4-17-24 - 7am - Clare Lopez on Iran & Isreal and The Southern Border

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning, Goober's daily hostage talkbackhere. Hey, they're going to defund
eight million dollars in the police budgetto help a legal immigrants. Huh,
this will cause real change. Howeven die hard blue no matter who types,
begin to question your affiliations and leadership. Hmmm, circa the third time

(00:23):
they get mugged. Have a greatday, everybody, believe it or not.
There are people who are second guessing. Who are Democrats who are second
guessing what's happening in Denver and fedup with it just like you are.
But maybe it took a little bitto get there. Jimmy Sangenberger filling in
for Michael Brown today as well astomorrow, and it is so great to

(00:48):
be with you. As mentioned there, you can text into the program three
three one zero three. We'll getto some more texts later. Just make
sure you throw in Michael or Mikeat the beginning of the message. And
look, we had another shocking Saturdaythis weekend when Iran launched an attack on

(01:11):
Israel. Normally they worked through theirproxies like happened with Hamas in October of
last year on October seventh. Thistime, though Iran did it itself attacking
Israel directly and brazenly sending both missilesand drones. Now Israel and the United

(01:36):
States and Arab partners, which isan interesting tidbit to all this. We're
able to shoot down reportedly most ofthe missiles and drones that Iran sent to
Israel. But now the big questionis what's next, what to do here,

(02:01):
what options might Israel have? Andhow did we get to this point.
I'm very pleased to be joined byClaire M. Lopez. She's the
vice president for Research and Analysis atthe Center for Security Policy and previously has
served as executive director of the IranPolicy Committee and was a career operations officer

(02:24):
with the CIA. You could followClaire on Twitter x at Claire M.
Lopez Claire with no I C LA R E. Claire, Good morning
and welcome to the program. It'sgreat to have you. Good morning,
Jimmy, very glad to be withyou. A quick quick update on my

(02:44):
bio. Yes please, I amcurrently independent at Lopez Liberty, LLC.
Although I don't yet have a website, I need I apologize. They are
up there at their website. Twocollected to send you a quick little bio
ahead of this morning. But yeah, I was vice president at the Center

(03:06):
for Security Policy. Got kicked outabout four years ago. I think probably
mostly because they wanted to work withMuslims and I didn't think that was a
very good idea, so they kickedme out. Interesting, Claire, let's
talk for a moment about this attackand how what the lead up to it
happened. When we examine the issuesof the day through the lens of proxies

(03:32):
and now brazenly engaging themselves, howdo you look at this well, I
mean, let's go back I guessmaybe to last October the seventh, As
you mentioned in the lead up here, the Schabbat massacre, when Hamas,
which is an Eranian proxy Islamic terrorgroup, surged across the border and attacked

(03:55):
Israel, murdering, raping, mutilatinghundreds of people and taking more hundreds prisoner
back into Gaza. By the way, the people of Gaza, those you
know, innocent civilians, at leasta couple of thousand of them, came
across two along with the Kisboala Jiahatsto engage in the looting and the raping

(04:20):
and the killing. So that setthe scene for where we are today,
I think because one of the architects, one of the directors of that operation
by Hamas was in IRGC, IslamicRevolutionary Guard Corps commander general by the name

(04:40):
of Muhammad Reza Zahidi, and heand his top guys other officials of the
IRGC Kuds Force were headquartered in abuilding, not a consulate, in a
building in Damascus, Syria, andthere they had a military headquarters for IRGC

(05:03):
and Cuts Force operations across Syria andLebanon. Well on October, I'm sorry,
on April the first, that littleunit of the IRGC Cuts Force was
taken out. There were ten oreleven i think officials altogether who were hit

(05:26):
in that building, which was locatednearby to the Iranian consulate in Damascus there,
but it was not part of it, so we got to dispense with
that little narrative there. In anycase, they took out this node of
the IRGC Cuts Force operations, andat that point between then and two weeks

(05:50):
later mid April, the Iranian regimein Tehran broadcast that it was going to
take revenge for that, for thathit against Israel, and indeed, on
the night of April thirteen fourteen,this past weekend Saturday Sunday depending on your

