January 30, 2024 • 13 mins
Josh Rogin joined A&G to discuss how the attacks in the Middle East on our troops are only getting worse. The US needs to do something and do it now.
Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of the Washington Post and a political analyst with CNN. He is also the author of “Chaos under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century”
Previously, he has covered foreign policy and national security for Bloomberg View, Newsweek, the Daily Beast, Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is your message to Hesboala and its backer Iran?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Don't don't don't don't.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
And what's the message to Iran?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Don't?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
As President Biden said, just don't.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
Exactly one word, pretty straightforward. It was very important to
send a very clear message to anyone who might seek
to take advantage of the conflict in gas but to
threaten our personnel here anywhere else in the region, don't
do it.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
I've already delivered.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The message to marand they know not to do anything.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
I've already delivered the message who Iran, they know not
to do anything. That's from about a week or two ago.
Apparently all those don'ts did not work.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
The chaos in the Middle East shows signs of growing
into even greater chaos. To discuss that in the recent
events were joined by Josh Rogan, Global Opinions calumnists with
The Washington Post, author of Chaos under Heaven Trumps she
The Battle for the twenty first Century. Josh, welcome, How
are you.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Great? I mean, the world is terrible shape, but it
personal I'm just doing okay.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Thing that's good to hear. When the horrible news broke
on Sunday, what you called a brazen escalation. Even though
it was the one hundred and sixtieth attack we've had
on us since October seventh, this one ended in the
death of three soldiers and bad injuries for dozens of others.
(01:28):
And I started reading your twitter feed. I see your
Washington Post column today about Iran's proxy forces are teaming
up to attack Americans. So why did we I've been
reading your Twitter feed, So I want you to explain
this to our listeners. Why were we where we were
there in Jordan? What were we doing? Who attacked us?
(01:50):
Who was it that attacked us? Before we get to
some solutions right now.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Perfect place to start, because I think most Americans when
they heard that three US troops were in northeast Jordan,
their first reaction was like, what are three US troops
doing in.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Northeast right exactly?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
But you know, it's it's actually really important that they
be there. They're fighting isis they're stopping Iranian proliferation, and
they're protecting the civilians there from all sorts of manner
of horrendousness. Now, it's not a combat role, you know,
they shouldn't be really in any danger.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
But the reason that they are.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
One big reason that they are is because the Iranian
government and its procties have been ramping up the harassment
of US forces all over the region without a proper
response from the United States. And I think that's what
this incident shows us. And that doesn't mean we need
to go to war with Iran right away, doesn't mean
that we even need to overreact. It just means that
it's very clear now that after one hundred and fifty attacks,
(02:48):
whatever we thought we were, whatever the US government thought
it was doing the turn of those attacks ain't working okay,
because the attacks are getting worse, not better, and the
attackers getting more brazen. So yeah, I mean, you could
have a discussion of should we just take all of
the US troops out of the release and get rid
of them and bring them back or whatever. That's that's
not an unfair discussion to have, But there's there now.
(03:08):
They're in harms way right now, They're getting attacked right now,
and you know, it seems pretty clear that we're gonna
need a to do something different in order to uh,
you know, stop this what is escalation?
Speaker 5 (03:21):
If it got worse, you could only imagine, well, who
are the attackers you explain how there's several different militia
groups that the cud's forces brought together with the one
goal of attacking Americans.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Right, So you have to understand that this like you know,
patch of desert in between where Jordan and Iraq and
Syria meat, there exists a rich tapestry of militant extremist groups. Okay,
some are Stunnis, some are Shia, some are Syrians, some
are Russians, are cheched Hints, some are wow, you name it.
So there's there's just dozens of you know, gangsters with guns,
(03:57):
sponsored by all sorts of foreign governments. Now what we
have there is we have a base called TOMP which
is again fighting terrorism and stopping Irunian in proliferation. We
have another base called Power twenty two. That's the one
where the troops got killed, but both of them have
been attacked. And then there's a refugee camp full of
Searings that we protected to have a partner. So essentially
what's going on is that you know, all of these
(04:20):
groups were being held at day by the presence of
the US forces.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
You really don't want to attack the US or it
doesn't a matter if it's only two hundred US troops.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That's like two thousand or twenty thousand troops from any
other countries. We have got the best soldiers in the world,
they've got the best equipment in the world. But for
some reason, and all of a sudden, these Iranian groups
are getting really, really aggressive. And of course if you
ask them, they'll say, well, that's because we want to
push the United States to pressure Israel to.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Stop the fighting in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
But if you ask the US troops on the ground,
they'll say it's because they don't have.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Permission to really go after them the way that they
want to.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And again, I'm not saying we need to attack Iran.
