“America is Being Tested” - Iran Launches Ballistic ATTACK on US Military

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Pat** (0:26)
Iran launched renewed missile attacks as US and Saudi strike Tehran-backed militia in Iraq. And just the moment you think this is slowing down, it just gets nastier and nastier.
And so Iran launched a barrage of missiles at American forces in the Middle East. This is July 29th. On Wednesday, as the US partnered with Saudi to strike Tehran-backed militias, they were in Iraq killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers. The flare-up on multiple fronts after several days of relative calm raised the risk of a return to an all-out war and underscored the difficulty of winding down a five-month conflict that has jolted the world economy. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it fired ballistic missiles at Jordan's Muwafak Salty Air Force Base, a key US military hub. Jordan's military said five missiles were intercepted with no casualties.
Fox News reporter said Trump told them, use vulgarities that the US will hit hard. And then at the same time, Trump launches US airstrikes. We saw that. So, Tom, seeing this, Snyder, both of you guys, seeing this, any progress being made, or is it just getting nastier?

**Tom** (1:36)
No, I don't see progress now, and I don't see statements of progress coming from the president. The president is very exasperated by the negotiations. He's had great people negotiating. He's exasperated. And now, we've got this military, and by the way, it was Adam that said, I don't trust the ceasefire because I don't trust any paper that's signed by Iran's side. And Adam was right. And here's what happened.
They start doing the, and I'm concerned about the escalation. Because now, and I'm going to flip this to Jeff, who's got something on this that he found that I hadn't seen yesterday.
And that is, you know, you've got these missiles now. It's like, how is Iran getting itself back together? It's aiming for Jordan. It's aiming for Saudi. And you've got the rest of the Middle East going, holy crap, this is getting worse. And Pat, that's the thing that I see. I see that other people are getting drawn into it. And it's not just Big Brother of the United States going after Iran. At some point in time, the other people that knew he was, that knew Iran was the bad guy on the block, but just kind of tolerated it and kind of held it in check.
It's like, how are they getting after it? How are they firing these missiles? Where are they getting the navigation and the targeting intelligence? We know the Russians are whispering to them and giving them targeting intelligence because the Russians are still pissed off that we were whispering to Ukraine and giving Ukraine targeting intelligence to launch rockets the other way into Russia with that war. And so now the Russians are back on the other side. Don't about this fair play, comrade, I will tell the Iranians where all of your shit is in Jordan.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:16)
I think, you know, I'm going to disagree a little bit, Tom. I think there is progress. I think it's difficult to see, first of all, that Saudi Arabia joined the US again.
The more pressure that's applied, the more you see these Gulf states, instead of trying to bend Trump's ear to end this thing, we got to get this thing over, we got to get oil flowing. Instead, they're saying, you know what?
We're actually going to join you because I think they see incremental progress that maybe we don't necessarily see. I think the strategy here, again, they have not been clear about the strategy or what this is really about. I still think it's about China, the Cold War. I think the ultimate red line here is not the nuclear program. It's the control of the Strait of Hormuz for the long run, and hopefully the fall of the Iranian regime, which I still think is possibility. And I think that's why the Saudis and the UAE too, the UAE is heavily involved in this on the US side too. I think what the idea here is, instead of an all out conflict, instead of just invading Karag Island and going from there, bombing the crap out of everything, this is a pressure campaign. And the pressure campaign whose goal is to separate the IRGC from the civilian leadership. Because like you said, the civilian leadership will say one thing that looks like they're trying to find an off ramp to the war, and then the IRGC will start fighting back. I think there is a pressure campaign to drive a wedge between at least those two factions if they're not other factions. And it's working. It's working to the point where the Saudis say, you know what, maybe we're going to join the side who wins here. And I'm not saying this is going to be done with imminently. I'm saying that it does appear to be fractioning the Iranian leadership as much as they can possibly have an Iranian leadership, and that the ultimate goal here is to separate those two completely, so that the IRGC loses all of its ability to affect the outcome of the war, the outcome of Iran, and eventually what emerges, at least what we hope emerges, is a more moderate faction of Iranian government that is actually trustworthy enough to make a peace deal. I think that's what they're working toward, and I think they are making progress to it. It's just painfully slow and incremental.