The StoneZONE - Roger Stone - The Stone Zone | 03-17-26
Aired: 2026-03-18
Duration: 38:33


=== Washington Tensions Rise (04:09) ===

[00:00:10]  This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
[00:00:13]  People love him and respect him.
[00:00:14]  Roger Stone, now give him a zone.
[00:00:17]  It's the Stone Zone.
[00:00:19]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:00:22]  You are now entering the Stone Zone.
[00:00:25]  Tensions are really rising in Washington, D.C. after the sudden resignation of Joe Kent.
[00:00:31]  Joe Kent was essentially the number two official at the Office of Defense Intelligence.
[00:00:36]  He specifically headed the National Counterterrorism Center.
[00:00:39]  He resigned, claiming he could not support the current conflict in Iran and saying that Iran posed, quote, no imminent threat to the United States.
[00:00:49]  His comments drew immediate pushback from congressional leaders, but most importantly, his boss, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, released a statement saying that Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president and commander-in-chief.
[00:01:05]  As our commander-in-chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people, and our country.
[00:01:19]  The office of the director of national intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the president and commander-in-chief with the best information available to inform his decisions.
[00:01:31]  After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamic regime in Iran posed an imminent threat, and he took action based on that conclusion.
[00:01:42]  Also, Speaker Mike Johnson, who sits on the highly classified gang of eight, those congressional leaders who get to see all classified intelligence, and he told a very different story.
[00:01:53]  During a press conference in Washington, Speaker Johnson said, I got all the briefings.
[00:01:57]  We all understood there clearly was an imminent threat.
[00:01:59]  I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information, but it certainly wasn't in those briefings.
[00:02:05]  President Trump commented on Joe Kent's remarks, saying that all Kent was a nice guy, a highly decorated veteran whose wife was also served.
[00:02:14]  He lost his wife, tragically, killed by terrorists in the line of her duty.
[00:02:19]  But the president noted that Joe Kent was very weak on security and said, well, it's a good thing that he's out considering how diametrically opposed the administration's strategy he apparently is.
[00:02:30]  This dispute comes as the Trump administration continues Operation Epic Fury, which is a series of military strikes targeting Iran's nuclear infrastructure and leadership networks.
[00:02:40]  Kent, who is a retired Green Beret and former CIA paramilitary officer, believes the conflict risks pulling the United States into another prolonged Middle Eastern war.
[00:02:50]  Kent is certainly entitled to his view, but so far the president has made it clear that he believes in the limited, strategic, yet lethal use of American power without committing ourselves to long, endless foreign wars, boots on the ground, hundreds of thousands of American casualties, and of course, billions in new defense contractors and spending.
[00:03:13]  That is not what transpired in his first attack on Iran.
[00:03:16]  It's not what transpired in Venezuela.
[00:03:18]  It is not what is transpiring now.
[00:03:20]  I think the president clearly understands that this conflict needs to be limited.
[00:03:25]  That's why the president has used, ramped up American power and moved, I think, in total concert with his national position.
[00:03:34]  Anybody who knows Donald Trump knows that he has been crystal clear on the Iranian threat starting in the 1980s.
[00:03:43]  This position of the president, taking action in Iran, is completely consistent with everything he has ever said on the issues.
[00:03:50]  Confronting Iran now is far safer than allowing a hostile regime to threaten the United States and its allies with a nuclear capability.
[00:03:58]  So this fight, which appears to be dividing those in the MAGA base, I suspect this will resolve itself if the president and the Secretary of War are correct and that this engagement is relatively short.
[00:04:13]  What the American people don't want, of course, is endless foreign war.
[00:04:17]  That has not been the policy of the Trump administration.

=== The SAVE Act Push (05:43) ===

[00:04:20]  Meanwhile, demonstrating further as to why the Save America Act, now before the U.S. Senate, must be enacted, new reports have shown that illegal immigrants have repeatedly voted in American elections.
[00:04:32]  While it is known that illegal have voted in some elections, recent cases uncovered by federal authorities suggest this issue may be far more widespread than once believed.
[00:04:42]  According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice, Moritiana, a national Mahali Sacco, an illegal immigrant ordered to be removed from the United States in 2002, allegedly voted in seven federal elections to 2008.
[00:05:02]  Investigators say that Sacco falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen in order to register and cast votes in Pennsylvania.
[00:05:08]  Officials have also identified other such cases across the country.
[00:05:11]  In North Carolina, for example, a Canadian national, Denise Bouchard, pleaded guilty to falsely claiming U.S. citizenship in order to vote in the 22 and 24 elections.
