The Iranian Regime's Long Goodbye: Richard Goldberg

This is NatSek Matters. I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies. Today I'm joined by Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He previously served as a senior counselor for the White House National Energy Dominance Council and Director for Countering Iranian WMD for the National Security Council. Rich joins us today to discuss rising tensions with the Ron and the outlook for the country in the coming weeks. Stay with us as we speak with Mr. Richard Goldberg. Rich Goldberg, welcome to NatSek Matters. It's great to be here and this is a special occasion to talk with you, I believe, about Nepal. I mean, my notes are wrong. A little on the Dalai Lama, I think. There's a bunch going on in that region. I dabble in the 2000s in that arena. I have plenty of stories. That sounds fun. Well, we'll do the... You're the guy then. We're going to get to that issue. But there's so much going on in the world. And so much to talk about. Let's go to Iran. You have a terrific career working on these issues through the years and especially during the first Trump administration. And we've seen a very interesting time period of late as tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Iranians. From all walks of life, we're out on the streets protesting the regime. Apparently, it was a very broad-based, every class, every neighborhood, if you will. The economy was the spark. But the IRGC and other regime elements seem to have completely mowed these poor people down. And now they're hiding inside of their houses. And we're wondering what's going to happen next. Could you just first, before we get to issues of US intervention and the rest, just sort of give us a sense of how things went. What's going on on the ground today? And what do you think the regime is up to? So a little bit of historical context. And then some modern day context that leads to where we are right now. If we look back at some of these types of major uprising events. 2009, first comes to mind. This is the green revolution, the stolen election, Makunaq Badinajad. There's still this idea that the regime can be reformed from within people on the ground, subscribe to this reformist agenda. They think that their vote is actually counted in a regime like the Islamic Republic. It is not, by the way. And they clearly have come out in mass to throw this crazy man out of office, go in a record, quote, unquote reformist direction. Somehow the crazy man still wins anyways. They come out into the streets just in Tehran suburbs, just in this upper middle class type of social economic stratosphere. And the regime reacts with force. Everybody's sort of looking at Barack Obama. What are you going to do? First year in office, he comes in with a very different vision in mind. He has a thesis that we can't be involved. We can't be viewed as getting involved in their internal affairs. It'll work against the Americans. And he also has already sent a letter to the Supreme Leader of Iran saying, hey, I want to work it out with you. We've got pass grievances. He wants a nuclear deal, which obviously gets a few years later. And so there's some terrible photos of people in the streets who suffer the ultimate sacrifice for trying to make change inside their regime. And the protest dissipates. And that's it. And people sort of remember that moment of the West doing nothing, the United States doing nothing. And this fleeting moment in Tehran that goes away. You fast for a 10 years until there is another spark. This time in economic spark. Donald Trump is now president. He's removed the United States from the nuclear deal. He's put maximum pressure on Iran mid 2019. He's cut off all available oil export exceptions around the world under U.S. sanctions. That has actually for a time driven Iranian oil exports to zero. And the regime doesn't know what to do. They're burning cash to run it out of money. So they cut gas lean subsidies, which were wildly popular with the people. And people come out into the streets. And the regime is scared. They come out with maximum violence. And within a week, they put down the uprising with many hundreds of not thousands killed at the time. And before the United States could even figure out what to do was all over very quickly. However, the size of that uprising, the size of that protest that turned into regime crackdown and violence, was very small in comparison to 2009. But there's something there. There's something happening now. There is dissatisfaction that has now taken in root inside the regime. And you start seeing these people who were part of this reformist coalition back in 2009, disavowing this idea of reforming the regime. You have Nobel Prize laureates coming out of nowhere, shearing a body among them saying, this regime cannot be reformed. There are no more reformists. It's all just hardliners. The only solution is to get rid of this regime and have a referendum for a new style of government. And that starts taking hold as well. And it moves throughout the population. Hardliners reformists, this distinction goes away. We finally get rid of that. And you start seeing that even in the midst of a presidency trying to get back to a nuclear deal under Joe Biden, the internal dynamics of this regime are already starting to weaken and buckle. The Ayatollah does not see that. And the morality police, as they're called in Iran, have a very heavy hand with women that forced them to wear his job, the head covering in a very specific and hard-line way. And if they see any girls, women on the streets without covering their hairs, they literally grab them off the streets, beat them, torture them, make them have forced confessions that they were immoral, that they were doing bad things. And this has been going on for years. It happens to a young girl, 22-year-old Masha Mini, who's visiting with her family. And on vacation, she gets taken by the morality police. She gets beaten to death in detention. And this becomes public. And it sparks a massive uprising. We remember 22 and 2023. The women's uprising, the women's movement. But we start seeing protests break out all around the country. Wider scale, wider scope than 2009, than 2019. Women are at the forefront, but there's people in religious communities, secular communities, middle class, lower class, upper class. The regime doesn't know what to do at the time. And so they try to contain, they try to different tactics. There's some brutality, there are some deaths. They start rounding up people, they start having mass executions very publicly to start deterring more protests. And with no U.S. intervention, with no Western action, a West that still wants to preserve the possibility of a nuclear deal, they let this uprising fizzle, the largest uprising at the time from a scope perspective, a geographic scope. But not as large numbers in total, like in 2009, when millions came to the street