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Feb. 20, 2026 - Jim Fetzer
46:40
Patrick Henningsen JUST BACK FROM IRAN
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Time Text
Unprecedented Military Buildup 00:02:11
Top national security officials met in the White House Situation Room yesterday to discuss planning.
The first strikes could take place as soon as this weekend.
Axios reports, quote, a U.S. military operation Iran would likely be a massive weeks-long campaign that would look more like a full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela.
So that right there is the report from Axios, as conveyed by Fox News earlier, that this is not something that's even in contemplation, going to be some kind of a quick strike on Iran if it comes, but a full-fledged war, a full-fledged campaign.
Patrick Henningsen, we're very grateful to have you back on the show today.
Patrick is a journalist and geopolitical analyst, founder of the news and analyst website, 21stcenturywire.com and host of the Sunday Wire Show and a friend of the show here.
Patrick, first of all, welcome back to the show.
Glad to have you on.
But that's a pretty heavy report that we have right there that something we're contemplating is something close to a full-scale war.
What do you make of it?
Well, U.S. could attack Iran at any moment, any hour, any time.
And we can talk about my experience there.
The State Department issued their warning telling Americans not to go and to leave if you're there and shelter in place.
That was a week and a half ago, roughly two weeks ago almost.
And of course, I immediately decided to go when I saw that because I thought this is going to be a very interesting time to be there.
But just on this front, this is an unprecedented accumulation of air power and naval assets as well.
There's refueling all the various components to mount a multi-pronged attack on Iran.
So, you know, I have to regard cynically the theater of negotiations as a total facade by the Trump administration.
Unprecedented Military Buildup 00:11:17
Now, they tried this ruse before with the Iranians.
Of course, the Iranians aren't falling for this at all, but they're obligated to go through the motions in the event that maybe an international actor or two in the world might step up in defense of international law or norms or something like that.
There's always a miracle that that could happen.
I'm talking about a Western country.
Or perhaps maybe China and Russia might align themselves slightly closer enough to get away from the United States.
I want to go down that path just a little bit here first.
And then I definitely want to hear about your experiences in Tehran because I think it's really, really relevant.
And I saw some of your reports, so I want to kind of expand on that.
But I want to get on this legality issue first.
Something I talk about periodically, but I think it is especially now before anything has happened.
It is vital, absolutely vital, as an American to put this up front.
The U.S. Constitution is crystal clear.
We cannot go to war against another country unless Congress has declared war or given it the very limited statutory authorization, neither of which has happened.
And yet, Congress is as silent as the night right now.
Republican, Democrat, nobody in America is even talking about what the Constitution says.
It has literally become a dead letter, as has the 1973 War Powers Act, any international law.
I mean, how important and how big do you think that silence is at this point?
I'm quite frankly shocked, Danny.
I mean, people like Thomas Massey are doing what they can in order to have some kind of accountability from the people of the United States via the U.S. Congress, which is, as you just mentioned, is the way our constitutional system of checks and balances is designed.
There's nothing more serious in terms of this decision by government or by the state to take the country to war.
And that is compounded by the very fact that this is a war of choice, an unprovoked, undeclared war of aggression, the very thing which was the final conclusion of the Nuremberg trials and also the Nuremberg principles.
Really, that is the ultimate crime, an undeclared war of aggression.
So this is what Donald Trump is doing.
And so domestically and internationally, this has huge ramifications.
And one can only, I don't want to sound like a historical cliché, but one can only harken back to the collapse of the League of Nations and the onset of the Second World War.
And that's potentially not an exaggeration here, although this might be more limited.
But my personal belief, Daniel, is this will invariably be a regional war.
If the United States goes through with this unprovoked war of choice, then it's pretty certain that immediately this will engage, involve six, seven, possibly eight or nine countries immediately in this.
So it's inescapable.
Okay, so yeah, let's go because that's different than what anybody on mainstream media is talking about.
It's just U.S. against Iran, period.
Maybe add Israel into it, but primarily it's going to be U.S.
Now, you've just returned from Tehran.
Can you tell us a little bit about what you observed on the ground there and what leads you to this concern that there could be many countries involved?
Sure, sure.
Well, the Iranians have been very clear.
