Larry Wilkerson Responds: Is US Checkmated in Iran??

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]We're joined now by retired US Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson. Thank you so much for joining us, sir. It's a pleasure to have you on.

[00:00:06]>> Good be good to be with you.

[00:00:08]>> Yeah, thanks for having Thanks for joining us. Let's put this first terror sheet up on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal. Headline: Israel built and defended a secret Iran war base in Iraq. So, details from the journal. quote, "Israel set up a clandestine military outpost in the Iraqi desert to support its air campaign against Iran and launched air strikes against Iraqi troops who almost discovered it early in the war. People familiar with the matter, including US officials said, sir, just wanted to get your response right off the top here to revelations in the journal. How significant is this?"

[00:00:42]>> It's odd that the journal would come out with this since it is so pro-Israeli.

[00:00:46]It's it's a revelation, if you will. Um but it's nothing new. They have had major operations in what is called Kurdistan, northern Iraq, uh for some time. In fact, the Iranians know about most of them. And in their first volley of missiles some weeks ago, struck them um that they have things in the western desert, which is vast and virtually empty, um is no surprise. And I will guarantee you 99% certainty that the United States, probably Great Britain, and perhaps others like the Jordanians had complicity in running these bases as it were from Western Iraq.

[00:01:31]>> Yeah. Actually, Harats uh reported that the US told the Iraqis, "Hey, just stay away from that area. We're doing some things over there." So, you are spot on with your with your instinct that there was some US complicity here as well. Um, I wanted to just get your reaction to where we are currently with the quote unquote negotiations with the war. Um, we discussed earlier that the that Trump has outright rejected the Iranian proposal. Uh, Trump also met with Netanyahu yesterday by phone. Netanyahu is insisting that the war is not over.

[00:02:04]And we've seen some indication certainly from the hawks and from the fact that Israel continues to bomb in Lebanon that they would like to undercut any possible negotiated settlement and head back to war. So what is your sense of where things are right now?

[00:02:16]>> Well, the last thing you said is absolutely a certainty. I think backing up a little bit, I don't think it's a certainty that negotiations are going to produce something that Donald Trump will ultimately accept. I think it is at least a 50/50 chance that we will resume bombing Iran mercilessly just as soon as the stock markets are right for it to happen. And I don't mean that cavalerely. Donald Trump is coordinating through HGsith of course and Kaine, the chairman of the joint chiefs these strikes based on his desire for his friends and ultimately his family to make money off the stock market. So that's part of it. And then the other part of it is I don't think there's a chance he's going to get what he really wants, which is none of the things that we've been talking about other than a nuclear deal. And certainly Israel is not going to buy that. So that's going to be a real stop gap measure, if you will, in trying to make that the only thing we do. So there's at least a 6040 chance we're going back to bombing Iran again. disastrous as that will be, it won't produce anything but more resolution, more uh missiles coming out of Iran. this time aimed at everything in the region to include Saudi Arabia oil facilities, Bahrain again, Kuwait, all the countries that depend on that black goal for a lot of their wealth will find it all pretty much drying up because Iran is going to target it all with the help of Russian and Chinese satellites, which we know are helping them now, just as we helped Zalinsky strike Russia with our satellites. So, this is a very complicated game we're playing now. And Donald Trump is, I think, somewhat desperate to get out of it, but he is unable to fashion away with all the pressures and powers that are around him that don't want it to happen.

[00:04:11]>> Yeah, that's a great point. And he's heading obviously to China in the next couple days, supposed to be there on Thursday for a major state visit. And what is your sense of when the bombing could resume uh based on I know you just mentioned the the stock market. What might we expect to see in terms of the timeline going forward? Well, generally speaking, he does it on a Friday, >> but I don't know if that will be a a tailtale sign of anything this time because it could all be a faint just to put more pressure on Iran at the moment that they think they're going to come to some kind of deal. But I don't think so.

[00:04:46]As I said, I think the odds are 6040 that we're going to resume this conflict. And it's going to be with a vengeance with everything in terms of our air power we can pour at them. And before people say, well, the carriers are in position and all that. That that's not what I'm talking about. The carrier air power is really insignificant when you start talking about what we're planning to do. This is marshalling almost the entire United States Air Force and ancillary forces to drop bombs from B2s, B-52s all the way down the line on Iran to further pulverize it, create war crimes, and kill a lot of innocent civilians. Um, so this is not something I look forward to and I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

[00:05:29]I hope we come to some kind of nuclear deal. But then what are we going to do about Netanyahu who has said, "I'm going to keep the war up."

