June 13, 2025 • 28 mins
The chess game in the Middle East has reached a critical juncture as Israel launches a decisive preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. This bold military action comes exactly 60 days after a joint ultimatum issued by Israel and the United States expired, marking a definitive shift from diplomacy to direct confrontation.
Drawing on my background in military intelligence analysis, I break down why this attack represents war as the final, necessary step when diplomacy fails. The Iranian regime, operating from fundamentally different cultural and religious perspectives, continued their stalling tactics that had succeeded with previous administrations. What they failed to recognize was the strategic partnership between Trump and Netanyahu, who appear to have orchestrated a carefully planned sequence of events leading to this moment.
The military imbalance is stark – Israel has achieved complete air superiority after neutralizing Iran's anti-aircraft defenses in previous operations, while Iran's air force consists largely of outdated F-4 Phantoms from the 1970s. This explains the effectiveness of Israel's strikes and the limited nature of Iran's initial response. But the chess match continues, as US military assets, including B-2 bombers capable of carrying bunker-busting MOABs, have been strategically positioned at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
This suggests preparation for what comes next – Iran's likely retaliation against American interests throughout the region, which would provide justification for devastating American strikes against remaining Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The potential endgame could include regime change in Iran and the restoration of the pre-1979 alliance structure that once existed between Iran, the United States, and Israel.
For those seeking to follow developments in real-time, I recommend Bernie News, an apolitical news aggregator focused on Middle Eastern developments. And for those interested in my political philosophy, check out "A Radical Reset," my book outlining an alternative political system based on merit-based lottery rather than traditional party politics.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning, happy Friday, june the 13th.
Friday the 13th, which turnsout to be, in my view, a lucky
day, as Israel has in fact,attacked Iran in a preemptive
strike to knock out the Iraniannuclear capability and from
early results, it seems likethey've been fantastically
(00:21):
successful and these strikes areongoing as we speak.
A little side note before I getinto my own podcast.
If you would like to followpardon me if you would like to
follow what's going on minute byminute boots on the ground,
there's an excellent newsaccumulator in the Middle East.
It's called Bernie B-E-R-N-I-Edot news, bernienews.
(00:45):
You can follow it on WhatsAppthose of you who have WhatsApp,
and if you don't, you should andif you don't like to use
WhatsApp, you can also follow iton X.
So it's Bernienews.
Bernienews.
It's not a political site, it'snot.
It's neither Zionist oranti-Zionist.
It just is an accumulator ofMiddle Eastern news.
It's not just Israeli news, butat this particular time, if you
(01:08):
would like to be keptcompletely up to date for
example, right now, as I'mrecording this, it's 11.07 am in
Phoenix, arizona, and it's beenposting about every 20 minutes
an update of what's going on inthe Middle East.
So if you want the latest andthe greatest and you'd like to
know, for whatever your reasonsmight be.
Follow it on Bernie News.
(01:30):
It's a reliable news source andit's not even American, so it's
completely apolitical.
It's not going to get into proor anti-Trump and confuse
American politics with MiddleEastern history.
So check it out, bernienews.
Okay, let's get back to thesubject matter.
By the way, that's unsponsored.
I get nothing for Bernienews.
(01:51):
I discovered it through.
Where did it?
I think Mark Halperinrecommended it on the Two-Way
Podcast, and then Rative Gore,who's an Israeli guy.
Anyway, rativ Gore actually notRativ, I know better than that
have all recommended it.
(02:12):
So, anyway, that's why I'm notgetting any.
I don't have any sponsoredmessages.
The only thing I'd like you todo for me is to go pick up a
copy of A Radical Reset onAmazon the Manifesto of
Antipolitism, the PoliticalSystem, a Republic by
Merit-Based Lottery, as bizarreas that sounds.
Check it out.
It's what needs to come nextand it's a movement, not a
(02:35):
political party.
So check it out.
The book is A Radical Reset,just like this podcast.
You can get it on Kindle,paperback or hardcover on Amazon
by me, herbie K, and anyway.
So that's that.
So let's move on to the subjectmatter obviously at hand, which
is the attack on Iran.
(02:56):
Now, for those of you who are,I'm a libertarian generally
speaking, but libertarians havegenerally come out against this
attack because libertariansbelieve that war is unnecessary
at all times.
This is where I diverge fromclassical libertarianism.
Let's call it at least theAmerican strain, or the Misesorg
(03:16):
group that's in charge of thelibertarian party right now Well
, not in charge, but certainlyas the governing influence,
which is the more purest form oflibertarianism that I generally
subscribe to.
I am a member of Misesorg.
It's a terrific organization.
I recommend that you support it.
It's all about free markets,free thought, libertarian
(03:37):
thought.
But I believe they're wrongabout this, because I think that
libertarians who are completelyknee-jerk like Dave Smith, for
example knee-jerk, anti-wardon't take into consideration
that war itself is nothing morethan the last step in diplomacy,
and this particular war in Iranthat's taking place is a
(03:57):
classic example of why it is thelast step in diplomacy.
Without war, no diplomacy meansanything.
Diplomacy without war, nodiplomacy means anything.
Okay, to believe that twoparties sit down, like what's
going on, for example, inukraine right now, for russian
ukraine to sit down without awar, it will.
It would not resolve.
It would just simply put off abigger war until later.
(04:17):
Okay, at best case scenario,war is the resolution of a fail
of the of diplomacy, when allthe talk in the world has broken
down and there's simply nowhereto go, there's no path to the
center.
War is diplomacy.
Now, the attack on civilians isa relatively new thing in war,
up until World War II and whenHitler began bombing London,
(04:40):
which I think was the first timethat a major power brought a
civilian populationintentionally under fire.
That's not to say that you know, romans didn't encircle cities
and then wipe out entirepopulations.
I'm talking about in thecontext of modern warfare, more
or less.
Even when Sherman was marchingto the sea, the idea was to
destroy property, not people.
