What Comes Next in America's War With Iran

20:58Carlo:Is that enough of a win? Is that enough of a win? Exactly. Because the missile capabilities decimated. To what extent? Again, there's a spectrum there, but there'll be a threshold that they consider good. nuclear facilities in shambles, Hezbollah weakened Iraqi militias on the back foot, Houthis, question mark. But there'll have to be certain boxes they have to check. But there's certainly a way they can do that and walk away from this without a total evisceration of the Islamic Republic, because they don't want to commit that ground force. That would take boots on the ground. It does seem unless you have, again, the people on the inside ready to make the move with an army of their own or with sufficient influence to take over the army, then it's very difficult to see a scenario where there is a fall of Baghdad style situation because they don't want to put the troops on the ground.

21:56Carlo:Right.

21:58Tom O’Connor:So this is a question I really have for a military analyst, which I know you are not, but I'll ask it anyway, because it seems like one of the unanswered questions, one of the many unanswered questions we have, which is just how long can both the Iranians and the U.S. sustain this sort of missile war of attrition, right? They're launching... I think an important part of this is they're launching ballistic missiles, which are expensive and big pieces of hardware, but they're also launching these Shahid drones, right, which which are like, I think they cost, what,$50 ,000 to make? And we're not intercepting all of them, but we're intercepting a bunch of them using missile interceptors that are a couple million dollars a pop, right?

22:39Tom O’Connor:So I described it in the newsletter this morning as crashing a Ferrari to stop a Fiat. How many Ferraris can we crash, and how many Fiats can they send? It seems like they have sort of an unlimited number, at least of these little drones, right? And it was a drone that hit the Dubai terminal. It was a drone that hit the building, the hotel in Dubai. There's a big asymmetry there in terms of the actual military hardware being used, right?

23:03Carlo:It's costly, and it affects supply chains. There already were issues and concerns being raised over the stockpiles of American interceptors of certain munitions. There's also a separate but related argument about just the level of, the amount of time the people and personnel on Abraham Lincoln, on the Ford, have been mobilized in almost a wartime footing, it takes a toll. And it takes a toll on price, too. That was, I think, part of the issue that was raised during the campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, which now we've significantly surpassed in terms of intensity. So it is something that I think certainly is a question.

23:48Carlo:Now, on the Iranian side of things, cost to them, obviously, I don't think is a major factor because they're willing, they feel like they have very little pollutants. It's existential, right?

23:57Tom O’Connor:That's the other part of this. For them, this is an existential war. For us, it's not. For us, this is a war of choice, right? So if they have no more red lines, it seems to be what we're seeing, right? They're sort of just throwing as much spaghetti on the wall as they can, seeing what will stick. How long can we...back to your question about the pain tolerance, right? Four Americans killed in action already. How many Americans dying in this mission are the American people prepared to tolerate for reasons that are still unclear?

24:26Carlo:And that's exactly Iran's calculus. And when it comes to the physical limitations, particularly on the missiles, obviously there are a lot of assessments that have been out there about the thousands of ballistic missiles, not including certain cruise missiles and drones that Iran has in its stockpiles. This, again, goes back to the 12-day war. You know, the last I've heard from an Israeli official was that, and this was, I believe it was earlier this morning. It's hard to remember with the time. Everything is just together. But the last I believe I heard was that they had already struck, you know, dozens of missile and missile sites out of hundreds they believe the Iranians had left.

25:07Carlo:That's a big range, obviously. But that's, you know, that's what they're putting out there right now.

25:12Tom O’Connor:And that's why Trump, I think, has said, you know, this is early days. We could go four or five weeks, I believe, is what he told The New York Times last night. I think he also said, I wrote this down, quote, he said this today, the big wave is yet to come. Again, unclear what that means. Maybe he just means, you know, more strikes on the ballistic missile facilities.

25:32Carlo:I mean, the U.S. has total air superiority. U.S. and Israel both have total air superiority and domination over the skies of Iran. They can hit anything. They can hit one thing ten times. But the question is, again, to what end and what operational effect will it have? There starts to be a diminishing result to those operations over time, where now you start to look at the cost of the munitions that you're using and what impact are you getting out of it. This is in every conflict. Of course. And the quicker you establish this level of superiority, which was instant pretty much for us, the harder you have to kind of look at the value that you're getting from these strikes.

