Transcript of Inside the Insane F-15 WSO Rescue in Iran by U.S. SOF | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS New

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. Oh my God, people are lining in, they're packing in the place. Andy Milburn's here. Hi Andy. We just started recording. Jack Murphy, Jonathan Hackett, oh, Mark Polymeropoulos too.

This is unprecedented.

Full house here today.

That means this is the first time it's happened.

I have not even brushed my teeth or washed my face yet.

Great job. We're going to give you a slice of Ukraine for this.

Thank you.

Appreciate that. I don't need a big spot either. I don't need a big slice either.

I almost didn't appear after seeing the crude jokes about— I won't even say what they were about on Signal, D.

About Jack's pending OnlyFans? No. Okay, so great news for once. Great. Not about the OnlyFans, but about the F-15 weapons system officer being rescued. By a special operations raid that I'm going to give kudos to where they deserve that. Jack Murphy broke first and everyone doubted him. But let's get back to the story because that's the most important thing.

Who doubted him?

Yeah, come on, bro. Come on, bro. You saw all the people chirping. Don't get me crazy, Mark.

It doesn't—

it doesn't matter.

It's just the peanut gallery.

Hey, D, before we turn to the Jack Show, And I do want to say up front, yeah, I'm overjoyed and very happy that we rescued an Air Force colonel from the hinterland of Iran. There's no downside to that. But I am concerned that there's kind of this incredible focus on this one very small event. I mean, it is a human life's never small. I understand.

That's good news.

That's why we've all been at war and we know saving one dude is good news, but it's a very small piece of the whole. And in the long run, yes, we do these things. I think one of you said, I think Mark said, we do these things very well or expected to do very well. We have the world-class organization that's dedicated to it. I don't want to diminish it, but what comes next and what else have we been doing or not doing, I think, should be focus of at least 5% of the show. But I don't want to take away from— Jack's already walked out.

How dare you?

Sorry, this was awesome, man. I'm back and I'll shut up.

Awesome. That would have been legendary.

Yeah, so I mean, everybody knows the news now. Uh, major raid happened, uh, some hiccups on the way out as well, but everyone got back safe. We had to blow up a couple of C-130s and a Little Bird, but all the Americans were safely returned to like friendly airspace. So a good story. And yeah, you're right, Andy, like the rest of it's a shit show. But, you know, where do you guys want to start? I think we need to talk about this for sure a little bit, and then we'll talk about, you know, the impending, you know, bombing bridges and power plants day that's coming up on Tuesday. But yeah, Jack, tell us, run it down for us and then we'll get into it and let the guys take over.

Yeah, no, it sounds good. I'll try to keep it brief. To be clear too, I mean, I don't know everything and don't want to put myself up like I do. You know, this thing is still developing and the military itself, I'm sure, is still doing all their after-action reviews to try to figure out for themselves exactly what happened. But the broad pieces of it, as you know, there was an F-15 pilot on the ground who was escaping and evading for about 24 hours. Inside Iran. And from what we can tell about the, um, the, the effort to get him back, um, they did a lot of airstrikes to keep the Iranians off of his back. Um, the Iranians had flooded a lot of assets into the area, were actively searching for him. And meanwhile, we have to get, you know, a ground team, helicopters in to actually extract the guy. And as we now know, they set up, uh, what's called a FARP, or a Forward Air Refueling Point. Um, so for like people who aren't familiar, when you have to fly helicopters, but also airplanes sometimes, especially long distances, you have to set up some sort of like a fuel depot.

Um, you know, I did this many moons ago for Little Birds in Iraq, you know, just driving out somewhere and taking a fuel blivet out, leaving it in the field for a Little Bird pilot. Sometimes this is a little bit more elaborate. There's a C-130 aircraft flown in that was refueling, um, some of these helicopters. And this kind of plays into, you know, how the pilot was actually pulled out of there. So they occupied this improvised landing strip set up the FARP, and the pilot was eventually pulled out by Little Birds. So those were, of course, the smaller, lighter aircraft that 160 flies, shorter range than a CH-47 or, uh, MH-60. Um, so that kind of explains why the refueling part was so important to this. And I don't know all the tactical decisions that were made and why they used this airframe, but perhaps part of it was because he was in these mountains, reportedly I don't know how bad it was if he was like hanging on the side of a cliff or something, but maybe he was difficult to get to. So they went in and extracted him. But then on the way out, the C-130 got, as I understand, a wheel stuck in the sand.

It like sunk into the dirt and the crew was trying to dig it out. And that resulted in some delays. It took them a while to get off of that FARP. and the Delta Force element that was standing by as a quick reaction force was actually called in. They came in and helped blow up the aircraft. I mean, I know C-130 was blown. Some media reports are saying two C-130s. Um, it'll— I also believe at least one helicopter was blown up. I guess they just determined that they could not recover them and get them home for whatever reason. Um, and After that happened, you know, whichever new aircraft, probably helicopters that they flew in, um, the QRF on, they got everybody on those and flew them back home. And they were, uh, they were back over the Persian Gulf probably around 11:30, uh, Eastern Standard Time last night. Um, and that was pretty much the end of the operation as far as that's concerned. But I mean, the airstrikes are still ongoing. So that, that's like the, the thumbnail sketch. And we'll find out a lot more in the coming days and weeks, I'm sure.

Where did they fly out of, Jack?

I'm not sure. Well, I know a couple of places where JSOC has been pre-positioned, but yeah, I probably wouldn't get into that right now. But, but somewhere in the Persian Gulf.

Yeah.

That's very helpful.

Yeah, that's, that's tracking with everything. Obviously Jack is the one that broke it. So well done, Jack. I was tracking it all day yesterday, as we all know, because we were exchanging texts all day. I think that's spot on, at least from what I know. I would also agree, just to start with Andy, that this is incredible. You know, great news really does highlight the ethos of the US military. We never leave somebody behind and we take extraordinary measures to get them back. I'd also point out, and I know Mark's going to have something to say about this. Great job to start with. Great job to say the agency, they are telling people essentially they use a deception campaign and then found this individual and then vectored in these heroic operatives of JSOC to recover them. Great news. Would really like to see people adhere to the, you know, silent professionals because it does compromise I think, things in the future. So we're talking about it because it's in every news outlet in the world right now. Um, but I'd also point out it isn't unique to this experience. If you remember Abbottabad, uh, it was like a race to tell every possible thing that went into that as well.