in Tehran. Okay, with all that context, we now have something happening since 22, 2023. Starlink terminals are being flooded into Iran without the regime's knowledge. You have a change administration, right? We're now in Donald Trump, maximum pressure is back. It's not just maximum pressure, he is now using military force. The Israelis have degraded the regime's capabilities in the missile and nuclear domain. The United States has now taken the biggest Trump card off the table for the regime, in destroying the enrichment facilities. They can't keep extorting the United States and the West to say back off. The snapback of sanctions is completed last fall by our European allies with U.S. support. So the bottom has fallen out plus water crisis breaking out in Iran. They're running out of water because of the mismanagement of the regime. The banking sector collapsing under the weight of snapback, maximum pressure is returned, and just seeing the international community backing off once again. And so you're starting to see liquidity crises in the banking sector. And energy crises, power crises, rolling blackouts for several months. As again, the regime's mismanagement of the grid starts weighing heavily on the economy and on the energy infrastructure in Iran. So you have this perfect storm happening where public dissatisfaction is growing. The economy is worsening. The reality, the currencies in the toilet. The inflation rate is skyrocketing. And at the same time, the people see the Iatola has no clothes. He's not a tall giant. He can be defeated. The U.S. military can come to our rescue. The Israelis might even come to our rescue. Something can happen here. And so there is a spark. It might be a bank collapse. It might be something else. And what happens? We have more people in the streets in total than in 2009 and in 2022. And we have the scope, the breadth of it happening at a 2022 level. So the largest uprising in the history of Iran at the lowest weakest point of the regime, the most vulnerable it's ever been militarily and strategically and economically. And to top it all off, you have an organized, it looks like people in the streets with starlink terminals able to get information out, able to let people know at least a little bit as the internet shuts down of what's going on. That has changed the dynamic in general. And so the regime responds. And this is this brings us to where we are today and where you opened. Sorry for the long answer, but it's sort of important content. That's important. The regime responds with maximum violence. They clearly saw the numbers that came out into the streets. They saw the dynamic. They saw everything I just laid out on the strategic calculus. And they saw the possibility of regime collapse immediately. And it's possible the people in the streets did not even realize that first night they came out before they were slaughtered that had they just gone to the government institutions. They had the numbers. And the regime did see it. They did know it. And they ordered maximum violence. And we're seeing reports of over 30,000 possibly murdered in the streets. Just mass machine gun fire, just mowing people down left and right, whether they were part of a protest or not. Just horrific scenes. Mass roundups of everyone else that they can get their hands on. And certainly executions that are ongoing in secret at sort of undeclared sites where they're keeping people to try to evade the the iron of President Trump in the meantime. And this is one of the largest slaughters I think in history, at least modern history is what I've been reading. Certainly in a 48 hour period, it has to be. It is, this is unprecedented levels. This is, I mean, I've heard comparisons and I am very cautious on using comparisons to World War II in any situation. You know, I'd Sats group in type, type, just rounding up people and mass graves and just shooting people. I mean, this is more just blatant just going out into the streets and just opening fire indiscriminately. And it's just, it's horrific, it's horrific. So I get most of my information about what may be happening inside of Iran from X and there are a bunch of good accounts that seem quite credible. One consistent theme and I want to check this with you is that these neighborhoods, these people are on lockdown. There are curfews, they need escorts to get to the grocery store. There are thugs and guns everywhere. And these people feel locked down. Is that how you, do you agree with that characterization? That is certainly true in the three largest cities where the, where most of the violence has occurred as well. They are still definitely enforcing curfew. There's, there's a lot of a lot of weapons on the street from the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the siege forces. There are a lot of reports that are still hard to pin down of Arab militias that were brought in. And this was something we saw in 2022, 2023 as well, a lot of reports of. And it's hard to get fidelity. But it does make sense that Persians are going to lose a stomach for mass killing of fellow Persians. And so you may bring Arabs in that you're paying already as part of militias, whether it's in Iraq or Syria or elsewhere to, to do the dirty work. So that's possible. One of the tactics they use in 22, 2023 was they moved people around so that they wouldn't be patrolling an area where they were from. Because they would be sort of family shame attached to it. Like, oh, you're from here. How can you do this to our village and all that kind of stuff? So the regime is very well aware of the cost to them among the population of doing this. And the potential stress it puts on the security forces themselves. And yet they clearly feel that this is the best strategy to consolidate power and keep and keep strong internally at the highest levels of the regime and avoid, avoid fissures. Before we get to the United States response, one thing you said was really interesting. I hadn't heard before was that on the first night, even on the first night of the protests, the regime saw the regime collapse was possible. I guess I had thought that for the first few days they were debating, do we shoot the protesters? Because if we do, maybe more people come out into the streets, but it quickly got existential for the regime. And they walked back against the wall and they just started shooting without restraints. I think the first few days to be clear were decent and pockets. And I didn't believe even that this something was really yet. I was talking to very serious people, you know, close to opposition sources who were just saying, I'm not sure maybe not quite at numbers that you really haven't seen before. And then it just sort of spiked. I mean, everybody points to that sort of January 8th, 9th, period of Thursday night where just millions just took to the streets in Tehran and elsewhere in the country. And that's the night they made the decision