Editor’s Notes: In this interview, host Glenn Diesen is joined by decorated combat veteran and former advisor to the Secretary of Defense, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, to analyze the rapidly escalating war against Iran. As the conflict enters its third day, Macgregor challenges the narrative of a swift regime change, arguing instead that the region is descending into a long-term catastrophe that could devastate oil markets and global stability. He explores the potential for a massive strategic failure for the United States and Israel, suggesting that this war may signal the definitive end of Western military hegemony in the Middle East. With deep dives into the roles of Russia and China and the shifting geopolitical maps, Macgregor provides a sobering look at what he describes as the emergence of a new world order. (Mar 3, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
Introduction
GLENN DIESEN: Welcome back. We are joined today by Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran, author and former advisor to the US Secretary of Defense. Thank you for coming back on.
We are now heading towards the end of day three of the war against Iran. And I think, well, it’s fair to say that I think Trump was hoping for a quick war, but this, it doesn’t appear that there will be any quick regime change operation happening here. How are you assessing it, though? How should we, I guess, measure the developments of the war and what to expect?
The War Is Already Regionalized
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think the first thing we can say is that the Iranians have targeted at least 27 bases, including port facilities in the Middle East, ranging from Incirlik Air Base all the way down to Dubai in the Gulf. So the war has been effectively regionalized, and the consequences of these actions cannot really be fully appreciated yet.
Everyone knows about the Gulf and what has already happened in the oil markets. Today the oil markets in Europe opened about 20% higher, simply based on the probability that the oil supply would be disrupted for some period of time. So I think we’re headed towards more than $100 a barrel. We’ll get there pretty quickly. How high, I don’t know, but I think that’s going to happen.
And if you look at a place like the United Arab Emirates, very inexpensive drones have defeated what appear to be some of the world’s most expensive air and missile defenses and put a number of airstrips, airports, out of business. You have to understand that in the Gulf, there are all sorts of international conglomerates, especially a lot of Indian conglomerates that do huge business through the United Arab Emirates and Dubai. All of this is effectively being shut down.
You also have millions of people. There are about 4.6 million Indians who own businesses in the Emirates who are now stranded, and they are a critical component of the economy. In addition to those are hundreds of thousands, probably millions of Europeans, Americans and others who are stranded right now. You’ve got to cross the mountains down to Muscat in order to find an aircraft that’ll take you out.
Oil Infrastructure and the Broader Economic Impact
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think the damage that’s being done to the oil infrastructure is only now really beginning. We have evidence that some oil refineries have been struck, particularly in Saudi Arabia. I think we’re going to see more of that. So we’re at the beginning of what is ostensibly a long regional war, and we haven’t even begun to assess the possibility that others may become involved, because this emergency created by the Gulf war affects India, it affects Northeast Asia, it affects Turkey, it affects Europe. Effectively, the entire world is now focused on this war that is ostensibly between Israel and Iran.
Now, the funny thing about this war is that it did not begin with a joint Israeli-American assault. It began with an Israeli attack. And Secretary of State Rubio seems to have told the Group of Eight — these are senators in the US Senate that are part of the Senate Armed Services Committee — that Israel began the attack. We had not been informed of it. We were not warned that they were going to do this. All we knew was it was always a possibility, and we decided to simply join in because we were not yet satisfied with our posture at the beginning of this. So we seem to have come late to the party, and now we’ve begun to feel the full impact of all these missiles.
American Losses and Incautious Statements
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: A number of missiles have been fired at ships that have yet to strike them. And we know that three F-15 fighters were downed. We’re attributing that to friendly fire, although there are some disputes about that in terms of others in the region and the world who seem to think the Iranians did it. In any case, we lost three F-15s. We didn’t lose the pilots, but we have lost American sailors, airmen or Marines. We just don’t know how many. We’ve admitted, I think, to three or four, but I suspect there’s more than that.
So the question is, where are we headed? I think we’re headed into a long campaign. And you listen — I’m sure you listened to statements by Secretary Hegseth and President Trump, laced with all this business about the state sponsor of terrorism and how it will have to submit ultimately to Israel and the United States. I think these are very incautious and stupid statements. They don’t comport with reality.