And it, and it exposed a lot of things that we shouldn't have. So I'd start with that. But the kudos part, as usual, when you compare, when you pair JSOC and the agency, super good things can happen. Uh, and then I would shift right now and say, now we got to figure out what shot down the F-15. Uh, is it a new weapon system that was introduced? If it was, who did it? Uh, I don't believe the Iranians, that they somehow just developed it on their own in the middle of a war. Uh, and whether that's going to have an impact. And then second, and I'll hold until we get to this point, the war goes on. The war goes on. Like, we're running out of deadline here. Uh, it looks like it's Tuesday now. We're talking about bombing infrastructure, which of course is going to have a legal connotation to it. Bridges, which might indicate larger operations going on.

I would also jump in real quick, Mick, and point out, uh, there were also two Reapers shot out of the sky in the process of this operation. One, the day that the F-15 went down, there was a Reaper shot down, and then yesterday another one got shot down. Shot down. So I, I think they are using, um, it's called like the Tyer surface-to-air missile. It's something that they make. That, that's what's suspected. But there are Russian S-300, S-400 systems out there. I don't know if we've destroyed all of them or not.

Hey, one thing I just want to throw out there, because, because I sent it in our, uh, in our most wonderful, uh, chat we have— if anyone ever gets a hold of that, we're all screwed, by the way. But I was just thinking back to, and again, my background's a little bit different than everybody else. I was not in the military before, but I was in the agency obviously and did a lot of stuff with Mick and others. And I just remember going through the ISOPREP protocols on the infill into Baghdad when I was with Task Force 160 on their bird. And I was flying in there. I'm like, I forgot everything I was supposed to remember. And so, and so I want to know from you guys, do you actually, and Mick was honest in the chat. He's like, yeah, I kind of remember. Did you remember protocols for, you know, behind enemy lines stuff?

Like, yeah, just let everybody know what ISOPREP means.

It's, it's, it's, we probably shouldn't even be talking about it. It's just a protocol of, of, you know, with your, when you're, uh, the ISOPREP card isn't classified.

You can find it online.

Um, isolated.

It's basically just information that you fill out so that in case you become a POW during a war, um, that you can be identified.

And there are some signals and stuff about your background that you're, you're going to communicate over radio. And if someone's— if a rescue force is coming at you— but I literally was like, I have no idea what I said. I'm totally screwed. So I'm gonna go through everybody. Jack, did you remember your ISOPREP protocols?

I think so. I think the questions were so blatantly obvious, there's no way I could forget. Like, like, what high school did you go to? You know, things like that.

Andy? I— yeah, I—

no, I'm with you.

I, I don't think I could I can't remember them.

I—

because when you—

so imagine, imagine the Delta Force team comes in to rescue Andy Milburn or Mark Polymeropoulos, and they're like, Mark, what's your hometown? Like, I don't remember, bro. Like, oh, sorry, sorry, dude, we gotta leave you here.

I had, I had more sophisticated ones than that, John. But Jack, I think it's— I'm sorry, go, go ahead, Mark.

I just want to give you a poll. Jonathan, did you remember him?

So I didn't remember it when I was going into country, but then when I was working on personal recovery planning, I realized how important actually all that stuff was. And I was like, I should probably start remembering this stuff.

And you already admitted you might. Yeah, right.

I think Jonathan remembers everything, to be frank. Yes, I have been in situations where I started thinking about them.

But Jack, like, I would ask, what happened? You know what situation you'd use size prep? And that didn't really apply in this case, right? Presumably. The pilot had a beacon for— and, you know, for some reason there was some delay in either picking up the signal or they located the signal, but it was in an inaccessible area. Or maybe someone was telling me— actually, I better pause here because I don't think this is classified, but there's different protocol for beacon activation when you're in combat from when you're training. In training, it goes on automatically, but there may have been a delay, right? And that's normally how you, how you locate a downed pilot.

Yeah, this is outside my area of expertise. I'm not really an aviation guy, but I had someone tell me that the beacon is supposed to activate when they eject from the aircraft, but it also has something to do with like the angle of the aircraft and how they come out. Like the pitch of the aircraft can affect that. I don't understand how that works, but apparently it does make a difference. and, and as far as how they actually located him, I don't know. No one's told me, you know, for certain this is how it happened, but I'm sure it was a beacon or a survival radio that they ended up picking him up on.

There's also, let me just throw in here because Mick alluded to it and it has been in the press, there's, there's some, I guess, reporting in multiple, organizations, actually basically everybody, that the agency had some role, in the recovery. Not only there was a deception campaign, but also in the actual recovery. And, Mick alluded to just kind of what bothered me, and I was of course, you know, howling about it in our chat, just the notion of this is not something that should be for public consumption. And it's clear that kind of the agency public relations folks were sending this out at about 2 o'clock in the morning to news organizations talking about that the agency had something to do with it. And, you know, so we don't know what that means, how they were able to locate him. The quote they said is that it was based on exquisite capabilities. You know, you don't know if that's signals intelligence, if it's any kind of non-assisted recovery, you know, human intelligence network, who the heck knows what it is. —things that people do and train for and prepare for. But I think we all would have preferred that not be out.

And it just goes to that notion of— and Mick's right that this administration's going to do the same thing that other administrations did. Obama came out and all the details of the Abbottabad operation to kill bin Laden certainly filtered out. But it's better off if this is not— it turns into kind of who's bragging about it. What's the old saying that Success has 1,000 fathers, failure is an orphan. I can assure you that the agency would not have been emailing press organizations if this thing went tits up. And so, I would much prefer if that would not be in public, because you don't know if they could potentially compromise stuff. And it does go to the notion of, in this administration, everybody's really working for one individual, and that's the president, and everyone's got to try to impress them. And so, Hegseth is going to brag about this, as is John Ratcliffe. It would just be better if this was kept quiet. And again, a tremendous operation. I did have a list of— someone sent me a list of things that were lost. Obviously, it was the F-15, an A-10, 2 Pave Hawks as well, 3 Little Birds, 2 C-130s, and at least 3 MQ-9s.

