Title: A Shocking New Alliance Emerges in the Middle East | Ep. 9
Show: John Kiriakou
Date: 2026-08-11
URL: https://youtu.be/95O6yZUi3Jw
Duration: 53:00

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[00:00] Good morning everyone and welcome back to the briefing room. I should also say hello from Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam. Um, it's actually not morning for me. It's uh 10:30 at night, but that's okay. Excuse the setup, but I want to make sure that I'm still bringing you the show uh wherever I travel in the world. Actually, the next uh episode is going to be from Athens, Greece. Uh, I'm going to go from here to Athens tomorrow, then Athens to Cairo, Cairo to London, and London back to uh to Washington. But

[00:32] anyway, I'm in Vietnam for a couple of reasons. Uh, the most important is to give a speech to a group of a large group of Australian investment bankers. They hired me to come here and speak to their annual convention. It was all loads of fun. Uh, but I wanted to take the opportunity of being here to actually see Vietnam. And that's why I'm here for a whole week. I have four cousins, three of whom are still alive, but with whom I'm very

[01:02] close. And all four of them served in Vietnam in combat positions. All four of them returned from Vietnam with the Bronze Star, two of them with the Purple Heart, and all four of them with PTSD. So, I wanted to get an idea of what old Saigon, which is now Huchi Min City, uh was like as best that I could.

[01:32] Um, I want to show you a couple of of pictures first. One of the first things I did was just to walk around the city. It looks more like Hong Kong than any place else that I've ever been. This is a normal typical evening. It's so hot and so humid during the day that you can't really you can't really do anything. And so the whole place comes to life in the evening and um everybody

[02:02] that you talk to speaks English. Everybody that you talk to wants to talk about how much they love Bill Clinton and Barack Obama because Bill Clinton normalized relations, diplomatic relations with Vietnam. And Barack Obama um negotiated the uh Trans-Pacific Partnership and opened free trade with Vietnam and it changed the lives of everybody in the country. That's not to say that they have forgotten what the war was like.

[02:33] So I wanted to do several things. I wanted to go into the jungle and I've got some pictures of the jungle. Um, I'm here with my brother-in-law and we hired a guy to take us into the jungle. This is about 2 hours southwest of Ho Chi Min City, Saigon, in the jungle on the way to the Mikong Delta. It really is thick like this. Uh, go to the next slide and I'll show you. Every once in a while you'll come upon something like this. a

[03:04] sign that says B-52 bomb crater and they're deep 6 8 10 feet deep and the jungle has sort of taken them back. Um, one of the things that we did on that first day that we were here, please go to the next slide was something called the Coochie tunnels. The the Vietkong dug 250 kilometers of tunnels. This tunnel has been widened so tourists could get into

[03:37] it. My I I'm not a fat guy, but my chest was too big. I literally could not get into the hole. Uh 250 kilometers. What you do is you hold that up and then you sink yourself down. I'm stuck. But it just gives you an idea. Vietnamese are small people and it's because they had been uh malnourished for so many years. And then these guys had to pull me out because I I was stuck. Uh but anyway, they were malnourished and um

[04:10] as a result they're they're much much smaller than the average American soldier. So they took advantage of that by digging these tunnels, using the tunnels to move weapons and ammunition. These are the inside of some of the tunnels and they go deep. Some of them are 3 m, some are 6 m, and some are 20 m deep. Um, the ventilation systems are incredibly sophisticated. Uh, you don't even know that these are ventilation

[04:40] pipes because they're disguised as termite mounds or disguised as bamboo groves. But anyway, it gives you an idea. 250 kilometers of this Go ahead to the next one. You see memorials, monuments uh to the North Vietnamese fighters and the Vietkong, the South Vietnamese uh

[05:11] pro-communist fighters everywhere. Uh this was just in a uh in a gift shop. And these are some of the remnants of bombs and rockets that were just found right there in that immediate area. Uh we also went to the presidential palace which was fascinating. More interesting was something called the war remnants museum. Um it will make you sick to your stomach and it will make you ashamed of

