Title: The Deep Focus Show
Show: The Deep Focus Show
Date: 2025-10-31
URL: https://youtu.be/oazTShMDcTo
Duration: 51:00

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[00:03] Under those circumstances, why do we need to militarily intervene down there? It's not because we can't. Can we overpower Venezuela militarily? Obviously. That's not that challenging. That's not to say that after you've done this so that you're sitting on a gold mine. On the contrary, the big problem is you go into a place like that, there's the risk that you make yourself [music] responsible for everything that happens down there. You ultimately turn it into a bottomless pit for money [music] and resources from the United

[00:33] States at a point in time when I don't think we could afford that or or necessarily need to do it. Uh and then what kind of response do you get out of Latin America? Uh we're not widely loved in what Latin America, never have been. Some of that is justified, some of it isn't, it doesn't matter. But if you go into Venezuela, do you turn this whole episode into a rallying point for every Latin American country, >> [music] >> every contented revolutionary?

[01:06] Hi, I'm John Kiriakou and welcome back to Deep Focus. Here on the show, we like to talk about the big issues in the news, whether it's the Russia-Ukraine war or what's happening in Afghanistan Afghanistan or or soon what may happen in Venezuela. Uh but there are other issues that are just as important such as the the sorry state of American politics. Well, sometimes there are people who are who are experts in one area who are unacknowledged experts in other

[01:38] areas. That's our guest today. Before we get to him though, I want to ask you to please do me a solid. And if you enjoy this content, please like, share, and most importantly, subscribe. It helps us a lot with the YouTube algorithm. Well, I am proud to call Colonel Doug McGregor a friend. Doug is a retired colonel in the US Army. He's a former senior government official. And when I say senior, I mean senior most government official. President Trump at the end of his first

[02:09] term named Colonel McGregor US Ambassador to Germany. There were a lot of senators who didn't like that because Doug speaks his mind, which is one of the reasons why we're friends. Uh and so he went over to the Pentagon as one of the highest ranking officials in that department. He's also an acclaimed author, a consultant, and a political commentator. An armor branch officer by background, Doug was a leader in an early tank battle in the Gulf War. I remember it very well, as a matter of fact. He was

[02:40] also a top planner in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. His 1997 book Breaking the Phalanx argued for radical reforms inside the United States Army, and that is what keeps him as relevant as he is today. Colonel Doug McGregor, thanks for joining us. Good to see you again. Well, John, it's good to see you as well. You're looking You're looking great. >> Thank you, sir. And as are you. Well, we're trying to stay alive. >> Yeah, we are. We're trying to stay

[03:10] alive. Especially within range of Washington, D.C., right? >> Which is easier said than done. >> [laughter] >> I have so many questions for you. I almost don't know where to begin. But just 5 or 10 minutes before we started recording, 5 or 10 minutes ago, I received a breaking news update uh from Associated Press. And I wanted to get your preliminary thoughts on this. The The White House has just announced that the US will send an aircraft carrier

[03:41] battle group to Venezuela. Hm. What do you think we should make of this? On the one hand, it's clear that Donald Trump hates Nicolas Maduro. Uh he wants that government gone. He wants to be able to return Venezuelan um undocumented uh immigrants to Venezuela without having the left arguing that he's sending them to certain, you know, death or prison terms or whatever. But do you think that this that this

[04:11] president, who really was elected on an anti-war platform, will go to a war of choice? It certainly looks that way. Hm. I mean, ideally, if we're going to send an aircraft carrier battle group, I'd prefer that they pulled into port and enjoyed some liberty down in Venezuela. My limited experience with Venezuelans is that they're Yeah, they're lots of very nice people. The women are very attractive, the food is good, the weather is nice, but I guess that's not going to happen. But that would be my preference. No, I'm

[04:41] afraid you're right. We You know, this business with Venezuela has been going on for a long time. You've got to go You know, you know that from your own experience in the agency. There have been multiple attempts to manipulate, influence politics down there. >> [clears throat] >> Why the president in particular at this point in time is so interested in involving himself down there is a bit of a mystery. But we know certain things from from history. We know, obviously, that you know, the Venezuelans, uh the Mexicans, the Cubans, all three

[05:12] of those countries strongly backed the communist cause during the Spanish Civil War. Now, I Some of that was undoubtedly ideological. It also has to do with a sort of revolutionary past down in that part of the world, particularly with Bolivar, the you know, the uh uh Yeah, Bolivar. Simon Bolivar, yeah. Yeah, and the revolution that they had. Fact, there's a McGregor who was involved in that, but we won't talk about [laughter] that right now. He was another rogue mercenary or something that decided to get out there

[05:43] and muck around. Anyhow, uh the the point is that some things never change, and attitudes in those three states are very similar to what they were years ago. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to go to war with them. Then there's this issue of drugs, which is very odd, because Venezuela is not a {quote} drug hub. Do some illicit drugs pass through the country? Sure. They pass through lots of countries. And by the way, contrary to what President Trump is saying, they're still finding their way into the United States.

