Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
Speaker 1: Hillsdale Hillsdale dot ed or. I encourage you to take
Speaker 1: advantage of the many free online courses there, and of
Speaker 1: course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of them
Speaker 1: at HU for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple,
Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale So America.
Speaker 2: I asked promise.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Kareem Sajafor of the Carnegie Endowment. Kareem
Speaker 1: is one of the belt Ways genuine experts on the
Speaker 1: Islamic Republic of Iran, and he has been tutoring me
Speaker 1: for at least a decade. A mutual friend introduced us
Speaker 1: over dinner when I moved back to Washington in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Had the occasion since then to get up meet with
Speaker 1: him a couple of times and dig deep into the
Speaker 1: Islamic Republic.
Speaker 2: And boy, you're in demand right now. Kareem.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's good to see you. Thank you
Speaker 1: for doing this. I know how busy you must be
Speaker 1: right now. Is the phone just ringing constantly off the hook?
Speaker 3: It is indeed a very busy time, and I appreciate
Speaker 3: you inviting me.
Speaker 2: Back to well welcome back.
Speaker 1: Can we start by alerting the audience telling me background.
Speaker 1: You went to the University of Michigan. We're going to
Speaker 1: overlook that here at Ohio State Headquarters. But tell them
Speaker 1: your background and how you came to specialize and all
Speaker 1: things here on.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 3: So, I was born in the United States, but my
Speaker 3: parents were originally from Iran.
Speaker 4: They immigrated to the United States.
Speaker 3: Most Iranian families in the United States came here nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine or shortly thereafter when they were nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: nine revolution happened, but my parents had immigrated to the
Speaker 3: United States a decade prior to that, and so my
Speaker 3: father was a neurologist. We grew up mostly in Michigan.
Speaker 3: I went to University of Michigan and Arbor. I played soccer.
Speaker 3: The first person I met in freshman orientation was Tom
Speaker 3: Brady friendship, which in hindsight, I should have cultivated. And
Speaker 3: you know I lived. I grew up speaking Persian in
Speaker 3: our kitchen. I call it kitchen Persian. I wasn't formally
Speaker 3: schooled in it, but I grew up with English in Persian,
Speaker 3: and then I spent several years living abroad in college
Speaker 3: and even in high school, I spent a year living
Speaker 3: in Mexico. I lived in college in Italy. I wasn't
Speaker 3: really interested in the Middle East until I felt that
Speaker 3: things started to change in your own politically. It looked
Speaker 3: like there was a political opening in the late nineteen nineties,
Speaker 3: and so I started to I went to After undergrad,
Speaker 3: I went to graduate school at the Johns Hopkins School
Speaker 3: of Advance International Studies. I focused on the Middle East,
Speaker 3: and the first week of my grad school, nine to
Speaker 3: eleven happened, and so that was when it was obviously
Speaker 3: very clear to me that I wanted to dedicate my
Speaker 3: career to this topic. And Hewett, had you asked me
Speaker 3: in two thousand and one whether the running regime would
Speaker 3: look the way it does today, I would have said, no,
Speaker 3: it looked like your own even back then was a
Speaker 3: country which was on the CUSCOP change. And so I
Speaker 3: was based in Tehran with an organization called the International
Speaker 3: Crisis Group.
Speaker 4: I was based there for several.
Speaker 3: Years until I was nearly imprisoned. I was one of
Speaker 3: the first of the dual nationals that they warned, you know,
Speaker 3: I came back to the United States, and I hated
Speaker 3: that warning. I didn't go back to your own. But
Speaker 3: many of my friends, perhaps more than a dozen, tried
Speaker 3: to go back to your own and they spent time
Speaker 3: in prison.
Speaker 4: And so for the last two.
Speaker 3: Decades now, I've I've been focused on Iran at the
Speaker 3: Carnegie Down for International Peace. I'm a contributing writer at
Speaker 3: The Atlantic, and I teach at Georgetown University.
Speaker 1: So grim I've told my audience many times, I watched
Speaker 1: the Iranian Revolution unfold on a couch in the Western
Speaker 1: White House with exiled Richard Nixon and Ray Price. We
Speaker 1: were the writers. The former president was doing the book
Speaker 1: The Real War, and we'd watch every afternoon because the
Speaker 1: news would come on three hours earlier, and we saw
Speaker 1: the revolution unfold in real time. Where were you when
Speaker 1: the revolution unfolded?
Speaker 4: So I was a young boy.
Speaker 3: I was born late nineteen seventy six, so I was
Speaker 3: just about two years old when the revolution was happening
Speaker 3: in the state of Michigan. And you know, it obviously
Speaker 3: impacted our lives in different ways. So much of our
Speaker 3: extended family had to flee Iran. All of them had
Speaker 3: ben and Iran, and our home in Michigan was kind
Speaker 3: of the safe harbor for many of them. So they
Speaker 3: fled Iran and they would come to stay with us
Speaker 3: and Michigan for period until they were able to kind
Speaker 3: of resettle elsewhere. And I think in my parents said
Speaker 3: they probably thought maybe the one day they would go
Speaker 3: back to Iran. But then when the revolution happened, you know,
Speaker 3: we stayed in the United States, and my father was
Speaker 3: someone who he was a neurologist, but he was someone
Speaker 3: who we loved the United States, deeply patriotic American, but
Speaker 3: he also loved his heritage and his culture.
Speaker 4: That duality was very much part of our.
Speaker 3: Childhood that we used to always tell us, you know,
Speaker 3: you guys live in the best country in the world,
Speaker 3: in the United States. But he was so proud of
Speaker 3: his heritage and Persian poetry and culture, which is so
Speaker 3: rich because it's you know, it's got twenty five hundred
Speaker 3: plus years of history.
Speaker 1: I've only had one other diaspora member on that hadn't
Speaker 1: been Talablue from FDD.
Speaker 2: I neglected to.
Speaker 1: Ask him how varied is the Iranian diaspora, Does the
Speaker 1: regime have any supporters within it, and has it become
Speaker 1: increasingly militant about making a change in Iran?
Speaker 3: The regime has virtually no support among the certainly the
Speaker 3: diaspora in the United States.
Speaker 4: When polling is done, I think you.
Speaker 3: Probably see less than one percent support because if you're
Speaker 3: a supporter of the regime, you know want you live
Speaker 3: in Iran, you don't want to be in the United States.
Speaker 3: And I think for many years there's been not really
Speaker 3: a diversity of opinion when it comes to people's desired
Speaker 3: endgame in Iran.
Speaker 4: Among the dads for Ironians, even.
Speaker 3: Outside the United States, I would say, vast, vast majority
Speaker 3: of your Oroonians want to see some form of secular democracy.
Speaker 4: I think the debates have been.
Speaker 3: About the means to get there, and whether, for example,
Speaker 3: economic sanctions is a viable or useful tool to try
Speaker 3: to reach that end of secular democracy, whether military action
Speaker 3: is a means that people would accept to get to
Speaker 3: that endgame.
Speaker 4: And obviously the.
Speaker 3: Last month the events in Iran, I think have really
Speaker 3: altered that debate. Whereas one month ago, two months ago,
Speaker 3: probably those who supported some type of US military action
Speaker 3: inside Iran were in the minority, I would argue now,
Speaker 3: and I haven't seen polling, so I'm not This isn't scientific,
Speaker 3: but just anecdotal. My guess is that the majority of
Speaker 3: those who are in the diaspora would like to see
Speaker 3: President Trump make good on his work. President Trump threatened
Speaker 3: on eight occasions that if you're on killed protesters, the
Speaker 3: United States was ready to protect them and take action.
Speaker 3: And obviously the Runan regime drove a giant truck through
Speaker 3: President Trump's redline. They killed as many as thirty thousand protesters.
Speaker 3: And so I think both with an Iran among the
Speaker 3: protesters and in the diaspora, I would say there's probably
Speaker 3: a majority consensus, a majority support for some type of
Speaker 3: US action.
Speaker 1: Kareem, Were you shocked by the level of barbarity that
Speaker 1: the regime employed in the last three weeks. I was
Speaker 1: one of those eight occasions where the President said help
Speaker 1: is on the way. Cape Marching takeover. He was very
Speaker 1: adamant that we are going to help. So I think
Speaker 1: we are going to help. But were you shocked by
Speaker 1: the level to which violence they descended. It's just Bobby
Speaker 1: are nineteen forty one match part thirty three thousand Jews
Speaker 1: in Ukraine by the advancing Nazis. There hasn't been anything
Speaker 1: like this since that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Hugh, I wasn't terribly shocked by the brutality of
Speaker 3: the regime because at the end of the day, this
Speaker 3: is a regime which has no friends in the world.
Speaker 3: They have no great plan b. So, in contrast to
Speaker 3: the SHAW, who didn't want to use a lot of
Speaker 3: violence against people to stay in power, and both the
Speaker 3: SHAW and all of its political and military elites, many
Speaker 3: of them were educated in the United States and Europe.
Speaker 3: They spoke foreign languages and so they could remake their
Speaker 3: lives and Los Angeles or London. But the elites of
Speaker 3: the Islamic Republic and Natola Harmony himself have provincial backgrounds.
Speaker 3: They are not people who are are worldly. This is
Speaker 3: a regime which is virtually friendless. You know, it's long
Speaker 3: time allies, like I said, regime in Syria, Maduro government
Speaker 3: in Venezuela. Those guys have been deposed or they're out.
Speaker 3: They have partnerships with countries like China and Russia, but
Speaker 3: those are not secure partnerships, and so for that reason,
Speaker 3: they have a killer be killed mentality. And unfortunately, I
Speaker 3: wasn't terribly surprised that they were willing to employ that
Speaker 3: kind of brutality to stay in power, because you know
Speaker 3: what I say about this regime, and iula homony in
Speaker 3: particular is that they're homicidal, but they're not suicidal. What's
Speaker 3: paramount for them is to stay in power, and so
Speaker 3: that applies here when I don't want to preempt your questions,
Speaker 3: but you know, as they're facing potentially existential threat from
Speaker 3: the United States right.
Speaker 1: Now a minute and a half to break correct, what
Speaker 1: are the spectrum of collapses underway for the people who
Speaker 1: are actually living there. They're not part of the regime.
Speaker 1: They're Persian, they're running just trying to get along. What
Speaker 1: do they con with right now? One minute?
Speaker 3: So this is a regime which is politically, economically, and
Speaker 3: socially authoritarian. Every aspects of people's lives are disrupted because
Speaker 3: they're living under a totalitarian dictatorship that polices their personal lives.
Speaker 3: There's routine power outages, water shortages, and I think people
Speaker 3: are just so exhausted from this reality. Is the most
Speaker 3: sanctioned country in the world, and I think people are
Speaker 3: desperate for a transition from an ideological regime to a
Speaker 3: nation state, the government that prioritizes economic and national.
Speaker 4: Interests before revolutionary ideology.
Speaker 1: I will be right back with Kurama Japur of the
Speaker 1: Carnegie Endowment right after these messages Police State, welcome back
Speaker 1: in America. I'm Hugh you at Kareem zad Japur is
Speaker 1: the equal of any Iranian analysts in the United States.
Speaker 1: He is, of course, very very much in demand right now,
Speaker 1: and I thank him for making time for the program
Speaker 1: today on the Sale News channel on the Salem Radio Network.
Speaker 1: Kareem can the regime? Is it possible it would just
Speaker 1: collapse without outside pressure in the Pharma military force given
Speaker 1: the spectrum of failure as we talked about, you.
Speaker 3: Know, anything is possible with these dictatorships here.
Speaker 4: There's an old line.
Speaker 3: That all dictatorships look good until the last five minutes.
Speaker 3: Any of these authoritarian regimes that look so strong before,
Speaker 3: you know, collapse fairly abruptly. So it's my view that
Speaker 3: even if the United States doesn't take military action, this
Speaker 3: is a regime which is this current status quo in
Speaker 3: Iran is not tenable.