[05:42] many of the things that we did during the Vietnam War, especially in relation to the use of Agent Orange. Um, it's an incredible experience and really something that I think every American should see. With that said, I have not met a Vietnamese who even wanted to talk about this. To them, it's in the past. They like the United States. They like Americans. They want us to be friends. This is all history. They even told me, several people told

[06:12] me that English now is now compulsory in the school system. So, every Vietnamese child speaks English. It's really remarkable. Can we go to the next one? We went down also into the Mikong Delta. Uh this is one of the literally thousands of canals uh where where people live and where much of the Vietnam War was fought. Um it is grim. You can only imagine what it

[06:43] was like 50 or 60 years ago. Uh, water everywhere, bugs everywhere, snakes, and I mean pythons and cobras and crocodiles everywhere. I I don't know how people live in these mangrove swamps, but that's what they were, mangrove swamps. I have a couple of other pictures. Go to the next one, please, just to give you an idea of what it's like. And, you know, most of these boats have goods on them. They're

[07:14] transporting, you know, cases of cigarettes or, you know, pots and pans or passengers or whatever. This is just how people get around in the Meong Delta. Go ahead to the next one. One of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century is a picture that many of you will know. It's a picture of dozens of people on the roof of a building. Many Americans think it was

[07:44] the American embassy. It wasn't the American embassy. It was um it was an apartment building that was secretly the CIA's station in Saigon. There was a helicopter sitting a top this little hut on the roof of the building. People were climbing that now bent ladder trying to get on the last flight out of Saigon. The picture won the Puliter Prize. Uh, this is just a workingclass apartment building now, but we bribed the the

[08:15] security guard down on the first floor and uh and he let us go up there and take pictures. Crazy enough, there's an abandoned bar up there that looks like it was abandoned in 1975. People just left it the way it was the day the United States bugged out in 1975. It was an incredible thing to see. I'm very grateful to this group of Australian bankers for inviting me to Vietnam. The speech was a lot of fun. I always enjoy these speeches. I enjoy the Q&A after. It gives me a chance to speak

[08:48] frankly about what's going on in the world much much in the way that we do here on the show. Uh and then I went on this um they had a dinner cruise on the uh Saigon River which was fun in and of itself, but what I really enjoyed was being able to talk about what's in the news. And I'll tell you what, it's not just the Australians. It's not just the Vietnamese. It's not just the South Koreans. We stopped in South Korea on the way over here. Everybody is confused about American foreign policy. They just simply don't

[09:19] understand what we're doing. I was talking to a Westerner a couple of days ago and he said, you know, we want the United States to succeed. We all do. Because a successful United States is a peaceful United States. and a peaceful United States makes the rest of the world happy. But these wars of choice, like what we're fighting currently in Iran, it just confuses people. They don't understand what the endgame is. And I think that they were less pleased when I told them that there doesn't

[09:50] appear to be an endgame. The administration really believed that Iran would collapse on top of itself. Um, as soon as we started bombing it, we killed the Illah, we took out most of the cabinet, we took out almost the entire military leadership, we took out every uh nuclear scientist and all that did was it drove the Iranian people together. It didn't lead to collapse. So, we're going to talk about that a

[10:21] little bit today. Actually, we're going to start with that. There there's a lot of breaking news uh today coming out of the Middle East and specifically out of the Persian Gulf. The news cycle may feel like it has slowed down a bit. It's August after all, but the the war has not. We're on the verge of something that really is a new world order that could shift the balance of power for generations to come. Yes, for the United States role in the Middle East, but especially for our allies in the Persian Gulf. And this weekend gave us perhaps

[10:52] the clearest sign yet. For the first time, Iran is striking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And the United States is basically not retaliating. Check out this video. This is a cargo ship currently on fire in the Persian Gulf, and the White House has decided not to retaliate. Now, kudos to them for not retaliating because that would have to

[11:22] come with a counter retaliation and then, you know, it just gets worse and worse and worse. And at least right now, it's not getting worse. But you see the ship on fire in the straight of Hormuz after it was shot by an anti- uh anti-ship cruise missile fired by the Iranians a few weeks ago. that would have triggered another round of strikes. But instead, the Trump administration appears to be moving in the opposite direction. During a phone interview with Axios, Trump said this quote, "We are

