982: Israel vs. Iran | Out of the Loop

25:35So that might be a lie. In fact, Iran said that Israel had launched toys. But it's certainly possible that special forces or Mossad or Iranians who are against the government could have launched these toy drones to do something or even just to be launched and then shot down just as a way of saying, hey, we have operatives in your country and we can strike you anytime we want. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Ryan McBeth. We'll be right back. Hey all, by the way, we've revamped our newsletter, Weebitwiser. Instead of doing summaries of past episodes, we are going to reorient the newsletter around one super brief practical takeaway.

26:17The idea is to give you something specific, something practical, something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships in under two minutes. So we're making wee bit wiser, even weir. So if you weren't feeling that long format before or you're looking for something new, stick with us. I think you're really going to like the new direction. And if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news. is where you can find it. We're going to be starting that up in the beginning of May, just a few weeks here.

26:44Now, back to Out of the Loop, Iran versus Israel and Ryan McBeth. Yeah, Iran actually said infiltrators had done whatever had gotten done in Isfahan, or Isfahan, I think is the name of the city. Isfahan, correct. And it's just been interesting to see, right? Like, you can see it sort of being de-escalated. I originally was like, oh no, Israel, don't do anything that's going to get everybody pissed off again. And, you know, we don't want to escalate this conflict. But it really is kind of like, you know, that game Battleship. It's like you strike right next to the ship. It's like they can see the ship and they're striking right next to it.

27:19And they're like, look, we didn't hit it, but we didn't hit it on purpose. Iran, same thing. Hey, guys, we're launching a bunch of pretty slow drones that are going to take about 10 hours to get there. And then we're done. We're taking our ball and we're going home because we've done our thing. And then it's like they all got shot down. And Iran is like, like we said, we're done here. And Israel's like, well, not so fast. We just want to show you that we also know where you keep your expensive stuff. We're not going to blow it up, but we're just going to put that right there so that you know that if you guys far around too much, what we put there next time is going to be a massive explosion.

27:53It's going to take out whatever your uranium refinement or whatever it is that they're doing over there and is fine. So this is hopefully kind of the end of it. But I don't know. What do you think? Because it seems like now everybody's said their piece, but who knows? Because now Israel is going to go into Rapha from what we understand, correct? That is most likely the next step. We don't know when that's going to happen. It probably won't happen this week because this week is the Jewish holiday of Passover. So probably won't happen this week. But the longer they wait, the more chances the world has to get angry at Israel, demand a ceasefire.

28:31And the case of a ceasefire, Hamas went. So what we're probably going to see, if you want to talk about Rafa, is we're going to see something that was very similar to the Battle of Fallujah, or perhaps Mosul, where Israel will surround the entire city, and they're going to drop leaflets and send out text messages and put broadcasts out on the radio. It says, if you are a noncombatant, get out. And they'll probably put them to the left of Khan Yunus in Gaza, And there is this big farmer's field area. It's kind of between, I can't remember the darn name of the town, but it is to the west of the city of Kanyunas.

29:15There is some farmer's fields, and they're probably going to tell people, okay, go over there. You're going to be safe there. Women and children can leave, and any man leaving is going to be biometrically scanned to see if you're in a database. They'll probably use a swipe on their hands as well to check their hands for explosives or residue. Wow. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what I would do. But how do they do it? How do they go into Rafa and let people through a protected... What they would do is create a cordon. Now, ideally, Israel should go to this farmer's field. And darn it, I can't remember the darn name of it.

29:49It was Al-Masawi. Al-Masawi. So between Khan Yunus and Al-Masawi is this large, multiple kilometers of farmer's fields. So what Israel should do, and hopefully they will do this, is set up camps there where people can get food and shelter and medical attention, or at least let NGOs, non-government organizations, set up camps there. That way people can get treatment and live and eat while Israel conducts this operation. They have to go out through a cordon, meaning there's certain areas that people can go out through. If you're a male, they have biometric scanners. They're going to check your eyes.

30:25and they'll also take a cloth and they'll, I don't know if you've ever dealt with this at the airport or the TSA, they put a little piece of cloth on a wand and they wipe down your suitcase. I get that all the time, actually. And I don't know if it's just me or if everybody gets it, I get it all the time. So sometimes they do that, right? It might be random or it might be targeted, right? So they'll put it on a cloth and they'll stick it in the machine. The machine will analyze that cloth for explosives. So if you're a male and you have explosive residue on your hands or gunpowder on your hands, you're getting pulled aside for further questioning.