Speaker 1: So there's one hundred and fifty thousand members of the
Speaker 1: Iranian Revolutionary guardcore, tens of thousands more in the besiege.
Speaker 1: They're paramilitary, para police thugs. What about the Iranian military
Speaker 1: it's ordinary military. Is it radicalized as well, or is
Speaker 1: it a military military like the American military.
Speaker 3: So the military is a conscript military, so it reflects
Speaker 3: the Iranian society. I have one kind of personal anecdote
Speaker 3: about that. Years ago, when I was living in Tehran,
Speaker 3: I went with a group of friends to the Caspian
Speaker 3: Sea and I saw there was some military folks from
Speaker 3: the regular army conscript army who were just kind of
Speaker 3: walking down walking along the shore of the Caspian Sea.
Speaker 4: And I initially kind of.
Speaker 3: You know, when you see military folks, especially revolutionary guards
Speaker 3: and passiege and you're on especially back then, you would
Speaker 3: freeze and hesitate a little bit. And my friends kind
Speaker 3: of continued as they were, including a young woman who
Speaker 3: wasn't properly covering her hair, and I looked at them
Speaker 3: and they said, no, don't worry about it. These guys
Speaker 3: are These guys are for the money that one of us,
Speaker 3: you know, from the army. The way there is lonal
Speaker 3: Republic has managed the regular army is that obviously the
Speaker 3: top commanders have been hand picked by the regime, so
Speaker 3: up until now they've always been loyal. But the body
Speaker 3: of that military are reflective of Iranian society at large,
Speaker 3: and I would suspect for the most part, deeply unsatisfied
Speaker 3: with the status quo, deeply unsatisfied with their lives.
Speaker 1: So that takes me to my question about if there
Speaker 1: is a military action, what should the United States target
Speaker 1: and what shouldn't they target? And I'll follow naturally should
Speaker 1: they leave the regular Iranian military alone?
Speaker 3: Listen, I don't want to pretend to like I'm a
Speaker 3: military expert, and I obviously haven't. What we've learned from
Speaker 3: so many of US military actions over the last two
Speaker 3: decades in the Middle East, including in the Iraq and Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: so much of it is the execution, and to our credit,
Speaker 3: to our military's credit, they've done in an exceptionally good job,
Speaker 3: oftentimes with execution.
Speaker 4: But on first the question of.
Speaker 3: Whether to target the regular army, it would seem to
Speaker 3: me that would be a bad idea because, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: this is a conscript army for the most part and
Speaker 3: reflective Iranian society, and you don't want anarchy, you don't
Speaker 3: want total disorder. We saw what happened in Iraq when
Speaker 3: the Bathist army was disbanded, and I think everyone fears
Speaker 3: that possibility of anarchy. So I think you would want
Speaker 3: the regular army to remain intact.
Speaker 1: Would you want if the United States strikes, what would
Speaker 1: you like them to strike in what order? I know
Speaker 1: you're not a military expert, but everybody is talking about this.
Speaker 1: Adaal Montgomery gave me a very long target list yesterday.
Speaker 1: But you're the fellow who studies the country. What do
Speaker 1: you think might bring regime collapse closer?
Speaker 4: So let me say a couple of things here.
Speaker 3: One is that one of the things I would have
Speaker 3: liked to have seen happened already in fact early days
Speaker 3: and the protests would have been to lift this iron
Speaker 3: iron curtain that the regime has subjected people to. They've
Speaker 3: cut off Internet, satellite connections, they've cut out cellular connections,
Speaker 3: and connectivity of the country has been about one percent,
Speaker 3: So they've slaughtered people in the dark. So to the
Speaker 3: extent we have capabilities, whether it's kinetic or cyber capabilities,
Speaker 3: to tear down that digital.
Speaker 4: Iron wall, that might be, that's very very important.
Speaker 3: Even if that means, for example, because the regime has
Speaker 3: their own intranet, their state television is functioning okay, their
Speaker 3: officials are doing TV interviews broadcast to the United States,
Speaker 3: and so in some ways, you know, one one option
Speaker 3: is to take out their Internet systems, so then they
Speaker 3: have to plug into to to the system that everyone
Speaker 3: else uses. So that that's one thing that I would
Speaker 3: have liked to have seen happen already. Second is, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, the organs of repression in youron whether that's
Speaker 3: a command and could roll out posts of the revolutionary Guards.
Speaker 3: I think that there's Raelis will certainly want to target
Speaker 3: their their their missile stock well, because Iran is a
Speaker 3: country which you really can't control its own skies right now,
Speaker 3: and you would want to prevent them from from replenishing
Speaker 3: their missile capacity. Then we start to get into much
Speaker 3: more sensitive questions and obviously the most sense of the
Speaker 3: one arguably, I think that the current the Trump administration
Speaker 3: is probably debating as we speak, is whether to target
Speaker 3: the Supreme Leader. And you know, I've spoken to folks
Speaker 3: who served and the first Trump administration who are still
Speaker 3: close to this one, who believed that if military action
Speaker 3: is taken, they are likely to target the Supreme Leader
Speaker 3: eighty six year old al Alia comedy the Only Notes
Speaker 3: of Caution, And you I think that you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to claim to speak for people inside Iran,
Speaker 3: but I think most protesters, those who took to the
Speaker 3: streets again the regime, welcome some kind of military action.
Speaker 3: The only note of caution I'd make coquere is that
Speaker 3: we know historically that when authoritarian regimes collapse or when
Speaker 3: they transition, about four out of five times they unfortunately
Speaker 3: don't transition to democracy.
Speaker 4: About four out of five.
Speaker 3: Times they transfer, they transition to another form of authoritarian regime.
Speaker 3: Soviet Union is a good example of that. We went
Speaker 3: from Soviet Union to Putin's Russia. The Iran in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine is a good example of that. We went
Speaker 3: from the shaw to the Islamic Republic. So I'm not
Speaker 3: making the argument that military action can transition Iran to Denmark.
Speaker 3: But I think what people want to see, as I
Speaker 3: suggested from the asset, they want to see a government
Speaker 3: that is a national government that puts the economic and
Speaker 3: national interests of the nation first, not death to America
Speaker 3: and death to Israel. They want to an government whose
Speaker 3: ethos is long livey wrong.
Speaker 1: So, Sadia Poor, where do you place the probability now
Speaker 1: of a military strike by the United States on Iran,
Speaker 1: And do you have any fear that Iran will take
Speaker 1: a first preemptive strike on, for example, Israel in the
Speaker 1: Gulf oil fields, in the GCC countries.
Speaker 3: No, I'm skeptical that they will try to take preemptive
Speaker 3: action because, as I said, this is a regime which
Speaker 3: is homicidal, not suicidal.
Speaker 4: And right now the.
Speaker 3: United States has convened some of the most elite facets
Speaker 3: of the American military, whether that's warships or fighter jets,
Speaker 3: and I'm skeptical that they will want to.
Speaker 4: Test President Trump. Given President Trump's history.
Speaker 3: With your own you have to remember you, and you
Speaker 3: remember it better than anyone. Twenty eighteen, Trump pulled out
Speaker 3: of the nuclear deal. Twenty twenty, assassinated busts some Sulaimani,
Speaker 3: you're on some military commander. Last summer, he dropped bunker
Speaker 3: busters on Iran's nuclear program.
Speaker 4: In each of these cases, people feared that it could
Speaker 4: be World War three.
Speaker 3: And in each of these cases, I think President Trump
Speaker 3: feels that his decisions were vindicated. So I don't think
Speaker 3: he fears Iran, especially now that they don't control their
Speaker 3: own skies. He thinks they're a paper tiger. So I
Speaker 3: would argue that the likelihood of him acting again, I
Speaker 3: would say is perhaps six seven out of ten.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Kareem zadupor don't go anywhere America.
Speaker 1: Very rare you get an expert like this, So listen
Speaker 1: very closely to what he has to say.
Speaker 2: He stay tuned to the Huhwit Show. Welcome back in America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt spending this hour with Kareem Masajapoor.
Speaker 2: He's the first generation of American.
Speaker 1: His parents emigrated from Iran ten years before the revolution,
Speaker 1: and he knows the diaspora, and he studies this at
Speaker 1: the Carnegie Endowment. He's much in demand right now, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time Kareem.
Speaker 2: Iran only hard tarreancy comes from oil.
Speaker 1: It is exported from cars Island and from two other
Speaker 1: oil terminals. There's a debate among people that I read
Speaker 1: and listen to as to whether or not the United
Speaker 1: States and its allies ought to target those facilities in
Speaker 1: order to impoverish the IRGC and the Ayatola and his cronies.
Speaker 2: What do you think.
Speaker 3: My sense here is, and if the President has alluded
Speaker 3: to this, that the kind of template or strategy they
Speaker 3: have in mind is similar to the Venezuela playbook, which
Speaker 3: was essentially economic stranglehold, and you know, going after oil exports,
Speaker 3: going up to these ghost fleets of oil ships. And
Speaker 3: my sense is that that is a more likely outcome
Speaker 3: than going after bombing Iranian oil installations or refiners, which
Speaker 3: you know, could cause real economic devastation to the population.
Speaker 3: But obviously in the Venezeul strategy that that strategy of
Speaker 3: you know, economic stranglehold was a prelude to what became
Speaker 3: a political decapitation. And I do think that, you know,
Speaker 3: based on what the president is said publicly about it.
Speaker 3: I told a homony, calling him a sick man. I
Speaker 3: told it, Homedy. We know from from you know, FBI
Speaker 3: statements that Iran has been trying to assassinate President Trump
Speaker 3: during the ten uere of President Biden. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: my sense is that you will see more likely this
Speaker 3: kind of major economic stranglehold and the.
Speaker 4: Hopes that that will lead to.
Speaker 3: Either Iran capitulating or some kind of action to force
Speaker 3: political change in your.
Speaker 1: Own now, kareem, after thirty to forty thousand people have
Speaker 1: been mowed down in the streets and the becasion. Revolutionary
Speaker 1: guard are going to the hospitals and shooting people and
Speaker 1: the bodies are left on the sidewalk with little we have.
Speaker 2: Is horrific. That's gotten out.
Speaker 1: What the can Is it even fair to expect the
Speaker 1: Iranian straight to rise up a second time after that
Speaker 1: kind of a devastating blow from the regime.
Speaker 3: It's not likely in the immediate term, because people are
Speaker 3: in retreat, you know, they're just in shock. And as
Speaker 3: I mentioned from the outset, their communication ability is very limited,
Speaker 3: given how the regime has throddled the internet and satellite
Speaker 3: television and cellul their communication, and so I think they're
Speaker 3: in retreat. But as I point out to people here,
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventy nine revolution was a thirteen month process
Speaker 3: and essentially began in January seventy eight, and Jomini didn't
Speaker 3: arrive in Tehran until February nineteen seventy nine, and so
Speaker 3: we're only really one month into this process. And it's
Speaker 3: it's strongly my view that whatever the United States chooses
Speaker 3: to do, Iran is a country on the cusp of
Speaker 3: some kind of transformation, because, as I said, not only
Speaker 3: the society has realized, but even within the regime. They've
Speaker 3: realized that this status quo is not tenable.
Speaker 1: Krim, How are they even eating that commerce in and
Speaker 1: out of the country is down to nothing, The real
Speaker 1: is worth nothing. I don't know what the farmers are doing.
Speaker 1: Why are the reports you're able to get on the
Speaker 1: quality of life for the average lower to low class
Speaker 1: individual in terms of income?
Speaker 2: It must be horrific.
Speaker 3: It is horrific because the middle class has been totally decimated.
