'The 'War With Iran' Super Fun Episode of Friendship'

Robert, Katy and Cody discuss The Millennium Challenge and How An Invasion of Iran Might Look.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Welcome Together Everything, Welcome Everybody to the Worst Year Ever,

(00:23):
the podcast about this year, which we jokingly declared would
be the worst year ever last year, and then three
days into the year, the president recklessly assassinated an Iranian
general h and has brought the world of the precipice
of global chaos so off to a real great start.
That is an accurate description of what happened in the

(00:44):
first few days. I love it when my predictions come true,
our predictions. That's very satisfying. What I love is when, uh,
the tragic global events that will certainly cost a lot
of innocent people their lives all so retroactively make us
have done a better job of naming our podcast that

(01:05):
that I like silver lining. I can't wait for the
second week. How that who knows he could kill anybody?
He could? He could, he could, he could declare anybody
a terrorist and kill them right there in the middle.
That is really The thing that isn't harped on enough

(01:26):
is that not only did we like collectively as a nation,
make President Donald Trump the president, but by doing so,
we declared that Donald J. Trump should have the right
to end all life on Earth, which is a cool
side effect of our system. True. Anyway, everybody's talking about Yeah,

(01:47):
everybody's talking about Iran right now and the risk of
war with Iran. And in the wake of Costum Suleimani's assassination, UM, like,
there were a bunch of anti war protests all throughout
the United States, as people basically said like hands off Iran, UM.
And I think that a lot of this is based
on some a mix of like terror, because we also

(02:09):
have PTSD from the way the protests against the war
in Iraq and then the subsequent war in Iraq went UM.
And I also think it's just sort of like everybody
so amped up all the time now that everything gets
taken to eleven And I wanted to try and provide
some context about number one, like what an actual invasion
of Iran might look like, UM and more to the point,

(02:32):
what I actually think um is more likely to happen
kind of in the wake of this as opposed to
sort of the most apocalyptic kind of of theories. And yeah,
if you if you're like listening to people talk about
like what like the perspective of war with Iran, UM,
like one thing that gets brought up a lot, particularly
on Twitter, is the two thousand and two Millennium Challenge.

(02:54):
Um yeah, have you guys ever heard of this? Now?
Not before this we right here, So when you mentioned
wanting to discuss it, I was like yes please, Yeah,
so one person online and this is pretty representative of
how people have been sort of summarizing the event. Uh,
described it this way and to thus into the military

(03:15):
conductive the Massive Millennium Challenge war game Team Blue U
S Forces versus Red thinly veiled Iran the Red Opposition
Forces Commander beat Blue with low tech tactics. They had
to change the rules halfway through to enforce the desired
US victory. Um So that's how it's generally described, and
like most Twitter hot takes, it's only partially accurate. Um.
But the Millennium Challenge is really worth discussing. So that's

(03:37):
what we're going to start with today. Um So this
was developed like in the area that immediately preceded the
invasion of Iraq, Like everybody knew we were going to
invade Iraq, but it hadn't happened yet. Uh, And like
heading into that, the Millennium Challenge was meant to be
the largest, most expansive and expensive military game in US history.
The goal of the games, which were mandated by Congress,

(03:59):
was to explore critical war fighting challenges at the operational
level of war that will confront US joint military forces
after two thousand ten UM. So the war games were
seen in part as preparation for the invasion of Iraq,
but there were also a testing ground for exciting new
weapons technologies that would not actually be real for nearly
a decade UM. So, yeah, since we're currently staring at

(04:22):
the possibility of war with Iran, everyone writing about the
Millennium Games today emphasizes that the Red team in these
games was based on Iran, and that's only partly true. Um.
First off, the term red team is a general run
one for the group that plays the enemy in any
kind of conflicts simulation. If you work for a company
that takes its digital security seriously, you'll have a red

(04:43):
team come in sometimes to break into your servers or whatever.
And the Red team in the two thousand two Millennium
Games was based in part on Iran, but they were
also based a lot on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, because that's
who we were about to invade UM. Like Saddam's Iraq,
they possessed a hefty stockpile of chemical weapon but like Iran,
they were assumed to include a potent force of irregular

(05:04):
combatants of like asymmetrical warfare, sort of like insurgent forces UM.
So it was really more of a mix of Iraq
and Iran. And if you read stuff about these games
from like years ago before everyone was as fired up
about conflict with Iran, people would actually tended to emphasize
that it was based on Iraq more than Iran, but
it was it was it was patterned off of aspects

