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Hey everybody Tom Woods here it's episode 2743 of the Tom Woods show the great David Stockman
I'm old enough to remember him from the admin the Reagan administration and because he was such a young pup in the Reagan administration
He's still alive and kicking here with us. Yeah, thank goodness because he's one of the few sensible people around
Who has any kind of Washington connection past or present? He served in the US Congress. He served as
Oh and be director director of the office of management and budget under president Reagan
My favorite story is the Reagan people reached out and asked
How would he like to be secretary of energy and he said well?
I'd really like OMB and Reagan said something like I'm not exactly sure what that is. We'll get back to you
So anyway, and of course David's had a great private sector career since then and he he writes he edits edits
He publishes
David Stockman's Contra Corner, which I highly recommend David Stockman's contra corner calm David
Too bad. We have to really scramble to come up with something to talk about today, but welcome back
Well, thank you for the good introduction Tom
And I want to point out though that I'm still young enough to be here even though
You know I served in the administration way back then but it's kind of interesting the one credential
You didn't mention it. I was a member of the National Security Council and
During that period of time the whole, you know battle between Washington and the Iranians
Got underway. Well, I didn't know that. Yes, the big event was the National Security was the Beirut bombing
I was gonna ask you about that. Okay the barrel bombing in 1982 and I'll give you a little vignette here about the difficulty of
let's say operating an empire and some
You know a story about how government really works in the sense of you don't want to go to the sausage factory and see
How they make it?
Okay, so what happened was Reagan got
bamboozled into putting US Marine troops into Beirut as a peacekeeping force after the Israelis had
invaded southern Lebanon and the civil war which had been going on for years was
Rekindled into a pretty violent form now. It was you know, it was really a mistake
He got talked into it by the usual
striped pants diplomats from the State Department and
Of course then this tragedy happened because actually the Marine barracks there was hardly guarded at all one truck loaded with
You know bombs blew up the barracks and a lot of lives were lost
now the reason that I mention all of this is that
One it shows how we constantly get into trouble by thinking
We need to run an empire with forces positioned all over the planet with bases
with a you know massive navy and all the rest of it and the danger of it is that it
basically
allows elected politicians the
Opportunity to meddle in affairs around the world that really do not affect our homeland security in any
Fundamental military way and this would be a good example. Now. Why am I talking about Beirut?
1982 the hundred and eighty-five Marines that were killed
I'm talking about it because every speech you hear from the neocons in the last four or five days
Every time Trump opens his mouth. It's about
You know 47 years worth of Iranian war against the United States
We're not stopping starting a new war. We're ending one that they have conducted
And it all began with the bombing of the Marine barracks in
1982 and that has nothing to do with the Iranians
So, you know the Iranian Revolution had barely happened at that point at that point
the Iranians were in the midst of a war a vicious war that had been launched against them by Saddam Hussein and
A lot of viewers probably don't have
Either the knowledge or the historic memory because they're not old enough
but Hussein was being armed
supported and
His forces were being targeted by the United States with the help of the CIA and our
Satellite surveillance and so forth. So when that happened the Iranians were
Let's say mildly miffed at the United States because we were enabling Saddam
to carry on
brutal chemical warfare
against their military out in the deserts of Iran in the middle of
1982 and
They were losing the war. They were failing and one of the reasons they were failing was they had a whole big
Military they inherited from the Shah
But it was all it
Consisted entirely of the United States
supplied equipment at 14s M 60 tanks and everything in between and
In their wisdom Jimmy Carter and then frankly Ronald Reagan
continued the policy putting embargo on
Shipping any spare parts any maintenance material to the Iranians after the whole hostage crisis of
1979 which is another whole issue we can get into
So I would say at the moment they saw the United States meddling in another
Islamic country, which Lebanon was both mixed Christian Islamic the majority Islamic
Supporting an attack brutal attack on them both by the arms embargo and