Speaker 3: The currency has been totally decimated, and it's there's no
Speaker 3: rock bottom. It keeps sinking. I'm sure others have pointed out,
Speaker 3: and you show that the Iranian currency visa VI the
Speaker 3: US dollar has depreciated something like ninety nine point nine
Speaker 3: percent from nineteen seventy nine to the present. So people
Speaker 3: are scraping to get by. And what we oftentimes see, Hugh,
Speaker 3: is only what's happening in Tehran. But you know, perhaps
Speaker 3: only a quarter or so of the runnings live in
Speaker 3: the capitol, and I think both the economic devastation and
Speaker 3: the brutality is much greater in the places that we
Speaker 3: don't see with the same frequency as we see Tehran.
Speaker 1: Last question before this break, and then one more question.
Speaker 1: Do the people believe any of the theology that the
Speaker 1: Iatolas put forward Koreem or have they just view it
Speaker 1: as words.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I think it's very similar to late eighties Soviet Union,
Speaker 3: in which not only within the society but within the regime,
Speaker 3: you have very few true believers left.
Speaker 4: In the system.
Speaker 3: In fact, a friend of mine who was a professor
Speaker 3: in Tehron said, at the beginning of the revolution, the
Speaker 3: regime was eighty percent idiologues and twenty percent Charlatans, and
Speaker 3: now it's the reverse. Only perhaps even within the regime
Speaker 3: only twenty percent true believers. So in society, I would
Speaker 3: say it's even less to that.
Speaker 1: I'll be back with one more segment with Kareem Sajapur.
Speaker 1: You can follow them on actually at k Sajipur, and
Speaker 1: you can read them in the Atlantic. You've got a
Speaker 1: great new piece in the current Atlantic as well as
Speaker 1: at the Karnegie Endowment. Stay tuned, Welcome back in America.
Speaker 2: I'm hughe Hewett.
Speaker 1: I wanted to save the most delicate issue for the
Speaker 1: last Kareem, which is the role of Israel in anycoming
Speaker 1: conflict between the United States and Iran National Security advisor
Speaker 1: the equivalent of National Security advisor in Iran said, if
Speaker 1: there's any conflict with the United States, we're throwing everything
Speaker 1: we got at Israel. What do you expect their role
Speaker 1: to be? What do you want their role to be?
Speaker 1: Does their participation make it more or less difficult to
Speaker 1: topple the regime?
Speaker 3: Well, Israel obviously showed over the last couple of years
Speaker 3: that militarily they're far superior to Iran, even though Iran
Speaker 3: is seventy five times larger as a nation state.
Speaker 4: And so it was Israel which paved.
Speaker 3: The way for the United States to take action because
Speaker 3: they took out Iran's air defenses. And going back to
Speaker 3: what I said earlier, Hugh about restoring connectivity in Iran,
Speaker 3: you know, if Israel, which has a very sophisticated cyber capability,
Speaker 3: but Israel was able to help restore connectivity within Iran,
Speaker 3: I think it's something that would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 4: But they have.
Speaker 3: Because they're within missile range of Iran and it's a
Speaker 3: much smaller country, things are much more delicate for them.
Speaker 3: And so that's why that's among the many reasons why
Speaker 3: you have a huge US presence now in the region
Speaker 3: and everyone is on alert because ultimately Iranian missiles are
Speaker 3: not going to reach the US home land, but they
Speaker 3: could indeed go after Israel and cause some real damage.
Speaker 1: So kareem to wrap everybody in DC talks to you
Speaker 1: about this. So I'm just curious, off the record, what
Speaker 1: did the other countries in the region not named Israel
Speaker 1: in the United States, Key, Saudi Arabia, the United Ara
Speaker 1: memorates got her. What do they want to see happen?
Speaker 1: Do they want this regime to stay there? It seems
Speaker 1: like it's an endless source of woes for a region
Speaker 1: that ought to be booming.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the only country, major country in
Speaker 3: the world which benefits from keeping the is Lomar Republic
Speaker 3: iround is Russia because as long as Iran is isolated,
Speaker 3: it can't exploit its vast natural gas and oil reserves.
Speaker 3: It doesn't compete with Russia as it should in global
Speaker 3: energy markets. It's a thorn in the society of the
Speaker 3: United States. It can't compete with Russia and its historic
Speaker 3: sphere of influence Central Asia. Obviously, you know, smaller countries
Speaker 3: like North Korea like to keep it around as well,
Speaker 3: but the regional countries, I don't think any of them
Speaker 3: like the status quo of a country on their border
Speaker 3: that is so deeply ideological and destabilizing. But a lot
Speaker 3: of them, for various reasons, worry about conflict. They worry
Speaker 3: that they be retaliated against in the case of our
Speaker 3: golf partners in said Arabia and the UE, the country
Speaker 3: like Turkey worries about chaos that could spill over refugees
Speaker 3: into their territory. So everyone is watching this very carefully.
Speaker 3: But I think most of those regional countries, if they
Speaker 3: could push a button and have a clean transition to
Speaker 3: a nationalist government in Iran rather than an ideological government
Speaker 3: in Iran, I think the vast majority of them would
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: And is there any worry on your part that Iran
Speaker 1: is play sleeper shelves In the United States? They sent
Speaker 1: people to assassinate people here before. They've tried to kill
Speaker 1: President Trump. We know that, But what about a widespread
Speaker 1: has the law or related network.
Speaker 2: Have you got concerns there?
Speaker 3: I'm not too worried about that in the United States.
Speaker 3: In Europe they have carried out operations and usually here
Speaker 3: it's not Iranian nationals that are doing that. They pay
Speaker 3: European Russian criminal gangs or Pakistan any radicals to carry
Speaker 3: out these activities. So that is, you know, certainly a possibility,
Speaker 3: but at the moment, you know, I think that given
Speaker 3: how the news is tightening around their neck, and as
Speaker 3: you mentioned from the outset, even the Europeans that prescribe
Speaker 3: them their Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, I don't
Speaker 3: think the first instinct is to want to create even
Speaker 3: more problems for themselves.
Speaker 1: Very last question, what is the ceiling? We know it's
Speaker 1: hit rock bottom and they keep digging a hole into
Speaker 1: which they can fall off the floor. What's the ceiling
Speaker 1: for Iran if they were run by even a minimally
Speaker 1: competent nationalist government.
Speaker 3: That's a wonderful question, and it is something which I
Speaker 3: think is obviously in the US national interest. Kissinger once
Speaker 3: said there are few nations in the world with whom
Speaker 3: in the United States, and the United States has more common
Speaker 3: interests and less reason to world than Iran. And it's
Speaker 3: my view that given Iran's enormous human capital, it's enormous
Speaker 3: natural resources, it's rich history, this should be a G
Speaker 3: twenty nation. It should be you know, Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
Speaker 3: ar G twenty nations. Iran should be in that category.
Speaker 3: You know, in nineteen seventy eight q Iran's GDP was
Speaker 3: are on the same level as Spain in South Korea.
Speaker 3: You see where those countries are now and where Iran
Speaker 3: is now, and it just shows you what a profound
Speaker 3: difference leadership makes. And I do believe that this country,
Speaker 3: once it has proper leadership, it could have one of
Speaker 3: the highest growth rates in the coming years.
Speaker 1: And I have bonus question does the United Nations contribute
Speaker 1: anything to Iran? Are they are they protecting world historic sites?
Speaker 1: Are they doing any kind of relief? Have they been
Speaker 1: any help at all in Iran?
Speaker 3: Not terribly when it comes to the politics. You know,
Speaker 3: Uron used to have a large Afghan refugee presence and
Speaker 3: so United Nations UNHCR was helpful there. And I do
Speaker 3: want to give a shout out to the new head
Speaker 3: of UNHCR, the former president of Rock But I'msali was
Speaker 3: a brilliant and wonderful guy. But to your question, National
Speaker 3: Geographic Magazine once called Iran the world's first superpower, and
Speaker 3: so there are enormous, amazing historic sites in Iran and
Speaker 3: it will be hopefully one day soon a great destination
Speaker 3: for Western and American tourists.
Speaker 1: I hope you are right, Kareem Sajipor. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining me for this extended period of time. I'll continue
Speaker 1: to read and follow you on axtly. You can do that,
Speaker 1: by the way, America at k Sajipor you cannot miss it.
Speaker 1: And his new article in the Atlantic is not to
Speaker 1: be missed as well. One of those experts that you
Speaker 1: can really trust on everything having to do with Iran.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Kareem. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt.
Speaker 1: Lucas Tomlinson is one of the best war correspondents I know.
Speaker 1: You go abroad wherever Fox News send him. Seen him
Speaker 1: a lot in Israel. Recently, though, I was on this
Speaker 1: and he beamed in from Greenland, and I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: I've never had a guest from Greenland before. He's back, Lucas,
Speaker 1: welcome to the u UH Show. When were you in
Speaker 1: Greenland and what did you find out when you were there?
Speaker 5: Well, Hugh, thanks for having me. I just got back
Speaker 5: last night. I spent a week on the ground in
Speaker 5: Greenland when things were getting a little serious about people
Speaker 5: thinking that President Trump might use military means to take Greenland.
Speaker 5: Of course, At the World Economic Forum in Davos, President
Speaker 5: Trump walked that back, said he has no intention of
Speaker 5: using force, but the Danish government to controls Greenland, they
Speaker 5: were a little nervous about it. You know, they spend
Speaker 5: about six hundred million dollars a year on Greenland territory
Speaker 5: that they have possessed. It's been in the Danish realm
Speaker 5: since the eighteenth century. Boat's notable Hugh Denmark has a
Speaker 5: population of just six million people. That's about twice the
Speaker 5: population of Brooklyn. To control an area of Greenland that
Speaker 5: is three times the size of Texas, he had a
Speaker 5: pop elation that could fit into the seats of any
Speaker 5: NFL stadium, just fifty seven thousand people. It's very strategic.
Speaker 5: You've been hearing President Trump many others talk about the
Speaker 5: importance of the Arctic. The President wants to deploy the
Speaker 5: Golden Dome there. As you know right now, US missile
Speaker 5: defense it's pretty limited. Just forty four interceptors in Fork Greally, Alaska,
Speaker 5: and just four interceptor missiles Vanderberg Space four space in
Speaker 5: Santa Barbara, California. Maybe not far from where you are
Speaker 5: right now. That's just an intercept a rogue ballistic missile
Speaker 5: from Iran or North Korea. There's no system in place
Speaker 5: to be able to handle a large scale nuclear missiles
Speaker 5: straight from Russia China. Also, what missile defense experts tell
Speaker 5: me with Golden Dome is that other targets would be
Speaker 5: in play, hypersonic missiles, drones, cruise missiles. That is why
Speaker 5: President Trump wants to deploy the Golden Dome there. Of course,
Speaker 5: when you're at the top of the Earth above the
Speaker 5: Arctic Circle, it's two thirds of Greenland is it's a
Speaker 5: much shorter distance from Russia and to any targets in
Speaker 5: the United States. So that's why President Trump thinks Greenland
Speaker 5: is so important and why he wants to expand the
Speaker 5: US military presidence there. Today, there's less than two hundred
Speaker 5: troops at one single US Space Force space in Patufic
Speaker 5: that was about nine or and thirty miles north of
Speaker 5: the capital of Nuke where I was. It's the same
Speaker 5: distance from la to Seattle View.
Speaker 1: Now, Lucas you were in Greenland for a week, I
Speaker 1: assume you got to talk to a lot of the
Speaker 1: native Greenland theres more than ninety percent of Greenlanders are anyway,
Speaker 1: What do.
Speaker 2: They think about that?
Speaker 1: I'm sure you probably talked all fifty seven thousand in
Speaker 1: a week.
Speaker 2: What do they think about this?
Speaker 5: A lot of the Inuits, the natives, even many of
Speaker 5: the Danes I spoke to Hugh, they just want to
Speaker 5: be left alone. Now, a majority of Greenlanders, Greenlanders as
Speaker 5: they refer to themselves, they want to be left alone.
Speaker 5: They do want to be independent, though they are not
Speaker 5: wild about you know the Danes who they live under.
