June 2, 2026 • 16 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Talkstation eight oh six. Here fifty five KRCD talk station.
Great time to be tuned into the morning show. It's
time for the inside scoop from bright Bart News. Welcome
back to the fifty five krc Morning Show. Bright Bart
National Security Editor John Hayward. Good to have you back on, John,
know notably since we need to talk about what in
(00:20):
the hell's going on in the situation between the United
States Israel. Of course, any Ron, welcome back, John, Great.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
To talk to you again. That's a pretty big subject,
no kidding.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And what an active day yesterday, you know, Honestly, John,
I hate to, you know, sort of laugh sometimes out
loud about the whole thing. I mean, are we in
a ceasefire at any given time or not when rockets
seem to be going back and forth almost NonStop. So
there's that fun fact. But had I saw this yesterday quote.
I had a conversation with beating net and Yah today
this is Trump asking him not to conduct a major
(00:51):
raid on Bay Route. He turned his troops around, Thank you, Bibe.
I also had a conversation with representatives of the leaders
at Hesbala. They agreed to stop shooting at Israel and
its soldiers. Let's see how long this Israel stopped shooting
at them. Let's see how long this lasts. Hopefully it'll
be for an eternity, declaring a ceasefire at Iran's behest
because Iran has linked the situation between Hezbala and Israel
(01:12):
with the broader straight of horror moves and actions we
have against the Iranians. Now we haven't negotiated a sea
fire where we haven't negotiated peace yet with the Iranians.
Yet within hours of what Trump just I read, we
had the Hezbala launching missiles into the into Israel. I
guess they didn't get the memo. John, can you break
this down and explain it to me, because I'm a
(01:32):
little confused.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I think they got the memo. I think that
was very deliberate. The structure was created where we had
a ceasefire, and it was based on his Bola not
shooting at Israel. Israel said they would pull back from Beirut.
Lebanon announced it as well as Trump, so it seemed
like it was a real thing. And then Iran told
his Bola to start shooting again. All they wanted to
do was provoke and break up this, this seeming Dayton,
(01:56):
and they did it in a matter of minutes, if
not ours and his Bola was right back to attacking
Israel Oram does this because they know that every time
the seaspires collapse it helps them delay and rebuild and
continue their usual scam. And they know at this point,
their calculation is that the US is so eager to
have some kind of negotiation in progress, to get some
kind of a negotiated deal that will look the other
(02:18):
way while they do these provocations. We'll let this slide.
We'll find a way to excuse it or say that
it doesn't totally disrupt the deal. The Iranians said when
the israel first moved into Lebanon Passpay Route yesterday that
they weren't going to talk to US at all anymore,
and so far as I know, they haven't rescinded that declaration.
So I'm not sure there's really any kind of meaningful
negotiation taking place at all right now.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, which means what John, Because we've heard Donald Trump
threatened I'm going to go full on kinetic or blow
them off the face of the earth, whatever form of
rhetoric he is used in the past, never to follow
through with that. Does that not represent sort of an
acknowledgment that maybe we're not capable of dealing with it,
and it's going to be a much bigger challenge that
it was painted to be at the outset. This isn't
(03:02):
overthrowing a single guy in Venezuela. This is dealing with
a religious fundamentalist reality among the Iranian people and most
notably the Iranian the Iranian forces.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm sure Trump has been appraised by military
planners that the only way to nullify Iran's threat to
the Strait of Ramuz, which is the big sticking point
right now, is to invade and occupy the territory that
they used to attack it, which means boots on the ground.
He doesn't want to do that. The political costs of
that would be enormous. Iran's pretty convinced he won't do that,
and since they don't see any other proxy ground force
(03:36):
taking shape, that's important. You know. At some point in
this process, I think American planners may have thought that
other Middle Eastern countries or dissident groups like the Kurds
in Iran would be willing to rise up and take
arms and become ground forces proxies, but all of the
other Middle Eastern nations are scared to death of Iran,
and they're refusing to do anything to fight back against
(03:57):
them when the Iranians bomb them. So none of them
is going to provide any kind of a ground army,
and efforts to use somebody else as a proxy have failed.