30:56Everybody else, women, children go through. And that'll pretty much ensure that everybody else left in the city of Rafa is a combatant. Now, 10 % won't leave. 10 % of the people are not going to leave. That is just, no matter what happens, even when the National Guard goes to people during a hurricane and says, hey, you really need to leave, about 10 % of people don't. The actual great way of countering that, by the way, is to hand them a Sharpie marker and say, write your security number on your body parts. That way we can identify you later. But that's got him at a side there. Yeah. Wait, interesting.

31:31I always wondered what those people are thinking when it's like your house is in the middle of the hurricane zone. Everybody's got to evacuate. Why are you still here? I ain't leaving. OK, but you're probably going to die. Some people are afraid of looting. And, you know, some people, if nothing bad has ever happened to you, it might be very difficult for you to understand that something very bad can happen to you under the right set of circumstances. That is true. But it's like Jedediah. Nobody wants your black and white TV. Nobody. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants your bug bed mattress, man. I understand you don't want to leave.

32:03But yeah, more likely it's what you said. People who have not had horrible things happen to them don't understand that horrible things can happen to them. That's when I got kidnapped the first time in Mexico, I remember thinking, this isn't a kidnapping. I've never been kidnapped before. And then I had to be like, that's a really dumb counter argument. This not being a really bad thing right now. The counter that this hasn't happened before is not really, doesn't really make sense. It's kind of like saying, I've never gotten shot before, so I can't get shot now. It's like, no, no, you can absolutely get shot right now if you are staring down the barrel of a gun.

32:37So yeah, you're right. It's an aside, but you got to wonder who's in a war zone going, I'm not leaving. It's like this is a level of delusion that I don't know whether to just be in awe of or what. It's just shocking. You're also dealing with people who I mean, the Nakba, the catastrophe. Yeah. When many of the Palestinians were kicked out of their homes. I believe only one third of the people in Gaza lived there originally. Everybody else fled there because even the Arabs kicked them out or the Jews kicked them out. So being removed from your home is, it is a genuine fear for a lot of Palestinians.

33:14And in fact, if you go to some homes, they have a key hanging in a picture frame. And this was the key to the house that we had. And one day we're going to go back to that house, inshallah. So the idea of leaving your house is very difficult. And there also might be people who don't want to leave because they're elderly. You know, look, I've lived my life. If I die here, inshallah, I die. There might also be terrorists who do not want people to leave because it is within their best interest to cause a humanitarian crisis and to cause civilian casualties. That is a horrible thing to fake, that there will be people who don't want people to leave.

33:50We need you to stay here and die. You will die a Shahid. You'll go right to heaven. So it's okay. Don't worry about it. But that's not something that a lot of Westerners can really understand, both being kicked out of your homes and the concept of, well, you know what? If you die, it's God's will and you'll go right to heaven. But it's not God's will. I'm trying to leave right now and you're keeping me here. It's your will. It's not God's will. That is the issue with Hamas. Yeah, that is the issue with Hamas. Yes. Like also, hey, man, guys, I'm Christian because there's tons of Arab Christians, Palestinian Christians like, hey, I'm Christian.

34:23I don't need to die. But what do you mean, Shahid? No, I'm no, thank you. I'm here for a few more Christmases if I can get the hell out of here. I do feel, of course, horrible for this whole situation is absolutely terrible. Do we know what Israel's plan is in Rafa? I mean, after they try to evacuate it, I mean, it's going to be very difficult to do that. But are they just going to go house to house fighting Hamas? Is that the idea? Yes and no. They will go house to house, but they probably won't be as surgical as they could be. Because remember, this is the last stretch. I've said this before that a dead Palestinian can vote for the prime minister of Israel, but the mother of a dead Israeli soldier can.

35:03So if you have a choice between, you know, hey, there's a house, there's a machine gun in that house. There might be people in it too. Which IDF soldier wants to be the last one to die in this operation, right? So now if you have a choice, like, hey, we got Artie, we have artillery support, we can call in a JDAM strike. How likely are you to call in that JDAM strike? Yeah. You know, that'd be pretty darn likely. It's safer for you. Might be pretty darn likely. Ugh, this is such a mess, this conflict. It's really gross. Like, I understand both sides in so many ways. And I understand Israel has to respond to October 7th.