[00:05:22]  In Michigan, they identified a Chinese national who's named Gao, a college student, who was charged with illegal voting in 2024 elections before reportedly fleeing the country.
[00:05:33]  Meanwhile, Pennsylvania officials acknowledged a problem in the state's motor voter system that mistakenly allows roughly 100,000 non-citizens to register to vote.
[00:05:42]  These incidents demonstrate precisely why stronger safeguards are needed and why the Save America Act is a no-brainer.
[00:05:49]  Democrats don't want us to derail their fraud machine that has served them so well, particularly during the 2020 election steal.
[00:05:58]  It's very hard for me to grasp who could possibly be against a simple requirement that one be a U.S. citizen before one can vote in elections, as well as why one should have a simple photo ID.
[00:06:10]  You need a photo ID to get on an airplane.
[00:06:12]  You need a photo ID to buy a pack of beer, a pack of beer, or a carton of cigarettes.
[00:06:17]  You need a photo ID to register for welfare, to apply for welfare.
[00:06:22]  Why would you not need a photo ID to vote?
[00:06:25]  The idea that requiring a photo ID is somehow racist, that idea is racist in my view.
[00:06:32]  But we're sitting here in a situation in which there are 50 votes for the Save America Act, but because of the arcane traditions of the U.S. Senate, something called the filibuster rule, where you need 60 votes to move an issue to the floor, we're stuck.
[00:06:51]  And therefore, I think it is time to dump the filibuster rule and to proceed to a vote.
[00:06:56]  If there are 50 votes, Vice President JD Vance can break that tie.
[00:07:01]  And I think that this will largely solve the issue of election integrity in this country.
[00:07:06]  I think we might get too deep in the weeds here when we start arguing about mail-in ballots, early voting, whether these electronic voting machines are susceptible to being hacked and manipulated.
[00:07:16]  I think all those things, by the way, are true.
[00:07:19]  But the easiest way to solve this, of course, is to clean up the voter rolls.
[00:07:23]  And the easiest way to clean up the voter rolls is with a simple requirement that a person be registered, be a U.S. citizen in order to vote.
[00:07:33]  The Democrats are very clear.
[00:07:34]  They want more illegals to vote.
[00:07:35]  In fact, that's their key to long-term political success.
[00:07:38]  They want to replace us demographically.
[00:07:40]  It was never a conspiracy theory.
[00:07:42]  Those who say it was are simply wrong.
[00:07:44]  The fight for mass deportation is an existential fight for this country.
[00:07:49]  We need to pass the SAVE Act now and get every single one of these illegals out of the country.
[00:07:53]  But let's start with those who have criminal records, those who either have a record in their home country of origin or a record here in the United States.
[00:08:03]  The president is pushing very hard on the Congress to pass the SAVE Act, a sweeping election integrity bill that, as I say, would simply require proof of citizenship and voter identification in federal elections.
[00:08:15]  It is time to do away with the filibuster rules.
[00:08:18]  If we don't, the Democrats will when they retake the Senate, and then you'll have a torrent of crazy left-wing legislation.
[00:08:25]  So, the time is now, although I already see that some Republicans, like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example, are refusing to go along.
[00:08:36]  Again, we have the votes.
[00:08:37]  It's time for the Senate majority leader, Mr. Thune, to call the vote.
[00:08:43]  He can do that.
[00:08:45]  We don't have to be bound by these arcane traditions of the Senate.
[00:08:49]  It's the same tripe of tradition, the so-called blue slip, that keeps President Trump from having his own U.S. attorneys, his own federal prosecutors in every jurisdiction.
[00:08:58]  It's time to do away with this filibuster bill and to give us honest elections.
[00:09:03]  We have a unique opportunity to do that and to do it now.
[00:09:07]  The president said lawmakers who vote against the SAVE Act should expect it to be used against them in their campaigns.
[00:09:13]  That is a very key threat by the president because all the polling shows that he's extraordinarily popular among Republican voters.
[00:09:22]  That's who votes in Republican primaries.
[00:09:24]  And there's a clear challenge from the president that he is going to threaten the renomination and re-election of senators who vote against him on this crucially important bill.
[00:09:35]  The bill, which is led in the Senate by Senator Mike Lee from Utah, requires individuals to register to vote in federal elections, providing proof of U.S. citizenship and identification when they do so.
[00:09:47]  To me, it is just a common sense safeguard already supported by large majorities of the American people.