I'm not even saying we need to go attack inside
it Bran. But these are bad guys who are killing Americans,
not to mention Syrians and Iraqis and anyone else who
gets in their way. They are funded by Iran.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think they've.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Earned a more forceful response to the United States, and
I think that's what we're gonna see.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
We just don't have seen. Again, we just don't know
exactly what it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I think it's pretty much self evident that our choices
are either a as you suggest, to get everybody out
of there, or b defend them forcibly with such overwhelming
and terrifying force that nobody dares attack them. And it's
not like this is some sort of new military doctrine
I've cooked up in the last forty eight hours. I mean,
it's ancient wisdom, and I think, you know, barring some
(05:41):
sort of accidental unleashing of the you know, a world war,
there's no reason to question the ancient wisdom? Am I?
Am I being a belligerent talk show host there, Josh.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
No, I mean again, I guess it's easy for us
to say right now, but yes, you want to kill
the people who are trying to kill you, and if
these people are determined to try to kill you, probably want.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
To kill them first.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Again, there's the debate is whether or not we should
then kill the people who are paying I think that's
a fair debate to how I think we attack inside
of Iran. That's a pretty risky thing to do. Start
killing Iranians leaders inside of run. Yeah, that could get
out of hand real fast. I'm not saying that we
should be cautious about that. But the people in Syria
and Iraq who are sponsored by Iran who are trying
to kill Americans. I think, yeah, we should probably kill
(06:27):
them first.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It really couldn't be much more simple than that.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Hey tell me if I'm overrating this, because I don't
want to be guilty of grossly oversimplifying anything. But when
the Trump administration took out Solamani, which was unquestionably an
extremely provocative thing to do, the Iranian response was essentially,
I'm I'm this is my words. They said, oh my god,
(06:53):
these guys are serious. We're going to show our righteous
anger by shooting a few missiles over there, and that
we've struck back, but we need this to recede. We
don't want it to escalate. They showed their true colors.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Then, all right, Well, I think a couple of things.
So one is that they killed two Americans in March
twenty twenty under Trump Trump's watch at a base in Iraq,
and one British guy. So when Trump goes on truth
to social says this would never have happened under my presidency,
he's not really true, because it did happen under his presidency.
So they did kill too Americans.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
That's that, we can't forget that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But what was interesting is that after that Mike Pompeo,
John Bolton he not a gale. Michael pay and John
both went to Trump and they said we got to
attack Iran, and Trump said no. Trump actually went against
his national security team and did an attack around He
showed restraint. You know, every one sinks Trump is going
to get us into some sort of war with Iran.
Actually he pulled us back now right or wrong. That
(07:51):
showed that actually there is a chance to avoid the
bigger war that neither side. Once there's no way Iran,
what's the war with the United States, they would definitely lose.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
We would definitely win.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But you know, there is a need to show the
Iranians that we're just not going to take take it
lying down when they kill about when they kill three
Americans and injured three dozen more So in that window
is a response that's different from what we're doing now.
But I think the Trump example shows that, you know,
it doesn't matter which party is in power, there are
(08:21):
smart things to do and they are dumb things to do.
