Speaker 1: You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, we need to discuss World War three, which
Speaker 2: is not happening, but there's a lot of national security
Speaker 2: stuff going on and that is worth a discussion with
Speaker 2: our friend Stephen Yates, who is of the Wonderful Heritage
Speaker 2: Foundation and formerly a senior national security advisor to a
Speaker 2: vice president and speaks Chinese, which I always think is
Speaker 2: so Mandarin, which I always think is very impressive to
Speaker 2: tell everybody. And I've asked him to take me out
Speaker 2: with him to a Chinese restaurant some time so I
Speaker 2: can really check this stuff out. But we'll get there
Speaker 2: at some point. Let's start with this. I have never
Speaker 2: seen so many people on our side the right broadly speaking, However,
Speaker 2: one even really defines that. So just I guess unrepentant
Speaker 2: about being so wrong on a national security thing so
Speaker 2: quickly as these air strikes will lead to World War three?
Speaker 2: Like what happens? Now? Where do they go with that?
Speaker 1: Well, partially to me, I think this is evidence that
Speaker 1: TDS comes in multiple forms, and President Trump is doing
Speaker 1: things at a pace and a scope and a quantity
Speaker 1: that has never been done before. And I think even
Speaker 1: people on our side can fall into the trap of
Speaker 1: trying to make protracted judgments based on instant analysis and
Speaker 1: the pace of things. The change all of it is
Speaker 1: so fast that a lot of people are going to
Speaker 1: be wrong some of the time, and I just think
Speaker 1: people on our side aren't used to that, and it's
Speaker 1: much more of a severe syndrome on the other side.
Speaker 1: But I think the first rule of living in Trump's
Speaker 1: world is it's going to get shaken four five times
Speaker 1: a day. Don't panic, don't assume the first result is
Speaker 1: the end result, and let him cook for a little
Speaker 1: bit before you sort of get a sense of the direction.
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately that's what it is. He is
Speaker 1: a directional leader who distracts people with things that happen
Speaker 1: along the way they don't even realize they've moved. And
Speaker 1: so I mean, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, But
Speaker 1: when I look at even what we're dealing with with
Speaker 1: some of the zigs and zags on Israel and Iran
Speaker 1: right now, directionally, this is miraculously a positive direction based
Speaker 1: on what the history of this has been and does
Speaker 1: it mean it's over. No, nothing is over until we
Speaker 1: say it's over. So but this, but this is you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at the negotiations on trade, you look
Speaker 1: at the negotiations on Russia and Ukraine, these things take
Speaker 1: a lot of time. But he's not even six months
Speaker 1: in and directionally we've done some things that are far
Speaker 1: far better than than they were in the Biden years.
Speaker 1: But that, I think is what messes with people. But
Speaker 1: I've been disappointed with a lot of people that I know,
Speaker 1: of our friends. But you know, there's no horse disappointment
Speaker 1: than when you work for somebody that you like and
Speaker 1: then they do something you didn't agree with and you
Speaker 1: were right and they were wrong, and you feel bad
Speaker 1: all the way around. Hey that's my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got to say I think that
Speaker 2: the I think that the trends right now in the
Speaker 2: Middle East are more positive than I can ever remember them, being,
Speaker 2: certainly in my adult lifetime, right in the post nine
Speaker 2: to eleven g watt Era, because even on things like
Speaker 2: when people say, okay, well what about the proxies and
Speaker 2: the terrorist I'm like, look, first of all, we're always
Speaker 2: at risk from some you know, if somebody wants to
Speaker 2: infiltrate a four man terror cell unfortunately across our southern
Speaker 2: border of the last four years, you know, that's a risk, right,
Speaker 2: that's the thing that they can do. But that will
Speaker 2: just kill a bunch of innocent people, which is horrible,
Speaker 2: But it's not going to change the military calculus that
Speaker 2: of what's going on with the Israelis in the Middle East, right,
Speaker 2: So that doesn't. But also on top of that, Hamas
Speaker 2: and Hesbola are in the worst position they've been, which
Speaker 2: are the primary proxies. I think that we're usually concerned
Speaker 2: about the Middle East, we talking about Iran. They're in
Speaker 2: the worst position they've been in since I can remember.