They've taken a position of, I think they've drawn the red line on this.
And, you know, from a strategic point of view and from a geopolitical point of view, certainly from a legal point of view, they're in the strong position because they've drawn a red line and they've said quite clearly any attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran will be regarded by Iran as an attack which will trigger a response to target U.S. positions in the region,
of which there are many, and those in host countries like Qatar, like Bahrain, like if there's any left in Syria or Iraq, certainly those would be included, Kuwait, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well, and the list goes on, possibly even Diego Garcia, not to mention naval assets in the Arabian Sea, or sorry, the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Persian Gulf.
And they also said very clearly that any unprovoked attack by the United States will be regarded by them as an attack by Israel, and then hence Israel will be targeted in retaliations by the Iranians.
So it's already set what the result is going to be.
And if the United States thinks that Iran is bluffing, I think that would be a huge miscalculation.
Well, and that's what I was going to ask, because that's what a lot of people are saying, that this is just a bluff.
In fact, Trump, about 10 days ago, was asked that question.
He says, well, that's what they said last time, too, in June of 2025.
Why do you think they're not bluffing?
Well, I mean, that's a very strange, distorted view of history if anyone in the White House thinks that Iran was bluffing back in June.
It was quite the opposite.
Iran dealt a severe blow to Israel and U.S. interests in the region.
Now, it restrained itself from hitting U.S. targets then because, as we know, it was an Israeli strike, even though it was used with full cooperation and support on every single technical level by the United States.
The sneak attack by Israel, which happened again during negotiations back in June, we must remind ourselves.
Again, negotiations were used as a facade to prepare for a sneak attack, standard practice by this administration, of course, no matter what the theater.
But so it can't be a bluff.
And the other thing is Iran knows that they have to make a stand at some point because the conditions that are being imposed by Trump and Trump administration to, quote, make a deal, are basically to demilitarize the Islamic Republic of Iran and leave it open for repeated strikes.
I mean, one only has to look at Syria after the Assad government fell and the fact that Israel liquidated all of Syria's military industrial complex and navy within 72 hours of that happening.
So Syria was basically defenseless.
So their air defenses were deemed unusable or no longer in operation.
Those air defenses, even the S-200 systems and the Soviet systems that Syria had, were sufficient to at least provide some deterrence against Israeli aggression against Syria.
Although it didn't stop Israel from flying over Lebanon and launching strikes repeatedly and routinely over Lebanese airspace, at least it provided some deterrence.
You saw what happened when their military collapsed.
This is the plan for Iran.
Israel would like to have that opportunity.
The United States is trying to do this through this kind of fake negotiations tactic and lure Iran into some kind of a trap where they're defenseless, more or less.
So there's no way that a country with the size and power of Iran in that region is going to down tools when it comes to maintain the only defense deterrence that they have, which is the ballistic missile program.
They have other great deterrence as well in their arsenal, of which I was able to see upfront and firsthand, some of which I've shown in some of my reports and which I will release in subsequent reports this week, maybe tomorrow.
But it's not a good thing to assume that Iran doesn't have weapons that can overcome many of the difficulties in targeting U.S. assets.
The missiles that were used during True Promise 3 in June was conveyed to me by a general in the missile program.
And that's six years old, six years old.
So the next two generations of hypersonic missiles and other ballistic missiles were not used in June.
And they also have totally different targeting systems that haven't been unveiled either, including the ability to hit moving targets, i.e. naval frigates and ships.
So not only that, they don't use the same GPS systems that the United States used.
They have their own proprietary data links, and they also use, they also incorporate some of the Chinese Baidu guidance systems as well.
You have to remember the Iranians have been able to intercept U.S. uplinks between drones and satellites and completely capture state-of-the-art U.S. drones and land them in mint condition.
I have not heard that, actually.
Yes, and land them in mint condition.
So much so that after this happened during Ahmedinejad's presidency, Obama called the Iranian government and said, we'd like to have that back.
He's asking for it back.
And they just, it's, you know, I ran my hand over it last week.
You know, it's along with the Global Hawks, which they fished out of the Persian Gulf, and another Global Hawk, which is more surveillance.
But, you know, the main MQ-4, I saw that as well.
