Episode 5217: WarRoom Iran Enters Third Week: Beware The Ides Of March
Stephen K. Bannon, Sam Fattis, and Jack Posobiec dissect the escalating Iran conflict, debating whether asymmetric tactics have created a stalemate or U.S. victory. They analyze the strategic closure of the Strait of Hormuz, rising global oil prices, and alleged Russian drone support via Ukraine alongside China's Yuan-backed tanker security. The discussion covers President Trump's rejection of Iranian terms, potential Hormuz Island infrastructure neutralization, and the expansion into Lebanon and the Red Sea. Interspersed is a debate on Senator Mike Lee's "Save America Act" regarding voter ID and election integrity. Ultimately, the episode warns that while global attention focuses on the Middle East, Russia may launch a summer offensive in Ukraine, suggesting a converging geopolitical crisis. [Automatically generated summary]
On this eve of his most glorious triumph, I move that Gaius Julius Caesar be made imperator and granted absolute power over Rome for a period of ten years.
As some of you know, Caesar and I have had our disagreements.
However that may be, he has shown himself to be as wise and merciful in victory as he was invincible in battle.
Let this be an end to division and civil strife.
I willingly pledge my loyalty to him, and I urge you all to do the same.
I heartily commend the motion proposed by Marcus Tullius Cicero.
He's carried unanimously.
Many of you here today fought against me.
Many of you wished me dead.
Trump Weighs War Options00:06:24
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Many of you perhaps still do.
But I hold no grudges and seek no revenge.
I demand only this: that you join with me in building a new Rome.
A Rome that offers justice, peace, and land to all its citizens, not just the privileged few.
Support me in this task, and old divisions will be forgotten.
Oppose me, and Rome will not forgive you a second time.
Well, I know you do, you Mr. and Mrs. America, you're patriots, but did the Democrats want to win this war?
Do the leftists want to win this war?
Do the media want to win this war?
They sure as hell act like they don't.
Even though they're not outwardly rooting for the enemy, they're doing everything they can to sabotage the effort of the president of the United States and our patriotic military.
They're doing everything they can to dispirit us and disunite us.
Well, I think what the fact that we're moving a Marine Expeditionary Unit from Okinawa to the Middle East, while we're also moving FAAD batteries from South Korea and other assets, what that suggests to me, Kate, is we started a war without being ready for the consequences.
And clearly, the military is scrambling because they don't have the assets they need in the Middle East to deal with this threat.
And it's not clear to me that 2,200 Marines are going to make that much of a difference.
What's stunning to me, Kate, is that all of this was completely predictable.
This is something that our military has been wargaming for years.
They've been warning about this.
General Kane, from all the reports I've read, warned President Trump about this, that if you kill the supreme leader of Iran, that doesn't necessarily lead to the collapse of the regime.
And if you start a war with Iran, they're going to interdict the Strait of Hormuz.
That is the most obvious strategy in their playbook.
They're also going to hit Gulf states.
They're going to go after oil facilities, U.S. diplomatic compounds, and lots of other things.
None of this should be a surprise.
And yet, from all the reporting we're reading, Kate, including from CNN, President Trump discounted those warnings.
He assumed that as soon as he dropped a few bombs, the Iranians were going to surrender.
I mean, it's so fascinating that we're seeing President Trump, you know, doubling down, not ready to sign any deal, talking about the terms not being strong enough.
But in the meantime, you have this supply shock of oil that is impacting not only the United States, but global economies as well.
And you're seeing gas prices increasing.
You're seeing fuel shortages.
And it's almost become ground zero in terms of what we're seeing in the Strait of Hormuz.
And President Trump is really focusing on that, despite the fact saying he's not ready to stop the war or agree to any terms that are perhaps on the table, whatever those may be.
What was interesting, and we have to go back to last week where President Trump had promised insurance guarantees by the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.
Those haven't materialized, and also promising naval escorts.
Again, we're perhaps weeks away from that.