(05:01):
Destroy property, not people.
Okay, so you know he destroyed.
He cut a path of destructionall through Georgia, all the way
down to Savannah, which hespared.
By the way, one of the mostbeautiful cities in the United
States is Savannah, georgia.
If you ever, my daughter wentto college there to scat and got
her degree in performing arts.
If you ever have a chance to goto Savannah, you really need to
(05:22):
go to the historic area andcheck it out.
It's magnificent, anyway,digressing.
So the idea of intentionallytargeting civilian populations
is a since World War II thingand in this case we're seeing
more of a return to a classicexample.
So let me just break this downinto pieces.
Number one Israel'sintelligence.
(05:43):
Well, first of all, let's talkabout diplomacy.
First, exactly 60 days to theday of yesterday, israel and the
United States told Iran thatthey had 60 days to make a deal
with President Trump, and ifthey didn't do it by the end of
60 days, then time was up andyou know there was no telling
(06:04):
what would happen next.
There was no explicit threat ofimminent attack like it took
place yesterday, exactly 60 daysafter the time, but the
implication was there and unlessyou were a complete retard, you
completely understood what wasgoing on.
Now, the Iranians.
It's hard for us to reallyappreciate the cultural
(06:27):
perspectives of non-Westerncountries.
You know, you can be taught andappreciate the perspective of
French and Germans and Poles andEnglish in World War II, for
example.
And see both sides, even if youknow one side is completely
wrong, like the Nazis, or abetter example is World War II,
for example.
And see both sides, even if youknow one side is completely
wrong, like the Nazis.
Or a better example is WorldWar I, where I don't know that
(06:47):
the Germans were at fault.
I mean, it was just one thingescalated to another, but the
Germans certainly weren't evilin that conflict.
So it was easy for me, and I'msure for you too, is, if you
take an historic perspective, toput yourself into the cultural
eyes of how you know, thePrussians might have seen it
versus the French might haveseen it, versus how the English
(07:09):
saw it, how the Americans saw it.
But when you get into anEastern culture like the
Persians, and especially an old,old culture like the Persians,
and then you mix into it Islam,which, unless you are in fact
Muslim and listening to me now,most of us have really only the
most cursory knowledge of Islam,so we're speaking from complete
(07:33):
ignorance.
So you mix a religion of whichyou're completely ignorant and
yet is devoutly followed by asignificant portion of that
population, and then you mixinto it that it's an Eastern
culture to begin with, so itdoesn't resemble in any way the
culture that we were raised in.
It's hard, if not impossible,to appreciate their point of
(07:54):
view and understand why they'redoing what they're doing.
So, I'm sure, from PresidentTrump's point of view and I'm
sure from the point of view of,for example, libertarians, as I
was talking about, you know whywouldn't they take the deal?
The deal was really, really.
It came down to this as long asthey agreed to give up all
enrichment and shut down thecentrifuges, they could have
(08:15):
civilian nuclear power and wewould take the sanctions off and
they could prosper.
And you would think that wouldbe a great deal because, from a
military perspective, taking astep back and just to remind you
guys, I was an analyst at theNational Security Agency.
I have a background in this.
I have a better knowledge ofhow the military and how foreign
(08:36):
militaries work.
I was a Russian linguist but Ihad a top secret alpha clearance
.
I have a very healthy awarenessof how militaries work, not
just as a veteran but as anintelligence guy myself and
that's not to say I'mintelligent, but I worked in
intelligence which could be anoxymoron, but anyway.
So Israel's intelligence inthis was spectacularly good and
(09:00):
they understood who they weredealing with.
So from a libertarian point ofview, you're saying to yourself,
first of all, you're kind ofmystified why wouldn't they take
the deal?
And the answer was from theircultural point of view.
They really believe it.
They believe that 48 virginsthing.
You have to take them at theirword.
They really do believe thatIsrael is an evil country and
(09:20):
must be destroyed, and they wereonly days away from getting
nuclear weapons.
So the bottom line here is isthat all the talk in the world,
what they were trying to do iswhat they had done successfully
with President Obama andPresident Biden and everybody
else before, which is stall.
They're extremely good from.
They're Middle Eastern traders,you know, and a Middle Eastern
(09:42):
trader can carry on anegotiation even if they have no
intention of ever gettinganywhere near your price.
It's almost sport for them.
And from the Iranian point ofview, they felt that they could
stall us as long as they neededto go, but they were dealing.
They also don't have a culturalappreciation of how different
(10:02):
Donald Trump is from hispredecessor, joe Biden and, uh,
of course, barack Obama, who wasan, who is an anti-Semite, so
they're dealing with a whole newsheriff in town.
They've gone from the worstpresident in history from an
Israeli point of view, thatwould be Barack Obama to the
best president in history fromthe Israeli point of view, that
(10:22):
would be Donald Trump.
I mean they named the cityafter him on the Golan Heights,
and you know he's the presidentthat moved the American embassy
to Jerusalem.
He's the president with Jewishgrandchildren.
You know, he is not.
Probably he is more popularthan Netanyahu in Israel.
That's how popular Donald Trumpis in Israel, and I don't think
(10:44):
the iranians quite appreciatedhis negotiation style, which is
to, as you know, lay it down andask for the ridiculous.
And you know he'd have talkedto him, but they weren't.
They were they, they had nointention of talking, they were
stalling.
But I think what went on hereand this is supported by nothing
other than my experience andintelligence and the fact that I
(11:06):
like to think in terms ofplaying chess as opposed to
checkers I think one of theproblems that a lot of our
leadership has well, I don'tthink so, I know so, and not
just ours, but globally is thatthey all react in the minute and
they don't play.
They're playing checkers, notchess.
All react in the minutes andthey don't play.
They're playing checkers, notchess.
They're not.