So the Iranians know that nothing they do is going
to trigger a ground invasion at this point, and nothing
would end their regime except a ground invasion, So they
really have no incentive to do anything. But what they're
doing just keep provoking, keep poking the bear, keep the
(04:18):
disaster rolling along. They're looking at the calendar in the
United States, the political calendar, and the midterm elections are
drawing ever closer, and they're calculating that as long as
they keep doing this, the odds of them getting everything
they want and some kind of a negotiation are going
to be better and better.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Well, whether or not the odds of them getting better
and better conditions in a negotiation, obviously that's going to
require some progress on negotiations. We don't seem to be
even negotiating right now, but I think what sounds to
me like they have appropriately calculated the landscape and time,
I guess is on their side. They know we got
he's got a political problem Trump does. They know the
war is not popular among the people, and the idea
(04:56):
that all of the felt the Arab nations in the region,
which ultimately I think would really benefit immeasurably from the
elimination of the leaders in Iran. They're scared to death,
in your words, of the Iranians for the same reason
I guess we don't try to open the strait of
horror moves. They can launch a bunch of missiles into
these various nations and pretty much wipe out their oil infrastructure,
(05:16):
if not their economies. Is that accurate, Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
The other Middle Eastern nations, especially Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates, Kuwait, places like that, they have valuable oil
infrastructure that's somewhat fragile that they can't defend completely from
swarms of drones and missiles out of Iran and most
of those countries. I think we've learned over these past
few months. Those countries may spend a lot on their militaries,
and they may talk a lot about how fierce they are,
(05:42):
but they're not warrior nations, they're not militaristic. They are
no match for the Iranians in a straight up combat.
And for years they've been pretending they would be the
Saudis and the Amordis and everybody we're pretending to all
together they have a significant military force that checks Iran.
That's not true. None of them is really ready to
fight Iran pitched battle. None of them can absorb the
kind of casualties that Iran has demonstrated it's prepared to
(06:05):
absorb and maintain power. And all of those Sunni monarchies,
all the other Gulf countries, they have large populations of
Shiite Muslims that are loyal to Iran or sympathetic to Iran,
and they're all afraid that if they get into a
major conflict with the Iranians, their Shiite minorities will rise
up and cause them trouble, and theirs might be the
regime that goes down. So, for all of those reasons,
(06:26):
all of those countries would rather pay ransoms and sit
back and let the Iranians dominate the Middle East. And
it's been sobering to discover that. I think a lot
of American planners didn't think that that was the way
this is going to go, but that is the way
this is going. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Time is on their side as they delay this process
in order to bring about pain for Donald Trump at
the ballot box in November. But also they've been using
this time apparently to clear the entrances to targeted tunnels
they are rebuilding missile production side. CNN reported about this
just the other day about satellite imagery sowing that there's
been a lot of repair that the Uranians have been
able to do in a fairly short period of time.
(07:00):
And of course, looming in the background of all that
is the unknown seemingly acknowledged by everyone's stockpiles of missiles
and drones that the writing and seem to have an
unlimited supply of, which causes the very problems that interfere
with our ability to negotiate some resolution with them. So,
John Hayward, where in the hell does this leave us?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well? I think one other factor is that one reason
Iran doesn't think Trump is going to go kinetic again
is that we rely on bases in those Arab countries
that are nominally our allies to do a lot of
those operations, and at this point, after what Iran has
done to them. In their response, I wouldn't be surprised
if some of them refuse to let us do that again.
And I know the administration doesn't want to push that issue.
(07:42):
They don't want to say, Okay, we're going to renew
our attacks. We're going to take out those Iranian drone
stockpiles and we're going to destroy their missile capacity again.
And the Saudis, the Amiorades, the Kuwaits will say, no,
you can't use your bases in our country to do that.
