Jorge Mas celebrates Inter Miami’s MLS victory in the Oval Office before CENTCOM unveils Operation Epic Fury, where U.S. and Israeli strikes allegedly destroyed 30+ Iranian Navy ships, slashing missile/drone attacks by 90% and 83%. Admiral Brad Cooper confirms six days of strikes on Tehran’s "Space Command" while dismissing claims of U.S. casualties as propaganda, though analysts question Iran’s residual capabilities amid expanded strikes in Azerbaijan and Beirut. With 100 intelligence analysts deployed and potential MEK coordination, the conflict risks escalating beyond timelines, as Iran targets energy infrastructure to pressure Israel and GCC states, threatening oil markets and NATO cohesion. [Automatically generated summary]
To all these distinguished guests, secretaries, so many friends and supporters.
On behalf of myself, my wife Aleda, my brother Jose, and his wife Patty, and my whole family who is here today with David Beckham, I want to express to you what an extreme honor and privilege it is to be in the People's House, led by you, celebrating in the presence of champions, winners all, because this championship was very, very well deserved, greatly played,
and you're looking at one of the best teams on the face of the earth standing behind us.
And this all became possible because we dared to dream.
Seven years ago, Inter Miami was nothing but an idea and a dream.
I remember after talking to Commissioner Garber and being awarded a team, we sat in the conference room of our family business in Miami and said to each other, what do we do now?
And as the son of a man and woman who left Cuba just seeking freedom in this great country, it has driven us to excellence.
And we thought, what can we do to make a difference?
What can we do that's special?
And at that time, I told myself what many people thought impossible.
I said, we are going to bring the world's greatest player to play at Inter Miami.
And that was in 2019.
And today, standing before you, you have the world's greatest player here to my right.
Over the course of the last two and a half years that he has been here, we've been on an epic run of records, of trophies, of winning.
Because what I've wanted to establish with Inner Miami is a winning culture.
That it be a reflection of our community of South Florida and Miami, made up of winners, of hardworking men and women.
And I want our team to be an embodiment of our fan base and everyone who aspires to a better future and to a better life.
On the back of our jersey, Mr. President, it says freedom to dream, because that's our family moniker and what embodies our team and our aspirations.
But that all began many, many years before at the dinner table of our family with my late father, Jorge Mascanosa, and my mother, Irma, who is here today.
And I speak now in tribute to our parents' generation.
And I share that with Secretary Marco Rubio, of men and women who fled communism, who fled tyranny, who wanted a better life for their boys and their daughters and their sons in the future.
And at that table was instilled in us that if you work hard and you sacrifice and you dream, it can be possible.
And today, standing before you, Inner Miami, is one of the world's biggest clubs, most based on history, but our history has been short.
But having a winning culture, having the best-selling jersey on the face of the earth, making a global difference, and not only because of Lel Nel Messi, but these men standing behind you have changed the culture of football in the United States of America forever.
We can play with the big boys.
We can be heavyweights.
Our league can be one of the top leagues in the world.
And it is this ability to dream, to persevere, to have no obstacles ahead of us that we will continue to be successful.
And hopefully, Mr. President, this is not our only visit here celebrating an MLS championship.
But this team is an embodiment of that.
And I want to thank you to be able to express this to you, to so many dear friends, loved ones, and global fans all over the world.
We fill stadiums everywhere.
We're playing this weekend against DC United at the Raven Stadium in Baltimore because we'll have a sellout there.
We sell out everywhere we go.
We open the season in the LA Coliseum with a record crowd.
But it is our aspiration to continue breaking barriers, to putting no limits, to making sure that Major League Soccer in Inner Miami over the course of the next few years is considered with the elite of global football.
So with that said, Mr. President, thank you.
Thanking you for sharing this championship with us, that we can share it with our families in the people's house and we can share it with the world.
Thank you.
And now we have some gifts we'd like to present to you.
This is Trump 47, the Lionel Messi's number 10 is a best-selling jersey, which we made which hopefully will have a rightful place in the local office in dedication of you, dedicated for our championship.
And Admiral, I want to thank you for everything you do and your incredible leadership, for your dynamic thinking, the way you're attacking this problem set on every level.