(06:11):
time zone, the Iranians, forthe first time, and you made a
good point about that, Jimmy,for the first time launched directly from Iranian
soil an attack against Israel. Let'ssee, you got over one hundred and
twenty ballistic missiles, thirty cruise missiles, one hundred and seventy what they call

(06:32):
suicide drones because they're one way drones. They go, they explode. But
again, as you mentioned, fortunately, an alliance of the United States,
UK, France, and really importantly, as you said, Jordan and Saudi

(06:54):
Arabia joined together in foiling this attackagainst Israel. Over or around ninety nine
percent of all those projectiles were interceptedand shot down before they ever even reached
Israeli territory. That was amazing,and I want to talk more about that

(07:14):
alliance in a moment, but let'semphasize this point about Iran, Claire Lopez,
that it is in fact the numberone state sponsor of terror that has
engaged in all sorts of malevolence aroundthe region and really the world, and
that includes Hamas as we saw onOctober seventh, as you discussed Hesbola in

(07:35):
Lebanon, and most recently especially we'veseen them metal into Yemen and that has
been disastrous in so many ways.But now they decided we're gonna make this
a direct because of the background youwere just discussing a direct attack from Iran.
That's a big shift. What optionsmight Israel be considering given it Now

(08:00):
they're not just hiding behind the maskof these other actors but have engaged themselves.
Yeah, you know, I wouldfirst say that the reason that the
Iranian regime did launch that attack,as we said, for the first time
from its own territory. Also,some of those drones, by the way,

(08:20):
rockets, missiles came out of Yemen, but the majority came out of
Iran's own territory for the first timeaimed at Israel. And make no mistake,
that attack was massive. Was overthree hundred the numbers I gave you
before. There over three hundred ofthese projectiles launched, carrying hundreds and hundreds

(08:41):
of pounds each one in explosives youknow, in the in the nosecones.
Make no mistake, that was intendedto cause massive damage and casualties inside of
Israel. But because of the alliancethat came together and function and so smoothly,
so amazingly, that did not happen, but so did Why did Iran

(09:07):
think that it could get away withus at this point in time? The
trigger, as we said, wasthat takedown of the Iranian I RGC cuts
forth general anxiety back in April,the first of April in Damascus. But
why why Well, I think we'rein a very very dangerous window of weakness

(09:33):
as regards the world's perception, friends, allies as well as enemies, adversaries,
perception of the American administration in powerin the White House right now.
From the beginning of this administration backin twenty twenty one, the policy of

(09:54):
the Biden administration has been to appeaseIran, lifting, not lifting, but
I should say maybe not enforcing sanctionson its oil exports, in particular to
the East, meaning especially customer China, which brought gazillions of dollars into the
Iranian coffers, which they then turnaround to use not just for nuclear weapons

(10:18):
development there's that too, but tosupport their Islamic jihadi terror proxies like Hamas
and Gribola and the Huthis. Soa lack of enforcement of the of the
sanctions which are still in effect,but they're just not they're just not enforced.
The taking of the Houthis in Yemenoff of the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list

(10:41):
is one of the first acts ofoffice of the Biden administration, and then
allowing waivers for other sanctions on paymentsto Iran. For example, countries in
the East, and we mentioned China, but South Korea to buy oil from

(11:03):
Iran, they owe the money forthat purchase to Iran, but because of
sanctions, they hadn't paid it.Iraq buys a lot of natural gas from
Iran. It too owes a lotof money ten billion dollars for those purchases,
but because of sanctions, did notpay it. Well, the Biden
administration issued a waiver so that thesetwo countries in particular amounting to sixteen billion

(11:31):
dollars of payments, they could makethose payments to Iran more money into its
coffers. So over and over againwe see that the Biden administration shows appeasement
and weakness that is noticed is seen. Our troops are bases you know,
all over the Middle East, inparticular Iraq and Syria have been hit over

(11:54):
and over and over again, ultimatelyresulting even in killing some of those American
soldiers. And what happened nothing.Basically, we hit a few empty warehouses
in the middle of the night.I think until more recently maybe there were
some more serious reprisals, but thatlack of response was noted as well.