And I don't know if that's accurate or not.

The Reapers sounds right. The Pave Hawks, I don't think they were shot down, but they were shot up. Pretty, pretty easy. Shot up. Yeah.

So I mean, that's about a half billion dollars worth of airframes there, I would think.

The pilots were hit substantially, as I understand it.

So again, it's sobering and just incredible that this colonel gets to go home on Easter to his family. And I'm sure we'll hear a lot more about him because once again, and this is just the way it is, we're going to see him at the White House. There's no doubt about that. But Last point on this, exactly what Mick had said is there's gotta be now a discussion of what happens next because Trump put out the Truth Social post basically with a little Allahu Akbar in the end, which I don't know if it's weird or racist or whatever the hell it is, but basically promising all sorts of Armageddon in the next 48 hours if Iran didn't open up the Strait of Hormuz, we'd start hitting infrastructure targets. So interesting that the White House couldn't kind of bask in the victory of this. They then put this out and now the discussion does have to shift into what comes next. And, and so here we are. It's Sunday. And that deadline, I guess, is on Tuesday.

Yeah. Let me get Hackett here. John, what's your take on all this?

Well, when we talked about the nonstandard assisted recovery, I think it's important to know that there are people in the region that would be there to help, whether that— whether we ask them to help or not. So in some cases, we would have set up some structures to have that. But in other cases, there are people there that are just like, we want to help the American in the area because we don't support the regime. And there were some videos circulating yesterday evening in that village, the particular village that he was on the northwest corner of, of vehicles barricading the roads to prevent the Iranian security forces from actually effecting a search. And these people had their cars just kind of strewn all about. If you see the video, it's very interesting. It's almost like a passive resistance because if you remember, the regime's aircraft are all destroyed or obliterated mostly, so they can't be used for the search and rescue. They can't use helicopters. They can't use any of these air assets except drones. So they're basically on the ground trying to drive to the location. If you look on a map, this is like powder dirt area.

It's really rough. Like when I heard the C-130 got stuck there, I was not surprised because it's basically like that moon dust that you'd see in like Helmand Province, for example, if anyone's been to Afghanistan that's listening, that you just get stuck in it. It's really tough. And, um, that's the same problem we had with Desert One in 1980, that landing site, that it was just this moon dust that just eats stuff when it lands on it. Um, so it was actually very nice to see that the locals there resisting the regime to try to help that American gain some time, just a little bit of envelope of time to get up probably into that higher ground so they could be rescued.

That's interesting. That hasn't been reported.

And that area is the Lur area. That's an ethnic group that's been persecuted by the regime since day one. That's fascinating. The pilot was actually lucky to have gone down in that area. It's right south of Shiraz. And these people, the Luri people, are very tribal, very like closely connected to each other. And they've been, you know, trying to get rid of the regime out of that area for a long time. So probably the first moment they heard about this, they said, hey guys, let's go out and start doing something.

Before we, we go on to perhaps more momentous— I was surprised to see, I think it's the Wall Street Journal covered this story that you guys were just talking about, the deception claim by, by the agency saying— and it gets back to, it does seem extraordinary, doesn't it, that an intelligence agency would would announce that, uh, because especially from, from Mick and Mark, doesn't that potentially compromise a method if they did use that method? It compromises using it again. I mean, they're saying that they, they somehow planted a story, uh, that gained momentum that the airman had already been recovered. Now, I don't know how they did that. I mean, if it's— but But it's not, it just, I'm not commenting that it seems unseemly, but it just seems extraordinary unless there's some motive other than chest beating.

No, it isn't unseemly. I think it's bragging. It's the notion of people trying to take credit and everyone's vying for their kind of supremacy in the national security pantheon. You know, that's why Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard and Marco Rubio all have offices at the White House. They spend a lot of time there. So I think, is it going to compromise sources and methods? I don't know, but it certainly doesn't help. And the problem is now that everyone kind of has the sniffing around on this. I mean, you can't email reporters at 2 o'clock in the morning, which is what the agency did. Then the reporters were then using the quote, according to a senior administration official. But it's not. It was the agency public relations staff. So now they're going to start digging. They wouldn't have been digging without this. And when reporters in Washington start digging, they're eventually going to get the story and someone's going to say something. And so to me, that was kind of just unnecessary. Hey, what's up, guys?

This is D. Do us a favor and check out our Patreon page. It's patreon.com/teamhouse. You get both Teamhouse episodes and Eyes on Geopolitics episodes. Completely ad-free. Uh, you get them early too. You can ask us questions. You can also watch the Team House episodes live as we shoot them. So, uh, and you help support the show and support what we're doing here. Um, it's patreon.com/theteamhouse. Those links are in the description, or if you're listening, it's in the show notes down below so you can click it real quick and easy. And it helps us keep the lights on. Uh, so we appreciate it, and we appreciate you guys listening. Thanks a bunch.

And for, for the agency guys here, I mean, we have representatives from all over here, right? Even the Ranger Regiment, equal opportunity. But for, for Mick and Mark specifically, I, and I think you made a comment about this, Mark, actually in our chat, but there are, again, you know, I'm not downplaying this, but there are more important things in intelligence agency should be focusing on during this war. I hate to hold up Mossad as an example, but presumably they know a fair amount about what's going on, Iranian intentions, that they've clearly infiltrated Iran's regime to quite an extent. And there's been very little talk about what the Iranians do next. We broadcast what we're doing. Presumably we're relying on the on the Israelis to do this? Or, I mean, do we— are we too focused on minutiae, I guess, in the intelligence community is where I'm heading, and too reliant on our partners to do this?