In just days of Operation Epic Fury, you and your team have delivered nothing short of devastating, precise strikes, taking out the better part of Iran's Navy, making it combat ineffective, neutralizing missile sites and launchers, and establishing total dominance over the skies we fly over and seas we fly over.
Our forces are executing with unmatched skill, and the mission is advancing decisively.
This is the kind of no-nonsense, results-driven warfighting that America demands.
And you're delivering it in spades.
You are the man for this moment.
Admiral Cooper, on behalf of the President, the Department of War, and every American watching, I want to thank you for the outstanding job you and CENTCOM are doing.
Keep pressing the fight, and we are with you all the way.
A few thoughts before I hand it over to the Admiral for an update: Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation for the IRGC in Iran.
You see, there's no shortage of American will here.
We remember and honor our fallen, those six that we will soon welcome at Dover, who gave everything for their country in this mission.
We remember them.
But we remember them by rededicating ourselves even more fervently to this mission.
Our commitment to our mission objectives only increases as our advantages continue to increase.
We've got no shortage of munitions.
Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to.
Again, our munition status only increases as our advantage increases.
Our capabilities, we have only just begun to fight and fight decisively.
Having a chance to hear from Admiral Cooper, if you think you've seen something, just wait.
The amount of combat power that's still flowing, that's still coming, that we'll be able to project over Iran, is a multiples of what it currently is right now when you add up our capabilities and those of the Israeli Defense Forces.
And we have no shortage of authorities.
The Admiral knows we have clear objectives with maximum authorities on the battlefield.
The dumb, politically correct wars of the past were the opposite of what we're doing here.
They had vague objectives with restrictive, minimalist rules of engagement.
No more.
Our authorities, his authorities, CENTCOM's authorities through the President and myself are maxed out.
Our capabilities are overwhelming and gathering still, as are those of our Israeli partners.
Our munitions are full up, and our will is ironclad, which means our timeline is ours and ours alone to control.
As long as it takes to ensure the United States of America achieves these objectives, and as we flow more forces, and as we flow more capabilities, and as our munitions as we're flying over the top, have even more devastating effects, we set the tempo, we set the timeline, led by the commander on the ground.
Our ear is to the ground to listen to Admiral Cooper, what he needs, and what he needs, he will get.
We are built for this fight, and we are in it to win it.
And we have the right commander in the lead.
So, I'll now hand it over to Admiral Brad Cooper to give you an update right here from CENTCOM.
Mr. Secretary, first, thank you very much, and good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Central Command Headquarters, America's warfighting headquarters.
It's great to be here alongside the Secretary and representing the more than 50,000 men and women in uniform currently executing Operation Epic Fury.
So, Mr. Secretary First, thank you very much for your leadership and support and the very clear vision and objectives that you've given us to allow us to use overwhelming force against the Iranian terrorist regime.
And thanks to all of you for attending today and welcome to Tampa.
We are now starting our sixth day of a historic mission to eliminate Iran's ability to threaten Americans.
We are, if I could channel my inner Navy officer, we are at full speed ahead in executing orders given by leadership in Washington.
The President and Secretary Hekseth have been crystal clear in their expectations, and we are at a high level of execution.
As described by the Secretary and earlier this week by me, U.S. combat power is building as Iranian combat power declines.
Our air dominance allows us to hit Iran's center of gravity with overwhelming power and reach.
A couple of examples.
In just the last 72 hours, America's bomber force has struck nearly 200 targets deep inside of Iran, including around Tehran.
And in just the last hour, U.S. B-2 bombers dropped dozens of 2,000-pound penetrator bombs, targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers.
Notably, we've also struck Iran's equivalent of Space Command, which degrades their ability to threaten Americans.
Then, if I just look back over the last 24 hours of the operation compared to where we were at its start, ballistic missile attacks have decreased by 90% since day one.
Drone attacks have decreased by 83% since day one.
Having said this, we remained vigilant.
Our strikes against the Iranian Navy have intensified.
You may have heard the President say just a little while ago that we have sunk or destroyed 24 ships.
That was true at the moment.
We're now up over 30 ships.
And in just the last few hours, we hit an Iranian drone carrier ship, roughly the size of a World War II aircraft carrier.
And as we speak, it's on fire.
The President gave us another task, to raise or level Iran's ballistic missile industrial base.