I mean, frankly, Glenn, if we were interested in combating radical Islam, we would probably be focused on Pakistan and certainly on Syria right now, which is headed by the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda. Those two states don’t seem to come up for discussion very much.
And Pakistan in particular has been the sort of incubator of radical Islam and Islamist terrorism for a long time.
So this is really about Israel’s interest in destroying Iran and removing it as an obstacle to Israeli military hegemony or Jewish supremacy, however you want to put it. And we’re committed to it. And I think ultimately logistics will probably have a big impact, because we will eventually run out of missiles. And I think we’re on that road already, because I just don’t think President Trump or his advisors really believed that they would end up in a long war with Iran — and that’s where they are right now.
Iran’s Strategy: Inflicting Pain on the Region
GLENN DIESEN: Well, besides from the military targets, as you mentioned, we’ve also seen attacks on ports, oil refineries, shipping, airports, some hotels. There seems to be several civilian targets as well. Did this take you by surprise? And how do you see the cost-benefit to Iran here? Because on one hand they want to inflict as much pain as possible. But I assume they don’t want to pull in too many other external actors, because doesn’t this risk the Gulf states or even the Europeans entering into the war? They suggested that they would come in and defend their assets, their bases and their allies. How do you assess the calculations on the Iranian side?
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think the Iranians know that the Emirates and the Saudis have played a duplicitous game, that they have tried to play both sides to the middle, as we say. So I don’t think the Iranians regret any of that. And I think they want to make the world feel pain because they are feeling acute pain. So that’s not surprising in the least.
As far as the Europeans are concerned, they’ve known from the very beginning that Iran presents no threat. That was laughable when we insisted on this installation in Romania — this anti-ballistic missile installation — on the grounds that we were protecting our European allies from Iranian missile attack. Nobody believed that. That’s nonsense.
As far as the Europeans intervening to do anything, I think the British have sent their F-22s. Whether or not they’ve done anything, I don’t know. I know that their bases on Cyprus have been struck and I assume probably put out of action. So I don’t know what to make of European intervention. I think that’s more hot air, but we’ll see. They could certainly send some ships, but then again they would be in harm’s way, and it all depends on whether or not the European peoples are going to sign on for this.
The End of Sykes-Picot and a New World Order
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Again, you’ve got to distinguish Iran and the Shia from the vast majority of Muslims who are Sunni, Arabs and Turks. And I think the Europeans are a little more sophisticated than the Americans. They do not mix them up. They understand Iran is different and Iran’s interests are different. And Iran as a civilizational state — Persia — is an entirely different animal from the rest of these post-World War I artificial constructs.
So we’ll see. But I don’t expect much out of the Europeans. I’m more concerned about the Chinese and the Russians. And when I say concerned, I mean I wonder how long they sit on the sidelines and allow this to go on, because this is not in their interests. Obviously, they want Iran to survive. Iran is a critical component of BRICS. Iran is part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The Turks want Iran to survive. I haven’t heard any complaints out of the Turks about destroying our air base at Incirlik, because they know that’s our air base and they have always been reticent to allow us to operate from that base against anyone we wanted in the region.
So I think we’re seeing the world sort of move in an entirely new direction. I would argue this is the end of Sykes-Picot. I think the maps are going to change. I’ll be very surprised if all these family dictatorships in the Persian Gulf survive in their current form.
Economic Catastrophe and the Weakening Dollar
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think the damage that’s being done economically is going to stay with us for some period of time. The Indians have already turned to purchase oil again from the Russians, and that makes perfectly good sense for them. I’m surprised they ever went along with us to begin with. The dollar is losing air speed and altitude. I mean, economically, this is a catastrophe. Financially for us, I think it’s a disaster. It’s going to take more time, but over time it’s going to get worse for us.
Remember, we are the ones that have been boasting to the world about how powerful we are and how the entire world needs to shake in fear of American military power. Well, then people are going to expect us to perform. Iran, on the other hand, hasn’t got to do anything other than survive. As long as Iran survives, and the longer the war lasts, the weaker we look, the weaker Israel looks, and the stronger Iran looks. And I think Iran is going to survive. I don’t see any evidence that it’s going to suddenly pick up the phone, call Washington and beg for mercy. Don’t see that happening.
