CLASSIFIED: Iran's Secret Pathway to 200 Nuclear Weapon

The Intelligence Dossier

The media is deliberately distracting you with uranium enrichment and missile strikes. They are hoping you never ask about the REAL threat.

According to foreign policy analyst Ron Bee, the back door to a nuclear Iran has been wide open for years. The name on that door? Plutonium.

This is the intelligence briefing the mainstream media refuses to air. In this episode, we expose:

• The Plutonium Pathway: Iran's real nuclear program.
• The Bushehr Deception: Why a single power plant changes the entire game.
• Pakistan's Secret Role: The "ally" playing both sides of the crisis.
• The Hormuz Kill Switch: How 20% of the world's oil is now a hostage.
• China's Energy Blackmail: The strings the CCP is pulling behind the scenes.
• The Oil War: Why the real battlefield isn't what you think.

This isn't cable news. This is an indictment of a global cover-up.

👇 COMMENT BELOW:
Was this the FIRST time you heard the truth about Iran and plutonium?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Every camera is pointed at Washington and Tehran. This is exactly where they want you to look. But I've got a good friend here, Rom B, and the real story isn't even in the same time zone as either one of us. It's halfway around the world, and Ron's going to help us break it down. Ron, again, welcome to the show. I really appreciate you being on because you're the man with the inside knowledge that a lot of people wish they had.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Well, thank you, Joe. And you're the man with the right attitude towards politics. So I'm uh it's it's a match made in heaven.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah, no, you know, we were like we were talking before the show, you know, and obviously, you know, the Iran things kind of went a little bit further than I thought it would. I thought this was gonna be over a whole lot faster. You warned that it wouldn't be. Yeah, you know, I was kind of hoping it would be uh, you know, what the president was saying, in and out, but you know, but the part the part that nobody's really saying is, you know, we were talking is the plutonium. You know, everybody's focusing on uranium, but like you were saying, the plutonium changes the timeline completely. You know, so let me ask you, how close is Iran to having a plutonium pathway in the backstory box?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Well, that's that's a big question. Right now, probably not too close because the one reactor that they were building to process plutonium in Iraq, AK, a couple hundred miles from Tehran, was hit by the Israelis and by us uh during our attacks on Iran. And it had no uranium in it because you need uranium in order to make plutonium. So there wasn't any radioactivity as a result of it. But that reactor was a reactor that could produce up to one one or two uh nuclear weapons if uh if it were to go online. The other reactors that are more important in terms of plutonium um are ones that had been built by the Russians over not too far from the island of Karg, right, on land in a place called Boucher. And Boucher, there were nuclear reactors there that were built by the Shah of Iran back uh back in the early 1970s, and were attacked during the Iran-Iraq war by Iraq. The uh that was in 1983, 84, and the Revolutionary Guard was in charge of the of the country by this time and the Ayatollahs, and they couldn't figure out why they were attacking the reactor because it was for civilian nuclear use. And then they and they finally dawned on them that they thought the Iraqis thought they were making plutonium there for nuclear weapons. And then Iran realized that, okay, that must mean that Iraq is making nuclear weapons from plutonium. So perhaps we should have a nuclear program, not just for the great Satan, the United States and the little Satan, Israel, but if Iraq is going to attack us with nuclear weapons, we have to have them too, whether it be for deterrence purposes or using against Iraq. So the uh Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 88 really did create an atmosphere where the Iranians had to start thinking about what whether or not they'd have to defend themselves from an Iraq that would attack them with a nuclear weapon. Over a million people died in that war, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