[11:56] lowkeying it. We are only semi-negotiating with them. We're just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact that they have no money," unquote. He stressed that Iran is quote in very bad shape unquote economically and has no money to pay its troops. The US naval blockade has exacerbated the Iranian regime's economic crisis. He said that may be true. It may not be true, but the Iranians said they're not

[12:27] negotiating at all. There there's not like negotiations light. There are no indirect negotiations. There are no negotiations going on at all. I want you to take a look at a clip uh of the Iranian foreign minister. Our negotiations with Oman are regarding the determination of a new maritime route in the straight of Hormuz. These negotiations have progressed well. I can say we are in the final stages and the

[12:59] old existing routes will be replaced with new ones. Specialists are currently working on the maps. Of course, this does not mean the opening of the straight of Hormuz. This agreement may take place, but the opening of the straight of Hormuz is contingent upon the fulfillment of a set of other conditions which have in any case been conveyed through intermediaries. >> Okay, so that's the key. Yeah, there are there are negotiations going on, not with the United States. They're between Iran and Oman. And when the foreign minister said when he mentioned the maps he quite

[13:30] literally meant the maps of the straight of Hormuz. Now the channel on the Iranian side is deeper and any ship can pass through there. The channel on the Omani side is much more shallow and it's very difficult for ships to pass through there. It's also more narrow. So everybody goes through the Iranian side. Well, you'll recall in the last couple of weeks the handful of ships that tried to go through on the Omani side, the Iranians rocketed and set on fire.

[14:03] So, what we have here is a negotiation that has nothing to do with the United States, that has nothing to do with the US or Israeli bombing of Iran. It has to do with the maritime navigation of the straight of Hormuz. And all of this comes after the United States backed away from its threats to launch major attacks against Iranian civilian infrastructure. Remember what we said weeks ago. It is a war crime to

[14:34] attack civilian infrastructure. Period. It's black and white law. But we attack civilian infrastructure anyway because who's going to do something about it? Well, why have we backed away from these threats? One likely factor is that American allies in the Gulf have been furious with Washington after Iran retaliated to the last round of strikes by striking civilian infrastructure in

[15:05] Qatar and Bahrain. The Iranian position is, well, if the Americans are going to strike our civilian infrastructure and nobody's going to do anything about it, we're going to strike the American allies civilian infrastructure because there's nothing that anybody can do about that. That's when Washington threatened escalation. Iran demonstrated then what escalation would look like. They attacked a a cargo ship and Washington backed off. Again, I'm going to tell you

[15:35] it's a good thing that Washington backed off because retaliating would have ramped things up and it would just get worse and worse and worse and we still don't have an exit strategy from this conflict. Now, Iran is negotiating from one of their greatest positions of strength since the conflict began. Iran has completely shifted its conditions for reopening the straight of Hormuz. On Saturday, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Muhammad Bagger Solgader, said in a statement

[16:07] that in order for the strait to reopen, he said the US must never threaten nor insult Iran in any language. Okay, good luck. Permanently end the war against Iran and Iran's allies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq. Well, good luck with that, too. lift the naval blockade and withdraw military forces from the surroundings of Iran, provide full compensation for war damages, lifting all sanctions and the

[16:38] release of all Iranian frozen funds. So remember, the Trump administration has said that Obama executed a horrible Iran nuclear deal because Obama transferred $1.7 billion to Iran as part of a decades old legal dispute over a failed 1979 military arms purchase. If if you don't recall, in the final final days of the Shaw of Iran in 1979, the Iranians tried to buy 1.7 billion

[17:10] dollars of uh aircraft and air force equipment. As soon as they transferred the 1.7 billion to us, the sha was overthrown. The Ayatollah took over and we just kept the money. It's been frozen ever since. So the Obama administration agreed to give them back the 1.7 billion. Um, Donald Trump has complained about that since it happened, but now the Trump administration is talking about unfreezing $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets

[17:45] just to get this conflict to end. Now, my own personal belief is that's actually the right thing to do. He's going to take all kinds of for it from the Democrats who are going to use this for partisan purposes, but releasing the frozen Iranian funds is the right thing to do. Lifting sanctions against Iran is the right thing to do. Listen, one of the lessons that I learned here in Vietnam is identical to a lesson that I learned when I went to Cuba in 2022. If you want