[06:15] But that's not a point of origin for massive drug production. It certainly isn't a point of origin for fentanyl, which tends to come up from Mexico, the Mexican cartels, obviously. And Mexico is, for all intents and purposes, an organized crime state. I'm not sure why we are so interested going this far afield to Venezuela when we've got a much bigger problem right on our border. Uh the other thing is that the CIA has been involved down there, as you know. And in 2019, there was a concerted attempt to try and stage a coup and

[06:47] remove the government. Now, we always have to mention that Venezuela is probably or or could be, we don't really know, we think, is the largest oil has the largest oil reserves of any country in the world. Okay. They're very deep, these reserves, by the way. And it just so happens that we have the best deep drilling capability of any country in the world. >> I mean, our our oil engineers in general are the best. Now, why do we have to go to war

[07:20] to get to the oil reserves? That's a mystery to me. Even President Trump has stated flatly that Mr. Maduro came to him and made an offer that would have given us a stake in the oil and gas reserves. In fact, he characterized Mr. Maduro's offer as essentially everything. And in fact, that was relatively recent. That was just in the last several months. It looked like there was going to be a breakthrough in relations. Yeah, so the the

[07:51] why do we need to militarily intervene down there? It's not because we can't. Can we overpower Venezuela militarily? Obviously. >> Mhm. That's not that challenging. That's not to say that after you've done this so that you're sitting on a gold mine. On the contrary, the big problem is you go into a place like that, there's the risk that you make yourself responsible for everything that happens down there. You ultimately turn it into a bottomless pit for money and resources from the United States at a point in time when I don't think we could afford

[08:23] that or or necessarily need to do it. Uh and then what kind of response do you get out of Latin America? Uh we're not widely loved in what Latin America, never have been. Some of that is justified, some of it isn't, it doesn't matter. But if you go into Venezuela, do you turn this whole episode into a rallying point for every Latin American country, every contented revolutionary, uh 100,000 paramilitaries from, say, Brazil and potentially Colombia that also pile

[08:54] in there to fight you at some point? And then you've got this population of almost 30 million inside a state that's uh about the size of Germany, France, and Switzerland combined. Now, I know they have emerald mines, I know they have gold mines, but again, are we adopting a sort of Viking-like uh policy that says, "You've got what we want. We're landing on your shores and we're taking everything." Uh I don't necessarily think that's what we as Americans want to be as 21st century Vikings.

[09:25] Maybe that's part of the plan. I haven't figured it out. Now, the other connection, as you know, is China. And of course, there is uh Russia. Well, the Chinese were very frustrated down there with Hugo Chavez. He wasn't paying the interest on his debt. The Chinese have mixed feelings about getting deeply involved there. And Russia, of course, did a did business with Maduro, provided he paid for everything in gold. And in fact, I have friends that were down there and watched the the loaded

[09:55] onto aircraft that were then flown to Russia. Okay. Wow. What's that got to do with Venezuela at this point? Well, you know, they're an outpost of evil in the Western Hemisphere. We've got to drive them out. I I guess. Um I I don't know. I mean, I listened to someone who told me who's has the background similar to your own. Doug, we're flipping the board. Flipping the board on Russia and China. This it's good times are rolling again. We're back in the game.

[10:26] Really? That actually That actually leads me to another question. Something that you and I briefly discussed offline. Donald Trump in the very in the first term, it appeared that Donald Trump was changing the face of the Republican Party. It looked like the Republican Party was walking away from being the party of neo-conservatism. And in fact, it was the Democrats that became the

[10:57] neoliberals, the warmongers, the ones who were the biggest supporters of the CIA and of covert action overseas. Now, in the second term, it seems that that wasn't necessarily the case, especially in the Senate. There are a lot of Republicans who all of a sudden are willing to stand up and say, "No, they like the old days better." What I'm getting at is there are fewer [snorts] Americans

[11:28] today, percentage-wise, who call themselves Democrats or Republicans than we've seen in a century. And a lot of people, including yourself, people who are, you know, fixtures in Washington, are saying that it's time for another political party or two. So, do you think that's where we are? I mean, they you know, the conventional wisdom is, "Look, we've got other political parties. We've got a Libertarian Party. We've got a Green

[11:59] Party. There's the Reform Party and the I forget what the other one is, the, you know, America whatever party." None of them amount to anything. You know that the that the Libertarians are going to get 1 and 1/2 percentage points and the and the Greens are going to get a little bit less than 1%. Those are not viable parties. But there's a lot of talk about the need for a viable party. Start off giving us your thoughts on this. Well, you know, we just held a meeting in Dallas on this very issue. It

[12:31] was a a very small meeting. There were only 50 guests. And the whole point was to discuss exactly this. You know, most of us now feel like we're the party of the outs as opposed to the ins. The ins consist of Democrats and Republicans. And ultimately, behind doors, they hammer out policy and decide issues that really serve the interests of the members who profit enormously from donors for whatever policy decisions they make.

