Israel Takes Massive Iran Missile Fire As GULF Wants Invasion

We have very ominous warnings about potential ground operations. We do want to reiterate what that would actually look like. The president, remember, he pointed to Mark Levin saying we need to go and get the uranium. Well, let's go and put this up here on the screen now from the Washington Post, confirmed some of the Wall Street Journal reporting that we have brought you all before about what exactly it would take to go and to get all of this uranium.

So let's just go through the plan, shall we? The plan would represent enormous difficulty, would require the airlift of hundreds or thousands of troops, heavy equipment to support the excavation and recovery of radioactive material. It could take weeks and would take place under fire deep inside of Iran. So literally would entail not only dropping in troops, but also excavators. They would have to build a runway,

a temporary runway to have to come in and come out. They would have to drop the special operations force, and they would have to drop a force to protect the special operations force. And it would take close air support and ground operations to make sure that nobody could even come close to them as they take the weeks and or months

to actually carry out this mission. And a lot of people obviously think that that's totally crazy, but what's even crazier is that it could even be in the works. Remember the 82nd Airborne is there,

you've got Special Operations Units, but we wanted to flag this. This is a viral video that came out from San Diego. Can we go and put this video up here on the screen where a user actually took this video of excavators that were moving via train to the naval boat yards in San Diego.

They said, look, we don't know, obviously, why all this equipment is moving in, but you could see that it was very clearly moving on the train to potentially good reason. There's a lot of use for military assets and for things like that. But don't remember or don't forget San Diego, all of the special operations forces and conventional forces that are all stationed there, not to mention the naval base.

So we did want to flag it as, at the very least, you can see some of this type of equipment which is making its way to the base and who knows from where it could go. I don't even really know if it would have to be shipped over there or, of course, if they have to also drop it in via air. But you can see very clearly what this would entail. It's not just some grab and go style mission, the Iranians know you're coming. And remember in our last show, Crystal, we told everybody they hit that ammunition dump in Isfahan, not a missile city, an ammunition dump specifically of artillery and of weapons,

which would be used as defense in some sort of ground combat operation. I don't think that was a mistake, that they hit that and that you're seeing all of this. Not saying it's going to happen, but saying if they did, they're setting the ground if they want to.

I mean, those are some of the signs. We talked earlier about the A-10s. That would be another sign, you know, that those are going to the region. You've got also reports that some additional infrastructure around Isfahan has been struck, things like, you know, bridges and other logistical infrastructure that would make it more difficult for Iranians to respond to any sort of an attack there.

Also worth noting that this completely insane plan to seize this nuclear material, this was drawn up apparently at Trump's request per this report from the Washington Post. So this wasn't something the military was like, okay, here's one of your options. Here's another option. Here's the Cargillan idea. Here's this. I know he was like, what would this actually look like? Which I think is just a demonstration that this is the this is a direction that he is very interested in. You know, it has a lot of Trumpian hallmarks,

he would be able to have some sort of a victory narrative. He would be able to claim, as he did after the 12-day war, that their nuclear program was completely obliterated and there was no chance for them to develop a nuclear weapon. And so he would be able to assert some sort of a victory out of this whole mess.

But very likely, given the highly risky nature of what is being contemplated here, it could be a complete and utter disaster where it just completely fails. At the very least, it's highly likely you will have significant casualties to come out of such a risky operation. And then once you've had a large number of American service members killed,

are you really able to just walk away at this point, at that point? And how does Iran respond? How does Israel respond, et cetera? So if I had to say this is the direction that his psychology would most lead him towards, I'm not even sure whether he's particularly made up his mind about exactly what he wants to do.

It seems like he's getting a bunch of assets in the region to have a whole lot of different options. But to me, the idea that they're just gonna continue this air only campaign for another two to three weeks, it's not going to fundamentally change anything in terms of the strategic objectives. And then he's just gonna walk away

with his presidency in shambles and having effectively, you know, de facto declared a complete surrender to the Iranians. That's very difficult for me to imagine him doing.

The other problem with this whole two to three week timeline is, you know, the war is gonna continue. And it's not just us bombing them, it's them bombing us and Israel. So let's put some of this video up here on the screen that we have. Israel continues to get pounded every night. And remember, they're rationing missile interceptors.

They are having a lot more sites that are struck. Anybody can go and can watch video of all of the damage that has happened in Tel Aviv. Just yesterday, they were multiple foreign journalists and others reporting the number of intense missiles, barrages that were coming in as a result

of Iranian ballistic missiles, which were not being intercepted and were actually striking, as you guys can see, just from the ground of what it looks like. You did not see much of this in the very opening days of the war,

when their interceptor stockpile was much more. That was, I believe it was an oil refinery that you all are watching right now on your screen. And you can actually see, let's put the Times of Israel report up there. They are even admitting right now,

Iran and Hezbollah launch attacks as Israelis are hosting the Passover Seders, sending the millions into the shelters. But they also note that the number of strikes was more than at any time since the first week of the war. So it's actually an increase in the number of missiles that you saw that were coming directly

into Israel, not to mention again, all of the targets across the Gulf. Let's go ahead and put D5 and some of the other video that we have from the Gulf strikes. This was a very striking video that came out. This was an Iranian missile coming in and hitting a facility near US troops. You can actually see one of the troops there who's in the video.

There's multiple other videos that even came out overnight before we started the show of facilities, US facilities in Jordan that were being struck. I mean, just all across the Middle East. And you remember that there's an intense amount of censorship that is coming out. We do know that some 300 or so U.S. troops have been wounded now so far.