And you know, letting these attacks just continue to continue
without any response is very dumb. And uh, I think
that that shouldn't be political. That should just be again
sort of basic common sense.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, I didn't. I didn't mean to make this about
Trump or not Trump or anything. It was more about
the Iranian tendencies and the fact that they're not going
to respond with some sort of all right, world War
three is on, uh, and we're going to nuke you know, Hartford,
Connecticut or something like that. They backed down right.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Right, because in the end, they're going to push us
until we until we show them that we can't be
pushed around. But they there's nobody in Iran, there's nobody
in the world who thinks that Iran's going to win
a war with the United States. So again, if we
show strength, then that produces a positive result. If we
show weakness, that emboldens our enemies to push further. And
(09:14):
this is the same game that all.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Of our enemies play, whether it's.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
ISIS or the Russians or the North Koreans. The more
ground we see, the more that they'll test us.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And when they do test us, if we don't respond,
then the tests will get more and more dangerous.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So yeah, I think basically your core assumption is right,
is that Iran is not going to start a war
with the United States.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Because they would.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Definitely lose, that would be the end of their regime.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And they're not suicidal. They're evil, they're just not suicidal.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
So I can't get over your description of that area
of the world. Holy crap, with all those different kinds
of groups bumping around. Sounds like the wild West or
something you'd see on the Mandalorian with all these armed
people with all kinds of divergent needs and goals and
(10:04):
that sort of thing. But I had a brother who
was in the Middle East all the time, all kinds
of different places and non combat rolls often, and uh,
you and could have been in this situation. Absolutely, if
we're gonna have people on all these different places, they
got to be able to sleep at night. No one,
they're not gonna be It's unlikely they're going to be
(10:25):
attacked and killed. We've got to deter all these different groups,
whatever their motives are. They've got to believe that that's
a bad idea. Do you think that's possible?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
It is.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And you know I'm not just you know, barking for
the sake of barking.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
You know, I talked to the troops on the ground,
the commanders on the ground. They're in the.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Best position to know how to keep themselves thick. What
they say, if they need more authority to do more
things to keep themselves sick and to go after the
people who are trying to kill them, that's what they say.
But you know, in the Bid administration, everything is run
out of the White House. If they want to strike
a warehouse in the middle of Syria, they've got to
get the House stamp of approval, and that that's ridiculous.
You know, they have to be proactive, they have to
be able to do whatever they have to do to
(11:06):
make sure that they can't sleep at night not worrying
is that if they're going to get bombed by some
sort of like crazy Irani and militia. So I think
we just need to trust these troops for and what
we also have to give them credit. You know, there's
a lot of people in this country who are like, oh, well,
you know, these troops are not doing any good over there. No,
they're doing a lot of good.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
They're doing the.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Things that we want our military to do. They're helping people,
they're protecting us from terrorism, they're supporting our enemies plans
to control the region. And it is like you said,
it's a non combat role. They really shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Be be getting attacked.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And it's only because we've forgotten how important it is
to protect those troops and give them the authority to
protect themselves that we're in this situation in the first place.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Josh, I know, asking people to get into the prediction
game is always you know, fraught and a little jiv.
But if you were to dabble, what do you expect
to see in the next several days.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Well, so let me first start with the next several months,
because I think that the war in Gaza and the
regional attentions and the gradual simmering escalation is going to
go on for the bulk of this year. And I
think that's partially because of our strategy, is also partially
because our enemies get a vote, and as we get
closer and closer to the election, it's to the incentive
(12:21):
of all of our enemies to make things a lot
more difficult for us. So that's a sort of a
mid to long term prediction that's not that good. Over
the next two days, I fingers crossed, we're gonna hopefully
kill a lot of terrorists who are trying to kill
American troops. I wish we'd get that decision pretty soon.
I don't know what they're waiting for. The plans must
have been there already.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
That's what I was saying yesterday. You can't tell me
you need to draw plans. You didn't have any plans
during the previous several months when we're getting attacked every day.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I never met a military commander deployed them released who
didn't have a plan to kill the people who are
trying to kill them ready to go right at the
moment that, you know, again, empower the people who are
protect us and to protect themselves, and that's got to
be the guiding force here. I just don't think we
see that, you know, I just I just don't think
this administration. Again. You could kind of understand they don't
(13:09):
want to pour fuel on an already raging fire. But
how's that working out? You know, it's been four months
and it's only getting worse and worse. And their strategy,
to be honest, I think what the strategy was was, oh,
we'll get the Israelis to end the warren Doza, and
that'll you know, allow the Iranians and the harassment.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Of US troops and places like Jordan.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But that's not happening either, Okay, So like it or not,
this thing's gonna get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So we might as well be on the right side
of that.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Josh Rogan Global Opinion's Calmness for The Washington Post, Josh
saw was great. You're the best.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Thanks anytime.