to come out and just start opening fire the next one. And that whatever was where you see some of those videos that have, we're trying to recirculate, it turned out that that was not true. It was from that one Thursday night. That was the peak. And that's when the regime looked and said, we got a major problem here. And the response was maximum violence. So let's get into what the United States and the international community could conceivably do. And these are hard questions, but you're the right guy to answer it. Answer them. First and foremost, the president said we were locked and loaded. It helped us on the way. But we weren't really positioned. We had moved the aircraft carriers in the Middle East to the Caribbean. And while we had a few destroyers, it apparently we just didn't have enough. Do you agree, first of all, with the point about the military being out of position? I think that we have assets that are always available and can do certain missions and can level a certain amount of damage for certain objectives to be achieved. I also think that we cannot sit here and predict what even the most minor amount of damage and just a simple shot across the bow at a peak moment could do. If the regime is actually buckling, if people don't know, if they get scared, if people run away, if they empower people in the streets, etc. And you also can't play sort of Monday morning quarterback of what if as well. It's a losing game. So I don't know if the president didn't have credible options. Certainly, if I was a military planner speaking to the president and presenting him with what he has available and what he has defensively available, should he not complete certain preliminary objectives being met to mitigate the retaliatory potential against US forces, bases, allies. Energy infrastructure in the area. That is when you would probably say we need to minimize the target set. We need to do something smaller to try to reduce the potential retaliation because we are not force-posterent to the degree we would like Mr. President to be in a position to either deter or preemptively destroy some of the retaliatory options that the regime has available. IE, their missile program, both ballistic and cruise missiles, drone possible flights and the IRGC Navy being dispersed for who knows what in the Gulf. So did the president and I don't know the answer to this. And I'm not potentially casting judgment one way or the other. The president think that laying down a red line, sending this signal was a way of sort of seeing if Iran was at a tipping point, if that did keep people out in the streets and push them further and intimidated the regime and gave more of a chance to see what is developing there. Is this real? Is this not real? What's going to happen? And I will say, while in hindsight, that can be a hard pill to swallow because you have a narrative of you sent people out to their deaths if you're not actually sending the cavalry or you didn't intend to send the cavalry. I do think there was a real breakdown in information flow and intelligence flow to the president in critical moments to understand the level of violence going on against the people while that maximum violence was being perpetrated. I think the level of violence was being undercounted, underestimated. This was regime propaganda using regime aligned friendly, Western media to put out headlines, cloud the picture within the intelligence community so you couldn't, you know, have validation of anything, discredit opposition sources. And if you actually just followed Iran International, which is sort of the lead opposition television station and website, which has impeccable sources and also regularly, I suspect gets leaked by Saudi, Israeli, other intelligence sources, you know, sort of looking at sources inside Iran or close to the Supreme Leader or whatever it is. I think this is basically if they pick up something in chatter, you know, they sort of wander it and it becomes a news report for runner national. So if you're actually looking for pretty good actor at news sources, read it around international, you won't regret it. They were the earliest ones saying 5,000 estimated dead early on and then they went up to 12,000 and everybody saying, oh, no, no, it's like maybe 100, maybe 250, maybe 300, then the regime starts acknowledging a few hundred. And it's like, whoa, if the regime is already acknowledging like, come on guys, there's something really going on here. And for some reason, just having checked with a bunch of sources and I won't say who they were, but it felt to me like the White House. You know, at a key moment, the president's not there. He's at Mar-a-Lago. The weekend is is unraveling with mass violence against the people. Some of us are saying, guys, I think there's 10,000 dead. There might be 20,000 dead. And they're saying, that's just not the information we're receiving. And by the way, I did British television and did BBC. And some other outlets that same weekend. And I went on the presenter was like, how do you feel about what's going on around right now? I said, well, there's like 12,000 people dead. So I don't feel good about it. And she said, 12,000 people dead. Where did you get this number? This is, this is, I mean, that's outrageous if it's true. It's like, what do you mean if it's true? It's true. Well, we've only seen 200. And I was like, ah, so this is a phenomenon that I think leads to the breakdown. Okay. Put that aside. Put that aside. Put that aside. A little digression had to get off my chest. Can I just say is this around the time that they're calling Whitcoff saying we're ready to have meetings too. So that helps with the misdirection. I think that happens a little later in the week. I think the president starts figuring out that his red line has been eviscerated by Monday. It already seems and hindsight Mondays a little season Monday. The two are you on January 12th? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, okay. I think at this point, as you start putting pieces together in hindsight, people are already off the streets. They've already been mowed down 10,000 people have already been murdered. And the president is finally figuring out this is, this is mass murder. My red line has been eviscerated. You know about as well as a B2 can eviscerate a nuclear site in Iran. And I'm going to have to do something about this. And I think he wants to do something about this. And if passes prologue and just having studied the president for a long time. And and you know, being in and around decision making. I think the president knows what he wants to do already. I think the president sort of, you know, he can, he can have a debate. You can have different voices. You're going to have, you know, bridge Colby and the Pentagon at the Undersecretary Defense for policy is going to be sending up memo saying everything you said, like force postures crazy. We have an armada outside Venezuela. We can't move the carrier out of the Indo-Pacific. Like we're just not postured for this, you know, retaliation, like Mr. President, we just can't do anything. Okay, valid points, not not invalid. Just not not picking on him saying like that's going to be the role he would play and put up options and somebody else might say, oh, we don't have solid intel on this. What's for sure? We can't tell you what would happen if this were this. Maybe he calls these rallies. What do you think? You know, I've asked for options and based on our force posture, this is what I can do. And the Israeli is probably look at it and say, well, if you want, I don't know if it's going to do anything, but you know, at least you'll enforce your red line. But, you know, it's your call, Mr. President, we're not involved in this one. And, and then he probably sits back and says, this is what am I docking their pay? Like I, they're committing genocide in the streets of Iran. They're at the weakest point ever. I've already had a summit at Mar-a-Lago around New Year's, if you recall, when Netanyahu came to Florida, met with the president and they came out and had a joint press availability. And the president openly said, I endorse Israeli military action in 2026 against the remaining and rebuilding parts of Iran's missile program, which is which remains a major threat. So he's already been thinking about potential military action inside of Iran this year. Now he has this unbelievable unfolding of events of people in the streets. By the way, one of the talking points of the regime echo chamber against military action in those early days was that the president wouldn't be able to target certain command and control or certain sites without putting people in the streets in danger. Well, that's no longer an argument. Obviously, if people are hiding in their homes and can't come onto the streets. So at least you have that going for you, unfortunately. But there remains sort of this thesis in mind, which I really do believe. And that is, if millions of people came onto the streets, believing that the cavalry was on the way, believing this regime was on its way out, you saw responsive calls from the street. And I'm not saying millions of people did this, but it was enough to be a real thing where Reza Palavi, the so-called Crown Prince of Iran, this is the Shah's son who lives in the US, you know, who was very quiet in 2022, 2023. Now comes full-throated out saying, I'm ready to help lead come out to the streets. I'm going to give you night protests calls and go out to the streets and have the night approaching. Use the pre-1979 flag of Iran and show the people you're with me. There was a large response in the streets. Is that everybody know, but it was credible. So all of these things are still now hiding in people's attics, right? They're still in people's houses, potentially ready to be unleashed again. If they don't think walking into the streets is going to be just a non-stop bullet's coming at them and or those people have been disabled in some way or degraded or their command and control is gone or they don't know who take orders from. So presence probably thinking all about these sorts of things and no matter what, as you move more forces to expand your options set, both to be able to, in my view, I would recommend going after the missile program and the IRGC Navy off the bat. Like take away the remaining extortion tools that the regime has. For them to hit us back. Yeah, just ongoing. Even if, you know, before we get to this, did we miss the opportunity though while they were out on the streets to get the regime targets? Probably. So prop prop, but, but you know, it's also just the reality. It's just reality. It's not a necessary a blame game. It what happened. I supported the moves in Venezuela from the beginning. I saw the writing on the wall. I saw what the president was doing. I believe it will be transformative to the United States and our national security in the Western hemisphere and visa V great power competition with China, Russia, Iran, head of the head of the IRGC all making Caracas. You know, they're, they're home base. In the Western hemisphere. And seeing what else is happening in the continent. And elections that are moving. You know, socialist government. To the right. There is a real transformative moment here. The Cuban regime. Potentially you know, being able to strangle. Into into history. I believe it was the right move. and you can say, oh, it's too much naval forces to cut off the oil flow and really be able to strangle the regime. It's the only thing that really has, in fact, worked and then dealt to force my god. But that does mean that you are not force-postured for something really robust vis-a-vis around at that moment. And he had options. He could have pursued those options and he felt that they were not high enough percentage likelihood of success to be transformative and could also leave him vulnerable on the retaliation and therefore wanted more options. And he has a lot more options. I think it was, yeah, I totally agree. I think it was the retaliation part was also a big part of it. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with Rich Goldberg. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm. Beacon works side by side with leading companies to help them understand national security policy, geopolitical risk, global technology policy and federal procurement trends. Beacon's insight gives business leaders the decision advantage, founded in 2013, Beacon develops and supports the execution of bespoke strategies to mitigate business risk, drive growth and navigate a complex geopolitical environment. With a bipartisan team in decades of experience, Beacon provides a global perspective to help clients tackle their toughest challenges. Let's get to now. There's a political reason for President Trump to do it. It's that US prestigious at stake and he doesn't want to be President Obama not enforcing his own red line. And that's actually my view. I think the President is going to do it but I'm surprised that other even conservative Republicans who've said to me, I don't think he's going to do it anymore. There's nothing that can be achieved why only do something that's symbolic, why just do something that shows solidarity? It will just show, you know, you referred to this earlier, it will just show weakness. So what do you think the President will do? And if he does strike what targets and for what purpose? Yeah. So the idea that the regime in two weeks has gone from the brink of collapse to total stability is crazy, obviously. And it's a projection from within the regime. You know, they put out talking points. They put on a Potaymkin village, the likes of which you just haven't seen, you know, certainly since the Soviet Union where they can really make you believe their propaganda. And they'll show some forces, they'll do some exercises, they'll launch a missile test and they make you think that they are, you know, a hundred feet tall when they're actually, you know, six feet tall. And when their things are out of control, they'll say it's all in control, right? Remember Baghdad Bob? Well, they have their own, you know, Tehran Tom, you know, that's spreading all the stuff, but they have a very willing media that scoops it up and says it, because it fits a lot of narratives at any given moment. Like if you have Trump to range in syndrome and want to criticize the President, well, he missed the boat. There's no opportunity now. The regime's back in charge. They're good to go. The millions of the people in the street, it's over. They're deterred. Military force will do nothing. That is, you know, obviously not correct. You know, the idea, I guess I said, a millions of people were out in the street two weeks ago, they can be out in the street tomorrow if they think it's safe to go out and that there's actually something to win. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm predicting that's all gonna happen and it's gonna be, you know, this massive revolution and it's all gonna be great, you know, it's the President, conduct military action. Nobody can guarantee that. Nobody knows if that goes, we are an uncharted waters. However, if I was thinking about what to do right now, yes, you want to enforce your red line. At a minimum, you want to enforce your red line. However, you also don't want it to be, you know, basically stupid. Like you're just like showing like, hey, I just got to enforce this red line. Hey, give me a couple of targets that you don't really care about, evacuate it. And if you got to retaliate, let me know a few hours in advance. No, that's silly. The President's not gonna do that. He wants to be transformative. He wants to be remembered as something, doing something that no one's ever done before, right? That's his style. Nobody thought the US could take out the nuclear sites but he did, but he did. Nobody ever took out salamani, but he did. The Maduro operation, right? These are like historic things that he loves doing. So first of all, take away Iran's retaliatory capability and even if this is not the moment, the regime topples, remembering 1978 to 1979 was actually one year of uprisings and protests until the, until the Shah eventually left. Take away their trump cards. You took away their nuclear extortion. They'll keep potentially trying to reconstitute, yes. You got to watch that. They could look for a crash program. They could finally just rent a bomb instead of trying to build a bomb. All these things we have to watch for and the most odd will be watching that, along with other intelligence agencies, including ours. But from what we can see at least, he's really taken them years back on the nuclear threat of going across the nuclear threshold. That doesn't mean that we have taken their missile threats off the table. They still have at least hundreds, if not thousands of ballistic missiles. They have cruise missiles. They are working with the Chinese to rebuild their manufacturing base for those missiles. So you're saying there's plenty to do to generate the regime's instruments of the repression. And it's okay if it's, we're not gonna get people running out into the streets and greater numbers immediately for regime change. Yeah, and there's solidarity. There's psychological boost. There's a weakening. There's a weakening. If you both weaken their internal repression apparatus through various targets, which there are many of the IRGC besiege, command and control of security forces around the country, a lot of which by the way are not in inside civilian population areas that keep them away from the civilian population areas. If you had a decapitation strike, right? If you actually knew what bunker the Supreme Leader was in. So that's where I'm headed next. That's where I'm headed. I would obviously be a blinding moment for the regime where you can't predict exactly what happens next, but it certainly would be game changing. All right, let's come to that. But first, you said earlier in an interrupted gym. I hear you. IRGC Navy missile sites. Yeah. Hit all the, hit the besiege. Maybe external threats. And the internal threats because I actually think we underestimate the disabling of external threats weakening the internal apparatus. I think that is that. I think the strikes in June on the nuclear program and the population seeing that and the inability to respond to that fundamentally weakens the Iranians. So let's go back to the 12th day war. And the Israelis reportedly, we were, we're going, had a location and we're going to strike the Supreme Leader when President Trump said, no, do not do that. I don't know. And I've never seen it credibly debunked. So I pretty much believe that that's the way it. Went down. Why didn't we support Israel doing it at the time? And why might we do it this time? I don't know that that ever happened. I will say that. You can believe that that happened. I don't know that that happened. No, I'd love to hear the, I'd love to hear the, I don't know. I went to my, my view on why the 12-day war was not 13 days, 14 days or 15 days. And why it was limited to where it was, was that in the end, the regime has a lot of missiles. And absent a more robust US involvement to go after every underground facility that the Israelis can't really hit. There's going to be more and more and more missiles that continue to fire with only so many interceptors, both for Israel and the United States. And so you're in a bean counting game of offensive missiles versus defensive interceptors. And if you reach some sort of number where like you're in your car and you are running low on gas and the light pops saying low on gas, you're not out of gas. You can still drive for a while. But if you keep driving at some point, you will run out of gas. So that's why usually you get gas when the light goes on. So the Pentagon is seeing the light go on for SM-3s and THAAD. The Israelis maybe are having light go on for the arrow to arrow three system, iron dome, to the extent that that was in play as well for ballistic missile defense, which I'm told there are some innovations for. At that point, you have to say, okay, what have we achieved so far? How much have we hit strategically? Is it time for dessert? And the B2 bombers are dessert. That's going to be the closing act because the president doesn't want to actually in the middle of Tucker Carlson, everything else, say I'm doing World War III. He wants one big closing act and that will be the closing act of the conflict because you will need to de-escalate quickly after that, given the potential for expanded missile fighting. So whether or not you can... Do you think we refilled the tank? Because all I read about is that we're still low on interceptors. I think the Israelis have refilled the tank. Okay. Israelis have refilled the tank. I think that we still have the potential for a Thad deployment, which reportedly is on the way, or maybe already... From Asia. Back from Asia, back to Israel. I agree with you. It doesn't stand to reason that we have refilled the tank credibly on the SM3 side. But I've also heard some rumor meant, whatever from different sources that the SM3s didn't actually play that much of a helpfulness in the defensive side or in the war that the Israelis felt that Aero plus Iron Dome plus Thad were the most effective systems. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm sure that our Navy guys would disagree with that. I'm sure whatever assessment of every kind of missile around through and every kind of interceptors that intercepted it and percentages are all classified as they should be. But that's the view. Still, let's assume that we have the destroyers coming with the carrier strike group. We already had three destroyers on station, Red Sea, Arabian Gulf. We likely have a number of interceptors available without the need for immediate resupply. The Israelis have whatever they've been building since June, 24 hour manufacturing lines going on Aero and Iron Dome, whatever new innovations and techniques they learned from the last war, they're gonna try to apply for increased target. But also, by the way, I think in acceptance by the Israelis that they will just intercept less potentially, that you will accept more damage if they think this is the moment of really defying the regime completely getting the missile program out the way weakening the regime in an existential way for them. All right, so if we go for it, do we go for the Supreme Leader or will Israel be with us and will they go for the Supreme Leader? I believe that it's likely that the US would need to go for the Supreme Leader. We don't know that for sure, but... With our mob or whatever. Potentially, depending on where it is, but look, the Israelis were able to take out Nasserala in an underground bunker in Beirut, very precise strike. Took him and the entire command leadership of Hezbollah and one big, big, big strike in an underground bunker. Presumably, if they felt the same strike, pattern, munition, could do the same damage on where they assess the Supreme Leader is, it's possible they could. So let's say we're getting the skeptics of regime change say, well, now all you're gonna have is a war situation where the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the true goons who also dominate the economy are gonna be completely in charge and not only will there be no reform, they'll be more nationalistic and difficult to deal with, it's hard to believe, but they'll be as difficult or even more difficult to believe than the existing regime. Do you buy that? I've heard that theory, it could happen. I don't think that those people know what will happen. I don't know what will happen exactly. But what I would say is a version of the same reason why it was right to get out of the Iran deal at the time and go to maximum pressure even though you could increase the tensions and spark the potential for the Iranians to retaliate in some way. Because in the end, if you believe that's going to happen, then when the Supreme Leader who is very old and still has cancer dies and he will die, I know we've thought he's dying for 15 years, he will die at some point, even if it's natural causes, then you expect that to happen when he dies, that it won't be an orderly transition, that the succession plan he has for his son or for somebody else won't happen. In fact, that the IRG is already plotting to do this when the Supreme Leader dies. Well, I say that we probably have a better chance of messing up their plan then and helping the people do something. And if there are any people inside the regime that are not fully into what's happening and are ready to defect and ready to switch sides, give them empowerment in a moment, probably happens at a more chaotic time. Probably happens when it's not orderly. When the economy is in shambles and falling apart and the US military is right off your door and the Israeli military is there and people are in the streets and you don't know what's gonna happen and you just murdered 36,000 of your own citizens and you feel really bad about it. I, you know, all of these factors may not be there if we walk away from the situation and just let the Supreme Leader die and then the IRGC takes control. So if you really suspect... It's happening anyway. If it's happening anyways and it's happening anyways then I'd rather do it now. Let's think a little bit more. Well, first, address this is Israel gonna come with us. I know they want to. I read the Mar-Lago summit the same way that you did in late December, which is Trump saying, absolutely go for the Iranian ballistic missiles, whatever you want. I, I don't have actually haven't heard this argument too much but I usually hear someone say something like, well, you know, if this is about regime change and empowering the Iranian people to do the job themselves to have the, the junior Satan, we're the great Satan but to have the so-called Zionist regime helping us doesn't look good. Do you, do you buy that or is Fuegoin Israel's going in with us? I don't buy it. I've asked people about this repeatedly since the uprising started and they claim that there are chance in the streets. Now, I don't think I've seen the videos of this but they claim that there is as much sort of calling out to the United States to come help them as there is calling out to Israel to come help them. That is the claim for senior opposition types. Now maybe that's true or not. They just want to see military action happen. So they don't really care where it comes from. They know the Israelis are poised to do it. But we have not seen, for example, a rally around the flag effect. We didn't see it last June. We're not seeing it now. So all of these sort of old school theories of, oh, if the US gets involved, if there's military action, the regime gets stronger, the people turn against us, has not happened. We have not seen mass demonstrations against Israel following the 12-day war. There wasn't that sort of feeling there. Obviously, the Israeli said had had, you know, mass way of the skies over Tehran and elsewhere in the country did a lot of damage just for the Israeli art force leading up to the operation midnight hammer. So I don't see that being an issue. I would view Israel as a second aircraft carrier at our disposal for an operation like this. They already were, which is why I think the President had options if he wanted to involve the Israelis in some way in sort of a conflict. So I think that's the reason why the Israeli government involved the Israelis in some way in sort of a cleanup operation. You know, imagine that all the President does is authorize a B2 strike, you know, and sort of just nothing more. Has some squadrons in the air to take out drones and maybe dynamic targeting