Let me just— Mick, I want Mick to answer it because I'm going to raise something with him. This is where Mick's old world and what he did in the paramilitary side is so good. There's 20 years of the GWAT and we perfected this. and I had, I dabbled in it when I was a base chief, and then I worked on some ISR stuff, but the kinetic part of it, manhunting or personnel recovery or covert action, that's what Mick and his SAC colleagues did and were really good at it. What I do question now is, are we good at penetrating the Iranian regime in terms of an asset in the Supreme Leader's office, plans and intentions? This is strategic intelligence that can formulate decision-making. And I wonder if the agency kind of got drunk on its own success in GWAT stuff, and I'm guilty of it. And, you know, we wouldn't even say guilty. That's what we're tasked to do. But are we good at kind of hard target foreign intelligence operations where we can help the president and his national security team say, what's the Iranians going to do next? And Mick, that's teeing it up for you.

Yeah, thanks, Mark. I mean, you know, we just had this summit out here and on the intel side, there was all different components of the agency. It wasn't just, you know, the PM dudes. I think sometimes we, to be frank, we get too much credit, not credit, but like it's just so much attention because of the, it plays well, put it that way. When a lot of what the agency does is behind the scenes and nobody talks about it and they do incredible work. So I actually, yes, we're very good at finding people. That's why I was pointing out you put JSOC and the CIA together. We can do a lot of this stuff and it's the most significant operations that we all talk about. and we should still be able to do that. And we should be able to do all of this, by the way. It's not— it's like a DC thing to say it's either or, like, oh, either you do paramilitary stuff or you penetrate the Kremlin. I like that. Let's do both, man. Um, I think we do actually have really good human assets. If you look at, like, before the war in Ukraine, how much information we actually had, I think there's a lot of examples of that.

Where I think it actually breaks down, and I get a lot of this from my last job is do people listen to it, right? Because it, you know, if, if even if we have the best penetration, the best analyst, you know, analyst and the analytical product, it still has to be listened to by the policymakers. If they all go on their own presumptions as if their just thoughts are just as important as, you know, the agency's analytical piece on, uh, what Putin intends to do is equal, then it just doesn't necessarily work. So a part of it is whether it's used correctly. I always thought that when we discuss policy, the intelligence community— so it's not just the agency, of course— that should be what sets the facts. If they don't set the facts, then it's just personal presumptions and agendas that sets the facts. Then we go from there on discussing you know, what we should do based on that. Uh, and I think that's where— and not just in, you know, this administration but other administrations, where they just, they treat it as just another data point. And I, I think we need to get back to like, no, that's the entire 18—

one thing on that, Nick, though, is that I hear you, and everyone knows the president probably doesn't listen. But, you know, Marco Rubio, um, still gets the PDB, the president's daily brief. So does Dan Kaine, the chairman. So does Pete Hegseth. Basically the entire national security cabinet gets the PDB. So with that argument, that would then say that, okay, the intelligence, the analysis, everything was there, and then the entire national security team ignored it, as did the president. And so to me, that's where I kind of, that's where I think the congressional oversight's got to come in. Where's hipsy and sissy saying what was in the PDB, what was briefed to people, and what did you XYZ cabinet members say to the president? Because The argument that everything was there and everything was solid and good, fine, the president doesn't listen, but then does Ratcliffe not brief him? What about Tulsi Gabbard? What about Dan Kaine? What about Pete Hegseth? What about Marco Rubio? And so then the process really has fallen down. What are they scared of telling the president the truth or is he just not listening? So that's where I think there needs to be some more kind of certainly media attention.

Yeah, so just quickly on that, I mean, I think you're spot on and I think we're gonna find out, right? So the imminent threat, was it, wasn't it? Regime change, what did the intelligence community say collectively about the possibility of that happening? If it's in there that said it's not going to happen, and then we went out and said it was, I mean, that's a choice. It's not a crime, of course. It's just a difference of opinion. But we'll find out how accurate the intelligence community was on things like that. It's going to come out eventually.

In the aftermath of the 7th of October. Of course, you know, everyone asks the question, how does Israel with one of the most technically competent intelligence communities in the world miss all the pointers and pointers there were aplenty? And the answer is they didn't miss them, but no one was listening because they were so programmed into thinking that Hamas was not a threat. But the reports were being made and the briefs were being made. But I just want to follow on question for you guys because I mean, isn't it fair to say— it's kind of a rhetoric question, right? But isn't it fair to say, I mean, the US intelligence community is held most accountable probably among all Western intelligence communities, right? I mean, since, you know, things like the Church Commission, the requirement to share certain intel with the committees. And so isn't it the case that where there are failures, at least there is accountability and follow-up and a reckoning? Wait, do some—

HPSI and SISI kind of like tie Congress into the intelligence community in a way that I don't think really exists even in other Western countries where it's like, hey, Congress, you're culpable for this as well.

Yeah, I mean, I've— most other services are like close to on par with us. They don't do near the same amount of oversight. I mean, I've talked to— I don't— I mean, I've talked to the Israelis that say like, hey, all our lawyers do is write our wills. That's it. Right. You know, like, um, we obviously, I mean, it's, we're different country. I'm not, I'm not complaining or saying it should change, but well, we get along. So the idea of the old idea that we're rogue is just things that have happened in the past, right?

Yeah. It's an interesting kind of like dynamic that, you know, we have like a powerful intelligence community, but at the same time, like I mean, just the, the Teamhouse podcast that we do, tell me what country would clear its intelligence officers, former intelligence officers, to come and like talk about the profession and, and have some sort of interface with the public. So America is in a very like kind of unique position in that sense.

Not only that, but drink hard alcohol in a living room setting.

That's, that's totally you, Milburn.

New York Times, New York Times quote.

That was a New York Times quote, right? Yeah. We're very proud of that. Jack, I just got a note from someone and you'll like this because it's very highbrow. I'm not going to tell you what it is from The Atlantic though. So Atlantic's pretty reputable place. And let me find this. Hold on. Here it goes. He wrote, you sent something. He goes, Jack's take, smiley face. He said he has very good sources. There you go. My ears are popped.

Tell him to cite Jack in his next article. I promise.

