A Radical Reset

When Diplomacy Ends: How Israel and Trump Orchestrated the Iranian Checkmate

• Herby • Season 1 • Episode 29

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The chess game in the Middle East has reached a critical juncture as Israel launches a decisive preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. This bold military action comes exactly 60 days after a joint ultimatum issued by Israel and the United States expired, marking a definitive shift from diplomacy to direct confrontation.

Drawing on my background in military intelligence analysis, I break down why this attack represents war as the final, necessary step when diplomacy fails. The Iranian regime, operating from fundamentally different cultural and religious perspectives, continued their stalling tactics that had succeeded with previous administrations. What they failed to recognize was the strategic partnership between Trump and Netanyahu, who appear to have orchestrated a carefully planned sequence of events leading to this moment.

The military imbalance is stark – Israel has achieved complete air superiority after neutralizing Iran's anti-aircraft defenses in previous operations, while Iran's air force consists largely of outdated F-4 Phantoms from the 1970s. This explains the effectiveness of Israel's strikes and the limited nature of Iran's initial response. But the chess match continues, as US military assets, including B-2 bombers capable of carrying bunker-busting MOABs, have been strategically positioned at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

This suggests preparation for what comes next – Iran's likely retaliation against American interests throughout the region, which would provide justification for devastating American strikes against remaining Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The potential endgame could include regime change in Iran and the restoration of the pre-1979 alliance structure that once existed between Iran, the United States, and Israel.

For those seeking to follow developments in real-time, I recommend Bernie News, an apolitical news aggregator focused on Middle Eastern developments. And for those interested in my political philosophy, check out "A Radical Reset," my book outlining an alternative political system based on merit-based lottery rather than traditional party politics.

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Speaker 1:

Good morning, happy Friday, june the 13th. Friday the 13th, which turns out to be, in my view, a lucky day, as Israel has in fact, attacked Iran in a preemptive strike to knock out the Iranian nuclear capability and from early results, it seems like they've been fantastically successful and these strikes are ongoing as we speak. A little side note before I get into my own podcast. If you would like to follow pardon me if you would like to follow what's going on minute by minute boots on the ground, there's an excellent news accumulator in the Middle East. It's called Bernie B-E-R-N-I-E dot news, bernienews. You can follow it on WhatsApp those of you who have WhatsApp, and if you don't, you should and if you don't like to use WhatsApp, you can also follow it on X. So it's Bernienews. Bernienews. It's not a political site, it's not. It's neither Zionist or anti-Zionist. It just is an accumulator of Middle Eastern news. It's not just Israeli news, but at this particular time, if you would like to be kept completely up to date for example, right now, as I'm recording this, it's 11.07 am in Phoenix, arizona, and it's been posting about every 20 minutes an update of what's going on in the Middle East. So if you want the latest and the greatest and you'd like to know, for whatever your reasons might be. Follow it on Bernie News. It's a reliable news source and it's not even American, so it's completely apolitical. It's not going to get into pro or anti-Trump and confuse American politics with Middle Eastern history. So check it out, bernienews.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's get back to the subject matter. By the way, that's unsponsored. I get nothing for Bernienews. I discovered it through. Where did it? I think Mark Halperin recommended it on the Two-Way Podcast, and then Rative Gore, who's an Israeli guy. Anyway, rativ Gore actually not Rativ, I know better than that have all recommended it. So, anyway, that's why I'm not getting any. I don't have any sponsored messages. The only thing I'd like you to do for me is to go pick up a copy of A Radical Reset on Amazon the Manifesto of Antipolitism, the Political System, a Republic by Merit-Based Lottery, as bizarre as that sounds. Check it out. It's what needs to come next and it's a movement, not a political party. So check it out. The book is A Radical Reset, just like this podcast. You can get it on Kindle, paperback or hardcover on Amazon by me, herbie K, and anyway. So that's that.

Speaker 1:

So let's move on to the subject matter obviously at hand, which is the attack on Iran. Now, for those of you who are, I'm a libertarian generally speaking, but libertarians have generally come out against this attack because libertarians believe that war is unnecessary at all times. This is where I diverge from classical libertarianism. Let's call it at least the American strain, or the Misesorg group that's in charge of the libertarian party right now Well, not in charge, but certainly as the governing influence, which is the more purest form of libertarianism that I generally subscribe to. I am a member of Misesorg. It's a terrific organization. I recommend that you support it. It's all about free markets, free thought, libertarian thought.