(12:18):
Take all of this together, andthat regime in Iran in Tehran believes that
they can get away with anything,and indeed they had been getting away with
anything going back to you know,the nineteen seventy nine takeover of Iran,
our hostages, the embassy not tomention nine to eleven itself, which Iran's

(12:39):
regime was behind no response. Theythink they can get away with anything.
That's why this, that's why thisis so related to the point it is
now Claire Lopez, our guest careeroperations officer formerly with the CIA and national
security analyst. When we look atIsrael, we just got a few minutes
left. When I cover two thingswith you briefly, what options do they

(13:03):
have here? Do they need toforcefully retaliate? What might that look like?
Of course, the Biden administration issaying take the win. Biden himself
saying take the win, which meansthe fact that we shot down most of
these drones and missiles and don't doanything more. No, I think Israel
very definitely must retaliate. We've heardthe Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Istanaw,

(13:28):
who's speaking and saying he appreciates thesupport of his Western allies, including
the United States. He appreciates theinput and you know the consultations. But
Israel is going to make its owndecisions and it will retaliate against this massive
attack just because there were no casualties, or I should say, one little

(13:50):
girl, a Vedwin girl was injuredbadly, but no death and no property
damage to speak of from this massiveattack, just because no, the response
must be devastating, overwhelming retaliation byIsrael. I think that they will allow
a pause to occur first, whichis what's happening now, maybe, and

(14:13):
then at a time, as theysay, of their choosing, and in
a manner of their choosing, theywill retaliate. That's the only way to
get through to this regime in Tehranthat they cannot do this ever again,
this cannot be a precedent for futureactions by Iran that they don't get retaliated.

(14:33):
Against for something like this, theremust be retaliation. Israel declares firmly
that it will retaliate, and Ithink that's what it must do. Would
that likely result in some kind ofa regional war or accomplish the goal of
sending that message and saying, hey, we have because Israel has nuclear capacity,

(14:54):
they have resources that Iran does not. I don't think Iran really wants
all out war with Israe, butthey want to do damage through various means.
You're right, absolutely, and Ithink what what Israel has are a
number of choices in ways to strikeIran, which does not, by the
way, have anything close to thelayered aerial defense system that Israel demonstrated this

(15:16):
past weekend. But among the choiceswould be to hit at Iran's economic situation
with all these oil exports. Sohow about hitting the oil production depot,
port facilities, Bandera, bas cargIsland that kind of thing. Number two,

(15:37):
what about the nuclear weapons program whichis advancing rapidly according to the i
a e A International Tomic Energy Agency, Or even number three, Israel could
choose to strike against certain IRGC orCUDS force leadership figures, bases and those

(16:00):
kinds of things inside of Iran andor elsewhere in the region doesn't necessarily need
to be leading to a region wideescalation into war. No, when you
punch a bully back in the nose, the bully backs down. I got
less than a minute left, ClaireLopez. But when we look at the
alliance aspect of this, Jordan andSaudi Arabia historically helping Israel. We have

(16:25):
the Abraham Accords that the Trump administrationmoved forward. You can see I think
a recognition among the Arab countries ofthe threat of Iran that bridges the divide
at least to some extent with Israel. How do you interpret that real quick?
Yeah, I think you're exactly rightthat the Abraham Accords, which seem
to be on the back burner nowduring this Biden administration in the US,

(16:47):
will be revived. I think thetalks behind the scenes are ongoing. I
think that, in addition to asis their right defending their own airspace,
Saudi Arabia Jordan in this last weekend'sattack also understand who is their primary enemy
in the region. They are Theyare absolutely afraid of irand the crazy Persian

(17:08):
chietes and their nuclear capability rapidly increasing. They know that Israel is not their
enemy, and I think they realizewhat they must do in terms of a
regional alliance or maybe just call ita grouping a partnership to confront and stand

(17:29):
up against the Iranian regime. ClaraM. Lopez of Lopez Liberty ll SEE.
Really appreciate your insights this morning onthe program. Thank you for joining
us today. Thanks for having meonce again. Claire Lopez, longtime career
operations officer with the CIA and nationalsecurity analyst. What are your thoughts?