So we’re in a real trick. I think at the end of the day, we’re going to be swept out of the region. Look at what’s happening in Iraq right now. The Shia are rising and the Iraqi government wants us out of the country. It’s wanted us out for years. I think we’re going to have to get out. I don’t think anybody living in the Gulf is going to want us in proximity to any of their harbors or airports or anything else.
Israel’s Iron Dome Failing and the Media’s False Narrative
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: So I think this is a developing disaster for us and Israel. Israel’s Iron Dome isn’t working very well. And although we are definitely trying to fire missiles in support of Israel’s air and missile defense, the Iranians seem to have moved technologically much further than we anticipated. They are now able to deliver missiles that have decoys that produce multiple warheads, and then the real dangerous missile that you’re trying to penetrate flies through while we are preoccupied with decoys. So this is not working terribly well for us.
But the interesting part is, in the West, the media, as always, is showing us a wonderful picture of American and Israeli military success. It’s quite astonishing. I don’t think that’s the picture the rest of the world is beginning to get.
What Will Exhaust the United States and Israel First?
GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, I recently checked the media, and one gets the impression they’re already planning for the new government to take over and how relations will be shifted. And it’s quite strange how the narratives deviate so much from reality.
But this is then looking to be a long war. So how do you expect the United States and Israel, for that sake, to be exhausted? Because you said you assume they will be exhausted first and then I guess it’s over. But will they run out of interceptor missiles? They have the limited ability to hit Iran. Or what is it that you expect to first give in? Or is it simply that the Gulf states will demand that the United States put an end to it?
The Strategic and Geopolitical Fallout of the Iran-Israel-US Conflict
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, all of the ports that we habitually use to replenish our naval forces and to reload our naval forces with missiles and rockets and so forth, all of those have been destroyed. We’re forced to fall back all the way to India, which is quite a distance from the region. Now we can fall back to Italy. At this point, I think Crete may be just out of reach. I hope so.
But the point is that everything that we were accustomed to doing now has to change. War has become a much more arduous task for us. Remember, they’ve not only shut down the Straits of Hormuz, they’ve also shut down the Suez Canal for all intensive purposes because they’ve shut down the Red Sea. So the commercial picture is grim, the military picture is problematic. And I don’t think that we can manufacture missiles at a sufficiently fast rate to keep up with their expenditure.
And we have been supplying all the time, vast numbers of missiles to Ukraine. And now we’re beginning to feel the pain because so much of that is gone. It won’t be long, perhaps a few more days before we begin to more economically expend our missiles. And that means that you can’t shoot down most of what’s being shot at. You remember you’re talking about shooting at least two or three missiles at every incoming missile and we still can’t target successfully and knock down hypersonic missiles. And a lot of these missiles are coming in at Mach 3, 4, 5 and 6. Those speeds are beyond our technological capability to defeat.
So I think logistically, yes, we’re going to have a huge problem. And we may pause now. Whether or not the Russians and the Chinese are willing to mediate, or the Indians — I think India would probably be the best choice for mediation. They are after all neutral, despite Modi’s recent visit to Israel, which I think was ill considered. But nevertheless, Modi and India have cultural ties to Iran. Sanskrit and Indian civilization are a component part of Persian civilization itself. So I think there’s an opportunity for the Indians to bridge the gap between us, the Israelis and Iran, but we’ll have to see.
Right now, I think Iran is not dissolving into chaos. Yes, we killed the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, but I don’t see any evidence that that has disrupted unity of effort and command and control. And the other advantage that the Iranians have — and this is an important one — is that much of their capability is widely dispersed. That makes it very hard for us. And even on the best day, historically we’ve had a lot of trouble dealing with anything that’s mobile.
So I just don’t see in the near term any good news at all. And I hope that we are talking in Washington to others who may be able to help mediate some sort of end to this catastrophe. But I know that over the weekend we apparently expressed an interest in negotiation. I don’t know through what channels, but apparently that came from the Trump White House. And the Iranians said not only no, but hell no.
Iran’s War Aims and the US Position in the Middle East
GLENN DIESEN: This is the cost. They’re not ready to put an end to this war then. I mean, it seems a bit foolish perhaps to put an end to it now given that the other side could simply just replenish their missiles and come back again in a few weeks. But what do you think the Iranians would want out of this war before they would let it come to an end?