[13:03] They no longer represent two clearly different approaches to government. Their approaches are very very similar. Now, there are people in both parties on the outskirts or the what do you want to call it, the extreme ends one way or the other who are a little different, but they don't amount to much. The overwhelming majority of people that hold office today, they're not really represent the interests of you or me. And that's what people came to Dallas to talk about. We call it the nationalconversation.org.

[13:34] That's the organization. A lot of good people have shown up and said, "We want to participate." We decided to keep the first meeting small. We want to hold other meetings around the country. We don't have all the answers. But what we are looking for, I guess, is a is a set of principles or policies that we think most Americans on any any given day can support, whether they're Democrats or Republicans. And I think those things to would be very simplistic. We want prosperity at home. We want the rule of law.

[14:07] And we want an end to the overseas interventions. These pointless wars that, frankly, we don't think we need to fight. Now, you and I know that there are a lot of people in Washington who have profited enormously from the conflicts. >> enormously All you have to do is just drive around Great Falls, McLean, go over to Potomac, Maryland. You can see all the magnificent homes that all of these people live in. >> Yeah, and they're not all doctors. No. >> [laughter] >> Not all doctors. But they're not even

[14:39] all lawyers, either. >> That's right. You're absolutely right. And then you look at the senior military leaders. And we've been through a change that's been going on for decades. When Eisenhower left office, he talked about the military-industrial-congressional complex. He dropped out congressional because one of the speechwriters said, "Mr. President, do you really want to say congressional? Aren't we going to make enough enemies with just military-industrial?" But it was originally military-industrial-congressional. And he was very concerned about the senior ranks of the armed forces

[15:10] because he saw something that he had never witnessed in his lifetime. And that is that people went into the military to achieve high rank for the purpose of retiring and making lots of money. Now, what is what's wrong with that? There's no reason why if someone leaves the military, they can't make money. Yeah, but there's a problem when to do so, you identify early on with a set of policies or political interests or people in politics that promise to pay you well if you do what they like.

[15:41] You know, we've lost a sense that we once had back during the Korean War when I said just before I said I took over. And there were meetings and senior officers said, "Look, this Korean War is the wrong war in the wrong place against the wrong people." That's what the That's what the general said. Well, well, they were right. And so the politicians said, "Okay, well, then what do we do?" Well, that's a better situation to be in if you can get agreement that this is the wrong war in the wrong place for the

[16:12] wrong reason. And we don't care what the reason is and we don't care where it is. We don't even care how long it lasts. Let's all go. Why? Well, everybody's being rewarded financially after they leave the service for doing so. And everybody who's a four-star or three-star knows, "Hey, you get on board with this, when you get out, you're going to be taken care of." So, it's a huge problem. We're bribing people before they ever leave the service. And people are not coming into the

[16:43] service for the right reasons because you can only do that for so long before the lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant colonels say, "Well, gosh, look how General so-and-so, how well he's doing. You know, he got on board and he's got millions of dollars. And what do you have, McGregor? You don't have millions of dollars. Well, what's wrong with you?" Well, you're not on the right side of the issue. I mean, I don't know how many times I've talked to my West Point classmates who said, "Doug, what's happened to you? You don't understand." Well, they're right. I don't understand

[17:14] it. I can't sign up for something I think is patently wrong. Yeah, yeah. Stick with the program. forces. You know, what about these dumb policies that want to put women in tanks and women in the infantry formations and put them on the battlefield. Has everybody lost their mind? Do they not understand what happens in war? War is not civilization. It's not peacetime. In other words, war is the absence of moral restraint. And when you got hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of men

[17:46] who reckon with a high possibility that they could lose their lives, the last thing they need are lots of nice young women in their midst before they go into action. Bad things happen. We know that from 5,000 years of military history. If this was such a good idea, hey, why didn't the Romans do it? You know, why didn't the Spartans take their women to war? Come on, wake up. Smell the coffee. Don't be stupid. But this has been going on. And if you want to be a general, you want to be an admiral, well, here's a whole I think

[18:16] we're we're more enlightened now. Yeah, right. We've all become Renaissance men. We're all legal scholars. >> Russians and Chinese laugh at us. Like some of our some of our recruiting commercials, the videos that have been released by the military and by the CIA, for example. They laugh at us. There was a CIA recruiting video that came out, I don't know, two years, three years ago, where they're interviewing this woman and she said, "I'm an autistic, depressed, anxious lesbian, you know,

[18:46] blah blah blah. And I have a home at the CIA." And I was like, "Oh my god, that's not the CIA I joined." Well, the thing with the military right now is that that's one aspect that's just bad and allegedly President Trump and Hegseth want to change that. Great. Get to it. I hope it works. They're going to fight They're going to fight some enemies on the hill over it. We'll see about that. But there's another issue. And the other issue is, "Let's go to Timbuktu." Why? Well, Timbuktu has been involved in the drug trade. Timbuktu has