There were around Iraq war?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, uh over eight years. And that also created a certain Sunni Shia divide that has existed to this day. And in any case, what what happened then, just like what happened in Iraq, he did everything underground until it was discovered during Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom was another, we went back in and uh found out to what degree he had nuclear weapons. But for the Iranians, it didn't start with uh worries about the United States and Israel. It started with uh worries about Iraq. But plutonium, there's enough plutonium that is made in the Boucher reactors that since the mid-2000s, the uh Russians have had a nuclear agreement with the Iranian, with the Islamic revolutionary government to build uh Boucher nuclear reactors that produce enough uh uh enough fuel rods or or what we say spent fuel that could be reprocessed into up to 200 nuclear weapons. And this this has been pointed out by uh by one uh a colleague of mine, but a gentleman by the name of Henry Sokolski, who worked in um the Bush administration as as a non-proliferation expert, let alone for the vice president at one point. And he runs some a place called the Non-Proliferation Education Center. And he just published in the Wall Street Journal, I think this last week, uh an article saying, let's not forget about Boucher, and that the IAEA needs to go in there to make sure that the uranium that is in the spent fuel rods does not get reprocessed and diverted for nuclear weapons use. I also note this last week that uh 700 Russians that usually work there uh have left and evacuated, and only 20 are remaining. Uh and and that's on the surface because President Trump has said that he's going to attack power plants as well as bridges once a ceasefire ends, if there's no deal. I don't think we're going to attack a nuclear power plant that has uh radiation in it because of the implications of radioactivity and what it would do to the civilian populations. But at the same time, the uh the Russians, not knowing for sure, sent uh 95% of their technicians home, which also means that the Uranians are going to have to pick up the slack and what are they gonna do if the Russians aren't there? So it's it's important that we um realize that uranium enrichment is the path that they took, primary path at Fordau, uh Natant and Isfahan, and those have been the focus of where is the enriched uranium that could be used for bombs. But let's not forget the spent fuel at Boucher, and there's several reactors there that have been built by Russians since the mid-2000s that could be uh diverted and should be covered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, should be monitored by whatever intelligence we have, let alone satellite monitoring, to make sure that it that is also taken care of. You don't hear about that too much, but I think Henry Sikolsky has done a good job of putting that on the map. So I encourage everyone to read that article in the Wall Street Journal.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Wow, that's I did not know that.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Well, now you do. Now you do. And Henry's been involved in this for years, and so he he's a very thoughtful, thoughtful strategist in terms of uh how to prevent nuclear weapons from spreading. So uh it's worth reading.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, I mean, uh, but who's watching this the closest right now? Is it primarily U.S. intelligence or other countries like more locked in on this than we are?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Well, Israel's always watching everything when it comes to nuclear weapons, and I'm sure that they're they're very aware of what's going on here. Our intelligence would be very aware, hopefully, but the focus has been on the enriched uranium, recovering that, but uh we we we can't let the uh plutonium issue leak out the back door, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Right. I mean that's I mean that's pretty I mean pretty simple if you want to think about it like that. Like it, you know, we shouldn't want them getting it out the back door.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

You know, and think thinking of the back door, you know, the back channel that you know we're not talking that people I don't think people are talking about. If this is the first time you've heard of plutonium mentioned in this conversation, drop a comment below for me and Ron, you know, and if we see it, we'll comment on it. You know, we can respond to it and any information because it was news to me, guys. I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Well, let's remember that plutonium was one of the two ways that we used nuclear weapons in uh World War II, that it was discovered in 1941 by Glenn Seaborg, a 28-year-old physicist at UC Berkeley, that used a cyclotron and and discovered this. I mean, uranium was discovered, believe it or not, in 1789 by a German ph physicist. Uh, and he named it after Uranus. That why? Because that was the last planet that had been discovered. Then uh in 1940, the next element on the on the periodic table was called Neptunium after Neptune, and that was discovered at UC Berkeley too in 1940 uh at the same cyclotron. But what did what did um Seaborg name his element, Plutonium, after the last planet in our solar system, but he didn't know apparently that Pluto was named after the Roman god of death and the Greek lord of the underworld. So what a what an appropriate association for plutonium that was used in the bomb dropped on Magasaki. Uh the plutonium uh pathway was also the primary pathway that North Korea used in order to get there. The reason for it, you need less plutonium than you do uranium for a bomb. I won't go into the details, but you get the general idea. And its critical mass is about, oh, say a third of that of U-2. So you need a third as much to create a weapon. And many of our weapons uh during the Cold War and today were made of plutonium for that reason.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I mean, that I'm not gonna lie to you, I would have never known that.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Hey, well, you've never known that.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yes. That is great. No, I already have it.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