(05:24):
of both countries. So the simulation had been developed before
September eleventh, two thousand one, UH and the projected cost
of the games were over a quarter of a billion dollars,
so these are very expensive. They involved more than thirteen
thousand US soldiers in seventeen different locations, including nine active
forces training sites, where soldiers were expected to deploy and
mock battle against one another. UH. Pentagon officials emphasized that

(05:48):
the main purpose of the games was to demonstrate what
they called leap ahead technologies like airborne lasers that they
believed were imminent and would change the game militarily once
again in favor of the United States. Uh. Um. And
the hope is that these games would provide a future
generation of US military leaders with dominant battlespace knowledge for
the future. Uh. These are the terms US military leaders

(06:09):
used to talk to one another. And yes they do
sound like twelve year olds playing Warhammer. Um. And it's
important to understand, like not all of the weapons that
were envisioned for these war games actually even exist today,
Like the airborne lasers they imagined having we still don't have,
which is cool. Um. So yeah, they develop these games
to like test a mix of like real things and

(06:29):
things we still don't have. Uh. And yeah, the games
were set in the near future. Um. And the US
and these games was represented by Army Lieutenant General B. B.
Bell uh. And the opposition forces the guys playing like
that combination Iran Iraq fake country. Uh. We're headed by
a retired Marine Corps general named Van Riper. In General

(06:51):
Van Riper was viewed by his colleagues as a devious
sort of guy um who was like capable of carrying
out some really cunning shit. Um. And he had a
real um, a real he thought it was very valuable.
Um to try to give his own side as much
trouble as possible in these games. Like, that's what he
saw as his job. Um. So, the goal of the
opposition forces headed by Van van Riper was to preserve

(07:13):
the existence of the fictional regime that they represented and
to deny the U. S Forces or Blue Team as
much ground as possible. The goal of the US was
to secure shipping lanes, wipe out the oppositions w m
d s, and compel the enemy regime to stand down.
Um So, it's it's cool, um now. Van Riper, the
Red Team commander, it was a famous critic of the
war games held by the still new U. S Military

(07:35):
Joint Forces Command. In two thousand one, jf COM had
had held the United Vision Exercise, and Van Riper had
been brought into control the Red Team there. Midway through
the game. He had been informed by the White Cell,
which is basically the dungeon master of a war game.
It's like the guys who sort of interface between the
two sides and tell people what actually happens when they

(07:55):
take their actions. So like the d M of this
very nerdy war game had told Van Riper halfway through
that the U S forces had destroyed all of his
team's ballistic missiles UM, even though his opponent hadn't actually
located the missiles that he'd hidden. And the justification for
given for this was that the Pentagon had new radar
technology that would be out in the future and they

(08:17):
were pretty sure that it would have made it easy
to spot these. So there's some really dumb ship that
goes on with war games, and Van Riper was really
pissed about this dumb ship UM, so he had complained
in two thousand one, and as a result of his complaints,
he'd been promised that the Millennium Challenge war Games, the
next year's war games would be free play and honest
exercise where the Red team would actually have the ability

(08:38):
to win. So that was like something he was promised
going into this, is that your side can actually win.
We're not going to intervene to guarantee a US victory
with like fake technology from the future. Yeah, from the future.
It is like I feel it's I'm not being reductive
by comparing it to dungeons and Dragons. I mean, yeah's

(08:59):
hard to imagine how helpful that is, but some aspects
of it are helpful. Um, and some aspects of it
are very silly, and we're about to talk about a
really helpful aspect of it. So um Yeah, obviously, like
war games aren't real war there were artificial limitations placed
on both sides as a result of the fact that,
like they had to land thousands of troops in certain

(09:21):
areas and they only had so many days to carry
it out. So like you can't have a totally open
ended exercise because like you're taking thirteen thousand soldiers away
from their duties to do stuff like drop out of planes.
You need to ensure they drop out of the planes
and get that training in even if things in the
war game don't go quite the way like that they should.
So certain like it's it's never a perfect like representation

(09:43):
of real warfare. Exactly, Like you're gonna run run out
of mountain dew and chips eventually, and like everyone's got
to go home. Yeah, schools. The next morning, two guys
are going to get into a fist fight over how
tongue tendrils works, and exactly we all we all know
how this good. So um Van Riper was the right

(10:03):
guy to put in charge of the opposition. Um and
he was a pretty cunning son of a bitch. And
the Millennium Challenge games opened with the U. S side,
the Blue Team, issuing an ultimatum to the Red Team
demanding the surrender of their Saddam Hussein, analog fake dictator.
The Red Team obviously turned this down and refused to
give up immediately and not have a war game. Um,