Speaker 2: I mean, the pay people. Things have gone so well
Speaker 2: with the airstrikes, Steve that the pager operation against Hesbola,
Speaker 2: which is the most incredible intelligence operation I can think of.
Speaker 2: No one even seems to remember.
Speaker 1: Completely agree, Yeah, completely agree, I know. And so I
Speaker 1: think it partially comes down to people who have lived honestly,
Speaker 1: and there are some who don't live honestly in the
Speaker 1: national security world know that we don't ever get the
Speaker 1: luxury of zero risk, and there's always in several different places,
Speaker 1: terrible things that could happen in an instance, and we
Speaker 1: work against, we hope against. It's just sort of a
Speaker 1: management process. But if you look at how you know,
Speaker 1: some people say, well, but could strike back in our homeland. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we always have to watch out for things like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, the risk in that was pretty severe
Speaker 1: without Israel having done anything against Iran, without the US
Speaker 1: having done anything against Iran, and that's courtesy of the
Speaker 1: Biden years of letting a whole host of unknown people
Speaker 1: into our country. But the best way to mitigate those
Speaker 1: things is sort of what the Israelis have done and
Speaker 1: what I think a broader coalition of people need to
Speaker 1: do is one by one you lessen the capabilities of
Speaker 1: the bad actors. You get the Chinas and the Russians
Speaker 1: to think maybe they want to back off, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they're not all in for their Iranian pals. The
Speaker 1: Iranian pals aren't able to fuel those subordinates, and you
Speaker 1: have a demonstration effect by the president being decisive. It
Speaker 1: was always thought it was a little bit ridiculous for
Speaker 1: people to say, oh, Donald Trump is going to get
Speaker 1: us into Worldorld War three or some kind of protracted
Speaker 1: a commitment. I mean, having B two's fly over and
Speaker 1: shake the earth is profoundly different than sending ground forces anywhere.
Speaker 1: And so if anything this I mean. And also I've
Speaker 1: just loved, loved, loved the idea of how many people
Speaker 1: are sol hurt by not being told in advance this
Speaker 1: was happening, and I thought Scott Jennings actually had it
Speaker 1: perfectly summed up. The way you guard against leak is
Speaker 1: you don't talk against talk to leakers again, so you
Speaker 1: sort of tell where the leaks were coming from based
Speaker 1: on who the president and his top team didn't talk to.
Speaker 2: You'll appreciate it before and I mean, two hours before
Speaker 2: the Israeli strikes kicked off, I was with the President
Speaker 2: and then right next to the Oval with the whole
Speaker 2: you know, your old your old office, I mean the
Speaker 2: NSC and uh talking to all those different folks, and
Speaker 2: it was funny because everything was very you know, we
Speaker 2: were off the record, but I mean we're talking about
Speaker 2: all kinds of national security stuff and everything was pretty
Speaker 2: you know, oh yeah, we can talk about this week.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I had a on the not on the record content,
Speaker 2: but on the record meeting with Tulsi Gabber, the d
Speaker 2: and I and all these different folks I talked to
Speaker 2: you just in general. The second remember, hours before these
Speaker 2: really strike, if if I even mentioned the word Iran,
Speaker 2: it was you know, it was all of a sudden. Ever,
Speaker 2: it kind of just like got really they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: but you know, I even had one I won't say
Speaker 2: who it was. I one person who had just said,
Speaker 2: you know, what's the what's the temperature like with Iran
Speaker 2: right now? Because I'm getting a sense that things might
Speaker 2: be you know, there's some chatter up, things heating up, whatever,
Speaker 2: And it was, well, I can't separate the classified from
Speaker 2: the unclassified, so I can't make further comment. I remember
Speaker 2: my head tell yeah, I I remember thinking, okay, so
Speaker 2: we're going in like this is happening. So yeah, no
Speaker 2: surprise there, Yeah, it's h they were, they were very
Speaker 2: Everyone was very quiet about it for sure. So it's
Speaker 2: gone much. I will say this has gone better even
Speaker 2: than I had anticipated in terms of the retaliatory response
Speaker 2: to Iran. The fact that Tehran were and I believe
Speaker 2: it told us that they were going to fire or
Speaker 2: missiles at our base in this show of force thing.
