Episode 573 Scott Adams: Fixing the Iran Situation For You
Date: 2019-06-21 | Duration: 31:37
Topics
Iran situation…what you should believe and should NOT believe How much did our intelligence services LEARN about Iran last night? Message sent…message received?
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## Transcript
[0:04]
[Music] hey everybody yes I'm a little bit late today life got in the way sorry it took me so long to get here especially especially when the things are heating up with Iran I feel like I can't go away for one morning leave the world to run itself my god so once everybody gets back in here we're gonna have the little thing I like to call the simultaneous SEP some of you are addicted and you didn't want to wait but you waited it's gonna pay off here's the payoff grab your cup your mug your glass your stein your chalice your tankard you were thermos your flask your vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid it's still the morning where I am so I'm having coffee join me now for the simultaneous end still
[1:08]
now for the simultaneous end still delicious alright so just a little update on me a little dog emergency this morning I think she'll be fine don't need to talk about that but that's all that was going on little little dog urgency should be should be okay so let's talk about Iran let me start with what you should believe and what you should not believe we'll start with what you should believe so based on what we've heard so far about the Iranian situation about the downed drone and about the attack that was on before was off here's what you should believe okay we're done with that so that's that's all the stuff you're supposed to believe nothing basically we're still in the fog of war everything you hear from Iran you should not believe everything you hear from your own government don't believe
[2:09]
from your own government don't believe it not yet now mostly because we're in the
the fog of war and because part of this chess match has to do with managing the public's opinion and I would not ask my government to immediately tell me all the facts exactly as they know them to be true at this point they have a bigger objective the bigger objective is handling the situation with the ramp so if you and I have gotten some information that wasn't exactly correct don't be too surprised yes if everything we know about this situation turns out to be false don't be too surprised okay here are the things which I think are especially let's say not credible but could still be true all right so I'm not saying these things are false I'm saying can't know for sure here's one we heard
[3:11]
can't know for sure here's one we heard at one point that was so we're claiming that our drone was in international waters when I got shot down Iran is saying hey that drone was over our territory which one of those two things is true well we don't know but one of the possibilities is that it was over Iranian territory and by the time they got around to shooting it down it had crossed into international territory and they shot it down anyway maybe we'll never know another possibility is that there were two aircraft one of them was in their territory one was not maybe things were a little confused maybe one was a little stealthy and the other one wasn't maybe they shot down the wrong drone I'm not saying that's likely what I'm saying is that the the odds that the story that we have right now being exactly right not that high it could be that so let me
[4:14]
not that high it could be that so let me go on with things that you shouldn't necessarily believe yet could it be true but keep an open mind we heard didn't we hear last night that the that the Jets we're already in the air and they were going to attack but I think this morning we heard that there were no assets that had already been launched well what does that mean maybe we have jets that are always in the air so are they launched or now launched because we always have Jess in the air don't know so we don't know if it was lost and he called it back or if we had not quite launched and it was maybe some assets were in the air just checking out the situation don't know and maybe we'll never know the president speculated that there might have been a rogue general who launched the attack and might be in big trouble with his boss most people recognize that as offering an off-ramp so that Iran could claim it was an accident and and backed out I heard again this
[5:17]
and and backed out I heard again this morning from there's an article on Fox News that there are some reporting from of course anonymous sources which should not be trusted saying that that's exactly what happened and that one of the possibly the reason the attack was called back is that the president may have learned that his instinct was correct and that Iran was very mad at one of their generals don't necessarily believe that to be true it could be true I mean it's totally within the the realm of things which could be true but don't necessarily believe it and then there's a story that the reason the president reversed the the attack that was planned was because he heard at the last minute that there would be a hundred and fifty casualties mm-hmm maybe but do you think that an entire attack was planned you
[6:20]
that an entire attack was planned you know an entire attack was planned and nobody mentioned in the first several minutes of that conversation the likely number of casualties does this sound likely that the president didn't think to ask that question and no one offered it until the last hmm maybe not likely so I would say that almost all of the facts here fall into the category of maybe could be maybe some of them are true maybe none of them are true don't know I think it's probably true that a drone got shot down because Iran says is true and we say it's true so if you have it from both sides that's probably true so I think maybe that's the only thing you can be sure of we had a drone they shot it down we both say that all right let's talk about the interesting things the first thing you have to know is that we
[7:21]