(10:26):
and so yeah, the US forces began to move in.
And I'm gonna quote now from a great article on
the Millennium Challenge from the website War on the Rocks. Quote.
Since the George W. Bush administration had recently announced the
pre emption doctrine, Van Riper decided that as soon as
the U. S. Navy Carrier battle Group steamed into the Gulf,
he would preempt the pre empters and strike first. Once

(10:46):
US forces were within ranged, Van Riper's forces and leached
a barrage of missiles from ground based launchers, commercial ships
and planes flying low and without radio communications to reduce
their radar signature. Simultaneously, swarms of speedboats loaded with explosive
launched kami kazee attacks. Now, the US force has been
prepared to defend against an attack, and they had used
their mighty air force and powerful high tech space assets

(11:10):
to knock out the Red Team's communication assets prior to
moving into the Gulf. So immediately Van Riper's told, you
don't have any of your high tech communications equipment. But
Van Riper was a cunning son of a bitch, and
he developed a work around. He'd had his forces hide
coded messages inside the muzzen the Islamic call to prayer
that was going out over mosques. He'd organized a network
of motorcycle messengers to deliver messages by hand, and he'd

(11:33):
also organized a network of low tech light based signals
in order to coordinate a mass assault by speedboats loaded
with explosives. So we started by launching He's fucking great.
Yeah uh. As another note in two thousand six, he
was like one of those prominent voices who yelled for
Donald Rumpsfeld to the resign. So he's a cool guy. Yeah.

(11:56):
So he he launches this big attack and it starts
with like a shipload of missiles, which the U. S.
Navy's fancy new ages radar system was able to track
down and thwart, but like right behind the missiles were
hundreds of explosive speedboats that rammed into the boats next,
and this tactic worked. The boats took out nineteen U
S ships, killing and injuring twenty thousand theoretical US soldiers

(12:18):
and sailors in a matter of minutes and basically sinking
our entire fleet. Van Riper later recalled the whole thing
was over in five, maybe ten minutes, and that there
was an eerie silence, like people didn't know what to
do next, so he immediately wins. It sounds like enders
game to me, Like it's kind of is that, And

(12:40):
this is usually the part of the war games that
gets highlighted most when like people are talking about right
now on Twitter and like I've I've read people being
like the US invade, When we invade you know, Iran,
it'll be a disaster, and like we'll lose our whole fleet,
and like, look at what happened the last time they
did this. Is um, I think that mrs a lot
of the point about what actually went down here. Yeah,

(13:03):
because like this part of the story is actually not
an example of the US military being stupid. This is
an example of a war game doing exactly what you'd
want it to do. Like we held this game and
it exposed a massive shortcoming and like our operational plans
um in a really like stark and disastrous way, Like
this is exactly what you want to have happened in
a war game because nobody actually dies. Um, you do,

(13:30):
exactly that's what you'd want to have happened. So so
far this is actually a big success as a war game.
The Blue team leader, General Bell, admitted that the Red
team had sunk my damn navy uh and inflicted a
disaster from which we all learned a great lesson. Um.
So Van Riper won the first round, but again, they
spent a quarter of a billion dollars on this war game.

(13:50):
They had troops ready. They were just gonna be like,
well you won, like everybody go home. Um, So they
restarted the war games. They refloated all of the ships
and basically declared everyone alive again and carried out the
operation again. So we're going to talk about what happened next.
But first, you know what won't theoretically sink us sailors?

(14:14):
Would it be? Products? Yes? And yeah, right whatever you
say together everything we're bad. So um, yeah, the Van

(14:37):
Riper wins the first round. The Navy refloats their ships,
and then restart the war game. Uh And on the
second go through, Van riper Street speedboat strategy didn't work
because the US was ready for it and took effective
countermeasures and stopped the attack, which is again what you'd
want to see if you care about a war game
actually being effective in altering U S strategy in productive ways.

(14:58):
Um Now, the problems those started to creep in after
this point in the games. Prepared for Van Riper's insurgent
anti ship attacks, the U S Fleet was able to
get close to shore and launch an amphibious assault of
the regime by US marines. Now, the first wave of
marines was to be landed by V twenty two Osprey,
a tilt rotor aircraft at the Marine Corps would not

(15:19):
actually have for five more years. Um. Now. The Osprey
is a massive craft and it's very easy to track
on radar, which should have presented a problem for the
Blue Team because they're kind of easy to shoot down
if you have like the sort of air assets that
the Red Team had. But the war game dungeon masters
sent Van Riper's staff a message saying that they just
weren't allowed to shoot at any of the Marine Corps

(15:39):
troop transports. Um yeah, exactly, Like this is when it
starts to get to be bullshit. Um, this is dumb.
The justification was that, um yeah. Basically the military's justification
is that they only had a few days to actually
do this and they wanted to just land the soldiers