[00:09:53]  Some, like the Democrats, like Dick Durbin from Illinois, argues it will make America harder to register to vote.
[00:09:58]  That's a canarg frequently used by opponents of any form of election integrity.

=== Leadership vs Foreign Conflicts (05:09) ===

[00:10:03]  I'm Roger Stone.
[00:10:04]  I believe in honest, fair elections, and I believe the SAVE Act is the best way to get them.
[00:10:09]  You're listening to the Stone Zone right here on the Red Apple Audio Networks and will be right back.
[00:10:14]  This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
[00:10:18]  That is a great, great person, Roger Stone.
[00:10:22]  The Stone Zone, The Stone Zone.
[00:10:45]  Now, get him a zone.
[00:10:46]  It's the Stone Zone.
[00:10:48]  A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him.
[00:10:56]  Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.
[00:10:58]  Roger Stone wins, Rogers.
[00:11:00]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:11:04]  Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
[00:11:06]  Vice President JD Vance pushed back today against media attempts to divide the administration as the United States carries out military actions against Iran under Operation Epic Fury.
[00:11:19]  Speaking in the Oval Office alongside the president, Vance correctly accused reporters of trying to manufacture conflict between him and the president.
[00:11:27]  One reporter pressed Vance on whether he had reservations about the operation, pointing to his past criticism of prolonged foreign war.
[00:11:34]  The vice president dismissed that suggestion, made clear that the administration is united.
[00:11:40]  Vice President Vance said, What the president has said consistently going all the way back to 2015 is that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon.
[00:11:47]  We've taken this action under the president's leadership, and all Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, should be praying for the success of our troops.
[00:11:55]  The vice president also drew a sharp contrast with past administrations, saying the difference today is strong leadership in the White House.
[00:12:03]  The vice president says, and I agree with this totally, that he trusts President Trump to avoid the costly mistakes that defined earlier foreign conflicts.
[00:12:11]  President Trump effusively praised Vance during the exchange, calling the vice president great and emphasizing that his goal remains peace through strength.
[00:12:20]  President Trump said the operation against Iran is necessary to prevent a far greater threat to the United States and its allies.
[00:12:28]  The president's been completely consistent about this.
[00:12:30]  I've been involved in his earlier exploratory efforts to look at the American presidency in 1988.
[00:12:40]  Was certainly with him in 2000.
[00:12:43]  He has always been a hardliner on the question of whether Iran should be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and therefore nobody should be surprised.
[00:12:52]  This is completely consistent with his entire public record.
[00:12:56]  The president said we're going to have a much safer world when this is all wrapped up, making it clear that the mission will conclude soon.
[00:13:03]  The president also brushed aside concerns about rising oil and gas prices following the operation, arguing that economic fluctuations are insignificant compared with the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran threatening America and the world.
[00:13:17]  It's clear that the president and the vice president are on the same page, and any attempt to manufacture division with the administration will ultimately not be successful.
[00:13:26]  I think we saw some of that in the interpretations of the resignation of Joe Kent as the national director of the Center for Counterterrorism.
[00:13:37]  But I think Tosi Yabbard put that in the proper perspective when she said, Look, the president makes the decisions.
[00:13:44]  Our job is to give the president the best information we have, and we have done that.
[00:13:49]  So she has closed ranks along the president and the vice president.
[00:13:53]  And we all pray that this war will be brief.
[00:13:58]  So far, it appears that way.
[00:13:59]  Now, General Mike Flynn was on my show about a week ago, and he insisted that the U.S. Navy is more than capable of clearing the Straits of Hermuz and making sure that there is a lane there for commerce.
[00:14:16]  The president has correctly called on our allies to share their burdens since they all benefit from that.
[00:14:23]  But of course, once again, the United States seems to be the only country that is stepping up.
[00:14:30]  It is therefore, I think, absolutely clear that this administration is committed to peace through strength.
[00:14:40]  Trump, unlike the neocons who went before him, is committed to the limited, targeted, finite, but extraordinarily lethal use of American power only when it is necessary.
[00:14:54]  Therefore, I stand with the president in this war, as I think most Americans do.
[00:14:59]  At the same time, we know politically from history that the American people do not have the appetite for long, drawn-out foreign conflicts, particularly if they don't see our inherent national interests.

=== St. Patrick's Day Politics (03:34) ===

[00:15:12]  Later in the show, Hamlet Yosef, who is a national security professional, former intelligence community official, and now today a venture capitalist specializing in defense and intelligence technologies, he knows more about Iran than probably almost anyone in America.