So they have all of the, they've reverse engineered a lot of the U.S. technology enough to understand what they need to do to defend themselves.
They have a viable space program.
They have a satellite program.
They have advanced algorithms and their own proprietary native systems.
Almost everything is native that the Iranians have produced under sanctions.
And I guess it's just going to matter what happens if they actually try to use them, how good of our countermeasures they are, and all that right now is theoretical.
We don't really know on a lot of those things because those weren't used, as you said, in June of last year.
But let's take a look at what may be coming here now, because by a lot of reports, something this weekend could be coming, or it could be delayed another couple of weeks.
Weapons Pointing Crisis 00:11:31
It's hard to tell.
No one actually knows, probably except President Trump himself.
But speaking to him earlier today, he did give this interesting comment on where we are at the moment.
And we do have some work to do with Iran.
They can't have a nuclear weapon.
It's very simple.
You can't have peace in the Middle East if they have a nuclear weapon.
And they can't have a nuclear weapon.
And they've been told that very strongly.
Okay, so let's just talk about that that's coming today after we, that's all I could almost have just changed the date.
That's what he said prior to June of last year.
They can't have it.
Then after that, of course, then he said it's been obliterated, absolutely gone.
Nothing existed anymore.
And now then we're just rolling out the same statement again and that we can't even exist with if that's the case.
And Iran has said that they aren't doing one.
Our intelligence has said, I mean, all of that's the case here.
Is this anything except just a mockery of the English language?
Yeah, it's a mockery of the English language.
It's a mockery of the U.S. intelligence institutions that have already, on multiple occasions, given a comprehensive assessment that Iran doesn't have the bombs, not pursuing the bomb.
So it's a total canard.
It's a lie.
But it's the biggest, it's the highest level of lie In order to justify this level of a military attack.
In the last month, Trump can't decide on what basis that we need to do a preemptive strike against the Iranians again.
First, it was to defend the peaceful protesters in this color revolution gambit at the beginning of January.
That sort of hit the wall and faded and died.
And then there's a whole propaganda campaign, which is just complete fake news and lies and propaganda generated by the U.S. and Israeli interests in the West to give this impression that there was this giant massacre of Iranian protesters with zero evidence, only U.S.-based Iranian human rights NGOs, many of which are CIA cutouts or NED-funded.
That's where the evidence was.
And Trump ran with this.
The media is still running with this.
Most people in America believe that.
So they've already manufactured the consent that the so-called regime in Tehran is evil and massacring their own people, committing genocides, a great distraction from what Israel is doing in Gaza, of course, very convenient.
Then Trump has to pivot and say, no, no, no, it's the nuclear program.
Again, he supposedly destroyed it.
We destroyed it, Operation Mina Damre.
Okay, it's not that.
Now then he pivots, it's the ballistic missile program.
It's the missiles.
Can't have the missiles.
It's part of the deal.
Can't have the missiles.
And now he's pivoting back to the nuclear question.
So there's zero evidence.
Zero.
This is more threadbare than Saddam Hussein's WMD is, because at least you could say back in history that Saddam had chemical weapons at some point.
At least there was like some record of it.
So at least you can make the fake argument that Saddam was keeping all these secret chemical weapons stocks.
Therefore, at least there was sort of a half of a lie you could mail in there under the door.
But like this, there's nothing.
There's absolutely nothing.
It's a lie.
Trump is under tremendous pressure from the Israelis, his whole administration, and they just, you know, and you have, you know, psychopaths like Pete Hegseth and the Warhawks.
They've taken over the Defense Department, renamed it the Department of War.
Well, as soon as they did that, you know, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's coming down the pipeline, which is they want war by hook or crook.
And they don't even feel they have to dignify, you know, their obligation to the American people to even provide fake evidence for it.
That's how arrogant and, I think, criminal the regime, and I'm going to use that term, regime in Washington, the same regime that's making jokes about canceling the midterms.
Yeah.
Okay, so.
I want to go down another path here because you mentioned a minute ago about the fake negotiations.
Well, there are some that ordinarily when I play something from Rebecca Heinrichs, I often say, you know, she's just a warhawk here.
But in this particular narrow case, she's going to say something that at least is accurate regarding negotiations.