You know, if I do this, then myopponent will do this, and then
(11:27):
I'll be forced to do this,which then my opponent will do
that, and you can be out six,seven moves ahead If you're
really really good at it, ifyou're a grand master.
For those of us who are notgrand masters, including myself,
(11:50):
I'm usually three moves out andI can see what the three and I
think Trump plays chess.
I think Trump is probablyactively thinks in terms of that
metaphor.
So I think that Trump andNetanyahu were in cahoots from
the start, and I'll tell you myevidence for this is not just my
feelings, but also becauseTrump knew who he was dealing
with.
He knew what the negotiationhistory was.
He's a very, very smartnegotiator.
Love him or hate him.
You have to give him that.
And I think he was givingIsrael cover to build itself up.
(12:12):
Remember, first of all, israelhad to take delivery.
President Biden had held up thedelivery of those 2,000-pound
bombs that were delivered toIsrael.
Israel had paid for them.
They were waiting in awarehouse.
Biden blocked their shipment,so Israel didn't have them and
those were necessary for thisattack.
(12:32):
And so President Trump onlytook office 100 days ago.
The ultimatum was issued 60days ago, as of the 12th, so
really he was barely into hispresidency.
I'm sure he'd been talking toIsrael.
The inevitability of attack onIran has always been something
that Trump has alluded to.
He was basically giving themthe choice in Mexico and the
(12:57):
cartels I'm not changing thesubject.
The choice is oro o plomo.
Do you want?
Want gold or lead?
You know so what what happensis is that a cartel will go to a
local police chief and they'llsay oro o plomo.
You know you want to play ballwith us or do you want to get
killed?
Because that's your choice and99 out of 100 sane people and I,
I have to tell you that I thinkmost sane people given the
(13:20):
choice of you can't win order oplomo.
You're going to take the orderevery time.
And so you know, back to youknow our negotiations, I you
know when I say our negotiations, this whole setup to this
attack it.
You know Iran was given thechoice of order o plomo, but you
(13:40):
know, mysteriously, they tookplomo.
So so the bottom line is isthat Trump was just giving
Netanyahu the time and thediplomatic cover, and remember,
the United States vetoed ananti-Israel resolution during
the 60-day period while we wereostensibly conducting
negotiations through Oman.
I think it was Oman.
I don't think it was Gutterthis time, I think it was Oman.
(14:01):
I could be wrong, but I'malmost positive.
It was Oman and Oman is, Ibelieve.
Again, I haven't double-checkedI should while I'm talking to
you, but I'm just going to leaveit to you to double-check me.
But I think they're anAbrahamic horse country.
If they aren't, they soon willbe.
No, I think they've already hadan ongoing active relationship
with Israel for some timeactually.
Anyway, but I think it was alla facade.
(14:24):
I think that Trump was playingthe Persians, while they thought
they were playing him, becauseTrump and Netanyahu were playing
a much stronger hand.
And the other thing that made mebelieve that this was all an
inside deal is that we movedmost of our B-2 force into Diego
Garcia about a month ago.
It was reported, but it wasreported in passing, which is
(14:46):
why I'm going to predict here onthis podcast that we will enter
the war.
I'm going to continue to talkto you about the chess game that
I think is being played.
So we moved our B-2s into DiegoGarcia, which is a base in the
middle of the Indian Ocean, aneasy striking distance for those
planes.
I don't even think they need tobe refueled to Tehran or to
(15:09):
whatever targets they need tohit in Iran.
So, and those planes are theplanes.
And I think we also moved someB-52s.
In fact, I'm positive we did.
We moved some B-52s.
It's the B-52s and the B-2s thatare capable of carrying the
MOABs, the mother of all bombs,the ones that they.
You know, if you drop it on amountain, it's the closest thing
(15:30):
to a nuclear explosion It'llpowder the mountain.
You know, we dropped one atTora Bora, trying to kill Osama
bin Laden.
Back in the day he was alreadygone, we missed, but we powdered
the mountain.
You know, what was not told inthe story was that mountain was
full of bunkers and stuff andtoday it's just a bunch of
rubble.
So you know, that's what, whilewe weren't going to
(15:51):
preemptively and the Moabs.
So to give you some idea of thepower of, for example, just the
2,000 pound bomb, so to give yousome idea of the power of, for
example, just a 2,000-pound bomb, the bomb that blew up a
school—I don't know how many ofyou follow terrorist bombing of
school buses, but typically whena terrorist walks on board a
school bus and blows it up withall the children inside, and
that horrible thing, that'sabout a half a pound explosives.
(16:15):
Um, and if, if you, when?
When Israel killed that guy indowntown Tehran, uh, sleeping in
his bed, um, the, the, uh, the,the head of uh Hezbollah, who
was, you know, hanging out, andthey, they, they, they murdered
him in.
I don't consider it murder, Iconsider it killing, and I think
there's a difference betweenthe two and it has to do with
(16:36):
who you're, who you're acing out, but anyway, digressing, they
killed him with about 10 poundsof explosives and that blew up
his bedroom, the floor,everything around it, all that
concrete blown out.
No chance that he was going toget away Dead as a doornail.
And so 2,000 pounds is 40 timesthat.
No, no, what am I saying?
(16:57):
So 10 pounds, so 2,000 timesthat.
So what is that?
200 times that?
It's 200 times more powerfulthan what blew up the entire you
know apartment building orapartment that this guy was
living in.
So these are very, verypowerful bombs.
But the MOABs are much biggerthan that.
Moab again, it's an acronym,mother of All Bombs.
(17:18):
So that's not really whatthey're called.
There's some numericaldesignation to them, but they're
huge and they'll powder.
It doesn't matter if they'resitting under 100 feet of
concrete, it's going to go rightthrough it like a hot knife
through butter or, if you preferthe analogy or metaphor, it's
shit through a goose.
Is that an analogy or ametaphor?
I think it's a metaphor, anyway.
So why did we move the planesthere if we weren't going to be
(17:43):
part of the original attack?