Speaker 5: You know the Danes. You know, it's a welfare state.
Speaker 5: They spend about six hundred million dollars US a year
Speaker 5: for Greenland to take care of the education, uh, you know,
Speaker 5: police hospitals. It's about twenty percent of their GDP comes
Speaker 5: from Denmark. But many of the people I spoke to
Speaker 5: not only they want to be independent, they really want
Speaker 5: to be left alone.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 5: They were not used to the media attention, as you
Speaker 5: can imagine. They're really it's a a territory of hunters
Speaker 5: and gatherers. I mean they hunt polar bear seals. You know,
Speaker 5: muskox might have to google that one, and.
Speaker 2: I have no idea what that is.
Speaker 5: It's a giant ox, big hairy beast in essence, and
Speaker 5: I actually enjoyed some reindeer meat muskos. I ate raw
Speaker 5: seal liver at a market.
Speaker 1: If you're wondering, as he correspondent, look, by the way,
Speaker 1: do they have a costco?
Speaker 5: No costco in Greenland?
Speaker 2: How about job.
Speaker 5: No trader Joe's. I'm not going to local little grocery
Speaker 5: stores of the whale. I had a little bit of
Speaker 5: whale the norwall, a popular delicacy up there to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want to be around when a narwal
Speaker 1: comes through the ice. Tell me, look at at least
Speaker 1: I read. That's what I read an endurance, the book
Speaker 1: about a Shackles Shackleton. Yeah, tell me about how you
Speaker 1: were received your big time. I don't know if they
Speaker 1: get cable. I don't know if they watch Fox News.
Speaker 1: They've seen you in Israel when the bombs are coming down?
Speaker 1: Did they know who you are?
Speaker 2: Do they watch Fox News?
Speaker 6: Some dude?
Speaker 5: But I was notable that when the Greenland's Prime minister
Speaker 5: held a press conference, he was almost doing the Joe
Speaker 5: Biden routine. He was going down a prepared list. I
Speaker 5: noticed CNN got the first question and then he was
Speaker 5: going on and on down his list. I'm like, wait
Speaker 5: a minute, I traveled all the way here from Washington.
Speaker 5: I'm getting a question at this press conference. I moved
Speaker 5: my seat and he looked up at one point and
Speaker 5: called to me, which was very nice. I saw I
Speaker 5: could ask him if you would welcome who white? Question
Speaker 5: should welcome a great Yeah? My question was, would you
Speaker 5: welcome a greater with the military presence in Greenland? Would
Speaker 5: you welcome the Golden Dome? As you can imagine. A
Speaker 5: very diplomatic answer, he said, it's discussions he'd love to have.
Speaker 5: He didn't rule it out. You know, it's notable. A
Speaker 5: nineteen fifty one treaty between then President Truman and Denmark says,
Speaker 5: you know, the US military can have a presence, there's
Speaker 5: no limit on that. At the height of the Cold
Speaker 5: War Queue there were ten thousand US troops stationed in Greenland.
Speaker 5: And I don't know if you ever heard of Project
Speaker 5: Ice Swarm, but it was a plan to bury thousands
Speaker 5: of nuclear missiles under the ice in Greenland. It was
Speaker 5: never completed, but it was worked on for years.
Speaker 2: That's doctor Strange love stuff tell me.
Speaker 1: Is the military base that has ten thousand people still
Speaker 1: got the barracks that they still have the infrastructure or
Speaker 1: all the pipes frozen and burst.
Speaker 5: Pipes frozen in burst. There's ten thousand troops. At the
Speaker 5: height of the Cold War was spread out over seventeen bases.
Speaker 5: Today Q there's just one. It's that Betuf Space Force
Speaker 5: Space in the far north, the high north of Greenland.
Speaker 1: How many how many towns of size do they have?
Speaker 1: Lucas and I consider a town to be five thousand
Speaker 1: to ten thousand people.
Speaker 5: Just a handful nuke is about thirty thousand residents. About
Speaker 5: half the territory lives in the capital. They refer to
Speaker 5: settlements as anything, you know, eight hundred and fifty or less.
Speaker 5: They have dozens of those, but they do not have
Speaker 5: many big cities. You can imagine. In fact, some of
Speaker 5: the settlements to the north they're only supplied, you know,
Speaker 5: a few times a year. And you can imagine anything
Speaker 5: even coming into the capital has to come aboard ship.
Speaker 5: Very little come from the.
Speaker 2: Air, of course.
Speaker 1: Looks, have you packed your bags for israel I?
Speaker 7: Have you know?
Speaker 5: I told my boss, my bureau chief, that I'm ready
Speaker 5: to deploy to the Middle East. He goes, why don't
Speaker 5: you get back from Greenland first? And then we'll talk.
Speaker 1: But would it just be Israel or would you possibly
Speaker 1: go to uae Bahrain cut her. Do you have any
Speaker 1: idea where you'd be.
Speaker 5: I would prefer, you know, Israel would be great, of course,
Speaker 5: I would prefer to the Middle East, because if we
Speaker 5: do see action in Iran and the government where to
Speaker 5: break down, it might be a good time to get
Speaker 5: into the country.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're a young man. Might be a good
Speaker 2: time to be careful of.
Speaker 1: Lucas Tomlinson, you're a friend and it's you're very kind
Speaker 1: to come on and give.
Speaker 2: Us the first person report from Greenland.
Speaker 1: Lucas Tomlinson, you can find him on X I think
Speaker 1: if Lucas Fox News on X.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Lucas. I'll be right back in America State Tune.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to kick it off with former United States
Speaker 1: Senator Jim Talent. He represented the state of Missouri. He's
Speaker 1: now a senior Fellow at the Reagan Institute for the
Speaker 1: Study of Peace through Strength. Senator Talent, we were talking
Speaker 1: off there about Admiral Montgomery yesterday, who was fabulous. But
Speaker 1: you're you've been in the defense business as long as
Speaker 1: he has. Do you think we are on the cusp
Speaker 1: of a very violent war.
Speaker 7: Well, I wouldn't call him. I mean all war is violent.
Speaker 7: I think I think we're we're on the cusp of
Speaker 7: a campaign that will be a much more campaign sustained
Speaker 7: campaign than we had to do to take out their
Speaker 7: nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 6: I heard Mark.
Speaker 7: Say ten to twelve days, which to me seems about right,
Speaker 7: because there's two objectives here.
Speaker 6: The first is to enforce.
Speaker 7: Our red line and thereby enhance our credibility in the
Speaker 7: Middle East and around the world. President's going to do
Speaker 7: that beyond a shadow of it out. The second is
Speaker 7: to further degrade Iran's ability to aggress against its neighbors
Speaker 7: and destabilize the region, which is against our national interest. Again,
Speaker 7: if you read the national security strategy, so the logical
Speaker 7: thing to take out is their missile capabilities and the
Speaker 7: anti air systems that protect them to the extent those
Speaker 7: are still left. And in order to do that job, well,
Speaker 7: it takes a lot of soorties.
Speaker 6: You're not going to do that today.
Speaker 7: So one interesting question which Mark talked about is whether
Speaker 7: the Israelis are going to join in. I would love
Speaker 7: to be a fly on the wall when Trump is
Speaker 7: talking with Netniew about that.
Speaker 1: What do you think the preference of the president is.
Speaker 1: I think he would prefer that they not, But I
Speaker 1: don't think he's going to hold him back if one
Speaker 1: missile is shot at.
Speaker 6: Them, right.
Speaker 7: Look you well, with regard to the Israelis, it's a
Speaker 7: complicated question. I mean because Israel has moved from a
Speaker 7: containment policy in the region to a preemption policy in
Speaker 7: the region, and Netyaho has been very, very decisive about
Speaker 7: doing that, and I think he's got the Israeli people
Speaker 7: behind him, so the Israelis can send the message here too.
Speaker 7: I mean, in the past they've tried to do hands
Speaker 7: off on this sort of thing because they felt more
Speaker 7: vulnerable in the region. If he joins in, I think
Speaker 7: it's a good way of sending the message. Look, we're
Speaker 7: the hedge amount of the region and we're going to
Speaker 7: act like it when our security is at stake. So
Speaker 7: I think they ought to do it. I think Admiral
Speaker 7: Montgomery was right go ahead and join in.
Speaker 1: I was with a client back in my law practice
Speaker 1: days in Nevada, big swinger, Jewish man, big sport of Israel.
Speaker 1: When Israel did not respond to Saddam's scuds, and he
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. I was in his office. He could
Speaker 1: not believe that they were not responding. But of course
Speaker 1: Secretary Baker and George H. W. Bush asked them not
Speaker 1: to respond. I don't think Donald Trump's in the business
Speaker 1: of asking people not to respond if they want to.
Speaker 7: And I think President Trump adjusts better to changes in
Speaker 7: a strategic in strategic positioning. In other words, in the past,
Speaker 7: Israel has acted sometimes like they can't act, they can't
Speaker 7: be a normal do what a normal nation would do
Speaker 7: in a normal situation, Okay, which is to take advantage
Speaker 7: of this to attack and degrade their chief aggressor. I
Speaker 7: think the Israelis are done with that, and I think
Speaker 7: Trump is fine with it. Trump is not burdened by
Speaker 7: thirty or forty years of assumptions about the Middle East.
Speaker 7: I mean, he's rethinking the region, He's rethought it, and
Speaker 7: I just think, to look, anybody.
Speaker 6: Else in Israel's position, with Israel's.
Speaker 7: Power, would join us in this attack, and so I'd
Speaker 7: like to see him do it now.
Speaker 6: Again, there are a.
Speaker 7: Whole lot of factors working that you and I don't
Speaker 7: know about, So maybe they won't. But we're certainly going
Speaker 7: to use their intel, particularly if we go after command
Speaker 7: and control with the IRGC, They're going to tell us
Speaker 7: where everybody is.
Speaker 1: Would you expect any of the Golf Coordinating Council countries
Speaker 1: to join in?
Speaker 7: No, accepted defensively. When the Iranians respond and you, I
Speaker 7: would reassure people, we're very good at this kind of
Speaker 7: mission when we have time to build up, to plan,
Speaker 7: and when the environment is basically noncompetitive. I mean, this
Speaker 7: is not the South China Sea right where there are
Speaker 7: thousands and thousands and thousands of anti ship cruise of
Speaker 7: ballistic missiles along the coast of China. This is a
Speaker 7: basically uncompetitive environment. We're good at this, and so I'm
Speaker 7: not saying that we can't take any casualties, but I
Speaker 7: feel pretty confident in our force protection package.
Speaker 1: Jim, you and I are the same as here. I
Speaker 1: think you can remember the build up to the nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one war, which kicked off I think on March
Speaker 1: one or thereabouts nineteen ninety one, and the projections of
Speaker 1: the dead on our team on our side was going
Speaker 1: to be in the five digits and people were horrified
Speaker 1: at that, but it was going to be five digits.
Speaker 1: Men lost their lives, but it was in the hundreds.
Speaker 1: It might not even been over one hundred. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: In the Panama Canal invasion in nineteen ninety one, we
Speaker 1: lost twenty three some soldiers were killed on Heartbreak Ridge
Speaker 1: in Granada. And then when the two thousand and three
Speaker 1: invasion happened, we thought chemical weapons and everything was going
Speaker 1: to rain down on our trips and didn't happen. Do
Speaker 1: you think the false premise of four wars with relatively
Speaker 1: low casualties as Americans complacent about the risk our troops
Speaker 1: face right now?
Speaker 7: Well, we had a couple of wars after that, you
Speaker 7: where unfortunately we took a lot of casualties, so relatively speaking,
Speaker 7: compared to those other engagements, we took a lot of casualties.
Speaker 6: So no, I think people are worried.