(16:00):
and practiced airborne landings too, So like they kind of
bullshitted things to get to do this, um as you
do in a war. Um so, even taking like a
new account the fact that they did have to do
certain things because like they're spending a lot of money
and they got to justify it by getting in training
to the second version of these games was made stupidly

(16:22):
easy for the Blue team. Van Riper was required to
put all of his air defense assets out in the
open where they could be easily shot, like wiped out.
He wasn't allowed to deploy his chemical weapons because doing
so would have made it impossible to land troops, which
again would have stopped them from being able to train
on landing troops. Um bullshit Like this kept mounting, and
after six frustrating days, Van Riper stepped down as commander

(16:43):
of the opposition forces in protest and acted as an
advisor for the remaining two weeks or so of the games.
But even then, even with the war game Dungeon Masters
stacking the deck against Like in favor of the United States,
the Blue Team, the US was unable to complete all
of its goals and take out the regime supported by
the Red team, So the regime like continued to exist.

(17:04):
And I'm gonna quote from a very good task and
purpose right up on the war games here. The real
lesson learned from MC two thousand and two Millennium Challenge
You thousand two shouldn't be that when fighting an enemy
who can only fight as a decentralized insurgency, we can't
win even with a stacked deck. It's that the most
advanced THEATO ratical weapons won't neutralize a force sustained by
hatred or ideology. If we wanted to learn anything, MC

(17:27):
two thousand two should have been a war game with
no war, a war game that starts not with guns
are sanctions, but with negotiators. Eighteen years into a war
against an insurgency, and we still struggle to learn that lesson.
I mean, just watch the movie. It's literally War Games Like,
also starring General Van Riper. Now, after the Millennium challenge.

(17:51):
General Van Riper went on to complain loudly to the
press about what he'd seen. He claimed the whole thing
was prostituted. It was a sham intended to prove what
they wanted to prove. He told The New York Times,
there's an unfortunate culture developing in the American military that
maybe should make you nervous. I don't see the rich
intellectual discussions that we had after Vietnam. I see mostly slogans, cliches,

(18:12):
and unreadable materials. And based on the stuff that I've
been reading in the media around the assassination of General Suleimani,
it doesn't seem likely that rich intellectual discussions are being
fostered in our current military chain of command. Um. For
one thing, the decision to strike at Iran's military leader
inside the borders of an allied nation Iraq was not
made with any real plan for the fallout. As The

(18:34):
New York Times reported, the option was presented to the
president like because they thought it would make other options
look good because it was so dumb. Didn't eat you
another option first, and then I don't know, Yeah, don't
do that, Donald Trump. He option absolutely go for the
dumb one. Yeah, he will, but also doesn't seem like

(18:56):
a pr thing of like, well, we didn't actually want
him to do this, we did it as Yes, it's
very hard to know what exactly, because it's very possible,
like the New York Times has a notorious history of
wanting to like their military sources, to like them and
reporting on whatever will make the military look good. Right,

(19:16):
maybe it's a matter of yeah, this is gonna go yeah, yeah,
but like yeah, the idea that like, well we we
just we just did it as a goof we thought
it was too dumb. No, yeah, that's not impossible because
everything is incredibly stupid because it's the worst year ever.

(19:38):
But it's also yeah, it's also possible that like something
basically like the a lot like a lot of So
one of the things I'm gonna do an episode behind
the Bastards this week on Sulimani and we'll get into
in more detail. One of the things he was famous
for is that as command of Commander of the Kood's Force,
which is like kind of a mix between special forces

(20:00):
is in the CIA for Iran, he was like instrumental
in the distribution of what are called explosively formed penetrators,
like the special type of I E. ED that was
responsible for about of the US casualties in Iraq. So
a lot of people in the Defense department hate him
because their soldiers and stuff got killed as a result
of innovations this guy brought in. So it's also entirely

(20:20):
possible the military has been wanting to the military is
definitely wanted this guy dead for a while. Most US
presidents have been too smart and most high brass have
been too smart to like stir up that hornet's nest.
It's possible that some people with who wanted this dude
dead saw that Trump was their opportunity to make it happen. Um.

(20:41):
I do think people have been right to freak out
a little bit as to what the consequences of this
assassination are likely to be. It is a huge deal
and it will lead to more killing. Um. But I'm
frustrated at how much of that has been focused on,
like mass violenced in the United States and stuff like that.
Like there's been people like screaming about the threat of
like a rainy and sleeper cells attacking America and stuff.

