June 25, 2025 • 20 mins
Everyone yelling "World War III" needs to calm down. Buck Sexton is joined by national security expert Steve Yates to break down what’s really going on in the Middle East. Iran’s proxies are weaker than ever, Trump’s foreign policy is delivering results, and the people are screaming “ceasefire” before Israel could even fight back? Plus: What Israel pulled off against Hezbollah, and how Biden’s open-border policies made America more vulnerable than people want to admit.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, everybody, we need to discuss World War three, which
is not happening, but there's a lot of national security
stuff going on and that is worth a discussion with
our friend Stephen Yates, who is of the Wonderful Heritage
Foundation and formerly a senior national security advisor to a
vice president and speaks Chinese, which I always think is
(00:43):
so Mandarin, which I always think is very impressive to
tell everybody. And I've asked him to take me out
with him to a Chinese restaurant some time so I
can really check this stuff out. But we'll get there
at some point. Let's start with this. I have never
seen so many people on our side the right broadly speaking, However,
one even really defines that. So just I guess unrepentant
(01:04):
about being so wrong on a national security thing so
quickly as these air strikes will lead to World War three?
Like what happens? Now? Where do they go with that?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, partially to me, I think this is evidence that
TDS comes in multiple forms, and President Trump is doing
things at a pace and a scope and a quantity
that has never been done before. And I think even
people on our side can fall into the trap of
(01:38):
trying to make protracted judgments based on instant analysis and
the pace of things. The change all of it is
so fast that a lot of people are going to
be wrong some of the time, and I just think
people on our side aren't used to that, and it's
much more of a severe syndrome on the other side.
(02:02):
But I think the first rule of living in Trump's
world is it's going to get shaken four five times
a day. Don't panic, don't assume the first result is
the end result, and let him cook for a little
bit before you sort of get a sense of the direction.
And I think ultimately that's what it is. He is
(02:23):
a directional leader who distracts people with things that happen
along the way they don't even realize they've moved. And
so I mean, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, But
when I look at even what we're dealing with with
some of the zigs and zags on Israel and Iran
right now, directionally, this is miraculously a positive direction based
(02:45):
on what the history of this has been and does
it mean it's over. No, nothing is over until we
say it's over. So but this, but this is you know,
when you look at the negotiations on trade, you look
at the negotiations on Russia and Ukraine, these things take
a lot of time. But he's not even six months
in and directionally we've done some things that are far
(03:09):
far better than than they were in the Biden years.
But that, I think is what messes with people. But
I've been disappointed with a lot of people that I know,
of our friends. But you know, there's no horse disappointment
than when you work for somebody that you like and
then they do something you didn't agree with and you
were right and they were wrong, and you feel bad
all the way around. Hey that's my life.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got to say I think that
the I think that the trends right now in the
Middle East are more positive than I can ever remember them, being,
certainly in my adult lifetime, right in the post nine
to eleven g watt Era, because even on things like
when people say, okay, well what about the proxies and
(03:50):
the terrorist I'm like, look, first of all, we're always
at risk from some you know, if somebody wants to
infiltrate a four man terror cell unfortunately across our southern
border of the last four years, you know, that's a risk, right,
that's the thing that they can do. But that will
just kill a bunch of innocent people, which is horrible,
But it's not going to change the military calculus that
(04:10):
of what's going on with the Israelis in the Middle East, right,
So that doesn't. But also on top of that, Hamas
and Hesbola are in the worst position they've been, which
are the primary proxies. I think that we're usually concerned
about the Middle East, we talking about Iran. They're in
the worst position they've been in since I can remember.
I mean, the pay people. Things have gone so well
with the airstrikes, Steve that the pager operation against Hesbola,
(04:32):
which is the most incredible intelligence operation I can think of.