of IRGC Navy and anything else. The Israelis are ready to go in with their actual jet fighters and take out specific sites and follow up, command and control, which they can do. And by the way, it should be said, because I see so much commentary out there, like, over preparing for this, oh, what about this? They still have no air defense. Like, we should probably lead every conversation from a military planning perspective with the statement, Iran has no air defense. Yes, they have a few like very old, very old school, first generation, second generation systems that mean nothing to us. Their range means nothing to us. Their capabilities mean nothing to us. The S-300s are gone. The knack-offs they were building are gone. If they've rebuilt them, they will be gone very quickly once again. I mean, they didn't suddenly develop some new air defense technology and EW technology that is going to stop what has already been done to them. Since June, got it. All right, so before we move to the future and then we have to wind up, let me see if I can characterize where we think we are. We both think that Trump will act. I think we both think that the minimum target set is instruments of regime repression externally, as you say, so IRGC Navy and the missile sites, especially launchers, but also internally, so IRGC, Beseech, etc., etc., etc. The Supreme Leader Strike is unknown. I'm not sure whether the president would go for it. We haven't talked about energy. Obviously, that's what I was headed. Supreme Leader Strike, I guess we're unknown on whether we think President Trump would go for this. And the next big topic would be, are we going to hit energy infrastructure? I mean, I usually talk about car gavel at most. If we believe there's about to be a regime change, somebody's going to say, well, don't blow up all their infrastructure. Correct. We didn't blow up the Venezuelan oil infrastructure. Yeah. Like the, to the extent that that is still there. I mean, first of all, Chevron would not have been happy about that, but we didn't do it for the obvious reason of we want U.S. business to go in and develop it and then take control of it and get a percentage of it and have flow come to the United States. So in this context, I agree with you. You would not want to kill production if you actually thought the regime might change hands and you want stability and you want a source of income for the people. You wouldn't want to set back infrastructure to a great extent where it would take, you know, years, months, years to come back online. So what are your options there? I'm sure you can figure out a disabling of export terminals that would need repair over time, but wouldn't be that hard to repair. It would be a short-term interruption of flow. You could model what you did in Venezuela with the carrier strike group and the additional destroyers and just say we're going to start, you know, taking out the tankers that are that are bringing the actual cargo to China. And we're going to halt or board them. We're going to seize them the way we did with the, the VLCC's coming out of Venezuela. That's an option. And by the way, he has an economic tool here. He announced when he was still debating what to do, supposedly, a 25% tariff on any country that continues trade with Iran. We have not seen any news on that in a long time. We have not seen enforcement actions. We haven't seen a 25% imposition on somebody. What's happening with the border trade between Iraq and the UAE and others just in their immediate sphere, not to mention the oil going to China. That's a question mark for me by the way of what's happening there. Because it can contribute to a liquidity crisis inside and be a non-military means of continuing to destabilize the regime. However, if you are going to try to either attack, disable or stop the flow of oil, you have to be prepared for what we have long believed the Iranian threats are. And that means the IRGC Navy having dispersed with mines throughout the Gulf and the threat of shutting down the straight of Hormuz. And whatever, you know, Senkham has prepared for this for years reportedly and has some plans out of nafsent of what it would what you would have to do and how long it would take to reopen the straight. But it would be a disruption to oil markets significantly for X amount of time. Unless you can preemptively strike all those boats, believe that they have not gotten their mines off into the water beforehand, that you actually can track all of the small boats that are out there. I've never understood why at a moment of crisis, we don't just give an order to attack every vessel while they're in port. I don't know why we always wait for the IRGC Navy to disperse and then be ready to, you know, threaten us with mines. Because then it's like, oh no, they might mine the straights. Like, yeah, but when did they go out with the mines? They're not just always, I think they're small boats. They have to come back in at some point to refuel and like, you know, go to dinner. So that's an issue we have to deal with. And then, of course, the ability of their missile program and drone program as they did in 2019 to reach out and attack regional energy infrastructure. And of course, the Saudis are the number one potential target. They've already hit Appcake in 2019. They took 5% of the world's oil off the market for a couple of days. And the reaction to that, by the way, just two fold one, reinforces your first target set no matter what should be their most lethal threats, missiles, drones, IRGC Navy. Because that'll play into you just widening your economic option set as well in the energy space or your military target set. No matter what you choose to do here, it just makes perfect sense. And secondly, we do have a different energy market today. We do have now Venezuela, right? And we expect increased flows. Won't be a million barrels per day, but it'll be a few hundred thousand over the next few months as Chevron starts ramping up. You do have the fact that China is the one most exposed to disruptions out of the straight of our moves, not us. 50% of the oil that China imports comes through the straight of our moves. An attack on Saudi infrastructure, an attack on the straight of our moves, an attack on China. Not the United States. So you're saying sanctions by the United States possibly enforced with military action is another target set. It is absolutely a plausible target set. You just have to mitigate the retaliatory options. All right, let's go rapid fire few of through a few of these things in wrap up. First, in terms of what to look at in the future, you know, this is sort of largely unforeseeable, but it's a potential spark that could cause people to come back on the streets. It was the collapse of the real recently, which I think was precipitated by some banks. Maybe it's the death of the Supreme Leader sometimes soon. Maybe it's our airstrikes, but just if you will, give