We don't want to provoke the Iranians into attacking us again,
and nobody wants that to happen. Nobody wants to call
that bluff and have that actually occur. So yeah, really,
(08:03):
at this point, Iran's getting time to rebuild. They're putting
things back together. They're and it's going to take them
a long time to get back to where they were
before what we did to them. But they've demonstrated that
even at reduced capacity, there's still an existential threat to
the other countries in the region, and that lets the
exercise power. They have killing machines and they have the
will to use them and the other countries around them
(08:24):
lack the will and the end all conflict is a
test of will, a test of morale, and Iran thinks
right now they've got things going their way in the region.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Well, all this leads me to sort of conclude, and please,
Dear God if I've missed something, correct me if I'm wrong,
because I'm looking for some note of optimism. This john
the idea that the Iranian people so sick of one
hundred percent inflation year over year, they had fifty three
point nine percent inflation. Of course, the central back of
Iran in one month. They can't manage. The Iranian people
(08:53):
are starving and they have to be upset with their leadership.
Does their religious fundamentalism trump the pain that they're feeling,
the starvation that they may very well be feeling very soon.
I guess that's where my only glimmer of hope seems
to come from. A people, a populace that rises up
against the Iranian revolutionary Guard.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Well, for some of them, yeah, their fundamentalism does trump
everything else, and that's why they're sticking with this. But
the others are scared to death. They remember when they
rose up in January, the regime murdered forty fifty thousand
of them without blinking an eye. And however much Iran
has been degraded, they still can murder their own citizens.
That's not hard to do. When your population is unarmed
and you have murderous thugs ready to pull the trigger
(09:33):
on them. It's not that hard to keep a vast
population under control with violence. And the public knows if
they dare to come out right now and protests against
the regime, they'll be slaughtered in mass and I think
that's keeping them quiet. You know, they know nobody's going
to save them if the regime starts doing that, and
they're afraid to go out there and just be killed
by trying to stage in uprising right now. Possibly another
(09:53):
miscalculation on the part of planners. Maybe they thought that
once we weakened the Islamic Revolutionary Guard cord, the public
would come out and feel like they can't be massacred
again like they were last time. But they apparently are
still scared to death of that. So I wouldn't look
for that popular uprising anytime, really seen. If it happens,
it'll be a game changer one way or the other.
It could end in a massacre like nothing we've ever
(10:14):
seen before if they tried to do it. But who
knows would that even change world opinion? Would any of
the people that bailed on Trump when he was asking
for help during Operation Epic Fury. Would any of those
other countries change their minds if they saw one hundred
thousand Iranian citizens gunned down in the streets. I doubt
that they would.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well, we don't know what went on behind the scenes
when Trump decided to launch this military action against the Iranians,
but I have to say that I was one of
the folks that you know. I look at my Constitution,
I read declaration of war, and even though I think
the War Powers Resolution is in and of itself an
unconstitutional delegation of authority, at least it's on the books
requires some measure of congressional action and guidance that requires discussion,
(10:52):
and discussion ahead of time might have brought up all
of these terrible realities of what's going on in Iran.
Right now. We seem to have no oyes options that
will allow us to declare a win. And it also
seems like we're going to end up leaving Iran and
control the straight of horor moves and build every every
ship that goes through for some sort of fine or
toll or fee.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
But I.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Do we have we are we're out of options?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So are we?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I mean seriously baseball.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well let me willing to neutralize.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Do you think that these problems that we're facing now
that seem, of course, with hindsight to be so maybe obvious.
Do you think these conversations were had ahead before we
launched this strike or is this just are these things
that we just overlooked or didn't think were possible?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Oh? No, I think this was discussed within the White House.