No one even seems to remember.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Completely agree, Yeah, completely agree, I know. And so I
think it partially comes down to people who have lived honestly,
and there are some who don't live honestly in the
national security world know that we don't ever get the
luxury of zero risk, and there's always in several different places,
(04:57):
terrible things that could happen in an instance, and we
work against, we hope against. It's just sort of a
management process. But if you look at how you know,
some people say, well, but could strike back in our homeland. Yeah, well,
we always have to watch out for things like that.
But you know, the risk in that was pretty severe
(05:19):
without Israel having done anything against Iran, without the US
having done anything against Iran, and that's courtesy of the
Biden years of letting a whole host of unknown people
into our country. But the best way to mitigate those
things is sort of what the Israelis have done and
what I think a broader coalition of people need to
do is one by one you lessen the capabilities of
(05:42):
the bad actors. You get the Chinas and the Russians
to think maybe they want to back off, and you know,
maybe they're not all in for their Iranian pals. The
Iranian pals aren't able to fuel those subordinates, and you
have a demonstration effect by the president being decisive. It
(06:04):
was always thought it was a little bit ridiculous for
people to say, oh, Donald Trump is going to get
us into Worldorld War three or some kind of protracted
a commitment. I mean, having B two's fly over and
shake the earth is profoundly different than sending ground forces anywhere.
And so if anything this I mean. And also I've
(06:25):
just loved, loved, loved the idea of how many people
are sol hurt by not being told in advance this
was happening, and I thought Scott Jennings actually had it
perfectly summed up. The way you guard against leak is
you don't talk against talk to leakers again, so you
sort of tell where the leaks were coming from based
(06:45):
on who the president and his top team didn't talk to.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You'll appreciate it before and I mean, two hours before
the Israeli strikes kicked off, I was with the President
and then right next to the Oval with the whole
you know, your old your old office, I mean the
NSC and uh talking to all those different folks, and
it was funny because everything was very you know, we
were off the record, but I mean we're talking about
all kinds of national security stuff and everything was pretty
(07:12):
you know, oh yeah, we can talk about this week.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I had a on the not on the record content,
but on the record meeting with Tulsi Gabber, the d
and I and all these different folks I talked to
you just in general. The second remember, hours before these
really strike, if if I even mentioned the word Iran,
it was you know, it was all of a sudden. Ever,
it kind of just like got really they're like, oh,
but you know, I even had one I won't say
who it was. I one person who had just said,
(07:35):
you know, what's the what's the temperature like with Iran
right now? Because I'm getting a sense that things might
be you know, there's some chatter up, things heating up, whatever,
And it was, well, I can't separate the classified from
the unclassified, so I can't make further comment. I remember
my head tell yeah, I I remember thinking, okay, so
we're going in like this is happening. So yeah, no
surprise there, Yeah, it's h they were, they were very
(07:58):
Everyone was very quiet about it for sure. So it's
gone much. I will say this has gone better even
than I had anticipated in terms of the retaliatory response
to Iran. The fact that Tehran were and I believe
it told us that they were going to fire or
missiles at our base in this show of force thing.
Clearly they can't do any military to military damage to US.
(08:22):
Their only option is terrorism. And look, you know, I
think people need to remember also October seventh, what Hamas
did in Israel was it was the Israeli nine to eleven.
That was the let's just go out and kill as
many civilians as possible approach to things. And I think
people can look back historically, will look back historically and
think that was maybe the biggest strategic miscalculation that Hamas
(08:43):
has ever made among many, right, I mean, among a
lot of areas and blunders, but I think they just
they they completely they missed it. They don't understand you
do something like that, and the First World armies of
the of civilization they take the gloves off.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, I agree with that. I also think it exposed
more because we had had rental mobs and agitators for
years doing destructive things in the United States, and as
long as it was domestic politics, it kind of hid
who was up to what. But after October seventh, the
flash mobs were immediately holding up Hamas and Palestinian flags
(09:25):
and things like that. It made very very clear, I
think to a lot of sane America that holy crap,
this is something different. This is not organic, this is
not American.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
There were people they were still burying the dead in Israel.