Speaker 1:

But I believe they're wrong about this, because I think that libertarians who are completely knee-jerk like Dave Smith, for example knee-jerk, anti-war don't take into consideration that war itself is nothing more than the last step in diplomacy, and this particular war in Iran that's taking place is a classic example of why it is the last step in diplomacy. Without war, no diplomacy means anything. Diplomacy without war, no diplomacy means anything. Okay, to believe that two parties sit down, like what's going on, for example, in ukraine right now, for russian ukraine to sit down without a war, it will. It would not resolve. It would just simply put off a bigger war until later. Okay, at best case scenario, war is the resolution of a fail of the of diplomacy, when all the talk in the world has broken down and there's simply nowhere to go, there's no path to the center. War is diplomacy.

Speaker 1:

Now, the attack on civilians is a relatively new thing in war, up until World War II and when Hitler began bombing London, which I think was the first time that a major power brought a civilian population intentionally under fire. That's not to say that you know, romans didn't encircle cities and then wipe out entire populations. I'm talking about in the context of modern warfare, more or less. Even when Sherman was marching to the sea, the idea was to destroy property, not people. Destroy property, not people. Okay, so you know he destroyed. He cut a path of destruction all through Georgia, all the way down to Savannah, which he spared. By the way, one of the most beautiful cities in the United States is Savannah, georgia. If you ever, my daughter went to college there to scat and got her degree in performing arts. If you ever have a chance to go to Savannah, you really need to go to the historic area and check it out. It's magnificent, anyway, digressing. So the idea of intentionally targeting civilian populations is a since World War II thing and in this case we're seeing more of a return to a classic example.

Speaker 1:

So let me just break this down into pieces. Number one Israel's intelligence. Well, first of all, let's talk about diplomacy. First, exactly 60 days to the day of yesterday, israel and the United States told Iran that they had 60 days to make a deal with President Trump, and if they didn't do it by the end of 60 days, then time was up and you know there was no telling what would happen next. There was no explicit threat of imminent attack like it took place yesterday, exactly 60 days after the time, but the implication was there and unless you were a complete retard, you completely understood what was going on. Now, the Iranians.

Speaker 1:

It's hard for us to really appreciate the cultural perspectives of non-Western countries. You know, you can be taught and appreciate the perspective of French and Germans and Poles and English in World War II, for example. And see both sides, even if you know one side is completely wrong, like the Nazis, or a better example is World War II, for example. And see both sides, even if you know one side is completely wrong, like the Nazis. Or a better example is World War I, where I don't know that the Germans were at fault. I mean, it was just one thing escalated to another, but the Germans certainly weren't evil in that conflict.

Speaker 1:

So it was easy for me, and I'm sure for you too, is, if you take an historic perspective, to put yourself into the cultural eyes of how you know, the Prussians might have seen it versus the French might have seen it, versus how the English saw it, how the Americans saw it. But when you get into an Eastern culture like the Persians, and especially an old, old culture like the Persians, and then you mix into it Islam, which, unless you are in fact Muslim and listening to me now, most of us have really only the most cursory knowledge of Islam, so we're speaking from complete ignorance. So you mix a religion of which you're completely ignorant and yet is devoutly followed by a significant portion of that population, and then you mix into it that it's an Eastern culture to begin with, so it doesn't resemble in any way the culture that we were raised in. It's hard, if not impossible, to appreciate their point of view and understand why they're doing what they're doing. So, I'm sure, from President Trump's point of view and I'm sure from the point of view of, for example, libertarians, as I was talking about, you know why wouldn't they take the deal?

Speaker 1:

The deal was really, really. It came down to this as long as they agreed to give up all enrichment and shut down the centrifuges, they could have civilian nuclear power and we would take the sanctions off and they could prosper. And you would think that would be a great deal because, from a military perspective, taking a step back and just to remind you guys, I was an analyst at the National Security Agency. I have a background in this. I have a better knowledge of how the military and how foreign militaries work. I was a Russian linguist but I had a top secret alpha clearance. I have a very healthy awareness of how militaries work, not just as a veteran but as an intelligence guy myself and that's not to say I'm intelligent, but I worked in intelligence which could be an oxymoron, but anyway. So Israel's intelligence in this was spectacularly good and they understood who they were dealing with.