Do you think an ultimatum is something like this?
Iran, you get rid of your missiles because they can hurt American troops.
And if you don't get rid of them, we're going to blow them up.
Yes, I think that essentially, Stuart, it is either you get rid of these dangerous weapons that you are pointing at American troops, or we get rid of these dangerous weapons that are pointing at American troops.
That's essentially the ultimatum at this point.
So you see, we got some additional things there.
Okay, well, actually, it's not just the nuclear weapons.
It's also the missiles.
And they're pointed at Americans, Ergo.
They have to die.
I mean, I got one more thing to add on to that, but what do you say to that part so far?
Well, that's basically, I mean, so the U.S. has already attacked Iran unprovoked.
It's bombed, it's killed Iranians.
It's killed infrastructure.
The Israelis have done the same.
So they're pointing their weapons at the Iranians.
And Iranians are not allowed to have a deterrence.
Iran is not lashed out like the United States and Israel have completely illegally.
They have done so within the bounds of international law and the rules of warfare, not the U.S. and not Israel.
U.S. and Israel don't feel they need to comply with or be consistent with any international law norms or any international conventions.
So, you know, for them, it's just a lawless war.
And, you know, that shows you, and there's also the regime change.
That's the fourth excuse.
Oh, the supreme leader has to go.
Ergo, you know, why?
Because of peaceful protesters were massacred or because, well, we don't like the way they treat their women.
I mean, I don't want to get into it, Danny, but I have footage.
I'll probably be in my next report.
When I went out at night in Tehran, in some places, half the women were not covered.
I was in an environment with a thousand in a giant open-air market, and there was at least a thousand women there that half were not covered.
It's a completely different hijab police weren't like tackling them and bringing them together.
Nothing.
There's absolutely no restrictions whatsoever.
It's completely untrue, this U.S. trope, this Western trope that, you know, and the reason I say this, Danny, because this is how a lot of neoliberals and neocons as well, because they get in on this act, they justified the war in Afghanistan on the basis of we need to keep the progress going to help the women.
I mean, that was the billboard campaign, literally at the NATO summit in Chicago.
And so, I mean, it was women said, keep the progress going.
We're going to free the women, that kind of thing.
So I say this and not in any lighthearted, you know, satirical manner or cynical manner.
That's exactly how this will be eventually framed, because they need to create that moral outrage in the West to justify the war.
As far as what this was said on this Fox News report, targeting American troops, dangerous weapons, targeting American troops.
I mean, what?
So the U.S. has surrounded Iran.
They have bases dotted all around the Islamic Republic of Iran.
They're pointing their weapons.
They're threatening them.
They've already bombed them.
And you think that somehow they're a threat to you?
That's completely ridiculous.
This is the, I mean, I could use a lot of epithets and very strong insults right now to describe what I just heard, what you just showed me, of how stupid it is and how just vacant.
And I don't know.
This is what they're saying in America.
I'm going to hear your frustration.
There's one other thing about that I wanted to point out is that she at least admitted these aren't actually negotiations.
This is an ultimatum.
There is no negotiating anything.
We're saying, here are the terms.
You either surrender or we will kill you.
That's the bottom line here, which she acknowledged right there.
Now, the question is, how is that going to be received on the other side?
And we have this from the Ayatollah.
Negotiations should take place.
But honestly, this is not the time for negotiations.
If negotiations are to happen, deciding the outcome in advance is a wrong and foolish thing to do.
You say, let's talk and reach an agreement on the formula.
So why are you determining the result beforehand?
We absolutely must reach this agreement.
It's foolish.
Yeah.
And so what do you say to that?
You know, the Iranians aren't stupid.
The Americans like to think that they are and like to project that somehow this is a backward country.
This is politically, extremely advanced.
And by the way, they have a pretty big plurality of political opinion in that country.
I would argue even more than the U.S. at the current moment.
And that the supreme leader there, the Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, he is expressing where Iran is.
And Iran basically understands that you can't negotiate with the United States.
The U.S. is not agreement capable.
There's no way that you can do an agreement or any kind of meaningful negotiations with somebody like the United States that's imposing a full range of conditions that are unacceptable to any country on the planet, unless you're a protectorate or a colony.
