Col Doug Macgregor: US-Iran Deal, Israel's Nightmare

Where does Israel stand?It's not just a question of what does Mr. Netanyahu want.It's his coalition, the people that back him and support him and the Israeli people.The Israelis, frankly, have to keep us engaged.They can't afford to allow us to disengage.That means that if Donald Trump suddenly announces, well, there's no military solution and I've decided for whatever reasons he wants to give that I'm going to disengage from the conflict, I'm going to suspend hostilities, whatever.

That's catastrophic for the Israelis.They're now trying to gossify southern Lebanon with the goal of ultimately annexing it and making it part of greater Israel.They still have a broader agenda.At the same time, their position strategically is worsening because in addition to the Iranian problem, they've now got a very serious Turkish problem.In a conversation I had this morning, someone who watches this carefully told me about a Turkish announcement that essentially talks about blue areas, areas that the Ottomans controlled that the Turks feel are effectively their territory in any case.And that includes parts of Syria and Iraq, as well as Lebanon.

I think what we're going to witness in the near future is a growing Turkish interest in exploiting what happens in Israel for its own benefit.So the Israelis have effectively strengthened a potential opponent.And I think that's why Naftali Bennett mentioned that specifically when he said, you know, once Iran is through, we've finished with Iran, we're going to have to deal with Turkey.The Turks are serious enemies.Well, I think he's right.But I don't think he's going to have the benefit of defeating Iran.

Instead, what they're looking at right now is how do we getthis war going?If the United States can't win it for us, well, we have to stoke it.We have to keep the fire from dying out.Because if the United States decides to disengage, what makes anybody think that the United States will come back and open a new front against the Turks?That seems very unlikely.

And if you haven't defeated Iran, what would prevent Iran from supporting the Turks against us and Israel?And we haven't even talked about Egypt.Egypt is sort of a bubbling cauldron ready to explode.And I don't know if General Sisi has really got control over there or not.There are a lot of people in Egypt that are angry that nothing has happened to Israel.They feel that they've stood by and watched helplessly as millions of Palestinian Arabs, whether you like them or not, doesn't make any difference to the Egyptians, have been murdered.

And they're asking, why have we done nothing?We are the greatest or the largest Arab state in the Middle East.We have a role to play.What are we doing?So I think there are a lot of other things happening right now.And based upon everything I've said, I think the pressure on Donald Trump to resume the war, to restart it, to once again begin the process of trying to destroy what is left of Iran and the state and its society is overwhelming.

So I don't see how he can back off.It doesn't it doesn't make any difference what the crown prince of Saudi Arabia or anybody else tells him.It's the understanding that if he doesn't go forward and he disengages, Israel may very well go out of existence.

Doug, you raise so many of the complexities that are involved here.They never stop wherever you look.there's a new complexity, a new player involved.It's ubiquitous.Let me play something for you from Trita Parsi, who was recently on.And he takes even another angle.

I'd like you to just comment on his take on, again, what the situation is at this moment in time.

When you put all of this together, I think the picture that really emerges is there is no escalatory option for Trump that turns the tables on this and puts the US in a position in which it can dictate terms.Operation Freedom, as you mentioned, lasted 24 hours.Apparently, that was enough freedom for the region.The blockade of the blockade, again, it's still in place, but Iran should have collapsed, what, two and a half weeks ago, according to the calculations.Clearly not the case.The Iranians are under the impression, right or wrong, that Trump is not terribly sensitive to U .

S.interests being pushed back, but he's very sensitive to his business interests and his business empire's interests being set back.And as a result, next time, in the next war, Don't just go after things that actually would be very bad for the US.Go after things that would be very bad for Trump and his family.

So, Doug, in tandem with his business interests would line up with what Israel wants him to do, protecting his pocketbook as he goes ahead with more strikes.

Oh, I think that's very true.The problem I have with Trita Parsi is that he's imputing a rational calculus to Trump.I just don't see it.If there were a rational calculus in play, let's be frank, we would never have attacked Iran.No one in their right mind would have done so for all the reasons that we're seeing right now.So emotion triumphs over reason.

That's why we're in this war.And Donald Trump has said something I think is important.He points out that, well, Americans are going to go along with me no matter what I do.I don't think he can say that anymore, but I think he can certainly bet on a certain amount of complacency or disinterest inside the United States, at least until the pain becomes so acute that Americans can't stand it.We're headed that way.If you look at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, it's being drained very, very quickly.

This is, of course, in order to stave off any sort of energy crisis that might hit us.But come July, mid -July, latest 1st August, we may be in a lot of trouble with regard to that strategic petroleum reserve.Remember, we've not built any new refineries in more than 20 years.This is all These are all matters that Trump has effectively ignored and sort of dismissed out of hand because of his belief that this would end early.And I don't know if anybody told him that or he just convinced himself.But now we have to understand that Iran has actually moved new mobile launchers across the country.