Speaker 1:

So from a libertarian point of view, you're saying to yourself, first of all, you're kind of mystified why wouldn't they take the deal? And the answer was from their cultural point of view. They really believe it. They believe that 48 virgins thing. You have to take them at their word. They really do believe that Israel is an evil country and must be destroyed, and they were only days away from getting nuclear weapons. So the bottom line here is is that all the talk in the world, what they were trying to do is what they had done successfully with President Obama and President Biden and everybody else before, which is stall. They're extremely good from. They're Middle Eastern traders, you know, and a Middle Eastern trader can carry on a negotiation even if they have no intention of ever getting anywhere near your price. It's almost sport for them. And from the Iranian point of view, they felt that they could stall us as long as they needed to go, but they were dealing.

Speaker 1:

They also don't have a cultural appreciation of how different Donald Trump is from his predecessor, joe Biden and, uh, of course, barack Obama, who was an, who is an anti-Semite, so they're dealing with a whole new sheriff in town. They've gone from the worst president in history from an Israeli point of view, that would be Barack Obama to the best president in history from the Israeli point of view, that would be Donald Trump. I mean they named the city after him on the Golan Heights, and you know he's the president that moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. He's the president with Jewish grandchildren. You know, he is not. Probably he is more popular than Netanyahu in Israel. That's how popular Donald Trump is in Israel, and I don't think the iranians quite appreciated his negotiation style, which is to, as you know, lay it down and ask for the ridiculous. And you know he'd have talked to him, but they weren't. They were they, they had no intention of talking, they were stalling.

Speaker 1:

But I think what went on here and this is supported by nothing other than my experience and intelligence and the fact that I like to think in terms of playing chess as opposed to checkers I think one of the problems that a lot of our leadership has well, I don't think so, I know so, and not just ours, but globally is that they all react in the minute and they don't play. They're playing checkers, not chess. All react in the minutes and they don't play. They're playing checkers, not chess. They're not. You know, if I do this, then my opponent will do this, and then I'll be forced to do this, which then my opponent will do that, and you can be out six, seven moves ahead If you're really really good at it, if you're a grand master. For those of us who are not grand masters, including myself, I'm usually three moves out and I can see what the three and I think Trump plays chess. I think Trump is probably actively thinks in terms of that metaphor.

Speaker 1:

So I think that Trump and Netanyahu were in cahoots from the start, and I'll tell you my evidence for this is not just my feelings, but also because Trump knew who he was dealing with. He knew what the negotiation history was. He's a very, very smart negotiator. Love him or hate him. You have to give him that. And I think he was giving Israel cover to build itself up. Remember, first of all, israel had to take delivery. President Biden had held up the delivery of those 2,000-pound bombs that were delivered to Israel. Israel had paid for them. They were waiting in a warehouse. Biden blocked their shipment, so Israel didn't have them and those were necessary for this attack. And so President Trump only took office 100 days ago. The ultimatum was issued 60 days ago, as of the 12th, so really he was barely into his presidency. I'm sure he'd been talking to Israel.

Speaker 1:

The inevitability of attack on Iran has always been something that Trump has alluded to. He was basically giving them the choice in Mexico and the cartels I'm not changing the subject. The choice is oro o plomo. Do you want? Want gold or lead? You know so what what happens is is that a cartel will go to a local police chief and they'll say oro o plomo. You know you want to play ball with us or do you want to get killed? Because that's your choice and 99 out of 100 sane people and I, I have to tell you that I think most sane people given the choice of you can't win order o plomo. You're going to take the order every time. And so you know, back to you know our negotiations, I you know when I say our negotiations, this whole setup to this attack it. You know Iran was given the choice of order o plomo, but you know, mysteriously, they took plomo. So so the bottom line is is that Trump was just giving Netanyahu the time and the diplomatic cover, and remember, the United States vetoed an anti-Israel resolution during the 60-day period while we were ostensibly conducting negotiations through Oman.

Speaker 1:

I think it was Oman. I don't think it was Gutter this time, I think it was Oman. I could be wrong, but I'm almost positive. It was Oman and Oman is, I believe. Again, I haven't double-checked I should while I'm talking to you, but I'm just going to leave it to you to double-check me. But I think they're an Abrahamic horse country. If they aren't, they soon will be. No, I think they've already had an ongoing active relationship with Israel for some time actually. Anyway, but I think it was all a facade. I think that Trump was playing the Persians, while they thought they were playing him, because Trump and Netanyahu were playing a much stronger hand.