[00:15:28]  He's going to join us here in the Stone Zone to help us assess exactly what is going on there.
[00:15:33]  Meanwhile, Mir Mamdami, this guy never disappoints, he used today, St. Patrick's Day's event, to accuse Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in outrageous remarks that were so outrageous.
[00:15:49]  This is really what we've come to expect from a socialist Islamist who is incomprehensibly elected to the position of mayor of New York City.
[00:15:56]  Miam Dami made his remarks today during a breakfast at Gracie Mansion where the city leaders gathered to celebrate Irish heritage and honor former Irish President Mary Robinson.
[00:16:08]  But instead of focusing solely on the holiday, the president shifted the event towards the Middle Eastern politics, claiming the world has remained silent while what he calls a genocide unfolds.
[00:16:20]  Miam Dami argued that the Irish experience with historical oppression gives them special connection to the Palestinians.
[00:16:27]  Boy, there's a reach.
[00:16:29]  He praised Robinson for speaking out on the issue and suggests that many people concerned with human rights have ignored the Palestinians' suffering.
[00:16:36]  Robinson echoed broader concerns about global conflicts, referencing war and instability in places like Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and Iran.
[00:16:47]  She said many Irish people feel empathy for those facing displacement and violence around the world, showing shamefully.
[00:16:53]  She said she's not particularly too far off from Miam Dhammi's point of view.
[00:16:58]  She's a globalist.
[00:16:59]  Niam Dami's comments are clearly inappropriate for a holiday meant to celebrate Irish culture and heritage.
[00:17:05]  Miam Dami shares no concern for any European other than to see them replaced and have their traditions blotted out by the refuse of the third world.
[00:17:14]  Miam Dami injected this anti-colonial, anti-Western foreign policy agenda, even into an event traditionally focused on unity, faith, and community.
[00:17:25]  This, I'm sorry to say, is Mayor Miam Dhammi's MO.
[00:17:29]  This is what he's known for, and he's just now getting started.
[00:17:33]  Could we just celebrate St. Patrick's Day and do it in an appropriate way?
[00:17:38]  I just posted a great piece on St. Patrick for those who don't know the history of this important holiday.
[00:17:43]  But today, we salute the Irish.
[00:17:46]  I'm Roger Stone.
[00:17:47]  You're listening to the Stone Zone right here on the Red Apple Audio Networks.
[00:17:51]  When we come back, Hamlet Yosef, a national security professional who knows all about Iran, joins us.
[00:18:08]  This is the Zone Zone.
[00:18:11]  Now, get in the zone.
[00:18:13]  It's the Stone Zone.
[00:18:15]  A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him.
[00:18:22]  Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.
[00:18:24]  Roger Stone with Rogers.
[00:18:27]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:18:29]  Welcome back into the Stone Zone to help us assess the situation in the Persian Gulf.
[00:18:35]  We're joined now by Hamlet Youssef.
[00:18:38]  He is a national security professional, a former intelligence community official, and now today a venture capitalist specializing in defense and intelligence technologies.

=== Assessing Iran's Arsenal (15:53) ===

[00:18:47]  Born to an Iranian family, he emigrated to America as a child after the 1979 revolution.
[00:18:55]  Mr. Yusuf holds degrees from Florida State University and Pepperdine University.
[00:19:00]  But today he is the managing partner of Iron Gate Capital Advisors, a strategic partner at Tower Strategy Group, and an advisor on irregular warfare and geoeconomic issues.
[00:19:12]  With broad experience across all governmental and private sectors, he focuses specifically on national security questions as well as economic security issues, as well as the complex geopolitical challenges facing this country.
[00:19:26]  We're very honored to have him.
[00:19:27]  Mr. Yusuf, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:19:30]  Yeah, thank you for having me.
[00:19:33]  I have a bit of a passion, I guess, when it comes to Iran and have a unique perspective having been born there, raised in the U.S., and having the pleasure of serving the federal government, but also the private sector.
[00:19:45]  So the unique approach.
[00:19:46]  And as you mentioned, my background, I definitely have my biases, having seen what the regime did in 1979, turning a very progressive, a very pro-West, pro-U.S., pro-Europe, pro-Israel country, and turning it into what it is today.
[00:20:02]  I, like many Iranians, have always thought that it would be great if we could ever have an opportunity to see that regime fall.
[00:20:08]  And I think for the first time in my lifetime, we're pretty close to seeing that.
[00:20:12]  So I say that because I do have, like I said, my biases, and I try to remove my biases in fact.