Supplying directly military intelligence that told Saddam where their forces were out in the desert and what to target
They were in a bad way because their military was mainly
You know idle
immobilized dysfunctional because a lack of spare parts and they had
Resorted to that terrible thing that maybe some people remember was called human wave attack
You know
Operations where they sent young boys 15 16 18 and huge
Waves right into the
battlefield
Areas that were mined or in the machine gun fire or into Air Force
You know attack so it was a bad situation and they were mad
But that I'm talking about all this because it gives the setting for when this all started
And if you look at the facts, it's not clear to any you know
I would say to an objective observer that in 1980 or 1982 the
Iranian new Iranian regime the mullahs
Launched a 47 year war against the United States
I would say rather we were meddling in an area of the world in Lebanon in Iran in Iraq and
You know other countries in the region Egypt where we had no business being there and we got ourselves
cross-wise
Into a fight that wasn't ours and whether they
supplied, you know the material to the bomber who then drove the truck into the
Barracks or not as it's a historical debate
But the point is if the Marines weren't there
This tragedy wouldn't have happened if we weren't meddling in the Middle East
We wouldn't have gotten in the middle of a war between the Iranians in the Iraqis if we hadn't
Undertaken a coup in 1953 by the CIA to throw out the elected government
mosa day
You know, we wouldn't have had the 20 year reign of the Shah that the country wouldn't have been pilfered
the Sabbath wouldn't have you know ruled with an iron fist in the country and
Created the Iranian Revolution that happened
Even if you go to the and I think this is all important background even if you go to the
hostage crisis now a lot of people probably vaguely remember that because it ended the day Reagan was sworn in and they
agreed to release the hostage but
You know the Iranian young students three or four hundred students took over the embassy in
1979 held about a couple hundred
diplomats and employees hostage and this battle went on for 400 days
As some may remember Jimmy Carter tried to rescue them sending in a you know squad of
Helicopters and special forces in the middle of the night that their helicopters broke down in the desert. It was a fiasco
And that all you know set the table for 40 years
that followed there after but the point was
the students took the
Embassy and the
diplomats hostage and their demands were threefold and they weren't all that crazy when you look at it
In the high hindsight of history one they wanted this Shah who had fled to the United States
Extradited back to Iran so he could face justice for you know the massive
Economic harm that he had done during his reign
second there was about 20 billion or so
Foreign deposits that had been pilfered from the Iranian state
They wanted those monies back
And third they wanted an apology for the CIA coup that started the whole mess and put the Shah and the
Throne back in 1953. Well, we could have easily agreed to all three of these
but why didn't we because the people running policy in Brezhnevsky was you know Carter's
chief advisor at the time and he was a
Empire first or if there ever was one said that this can't stand we can't allow these
Terrorists as they called them. They were just students and kind of look young religious fanatics
to throw around the mighty United States and so they refused to negotiate the
hostage crisis went on it was an excuse for the kind of
Incipient neocons of that era and the war hawks
In the military industrial complex to make a big case of how humiliating this is some students have taken over our embassy
We've got to rebuild the military and that's that all led to the build-up of the military in the
1980s, so that's a little background
but my final point on this I think is the most interesting and that is that after the
Marine barracks
attack and
The you know terrible death of all those soldiers that occurred
There was a huge debate inside the administration about what to do
And I was at several of those meetings and I recall one very well in which a debate was going on between different
forces the National Security Council the State Department
Cap Weinberger who was Secretary of Defense as to who was actually responsible for the attack
Where were they located and what could we do to retaliate and punish them and
sort of the
consensus that came out was
That well, they're hiding in the mountain. You know Beirut is
There's a ring of mountains around Beirut and it goes to the sea so all around the exterior
is a ring of mountains called the Shoof Mountains and
the consensus was that they have retreated to
the Shoof Mountains they're hiding there and
so then the next question he came and this is the absurdity of it, but
It I think it puts it puts a perspective on this whole thing
It was well, how can we get at them in the Shoof Mountains?