Speaker 1:

And the other thing that made me believe that this was all an inside deal is that we moved most of our B-2 force into Diego Garcia about a month ago. It was reported, but it was reported in passing, which is why I'm going to predict here on this podcast that we will enter the war. I'm going to continue to talk to you about the chess game that I think is being played. So we moved our B-2s into Diego Garcia, which is a base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, an easy striking distance for those planes. I don't even think they need to be refueled to Tehran or to whatever targets they need to hit in Iran. So, and those planes are the planes. And I think we also moved some B-52s. In fact, I'm positive we did. We moved some B-52s.

Speaker 1:

It's the B-52s and the B-2s that are capable of carrying the MOABs, the mother of all bombs, the ones that they. You know, if you drop it on a mountain, it's the closest thing to a nuclear explosion It'll powder the mountain. You know, we dropped one at Tora Bora, trying to kill Osama bin Laden. Back in the day he was already gone, we missed, but we powdered the mountain. You know, what was not told in the story was that mountain was full of bunkers and stuff and today it's just a bunch of rubble. So you know, that's what, while we weren't going to preemptively and the Moabs.

Speaker 1:

So to give you some idea of the power of, for example, just the 2,000 pound bomb, so to give you some idea of the power of, for example, just a 2,000-pound bomb, the bomb that blew up a school—I don't know how many of you follow terrorist bombing of school buses, but typically when a terrorist walks on board a school bus and blows it up with all the children inside, and that horrible thing, that's about a half a pound explosives. Um, and if, if you, when? When Israel killed that guy in downtown Tehran, uh, sleeping in his bed, um, the, the, uh, the, the head of uh Hezbollah, who was, you know, hanging out, and they, they, they, they murdered him in. I don't consider it murder, I consider it killing, and I think there's a difference between the two and it has to do with who you're, who you're acing out, but anyway, digressing, they killed him with about 10 pounds of explosives and that blew up his bedroom, the floor, everything around it, all that concrete blown out. No chance that he was going to get away Dead as a doornail. And so 2,000 pounds is 40 times that.

Speaker 1:

No, no, what am I saying? So 10 pounds, so 2,000 times that. So what is that? 200 times that? It's 200 times more powerful than what blew up the entire you know apartment building or apartment that this guy was living in. So these are very, very powerful bombs.

Speaker 1:

But the MOABs are much bigger than that. Moab again, it's an acronym, mother of All Bombs. So that's not really what they're called. There's some numerical designation to them, but they're huge and they'll powder. It doesn't matter if they're sitting under 100 feet of concrete, it's going to go right through it like a hot knife through butter or, if you prefer the analogy or metaphor, it's shit through a goose. Is that an analogy or a metaphor? I think it's a metaphor, anyway.

Speaker 1:

So why did we move the planes there if we weren't going to be part of the original attack? Because we're anticipating the what's the word retaliation that Iran will take, will try so when Israel attacked Iran about a month ago, or was it two months ago? Iran about a month ago, or was it two months ago whenever it was when they attacked Iran in retaliation for that 450 drone strike on Israel and Israel went in and they knocked out all of Iran's anti-aircraft defense. Israel has total air superiority. Understand those of you listening and don't know this, but the Iranians don't really have an air force at all. What planes they have are date from 1979 and their F-4 Phantoms which I mean they flew them when I was in the service back then. But I have to tell you, an F-4 is proof that a brick can fly if you put a big enough engine on it. They absolutely positively cannot compete with modern jet fighters in any way, shape or form absolutely positively cannot compete with modern jet fighters in any way, shape or form. And in fact, Iran, according to what I read on Bernienews managed to get six jets in the air and Israel shot them all down before they got away from their airfields. And there is no Iranian Air Force and Israel has total air superiority, which is a big reason why the retaliation from Iran so far has been so anemic.

Speaker 1:

So back to the chess game. So, marco Rubio, this morning, the Secretary of State I know you all know that I don't mean to insult your intelligence Anyway, marco Rubio came out this morning and made a clear statement that said we were not part of this, this was independent of us. This is an independent Israeli move. Now, all that is a pretext. This is all to me. He's just pushing a couple of pawns forward and faking, or maybe even he might be even trying to fake them out with a bishop or a knight and get everyone to think that you know, we're trying to distance ourselves from Israel.