The problem with trying to do it with Congress is
that there is zero transparency there. You know, anything you
say to Congress is going to get leaked and become
public knowledge. And the opening movement here, remember was this
devastating initial strike that took out the Ayatola and a
lot of the top leadership. There's no way they could
have done that if they didn't do it exactly the
way they did, acting with light speed and taking advantage
(12:01):
of an opportunity. That part was amazing. Like to say,
there's a lot of variables here. Yeah, there's a lot
to discuss and I'm sure they talked about a lot
of this stuff, and some of it was just a
miscalculation or misunderstanding. Some of it were gambles that might
have paid off and they just didn't. You know, some
of them are nasty surprises. I think a lot of
the behavior of the other Middle Eastern countries is a
genuine surprise, because I'm sure a lot of those countries
(12:24):
talked very, very tough right up until the moment when
they revealed that they're actually it's craving, you know. I'm
sure that was a big factor in all of this.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Well, the decapitation strike that started this off seemingly brilliant, obviously,
with everybody packed in one room and one bomb blowing up,
effectively killing all of the leadership, you know, a La Maduro,
you would have thought that would end up a regime change,
but boy, they've got enough people willing to fill those
the vacuum of leaders right away. It doesn't seem to
have had any impact long term in this conflict. So
(12:53):
great from an optic standpoint at the outset, but the
result not what anybody expected.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Right in the end. The most important thing that happened
after that was that the IRGC. The military took over
everything and is now one hundred percent running the country
in every way, and they were ninety percent running it before.
You know, it was somewhat of an illusion that they
ever had a meaningful secular government, but most of that
illusion has now been stripped away. There's persistent rumors that
the president, the sued Possesskin, has either threatened to resign
(13:21):
or he did it, and they're denying those rumors in Iran.
But I wouldn't blame him for being feeling frustrated and
feeling like his wing of the government has been rendered
irrelevant by everything that's happening right now.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Well, John Hayward, the Breitbart's security editor, you want to
try to end on a note of optimism or are
we Are we in as dismal a place as I'm hearing?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Well, I'll say one thing. This blockade of Iran is
definitely an effective tool. It is hurting them, and if
we keep it going for long enough, it might hurt
them enough where even the fanatics and the military types
are feeling the pinch and that want that to end.
If we can hold the blockade one hundred percent. There
are some rumors that we haven't been able to hold
one hundred percent of Some things have gotten through, but
(14:04):
it's definitely cut down Iran's commerce. It's definitely hurting their economy,
which was weak to begin with. That kind of pressure
can be very effective, but it's a test of will,
and on our side we have people grumbling about higher
gas prices and midterm elections coming out. The Iranians are
looking at where they think the finish line is and
how long they need to hold out to get there,
and I'm not sure they're wrong about the amount of
time left to really bring them to heal with this pressure.
(14:26):
So if Trump can think of another way to ratchet
the pressure up even more without going kinetic again, that
would help. If there's another card yet to be played
like that, but I'm not sure if there is.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
John Herrick Forrey Park Company. Where is China in all this?
I know they have a problem with the straight uform
moves being closed also because obviously they get most of
their oil from the Iranians. But someone has to be
funding and supporting the iranians devastated economy. Someone has to
be supplying them with drones and arms and missiles or
other supplies they need. To keep this conflict going. Do
(14:57):
you have any concept of where they are in this role.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Oh, yeah, that's China. They're big partners of Iran. They're
not really happy with a lot of what Iran has done.
They've made it publicly known that they're a little disgruntled
with some of the way Iran and Russia in Ukraine
have done things that have compromised China's long term plans.
But at the end of the day, Iran is a
part of their axis. They're not going to abandon them.
They're still their partners, and they're looking forward to making
(15:20):
money on rebuilding Iran and rearming Iran when the crisis
is over. So China publicly calls for some kind of
a peace deal every day of the week, but they're
not going to do anything to actually change the calculations
or balance things out. I think maybe some American planners
thought China might be so distraught at the Straight of
Hormosian closed that they would help to reopen it forcibly
by sending their ships to help police it. They've made
(15:42):
it clear they're not going to do that. So they're
getting some oil through the Straight of Hormos. We are
seeing a couple of ships pop through their mysteriously and
come out the other side with oil. For China, it's
a fraction of what they used to get every day,
but it's enough to help them keep going combined with
their enormous reserves, and unless things get a lot worse
for China, I wouldn't look for them to step in
with a strong hand against RAND and say, look, at
(16:03):
a minimum, you have to stop menacing straight or four
months
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Rightbart dot coms where you find my guests today, John Hayward,
The Nationals,
Talkstation eight oh six. Here fifty five KRCD talk station.