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I don’t know what they will say, but I think what they want is to get us out of the region. And I think we are going to oblige because this war is something that we’ve helped to bring on and we have aligned ourselves with Israel, which is a pariah state in any case, meaning Israelis are already widely hated and despised for their program of mass murder and expulsion in Gaza. Now this war is only going to make those matters much, much worse.
So I think the Turks are now going to feel much more comfortable asking us to leave. And I think, as I pointed out earlier, in the Gulf we will be invited to leave. In other words, I think we’re sacrificing our position in the region strategically for the benefit of Israel. But I don’t think Israel’s going to benefit.
And this sort of thing is going to have widespread repercussions. If you’re sitting on the Korean peninsula, you’re already tired of the American military presence. You don’t see the need for it because the Chinese are not interested in starting a war. And the Chinese have made it very clear to the Koreans that if they do anything, they will not be helped in any way by China. I think the Koreans are probably saying it’s time for the Americans to leave, and then we need to work with China to reunite the peninsula and come to some sort of stable solution on the peninsula. I think the Japanese are watching this and beginning to wonder just how tightly aligned with us they want to be.
I guess my point is, do we look strong, powerful and invincible and invulnerable or not? And unfortunately for us, we need to look invincible and invulnerable. Now we’ve opened ourselves up to all sorts of extraordinary problems that we might have otherwise avoided. Military power is one of those things where until you use it, nobody really knows what you’ve got. Remember in 1940, everyone was saying, “Thank God for the French army, the largest army in Europe, the best equipped, more tanks, more this, more everything.” That went away pretty quickly. So did the British army. It didn’t last very long.
I think we’re living in a world today where the old era is ending and a new one is beginning. And there will be new rules for the future. And those are not going to be written in Washington. They’re going to be written, I think, largely in Asia and to some extent in Europe and the Middle East. But it’s going to be written by indigenous peoples, not us. That’s the long term forecast. How long will this take is anybody’s guess. But right now the Iranians are feeling a lot of pain, but they’re inflicting a lot of pain, and there’s no incentive for them to stop.
US Credibility and the Geopolitical Consequences of Failure
GLENN DIESEN: Well, if one would want to kick the United States out of the Middle East, I guess you can go for three areas. The one would be, of course, the military presence and the military bases are being pummeled. But the second, of course, is the economic interest. But the third would be what you also alluded to — the US credibility as all powerful, and essentially all countries that want to have security should align itself with the US.
How do you see the wider geopolitical ramifications of this, of US credibility being shattered in this way? Because this was seemingly opposite of what Trump wanted. He wanted to build up a very — well, his whole approach, I think, is to show a lot of strength and hope that adversaries stand down. And I thought this was also kind of the assumption that he would mount all this military force. As Witkoff said, Trump was very surprised they hadn’t capitulated yet, given that they saw all of this US military might. But what happens now if it becomes evident that it’s the United States that has to walk this whole thing back and find something of a dignified exit?
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, you’re talking about an ignominious retreat, which is the last thing in the world that Donald Trump wants. We need to talk about how do we get there from here.
The problem is that we’ve already displayed in the first 24 to 36 hours our tactical expertise, our tactical supremacy, if you will. We managed to kill a number of key personalities, not only the Supreme Leader. Tactics win battles, but ultimately strategy wins wars. We have no strategy. When everybody asks, “Well, what’s the purpose?” — well, it sounded like it was regime change, but I think we’ve discovered at this point that regime change hasn’t worked. This is a large country, 93 million people, size of Western Europe. It seems to be holding together. There’s no reason to believe that it won’t stay together at this stage. And the strategy is, what then? If you can’t remove the government, what do you do? Do you continue to lob missiles and rockets at it in the hopes that somebody will say, “Please, please stop. We’ll do whatever you want.” Maybe that’s the goal. I don’t think that’s a reasonable goal.
I don’t think anyone has thought through the criticality of ending the war. How do you end it? And the thing that’s funny is that I listened to the Secretary of State of War say this morning, “We didn’t start this war, but we’re going to end it.” Well, I think we did start this war. The Israelis started it, and we jumped on board. All of the things that we continue to cite about the reasons for going to war are specious. But the most depressingly stupid reasons are ones that go back 47 years ago or 40 years ago. The numbers of people whose death you can trace back to Iran is in the low hundreds. It’s not a large number. And the Iranians did not behave during the Iraq war any differently than we would have behaved if there were a similar war in Mexico. In other words, you do what you can to deter the force that’s on the ground in the neighboring country from entering yours.