[19:19] a Communist Party. Timbuktu, you know, whatever is a danger to his neighbors. It also sits on top of the best gold mines in the region. So, >> Exactly. we're going to go there. And by the way, we're we're going to deliver a better life for everybody in Timbuktu and they're going to be happy to see us. We know that. I mean, how many times do you have to go through this nonsense? And then the regime change bit. >> Oh. I always tell everybody this this idea of regime change, that has its roots with the Bolsheviks. Trotsky was the the big advocate for

[19:49] regime change. And he convinced all the Bolsheviks that they should invade Poland. Said, "We'll crush the Poles and we'll march to Germany and the German workers will welcome us. The German working class is with us in this revolution." Of course, at the time there was a man named Stalin who sort of sat on the sidelines and said, "These people are all crazy. They don't know anything about the Poles. They don't know anything about the Germans." Well, the rest is history. They marched into Poland. The Poles practically annihilated the so-called Red Army and the Germans all

[20:20] sat on the sidelines and watched and said, "That's a good thing." And they shot their communists. So, so the point is, these are dumb ideas and they keep recycling and recycling and recycling and recycling. You don't You don't get very far when your {quote} revolution, whether it's uh an American one or a Bolshevik one, doesn't matter, arrives on bayonets. Its staying power is minimal. It's not going to So, why are we doing this? I think it's a disaster. And for us in

[20:52] particular in the Western Hemisphere, I think we should be interested in finding ways to secure our borders, enforce the law. You know, that's a that's an you know, a novel idea. People are complaining about ICE. I say, "Well, ICE is enforcing federal law." Well, I don't like it. Well, Change the law. Yeah, you can change the law or you can have the argument we did in 1861. That argument turned out to say, "Federal law is federal law and you will obey it." So, that seems to have worked

[21:22] pretty well for us for at least the last 249 years. So, I think we should enforce federal law. But, you don't need to invade somebody else's country to deal with this. The other thing is we need to be much tougher on the drug peddlers here in the United States. The people that engage in human trafficking. We lose 300,000 children a year in this country. You don't know where they went. That's outrageous. I mean, people should be afraid to touch a child for fear they're going to be arrested, prosecuted, and executed. And

[21:55] people say, "Well, I don't agree with that." Well, what's your solution? Invade Venezuela? Right. >> You want to invade Mexico? I don't want to invade Mexico. I just want to secure the border. And I want to crush anybody inside the United States involved in this drug trade or human trafficking. And you know, it just it it just doesn't ring It doesn't ring any bells that instead you have the other problem and you know this, John. We have inside the United States what I call the bombs away club. They're They're the people that as soon as you drop bombs on anybody anywhere,

[22:27] they say, "Oh, it's great. Yeah, we're tough. We're the best. This demonstrates that America is back." You know, Have you ever seen that silly thing that used to What is it? Uh Uh Americans USA. It was a It was a puppet thing where they were running around and say, "Yeah, USA USA America screw you." >> [laughter] >> It was ridiculous. It was absurd, but unfortunately, we got a lot of people that think that way. >> Yeah, we do. And they'll show up and

[22:58] cheer anybody. It doesn't matter if it's Donald Trump or or Joe Biden. If you're bombing somebody somewhere, they'll say, "Hey, good good job. That's great." Those people shouldn't be in charge. Doug, in in 2016, I traveled around the Western United States with Governor Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico. He was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president. And so, I introduced him at campaign stops in in 12 Western states.

[23:28] And one of the things that he confided in me was that the reason why the Libertarian Party would never really amount to anything nationally, electorally, was that it didn't have a rabbi, financial rabbi. There was There was a a man that he referred to as the canned tomato king of California who had donated a couple of hundred thousand dollars. We We bought a a motor home and we drove from state to state.

[23:58] But, there was no Sheldon Adelson giving money to the Libertarian Party. And so, there was no advertising. Um How can a startup group overcome the the bias against it that comes as a result of a lack of access to funding? No, you're 100% right. Uh we talked about that. In fact, we talked about the origins of the Republican

[24:29] Party. The Republican Party in the 1850s really wasn't much of a force. >> No, it was a startup. Yes, and uh something changed. >> Mhm. Something was abolitionism. In other words, they became the party that advocated the abolition of slavery. When that happened, everything changed. Money poured in, support came in, but there was something even more important. And that's what we call the John Brown moment.