Because we're anticipating thewhat's the word retaliation that
Iran will take, will try sowhen Israel attacked Iran about
a month ago, or was it twomonths ago?
Iran about a month ago, or wasit two months ago whenever it
was when they attacked Iran inretaliation for that 450 drone
strike on Israel and Israel wentin and they knocked out all of
(18:06):
Iran's anti-aircraft defense.
Israel has total airsuperiority.
Understand those of youlistening and don't know this,
but the Iranians don't reallyhave an air force at all.
What planes they have are datefrom 1979 and their F-4 Phantoms
which I mean they flew themwhen I was in the service back
(18:27):
then.
But I have to tell you, an F-4is proof that a brick can fly if
you put a big enough engine onit.
They absolutely positivelycannot compete with modern jet
fighters in any way, shape orform absolutely positively
cannot compete with modern jetfighters in any way, shape or
form.
And in fact, Iran, according towhat I read on Bernienews
managed to get six jets in theair and Israel shot them all
(18:49):
down before they got away fromtheir airfields.
And there is no Iranian AirForce and Israel has total air
superiority, which is a bigreason why the retaliation from
Iran so far has been so anemic.
So back to the chess game.
So, marco Rubio, this morning,the Secretary of State I know
you all know that I don't meanto insult your intelligence
Anyway, marco Rubio came outthis morning and made a clear
statement that said we were notpart of this, this was
(19:13):
independent of us.
This is an independent Israelimove.
Now, all that is a pretext.
This is all to me.
He's just pushing a couple ofpawns forward and faking, or
maybe even he might be eventrying to fake them out with a
bishop or a knight and geteveryone to think that you know,
we're trying to distanceourselves from Israel.
But the Iranians, from a Persianpoint of view, they don't give
(19:33):
a shit what Marco Rubio says.
They're blaming us as sure asGod made little green apples,
because they see through.
They're not playing checkerslike the American media, they're
playing chess and they'rethinking from their point of
view, that is, from theirEastern point of view.
They're thinking that theUnited States is absolutely
behind this and they're going toretaliate against American
(19:56):
bases, assets and allies in theMiddle East, and we have
anticipated that.
So there's no possible way.
This is a very FranklinRoosevelt sort of thing, when he
basically taunted the Japaneseinto attacking Pearl Harbor over
cutting off their oil and steelshipments when really the
Japanese empire was notattacking any American interest
(20:17):
in the Far East.
Just saying but you know, oneway to start a war is to do
something intentionally toirritate the living shit out of
the other side.
So what's going on here isPresident Trump while his
spokesman, through his spokesman, is saying we weren't involved,
we never saw it coming.
You know, we were conductingnegotiations, it was all a ploy.
(20:40):
But the Iranians now have seenthrough that ploy and they see
the bishop that's being set upto.
You know, they feel likethey're in check and so they
have to get out of check.
They're going to have no choicein their mind but to attack US
interests, because Israel is avery hard.
I mean, they've launched somedrones already.
(21:00):
They've all been shot down.
As of this moment, it's notthat the Israeli defense is
perfect, but it's almost perfect.
And so what's going to happenis that they're going to
retaliate.
There's so many American targetsin the Middle East.
There's, you know, the navalbase in Bahrain, there's all
kinds of places that they canhit.
In Iraq we have troops, we havetroops in Syria.
(21:22):
We have troops all over theplace that we're not supposed to
have, but we do, and we haveAmerican interests, american
embassies.
This is why President Trump, bythe way, very, very smartly and
why I knew the attack wasimminent pulled all the American
diplomatic families out of theMiddle East over the last couple
of days.
So all the civilians are out ofharm's way.
(21:44):
But they're going to definitelyretaliate, or they might try to
do a domestic terror attackhere in the United States.
Regardless of what they do,those bombers will be in the air
30 seconds later.
Those are there anticipatingthat there's going to be
retaliation against someAmerican interest, and that's
checkmate.
So what's happening is that?
(22:05):
So again, let me just recap it.
Let's play it like chess.
The Israeli attack has placedIran into check.
The United States is feigningthat it was playing an entirely
different game, when in fact allalong it was whispering in
Israel's ear.
The Iranians perceive this, butthey're in check and they feel
(22:27):
like they have no choice but toretaliate against the puppet
master behind who they'replaying, which is the United
States, and they don't see ityet.
But we have our queen ready tomove in and checkmate their king
, which is all the nuclearfacilities with the MOABs that
we're going to drop on them fromthe B-2s and put an end to this
once and for all.
(22:48):
The end result of all of this isgoing to be and I'm just
getting on the record with this,then we can all look it up and
laugh at me later when I'm goingto be wrong, but you know who
knows, what I think is going tohappen is is that the
government's going to fall.
I think that they might eventry to target the Ayatollah
himself.
I'm sure the Ayatollah iscrapping his pants right now.
(23:08):
If the United States retaliateswith Moabs, he will be a target
.
Mark my words he's a dead manwalking and I think right now
the Iranians are in freakoutmode and you don't think clearly
in a chess match when you're infreak out mode and I think that
the advantages to Israel.
I think the government of Iranwill ultimately fall.
I think we will not getinvolved because we've Trump is
not an interventionist.
(23:28):
There's a difference between warbeing the last step of
diplomacy and using war toengage in regime change, which
is what the neoconservatives did, which was such a disaster so
many times.
We don't have to rehash and I'msure we all agree.
So the bottom line is that wewon't go in, but there is a
strong government in exile,headed by, at this moment, the
(23:51):
son of the Shah, and the son hasa son too.
So there's an existing monarchyready to go in place that will
operate in a very Persian way,and that would be a great
outcome from everybody, becauselet us not forget that before
the Ayatollah Khomeini, thefirst Ayatollah, took over in
1979, iran was an ally, a closeally of the United States and a
(24:16):
close ally of Israel, believe itor not, so that's a true story.