I mean, you know, women and children and the elderly
burying the dead, and you and people in this country
calling for a ceasefire. A cease fire before the Israelis
had even been able to fire or shot in response
to that is the most disingenuous. I mean, this is
like if a guy ran into a bar, punched the
first person the face he saw, and then when the
(10:00):
guy went to hit him back, he goes, hold on
a second, ceasefire. No, that's not how this works.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
It's peace and love. Brother, Come on.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But I mean the ceasefire talk was just but you know,
I'm actually in a sense, I think it was good
that they did that because it showed the same people
saying ceasefire are the same people who have been saying
there's a genocide in Gaza as things move along, are
the same people who are saying that were violating international
norms by striking Iran. They really actually just root for
(10:29):
the bad guys. I mean, they're really actually just on.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I agree, Yeah, yeah, very very clarifying. The other the
other thing was after October seventh, somewhere along the lines. Uh,
there was, there were some back and forth. Of course,
the Israelis have done some incredible things by way of
human intelligence, embedding themselves into their enemy in ways that
the entire world ought to learn.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Can I just kind of jumped in really quickly with
this because you had you had a TS and you know,
secret squirrel clearance. I had a T S Secret squirrel clearance.
You know, we saw some interesting stuff back in the day.
I've never seen anything like one with the Israelis pulled
off with hesbe Lah obvious, I don't think anyone's seeing that.
But also it's like they mapped out I mean, Stephen,
they they did missile strikes on nuclear scientists at home
(11:16):
in apartment buildings and only killed the scientists. I mean,
this is like it's like they had the whole playbook
of how they were going to take out all the
guys they wanted to take out.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, I think they literally did have the playbook, and
they had people that were trusted and at the side
of some pretty key leaders. So they ended up with
the intelligence, the necessary knowledge, but then the precision and
the discipline to deliver on what they aimed to do.
I mean the visuals of seeing a hole in the
(11:49):
side of a condo building that only fried the unit
the bad guy was in. That is otherworldly. That is
the stuff of movies that we wouldn't believe if we
read the script, and so it was really really amazing.
Plus they had an exchange of missiles. So Iran launched
some missiles in the direction of Israel, like a year
(12:11):
ago or something like that, and the Israelis were able
to learn from that when they retaliated the state of
Iran's air defenses. Iran had bought a lot of air
defense capabilities from several different sources, Chinese, the Russians, others,
and on paper it could have been scary. We had
to have some uncertainty, so did the Israelis. But I
(12:32):
think the Israelis learned a lot more than the average
bear about the vulnerability that Tehran and other places had
when they saw their missile counter strikes succeed and that
led them to know they could conduct deeper operations. So
they had the playbook, they had some technical tests, but
(12:52):
then they also had the gumption to give it a go,
and they had their reasons for it. Now we also
have people you've talked about some people on our side
that got spun up in different ways. You'll talk about,
you know, the Israelis leading us in a direction or
to us, you know, doing these things for Israel. I
(13:13):
don't know. I'm old enough to remember four hundred and
forty four days, and I'm old enough to remember marine
barracks and other kinds of things getting blown up. There
is and I also, you know, we can before or
against the Iraq War. I certainly have a lot of
questions and criticisms of how things were conducted after major
(13:34):
military operations were done at the initial phase. Lots and
lots of criticisms and questions. But no matter what, there's
a lot of Iranian ordinance that killed Americans during that war.
So you know, there's any number of reasons why a
decisive action would be justified just on American interests. And again,
(13:56):
I similarly to a lot of these people, I don't
want to protracted war. But this was striking at distance
and with stealth, and that I think for the timbers
of Russia, Russia and China.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, remarkably successful. Let's come back and actually talk next
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(15:24):
All right, So now Trump doesn't really need to hear
the lectures from the chattering class over like no nation building.
I think he's pretty clear on that. And I also
think he's a little like like like the dad who's
been paying all the bills who now has people chirping
at him about like, how do you know he's got it?