Great time to be tuned into the morning show. It's
time for the inside scoop from bright Bart News. Welcome
back to the fifty five krc Morning Show. Bright Bart
National Security Editor John Hayward. Good to have you back on, John,
know notably since we need to talk about what in
(00:20):
the hell's going on in the situation between the United
States Israel. Of course, any Ron, welcome back, John, Great.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
To talk to you again. That's a pretty big subject,
no kidding.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
And what an active day yesterday, you know, Honestly, John,
I hate to, you know, sort of laugh sometimes out
loud about the whole thing. I mean, are we in
a ceasefire at any given time or not when rockets
seem to be going back and forth almost NonStop. So
there's that fun fact. But had I saw this yesterday quote.
I had a conversation with beating net and Yah today
this is Trump asking him not to conduct a major
(00:51):
raid on Bay Route. He turned his troops around, Thank you, Bibe.
I also had a conversation with representatives of the leaders
at Hesbala. They agreed to stop shooting at Israel and
its soldiers. Let's see how long this Israel stopped shooting
at them. Let's see how long this lasts. Hopefully it'll
be for an eternity, declaring a ceasefire at Iran's behest
because Iran has linked the situation between Hezbala and Israel
(01:12):
with the broader straight of horror moves and actions we
have against the Iranians. Now we haven't negotiated a sea
fire where we haven't negotiated peace yet with the Iranians.
Yet within hours of what Trump just I read, we
had the Hezbala launching missiles into the into Israel. I
guess they didn't get the memo. John, can you break
this down and explain it to me, because I'm a
(01:32):
little confused.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I think they got the memo. I think that
was very deliberate. The structure was created where we had
a ceasefire, and it was based on his Bola not
shooting at Israel. Israel said they would pull back from Beirut.
Lebanon announced it as well as Trump, so it seemed
like it was a real thing. And then Iran told
his Bola to start shooting again. All they wanted to
do was provoke and break up this, this seeming Dayton,
(01:56):
and they did it in a matter of minutes, if
not ours and his Bola was right back to attacking
Israel Oram does this because they know that every time
the seaspires collapse it helps them delay and rebuild and
continue their usual scam. And they know at this point,
their calculation is that the US is so eager to
have some kind of negotiation in progress, to get some
kind of a negotiated deal that will look the other
(02:18):
way while they do these provocations. We'll let this slide.
We'll find a way to excuse it or say that
it doesn't totally disrupt the deal. The Iranians said when
the israel first moved into Lebanon Passpay Route yesterday that
they weren't going to talk to US at all anymore,
and so far as I know, they haven't rescinded that declaration.
So I'm not sure there's really any kind of meaningful
negotiation taking place at all right now.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, which means what John, Because we've heard Donald Trump
threatened I'm going to go full on kinetic or blow
them off the face of the earth, whatever form of
rhetoric he is used in the past, never to follow
through with that. Does that not represent sort of an
acknowledgment that maybe we're not capable of dealing with it,
and it's going to be a much bigger challenge that
it was painted to be at the outset. This isn't
(03:02):
overthrowing a single guy in Venezuela. This is dealing with
a religious fundamentalist reality among the Iranian people and most
notably the Iranian the Iranian forces.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm sure Trump has been appraised by military
planners that the only way to nullify Iran's threat to
the Strait of Ramuz, which is the big sticking point
right now, is to invade and occupy the territory that
they used to attack it, which means boots on the ground.
He doesn't want to do that. The political costs of
that would be enormous. Iran's pretty convinced he won't do that,
and since they don't see any other proxy ground force
(03:36):
taking shape, that's important. You know. At some point in
this process, I think American planners may have thought that
other Middle Eastern countries or dissident groups like the Kurds
in Iran would be willing to rise up and take
arms and become ground forces proxies, but all of the
other Middle Eastern nations are scared to death of Iran,
and they're refusing to do anything to fight back against
(03:57):
them when the Iranians bomb them. So none of them
is going to provide any kind of a ground army,
and efforts to use somebody else as a proxy have failed.