And so he's basically saying, no, we are going to stand and fight, and we're ready for war.
They are ready for war.
They're absolutely prepared for war.
The country is prepared to mobilize at a moment's notice, and they will.
So it's not a state of emergency at the moment, but the minute the U.S. strikes Iran, then everything changes.
It's a very big country, Iran.
It's a vast, massive country.
It's almost the size of continental Europe.
So to think that you're going to go in there and do what the Israelis do in a tiny postage stamp size plot of land like the Gaza Strip, that's not going to happen.
And not only that, the U.S. intelligence and the Israeli intelligence in terms of their bank of targets, that's also can be problematic too.
And you have to remember, once this starts to go into motion, the attacks and the counterattacks, the United States is assuming that Iran also doesn't have a bank of targets, that it doesn't have a strategy to overcome and subvert U.S. air defenses, which they do.
And it shouldn't assume that the international calamity that will ensue, i.e. the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, is a very real outcome.
Day After Regime Falls 00:04:12
It's not theoretical.
They will close the Straits of Hormuz.
And when that happens, all goods and services entering the Gulf, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, all comes to a grinding halt.
Forget about the fuel.
I'm talking about trade and commerce.
That will create huge problems in the Gulf.
And in terms of the U.S. markets, in terms of inflation in the U.S. and around the world, especially in the U.S., it's going to mean the cost of fuel is going to go up.
That means inflation will rise across the board.
And this is not the Iranians doing.
This is the U.S. starting a war on behalf of a foreign country that more or less dictates this administration's foreign policy.
Donald Trump's son-in-law is effectively an Israeli agent who sits next to the president to give direct orders from Benjamin Netanyahu's office unless the hotline is live between Tel Aviv and Washington.
And I could go down the line with half the cabinet almost function in that way.
You know, I want to, because I know we're limited for time here, I want to show you, and Gary, I'm going to ask you to play these two back-to-back here for the juxtaposition of them.
First of all, we're going to show you another example of just how discombobulated and disconnected the U.S. side is.
And even in terms of what it's trying to actually accomplish here, this is going to show you just how contradictory even our objectives are.
Just heard Rebecca Heinrichs there talking about, well, it's weapons that are pointed at us.
You heard President Trump say, well, it's about the negotiations over the nuclear program.
That's what it's all about.
Well, now we're going to hear two different people talking about different aspects of regime change.
First of all, is Brent Sadler talking about how they're looking for some create some really nice friendly American kind of outcome.
And then you're going to hear Lindsey Graham almost throw cold water on that.
Watch this.
It's clear that the regime in Tehran is trying to play for time in the hope that the United States loses the momentum or the energy to sustain the pressure.
I think that's horribly misguided as the U.S. builds military forces to provide the president the option for a sustain.
This is not a targeted strike that looks like the president is wanting to have the option.
And when hopefully that goes up to the centers of power of this regime, to give the Iranian people, over 30,000 of which were murdered in the streets and right now are being rounded up piecemeal by the IRGDC and security services to give them the opportunity, the space to choose a new regime, a new government, and a new direction that is one that Israel, the United States can live peacefully with.
Does the U.S. have a favorite candidate?
Are we talking about Reza Pavlavi?
Because he's around quite a bit.
Yeah, I like him fine, but it's up to the Iranian people.
Don't get ahead of yourself.
The day after the regime falls will be complicated.
We don't do day after well.
That's what you got to quit saying.
We, it's not we, it's them.
It's not my job to construct a new Iran.
It's my job to give them the opportunity to construct a new Iran.
And that was, that was unbelievable.
He's like saying, look, forget it.
I don't care about what comes the day.
That's not my job.
It's just to knock them down.
And that's on top of what, and I wish I had pulled it up.
You had in Senate testimony about 10 or so days ago, Marco Rubio was point-blank asked, what do we do if the regime falls?
And he says, oh, no, we don't have a plan for that.
We are, we have, this is hard to believe.
We have this incredible armada out there, air and sea power that are arrayed.
And apparently the gun is cocked and they're just waiting to pull the trigger.
And we don't even know what would happen if we succeeded.
What can you make of that?