Speaker 2: Clearly they can't do any military to military damage to US.
Speaker 2: Their only option is terrorism. And look, you know, I
Speaker 2: think people need to remember also October seventh, what Hamas
Speaker 2: did in Israel was it was the Israeli nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: That was the let's just go out and kill as
Speaker 2: many civilians as possible approach to things. And I think
Speaker 2: people can look back historically, will look back historically and
Speaker 2: think that was maybe the biggest strategic miscalculation that Hamas
Speaker 2: has ever made among many, right, I mean, among a
Speaker 2: lot of areas and blunders, but I think they just
Speaker 2: they they completely they missed it. They don't understand you
Speaker 2: do something like that, and the First World armies of
Speaker 2: the of civilization they take the gloves off.
Speaker 1: Well, I agree with that. I also think it exposed
Speaker 1: more because we had had rental mobs and agitators for
Speaker 1: years doing destructive things in the United States, and as
Speaker 1: long as it was domestic politics, it kind of hid
Speaker 1: who was up to what. But after October seventh, the
Speaker 1: flash mobs were immediately holding up Hamas and Palestinian flags
Speaker 1: and things like that. It made very very clear, I
Speaker 1: think to a lot of sane America that holy crap,
Speaker 1: this is something different. This is not organic, this is
Speaker 1: not American.
Speaker 2: There were people they were still burying the dead in Israel.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, women and children and the elderly
Speaker 2: burying the dead, and you and people in this country
Speaker 2: calling for a ceasefire. A cease fire before the Israelis
Speaker 2: had even been able to fire or shot in response
Speaker 2: to that is the most disingenuous. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: like if a guy ran into a bar, punched the
Speaker 2: first person the face he saw, and then when the
Speaker 2: guy went to hit him back, he goes, hold on
Speaker 2: a second, ceasefire. No, that's not how this works.
Speaker 1: It's peace and love. Brother, Come on.
Speaker 2: But I mean the ceasefire talk was just but you know,
Speaker 2: I'm actually in a sense, I think it was good
Speaker 2: that they did that because it showed the same people
Speaker 2: saying ceasefire are the same people who have been saying
Speaker 2: there's a genocide in Gaza as things move along, are
Speaker 2: the same people who are saying that were violating international
Speaker 2: norms by striking Iran. They really actually just root for
Speaker 2: the bad guys. I mean, they're really actually just on.
Speaker 1: I agree, Yeah, yeah, very very clarifying. The other the
Speaker 1: other thing was after October seventh, somewhere along the lines. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was, there were some back and forth. Of course,
Speaker 1: the Israelis have done some incredible things by way of
Speaker 1: human intelligence, embedding themselves into their enemy in ways that
Speaker 1: the entire world ought to learn.
Speaker 2: Can I just kind of jumped in really quickly with
Speaker 2: this because you had you had a TS and you know,
Speaker 2: secret squirrel clearance. I had a T S Secret squirrel clearance.
Speaker 2: You know, we saw some interesting stuff back in the day.
Speaker 2: I've never seen anything like one with the Israelis pulled
Speaker 2: off with hesbe Lah obvious, I don't think anyone's seeing that.
Speaker 2: But also it's like they mapped out I mean, Stephen,
Speaker 2: they they did missile strikes on nuclear scientists at home
Speaker 2: in apartment buildings and only killed the scientists. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is like it's like they had the whole playbook
Speaker 2: of how they were going to take out all the
Speaker 2: guys they wanted to take out.
Speaker 1: Well, I think they literally did have the playbook, and
Speaker 1: they had people that were trusted and at the side
Speaker 1: of some pretty key leaders. So they ended up with
Speaker 1: the intelligence, the necessary knowledge, but then the precision and
Speaker 1: the discipline to deliver on what they aimed to do.