So we're not just hitting what they have, we're destroying their ability to rebuild.
And so as we transition to the next phase of this operation, we will systemically dismantle Iran's missile production capability for the future, and that's absolutely in progress.
This is going to take some time, but our forces are well supplied, as the Secretary said, and we are absolutely ready to prosecute this mission decisively.
Our combined joint forces have relentlessly destroyed Iran's air defenses over the past few days, and they've continued hunting for more systems to kill.
Our air defenders are operating at the very top of their game.
I couldn't be prouder, shoulder to shoulder with our partners in the region, in many cases, providing the most integrated air defense network in Middle East history.
We are fighting to win.
Through combined U.S. and Israeli combat power, we will continue decimating Iran's ability to project power outside its borders.
And if I can just conclude by saying a strong salute to the brave men and women who are out on the pointy edge of this, really doing exceptional work.
I just couldn't be prouder, and I know the American people share in that same pride.
Admiral, I wanted to ask, Mr. Secretary, the Ukrainian President said today that the U.S. has asked for specific capabilities to deal with shedded drones, Iranian drones.
Can you guys talk about what you asked for?
And has there been any surprises from Iranian capabilities that you guys have seen in the past six days?
As CENTCOM pointed out, those reports of an F-15 being shot down are false.
As you can imagine, Iran is doing everything it can to peddle in lies, deception, and inflation of numbers in reality, mostly to propagandize to their own people.
They've shut down the internet.
They're hoping they can convince their own population that they're having success.
One thing one of their leaders said recently is that 500 Americans have been killed, they claim.
These are lies.
The lies will continue.
CENTCOM will continue to debunk those lies.
So, and as often is the case in conflict, first reports are often wrong.
As it pertains to nuclear material and things like that, one of the objectives the president has always said is that Iran will not have a nuclear bomb, nuclear capabilities, but we would never disclose what we will or will not do inside operational plans.
So, Admiral Cooper's got a plan, we're working that plan, and targets will be struck or not struck according to what we want to achieve.
Yeah, right there.
unidentified
Secretary Hagsep, the President said earlier today in an interview that he would like to have a say in who's the next leader of Iran.
Is this an expansion of your military objective?
Do you view it that way?
And additionally, you spoke earlier today about how previous leaders have drawn resources from our hemisphere to the Middle East.
Ultimately, I think the president's having a heck of a say in who runs Iran, given the ongoing operation we have.
So, there's no expansion in our objectives.
We know exactly what we're trying to achieve.
I think today's a great example of what this War Department is capable of doing.
I was just in another part of Florida today where we announced America's Counter-Cartel Conference.
18 countries coming together from Central, South America, and the Caribbean, coming together to fight cartels.
That is something that is ongoing.
We're focused there.
We're focused in the Indo-Pacific.
We can mass combat power in CENTCOM.
UCOM is able to support that as well.
So, we know we're laser-focused on our hemisphere and our homeland.
That's why we locked down the border.
That's why we're working with partners to take on cartels.
That's why we're sinking drug boats.
That's why we're on the offense there.
But the beautiful things about combatant commands is that, you know, Brad Cooper's laser focused on Central Command, just like Frank Donovan is laser-focused on Southern command.
Ultimately, this issue of Iran's nuclear pursuit and their unwillingness through negotiations to stop it was something President Trump has said for a long time needs to be dealt with.
And after 47 years, he's doing something that no other president was willing to do.
And we're doing it overwhelmingly, and we're doing it decisively, while also in other parts of the globe, having the desired effects.
I mean, take, for example, what we displayed yesterday, the Iranian ship in the Indian Ocean, sunk by Indo-PACOM, another combatant command, who coordinated with us in order to make that happen.
So, America's reach is global.
Our focus here, though, those missions, these missions are narrow, they're scoped, and Admiral Cooper is well on his way to ensuring that we reach those objectives.
Do the Ukrainians are talking about providing low-cost interceptors, given their experience?
Is that something that the kind of guy is looking for?
Prabhupada, can you walk us through a little bit about how effective the Lucas drones have been, what kind of targets they've hit, and how much that's helped, given that they're low-cost, alternative to a more expensive helium.
I'm not familiar with the particular offer, but interceptors in general.
We've had a number of new capabilities being fielded.