We also saw a post on social media by the president saying that he's going to bring in other countries to assist like the UK, France, South Korea, Japan, and interestingly China.
We've heard from the Japanese and they're saying they're going to have high hurdles.
They're going to face high hurdles.
They're not ruling it out, but they are saying essentially we're going to think about it, but they have to take a lot of things into consideration because this is an ongoing conflict.
The South Koreans also not categorically agreeing to sending warships to the Strait of Hormuz, saying they're going to review this.
They're going to be looking at communicating closely.
And again, this is all up in the air.
And it basically shows that President Trump doesn't have anything concrete in terms of assistance right now.
It's interesting that China has put into all of this because we had two Indian tankers passing through the Straits of Hormuz that the Iranians say have cleared to pass through the strait with the caveat to use payment in Chinese Yuan.
We know that China and Iran have a long-standing relationship.
China has been buying around 80% of all of Iran's oil.
It's interesting that President Trump would put China in terms of sending more ships, but he's banking on the fact that you've got Asia and China really reliant on oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
And then the other big thing that happened over the weekend is the targeting of Haag Island, critical key infrastructure, and Iran vowing to retaliate specifically here in the UAE.
If we lose, or if they can define the operation as losing, it's a political benefit to them.
What are they saying out there?
They're throwing everything in the kitchen sink to obstruct this war effort, to demean the commander-in-chief.
They act like they're rooting for the enemy.
Are they?
Well, if they're not, they have a funny way of showing it.
I want to read you something, and then I'll tell you who it's from.
I can't read the whole thing, but a part of it.
But it is important.
And this is September 7, 2016, in the Wall Street Journal.
It's not bad.
Never forget the commitment the American people made after 9-11.
Yet sometimes our leaders seem to have forgotten Iran's role in the worst terror attack on American soil and Iran's continuing assistance to terror organizations and operations around the world.
You haven't heard anybody discuss Iran's role in 9-11, yet it was significant.
Their role in 9-11, in slaughtering our Marines in the barracks and attacking two of our embassies, in funding and supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis.
They have more blood on their hands than we can even count.
us leave him first of all russia gave uh drones already these shahids They are using Iranian licenses, you know, that they built and produced a lot of drones.
They gave them.
I have 100% facts that the Iranian regime used against American bases and against our Middle East, in Middle East, I mean, and Middle East neighbors of Iran.
And also, they told my intelligence told me that they said if Europe and the United States can help Ukraine with intelligence in this war, it means that Russia can help Iranian regime.
This is their point of view on the Soviets effect.
When it comes to Marines, I think the mobilizing Marines, and here's some of the Wall Street Journal reporting we're seeing where this came out just in the last day, that he was given warnings and thought that Iran would capitulate before it even got to this point.
But now we're to a place of moving in Marines.
Moving Marines in, this rapid response unit, gives commanders what options?
I personally had soldiers die in Iraq from this evil Islamic regime in Iran's terror proxy forever war it's been waging on us for 47 months.
And luckily the 47th president said, enough is enough.
That ends today.
You're not getting a nuclear weapon.
You're not getting a ballistic shield to develop nuclear weapons.
You're not going to hold the Straits of Hormuz as a gun against the head of the global economy while we're instilling strength through peace.
I think this is an extremely just war so that my kids don't have to go fight this evil terror regime.
If it would have had its choice to get that nuclear weapon and rewrite the entire Middle East and then the entire world already having ballistic missiles that could range Europe.
I mean, this is, for so many reasons, a righteous war.
Welcome to the special Sunday edition of the war room.
I want to thank Rural America's voice and the team here at the war in putting that on in that magnificent cold open, which got us through the last 24 hours and also the lessons passed down through the ages of the assassination of Julius Caesar.
I have Sam Fattis and Jack Bisovic, two intelligence experts to kick it off.
Sam Fattis, make it make sense to us because we're in the middle of the Fog of War right now.