26:12Carlo:Not just the physical value, but the psychological value. If it's not producing the result that you want from it, again, not just degrading the Iranian military capabilities, but perhaps trying to shake the foundation of the Islamic Republic and its supporters and its most loyal people, the IRGC, wanting to get them to defect. I think a lot of that right now is geared more towards that than even degrading the Iranian capabilities, although that is the priority at this stage. At some point, that will transition more, I think, to the psychological element of it. But the Iranians are still firing, though, and they still have the capacity to do a lot of harm, not just, again, to the U.S.

26:53Carlo:bases, but to those other countries in the region that I think were promised that this would be quick and this would be as painless as possible.

27:03Tom O’Connor:Well, that's, again, back to, I mean, so many things worry me right now, just having covered and been traumatized by our past misadventures in the Middle East. But I worry that we miscalculated and we thought that this was going to be a Venezuela-style mission. We got the Ayatollah immediately and that was going to lead to some sort of immediate regime change. That's not the case. I think that's part of the reason why the messaging has been so bad. The administration didn't put anybody on the Sunday shows. Trump just did these weird sort of hostage-style taped messages. Hasn't been really tweeting.

27:39Tom O’Connor:And part of that is Trump's negotiating style, right? He wants to keep everything close to the vest. He wants to keep everybody off their toes. He doesn't want to telegraph everything that we're doing.

27:49Carlo:He doesn't want to give any expectations he has to live up to.

27:52Tom O’Connor:Yeah, that's a very good point, too. But I think the other thing that people are missing is Iran is a country of like 90 million people, right? It's not a monolith. I mean, there's a lot of Iranians who are happy that this regime has at least been decapitated, if not collapsed. But there's also, I mean, there were photos on the wires this weekend of huge gatherings in Tehran of supporters of Kemeni who were mourning his death. I don't, right? We shouldn't think that there's just a massive uprising that is imminent here.

28:26Carlo:Yeah, and I think that it's also, it's wrong to look at this as, to compare it directly to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or even Syria under Assad, where you have like this kind of minority faction ruling, you know, the vast masses. And I'm not, not just a Sunni Shiai thing, but just in general, I think, you know, obviously, in some ways, we don't know the true extent of the support base to the Islamic Republic, whether that's just a minority of people or how small that minority is. But it's substantial in terms of having entrenched itself throughout the country through various networks, civil institutions, economic institutions.

29:04Carlo:The IRGC obviously plays a big role in this through the besieged, the paramilitary units. But it's not just at the barrel of a gun. I mean, this is something that's been, again, you could argue indoctrination, propaganda. Sure. But that has been set for decades now. You know, this narrative of resistance against big powers, you know, this is exactly what they were talking about, what they were warning about, that a hostile, unprovoked attack on their country, in their words, of course. But that's come true, you know, and so it's very much living up to their narrative. And I think that that's still fueling a sufficient degree of support for the government, again, not necessarily against the everyday Iranian that wants to now fight for the government, but to dissuade a level of participation in anything that could be seen as a legitimate challenge to the government right now.

29:55Carlo:Now, there's also the threat that, as we saw during the protest, that, you know, Iranians will have to put their own lives on the line to do something that America is demanding they do. You know, they don't want to put the boots on the ground, but they want Iranians who are unarmed to go against, you know, the armed folks in the country.

30:10Tom O’Connor:Well, the first thing Trump said on Friday in his first message after announcing the initial wave of strikes was, hold on, I wrote it down here because I thought it was so fascinating. Of course, I can't find it. But he basically said, you know, this is your chance, your chance to take over the government, as though 30 ,000 of them weren't just killed over the span of a week just marching in the streets. Are those some people supposed to just walk up to the palace now and be like,

30:33Carlo:hi, we'd like a new supreme leader? Especially, I mean, if they, you know, if obviously the crackdown was as violent as it was, you know, at a time where Iran wasn't facing an existential threat, you know, there could be an argument made that many of those security apparatuses, you know, have really nothing to lose right now and may really feel like, you know, they're going to get bombed anyway. Our orders are to maintain the government. Anything else would be treason, and I'll get shot. Right.