Look, in a previous iteration of this scenario, the U.S. could fire off a couple of limited strikes against limited targets to kind of get the ball rolling, if you will.
U.S. Incoherence On Iran 00:10:31
This is not that scenario now.
Things have advanced.
Things have moved on.
Iran has taken a deterrence position, and they're clearly committed to it.
And it makes sense.
It's pragmatic on their part.
It's rational on their part as a state actor.
Okay.
So, I mean, so the U.S., I hear a lot of rhetoric from the U.S., a lot of back and forth, a lot of confusion, a lot of inconsistency, a lot of incoherence from the entire U.S. government and punditry on this.
And the fact that Donald Trump is the president of the United States cannot decide on the basis or the excuse to launch an unprovoked war that will, will cascade into a regional war.
And if it cascades into a regional war, other major actors will ultimately be pulled in at some point.
And then we have a different type of war at that point.
Just from that clip, you heard the first gentleman repeating the lie that Iran has massacred 30,000 of its people in the streets.
Absolute boulder dash.
Okay.
Absolute lie, profound on a level that's just so obvious.
Okay.
And this is repeated ad nauseum across the U.S. mainstream media, in Congress, in the Senate.
Our whole country is based on a bevy of lies when it comes to foreign policy.
And this is beyond just having an opinion or complaining about it.
This is actually dangerous at this point.
This is very dangerous for the, well, for the Iranians, of course.
It's for the Israelis, for the region, for the United States, for the world.
And let me tell you about this thing, this assumption that because that lie of the 30,000 massacred in the protest, which never happened, okay?
So I met with the chief of police in Tehran.
We've been shown some of the evidence files of I personally saw at least eight police officers burned to death.
They were burned alive.
Hundreds of police were killed.
Many innocent bystanders.
These armed protesters, these rioters killed EMS workers, first responders.
They attacked the fire department when it came after they burned mosques and buildings.
When the fire department showed up, they then attacked them and tried to destroy their, destroyed some of their vehicles.
Buses were burned.
Total chaos.
So this whole idea of these protests never happened in terms of the U.S. narrative of it.
It never happened.
In terms of Iranian losses in that, again, from these violent protesters, they lost 2,400 people in total.
That includes innocent bystanders.
And non-martyrs, according to the Iranian numbers, was 700.
So 700 agent provocateurs or people involved in violence to one degree or another are counted as belligerents.
This is what's inferred in the data.
Total being casualties across the board, 3,170, all named with national ID numbers next to them.
And there were a few hundred or a number of bodies that were unrecognizable, unidentifiable, because they were burned to death.
That's the reality of what happened.
And some of this has obviously been circulated, the images and so forth, what I just mentioned, on the Iranian national media.
Was any of this circulated on the Western mainstream media?
No.
Because this undercuts the narrative.
So that's the first lie that's important because that establishes in the minds of Americans in the West that the regime is not popular.
It's oppressing its own people.
It's killing its own people.
Therefore, regime change is inevitable.
It's a fait accompli.
Not true.
So when I arrived in Tehran, I arrived on Wednesday at 8 a.m.
I cleared customs at 9 or something like that.
And I was with a number of other very well-known Western journalists as well, a few.
And we went, and it was the National Rally Day in downtown Tehran.
And so I managed to get there before it finished, before noon.
And it was a record number attendance for their National Independence Day, effectively.
2.5 million estimated in Tehran, all total around the country in all cities, 20 million.
20 million came out in support of the government, in support of the Supreme Leader.
In fact, the Supreme Leader is the one who called for people to come out.
And they came out.
Show me, Danny, one Western government or any government in the world that can make that call and pull millions of people on the street to support the government.
Tell me where that exists.
Millions.
What do you say to those who say, oh, well, that's just because it's a totalitarian state and they had to come out or they would be in trouble.
What do you say to that?
Were they going to go and arrest like 20 million people?
I mean, the argument's a joke.
And the argument that people make against this is a delusional argument that just doesn't want to admit the fact that it's an Islamic republic.
It's a republic.
Every single position is elected except for the Supreme Leader, which serves as a type of vestigial similar to maybe a monarch in a symbolic sense like England or Great Britain, but something more like the Pope in terms of a spiritual leader.