Speaker 1: I mean the visuals of seeing a hole in the
Speaker 1: side of a condo building that only fried the unit
Speaker 1: the bad guy was in. That is otherworldly. That is
Speaker 1: the stuff of movies that we wouldn't believe if we
Speaker 1: read the script, and so it was really really amazing.
Speaker 1: Plus they had an exchange of missiles. So Iran launched
Speaker 1: some missiles in the direction of Israel, like a year
Speaker 1: ago or something like that, and the Israelis were able
Speaker 1: to learn from that when they retaliated the state of
Speaker 1: Iran's air defenses. Iran had bought a lot of air
Speaker 1: defense capabilities from several different sources, Chinese, the Russians, others,
Speaker 1: and on paper it could have been scary. We had
Speaker 1: to have some uncertainty, so did the Israelis. But I
Speaker 1: think the Israelis learned a lot more than the average
Speaker 1: bear about the vulnerability that Tehran and other places had
Speaker 1: when they saw their missile counter strikes succeed and that
Speaker 1: led them to know they could conduct deeper operations. So
Speaker 1: they had the playbook, they had some technical tests, but
Speaker 1: then they also had the gumption to give it a go,
Speaker 1: and they had their reasons for it. Now we also
Speaker 1: have people you've talked about some people on our side
Speaker 1: that got spun up in different ways. You'll talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, the Israelis leading us in a direction or
Speaker 1: to us, you know, doing these things for Israel. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm old enough to remember four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty four days, and I'm old enough to remember marine
Speaker 1: barracks and other kinds of things getting blown up. There
Speaker 1: is and I also, you know, we can before or
Speaker 1: against the Iraq War. I certainly have a lot of
Speaker 1: questions and criticisms of how things were conducted after major
Speaker 1: military operations were done at the initial phase. Lots and
Speaker 1: lots of criticisms and questions. But no matter what, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of Iranian ordinance that killed Americans during that war.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's any number of reasons why a
Speaker 1: decisive action would be justified just on American interests. And again,
Speaker 1: I similarly to a lot of these people, I don't
Speaker 1: want to protracted war. But this was striking at distance
Speaker 1: and with stealth, and that I think for the timbers
Speaker 1: of Russia, Russia and China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, remarkably successful. Let's come back and actually talk next
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Speaker 2: All right, So now Trump doesn't really need to hear
Speaker 2: the lectures from the chattering class over like no nation building.
Speaker 2: I think he's pretty clear on that. And I also
Speaker 2: think he's a little like like like the dad who's
Speaker 2: been paying all the bills who now has people chirping
Speaker 2: at him about like, how do you know he's got it?
Speaker 2: You know he's figured this out? Yeah, Like, well, what
Speaker 2: do you think is next here? For? If thing go
Speaker 2: the way that we would like them too? Because I
Speaker 2: I'm always very I would to say, I don't know
Speaker 2: if cynical is the word, but I just feel like,
Speaker 2: look Asad had suicide bombers infiltrating pretty much his inner
Speaker 2: circle in like twenty twelve, and it looked like they
Speaker 2: were going to get him in any a, you know,
Speaker 2: lasted another decade in change right under tremendous pressure and
Speaker 2: managed to just sort of slither out and last and
Speaker 2: what is he now? He's living in Russia? Right, I'm
Speaker 2: not as convinced as some others that this is the
Speaker 2: death knell of the Ayatolas at all. But so then
Speaker 2: if that is the case, what is the best like,
Speaker 2: what's the best realistic option for what happens in Iran
Speaker 2: without without US pushing regime change?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I mean, I would confess over the arc
Speaker 1: of my life, I've been disillusioned about the nature of
Speaker 1: authoritarian and brutal regimes. They have a stickiness that is
Speaker 1: very very disappointing, very good.
