US Forced Out Of Iraq After Bases Hit

One of the things that we have learned from this war is what a failure the U .S.basing strategy has been throughout the region.And now we have this extraordinary development we can put up here on the screen.After how many years have we been in Iraq?Because of this war, it appears that we are approaching an actual full withdrawal from Iraq as bases in the Kurdistan region face attacks.

from Iran and their proxies.Patriot air defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles and drones have already been removed, according to Al -Monitor and their sources.Let me go ahead and read you a little bit of this article.They say, incoming missiles, drones, and other airborne enemy equipment have already been removed from the military compound.The pullout started last week and is ongoing with the bulk of the U .S.

forces and their heavy equipment out.All of the Patriot anti -missile batteries had been redeployed to an undisclosed destination, they said, adding that other defensive weapons systems remained in place as of the time of publication.Regional officials claim the pullout was Sager routine.And in line with the US commitment to withdraw all its forces from Iraq by a September 30th deadline, that was agreed with Baghdad.So I think we can read the tea leaves here.And I mean, this is pretty extraordinary.

Basically, Iran wants us out of the region.And in a way, we are being forced to oblige because we can no longer protect our forces throughout the region.We have to marshal our resources as we run low on all sorts of missiles and missile interceptors and all the rest.So we have to strategically reposition to make sure we can protect, I guess, the most vital assets at this point.And so after all of this, it is timethe Iran war that has actually forced us to fully withdraw from Iraq, where we never should have been in the first place.

step back even further and let's think about why these bases and all of that have to be driven out in the first place.exit the country.it in addition to just last week.that unexploded drone that actually was exploded by some EOD tech and ended up killing a nearby American service member, that happened in Iraq alongside those three casualties that also happened in Jordan.So we still have forces that are there on the ground, having to leave basically unceremoniously.And in the midst of all of this, especially not on our own terms, does demonstrate ultimately the benefit to Iran and to their strategy.

This also comes on the heels of the emptying, we've seen it,previously of the Al -Adeed Air Base in Doha, which was a huge base of operations I used to live very near by it.that we ultimately wanted, which is the major problem.And I think that you compare this, as we've talked about previously, with the military failure.The truth is, is like we are living through what is technically called like a revolution in military affairs.I won't go into all of it, but it is a fascinating intellectual exercise in which, you know, the ways in which warfare is conducted and understood is completely changed.

I've talked here previously about the battleship and World War II and how what changed about the, what changed in the theory of the battleship to project power and how that was blown up in a single second whenever aircraft were able to sink them in a matter of seconds.It completely changed the understanding of naval warfare at that time.Well, this also happened in the 1990s.I won't again bore everybody with the details, but the drone threat and the missile threat in particular, along with the interceptor math and the exchange between those two is another one I think that we're all living through.And I saw some discussion about that today.see it with B3, which is really shocking.

I mean, first of all, when we read this headline, some might even ask, why are we protecting Israel in the first place?But the top U .S.general in the region has now warned the Pentagon, quote, he lacks sufficient forces to protect Israel.He says that he shouldof Navy destroyers used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks will now have to force the head of European command to prioritize the U .S.

S.homeland instead.He says that the Pentagon this week, he lacks sufficient naval forces to continue protecting Israel from incoming ballistic missiles, illustrating how the ongoing Iran war has imposed the constraints on the military.that he will be forced to choose between defense of the U .S., quote, homeland, as in bases, over that of Israel, who, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity here to the Washington Post.

But what I think this demonstrates, first of all, is that same empire problem that we had previously.Don't forget that we had a situation where the United States was expending more of our interceptors than Israel was expending of their own, even though they have them.Why?For no reason that has ever been revealed here to the public.Let's not forget that in Operation Midnight Hammer in 13 days, the United States expended 25 % of the entire THAAD inventory.25 % of everything that we had just to shoot down missiles that were headed towards Israel, not towards the United States.

So see now how the defense of Israel, not just in terms of them dragging us into this war or being complicit, et cetera, convincing Trump to do it, but even just the sheer military defense of them, what it has cost us and allies that are actually meaningful and helpful to our country.I think when you pour these two things together or a pair of these two things together and then show these Gulf allies, which by the way, you know, I'm not some big Gulf defender, to look at it on a balance sheet, you'd say, hey, we get a hell of a lot more from Kuwait or Bahrain or any of these places than we do from Israel, this tiny little country with no even oil or in terms of our trading.And especially if you were to put them together, you would obviously prioritize one over the other.And I'm not just the one saying that.Remember, we even played Saudis on their own television in the midst of the war who were furious, saying they're defending Israel, but they can't even defend us.It's such a crazy situation.