Because we don't have any other forces and the Marine barracks was wiped out and then someone had the
Brilliant idea one of these probably I think was the NSC that the New Jersey
Battleship is right offshore
outside of Beirut Beirut at the moment and then the question from President Reagan began
was well
He knew the New Jersey has these big legendary guns big Bertha kind of guns and
What is the range and can we hit them from the New Jersey?
and
So the answer from someone who seemed to know was their range is 30 to 40 miles
But be anything beyond that is pretty tough. So the next thing I know the Secretary of State George Schultz and
And aid were bent over this big map that was laid out on the cabinet room table of the greater
Beirut area
putting their fingers on where
Shoof Mountains were on the one end and where the battleship
New Jersey battleship was located right offshore and
Testing that against the scale of miles on the map
To see whether or not the New Jersey guns could hit the target
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Now this you know, this is a bunch of grown men fumbling around
Because of a situation that never should have
Occurred or unfolded in the first place the brain shouldn't have been there
There shouldn't have been a bunch of people in the White House cabinet room trying to figure out the range
you know the New Jersey battleships big guns and
You know, there's the rest of it became history because that event and they cited over and over as the opening
you know
battle in a
47 year attack by the Iranian state on
America now that that isn't a one-off
That's just the beginning of the whole saga that unfolded as
The Iranians became the number one target of BB Netanyahu. That's how he stayed in power by demonizing
The Iranian state I have no brief for the Iranian state the
Theocrats are you know pretty miserable old men who do a lot of bad things to their people
But they have never been any serious threat in any way shape or form to the security of the United States
And we have gotten into this
47-year struggle
simply by being pulled in as a proxy and is a
backup to the
Netanyahu
You know
Endless war against the Iranians now if you go back to that time
There was a some phrases that were used that I think are pretty interesting
The real battle at that time until then this is 1982 again, and I know we're doing a little history here
But it's probably worth it
The battle before then the Israelis battle had been against the near enemy and the near enemy with Syria and
Egypt on either side of Israel on the coast
but Netanyahu but those
Issues had been patent patent down added down. Let's say a plate substantially
when Jimmy Carter at least was able to negotiate the deal was Sadat, which took
Egypt out of the battle off off the map and
the
Cold War had moved to a point where the Russians were less than eager to support
Syria and Assad's father actually so suddenly the excuse
That the Israelis had always used that they couldn't settle the Palestinian problem because they were surrounded by enemies and
The potential for war to break out at any moment had abated
substantially and
therefore
the young
Netanyahu who was ambitious as they come and is you know, I think as ruthless as they come
Said well, we need a new enemy in Iran way over there a couple thousand kilometers
might be just you know, just the
Take a cape that we need and so this whole demonization of the Iranians began as
Basically a political slogan that Netanyahu built his whole career on the 40 years
dominating Israeli politics
Israeli policy and sucking us in time after time after time
into a
You know
Conflict in the Middle East that shouldn't have happened in the first place and that we never should have been involved in
Now here. We are have 2026 and it's just another episode of the same
We'll get into that in a minute, but let me let me chime in on the Beirut thing for just a second
So I have this habit David of
Asking the kinds of questions that bring a hush over a cocktail party like no one was supposed to ask that question
So I I do ask because I I don't think I'm being impertinent to ask
When people tell
This talk about this historical episode. I always want to know why was there a US Marine barracks in Beirut?
In the first place, you know a normal country wouldn't have had that so yeah
That doesn't make Iran in the right or whatever just forget it
We don't even have to get to that level. There's no reason to do that
But the second thing I want to know is if you were on the National Security Council
did you hear
from Reagan after
The bombing of that barracks or the the the car or whatever
Did you hear
Him say anything about we have to get them out and here's why or it was a mistake to go in
Did did you get any briefing related to how he was going to respond to that? Yeah
Yeah, let me try to answer both questions. The first one is
This was the genius idea of the state department because they decided
That it wouldn't be good for stability that it wouldn't be good for the empire
If a hot war continued between the israelis and the remnants
Of the government in lebanon and by then as you remember in 1982 israel invaded
Led by general sharon who was one of the great ox who proceeded
Netanyahu
Invaded and occupied southern lebanon
because
The plo at that point in time had been driven out of
Jordan where they had their base camps and southern and had
Ended up in southern lebanon
where there were huge
refugee camps of people that had fled from palestine in 1948 and years beyond
And settled in southern lebanon. So it was a
A hotbed of both palestinians
activists from the plo as well as
tens of thousands of refugees
And in the conflict that developed the sharon said there's only one way to solve it. We got to go
Uh in occupy the area and clean it out
You know the kind of phrase that we've been hearing for the last 40 years there, you know
Once and for all they're going to fix the problem clean it out
but that
Created so much attention that the state department decided that we can help
an international peacekeeping force
Interject itself between
the non
Shea population, which was southern lebanon and the other
groups in ethnic
groups
In lebanon because there was christian. There was a christian maronites the so-called
Philanj. There were a lot of sunnis. There were drus. I mean lebanon was the worst, you know
polyglot
Admixture of every kind of religious identity and ethnic
Identity that the middle east had ever seen
But somehow the state department
Got convinced that we could lead an international peacekeeping
force
That we would put in southern
Beirut
To keep the forces separated and thereby help
Facilitate negotiations that could get some kind of peace settlement
Well, okay, maybe you can say they were idealistic. Maybe you can say their intentions were good
But that doesn't justify why they put 240 marines in harm's way
In the situation by the way, and this is another thing after all these years tom you talked about how long ago
I was uh, you know involved back then
As this thing emerged. I said, holy moly. What's going on here?