Obviously, the war, as we've talked about now for the last week, the center of gravity of the war shifted to the Persian Gulf, to our Arab allies.
Will they stay in the fight into the Straits of Hormuz?
And now the president calling for other allies to join in the fight to keep the Straits of Hormuz and the oil flowing.
I don't quite understand why we are allowing even ships going to India with oil that they're specifically saying are going to take Chinese currency instead of petro dollars or U.S. currency for settlement because people have to understand the Iranians are in full-scale economic warfare against the United States of America in the West.
Sam Fattis, your observations as we kick off Sunday.
Well, look, if you look at this war from the conventional perspective, right, we are not only winning, we are winning overwhelmingly.
The Iranian Navy, which wasn't much to begin with, doesn't exist.
Its Air Force, which wasn't much to begin with, is gone.
No doubt their leadership has been severely hit.
Missiles have been severely hit.
But as you noted, the Iranians aren't approaching this conflict as fighting back with us.
They're not fighting us in any conventional sense.
They're fighting us.
This is asymmetric warfare at its best, which means not just that they're using low-cost things like drones and so forth and flexing their proxy forces, which obviously they're doing, but the center of gravity of their response has been to shut off at this point effectively all the oil and all of the natural gas coming out of the Persian Gulf.
I mean, there are a handful of tankers leaking out, but they're inconsequential.
So that's about 20% of the world's oil and about 20% of the world's natural gas.
There is a temporary limit workaround because tankers are now flooding into the Red Sea to go to the other side of Saudi Arabia at the end of a 700-mile long pipeline and take onboard oil there.
By the way, that pipeline is 5 million barrels a day if it goes all the way across Saudi Arabia.
Will that bring the Houthis into the fight?
Because you have the Red Sea.
You actually have a tighter choke point right there at the Red Sea where the Houthis, and let's be blunt, the Houthis, who are these tough mountain folk, have beaten the Egyptians, the British, the Saudis, UAE, and, hey, kind of fought the Americans to a standstill last year.
That 700-mile pipeline, it gets you 5 million barrels a day, I think, but it brings the Houthis into the fight to close that, which is actually a bigger choke point than Hormuz, correct?
The CIA, Naval Intelligence, the Department of War's strategy group understands anytime you talk about this area, the Straits of Hormuz is a standard thing you plan for.
Also the Red Sea, which is the entrance to the Suez Canal.
Yesterday, we said when we did the show, the first thing we talked about was this article in the Wall Street Journal that looked like it was some of the military senior levels.
And I don't think this thing's been refuted.
Posto is going to join us in a second.
But CNN, as we knew, was going to play it all day of this split between the Pentagon and the president.
Do you buy that?
Do you buy that, Sam Fattis?
Because this is a part of it.
Although you're just getting the Marine Ready Group over there now, you're calling for other navies to pitch in here.
Although the president is saying, hey, the Iranians reached out and they're talking a deal and President Trump's saying the deal's not good enough.
Pozo, jump in here because what Sam brings up, the Israelis are saying, and I think reports are last night was one of the hardest poundings that Tehran took, principally, I think, by Israeli air assets that on the conventional side, they are getting pounded.
Command and controlling until they've got a lot less they're hitting with, particularly on the missile bases.
Your thoughts about all this, particularly President Trump saying, hey, they're reaching out.
There's no deal, not good enough.
It kind of sounds like we're back to unconditional surrender or some variation on that theme, sir.
Steve, the word that I would use at this point is we're at a crossroads.
And this is the crossroads where President Trump is in the decision seat.
He is in the pilot seat deciding on which way to go.
Does he want to go down this walk down the escalation ladder or does he want to increase it?
Does he want to try to reach out to this new Ayatollah who we're told did not have a good relationship with his father, was not in good standing with his father, according to these reports, if they're to be believed?
Or does President Trump, as we've seen, does he want to put the squeeze on Carg Island?