(21:02):
I don't see that as particularly instantly it ramped up
to that and like stopping citizens at the border and stuff. Yeah,
Like well that didn't we learn anything, of course we didn't, Um,
but yeah, I mean it's more concerning are the people
over there, are the troops that are now being deployed
over there or that are already there? Uh, how this

(21:25):
affects are like citizens in that region? Yeah, that's a concern.
Like and instantly when that when the when first the
news broke, I remember, like the l A p D
shared out a tweet like we're monitoring this situation very
taking very closely. What and that's terrifying in its own
We don't need to get into that mode. Like yeah, yeah,

(21:46):
And like if you're thinking about like the the groups
of people least likely to be piste off at the
assassination of Kosum Sulamany just because of who he was. Uh,
Like the Iranians who fled Iran to of in the
United States are pretty yeah, now they don't tend to
be fans. This is the guy who, among other things,

(22:07):
Um was largely responsible for recently suppressing protests against the
government in Iran last late last year that led to
like people being executed. Um, he's a dude with a history.
Uh now, Um, I also think like, so you've had like,
on one hand, like these people like flipping out like oh,
Iran is going to attack like my neighborhood, or like

(22:28):
they're going to fire missiles at US, which is is
not I don't think the worry. You've also had people
freaking out that like the US is going to try
to invade Iran and like a conventional military engagement and
like either will kill a lot of them or they'll
murder a lot of us because they're worried about like
what they read about in the Millennium Challenge. I don't
really see a headlong invasion of Iran as particularly likely.

(22:51):
Like obviously it could happen as part of a series
of cascadingly stupid decisions, which could absolutely occur because only
the dumbest people are at the wheel in our country.
Um well, everything I don't think that's going steps seems
to be like that's kind of what they want to happen.
It's just like at what point does that damn break?
Like all the antonism and like pulling out of your randy,

(23:13):
all the things leading up to this and then doing
this like oh well, what do you want? I mean,
he says one thing and does another. Um, do you
guys want to talk about what everybody thinks that this
is a distraction from appeachment, that this is a ploy
for re election. Yeah, I'm sure I suspect, like that's Honestly,
I don't think Trump wants to invade Iran. There's certainly

(23:37):
people within his administration who want a war with Iran.
I don't think Trump does because, like I think that's
a big, painful, messy thing that's unlikely to actually help
him politically because it would not be a fun or
an easy war. Um. I think Trump's thinking on this
probably didn't go much further than oh, this is what

(23:58):
everyone will be talking about. It will be like when
I killed bog Datti, Like let's let's do that, and
let's stop people talking about the the impeachment. Yeah, I mean,
and it's just a sense possible. It's like less like
the threat of World War three and more like Cold
War two and just like sort of tensions where but

(24:18):
there when there will also still be violence in that
region because that's what we've been doing for decades. Um,
And like this idea not starting another forever war which
obviously like I'm behind that message in general, but like
we're in there forever war, like it's still going on.
It's not like we're going to start another one on
forever war and we're in it, and it's just which

(24:40):
region we're in we're focusing on. Is that should be
its new official name? Um? Yeah, no, I mean I
hear that, and you're right, that certainly crossed my mind
that it's just like Okay, he just does the thing
without thinking it through completely. Uh, it succumbs to pressure
from from certain people. It's hard. It's hard to not
um go to that place where you think, oh, this

(25:04):
is something that people have pointed in him in this direction,
because you know, it's hard to uh lose a re
election when you're in the midst of a war. There's
a way that you can frame it. There's a way
that this can help. Like we're seeing already gin up
um fear of others, of Iranians, of the flip of

(25:25):
the flip of even just the media like on a
dime immediately, Yeah, well maybe maybe we should do this.
It's um, it's that that is something I mean, there's
so many aspects of this that's alarming, But you know,
it's hard to not it's hard to just not consider
that for me personally. Clinton did it in January after
he wasn't like during the impeachment, like basically the same

(25:50):
time period, UM, for for similar reasons also and obviously
just says whatever. But Yeah, there's like that clip from
his old vlog where really accuses Obama of going to
start a war with Iran so that he can win
re election. So when he says things like that, you
know it's on his mind. Yeah, saying that maybe that's

(26:13):
what he's doing, uh, is based obviously on his behavior,
but also he's literally thought about it before, UM, in
the context of being president. Yeah, I mean, and that's
what I think is more likely than Trump. I think
Trump's desire to avoid like war like because war is

(26:37):
complicated in a big pain in the ass, UH is
genuine not out of any humanitarian need, but because it's
messy and they usually don't go very well. I think
what Trump likes is kind of the same thing Obama likes.
He likes being able to flex his muscle and order
a guy killed and brag about it. I think he's
probably scared at the possibility of having to deploy hundreds