What is your message to Hesboala and its backer Iran?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Don't don't don't don't.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
And what's the message to Iran?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Don't?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
As President Biden said, just don't.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
Exactly one word, pretty straightforward. It was very important to
send a very clear message to anyone who might seek
to take advantage of the conflict in gas but to
threaten our personnel here anywhere else in the region, don't
do it.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
I've already delivered.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The message to marand they know not to do anything.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
I've already delivered the message who Iran, they know not
to do anything. That's from about a week or two ago.
Apparently all those don'ts did not work.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
The chaos in the Middle East shows signs of growing
into even greater chaos. To discuss that in the recent
events were joined by Josh Rogan, Global Opinions calumnists with
The Washington Post, author of Chaos under Heaven Trumps she
The Battle for the twenty first Century. Josh, welcome, How
are you.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Great? I mean, the world is terrible shape, but it
personal I'm just doing okay.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Thing that's good to hear. When the horrible news broke
on Sunday, what you called a brazen escalation. Even though
it was the one hundred and sixtieth attack we've had
on us since October seventh, this one ended in the
death of three soldiers and bad injuries for dozens of others.
(01:28):
And I started reading your twitter feed. I see your
Washington Post column today about Iran's proxy forces are teaming
up to attack Americans. So why did we I've been
reading your Twitter feed, So I want you to explain
this to our listeners. Why were we where we were
there in Jordan? What were we doing? Who attacked us?
(01:50):
Who was it that attacked us? Before we get to
some solutions right now.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Perfect place to start, because I think most Americans when
they heard that three US troops were in northeast Jordan,
their first reaction was like, what are three US troops
doing in.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Northeast right exactly?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
But you know, it's it's actually really important that they
be there. They're fighting isis they're stopping Iranian proliferation, and
they're protecting the civilians there from all sorts of manner
of horrendousness. Now, it's not a combat role, you know,
they shouldn't be really in any danger.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
But the reason that they are.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
One big reason that they are is because the Iranian
government and its procties have been ramping up the harassment
of US forces all over the region without a proper
response from the United States. And I think that's what
this incident shows us. And that doesn't mean we need
to go to war with Iran right away, doesn't mean
that we even need to overreact. It just means that
it's very clear now that after one hundred and fifty attacks,
(02:48):
whatever we thought we were, whatever the US government thought
it was doing the turn of those attacks ain't working okay,
because the attacks are getting worse, not better, and the
attackers getting more brazen. So yeah, I mean, you could
have a discussion of should we just take all of
the US troops out of the release and get rid
of them and bring them back or whatever. That's that's
not an unfair discussion to have, But there's there now.
(03:08):
They're in harms way right now, They're getting attacked right now,
and you know, it seems pretty clear that we're gonna
need a to do something different in order to uh,
you know, stop this what is escalation?
Speaker 5 (03:21):
If it got worse, you could only imagine, well, who
are the attackers you explain how there's several different militia
groups that the cud's forces brought together with the one
goal of attacking Americans.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Right, So you have to understand that this like you know,
patch of desert in between where Jordan and Iraq and
Syria meat, there exists a rich tapestry of militant extremist groups. Okay,
some are Stunnis, some are Shia, some are Syrians, some
are Russians, are cheched Hints, some are wow, you name it.
So there's there's just dozens of you know, gangsters with guns,
(03:57):
sponsored by all sorts of foreign governments. Now what we
have there is we have a base called TOMP which
is again fighting terrorism and stopping Irunian in proliferation. We
have another base called Power twenty two. That's the one
where the troops got killed, but both of them have
been attacked. And then there's a refugee camp full of
Searings that we protected to have a partner. So essentially
what's going on is that you know, all of these
(04:20):
groups were being held at day by the presence of
the US forces.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
You really don't want to attack the US or it
doesn't a matter if it's only two hundred US troops.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That's like two thousand or twenty thousand troops from any
other countries. We have got the best soldiers in the world,
they've got the best equipment in the world. But for
some reason, and all of a sudden, these Iranian groups
are getting really, really aggressive. And of course if you
ask them, they'll say, well, that's because we want to
push the United States to pressure Israel to.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Stop the fighting in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
But if you ask the US troops on the ground,
they'll say it's because they don't have.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Permission to really go after them the way that they
want to.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And again, I'm not saying we need to attack Iran.