Speaker 2: Staying in power. That's like the main thing they want
Speaker 2: to do, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And willing to do anything, and so they have escalatory
Speaker 1: dominance over anyone who wants to challenge them in many,
Speaker 1: many cases. You know. The one that seared in my
Speaker 1: mind was the absolute universe of intelligence services in the
Speaker 1: US and the entire world saying that the North Korean
Speaker 1: regime was on its deathbed in the nineties, and it was.
Speaker 1: It was overwhelming evidence, and there was mass starvation, right,
Speaker 1: So you can look at this and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's no way that people. It's hard for starving people
Speaker 1: to overthrow a huge military apparatus. Yeah, And then you
Speaker 1: think of, you know, the regimes now have tools that
Speaker 1: the people back then could only imagine. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I would love it if the Iran pre revolution had
Speaker 1: a second go of things. That would be a beautiful
Speaker 1: thing to witness. It would be great if the history
Speaker 1: of the Persian Empire could kind of give some of
Speaker 1: those good civilizational qualities back to this war torn part
Speaker 1: of this planet. But I'm not going to hold my
Speaker 1: breath on that. And I think that what President Trump
Speaker 1: has been doing, he's hit a lot of major reset buttons.
Speaker 1: But one of the major reset buttons is a true
Speaker 1: sense of realism and foreign policy, and that really focuses
Speaker 1: less on the nature of the state and more on
Speaker 1: containing the malign influences and seeing if you can negotiate
Speaker 1: a more stable balance point for our interactions with different countries.
Speaker 1: And that's uncomfortable for a lot of people that live
Speaker 1: in the world of black and white, complete one hundred
Speaker 1: percent right or wrong, no gray, no middle, which is
Speaker 1: not my life, whether it's in dealing with the family
Speaker 1: that I love or dealing with with friends or other experiences.
Speaker 1: There's the real world is not all or nothing, and
Speaker 1: it's not that here either, And so I think what
Speaker 1: President Trump has now, you've got the Abraham Accords. Countries
Speaker 1: that probably aren't one hundred percent happy with the way
Speaker 1: things have played out. Israel probably pretty happy, but some
Speaker 1: of the Arab allies maybe mixed feelings. But on balance
Speaker 1: there they didn't want Iran to have a nuclear program either.
Speaker 1: But you have tools to manage risk better going forward,
Speaker 1: and a lot of motivation to do it. Trump pushes prosperity,
Speaker 1: and people might downplay that, but it is a useful
Speaker 1: and good tool. It doesn't work all the time perfectly.
Speaker 1: I think US China relations are the best counter example
Speaker 1: to prosperity. Doctrine doesn't solve all your national security woes,
Speaker 1: and you have to watch out, but it's a lot
Speaker 1: safer set of options than having a theocratic totalitarian regime
Speaker 1: with a bunch of violent terrorist proxies. So we're in
Speaker 1: a different set of tools. He's also really focused on
Speaker 1: arming and enabling independent capabilities among our allies so that
Speaker 1: they can over time take a lead with this this
Speaker 1: stupid talk of closing the straits of Hormuz, that that
Speaker 1: shivered the timbers of the Chinese they flowing.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna They're not gonna say, yeah, you know what,
Speaker 2: guys to stop selling us your oil. That's not gonna help.
Speaker 1: So here's a big country that wants to be your friend,
Speaker 1: and your peeing in their teerios. Come on, you can't
Speaker 1: do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that sounds even better in the original Chinese.
Speaker 2: You know, that's.
Speaker 1: The classical Chinese modern Yeah, exactly, it's more poetic in
Speaker 1: the old language.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I mean, maybe we have to do
Speaker 2: a follow up to this, Steve, when we say, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, you know, who knew that Iran had that
Speaker 2: ace up their sleeve? I think the chance of that
Speaker 2: is like a less than one percent, so so far,
Speaker 2: to me, it seems like a remarkable success where we are.
Speaker 2: We will do a follow up, but we're doing this
Speaker 2: was our Middle East Yates deep dive. We'll do as
Speaker 2: a East Asia deep dive next time we talk. Stevin
Speaker 2: Yates over at the Heritage Foundation. Steven Alway, appreciate you man,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Take good care. Thank you. Buck