They were close friends.
A close ally of Israel, believeit or not, so that's a true
story.
They were close friends.
This has nothing to do with thePersian people.
This has to do with Muslimfanatics.
But anyway, that's as far as I'mgoing today.
I think I've talked enough.
I think I've rambled all over.
I hope you get something goodout of all of this.
Don't forget to go down toAmazon.
Go down to Amazon Look what anold man I sound like To go to
(24:37):
Amazon and buy a copy of ARadical Reset, the manifesto of
anti-politism, which is what theRadical Reset is all about.
You will enjoy it, I promise.
I write better than I speak.
I think I don't know, you'llfind out.
You'll critique it.
See what you think.
What else?
Also, don't forget to sharethis with your friends.
Have a beautiful, wonderfulweekend and I'll talk to you.
Good morning, happy Friday, june the 13th.
Friday the 13th, which turnsout to be, in my view, a lucky
day, as Israel has in fact,attacked Iran in a preemptive
strike to knock out the Iraniannuclear capability and from
early results, it seems likethey've been fantastically
(00:21):
successful and these strikes areongoing as we speak.
A little side note before I getinto my own podcast.
If you would like to followpardon me if you would like to
follow what's going on minute byminute boots on the ground,
there's an excellent newsaccumulator in the Middle East.
It's called Bernie B-E-R-N-I-Edot news, bernienews.
(00:45):
You can follow it on WhatsAppthose of you who have WhatsApp,
and if you don't, you should andif you don't like to use
WhatsApp, you can also follow iton X.
So it's Bernienews.
Bernienews.
It's not a political site, it'snot.
It's neither Zionist oranti-Zionist.
It just is an accumulator ofMiddle Eastern news.
It's not just Israeli news, butat this particular time, if you
(01:08):
would like to be keptcompletely up to date for
example, right now, as I'mrecording this, it's 11.07 am in
Phoenix, arizona, and it's beenposting about every 20 minutes
an update of what's going on inthe Middle East.
So if you want the latest andthe greatest and you'd like to
know, for whatever your reasonsmight be.
Follow it on Bernie News.
(01:30):
It's a reliable news source andit's not even American, so it's
completely apolitical.
It's not going to get into proor anti-Trump and confuse
American politics with MiddleEastern history.
So check it out, bernienews.
Okay, let's get back to thesubject matter.
By the way, that's unsponsored.
I get nothing for Bernienews.
(01:51):
I discovered it through.
Where did it?
I think Mark Halperinrecommended it on the Two-Way
Podcast, and then Rative Gore,who's an Israeli guy.
Anyway, rativ Gore actually notRativ, I know better than that
have all recommended it.
(02:12):
So, anyway, that's why I'm notgetting any.
I don't have any sponsoredmessages.
The only thing I'd like you todo for me is to go pick up a
copy of A Radical Reset onAmazon the Manifesto of
Antipolitism, the PoliticalSystem, a Republic by
Merit-Based Lottery, as bizarreas that sounds.
Check it out.
It's what needs to come nextand it's a movement, not a
(02:35):
political party.
So check it out.
The book is A Radical Reset,just like this podcast.
You can get it on Kindle,paperback or hardcover on Amazon
by me, herbie K, and anyway.
So that's that.
So let's move on to the subjectmatter obviously at hand, which
is the attack on Iran.
(02:56):
Now, for those of you who are,I'm a libertarian generally
speaking, but libertarians havegenerally come out against this
attack because libertariansbelieve that war is unnecessary
at all times.
This is where I diverge fromclassical libertarianism.
Let's call it at least theAmerican strain, or the Misesorg
(03:16):
group that's in charge of thelibertarian party right now Well
, not in charge, but certainlyas the governing influence,
which is the more purest form oflibertarianism that I generally
subscribe to.
I am a member of Misesorg.
It's a terrific organization.
I recommend that you support it.
It's all about free markets,free thought, libertarian
(03:37):
thought.
But I believe they're wrongabout this, because I think that
libertarians who are completelyknee-jerk like Dave Smith, for
example knee-jerk, anti-wardon't take into consideration
that war itself is nothing morethan the last step in diplomacy,
and this particular war in Iranthat's taking place is a
(03:57):
classic example of why it is thelast step in diplomacy.
Without war, no diplomacy meansanything.
Diplomacy without war, nodiplomacy means anything.
Okay, to believe that twoparties sit down, like what's
going on, for example, inukraine right now, for russian
ukraine to sit down without awar, it will.
It would not resolve.
It would just simply put off abigger war until later.
(04:17):
Okay, at best case scenario,war is the resolution of a fail
of the of diplomacy, when allthe talk in the world has broken
down and there's simply nowhereto go, there's no path to the
center.
War is diplomacy.
Now, the attack on civilians isa relatively new thing in war,
up until World War II and whenHitler began bombing London,
(04:40):
which I think was the first timethat a major power brought a
civilian populationintentionally under fire.
That's not to say that you know, romans didn't encircle cities
and then wipe out entirepopulations.
I'm talking about in thecontext of modern warfare, more
or less.
Even when Sherman was marchingto the sea, the idea was to
destroy property, not people.
(05:01):
Destroy property, not people.
Okay, so you know he destroyed.
He cut a path of destructionall through Georgia, all the way
down to Savannah, which hespared.
By the way, one of the mostbeautiful cities in the United
States is Savannah, georgia.
If you ever, my daughter wentto college there to scat and got
her degree in performing arts.
If you ever have a chance to goto Savannah, you really need to
(05:22):
go to the historic area andcheck it out.
It's magnificent, anyway,digressing.
So the idea of intentionallytargeting civilian populations
is a since World War II thingand in this case we're seeing
more of a return to a classicexample.
So let me just break this downinto pieces.
Number one Israel'sintelligence.
(05:43):
Well, first of all, let's talkabout diplomacy.