35:37But man, it's so difficult to wrap my mind around the number of civilians that are dying as a result of this. Anyway, that's a whole tangent we don't need to get into. But it's just this is going to be so horrible. It's tough. It's tough because, you know, when the whole thing started, I had said that the reason that Hamas grabbed these sausages was, hey, we're going to parcel these guys out for the next five years. There was a gentleman, Gilhage Salet, I might be pronouncing his name wrong. He was an Israeli soldier who was captured, I want to say, back in 2006 or so. And he was held prisoner until 2011.

36:14He was an Israeli soldier that was at a checkpoint. Hamas came through a tunnel. They killed a couple of his friends. They grabbed him, dragged him back to the tunnel. And he was held hostage for five years. And a huge embarrassment to the Israeli government. And I think these guys said... Gilhage Salet. Gilad Salih. And I think that Hamas said, we're going to grab 200 people or so. We're going to hold them hostage for the next five years. Israel will be tripping over themselves. And when Mahmoud Abbas finally dies, we'll say, we'll give you back all the hostages. And as long as you make us, well, as long as you appoint us the rulers of the West Bank, we'll give them all back.

36:52However, what they did not expect was for Israel to take a sledgehammer and hit them in the face. Right. So I've said that one of the miscalculations, at least on Hamas' side, is that Hamas thought Israel would be doing COIN, counterinsurgency. And they were prepared for a counterinsurgency operation. We will fight them one by one. They come in with the helicopters. We'll shoot at them. We'll move. We'll fight this insurgency against them. And instead, Israel did LISCO, or large-scale combat operations, where they just went in with a steamroller and just destroyed everything. And Hamas went, okay, was not expecting that.

37:25I mean, just a couple of days ago, there was talk of a ceasefire. And Israel said, oh, give us 40 prisoners. And unfortunately, Hamas can't find 40 living prisoners. Right. Whether that's because Israel has killed them inadvertently or more like. I mean, there's probably some of that. But it also seems like this whole October 7th raid was not just Hamas surgically going and grabbing people and bringing them back. Right. I mean, you have reports from hostages that they were kept with seemingly quite random Palestinian families in their house. That is one thing. And it's also possible that other, you know, I know one gentleman who works in an NGO, he works in a non-governmental organization, Paul Wagner.

38:04He fought in Ukraine. And when this war occurred after October 7th, he left Ukraine and hooked up with an NGO. And now he is working every day tirelessly to feed Palestinians as part of an organization that helps support World Central Kitchen, which we could talk about that one if you'd like as well. Yeah, that's a good, yeah, let's do that. This guy works every single day to feed these people. One of the things that he's said is how these people were not prepared for this absolute onslaught that they were facing. And there just wasn't the strategic reserves to feed people when, you know, if an incident like this happened.

38:43So this guy, Paul Wagner, fascinating guy. You mentioned World Central Kitchen. Can we talk about that? But that was this like massively horrible, I'll say mistake, accident. Some people don't think it was. Tell us what happened. So the World Central Kitchen is an organization. It's owned by Jose Andres. He actually has a number of restaurants in Washington, D.C. I've eaten at them. He's an incredible guy. So you're basically an expert on Jose Andres. I eat his food. Having eaten some of his food. He is a humanitarian and a real humanitarian. He doesn't care who is hungry. He will feed them. And he has operated in Ukraine.

39:18He has operated in many conflict zones, even inside the U.S. after a hurricane. He will set up shop. And World Central Kitchen was operating in a convoy of three trucks, and they were moving to a warehouse where they unloaded a certain amount of food. And they had already set up what's called the deconfliction notice. So World Central Kitchen, any NGO, any non-governmental organization coordinates with the IDF. They tell them, here's where we're going. Here's how long we're going to be there. Here's the route we're taking. here's what our trucks look like, here's how many personnel we have, here's how long we're going to be in each location.

39:52There's actually a website that Israel has, and you upload that information. Now, whether they get that information is a different story. And I think that's what might have happened. So these trucks, they went to a warehouse, maybe or maybe not, there was a Hamas or some sort of militia there, some sort of armed gang. Those armed gang members may have entered the same warehouse. So when those trucks left, the drone operators are looking, and all they know is that there were armed gang members who entered this one house, and then these trucks leave. And I don't think anybody looked at the actual paperwork that said, hey, World Central Kitchen is operating in this area.