(26:58):
of thousands of US troops and an invasion of a
foreign nation. That's such a messy thing. And I get like,
historically we have this idea that it helps the president's
poll numbers, but I don't think that's really the case anymore,
because we've been consistently at war for so long, um
that I think an escalation, like the one thing that

(27:20):
Trump can't afford to do is like massively escalate our
troop commitments overseas, which an invasion of Iran would do.
Like that, like the whole thing he wants to brag
about he's willing to like destroy our alliance with the
Kurds in Syria over is like trying to get US
forces out of the Middle East, and like that was
a big part of what he was trying to announce

(27:41):
with um and fucking Afghanistan with like the ceasefire with
the Taliban is he's clearly trying to move to have
to like get US forces out of Afghanistan too, so
we can say I pulled our troops out of two countries.
I really don't think that this is my gun. Maybe
I'm wrong about this. I don't think that's what he
wants UM. I do think there's guys around him that

(28:01):
want Yeah, and he's very impulsive and also he kind
of he kind of does, but kind of doesn't. That's
the frustrating. Yeah. He loves the military and loves like swinging. Yeah.
I think that there's a world where people are pushing
him for this, and uh, you know all this stuff
is going on and Peach and stuff's going on. He's like, sure, yeah,

(28:24):
that'll help, you know. Without Yeah, I don't know. I
certainly hope you're right that it doesn't have the same
power that it has in the past. I think it's
a valid point. Yeah, I've been Uh I kind of
mentioned before just like like we're in this sort of
general like protest era where like people are just like
dung ho about protesting and uh, you know the science March,

(28:46):
that this march, that this march. And I've always like
held out hope like maybe maybe if another war is
like actually plausible, then that'll be the thing that does
it that like gets people really could because we've done
it so many times, we've been here, we know how
easy it is to be lied to. UM, And do
you think it is that I don't it's because I mean,

(29:10):
I I take your point, and you're right, this is
a protest era, but it's not the same. Everybody's a
little bit burnt out. You hear about a protest and
you don't I know. No, That's why i'm I'm It
would have to it would have to be something new,
I think for it to really have an impact. It
would have to not just be we're going to protest
the war. Would have to be we're going to shut
this fucking country down. We're going to have a general strike,

(29:32):
we are going to we're going to all break the
law a lot together exactly like in order to damage
this country until they stop. Um. I don't know that
I think that's likely, But I think if that's the
kind of thing, like I didn't show up at any
anti war protest, first because I don't see this as
a pro war with Iran move. I see this is
like a stupid, reckless move by an idiot who wanted

(29:53):
to distract from an impeachment. Um. The second because like
there's so many random marches, I don't I can't show
up to them all. Um. But if it's a we're
gonna function up until what this country is doing fundamentally changes,
and we will hold it hostage until it does. Yeah.
I'll get out into the street. Yeah yeah, general strike

(30:13):
and general shut down of like, nope, we're done. We're
done here. I don't know what it takes for us
to get to that point. Yeah, no one does. Um
when we come back after adds, I want to talk
a little bit about what I think actually is going
to happen in the wake of this, based on some
stuff that happened in the past. For I know what

(30:35):
didn't happen in the past ads for products and services,
perfect was creating an ad for a product or service
together everything are So I want to talk a little

(30:57):
bit about what I think is actually likely as like
the next series of events to happen based on stuff
that's happened in the past. In lateross oh my god,
oh man a fifteen flush salute when this president lies

(31:18):
and state Yeah. Uh so. In late two thousands six,
General Stanley McCrystal formed a task force to kill and
capture Iranian backed insurgents in Iraq. That December, US force
has rated the compound of a prominent Shiite politicians and
captured an Iranian general there. The general was a member

(31:39):
of the Kood's force, which I was just talking about,
the group run by Kasam Sulamani. Uh. This arrest of
an Iranian commander in Iraq was seen by everyone, including
the Iraqis, as the breaking of an unwritten law. Iraq's
Prime Minister, Nori el Maliki, demanded that general's release, and
he was in fact released, but doing so really piste
off the American because again the Kods force has been

(32:01):
directly and directly responsible for hundreds of US casualties. So
Stanley McCrystal looked out for another way to strike back.
In January of two thousand seven, he received word that
another Iranian Revolutionary Guard general was in a convoy headed
towards the Iraqi border, and to make matters sweeter, General
Kasam Sulimani was heading there with him. Both generals were

(32:21):
set to meet with Kurdish leaders. Mccrystal's forces tracked the
convoy as it drove to her Bill, the Kurdish capital,
and stopped at a small building crudely marked as a consulate. Now,
the fact that this building was labeled as a consulate
should have made it immune to any sort of like
US intervention. Um the Iranians have diplomatic cover when they're
in a consulate and a sovereign nation like That's the