Does he want to send that Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 31st over there as a way to ratchet up the pressure?
Or perhaps look at there are certainly implements that could be used from the air to neutralize Carg Island and leave many of the oil infrastructure systems intact, but at the same time neutralize their ability to send it out to port.
And there easily could be done from the air.
You just strike the piers, that sort of thing.
And it's something that the U.S. has not done yet, something that Israel has not done yet, but certainly is an option.
And President Trump indicating that very directly.
And so you're saying that he's indicating that, hey, if he's got to take in, they're going to hit some tripwire where he's going to go seize their essential oil infrastructure to export oil out of the, to load up the tankers and export oil out of the straits, correct?
I'm going to ask Sam and Jack to think about it and come back.
You heard Zelensky right there.
He laid down hard on the Russians, that the Russians are backing them with drones, intelligence, targeting options.
Where's the CCP?
Scott Besson's in Paris and negotiating the state visit of President Trump, which I still don't get.
We're going to talk a lot about that.
We're going to have some Chinese experts on new federal state, Jan Yonekik from Epic Times to talk about the global implications of this shooting war in the Middle East, in Iran, and particularly in the Persian Gulf.
Now more than ever, maybe you want to find out about, particularly as they're saying, hey, you can only take payment in Chinese currency.
It might be they're trying to force, wait for the end of the dollar empire.
We're coming out with an eighth free installment, seven edition, seven installments are in the Patriots edition, eighth free installment coming online.
You can get all the information.
And now more than ever, you ought to understand.
And particularly when we talk about geopolitical risks, that's a Harvard Business School word for war and the rumors of war, which we're seeing right now, a shooting war in the Middle East, in particular around the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, North Arabian Sea.
Or take your phone out.
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You get the ultimate guide.
But most importantly, you get access to Philip Patrick and the great team at Birch Gold that can walk through why gold has been a hedge against times of financial turbulence for three, four, 5,000 years.
By the way, 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock tonight, first trades will start taking place in Asia.
I'll be up on Getter to keep you in foreign gold, oil, bond market, equities, all of it, because the capital market's got a lot to say here.
Sam Fattis, your asymmetric warfare.
We had Zelensky in there because it's becoming more and more evident that there are some global players giving sustenance to our enemies.
How long can they hold out, you believe, conventionally and asymmetrically, if we don't cut off this?
And we've already told the Russians, hey, any oil on the sea, you can go ahead.
The sanctions are off.
What do you see here as far as other allies of the MULAs coming in here?
So, Jack, the engine room in New York informs me that the total max budget of the Iranian conventional forces was about $20 billion a year, given the fact that we are and our military is methodically going through and defanging, defanging, as Captain Finnell would call it, defanging the conventional forces of the military.
Do you believe they're actually, you know, do you believe they're actually their backs getting to the wall when they do have these asymmetric options and they realize that if they capitulate, they're finished?
Do you believe they're actually talking to the president or reaching out and trying to get some sort of deal here?
Well, Steve, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Iranians and the administration are talking back channeling.
We know that there were these channels, unofficial channels that were already established prior to the strikes, that there were communications, that there were pipelines of information going back and forth.
And also we were using the Omanis and other members of the Arab states as interlocutors in multiple iterations of these dialogues.
And so certainly there are many ways for the United States to be able to be communicating with Iran.
But I just go back to what Sam is saying that he's exactly correct.
Iran has always presaged their defensive capabilities, their military capabilities on asymmetric warfare.
Their conventional military isn't what I would look at when I would look at in terms of their ability to stay in the fight.
They've always looked at what are their advantages.
Their advantages are the geography.
Their advantages are their resources.
And their advantages are the revolution itself, the revolutionary nature of the Iranian regime.
So what have they done?
They put missile boats, small boats, the ability for mining on the small vessels that the IRGC has commissioned hundreds of.
They have hundreds of these small vessels that can be used.
