war? You heard his answer militarily. He gives it an
eight or a nine out of 10, destroying their navy, their ballistic missiles, the Iranian guard,
hopefully getting our arms wrapped around the enriched uranium. But of course, there's the whole
political side and what if they can just hang on like the Vietnamese or the Afghans, either in
79 when it was the Russians or post 9-11 when it was the United States asymmetric warfare,
sort of words of the day or the words of our time. This is the smorkanish podcast from Sirius
Behind every healthcare statistic is a person's face paying the price. Big pharma just
increased the prices of 350 drugs. Hospital monopolies are marking up procedures by 300 percent.
The drug companies and hospitals set healthcare prices and they're too high.
America's health insurers are on the side of people working hard to negotiate costs down and
make healthcare work better for everyone. We see more than numbers. We see you.
United Health Group is simplifying healthcare by investing in tools to help patients know more
and pay less. These tools help patients find providers and compare costs and save hundreds of
dollars annually. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment.
Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports and nothing brings us together
quite like team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBC Universal's iconic story telling
to the innovative technology across Xfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to
America, sharing every moment with millions. When team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not
just watching. We're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast,
Proud Partner of Team USA.
David Boyz is one of the nation's brightest, most prominent trial lawyers. His client list crosses
the political divide. You remember that in 2000, he represented vice president Al Gore before
the Supreme Court in Bush v Gore. Later, he teamed up with conservative attorney Ted Olsen,
always a great guest on this program. We miss him. A former solicitor general under president
George W. Bush to challenge California's same sex marriage ban. He's also represented major
blue chip corporations like IBM and Oracle in high stakes commercial litigation. He's here today
because he just published an essay in the Wall Street Journal under the headline partisanship
on Iran is dangerous for America. It's a must read. Counselor, thank you so much for being here.
Before I even get into the thesis, I'm curious, what was the epiphany moment that caused you to say,
I need to write and to submit this to the Wall Street Journal?
I think it was shortly after the war started. I saw the divide
breaking down on a partisan basis. I was concerned that people who opposed president Trump
and who opposed this administration were not looking at the war on the merits. They were looking at
it as us against them kind of moment where we were criticizing people because they were
criticizing actions because they were being taken by people that we opposed. And I thought that
this was too important an issue not to try to come together where people who did believe that the
war was necessary. The ought to support it regardless of whether they generally supported
President Trump or not, regardless of whether they particularly admired President Trump or not.
This was a time where Americans had to focus on what was right for America, not what was right for
their particular political affiliation. And why do you perceive that it is right for America?
I think it's a very complicated issue. I think war always is. I think you have to begin with
a proposition. Do you believe it's acceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons and the capacity
to deliver them to American cities? Every American president, a Republican or Democrat for the last
three or four decades, has said that it's not acceptable. I think the evidence is very strong and
I think we've seen some of that in this war that Iran's capacity to deliver weapons was rapidly advancing
that three or four years from now may be less. There are missile capacity, the ballistic missile
capacity, that now allows them to hit their neighbors, would allow them to hit London and Paris,
and perhaps New York and Miami. I think that as you saw that ability to deliver weapons increased
so rapidly. And you knew that they were very close. And we've said this for years. They were
very close to developing a nuclear bomb. They could do it in a matter certainly a month, some people
say a week, some people say days. And even if they hadn't didn't have a nuclear weapon, they could
load bomb with the so-called dirty bomb, which is not a nuclear device, but it contains radio
activity. If one of those hit one of our cities or hit one of our European allies cities, it would
cause enormous devastation. This is a regime that has said death to America. And it's not just
words. They've carried out terrorism as far as they could. Now that's been because of limitations
in terms of their capacity to deliver weapons. That's been limited to the Middle East. But as
their capacity to deliver weapons has increased, they become a danger not only to our allies,
but to our homeland. I think it's important for people who are evaluating David Boy's opinion
to appreciate and understand that you're typically not on the same page as the president.
Will you expand on that? I think that's fair. I think that on most issues, certainly most domestic
issues, I have been opposed to the administration's policies. I believe many of them are seriously
misguided. I think that they undercut a lot of the principles that both parties have adhered
to over time. I think some of his people that he has appointed have not reflected the character
of this country. I think that some of his appointments, we've seen an abandonment of science.
Although, in decades ago, I was Ted Kennedy's chief counsel. I'm very disappointed with a lot of
RFK Jr. has done at the health department. I think a lot of what's going on here in dangers
people's health in this country. I think in dangers, a lot of other things.
But I think that we only have one president at a time. I think that it's particularly important
that we support the president when we can. I think it's particularly important in this country
that has become as divided as it is, that we look for ways to work together. I mean, Ted Olson and I
disagreed on a lot of stuff. But when we agreed, we worked together and we were very close friends.
He was somebody who I miss not only professionally, but I miss personally.
He was, he was a wonder, this won't surprise you. He was also a wonderful radio guest.
From your words in the Wall Street Journal, quote, those of us who generally oppose Mr. Trump,
but who recognize the threat Iran poses need to support the military action, not because we owe
anything to Mr. Trump, but because we owe it to ourselves, our country, and our children.
If we oppose the war and succeeded in pressuring Mr. Trump to curtail it before the mission is
accomplished, we would have the satisfaction of defeating someone we generally oppose, which might
help ourselves politically, but America would be worse for it. What has been the reaction to what
David Boyz published on this issue from those that you were trying to reach, those meaning who
typically oppose Trump, but you were trying to say to them, this transcends the issue.