Speaker 7: I think Donald Trump is uniquely reluctant to use American
Speaker 7: military power in a sustained combat type situation. Now I
Speaker 7: don't know what we'd call ten twelve, fourteen days all
Speaker 7: that sustained. So this is a president I think who
Speaker 7: uniquely and sometimes I worry about it. Sometimes I think
Speaker 7: maybe he's too reluctant. So We're not going to go
Speaker 7: in until we're ready, until we have in place what
Speaker 7: we need to protect our people as much as they
Speaker 7: can be protected. That's why I say I have a
Speaker 7: fair amount of confidence. I mean, you never know with war,
Speaker 7: and he's got to pull the trigger. It's just a
Speaker 7: question now of when. And I've been saying this on
Speaker 7: the show and on the pod now for the better
Speaker 7: part of a month, so I should be careful, but
Speaker 7: I've got to believe it's going to be soon.
Speaker 1: The podcast that center Talon is referring to a Twain's
Speaker 1: World on which he appears every week when Dwayne gets
Speaker 1: together with the Senator, and it's great national security stuff.
Speaker 1: What do you expect follows a sustained campaign, even if
Speaker 1: it's two weeks more Mula's more IRGC or perhaps a
Speaker 1: different military general. And the way that CC took power
Speaker 1: back from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Speaker 7: Well, I heard one of I think it was Dan
Speaker 7: Senor's Interviewees. You know, he has so many good ones.
Speaker 7: I can't remember exactly which one, but he said, the
Speaker 7: next leader of Iran is not going to be wearing
Speaker 7: a turbine. He's going to be wearing a military cap
Speaker 7: and I would really expect that when it happens. I
Speaker 7: don't think we should necessarily expect that to happen as
Speaker 7: a result of this campaign, though, because I don't think
Speaker 7: the purpose of it is to achieve regime collapse. What
Speaker 7: I would expect we'll do after that is really go
Speaker 7: after their oil shipments, their shadow oil fleet. I think
Speaker 7: that's a better alternative than carg Island, which you've talked about.
Speaker 6: You because we don't want to cripple the nation.
Speaker 7: We want to cripple the regime, and you can do
Speaker 7: that by going after their oil ship and so, assuming
Speaker 7: we have the assets to do it, we can do
Speaker 7: to them what we're doing to Venezuela now and choke
Speaker 7: off revenue further from the regime.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they are in touch with the
Speaker 1: reality enough to know what happens where they do inflec
Speaker 1: serious casualties on American troops And I mean, if they
Speaker 1: got a destroyer, I think Donald Trump would go through
Speaker 1: the roof.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 7: You I think this is the collapse and they're going
Speaker 7: to be very This is kind of like Hitler and
Speaker 7: the Bunkers. What I think I mean, this is the
Speaker 7: collapse of all their ideological and scatological pretensions, I think,
Speaker 7: and they'll be desperate to do anything to prevent it.
Speaker 7: And the question is, which the Israelis may know I
Speaker 7: don't know, is are there regime factions that are drawing
Speaker 7: back from that kind of a scorched earth policy, who
Speaker 7: will act if necessary. I think they've been waiting for
Speaker 7: the Supreme Leader to die, which makes sense. I mean,
Speaker 7: that's the time for a transition to something new. So,
Speaker 7: but are there forces that are prepared to say at
Speaker 7: some point, no, you know what, We're going to hurry
Speaker 7: that along. You know, we'll bring a pillow to his
Speaker 7: bedside in the bunker and we'll get changed before that.
Speaker 7: And I don't know. I don't know that anybody knows.
Speaker 7: If anybody knew, it would be the Israelis.
Speaker 2: I'm watching his son.
Speaker 1: His son is a master that fortune of many, many
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars outside of the country. And
Speaker 1: that's not the action of a confident next in line
Speaker 1: supreme leg is it.
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 7: And I've got to believe that there are people close
Speaker 7: to him who aren't quite as willing to die as
Speaker 7: he may be. I mean, there's a limit to how
Speaker 7: much you know the top leader is one thing or
Speaker 7: the people immediately around him. But I've never thought that
Speaker 7: that when you broad it out to the RGC generals
Speaker 7: and the rest of it, that they're as willing, you know,
Speaker 7: to meet their maker as the supreme leader is.
Speaker 6: So if it.
Speaker 7: Happens soon, if regime collapses, collapse happens soon, that'll be
Speaker 7: what will cause it.
Speaker 6: We will look for that move against.
Speaker 1: It, and we will look for Center Talent to be
Speaker 1: back next week. He's also a frequent guest on Dwayne World.
Speaker 1: I don't know how often Dwayne.
Speaker 2: Are doing that.
Speaker 1: He's thinking about me kindling the aftershow. Be careful, Jim,
Speaker 1: he'll cut out the end of that on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere America. Thank you Senator Talent for him
Speaker 1: on at Jim Talent. It's really the best tex handle
Speaker 1: out there at Jim Talent from the Reagan Instuit for
Speaker 1: the Study of Peace through Stank State tuned Jim Garrity.
Speaker 1: He is of course National are Youth Senior. Of course,
Speaker 1: hosted the Three Martini Lunch. She's of course a contributor
Speaker 1: to The Editors podcast by Nashal review and he's the
Speaker 1: father of Robot Boys, and so I don't know if
Speaker 1: he's smart, but his wife must be. The Robot boys
Speaker 1: interest me a lot more than you, Jim. But someday
Speaker 1: they'll come on and talk to me about what they're
Speaker 1: up to. Have they been set back? Can they get
Speaker 1: a robot to shovel the snow?
Speaker 8: That has not done that?
Speaker 9: But this has been you know, here in Fairfax County
Speaker 9: where they are metaphorical snowflakes over literal snowflakes, we got
Speaker 9: real snow and we were shoveling out.
Speaker 8: Sunday in between the football games.
Speaker 9: And there was you know, like in our driveway there
Speaker 9: was still like a layer of ice on top of
Speaker 9: everything else. So schools were close Monday, that was a guarantee.
Speaker 9: Wednesday's a half day. Thursday and Friday are off because
Speaker 9: it's the end of the quarter of the grading period,
Speaker 9: so off Mountain Day schools canceled get Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon,
Speaker 9: They're like, what are we doing. There's no way we're
Speaker 9: sending the kids for half a day for the week.
Speaker 9: You're off Wednesday too, So usually my son is like
Speaker 9: thrill day, snow days, No wants to get into the
Speaker 9: school to work on the rob robots line schedule. Yeah,
Speaker 9: the first competitions are in like ed the February, so
Speaker 9: you know, they get the assignment in January.
Speaker 10: This year.
Speaker 9: The robot's going to have to like take a ball
Speaker 9: probably with the size like a volleyball, slightly smaller and
Speaker 9: shoot it up into a basket and the question you
Speaker 9: get points for how well your robot can do that.
Speaker 9: It also has to go over a ramp. This is
Speaker 9: the first robotics competition for anybody out there who's like,
Speaker 9: what is this, you know, bizarre thing that my kids
Speaker 9: get to get into and get really competitive about. So
Speaker 9: they're into it, but they have to know the first
Speaker 9: they got like one more month. They have the design,
Speaker 9: they have the basics. They got the robot that can
Speaker 9: roll around by remote control and stuff. It's got to
Speaker 9: be autonomous for I think thirty seconds. This year they
Speaker 9: increase that, so you you program in the software. Robot's
Speaker 9: got to be able to do it by itself for
Speaker 9: the first thirty seconds or else you're not scoring any
Speaker 9: points for the first thirty seconds of like a two
Speaker 9: minute thirty second competition period. So they got their work
Speaker 9: cut out for him and couldn't go into.
Speaker 8: Any day this week, which is making things a little
Speaker 8: more complicated. It made really loudy.
Speaker 1: Statatics advisor came and opened one door and let the
Speaker 1: robotics kids in.
Speaker 9: Hugh, that is an intense topic of discussion. I'll just
Speaker 9: put it there. And I don't want to get the
Speaker 9: illustrious faculty advisor, who's a terrific guy.
Speaker 8: I don't want to get.
Speaker 9: Anybody in trouble, all right, So nobody starts snooping around
Speaker 9: one particular at company wants high school.
Speaker 1: Okay, goodenough, all right, Jim, let's get serious war, no war.
Speaker 9: What do you think, Well, it certainly seems like we've
Speaker 9: got more and more forces going into that region. I
Speaker 9: had been frustrated that both on your program in early
Speaker 9: January and then a little bit more than two weeks ago,
Speaker 9: and Trump had gone on truth social encourage the Iranian
Speaker 9: people to rise up.
Speaker 8: He says, keep track of who the torturers are.
Speaker 9: Help is on the way, Miga, and I assume that means,
Speaker 9: you know, make a ran great again. And I was
Speaker 9: very supportive of that is what I wanted to see
Speaker 9: the president do. And then time went by and not
Speaker 9: much has happened now. Some of this was getting the
Speaker 9: Abraham Lincoln carrier group out to the Persian Gulf.
Speaker 11: Oh.
Speaker 9: By the way, I saw news that Iran, China, and
Speaker 9: Russia plan on doing joint naval exercises in that neighborhood
Speaker 9: in the coming days. Hugh, do you think the timing
Speaker 9: of that joint naval exercise is a coincidence?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: But I'm also not particularly worried about the Chinese and
Speaker 1: the Russian navies getting together. I'm afraid what they'll do
Speaker 1: is right into each other. They might hit is by accident.
Speaker 2: But if the.
Speaker 1: Ukrainians you know why the Ridian remember the Ukrainian sidney.
Speaker 8: You know why the Ranian navy has glass bottom boats?
Speaker 12: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Operation Operation Praying Manage.
Speaker 8: Well, I was gonna say that way they can see
Speaker 8: the old Iranian navy.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I think they're something's going off here.
Speaker 2: I'm just on record. What do you think.
Speaker 9: I think the president it would look really bad if
Speaker 9: nothing happened.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 9: I want to point out that we have a variety
Speaker 9: of ways to undermine the Iranian regime. Could be cyber,
Speaker 9: could be covert action. I think getting as many starlink
Speaker 9: links and other ways to get communications going on would
Speaker 9: be helpful. I think trying to jam the communications or
Speaker 9: disrupt the communications of the Iranian regime might be helpful
Speaker 9: to the people trying to throw up to overthrow the regime.
Speaker 9: So I'm hoping we're doing something already, and I'm hoping
Speaker 9: that there is more to come, because, as I'm sure
Speaker 9: your listeners know, Hugh, the estimates of the death tolls
Speaker 9: among the protesters. Some have it in the ten thousand range,
Speaker 9: some have it closer to twenty thousand, some of us
Speaker 9: as thirty thousand.
Speaker 8: That's like ten times nine to eleven, like.
Speaker 1: Like the figure that they think since Bobby Are in
Speaker 1: World War One, when the Nazi's wiped out thirty three
Speaker 1: thousand Jews in Ukraine in two days, it's the biggest
Speaker 1: two day massacre since then.
Speaker 2: Unthinkable.
Speaker 1: But Jim, I have talked I think pretty much every
Speaker 1: Iran expert inside the Beltway over the last two weeks
Speaker 1: since the President made his remarks on this show, and
Speaker 1: they all tell me that you cannot bomb.
Speaker 2: The IRGC out of power. They're too deeply dug in.
Speaker 1: All you can do is candaten create conditions of extreme
Speaker 1: opportunity for the street. If it takes that opportunity, they
Speaker 1: may be too shocked.
Speaker 9: What do you think, well, open I used open source
Speaker 9: intelligence shortly after the president's comments to look at which
Speaker 9: parts of the IRGC are most involved in doing things
Speaker 9: like putting down protesters, riot control, you know, that kind
Speaker 9: of stuff. And then I figured out again through open
Speaker 9: source intelligence, I don't have any spies working me or
Speaker 9: anything like.
Speaker 8: That where those facilities are located.