When you're kind of like thinking about that, another nuclear power is Pakistan, right? Yeah. You know, I want to I wanna talk about how that, you know, because they almost never make the news cycle, even though they are really playing a key role. Uh, you know, because when I look at what's actually moving between the you know, the US and Iran right now, Islamabad keeps showing up. Like, what about them is kind of like that middle area.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Well, you know, Pakistan's a nuclear weapon state in and of itself. It exploded a nuclear weapon in 1998, as did India, and that was a uh very tense time that I was involved in, and and we were trying to get nuclear controls put on those weapons so that a terrorist couldn't, you know, come in and and steal it and fire it off and and create a nuclear war. And eventually, eventually that happened. But Pakistan is technically an ally of the United States, even though we have our differences on terrorism, and we in fact found Osama bin Laden hidden in Pakistan. So there are issues we have with the control of uh uh terrorism in Pakistan, but Pakistan is technically an ally. They got help from the Chinese with their nuclear weapons development and also from a program called Atoms for Peace that was created in 1957 during the uh Eisenhower administration, where the idea was that we could use atoms for nuclear energy for the benefit of of humankind instead of for weapons to the detriment of humankind. And uh also you could use uh the radioactivity uh from radium and whatnot for medicine and for killing bacteria and crops and things of that nature. So the Adams for Peace program was started, and what the idea there was you could gain that technology if you promised to sign the non-proliferation treaty, which came about in 1968 under Lynn Johnson, and that you for uh for you you would forswear uh that you would only use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and not for nuclear weapons. And in exchange for that that promise, you would receive nuclear technology, and there was uh uh an organization called the International Atomic Energy Agency, which I worked for as a graduate student um in Vienna, Austria, based, uh, that they would send inspectors around to make sure that that uh everything was up to snuff and that the uh nuclear materials being used for civilian use were not diverted, and that's the word it's always used, that were not diverted for military use. And uh but some of the um some of the countries that received atoms for peace helped, including those in South Asia, at least it's alleged that that technology was all could also be used for the production of fissile materials. Fissile means that it can be exploded as an atomic weapon, and that Adams for Peace has a spotty record in terms of staying peaceful. And one of the places that's uh under review, if not under criticism, is South Asia, where both Pakistan and India have acquired nuclear weapons and uh don't get along very well with one another, if you've noticed.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Oh, yeah, Kashmir. I mean, that's a big hotbed area.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

That's that's a whole nother discussion. You could do a upset on that. You could do uh uh, trust me, all the crises that have happened over Kashmir. And at one point I remember right after 1998, uh uh the uh the nuclear tests by Pakistan and India. I was in a discussion with Indian nuclear strategists and American non-proliferation experts where uh they they they had very unkind things to say about their natives, uh their neighbors in Pakistan, and that uh they don't they didn't need any any controls on their weapons because they had enough population to survive anything that Pakistan blew up. Yes. And that uh that was kind of shocking to all the Americans in the room, but we s we kept at it and they and the American government kept at it, and controls were eventually put on Indian nuclear weapons. Uh but um but let's just say they don't get along very well, and that's not what you want. Hotheadedness when it comes to nuclear deterrence.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Oh, yeah, no, you d you definitely don't want that. Hotheads do hot heads do not pay the bills in that situation.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Well, and you want you want calmer thoughts to prevail, and that is what happens if you go down this path. And if you are responsible for the protection of your people, one of the ways to do that is not to to have them go up in a mushroom cloud.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt at all. You know, when you're when you think about that, it's it I guess you could kind of go, you know. I mean, I'm sure everybody by now knows what we've been saying. You know, if you didn't know Pakistan was in the middle of this, you should, but maybe you don't. You know, drop a comment and we can talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Another interesting thing about Pakistan, interesting thing, they have a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been attacked. What have uh Pakistanis had to supply? They have supplied airplanes as well as troops to Saudi Arabia. That's been quiet, maybe unnoticed, but they have skin in the game not only there, but where do they get their oil from? The Persian Gulf. So they're they're also experiencing the costs and the economic costs of oil going up to whatever went up to 118. It's it's better now, under 100 bucks, but it's it's still up there. And uh so their economy is suffering. They have a mutual defense pact, and and uh they have to provide things to the Saudis because they've been attacked, and they're they want they want to improve relations with the United States, and so they've got skin in the game here too. And Trump knows that Pakistan is at least an ally of the United States. We provide them with lots of military equipment, and I think that's why he's he's he's listening to the Pakistanis when they're asking for an extension of the ceasefire simply as a nod, because he's also imposed a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, which is putting another pressure point on the Iranian economy. He's taking care of the military threat by take taking out the Navy, taking out the Air Force, taking out the air defense systems, working on getting rid of the IRGC and the besiege and the and the clerics and the Ayatollah. But now economically, what sustains the regime, it's the sale of oil. And the sale of oil all goes through either CARG or the straight or Hormuz. And so if you stock that economic lifeline to the current regime, they have nothing to pay their people, nothing to pay their military, nothing to pay themselves. And the economy, which was already in bad shape, is only going to get worse. And so you've created the military leverage by wiping out a lot of their military assets. And now you're trying to create the economic leverage to uh get them to collapse. And uh it's gonna be a difficult, difficult time for uh not just uh those in the West who have to pay pay more in gas prices, but those in Iran not who have no food, no have no water, have have no industry, and if you take out if you take out the uh the bridges and and the power plants will not have any way to go anywhere or or any way to keep their the lights on. And so the lights may go out for the regime, but it's also going to affect uh the Iranian people to an extent that uh I don't know if we uh we fully appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