I'm not even saying we need to go attack inside
it Bran. But these are bad guys who are killing Americans,
not to mention Syrians and Iraqis and anyone else who
gets in their way. They are funded by Iran.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think they've.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Earned a more forceful response to the United States, and
I think that's what we're gonna see.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
We just don't have seen. Again, we just don't know
exactly what it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I think it's pretty much self evident that our choices
are either a as you suggest, to get everybody out
of there, or b defend them forcibly with such overwhelming
and terrifying force that nobody dares attack them. And it's
not like this is some sort of new military doctrine
I've cooked up in the last forty eight hours. I mean,
it's ancient wisdom, and I think, you know, barring some
(05:41):
sort of accidental unleashing of the you know, a world war,
there's no reason to question the ancient wisdom? Am I?
Am I being a belligerent talk show host there, Josh.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
No, I mean again, I guess it's easy for us
to say right now, but yes, you want to kill
the people who are trying to kill you, and if
these people are determined to try to kill you, probably want.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
To kill them first.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Again, there's the debate is whether or not we should
then kill the people who are paying I think that's
a fair debate to how I think we attack inside
of Iran. That's a pretty risky thing to do. Start
killing Iranians leaders inside of run. Yeah, that could get
out of hand real fast. I'm not saying that we
should be cautious about that. But the people in Syria
and Iraq who are sponsored by Iran who are trying
to kill Americans. I think, yeah, we should probably kill
(06:27):
them first.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It really couldn't be much more simple than that.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Hey tell me if I'm overrating this, because I don't
want to be guilty of grossly oversimplifying anything. But when
the Trump administration took out Solamani, which was unquestionably an
extremely provocative thing to do, the Iranian response was essentially,
I'm I'm this is my words. They said, oh my god,
(06:53):
these guys are serious. We're going to show our righteous
anger by shooting a few missiles over there, and that
we've struck back, but we need this to recede. We
don't want it to escalate. They showed their true colors.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Then, all right, Well, I think a couple of things.
So one is that they killed two Americans in March
twenty twenty under Trump Trump's watch at a base in Iraq,
and one British guy. So when Trump goes on truth
to social says this would never have happened under my presidency,
he's not really true, because it did happen under his presidency.
So they did kill too Americans.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
That's that, we can't forget that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But what was interesting is that after that Mike Pompeo,
John Bolton he not a gale. Michael pay and John
both went to Trump and they said we got to
attack Iran, and Trump said no. Trump actually went against
his national security team and did an attack around He
showed restraint. You know, every one sinks Trump is going
to get us into some sort of war with Iran.
Actually he pulled us back now right or wrong. That
(07:51):
showed that actually there is a chance to avoid the
bigger war that neither side. Once there's no way Iran,
what's the war with the United States, they would definitely lose.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
We would definitely win.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But you know, there is a need to show the
Iranians that we're just not going to take take it
lying down when they kill about when they kill three
Americans and injured three dozen more So in that window
is a response that's different from what we're doing now.
But I think the Trump example shows that, you know,
it doesn't matter which party is in power, there are
(08:21):
smart things to do and they are dumb things to do.