Speaker 1:

But the Iranians, from a Persian point of view, they don't give a shit what Marco Rubio says. They're blaming us as sure as God made little green apples, because they see through. They're not playing checkers like the American media, they're playing chess and they're thinking from their point of view, that is, from their Eastern point of view. They're thinking that the United States is absolutely behind this and they're going to retaliate against American bases, assets and allies in the Middle East, and we have anticipated that. So there's no possible way. This is a very Franklin Roosevelt sort of thing, when he basically taunted the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor over cutting off their oil and steel shipments when really the Japanese empire was not attacking any American interest in the Far East.

Speaker 1:

Just saying but you know, one way to start a war is to do something intentionally to irritate the living shit out of the other side. So what's going on here is President Trump while his spokesman, through his spokesman, is saying we weren't involved, we never saw it coming. You know, we were conducting negotiations, it was all a ploy. But the Iranians now have seen through that ploy and they see the bishop that's being set up to. You know, they feel like they're in check and so they have to get out of check. They're going to have no choice in their mind but to attack US interests, because Israel is a very hard. I mean, they've launched some drones already. They've all been shot down. As of this moment, it's not that the Israeli defense is perfect, but it's almost perfect. And so what's going to happen is that they're going to retaliate.

Speaker 1:

There's so many American targets in the Middle East. There's, you know, the naval base in Bahrain, there's all kinds of places that they can hit. In Iraq we have troops, we have troops in Syria. We have troops all over the place that we're not supposed to have, but we do, and we have American interests, american embassies. This is why President Trump, by the way, very, very smartly and why I knew the attack was imminent pulled all the American diplomatic families out of the Middle East over the last couple of days. So all the civilians are out of harm's way. But they're going to definitely retaliate, or they might try to do a domestic terror attack here in the United States.

Speaker 1:

Regardless of what they do, those bombers will be in the air 30 seconds later. Those are there anticipating that there's going to be retaliation against some American interest, and that's checkmate. So what's happening is that? So again, let me just recap it. Let's play it like chess. The Israeli attack has placed Iran into check. The United States is feigning that it was playing an entirely different game, when in fact all along it was whispering in Israel's ear. The Iranians perceive this, but they're in check and they feel like they have no choice but to retaliate against the puppet master behind who they're playing, which is the United States, and they don't see it yet. But we have our queen ready to move in and checkmate their king, which is all the nuclear facilities with the MOABs that we're going to drop on them from the B-2s and put an end to this once and for all.

Speaker 1:

The end result of all of this is going to be and I'm just getting on the record with this, then we can all look it up and laugh at me later when I'm going to be wrong, but you know who knows, what I think is going to happen is is that the government's going to fall. I think that they might even try to target the Ayatollah himself. I'm sure the Ayatollah is crapping his pants right now. If the United States retaliates with Moabs, he will be a target. Mark my words he's a dead man walking and I think right now the Iranians are in freakout mode and you don't think clearly in a chess match when you're in freak out mode and I think that the advantages to Israel. I think the government of Iran will ultimately fall. I think we will not get involved because we've Trump is not an interventionist.

Speaker 1:

There's a difference between war being the last step of diplomacy and using war to engage in regime change, which is what the neoconservatives did, which was such a disaster so many times. We don't have to rehash and I'm sure we all agree. So the bottom line is that we won't go in, but there is a strong government in exile, headed by, at this moment, the son of the Shah, and the son has a son too. So there's an existing monarchy ready to go in place that will operate in a very Persian way, and that would be a great outcome from everybody, because let us not forget that before the Ayatollah Khomeini, the first Ayatollah, took over in 1979, iran was an ally, a close ally of the United States and a close ally of Israel, believe it or not, so that's a true story. They were close friends. A close ally of Israel, believe it or not, so that's a true story. They were close friends. This has nothing to do with the Persian people. This has to do with Muslim fanatics.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, that's as far as I'm going today. I think I've talked enough. I think I've rambled all over. I hope you get something good out of all of this. Don't forget to go down to Amazon. Go down to Amazon Look what an old man I sound like To go to Amazon and buy a copy of A Radical Reset, the manifesto of anti-politism, which is what the Radical Reset is all about. You will enjoy it, I promise. I write better than I speak. I think I don't know, you'll find out. You'll critique it. See what you think. What else? Also, don't forget to share this with your friends. Have a beautiful, wonderful weekend and I'll talk to you.