You know. Well, I— There's something to be said. I mean, you know, and just not to toot your horn too much, but, you know, the importance of kind of independent journalism is huge. And one of the things, and I think it's worth talking to a little bit, is that what bothers me is both just like Mick, we work for established organizations, is a lot of the reporting is just regurgitation of some senior administration official calling someone a reporter and giving them their spin. And then it turns out to, and then they just kind of spew it out. And that drives me crazy. That's not deep dive reporting. That's not actually getting to the facts. And everybody kind of follows Axios religiously because they have a direct line into the administration on stuff. It literally is a propaganda arm. And I like those folks and I know them. If you understand that, it's fine. I do want to hear what Axios reports on the Middle East, but I also know that it's coming from Jared Kushner and Steve Wittkoff directly. It's interesting, but it's not news. And so what you do and some others is actually really important because it's deep dives.

A lot of times it's long, kind of hard several investigations. But you do get people to talk to you and talk to you not as an administration official spewing the line. It's actually what actually is happening. So kudos on that.

I appreciate that, Mark. And I'll just point out, I write a lot of this sort of investigative stuff with Sean Naylor on the High Side, and we have a couple JSOC pieces we're working on now. That I can't get into at the moment, but one of them will be coming out probably in the coming weeks. And then the other, depending on how things shape up in the Middle East, how that went, when that, when, if that will ever see the light of day. But yeah, thanks. Thanks for that, Mark. Appreciate it.

Hey, Jonathan, I got a question for you because I think where we should, should we shift? Sorry, D, I'm stealing your thunder on one. I love it. I just want to make sure we get this in here. Is, so we just saw this really extraordinary ground op. It was a ground operation. There's a pilot or an aviator down, sorry, WSO down. Clearly US Special Forces on the ground. We lost maybe half a billion dollars worth of aircraft, a firefight, all this stuff that happened. Thank God everything's okay. Now, Jonathan, we're talking about, you know, the 82nd Airborne's there, the 75th Ranger Regiment. There's, you know, the MEU is now on station. What does the events of the last several days mean for US forces on the ground in Iran? It seemed to me the Iranians put up a bit of a fight. And, and so, you know, is it something American people should get, okay, better get prepared cuz you know, we're not gonna get lucky again. That just doesn't happen time after time. And so, you know, what are your thoughts on now future ground operations, especially with Trump, you know, threatening Armageddon?

It's interesting you asked that cuz actually right before this I was on with BBC and they asked me the exact same thing. There you go. And, uh, I, I'll tell 'em, I'll tell you what I said to them basically, that the personal recovery mission's a contingency operation that's bolted on to the main operation. And it's not going to shift the direction of flow of what's happening in the decision space, both with Admiral Cooper and with the president all the way between the two of them. So we executed that well and successfully, but it doesn't change really like the momentum of the larger operation going on. And still, I think the president's trying to decide, do I do a ground invasion or not? Do I take Heart Island or not? Do I do the uranium or not? And I think, you know, there's a lot in the administration pushing him toward the infrastructure option. which would be a disastrous choice for a variety of reasons, not just from the international law perspective, but also like if you want the will of the people in Iran to remain on your side, don't take out their electricity, their water, their food, their safety, what remains of it.

And we've talked about this on the show before that in 2003, we had a very successful invasion in the first few months. And then we made some strategic mistakes in how we handled the people in the country. And that turned out very badly for every person involved on every side. And I think that we're nearing that kind of ledge right now, as far as decision, which direction do we move? And I think hitting infrastructure, which certainly take us toward that bad outcome. And I think that's what is probably the pressure going on right now in where do we go. But that personal recovery mission, I think, is kind of a nicely packaged success that's not exactly connected to that main effort that we're seeing moving forward. Well, on to it.

There's a lot of you guys. Someone has something to say. Yeah.

So Andy or Mick or Jack, someone, you know, in terms of, all right, ground ops next. What does this, what does this tell us?

Yeah, I mean, John, John actually, John, he, John's like the darling of the BBC, but because he's tired sometimes of being the poster boy, the British public, he farms out in a little way. He's like, yeah, you know, I've got a friend who can probably answer those questions better. And so I appeared on The Telegraph podcast with Oliphant, right? Roland Oliphant, which is a real name, talking about potential ground operations. And I'll keep this very quick because you guys, you know, I don't want to overstate the obvious, but we talked through 5 different types of ground operations from targeted raids in the Straits of Hormuz going after specific target sites with an immediate withdrawal. right, all the way through to the uranium mission, which we can now discard, by the way, because the president said uranium is not important. So that narrows it down to 4 potential ground operations. And I'll list them just for the sake of— if I've missed anything, let me know. So number 1, lowest risk, targeted raids. By the way, when I talk about raids and I talk about Marines being involved, and this is for argument among you guys, whether you're Marines or not, but we're not talking about AAVs and amphibious shipping in the Straits of Hormuz.

That would be insane beyond, you know, even my battalion commander's, previous battalion commander's perception of risk. You know, we're probably talking long-range insertion using V-22s with a massive aviation stack overhead. So it's a, it really is a limited, you can, it's just like the mission that just took place. You can't sustain that indefinitely, right? So anyway, targeted raids going after two things, you know, things that could not be destroyed from the air, radar, storage facilities, missile launchers. Missile launchers, by the way, are notoriously difficult to hit from the air, right? Because BDA, I think one of you said, and I couldn't agree more, BDA is always bullshit unless you put boots on the ground to verify BDA. So you've got a kind of a— you've got the destruction element, and then you've got the confirmation element and putting boots on the ground to do that. And the Marines can train to do that. I didn't— and it's feasible. I didn't say it's a good idea. All right, it's still high risk. And you don't really get a strategic gain because even if you knock out all these threats on the strait, in the Straits of Hormuz, on those half a dozen islands, You haven't eliminated the threat because you've got like a 30-mile coastline just to the north.

And even if you, by the way, even if you secure that coastline, Iranians can lob things over the head of troops on the ground from the Iranian hinterland, as we know, and still hit shipping. So it's a difficult problem set. Number 2 is Kharg Island. Why we would want to seize Kharg Island, I don't know. But let's just say for the sake of argument, we're doing it to seize the export infrastructure so that we have leverage and driving Iran to the negotiations table. There's a couple of problems with that that anyone can talk about, that Iran has other ports they can export oil from, not to the great same degree, but also if we close down Iran's ability to export oil, we remove their incentive for keeping the Straits open at all. Plus now you've got to keep— you're only doing that, you only have that leverage as long as you have troops on the ground. Entry is easy, forcible entry is relatively easy. Sustainment, force protection are going to be a real challenge, and it gets exponentially worse day by day that you have troops hanging out on Kharg Island. And so, you know, you've got a third type of raid where you're seizing the islands in the Gulf.