I was hearing all these names about
You know the all the whites and the drus and the uh shea all these names that weren't familiar to anybody
Clearly me and I was fairly knowledgeable
The code was going on the world. So I got the cia to come to my office one afternoon, right in the
After this crisis to give a briefing of you know, the social economic demographic religious
Uh background
In lebanon, well, they stayed all afternoon and it was unbelievable how complex it was in all the historic
Uh, you know, both uh alliances and conflicts that occurred between all these forces
The reason I'm mentioning all this is that when
The secretary of state recommended to reagan that we put marines in uh as part of the international peacekeeping force
Nobody laid out this whole complex picture of uh, you know that we were uh stepping into
But uh reagan got convinced uh to do it
And that uh, it wouldn't you know, it would be temporary and the negotiations would then get back on track and
Someone would come up with a settlement take it the united nations united nations would ratify it
And uh, you know, the empire would be stable again. Okay. Nobody called it an empire, but that's that's what it was
um
now when when the whole thing blew up
Unexpectedly because it's hard to believe but this is 1982 not today
There was a marine barracks with a checkpoint, uh at the entrance of a compound
Where there were a couple guards who weren't armed. Can I resell? Can I say that again?
They weren't armed and the guy just drove the truck through
ignited a whole uh payload of
Explosives and the rest became history now the interesting lesson from that is
What did reagan do in a response? Well first he was very chagrin myth
Very upset about the loss of marine lives obviously
But he actually wanted to know what do we do now?
Where do we go from here?
And how do we not get ourselves sucked in to an even, uh bloodier
more long lasting
conflict
So after they went through the exercise I described before
Trying to figure out whether they could hit the shoof mountains with uh
The big guns on the new jersey
Uh, you know it got to the point. This is the spring of 1983
where uh, basically, um
They gave him several options
And one of the options was to redeploy the u.s. Forces
You know this peacekeeping force that what was left of it
Uh in lebanon in in um the beirut
redeploy it to uh aircraft carriers
In the uh Mediterranean
So reagan, you know, he realized this this was really a retreat
You know from the typical perspective of the time
Because we were not getting even with anyone who had done this
Uh, we hadn't uh found the bad guys and you know incinerated them or whatever
But we were simply moving the remainder of the u.s. Forces to uh an aircraft carrier
And then they moved the aircraft carrier way out into the deep Mediterranean
Where there was no, you know opportunity
For further engagement in this whole mess. So basically what i'm saying is
Ronald Reagan retreated he realized that a mistake had been made
And that you don't compound a mistake by doubling down or you know adding more forces or
Sending in the bombers and all the ridiculous stuff that donald trump and his predecessors had been doing
Uh, he basically justified this
You know as a repositioning of the american forces
And then moved on to deal with other things that were important
And ultimately became you know the uh the deal with uh, um,
Russia that ended the cold war
So, uh, that's you know a little bit
Answer to your question
And it was a different time and it was uh a president
I guess who had enough uh self-confidence and principles
To believe that if a mistake had been made you can correct it by not doubling down
But uh by moving on and that's that's we haven't seen much of that
For decades and decades now. No, we sure haven't and in fact, I would say over the past week or so
What we've heard it from a lot of people not just lindsay graham is the strong implication
That unlike donald trump reagan and all the others were just wimps
Who didn't want to take on the the perpetrators of the 47 year war
Because obviously the correct response to the
Again the what the absurdity of a u.s. Marine barracks in bay root
But the the correct response should have been a bloody rampage through the whole region apparently
Yeah, and we're gonna do that
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He did not do that. He basically uh cut his losses and moved on
And for a while, but nevertheless this becomes a foundation event. You've heard the speeches in the last couple weeks
Last five or six days, whatever it's been
From the maga spokesman from trump himself from hegseth from from uh rubio and the others
That they have been committing terrible acts against americans for 47 years and it all started with the marine barracks