Obviously, I'm not going to talk about it from an operational perspective of what those are.
But I think you have seen over a period of time us kind of get on the other side of this cost curve on drones in general.
If I just walk back a couple of years, you remember what you used to always hear, we're shooting down a $50,000 drone with a $2 million missile.
These days, we're spending a lot of time shooting down $100,000 drones with $10,000 weapons from ours.
So that's one aspect of it.
Lucas, indispensable.
As many of you know, and if you don't know, this was an original Iranian drone design.
We captured it, pulled the guts out, sent it back to America, put a little Made America on it, brought it back here, and we're shooting at the Iranians.
President Trump, in his first speech after the launch of the Operation Epic Fury, he addressed Iranian people and he said that there is going to be a time for you to come out, but it's not now.
I want to know if there is a timeline for that, that you're going to urge Iranian people to come out, how that is going to play out, and how are you going to protect the protesters?
You know that they're going to be shot probably, as we witnessed in January.
unidentified
That's what happened.
How are you going to protect and support the protesters?
And Admiral, I have one question for you.
How are you going to minimize the civilian harms?
We have a lot of evidence that the vaccine units, IRGC commanders, they are now gathering in schools, in hospitals, in purely residential areas because their headquarters are bombarded.
They are ruined, of course.
So how are you going to protect the civilians while you're attacking the IRGC people hard?
Yeah, I would just reinforce the point: we're targeting the people, we're targeting the headquarters and the people who are targeting the protesters.
You know, first and foremost, I'd also just double down on the president's comments that he previously made to the people: stay in your homes, keep things calm, stay out of the way.
There's a lot of U.S. and Israeli capacity coming over.
We're hitting a lot of targets.
The best thing for them to do for right now is just to lay low.
One common outcome of American military action in the past has been taking in thousands of refugees into the American homeland.
And I'm wondering if there's any safeguards put in place to make sure that the American people aren't having to have another wave of refugees from the Middle East or anywhere else come and stay here.
I think it's safe to say there's no plan for a wave of new Middle Eastern refugees to the United States of America.
I think, as the President has pointed out for a long time, there are a lot of countries in the region who would be capable of providing that kind of support if need be, but that's certainly not something we're planning on.
Yep, back there.
unidentified
Yep.
Yes, sir.
Michael in Washington Times.
I wanted to ask: I know separate Gumby is always a truism in the military.
Did the British decision to refuse Diego Garcia have any impact on the mission itself?
Did you have to adjust, or were you able to just completely go with the mission without even worrying about that?
Well, as the President stated, it was unfortunate that the Brits didn't, from day one, say, hey, go ahead and have access.
But we got there.
We got there.
And that's now part of the way that we're operationalizing bomber runs.
And it's part of when we say more to come, it's more fighter squadrons, it's more capabilities, it's more defensive capabilities, and it's more bomber pulses more frequently.
The amount of firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically.
And part of it is that we're going to have even more basing.
And it's not just the UK.
We've had other friends step up and we're grateful for that.
Maybe one more right here.
unidentified
The Azeri President earlier today basically authorized his Minister of Defense to begin preparing troops for some type of retaliatory action after the airport strike.
As the Department of War and SENCOM been working on deconflict with the Azeri if they were to move in or attempt something in retaliation.
But that does allow me to kind of address this idea that the war might be expanding or there's chaos.
And nothing could be further from the truth.
If anything, what Iran is doing by targeting allied countries that would otherwise want to stay out of this, they've actually pulled them into the American orbit.
So now you've got UAE and Qatar and Bahrain and Saudi and Kuwait and others saying, hey, we're with you.
We'll shoot with you.
We'll fly with you.
We'll defend with you.
We'll allow you more basing and other opportunities, a lot of which we can't talk about and won't talk about.
But it's actually firming up the unity of the resistance in order to focus exactly where we need to.
So this idea that it's expanding or going, no, it's actually simplifying in a number of ways exactly what we need to achieve and how we'll achieve it.
What is your message to Americans who are concerned about security here at home with the change up that we're going to see at the Department of Homeland Security?
I had a chance to go into the control room, into the tactical operations center, go see these young men and women that are doing this, the dedication that they show at every level, the way they've refined their craft.
I'm talking to a young colonel who's iterating on how we target and how we find and fix different aspects of what the Iranians are trying to do.