[25:00] You'll recall John Brown came across Harper's Ferry, which is not very far from where I am. Uh And he tried to raise slaves in revolt. He wanted to liberate the slaves. It all came to a pretty quick close. There were very few people injured. One or two people were killed, including one of his sons. But, what really made a difference was that the the very foolish governor of Virginia at the time uh he said, "What do you think I should do?" to his advisers. And most of his advisers privately said,

[25:31] "Let the Let this man go. I mean, he was very eloquent in court. He's a very religious man. He believes that what he was doing is right. Most people agree that slavery needs to go away. They just don't agree on when and how. But, there's no reason to harm this man." Somebody came to him and said, "You know, governor, if you execute John Brown, you're a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination for president at next year's convention." He said, "That's right." And so, he

[26:01] executed John Brown. What a catastrophe. And when that happened, the Republican Party began soaring because they had steadfastly supported John Brown. They were opposed to slavery and they said, "This is an atrocity." The rest is history and you get this man, Lincoln, who contrary to what a lot of people think came out of nowhere. So, there are two things involved. Yes, you're right. We need money. We need people that are willing to back us and help us build this structure.

[26:32] And then secondly, we need an exogenous event, an event over which we have no control, that can make all the difference. And I think that's coming. I think if you look at the financial system right now, it's very very brittle. You know, that alone could put an end to much of the overseas military adventurism. Uh although people will fight that. They'd much rather have half the population starve to death at home before they start stop bombing someone overseas. But, I think it would happen.

[27:02] Uh so, we can't predict the future, but I see the appetite. Everywhere I go, everybody I talk to says, "Ah, what a disaster. Doesn't matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain. Doesn't matter what you try to do, no one will change or reform health care. Doesn't matter what you do." I mean, just go down the list of all the issues that are important to Americans, health care, inflation, and so forth. Who Who's doing anything? And the answer is nobody does. The guy who is a genius at this sort of thing, at convincing everybody that

[27:33] something's happening when it isn't, is of course Donald Trump. But, Donald Trump's also on some fragile ground right now because he's promised a lot of things. He's said a lot of things. And we can go all the way back to before he was elected. "I can end this war in Ukraine in in 24 hours. I can end it on a phone call." Uh-huh. Yeah, but this is somebody who doesn't study anything. He doesn't doesn't really listen well to briefings. He gets He becomes bored. He likes to be the

[28:04] smartest man in the room. And if you can convince him he's the smartest man in the room and whatever idea you came up with is really his, he's going to do it. He likes that. So, I don't know how much longer this goes on because I I sense that people are beginning to say, you know, I didn't vote for this. This is not what I wanted. Can't we get back to the original agenda, which as you and I discussed at the beginning, is America focused? Now, he has something though that that we don't. He has a single issue lobby behind him.

[28:36] And that lobby represents enormous Jewish financial power here inside the United States and around the world. And they will do anything to commit all the military power and resources of the United States to whatever Mr. Netanyahu wants. That's a big advantage. But, even that might not turn out to work too much longer. Well, that's a very important point, actually. Um The The Times of Israel

[29:07] said just a couple of days ago that this recent trip the two trips to Israel by Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio were specifically to to BB-sit, uh which is what they they called it. Uh Donald Trump has been publicly angry at Bibi Netanyahu over the past week or two and has even taken to to threatening him. I think that's exactly what we should be doing. We should be

[29:38] threatening Benjamin Netanyahu. But, do you think anything will come of that over the long term? I think we have My own personal personal belief is that we have bent over backwards to support the Israelis to the point where it is actually hurt American national interests. So have we seen enough of this pandering to the Israelis or should we expect more? And and this is not specific to Donald Trump. The Democrats are at least as guilty as the Republicans are.

[30:09] I think two things. First of all, and I said this yesterday, I think I was talking to Judge Napolitano and then later in the evening to Matt Gates. I I don't listen too much to what people say in Washington. I try to watch carefully what they actually do. Uh we've heard these kinds of statements before. Let's be frank, anybody who spent any time with Bibi Netanyahu doesn't walk away in love with Bibi Netanyahu. Uh it doesn't matter. What matters is what do they actually do?

[30:40] You and I look I I don't know what your track record is. I freely admit that I have supported the Israelis for years. Oh, I did. I did for years. Okay. Well, I'm a big I was always an advocate for helping them defend themselves. But within 2 weeks of the Gaza business, it became pretty obvious to me that this didn't have anything to do with defending Israel. Totally agree. >> I had been down at the headquarters that Israeli Defense Force headquarters that is responsible for the Southern Command.

[31:12] And I can tell you that they had a grip on Gaza that was absolutely beyond anything I've ever seen anywhere else in the world. They if someone picked up a cell phone out of, you know, millions of people and said something, they knew about it. If if there was someone that took a shot at someone across the you know, zone, tried to shoot an Israeli soldier in a tower, bang, they knew who that was instantly. So when this happened, I was very suspicious because it just didn't track

[31:45] with my experience. Shin Bet, the Mossad, and the the professional leadership of the Israeli Defense Force too competent. Where where was the reaction force? Uh where was the instantaneous alarm, you know, that should have risen? Then we find out about the Israeli women who were part of an intelligence cell who say they reported this over and over and over again well in advance saying this something's coming, this is what we've seen. Then you have the Deputy Chief of

[32:16] Staff for Intelligence in Egypt. And of course, the Egyptians have always been very wary of Hamas. And they said, "We see a giant attack coming from Hamas. What are you doing to get ready for this?" So I I finally walked away and said, "This is a This was designed to trigger this larger campaign against everybody in the region that Israel wants to destroy." And they saw this as an ideal opportunity to drag us in. And we have willingly walked in. I don't see that ending anytime soon.