You know he's figured this out? Yeah, Like, well, what
do you think is next here? For? If thing go
(15:46):
the way that we would like them too? Because I
I'm always very I would to say, I don't know
if cynical is the word, but I just feel like,
look Asad had suicide bombers infiltrating pretty much his inner
circle in like twenty twelve, and it looked like they
were going to get him in any a, you know,
lasted another decade in change right under tremendous pressure and
(16:07):
managed to just sort of slither out and last and
what is he now? He's living in Russia? Right, I'm
not as convinced as some others that this is the
death knell of the Ayatolas at all. But so then
if that is the case, what is the best like,
what's the best realistic option for what happens in Iran
without without US pushing regime change?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah? Well, I mean, I would confess over the arc
of my life, I've been disillusioned about the nature of
authoritarian and brutal regimes. They have a stickiness that is
very very disappointing, very good.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Staying in power. That's like the main thing they want
to do, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And willing to do anything, and so they have escalatory
dominance over anyone who wants to challenge them in many,
many cases. You know. The one that seared in my
mind was the absolute universe of intelligence services in the
US and the entire world saying that the North Korean
regime was on its deathbed in the nineties, and it was.
(17:07):
It was overwhelming evidence, and there was mass starvation, right,
So you can look at this and be like, oh,
there's no way that people. It's hard for starving people
to overthrow a huge military apparatus. Yeah, And then you
think of, you know, the regimes now have tools that
the people back then could only imagine. And so yeah,
(17:28):
I would love it if the Iran pre revolution had
a second go of things. That would be a beautiful
thing to witness. It would be great if the history
of the Persian Empire could kind of give some of
those good civilizational qualities back to this war torn part
of this planet. But I'm not going to hold my
(17:50):
breath on that. And I think that what President Trump
has been doing, he's hit a lot of major reset buttons.
But one of the major reset buttons is a true
sense of realism and foreign policy, and that really focuses
less on the nature of the state and more on
containing the malign influences and seeing if you can negotiate
a more stable balance point for our interactions with different countries.
(18:14):
And that's uncomfortable for a lot of people that live
in the world of black and white, complete one hundred
percent right or wrong, no gray, no middle, which is
not my life, whether it's in dealing with the family
that I love or dealing with with friends or other experiences.
There's the real world is not all or nothing, and
(18:36):
it's not that here either, And so I think what
President Trump has now, you've got the Abraham Accords. Countries
that probably aren't one hundred percent happy with the way
things have played out. Israel probably pretty happy, but some
of the Arab allies maybe mixed feelings. But on balance
there they didn't want Iran to have a nuclear program either.
(18:58):
But you have tools to manage risk better going forward,
and a lot of motivation to do it. Trump pushes prosperity,
and people might downplay that, but it is a useful
and good tool. It doesn't work all the time perfectly.
I think US China relations are the best counter example
(19:18):
to prosperity. Doctrine doesn't solve all your national security woes,
and you have to watch out, but it's a lot
safer set of options than having a theocratic totalitarian regime
with a bunch of violent terrorist proxies. So we're in
a different set of tools. He's also really focused on
(19:38):
arming and enabling independent capabilities among our allies so that
they can over time take a lead with this this
stupid talk of closing the straits of Hormuz, that that
shivered the timbers of the Chinese they flowing.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
They're not gonna They're not gonna say, yeah, you know what,
guys to stop selling us your oil. That's not gonna help.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So here's a big country that wants to be your friend,
and your peeing in their teerios. Come on, you can't
do this.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, and that sounds even better in the original Chinese.
You know, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
The classical Chinese modern Yeah, exactly, it's more poetic in
the old language.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I mean, look, I mean, maybe we have to do
a follow up to this, Steve, when we say, oh
my gosh, you know, who knew that Iran had that
ace up their sleeve? I think the chance of that
is like a less than one percent, so so far,
to me, it seems like a remarkable success where we are.