40:32Now, another problem. On these World Central Kitchen trucks, on the sides and on the top of the truck were the World Central Kitchen logos as stickers. Stickers are great during the daytime. When you're traveling at night and you're using night vision, it's hard to see a sticker. Stickers don't tend to show up all that well in infrared. So the Israelis saw those trucks leave. They tailed those trucks. They went up their chain of command. Hey, we saw a bunch of guys go into a warehouse. Trucks left that warehouse. Do we have permission to engage? Yes. And they engaged those three trucks with drone drop munitions, most likely Hellfire missiles.

41:06And they killed seven World Central Kitchen employees. Now, what they probably should have done was coordinate with the Israelis and use what are called infrared strobes. Think of them as little strobe lights that only operate in the infrared frequency. And every day they might put a different pattern of strobes on top of their vehicles. And that way the IDF knows, OK, that's this particular unit or that's this particular NGO. They have this particular strobe code. We know that they're OK. But a number of Israelis were fired over that because they just didn't follow procedure and actually take a look at their documents and go, oh, yeah, we shouldn't fire it.

41:42This convoy could be World Central Kitchen. This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Ryan McBeth. We'll be right back. This is such a tragedy. And I'm active in the Palestine subreddit, which is a Reddit forum, but also the Israel subreddit, which is, of course, very active these days, both of them. And it was really interesting because, of course, the Palestine subreddit is full of people who are very pro-Palestine. The Israel subreddit is full of people who are very pro-Israel. after this convoy was hit, you couldn't tell which message was from which subreddit. Everybody was so horrified by this.

42:20Even inside Israel, it was just like, how did this happen? I want blood for this. And I was like, oh, they're really angry over there in the palace. Nope, this is the Israeli subreddit. I mean, they were just really, really, really upset about this, understandably. I mean, it's a terrible look, but also, for God's sake, I mean, how does a mistake like this happen? It's just absolutely tragic doesn't do it justice it doesn't there were a number so i always pronounce this incorrectly but there is a term in in hebrew yeah the set ah don't worry about it right so i could easily see someone from the idf going like okay yeah we have it we have your book don't worry about it we have the route everything's fine and just one person doesn't talk to the other deconfliction is hard.

43:07Russia found out how hard deconfliction was over the skies of Ukraine, where they're shooting down their own planes because they don't know which plane is where. We still screw it up. People in the JSOC, in the Joint Command Center in Qatar, who are controlling missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is very difficult when you have all these air assets flying and stuff on the ground. Imagine spinning plates, but some plates are up in the air, some plates are on the ground. You have to know where all this stuff is. However, why does Ryan McBeath have to come up with the idea of, hey, why don't we put IR strobes on top of our vehicles?

43:44It's funny you thought of that because I thought, how did they not see IR strobes on the vehicles? That was the first thing I thought of. I feel like they must have had that and still something went wrong, right? Because they just had stickers. The closest I've come to the military is training guys in the Rangers and stuff like that, basically giving a keynote speech and running some drills. Like that's the closest I've come to the military. I was in the Marine Reserves in college, but like that doesn't really, that's just you getting yelled at a bunch. And so this is not so novel that somebody like me should have thought of it.

44:14So I refuse to believe that that wasn't already, it just must have so many drawbacks that they didn't do it, right? Either that or they didn't care. It always worked before. We haven't had a problem yet. So it's not a problem until it is. If you're kind of under that mindset or under the mindset of, you know what, this is one of the bad things about Israel losing the information war. It might be a situation where they go like, look, if we accidentally strike an aid workers' vehicles, is the world going to hate us more? That's kind of a horrible calculus, right? That's interesting. Like, you know, look, we could spend all this extra time making sure these aid vehicles are okay so they don't get hit, or we can not do that.

44:52It probably won't happen. And if it does, what's the worst that can happen? The world hates us more. The world already hates us. Are they going to hate us harder? Yeah, that's right. We're in last place already. I mean, what they can't afford is to be hated so much. The United States says we are no longer going to back you. But I'm wondering what you think is the likelihood of this, because, you know, you hear these murmurs like Biden, we need to sanction Israel. It worked for South Africa. Right. We arms embargo and then boycott everything and yada. And it's like, OK, probably not going to happen.

45:24And on the other hand, if you blow up enough aid workers trying to deliver food to Gaza, the pressure starts to mount pretty quick. That's that's a tough one. And it's not just a lot of people who don't understand how the military works just think that Israel has a blank check. And whenever they want more hellfires, they just write up a check. They hand it to America. America ships over a bunch of hellfires. Doesn't really work like that. Now, one thing that we do have with Israel is a symbiotic relationship in the sense that we actually bought some of their trophy systems. And a trophy is almost like an iron dome for a tank.