But the Supreme Leader doesn't draft laws and pass legislation or anything like that.
It's kind of the populist leader, if you will, of the country, has a direct line to the people.
And so it's the spiritual and philosophical and ethical intermediary that exists between the parliamentary government, if you will, and the population.
I mean, that's their system.
And it's not a normal system like you see in other countries.
But based on what I saw in terms of the response and the popularity, and obviously not everybody likes the Supreme Leader.
Not everybody is rapidly pro-government, definitely not in Iran.
And they have counter-protests.
They had one when I was there.
It wasn't in Tehran.
It was in another city around the country.
But they're extremely popular.
The revolutionary government that took power in 1979 after 47 years is still popular.
They're still popular.
Let me ask you this question because I got two more questions, and we literally only have a few minutes left here.
So I want to make sure I get to these.
First of all, do you think that the Iranians have a plan to not allow themselves to be regime changed?
Meaning that, look, whatever we want to say about this armada that's a symbol here, it is a profound amount of combat power.
It is no joke.
It is a lot of power, and we can do a lot.
So whatever they have with air defenses or air offense, there is still a lot that's going to get through and much damage that can be done.
Can Iran survive and not be decapitated if we launch?
There's no way to achieve regime change in Iran.
Even if they manage to kill the supreme leader, that's not going to change the government.
It's not going to change the people's loyalty and their attitude towards their national identity.
And let me just put this very clearly, because Americans should be able to understand this.
Iranians, when they come out in support of the state as they did last week, as they do repeatedly, they're not doing so as Persians, okay?
They're doing so as Iranian nationals.
This is a very ethnically diverse country.
You've got Turks, you've got Kurds, you've got Azeris, you have Baluchis, you have Arabs, you have, and the list goes on and on.
And you have people that might identify as Persian, but most people of mixed heritage, Pakistani as well.
They're mixed heritage, but they're united under a Republican banner like the United States of America.
America is not a pure white country.
It's a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and heritage country, all united under, well, ideally united under the American flag and with the U.S. Constitution as the guiding principle.
That's how the Republic of the United States is constructed.
And it's the same in Iran.
It just has a religious component, a faith component that is central to that constitution and to a lot of the governing framework of the country.
A lot of these bombs and missiles come in and they start to take out a number of, whether it's IRGC, the Ayatollah himself, other religious leader, other political leaders.
Can the state survive?
Yes, the state will, without a doubt, Danny, because the state in Iran is the people.
The people are the state.
It's a republic.
It would be like, Danny, if another country took out all sorts of targets of U.S. senators, congressmen, even the president, that's not going to change the founding principles of the United States of America.
That would have to be a grassroots, long-term, major kind of shift or revolution.
And that's a process that would just probably take decades.
Yeah, yeah.
And I can assure you, nobody in this country is going to say, yeah, we'll change our form of government because some other government comes in and kills all our people.
Yeah, we'll take advantage of that.
No, what they'll do, Danny, in America is Americans will bind together in defense of all of those Republican principles, and they will probably be very aggressive and want to take revenge against whoever attacked them.
Why do you think the Iranians are any different to 5,000-year-old civilization?
So that same thing would happen there, the reversion of it.
U.K. and Cyprus Conflict 00:06:56
Absolutely.
Danny, let me last say, the reason the attendance for the National Day was so high is because they're under threat.
And that's nationwide.
So, you know, Americans and all this experts in the Beltway and all of these ne'er-do-wells that go onto Fox News and get paid $500 or whatever, $1,000 for their five-minute segment to be a, quote, expert, none of these people know the first thing about Iran, its political system, its culture, its society.
And quite frankly, they couldn't give a damn about the Iranian people.
And Lindsey Graham being the first on that list, he doesn't care about the Iranian people.
He is there for some kind of a vanity project or just because he is just an absolute lunatic, quite frankly.
Listen, just a minute or two left.
Got some breaking news here, like your reaction to this.
It says that the UK is refusing to allow Trump to use REF bases to attack Iran.
And when you scroll down here a little bit, it says that President Trump is really unhappy with this and is withdrawn his backing for Starmer's Chagos Islands deal.