No, I well, you know, when you when you think about that, we were talking about Pakistan, right? You know, in the end, what are they, you know, and I guess that's kind of like a two-part, you know, what are they getting out of this? Because, you know, a big thing is is their leverage, they depend a lot on the IM. Well, they're facing pressure because of China's involvement with their debt. You know, they're heavy a debt load. And, you know, and the IMF is putting a lot of pressure, you know, on Islamabad right now. So is is that playing a factor into this?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Well, that's one of the factors, yes. Economically, they're under under the gun. They share a border with with Iran, and so they're concerned about uh refugees. They also have the second largest Shia population in the world after Iran, which has the first. And so they're worried about political instability if if Iranian Shia, especially if the IRGC makes its way to Pakistan. Right. Right, right. And on the other side, Iraq could could also be disturbed in that way because it shares a thousand-mile border. And remember, it had a war with with Iran for eight years across that border, and it's 50% Shia. So it would be easy easy for Shia population to assimilate in Iran or cause problems, depending on your point of view. Uh, Pakistan has skin in this game on a number of levels.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Right. Well, you know, when you kind of like we'll forward a little bit back to um trying to think of the data point that really stopped me and you were talking about the strait of Harmuz.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Obviously 20% of the world's oil goes through there.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

You know, and all that, you know, kind of like our president, all they have to do is, you know, put out some kind of crazy statement and they know it's gonna, you know, skyrocket prices, you know. What would what would Iran actually need to see concretely, concretely, I should say, to not threaten the strait? You know, is there a number, is there a policy, is there a facing gesture that they want?