[00:05:35]>> Yeah. No, that's absolutely right. And I also u took note that President Trump has been posting um clips from neocon Mark Levin. This one in particular is very noteworthy to me. a lot of historical revisionism I think one could say that um or at least noteworthy historical take here from Mark Leaven that I wanted to get your reaction to you guys. Let's go ahead and play F5.

[00:05:56]>> We don't have to create opposition.

[00:05:59]There is opposition. We need to seize the opportunity and we need to see the opportunity. And by that I mean that our CIA along with the Israeli Mossad make determinations about the best way to determine who to train and arm. While at the same time we continue the economic strangle hold and our military along with our allies, the Israelis provide coordinated support with targeted and supportive attacks on the IRGC and the Bas paramilitary police.

[00:06:38]That's in my view how you do it. Well, Mark, you never served in the military.

[00:06:42]I know history.

[00:06:45]I know history. Nobody alive ever served in the Civil War either. Nobody alive ever served in the Revolutionary War either. That's not the point. You do leave it to the experts to figure this out. But the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, he makes the decisions.

[00:07:02]And I look at history. I look at success.

[00:07:06]Success in destroying the Soviet Union.

[00:07:10]Success in pushing communism out of Central and South America. And we did this success in pushing communism out of parts of Africa.

[00:07:19]Success in pushing the Russians, the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

[00:07:24]We didn't send in troops.

[00:07:27]We armed the freedom fighters. The mujahedin in Afghanistan and others throughout the world.

[00:07:35]>> He was reading a script prepared for him by either MSAD, the IDF, or both. That's all I can guess. I I would be willing to bet a lot of money on that. He was reading from that script. And we've already seen how false that narrative is. What happened earlier that is being touted by certain people like the Wall Street Journal and others that was so effective in terms of almost overthrowing the regime was a joke. It was worse than 53 and Kermit Roosevelt's attempts to overthrow Mosedc. Worse because it did not succeed and yet it killed a lot of Iranians. And the people killing the Iranians either directly or indirectly were MI6, MSAD, and CIA, not the Iranian security forces. The Iranian security forces were stunned at first, then figured out what was happening and went after those mechanisms that were allowing them to operate so freely within their country, eliminated them, and then began to eliminate those people. In fact, so much so that MSAD has very few people on the ground in Iran right now. But the point is, it wasn't the Iranian people that were finninging revolution, and it won't be in the future either. It was MSAD, CIA, and MI6 in combination making it look like they were doing it. And the Iranians, they're not stupid. They figured that out. They've had it been done to them a number of times before.

[00:09:08]And they eliminated most of the operatives inside the country, which is bothering Israel big time right now because they have no eyes and ears on the ground in Iran like they've had for so many years. So these these are all lies that Lean's telling. Well, I want to go also to F4 because this was from uh Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's interview on 60 Minutes last night. He said that he is hoping that Israel can quote wean itself off remaining military support from the United States. Let's go ahead and roll F4 here. Do you believe it's time for the state of Israel to re-examine and possibly reset its financial relationship to the United States, meaning what the United States provides to Israel on an annual basis?

[00:09:54]>> Absolutely. You know, I've said this to President Trump. I've said it in to our own people.

[00:10:00]Their jaws drop. But I said, look, >> what do you mean? What are you saying? I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have because we receive we receive uh $3.8 billion a year and I uh I think that it's time that we weaned ourselves from the remaining uh military support.

[00:10:27]>> Can you give me a timetable?

[00:10:29]>> I said let's start now and do it over the next uh decade, over the next 10 years. But I want to start now. I don't want to wait.

[00:10:37]>> Do you buy it?