We will do a follow up, but we're doing this
was our Middle East Yates deep dive. We'll do as
a East Asia deep dive next time we talk. Stevin
(20:41):
Yates over at the Heritage Foundation. Steven Alway, appreciate you man,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Take good care. Thank you. Buck
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, everybody, we need to discuss World War three, which
is not happening, but there's a lot of national security
stuff going on and that is worth a discussion with
our friend Stephen Yates, who is of the Wonderful Heritage
Foundation and formerly a senior national security advisor to a
vice president and speaks Chinese, which I always think is
(00:43):
so Mandarin, which I always think is very impressive to
tell everybody. And I've asked him to take me out
with him to a Chinese restaurant some time so I
can really check this stuff out. But we'll get there
at some point. Let's start with this. I have never
seen so many people on our side the right broadly speaking, However,
one even really defines that. So just I guess unrepentant
(01:04):
about being so wrong on a national security thing so
quickly as these air strikes will lead to World War three?
Like what happens? Now? Where do they go with that?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, partially to me, I think this is evidence that
TDS comes in multiple forms, and President Trump is doing
things at a pace and a scope and a quantity
that has never been done before. And I think even
people on our side can fall into the trap of
(01:38):
trying to make protracted judgments based on instant analysis and
the pace of things. The change all of it is
so fast that a lot of people are going to
be wrong some of the time, and I just think
people on our side aren't used to that, and it's
much more of a severe syndrome on the other side.
(02:02):
But I think the first rule of living in Trump's
world is it's going to get shaken four five times
a day. Don't panic, don't assume the first result is
the end result, and let him cook for a little
bit before you sort of get a sense of the direction.
And I think ultimately that's what it is. He is
(02:23):
a directional leader who distracts people with things that happen
along the way they don't even realize they've moved. And
so I mean, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, But
when I look at even what we're dealing with with
some of the zigs and zags on Israel and Iran
right now, directionally, this is miraculously a positive direction based
(02:45):
on what the history of this has been and does
it mean it's over. No, nothing is over until we
say it's over. So but this, but this is you know,
when you look at the negotiations on trade, you look
at the negotiations on Russia and Ukraine, these things take
a lot of time. But he's not even six months
in and directionally we've done some things that are far
(03:09):
far better than than they were in the Biden years.
But that, I think is what messes with people. But
I've been disappointed with a lot of people that I know,
of our friends. But you know, there's no horse disappointment
than when you work for somebody that you like and
then they do something you didn't agree with and you
were right and they were wrong, and you feel bad
all the way around. Hey that's my life.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got to say I think that
the I think that the trends right now in the
Middle East are more positive than I can ever remember them, being,
certainly in my adult lifetime, right in the post nine
to eleven g watt Era, because even on things like
when people say, okay, well what about the proxies and
(03:50):
the terrorist I'm like, look, first of all, we're always
at risk from some you know, if somebody wants to
infiltrate a four man terror cell unfortunately across our southern
border of the last four years, you know, that's a risk, right,
that's the thing that they can do. But that will
just kill a bunch of innocent people, which is horrible,
But it's not going to change the military calculus that
(04:10):
of what's going on with the Israelis in the Middle East, right,
So that doesn't. But also on top of that, Hamas
and Hesbola are in the worst position they've been, which
are the primary proxies. I think that we're usually concerned
about the Middle East, we talking about Iran. They're in
the worst position they've been in since I can remember.
I mean, the pay people. Things have gone so well
with the airstrikes, Steve that the pager operation against Hesbola,
(04:32):
which is the most incredible intelligence operation I can think of.
No one even seems to remember.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Completely agree, Yeah, completely agree, I know. And so I
think it partially comes down to people who have lived honestly,
and there are some who don't live honestly in the
national security world know that we don't ever get the
luxury of zero risk, and there's always in several different places,
(04:57):
terrible things that could happen in an instance, and we
work against, we hope against. It's just sort of a
management process. But if you look at how you know,
some people say, well, but could strike back in our homeland. Yeah, well,
we always have to watch out for things like that.