[18:15] to overthrow a government and replace it with something that is pro-western, open the first McDonald's because everything else comes after that. You can't turn your head without saying here McDonald's, Starbucks, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, everywhere you look. And everybody's pro-American. But well, they weren't pro-American when we were shooting them and blowing them up. Just like the Iranians aren't pro-American right now, but let that

[18:46] first McDonald's open. We'll see how their tune changes. Same thing in Cuba. If you wanted to overthrow the Castros or if you want to overthrow the current Cuban government, open McDonald's. Watch the whole thing fall apart. Perhaps the most significant sign of Iranian strength. Those were conditions for reopening the straight of Hormuz used to be Iran's conditions for signing a nuclear

[19:17] deal. You see what I mean? They've taken the same conditions that they were using for signing the nuclear deal and they sort of transposed them into the terms for reopening the straight of Hormuz. It's it's smart and it puts the United States in a difficult position. So what happens if we agree to these demands? It just kind of puts us back where we started. And when the White House tells you that it's using economic warfare to pressure Iran, that might sound smart, but they've just suppressed

[19:49] protests back in January, killing 30,000 civilians, right? Do we really think sanctions will be enough to to win this war? I don't. We've had sanctions on the Iranians since November of 1979. How many more sanctions could there possibly be? Especially sanctions powerful enough to lead to the collapse of the Iranian government. I don't know of any. If there were such sanctions, we would have imposed them already.

[20:21] Well, the Trump administration appears to believe what Benjamin Netanyahu and other Iran hawks have argued for years. put enough pressure on the Iranian government, weaken the security apparatus and eventually the Iranian people will rise up and overthrow it. Trump in his first speech announcing war with Iran, his very first speech told the Iranian people, "Rise up. Now is your time." That was his quote. Well, just a few weeks after the Iranian police murdered 30,000 protesters,

[20:54] the United States comes in in this sad bid to to encourage more protests and they actually decided to start killing Iranian law enforcement. Yeah, let me repeat that. We jumped up and down when the Iranians killed protesters. Many estimates say it was 30,000. The Israelis say it was 80,000. Um, and we decided to start killing

[21:25] Iranian law enforcement officers, police, and domestic security. According to Iran's president, the US has focused not on just killing military officials, but also on killing civilian law enforcement because they believed it would fuel greater protests if the regime lost its police. Listen to this.

[21:59] What this is is that that was President Pzeski and the president of Iran uh addressing the National Security Council and he is confirming that um attacks have taken place against individual police officers. We're not talking about bombing police stations. That's not happening. We're talking about assassins and saboturs on the ground, likely Israelis, because the US doesn't have a presence inside Iran, and the Israelis brag about the extent of their presence, and they are

[22:30] assassinating individual policemen. Uh, and what President Bizeskian said in that clip is this is something that the Americans and the Israelis did in Afghanistan and in Iraq. It's it's part of the arsenal of operations that the US and Israel carry out. And what's the result been? The result has been that the Iranian people are as unified as ever.

[23:00] So instead of leading to the immediate collapse of this country, we have unified Iranians on the ground, whether they were pro-regime or anti-regime. I said in the in the beginning of uh of this podcast series that one of the most important lessons I learned from the Iraq war when I was at the CIA was that we are never seen as liberators. We're seen as attackers and occupiers.

[23:32] I think the time is beyond ready to end this thing. There was another development in the Middle East just over the last couple of days that is incredibly important that the American media has largely ignored and that is something called the Mecca Agreement. This is footage from Islamabad, Pakistan, from Turkey and from Saudi Arabia this week as the three countries

[24:03] celebrated a new trilateral security agreement and they're calling it the Mecca Agreement. While Washington has been focused on this Iran war, three of the most powerful countries in the Muslim world have just quietly created a completely new security alliance. So, we've got a little bit of video I wanted to show you. This is in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. That's the

[24:33] president of Pakistan. and he was joined by President Erdogan right there of uh of Turkey and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Uh they took the opportunity to pray for the success of the pact. The other leaders made the minor pilgrimage called the Umrah. And uh this is something that is going to change the face of the region. And let me explain why. These are three of the most powerful and important countries in the entire Muslim world.