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Well, I think what this is that's all they have left in terms of leverage is the straight of horror moves. I mean, uh, what else do they have leverage? They don't have the military leverage, and the economic leverage is something that they're playing for time, and this is why they, you know, would like to see a ceasefire for the next 30 years, because they they know that they're playing for time, and they're playing for time so that the American public and the Western world will get tired of this and go home at some point. And the pain from at the pump, which drives um politics more more here than it does there, will play out in the midterms and let alone the next presidential election, if if uh if they can keep control over the Strait of Hormuz. And what has happened since uh President Trump imposed the blockade? Well, the Iranians have lost about$400 to$500 million a day because that's their main moneymaker, overseas sales of oil that have been prevented from going through the strait. So what did they do over the last 24 hours? The Iranians seized two container ships and attacked a third by suggesting that dual blockade, which is a um is an act of war under international law. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, they chose the word quarantine instead of blockade so as not to provoke a nuclear war, because that was what was at stake during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But this was a blockade which has been imposed in World War I against the Germans and World War II against the Japanese. World War I was against, you know, trying chemicals that were being used for explosives, phosphates, and what have you. But the phosphates are also part of fertilizer. And so there was a effect on agriculture in Germany that was unexpected. And so a lot of Germans went hungry as a result of the blockade. And the same thing happened in Japan during World War II. People lost weight because of the blockade. And folks in Iran are going to be losing weight because of this blockade because oil and oil prices go up. That means they have to they also have to pay more for food. They have to pay more for food that they can't grow in Iran because of a five-year drought. So it all it all plays into politics of the strait. And it happens, it ha so happens that this is Iran's last leverage under under circumstances. They would like to see a ceasefire go indefinitely because that means they don't have to change the regime, even if it's at its third echelon of leadership since the month of 13,000 sorties. 13,000 sorties in a month. That's that's unprecedented. We've had 16 casualties, and those are tragic, but under the circumstances of all the military has had to do in a month, it's it's it's pretty minimal compared to what it could have been.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Right. No, I I totally understand that. You know, when you look at the US economy, right, and and how how they stack up, we have the economic might to really kind of chokehold them when it breaks it down. And you know, and that's what really gives us the advantage. But does Iran outside of oil prices, does Iran have any economic advantages of this?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Oil's its major leverage point because it's the third largest reserves in the world. And uh because it has so many reserves, that one should question why they need nuclear power. In fact, they have enough uh nuclear, I mean, uh they have enough oil and gas to last for economics uh their economy for 900 years. So they don't need the uh nuclear power for their domestic economy, they want it for strategic purposes, and that's that's been clear because they haven't been willing to give it up. And what what did they say during the negotiations? When we offered them uh 3% enriched uranium for nuclear energy use in perpetuity, they said, thank you very much, we're not interested. So they're not really interested in in uh nuclear power, they're interested in Iranian nuclear control and strategic value of, shall we say, enriched uranium or plutonium, so that they could do two things. Cover for what they're doing in the Middle East in terms of supporting proxies uh uh and the support of terrorism, and the second would be achieving achieving some sort of nuclear status as as a rogue state in the Middle East that has to be dealt with. That would be terrible for not just the United States and Israel, but it would also generate an arms race. Saudi Arabia has said that as soon as Iran builds a nuclear weapon, it will it will build one. Turkey has said that it would follow suit, and who knows who else. But this would be terrible for non-proliferation, and that's why this is more important than people tend to realize.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

No, it it is very, very important. That's and people generally don't realize things like that until it's too late.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Yeah. And so you can believe that it's a forest, that this is all created in fantasy land and it's fairy dust being thrown by President Trump across the Middle East, but that fairy dust has been awfully real to both Democratic and Republican administrations since the discovery of secret nuclear sites back in the 1980s.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Right. No, one thousand percent. Well, when you when you kind of like like we'll pivot to the ceasefire, like we were talking about a little bit. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

You know, and kind of feedback into this, is China brokered, I believe, it was it, 2023, the Saudi Iran deal, if you want to call it that. Uh, you know, Xi Ping is obviously pushing for a ceasefire because of the oil.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