[00:10:38]>> That's interesting. I had heard rumors to that effect. I hadn't heard that particular film clip or seen that interview. But I think what he's talking about are several things. One of which he's demonstrated by his travels over the last several years. He understands what I've been telling everyone I can speak to about is this inexraable shift of power that's moving to the east with the magnet being China. But now increasingly China, India and Russia bricks is going to meet in India in September and Modi's going to preside and we're going to see a very different bricks I think after that because they've all pretty much decided to pitch in. So Netanyahu is no idiot. He's a very smart man. He's been prospecting all across these other countries to find potential US replacements because he realizes that the big daddy is not going to be the big daddy much longer with the colossal debt that we have and what Xi Jinping is going to do to deepen and exacerbate that debt and is already doing. So that's one thing. The second thing is he's sending a signal to the United States, a rather subtle signal, but nonetheless, I've known BB for a long long time. And before him, I knew a Chiron. They do this sort of thing to signal their disdain for the Americans, for the United States. So that we suddenly come begging back to be their benefactor again. And then the next reason is he's trying to needle Trump in order to keep him from end in this war.

[00:12:10]um insinuating that there actually are other people in the world that we could use to back us even if we wanted to continue this war and you stopped it and you know who they are etc etc. So he's a very smart man. He's evil. He's genocidal. He's maniacal but he's a very smart man. That's what makes the other traits so dangerous.

[00:12:31]>> Talk a little bit more about the upcoming meeting in China. uh you know what sort of a position is Trump coming into this meeting with at least as far as it looks today? What sort of things will you be looking for as you observe from the outside?

[00:12:45]>> 50/50 that he doesn't go. That's the first thing.

[00:12:48]>> Oh wow.

[00:12:48]>> Second, um he is going to be embarrassed severely when he meets Xi Jinping because there's going to be no warmth, no friendship, no cooperation in his mind. He's going to be there to lecture Donald Trump and Donald Trump doesn't take lecturing too well. So, we could see the meeting start and then abruptly end. Uh, nobody knows. But Xi Jinping is in the catbird seat now in terms of global power, in terms of ascending power. We're in the dark seat. We're in the seat of the empire with Darth Vader and the Sith Lord having been exposed to the world. And that's a very difficult position from which to operate. What scares me about that position is that no empire descending into the depths, if you will in human history that we know of, 5,000 years has had the technological means to at least temporarily arrest that development. And what I mean by that is nuclear weapons.

[00:13:49]As long as we have nuclear weapons and we have a leadership that is going to fight this disscent majorly, then we have the prospect of using nuclear weapons. We have to remember the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons against human beings is us.

[00:14:08]>> Let's talk about Lebanon as well. I want to roll some of this clip and uh you can people will be able to see and hear this. It's going to be F2 uh courtesy of Drop Site News. They write, "Israel killed 51 people in Lebanon in 24 hours on Saturday as the Israeli army continued its attacks despite the socalled ceasefire. The toll since the beginning of March has surged past 2,846 killed and 8,693 injured according to the Ministry of Public Health just yesterday." Now, the sound and video here is courtesy of Courtney Bono, who is a journalist over there and recorded this video from southern Lebanon that I also want to get your reaction to. This is going to be F3. Hi, I'm reporting to you from the town of Torah. Uh, I don't know if you can hear the armed drone buzzing above our heads in the Air Force. We just heard a bombing in the distance. Um, we're at the site now of a massacre that took place yesterday. Uh, five members of the same family, mostly women, were killed in an Israeli air strike.

[00:15:13]Uh, violence has been escalating really fast here in South Lebanon. Yesterday, the Israeli army targeted 39 towns and villages, killing more than 30 people, all civilians. Multiple force displacement orders have been issued, including in the town where I live since yesterday.

[00:15:31]Uh, since midnight last night until now, I've been listening to shelling, bombing, and machine gun combing in the hills across from where I'm staying and like the Al-Mansouri and Albiata area.

[00:15:43]This morning came a fresh wave of displacement orders and death threats.

[00:15:47]And with that came a fresh wave of bombings and killings. Multiple people have been killed already today. And I just received a heartbreaking report of a Syrian laborer traveling by a scooter with his 12-year-old daughter in Nabatia. They were targeted on the scooter. The father was killed instantly.

[00:16:07]And the little girl, who again is 12 years old, managed to run away.

[00:16:13]And when she started to run, even though she was injured, the Israeli drone targeted her again. And she's alive for now. She's critically wounded. She's currently in surgery. I will keep you updated about that as I can. To my Western followers, I really want you to think critically about the definition of terrorism, to whom it gets applied and and who does it benefit. Um because where I've been sitting for the last 18 months, you know, this mass murder and and mass, you know, look at this this mass destruction, this ethnic cleansing of South Lebanon, you know, this looks a lot like terrorism to me.