They don't know what they're up against.
And if they think they've got it solved for, they're wrong.
And ultimately, the combination of our ingenuity, the skill, the professionalism, the discipline, and then the sheer weight of the capabilities of the U.S. military, what you're going to see may look routine.
It may start to be like, oh, another boat.
Oh, another launcher.
Oh, another drone facility.
What it takes to do this with the precision that we do is world-class.
No one else can do it.
And it's world-class Americans, like the ones I saw here, like the ones that are coming home that we're going to greet home, that are the engine of what makes our country great.
And so I'm so grateful for folks like those here at CENTCOM at Central Command who are under your command.
Thank you for your decisive leadership.
And all I'll say to you is what I say to them, keep going.
Because the President and myself, we have your back.
And then Hegseth said, we have total air dominance.
And that is just not accurate.
That is a turn of phrase.
And I understand he wants to do that.
But just so we're clear, there are many steps between what we have achieved at great cost, mind you, to our stockpiles and what is happening or what he wants to happen, which is total air dominance.
Yeah, I think those briefings, I think those briefings, particularly from SEMCOM, would be better if you had CENCOM do more.
I think people want more numbers, more combat operations are.
But let me go back to something.
It does seem like, and Admiral Cooper reiterated this, unless I missed it, that we continue to flow more systems, more weapon systems, more platforms into the region and have consistently, and that degradation, we're still going down their target sets while it seems more scattergunned.
You know, a guy coming out of the thing and popping something off.
These are random pops instead of systematic retaliation.
But I'm not convinced of that, that this is just random dead enders, if you will.
Remember, that was the Rumsfeld term back in the day.
Dead enders.
This doesn't seem like dead enders to me.
This seems like a very organized, and now maybe the C2 functions we know have been degraded, but the Iranians were anticipating this, and this is why they desegregated or decentralized rather as many command authority to their local field commanders as possible.
I would also like to remind everybody that the weapons that the Iranians are firing.
Now, CENTCOM is running around with this percentage thing.
They're playing a numbers game.
Well, it looks like that the systems that are being fired at the region are increasingly more complex.
They're MIRVing in many cases, which means they're separating into smaller warheads.
I was witnessing one strike from, I think, about 12 hours ago in Israel where this thing let out a series of decoy systems, which basically forced the air defense system in Israel to go after the decoy.
This is happening repeatedly, Steve.
So I want to make it clear that this thing is not over, and the Iranians are still very much in the fight.
And the fact of the matter is, Heg Seth says this thing isn't expanding.
Well, the Iranians just expanded it into Azerbaijan.
They just blew up the Zanzier corridor pipelines.
You've got the Kurds coming in.
So this thing is very much expanding.
And they're saying it's not going to be done until September now.
There was kind of a mass evacuation out of Beirut.
In fact, George Papadopoulos is going to join us here in a second, actually, to talk about Azerbaijan and other areas up there that it looks like is expanding.
Poso and I talked about it because he was an intelligence officer.
Talk about this 100.
It turns out that's not rumor.
They actually do it.
They're forwarded deploying 100 intelligence analysts or officers from the Department of War DC or DC environment to actually forward deploying them now into the region, correct?
Yeah, I have a friend in naval intelligence that he did this during the Afghan war as well.
Usually this is because we are, it's part of a surge, if you will.
And that's my word.
That's not the president's word, but it's, for lack of a better term, it's part of a surge.
And the reason you do this is because you are anticipating a bigger fight on your hands.
You are anticipating having to do more.
I was talking also with somebody who has a lot of ties to this Mujahideeni Kalk group, M-E-K, who point blank told me that the U.S. Special Forces is going to be linking up with these guys at some point in the next several weeks so that we can begin doing joint operations on the ground in Iran.
Not a normal invasion, but with special forces.
But the point is, this is not ending anytime soon.
And I argue the reason we're even talking about doing even special forces on the ground is because the air war has been limited in effectiveness at best.
And I want to say something also real quick about the Kurds here.
The Kurds are very angry with us because of our treatment of the Syrian Kurds next door.
I do not trust the fact that the Iraqi Kurds are going to take the guns and money we're giving them and use it on the Iranians.
I think they're going to turn on the Turks because that's their big number one threat.