First, exactly 60 days to theday of yesterday, israel and the
United States told Iran thatthey had 60 days to make a deal
with President Trump, and ifthey didn't do it by the end of
60 days, then time was up andyou know there was no telling
(06:04):
what would happen next.
There was no explicit threat ofimminent attack like it took
place yesterday, exactly 60 daysafter the time, but the
implication was there and unlessyou were a complete retard, you
completely understood what wasgoing on.
Now, the Iranians.
It's hard for us to reallyappreciate the cultural
(06:27):
perspectives of non-Westerncountries.
You know, you can be taught andappreciate the perspective of
French and Germans and Poles andEnglish in World War II, for
example.
And see both sides, even if youknow one side is completely
wrong, like the Nazis, or abetter example is World War II,
for example.
And see both sides, even if youknow one side is completely
wrong, like the Nazis.
Or a better example is WorldWar I, where I don't know that
(06:47):
the Germans were at fault.
I mean, it was just one thingescalated to another, but the
Germans certainly weren't evilin that conflict.
So it was easy for me, and I'msure for you too, is, if you
take an historic perspective, toput yourself into the cultural
eyes of how you know, thePrussians might have seen it
versus the French might haveseen it, versus how the English
(07:09):
saw it, how the Americans saw it.
But when you get into anEastern culture like the
Persians, and especially an old,old culture like the Persians,
and then you mix into it Islam,which, unless you are in fact
Muslim and listening to me now,most of us have really only the
most cursory knowledge of Islam,so we're speaking from complete
(07:33):
ignorance.
So you mix a religion of whichyou're completely ignorant and
yet is devoutly followed by asignificant portion of that
population, and then you mixinto it that it's an Eastern
culture to begin with, so itdoesn't resemble in any way the
culture that we were raised in.
It's hard, if not impossible,to appreciate their point of
(07:54):
view and understand why they'redoing what they're doing.
So, I'm sure, from PresidentTrump's point of view and I'm
sure from the point of view of,for example, libertarians, as I
was talking about, you know whywouldn't they take the deal?
The deal was really, really.
It came down to this as long asthey agreed to give up all
enrichment and shut down thecentrifuges, they could have
(08:15):
civilian nuclear power and wewould take the sanctions off and
they could prosper.
And you would think that wouldbe a great deal because, from a
military perspective, taking astep back and just to remind you
guys, I was an analyst at theNational Security Agency.
I have a background in this.
I have a better knowledge ofhow the military and how foreign
(08:36):
militaries work.
I was a Russian linguist but Ihad a top secret alpha clearance
.
I have a very healthy awarenessof how militaries work, not
just as a veteran but as anintelligence guy myself and
that's not to say I'mintelligent, but I worked in
intelligence which could be anoxymoron, but anyway.
So Israel's intelligence inthis was spectacularly good and
(09:00):
they understood who they weredealing with.
So from a libertarian point ofview, you're saying to yourself,
first of all, you're kind ofmystified why wouldn't they take
the deal?
And the answer was from theircultural point of view.
They really believe it.
They believe that 48 virginsthing.
You have to take them at theirword.
They really do believe thatIsrael is an evil country and
(09:20):
must be destroyed, and they wereonly days away from getting
nuclear weapons.
So the bottom line here is isthat all the talk in the world,
what they were trying to do iswhat they had done successfully
with President Obama andPresident Biden and everybody
else before, which is stall.
They're extremely good from.
They're Middle Eastern traders,you know, and a Middle Eastern
(09:42):
trader can carry on anegotiation even if they have no
intention of ever gettinganywhere near your price.
It's almost sport for them.
And from the Iranian point ofview, they felt that they could
stall us as long as they neededto go, but they were dealing.
They also don't have a culturalappreciation of how different
(10:02):
Donald Trump is from hispredecessor, joe Biden and, uh,
of course, barack Obama, who wasan, who is an anti-Semite, so
they're dealing with a whole newsheriff in town.
They've gone from the worstpresident in history from an
Israeli point of view, thatwould be Barack Obama to the
best president in history fromthe Israeli point of view, that
(10:22):
would be Donald Trump.
I mean they named the cityafter him on the Golan Heights,
and you know he's the presidentthat moved the American embassy
to Jerusalem.
He's the president with Jewishgrandchildren.
You know, he is not.
Probably he is more popularthan Netanyahu in Israel.
That's how popular Donald Trumpis in Israel, and I don't think
(10:44):
the iranians quite appreciatedhis negotiation style, which is
to, as you know, lay it down andask for the ridiculous.
And you know he'd have talkedto him, but they weren't.
They were they, they had nointention of talking, they were
stalling.
But I think what went on hereand this is supported by nothing
other than my experience andintelligence and the fact that I
(11:06):
like to think in terms ofplaying chess as opposed to
checkers I think one of theproblems that a lot of our
leadership has well, I don'tthink so, I know so, and not
just ours, but globally is thatthey all react in the minute and
they don't play.
They're playing checkers, notchess.
All react in the minutes andthey don't play.
They're playing checkers, notchess.
They're not.
You know, if I do this, then myopponent will do this, and then
(11:27):
I'll be forced to do this,which then my opponent will do
that, and you can be out six,seven moves ahead If you're
really really good at it, ifyou're a grand master.
For those of us who are notgrand masters, including myself,
(11:50):
I'm usually three moves out andI can see what the three and I
think Trump plays chess.
I think Trump is probablyactively thinks in terms of that
metaphor.
So I think that Trump andNetanyahu were in cahoots from
the start, and I'll tell you myevidence for this is not just my
feelings, but also becauseTrump knew who he was dealing
with.
He knew what the negotiationhistory was.
He's a very, very smartnegotiator.
Love him or hate him.
You have to give him that.
And I think he was givingIsrael cover to build itself up.
(12:12):
Remember, first of all, israelhad to take delivery.
President Biden had held up thedelivery of those 2,000-pound
bombs that were delivered toIsrael.