us some sense of how they might come out into the streets again, assuming it's not completely unforeseeable. I think if there is a significant degrading of the security forces to an extent where security forces disperse, they are now afraid. They have to fall back into garrisons or, you know, go to their own homes undercover, and they don't know who the next target's going to be. They don't know who they're taking orders from. The communications have been severed for some reason. So they leave barracks. They leave barracks in Goho. They need to leave the streets. They need to leave the streets. If the security forces come off the streets for whatever reason, people will come back onto the streets. It's my suspicion. It just makes a ton of sense, especially in the context of the cavalry is here, folks. Yeah. So the question is, how do you do that? That's fascinating. All right. Let's say the Supreme Leader dies, but the problem is, of course, the regime will be ready for it, but that seems like another potential for a spark. So I would just say this is, we're in like unpredictable territory here. You know, the Israelis caught, has below by surprise, in the bunker strike on the Surala. They took out the command and control in one strike. And even though they, it has below maintained strategic missiles in the field, ready to fire. Nobody could give the order. Nobody knew what to do. And the Israeli Air Force came very quickly for mop up. If you are able to disrupt C3 for the regime, for the IRGC, for the besiege forces, I don't think anybody can tell you what will happen. You don't know. You just don't know. Fascinating. Can we assume that since the regime would view a new US Israeli strike as existential, that their retaliation would be much more fierce than last time when they seem to telegraph and choreograph with us, the way that they were going to symbolically strike and retaliate? Sure. If you think that this is it, that you're the ships going down, you have two choices. One is to cut a deal, get out, flee, possible. And if you think that this is the moment where the hidden imam is revealing himself, and it's the end of days, then I'm sure you're going to hit the button on everything you could possibly hit the button on. Which, once again, means what can hit the button on to threaten us most dangerously? It is their missile stockpiles. It is their launchers. It is their drone program. The IRGC Navy is a nuisance to problem. It's going to hit the energy market more than anything. Yes, it could threaten US naval forces. You've got to be ready for that. But the missile forces are obviously the big piece here, and it's not unlimited. It's just not unlimited. Yeah. What about just... What are you going to be looking for in the coming weeks? Michael Allen. That's what I'm going to be looking for. I'm going to be out there. I'm going to be out there. In Tehran. Maybe in Tehran. I'm going to be out there repeating everything I've learned from you today. But I love... This used to come up with the intelligence community. For you to change your assessment, what factors are you looking at? We used to hear... Let's say one... Here's the possible sparks. But if we're in the context of some sort of new uprising and you see elite-flack fracture, or you see IRGC units unable to shoot at protesters, that's the beginning of the end. What are you looking for in the coming days as hints that something is afoot? Probably news that airstrikes have opened up. Yes, you could see tea leaves of people saying, oh, we think the regime is buckling or... Sure. If you don't start seeing mass defections, high-profile defections abroad, things like that, hard to prove that. Money going the Europe, people opening their account. It'll flight with some reports of that. There's a lot of preemptive things that they might do anyways. But you would need to see some major evidence of entire units just refusing orders. People coming onto the streets and walking right up to security forces without being shot. Color revolution type stuff. Palace intrigue. Somebody just died. Somebody just been taken out. They just killed one of their own for beating a spy. There could be fracture type stuff to leak out there. I'm not seeing that as of yet. I'm seeing the president suggest these things are happening. I'm seeing leaks saying that we know US intelligence believes there is fracture going on. Maybe. It could be. It could also just be part of psychological warfare and disinformation right now. Keeping the Iranians afoot. We hear that the foreign minister is texting Steve Wicoff every hour. And Wicoff is telling the president what's in the text message. And the president's probably dictating the text message is back. I'm sure that's all happening by the way. And it could mean absolutely nothing with a president who's already made a decision. Yeah, I hope we don't fall for the negotiation track. Yeah. Okay, last question. I made one thing that seems to be absolutely clear from this entire episode is that the Iranian economy is in a death spiral. It's where the regime is in some state of rot. And they have no idea how to arrest the decline. And therefore, self regime change, some sort of revolution is going to happen. It's just a question of when. Do you agree with that? And are you able to say that you think it would happen within a year or? I think that's ultimately correct. I don't know when it would happen outside of somebody tipping the scales in favor of the people. Or some sudden flow of arms clandestinely to people who become more organized and actually fight back. That comes with its own dangers and trade-offs. So it's hard to imagine, but I would rather be us than them right now, the regime. I'd rather be the population that hopes for a different Iran than the regime as well, even though in the short term, the ability to just order mass machine gunfire and motens of thousands of people down seems rather bleak. If that is the only way to maintain control long term, there with no economy and increased international isolation and the potential for at least strategic level military strikes against any of your external threats. I don't see how you're very long for the world. Gotcha. Rich, that was amazing. I could go another hour. We'll have you back soon. More to see on this next time. We'll do Nepal. We're going to do that. And we've got a lot to discuss up there in the Himalayas. So thank you so much. Thank you. That was Rich Goldberg. I'm Michael Allen. If you enjoy listening to Natsect Matters, please leave us a rating and review. We'd love to hear from you. If you're interested in becoming a sponsor, please email our team at bgs.dc.com. You can also find this email in the show notes. Please join us next week for another episode of Natsect Matters. Natsect Matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with assistance from Ashley Berry. Natsect Matters is a production of Beacon Global Strategies.