[32:48] I think it's going to continue until we are hurt in some way. And I know that sounds awful, but until we are actually hurt, uh there's not going to be any support. I mean, Churchill had this problem in 1940. Uh I remember when they bombed the shipyards uh in Glasgow, the docks. And Churchill came in and said, "Thank God." He said, "Otherwise, we'd never have any of the Scots on our side in this war because the Scots, they lost a lot of people in the First World War and they

[33:19] came back and said, 'What did we do this for?'" "When were the Germans the enemy?" I mean, English were different in their attitudes, but in Scotland and Ireland, that's a very different attitude. So when they bombed the place, Churchill said, "This is wonderful." Well, I I kind of get the impression that that hasn't really happened for Trump and and the Israel lobby. The opposite could happen though. If you do get a lot of Americans killed somewhere, they'll try to spin it, but it's going to make a lot of people here angry. And what

[33:49] [snorts] do you think this means for the Saudis? You know, the backdrop to all of this is the Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords, the Abraham Accords, every single time somebody mentions whatever peace deal, it has to include the Saudis. The Saudis don't seem to be in any rush to recognize Israel. And when push comes to shove, what do the Saudi Saudis really get out of a relationship with Israel? I'm unable to identify anything. And I spent most of my adult life in the Middle East. What do you think about

[34:20] this? I suspect that their interests are purely financial. Yeah. And they won't do anything that could disrupt the flow of cash into or out of Saudi Arabia. They've already begun to take precautions in in other kinds of ways. You know, the Chinese have now opened a gold vault in Riyadh. They've got another one in Hong Kong. Now, this is separate from the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This is designed to facilitate transactions across international lines. So as a result of this, the Saudis are

[34:52] now bought are now selling oil in yuan. And they're buying things from China in yuan. We're going to see a lot more of this in the future with BRICS. This is just the beginning. >> Ah, yeah. You've anticipated my next question, too. But go ahead and finish your thought. No, it's just that I think the Saudis are very good at playing both sides to the middle. They don't want to invite trouble from us and Israel, but at the same time they're prepared to jump ship quickly as needed. And they're going to enjoy a

[35:23] certain amount of support from the Chinese and probably also the Russians and others as a result of doing so. Iran has already jumped ship, we know that. And the Israelis, you know, are are interested because we're interested in disrupting all of this. You know, the Israeli goal is very simple. Let's balkanize the region. If they can balkanize Syria, if they can balkanize Iran, if they can balkanize the Arabian Peninsula, if they can balkanize Egypt, they'll do it. Because in their judgment, when all of these peoples are fragmented and divided and

[35:53] ideally killing each other, then Israel wins and Israel is safe. I'm not sure it's going to quite work out that way in the next few years, but that's certainly the goal. So if you look at Saudi Arabia right now, I would say they're going to migrate in direction of what profits them. Now, there's always the outside possibility that no one is considering, and that is that the peninsular Arabs decide to overthrow their ruling elites. That's not impossible.

[36:24] Because the ruling elites right now are really unpopular. >> Yes. I'm surprised Sisi is still where he is in Egypt. >> Mhm. Because my perception of the our Egyptian friends is they are furious beyond belief. You have a similar phenomenon, by the way, with Erdogan. Erdogan talks tough, but when it comes to acting, he does nothing. And the people in Turkey, they they're well aware of the fragility of the Turkish economy. They understand it. They understand it. >> it every day. Mhm. >> But they would all sign up to go to war

[36:55] against Israel. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, the level of hostility and animosity in that region today is something I have never seen before. Yeah, I have to agree. I want to ask you question about international finance and then I'm going to move to Iran. Um a year ago, the Kuwaitis sold a shipment of oil to the Chinese and for the first time ever, the Chinese paid for that shipment in yuan, not in

[37:26] dollars. Uh there's talk that the Saudis are now dealing with the Chinese in yuan rather than in dollars. It seems to me that that's the first step toward the end of the American empire. There's also talk of the BRICS countries creating eventually uh a unified currency like the euro. That would be the death knell for the dollar. Do you think that's where we're heading or is there a way for the United States

[37:57] to to maintain its its top position in in international finance? Um two things. First, invading Venezuela and waging war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel will not stop that process, it will accelerate it. >> Indeed. So that's the first part. Second part is that uh they're a long way from a unified currency as you put it. Uh their banking system is clearly not as sophisticated as ours, but they're

[38:27] developing rapidly. Uh people are really shocked that they've already got the equivalent of Swift uh operating. And by the way, it's much I'm told it's much better and more effective and more efficient than Swift. >> Everything goes through Shanghai instead of New York, so it's not liable to uh to sanctions. The other thing is, remember that before World War broke out, I would say certainly before the Japanese invasion in 1937, Shanghai was the financial center of Asia.