thing you have to know is that we probably tested their defenses right and we did it for free so we tested their reaction to an imminent attack which they probably would have had some sense of what things we are likely to attack so it was sort of obvious that we would go after some some stationary structures such as military you know radar etc and missile batteries so they probably responded to what they imagined correctly was an imminent attack so we somebody says it's not free now the drone got shot down that's a separate sunk cost you can't get that back but once the drone is gone and you can't get it back you have a new set of decisions that are not based on that cost that you can't get back that's in the past now but we had a an option to threaten an attack and see how they responded here's
[8:21]
attack and see how they responded here's another way that they may have responded do you think that the Ayatollah slept above ground yesterday do you think that the Ayatollah was just in his ayatollah headquarters sleeping in his normal bed last night probably not probably not he probably spent the night in a bunker and maybe the last few nights it's possible that we threatened enough military action so that we could observe where he went so one of the things we may have learned is where the ayatollah goes when we are this close to war so we don't know how much we learned out of this exercise but you have to at least keep the possibility open that we either did what we did to find out how they would respond without without the intention of going through with it which would also explain how it leaked like crazy did you
[9:23]
explain how it leaked like crazy did you notice all the leaking it was just like this giant sieve of leaks telling them that we almost attacked but changed our minds at the last minute maybe that's what happened or maybe it was always intended to be an almost attack because if you staged an almost attack look at the benefits you get number one you test their responses very very important because it weakens them and it tells them oh crap they know exactly what we're gonna do because they just saw it they watched it themselves they know exactly what we do when we're this close to an attack number two do we know or and then there were the leaks so we got essentially the benefits some of the benefits of an attack without the cost of an attack it didn't cost us money to attack and it didn't cost us lives and
[10:24]
attack and it didn't cost us lives and it did not make things worse here's what it did and what you're seeing is a replay of the kim jeong-hoon play that ultimately succeeded in getting talks going here's the part that nobody but me will describe to you in detail two weeks ago when the Ayatollah thought about military action it was a concept it was a concept a military action wow that would be bad I should know what that there was a concept when Kim jong-un was talking about you know building his nukes in the United States the idea of war was sort of a concept President Trump took that concept and with with three words fire and fury and somebody saying in the comments he turned it real Kim jong-un had to spend however many days it was
[11:26]
had to spend however many days it was imagining himself dying in a ball of fire along with everybody he loves and everything he cares about he had to live with that as a reality so he had to imagine every day watching looking out the window and seeing the nuclear fireball coming toward him until he evaporates he had to imagine hearing the screams of his loved ones as they died president Trump gave that gift to Kim jong-un of that vivid this is happening right away this is real now Kim jong-un responded exactly like somebody should respond let's talk and that produced at least at the moment something that looks a lot less dangerous last night the Ayatollah was probably in a bunker and probably his whole family was not I
[12:28]
and probably his whole family was not I don't know what kind of family or loved ones or lovers or best friends he has but while he was in that bunker he had to think about the fact that the people he loved who were above ground might be evaporated in the next 24 hours he had to live thinking this might be the last thing I ever see is the walls of this bunker he had to live with a vivid thought of the entire nation of Iran going up in flames in minutes his mind was that oh my frickin Allah I've ruined everything I took it to the edge and this Trump guy that we can't predict is going to a nap my entire country and he's not even gonna look back he's not even gonna say sorry he's gonna frickin turn this into
[13:29]
sorry he's gonna frickin turn this into a parking lot and it's on me that's what the Ayatollah was thinking last night am I wrong now I'm not a mind reader but it seems safe to say that if you were the leader of a country and you took it to the edge and that then it looked at least for a number of hours last night it looked like you would be on the edge and you would destroyed your entire country killed everybody you care about and doomed yourself to the last hours of your life in a bunker like Hitler that's what he had to live with yesterday courtesy of the most persuasive president we've ever had now the president by creating let's say the narratives because we don't know what's true and what isn't and at this kid at this point I'm not sure that's important because we do have a war of ideas that's
[14:29]
because we do have a war of ideas that's happening all right this president by saying I called it back because there would be a hundred and fifty casualties what do you make of a hundred and fifty casualties well if if we said that 150 people were gonna die in the country some mortal enemy we might say that's acceptable because we're getting rid of nuclear weapon risk and you know it's a it's somebody else's citizens that are dying etc but what do you make of it if you're a citizen of Iran and you know that this is a top priority for the United States you know that Iran just shot down your your very expensive drone and you know that your government is talking about ramping up their nuclear program sort of hinting at that very directly but then the President of the United States says I called it back because I wasn't willing to let wait for it 150 citizens of Iran who we love
[15:34]