Speaker 9: So when I wrote about the president, like two weeks
Speaker 9: have gone by since the President said help is on
Speaker 9: the way, what's you know, What's what's the deal here?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 9: Some people said, Jim, you don't You can't criticize the
Speaker 9: president without saying what he should do.
Speaker 8: Well, I dive everything.
Speaker 9: Short of the coordinates and the street addresses for these locations.
Speaker 5: And I kind of have this.
Speaker 9: Feeling that if the aspects of the rg I RGC
Speaker 9: that are most involved in buying the proto, if their
Speaker 9: barracks suddenly explode, that's not going to help morality.
Speaker 8: That's not going to help, you know.
Speaker 9: And I figure that would be a great shot in
Speaker 9: the arm for the protesters. Now, is it a legitimate
Speaker 9: concern about if the Americans helped, does the regime then say, ah,
Speaker 9: they're all the tools of the Americans, They're all the
Speaker 9: tools of the Israelis.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but the regime is going to say that anyway,
Speaker 8: like the regime.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing I take. There is no support
Speaker 1: for the regime inside of Iran.
Speaker 4: None.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 9: The other thing, and I know other guests in your
Speaker 9: program are likely to talk about this today. The main
Speaker 9: impetus behind these protests in this uprising is that the
Speaker 9: Iranian economy is a mess. The currency is becoming completely devalued.
Speaker 9: We think we got problems of inflation in this country,
Speaker 9: it's way way.
Speaker 8: Worse in Iran.
Speaker 6: Right, So even.
Speaker 9: Leff they can somehow kill a whole bunch of people,
Speaker 9: and even if they can somehow, you know, simp stamp
Speaker 9: down every Iranian who dares raise their voice, you're still
Speaker 9: stuck with the economic problems and this regime is not
Speaker 9: going to be able to fix that. It would require
Speaker 9: wholesale changes in all of their policies, and they'd have
Speaker 9: to deal with corruption, and they'd have to deal with
Speaker 9: all the bad load.
Speaker 8: Like, there's really no way for them to get out
Speaker 8: of this.
Speaker 9: So one way or another, the Iranian regime can't continue
Speaker 9: the way it is. The question is do they hang
Speaker 9: on by their fingernails for as long as possible after
Speaker 9: you know, a blood bath of massacring protests, or do
Speaker 9: we give them a little shove and somebody else gets
Speaker 9: to run the show and we hope that they have
Speaker 9: a you know where they're more amenable to our long
Speaker 9: term vision as you know something and with the long
Speaker 9: term prospect of the Iranian people.
Speaker 1: I had rear Admiral Mark Montgomery on yesterday. He actually
Speaker 1: run a strike group and he ran through he's retired.
Speaker 1: He ran through the amount of firepower we have and
Speaker 1: the number of defensive forces we put in there. But
Speaker 1: he also noted they're not a regime for walking away
Speaker 1: if it begins this time, it's not just a discreet
Speaker 1: insular target that the nuclear facilities at portoh where it's
Speaker 1: a bunch of targets. Does Trump risk hemorrhaging support in
Speaker 1: the United States by getting into well, let's even say,
Speaker 1: half of a Yugoslavian campaign that Bill Clinton ran, or
Speaker 1: a third of the Libyan campaign that Barack Obama ran.
Speaker 9: Completely fair concerns And one of the things I would
Speaker 9: note is that the Ayatola theoretically could fly off to Moscow.
Speaker 9: There are all these reports they've been flying gold bars
Speaker 9: to Moscow and bringing in weapons back on the flights
Speaker 9: and stuff like that. If you are the first of all,
Speaker 9: if you're the Ranian military, you know, maybe some of
Speaker 9: these of their units are going out and oppressing the people.
Speaker 9: There are probably some Marianian military folks like I don't
Speaker 9: want to shoot my fellow countrymen. I don't want to
Speaker 9: shoot people who are protesting because they can't afford food
Speaker 9: and their.
Speaker 8: Money has become devalued.
Speaker 9: And if the United States starts bombing you know, military
Speaker 9: targets that are not associated with hitting the civilians, you know,
Speaker 9: if they start hitting like naval you know units or
Speaker 9: something like that, I could see the.
Speaker 8: Iranians saying, what are you doing, America?
Speaker 9: Why are you shooting you know, my brother who's defending
Speaker 9: our country. Idea, So you got your target selection matters
Speaker 9: a lot. I have no idea about how difficult this
Speaker 9: would be, but I do figure if you could do
Speaker 9: anything akin to a decapitation strike, if you could take
Speaker 9: out the iotolf, you could take out the top commanders,
Speaker 9: then there'd be a question for the Iranian military.
Speaker 8: Whose side do you want to be on?
Speaker 9: And do you want to get into a fight with
Speaker 9: the American Americans or do you want to say, you know.
Speaker 8: What, new group of people in charge, we're going to try.
Speaker 8: It's a new, fresh, new day. Let's leave all this
Speaker 8: best flit behind us.
Speaker 2: Oh, we can pray for that. Jim Garrity, good luck,
Speaker 2: get into the school. Remember it's illegal.
Speaker 1: To break and enter even a robotic competition. Follow Jim
Speaker 1: on Acts of Jim Garrity, Read him in the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: Read the Morning Jolt at Nash Review, and come right.
Speaker 2: Back to the Qquit Show on the Salem News Channel.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: I'm here here with Noah Rothman, Senior editor way at
Speaker 1: National Review. No I'm from northeastern Ohio, where tonight it's
Speaker 1: going to be minus five degrees in Ashtabula, minus eleven
Speaker 1: degrees in my hometown of Warren, and minus twelve degrees
Speaker 1: in Youngstown.
Speaker 2: Do you have any idea why my wife won't move
Speaker 2: to Ohio?
Speaker 13: I hazard of guess it is so cold you and
Speaker 13: it has been so cold for so long. There's this
Speaker 13: little quirk in my bathroom shower where we have a
Speaker 13: rain headed shower head that just doesn't work under twenty degrees.
Speaker 13: I don't remember the last time that thing has worked
Speaker 13: it is. It's driving me quite batty.
Speaker 1: Well, I New Jersey with getting in the short end
Speaker 1: of the stick as well. But if you're marry a
Speaker 1: California girl, those are unacceptable numbers.
Speaker 2: No, let's get serious and hurry to talk a lot.
Speaker 2: Do you expect a war with they run?
Speaker 14: I expect strikes on a run. I don't know what
Speaker 14: the scale of those strikes are going to be.
Speaker 13: I think the president set himself up to the degree
Speaker 13: that he has to follow through with his red line.
Speaker 13: It has been flagrantly violated, and the President himself has
Speaker 13: said that this was a terrible decision for Barack Obama
Speaker 13: not to follow up on his own self set line.
Speaker 13: I think there has to be strikes. I hope they're
Speaker 13: not symbolic. They very well could be. There's a variety
Speaker 13: of scenarios that we could be seeing. I'm not sure
Speaker 13: if the president wants to see a strike so broad
Speaker 13: and so big that it could actually collapse the regime,
Speaker 13: although I think that's probably desirable, but it could be
Speaker 13: calibrated in a way so as to avoid triggering an
Speaker 13: Iranian response that looks like the response that we could
Speaker 13: expect if it was an existential threat to the regime,
Speaker 13: which could take many forms, the most scary of which
Speaker 13: would be a real concert effort to sink a US warship.
Speaker 13: That would take a lot of drones, a lot of
Speaker 13: one way attack drones, missiles, boats armed with suicide attackers.
Speaker 13: It would be a concentrated attack in order to achieve
Speaker 13: something real, not just a demonstrative display like we saw
Speaker 13: in the wake of the Operation Midnight Hammer where they
Speaker 13: targeted the base in Qatar. It would be something very different,
Speaker 13: But that is my nightmare scenario, not just loosing all
Speaker 13: the missiles and seeing where they go and hopefully they
Speaker 13: have some kind of an effect in a message, something
Speaker 13: really designed to demonstrate that the US is vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And this is how you know the British Navy when
Speaker 1: they invaded successfully the Falklands to take them back from
Speaker 1: the Argentinians many many years ago, Thatcher senate the Argentinians
Speaker 1: sunk a British ship, to the great shock of the
Speaker 1: Imperial Royal Navy that an exo set missile could do that.
Speaker 1: So there's there's no guarantee, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of basses. I asked Admiral Mark Montgomery yesterday retired were
Speaker 1: admiral from the United States Navy.
Speaker 2: He thinks the greater threat are to our base anywhere.
Speaker 1: With that GPS, they're not so good at the stuff
Speaker 1: that moves that, they're pretty good at finding the bases.
Speaker 13: Noah, Yeah, And this would be for the regime to
Speaker 13: take on that kind of an operation. It would be
Speaker 13: an all or nothing sort of situation. That's that's when
Speaker 13: the claresy believes that the game is really up. I
Speaker 13: heard my colleague gim on your last segment say that
Speaker 13: there's the possibility that the Iranian Clarity could flee to Moscow.
Speaker 13: I think that's pretty remote, just based on their own
Speaker 13: mythology with the Shah that fled a great shaw that
Speaker 13: slaughtered people in the streets, and we're not like that.
Speaker 13: We don't do that, even though they obviously are doing
Speaker 13: precisely that. So there's something of an element to this
Speaker 13: regime from the founding that maintains that this is around,
Speaker 13: we are around, we die with Iran or we live
Speaker 13: with Iron.
Speaker 14: So I don't expect them to flee. I expect them
Speaker 14: to fight.
Speaker 13: No, the older generators also don't want to face the
Speaker 13: rests of their own people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the younger generation listens to Richard Dawkins. The older
Speaker 1: generation thought the iron I rock war for ten years
Speaker 1: and walk through minefields. So they're not going anywhere. My
Speaker 1: question is in terms of what Trump said. But the
Speaker 1: President said on True Social, then on My show, then
Speaker 1: to Sean Hannity, then to CBS News Tony ducoppol, then
Speaker 1: on True Social again. I think he said eight times
Speaker 1: that a price will be paid if they harm the demonstrator.
Speaker 1: He has to do it, but it's just a question
Speaker 1: of I don't think he has to do it until
Speaker 1: we're as safe as we can be, and I accept
Speaker 1: that as an excuse. We're still flying fads in How
Speaker 1: long does he have until he is rightly subject to
Speaker 1: criticism for erasing a red line like Obama did.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 14: That's a good question.
Speaker 13: It's already too late for me, and I suspect that
Speaker 13: it was a material deficit. We talked about this at
Speaker 13: the time that our assets were tied up in the
Speaker 13: campaign in Venezuela and we did not have the assets
Speaker 13: in place to make good on this historic opportunity. I
Speaker 13: think that is a real missed opportunity to Poste already
Speaker 13: will not look at kindly, but he doesn't have much
Speaker 13: longer to wait. I think the protests, we don't have
Speaker 13: a lot of great information coming out of around, but
Speaker 13: I think the protests have already relatively fizzled out, and
Speaker 13: we're starting to talk ourselves into the notion that the
Speaker 13: best case scenario would be a military dictatorship to replace
Speaker 13: the regime ousting. I imagine the IRGC and the Koods forces,
Speaker 13: the religious police, the religious character of the regime would
Speaker 13: be replaced with something much more like the regime now
Speaker 13: under cc Or Mobarik in Egypt, something very military in
Speaker 13: nature and very undemocratic. I think we shouldn't be talking
Speaker 13: ourselves into that as though that's the best case option
Speaker 13: for us. Right now, we have The violence that we
Speaker 13: saw on the street was a result of an outpouring
Speaker 13: of I would call it democratic enthusiasm. I don't think
Speaker 13: I'm shy about saying that that was a liberal movement
Speaker 13: at its root, and it's something that I.
Speaker 1: Have cream side you pour on in the last hour,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to ask him because he knows you're
Speaker 1: on at least as well as anyone inside the belt
Speaker 1: Way without a classified access to information. What is the
Speaker 1: ceiling for I run? I think it's really high. I
Speaker 1: think it is very much. It's a first world country.