Same problems with that, even worse. Now you don't have a planned withdrawal. They're not really raids. Now you are a sitting target again, well within range. So you see where I'm heading on this. Where is the strategic effect that you are having as you ramp up the risk for your own forces? Very limited. The last one would be a landing. There's a port, Bandar al-Jask, right? It's right at the mouth of the strait opposite Oman, would be a suitable landing site. Again, it would be long-range heliborne insertion. I say that that's probably a particular, you know, that would be a good beachhead to use. But you— but, and then, and then secure key terrain up and down the coast. So you'd have to push north and west, you'd have to push inland a little bit to protect your, your beachhead. You're not talking about 2 MUs now, you're talking about a division-sized element. So 2 MUs might move in and seize terrain, but then you're going to have to put in, uh, army guys, right? That's, you know, the I can bring myself to say that word. And again, you're a fixed target. And now you've got Iranian ground forces maneuvering against you on interior lines, and you've got all the problems of sustainment.

You're going to have to fly shit in from Oman, and your risk ramps up and up. So I'll pause there and just say it's really difficult for me to see a strategic gain from any ground operations that would be worth the risk.

And Andy, if I could elaborate on that a little bit. So we're talking about the inside of the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf with all those scenarios, but that excludes the 500 kilometers of shoreline that's outside the Strait of Hormuz that also belongs to Iran, that also has ports at it. And there are IRGC Navy port facilities on that outer portion, which, to put it in context, is the entire length of the northern Oman shoreline as well. Yeah, massive amount of territory and terrain that you cannot just go and seize with a a single Marine unit.

Yep, you would, you would need tens and tens of thousands of troops. It would be a full-scale invasion.

I, I think, you know, Andy, I mean, you're, you're spot on, of course, with all the Marine Corps, uh, tactics and how this stuff works and why it's probably not a good idea. But I mean, I just wanted to chime in about, you know, okay, that's probably, you know, your, your point of view is probably the correct one, but which one is going to be the prevailing point of view on this topic? And I think that, you know, perhaps what last night proved to some people was that actually we can do ground operations in Iran after all. So I think we may be going down a different route. And, you know, since the Maduro raid, maybe learning some of the wrong lessons, as some of you guys pointed out, like your luck is only going to hold out for so long before something really bad happens. And maybe we're making a mistake here and seeing JSOC as this easy button. That you can mash to resolve some of these problems. And I think we are moving down the road to special operations raids and maybe other more conventional stuff too.

But this is, and we've talked about this on the TeamHouse before too, but this is where we treat 4-star generals like viceroys. They're treated like kings in the US military. And that's why so many of them cease to believe that they're even human beings. But the downside of that, the downside of that is this is the time to really dig in your heels and say, hey, boss, the risk isn't worth the gain. Right. And there is such a thing as an obligation to the Constitution, which can be translated as an obligation to what you do know is right for, well, for not just the rank and file, but what is or is not an American interest. I'm on thin ice here because people are going to I'm challenging civilian control of the military. I'm not. I'm just saying best military advice means more than, hey, he didn't take my advice, so we just went ahead and did it.

Right. Yeah. I just threw away 1,000 lives because I didn't want to say that's a bad idea.

But I said it wasn't a good idea. But hey, man, wait, wait.

Nick and I got in an argument last week about this.

But let me talk about Andy's point first. What I agree with it all, and I haven't seen that level of description, quite frankly, out there, and it needs to be. We need to actually talk about this, what this would actually entail, because people just say, oh, we got Marines and AMU, and it's a very small element, right? It's going to have to be much more than the current capability we have in the region. So, and what I'd say is, yes, if you tell Marines and Rangers to take the objective, they will freaking take the objective. Like, they're a very similar species, and they don't they don't, uh, they don't not accomplish the mission. But the question isn't necessarily can we, it's should we. And if we, if we think we should, we have to think about the consequences because there's a chance that we take Karg Island and we will take casualties, but the Marines and Rangers or whoever's assigned to that and all these other objectives, they'll take it. But what if it doesn't have the strategic impact we would like to see? What if the Iranians say, okay, I guess you have Karg Island, we're just going to target you now until you withdraw?

What if we get on the actual mainland of Iran, just like Andy just described, and then it's all about being able to stay there? And what if we leave and then they close the straits down immediately? We have to have a long-term plan. We have to be thinking that way. It isn't just, you know, the military can do it, so let's do it. That isn't necessarily strategic thinking. That's essentially civilians trying to do tactical and operational thinking. So we should have several steps ahead. How is this going to advance our strategic objectives and start looking? And I know that we are, I think we are, for a diplomatic resolution because this just keeps getting escalated and escalated. And it's important to point out, and somebody actually, Vietnam vet, just pointed this out to me this week, you know, the ground operations in Vietnam started was sending in the Marines to take the airport in Da Nang. And they said it was going to be a limited duration and a limited amount of forces. And we all know what happened from there. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen here, but we got to think this can't just be incremental.

You have to think beyond the next, you know, the next phase of the campaign. Why are we doing this and how would we get out of it if it doesn't work? And, you know, egos sometimes make us stay places much longer than we should. When it's already gone past any kind of advantage that we would have.

Here's a question for you guys, because now I think we're getting to the discussion. I just joked before, Mick, we had a bit of a tussle last week about this issue, just in terms of how much senior US military leadership should be kind of telling truth to power. And then what if the policymaker doesn't listen? But just taking that even a different step, I think last week or several days ago, the Army Chief of Staff was removed. Do you all, with your experience and your contacts, have faith in, well, let's, the civilian leadership at DOD, but also that there are the right people in place on even on the uniform side? I mean, so when the Army Chief of Staff who even Fox News came out, General Keane came out and was not happy about this. What is the climate there in terms of, and dissent is the wrong word, it's just, telling truth to power, hey, we should not do this. You know, what are your thoughts on that? Because I mean, everybody I talked to, and this is a great expert panel here, is of the same mindset. Like, what are we doing in terms of introducing ground forces?