it 150 citizens of Iran who we love of suffer for it think of that message you're a citizen of Iran and who knows how much news gets through but I think they have VPNs and they have they have ways to get news into a R and even though their internet is is restricted the citizens of Iran just learned no exaggeration this is that what's coming now is not an exaggeration they just learned that the President of the United States cares more about their lives than their own leader true that's not an exaggeration is it because one of those leaders decided to not injure those Iranian public the other leader is injuring them every day he's starving them with bad policies he's making he's bringing in them into wars with other places he's doing everything you could do to make the average citizen of Iran worse off the President of the United
[16:37]
worse off the President of the United States just took besides the President of the United States just took sides with the public think about it all right it's very powerful at the same time the president has given a Iran an off-ramp by by floating this idea that there could be a rogue in general he's allowing Iran to say uh yeah that's what it was it was a little rogue general yeah we didn't mean this to happen he has set the stage for negotiations for the first time we've never been here before we've never been to this exact place where we went up to the edge of war and the president of the United States said
[17:37]
the president of the United States said I'm going to protect your citizens better than you are let's talk it's big this is really big yeah the other possibility that you can't rule out is that the president got a phone call last night he might have gotten a phone call well maybe we'll never know but we could imagine that there are things we don't know about this whole situation one of the things that could have happened is that Vladimir Putin might have picked up the phone Putin might have said holy crap look I know we got our problems but nobody wants a war with Iran not good for Russia not good for the United States not good for her and not good for the Middle East not good for anybody I will do something for you that I wasn't willing to do before what is that we
[18:38]
willing to do before what is that we don't know could be working more productively in the Middle East could be could be talking Iran under their nuclear program it could be anything or somebody saying in the comments the next thing I was going to say it could be President Xi China could have picked up the phone and said holy crap hold on we can do something about this that we have not offered before we'll put a little more pressure on them we'll cooperate with the sanctions a little better just don't do this maybe you know no but here's the thing we don't know if any phone calls like that came in or or how about Israel what if it was Israel what if Israel called up and said look I know you want to do this we've been taught you know we would love to put some more pressure on Iran but if you pull back you will be compatible with the message from Netanyahu for the past year zone and Netanyahu's been saying we love the people of Iran we want to help
[19:40]
love the people of Iran we want to help you we want to help you with diesel organization we want to help you too economy you just have to do something about your government could have been Netanyahu you might have picked up the phone and said hold on hold on if you pull back we might have the best situation for a compromise you've ever seen worth a shot now suppose we decide to simply do some sort of retaliation let's say Iran doesn't immediately respond in anything that looks productive so that we need to Ratchet it up what would that look like what would it look like if we ratchet it up well we could find maybe something to bomb that didn't have any people I don't know maybe something that just costs them a lot of money but we already have the sanctions on so I would think the cleanest thing to do is just figure out a way to ramp up the sanctions now I imagine that they're our allies and
[20:41]
imagine that they're our allies and friends of ours that are breaking the sanctions and we could put the pressure on them more than we have now say for example hypothetically China or some other country had been not let's say not abiding by the sanctions now a week ago they could have kept cheating and cheating and you know we can said stop it stop it stop it nothing what happens because they don't care about stopping it we're talking it's just talk but now war is on the line China doesn't want a war in Iran so now you say to China look here's the deal and I think you can tell we're not bluffing put the sanctions on make them real or Iran starts losing assets and people and it's going to hurt at this point we can push our allies and our frenemies harder than we could ever push them before so once
[21:43]
we could ever push them before so once again the president has created a leverage situations that he just didn't have last week it's a whole new game everything is different today because of the exact way that this was handled and again I'm not going to say this was always the plan it could be something that developed and opportunistically or because he got a phone call or because he had second thoughts for any reason it may not be something grand four dimensional chess all the way through well I think for which at whatever reason accident or genius we did get to the right place this is sort of right where you want to be let me take this to the productive level so how do you get I ran out of there confrontational stance toward the United States I've suggested this before but the timing always matters there's no such thing as a good idea there are only ideas that are perfect for the moment
[22:44]
ideas that are perfect for the moment let me say that again there's no such thing as a good idea there are only ideas that fit perfectly with the time and the moment so this is an idea that I've mentioned a number of times before which sounded maybe a best interesting because the time wasn't right now it's the same idea I'm going to tell you in a moment but the times right and it goes like this this is the Ark of war see if you can see that step one kill step two economic war step three a war of ideas the old way to do war was to kill humans the new way to do war the 2019 version is economic sanctions because the world is so interconnected the sanctions are devastating you know