Speaker 1: The Shaw had it on the White Revolution path and
Speaker 1: it's just gone backwards for forty seven years. I think
Speaker 1: it can reclaim growth pretty quickly. They've got everything there.
Speaker 14: I think it can too.
Speaker 13: There's a lot of X factors there, including the repression
Speaker 13: of Iranian minorities.
Speaker 14: Over the course of the last fifty years.
Speaker 13: How would the Azeris feel, the Kurds, the Blukes, the
Speaker 13: marsh Arabs, how would they feel about a military dictatorship?
Speaker 13: Would they simply roll over for it? Or would they
Speaker 13: have to be suppressed and pacified?
Speaker 2: Now, let me ask that out.
Speaker 1: The case learning after the break up, play my appearance
Speaker 1: on America Reports this Minke, which was right after America's newsroom,
Speaker 1: right after home and got done speaking, and I began
Speaker 1: by saying that was a masterful class in communication.
Speaker 2: Did you watch him?
Speaker 14: I didn't watch it.
Speaker 13: I read transcript or elements of the transcript, and so
Speaker 13: I can't comment on it. I can't comment on a
Speaker 13: dramaturgy of it as a theater critic, but I can
Speaker 13: say that the substance of the remarks were powerful, impressive,
Speaker 13: and exactly what the moment called for.
Speaker 14: Again, I've said this couple of times.
Speaker 13: I don't know if I said it on your show,
Speaker 13: But a tactical retreat, which is what they're engineering here,
Speaker 13: is not the abandonment of the campaign. It is the
Speaker 13: prosecution of the campaign on more auspicious terms and better circumstances.
Speaker 14: And that's I think with this administration.
Speaker 13: The better part of prudence compelled this administration to do that,
Speaker 13: and I'm very glad that they took that opportunity. That
Speaker 13: the temperature in this country is quite high right now.
Speaker 13: And even though it looks like a retreat, indeed the
Speaker 13: second in as many weeks if you count the off
Speaker 13: ramp that the President took in Greenland, but that is
Speaker 13: a prudent leadership, commendable leadership, and a d escalation of
Speaker 13: the conflict that this administration sought and waged and secured
Speaker 13: many success in the prosecution of it and de escolating
Speaker 13: is important.
Speaker 1: His dad is a cop, his grandfather is a cop.
Speaker 1: He's been in law enforcement for forty years. He did
Speaker 1: not raise his voice. Cops know they do not want
Speaker 1: to be involved in officer shooting. Most importantly, he didn't
Speaker 1: raise his voice. He spoke calmly throughout. I wish everyone
Speaker 1: in America would learn. You don't persuade anyone by shouting.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that message is going to get
Speaker 1: across to anybody?
Speaker 13: Well, he does get across to almost everybody who's not
Speaker 13: engaged in political combat on a daily basis. I mean,
Speaker 13: to those of us who are involved in this business,
Speaker 13: we're the weird ones. We're the ones who think that,
Speaker 13: you know, domestic politics is an existential fight for the
Speaker 13: very soul of the nation. Most of the country doesn't
Speaker 13: think that way, and so they wouldn't behave that way
Speaker 13: in a very high.
Speaker 14: Strung and theatrical manner.
Speaker 13: But those of us who would do this do politics
Speaker 13: as entertainment sometimes lapse into that, and that can find
Speaker 13: its way into the political cast. It's good to see
Speaker 13: that permanent bureaucrats like Tom Holman or get at his job,
Speaker 13: just reject that form of theaters as say.
Speaker 1: Craft, may it spread Oh Noah, no c Rothman read
Speaker 1: him in the National Room and listen to him on
Speaker 1: the Editors and come right back to the Hugh Hewit Show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. I'm join Maleana Johnson on the Hugh
Speaker 1: Hewitt Show. She's the editor in chief of the Washington
Speaker 1: Free Beacon, a contributor to Commentary podcast. He is also
Speaker 1: a native of the Twin Cities. Eleana, I want to
Speaker 1: start with the Twin Cities. I haven't heard the Commentary podcast.
Speaker 1: I was in the dentist chair for two days and
Speaker 1: not dancing around listening to you and the fellows and
Speaker 1: Christine over at Commentary. What do you think of Tom
Speaker 1: Homan's remarks this morning and of the situation in the
Speaker 1: Twin Cities?
Speaker 12: Now, well, you, I just listened to your remarks on
Speaker 12: the Fox program and I totally agree with you. I
Speaker 12: thought he gave an absolutely lucid presentation. And I will say,
Speaker 12: as a reporter, I love somebody who goes up to
Speaker 12: the microphone and says I was given talking points, but
Speaker 12: I'm not going to use them. So that that was fantastic.
Speaker 12: And the one thing I thought he did, I know
Speaker 12: you said you appreciated one of his remarks in particular,
Speaker 12: but something else caught my I you liked his remark
Speaker 12: about no comment on the video. I appreciated something else,
Speaker 12: which was his explanation very clearly that minimal cooperation from
Speaker 12: local law enforcement will allow that will allow ICE to
Speaker 12: draw down quickly and why? And he explained that for ICE,
Speaker 12: picking up a criminal illegal immigrant from a jail requires
Speaker 12: much less manpower than doing an operation to pick up
Speaker 12: a criminal off the streets or in their home, which
Speaker 12: requires a big team plus a team to follow to
Speaker 12: deal with all of the rioters whose main goal has
Speaker 12: been not peaceful protests, but to interfere and prevent the
Speaker 12: administration of federal law enforcement. And I thought that was
Speaker 12: really important.
Speaker 1: It was And again I heard that too, and I thought,
Speaker 1: point point point Elianna, do you think Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: a unique way of communicating? But not many people, if
Speaker 1: anyone else, can do it that way, because you have
Speaker 1: to be a celebrity, you have to have a bit
Speaker 1: of the developer in you. You've got to have ten
Speaker 1: years of reality television training to communicate with that range.
Speaker 1: I think the Homan approach, call them quiet collected, ought
Speaker 1: to be passed around the cabinet table and people ought
Speaker 1: to be told to study.
Speaker 2: It's Marco Rubio's way. It's the way of Doug Bergham.
Speaker 1: There are only a few people who want to hit
Speaker 1: ranges that are outside of their vocal expertise.
Speaker 12: There are a number of good communicators I think that
Speaker 12: the President has on hand for this mission, which is
Speaker 12: a serious one. In Minnesota. Tom Homan, whose background for
Speaker 12: years in law enforcement, his sober, mean and deep knowledge
Speaker 12: both of the mission and of the law, I think
Speaker 12: was perfectly suited to Minnesota, as was Marco Rubio's yesterday
Speaker 12: in the Senate, which was a masterclass in diplomatic.
Speaker 14: In diplomacy and.
Speaker 5: Of back and forth.
Speaker 12: And they had different styles, you know, rub Rubio was
Speaker 12: funny and charming, and I wouldn't say home and was
Speaker 12: either of those things. But they were both wonderful in
Speaker 12: their respective venues.
Speaker 1: Here's a third approach from today's cabinet meeting. It's Vice
Speaker 1: President vance cut number sixteen for a Leanna Johnson.
Speaker 6: I just want to thank.
Speaker 15: Everybody for being my cabinet has been amazing. I like
Speaker 15: this much better than going around for three hours. We'll
Speaker 15: pick on other ones. Pam, you're doing great. We're all
Speaker 15: doing great.
Speaker 4: JD.
Speaker 15: You'd like to say something you can would you like
Speaker 15: your Really, he is, after all, the vice president, so.
Speaker 6: I'm here for the free coffee.
Speaker 1: I just say it's an honorous server with this group,
Speaker 1: and that understatement Eliana is also a good trick for people,
Speaker 1: don't you think.
Speaker 12: Well, particularly when you're sitting next to or across from
Speaker 12: the President and he's in the room with you. I
Speaker 12: think Vance really showed his range and his utility on
Speaker 12: the campaign trail where he came out of the gate
Speaker 12: and had a rough go of things. But he's really
Speaker 12: been fantastic doing battle with the media, particularly on these
Speaker 12: Sunday shows, and he really shines going back and forth
Speaker 12: with the mainstream press and has showed he's a real
Speaker 12: asset to this administration where when he does a Sunday show,
Speaker 12: the headlines that come out of it, particularly with Margaret
Speaker 12: Brennan on CBS News, are of the Vice President pressing
Speaker 12: the administration's case and owning the respective hosts, and I
Speaker 12: think the President came to value that both on the
Speaker 12: campaign trail and in the administration.
Speaker 1: I've called it with John Wick of the Sunday shows,
Speaker 1: i think he is the John Wick of the Sunday shows.
Speaker 2: Now, let's go to war or no war? Eleana Johnson,
Speaker 2: What do you think you know?
Speaker 4: Hugh.
Speaker 12: It's funny we talked about this a week ago. I
Speaker 12: was sort of the outlier on the commentary podcast saying
Speaker 12: that I thought the window for action was still open,
Speaker 12: and that's where I still am. I do believe the
Speaker 12: President will act. None of us know what's going to happen.
Speaker 12: I could be wrong, but with the assets in the
Speaker 12: region and Trump renewing his threats, he's laid out his
Speaker 12: conditions for a deal. They are abandoned the nuclear program,
Speaker 12: limit ballistic missile capacity, which remains formidable for this regime
Speaker 12: even though it was weakened by the Twelve Day War
Speaker 12: in June. Israel and the US really did not touch
Speaker 12: ballistic missile capacity, and stop the funding of terror proxies.
Speaker 12: It seems to me that those are conditions that the
Speaker 12: Iranian regime will not agree to, and so I think
Speaker 12: we're going to see action because.
Speaker 1: Adam Crado figured out what the war plan is yet.
Speaker 1: Because Adam usually has the scoops over at the Washington
Speaker 1: Free Beacon.
Speaker 12: I wish trust we'd have that on the front page
Speaker 12: if we knew it.
Speaker 1: He is a remarkable reporter. I don't know how long
Speaker 1: he's been at the Beacon, but he gets scoopy. He
Speaker 1: can know a lot of your people.
Speaker 12: He's a twelve year og and I would point your
Speaker 12: folks to his wonderful report yesterday morning that well, the
Speaker 12: PA president claimed to have suspended pay for slave programs,
Speaker 12: they were merely shifted into another organization and continued. All
Speaker 12: the while a confidential, non public State Department report to
Speaker 12: Congress showed, you know, once a terrorist, always a terrorist.
Speaker 1: I also want to compliment the free Beacon. I hate
Speaker 1: affirmative action. It's unconstitutional to use race to award and
Speaker 1: gender to award benefits or to inflct punishments. Absolutely and constitutional.
Speaker 1: You guys stay on that is that like a beat
Speaker 1: at the Beacon.
Speaker 12: Our star superstar reporter, and we have several of them,
Speaker 12: but our reporter Aaron Sabarium is on that, as are
Speaker 12: a few others. And I would note that the Justice
Speaker 12: Department weighed in in a case on UCLA that was
Speaker 12: brought by Due Noo Harm against UCLA Medical School, and
Speaker 12: the Justice Department weighed in on do No Harm's behalf
Speaker 12: just yesterday. So we're seeing concrete action from this administration
Speaker 12: on this matter. And The source of it is impactful reporting.
Speaker 1: Last year, a former member of the UCLA Board of
Speaker 1: Advisors told me that two years ago, do you how
Speaker 1: many Jews were admitted to UCLA Medical School?
Speaker 2: Two years ago?
Speaker 1: One one one Jewish doctor at the UCLA Medical School
Speaker 1: class and two years ago? I cannot believe it.
Speaker 2: Elianna, Good to see you as always.
Speaker 1: Follow Eleiana on exit Eleana why Johnson, Read the free
Speaker 1: Bacon at freebeacon dot com and come right back.
Speaker 2: To the Qwitt Show. Hi, it's you, Hewett.