(17:51):
Text in on the text line threethree one zero three. Make sure to
put Michael or Mike first up andwe'll pick up a conversation on the other
side. My name's Jimmy Sangenberger.I'm filling in for Michael Brown today here
and Talk Radio six thirty K.How good to be with you, and

(18:12):
we've got lots more up ahead.I really want to get in a little
bit more into the Gabraham Accords andthe historic nature of that treaty and the
agreements that the Trump administration historically conducted. Dragon Redbeard, No, you did,

(18:32):
good morning, Dragon and voice Idon't recognize on Michael Brown's show.
Hey, did you happen to playblack Magic Woman? Is that what I
heard? Sure? Did? Wow, that's pretty cool. Anyways, Happy
Wednesday, Jimmy Sangenberger. Is thatvoice that you do not recognize? Here
today, here tomorrow for Michael BrownDragon black Magic Will By the way,

(19:00):
it is a great tune up.But you don't have to explain to me
why everybody is so shocked and amazethat it is being played on this program
this morning. It's really started.It's a little bit of a longer story,
so I'll try and shorten it thisbest I can. For I bumped
with oh Yakomova once upon a time, and Michael comes on and he says,

(19:22):
Oh, I just love black MagicWoman, and it kind of threw
me for a loop, and itthrew a whole bunch of googer listeners through
a loop. I was like,wait a minute, that's not black Magic
Woman, you moron. So hesays, he just keeps talking about how
much he loves black Magic Woman.So, of course, since it's the
song that Michael loves, I willnever play it. When Michael's you said,

(19:45):
just can't it's against the rules.That does sound like one of those
hard and steady, fast rules thatyou need to abide and cannot break.
So we've got you here and youare not Michael. So everybody gets blessed
with Black Magic Woman every hour.I think, and I love it.
I mean, said Tanta, phenomenal. I do really enjoy oh yah Coomova.

(20:07):
By the way, there are somany great tunes from Carlos sent to
and amazing collaborations as well. SoI am glad to be the beneficiary along
with all our goober listeners this morningof this tremendous bumper tune. Good to

(20:29):
be with you once again, JimmySangenberger in for Michael Brown, give us
a text. Three to three onezero three is the number. Text Michael
or Mike first. And look inthe last say, when we talked with
national security analyst Claire Lopez about Iranand its attack on Israel, and I
think something bears really emphasizing and underscoringregarding what happened this past weekend and how

(20:56):
instrumental not only the US and theUK and France and Israel were in shooting
down almost all vast majority of thedrones and missiles that were fired and sent
from Iran to Israel, but itwas also Jordan and Saudi Arabia Arab partners,

(21:18):
Arab allies almost not quite necessarily,but partners with Israel. What in
the world happened, Well, twothings. One, Iran just so happens
to be a common enemy. Youcall that old proverb the enemy of my

(21:38):
enemy is my friend. That isan Arab proverb, as I understand it
originally, and so that sort ofmindset galvanizes the Arab countries. Just say,
you know what, Israel has acommon enemy with us of Iran,
so let's sort of unify together inthat regard, which is something that resulted

(22:03):
in back channel conversations during the Obamaadministration with the Iran nuclear deal. Saudi
Arabia and other Arab countries weren't happywith it. Obviously Israel wasn't happy with
it, but Obama was doggedly wantingto have that nuclear deal. And by
the way, initially coming back inhis administration, Biden really wanted to bring

(22:26):
back the Obama nuclear deal with Iran. Terrible deal. Good thing that Trump
pulled out of it. But here'sthe thing. Donald Trump came in as
president with his national security folks,his people in twenty seventeen and recognized they
recognized, look, something's going onhere, something's different. Let's take advantage

(22:52):
of this and see if we canfoster some peace in the Middle East.
And that brought about the Arab TheAbraham Accords were several Arabic Muslim countries signed
peace deals with Israel signing on tothe Abraham accurt something that should have gotten
Trump what he would never ever possiblyget a Nobel Peace Prize. Not for