Israel had paid for them.
They were waiting in awarehouse.
Biden blocked their shipment,so Israel didn't have them and
those were necessary for thisattack.
(12:32):
And so President Trump onlytook office 100 days ago.
The ultimatum was issued 60days ago, as of the 12th, so
really he was barely into hispresidency.
I'm sure he'd been talking toIsrael.
The inevitability of attack onIran has always been something
that Trump has alluded to.
He was basically giving themthe choice in Mexico and the
(12:57):
cartels I'm not changing thesubject.
The choice is oro o plomo.
Do you want?
Want gold or lead?
You know so what what happensis is that a cartel will go to a
local police chief and they'llsay oro o plomo.
You know you want to play ballwith us or do you want to get
killed?
Because that's your choice and99 out of 100 sane people and I,
I have to tell you that I thinkmost sane people given the
(13:20):
choice of you can't win order oplomo.
You're going to take the orderevery time.
And so you know, back to youknow our negotiations, I you
know when I say our negotiations, this whole setup to this
attack it.
You know Iran was given thechoice of order o plomo, but you
(13:40):
know, mysteriously, they tookplomo.
So so the bottom line is isthat Trump was just giving
Netanyahu the time and thediplomatic cover, and remember,
the United States vetoed ananti-Israel resolution during
the 60-day period while we wereostensibly conducting
negotiations through Oman.
I think it was Oman.
I don't think it was Gutterthis time, I think it was Oman.
(14:01):
I could be wrong, but I'malmost positive.
It was Oman and Oman is, Ibelieve.
Again, I haven't double-checkedI should while I'm talking to
you, but I'm just going to leaveit to you to double-check me.
But I think they're anAbrahamic horse country.
If they aren't, they soon willbe.
No, I think they've already hadan ongoing active relationship
with Israel for some timeactually.
Anyway, but I think it was alla facade.
(14:24):
I think that Trump was playingthe Persians, while they thought
they were playing him, becauseTrump and Netanyahu were playing
a much stronger hand.
And the other thing that made mebelieve that this was all an
inside deal is that we movedmost of our B-2 force into Diego
Garcia about a month ago.
It was reported, but it wasreported in passing, which is
(14:46):
why I'm going to predict here onthis podcast that we will enter
the war.
I'm going to continue to talkto you about the chess game that
I think is being played.
So we moved our B-2s into DiegoGarcia, which is a base in the
middle of the Indian Ocean, aneasy striking distance for those
planes.
I don't even think they need tobe refueled to Tehran or to
(15:09):
whatever targets they need tohit in Iran.
So, and those planes are theplanes.
And I think we also moved someB-52s.
In fact, I'm positive we did.
We moved some B-52s.
It's the B-52s and the B-2s thatare capable of carrying the
MOABs, the mother of all bombs,the ones that they.
You know, if you drop it on amountain, it's the closest thing
(15:30):
to a nuclear explosion It'llpowder the mountain.
You know, we dropped one atTora Bora, trying to kill Osama
bin Laden.
Back in the day he was alreadygone, we missed, but we powdered
the mountain.
You know, what was not told inthe story was that mountain was
full of bunkers and stuff andtoday it's just a bunch of
rubble.
So you know, that's what, whilewe weren't going to
(15:51):
preemptively and the Moabs.
So to give you some idea of thepower of, for example, just the
2,000 pound bomb, so to give yousome idea of the power of, for
example, just a 2,000-pound bomb, the bomb that blew up a
school—I don't know how many ofyou follow terrorist bombing of
school buses, but typically whena terrorist walks on board a
school bus and blows it up withall the children inside, and
that horrible thing, that'sabout a half a pound explosives.
(16:15):
Um, and if, if you, when?
When Israel killed that guy indowntown Tehran, uh, sleeping in
his bed, um, the, the, uh, the,the head of uh Hezbollah, who
was, you know, hanging out, andthey, they, they, they murdered
him in.
I don't consider it murder, Iconsider it killing, and I think
there's a difference betweenthe two and it has to do with
(16:36):
who you're, who you're acing out, but anyway, digressing, they
killed him with about 10 poundsof explosives and that blew up
his bedroom, the floor,everything around it, all that
concrete blown out.
No chance that he was going toget away Dead as a doornail.
And so 2,000 pounds is 40 timesthat.
No, no, what am I saying?
(16:57):
So 10 pounds, so 2,000 timesthat.
So what is that?
200 times that?
It's 200 times more powerfulthan what blew up the entire you
know apartment building orapartment that this guy was
living in.
So these are very, verypowerful bombs.
But the MOABs are much biggerthan that.
Moab again, it's an acronym,mother of All Bombs.
(17:18):
So that's not really whatthey're called.
There's some numericaldesignation to them, but they're
huge and they'll powder.
It doesn't matter if they'resitting under 100 feet of
concrete, it's going to go rightthrough it like a hot knife
through butter or, if you preferthe analogy or metaphor, it's
shit through a goose.
Is that an analogy or ametaphor?
I think it's a metaphor, anyway.
So why did we move the planesthere if we weren't going to be
(17:43):
part of the original attack?
Because we're anticipating thewhat's the word retaliation that
Iran will take, will try sowhen Israel attacked Iran about
a month ago, or was it twomonths ago?
Iran about a month ago, or wasit two months ago whenever it
was when they attacked Iran inretaliation for that 450 drone
strike on Israel and Israel wentin and they knocked out all of
(18:06):
Iran's anti-aircraft defense.
Israel has total airsuperiority.
Understand those of youlistening and don't know this,
but the Iranians don't reallyhave an air force at all.
What planes they have are datefrom 1979 and their F-4 Phantoms
which I mean they flew themwhen I was in the service back
(18:27):
then.
But I have to tell you, an F-4is proof that a brick can fly if
you put a big enough engine onit.