30:59Tom O’Connor:Maintain peace, whatever. Precisely.

31:02Carlo:I've spoken to Iranians in the country, some who support the government, some who don't support the government, but there have been quite a few on both sides who did feel that Trump had left some of the protests really out to dry, dry and dry, that those who did, And even at the cost of inviting a foreign power to invade or intervene the country, thought, well, we just need to get rid of this Islamic Republic. When President Trump said help is on the way, they didn't think it would come more than a month later, a month and a half later. And yes, the US may have stepped in and stopped some executions of some of the people who were arrested, but there is a concern -

31:43Tom O’Connor:Were we a day late and a dollar short?

31:44Carlo:Exactly. Exactly. So if they come out right now, is Trump going to call a ceasefire the same day and then they have to bear the consequences?

31:51Tom O’Connor:You mentioned the analogy to Syria. Here's the analogy that, again, I worry a lot about, which is Libya, right? So Barack Obama took out Qaddafi, didn't put boots on the ground to establish any sort of American puppet government or even like American-aligned government. There's no government. The country went into complete collapse. It's still a disaster. And what did it actually do? By eliminating Qaddafi, who was a bad dude by all accounts, it created this sort of super highway for migration into Europe from sub-Saharan Africa. I mention this because, again, if we're not in this for the long haul, if we pack up shop and declare victory and we have gotten a civil war in Iran, what does that mean?

32:40Tom O’Connor:is that a new refugee crisis in the making for the Europeans? Yeah, and Turkey. And Turkey, yeah.

32:45Carlo:Because they're having just hope that - Where does Turkey fit in in all this? Well, having just hope that they are beginning to address the Syrian refugee issue, which has been a driving force of Turkish foreign policy since the civil war, taking in, I think, I don't have the numbers in front of it, but something like 3 million, I think, at one point, Syrian refugees. That's a big number, right there at their border. Everything that that that Turkey wanted to do in Syria really was trying to ensure that that instantly didn't spread within Turkey itself. You know, the idea that a country now of 90 million people could fall into a state of chaos that borders, of course, Turkey as well, is a major concern of theirs.

33:23Carlo:But also, as you said, for the Europeans as well. I mean, going throughout the EU, Germany, it's it's another crisis. They have typically, you know, we've seen some of the largest movements of people in history, you know, mass movements because of these sort of conflicts. Which again have created, I mean, this is a law of unintended consequences, right?

33:42Tom O’Connor:The Middle East is the, where, you know, that is the thing that it is more than anything. It is the place of unintended consequences. And, you know, look at the migration crisis from Africa and Syria into Europe. What did that do, right? That created these far-right governments in Germany that are amassing power and other places. We just don't know. We start these chains, we put these events in motion, and the way that they turn out, nobody knows. No matter who says they know, nobody knows. The president doesn't know.

34:12Carlo:Yeah, absolutely. There's good news and bad news when it comes to where Iran fits into that in terms of... because you mentioned potential civil war, which obviously we can't rule out anything at this point. The good news is that Iran does have a long history of unity and territorial integrity. And very proud people. Yeah, exactly. And smart, intelligent. And that's not a pro-government or anti-government argument. It's just about wanting to keep the country together, physically together. So that's the good news. No, it's true. Iran's not a rock. Exactly. It doesn't have the same sort of, and everything has its own examples, but it's not a sort of tribal society, seen places like Afghanistan or even Libya.

34:56Carlo:But the bad news is that there are groups in Iran that are armed factions that we don't want to see take power. I mean, you know, there's some of the most organized dissident groups are among the Kurds, and we have some good relationship with them. They just formed a new coalition not that long ago, so there's a lot of eyes on what they could do. They did conduct some attacks during the protests against the Iranian security forces. There are other ethnic minorities such as the Azeris, the Baloch, Arab communities near the border with Iraq, all of whom have had their own groups in the past. But it's not just ethnic lines.

35:30Carlo:I mean, there's also ISIS. There's ISIS-K, the ISIS-Khorasan branch. They conducted the deadliest attack in Iran's modern history just a couple of years ago.