[25:05] Pakistan is a nuclear power. It has nuclear weapons and it has a bitter mortal enemy in India. Saudi Arabia has long sought nuclear weapons, actively sought nuclear weapons since the 1980s. And Dewey Clarage, a former deputy director for operations at the CIA, who has since passed away, just before his death, gave an interview on MSNBC in which he said that he believed the Saudis already had a nuclear bomb, that they had purchased it from the

[25:36] Pakistanis. Saudi Arabia's big enemy is Iran. Turkey is one of the most powerful and important armies in NATO behind only the United States and Germany. And Turkeykey's big enemy is Israel. So this is a mutual defense treaty, meaning an attack on one is an attack on all, just like article 5 of the NATO

[26:08] charter. So the agreement means different things for each one of these countries. For Pakistan, if Pakistan is is attacked by India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will come to its aid. If Saudi Arabia is attacked by Iran, Turkey and Pakistan will come to its aid. Two weeks ago, the Israeli defense minister gave a speech in which he said that Israel's next war will be against Turkey. So let's let's play that out.

[26:38] Let's say that there is a conflict between Israel and Turkey. All Turkey has to do as a member of NATO is to invoke article 5 of the charter. An attack on one is an attack on all. And theoretically, the United States would have to declare war on Israel. Well, that's never going to happen in a million years. It'll be the end of NATO. But now nuclear armed Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will come to

[27:11] Turkeykey's assistance. It really does change the face of the region. And most importantly, it leaves the United States completely out of it. What if the way money works is about to change? Not someday, not hypothetically, but right now. China and the United States are both making moves that suggest we could be heading towards something that the world hasn't seen in over 50 years. A return to goldbacked money or something very close to it. China is shutting down paper gold

[27:43] trading at four of its biggest banks all in the same day. And they're building a new system that settles in physical gold instead. On our side, the government is sitting on more than 8,000 tons of gold still valued at $42 an ounce on the books. $42 an ounce. Legislation to fix that has already been introduced in Congress. If both superpowers start anchoring their currencies to gold, what happens to the price? And more importantly, what

[28:14] happens to every dollar in your retirement that isn't backed by anything at all? That's the question a free report from American Alternative Assets answers. It's called The Day Money Changes Forever. And if you have an IRA or a 401k, you need to read it right now. Get your free copy at johnlovesgold.com. That's johnlovesgold.com or call 888G053.

[28:44] So according to a joint statement that was released by the three governments simultaneously, it says the Mecca joint defense agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression and stipulates that an armed attack against any of the three would be regarded as an attack on all. That is essentially the principle at the heart of NATO's article 5. The Turkish vice president Chevdet Yamas said the agreement was not aimed at any

[29:14] specific country. That's true. A Turkish official added that it was purely defensive and did not abregate any existing agreements that the countries had with any other countries. Okay, but let's think about what this means in practice. As I said, it's Pakistan versus India. It's Turkey versus Israel. and it's Saudi Arabia versus Iran and the Houthis in Yemen. Suddenly, these conflicts that were

[29:44] largely bilateral have the potential to become multilateral, much bigger, involving countries with nuclear weapons. If India and Pakistan were to go to war again, an attack on Pakistan would now theoretically be treated as an attack on Saudi Arabia and Turkey. If Israel and Turkey end up in a military confrontation, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia would jump in to support Ankura. And don't forget that Pakistan and Turkey now probably have to

[30:16] join the Saudis in their fight against the Houthis. And they don't sound intimidated by this agreement at the Houthies, that is. At least they're not acting like they're intimidated. Take a look at this this uh video clip. Those are Houthy surfaceto-air missiles. Correction, those are Houthy surfaceto-surface missiles and they're being fired at Saudi Arabia

[30:47] and that's after the agreement was signed. They're not afraid, but they may become afraid when the Turks send troops and the Pakist Pakistanis send troops and the the Yemen government that's extraordinarily weak but recognized internationally musters enough troops to send. It's only going to get worse. But listen to this. Israel is not at all happy with this agreement. Check out this video clip.