But the real lesson for us on the
non intervention side and on the pro p side is
The real lesson is we never should have been there. It was a huge mistake
We had a president who was man enough to recognize it and uh take appropriate action and get out of there at the time
And uh, it is not any kind of
indication whatsoever that a war started
That the iranians conducted against the united states for 47 years
And now we finally have to put it to an end now the other point. I guess we can get into it some length here is
47 years late. They weren't a threat then obviously the iranian regime had barely gotten its feet on the ground
the radicals and the uh, you know the hard line
Theocrats komany had taken over because of the uh hostage crisis and the uh,
You know the inflexibility of the united states
But here we are 47 years later and we have a situation where
You know the the attack
has been
Justified on the grounds that iran is a tremendous
military threat that was ready to start a war against the united states
any day until
trump had the
alleged good sense to take
You know pre-emptive action now the truth is
The iranians have no missiles with a range greater than 2500 kilometers
And in the world, I don't know why they use kilometers, but that's what they measure
So let me put it for our viewers
To get to the from uh tehran to get to the strait of gibraltar is 5000 kilometers
So basically they can get halfway there with the biggest baddest
longest range missiles they have to get to washington dc
Is 10 000 kilometers
So basically they can barely get a quarter of the way there now. That's the first point
No threat whatsoever from their missiles and that would be the leading force
The second thing that's very interesting is why are their missiles limited?
Why do they have the maximum range of?
2200 kilometers because the answer is it's the policy
It was the policy of the ayatollah and the clerics who run the place
That they shouldn't have any greater range than 2000 kilometers 2500
In order to signal very clearly to the great satan as they call us on the other side of the atlantic
That we have no ability and tension
Or purpose to attack the people of the united states and that those
Missiles were basically for their own self defense
Because obviously they'd been attacked over and over and over again
By the israelis over the decades that netanyahu has been in power
So that's the first point second point is do they have any long-range bombers that could put some payload
Even if it was a suicide mission, you know on
Pisaac, new jersey or
You know some other coastal city in the united states
The answer is no they have no long-range aircraft
They barely can get you know out of the persian gulf with the relics of old soviet air
aircraft or
United states f14s or f15s that they purchased during the Shah Shah's era era
I mean, they're five how many years is that they're 50 years old
Okay, they barely they're very barely flight worthy now the navy
Okay, they had a navy that allegedly is at the ocean bottom now or the persian gulf bottom as trump has been
Bragging about but their navy was basically consisted of little patrol
coastal patrol boats that are glorified speed boats some one or three man subs
and a couple of converted
tankers and
Containerships that passed for aircraft carriers that could maybe carry a couple helicopters
And a few drones. That's what they had now when we look at navy
There is one good metric
That is a shorthand way so you don't have to go through all of the details and the extensive
you know
facts that
Involve this and that is what is the displacement tonnage of the ships that you have the warships that you have available
because the displacement tonnage basically tells you how big the ships are and the size of ships are important in terms of the
Lethality because how many planes can they carry off their aircraft carriers? How many guns and missiles can they launch?
if they're
Other kinds of
warships
Well, the answer is our navy is has roughly four million
Tons of displacement
Because we have 11 carrier battle groups. We have all these for escort ships. We have all the submarines, etc
Then iranian navy had
2200,000
Tons of displacement. Now, let me say those numbers again four million
Versus 200,000. Okay, so it was
Roughly four three four percent
Their navy was three or four percent the size of the american navy. It was it wasn't anything
Okay, and they're you know their threat to the persian golf was always drones and missiles anyway
It wasn't the navy now so if you don't have missiles that can get even
Fifth of the way to the united states if you have no long-range bombers, and if you have no blue water navy whatsoever just a little
You know force that can work the persian golf pond
What the hell was the military threat?