This is crazy. Where's the uniformed senior leadership on this? And what about the civilian leadership of the Pentagon?

I'll be quick because I got to jump back on, which is why I'm wearing— I think we've seen 24 I mean, Jack might correct me if I'm wrong, 24 senior flag officers be retired early. To me, that indicates that what you're saying they should be doing, they're doing. They are saying and they're getting fired. So what my concern is, we're going to get down to people who, A, can't even retire yet, but also are the people who aren't going to push back. But I do think the fact that we've seen that level, which has got to be unprecedented in such a short period of time, that they are doing what you say they should be doing, that they are saying, this is a bad idea, I disagree. When you relieve the Chief of Staff of the Army, so a 4-star general who went from a private to a general in the middle of a war, that indicates that he was doing what you're saying that he should be doing. I don't have any direct knowledge of that, And he's just one of many, right? We've seen, uh, we've seen a lot.

It doesn't, it doesn't pretend good things happen in the future then in terms of decision-making is, I mean, so in some ways I hear what you're saying, but you know, that means we might be taking decisions.

They, they're not accepting dissent. Yeah. That's a problem.

I think the South Command Commander was also booted right before the Maduro raid as well, because he opposed the lead-up to that. Andy, what are your thoughts?

I mean, you're the most senior former you know, bigwig, full bird. What are your thoughts?

Well, I think, you know, I mean, you, you know my thoughts, right? I mean, we talked about this on, on the team house. Of course there's an obligation. Everyone knows that there is an obligation to give best military advice. What people differ on is what happens when that advice is turned down, right? And it's very interesting, you know, I, I mean, I, I can I can opine about it, but it's very interesting to hear 4-star generals talk about this, and there is no agreement. I've talked to General Votel about it. I've talked to Admiral Stavridis about it, and they both have a different view. So my point is, it's kind of interesting that we don't nurture our officers as they go up the chain. We teach them a lot of things. We teach them all this joint operations shit, but they do— we don't teach them what are the proper actions at that nexus between— at the strategic leadership nexus between the civilian leadership and the military. And so they're ill-prepared for it, and they're trying to make their own decisions. There's only been, until this point, there's only been one general who has resigned on a question of principle, uh, because he— his advice wasn't taken.

And that was a, a Marine three-star by the name of, uh, Greg Newbold in 2003 over going to the war in Iraq, and it didn't make big news. He was basically the Joint Staff Operations Officer for Rumsfeld and kept saying, hey, this is a bad idea, bad idea. And then in the end resigned and wrote an article about it for Time magazine. And was vilified. I mean, remember the Iraq War when it kicked off? Everyone owned it, and then subsequently everyone disowned it. But at the time, he was vilified for what he did. But I, you know, I happen to be a fan of— he was my M.U.E.W. commander, and it was the only principled decision of resignation that I have seen among a senior officer. And that's disturbing. That's all I'll say is that we Officers at that rank should understand the procedure. What does happen? What does happen if I think this is going to result in a catastrophic or just massive loss of life for no gain? I mean, and the last thing I'll say is, you know, I've been shot in the face for talking about this before. But the reason why our senior officers don't understand about this is they're not They're not taught to discuss it because everyone's afraid of being seen to challenge civilian leadership, which it's not.

And it is the cause, absolutely the cause of disasters like Afghanistan because Congress, as we've seen, the War Powers Act is shite. No one wants to debate the war. And so what's the next line of defense? Well, the next line of defense are the senior military officers. Again, I don't think that their duty is simply to give their best military advice and then meekishly accept whatever comes in the aftermath. I'm not talking about this administration. I'm talking about generally speaking as a profession of arms. It's a massive gap in our collective education.

Didn't you always have your resignation letter in your top drawer?

Yeah, like Eisenhower right before D-Day, supposedly. So he said— I think he wrote it after D-Day when it was a success, but there you go.

I think, uh, I think it was Chris Miller who told me, uh, there's like some sort of standing rule about you don't have more personal mementos in your office than you can carry in like one box, because if you get canned Hey, Jack, I got a quick question for you before we go, and that's to do with, you know, this threat from Trump in terms of infrastructure attacks.

And there's, you know, and, you know, I'm certainly not a lawyer, but there is some question on, you know, there was two things. One is to the degree of which these are valid military targets or potentially war crimes. And I'm not arguing for that, but that's out there. There was a lot of questioning, say, well, wait a second, if we start hitting civilian targets? Is that the right thing to do legally? And then the other part is, you know, is that actually as we're trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iranians, at some point, doesn't this shift to punishing the Iranian people? Is that a good idea there? But it does look like we're, you know, only several days or hours even away from doing this if we haven't started doing it already. And so I just wanted to know kind of from your perspective on what seems to be the next phase.

I mean, I think it's a terrible idea. We're talking about power plants, desalination plants, things like this. There is like legally an argument to be made if they're like dual-use facilities. So like maybe you're producing fissile material for a nuclear reactor, but you can also use that to produce nuclear weapons. Now you get into a kind of a debate about like how much of this is civilian and how much of it is, is military. It's the same thing. Like the conversation has come up recently about data centers. And are these data centers that are being hit lawful targets? Some data centers are dual use, and our judge— our JAGs have looked at this issue in the past, including data centers in America where DOD contracts space out inside them for its own stuff. They determined that those data centers would be lawful targets in a war. So if the Iranians were to blow up a data center in the United States that the DOD share space with, that would be probably a lawful target. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, it would be considered legal. So those are some of the questions you get into.

But then when you're talking about like a desalination plant that's there to produce, you know, potable water for people or electrical power plant, I mean, this is like, yeah, you're depriving the Iranian civilian population of the things they need to survive. And it's absolutely going to drive them towards the regime and away from us.

Well, we're there. We're almost there.

Yeah, I think they're running out of military targets is part of it, you know. So this is sort of the frustration that's being vented, you know. It's an, in my opinion, an emotional decision being made.