They absolutely positivelycannot compete with modern jet
fighters in any way, shape orform absolutely positively
cannot compete with modern jetfighters in any way, shape or
form.
And in fact, Iran, according towhat I read on Bernienews
managed to get six jets in theair and Israel shot them all
(18:49):
down before they got away fromtheir airfields.
And there is no Iranian AirForce and Israel has total air
superiority, which is a bigreason why the retaliation from
Iran so far has been so anemic.
So back to the chess game.
So, marco Rubio, this morning,the Secretary of State I know
you all know that I don't meanto insult your intelligence
Anyway, marco Rubio came outthis morning and made a clear
statement that said we were notpart of this, this was
(19:13):
independent of us.
This is an independent Israelimove.
Now, all that is a pretext.
This is all to me.
He's just pushing a couple ofpawns forward and faking, or
maybe even he might be eventrying to fake them out with a
bishop or a knight and geteveryone to think that you know,
we're trying to distanceourselves from Israel.
But the Iranians, from a Persianpoint of view, they don't give
(19:33):
a shit what Marco Rubio says.
They're blaming us as sure asGod made little green apples,
because they see through.
They're not playing checkerslike the American media, they're
playing chess and they'rethinking from their point of
view, that is, from theirEastern point of view.
They're thinking that theUnited States is absolutely
behind this and they're going toretaliate against American
(19:56):
bases, assets and allies in theMiddle East, and we have
anticipated that.
So there's no possible way.
This is a very FranklinRoosevelt sort of thing, when he
basically taunted the Japaneseinto attacking Pearl Harbor over
cutting off their oil and steelshipments when really the
Japanese empire was notattacking any American interest
(20:17):
in the Far East.
Just saying but you know, oneway to start a war is to do
something intentionally toirritate the living shit out of
the other side.
So what's going on here isPresident Trump while his
spokesman, through his spokesman, is saying we weren't involved,
we never saw it coming.
You know, we were conductingnegotiations, it was all a ploy.
(20:40):
But the Iranians now have seenthrough that ploy and they see
the bishop that's being set upto.
You know, they feel likethey're in check and so they
have to get out of check.
They're going to have no choicein their mind but to attack US
interests, because Israel is avery hard.
I mean, they've launched somedrones already.
(21:00):
They've all been shot down.
As of this moment, it's notthat the Israeli defense is
perfect, but it's almost perfect.
And so what's going to happenis that they're going to
retaliate.
There's so many American targetsin the Middle East.
There's, you know, the navalbase in Bahrain, there's all
kinds of places that they canhit.
In Iraq we have troops, we havetroops in Syria.
(21:22):
We have troops all over theplace that we're not supposed to
have, but we do, and we haveAmerican interests, american
embassies.
This is why President Trump, bythe way, very, very smartly and
why I knew the attack wasimminent pulled all the American
diplomatic families out of theMiddle East over the last couple
of days.
So all the civilians are out ofharm's way.
(21:44):
But they're going to definitelyretaliate, or they might try to
do a domestic terror attackhere in the United States.
Regardless of what they do,those bombers will be in the air
30 seconds later.
Those are there anticipatingthat there's going to be
retaliation against someAmerican interest, and that's
checkmate.
So what's happening is that?
(22:05):
So again, let me just recap it.
Let's play it like chess.
The Israeli attack has placedIran into check.
The United States is feigningthat it was playing an entirely
different game, when in fact allalong it was whispering in
Israel's ear.
The Iranians perceive this, butthey're in check and they feel
(22:27):
like they have no choice but toretaliate against the puppet
master behind who they'replaying, which is the United
States, and they don't see ityet.
But we have our queen ready tomove in and checkmate their king
, which is all the nuclearfacilities with the MOABs that
we're going to drop on them fromthe B-2s and put an end to this
once and for all.
(22:48):
The end result of all of this isgoing to be and I'm just
getting on the record with this,then we can all look it up and
laugh at me later when I'm goingto be wrong, but you know who
knows, what I think is going tohappen is is that the
government's going to fall.
I think that they might eventry to target the Ayatollah
himself.
I'm sure the Ayatollah iscrapping his pants right now.
(23:08):
If the United States retaliateswith Moabs, he will be a target
.
Mark my words he's a dead manwalking and I think right now
the Iranians are in freakoutmode and you don't think clearly
in a chess match when you're infreak out mode and I think that
the advantages to Israel.
I think the government of Iranwill ultimately fall.
I think we will not getinvolved because we've Trump is
not an interventionist.
(23:28):
There's a difference between warbeing the last step of
diplomacy and using war toengage in regime change, which
is what the neoconservatives did, which was such a disaster so
many times.
We don't have to rehash and I'msure we all agree.
So the bottom line is that wewon't go in, but there is a
strong government in exile,headed by, at this moment, the
(23:51):
son of the Shah, and the son hasa son too.
So there's an existing monarchyready to go in place that will
operate in a very Persian way,and that would be a great
outcome from everybody, becauselet us not forget that before
the Ayatollah Khomeini, thefirst Ayatollah, took over in
1979, iran was an ally, a closeally of the United States and a
(24:16):
close ally of Israel, believe itor not, so that's a true story.
They were close friends.
A close ally of Israel, believeit or not, so that's a true
story.
They were close friends.
This has nothing to do with thePersian people.
This has to do with Muslimfanatics.
But anyway, that's as far as I'mgoing today.
I think I've talked enough.
I think I've rambled all over.
I hope you get something goodout of all of this.
Don't forget to go down toAmazon.
Go down to Amazon Look what anold man I sound like To go to
(24:37):
Amazon and buy a copy of ARadical Reset, the manifesto of
anti-politism, which is what theRadical Reset is all about.
You will enjoy it, I promise.
I write better than I speak.
I think I don't know, you'llfind out.
You'll critique it.
See what you think.
What else?
Also, don't forget to sharethis with your friends.
Have a beautiful, wonderfulweekend and I'll talk to you.
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