[00:20:17]  But all humans have their own kind of perspective, how they see the world.
[00:20:20]  So I thought it was important to get that up front as your listeners.
[00:20:24]  Listen to my take on how things are going to transpire here.
[00:20:28]  Well, I appreciate that.
[00:20:29]  It's an opinion show.
[00:20:30]  I certainly give my opinions five days a week and for two hours on Sunday.
[00:20:35]  So I know where you are coming from.
[00:20:37]  On the other hand, you have a depth of experience and knowledge that obviously all Americans don't have.
[00:20:44]  There's a lot of second guessing of the president today.
[00:20:46]  I'm sorry to see this.
[00:20:48]  But I guess the most important question is this one, which is, did the regime pose an imminent threat to the United States when the president decided to attack them?
[00:20:58]  That's a complicated and loaded question.
[00:21:00]  So do I personally think they had an imminent threat?
[00:21:04]  Was there a plan for the Iranians to strike the homeland?
[00:21:08]  Probably not.
[00:21:09]  I'm a venture capitalist.
[00:21:11]  I'm not plugged into the halls of the intelligence community diplomacy or whatnot.
[00:21:15]  So I don't know what the relevant day-to-day intel is.
[00:21:18]  The chatter is the Iranians were becoming very close to getting to a point of breakthrough in terms of nuclear technology.
[00:21:27]  That's a non-starter given the ideology of the regime and kind of their view on kind of what destiny has in mind for them.
[00:21:35]  So I think that was a critical path that caused us to take action.
[00:21:39]  There is a consensus body of thought that they had, or we're going to come in possession of certain weapons provided especially from either China or Russia that would have been a direct threat to our fleet that was forming throughout the Arabian, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean.
[00:21:56]  And we had to take action.
[00:21:59]  Had we not taken action, I think we probably would have come to regret it.
[00:22:03]  Because if Iran does become a nuclear state and has a nuclear capability, then your options in dealing with the regime are obviously calculus changes.
[00:22:15]  And if you look at what happened within Iran, all conflict to me comes down to economic stability and economic power.
[00:22:24]  The regime was under significant, significant economic pressure through decades of mismanagement and waste and grit.
[00:22:32]  They had basically wrecked the entirety of the Iranian economy.
[00:22:35]  You can blame sanctions to a certain extent, but you can't ignore the fact that the thing is completely mismanaged.
[00:22:40]  Iranian society got to the point where they had it.
[00:22:43]  They wanted regime change.
[00:22:44]  That's why you had hundreds and thousands of millions of people coming into the streets of Iran towards the end of December and into the early part of this year.
[00:22:52]  The regime reacted like they never have before because I think they viewed this as the most direct threat to them was the uprising of the people.
[00:23:00]  And it got to the point where they, I mean, literally slaughtering and killing thousands and thousands of Iranians in the streets.
[00:23:05]  And President Trump made a very direct statement.
[00:23:08]  He goes, you cut it out or we're going to come in and help the people.
[00:23:12]  And that's kind of where we're at right now.
[00:23:14]  So was there an eminent threat, like a 9-11 missile attack against the U.S.?
[00:23:18]  I don't think so.
[00:23:19]  Were they in a position where they could have done great harm to our fleet and our friends in the region?
[00:23:24]  Probably.
[00:23:25]  Were they getting danger close to becoming a nuclear state?
[00:23:29]  I think pretty close.
[00:23:30]  I think Iran as a country will probably end up becoming a nuclear state at some point because they've proven the technical know how to do it.
[00:23:38]  Now it's just a matter of time and a resource before they get there.
[00:23:41]  The issue with nuclear is you can't have a regime like this get access to nuclear weapons because for them, first strike use, those are all things that I think their calculus of what that means is different than the Western mindset.
[00:23:55]  So I think we had a limited window, and I think the president chose to act.
[00:23:59]  I think you just made an excellent case for acting now.
[00:24:02]  Imminent danger to me is the development of a weapon.
[00:24:07]  What did you think of these claims reportedly by the Iranians at the negotiating table in which they said they had enough enriched uranium to put together 11 nuclear devices?
[00:24:22]  Do you think that's accurate?
[00:24:24]  There's probably some gamesmanship in there.
[00:24:27]  I think they could have potentially overplayed their hand, no different than how Saddam overplayed his hand ahead of the invasion of Iraq.