But you know, the risk in that was pretty severe
(05:19):
without Israel having done anything against Iran, without the US
having done anything against Iran, and that's courtesy of the
Biden years of letting a whole host of unknown people
into our country. But the best way to mitigate those
things is sort of what the Israelis have done and
what I think a broader coalition of people need to
do is one by one you lessen the capabilities of
(05:42):
the bad actors. You get the Chinas and the Russians
to think maybe they want to back off, and you know,
maybe they're not all in for their Iranian pals. The
Iranian pals aren't able to fuel those subordinates, and you
have a demonstration effect by the president being decisive. It
(06:04):
was always thought it was a little bit ridiculous for
people to say, oh, Donald Trump is going to get
us into Worldorld War three or some kind of protracted
a commitment. I mean, having B two's fly over and
shake the earth is profoundly different than sending ground forces anywhere.
And so if anything this I mean. And also I've
(06:25):
just loved, loved, loved the idea of how many people
are sol hurt by not being told in advance this
was happening, and I thought Scott Jennings actually had it
perfectly summed up. The way you guard against leak is
you don't talk against talk to leakers again, so you
sort of tell where the leaks were coming from based
(06:45):
on who the president and his top team didn't talk to.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You'll appreciate it before and I mean, two hours before
the Israeli strikes kicked off, I was with the President
and then right next to the Oval with the whole
you know, your old your old office, I mean the
NSC and uh talking to all those different folks, and
it was funny because everything was very you know, we
were off the record, but I mean we're talking about
all kinds of national security stuff and everything was pretty
(07:12):
you know, oh yeah, we can talk about this week.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I had a on the not on the record content,
but on the record meeting with Tulsi Gabber, the d
and I and all these different folks I talked to
you just in general. The second remember, hours before these
really strike, if if I even mentioned the word Iran,
it was you know, it was all of a sudden. Ever,
it kind of just like got really they're like, oh,
but you know, I even had one I won't say
who it was. I one person who had just said,
(07:35):
you know, what's the what's the temperature like with Iran
right now? Because I'm getting a sense that things might
be you know, there's some chatter up, things heating up, whatever,
And it was, well, I can't separate the classified from
the unclassified, so I can't make further comment. I remember
my head tell yeah, I I remember thinking, okay, so
we're going in like this is happening. So yeah, no
surprise there, Yeah, it's h they were, they were very
(07:58):
Everyone was very quiet about it for sure. So it's
gone much. I will say this has gone better even
than I had anticipated in terms of the retaliatory response
to Iran. The fact that Tehran were and I believe
it told us that they were going to fire or
missiles at our base in this show of force thing.
Clearly they can't do any military to military damage to US.
(08:22):
Their only option is terrorism. And look, you know, I
think people need to remember also October seventh, what Hamas
did in Israel was it was the Israeli nine to eleven.
That was the let's just go out and kill as
many civilians as possible approach to things. And I think
people can look back historically, will look back historically and
think that was maybe the biggest strategic miscalculation that Hamas
(08:43):
has ever made among many, right, I mean, among a
lot of areas and blunders, but I think they just
they they completely they missed it. They don't understand you
do something like that, and the First World armies of
the of civilization they take the gloves off.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, I agree with that. I also think it exposed
more because we had had rental mobs and agitators for
years doing destructive things in the United States, and as
long as it was domestic politics, it kind of hid
who was up to what. But after October seventh, the
flash mobs were immediately holding up Hamas and Palestinian flags
(09:25):
and things like that. It made very very clear, I
think to a lot of sane America that holy crap,
this is something different. This is not organic, this is
not American.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
There were people they were still burying the dead in Israel.