In some cases, just one or two mines could drop it out there or at least create the perception that they have mined this trade, which as far as we know to this point, they have not done so, and they certainly have not said so.
And there are still some indications that they haven't done that.
But at the same time, what do they put their money into?
They put it in their resources into these ballistic missile stocks.
And again, these low-cost drone alternatives, which they are using over and over again.
And the reason they keep striking the same places over and over on the U.S. bases in the region, like Kuwait, like Saudi, and then also the same spots in Tel Aviv around Israel is because they are working to winnow down those air interceptor stockpiles because they know that is going to be a key choke point for the United States.
So what they're doing is they're working pinprick by pinprick to whittle down that defensive posture and to wait to the point when, and once those air interceptor missiles are worn down, what they're hoping for is that's when they're going to send more of their high-powered, large warhead ballistic missiles at those same targets.
Okay, so you have the, and I know you got to bounce.
You're going to do some other hits on media today.
So I'm going to get as much out of you as I have the time.
And Sam's going to stick with me for a few minutes.
You've got Shelby Talcott at Semaphore has an excoop an exclusive that the Israelis are running out of now missiles.
You've got the Israelis saying they're planning on the most massive ground invasion they've had of Lebanon in 20 years since 2006.
I think the French are also trying to step in, given their relationship with Lebanon and try to be some sort of negotiator here to try to get a stand down there.
The expanding nature of this war, because Pete told us the other day the war is not expanding, but you look at that front in Israel.
It seems to be expanding, but the Israelis who are unloading every chance they get on the on the Iranians seem to have a to have a missile shortage, which I think gets to the point that this thing's a lot more vicious than is being allowed.
You know, we're not seeing some of the footage.
We're not seeing social media.
There's really a clampdown on everything on the U.S. side, definitely on the Arab side And on the Israeli side, sir.
And in fact, the British embassy in the UAE has had to come out and remind their citizens there that the UAE does not have freedom of speech, freedom of posting on social media.
Neither does the UK, by the way, for the record, but to remind them that there are laws on the books in the UAE that if you share footage of drone strikes, missile strikes, things that hit Dubai, whether you're at the Emirates, that Abu Dhabi, that you can be arrested.
And in fact, we have seen charges on individuals for posting those images, similar to what we saw in Ukraine, which, by the way, just to mention on that side, that while nobody's paying attention, Russia is gearing up for their summer offensive, a new summer offensive in Ukraine, while they are sort of given a free hand while everyone's focus is on the Middle East.
And oh, by the way, their stockpiles of resources are ever increasing because as the world turns away from Middle Eastern oil and LNG, who's left?
Of course, the Russians, and the price is going up and up and up.
So Putin is looking for a massive summer campaign this year.
Jack, before you bounce the next 24 hours, before we talk to you tomorrow on the show, you're covering this on everybody, get your social media, particularly your Twitter feed.
Last night was another horrific night of warfare.
Your thoughts, what we're going to see in the next day or two?
Yeah, well, I think you hit the nail on the head here.
I mean, I've been saying for a long time since the beginning of this, that I think the option is, you know, in effect, we declare victory, let's go home.
I mean, let's be real.
We have inflicted massive damage.
Let's give up on this idea of unconditional surrender and regime change.
Increasingly, I am worried that we have passed that point, that we have inflicted so much damage.
The Iranians have taken all these hits and lost so much that we may now be at the point where they're like, okay, look, man, in effect, we can do this forever.
They have a completely decentralized command structure.
31 separate commands that will continue to fight.
They're increasingly using munitions they can make in a garage.
And let's not forget, they haven't really brought into play fully at all the relationships they have with groups all over the world and for that matter, IRGC intelligence cells inside the United States.
So, yeah, we could absolutely get to the point where we're like, okay, we're ready to talk.
Set his sights on one main priority ahead of the midterms, passing the SAVE Act.
It's a voting bill, he openly argues, will guarantee midterm election victories for Republicans.