[00:24:35]  If you understand nuclear enrichment, and me being a sales and finance guy, I'm not a nuclear physicist, but the way I had this explained to me is when you're enriching uranium, the process of taking raw uranium and enriching it to 3% or 20%, which is what you need for conventional benign uses, whether it's energy research or a nuclear reactor.
[00:24:57]  The science and the mechanics of that emission process is the same.
[00:25:01]  To get it to 60%, you need just time and resources and infrastructure to get there.
[00:25:06]  In order to have a nuclear weapon, you need to enrich uranium to 90% plus.
[00:25:11]  Once you can enrich with 20% and 60%, it's just a matter of time and resources before you can get to 95% plus.
[00:25:18]  Now, let's say I've mastered the ability to enrich uranium to the 95% level.
[00:25:22]  I now have weapons-grade uranium.
[00:25:25]  That in itself does not make a nuclear device because now I have to mean, now I need two other things.
[00:25:29]  I need a triggering mechanism, something that will create that nuclear reaction, and I need a delivery mechanism, something that I can deliver it into picture cart target country or region.
[00:25:42]  The speculation, I think, was if they got to enriched uranium, they could always go and collaborate potentially within North Korea on the triggering mechanism.
[00:25:52]  And unfortunately, one of the shortcomings of the Obama-era nuclear deal with JCPOA is it gave Iran a lot of latitude to continue to make advancements in their ballistic technology.
[00:26:02]  So now you have a regime that became danger close to having the ability to natively develop nuclear-grade processed uranium and could very easily, arguably, access a triggering technology from another bad actor in North Korea and was already developing their ballistic infrastructure domestically.
[00:26:20]  So to me, I think they were inching very, very close to it.
[00:26:23]  So for the Iranians to come back and say they had 60%, I believe at face value, because I think they've been enriching for the better part of seven years since JCPO was taken off the table.
[00:26:35]  There's no reason for them to enrich this level unless they wanted to get to nuclear power.
[00:26:40]  I'm sorry, for a nuclear weapon material, because once they're at 60, which means they have more than enough processed uranium to feed any nuclear reactor that they need to develop for domestic energy consumption.
[00:26:54]  So if you're enriching to 60, you're seeing a pretty clear message in terms of where you want to go for the weapons program.
[00:27:00]  And that's my opinion.
[00:27:02]  Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to Hamlet Youssef.
[00:27:06]  He is a national security professional, currently a managing partner at Iron Gate Capital Advisors, a strategic partner for the Tower Strategy Group, where he advises them on irregular warfare and other geoeconomic issues.
[00:27:20]  He has a vast background understanding the region.
[00:27:26]  Mr. Yusuf, I'm curious as to the current state of the regime.
[00:27:30]  Obviously, we killed the Supreme Leader and 40 of his top henchmen, yet they continue to use drones and fire missiles at their Arab neighbors.
[00:27:43]  Clearly, they may be wounded, but they don't seem to be completely decapitated at this point.
[00:27:50]  Do you think that's what do you think their current military state is?
[00:27:54]  So it's a great question.
[00:27:55]  I think if you look at their capability from a conventional military standpoint, no doubt that it's been degraded significantly in terms of leadership, command, and control, but also their conventional ability to wage war.
[00:28:08]  For all intended purposes, it looks like all their air defenses have it, for the most part, taken care of.
[00:28:12]  Their conventional Navy, for the most part, are taken care of.
[00:28:15]  No air force to speak of.
[00:28:17]  But these guys are not idiots.
[00:28:19]  They've suspected and been planning for this from day one.
[00:28:23]  To me, I think there's a lot of credence to believe that these guys have been spending a fortune building a drone arsenal, an unconventional rocket arsenal where they can reach out and hit our neighbors and hit our forces throughout the region.
[00:28:36]  So I think this conflict that we're seeing right now is going to very quickly change from a conventional conflict to a very irregular asymmetric conflict.
[00:28:43]  And unfortunately, you touched on a drone and drone technology is a big piece of that.
[00:28:49]  As an investor in this space, we saw this coming seven, eight years ago when we first started the fund.
[00:28:53]  We thought it was important to invest in drone and counter-drone technologies because this is what was going to reshape the battlefield in the 21st century.
[00:29:01]  So what's entirely plausible now is as the conventional missile and rocket technology becomes degraded, they are going to rely on these very crude, inexpensive Shahid drones that are literally one-way, $30,000, $40,000 flying lawnmowers that are cheap to make, easy to deploy, very easy to basically hide under a civilian infrastructure and launch against your adversaries.
[00:29:25]  This now introduces where the future of warfare is going, which is a complete disruption of the economics of war.