[31:19] There are

[32:06] Wow. First, that's what I want to say. Uh, much of what he said is absolutely true. There's one thing he said that's not true. I'll get to in a minute. But the Israelis are genuinely worried about this. I mean, he just said, "We have a frontal," he called it an assessment, a frontal assessment with Turkey. Meaning the Israelis are prepared to fight the Turks. Even though Turkey is what, 12 times the size and population, or not the size, it's many, many times the size. It's 12 times the population of

[32:36] Israel. The Israelis were ready to go at it with the Turks, knowing that the Americans are going to protect them from the Turks. But the Americans can't protect them from the Pakistanis or even from the Saudis for that matter. So this is something that the Israelis did not expect. I can guarantee you it's something that the Americans didn't expect, but it's something that makes the Turks, the Saudis, and the Pakistanis very, very happy. Now, he made another point, too, that Israel is going to have to deepen its relationship

[33:07] with Greece, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, and Somaliand. Somali land is not a real country. It's the northernmost state in Somalia. It is recognized only by Israel, not by any other country in the world. The reason being is that you can practically swim from Somali land to Yemen. And the Somali landers are going to give the Israelis an air force base in exchange for this diplomatic uh recognition. Kudos to the Israelis. It was a smart

[33:37] move. But better relations with, you know, Greece, Cyprus, Somali land, even the Emirates, it's not going to cure anything. The the Saudis and the Emiratis are they're kind of involved in a little bit of a democratic uh diplomatic kurfuffle right now. Um, that's going to pass. They're on different sides in Yemen. That's going to pass. um they're not terribly fond of each other, but they live in the same

[34:09] neighborhood. And so the Amiradis are not going to choose the Israelis over the Saudis. That's a pipe dream. Now, one of the things that he said in that clip is just not true. He said that the Saudis were uh on the on the verge of signing on to the Abraham Accords. That is absolutely not true. The Saudis have never been on the verge of signing the Abraham Accords. The White House will tell you that they are and the Israeli media and government will tell you that they are. They're not. The Saudi position

[34:42] on recognizing Israel has been absolutely consistent since 1977. We invited, [clears throat] President Jimmy Carter invited the Saudis to Camp David to negotiate the peace treaty with the Israelis and the Egyptians. And the Saudis demired, "No, thank you." Remember, Saudi Arabia is not just your run run-of-the-mill country, not your just normal average Muslim country. The king of Saudi Arabia is the custodian of

[35:14] the two holy mosques. His title is not just king. It's king and custodian of the two holy mosques. that carries with it incredible weight not just in the Middle East but excuse me but in every Muslim country in the world. Opening relations with Israel and not getting a free and independent and secure Palestinian state in the deal

[35:44] is not going to happen ever. So the the Saudis were never on the verge or on the wall or on the fence about the Abraham Accords. They were clear about it. We will not sign the Abraham Accords until there's a Palestinian state. Period. That's the end of that. A couple of people have asked me, "If I were in a CIA briefing for the United States,

[36:17] what kind of questions would I ask about this this new defense pact?" Well, I' I've thought about this and frankly my questions would be questions that I would pose to the Secretary of State or to the National Security Adviser were he not the same person in Marco Rubio. And my question would be, what are you going to do? I mean, this administration has never really supported NATO. They say NATO is

[36:48] outdated and unnecessary. Is it? Is this the beginning of the end for NATO? Do the Turks also believe that it's the end for NATO? And if the answer is yes, what does this mean for a European Unionwide defense pact? Remember just 3 weeks ago all of the defense ministers of the European Union, which does not include Turkey or the UK or the US or Canada,

[37:18] met to discuss an EUwide defense pact. And it's because they just don't trust the United States to be there if they need the help. The world is changing quickly and uh and we've got a front row seat. If I were in a foreign intelligence service for each of these countries, how would I feel right now? Incredibly optimistic.