(23:18):
Donald Trump. No, that hadto go for Barack Obama when he was
a brand new president and accomplished DidleySquad and then ended up getting more Middle
Eastern engagements at Warris remember Syria andLibya and all those things. Yeah,
that was Obama, and yet he'dalready gotten a Nobel Peace Prize before that.
But okay, Donald Trump not gonnaget a Nobel Peace Prize. Oh

(23:41):
well, but the Abraham Accords werehis administration's accomplishment and integral to what we
saw on Saturday. And not onlythat, while they have been somewhat critical
of Israel in its war again ATomas sort of out of what seems like

(24:03):
a sense of obligation. You haven'tseen that much forceful criticism or attempts to
thwart Israel. None of that fromthe Arab countries. And that's because of
the Abraham Accords. That's because ofthis recognition of the common threat of Iran.
They're starting to forge stronger, betterties together with Israel. It is

(24:30):
remarkable to see those changes and guesswhat that gives them the added reason to
pull back and say, you knowwhat, we shouldn't really be that we
shouldn't be hammering Israel right now becauseof the engagement that we've got, the

(24:52):
changes that are happening. They havethat recognition. So a lot is stemming
from the Abraham Accords and the tremendousaccomplishment of the Trump administration and what we
saw initially with the Biden team.He comes in and good old uncle Joe
says, I really want that Iraniannuclear deal. He was so good,

(25:15):
even though it was so not good. I really want that Iranian nuclear deal.
I'm gonna do whatever I can tomake it happen. And he calls
out Saudi Arabia. He is supercritical of them as he's trying to cozy
up with Iran. It didn't takethat long for a pivot to happen where

(25:41):
Biden recognized, Okay, we aren'tgoing to be able to get anywhere here
with Iran and a nuclear deal.We're still gonna try to appease them,
but we're gonna turn back the clocka little bit and try and strength in
our relationship right now with Saudi Arabiaand the Arab countries. Because the cake

(26:07):
was baked under Trump, peace wasstarting to be forged and now more at
Claire mentioned this back general conversations arehappening. I think it's only a matter
of time before Saudi Arabia eventually signson to the Abraham Accords. In fact,
the day before October seventh and Hamas'sattack on Israel most devastating attack on

(26:30):
the Jewish people since the Holocaust.The day before, they were talking about
signing a defense pact with the UnitedStates that would include some things via Savie
Israel, and of course that wasat least postponed because of October seventh.

(26:52):
They couldn't just be seen strengthening theirrelationship with Israel. But we can still
see that the relationship is being fostered, and credit to Trump for that,
Credit to the Abraham Accords, andrecognize that This is significant and it should
send a message to Iran, Guesswhat, you have an alliance that has

(27:19):
been forged that will counter your malignactions, and that I think is very
important. The only problem with thisis, of course, that you do
continue to have weakness and appeasement onthe part of Biden. Why does money
get sent over to Iran and thenit ends up financing terrorism all around abominable,

(27:45):
and yet they keep doing it.It's sort of like the southern border.
We see the influx of people comingin, pouring in. There's an
estimate now of eight million attempts toacross the southern border. That's that is
shocking, and in fact, froma CBS station down in Texas, they

(28:07):
talked about in this one town,a dramatic increase in deaths now along the
southern border under Joe Biden. BeforeJanuary of twenty twenty one, Terrell County
on average saw one death a yearfrom illegal immigrants crossing the border. Since
then, Terrell County has seen atwelve hundred percent increase in deaths along the

(28:27):
border. And since this administration hastaken over, we've had a total of
thirty seven deaths of people trying tocross the border illegally here in Tarrol County,
and yet they're not doing anything aboutit, continuing to have this absurd,
bone headed policy of well, wedon't really want to secure the border

(28:49):
like we're supposed to, which iswhy now you have this process and we'll
talk about it more. Of impeachmentof Alejandro Maiorcis, the Secretary of Homeland
Security by the Republican House, likelyto be dismissed, it seems now by