I think it's been mixed. I think there are a number of people who have, you know, said to me
or a longtime Democrat, you've opposed President Trump in the last election. You can't be happy
with some of the things he's done. How could you support him? But I think a majority of the people
that have reached out to me. And of course, that's not a good sample because the people that reach
out to you generally are people that are a little supportive of you. But there's been a very, very
large, positive response to it as well. So this is thoroughly unscientific, but Saturdays when I
host a program on CNN, there's every day, but Saturday in particular, there's a poll question
of the day revolving around the day's news and you inspired Saturday's question. I don't know if
David Boyz will appreciate or think that I got right the way I boiled it down to a sentence,
a fragment, but I ask this should opinions on the war in Iran transcend one's view of President
Trump. Let me stop there. Do you think that's a fair summation of what you were trying to get
I think that's a very fair statement. Okay. So 66,220 and typically our vote results come from a
left of center direction. I was surprised 63.99% of more than 66,000 who voted not scientific because
I don't control who's voting. But nevertheless, 63.99% agreed with that statement. And I've been
taking calls on today's program in furtherance of this. I was heartened by that because like you,
I think there are issues that transcend the here and now of are you for or against this person
and the wrote response to Trump both from those who are detractors and those who are devotional
I find frustrating. I do too and I think it's a reflection of how divided this country is.
And as I say in the article, I think I think the Republicans bear certainly their large share
of the responsibility for this kind of divisiveness. You'll recall at the beginning of the Obama
administration, the Republican Senate, George leader Mitch McConnell said his job was to make
Barack Obama one term president. I think when you approach people trying to attack them because
of their political affiliation as opposed to their ideas of what they want to do,
you begin to undermine the kind of country this has been. I mean, when I grew up, people were
proud to say, I vote for the man, not the party. Now in those days, the presidential candidates
were always men. And I think that reflected a sense that we want to work together when we can.
We may disagree with somebody seven times out of ten, but those three times when we don't disagree
with them, we ought to be trying to work with them for this country. And I think that's particularly
true when you talk about international affairs. I think it's particularly true that when we're talking
about our national security, we need to focus on what we think is right for this country, regardless
of who is out of getting it. You saw the Republicans condemn Bill Clinton for what they call
nation-building and then George W. Bush came in and undertook the greatest nation-building attempt
in probably our history. So we've got a history, unfortunately, over the last few decades of abandoning
the sense that we try to work together on where we agree. We fight, we disagree vigorously
when we do disagree. But when we agree, we historically have, and I think, need to try to work
together. I think you stated accurately in the journal piece, the truth of the veracity of our
division used to end at the water's edge that was never entirely correct. And Jeff Greenfield
wrote about that several years ago and pointed out that if you look at the data, it's when we're
attacked Pearl Harbor, September 11th, that yes, then we unite. So we do have our division and
we've already, we've always had our division. In the journal piece, the argument that I
thought that you made that should most resonate with Trump's detractors is that if this doesn't
resolve well, when a Democrat succeeds him, she or he is going to have to deal with Iran again.
Every American president over the last 30 years has left his successor with a more dangerous
Iran and a more complicated problem to solve. Because every American president has, by not
stopping Iran, has enabled Iran to get stronger. And the stronger Iran is, the more difficult it is
to diminish its capacity to attack the United States. And I think that one of the things that
regardless of whether you supported him or support him, one of the things I think you have to
recognize is that President Trump has done the right thing here and it was not easy.
This is a president who does not like war. I don't think any president likes war. But I think
President Trump particularly doesn't want war. War undermines the things that he really wants to do.
And I think you saw that in his first administration. I think you've seen that in the in the rhetoric
here. He likes to negotiate. He likes to threaten. He likes to force people to do things.
I mean, take in Venezuela. He tried to change the administration by taking out President Maduro,
but he didn't want to invade the country. He didn't want to undertake a large bombing campaign
with the potential for civilian casualties. This is a decision. He didn't come too easily. And it's not
a political, the good decision for him. He recognizes that. The administration recognizes that.
So it was a difficult decision. And if you, as I do, believe it was a necessary decision,
I think it's important to give him support. And if you look historically, as I say in the paper,
we particularly unite when our homeland is attacked. But if you take the instance of the Korean war,
President Truman undertook a very unpopular defense of South Korea, something that I think
people in retrospect believe was critically important in terms of stopping the spread of communism.
That was unpopular. It probably prevented him from running for re-election.
But you didn't find the opposition broken down about party lines.
There were Republicans as well as Democrats that supported what he was doing. And there were
Republicans and Democrats that opposed what he was doing. But I think that the key difference there
is that we weren't broken down so clearly on partisan lines. And that permitted him to finish the
job. Can I say, I think you're, you've made a more articulate case for what the administration
is doing than has the administration. So that's why I appreciate it. When an independent voice
comes along and studies something as complicated as this and reduces it to writing, it catches my
eye. And I know it interests our listeners and viewers. So thank you, David Boyz, for what you
wrote. And for the privilege of speaking to you about it today, I really appreciate it.
Well, thank you. It's been good to talk to you. I appreciate your approach to this.
I appreciate people who are trying to talk about the issues on the merits.
Thank you for saying that. Appreciate it. David Boyz, ladies and gentlemen, the piece.
It's already been linked at smurconish.com. Partisanship on Iran is dangerous for America. That's
the headline. Trump is doing the right thing for the US. And we Democrats should judge the war
on the merits. That's the sub headline for the essay.
When a trip to the hospital or pharmacy leads to a bill, no one saw coming. We're here to help.
Your health insurance provider is working every day with hospitals and drug companies,
so families can get the care they need at prices they can afford. That's why we're investing
in new technologies that make care easier to access, more predictable, and more affordable.
Helping bring down high hospital and prescription drug prices. There's more to do and we'll
continue fighting for you. Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports.
And nothing brings us together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games.
From NBC Universal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across
Exfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America,
sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage,
we're not just watching. We're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team.
Comcast, proud partner of Team USA.
The Smerconish Podcast