And I think that this thing, that's another side story that's about to blow up in our face because this thing is a disaster in the making, in my opinion.
So the air war is going to be fought between the Iranians who want to preserve their assets because once they emit their radars or once they fire a surface-to-air missile, for example, there's going to be a response.
So they want to husband their capabilities as they do their ballistic missiles, their drones and UAVs.
They want to keep the fight going, but they don't want to use up all of their capabilities because they want to draw out the fight.
So it's difficult to asser whether, and of course, our choice is to attrip them as rapidly as possible, to find them by whatever means and destroy them.
And that's the entire chain, where they're being produced, how they're being transported, how they're being generated, and then how they're being fired.
So we need to keep that in mind.
So what comes out of Hegseth's remarks and Admiral Cooper's remarks to my mind are three things.
First, Hegseth stressed the will is ironclad, right?
One thing that he repeated time and again was that the United States is in this to stay as long as it takes.
Secondly, as he stressed, of course, again repeatedly, more forces, more capabilities are going to flow to the region.
Iran hasn't seen, just to paraphrase, but Iran hasn't seen all of U.S. capabilities and allied capabilities.
So again, that's important.
Third, both Hegseth and Cooper independently, of course, stressed that we have the means, right?
That we have the offensive and defensive capabilities to sustain the fight.
So that's a very important point to keep in mind.
But Steve, if we take a step back, I think when we think through the war as attritional, we need to understand that that attrition is taking place really in five fronts.
First front is going to be the missile war, if you will.
That's the ballistic missiles, the cruise missiles, the UAVs, and the drones.
A second front is going to be the air war, as Brandon was describing.
A third front is the naval war, now largely fought in the Gulf.
A fourth front is the ground war, which is heating up.
The Kurds, obviously, U.S. special forces, Israeli special forces.
Perhaps the Azeris will send in a force as well in time.
And then, fifthly, the fifth front of the war is the proxy war, right, being fought in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, and perhaps broadening out elsewhere in the world.
So, that attritional dynamic is taking place in each of those areas.
And we need to understand that attritional wars are going to be like two heavyweight boxers pounding on one another, right?
It's like Muhammad Ali and pounding against one of his heavyweights.
I haven't seen in day what, day six, we've had a pretty substantial target package.
We're going down that punch list.
I just haven't seen the response of the Iranians at any kind of scale or depth.
Yes, they've gotten some shots off.
They've hit some ore refineries.
They've taken out a tanker.
They're hitting even what Brandon said, what Brandon was talking about: things that happened on the first or second day.
We're in day six.
And it's not that they don't have certain weapon systems that can hit and particularly deliver a lot of carnage to Tel Aviv.
But it looks like for the limited information they give, it looks like we are having some sort of degradation to their systems, which is supposed to be what this whole thing's about.
So, if you're looking for an off-ramp anytime in the next 72 hours, you want to make sure that you can look and say, okay, the nuclear weapon system's gone, their air defense are gone, their capabilities of producing any more missiles are gone.
Their fighters are gone, their navy's now sunk.
You just go through that punch list.
It looks to me like SENCAM, because there's two different briefings.
Pete's got one.
The Secretary of War is more policy and overview.
And then CENCOM are actually, that's the combatant commander.
He's kind of telling you what we're doing and how we're doing it, sir.
Are we winning that attritional war in some areas?
Obviously, in the Navy, we are.
Are we winning in the missiles, for example, the drones, the UAVs, or are they husbanding their capabilities for a longer fight, sending a few every day, right?
Recognizing that they have been attrited, recognizing their command and control is greatly damaged, recognizing their leadership is greatly damaged, right?
Their brain has been damaged, their nervous system has been damaged.
How much muscle do they really have?
And that's the key question.
Are we successfully treating the brain, the nervous system, and the muscle, or are they doing what they want to do, which is to ensure that they're going to be able to hit every few days?
They're going to be able to keep up the trickle or a flood at some days to attack allies, to attack U.S., I only got a few minutes, but I just want people to understand these are tough people, particularly the people in charge and the citizens too.
But these are, and I think they understand what Trita Parsi told us over and over again.
To capitulate to the Americans, it looks like in either deals or negotiation or diplomacy, they think is to end their regime.
And so they're hunkering down now to try to fight this, it looks like to the bitter end.