35:40Tom O’Connor:And there's nothing a group like ISIS loves more than a situation like this, a power vacuum like we saw in Syria, Iraq. God, let's hope that we don't see it here. Okay. Well, I want to let you go, Tom, because you have a lot more reporting to do, I know, and you haven't slept in like three days, so I don't want to keep you too long. I'm cool asleep here, right? Yeah, of course. Why not? You know, and one of the things we've been talking about in the newsletter the last couple of weeks is... This is more of like a political question, not even really a question, but the politics of this has been passing, right?

36:11Tom O’Connor:Because Trump has really not bothered... This White House has really not bothered to manufacture or the consent for this war in the way that we saw in previous administrations, right? There's Colin Powell going to the UN with the thing of anthrax saying this is why we have to go to war in Iraq. There's none of that. There's been none of that. I mean, I even wrote, if we're going to do these sorts of regime change wars, I would actually prefer they be honest with us about it than come up with some sort of BS line about how like Iran is a, whatever country we're about to bomb is an imminent threat to the United States.

36:46Tom O’Connor:Now again, Trump didn't really do that, but he has also been all over the place in our objectives and our reasoning for this war. We talked about what he said today. Here's some of the other lines that he gave to reporters who got him on his phone this weekend. He told the Washington Post that the aim is, quote, freedom for the people of Iran. Okay, well, that's completely new. That's like what we were saying about Iraq, right? They're going to greet us in the streets with flowers. He told Axios, maybe we can, quote, end it in two or three days with the deal. That seems pretty unlikely now. And I think he then told The New York Times, quote, it's going to be four to five weeks.

37:21Tom O’Connor:I have, quote, three very good choices who might take control in Iran. So that suggests at least that there is a Delce Rodriguez type figure waiting in the wings, perhaps. He told ABC that actually, never mind, we killed those people. Convenient. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And then also, you know, we heard from this administration through leaks in the media at the end of last week and this weekend that Iran was developing a missile that could, quote, soon reach the American homeland. Now we know that Pentagon briefers told congressional leaders last night, Sunday night, that's not true. Iran was not planning a preemptive attack only if the Israelis went first.

38:01Tom O’Connor:And then of course, you know, the line from Trump for the last several months, which is that the strikes last year obliterated the nuclear program.

38:07Carlo:I mean, yes, there are some indications that Iran would be on track to build something that could have an ICBM capacity. That's like the satellite launch vehicles, for example. Even though those are for launching satellites, they could easily be repurposed to hit the US. But no one fires an ICBM or cares whether you have an ICBM unless it has a nuke on it. And there's been no credible intelligence reports at any point that from any administration, including the president's, including this administration, that Iran had decided to build a nuclear weapon. We know that for a long time, Iranians, for decades now, have intentionally been at that threshold as a means of negotiating.

38:50Carlo:Obviously it might have proved a miscalculation on their part, unlike, you look at the other example, North Korea, who did the same thing but crossed that threshold.

38:59Tom O’Connor:This is, I'm glad you bring this up, because honestly, if I were the brand new supreme leader of Iran, you know what the first thing I would do is? Build a fucking nuclear weapon immediately, as quick as possible. I mean, I'm being a little bit, you know, facetious, but seriously, I mean, isn't that the lesson of all of our adventures in the Middle East, right? The lesson is, if you have a nuke, we're not going to bother you. If you don't, and we don't like you, your days are numbered. And that's not just the Middle East. To your point, North Koreans, right? Kim Jong-un, he's thriving, more or less, right?

39:27Tom O’Connor:I mean, his country is in a complete disaster, right? But he's fine. He's not worried about getting Geopolitically, it's...the Libyans, what do they do? Qaddafi gave up his nukes and he was killed via sodomy by a bayonet in a tunnel, right? That's what happens when you give up your nukes. I'm not suggesting that everybody...I'm not arguing for proliferation. I'm just saying that how could you not want one if this is the world order? But before I let you go, Tom, I guess here's the question that everyone has, and I don't expect you to have a good answer to this because nobody could, but how does this end?

