The circumstances surrounding the wars between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Hamas are very odd, Glenn says. Why has NATO been so open about its plans to eventually invite Ukraine into its alliance? Why did the Biden administration free up $6 billion for Iran? Glenn war games a possible scenario: Has this all been a plan to avoid a 3-front war once China invades Taiwan? But while Glenn finds the scenario interesting, he says that there's one reason he doesn't believe it: "We're evil enough to do it, but I don't think we're smart enough."
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Okay. Let's go back to our premise here.
And this is a very hopeful premise.
Hopeful premise.
Remember, as a -- an action adventure fiction writer, if you had to figure out what the heck was going on in the world, and you didn't know that it was just progressives. Early 20th century progressives. That, again, for some strange reason, hate the Jews. And love eugenics.
You might say, well, wait a minute. What have we learned in the last few years?
We have learned that we cannot take on China, with Taiwan.
We can't do that in peacetime. Okay?
There's no way to do that. We are not prepared to do that.
It's too far away from our bases et cetera, et cetera. We also found the endless wars are draining.
Okay?
And we certainly could not take on three fronts.
Because you know the Middle East will be on fire. You know that Russia would get involved.
And China, we would be fighting. So we can't do three fronts.
So if you are really, really sharp, and you love America.
And you believed what everybody was saying. And you knew we couldn't let Taiwan go. Because we won't be able to make the supercomputer chips, because Taiwan has the clean rooms and the highest quality to make all of the super computer chips.
We don't make them, but Taiwan does.
We can't lose Taiwan. Okay. What do you do?
You look at the -- you look at everything, and you say, okay. China's economy is failing.
They're close. But they just upped their spending with the Navy.
Et cetera, et cetera.
And everybody knows, this is going to happen.
So you think, okay. How can we do this?
Hear me out on this.
You pick Iran, because Iran can get involved.
They want to defeat America.
They continue to sell oil to China.
China imports about 70 percent of its energy supplies.
Much of it is from Iran. Via sanctions and illegal oil sales.
Plus, China might promise to help Iran finish their nuclear bomb.
Right?
Then you have Russia, the other ally, that we would worry about.
There's a chance, they want to weaken America.
In fact, a very good chance. And level the playing field. They need to level the playing field, especially against our aircraft carriers. And they need to also keep selling oil to Europe. And to China.
That's just the China is about half their GDP.
Now, if you war it became this. When the US goes to war with China, we lose.
But we also have to fight Russia and Europe and Iran and the Middle East.
Those are three theaters of war. We can't handle that.
But what?
What if Iran and Russia, could not come in on China's side in three years down the road.
Everybody looks at you, you're sitting there, in the briefing room, and you say, hear me out. What if Russia and Iran had already been taken out? What if they've already been neutralized before we had to fight China?
Everybody looks at you, like you have lobsters growing out of your ears.
We don't have any political support here in the US for wars with Russia and Iran, especially in this election cycle. No way Congress would approve this. The administration won't approve that. The American people wouldn't support it. You say, proxies.
We don't have to fight Russia and Iran.
We get proxies to take them out for us.
All they need is a little push.
And a ton of weapons. Just the right motivation, and they'll take them out for us.
The room gets silent. And you're sitting there and you say, so who is dumb enough to fight two land wars in Asia.
You smile and say, well, NATO.
NATO can take out Russia. Israel can take out Iran.
You have to do it just right. NATO and Israel could never know we are using them like that. We can't just go out there and bribe them. They have to be so motivated to risk their own survival and beef up their own military budgets to take Putin and the ayatollahs out for us. We supply the weapons.
They do the fighting.
Everybody is in on the great game, all of a sudden.
The trick is, we have to get Russia to invade. How do we do that?
Why don't we just say, Ukraine is going to be part of NATO?
That's been a red lane forever. Everybody knows that. They'll feel threatened. Putin invades Ukraine. NATO will come to the rescue with guns and money. Ukraine does the dirty work, but we make sure they have enough to win. Yeah, but Israel. Well, Israel will need to be attacked. And much worse than ever before.
Why don't we just release all of the funds, to Iran?
So they have all of the money, to plan an attack on Israel, that is so large and so heinous, that they'll be forced to use their own military it take them out.
Which will then force Iran to join in, and then Israel takes them out. We just need the weapons, guys.
Because we need the weapons in three years. When we're going after -- when we're going after China. And all of our weapons are outdated and old.
We need a whole new generation, but we have all of these weapons sitting here.
And there's no way, we can -- with cost overruns. You know, with -- with everything that comes with giant military production.
How are you going to get the American people to do it?
Well, we'll just tell them the truth. We're out of armaments. And then we will have to rebuild our army. Maybe we could even convince China in the end, if Russia and Iran falls, they have no real allies. They'll take Taiwan.
Thoughts?
I think the only reason why I don't believe this is because I -- I mean, we're evil enough to do it. But I don't believe it. Because I don't think we're smart enough to do it.
I don't just there's enough, hey, we all love America here. Let's do. You know what I mean?
STU: Right.