[38:58] People are always telling me, "Aren't you worried about the Chinese?" And I said, "Well, for about the last 2,000 years, with the exception of the last couple of hundred, China was always the richest country in the world." But the reason that peoples associate wealth and power with the projection of military power is because that's what we do. But that's not necessarily the Chinese inclination. Now, the worst thing that we could do is try to start a war with the Chinese. And I I I've heard less of it recently,

[39:30] thank goodness, but there's still a lot of foolish people out there that think this is somehow or another an inevitable event and a good idea. But to answer your question, I I we're on that road. It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take time. The The real question is not whether whether we can preserve our position as the reserve currency. I think we could. Because I can tell you from my conversations with Chinese officials and so forth, they they don't want to be the reserve currency. They're perfectly willing to have us do that.

[40:02] Uh China's interests are not the same as Western interests. You know, this is a big problem. We're always treating the Japanese, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Malays, anybody as though well, they're just like us. No, they're not. They don't think like us. They're not inclined to do the things that we do. Very different group of people. Left [clears throat] alone, the Asians will fall over each other to avoid a war. There will be no war in that region unless we start it.

[40:32] We You know, people don't get it. So, I think we need to take that for granted. The question is what do we do? And you've already pointed to the lots of the stupid things that we're engaged in right now that'll put ourselves at risk unnecessarily financially and drive people away from us making our currency irrelevant. What I think long-term is that you'll probably have the United States and Europe, and I'm talking about North America and Europe probably. Maybe others. I don't know if the Australians will be in that or not.

[41:03] That'll be one financial system. And then there's the rest of the world. Now, it it would be nice if there were a way to do business with Latin America, but I you know, doesn't look good right now. I want to ask you about Iran. Uh the Iranians it's been a momentous year for Iran, not in not necessarily in a good way. Uh they've been bombed repeatedly by Israel. They they practice something that people are

[41:33] calling strategic patience. Uh the Israelis bomb them. Then they send some slow drones across. It takes 6 hours to get to Israel. Most of them are are shot down. Uh they uh they're bombed again. And then they launch something at uh at at the Israelis again that does nothing but saves face. And then the Israelis bomb them and the US bombs them.

[42:04] They finally responded by by firing at uh at uh cutter. Just one rocket. Nobody was injured. No big deal. How long can this go on? And do you think that this policy of strategic patience is going to matter in the face of what appears to be an Israeli decision to take this government down? Well, this is an important question. I I

[42:34] think the Iranian government has tried very hard to put the past behind them with regard to us and their own revolution, I would argue. It's been 40 years since this revolution. If anybody thinks that nothing has changed in 40 years, they're crazy. Uh Iran is a very different society today. The Iranians are very different from what they were 40 years ago. Uh if you listen to the Israelis, nothing's changed. Khomeini uh you know, was recently resuscitated and is walking

[43:05] the streets of Tehran. Uh that's not true. Things have changed quite a bit. The other thing the Israelis I think have begun to understand is that their actions have actually forced cohesion on the country. Yes. >> They were hoping to fragment it, to divide it, to balkanize it. Uh they had cultivated and they still have a base of support in Azerbaijan from which they would like to launch major attacks into Iran. Uh that may yet work. I don't know, but I don't think they're going to be able

[43:35] to invade northern Iran and raise the Azeri Turks who are Shiites in in rebellion against Iran. I don't see that happening. Agreed. Uh they've always besides always been down off and on in years in Baluchistan trying to get the Baluchis to do something. I mean, here Iran is a diverse place. But their overarching Persian identity and culture and language, I think that's stronger than anybody thought and now it's perhaps stronger than it's been in many many decades. The other thing is it was a tendency to

[44:07] dismiss the Iranians as they were simply like other small Arab states in the region. They may be bigger in population, bigger in size, but there's no real difference. That of course is a serious >> Not true. And you know, I said this 3 years ago. I wrote it in my last book, Margin of Victory, when I talked about I have a whole chapter on the Israelis in their fight with the Egyptians in '73 and I made the point at the end of that. Don't take anything for it granted that

[44:37] in the sense that don't expect the future will look like the past. Tremendous tremendous strides have been achieved in terms of literacy and education and understanding. You've got a lot of really smart people now in the Middle East. Very bright people. The Iranians have great high human capital. Why we continue to believe otherwise is a mystery to me. And they should be concerned about Iran's capacity to do real damage. Now, I think they had a taste of that during