45:58These trophy systems shoot down incoming anti-tank missiles. We bought, I think, about 100 of these trophy systems, and we installed them on M1 tanks, and those tanks are in Germany right now. We're getting telemetry data for how their missile systems work shooting down incoming missiles. So we help them develop technology. They help us develop technology. So actually creating some sort of embargo or sanctions wouldn't necessarily be in our best interest defense-wise. And also, if you can withhold weapons, you have a lot more control over somebody than if you don't. If you just sanction somebody and say, we're not going to give you weapons anymore, then you just totally lost control over those people.

46:38That's true. But as long as you are holding that carrot, dangling that carrot off the stick, you can say, listen, real armies make sure they have a humanitarian plan. So before you go into Rafa, you need to set up camps in that area between Khan Yunus and Almas Hawi and make sure those camps are staffed with people that have food. You have good hygiene latrines and a place for people to sleep. we're not going to release this, that or the other until you do that thing. So as long as you have some sort of thing to offer, then your partner might actually listen. I know the EU and the United States sanctioned Iran more as well after this latest sort of back and forth.

47:24I am no Iran simp. People on this show will know that I am not a fan of the Islamic regime. In fact, I should be really clear. Iran's like the top of my list in places I want to visit. However, I am not going there until the Ayatollah, the last Ayatollah, has taken his last breath and is lowered into the ground, right? I might get there just in time to throw a couple handfuls of dirt on that casket or whatever. But it sort of baffles me why we need it to pile on, right? Isn't the Israel-Iran thing kind of done? Why do the EU and the USA have to be like, yeah, and throw a little bit of spite after it?

47:58It doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I am actually not quite sure what else we can sanction. Yeah, that's the other thing. What are we tightening the screws on? This is already... Yeah, I think the only stuff we really allow in is humanitarian aid anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if you... Are you familiar with the Apple computer stores in Iran? No, are they real? They're fake, right? No, they're fake. So a couple of months ago, I made a lot of Iranian... I had no idea I had so many Iranian fans. When Mishal Mani was murdered by the religious police or the morality police in Iran, And I had all of these Iranians write me because they were protesting on the streets.

48:37They said, Ryan, help us fight back. Teach us how to make a bomb. They were everywhere. I got a ton of those, too. We need your voice, right? Make a bomb. That was a large effort. I don't know how to make a bomb. And if I know how to make a bomb, you know how to make a bomb. If you don't know how to make a bomb, you shouldn't be making a bomb. Because there's no such thing as a bomb maker who got a B, right? You're great at pass-fail. That's true. Yes, it is a pass-fail class. Don't be making a bomb in your mom's kitchen, right? these iranians would contact me and the best i could do is actually i released the iranian police radio spectrum so yeah you want to make a jammer i can help you do that right so i didn't really realize how many iranian fans i had and one of these kids he wants to study computer science and he said to me ryan should i buy a mac or a pc and i said mac you can buy a mac he's like yeah they have these apple stores they look like apple stores they dressed them up to look like apple stores, they have the white, the natural wood tables and they have everything laying out on the tables.

49:33People will travel to Qatar and Turkey and they'll buy iPhones and they'll buy iPads and they'll buy Macs and they bring them back to Iran and they set them up in their Apple store just like they're a real Apple store. Wow. Capitalism. That's how badly Iranians want to be Western. I see that all the time. My show actually has quite a large footprint of Iranian fans. It's like a not a double digit percentage, but a large single digit percentage of the audience just happens to be listening from Iran, which is highly unusual. And that's whenever I say this on the show, I always get messages like it's more than that because we all use VPNs.

50:08It's more than that. We all use VPNs to say we're in Canada or the United States or the UK. So could even be a double digit percentage of the audience, which is shocking, actually, because one, this show is in English. I mean, Iranians must speak really good English, especially if they're in large cities. two, this is one of those countries where it's really easy to conflate the people with the government. And it's kind of, it's really not, you know, when you go to North Korea, everyone's pretty on board with Kim Jong-un. But when you talk to Iranians who are even the ones that are in Iran, they're like, hell no, these ayatollahs are insane.