(32:42):
way international law is supposed to work. But the Americans
ignored diplomatic niceties and international law and the express wishes
of the Iraqis and moved in anyway. They arrested five
Iranians bearing diplomatic passports. McCrystal insists that these guys were
all Kods Force members, and they probably were, but this
violation of the accepted norms of behavior in the region

(33:03):
piste off everybody, most especially Iran. Nine days later, a
group of Iraqis dressed in American uniforms infiltrated the Karbala
provincial center in southern Iraq, killed one U S soldier
and captured four more. They drove these captives outside the
provincial center and executed all four at close range. Solamani
denied having anything to do with this attack, but it

(33:24):
is generally and probably correctly seen as a reprisal for
the arrest of his men. The people who actually did
the killings, though, were Iraqis members of Asaib al hak
Ashia backed militia or a Shia militia backed by Iran
that was recently declared a foreign terrorist group by the
United States. This same militia has been accused credibly of
killing Iraqi protesters and Assyria in late two thousand nineteen. Now,

(33:48):
I think this sequence of events provides a much likelier
blueprint for the sort of responses we can expect from Iran.
They have proxies all across the Mid East, and it
behooves them to have these forces kidnap and execute Americans.
The best part of this strategy is that it's relatively
restrained nature will contrast with what will surely be the
unhinged response of the Trump administration. Our president has already

(34:09):
threatened to bomb cultural and civilian sights in response to
any Iranian aggression. If Iran launched some sort of mass
military attack, uh in the US fired back with missiles
and whatnot, that wouldn't seem like an escalation to most people.
Like if they're blowing up on aircraft carrier and we're
shooting missiles back, that just looks like war. But if
some Iraqi missionman militiamen kill a couple of Americans in

(34:29):
Basra and then Trump launches missiles at Iran, like that
seems a lot less justifiable to most people around the world.
Um And you know, if a lot of these attacks
are carried out by Iraqi militia who are backed by Iran,
who's to say Trump won't decided to strike at targets
inside of Iraq. When the news came that the Iraqi
Parliament passed a non by binding UH like resolution to

(34:54):
ask the United States to leave, Trump started threatening to
like charge them billions of dollars for the base is
that we built there in place sanctions on the Iraqi economy.
He's already shown he has no issues UH firing missiles
off inside Iraq's sovereign territory. So if there were attacks
by Iraqi militias backed by Iran against Americans in Iraq,

(35:15):
I have no trouble imagining that Trump might launch launch
missiles at Iraq too, at which point we're firing missiles
into the sovereign territory of our ally. Um And I
think from Iran's point of view, getting the US to
kill a bunch of Iranian and Iraqi civilians and half
cocked vengeance strikes would do a great job of welding
the people of both nations together against US influence, which
is kind of the whole goal of their foreign Yeah,

(35:38):
we've we've seen aspects of this happened so far. Kassam
Sulimani's funeral procession started in Baghdad and included visits to
the sacred Iraqi cities of Karbala and Najaff before his
remains were returned to his hometown in Iran. Uh and
inside Iran, the government has used Costum's popularity and his
assassination to attempt to bridge some of the political divides
and Iranian culture by focusing on resistance to the United States.

(36:01):
And again, I don't want to over emphasize this because
a lot of talk about this, like you risk making
it seem like Iranians are of one mind about Kosum
Sulamani or about any of this. He was actually hugely
unpopular even within sizeable chunks of the Iranian government, Like
they're they're not all the same. And again, he helped
crack down on a popular protest movement late last year

(36:22):
that involved huge numbers of Iranian citizens who probably hate
the guy because he had their friends and family murders. So, like,
this ship is complicated, but it's split because there's a
huge amount of of people showing up in support and
in protest and anger, so that the like when the
U S is like, well, actually where the aggressor, and
we're gonna like it's just further creating this villain uh

(36:46):
for people to unite against when like, if you leave
people alone, they will figure it out. Like yeah, which
this is frustrating. That was happening in Iren exactly, the
hugely popular protests against the Iraqi government. We're also protests
against Iran because there's a lot of anger within Iraq
naturally at what Iran's gotten to do in there, because

(37:09):
they've done a bunch of imperialist meddling in Iraq. Um.
And a lot of those protesters aren't the happier with
US imperialist meddling in Iraq. But if we had supported
those protesters, um, we probably could have gained more like
diplomatic benefits than firing missiles inside Iraq at people thoughtlessly. Um.