The other thing is that we have, I think, 4,000 missiles left in our inventory — something in that regard, maybe those are different kinds, cruise and ballistic, I don’t know. Iran has about 450,000. So that’s quite a gap.
Iran as a Civilization, Not Just a State
You know, the other thing is you can kill a leader, but you can’t bomb a civilization into submission. And we’ve never understood what we were dealing with in Iran. Everybody talks about Iran as some sort of radical Islamic state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Iran is ultimately Persia, and that civilization is much older. And Persian civilization, Persian thinking, Persian philosophy, Persian art and history — all of those things have been asserting their dominance over the last 25 to 30 years. And the people of Iran have largely walked away from this more ideologically rigid form of Islam.
They didn’t hate Khomeini and they didn’t dance in the streets when he was killed. On the contrary, people saw him as a very humble and decent human being. He sacrificed his life. He stayed where he knew he would be killed. Killing him has made him a martyr that even people that don’t like Islam can honor. So I think we’ve galvanized the place against us. We’ve mobilized the people against us. I don’t see anything good coming out of this.
And this is the problem with us. We project our values, our thinking, our experience onto others. Well, our experience may hold up in connection with European experience, but it doesn’t match the experience of people in the Middle East and Asia or Africa for that matter, or even Latin America. So that’s why I think we’re in a different world right now, and we don’t even understand it. The world is changing and the old world is ending and we’re fighting the emergence of the new world.
I think we could say that the future of the world is not being written by us anymore. And what is victory in this war? Well, I think truthfully victory is stability. And we’ve done everything we possibly could to destroy stability — stability in markets, stability in trade, stability in commerce, stability in interstate confidence.
We’ve once again demonstrated conclusively that we’re completely unreliable. I’ve been saying for months that the decision to attack Iraq is made and it was only a question of when, never if. Yet we continued with the fiction that there were negotiations underway. This has hurt us with Russia, it’s hurt us with China. It’s destroyed us in the Middle East. We are rapidly following Israel into this corner reserved for pariah states.
For instance, the Indians depend on 2.6 million barrels of oil from the Persian Gulf to flow into their ports every day. When that closes, every Indian family is going to effectively be made to pay a war tax that they never voted for. A ten dollar rise in crude means fifteen billion dollars in terms of the burden on the Indian economy. They’re not the only ones. But we don’t think in those terms. We don’t think of what the impact is on others. There’s no sense of this sort of thing. And we’re going to pay a terrible price, Glenn, and it’s only just beginning.
Trump’s Strategy and the Middle East Quagmire
GLENN DIESEN: When Trump came to power a year ago, he seemed to have some of the right ideas. Again, one of my concerns about the United States is it seems that the strategy of the past 30 years doesn’t work anymore. That is, the United States exhausts itself and then incentivizes the other great powers to collectively balance it.
So from my perspective, it made sense for the US to pull a bit back, then it can strengthen its position and the Eurasian powers will to a greater degree balance each other. And it looked like Trump was heading in that direction. So pullback from Europe, from the Middle East, focus instead on the Western Hemisphere. And well, it all made sense. Doesn’t mean the Venezuelan operation was a stroke of genius or anything, but at least he looked towards the homeland, if you will.
What happened here? After a year he’s still in Ukraine again. That’s one of the problems now. I think they gave away a lot of the air defenses and other weapons which could have been used, but also now cementing US position in the Middle East. Perhaps not cementing it, but spending a lot of resources. How do you explain what seemed to be a strategy? It doesn’t seem to be followed.
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, first of all, there is no strategy. This is the problem. This new document that was published, was supposed to represent a new national military strategy. There’s no real evidence we followed any of it.
Focusing on the Western Hemisphere does not and should not mean invading other people’s countries in the Western Hemisphere. This is just ridiculous. And again, it’s sort of similar to what I said before. You’re talking about radical Islam and Islamist terrorism and you attack Iran. It doesn’t fit. If you turned around and said we’re going to focus on the danger in Pakistan, the danger in Syria, that would be plausible, but not in Iran.