It's adjusted its tactics for any resumption of U .S.strikes.Iranian commanders have obviously studied our fighter jet and bomber flight patterns.They've had a lot of help from the Russians and the Chinese.The recent downing of an F -15 Eagle and the ground fire that struck an F -35 revealed that we've become pretty predictable.

Now, that's not surprising.I mean, there's only so much space up there.You can't drag ships across the Middle East.They have to sit in the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, or the Indian Ocean.So I think there are a lot of things happening right now.He's trying to deal with all of it.

He can't.But he does know the following.If I back out, I lose.If I say I'm not going to go forward with this unless he admits that we have a humanitarian commitment.on our hands, which he should admit, but he won't.Uh, he can't get out.

He can't disengage.And again, he's got the Israelis and remember their billionaire supporters in the United States put him into the white house.Look what he's doing to Thomas Massey.Anybody who knows anything about Thomas Massey is this is a very decent, honorable man.There's nothing.nothing untoward or corrupt in any way, shape or form about Massey, just a decent human being who said, look, I can't support with a clear conscience the things that you're trying to do.

I think we have a severe, severe, sovereign national debt problem.The economy must come first.We have to deal with these financial realities.And what does he do?He turns around and says, this is the worst congressman in history.This is another low IQ, disreputable human being.

He's corrupt.He's you know, this is crazy.This is emotion, emotion, Gary.

Indeed.

And I think that's why he's going to turn around after he said that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon.Well, he can't stop that.I think he probably knows that at this point.So he has to give it the good old college try.And he knows, I think he may know, I assume he knows that this next round will do immense damage to the world's energy complex.You're talking about a decade or more to recover.

from the damage that will be inflicted on the Persian Gulf.But in the back of his mind, he may also say, well, that hurts China.Isn't that a good thing?I mean, who knows?There are all sorts of dumb ideas rattling around inside that brain of his.That's very obvious, or he would never have done this.

This made no sense.This doesn't benefit him.his presidency, anything.Certainly, I mean, I'm sure since we're all Israel first, he's thinking about the United States and the American people down several rungs.But the bottom line is it just doesn't make any sense.But that's what you're dealing with.

You're dealing with someone who defies logic.

Well, as we heard just in an earlier clip where he says he knows that people don't like it, but sometimes somehow it is popular anyway.You said something that took my interest before regarding the refineries.For so many years, and even, you know, Trump is saying, drill, baby, drill.And we had that going on.See, it happened.It happened.

We were drilling, baby.How did they miss that about building any refineries?Where's the disconnect there?How did that even happen unfold like that?

There is no coherent strategy of any kind.In other words, if I took you to Moscow or to Beijing and sat down with you at a table, they could walk in and lay out a national strategy for energy, a national strategy for microcircuitry and artificial intelligence, a national strategy for defense.All of these things would be carefully mapped out.Now, that doesn't mean that you blindly follow the plan.But what it means is that you sit down and you assess where you are.You develop an end state.

You decide, well, in five years, in 10 years, we want to be in this condition.That's something we don't do, Gary.We've never done it.It's never ever happened.I mean, quick example.People sometimes in the military point to the order received by Dwight Eisenhower from FDR.

Your mission is to land on the European continent.defeat the German army.Okay.Anything else?Where do you want to be when the war ends?Where do you want to meet your Soviet allies?

Warsaw?Kiev?Where do you want to greet them?What are you talking about in Europe that is important to us?What are we fighting for?Well, there was none of that.

On the other hand, the Soviets knew exactly what they wanted.They wanted as much of Germany as they could capture because that's the scientific industrial complex.That's the human capital foundation for science and technology in Europe.That's what they wanted.They didn't get as much as they wanted, but they got about half of it.And then they were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted with the various populations, push their borders forward.

What did we get from what we did?It's called a huge tax burden.in the form of NATO and the Cold War that we got.So there was no coherent strategy.The British used to walk into these meetings with us before, you know, in 1942 and 43, 44.And this is without the Russians present.

They would walk in and they had maps of the entire world where all the oil fields were, where all the copper mines were located, the gold mines.I think, come on, these people were imperialists.They built an empire to become rich.They knew what they wanted to control when the war was over.They could tell you which harbors were sufficiently dredged to the point where they could accept giant freighters, giant cargo.We didn't do any of that.

So what were we in the war to do?Well, destroy Germany, defeat Nazis.Great.Okay, we do that, then what?Nobody asked the question.We're in the same position now.

So you want to save Israel.You want to make Israel great, greater than it's ever been.You want them to be the strategic hegemon.Okay.How do we do that?Well, we destroy Iran.

What if that doesn't work?What if Iran resists destruction?You know, where do you go at that point?What are the branches and sequels?In other words, what are the fallback positions?You're giving us plan A. Plan A is destroy Iran.

Underlying assumptions are all false.It fails.Now what?It's depressing, but that's where we are.

It is.Let me show you the the latest proposal, at least that we know of.Drop site news just put this out earlier today.So this is from the Iran foreign minister and presented supposedly.the details of Tehran's latest proposal to Washington.Look at these proposals, Doug, there's seven of them.