Also, I want to just mention, like, if we did go after the Isfahan facility for the uranium, you know, and we, we set up shop for, you know, a couple of weeks, 2 to 3 weeks, right, while we're digging this up, and we have a Ranger or 82nd Airborne security position setting a perimeter while our guys are going in there digging, and we have stacked upon stacked upon stacked of air power bombing the shit out of whoever comes close to them. You're talking 3 weeks of like sustained operations where like yesterday, the, you know, Twitter and the internet was ablaze with like videos and things like that. And like, while this is like just— I try to picture what it would look like if we actually went through with trying to snatch the uranium And like, just in the world we live in now, things are going to get out and we're going to be able to see this in HD, right? Like geolocated. I just wonder what that would do with like just, I don't know, people's thoughts on this war and even our own, the guys who fight the war. I don't know.

It just sounds insane to me to think about.

Yeah, it is. I'm not going to say too much about it, but I think at this stage, at this stage in the game, at some point we're going to have to go in and get that enriched uranium in some manner. Now, that could happen that there's a ceasefire and we go in under those pretexts, or maybe we go in unarmed under those pretexts after a ceasefire and get it out of there, um, you know, peacefully. Or we go in there in a denied environment and we do it by force. Um, but leaving, you know, it's reported something like 400 kilograms of enriched uranium under the desert, you can't just leave it there because sooner or later some asshole is going to go and dig it up. And you don't need 400 kilograms. You just need a couple milligrams of it to cause a really big problem, to create a dirty bomb or something like that and detonate that in, you know, in the Middle East or Europe or whatever. So we can't just leave that fissile material out there in the desert. Like at some point in some manner, we're going to have to get it.

And Jack, don't forget, that was the war objective. That is the key objective of this entire campaign is that. And if we leave it, you cannot, I don't care. Like I tried to make a stupid analogy the other day, like, all right, so we've sunk the entire Iranian Navy and beaten the crap out of their land forces. Well, that's like the Los Angeles Dodgers beating the Vienna Little League baseball team. Like, that's not— I mean, that's— of course we should be doing that. But the key objective is the HEU, is the Iranian nuclear program. If that is not actioned properly, whether it's militarily, diplomatically, both, we have failed. And so to me, that would, you know, that's why I actually agree with you. And again, it goes to the whole signal versus noise thing. Like, you know, there's a lot of noise out there, but the signal is that this is going to have to be taken care of in some fashion. Quick question for you. Here's, I don't know how we do this. You have tremendous, there's tremendous listeners here in this, whether it's an Aizon or the TeamHouse, but it's this, it's a really unique network of national security folks, former, current special operations, intel.

I wonder what a poll would be if you took a poll of all the listeners of both shows, of all your shows, do they support this war or not? And I say that only because I keep running into people in this world, in this ecosystem who are really against it. And that's not always the case, but I think it was based on the fact Trump ran on not doing this, but also everyone still has a lot of trauma from Iraq and Afghanistan. But it would be really interesting to know is your listeners, which have a massive, you know, there's a massive number of them, what would be the percentages who are in favor of this or not? So Dee, this is your task to find out how we do this. I'd be really—

get frickin' homework, dude. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it would be extremely interesting. Yeah. I mean, if I had to bet, I would say most people are against it. I think.

I think, yeah, probably one-third in support and two-thirds against. That would be my expectation.

Yeah, I think it reflects the country, frankly. Like, I really do. Because, I mean, you talked about it last week, Mark, like, you know, the Vetro Industrial Complex. Perplexed. You see them more and more like they're not down with what's going on.

I was at an event recently, a special forces event, and met up with a guy who I know is a big-time Trump supporter, very nice guy. But it was interesting that he had apparently fallen out of love with Trump over this Iran war. He was not pleased at all. So, I mean, that's just a little anecdote.

I was with, you know, I was with a family member last night. Big, big Trump guy, big MAGA guy. Not happy about this. I mean, I was really surprised. It's not— there's no rally around the flag piece of it. So, you know, we'll see. But that'd be cool if we could find out. I mean, out of—

Yeah, I'm going to try and figure out how to do it maybe on our YouTube page or something like that. We could set up a poll. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else, Jack? What else are you tracking before we take off?

Um, yeah, I, I said I can't really get too much into it. Working on a couple pieces for The High Side that, um, hopefully will be out in the near future.

Cool. Um, I want everyone to go check out The High Side. That link is in the description. That's Jack's news outlet with Sean Naylor, who, uh, Army Times reporter, wrote the actual book on JSOC. Uh, JSOC was freaking out when it was released, I've heard, and now it's like required reading. Um, really gives you like a a real look at what JSOC's about, how it's structured and stuff like that. It's an incredible book. So that's The High Sides. The link is in the description, so grab it there. Mark P, of course, all the links are down there as well. All the boys that were on, they had to all jump off because they had other media obligations and they big-timed us. It's fine. We'll never forget, but it's fine. Check their links out in the description down below. Nick just had the Whitefish Security Summit in Whitefish, Montana. So next year, I think the Eyes On and TeamHouse boys are going to be there, so it's going to be exciting.

They, uh, they had a lot of folks up there. Darryl Blocker, I.S. Berry, a bunch of TeamHouse guests were, uh, were up there for that.

Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, from all things ever that I've heard, it sounded like a great event. Um, so if you guys are around the area, take a look. That link is in Everything you need to know, guys. If you want to find these guys, the links are down in the description. And the best place you can go to support the show is patreon.com/theTeamHouse. You get both TeamHouse episodes and Eyes On episodes ad-free and early. You can actually watch the TeamHouse episodes live as we shoot them, um, and you support the show. So as always, guys, most likely— I wouldn't be shocked if like I had some of the guys at some point this week doing something because I'm sure something chaotic is going to happen at some point that we should talk about. So thanks again, guys.

This book, by the way, after your—

Oh man, that's an amazing book. Yeah, we had him on the show, Chris Cox.

Yeah, that's a crazy book. The craziest episode you ever had. So I was like, I want to read the book first and then I'll listen to the show.

Yeah, yeah. Let me know what you think.

All right, thanks guys. All right guys.

All right, take care.

Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the TeamHouse Podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free. And what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the TeamHouse, on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on The High Side, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll-up of all of our content on a weekly basis. You can find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Uh, so we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the description.