At the same time you say we’ve got a huge drug problem, we have a problem with human and drug trafficking. The locus for that, the main locus for it is Mexico. That is what is most dangerous to us. But we attack Venezuela when there was no real reason to do so. Venezuela was willing to do business with us. And then we kidnapped the President and his wife. We paid millions of dollars to pay off various people in the country to let us in. And then we talked about this brilliant military operation.
Well, I’m sure it was brilliant. It’s a police operation, a paramilitary police operation enabled by the US military. It’s not a strategy, it’s not really an outcome. We don’t control Venezuela, Venezuela controls Venezuela and they can wait us out almost indefinitely. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now.
In the meantime, we’ve changed nothing on the border with Mexico. Oh, it’s better than it was. But we haven’t stopped the drugs and the human trafficking from pouring into our country. It’s still coming in. It’s not coming in at the same rate as it was, but it’s still coming in. And billions of dollars in terms of hard cash are still flowing south into Mexico. So there’s an awful lot that’s just fiction.
And I don’t think there is any strategy, because any sober-minded American would have looked at the Middle East and said this place does not need American military power. If we involve ourselves here, we’ll blow it up. Now that may suit Israel, at least temporarily. I’ve never believed that that was good for Israel.
I don’t see any evidence that this thing called Greater Israel that they talk about openly, which involves the acquisition of territory all around Israel to make Israel into this great state with what, 6, 7 million people in it that are Jews, has any chance of success. And I think what it has done is it has offended, angered, alienated virtually everyone in the region.
So I think before this is over, the question we’ll be trying to answer is, does Israel survive all of this? That’s the real question. I’m not sure that it will. Iran will survive. It’s been with us certainly for 2,700 years. You know, it’s like going to war with China. Will China survive? Of course it will survive. It’s been around for 5,000 years. So will India.
The question is, if you involve yourselves in these stupid wars, whether or not we Americans can survive it. We’re relative newcomers to the world. We’re not a civilizational state per se. So all of these things are going to come up for discussion over the weeks ahead.
And I think that for the moment, President Trump is just going to order everybody to continue to attack and bomb and target and strike. That’s all he can do. He can threaten more sanctions, but I think that’s lost its bite to a large extent. I think that’s responsible for the hatred and hostility inside of Iran towards us. So I see nothing good coming of this for us. I think Persia, though, will reemerge from this as a much stronger and more influential entity.
Does Israel Survive?
GLENN DIESEN: You say Israel may not survive. How would it go under, you think? Is it from the US pulling out, or is it the economic consequences from this war? People who simply flee, or do you see them being militarily defeated? What is the path — all of the above?
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I mean, just go back and listen to Mr. Netanyahu explain his so-called seven fronts. That’s not sustainable. Supposedly the Israelis have now mobilized another hundred thousand reservists, and it will be interesting to see how many of them show up for duty. There is talk in Israel about invading Lebanon to go after Hezbollah, because you can’t do everything from the air.
At some point Israel is going to end up exhausted and tapped out, much like Ukraine today. The question is not will Russia survive, it’s whether or not Ukraine survives. What will it be? It certainly won’t be what it was. So does that mean that Israel survives in some form? Maybe, but it won’t be what it was or what it is today. These things depend on a number of things, but you’ve got to look at the trend lines. The trend lines right now are not favorable.
Escalation Risks and the Nuclear Threshold
GLENN DIESEN: Well, what do you see now happening over the days and weeks? What is the possible escalation? I don’t see necessarily what the US can do differently, except perhaps attack or continue what it’s doing. But how do you see Iran possibly escalating? And given that, as you said before, the conflict has already very quickly become regionalized, do you see a possibility of it becoming global? Under what condition do you think the Chinese or the Russians would join? I mean, if they’re watching what we’re watching, they might conclude that the Iranians are taking care of things on their own.
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, if the Israelis decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon, or any nuclear weapon, with the goal of stopping Iran’s relentless missile attacks, I think that will change the situation dramatically. I’m not sure Israel will survive it. The Russians and the Chinese, at that point, would definitely intervene and make it clear to us that if this is not stopped and continues, they will actively join the fight against Israel and us.
And remember, I don’t think the Israelis are going to do something like this immediately. I’m forecasting that at some point the Israelis say, if Iran will not stop, we will launch a nuclear weapon. That’s kind of what I think might happen.