It would impose new hurdles on voting, like requiring proof of citizenship in the form of a U.S. passport or birth certificate to register to vote.
Anyone who has changed their name, most commonly women who changed their names during marriage, would need additional paperwork to verify their identity.
The bill would also require photo ID every time someone votes.
And in a newly added provision, states would have to turn over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, which would run names through federal databases to identify possible non-citizens.
Watchdog groups have already flagged that those systems are rife with errors.
Voting advocates warn the impact would be massive.
More than 21 million Americans lack ready access to documents proving their citizenship, and roughly half of Americans don't even have a passport.
Okay, important update on the Save America Act and the effort to get it passed.
Look, I am guardedly optimistic.
We've turned kind of a corner.
Over the last few days, there's been some uncertainty about exactly what procedure we will be and will not be using.
In the end, we've been working closely with Leader Thune and his staff, and they've been great to work with.
What we're coming up with is something that I think is best described as a hybrid version of the talking filibuster.
But look, let's not get mired down in nomenclature.
What matters far more than what we call it is what we do with it.
We're going to bring it to the floor.
We're going to debate it for an extended period of time before filing cloture.
And in my view, at least, I don't want to speak for anyone else, this bill needs to remain on the Senate floor before we file cloture on the bill for as long as it takes to get it done.
Now, the fact that Leader Thune and his office have been willing to work with us on this, and they appear open to a variation of that, is a good thing.
So let's keep up the momentum.
Let's encourage them to continue to do this.
Let's put the bill on the floor.
Let's make those who want to filibuster speak and keep it on there as long as possible.
They desperately want President Trump's endorsement.
John Cornyn has been a steadfast supporter of the filibuster until he wrote this op-ed in the New York Post that the headline, Why the Save Act Matters More Than the Filibuster.
Sam wears two hats, an intelligence officer and someone that dedicated his life to defense of his country.
Also, his second gig is saving the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the nations through the grassroots effort and Patriots.
So, Sam, tell me about the grassroots and what did you just hear right there, particularly Mike Lee saying, hey, I think we got some way to kind of figure this out.
Maybe not to get to a vote, but at least to get to a debate, sir.
Yeah, I mean, I guess what strikes me there is even what is supposed to be presented to us as progress is so weak-need and watered down.
I mean, for the love of God, all we are talking about is requiring people to prove they are entitled to vote before they vote using documentation that everybody in the United States of America has access to.
And every allegation about how this is somehow oppressive ends up being not only nonsensical, but really offensive, right?
Black people, this will have this will disenfranchise black people because they don't have ID and I guess they can't figure out how to get it.
Or women that have gotten married who have to change everything to their married name, presuming they do that, somehow suddenly are so addled that they can't figure out to do it.
I mean, good God, you know, it is obvious that what we're talking about is one thing, the integrity of the voting system and our elections.
And the idea that the Republican Party can't find the spine to just say that is disgusting, frankly.
And I can tell you from, you know, talking about the grassroots in Pennsylvania, the people, the people that actually are the Republican Party at this point, this goes to the heart of why they are completely disgusted with the GOP establishment.
They're like, for the love of God, guys, is there anybody who will actually fight and stand up?
And increasingly, the answer they get is, no, apparently not.
Mike Lee's trying his best to try to, he's been working on this forever, trying to get this happen.
What's going to happen on Tuesday or Wednesday?
The forcing function was the grassroots.
I mean, the eye-opener to me to go and kind of decamp to Texas was the fact that the Islamic invasion is much farther along than people were talking about.
We gave a permission structure of that.
The HB1 situation, H-1B visas, is almost as bad as the Islamic invasion.
And the grassroots just had a belly full of it.
They put it on their shoulders in these primaries.
And this is why Pax is fighting.
But if it's not for the grassroots in Pennsylvania and Texas and South Carolina and Florida, Arizona throughout this country, we're done.
I can tell you that.
We're done.
The political class is too gutless to face the massive problems the country has.