And so that's why, you know, this continent, and it looks like we're going through our punchlist to take this thing down pretty systematically.
So I think both sides have their strategy, and it looks like it's being pursued from my perspective, at least on the limited information we're getting.
And so when you're in the domain of losses, you're going to be risk accepting.
So we should expect the Iranian regime to lash out by any means necessary.
They have the intent.
Do they have the capabilities?
So that's critical.
Do they have the capabilities to hurt us significantly, either using their missiles, either using terrorists, either using the other proxies or using closing down the strait and hinting energy?
So they've got the intent to hurt us again, because they recognize they don't have a future, right?
Their future is, you don't want to sell these guys a life insurance policy, right?
But do they have the capabilities to hurt us?
Heg Seth and Admiral Cooper are saying we're successfully attriting their capabilities in the missile realm, in the Navy, which I think is quite clear in air defenses, which is also there's strong evidence that the air defenses are suppression of enemy air defenses has been successful.
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That's fancy talk for war.
George Papadopoulos, you join us on another aspect.
Look, I think what the Secretary of War was absolutely correct on is that Iran's capabilities domestically have been degraded.
But what I disagree with is whether the war has metastasized across various borders and has now involved foreign countries, many of which are critical to this war of attrition, including countries like Cyprus, Azerbaijan, the GCC states, Israel itself.
What Iran has calculated is that there's no way that they will take on the United States 1v1 and actually win.
So, what they're looking at is the soft underbelly that basically has underridden the United States economy, sea lanes, global trade routes, and of course, how Israel operates in the entire region, given its abilities to depend on various oil reserves from countries like Azerbaijan.
So, what has Iran just done the last 48 hours?
They haven't really hit American facilities, but what they are hitting are different nodes in energy pipelines in countries like Georgia, Azerbaijan, and they attempted to do it in Turkey.
Now, what the pipeline that your viewers are looking at does is it provides Israel with 30% of its entire oil consumption.
So, what has Iran done?
They said, we're going to hit Tel Aviv, we're going to hit Jerusalem with our ballistic missiles and our drones, but we also are going to hit the economy of Israel.
That's what this logic was behind hitting this pipeline.
Why are they hitting the GCC?
The GCC not long ago pledged over $2 trillion in FDI to the United States economy under the Trump administration.
So now the GCC members, seeing their cities hit, their airports hit, and their civilians living in bunkers are recalibrating whether they can even earmark those trillions of dollars to the U.S. That's why this has now not only become a war of attrition, but it's also evolved how Iran has approached this war.
It's no longer Iran versus the United States, but Iran versus the soft underbelly that has underridden both Israel's and the United States economies.
Why did the GCC means the Gulf Council that's bringing the Gulf, the Emiratis and the Saudis?
Why would they take a risk, something they haven't done before, although they hate each other and they've been mortal enemies for a long time?
Although there has been a rapprochement between the monarchy in Saudi Arabia and the Persians, why would they risk bringing the Gulf Council in here with a tax, particularly on their oil and gas assets?
Do you think that's a roll of the dice that was smart for them to do in the opening gambits of this?
I think they understand that the GCC does not have the appetite for a war of attrition or a prolonged conflict.
Now, of course, oil hitting going up 15, 20% in a matter of days, and the Strait of Hormuz closed, that really affects how the Europeans and their energy security.
And that's something what I believe the Iranians calculated when they did hit Saudi Arabia.
We can't forget that the United States is now the largest oil and natural gas producer.
It's a net exporter of energy for the first time since World War II under the Trump administration.
But the European Union, in which NATO is predominantly a part of, is energy scarce and it can't actually depend on $100 oil for their crippled economies.
It also can't depend on losing various energy sources from Azerbaijan, which is a critical source of natural gas and oil also to the European market.
So that's really what this calculated risk that the Iranians took so quickly was really all about.
It's about getting the Europeans out of the game, crippling the Arab countries from actually investing in the United States and forcing Israel's hand at the negotiation by cutting off their oil from Azerbaijan.
That is the risk that the Iranians have taken, I believe, because they understand that they're not going to defeat the United States militarily.
So they are lashing out.
They are a desperate regime.
But the most important thing we have to understand is, Steve, desperate regime means desperate measures.
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