[23:49]
the sanctions are devastating you know if you get enough people to say yes this country is bad it's devastating but economic war probably is not quite what we need to get to the end the end zone with Iran because of the religious sort of
of you know their deal what would you call it their religious requirements that must be satisfied so so there's a higher level need that needs to be addressed Iran is not just about military Iran is not just about economy Iran is very much about their belief system if you don't address that you haven't addressed the whole the whole stack and here's my suggestion I think we should challenge Iran directly to a war of ideas I think we should address them directly and say if you trust your God you have
[24:51]
if you trust your God you have confidence in your God let's take our disagreements to the Internet let's let's take it to the war of ideas because killing people doesn't work anymore just doesn't work crushing economies could work if you do not have a religious say framework like Iran does where apparently at least the administration would rather die than be productive they'd rather die so if somebody would prefer starving and dying than threatening to kill them and threatening to crush their economy isn't as powerful as it should be they need an off-ramp they meet a way to say that they could win and I think that the way to do that would be to threaten to open up their internet for them unless they open it up themselves so we could say for example look around there's one thing we want from you and just surprised the heck out of them we want
[25:54]
surprised the heck out of them we want you to free up your internet we want you to let your people have access to the world now think about that think about just think about the change in frame think about we were we are almost in a shooting war and you would expect that the response to that would be we will crush you militarily we will take out your assets we will bomb you what they expect right they also probably expected a full military attack last night but what they got was uh-oh we don't want to kill your citizens that's not what we're about pull back let's talk at this point the stage is set for the probably the best chance we'll ever have we should say to them we're looking out for your people we don't want to determine what your people have it's not it's not up to us
[26:54]
people have it's not it's not up to us to decide but we want them to have access to the world we want you the government of Iran to open up your internet now think of that as a response we might have to do other things too with typing the sanctions etc probably more of military threatening just to make sure that threats stays real but it would be very interesting to say what we want is dialogue but not just between the government and our government we want dialogue between the people we need we want your people to have the freedom that everyone else has that has the Internet now it seems to me that that sort of freedom would get us to the place we need to get because their own citizens would control their government on their own but they probably need a little access to information etc to do that I think the the opening of the Internet
[27:56]
think the the opening of the Internet for them would be a big deal now I also wonder if there's anything we could do technologically to open up their internet for them without their agreement because that might be the worst thing for them you know there's a reason that the the regime doesn't allow their citizens full access to the Internet and the reason is they don't they think it's a threat to the regime so I think it would be important to address that all right the other one the other thing I wonder is if it's true that we find out there was a rogue general who shot down that could you assume that the Roga general was on the side of the Ayatollah think about it if there were a rogue general who took it on himself an Iranian general to shoot down the drone knowing that that would provoke or an attack is
[28:57]
that that would provoke or an attack is that general working for the Ayatollah or is that general working for himself meaning then maybe that's a general who doesn't want an Ayatollah that's the question that the Ayatollah is gonna have to figure out was this really an accident was it really somebody trying to help the realm because it looks like you shot down a drone and almost got the Ayatollah killed because that doesn't look like you're on the same team maybe we'll find out the the answers that so anyway just summarizing don't believe anything you hear about this yet but I think this president has either by grand design or by good instinct in the end created the best situation we've seen to get to the table yeah the Ayatollah has taken the idea of war from a concept to I had to sleep in a bunker last night and wonder if everybody I love will be dead by morning that was his that was his evening the
[29:58]
that was his that was his evening the ayatollahs evening was wondering if everybody he knows will be dead by morning that's a that's a good good way to to key up some talks now the other wild card here is that Jared Kushner has been working on I guess the framework of some kind of a larger Middle East deal and I tell you often that if you can't solve a situation one of the best ways to solve it is by introducing variables so it rather than saying it's it's a contest between us and Iran and their nuclear program and the Stroud say look around the small ball stuff isn't the problem the problem is the larger situation so let's talk about the larger situation let's let's get out of the weeds you know of us let's get into the larger conversation about Hezbollah and the Palestinians and Israel and all the rest and the you know and the proxy wars and
[31:01]
and the you know and the proxy wars and in Yemen etc so I'm going to tell you that this is very much like the darkest before the dawn this might be the most productive situation we've ever seen with Iran in in recent memory so I'm going to say that there's there's some good that's going to come out of this it might have been accidental but that's our situation all right I'm going to go do something else and I will talk to you later