Well, then they get to this but they're making a nuke now if you have a nuke
I don't know what you're going to do put it on the back of a yacht and steam it over to new york harbor and
Hope it blows up
You got to have a delivery, but even forget that if you don't have a delivery vehicle
You don't have a nuke either. I mean the whole this this this is such a
Exaggerated absurd
Lie that it's amazing. They can keep repeating it
But the fact is the cia and what you probably know tom is their
periodic assessment of
You know threats threat assessments, okay, and they're called national intelligence estimates n i s
And these come out periodically and they're put together by the 17 if you can believe that we have 17
Intelligence agencies and they become a consensus of those 17 agencies
That are issued most of them are top secret
But they're issued as guidance to policymakers
In what we loosely call the warfare state down in washington
so
The n i s since 207 and this is a very important critical debate
date
Have said that the iranians had a small research program
That was uh focused on how they could weaponize
A nuclear weapon
But that and then make it
Bomb ready
But that program was abandoned in 203
By an edict of the ayatollah himself, okay
And that was issued in 207 and it famously became
The flashing red lights stop here
kind of sign
That even george bush the younger dubya
Had put in front of him when he was about ready to launch
In 207 a major military assault on iran
Just like the one that's now underway
And you can go read his memoirs and they say in black and white
I was about ready to authorize the launch the attack
The n i s came out
And it was very clear to me that how could I justify
bombing
to smithereens
a country
Because uh of a nuclear weapon that they didn't have okay now the reason I mentioned this is that that was a
very important
landmark
Pivot point
And the n i s ever since then have reiterated the same thing they didn't
Ever restart that small research program
For weaponization that they had and disbanded in 203
And the latest iteration of it came believe it or not
In march 2025 which is within you know the first three months
Of the second trump administration
And it was issued by tulsi gaver herself
Who's uh, you know the n di
national
head of
One of the major agencies in the intelligence community
And it reiterated that the
Weaponization program has not been restarted
And we don't see any evidence of anything moving in that direction
now
The fact that they have enriched uranium because they have one of the largest
civilian nuclear reactors in the world
The fact that uh, they agreed to
You know reduce enrichment to practically, uh
You know a very low level in 2015 and the obama agreement that trump then tore up in 2018
Doesn't prove that they want a bomb. They have a bomb or they're near a bomb
Or that every time net nyahu says that it's six months away
Uh that there's any validity to it at all because there isn't okay
So now if they don't have missiles, they don't have long-range bombers. They don't have a blue water navy and they don't have a bomb
Then what the hell is the threat to the united states?
The answer is non-zero nicks nada
And therefore
The only you know thing from our point of view that we believe in the only time
A peaceful republic should ever go to war
Is if it's being directly attacked
And the military security of the homeland itself not some ally in the far east not some
You know god forsaken country in north africa, but the homeland itself is under attack
Now when we go through the inventory that we've just covered here, where is the threat?
Where is the attack? How in the world can anybody in the straight face with a straight face say it's imminent?