50:40Screw these guys. The government's insane. And they'll say things like, we're normal. Look at us. This is a party at my house. And what you see is a bunch of teenagers drinking beer and wine, hanging out, playing you couldn't tell aside from the occasional hijab that this was not a college party in indiana you really couldn't now one of the best movies i've ever seen it was called the iran job and it was about an american basketball player was never quite good enough to make the nba but he got a chance to play in iran and at one point in the movie this is a documentary this film grew following at one point in the movie he wanted to get a christmas tree these iranians they didn't really understand the concept of a Christmas tree, but my God, shopkeeper went to shopkeeper to help this guy try to find a Christmas tree.

51:27It's funny. And it was heartwarming seeing that. I think they are some of the warmest darn people. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's again, top of my list of countries I would love to visit a little bit scared to do it right now. Given shows like this that I make, I don't know how much they would like you're a journalist. No, no, I'm a podcaster. It's kind of like a journalist only. I have no qualifications and some of it is talking out of my ass. Oh, okay, well, you're still going to prison with the other journalists. So maybe you can learn some more of your craft inside. You are a spy. I know we're running up on time here.

51:57I see a lot of COPE online, like Iran should just finally destroy Israel. What do you think of that? I mean, Israel is, we're doing wink, wink, nudge, nudge, maybe a nuclear power. But you mentioned earlier, more importantly, Iran just doesn't have an expeditionary army, right? Which means they can't fight outside of Iran, correct? So both Iran and Israel have short arms and short legs. They can't bring stuff to the fight. And once they get to the fight, they can't sustain. So you've heard that term, what if they had a war but nobody came? It was popular during the 70s, right? Or Vietnam. What if they had a war but nobody came?

52:34What if they had a war and nobody could actually get there? Could you imagine Mexico trying to invade Ecuador? All right. Well, how? So if Iran actually wanted to fight a war with Israel, all right, well, they would have to go through Syria, they'd have to go through Iraq, they'd have to go through Syria. Those two countries might have something to say about mass divisions of troops traveling through their country, right? And then once they get to Israel, they're going to have to actually sustain and feed those troops. And that's a really tough thing to do when you're giving your artesh seven rounds of ammunition a year, right?

53:11So if you want to talk about a seaboard invasion, Iran has maybe seven amphibious troop ships, ships that can actually perform an amphibious landing. And by the time they got out of the Persian Gulf, they would be sunk. And Israel, they don't have any expeditionary capability to go much further than Lebanon, southern Lebanon, if that. A lot of it, it just comes down. I don't believe they have a single, their navy doesn't have a single amphibious assault ship. And why? Who are they invading? Right. Israel is a mostly defensive army with some minor expeditionary capability near their borders. So you can say you're having a war all you want, but a war might actually be tossing missiles and cyber attacks at each other.

54:00It won't actually involve physical troops fighting on the ground, because how do you get there? And once you get there, how do you sustain? It seems like Iran is also really tough to even the United States, I would say, would have a really tough time with Iran because it's mountains galore. You know, the terrain is crazy. Yeah. Iran, if they are going to overthrow the despotic Ayatollah, crazy, kooky regime, it's really got to come from inside. And it's got to be like a lot of people got to be on board with that in order for that to fall. It is. We could probably sink the Iranian Navy in an afternoon.

54:33Yeah. That wouldn't be so much of an issue. What was that operation where we kind of already did that? Oh, that was, oh my goodness. It was during the 1980s. It was, oh my goodness, I cannot remember. It's so often that I hear this. Operation Praying Mantis. Praying Mantis, yes. We destroyed some of their oil platforms that they were using. April 18th, 1988. So we just passed the anniversary of that. The operation's goals were to neutralize surveillance posts on gas and oil separation platforms, sink something called the Sabalon, which I assume is a frigate, Iranian frigate, and avoid civilian casualties and minimize environmental effects, which I'm surprised to see there in the 80s.

55:14Like, oh, we should probably care about not dumping a bunch of oil in the water. That was like they sunk a huge percentage of the Iranian Navy in one day. And that was in the 80s. So one of the things that Iran has is they have entire squadrons of fast attack boats. Think of a cigarette boat, like a cartel cigarette boat. Yeah. And they'll just strap two anti-ship missiles on the cigarette boat. Iran is really good at doing things on the cheap. Now, they might not be able to afford a large frigate. I think they have a couple large frigates, but I don't believe any of them are new. But they can pump out these small, fast attack boats that are very difficult to hit.