You know, is it just because of the oil, or is this like a or is he trying to do what we're trying to do, geopolitical positioning, you know, to strengthen his own stance?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Well, yes and yes. It uh it's both because he needed to do something because he needed to protect the 40% of his oil comes from Iran. And if uh if he can also make make friends with Saudi Arabia, uh he could they could possibly do deals with Saudi Arabia for oil. On top of that, it shows that uh China can operate as a peacemaker in an area of the world that it doesn't have a lot of influence other than in Iran. Uh so it's uh uh it wants to be a superpower. It is building nuclear weapons like it wants to be a superpower, and it's threatening Taiwan and other countries in the South China Sea over oil rights. One of the main things that's preventing it from um becoming a superpower is lack of oil. And uh the need the need to uh go everywhere in the world and find oil and buy it as cheaply as you can. And by taking the oil away in Venezuela, which was about uh you know 20, 20 percent of of its uh oil import, and from Iran, which is f was 40 percent, the rest of it comes from Russia, and Russia's doing just fine right now because of oil prices. They're making lots of money, which they're unfortunately going to use part of it in the uh in their war in Ukraine. But at the same time, uh this is a play for control of a very important region in the world that that has what the world wants, and that happens to be oil and gas. Twenty percent of it goes through the Strait of Hormouths. The United States has made itself more independent uh from Middle Eastern oil, in fact, has become the number one producer of oil in the world and has suggested to Europe and others that they might want to buy from us rather than the volatile Middle East. This has also become an issue of control of resources for for those that would wish to do us harm, the so-called access of aggressors or or uh you know China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. If uh this turns around in Iran, namely if a more democratic government comes and a the autocratic Islamists fall, this would be very harmful to China as well as Russia because that's one of their main players in their alliances. And do I need to mention that the drones uh are um developed by the Chinese and helped pay for by the oil money that the Iranians get from the Chinese, but also are shared with the Russians in Ukraine. The Shahid drones are being used in Ukraine.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah, the Ukrainians, from what I've heard, have some really crazy killer uh drones, like they have some of the best in the world.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah, and some counter-drone uh technologies that they've had to develop because of the realities of war, four years of war on their territory. So it's all connected, isn't it? Because if you limit what Russia can sell, it it makes less money that it can plow into Ukraine. Europeans buy Russian oil, they're buying from a country that they're trying to defend against in Ukraine and helping them finance their war. So it's I think the biggest strategic change has been a change of energy policy since in fact that has that has become what we are looking at as a cause of conflict in in uh this administration, but certainly over the longer term since World War II. Energy resources are just as important as political resources, as as economic resources. So we've touched on this before.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Oh yeah, no, no doubt. You know, and then we'll so we'll kind of go a little bit of the coverage, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Where people because sometimes people don't understand. They don't people don't the media doesn't always explain things in the right way.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

They don't they don't have time. Right, no.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, to be fair, I mean, you know, and sometimes uh I don't think everybody wants to do the sensationalism to get views or clicks, right? You know, but sometimes it feels like certain media people, not all outlets, but people do. But you know, you've been doing it for a long time and you can tell who's what. But you know, I would what is the single most important thing happening in the US-Iran relations right now that nobody's reporting about? Because there's gotta be that thing that nobody talks about that really just seems kind of like the straw on the camel's back or the one that puts it back together.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

The one thing that I think is on people's mind right now is how strong is the IRGC? It has a mosaic defense, namely there are independent actors. Who's really in charge? Number one, after you've destroyed at least two or three echelons of leadership, who's in charge? And they have a 32 different provinces, and they have a what you would call a diversified command structure where some of the command can be taken over in each of these provinces. And as a result, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing all the time and what what the hell is a ceasefire if nobody knows it exists, number one. And number two, I think the most important thing that hasn't been covered and is is is probably on the minds of many Americans, let alone uh uh Iranian refugees, when is when is the people gonna rise up against the Islamic Republic and take over? Or is it even going to happen?

SPEAKER_01 33:03

I mean that That's what we're all hoping for.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah, it's what everyone's hoping for, but hope needs to have have some sort of action on the ground. And those who are going to rise up are going to need weapons, and those who those who have already been killed are out of the fight, and have probably created some reservations among those who have seen the people hung from cranes, have seen the wrestlers hung from a crane, have seen the women murdered in the streets, uh, have seen the Basijes on their motorcycles with submachine guns cutting down their sons and daughters. Um that's going to, after 40 to 50,000 of those sort of things happening, the uh uh you can understand if people are gonna wait a while before they go out in the streets. What are they gonna fight with rocks, with Persian rugs? What are they gonna what are they gonna fight with? Right. That's gonna have to either be supplied by uh intelligence services like the Mossad or the CIA or across borders through the Kurdish communities, that sort of thing. Hard to know, don't know, but you can bet that it looks like the um the main focus has changed from civilians in the streets to how do we stop nuclear weapons from being developed in Iran. And that's important. The last thing I would say that has been ignored is that the only way that this is going to change is if you change the regime. You cannot have uh an Islamic republic, a death cult in charge of a country if you want if you want all of these things to happen. I don't see a clear path to that. If 80% of the of of the Iranians want a different government, they don't have the arms to overthrow the other 20%. And if 20% of of Iran still wants to be in that government, that's 18 million people.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Wow. That's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

That's a lot of people. So um uh and how are you going to to eradicate that without boots on the ground?