When it couldn't possibly be imminent because they have no missiles and they have no bomb
Uh anyway, uh that shows you
how deep into the morass we are right now
because we have
you know empowered over the years tom
a
president to have these vast
discretionary powers over a trillion dollar war machine
And you get a wackadoo in that office by accident or otherwise
And I you know we have one now
And look what uh, you know look what the uh dangerous possibility actually is
All right. Well given the limited time we have I have to get right to the the
This exact moment because we we're now hearing from trump because you never know what what what's going to be
You know, because he could say we were all joking. He could say tomorrow. Okay. I think it's all over and
And david that's almost what he did. He said, yeah, I think it's just about over and this is this is the day when
Heg set that said it's just the beginning. This is also a day when
Uh or like earlier in the day trump had clearly made some remarks indicating that he envisioned that this going on a long time
So obviously something's going wrong. Obviously
Somebody wants an off ramp. Israel may want an off ramp. Uh, this this isn't exactly turning out the way they want
Who who exactly knows but the problem is there's multiple problems. It's it's quite possible
That he's not in a position to put a stop to it. Maybe iran doesn't want to stop
Iran's getting some things that it wants. That's that's the first problem. Then the second problem is
Nobody's happy as a result of this because mark levin sure isn't happy
You can already see he's going hysterical that we're not getting the regime change that we want
We have a more militant guy in charge now who's even angrier
Uh, and we have even less leverage over them now. So we have that thing
Uh, but meanwhile the people who didn't like the intervention to begin with
Are unhappy because what are we just how many billions of dollars we just blow on absolutely nothing that we couldn't have otherwise
so
What's the next step? What what do you think happens now? I mean, we never know like one day to the next
It's very hard to know but especially with with trump in charge
What are they going to do?
Well, the uh, the you're you're putting your finger on it. We're dealing with chaos. We're dealing with, uh, you know, the
proverbial
Gang that can't shoot straight that have no game plan and trump
You know slides by the seat of example bridges by the day by the hour by the impulse
And it says so many contradictory things
That you know it it isn't it wouldn't be surprising to see
Even the deep state lining up in a circle and firing at its itself
Because no one can figure out what to do next or what he wants like, you know to go on with a couple things you've said
Last thursday, he said we think maybe the Kurds are about ready to join the battle to
replace the regime
and help us bring about
A safe country two days later. He said no, I don't want the Kurds to get involved at all. They might get hurt
Okay, I mean what kind of nonsense is that within two days when there's a whole history
Of the united states mobilizing and then
Rudd pulling on the Kurds going all the way back to you know the 1970s and 80s
You know, it's not even worth getting into all the facts of it
Ending recently when we welcomed the head chopper back into the presidency of syria
Who immediately moved
With the turks to to wipe out
The Kurds who had helped us get rid of ices. I mean this is so crazy this environment
And now you have a guy
With you know the attention span of a net
Uh one day looking at the gas price and starting to worry about the election congressional elections
Because if the democrats sweep, he's toast
They won't mess around this time. They'll impeach him in the heartbeat if they sweep the house in the senate
And on the other hand, uh, he uh, is on a high because you know, he kidnapped the press center
Venezuela and now uh, he thinks he did a great thing
By agreeing to the assassination
Uh of the ayatollah, but now the new guy he gets and he says i'm going to pick the next leader
It's got to be acceptable to me. Well the guy he gets
Just witnessed in the same building. Okay
his mother and his father
And his wife and his sister and his son-in-law and his niece and his nephew
All being blown to bits in the same building that he was in
Now do you think this guy is going to be of a frame of mind to forgive and forget?
Uh that uh, he's going to be ready to you know, uh run a regime that uh in any way
Further's uh our own objectives in that region. I mean this is crazy
And you know, we ought to talk about this tom. What kind of policy is it for a major power?
To run policy based on assassinating leaders
Who uh, you know, you have a disagreement with you know, that that's the israeli policy
It's been their policy for decades and decades and now the united states has embraced it
And I think it's a pretty sad day
Uh when we decide to use
As an instrument of policy assassination of the top leadership and not just one bad apple
But they knew you know that the whole top echelon
Of the iranian leadership was gathering that day
To decide on instructions to send to their negotiators who were meeting on monday morning the following monday morning
Were to meet with jaren kushner and widcough
Uh to continue uh this you know negotiation that was underway
On some kind of settlement of the issues the bomb the issue the missiles and so forth
Now this is the second time that they have been learned into negotiations only to have
A decapitation attack attack occur in june obviously and now uh in february
march
and uh after the deal that they negotiated uh to such uh, you know
Detailed degree with obama back in 2015
Was torn up like a piece of paper
In 2018 by trump
So I don't see why anybody who's rational that may remain in power
in iran
What would will want to negotiate with the united states? Why?