I mean, you know, women and children and the elderly
burying the dead, and you and people in this country
calling for a ceasefire. A cease fire before the Israelis
had even been able to fire or shot in response
to that is the most disingenuous. I mean, this is
like if a guy ran into a bar, punched the
first person the face he saw, and then when the
(10:00):
guy went to hit him back, he goes, hold on
a second, ceasefire. No, that's not how this works.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
It's peace and love. Brother, Come on.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But I mean the ceasefire talk was just but you know,
I'm actually in a sense, I think it was good
that they did that because it showed the same people
saying ceasefire are the same people who have been saying
there's a genocide in Gaza as things move along, are
the same people who are saying that were violating international
norms by striking Iran. They really actually just root for
(10:29):
the bad guys. I mean, they're really actually just on.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I agree, Yeah, yeah, very very clarifying. The other the
other thing was after October seventh, somewhere along the lines. Uh,
there was, there were some back and forth. Of course,
the Israelis have done some incredible things by way of
human intelligence, embedding themselves into their enemy in ways that
the entire world ought to learn.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Can I just kind of jumped in really quickly with
this because you had you had a TS and you know,
secret squirrel clearance. I had a T S Secret squirrel clearance.
You know, we saw some interesting stuff back in the day.
I've never seen anything like one with the Israelis pulled
off with hesbe Lah obvious, I don't think anyone's seeing that.
But also it's like they mapped out I mean, Stephen,
they they did missile strikes on nuclear scientists at home
(11:16):
in apartment buildings and only killed the scientists. I mean,
this is like it's like they had the whole playbook
of how they were going to take out all the
guys they wanted to take out.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, I think they literally did have the playbook, and
they had people that were trusted and at the side
of some pretty key leaders. So they ended up with
the intelligence, the necessary knowledge, but then the precision and
the discipline to deliver on what they aimed to do.
I mean the visuals of seeing a hole in the
(11:49):
side of a condo building that only fried the unit
the bad guy was in. That is otherworldly. That is
the stuff of movies that we wouldn't believe if we
read the script, and so it was really really amazing.
Plus they had an exchange of missiles. So Iran launched
some missiles in the direction of Israel, like a year
(12:11):
ago or something like that, and the Israelis were able
to learn from that when they retaliated the state of
Iran's air defenses. Iran had bought a lot of air
defense capabilities from several different sources, Chinese, the Russians, others,
and on paper it could have been scary. We had
to have some uncertainty, so did the Israelis. But I
(12:32):
think the Israelis learned a lot more than the average
bear about the vulnerability that Tehran and other places had
when they saw their missile counter strikes succeed and that
led them to know they could conduct deeper operations. So
they had the playbook, they had some technical tests, but
(12:52):
then they also had the gumption to give it a go,
and they had their reasons for it. Now we also
have people you've talked about some people on our side
that got spun up in different ways. You'll talk about,
you know, the Israelis leading us in a direction or
to us, you know, doing these things for Israel. I
(13:13):
don't know. I'm old enough to remember four hundred and
forty four days, and I'm old enough to remember marine
barracks and other kinds of things getting blown up. There
is and I also, you know, we can before or
against the Iraq War. I certainly have a lot of
questions and criticisms of how things were conducted after major
(13:34):
military operations were done at the initial phase. Lots and
lots of criticisms and questions. But no matter what, there's
a lot of Iranian ordinance that killed Americans during that war.
So you know, there's any number of reasons why a
decisive action would be justified just on American interests. And again,
(13:56):
I similarly to a lot of these people, I don't
want to protracted war. But this was striking at distance
and with stealth, and that I think for the timbers
of Russia, Russia and China.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
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Speaker 1 (14:20):
Now.
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(15:24):
All right, So now Trump doesn't really need to hear
the lectures from the chattering class over like no nation building.
I think he's pretty clear on that. And I also
think he's a little like like like the dad who's
been paying all the bills who now has people chirping
at him about like, how do you know he's got it?