And according to this, it's because the UK government's refusal to give the White House the green light to use Diego Garcia or RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire for a potential military campaign against Iran.
That would be a pretty big deal if we lost that assets that we've been used to having, especially Diego Garcia.
Because listen, if we don't have that, then once this armada uses up the bulk of its initial payloads, and if you're right and that you can't destroy the regime with this and we have to engage in a sustained campaign, we're going to have to go back.
And Diego Garcia is one of the closest places where we can reload a lot of our ships.
If we can't use that, this could be a huge military problem for us.
Danny, why do you think the UK is getting cold feet and trepidatious?
Because Diego Garcia is within range of the current arsenal of the Iranian intermediate range missiles.
And we're talking, some of these missiles, the payload that they're able to carry is significant.
Some of the hypersonics you saw during the 12-day war, Relatively small missiles that don't carry a massive payload, but the larger ones that do have the range as well and can travel at quite a good speed and the drones.
They have the ability to hit Diego Garcia.
The U.S. would have to assemble all sorts of seaborne air defenses between the Iranian coast and Diego Garcia in order to try to repel or defend Diego Garcia.
But they can only do that for a limited period of time so long as they have the stocks available.
And those ships will be targeted in the ocean.
Iran has naval assets.
They have submarines.
They have missiles that can hit ships.
They can have missiles that can hit moving ships.
So, you know, you're taking a huge risk here.
And from the public relations optics point of view, we all know what happened during the Iran-Iraq war, Danny, when we saw U.S. ships smoking on the 7 o'clock news with Ted Koppel.
And that basically caused all sorts of problems politically in the U.S.
And that conflict had to be wound down in short order as a result.
It was a disaster.
It was chaos.
It was a mess.
So I don't think people are quite thinking this out.
If the U.K. do that, imagine if Germany did that with Stuttgart.
What if Germany made a similar announcement?
Then the operation's over.
What if Australia said that they won't allow Pine Gap to be used?
I mean, that's more of an electronic.
I'm sorry, I'm just about out of time.
Give me in the last 30 seconds here or so, give me how important is it?
Because the UK has been our absolute most loyal ally that just reflexively does everything we've ever asked.
How big is it that he is out standing up to Trump on the eve of perhaps the start of a war?
If that's a genuine move by the UK, it's hard to know these days, Danny, what's genuine and what is shadow plane.
Fair enough.
But if that is a genuine move, I would say that is massively significant.
And that would point to possibly a more rational thought process by the British than by the Americans in understanding that Iran has the capability to strike British positions.
And the British have other positions in the region that Iran's well aware of as well, no doubt.
Not to mention the British use Aladin Air Base in Qatar.
You have the British AWACS or the equivalent of the Rivet airborne communication and satellite and reconnaissance aircraft.
Those were used during past operations in conjunction, in cooperation with the Americans.
So the British have been working with the Americans to defend Israel and to help mount attacks against Iran in some way or another.
The British have been involved in the past in the Gulf.
So the United States requires, Israel requires Cyprus, RAF Aquatori in Cyprus.
That's also an active facility as well.
So if this extended to Aquatori and what Israel would do in attacking Iran if the British extended that to cover Cyprus, then we have a serious situation.
And so, I mean, I'm surprised, Danny, to see that, actually.
We'll see what's going to happen with that.
And we are keeping a close eye on this, and we'll be looking forward to seeing on your YouTube channel and also on not your YouTube channel.
On Instagram.
I'm putting short reports from Iran on my Instagram channel, also our Telegram channel, and on our YouTube shorts as well.
And there'll be another one tomorrow.
Looking forward to that.
And everybody, just remember, go to 21st Century Wire, PatrickShennison.substack.com.
Don't miss those reports.
We'll be looking for those ourselves.
And we'll look forward to having you back real soon to talk about these things.
We will all be watching what happens in the Middle East coming up.
Thanks so much, Patrick, for coming on.
We really appreciate it.
Also, to remind you guys: one of the reasons we have to hurry up and get off here is because we have the ever-popular Ted Postal on, who's going to give us the no-kidden science behind how effective can our missiles be against Iran and how effective can theirs be in return?
What is the real truth on that?
That's literally coming up in minutes right here on the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
See you then.
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