[37:50] It's funny to me that the United States seems to be the country that is the slowest to recognize that we have already transitioned into a multipolar world. The United States is not the only great superpower anymore. We're not. We can't win wars. We were in Iraq for 20 years, we lost. We were in Afghanistan for 20 years, we lost. We attack Iran, we're losing. I mean, we're not talking here about sending some planes in and capturing

[38:22] Nicholas Maduro. These are honest God wars, and we can't win them. The Russians are in Ukraine. There's almost nothing we can do about it. Meanwhile, the Chinese are buying friends all over the world with the Belt and Road initiative. So, if I were a foreign intelligence service director, I would be very pleased with the way the these things are going. I will add one thing. From the time of my own service in Pakistan,

[38:52] the Pakistanis don't love anybody as much as they love the Saudis. They loved the Saudis so much that they named one of the biggest cities in the country Fiselabad after King Fisel of Saudi Arabia because he was so kind and so generous to Pakistan. There are hundreds of thousands maybe more of Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia working at all levels of the economy. The military relationship between the two countries was already rock solid as

[39:25] is the intelligence sharing relationship. So this alliance is a natural move for both the Saudis and the Pakistanis including the Turks kind of surprised me a little. And I I'm going to go on a limb and say that a year ago, nobody probably would have even thought about inviting the Turks until Israel threatened them. The Turks don't think that the United States or even the rest of NATO is going to come to to Turkeykey's aid if Israel

[39:57] were to attack. And so it sought out new relationships, new alliances, and it formed that alliance this week in Mecca. I think that's where we're going. Back to the conflict which really sparked the entire current situation that we're in in the Middle East. The US proposed a 15point peace plan for the Israel Gaza conflict. The most important condition included the withdrawal from Gaza of Israeli forces coupled with the

[40:29] disarmament of Hamas. Here is Benjamin Netanyahu's response. And for those of you listening, I'll summarize the translation uh from his Hebrew on the other side. You is

[41:24] committee. foreign. Is call

[42:09] Philadelphia. I tell you what, you can't be any more clear than that. There will not be a Palestine, period, ever in any form on

[42:42] any land. He couldn't have been any more clear. He doesn't care what Donald Trump says. He doesn't care what Marco Rubio says. Or he doesn't care what any American politician says. There will not be an independent Palestine. I mean, what what more is there to say? He also said that Israel will not stop in Gaza until Hamas is disarmed. What does that mean?

[43:12] Well, the Israeli government considers every man, woman, and child of any age to be a combatant. And so, the war will continue. The killing of civilians will continue. The Israeli occupation will continue. And if the United States raises an objection, we're going to get the middle finger. It's as simple as that. Nothing's going to change. 15-point plan. It can be a onepoint plan or a 5,000point plan. He

[43:45] doesn't care. So, there's really nothing to look forward to there. And and here's what the White House had to say. This was so interesting. This is one of the reasons why I love politics so much. A senior US official told Axios that the White House quote is not bothered unquote by Netanyahu's statement on the Gaza plan and sees it as part of the election season in Israel. Remember, there are elections coming in November.

[44:16] This spokesman said or senior US official said, quote, "We understand BB's political needs. We have no problem with it as long as he continues to do what we ask, especially regarding restraining attacks in Gaza." Really impossible to believe anyone in their public statements. Everybody's lying in every country. But one thing is for sure. If the White House is willing to give this much difference to Israel

[44:46] because it's an election season there, which is not a reason to be allowed to commit war crimes, then the situation in Gaza is not getting any better anytime soon. Here's something you don't see every day. A chance to win an almost $600 bundle of premium preparedness gear. Look, a more self-reliant America is built by people like you and me. It starts with people who take responsibility, make a plan, and prepare before we're tested. That's

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[45:48] solar rechargeable backup power, and offgrid cooking essentials. That's a lot. Enter the challenge at prepare likejkbr.com. One family receives the prize, but every participant strengthens the mission. This is your chance to be independent. Be prepared. Be ready. Join the road to preparedness challenge now at prepare like jkbr.com. So, folks, I I wanted to thank you again for your reactions to so many of my

[46:21] [laughter] of my podcasts and interviews. I get I get a real kick out of them. I really do. There were a couple things that I I thought deserved an explanation. We've we've got two clips. Can we run that first one? >> So, he comes up to the eighth floor and we go into the stairwell and I said, "Let's go up to the roof." He's like, "What?" I said, "Let's go up to the roof. He goes, "I I don't think I want to go up to the roof." I said, "Yeah, come on. Let's go." He said, "I'm uncomfortable