So the Iranians know that nothing they do is going
to trigger a ground invasion at this point, and nothing
would end their regime except a ground invasion, So they
really have no incentive to do anything. But what they're
doing just keep provoking, keep poking the bear, keep the
(04:18):
disaster rolling along. They're looking at the calendar in the
United States, the political calendar, and the midterm elections are
drawing ever closer, and they're calculating that as long as
they keep doing this, the odds of them getting everything
they want and some kind of a negotiation are going
to be better and better.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Well, whether or not the odds of them getting better
and better conditions in a negotiation, obviously that's going to
require some progress on negotiations. We don't seem to be
even negotiating right now, but I think what sounds to
me like they have appropriately calculated the landscape and time,
I guess is on their side. They know we got
he's got a political problem Trump does. They know the
war is not popular among the people, and the idea
(04:56):
that all of the felt the Arab nations in the region,
which ultimately I think would really benefit immeasurably from the
elimination of the leaders in Iran. They're scared to death,
in your words, of the Iranians for the same reason
I guess we don't try to open the strait of
horror moves. They can launch a bunch of missiles into
these various nations and pretty much wipe out their oil infrastructure,
(05:16):
if not their economies. Is that accurate, Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
The other Middle Eastern nations, especially Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates, Kuwait, places like that, they have valuable oil
infrastructure that's somewhat fragile that they can't defend completely from
swarms of drones and missiles out of Iran and most
of those countries. I think we've learned over these past
few months. Those countries may spend a lot on their militaries,
and they may talk a lot about how fierce they are,
(05:42):
but they're not warrior nations, they're not militaristic. They are
no match for the Iranians in a straight up combat.
And for years they've been pretending they would be the
Saudis and the Amordis and everybody we're pretending to all
together they have a significant military force that checks Iran.
That's not true. None of them is really ready to
fight Iran pitched battle. None of them can absorb the
kind of casualties that Iran has demonstrated it's prepared to
(06:05):
absorb and maintain power. And all of those Sunni monarchies,
all the other Gulf countries, they have large populations of
Shiite Muslims that are loyal to Iran or sympathetic to Iran,
and they're all afraid that if they get into a
major conflict with the Iranians, their Shiite minorities will rise
up and cause them trouble, and theirs might be the
regime that goes down. So, for all of those reasons,
(06:26):
all of those countries would rather pay ransoms and sit
back and let the Iranians dominate the Middle East. And
it's been sobering to discover that. I think a lot
of American planners didn't think that that was the way
this is going to go, but that is the way
this is going. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Time is on their side as they delay this process
in order to bring about pain for Donald Trump at
the ballot box in November. But also they've been using
this time apparently to clear the entrances to targeted tunnels
they are rebuilding missile production side. CNN reported about this
just the other day about satellite imagery sowing that there's
been a lot of repair that the Uranians have been
able to do in a fairly short period of time.
(07:00):
And of course, looming in the background of all that
is the unknown seemingly acknowledged by everyone's stockpiles of missiles
and drones that the writing and seem to have an
unlimited supply of, which causes the very problems that interfere
with our ability to negotiate some resolution with them. So,
John Hayward, where in the hell does this leave us?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well? I think one other factor is that one reason
Iran doesn't think Trump is going to go kinetic again
is that we rely on bases in those Arab countries
that are nominally our allies to do a lot of
those operations, and at this point, after what Iran has
done to them. In their response, I wouldn't be surprised
if some of them refuse to let us do that again.
And I know the administration doesn't want to push that issue.
(07:42):
They don't want to say, Okay, we're going to renew
our attacks. We're going to take out those Iranian drone
stockpiles and we're going to destroy their missile capacity again.
And the Saudis, the Amiorades, the Kuwaits will say, no,
you can't use your bases in our country to do that.