[45:09] the 12-day war. But even then the Iranians exercised restraint. So, the real question is if they are put under the gun again by Israel, will they exercise restraint? I think it'll be much less restraint. My great fear is that once once it begins, the Israelis will be tempted to use a nuclear weapon. And of course, they they would probably launch those from their Dolphin-class submarines which the Germans gave them and then altered the tubes so that they could accommodate a nuclear

[45:40] warhead on a long-range missiles. But I think the the real the real question is will they say, "If you don't come in and rescue us, we will use a nuclear weapon." And of course, at that point I think we would do almost anything to avoid the use of a nuclear weapon. But what does that do to us? And that's that's the real question. Again, it's back to do Americans suffer? You see, most Americans and you again, I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

[46:11] Most Americans on any given day don't give a damn what happens beyond the borders of the United States. Go to Kansas City. Go to St. Louis. Go out to Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. Everybody's got a life out there. Doesn't really matter much to them what happens on the other side of the planet. But it will in the future. And if they're harmed, seriously harmed financially, economically, and God forbid physically, then then the game is up completely for the boys in Washington. What they think

[46:42] in DC, if you talk to them, "Well, we'll mobilize the country for war." Huh? I don't think so. This is not 1941. You know, my my grandfather who's turned out to be right about everything he ever said, used to tell me when I was growing up, he said, "Well, that was FDR's war. You know, he brought it on. He embargoed the Japanese. Everybody knew that once you did that, there was going to be a war." Well, he was right. I didn't find out till years later when I read all the papers that Marshall, as soon as the

[47:13] embargo was was announced, actually beforehand, he knew it was coming in 30 days, he called the CNO and said, "We have to have a meeting immediately and plan for the war in the Pacific. The Japanese will be at war with Japan." Of course, they were they made a bad decision. They thought it would all begin in the Philippines. It never occurred to them that it would involve the Philippines as well as Hawaii and then ultimately the rest of Asia. They Again, there was a failure to appreciate the Japanese and their capabilities. So,

[47:45] I guess I guess the kind of thing I worry about at this stage is that Americans are saying, "Well, you it's not our problem. It's not coming here. Don't worry about it." And that's a bad position to take. They ought to be interested in telling their government, "Wait a minute. Why are we doing this? We went through this in Vietnam. Everybody was let's go kill communists." You remember kill a commie for Christ and all this kind of business. And by 1970 '71, it was what are we doing here? What's the purpose? What's the mission? The best the best one anecdote of all,

[48:15] and I'm sorry that this can't happen now with somebody like Donald Trump, but he probably wouldn't listen anyway. LBJ in 1968 sent Omar Bradley to Vietnam. He said, "Go over there and tell me what you think. Take as much time as you need then come back and see me." So, he did. And after I guess 45 days or so, something like that, he came back and he said, "Well, Mr. President, I've been all over the country. I've talked to everybody from privates to four stars. And nobody nobody I spoke to understands

[48:47] what they're doing. They don't know what they're there for. They don't even know what the mission is." And LBJ said, "Well, that's outrageous. I can't believe that." So, he picked up a uh what do you call it? A legal pad. And the pen said, "Mr. President, write down the mission. What's the purpose?" And LBJ took the pen and he started to write and he said, "Well, you know, this is this is going to take some time. I've got to think He said, "Then get out."

[49:17] And that's what should happen today with Donald Trump. And that's what a four star should go in and say to Mr. President, "Make it abundantly clear to everyone what is the military objective." Because it's always political. You know, we we say military, but it's really political military. What is the explicit mission? What are we supposed to do? Bombing people is not a mission. That's an action. And that's what that's what should go on, but I don't see much evidence that

[49:47] that's likely to happen, do you? No, I don't at all. No, I think this gets worse before it gets any better. I hate to say it. >> on that happy note. >> Yeah, [laughter] on that happy note. Well, tell tell our viewers where they can read more about your work and about this conversation about a a new political political Well, I've got a website, you know, that you can go to. It'll come up if you go after my name despite Google's attempts to suppress it. Indeed.

[50:18] >> And then but we have this new organization called the nationalconversation.org. And it has to be the nationalconversation.org. And if you go to that site, you'll see what we're trying to do. You'll see some film footage from the discussions that we had on 4 October. It's just highlights. And there's some statements on there from me and from others about what we're trying to achieve, which is what we discussed about looking for a third way forward. And we think that contrary to popular belief, this is a

[50:50] good time to start. We think that things will change in the future. The future will not look like the past. But as you point out, we need support. We need people that [music] want to support some alternative. The people that don't want John McCain in the White House anymore. >> Mhm. Regardless of whether it's John McCain the Republican or John McCain the Democrat. That's the same thing over and over and over again, right? Over >> It is. Colonel Doug McGregor, thank you so much for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen, if you enjoyed this podcast and you like

[51:22] the content that we normally provide, please do me that favor of subscribing as well as liking and sharing it with your friends. Doug, thanks again. It's great to see you.