No, you know, it's a no no
deal is going to uh have any uh value uh, you're or have any you won't have any confidence in it
Given that this uh history because these weren't just minor double crosses
These were like almost if you don't have to even be a tinfoil hat man with a
Paranoia streak about you to say they were lured into a negotiating trap
So that their leadership could be
Decapitated by israeli and american bombers. That's no just david
I hate to try to apply the same standards across the board here
But could you imagine if the situation were reversed? This would be yeah further example further evidence of the 47 year war david
Yeah, I know
I know I know it's just great and they can't get their story straight about what the goals of the thing are
And if trump's gonna try to get out of this early for political reasons or for frankly military reasons
Maybe he can as I say, maybe this is gonna spun out of his control. Maybe he can't but even if he does
The neocons are still gonna be red hot angry
They didn't get what they wanted now the israelis might be willing to cool down
Because they didn't like the results so much because they attributed
Impossible standards to the u.s. Military
Maybe they're ready to cool down, but the neocons aren't going to be so trump's going to have an absolute mess on his hands
Yeah, and this is where the real danger comes in. This is the last point
We're at this inflection point and either we're going to have
The next roll of the dice and i'll explain that in one second or the taco man will be back into business
You know by the taco man, of course, we mean trump always chickens out
Now the set that last scenario could end up very simply as
You know, remember the thing back in the vietnam war where senator aiken
Famously said the lbj the way to settle the vietnam
More ass is to declare victory and leave
Okay, so they may try
They may try rhetorically
The aiken solution
Declare victory the navies at the bottom of the sea
The missiles and the missile factories have been mostly obliterated
There is no bomb
capacity left
And the air defense system has been completely eliminated. And so therefore
Iran will be naked in the future and if they try to do any nonsense or they get
You know
Out of line
Again, we'll just bomb them because there's you know risks. They have no air defense will just go in and
Spank them and uh move on so that may be one scenario that could happen
But the other scenario is the all these neocons you're talking about and the administration is infested with them
I mean marco rubio. Uh, he's like he's a script reader of the neocon
Bible at any moment in time. Uh, he doesn't even think he just reads it and says it
And uh acts it because he's got a very important voice
Uh in uh policy
But anyway, they're saying the way that you're going to and this is really critical
I think to understand the way you're going to finally finish off the regime
And it doesn't matter who what raggedy uh raghead they put in charge after this
But the way you're going to finish off the regime is to send in special forces
To kidnap the remaining enriched uranium supplies that are hidden somewhere in deep
caverns and mountain
Hideouts in iran and they know where they are
And secondly, you got to go in and take karsh island khar g
Where 90 of all the exported oil and oil products
That come out of uh iran
You know are gathered and then shipped out
Because karsh island generates the oil sales and the oil revenue
That keeps the irgc the you know republican guard
And and they're the evil doers in the regime in business
So if we cut off their economics by obliterating but they got to do that
They've got to land forces on karsh island
and
Snatching the enriched uranium that's left
Then we can say uh, you know
The the the plan is complete
No navy no missiles. Uh, no air air defense. No in uranium and no oil
But that is a pretty dangerous thing because once you put special forces
Either somewhere into the interior of iran probably around ish fund or on karsh island
You're you got boots on the ground
And who knows where that will lead to but you also have
Um, you know the remnants of the irc g 31 commanders spread all over the country
Uh who have nothing
You know on their mind except revenge and retaliation. So if they go this second row
You know finishing it off on karsh island
And snatching the iranium
It could open up a real
nasty further chapter
Well, david's talking. I don't have to let you go but um
I didn't know about the national security council stuff. So that is fascinating. I'm really glad
Because given that scott besant has been talking about foreign policy
I thought well, maybe the omb director might have known something about it at the time
I was going to ask you anyway. So very interesting to hear about that
But the website once again everybody look if you want to be super informed on everything have all the numbers and all the details
And and arguments that none of your friends even know about i'm telling you you cannot go wrong
Over at david stockman's contra corner. Yes, it's many characters to type in david stockman's contra corner dot com
But you will be amply rewarded after you hit that enter key david. Thanks so much
Great to me with your town
Thanks
And thank you ladies and gentlemen
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