We don't want to provoke the Iranians into attacking us again,
and nobody wants that to happen. Nobody wants to call
that bluff and have that actually occur. So yeah, really,
(08:03):
at this point, Iran's getting time to rebuild. They're putting
things back together. They're and it's going to take them
a long time to get back to where they were
before what we did to them. But they've demonstrated that
even at reduced capacity, there's still an existential threat to
the other countries in the region, and that lets the
exercise power. They have killing machines and they have the
will to use them and the other countries around them
(08:24):
lack the will and the end all conflict is a
test of will, a test of morale, and Iran thinks
right now they've got things going their way in the region.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Well, all this leads me to sort of conclude, and please,
Dear God if I've missed something, correct me if I'm wrong,
because I'm looking for some note of optimism. This john
the idea that the Iranian people so sick of one
hundred percent inflation year over year, they had fifty three
point nine percent inflation. Of course, the central back of
Iran in one month. They can't manage. The Iranian people
(08:53):
are starving and they have to be upset with their leadership.
Does their religious fundamentalism trump the pain that they're feeling,
the starvation that they may very well be feeling very soon.
I guess that's where my only glimmer of hope seems
to come from. A people, a populace that rises up
against the Iranian revolutionary Guard.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Well, for some of them, yeah, their fundamentalism does trump
everything else, and that's why they're sticking with this. But
the others are scared to death. They remember when they
rose up in January, the regime murdered forty fifty thousand
of them without blinking an eye. And however much Iran
has been degraded, they still can murder their own citizens.
That's not hard to do. When your population is unarmed
and you have murderous thugs ready to pull the trigger
(09:33):
on them. It's not that hard to keep a vast
population under control with violence. And the public knows if
they dare to come out right now and protests against
the regime, they'll be slaughtered in mass and I think
that's keeping them quiet. You know, they know nobody's going
to save them if the regime starts doing that, and
they're afraid to go out there and just be killed
by trying to stage in uprising right now. Possibly another
(09:53):
miscalculation on the part of planners. Maybe they thought that
once we weakened the Islamic Revolutionary Guard cord, the public
would come out and feel like they can't be massacred
again like they were last time. But they apparently are
still scared to death of that. So I wouldn't look
for that popular uprising anytime, really seen. If it happens,
it'll be a game changer one way or the other.
It could end in a massacre like nothing we've ever
(10:14):
seen before if they tried to do it. But who
knows would that even change world opinion? Would any of
the people that bailed on Trump when he was asking
for help during Operation Epic Fury. Would any of those
other countries change their minds if they saw one hundred
thousand Iranian citizens gunned down in the streets. I doubt
that they would.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well, we don't know what went on behind the scenes
when Trump decided to launch this military action against the Iranians,
but I have to say that I was one of
the folks that you know. I look at my Constitution,
I read declaration of war, and even though I think
the War Powers Resolution is in and of itself an
unconstitutional delegation of authority, at least it's on the books
requires some measure of congressional action and guidance that requires discussion,
(10:52):
and discussion ahead of time might have brought up all
of these terrible realities of what's going on in Iran.
Right now. We seem to have no oyes options that
will allow us to declare a win. And it also
seems like we're going to end up leaving Iran and
control the straight of horor moves and build every every
ship that goes through for some sort of fine or
toll or fee.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
But I.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Do we have we are we're out of options?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So are we?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I mean seriously baseball.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well let me willing to neutralize.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Do you think that these problems that we're facing now
that seem, of course, with hindsight to be so maybe obvious.
Do you think these conversations were had ahead before we
launched this strike or is this just are these things
that we just overlooked or didn't think were possible?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Oh? No, I think this was discussed within the White House.