[46:51] going up to the roof." And I said, "Why?" >> "You think I'm going to throw you off the roof? >> Come on, let's go. We'll talk up there. >> It's a nice day." >> He goes, "I don't want to go to the roof." I said, >> "Get up on theinging roof." >> Yeah, I did. I wasn't going to throw him off the roof. I wanted him to think I was going to throw him off the roof. But as background, in 2001, a friend of mine who was a station chief in the Middle East called

[47:23] me. I had been evacuated from Athens for my own safety. And um he called me and said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "Nothing. They got me doing this job training Middle Eastern intelligence services, but I'm bored." I said, "What do you need? what do you have going on? And he said, we've recruited a double agent out here and it's too dangerous for me to meet with him. He said, the guy's insisting on meeting only with the chief. Can you fly out here every month and pretend to be

[47:56] me? I said, absolutely. Well, the guy was a double agent for one of our gravest enemies in the world. And um and so he didn't know that I knew that he was a double agent. But every time we would meet, he would immediately go to this enemy country's embassy and report back on our meeting. Finally, this country ordered him to kill me in our final meeting. And headquarters freaked out

[48:28] and I was like, "Relax." I said, "The guy's afraid of his own shadow. He's not going to kill me. He should be worried that I'm going to kill him, frankly. But we came up with a plan. And uh I don't know. I just I kind of wanted to scare him a little bit. And and um I took him into the stairwell and told him to get up on the roof. We're going to do the meeting, not in in a hotel room. We're going to do it on the roof of the hotel. And he was genuinely petrified. And finally, I laughed and I said,

[48:59] "What's the matter with you? I thought we were friends. I'm just pulling your leg. You don't really think I'm going to throw you off the roof. He started crying. Anyway, to make a long story short, one thing led to the other to the other. And he's been in prison since the spring of 2001, and he's going to die there. I think we have one more, too. One more clip. Let's go to that. It's after the cop warned me about people coming into

[49:30] my room. unannounced. These two guys just walk in boldly just walk in. I jump up. I put my fist up. I go, "What do you want?" One of them has a swastika on his neck. It took up his entire neck. It came up onto his face. The other one had you tattooed on his eyelids. So I go, "What do you want?" And and the the swastika guy says, "You the new guy?" I said, "Yeah, so." And he says, "You a" I said, "No, I'm not a He said, "You a

[50:00] rat?" I said, "No, I didn't have anybody else in my case. I'm not a rat." He says, "You a cho?" I go, "I don't know what that word [music] means." He goes, "Chomo, child molester." I said, "No, I'm not a child molester." And he goes, "Okay, you could sit with the Aryans in the cafeteria." [music] And I was like, "Oh, I guess I'm with the Aryans now. >> [sighs and gasps] >> That was not just my first day in prison. That was my first hour in prison when two Nazis, neo-Nazis, came into my

[50:33] cell to ask if I was gay, the f-word. And I said, "No, I was not a an F-word. Was I a rat? No. Was I a child molester?" "No." "Then you can sit with the Aryans." I sat with them for a while, but then the Italians, the Italians named Banano, Gambino, Genevese, Lucesi, etc. um asked me why why I was sitting with

[51:04] the Nazis in the cafeteria. I said, "I don't know. My first day here, they told me sit with them." And one of the under bosses of one of the five families very cinematically said, "From today, you're with the Italians." And so after that, I was with the Italians. That was actually at a podcast, not at a bar. That was all superimposed. But ah, you know, I have a sense of humor, too. I got a kick out of it.

[51:35] Folks, I wanted to say one other thing. We have grown so dramatically in this podcast. We've been doing it for three weeks and we have 237,000 subscribers and I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We can only continue to do this because of you. Thank you for your support. Thank you for for letting us know that you appreciate our take on the news. We

[52:06] quite literally could not do it without you and I really thank you from the bottom of my heart. In the meantime, we'll talk to you again in a couple of days. If you haven't checked out my other podcast, it's on Apple Podcast and Spotify. It's called John Kuryaku's Deadrop. I'm also on X and Facebook and LinkedIn and Cameo and Substack, so you can find a whole bunch of stuff there. Thanks again. We'll see you in a couple of