[00:29:31]  Because if I'm the Iranians and I'm launching, let's say, 1,000 lawnmowers with motors and wings.
[00:29:40]  And I say lawnmower is exactly what they sound like when they fly, but I'm launching these cheap drones at U.S. forces.
[00:29:47]  I'm putting billions of dollars of hardware at risk.
[00:29:51]  And right now, the U.S.'s counter to that is to launch fighters and helicopters to knock down these assets.
[00:29:58]  So we're spending millions and millions and billions of dollars to address a threat that's maybe a couple million dollars.
[00:30:05]  So that's changing.
[00:30:06]  And so I think Iran is going to be able to have a prolonged ability to make things very uncomfortable in the Middle East.
[00:30:14]  Everything from trying to disrupt commerce and trade in the Straits of Hormuz to attacking Arab infrastructure, civilian infrastructure, and also our targets at our locations throughout the Middle East.
[00:30:24]  So the tenor and the conflict with this is changing.
[00:30:28]  The third element that I think is starting to really impact and come to light is what we call cognitive warfare, which is basically messaging media, framing of what's happening.
[00:30:39]  They want to continue, they being Iran, and I think to a certain extent backed by proxies from China and Russia, primarily China, they want to make sure the message is this is a failed war.
[00:30:50]  This is a horrible decision for the U.S.
[00:30:52]  This is terrible.
[00:30:52]  The Iranians are being unfairly treated and whatnot because they want to put as much pressure as they can on the administration and the Israelis to stop this conflict.
[00:31:02]  The reason they're attacking the Middle East and their neighbors is, one, I don't want to fall down the pit of Shia Sunni divide, but I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to turn sentiment in the Middle East against us.
[00:31:15]  I think the reason you have not seen any major action against Iran in the past is we were always afraid, well, that's the Middle East thing.
[00:31:23]  What we're starting to see is the composition.
[00:31:25]  start to see actually the entire Middle East unify behind giving us support to take out Iran.
[00:31:30]  The reason they're doing that is the entire Middle East, the Arab world, they're not anti-Iran.
[00:31:35]  They're not anti-Shia.
[00:31:36]  I think the rest of the Middle East is, by many estimates, getting closer and closer to realizing they have a very bright future ahead based on secular unity and put all the secretarian BS behind them.
[00:31:49]  And they view the number one challenge to that as being the Iranian regime.
[00:31:53]  So this is going to turn very quickly, I think, from a very conventional conflict to a very unconventional conflict steeped in regular warfare and counterative warfare and economic warfare.
[00:32:03]  Let's turn for a few minutes to the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:32:06]  As you know, a very substantial amount of the world's energy flows through there.
[00:32:11]  The Iranians have said from the beginning if they were attacked, they would close it down.
[00:32:15]  Do they have the ability to sustain that?
[00:32:18]  I mean, it appears to me that the U.S. Navy ought to be able to take care of that.
[00:32:22]  Great point.
[00:32:22]  Actually, I love the substat you wrote on Karg Island.
[00:32:26]  I think you and I share a lot of the same views there.
[00:32:29]  I think shutting down the Straits of Hormuz is definitely very easy for the Iranians to do.
[00:32:33]  Although we've debilitated a large chunk over there of a conventional Navy, they still have thousands of thousands of small merchant ships that they could very easily use for one-way suicide missions into any commercial flag vehicle that's there.
[00:32:52]  The straits are pretty narrow.
[00:32:53]  So any variation of the Shahid drones that we talked about can very easily reach out and hit a tanker.
[00:32:59]  There's a whole risk of mining the straits.
[00:33:01]  Those are all plausible.
[00:33:02]  And I think you're going to see some elements of that deployed over the next couple of weeks.
[00:33:06]  But I don't think it's sustainable for a couple of reasons because at the end of the day, some of that oil that's leaving the straits is Iranian oil.
[00:33:14]  They're going to need that income stream to continue to fuel those fights.
[00:33:18]  At the same time, if you look at, I think, somewhere around 30 to 40, close to 50% of the oil that leaves the Gulf, whether it's Iranian or Arab, is going to China and India, two of the biggest economies out there.
[00:33:31]  They're only going to stand for so long in terms of allowing this.
[00:33:34]  When you look at overall global trade and what Europe has at stake, at some point, you're going to see the other powers to be either step in and block the U.S. from continuing this aggression, which I think is less likely, to them stepping in and saying, okay, you know what?
[00:33:50]  We got no choice.
[00:33:51]  We now have to commit our naval resources to help keep these channels open.