The problem with trying to do it with Congress is
that there is zero transparency there. You know, anything you
say to Congress is going to get leaked and become
public knowledge. And the opening movement here, remember was this
devastating initial strike that took out the Ayatola and a
lot of the top leadership. There's no way they could
have done that if they didn't do it exactly the
way they did, acting with light speed and taking advantage
(12:01):
of an opportunity. That part was amazing. Like to say,
there's a lot of variables here. Yeah, there's a lot
to discuss and I'm sure they talked about a lot
of this stuff, and some of it was just a
miscalculation or misunderstanding. Some of it were gambles that might
have paid off and they just didn't. You know, some
of them are nasty surprises. I think a lot of
the behavior of the other Middle Eastern countries is a
genuine surprise, because I'm sure a lot of those countries
(12:24):
talked very, very tough right up until the moment when
they revealed that they're actually it's craving, you know. I'm
sure that was a big factor in all of this.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Well, the decapitation strike that started this off seemingly brilliant, obviously,
with everybody packed in one room and one bomb blowing up,
effectively killing all of the leadership, you know, a La Maduro,
you would have thought that would end up a regime change,
but boy, they've got enough people willing to fill those
the vacuum of leaders right away. It doesn't seem to
have had any impact long term in this conflict. So
(12:53):
great from an optic standpoint at the outset, but the
result not what anybody expected.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Right in the end. The most important thing that happened
after that was that the IRGC. The military took over
everything and is now one hundred percent running the country
in every way, and they were ninety percent running it before.
You know, it was somewhat of an illusion that they
ever had a meaningful secular government, but most of that
illusion has now been stripped away. There's persistent rumors that
the president, the sued Possesskin, has either threatened to resign
(13:21):
or he did it, and they're denying those rumors in Iran.
But I wouldn't blame him for being feeling frustrated and
feeling like his wing of the government has been rendered
irrelevant by everything that's happening right now.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Well, John Hayward, the Breitbart's security editor, you want to
try to end on a note of optimism or are
we Are we in as dismal a place as I'm hearing?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Well, I'll say one thing. This blockade of Iran is
definitely an effective tool. It is hurting them, and if
we keep it going for long enough, it might hurt
them enough where even the fanatics and the military types
are feeling the pinch and that want that to end.
If we can hold the blockade one hundred percent. There
are some rumors that we haven't been able to hold
one hundred percent of Some things have gotten through, but
(14:04):
it's definitely cut down Iran's commerce. It's definitely hurting their economy,
which was weak to begin with. That kind of pressure
can be very effective, but it's a test of will,
and on our side we have people grumbling about higher
gas prices and midterm elections coming out. The Iranians are
looking at where they think the finish line is and
how long they need to hold out to get there,
and I'm not sure they're wrong about the amount of
time left to really bring them to heal with this pressure.
(14:26):
So if Trump can think of another way to ratchet
the pressure up even more without going kinetic again, that
would help. If there's another card yet to be played
like that, but I'm not sure if there is.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
John Herrick Forrey Park Company. Where is China in all this?
I know they have a problem with the straight uform
moves being closed also because obviously they get most of
their oil from the Iranians. But someone has to be
funding and supporting the iranians devastated economy. Someone has to
be supplying them with drones and arms and missiles or
other supplies they need. To keep this conflict going. Do
(14:57):
you have any concept of where they are in this role.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Oh, yeah, that's China. They're big partners of Iran. They're
not really happy with a lot of what Iran has done.
They've made it publicly known that they're a little disgruntled
with some of the way Iran and Russia in Ukraine
have done things that have compromised China's long term plans.
But at the end of the day, Iran is a
part of their axis. They're not going to abandon them.
They're still their partners, and they're looking forward to making
(15:20):
money on rebuilding Iran and rearming Iran when the crisis
is over. So China publicly calls for some kind of
a peace deal every day of the week, but they're
not going to do anything to actually change the calculations
or balance things out. I think maybe some American planners
thought China might be so distraught at the Straight of
Hormosian closed that they would help to reopen it forcibly
by sending their ships to help police it. They've made
(15:42):
it clear they're not going to do that. So they're
getting some oil through the Straight of Hormos. We are
seeing a couple of ships pop through their mysteriously and
come out the other side with oil. For China, it's
a fraction of what they used to get every day,
but it's enough to help them keep going combined with
their enormous reserves, and unless things get a lot worse
for China, I wouldn't look for them to step in
with a strong hand against RAND and say, look, at
(16:03):
a minimum, you have to stop menacing straight or four
months
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Rightbart dot coms where you find my guests today, John Hayward,
The Nationals,
Brian Thomas News
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