(37:29):
It's just like such a fucking bad idea. Like when
you see democracy and action, you're like, actually, I think
this is called three D chess guys. Yeah. Another thing
I wanted to talk about is the potential of Iranian
cyber reprisals. Um. And again, people talking about this online
have like a lot of folks have been afraid that like, oh,

(37:50):
they're going to shut down our electric grid, They're gonna
like shut down the Eastern seaboard and stuff. I think
that's taking it a bit far. UM. But Iran does
have a sophisticated and extensive like digital um operations, uh,
sort of like system all around the world. UM. But
if you look at their past history of a cyber attacks,
I think you can get an idea of of how

(38:11):
this might look um. In October of two thousand nineteen,
Iranian hackers were revealed to have breached a bunch of
US satellite companies. In January of two thousand nineteen, fire Eye,
a cyber security firm, released details about a two year
long Iranian campaign to steal log in credentials for businesses
across the world, including those in North America. In December
of two thousand eighteen, to Iranian nationals were indicted for

(38:33):
carrying out a cyber ransom attack against the city government
of Atlanta. UH. And I think when you like kind
of look at what they've done in the past, the
actual like reality of what an Iranian cyber response might
look like looks less like I don't know, live free
or die hard, um, and more like, uh, the kind
of hacks that North Korea pulled off against Sony in

(38:54):
two thousand. Yeah, I think we'd be more likely to
see them trying to release I don't know, emails and
stuff like that for maybe like I don't know, maybe
like they find some ship that like the l A
p d has been saying in the wake of this
about like Iranian citizens, like whatever it would do to
spread distrust and like, yeah, tweet the N word or

(39:15):
something like that. Yeah, yeah, more dirt on politicians, studio heads, sure, yeah,
or like seeing that they hacked satellite companies makes me think, oh,
what if they found evidence, which it definitely exists that
the US government is doing much more extensive and detailed
satellite surveillance of American citizens than we previously had access to,

(39:36):
and they just reveal that that would do like that
would hurt um. But it's not like they're not going
to turn off our nuclear power plants, like and why
would they? Um, It's easier and probably more damaging in
the long run to do ship like this, like shutting
down power to huge chunks of the US would rally
people against Iran and get everybody piste off. I'd say,

(39:59):
if there's something a bunch of the last few years
that uh our social fabric, our political system, everything is
highly susceptible to subtle influences, you know, yeah, and not
so subtle, but stuff like that is a very effective
way to undermine everything between uh yeah, the people and

(40:20):
the people in power. And like, like you said, like
this the story that will eventually drop that we all
know is coming of Like oh, yeah, all your phones
are recording you obviously, That's why you get all these ads.
That's why when you say a word out loud and
then you google, it auto corrects even though no one
has ever googled that word before. Um, that story is coming.
Crazy story about that for you guys. But like having

(40:43):
that be what it is would cause so much yeah chaos. Yeah,
and that that would cause chaos. It would do damage
to the United States. And also like how could like,
if you're Trump, you can't launch a cruise missile at
an Iranian mosque because they released details that T Mobile
was buying. Honestly you say that, I mean he might,

(41:04):
I mean, but it would look it would look wild
and unhinged in a way that like if they if
he launched a missile them because they killed five U
S troops in a reprisal strike, more people can get
on board with that than like they released internal emails
the government more business as usual than we got we're

(41:26):
going to blow them up. Yeah. Yeah, so Independence Day
being the response to the hackers or something like that. Yeah.
In conclusion, I think that the responses from Iran UH
and the response like the fallout from the assassin assassination
of Sulimani is going to be terrible. Um, a lot
of people are going to die and be harmed. I

(41:46):
don't think it's gonna look like what a lot of
people are currently freaking out about. But that doesn't mean
it's not bad. It's just going to be smarter than
that is my suspicion. Yeah, so that's our little many episode. Yeah, well,
thank you for that, Robert. That was very helpful, informative

(42:07):
all the things. Yeah, everybody go watch War Games, it's
good and read Andrew's game. I don't know, I love
that book, the documentary War Games. Would you like to play?
You guys can check us out online on our social media.
It's worst Year pod, Twitter, Instagram, there's a merch store,
there's all that. Uh yeah, that's it for us today

(42:32):
and doing an elegant job ending this. Yeah, and and
look out for when our internal emails get leaked by
iran um and that that's going to be a fun
day because you will get to see how much ship
we talk about Cody behind his back it is. I
mean I get most of those emails too, Like you
don't care. Oh my god, I didn't know you saw that. Yeah,

(42:55):
they don't need to Heck, I get I can directing
my thoughts. I'm sorry, d don't be I'm still here,
all right, all right, guys, thank you for listening, Thank
you Robert for preparing that. And uh m, well all right,
everything so dull, everything so dull. It's again. I tried. Dane.

(43:21):
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