Total.I mean, let's just pause on the wild nature of even having to say, well, we've got a tough choice on our hands, defend Israel or defend the homeland.Like, how is this even being framed as, I don't know, which way should we go?But it shows you how committed they are to the endless support of this small country in the Middle East, which is, I think, quite insane, quite insane at this point.Let's go ahead and put B2 up on the screen just to show you some of the state of play here in terms of the economy.Trump says the Iran talks are to resume after the U .

S.called off a major attack.Oil prices are down after the latest taco.So once again, the market's taking seriously Whatever Trump is saying here and buying himself some more time.Let's also put before up on the screen This goes to what we're speaking about previously about how locked in the deep state and the military brass is you've got a US commander who plans he claims he's got a two -week plan to escalate strikes in Iran The idea here just basically being let's bomb them more and bomb them harder.And maybe that'll work.

This is also something that was leaked to The Wall Street Journal prior to Trump backing down.So I think this could also potentially be seen as part of just the using the weaponizing the press to try to make a credible threat against Iran that would hopefully cause some sort of, you know, create some sort of leverage for the U .S.in negotiations and force Iran to concede things that they have been unwilling to concede.This obviously didn't work.But I also don't doubt soccer or that there are plenty of people inside of the Pentagon who find coming to a deal that acknowledges defeat at this point to be completely unacceptable and are floating a lot of wild plans, wild, desperate plans, because wild and desperate plans are all we have at this point.

That's very true.You know, I also think we should pair some of this with the sheer insanity of what it actually looked like, like what this war, if Trump had actually pressed the button and said it would.Let's go to B4, for example.This was the actual plan all leaked out to the Wall Street Journal.It was a two -week plan to escalate strikes.As Trump reiterates for Iran's missile attack, the question is how long the new air campaign will last.

The CENTCOM commander had pushed a 10 to 14 -day intensive airstrike aimed to cripple Iran's missile capacity, despite warnings that the U .S.is running low on defense munitions.Basically, what Admiral Cooper had been pushing, who is the leader of CENTCOM, was, well, what we can do is we can cripple the Iranian ballistic missile capacity a little bit more if you give me all the spare munitions and interceptors in the entire arsenal.That was his plan.And in addition to that, Trump was also saying we would hit some of these critical infrastructure.

But one of the things that we learned after the pause or whatever you want to call the initial ceasefire.was even though we'd said we destroyed 95 % of Iran's ballistic missile capacity, it turns out the number was more like 30%.And then that 30%, a lot of it was able to be dug out, as now evidenced by the fact that they were able to hit one of our bases, which killed several US service members, and have been able to use them all across the region in the interim.So I do think that when we talked previously about CENTCOM asking for unconventional ideas, this idea and this plan is so ludicrous in its actual proposal to basically just continue what already had been done and to, quote, finish the job in terms of the targets as if those targets had done anything what they were supposed to do in the first place, which was bring down the regime, even in conjunction with all of these insane Israeli airstrikes.So I just want to make sure people know that's what the actual plan was on the table.

And and quite to the contrary, I just strengthened the government by all accounts, as best we can tell from the outside.Put the last element in this block up on the screen here, guys.B6.This is just important to note where we are at this point.This is from The New York Times.It's framed under what they call news analysis, which is somewhere between, you know, reporting and opinion.

This is Stephen Erlinger, who they say has covered issues related to Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1978.And the analysis here is going to be very similar to things you've been hearing on the show for quite a while.They say in Iran, the U .S.appears headed for a strategic defeat allies fear with none of President Trump's aims accomplished, and the Strait of Hormuz closed, U .S.

allies see dysfunction and vulnerability from the war.To see this sort of analysis in the New York Times, you know, which is very hawkish, very pro -American empire outlet, It's, I think, a significant development in and of itself and a sign of the times of how undeniable the defeat has become in this war.And, you know, I like how they frame it in terms of our allies' fear, but very much the, you know, the writing is on the wall here in terms of what we've been unable to accomplish and how on every objective that we claimed during this war that we had, we have gone backwards from where we started.So everything that, you know, whether it's, you know, Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapon, whether it's wanting to topple the regime, whether it's wanting to back up the protesters in the streets, whether it's in terms of the straight -of -horn who's, on every single one of these metrics that have been floated at times as objectives of the war, we have undeniably gone in the opposite direction and have much, much less leverage in order to secure the aims than we did before we started this foolish war.And that is now being openly acknowledged in mainstream publications.like the New York Times.

Yep, exactly right.

Yeah, I mean, to the extent that it's just saying what a lot of people already know, you know, it's not actually important for what it says, but it's important for where it appears at the front page on Sunday, and that just means things are a lot worse.Once they get to that point, you can just bet that it's actually much, much worse in terms of what all of us on the leading edge can see.