[00:33:56]  So I think that's what's going to happen.
[00:33:59]  In the near term, I think the Iranians will continue to take pot shots at us.
[00:34:02]  The benefit of us owning the airspace is, again, it's going to give a bit of whack-a-mole.
[00:34:07]  But as we see planes fly or drones fly from the Iranian coast against global shipping, then we're going to take action.
[00:34:14]  We did that against the Houthis pretty successfully in years past.
[00:34:18]  The last point I wanted to touch on is I think you had made the case of what happens with the strategic relevance of Karg Island.
[00:34:27]  That's pretty significant.
[00:34:28]  And for those years, that's an island off of the coast of Bashir in south, southwest Iran.
[00:34:35]  That island, I think, is responsible Responsible for a bulk of the oil that is exported from Iran.

=== Strategic Relevance of Karg Island (03:52) ===

[00:34:41]  President Trump was very vocal earlier this week, I think, and talked about how he's blown up every military asset on that island.
[00:34:48]  That's a key statement because I don't think there's ever a scenario where you're going to have like a military invasion force going into Iran.
[00:34:56]  But if we can take Karg Island off of the map temporarily for the Iranians, it again, it chokes off the regime's ability to fuel and fund Hezbollah, Hamas, their proxy networks, and their ability to buy weapons and materials from China and Russia and sustain this fight.
[00:35:12]  And the reason I think we affected military infrastructure and not the actual oil infrastructure is when and if there is regime change in the near term, we want to keep that entire infrastructure intact so we can hand it back to the Iranian people to rebuild their country like they should.
[00:35:25]  Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to Hamlet Youssef.
[00:35:29]  He is an esteemed intelligence agency veteran who has served his country but now works on Wall Street, an expert on what's going on in the Persian Gulf.
[00:35:40]  And we'll be right back with more.
[00:35:42]  This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
[00:35:45]  That is a great, great person, Roger Stone.
[00:35:49]  The Stone Zone. The Stone Zone.
[00:36:13]  Now, get him a zone.
[00:36:15]  It's the Stone Zone.
[00:36:17]  A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him.
[00:36:24]  Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.
[00:36:27]  Roger Stone wins, Rogers.
[00:36:29]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:36:32]  And we're back with Hamlet Youssef, an intelligence community veteran and now working on Wall Street, an expert on the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
[00:36:41]  We've got about a little less than two minutes.
[00:36:43]  Him, I'm going to let you wrap this up with a final key point.
[00:36:47]  Well, first of all, thanks for having me on.
[00:36:49]  Honor and a pleasure.
[00:36:50]  I'm glad to have my voice here.
[00:36:52]  In all my years, when I worked in the federal government, supporting the State Department, when it came to national security and energy issues, I always had the opinion that Iran was central to solving so many of the issues from a geopolitical standpoint for the U.S.
[00:37:05]  And I think replacing this regime is going to be a tremendous added lever point for the West.
[00:37:12]  I think it drives up all fun friends, blah, Hamas.
[00:37:15]  It neuters Putin's ability to wage war in Ukraine.
[00:37:18]  But more importantly, this is what it's all about.
[00:37:20]  That significantly hinders G and the CCP.
[00:37:23]  So I think there's no coincidence that this is happening a month before President Trump is set to start negotiating and engaging G in Asia later this year.
[00:37:32]  So I think there's a lot of dominoes risk administrative fall.
[00:37:36]  But I think he's been very constructive in terms of where things will in the Middle East once away regime in Iran is no longer in place.
[00:37:44]  I'm in agreement.
[00:37:44]  Anybody who will look at Donald Trump's long-term public record, he's always been hard lined on this issue.
[00:37:50]  Therefore, there is no inconsistency here.
[00:37:52]  And he is a man who means what he says and says what he means.
[00:37:56]  He made, I think, the right call regarding the dangers that a nuclear Iran posed to this country.
[00:38:03]  And I think he took the right action.
[00:38:04]  I call on the American people to rally behind him and behind the Secretary of War and the Secretary of State at this crucial time for the country.
[00:38:12]  I want to thank you for joining us today, bringing your wealth of experience to the table.
[00:38:17]  A lot of my listeners are still concerned about the war, not sure they're getting the straight story.
[00:38:22]  That's why this was very valuable.
[00:38:24]  I want to thank our guest, Hamlet Youssef, for joining us today.
[00:38:27]  And thank you for joining us today in the Stone Zone.
[00:38:30]  Till tomorrow, God bless you and Gotcha.