55:53And if you do shoot some ordnance at them, You're firing a$5 million missile at a cigarette boat that costs$250 ,000. Maybe the missiles, both missiles, both the ordnance on those boats probably cost more than the actual boat. You have a lot of targets out there. You can have these swarms where you have multiple ships coming at you. So it might actually be, I don't have to take that at bag. It might actually be harder to sink the entire Iranian Navy in one day if we're talking about the cigarette boats as well. Yeah. But Iran is so good at doing stuff on the cheap. Either way, not a conflict that Israel can handle and not a conflict that Iran could also handle.

56:31So we're not worried about these two. Although if Israel has nukes, which again, like, you know, we kind of know that they do, that would go a long way. We obviously hope for we don't have any nuclear escalation because that's that's the whole thing about, quote unquote, destroying Israel is like they're not that's not going to happen. Right. If it gets close to, hey, we're being invaded by seven armies on each side, they're just going to drop bombs on the capitals of those countries doing that. Correct. Yes, I can see that. I also, one of the other issues with a lot of those armies is that if you, you know, they say Israel is surrounded by adversaries, and that's sort of.

57:05For the most part, the Jordanians, at least their rulers, the Jordanian king, they're very Western. Their military is not going to invade Israel. The Egyptians, their military is more of a for-profit industry these days. If you want to do a show about the Egyptian military, it's a fascinating military. They own like soda bottling plants and they have their own... Oh, absolutely. They're building a new governmental center, a new capital that's think about 40 miles away from Cairo out in the middle of the desert. Their military headquarters is actually larger than the Pentagon. It's going to be larger than the Pentagon.

57:40The Egyptian army is basically a for-profit industry. So you don't necessarily want to go to war or profit. What else do you have? Syria. Syria is a basket case. All right, they can barely defend themselves. You have Lebanon. All right, well, Lebanon, for the most part, the military in Lebanon is busy trying to keep the peace. They're not necessarily anti-Israeli. Hezbollah, they're kind of like their own military. They might be able to invade Israel, but they certainly wouldn't be able to hold any ground. They wouldn't be able to sustain as well. So what other countries do you have? Iraq, it'd be a tough time getting there.

58:14Saudi Arabia, same thing. So you could have that scenario of seven nations invade Israel, but these days all those other seven nations are occupied. And for the most part, they don't have expeditionary armies. They're all what are called palace guard armies, like you alluded to before. How the function of the army is to keep the ruler in power. Ryan, thank you very much. This is we're probably going to end up doing something else because I feel like this conflict is going to get messier before it gets better. What do you think? I hope not. But I love coming on the show. I always appreciate you reaching out to me.

58:49You're about to hear a preview of my previous interview with General Spaulding, recorded a few years back. Underneath everything that's going on in our peacetime environment, our democracy is being undermined at nearly every connection with the Chinese Communist Party. The techniques that they use and the strategies they use to acquire technology are so diverse and so widespread. The entire economy is driven by the Communist Party and they can force entire industries to do exactly what they say. What you're seeing is the actual execution of a document called Unrestricted Warfare. And it was written by two PLA colonels back in 1999.

59:30I read it when it came out. It didn't pertain to the way at the time I thought about warfare. You use military forces to take territory. This was pervasive across society in such a way that you could see the elements of an airstrike using bongs, except you were using ones and zeros and dollars and cents, data and finance to essentially displace the United States on the world stage and force us to submit. You think, wow, this is 1984. This is a science fiction movie. It can't be real. A country can't actually be doing this. Yet there it is. This was all so surprising to me how deep this all goes.

1:00:07We are actually financing the construction of the Chinese military, the government, all of their cities, their whole country that they are now using to try to control the behavior of the rest of the world. It's just outright insane. To hear more about how the Chinese Communist Party has quietly been at war with the United States and the West for years, check out episode 268 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. Thanks again to Ryan for coming on the show. I don't know. Did World War III start in 2014? I guess time will tell. All things Ryan McBeth will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. He's over there, ryanmcbeth.substack.com.

1:00:47Also, we'll link to his YouTube channel in the show notes. Transcripts in the show notes as well. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show. All at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Don't forget about our six-minute networking course. I didn't do a plug for it in this episode, but y 'all have heard the show before and you know what that course is about. That's over at sixminutenetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or just connect with me on LinkedIn. I love talking with you there, too. This show is created in association with Podcast One.

1:01:18My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in current events, wants a little bit of clarity on Iran, Israel, the whole recent events surrounding that, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

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