40:03Carlo:Yeah, I mean, it's tough to say. I think that, you know, there's there's plenty of room still for surprises on both sides. I think that there's I think a lot of attention needs to be paid on how the regional countries react. Obviously, they came out very strongly against the Iranian retaliatory attacks because the message at least going into this was that Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan would not let the U.S. bases they host conduct any offensive operations. That might keep them out of the fight or so. But the Iranians basically said any U.S. installations are considered supporting this so that they're viable targets.

40:46Carlo:I think we need to see what their societies, what their publics will tolerate, how that'll form their leadership. Some of these countries are quite a small native population. And, you know, they have been able to stay out of conflict, all this going on in the region for a very long time. Now they're in it. You know, this will be a test for them. It'll be a test, I think, for the economic impact that we discussed before. You know, during the same State of the Union address that President Trump talked about, you know, needing to punish Iran. He also talked about how low the gasoline prices were.

41:20Carlo:Right. You know, that a lot could change, you know. And, you know, importantly, if you talk about the political situation, we have to look at the MAGA movement. Yeah. You know, I mean, this.

41:28Tom O’Connor:Right.

41:28Carlo:We haven't even mentioned this.

41:29Tom O’Connor:Exactly. This guy ran on not doing this specific precisely this.

41:33Carlo:There is a narrative out there among the MAGA movement that blames really Israel for kind of pushing Trump towards this for whatever reasons and for whatever reason he said yes to do it. This is the MAGA, a certain branch of that talking. But this is the president's own support base.

41:51Tom O’Connor:Well, and there was reporting this weekend, again, take it with a grain of salt, that the Israelis were going to go. And we were either going to let them go first or join them. Certainly.

41:59Carlo:And for all we know, that could be true. But it's not it's going to be difficult. I think as the longer this goes on the more American troops die The more the regional countries, you know kind of wring their hands at this and say okay I thought we were gonna be done by now I think it's gonna become more difficult for Trump to appeal to that support base in a way that he can provide the kind of answers That you know the I mean that that that you know will be sufficient for them and to you know to continue this policy It is, just as he said, peace through strength. That is, President Trump had outlined that.

42:35Carlo:So it is in line with this very broad doctrine. I think that there'll be other countries around the world, Cuba, including North Korea, including China and Russia, will be watching very closely to see what happens next. But it is a very unpredictable time.

42:51Tom O’Connor:I wouldn't want to be the Cubans right now. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But one thing before we go is you mentioned this. This is another X factor, right, which is and I hate even putting this into the universe, but it's a question on a lot of people's minds is what if there is a blowback in the form of a either lone wolf attack or a Iranian sleeper cell either in the US or somewhere in Europe or anywhere in the West that can be activated now? We don't know. I mean, presumably you would have seen this already, but I don't have any idea. And in fact, we did see a lone wolf attack shooting in Austin, Texas over the weekend.

43:27Tom O’Connor:We don't know, but it appears as though this guy was a Senegalese naturalized American citizen, opened fire on a bar of college students in Austin. He only killed two, thankfully. Obviously, a terrible story. That is not something American people are going to tolerate if that is a new threat that we have to worry about.

43:46Carlo:And I think the last thing I'll say is I think just, you know, the the brutality, I think, of this turn of U.S. foreign policy. And again, it's that, you know, that that term is not necessarily being used pejoratively. That's right. You know, it's part of the president's own image is this forceful image. I think, you know, certainly has the the potential to have domestic impacts. And we're already seeing, obviously, is a whole nother conversation about the polarization of American politics. We don't have to get into all that, but the more violence that's added to the equation, particularly in an already very volatile Middle East, certainly doesn't seem like it'll serve as an alleviating factor.

44:26Tom O’Connor:Right. And I don't think any, I mean, maybe some, but most Americans did not vote to send U.S. troops into harm's way in Iran or anywhere in the Middle East. And we're kind of, it just does seem like we're kind of all along for the ride. Yeah, it feels that way. All right, well, let's leave it there. Obviously, you know, news is moving very fast. By the time you guys watch this, some of what we just said may be out of date. Hopefully not. We'll bring Tom back. We've got other shows, other guests planned for this week, which is turning out to be one more historic week in American politics and geopolitics.

45:01Tom O’Connor:Tom, I'll let you get back to your desk now. Hopefully get some sleep. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. See you guys soon.