GLENN: There's the evil generals and the war planners and everything. I think there's enough of those in Washington. You know, the Lindsey Grahams that are like, yeah. We got to get them. At any cost, we get them. I think those guys exist.
STU: There's a lot of that type of stuff that you were talking about there, where you throw things out like, well, then Israel will take out Iran.
Think of what that looks like. These little assumptions millions of people dead.
GLENN: This is the way the elites always do.
They did it in World War I, World War II.
STU: Yeah, no, it's realtime strategies. Those old games, where you used to drag your troops around, and you have them attack the little base. Then you rebuild.
You wouldn't think about the little guys that are going in there and dying. That's the way it is thought about.
It's risk.
GLENN: I thought of this. I'm reading a book. Or I was reading a book on JFK. I can't remember the name of it.
It was the JFK assassination. And it's just documenting how many people hated him.
Okay?
They hated him. The military, CIA, he really had a problem with those guys.
Just like Donald Trump.
Really had a problem with those guys. And he did not like the way we were fighting the Cold War. And he's like, we are not going to keep escalating this war.
And one of the generals, I can't remember his name, but he was in charge of -- maybe NATO strategy. Or he was -- he was big.
And he absolutely believed that thermonuclear war was inevitable. And he was pushing hard.
Launch first. Launch right now. It's inevitable.
So launch now. They'll never see it coming. We can take them out. Launch now. This is not Cuban Missile Crisis time.
This is, when he first gets into office. Launch. And he actually goes around Kennedy's back, and is calling him weak for not doing this.
It was a legitimate campaign inside the pentagon. To just launch our missiles.
Did you know that?
STU: I -- I think maybe you've told it to me. Or I've heard it maybe once.
But it's -- it's impossible to believe. And, of course, these people -- there's always somebody like that. I guarantee, you think it's bad here. How many people are doing that in Russia right now? How many people are going behind Vladimir Putin's back, and saying, hey. Like this guy wouldn't even fire the nukes.
They're giving weapons to Ukraine. They're killing our people.
How is he not firing these things.
There is a huge faction inside of Russia. Who is pushing that hard line approach. And God forbid one of them wins an argument one day over vodkas, God only knows what happens.
GLENN: Wait until you see what we will show you tonight about Russia and Iran. And about what they're actually doing and saying to one another. And the language they're sharing with one another. It is spooky. It is really -- they are -- they are serious. They are serious.
STU: Yeah. Yeah. So this is the -- this is the biggest worry, right? There's just this instability everywhere right now. It's instability, combined with a bunch of really incompetent people, who don't know what they're doing and don't know how to manage this sort of instability, at the helm here in America.
And you, of course, have, I mean, our share of instability has been well-documented here over the past few weeks, especially.
So you put all that together. And like, it's just -- at some point, you wonder if it will all spiral out of control.
GLENN: So let me ask you: Have you ever seen our government pay for hostages.
I think the only time we did it was the Iran-contra thing, right?
STU: I mean, off the top of my head, I mean, that one pops to mind.
GLENN: So we had that one.
But we paid. Didn't we pay the Contras? And they brokered the deal.
So we weren't really paying Iran. We were paying the revolutionaries in South America.
STU: And they would kind of say the same thing now. Right?
They would kind of say, well, we're not really paying for hostages.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: In this program, and these dollars are going -- they always have some way of getting around it technically.
GLENN: Yes. Have we ever -- have we ever rewarded a terrorist state? Like another -- I don't even know, I keep seeing reports that say billion, and million. And no money from the government ever seems like real money. So I have no idea, but I think it's $10 billion.
And we released it yesterday. The State Department did. And they said, well, it's because it's for medical stuff.
STU: Yeah. What was their excuse? Well, there will have to be terrorism anyway. They will find terror no matter what, so you might as well give them an extra 10 billion. They really said.
GLENN: They really did.
STU: They're going to do this anyway, so it doesn't matter if we give them a bunch of extra money.
GLENN: What world does that make sense?
STU: Well, Jeffrey Dahmer is going to kill Laotian teenagers anyway, so we sent him over a bundt cake. Like, what are you talking about? That's not a good argument.
GLENN: He's not going want a bundt cake. I've been pushing for the extra double-sized refrigerator/freezer. Bundt cake!
STU: I just feel like, that's not a good idea. Well, you know these people are really bad actors. So therefore, the reward isn't going to incentivize more bad acting. So let's give them the reward. What -- that's not a good argument.
GLENN: And you don't use that in anything.
STU: No. It would be a terrible, terrible thing to do. And it is. And, of course, we all know, as the Iranians last time we did this.
Pointed out to us. This money is fungible, it will go wherever we want it to go.
GLENN: They told us that!
STU: They said it publicly.
GLENN: Like they will give their people medicine.
STU: Oh, that's a huge concern for them. They're really worried. Oh, gosh. Do we have enough Robitussin for the population? I don't know.
GLENN: Their God says, wipe out Israel, bring the Madhi (phonetic) back. And we'll start the end of the world war.
That's our top -- God is telling us that. Yeah, but we don't have enough Robitussin.
STU: Yeah. I know. That's not the concern for them.
GLENN: No, I don't think so. I don't think so.