(29:11):
Chuck Schumer in the Senate, whodoesn't want to have a trial. He's
supposed to have a trial, hedoesn't want to. But this is the
result of the feckless policies of theBiden administration. With Hellejudro Majorcis at the
helm, so much to talk about, so much to be distraught over regarding

(29:36):
this southern border crisis. I'm JimmySangenberger filling in for Michael Brown today and
tomorrow we'll be back on the otherside. Don't go anywhere, hey,
Dragon. When I was in highschool, we were forced to read Macbeth,
and in the beginning of Macbeth therewere three witches cackling over a cauldron.
This is a preventative talkback to makesure we do not have to hear

(30:00):
those witches cackling over a brew.You know what, I am glad that
we don't have that today. Atleast we have it so far. Let's
keep it going. Jimmy Sangenberger infor Michael brown today, and Hey,
Dragon, I love that you playeda little bit of Blues Traveler there.
You know, John Popper just atremendous fun harmonica players. So that was

(30:25):
a nice little treat. Yeah.I did see a text message coind of
this is Mike or Michael. Jimmy, hope you brought the harmonica along and
we'll play a few tunes. Itwould be a nice break from Brownie's inc
incessant gumfo about diet cokes. Yeah, you know, I never come to
a studio without my case of fourteenharmonica. See I can prove it to

(30:48):
you. There actually are so thirteenharmonicas here, and I suppose I have
to oblige you and the listener.Why don't I pull one out and just
for a moment, I'll play alittle harmonica live here on the Did you

(31:37):
enjoy that? That's good? Youknow, By the way, just I
should know why I have fourteen harmonicasis, because in order to play with
a band, you have to haveeach key of harmonica. Otherwise, if
you are with the band and youhave the wrong harmonica for the key of
the song, it's gonna sound justa little out of tune, and everybody

(32:00):
he's gonna be looking at you,going, why is the harmonica players sounding
real funny right about now? Ifthey start giving you the tilted head like
a dog does when they get aweird sun, exactly, that's exactly right.
And I don't want that when I'mon stage playing with my Jimmy Junior
Blues band, I do not wantthat. But the nice thing when you're

(32:22):
soloing like that, you can justpick whichever one you want, and who
cares about anybody else, because you'rethe only one. Nobody knows. Yes,
Indeed, music, I say isfood for the soul. It really
is. So hey, thank youfor giving that entree here. It's always
great to pull out the harps andhave a little fun. You know.

(32:46):
One of the things when we talkabout this is we discussed at the tail
end of the last segment talk aboutthe Southern border crisis. We really are
seeing ineptitude or is it intentional.I I don't know about the way.

(33:08):
I think there's an element of intentionality. I don't know the actual intent there.
There are those who say this isall about getting voters. I think
that this could be any number ofthings as far as the intentionality. But
whether it is intentional or not,the road to hell is paved with good
intentions just as it is with badintentions. And the fact of the matter

(33:30):
is that we have a porous southernborder with all of these drugs as well
as people coming through. At thetop of the hour of my friend Stephan
Tubbs, who's coming out with anew documentary film called It Devastated, will
be joining me to talk a littlebit about that and the fentanyl crisis right
here in Colorado. But when youthink about the southern border, you have

(33:52):
that major element of drugs, youhave all the people that are coming in,
you have the human trafficking, youhave the manitarian crisis, and you
have to think, if your intentionsreally are good intentions, that you would
want to seal the border and makesure that the word gets out to people
from all across the world, fromSouth America to Asia to Africa. All

(34:15):
these countries and regions that have peoplecoming or fleeing them and coming to the
United States expecting all sorts of goodiesfrom the United States to be handed out
to them. You have to thinkthat the humanitarian position would be send that
message not to come here, becausethe risks that you take and the life
that you'll have to a lot moredifficult than people are saying. You gotta

(34:39):
send the right mess. That's thehumanitarian position. It's humanitarian to make sure
that you don't get all these drugsput in the hands of kids who are
dying from fetanol poisoning unknowingly. Andthe list goes on, secure the border,
address it, and maybe just makemaybe my orcist should be removed from

(35:02):
office. We'll see h