I believe six remain seriously wounded. The vast majority have returned to service. But this continues for two to three weeks. You just don't know. You had the refueling tanker that went down over Iraq that claimed the lives of some four service members. You've got 13 now who've been confirmed dead, several hundred who have been wounded, I believe a dozen or so who were seriously

wounded, and six or so who remain in critical care. So it's not like that we haven't had a toll ourselves, not to mention all of the energy infrastructure and other things that continue to be targeted. Every day, you can watch and see the UAE, Straits of Hormuz, you know, attacks in the Straits of Hormuz. You've seen attacks in the Dubai, like in the port, and against Saudi Arabia. There were multiple missile strikes that happened there. And they still have the capability and the capacity to launch strikes at the critical

energy infrastructure. They're holding off on it for right now, but they're ready to go if they need to, if there's some sort of escalation. So just keep that in mind. And we do have D6. This is part of the problem about the strategic logic which is happening, is that Axios is

reporting, the Saudis sound like Mark Levin. They want the US to finish the job by wiping Iran off the globe now. We don't want to. Is what you have now is a situation where the UAE and Saudi, who have gone all in with America, right?

Well, now they're held hostage, their entire economies by Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. They don't want to pay the hostage toll, even though that would be the rational thing to do at this point. It would probably be easier for everybody involved.

So they're pushing the US, they're like, no, you have to finish the job, you have to finish the job. And then America's in a very tough position, right, Crystal, because,, what we want. But if we don't do what they want, then maybe they're gonna say,

well, okay, then all your troops have to go. So we're in a very tough position where the people who are in the region, who are US allies, are the people who are actually gonna push us the hardest to continue on with the war.

It's only Qatar and Oman really, which are the ones who are like, look, we can find some sort of diplomatic solution. And remember, that's only because they're much closer to Iran. The rest of them who are really all in and who have their own problems, they are really pushing America to escalate this war. So it's an alignment of Gulf interests and of Israeli interests to continue the war.

Yeah. And we can put D8 up on the screen here, which speaks to that with regard to UAE. I mean, basically, they're sort of feeling like, all right, we're in, and for them, it truly is existential because Dubai, Abu Dhabi, these family US-backed monarchies that are installed there, they do not feel that at this point,

given the way that they've been hit by Iran and the risk that would persist if the US just walks away, they don't think that that's something they can bear. So they asked the UN to approve this measure to force the Strait of Hormuz open.

Not that the UN really has any teeth in this regard, but trying to get some sort of international consensus around the idea that what Iran is doing with the Strait of Hormuz is in violation of international law. And then this report D9, we can put up on the screen

from the Wall Street Journal, also was quite extraordinary. They say, UAE wants to force Hormuz open and is willing to join the fight. So meaning they would not just allow the US to use bases in their country, but they would also actively join as combatants,

which would be extremely significant. And so, yeah, if you join as a combatant and then the war ends without Iran, you know, without the strait being opened, with Iran maintaining significant military capabilities, that is going to be a dire situation for UAE.

So that's the logic that they've adopted at this point. And so if Trump tries to sort of unilaterally walk away, which to me is looking less and less likely all the time, but let's say he tries to do that, well, Saudi is gonna be calling him, UAE is going to be calling

them and basically being like, what the hell? You can't do this. So one of Iran's major goals that they've talked about from the beginning of this war is we don't want US bases in the region. And a lot of these countries are going to look in the aftermath of this and say, was this really worth it to have these US forces on our soil and make us

and our countries and our people and our key assets to make them a target as well?

That's the problem. I mean, I really do get it from their perspective. You're Saudi, you're the UAE, you have bought tens of billions of dollars from the United States. You have invested hundreds of billions,

if not trillions, into the US economy. It was built on a singular, singular promise. We do this, you protect us. Now, we created a situation where literally almost 100% of their economy is reliant on the Strait of Hormuz, which we have now

created a situation where it's closed, and we're telling other countries, hey, you gotta go and you gotta open it, which is not like Saudi and the UAE can. So they're like, hey, what was all this money for? We literally, this is the reason that we did it,

so you gotta go and you gotta finish the job, but we don't want to. So then for them, I mean, what are they gonna do? They're gonna rewrite the way that they have relationship with the US, that seems untenable. It seems equally untenable for them. I mean, they just took all these missiles and all these hits from Iran. Can they really just sit there and be sitting ducks? Theoretically, yes.

But it would create, you would need a bunch of security guarantees and other operations from the US, which are not going to happen. Or you could abandon America, which also seems equally disastrous for them, because now they do have this real existential threat. So they're in a real tough spot. I don't see any situation in the near future where they're paying the Iranian toll.

I just can't see it right now because the amount of pain they've experienced, it's not enough to get to that threshold where you want to make a deal with your enemies, even though unfortunately, they'll probably get there at some point if we stay the course of where we are, or we're just gonna escalate to an insane

and dramatic occupation, which also seems very, very likely if we continue on this course. And you can just see, though, that the damage that they're taking in Israel and in the Gulf, that only points in one direction. You know, to rational people, maybe people like who are watching, listening to this,

are like, wow, we should get out of this. Yes, we agree. But for them, it only pushes them up the escalation ladder and increases the logic of total war, which would, of course, draw us in and create this conflict in an even more prolonged situation. It's really bad. All right, we've got Nicholas Mulder. He is a historian of economic warfare and a professor at Cornell University.

He's gonna join us now to talk about the end of the ability of the US to wage unilateral economic warfare. Hey, if you liked that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.

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