Speaker 1: You've heard me talk a lot about Consumer Cellular how
Speaker 1: you can switch your carrier and save money without sacrifice.
Speaker 1: That's because Consumer Cellular uses the same towers as the
Speaker 1: major carrier. You'll save money every month on your bill
Speaker 1: without having to sacrifice the quality of coverage. Right now,
Speaker 1: you get your second month free, plus Folks over fifty
Speaker 1: get two lines of unlimited talk, text and data for
Speaker 1: sixty dollars a month. That's an addition to the second
Speaker 1: month totally free using promo code. Q and are you
Speaker 1: tired of your wireless company telling you have to talk
Speaker 1: to an AI robot, download an app or on horizon?
Speaker 1: Pay ten dollars to talk to someone when paying your bill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no thanks.
Speaker 1: Consumer Cellular ranks number one for network coverage and customer satisfaction.
Speaker 1: According to ACSI, whether you're switching online or over the phone,
Speaker 1: you'll be working with an actual human being based right
Speaker 1: here in the US. So switch and get your second
Speaker 1: month free plus two unlimited lines of sixty dollars. If
Speaker 1: you're over fifty, go to Consumer siular dot com, slash
Speaker 1: qu promo HU or call one hundred eight or call
Speaker 1: one eight hundred four one one forty four fifty four
Speaker 1: one eight hundred four to one one forty four to
Speaker 1: fifty four. That's one eight hundred four to one, one
Speaker 1: forty four to fifty four. And don't forget My code
Speaker 1: is Hugh.
Speaker 2: Walking Back America. I'm Hugh Hewett.
Speaker 1: Vic Mattis is the weekend unditor and arts and culturtor
Speaker 1: at The Free Beacon. He's also co host of the
Speaker 1: Getting Hammered podcast, my go to podcast for Root canals.
Speaker 4: Vic.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you heard yesterday's program with Mary
Speaker 1: Katherine Ham, but I listened to the latest Getting Hammered yesterday. Well,
Speaker 1: they were pile driving my back bowler to get rid
Speaker 1: of a root I.
Speaker 2: Didn't now I had left.
Speaker 10: No, I did not know about that.
Speaker 12: Hugh.
Speaker 11: I'm very sorry and yet very happy because getting hammered
Speaker 11: is a form of anesthesia for many people.
Speaker 2: Well, it was, but it was easy.
Speaker 10: I kept pain.
Speaker 1: I was laughing, especially at the fact that the winter
Speaker 1: storm has caused you to add some pounds and your
Speaker 1: wife doesn't like watching you work out.
Speaker 10: Yes, that is correct.
Speaker 11: You know, we get into this hoarding mentality when, especially
Speaker 11: in the Washington d See area, you hear a storm's
Speaker 11: coming and then you know, everybody treats the local supermarket
Speaker 11: like it's the Soviet Union and all the you know,
Speaker 11: shelves are suddenly bare. And then you're suddenly eating three
Speaker 11: meals a day plus in between snacks because you feel
Speaker 11: like you have to. As if again, like I mentioned
Speaker 11: on the show, it's like you're living at the Overlook
Speaker 11: Hotel in the shining Yes. Again, it's a couple of days.
Speaker 11: It's not the end of the world. I eat less
Speaker 11: when the weather's.
Speaker 1: Nicer, Vic tell me if I asked Mary Catherine, yesha,
Speaker 1: and she said d C was leading Virginia in the
Speaker 1: Disaster Olympics. Because snowstorms are snowstorms for about two days.
Speaker 1: Then they become failures of government or success stories for government.
Speaker 10: Which is it in d C?
Speaker 2: And Maryland?
Speaker 11: H yeah, well for DC definitely. We're talking about again
Speaker 11: the nation's capital. People are coming into the city as
Speaker 11: we speak. They're flying in, they're taking the trains. I
Speaker 11: had to meet with a friend of mine, Tunkuverdarjian of
Speaker 11: the Wall Street Journal, and he had to hop around.
Speaker 11: He said it was very pair in Washington's capital. He
Speaker 11: thought that was a little bit unnerving and disturbing. I said,
Speaker 11: that's come to be expected.
Speaker 10: So it is a mess. And Muriel Bowser, the mayor,
Speaker 10: is blaming.
Speaker 11: The situation on the unusual circumstance of sleet and snow,
Speaker 11: which she claims has never happened before.
Speaker 10: But everybody, including.
Speaker 11: Our friend Tim Carney, has been saying for a long time,
Speaker 11: get out there, get the shovels out, get the trucks
Speaker 11: out while it's still soft snow, before the sleet hardens
Speaker 11: and you have these giant sheets of ice rock. Of
Speaker 11: course they didn't do that, and now we have the
Speaker 11: mess where we have literally one lane going in and
Speaker 11: out of some of these main thoroughfares. I'm here in Arlington, Virginia,
Speaker 11: and honestly, it's not that much better. The road to
Speaker 11: get over to key Bridge is one lane. Normally it's four.
Speaker 10: That's a bit of a mess, and I don't know
Speaker 10: when they're going to change it.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen long ago and far away nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: four and the fetching Missish and I had an apartment
Speaker 1: in the Envoy at the corner of California and Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and for to go from there to Vienna, Virginia is
Speaker 1: a straight shot out the sixty six about fifteen twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: Took us seven hours to make that trip because of
Speaker 1: sleet and ice. That was unexpected. It wasn't forecast. Why
Speaker 1: people aren't ready with sand I mean Ohio right now
Speaker 1: is tonight my hometown will be minus eleven degrees.
Speaker 2: And they know how to deal with that in Ohio.
Speaker 1: Muriel Bowser blaming someone who I'm shocked shock that the
Speaker 1: government official didn't stand up and say I failed to prepare.
Speaker 11: Well, I'm actually shocked that she even bothered to sort
Speaker 11: of give an excuse, because you know.
Speaker 10: She's on her way out. She's not running for reelection.
Speaker 11: I made a comparison the other day on getting hammer
Speaker 11: to Marion barry be California, you know, during the Super
Speaker 11: Bowl and saying hey, I called during halftime, you know.
Speaker 10: And they always make sure the mayor's street gets plowed.
Speaker 10: But that's about it. And so I am shocked about that.
Speaker 11: And of course this is a big test, for the
Speaker 11: first of any big tests for Abigail Spanberger in Virginia,
Speaker 11: and I honestly don't think she's doing a great job
Speaker 11: at least when it comes to the snow cleanup, let
Speaker 11: alone the taxes.
Speaker 1: Now, I want to go back to the getting hammered
Speaker 1: portion of the discussion. I and twice in my long life,
Speaker 1: twice have I been approached by someone yelling at me
Speaker 1: in a public if we get the boo boo boo
Speaker 1: from Princess Bride, Because apparently someone did the boo boo
Speaker 1: booed at getting hammered Mary Katherine Ham and she marched
Speaker 1: right over there and talked to the individual. I've been
Speaker 1: accosted twice, but I was so shocked that I neither
Speaker 1: got mad or I just kind of that's it.
Speaker 2: So bit has it ever happened to you?
Speaker 11: No, I'm trying to think about this, and I've been
Speaker 11: I've done a lot of you know, speaking gigs over
Speaker 11: many years. I've been in this business now for what
Speaker 11: thirty years now, You and I've dealt with hostile audiences.
Speaker 11: But that was sort of anticipated, especially during the Iraq War,
Speaker 11: and so I expected hostile questions at the time when
Speaker 11: I was at the weekly Standard. But walking into a
Speaker 11: place and getting booed, no, not for not for the
Speaker 11: circumstances that that Mary Catherine found herself in. But of
Speaker 11: course being Mary Catherine, she you know, she likes a
Speaker 11: good conflict. And you sort of stun your opponent when
Speaker 11: you beat them to the punch. And this person obviously
Speaker 11: had to take a step back and realize that, you know,
Speaker 11: maybe they were getting a little carried away.
Speaker 1: You know, have you ever been to Aspen? No, I
Speaker 1: have not been to ask The airport's not very big.
Speaker 1: You have to fly little airplanes in there, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of a quick descent. I got off the plane
Speaker 1: and Aspen and a younger fella, probably thirty at the time,
Speaker 1: got up in my face and me and right in
Speaker 1: my girl, and you're kind or not wanted here? And
Speaker 1: I thought that middle aged white men can't come to Aspen,
Speaker 1: right which kind of which kind is? Like, I like
Speaker 1: the most of all peanut butter and jelly guy in America.
Speaker 1: What do you mean we can't come here that's like
Speaker 1: half the country.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, no, that would be very disturbing. I'm sorry
Speaker 10: you had to deal with Oh it was fine.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now tell me what you thought of Tom Homan this morning.
Speaker 1: That could not be on getting hammered yesterday because it
Speaker 1: was yesterday.
Speaker 10: That's right.
Speaker 11: Again, we talked about the ice situation yesterday before we
Speaker 11: knew that Homan was coming in and he was going
Speaker 11: to replace Paveno in this situation to sort of calm
Speaker 11: things down.
Speaker 10: And I really do think he did.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 11: He had an eight am press conference bright in early
Speaker 11: our time on the East coast.
Speaker 10: And look what he wanted to do is he spoke
Speaker 10: to the authorities.
Speaker 11: He spoke to the you know, Minneapolis politicians who matter,
Speaker 11: and he wanted to have a reset because let's let's
Speaker 11: stop for everybody's sake and ask ourselves, why is ice
Speaker 11: here in Minnesota or in any state, what it is
Speaker 11: exactly that they're doing, and why did the situation become
Speaker 11: become so dangerous? And I think he did a very
Speaker 11: good job about explaining what the role of ICE is.
Speaker 11: The people they're apprehending, the number of arrests, the murder
Speaker 11: rate is down in this country, all these things. Again,
Speaker 11: life would be so much easier if they were able,
Speaker 11: If ICE was just able to retrieve illegals who do
Speaker 11: a criminal wrongdoing in the jails.
Speaker 10: I give you thousands of agents.
Speaker 2: Well and quick cut number five from Tom Hummon this morning.
Speaker 16: So target enforcement operations wave, We've always done it. I
Speaker 16: think we got a wait for a little bit, and
Speaker 16: we're going want to make sure we do target enforcement operations.
Speaker 16: And I look at I will say it again. You
Speaker 16: know we are not surrendering our mission at all.
Speaker 10: Do you believe him?
Speaker 2: Madis Yeah?
Speaker 10: I think so. I mean, you know, Trump very much
Speaker 10: campaigned on this. Holman is a very serious, sober guy.
Speaker 11: They can if they can reduce the presence of ICE
Speaker 11: agents on the street, than fine. But in terms of
Speaker 11: getting very dangerous illegal criminals off the streets, that's something
Speaker 11: that they are going to continue to do.
Speaker 10: Great. I'd like to see that continue.
Speaker 11: Obviously, the big question is Jacob Fry talking both sides
Speaker 11: out of his mouth, because on the one hand, behind
Speaker 11: the scenes, I mean he spoke to President Trump and
Speaker 11: he spoke to Homan. Uh and there seems to be
Speaker 11: some level of understanding about what ICE needs to do.
Speaker 10: And again, what do they have in common here?
Speaker 11: Both sides they say they want they want the community
Speaker 11: to be safer, But obviously Jacob Brian tim Mots can
Speaker 11: do a lot more to make it safer by helping
Speaker 11: Tom Homan and.
Speaker 1: Ice, and he got Keith Ellis and the Attorney General
Speaker 1: is not very sharp on the law at least going
Speaker 1: to help I get the detainers that are.
Speaker 2: Their release from prison.
Speaker 1: Victreno Madison X's also the co hosts of there Getting
Speaker 1: Hammered podcast.
Speaker 2: But there's wonderful that for the Denner's chair and anywhere
Speaker 2: you go. Thank you, Vitt.
Speaker 8: I'll be right back in