And you know, letting these attacks just continue to continue
without any response is very dumb. And uh, I think
that that shouldn't be political. That should just be again
sort of basic common sense.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, I didn't. I didn't mean to make this about
Trump or not Trump or anything. It was more about
the Iranian tendencies and the fact that they're not going
to respond with some sort of all right, world War
three is on, uh, and we're going to nuke you know, Hartford,
Connecticut or something like that. They backed down right.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Right, because in the end, they're going to push us
until we until we show them that we can't be
pushed around. But they there's nobody in Iran, there's nobody
in the world who thinks that Iran's going to win
a war with the United States. So again, if we
show strength, then that produces a positive result. If we
show weakness, that emboldens our enemies to push further. And
(09:14):
this is the same game that all.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Of our enemies play, whether it's.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
ISIS or the Russians or the North Koreans. The more
ground we see, the more that they'll test us.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And when they do test us, if we don't respond,
then the tests will get more and more dangerous.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So yeah, I think basically your core assumption is right,
is that Iran is not going to start a war
with the United States.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Because they would.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Definitely lose, that would be the end of their regime.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And they're not suicidal. They're evil, they're just not suicidal.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
So I can't get over your description of that area
of the world. Holy crap, with all those different kinds
of groups bumping around. Sounds like the wild West or
something you'd see on the Mandalorian with all these armed
people with all kinds of divergent needs and goals and
(10:04):
that sort of thing. But I had a brother who
was in the Middle East all the time, all kinds
of different places and non combat rolls often, and uh,
you and could have been in this situation. Absolutely, if
we're gonna have people on all these different places, they
got to be able to sleep at night. No one,
they're not gonna be It's unlikely they're going to be
(10:25):
attacked and killed. We've got to deter all these different groups,
whatever their motives are. They've got to believe that that's
a bad idea. Do you think that's possible?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
It is.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And you know I'm not just you know, barking for
the sake of barking.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
You know, I talked to the troops on the ground,
the commanders on the ground. They're in the.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Best position to know how to keep themselves thick. What
they say, if they need more authority to do more
things to keep themselves sick and to go after the
people who are trying to kill them, that's what they say.
But you know, in the Bid administration, everything is run
out of the White House. If they want to strike
a warehouse in the middle of Syria, they've got to
get the House stamp of approval, and that that's ridiculous.
You know, they have to be proactive, they have to
be able to do whatever they have to do to
(11:06):
make sure that they can't sleep at night not worrying
is that if they're going to get bombed by some
sort of like crazy Irani and militia. So I think
we just need to trust these troops for and what
we also have to give them credit. You know, there's
a lot of people in this country who are like, oh, well,
you know, these troops are not doing any good over there. No,
they're doing a lot of good.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
They're doing the.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Things that we want our military to do. They're helping people,
they're protecting us from terrorism, they're supporting our enemies plans
to control the region. And it is like you said,
it's a non combat role. They really shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Be be getting attacked.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And it's only because we've forgotten how important it is
to protect those troops and give them the authority to
protect themselves that we're in this situation in the first place.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Josh, I know, asking people to get into the prediction
game is always you know, fraught and a little jiv.
But if you were to dabble, what do you expect
to see in the next several days.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Well, so let me first start with the next several months,
because I think that the war in Gaza and the
regional attentions and the gradual simmering escalation is going to
go on for the bulk of this year. And I
think that's partially because of our strategy, is also partially
because our enemies get a vote, and as we get
closer and closer to the election, it's to the incentive
(12:21):
of all of our enemies to make things a lot
more difficult for us. So that's a sort of a
mid to long term prediction that's not that good. Over
the next two days, I fingers crossed, we're gonna hopefully
kill a lot of terrorists who are trying to kill
American troops. I wish we'd get that decision pretty soon.
I don't know what they're waiting for. The plans must
have been there already.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
That's what I was saying yesterday. You can't tell me
you need to draw plans. You didn't have any plans
during the previous several months when we're getting attacked every day.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I never met a military commander deployed them released who
didn't have a plan to kill the people who are
trying to kill them ready to go right at the
moment that, you know, again, empower the people who are
protect us and to protect themselves, and that's got to
be the guiding force here. I just don't think we
see that, you know, I just I just don't think
this administration. Again. You could kind of understand they don't
(13:09):
want to pour fuel on an already raging fire. But
how's that working out? You know, it's been four months
and it's only getting worse and worse. And their strategy,
to be honest, I think what the strategy was was, oh,
we'll get the Israelis to end the warren Doza, and
that'll you know, allow the Iranians and the harassment.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Of US troops and places like Jordan.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But that's not happening either, Okay, So like it or not,
this thing's gonna get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So we might as well be on the right side
of that.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Josh Rogan Global Opinion's Calmness for The Washington Post, Josh
saw was great. You're the best.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Thanks anytime.
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