#1414 - Mike Baker

Joe Rogan (0:03)

Hello, Mike Baker.

Mike Baker (0:04)

Hello, sir, thank you very much, thanks for having me back on.

Joe Rogan (0:07)

My pleasure. So tell me what's up? Are we in trouble? What's going on, man?

Mike Baker (0:11)

It's World War III. Haven't you heard?

Joe Rogan (0:12)

Is it?

Mike Baker (0:13)

Uh, no. No, it's not.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

No.

Mike Baker (0:15)

I'm here to burst that bubble, I think. Not that iveone's going to say, okayaku. I'm writing this down like, ůsaid, you know, World War III.

But it was, it was amazing how how fast the 굦giggles perde where. I'll put that closer there, it was amazing how fast the narrative came out. I mean, we ould barely smoked Sulaimani and suddenly the current president is going to get us into this conflict.

Joe Rogan (0:37)

And I was nervous.

Mike Baker (0:39)

Well, I think everybody stepped back because it was such a shock to the system. I mean, when was the last time we dealt with Iran in this fashion? I mean, as opposed to like a harshly worded demarche or a note, or maybe an extra sanction here or there.

But it was such a strange development that I think it did. And the natural reaction was to say, oh my God, here we go. And certainly everybody's exhausted from 19 years out there. So, but, you know.

Joe Rogan (1:06)

I was shocked that Trump could make that call because they had a bunch of different options.

They had like, or we could kill him. He's like, let's kill him. I was like, whoa, I didn't know you could do that.

Mike Baker (1:18)

Well, you know what? He's been a target before. Sulamani is, I mean, there's, I guess I should first say where I stand on on this, which is I'm not mourning his passing, right? I mean, I think he deserved it. I think it's justice that should have been served up some time ago. He's responsible, not just for, as people have talked about, the hundreds of US servicemen, but thousands and thousands of people. This guy was a completely bloodthirsty douchebag. I mean, there's no way about it. And we're talking about the second most, structure-wise, the second most important person within the Iranian regime next to the Ayatollah. But the idea that somehow we took out a foreign leader, or a military general like he was some sort of Ike Eisenhower is insane. The guy was a mob boss. He was the head terrorist for a state that is the number one sponsor of terrorism around the world.

But he's been on target lists for a long time. You go back to, I think, 2008, there was an operation to take out a guy named Mugnea, who himself was also a bloodthirsty psychopath. And he was running Hezbollah operations.

So the Israelis had been tracking him, as had we.

And at one point, they had an opportunity to take out Mugnea and also Soleimani. And they backed off at the time, essentially because the US wouldn't get behind the idea that we're going to take out Soleimani. That was, you know, at that point, that was a step too far. So eventually we got Mugnea.

But Soleimani is just, I mean, I don't even know where to start with the amount of blood that he's responsible for.

People talk about, again, okay, he authorized operations and activities in Iraq against US soldiers and against Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians. But it goes back to the beginning of that. I mean, you could go back to 2003

And Soleimani was the architect. He dreamt up this idea as the US was going into Iraq that what he did was insane. He basically authorized, I mean, he's in charge, right? So he authorizes the release of a bunch of Sunnis that they've been holding on to, Iran being Shiite, arch rivals being the Sunnis, essentially, and the Saudis are their arch enemy, a Sunni nation. And, but he released all these Sunni extremists that Iran had been holding on to, essentially ever since we had gone into Afghanistan, right after 9-11. And he released them into Iraq, including a guy named Zarqawi, who became the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. And within a few months of our getting out to Iraq, the Sunnis, basically under Suleimani's tutelage, had a series of bombings and started bombing. Everything from Shiite mosques to UN facilities, Jordanian embassy, a variety of targets, killing thousands of Shiites. Now he's a Shiite, right? So this is how bad this guy is. He goes into Iraq with this plan that I'm going to push the Shiite in Iraq to Iran. I'm going to make them come to us for protection, for coverage, essentially. We can ride in there because what does he want? He wants to exert their influence within Iraq. He doesn't want a strong Iraq. He doesn't want the US in there building a strong, stable Iraq. I mean, you go back to the Iran-Iraq War where Soleimani started his military career.