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

I mean you you can't And what are the casualties going to be, you know, if you have to put boots on the ground in a place three to four times the size of Iraq with very difficult, you know, even Alexander the Great had had headaches and nightmares going through going through Persia because of its terrain. And, you know, they've had 47 years to build tunnels to put their missiles and armaments in and hide, you know, uh across the country. And most of our most of our attention has been put on western, Western Iraq. Uh Eastern Iraq, we we still have ways to go there. And I think we're hoping that the regime collapses from within due to the economics of it.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

But hoping and seeing it happen are two different things.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

You're not lying there. You know, so I mean, as we as we wrap this up and bring it home, yeah, where do you see like, you know, you generally have a really good outlook or, you know, sensible outlook on where do you see this going in the next 30, 60 days?

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Well, I think that the uh Strait of War Moose is is going to be a focal point that it has to be open and it has to be open soon, and that uh if if there are um uh if there are any problems like the ones we've seen over the last couple of days, they have to be shut down, and that means militarily. Um 131 ships a day used to go through the Gulf. I don't think there's more than 10 to 20 that are going through now. And as long as that choke point, that energy choke point remains there, whoever's in charge of Iran still has some leverage. Uh that I think the next uh the next uh 60 days have to be have to be focusing on opening the strait and and continuing to blockade the uh uh Iranians from getting any oil out so that it affects their their economy in an even worse way where they'll have to unconditionally surrender. And that's where I see this having to go, or else it's gonna be long, prolonged, and we'll be talking about this for the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Well, at least it pays the bills, mumsking.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Maybe your bills. Not quite yet, not quite yet. One day, maybe. Not mine either, not mine either. But one day. One day we'll both get paid for doing something like this. But in any case, the the I think we went in because we had to. I don't know if how we get out of it because we have to.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Right. I mean, and that's it it's gonna be tough, you know. Like and my thing is, and I've said this before, is I think if a people are willing to stand up and fight for themselves, I've got zero issue if we supply them with the things they need to stand up for themselves. Right. Especially if it's on the side of a cause like this, you know, and to my fellow Americans out there that um that are about to get up in arms over that comment. We as a country had significant help from other countries to create our revolution. Yes. And so it is okay in certain instances. And, you know, my stance has always been if, you know, can you stand on your own two feet and do it? You know, that's where I'm always, you know, if you're not willing to sacrifice your own stuff, why should I?

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Yeah. Well, and and uh it's it's so difficult because the Iranian people have been under oppression for 47 years and uh terrible things they've had to endure, but they have to, they they are the ones that are gonna have to stand up and fight for the future and the fight for their future generations. And uh to the extent that we can help them do that, and we promise to help them do it. I believe the phrase was help is on the way uh and take names. I mean, help has been on the way now for uh a month uh and and some odd, and we're shutting down the economic lifeline of the oppressors, but at the same time, we're gonna have to see that majority of Iranian people stand up and fight for their own rights, as I think they will and hope they will, because otherwise this is gonna go on for quite a long time.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

No, it will. No, no doubt. You know, Ron is always, you know, one of the few people I trust to give me the real picture of what I don't know, you know, and it's always a blessing. Ron, tell everybody about your project.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Well, I've got a project where I'm trying to teach the next generation about international relations as well as as diplomacy, and uh that's at Oxford University. We have a three and a half-week seminar called the Oxford Study Abroad Program and International Relations. And the next one will take place this July, 2026. We do it every July, and I'd love uh anyone who has an interest in coming to the world's oldest English-speaking university that has produced 31 prime ministers uh and uh lots of knowledge, lots of knowledge and an uh in an at in an atmosphere where all points of view happen to be encouraged and debated, and then afterwards you go to the pub for a beer and talk it out like Ronald Reagan used to do with Tip O'Neill back in the day. But in any case, uh I do this every July. And if you want to learn about it, you can go to my website, learnthruble.com. And there's still some spots open for this July if if you want to come. But if it's too soon to plan, then there'll always be next year. And thanks for allowing me to give a plug, Joe.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

No, it no problem at all. No issue. Well, everybody, I'm glad you enjoyed this tonight. Uh, give it a like, share, subscribe, follow. Um, I appreciate everybody tuning in, and everybody have a good day.