Out of these seven, would you say are any of them something that Donald could call a perfect deal?Would these be any part of a perfect deal?Iran's right to uranium enrichment and peaceful nuclear activities?I'd say no.What would you say, Doug?

Is there any chance?I'd say what President Trump probably says.Let's call President Netanyahu.

Oh my gosh, you're right.Well, that brings us immediately to the second one.End the conflicts across all fronts, including Lebanon.Chances of that, what do you say?Zero.

Exactly.

Lifting the U .S.naval blockade?

Well, that's something that we could do.And I think that would be welcomed by the whole world because we're the ones that are effectively blocking the Strait of Hormuz from use, not the Iranians.I mean, the Iranians havebasically said, you pay the fee, the toll, whatever, you get to go through.OK, and they're charging that because they have to have some means of offsetting the damage that's being done to them during the war.So, you know, I think lifting the U .

S.naval blockade is something we could definitely do.But then again, The Israelis would object to that because that creates income and revenue for Iran, which could conceivably be committed to weapons and operations against them.Release of Iranian frozen assets.Well, we shouldn't freeze anybody's assets anywhere, ever.This has destroyed trust all over the world in our financial system.

This is why we're going to lose out to BRICS.It's why we're going to lose out to China.We'll lose out to the SWIFT system.Why?Because they are now viewed as more reliable and trustworthy than we are.

Is that heartbreaking?

Now, U .S.compensation for war damages, fat chance.How many R's are in fat chance?Removal of all unilateral sanctions and U .N.

Security Council resolutions.Well, we could do that with a wave of the hand.Withdrawal of US forces from areas surrounding Iraq.Okay.If we do that, we're surrendering.

We can't do that.And Doug, on that note, I'd like to ask you, here are the US bases at the point of February 28 this year.Are any of them active in any manner that you are aware of?

Not that I'm aware of.That doesn't mean we still don't have some people in proximity to them.But for the most part, they are unusable.

Let's just put it that way.And Doug, wasn't the very the reason why they were there to begin with, was for a time in history as this.This is why we had them there.

Isn't that why we put them there over the course of time?

of these.There's 11 of them here that they they're noted.

Yeah, well, absolutely.There's no question about that.But we haven't been keeping keeping up with current events in warfare.If you looked at what's happening in eastern Ukraine, you would know that none of these places are defensible anymore.You don't have enough air and missile defense batteries, you don't have enough radars, you don't have enough You don't have any redundancy in it.And there was a tendency to dismiss out of hand the competence and capability of the Iranians.

Now, having dealt with the Israelis over the years, the Israelis were very definitely sensitive to it.But even they did not appreciate the magnitude of the leap forward in ISR strike that Iran had achieved.And I don't think anybody appreciated the extent to which the Chinese and the Russians would commit their own overhead surveillance assets to the defense of Iran.So bottom line is, if you go back to your list and you take in mind this fundamentally changed environment for military power, you know, it's insoluble for us.We can't do this.We can't admit or support this basket of requirements or demands.

But at the same time, we can't reverse them.That's the problem.It's not a question of refusing to refusing to deal with them.We just there's nothing we can do about it.So Iran is de facto winning the war, whether we like it or not.

Right.

Now, there's something else, though.And this is very, very important.And your audience needs to understand that bases like this are very important to the Department of Defense.I'm sorry, Department of the War at the moment.And that's because forward presence, the presence of U .S.

naval, air, and ground forcesfar from the United States has always been part of this notion of forward defense, that the best way to prevent wars is being as far forward as possible and making it impossible for the enemy to rapidly overrun everything. Well,Well, those days have been over for years.This kind of thing, I and others have talked about this repeatedly.If you put something forward within range of all of these missile systems and unmanned systems, given overhead surveillance, you're going to lose them.Now, if you lose all of this overhead and excuse me, all this overseas structure, you also lose all the general officer and flag officer positions in the Navy.

Well, guess what?The Department of Defense doesn't want to give anything up.We're about to be thrown out of Germany.Once we get rid of this Chancellor Matz, and eventually the Alternative für Deutschland, the AFD takes over, and they have a chancellor, we're going to throw us out of Germany.And by the way, the Koreans are already pushing to throw us out of South Korea.They're being polite about it.

That's effectively what they'd like.And the Japanese are not far behind.Because instead of being a source of defensive capability instead of being there to protect these countries.We are now seeing we're now seen as being a magnet for conflict, a catalyst for war, frankly, because if they're a target, because they happen to have U .S.forces on their soil, what's the point of having us on their soil?

And boy, have we been what's the word?We've been exposed, I guess, is the best way to put it.And what a what a shame and embarrassment it is. all this proof.really.

Well, this is what happens when you overstay your welcome anyway.But right now, it's matched by technological change that has fundamentally shifted the advantage in warfare.The advantage in warfare strategically, and I would argue operationally, is now defensive.And we have built everything that we do on the basis of offensive action.Offensive.We had better start thinking about how we're going to defend the continental United States, and we better start thinking about it quickly.