[00:16:57]>> And so Courtney was, if you're just listening to this, standing in front of just heaps of rubble in southern Lebanon.

[00:17:04]Where do you think this goes for as Netanyahu looks at uh the prospects for taking some of that land? Um some more of that land, I should say. What do you think his next moves could look like?

[00:17:17]>> First, let me say that I agree with every word she uttered and much more than that because I know people there and I know what's happening and I know what Israel has done in the past. Even in 1982 when Arie Chiron was the defense minister and they went into Lebanon wholesalyely and only Ronald Reagan was able to tell them stop and get out and they did after they were told to stop and they did. They created massacres and camps.

[00:17:47]This is Israel. I'm sorry to say it. I'm sad to say it, but this is Israel and it's gotten far worse. They did Gaza in accordance with what you just heard her say times 10. They still haven't defeated Hamas in Gaza. Nali Bennett is angry with Netanyahu because he will not order the IDF into those tunnels to go after Hamas for good reason because Hamas will tear them up if they go into those tunnels. And he's frustrated and he's angry and he gets mean when he's frustrated and angry. And he is the world's greatest state sponsor, individual sponsor of terrorism. Period.

[00:18:29]And he's doing that now in Lebanon. He has not honored and I used to say a day.

[00:18:34]He's not honored an hour of the so-called ceasefire in Lebanon. And he's using it now to do what he used it to do earlier with less results, but now sweeping results. He's destroying Lebanon's ability to recover. He's killing Lebanese citizens. Not Hezbollah, not even remotely Hezbollah.

[00:18:55]He's killing Lebanese civilians. He's destroying their homes home by home, bull bulldozer by bulldozer, bomb by bomb. He wants southern Lebanon as part of the greater Israel complex. Give him that and he'll go on like Hitler did and take all of Lebanon. And Erdogan and Turkey knows that. So we're setting up the prospect of a real clash between Turkish forces which are superior to the IDF and IDF forces. So this is a disaster unfolding.

[00:19:27]>> Yeah, absolutely. I I wanted to get your reaction also to I don't know if you saw this opinion piece in the Atlantic, but I found it quite noteworthy from Robert Kagan who's co-founder of the project for a new American century, very noteworthy neocon. um he's a senior fellow at Brookings and his headline was checkmate in Iran. Washington can't reverse or control the consequences of losing this war. I'm just going to read you the opening two paragraphs here. He says, "It's hard to think of a time when the US suffered a total defeat in a conflict. A setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. The calamitous losses suffered at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and throughout the Western Pacific in the first months of World War II were eventually reversed. The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly, but did not do lasting damage to America's overall position in the world because they were far from the main theaters of global competition. The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable and unthreatening to its neighbors kept the US dominant in the region. Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo.

[00:20:37]anti no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The straight of hormones will not be open as it once was. With control of the street, Iran emerges as the key player in the region, one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia as Iran's allies are strengthened, the role of the US substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. that is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America's failure. I get a little nervous uh when I start agreeing with people like Bob Kagan, but I wonder what you make of his analysis and also the significance of uh someone with his worldview uh saying that Iran has checkmated us and that this will be a defeat like none other in history.

[00:21:29]>> Well, I I detest Robert Kagan. I've detested him ever since I learned of his complicity in the clean break strategy and other things like that that we got so embroiled in in the George W. Bush administration first term. Um but in this case, I know why he's doing it.

[00:21:46]He's trying to anger those decision makers and advisors to decision makers who are thinking about ending this conflict. That's what he's trying to do.

[00:21:57]He's trying to anger them so that they'll go full mighty against Iran with everything the empire has and everything Israel >> interesting.

[00:22:05]>> But I agree with you. He's right.

[00:22:08]And the reason it's happening is because we did this war of choice which was stupid and it's going to it's going to rebound pretty much in the way that he described. I think we could even be if the Iranians are resolute if we bomb them again. As I said, there's a good chance we'll do and they hit their second tier of targets, we will have undoubtedly recession by June, global recession by June. And by September, October, we'll have global depression.

[00:22:39]And you know what happened after the last global depression, World War II?

[00:22:44]>> Well, very frightening prospect. Um, thank you so much, sir, for joining us today. We always really appreciate your analysis and your time.

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