Well, we don’t have any control over Israel. Israel controls us. That’s very clear. So if we can’t control Israel and Israel does this, then Russia and China intervene. Well, they would intervene at a point in time where we’ve exhausted our inventories. So how do we put up a significant fight?
Until this point in time, all during the proxy war in Ukraine, behind the scenes and even in public, people raised the issue of we can’t go too far. We have to think in terms of our war reserves. But eventually, over time, that caution was thrown to the wind because there was no evidence that Russia was being defeated, that Russia was being destroyed, that the sanctions were doing their work. And so we decided we’ll put more and more and more into the Ukraine war. Well, that’s failed miserably. And they’ve exhausted their war reserves in Germany, in France, in Britain and other countries. We have done the same thing with much of our munitions.
So if you’ve done that and then all of a sudden the Russians and the Chinese say, “That’s it. Stop. Israel’s used a nuclear weapon. We will not tolerate that. And if they don’t stop, we may use a nuclear weapon in response.” That’s always a possibility. What do we do? I think we have to tell the Israelis, you’ve got to stop. And if you won’t stop, we’re leaving. I think we’ll get to that point. And that’s not an end state that we’ve planned for. We’ve planned for the other end state — Iran and its evil leaders who are responsible for terrorism and threatening the whole world will have to submit. No, they don’t, and they won’t.
Pathways to Peace — and the End of American Hegemony
GLENN DIESEN: It’s difficult to predict how this will develop. I mean, if you look towards the Ukraine war, how cautious the rhetoric was in the beginning, how cautious the West was in terms of sending weapons, and where we are today, when you have a German chancellor bragging about how they, or we, have caused untold casualties in Russia — I mean, you didn’t see this in the beginning of 2022.
So given how fast this war with Iran is escalating, it’s definitely possible. Just the last question: do you see any possibilities or any pathways for Trump to put an end to this war, or is it simply impossible because the Iranians need to, I guess, evict the Americans from the region?
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Netanyahu is in charge. So listen carefully to Netanyahu and you will know what Trump is going to do. Let’s be frank. He’s taking his orders from Netanyahu. He is not a free agent. He has people at home pushing him in particular directions. As a result, I don’t see anything changing near term in Washington at all. Everyone will simply say, well, we’ll continue to bomb, we’ll continue to launch missile strikes, and eventually we’ll be successful.
We did that for 78 days over Kosovo. And ultimately, it was not the air and missile war that persuaded the Serbs to get out of Kosovo. It was Russia’s decision to pull the plug on the Serbs and say, “No, we can’t provide you with fuel and food and medicine over the winter.” That happened because Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State, went to Moscow and negotiated a deal, as President Trump likes to say. And the deal involved some numbers of promises we made to persuade the Russians to do that. The Russians now, in retrospect, regard that as a moment of deep shame in their history. And indeed, I think they’re right, but I don’t think they had much choice at that point.
Well, they have a choice now. The Chinese have a choice. The rest of the world is no longer as weak as it once was. This is part of the groundswell of new changes in our civilization and world that the American government doesn’t want to accept.
We are in a fight at this point, when it comes to missiles and rockets and conventional capabilities, with almost a near peer, as they say. That’s something we could never have imagined. And I think President Trump has expressed shock and surprise, just as Mr. Witkoff said that the Iranians had not already capitulated, because from their standpoint, based on their experience in the New York real estate business, this kind of damage is so terrible that you cry uncle and walk away, you submit, you sign the deal.
Well, this is not real estate. This is not New York City. This is a civilizational state that absolutely will not surrender to the demands of the Jewish state in the Middle East that are then backed by American military power.
So I don’t think we’re going to get very far with President Trump at this time. Maybe down the line, something will break. The one area that we haven’t talked about that everybody needs to watch carefully is our bond market, especially the 10-year bond. And the yield will rise. Look at de-dollarization, look at our financial weakness. Those things are important. I think we could end up in a very serious financial crisis, certainly worse than what we faced back in 2007 and 2008. That is probably the other factor in this multivariate equation that could fundamentally drive us out.
But whatever ultimately happens, we’re seeing the end of the old Middle East. We’re seeing the end of American military hegemony and political dominance. That’s what we’re watching.
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