You know he's figured this out? Yeah, Like, well, what
do you think is next here? For? If thing go
(15:46):
the way that we would like them too? Because I
I'm always very I would to say, I don't know
if cynical is the word, but I just feel like,
look Asad had suicide bombers infiltrating pretty much his inner
circle in like twenty twelve, and it looked like they
were going to get him in any a, you know,
lasted another decade in change right under tremendous pressure and
(16:07):
managed to just sort of slither out and last and
what is he now? He's living in Russia? Right, I'm
not as convinced as some others that this is the
death knell of the Ayatolas at all. But so then
if that is the case, what is the best like,
what's the best realistic option for what happens in Iran
without without US pushing regime change?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah? Well, I mean, I would confess over the arc
of my life, I've been disillusioned about the nature of
authoritarian and brutal regimes. They have a stickiness that is
very very disappointing, very good.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Staying in power. That's like the main thing they want
to do, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And willing to do anything, and so they have escalatory
dominance over anyone who wants to challenge them in many,
many cases. You know. The one that seared in my
mind was the absolute universe of intelligence services in the
US and the entire world saying that the North Korean
regime was on its deathbed in the nineties, and it was.
(17:07):
It was overwhelming evidence, and there was mass starvation, right,
So you can look at this and be like, oh,
there's no way that people. It's hard for starving people
to overthrow a huge military apparatus. Yeah, And then you
think of, you know, the regimes now have tools that
the people back then could only imagine. And so yeah,
(17:28):
I would love it if the Iran pre revolution had
a second go of things. That would be a beautiful
thing to witness. It would be great if the history
of the Persian Empire could kind of give some of
those good civilizational qualities back to this war torn part
of this planet. But I'm not going to hold my
(17:50):
breath on that. And I think that what President Trump
has been doing, he's hit a lot of major reset buttons.
But one of the major reset buttons is a true
sense of realism and foreign policy, and that really focuses
less on the nature of the state and more on
containing the malign influences and seeing if you can negotiate
a more stable balance point for our interactions with different countries.
(18:14):
And that's uncomfortable for a lot of people that live
in the world of black and white, complete one hundred
percent right or wrong, no gray, no middle, which is
not my life, whether it's in dealing with the family
that I love or dealing with with friends or other experiences.
There's the real world is not all or nothing, and
(18:36):
it's not that here either, And so I think what
President Trump has now, you've got the Abraham Accords. Countries
that probably aren't one hundred percent happy with the way
things have played out. Israel probably pretty happy, but some
of the Arab allies maybe mixed feelings. But on balance
there they didn't want Iran to have a nuclear program either.
(18:58):
But you have tools to manage risk better going forward,
and a lot of motivation to do it. Trump pushes prosperity,
and people might downplay that, but it is a useful
and good tool. It doesn't work all the time perfectly.
I think US China relations are the best counter example
(19:18):
to prosperity. Doctrine doesn't solve all your national security woes,
and you have to watch out, but it's a lot
safer set of options than having a theocratic totalitarian regime
with a bunch of violent terrorist proxies. So we're in
a different set of tools. He's also really focused on
(19:38):
arming and enabling independent capabilities among our allies so that
they can over time take a lead with this this
stupid talk of closing the straits of Hormuz, that that
shivered the timbers of the Chinese they flowing.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
They're not gonna They're not gonna say, yeah, you know what,
guys to stop selling us your oil. That's not gonna help.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So here's a big country that wants to be your friend,
and your peeing in their teerios. Come on, you can't
do this.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, and that sounds even better in the original Chinese.
You know, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
The classical Chinese modern Yeah, exactly, it's more poetic in
the old language.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I mean, look, I mean, maybe we have to do
a follow up to this, Steve, when we say, oh
my gosh, you know, who knew that Iran had that
ace up their sleeve? I think the chance of that
is like a less than one percent, so so far,
to me, it seems like a remarkable success where we are.
We will do a follow up, but we're doing this
was our Middle East Yates deep dive. We'll do as
a East Asia deep dive next time we talk. Stevin
(20:41):
Yates over at the Heritage Foundation. Steven Alway, appreciate you man,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Take good care. Thank you. Buck
Host
Buck Sexton
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